2024-03-27 - Pain At Izakaya Joji
| Pain At Izakaya Joji | |
|---|---|
| Summary: A cardiax storm descends on the Juuban neighborhood where Endo lives. At Izakaya Joji, where his mother waitresses, he, the Sirens of Sorrow's Sea, and their friends, confront the struggles of an exhausted, lonely and depressed single mother, as engorged by dark magic into much more and much worse. | |
| Who: Nori Ankou, Endo Naoki, Ginka Shimizu, Fate Testarossa, Nanoha Takamachi | |
| Where: Izakaya Joji, Shitamachi Low City | |
| OOC - IC Date: 3/27/2024 - 05/26/16 | |
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ Shitamachi Low City +*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
The traditions that the Shitamachi cultural region keeps alive were ancient
long before the Shogun turned the fishing town of Edo into Tokyo, "Eastern
Capital." The area has evolved greatly since then, but though Shitamachi is
a highly modernized metropolis, its traditions somehow coexist with bullet
trains, research universities, and electronics markets. The occasional
person in kimono and sandals will wait at the crossing alongside salarymen
in business suits. Compared to Yamanote, there are more bicycles, family
businesses, and food carts, and fewer scooters, corporations, and
convenience stores. Certain wards in Shitamachi can be just as dense and
urbanized as anything in Yamanote, but there's a tendency toward low-rise
apartment complexes in the residential areas, and office buildings rather
than office towers in the commercial.
The distinction between Shitamachi and Yamanote is messy, both
geographically and demographically, but significant enough that it remains
the most significant cultural divide in Tokyo. Shitamachi people, as a
whole, take themselves less seriously, and have a stronger sense of
community that feeds upon their active street culture of markets, shops, and
festivals. They may not be fashionable, but they are /fun/. The Juuban
public schools, undistinguished but in some ways better off for it,
exemplify this plebeian joie de vivre quite well. The Shitamachi dialect is
less distinct than it used to be, but it is still a force to be reckoned
with, with a broader, less refined, and more energetic sound to it than
standard Japanese.
<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Then Came The Last Days of May - Blue Oyster Cult - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyLMgIR69G4
Considering that the city is thoroughly enconsced in the effervescent glory of spring, the storm that has suddenly erupted in central Shitamachi is thoroughly unseasonal.
But also just blatantly magical, because at the edge of the neighborhood served by Juuban Public, you can be out in late afternoon sun, but if you take two steps forward, are all but drowning in torrential rain.
The water smells... bad. Not human bad precisely, but not inhuman either. Bad like a dumpster. Not that anyone would WANT to taste it, but at the pounding, dropped-to-the-bottom-of-the-ocean-pressure level of precipitation that has abruptly sprung up, it's hard to avoid, and for the record, it doesn't have the flavor of trash at all; it tastes like salt. Saltier than the foil of a bag of chips you might buy at the local konbini.
It tastes like bitter tears...
Although the gradient between 'storm' and 'not storm' is a visible wall of water about half a block from the school, it also continues to intensify once inside of it. At its edge, it is possible to see down the block, where the clean streets of Shitamachi, kept proudly so by the people who live there, are becoming unexpectedly cleaner. Still, there's too much water for even the monsoon storm drains to manage. Massive puddles are forming in between rising streams in every gutter. This will become a huge mess very quickly, and is already a disruption well on its way to becoming a danger. People are abandoning their cars, and the train lines that pass through above ground have been cancelled. It is a very bad day to be a cat, rat, or other creature without shelter (including a human).
At its center -- the whole maelstrom is maybe eight blocks across -- one can barely see a hand held outthrust in front of your face. Traffic lights are huge blotches of red and green; lesser street lights invisible. But, very dimly, you can see that a roof has fallen in... or maybe exploded out.
The heart of the storm is Izakaya Joji, a humble, single-story restaurant. It is known for its excellent kaarage, generous pours, and good service, especially from the waitress who has staffed there for a decade, the hard-working and friendly Naoki-san.
There's a crack running through the glass of its front door.
Theme Spotlights: Sirens of Sorrow's Sea and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
<Pose Tracker> Nori Ankou [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
It does not take that long for word to get to la Sirene de Diamant.
Well, word may be a glorious thing. A feeling, a thought... a neighborhood... and a series of train cancellations.
Either way, she came, having taken advantage of the fact that for reasons unclear... she has access to an automobile, and can operate it. Parking was, of course, quite some distance away, but at least the disruptions to the trains could be avoided. Relief...
And then a walk in the rain. La Sirene de Diamant prides herself on being an inassailable rock against the storm, but that does not necessarily help her *colleagues*, does it? And so she had provided a durable umbrella which was likely quite insufficient and in its turn probably completely destroyed by this truly torrential rain, the dirty, salty water smashing downwards.
Deeper. Deeper, towards the center. Over the *sound* of the rain, the soothing susurrus having become far more menacing and overwhelming than an unseasonable spring storm ought to be, la Sirene called to Endo, "I think we're nearly there!" Her curiously penetrant voice means it's audible. A reply may be difficult, even from arm's reach away.
She points, which may be clearer. The luminous glow around her is made all the more obvious by the fact that *little else* can get through. But a pointing arm, from less than two meters away? Doubtless quite clear.
As clear, perhaps, as the shape of the building as they approach. The building with the fallen roof. The pleasant and homely building that stands at the utter center of this torrent - it's heavy enough that la Sirene herself is looking increasingly like a drowned rat - and its glass-cracked door.
La Sirene de Diamant stands on the threshold for a moment, and looks over her shoulder. She hesitates for four seconds, almost exactly, and then moves to press it open.
