2024-04-25 - Pain At Izakaya Joji 2
| Title: Pain At Izakaya Joji 2 | |
|---|---|
| Summary: The battle continues at Izakaya Joji, where a mother's grief swells out of control and pushes every magical boy and girl to their limit: to protect their loved ones, to survive, and to decisively conclude the battle. | |
| Who: Pink Moon Stick, Endo Naoki, La Sirene d'Argent, La Sirene de Diamant, Fate Testarossa | |
| Where: Shitamachi Low City (Shitamachi Low City) | |
| OOC - IC Date: 4/25/2024 - 05/26/16 | |
.**************************** Shitamachi Low City *****************************.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+* 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.
COMBAT: Ginka Shimizu transforms into La Sirene d'Argent!
COMBAT: La Sirene d'Argent has loaded her saved combat state! She is now ready to take on 1 opponent!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki transforms into Barrier Jacket Zerstörer!
COMBAT: Nori Ankou transforms into La Sirene de Diamant!
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has loaded her saved combat state! She is now ready to take on 1 opponent!
<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.
The pitched battle inside Izakaya Joji, a neighborhood pub that Endo Naoki's mother waitresses at, is technically half a dimension over -- and thus the lighting is a slightly dim, washed-out green, courtesy of the visiting Yuuno-kun, who continues to maintain the barrier protecting the building. He himself, with his little ferret feet, is atop the mother in question, who has collapsed into a swoon; there was too much flooding from the Cardiax storm to leave her behind, as one normally would to keep civilians out of the line of fire.
Fortunately, at least so far, her Cardiax clone has seemed more interested in the kids attacking her than in somehow targeting her original.
They are doing an excellent job of keeping her occupied.
There are two duos working in something like tandem here. Nanoha and Fate are extraordinarily efficient when working together. Just now, Fate scythed inwith Bardiche in Haken Form to pin the creature down -- the golden light coruscating off her arms, crossed like an X in front of her -- so that Nanoha could explode Divine Buster pinkly into her side.
In retreat, the Cardiax then grabbed a tray off an abandoned table to intercept La Sirene d'Argent's dazzling array of silver daggers, but was too distracted in doing so to avoid being blinded by La Sirene de Diamant's sweeping, shimmering flash of unlight. This collaboration is more accidental than the Device-Wielders, because the two Sirenes are competitors.
Fallen Stern is a poor tool for nonlethal combat, but nevertheless, Endo gets the job done with the flat of his blade -- Cardiax Naoki is knocked backwards, head over heels over bar. She falls from view entirely, just for a moment.
Endo is hurt, by more than bumps and bruises. Fate too -- everyone here with mommy issues of any kind is having a tough time today. It's difficult, fighting a monster with a familiar face, even knowing that it isn't REALLY someone's mother. It's especially difficult knowing that the Cardiax took this form by gorging itself on Naoki-san's emotions, inflaming them even as it was shaped by them. The feelings the parasite is venting have been made supernaturally intense. But at their core, the substance of the sorrow and anguish is very real.
From what she's said recently, Endo's mother is:
* Very tired from overwork
* On some level wishes she could just... stop
* Nevertheless loves her son very, very much
* But also is missing her dead husband very, very much
The Cardiax, which is not Endo's mother, not really -- and not Precia Testarossa, either -- reappears from behind the bar, clambering back to her sensibly-shod feet. Plain flats, good for a waitress who works long hours keeping this restaurant going. Good for a mother who does the same at home. Everyone here has more fantastical footwear than her except for maybe Endo himself, who, in fact -- she does not recognize. Recognition Inhibition is meant as a boon to humanity and the magical community alike; a salve to their wounds. But sometimes it is cruel.
"A parasite," she repeats, as the Sirenes explain her true nature to their allies. "How dare you. I do not take. I only give."
She blinks her enormous, alien, compound eyes, filled with different images of Endo's childhood. Gradually each lens is being replaced by a frame of this combat. Diamant's clenched fist. Argent's swept blade. Fate's sorrowful red eyes. An entire segment is nothing but residual pink light from Nanoha's sheer force. The tightness in Endo's mouth.
Her own mouth tightens in exactly the same way.
And the rain -- stops.
"I am so afraid," she admits to the children, haggard. "Every night, I lie awake and wonder."
The panes of her eyes fill more quickly. Endo hefting his weapon at her. The swirl of his violet cloak. The sharp white collar and loose white pants. Detailing on his breastplate, which matches that of Fallen Stern himself, along the centerline of the blade. His spiky hair, that falls across his face exactly as it did in the lens that contained baby Endo in the bath.
