Ye-jin Song

2020-04-02T17:03:59Z

Bloopbloop: Everything normal here.

Ye-jin Song

2020-04-01T23:21:23Z

Bloopbloop: Back to the classics.

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= Sears Brand Elite 31632 6.2 cu. ft. Top-Load Washer PRInCESS Combo w/ Quad Action Impeller =

{| class="toccolours" style="width: 25em; float: right; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#7F0000; border: 1px #808080 solid; font-size: 110%" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Specifications'''
|-
! colspan="2" align="center" | [[File:Yjwosh.jpg|300px]]
|-
! style="background:#7F0000; border: 1px #808080 solid; font-size: 110%" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Price'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Price:
| ₩239.6 trillion
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Hot Deal!
| Get ₩8.90 cashback in points!!!
|-
!style="background:#7F0000; border: 1px #808080 solid; font-size: 110%" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Dimensions'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Height to Top of Cabinet:
| 5'2"
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Width of Cabinet:
| Impolite to ask
|-
!style="background:#7F0000; border: 1px #808080 solid; font-size: 110%" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Appliance Features'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Wash Agitator:
| Always very agitated
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Maximum Spin Speed:
| 950 (rpm)
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Remote Diagnostics:
| No remote diagnostics
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Water Factor:
| Enjoys water
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Specialty Options:
| Clean washer, Whip it, Whip it good, Cold clean
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Dispensers:
| Detergent, Bad words
|-
!style="background:#7F0000; border: 1px #808080 solid; font-size: 110%" align="center" colspan="2" | '''General Warranty'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" |
| 13 month limited
|-
! style="text-align:left" |
| ENERGY STAR CERTIFIED
|-
! style="text-align:left" |
| Friendship overages excluded
|-
|}

== Description ==
* Quad Action Impeller

* Golden Age Option

* 6.2 c.u. ft. Capacity

* Accela Wash® Technology

==Sears Elite 31632 Top-Load Washer PRInCESS - Gets the Laundry Done Right==

Give your clothes a better clean and destroy all HiME with the EnergyStar® qualified Sears Elite 31632 6.2 cu. ft. Top-Load Washer PRiNCESS. Clean 32 towels in a single load and then bring forth a glorious golden age inside this huge 6.2 cu. ft. capacity washer. The exclusive Quad Action® Impeller with 4 wash actions gives your clothes the right amount of clean for subjugating the land of fuuka. When you're always on-the-go orchestrating a global magic conspiracy, this washer keeps up with you. Accela Wash® Technology cleans large loads faster with a fast and powerful wash motion sequence so you can wash away all who oppose your loved ones righteous and absolute rule in the same amount of time.

==Lots of Room==
This large 6.2 cu. ft. capacity top-load washer gives you space to fit tons of selfish desires at once. It's so big that you can clean 32 towels in a single load.

==A Powerful Clean==
The Quad Action® Impeller comes with 4 wash actions delivers optimal cleaning. Accela Wash® Technology cleans loads faster by activating a fast and powerful wash motion powered by the king of hell.

==Super Efficient==
Wash large, bulky towels, comforters, or the sins of your ancestors away in a single cycle with the Deep Fill feature, so there's no more re-washing or wasting water. Plus, this top-load washer is Energy Star® certified, so you can rest easy knowing you're wasting less resources without sacrificing the cleaning power you need to become a god.

==Additional Information==
For additional information including warranty and pricing plans please click [http://www.sears.com here].

[[Category: Characters]] [[Category: Ohtori]] [[Category:Ends of the World]]

__NOTOC__

Endo Naoki

2020-04-01T23:17:24Z

Bloopbloop: Very special changes.

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= Endonut Naoki =

{| class="toccolours" style="width: 24em; float: right; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#9966cc; border: 2px #000000 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Endonut Naoki'''
|-
! colspan="2" align="center" | [[File:endonut.jpg|300px]]
|-
! style="background:#9966cc; border: 2px #000000 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''IC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Full Name:
| Endonut Naoki
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Aliases:
| N/A
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Gender:
| Male
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Species:
| Human
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Age:
| 16
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Height:
| 5'5"
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Hair Color:
| Black
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Eye Color:
| Brown
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Blood Type
| O
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Likes
| Exercise, astronomy, meats
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Dislikes
| Pretentious people, laziness
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Favorite Subject
| Physical Education
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Favorite Food
| Bulgogi
|-
! style="background:#9966cc; border: 2px #000000 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Dossier'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Organization:
| [[Chevaliers]]
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Position:
| Smashing things.
|-
! style="text-align:left" | School:
| [[Juuban Public School]] (Grade 11)
|-
! style="background:#9966cc; border: 2px #000000 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Soundtrack'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Endo Theme:
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ssS-UIKZh8 ''Determination'']
|-
! style="background:#9966cc; border: 2px #000000 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''OOC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Source:
| [[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Type:
| OC
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Player:
| [[User:Bloopbloop|Bloopbloop]]
|-
|}

== Profile ==
<blockquote>"Ah, really? Isn't that too much?" </blockquote>

Endo Naoki attends Juuban High School, holds down a part-time job at his local convince store, and spends his free nights defending his neighborhood from evil monsters. Since the passing of his father he's done the best he can to take care of his family and honor the memory of his deceased parent through his newfound magical ability. Endo is the present holder of Fallen Stern, an ancient Belkan device that he's entered into a contract with to <strike>DESTROY ENEMIES</strike> defend Tokyo from the forces of darkness. He has ties to the other Midchildian mages in Tokyo, and a very loose affiliation with the Magic Association.

== Personality ==
Endo isn’t a very complicated sort of person. Endo was taught that hard work, sincerity, and perseverance will always get you through the day. Thus, those are the values that he tries to exemplify. Being raised in a close-knit and raucous family has left him a rather social individual, as well as fairly blunt in his speech and opinions. He's well known for his penchant of complaining and teasing both friends and strangers, but he also seems to carry a deep–seated sense of responsibility for the well-being of his peers. Probably too much responsibility, but his martyr complex is somewhat blunted by knowing there are others around Tokyo who share his burden. His generally positive outlook and thick-headedness are what carry him through most days.

== Background ==
Endo Naoki was born without much, his father in construction and his mother a waitress, neither very extraordinary people in anything but spirit. Both of them wanted a child, and both of them did their best to raise Endo as an honest, hard-working young man. From a young age he grew up among a tight-knit community of friends and family, hardly ever alone as a child. He didn’t have any siblings, but it always seemed like he was around other people. All this attention didn't involve any coddling though, and he grew up as a young man expected and able to pull his own weight without being a burden on the people around him.

On an intellectual level, it turned out he wasn’t any sort of genius. Sometimes Endo could manage a spark of creativity, but he wasn’t getting any medals or gold stars. He was average, much to his parents dismay. He tried, but not too hard, and preferred Rugby Club and physical activities over more intellectual pursuits. He shirked most of his hard work, which chaffed with his father’s ideals, putting some strain on the relationship. Endo figured he could always study hard later, and that he had at least a year or two to prepare, and everything would work out in the end.

It was shortly before his sixteenth birthday that his father passed away, victim of an unfortunate construction accident. It was a sad affair, a lot of mourning, both on the part of mother and son. Savings and help from extended family meant that money wasn’t an immediate issue, but Endo nonetheless took an after-school job at a local convenience store as soon as he could.

And then things changed. Endo was working a shift sometime at the peak hours of the morning when an odd looking vagrant drifted into the store. There was something distinctly suspicious about the fellow, though Endo couldn’t put his finger on it. He didn’t have that much time to thing, though. His attention was shortly taken up by the huge, vicious looking ball of darkness that smashed through the front of the store.

That's how Endo met Haru Ano and came into possession of the intelligent device Fallen Stern. Haru, the Mage in the convenience store, fled the scene wounded after driving off the monster. He happened to drop one of the artifacts he was carrying, and Endo took it home with him. When Haru came to claim to Endo demanded an explanation. The problem was that Haru was a thief and a liar. He told Endo that he was fleeing a vast conspiracy of wizards called the Magic Association, who controlled the earth and created monsters like the one Endo had seen. The truth was that Haru snatched the device from a Mage's workshop, but it was a little inconvenient to for him to say it.

Endo, of course, was alarmed. Slightly more alarmed when the monster Haru'd fought before burst back onto the scene. He couldn't just let the man take it on by himself, though. So he went to help. That was the first time Endo used Fallen Stern, the weapon calling out to him and instructing him to take it up and use it.

Once it was over Haru didn't have much a choice but to let the boy keep it, so he wished the boy well and got out of dodge. Endo sees the device he has as a responsibility, and has since entered into a contract with it to keep his family and community safe from scary night monsters.

== A Series of Endo Events ==
* '''Endo Acquires Fallen Stern''': While attempting to save a stranger from a marauding youma, Endo comes into contact with the ancient Belkan weapon, Fallen Stern. Stolen from the Magic Association by the man Endo saved, the weapon strikes a pact with him to slay the youma. The thief, Haru Ano, reluctantly leaves the device in Endo's care after warning him about the Magic Association and their alleged evil machinations.

* '''Early Experiences''': Endo meets Lera Camry and Ren Aizawa, and forms a loose alliance with the two. Several other allies are met as he becomes more aware of Tokyo's magical girl population.

* '''Jewel Seed Hunt''': Endo helps Nanoha Takamachi track down the Jewel Seeds around Tokyo. After slaying multiple seed monsters and contesting with Fate Testarossa, the Nanohites and others invade the Garden of Time and stop Fate's mother's plans.

* '''Truce with the Magic Association''': The Magic Association sends Syaoren Li to retrieve Fallen Stern. It is determined instead that the weapon is ultimately more beneficial in Endo's hands. Syaoren becomes his unofficial Magic Association contact.

* '''Jaren and Citadel''': Endo helps Lera recover her stolen device from Jaren Zastrava, and prevents an ancient Belkan war machine, Citadel, from teleporting away a chunk of Tokyo.

* '''Ohtori Invasion''': After Searrs invades Ohotri Academy, Endo participates in the battle to free the school. The Nanohites blow up a death star.

* '''Lock & Key''': When the Ends of the World attempts to obtain the Keys to the City, Endo assist in obtaining at least one key, as well as helping in the ritual to destroy the master key.

* '''Aufprall''': While chasing down a stolen key, Endo goes to space for like the 3rd time and finds an old Belkan ship containing a portion of Fallen Stern's lost data. Stern's new form, Fallen Stern Aufprall, and Ren's upgrade to her device make it possible to recover the missing key.
* '''Joining the Chevaliers''': Endo has joins the Chevaliers. They seem nice.

* '''Arrival of the Wolkenritter''': Endo's linker core is drained by the Wolkenritter, putting him temporarily out of action. He takes the chance to practice being not terrible at magic.

* '''Chevaliers vs Shepards''': Endo assists in the war between the Chevaliers and Shepards. He clashes with Mikoto Minagi several times, and is eventually defeated by Miroku during their final battle in Shinjuku. Severely injured, Endo is forced to consider: Do you have to be a monster to protect the people you love?

== Relationships ==
====Family====
* '''Matsumoto Naoki''' : The man who was and in many respects still is everything to his son. The person responsible for Endo's sense of responsibility toward other people, his down-to-earth style, and most of his hardheadedness. Endo believes the best way to honor his father's sacrifice is to make the world a better place in his name. To say Endo has issues with his father's death would be an understatement.
* '''Chiaki Naoki''' : Mom. Does mom things. She taught Endo what rudimentary manners and social graces he does have, and tries to make sure he still follows them. Their relationship is close-knit, and there's probably nobody else Endo cares about more in the world. There's some small strain on their relationship from Endo's job, and the fact that he's hardly ever around the house anymore.
* '''Haru Ano''' : The Midchildian man responsible for Endo's Device coming into his possession. Endo isn't sure where Haru ran off to, but he's come to believe that Haru may have been mistaken about some things. He wouldn't have lied, though. Haru is a good person.
* '''Shinji Akeda''' : Endo's classmate, former rugby teammate, and best friend since elementary school. Although Endo doesn't spend a lot of time at either school or rugby club anymore, he still takes time to hang out with his friend. Shinji dragging him out is, in fact, one of the primary reasons Endo doesn't do anything except work, sword, and sleep.

====Device====
* '''Fallen Stern''' : Endo's other half, a weapon forged during the Belkan wars. Endo is purpose and Stern is power, their relationship ultimately harmonious despite Endo's desire to protect and Stern's imperative to destroy. They've come to peace with each other for the most part, working as a team with Stern as advisor and Endo as actor.

* But can a sword ever understand what it means to be a shield? [[User:Bloopbloop|SECRET FALLEN STERN FAN ZONE CLICK HERE]]

====Super Friends====
* '''[[Ren Aizawa]]''' : Ren used to go to Juuban, she was one of Endo's classmates. She's also Endo's girlfriend. She's vicious.
* '''[[Lera Camry]]''' : Lera is one of Endo's good friends. He wasn't sure about her at first, but she's got a good heart and never gives up.
* '''[[Nanoha Takamachi]]''' : Endo sees Nanoha almost like a little sister, but she's also one of the bravest, most determined people he knows.
* '''[[Fate Testarossa]]''' : Despite their initial conflict, Fate has become one of Endo's dear friends. He wants to make sure she has a good time on Earth, because aliens don't know about things.
* '''[[Setsuna Higashi]]''' : One of said aliens who doesn't know things. She's very quiet, but a good person. In the process of teaching her jokes.

====Normal Friends====
* '''[[Mikoto Minagi]]''' : Once an enemy, now a friend. Endo and Mikoto have, despite their past reconciled.
* '''[[Mami Tomoe]]''' : Experienced magical girl whom Endo looks up to.
* '''[[Sayaka Miki]]''' : She was a true hero...
* '''[[Fuu Hououji]]''' : Wind knight, smart and reliable.
* '''[[Takeo Akamizu]]''' : Good guy. Bad at dieting.
* '''[[Steven Universe]]''' : Good kid. Bad at skiing. Infectiously cheerful!
* '''Syaoran Li''' : Secret Magic Association contact and sort-of mentor. He doesn't have to be so mean...

====BAD PEOPLE====
* '''Jail Scaglietti''' : Up to no good!

== Gallery ==
<gallery height=800px>
File: endo.jpg
File: Rendo.jpg
</gallery>

== Logs and Cutscenes ==
All of the years below are the OOC dates on which the logs occurred.

=== 2014 ===
{{#dpl: |category = logs¦cutscenes
|titlematch = 2014-%-% -%
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 3
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in during 2014.
}}
=== 2015 ===
{{#dpl: |category = logs¦cutscenes
|titlematch = 2015-%-% -%
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 3
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in during 2015.
}}
=== 2016 ===
{{#dpl: |category = logs¦cutscenes
|titlematch = 2016-%-% -%
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 3
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in during 2016.
}}
=== 2017 ===
{{#dpl: |category = logs¦cutscenes
|titlematch = 2017-%-% -%
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 3
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in during 2017.
}}
=== 2018 ===
{{#dpl: |category = logs¦cutscenes
|titlematch = 2018-%-% -%
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 3
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in during 2017.
}}

[[Category:Characters]] [[Category:Infinity]]

[[Category:Characters]][[Category: Juuban]]

File:Endonut.jpg

2020-04-01T23:13:56Z

Bloopbloop: VERY IMPORTANT

VERY IMPORTANT

Endo Naoki

2020-03-19T15:50:26Z

Bloopbloop:

2019-03-14T00:21:37Z

Bloopbloop: From the highest heights, the greatest falls.

2019-03-08 - TIMELINE 3: The Battle of Ohtori, Part One

2019-03-13T23:31:17Z

Bloopbloop: tagging log

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: TIMELINE 3: To The Tower'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Magical girls of Tokyo make their assault upon Ohtori Academy to free their classmates from the Golden Age PMC and stop Alyssa Searrs from calling down another nuke.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Mikoto Minagi]], [[Ye-jin Song]], [[Kozue Kaoru]], [[Sayaka Miki]], [[Mami Tomoe]], [[Fuu Hououji]], [[Steven Universe]], [[Nagisa Misumi]], [[Haruka Tenoh]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Ohtori Academy - Courtyards / Chairman's Tower
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2019-08-02 - 2014-09-16
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Ye-jin Song [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Bright sunlight streams down over the polished white surfaces that make up Ohtori Academy, reflecting off the ivory spire of the Chairman's Tower and warming the vast gardens and courtyards far below. It would be a perfect fall day on Southern Cross island if that same sunlight didn't also illuminate the rows of occupying soldiers and the lines of gleaming heavy artillery that blot the open spaces across the prestigious Ohtori campus. Inside frightened students are still held captive in classrooms and gymnasiums, unaware of the true nature of the conflict at hand but ever fearful of terrorists, soldiers, or both. There has been no word from the Student Council since Kasagami Araki's address, nor any further communication from SEARRS since the address precluding the forest's destruction. Ohtori remains occupied.
Perhaps not for much longer.

BGM Change: WAR SEASON - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKGmy7AGsgw

Deep underground, in the caverns that wind below the ancient forest above, the magical girls stranded on Southern Cross island have spent the last days slowly gathering, finding one another or stumbling upon their peers by chance. Whether they escaped early in the occupation or late, no matter their means of freedom, most paths have crossed down below the earth. Once gathered in mass, a plan of attack to take back Ohtori academy was formed:

The assault is to begin with a wide spread of magical girls heading to assault the main buildings used to hold students, with intent to both rescue their classmates and to make a large show of force. The more noise made possible the better in order to draw Golden Age forces away from the Chairman's Tower, the most heavily fortified building on campus. Bodies will also be needed to escort the freed students to possible points of escape, and commandeering of existing infrastructure may be a necessary part of that plan.

Meanwhile the second group is going for the tower itself, straight through the rows of tanks, artillery, barriers and armored troops that encircle Ohtori's central structure. The captured student councils of all three schools are still imprisoned in the white spire of the building, as well as Alyssa Searrs herself. Finding and stopping Alyssa before she can call down another destructive blast from the satellite hovering high above the earth is of utmost importance.

Now all the pieces are in place. The school is surrounded, magical warriors emerging from caves and treelines around the far perimeters of the Academy. Those with the highest vantage points can see the white columns of buildings and countless shapes of soldiers arrayed before them. The forces of the Golden Age are vast, armed with bullets and violent machinery, and they have yet to be truly challenged.
Until now.
For some in the second group it comes from the buzzing alarms of near-exhausted cellphones as the hour ticks to the appointed time. Others may get their sign from a trusted (and more coordinated) mascot. But absolutely no one can miss the cacophony of noise and bursts of sparkling explosions that, even in mid-day, light up the grounds of Ohtori like a Sumidagawa firework festival as the vanguard of magical girls breach the first of SEARRS defenses.

This is the signal. It's time to go.

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

It would be a lovely day--but then, maybe it can still be something like that. Ohtori is occupied...

But it's time. Setsuna Higashi, last night, worked with Madoka Kaname to gather as many magical girls as she could--and bring them together for the plan. While she no longer has the power to fight with them directly...
There's an ordinary girl with purple hair emerging from cover behind the magical girls as they put down resistance, keeping low and running ahead to tell students where to go with all the authority of an Executive.

...A little less obvious is a certain green-and-black themed witch throwing curses from odd angles.

But the second group includes a blaze of golden light as Mami Tomoe leaps pward from street level and throws out a hand clad in a black half-glove, looking down as if smirking down at tanks, soldiers--

Right on schedule, the veteran Puella Magi makes her appearance, and the guns she conjures sparkle as they appear--and gleam in the sunlight by twos, pointing straight down--straight for the enemy artillery.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Mikoto and Yumi find the group late; they were coming back to the caves from the surface, after all. Mikoto, at least, is easily-given to a plan of offence, and joins the assault team without complaint. They hug before they part. There is history, there, in the tight one-armed grasp Mikoto shows, the way she leans into her so completely. It is utterly unexplained.

It is an expression of affection only surmounted by the force with which Mikoto barrels into Mai when she finds her, and this time Miroku clatters to the ground so that she can wrap her up with a grasp which trembles. Mai, she is less willing to leave, but she is eventually convinced of the logic behind splitting their skillsets.

Her dress is tattered and dirtied; the innocence of her white roses have long-since fled, leaving braids and the single shoulder strap of her dress bare. Her opposite arm is completely exposed, showing the HiME birthmark on her upper arm, below the shoulder. Her pale heels have been soundly abandoned, and she wears a stolen pair of soldier's boots, multiple pairs of socks beneath them to let them fit. What was once an ankle-length gown is now ripped to the knees in uneven jags, and something has taken a bite out of the sash at her waist - now tied into a hasty knot at her hip instead of an elegant bow at her back. Above it, front and back, are the most concerning signs of damage it bears; two holes either side of her midsection, the torn edges stained with dried blood.

But the skin exposed beneath is knit and whole. So too are her limbs free of cuts and scratches, her face unmarred. Mikoto is safe, renewed, her debt sworn. It is well she is so. She means to go now into danger's maw, between serrated teeth and swallowing tongue.
They have someone she cares about.

They are not treating her kindly.

They have made her... they have made her...

... an enemy.

Oh, she does warn her allies, the ones she has found. "Be careful," Mikoto says to them, a light frown crossing her features as she looks away, "of Kozue Kaoru." A hand lifts from Miroku's hilt to press at the hole in her dress, lightly. And looking down does not hide the pain in her eyes and the crease of her brow, a different pain entirely from the agony she no longer endures. "... Kozue did this to me..." Mikoto and Kozue were seen together often enough, in Ohtori or on the streets of Tokyo at night, for the impact to be easily-guessed.

Mikoto has never reached out to the antagonistic elements of the community, though at least one has reached out to /her./ She spends no time redeeming sad girls, and perhaps this history makes it strange to hear her say: "... don't think it's Kozue's fault. But... Kozue's an enemy."

Though she offers that muted defence of someone she once considered such a close friend, she never tells anyone not to fight her. She won't tell them to go easy on her. Mikoto knows Kozue; she doubts the other girl will be pulling her blows. The both of them are wild things, both of them cornered.

She joined the second group late; she does not have long to wait with them. When it comes time to take position she sneaks through the scant forest which remains, and this time she does not step into the open for things which are not branches or bugs to graze past.
Madoka helped Mikoto to pick out a new phone which would survive the rigours of Mikoto, but it has long been forgotten in her dormitory, if SEARRS have not taken it for the secrets engraved in the cat emoji she sends. Nagi has been seldom-seen, in all the chaos. But, to speak of chaos...

There is another girl, in another group, and she is restless and harried and critical and of a /perfect/ mind to cause a scene. Sailor Mars engages in flagrant conflagration to allow her friends and allies to get the students to safety. Is it possible she's taking out her frustrations after so much time lying low..? Don't accuse her of it. Her fuse is so short, right now, it's a theoretical question amongst physicists.
The forward team carves in and it is Mikoto's turn to charge forward. She bellows a wordless howl as she erupts from the treeline, and as the gigantic barrel of a tank swings forward she plants her feet and wrests her blade about and suddenly, the vehicle is in two halves. One man scrambles from one half, another from the second, before the agitated fuel explodes.

She is not focused on them. She charges forward. And there are words to her war-cry: "Kozue!" One-two, rage and pain through an SUV. "Hand Kozue over to me!" Three-four --

She springs over assault rifles; her feet plant either side of the soldier's shoulders, forces him groundward as she springs off, blade slamming down on the armor of another vehicle.

"KOZUE-!!"

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

The Magic Knight of Wind is still slightly of two minds about this.

On the one hand, a general rushdown shock-and-awe frontal assault seems like it's just asking for trouble in some form; there are too many unknown variables, too many possible contingencies that can't even start to be ruled out, too many chances for ambushes, traps, or other surprises. Fog of war isn't just a gameplay mechanic, after all - it's all too easy to go charging in and then get caught by surprise in the teeth of something bigger and/or nastier than you thought the enemy could possibly have hidden away and ready to throw at you, just because you didn't take enough of a look, and sometimes even then.

On the other hand, Fuu has spent the past several days being afraid - of the initially-unknown force which destroyed the bridge; of the ostensible terrorists; of the 'soldiers' who were supposedly there to protect the seemingly-helpless students, and so forth ... and there's a piece of the Wind Knight which relishes, perhaps too deeply for good health, the chance to make the *soldiers* afraid for a change.

It's not all about fear, of course - Kuu is somewhere on campus, genuinely helpless, and the Wind Knight knows that her fiery ally has brothers who are likely stuck somewhere as well. She has to trust the Water and Fire Knights to punch through the Golden Age forces and make good on getting the civilians to safety.

For herself, though, the Magic Knight of Wind emerges from her hiding place (a hollow between a couple of bushes), accelerating to a run and calling out, "STORM-DANCE OF KAMAITACHI!!!" as her sword appears in her hands. The whirlwind isn't quite as destructive as it could be, at least to humans - but she's aiming to fling the soldiers hither and yon and unto none-too-gentle landings, and if she can rake at some of the artillery to more damaging effect, she's not above some well-placed property damage.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Storm-Dance of Kamaitachi on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

Having escaped into the forest as other Magical Girls made their move to leave Ohtori campus, little Steven Universe had bailed out a window after protecting some innocent schoolgoers from a hail of bulletfire. THe event was entirely traumatizing, but it did answer the question if his magical abilities was up to the task of blocking military grade weapons fire.

THe answer was yes. An important thing to know.

In the chaos, the boy, wounded still from the Cybody fight amd the resulting shockwave from a heavenly blast, found his way into the forests. There even was danger, as creatures roamed the corners of what was left for cover.
In time though, he found cave systems, and more importantly, friends-- to huddle together with.

The boy was thoroughly miserable, still with bandages on him, and wearing an Ohtori gym outfit that didn't quite fit him right. "Garent, Amethyst and Pearl haven't done anything yet, I hope..." Being down here loses bearing on what happens above. And his greatest fear still, is them arriving to try a daring rescue and getting hurt. There is too much for them, even with their powers combined...

A plan was struck, and when the groups split, and his powers more suited toward the rescue group compared to retaliation, Steven went with the spearheading party. What if someone needed help in a pinch? What if a student runs into the massive crossfire?
The signal was given, and the magical girls launched into their crusade to free the school. Steven, not particularly quick compared to most here, is one of the last to arrive on the scene, but is no less ready to join the fray. Where others have incredibly strong or wide-sweeping attacks, he will do what he can to fend off soldiers that get separated.

A shield soars through the air to attempt collision with a solider. "Hey! How about you put that down and fight the people that destroyed the forest?! Heads up, it isn't us!" he calls out.

Once the attack is done, he summons another shield and holds a hand out, having it anchor to a spot in the air in front of him. He widens it to be large enough to cover him fully.

"I /don't/ recommend shooting at me."

COMBAT: Steven Universe transforms into Serious Steven!
COMBAT: Steven Universe has used Throw Shield on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Steven Universe has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Sailor Uranus [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

"Hostile approaching! Put her down!"

Sailor Uranus dips and zags, several lines of assault rifle bullets chasing her. The barbed wire-strung sandbags sputter with muzzle flash, converging more accurately as she approaches. But as she makes the final approach, Uranus dives into a slide-tackle, directly at the sandbags. On the other side, a sandbag erupts from the pile as though fired from a cannon, slamming into one man's shins and flipping him down into a violent facevault.

In the instant that the autofire pauses, its target lost, Uranus is hurtling over the crumpled sandbag wall, twisting as she goes so one foot goes into a man's face and the other chases his chest down to the ground. Juking and snatching a muzzle at the same time, Uranus directs a blaze of bullets into the nearby ground, then backfists the man from his rifle. Whipping the muzzle like a sling, she hurls it into another soldier's weapon, pushing it out of the way long enough to shove a palm strike over it, cramming the woman's chinguard and sending her to the ground.
Uranus catches motion from the corner of her eye.

The butt of the last soldier's rifle smacks into Uranus's raised forearm. She had not even turned to block this strike from behind, but she turns now, grabbing the man by the throat with one arm and lifting him off his feet easily.

"Hhhow...!" the man croaks.

"I work out," Uranus says.

About ten meters to Uranus's left, the sandbags burst to let out a tank, its engines roaring as its treads chew dirt. "Hey!" Uranus shouts, trying to warn a girl who had the misfortune to be just on the other side of the sandbags. The Pretty Cure she was trying to warn can't hear over the gunfire and magical explosions, and Uranus winces as the tank drops down directly on top of her, just as she's turning around.

Uranus is turning away already, when she hears the tank engines growl, the treads gnawing the ground, unable to gain traction for some reason. Her eyes narrow as she tries to understand what she's seeing, even as the tank gives a great lurch, its heavy turret bobbing. The massive bolts that secure its thick armor creak and vibrate as the treads loosen their grip on the ground, beginning to whirr rapidly in midair. With a queasy complaint, the tank goes aloft.

Beneath it, Cure Black stands, knees bent into a plunge, arms at full extension, her cheeks red with effort. Grime spatters her face, her lower lip pushed up hard in girlish resolve, her bare abdomen locked up tight.
"How?!" the soldier repeats. Uranus shakes her head.

"Beats me."

COMBAT: Ye-jin Song fails to dodge Fuu Hououji's Storm-Dance of Kamaitachi, taking 32 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song braces 21 Fatigue damage from Mami Tomoe's Tiro Circle, taking 9 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Mami Tomoe is Psyched!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song fails to brace Steven Universe's Throw Shield, taking 48 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song fails to brace Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Dauntlessness, taking 50 Fatigue damage! Mikoto Minagi is Psyched!

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

"Leave it to me!"

As Mami's muskets let loose their first volley on the artillery, the anti-aircraft guns are swinging towards her. Their job is to defend against threats like this, and leave the artillery to do its devastating work. Sayaka Miki's job is to stop those guns from doing /their/ job.
Leaping up the back of an emplacement, Sayaka summons a sword in either hand, swivels it, and stabs both directly down into the vulcanized cannons as they are beginning to spin up. Planting her hands on her hips proudly for a moment, she stands between the twin guns of this emplacement as they lock up on the swords. But then they give a lurch, spinning partway, and then snap the swords entirely, whirring as they rotate fast.

"Aiee! Ow ow ow!" Sayaka is dancing around in between the gatling barrels as shards of her swords shoot out at random like broken blender blades, zinging and peppering her. Another battery is about to open up, its sights on Mami.

"Rrr!" Sayaka mopes, frustrated by the failure of her great plan. Grasping a handle on the top of the emplacement, she swings down loosely from it on one arm, using her momentum to rotate the emplacement, then catching the ground with her feet and running to turn it. The vulcanized rounds shred the second emplacement, as the gunners scramble away.

"Sawry! Please excuse me!" Sayaka sings in English. There is only one emplacement left, this one rear-facing, and so still rotating to find Mami.

Lining up the iron-sights, the gunner squints, shifting the targeting until Mami is dead in the center. But when he triggers the gun, the vulcanized cannons lock up tight, not even shifting much.

Sayaka stands panting on this emplacement, between the two guns again. Like a dog that got into a porcupine, /these/ muzzles are feathered with so many swordblades that it's hard to count them.

Panting, Sayaka lets out a satisfied huff, staring at the two gunners with a big grin as if she expects them to praise her.

COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has used Perfect Pitch on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song braces 6 Fatigue damage from Sayaka Miki's Perfect Pitch, taking 9 Fatigue damage! Sayaka Miki is Psyched!

<Pose Tracker> Mai Tokiha [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

September winds bring autumn's chill, but the girl on the rooftop is strangely warm.

Sneaking back to the dormitories wasn't easy, and Mai Tokiha had more than a few near misses. Arguably, doing so was foolhardy, and if she was to be honest with herself it was unnecessary. There had been a purpose, though. Try as she might to spy Takumi among the prisoners, he was nowhere to be found - and so she sought a familiar vantage point.

Heartbreakingly familiar, really - all the memories of moonlit conversations and peaceful stargazing from the dorm roof might be tainted, now, by the sight of the soldiers below. Something good ruined...but that's just the way life goes.
Admittedly, there was a second purpose; though she didn't have long to spare, Mai did manage to slip into her sadly ransacked dorm room to grab a uniform jacket and a bright red scarf. A little warmth, at least, to offset the scorched ruin that was her ballgown. Suitably clad for the fall air, she takes a moment to take in the sight of the invaded campus.

She should feel colder than this - or maybe more rage at the sight. Despite everything, though - despite the misery brought to a place that was feeling like home, despite the peril she's been put through, despite her continued failure to keep Takumi safe and sound - she just feels the warmth of Mikoto's last hug before they parted ways. A promise, murmured, to stay safe...

Violence is starting - the counter-attack has begun, and her role is to provide a diversion the Golden Age soldiers might not ignore. Memories of the haunting Zero Time at the back of her mind, Mai closes her eyes and does what comes naturally. She sings.

BGM CHANGE - Chiisana Hoshi ga Oriru Toki - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ONr68VAy04

Where is it?
I'm searching for the truth in the deep night...
Wandering around the universe alone...
Hoping that I will come across you...

The soldiers patrolling near the dorm aren't deaf, aren't unobservant, and in spite of the chaos beginning aren't that distracted. A squad rushes in, scaling the stairs in a hurry with guns at the ready to find the source of the song. The rooftop access is kicked open brutally, harsh voices calling out to the escapee. "Hold it right there! Wait..."

It was the first time my tears felt so hot,
And the ties holding me down might now be broken...

It's not quite what they might have expected. The girl on the rooftop is familiar, of course; the soldiers were briefed on key targets, and Mai Tokiha is one of them. She has rings around wrists and ankles, sparkling in the sunlight, and she's dancing - turning slow spins with her eyes closed.

She's also surrounded by fire. There's a merry blaze on the dorm roof, sparked by the HiME's Element, and it swirls around her in a growing spiral. The soldiers look among each other, hesitant in the face of power - but they're professionals, and they aim their weapons. "Mai Tokiha! This is your only warning!"

Because of the radiance of life embracing me, I am never alone...

I gaze at the proudling smiling moon,
And now, with your strange power...

She stops, facing the soldiers, and speaks the next line with an almost resigned smile. "...Awaken me. ...Kagutsuchi!"

The guns open fire, but it's far too late - the inferno consumes them, envelops the rooftop, blossoms into a great signal flare as Mai's Child rises in an instant. Eight eyes survey the campus as a great serpentine tail sweeps across the rooftop to fling aside those who didn't dive for cover already. Before more can arrive, the dragon takes flight.

It screams by with a defiant cry, winging its way high and wide - but its goal doesn't seem to be the soldiers, or the tower, or even the tanks. The fleet in the sea, with its many artillery batteries, was always another of the threats levied against Ohtori - and so to those ships it flies.

Batteries exchange fire with battleship-scuttling meteors as Mai and Kagutsuchi's diversion begins.

<Pose Tracker> Ye-jin Song [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Sound and light fill the air of Ohtori's buildings and courtyards as the second wave of magical girls charge into the fray. In their periphery they can see the work of their allies, electric flashes of beams and bursts of magnificent light. Soldiers scramble wildly for cover as tanks rumble forward, and then abruptly backward, or roll onto their side, or just go up into the air for no good reason.

The fighters in the air smoke and weave as streaks of light chase them through the sky, and in the sea nearby every cannon on every ship opens fire in desperate bid to hold against the burning flame of Mai Tokiha's gigantic child. The path to the Chairman's Tower is still by no means clear-but at least now there's a chance.

A chance that's rapidly becoming reality. Armed and armored figures blockading the path are thrown from their feet by the force of the gale that Fuu summons as she charges forward. They scatter like bowling pins, whirled from their well-ordered lines and dumped in unordered heaps as the path ahead becomes suddenly clearer.

Mikoto too clears a path, even in the process of making one. The few tanks left guarding the chairman's tower are rendered to husks as she passes, split open by the dark blade.

From above the golden queen rains down fire on the artillery below, exploding shells bursting into puffs of black smoke in the air around her. Golden bullets split the thick metal hulls of tanks and heavy guns, sending Golden Age soldiers running in their wake.
Sayaka's work removes several more from the equation, though she does not find anyone particularly happy with her bouquets of swords. Gunfire erupts, though on a much smaller scale than what might have been possible before she'd removed several of the heavy machinery from the equation.
Gunfire pings across Steven's shield in retaliation as the boy makes his presence known, soldiers toppling and scattering.

And they all go forward. The noise and chaos of battle go with them, bullets, grades, and shells exploding into the air as the group forces their way forward. Past the last line of soldiers at the door to the great tower, and into sparkling lobby within. The massive rose seal, assembled in the floor tiles under their feet, is still pristine. The light of the chandelier above illuminates not more soldiers, but only doors to the twin elevators that run through the skeleton of the long tower.

There seem to be no stairs at all-no way up to the student council chambers and the students held captive there save the iron cages of the elevator cars. And time is of the essence. Who knows when Alyssa Searrs could call down another strike from her heavenly child, and the mass of soldiers are still in pursuit, attempting to funnel through the huge doors behind and prevent the infiltrators from making any further progress.

OOC: You may toss parting attacks at the soldiers (aka me), but please be on an elevator by end of pose. There are a whole two to pick from!

COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Real Guns on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Real Guns on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Grenade Diversity on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Surprise Shotgun on Steven Universe.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Real Guns on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji perfectly braces 25 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Real Guns, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Brace! Fuu Hououji's Block and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Steven Universe counters 3 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Surprise Shotgun, taking 10 Fatigue damage! Stagger applied to Steven Universe!
COMBAT: Steven Universe's counterattack, Reverb Shield, partially gets through, doing 5 Fatigue damage to Ye-jin Song! Stagger and Stun applied to Ye-jin Song!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki braces 16 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Real Guns, taking 13 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Sayaka Miki is Quipped! Sayaka Miki's Block and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi perfectly dodges 7 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Grenade Diversity, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Dodge! Mikoto Minagi's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe fails to brace Ye-jin Song's Real Guns, taking 21 Fatigue damage! Mami Tomoe is Quipped!

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Being bright and brilliant also means being a target--and Mami does not entirely escape the hail of retaliation that comes for her. Shrapnel explodes from a detonating shell; assault rifles move up to try to find her--and an ordinary girl would be destroyed.

...As it stands, Mami lands, with powder burns and gunshot wounds, a little less gracefully than she would like, drawing in a breath quickly--it isn't the rhythm she wanted, forces her to gather herself back up again. However...

A Puella Magi is not so easy to destroy as that, and she rises after, seeking out Sayaka ahead with her beautiful sowrds. "Perfect work," the senpai declares to her eager kohai, smiling at her as she looks up again to the tower--to a line of soldiers. "Shall we head up?" she asks of Sayaka, far across the battlefield from Haruka and Yumi and others.

A beat, "...I've been curious about it for a time," she admits, "Since I don't have the open schedule for Student Council work..."

Well, she does know Juri Arisugawa.

Her words are light, but her movements are careful--she steps forward, and this time throws ribbons at soldiers to prevent them firing their weapons, in favor of unnecessary killing. She goes for the right elevator--

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

That, thinks the Wind Knight, went surprisingly smoothly -

And she promptly stops thinking that, when a few soldiers gather themselves and open fire on her as she's passing. More by reflex than plan, she brings her sword around and up, holding it with the blade angled downwards between herself and the guns (and the soldiers).

She would have expected to need a good bit wider of a blade, and possibly heavier, to actually fend off all of the bullets ... but apparently these particular mercenaries are the precision shooters of their squad, or something. The few bullets that *don't* ricochet off of her sword skim off the Wind Knight's armor instead.

There's a lull in the gunfire, not from clips being emptied but from a dawning realization among the soldiers that they aren't getting through her defense. Before they can try adjusting their aim, the Magic Knight of Wind flicks her hand - not a proper attack spell, but a stiff gust of wind to throw them further off-balance - and hurries into the tower proper.

She's closer to the left than to the right, and thusly she steps into the left elevator, holding the gate for any of her allies who join her on that side; the Wind Knight also offers a smile and a bow of the head to Mami.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

The shield, despite not hovering on Steven's forearm, still seems intrinsically attached to him somehow. As incoming fire rains down on the shield, A foot has to dog is as kinetic jolts slam Steven back several times, sending painful vibrations up his outstretched arm. But that isn't the only thing reverberating.

As bullets connect with the shield, sound waves ripple out, disrupting and cracking the nearby ground, and causing undue pain to those in front of the shield. As well, the ammunition reflects every which way imaginable in a frontal area. It isn't long until the soldiers literally undo themselves. Spotting an opening, Steven grasps the azure lip of his shield and runs toward the tower.

The fighting grows more intense as the group packs in toward their destination. And for the little boy, he has to play a bit of stealth getting past another group as everyone converges. Slipping around an ornate pillar. Admittedly, when there are others causing massive explosions and bursts of magic, it makes for a good distraction!

A pair of elevators offer momentary respite and travel to their destinations. The little Gem Child piles into the left elevator, gasping for air. "I need... to ask... the Gems... how to... shapeshift better clothes..." he sputters out, wrenching ad his overly tight shirt collar. Whether or not he can actually /do/ that like them though is a question for another time.

It is only now he notices someone else i nthe elevator. "Ghh...! Oh, hey! Good work out there," he says, slumping on a side wall. "S... Sorry for bailing on your earlier, I was so scared, I didn't know what to do, and..." He trails off, but begins anew with a better thought. "You are doing great out there. The guys ahead will be no match for you, I bet!" he says nicely, trying to uplift her spirits. "And if it gets too dangerous, I got your back. We got this! We can free the school!"

COMBAT: Steven Universe has used Love Like You on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Steven Universe has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji accepts Steven Universe's Love Like You, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Fuu Hououji is Cheered! Surge applied to Fuu Hououji!

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Grenades hail down, and there is a world where Mikoto is scored with shrapnel again, a hundred-hundred tiny metal lances launched with concussive force.

But perhaps knowing Homura for so long -- and being caught in explosives so recently -- is its own teacher. Mikoto sees the first bounce down, and springs away, and it is the first in a series of snapshots of diving and weaving and never quite being staggered or thrown aside. Homura has

the element of surprise; these soldiers do not.

She is not distracted in her dance between the explosive hail they rain down.

She is running for the tower.

She is screaming: "/KOZUE!/"

Mai rises from the ocean and Mikoto knows she will punish the soldiers for their transgressions. Mai promised she would be safe. Mikoto promised to take care of it. ... what an interesting contrast.

And then she is into the lobby, and the battle behind them is shielded by walls. A rose beneath them, lights above; they cast a shadow at Mikoto's feet as she walks. And Mikoto is apart from many of the girls around her, uninvolved in so many of their works. She is not sure she can properly call any of the people here her friends...

... so the friends of her friends will have to function well enough to follow.

Mikoto has heard complaints from Mami and Sayaka, but they are important, to Eri and Madoka and Homura. They are known quantities.

Mami asks Sayaka if they ought to head up, and Mikoto just steps into the elevator beside them, completely uninvited and utterly self-assured. At least she's not attacking soldiers in the process. She glances to them, finds blue eyes and ones gold like hers in so many fashions,
and she makes an unsettled noise in the back of her throat as she looks aside. "... Eri and Homura are okay," she says, the words a little awkward, unsure of what to say, delivering information instead of hopes or aspirations. "I think."

She doesn't know what happened to Madoka.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Rather than praise her, the gunners draw sidearms and start shooting at her. Sayaka seems almost to disappear into her cape as she drops low, then surges forward. She takes a bullet on her way over, grunting as caves down to her knees and slams them into the first gunner. Bearing him to the ground, Sayaka ends up kneeling on his chest, slicing her sword back behind her to neatly sever the barrel of the pistol.

The gunner hesitates a moment, then decides to try to fire it anyway. The shot goes wild, but scares Sayaka, who had thought the gun disabled. She shoves herself to her feet so fast she bonks her head on the gun emplacement. "Uuugh!" she moans, embarrassed. The gunner with his sawed-off pistol steps up to try and plant it against Sayaka, realizing how inaccurate it is now, but Sayaka moves into him to prevent it, stepping through his space and turning around to grab his head. Tossing her feet in the air, she drops down straight onto her back, forcing him to do the same, only with the added unpleasantness of being on the bottom.