<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (12)] has posed.
While working at one of Tokyo's many konbinis would typically mean quick access to a cheap umbrella, the current (normal) weather conditions meant that aquiring one would take several minutes digging around in storage to become adequately equiped. And given that time was of the essence, Endo had to rely on not much more than a hastily deployed sheet of newspapers before joining up with La Sirene de Diamant. Which did not last very long.
So when the actual umbrella fails a few seconds later it's not a big deal since the boy in the armor was already soaked.
Still, the wall of water--while a formidble obstacle--is not the foremost thing on his mind. The sight of the familiar building in shambles is enough to make his blood run cold, and he almost pushing past La Sirene in her brief moment of hesitation.
"Hurry!" He calls back, the sound nearly swallowed up by the noise of the downpour. The rain only partially masks the fightened edge in the words.
His device is grasped firmly in hand, creating ripples in the ground as the end of it is dragged through the massive puddle of water outside of the building.
<Pose Tracker> Ginka Shimizu [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
EARLIER
Ginka paused in her notetaking as she caught a whiff of something on the air. It was, perhaps to everyone else, inconsequential. A little bit of salt, possibly leftover from someone's lunch who seasoned it too heavily, or some bag of junk food that is far more unhealthy than any person should eat.
But she is, one might say, something of an expert or even a connoisseur when it comes to matters regarding tears. (She has said it in fact, repeatedly, and often.) There is a certain aroma, a even a certain taste to these tears that registers in the back of her throat.
It can only mean one thing.
So she really wasn't kidding about how infrequently they manifest here... Disappointing, but there are other ways. For right now though...
A quick illusion later and she's slipping out of the classroom unseen to search for the source of the oncoming storm.
NOW
A girl with long, wavy silver hair and eyes stands on the edge of a building some distance away, regarding the storm silently. She is wearing a strapless black gothic dress, with a black leather bolero jacket thrown over it, thigh-high boots and gloves. Her rapier is nowhere in sight. She can see the way it becomes a solid wall, scowling to herself.
"This is going to be trouble."
For more reasons than just her 'cousin' or the other magical girls (and boys) coming to intrude.
Another moment of cold, silent evaluation in her head and then she sighs. "One does as one must, I suppose." A quick leap to ground level and she approaches the wall of water that confines the storm. With visibility so poor she has to make her way by foot, and slowly, and it rankles her to delay even that little bit for her own safety. If she takes too long--
Ah. There are others.
But she took a different path, and so one might be forgiven for not noticing her sooner, with the rain so thick as it is. And when Diamante hesitates, for just that moment...
"This storm will only grow worse if we do not deal with it swiftly. If you're going to hesitate, then just let me handle it," she demands coldly.
She's lost the smirking, entirely-too-pleased-with-herself demeanor of her previous appearance... but none of the condescension. Maybe that was just an act, or maybe she's just grumpy from being so rain soaked.
She does kind of look like a drenched wet rat, with her silver hair damp and limp and clinging to her face and jacket.
COMBAT: Ginka Shimizu transforms into La Sirene d'Argent! COMBAT: Nori Ankou transforms into La Sirene de Diamant!
<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.
"<This is very strange. It doesn't feel like ritual magic though, at least not Midchildan, or Belkan.>"
"<Hmmm you think it could be that Jail guy stirring up trouble?>"
"<Probably not. The magic they use is very distinct.>"
"<Still I don't think I like it. I'm calling Takamachi.>"
"<Oh! ... It'd be great if she were here but I can call her myself.>"
Yet before Fate can do anything, she feels the magic attempting to link in another person as if her head as a conference call.
"<OI! TAKAMACHI! FEITO NEEDS YOU! LIKE YESTERDAY! IF SHE GETS SWEPT AWAY INTO THE WET JERK DIMENSION IT'S ON YOU!>"
"<Arf!? You really didn't need to- Hello. I'm investigating a magical storm near Juuban. If you're available to come you may want to put on a raincoat first.>"
Rain performs violence upon an Umbrella picked up at an exchange in these blocks near Juuban - thoroughly basic black, the girl beneath soaked to the bone otherwise. Her Infinity Uniform, her hair. Of course she didn't bring a raincoat or galoshes today, but she didn't hesitate to enter. Storms? They're comfortable for her - even ones that should not be.
There's a Golden triangle in her hand, even as the other clings to the Umbrella. A ring of runes issues from it, and one might wonder if it's some toyetic device - or perhaps even a weird AR game, but people aren't really looking.
It's not the weather to look at other people. It's not the weather for anyone - the smell just bad enough that Fate just knows she'll be rinsing off for a half hour in the shower before even dreaming of a bath tonight, but that is the lowest on her list of concerns
She doesn't focus on it. It's on her basic search spell. It hasn't been active long, and as she walks that stretch between just past where the storm's border blatantly begins, hurrying along as she gets progressively more soaked, legs drowning in puddles that are becoming higher than that due to overwhelmed storm drains.
She still looks like a wet dog though, in her presentation.
She squints dimly, plodding along, having to slow her pace more and more under threat of being bowled over by the wind and the rain - carried away by where there are now currents. 'Wait... is that...?'
Dread fills her, the epicenter so close to a certain place - and visuals so obscured of the area that it's easy to worry that it could be... The basic search spell ends, and the Bardiche floats in front of her. "Bardiche Impulse - Set! Up!"
<Drive Impulse - Ignition!>
Some might mistake what happens next as the Storm growing more violent, the suddenly lightning flash, and thunderclap, reflecting off the raindrops, the water - the windows. That blindingly bright glow.
