Part 81: ...Tokyo Ravens

...Tokyo Ravens

We've got two new levels worth of demons to fuse this time around. Sounds like that might very well be a lot, and more than we need, but nope. It's actually quite sparse.



The Lady of the Lake (in this case Seiryuu & Laksmi) is the sole available level 52 demon. There is a second, but we actively couldn't make it even if we wanted to.

Instead, I had the fun of trying to make a Seiryuu that can cast some magic just so Vivian would be usable. That was a pretty irritiating chain that started all the back with a Kikimora. Plus side is that since it used Mithra twice, getting Vivian up to 40 magic with Megido was very doable.



Much easier to piece together was the White Tiger of the West (Seiryuu & Myrmecolion). Warp Step's the upgraded Avatar racial skill; it just increases the max range to 8 spaces away. The increased range is nice I guess but it's still super niche.

Also Byakko here is basically noteworthy for being Hibiki's first, and main, demon in the anime. Try not to think too hard about that.

Anyway, for the next demon we want to get a passive skill to patch its sole weakness. The easiest way at this level to do that without a large chain is to get one of our demons to level 53. Not happening in any time soon, so instead we'll use data cards.



Lots of data cards. As nice as it was to get Rejuvenate (casts Mediarahan at the start of a skirmish if anyone's injured), Desperation and Fire Repel for free it did slow things down considerably.



Now that Seiryuu has Elec Repel, we can combine him with Byakko to make Osiris. He's a significantly more physical oriented Deity so he's not straight-up replacing Mithra. The default difference isn't particularly pronounced, but his fusion components are mostly physical oriented so making one that can punch hard is easier than making one that can cast all of the spells.



That's everything we can fuse out of the way, so let's go see if we can get our party back in order.





[Music: Elegy]

Ah...! Hibiki!?
How are your wounds?
My wounds...? Oh, um, they're fine...
Look, what are you doing here!? I'm your enemy!
You're my friend.
What...? Your friend!?
In the end... I couldn't do anything.



That stuff doesn't matter.
Come on...! Don't talk like you know it all!
What could you want with a completely useless girl like me...!?
You saved us from Alioth.
Huh...!? That's... not much of a consolation.



...You beat me. I'm done. All I have left is my dancing.
That's important too.
S-So what? Anyway, what's your angle, teaming up with that weirdo?
We'll make a new world.



Haha... That's so outlandish I can hardly believe it.
...What're you gonna do about Polaris? You think he'll let you do that?
Saiduq will replace him.
Huh!? Wait, is that even possible?
Man, you're nuts... So what kind of place is your new world going to be?
It depends on us.



I-Is that gonna work? 'Cause if anything's possible, it could go well or badly...
I need your help.
What? You want me on your side...?



And if we'll be free, then it's possible we can make your world great, right?

[Music: Over the Brink of Death]



Welcome aboard.



Mm... I got myself into this, so why not? I'll help you create your new world!
I'll dance for the people in it, too! That'll make it a great place for sure!
Alright, let me go get ready to join up with you.
I'll be waiting.
Um... Thanks, Hibiki. I'm glad you took the time to come get me. See you!

You say your farewells to Hinako before leaving...



There's one. Now for the other...



[Music: In the Devastated Town]

...Hibiki.
How are you?
Mm. Not too good. I mean, I lost.



I'd fight to protect my friends, but...
For the sake of the world.
The world? You want to improve the world? But...



Fighting doesn't help. I still think that.
That's dodging the issue.
I'm not, though. I just don't like fighting friends.



Reset this world.
Reset it? You mean start from scratch? I don't get it.
What kinda place are you thinking of making it?
It'll be whatever we want.



But... Why'd you come see me? We already fought.
We're friends, right?
...So we are still friends?
But I dunno why you'd want me helping to make your new world. There's nothing I can do.
Chawanmushi.



Is that how your new world's gonna be? I should make sure and think about that too.

[Music: Over the Brink of Death]

I'll come with you. If you'll let me, Hibiki.
But I want you to try not to hurt your other friends.
Of course.



Thanks. I believe in you, Hibiki.
I'm gonna go get ready. I need to apologize to everyone too... I'll see you later.

You say your farewells to Jungo before leaving...



Alright, that done we'll do what we gotta do now and... completely ignore our promise to Jungo and beat up Daichi.



