Library of the Scarlets

Scene 5

            Slowing down, my vision began to focus again. I looked around, and saw the library in a worse condition that what I imagined when Sakuya was explaining it earlier.

            I just found myself in a small room, but there was a large corridor that leads to more intersecting rooms and the bookshelves where arranged at a random order, and books and youkai alike flew around. It was a complete mess, but at the same time it was clean. It was clean type of a labyrinth, because the walls of the room and how the bookshelves stacked to each other are perpendicular, and the number of flying books and youkai are fair, not too populous, not too scarce.

            But I then saw a dizzy ice fairy flying unstably, then dropped down the ground made up of books.

            “CiRno… iS HEre… *hic*… tO defEAt… YoU…”

            I gave a major face-palm and a sigh-of-failure combo. There is no other fairy that can be THIS FOOLISH.

            I started looking around and tried to sense the source of the illusion, but the magic came from everywhere. It is very easy to get lost here.

            Behind me, there was already a giant pile of horizontal bookshelves on the doors where I came from, so I have to find another way out.

            And this fairy that tagged along…

            “Whe—where am I?!”, the fairy seemed to have recovered already. “Is this a new treasure hunt?!”

            To be able to recover from my most powerful spellcard…

            “Hey, Marisa, answer me. Are there treasures here?”

            I sighed deeply. Maybe she can make this hunt even faster.

            “There are powerful people here,” I said to Cirno. “People that can make you famous if you defeat them.”

            “Well, what are you waiting for, let us start hunting!”

            “I didn’t say you would come to me.”

            “What?!” Cirno’s eyes became red in anger and pointed a large ice lance to my face. “Let me join or else, the most powerful fairy will defeat you and leave you here in this desert of books.”

            That is… scary…

            “You are only bluffing,” I said with my broom about to slap her. “But if you insist, I can allow you to join me, in one condition.”

            “What is it, Marisa-hime-sama?!”

            “No, that is. Not my. CONDITION,” I replied while giving her a dark and evil look. “I will never hear that again, Cirno.”

            “Yes, Master!”, Cirno replied nervously.

            I guess master is okay…

            I took a deep breath, and gave away my condition.

            “Follow what I will say, and everything will be fine. Is that okay for you, Cirno?”

            The ice fairy flew behind me and started pushing my broom cutely.

            I guess this is how she says yes.

            Travelling through a lot of rooms and corridors, another wave of youkai came attacking us. There were just a few of them, so there were no worries about losing.

            “Master, what would I do first?”, Cirno overtook me and faced the youkai that were ahead of us.

            “Cirno, I want you to fly to the ground below them and—“

            “Okay!”

            Cirno flew on before I could give her my second order, but I want to see if she improved a little so I stopped saying my second order and spectated on my broom.

            She followed my first order pretty well, by grazing their bullets one by one, she got to the ground beneath them with ease and planted her hands down the ground.

            “Icicle Rise!”

            Cirno started forming several frost pillars by her feet. The youkai above her were very close so they tried to hit her with their melee attacks, but…

            “Icicle Rise produces frost pillars that can damage you even if it they are still forming!”

            Cirno shouted proudly to the youkai, which stumbled back upwards. After the frost pillars became sharp giant icicles already, she made them projectiles that flew towards the enemy.

            The youkai disappeared to dust in the instant they hit Cirno’s icicles.

            Impressive, she is learning, I thought.

            “Did you see that, Master?”, Cirno started saying to me. “Did you see that?!”

            “Yeah, you did pretty well in there,” I smiled.

            “It is all because of Master’s teaching!”

            I felt awkward; no one ever praised me like that.

            *Ding!* *Dong!* *Ding!* *Dong!*

            Cirno and I heard a deafening noise.

            “It’s that stupid Clock again,” Cirno complained, “so noisy.”

            “Look who’s talking,” I replied.

            This Clock splits a day and a night in twelve parts called hours, and rings every hour that pass. We entered this mansion when the clock showed that it was the eight hour of the day, and this is the third time it rang.

            If my calculations were correct, it would be the eleventh hour in the morning. Flower-viewing starts at lunch time in Reimu’s shrine, and in the clock, Lunch is the twelfth and last hour in the day, so…

            “One hour left,” I gritted my teeth.

            “Huh, did you say something, master?”, Cirno asked me.

            I looked up the painted glass above us and showed a faint glare that the sun is almost at the middle of the sky. This certain glass has magic that won’t allow even light pass through (I tested it with Cirno earlier, and then my laser).

            I flew even faster and Cirno tried to keep up with me.

            “The flower-viewing will start when that Clock rings again.”

            “…WHAT?!”

            “That is why we must hurry, Cirno. We still have not found anyone yet.”