Tengu Reporter Quest (Touhou) (World 7 - Wheel of Time)

Better make sure people don't get the wrong idea about youkai. Take Hatate to Edo Castle and blow away the intruders.


"You aren't in trouble, Hatate." You can feel the tension drain from her at your response. "We do have one more bit of business before we return, however, so make sure you have everything and let's go." She hesitates, then nods quickly and makes sure her things are put away before bowing to the shop-keeper. He bows back.

"Have a good evening, Miss Tengu." The crowd pulls apart again as you walk toward them, Hatate following you closely, and the humans scatter when you suddenly dart into the air.

"Um, where are we going, Aya?" She looks around as you keep flying toward the castle, and quickly realizes your objective. She keeps following you, of course, even as you land on the wall and look over the battlefield toward the Empire's forces and their siege equipment. Inside the castle are mostly police, with a few civilians who haven't yet been evacuated and some who must be soldiers. There's even a reporter, currently interviewing one of the civilians while two soldiers keep guard – but of course your entrance draws everyone's attention. Some of the soldiers even point their weapons at you, and one of the flying machines hovers overhead, and its multibarreled weapon is cause for some concern, but you pay them no apparent intention as you look in the direction of the Gate. Bits of conversation fly up to you – murmurs of whether you're an angel or a tengu, questions of what you're doing here, and so many other silly human concerns.

There are no tengu here, at least none who are actually doing anything. No magicians, either. The winds are free for you to use, and they leap to your call. From the north, from the west, even some of the southerly winds heed your summons, and you smile at the havoc that will be played on the weather from your actions. The humans get a ladder from somewhere, and the reporter is the first one up, his cameraman fourth after two soldiers clamber up, sidearms holstered. You ignore their questions, and Hatate interposes herself, stating that you're busy. The air in the castle grounds starts growing heavy as you shut down the air movement in preparation for your attack, and the flying machine wobbles before descending and finally landing. Finally, the winds massed over the castle are ready, eager to launch themselves at whatever target you choose, and you look at your prey. A small pack of wyverns huddled together in a steel-and-glass building; war machines to throw stones; goblins and their oni-sized cousins; and, of course, so many humans. Few, if any, can see you due to the deepening gloom, but it's so bright everywhere else that you can see easily. And so, without words or motions – you don't need any hand signs or silly attack names to reap a whirlwind – the skies turn on the city below.

The winds howl as they dive toward the castle, peeling forward only a few meters over your head and surging toward the Empire's lines, reaching to the ground to yank up weapons for their charge. Corpses, debris, swords, spears, even the sand and dust of the earth join with the wind under your command, and somewhere behind you a flagpole snaps to hurtle toward the foe. The great goblins suffer first, impaled and smashed by heaps of timber that used to be siege equipment, but the lesser mortals suffer as well, crushed by bodies and wreckage, stabbed and slashed by their own weapons, abraded and blinded by dust, and lifted and thrown by the winds. An army, thinking itself safe from reprisal, buckles and shatters under the onslaught of a mysterious calamity.

The wreckage of man's works – vehicles, signs, equipment – smash into buildings, freeing the interiors to join the devastation, and the shattered windows add their deadly shards to to your arsenal. The wyverns, desperate to escape the unrelenting attacks, attempt to flee their impromptu roost and are dashed against other buildings or the streets instead, and as the columns of wind blast through the invaded streets you carve off smaller windstorms, tornadoes that tear great swathes of destruction through buildings and hurl debris toward the Gate. There are some minor disruptions of the wind – someone slowing the assault's headlong charge ever so slightly – and you obliterate the pockets of resistance with downbursts. The Empire may have magicians, but they are small and weak children, unable to stand against the unbridled force of a rampant tengu, and you feel a grin split across your face. You have missed this.

You are no longer in Gensokyo, no longer bound by the rules of fair play and danmaku and Spell Cards, no longer constrained by the need to maintain the population of the Human Village. Here, now, you are free.

Minutes pass as your winds lash out against the Empire, as you demonstrate not only to them, but to the watching world, that which they have forgotten and laid to rest. Humans are transient, their works crumble beneath the storm you have unleashed and direct ruthlessly.

But even youkai are not eternal, and you do tire. You release the winds from your yoke, let them return to making their way through the world their own way. The humans beside you on the wall-top, and those others who can see the devastation wrought by the storm, stand uncomprehending, their little brains trying to author a story their conception of the world can accept. You walk forward to the edge of the roof and adjust your hold on your bag as you look over the works of the mighty. Yes, the storm you just unleashed would have obliterated the Human Village and left nothing behind; would have torn apart the Senatorial District of Sadera; but in Tokyo you have but mangled a tiny, infinitesimal portion of it. You have nipped off the merest tip of a finger, done nothing but peel the scab off a healing wound. And now you want to find a comfortable bed and go to sleep.


What do you do?

[ ] Back to the mansion.

[ ] Other?