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Sakuya prepared to fight White Len once again, reaching down and slipping a knife out. She too tired of their constant beating around the bush, but she still didn't quite understand how she was to damage White Len so there had been no helping it. However, this time would be different. Not only her, but Flandre and Nanaya were on her side, so between the two of their destructive abilities it was almost certain at least one of them would be able to take her down.

Or at least, that was what she thought before finding a flash of steel shimmering before her eyes.

"..."

The maid was silent at first, letting Nanaya go on and on. Her rejection of illusions in pursuit of "how things should be" did inherently reject his very existence, didn't it? He wasn't supposed to be one who could roam on his own. She didn't know the details, but he was to be the other face of Tohno, not an entity that moved all on his own. Nanaya was, essentially, not much different from an illusion himself. However...

"Realistically speaking, I must say I personally prefer the taste of outcomes in which I come out on top," she spoke in a low voice. "Though I am a little disappointed. In myself, that is. After understanding the kind of person you are, I still left my back open to you. How shameful. But even still, I certainly may have rejected your very existence without thinking, yet simultaneously I began to appreciate your company to an extent. Murderer though you may be, I myself am one who serves a consumer of human blood. Perhaps our partnership was only natural. But rather than a servant like me becoming a murderer, I think a killer like you could be a real lady killer if you toned down the, well, killing. We're both just a step away from entering each other's preferred worlds, don't you think? Ah, but speaking of different worlds, do you remember what happened around when we first met?"

A sincere but small smile spread across her face, her eyes suddenly glowing red.

"Deflation World."

Sakuya's knives began to materialize all around them, surrounding the both of them from all sides. Compressed time caused knives past and future to materialize in the present, ensnaring the two of them in a prison of cold steel.

"I held back last time, but on the other hand you've got me compromised from the very beginning. Do you believe you can change the result with these new conditions? I will only warn you once, Shiki Nanaya. If it's sadness that makes you feel alive, then I must inform you that I will provide you the gift of a lifetime. If you are going to side with one who threatens the well-being of my mistress, then I will not hesitate to become the murderer you so desire."

Flandre in the meantime simply tilted her head like the confused child she appeared to be. Sakuya being surrounded by knives was hardly out of the ordinary, and the others' indirect ways of talking to each other made it impossible for her to decipher what they were talking about. To them it was a game of life and death fueled by their personal wishes, but for an outsider like the younger vampire it was nothing more than nonsense. All she understood was that she was a little uncomfortable at the moment, and she tagged along with Sakuya and the other boy to relieve that.

As White Len approached her, Flandre simply looked her way with a wide grin, not returning any courteous gestures.

"You want to get acquainted with me? That's a nice change, I like it! Let's get acquainted then! What game shall we play together? Oh, do you know the danmaku game by any chance? Mm, though before all that I suppose I should ask just to make sure."

She swung her arm, and what looked like a bent spear materialized in her hand. It was slightly curved in an S-shape with an upside-down heart at the tip. Compared to her older sister's flashy Gungnir composed of red energy it didn't look like much, but it was common knowledge that appearances weren't everything. Though among them only Sakuya had ever seen Remilia's own spear.


"You're not the one making me feel all tired, are you?"


@Ver
 
As a myriad of knives surrounded the two individuals, a wicked grin crept itself onto Nanaya's normally eerily calm features, eliciting a cold chuckle from his lips that eventually grew into a devilish laugh, worthy of his informal moniker Satsujinki. One might have grown pale at the gambit Sakuya played -- if one could even call it that -- that brought the two at an impasse, but not Shiki Nanaya, who lived for these death-seeking endeavors. After all, it was as they said.

You only felt the most alive when you were the closest to dying.

"Disappointed in me? Isn't it your own fault for trusting a shameless killer?" He paused, remaining as still as a statue, before going on again, "Such bold, delicious intent. I can hardly wait! Who am I to refuse such a gift? Very well. I would kill to see you let out all your power, your passion, to see you cast away all your inhibitions for just this one moment, just as I would kill to give you all that I am. I'll give you a fair chance then. I shall let you go, and once I do... Well, catch me if you can!" The young man exclaimed, swiftly loosening his grip on Sakuya and shoving her forward. Sakuya would be able to feel his presence suddenly disappear just like that from behind, no longer directly behind her.

Nanaya flash-stepped to the far side of the room, his movements a blur to the naked human eye as he began to circle around Sakuya, as though building momentum. Using his speed with the intent to avoid oncoming knives that the maid might intend to throw at him, he only managed to run three quarters of a circle's worth, before lunging right at Sakuya, holding out his knife and pointed right at her neck!

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"Tch, how troublesome. That boy would intend to delay the inevitable and make things more difficult for himself when he had the chance to end it right there. Humans are quite an esoteric collective, would you not agree?" White Len grunted as she bore witness to the exchange between Nanaya and Sakuya, before turning her attention back to Flandre.

