2024-01-25 - MGLN SeekerS: The Pericosmic Array

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha SeekerS: The Pericosmic Array
Summary: Our heroes finally make it to the long-sought Pericosmic Array, but Fallen Stern's memories are too strong, and the tragic end of the Umbral Knight and Cephiran Princess is cruelly replayed with the closest bodies available. The Belkan Queen's intentions are made clear, along with a gambit for her own immortality through the power of trees. Finally it's revealed that they've been drawn back to the past, which means, in order to find the Array in the present, they must first travel to the future...
Who: Setsuna Higashi, Mikoto Minagi, Nori Ankou, Fate Testarossa, Kyouka Okazaki, Endo Naoki
Where: The Pericosmic Array
OOC - IC Date: 1/25/2024 - 05-11-16

<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.

The Device-wielders have taken to rotating their gatherings between various homes, in the hopes of making it at least slightly harder to be ambushed by Jail Scaglietti and his forces, but tonight they are back at Yagami House. There is no need for sleeping bags and pillows, for there is to be no resting, though the golden skein used to invoke those strange visions of dreamtime is present; folded neatly and gracefully into a shape between flower and fan. It rests in the lap of young Hayate, who is sitting in her chair.

The canes she's using for her physical therapy are resting against a nearby wall; a wall by the back door, for the group is out in the courtyard. What they are about to do does not literally blow the rooftops off of houses, but it is still customary to perform a Dimensional Transfer out of doors.

As the others arrive, it seems that a discussion amongst the Wolkenritter and their mistress is just ending. Shamal wears an apprehensive expression, and Zafira's hackles, while not raised aggressively, are a little bit fluffed out with discomfort.

"I'll be fine," Hayate says airily and probably not for the first time in the last few minutes. "Truly." She rests a slim hand over her heart. "I promise, I will take care."

So far Hayate has done a lot of waiting around for other people to wake up, but it seems she'll be attending this outing...

She seems a little relieved by the interruption of guests. "Good evening!" she greets, a sentiment echoed cheerfully enough by the rest of the Yagamis, who are always glad to see their friends. After pleasantries are briefly exchanged, it's time to get down to business.

"Tonight," Hayate says, with an earnestness to her, a quiet seriousness that is not grim but is far beyond her tender elementary-schooler years, "We are going to use the coordinates that Fallen Stern and Soaring Sky have remembered after each of their visions. Based on those visions, we believe that the destination is likely to be the Pericosmic Array, an ancient Belkan... vault, where the Queen of Belka was banished in an accident. We know that Scaglietti-san wants the location of the Array, and we think, based on our experiences with the Dark Devices, that it's why he created them and sent them after the originals... to try to take a shortcut to what you've gotten the hard way, using this."

Her little hand strokes the golden skein very gently.

"Ren-san never wound up using the skein, and Souverain Heraut was never captured by the Dark Devices. Yet we seem to have the coordinates we need. That means it's possible that Scaglietti-san does too. However, we are hopeful that by acting quickly we are going to get there first. Nor do we fear him following us."

She smiles up at Shamal, who nods.

"I will be veiling your dimensional transport," Shamal explains. "This is a specialty of Clarwind's! Your passage will be untraceable. But that also means that we won't know exactly where you went, so..." She gives Hayate the same worried look she was wearing when everyone first arrived. "Once you go, you'll be on your own. We won't be able to follow you either."

Hayate looks up and back at the Cloud Knight as she talks. A little awe for her friend twinkles in her eyes. "Shamal is so amazing," she asides at the others, proud as any mother. "Okay. Does anyone have any questions? Last chance to use the bathroom before we go. Who knows what the facilities will be like there? We don't even know what a Pericosmic Array really is, or why it's so important to Scaglietti-san. There may not even be atmosphere... best to engage your Barrier Jackets before we go."

Raising her palm beneath the heavy golden pendant on her chest, Hayate follows her own advice. In a flash of chilly white light, her sweater and skirt are replaced with her somewhat qipao-like black and gold mini-dress (though, as has been the case since the Book of Darkness Incident, it has felt somewhat like half a henshin; just a very basic set of Knight Clothes, almost an underslip, lacking the hat, jacket, belt and battle skirt of her original, Reinforced, look).

There is a brief afterimage behind everyone's eyelids of the Belkan triangle, Schwertcruz at its center, that exploded beneath her as she transformed, long after it is gone.

OOC: Welcome to the beginning of the end of Battle Fantasia! <3 I'm being a bit of a slacker since Hayate is not a PC and doesn't
need the extra love, but elaborate and gorgeous transformations are encouraged to mark the occasion. Gotta spend some time on
stock footage since all the budget for this episode is being spent elsewhere...

OOC: We'll be leaving/arriving next round, so pace yourselves accordingly.

<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Higashi [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

It's nice to see Hayate planning to come along. Sure, there's reasons to worry, but Setsuna Higashi is very much in favor of her taking a hand here.

And... "Hello!" Setsuna greets Hayate in turn and the others. And when it's all time...

"Right," Setsuna says of the visions, of their plans. She listens mostly in silence, as Shamal explains too. So, questions... Does she have questions?

"So with that veil, he can't just follow us," Setsuna confirms. "All right." She is not worried about herself; the power of the Sweets Kingdom will shield her from things like 'lack of atmosphere' presumably.

"...I don't think I have any other questions. I'm ready if you are."

Or she will be, in a moment. She pulls her Linkrun, and looks down at it, as Akarun appears in a twirl of glitter. "Pretty Cure... Change-u!"

"Beat! Up!"

Setsuna Higashi turns the key, and turns to a red silhouette, leaping into the water. She rises up from this spectral sea, and her outfit begins to appear on her--the cloth bracers and greaves of Pretty Cure, the dress, the four-clover emblem. The jewels ornamenting her head, hearts and diamonds, the wings there--

And her boots. Clack clack, she steps onto an unseen corner. "Freshely ripened!"

She points outward, "Cure Passion!"

And Cure Passion stands, awaiting their departure. "...We will do this together," she says seriously.

"I'll be right behind you."

COMBAT: Setsuna Higashi transforms into Cure Passion!

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Mikoto may have crammed everyone into her dorm, once. It may have been entirely so they could all see Mai and catch up with her, since her dormmate is so busy with her schooling and her part-time work.

They may have ended up chased out of the building by a hall monitor who was COMPLETELY unwilling to overlook this level of flagrant disregard of the no boys in the girls' dorms rule.

Anyway.

Mikoto's here, in a casual denim vest over a bright blue polo shirt, purple leggings under a pair of orange cargo shorts with cats printed on all the pockets, and white sports socks over her Ohtori flats; they're SEVERAL fashion crimes, all at once, but she seems comfortable. (Comfortable with the black case slung over her shoulder, too.) She listens to Hayate, intently, and without interruption -- though she does smile brightly to Shamal when she explains her own role, humming affirmatively.

And when Hayate opens up the floor to questions --

"Oh! Yeah!" Mikoto hurries off back into the house, right after Hayate points out that there might not be bathrooms in whatever a Pericosmic Array is.

Elevator music plays for the next five minutes. Doot doot doo...

... and Mikoto runs back out, with a donut chomped between her teeth. She's carrying another one in her hands (it's okay, she washed them!), which she hands off to Cure Passion, obviously.

Nomph nomph nomph, Mikoto eats her donut, and then she unsheathes her dark blade from the case on her back.

"Ready!" She chirps, brightly.

(Tragically, Mikoto doesn't have a transformation sequence. She's still in those incredibly unfashionable cargo shorts and leggings.)

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi transforms into HiME Mikoto!

<Pose Tracker> Nori Ankou [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Signum Yagami has stood by. She is wearing what appears to be her ordinary clothing; but she has her blade over her shoulder. She is frowning, but returns nods, murmurs greetings.

"If you fear to be absent," she says, "then don't be. We will stand guard."

("Yes," Signum agrees, regarding Shamal.)

BUT...

"Shine forth, O Pharos!" speaks the tall girl in the black blouse with the accompanying long navy-blue skirt. She raises a battered lantern aloft as it shifts -- and casually turns the battered, half-broken, lovingly-repaired outer appearance inside out to reveal crystal glass and a darkly luminous shard of obsidian within.

A feeling like standing near a stormy coast -- the glow engulfs her -- turn, raise her arms, as it pours upon her. Like invisible fingers, painting her face, shrouding her garments and leaving them compact and glittering with light, bare arms sheathed in gloves, a shimmer as skirt and bare feet change to be sheathed. "Let the storm break against me --"

The light, strangely cool, ripples -- and much of it dissipates in a phantasmic burst of iridescence, casting a moment of fabulous shadow against the inner wall of the Yagami household. "La Sirene de Diamant!"

Then a good point is raised.

"Ah, an excellent idea," speaks the shadowed and luminous eikon of the allure of shadow and the glitter of jewels. "One moment." La Sirene de Diamant pauses at the entrance into the house to remove her boots and steps in her stocking-feet into the building. Their soles glitter with jewels; this is not just polite, it was doubtless a deference to the Yagami flooring.

Batiste had come, wearing a smart new green ribbon/bowtie, but it seems that he came for moral support, as he already demurred to accompany them. After la Sirene's return, she sits, rather prosaically, to slide her boots back on and refasten them.

"Will it be a problem if there isn't any air?" la Sirene asks Batiste.

Batiste contemplates. "Not for long," he replies.

"How droll."

"You should endure it, but don't be reckless with your strength," Batiste 'actually' answers. "If your light dims too far - well, don't let it!"

With a jingle of buckling, la Sirene rises up. "I'm prepared." (Cure Passion gets a firm nod; Mikoto a small smile on her pale lips.)

COMBAT: Nori Ankou transforms into La Sirene de Diamant!

