He keeps running circles all over the place with an insane speed. The darkness of the night covers his figure as every hit on us happens before we understood where he was.
Rumia got so frustrated that started lashing around her surroundings, her shadow bind breaking both stone bricks and tiles by her feet. She can sense his general location but his speed makes him an infuriating foe.
Daiyousei would have created stronger lights to brighten the area but that would, in turn, weaken Rumia. Clownpiece has no problem seeing in the dark, neither do I and Sekibanki have trouble with it. This darkness would only inconvenience the sight of Reimu, Daiyousei and hopefully, the outsider.
The heads that I've previously created to carry us and fly, now make use of their eyes to block the man's path with the intent to corner or redirect his movements.
Sekibanki mixed her exploding heads with mine, creating a makeshift minefield. From the few that already went off, They were adjusted to blow up in a smaller area and burn hotter than normal to avoid collateral damage and friendly fire.
Everyone else was firing their Danmaku with Reimu setting up additional paper seals by throwing them into certain areas in the surroundings.
Those seals are a creative use of her power. They can, as their name suggests, seal powers and aspects of the specified target. There is no upper limit to these seals but the higher and stronger the target would require extensive preparation, which is what she's doing now.
The outsider was none the wiser, thinking that Reimu is only missing her attacks. This is also partly thanks to the power of Clownpiece, the ability to drive anyone to insanity.
I can tell that she subtlety lowered the strength of her ability since she also lives here, because normally, her target would have started an indiscriminate rampage by now.
Another reason would be that the Hakurei shrine is an important location. According to the drunken boasts of Reimu, not only is the shrine considered home by multiple people but it also contains a lot of mysterious and powerful artifacts. Last but not the least, it is also the core of the Great Hakurei Barrier that keeps all of gensokyo safe.
Even the normal children are taught that this is an important place and that damaging this place too much will pose unprecedented risk that can endanger it's inhabitants.
The mental corruption is working on him albeit slowly. Clownpiece always uses her ability at the start of a battle so seeing him retaining his sanity until now is a great feat.
His strikes aren't losing any accuracy but the power behind them were scattered a bit. Like a concentrated stream of pressurised water divided equally into a rain.
But even so, I noticed something thanks to the training we received from Shinomori. This white-haired man lacks technique. Almost all of his blows are strong and powerful but they lacked essence, even if you didn't factor in the work of Clownpiece.
Perhaps he, a cruel tyrant, ruled his men through fear and strength. For one such as him that might not have experienced enough setbacks, an iron fist is enough to solve most, if not all, of his problems.
As the time trickled away slowly, the amount of collective hits we have suffered are reaching a thousand.
Rumia lost count of how many times she been sent to the floor. She stubbornly refuses to lower herself to the outsider and forces herself back on her feet, even is she's already covered in bruises and caked in dirt.
Me and Sekibanki are struck often and sent flying off our feet more than once. The heads we create have proved to be an good distraction as he still hasn't noticed we've been stalling for time. Not to mention that we've been carrying 2 injured fairies of light between us, as their small size makes them more fragile against strong physical attacks.
Daiyousei is wheezing and is struggling to remain standing, with Star Sapphire on her shoulder, similarly barely holding on fighting. She has used her Danmaku for most of the day and the lack of energy in her reserves is threatening to take away her consciousness.
Clownpiece is visible angry but is doing her best at holding back to focus her ability in maintaining the current instability in the mental state of the white-haired man. Too much and he goes berserk, too little and he'll notice our plan.
Reimu is just about done with both the seals and the outsider's provocations. As evident by the deep scowl on her face. Aunn by her side, doing her best to guard her as she blocks most hits with her body, the speed left little time for counterattacks.
"SLOW HIM DOWN!" Reimu barks.
The surrounding heads converge and tries to limit him into a certain area. Rumia wasn't idle either as she used thick tendrils made of her darkness make an enclosing net around the heads.
Surprisingly, Kosuzu has already regained consciousness a little while ago as she hid herself to avoid being targeted. Seeing an opportunity present itself, she swiftly brought out her ink and added a second layer to the net.
Reimu threw more paper seals unto the dome. She does a single hand sign and all the paper seals scattered in the area began to glow a rainbow-colored light.
*Thud*
My heads within the dome simultaneously dispelled and some of Sekibanki's heads exploded.
*Thud* *Thud* *Crack*
The first layer of the dome created from Rumia's Darkness tendrils are showing some cracks. They are being kept together by Kosuzu's ink layer.
The seals shine bright before they started to fade. The noises from inside the dome turned quiet as if the earlier commotion was just an illusion.
The dome slowly recedes back and we see that our foe has fallen on his knees, eyes turned back and vague wisps of black smoke coming off from him.
For a moment, we slowly let down our guard, Failing to notice any malice and not even my miniscule empathetic ability can detect the smallest of emotional fluctuations.
His eyes opened abruptly and focused on us. Some jumped in suprise while others snarled in annoyance as we prepare our battle stances once more.
"It seems your little light show has come to an end." He starts and turns his head to Clownpiece.
"Interesting quirk... To think you can affect even my mind." We took this as an opportunity to set up some more traps.