Unperturbed by Flandre summoning her weapon, the faux familiar gave a wide smirk, shards of what looked like triangular-shaped pieces of glass suddenly materializing in the air via magecraft, as though she prepared her own weapons. "In a manner of speaking, you could say so. To that end, if you're so tired... Why don't you just sleep! Sleep forever and surrender to your body's desires!" She exclaimed, before shooting the "glass pieces" at Flandre like automatic bullets.

@Kaykay
 
"Aha, of course it's my own fault," Sakuya agreed, remaining still even as Nanaya let her go. "Still, I'm allowed to be disappointed in myself at least, am I not?"

Her expression was ice cold as the now red-eyed maid launched the knives she'd summoned at him, just as he would have expected. Her pattern was fair, nothing more than normal knives flying for the young man. With his circular movement performed at superhuman speed, that was more than enough to evade such a basic maneuver.

"You're fast. And for a killer, playing quite fair. In the spirit of that, I'll warn you of something you should have already known. My style isn't fair at all."

A group of knives suddenly appeared in front of the maid, no doubt conjured during a time stop. As soon as Nanaya could perceive them, they launched to meet the raven-haired killer head on.

"I won't stop short this time. If you want to see all of my power, the power that makes it impossible for me to live with normal humans..."

Time stopped once more. The knives that Nanaya had already dodged began to glow green. They slowly turned around, such sluggish movements in battle being of no consequence thanks to Sakuya's unfairness. Once the flow of time resumed, the knives flew quickly at Nanaya's back, as if Sakuya had thrown them from behind him.

"Then I'll show it to you, and fell you with it. You should watch your back, when dealing with the maid of a devil."

Even as she claimed to be unfair, she warned him of her otherwise imperceptible meddling with the dodged attacks. She didn't even move out of the path of Nanaya's charge. Playing fair while using tricks as unfair as could be. Killing to stop a killer. Her physics-defying dance of blades appeared to contain nothing but contradictions.

Perhaps that was to be expected in a bout between humans.

Flandre meanwhile put a finger on her chin in thought at White Len's words.

"Yeah, they're weirdos. But they're pretty fun, you know! They like to play games with me." The blonde vampire smirked right back at the faux familiar. "A lot like you're trying to play with me! But I'll have you know, I'm a lot more scared of rain than glass!"

Like a mirage, Flandre suddenly split into four. The hail of bullets flew forth from each of them, poised to overwhelm White Len through sheer numbers.

@Ver
 
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"Hmph!"

FWOOSH!

As expected, Nanaya easily slid through the knives launched right at him from the front, dodging roughly half of them while deflecting others with his own knife with precise reflexes. He was no fool; considering what Sakuya was capable of and that all bets were off, he had to keep moving to keep up with the maid. Time manipulation was quite the power to boast, after all, so he needed to move even faster and more precise to compensate.

To that end, with deft speed, he managed to turn around and just barely deflect most of the knives that came flying at his back like a boomerang effect, save for one blade that managed to stab into his side, drawing blood and eliciting a pained hiss from the killer. Still, he did not let the pain discourage him. If anything, it only excited him even more. Not giving his own body any time to even register that he had been stabbed, refusing to reel in pain, the raven-haired boy hastily grabbed the knife's handle and yanked it out of his wound, as though intending to wield it as his own, maintaining a wide grin, even if it already looked a bit more strained than before.

"The devil's maid clashing with the embodiment of devilish homicide, yet both of us are, to our core, human," he laughed softly, seeming to deride amusement from the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, as well as what it meant for them, "What a sad tale, but perhaps it is truly a story that only our dear white minx could conjure up!"

With that, Nanaya threw the knife previously lodged in his body right at Sakuya, almost as though returning it to her! And just at that moment, Nanaya practically disappeared from sight, moving faster than the normal, unaltered human eye could comprehend.

"A dark, twisted incarnation of Cinderella and Prince Charming, as she called us! I'll drag that darkness out of you yet!" Nanaya exclaimed, practically telegraphing his position as he appeared behind Sakuya, raising his arm and bringing it down with the intent of stabbing into the maiden's shoulder blade!

...

Meanwhile, instead of opting to more conventionally dodge the hail of bullets that came her way, White Len merely raised her arms over her head and performed an elegant twirl, like a ballerina on ice, even if the ground beneath her held tight friction. As the bullets reached her, every projectile that would have hit her... simply fazed through her, as though the faux familiar was not really there.

After-images of White Len's body appeared for a brief moment, before she entirely disappeared, and then re-appearing just a few mere feet in front of Flandre, opting to get closer.

"Glass, always so transparent, sometimes unable to be discerned from reality... What is the significance of glass? A princess's slipper, years of bad luck... What will your outcome be, I wonder?!" She exclaimed, thrusting her arm forward as shards of the magical "glass" suddenly emerged from the ground, hoping to impale Flandre and her copies.

@Kaykay
 
Sakuya stopped time and side stepped the thrown knife, but when she resumed her place in the flow of time Nanaya was nowhere to be seen. She looked around for a moment as she tried to locate her opponent, but at Nanaya's exclamation she whirled around and met Nanaya's blade. Having just turned around and being the one pushing against gravity, however, Sakuya found his knife digging into her shoulder anyway.