"Huhh," Sayaka pants. She winces, reaching up under her armpit to grab the bullet her healing is pushing out. As she picks herself up, she places the bent slug on the unconscious man's chest. That move is called the sitout sometimes, and this gentleman is definitely going to be sitting this one out.

"Give this back to your buddy," she advises, patting the bullet almost fondly.

Jogging up to Mami, Sayaka beams at the praise. "Keheh. Mami-senpai took out the bigger guns." Turning, she looks up the tower, finding it more imposing when it's a fortress to assault than when it was just a school building.

"Mami-senpai would definitely win if she ran, even for president!" Sayaka proclaims, clenching a fist near her jawline emphatically. Following Mami into the car, she beams visibly, her mouth at a traditional, possibly copyrighted "Smiley Face" angle. When Mikoto jogs through to stand between her and Mami, that angle reverses into an equal and opposite frowny face.

It softens, though, as Mikoto visibly worries about the others. "They're okay," she says, resting a hand on Mikoto's shoulder. "Those two can handle themselves. And absolutely nobody but nobody can beat my best friend Madoka!"

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Frozen In Time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjnW7icsx9I

As the Magical Girls file into one of the elevators, another slips into the rear to join those filing into the one on the right. There's no masque on her face, simply the hood drawn up over her hair to enclose even her bangs. Those who are bright and brilliant cast long shadows don't they? And as they celebrate - carry on, she stands within those shadows.

Her eyes drifting upwards like she was heading for the same goal as the rest of them - like she belongs there - yet stands apart. She does not sneak glances at the others in the elevator. She doesn't need to - to know who is here - whether in this elevator - or the adjacent shaft.

-=-=-

There's the feel of a head on her shoulder - and the smell of chlorine in the summer air. "You know... I like going into the water more than I do sitting around some bonfire."

-=-=-

And then there is the scent of almost far too sweet - cloying crepes. "Isn't it nice to just... exist - sometimes?" The girl says as she sits on the slats of the ruined rollercoaster ride. The park overlooking the city. "I don't mean existence is nice... but existing." The girl turns the crepe around to show Mikoto, "It's like eating crepes when noone is around who thinks something of it... or swimming in the pool by yourself at night. You get it right?"

There's this light sigh, as she chews off an end of it, allowing it's flavor to permeate her tastebuds - before she swallows, "Of course you do." Kozue's smile seems bittersweet at best. "You have a brother after all. So you know what it's like."

-=-=-

The gates of the elevator squeezes shut with a strange coordination - as a girl in each hits the button for the Student Council Chambers, and the cars traversing upwards becomes a silhouette of a cage against the strange geometry of the portals showing the sky outside of the chairman's tower.

She doesn't respond for a while, hands at her sides, bobbing up and down on her feet in a gesture of impatience but the moment someone looks at her a little too hard - she states-

"Before we get started. Does anyone want to give up?"

It's then that everyone might be alerted to the traitor in their midst. It's unmistakable whose voice it is. As the girl's gaze slips down, and an Element snaps into her hand - materializing out of nowhere. The shadow of a sickle, with it's chain seemingly drawn up inside the handle. Surely this lone girl doesn't believe she can take them all on?

"Cassandra."

BGM Change: Countdown - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiBy3p3ffa8

The word hangs in the air for a moment, before the entire elevator screeches - rocking and shuddering - it's archaic design lacking the same modern anchors - the light from outside of the Chairman's tower flickering like a strobe. The Child's talons are gripping the top of the elevator - like a vulture sitting atop the cage of a chipper songbird. It's crimson eyes glaring down eerily. Kozue sets upon Mami Tomoe first - attempting to bring her sickle down through her wrist to pin her against the cage wall - so she'll have a harder time firing up.

At the same time - pipes burst all over the elevator shaft, spraying them with what feels like a sprinkler like rain shower. The water causing the floor to grow slick in these few moments of disorienting ambush, as it streams off the edges. As the elevator passes by one pipe in that moment - it's severed payload hangs suspended in the air - like gravity was arrested droplet by droplet.

They elongate, stretching out and joining to congeal into long tendrils that try to clothesline Mikoto from approaching her. The ends stretching out to slide through the cage doors and wrap around the elevator - it's grip tightening to grind her back - including a still healing wound against the cold metal. "You should have stayed in custody-" There's a sort of redirection in that thought. "-both of you."

Almost like a terrible command.

The cage then rocks in another way entirely, as something smashes into the elevator floor from below. Again - and again - and again. The metal of the elevator floor warping and buckling beneath Sayaka Miki until it gives - the sudden column of water ripping her off her feet to try to smash her into the ceiling - pinning her to the ceiling. The talons of the Child suddenly squeeze, trying to shape the metal around her back to try to keep her held in place.

"Hang in there... Sayaka-chan."

There's such a cruel twist of the knife in those words to her childhood friend. Before she seems to ignore her - pressing her attack on her mentor. "Fighting monsters has gone to all of your heads. Makes you think you can beat any enemy or that you're some heroes of justice."

As she tries to drive Mami Tomoe against the wall. "That isn't what this is about. The only truth to be found here is that every woman, even the most powerful - and most beautiful..." She taunts up close, almost sensuously in her struggle for dominance, "...can't change the fact that they'll go down on their knees when a man insists hard enough."

Kozue uses her elbow to try to hinder her movement, to keep her boxed in - while her knee whips up to try to brutalize her gut - and keep her from resisting. As she whispers almost sensuously. "Why fight what you can't even hope to resist?"

All of this struggle - for a singular purpose - of puncture one of the Golden Queen's limbs and hooking them to a wall.

The elevator continues in it's disorienting shifts and turns - all the while the Child's weight stands above, the creature having far too many sharp ends for anyone's liking - given that it's embracing the cord keeping them all suspended over the abyss.

COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru transforms into Kozue and Cassandra!
COMBAT: Cassandra has fully healed herself. She is now ready to take on 3 opponents!
COMBAT: Cassandra has used Toccata on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Cassandra has used Ebbe und Fluth on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Cassandra has used Die erwachende Thetis on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Cassandra has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe fails to dodge Cassandra's Toccata, taking 22 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi cleanly braces 11 Fatigue damage from Cassandra's Ebbe und Fluth, taking 2 Fatigue damage! Cassandra is Psyched! Stun and Tangle applied to Mikoto Minagi!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki fails to dodge Kozue Kaoru's Die erwachende Thetis, taking 45 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Ye-jin Song [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Song at Midnight - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uvh-DUb0QQ

From an entrance high above, Ye-jin Song waits. Dark eyes track the progress of the two elevators as they rise, following their steady ascent up through the tower. She waits patently, until the metal boxes are just a few stories below. Then she jumps.

Air rushes past the White Queen as she descends, wine-red hair flaring behind her like in a dark corona. Fabric ripples as she descends, plummets those long feet to meet the roof of the second elevator with a metallic clang of impact. The sound is not, perhaps, as immediately alarming as the arrival of Kozue and Cassandra, which Steven and Fuu can easily witness through the bars that separate the two metal boxes.

It becomes more so shortly. Ye-jin's fingers trace the air and her Element forms inside of them, a neatly coiled length of white cord. A flick of her wrist splits the roof of the elevator open as easily as a more mundane bullwhip might sheer open a soda can. Metal screams as a long hole is abruptly torn, exposing the masked girl above to the two occupants in the car below.

It's the sound that's the worst part. It reverberates with agonizing volume inside of the elevator shaft, visibly distorting the space between the two occupants. As the cord snaps back into her hand Ye-jin scowls. "You're really starting to piss me off, you know?" She does not sound happy to see either the Wind Knight, not the boy in pink once again. "I hate wasting my time."

COMBAT: Ye-jin Song transforms into PRInCESS Ye-jin!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has fully healed herself. She is now ready to take on 2 opponents!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Sonic Shock on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has cancelled their attack on Fuu Hououji. If there are more attacks that need to be +cancelled, please hold all +attacks until the process is complete.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Sonic Shock on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Sonic Shock on Steven Universe.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Grace and Glory on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji braces 6 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Sonic Shock, taking 5 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Fuu Hououji's Block and Parry abilities activate! Cripple applied to Fuu Hououji!
COMBAT: Steven Universe fails to brace Ye-jin Song's Sonic Shock, taking 7 Fatigue damage! Cripple applied to Steven Universe!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song accepts Ye-jin Song's Grace and Glory, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Accelerate and Surge applied to Ye-jin Song!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

The Magic Knight of Wind smiles wryly at Steven, although the wryness fades as he speaks to her. "We haven't been blessed with much certainty about anything of late, have we?" she replies. "None of us are really at our best -"
The universe decides to double down on that point almost immediately thereafter, yanking the Wind Knight's attention away with the sudden commotion being wrought in the other elevator. And then *their* elevator comes under similar attack: perhaps less catastrophically destructive, but at least as violent and attention-grabbing.

The Wind Knight brings her sword up as the elevator's roof is torn open, and she has some defense up even before the cord lashes through the air. You wouldn't expect a raised length of metal to provide much protection against a sound so harsh as to be literally painful, though ...
In this case, maybe it's a small matter of familiarity breeding contempt; the Wind Knight has been on the receiving end of this before, and not that long ago. Or maybe it's just a measure of luck and reflex - she certainly doesn't really have time to cover her ears; all she can do is wince and endure it, knowing the noise doesn't last indefinitely.

"Believe me, the feeling is mutual," she retorts to the White Queen with an ever-so-faint smile, her voice raised over the sonic onslaught. "Unfortunately, if you were hoping we would back down, we'll have to disappoint you. Winds of Admonishment!!" she calls out still more loudly, trying to entrap the White Queen in a binding whirlwind.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Winds of Admonishment on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has finished attacking.
COMBAT: White Queen fails to brace Fuu Hououji's Winds of Admonishment, taking 18 Fatigue damage! Fuu Hououji is Psyched! Cripple and Trap applied to White Queen!

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Mami herself would be forced to admit only internally that she is less likely to be quite so kind to her opponents... But it's endlessly charming from her student and friend Sayaka anyway. Once they're together--
"Well, you know what they say--fight guns with guns." She nods, as if that's a real saying, and then smiles--with the rough time they've all had, unfettered /praise/ is a balm. "Well--"
She pauses, then, as she spots Mikoto coming through. For an instant, her old habits make her wonder if they will have a difficulty here-- with Mikoto, who she has had issue with before, who is shouting even now for her enemies--what was the name, over the gunfire? And yet.
That doesn't happen.

"Thank you," Mami says to Mikoto, as Sayaka reassures her in turn. "I haven't had a chance to meet up with them, yet..." A pause, and then she smiles back at Sayaka. "That's right. Madoka-chan will be fine--but," she turns back to Mikoto as they go up, "I did see her, before the battle." She pauses, an instant, and considers--she saw Kagutsuchi flying out towards the others...

"...I believe Tokiha-san will be fine too," Mami offers. They've had their disagreements in the past--plenty of them--but now is not the time for them. Now, they work together. ...And for shadows...
Mami Tomoe /is/ a brilliant fond of light, isn't she?

She recognizes the voice when Kozue speaks up--recognizes the sound of a weapon materializing, and turns immediately, her demeanor changing. "Sayaka--!"

Her warning for the other girl is cut off by Mami clamping her mouth shut to avoid crying out as the sickle slams straight through her arm--and the fact of Kozue's choice is made wise as in the same instant the gun she'd already summoned fires, far wide of the Child above them.

Water crashes down upon them, and when it hits Mami's delicate sleeve it flows red. "I didn't ask your opinion," Mami asks, and it is as close to a snarl as a girl as refined as Mami gets. But she doesn't have time to free herself immediately. Gone to their heads, has it?

Mami is already on the wall; driving her against it is easy, and the older girl narrows her eyes as she sees Kozue close. If there is a sensuality to it, perhaps it is in the senses; the scent of chlorinated water warring with that of flowers. The soft fabric as delicate as crepe paper, warring against slick red. A sharp elbow into soft flesh.

"To /your/ knees is a familiar trip," Mami spits darkly at Kozue, coughing as the knee hits her gut, and she feels the searing pain of her wrist /stuck/ such that it puts stars in her vision--
Before the next strike pins her arm closer to the elbow and Mami lets out a shout of anger as much as pain.

Her eyes snap up. "What would /you/ know about resisting anything?" Mami spits back at her. "Not all of us think it's our purpose in life to sleep through the student body!"

Her free hand comes up--and while one might expect it it to just be a gentle movement, it isn't. Mami's fist snakes out for Kozue's face, and in the wake of it ribbons course off of her other wrist, wending about arms, about hands, about her weapon to slow and tire, streaming in gold.
"So get /OUT!/"

COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has used Parete on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

"Nah... it's all been guesswork, but following our hearts always seems to lead us where to go. At least we can count on those, right?" he asked with a smile.

The elevator ride up was a serene moment in an otherwise tumultuous event. A chance to clear one's head before the trials meet them. The boy rests his chin thoughtfully atop an edge of his shield, balancing it from there as he stared off through the metal safety bars. Unfortunately for Steven and his elevator partner, someone seems intent on interrupting that.

A metallic groawn and a shudder grab the boy's attention. "What was that? Are they sabotaging the elevator?" He stands, and carefuly walks to the edge, a tender hand grabbing a metal bar. A look beyond shows the opposite elevator with the Puella Magi and Mikoto is under attack! "We gotta do something! Can we reach--"

A deafening snap of metal and flick of light reveals their roof is now missing a section, and a familiar figure who caused problems not too many nights ago is seen. Not only seen, but heard. Heard in the worst way. As if someone put an angry housecat in front of a chain of megaphones. THe boy grips his ears, though again there is a strange, further effect that grates at his being, coming from inside somewhere.

Violent sounds just seem to cause him undue problems.

"What is your problem, Lady?!" he shouts up as his hearing slowly returns. "We're trying to save the school from being blown up! Go... away!" A thought and a forceful hand creates a section of a Bubble Shield, that he launches after the Wind Knight blasts outward with wind, attempting to impact the masked figure and knock her away, or off, or somewhere than isn't here, because he doesn't need this right now! "If you care about this school at all you'll help us save everyone!"

COMBAT: Steven Universe has used Repelling Shield on White Queen.
COMBAT: Steven Universe has finished attacking.
COMBAT: White Queen partially dodges 3 Fatigue damage from Steven Universe's Repelling Shield, taking 13 Fatigue damage! White Queen's Fade ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka does not acknowledge the hooded girl at first, her attention on Mikoto. But as the doors slide closed, her eyes trace over, at first just for a glance. She finds herself staring, though. Some intuition keeps her watching. It isn't her danger sense. It's a sense of familiarity.
Narrowing her eyes, Sayaka feels herself unfocusing, her mind trying to find something. A feather, a scent of aquamarine. Her head tilts.
The voice of a girl Sayaka was raised with answers a riddle unasked.

Sayaka doesn't move. She knows a twitch will be answered by violence. She can see the blade glittering in Kozue's hand. She can feel the tension in the air.

This would have been unthinkable, even moments ago. Sayaka never dreamed she'd fight Kozue. But whatever scrap of wisdom she has gained in her young life is resonating inside her. Somehow... somehow she just knows.

"Do you mean," she asks softly, "anyone else?"

"Sayaka!" Mami shouts.

Sayaka rips a sword from sizzling blue nothing, bringing it overhead. Her strike is decisive, because it comes from Mami, but uncommited, because it goes towards Kozue. It is also useless, because Cassandra has her own ideas about who is attacking whom today. Jarred violently, Sayaka drops to one knee.

"Senpai!" she shouts a warning. Being trapped in an elevator is a vulnerable position for Mami. Better for Mikoto and Sayaka to handle this--
Better, but not to be.

Sayaka feels the equivalent of a broken hydrant's worth of water hit her in the chest, driving her off her feet. She loses her sword, which clatters to the ground and spins there in the flow, as Sayaka herself strikes the ceiling forcefully. Thrashing, she tries to free herself from the water, only to feel the ceiling itself "grab" her, wrapping her torso in bent metal.

Blowing water from her mouth and nose, Sayaka lifts her head parallel to the ceiling so she can see what's going on beneath her. "Kozue!" Sayaka shouts, but Kozue no longer seems to even know that she's up there, for all the attention she pays. She freezes in alarm as she sees Kozue slam Mami into the wall. Mami is endlessly resourceful, and hardly helpless at close range, but a match for Kozue? At a distance shorter than the length of a musket? She's afraid Mami will get cut down at any moment. If only Madoka were here.

Sayaka kicks with her legs, but they're not long enough to reach Kozue's head unless she was standing right beneath. If only Kozue was taller. Gritting her teeth, Sayaka tries to lift one shoulder to pull an arm free. A rib or two didn't make it through this, and crushed like this, she can't heal it either. Groaning rises to an angry scream as Sayaka drags at her own arm hard, pulling it against the claw-crushed metal. Her voice rises, her feet pedal, and she yanks a heavily abraded arm free.

Gasping, Sayaka snatches a sword from her dangling cape with the freed hand, and tosses it to catch it in a reverse grip. Heaving, she slams it in hilt-deep into the ceiling, then rips it free again. Unsure where to stab to get Cassandra to let go, she slams her sword down again and again, puncturing holes in the ceiling at different spots.

"Hang on!" she urges.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has used Furioso on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

There is another girl, but Mikoto does not know her, and pays her little mind.

She is distracted. The contact and support are unexpected, as Sayaka hears the concern Mikoto has for the other Puella Magi - and the one left unnamed. Mami's kindness joins her, reassuring her that Madoka is all right in a different way to Sayaka's concrete belief, and her expression gentles for a moment into something so much more fragile, more breakable, more vulnerable and raw. The upwards arc of her brow and her lips, the little shudder-halt of a breath before a sigh of relief; she's happy. It is so easy to ease Mikoto, even in the depths of the oblivion SEARRS has brought her. "I..."

She breathes through her lips and at first she does not catch the scent of it.

...

"Is it okay?" Mikoto asks of existing, legs swinging over the precarious edge of the rollercoaster. Her eyes drop to the black case on her other side, but her hands are occupied with a crepe half-devoured. "Sometimes, I feel like... I'm having too much fun. Nice to not have to... but... what if I'm not doing enough 'cause I like it too much?"

Her teeth drag over her lips, and she takes another bite of crepe - and then another, because crepes are delicious. "Did I give up 'cause I have friends now? Am I not trying hard enough? Is that why I haven't completed my mission? I - I didn't mean to. Guess I'm just scared that, one day... I won't be free to eat crepes with Kozue whenever I want. I dunno if..." Mikoto trails off, as if she has realised she is speaking too much. She so rarely speaks her mind. She so rarely speaks at length. It is long friendship which has drawn the words out of her, long patience with her silences and clipped-wing words.

She smiles, small, and there is the weight of millennia behind it. "... no, there's no way, right?" Another bite, and Mikoto notes: "It's good."

...

And all a sudden the memory clicks into place with the scent, and shock floods through the succour on Mikoto's face as her gaze snaps to the stranger. Her breath catch-lodges in her throat, sucked in through grit teeth. She knows.

Golden eyes snap down to the kusarigama she comes to hold; on reflex she draws Miroku up, covering her belly. "Ko--" It is the word she has been screaming this whole time. Now she is here, the word chokes.

It's getting damp in here. The sprinklers are making her eyes wet, creeping down her face. When did Ohtori decide on salt water to quench their fires?

In-out her breath shudders and she growls against it, diving forward - and oh, these are /such/ small quarters, aren't they? - but she cannot clear the few steps of distance.

Cassandra is come.

Her reckless approach is punished by solid water, and she is slammed against the back of the elevator. She grits her teeth and bears it, and she had thought she was whole but Kozue brings out the memory of pain regardless.

Perhaps it is a function of her opponent.

But Mami says she knows nothing of resisting and Mikoto cries out: "Don't!" And it is not the sprinkler which sets her words awobble.

"Kozue," she says, and they are not battle-edged words, "Kozue-! I know! I know but - we can /help,/ Kozue! This isn't right! Kozue wasn't made for this!" The words thin in their grief and she does not know the shape of them. She is not Madoka; she does not speak reason. She does not redeem sad girls.

But when her friends are in trouble, she gets involved.

She heard what they called her. She heard how they laughed.

Kozue is in trouble.

With a cry she wrests her blade up and carves through the water, because the water isn't quite water any more. She stumbles as she is freed and she does not want to, does not want to, but she can't hope to resist, and she knows the way the truth carves the world open.

She will try not to kill her. She will try.

There is no room here to gain momentum; it is a swing as Mikoto steps in to match Kozue from behind, in the wake of Mami's ribbons. Her breath hitches in a sob as she brings her blade in towards flesh, an upwards strike from below. It is edged; it will cut.
The truth carves the world open.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Blade: Disequilibrium on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru fails to counter Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Disequilibrium, taking 40 Fatigue damage! Exhausted applied to Kozue Kaoru!
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru's counterattack, Toccata, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Mikoto Minagi!
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru braces 9 Fatigue damage from Mami Tomoe's Parete, taking 4 Fatigue damage! Kozue Kaoru's Block and Parry abilities activate! Diversion applied to Kozue Kaoru!
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru partially dodges 4 Fatigue damage from Sayaka Miki's Furioso, taking 16 Fatigue damage! Kozue Kaoru's Fade and Flash abilities activate! Sayaka Miki drains 6 fatigue from Kozue Kaoru!

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.

Something inside of her twists - as she bulls through Sayaka's comment in her assault. She has to - right through Mikoto's concern. Her coming here for her.

The adjacent shaft shrieks with the sounds of the White Queen's assault, and Kozue is glad at least that there will not be support crossing over to blindside her. The ones in that shaft are both fortunate and unfortunate in her eyes.

Fortunate because they get to die ignorant. Unfortunate because they picked the one that the White Queen was ambushed.

As Mami's fist snakes out towards Kozue's face, the girl's wrist twists, and out of nowhere a chain drops to the floor between them. Catching it with a hand in mid-air. The ribbons snap around the chain - as she diverts some of its winding path.

Sayaka stabs upwards - and Cassandra squawks - as she starts doing this shuffling dance. Her talons pattering upon the metal as what must seem like nails pop out of the floor. The final strike pops right through it - and impales it - the Child makes this noise of agony as it rocks its food back and forth to try and wobble it off it.

"... That's a really good question." Kozue snarls asks what she knows about resisting anything. It's like she's forcing the insult to roll off of her and strike...

... her beloved kouhai - like ricochet from a musket ball turned friendly fire, "Why don't /you/ tell her Sayaka-chan? That's why you gave up your one and only wish - and gave it to a boy. So tell her from someone who's seen the truth with her own eyes... what all her pride is going to amount to." That smile is knowing - vicious - even in the profile of what angle Sayaka can catch of her from her position against the ceiling, "Don't lose your nerve now."

Kozue however loses her own nerve a little as Mikoto tries to cut through. Carving en route to her. She has to turn around suddenly to try to match the blow - ripping her sickle free from Mami, but Mami's ribbons are hindering her - and so as she does, Mikoto's blow smashes into the chain, and thus smashes her back against the wall with a gasp.

The Child, now furious causes more pipes to spring leaks - one after one. And suddenly a column of water stabs through the ceiling, just missing Sayaka to stab down at Mikoto with a pressurized stream - that seems like to drive her through the floor if it gets her way. "Help? What a laugh. As if you'd ask me for help if you were in the same position with your Ani-Ue."

Kozue recovers - trying to shake it off - ducking down like she's going to press her assault and swing her sickle at Mami's belly. "Someone reinforced to me-" However at the last second, she backsteps, revealing the feint. "-what I was made for." The water soaked floor suddenly swirls upwards to try and spiral around Mami's feet, and trying to wrench her down to the elevator floor.

... where Kozue will most assuredly advance again.

Sayaka in comparison is perhaps 'fortunate' in that Cassandra has finally had enough of her stabbing - and tries to reverse the trick on her by jamming her wingtip through the ceiling. Again - and again - and again. Like a blade trap that keeps going off. It's perhaps not the best way to deal with the girl. However - much like it's HiME, the Child has a temper.

"Don't worry /Mami-san/." There's a little bit of a blood haze in her eyes, "You still wanna think you're better than me?" The girl tries to use her blade to sever a few of the ribbons. "I'll let you hold onto that fairy tale for as long as you can. After all - it won't be me you're going down on your knees for."

COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru has used Toccata on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru has used Ebbe und Fluth on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru has used Ondine's Curse on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi fails to dodge Kozue Kaoru's Ondine's Curse, taking 52 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe counters 4 Fatigue damage from Kozue Kaoru's Ebbe und Fluth, taking 13 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Kozue Kaoru is Psyched! Mami Tomoe's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate! Stun and Tangle applied to Mami Tomoe!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe's counterattack, Tiro Retort, partially gets through, doing 16 Fatigue damage to Kozue Kaoru! Critical Counterhit!

<Pose Tracker> White Queen [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

The wind that Fuu conjures is a much more violent turbulence than the White Queen experienced on her trip down the elevator shaft. A hand rises to shield her face, red strands of hair once again streaming outward as the wind knight's magic buffets against her. Her footing is tenuous at best, in the force of that gale.

The blow from Steven's shield bubble loosens it altogether. She rises abruptly from the roof of the elevator, puffing into the air like a plastic bag in a windstorm. For a moment she hovers in space, brilliantly lit against in the sky in the vast window that borders the elevator.
Until her hand flashes again, and the length of her whip flashes through the opening in the roof once more. It might seem for a moment that she's missed-she strikes neither crystal gem nor wind knight, the white strands instead binding tight around a mass of metal grating at the side of the elevator. It seems, for a moment, a mistake. At least until a kick of her foot against the elevator shaft and a snap of her arm sends the masked girl shooting back along the length of her element, down into the elevator like a bullet.

Her path runs on a collision course with Fuu, crashing bodily toward the wind knight with intent to do meteoric violence. "There's nothing that isn't disappointing about you," She hisses, "So just go to hell!" The whip untangles from it's anchor once she's in the elevator itself, returning to her hand once more.

Just in time for her to pirouette toward Steven, pivoting like and dancer and letting the cord spool out once more. White cord streaks through the confined space of the elevator, the vicious tip of the White Queen's weapon finding it's prey with unerring accuracy.
"If you care so much about your stupid school," She snarls, "You should have behaved when you had the chance!"
COMBAT: White Queen has used Brutal Dance on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: White Queen has used Focus Flense on Steven Universe.
COMBAT: White Queen has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji fails to counter White Queen's Brutal Dance, taking 23 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! White Queen is Psyched! Exhausted applied to Fuu Hououji!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji's counterattack, Spinning Slash, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to White Queen!
COMBAT: Steven Universe braces 15 Fatigue damage from White Queen's Focus Flense, taking 12 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Steven Universe's Block and Parry abilities activate! Cripple applied to Steven Universe!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

Much as Mikoto confirmed in the other elevator, there isn't really enough room to 'spin up' for a powerful melee attack within these confines. The Wind Knight tries anyway, less a circle of her sword and more a twist of her body, trying to add force to a counterstrike - but she leaves herself too wide open on the wind-up, and the White Queen slams into her hard enough that the green-clad Magic Knight rebounds off the inside of the elevator, wobbling on her feet.

But when she lifts her gaze to her adversary, there's a rare tint of anger in her gaze. Usually she only gives that kind of personally-aggravated look to Zagato's minions, or other villainous minions who've managed to hurt her where it's personal.
She might never have bestowed such a glower on another magical girl. She might not realize that behind the White Queen's mask *is* another magical girl.

"Ignorance must truly be bliss, for you not to realize what drives us right now," the Wind Knight says, her voice quiet but still razor-edged. "If we meet on more friendly terms, help me remember to apologize properly."
A gale abruptly arises within the elevator's confines, breached though they are by the Queen's entrance in the roof. It still isn't enough room to really cut loose ...

"Emerald Cyclone!!"

... but the Magic Knight of Wind has had to focus and constrain her wrath before, and she does so with most of her usual aplomb. It's almost like a rebuttal to the sonic onslaught from before, the wind not rending like normal, but buffeting violently, even viciously. It's a wind force which could uproot trees or tanks alike - and the Wind Knight turns her power squarely on the White Queen, raising her voice once more to be heard over the conjured tempest:

"JUST GET OUT OF OUR WAY!!!"

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Even in this, Mami would rather spare Sayaka, but that simply won't be possible. Already Mami can hear the sounds of combat in the other car, the White Queen and her harsh words just close--and she cannot but hope that the others can hold her attention, because this position...
Being enclosed in this space is /not/ to Mami Tomoe's advantage.

"I don't think I'm going anywhere!" Mami calls back to Sayaka, and with the splintering pain in her arm, more than a third of the way to a crucifixion, she cannot entirely comprehend Mikoto's words at first, her quiet manner.
...Help her. Isn't made for this. How often has Mami heard something like that, and relented?

But by this point she cannot simply shrug off her ire--not when Kozue tries to redirect onto Sayaka. Rather than shocking or stopping Mami--it makes her angrier.

"You have /no idea/ what I've seen of girls and their wishes," Mami answers, and the memory of a girl in red adds venom to drip from her words. There are reasons she says as she does--
She could have sympathy, being nervous of Mikoto--in another way.

"Aah--" Mami can't stay silent as the sickle is ripped free again, and that arm hangs, limp and useless, at her side. Kozue denies help, and she feints--

Mami doesn't bother defending; she lets herself be grabbed by the water, but in the instant before it pulls, she puts out her hand--and a short cannot bursts into being in her hand, and erupts in a line for Kozue, upward, upward--

Mami's ribbons stick, and hold; they can be gotten through... it just takes a bit of time.

"I don't have to /think/ I'm better than some spoiled, petulant girl," Mami answers, and she sees that haze and looks down her nose /harder/. She's still in a vulnerable position, slamming downwards, but as she hits the floor of the elevator--

Ribbons /burst/ from all around her, great golden lines that crash outward, that give Mikoto something to hang onto, that give Mami an instant to breathe.

"I've fought more monsters than you've had dates. You're years too early if you think you can force me into /anything/."

COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has used Evadere on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru perfectly counters 16 Fatigue damage from Mami Tomoe's Evadere, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Critical Counter! Kozue Kaoru's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe is unable to keep fighting!
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru's counterattack, Ondine's Curse, bursts all the way through, doing 57 Fatigue damage to Mami Tomoe! Critical Counterhit! Mami Tomoe is unable to keep fighting!

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.
The manifested transparent shield makes contact, and propels your assailant away. "When will they learn?!" he says with a bit of a scowl. The boy turns to look back across at the other fight raging as a pointed filament surges right past him and grasps a spot upon the elevator. "Still?"
In moments, the masked opponent is within the elevator with them. Fuu is the first to be attacked, giving Steven the moment to ready his shield. Tang-tang-tang-tang goes the implement as it clashes agains element. The final spin catches Stevens shoulder as it licks up and over the rim of the shield, a few drops of blood fly and hit the floor-- the whip has a small red spot. Though considering how fast it flies it could be clean by the time it stops moving.

"Gargh...." grumbles Steven, reaching to his shoulder. "None of this even makes any sense, if the girl wanted the help of HiME to stop a terrorist incidenct, how can they even help if they get blown up in thirty-six hours?!" He complains most likely to no avail, but Steven won't stay quiet.

The boy looks toward Fuu, who in retaliation, readies one of her most powerful abilities. He looks up and sees an opportunity. "We got this! Lets punch her ticket!" Mustering what power he has left to offer, he forms two sheaths of Bubble Shield, that crash through the metal bars on both size and almost take their place. While not a full seal, Fuu's wind is forced into one space, and exit out one way-- the hole the WHite Queen formed.

Steven can anchor himself to his shields, and Fuu is most likely immune to her own power, which means...! "You should have taken a different flight!"

COMBAT: Sayaka Miki perfectly counters 21 Fatigue damage from Kozue Kaoru's Toccata, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Counter!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki's counterattack, Disjunct Chord, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Kozue Kaoru!

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Nine Inch Nails - The Great Below https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pev0dINRaok

Mikoto does not fight for strangers. She does not care about the thousands of faceless, nameless students captured here in Ohtori. She cares about people, specific people, and she has never once fought for the good of the world, but she has fought for the ones she cares about.
Sometimes the world is helped while she helps her loved ones. It's incidental.

Mikoto charged for the tower and screamed a name and it's Kozue, she came here for Kozue, she will rip this tower off its foundations for Kozue.

Kozue does not listen.

Perhaps it is because of the violence Mikoto brings to bear. She slams Kozue into the wall and advances, hefting up her blade, and water courses out behind her. She is too close for Cassandra to strike - without striking her girl. Miroku's edge keeps her against the wall, not quite pressing in. In her eyes is an earnest plea; she wants so badly to fix this.

Kozue poses her question and the desperation written on her face is wiped clean with new shock, and Kozue knows so intimately the expression Mikoto bears now when she has been stabbed through. Her jaw gapes, her breath shudders in and out too quickly, and without thinking she jerks away. "That's not --"

isn't it? really?

... in her haste to stumble back, she does not hear the water which cuts.

With a strangled cry Mikoto is plunged down and the rushing water cannot completely mask Kozue's words, but certainly it masks a girl, down through a dark bored hole.

Perhaps it would be the end of her - but she is not alone.

Down, down the great yawning shaft, in the shifting dark where all the silhouettes go when they are stored for future use, golden ribbons burst down, and Mikoto snatches hold of one with iron grasp.

She starts climbing, with one hand and two legs, and she does not have time to linger on the pain.

There are a few nice, quiet moments when there are only two enemy combatants in the elevator...

... and then Mikoto leaps for the torn gash in the floor, just as that ribbon fades to nothing. She snarls with effort as she hoists herself up - rolls onto the floor. She does not take a moment to catch her breath, pushing herself up with rocking motions. Those golden eyes search out Kozue. She remembers what she has said.

"What Kozue's made for?" Mikoto demands, and there is a hot lance of anger to her words. "What Kozue's /made for?!/ That's not something for Tokyo girls to worry about! Here there's crepes and pools, Kozue! It's /different/ here!"

She shouts and perhaps it becomes clear where her anger lies. "What did they do?!" It is anger but it is not disbelief. It should not have happened, but that does not mean it cannot.

It was never meant to be Kozue.

Kozue was never meant to understand like this.

Mikoto cannot spin in this place - not with Mami fallen. She hefts her blade over head and it is a narrow thing, not carving /Sayaka/ instead. "Let's go back!" She cries, desperation edging into the anger of her words again as she fights through the haze. "Let's go back to existing, Kozue!" Say one thing, do another; she reaches out with her words and her stance shifts forward, Miroku carving down in a vertical slice straight towards Kozue's person.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Blade: Destruction on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru partially dodges 11 Fatigue damage from Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Destruction, taking 43 Fatigue damage! Kozue Kaoru's Fade and Flash abilities activate!

<Pose Tracker> White Queen [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

"Why would I ever care," Says the White Queen, "About anything you wanted?" Her words are tinged with fury as her knee smashes into the wind knight, the girl in red bringing her whip back to her hand once more. She notes, idly, that the stain upon it means she made her mark.
She is about to do more than that. Again her hand extends outward, prepared to fill the entirely of the elevator with the whirling, cutting length. She's interrupted abruptly by the tornado of force that Fuu summons into the enclosed space they share. The metal caging shudders, as does the floor beneath them. For a moment, it seems the entire elevator might rip itself apart--

Until Steven separates another chunk of the metal bars. The masked girl's balance falters, and once again she's picked off her feet. She hisses in anger as she's thrown violently from the carriage, smashing into the side of the elevator as the gale forces it to ascend higher and faster, and her in the opposite direction.

She goes down. Down, toward darkness. The bottom of the elevator shaft, once well-lit by the seemingly endless window behind, has abruptly turned into a pit of black smoke. She does not so much fall in it as she falls atop it, feet touching down on some unseen surface beneath the boiling darkness.

Her eyes are searing yellow lights as she watches the cars ascend. She does not pursue.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka's eyes widen as a bladed wing pops through the ceiling next to her head. Getting out of this just got even more urgent. Shoving her sword into the metal crushed around her, Sayaka starts sawing back and forth at it. But without serration, this is difficult work, and Sayaka yelps as another wing punctures near her head.

"Kozue!" Sayaka objects, shocked that she'd drag her brother into this just to hurt Sayaka. "W-well, I'm too busy to tell anybody anything, if you haven't noticed!"

Convenient but also true, Sayaka has no bandwidth for repartee at the moment. She pries at her sword like a crowbar, partially freeing herself, as Mami engaged in ribbon-enhanced fisticuffs below, and Mikoto is blasted with water. Things have been better.

"Hrrrk!" Sayaka groans. She can tell that Cassandra has narrowed down where she is, now. It has to be now or get impaled. Wrenching her arm, she rips a curved hole in the ceiling, and her body drops. Unfortunately, Cassandra can now see down into the car.

Thowing her elbow, Sayaka rotates as she falls, eyes widening as she watches the wing plunging down even faster. Grunting, she swipes at the stabbing pinion with her sword, smacking it aside. Clang, clang, clang! Three times she parries, the third just as she hits the ground. A final, devastatingly strong downward slash is coming, using the angle to make a guillotine of the wing. Sayaka, still half-bouncing from the impact, rips a second sword free and crosses them just as the pinion stabs again.

On the ground, she lies, the metal feather inches from her forehead, her crisscrossed swords supporting one another while holding up the wing. Her elbows, planted on the soaking ground, support the blades in turn.

Pursing her lips, Sayaka blows on the feather, a quick puff of air, like an Old West gunslinger with a pistol.

Cassandra has to yank her wing back at that point due to Miroku swinging its massive weight around, and Sayaka wisely sticks to where she was. Rolling back on her shoulders in its wake, she springs up, brandishing both swords, ready to challenge Cassandra through that hole again.

But as she stares up, she sees nothing but empty elevator shaft, up and up, going until the end of the world.

"/No/," Sayaka breathes. And she turns her face to Mami Tomoe.

The pillar of water drops, swallowing Mami entirely, its driving force far beyond the one that had smashed Sayaka into the ceiling. And Mami... she can't heal.

"No!" she says again. Sayaka's keen blue eyes lift to a hole in the side of the elevator. As she bolts forward to rush past Kozue, she kick-lifts the dangling chain of her kusarigami, briefly setting it sailing, a length of links floating before the hole in the wall. With a sharp thrust, Sayaka neatly plunges her sword through a link, pinning the chain to the wall. The elevator has no mercy; if Kozue doesn't get it loose, her chain is going to start dragging out of the elevator fast. Sayaka fixes her with a brief glance of disbelief and anger, her tremulous lower lip hinting at the hurt beneath.

Then, hastily as she can while being as careful as she can, Sayaka body-checks the falling Mami, catching her about the lower waist. Sayaka is a bit too late for a clean save here; Mami has fallen too much and the weight is too low to balance well. There's a moment of struggle, then Mami is arrested, held up, hugged protectively. Her stockinged knees are a few inches from the ground. But they never touched, no, never hers.

Sayaka's are planted on the ground firmly.

"Ah," Sayaka exhales. She stares at her own knees for a few seconds, dully. She has to, as she's supporting Mami's good arm with her head.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has used Caprice on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru braces 12 Fatigue damage from Sayaka Miki's Caprice, taking 5 Fatigue damage! Kozue Kaoru's Block and Parry abilities activate!

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.
<SoundTracker> The End of the Line - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm7pN2oKV4M

The cannonfire bursts into Kozue - clipping her shoulder - causing red to enter her silhouette, "Guh!"

Ribbons burst all around, and Kozue just starts swiping desperately. Trying not to get caught - the ribbons slice through the water, trailing sparkling droplets. "You're right. I don't know anything about you." It's a brutal dance for her to keep ahead of them. "I don't need to though." The ribbons extend, almost completely slicing through her bonds. Kozue swipes madly, hacking like she's trying to make a path through the Amazon. "No matter what girls you've known - no matter what wishes you've seen - no matter how many monsters you've slain."

Cassandra's baleful glowing eye can be seen in that moment through the hole in the elevator ceiling. Focused eerily on Mami. "... It's the same for every girl." To Mami Tomoe's great credit, it does not blindside her. The great torrent of water that slices down like a great arcing wave catches into the great golden lengths that she's summoned. In the end though, the great force behind the crashing wave ust barely manages to outdo the ribbons.

"Especially me." It's so muted that noone even hears that one - and perhaps there's something sad there.

Mikoto perhaps, Kozue thought - was gone. She's just as surprised when she comes back - and Cassandra is too - squawking in alarm as it swiftly retracts its wing to keep Miroku from slicing it off - thus freeing Sayaka. What did she find to hold onto down there? "Just - stay - down!" The girl has just barely cleared the ribbons - as the girl hefts her blade up in a two-handed swing.

Kozue hastily flattens herself to the side of the elevator, bringing up her sickle blade up for a desperate parry, which swings the chain mid-air. And it's that same moment that Sayaka's blade catches a link - pinning it to the shaft - distracted from the cleaving threat of Miroku - Sayaka catches her off-guard like she's a rank amateur. "Damnit!"

The sickle blade whips past her hand, and the girl hisses like she's been caught in a simple kitchen knife accident. Leaving her disarmed, wringing a hand that's now dripping blood. Well... as disarmed as someone under the protection of the Giant Swan Child can be. There's something that's almost twisted in her smile as she raises her arms in what looks like surrender. "Let's go back..."

It's like she's just echoing the words. And perhaps it does reach her. Like there's a nostalgic synchronicity to it. And something about her fighting spirit just - fades, "Wouldn't that be great? My brother would love that you know." Her eyes touch upon the sopping blue hair that Sayaka is right now, "She would too." She says in a sotto voce, a little emotional, "You can't fight time though. You can't fight change." She takes a step towards the hole, eyes on Mikoto, "... And you can't fight the way things are. It was always going to end up this way you know?"

She takes another step towards the hole in the floor. The step back allowing both Mikoto and Sayaka cradling Mami's head to come into view - as if she were taking in the full scope of her betrayal - able to witness it now, "It always does." She does not sigh - but the comment is perhaps like one. Like a fact of life. "Sometimes it's a slow thing as you grow up... and sometimes it happens all at once... but no matter what eventually..."

The girl whispers softly, "... it's the end of the line."

Another step and there's nothing left beneath her - gravity is another thing one person can't fight. Right?

The cage suddenly lurches - like a great weight just shoved off it, rattling the whole thing in a gut-wrenching moment as Cassandra dives out the building's window.

One might expect something to happen just after.

Nothing does.

Other than the elevator suddenly giving a distorted 'ping' of letting them know they've reached their floor.

[[Category:Logs]] [[Category:Ushering In The Golden Age]]

Previously On Battle Fantasia

2019-03-13T23:29:41Z

Bloopbloop: Endo + Ye-jin update

'''''Previously On Battle Fantasia is a special event that started on Battle Fantasia on 11/11/18.'''''

The five years of Battle Fantasia MUSH roleplay have established a miraculous and tragic [[Timeline|timeline]]...

...but it wasn't the first timeline.

__TOC__

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm2UHRMKtic Cue the music!]

[[File:Previously_on_Battle_Fantasia_labels.png|800px|center|link=Previously_On_Battle_Fantasia]]

===The Wayback Machine===

It is September 20, 2013.

The height of fall. Tokyo is golden and beautiful, afternoons still warm with the memory of summer; beginning to be crisp, in the early morning, with the promise of winter.

It is the second year of the Sister Schools program, which is still new enough to be exciting and also a little uncomfortable. Juuban Public School is about to host the joint sports festival, brushing up their fields. Infinity Institute and Ohtori Academy anticipate shoddiness, but are going to find sportsmanship instead.

But some students suddenly find themselves having to balance the challenge of finding the right partner for the three-legged race with a new life -- a double life -- a secret life.

