The First Event"I'm glad you asked," Keine said. Opening up one of the boxes, the were-hakutaku pulled out a circular board and a few sharp knives. "Eirin, please explain to these two while I set up the first event."
"Alright." Eirin cleared her throat, making an effort of keeping Kaguya from rabidly charging a Mokou who was smirking at the Lunarian's attempts to wiggle free of Eirin's grip. "Earlier today, Keine and I met up quite some distance from Eientei, or the Bamboo Forest of the Lost for that matter. The purpose of our meeting was to figure out a way to get you two to stop fighting."
"Never gonna happen," Mokou said, quickly becoming angered.
"So you think. We concluded that by competing without killing each other, the two of you might at least simmer down a bit. Each event will be different and each will be judged by myself, Keine, and a guest judge."
"Who's the guest? Is it Reisen?" Mokou's eyes burst aflame (metaphorically speaking) as she asked "Are you trying to give Kaguya an advantage?"
"Nothing of the sort. The guest judges will be different depending on the event, and they will never have any notable association with Eientei, the human village's school, or any of the four of us."
"Alright," Keine said happily. "It's done!" Keine gestured toward a circular board that now hung on the wall, with alternating stripes of red and green going out from the center. The stripes were divided into three sections by silver lines, and a few feet away from the wall, there was a white line drawn on the floor; drawn in chalk by the looks of it. "The first event will be a knife-throwing contest!"
"Knife-throwing?" Kaguya looked a bit stumped, then her face lit up with an expression that practically sang songs about how she couldn't possibly lose a knife-throwing contest. "Throwing knives are my main weapon in Call of Duty! I can't lose to Mokou! But… who's the guest judge for this?"
"That," a fifth voice chimed in. "Would be me." Sakuya Izayoi walked through the doors of the school, holding a few knives between her fingers for good measure. "I've been told the rules of this little competition, and it's a bit as follows…" Sakuya threw one knife, and it almost instantly hit the direct center of the board. "Getting a bulls-eye is worth 100 points." Throwing the other knives in her hand at the board, they all landed right next to the first knife. "From there, each section outward is a 25-point penalty. Each of you will be throwing five knives. That means you should score anywhere from 125 to 500 points. The black zone around the edges, however, is worth zero points. I trust Keine explained the universal rules?"
"Universal rules?"
"Oh, right." Keine pointed at Mokou, and said " You aren't allowed to set Kaguya, or anything else for that matter, on fire. And as long as you're under my roof, I'm going to have to ask you to refrain from smoking."
Mokou just held the cigarette that was inches from her mouth, and frowned. "Fine." The phoenix-possessed girl put the cigarette back in her pocket, and asked. "Then what about Kaguya?"
"Long story short, you two aren't allowed to attack each other."
"Alright," Kaguya said cheerfully, or at least as cheerfully as she could, considering she was just told she was no longer allowed to attack her lifetime enemy. "Let's begin then."
Kaguya was going to be throwing knives first. Next to the board, Mokou was leaning against the wall, just glaring at Kaguya who was taking her dear sweet time in lining up her shot. After plenty of time spent on lining up her first throw, Kaguya threw a knife with the aim of hitting the dead center of the board.
*PLUNK!*
The knife fell just short of actually hitting the wall the board was on, and now stuck in the floor.
That caused Mokou to burst into a fit of laughter. "Wa-ha-ha-ha! Is… is that really the best you can do? Then… ha-ha-ha… I guess I win!"
"Shut it, birdbrain. I'm not done yet." Kaguya took careful aim again, and this time planned on throwing the knife much harder. She wanted to throw one at Mokou, but that would probably not end well given the rules of this and the time-controlling maid who was acting as a guest judge. So, with all her might, Kaguya threw the second knife.
*PLUNK!*
The second knife hit the black zone, barely avoiding tearing a hole in Keine's wall. "Ha! I hit the board!"
"A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha, I can't… A-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!"
"Quiet, Suspender Woman. I still have three knives left." Now her NEET brain was beginning to work in full gear, and one that stood near her could almost hear thousands of little machines working at full capacity, about to explode. Putting all her focus and concentration behind the last three knives, Kaguya threw them all back-to-back.
*PLU-PLU-PLUNK!*
Just like Sakuya had demonstrated earlier, three knives were now resting in the dead center of the board. "Beat that , Mokou!"