And then the girl swooping out of it, a blur as she comes to land - behind Endo and La Sirene. "I came as quickly as I could."
As she touches down, she looks at Ginka with a sense of curiosity, and- for some reason she just focuses on Ginka, with those red eyes, even as La Sirene reaches for the door. In that moment perhaps, seeking something... familiar. But she doesn't speak, she just stares at her, ready and waiting.
Perhaps what she considers most important in this moment is Nori's response.
<Pose Tracker> Nanoha Takamachi [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.
Standing at the edge of the strange downpour, Nanoha whimpers a little. "But my uniform," she complains to no one in particular, catching the scent of excessive salt. Her Infinity Institute dress is a bright, freshly laundered white nearly from collar to hem, with the notable exception of the navy stripe wrapping it near the latter. It always gets dirty so easily.
ACKNOWLEDGED. STAND BY READY.
Nanoha shakes her head, smiling sheepishly as she slides the cover off a compact umbrella. "I wouldn't do that just for rain. I hope you don't mind, but... I thought I'd use a different device for this."
THOOP. A pink umbrella flexes out forcibly. Nanoha swings its little dome above her far littler head. Taking a fortifying breath, she gazes sternly into the downpour. "Yo-ssha."
She has a heroic mien. But in a few moments, anyone standing near their window might hear a tiny "aaaaaaa" dopplering past through the rain.
-=-=-
When Fate touches down on the ground, that pink dome swings up over her head. Nanoha, this slim elementary schooler in a damp dress, nonetheless seems for the moment a calm professional, lifting the red marble on her necklace close to her lips to limit the sound of the rain. "<Fate-chan won't get swept anywhere,>" she says serenely. She looks over to Fate with a smile and an unhurried sparkle in her eyes, letting Raising Heart dangle by her strap again.
"Yappari," she sighs. "You already transformed after all."
She gives Fate a one-armed hug, around the waist. A soft little moment. Then she's standing straight again, under her umbrella, looking at Ginka.
"Naoki-san and Diamant-san won't hesitate," she reassures, as if it were a reasonable but unfounded concern. "They don't want to be reckless either. We'll all cooperate together and solve this quickly... ne?"
The alternative, for Ginka, seems to be disappointing some very big, hopeful blue eyes.
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa transforms into Barrier Jacket Impulse! COMBAT: Nanoha Takamachi transforms into Barrier Jacket Sacred! COMBAT: Endo Naoki transforms into Barrier Jacket Zerstörer!
<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Heaven - Persona 4 OST - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d9Oqm0Dt60
As people approached Izakaya Joji, all the lights were red. You could wait forever at the intersection and they would never change. No one would wait, not in weather like this. But it's dangerous to jaywalk when visibility is so poor. And there's just something about all those stoplights. They're blaring. Screaming
STOP STOP STOP
At least inside the Izakaya they can't saturate the air. Even if there was neon decor in the restaurant, it's just too wet; it is possible to breathe, but otherwise almost exactly like floating underwater.
Which makes it not an especially safe place for a middle-aged woman who looks an awful lot like Endo Naoki to have fallen into a swoon. She is collapsed out in the dining area, which is otherwise empty -- if there were any co-workers or customers, they all fled when the storm erupted, and in their haste or callousness or maybe just obliviousness, left her undisturbed.
But the waters are rising around her, carrying fallen trays and napkins, seeping under knocked-over chairs. If she hadn't fallen backwards, face up, she might already be drowning. As it stands, even if a Nanohite were to erect a barrier so that they can fight properly without blowing up the izakaya -- which Yuuno, who's in ferret-form tagging along with Nanoha, promptly begins to invoke --
<< I'll grab her, >> he chirps, which is very adorable. << We can't leave her behind. >>
Yuuno leaps onto the real Naoki-san's shallowly breathing chest, and, in a puff of minty green sparkles, shifts everyone over half a dimension. Normally it would be safer and preferable to keep her out of this, but not if she's drowned by the time they get back.
As if on cue, a second Naoki-san steps out of the kitchen. She is not perfectly twinned in the mirror, not to her son (of course; still, one can see her in him, in the wings of his eyebrows, the thickness of his nose, the spikiness of his hair poking through her net); but also not to the person swooning on the floor. This one is... exaggerated, in various proportions. Her waist is thicker, her lines deeper, her jowls more pronounced. Those changes are relatively minor, if consistent in their conception of her as... old, older than she normally looks, old in a way Endo has never imagined her to be. More dramatic is the way her eyes are compound now. Totally black, with a different image in every of the dozens of lenses; snapshots of the room and people in it, for now.
One might expect this monster to open her mouth and an inhuman scream to emerge. Certainly she is a parasite -- a Cardiax, which has taken on a form that echoes its victim. But instead it is the rain that rages harder than ever, soaking everyone, Cardiax Naoki-san most of all. She brushes some soaked hanks of hair out of her face with a not-quite-human hand, a hand that has one or two too many fingers, all of them callused and mottled from too much dishwashing. She looks exhausted.
"Irasshaimase, kids," she sighs. "I was going to close up early, but..." They're here, so now she can't. It's somewhat hard to read the expression of a bug-eyed mom-emotion-drainer but within those inscrutable boundaries, it's fair to say that she might be the slightest bit frustrated by this turn of events. Her cheeks puff out, but her breath isn't strong enough to blow a persistent wet lock out from between her eyes.
"Well," she says. There's a beat. "I can just keep going. One more hour. One more day. One -- more --"
The water in the restaurant is suddenly falling horizontal rather than vertical. Such is the force of her pain.
"--LIFETIME--!"
