[center][h2]Kochiya Sanae[/h2][h3]Aventon - Southern Gate[/h3][/center]

Sanae took a deep breath as she stared down the mage opposite her, gohei at the ready as the other girl readied a staff of her own. The tension in the air wasn't anywhere near as tense as it had been before, but while the mage looked worked up, Sanae...

Well, she looked somewhat nonchalant in spite of what was technically at stake here. While warzones and giant monster (and bug) hunting was out of her usual realm of expertise, the green-haired girl was now on home turf. A duel, regardless of if it involved spellcard rules or not, was still a duel.

The staring contest between the two seemed to hold for a few moments, but ultimately it was Sanae who first chose to break the silence. 

"Aah, this is way too high-tension for a duel! If you're not going to start, then I will!" she declared before pointing her gohei towards the mage. Immediately, a stream of ofuda rushed out from it's tip, catching the other young woman off guard as she hastily constructed a barrier to ward the blows off. The steady barrage of attacks upon the barrier was somewhat expected, given what she had experienced in fighting that mage a few days prior, but that didn't mean that Sanae had any reason to give up then and there.

That was something she would have to overcome eventually, after all, and if this was a common fighting style for the mages of this world, doing so [i]now[/i] would save her more headache in the future.

When it was clear that ofuda alone weren't chipping away at her defenses particularly quickly, though, the green-haired girl moved quickly to change tactics. The moment that she lowered her gohei, though, the other mage swiftly aimed her staff towards Sanae and fired a bolt of electricity from it's tip straight towards her.

[i]Dodging[/i] such at attack at near-point-blank range was a simple feat for Sanae, of course, but the mage—and a few of the spectators-seemed quite shocked that she was able to do so without so much as a hint of anxiety.

Or maybe it was the fact that she had simply chosen to [i]fly into the air[/i] to dodge it. Either way, though, that surprise seemed to be rather short-lived as the mage begab to fire off more lightning bolts at Sanae.

"Oh, you're not going to try leading your shots?" the shrine maiden asked as she casually weaved and slipped through the electricity arcing through the skies. "You need to do more than that to catch me!"

Her (accidental) provocation, however, seemed to have touched a nerve. With tensed hand and gritted teeth, the mage held her aim towards Sanae as she floated about and took a deep breath.

It was no Master Spark, of course, but Sanae could feel the energy in the air building—and rapidly, at that—which meant that a rather large attack was on the way. With the rather telegraphed way the mage had been casting her spells until now, Sanae felt rather confident that this would be much of the same. But...

"...That's a pretty long charging time, huh...?" she asked out loud as she hovered in the air for a moment. Was this supposed to be some sort of special attack of some sort? Maybe this girl was used to being protected while slinging her spells around...

Regardless of the reasons behind it, though, Sanae found the whole matter fairly unimpressive. Maybe the standards of Gensokyo had warped her sense of danger a bit, but the young woman had certainly faced far worse and with far less time to react on the fly.

The sudden explosion of energy at the tip of the mage's staff quickly spiraled out into dozens of streams of lightning—a sight more familiar to Sanae than the singular bolts she had been dodging until now—and began to chase after Sanae. Without missing a beat, the green-haired girl flew off to the side, allowing the bolts of energy to chase after her. Between those and the other bolts bring fired towards where she was going, the shrine maiden was at least somewhat engaged in the fight now...

If only because it was less boring than it had been until then.

As she continued to fire ofuda towards the mage as she flew about, though, Sanae had noticed that the magic chasing after her was slowly speeding up, and that it was only a matter of time before it made contact. Constructing a barrier to block would take precious seconds that she didn't have, if only because she wasn't as proficient in so doing as Reimu was. That left three options, then: eat the attack head-on and likely leave the fight with singed limbs at best, keep dodging in hopes that the attack would eventually peter out, or pray for a miracle to block the attack.

The first option, obviously enough, was the dumbest of the three and thus the first to be discarded. The second was banking on a possibility that might not have existed, which meant it was less favorable than not. But the third...

Well, miracles were called miracles for a reason, and if she was good for [i]anything[/i], it was those.

With her choice now made, Sanae calmly prayed to herself—and to both her patron deities, whatever they were now—before a surge of familiar magical energy surged through her.

"That connected?!" she cried out involuntarily as she turned around and turned her gohei towards the magic chasing her and———

In the middle of the sky, a large plume of black smoke from where the magic had made contact bloomed upwards. There was a pause as those watching stared, waiting for the green-haired girl to become visible...

Only for a [i]ball of rocks[/i] to appear from within. Sanae was floating nearby, seemingly unharmed by the attack, but more shocking was the presence of someone [i]else[/i] there as the stones began falling towards the ground.

A blonde girl wearing an oddly frog-themed hat and dress floated in the middle of the skies next to her, arms extended out in front of her as she glanced around in mild surprise.

"Suwako-sama?!" Sanae blurted out, at which point the blonde girl turned to face the shrine maiden and hugged her. "How are you even——?!"

"Kanako and I have been trying to reach you for days! It's good to see that you're okay!" the goddess replied, taking a few seconds to savor the moment before letting go of Sanae turning towards the rather confused-looking mage on the ground with a cold fury in her eyes that the shrine maiden had never seen before.

"...But clearly, [i]someone[/i] needs to know who they were trying to kill..." Suwako spoke coldly as a chill ran through Sanae's spine.

Slowly, the shorter girl descended to the ground as suffocating, miasma-like dark energy began to churn around her. Immediately, the mage raised her weapon in a panic—as did a few of the bystanders—before [i]six[/i] massive snakes, all as white as marble and with eyes red as blood, burst from the earth and readied themselves to lash out at the girl.

"STOOOOOP!"

Sanae's shout rang out as she shot towards the ground before promptly placing herself between Suwako and the mage.

"A duel! This was a duel! Suwako-sama, please, calm down!" the shrine maiden cried out, waving her arms as the tried to dissuade the goddess from doing anything that might make the rapidly-escalating situation any worse. "We just got a bit excited, that's all!"

The tension in the air was suffocating in the few seconds before Suwako sighed and took a step back. Slowly, the six curse gods sank back into the earth, and the energy that had gathered in Suwako's body—and Suwako herself—were beginning to fade away.

"Mmm... I suppose I'm at my limit here anyhow," the goddess spoke before walking up to Sanae and poking her chest. "It was next to impossible to find any trace of you until now, though! I can't stick around for much longer, but try to connect with me or Kanako when you get a chance and explain what's happened since you got kidnapped, okay? Gensokyo's in an uproar, and every little bit of information helps so we can try and get you home safely."

As things were right now, though, it seemed like Suwako hadn't noticed the other residents of Gensokyo nearby... Nor did Sanae quite realize that Suwako's presence and choice of actions mean that her duel was more than a little invalid by now.

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