trans_9 | Mental Clarity Through Explosions [Open]

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Mental Clarity Through Explosions [Open]

When there's a lot weighing on your mind, sometimes it's best to take a few moments to do something you're comfortable with. Some people make things, some people meditate, some people fight. Today, Satori associated most closely with the latter. After all, Danmaku is a skill that needs to be practiced regularly.

Having heard about the Sensoriums, Satori had come to test the extent of their abilities. The room expanded, shifting from its normal plain walls into a vast, elaborately decorated palace hall. Her home. At the other end of it, constructed using her memories of their last encounter, a shrine maiden faded into existence. After a moment of gathering her thoughts and pushing them to the back of her mind, both of them took to the skies.

Satori attacked first, unleashing a pair of spirals of blue and red orbs through the air to trap her opponent. Reimu weaved through them easily, replying with a volley of Yin-Yang orbs and enchanted talismans. The two continued to exchange fire for a while, and Reimu was the first to break the equilibrium.

"Dream Sign - Duplex Barrier!" An array of barriers arranged themselves surrounding Reimu, with another set of larger barriers encompassing Satori as well. Reimu's attacks traveled through one and emerged from the other, assaulting Satori from in front and from behind at the same time. Satori opened Reimu's mind, reading the trajectories of her projectiles before she launched them, and weaved between them carefully...

When the barriers fell, Satori immediately took the offensive. "Recollection - Border of Wave and Particle!" Drawing from Reimu's memories of her partner Yukari, Satori mimicked magic far above her own level. This meant it wouldn't be at full power, but was still quite formidable. Waves of energy spiraled out from Satori, dissolving in to particles as they expanded. The gaps in the pattern were almost impossible to find, and while Reimu continued to dodge and weave through it, it looked like she couldn't keep it up forever--

"Divine Spirit - Fantasy Seal!" Reimu exploded into a rainbow of spheres of power, washing away Satori's attack. They swerved upward and around through the air, surrounding Satori from every angle. Despite her psychic abilities, there was simply no way she could evade them all with her skills. A Yin-Yang orb struck Satori full in the chest, and she fell to the ground, the illusory realm dissolving around her.

Well, perserverance is everything. Satori rested and meditated for a while before reconstructing the illusion and trying again. She would be at this for some time, and wasn't paying attention to who might open the door to a room full of explosions and magic...

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Ever since Selene had told him that the Sensorium was actually a holodeck, Marco had been itching to go back and take a look.

Unfortunately, he found it already occupied. By mind-reading girl. Who was making explosions.

"Aaaaaaah!" he yelled, as he scrambled to get away from one of those explosions which got a little too close for Marco's liking. "What the heck are you doing?!"

Distracted by Marco's scream, Satori took her eyes off of Reimu for a moment, during which she took a direct hit from another Yin-Yang Orb.

Sitting up from her defeated position, she shot Marco a vaguely annoyed look. "I'm practicing."

"Practicing what? How to blow up some chick?" Marco scowled. Not just because she'd nearly hit him with one of those explosions - he hadn't forgotten her trick earlier.

Or that she had to yet to explain what she was doing, lifting things from his mind.

Satori stood up and dusted herself off out of reflex, despite the fact that any dust had vanished along with the rest of the illusion. Rather than answer the question he asked, Satori elected to answer the question he didn't.

"Since you're wondering how I 'lift things' from your mind, there's really no particular trick to it. I simply am capable of using my Third Eye; it isn't a skill I can impart to others."

"WILL YOU STOP DOING THAT!" Marco said, flailing around a little. "My head, my thoughts, okay? As in, for me to know and you to not find out."

Eeesh. She was worse than a Leeran. At least they didn't shove their psychic abilities in his face.

Unnerving humans always helped improve Satori's mood a little. She smiled, but didn't commit one way or another to his request.

"As for what I'm practicing, I'm sure you can appreciate the importance of the art of combat, given our current situation."

"What, you couldn't take a break first?" Marco asked, dubious. "Or maybe put up a sign that says, "Don't come in, crazy mind-reading chick is blowing stuff up in here?"

"I seem to have missed the person passing out free Do Not Disturb signs."

"That's what we have paper for. And pencils. See, there's this amazing thing called writing. And all you have to do is write, "don't come in" on a piece of paper, stick it to the door, and then you don't have to worry about NEARLY KILLING ANYBODY!"

"Think of it as a bit of training for yourself. I was confident that you wouldn't get killed.

Besides, isn't there something you should be asking me?"

"Gee, thanks," Marco said sarcastically. "I feel so much better now."

Marco gave her a suspicious look. "Like what?"

"This is our second conversation, and you've yet to ask my name."

"Ah, that," Marco said, feeling a little sheepish. "Well, there were all those zombies...and you keep reading my mind! That's really distracting, you know."

For a moment he just stood there, looking awkward. "So...what's your name then?"