The words tumble from between her lips with so much weariness, and so much pain.
"Will this be the time he doesn't come back?"
There are inches of water on the floor. It begins to shudder... then bubble... then boil. With a yelp, the ferret-changeling shields himself and the real, unconscious mother in a transparent egg of greenish energy, but he doesn't have enough juice to take care of everyone else.
And now the superheated water is streaming upwards like rain in reverse, like negative rain...
"I know that if his father was here, he would tell me that it's normal for boys his age to become more distant. To keep secrets. To not always answer his phone. That it's not fair for me to wish I could always know where he was."
Her arms are rising like the water around her, floating upwards, hands splayed rigidly open, fingers too-tense, too-spread, almost to snapping.
"All I ever wanted," she cries, "Was to keep--"
Her hands are slamming towards each other--
"--him--"
--and so is the water, being drawn into a great geyser in front of her--
"--safe!"
Frustration, loneliness, uncertainty... things the real Naoki-san should never have shared with her son. Would never have, by all indications; she's never so much as hinted that she knows Endo has more in his life than school, a part-time job, and maybe a girlfriend. What does she know? What does she only suspect?
Whatever it is, she has kept it inside for so, so long.
It cannot be contained by so small and dingy a place as the izakaya.
A boiling waterspout erupts upward, exploding what was left of Izakaya Joji's rooftop. The Cardiax is at its heart, soaring into the storm-black sky on superheated steam. The egg-like force field containing Yuuno and Naoki-san strains beneath the pounding of the geyser, then, with a sucking sound, lifts off the floor. It spirals up after the monster, caught by the whirlpool, drawn into its current. Whether accidentally or intentionally, it will not be left far behind, and is in considerable danger.
<< I can't hold the barrier, this force field, and fly! >> Yuuno warns the others, telepathically. He's not a savant like Nanoha and Fate. << If the geyser drops us, something will have to give... >> Or someone will have to catch them.
Better hurry. The base is about to lift into the sky. It is a burning, drowning path, sturdy enough to follow the Cardiax for those who can't fly under their own power, though even those who do will have to enter it to reach her. But it is there, for those who would not abandon Naoki-san's clone to flight, and Naoki-san herself to a permanent coma, if it -- she -- is not defeated.
Surely Naoki-san would have rather died than allow her son to be hurt by a weapon powered with her own hidden feelings like this. But, as she of all people knows: sometimes, living is even harder.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Après moi, le déluge on Endo Naoki.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Après moi, le déluge on Fate Testarossa.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Après moi, le déluge on La Sirene de Diamant.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Après moi, le déluge on La Sirene d'Argent.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa neatly dodges 20 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Après moi, le déluge, taking 5 Fatigue damage! Pink Moon Stick is Psyched! Fate Testarossa's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki dodges 16 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Après moi, le déluge, taking 24 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit!
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant perfectly dodges 39 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Après moi, le déluge, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Critical Dodge!
COMBAT: La Sirene d'Argent perfectly dodges 33 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Après moi, le déluge, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Dodge! La Sirene d'Argent's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (12)] has posed.
Water sprays, and Endo raises a hand in a vain attempt to shield his face from the torrent. There's a lot more water to worry about though, and such measures are pittance. When the liquid explodes upward and outward he makes attempt to take skyward, far enough off the ground to avoid thrown about by the torrent.
The feelings that the Cardix voicesthose of his mother, the ones she's never spoken aloudfall heavy on the knight. The pain, now spoken, makes his heart ache.
It does something else too.
"Mom..." He breathes, "I should have known that's how you felt. I won't keep you waiting any longer."
Fingers close tight around the grip of Fallen Stern, Endo taking a big breath in preparation. His face assumes pufferfish-like circularity, and with nary a word further he dives into the whirlpool in pursuit.
This time he doesn't hold back. Purple light burns along the length of his weapon, a muted glow within the liquid that surrounds him. He accelerates, in blatant defiance of physics, bringing the weapon toward the Cardix once again as he reaches the peak of the geyser in a violet splash.
<METEOR ABSTURZ>
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Meteor Absturz on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has finished attacking.
<Pose Tracker> La Sirene d'Argent [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
The sight of the Cardiax is nothing new for Argent. There have been so, so many... yet each of them unique in their sorrow, in ways both grand and small. She is well familiar with Sorrow, in its many splendors, and so this fight holds nothing new to her--save the reticence of those who might be said to be holding back, which Argent cannot abide.