With a sharp exhale to hold off the pain, the maid once again stopped time and leaped back a few feet.

"I suppose one as death-crazed as you would want to do that. Even if the moment you succeed will mark your own death," she glared at Nanaya while clutching her bleeding shoulder. "A Cinderella and Prince Charming that just try to kill each other, are we? I have been told that it'll take quite some time for me to cross the river of the dead. Adding another day or two to that trip doesn't sound too bad."

Sakuya never really craved anything in particular. So long as it provided dinner, being a maid was fine. Honor, power, important roles like that didn't belong to her, nor did she have any desire for them. Simply serving Remilia was enough. If humans didn't want to deal with her since she had a strange power, then she didn't have to deal with them either. Being the maid of two beings who preyed on humans didn't bother her in the least.

And though her pride in being a maid still held true, things changed after the Scarlet Mist Incident. She began to visit the human village more and more. After seeing two humans who could easily battle her own strange powers on equal terms yet still interacted with humans regularly, something clicked. It was possible for her too. If she tried, perhaps she could do it too. Befriending both youkai and humans.

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"So disappear, Nanaya."

But in the end, if it was a choice between a human and her vampire mistress, Sakuya wouldn't hesitate. The "darkness" Nanaya spoke of would materialize quickly, clear as day. She gripped a few knives while materializing a few in front of herself, poised to fire like arrows. Her eyes scanned the room, quickly determining how she should attack next. In the next instant, she fired.

The pattern was different. As per usual, more and more knives had materialized the instant before firing. But this time, they didn't simply fly in the direction they were facing. Flying like a swarm of insects, her knives formed into three groups as they flew through the air. The first group made a beeline for Nanaya, head-on. The other two groups, however, came in from the sides like the jaws of a stag beetle. A pincer attack that swarmed her target with the countless knives she could create.

Illusion Ghost "Jack the Ludo Bile"

In the meantime, Flandre's copies disappeared on contact with the glass. Flandre herself also found herself pierced, but didn't really seem to mind. She stopped firing her projectiles, though whether it was due to their ineffectiveness or the sudden attack of glass was impossible to discern. The glass began to fall out of her as she continued standing still, her body quickly regenerating the lacerations that had been made.

"Who knows? Real or fake. Strong or weak. Whatever. All I really know is that whatever I play with ends up broken. You should be more worried about your own outcome."

Unlike the other times she'd been "playing," Flandre didn't look happy. There was no smile. No excitement. The vampire just spoke plainly. She raised her hand, palm up.

"If you don't even get hit when I hit you, then you're not playing the danmaku game seriously. That shrine maiden girl can do the same thing, but that's why she doesn't do it when she plays. I think I'm just going to destroy you then."

With a voice as if she were talking to a broken toy, Flandre closed her hand. The ability to destroy anything. With that small gesture, she moved to activate that dangerous ability with White Len as her target.

@Ver
 
"Death comes for all, my dear. These Mystic Eyes of mine are surely proof of that!" Nanaya exclaimed haughtily, "I usually like to tell my subjects to give my regards to the devil, but I suppose this house is just rife with such devils, no?! It wouldn't be so bad to send you to these creatures you've found kindred spirits in, would it?! What a hellish life, a servant of devils, isolated from humans... and you've grown complacent, no desire for blood, vengeful or spite! How droll!"

His grin grew wider as, from his perspective, it was as though Sakuya's "darkness," or at least, that was how he chose to perceive her murderous intent toward him, grew more and more intense. As the first group of knives headed straight for him, Nanaya, in perhaps a mildly surprising turn, spun around and dashed to the edge of the room, reaching the wall and letting the knives follow him before running a few feet up the wall and flipping off, just in time for the knives to impale the wall instead.

However, he was at least caught off-guard in mild part by the second group that came to him by his side once he'd landed on the ground again. Like before, he tried his hand at evading and deflecting as many knives as he could, but not quite as successfully as last time, as one managed to impale itself straight into the tendon of Nanaya's (non-dominant) arm, while two more managed to lodge themselves into his right side, eliciting restrained grunts from him.

Still, despite the pain that clearly affected him in the same manner that any normal human would respond to pain, he forced his grin to stay, like a clown with his make-up running thin. Barely able to decide to remove the knives, he turned, lumbering toward Sakuya. "You know... I imagine people would think me a masochist considering the affinity for death I hold, but pain is... irritating. They say it is what reminds us that we are alive, but I've no need for such a thing... Not when I'm against you!"

A bright gleam in his eyes was visible as his Mystic Eyes of Death Perception shone, the beauty of its color contrasting against the ugliness of the power it wrought. Clutching his one trusty knife, Nanaya crouched slightly, as if getting into position, getting ready. His eyes were intent, focused on Sakuya's position, as he began to picture what he wanted to do.

Eighteen Divisions.