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick transforms into Cardiax Naoki! COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used I Must Go On Standing on La Sirene de Diamant. COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used I Must Go On Standing on Endo Naoki. COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used I Must Go On Standing on La Siren d'Argent. COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used I Must Go On Standing on Fate Testarossa. COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used I Must Go On Standing on Nanoha Takamachi. COMBAT: Fate Testarossa partially dodges 10 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's I Must Go On Standing, taking 38 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Fate Testarossa's Fade and Flash abilities activate! COMBAT: Nanoha Takamachi dodges 13 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's I Must Go On Standing, taking 20 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Nanoha Takamachi's Fade and Flash abilities activate! COMBAT: La Siren d'Argent partially dodges 8 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's I Must Go On Standing, taking 32 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! La Siren d'Argent's Fade and Flash abilities activate! COMBAT: Endo Naoki fails to brace Pink Moon Stick's I Must Go On Standing, taking 40 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant counters 16 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's I Must Go On Standing, taking 16 Fatigue damage! La Sirene de Diamant's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate! COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant's counterattack, Les Mysteres, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Pink Moon Stick!
<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
De Diamant's head turns to look back towards the silver-haired Siren. Her eyes flash! Not literally. Not quite. But they are pale and limned by that glow. "For your information," la Sirene de Diamant huffs, "I am concerned for my fellows in this storm, a problem which I suppose you would be unfamiliar!"
Her head tilts up a little. Hmf!!
But that is as far as it goes. "Thank you," she says to Fate. Nanoha gets a small smile, in an equal balance of 'thank you, for coming' purity and somewhat less high-minded 'thank you, for sticking up for me.' This, of course, despite being perhaps twice Nanoha's size. Size, after all, matters not.
Endo, too, gets a smile (this one somewhat less tainted by the impurities of the world, i.e. jealousy and/or d'Argent) and then in they go.
Or at least, the door is opened. "Ah," she says, raising a hand. But not forcefully or with haste. But Yuuno is there - and la Sirene looks at the *second* Naoki-san who emerges, and there is a moment of total shock followed by a pivoting of her head to look at Endo in thunderstruck surprise, then back ahead.
Except, of course, that there's one thing they don't share... those eyes.
"I, I mean," she begins to say, and then the water is suddenly changing its direction and la Sirene de Diamant's stammered statement abruptly segues into the more comfortable and familiar call of "LES MYSTERES," as her upraised hand forms the horned sign -- good thing she reached out towards Yuuno with the left one, huh! -- and the right comes upwards to strike home with a shouted, "COME!"
The familiar (to many, anyway... maybe it's a little different for Nanoha) burst of black-and-silver slaps into the oncoming sheet of water, blasting much of it aside in the same way that an abrupt explosion can disrupt the fall of rain for a few moments. Much, of course, is not all, but it does mean that when it strikes against la Sirene it is indirect, perhaps even baffled, and so she is not simply blown through the wall.
She does hit it though, which is probably not good for it. "Ghhk!" Her follow-up is muffled somewhat by both angle and the sound of the torrent, raising up her right hand instead, palm facing outwards as inverse-light throbs out from the Pharos, coruscates in a thousand tiny anti-prisms on its way up to her hand, and then a pulsating flash-flash-GLEAM towards the infuriated Naoki-san.
"The one with the strange eyes is the enemy!" she cries out. "Endo-san--!!"
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used Shine On Through The Night on Pink Moon Stick.
<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (12)] has posed.
If there was a doubt as to what was agitating Endo so greatly, the mystery is revealed with one simple word:
"Mom!" He says, sloshing forward with little regard for anything else. Not a smile for the appearance of his favorite grade schoolers, nor a nod of acknowledgement for De Diamant, hardly even a glance at the appearance of the equally soaked and unfamiliar D'Argent.
Thankfully, Yuuno is on the case. As the barrier comes to life Endo comes to an awkward stop, jerking back and forth with indecession as he fights with the urge to do more or leave it in his allies hands. The decision is made for him by the apperance of the dark facsimilie of his mother, which is both alarming and immediately confusing.
Enough that he's taken almost entirely unaware by the torrent of water, swept away and bashed against the wall of the izakaya with a burble of alarm and pain. He flounders, flopping with fish-like action before gaining his feet again.
Now he does hesitate. Because while it's clear that the youma is not his parent, it is parent shaped. Enough so that his reponse is nigh-unthinkable to those who know him well: He does not run blindly forward to attack.
<KNIGHT. COMPOSE YOURSELF.> Fallen Stern warbles sternly.
Which is enough to get him to do something. With an awkward, shaky hand the boy reaches out and forms a Belkan sigil in front of himself. The triangle burns to life, glowing with power before exxploding in a mass of chains. They stretch outward, acting with minds of their own as the shackles race forward to capture the enemy that stands before the group of magical girls.
<KETTE BINDEN.>
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Kette Binden on Pink Moon Stick.
<Pose Tracker> La Siren d'Argent [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
La Siren d'Argent (There are, after all, two La Sirenes present) glances to Fate as the other girl just stares at her. Her eyes scan the much younger girl up and down. "What are you looking at?"
Unfortunately for Nanoha, causing disappointment, and sorrow, in particular, is her specialty. She looks at Nanoha and snorts. "The rest of you can do as you wish. I'm only here for one thing, and I won't let anybody else slow me down."
Diamant's declaration of concern for her fellows is met with a derisive snort. "Whatever. Just get on with it. If they can't keep up that's on them."
Argent tsks softly as she sees the woman laying on the floor. To think they just left her here... more concerned with the storm than her. But then...
