After the group had gotten over the shock of Reiki's diagnosis, they each went their separate ways accepting the news in different ways to help cope with the situation.
On the western side of the village, when the moons formed a beautiful double crescent in the night sky, Misao was tossing and turning. "Damn it! The nights here are too long", she ranted after giving up on falling asleep.
Although her words expressed the rage to originate from the natural day/night phenomenon this world possessed due to having two lunar satellites, the true source of her anger came from the fact that she was easily overpowered by Urusla, and it was gnawing at her mind tremendously.
Getting off her bed, Misao heaved a long sigh, she felt weak everytime she thought about her encounter. "I wish you were here, Shi," looking up at the ceiling, Misao thought about her time spent with Shi, and how they got through Misao's times of weakness together, how she was able to find the motivation to seek strength just from Shi's words.
Misao's rage was soon shifting to sadness when she seemed to regain her resolve when her memories brought her back to Shi's personality, "Sh-…Mom, Mom wouldn't want me moping around here, time for some hardcore training,"
With a smile of warmth on her face, Misao left her living area, headed to Shisui Mountain to hunt demonic beasts.
***
A few minutes of sprinting and she reached her destination. Standing at the foot of the mountain, she surveyed the area. "It should be easy to find some beasts now," she stated while looking at the night sky, "time to lure them out."
After a while of thinking about a method to get the attention of the beasts, Misao settled with a primitive method: a loud bang, she created a massive fireball that slightly hovered above her palm. Feeding the mass of energy with flames until it was about the size of a watermelon, she then added a blanket of wind, compressing the energy so it had more power.
Misao may have the temper of a bull in a red barn but her IQ level was astonishing, she came up with many ingenious methods of using her dragon force just by thought.
After the seemingly unnecessary creation method of the fireball was complete, she jumped, throwing the fireball below her with an average amount of force. As it collided with the forest floor, the power of the attack came out in full force, releasing a devastating dome-shaped wave of energy that stretched a great distance, setting most of the trees ablaze.
"Fuck, I didn't expect that," Misao said after landing, "Better put this fire out,"
Using another ingenious method of utilizing her wind dragon force, she created a vacuum, sucking the oxygen out of the flames, extinguishing them in a matter of minutes.
She let out a sigh of disappointment when she thought that such a powerful attack may have killed all the beasts in the wave area, she took a seat on a rock and recounted what had just transpired, from the feeling she got when exposed to her own attack, to the power of it and that was when she had an epiphany.
"Why did I feel a hint of electricity from that wave?" she thought, "Could it be that the heated wind made some sort of mini hurricane? If so, then… I could use that principle to add a blanket of electricity to it, creating an even MORE powerful attack!"
Misao had an overflowing sensation of joy after she had put her findings together, she jumped from her spot and went to the top of the mountain to test her theory.
***
Hours upon hours passed and the morning came, but unlike most mornings when the villagers were woken up by the soothing sound of nature, they were awaked by the deafening noise of explosions!
"What's happening?!" Aiko squealed as she and the others gathered in the head building.
"I don't know, Aiko. But it doesn't sound good," Lancleot said with a serious expression, "I've ordered a dryad to trace where the sound is coming from,"
The explosions still sounded and the villagers were starting to get into a panic, if not for the pixies using their innate ability of using their dust to bring forth calming emotions of joy, a full-scale riot may have started.
"Hey, where's Mis-" Ichika was about to question the whereabouts of Misao when she was interrupted by a familiar voice shouting: "Sir!"
The voice's owner was Kirika, the dryad that was brought back with the group after the journey to the Gaikotsu clan base.
"Sir! It took a while but I traced the explosions to be coming from the top of Shisui Mountain!" she informed while running towards the group, her massive breasts swaying rambunctiously. She seemed to be showing more emotion that the group had become accustomed to.
"Hey Kirika, it looks like you've gotten stronger!" Takumi acknowledged as he rubbed her head, causing her to blush.
"Thanks, Miss Meril told me to connect with my emotions more so I can harness my powers as a dryad better," Kirika said with a smile, she was really cute when she showed her feelings.
"Glad to hear that Kirika," Lancelot interjected, "but we have bigger problems; Ichika, Takumi and Aiko, you three go and see what's happening on the mountain, the rest of us will stay and hold the fort."
The three nodded and turned to leave, but were stopped when Kirika grabbed hold of Takumi's arm, her face flushed in a bright red, "…um…when you return…I need to talk to you about something…" she asked with a somewhat shy expression.
Takumi nodded in agreement after a short contemplation and left together with the other two.
***
The three arrived at the foot of the mountain, the sound of explosions were even more deafening at this distance. "I suggest keeping our guards up, whatever's up there sounds dangerous," Ichika advised.
Aiko nodded while Takumi showed his arrogant fearlessness through his smile, he was simply ignored as the three started their way up the mountain.
With only a short way up to the summit left, a thick layer of smoke could be seen condensing, with bright red flashes coming from the centre, followed by strong gusts of wind after each explosion.
Nonetheless, they pressed on until they reached the top, the smoke made it difficult to see. The three put up their guards when the explosions stopped, heavy panting was heard through the sound of sizzling rock, but what was heard next shocked the trio to the core.
"Damn it! It's not working how I want it to!" Misao shouted.
"Isn't that-" Aiko stuttered when she heard the voice.
Misao noticed their presence and flicked her hand, creating a gust of wind which dissipated the smoke, revealing herself to them, along with her severely burned clothes and the large craters on the ground. "Oh, hi guys, what're you all doing here?" she asked nonchalantly after recognizing the group.
"We heard explosions and traced it to here," Ichika answered after she heaved a silent sigh of relief.
Misao's eyes widened when she found out she was causing panic in the village, "Oh, haha my bad, I was trying to create a new move, I guess I got out of hand." she apologized as she scratched her head, a single drop of sweat trickling from the side of her head.
"New move?" Takumi asked, with an intrigued look.
Misao then proceeded to explain how she had come up with her idea for a new move, along with the part about her not being able to hold a steady charge of electricity inside the fireball.
"Hmmm," Takumi had his hand on his chin, "Let me see what you have so far,"
Misao and the others were a little sceptical about the origins of Takumi's intrigue but ignored it for now. Misao held her arm out and created the same wind-compressed fireball.
Takumi carefully observed the ball of energy and noticed that there actually was a charge but it wasn't enough, he then proceeded to create a sheet of cold mist around the fireball. The wind around the fireball began to gain the resemblance of a dark cloud when it came in contact with the mist, the ball now looked like an orb of dark clouds with embers seeping through it, giving it the resemblance of a mini star.
"Try it now," Takumi said after smiling at the results.
Misao shrugged and did as she was told, throwing the ball a good distance away towards the ground at the cave's entrance. As soon as it made contact with the ground, a massive surge of energy was released in a similar dome-shaped wave, but this time, however, the wave had evident streaks of electricity in it along with the flames and clouds and if not for Takumi instinctively activating [Earth Dragon | Fourth Scale: Shielding Mountain] creating a protective barrier of earth, they may have all been electrocuted.
"Cool!" Misao exclaimed, "Now THAT'S the result I wanted!"
Takumi felt pleased with himself as he explained, "I just used to concept of a hurricane, excluding the rain aspect, I regret to say that you can use that technique without some form of ice though."
Misao didn't care for the downside, she was too overjoyed to see her new move created, she instantly came up with a perfect name for it.
"I'm gonna call it, 「Waisei!」(Dwarf Star)"