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

The entrance of Fate Testarossa had been marked a figure climbing the Yagami house fence, as she gently lowered Puppy Arf down to the ground, before hopping down herself-! And entering, through the window, after signaling through tapping that she's here and not a threat. It is perhaps 'overkill' but she'd rather be overcareful than careless.

Jail - her father? - has proven to make fools of them all on multiple occasions, she doesn't want to contribute to it. And so Fate is there, with Arf laying near Zafira, still transformed, but tail lashing the air from the tension.

Fate's expression is grave, quiet, as she listens to Hayate spell out the plan. She too understands that it's unorthodox to do a Dimensional Transfer indoors, but everything about Jail Scaglietti is Unorthodox. She can understand the need, the same goes for Hayate coming with them... despite what she had to sacrifice to Jail Scaglietti already.

She is worried, but she believes in her. Fate doesn't fidget, she stays quite still, taking in every detail of the plan. "She is." Fate agrees, in regards to Shamal and her specialty, and how it will help them.

When Hayate asks for questions, Fate instead addresses the room, "The last time we did this, transporting onto a Belkan ship, it was one of the most difficult battles we'd ever faced." Fate's referring to back when a key activated the means to transport onto one, which in the end - turned out to be part of Jail's precursor plans.

"I have no doubt it will be even moreso, no matter how much we've grown, and the new friends who are with us. But-"

Fate doesn't precisely smile, but she does look to Hayate, as if doing so would grant her greater confidence., "-I believe not just that we can win, but that we will win."

Fate doesn't have to use the restroom. She did that after getting here. And with a flourish of a golden triangle, she calls out for, "Bardiche Impulse! Set! Up!"

Purple lightning flashes, as pieces of Bardiche materialize, conjoining, even as Fate's clothing changes, a dark coat design, more like a fanciful winter peacoat than anything military, adorned with red trim, and accented by smaller golden triangles of Bardiche.

Metallic Gauntlets and Boots of interlocking plates form and click into place magically, even as she spins around once, a dark cape materializing, and falling upon her shoulders where the clasps form and afix it.

Her hand catches Bardiche, and- well she doesn't flourish him.

She thinks she probably could but is the responsible sort who wouldn't want to show off in a way that bruises interior decorating!

"Ready."

And she moves to stand closer to Hayate, it is less a protective stance, than it is a supportive one. Because despite all of the other girl's struggles - Fate does not look at her as someone lesser to be protected, but a partner, friend, and comrade as a mage after all their experiences together.

COMBAT: Fate Testarossa transforms into Barrier Jacket Impulse!

<Pose Tracker> Kyouka Okazaki [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

Kyouka is in better spirits than she has been for a while as she arrives at Yagami House. Strike Wolf is back on her wrist, and she's finally able to help her friends out again. She's dressed casually as she arrives: jeans, t-shirt, and a light jacket. "Hey, everybody!"

And she's followed by a new friend(?), a woman with bright red hair, green eyes, a black dress and flats, and a white lab coat. Formerly The Phantom Fox, and also Akari, and now known by the name Clara. "Hmph," she says, frowning as the sequence of events is described. "I don't like it. Sending you all there without any support."

"Worried about us?" says Kyouka with a grin.

"No!" she snaps. "I'm worried about Strike Wolf. You're taking him into an unknown situation without the possibility of calling for backup or support."

"You've put us through every test you could think of. Twice. And we gotta make a move before Scagletti gets whatever it is he's after. If you're so worried about it you could always come with."

"You're the one partnered with an Intelligent Device. I'm better off providing ground support. Just..." Clara glances aside. "You better bring him back in one piece."

Kyouka gives her a firm nod. "I will."

Kyouka went before she left, and she doesn't really have any questions, so... she reaches out with her right hand so the sleeve of her jacket pulls back just enough to reveal Strike Wolf's stand by mode. "Strike Wolf!"

"Set up!"

In some other temporary plane of existence Kyouka is awash in surging violet energy, and with a series of acrobatic backflips and kicks, her new barrier jacket appears piece by piece: a black sleeveless gi and matching pants, a brief spin that draws strands of energy to her waist to burst in a long, backtied belt that flutters about to suggest a wolf's tail, and the mechanical clanking as pieces of armor form, piece by piece, around her hands and feet. A long flat rectangular cartridge system attaches to the back of each forearm with a mighty hiss of steam on contact. And the whole thing wraps up with a forward flip into a ready combat stance.

Kyouka takes a moment to stretch and limber up once transformed, following that up with a series of three kicks in quick succession: one low, one medium, one high.

"Yeah, alright. I think we're good. Strike Wolf?"

The gem on the back of her right gauntlet chimes, <All systems nominal.>

COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki transforms into Barrier Jacket Wolf Fighter!

<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (12)] has posed.

"We'll take good care of Hayate-san." Endo assures her gathered guardians as he shuffles into position. He's wearing dark clothes, a casual jacket and simple streetwear. It may not be time for sleeping, but it's still time to be comfortable.

His mundane attire, however, does not last long. The boy's fist curls around the rough looking purple stone he carries with him, focusing his attention on the work to come.

"Fallen Stern, set up!"

Burning violet light erupts from the cracks between Endo's fingers, engulfing the whole of the boy's hand a half-second later. Purple-black energy washes across his figure, his outline becoming a solid orchid silhouette filled with spiraling black stars.

As the burns away it reveals first a gauntlet hand, then matte black armor. Underneath is pristine white, and behind a long purple cape flaps and flutters as if thrown by some turbulent wind.

Endo's fingers close tightly around the weapon that now occupies his hand, an enormous greatsword with a gem burning darkly at its crossguard.

"I'm ready to go!"

COMBAT: Endo Naoki transforms into Barrier Jacket Zerstörer!

<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.

Once everyone is prepared, Hayate holds forth her palm. Unfurling the golden skein, the runes added to it as a result of the various forays glimmer with starlight.

She reads them, one by one, in Ancient Belkan. On such a soft and breathy voice, the sharp edges of that old tongue cannot help but be gentled somewhat.

As they are released into the air by her words, so too are they by the skein... floating in a slowly spinning ring -- one triangle-tip three, then two, and finally a third. Nine in all, evenly spaced, is little different from a circle.

Hayate's chant hardens, taking on the decisiveness of a commander. Her eyes flash an electric blue, and-- "TRANSFER!"

Starlight explodes beneath their feet, and the world goes away...

...reality reasserts itself surprisingly quickly. There wasn't really enough time spent between places to get an impression of the journey, which isn't always the case with this sort of thing.

There is air, though it is a little heady-tasting; in Earth terms it might resemble the extraordinary freshness of the mountaintotp meadow, perhaps, and maybe the relative lack of oxygen that goes with it -- not enough to be dangerous, especially to magical girls -- but enough to notice.

Endo, Setsuna and Kyouka recognize where they are immediately: exactly where they last left in dreams, when the Ashen, Argent, and Umbral Knights fought one another, until the Princess of Cephiro who originally wielded Souverain Heraut forcibly paused the action. It's all there, exactly the same as in their vision.

A valley between two waterfalls, with mist above; and below, a mirrorlike, shimmering surface, with just a hand's depth of water upon it, the rest of it falling to either end of an infinity pool.

A Belkan spell triangle, drawn by the Queen herself or one of her forebearers, eons ago now, lies just beneath the surface of the water.

The portal to the Pericosmic Array.

Hayate, who has had all this described to her by the others, does not hesitate; she rolls her chair onto it, leans down, and presses her palm into this final rune.

Everyone disappears for a second time.

---

This time the journey feels longer. There is a tug behind the navel, and mild vertigo. Then comes a crushing blackness. Nothing to see because nothing can be seen. Nothing to breathe because no one can breathe; there is no space to fill the lungs, a two-dimensional, flattened sensation.

It ends just before blacking out might be a real concern.

---

If they weren't breathless before, the view will steal whatever was left of it.

They reappear inside a giant prism. If there were a world inside Princess Serenity's Ginzuishou it might look something like this; transparent planes, intricate in their faceting, break up the view in all directions and at numerous angles, creating a particularly dizzying visual complexity.

Even if it was just the one window, though, it would be spectacular, because what's on the other side...

One might be forgiven for at first mistaking it for the same blackness from which everyone emerged. But it is not a true darkness. With the faintness that suggests some astonishing distance are pinpricks of light. They could be stars, but those celestial bodies, for all their magnificent diversity, do not come in as many colors as these. There are whites and reds and golds and blues, but also verdant greens and brilliant violets; tawny oranges and blushing pinks. Whatever cosmos is outside of this observatory, it is not the skies known to Earth.

And it is beautiful...

The chamber itself is massive. A transparent force field provides a floor to stand on; there is more crystalline-like facetting beneath, suggesting that the overall shape of the Pericosmic Array is more of a spherical gemstone than anything else.

What ISN'T present, notably, is treasure. It was believed that the stolen hearts of many worlds -- their centers, their magical essences -- were brought here for ostensible safekeeping, cloistered away from the mysterious Outsiders who, according to the Queen, were attracted to magic of any kind, and would otherwise invade and destroy every civilization in the universe.

But they are not here. Either they were rescued by the Princess and Knights in ages past, or they were liberated very recently, or... there is some other reason for their absence.

One might expect to see other treasures of the Belkan Royal Family also; weapons, or coins; wonderful things. A dragon's hoard from a thousand conquests, the sacking of a hundred worlds. But there isn't any of that, either.

What there is, is... the tree.

It is dead, surely; no leaves on its gnarled branches; any flower petals long since gone to dust. But its roots are splayed widely across the energy-floor, and are not just naturally but magically intricate; almost as complex in their whorls as the golden skein that guided everyone here.

They converge in the middle of the room... spiraling upward, along one another...

...into the shape of a woman.