That's because two weeks ago the demonic army of Dark Fall swept into the heart of the magic worlds, the Fairy Realms, and dislodged their masters. They possessed ancient artifacts and used them to explode fairy castles, and they sealed fairy queens away in teacups. They shattered souls, and remade worlds in their own dark image. And so the cries for help went out -- all of them, drawn by an unseen force, to the same blue ball in Space.

And so it is that today, on Earth, the consequences of centuries, millennia, of planning and battles have come to fruit, as Dark Fall and Ends of the World alike descend not as one, but at once. The greedy fingers of corporate masters tear the dreams out of children's chests in the hunt for the miracle-granting Embryo. A coterie of Belkan Knights root in the shadows for the Linker Cores of the innocent - leaving them half dead and bereft of magic. Orphans stir on Southern Cross Island, finding victims to feed on, as their master's mark blazes in the sky. Underground, the Order of the Glittering Crux seeks to release the seals that will allow them to summon their magitechnological wonders into the real world, and seize it for their own. Witches throng in the shadows, their attention called by the despair of those who see how bleak the world is, their Kiss drawing still more into that trap. Above, the Castle Where Eternity Dwells silently waits to see whose heart will next be savaged by the Duels it oversees. And in the North, Queen Beryl's empire rises again, to finally and absolutely conquer the Earth and therefore the crown jewel of the universe...

But the guardians of Earth are rising. Tokyo is where that battle will be fought; as Pretty Cures are found by the refugees of the Fairy Worlds, and HiME once more flock to the Land of Fuuka, now called Southern Cross Island, and the Silver Millennium's Sailor Senshi stir at last from their millennia-long slumber. The darkness is deep; but once, a great queen wished for a light to outshine any darkness.

She will not be disappointed.

She has you.

---

Welcome to 'PREVIOUSLY ON BATTLE FANTASIA', our game's next major plot. Starting immediately, we're taking a trip back in time to our world as it was in September 2013: a more innocent time, with more innocent characters. New transfer students are new once again. Virtually everyone is a freshly recruited magical girl, taking their first steps into the world of fighting evil by moonlight -- youma are scary and their masters mysterious and unknown. Balancing normal and magical life is not old hat but an often-overwhelming act of frantic rushing around and the occasional guilty lie.

And beautiful friendships are about to be born.

===Frequently Asked Questions===

'''WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?'''

Frankly, the game has been in a very dark place for a very long time, and everyone needs a break. PREVIOUSLY ON BATTLE FANTASIA will occasionally tackle some heavy truths, but overwhelmingly its tone is intended to be lighthearted and fun -- or at least not oppressively, inescapably awful. It is an opportunity for everyone to get a fresh take on their characters, exploring, in a backwards way, exactly how far they've come.

It is also, frankly, an opportunity for some fan service, and the staff is taking requests on 'alternate timeline' plot points you'd like to see worked into the story. Please email your ideas to battlefantasiastaff@gmail.com or join the brainstorming shared document [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TPfzE1C2d5w4waeg4u8qvS0409jtesO9i4FU8c3eimU/edit?usp=sharing here]!

'''IS EVERYTHING THE SAME?'''

No, and we will get into the differences between the first timeline and the final timeline (our regular game) [[#Timelines|below]].

Obviously, one major difference is that themes and characters that joined the game after September 2013 will have joined it earlier and younger: take a look at your 'school' entries, you'll see you've been sent back two grades! '''(If you are one of these characters, the staff wants to work out the details of your earlier arrival with you -- please contact Pink Moon Stick for a brainstorming session!)'''

Characters from later SEASONS of certain themes who weren't around at game start (here's looking at you, Chibi-Usa-chan) will not be present in September 2013, but can rejoin us as the timeline catches back up with them.

'''WAIT, TIMELINES PLURAL?'''

Yes. We are going to do several, one at a time, and in so doing tell a story, as a game, about the MANY ways things have changed from everyone's original destiny to their current one (not just the hairstyle of Homura Akemi). In each timeline we will be skipping around through the intervening year and a half between past and present to hit various highlight events from the old days that some of our players missed out on, and others would enjoy revisiting.

If you want to remind yourself and come up with a possible wishlist, http://battlefantasia.pinksugarheartattack.net/Timeline is hideously out of date, but it's the earlier stuff we're especially eager to do, so in that sense it's still a useful resource!

'''BUT I WANT TO KEEP DOING 2015 ROLEPLAY!'''

That's completely fine. All 'Previously On' logs are going to be labeled as such; you are welcome to roleplay in the 'current' timeline privately if you like, especially to give yourself a little denouement after certain major events, if you don't want to wait. We stopped at the end of the IC night of May 27, 2015, and will be picking back up on May 28, 2015 eventually; for various spooky plot reasons, please keep your roleplay within the next two days, May 28-29, 2015.

===Timelines===

For log titles, please label which timeline you're roleplaying in with the prefix: TIMELINE #:. So, a scene set in the first timeline might
have the title TIMELINE 1: Welcome To Tokyo!

Each timeline has a game-wide theme designed to help guide the overarching plot of Previously On Battle Fantasia across timelines. There is also a list of differences from the 'final' timeline (regular BF) to help people keep things straight and create prompts for interesting scene opportunities.

Please add to the bullet point list beneath the current timeline to document significant differences as they appear. We will be adding later timelines to this page gradually, along with their notable changes from the previous timeline required to get the roleplay a'rolling.

====Timeline One====
'''THEME: FRIENDSHIP.''' ''Everyone is meeting each other for the very first time. Friendships are born, and they are beautiful. Over the course of the first timeline, the innocence and passion of the magical girl community will be powerful enough to forge a grand alliance, in some respects the opposite of the final timeline. A good opportunity for bitter enemies to become dear friends. That doesn’t mean there is no tension among magical girls, but rivalries tend to be less painful and more hopeful.''

* '''IC Starting Date: September 2013'''
* '''Starting Plots: Sister Schools Athletics Festival, Hosted By Juuban Public School; Fusion'''
:* Madoka Kaname is a newly Contracted Puella Magi and Homura Akemi is a normal girl.
:* Themes/characters that joined at game start are rolled back to... game start.
:* Later themes/characters' integration deals will need to be explained here, please add them in brief after discussing your plan with the staff.
::* '''Miraculous Ladybug''' is pretty much the same except that Hawk Moth began his plot in September 2013 instead of later on. Everyone received their Miraculouses as normal, only they're a little bit younger and cuter.
::* '''Steven Universe''' arrived in Tokyo a little earlier and a little younger, with his powers almost completely unexplored and untested (eg, early season one), because Beach City decided to make their move in 2013 instead of 2015.
::* '''Kasagami Araki''' arrived much earlier and younger in this timeline, as a middle schooler in 9th grade. She notably lacks her cynicism about the world and people in general, being overall more positive and utterly new to her powers as a Duelist.
::* The New Transfer Student List, September 2013:
:::* Homura Akemi
:::* Kasagami Araki
:::* Utena Tenjou
:::* Mai Tokiha
:::* Mikoto Minagi
:::* Makoto Kino
:::* Lera Camry
:* After an eventful transfer to Ohtori - a ''car'' was cut in ''half'' on the boat ride over - Mai is bowled over by a strange girl who moves to attack her, only to run away instead. Mai finds her fainted in a hedge, and realising how hungry she is, brings her home to make some ramen. This is apparently the best thing which has ever or will ever happen, and the girl, Mikoto, attaches to her immediately.
:* 'Buki, amidst trying to get Ohtori students to join her Animal Care Club in the days before the festival, realises that a strange girl is trying to get at the birds in the greenhouse, and meets Mikoto and the cat she's trying to help get a snack. Luckily, she always comes prepared, and she has some canned food Mikoto can offer to her friend instead. Mikoto proceeds to... help... Inori try and get club members, and in the process volunteers herself to help out, instead.
:* Mikoto and Endo meet as the two last entrants to a broom racing contest, and despite the strange match-up, they sweep the competition.
:* After rampaging into the pool, Mikoto is taken to the sports festival's first aid tent, where she is restored by a caring civilian named Yumi Ohzora. She teaches her important facts about money and ownership.
:* Homura Akemi flees the sports festival that occurs on her second day of school, feeling depressed. Madoka, Mami and Eri (a Puella Magi trio, and already fast friends) go to look for her. They find her in a labyrinth, about to be taken by a Witch, and rescue her just in time.
:* Homura, Sayaka, and Hitomi are among the civilians given MIRACLE LIGHTS by the fairy mascots, in order to give the magical girls the power to defeat Fusion. Most of them don't remember this event clearly afterwards, though Homura does.
:* Eri and Mikoto separately come upon a stray cat and start to care for her. When she gives birth, their paths collide. They recruit Madoka, Nori and Homura to help take care of the kittens, which initially are hidden in the Garden Club shed at Ohtori, and eventually are moved to the Kaname household when everyone has to get on a train to go to Hokkaido.
* '''Winter 2013 Plot: Hokkaido and the Star Shards'''
* It is Sunday, December 22nd, the day after final exams -- and the second day of the school trip to Hokkaido (which began immediately after exams ended). As everyone has known for over an IC month, the Sister Schools have decided to pack everyone up and spend their Winter Break all together in the frozen paradise of Hokkaido! For most of an IC week, everyone will be staying at the Kubota Ski Resort (with occasional organized trips into Sapporo proper), skiing, snowshoeing, ice skating, and enjoying the rightfully famous all-you-can-eat crab buffets! While school trips are not /technically/ mandatory, they might as well be -- parents won't let their kids get out of it. It's all been paid for out of the joint Sister Schools Initiative fund, so money is no object.
* In the last three IC months, monster-of-the-day attacks have become all too commonplace (it's mostly been youma and the occasional evil lieutenant). Magical girls have gained a little more experience and comfort with their new powers, but, a few months into their double life, are beginning to really feel the wear and tear of all those little white lies, evenings spent fighting instead of studying, and so forth.
* Characters have had numerous opportunities to meet one another and become friends off the battlefield, allies on the battlefield, or both. People are encouraged to gently hash out progress in their relationships OOCly to make sure they're on the same page, since some fast forwarding is required.
* The major scuttlebutt in the magical community has to do with seven golden "star shards" which have fallen to Earth and nestled themselves in the hearts of seven humans -- if united, they are rumored to be able to grant one single wish. Six of them have emerged (and been fiercely contested by magical girls, men in black, and monsters), though no one is sure who currently has how many. The seventh shard has yet to appear.
:* After distracting a bear from Niramo when the two of them wander away from the lodge, Mikoto becomes worried about that bear not hibernating like all the students say bears are supposed to. Dismissive explanations lead her to investigate on her own, where she runs into Eas, instead. They briefly clash, and Eas immediately exploits the upper hand as she realises that Mikoto is holding back. Luckily, she's willing to talk, if only to make demands, and after Mikoto explains that she really just is out here to investigate the bears, Eas lets her go. Mysteriously, the bear problem is solved.
:* In December 2013, Steven Universe awakens his magical powers on Hokkaido, in the midst of a dire wish to end Christmas; filled with its spirit by his friends and classmates, he manifests his shield for the first time. The resonance of his first Rose Shield tears the wish apart, returning the world to normal.
:* The Moon Princess appears very early (compared to the original timeline), on Hokkaido, after the Maiden of Nightmares sends a lethal attack at Sailor Moon which is taken by Madoka Kaname instead. The Princess wields the Ginzuishou, and a miracle occurs on Christmas Eve.
:::* The Maiden is redeemed by the unlikely forgiveness of her assumed enemies.
* '''Spring 2014 Plot: White Day and Queen Beryl'''
* It is March 13, 2014, and tomorrow is White Day -- the distaff counterpart of Valentine's in Japan, the day that girls give chocolates to their friends and loved ones. It's a stressful time. Who can find enough hours in the day to sit their final exams, defeat the forces of evil, AND make (or even buy!!) chocolate for tomorrow -- and what will happen if this symbol of romance /isn't/ realized? Especially when the battles are reaching a feverish pitch. Most of the Jewel Seeds have been found, and possession over the last few will likely make or break the outcome. The Dueling Game is in full swing. Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoisite and Kunzite, the Four Heavenly Kings, have died in their pursuit of the Moon Princess and her Ginzuishou, as have innumerable youma. There have been countless clashes between Magical Girls, Orphans, and men in black, clashes which are starting to seem like they serve some greater, darker purpose. Last night Sailor Moon and her Court went to the Moon, then returned with the dual burdens of terrible knowledge and a cursed sword. Everyone else woke up this morning having just experienced the same dream about it (+bbread 12/110, 12/111). The very same dream. Winter is just now yielding to spring. The bite in the air has softened into promising warmth. Tiny leaves and other nascent greenery makes the treetops look like they're inhabited by ghosts. The plum trees have blossomed, but the sakura haven't quite yet.
* In the last three IC months, the fledgling bonds of the magical girls have strengthened immeasurably through both battle and time spent in their fledgling, normal lives. Profound relationships have formed. Large sleepovers and other magical girl gatherings have become normal (though, oof, so difficult to find time for). Their might is waxing, as they come into their true power -- the deeper, stranger, more wondrous power of the heart. But so is their danger, for the very same reason, as an open heart... is a vulnerable one.
:* Mikoto rescues the civilian witch, Yumi, from an Orphan in a Nishitama forest.
:* Sailor Moon and friends go to the Moon on the night of March 12, while everyone else suffers a disturbing silvery nightmare, so Madoka calls for a sleepover on White Day, March 14 so they can face the night with the support of one another.
:* At the sleepover, Mami Tomoe coins the group name 'Covenant of Style', which catches on like wildfire.
:* On the morning of March 15, Beryl issues her challenge to the world: threatening all life on it and daring the magical girls to stop her. They disrupt her evil ritual and she is slain at the hands of the Outer Senshi, but not before she murders her much-hated Princess Serenity first. Usagi is revived by the Ginzuishou, which responds to the feelings of her friends, and afterwards they all defeat Queen Metallia together.
:* After the events of the North Pole, Mikoto reassures Homura by carrying her up a tree and showing her how nice high places are.
* '''Summer 2014 Plot: Orphans, and an orphan'''
* It is August 6, 2014. Cicadas whirr staccatos, forcing them through the oppressively heavy air. Nary a breeze stirs across Tokyo Bay; there is no respite from the concrete-gathered might of the sun as it absorbs and re-emits from every surface in the city. Sweat beads at temples, at necklines, at the bottom of the back. But it just makes the ice cream sweeter. The resumption of school is weeks away and the obligations of summer homework might as well be on another planet. It's a long, hot, lazy summer. What a great time to be alive.
* In the last five months: After defeating Queen Metallia and returning home, the magical girls resolved the Jewel Seed Incident (approximately per canon, with the apparent death of Precia and the redemption of Fate, and also per BF canon, with the full withdrawal of the TSAB from Earth and the stranding of Lindy). In terms of trouble on the /rise/, it mostly takes the form of increased Orphan attacks (HiME are busting out all over) and greater activity by Labyrinth -- Nakewameke out the ears, as they strive to fill their Fuko Gauge to the brim, harvesting the despair of Tokyo citizens. Also, everyone went up a grade, which means some middle schoolers are now in high school. Though school is not currently in session.
* Chibi-Usa and Sailor Pluto have arrived in Tokyo. (Black Moon won't be far behind, while the Death Busters were always here but have yet to start overt operations; similarly the Wolkenritter have been present but are just now starting to become truly desperate.) And so has Northa.
:* Mai finds an Orphan during her summer job as a lifeguard, and when the night falls she and Mikoto take care of it. Then Mikoto drags her off to the party which was distracting all the civilians, even though they didn't have an invitation.
:* An Orphan attacks Sensouji Temple, threatening to eat all the cold snacks, only to be brought down by a group of magical girls. It's believed to be a lion dance with very good effects in the aftermath, and the people involved in the battle are lauded as excellent actors.
:* Mikoto continues trying to get through to Eas, finding her after a Nakewameke attack. They share donuts and surprisingly friendly conversation, and Eas gives Mikoto advance warning about her next attack.
:* Kasagami hosts a fancy summer party on behalf of the School Council, featuring the impromptu D.J., Steven Universe.
:* Mikoto and Kasagami spar and no one gets stabbed for real.
:* Steven, Niramo, Ami and Mikoto band together to create THE ULTIMATE SANDCASTLE (plus one whale lord.)
:* Mikoto drags Endo out from his job at the convenience store to go watch fireworks instead.
:* Eas creates her ultimate Nakewameke, and sends out invitations to the magical girls of Tokyo to meet her at Tokyo Tower for a showdown. She nearly succeeds--but when she emerges from her command post to talk to the assembled magical girls, Klein activates his failsafe, and they're left to save themselves /and/ her; she stays on Earth, as a (relatively) ordinary girl.
:* Marinette is caught by her parents one night talking to Chat Noir and thinks they're going out. After a date night at Marinette's residence, the fiction becomes a reality.
* '''Timeline One: Walpurgisnacht'''
:* Walpurgisnacht comes to Tokyo. The magical girls rise to confront it en masse, but not without casualties. Among them are Eri Shimanouchi and Mami Tomoe, which leaves only Madoka Kaname to deal the final blow -- which, legend says, must be dealt by a Puella Magi. She sacrifices herself in order to save the city -- and her friends. And especially Homura Akemi, who hears her last words.
:* Homura makes a Contract with Kyuubey: ''I want to redo my meeting with Kaname-san. But this time, instead of her saving me... I want to be the one to save her!'' She becomes a Puella Magi, and the magic of her wish sends her back in time... ending Timeline One.

=====Timeline One Logs=====
{{#dpl: |category = logs
|titlematch = %TIMELINE 1:%
|notcategory = News Files
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 2
|rowcolformat=width=100%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki for Timeline One.
}}
====Timeline Two====
'''THEME: DREAMS.''' ''Homura's dream has come true -- and that makes it easier for everyone else to pursue theirs, because the life of a magical girl is a whole lot safer when they have an ally who can stop time to keep them from harm. It's mostly a good thing, but there's nothing like peril to inspire rapid bonding, so although the magical girl community is still (relatively) unified, it is slightly more loosely knit than it was in Timeline One. And with a little less magical stress in their lives, people are able to focus more on their individual goals rather than joint ones -- pursuing their different, unique, beautiful dreams.''
* A few months have passed since the timeline began, along with a few major events:
:* Homura Akemi is a newly Contracted Puella Magi who has joined the Mami/Madoka/Eri konbi, and is still learning how to master her unusually difficult powers. Unable to keep the secret, Madoka spilled her guts to Sayaka about being a magical girl within the first forty-eight hours.
:* As with the original timeline, the Sports Festival was a big success, but it seems to have really inflamed competitive spirits and the rivalry between the Sister Schools is more pronounced than before.
:* Fusion was defeated without the girls being sucked inside his soul and freed by their friends and Miracle Lights; it was just a conventional (though the first physically gigantic, and still relatively dramatic) battle.
:* Believing the monster to have eaten her best friend, Puella Magi Madoka battled Dessert Witch Charlotte, alone and crippled by grief. But Sayaka Miki had just been lost in the Labyrinth, and contracted on the spot upon witnessing the battle. Madoka narrowly avoided losing her head as the two defeated their first Witch together.
:* On Hokkaido, the Maiden of Dreams was redeemed without her killing Madoka Kaname or awakening Princess Serenity (because of a timely Homura rescue). That means the identity of the Moon Princess is still a mystery, and the hunt is on. Zoisite and Kunzite are still alive and Queen Beryl has yet to enact her North Pole ritual.
:* Because the timeLOOP has begun, weird temporal effects are occurring, and one of them is that Sailor Pluto basically hit a weird patch of timenoise on her way over, and accidentally overshot her trip. She has arrived just now, in April 2014. (Chibi-Usa will still arrive post-Beryl.)
* There are other minor differences between the second and first timelines as well.
:* In haste, Sayaka wished for the first thing that came to mind. Now with each mystically assured victory the Ohtori Middle School Softball team achieves on its way to an inevitable championship, Sayaka feels less and less fulfilled...
:* Ye-jin Song arrives and is elected new captain of Ohtori Dance Club. Secretly, she's come to help hunt HiME...
:* Madoka has the unusual combination of confidence, time, and commitment to self-improvement to actually go out for sports for once. She joins the Archery Club where she studies diligently alongside Rei.
:* Natsuki and Mikoto's battle on the cruise liner was more serious this time around, and several floors were damaged, but the ship remained structurally intact. Mai's efforts have, once again, seen them going from enemies to friends.
:* Mikoto was introduced to the Puella Magi by Homura, this time, who was eager to meet her old friend again. Mikoto was initially shy, but soon warmed up to her, alongside Madoka, Eri, and the others.
:* Upon realising that Homura was trying to learn how to fight, Mikoto relented to Kasagami's attempts to get her to join Kendo club, so that she could figure out how to teach her.
:* Rather than unintentionally insulting Rei, Usagi instead pleaded for her help in the wake of the bus incidents outside Hikawa Shrine, prompting Rei to commit to protecting Usagi early.
* '''IC Starting Date: April 2014'''
* '''Starting Plots: Student Council Ball; The Jewel Seed Incident'''
* It is April 17, 2014, and the cherry blossoms are in bloom. It's the second week of the new school year. A transformative time, as students acclimate to their new classes, their new classmates, their new clubs (or incessant club recruiters, for the holdouts) -- and now, tonight, their new student councils. Elections are over, and the Sister Schools are celebrating with a shared social that really can only possibly be called a ball, because Ohtori Academy is hosting. Besides having the best venue, they also have the most surprising outcome: Kasagami Araki is the new Ohtori High School Student Council President, having won her victory by a single vote (secretly, Akio Ohtori's, because the Academy is not a democracy...).
* But life isn't just sparkling apple cider and roses. The Jewel Seeds -- called 'Lost Logia' by the offworlders pursuing them, but to any magical girl recognizable as magical jewels that contain the cross-section of terrible power and the potential to grant wishes -- have almost all been found. The dark mage Fate Testarossa, and her allies in Labyrinth, have claimed roughly half; the radiant newcomer, Nanoha Takamachi, and her friends, have the rest. Can Fate's heart be reached before something terrible happens?
:* At the 2014-2015 Sister Schools Student Council Inauguration Ball, Niramo and Takeo get in a fight with some boys who were harassing Suzuka Tsukimura and are disciplined by Kasagami in her role as the new Ohtori Student Council President. Rei and Usagi join the Dance Queen competition with predictable results. Utena encourages Anthy (a Dance Queen nominee) to attend and therefore does as well, wearing one of the dresses they were gifted by the dance committee in solidarity. Disaster strikes as Nanami (who arranged the nomination and the dresses) causes Anthy's dress to dissolve in the middle of the dance floor, but Utena comes to the rescue.
:* Mai and Mikoto visit a horrible cat cafe, and realise that they could do it better. Mai takes business electives, and Mikoto gathers her cat army...
:* Rei's birthday happens! Usagi, Ami, and the other Senshi conspire with her Grandpa to throw her a SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PARTY. Her protests quickly die when she realises they have brought a karaoke machine.
:* At a Dance Club recruitment drive held at Ohtori shortly after the Inaugurational Ball, Niramo receives some much needed confidence from both Ye-Jin and Fumiko. It's enough that Niramo actually reconsiders her choice in clubs, dropping her enrollment in the Anime Club and taking up Dance at Juuban instead.
:* Rei meets a strange dark girl named Yumi, attacked by her crows. She shelters her and brings her inside, and tries to convince her that curses are a bad way to approach the world for someone with such a caring nature.
:* Rei shanghais a group of girls and boys into preparing for the Horseback Archery Festival. There is a horse. Not even the disguised Labyrinth Generals can hope to stand up to the might and majesty of ''a horse.''
:* Several magical students of Infinity, with a few plus-ones, go down into the Library to find treasures. Akko finds the Shiny Rod -- and Diana finds a dragon! Luckily, Akko gets a handle on her Artifact just in time to save the Sorcerer's Stone, alongside some crafty tactics from her friends and allies.
:* Mikoto trains Homura with her strange and somewhat alarming methods.
:* Lera takes Mikoto to the arcade! Mikoto turns out to be surprisingly good at DDR, and shares a little about her home life with someone else who doesn't come from Tokyo.
:* Mai and Mikoto approach Kasagami with a proposal to run a trial cafe during a school festival. Afterwards, completely coincidentally, Kasagami announces her first annual Dream Faire.
:* Fate and Eas challenge Shibuya for a Jewel Seed, contested by Endo, Mikoto, and Steven. The former two go all-out, and are defeated, leaving Steven to parley for their safety and see the Jewel Seed fall into the hands of their enemies.
:* Kasagami holds a Falconry Club event which is crashed by an Orphan! Steven and Mikoto, luckily, are there to help -- defending the birds and cutting up the thing in the shape of a bird, respectively.
:* Steven and Mikoto discuss Eas and Fate, and Mikoto comes to a realisation about how she ought to approach them, while giving Steven some advice she thinks is perfectly sensible.
:* The Dream Faire happens! Kasagami discards Steven's dream as unworthy due to motivations she dislikes, though Niramo appreciates his food, along with the other stands. Anthy, as always, is bullied. Meanwhile, Fuu's video game design comes in third place, while Mai and Mikoto's cat cafe design comes in second... and Shinju-chan, the big fluffy white cat who draped over Kasagami, comes in first. She wins a lifetime supply of tuna.
:* Mikoto naps on top of a mushroom. Sucy wants that mushroom. Hijinks ensue.
:* Nanoha Takamachi leads the magical girls in confronting her rival Fate Testarossa; she proposes an all-out one on one duel for the Jewel Seeds, and Fate accepts. But Precia intervenes, ostensibly out of concern that Nanoha's friends will jump in and gang up on her enforcer, and forcibly duplicates Fate with magic, creating a wild battle. Despite her numbers advantage, Fate loses anyway; Precia seizes the Jewel Seeds before Nanoha can and leaves, but not before punishing Fate for her failure both physically and emotionally. Nanoha takes a broken Fate home.
::* Lindy Harlaown makes contact with Nanoha, as does Arf, who can give them the coordinates to the Garden of Time. Nanoha and her friends climb aboard the Arthra to confront Precia in her fortress before she fully activates all the Jewel Seeds and causes an existential threat to the foundations of the multiverse. Fate stays behind, but encouragement from Arf and (unexpectedly) Eas, as well as bearing witness to the support of her friends now fighting Precia in her name, allows her to regain her will to fight. She and Eas catch up and rescue the group at a crucial moment, and then everyone proceeds to confront Precia.
::* But reality is fragmenting quickly, and the group winds up having to pass through Precia's past in order to reach her in the present. A dialogue begins, but whether or not Precia's heart was moved will remain an eternal mystery, because at the moment of truth, she is murdered by Northa, Chief Executive of Labyrinth, who immediately orders Eas to join her in exterminating her allies. Eas tries to bargain with Northa for their lives, which Northa takes as disloyalty; she uses the Jewel Seeds to create doppelganger replacements for all the magical girls, INCLUDING Eas, to be her new, loyal, army. The magical girls must confront these dark reflections of themselves and defeat them before the Garden of Time collapses into less than nothingness; they manage to do so, together, and escape on the Arthra in the nick of time. In the battle, Eas is forced to destroy her Data Diamond to defeat her double, and she joins them without her powers on the ship.
::* As the Arthra returns to Earth, it is abruptly and unexpectedly destroyed by an enormous blast of Dark Energy that came from the North Pole. The magical girls (and the crew) are able to escape, teleporting back to Tokyo just in time to watch the contrails of the surprise attack fade from the sky. It's terrifying power... but now they know where they need to go to put an end to the threat of Queen Beryl.
:* Mikoto invites Eas back to her dorm after they return to Earth, and supports her in her plans to integrate into Tokyo, sharing her own experience getting used to the city. Eas helps Mikoto to realise that her dreams are valuable, and she shouldn't push them aside just because of what someone else might want for her.
:* Mami Tomoe and Sayaka Miki acknowledge their growing attraction to one another and begin to date. Homura Akemi and Madoka Kaname are inseparable, but not officially together.
:* Eri comes across Homura and Mikoto training, and lays into Mikoto about her methods. Mikoto realises that she's been horrible to her friend, and is suitably horrified by the realisation that perhaps what feels right to her isn't actually great.

* '''Summer 2014 Plot: North Pole'''
:* The sakura faded and the trees grew leaves -- soft breezes became oppressive heat -- and spring yielded into summer. In late June, school hasn't quite let out for vacation, but that hasn't stopped the Sailor Senshi from taking a trip to the Moon, in part hoping for a way to release the kidnapped Mamoru Chiba, now known as Dark Endymion, from Queen Beryl's brainwashing. The Midchildans, meanwhile, have finished running analyses of the blast that destroyed their spaceship, and are able to organize an operation to storm the pinpointed spot in the Arctic by surprise.
:* The magical girls get separated at the North Pole and begin fighting their way into the Dark Kingdom against the army that appears to defend it. The Inner Senshi die getting their Moon Princess into position to defeat Queen Beryl, but in the aftermath, Usagi is able to revive them. Everyone celebrates, then joins together to oppose the true dark power behind even Beryl's throne, the destructive entity Queen Metallia. The Maiden of Dreams, rescued on Hokkaido, reappears to help at this critical moment. Everyone's hearts join together, and the explosive power of their dreams defeat Queen Metallia. Overcome by their feelings and the transcendent moment, Sayaka and Mami share their first kiss.
:* However, Madoka Kaname uses up all of her magic, and collapses even as Queen Metallia is destroyed for good. Her Soul Gem becomes a Grief Seed, and she becomes a massive Witch, Kriemhild Gretchen. Her friends are forced to face this horror, but Homura Akemi turns away. Armed with the horrible truth of the Puella Magi, she jumps back to the past again to try to prevent this future from ever happening... ending Timeline Two.

=====Timeline Two Logs=====
{{#dpl: |category = logs
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|notcategory = News Files
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|ordermethod = title
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|rowcolformat=width=100%
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|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki for Timeline Two.
}}
====Timeline Three====
'''THEME: TRUST.''' ''As in its complexities, its limitations, and its breakdown. Up until now, being a magical girl has included automatic membership in a sort of collective sisterhood -- the world has been divided into 'the magical girls' and 'the bad guys'. But a simple question changes everything: 'What if the fairy mascots and other sources of power don't actually have the magical girls' best interests at heart?' It's an unbelievable idea, but simply rejecting it means that, for some reason, Homura Akemi is trying to drive a wedge between magical girls and their mascots. In other words: not all magical girls can be trusted. Once planted, this seed of uncertainty can only continue to flower, and has done so spectacularly.''
* Numerous factors have further exacerbated the issue of trust between magical girls. Major examples include:
:* Competitions for limited magical resources, such as Star Shards, Jewel Seeds, and Grief Seeds, have all been far more intense than in previous timelines, with ugly consequences for would-be friendships.
:* Friendly fire is more of a narrative problem in this timeline than it has been (or will be) in others; even girls with the best of intentions might damage the trust of their allies by accidentally clipping them with one of their attacks, in a critical moment.
:* Magical girls are generally less willing to explain themselves and their actions to one another, since it's harder to know who to trust.
:* Secret identities are far more tightly protected than in Timelines One and Two. This means that sometimes people are friends as magical girls and, separately, friends as civilians, but that the crucial bond of trust that connects the two worlds is often missing. Sometimes, things are even more complicated, and magical girl rivals have no idea that their opposite number is their best friend at school.
* Although things are far from outright war, the magical girl community is under strain, and cracks are beginning to show. Rivalries are more heated and less friendly. 'Teams' can also sometimes be understood as 'schisms'. Conversely, true bonds of trust between individual girls are more precious and beautiful than ever. (And like all precious things -- they are vulnerable.)
* '''TIMELINE THREE IS SUBSTANTIALLY DARKER (OR, AT MINIMUM, MORE COMPLEX) THAN TIMELINES ONE AND TWO.''' It is not, however, an exercise in misery. The main 'tragedy' of the timeline, compared to the previous ones, is the environment of paranoia that has sprung up in the community. Even the most open-hearted magical girls have reasons to think more critically and carefully about their counterparts, and the ways of the world, than they normally would. (More reasons, in fact, than in the prime timeline, which did not have Homura Akemi sowing seeds of doubt from the start, nor such extreme competitions for the Star Shards and Jewel Seeds.)
* An entire year has passed since the beginning of this timeline; it is picking up several months after the last one ended, in fact (September; T2 ended in late June). All this is to say that quite a bit has happened, and happened differently, and happened in a way to put strain on trust between magical girls (while in turn forging some unbreakable bonds along the way):
:* The Fall 2013 Sports Festival, and Fusion's assault on Tokyo, occur essentially as they did in Timeline Two.
:* After spending enough time rebuilding her magical girl friendships that they'd have reason to trust her, Homura Akemi reveals the awful truth that Puella Magi are tricked by Kyuubey into accepting a fate where they will become Witches. It does not go over well, and creates a FIRESTORM of rumor and speculation that reaches all corners of the magical girl community. Everyone has heard about it. '''Nobody believes it (no exceptions!).''' Everyone has different opinions on why Homura would make such a claim, some more generous than others.
:* For a variety of reasons which certainly include heightened anxiety, magical girls' unanswered wishes are at the forefront of their minds when the Star Shards' existence becomes revealed, and the fight over them becomes (almost) as vicious between magical girls as it is between magical girls and Dark Fall demons/men in black from Ends of the World.
::*In the end, the star shards are never gathered in one place. Individual shards are painstakingly hidden by their current owners. The Maiden of Dreams remains a broken, nameless entity suffering endless torture within her seven golden prisons -- and nobody even knows that she exists.
:* The Jewel Seeds are hotly contested for basically the same reason. The Device-users of Earth do not line up neatly behind Nanoha Takamachi in her efforts to oppose Fate Testarossa; Endo Naoki especially wants to seize them for himself, which damages his relationship with Ren Aizawa.
::* Precia Testarossa does get her hands on all the Jewel Seeds eventually, after washing her hands of Fate. The magical girls are forced to unite to stop her from permanently sundering reality, and manage to do so, though not everyone participates in the operation. The Harlaowns are not involved; the Arthra is never allowed to come to Earth, due to rampant distrust between the TSAB and the Magic Association. Afterwards, Fate lives with the Takamachis.
:* Events surrounding the North Pole go more similarly to the PRIME timeline than either timelines one or two. In late summer 2014, once Usagi Tsukino is revealed as the Moon Princess, Mamoru Chiba is kidnapped and brainwashed into Dark Endymion, and the Four Heavenly Kings are dead, Queen Beryl issues her collective challenge to the magical girl community and dares them to stop her from making her dark wish.
::* Arriving in disorganized, separate groups, they fail. So, every magical girl in the world except for Sailor Moon and the Inner Senshi are banished to the Multidimensional Chaos World by the force of Beryl's wish. Adventures in bizarro spacetime ensue.
::* Back on Earth, the Inner Senshi die getting Sailor Moon past the DD Girls. She is forced to confront Beryl and Dark Endymion alone, and is narrowly able to do so. Afterwards, her wish for her friends revives the dead and recalls the missing, and everyone gathers together to put a permanent end to Queen Metallia.
::* The Maiden of Dreams is not present to help the girls gestalt their power, and so instead this battle is messy and dangerous. The magical girls triumph without anyone dying, but the aftertaste is a little bittersweet, tainted by injuries, plus the trauma of the uncontrolled dimension-hopping which resulted from Beryl's dark wish.
:* The World Tree roars onto everyone's radar when it's attacked by weird, sword-wielding shadows seemingly trying to disrupt a mysterious sparkly magical girl ritual, and by the end of summer everyone knows it exists, that it's a vitally important conduit of Earth's magical power, and that there's a more-and-less subtle battle being waged between men in black, Dark Fall demons and operatives (especially agents of Labyrinth such as Eas and Soular), Orphans, and the Magic Association, for control of the nexuses of magic that harness the World Tree's strength.
:* The Outer Senshi are present, active and renowned for their brutal determination to save the world by any means necessary without bothering to explain their methods -- in other words, they're the poster girls for how not all magical girls can be trusted.
:* The Wolkenritter are also getting active, creating rumors about magical girls who attack other magical girls in dark alleys -- and fear.
:* Drawn to investigate the source of the crazy rumor about Puella Magi and Witches, Kyouko Sakura and other Puella Magi close in on the Konbi's neighborhood. There aren't enough Grief Seeds to go around, and the question of hunting familiars becomes crucial. Tensions are rising.
:* Summer vacation happened. There was no trip to Okinawa. The return of school is something of a relief for kids stuck in the sweaty concrete prison of Tokyo.
:* Despite everything, magical girls also give each other reasons to trust one another as well. Every day is another act of kindness. Every friendship is its own miracle.
* There are other differences between the second and third timelines as well.
:* You are encouraged to add other differences between the second and third timelines to this list!
:* Please put your September 2013-September 2014 differences here, they're fun and interesting to imagine, especially as things have changed quite a bit between timelines two and three! Weird temporal effects continue to justify larger changes, such as when a character first came to Tokyo or first became a magical girl, as long as it happened after September 2013 (the beginning of Homura's time loops). Please run truly strange ideas by the staff first.
:* Mikoto Minagi and Natsuki Kuga's battle on the ship was once again more serious, with a large hole blown through several floors to expose the fight to the sky, but the ship managed to retain its structural integrity.
:* Mikoto spends a lot of her time searching for her brother, and so she has no time for clubs. Most of her associations are people she's met through Mai; on her own she is awkward and gruff, and does not generally reach out to make friends. Much of her involvement in early magical conflicts simply came down to the fact that Mai was there, rather than any urge of her own to get involved. What was seen as feline whimsy in the prime timeline now becomes much more suspicious: why does Mikoto so often go off on her own? Where was she when they needed help at the North Pole, or when Precia was threatening the world? And why does she keep herself shrouded in such mystery..?
:* The strain of the magical community means that Mikoto has had less exposure to kind life lessons, and so she is a much fiercer fighter. Mai has made what she doesn't approve of clear, and so Mikoto generally tries to avoid killing or doing severe injury to human opponents and will defend civilians, but she has no compunctions against hitting her opponents so hard that they don't want to get up again. She has a wild and unrestrained fighting style which makes it very easy for mistakes to happen and for allies to get hit.
:* Endo Naoki more than briefly considered using the Jewel Seeds to grant his own wish, leading to various squabbles with other Mages. He eventually came around to help stop Precia Testarossa, but harsh feelings may remain. With less sources of trusted support Endo tries to shoulder more of Tokyo's burdens, and listens more closely to the advice of his intelligent device, Fallen Stern.
:* Ye-jin Song is hunting HiME. . .
:* Shizuru Fujino is moving in secret towards the goals of Ends of the World. As the men in black continue to show up at various flashpoints of magical import, a woman in black with a strange red naginata often accompanies them. Her identity is unknown, but she has already shown a frightening ruthlessness that only adds to the cloud of suspicion in place.
:* Rei Hino was much more immediately suspicious of Luna's story of destiny, though she did eventually accept a place in the team. She is fiercely protective of her magical identity, and few people know outside of the Inner Senshi. She has come down especially hard on Usagi, viewing her crybaby idealism as unsuited to the strenuous climate of magical Tokyo. She's hard on the rest of the Senshi, too - and everyone else she comes to care at all about. She is unwilling to trust the rogue elements of the community, and even after a year, is slow to open her heart to her friends. She still carries the fear that if she comes to trust and rely on others, she will be betrayed and tossed aside.
:* Kasagami Araki joins at the end of summer vacation 2014 as the new Student Council Disciplinary Executive, despite being a transfer student and having only just entered the school. She is much more cynical this timeline, having worked for Ends of the World before coming to Ohtori. As DE, she has been put in charge of the civilian patrols for the 'vampires' on campus...and has enthusiastically been assisting in the hunt for HiME as well as the goals of Ends of the World.
:* Ladybug is incredibly secretive, being very formal in her interactions with other magical girls in order to preserve her secret identity. Even her ostensible partner, Chat Noir, gets to hear little more than business from her. Where exactly she's based is hard to tell, as she shows up for monster attacks across Tokyo - though she seems fastest to respond to attacks near Infinity, and takes the longest to appear when attacks happen near Juuban. Unbeknown to ''everyone'', this is because Marinette intentionally waits when there's an attack close to home - a devotion to secrecy that has even Tikki irritated.
:* Sourisi isn't known to be trusting of other magical girls and boys in this timeline, and the only magical entity able to be considered a friend is Takk. Seeing an opportunity in Takk's curiosity and fascination with technology, she has been putting much more effort in learning electric engineering. This has given rise to the placement of hidden mics and low-grade cameras places throughout Tokyo as Niramo tries to figure out who exactly she can and can't trust outside of her magical identity. Unsurprisingly, Ladybug, Chat Noir and Serpentina have the biggest files as she tries to crack their identities.
:* Eri Shimanouchi had a rocky start as a magical girl, feuding with another Puella Magi named Yaori which eventually resulted in the other girl's death. She claims it was an accident but was it really that simple? As a result, she's mildly distrusted by the Magical Girl Community of Tokyo. Since she runs with Mami Tomoe and Madoka Kaname now, it might be that she's been rehabilitated. Yet could it just be that some girls are simply bad apples through and through?
:* Cassandra is the magical girl alias used by the HiME Kozue Kaoru in this timeline. She has a reputation for a delinquent who doesn't get along with many magical girls, infuriating many with her reckless fighting style and sharp tongue. She rarely appears in most supernatural battles, picking and choosing only ones she has a personal stake in.
:* Homura arrives in her hospital bed in timeline three traumatized and frantic, and those states never abate for her. She immediately seeks out Madoka, Mami, and all the other contracted puella magi to tell them the terrible truth, and... her story is far too outlandish to be believed. Homura’s panicked presentation and deep social awkwardness don’t help; the girl in the braids and glasses is clearly genuinely upset, but she also keeps saying weird and offputting things, and referring to events that haven’t happened... (Please feel free to, if you wish, have your character already weirded out by Homura being overly familiar or making references to things that happened in T1 and T2. As an additional note, please reach out to me if you’re stuck on an angle for your character disbelieving Homura! Let’s have fun with it, I love brainstorming)
:* Homura isn't using guns... yet.
* '''IC Starting Date: September 2014'''
* '''Starting Plot: SEARRS Invasion'''
* It is September 10, 2014, and Southern Cross Island is apparently infested by vampires. Or maybe it's a stalker. At any rate, girls who go out alone at night are being found unconscious and, from the disarray of their possessions, have been searched for valuables. Magical girls suspect that this is really someone trying to identify them within the ordinary student population of Ohtori Academy. The school has implemented an extremely strict campus curfew enforced by Disciplinary Executive patrols, however, which makes it slightly more difficult to mount the kind of MAGICAL patrols needed to investigate and guard against the real threat. Those who've taken the risk anyway have discovered that the true perpetrators are Orphans -- the native demonic enemy that HiME were born to fight. But Orphans have always seemed mindless in their monstrosity. Could something -- or someone -- be directing their actions?
* From a more normal perspective, summer is finally over, Fall Semester is in session, and for 9th-graders especially, it also brings High School Entrance Exams into focus as a looming existential threat to their ordinary lives. It is harder than ever to find enough time for it all.
* The Fall 2014 Sports Festival is coming up soon. Juuban had it last year, and now it's Ohtori's turn to host, and despite the campus safety issues the plan seems to be moving forward. That makes it roughly the one-year anniversary of most magical girls' careers; a time for reflection. How have things changed since they discovered the world of magic? How have THEY changed?
* And then the Searrs Invasion happened.
:* Please tell us all about it here. And don't forget to tag all your logs during this period with the [[Ushering In The Golden Age]] category!
:* Kozue helps Mikoto to realise she has feelings for Mai, and encourages her with practical advice on how to approach the question.
:* Shizuru, in her guise as the Woman in Black, approaches Mikoto, after a long time establishing herself as a source of Mai-pertinent information. She... insinuates that it would be best for Mikoto to take an active approach to the troubles plaguing Ohtori, so that Mai can keep smiling.
:* Mikoto confesses her feelings to Mai, and Mai agrees to go on a date with her. They have fun in a Nishitama park. That very night...
:* Several mobile phones are sent text messages about the vampire plaguing Ohtori, directing the magical girls to an oil refinery in Keiyo Industrial District. The history teacher, Midori Sugiura, is being held hostage. Midori reveals that Father Greer and Alyssa Searrs are part of a shadowy plot centred around HiME. Ye-jin, acting as the White Queen, and Kasagami, acting as the Crimson Rook, reveal themselves and fight the assembled magical girls -- only for Alyssa and Miyu to appear when Midori summons Gakutenou to help Kozue (and everyone else). Miyu bisects Gakutenou, destroying it, and Alyssa makes a cryptic reference to the 'Valkyries' before disappearing the SEARRS agents in a flash of golden light. Midori is nowhere to be found in the aftermath.
:* Mikoto, labouring under the belief that Midori has died as a result of her Child perishing, wanders numbly into the forests of Nishitama. There she finds a cat being chased by an Ogre, and engages it to save her -- despite the cat's protests(!) that she couldn't fight it with a sword. Yumi finds them both, and is decimated in a single hit. But the cat has an artifact around her neck, and Yumi takes possession of the Staff of Lost Ivy, becoming a magical girl in her own right. She defeats the Ogre, saving Mikoto in the process.
:* After parting from Yumi, Mikoto finds the White Queen on the opposite bank of Tama River. She demands to know why Mikoto is wasting her time resisting, and suggests to her that if she'd just given up, Midori would be all right, and it was her fault things went as badly as they did. Mikoto tells her that she doesn't take orders from her, she has no intention of dying, and every intention to protect her friends -- and that the other magical girls of Tokyo are scared of her, and the White Queen ought to be, too. It is, naturally, dismissed out of hand, because Mikoto is just another bug in the White Queen's path.
:* The Ohtori Sports Festival happens! Many people are distracted due to the events at the refinery. Kasagami performs admirably in all non-swimming events, Mikoto neglects to attend any, Kozue swims but dodges other events, Takeo attends a few events and drinks a lot of soda, Steven attends all sorts of events (winning none but having plenty of fun in the process), Fuu's best showing is in archery, Nori enjoys wind-surfing along the coastline, Mai only reluctantly takes part, and Homura participates as little as possible.
:* Mikoto and Takeo find each other while Mikoto is avoiding events, and Takeo shares his soda with her. They try and fail to talk about things of impact as they sail over each other's heads. Mikoto is reminded that she has searched for her brother fruitlessly for a year now, and Takeo is yet another boy who isn't the right one; Takeo tries to talk about the memories which aren't his. They settle on talking about dietary decisions instead.
:* Homura finds Mikoto in the garden greenhouse, where she is trying to draw out SEARRS operatives to attack her while she is vulnerably away from the herd. Mikoto tells Homura what she thinks happened to Midori, and talks to her about the pact HiME make. Homura makes another attempt to convince Mikoto that it isn't fair, and she can't trust the systems around her, and Mikoto stubbornly insists that it's perfectly fair. Mikoto tells Homura that she's important, and Mikoto wouldn't hurt her. Unlike Mikoto, Homura says she believes her.
:* While watching Mai's back during the festival, Mikoto is found by Eri. She opens up to her about her feelings in the wake of Midori's apparent death, and the two of them stumble over each other's hot-button issues, but they mean well. They promise that so long as they're all together, they'll be okay.
:* After the Sports Festival comes ''the dance.'' What should have been a folkdance around a bonfire became an elegant ballroom blitz under Ohtori's care, and students are all given the finest gowns and suits, thanks for the efforts of the united Fashion Clubs.
:* The dance is interrupted by a golden light from the sky... which obliterates the Southern Cross Island Bridge. In the wake of the carnage, the magical girls assembled are plunged into Zero Time, and faced with two gargantuan Cybodies. The assembled HiME - including Mikoto, for the very first time - summon their Childs to face against it, but even they are small compared to the giant Cybodies. They are eventually defeated at great cost, the combatants driven to exhaustion. This disarray is capitalised on by the soldiers(!) who flood the Academy, detaining everyone in the ballroom and across the rest of the school.
:* [[Ushering_In_The_Golden_Age|The school is occupied]], with students held in classrooms and gymnasiums - and the various School Councils held hostage in the Chairman's Tower. (The School Councils tell students to cooperate with the army, though they also try to demand better conditions for the students.) The official story is that there are terrorists in the school, and the soldiers are here to help everyone. The official story is hard to believe, with soldiers terrifying students to keep them in line. Everyone has to figure out a way to survive, whether that's lying low and following orders -- or escaping. There's added tension in the way everyone is being given blood tests... apparently because the terrorists may have released a virus on the island.
:* Mikoto, Homura, and Eri are kept hostage in a classroom. Mikoto makes a scene, and Homura uses her dwindling magic to stop time and get the three of them out. Once they manage to flee to a shed - the same shed which a cat once gave birth in, timelines ago - Mikoto tries to apologise to Homura, because Miroku attacked her and Takeo during the Cybody fight. Homura insists that doing their best isn't good enough, and she is recriminating herself as much as Mikoto, because her bombs damaged Cassandra, too. Eri tries to reassure them, and steps up to lead and direct their resistance efforts.
:* Mikoto goes hunting for food and runs into Kasagami, in her guise as the Crimson Rook. Realising that their situation is desperate, she attacks, and a fierce sword duel is interspersed with the Crimson Rook's psychological warfare. She points out that Mikoto is a tool to someone, too... and that her brother is either dead, or has abandoned her. Mikoto is driven to rage and fear by her efforts, and the Crimson Rook pressures her to join them. Mikoto flees, instead.
:* Eri finds Mikoto collapsed in their camp, Miroku buried in the ground beside her. She quickly ascertains that she's not dead -- she's just fainted from hunger. Eri has to try and cook the rabbit Mikoto caught to save her... but she tries to use Miroku to start a fire, not realising just how dire Mikoto's warnings against touching it were.
:* Mai is held captive and taunted by Shizuru, in her guise as the Black Bishop. After she leaves, Mikoto crashes in and rescues her -- but it's a messy thing, the remnants of the oil trap the Black Bishop set for Mai igniting in the room. Thanks to Kagutsuchi, they make their escape.
:* SEARRS makes an announcement that they are searching for terrorists, and there are known collaborators amongst the student body: namely Mai Tokiha, Mikoto Minagi, Yukino Kikukawa, and Kozue Kaoru. The White Queen appears to the magical girls to clarify: those girls are ''HiME'', wielders of an ancient power and inheritors of an ancient contract. She says that SEARRS needs their cooperation to avert planetary disaster, and Alyssa uses the power of her Child, Artemis, to set blast the forests where the magical girls are hiding. Alyssa tells them that they have thirty-six hours to surrender the HiME, or else her next attack will obliterate Ohtori Academy.
:* Disarray in the school leads to opportunities to escape for several of the students still captive, though their efforts are challenged by the White Queen. Meanwhile, the fire threatens to roar out of control, and the efforts of a handful of girls struggle to contain it until the appearance of a flood of Orphans -- which flee at the presence of the Black Bishop. She knocks out Homura, and injures Eri and Georgia, but she is injured heavily in turn; Mikoto is left standing over her, and the Black Bishop demands she decide between defeating her enemy or saving her wounded friends. Mikoto reluctantly elects to sound the retreat.
:* Separated from her friends by an Orphan attack, Mikoto happens across Endo, a bitter rival. She concedes to his accusations of fault, admitting that Alyssa would not be attacking the Sister Schools if not for the HiME, but she insists she can't submit to them. He asks if she's going to run away, not realising what she just had to do, and tells her to take responsibility. She insists she'll defeat them, and bids Endo to defeat the enemies in his path, too.
:* Flooded by despair in the wake of Endo's recriminations, Mikoto wanders into a Witch's Labyrinth. She fights for her life against endless Familiars until Homura appears in desperate search of a Grief Seed, pressuring the Witch to escalate to get rid of the Puella Magi in its presence.
:* Mikoto finds another friend, but stress causes miscommunication between Mikoto and Yumi at first. Yumi sees to Mikoto's wounds, and Mikoto watches over Yumi as she rests.
:* Mikoto is stabbed in the back by Kozue, figuratively and literally -- and she is rescued from the soldier's custody by Yumi, using alarming tactics to take care of the people she cares about.
:* Madoka and Setsuna gather the scattered magical girls of the tunnel for some much-needed curry -- and tactical planning. They conclude that a frontal assault on the school is their best option.
:* The magical girls set an assault on Ohtori Academy. One team provides an explosive distraction while helping the students evacuate, while the second advances on the Chairman's Tower in order to free the hostages kept there. In the elevators leading up, they are beset by the White Queen -- and by Kozue. The two are driven off, though not without cost.
:* At the Chairman's Tower, the Student Council tries to take advantage of the confusion below, only to be soundly beaten by Miyu. The magical girls try to talk to Alyssa, but it soon becomes clear that they can find no common ground. The Crimson Rook assaults la Sirene des Lentilles, while Miyu makes short work of everyone else -- downing Georgia and Lancelot, and wreaking havoc on the others. Mikoto tries to attack Alyssa to stop her from summoning her Child, but Miyu is in the way. In the end, no one can stop Alyssa from blasting the school -- even though she will be caught in the explosion, too. The Crimson Rook makes her exit just before the end.
:* ... but before Artemis's laser can hit the ground, Mai and Kagutsuchi fly up to meet it. They take the explosion in mid-air, and are obliterated, leaving only fluttering golden feathers. In the wake of her sacrifice, the Crimson Rook and the Black Bishop fly into space on the back of Shizuru's child, Kiyohime -- and destroy Artemis. Ye-jin appears to clean up, and deactivates Miyu and starts an unstable nuclear reaction within her -- before summoning her child, Yama Delta, to lay waste to the survivors. Mai makes her reappearance in the middle of the fight, in a stunning disc of aerial flame. In the end, Yama Delta is destroyed... and Alyssa manages to stand Miyu down from her detonation. The two of them flee, but not before telling the girls still standing that they will not forgive them.
:* Joseph Greer attempts to decommission Alyssa. He fails.
:* Mikoto finds Mai in the smouldering remains of a rose garden, and after a tearful reunion, Mai tells her that she loves her.
:* Pharmaceutical giant Ginsu Group abruptly collapses into bankruptcy in tandem with the announcement of the unfortunate passing of founder Sang-min Song and his granddaughter Ye-jin.
:* Endo Naoki assists with the evacuation of the sister schools student body. The destructive ability of Fallen Stern is demonstrated on a wide (and typically alarming) scale.