She has, she thinks, seen it all. Certainly, she's been at this for a while--longer even than Diamant, by her estimation. Sure, this situation is strange and novel--she is not used to fighting with so many people at once, but at the end of the day, a Cardiax is just a Cardiax.
Even a Cardiax of someone's mother. Even that.
What she is not ready for, however, are the likes of Nanoha and Fate. Fate's speed and maneuverability is impressive but makes her wary--they expressed a desire to work together in peace and friendship and all that. Those do-gooder types can be dangerous, especially when backed with real talent.
Meanwhile, everyone else knows to clear out when Nanoha starts up Divine Buster. But it takes Argent a moment more to realize just what's about to happen, to turn her head to look and to notice the buildup of power. She yelps and darts back, boot heel slipping on a dropped plate and making her stumble for a moment until she regains her footing. "Mon dieu!"
But she whirls on the Cardiax as she objects to being called a parasite. "You're--" she starts to say, defiant, but her gaze shifts over to Endo, just ever so slightly.
'Nothing special' is what she wants to say. But even the absurdity of saying that in front of the son of a woman a Cardiax has claimed is hitting her, in the moment.
It infuriates her, that she's caught herself hesitating now, despite her earlier words. "Grr... this is stupid," she mutters. Stop showing weakness. Just destroy the blasted thing and leave. Let everyone else deal with whatever messy feelings they're dealing with.
The water erupts in a superhot geyser, carrying both the Cardiax and her victim--with Yuuno and a tiny, fragile egg of a shield--up with it. "Dammit-- You brats can fly, you take care of that woman!" (She means Nanoha and Fate.) She charges forward, right into the steam and superheated water. There's plenty of detritus getting sucked up into the column, and she leaps, finding the lightest of purchases on a tumbling tray before leaping again, surging upwards to find purchase on the tray of a cash resister being flung about. Up and up and up--
"Get-- Back here-- you stupid-- parasite!"
And finally, when within striking distance she yells and drives her rapier right for the Cardiax's heart. "Got you!"
COMBAT: La Sirene d'Argent has used Silver Slash on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: La Sirene d'Argent has finished attacking.
<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
One might think: Surely the two of them - Diamant and d'Argent - would cooperate against this mutual foe. And indeed, one would be right, on a superficial basis.
and, at the moment, perhaps more than a superficial basis.
The point, dear reader, is that they're more fighting at the same time, than fighting together, at least in both their hearts. (Even de Diamant, in her sweet-goth fashion-model charm, is at that point. Impression made!!)
But the Cardiax speaks, and it is a strange and liminal thing, because the worm is not its host; yet it does, as any parasite might, contain some of the host within. And perhaps too, having grown, it might be said to be more of Endo's mother than it was originally a vile little wiggling thing raised in strange aquaria.
And now, well: Look at it. The water beneath their feet, around their feet in many cases, begins to seethe like water in a pan, or oil; the heat transmits to la Sirene de Diamant but not drastically. Not for the first time do her high, stompy boots save her from mischance.
But there are greater mischances.
She only wanted to keep him safe.
Such as the water erupting in a boiling geyser up!!
La Sirene de Diamant throws up an arm to shield herself from the spray even as she looks towards Endo. Her eyes mist, a little from pain but mostly from sympathy, but he makes his choice -- the choice perhaps that de Diamant expected, or might have guessed. But one never knows. She can only imagine what a nasty, horrifying surprise something like this must be.
Endo has this burden, but also has an advantage, in that he can fly. de Diamant cannot. She purses her lips, tightens her courage, brings together that aura of light around herself, and then she leaps into the geyser and lets its flow bear her upwards. The surrounding water feels onsen-hot even with the protection of that darkling shield, which froths and bubbles vigorously as she ascends.
de Diamant kicks her legs. She rises up a little faster. She can't quite make out d'Argent right now, or anyone, but up at the top, she *can* see -- perhaps, on some level, smell -- her quarry. She does not fully emerge when she comes -- what she does instead is simpler: Grasp at the ankles, or perhaps lower calves, of the Cardiax.
If it must run, let it bear a burden.
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used A Helping Hand Takes Many Forms on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has finished attacking.
<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.
It is a difficult thing to hear this from any Mother. It hits close to home.
Fate finds herself skimming the edge of the boiling waterspout of roiling emotion, even as Nanoha abruptly blurs in front of Fate with a pink Flash Move. Fate takes cover as the pink shield splits it, until even it begins to crack, as the two in the final moments find themselves showered in just the barest amount of steam.
"Are you alright?" Nanoha asks Fate, who quickly nods, "Yes. ... Thanks to you."