He had her with that shoulder stab, but she'd only barely gotten away before he could cut her arm off entirely. He won't make that mistake again, and as much as he enjoyed this deadly waltz with the silver-haired maid, it didn't take much to realize he was the one at a disadvantage. Effectively, he bit off more than he could chew... but it was worth it.

Electing to not move just yet, Nanaya spoke once more.

"So to the end... Truly, you will reject me and what I stand for, eh? I suppose that kind of fate was inevitable. Just because two people are isolated from the rest of humanity does not mean they could ever truly understand each other either, certainly not in the same vein that the common humans can, even if they too struggle to understand each other."

...

WLen03.png


"Hmph?!"

Whatever Flandre began to do, White Len didn't feel so inclined to wait around to see; she didn't want to take any risks with enemies of unfamiliar levels. To that end, she conjured a small, glowing orb of pure magical energy, and dashed straight on toward Flandre, hoping to impede her. However, it was too little, too late.

As Flandre carried out her mysterious ability, something strange happened. White Len, though clearly impacted and wounded by the bizarre power, was not completely destroyed or even wiped out. Whether this was because of the Bounded Field that held back the powers of the mansion's residents or the minx's existence that barely transcended the very concept of malevolence, who could say? Still, as her body crashed into the ground, she gritted her teeth, seemingly too weak to even move as she looked up at Flandre, her glowing red eyes burning with malice and acrimony.

"That... kind of power... You really are a monster...! You're not even a dragon or a witch... What are you?! You... You don't belong in this tale! You aren't supposed to be here! That's not how the story was supposed to go!!" She screamed, like a child throwing a tantrum, perhaps fitting considering the two "little girls" who were fighting each other.

@Kaykay
 
"We may both be forcibly separated from the rest of them, but our goals are not the same. I wish to serve my mistress, and you seek to disrupt this life with those eyes of yours. It takes more than a single similarity for two to reach an understanding, you know."

The maid felt the tension surrounding them as she spoke. It was like the eye of the storm, a brief pause before her inevitable hail of knives would resume flight. Her hand clutched her bleeding shoulder in the interim. Though thankfully she'd been able to avoid having the lines and points that those eyes of his saw traced, it was still cold steel against human flesh. The longer this went, the worse off she would be due to blood loss.

Still, that applied to him as well. The sheer range and numbers that her ability afforded granted her an advantage that she wasn't reluctant to make use of. She crossed her arms, hardly seeming ready to attack in comparison to Nanaya's crouch, but her glare was full of intent nonetheless.

Sakuya's eyes shone red, but the air around her was still cold. Truly, her life might have seemed incomprehensibly silly. A difficult life, separated from her own species and entering servitude for devils, and all it came to was a relaxed life among youkai and magicians. It was, perhaps, the complete opposite of what one would have expected from her.

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"Though if you wish to speak of fate, take it up with Miss Remilia. I hear that Akyuu even guessed her ability is the reason I ended up with what you call a 'droll' fate. While I don't possess the ability to actually detect the usage of 'the ability to manipulate fate,' it doesn't matter to me. My sense of duty is my own. I have no need to feel alive through pain or battle. I'd much rather feel alive with a strong flavor of tea, and my bond with Miss Remilia!"

Illusion World "The World"

Time screeched to a halt as Sakuya shouted her mistress's name. Free to move as she liked with no one to interrupt, this was her version of preparation. In this world, she made the first move. Knives began to materialize within the frozen time. One row. Two rows. Nine rows of knives were formed in front of her. It was an unmistakable curtain fire of blue and green handled knives.

Rather than a special pattern or knives moving in a tricky fashion, Sakuya simply sent a ridiculous quantity of knives flying at Nanaya. Yet the neat rows themselves along with the different angles the blue and green knives flew at created a pattern to possibly read all their own.

---

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"Huh? You lived? ...Ahaha, that's amazing! Hey, I'm sorry about everything I just said! Get up and play with me some more! I promise I won't make fun of you again!"

All thoughts of boredom fled her mind as the absolute nature of her ability crumbled before her eyes. While White Len despaired at the destruction of the script, Flandre Scarlet relished in it. Unlike the other residents of the mansion, Flandre's had no possible usage except for destruction. Sakuya could use her ability to do chores. Patchouli's magic was extraordinarily versatile. Meiling's qi and training in martial arts led to a healthy body. And Remilia's ability to control fate entailed far too many things to even consider.

Only Flandre served no purpose except for destruction. Only Flandre had such a worthless ability. The reason for her imprisonment in the mansion, that absolute destruction, fell apart at the seams as her target actually survived the squeeze of her palm.

"What am I? Don't you think questions like that are for before the game? Flandre Scarlet, the little sister of the owner of this mansion and a vampire. Now c'mon, don't cry about your story. Let's play and make a new one together!"


Flandre raised a bent, flimsy looking black spear about the size of her body. A rainbow colored energy gathered at its tip as Flandre prepared to fire her attacks once again.

@Ver
 
When the time came, he dashed forward.

