[X] Search for something
-[X] We need to get a few more grief seeds to clean that ugly yellow gem so let's track some youkai down.
--[X] Besides there may be more witches about looking for those seeds too so it's possible well find someone that will give a decent fight.
You decide to do without a lair for the meantime - you haven't seen anything that looks appealing for long-term residence, and for the short-term any place will do, really, so long as it's dry and away from the sun (and preferably underground). Much more important is that you have no Grief Seeds; Mami's Soul Gem is atrocious, and badly in need of cleaning, and while Kyouko's is clean now, you don't know what causes the blackness to well up. You guess it's probably related to magic use; if true, further experimentation on your part would necessitate having some kind of 'refueling' agent on hand ... for that matter, you wonder why the witches here need Grief Seeds to begin with. Maybe they're like Marisa, and have little magical power available to them, so they 'eat' the energy of youkai to replenish their reserves. That would explain several things: the blackness was the same color for both Mami and Kyouko, and is simply the soul's state of emptiness; the bright colors, meanwhile, are the souls' inherent magical gifts, which is why they're different for all the witches you've encountered; and because they're human witches and not youkai witches, they don't have the natural ability to recover magic on their own, instead needing to steal energy from youkai, who both have far more power than humans and can naturally recover it! You smile - you may not be good with magic yourself, but you're pretty good at figuring things out!
Of course, that means that witches will be looking for youkai as well; they need the Grief Seeds, so they'll be hunting just like you are now. Though, they're probably much better at it ... you never were much for finding hidden things, so you have to do things the hard way, physically going to a place and looking for signs of witches or youkai. It would probably be easier to look for witches instead of youkai, since you know what several of them look like. You wonder whether either of them, the black-haired girl or that pale-haired witch, are as good as Mami was. Mami was fun to fight, not because she was any real threat to a freshly-fed vampire at night, but because she made it more of a game. You know what the black-haired girl can do, and there's not much you can do to counter her ability, so as long as she actually tries to fight instead of avoiding you or running off, she might be fun. Maybe she even has a stash of silver weapons like Sakuya! You giggle; silver isn't actually any more inherently dangerous to vampires than steel, just a bit more painful, and it holds enchantments better. Of course, since putting enough silver into a weapon to keep a powerful enchantment tended to make the weapon pretty bad for fighting with, it tended to be used as a finisher, when magicians and hundreds of ordinary humans had already worn down the vampire, or used in large amounts of weaponry, which tended to be expensive and difficult to use effectively against a single target.
Unfortunately, your early-morning sweep of the northern part of the city fails to yield a hint of youkai or witch, and as dawn creeps up you start to look for a temporary den. You swing back to the far side of the shopping area, near where you had tried to feed for the third time several nights ago. It's not hard to find - a lot of buildings have either gone abandoned or simply collapsed, and you marvel at the amount of destruction humans can put out in a short time. Maybe they'll be more fun than youkai? You shift into your bat form and find a basement to sleep in during the day. Maybe you'll have more luck finding a youkai or witch in the evening ....
You wake up with the sun still in the sky, but falling toward the horizon, yellow shifting to orange and beautiful red. You carefully clamber out of the collapsed basement and perch near the top of the house, watching and waiting for evening to fall and pass. No humans pass by you on foot, although you see a few carriages hurry through. Once night falls completely you shift back and quickly check the area for signs of witches or youkai. You find nothing. You decide to sweep the eastern part of the city, which you had pretty much ignored up until now. Maybe since you haven't been active there, a youkai has taken up residence?
You don't stray too far from the river, and your search for witches and youkai is fruitless. You do, however, find a few places that might serve as temporary lairs in the future - one is a heavy brick building near the smoke-spewing building, and the other is an old ruined church. Both have respectable basements, even! You make a note to check them again sometime, if you don't find any other suitable locations. You actually curl up in the basement of the church for the day; you find it rather amusing to be sleeping in a church on a Sunday.
You wake up to the sound of people in the church above - they seem to be intent on looting the place, now that "that bitch" is gone. You frown; you probably shouldn't be getting involved in human squabbles, and you don't really need the meal ... your frown turns to a glare as you hear glass shattering above. You were rather fond of some of those windows. It is no longer a human squabble! You find suitable stakes and impale the heads of the eight vandals outside the church when you finish. You would have imitated your sister's supposed ancestor and impaled the whole body, but ... well, you didn't leave their bodies intact enough! You giggle and pat the heads as you leave. Maybe you will make this place your lair in the future ....