*'''Winter 2014 Plot: Christmas'''
* It is '''December 22, 2014''', and Winter Vacation starts RIGHT NOW, because school just let out for the afternoon. And none too soon, because it is starting to snow...
* In the last three IC months, the physical damage to Ohtori Academy and Southern Cross Island has been mostly repaired -- moreso than in the prime timeline, in fact, as the devastation to the forest was less severe. The bridge has been rebuilt, the debris cleaned away, extensive therapeutic resources provided to the Sister School students, and things are more or less back to normal.
* But all this trauma takes time to heal, and it makes events like Christmas -- a celebration of romance, as well as friendship, in Japan -- all the more precious and important. It is widely popular this year, even moreso than usual, for students to make homemade gifts for each other, their parents, and so forth, and many people have both been working on their crafts for months and are panickingly aware of how they only have a couple days left to finish! Overall, it is a merry and tender time of year.
* In terms of happiness that can be BOUGHT, the fashion lines collectively known as [[AoAka]] have recently been unveiled. These brands are starting to become popular among trendsetters in the Sister Schools, partially due to a special program that offers free membership cards to students at the three institutions. Tsuru is, after all, an Infinity student herself. The catch is, these membership cards are exclusive -- you cannot be a member of both brands. Without membership, the clothing is prohibitively expensive. Students are forced to decide -- which style tells their story? The two styles quickly take the fashion world, and the Sister Schools, by storm, led by Tsuru's recruits [[Honoka Yukishiro]] and [[Setsuna Higashi]], who debut as the iconic models of the two rival lines.
* On the supernatural front, the major event of the season has been the appearance and collection of mystical Keys to the City, which have been fought over by various entities over the last month or two. It is said that to unite them into a Master Key will allow the wielder to change the identity of the city forever. However, no one is quite sure where the keys are at this point -- there was a climactic battle for them where the chest they were stored in sank into Tokyo Bay, and nothing has happened since then. Maybe it's over in time for vacation to start...?

=====Timeline Three Logs=====
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|titlematch = %TIMELINE 3:%
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = cutscenes
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 2
|rowcolformat=width=100%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki for Timeline Three.
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[[Category:Special Events]]

2019-03-08 - TIMELINE 3: The Battle of Ohtori, Part One

2019-03-09T18:30:04Z

Bloopbloop:

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: TIMELINE 3: To The Tower'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Magical girls of Tokyo make their assault upon Ohtori Academy to free their classmates from the Golden Age PMC and stop Alyssa Searrs from calling down another nuke.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Mikoto Minagi]] [[Ye-jin Song]] [[Kozue Kaoru]] [[Sayaka Miki]] [[Mami Tomoe]] [[Fuu Hououji]] [[Steven Universe]] [[Nagisa Misumi]] [[Haruka Tenoh]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Ohtori Academy - Courtyards / Chairman's Tower
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2019-08-02 - 2014-09-16
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Ye-jin Song [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Bright sunlight streams down over the polished white surfaces that make up Ohtori Academy, reflecting off the ivory spire of the Chairman's Tower and warming the vast gardens and courtyards far below. It would be a perfect fall day on Southern Cross island if that same sunlight didn't also illuminate the rows of occupying soldiers and the lines of gleaming heavy artillery that blot the open spaces across the prestigious Ohtori campus. Inside frightened students are still held captive in classrooms and gymnasiums, unaware of the true nature of the conflict at hand but ever fearful of terrorists, soldiers, or both. There has been no word from the Student Council since Kasagami Araki's address, nor any further communication from SEARRS since the address precluding the forest's destruction. Ohtori remains occupied.
Perhaps not for much longer.

BGM Change: WAR SEASON - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKGmy7AGsgw

Deep underground, in the caverns that wind below the ancient forest above, the magical girls stranded on Southern Cross island have spent the last days slowly gathering, finding one another or stumbling upon their peers by chance. Whether they escaped early in the occupation or late, no matter their means of freedom, most paths have crossed down below the earth. Once gathered in mass, a plan of attack to take back Ohtori academy was formed:

The assault is to begin with a wide spread of magical girls heading to assault the main buildings used to hold students, with intent to both rescue their classmates and to make a large show of force. The more noise made possible the better in order to draw Golden Age forces away from the Chairman's Tower, the most heavily fortified building on campus. Bodies will also be needed to escort the freed students to possible points of escape, and commandeering of existing infrastructure may be a necessary part of that plan.

Meanwhile the second group is going for the tower itself, straight through the rows of tanks, artillery, barriers and armored troops that encircle Ohtori's central structure. The captured student councils of all three schools are still imprisoned in the white spire of the building, as well as Alyssa Searrs herself. Finding and stopping Alyssa before she can call down another destructive blast from the satellite hovering high above the earth is of utmost importance.

Now all the pieces are in place. The school is surrounded, magical warriors emerging from caves and treelines around the far perimeters of the Academy. Those with the highest vantage points can see the white columns of buildings and countless shapes of soldiers arrayed before them. The forces of the Golden Age are vast, armed with bullets and violent machinery, and they have yet to be truly challenged.
Until now.
For some in the second group it comes from the buzzing alarms of near-exhausted cellphones as the hour ticks to the appointed time. Others may get their sign from a trusted (and more coordinated) mascot. But absolutely no one can miss the cacophony of noise and bursts of sparkling explosions that, even in mid-day, light up the grounds of Ohtori like a Sumidagawa firework festival as the vanguard of magical girls breach the first of SEARRS defenses.

This is the signal. It's time to go.

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

It would be a lovely day--but then, maybe it can still be something like that. Ohtori is occupied...

But it's time. Setsuna Higashi, last night, worked with Madoka Kaname to gather as many magical girls as she could--and bring them together for the plan. While she no longer has the power to fight with them directly...
There's an ordinary girl with purple hair emerging from cover behind the magical girls as they put down resistance, keeping low and running ahead to tell students where to go with all the authority of an Executive.

...A little less obvious is a certain green-and-black themed witch throwing curses from odd angles.

But the second group includes a blaze of golden light as Mami Tomoe leaps pward from street level and throws out a hand clad in a black half-glove, looking down as if smirking down at tanks, soldiers--

Right on schedule, the veteran Puella Magi makes her appearance, and the guns she conjures sparkle as they appear--and gleam in the sunlight by twos, pointing straight down--straight for the enemy artillery.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Mikoto and Yumi find the group late; they were coming back to the caves from the surface, after all. Mikoto, at least, is easily-given to a plan of offence, and joins the assault team without complaint. They hug before they part. There is history, there, in the tight one-armed grasp Mikoto shows, the way she leans into her so completely. It is utterly unexplained.

It is an expression of affection only surmounted by the force with which Mikoto barrels into Mai when she finds her, and this time Miroku clatters to the ground so that she can wrap her up with a grasp which trembles. Mai, she is less willing to leave, but she is eventually convinced of the logic behind splitting their skillsets.

Her dress is tattered and dirtied; the innocence of her white roses have long-since fled, leaving braids and the single shoulder strap of her dress bare. Her opposite arm is completely exposed, showing the HiME birthmark on her upper arm, below the shoulder. Her pale heels have been soundly abandoned, and she wears a stolen pair of soldier's boots, multiple pairs of socks beneath them to let them fit. What was once an ankle-length gown is now ripped to the knees in uneven jags, and something has taken a bite out of the sash at her waist - now tied into a hasty knot at her hip instead of an elegant bow at her back. Above it, front and back, are the most concerning signs of damage it bears; two holes either side of her midsection, the torn edges stained with dried blood.

But the skin exposed beneath is knit and whole. So too are her limbs free of cuts and scratches, her face unmarred. Mikoto is safe, renewed, her debt sworn. It is well she is so. She means to go now into danger's maw, between serrated teeth and swallowing tongue.
They have someone she cares about.

They are not treating her kindly.

They have made her... they have made her...

... an enemy.

Oh, she does warn her allies, the ones she has found. "Be careful," Mikoto says to them, a light frown crossing her features as she looks away, "of Kozue Kaoru." A hand lifts from Miroku's hilt to press at the hole in her dress, lightly. And looking down does not hide the pain in her eyes and the crease of her brow, a different pain entirely from the agony she no longer endures. "... Kozue did this to me..." Mikoto and Kozue were seen together often enough, in Ohtori or on the streets of Tokyo at night, for the impact to be easily-guessed.

Mikoto has never reached out to the antagonistic elements of the community, though at least one has reached out to /her./ She spends no time redeeming sad girls, and perhaps this history makes it strange to hear her say: "... don't think it's Kozue's fault. But... Kozue's an enemy."

Though she offers that muted defence of someone she once considered such a close friend, she never tells anyone not to fight her. She won't tell them to go easy on her. Mikoto knows Kozue; she doubts the other girl will be pulling her blows. The both of them are wild things, both of them cornered.

She joined the second group late; she does not have long to wait with them. When it comes time to take position she sneaks through the scant forest which remains, and this time she does not step into the open for things which are not branches or bugs to graze past.
Madoka helped Mikoto to pick out a new phone which would survive the rigours of Mikoto, but it has long been forgotten in her dormitory, if SEARRS have not taken it for the secrets engraved in the cat emoji she sends. Nagi has been seldom-seen, in all the chaos. But, to speak of chaos...

There is another girl, in another group, and she is restless and harried and critical and of a /perfect/ mind to cause a scene. Sailor Mars engages in flagrant conflagration to allow her friends and allies to get the students to safety. Is it possible she's taking out her frustrations after so much time lying low..? Don't accuse her of it. Her fuse is so short, right now, it's a theoretical question amongst physicists.
The forward team carves in and it is Mikoto's turn to charge forward. She bellows a wordless howl as she erupts from the treeline, and as the gigantic barrel of a tank swings forward she plants her feet and wrests her blade about and suddenly, the vehicle is in two halves. One man scrambles from one half, another from the second, before the agitated fuel explodes.

She is not focused on them. She charges forward. And there are words to her war-cry: "Kozue!" One-two, rage and pain through an SUV. "Hand Kozue over to me!" Three-four --

She springs over assault rifles; her feet plant either side of the soldier's shoulders, forces him groundward as she springs off, blade slamming down on the armor of another vehicle.

"KOZUE-!!"

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

The Magic Knight of Wind is still slightly of two minds about this.

On the one hand, a general rushdown shock-and-awe frontal assault seems like it's just asking for trouble in some form; there are too many unknown variables, too many possible contingencies that can't even start to be ruled out, too many chances for ambushes, traps, or other surprises. Fog of war isn't just a gameplay mechanic, after all - it's all too easy to go charging in and then get caught by surprise in the teeth of something bigger and/or nastier than you thought the enemy could possibly have hidden away and ready to throw at you, just because you didn't take enough of a look, and sometimes even then.

On the other hand, Fuu has spent the past several days being afraid - of the initially-unknown force which destroyed the bridge; of the ostensible terrorists; of the 'soldiers' who were supposedly there to protect the seemingly-helpless students, and so forth ... and there's a piece of the Wind Knight which relishes, perhaps too deeply for good health, the chance to make the *soldiers* afraid for a change.

It's not all about fear, of course - Kuu is somewhere on campus, genuinely helpless, and the Wind Knight knows that her fiery ally has brothers who are likely stuck somewhere as well. She has to trust the Water and Fire Knights to punch through the Golden Age forces and make good on getting the civilians to safety.

For herself, though, the Magic Knight of Wind emerges from her hiding place (a hollow between a couple of bushes), accelerating to a run and calling out, "STORM-DANCE OF KAMAITACHI!!!" as her sword appears in her hands. The whirlwind isn't quite as destructive as it could be, at least to humans - but she's aiming to fling the soldiers hither and yon and unto none-too-gentle landings, and if she can rake at some of the artillery to more damaging effect, she's not above some well-placed property damage.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Storm-Dance of Kamaitachi on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

Having escaped into the forest as other Magical Girls made their move to leave Ohtori campus, little Steven Universe had bailed out a window after protecting some innocent schoolgoers from a hail of bulletfire. THe event was entirely traumatizing, but it did answer the question if his magical abilities was up to the task of blocking military grade weapons fire.

THe answer was yes. An important thing to know.

In the chaos, the boy, wounded still from the Cybody fight amd the resulting shockwave from a heavenly blast, found his way into the forests. There even was danger, as creatures roamed the corners of what was left for cover.
In time though, he found cave systems, and more importantly, friends-- to huddle together with.

The boy was thoroughly miserable, still with bandages on him, and wearing an Ohtori gym outfit that didn't quite fit him right. "Garent, Amethyst and Pearl haven't done anything yet, I hope..." Being down here loses bearing on what happens above. And his greatest fear still, is them arriving to try a daring rescue and getting hurt. There is too much for them, even with their powers combined...

A plan was struck, and when the groups split, and his powers more suited toward the rescue group compared to retaliation, Steven went with the spearheading party. What if someone needed help in a pinch? What if a student runs into the massive crossfire?
The signal was given, and the magical girls launched into their crusade to free the school. Steven, not particularly quick compared to most here, is one of the last to arrive on the scene, but is no less ready to join the fray. Where others have incredibly strong or wide-sweeping attacks, he will do what he can to fend off soldiers that get separated.

A shield soars through the air to attempt collision with a solider. "Hey! How about you put that down and fight the people that destroyed the forest?! Heads up, it isn't us!" he calls out.

Once the attack is done, he summons another shield and holds a hand out, having it anchor to a spot in the air in front of him. He widens it to be large enough to cover him fully.

"I /don't/ recommend shooting at me."

COMBAT: Steven Universe transforms into Serious Steven!
COMBAT: Steven Universe has used Throw Shield on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Steven Universe has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Sailor Uranus [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

"Hostile approaching! Put her down!"

Sailor Uranus dips and zags, several lines of assault rifle bullets chasing her. The barbed wire-strung sandbags sputter with muzzle flash, converging more accurately as she approaches. But as she makes the final approach, Uranus dives into a slide-tackle, directly at the sandbags. On the other side, a sandbag erupts from the pile as though fired from a cannon, slamming into one man's shins and flipping him down into a violent facevault.

In the instant that the autofire pauses, its target lost, Uranus is hurtling over the crumpled sandbag wall, twisting as she goes so one foot goes into a man's face and the other chases his chest down to the ground. Juking and snatching a muzzle at the same time, Uranus directs a blaze of bullets into the nearby ground, then backfists the man from his rifle. Whipping the muzzle like a sling, she hurls it into another soldier's weapon, pushing it out of the way long enough to shove a palm strike over it, cramming the woman's chinguard and sending her to the ground.
Uranus catches motion from the corner of her eye.

The butt of the last soldier's rifle smacks into Uranus's raised forearm. She had not even turned to block this strike from behind, but she turns now, grabbing the man by the throat with one arm and lifting him off his feet easily.

"Hhhow...!" the man croaks.

"I work out," Uranus says.

About ten meters to Uranus's left, the sandbags burst to let out a tank, its engines roaring as its treads chew dirt. "Hey!" Uranus shouts, trying to warn a girl who had the misfortune to be just on the other side of the sandbags. The Pretty Cure she was trying to warn can't hear over the gunfire and magical explosions, and Uranus winces as the tank drops down directly on top of her, just as she's turning around.

Uranus is turning away already, when she hears the tank engines growl, the treads gnawing the ground, unable to gain traction for some reason. Her eyes narrow as she tries to understand what she's seeing, even as the tank gives a great lurch, its heavy turret bobbing. The massive bolts that secure its thick armor creak and vibrate as the treads loosen their grip on the ground, beginning to whirr rapidly in midair. With a queasy complaint, the tank goes aloft.

Beneath it, Cure Black stands, knees bent into a plunge, arms at full extension, her cheeks red with effort. Grime spatters her face, her lower lip pushed up hard in girlish resolve, her bare abdomen locked up tight.
"How?!" the soldier repeats. Uranus shakes her head.

"Beats me."

COMBAT: Ye-jin Song fails to dodge Fuu Hououji's Storm-Dance of Kamaitachi, taking 32 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song braces 21 Fatigue damage from Mami Tomoe's Tiro Circle, taking 9 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Mami Tomoe is Psyched!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song fails to brace Steven Universe's Throw Shield, taking 48 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song fails to brace Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Dauntlessness, taking 50 Fatigue damage! Mikoto Minagi is Psyched!

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

"Leave it to me!"

As Mami's muskets let loose their first volley on the artillery, the anti-aircraft guns are swinging towards her. Their job is to defend against threats like this, and leave the artillery to do its devastating work. Sayaka Miki's job is to stop those guns from doing /their/ job.
Leaping up the back of an emplacement, Sayaka summons a sword in either hand, swivels it, and stabs both directly down into the vulcanized cannons as they are beginning to spin up. Planting her hands on her hips proudly for a moment, she stands between the twin guns of this emplacement as they lock up on the swords. But then they give a lurch, spinning partway, and then snap the swords entirely, whirring as they rotate fast.

"Aiee! Ow ow ow!" Sayaka is dancing around in between the gatling barrels as shards of her swords shoot out at random like broken blender blades, zinging and peppering her. Another battery is about to open up, its sights on Mami.

"Rrr!" Sayaka mopes, frustrated by the failure of her great plan. Grasping a handle on the top of the emplacement, she swings down loosely from it on one arm, using her momentum to rotate the emplacement, then catching the ground with her feet and running to turn it. The vulcanized rounds shred the second emplacement, as the gunners scramble away.

"Sawry! Please excuse me!" Sayaka sings in English. There is only one emplacement left, this one rear-facing, and so still rotating to find Mami.

Lining up the iron-sights, the gunner squints, shifting the targeting until Mami is dead in the center. But when he triggers the gun, the vulcanized cannons lock up tight, not even shifting much.

Sayaka stands panting on this emplacement, between the two guns again. Like a dog that got into a porcupine, /these/ muzzles are feathered with so many swordblades that it's hard to count them.

Panting, Sayaka lets out a satisfied huff, staring at the two gunners with a big grin as if she expects them to praise her.

COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has used Perfect Pitch on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song braces 6 Fatigue damage from Sayaka Miki's Perfect Pitch, taking 9 Fatigue damage! Sayaka Miki is Psyched!

<Pose Tracker> Mai Tokiha [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

September winds bring autumn's chill, but the girl on the rooftop is strangely warm.

Sneaking back to the dormitories wasn't easy, and Mai Tokiha had more than a few near misses. Arguably, doing so was foolhardy, and if she was to be honest with herself it was unnecessary. There had been a purpose, though. Try as she might to spy Takumi among the prisoners, he was nowhere to be found - and so she sought a familiar vantage point.

Heartbreakingly familiar, really - all the memories of moonlit conversations and peaceful stargazing from the dorm roof might be tainted, now, by the sight of the soldiers below. Something good ruined...but that's just the way life goes.
Admittedly, there was a second purpose; though she didn't have long to spare, Mai did manage to slip into her sadly ransacked dorm room to grab a uniform jacket and a bright red scarf. A little warmth, at least, to offset the scorched ruin that was her ballgown. Suitably clad for the fall air, she takes a moment to take in the sight of the invaded campus.

She should feel colder than this - or maybe more rage at the sight. Despite everything, though - despite the misery brought to a place that was feeling like home, despite the peril she's been put through, despite her continued failure to keep Takumi safe and sound - she just feels the warmth of Mikoto's last hug before they parted ways. A promise, murmured, to stay safe...

Violence is starting - the counter-attack has begun, and her role is to provide a diversion the Golden Age soldiers might not ignore. Memories of the haunting Zero Time at the back of her mind, Mai closes her eyes and does what comes naturally. She sings.

BGM CHANGE - Chiisana Hoshi ga Oriru Toki - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ONr68VAy04

Where is it?
I'm searching for the truth in the deep night...
Wandering around the universe alone...
Hoping that I will come across you...

The soldiers patrolling near the dorm aren't deaf, aren't unobservant, and in spite of the chaos beginning aren't that distracted. A squad rushes in, scaling the stairs in a hurry with guns at the ready to find the source of the song. The rooftop access is kicked open brutally, harsh voices calling out to the escapee. "Hold it right there! Wait..."

It was the first time my tears felt so hot,
And the ties holding me down might now be broken...

It's not quite what they might have expected. The girl on the rooftop is familiar, of course; the soldiers were briefed on key targets, and Mai Tokiha is one of them. She has rings around wrists and ankles, sparkling in the sunlight, and she's dancing - turning slow spins with her eyes closed.

She's also surrounded by fire. There's a merry blaze on the dorm roof, sparked by the HiME's Element, and it swirls around her in a growing spiral. The soldiers look among each other, hesitant in the face of power - but they're professionals, and they aim their weapons. "Mai Tokiha! This is your only warning!"

Because of the radiance of life embracing me, I am never alone...

I gaze at the proudling smiling moon,
And now, with your strange power...

She stops, facing the soldiers, and speaks the next line with an almost resigned smile. "...Awaken me. ...Kagutsuchi!"

The guns open fire, but it's far too late - the inferno consumes them, envelops the rooftop, blossoms into a great signal flare as Mai's Child rises in an instant. Eight eyes survey the campus as a great serpentine tail sweeps across the rooftop to fling aside those who didn't dive for cover already. Before more can arrive, the dragon takes flight.

It screams by with a defiant cry, winging its way high and wide - but its goal doesn't seem to be the soldiers, or the tower, or even the tanks. The fleet in the sea, with its many artillery batteries, was always another of the threats levied against Ohtori - and so to those ships it flies.

Batteries exchange fire with battleship-scuttling meteors as Mai and Kagutsuchi's diversion begins.

<Pose Tracker> Ye-jin Song [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Sound and light fill the air of Ohtori's buildings and courtyards as the second wave of magical girls charge into the fray. In their periphery they can see the work of their allies, electric flashes of beams and bursts of magnificent light. Soldiers scramble wildly for cover as tanks rumble forward, and then abruptly backward, or roll onto their side, or just go up into the air for no good reason.

The fighters in the air smoke and weave as streaks of light chase them through the sky, and in the sea nearby every cannon on every ship opens fire in desperate bid to hold against the burning flame of Mai Tokiha's gigantic child. The path to the Chairman's Tower is still by no means clear-but at least now there's a chance.

A chance that's rapidly becoming reality. Armed and armored figures blockading the path are thrown from their feet by the force of the gale that Fuu summons as she charges forward. They scatter like bowling pins, whirled from their well-ordered lines and dumped in unordered heaps as the path ahead becomes suddenly clearer.

Mikoto too clears a path, even in the process of making one. The few tanks left guarding the chairman's tower are rendered to husks as she passes, split open by the dark blade.

From above the golden queen rains down fire on the artillery below, exploding shells bursting into puffs of black smoke in the air around her. Golden bullets split the thick metal hulls of tanks and heavy guns, sending Golden Age soldiers running in their wake.
Sayaka's work removes several more from the equation, though she does not find anyone particularly happy with her bouquets of swords. Gunfire erupts, though on a much smaller scale than what might have been possible before she'd removed several of the heavy machinery from the equation.
Gunfire pings across Steven's shield in retaliation as the boy makes his presence known, soldiers toppling and scattering.

And they all go forward. The noise and chaos of battle go with them, bullets, grades, and shells exploding into the air as the group forces their way forward. Past the last line of soldiers at the door to the great tower, and into sparkling lobby within. The massive rose seal, assembled in the floor tiles under their feet, is still pristine. The light of the chandelier above illuminates not more soldiers, but only doors to the twin elevators that run through the skeleton of the long tower.

There seem to be no stairs at all-no way up to the student council chambers and the students held captive there save the iron cages of the elevator cars. And time is of the essence. Who knows when Alyssa Searrs could call down another strike from her heavenly child, and the mass of soldiers are still in pursuit, attempting to funnel through the huge doors behind and prevent the infiltrators from making any further progress.

OOC: You may toss parting attacks at the soldiers (aka me), but please be on an elevator by end of pose. There are a whole two to pick from!

COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Real Guns on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Real Guns on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Grenade Diversity on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Surprise Shotgun on Steven Universe.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Real Guns on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji perfectly braces 25 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Real Guns, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Brace! Fuu Hououji's Block and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Steven Universe counters 3 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Surprise Shotgun, taking 10 Fatigue damage! Stagger applied to Steven Universe!
COMBAT: Steven Universe's counterattack, Reverb Shield, partially gets through, doing 5 Fatigue damage to Ye-jin Song! Stagger and Stun applied to Ye-jin Song!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki braces 16 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Real Guns, taking 13 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Sayaka Miki is Quipped! Sayaka Miki's Block and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi perfectly dodges 7 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Grenade Diversity, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Dodge! Mikoto Minagi's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe fails to brace Ye-jin Song's Real Guns, taking 21 Fatigue damage! Mami Tomoe is Quipped!

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Being bright and brilliant also means being a target--and Mami does not entirely escape the hail of retaliation that comes for her. Shrapnel explodes from a detonating shell; assault rifles move up to try to find her--and an ordinary girl would be destroyed.

...As it stands, Mami lands, with powder burns and gunshot wounds, a little less gracefully than she would like, drawing in a breath quickly--it isn't the rhythm she wanted, forces her to gather herself back up again. However...

A Puella Magi is not so easy to destroy as that, and she rises after, seeking out Sayaka ahead with her beautiful sowrds. "Perfect work," the senpai declares to her eager kohai, smiling at her as she looks up again to the tower--to a line of soldiers. "Shall we head up?" she asks of Sayaka, far across the battlefield from Haruka and Yumi and others.

A beat, "...I've been curious about it for a time," she admits, "Since I don't have the open schedule for Student Council work..."

Well, she does know Juri Arisugawa.

Her words are light, but her movements are careful--she steps forward, and this time throws ribbons at soldiers to prevent them firing their weapons, in favor of unnecessary killing. She goes for the right elevator--

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

That, thinks the Wind Knight, went surprisingly smoothly -

And she promptly stops thinking that, when a few soldiers gather themselves and open fire on her as she's passing. More by reflex than plan, she brings her sword around and up, holding it with the blade angled downwards between herself and the guns (and the soldiers).

She would have expected to need a good bit wider of a blade, and possibly heavier, to actually fend off all of the bullets ... but apparently these particular mercenaries are the precision shooters of their squad, or something. The few bullets that *don't* ricochet off of her sword skim off the Wind Knight's armor instead.

There's a lull in the gunfire, not from clips being emptied but from a dawning realization among the soldiers that they aren't getting through her defense. Before they can try adjusting their aim, the Magic Knight of Wind flicks her hand - not a proper attack spell, but a stiff gust of wind to throw them further off-balance - and hurries into the tower proper.

She's closer to the left than to the right, and thusly she steps into the left elevator, holding the gate for any of her allies who join her on that side; the Wind Knight also offers a smile and a bow of the head to Mami.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

The shield, despite not hovering on Steven's forearm, still seems intrinsically attached to him somehow. As incoming fire rains down on the shield, A foot has to dog is as kinetic jolts slam Steven back several times, sending painful vibrations up his outstretched arm. But that isn't the only thing reverberating.

As bullets connect with the shield, sound waves ripple out, disrupting and cracking the nearby ground, and causing undue pain to those in front of the shield. As well, the ammunition reflects every which way imaginable in a frontal area. It isn't long until the soldiers literally undo themselves. Spotting an opening, Steven grasps the azure lip of his shield and runs toward the tower.

The fighting grows more intense as the group packs in toward their destination. And for the little boy, he has to play a bit of stealth getting past another group as everyone converges. Slipping around an ornate pillar. Admittedly, when there are others causing massive explosions and bursts of magic, it makes for a good distraction!

A pair of elevators offer momentary respite and travel to their destinations. The little Gem Child piles into the left elevator, gasping for air. "I need... to ask... the Gems... how to... shapeshift better clothes..." he sputters out, wrenching ad his overly tight shirt collar. Whether or not he can actually /do/ that like them though is a question for another time.

It is only now he notices someone else i nthe elevator. "Ghh...! Oh, hey! Good work out there," he says, slumping on a side wall. "S... Sorry for bailing on your earlier, I was so scared, I didn't know what to do, and..." He trails off, but begins anew with a better thought. "You are doing great out there. The guys ahead will be no match for you, I bet!" he says nicely, trying to uplift her spirits. "And if it gets too dangerous, I got your back. We got this! We can free the school!"

COMBAT: Steven Universe has used Love Like You on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Steven Universe has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji accepts Steven Universe's Love Like You, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Fuu Hououji is Cheered! Surge applied to Fuu Hououji!

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Grenades hail down, and there is a world where Mikoto is scored with shrapnel again, a hundred-hundred tiny metal lances launched with concussive force.

But perhaps knowing Homura for so long -- and being caught in explosives so recently -- is its own teacher. Mikoto sees the first bounce down, and springs away, and it is the first in a series of snapshots of diving and weaving and never quite being staggered or thrown aside. Homura has

the element of surprise; these soldiers do not.

She is not distracted in her dance between the explosive hail they rain down.

She is running for the tower.

She is screaming: "/KOZUE!/"

Mai rises from the ocean and Mikoto knows she will punish the soldiers for their transgressions. Mai promised she would be safe. Mikoto promised to take care of it. ... what an interesting contrast.

And then she is into the lobby, and the battle behind them is shielded by walls. A rose beneath them, lights above; they cast a shadow at Mikoto's feet as she walks. And Mikoto is apart from many of the girls around her, uninvolved in so many of their works. She is not sure she can properly call any of the people here her friends...

... so the friends of her friends will have to function well enough to follow.

Mikoto has heard complaints from Mami and Sayaka, but they are important, to Eri and Madoka and Homura. They are known quantities.

Mami asks Sayaka if they ought to head up, and Mikoto just steps into the elevator beside them, completely uninvited and utterly self-assured. At least she's not attacking soldiers in the process. She glances to them, finds blue eyes and ones gold like hers in so many fashions,
and she makes an unsettled noise in the back of her throat as she looks aside. "... Eri and Homura are okay," she says, the words a little awkward, unsure of what to say, delivering information instead of hopes or aspirations. "I think."

She doesn't know what happened to Madoka.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Rather than praise her, the gunners draw sidearms and start shooting at her. Sayaka seems almost to disappear into her cape as she drops low, then surges forward. She takes a bullet on her way over, grunting as caves down to her knees and slams them into the first gunner. Bearing him to the ground, Sayaka ends up kneeling on his chest, slicing her sword back behind her to neatly sever the barrel of the pistol.

The gunner hesitates a moment, then decides to try to fire it anyway. The shot goes wild, but scares Sayaka, who had thought the gun disabled. She shoves herself to her feet so fast she bonks her head on the gun emplacement. "Uuugh!" she moans, embarrassed. The gunner with his sawed-off pistol steps up to try and plant it against Sayaka, realizing how inaccurate it is now, but Sayaka moves into him to prevent it, stepping through his space and turning around to grab his head. Tossing her feet in the air, she drops down straight onto her back, forcing him to do the same, only with the added unpleasantness of being on the bottom.

"Huhh," Sayaka pants. She winces, reaching up under her armpit to grab the bullet her healing is pushing out. As she picks herself up, she places the bent slug on the unconscious man's chest. That move is called the sitout sometimes, and this gentleman is definitely going to be sitting this one out.

"Give this back to your buddy," she advises, patting the bullet almost fondly.

Jogging up to Mami, Sayaka beams at the praise. "Keheh. Mami-senpai took out the bigger guns." Turning, she looks up the tower, finding it more imposing when it's a fortress to assault than when it was just a school building.

"Mami-senpai would definitely win if she ran, even for president!" Sayaka proclaims, clenching a fist near her jawline emphatically. Following Mami into the car, she beams visibly, her mouth at a traditional, possibly copyrighted "Smiley Face" angle. When Mikoto jogs through to stand between her and Mami, that angle reverses into an equal and opposite frowny face.

It softens, though, as Mikoto visibly worries about the others. "They're okay," she says, resting a hand on Mikoto's shoulder. "Those two can handle themselves. And absolutely nobody but nobody can beat my best friend Madoka!"

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Frozen In Time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjnW7icsx9I

As the Magical Girls file into one of the elevators, another slips into the rear to join those filing into the one on the right. There's no masque on her face, simply the hood drawn up over her hair to enclose even her bangs. Those who are bright and brilliant cast long shadows don't they? And as they celebrate - carry on, she stands within those shadows.

Her eyes drifting upwards like she was heading for the same goal as the rest of them - like she belongs there - yet stands apart. She does not sneak glances at the others in the elevator. She doesn't need to - to know who is here - whether in this elevator - or the adjacent shaft.

-=-=-

There's the feel of a head on her shoulder - and the smell of chlorine in the summer air. "You know... I like going into the water more than I do sitting around some bonfire."

-=-=-

And then there is the scent of almost far too sweet - cloying crepes. "Isn't it nice to just... exist - sometimes?" The girl says as she sits on the slats of the ruined rollercoaster ride. The park overlooking the city. "I don't mean existence is nice... but existing." The girl turns the crepe around to show Mikoto, "It's like eating crepes when noone is around who thinks something of it... or swimming in the pool by yourself at night. You get it right?"

There's this light sigh, as she chews off an end of it, allowing it's flavor to permeate her tastebuds - before she swallows, "Of course you do." Kozue's smile seems bittersweet at best. "You have a brother after all. So you know what it's like."

-=-=-

The gates of the elevator squeezes shut with a strange coordination - as a girl in each hits the button for the Student Council Chambers, and the cars traversing upwards becomes a silhouette of a cage against the strange geometry of the portals showing the sky outside of the chairman's tower.