Not just any woman. The missing Belkan Queen. She is rendered, in a tree trunk that has never seen a chisel, down to very fine levels of detail. Her crown; her gown. Her expression, which is both patrician in her arrogance, and pedestrian in her rage.

Her outstretched hand, five roots trailing from it like grotesquely long fingers. She is -- the tree is -- palming some kind of pedastal made of the same energy-stuff as the floor.

It is very, very quiet here.

<Pose Tracker> Cure Passion [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

Transfer. They go.

Cure Passion knows mountain air well enough, from trips with Lera to hike. It would otherwise be an unfamiliar sensation, given that Labyrinth is not known for its natural features. But she recognizes this place even if she didn't; she saw it, in a vision.

"This place," Passion says. "It's where we were before."

Hayate doesn't hesitate, so on they go.

---

That... sensation... is unpleasant to say the least. But this place is as beautiful as that was terrible. Passion looks around, surprised, taking a step on the forcefield to look around. Light...

"This...?" Passion wonders. "Where are all the treasures? Where are the..."

There is a tree. Passion recognizes the Queen from her vigil as Argent. And she sees her, there. In this way...

"...?" Cure Passion wonders, and looks around at the others, unsettled and uncertain.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Hayate oversees the transfer, and --

Mikoto's nostrils flare with nostalgia; she knows, at once, that the mist hanging over this valley obscures tall peaks. They are high, high up, high above society and laws and memory.

There isn't long for her to localise herself.

She doesn't need long.

Somehow, the next leg of the trip is nostalgic, too.

When they reappear, she opens her maw and fills her lungs like bellows, rapid in-out breaths to restore equilibrium to her screaming muscles. She notices only after the necessities of survival the beauty of her situation -- and she thinks, looking over those incomparable stars, of a golden cage.

And then she sees the tree, looks up, sees what has grown into her. Mikoto takes a step backwards, the hair at the back of her neck bristling; she growls, too, lips curling up over her teeth. She remembers dying for her defiance, though it wasn't her.

Her disgruntled noises die, as she gestures, with one hand, to the emptiness where all those treasures ought to be, and then to that vast tree. "There?" She guesses, as if the Queen has done something to lock them further away.

Whether she means the treasures are literally inside the tree-trunk, or whether it's a function of that pedestal, is a question for the ages.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Despite herself, Fate holds her breath. She is not unconfident. She is with people who helped teach her that life was more than obedience to memories, to love. She is with people who has fought at her side through the best times, and the worst. Every victory, and every defeat.

No it is more accurate to say, she has never been more confident. And should that confidence waver for a moment, all she need do is remember the eyes of that girl in the bed.

A reflection of herself, yet as she knows well, a person - her own person. If people are willing to teach her, just like they taught her.

She tastes the thinner air, looking upon the valley, before they flit between the layers of dimensions, space folding, and the sensation testing her. But just before she might have blacked out... the prism unveils itself before her. Fate blinks, looking about with a sort of wonder at the refraction of light at angles, before her mind snaps into focus at the details like the floor, the force field.

What this place lacks. As Passion comments, she says quietly, "I don't know." Possibilities of where it's gone do enter her mind, but she tries not to speculate too much aloud.

And what this place contains, a tree, dead - but wasn't the World Tree in a similar, awful state once upon a time? Sometimes such things hold more than they might at a glance, as the roots converge into the shape of a woman. Fate recognizes her too, from her dreams, experiences.

"What happened here?"

Fate asks quietly, of the woman that seems to represent such myriad extremes. Faced with an impossible situation, deciding upon an awful solution. She may not like her decision, but she understands why.

She understands.

She has loved fiercely enough, to understand why one might feel so backed into a corner, feeling there is only one way out.

She understands.

Which is why seeing her like this, is still a tragedy in her eyes.

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

La Sirene de Diamant gazes coolly upon the Phantom Fox. Her eyes narrow. But --

"If she's alright with you, so am I," la Sirene remarks to her, with a little toss of her hair.

And then their host has prepared the way.

-- a lovely mountain...

La Sirene takes a deep breath. She rests a hand on her hip. "Is that so?" she asks, gazing outwards. "I wonder where this place is."

A beat. To Cure Passion, she remarks, "It's nice to be on another world for a moment without anyone stabbing anyone else." (La Sirene de Diamant remembers Alcyone very well.)

She simply gazes round, letting the alien landscape rest comfortably in her eyes; her mind; her memory. Then there is the second door...

-- close. stifling. silent. a grave. did it fail? are we trapped? la Sirene feels a bloom of panic in her - her --

-- they're out: "Fuwah," she exhales. And then she looks around; glittering...

... Walls. But the hoard is bare.

There is only that tree, immense and dead and silent.

"... It feels like a tomb," la Sirene answers Fate, her voice hushed, almost without realizing it.

<Pose Tracker> Kyouka Okazaki [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

Briefly, before the transfer, Diamant has words for Clara. Clara harumphs and looks away, lifting her nose. Kyouka just shrugs a little and says, "We worked it out."

Kyouka draws in a sharp breath--the air is familiar, to some degree, that headiness and lack of oxygen; she's spent a lot of time outdoors, after all--but it is the sight of that impossibly mirror-like lake.

The memories from before left it in... quite a state that she won't soon forget. But that carnage all seems gone, now. How long ago must those memories have been?

But they only have a moment to observe it before the journey continues.

Blackness, and then...

A spectacular, breathtaking view. A sea of stars unlike anything she's seen anywhere on Earth, a fasceted, gemstone-like structure, and... She takes a step back, futilely, when she sees the energy field floor before realizing that there IS, indeed, a floor.

She taps at it with the heel of a boot just to be sure.

No treasures to be found, but she turns as she sees the roots, follows him to the source--and another step back of astonishment. "Wh--" That detail, the way it is all so intricately rendered, and even the way the fingers extend into gnarled branches as they do.

"Is... is that her?" she asks, quietly. Not 'is that a likeness of her' but 'is that the actual Queen, turned into a tree?'

<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (12)] has posed.

Endo, seemingly the last to arrive, casts a long shadow across the group of intruders into the Pericosmic Array. Maybe it's a trick of the prism's light, or the illumination from an errant galaxy, but it seems to stretch out long like a blanket across those that came before.

"How" He asks.

With the quiet scrap of metal that shadow grows, unfurls like a dark flower coming slowly into bloom.

"How could you do this?" Grief and anger put a heavy strain on the words, but they're clear enough to understand.

The man that speaks them isn't Endo. Endo isn't here notexactly.

BGM Change: Still in the Dark (Piano) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dILd4K1HKec

The Umbral Knight is several heads taller than the young man that stood with the group just moments ago. The enormous sword clenched tightly in his hand fits there naturally, as if it was made for him and him alone.

The armor is almost the same, but more comprehensive; it covers nearly everything, even the broad face of the man encased inside. It's battered and chipped, gouged and bloodied, but the Belkan Knight inside of it is still unbowed. Even now, after everything he's done to get here.

Especially now.

"You killed her." He says, baleful gaze turning squarely upon Kyouka. "I believed in you. I trusted you. And you did this? To your own kin?" Fallen Stern blazes with purple flame as the Umbral Knight casts this anguished accusation.

"Traitor." He snarls, like a wounded animal. "You're all traitors. And I will do my dutyAND EXECUTE YOU!"

With one vicious lunge he closes the distance between himself and the target of his ire, swinging his weapon in a brutal arc. Purple-black fire burns as he begins to rain blows down at anything in the immediate vicinity. There's no hesitation, no mercy, only a howling and inexhaustible rage.

COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Asteroid Eilen on Kyouka Okazaki.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Blauverschiebung on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Blauverschiebung on Cure Passion.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Blauverschiebung on La Sirene de Diamant.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Blauverschiebung on Fate Testarossa.
COMBAT: Cure Passion braces 23 Fatigue damage from Endo Naoki's Blauverschiebung, taking 10 Fatigue damage!  Cure Passion's Block
and Parry abilities activate!  Stagger applied to Cure Passion!
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa braces 26 Fatigue damage from Endo Naoki's Blauverschiebung, taking 11 Fatigue damage!  Fate Testarossa's
Block and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi counters 9 Fatigue damage from Endo Naoki's Blauverschiebung, taking 27 Fatigue damage!  Mikoto Minagi's
Reverse and Tactician abilities activate!  Stagger applied to Mikoto Minagi!
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi's counterattack, Obsidian Blade: Dynamo, partially gets through, doing 17 Fatigue damage to Endo Naoki!
Critical Counterhit!
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant partially dodges 7 Fatigue damage from Endo Naoki's Blauverschiebung, taking 29 Fatigue damage!
Stagger applied to La Sirene de Diamant!
COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki fails to dodge Endo Naoki's Asteroid Eilen, taking 49 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.

Cure Passion recognizes the Queen from her vigil as Argent, but there's something else really familiar about this place, something about how it smells, of all things. It is difficult to describe, but it is not a pleasant sense memory. Very much the opposite. Something in the air is a source of tremendous anxiety; of pressure.

Sweat gathers beneath her long, flowing pink hair, at the nape of her neck. It feels hot in here. It isn't. But then, temperature is mostly a feeling...

---

Mikoto feels nostalgic for a plce she's never been, but she is not wrong in those feelings. They spring from a very true place in her; a fundamental place, that recognizes something fundamental in turn about her environment.

She realizes, just as she's leaving the mists for the crystal, that the mountains she's never seen have no tops after all. Their summit is forever -- which is to say, they have no end.

This is not a real place. Or at least, it is not a place that plays by the physical rules of the universe as her body knows it.

The crystal feels even less real... even more like being on the outside of something, looking in.