Nanoha turns and calls out to Endo in this moment, "That's not all of how she must feel at all Endo! If you wanted to keep you safe, then she had to know too this is the best outcome. To be ready for the world ahead of you. It may be difficult to hear this side of her feelings too but..."
"<<We'll handle it.>>" Nanoha reassures Yuuno, as things begin to look more grim, juggling that much magic to protect her, as Fate looks at Argent and tells her, "Well of course we will."
A shared look between them, and the two begin to take off, flying to either side of the Cardiax before simultaneously, plunging into the Geyser from different directions. Amidst the superheated steam, it's definitely uncomfortable, for now her barrier jacket handles it, even as her skin reddens as both Devices call out as one, <Defenser Plus.> <Protection.>
Fate going high up, as suddenly arrowheads ringed by Midchildan runes sprout, her shield held below her for some further cover, <Plasma Lancer> A quartet of them fire through the Geyser, even as Nanoha suddenly appears at a lower angle, her own shield offering cover from the Geyser below, "N and F - Combination 1! - Firing Range!"
With a wave of her staff, sudden orbs appear, as Raising Heart declares. <Divine Shooter> And an aureole of them suddenly appear, eight in all.
Fate's Plasma Lancer was always expected to miss on the first pass, after all, they don't take their opponent lightly. Nanoha's orbs suddenly move towards the silhouette of their opponent within the Geyser, homing in like a swarm of bees that suddenly try to give them the appearance that they're attempting to box them in on all sides, to harry and harass-
But it was always moving them in a certain direction, "Turn!" Fate raises her hand high, and suddenly all of those thunderous arrowheads appear within rings again, and reverse direction.
Right as all of Nanoha's Divine Shooter Orbs come in eight different directions, trying to force a certain outcome as forces collide.
"Without a doubt, what she feels most of all is pride!" Nanoha finishes, even amidst this awful shower, as both of them act to buy Yuuno some time, and allow others to attack.
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has used Plasma Lancer on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick braces 17 Fatigue damage from La Sirene d'Argent's Silver Slash, taking 14 Fatigue damage! La Sirene d'Argent is Psyched! Pink Moon Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick braces 6 Fatigue damage from La Sirene de Diamant's A Helping Hand Takes Many Forms, taking 5 Fatigue damage! Pink Moon Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate! Tangle applied to Pink Moon Stick!
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Fate Testarossa's Plasma Lancer, taking 39 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit!
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Endo Naoki's Meteor Absturz, taking 65 Fatigue damage!
<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.
Up, up, up they go; Argent on a platter; Diamant on her own unlight; Fate and Nanoha under Device power; and Endo with nothing but himself, which is, of course, everything. Everything.
It's very hot, hot enough that even the palest skin quickly looks like it's been dipped in the same stuff Divine Buster is made of (this is not the case; Divine Buster doesn't turn people pink at all, oh no). And air is at a premium. Sometimes a great eddy or swirl within the greater spinning motion of the geyser will cause a head to emerge from it, for a dizzying moment, speeding high above the endless expanse of Tokyo's wards; but in that same scary split second of mortality taking hold, of 'oh no, I can't fly but I'm hundreds of feet above the ground', is an opportunity to gasp in some oxygen.
And then they reach the Cardiax.
She has curled up into a fetal position, arms around calves, head tucked low. Waves of force -- of water, always more tears -- blast out of her in every direction, forcing the others out, away.
Plasma Lancers and Divine Shooters burst into the geyser like harmonic frequencies, exploding against those waves, cancelling them out just when they feel too overwhelming. Golden and pink light coruscates through the water, making it feel less like the embodiment of oppressive misery and more like midnight in front of the Bellagio.
They make it through. The Sirenes and Endo can just see the Cardiax there through the gloom, like the yolk of an egg, and...
...and Endo brings the tremendous force of Fallen Stern to bear, which sends yet another wave through this watery space, greater than all the others, and in the opposite direction. The Cardiax looks up, eyes unfocused, exhausted.
...and Diamant grips an ankle, pulling her body open. Her unlight transforms the pink and gold into green and silver, warping it not unkindly but through a mirror beautifully. The water begins to feel less like an assault and more like a sea. HER Sea; their Sea. The Sea of Sorrows, which can cradle as well as it can drown. And it will be no one's grave this day.
...and Argent pierces her heart.
A single drop of red blood... slides... smoothly, lusciously down the rapier. It doesn't stop at the basket, but keeps gliding until it reaches Argent's hand. It's so red. (It's not real.) It's so bright. (It can't be real.) It's so warm. (Cardiaxes don't have real blood. But. But!)
