Part 20: The Visible Path (L)

Okay here we go. You'll notice right away that on Lunatic, chapter 21 has more enemies.



Combine that with the crows spamming danmaku and you get a much harder initial wave. I can't muscle through with judicious use of SP either; I'll need as many Strikes as I can for Aya.

Music: Price of Life



So instead I'll just have everyone focus, then hunker down and abuse Support Attack. Having Sunny instead of Luna would make things a little smoother, but every little bit of accuracy counts here.



Reimu lost a coin flip, so I had her get the hell out of dodge as soon as she snagged the kappa bomb. Dai should be able to heal her before Aya shows up.



This god damn crow dodged four 50%s in a row.



THAT WAS A 5%

Yeah so no way am I doing this without Reimu. Restart time.



Aya joins with some extra crow tengu this time.



With all of her defense buffs active, Keine is practically immortal. Momiji will be the only enemy who can do more than 400 damage to her.



Also I made a mistake here and had Reimu waste a Fantasy Seal on a crow. Her MP pool is large enough that this won't be an issue, but it's still really dumb.



The reinforcements are much less spectacular this time. At least Meiling and Elly have Strike for Aya.



Speaking of Aya, Reimu will be blowing all of her SP on Focus to take down the southern front. Theoretically her evade rates are good enough as is, but I think you all know what would happen if I tried to risk it.



Here's the state of the field after a meatgrinder of a turn. While the crow tengu didn't take the bait and attacked my main army, everyone else in Aya's force is dead. Now Reimu just has to delay Aya while everyone else cleans up Momiji.

Ummm, it's hard to tell who's who...

...What a rude devil. Amongst all of the tengu, only I have been entrusted with this massive sword and shield. If you can't understand that, let me carve the difference into your body!



Shield Defense is a bitch.



Also I forgot to have Elly focus so she just got murdered when she tried to take down a wolf tengu.



The other scythe-wielder isn't doing too hot either; Komachi's out of MP from all of the Support Attacking she's been doing.



Aya ignored Reimu too.

Is it really okay for the teacher of the temple elementary school to be leading an invasion?

Oh, you know about me?

Yes, you teach history in the human village. I was actually planning on going there to gather data. Though, writing about just your job wouldn't be very interesting. If I knew more about you I think I could write a better article.

I'd like to talk more, but I don't think the situation allows for it...



Well better Keine than Dai.



Aya's initial field buffs enemy evade rates, which is why I wanted to keep her away from the rest of the enemies so much. Luna uses up my spare bomb to get rid of the problem.



Miraculously, Momiji didn't trigger Shield Defense.



Momiji has both Vigor and Guard, so it's really important to kill her in one turn. The AI is set to use "defensive" spirits at critical health, even though it would make more sense to start off with Guard. Not that I'm complaining.

Music: The Dashing, Falling Fall



Sheesh, this is annoying!

Eventually I get to her spell, and she immediately uses it to kill Kurumi. Oh no.

White wolf tengu are said to have keen eyes and strong noses. You'd make a nice gatekeeper.

Don't be ridiculous. I am a proud tengu, not some dog for you lot to domesticate.

How unfortunate. Still, you seem to have misunderstood. We have no need of another gatekeeper. She may not be the best, but I wouldn't accept anyone else.





Sakuya's a decent spare body to trigger Support Attacks off of. She's be more useful if I could savescum Private Square, but yeah.



Meanwhile Marisa will be completely useless against Aya so it's fine to waste all her MP on Momiji.

An ice fairy, hm. You may be a fairy, but I won't treat you lightly.

Ohoho, are you the first to recognize my true strength?

To measure the capabilities of the enemy. That is the duty we were given.

Same goes for Cirno.

My earlier disgrace... today is the day I wipe it away, Hakurei shrine maiden! And you're in top form... that makes fighting you even worthwhile!
_{EDIT: Thanks again, Hokuto.}

Top form...? Actually, now that I think about it, you ambushed us last time too.

Remembering that moment ticks me off. I'll exterminate you quickly and head to Moriya Shrine!



And Reimu nails the finish.



With one boss down, I quickly rearrange the formation so Aya will have zero chance of killing anyone.



Then another formation shift to something that can take her down.



Aya is harmless now so I could theoretically regenerate all of my MP then try for a kill. But unfortunately her evasion is so high that without save scumming it isn't feasible. So I'll have to cheese it.



But first, I have to beat her first lifebar. Sakuya had a pretty decent hit rate so I had her kamikaze. Sadly, no luck.

My apologies, but I must fall back.


Hm, so a fairy came all the way to Youkai Mountain...

Hey! If you're calling me an idiot, you'll be sorry!

No, no, I was just thinking about how fairies do the most interesting things. But then, I suppose that's their nature.

I hoped Cirno could land a Freeze at some point, but she missed every single time.

By the way, I picked up a copy of your paper once. The rain smudged all the ink though, so I couldn't understand it at all.

...I don't think you would have been able to read it anyways.


Ugh, this is all Sunny's fault!

Luna slightly tapped Aya then died. In hindsight I shouldn't have sacrificed Silence, but eh.



Stop dodging Fantasy Seal damn it, it's the only move that actually should be hitting you!

Oh and for some reason Aya's dodge animation breaks against Fantasy Seal. Her sprite doesn't shift to the "dodge" one until after she finishes dodging the whole thing.



I blow my final bomb and then pile on again.



Guh, I can't hold on any longer...!

Or rather I tried to, but Reimu is the only person with a reasonable hit rate and Aya keeps dodging anyways.

Sorry, but I'm going to go relax in the back.

At this point only close range melee attacks have a chance of hitting, and indeed after a couple misses



Mokou strikes gold.



And then I sat around for six turns straight.

All of my dolls are broken. I'll have to repair them...

I am physically incapable of capturing Aya's last two spells, but this situation is exactly why timing out exists!

You're, you're the person from before at the lake. The really fast tengu...

Oh, so even fairies remember my speed. This might be fate. How about I go to your place for an interview?

Pl-please don't! I think Cirno could tell you more than I can...

Losing Aya's item drop is a shame, but my characters are so buffed up it doesn't matter much.







Somebody checked the code and found out that FMW2 doesn't actually penalize you for losing units. It's strange, but again I'm not complaining.

------

The game has been paused. Please take a break.

...At long last, they've arrived at the enemy base, the Moriya shrine. Sanae Kochiya meets them with the utmost seriousness. In order to settle things with Reimu, she has accumulated a vast amount of faith.

But we have all of our friends. We can't lose to a single girl!

Now then, please have fun playing Chapter 22 of Fantasy Maiden Wars P: "Faith is From the Transient People"!

-----

Available cost: 23.0

Available units:
2.5
Marisa
Alice
Sakuya
Meiling
Keine
Mokou
Komachi
(Reimu is force deployed)

2.0
Cirno
Elly
Kurumi

1.5
Rumia
Daiyousei
Sunny
Luna
Star

As always I'm forcing Marisa and Alice, so you've got 18.0 to work with.