She doesn't respond for a while, hands at her sides, bobbing up and down on her feet in a gesture of impatience but the moment someone looks at her a little too hard - she states-

"Before we get started. Does anyone want to give up?"

It's then that everyone might be alerted to the traitor in their midst. It's unmistakable whose voice it is. As the girl's gaze slips down, and an Element snaps into her hand - materializing out of nowhere. The shadow of a sickle, with it's chain seemingly drawn up inside the handle. Surely this lone girl doesn't believe she can take them all on?

"Cassandra."

BGM Change: Countdown - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiBy3p3ffa8

The word hangs in the air for a moment, before the entire elevator screeches - rocking and shuddering - it's archaic design lacking the same modern anchors - the light from outside of the Chairman's tower flickering like a strobe. The Child's talons are gripping the top of the elevator - like a vulture sitting atop the cage of a chipper songbird. It's crimson eyes glaring down eerily. Kozue sets upon Mami Tomoe first - attempting to bring her sickle down through her wrist to pin her against the cage wall - so she'll have a harder time firing up.

At the same time - pipes burst all over the elevator shaft, spraying them with what feels like a sprinkler like rain shower. The water causing the floor to grow slick in these few moments of disorienting ambush, as it streams off the edges. As the elevator passes by one pipe in that moment - it's severed payload hangs suspended in the air - like gravity was arrested droplet by droplet.

They elongate, stretching out and joining to congeal into long tendrils that try to clothesline Mikoto from approaching her. The ends stretching out to slide through the cage doors and wrap around the elevator - it's grip tightening to grind her back - including a still healing wound against the cold metal. "You should have stayed in custody-" There's a sort of redirection in that thought. "-both of you."

Almost like a terrible command.

The cage then rocks in another way entirely, as something smashes into the elevator floor from below. Again - and again - and again. The metal of the elevator floor warping and buckling beneath Sayaka Miki until it gives - the sudden column of water ripping her off her feet to try to smash her into the ceiling - pinning her to the ceiling. The talons of the Child suddenly squeeze, trying to shape the metal around her back to try to keep her held in place.

"Hang in there... Sayaka-chan."

There's such a cruel twist of the knife in those words to her childhood friend. Before she seems to ignore her - pressing her attack on her mentor. "Fighting monsters has gone to all of your heads. Makes you think you can beat any enemy or that you're some heroes of justice."

As she tries to drive Mami Tomoe against the wall. "That isn't what this is about. The only truth to be found here is that every woman, even the most powerful - and most beautiful..." She taunts up close, almost sensuously in her struggle for dominance, "...can't change the fact that they'll go down on their knees when a man insists hard enough."

Kozue uses her elbow to try to hinder her movement, to keep her boxed in - while her knee whips up to try to brutalize her gut - and keep her from resisting. As she whispers almost sensuously. "Why fight what you can't even hope to resist?"

All of this struggle - for a singular purpose - of puncture one of the Golden Queen's limbs and hooking them to a wall.

The elevator continues in it's disorienting shifts and turns - all the while the Child's weight stands above, the creature having far too many sharp ends for anyone's liking - given that it's embracing the cord keeping them all suspended over the abyss.

COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru transforms into Kozue and Cassandra!
COMBAT: Cassandra has fully healed herself. She is now ready to take on 3 opponents!
COMBAT: Cassandra has used Toccata on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Cassandra has used Ebbe und Fluth on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Cassandra has used Die erwachende Thetis on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Cassandra has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe fails to dodge Cassandra's Toccata, taking 22 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi cleanly braces 11 Fatigue damage from Cassandra's Ebbe und Fluth, taking 2 Fatigue damage! Cassandra is Psyched! Stun and Tangle applied to Mikoto Minagi!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki fails to dodge Kozue Kaoru's Die erwachende Thetis, taking 45 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Ye-jin Song [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Song at Midnight - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uvh-DUb0QQ

From an entrance high above, Ye-jin Song waits. Dark eyes track the progress of the two elevators as they rise, following their steady ascent up through the tower. She waits patently, until the metal boxes are just a few stories below. Then she jumps.

Air rushes past the White Queen as she descends, wine-red hair flaring behind her like in a dark corona. Fabric ripples as she descends, plummets those long feet to meet the roof of the second elevator with a metallic clang of impact. The sound is not, perhaps, as immediately alarming as the arrival of Kozue and Cassandra, which Steven and Fuu can easily witness through the bars that separate the two metal boxes.

It becomes more so shortly. Ye-jin's fingers trace the air and her Element forms inside of them, a neatly coiled length of white cord. A flick of her wrist splits the roof of the elevator open as easily as a more mundane bullwhip might sheer open a soda can. Metal screams as a long hole is abruptly torn, exposing the masked girl above to the two occupants in the car below.

It's the sound that's the worst part. It reverberates with agonizing volume inside of the elevator shaft, visibly distorting the space between the two occupants. As the cord snaps back into her hand Ye-jin scowls. "You're really starting to piss me off, you know?" She does not sound happy to see either the Wind Knight, not the boy in pink once again. "I hate wasting my time."

COMBAT: Ye-jin Song transforms into PRInCESS Ye-jin!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has fully healed herself. She is now ready to take on 2 opponents!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Sonic Shock on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has cancelled their attack on Fuu Hououji. If there are more attacks that need to be +cancelled, please hold all +attacks until the process is complete.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Sonic Shock on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Sonic Shock on Steven Universe.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Grace and Glory on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji braces 6 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Sonic Shock, taking 5 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Fuu Hououji's Block and Parry abilities activate! Cripple applied to Fuu Hououji!
COMBAT: Steven Universe fails to brace Ye-jin Song's Sonic Shock, taking 7 Fatigue damage! Cripple applied to Steven Universe!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song accepts Ye-jin Song's Grace and Glory, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Accelerate and Surge applied to Ye-jin Song!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

The Magic Knight of Wind smiles wryly at Steven, although the wryness fades as he speaks to her. "We haven't been blessed with much certainty about anything of late, have we?" she replies. "None of us are really at our best -"
The universe decides to double down on that point almost immediately thereafter, yanking the Wind Knight's attention away with the sudden commotion being wrought in the other elevator. And then *their* elevator comes under similar attack: perhaps less catastrophically destructive, but at least as violent and attention-grabbing.

The Wind Knight brings her sword up as the elevator's roof is torn open, and she has some defense up even before the cord lashes through the air. You wouldn't expect a raised length of metal to provide much protection against a sound so harsh as to be literally painful, though ...
In this case, maybe it's a small matter of familiarity breeding contempt; the Wind Knight has been on the receiving end of this before, and not that long ago. Or maybe it's just a measure of luck and reflex - she certainly doesn't really have time to cover her ears; all she can do is wince and endure it, knowing the noise doesn't last indefinitely.

"Believe me, the feeling is mutual," she retorts to the White Queen with an ever-so-faint smile, her voice raised over the sonic onslaught. "Unfortunately, if you were hoping we would back down, we'll have to disappoint you. Winds of Admonishment!!" she calls out still more loudly, trying to entrap the White Queen in a binding whirlwind.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Winds of Admonishment on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has finished attacking.
COMBAT: White Queen fails to brace Fuu Hououji's Winds of Admonishment, taking 18 Fatigue damage! Fuu Hououji is Psyched! Cripple and Trap applied to White Queen!

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Mami herself would be forced to admit only internally that she is less likely to be quite so kind to her opponents... But it's endlessly charming from her student and friend Sayaka anyway. Once they're together--
"Well, you know what they say--fight guns with guns." She nods, as if that's a real saying, and then smiles--with the rough time they've all had, unfettered /praise/ is a balm. "Well--"
She pauses, then, as she spots Mikoto coming through. For an instant, her old habits make her wonder if they will have a difficulty here-- with Mikoto, who she has had issue with before, who is shouting even now for her enemies--what was the name, over the gunfire? And yet.
That doesn't happen.

"Thank you," Mami says to Mikoto, as Sayaka reassures her in turn. "I haven't had a chance to meet up with them, yet..." A pause, and then she smiles back at Sayaka. "That's right. Madoka-chan will be fine--but," she turns back to Mikoto as they go up, "I did see her, before the battle." She pauses, an instant, and considers--she saw Kagutsuchi flying out towards the others...

"...I believe Tokiha-san will be fine too," Mami offers. They've had their disagreements in the past--plenty of them--but now is not the time for them. Now, they work together. ...And for shadows...
Mami Tomoe /is/ a brilliant fond of light, isn't she?

She recognizes the voice when Kozue speaks up--recognizes the sound of a weapon materializing, and turns immediately, her demeanor changing. "Sayaka--!"

Her warning for the other girl is cut off by Mami clamping her mouth shut to avoid crying out as the sickle slams straight through her arm--and the fact of Kozue's choice is made wise as in the same instant the gun she'd already summoned fires, far wide of the Child above them.

Water crashes down upon them, and when it hits Mami's delicate sleeve it flows red. "I didn't ask your opinion," Mami asks, and it is as close to a snarl as a girl as refined as Mami gets. But she doesn't have time to free herself immediately. Gone to their heads, has it?

Mami is already on the wall; driving her against it is easy, and the older girl narrows her eyes as she sees Kozue close. If there is a sensuality to it, perhaps it is in the senses; the scent of chlorinated water warring with that of flowers. The soft fabric as delicate as crepe paper, warring against slick red. A sharp elbow into soft flesh.

"To /your/ knees is a familiar trip," Mami spits darkly at Kozue, coughing as the knee hits her gut, and she feels the searing pain of her wrist /stuck/ such that it puts stars in her vision--
Before the next strike pins her arm closer to the elbow and Mami lets out a shout of anger as much as pain.

Her eyes snap up. "What would /you/ know about resisting anything?" Mami spits back at her. "Not all of us think it's our purpose in life to sleep through the student body!"

Her free hand comes up--and while one might expect it it to just be a gentle movement, it isn't. Mami's fist snakes out for Kozue's face, and in the wake of it ribbons course off of her other wrist, wending about arms, about hands, about her weapon to slow and tire, streaming in gold.
"So get /OUT!/"

COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has used Parete on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

"Nah... it's all been guesswork, but following our hearts always seems to lead us where to go. At least we can count on those, right?" he asked with a smile.

The elevator ride up was a serene moment in an otherwise tumultuous event. A chance to clear one's head before the trials meet them. The boy rests his chin thoughtfully atop an edge of his shield, balancing it from there as he stared off through the metal safety bars. Unfortunately for Steven and his elevator partner, someone seems intent on interrupting that.

A metallic groawn and a shudder grab the boy's attention. "What was that? Are they sabotaging the elevator?" He stands, and carefuly walks to the edge, a tender hand grabbing a metal bar. A look beyond shows the opposite elevator with the Puella Magi and Mikoto is under attack! "We gotta do something! Can we reach--"

A deafening snap of metal and flick of light reveals their roof is now missing a section, and a familiar figure who caused problems not too many nights ago is seen. Not only seen, but heard. Heard in the worst way. As if someone put an angry housecat in front of a chain of megaphones. THe boy grips his ears, though again there is a strange, further effect that grates at his being, coming from inside somewhere.

Violent sounds just seem to cause him undue problems.

"What is your problem, Lady?!" he shouts up as his hearing slowly returns. "We're trying to save the school from being blown up! Go... away!" A thought and a forceful hand creates a section of a Bubble Shield, that he launches after the Wind Knight blasts outward with wind, attempting to impact the masked figure and knock her away, or off, or somewhere than isn't here, because he doesn't need this right now! "If you care about this school at all you'll help us save everyone!"

COMBAT: Steven Universe has used Repelling Shield on White Queen.
COMBAT: Steven Universe has finished attacking.
COMBAT: White Queen partially dodges 3 Fatigue damage from Steven Universe's Repelling Shield, taking 13 Fatigue damage! White Queen's Fade ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka does not acknowledge the hooded girl at first, her attention on Mikoto. But as the doors slide closed, her eyes trace over, at first just for a glance. She finds herself staring, though. Some intuition keeps her watching. It isn't her danger sense. It's a sense of familiarity.
Narrowing her eyes, Sayaka feels herself unfocusing, her mind trying to find something. A feather, a scent of aquamarine. Her head tilts.
The voice of a girl Sayaka was raised with answers a riddle unasked.

Sayaka doesn't move. She knows a twitch will be answered by violence. She can see the blade glittering in Kozue's hand. She can feel the tension in the air.

This would have been unthinkable, even moments ago. Sayaka never dreamed she'd fight Kozue. But whatever scrap of wisdom she has gained in her young life is resonating inside her. Somehow... somehow she just knows.

"Do you mean," she asks softly, "anyone else?"

"Sayaka!" Mami shouts.

Sayaka rips a sword from sizzling blue nothing, bringing it overhead. Her strike is decisive, because it comes from Mami, but uncommited, because it goes towards Kozue. It is also useless, because Cassandra has her own ideas about who is attacking whom today. Jarred violently, Sayaka drops to one knee.

"Senpai!" she shouts a warning. Being trapped in an elevator is a vulnerable position for Mami. Better for Mikoto and Sayaka to handle this--
Better, but not to be.

Sayaka feels the equivalent of a broken hydrant's worth of water hit her in the chest, driving her off her feet. She loses her sword, which clatters to the ground and spins there in the flow, as Sayaka herself strikes the ceiling forcefully. Thrashing, she tries to free herself from the water, only to feel the ceiling itself "grab" her, wrapping her torso in bent metal.

Blowing water from her mouth and nose, Sayaka lifts her head parallel to the ceiling so she can see what's going on beneath her. "Kozue!" Sayaka shouts, but Kozue no longer seems to even know that she's up there, for all the attention she pays. She freezes in alarm as she sees Kozue slam Mami into the wall. Mami is endlessly resourceful, and hardly helpless at close range, but a match for Kozue? At a distance shorter than the length of a musket? She's afraid Mami will get cut down at any moment. If only Madoka were here.

Sayaka kicks with her legs, but they're not long enough to reach Kozue's head unless she was standing right beneath. If only Kozue was taller. Gritting her teeth, Sayaka tries to lift one shoulder to pull an arm free. A rib or two didn't make it through this, and crushed like this, she can't heal it either. Groaning rises to an angry scream as Sayaka drags at her own arm hard, pulling it against the claw-crushed metal. Her voice rises, her feet pedal, and she yanks a heavily abraded arm free.

Gasping, Sayaka snatches a sword from her dangling cape with the freed hand, and tosses it to catch it in a reverse grip. Heaving, she slams it in hilt-deep into the ceiling, then rips it free again. Unsure where to stab to get Cassandra to let go, she slams her sword down again and again, puncturing holes in the ceiling at different spots.

"Hang on!" she urges.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has used Furioso on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

There is another girl, but Mikoto does not know her, and pays her little mind.

She is distracted. The contact and support are unexpected, as Sayaka hears the concern Mikoto has for the other Puella Magi - and the one left unnamed. Mami's kindness joins her, reassuring her that Madoka is all right in a different way to Sayaka's concrete belief, and her expression gentles for a moment into something so much more fragile, more breakable, more vulnerable and raw. The upwards arc of her brow and her lips, the little shudder-halt of a breath before a sigh of relief; she's happy. It is so easy to ease Mikoto, even in the depths of the oblivion SEARRS has brought her. "I..."

She breathes through her lips and at first she does not catch the scent of it.

...

"Is it okay?" Mikoto asks of existing, legs swinging over the precarious edge of the rollercoaster. Her eyes drop to the black case on her other side, but her hands are occupied with a crepe half-devoured. "Sometimes, I feel like... I'm having too much fun. Nice to not have to... but... what if I'm not doing enough 'cause I like it too much?"

Her teeth drag over her lips, and she takes another bite of crepe - and then another, because crepes are delicious. "Did I give up 'cause I have friends now? Am I not trying hard enough? Is that why I haven't completed my mission? I - I didn't mean to. Guess I'm just scared that, one day... I won't be free to eat crepes with Kozue whenever I want. I dunno if..." Mikoto trails off, as if she has realised she is speaking too much. She so rarely speaks her mind. She so rarely speaks at length. It is long friendship which has drawn the words out of her, long patience with her silences and clipped-wing words.

She smiles, small, and there is the weight of millennia behind it. "... no, there's no way, right?" Another bite, and Mikoto notes: "It's good."

...

And all a sudden the memory clicks into place with the scent, and shock floods through the succour on Mikoto's face as her gaze snaps to the stranger. Her breath catch-lodges in her throat, sucked in through grit teeth. She knows.

Golden eyes snap down to the kusarigama she comes to hold; on reflex she draws Miroku up, covering her belly. "Ko--" It is the word she has been screaming this whole time. Now she is here, the word chokes.

It's getting damp in here. The sprinklers are making her eyes wet, creeping down her face. When did Ohtori decide on salt water to quench their fires?

In-out her breath shudders and she growls against it, diving forward - and oh, these are /such/ small quarters, aren't they? - but she cannot clear the few steps of distance.

Cassandra is come.

Her reckless approach is punished by solid water, and she is slammed against the back of the elevator. She grits her teeth and bears it, and she had thought she was whole but Kozue brings out the memory of pain regardless.

Perhaps it is a function of her opponent.

But Mami says she knows nothing of resisting and Mikoto cries out: "Don't!" And it is not the sprinkler which sets her words awobble.

"Kozue," she says, and they are not battle-edged words, "Kozue-! I know! I know but - we can /help,/ Kozue! This isn't right! Kozue wasn't made for this!" The words thin in their grief and she does not know the shape of them. She is not Madoka; she does not speak reason. She does not redeem sad girls.

But when her friends are in trouble, she gets involved.

She heard what they called her. She heard how they laughed.

Kozue is in trouble.

With a cry she wrests her blade up and carves through the water, because the water isn't quite water any more. She stumbles as she is freed and she does not want to, does not want to, but she can't hope to resist, and she knows the way the truth carves the world open.

She will try not to kill her. She will try.

There is no room here to gain momentum; it is a swing as Mikoto steps in to match Kozue from behind, in the wake of Mami's ribbons. Her breath hitches in a sob as she brings her blade in towards flesh, an upwards strike from below. It is edged; it will cut.
The truth carves the world open.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Blade: Disequilibrium on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru fails to counter Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Disequilibrium, taking 40 Fatigue damage! Exhausted applied to Kozue Kaoru!
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru's counterattack, Toccata, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Mikoto Minagi!
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru braces 9 Fatigue damage from Mami Tomoe's Parete, taking 4 Fatigue damage! Kozue Kaoru's Block and Parry abilities activate! Diversion applied to Kozue Kaoru!
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru partially dodges 4 Fatigue damage from Sayaka Miki's Furioso, taking 16 Fatigue damage! Kozue Kaoru's Fade and Flash abilities activate! Sayaka Miki drains 6 fatigue from Kozue Kaoru!

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.

Something inside of her twists - as she bulls through Sayaka's comment in her assault. She has to - right through Mikoto's concern. Her coming here for her.

The adjacent shaft shrieks with the sounds of the White Queen's assault, and Kozue is glad at least that there will not be support crossing over to blindside her. The ones in that shaft are both fortunate and unfortunate in her eyes.

Fortunate because they get to die ignorant. Unfortunate because they picked the one that the White Queen was ambushed.

As Mami's fist snakes out towards Kozue's face, the girl's wrist twists, and out of nowhere a chain drops to the floor between them. Catching it with a hand in mid-air. The ribbons snap around the chain - as she diverts some of its winding path.

Sayaka stabs upwards - and Cassandra squawks - as she starts doing this shuffling dance. Her talons pattering upon the metal as what must seem like nails pop out of the floor. The final strike pops right through it - and impales it - the Child makes this noise of agony as it rocks its food back and forth to try and wobble it off it.

"... That's a really good question." Kozue snarls asks what she knows about resisting anything. It's like she's forcing the insult to roll off of her and strike...

... her beloved kouhai - like ricochet from a musket ball turned friendly fire, "Why don't /you/ tell her Sayaka-chan? That's why you gave up your one and only wish - and gave it to a boy. So tell her from someone who's seen the truth with her own eyes... what all her pride is going to amount to." That smile is knowing - vicious - even in the profile of what angle Sayaka can catch of her from her position against the ceiling, "Don't lose your nerve now."

Kozue however loses her own nerve a little as Mikoto tries to cut through. Carving en route to her. She has to turn around suddenly to try to match the blow - ripping her sickle free from Mami, but Mami's ribbons are hindering her - and so as she does, Mikoto's blow smashes into the chain, and thus smashes her back against the wall with a gasp.

The Child, now furious causes more pipes to spring leaks - one after one. And suddenly a column of water stabs through the ceiling, just missing Sayaka to stab down at Mikoto with a pressurized stream - that seems like to drive her through the floor if it gets her way. "Help? What a laugh. As if you'd ask me for help if you were in the same position with your Ani-Ue."

Kozue recovers - trying to shake it off - ducking down like she's going to press her assault and swing her sickle at Mami's belly. "Someone reinforced to me-" However at the last second, she backsteps, revealing the feint. "-what I was made for." The water soaked floor suddenly swirls upwards to try and spiral around Mami's feet, and trying to wrench her down to the elevator floor.

... where Kozue will most assuredly advance again.

Sayaka in comparison is perhaps 'fortunate' in that Cassandra has finally had enough of her stabbing - and tries to reverse the trick on her by jamming her wingtip through the ceiling. Again - and again - and again. Like a blade trap that keeps going off. It's perhaps not the best way to deal with the girl. However - much like it's HiME, the Child has a temper.

"Don't worry /Mami-san/." There's a little bit of a blood haze in her eyes, "You still wanna think you're better than me?" The girl tries to use her blade to sever a few of the ribbons. "I'll let you hold onto that fairy tale for as long as you can. After all - it won't be me you're going down on your knees for."

COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru has used Toccata on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru has used Ebbe und Fluth on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru has used Ondine's Curse on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi fails to dodge Kozue Kaoru's Ondine's Curse, taking 52 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe counters 4 Fatigue damage from Kozue Kaoru's Ebbe und Fluth, taking 13 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Kozue Kaoru is Psyched! Mami Tomoe's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate! Stun and Tangle applied to Mami Tomoe!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe's counterattack, Tiro Retort, partially gets through, doing 16 Fatigue damage to Kozue Kaoru! Critical Counterhit!

<Pose Tracker> White Queen [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

The wind that Fuu conjures is a much more violent turbulence than the White Queen experienced on her trip down the elevator shaft. A hand rises to shield her face, red strands of hair once again streaming outward as the wind knight's magic buffets against her. Her footing is tenuous at best, in the force of that gale.

The blow from Steven's shield bubble loosens it altogether. She rises abruptly from the roof of the elevator, puffing into the air like a plastic bag in a windstorm. For a moment she hovers in space, brilliantly lit against in the sky in the vast window that borders the elevator.
Until her hand flashes again, and the length of her whip flashes through the opening in the roof once more. It might seem for a moment that she's missed-she strikes neither crystal gem nor wind knight, the white strands instead binding tight around a mass of metal grating at the side of the elevator. It seems, for a moment, a mistake. At least until a kick of her foot against the elevator shaft and a snap of her arm sends the masked girl shooting back along the length of her element, down into the elevator like a bullet.

Her path runs on a collision course with Fuu, crashing bodily toward the wind knight with intent to do meteoric violence. "There's nothing that isn't disappointing about you," She hisses, "So just go to hell!" The whip untangles from it's anchor once she's in the elevator itself, returning to her hand once more.

Just in time for her to pirouette toward Steven, pivoting like and dancer and letting the cord spool out once more. White cord streaks through the confined space of the elevator, the vicious tip of the White Queen's weapon finding it's prey with unerring accuracy.
"If you care so much about your stupid school," She snarls, "You should have behaved when you had the chance!"
COMBAT: White Queen has used Brutal Dance on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: White Queen has used Focus Flense on Steven Universe.
COMBAT: White Queen has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji fails to counter White Queen's Brutal Dance, taking 23 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! White Queen is Psyched! Exhausted applied to Fuu Hououji!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji's counterattack, Spinning Slash, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to White Queen!
COMBAT: Steven Universe braces 15 Fatigue damage from White Queen's Focus Flense, taking 12 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Steven Universe's Block and Parry abilities activate! Cripple applied to Steven Universe!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

Much as Mikoto confirmed in the other elevator, there isn't really enough room to 'spin up' for a powerful melee attack within these confines. The Wind Knight tries anyway, less a circle of her sword and more a twist of her body, trying to add force to a counterstrike - but she leaves herself too wide open on the wind-up, and the White Queen slams into her hard enough that the green-clad Magic Knight rebounds off the inside of the elevator, wobbling on her feet.

But when she lifts her gaze to her adversary, there's a rare tint of anger in her gaze. Usually she only gives that kind of personally-aggravated look to Zagato's minions, or other villainous minions who've managed to hurt her where it's personal.
She might never have bestowed such a glower on another magical girl. She might not realize that behind the White Queen's mask *is* another magical girl.

"Ignorance must truly be bliss, for you not to realize what drives us right now," the Wind Knight says, her voice quiet but still razor-edged. "If we meet on more friendly terms, help me remember to apologize properly."
A gale abruptly arises within the elevator's confines, breached though they are by the Queen's entrance in the roof. It still isn't enough room to really cut loose ...

"Emerald Cyclone!!"

... but the Magic Knight of Wind has had to focus and constrain her wrath before, and she does so with most of her usual aplomb. It's almost like a rebuttal to the sonic onslaught from before, the wind not rending like normal, but buffeting violently, even viciously. It's a wind force which could uproot trees or tanks alike - and the Wind Knight turns her power squarely on the White Queen, raising her voice once more to be heard over the conjured tempest:

"JUST GET OUT OF OUR WAY!!!"

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Even in this, Mami would rather spare Sayaka, but that simply won't be possible. Already Mami can hear the sounds of combat in the other car, the White Queen and her harsh words just close--and she cannot but hope that the others can hold her attention, because this position...
Being enclosed in this space is /not/ to Mami Tomoe's advantage.

"I don't think I'm going anywhere!" Mami calls back to Sayaka, and with the splintering pain in her arm, more than a third of the way to a crucifixion, she cannot entirely comprehend Mikoto's words at first, her quiet manner.
...Help her. Isn't made for this. How often has Mami heard something like that, and relented?

But by this point she cannot simply shrug off her ire--not when Kozue tries to redirect onto Sayaka. Rather than shocking or stopping Mami--it makes her angrier.

"You have /no idea/ what I've seen of girls and their wishes," Mami answers, and the memory of a girl in red adds venom to drip from her words. There are reasons she says as she does--
She could have sympathy, being nervous of Mikoto--in another way.

"Aah--" Mami can't stay silent as the sickle is ripped free again, and that arm hangs, limp and useless, at her side. Kozue denies help, and she feints--

Mami doesn't bother defending; she lets herself be grabbed by the water, but in the instant before it pulls, she puts out her hand--and a short cannot bursts into being in her hand, and erupts in a line for Kozue, upward, upward--

Mami's ribbons stick, and hold; they can be gotten through... it just takes a bit of time.

"I don't have to /think/ I'm better than some spoiled, petulant girl," Mami answers, and she sees that haze and looks down her nose /harder/. She's still in a vulnerable position, slamming downwards, but as she hits the floor of the elevator--

Ribbons /burst/ from all around her, great golden lines that crash outward, that give Mikoto something to hang onto, that give Mami an instant to breathe.

"I've fought more monsters than you've had dates. You're years too early if you think you can force me into /anything/."

COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has used Evadere on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru perfectly counters 16 Fatigue damage from Mami Tomoe's Evadere, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Critical Counter! Kozue Kaoru's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe is unable to keep fighting!
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru's counterattack, Ondine's Curse, bursts all the way through, doing 57 Fatigue damage to Mami Tomoe! Critical Counterhit! Mami Tomoe is unable to keep fighting!

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.
The manifested transparent shield makes contact, and propels your assailant away. "When will they learn?!" he says with a bit of a scowl. The boy turns to look back across at the other fight raging as a pointed filament surges right past him and grasps a spot upon the elevator. "Still?"
In moments, the masked opponent is within the elevator with them. Fuu is the first to be attacked, giving Steven the moment to ready his shield. Tang-tang-tang-tang goes the implement as it clashes agains element. The final spin catches Stevens shoulder as it licks up and over the rim of the shield, a few drops of blood fly and hit the floor-- the whip has a small red spot. Though considering how fast it flies it could be clean by the time it stops moving.

"Gargh...." grumbles Steven, reaching to his shoulder. "None of this even makes any sense, if the girl wanted the help of HiME to stop a terrorist incidenct, how can they even help if they get blown up in thirty-six hours?!" He complains most likely to no avail, but Steven won't stay quiet.

The boy looks toward Fuu, who in retaliation, readies one of her most powerful abilities. He looks up and sees an opportunity. "We got this! Lets punch her ticket!" Mustering what power he has left to offer, he forms two sheaths of Bubble Shield, that crash through the metal bars on both size and almost take their place. While not a full seal, Fuu's wind is forced into one space, and exit out one way-- the hole the WHite Queen formed.

Steven can anchor himself to his shields, and Fuu is most likely immune to her own power, which means...! "You should have taken a different flight!"

COMBAT: Sayaka Miki perfectly counters 21 Fatigue damage from Kozue Kaoru's Toccata, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Counter!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki's counterattack, Disjunct Chord, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Kozue Kaoru!

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Nine Inch Nails - The Great Below https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pev0dINRaok

Mikoto does not fight for strangers. She does not care about the thousands of faceless, nameless students captured here in Ohtori. She cares about people, specific people, and she has never once fought for the good of the world, but she has fought for the ones she cares about.
Sometimes the world is helped while she helps her loved ones. It's incidental.

Mikoto charged for the tower and screamed a name and it's Kozue, she came here for Kozue, she will rip this tower off its foundations for Kozue.

Kozue does not listen.

Perhaps it is because of the violence Mikoto brings to bear. She slams Kozue into the wall and advances, hefting up her blade, and water courses out behind her. She is too close for Cassandra to strike - without striking her girl. Miroku's edge keeps her against the wall, not quite pressing in. In her eyes is an earnest plea; she wants so badly to fix this.

Kozue poses her question and the desperation written on her face is wiped clean with new shock, and Kozue knows so intimately the expression Mikoto bears now when she has been stabbed through. Her jaw gapes, her breath shudders in and out too quickly, and without thinking she jerks away. "That's not --"

isn't it? really?

... in her haste to stumble back, she does not hear the water which cuts.

With a strangled cry Mikoto is plunged down and the rushing water cannot completely mask Kozue's words, but certainly it masks a girl, down through a dark bored hole.

Perhaps it would be the end of her - but she is not alone.

Down, down the great yawning shaft, in the shifting dark where all the silhouettes go when they are stored for future use, golden ribbons burst down, and Mikoto snatches hold of one with iron grasp.

She starts climbing, with one hand and two legs, and she does not have time to linger on the pain.

There are a few nice, quiet moments when there are only two enemy combatants in the elevator...

... and then Mikoto leaps for the torn gash in the floor, just as that ribbon fades to nothing. She snarls with effort as she hoists herself up - rolls onto the floor. She does not take a moment to catch her breath, pushing herself up with rocking motions. Those golden eyes search out Kozue. She remembers what she has said.

"What Kozue's made for?" Mikoto demands, and there is a hot lance of anger to her words. "What Kozue's /made for?!/ That's not something for Tokyo girls to worry about! Here there's crepes and pools, Kozue! It's /different/ here!"

She shouts and perhaps it becomes clear where her anger lies. "What did they do?!" It is anger but it is not disbelief. It should not have happened, but that does not mean it cannot.

It was never meant to be Kozue.

Kozue was never meant to understand like this.

Mikoto cannot spin in this place - not with Mami fallen. She hefts her blade over head and it is a narrow thing, not carving /Sayaka/ instead. "Let's go back!" She cries, desperation edging into the anger of her words again as she fights through the haze. "Let's go back to existing, Kozue!" Say one thing, do another; she reaches out with her words and her stance shifts forward, Miroku carving down in a vertical slice straight towards Kozue's person.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Blade: Destruction on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru partially dodges 11 Fatigue damage from Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Destruction, taking 43 Fatigue damage! Kozue Kaoru's Fade and Flash abilities activate!

<Pose Tracker> White Queen [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

"Why would I ever care," Says the White Queen, "About anything you wanted?" Her words are tinged with fury as her knee smashes into the wind knight, the girl in red bringing her whip back to her hand once more. She notes, idly, that the stain upon it means she made her mark.
She is about to do more than that. Again her hand extends outward, prepared to fill the entirely of the elevator with the whirling, cutting length. She's interrupted abruptly by the tornado of force that Fuu summons into the enclosed space they share. The metal caging shudders, as does the floor beneath them. For a moment, it seems the entire elevator might rip itself apart--

Until Steven separates another chunk of the metal bars. The masked girl's balance falters, and once again she's picked off her feet. She hisses in anger as she's thrown violently from the carriage, smashing into the side of the elevator as the gale forces it to ascend higher and faster, and her in the opposite direction.

She goes down. Down, toward darkness. The bottom of the elevator shaft, once well-lit by the seemingly endless window behind, has abruptly turned into a pit of black smoke. She does not so much fall in it as she falls atop it, feet touching down on some unseen surface beneath the boiling darkness.

Her eyes are searing yellow lights as she watches the cars ascend. She does not pursue.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka's eyes widen as a bladed wing pops through the ceiling next to her head. Getting out of this just got even more urgent. Shoving her sword into the metal crushed around her, Sayaka starts sawing back and forth at it. But without serration, this is difficult work, and Sayaka yelps as another wing punctures near her head.

"Kozue!" Sayaka objects, shocked that she'd drag her brother into this just to hurt Sayaka. "W-well, I'm too busy to tell anybody anything, if you haven't noticed!"

Convenient but also true, Sayaka has no bandwidth for repartee at the moment. She pries at her sword like a crowbar, partially freeing herself, as Mami engaged in ribbon-enhanced fisticuffs below, and Mikoto is blasted with water. Things have been better.

"Hrrrk!" Sayaka groans. She can tell that Cassandra has narrowed down where she is, now. It has to be now or get impaled. Wrenching her arm, she rips a curved hole in the ceiling, and her body drops. Unfortunately, Cassandra can now see down into the car.

Thowing her elbow, Sayaka rotates as she falls, eyes widening as she watches the wing plunging down even faster. Grunting, she swipes at the stabbing pinion with her sword, smacking it aside. Clang, clang, clang! Three times she parries, the third just as she hits the ground. A final, devastatingly strong downward slash is coming, using the angle to make a guillotine of the wing. Sayaka, still half-bouncing from the impact, rips a second sword free and crosses them just as the pinion stabs again.

On the ground, she lies, the metal feather inches from her forehead, her crisscrossed swords supporting one another while holding up the wing. Her elbows, planted on the soaking ground, support the blades in turn.

Pursing her lips, Sayaka blows on the feather, a quick puff of air, like an Old West gunslinger with a pistol.

Cassandra has to yank her wing back at that point due to Miroku swinging its massive weight around, and Sayaka wisely sticks to where she was. Rolling back on her shoulders in its wake, she springs up, brandishing both swords, ready to challenge Cassandra through that hole again.

But as she stares up, she sees nothing but empty elevator shaft, up and up, going until the end of the world.

"/No/," Sayaka breathes. And she turns her face to Mami Tomoe.

The pillar of water drops, swallowing Mami entirely, its driving force far beyond the one that had smashed Sayaka into the ceiling. And Mami... she can't heal.

"No!" she says again. Sayaka's keen blue eyes lift to a hole in the side of the elevator. As she bolts forward to rush past Kozue, she kick-lifts the dangling chain of her kusarigami, briefly setting it sailing, a length of links floating before the hole in the wall. With a sharp thrust, Sayaka neatly plunges her sword through a link, pinning the chain to the wall. The elevator has no mercy; if Kozue doesn't get it loose, her chain is going to start dragging out of the elevator fast. Sayaka fixes her with a brief glance of disbelief and anger, her tremulous lower lip hinting at the hurt beneath.

Then, hastily as she can while being as careful as she can, Sayaka body-checks the falling Mami, catching her about the lower waist. Sayaka is a bit too late for a clean save here; Mami has fallen too much and the weight is too low to balance well. There's a moment of struggle, then Mami is arrested, held up, hugged protectively. Her stockinged knees are a few inches from the ground. But they never touched, no, never hers.

Sayaka's are planted on the ground firmly.

"Ah," Sayaka exhales. She stares at her own knees for a few seconds, dully. She has to, as she's supporting Mami's good arm with her head.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has used Caprice on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru braces 12 Fatigue damage from Sayaka Miki's Caprice, taking 5 Fatigue damage! Kozue Kaoru's Block and Parry abilities activate!

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.
<SoundTracker> The End of the Line - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm7pN2oKV4M

The cannonfire bursts into Kozue - clipping her shoulder - causing red to enter her silhouette, "Guh!"

Ribbons burst all around, and Kozue just starts swiping desperately. Trying not to get caught - the ribbons slice through the water, trailing sparkling droplets. "You're right. I don't know anything about you." It's a brutal dance for her to keep ahead of them. "I don't need to though." The ribbons extend, almost completely slicing through her bonds. Kozue swipes madly, hacking like she's trying to make a path through the Amazon. "No matter what girls you've known - no matter what wishes you've seen - no matter how many monsters you've slain."

Cassandra's baleful glowing eye can be seen in that moment through the hole in the elevator ceiling. Focused eerily on Mami. "... It's the same for every girl." To Mami Tomoe's great credit, it does not blindside her. The great torrent of water that slices down like a great arcing wave catches into the great golden lengths that she's summoned. In the end though, the great force behind the crashing wave ust barely manages to outdo the ribbons.

"Especially me." It's so muted that noone even hears that one - and perhaps there's something sad there.

Mikoto perhaps, Kozue thought - was gone. She's just as surprised when she comes back - and Cassandra is too - squawking in alarm as it swiftly retracts its wing to keep Miroku from slicing it off - thus freeing Sayaka. What did she find to hold onto down there? "Just - stay - down!" The girl has just barely cleared the ribbons - as the girl hefts her blade up in a two-handed swing.

Kozue hastily flattens herself to the side of the elevator, bringing up her sickle blade up for a desperate parry, which swings the chain mid-air. And it's that same moment that Sayaka's blade catches a link - pinning it to the shaft - distracted from the cleaving threat of Miroku - Sayaka catches her off-guard like she's a rank amateur. "Damnit!"

The sickle blade whips past her hand, and the girl hisses like she's been caught in a simple kitchen knife accident. Leaving her disarmed, wringing a hand that's now dripping blood. Well... as disarmed as someone under the protection of the Giant Swan Child can be. There's something that's almost twisted in her smile as she raises her arms in what looks like surrender. "Let's go back..."

It's like she's just echoing the words. And perhaps it does reach her. Like there's a nostalgic synchronicity to it. And something about her fighting spirit just - fades, "Wouldn't that be great? My brother would love that you know." Her eyes touch upon the sopping blue hair that Sayaka is right now, "She would too." She says in a sotto voce, a little emotional, "You can't fight time though. You can't fight change." She takes a step towards the hole, eyes on Mikoto, "... And you can't fight the way things are. It was always going to end up this way you know?"

She takes another step towards the hole in the floor. The step back allowing both Mikoto and Sayaka cradling Mami's head to come into view - as if she were taking in the full scope of her betrayal - able to witness it now, "It always does." She does not sigh - but the comment is perhaps like one. Like a fact of life. "Sometimes it's a slow thing as you grow up... and sometimes it happens all at once... but no matter what eventually..."

The girl whispers softly, "... it's the end of the line."

Another step and there's nothing left beneath her - gravity is another thing one person can't fight. Right?

The cage suddenly lurches - like a great weight just shoved off it, rattling the whole thing in a gut-wrenching moment as Cassandra dives out the building's window.

One might expect something to happen just after.

Nothing does.

Other than the elevator suddenly giving a distorted 'ping' of letting them know they've reached their floor.

[[Category:Logs]]

2019-03-08 - TIMELINE 3: The Battle of Ohtori, Part One

2019-03-09T18:29:38Z

Bloopbloop: formatting is the worst

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: TIMELINE 3: To The Tower'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Magical girls of Tokyo make their assault upon Ohtori Academy to free their classmates from the Golden Age PMC and stop Alyssa Searrs from calling down another nuke.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Mikoto Minagi]] [[Ye-jin Song]] [[Kozue Kaoru]] [[Sayaka Miki]] [[Mami Tomoe]] [[Fuu Hououji]] [[Steven Universe]] [[Nagisa Misumi]] [[Haruka Tenoh]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Ohtori Academy - Courtyards / Chairman's Tower
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2019-08-02 - 2014-09-16
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Ye-jin Song [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Bright sunlight streams down over the polished white surfaces that make up Ohtori Academy, reflecting off the ivory spire of the Chairman's Tower and warming the vast gardens and courtyards far below. It would be a perfect fall day on Southern Cross island if that same sunlight didn't also illuminate the rows of occupying soldiers and the lines of gleaming heavy artillery that blot the open spaces across the prestigious Ohtori campus. Inside frightened students are still held captive in classrooms and gymnasiums, unaware of the true nature of the conflict at hand but ever fearful of terrorists, soldiers, or both. There has been no word from the Student Council since Kasagami Araki's address, nor any further communication from SEARRS since the address precluding the forest's destruction. Ohtori remains occupied.
Perhaps not for much longer.

BGM Change: WAR SEASON - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKGmy7AGsgw

Deep underground, in the caverns that wind below the ancient forest above, the magical girls stranded on Southern Cross island have spent the last days slowly gathering, finding one another or stumbling upon their peers by chance. Whether they escaped early in the occupation or late, no matter their means of freedom, most paths have crossed down below the earth. Once gathered in mass, a plan of attack to take back Ohtori academy was formed:

The assault is to begin with a wide spread of magical girls heading to assault the main buildings used to hold students, with intent to both rescue their classmates and to make a large show of force. The more noise made possible the better in order to draw Golden Age forces away from the Chairman's Tower, the most heavily fortified building on campus. Bodies will also be needed to escort the freed students to possible points of escape, and commandeering of existing infrastructure may be a necessary part of that plan.

Meanwhile the second group is going for the tower itself, straight through the rows of tanks, artillery, barriers and armored troops that encircle Ohtori's central structure. The captured student councils of all three schools are still imprisoned in the white spire of the building, as well as Alyssa Searrs herself. Finding and stopping Alyssa before she can call down another destructive blast from the satellite hovering high above the earth is of utmost importance.

Now all the pieces are in place. The school is surrounded, magical warriors emerging from caves and treelines around the far perimeters of the Academy. Those with the highest vantage points can see the white columns of buildings and countless shapes of soldiers arrayed before them. The forces of the Golden Age are vast, armed with bullets and violent machinery, and they have yet to be truly challenged.
Until now.
For some in the second group it comes from the buzzing alarms of near-exhausted cellphones as the hour ticks to the appointed time. Others may get their sign from a trusted (and more coordinated) mascot. But absolutely no one can miss the cacophony of noise and bursts of sparkling explosions that, even in mid-day, light up the grounds of Ohtori like a Sumidagawa firework festival as the vanguard of magical girls breach the first of SEARRS defenses.

This is the signal. It's time to go.

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

It would be a lovely day--but then, maybe it can still be something like that. Ohtori is occupied...

But it's time. Setsuna Higashi, last night, worked with Madoka Kaname to gather as many magical girls as she could--and bring them together for the plan. While she no longer has the power to fight with them directly...
There's an ordinary girl with purple hair emerging from cover behind the magical girls as they put down resistance, keeping low and running ahead to tell students where to go with all the authority of an Executive.

...A little less obvious is a certain green-and-black themed witch throwing curses from odd angles.