Satori smiled, taking a certain amount of comfort in the rituals of formality and etiquette. Because she's like that.

"Satori Komeiji, proprietor of the Palace of the Earth Spirits." Well, former proprietor of the Palace of the Earth Spirits, but semantics. She bowed slightly in greeting.

Marco blinked. "Riiight." So, not only was mind-reader girl creepy and invasive, she also sounded like she'd walked out of a Disney movie. She was probably going to start curtsying on him and singing to wildlife any time now.

"No, I'm not going to start singing anytime soon." Satori wasn't very good at not prying, apparently. "I'm not often in the company of anyone who would appreciate it, so I never developed the talent."

"I told you to stop that!" Marco said, feeling very annoyed. "You know, no one's going to like you if you keep poking around in everyone's head.

Heck, Marco already didn't like her.

"I'm used to not being liked." One doesn't spend decades being shunned by everyone but their pets without geting accustomed to it.

She looked around as the Sensorium reshaped into her palace again with a thought. "This is a very interesting place."

"Gee, I wonder why that is," Marco said. "I mean, you're just so nice and wonderful and respectful of other people's privacy!"

He hated to agree with her - but she was definitely right on the Sensorium. "Yeah," he said, almost wistfully. He'd have to come back sometime, when she wasn't using it...man, and he'd definitely have to show this to Jake. If ever ever came out of the pods, or whatever they called them.

They'd better have Jake in the pods. Marco still needed to tell him just how insane that "ram the Blade Ship" plan was.

Satori, of course, was still listening to Marco's heart. Rather than comment on it, though, his musings about Jake led her to think for a moment about the people she had left behind. She hesitated for a moment.

"That woman said that the ones brought here were selected by the virtue of their stories, yes?"

Marco gave her a suspicious look. She hadn't said anything about Jake but...that was still unnervingly close to what he was thinking.

"Yeah, he said, slowly. "But she didn't say who got to pick the stories."

"Good." Satori closed her eyes, leaning against a pillar. Okuu's story, at least, was probably even more notable than her own. She was definitely waiting in the caverns.

Marco narrowed his eyes at her. Obviously she was expecting that someone was going to be down in the pods...

...but then, what did he care? Probably whoever Satori wanted to see was another annoying mind-reader like her. In which case they could all sit around and read each other's minds, and leave Marco's out of it.

"Well. I'd like to say it's been fun having you poke around in my head, but you know, you're the mind reader. You tell me how true that would be. So, have fun trying to blow yourself up."

"They're not like me, you know," Satori said softly as Marco moved to leave. Thinking of her pets, Satori looked a little less like a relentlessly taunting psychic princess and a little more like a girl who was infinitely far away from everything she had ever known. "You'd probably like them."

Marco looked back to snap an angry retort about her reading his mind again...but then felt vaguely guilty about poking fun at her when she was obviously missing her friends. So he settled for just saying, "Whatever," and walking off.

She faded in and out of the ship, something like a ghost. It was how she would have preferred to start out her explorations, but the vermin had hindered that. Now that they were gone, Demon Alessa was free to explore the ship on her own.

Humans really were fascinating creatures at times. At least, technology was an invention she could fully appreciate and comprehend as innovation. With things like these, it wsa possible to even train to fight demons, she would imagine. In her mind, that was good. If demons could take things from huamns that easily, it would be boring.

And here, in this chamber of illusions, she saw the girl she'd met earlier. She was drawn to how she seemed to master her emotions, but she was also telepathic. Humans like that were rare in her experience, and she watched her quietly, her arms folded in her lap, almost crouching.

Satori ignored the demon in the corner, continuing to spar against the image of Reimu. Over the course of a number of matches, she drew several different spellcards from her opponent's memories, occasionally even using her own, but the end result was always the same - Reimu avoided every attack, and Satori was always the first to get hit.

Alessa did find the spell casting interesting, to be honest. It was fairly elaborate for her taste, as she would have most likely attacked at the monster with other monsters, but even she knew enough to not think about it too much, as it might change the direction of the Sensorium significantly. After all, its was only that other spellcaster Pirogoeth that had seen some of what she could do.

"How does this type of fighting work?"

Satori floated back to the ground after another defeat, finally acknowledging the presence of a spectator. "Spell card duels are as much a performance art as they are a martial one. It is a type of fighting made for a world that can't afford the destruction of a real war."

"I see," Alessa said. "They do quite a number, apparently. Once again its another thing to get used to on the ship. Though I am glad for my kind if fighting too, it definitely takes up a decent amount of space but it can be triggered too, usually by a siren."

Alessa looked at the girl. "So why engage in a fight you're sure to lose?"

Satori smiled slightly. "Who said I'm sure to lose? I simply haven't won yet."

"Is that right?" Alessa looked at the girl with more curiosity. Human beings were suroprisng when put in the right element.

"I hope to see that."

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Mental Clarity Through Explosions [Open]

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