---

The Queen does not particularly look like Precia Testarossa. She is not an ancestor. Her build is stockier; where a lifetime of science and academia rendered Precia softly curvaceous, the Queen, even from the back lines, conducted an extremely martial existence. And the hair is all wrong, plaited and pinned to her head like that, hypercontrolled.

No, Fate is not her daughter; and her Knight was not the Queen's, but rather a friend, a comrade, of that long-dead Princess.

But the tragic tree, with its outstretched palm over a transparent column, almost looks like it's reaching out for her.

---

La Sirene says, "It feels like a tomb."

La Sirene is correct.

La Sirene wins a prize: the knowledge of what a tomb feels like.

It's not like, even on her many adventures, she has had the opportunity to traverse a great many resting places. The tomb aesthetic is not widespread in magical Tokyo or even the lands beyond. She fought Alcyone in a dragon's lair, and it was ancient and full of treasure in exactly the way this place isn't.

But perhaps because of the many illusions she's faced in Cephiro, La Sirene might wonder...

...it feels like a tomb, but whose tomb is it?

---

Kyouka asks an important question.

Is that a likeness of the Queen, or is it the actual Queen turned into a tree?

Or is there a third option?

---

The Umbral Knight sees the tree that used to be his beloved Queen.

He sees the damndable Princess who banished her in the first place, and he sees the traitor Knights.

And he will see justice done.

But Endo's friends, though they too see the Umbral Knight, do not see themselves... overwritten? Possessed? It's not completely clear what's become of their friend-- in any rate, whatever has happened to him, has not happened to them. They see through their own eyes.

But from their dreams, their memories, they know that beyond the threat to their own selves from the Umbral Knight's unstoppable force, there is a worse one among them:

The Umbral Knight will not stop --

-- will not stop --

-- until he is dead, or all of them are dead.

It feels like a tomb, indeed. If they hold back it will surely be their own. But if they go all out...

...will it be Endo's tomb instead?

<Pose Tracker> Cure Passion [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

Temperature is a feeling. ...Setsuna Higashi does not do well, with ancient and overgrown trees. Cure Passion is her, still, and she remembers a time when there was such a smell. That anxiety, that pressure, she feels them, feels them against her neck.

"A tomb," Passion repeats la Sirene. And there--

The Umbral Knight. Passion's eyes widen. The armor is the same, sure, but, "Endo-kun--"

They're all traitors, he says. And Passion remembers... But she is not the Argent Knight. She is Cure Passion, and instead of an ae, she brings up her arms in an X to block with all the fierce might of Pretty Cure. "No!" she calls. Will it be Endo's tomb, then...?

Alone, Cure Passion would not, could not be a Cure at all. But while her sister is not here, her friends are. And she can only believe in them.

"This isn't you!" she calls, and rushes forward, whirling and twirling in a circle up, up, up, to try to get through his memory with her kicks.

"Endo-kun! You aren't him!"

COMBAT: Cure Passion has used Rising Passion on Endo Naoki.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

"En...do?" Mikoto asks, the mora punctuated by a pregnant pause, as slowly she turns towards her friend.

And looks up.

(She has to look up to Endo at the best of times -- he is a growing boy, and she's struggled to grow an inch under the weight of the familiarity which led her to realise those mountains were endless. But up, up, up...)

"Endo!" Mikoto barks, with more alarm, as he accuses Kyouka of homicide. Stress lines her eyes, as she looks haplessly to Fate for help, before she calls again: "Endo! Endo!!"

Did they leave him behind, in that black and airless abyss? Or...

She has no time to wonder -- Fallen Stern is come. And before she can think about it, she's leaping forward into those purple flames, to clash against his blade. Her eyes widen, as she realises where she's standing, and at the last moment Miroku turns as it frees itself to slash at him.

At the last moment, she strikes him with the flat of her blade, instead.

She remembers the Umbral Knight, and not to her or his benefit.

Because she remembers Endo, too.

One way or another, she hops back, one step, two, three, but she does not call out for him again. Her desperate denial is written in the way her lips part, breath dragging over them as she stares in silent horror. And it is in the tight grasp of her sword, held at ready; the way her heel lifts, just so, behind her, ready to move at a moment's notice.

Whether or not this can't be happening, here it is.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Blade: Devastation on Endo Naoki.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Fate nods in agreement with Nori, "It's... sad here." Is Fate's response, though she might as well be preaching to the choir when it comes to La Sirene's sphere. Whereas Kyouka asks a great question, and Fate considers, "I feel like it must be."

She doesn't catch the vibe from Endo, not until he says 'How could you do this?' and Fate turns to face him in alarm. Or at least, not Endo.

The Umbral Knight, as a wave of purple-black fire suddenly tries to consume her, and Fate swings Bardiche in a wide arc, cleaving the black fire, even as some singes over her barrier jacket. "Endo! This isn't you! You helped teach me so many important things."

As Fate rises in flight, she asses her options, none good-! None good. If she goes all out, she could really hurt him, when he's not himself.

But Fate? Fate catches something. Perhaps it's her imagination. Of course the Queen doesn't remind her of Precia, even if her story is one can she can empathize with. But... but-! As Mikoto asks for help, as she sees the others attack. "I know it's difficult, but stall him!"

Yes, stall the man who's always hit like a truck with Belkan magic, great ask Fate.

Her eyes look upon her, shimmering red, before she turns upon the Umbral Knight, and abruptly dives towards him. Her movement cuts a quick slicing arc of Bardiche, in a fly by attack.

It looks like it is meant to strike him quickly, and rather shallowly- and then in the blink of an eye, it is revealed she wasn't really there.

She is instead by the image of the Queen. Some part of her remembers being her Knight. She isn't right now, but- her gauntleted hand spreads out its fingers, and... lays it almost far too delicately upon her hand.

She does not understand why she feels this way, why she is reaching out to her, but some part of her was always told to trust her instincts, her feelings- and so, she does.

"What do you want of me?" She murmurs, far too softly.

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

A tomb... but for whom? la Sirene wonders, gazing at the grown-wood statue of a woman. It's too precise to be a simple happy accident. There must be more. The obvious answer, she thinks, is the queen. But...

Her eyes half-lid in thought before a familiar voice, one of her companions and comrades, speaks up. Endo!

La Sirene looks towards Endo as he speaks. "Hm?" she says to him. She blinks once. She rests a hand on her hip. "Ah... yes, is this something that Fallen St"

No, it is not. La Sirene's pale eyes flick towards Cure Passion for a moment as if to ask: okay what is happen

wat, her eyes seem to say, imploringly. Her wordless wish is not swift enough as there is an enormous sword blow. It falls upon la Sirene and the glow around her erupts into something three phases 'brighter' (technically darker, but it's not exactly light) before she is forced to the ground, rolling aside and panting for a moment for breath. Rising upwards, she sucks in a deep breath.

She has no blade, and yet.

"Naoki!" she calls out, sharp and loud. She turns as she says it to raise up her left hand. "Look at me, Naoki."

(Ugh! Must I do this, she thinks. And yet the raw, murderous power of Fallen Stern commands something.) She raises up her right hand as if to call on Les Mysteres --

And then that self-same light shimmers and shudders, pouring outwards and rolling like liquid along the floor to try and erupt from beneath Endo and clasp his legs and, if she may be so fortunate, arms (if perhaps not his Device) in the sea-spawned ropes of abyssal unlight!

"What is happening!!!" la Sirene says as the light rises upwards, which is more of a plea for the others - or perhaps Endo himself. "Don't do this-- put your blade down, speak to us --"

COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used Polyploia on Endo Naoki.

<Pose Tracker> Kyouka Okazaki [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

A likeness, or the queen transformed... Kyouka ponders that. Might there be another option?

Kyouka's blood chills as she hears that voice. She knows that voice. She has heard that voice, twice before.

In a memory recalled from long, long ago.

That voice should not be here.

She recoils as that baleful glare turns on her. She killed the Queen, he accuses. "Endo. You gotta snap out of this. I'm not the Ashen Knight." It wasn't Ashen that broke the Queen's ring, but that minor bit of trivia is insignificant in the moment.

There is a moment of hesitation as Umbral charges for her, as she tries to reach through to her friend and comrade.

It is a moment that costs her.

He is fast, faster than she would have thought possible, and she takes the full brunt of his blade, thrown clear to be sent tumbling and skipping along that translucent forcefield floor like a rock skipping across a pond.

She groans as she pushes herself upright. "I am not Ashen Knight," she repeats. "But I have some of her memories." She steps forward, sinking into a combat stance as she brings her arms up.

Memories... that thought buzzes at the back of her mind, but there are more important things at hand here.

"It tore her up to act against you! But she would have rather died than strike down your queen!"

She springs herself forward, charging directly at Umbral before she kicks up into the air and then abruptly changes direction once more in mid-air, diving straight for him with a kick, her boot enfulfed briefly in purple energy.

COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki has used Piercing Fang Strike on Endo Naoki.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki braces 7 Fatigue damage from Cure Passion's Rising Passion, taking 10 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Cure
Passion is Psyched!  Endo Naoki's Block and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki fails to brace Kyouka Okazaki's Piercing Fang Strike, taking 10 Fatigue damage!  Kyouka Okazaki is Psyched!  
COMBAT: Endo Naoki braces 12 Fatigue damage from La Sirene de Diamant's Polyploia, taking 18 Fatigue damage!  Endo Naoki's Block
and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki perfectly counters 30 Fatigue damage from Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Devastation, taking 0 Fatigue damage!
Critical Counter!  Endo Naoki's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki's counterattack, Asteroid Eilen, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Mikoto Minagi!

<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (12)] has posed.

The kicks that Passion is raining down on the Umbral Knight rattle his broad frame, each one sending a shockwave of impact through the dark armor. There's no recognition, just retaliationa swift flick of the gigantic sword to end the danger that the Pretty Cure presents to the Umbral Knight's objective.

