Part 3

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Music: Border of Regular and Irregular Days

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Music: Secret Mission!

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She's noticed us, hasn't she?! Sunny, why'd you drop your power?!

Huh? But I never stopped!

...Who are you people? What are you doing here?

What do you mean? We're just, um, out for a stroll...

...True, you certainly don't seem smart enough to have a real goal. In that case, would you happen to have seen anything unusual around here?

For example, something falling from the sky?

From the sky...? Well... have we?

Uh-uh, not really...

I see. Then I have no more business with you-

...!



The deployment screen now lets me upgrade my units, change around their equipment, and pick out their skills. So no more "all of these people who joined in midbattle are awful" shenanigans like in FMW2!

Phew, we've done nothing but eat all day, huh?

I'm hoping the night breeze will help settle my stomach.

Wh-What's that?!

I haven't seen a boat for a long time. Is this the first flying one, maybe?

Look over there! Is that Rumia and the prankster fairies?

And Chen too. Don't we see her with Yukari all the time?

That youkai rabbit is the only new face among them.

Excuse me, you over there! Who are you?

...

A flying ship...? It doesn't seem to be spaceworthy though.

Hey! Heeey!

Can you not hear us from over there?! Even with those giant ears of yours?!

What, you were talking to me?!

Duh, we've never seen you before. You know these fairies?

...

My goal here was just to figure out what that light was... I have no reason to get involved with a strange group of people.

Wait, so could you hear us or not?

...



The rabbit vanishes in a haze of static.

?! She vanished!

Our senses were thrown out of order there, for just a second. Was that some kind of spell?

Anyone who suddenly runs away like that scores full marks on my suspicion test.

Do you fairies know anything about that rabbit?

That giant ship is speaking with a human voice... Aren't you guys way more suspicious than her?

There's no use in explaining all this to a bunch of fairies.

Huh? Was that Akyu's voice this time?

She's pretty famous among the fairies, for being a great target for pranks...

Grr...

I doubt we'll get a proper explanation out of these girls, so let's just leave 'em alone and-

No, we have to grill them first. We'll use our entire force and exterminate them!

Huh?

If we don't take this chance now, I'll never get over my grudge for what they do every day!

Uh, well, I guess? Maybe?

...So did they play another prank on you recently?

I've heard the rumors that you're strict with fairies. It seems they were true.

Well, fine! That what we wanted, too!



Enemies spawn in because why not.

Ack, so we're going to fight the fairies...?!

Accidents happen everyday. This is the real thrill of being on the scene.

Ichirin, I'll help out as an operator!

Uh, okay... I'm sure you can do it, Akyu.

All right! Today we'll show off our Fairy-Youkai-Beast Alliance! We'll turn the tables on Akyu and her boat!


I'm going to just nuke the Three Fairies in one MAP.



Hey look, it's a night time version of 5M.



The gimmick of this chapter is that various teams have special conversations when they first attack.

Marisa, fighting as a pair isn't the same as how we normally do things. You need to pay attention to your partner's stamina and danmaku affinities while-

Got it. Anyway, I'll think about it after we charge in!

...Good grief. Was she even listening?

Music: Beloved Handmade Dolls



Some are obvious, but there are some flat out random ones too. Reimu and Cirno have a chat for crying out loud.

You know Nazrin, it's all thanks to you that I can fight with the Palanquin Ship at my back like this.

What do you mean? I could swear I left all the hard repair work to others...

Aren't you the one who took me outside on that snowy day? If it weren't for you, I would never have found what's truly important to me.

Nah, all I did was drag you outside. You're the one who did all the searching. Plus, it's my job to follow you around.



I gave Shou the Portable Gap. Combined with Grit, she can easily nullify damage. Too bad it sucks through her MP like crazy though.



Anyway there's not much else to say about this chapter, it's pretty much filler.

Enemy phase 1 starts with a refresher on Night terrain.

I'm feeling kinda good today.

I feel like I can use the true power of a moon fairy, too.

Rumia and Luna are both in good condition because it's nighttime.

It's been a while since we last fought at night, huh?

Shall we review the effects of "Night" then?

Night is the time of the youkai, so in Night stages, humans will have reduced stats.

If your "Night" terrain affinity is B, the all your other terrain affinities will be reduced by one rank. Two ranks if it's C.