The instant time had resumed and Sakuya unleashed a barrage of knives at him, an unending flurry of pure metal fury, Nanaya lunged forward, like an all-out, all or nothing attack. At lightning speed, he moved to deflect the knives that he couldn't dodge. However, the overwhelming amount of knives was too much for even someone with his speed to contend with. One stabbed into his arm. Another into a non-fatal part of his chest. Another into his leg. But still, he kept on coming, a relentless predator determined to catch his intended prey.

Loud shinks echoed through the air as he kept gunning for Sakuya, knives beginning to cover his entire body no matter how many he tried to deflect, as though for every one knife he deflected, another easily stabbed into his body. But he was like a machine. He was made for this. This was his only purpose. The most intensive measure he took to protect himself was to make absolute sure his throat or face were not hit, but otherwise, if the wound wasn't immediately fatal, then he seemed to be content with toughing it out, so he carried on.

Shhk! Shhk! Shhk!

...

Thud.

And at the end of it all, technically, he did reach Sakuya.

As though all the momentum he'd built up suddenly evaporated into thin air, Nanaya weakly sank right in front of Sakuya, his chin on her shoulder, body littered with knives and bloodied to that end, looking as though he would have been trying to embrace her if he hadn't lost the use of his hands at this point. Even his knife had been dropped by the time he reached the maid, lost somewhere in the shuffle, powerless to even grab one of the knives lodged inside him. It took all of his effort to even remain standing at all, even with using Sakuya's body as leverage.

His breathing steadied to the point that for all his thrills, the excitement he felt at times like these, he felt jarringly peaceful, like a normal person at rest. He struggled to breathe, but he still dared to speak regardless.

"There it was..." He whispered gently, "That look you gave me. That intent to kill, with prejudice, without mercy. You'd never looked so... beautiful to me..." Nanaya said, hoarse breaths stopping him for a moment before he went on again, "That look to deny someone their existence, to reject their right to live... To give me such a rejection... It's frustrating...! To make that kind of beauty in you mine... I could only have wished..."

"I suppose this really is goodbye, my dear."


...

Too weak to defend herself any longer, White Len could only remain where she was, even if she couldn't accept that kind of fate. The fate that she had wanted to write and determine herself in the story book that she called her own existence. What kind of gesture was this? A sliver of humanity? Was this what it meant to live? To have that right easily stolen from someone else?

With what looked like frustrated tears forming at the corners of her eyes, befitting a "little girl" indeed, the familiar only kept gazing hatefully at Flandre. "There is no more story... You interfered with it! You... You... You...!" She growled, using what seemed like the last of her energy to conjure more balls of concentrated energy and shooting them all at her target with vindication.

@Kaykay
 
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The maid merely watched as Shiki weaved through her net of death. Whether it was because the spellcard rules of Gensokyo dictated such a thing or the dance of a human escaping her superhuman knife patterns captivated her, it didn't change the result. With the movements of a trained man with absolute focus, he'd done it. He reached her.

Yet even still, he had been practically harmless upon arrival, having already lost his knife and bleeding out from her own. The battle was over.

"I truly can't understand your standards for beauty."

Sakuya sighed, neither moving to get away from him nor to assist any further in propping him up than she already was.

"Indeed, you really are strange. You're frustrated by my rejection of your existence, but call it beautiful in the same breath. But if it was that intent you wanted, then I suppose you did win in your own way."

Even as he struggled to breathe and stand while clinging to her, the maid made such a declaration. With her good arm, she finally moved. Her hand rested on the back of Nanaya's head, almost as though pulling him into a hug. As if she could feel him falling at ease, the maid too began to relax, the tenseness from their waltz fading from her.

"Forgive me for being presumptuous, but I think this is the result you were after anyway. That killing intent you call 'beauty' was directed at you and only you this whole time. You certainly played me good. I won't say I'll forgive you still, but..."

But it was...fun, perhaps. It was impossible to deny the sheer rush of a life or death situation that the spellcard battles of Gensokyo intrinsically lacked. A connection of sorts that only the two of them shared. However, she wasn't insane. If at all possible, she would never partake in that kind of rush ever again. In the end, she would even reject the change he wished to instill in her. But even still.

"...Congratulations. Farewell, Shiki Nanaya."


---

The energy balls landed against Flandre, but the blond vampire simply continued grinning and charging her wand.

"Ehh? Don't be so negative. Anything can be a story. Like let's see...Flandre challenged and beat her new friend!"


Flandre responded simply as though mocking all of White Len's schemes and cries of desperation. She'd arrived conveniently at the end, and effortlessly crushed the story maker on top of that. But in the end, perhaps that kind of abrupt ruin was more realistic than the kind of structured fairy tale the familiar was trying to concoct.

"Dance Macabre"

The rainbow colored energy on Flandre's spear exploded outwards, with Flandre herself as the center. Rainbow colored danmaku came out in strings, flying all over the place. They moved out, turned, and even retreated back towards her. In fact, over half of the projectiles she created weren't even fired in the correct direction as they nonsensically moved about. Yet even still, there were plenty of danmaku that rained down upon the crippled White Len.

