Chapter 9: QED

As I entered the maids' quarters, the hushed discussions quickly halted and soon every single fairy had their eyes on me. They knew that my arrival could only mean that it was time, some appeared to be nervous, some were almost brimming with excitement. I, however, knew that it was time for me to show what I've learned, to prove that all my time practicing magic was not for nothing. It was my one chance to show everyone that fairies aren't weak.

I silently gestured to them to follow me and began to search for the intruder by looking for their magic signature. With my target now in sight, I led the group around it and began laying out small squads of three, surrounding whoever it was. As we got closer, I began to hear hushed mumbling belonging to that of a girl with a very brash-sounding voice. Judging from the sound of pages turning, it sounded as if she was trying to take a few books.

"Ooh-hoo, lookit this one, 'sounds like a pretty good read. I'll jus' borrow this one for a bit."

I set more squads as we got closer to her until it was just me and two others. When we edged closer to her, close enough that I could just see the frilled edge of her dress peeking around the corner, she suddenly stopped digging through the books and stood up.

"Well, guess I had my fun for now." She sighed loudly. "Y'know, if y' wanted to sneak up on me, y' could've at least tried t' hide yer aura!"

Our auras? Damnit, I completely forgot about that! Just as I turned to shout to the others, something tapped the tip of my shoe. Looking down, it was a metal canister of some kind and it was brimming with a lot of unstable magic. I wasted no time in jumping backward and putting a barrier between my group and it, just barely making it in time before the darkened library was filled with blinding flashes of light. The explosion shattered my barrier and one of the magic barrier charms. As I was thrown through the air and over the bookshelves, I could see that my group and few others had taken the hint to start attacking. I caught the tip of a pointed hat rising above the bookshelves from where the intruder was right before I slammed into a wall and knocked out.

I opened my eyes to the still dark but now completely silent library. It seemed that the physical barrier charm had protected me from the damage that I had taken from hitting the wall with such force, it had cracks covering the tiny crystal but was otherwise still intact, which came as at least a small relief to me. I still felt quite weak, however, so I pulled myself up to a sitting position with my back against a bookshelf. When I looked straight ahead, I found myself staring at the heavy wooden door that lead to the rest of the mansion. Six light blue circles hovered in front of the door, casting a faint glow as they gently pulsed.

Just as I was about to stand, the intruder flew past me and dismounted her broom in front of the door. While she was busy studying the seal on the door, I took a little time to actually get a closer look at her. She looked like a storybook witch with her black dress and pointed hat - the broom didn't help either - but more importantly, she had a few of those metal capsules that she exploded on me fastened to her hip and a octagonal box with very powerful magic coursing through it in her hand. The very fact that she was standing here, in front of the door, meant that she defeated not only the fairies, but also Koakuma and Patchouli. If she decides to turn and attack me, I'm definitely dead.

"Hey, y' know anything about this door? They gave ya charms n' runes so I'm assumin' you know somethin'." She turned to me and put her hands on her hips, the shadows obscured her face but I could just imagine her with a cocky grin on her face.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" I did my best to hide my fear with a sharp tongue and a glare.

"Aww, come on now. Don't be like that to lil' ol' me. I jus' wanna open a door." She shrugged then held the octagonal box at me, the trigrams on its face began to light up in a pale yellow as she charged it with her magic. "How's about this then? Ya tell me or I'll blow ya up. Sound fair?"

"Do it, I'm not telling you anything." I felt a knot forming in my throat, hopefully I still kept my glare.

She stayed silent, studying me for a moment before putting the box away and walking back over to the door. "Well, ya don't know, guess I'll do it myself. Puzzle locks are pretty fun, kinda." She held her hand out to the first light blue circle on the seal and became very still.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized that I was holding when she turned away. "You aren't going to kill me?"

Without breaking her statue-like stance, she continued talking to me. "D' ya want me to?"

"No, not particularly." She's way too relaxed, it's actually unsettling.

"Then I won't. I can tell thatcha don't know anythin', it writtin' all over yer face. By tha way, drop th' tough act, yer hands are shaking." When the first circle turned green, she moved her hand to the next one without missing a beat.

So it was obvious, that's a bit embarrassing. I clenched my fists to stop my shaking. I didn't get up from my spot and instead simply watched her as she worked through the next three circles.

"I'm here, completely focus'd on th' seal an' ya don't at least try ta attack? What's it? Pride?" The fifth circle turned green.

She has a point, why haven't I thought about it? Was it because I didn't think I could do anything? Was it because I felt that it would be unfair to attack while she was distracted? Or was it because I felt that I owed her for not killing me? I can't tell.

"Well, no matter." As the last circle turned green, all six met at the center and disappeared, releasing the seal. She opened the door, allowing the light from the hallway to stream in around her. "Marisa Kirisame, I'm jus' an ordinary witch. See ya around fairy-girl." With that, she rode her broom off into the rest of the mansion.

After Marisa left, I decided that I would look around the library since following her probably wouldn't have been a good idea. Books were scattered all over the ground, wards sparking and inactive, and injured fairies scattered everywhere. I gathered up the fairies that still could move and headed off to find Koakuma and Patchouli. As we continued, the damage to the bookshelves and floors became more frequent until we found Koakuma's unconscious body in the center of a large signed area of the ground. With Koakuma now with us, we continued toward the center of the library, where Patchouli would be. And she was there, sitting next to a bookshelf panting heavily.

I attempted to help her to her feet but she cut me short. "No, I'm fine. I'll just stay here for a while." Patchouli coughed into her sleeve. "I'm actually quite impressed, she's only a human yet she's that strong."

