Part 23: Faith is From the Transient People (L)

Reimu doesn't give a shit about this friendship bullshit, it's solo run time.



After some readjustment at least. I've scrounged up enough WP to cap Reimu just in time.



I debated slapping on armor boosting items for safety, but I decided it would probably be smarter to buff her accuracy instead.



Lastly, skills. As the only person on the field, Reimu won't have to worry about building Power. Ammo is a legitimate concern though, so of course she wants Ammo Save. Nine levels of SP Up would also be helpful, but sadly there's no space.



There aren't any youkai enemies in chapter 22, so Youkai Buster is pointless. Duplex Barrier can actually come in handy, but since I already buffed Reimu's accuracy I may as well risk Intuition. Best defense is a good offense and all that.



Since Reimu is forced, I need to select at least one other character to start. So here's Cirno for moral support.



Priority one is to get to the office. As high as Reimu's evasion might be, even she can't totally nullify graze damage without casting Focus. And I need to save SP for Sanae.



If I don't rush straight to Sanae I get a one turn grace period, but from turn two onwards all of the fairies start rushing me. A lot of them are landed now too, so occasionally they'll get terrain boosts.



The green fairies are jerks, because their physical attacks have a one third chance of hitting. And even if they don't, the graze damage really stings. Better to evade than to counter.

I tried pushing my luck anyways and got hit by two 23%'s in a row, forcing a restart.



After that crock of bullshit, I swapped strategies. Out with Predict and Intuition, in with Instinct Dodge 9 and Duplex Barrier.



Cirno was clearly an awful choice, so in comes Dai.



So here's the new strategy: CHARGE!



Danmaku penalties will make this first turn extremely painful,



but Defend + Duplex Barrier should keep Reimu alive. Instinct Dodge will kick in, and then I can have Reimu can kick all the ass.

Yellow fairies are harmless, so priority goes to green and large fairies.



Unfortunately they're all spamming Evade (and dodging 75%'s), so killing things on player phase is like slamming my head against the RNG.



And the yellow fairies know they're harmless, so they're just swarming Reimu and trying to weaken her with their danmaku instead of attacking.



how have i missed four 75%s in a row



It took 20 turns to clean up the fairies.



Sanae has a non-zero hit rate. That'll make getting on top of the shrine tough, so it'd better to regenerate all of Reimu's HP first.

Please pretend I spent ten turns on the office instead of just having Dai cast Trust twice.



Sanae spams Focus, which is the main reason why I didn't want to waste SP.



Her damage isn't too hot yet though, so Duplex Barrier can carry me through.



By the way, this time Sanae is actually on the shrine.



She's not standing on the shrine though, so only Reimu gets that defense bonus.

Lunatic Sanae also has adjusted AI; instead of gunning for Reimu, she'll target whoever is the weakest like a regular boss. This actually makes Patchouli's dramatic entrance a little problematic since she's by far the frailest character on the field.



After waiting a few turns for her to deplete her SP, Reimu finally starts her counter attack. I drop a save here as a checkpoint because screw going through those 27 turns again.



First things first, I need to win this coin flip to strip off Sanae's Alert.



...Eh, that works too.



Let the coin flips begin.

After five deaths, I decide this plan isn't working. The other thing I can do is take advantage of Sanae's zeroed out SP to slowly heal.



Let's pretend I did that. Healing cripples my accuracy (which is why I wanted to use Predict at first), but Instinct Dodge got me through the enemies so I can't complain.



Take two.



Occasionally Sanae will only have enough SP for an Alert, which is basically a free turn.



It takes far too long, but Sanae goes down to critical. Now Reimu just has to cast Sense and snipe Sanae from as far away as possible.



Since Sanae didn't get to counter, Reimu still has her Alert.

There's different dialogue here if you either didn't or couldn't recruit Nitori.

Similarly, the conversation for God's Wind and the postlogue changes. But it's basically the same thing, only more boring, so who cares.



The goal now is to time out everything.



Once she hits her second spell, Sanae will start moving. She'll almost always beeline for Patchy and Koakuma.



As always, the third spell starts with Sanae casting Miracle. Reimu's Alert will pull her through this,



but on Lunatic Sanae casts Miracle at the start of each turn. This makes it impossible to survive the final spell, outrun her long enough to deplete all her MP, or even complete a solo run for that matter because Alert is in the way.

And note you can't time God's Wind out.

Oh well. I'll go back and have some tea.


I have won. Now hand over the Hakurei shrine!

How could this happen...?!


_{It says Game Over}

A solo run is actually possible on Normal/Hard (and you don't even have to time everything out), but on Lunatic? Not happening. Even if you save scum everything up until the final spell, Miracle spam will bring you under.

So what was the point of all that? Well for one thing I wanted to show off what a solo run of the game looks like (FYI it's pretty boring), but fact is that 22 Lunatic isn't very different from 22 Normal. Enemies evade and Sanae casts Focus a bunch so the RNG is more frustrating, but unlike Aya I don't have to waste all of my SP on a midboss. It evens out to the exact same thing, only without Nitori popping up because I guess Marisa is just an asshole on Reimu's route.
_{I may have also wanted an excuse to post a picture of Reimu flipping people off.}

From here on out, I'll be skipping over any Lunatic chapters that are pretty much the same as Normal. I'll note any differences at the bottom of each update.




Here's the one difference in the strategy: to prevent Sanae from running off and attacking Patchy, I need to pen her in. Sanae standing on the shrine actually works out for me because that lets Meiling and Keine get in range for their finishers. Also Marisa isn't parked next to Alice because Master Spark doesn't have good enough odds without their friendship. So instead Marisa is just triggering Elly's Support Attacks.



Now with all of that said, on the actual run I completely fucked up and blew all of my SP on Summon Takeminakata. This turned the entire last spell into me trying the odds, and if it weren't for Mokou pulling off a clutch Flying Phoenix I probably would have had to restart.







I had Alice spawn some dolls in since I didn't have any spare fairies. The one in charge of clearing out Sanae's Alert got overkilled for like 11k.

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The game has been paused. Please take a break.

...Kanako Yasaka, the god of the Moriya shrine, has an intimidating presence far beyond that of the gods we've encountered so far. But for the sake of the Hakurei shrine's peace, she must be defeated.

Please don't give up, everyone!

Now then, please have fun playing Chapter 22 of Fantasy Maiden Wars P: "Ah, Gods and Mortals on the Grounds of the Divine Lake"!
_{The exact kanji used for "Gods" is specifically "Gods of heaven and earth", but that's way too long.}

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Available cost: 25.0

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

2.0
Cirno
Elly
Kurumi
Nitori
Koakuma

1.5
Rumia
Daiyousei
Sunny
Luna
Star

Marisa and Alice are in, so you've got 20.0 to work with. And this should be obvious, but you can only have one Nitori.