@Ver
 
"Hmph, yes... I needed to say... In the last moments of this existence, I'd always wondered what I'd be thinking about. Reflecting on the rampant hedonism of my intentions? Vowing a curse on whoever bested me? No... I can only think of your beauty, Sakuya Izayoi. What a nauseatingly, cliched development. A man blinded by a woman's beauty in his last moments, and yet... It's just like him to have those kinds of romantic thoughts, isn't it?" Nanaya mused as his body began to evaporate, gesturing toward the unconscious form of Shiki Tohno while bits and pieces of his body disintegrated gradually as he was no longer able to maintain his form here, like a familiar who had run out of mana.

"Surely, you'll take responsibility for him, won't you? Whether my soul returns to him, or Shiki Nanaya as he exists completely ceases to be, that's on you. You'll take care of him, won't you?" Nanaya asked, as though counting on Sakuya for a favor. Even though he had never once shown any shred of concern for Tohno before, it seemed that in his final moments, he spoke with a genuine, delicate tone.

Once Nanaya's body dissipated completely, even his ashes becoming nothingness, it was then that Shiki Tohno awakened once again, his eyes shooting open as he let out a sharp inhale, as though he woke up from a bad dream. Sweating profusely from his forehead, to that end, his gaze turned to Sakuya -- the first person that caught his attention -- eyes wide as he attempted to steady his own breathing.

"S-Sakuya... What happened?! How did I get here?"

...

"!"

White Len could only let out a muffled yelp, like a cat, fitting for her appearance and who she took after in that regard, as she was finally done in by Remilia's final attack. True to the intent, she went out without any fanfare. No majestic fairy tale spectacle. Even if it could be considered one from the sheer power of Remilia as White Len was effectively blown to pieces, it was what was in her last moments that counted. Just a whimper. She had no more power, and thus, was killed while she was defenseless.

A deliberately unchivalrous thing that did not belong in a fairy tale.

Her prone form still remaining and maintaining its form somehow, White Len could only weakly outstretch her arm toward the ceiling, a tear flowing down her cheek like she truly was a little girl losing her way. "I... I just wanted... to keep living... to hold on to..." She whimpered to herself, unable to even finish her own sentence before she, too, disappeared, leaving no trace that she was ever there at all.

@Kaykay
 
Silently holding Nanaya in his last moments, Sakuya merely watched as his form began to fade away. The thoughts he spoke of were probably unbecoming of an unapologetic killer, but the maid couldn't help but think that such an end was fitting in its own way. Whether a man was a saint or a hedonist, perhaps it was unavoidable for a man to spend his last moments thinking about that which he found beautiful.

"Pass on without worry. I do consider myself a responsible woman and maid, you know," she spoke in a voice so low it was almost a whisper.

It was impossible for her to discern his fate, but she'd made her choice. Though she undoubtedly felt guilty ending a human by her hand, there was no other choice than the one she'd made. Or perhaps she was simply too inept to think of or create another one. But there was no reason to dwell on it. All Sakuya could do was take responsibility for her actions like she'd said. Even if that sort of thing was usually the man's words.

Sakuya cleared her mind as Shiki Tohno finally woke up, breathing a sigh of relief. Wearing a thin smile, she leaned over and extended a hand to him.

"It's a long story, but let's say your other side and that minx there were quite some trouble. But it seems as though we've resolved the incident while you napped without a worry. How cold..."

The maid teased him, though whether it was to dull her guilt or her bleeding shoulder was uncertain. Despite her words, the sweat on his forehead and the way he woke up didn't make Shiki's sleep look all too pleasant. Placing a hand on his forehead, she spoke again.

"That aside, are you alright? I don't know what she did to you, but if you're feeling unwell we should have something in the mansion for it..."

---

Meanwhile, Flandre sneezed for some reason.

How strange for a vampire named Flandre.

"Well duh, don't we all?"


The intricacies of another's desperate plea for life seemed to completely go over the blonde vampire's head. After twirling her strange staff one more time, it completely disappeared as she continued wearing a childish smile on her face. With that foe defeated, her eyes shifted onto Sakuya instead. She seemed to have it settled, but there was no harm in finishing the job herself. Stretching her wings in a motion not unlike a runner's start, Flandre dashed for the two...

And ended up barreling through the wall directly behind them. Standing up, she threw off the rubble around her and stared at Sakuya with a confused look.

"It's alright, Flandre-sama. He may look the same, but this is an invited guest to the mansion. Please be courteous, Flandre-sama."


The one responsible for Flandre's spectacular miss spoke up.

"...Huh?"

@Ver
 
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"Is that so... Well, at least it looks like you're okay... relatively speaking," Shiki said with a distant look for the briefest of moments, as though troubled by the notion that Nanaya had manifested while he himself was under the influence of White Len -- speaking of which, now that both she and Nanaya were taken care of, the Bounded Field she left in place quickly began to disperse, and those afflicted were able to feel their own full strength returning.

