Part 40

...And lo, the door to the Heavenly Cave opened, and the night was held in check.

W-Well, at least we got away for now.

If we've exhausted this many, then even Yorihime should be-

Yorihime heals herself.

What? She's recovered again?!

Impossible! Is her strength limitless?!

You've done well, but you have no hope of defeating me. I think this was more than enough for you to realize our difference in power though.

...This is bad. It would be way too dangerous to get ourselves into a battle of attrition.

Captain... Let's get out of here.

Retreat..?! Even though they've still got Rabbit?

But if we get annihilated here, we lose everything.

True, we don't have much hope of winning at this point. If only there was some way to catch her off guard...

In that case, would settling this in one round suffice?

Do you have some kind of plan, Sakuya?

Yes. That Yorihime is quite a formidable enemy. We could never hope to injure her merely by fighting side by side. But if we all attack at the same time, the shower of blows should create an opening.

I get it! I bet we could do it with co-op play!

In that case, I'll finish her off first!



Hee hee. Everyone's talking about going all-out on you! I'll burn you to ash before everyone else gets their chance!

How foolish. You're the one who will burn!

Watch out, Lady Flan!

Meiling rushes out of the ship shortly before Flandre attacks.



Flandre lands a weak hit on Yorihime,



and Meiling tanks the counter.

M-Meiling!

You can't just suddenly attack by yourself...

But still, this should make it easier for everyone else!

Leave this to me, I'll pay her back for laying a hand on Flan!

Who's next... Wanna give it a shot, Sunny?

Huh? What?! Where'd that come from...





True to form, Remilia is absolutely useless and misses.



But funny thing about the power of the sun:



Sunny can block it.
_{In cutscene land, anyways.}

Wh-What was that...?!

SUNNY blocked Yorihime's spell?!

Hold up, that's one amazing trick you've got up your sleeve!

Hah, mwahahahah! This is the power of the fairy of sunlight!

Sunny did it! Now's our chance to join in!

You mean a combination attack? In that case...!



The Three Fairies and the Prismrivers fire off their combinations.

The group attack worked. Yorihime stopped!

But it looks like she's still got some fight in her!

You came close, very close. But this is it for you.

If you humans and youkai of Earth think that grouping up will make a differen-

We're not done yet!



Defending yourself from all those attacks has left your back wide open.

We've got more tricks up our sleeve than just charging forward, you know!

Were the two magicians waiting for this...?!

Danmaku's all about power...

...And brains!

Music: Stardust Hero



This particular instance of Malice Cannon does 10,500 damage. I guess Marisa put on Danmaku Power 3 when nobody was looking.

Nicely done! That one was a direct hit!

She doesn't look like she shrugged off that last hit there!

Wow... You're actually gaining ground against Lady Yorihime, of all people!

Gaining ground? More like stampeding ground~.

I hope now we can sit down and talk this out lik-

!

No, not quite yet!

...Amaterasu-Oomikami!



Music: Girls, Surpass the Carnage

Uwaaah!

Everyone!

No way! Even everyone attacking together didn't work!

No, I felt that. So you came up with combining your power. But if that's as far as it goes, then I've seen all you're capable of.

Th-Then let's just try it agai-



Lunar rabbits surround the area.

No way, there are that many rabbits?!

Looks like reinforcements are here already. Was this my sister's order?

Ugh, we had enough trouble dealing with Yorihime alone. We can't handle this many at once!

...The situation has changed. We can't keep fighting!

Ichirin, hurry up and prepare to launch the ship!

It's fine, the Buddhist reactor warmed up during the battle!

We can still make it! Everyone, grab Rabbit and get back aboard!

Thank you, I'm over he-



Even more rabbits show up to guard our Rabbit.

Aah! Rabbit!

I won't hand over our valuable suspect that easily.

All troops, destroy the engine and secure the humans.

Roger, preparing sniper squa-





Reisen... blasts one of the rabbits on the side? Maybe? It's hard to tell because the camera jerks south while she fires for some reason.

Gah, they destroyed our guns?!

Sniping from that distance? They were still hiding more troops!

Nice save, Reisen!

H-Hurry up and give the order to retreat! This is our only chance!

Guess we've got no choice... I'll throw up a smokescreen, so everyone get back aboard!

Palanquin Ship, emergency takeoff!



The Palanquin Ship gets the hell out of dodge.

Gah, they got away!

What do we do, Lady Yorihime?

(...Such accurate sniping. I've seen that before...)

Lady Yorihime!

I know, we're not letting them get away.

We'll pursue them immediately. Bring the rabbit too.





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The very first thing you will notice in 48 Lunatic is that all the rabbits are in a new formation.



Thanks to the initial Power boost, the main thing I need to take into consideration for my team is whether or not a character has Strike. Thankfully a decent chunk of the characters available for SSiB do, so the real question is if their levels are up to par.



No wussing out here.




I'll be fighting Yorihime Omega this time.


Music: Moon Knights



I start off by imitating the enemy and grouping up. I can just let the moon rabbits come to me for this first part.



Hitting them can be frustrating thanks to their small size and my need to conserve SP, but Mystia's here to help with that.



And Merlin is busy getting Flandre prepped.



The enemies down there won't budge at all if I don't move near them. I'm fine with leaving that big Support Defend block as is, but I still need to grab Yorihime's attention.