[Music: Connected Hearts]

Ah... up ahead is your oldest friend, whom you were close to even before this calamity.

It seems Saiduq appeared without you noticing...

Quit DOING that!
Hm...? Oh... my apologies. I completely forgot.



Are you ready...?
Let's just do it.
Very well. Then let us go, Shining One.



Yeah... don't worry. They'll be here soon. ...See? It's Hibiki.

[Music: Countdown]



Dammit... s-so the reports were true! We're not gonna lose!
Calm down.
Wh-What! Aren't you guys invading Tokyo? We don't have any other choice...!
...My, we're in a real fix.
It seems he's aware that we've already fought Hinako Kujou and the others.
We've got to do this.



...It seems we will have to fight, after all.
It can't be helped.
Indeed. I hope we won't have to hurt them badly.



Now...let's begin. This is a momentous battle to prevent the collapse of man's choices.

[Music: Challenge to the Fate]



Compared to the previous map, this one's a complete joke.



There's still a lot of things to crack, but there's not really much of a dilemma for the most part. The hardest choice here is between Piercing Hit and Deathbound to be frank.



The other three are no brainers. Null Auto's a lot more useful than it sounds, and it sounds pretty useful to begin with. Pretty niche in its uses but hey.



Daichi is, uh... Daichi. He plays to his strengths better than Hinako did but that's not saying much. He doesn't have Multi-Strike or Pierce so he's not a real thread. Endure makes him possibly a minor annoying and Anti-Most does not matter in the slightest considering his defences are pretty bad too.



Io is much the same. Not really a threat, but she's got a lot of HP. No resistances though. Recarm and Diarahan mean she can keep throwing her demons back as meatshields and keeping them alive while they slowly whittle you down.

Or something. I imagine that's the general idea behind it anyway, but it doesn't really work out like that.



A lot of the early map is spent slowly advancing and getting into position for later. There's two enemy units down here that Saiduq's going after with Python. He's the best pick here since he can get down and back slightly quicker.



This particular guy has the Kazfiel and Mabufudyne we're cracking. Strangely, there is a second Kazfiel on the map with Mabufudyne, in Io's party, but you can't crack it from that one. Hmm....



Oh well, not like it's particularly hard to get from this one anyway. Only real issue is that since there's a Girimehkala there's no Multi-Strike shenanigans to be had.



Now that we've drawn first blood, enemy units will finally start to move. Daichi pops Devil Flash on his Taown and immediately beelines for, uh...



Well, it was nice knowing you Daichi. Not like any option was the safe option, mind.



I guess I gotta give him credit for actually trying to stand up for what he's doing.

[Music: Decisive Battle With A Sworn Friend]



Not like it really matters too much. His demons are woefully weak (Kresnik, this late?) and drop without any fanfare. Daichi prefers to spend his own turns using Nigayomogi too which is kinda silly and a waste of time.



Really, in the end Daichi never stood a chance. He's a good enemy to use Drain on though. He has a decent stock of HP and MP so you can heal both up without any issue.



But, of course, there's a little bit more to it than this. It would be far, far, far too easy if it really was as simple as it looks.

[Music: Silence]



Remember our Irish buddy, Lugh?





Good, because, well...





He's back. And now we have to fight him.



[Music: Desperate Situation]



These are Lugh's powers... this is why humanity is not to be underestimated.
I can do this... now, everyone! Rise up!



Now...the battle begins at this point. I hope you're prepared!

That thing about increasing the abilities doesn't really seem to do much of anything in terms of stats. It does give everyone a third passive skill, though.



...So, Io-channeling-Lugh is very different from base Io. This is where her resistances come from, her race is even changed to a Deity and she has Enlightenment as a racial skill now instead of a regular old Auto-Skill. She won't use its magic buff part though though. Good thing, because if she did Areadbhar might actually be threatening then! It should actually cost 40 MP, but she's a Deity so...

Other than her super-Almighty spell (unique to this gimmick in this fight, so we can never crack it of course, which makes sense since it is one of Lugh's spears), she's just really tanky like before. Prayer is just what happens if you take Mediarahan and Amrita and make them one spell; heals all HP and cures all status. Samarecarm is upgraded Recarm. Revives KO'd dudes at full HP.



Now that enemy units are moving, we just lure them slowly towards us and pick 'em off.



Sadly, Lugh's field-wide passive buff does not affect physical skills. The HP costs for those are unchanged.