The weapon curves toward Mikoto next, blades meeting with an enormous crash of impact. They scrape together, Fallen Stern and Miroku, a tale as old as time. But the history here is all jumped up, a conflict that's over and shouldn't happen for centuries yet.

As they part again the gash that Fate leaves behind is probably a welcome distraction for Mikoto. Unfortunately for Fate, her approach toward the tree is also the fastest way to earn his ire. The knight sweeps his sword in a sharp arc, sending a spray of dark meteorites toward the girl reaching out for the effigy of his queen.

The baseball sized spheres give chase, narrowing with alarming speed and detonating once they come in range.

Any further pursuit is hampered by the tendrils of light that bind and grasp around the hulking knight's figure. He audibly creaks as they constrict, light burning sharp lines across his outline. What Nori earns for her efforts is a cry of pain and rage rather than any coherent line of communication.

"I won't forgive you."

Chains of dark energy erupt from the Belkan triangle that burns to life in his open palm, racing to shackle the traitors before him. They split mid-flight, a dozen speeding for La Sirene de Diamant, a dozen for Mikoto Minagi.

The Knight is moving slower now, but Kyouka is kind enough to come to him. And she, for whatever sins she's committed in the Umbral Knight's eyes, is the greatest villain here. The power of her kick is enough to stagger him back several steps, and to a knee. But he's dragging himself up again just a second later, a gauntleted hand reaching out to bodily grab and slam her bodily to the invisible floor of the Array.

COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Kette Binden on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Kette Binden on La Sirene de Diamant.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Meteor Strum on Fate Testarossa.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Blauverschiebung on Cure Passion.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Rage on Kyouka Okazaki.
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa perfectly counters 23 Fatigue damage from Endo Naoki's Meteor Strum, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical
Hit!  Critical Counter!  Fate Testarossa's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate!
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa's counterattack, Sonic Move, interrupts, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Endo Naoki!  
COMBAT: Cure Passion counters 8 Fatigue damage from Endo Naoki's Blauverschiebung, taking 24 Fatigue damage!  
COMBAT: Cure Passion's counterattack, Crimson Counter, partially gets through, doing 9 Fatigue damage to Endo Naoki!  Critical
Counterhit!

<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Namae wo Yonde - MGLN Nanoha OST - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIFvK-Fiq_0

The giant prism's interior is a trippy place to fight. The panes of crystal reflect and refract both the figures of everyone in it, and their battle energies. At the same time, the undulating rainbow-darkness outside is still visible, a cosmic tapestry playing backdrop to this conflict, making it feel both enormous in scale and, at the same time, infintesimally small.

---

The Queen's rutile fingers feel slightly warm, yet they crumple beneath the slightest contact of Fate's.

Not because they are ancient, and go to dust.

But because they are bark, and empty.

The bark crackles and bends beneath Fate's hand. It flakes a bit like eggshell, but retains a surprising springiness for something from a bygone age.

The pressure from Fate's hand transmits downward into the transparent column, which hums to life. A familiar feminine voice -- not TOO familiar, because Fate only ever experienced the voice of the dead Belkan Princess in the battle where she perished -- chimes:

"Welcome to the Pericosmic Array. What do you wish to see?"

The Pericosmic Array is a giant crystal slowly rotating through the cosmos; it is a tomb; and it is also, apparently, exactly what it claims to be: an array. Sensory, or at least that is what the prompt suggests.

And apparently it has been programmed with the voice of the Belkan Queen's daughter, so that's not creepy and morbid at all. A voice lost to time and to tragedy and to sacrifice, speaking in such an ordinary way. How strange. How sad.

No one can even remember her name, to call this facsimile by it.

COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant counters 6 Fatigue damage from Endo Naoki's Kette Binden, taking 6 Fatigue damage!  La Sirene de
Diamant is Quipped!  La Sirene de Diamant's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate!
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant's counterattack, Les Mysteres, partially gets through, doing 19 Fatigue damage to Endo Naoki!  
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi partially dodges 2 Fatigue damage from Endo Naoki's Kette Binden, taking 9 Fatigue damage!  Mikoto Minagi is
Quipped!  Mikoto Minagi's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki decisively counters 21 Fatigue damage from Endo Naoki's Rage, taking 7 Fatigue damage!  
COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki's counterattack, Reversal, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Endo Naoki!

<Pose Tracker> Cure Passion [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

None of them want to fight Endo like this. None of them want to be put on the line against that raw power. But it is happening indeed, and it is here.

But Fate has a plan. Fate says to 'stall', and Cure Passion trusts Fate with more than her life.

So she will stall.

Rattle, rattle, rattle--and a flick of the sword. Passsion swings back, and the shockwave that results of blade to blade-hand strike gives her the worse end of the deal, knocking her backward to slide along the force field. The strange and beautiful landscape makes her feel small, big, disoriented--

But she doesn't need to focus on the world around her. She only needs to focus on her enemy--her dear friend.

"Endo!" she calls. "I will not stop!"

The Pericosmic Array is coming to life, with that familiar voice, but Passion cannot focus on it, cannot let the disorienting world come in. Instead....

She surges like the tide, bringing a series of lightning-fast punches for Endo's side, for the Umbral Knight's gauntlets. "So you'd better come after me first!"

But she does notice Kyouka...

"I've got you," Passion tells her. "We'll do this together!"

COMBAT: Cure Passion has used Breaking Through on Endo Naoki.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

It shouldn't happen; it hasn't happened; it can't be happening; it is.

And it vibrates through Mikoto's arms and through her body, as two titanic blades come together and answer the question of what happens when two unstoppable forces meet.

"?!" Mikoto yelps, a wordless choked noise, as Fate asks them to stall. She doesn't have to point out how difficult stalling against Endo is.

Particularly if she doesn't want to hurt him.

She thinks, again, and deliberately, that she does not want to hurt him.

"Ah--!!" Mikoto yelps, as she sees Kette Binden coming for her; her heel kicks off, and she darts, blurringly fast, to the side, but those dark shackles manage to find her anyway. She falls to the ground with a cry, and struggles there for a moment before she brings Miroku down on the chains.

They might be magic chains, but Miroku is, in his way, a magic sword, and so -- even though those shackles are still bound to her legs -- she's able to stand.

"-- Endo!" Mikoto cries, again, as she sees him reaching for Kyouka. She thinks fast, and leaps for Endo, sword-first --

-- which you'd think wouldn't require any thought on her part at all, and you'd be right.

The thought comes into the fact that she pulls her sword away, at the last moment, to try and kick him in the face instead.

W.W.P.D.?

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Arts: Assault on Endo Naoki.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

'Stall' she asked of them, it is a big ask, but she trusts to make do without her, even Kyouka, who only came into own so recently as a mage.

The Meteors rain down, right as Fate reaches right for the image of the Queen, but right as her fingertips would have touched.

Right as a baseball sized meteor would have struck her head on.

Fate Testarossa vanishes, as if she blinked out of existence in a thunderclap of light. It would be inaccurate to call it an illusion spell, however. It is is a support spell for the purpose of 'transport'. Record what happened, slow down the frame, and you'll see the flash of light suddenly back peddling her out of the way

And the active spell simply transports her back a few meters, before she surges forward, fingertips clasping the Queen like effigy's hand. They crumple, at the touch, and Fate feels it, like bark, flaking, but still bending beneath her fingertips. Something hums to life, a question - in the memory of a Princess' voice.

She has not time enough to dwell on the fact she can't even remember the name of the voice she remembers.

The transparent column, the crystal rotating through the cosmos, and Fate hardly has time to think, mind whirling, what would be most beneficial? What would help them the most? What do they need to see...?

What does she want to see?

Time has not fully dulled the sting of the question that occurs to her.

'I want to see my Mother, Precia Testarossa.'

But even that is like an intrusive thought. What she really wants- no NEEDS to know is how to stop this without hurting her friend. But if there's one thing she's learned from these many experiences, of what Jail seeks - of their own involvement in this. It is that the past is affecting the present, and in order to solve this problem - she needs to understand.

And so what she really asks is-

"Show me how this happened."

She needs to understand. Let understanding offer her - all of them, what they need.

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

"Endoooooo!!" la Sirene cries out as he screams in pain. Her eyes wet. He won't forgive her. (Them? No - it feels like her.)

Of course, there is one thing that Fallen Stern -- or the mnemonic devices that draw on Endo's body and soul right now -- may not have counted on. La Sirene de Diamant is already facing the right way, so as the dark chains lash towards her, she raises her head upwards.

The hand she had raised in feint instead curls into the gesture.

Her right hand comes up -- "Les Mysteres," she implores with more grief than usual, "COME--" And sweeps downwards.

There is a great electric sound, like singing steel as the burst of ink-black and silver-threading surges forwards towards the onrushing chains. While one of them is moving laterally enough to come up and glance against la Sirene's uniform with a loud kTINKG!, most of the rest is thrown aside by the onrushing burst of refined and crystallized sorrow, which carries on its path towards the hulking knight.

And that secret factor is -- worried, anxious, tearful Sirens may be harder to overcome.

TO WIT: She immediately takes one step forwards and sweeps up her right hand, which sends a scintillant burst of that un-light towards the visor... head... la Sirene cannot really make out fine details right now. Her vision is misty. What Kyouka said seeps through her head. "These are runaway memories...?" she half-asks Kyouka.

Her voice raises, even as this dazzling 'flashlight' remains on the face of the knight: "Endo, please!! This is now, that was then--!"

COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used Carbonado Kaleidoscope on Endo Naoki.

<Pose Tracker> Kyouka Okazaki [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

This is not how she thought she would be stress-testing Strike Wolf's new form, but... here we are. Somehow she still doesn't feel ready for this battle--maybe because she knows that this is her friend.