On the other hand, people who have an S in "Night" will have all their other terrain affinity ranks increased by one.

It will be clear when it's a night stage, because there will be a moon icon shining on your map menu. You can also check it ahead of time from the formation screen, during the intermission.

Keep an eye on both the terrain and the time of day so you won't have the rug pulled out from under your feet.

There's another cutscene at the beginning of turn two.

You visited along with Yukari the other day, right? Ran's shiki?

Ah, you're the shrine maiden who didn't serve any tea!

Ever since we met her in spring, Chen's been playing with us all the time.

We've already got me and Dai and Rumia and Sunny and the rest... So she's the newbie.

I'm sure your guardian would be shocked to hear you're playing with strange fairies late at night.

That's pretty mean.

Have you contacted her yet? It's gotten pretty late. I'm sure Ran is worried about you.

Ugh, but Miss Ran hardly ever visits Mayohiga...

However, staying out late is the first sign of delinquency.

...Wah! I'm sorry Miss Ran...

We can't lose to their silver tongues! If words won't work, we fight back with force!

Alice has a conversation with Chen, but it's basically the exact same thing as that previous cutscene, right down to Chen apologizing. Weird.



Marisa has terrible odds against Chen, but Alice is fine.

So here's where you were, Rumia.

Huh, you two are with Reimu's group today.

Yes, we ended up running into Sakuya and the others. We saw the place where the ship took off and enjoyed a party.

A party, huh~? I hope there are still leftovers.



Rumia may be kind of buffed up, but not enough to be a threat.



One of the nice things about Magic Team is that they're almost guaranteed to kill any grunt they run into in one battle. This makes the bulkier turret-type enemies much more manageable.



Rumia's danmaku field slices off 20% off any allied unit's hit rate. It'd be a problem if everyone didn't have Strike or Focus.

Well okay, Cirno doesn't, but who cares about her.



Chen has a 50% Double Image herself, but Marisa has Strike and two levels of Support Attack so I don't care.

I got punished...



One of the convenient things about teams is that the person in the back gets experience too. Gain and Cheer affect both members too, so a stint in the back is a really easy way to catch up unused units.



Man, barriers don't play nice with animations.



Anyway a chain of support attacks takes Rumia out too. She drops a Sweet Potato.

I'm too hungry to fight... I'm gonna head back first.



Oh yeah, Akyu is on the Palanquin Ship too. Her main role is spamming Alert and Focus, because clearly a giant battleship should be able to dodge attacks on a dime.

Between Murasa's Grit and Akyu's Alert, I should never game over to losing the mothership.

Looks like your ability is working okay, Sunny.

She's not even using it.

With this anti-night charm, and all our powers put together, we're unstoppable! When you put three arrows together, at least one of them won't break!

So the other two are gonna break?

Still, with those powers, it would be pretty bad if they ambushed us.

I guess we'll just have to get them all at once with wide area attacks.

...Looks like a real danmaku fight isn't just throwing bullets at each other. You stop to chat, combine your powers... And there are all sorts of opponents.

Hatate...?

Akyu, open the hatch. I'll try this for myself.

Will you be okay? They're just fairies, but if you underestimate them, then...

I'm a crow tengu too, you know! I'm faster than anyone!

(...Plus, it looks like there really are things I'll never understand if I stay away from the action.)

Hatate, you're clear to launch!

Okay, I'm moving out!

Music: Girl on the Tailwind of a Story



Hatate, you're here to report on the battle too?

Since I'm here anyway, I might as well. It'd be a waste to just twiddle my thumbs back in the ship. Plus, if I get closer to the real thing, the quality of my photographs should go up too.

So you're still sticking to thoughtography then?

That's because it's my paper! Hatate Himekaido's Kakashi Spirit Report!

Concentrate, then take the shot! Let me show you my own way of reporting!



Hatate is cool because her default PS, Hermit Purple (yes, really), inflicts Armor Down on any enemy of your choice. She has a ridiculously high Focused move too, probably to mirror Double Spoiler.

Too bad she doesn't have Accel.



Her first attack also has a gimmick where if it misses, a joke image pops up. Sadly it's kind of hard to miss grunts, especially now that Rumia is down.