The Cardiax's eyes widen.
Every last compound lens is filled with nothing but darkness. A darkness that feels totally unlike any of Naoki-san's memories or feelings. A shadow...
"Not yet," she coughs. "Or else... not alone!"
And the geyser explodes.
Explodes outwards, unraveling like a skein of yarn; two arms had formed its spiral and spun fast enough to seem like sheets, but they are arms again, columns, cylinders trailing steam and shedding salt like snow. They slam outwards, an expanding ring, then two semicircles, and finally two lines.
Two lines... falling down.
Argent and Diamant are at either end of one.
Endo and his mother's shield-egg are at either end of the other.
Her eyelids flutter, but she does not wake.
She does not, because the Cardiax yet lives...
...yet lives, out of the water entirely, spinning on single teardrops, screaming, screaming.
"NOT ALONE!"
<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
La Sirene de Diamant doesn't hear d'Argent call her stout and erstwhile allies Fate and Nanoha brats. That's probably good given everything. Her hands simply grasp where others express themselves through fabulous coruscations of light; but sometimes that's all it takes.
A simple holding of the hands.
Or something else. As the Cardiax begins to shift and turn she raises her head above the sea water and takes a deep breath, out-in-out-in in a manner that comes to her quite reflexively and brings her attention back, even as the Cardiax screams.
It screams quite an intention. The Cardiax ruptures and spins and the ocean expands and the sea parts. The scent of that Sea, that familiar and lovely sea, dissipates yet grows all the stronger as tears become mist -- what do you call a mist made from tears? Surely they have a word for it, but perhaps it's not one that's ever been mentioned on Earth, for the conditions are not ripe --
-- and there is nothing else there but the good old material realities of the Planet Earth.
In particular, the Planet Earth who is below them, and who, being considerably more massive than they, applies the force of gravitational attraction. It would be true to say that both Sirens do the same to the Earth, but only in their hearts or souls could they match such majesty.
Not, say, their physical bodies.
La Sirene de Diamant looks down for a fleeting moment as she sees the ground beneath them; far away, but not that far. Worse, perhaps, is that there is no place nearby (de Diamant doesn't 'think' that so much as 'perceive' that - none of this is involving rational thought, except by analogy) where she could hurl herself and break her fall. No convenient stack of mattress or, if needs be, trees and bushes.
Only the ground beneath, jagged with broken dreams and hard as a concrete nightmare.
de Diamant bites her lower lip and twists her arm outwards to orient her left hand out towards nothing in particular and mumbles to herself, which seems to come to something of a conclusion when she says "--COME!" and there is a burst of light and of force, throwing strange shapes and blossoming like a dark star in the heavens above the former site of Izakaya Joji. (A dark star that is perilously close to the surface.)
This is not the channeled burst of her familiar spell, it's really more of a prominence or an ejection of light -- but it pushes her in the direction of the other falling line, that singular point. Still operating less by thought than by instinct, la Sirene de Diamant snaps out her cold hand to grasp at the nearest limb of la Sirene d'Argent and grasp firmly before pulling her closer!
Not close, exactly, but closer. Elevator close. "Les Mysteres," la Sirene de Diamant says as she looks downwards, letting go of d'Argent (who hopefully does not kick free, like so much the cat) and spreading out her arms to cry out:
"WAKE!"
And a brass-lined bubble seems to form around her; glorious, if somehow alien glass set in an organic interlay of metallic fixtures and mountings, a frame that has no ends and not a single ninety-degree angle. It shines, implausibly.
It will hit the ground first; and the glass, la Sirene de Diamant knows, won't cut her. (d'Argent either. Probably. Not much.) The brass will crumple and the nature of the charm will keep her in the center; and so, perhaps, a splat will become merely a thump.
(de Diamant has taken her share of 'thump.')
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used Les Mysteres on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has finished attacking.
<Pose Tracker> La Sirene d'Argent [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Argent has made no secret of how she views Diamant--As competition, plain and simple. Honestly, if she had her way--she would have taken this thing on alone, and had it wrapped up in half the time without the clumsy efforts of everyone else working together to slow her down. (Nevermind the fact that she is really the outsider in this equation, here, that Nanoha and Fate are working together masterfully, that the others are all known to each other, know what to expect.)
The boiling water beats at her as she ascends, and she grits her teeth through it all, keeping her eyes open. They burn and scald, and even when she has to look away to reach for a quick gasp of air to keep her going, they alawys snap right back to her target.