Or potentially her friend--she can't act like it isn't, in some fashion, him.

But she isn't alone, and she has allies backing her up--the Umbral Knight is moving slower now, under their combined assault, and that gives Kyouka, who's always valued her speed, the briefest opportunity to react. She sees the hand reaching up for her, and has a flash of insight for how to twist, to leverage his own formidable strength against him.

But that strength stymies her efforts and she is hurled to the ground--but this time into a controlled roll. She rolls with the force of it, then plants one hand on the ground to spring upwards from a handstand right into the air, somersault with a twist, and then land on her feet in a combat stance once again.

She never heard that voice, that comes from the Pericosmic Array. That princess was forever in Ashen's thoughts, she knows that much, but the memory of a memory is a remove too far for her to recall directly.

Stall.

She can do that. She may be the newst of them, as Fate noticed, but she is resolved. She has risen to meet the challenge again and again.

She nods to Cure Passion as she shouts encouragement. "Right!"

Diamant has a question, and Kyouka can only say, "Maybe? Your guess is as good as mine, at this point."

She doesn't want to do this, but they still ahve to protect themselves, and so she sinks low into her stance and then bursts forward. Not up this time, but to the side and behind, only to rebound off of a magic circle that appears for the briefest instant as she directs herself to slam home a punch at the Umbral Knight's back. "Faaaaaang Breaker!"

COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki has used Fang Breaker Strike on Endo Naoki.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki braces 10 Fatigue damage from Cure Passion's Breaking Through, taking 8 Fatigue damage!  Endo Naoki's Block and
Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki fails to brace Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Arts: Assault, taking 13 Fatigue damage!  
COMBAT: Endo Naoki fails to brace La Sirene de Diamant's Carbonado Kaleidoscope, taking 37 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Stagger
applied to Endo Naoki!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki fails to brace Kyouka Okazaki's Fang Breaker Strike, taking 22 Fatigue damage!  Kyouka Okazaki is Psyched!
Cripple applied to Endo Naoki!

<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (12)] has posed.

Passion's declaration has the Umbral Knight's attention. Her the heavy impacts of her fists probably help as well. That and the sound kick in the helmet from Mikoto drive the Umbral Knight backward several more steps.

Kyouka's next strike reorients him again, rocking the mountain of a man several feet in the opposite direction. The force of her strike is audible, as is the rattle of armor as he staggers and takes a knee once more.

They each call out, requesting that he stop. They call for Endobut does the Umbral Knight even have a name anymore?

With a heaving breath the beleaguered Belkan warrior slams the point of Fallen Stern down into the floor that supports their battle. A spiderweb of black fire thrums outward as the hulking figure rests his weight against the blade. He looks, for a moment, as weary and wounded as he is. Like he's walked a hundred planets, fought a hundred battles, all to see his faith rewarded with pain and betrayal.

With a shudder of effort one fist pressed against the glowing gem at Fallen Stern's crossguard. The heart of his weapon. It glows in response, igniting with ugly violet energy. It burns along the knight's armor, down the length of the blade, flooding outward in a burning sheet that washes over the four nearby.

His opponents aren't fighting to kill. They aren't even fighting like knights.

It doesn't seem to matter.

In the Umbral Knight's eyes, there is no clemency for their transgressions.

Dark armor groans audibly as he straightens, raising his weapon once more. It burns like a star, a worthy rival to the celestial bodies that set the backdrop for this unfortunate battle.

COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Aufprallwarnung on Cure Passion.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Aufprallwarnung on La Sirene de Diamant.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Aufprallwarnung on Kyouka Okazaki.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Aufprallwarnung on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Zerstorung Drang on Endo Naoki.
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant braces 7 Fatigue damage from Endo Naoki's Aufprallwarnung, taking 6 Fatigue damage!  La Sirene de
Diamant's Block and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki accepts Endo Naoki's Zerstorung Drang, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Empower applied to Endo Naoki!  Cleanse! All
of Endo Naoki's debuffs are cleared!
COMBAT: Cure Passion partially dodges 2 Fatigue damage from Endo Naoki's Aufprallwarnung, taking 10 Fatigue damage!  Cure
Passion's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki dodges 6 Fatigue damage from Endo Naoki's Aufprallwarnung, taking 9 Fatigue damage!  Kyouka Okazaki's Fade
and Flash abilities activate!
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi counters 6 Fatigue damage from Endo Naoki's Aufprallwarnung, taking 6 Fatigue damage!  Mikoto Minagi's
Reverse and Tactician abilities activate!
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi's counterattack, Obsidian Blade: Dynamo, partially gets through, doing 24 Fatigue damage to Endo Naoki!

<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.

"Query accepted," says the disembodied voice gamely. "Now playing most recent recorded footage. Timestamp: 0002.34.11.3."

The numbers are meaningless, based on some system long since forgotten.

The vision is not.

The first sign of it is how the transparent walls of the Pericosmic Array turn, to the last, opaque. A prismatic rainbow of energy veils the cosmos from sight entirely; it cannot be penetrated no matter how hard one stares (not that anyone currently has the time to try). Perhaps this makes sense. Fate has asked that the all-seeing(?) eye of the Array turn to view the one place that is not outside itself.

And then the ghosts appear.

Call them holograms if you like; they look incredibly real, perfectly solid. The first of them shimmers into being above Fate's outstretched hand-- the projected light merging with her own as the roots appear to reinflate. To fill, empty no longer, though still wood, not flesh.

"Your Majesty! How could you do something like this to yourself? To cast off even your humanity..."

That would be the Princess of Cephiro, the visual of whom is neatly superimposed over Kyouka, almost using her body as a projection screen.

The Belkan Queen's voice is wooden, which is not inappropriate. Only her face is still flesh, though it has a barklike cast. Though her phrasing retains a certain sting, her affect is flat entirely.

"Your rash actions left me little choice, child. What is there in this prison to eat, save for endless light? This is an old magic, and a high price to pay for saving the cosmos, but my daughter paid it, and I shall pay it also."

"But," the Cephiran princess asks, bewildered -- Ren's Souvuerain Heraut is in lance mode in her hand, but grasped loosely, point burying itself in the energy floor, numinous rings fading outwards from where its tip makes contact -- "But what of the Hearts? The Pillars?"

"I have sent them away to a place beyond even beyond my knowing. So far away in space and in time that even their memories will be forgotten. And in so doing, their worlds will be spared forever the Outsider blight."

"I have seen those worlds you claim to have saved, and they might have fared better battling the Outsiders," the Princess says, bitterly.

The tree that is the Queen sniffs. "Spoken like a child who knows nothing of Our war. In any case, we'll never know. I chose to protect them, and in so doing, protect everyone. And it is clear from your poor attitude that I must continue to protect you all. These memories of magic that would sing to the Outsiders like a beacon -- they will not, cannot, be lost to time and space forever. I will set the Pericosmic Array to seek them out once again, and someday, though it may take the Array a thousand years to complete its search, it will find them. And I will live on, as I am, to do what I have done, again and again, casting them beyond sight, beyond knowing, for the safety of all."

The Princess swallows, and looks resolved. Her grip on Heraut firms; the point raises. "Then I must stop you," she declares. "You have gone mad. I will not allow you to consign magic itself to an eternal fate of lost memory."

<Pose Tracker> Cure Passion [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

Cure Passion is on a wavelength with Mikoto in the moment. Punch, punch, kick--they can keep Endo's attention, maybe. But they have to keep keeping it. Fate makes her query, and la Sirene is trying so hard. "Fate-chan will find a way!" Passion assures la Sirene de Diamant. "We just have to hang on until then!"

She keeps an eye on Kyouka, ready to throw herself in the way if she has to, to ensure that that terrible sword does not cleave into her friend. But Endo, still...

The Umbral Knight looks so weary. And that glow begins. "Endo--"

Passion cannot get out of the way of this starry blast. She cannot evade it, and it burns against her, sending her a step back and another. "Ah--"

It is not enough. Not yet. But the vision begins, and Passion tries to move around the holograms.

"Fate!" Passion calls, in alarm, in need for help--

But she was asked to stall. And stall she will.

Passion takes a knee, as if starting at the beginning of a sprint. And then she moves, becoming nothing more than a flash of red, strike after strike meant to drive Endo and the Umbral Knight both back, to keep him occupied for long moments that stretch instants into seconds.

"I--won't--give up on you, Endo!"

COMBAT: Cure Passion has used Passion Flash on Endo Naoki.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Flame washes over everything. It should push them away.

Mikoto dives through the fire, to clash with Endo's blade again. It burns at her vest, at those leggings which clast so much with her cargo shorts. She ignores it.

"Endo!" She cries, as she pushes into his space. "Endo!!"

But he's never responded to his name, in this fight.

And --

"HEY!" Mikoto yells, as she frees her blade for just enough leverage to swing it about and ram it, slabside, in the place he's hopefully still standing. "You! Umbral Knight! She's DEAD! It's DONE!" And that might just seem like rubbing salt in the wound, except --

"Why's Umbral Knight trying to die with her?! Duty's done, Knight!"

She might have argued further, but here's a lightshow. And the Queen didn't die, exactly, after all.

"..." Mikoto says, as her attention is stolen by those figures.

"We brought them back," she says, hollowed.

"To the Pericosmic Array. We brought them back, just like she said."

And her shock, realising that those artifacts have come back home to their prison, leaves her wide open.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Blade: Disequilibrium on Endo Naoki.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Violence occurs, and Fate is acutely aware of it, but ever has she been focused on the mission. Her mission right now has an objective of salvation.

The ghosts of the past appear, and Fate sees it, the result of the Queen, casting off her humanity, the showdown between the two personages. The Belkan Queen faced with a horrible choice for what she believes is the sake of all, and the Princess of Cephiro backed into a corner by the Queen's choices.