By the way, Cirno has a new finisher where she drops a huge chunk of ice on the target. I'll put up a compilation video of all the new attacks a couple chapters later, once most of the FMW2 crew has rejoined.



Sakuya here doesn't have a Firefly Gem on, so like the dialogue says she's suffered a drop in all her terrain ranks. But she has the Shimenawa on, so it evens out.



Sanae casts Miracle because why not.



And Komachi finishes off this fairy Aya weakened from across the screen because why not.



Soon the Three Fairies are all that's left. Thankfully, Sunny doesn't activate her field (it's Reflection) on Normal.



Though Luna and Star's +30% accuracy/evasion buffs are annoying enough as is.



One good hit from Magic Team will knock a fairy down to critical. And Alice has Mercy just to be extra safe.

One shrine maiden, two... gah.

Excuse me?

The number of shrine maidens went up. It's like that one ghost story where a guy sees the face of his dead wife everywhere.

Because he killed her, right? I think Reimu and I are the ones who'll be exterminating you, though...



Okay maybe casting Miracle that early wasn't the best idea after all.

Did you lot sneak into the Scarlet Devil Mansion two days ago?

Gwah, we've been caught!

Obviously. You ate the mistress' pudding in the kitchen... so let me serve you some tea. I expect you won't vanish this time?

Huh? Are you welcoming us?

I think now is a good chance for you to talk with the young mistress. She hasn't had much of a chance for social life until very recently, so she needs to practice communicating with other people.

But isn't it dangerous to play with that girl?

Didn't you hear me? Now is a good chance.



Also agh, I forgot to turn animations on two times in a row.



Since the Three Fairies all have HP Regen, I'll have to do some weakening before I drop the Palanquin Ship's laser.

*yawn* It's kind of a shame.

What, why are you looking at us like that?

Well, right before I got here I had a nice dinner on that ship over there. If you settle down, I could give you some leftovers.

Hey, Akyu challenged us! Is this some kind of trap?!



I can't believe Komachi doesn't have Mercy.

I also can't believe she has a chat with the fairies, I kept battle animations off because I figured she wouldn't.



While lowering Luna's HP, I remembered I still had both shots of Hermit Purple left. Hey, better safe than sorry, right?



Since nobody was in range to safely weaken Luna (or maybe they were, but I have no way of knowing for sure without a quicksave), I had Aya use Tailwind on Dai so she could reach a position where a bomb would only hit Luna.



Boom.

Aaagh, I messed uuuup!

I knew this would happen...

Oh well, I guess there's no helping it. I'll just stay back and watch.



Sadly, killing Sunny with a MAP means she doesn't drop her Firefly Gem. Make that another missed opportunity!

I knew this would happen...

Looks like the fairies are going to behave themselves after this.

That wasn't even enough exercise to work off that meal.

...Phew, so that's what real danmaku battlers are like?

So how was it? Were you able to feel how fun it is to take pictures with your own two feet?

It was interesting, but it's still got all sorts of little problems. The motion blur was terrible for my camera, and it's hard to choose the timing for thoughtography.

But still, it should be a good motivator, right?

Yeah, by experiencing it for myself, my articles from here on out should be totally different. I wanna start writing as soon as I get home.

Looks like Hatate's gotten a taste for reporting. As her mentor, I bet you feel a mix of happiness and impatience, right?

...Well, Hatate has her own good points, but she'll never be a match for me.

Just be honest, Aya...

Forget that, we're hungry after all that moving around!

You wouldn't happen to any any leftovers from dinner on that ship?

Oh my, looks like the fairies are the same as always.

I can't decide if they haven't learned their lesson or are just totally shameless.

It's fine. I wanted to ask them about that youkai rabbit from earlier anyway.

Okay, then I'll move the Palanquin Ship closer and we'll join up with the fairies.

Yay! We get to ride it too!

We're heading right over, so just wait over there!



To my eternal shame, I forgot to take a screenshot of the WP bonus get screen. Now I can't toot.

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On Lunatic everything takes longer because there's more danmaku and all of the enemies start near the Three Fairies. All this boils down to is sitting right outside their range of attack so they come out of Sunny's danmaku radius.
I actually could have gotten the bonus on this chapter's lunatic version if I hadn't gotten Temple Team killed, but aaaaah I don't care I just want to get to 37 already.

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