Chapter 5 - Danmaku
‘W-well, that was an embarrassing outburst. I can’t believe I did that in front of someone who doesn’t know me too well. I-I hope Koishi doesn’t think of me as a narcissist…’ I reflected on what had just occurred.
“Hehehe, you are a funny person! I heard from big sis that you were a human before, what did you look like?” Koishi suddenly asked while tilting her head.
‘S-she’s asking me a question? I should probably respond in turn then.’ I thought to myself before noticing an irregularity. ‘Wait, if she was beside me when I was unconscious during my evolution, shouldn’t she have seen it then? I should ask her about this. Here it goes…’
“D-didn’t y-you s-see m-me w-when I-I was u-unconscious?” I asked her, trying to clear up the doubt that I had in my mind.
“I couldn’t! You were wrapped up in threads, like a cocoon! When the cocoon disappeared, you already looked like that!” Koishi cheerfully responded.
“D-did y-you a-ask S-satori or Orin w-what I l-looked like, t-they b-both s-saw me b-before.” I questioned her.
“Yep! But neither of them could remember how you looked, so I thought I’d ask you!” Koishi answered.
‘Weird, so both of them forgot how I looked? I’d be less suspicious if it were only one of them; however, both of them simultaneously lost the memory of my human appearance. Perhaps the person who sealed my memories also sealed parts of theirs. That doesn’t seem logical to me though because the person would likely have to be close by to seal memories. Or is it possible that the ability could work remotely, perhaps as a sort of curse. Could it be that my old body was cursed so that people would immediately forget about my appearance, similar to how Koishi’s ability worked. Instead of my existence being erased from memories, it was only my appearance. If this is the case, then how powerful would this person be?’ I hypothesized while trying to think of ways I could grow even stronger. ‘I should test what I am currently capable of later. Anyways, I should probably give a proper answer to Koishi’s question now.’
“W-well, I-I d-don’t r-remember e-either.” I responded.
Hearing my answer, Koishi began to smile even more. “Cool! Do you have an ability that makes it so that your appearance is forgotten by everyone including yourself when they don’t see you?! You could always surprise yourself by how cute you look after you forget!” She looked at me with her eyes glowing in excitement.
My cheeks flushed in embarrassment having been reminded of my earlier actions and by her honest compliments. “W-w-well n-n-not e-e-exactly. I-it’s n-not m-my a-ability, I-I t-think i-it’s a c-curse p-pl-placed on m-me.” I meekly responded, stuttering more than I usually did because of my embarrassment.
Koishi tilted her head. “A curse? By who?” She asked upon hearing my thoughts on the phenomenon.
I took a few moments to recover from my embarrassment before answering her question. “I-I d-don’t k-know. S-someone p-powerful f-for s-sure.” I responded with my usual voice and stutter.
“Hmmm, interesting!” She jovially responded.
‘I probably should ask her where I am now. I’ve wanted to ask this for a while, but never really had a chance to until now because of Koishi’s antics.’
“H-hey, K-Koishi, w-where a-are w-we right now?” I asked in a quiet voice.
“We are currently in the unused bedroom in the royal chambers in the palace! Do you want me to give me a tour of the palace?” She started to pull me towards the doorway by the hem of my dress.
I nodded and allowed myself to be pulled along. Once we exited the room, I saw a large hallway with a cyan carpet. The carpet felt as soft as the carpet that was in the room I woke up in. I saw a total of 4 doorways, each with a differently colored glowing tile in front of them. I saw many small tables topped by a small flower. I smelled a pleasant aroma in the room, it reminded me of the lavender scent that I smelled right before falling unconscious and ending up in this cave.
“Oh, it’s Miss Koishi! Who is that beside you?" I heard a voice call out to us from the other end of the hallway. I looked towards the voice and saw a girl with long dark brown hair tied that reached her waist. She tied her hair with a green ribbon and wore a white short-sleeved shirt, a short green skirt, and black socks that reached up to her knees. Black raven wings extended up from her back.
“Okuu! This is the human that big sis was telling us about, my new younger sis Ayaka Komeiji!” Koishi turned to the girl before responding, obviously recognizing who had called her.