Shiki blinked in mild surprise as the maid put her hand on his forehead, but didn't reel away, his eyes widening slightly as his almost guilty expression took a more bashful one.

"Y-Yeah... Seems like she sapped some of my energy while I was out, but it should come back to me once I get some rest," Shiki went on, demurely scratching his cheek with his index finger, before managing a weak smile toward Sakuya, "I could definitely go for some of your cooking for that... once you've recovered as well, Sakuya."

As Flandre appeared before the two of them, not seeming to get the dynamic between himself and Nanaya, but decided to... simplify it, if the girl was anything like Remilia.

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"Let's just say... it was my evil twin."

Deciding to leave it at that if that was sufficient, Shiki began to gingerly stand up, venturing to wrap his arm around Sakuya's body to support himself, though he wondered if she might be needing any help to stand any moment now.

"... Let's get everything cleaned up then, shall we?" He said softly, now attempting a more jovial tone.

@Kaykay
 
Flandre seemed to think about Shiki's brief explanation for a moment, Sakuya not adding anything to say in that regard, before eventually shrugging and grinning widely.

"Oookay, if you say so."

At the same time, Sakuya smiled as well. Hers gave off quite a bit less energy, though. The maid didn't quite have the nigh-unlimited stamina of her vampire mistresses. Plus, for once time wasn't on her side. No human could just go on losing blood after all, though she had no intention of complaining about it. As Shiki spoke, she pulled her hand away from his forehead and instead positioned herself to support him.

"I'm glad to hear that. It'd be even more shameful for me as a host if anything else happened. I'll be sure to cook something up for us soon, then."


With that, Sakuya began to help Shiki get moving. She continued to smile, even as her countenance grew paler. Quite frankly, her own reserves of energy were exhausted. Between the two of them, it was entirely possible the maid was actually further exhausted. But even still, she replied back to Shiki in a light tone as well. Common sense dictated the host shouldn't be the one who needed help.

"Leave that to me. It is my job, after all."


@Ver
 
And so, the "normal" life returned to the Scarlet Devil Mansion with that, as much as one could call it normal.

Another day had passed in order to allow Shiki and Sakuya to recover from the endeavors, moreso the latter as the former only took a mild illness that was easily remedied, conveniently enough with some requested homemade soup, as beseeched in a coy manner by the bespectacled boy.

In the following evening, as the time came that Shiki had stated that he would likely begin preparations to return to his home world with the portable transportation device granted to him by the Coalition before, the young man himself was mysteriously gone from his own given room if Sakuya would check up, with only Len in her cat form laying comfortably in the middle of the bed.

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"..."

Reticent as always, the black cat nonchalantly gestured her head out the window, in the direction of the gardens, where the previous ordeal had started to begin with, as though directing the maid to where Shiki might have gone. Why he was elsewhere without so much as a word, who could say? Even at his best, after all, Shiki Tohno was a curious individual.

@Kaykay
 
"So he's off somewhere and left you behind. How inconsiderate. To you and me."

Sakuya sighed, briefly looking out the window that Len had gestured towards. What a restless boy. He'd said he would be leaving, but the maid highly doubted he'd simply left both without a word and while leaving Len behind. Guests were certainly hard to track in a large mansion, something Shiki should have been well aware of. It truly was inconsiderate to just take off without a word. In this situation, there was only one thing to do then.

"Let's go meet him together then. Up you go."


Lifting the black cat and placing her on her own head, Sakuya walked out of the guest room. She made her way to the garden with Len in tow, returning to where the incident began.

@Ver
 
"...~"

Letting out a gentle purr as she rested atop Sakuya's head, whether out of comfort, agreement, or both, her tail wagged slightly, softly tapping against the back of the maid's head as they headed for Shiki's supposed position.

Upon reaching the garden, the boy was indeed there, laying down in the soft grass and staring blankly at the sky above, his arms bent and tucked under his head comfortably. He took note of Sakuya's presence as she approached, nonchalantly tilting his head up to look at her, the maid and the cat appearing upside down from his perspective.

"Aha, you found me. Sorry I didn't let you know I was gonna be somewhere else. Being bedridden longer for a long time disagrees with me, you see," Shiki said with a light-hearted, abashed laugh. The exact kind that he used to always do during the (perhaps admittedly rare, all in all) light moments in between the tribulations the two had faced together.

Indeed, he looked quite comfortable down there. So comfortable that he stretched his arm out and patted the ground next to himself. "Why don't you lay down next to me? Your garden really is quite well kept, makes for an even better bed, really!" He invited Sakuya over, if such a thing was even permitted.

@Kaykay
 
"I would say moving around when you should be bedridden disagrees with anyone more, but I suppose you don't look bad enough for me to really mean it."

Sakuya sighed, but wore a smile nonetheless. She didn't exactly understand the effects of the Bounded Field or whatever had happened to Shiki while he'd been taken by White Len, but at least from a glance he hadn't looked anything more than tired so more rest perhaps would simply be excessive.