The tree bark in her hand takes on more meaning than ever, in the image of the Queen which still now has the cast of flesh.

And suddenly she has what she asked for. Understanding. Albeit not complete. Her mind whirls to grasp the intricacies of the exchange. The goal of the Queen, the goal of Jail Scaglietti, the presence of Heraut, the Cephiran Princesses' resolve. An image of the Princess is superimposed on Kyouka.

"Listen! Umbral Knight! Listen! This is only a memory of your Queen. Both of you are long gone, but not forgotten."

Fate Testarossa has a note of desperation as she calls out, knowing how hard they're all trying to hold him off, "You've bound someone precious to us, Endo Naoki, to your memory to try to redress the events of the past, but they can't be. You can only fix what you're doing to him here and now."

There is a plea in this, as she says, "He's a normal boy, who came into this legacy, but he became a great mage... and a hero. When I fought for- the wrong cause, he didn't give up, even though he was new to this. No matter how many times I hurt him, it only made him try harder. Try harder until he saved me. And after that, he fought again and again - to save his world, just like you did, long ago."

The girl takes a breath, and finds it catching in that moment, her eyes subtly shimmering, as she pleads, perhaps using words that she thinks will reach out to that memory based on their experiences throughout this journey.

"Do honor to your memory... the memory Fallen Stern has carried for so long, and let him go."

Perhaps this stands no chance of working, and if that is the case, then she will oppose him by force. That is how it has always been, but for now...

... she reaches out to that memory, as memories are shone all around them.

"Give Endo Naoki back to us."

It was the first lesson Nanoha taught her after all. To call someone's name, and she'll call it, as many times as she needs to... to reach through the memory, to the brave young man beneath it.

COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has used Call Your Name on Endo Naoki.

<Pose Tracker> Kyouka Okazaki [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

There is a certain amount of pity--and deep concern--for the Umbral Knight as she watches him sag under the weight of endless years of struggle and strife. There is a faint flicker of hope that he might finally be weary enough to stop, to give up the fight.

No, it seems that is not to be. He finds the strength to rise up once more.

Flames wash out, and Kyouka does her best to dart out around them, but it seems there are too many to evade altogether.

But memories... she was about to call out to Endo, but stops as the walls of the Array turn opaque, and a memory--a recording--starts to play.

It is somewhat disconcerting to be cast into the role of the Princess of Cephiro, but she keeps one eye on the Umbral Knight as she tries to listen to the recording.

The queen turned herself into a tree--to dine on... starlight? Her plan to fling the hearts away, time and time again, forever denying the Outsiders the chance to consume them.

Kyouka hates this plan too.

But she looks far different in the recording than in the present. And... "Where are the Knights?" she wonders aloud. "Didn't they enter with the Princess?" She glances around the projection, looking for them.

But the Umbral Knight still threatens them.

"Endo! Remember when we stood, side-by-side, against Shadow Stern! You, me, and Fate! You showed me how strong and resilient you were, and I'm not giving up on you now!"

Passion takes a sprinting stance and Kyouka does the same. Setting into a sprinter's stance as a bright violet magic circle appears under her feet, channels energy up into her body.

<Fang Barrage,> announces the Device.

Kyouka blurs into motion after Passion, with a strike, a rebound, and a charge from another angle, again and again and again. She's trying her best to work around Passion, to not get in her way, but desperate times...

"Endo! If you're--in there--fight!"

COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki has used Fang Fury Barrage on Endo Naoki.

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

The dazzling strike has set the Belkan warrior - ENDO - back on his feet. "Please!" la Sirene cries out, her voice piercing. She raises her arms to protect herself from that burning sheet as it washes over her, a coronic effect from the aura around her throwing a flash as the un-light forms a long tail that struggles to swing back to her --

And then the ghosts come.

The interplay between them is clear enough for la Sirene to hear but the implications and the context are dizzying. Things were sent beyond -- hearts, pillars -- memories sealed. The blight of an Outsider, somehow.

What are the Outsiders?

There is no explanation. Batiste is not here to explain, but perhaps he would be confused just the same. "Nnn," la Sirene whines quietly to herself. Her eyes turn back towards the Knight. "Right," she answers Passion.

But it's certainly weighing differently on Mikoto.

Her jaw tightens. She can hear Fate too -- but something is daunting Mikoto.

La Sirene's eyes rest on that great blade. The power of Fallen Stern! Or its cousin; she does not know if it is the same Device or a clone. That one isn't her field. Oh, so little of this is her field. And yet. Her eyes stay on the sword even as Kyouka, with her renewed strength, speaks out.

Her fingers curl and uncurl. She makes a brief X with her wrists, exhales, and a moment later bursts into a run. A dead sprint ahead, sparks flying from the soles as she gets closer, closer yet. She ducks downwards, her hair trailing behind her, and twists as she does. Her boot soles throw up more sparks as she 'brakes' herself --

Her hands come up in an inverted block: to seize either side of the Device, not with the palms but with the glittering diamonds on the back of each glove!

"Endo, please--!!"

COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used Reverse Sword Grasp on Endo Naoki.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki perfectly dodges 30 Fatigue damage from Kyouka Okazaki's Fang Fury Barrage, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical
Hit!  Critical Dodge!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki braces 10 Fatigue damage from La Sirene de Diamant's Reverse Sword Grasp, taking 8 Fatigue damage!  Endo
Naoki's Block and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki perfectly dodges 48 Fatigue damage from Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Disequilibrium, taking 0 Fatigue
damage!  Critical Dodge!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki fails to brace Cure Passion's Passion Flash, taking 36 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (12)] has posed.

There's no indication that the Umbral Knight can see the movie writ large over the Array's surface. He's just as murderous as wasperhaps even more so that his opponents are backing him into a corner.

The red streak that is Cure Passion collides hard with the heavy shape of the Knight, and even digging in doesn't prevent him from being moved by such an unstoppable force.

Kyouka's blows only add to the pressure, each strike hammering home and causing sparks of energy to flash and spark at each point of impact.

Mikoto's strike sounds against the armor that protects the knight, and it's probably lucky that she's not using that blade to its full effect. Even so it staggers, buying yet more precious time.

La Sirene's hands manage to grasp the device as she continues to plead. It is thoroughly unpleasant to be that close to the power radiating off the weapon, to be sure.

And Fate does something else.

As she speaks a Belkan triangle burns to life as the Knight stops to concentrate briefly. The sword, already afire in purple-black, grows even brighter as energy builds. Everyone's seen it before, it's clear what's coming. A pillar of cosmic fire to wipe away whatever stands in its path. He just has to bring Fallen Stern to bear.

Which he does

not.

It's impossible to tell what expression might be lurking underneath the helmet that protects the Umbral Knight. Yet, Fate's voice, her request, and the pleas of the others have undoubtedly done something. Broken through the metal shell to whatever lies beneath, perhaps.

The weapon begins to lower. Not with the finality of a finishing strike, but with a slow and uncertain disarmament.

COMBAT: Endo Naoki accepts Fate Testarossa's Call Your Name, taking 0 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.

"You're too late," replies the Queen who is a tree. Her lips struggle to form words; the bark is thickening over her face. "The Umbral Knight is on my very doorstep. He will protect me for... long enough. And it won't be much longer, now..."

"He of all people will not allow you to cast yourself into this horrible existence," the Cephiran Princess retorts, eyes glistening. "I think he loves you, though for what reason, I cannot say. You disgust me. Wait, and I shall bring him."

The image of the Princess atop Kyouka moves off of her -- and THROUGH the Umbral Knight, who does not seem able to perceive her -- and disappears onto the Belkan triangle portal. Out the door, in other words.

A few moments pass, and...

...The princess, Umbral Knight, and Argent and Ashen Knights re-enter.

"How? How could you do this? You killed her... traitor. You're all traitors. And I will do my duty and EXECUTE YOU!"

The battle commences. It plays out very much as it did before, minus the confusion about Endo. The Argent and Ashen Knights are dispatched, perhaps fatally, defending the wielder of Souverain Heraut.

When the decisive moment comes, the Umbral Knight does not hesitate.

But neither does the Princess.

They clash, and -- the hologram intersects with Endo -- her lance pierces the Umbral Knight through. She, too, is sorely wounded by the ancient Fallen Stern.

Both Devices, too, are wounded perhaps to the point of fatality.

But of the two, it is the Princess who regains her feet; and the Umbral Knight who lies lifeless on the ground. Endo is visible, still standing, and unharmed (barring some minor injuries from the combat his body just endured from his reluctant friends in 'real' time). It was, after all, just a hologram.

Then... the tree rustles.

"You have done well... my most loyal Knight," says the queen. "My ONLY loyal Knight, in the end. Foolish little Pillar. I take my leave of this place. You will be dead a thousand years before the Pericosmic Array finds the lost Hearts that you so needlessly seek."

And the mouth of the tree gapes wide. Too wide. The jaw is unhinged.

Out of it... crawls, then floats, a very dark green, plantlike substance. It is spherical, and glows faintly, somewhat in the manner of a Linker Core. Only an empty shell of bark is left behind.

The transmogrified -- grafted? -- plant-soul of the Belkan Queen accelerates, and streaks out of the Pericosmic Array. She doesn't take the door; she just passes through the crystalline wall, as though it is insubstantial to her.

The Princess coughs up blood. She staggers to Argent and Ashen, and with help from the direly flickering Heraut manages to get them close enough to the corpse of Umbral to be able to touch all three of them at once.

"I won't leave you. Not any of you. Not even you, Umbral. I don't know... if our bodies will make it... but our Devices can," she vows. Pericosmic Array... guide my dimensional transfer! Take us far from this horrible prison! Send us to a place that our Device friends may be found someday! May we live on through their wills! And may they live -- better lives -- than we did!"