A ferret--a ferret of all things performs some magic.
What the hell is going on in Tokyo??
It is a good call, though she'll never admit it. Argent silently approaches the unconscious woman, kneels, and checks for a pulse and for breathing. Still alive. Good. Which means the Cardiax can't be far behind...
And there she is. Ginka stands slowly as she regards the manifestation of the woman's grief (she does not know Endo or her mother, so she is just another victim, in her mind). She snaps her hand out to the side, and a gleaming silver rapier appears in it in a flash of light, long and sharp, with an intricate guard covering her hand.
She brings her rapier up in front of her in a brief salute. "I will end your suffering," she utters quietly, keeping her voice low so that hopefully nobody else will hear her declaration. She charges forward--but then the rains shift and her boots are still wet. There is a squeak of sole on floor as her feet suddenly move sideways and she is sent tumbling into a countertop.
She slowly picks herself back up, sparing a glance for Endo. Ah, there is a resemblance. But what was she just saying about hesitating? "Your mother will recover once the Cardiax is defeated," she snaps. "Hesitating will only put her at more risk."
She pulls a wet clump of hair out of her eyes to throw it behind her shoulder. She brings her rapier up to attack again and then barges forward, thrusting at the monster with her blade.
COMBAT: La Siren d'Argent has used Allez! on Pink Moon Stick.
<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.
"That is a good question." Is Fate's response to La Siren D'Argent, "Will you answer it?" It is not intentionally rude at least, the way she answers her.
The tiny 'aaaa' doppler is unfortunately drowned out by the rain, so the first time she does so it's upon sight of her with the pink Umbrella, just as her gaze tears away from La Siren D'Argent. "Nanoha..." Like many encounters, this one begins with her simply calling her name.
As the one armed hug moves around the cape of her barrier jacket, she allows a smile, "... Well you always were a little incautious in these situations." Certainly, it's not meant to drag Nanoha, more like to say 'That's just how Nanoha is' as if to comment on this as an intrinsic factor of her existence.
Or at least - it has been ever since Nanoha started running onto the scenes of the Jewel Seed incidents, untransformed, while Fate was quite ready for battle.
<<I'll hold you to that!>>
It is at least a step up from her past of threatening to eat Nanoha and Yuuno alive. She has definitely acknowledged her.
"You can see for yourself how abnormal this is."
Certainly however, she's drawn so easily into the spirit of cooperation that Nanoha fosters, at least now that is. Communication between the two of them is important in that sense. "We will." She doesn't - necessarily include Ginka in that.
She doesn't get her hopes up perhaps in the same way, having taken a similar position in the past.
Yuunos presence is similarly comforting, but perhaps not moreso than Nanoha - his support spells are a boon, but inside the Izakawa, there's blaring red.
And what she sees, instantly shifts her stance wide, subtly stepping not in front of Nanoha but rather out at her side, as if to present herself as the closer target without breaking from her side. She often fights at closer range after all. The ferret moving to care for the woman - that looks so much like Endo... her eyes look towards Endo in alarm. "Endo. It's going to be okay. We're here for her now."
<<Thank you Yuuno. Take care of her.>>
The 'other Naoki' that emerges however is strange for a magical threat, but she does not relax. The intensity is so much.
Abruptly the water shifts, pouring down as she shifts from potential threat to definitive, and Fate calls abruptly.
<<Left.>>
It is not saying to dodge Left, just that she is going Left, and she streaks right into that water, which crests up higher at just the wrong moment, abruptly smashing her against the Izakaya wall. Whatever teamwork she intended is immediately disrupted.
The wind knocked out of her, she forces herself up, and as if to redeem herself for falling short of her own expectations for herself, Fate suddenly rushes in, and around - Bardiche swinging again and again and again. Each time from a different angle.
However, one might notice she's... using the flat as a bludgeon, almost like she can't quite shake the feeling of how much she looks like the other woman.
"If you're tired, then it isn't right to force yourself." That is Fate's initial comment at least, perhaps she has difficulty speaking her mind even to strange monstrous effigies of a Mother. La Siren's words do offer enough reassurance though that she at least resolves to stop holding back.
"If that's the case then... Nanoha!"
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has used Aerial Ace on Pink Moon Stick. COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick braces 14 Fatigue damage from La Sirene de Diamant's Shine On Through The Night, taking 6 Fatigue damage! La Sirene de Diamant is Psyched! Pink Moon Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate! COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick dodges 9 Fatigue damage from Endo Naoki's Kette Binden, taking 6 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Pink Moon Stick is Quipped! Pink Moon Stick's Fade and Flash abilities activate! Trap applied to Pink Moon Stick! COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick braces 9 Fatigue damage from La Siren d'Argent's Allez!, taking 4 Fatigue damage! La Siren d'Argent is Psyched! Pink Moon Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate! Tangle applied to Pink Moon Stick! COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to dodge Fate Testarossa's Aerial Ace, taking 17 Fatigue damage! Fate Testarossa is Psyched!
<Pose Tracker> Nanoha Takamachi [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.
"Fate," Nanoha answers to her own name cheerfully, though just when it seems like a statement in itself, she ends up using it to start a sentence, "always had her guard up."
Nanoha smiles a little at Arf's admonition, but it fades as Fate draws her attention back to the scene. There are a lot of ways this seems abnormal to Nanoha; there is one she is wondering about. "Do you think it has something to do with Juuban Elementary?" Cute right? Nanoha thinks of the three Sister Schools as three sororal elementary schools.
A ferret doesn't just perform magic. A ferret performs some very powerful, obscure magic.