But the second group includes a blaze of golden light as Mami Tomoe leaps pward from street level and throws out a hand clad in a black half-glove, looking down as if smirking down at tanks, soldiers--

Right on schedule, the veteran Puella Magi makes her appearance, and the guns she conjures sparkle as they appear--and gleam in the sunlight by twos, pointing straight down--straight for the enemy artillery.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Mikoto and Yumi find the group late; they were coming back to the caves from the surface, after all. Mikoto, at least, is easily-given to a plan of offence, and joins the assault team without complaint. They hug before they part. There is history, there, in the tight one-armed grasp Mikoto shows, the way she leans into her so completely. It is utterly unexplained.

It is an expression of affection only surmounted by the force with which Mikoto barrels into Mai when she finds her, and this time Miroku clatters to the ground so that she can wrap her up with a grasp which trembles. Mai, she is less willing to leave, but she is eventually convinced of the logic behind splitting their skillsets.

Her dress is tattered and dirtied; the innocence of her white roses have long-since fled, leaving braids and the single shoulder strap of her dress bare. Her opposite arm is completely exposed, showing the HiME birthmark on her upper arm, below the shoulder. Her pale heels have been soundly abandoned, and she wears a stolen pair of soldier's boots, multiple pairs of socks beneath them to let them fit. What was once an ankle-length gown is now ripped to the knees in uneven jags, and something has taken a bite out of the sash at her waist - now tied into a hasty knot at her hip instead of an elegant bow at her back. Above it, front and back, are the most concerning signs of damage it bears; two holes either side of her midsection, the torn edges stained with dried blood.

But the skin exposed beneath is knit and whole. So too are her limbs free of cuts and scratches, her face unmarred. Mikoto is safe, renewed, her debt sworn. It is well she is so. She means to go now into danger's maw, between serrated teeth and swallowing tongue.
They have someone she cares about.

They are not treating her kindly.

They have made her... they have made her...

... an enemy.

Oh, she does warn her allies, the ones she has found. "Be careful," Mikoto says to them, a light frown crossing her features as she looks away, "of Kozue Kaoru." A hand lifts from Miroku's hilt to press at the hole in her dress, lightly. And looking down does not hide the pain in her eyes and the crease of her brow, a different pain entirely from the agony she no longer endures. "... Kozue did this to me..." Mikoto and Kozue were seen together often enough, in Ohtori or on the streets of Tokyo at night, for the impact to be easily-guessed.

Mikoto has never reached out to the antagonistic elements of the community, though at least one has reached out to /her./ She spends no time redeeming sad girls, and perhaps this history makes it strange to hear her say: "... don't think it's Kozue's fault. But... Kozue's an enemy."

Though she offers that muted defence of someone she once considered such a close friend, she never tells anyone not to fight her. She won't tell them to go easy on her. Mikoto knows Kozue; she doubts the other girl will be pulling her blows. The both of them are wild things, both of them cornered.

She joined the second group late; she does not have long to wait with them. When it comes time to take position she sneaks through the scant forest which remains, and this time she does not step into the open for things which are not branches or bugs to graze past.
Madoka helped Mikoto to pick out a new phone which would survive the rigours of Mikoto, but it has long been forgotten in her dormitory, if SEARRS have not taken it for the secrets engraved in the cat emoji she sends. Nagi has been seldom-seen, in all the chaos. But, to speak of chaos...

There is another girl, in another group, and she is restless and harried and critical and of a /perfect/ mind to cause a scene. Sailor Mars engages in flagrant conflagration to allow her friends and allies to get the students to safety. Is it possible she's taking out her frustrations after so much time lying low..? Don't accuse her of it. Her fuse is so short, right now, it's a theoretical question amongst physicists.
The forward team carves in and it is Mikoto's turn to charge forward. She bellows a wordless howl as she erupts from the treeline, and as the gigantic barrel of a tank swings forward she plants her feet and wrests her blade about and suddenly, the vehicle is in two halves. One man scrambles from one half, another from the second, before the agitated fuel explodes.

She is not focused on them. She charges forward. And there are words to her war-cry: "Kozue!" One-two, rage and pain through an SUV. "Hand Kozue over to me!" Three-four --

She springs over assault rifles; her feet plant either side of the soldier's shoulders, forces him groundward as she springs off, blade slamming down on the armor of another vehicle.

"KOZUE-!!"

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

The Magic Knight of Wind is still slightly of two minds about this.

On the one hand, a general rushdown shock-and-awe frontal assault seems like it's just asking for trouble in some form; there are too many unknown variables, too many possible contingencies that can't even start to be ruled out, too many chances for ambushes, traps, or other surprises. Fog of war isn't just a gameplay mechanic, after all - it's all too easy to go charging in and then get caught by surprise in the teeth of something bigger and/or nastier than you thought the enemy could possibly have hidden away and ready to throw at you, just because you didn't take enough of a look, and sometimes even then.

On the other hand, Fuu has spent the past several days being afraid - of the initially-unknown force which destroyed the bridge; of the ostensible terrorists; of the 'soldiers' who were supposedly there to protect the seemingly-helpless students, and so forth ... and there's a piece of the Wind Knight which relishes, perhaps too deeply for good health, the chance to make the *soldiers* afraid for a change.

It's not all about fear, of course - Kuu is somewhere on campus, genuinely helpless, and the Wind Knight knows that her fiery ally has brothers who are likely stuck somewhere as well. She has to trust the Water and Fire Knights to punch through the Golden Age forces and make good on getting the civilians to safety.

For herself, though, the Magic Knight of Wind emerges from her hiding place (a hollow between a couple of bushes), accelerating to a run and calling out, "STORM-DANCE OF KAMAITACHI!!!" as her sword appears in her hands. The whirlwind isn't quite as destructive as it could be, at least to humans - but she's aiming to fling the soldiers hither and yon and unto none-too-gentle landings, and if she can rake at some of the artillery to more damaging effect, she's not above some well-placed property damage.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Storm-Dance of Kamaitachi on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

Having escaped into the forest as other Magical Girls made their move to leave Ohtori campus, little Steven Universe had bailed out a window after protecting some innocent schoolgoers from a hail of bulletfire. THe event was entirely traumatizing, but it did answer the question if his magical abilities was up to the task of blocking military grade weapons fire.

THe answer was yes. An important thing to know.

In the chaos, the boy, wounded still from the Cybody fight amd the resulting shockwave from a heavenly blast, found his way into the forests. There even was danger, as creatures roamed the corners of what was left for cover.
In time though, he found cave systems, and more importantly, friends-- to huddle together with.

The boy was thoroughly miserable, still with bandages on him, and wearing an Ohtori gym outfit that didn't quite fit him right. "Garent, Amethyst and Pearl haven't done anything yet, I hope..." Being down here loses bearing on what happens above. And his greatest fear still, is them arriving to try a daring rescue and getting hurt. There is too much for them, even with their powers combined...

A plan was struck, and when the groups split, and his powers more suited toward the rescue group compared to retaliation, Steven went with the spearheading party. What if someone needed help in a pinch? What if a student runs into the massive crossfire?
The signal was given, and the magical girls launched into their crusade to free the school. Steven, not particularly quick compared to most here, is one of the last to arrive on the scene, but is no less ready to join the fray. Where others have incredibly strong or wide-sweeping attacks, he will do what he can to fend off soldiers that get separated.

A shield soars through the air to attempt collision with a solider. "Hey! How about you put that down and fight the people that destroyed the forest?! Heads up, it isn't us!" he calls out.

Once the attack is done, he summons another shield and holds a hand out, having it anchor to a spot in the air in front of him. He widens it to be large enough to cover him fully.

"I /don't/ recommend shooting at me."

COMBAT: Steven Universe transforms into Serious Steven!
COMBAT: Steven Universe has used Throw Shield on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Steven Universe has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Sailor Uranus [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

"Hostile approaching! Put her down!"

Sailor Uranus dips and zags, several lines of assault rifle bullets chasing her. The barbed wire-strung sandbags sputter with muzzle flash, converging more accurately as she approaches. But as she makes the final approach, Uranus dives into a slide-tackle, directly at the sandbags. On the other side, a sandbag erupts from the pile as though fired from a cannon, slamming into one man's shins and flipping him down into a violent facevault.

In the instant that the autofire pauses, its target lost, Uranus is hurtling over the crumpled sandbag wall, twisting as she goes so one foot goes into a man's face and the other chases his chest down to the ground. Juking and snatching a muzzle at the same time, Uranus directs a blaze of bullets into the nearby ground, then backfists the man from his rifle. Whipping the muzzle like a sling, she hurls it into another soldier's weapon, pushing it out of the way long enough to shove a palm strike over it, cramming the woman's chinguard and sending her to the ground.
Uranus catches motion from the corner of her eye.

The butt of the last soldier's rifle smacks into Uranus's raised forearm. She had not even turned to block this strike from behind, but she turns now, grabbing the man by the throat with one arm and lifting him off his feet easily.

"Hhhow...!" the man croaks.

"I work out," Uranus says.

About ten meters to Uranus's left, the sandbags burst to let out a tank, its engines roaring as its treads chew dirt. "Hey!" Uranus shouts, trying to warn a girl who had the misfortune to be just on the other side of the sandbags. The Pretty Cure she was trying to warn can't hear over the gunfire and magical explosions, and Uranus winces as the tank drops down directly on top of her, just as she's turning around.

Uranus is turning away already, when she hears the tank engines growl, the treads gnawing the ground, unable to gain traction for some reason. Her eyes narrow as she tries to understand what she's seeing, even as the tank gives a great lurch, its heavy turret bobbing. The massive bolts that secure its thick armor creak and vibrate as the treads loosen their grip on the ground, beginning to whirr rapidly in midair. With a queasy complaint, the tank goes aloft.

Beneath it, Cure Black stands, knees bent into a plunge, arms at full extension, her cheeks red with effort. Grime spatters her face, her lower lip pushed up hard in girlish resolve, her bare abdomen locked up tight.
"How?!" the soldier repeats. Uranus shakes her head.

"Beats me."

COMBAT: Ye-jin Song fails to dodge Fuu Hououji's Storm-Dance of Kamaitachi, taking 32 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song braces 21 Fatigue damage from Mami Tomoe's Tiro Circle, taking 9 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Mami Tomoe is Psyched!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song fails to brace Steven Universe's Throw Shield, taking 48 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song fails to brace Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Dauntlessness, taking 50 Fatigue damage! Mikoto Minagi is Psyched!

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

"Leave it to me!"

As Mami's muskets let loose their first volley on the artillery, the anti-aircraft guns are swinging towards her. Their job is to defend against threats like this, and leave the artillery to do its devastating work. Sayaka Miki's job is to stop those guns from doing /their/ job.
Leaping up the back of an emplacement, Sayaka summons a sword in either hand, swivels it, and stabs both directly down into the vulcanized cannons as they are beginning to spin up. Planting her hands on her hips proudly for a moment, she stands between the twin guns of this emplacement as they lock up on the swords. But then they give a lurch, spinning partway, and then snap the swords entirely, whirring as they rotate fast.

"Aiee! Ow ow ow!" Sayaka is dancing around in between the gatling barrels as shards of her swords shoot out at random like broken blender blades, zinging and peppering her. Another battery is about to open up, its sights on Mami.

"Rrr!" Sayaka mopes, frustrated by the failure of her great plan. Grasping a handle on the top of the emplacement, she swings down loosely from it on one arm, using her momentum to rotate the emplacement, then catching the ground with her feet and running to turn it. The vulcanized rounds shred the second emplacement, as the gunners scramble away.

"Sawry! Please excuse me!" Sayaka sings in English. There is only one emplacement left, this one rear-facing, and so still rotating to find Mami.

Lining up the iron-sights, the gunner squints, shifting the targeting until Mami is dead in the center. But when he triggers the gun, the vulcanized cannons lock up tight, not even shifting much.

Sayaka stands panting on this emplacement, between the two guns again. Like a dog that got into a porcupine, /these/ muzzles are feathered with so many swordblades that it's hard to count them.

Panting, Sayaka lets out a satisfied huff, staring at the two gunners with a big grin as if she expects them to praise her.

COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has used Perfect Pitch on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song braces 6 Fatigue damage from Sayaka Miki's Perfect Pitch, taking 9 Fatigue damage! Sayaka Miki is Psyched!

<Pose Tracker> Mai Tokiha [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

September winds bring autumn's chill, but the girl on the rooftop is strangely warm.

Sneaking back to the dormitories wasn't easy, and Mai Tokiha had more than a few near misses. Arguably, doing so was foolhardy, and if she was to be honest with herself it was unnecessary. There had been a purpose, though. Try as she might to spy Takumi among the prisoners, he was nowhere to be found - and so she sought a familiar vantage point.

Heartbreakingly familiar, really - all the memories of moonlit conversations and peaceful stargazing from the dorm roof might be tainted, now, by the sight of the soldiers below. Something good ruined...but that's just the way life goes.
Admittedly, there was a second purpose; though she didn't have long to spare, Mai did manage to slip into her sadly ransacked dorm room to grab a uniform jacket and a bright red scarf. A little warmth, at least, to offset the scorched ruin that was her ballgown. Suitably clad for the fall air, she takes a moment to take in the sight of the invaded campus.

She should feel colder than this - or maybe more rage at the sight. Despite everything, though - despite the misery brought to a place that was feeling like home, despite the peril she's been put through, despite her continued failure to keep Takumi safe and sound - she just feels the warmth of Mikoto's last hug before they parted ways. A promise, murmured, to stay safe...

Violence is starting - the counter-attack has begun, and her role is to provide a diversion the Golden Age soldiers might not ignore. Memories of the haunting Zero Time at the back of her mind, Mai closes her eyes and does what comes naturally. She sings.

BGM CHANGE - Chiisana Hoshi ga Oriru Toki - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ONr68VAy04

Where is it?
I'm searching for the truth in the deep night...
Wandering around the universe alone...
Hoping that I will come across you...

The soldiers patrolling near the dorm aren't deaf, aren't unobservant, and in spite of the chaos beginning aren't that distracted. A squad rushes in, scaling the stairs in a hurry with guns at the ready to find the source of the song. The rooftop access is kicked open brutally, harsh voices calling out to the escapee. "Hold it right there! Wait..."

It was the first time my tears felt so hot,
And the ties holding me down might now be broken...

It's not quite what they might have expected. The girl on the rooftop is familiar, of course; the soldiers were briefed on key targets, and Mai Tokiha is one of them. She has rings around wrists and ankles, sparkling in the sunlight, and she's dancing - turning slow spins with her eyes closed.

She's also surrounded by fire. There's a merry blaze on the dorm roof, sparked by the HiME's Element, and it swirls around her in a growing spiral. The soldiers look among each other, hesitant in the face of power - but they're professionals, and they aim their weapons. "Mai Tokiha! This is your only warning!"

Because of the radiance of life embracing me, I am never alone...

I gaze at the proudling smiling moon,
And now, with your strange power...

She stops, facing the soldiers, and speaks the next line with an almost resigned smile. "...Awaken me. ...Kagutsuchi!"

The guns open fire, but it's far too late - the inferno consumes them, envelops the rooftop, blossoms into a great signal flare as Mai's Child rises in an instant. Eight eyes survey the campus as a great serpentine tail sweeps across the rooftop to fling aside those who didn't dive for cover already. Before more can arrive, the dragon takes flight.

It screams by with a defiant cry, winging its way high and wide - but its goal doesn't seem to be the soldiers, or the tower, or even the tanks. The fleet in the sea, with its many artillery batteries, was always another of the threats levied against Ohtori - and so to those ships it flies.

Batteries exchange fire with battleship-scuttling meteors as Mai and Kagutsuchi's diversion begins.

<Pose Tracker> Ye-jin Song [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Sound and light fill the air of Ohtori's buildings and courtyards as the second wave of magical girls charge into the fray. In their periphery they can see the work of their allies, electric flashes of beams and bursts of magnificent light. Soldiers scramble wildly for cover as tanks rumble forward, and then abruptly backward, or roll onto their side, or just go up into the air for no good reason.

The fighters in the air smoke and weave as streaks of light chase them through the sky, and in the sea nearby every cannon on every ship opens fire in desperate bid to hold against the burning flame of Mai Tokiha's gigantic child. The path to the Chairman's Tower is still by no means clear-but at least now there's a chance.

A chance that's rapidly becoming reality. Armed and armored figures blockading the path are thrown from their feet by the force of the gale that Fuu summons as she charges forward. They scatter like bowling pins, whirled from their well-ordered lines and dumped in unordered heaps as the path ahead becomes suddenly clearer.

Mikoto too clears a path, even in the process of making one. The few tanks left guarding the chairman's tower are rendered to husks as she passes, split open by the dark blade.

From above the golden queen rains down fire on the artillery below, exploding shells bursting into puffs of black smoke in the air around her. Golden bullets split the thick metal hulls of tanks and heavy guns, sending Golden Age soldiers running in their wake.
Sayaka's work removes several more from the equation, though she does not find anyone particularly happy with her bouquets of swords. Gunfire erupts, though on a much smaller scale than what might have been possible before she'd removed several of the heavy machinery from the equation.
Gunfire pings across Steven's shield in retaliation as the boy makes his presence known, soldiers toppling and scattering.

And they all go forward. The noise and chaos of battle go with them, bullets, grades, and shells exploding into the air as the group forces their way forward. Past the last line of soldiers at the door to the great tower, and into sparkling lobby within. The massive rose seal, assembled in the floor tiles under their feet, is still pristine. The light of the chandelier above illuminates not more soldiers, but only doors to the twin elevators that run through the skeleton of the long tower.

There seem to be no stairs at all-no way up to the student council chambers and the students held captive there save the iron cages of the elevator cars. And time is of the essence. Who knows when Alyssa Searrs could call down another strike from her heavenly child, and the mass of soldiers are still in pursuit, attempting to funnel through the huge doors behind and prevent the infiltrators from making any further progress.

OOC: You may toss parting attacks at the soldiers (aka me), but please be on an elevator by end of pose. There are a whole two to pick from!

COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Real Guns on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Real Guns on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Grenade Diversity on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Surprise Shotgun on Steven Universe.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Real Guns on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji perfectly braces 25 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Real Guns, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Brace! Fuu Hououji's Block and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Steven Universe counters 3 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Surprise Shotgun, taking 10 Fatigue damage! Stagger applied to Steven Universe!
COMBAT: Steven Universe's counterattack, Reverb Shield, partially gets through, doing 5 Fatigue damage to Ye-jin Song! Stagger and Stun applied to Ye-jin Song!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki braces 16 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Real Guns, taking 13 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Sayaka Miki is Quipped! Sayaka Miki's Block and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi perfectly dodges 7 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Grenade Diversity, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Dodge! Mikoto Minagi's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe fails to brace Ye-jin Song's Real Guns, taking 21 Fatigue damage! Mami Tomoe is Quipped!

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Being bright and brilliant also means being a target--and Mami does not entirely escape the hail of retaliation that comes for her. Shrapnel explodes from a detonating shell; assault rifles move up to try to find her--and an ordinary girl would be destroyed.

...As it stands, Mami lands, with powder burns and gunshot wounds, a little less gracefully than she would like, drawing in a breath quickly--it isn't the rhythm she wanted, forces her to gather herself back up again. However...

A Puella Magi is not so easy to destroy as that, and she rises after, seeking out Sayaka ahead with her beautiful sowrds. "Perfect work," the senpai declares to her eager kohai, smiling at her as she looks up again to the tower--to a line of soldiers. "Shall we head up?" she asks of Sayaka, far across the battlefield from Haruka and Yumi and others.

A beat, "...I've been curious about it for a time," she admits, "Since I don't have the open schedule for Student Council work..."

Well, she does know Juri Arisugawa.

Her words are light, but her movements are careful--she steps forward, and this time throws ribbons at soldiers to prevent them firing their weapons, in favor of unnecessary killing. She goes for the right elevator--

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

That, thinks the Wind Knight, went surprisingly smoothly -

And she promptly stops thinking that, when a few soldiers gather themselves and open fire on her as she's passing. More by reflex than plan, she brings her sword around and up, holding it with the blade angled downwards between herself and the guns (and the soldiers).

She would have expected to need a good bit wider of a blade, and possibly heavier, to actually fend off all of the bullets ... but apparently these particular mercenaries are the precision shooters of their squad, or something. The few bullets that *don't* ricochet off of her sword skim off the Wind Knight's armor instead.

There's a lull in the gunfire, not from clips being emptied but from a dawning realization among the soldiers that they aren't getting through her defense. Before they can try adjusting their aim, the Magic Knight of Wind flicks her hand - not a proper attack spell, but a stiff gust of wind to throw them further off-balance - and hurries into the tower proper.

She's closer to the left than to the right, and thusly she steps into the left elevator, holding the gate for any of her allies who join her on that side; the Wind Knight also offers a smile and a bow of the head to Mami.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

The shield, despite not hovering on Steven's forearm, still seems intrinsically attached to him somehow. As incoming fire rains down on the shield, A foot has to dog is as kinetic jolts slam Steven back several times, sending painful vibrations up his outstretched arm. But that isn't the only thing reverberating.

As bullets connect with the shield, sound waves ripple out, disrupting and cracking the nearby ground, and causing undue pain to those in front of the shield. As well, the ammunition reflects every which way imaginable in a frontal area. It isn't long until the soldiers literally undo themselves. Spotting an opening, Steven grasps the azure lip of his shield and runs toward the tower.

The fighting grows more intense as the group packs in toward their destination. And for the little boy, he has to play a bit of stealth getting past another group as everyone converges. Slipping around an ornate pillar. Admittedly, when there are others causing massive explosions and bursts of magic, it makes for a good distraction!

A pair of elevators offer momentary respite and travel to their destinations. The little Gem Child piles into the left elevator, gasping for air. "I need... to ask... the Gems... how to... shapeshift better clothes..." he sputters out, wrenching ad his overly tight shirt collar. Whether or not he can actually /do/ that like them though is a question for another time.

It is only now he notices someone else i nthe elevator. "Ghh...! Oh, hey! Good work out there," he says, slumping on a side wall. "S... Sorry for bailing on your earlier, I was so scared, I didn't know what to do, and..." He trails off, but begins anew with a better thought. "You are doing great out there. The guys ahead will be no match for you, I bet!" he says nicely, trying to uplift her spirits. "And if it gets too dangerous, I got your back. We got this! We can free the school!"

COMBAT: Steven Universe has used Love Like You on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Steven Universe has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji accepts Steven Universe's Love Like You, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Fuu Hououji is Cheered! Surge applied to Fuu Hououji!

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Grenades hail down, and there is a world where Mikoto is scored with shrapnel again, a hundred-hundred tiny metal lances launched with concussive force.

But perhaps knowing Homura for so long -- and being caught in explosives so recently -- is its own teacher. Mikoto sees the first bounce down, and springs away, and it is the first in a series of snapshots of diving and weaving and never quite being staggered or thrown aside. Homura has

the element of surprise; these soldiers do not.

She is not distracted in her dance between the explosive hail they rain down.

She is running for the tower.

She is screaming: "/KOZUE!/"

Mai rises from the ocean and Mikoto knows she will punish the soldiers for their transgressions. Mai promised she would be safe. Mikoto promised to take care of it. ... what an interesting contrast.

And then she is into the lobby, and the battle behind them is shielded by walls. A rose beneath them, lights above; they cast a shadow at Mikoto's feet as she walks. And Mikoto is apart from many of the girls around her, uninvolved in so many of their works. She is not sure she can properly call any of the people here her friends...

... so the friends of her friends will have to function well enough to follow.

Mikoto has heard complaints from Mami and Sayaka, but they are important, to Eri and Madoka and Homura. They are known quantities.

Mami asks Sayaka if they ought to head up, and Mikoto just steps into the elevator beside them, completely uninvited and utterly self-assured. At least she's not attacking soldiers in the process. She glances to them, finds blue eyes and ones gold like hers in so many fashions,
and she makes an unsettled noise in the back of her throat as she looks aside. "... Eri and Homura are okay," she says, the words a little awkward, unsure of what to say, delivering information instead of hopes or aspirations. "I think."

She doesn't know what happened to Madoka.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Rather than praise her, the gunners draw sidearms and start shooting at her. Sayaka seems almost to disappear into her cape as she drops low, then surges forward. She takes a bullet on her way over, grunting as caves down to her knees and slams them into the first gunner. Bearing him to the ground, Sayaka ends up kneeling on his chest, slicing her sword back behind her to neatly sever the barrel of the pistol.

The gunner hesitates a moment, then decides to try to fire it anyway. The shot goes wild, but scares Sayaka, who had thought the gun disabled. She shoves herself to her feet so fast she bonks her head on the gun emplacement. "Uuugh!" she moans, embarrassed. The gunner with his sawed-off pistol steps up to try and plant it against Sayaka, realizing how inaccurate it is now, but Sayaka moves into him to prevent it, stepping through his space and turning around to grab his head. Tossing her feet in the air, she drops down straight onto her back, forcing him to do the same, only with the added unpleasantness of being on the bottom.

"Huhh," Sayaka pants. She winces, reaching up under her armpit to grab the bullet her healing is pushing out. As she picks herself up, she places the bent slug on the unconscious man's chest. That move is called the sitout sometimes, and this gentleman is definitely going to be sitting this one out.

"Give this back to your buddy," she advises, patting the bullet almost fondly.

Jogging up to Mami, Sayaka beams at the praise. "Keheh. Mami-senpai took out the bigger guns." Turning, she looks up the tower, finding it more imposing when it's a fortress to assault than when it was just a school building.

"Mami-senpai would definitely win if she ran, even for president!" Sayaka proclaims, clenching a fist near her jawline emphatically. Following Mami into the car, she beams visibly, her mouth at a traditional, possibly copyrighted "Smiley Face" angle. When Mikoto jogs through to stand between her and Mami, that angle reverses into an equal and opposite frowny face.

It softens, though, as Mikoto visibly worries about the others. "They're okay," she says, resting a hand on Mikoto's shoulder. "Those two can handle themselves. And absolutely nobody but nobody can beat my best friend Madoka!"

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Frozen In Time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjnW7icsx9I

As the Magical Girls file into one of the elevators, another slips into the rear to join those filing into the one on the right. There's no masque on her face, simply the hood drawn up over her hair to enclose even her bangs. Those who are bright and brilliant cast long shadows don't they? And as they celebrate - carry on, she stands within those shadows.

Her eyes drifting upwards like she was heading for the same goal as the rest of them - like she belongs there - yet stands apart. She does not sneak glances at the others in the elevator. She doesn't need to - to know who is here - whether in this elevator - or the adjacent shaft.

-=-=-

There's the feel of a head on her shoulder - and the smell of chlorine in the summer air. "You know... I like going into the water more than I do sitting around some bonfire."

-=-=-

And then there is the scent of almost far too sweet - cloying crepes. "Isn't it nice to just... exist - sometimes?" The girl says as she sits on the slats of the ruined rollercoaster ride. The park overlooking the city. "I don't mean existence is nice... but existing." The girl turns the crepe around to show Mikoto, "It's like eating crepes when noone is around who thinks something of it... or swimming in the pool by yourself at night. You get it right?"

There's this light sigh, as she chews off an end of it, allowing it's flavor to permeate her tastebuds - before she swallows, "Of course you do." Kozue's smile seems bittersweet at best. "You have a brother after all. So you know what it's like."

-=-=-

The gates of the elevator squeezes shut with a strange coordination - as a girl in each hits the button for the Student Council Chambers, and the cars traversing upwards becomes a silhouette of a cage against the strange geometry of the portals showing the sky outside of the chairman's tower.

She doesn't respond for a while, hands at her sides, bobbing up and down on her feet in a gesture of impatience but the moment someone looks at her a little too hard - she states-

"Before we get started. Does anyone want to give up?"

It's then that everyone might be alerted to the traitor in their midst. It's unmistakable whose voice it is. As the girl's gaze slips down, and an Element snaps into her hand - materializing out of nowhere. The shadow of a sickle, with it's chain seemingly drawn up inside the handle. Surely this lone girl doesn't believe she can take them all on?

"Cassandra."

BGM Change: Countdown - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiBy3p3ffa8

The word hangs in the air for a moment, before the entire elevator screeches - rocking and shuddering - it's archaic design lacking the same modern anchors - the light from outside of the Chairman's tower flickering like a strobe. The Child's talons are gripping the top of the elevator - like a vulture sitting atop the cage of a chipper songbird. It's crimson eyes glaring down eerily. Kozue sets upon Mami Tomoe first - attempting to bring her sickle down through her wrist to pin her against the cage wall - so she'll have a harder time firing up.

At the same time - pipes burst all over the elevator shaft, spraying them with what feels like a sprinkler like rain shower. The water causing the floor to grow slick in these few moments of disorienting ambush, as it streams off the edges. As the elevator passes by one pipe in that moment - it's severed payload hangs suspended in the air - like gravity was arrested droplet by droplet.

They elongate, stretching out and joining to congeal into long tendrils that try to clothesline Mikoto from approaching her. The ends stretching out to slide through the cage doors and wrap around the elevator - it's grip tightening to grind her back - including a still healing wound against the cold metal. "You should have stayed in custody-" There's a sort of redirection in that thought. "-both of you."

Almost like a terrible command.

The cage then rocks in another way entirely, as something smashes into the elevator floor from below. Again - and again - and again. The metal of the elevator floor warping and buckling beneath Sayaka Miki until it gives - the sudden column of water ripping her off her feet to try to smash her into the ceiling - pinning her to the ceiling. The talons of the Child suddenly squeeze, trying to shape the metal around her back to try to keep her held in place.

"Hang in there... Sayaka-chan."

There's such a cruel twist of the knife in those words to her childhood friend. Before she seems to ignore her - pressing her attack on her mentor. "Fighting monsters has gone to all of your heads. Makes you think you can beat any enemy or that you're some heroes of justice."

As she tries to drive Mami Tomoe against the wall. "That isn't what this is about. The only truth to be found here is that every woman, even the most powerful - and most beautiful..." She taunts up close, almost sensuously in her struggle for dominance, "...can't change the fact that they'll go down on their knees when a man insists hard enough."

Kozue uses her elbow to try to hinder her movement, to keep her boxed in - while her knee whips up to try to brutalize her gut - and keep her from resisting. As she whispers almost sensuously. "Why fight what you can't even hope to resist?"

All of this struggle - for a singular purpose - of puncture one of the Golden Queen's limbs and hooking them to a wall.

The elevator continues in it's disorienting shifts and turns - all the while the Child's weight stands above, the creature having far too many sharp ends for anyone's liking - given that it's embracing the cord keeping them all suspended over the abyss.

COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru transforms into Kozue and Cassandra!
COMBAT: Cassandra has fully healed herself. She is now ready to take on 3 opponents!
COMBAT: Cassandra has used Toccata on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Cassandra has used Ebbe und Fluth on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Cassandra has used Die erwachende Thetis on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Cassandra has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe fails to dodge Cassandra's Toccata, taking 22 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi cleanly braces 11 Fatigue damage from Cassandra's Ebbe und Fluth, taking 2 Fatigue damage! Cassandra is Psyched! Stun and Tangle applied to Mikoto Minagi!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki fails to dodge Kozue Kaoru's Die erwachende Thetis, taking 45 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Ye-jin Song [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Song at Midnight - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uvh-DUb0QQ

From an entrance high above, Ye-jin Song waits. Dark eyes track the progress of the two elevators as they rise, following their steady ascent up through the tower. She waits patently, until the metal boxes are just a few stories below. Then she jumps.

Air rushes past the White Queen as she descends, wine-red hair flaring behind her like in a dark corona. Fabric ripples as she descends, plummets those long feet to meet the roof of the second elevator with a metallic clang of impact. The sound is not, perhaps, as immediately alarming as the arrival of Kozue and Cassandra, which Steven and Fuu can easily witness through the bars that separate the two metal boxes.

It becomes more so shortly. Ye-jin's fingers trace the air and her Element forms inside of them, a neatly coiled length of white cord. A flick of her wrist splits the roof of the elevator open as easily as a more mundane bullwhip might sheer open a soda can. Metal screams as a long hole is abruptly torn, exposing the masked girl above to the two occupants in the car below.

It's the sound that's the worst part. It reverberates with agonizing volume inside of the elevator shaft, visibly distorting the space between the two occupants. As the cord snaps back into her hand Ye-jin scowls. "You're really starting to piss me off, you know?" She does not sound happy to see either the Wind Knight, not the boy in pink once again. "I hate wasting my time."

COMBAT: Ye-jin Song transforms into PRInCESS Ye-jin!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has fully healed herself. She is now ready to take on 2 opponents!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Sonic Shock on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has cancelled their attack on Fuu Hououji. If there are more attacks that need to be +cancelled, please hold all +attacks until the process is complete.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Sonic Shock on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Sonic Shock on Steven Universe.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Grace and Glory on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji braces 6 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Sonic Shock, taking 5 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Fuu Hououji's Block and Parry abilities activate! Cripple applied to Fuu Hououji!
COMBAT: Steven Universe fails to brace Ye-jin Song's Sonic Shock, taking 7 Fatigue damage! Cripple applied to Steven Universe!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song accepts Ye-jin Song's Grace and Glory, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Accelerate and Surge applied to Ye-jin Song!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

The Magic Knight of Wind smiles wryly at Steven, although the wryness fades as he speaks to her. "We haven't been blessed with much certainty about anything of late, have we?" she replies. "None of us are really at our best -"
The universe decides to double down on that point almost immediately thereafter, yanking the Wind Knight's attention away with the sudden commotion being wrought in the other elevator. And then *their* elevator comes under similar attack: perhaps less catastrophically destructive, but at least as violent and attention-grabbing.

The Wind Knight brings her sword up as the elevator's roof is torn open, and she has some defense up even before the cord lashes through the air. You wouldn't expect a raised length of metal to provide much protection against a sound so harsh as to be literally painful, though ...
In this case, maybe it's a small matter of familiarity breeding contempt; the Wind Knight has been on the receiving end of this before, and not that long ago. Or maybe it's just a measure of luck and reflex - she certainly doesn't really have time to cover her ears; all she can do is wince and endure it, knowing the noise doesn't last indefinitely.

"Believe me, the feeling is mutual," she retorts to the White Queen with an ever-so-faint smile, her voice raised over the sonic onslaught. "Unfortunately, if you were hoping we would back down, we'll have to disappoint you. Winds of Admonishment!!" she calls out still more loudly, trying to entrap the White Queen in a binding whirlwind.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Winds of Admonishment on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has finished attacking.
COMBAT: White Queen fails to brace Fuu Hououji's Winds of Admonishment, taking 18 Fatigue damage! Fuu Hououji is Psyched! Cripple and Trap applied to White Queen!

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Mami herself would be forced to admit only internally that she is less likely to be quite so kind to her opponents... But it's endlessly charming from her student and friend Sayaka anyway. Once they're together--
"Well, you know what they say--fight guns with guns." She nods, as if that's a real saying, and then smiles--with the rough time they've all had, unfettered /praise/ is a balm. "Well--"
She pauses, then, as she spots Mikoto coming through. For an instant, her old habits make her wonder if they will have a difficulty here-- with Mikoto, who she has had issue with before, who is shouting even now for her enemies--what was the name, over the gunfire? And yet.
That doesn't happen.

"Thank you," Mami says to Mikoto, as Sayaka reassures her in turn. "I haven't had a chance to meet up with them, yet..." A pause, and then she smiles back at Sayaka. "That's right. Madoka-chan will be fine--but," she turns back to Mikoto as they go up, "I did see her, before the battle." She pauses, an instant, and considers--she saw Kagutsuchi flying out towards the others...

"...I believe Tokiha-san will be fine too," Mami offers. They've had their disagreements in the past--plenty of them--but now is not the time for them. Now, they work together. ...And for shadows...
Mami Tomoe /is/ a brilliant fond of light, isn't she?

She recognizes the voice when Kozue speaks up--recognizes the sound of a weapon materializing, and turns immediately, her demeanor changing. "Sayaka--!"

Her warning for the other girl is cut off by Mami clamping her mouth shut to avoid crying out as the sickle slams straight through her arm--and the fact of Kozue's choice is made wise as in the same instant the gun she'd already summoned fires, far wide of the Child above them.

Water crashes down upon them, and when it hits Mami's delicate sleeve it flows red. "I didn't ask your opinion," Mami asks, and it is as close to a snarl as a girl as refined as Mami gets. But she doesn't have time to free herself immediately. Gone to their heads, has it?

Mami is already on the wall; driving her against it is easy, and the older girl narrows her eyes as she sees Kozue close. If there is a sensuality to it, perhaps it is in the senses; the scent of chlorinated water warring with that of flowers. The soft fabric as delicate as crepe paper, warring against slick red. A sharp elbow into soft flesh.

"To /your/ knees is a familiar trip," Mami spits darkly at Kozue, coughing as the knee hits her gut, and she feels the searing pain of her wrist /stuck/ such that it puts stars in her vision--
Before the next strike pins her arm closer to the elbow and Mami lets out a shout of anger as much as pain.

Her eyes snap up. "What would /you/ know about resisting anything?" Mami spits back at her. "Not all of us think it's our purpose in life to sleep through the student body!"

Her free hand comes up--and while one might expect it it to just be a gentle movement, it isn't. Mami's fist snakes out for Kozue's face, and in the wake of it ribbons course off of her other wrist, wending about arms, about hands, about her weapon to slow and tire, streaming in gold.
"So get /OUT!/"

COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has used Parete on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

"Nah... it's all been guesswork, but following our hearts always seems to lead us where to go. At least we can count on those, right?" he asked with a smile.

The elevator ride up was a serene moment in an otherwise tumultuous event. A chance to clear one's head before the trials meet them. The boy rests his chin thoughtfully atop an edge of his shield, balancing it from there as he stared off through the metal safety bars. Unfortunately for Steven and his elevator partner, someone seems intent on interrupting that.

A metallic groawn and a shudder grab the boy's attention. "What was that? Are they sabotaging the elevator?" He stands, and carefuly walks to the edge, a tender hand grabbing a metal bar. A look beyond shows the opposite elevator with the Puella Magi and Mikoto is under attack! "We gotta do something! Can we reach--"

A deafening snap of metal and flick of light reveals their roof is now missing a section, and a familiar figure who caused problems not too many nights ago is seen. Not only seen, but heard. Heard in the worst way. As if someone put an angry housecat in front of a chain of megaphones. THe boy grips his ears, though again there is a strange, further effect that grates at his being, coming from inside somewhere.

Violent sounds just seem to cause him undue problems.

"What is your problem, Lady?!" he shouts up as his hearing slowly returns. "We're trying to save the school from being blown up! Go... away!" A thought and a forceful hand creates a section of a Bubble Shield, that he launches after the Wind Knight blasts outward with wind, attempting to impact the masked figure and knock her away, or off, or somewhere than isn't here, because he doesn't need this right now! "If you care about this school at all you'll help us save everyone!"

COMBAT: Steven Universe has used Repelling Shield on White Queen.
COMBAT: Steven Universe has finished attacking.
COMBAT: White Queen partially dodges 3 Fatigue damage from Steven Universe's Repelling Shield, taking 13 Fatigue damage! White Queen's Fade ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka does not acknowledge the hooded girl at first, her attention on Mikoto. But as the doors slide closed, her eyes trace over, at first just for a glance. She finds herself staring, though. Some intuition keeps her watching. It isn't her danger sense. It's a sense of familiarity.
Narrowing her eyes, Sayaka feels herself unfocusing, her mind trying to find something. A feather, a scent of aquamarine. Her head tilts.
The voice of a girl Sayaka was raised with answers a riddle unasked.

Sayaka doesn't move. She knows a twitch will be answered by violence. She can see the blade glittering in Kozue's hand. She can feel the tension in the air.

This would have been unthinkable, even moments ago. Sayaka never dreamed she'd fight Kozue. But whatever scrap of wisdom she has gained in her young life is resonating inside her. Somehow... somehow she just knows.

"Do you mean," she asks softly, "anyone else?"

"Sayaka!" Mami shouts.

Sayaka rips a sword from sizzling blue nothing, bringing it overhead. Her strike is decisive, because it comes from Mami, but uncommited, because it goes towards Kozue. It is also useless, because Cassandra has her own ideas about who is attacking whom today. Jarred violently, Sayaka drops to one knee.

"Senpai!" she shouts a warning. Being trapped in an elevator is a vulnerable position for Mami. Better for Mikoto and Sayaka to handle this--
Better, but not to be.

Sayaka feels the equivalent of a broken hydrant's worth of water hit her in the chest, driving her off her feet. She loses her sword, which clatters to the ground and spins there in the flow, as Sayaka herself strikes the ceiling forcefully. Thrashing, she tries to free herself from the water, only to feel the ceiling itself "grab" her, wrapping her torso in bent metal.

Blowing water from her mouth and nose, Sayaka lifts her head parallel to the ceiling so she can see what's going on beneath her. "Kozue!" Sayaka shouts, but Kozue no longer seems to even know that she's up there, for all the attention she pays. She freezes in alarm as she sees Kozue slam Mami into the wall. Mami is endlessly resourceful, and hardly helpless at close range, but a match for Kozue? At a distance shorter than the length of a musket? She's afraid Mami will get cut down at any moment. If only Madoka were here.

Sayaka kicks with her legs, but they're not long enough to reach Kozue's head unless she was standing right beneath. If only Kozue was taller. Gritting her teeth, Sayaka tries to lift one shoulder to pull an arm free. A rib or two didn't make it through this, and crushed like this, she can't heal it either. Groaning rises to an angry scream as Sayaka drags at her own arm hard, pulling it against the claw-crushed metal. Her voice rises, her feet pedal, and she yanks a heavily abraded arm free.

Gasping, Sayaka snatches a sword from her dangling cape with the freed hand, and tosses it to catch it in a reverse grip. Heaving, she slams it in hilt-deep into the ceiling, then rips it free again. Unsure where to stab to get Cassandra to let go, she slams her sword down again and again, puncturing holes in the ceiling at different spots.

"Hang on!" she urges.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has used Furioso on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

There is another girl, but Mikoto does not know her, and pays her little mind.

She is distracted. The contact and support are unexpected, as Sayaka hears the concern Mikoto has for the other Puella Magi - and the one left unnamed. Mami's kindness joins her, reassuring her that Madoka is all right in a different way to Sayaka's concrete belief, and her expression gentles for a moment into something so much more fragile, more breakable, more vulnerable and raw. The upwards arc of her brow and her lips, the little shudder-halt of a breath before a sigh of relief; she's happy. It is so easy to ease Mikoto, even in the depths of the oblivion SEARRS has brought her. "I..."

She breathes through her lips and at first she does not catch the scent of it.

...

"Is it okay?" Mikoto asks of existing, legs swinging over the precarious edge of the rollercoaster. Her eyes drop to the black case on her other side, but her hands are occupied with a crepe half-devoured. "Sometimes, I feel like... I'm having too much fun. Nice to not have to... but... what if I'm not doing enough 'cause I like it too much?"

Her teeth drag over her lips, and she takes another bite of crepe - and then another, because crepes are delicious. "Did I give up 'cause I have friends now? Am I not trying hard enough? Is that why I haven't completed my mission? I - I didn't mean to. Guess I'm just scared that, one day... I won't be free to eat crepes with Kozue whenever I want. I dunno if..." Mikoto trails off, as if she has realised she is speaking too much. She so rarely speaks her mind. She so rarely speaks at length. It is long friendship which has drawn the words out of her, long patience with her silences and clipped-wing words.

She smiles, small, and there is the weight of millennia behind it. "... no, there's no way, right?" Another bite, and Mikoto notes: "It's good."

...

And all a sudden the memory clicks into place with the scent, and shock floods through the succour on Mikoto's face as her gaze snaps to the stranger. Her breath catch-lodges in her throat, sucked in through grit teeth. She knows.

Golden eyes snap down to the kusarigama she comes to hold; on reflex she draws Miroku up, covering her belly. "Ko--" It is the word she has been screaming this whole time. Now she is here, the word chokes.

It's getting damp in here. The sprinklers are making her eyes wet, creeping down her face. When did Ohtori decide on salt water to quench their fires?