"Although I am curious as to how you all have the ability to create spheres of light as an offensive attack. Is it inbreeding? Will I discover the cause by dissecting the remains?." He nonchalantly rubs his chin with a pondering expression.
"No matter. Those questions can be studied later on." Shaking his head he turns his eyes back to us. "For now... we resume our battle, but this time... the kiddie gloves come off."
"First and foremost-"
He instantly arrives Infront of Clownpiece and pierced his arm through her chest. In his hand lies her still beating heart behind her.
He threw her body and heart aside with a speed that made the blood slip from his arm, making it clean and spotless.
"-No more mind tricks from you."
The entire area has gone quiet as we stare in shock, watching on as the light slowly disappeared from her eyes.
Star Sapphire being the most affected as she wails and a stream of tears fall down her cheeks. Clownpiece got along well with the Three Fairies of Light and often played with them. No doubt that Luna Child and Sunny Milk would react the same if they were conscious.
The man turns his head and instantly arrived next to Rumia who was by her lonesome at a corner.
But before he has a chance to attack, he swiftly turned his hand to catch a fist that came at him with sonic speeds, creating a shockwave that pushed Rumia a fair distance away.
"Ah yes, if it isn't the current host of that power." He mused, looking at the newcomer.
The dust settles and what appears is Shinomori with a fierce expression on his face.
"You will leave this place, All For One, even if I lose my life doing so." Shinomori's anger has reached a boiling point.
He followed along worriedly behind us when we ran back to where the barrier was. Taking the chance of when it was open, he slipped through and decided to lend his aid when he saw the chaos
He has helped rescue the villagers trapped in rubble as well as take out any remnants among the lackeys. He has also seen the destruction that desecrated the beautiful land on his way here.
But the last straw that plucked his calm demeanor was when he witnessed the scene where AFO tried to kill Rumia, one of his students and someone he considers a friend.
"Me, leave?" AFO snickers. "You have said something similar the previous time we fought. And how did that end? With you running away with your tail between your legs and hid like the dog you are."
Shinomori's face darkened as he started to clash with AFO, with us providing backup.
It was a fierce battle to say the least. From all sorts of projectiles to enlarged and modded fists, Shinomori was quick to lose ground if we didn't help as AFO is now mostly using lethal attacks that was taken by the heads or intercepted by Danmaku. Even if we are slowly losing, Having two frontliners was great as it eased the burden on Rumia and the flying heads.
I don't remember him being this strong during the canon worldline. Was his battle against All Might that bad? Or is it just because this world is an AU?
Clownpiece was down and we couldn't spare a head or hand to move her body, so we did the best we could to move the battle away from where she her body is laying.
At some point, mystia arrived by flying over. It would normally be a good thing that an ally came and it's even better that she has a similar ability to Clownpiece.
She can grant insanity to others around her by singing. But unlike Clownpiece, she cannot control who gets affected. Anyone who hears her song will go berserk, and she always liked to sing.
Before we could stop her, she already saw the situation and decided to help by flying closer and singing to destabilise the two outsiders, which made the situation worse. Those from gensokyo has a form of resistance due to how often we're exposed to her ability but the same can't be said to Shinomori and AFO.
Shinomori started to attack the person closest to him which, thankfully, is AFO. The latter however, started to squirm and shift in shape.
Tentacles, eyes, bones, hardened skin, Spikes, metal... the body of AFO is Constantly changing and the tiles beneath his feet caved in.
He let out an ear-splitting roar and lashed out at everyone as his rampage begun. Mystia has stopped singing when she was the closest person to AFO's roar and consequently, the first person who was hit when he lashed out.
Mystia was sent flying and hit one of the stone dog guardian statue by the shrine entrance.
With great speed, AFO also threw aside Shinomori, who was still stunned by the sudden insanity that overcame and left his mind, into the direction of Reimu and Aunn, knocking them out.
The situation went from bad to worse as he appears to genuinely lose his sanity when his body morphed into its current form. His mind should've returned to normal as soon as Mystia's song has ended.
He sent a giant burst of flame towards Rumia. The light weakened her and the flames left her to burn.
A wayward tentacle struck Daiyousei and sent her and Star Sapphire barreling on the ground as their bones audibly broke and bleeding from their heads.
Turning around he is greeted by half a dozen exploding heads that bombarded him at point-blank range. He suffered no damaged from the attack and glares over at Sekibanki with Sunny Milk in her arms, still unconscious, besides her was Luna Child who has just recovered thanks to the full moon.
Digging his hands into the ground, he ripped out a good chunk of it and threw them at her. He did this twice more at a fast speed that left them no time to evade. The trio now buried in rubble, their fate unknown.
He turns to the shrine where Kosuzu is and prepared another electric beam. While one of the spikes on his back quickly became hollow and and fired a burst of compressed air that sent me flying in the direction of the the Torii gates.
Everything has happened so quickly that not even 10 seconds have passed. My mind couldn't keep up with whatever is happening as too many unpleasant events have occured in rapid succession.
The last thing I saw was the Hakurei Shrine exploding, the people I cared for with their condition unknown, and a lock of golden hair swiftly moving infront of me.
Then everything turned to black.