"Thank you, Yuuno-kun," Nanoha agrees firmly. She is not a leaving people behind sort of person. "Is she--"
Nanoha's voice cuts off with a puff of surprise as the same woman walks in again. Her eyes flick to Endo, and her shoulders slump a little at his reaction. "Naoki-san," she says unhappily. She has a mother too. Her mother washed this dress just yesterday.
<<STAND BY READY.>> Raising Heart's tone is no different than it was the first time, yet Nanoha infers the tone change. Last time was the alert offer of a helper. This is more of an urging.
"Un," she nods slightly in the affirmative. She is standing by quite a bit herself at this point. And when the Naoki matriarch begins to grow agitated, she lets her pink umbrella (now folded) clatter to the ground, as Raising Heart lifts her and rapidly girds her. It can get done quick when it has to. But not as quick as Nanoha can move when she has to.
Pink flame ignites, with smaller puffs coming from the other side to counter-adjust where needed, as Nanoha blasts away right while Fate goes left. She stifles a cry as the rain peppers her, sending her flight into chaotic turbulence; she prefers to fight with more space available than she has right now. The pink stabilizing jets go wild for a moment, and then she is through, gasping, as she watches Fate make an attack. Her lips part a little in adoration as Fate, even knowing Naoki's mother is elsewhere, hesitates to harm her. It is not surprise; it never surprised her. She always knew.
But it makes her happy.
Now, that said, it doesn't mean Nanoha agrees gentleness is the right approach.
"Here!" she cries out an acknowledgement to Fate, as a hard blast of propulsion stops her dead. <<SHOOTER MODE,>> Raising Heart says in her clipped, pleasant tone even as they halt. Nanoha's staff swings down instantly in a well-practiced motion.
"Divine Shooter!" Nanoha shouts, as a withering barrage of arcane bolts lance from the end of her staff.
COMBAT: Nanoha Takamachi has used Divine Shooter on Pink Moon Stick. COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick braces 7 Fatigue damage from Nanoha Takamachi's Divine Shooter, taking 6 Fatigue damage! Pink Moon Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate!
<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.
La Sirene de Diamant fills the oncoming water with black and silver, but after Les Mysteres fades, it's just black. And there's so much of it, animated perhaps more emotionally than prehensile-y but still very much alive, refracting away the worst of the Pharos' gleam so that the Cardiax is, though not untouched, mostly unharmed. It is similar for Nanoha, who finds that her crisp pink bolts, which have been known to saturation fire kaiju to smithereens, are oddly slowed and diluted by that which is in the air; that which is all around them. It isn't NOT water, but it's definitely not rain.
And it is powerful, indeed.
La Siren d'Argent and Fate, however, force a different response; too close for the storm to intervene, they must grapple with the matter of the Cardiax's flesh. It is mercifully inhuman -- no ordinary waitress could withstand even one blow from Bardiche, flat of the blade or no, yet the Midchildan's speed overwhelms her defenses -- or maybe it was her words. More to the point, however, d'Argent scores a pierce...
...and the tip of her rapier emerges, as the creature steps back off of it with a sharp jerk of her shoulder. There is a wound, but there is no blood. There are only... maggots, or at least maggot-adjacent, a dozen Cardiax worms in miniature, tiny and white and slithering and criss-crossing and then the wound is gone, truly gone, not just in 'flesh' but in 'fabric', which really solidifies the appearance of the air quotes around both words. There was a rapier hole in her clean but simple and moderately shabby white blouse -- and then there wasn't anymore, just the slim white line of a worm like a bloated patch seam.
"It isn't right to force yourself," she echoes Fate, vaguely. "It isn't right...?"
Endo is there, and Endo calls for his mother. Suddenly every individual pane of her compound eyes is filled with a different reflection of her son, but none of them are the young man before her, out of whose way she dove, escaping the bindings before they could catch her, at the cost of heaving breast and panting breath, and some sweat beading at her temples. There is Endo in his high school uniform, and his Juuban one too, from middle school, the old retired black, pre-blazer. There's an Endo playing rugby who cannot possibly be in the double digits. There's an Endo flicking peas out of his high chair. There's a tiny baby Endo being bathed in the sink of a small apartment.
"What do you think motherhood is, little girl? It isn't something that you're allowed to stop."
She windmills her arms, whipping the storm into twin serpents, thick and heavy, which then spin so fast that they might as well be giant sawblades.
"There are words for a mother who just... stops."
She slams her left arm to a stop, outthrust, and the first blade soars at Nanoha and Fate, exploding around them with force and sharpness and, most of all, wetness, as water becomes water again, after.
"But," she seethes, some heat infecting her emptiness, "I would never want to stop. I love my son. He's--"
--now her right arm, and the disk shatters towards the two Sirenes--
"--all I have left," she says, raggedly.
She does not look at the Meteor Knight, somehow carefully keeps him in her peripheral vision. And she does not attack him... at least, not with a gestured hand and a waterspout of fury.
But her compound eyes cry tears and each tear is a knife, a liquid knife that soars straight towards the boy, accelerating on the wings of her words. The blades are so sharp. The voice is so soft.
"He looks more like his father every day."