In-out her breath shudders and she growls against it, diving forward - and oh, these are /such/ small quarters, aren't they? - but she cannot clear the few steps of distance.

Cassandra is come.

Her reckless approach is punished by solid water, and she is slammed against the back of the elevator. She grits her teeth and bears it, and she had thought she was whole but Kozue brings out the memory of pain regardless.

Perhaps it is a function of her opponent.

But Mami says she knows nothing of resisting and Mikoto cries out: "Don't!" And it is not the sprinkler which sets her words awobble.

"Kozue," she says, and they are not battle-edged words, "Kozue-! I know! I know but - we can /help,/ Kozue! This isn't right! Kozue wasn't made for this!" The words thin in their grief and she does not know the shape of them. She is not Madoka; she does not speak reason. She does not redeem sad girls.

But when her friends are in trouble, she gets involved.

She heard what they called her. She heard how they laughed.

Kozue is in trouble.

With a cry she wrests her blade up and carves through the water, because the water isn't quite water any more. She stumbles as she is freed and she does not want to, does not want to, but she can't hope to resist, and she knows the way the truth carves the world open.

She will try not to kill her. She will try.

There is no room here to gain momentum; it is a swing as Mikoto steps in to match Kozue from behind, in the wake of Mami's ribbons. Her breath hitches in a sob as she brings her blade in towards flesh, an upwards strike from below. It is edged; it will cut.
The truth carves the world open.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Blade: Disequilibrium on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru fails to counter Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Disequilibrium, taking 40 Fatigue damage! Exhausted applied to Kozue Kaoru!
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru's counterattack, Toccata, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Mikoto Minagi!
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru braces 9 Fatigue damage from Mami Tomoe's Parete, taking 4 Fatigue damage! Kozue Kaoru's Block and Parry abilities activate! Diversion applied to Kozue Kaoru!
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru partially dodges 4 Fatigue damage from Sayaka Miki's Furioso, taking 16 Fatigue damage! Kozue Kaoru's Fade and Flash abilities activate! Sayaka Miki drains 6 fatigue from Kozue Kaoru!

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.

Something inside of her twists - as she bulls through Sayaka's comment in her assault. She has to - right through Mikoto's concern. Her coming here for her.

The adjacent shaft shrieks with the sounds of the White Queen's assault, and Kozue is glad at least that there will not be support crossing over to blindside her. The ones in that shaft are both fortunate and unfortunate in her eyes.

Fortunate because they get to die ignorant. Unfortunate because they picked the one that the White Queen was ambushed.

As Mami's fist snakes out towards Kozue's face, the girl's wrist twists, and out of nowhere a chain drops to the floor between them. Catching it with a hand in mid-air. The ribbons snap around the chain - as she diverts some of its winding path.

Sayaka stabs upwards - and Cassandra squawks - as she starts doing this shuffling dance. Her talons pattering upon the metal as what must seem like nails pop out of the floor. The final strike pops right through it - and impales it - the Child makes this noise of agony as it rocks its food back and forth to try and wobble it off it.

"... That's a really good question." Kozue snarls asks what she knows about resisting anything. It's like she's forcing the insult to roll off of her and strike...

... her beloved kouhai - like ricochet from a musket ball turned friendly fire, "Why don't /you/ tell her Sayaka-chan? That's why you gave up your one and only wish - and gave it to a boy. So tell her from someone who's seen the truth with her own eyes... what all her pride is going to amount to." That smile is knowing - vicious - even in the profile of what angle Sayaka can catch of her from her position against the ceiling, "Don't lose your nerve now."

Kozue however loses her own nerve a little as Mikoto tries to cut through. Carving en route to her. She has to turn around suddenly to try to match the blow - ripping her sickle free from Mami, but Mami's ribbons are hindering her - and so as she does, Mikoto's blow smashes into the chain, and thus smashes her back against the wall with a gasp.

The Child, now furious causes more pipes to spring leaks - one after one. And suddenly a column of water stabs through the ceiling, just missing Sayaka to stab down at Mikoto with a pressurized stream - that seems like to drive her through the floor if it gets her way. "Help? What a laugh. As if you'd ask me for help if you were in the same position with your Ani-Ue."

Kozue recovers - trying to shake it off - ducking down like she's going to press her assault and swing her sickle at Mami's belly. "Someone reinforced to me-" However at the last second, she backsteps, revealing the feint. "-what I was made for." The water soaked floor suddenly swirls upwards to try and spiral around Mami's feet, and trying to wrench her down to the elevator floor.

... where Kozue will most assuredly advance again.

Sayaka in comparison is perhaps 'fortunate' in that Cassandra has finally had enough of her stabbing - and tries to reverse the trick on her by jamming her wingtip through the ceiling. Again - and again - and again. Like a blade trap that keeps going off. It's perhaps not the best way to deal with the girl. However - much like it's HiME, the Child has a temper.

"Don't worry /Mami-san/." There's a little bit of a blood haze in her eyes, "You still wanna think you're better than me?" The girl tries to use her blade to sever a few of the ribbons. "I'll let you hold onto that fairy tale for as long as you can. After all - it won't be me you're going down on your knees for."

COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru has used Toccata on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru has used Ebbe und Fluth on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru has used Ondine's Curse on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi fails to dodge Kozue Kaoru's Ondine's Curse, taking 52 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe counters 4 Fatigue damage from Kozue Kaoru's Ebbe und Fluth, taking 13 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Kozue Kaoru is Psyched! Mami Tomoe's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate! Stun and Tangle applied to Mami Tomoe!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe's counterattack, Tiro Retort, partially gets through, doing 16 Fatigue damage to Kozue Kaoru! Critical Counterhit!

<Pose Tracker> White Queen [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

The wind that Fuu conjures is a much more violent turbulence than the White Queen experienced on her trip down the elevator shaft. A hand rises to shield her face, red strands of hair once again streaming outward as the wind knight's magic buffets against her. Her footing is tenuous at best, in the force of that gale.

The blow from Steven's shield bubble loosens it altogether. She rises abruptly from the roof of the elevator, puffing into the air like a plastic bag in a windstorm. For a moment she hovers in space, brilliantly lit against in the sky in the vast window that borders the elevator.
Until her hand flashes again, and the length of her whip flashes through the opening in the roof once more. It might seem for a moment that she's missed-she strikes neither crystal gem nor wind knight, the white strands instead binding tight around a mass of metal grating at the side of the elevator. It seems, for a moment, a mistake. At least until a kick of her foot against the elevator shaft and a snap of her arm sends the masked girl shooting back along the length of her element, down into the elevator like a bullet.

Her path runs on a collision course with Fuu, crashing bodily toward the wind knight with intent to do meteoric violence. "There's nothing that isn't disappointing about you," She hisses, "So just go to hell!" The whip untangles from it's anchor once she's in the elevator itself, returning to her hand once more.

Just in time for her to pirouette toward Steven, pivoting like and dancer and letting the cord spool out once more. White cord streaks through the confined space of the elevator, the vicious tip of the White Queen's weapon finding it's prey with unerring accuracy.
"If you care so much about your stupid school," She snarls, "You should have behaved when you had the chance!"
COMBAT: White Queen has used Brutal Dance on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: White Queen has used Focus Flense on Steven Universe.
COMBAT: White Queen has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji fails to counter White Queen's Brutal Dance, taking 23 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! White Queen is Psyched! Exhausted applied to Fuu Hououji!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji's counterattack, Spinning Slash, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to White Queen!
COMBAT: Steven Universe braces 15 Fatigue damage from White Queen's Focus Flense, taking 12 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Steven Universe's Block and Parry abilities activate! Cripple applied to Steven Universe!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

Much as Mikoto confirmed in the other elevator, there isn't really enough room to 'spin up' for a powerful melee attack within these confines. The Wind Knight tries anyway, less a circle of her sword and more a twist of her body, trying to add force to a counterstrike - but she leaves herself too wide open on the wind-up, and the White Queen slams into her hard enough that the green-clad Magic Knight rebounds off the inside of the elevator, wobbling on her feet.

But when she lifts her gaze to her adversary, there's a rare tint of anger in her gaze. Usually she only gives that kind of personally-aggravated look to Zagato's minions, or other villainous minions who've managed to hurt her where it's personal.
She might never have bestowed such a glower on another magical girl. She might not realize that behind the White Queen's mask *is* another magical girl.

"Ignorance must truly be bliss, for you not to realize what drives us right now," the Wind Knight says, her voice quiet but still razor-edged. "If we meet on more friendly terms, help me remember to apologize properly."
A gale abruptly arises within the elevator's confines, breached though they are by the Queen's entrance in the roof. It still isn't enough room to really cut loose ...

"Emerald Cyclone!!"

... but the Magic Knight of Wind has had to focus and constrain her wrath before, and she does so with most of her usual aplomb. It's almost like a rebuttal to the sonic onslaught from before, the wind not rending like normal, but buffeting violently, even viciously. It's a wind force which could uproot trees or tanks alike - and the Wind Knight turns her power squarely on the White Queen, raising her voice once more to be heard over the conjured tempest:

"JUST GET OUT OF OUR WAY!!!"

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Even in this, Mami would rather spare Sayaka, but that simply won't be possible. Already Mami can hear the sounds of combat in the other car, the White Queen and her harsh words just close--and she cannot but hope that the others can hold her attention, because this position...
Being enclosed in this space is /not/ to Mami Tomoe's advantage.

"I don't think I'm going anywhere!" Mami calls back to Sayaka, and with the splintering pain in her arm, more than a third of the way to a crucifixion, she cannot entirely comprehend Mikoto's words at first, her quiet manner.
...Help her. Isn't made for this. How often has Mami heard something like that, and relented?

But by this point she cannot simply shrug off her ire--not when Kozue tries to redirect onto Sayaka. Rather than shocking or stopping Mami--it makes her angrier.

"You have /no idea/ what I've seen of girls and their wishes," Mami answers, and the memory of a girl in red adds venom to drip from her words. There are reasons she says as she does--
She could have sympathy, being nervous of Mikoto--in another way.

"Aah--" Mami can't stay silent as the sickle is ripped free again, and that arm hangs, limp and useless, at her side. Kozue denies help, and she feints--

Mami doesn't bother defending; she lets herself be grabbed by the water, but in the instant before it pulls, she puts out her hand--and a short cannot bursts into being in her hand, and erupts in a line for Kozue, upward, upward--

Mami's ribbons stick, and hold; they can be gotten through... it just takes a bit of time.

"I don't have to /think/ I'm better than some spoiled, petulant girl," Mami answers, and she sees that haze and looks down her nose /harder/. She's still in a vulnerable position, slamming downwards, but as she hits the floor of the elevator--

Ribbons /burst/ from all around her, great golden lines that crash outward, that give Mikoto something to hang onto, that give Mami an instant to breathe.

"I've fought more monsters than you've had dates. You're years too early if you think you can force me into /anything/."

COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has used Evadere on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru perfectly counters 16 Fatigue damage from Mami Tomoe's Evadere, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Critical Counter! Kozue Kaoru's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe is unable to keep fighting!
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru's counterattack, Ondine's Curse, bursts all the way through, doing 57 Fatigue damage to Mami Tomoe! Critical Counterhit! Mami Tomoe is unable to keep fighting!

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.
The manifested transparent shield makes contact, and propels your assailant away. "When will they learn?!" he says with a bit of a scowl. The boy turns to look back across at the other fight raging as a pointed filament surges right past him and grasps a spot upon the elevator. "Still?"
In moments, the masked opponent is within the elevator with them. Fuu is the first to be attacked, giving Steven the moment to ready his shield. Tang-tang-tang-tang goes the implement as it clashes agains element. The final spin catches Stevens shoulder as it licks up and over the rim of the shield, a few drops of blood fly and hit the floor-- the whip has a small red spot. Though considering how fast it flies it could be clean by the time it stops moving.

"Gargh...." grumbles Steven, reaching to his shoulder. "None of this even makes any sense, if the girl wanted the help of HiME to stop a terrorist incidenct, how can they even help if they get blown up in thirty-six hours?!" He complains most likely to no avail, but Steven won't stay quiet.

The boy looks toward Fuu, who in retaliation, readies one of her most powerful abilities. He looks up and sees an opportunity. "We got this! Lets punch her ticket!" Mustering what power he has left to offer, he forms two sheaths of Bubble Shield, that crash through the metal bars on both size and almost take their place. While not a full seal, Fuu's wind is forced into one space, and exit out one way-- the hole the WHite Queen formed.

Steven can anchor himself to his shields, and Fuu is most likely immune to her own power, which means...! "You should have taken a different flight!"

COMBAT: Sayaka Miki perfectly counters 21 Fatigue damage from Kozue Kaoru's Toccata, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Counter!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki's counterattack, Disjunct Chord, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Kozue Kaoru!

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Nine Inch Nails - The Great Below https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pev0dINRaok

Mikoto does not fight for strangers. She does not care about the thousands of faceless, nameless students captured here in Ohtori. She cares about people, specific people, and she has never once fought for the good of the world, but she has fought for the ones she cares about.
Sometimes the world is helped while she helps her loved ones. It's incidental.

Mikoto charged for the tower and screamed a name and it's Kozue, she came here for Kozue, she will rip this tower off its foundations for Kozue.

Kozue does not listen.

Perhaps it is because of the violence Mikoto brings to bear. She slams Kozue into the wall and advances, hefting up her blade, and water courses out behind her. She is too close for Cassandra to strike - without striking her girl. Miroku's edge keeps her against the wall, not quite pressing in. In her eyes is an earnest plea; she wants so badly to fix this.

Kozue poses her question and the desperation written on her face is wiped clean with new shock, and Kozue knows so intimately the expression Mikoto bears now when she has been stabbed through. Her jaw gapes, her breath shudders in and out too quickly, and without thinking she jerks away. "That's not --"

isn't it? really?

... in her haste to stumble back, she does not hear the water which cuts.

With a strangled cry Mikoto is plunged down and the rushing water cannot completely mask Kozue's words, but certainly it masks a girl, down through a dark bored hole.

Perhaps it would be the end of her - but she is not alone.

Down, down the great yawning shaft, in the shifting dark where all the silhouettes go when they are stored for future use, golden ribbons burst down, and Mikoto snatches hold of one with iron grasp.

She starts climbing, with one hand and two legs, and she does not have time to linger on the pain.

There are a few nice, quiet moments when there are only two enemy combatants in the elevator...

... and then Mikoto leaps for the torn gash in the floor, just as that ribbon fades to nothing. She snarls with effort as she hoists herself up - rolls onto the floor. She does not take a moment to catch her breath, pushing herself up with rocking motions. Those golden eyes search out Kozue. She remembers what she has said.

"What Kozue's made for?" Mikoto demands, and there is a hot lance of anger to her words. "What Kozue's /made for?!/ That's not something for Tokyo girls to worry about! Here there's crepes and pools, Kozue! It's /different/ here!"

She shouts and perhaps it becomes clear where her anger lies. "What did they do?!" It is anger but it is not disbelief. It should not have happened, but that does not mean it cannot.

It was never meant to be Kozue.

Kozue was never meant to understand like this.

Mikoto cannot spin in this place - not with Mami fallen. She hefts her blade over head and it is a narrow thing, not carving /Sayaka/ instead. "Let's go back!" She cries, desperation edging into the anger of her words again as she fights through the haze. "Let's go back to existing, Kozue!" Say one thing, do another; she reaches out with her words and her stance shifts forward, Miroku carving down in a vertical slice straight towards Kozue's person.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Blade: Destruction on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru partially dodges 11 Fatigue damage from Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Destruction, taking 43 Fatigue damage! Kozue Kaoru's Fade and Flash abilities activate!

<Pose Tracker> White Queen [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

"Why would I ever care," Says the White Queen, "About anything you wanted?" Her words are tinged with fury as her knee smashes into the wind knight, the girl in red bringing her whip back to her hand once more. She notes, idly, that the stain upon it means she made her mark.
She is about to do more than that. Again her hand extends outward, prepared to fill the entirely of the elevator with the whirling, cutting length. She's interrupted abruptly by the tornado of force that Fuu summons into the enclosed space they share. The metal caging shudders, as does the floor beneath them. For a moment, it seems the entire elevator might rip itself apart--

Until Steven separates another chunk of the metal bars. The masked girl's balance falters, and once again she's picked off her feet. She hisses in anger as she's thrown violently from the carriage, smashing into the side of the elevator as the gale forces it to ascend higher and faster, and her in the opposite direction.

She goes down. Down, toward darkness. The bottom of the elevator shaft, once well-lit by the seemingly endless window behind, has abruptly turned into a pit of black smoke. She does not so much fall in it as she falls atop it, feet touching down on some unseen surface beneath the boiling darkness.

Her eyes are searing yellow lights as she watches the cars ascend. She does not pursue.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka's eyes widen as a bladed wing pops through the ceiling next to her head. Getting out of this just got even more urgent. Shoving her sword into the metal crushed around her, Sayaka starts sawing back and forth at it. But without serration, this is difficult work, and Sayaka yelps as another wing punctures near her head.

"Kozue!" Sayaka objects, shocked that she'd drag her brother into this just to hurt Sayaka. "W-well, I'm too busy to tell anybody anything, if you haven't noticed!"

Convenient but also true, Sayaka has no bandwidth for repartee at the moment. She pries at her sword like a crowbar, partially freeing herself, as Mami engaged in ribbon-enhanced fisticuffs below, and Mikoto is blasted with water. Things have been better.

"Hrrrk!" Sayaka groans. She can tell that Cassandra has narrowed down where she is, now. It has to be now or get impaled. Wrenching her arm, she rips a curved hole in the ceiling, and her body drops. Unfortunately, Cassandra can now see down into the car.

Thowing her elbow, Sayaka rotates as she falls, eyes widening as she watches the wing plunging down even faster. Grunting, she swipes at the stabbing pinion with her sword, smacking it aside. Clang, clang, clang! Three times she parries, the third just as she hits the ground. A final, devastatingly strong downward slash is coming, using the angle to make a guillotine of the wing. Sayaka, still half-bouncing from the impact, rips a second sword free and crosses them just as the pinion stabs again.

On the ground, she lies, the metal feather inches from her forehead, her crisscrossed swords supporting one another while holding up the wing. Her elbows, planted on the soaking ground, support the blades in turn.

Pursing her lips, Sayaka blows on the feather, a quick puff of air, like an Old West gunslinger with a pistol.

Cassandra has to yank her wing back at that point due to Miroku swinging its massive weight around, and Sayaka wisely sticks to where she was. Rolling back on her shoulders in its wake, she springs up, brandishing both swords, ready to challenge Cassandra through that hole again.

But as she stares up, she sees nothing but empty elevator shaft, up and up, going until the end of the world.

"/No/," Sayaka breathes. And she turns her face to Mami Tomoe.

The pillar of water drops, swallowing Mami entirely, its driving force far beyond the one that had smashed Sayaka into the ceiling. And Mami... she can't heal.

"No!" she says again. Sayaka's keen blue eyes lift to a hole in the side of the elevator. As she bolts forward to rush past Kozue, she kick-lifts the dangling chain of her kusarigami, briefly setting it sailing, a length of links floating before the hole in the wall. With a sharp thrust, Sayaka neatly plunges her sword through a link, pinning the chain to the wall. The elevator has no mercy; if Kozue doesn't get it loose, her chain is going to start dragging out of the elevator fast. Sayaka fixes her with a brief glance of disbelief and anger, her tremulous lower lip hinting at the hurt beneath.

Then, hastily as she can while being as careful as she can, Sayaka body-checks the falling Mami, catching her about the lower waist. Sayaka is a bit too late for a clean save here; Mami has fallen too much and the weight is too low to balance well. There's a moment of struggle, then Mami is arrested, held up, hugged protectively. Her stockinged knees are a few inches from the ground. But they never touched, no, never hers.

Sayaka's are planted on the ground firmly.

"Ah," Sayaka exhales. She stares at her own knees for a few seconds, dully. She has to, as she's supporting Mami's good arm with her head.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has used Caprice on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru braces 12 Fatigue damage from Sayaka Miki's Caprice, taking 5 Fatigue damage! Kozue Kaoru's Block and Parry abilities activate!

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.
<SoundTracker> The End of the Line - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm7pN2oKV4M

The cannonfire bursts into Kozue - clipping her shoulder - causing red to enter her silhouette, "Guh!"

Ribbons burst all around, and Kozue just starts swiping desperately. Trying not to get caught - the ribbons slice through the water, trailing sparkling droplets. "You're right. I don't know anything about you." It's a brutal dance for her to keep ahead of them. "I don't need to though." The ribbons extend, almost completely slicing through her bonds. Kozue swipes madly, hacking like she's trying to make a path through the Amazon. "No matter what girls you've known - no matter what wishes you've seen - no matter how many monsters you've slain."

Cassandra's baleful glowing eye can be seen in that moment through the hole in the elevator ceiling. Focused eerily on Mami. "... It's the same for every girl." To Mami Tomoe's great credit, it does not blindside her. The great torrent of water that slices down like a great arcing wave catches into the great golden lengths that she's summoned. In the end though, the great force behind the crashing wave ust barely manages to outdo the ribbons.

"Especially me." It's so muted that noone even hears that one - and perhaps there's something sad there.

Mikoto perhaps, Kozue thought - was gone. She's just as surprised when she comes back - and Cassandra is too - squawking in alarm as it swiftly retracts its wing to keep Miroku from slicing it off - thus freeing Sayaka. What did she find to hold onto down there? "Just - stay - down!" The girl has just barely cleared the ribbons - as the girl hefts her blade up in a two-handed swing.

Kozue hastily flattens herself to the side of the elevator, bringing up her sickle blade up for a desperate parry, which swings the chain mid-air. And it's that same moment that Sayaka's blade catches a link - pinning it to the shaft - distracted from the cleaving threat of Miroku - Sayaka catches her off-guard like she's a rank amateur. "Damnit!"

The sickle blade whips past her hand, and the girl hisses like she's been caught in a simple kitchen knife accident. Leaving her disarmed, wringing a hand that's now dripping blood. Well... as disarmed as someone under the protection of the Giant Swan Child can be. There's something that's almost twisted in her smile as she raises her arms in what looks like surrender. "Let's go back..."

It's like she's just echoing the words. And perhaps it does reach her. Like there's a nostalgic synchronicity to it. And something about her fighting spirit just - fades, "Wouldn't that be great? My brother would love that you know." Her eyes touch upon the sopping blue hair that Sayaka is right now, "She would too." She says in a sotto voce, a little emotional, "You can't fight time though. You can't fight change." She takes a step towards the hole, eyes on Mikoto, "... And you can't fight the way things are. It was always going to end up this way you know?"

She takes another step towards the hole in the floor. The step back allowing both Mikoto and Sayaka cradling Mami's head to come into view - as if she were taking in the full scope of her betrayal - able to witness it now, "It always does." She does not sigh - but the comment is perhaps like one. Like a fact of life. "Sometimes it's a slow thing as you grow up... and sometimes it happens all at once... but no matter what eventually..."

The girl whispers softly, "... it's the end of the line."

Another step and there's nothing left beneath her - gravity is another thing one person can't fight. Right?

The cage suddenly lurches - like a great weight just shoved off it, rattling the whole thing in a gut-wrenching moment as Cassandra dives out the building's window.

One might expect something to happen just after.

Nothing does.

Other than the elevator suddenly giving a distorted 'ping' of letting them know they've reached their floor.

[[Category:Logs]]

2019-03-08 - TIMELINE 3: The Battle of Ohtori, Part One

2019-03-09T18:25:24Z

Bloopbloop: Created page with "{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2" |- ! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: TIMELINE 3: To The Tow..."

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: TIMELINE 3: To The Tower'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Magical girls of Tokyo make their assault upon Ohtori Academy to free their classmates from the Golden Age PMC and stop Alyssa Searrs from calling down another nuke.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Mikoto Minagi]] [[Ye-jin Song]] [[Kozue Kaoru]] [[Sayaka Miki]] [[Mami Tomoe]] [[Fuu Hououji]] [[Steven Universe]] [[Nagisa Misumi]] [[Haruka Tenoh]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Ohtori Academy - Courtyards / Chairman's Tower
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2019-08-02 - 2014-09-16
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Ye-jin Song [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Bright sunlight streams down over the polished white surfaces that make up Ohtori Academy, reflecting off the ivory spire of the Chairman's Tower and warming the vast gardens and courtyards far below. It would be a perfect fall day on Southern Cross island if that same sunlight didn't also illuminate the rows of occupying soldiers and the lines of gleaming heavy artillery that blot the open spaces across the prestigious Ohtori campus. Inside frightened students are still held captive in classrooms and gymnasiums, unaware of the true nature of the conflict at hand but ever fearful of terrorists, soldiers, or both. There has been no word from the Student Council since Kasagami Araki's address, nor any further communication from SEARRS since the address precluding the forest's destruction. Ohtori remains occupied.
Perhaps not for much longer.

BGM Change: WAR SEASON - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKGmy7AGsgw

Deep underground, in the caverns that wind below the ancient forest above, the magical girls stranded on Southern Cross island have spent the last days slowly gathering, finding one another or stumbling upon their peers by chance. Whether they escaped early in the occupation or late, no matter their means of freedom, most paths have crossed down below the earth. Once gathered in mass, a plan of attack to take back Ohtori academy was formed:

The assault is to begin with a wide spread of magical girls heading to assault the main buildings used to hold students, with intent to both rescue their classmates and to make a large show of force. The more noise made possible the better in order to draw Golden Age forces away from the Chairman's Tower, the most heavily fortified building on campus. Bodies will also be needed to escort the freed students to possible points of escape, and commandeering of existing infrastructure may be a necessary part of that plan.

Meanwhile the second group is going for the tower itself, straight through the rows of tanks, artillery, barriers and armored troops that encircle Ohtori's central structure. The captured student councils of all three schools are still imprisoned in the white spire of the building, as well as Alyssa Searrs herself. Finding and stopping Alyssa before she can call down another destructive blast from the satellite hovering high above the earth is of utmost importance.

Now all the pieces are in place. The school is surrounded, magical warriors emerging from caves and treelines around the far perimeters of the Academy. Those with the highest vantage points can see the white columns of buildings and countless shapes of soldiers arrayed before them. The forces of the Golden Age are vast, armed with bullets and violent machinery, and they have yet to be truly challenged.
Until now.
For some in the second group it comes from the buzzing alarms of near-exhausted cellphones as the hour ticks to the appointed time. Others may get their sign from a trusted (and more coordinated) mascot. But absolutely no one can miss the cacophony of noise and bursts of sparkling explosions that, even in mid-day, light up the grounds of Ohtori like a Sumidagawa firework festival as the vanguard of magical girls breach the first of SEARRS defenses.

This is the signal. It's time to go.

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

It would be a lovely day--but then, maybe it can still be something like that. Ohtori is occupied...

But it's time. Setsuna Higashi, last night, worked with Madoka Kaname to gather as many magical girls as she could--and bring them together for the plan. While she no longer has the power to fight with them directly...
There's an ordinary girl with purple hair emerging from cover behind the magical girls as they put down resistance, keeping low and running ahead to tell students where to go with all the authority of an Executive.

...A little less obvious is a certain green-and-black themed witch throwing curses from odd angles.

But the second group includes a blaze of golden light as Mami Tomoe leaps pward from street level and throws out a hand clad in a black half-glove, looking down as if smirking down at tanks, soldiers--

Right on schedule, the veteran Puella Magi makes her appearance, and the guns she conjures sparkle as they appear--and gleam in the sunlight by twos, pointing straight down--straight for the enemy artillery.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Mikoto and Yumi find the group late; they were coming back to the caves from the surface, after all. Mikoto, at least, is easily-given to a plan of offence, and joins the assault team without complaint. They hug before they part. There is history, there, in the tight one-armed grasp Mikoto shows, the way she leans into her so completely. It is utterly unexplained.

It is an expression of affection only surmounted by the force with which Mikoto barrels into Mai when she finds her, and this time Miroku clatters to the ground so that she can wrap her up with a grasp which trembles. Mai, she is less willing to leave, but she is eventually convinced of the logic behind splitting their skillsets.

Her dress is tattered and dirtied; the innocence of her white roses have long-since fled, leaving braids and the single shoulder strap of her dress bare. Her opposite arm is completely exposed, showing the HiME birthmark on her upper arm, below the shoulder. Her pale heels have been soundly abandoned, and she wears a stolen pair of soldier's boots, multiple pairs of socks beneath them to let them fit. What was once an ankle-length gown is now ripped to the knees in uneven jags, and something has taken a bite out of the sash at her waist - now tied into a hasty knot at her hip instead of an elegant bow at her back. Above it, front and back, are the most concerning signs of damage it bears; two holes either side of her midsection, the torn edges stained with dried blood.

But the skin exposed beneath is knit and whole. So too are her limbs free of cuts and scratches, her face unmarred. Mikoto is safe, renewed, her debt sworn. It is well she is so. She means to go now into danger's maw, between serrated teeth and swallowing tongue.
They have someone she cares about.

They are not treating her kindly.

They have made her... they have made her...

... an enemy.

Oh, she does warn her allies, the ones she has found. "Be careful," Mikoto says to them, a light frown crossing her features as she looks away, "of Kozue Kaoru." A hand lifts from Miroku's hilt to press at the hole in her dress, lightly. And looking down does not hide the pain in her eyes and the crease of her brow, a different pain entirely from the agony she no longer endures. "... Kozue did this to me..." Mikoto and Kozue were seen together often enough, in Ohtori or on the streets of Tokyo at night, for the impact to be easily-guessed.

Mikoto has never reached out to the antagonistic elements of the community, though at least one has reached out to /her./ She spends no time redeeming sad girls, and perhaps this history makes it strange to hear her say: "... don't think it's Kozue's fault. But... Kozue's an enemy."

Though she offers that muted defence of someone she once considered such a close friend, she never tells anyone not to fight her. She won't tell them to go easy on her. Mikoto knows Kozue; she doubts the other girl will be pulling her blows. The both of them are wild things, both of them cornered.

She joined the second group late; she does not have long to wait with them. When it comes time to take position she sneaks through the scant forest which remains, and this time she does not step into the open for things which are not branches or bugs to graze past.
Madoka helped Mikoto to pick out a new phone which would survive the rigours of Mikoto, but it has long been forgotten in her dormitory, if SEARRS have not taken it for the secrets engraved in the cat emoji she sends. Nagi has been seldom-seen, in all the chaos. But, to speak of chaos...

There is another girl, in another group, and she is restless and harried and critical and of a /perfect/ mind to cause a scene. Sailor Mars engages in flagrant conflagration to allow her friends and allies to get the students to safety. Is it possible she's taking out her frustrations after so much time lying low..? Don't accuse her of it. Her fuse is so short, right now, it's a theoretical question amongst physicists.
The forward team carves in and it is Mikoto's turn to charge forward. She bellows a wordless howl as she erupts from the treeline, and as the gigantic barrel of a tank swings forward she plants her feet and wrests her blade about and suddenly, the vehicle is in two halves. One man scrambles from one half, another from the second, before the agitated fuel explodes.

She is not focused on them. She charges forward. And there are words to her war-cry: "Kozue!" One-two, rage and pain through an SUV. "Hand Kozue over to me!" Three-four --

She springs over assault rifles; her feet plant either side of the soldier's shoulders, forces him groundward as she springs off, blade slamming down on the armor of another vehicle.

"KOZUE-!!"

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

The Magic Knight of Wind is still slightly of two minds about this.

On the one hand, a general rushdown shock-and-awe frontal assault seems like it's just asking for trouble in some form; there are too many unknown variables, too many possible contingencies that can't even start to be ruled out, too many chances for ambushes, traps, or other surprises. Fog of war isn't just a gameplay mechanic, after all - it's all too easy to go charging in and then get caught by surprise in the teeth of something bigger and/or nastier than you thought the enemy could possibly have hidden away and ready to throw at you, just because you didn't take enough of a look, and sometimes even then.

On the other hand, Fuu has spent the past several days being afraid - of the initially-unknown force which destroyed the bridge; of the ostensible terrorists; of the 'soldiers' who were supposedly there to protect the seemingly-helpless students, and so forth ... and there's a piece of the Wind Knight which relishes, perhaps too deeply for good health, the chance to make the *soldiers* afraid for a change.

It's not all about fear, of course - Kuu is somewhere on campus, genuinely helpless, and the Wind Knight knows that her fiery ally has brothers who are likely stuck somewhere as well. She has to trust the Water and Fire Knights to punch through the Golden Age forces and make good on getting the civilians to safety.

For herself, though, the Magic Knight of Wind emerges from her hiding place (a hollow between a couple of bushes), accelerating to a run and calling out, "STORM-DANCE OF KAMAITACHI!!!" as her sword appears in her hands. The whirlwind isn't quite as destructive as it could be, at least to humans - but she's aiming to fling the soldiers hither and yon and unto none-too-gentle landings, and if she can rake at some of the artillery to more damaging effect, she's not above some well-placed property damage.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Storm-Dance of Kamaitachi on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

Having escaped into the forest as other Magical Girls made their move to leave Ohtori campus, little Steven Universe had bailed out a window after protecting some innocent schoolgoers from a hail of bulletfire. THe event was entirely traumatizing, but it did answer the question if his magical abilities was up to the task of blocking military grade weapons fire.

THe answer was yes. An important thing to know.

In the chaos, the boy, wounded still from the Cybody fight amd the resulting shockwave from a heavenly blast, found his way into the forests. There even was danger, as creatures roamed the corners of what was left for cover.
In time though, he found cave systems, and more importantly, friends-- to huddle together with.

The boy was thoroughly miserable, still with bandages on him, and wearing an Ohtori gym outfit that didn't quite fit him right. "Garent, Amethyst and Pearl haven't done anything yet, I hope..." Being down here loses bearing on what happens above. And his greatest fear still, is them arriving to try a daring rescue and getting hurt. There is too much for them, even with their powers combined...

A plan was struck, and when the groups split, and his powers more suited toward the rescue group compared to retaliation, Steven went with the spearheading party. What if someone needed help in a pinch? What if a student runs into the massive crossfire?
The signal was given, and the magical girls launched into their crusade to free the school. Steven, not particularly quick compared to most here, is one of the last to arrive on the scene, but is no less ready to join the fray. Where others have incredibly strong or wide-sweeping attacks, he will do what he can to fend off soldiers that get separated.

A shield soars through the air to attempt collision with a solider. "Hey! How about you put that down and fight the people that destroyed the forest?! Heads up, it isn't us!" he calls out.

Once the attack is done, he summons another shield and holds a hand out, having it anchor to a spot in the air in front of him. He widens it to be large enough to cover him fully.

"I /don't/ recommend shooting at me."

COMBAT: Steven Universe transforms into Serious Steven!
COMBAT: Steven Universe has used Throw Shield on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Steven Universe has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Sailor Uranus [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

"Hostile approaching! Put her down!"

Sailor Uranus dips and zags, several lines of assault rifle bullets chasing her. The barbed wire-strung sandbags sputter with muzzle flash, converging more accurately as she approaches. But as she makes the final approach, Uranus dives into a slide-tackle, directly at the sandbags. On the other side, a sandbag erupts from the pile as though fired from a cannon, slamming into one man's shins and flipping him down into a violent facevault.

In the instant that the autofire pauses, its target lost, Uranus is hurtling over the crumpled sandbag wall, twisting as she goes so one foot goes into a man's face and the other chases his chest down to the ground. Juking and snatching a muzzle at the same time, Uranus directs a blaze of bullets into the nearby ground, then backfists the man from his rifle. Whipping the muzzle like a sling, she hurls it into another soldier's weapon, pushing it out of the way long enough to shove a palm strike over it, cramming the woman's chinguard and sending her to the ground.
Uranus catches motion from the corner of her eye.

The butt of the last soldier's rifle smacks into Uranus's raised forearm. She had not even turned to block this strike from behind, but she turns now, grabbing the man by the throat with one arm and lifting him off his feet easily.

"Hhhow...!" the man croaks.

"I work out," Uranus says.

About ten meters to Uranus's left, the sandbags burst to let out a tank, its engines roaring as its treads chew dirt. "Hey!" Uranus shouts, trying to warn a girl who had the misfortune to be just on the other side of the sandbags. The Pretty Cure she was trying to warn can't hear over the gunfire and magical explosions, and Uranus winces as the tank drops down directly on top of her, just as she's turning around.

Uranus is turning away already, when she hears the tank engines growl, the treads gnawing the ground, unable to gain traction for some reason. Her eyes narrow as she tries to understand what she's seeing, even as the tank gives a great lurch, its heavy turret bobbing. The massive bolts that secure its thick armor creak and vibrate as the treads loosen their grip on the ground, beginning to whirr rapidly in midair. With a queasy complaint, the tank goes aloft.

Beneath it, Cure Black stands, knees bent into a plunge, arms at full extension, her cheeks red with effort. Grime spatters her face, her lower lip pushed up hard in girlish resolve, her bare abdomen locked up tight.
"How?!" the soldier repeats. Uranus shakes her head.

"Beats me."

COMBAT: Ye-jin Song fails to dodge Fuu Hououji's Storm-Dance of Kamaitachi, taking 32 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song braces 21 Fatigue damage from Mami Tomoe's Tiro Circle, taking 9 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Mami Tomoe is Psyched!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song fails to brace Steven Universe's Throw Shield, taking 48 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song fails to brace Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Dauntlessness, taking 50 Fatigue damage! Mikoto Minagi is Psyched!

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

"Leave it to me!"

As Mami's muskets let loose their first volley on the artillery, the anti-aircraft guns are swinging towards her. Their job is to defend against threats like this, and leave the artillery to do its devastating work. Sayaka Miki's job is to stop those guns from doing /their/ job.
Leaping up the back of an emplacement, Sayaka summons a sword in either hand, swivels it, and stabs both directly down into the vulcanized cannons as they are beginning to spin up. Planting her hands on her hips proudly for a moment, she stands between the twin guns of this emplacement as they lock up on the swords. But then they give a lurch, spinning partway, and then snap the swords entirely, whirring as they rotate fast.

"Aiee! Ow ow ow!" Sayaka is dancing around in between the gatling barrels as shards of her swords shoot out at random like broken blender blades, zinging and peppering her. Another battery is about to open up, its sights on Mami.

"Rrr!" Sayaka mopes, frustrated by the failure of her great plan. Grasping a handle on the top of the emplacement, she swings down loosely from it on one arm, using her momentum to rotate the emplacement, then catching the ground with her feet and running to turn it. The vulcanized rounds shred the second emplacement, as the gunners scramble away.

"Sawry! Please excuse me!" Sayaka sings in English. There is only one emplacement left, this one rear-facing, and so still rotating to find Mami.

Lining up the iron-sights, the gunner squints, shifting the targeting until Mami is dead in the center. But when he triggers the gun, the vulcanized cannons lock up tight, not even shifting much.

Sayaka stands panting on this emplacement, between the two guns again. Like a dog that got into a porcupine, /these/ muzzles are feathered with so many swordblades that it's hard to count them.

Panting, Sayaka lets out a satisfied huff, staring at the two gunners with a big grin as if she expects them to praise her.

COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has used Perfect Pitch on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song braces 6 Fatigue damage from Sayaka Miki's Perfect Pitch, taking 9 Fatigue damage! Sayaka Miki is Psyched!

<Pose Tracker> Mai Tokiha [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

September winds bring autumn's chill, but the girl on the rooftop is strangely warm.

Sneaking back to the dormitories wasn't easy, and Mai Tokiha had more than a few near misses. Arguably, doing so was foolhardy, and if she was to be honest with herself it was unnecessary. There had been a purpose, though. Try as she might to spy Takumi among the prisoners, he was nowhere to be found - and so she sought a familiar vantage point.

Heartbreakingly familiar, really - all the memories of moonlit conversations and peaceful stargazing from the dorm roof might be tainted, now, by the sight of the soldiers below. Something good ruined...but that's just the way life goes.
Admittedly, there was a second purpose; though she didn't have long to spare, Mai did manage to slip into her sadly ransacked dorm room to grab a uniform jacket and a bright red scarf. A little warmth, at least, to offset the scorched ruin that was her ballgown. Suitably clad for the fall air, she takes a moment to take in the sight of the invaded campus.

She should feel colder than this - or maybe more rage at the sight. Despite everything, though - despite the misery brought to a place that was feeling like home, despite the peril she's been put through, despite her continued failure to keep Takumi safe and sound - she just feels the warmth of Mikoto's last hug before they parted ways. A promise, murmured, to stay safe...

Violence is starting - the counter-attack has begun, and her role is to provide a diversion the Golden Age soldiers might not ignore. Memories of the haunting Zero Time at the back of her mind, Mai closes her eyes and does what comes naturally. She sings.

BGM CHANGE - Chiisana Hoshi ga Oriru Toki - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ONr68VAy04

Where is it?
I'm searching for the truth in the deep night...
Wandering around the universe alone...
Hoping that I will come across you...

The soldiers patrolling near the dorm aren't deaf, aren't unobservant, and in spite of the chaos beginning aren't that distracted. A squad rushes in, scaling the stairs in a hurry with guns at the ready to find the source of the song. The rooftop access is kicked open brutally, harsh voices calling out to the escapee. "Hold it right there! Wait..."

It was the first time my tears felt so hot,
And the ties holding me down might now be broken...

It's not quite what they might have expected. The girl on the rooftop is familiar, of course; the soldiers were briefed on key targets, and Mai Tokiha is one of them. She has rings around wrists and ankles, sparkling in the sunlight, and she's dancing - turning slow spins with her eyes closed.

She's also surrounded by fire. There's a merry blaze on the dorm roof, sparked by the HiME's Element, and it swirls around her in a growing spiral. The soldiers look among each other, hesitant in the face of power - but they're professionals, and they aim their weapons. "Mai Tokiha! This is your only warning!"

Because of the radiance of life embracing me, I am never alone...

I gaze at the proudling smiling moon,
And now, with your strange power...

She stops, facing the soldiers, and speaks the next line with an almost resigned smile. "...Awaken me. ...Kagutsuchi!"

The guns open fire, but it's far too late - the inferno consumes them, envelops the rooftop, blossoms into a great signal flare as Mai's Child rises in an instant. Eight eyes survey the campus as a great serpentine tail sweeps across the rooftop to fling aside those who didn't dive for cover already. Before more can arrive, the dragon takes flight.

It screams by with a defiant cry, winging its way high and wide - but its goal doesn't seem to be the soldiers, or the tower, or even the tanks. The fleet in the sea, with its many artillery batteries, was always another of the threats levied against Ohtori - and so to those ships it flies.

Batteries exchange fire with battleship-scuttling meteors as Mai and Kagutsuchi's diversion begins.

<Pose Tracker> Ye-jin Song [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Sound and light fill the air of Ohtori's buildings and courtyards as the second wave of magical girls charge into the fray. In their periphery they can see the work of their allies, electric flashes of beams and bursts of magnificent light. Soldiers scramble wildly for cover as tanks rumble forward, and then abruptly backward, or roll onto their side, or just go up into the air for no good reason.

The fighters in the air smoke and weave as streaks of light chase them through the sky, and in the sea nearby every cannon on every ship opens fire in desperate bid to hold against the burning flame of Mai Tokiha's gigantic child. The path to the Chairman's Tower is still by no means clear-but at least now there's a chance.

A chance that's rapidly becoming reality. Armed and armored figures blockading the path are thrown from their feet by the force of the gale that Fuu summons as she charges forward. They scatter like bowling pins, whirled from their well-ordered lines and dumped in unordered heaps as the path ahead becomes suddenly clearer.

Mikoto too clears a path, even in the process of making one. The few tanks left guarding the chairman's tower are rendered to husks as she passes, split open by the dark blade.