"You can put Koakuma over there. The rest of you should clean up the library." I ordered the small group of fairies to do something else, giving me time to talk to Patchouli. "I'm sorry, I got knocked out at the beginning. I could've done something." I actually didn't get a chance to try doing something. I should've been more aware, I should've thought about hiding our signatures, if I did…

"Carol. Don't worry about it. We were never meant to win anyway, that's just how this kind of spellcard dueling works." She had another coughing fit, this time with tears forming at the edges of her eyes. "Besides, all Remi wanted was someone to play with."

"I know, but I still want to be able to say that I did something." If I want to stop her, I should head upstairs to where Remilia is. It's only been a few minutes since she left, I can make it. I headed back toward the door as fast as my wings could take me.

The foyer definitely had seen a battle - the front doors had been blasted inward with the seal on it sizzling and the ground was covered in needles and amulets. Someone else is here and from the looks of it, they're insanely strong. Just before I could fly down the corridor, a voice called to me from outside the blasted door.

"Yo, idiot. Come on, we gotta go." It was Emily, she had a small ensemble of green dressed fairies along with a few other colors. They all had cuts and burns all over them, it seemed that everyone had taken their fair bit of damage. "The shrine maiden's almost beaten the head maid, we fairies gotta make a last stand before she makes it to the Mistress."

"Don't call me idiot." I followed her out the door and over to the top of the mansion, where a large amount of fairy maids waited. Two others came down to greet Emily and I, one was Iris, another one was a vaguely familiar one wearing a red dress.

"Took you long enough. We have to start forming up, Miss Sakuya's not going to last much longer." Iris left as quickly as she arrived, commanding small groups of fairies to take positions in the sky above the mansion.

I stared at the maid in the red dress, trying to place where I've seen her before. My staring eventually caused her to look in my direction. "Hey Carol, it's been a while. We fought before, but you wouldn't remember since you had your memory sealed after you met the younger sister. Don't think about it too hard, you don't want to remember the younger sister. Just trust me on this." If my memory was sealed, that explains a lot of things. This is not the time to fill in those gaps though, I need to get up there and help them.

I flew up next to Iris and released my remaining earth runes, splitting them into smaller stones and orbited them around me, ready to fire at the shrine maiden once she arrives. I followed everyone's gaze to the large stained glass window on the second floor of the mansion, violent flickers of light shone through, with the occasional needle or knife lodging itself in the thick glass. We all were all aligned in front of it, curving up to the clouds. The green dressed fighters stayed at the front, ready to immediately jump in when the intruder smashed through the window, the purple, blue, and red dressed fairies hovered behind them, ready to provide ranged cover, and the black and white dressed maids were dotted around in small groups for extra firepower.

"Listen up, I know that we all know how strong she is, but our only job right now is to stall her long enough for the moon to come up, Lady Scarlet will be at her strongest then." Someone shouted now that the lights that had been streaming through the window had now ceased. The sun began dipping below the horizon of the lake on the side of the mansion.

We all waited in silence, focused on the window. My heart pounded loudly as I eagerly yet nervously waited for my chance. Wait a second, something seems off. What's taking her so long? She should have smashed her way straight through that window if she beat Sakuya and Sakuya should've have said something to us if she won. Unless… From the corner of my eye I caught a sudden glint of something reflecting the sunlight, a lot of somethings. "To the left!" I shouted as I realized that those were the same needles I saw littered around the foyer.

"On our right too!" Somebody shouted as a large beam ripped through the center of our formation.

I began firing my rocks in the direction of the needles and now large flying amulets as the fairies began scrambling to reposition to the new targets. I get it, she knew that going through the window was a trap so she went back out and came around us. At some point, she also met up with the witch and got her to flank us too. My mind sped up and allowed me to narrowly avoid the sweeping needles and magic blasts.

It was only after half of us got wiped out that I began to see the shooters, the red and white shrine maiden was expertly dodging the literal walls of bullets coming from us fairies and the occasional stray bullets from the other side. I focused my attacks to be precisely where she would be, but she dodged even those. I absorbed the rest of the water, wood, and metal runes and turned them into spikes. As I began to fire at her with my arsenal, she turned her piercing gaze to me and turned her attack focus from the other fairies to me. I continued firing while trying to get away, but she moved at an astonishing speed, all the while twisting and turning her way through my oncoming spears. Before she got too close, I used a fire rune to activate the twin dragons.

I had run out of spears to launch and began firing small fireballs at her using the other fire runes. Deftly dodging it all, she got even closer to me in an attempt to shoot me down. When she was extremely close, I suddenly switched directions and launched myself downwards at her, swinging a flaming palm at her. The action definitely surprised her, as she stopped her shooting, but she switched her direction as well, dodging the strike. Without giving me any time to react, she planted a hard kick on my back, breaking the physical barrier charm and sending me even faster downward.

The hit made my vision go black for a moment and when I came to, I found myself staring at a red and white blur coming straight for me. She wasn't shooting any needles or amulets at me, she was going to beat me down. I unloaded basic bullets at her but to no avail, she weaved her way until she was almost close enough to strike me with the ritual stick in her hands.

Most of the other fairies are either dead or busy fighting the witch and I'm all out of runes. I only have one option left, I know I'm going to die, but I at least can take her with me! I created a fireball from the flames on my hands and detonated it between us. I wore a crazed grin on my face, knowing that there would be no way for her to avoid such a point-blank explosion, but that soon turned into a look of absolute horror when I saw her draw up a barrier between herself and the flames. That's not possible. The searing heat began to wrap around me, obscuring my vision and sending my body into unbearable pain. There was no way that she could even react that quickly. My second magical barrier charm shattered. I couldn't stop her, I couldn't prove my worth, I failed. Red turned to black and pain turned to nothingness.

I am just a fairy, after all. That's all there is to it. End of proof.