“Miss Satori told us about her? I don’t remember… Oh well, if you say so, it must be true! Nice to finally meet you Miss Ayaka! I am Utsuho Reiuji, but everyone calls me Okuu!”
‘This girl seems quite airheaded to me. By what Koishi said, Satori must have explained to everyone who I was already, but it seems she’s already forgotten. Also, she just believed what Koishi said without any other thoughts. Well, I should probably introduce myself now that she has introduced herself…Why is there another person who I have to talk to… please be the last already, I’ve already met enough new people this week. Actually, is this even the same week I arrived here? How long was I asleep? I should ask Koishi after finishing my possibly fourth introduction this week. I can do this’ I encouraged myself after coming up with my first impressions of Okuu.
“H-hello m-my n-name i-is Ayaka Komeiji, n-nice to m-meet y-you Okuu.” I introduced myself in a quiet voice. “A-also Koishi, h-how long w-was I u-unconscious f-for?” I turned to Koishi.
“Un!” Okuu enthusiastically responded to my introduction.
“It’s been about 2 days since you went unconscious!” Koishi answered.
‘So that means less than a week has passed and I have already met 4 new people each of whom I have been able to interact with in some way. Now I should probably ask Mio for more information about Okuu so I can get a sense of her personality and learn more about her.’ I thought to myself. ‘Upon a bit of reflection, it seems a bit rude of me to gather information this way instead of asking them, but if it means I don’t have to interact with them more than I need to, then I’m willing to be a bit disrespectful. I mean, unless Satori is in the room, which she currently isn’t’ I decided after a bit of thinking of my actions. ‘Mio, could you please give me information about Okuu?’
Affirmative
Utsuho Reiuji: One of Satori Komeiji’s pets, a hell raven with the job of regulating the flames of the Hell of Blazing Fires. Has a simple, direct, and airheaded personality. Does not have any special abilities outside of those innate to the hell raven species. She manages the temperature inside the Hell of Blazing Fires by either opening the skylight above the Untamed Courtyard to lower the temperature or feeding the fires with the corpses carried by her long-time friend Rin Kaenbyou to increase the temperature. Mio reported.
“Are you there?” Koishi’s voice snapped me out of my concentration on Mio’s report.
I nodded. “Let’s continue the tour then!” Koishi enthusiastically shouted before turning to Okuu. “Well, we should probably get going, see you Okuu!”
“Bye Miss Koishi, Miss Ayaka!” Okuu happily yelled while waving her hand from side to side at us.
“Here we go then!” Koishi once again turned to me. “This is the royal chamber hallway! From the door closer to us, we can get to the secondary foyer and if we go through the door further to us, we will end up back in the Great Foyer, where Orin originally brought you. Let’s go there so I can show you all the other rooms!” She guided me towards the set of doors furthest away from us. We entered through the doors and I saw the open room filled with seats and bookshelves that I had seen before down a short flight of stairs.
“This is the Great Foyer! Each door here leads to a different area! The door right below us leads to the guest chamber hallway. The door left of where we are leads to the entrance hall, the one straight ahead of us and up that small staircase leads to the recreational hall where there are plenty of fun things to do! The door under that one leads to the dining hall where we can get food! Now to our left, the upper door leads to the Great Hall where you talked to big sis. Finally, under that door is another that leads to the central courtyard.” Koishi told me before pulling my head again. “Let’s go to the recreational hall because all the other places are a bit boring!”
We started to walk straight across the room to the other side to reach the staircase leading to the door to the recreational hall. During the walk, I grew curious as to what Satori and Orin were doing. ‘Orin is probably doing her job of finding corpses to carry towards the Hell of Blazing Fires. What is that place? I could ask Miu, but it would probably be better for me to find out on my own instead of just relying on others. Anyways Satori is probably in the audience hall also doing her job of managing the Underworld. I wonder what that job entails…’ I hypothesized, still walking towards the recreational hall.
After a short amount of time, we ascended the staircase and entered the door to the audience hall. The hall was much brighter than the other two hallways that I’ve seen. I saw a total of 4 doors in this hall. 1 of the doors was on the opposite end of the hall while the other three were lined up on the wall to the left of me when I was facing the door on the opposite end. We started walking down the hall before stopping at the first door at the left.