However, you still have to find a youkai and get it to cough up a Grief Seed! You search the area around the church for witches or youkai, however, you find no sign of them. You begin to grow frustrated, and cross the bridge, heading toward Mami's home. When you killed the first youkai, you came out around there, so maybe another one came by?
After several hours of searching (and, once, taking out your frustration by destroying several carriages), you finally come across a small, dark youkai shivering under a lamppost. You walk up to it and poke it; it quivers, shifting its shadowy form until it looks almost like a cat or dog, just with a 'burst' of darkness where its head should be. It runs off, and you chuckle, following it. The last time you followed a minor youkai, you met a big youkai and a witch!
This time, however, you are moderately disappointed; the small youkai leads you to another rift, this one hidden in the back of an alley, but the shadowed world holds only its kin and a greater youkai, a black 'burst' with many arms. You grin as you approach it, drawing Laevateinn, and you stop several meters from it. It seems to look at you, and its lesser kin surround you, but you just look at it.
"Hello! My name is Flandre Scarlet. Would you happen to have a Grief Seed?" Not much sense fighting if you won't get one, after all, although if it's a fun fight, the fight is its own reward. However, the youkai doesn't react, much as the lesser youkai you first met failed to respond to your questions. After a few moments, though, you feel a pinch on your right leg - looking down, you see that one of the lesser youkai grew a sizable set of jaws and latched onto your leg! You sigh and raise Laevateinn, creating a small flameblade, and immediately the youkai all shrink back, even the greater one. You aren't sure whether it's the fire or the light, and it doesn't really matter. You drive the blade deep into the greater youkai's 'body,' then loop it out. The strange creature doesn't even give a death cry ... but you do get a Grief Seed! You giggle happily as the world fades around you, and you note that several of the lesser youkai survived. You let them go; it's not like you would get anything from them, and maybe they'll get stronger later!
You fly along the streets to the east, staying away from the water, as you pull Mami's Soul Gem out. All Kyouko did was touch the two together, so you follow suit and ... you frown. The Soul Gem didn't take anything from the Grief Seed; the Grief Seed drained the blackness from the Soul Gem! You aren't really sure what that means ... maybe it's not related to magic use? Maybe the name is still a clue - a 'Grief Seed' would take in some sort of emotion to sprout grief ... so the witches are under a curse? You shrug. It doesn't really matter; you have a Grief Seed, and you have two pretty Soul Gems! That's all that matters to you. You put away the Seed and the Gem, then stop, staring at the bodies on the ground. Four bodies ... and you recognize one!
You land near them, and, yes, it's Miki. She looks ... well, dead, but almost peaceful. And given the blue shards around her, you get the feeling that this time she won't be getting back up. You glance at the other three girls; they're all cut up and bloody, probably from Miki's sword. You can see shards around them as well, probably from shattered gems - a darker shade of blue, a dull burgundy, and a bright green. You're not sure why they were fighting ... but if it took three of them to take on Miki, and all three still died, you begin to suspect that you won't find much in the way of fun fighting the local witches. You hope that isn't the case, though.
You shrug and move on. Nothing you could do, even if you wanted to. Then you look at the sky, frowning - it seems to be much later than it should be. Your body is telling you that you should have several more hours of darkness, but the sky is definitely getting brighter. Could you have spent more time in the youkai rift than you thought? You leap into the air and begin looking for a suitable temporary lair - you don't want to go back to the church just yet, in case people happen upon the remains. If you had a servant, it would be a different story ... but it's just you. Your eyes catch a massive glass building with a white tower and roof. It's certainly impressive enough ... you land on the roof and make your way to the tower. It almost seems churchlike itself, and you try the door - unlocked. Humans never look up. You transform into your bat shape and fly onto a high shelf; there are no windows, and the light from the door won't bother you. You curl up in the corner and go to sleep ....
... However, you're woken up far too early when you feel someone pick you up! You blink in the strange, supernatural darkness that surrounds you and transform, lashing out with a claw at whoever tried to move you. Instead of shattering bone and tearing flesh, however, you feel a burst of magic as the body dissipates. You are no longer in the strange glass building; you're almost certain you're in a youkai rift-world. And a witch obviously had something to do with it ....
What do you do?
[ ] Slaughter the witch - no one tries to kidnap Flandre Scarlet!
[ ] Attempt to capture the witch's Soul Gem - one more for the collection!
As for the Youkai:
[ ] Leave it alive, for now - it's not a threat to you. Deal with it after killing the witch.
[ ] Kill it as quickly as possible - ensure that the witch can't use her strongest magic.