Always keep your eye on the prize.
Nanoha and Fate create an opening to attack, while Endo knocks the Cardiax off balance, and Diamant--Argent sees it, in the corner of her eye, as she makes her own leap.
Of all the magical girls--of all the Sirens--to do something so... so... undignified...
But that is only in the corner of her eye, a peripheral note in the middle of a chaotic battlefield. Her eyes, as ever, are locked on the Cardiax, and as she leaps, as she yells and thrusts her blade forward it strikes home.
The satisfied grin she wears in that moment is, perhaps, a little too eager.
She is not bothered by that single drop of blood--she knows what it is and isn't--she is, after all, in her element.
Except for the part where her element is the sea, and she is currently in the air.
Her moment of triumph, where she thought she might have even landed a decisive blow is short-lived, as the geyser explodes, twin ruptures sending her and Diamant in one direction, and Endo and his mother (and Yuuno) in another.
She is tumbling, free falling as she struggles to right herself, silver hair whipping in every which direction. The surface of the Earth is approaching perilously quickly, and as she struggles she cycles through plans in her head, rejecting one after the other. Not enough force. That one requires her to have her footing first. There's not enough time for the third. She finally rights herself, and starts scanning the horizon when she feels a pressure on her arm.
Diamant pulls her close--or closer--and Argent's silver eyes open wide in shock as she suddenly comes face to face, front to front with her rival. "Wha--" There might be a momentary hint of color on her face--but surely that's just a trick of the weird, half-a-dimension over lighting, a distant reflection of the energy blasts of the scarily-powerful-for-a-kid Nanoha playing across some leftover geyser on her face.
She looks up and down as Diamant conjures another form of Les Mysteres, surprise being replaced with a thin, determined expression. She nods and kicks, not away but towards Diamant. With a gesture of her right hand her rapier vanishes, and with her newly-freed hand she grabs onto the other Siren for everything she's worth.
The other hand is extended downwards, towards the ground. A streak of light appears, that bursts a moment later to reveal a perfectly-formed silver chain. More and more appear in rapid succession, more and more chains emerge. She's creating a net of chains, attaching them to anything she can, in layers, hoping to use them to break the fall of the barrier at least a little bit. More and more and more, and when the time runs out and their improvised plan is about to be put to the test--
She stops, and wraps that arm around Diamant, too, holding on for dear life.
COMBAT: La Sirene d'Argent has used Fetters of the Heart on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: La Sirene d'Argent has finished attacking.
<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.
It gets worse - and despite both barrier jackets and protection spells pointed down, both find themselves taxed to their limits. There isn't much time, but then again.
There never is.
It's why they all practice for times like these, as Nanoha and Fate are slammed away by it unraveling like that, each yelping, Fate shielding herself with her arm, Nanoha with her staff.
Within the spiral, the Cardiax and as one- "NO!" It hits Fate's trauma in all of the worst ways, her Mother - falling into imaginary space. To vanish forever.
"-Trust them." Nanoha says, with a hand upon Fate's shoulder. Once upon a time, it was she asked of Fate - what they all did. Nanoha has evaluated the situation and-
"There's something else we need to do."
Those eyes are steelier even than when Fate remembers that day, and, both rise as one, slamming inside of the Spiraling Geyser, moving at random patterns within as they rise - rise - rise.
<Chain Bind>
<Lightning Bind>
Abruptly, shackles appear, Cubes of crackling light latch onto limbs, while manacles with ephemeral chains latch onto others.
It is quickly cast - and will not hold the Cardiax Long. Certainly not, but-
One girl has appeared at one side of the Cardiax, and the other at Ninety Degrees from her, Fate's arm beginning to sprout three firing rings, even as Nanoha's winged staff begins charging with that ominous pink light.
<Trident Smasher>
<Divine Buster>
"N and F - Combination 2!"
Bardiche and Raising Heart, each begin to pound cartridge after cartridge into the Devices, and abruptly the glow from each of them expands considerably.
"Demolition Cross!" Fate calls out in turn, after Nanoha, as Nanoha shouts, "FULL POWER!"
And as one:
"FIREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
"FIREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
From Fate, erupts a trio of sparkling which launch at the Cardiax from one side with riotous power, and from the other, a singular blast of absurd strength, as Nanoha's Divine Buster is fired at the same point of convergence, the two magics colliding into twin eruptions of power that build upon themselves.
COMBAT: FINISHER! Fate Testarossa has used Trident Smasher on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has finished attacking.
<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (12)] has posed.