There weren't all too many rules about the garden, given that the majority of the inhabitants of the mansion spent almost all of their time inside anyway, so the maid didn't seem to mind him lying about. Gently removing Len from her head, since lying down wouldn't exactly work with the cat familiar on her head, she patted her dress before sitting down on the spot Shiki had pointed out. After settling a bit, Sakuya relaxed and let herself drop backwards to lay down.

"I just realized I've never really laid down here before. But it is more comfortable than I'd have expected...perhaps a little unladylike, though."

@Ver
 
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"Ahaha, fair enough," Shiki chuckled slightly toward Sakuya's initial statement as Len, with a soft meow, hopped off Sakuya's head and settled herself next to the maid, remaining in her cat form and silently gazing up at the sky as if to let the two chat while she simply sat there.

Shiki wore a smile, a far lighter and relaxed one than he'd often wore. He was certainly older now compared to the first time he'd met the maid (even if just by one year), and yet, the boy personally fancied himself a much different person. It was easier now for him to hold up his head high, live with the meaning that he had decided for himself, and let himself be free of the things that had plagued him for so long, even as recently as the debacle with the Coalition.

Perhaps that was due in part to the absence of a negative influence within his soul, whether it was permanent or not.

"Unladylike, huh? I think I know someone kinda like you who would probably think the same," Shiki went on, thinking briefly back to Hisui for a moment, before letting out a soft sigh, turning his head to look at Sakuya directly, their faces only several inches away at this point.

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"It wouldn't be so wrong to let yourself lay down and gaze upon the night sky, would it? Though, either way... ladylike or not, I like you just the way you are, formalities be damned," he said softly with unadulterated earnestness, like a young schoolboy professing his love after class's end. And on that note...

"In fact... I think I could... fall for someone like you, Sakuya Izayoi," Shiki continued, letting his hand rest on the ground in the gap between both of their heads, his palm open as though shyly gesturing for her to take it, though his palm just as quickly closed slightly as he kept talking, his eyes beginning to glaze away.

"... But I'll have to leave soon. And that would make things a bit... inconvenient, wouldn't it?" He sighed in a lightly coy manner, yet self-deprecating tone.

@Kaykay
 
"..."

Sakuya was silent for a moment, taking in the sight of the sky and the sound of Shiki's voice. Ladylike or not, huh? It really wasn't a bad feeling to relax every once in a while, especially after everything that had happened. The maid honestly never thought she'd fight a life or death battle while in Gensokyo, ruled by the spell card rules the shrine maiden had imposed on everyone, so perhaps one could even call it a deserved deviation from proper elegance.

And indeed, it was a deviation from the norm when Shiki put his feelings out in the open. Sakuya turned her head to face him directly as well. Beyond the simple lack of males in Gensokyo, to be confessed to was a new experience for her. She smiled gently.

"Really now, falling for me and then immediately telling me it won't work. Saying such a thing right after an incident like that...trouble follows you to the end, hm?"

What felt like indecisiveness from the boy prompted the maid to pleasantly laugh softly to herself. Perhaps it was from always serving the mansion's inhabitants, or her recent status as an incident resolver, but his tone appealed to a sense of care-taking in her.

"Well, it's true any relationship would be inconvenient with someone like me, serving in this mansion. I don't leave the mansion overly often, and Gensokyo even less so. Even the first incident on the outside I became involved with was just an accident."

The inconvenience of being from two entirely different worlds wasn't something that could be easily ignored. That was certainly the case. Yet even if it was...

Sakuya turned on her side and gently placed her hand, not to match his, but on Shiki's cheek.

"But even still, being gentle and shy like this, I too could fall for that, Shiki Tohno."

@Ver
 
"Aha, yes, I suppose you're right. Troublesome for everyone, even myself. Inconvenient even, as you said," Shiki laughed softly, no longer oblivious to the self-defeating nature he could be prone to when it came to being too honest with oneself.

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His further train of thought was interrupted as he felt Sakuya's hand on his cheek. Her sweet, soft, warm touch. Truly, she was such a petrifying, bewitching, beautiful woman. There were so many ways to describe Sakuya when it came down to it, and even still, she left him at a loss for words, at least at times like this.

Sakuya Izayoi left him breathless, whether by making time itself stop for her or by addressing him.

Despite how earnest he had been acting before, Sakuya's words caused him to blush lightly and look away bashfully for a brief moment, as though not having expected that kind of response. In all honesty, he didn't expect such a comfortable response like that. Perhaps that was what happened when he inadvertently made a habit out of thinking later and acting first.

After a stunned silence, Shiki could only give a soft smile as he raised his other hand, caressing Sakuya's hand in his own. In a slow, deliberate gesture, he leaned in and planted a soft kiss on the maid's forehead, like a silent acknowledgement toward her response, before finally speaking once more.

"Inconvenient... and yet, you'd certainly be worth those inconveniences, even if they might end badly. What's life without some bad choices to spice things up, after all?"

@Kaykay
 
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