There's a flash of golden light, and all four bodies are gone.

"Playback ended," announces the Pericosmic Array, calmly. "Time elapsed since recording: fifteen minutes. Time until last imperial search query is complete: nine hundred and ninety-nine years, three hundred and sixty-four days and twenty-three hours."

No wonder the Umbral Knight took over Fallen Stern so powerfully.

The golden skein's dimensional coordinates...

...are time-space coordinates. Naturally.

It appears that they correspond to the Pericosmic Array... of the distant past.

<Pose Tracker> Cure Passion [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

They brought them back. Mikoto's realization worries Passion, but she is a thing of movement and motion, and she is still acting. She does not stop for this worry. She keeps acting. Moving in time with Kyouka, she fights the Umbral Knight. And when la Sirene makes her plea, when Fate reaches out with her name--

The energy builds. "We-- We won't--"

He doesn't. He doesn't do it, an the weapon lowers, disarming. The visions come again. The battle resumes...

Cure Passsion sees that tree ruestle. And she sees a horrible plant-soul move. She shudders, in memory. But she understands, too. She understands why they traveled through that nothing, she thinks. She understands...

"We're there," Cure Passion says. "Fifteen minutes... almost a thousand years ago."

She looks around at her friends. ...And then she moves, to offer a hand up to Endo.

"...We're where we need to be. I'm sure of that."

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

The Umbral Knight disarms -- and, not without difficulty, Mikoto steps back and lowers her blade too.

"It's okay," she tells him, a touch halting. She tells them both, "... it's okay."

The end of this story was Umbral's loyalty, and that does hurt.

Umbral, who became...

"... Fallen Stern," Mikoto realises, looking to the blade. She speaks to the sword naturally; it is natural, after all, to speak to a weapon.

"That's why... Fallen Stern likes fighting so much, right? The Umbral Knight came, too... and you were partners. Even if Fallen Stern couldn't remember... you knew, right?"

She steps forward, to crouch down, by the blade.

"Knowing without remembering is hard. I did, too. ... good fight, Fallen Stern."

<Pose Tracker> Kyouka Okazaki [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

Everytone's trying their best to reach out to Endo, to get through to the Umbral Knight, or both, with their words, even as they try to stall. To physically resist the implacable Knight. Kyouka's trying her hardest, pushing herself to her utmost to resist the might of the ancient Belkan warrior whose determination has, seemingly, conquered death itself to return and avenge his fallen Queen.

She strikes and rebounds away, landing a safe distance away.

There is palpable dread when she sees that Belkan triangle form, the build-up of dark flame on the blade.

Can she resist it, the way she resisted Shadow Stern's might what seems like forever ago? They lost that exchange, true, but this time there are more of them.

A bright violet circle is summoned beneath her feet as she holds one hand out, braced with the other. A brilliant orb of light instantly springs to life with the consumption of a cartrdige from her gauntlet, accompanied by a discharge of steam from the gauntlet.

She is not happy, or defiant, as she grasps that light, drawing it into the gauntlet. Another cartridge is consumed, another blast of steam discharged around her as the glow intensifies, and she draws her hand back, preparing an attack posture as winds wash out away from her...

But the sword comes down without an attack, and Kyouka stays her hand. "Endo?" she asks, quietly, hopefully.

The rest of the memory plays out. The Queen, transmuted as she was, transmutes further, projecting her... she would guess soul, then, out to drift into the cosmos. No wonder that tree was so hollow.

The Pillar got the got the knights--or at least their devices--to safety, and... it seems the memory is, relatively, the recent past.

They just missed it all, in fact.

She stands up and inhales a deep breath, and slowly lets it go, calming herself and letting the spell fizzle out harmlessly.

"So we were fighting a memory after all," she comments, softly. There is a melancholy to that observation.

She steps forward to kneel in front of Endo and offer him a hand up. "Welcome back, Endo."

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

The sensation of being right there - against the fell blade - hurts! Her hands! They are not big clubs of bone or something! La Sirene nonetheless strains -- but then --

He is lowering his blade.

Uncrossing her hands, la Sirene leaps back and, with effort, does not shake out the ringing numbness in her hands. It seems to be fading, so that's good. The ghost-holograms return.

La Sirene de Diamant watches in quiet. Something like wonder. The tree shifts - something moves.

"Nine hundred and ninety--" she breathes, her fingers flexing as if to help her carry the factors. "... Then it would be complete in -- half an hour? Forty five minutes?" she asks, glancing to Cure Passion as if to check her figuring.

At least there's air here, la Sirene thinks. A moment later: Ouch.

And a moment after that --

"Endo," she breathes. "Are you alright...? Say something, if you can --" It's easier, in its way, to focus on a person than the cosmos and the gulfs of time. Perhaps they're not as far separate as they seem.

<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (12)] has posed.

Endo awakes with a gasp of air, now in place of the Umbral Knight. He takes a few shaky breaths, one hand scrubbing at his eyes as he readjusts to the waking world.

Passion and Kyouka are helpfully there to give him a hand up, and he accepts them graciously.

"Ah..." He says, almost sheepishly. "Sorry. I guess that was a little much." His eyes take in the Array once again, though he's already seen it through the Umbral Knight's during the previous battle.

"I heard you." He says, after a moment. "But I couldn't do anything about it, not until the end. But...thanks, everyone." The boy offers a sincere smile to his friends, and a apologetic bow of his head.

He has to nudge a bit of dampness from his eyes as well. "What you said about me...was really nice."

Mikoto has an important query for Fallen Stern, which Endo leans to slowly drag up off the ground.

<WE WERE PARTNERS.> The device affirms. Stern, like Endo, seems to be in the right place and time once again. <I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER.> It's probably the first time Mikoto (or anyone) has heard the device admit fallibility.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

It is quiet, for just as long as it ought to be. For just as long as it would take for the Umbral Knight to give her answer. Fate calls Endo Naoki's name. And with one hand upon the husk of the Queen that once was, she holds out her other hand his way. The Polearm vanishing into dimensional space.

She disarms herself, for this moment. And so the weapon lowers.

So softly she repeats, "Endo Naoki." One must call someone's name, to become their friend. The memories will not be denied. She asked to know what happened, and know she is given the answer. The standoff. Answers to questions asked long ago.

Such as why Heraut and Stern held such enmity for each other.

Her nose wrinkles with faint disbelief, and horror as that plantlike core floats away, but it is sadness that flecks in her eyes, as she looks upon the Knight. And the Princess.

Part of her wonders, if that could have been one result of the duel between her and Nanoha, in what feels like a lifetime ago. It is not something pleasant to think about... but it is reflection, upon the way things turned out, and how they might have.

Not for the first time, not for the last, she wonders at the hearts of those that reached out to her and spared her that cruel outcome.

Once it's over, it takes her a moment to comprehend the full expanse of time, and wonder at the fact they're...

... they're...

Fate stops touching the husk of the Queen, and steps forward, and towards Endo Naoki, even as others speak to him. That hand still offered, to hold.

"Endo Naoki." She says again, another echo of that called out name, "You've been with us for such a long time. Things have really been hard for you because of that. I'm not sure if I've said it enough, but I'm glad you're with us."

After a moment, she murmurs, "Because you helped save me. Because you've fought with us for so long. Because I know that no matter how difficult or sad things become... we'll find our own way through."

Even sad destinies can be overcome, can't they? They've known this from the beginning. So she has no doubt that even Fallen Stern and Souverain Heraut's can be.

<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.

Now that the playback is over, the walls of the Array become transparent again, and the peaceful visage of the strange cosmos it surveils becomes visible once more. Endo gets his chance at a nice long look, and his mostly-unshed tears reflect beautifully in the dim and distant rainbow aurora.

There is time for a little more comfort and healing, though Jail-or-his-Devices could show up at any time, so not THAT much more time.

Soon enough:

"We are where we need to be," agrees Hayate, who sat out the fight from a safe distance -- her Knight Clothes may be serious protection against the vacuum of space, but she had no business being anywhere near Fallen Stern and decided the best way to support her friends was to not require their protection. "But we aren't... when we need to be. And without knowing where we are exactly, we can't reverse-engineer the coordinates a thousand years in the future."

She pauses, cants her head to one side, and addresses the transparent pillar.

"Pericosmic Array, where are we?"

"You are inside the Pericosmic Array."

Hayate wrinkles her nose. No matter how she rephrases the question, the answer is always the same.

Finally she sighs, and runs her fingers through her hair.

"We have to be the ones to see the... search result. We have to find all that magic, all that power, before Scaglietti-san can... and before the Belkan Queen does... and before the Outsiders do. But we'd best go home for now. I don't think that doing much of anything to the Array from a thousand years in our own past is... a good idea, for the sake of our present."

Hayate is an avid reader, and it isn't all non-fiction. While others were studying the blade she was apparently preparing for the day she got thrown into an accidental time travel situation.

But after she's reactivated the skein and sent them all back to Yagami House, once the initial welcome-back is done, she seems interested in... an alternative. The opposite, by some ways of thinking.

"If only we were able to travel a thousand years into the future... then, we'd be able to use these same runes to go back to the Pericosmic Array at just the right time."

---

Across Tokyo, completely oblivious to all of this but deeply gripped by a crystalline nightmare, a little girl with pink twintails sits bolt upright in her rabbit-and-moon-covered bed.

Moonlight gathers at the chain around her neck. She clutches the trinket there and sniffs back an impending tear. "Mama..."

TO BE CONTINUED

2024-01-25 - MGLN SeekerS: The Pericosmic Array

Navigation menu

Personal tools

Namespaces

Variants

Views

Actions

Search

Navigation

Game Information

Tools