The vortex breaks, and Endo goes with part of it. It takes a moment to realize exactly what's happening, and some hard effort to orient himself enough to track the barrier that contains Yuuno and his mother. He doesn't have much time to hesitate, though. Only to act.
He races to close the distance remaining between himself and the egg, gritting teeth as he angles himself unsteadily toward the barrier.
"Hang on!" Calls the knight, his voice ragged and desperate.
The distance closes. He draws closer, and closer, as does the ground below.
Closer still, and just a little bit ahead of the egg, and just a little bit faster, and then in three, two, one
<STERN BRECHER.>
Impact.
Olympic divers can cut through water because the intermolecular spaces are weak and far apart. This is not so, traditionally, with the ground. Most people avoid diving head first into that. Most people don't have pillar of cosmic fire to help do the cleaving.
The ground shatters, and Endo aims to bring them not to an abrupt stop, but a slower, grinding, and hopefully survivable halt.
COMBAT: FINISHER! Endo Naoki has used Stern Brecher on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick braces 20 Fatigue damage from La Sirene de Diamant's Les Mysteres, taking 16 Fatigue damage! Pink Moon Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace La Sirene d'Argent's Fetters of the Heart, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Cripple and Stun applied to Pink Moon Stick!
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Fate Testarossa's Finisher, Trident Smasher, taking 160 Fatigue damage! Pink Moon Stick is unable to keep fighting!
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Endo Naoki's Finisher, Stern Brecher, taking 188 Fatigue damage! Pink Moon Stick is unable to keep fighting!
<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.
Without the storm, Tokyo is blue-skied in the afternoon light. But the storm is not leaving all at once, and so it is that that endless azure horizon -- as they are above the skyscrapers, it's an unusual opportunity to see it, at least for people whose names don't rhyme with Eight and Little Laugh (a Nano-Ha) -- is asserting itself gradually. A wisp at a time, as though blue is being added, though in actuality, storm is being subtracted. The half-geysers have become funnels, sucking cloud in, instead of exploding boiling tears out.
They fall, and d'Argent and de Diamant fall with them.
A curious thing happens when the Sirens collaborate to survive. It's not that a sort of miraculous harmony descends upon the two of them. It's not that all is forgiven, that the competition is forgotten. Every day is life and death on the Sea of Sorrows, after all. If they both die, they both lose. This is no puppies and rainbows summit.
It is, in fact, the opposite...
The two of them, before they fell, glimpsed the darkness inside the Cardiax's bug-eyes, and knew that it was not Naoki-san.
But as they're falling -- when d'Argent graspsde Diamant, and hangs onto her --
-- they sense that same darkness once more. Only this time it's from the outside, looking in.
Les Mysteres crashes through one, two, three layers of chains, each one slowing them a fraction. A fraction is not enough on its own to arrest deadly, girl-crushing momentum, and three fractions is still not; but a fraction is enough to buy Les Mysteres that extra heartbeat to form and to solidify and, perhaps most importantly of all, to become beautiful.
For beauty, both girls know, is strength. Especially for them.
And so as the glass shatters and the brass crumples, it does so as gorgeously as crystal snow and an unfurling metallic flower. And if d'Argent gets a little slice across her cheekbone, well, even that seems artful; not intentional, but stylish all the same. It will not even scar, so fine was the shard, but in the moment she carries it off with a duelist's panache.
And they survive... and emerge.
The sense of their being watched magnifies enormously, and ominously; it is a feeling of being in shade, overshadowed, lost within the darkness cast by an enormous presence.
And then it is gone, and only the fate of Endo's mother remains.
It is tied, inextricably, to Endo himself, of course. Fallen Stern is an instrument of one thing and one thing only; a savant of destruction. He is neither a flotation device nor a jetpack nor a cushion. Endo has wielded him -- they have fought together -- so many times, countless now, in battles for goodness. Battles to save the world, often. But always, that decisive blow has been to defeat some evil, smite some foe.
The egg flares magnesium-bright and vanishes the moment they hit, causing Yuuno and Naoki-san to fall against Endo's broad back. They are riding him down, and he is riding Stern down, and Stern is riding down cosmic fire and shattered ground and concrete and pipes and if someone wants to ask Yuuno later why, when in extremity, the ferret was reduced to one of three spells and chose 'the barrier', he will point out that nobody REALLY wanted a new volcano in the middle of the Juuban neighborhood, now did they?
Ruptured, weakened mantle aside, however, it might be the first time that Endo can remember -- that STERN can remember -- unleashing their power, together, not to save a life by fighting an enemy, but to save a life by... saving a life.