Koishi opened the door and told me “This is the Grand Ballroom where official events and celebrations are held! There is plenty of space to move around, dance, or play!”
Behind the doors, I saw a wide room decorated with plenty of crystal chandeliers. Gold-covered paintings hung from the walls, while the floor had an intricate design that resembled three separate roses. I looked at the ceiling and saw an overhead painting of the Sun. Before I could finish looking around the room, Koishi pulled my hand again before we stopped at the next door on the left.
“This is the grand library! You can find books of almost anything you want here!” Koishi explained standing in front of the door. “Now let’s move on since there is nothing too fun to do in here!” She started to pull me towards the last door on the left.
“This here is the concert hall where you can practice singing, dancing, or playing an instrument! It’s fun to go there when I’m bored and play one of the instruments while standing on top of the stage.” Koishi explained before opening the door.
Inside the room were rows of seats all neatly lined up facing a stage towards the back of the room. The stage itself was lavishly decorated with fancy crimson red curtains and plenty of different lighting systems to focus attention on whoever stood on the stage. On the stage was a raised platform hosting a marvelous grand piano.
“Let’s continue on with the tour then!” Koishi exclaimed, once again pulling my hand towards another door, this time the door that was on the opposite end of the hallway.
We entered the new room and I saw that it looked almost exactly like the Great Foyer, just a bit less luxurious. The floor was made of wood instead of marble while all the decorations looked a bit less dazzling when compared to that of the Great Foyer.
“This is the secondary foyer, which is on the opposite side of the house as the Great foyer! All the rooms that I told you about in the Great Foyer leads here, well except the entrance hall! The layout of this room is identical to that of the Great Foyer! The only major differences are that this room does not connect to the Great Hall, and instead of connecting to the entrance hall, it connects to the servant’s quarter. On the other side of the servant’s quarter is the Untamed Courtyard! Both of those places are boring though, so that concludes this tour! We should go back to the Great Hall to meet with big sis now!” She concluded her explanation by pulling me back through the doors to the recreational hall and heading towards the Great Foyer. Once we reached the Great Hall, we climbed the staircase directly in front of the door to the entrance hall and entered the Great Hall, where I had met Satori. Once there, I noticed that no one was at the central table where Satori sat when I previously met her.
“Big sis is not here, so she must be in her office there!” She pointed towards a door on the other side of the long room. “Oh well, we should play danmaku!”
‘Danmaku? What is that? Some sort of game?’ I tilted my head to show my confusion. Koishi noticed my gesture and tilted her head in response.
“You don’t know what danmaku is?” She asked in a confused voice.
I shook my head at her question. She looked even more confused and tried to explain.
“It’s like a game where you go boom! Pow! And try to hit your opponent.” She explained while making various gestures. At times she jumped around waving her arms, at times she stood still while holding her arms outwards forming a heart with her hands, and at other times, she started to spin around. I had no idea what she was trying to convey, so I just tilted my head again to show my confusion.
“Still don’t understand? We should ask big sis then!” She said before dragging me towards the room she pointed at before.
When we reached the door, she opened it without even knocking, slightly surprising Satori.
“Koishi, how many times have I told you to knock before entering?” Satori asked while looking up from her desk filled with paperwork.
“Many times sis! Anyways, teach Ayaka how danmaku works!” Koishi responded while pushing me in front of her.
Seeing me, Satori had a very shocked expression, likely because of my appearance. However, her expression returned to normal after lightly coughing a few times.
“You want to learn danmaku?” Satori asked after regaining full composure.
I nodded while thinking ‘W-what is d-danmaku in the f-first p-place?’
“Very well then, danmaku is the way of fighting battles here in Gensokyo. It is the way we can settle disputes without violence. Instead of dealing physical harm, getting hit by danmaku drains your energy or magical power, what we call mana. They are basically non-lethal duels with patterns of projectiles that we call bullets. There are many kinds of bullets, the most basic being tiny bullets, small bullets, and medium bullets. Tiny bullets are tiny dot projectiles, like the size of a golf ball that usually rely on bullet density or speed to overwhelm opponents, small bullets are slightly larger being around the size of a tennis ball often relying on complex patterns to catch opponents off guard, and medium bullets are about the size of a baseball, often limiting an opponent’s movement.” Satori explained.