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used You Can't Break That Which Isn't Yours on Fate Testarossa. COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used You Can't Break That Which Isn't Yours on Nanoha Takamachi. COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used You Can't Break That Which Isn't Yours on La Sirene de Diamant. COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used You Can't Break That Which Isn't Yours on La Siren d'Argent. COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used I'm Not My Own on Endo Naoki. COMBAT: Fate Testarossa perfectly counters 18 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's You Can't Break That Which Isn't Yours, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Counter! Fate Testarossa's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate! COMBAT: Fate Testarossa's counterattack, Thunder Arm, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Pink Moon Stick! COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant braces 13 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's You Can't Break That Which Isn't Yours, taking 11 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! La Sirene de Diamant's Block and Parry abilities activate! COMBAT: Endo Naoki braces 19 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's I'm Not My Own, taking 8 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Endo Naoki's Block and Parry abilities activate! COMBAT: Nanoha Takamachi fails to counter Pink Moon Stick's You Can't Break That Which Isn't Yours, taking 19 Fatigue damage! Stagger applied to Nanoha Takamachi! COMBAT: Nanoha Takamachi's counterattack, Flash Move, interrupts, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Pink Moon Stick! COMBAT: La Siren d'Argent decisively counters 15 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's You Can't Break That Which Isn't Yours, taking 5 Fatigue damage! La Siren d'Argent's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate! COMBAT: La Siren d'Argent's counterattack, Les Mysteres, partially gets through, doing 33 Fatigue damage to Pink Moon Stick! Critical Counterhit!
<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (12)] has posed.
Endo has been hurt by a lot of things. Orbital missiles, trees, apocalyptic giants, a book--but this feels like one of the most personal. His weapon is raised, the broad surface of the blade used as a makeshift shield to mitigate the spray of liquid blades that come his direction. It works to some effect, though there are several vicious scapes across his barrier jacket from the few that get through.
Fate's voice and helpful words of assurance at least help steady him somewhat. He's unfamiliar with D'Argent, but her claim that defeating the monster will help his actual mother recover also seems to help spur him onward.
Still, it's hard to bring the full strength of his Device against the youma in front of him. So he doesn't--not yet. Instead the flat of the massive blade is used as a battering ram, the knight charging forward in attempt to knock the Cardix backward and provide oppertunities for allies to do further violence.
"Nanoha! Fate! Diamant!" He calls, only failing to add d'Argent to his plea out of unfamiliarity. He doesn't give instruction, but the request for help is clear enough.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Blauverschiebung on Pink Moon Stick.
<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Mom!
A painful word to cry out. La Sirene had thought it, from the sight, even if she had not had the time or the presence of thought to ask it. (Ugh!! Curse you, d'Argent!) It is perhaps well enough that she is here and she's not turning against them.
The others move quickly. In these close quarters, hope of a coordinated assault is somewhat forlorn. Put their trust in Yuuno to prevent the unthinkable. She can see colorful flashes, and a blade that cuts and brings back -- euuugh! -- the vermiform shapes of the Cardiax.
What is motherhood?
La Sirene de Diamant can't say. She has greater things on her mind, at least - or at least greater things coming towards that mind. She throws up her right arm with a twinkling surge of that energy around her -- glamorous! Spectacular! It means the plate breaks and only scrapes her arm hard enough for her to hiss (for the water around them, after all, is salty) rather than drawing a gash.
"This -- is not the woman who raised Endo Naoki!" de Diamant forces out through the pain. "She was made a victim by unholy hands. All of her sorrow and anguish has been diverted from its rightful course - a false relief that's led to, to this!"
This meaning, presumably, the localized (and not THAT localized... and increasingly less so...) disaster area... but also the fallen shape of what must be the true face of Endo's mother.
"If it's come this far, I don't think that the Cardiax can be talked into wisdom... they are like a boil!" wow, mean thing to say about someone's mom, la Sirene de D., but perhaps she has some experience. Frustration guides her tone more, perhaps, than it usually is, but there is shock and sorrow of her own in there too.
Her right hand forms a momentary tight fist (she hisses at the pain) and does a single long dervish turn before sweeping it forwards in another shimmering flash, this one towards those myriad eyes. At least, I suppose, thinks la Sirene de Diamant, she won't be able to blink.
I hope, she concludes.
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used Carbonado Kaleidoscope on Pink Moon Stick.
<Pose Tracker> La Sirene d'Argent [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Fate rather deftly turns her own, very rhetorical question, back on her to make it a genuine one. It's Argent's turn to stare at her for a moment. That girl is smarter than she would have given her credit for.
"La Sirene d'Argent," she says.
Speaking of 'more impressive than she would have initially given credit for', Nanoha transforms and joins the fight. Argent casts a glance to Diamante. "Allying yourself with children, Diamante?" comes the rather arch question.
But she scores a clean hit on not-Endo's Mom, and even though the wound swiftly disappears as if it were never there, this provides a useful talking point as Cardiax larvae appear. "There, see? Now don't hold back."
After the pierce she'd taken a quick step back, when suddenly a watery sawblade is sent towards her. She's more than prepared though, having flung her rapier up to jab into what remains of the ceiling. With her newly-freed right hand she makes what may be a familiar sign to those who have fought with Diamante before. Her left comes up, strums, and there is a bright, dazzling blast of white light--rather the inverse of Nori's black and silver--that lashes out to blast away the incoming attack.
But Endo still holds back, and Argent gives a disgusted sigh. If you want something done right... She jumps up to snatch her rapier out of the ceiling, and then lands nimbly on her feet. She draws it around in a great sweeping circle, and as she does an array of dazling silver daggers suddenly materialize in front of her.
And with another sweeping gesture of her blade she sends them all flying directly at the Cardiax. She is being careful not to endager the real elder Naoki, of course... but she doesn't seem to be so sparing with the other magical guardians.
"A boil?" she says, admonishingly. "It is more like a parasite, feeding on its victim. And it feeds still, even now."
She has no qualms about the deed--this is far from her first rodeo... and not even the first mother she has had to help, surely.