As the column of Stern Brecher compresses beneath them, slowly, until it finally goes out some dozens of meters below street level, it feels... different. It, too, feels beautiful.
Afterwards, he finds that the best way to not drop the mother on his back is to revert Stern's hefty, two-handed mass and use those hands to hold her to his chest instead. She appears none the worse the wear.
But she does not wake up--
--until Nanoha and Fate blast the rest of the blue sky back into existence -- and the Cardiax out of it entirely, nothing is left -- through main force. And the pink sky, and the gold sky, though those parts fade.
Then Endo's mother sucks in a great big gasp of breath, and stirs.
A violet knight fills her vision (and a ferret, who is now levitating them out of there in the interests of dropping the barrier so that they can go back to the Tokyo where Izakaya Joji still stands and this gash in the earth is not a thing; but Naoki-san is focused on the former).
She brings up her hand to cup his cheek. Her hand is... not soft; it has been hardened by a lifetime of work. It is not as delicate as it was when she was a girl, but it is also, perhaps, more delicate than it used to be, as, for the first time, Endo perceives in her the way that one's fragility is a parabola, not a straight line. She is not elderly yet, of course. But she might get a little bit smaller over time. Certainly she is unbelievably light in his arms.
"Oh," she says. And whether it is an 'oh' of recognition of her son, or massaged by Recognition Inhibition into a melancholy daydream of her husband, will ultimately be Endo's choice alone.
<Pose Tracker> La Sirene d'Argent [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Brass and glass form around them as they fall, continues to form even after they crash through several layers of chains, fractions and fractions of delay and buffer and protection adding up--
There is a second, much smaller crater formed by their eventual impact, pieces of the summoned barrier strewn about them in a shining, glittering pattern like one might splatter paint upon a canvas. Argent groans softly as her senses leave her temporarily upon impact--but it is only temporary. She recovers quickly as she feels an ominous presence observing them from without, as a pressure bears down on her chest, and makes it difficult to breath.
Oh, no, those are two different things. The latter is Diamant, who ended up on top of her in all of the falling, tumbling, and crashing into the earth. That strange color is on her face again, before she snorts at some thought or another. Her gaze sharpens into that mocking teasing that seems to come to her so easily.
"Well, well, well. So forward. Are you, how do they say, making a move?"
If that flusters Diamant and encourages her to get off of her faster, that is perfectly acceptable.
If it somehow emboldens her in some way... that might be fun, too.
But however they separate, Argent eventually rises--slowly, but with still-graceful motions. She stands tall, shaking her hair elegantly out of her face, and only then does she notice something on her face. She reaches up, touching it gently and then pulling it away to observe the spot of red on her cheek.
She is silent, for a long moment, glancing at Diamant out of the corner of her eye. "Touche," she mutters softly. Argent flicks that speck of blood away.
But she watches, as those two young girls blast away Cardiax with an intensity that is both awe-inspiring to watch and also frightening. She knows their type, she thinks. She will cross paths with them sooner or later, and they won't back down easily.
They're the principled types. Extremely annoying to deal with, and dangerously relentless.
She'll have to do her best to avoid them.
There is an irritation, deep inside, knowing that she was too inconvenienced by her fall to deal the true finishing blow. A tiny grain of sand ready to seed another pearl of aggravation. If she'd gotten here faster, if she hadn't hesitated, if she just hadn't had those others in her way...
She hates losing.
That's what this is, right, if she didn't win?
She looks down next at Endo as impressive gouts of flame save the rest of them, as the elder Naoki finally wakes up, and her and her son share... some kind of moment.
A mother that works that hard for her child...
A different grain of sand starts to build up aggravation within her, and she scowls at herself. Sure, they saved the woman, and she and her son can have their... moment, or... whatever. She hates this. not knowing how to act when the person she's saved is so intimately tied to one of the people she was fighting with.
Not that she ever fights with anyone, if she can help it.
Today certainly won't change her mind.
"Tch," she says, vocalizing some frustration as she promptly turns and walks away without saying a further word.
<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Impact. Peace. The blue sky above Earth.
Why does this keep happening to me!!! thinks la Sirene de Diamant, who rolls off of d'Argent so hard that she makes a full 720 degree rotation before pushing up to her elbows. Then towards the Cardiax.
It does not occur to de Diamant to guard herself - perhaps d'Argent would like to thin the ranks. Her trust, though thoughtless, may be warranted. She looks towards the other Siren...
And she's already leaving.
"... ... hmf," she mutters to herself, turning her nose up.
Perhaps another day.