‘A-are t-there o-others?’ I asked in my mind.
"Those three are the types that are the most common, but there are other types of projectiles. There are bubble bullets which are the size of a basketball, but you won’t be hit if you touch the edge of them, jagged bullets which are elliptical rather than spherical like most other types of bullets, and probably more. These types are the ones you will see the most, but there are probably still others that even I have not seen. Danmaku battles follow certain rules that we call spell card rules. Spell Card rules have 5 basic mandates.“ Satoi continued.
“1. Each spell card must have a fitting and creative name
2. Attacks should primarily rely on bullet patterns rather than physical strength. Attacks that rely purely on physical strength are not allowed to be repeated.
3. You are victorious when your opponent’s energy runs out and they are unable to continue
4. If you are victorious, you are not allowed to kill them in any case
5. You are not allowed to use the same spell card twice in the same battle” She described.
“Outside of Spell Card Rules, there are a few other rules that need to be followed. Danmaku should be appealing to look at, as in they should be a mix of practical and visually appealing. Last, a bullet pattern should not be completely undodgeable. By mixing these two rules together, you cannot just fill the entire battlefield to ensure a hit, your patterns must be dodgeable in some capability. Of course you can make them hard to dodge, but you can’t make them impossible.” She finished her explanation of the basic rules.
‘O-okay, b-but h-how d-do y-you m-make t-these p-paterns and spell cards?’ I directed my questions to Satori in my mind.
“For regular patterns you could either improvise and just mentally visualize them in the middle of the fight or you could project a pattern you have in your mind onto a piece of paper which would allow you to cast that same bullet pattern for other fights. For spell cards, try to imagine the bullet pattern you want the spell card to make as well as the bullet types. It can be a general idea such as a concept or simple directions of how you want the projectiles to behave, or it can be complex with precise instructions on the spawning location and trajectory of each projectile. The latter option is incredibly difficult and I would only recommend it if you have perfectly mastered the art of making and using spell cards.” She instructed me.
“We should practice a bit now with visualizing the patterns you want and projecting them onto a piece of paper talismans for later use. I have a few pieces here for you to use.” She handed me a small stack of paper talismans.
“Before we begin, I will explain how exactly to win in a danmaku battle. Early I explained that you win when your opponent runs out of energy and that getting hit by bullets drains energy. To be more precise, activating regular patterns and spell cards takes a certain amount of energy. Starting a regular pattern, more accurately projecting the pattern from one of these talismans or directly from your mind, requires a decent amount of energy. That energy then is used to maintain the pattern. Getting hit by your opponent’s bullets causes this energy to slightly deplete. Your actual reserve of energy will be untouched, only the energy you used in setting up the regular pattern will be decreased. Once all of this energy is depleted, the bullet pattern will stop. Additionally, each pattern can only last a certain amount of time. The energy will not decrease because of time, but when the timer for the pattern reaches 0, all the energy remaining in the pattern will be dispelled regardless of how much was left. Spell Cards function the same way except they require much more energy to initially start them, meaning that it is harder to completely deplete the energy stored in them. Spell cards also all have a timer, but because more energy was used to start them, the timer will be longer. When your actual energy or mana reserve gets depleted to the point where you have an insufficient amount to declare another spell card, then you have lost.” Satori clarified before she briefly paused.
“I forgot to mention that you can actually dictate how much energy you want to use for a spell card. However, all spell cards have a bottom limit for how much energy is used, meaning that starting from the base energy cost, you can only increase the energy or mana used. You can’t decrease how much the base energy or mana cost is. Like I said earlier, the more energy a spell card has, the longer and harder it is to be disabled. Usually in danmaku duels, a spell card follows a regular danmaku pattern, but they don’t have to, just be mindful of your energy usage. Although spell cards are usually more complex and stronger than regular patterns, regular patterns can be useful in many battles, as they are pretty efficient when considering their energy cost. Using regular patterns also allows a bit of time for your energy or mana reserves to replenish after having been heavily drained by a spell card declaration. Remember that for this you aren’t bound by any rules, but you should take the pros and cons of each into consideration.” She added.