The bulk of my player phase offense revolves around Reimu, Sanae, and Sakuya, since even with the rabbits stacking accuracy buffs they can still attack without fear of getting hit.



Meanwhile enemy phase sees my other units chip in under the cover of my numerous Support Defenders.

Well okay this is a terrible image to illustrate that since it's not like I'm having Dai tank things, but still.



Once the rabbits are down, I take the time to buff everyone to 170 Power,



then edge southwards. I need to kite Yorihime northwards without getting bogged down by the rabbit Support Defense Squad's endless 3-8 range attacks.



Their ridiculous debuffs make it so most of my characters can't move, so this is fairly annoying!



In the end I decide to just have Reimu move forward as far as possible,



while Magic Team grabs this bomb. Alice doesn't have Strike, so all she'll be good for against Yorihime is spamming Triumph. It's fine to cast a Fury or two right now.



There we go. I just need to survive an enemy phase now, and then I can drop the bomb I just got to get the hell out of this danmaku mess.



I wasn't sure how far Yorihime would chase me, so I didn't have the ship go as far north as it could've. This made setting up my boss killing formation take longer than it should have, because everyone ended up still being in range of the moon rabbits.



Shou bravely sacrificed herself so everybody else could get off the ship.



Here's Lunatic Yorihime Omega. Huh, never noticed she has a S in Water before.



Yorihime's only weakness is that she doesn't have Fury, so I can redirect all of her non-MAP attacks. Meiling is my only character who can actually tank her attacks, though.



Her -2 Move field becomes a -3 on Lunatic. Why isn't Aya here?!



Finally, 21 turns in, I'm ready to start the battle.



The bulk of my offense is going to be Flandre Support Attacking.



Yorihime has an impressive spirit list (Focus, Sense, Guard, Drive, Valor, Zeal), but she burns through SP like crazy thanks to Double Move. By this point she's stuck with Focus, which means Sakuya can save scum through everything.



Speaking of player characters, Sanae doesn't have Strike. I've got nine levels of SP Up and the Mystic Memory on her though, so she can cast Miracle twice. My plan was to use the bonuses from 100% Faith and Max God to get her high enough rates I could conceivably save scum a hit, but she ended up being useless anyways.



Also damn it Reisen, get off the ship! Do you have any idea how annoying it is save scumming until Youmu gets a crit?



EX Keine takes down the first lifebar. Speaking of her, none of you voted her in so I didn't mention it on the Normal run, but upon reaching the moon Keine will be able to transform for the rest of the game. I guess she stored up on lunar energy?



On Lunatic, Hi-no-Kagutsuchi buffs Yorihime's damage by a solid 2000. This makes Support Defending a lot tougher.



But I have Dai drawing her attacks like a magnet, and Murasa has enough Grits to last the spell.



Here's a fully upgraded Max God Sanae compared to an also fully upgraded, WP level 9 Reimu. They're both getting an extra +20 to Mobility (Sanae from the FUB, Reimu from the Yin-Yang Orb), so Max God really levels the scales.



Youmu captures the spell. This was her last Strike, so she's useless now.



Since most of my attackers are ranged, I don't have the damage output to capture Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto. So I time it out.

Fun Fact: Among other things, Max God turns Summon Take-Minakata into a ranged attack.



Take-Mikazuchi gets Daunt spammed.



I had to save scum a ton to get Yorihime to not move out of my formation, and ended up losing EX Keine and Mystia. But they were out of SP so no big deal.



It cost the rest of Marisa's SP, but I managed to capture the spell, earning me the bonus.



And now this god damn thing. I have a bomb so I could theoretically capture it if I timed out Take-Mikazuchi to conserve MP/SP,



but that would require my army to survive this.



So instead I just have Sanae and the ship fly away like cowards and call it a day.



Alice summoned some dolls in hopes of distracting Yorihime, and it actually worked.








The final sequence changes slightly on Reimu's route. Instead of the Prismrivers and the Three Fairies dropping their combinations, Youmu and Shou attack after Sunny does her thing.


Music: Dream Balancer



and as you probably expected, Reimu and Sanae finish things off instead of Magic Team.




Unless the final chapter goes awfully, this will probably be the most resets in one chapter.





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After updating to Windows 10, my computer's audio suddenly became decent. So the videos from now on should be less deafening.

Yorihime Watatsuki
All Attacks

------

I see you've stopped the game. Thank you for your hard work.

...Having been driven into a corner, the Palanquin Ship is forced to flee the moon.

What a desperate situation...! How will they make it through this?!

Chapter 49 of Fantasy Maiden Wars I: "G Free Shrine Maiden".

The two born with tremendous power face each other head on.

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Total Cost: 36.0

3.5
Remilia (42)
Flandre (42)
Palanquin Ship [Always forced]

3.0
Marisa (45)
(Reimu is forced.)

2.5
Meiling (41)
Patchouli (40)
Sakuya (42)
Alice (45)
Youmu (44)
Keine (38)
FA Nitori (37)
Sanae (45)
(Reisen is unavailable.)

2.0
Kurumi (32)
Elly (38)
Rumia (27)
Cirno (38)
Koakuma (37)
Chen (40)
Lunasa (40)
Merlin (43)
Lyrica (41)
Wriggle (37)
Mystia (38)
Nitori (36)
Nazrin (38)
Shou (38)

1.5
Daiyousei (41)
Sunny (40)
Luna (34)
Star (36)

I'm forcing Magic Team, so you get 30.5.