COMBAT: La Sirene d'Argent has used Storm of Silver on Pink Moon Stick.
<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.
In many ways, Fate still has her guard up. It's just over other things. There are many precious things she wants to protect.
Like those words that it could be Juuban elementary.
Or the way she's unhappy over this situation. The way Endo's unhappy over this situation. When Nanoha calls out, 'Here!' Fate's timing in response is impeccable, a sudden abrupt reversal so fast she leaves an Infinity Elemental Schooler shaped blur, just a split second before her Shooter Mode sends that barrage out. And she's ready too, to press the attack.
Yet, before she can...
There are those images, of Motherhood, reflections of her son. Images. Images. Images. It presents such a different version of Motherhood than she's known.
It feels like Precia would never have been tired or sad or angry if - she had been Alicia. Indeed one mother, after another - every idea that she has of what it is like is challenged, immediately and thoroughly by that answer, into something exhausting.
It all meets in the middle before she can even think of Lindy- because... because... that spinning arm is suddenly met by Fate not parrying with Bardiche, but that gauntleted arm as Bardiche announces. <Thunder Arm.>
That gauntlet, crackling with brilliant, thunderous magic abruptly shoves the serpent sawblade aside, as she in turn looks at Nanoha in alarm as buzzsaw smacks into her. "Nanoha!"
La Sirene shouts that it's not the woman who raised Endo - that her feelings were made victim, but - they're still her feelings aren't they? Even blackened and bereft of the positive context. Still, La Sirene offers the wisdom. To deal with a boil... "Then we will apply the proper force." Even as Endo calls upon her to act. And Argent gives her more information to act upon - not a boil, but a parasite.
Fate swings Bardiche back, and he shifts, with a synthetic intonation, <Haken Form>
And the metallic polearm changes, becoming a hooked scythe implement, it's blade a sparking electrical arc. In the blink of an eye, she charges at her, but then seems to seems to swerve up, and around pivoting in mid-air as she strong arms the scythe around in a full rotation.
<Haken Slicer>
The full revolution results in a spinning crescent of energy, that grows and grows into a grinding wave of energy, further and further gathering, building, until it is several times larger than it was when it was a part of Bardiche ramming into its target and continually pressing against her.
It hurts, to hear her think of how she has nothing else. It hurts.
It still hurts.
Perhaps it will never stop.
She concentrates on keeping it going - she'll know when she's done so long enough, she'll know when she hears Nanoha speak the words that precede her own application of force.
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has used Haken Slicer on Pink Moon Stick. COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Endo Naoki's Blauverschiebung, taking 31 Fatigue damage! COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to dodge La Sirene de Diamant's Carbonado Kaleidoscope, taking 24 Fatigue damage! Stagger applied to Pink Moon Stick! COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to dodge Fate Testarossa's Haken Slicer, taking 57 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick braces 11 Fatigue damage from La Sirene d'Argent's Storm of Silver, taking 16 Fatigue damage! Pink Moon Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate! Diversion applied to Pink Moon Stick!
<Pose Tracker> Nanoha Takamachi [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.
Nanoha is watching the spinning, serpentine blade as Endo's 'mother' prepares it. She and Fate can feel one another's reluctance to try to outrun this one. No, they must time it. Their tension rises together. Three... two... one...
Nanoha either moves so swiftly the eye loses her for a moment, or teleports a small distance; it is hard to tell which. The blade misses her, narrowly. She's ready to strike back.
But talented as she is, this is a new enemy to her. She did not understand that this buzzsaw blade would burst.
Nanoha only barely dodged this to begin with, and she is fully within its area of effect when it goes off. Her barrier jacket is pelted with blades, her youthful voice capable it seems of a truly high shriek. She blindly tries to keep herself from the ground at the last second, but disoriented, she cannot find the balance of magical thrust needed to keep her steady; one side pushes too hard and she flips before landing, skidding on her back as the chunks of what had seemed like metal revert to a drenching puddle beneath her. She coughs delicately, staring dazed at the ceiling.
"Feito," she echoes her best friend's cry, much softer. It lets her push herself up before she's even thinking. And as her featherweight body stands again, Endo's call for aid joins it. Nanoha shakes her head, catching up to the exchange Fate just had with Diamant. She realizes all at once what Fate, with that upset look on her face, is doing: holding an attack, at cost of mana and endurance, until Nanoha is ready. And that is all Nanoha needs to be ready.
Force? Nanoha sets her feet, the wing-like stabilizers on her little boots flaring wide.
<<BUSTER MODE. DRIVE IGNITION.>>
"Naoki-san! We're all right here!" she calls to her fellow mage. "Load cartridge!"
<<LOAD CARTRIDGE.>> The staff's front bracket jerks back and expels a metal cylinder, the extended prongs of the staff beginning to crackle. Ribbons of magic rotate around them.
"Diviiiiiine!" Nanoha's auburn twintails flutter wildly behind her head as a white orb gathers. Everyone here knows to give this one a little space except Argent. And Nanoha, the sweet little girl Argent was so impressed by a moment ago simply because she could henshin... Nanoha seems to assume the increasingly brilliant coruscation trembling to be released from her staff speaks for itself.
"BUSTAAAAA!" she shouts, as the four intangible wings bracing the energy flex under the force of its launch.
COMBAT: Nanoha Takamachi has used Divine Buster! on Pink Moon Stick. COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick braces 27 Fatigue damage from Nanoha Takamachi's Divine Buster!, taking 22 Fatigue damage! Pink Moon Stick is Quipped! Pink Moon Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate!
