What Do You Mean This is For All the Marbles?!

The King of the Yokai launched his attack by flinging several of his tentacle arms at us. The first one missed Shōko, and Aichi had managed to dodge the second one. The third one, however, scored a direct hit on me. Was this what being hit with a fly swatter felt like…? Around and around I spun, unable to control which direction I was facing, let alone how quickly I was now falling.

“Ayame!” I heard the others shout as I plummeted to the forest below. Needing to quickly stop myself from falling, I attempted to pull myself up. The idea there was to change the direction I was moving by changing the direction my head was facing, airplane style. All that did was change my fall from falling head-first to falling feet-first.

In a panic, I tried to perform a basic ballet dance in mid-air. “Pulse Field!!!” A shield just big enough to carry me was summoned just in time for me to fall into the trees. As I descended into the forest canopy, the tree branches bent just enough to stop the rest of my fall.

And then…

I was suddenly launched into the air going sideways, being thrown back towards the King of the Yokai! Trying to dance and launch spells while being tossed around like a ragdoll was not easy, but I eventually managed a “Blizzard Bluster!” right before landing square on the King's giant face.

Was it just me or was the King getting bigger by the moment? He definitely was not kidding about the whole getting stronger by the minute thing he was bragging about earlier.

“My eyes!” the King roared in pain. Oops.

I had at last managed to right myself and control where I was flying, just in time for Shōko to come flying out from behind me.

“Hammer Toss!” Shōko shouted as she launched her giant hammer right at the King's head. It was not any spell in the book, but we had gotten so used to calling out our spells, it seemed Shōko had started to call out other attacks as well.

A direct hit! The King's giant octopus-like body collapsed, unconscious, onto the forest below, knocking down many trees in the process. His crown fell off his head and was promptly collected by a nearby oak.

“Ayame!” Shōko shouted at me. “Whatever you have planned, do it quickly!”

“Got it!” I shouted back as I began to perform the “Brave Charm!” dance. We all waited patiently to see what the charm would do as I aimed my staff at Aichi.

“~woof, a bowling ball?!” Aichi asked as the object landed in my hands.

“What am I supposed to do with this?!” I asked in response. “This thing is useless!” The idea was to make Aichi six hundred times larger so he could cast the sealing spell and lock the yokai away forever. Guess that didn't happen. For lack of a better option, I flew over to the King of the Yokai and dropped the bowling ball on his head.

“So now what?” Shōko asked me as I watched the ball land on its target.

“Well, we could -”

I was interrupted by a tentacle suddenly wrapping itself around me. The same also happened to Shōko, Aichi, and Sachiko. Each tentacle brought us towards the giant eyes of the King of the Yokai. A fifth tentacle reached for Hideaki, still stuck in his magic bubble, and a sixth gathered up the King's crown from the trees.

“Ohh, you five are so going to pay for your insolence,” the King scolded us for our attempts. As his eyes stared us down, he continued, “Soon, you shall witness my true power!”

The King started wildly swinging his arms all over the place, shaking us to and fro, possibly in an attempt to make us sick… or worse… It seemed like there was just no chance at escape for us. Perhaps this was it. Defeated at the hands, er… tentacles… of giant walking seafood.

Seafood…

However…

With what little capacity for thinking about anything other than the sheer pain I and the others were in I had left, I came up with a strange idea.

I just… always hated the taste of seafood…

But in order to save myself and my friends… and Hideaki… I had to do it. As soon as I could gather up a little bit of focus, I took a bite out of him. The King dropped all of us at once to deal with what was probably to him little more than a bug bite, much like we would if we were to be bitten by a mosquito. Guess we weren't so different after all.

With everyone else too dizzy to notice what happened, I had to hurry and save the others before they were flattened by their falls. They all needed to rest for a bit in order to recover from that ordeal, leaving me to deal with the King of the Yokai… alone…

“A foolish one, you are, magical girl,” the King roared at me. “Do you really think you can face me alone?”

I waved my staff in his general direction. “Guess we'll just have to find out, Your Highness.”

The King roared with tremendous fury as he launched a flurry of strikes at me. I had to fight off each attack with my staff or some sort of spell. My go-to first option was Flower Shower.

One of his tentacle arms got a little too close to me, causing me to drop my staff. Before I could retrieve it, the King had grabbed it with another of his arms, snapping it in two with ease.

Oh, fluff… I was going to have to finish this off without my staff. And fast… As much as it might have put me at a disadvantage, I decided to do some sort of mix between breakdancing and ballet through this problem, chaining a Vine Strike into a Whirlwind into a Spinning Flower Kick. If I couldn't defeat this thing the way I originally intended, this Plan B would have to work.

Right on top of his stupid gourd head! The attack flattened his body, causing it to spread out across the forest floor. I had hoped the attack had finished him for real this time. A sudden tough decision caught me: would I go check on the others or would I make sure the King of the Yokai was defeated for good?

That hesitation cost me dearly, as the King managed to wrap one of his arms around me while I wasn’t looking. He flung me clear through the forest towards the mountain. I had no time at all to react before plowing right through several trees. Not the first time that had happened.

I had to lock in if I wanted to defeat the King. “Ugh… if only the others were well enough to help.”

The King's attack had the unintended consequence of putting some distance between him and I, allowing me the opportunity to try to cast another Brave Charm. Oh, what was it going to be this time?

“Come on! Come on!” I shouted with zero patience whatsoever. I knew these spells took time to do their work, but for some reason, it was taking much longer this time around…