"A-A… ah… I…"
"Three… hundred… points! But you're a big badass, right? I'm sure you can beat my score." Kaguya walked up to the knives, and tried to pull them out. They wouldn't budge. "Eh-heh-heh… just a second." Kaguya tried even harder, the strain now obvious in her face.
"Surely you out of anybody can do physical work, damn NEET." She's so weak…
"Got them!" Kaguya practically flew off the wall with three knives in hand. The princess landed on the other side of the school, with a pile of boxes falling over on her. "Owwwwwww…"
Mokou's turn. Kaguya was leaning against the wall next to the dartboard in the same manner as Mokou was; probably to mock her. "I'll show you how to throw knives, Kaguya!"
"I'd like to see you try!"
"Just watch!" Mokou made her first throw without really thinking about it.
*PLUNK!*
"Aah!" Kaguya nearly jumped out of her skin when the knife landed in the wall, right next to her head. "Watch it, you dumb bitch! You almost killed me!"
"So? You're immortal!" Mokou made her second throw.
"PLUNK!*
"Alright. First one missed horribly and the second one landed in the 25-point zone. So far, I'm doing better than you, Kaguya."
"Don't get full of yourself," Kaguya said threateningly. "You still have to get all three of those knives into the 100-point zone or else I win."
"Right." Mokou focused hard, established her target. She focused on the very center of the target that was only a few feet away, helping herself improve her aim by visualizing the target being Kaguya's head. Using every mental technique she could think of, she did whatever possible to improve her aim. She'd be damned if she lost this first contest! Right… there!
Mokou threw her third knife as hard as she could.
*SQUISH!*
Kaguya looked at where the knife had landed. One of her eyes was locked firmly onto the handle of the knife. The other… was pierced by said knife. It took Kaguya's mind a few seconds to process that her eye was really stabbed by a knife, but once it registered, the Lunarian princess was thrown into a frenzy.
Kaguya began running all around the place, screaming like a lunatic and trying to pull the knife out of her eye, which only caused the knife to hurt more, which led to more running, screaming, and more effort to pull the knife out. It was an infinite spiral of pain, screaming, and Eirin trying to pin Kaguya down so she could tranquilize the princess.
Mokou, however, found it hilarious. When Kaguya started running and screaming, Mokou couldn't hold back her laughter. Now that Eirin was trying to pin her down which only resulted in being hurled against the wall time and again by Kaguya, Mokou was rolling on the floor laughing, gripping her stomach in hysterics. She didn't care if she lost the knife-throwing game or even the entire competition; seeing this scene was far more than worth it to Mokou. She just kept rolling around and laughing at Kaguya's pain. Then Eirin fired an arrow at her knee. "Aah! Dammit!" Mokou reached to pull the arrow out, but that only made it hurt worse. "Aah! Keine, gimme a hand here!"
Keine quickly ran to Mokou's side, grabbing the arrow, and was about to pull it were it not for Mokou now screaming not to pull it out. This first event had gone horrifyingly wrong, and Sakuya seemed to have left during the pandemonium. Now Keine was beginning to wonder if it was really a good idea to trust Eirin on this idea of hers…
The next day…
Kaguya couldn't stand having these dumb bandages over her eye, but Eirin said that they had to remain on her face until the time arrived that her eye was fully healed. It irritated the princess to no end, mostly because it meant she now only had one eye with which she could see the computer screen in front of her. "Dammit," she said. "I can't even do heroics like this. The battlegrounds are all boring and regular raids are too easy, same for the arenas. If it weren't for that damned Mokou throwing a knife in my eye, I'd be tanking like no human could ever dream!" Kaguya logged out; World of Warcraft was a two-eye game, so Kaguya couldn't play it just yet. Instead, she'd play… Halo. That had a radar in the lower-left corner so she could see her enemies before they sliced her in the ass with an energy sword.
"Just kill me," Mokou said, very irritated. "If I've said it once, I've said it a million times. If I become a cripple, just kill me on the spot, Keine."
"This is the price you've got to pay in order to make up for harming Kaguya like that. Don't worry, the next event should be much less lethal." Keine smiled to her friend as she turned back to the boxes filled with assorted objects, trying to decide what the next event should be. Once she did, she would have to give Eirin the correct meeting spot.
Later that day…
"Do we have to go all the way there?" Kaguya didn't want to go as far as the Netherworld, but that was where the next event was going to be. Eirin didn't say what the event would be, and said that Mokou didn't know either. That was how they would all be; neither competitor knowing what they were going to do that night. "I don't like it there…"
"How can you say that if you've never been to the Netherworld?"
"Because I just can, okay?"