‘O-okay, t-that’s a-alot o-of i-information. F-for b-bullet patterns, i-is there something t-to focus on, like a c-certain t-theme, o-or c-can t-they b-be anything?’ I asked after digesting everything that Satori had said.
“Good question. Regular bullet patterns don’t have to follow a certain theme, but they could be easier to visualize with a theme in mind, but spell cards usually follow a theme or motif of the person, oftentimes relating to their special ability. I’ll show you an example of one of my regular patterns and a few of my spell cards as a demonstration. First let’s move to the Great Hall as it has been enchanted to be nigh indestructible by danmaku battles.” Satori clarified as she started walking towards the door and back into the Great Hall.
Once she got to the Great Hall, she floated up into the air. ‘How did she fly and how is she just floating there?’ I unconsciously thought to myself. Flying a decent bit away from me, she started to speak to me again.
“I’ll explain that later, just watch for now.” She said in the air. After she finished saying that, a bullet pattern composed of a mix of red and blue jagged bullets and red and blue bubble bullets appeared from all around her. The blue bubble bullets and jagged bullets emerged left of her, while the red bubble bullets and jagged bullets emerged right of her location. The jagged bullets faced towards the direction they were spawning in, moving downwards at different angles. The bubble bullets followed the first wave of jagged bullets while leading a second wave. Both colors of bubble bullet and jagged bullet eventually converged in the middle.
“This is a regular spell, as you can see it is pretty simple and can easily be dodged if your opponent sees a gap, in this case, the gap is simply waiting a bit for the bullets to converge in the middle before moving towards the central bubble bullet after a gap emerges, then going through another gap in the second wave of jagged bullets. They don’t have to be too complex. Oh right, the amount of bullets unleashed depends on the amount of energy stored in the formation of the pattern. More energy means more bullets, less energy is less bullets.” Satori explained while continuing to release bullets.
As there was no danmaku to deplete the energy of the pattern formation, we had to wait about 43 seconds for the energy to all dissipate at once. Then I heard a hollow boom sound ring out before some sort of red circle surrounded Satori. The circle was composed of complex patterns and seemed to resemble a magic circle that I had seen in video games.
“Recollection [Terrible Souvenir]” I heard her voice echo in a deeper and more sinister tone than usual. Immediately after she said this, several faint red lines appeared around her, each spaced out by a certain interval, and started revolving around her. As they were rotating, several waves of yellow small bullets in a spiral pattern appeared. “This is a spell card. Spell cards are always preceded by a hollow explosion sound followed by a declaration of the name of the spell card. Remember that each spell card must be named with a fitting name.” She reminded in her usual indifferent tone. After she said that, a wave of bubble bullets appeared in a half-circle starting from in front of her before curving to the left of her going behind her. The bullets were staggered when they appeared, each appearing a fraction of a second after the previous one. After one second after the wave of bubble bullets stopped appearing, the red lines shot became a thin red laser. This pattern continued for 44 seconds before the energy supporting the spell card completely dissipated.
After the spell card ended, I heard another faint explosion sound, so I knew another spell card was coming. “Brain Sign [Brain Fingerprint]”. Sure enough, I heard Satori’s deep echoey voice soon afterwards. After the declaration, 8 orbs appeared in each cardinal direction with Satori as the center before disappearing and waves of a larger green jagged bullet appeared in a spiral shape. After a second after the waves of large green jagged bullets stopped, the orbs that had disappeared reappeared for a second before exploding. The next time the green orbs appeared, only 6 of them appeared and were spread in front of her, before she shot 3 more orbs in whatever direction she wanted before all of them disappeared again. Next, waves of the larger green jagged bullets appeared in a spiral shape and traveled straight from where they appeared. After the waves stopped, the green orbs reappeared for a brief second before exploding. This pattern of alterations continued for 200 seconds until the energy naturally dissipated at once.
After seeing this display, I had only one thought, ‘so…this is danmaku.”