Not like it matters, when we wipe out dudes without much fanfare or hassle anyway.



I specifically had Jungo not bumrush this guy so Hibiki could do the honors. He's the only one on the map with a Python. If you looked at the cracks, you'd know this means...



He's where we get Megido from.

Also, holy shit Baihu is a fucking beast with those Multi-Strikes. Goddamn.



Needless to say, we ARE using this right away. Hibiki now has nothing but Almighty spells. They'll change up when we fight bosses with actual weaknesses we can exploit, naturally.



Keeping up the trend of new Add-Ons, we also picked up Agility+3. Much like the new sets, there's also slightly better stat boosts now. There's a +3 for every stat. No multi-stat boosts sadly; guess they thought that'd be too ridiculous or something.



Now, this lady could be a bit of a nuisance. Could.



If only because she spends her first turn casting Tetrakarn. This puts Byakko on Guard duty since he can't do anything else.

One of her Vivians also has Makarakarn. This would be a problem, but...



Much like Shield All, it does not affect Almighty spells. They can reflect all the magic they like. I have two dudes throwing around Megidos. No fucks shall be given.



These guys finally get to start picking fights of their own with Saiduq.



This is your reminder that he has Python. It might not be 4 digits, but it's pretty damn close!



The other guy tries to do what his buddy with actual backup failed to do. He gets punched all of once by Yaksa. And it's just a normal punch too.



Speaking of punches, a random student's picking a fight with Jungo. This is a bad idea, lady.



Or, rather, it should be. Turns out it's a slightly better idea than it seems. Her Dzelarhons has Tetrakarn. How... unfortunate...?



Like, sure, that stops Jungo oneshotting everything. It doesn't stop Laksmi dropping an Elec Dance or Mithra dropping a Megido. She doesn't even have Makarakarn to scratch out the Elec Dance either.



This just leaves Io on her own. Only tough part is not having Hinako wipe her out in one go.



Letting Io survive is marginally harder than it sounds.

[Music: Decisive Battle With A Sworn Friend]



Wiping out her demons is the easy bit. Hinako's Multi-Strike slightly weakened Io too, but not by a great amount.



Osiris might be a bit too strong for his own good though. If this Double Strike critted, Io would've wiped on the spot.



The good thing about Areadbhar being Almighty is that even though we can't do anything about it hitting us...



Without the boost from Enlightenment, it still doesn't hurt that much. Almighty spells big thing is that they deal damage to basically everything without issue. To counteract this being even more ridiculous, they're all actually relatively weak. It's just not that easy to notice for the most part.



...Since I had Seiryuu not murder Io, she gets to revive one of her demons. Oh well.



She then uses her actual turn reviving the other one. She does nothing else.



On the one hand, I can't blame her for not picking a fight she'd probably lose.



On the other hand, since she didn't try to run away either that makes it really easy to just walk up to her and have Baihu use Multi-Strike once. Kazfiel narrowly survived, sure, but Io didn't and Vivian definitely didn't.



So, yeah. No big major "kill it immediately from a distance" threats on this map. Lugh's kind of trying to be the de facto boss of the fight, but eh.



Not really. Dude's more in the mini-boss territory than anything else.

Really these fights would've benefitted from some minor adjustments. Swap Io and Hinako and both maps are more sensible then. It makes less sense for the characters to be paired off like that, but that way Jungo still gets to Jungo. His demons benefit from the reduced MP cost from Lugh and then Lugh isn't trying to be the main boss of the map and failing. Shiva can still turn up here and actually be the big threat he's meant to, at least in theory, be which would also help give this fight an actual challenging opponent.

[Music: In the Devastated Town]



That was easy.
Indeed. I would say things went mostly according to plan.
In any case, all those who had gathered in Tokyo have been defeated.



That'll be no problem.
...That is surprising. Is your will limitless?
Ah, and don't forget to talk to the friends you defeated a moment ago.

You part with Saiduq and leave the area...



Since we got to fight Lugh-Io, and had him job to us, we can now fuse the guy in a couple levels.

No, really, he's only a level 57 demon. We're very, very close to that already.



We'll worry about that when the time comes though. For now, we have to go speak with Io and Daichi.

...And then we have some spare time, strangely enough. Regardless of whether or not Io and Daichi join us, they'll be available for a scene then too.

So with that in mind, who do we spend this interlude with?