From above the golden queen rains down fire on the artillery below, exploding shells bursting into puffs of black smoke in the air around her. Golden bullets split the thick metal hulls of tanks and heavy guns, sending Golden Age soldiers running in their wake.
Sayaka's work removes several more from the equation, though she does not find anyone particularly happy with her bouquets of swords. Gunfire erupts, though on a much smaller scale than what might have been possible before she'd removed several of the heavy machinery from the equation.
Gunfire pings across Steven's shield in retaliation as the boy makes his presence known, soldiers toppling and scattering.

And they all go forward. The noise and chaos of battle go with them, bullets, grades, and shells exploding into the air as the group forces their way forward. Past the last line of soldiers at the door to the great tower, and into sparkling lobby within. The massive rose seal, assembled in the floor tiles under their feet, is still pristine. The light of the chandelier above illuminates not more soldiers, but only doors to the twin elevators that run through the skeleton of the long tower.

There seem to be no stairs at all-no way up to the student council chambers and the students held captive there save the iron cages of the elevator cars. And time is of the essence. Who knows when Alyssa Searrs could call down another strike from her heavenly child, and the mass of soldiers are still in pursuit, attempting to funnel through the huge doors behind and prevent the infiltrators from making any further progress.

OOC: You may toss parting attacks at the soldiers (aka me), but please be on an elevator by end of pose. There are a whole two to pick from!

COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Real Guns on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Real Guns on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Grenade Diversity on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Surprise Shotgun on Steven Universe.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Real Guns on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji perfectly braces 25 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Real Guns, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Brace! Fuu Hououji's Block and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Steven Universe counters 3 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Surprise Shotgun, taking 10 Fatigue damage! Stagger applied to Steven Universe!
COMBAT: Steven Universe's counterattack, Reverb Shield, partially gets through, doing 5 Fatigue damage to Ye-jin Song! Stagger and Stun applied to Ye-jin Song!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki braces 16 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Real Guns, taking 13 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Sayaka Miki is Quipped! Sayaka Miki's Block and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi perfectly dodges 7 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Grenade Diversity, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Dodge! Mikoto Minagi's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe fails to brace Ye-jin Song's Real Guns, taking 21 Fatigue damage! Mami Tomoe is Quipped!

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Being bright and brilliant also means being a target--and Mami does not entirely escape the hail of retaliation that comes for her. Shrapnel explodes from a detonating shell; assault rifles move up to try to find her--and an ordinary girl would be destroyed.

...As it stands, Mami lands, with powder burns and gunshot wounds, a little less gracefully than she would like, drawing in a breath quickly--it isn't the rhythm she wanted, forces her to gather herself back up again. However...

A Puella Magi is not so easy to destroy as that, and she rises after, seeking out Sayaka ahead with her beautiful sowrds. "Perfect work," the senpai declares to her eager kohai, smiling at her as she looks up again to the tower--to a line of soldiers. "Shall we head up?" she asks of Sayaka, far across the battlefield from Haruka and Yumi and others.

A beat, "...I've been curious about it for a time," she admits, "Since I don't have the open schedule for Student Council work..."

Well, she does know Juri Arisugawa.

Her words are light, but her movements are careful--she steps forward, and this time throws ribbons at soldiers to prevent them firing their weapons, in favor of unnecessary killing. She goes for the right elevator--

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

That, thinks the Wind Knight, went surprisingly smoothly -

And she promptly stops thinking that, when a few soldiers gather themselves and open fire on her as she's passing. More by reflex than plan, she brings her sword around and up, holding it with the blade angled downwards between herself and the guns (and the soldiers).

She would have expected to need a good bit wider of a blade, and possibly heavier, to actually fend off all of the bullets ... but apparently these particular mercenaries are the precision shooters of their squad, or something. The few bullets that *don't* ricochet off of her sword skim off the Wind Knight's armor instead.

There's a lull in the gunfire, not from clips being emptied but from a dawning realization among the soldiers that they aren't getting through her defense. Before they can try adjusting their aim, the Magic Knight of Wind flicks her hand - not a proper attack spell, but a stiff gust of wind to throw them further off-balance - and hurries into the tower proper.

She's closer to the left than to the right, and thusly she steps into the left elevator, holding the gate for any of her allies who join her on that side; the Wind Knight also offers a smile and a bow of the head to Mami.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

The shield, despite not hovering on Steven's forearm, still seems intrinsically attached to him somehow. As incoming fire rains down on the shield, A foot has to dog is as kinetic jolts slam Steven back several times, sending painful vibrations up his outstretched arm. But that isn't the only thing reverberating.

As bullets connect with the shield, sound waves ripple out, disrupting and cracking the nearby ground, and causing undue pain to those in front of the shield. As well, the ammunition reflects every which way imaginable in a frontal area. It isn't long until the soldiers literally undo themselves. Spotting an opening, Steven grasps the azure lip of his shield and runs toward the tower.

The fighting grows more intense as the group packs in toward their destination. And for the little boy, he has to play a bit of stealth getting past another group as everyone converges. Slipping around an ornate pillar. Admittedly, when there are others causing massive explosions and bursts of magic, it makes for a good distraction!

A pair of elevators offer momentary respite and travel to their destinations. The little Gem Child piles into the left elevator, gasping for air. "I need... to ask... the Gems... how to... shapeshift better clothes..." he sputters out, wrenching ad his overly tight shirt collar. Whether or not he can actually /do/ that like them though is a question for another time.

It is only now he notices someone else i nthe elevator. "Ghh...! Oh, hey! Good work out there," he says, slumping on a side wall. "S... Sorry for bailing on your earlier, I was so scared, I didn't know what to do, and..." He trails off, but begins anew with a better thought. "You are doing great out there. The guys ahead will be no match for you, I bet!" he says nicely, trying to uplift her spirits. "And if it gets too dangerous, I got your back. We got this! We can free the school!"

COMBAT: Steven Universe has used Love Like You on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Steven Universe has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji accepts Steven Universe's Love Like You, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Fuu Hououji is Cheered! Surge applied to Fuu Hououji!

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Grenades hail down, and there is a world where Mikoto is scored with shrapnel again, a hundred-hundred tiny metal lances launched with concussive force.

But perhaps knowing Homura for so long -- and being caught in explosives so recently -- is its own teacher. Mikoto sees the first bounce down, and springs away, and it is the first in a series of snapshots of diving and weaving and never quite being staggered or thrown aside. Homura has

the element of surprise; these soldiers do not.

She is not distracted in her dance between the explosive hail they rain down.

She is running for the tower.

She is screaming: "/KOZUE!/"

Mai rises from the ocean and Mikoto knows she will punish the soldiers for their transgressions. Mai promised she would be safe. Mikoto promised to take care of it. ... what an interesting contrast.

And then she is into the lobby, and the battle behind them is shielded by walls. A rose beneath them, lights above; they cast a shadow at Mikoto's feet as she walks. And Mikoto is apart from many of the girls around her, uninvolved in so many of their works. She is not sure she can properly call any of the people here her friends...

... so the friends of her friends will have to function well enough to follow.

Mikoto has heard complaints from Mami and Sayaka, but they are important, to Eri and Madoka and Homura. They are known quantities.

Mami asks Sayaka if they ought to head up, and Mikoto just steps into the elevator beside them, completely uninvited and utterly self-assured. At least she's not attacking soldiers in the process. She glances to them, finds blue eyes and ones gold like hers in so many fashions,
and she makes an unsettled noise in the back of her throat as she looks aside. "... Eri and Homura are okay," she says, the words a little awkward, unsure of what to say, delivering information instead of hopes or aspirations. "I think."

She doesn't know what happened to Madoka.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
Rather than praise her, the gunners draw sidearms and start shooting at her. Sayaka seems almost to disappear into her cape as she drops low, then surges forward. She takes a bullet on her way over, grunting as caves down to her knees and slams them into the first gunner. Bearing him to the ground, Sayaka ends up kneeling on his chest, slicing her sword back behind her to neatly sever the barrel of the pistol.

The gunner hesitates a moment, then decides to try to fire it anyway. The shot goes wild, but scares Sayaka, who had thought the gun disabled. She shoves herself to her feet so fast she bonks her head on the gun emplacement. "Uuugh!" she moans, embarrassed. The gunner with his sawed-off pistol steps up to try and plant it against Sayaka, realizing how inaccurate it is now, but Sayaka moves into him to prevent it, stepping through his space and turning around to grab his head. Tossing her feet in the air, she drops down straight onto her back, forcing him to do the same, only with the added unpleasantness of being on the bottom.

"Huhh," Sayaka pants. She winces, reaching up under her armpit to grab the bullet her healing is pushing out. As she picks herself up, she places the bent slug on the unconscious man's chest. That move is called the sitout sometimes, and this gentleman is definitely going to be sitting this one out.

"Give this back to your buddy," she advises, patting the bullet almost fondly.

Jogging up to Mami, Sayaka beams at the praise. "Keheh. Mami-senpai took out the bigger guns." Turning, she looks up the tower, finding it more imposing when it's a fortress to assault than when it was just a school building.

"Mami-senpai would definitely win if she ran, even for president!" Sayaka proclaims, clenching a fist near her jawline emphatically. Following Mami into the car, she beams visibly, her mouth at a traditional, possibly copyrighted "Smiley Face" angle. When Mikoto jogs through to stand between her and Mami, that angle reverses into an equal and opposite frowny face.

It softens, though, as Mikoto visibly worries about the others. "They're okay," she says, resting a hand on Mikoto's shoulder. "Those two can handle themselves. And absolutely nobody but nobody can beat my best friend Madoka!"

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.

<SoundTracker> Frozen In Time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjnW7icsx9I

As the Magical Girls file into one of the elevators, another slips into the rear to join those filing into the one on the right. There's no masque on her face, simply the hood drawn up over her hair to enclose even her bangs. Those who are bright and brilliant cast long shadows don't they? And as they celebrate - carry on, she stands within those shadows.

Her eyes drifting upwards like she was heading for the same goal as the rest of them - like she belongs there - yet stands apart. She does not sneak glances at the others in the elevator. She doesn't need to - to know who is here - whether in this elevator - or the adjacent shaft.

-=-=-

There's the feel of a head on her shoulder - and the smell of chlorine in the summer air. "You know... I like going into the water more than I do sitting around some bonfire."

-=-=-

And then there is the scent of almost far too sweet - cloying crepes. "Isn't it nice to just... exist - sometimes?" The girl says as she sits on the slats of the ruined rollercoaster ride. The park overlooking the city. "I don't mean existence is nice... but existing." The girl turns the crepe around to show Mikoto, "It's like eating crepes when noone is around who thinks something of it... or swimming in the pool by yourself at night. You get it right?"

There's this light sigh, as she chews off an end of it, allowing it's flavor to permeate her tastebuds - before she swallows, "Of course you do." Kozue's smile seems bittersweet at best. "You have a brother after all. So you know what it's like."

-=-=-

The gates of the elevator squeezes shut with a strange coordination - as a girl in each hits the button for the Student Council Chambers, and the cars traversing upwards becomes a silhouette of a cage against the strange geometry of the portals showing the sky outside of the chairman's tower.

She doesn't respond for a while, hands at her sides, bobbing up and down on her feet in a gesture of impatience but the moment someone looks at her a little too hard - she states-

"Before we get started. Does anyone want to give up?"

It's then that everyone might be alerted to the traitor in their midst. It's unmistakable whose voice it is. As the girl's gaze slips down, and an Element snaps into her hand - materializing out of nowhere. The shadow of a sickle, with it's chain seemingly drawn up inside the handle. Surely this lone girl doesn't believe she can take them all on?

"Cassandra."

BGM Change: Countdown - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiBy3p3ffa8

The word hangs in the air for a moment, before the entire elevator screeches - rocking and shuddering - it's archaic design lacking the same modern anchors - the light from outside of the Chairman's tower flickering like a strobe. The Child's talons are gripping the top of the elevator - like a vulture sitting atop the cage of a chipper songbird. It's crimson eyes glaring down eerily. Kozue sets upon Mami Tomoe first - attempting to bring her sickle down through her wrist to pin her against the cage wall - so she'll have a harder time firing up.

At the same time - pipes burst all over the elevator shaft, spraying them with what feels like a sprinkler like rain shower. The water causing the floor to grow slick in these few moments of disorienting ambush, as it streams off the edges. As the elevator passes by one pipe in that moment - it's severed payload hangs suspended in the air - like gravity was arrested droplet by droplet.

They elongate, stretching out and joining to congeal into long tendrils that try to clothesline Mikoto from approaching her. The ends stretching out to slide through the cage doors and wrap around the elevator - it's grip tightening to grind her back - including a still healing wound against the cold metal. "You should have stayed in custody-" There's a sort of redirection in that thought. "-both of you."

Almost like a terrible command.

The cage then rocks in another way entirely, as something smashes into the elevator floor from below. Again - and again - and again. The metal of the elevator floor warping and buckling beneath Sayaka Miki until it gives - the sudden column of water ripping her off her feet to try to smash her into the ceiling - pinning her to the ceiling. The talons of the Child suddenly squeeze, trying to shape the metal around her back to try to keep her held in place.

"Hang in there... Sayaka-chan."

There's such a cruel twist of the knife in those words to her childhood friend. Before she seems to ignore her - pressing her attack on her mentor. "Fighting monsters has gone to all of your heads. Makes you think you can beat any enemy or that you're some heroes of justice."

As she tries to drive Mami Tomoe against the wall. "That isn't what this is about. The only truth to be found here is that every woman, even the most powerful - and most beautiful..." She taunts up close, almost sensuously in her struggle for dominance, "...can't change the fact that they'll go down on their knees when a man insists hard enough."

Kozue uses her elbow to try to hinder her movement, to keep her boxed in - while her knee whips up to try to brutalize her gut - and keep her from resisting. As she whispers almost sensuously. "Why fight what you can't even hope to resist?"

All of this struggle - for a singular purpose - of puncture one of the Golden Queen's limbs and hooking them to a wall.

The elevator continues in it's disorienting shifts and turns - all the while the Child's weight stands above, the creature having far too many sharp ends for anyone's liking - given that it's embracing the cord keeping them all suspended over the abyss.

COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru transforms into Kozue and Cassandra!
COMBAT: Cassandra has fully healed herself. She is now ready to take on 3 opponents!
COMBAT: Cassandra has used Toccata on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Cassandra has used Ebbe und Fluth on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Cassandra has used Die erwachende Thetis on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Cassandra has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe fails to dodge Cassandra's Toccata, taking 22 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi cleanly braces 11 Fatigue damage from Cassandra's Ebbe und Fluth, taking 2 Fatigue damage! Cassandra is Psyched! Stun and Tangle applied to Mikoto Minagi!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki fails to dodge Kozue Kaoru's Die erwachende Thetis, taking 45 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Ye-jin Song [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Song at Midnight - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uvh-DUb0QQ

From an entrance high above, Ye-jin Song waits. Dark eyes track the progress of the two elevators as they rise, following their steady ascent up through the tower. She waits patently, until the metal boxes are just a few stories below. Then she jumps.

Air rushes past the White Queen as she descends, wine-red hair flaring behind her like in a dark corona. Fabric ripples as she descends, plummets those long feet to meet the roof of the second elevator with a metallic clang of impact. The sound is not, perhaps, as immediately alarming as the arrival of Kozue and Cassandra, which Steven and Fuu can easily witness through the bars that separate the two metal boxes.

It becomes more so shortly. Ye-jin's fingers trace the air and her Element forms inside of them, a neatly coiled length of white cord. A flick of her wrist splits the roof of the elevator open as easily as a more mundane bullwhip might sheer open a soda can. Metal screams as a long hole is abruptly torn, exposing the masked girl above to the two occupants in the car below.

It's the sound that's the worst part. It reverberates with agonizing volume inside of the elevator shaft, visibly distorting the space between the two occupants. As the cord snaps back into her hand Ye-jin scowls. "You're really starting to piss me off, you know?" She does not sound happy to see either the Wind Knight, not the boy in pink once again. "I hate wasting my time."

COMBAT: Ye-jin Song transforms into PRInCESS Ye-jin!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has fully healed herself. She is now ready to take on 2 opponents!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Sonic Shock on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has cancelled their attack on Fuu Hououji. If there are more attacks that need to be +cancelled, please hold all +attacks until the process is complete.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Sonic Shock on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Sonic Shock on Steven Universe.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has used Grace and Glory on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji braces 6 Fatigue damage from Ye-jin Song's Sonic Shock, taking 5 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Fuu Hououji's Block and Parry abilities activate! Cripple applied to Fuu Hououji!
COMBAT: Steven Universe fails to brace Ye-jin Song's Sonic Shock, taking 7 Fatigue damage! Cripple applied to Steven Universe!
COMBAT: Ye-jin Song accepts Ye-jin Song's Grace and Glory, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Accelerate and Surge applied to Ye-jin Song!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

The Magic Knight of Wind smiles wryly at Steven, although the wryness fades as he speaks to her. "We haven't been blessed with much certainty about anything of late, have we?" she replies. "None of us are really at our best -"
The universe decides to double down on that point almost immediately thereafter, yanking the Wind Knight's attention away with the sudden commotion being wrought in the other elevator. And then *their* elevator comes under similar attack: perhaps less catastrophically destructive, but at least as violent and attention-grabbing.

The Wind Knight brings her sword up as the elevator's roof is torn open, and she has some defense up even before the cord lashes through the air. You wouldn't expect a raised length of metal to provide much protection against a sound so harsh as to be literally painful, though ...
In this case, maybe it's a small matter of familiarity breeding contempt; the Wind Knight has been on the receiving end of this before, and not that long ago. Or maybe it's just a measure of luck and reflex - she certainly doesn't really have time to cover her ears; all she can do is wince and endure it, knowing the noise doesn't last indefinitely.

"Believe me, the feeling is mutual," she retorts to the White Queen with an ever-so-faint smile, her voice raised over the sonic onslaught. "Unfortunately, if you were hoping we would back down, we'll have to disappoint you. Winds of Admonishment!!" she calls out still more loudly, trying to entrap the White Queen in a binding whirlwind.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Winds of Admonishment on Ye-jin Song.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has finished attacking.
COMBAT: White Queen fails to brace Fuu Hououji's Winds of Admonishment, taking 18 Fatigue damage! Fuu Hououji is Psyched! Cripple and Trap applied to White Queen!

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Mami herself would be forced to admit only internally that she is less likely to be quite so kind to her opponents... But it's endlessly charming from her student and friend Sayaka anyway. Once they're together--
"Well, you know what they say--fight guns with guns." She nods, as if that's a real saying, and then smiles--with the rough time they've all had, unfettered /praise/ is a balm. "Well--"
She pauses, then, as she spots Mikoto coming through. For an instant, her old habits make her wonder if they will have a difficulty here-- with Mikoto, who she has had issue with before, who is shouting even now for her enemies--what was the name, over the gunfire? And yet.
That doesn't happen.

"Thank you," Mami says to Mikoto, as Sayaka reassures her in turn. "I haven't had a chance to meet up with them, yet..." A pause, and then she smiles back at Sayaka. "That's right. Madoka-chan will be fine--but," she turns back to Mikoto as they go up, "I did see her, before the battle." She pauses, an instant, and considers--she saw Kagutsuchi flying out towards the others...

"...I believe Tokiha-san will be fine too," Mami offers. They've had their disagreements in the past--plenty of them--but now is not the time for them. Now, they work together. ...And for shadows...
Mami Tomoe /is/ a brilliant fond of light, isn't she?

She recognizes the voice when Kozue speaks up--recognizes the sound of a weapon materializing, and turns immediately, her demeanor changing. "Sayaka--!"

Her warning for the other girl is cut off by Mami clamping her mouth shut to avoid crying out as the sickle slams straight through her arm--and the fact of Kozue's choice is made wise as in the same instant the gun she'd already summoned fires, far wide of the Child above them.

Water crashes down upon them, and when it hits Mami's delicate sleeve it flows red. "I didn't ask your opinion," Mami asks, and it is as close to a snarl as a girl as refined as Mami gets. But she doesn't have time to free herself immediately. Gone to their heads, has it?

Mami is already on the wall; driving her against it is easy, and the older girl narrows her eyes as she sees Kozue close. If there is a sensuality to it, perhaps it is in the senses; the scent of chlorinated water warring with that of flowers. The soft fabric as delicate as crepe paper, warring against slick red. A sharp elbow into soft flesh.

"To /your/ knees is a familiar trip," Mami spits darkly at Kozue, coughing as the knee hits her gut, and she feels the searing pain of her wrist /stuck/ such that it puts stars in her vision--
Before the next strike pins her arm closer to the elbow and Mami lets out a shout of anger as much as pain.

Her eyes snap up. "What would /you/ know about resisting anything?" Mami spits back at her. "Not all of us think it's our purpose in life to sleep through the student body!"

Her free hand comes up--and while one might expect it it to just be a gentle movement, it isn't. Mami's fist snakes out for Kozue's face, and in the wake of it ribbons course off of her other wrist, wending about arms, about hands, about her weapon to slow and tire, streaming in gold.
"So get /OUT!/"

COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has used Parete on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

"Nah... it's all been guesswork, but following our hearts always seems to lead us where to go. At least we can count on those, right?" he asked with a smile.

The elevator ride up was a serene moment in an otherwise tumultuous event. A chance to clear one's head before the trials meet them. The boy rests his chin thoughtfully atop an edge of his shield, balancing it from there as he stared off through the metal safety bars. Unfortunately for Steven and his elevator partner, someone seems intent on interrupting that.

A metallic groawn and a shudder grab the boy's attention. "What was that? Are they sabotaging the elevator?" He stands, and carefuly walks to the edge, a tender hand grabbing a metal bar. A look beyond shows the opposite elevator with the Puella Magi and Mikoto is under attack! "We gotta do something! Can we reach--"

A deafening snap of metal and flick of light reveals their roof is now missing a section, and a familiar figure who caused problems not too many nights ago is seen. Not only seen, but heard. Heard in the worst way. As if someone put an angry housecat in front of a chain of megaphones. THe boy grips his ears, though again there is a strange, further effect that grates at his being, coming from inside somewhere.

Violent sounds just seem to cause him undue problems.

"What is your problem, Lady?!" he shouts up as his hearing slowly returns. "We're trying to save the school from being blown up! Go... away!" A thought and a forceful hand creates a section of a Bubble Shield, that he launches after the Wind Knight blasts outward with wind, attempting to impact the masked figure and knock her away, or off, or somewhere than isn't here, because he doesn't need this right now! "If you care about this school at all you'll help us save everyone!"

COMBAT: Steven Universe has used Repelling Shield on White Queen.
COMBAT: Steven Universe has finished attacking.
COMBAT: White Queen partially dodges 3 Fatigue damage from Steven Universe's Repelling Shield, taking 13 Fatigue damage! White Queen's Fade ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka does not acknowledge the hooded girl at first, her attention on Mikoto. But as the doors slide closed, her eyes trace over, at first just for a glance. She finds herself staring, though. Some intuition keeps her watching. It isn't her danger sense. It's a sense of familiarity.
Narrowing her eyes, Sayaka feels herself unfocusing, her mind trying to find something. A feather, a scent of aquamarine. Her head tilts.
The voice of a girl Sayaka was raised with answers a riddle unasked.

Sayaka doesn't move. She knows a twitch will be answered by violence. She can see the blade glittering in Kozue's hand. She can feel the tension in the air.

This would have been unthinkable, even moments ago. Sayaka never dreamed she'd fight Kozue. But whatever scrap of wisdom she has gained in her young life is resonating inside her. Somehow... somehow she just knows.

"Do you mean," she asks softly, "anyone else?"

"Sayaka!" Mami shouts.

Sayaka rips a sword from sizzling blue nothing, bringing it overhead. Her strike is decisive, because it comes from Mami, but uncommited, because it goes towards Kozue. It is also useless, because Cassandra has her own ideas about who is attacking whom today. Jarred violently, Sayaka drops to one knee.

"Senpai!" she shouts a warning. Being trapped in an elevator is a vulnerable position for Mami. Better for Mikoto and Sayaka to handle this--
Better, but not to be.

Sayaka feels the equivalent of a broken hydrant's worth of water hit her in the chest, driving her off her feet. She loses her sword, which clatters to the ground and spins there in the flow, as Sayaka herself strikes the ceiling forcefully. Thrashing, she tries to free herself from the water, only to feel the ceiling itself "grab" her, wrapping her torso in bent metal.

Blowing water from her mouth and nose, Sayaka lifts her head parallel to the ceiling so she can see what's going on beneath her. "Kozue!" Sayaka shouts, but Kozue no longer seems to even know that she's up there, for all the attention she pays. She freezes in alarm as she sees Kozue slam Mami into the wall. Mami is endlessly resourceful, and hardly helpless at close range, but a match for Kozue? At a distance shorter than the length of a musket? She's afraid Mami will get cut down at any moment. If only Madoka were here.

Sayaka kicks with her legs, but they're not long enough to reach Kozue's head unless she was standing right beneath. If only Kozue was taller. Gritting her teeth, Sayaka tries to lift one shoulder to pull an arm free. A rib or two didn't make it through this, and crushed like this, she can't heal it either. Groaning rises to an angry scream as Sayaka drags at her own arm hard, pulling it against the claw-crushed metal. Her voice rises, her feet pedal, and she yanks a heavily abraded arm free.

Gasping, Sayaka snatches a sword from her dangling cape with the freed hand, and tosses it to catch it in a reverse grip. Heaving, she slams it in hilt-deep into the ceiling, then rips it free again. Unsure where to stab to get Cassandra to let go, she slams her sword down again and again, puncturing holes in the ceiling at different spots.

"Hang on!" she urges.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has used Furioso on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
There is another girl, but Mikoto does not know her, and pays her little mind.

She is distracted. The contact and support are unexpected, as Sayaka hears the concern Mikoto has for the other Puella Magi - and the one left unnamed. Mami's kindness joins her, reassuring her that Madoka is all right in a different way to Sayaka's concrete belief, and her expression gentles for a moment into something so much more fragile, more breakable, more vulnerable and raw. The upwards arc of her brow and her lips, the little shudder-halt of a breath before a sigh of relief; she's happy. It is so easy to ease Mikoto, even in the depths of the oblivion SEARRS has brought her. "I..."

She breathes through her lips and at first she does not catch the scent of it.

...

"Is it okay?" Mikoto asks of existing, legs swinging over the precarious edge of the rollercoaster. Her eyes drop to the black case on her other side, but her hands are occupied with a crepe half-devoured. "Sometimes, I feel like... I'm having too much fun. Nice to not have to... but... what if I'm not doing enough 'cause I like it too much?"

Her teeth drag over her lips, and she takes another bite of crepe - and then another, because crepes are delicious. "Did I give up 'cause I have friends now? Am I not trying hard enough? Is that why I haven't completed my mission? I - I didn't mean to. Guess I'm just scared that, one day... I won't be free to eat crepes with Kozue whenever I want. I dunno if..." Mikoto trails off, as if she has realised she is speaking too much. She so rarely speaks her mind. She so rarely speaks at length. It is long friendship which has drawn the words out of her, long patience with her silences and clipped-wing words.

She smiles, small, and there is the weight of millennia behind it. "... no, there's no way, right?" Another bite, and Mikoto notes: "It's good."

...

And all a sudden the memory clicks into place with the scent, and shock floods through the succour on Mikoto's face as her gaze snaps to the stranger. Her breath catch-lodges in her throat, sucked in through grit teeth. She knows.

Golden eyes snap down to the kusarigama she comes to hold; on reflex she draws Miroku up, covering her belly. "Ko--" It is the word she has been screaming this whole time. Now she is here, the word chokes.

It's getting damp in here. The sprinklers are making her eyes wet, creeping down her face. When did Ohtori decide on salt water to quench their fires?

In-out her breath shudders and she growls against it, diving forward - and oh, these are /such/ small quarters, aren't they? - but she cannot clear the few steps of distance.

Cassandra is come.

Her reckless approach is punished by solid water, and she is slammed against the back of the elevator. She grits her teeth and bears it, and she had thought she was whole but Kozue brings out the memory of pain regardless.

Perhaps it is a function of her opponent.

But Mami says she knows nothing of resisting and Mikoto cries out: "Don't!" And it is not the sprinkler which sets her words awobble.

"Kozue," she says, and they are not battle-edged words, "Kozue-! I know! I know but - we can /help,/ Kozue! This isn't right! Kozue wasn't made for this!" The words thin in their grief and she does not know the shape of them. She is not Madoka; she does not speak reason. She does not redeem sad girls.

But when her friends are in trouble, she gets involved.

She heard what they called her. She heard how they laughed.

Kozue is in trouble.

With a cry she wrests her blade up and carves through the water, because the water isn't quite water any more. She stumbles as she is freed and she does not want to, does not want to, but she can't hope to resist, and she knows the way the truth carves the world open.

She will try not to kill her. She will try.

There is no room here to gain momentum; it is a swing as Mikoto steps in to match Kozue from behind, in the wake of Mami's ribbons. Her breath hitches in a sob as she brings her blade in towards flesh, an upwards strike from below. It is edged; it will cut.
The truth carves the world open.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Blade: Disequilibrium on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru fails to counter Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Disequilibrium, taking 40 Fatigue damage! Exhausted applied to Kozue Kaoru!
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru's counterattack, Toccata, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Mikoto Minagi!
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru braces 9 Fatigue damage from Mami Tomoe's Parete, taking 4 Fatigue damage! Kozue Kaoru's Block and Parry abilities activate! Diversion applied to Kozue Kaoru!
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru partially dodges 4 Fatigue damage from Sayaka Miki's Furioso, taking 16 Fatigue damage! Kozue Kaoru's Fade and Flash abilities activate! Sayaka Miki drains 6 fatigue from Kozue Kaoru!

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.

Something inside of her twists - as she bulls through Sayaka's comment in her assault. She has to - right through Mikoto's concern. Her coming here for her.

The adjacent shaft shrieks with the sounds of the White Queen's assault, and Kozue is glad at least that there will not be support crossing over to blindside her. The ones in that shaft are both fortunate and unfortunate in her eyes.

Fortunate because they get to die ignorant. Unfortunate because they picked the one that the White Queen was ambushed.

As Mami's fist snakes out towards Kozue's face, the girl's wrist twists, and out of nowhere a chain drops to the floor between them. Catching it with a hand in mid-air. The ribbons snap around the chain - as she diverts some of its winding path.

Sayaka stabs upwards - and Cassandra squawks - as she starts doing this shuffling dance. Her talons pattering upon the metal as what must seem like nails pop out of the floor. The final strike pops right through it - and impales it - the Child makes this noise of agony as it rocks its food back and forth to try and wobble it off it.

"... That's a really good question." Kozue snarls asks what she knows about resisting anything. It's like she's forcing the insult to roll off of her and strike...

... her beloved kouhai - like ricochet from a musket ball turned friendly fire, "Why don't /you/ tell her Sayaka-chan? That's why you gave up your one and only wish - and gave it to a boy. So tell her from someone who's seen the truth with her own eyes... what all her pride is going to amount to." That smile is knowing - vicious - even in the profile of what angle Sayaka can catch of her from her position against the ceiling, "Don't lose your nerve now."

Kozue however loses her own nerve a little as Mikoto tries to cut through. Carving en route to her. She has to turn around suddenly to try to match the blow - ripping her sickle free from Mami, but Mami's ribbons are hindering her - and so as she does, Mikoto's blow smashes into the chain, and thus smashes her back against the wall with a gasp.

The Child, now furious causes more pipes to spring leaks - one after one. And suddenly a column of water stabs through the ceiling, just missing Sayaka to stab down at Mikoto with a pressurized stream - that seems like to drive her through the floor if it gets her way. "Help? What a laugh. As if you'd ask me for help if you were in the same position with your Ani-Ue."

Kozue recovers - trying to shake it off - ducking down like she's going to press her assault and swing her sickle at Mami's belly. "Someone reinforced to me-" However at the last second, she backsteps, revealing the feint. "-what I was made for." The water soaked floor suddenly swirls upwards to try and spiral around Mami's feet, and trying to wrench her down to the elevator floor.

... where Kozue will most assuredly advance again.

Sayaka in comparison is perhaps 'fortunate' in that Cassandra has finally had enough of her stabbing - and tries to reverse the trick on her by jamming her wingtip through the ceiling. Again - and again - and again. Like a blade trap that keeps going off. It's perhaps not the best way to deal with the girl. However - much like it's HiME, the Child has a temper.

"Don't worry /Mami-san/." There's a little bit of a blood haze in her eyes, "You still wanna think you're better than me?" The girl tries to use her blade to sever a few of the ribbons. "I'll let you hold onto that fairy tale for as long as you can. After all - it won't be me you're going down on your knees for."

COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru has used Toccata on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru has used Ebbe und Fluth on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru has used Ondine's Curse on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi fails to dodge Kozue Kaoru's Ondine's Curse, taking 52 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe counters 4 Fatigue damage from Kozue Kaoru's Ebbe und Fluth, taking 13 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Kozue Kaoru is Psyched! Mami Tomoe's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate! Stun and Tangle applied to Mami Tomoe!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe's counterattack, Tiro Retort, partially gets through, doing 16 Fatigue damage to Kozue Kaoru! Critical Counterhit!

<Pose Tracker> White Queen [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

The wind that Fuu conjures is a much more violent turbulence than the White Queen experienced on her trip down the elevator shaft. A hand rises to shield her face, red strands of hair once again streaming outward as the wind knight's magic buffets against her. Her footing is tenuous at best, in the force of that gale.

The blow from Steven's shield bubble loosens it altogether. She rises abruptly from the roof of the elevator, puffing into the air like a plastic bag in a windstorm. For a moment she hovers in space, brilliantly lit against in the sky in the vast window that borders the elevator.
Until her hand flashes again, and the length of her whip flashes through the opening in the roof once more. It might seem for a moment that she's missed-she strikes neither crystal gem nor wind knight, the white strands instead binding tight around a mass of metal grating at the side of the elevator. It seems, for a moment, a mistake. At least until a kick of her foot against the elevator shaft and a snap of her arm sends the masked girl shooting back along the length of her element, down into the elevator like a bullet.

Her path runs on a collision course with Fuu, crashing bodily toward the wind knight with intent to do meteoric violence. "There's nothing that isn't disappointing about you," She hisses, "So just go to hell!" The whip untangles from it's anchor once she's in the elevator itself, returning to her hand once more.

Just in time for her to pirouette toward Steven, pivoting like and dancer and letting the cord spool out once more. White cord streaks through the confined space of the elevator, the vicious tip of the White Queen's weapon finding it's prey with unerring accuracy.
"If you care so much about your stupid school," She snarls, "You should have behaved when you had the chance!"
COMBAT: White Queen has used Brutal Dance on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: White Queen has used Focus Flense on Steven Universe.
COMBAT: White Queen has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji fails to counter White Queen's Brutal Dance, taking 23 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! White Queen is Psyched! Exhausted applied to Fuu Hououji!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji's counterattack, Spinning Slash, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to White Queen!
COMBAT: Steven Universe braces 15 Fatigue damage from White Queen's Focus Flense, taking 12 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Steven Universe's Block and Parry abilities activate! Cripple applied to Steven Universe!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

Much as Mikoto confirmed in the other elevator, there isn't really enough room to 'spin up' for a powerful melee attack within these confines. The Wind Knight tries anyway, less a circle of her sword and more a twist of her body, trying to add force to a counterstrike - but she leaves herself too wide open on the wind-up, and the White Queen slams into her hard enough that the green-clad Magic Knight rebounds off the inside of the elevator, wobbling on her feet.

But when she lifts her gaze to her adversary, there's a rare tint of anger in her gaze. Usually she only gives that kind of personally-aggravated look to Zagato's minions, or other villainous minions who've managed to hurt her where it's personal.
She might never have bestowed such a glower on another magical girl. She might not realize that behind the White Queen's mask *is* another magical girl.

"Ignorance must truly be bliss, for you not to realize what drives us right now," the Wind Knight says, her voice quiet but still razor-edged. "If we meet on more friendly terms, help me remember to apologize properly."
A gale abruptly arises within the elevator's confines, breached though they are by the Queen's entrance in the roof. It still isn't enough room to really cut loose ...

"Emerald Cyclone!!"

... but the Magic Knight of Wind has had to focus and constrain her wrath before, and she does so with most of her usual aplomb. It's almost like a rebuttal to the sonic onslaught from before, the wind not rending like normal, but buffeting violently, even viciously. It's a wind force which could uproot trees or tanks alike - and the Wind Knight turns her power squarely on the White Queen, raising her voice once more to be heard over the conjured tempest:

"JUST GET OUT OF OUR WAY!!!"

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Even in this, Mami would rather spare Sayaka, but that simply won't be possible. Already Mami can hear the sounds of combat in the other car, the White Queen and her harsh words just close--and she cannot but hope that the others can hold her attention, because this position...
Being enclosed in this space is /not/ to Mami Tomoe's advantage.

"I don't think I'm going anywhere!" Mami calls back to Sayaka, and with the splintering pain in her arm, more than a third of the way to a crucifixion, she cannot entirely comprehend Mikoto's words at first, her quiet manner.
...Help her. Isn't made for this. How often has Mami heard something like that, and relented?

But by this point she cannot simply shrug off her ire--not when Kozue tries to redirect onto Sayaka. Rather than shocking or stopping Mami--it makes her angrier.

"You have /no idea/ what I've seen of girls and their wishes," Mami answers, and the memory of a girl in red adds venom to drip from her words. There are reasons she says as she does--
She could have sympathy, being nervous of Mikoto--in another way.

"Aah--" Mami can't stay silent as the sickle is ripped free again, and that arm hangs, limp and useless, at her side. Kozue denies help, and she feints--

Mami doesn't bother defending; she lets herself be grabbed by the water, but in the instant before it pulls, she puts out her hand--and a short cannot bursts into being in her hand, and erupts in a line for Kozue, upward, upward--

Mami's ribbons stick, and hold; they can be gotten through... it just takes a bit of time.

"I don't have to /think/ I'm better than some spoiled, petulant girl," Mami answers, and she sees that haze and looks down her nose /harder/. She's still in a vulnerable position, slamming downwards, but as she hits the floor of the elevator--

Ribbons /burst/ from all around her, great golden lines that crash outward, that give Mikoto something to hang onto, that give Mami an instant to breathe.

"I've fought more monsters than you've had dates. You're years too early if you think you can force me into /anything/."

COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has used Evadere on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru perfectly counters 16 Fatigue damage from Mami Tomoe's Evadere, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Critical Counter! Kozue Kaoru's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe is unable to keep fighting!
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru's counterattack, Ondine's Curse, bursts all the way through, doing 57 Fatigue damage to Mami Tomoe! Critical Counterhit! Mami Tomoe is unable to keep fighting!

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.
The manifested transparent shield makes contact, and propels your assailant away. "When will they learn?!" he says with a bit of a scowl. The boy turns to look back across at the other fight raging as a pointed filament surges right past him and grasps a spot upon the elevator. "Still?"
In moments, the masked opponent is within the elevator with them. Fuu is the first to be attacked, giving Steven the moment to ready his shield. Tang-tang-tang-tang goes the implement as it clashes agains element. The final spin catches Stevens shoulder as it licks up and over the rim of the shield, a few drops of blood fly and hit the floor-- the whip has a small red spot. Though considering how fast it flies it could be clean by the time it stops moving.

"Gargh...." grumbles Steven, reaching to his shoulder. "None of this even makes any sense, if the girl wanted the help of HiME to stop a terrorist incidenct, how can they even help if they get blown up in thirty-six hours?!" He complains most likely to no avail, but Steven won't stay quiet.

The boy looks toward Fuu, who in retaliation, readies one of her most powerful abilities. He looks up and sees an opportunity. "We got this! Lets punch her ticket!" Mustering what power he has left to offer, he forms two sheaths of Bubble Shield, that crash through the metal bars on both size and almost take their place. While not a full seal, Fuu's wind is forced into one space, and exit out one way-- the hole the WHite Queen formed.

Steven can anchor himself to his shields, and Fuu is most likely immune to her own power, which means...! "You should have taken a different flight!"

COMBAT: Sayaka Miki perfectly counters 21 Fatigue damage from Kozue Kaoru's Toccata, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Counter!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki's counterattack, Disjunct Chord, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Kozue Kaoru!

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Nine Inch Nails - The Great Below https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pev0dINRaok

Mikoto does not fight for strangers. She does not care about the thousands of faceless, nameless students captured here in Ohtori. She cares about people, specific people, and she has never once fought for the good of the world, but she has fought for the ones she cares about.
Sometimes the world is helped while she helps her loved ones. It's incidental.

Mikoto charged for the tower and screamed a name and it's Kozue, she came here for Kozue, she will rip this tower off its foundations for Kozue.

Kozue does not listen.

Perhaps it is because of the violence Mikoto brings to bear. She slams Kozue into the wall and advances, hefting up her blade, and water courses out behind her. She is too close for Cassandra to strike - without striking her girl. Miroku's edge keeps her against the wall, not quite pressing in. In her eyes is an earnest plea; she wants so badly to fix this.

Kozue poses her question and the desperation written on her face is wiped clean with new shock, and Kozue knows so intimately the expression Mikoto bears now when she has been stabbed through. Her jaw gapes, her breath shudders in and out too quickly, and without thinking she jerks away. "That's not --"

isn't it? really?

... in her haste to stumble back, she does not hear the water which cuts.

With a strangled cry Mikoto is plunged down and the rushing water cannot completely mask Kozue's words, but certainly it masks a girl, down through a dark bored hole.

Perhaps it would be the end of her - but she is not alone.

Down, down the great yawning shaft, in the shifting dark where all the silhouettes go when they are stored for future use, golden ribbons burst down, and Mikoto snatches hold of one with iron grasp.

She starts climbing, with one hand and two legs, and she does not have time to linger on the pain.

There are a few nice, quiet moments when there are only two enemy combatants in the elevator...

... and then Mikoto leaps for the torn gash in the floor, just as that ribbon fades to nothing. She snarls with effort as she hoists herself up - rolls onto the floor. She does not take a moment to catch her breath, pushing herself up with rocking motions. Those golden eyes search out Kozue. She remembers what she has said.

"What Kozue's made for?" Mikoto demands, and there is a hot lance of anger to her words. "What Kozue's /made for?!/ That's not something for Tokyo girls to worry about! Here there's crepes and pools, Kozue! It's /different/ here!"

She shouts and perhaps it becomes clear where her anger lies. "What did they do?!" It is anger but it is not disbelief. It should not have happened, but that does not mean it cannot.

It was never meant to be Kozue.

Kozue was never meant to understand like this.

Mikoto cannot spin in this place - not with Mami fallen. She hefts her blade over head and it is a narrow thing, not carving /Sayaka/ instead. "Let's go back!" She cries, desperation edging into the anger of her words again as she fights through the haze. "Let's go back to existing, Kozue!" Say one thing, do another; she reaches out with her words and her stance shifts forward, Miroku carving down in a vertical slice straight towards Kozue's person.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Blade: Destruction on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru partially dodges 11 Fatigue damage from Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Destruction, taking 43 Fatigue damage! Kozue Kaoru's Fade and Flash abilities activate!

<Pose Tracker> White Queen [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

"Why would I ever care," Says the White Queen, "About anything you wanted?" Her words are tinged with fury as her knee smashes into the wind knight, the girl in red bringing her whip back to her hand once more. She notes, idly, that the stain upon it means she made her mark.
She is about to do more than that. Again her hand extends outward, prepared to fill the entirely of the elevator with the whirling, cutting length. She's interrupted abruptly by the tornado of force that Fuu summons into the enclosed space they share. The metal caging shudders, as does the floor beneath them. For a moment, it seems the entire elevator might rip itself apart--

Until Steven separates another chunk of the metal bars. The masked girl's balance falters, and once again she's picked off her feet. She hisses in anger as she's thrown violently from the carriage, smashing into the side of the elevator as the gale forces it to ascend higher and faster, and her in the opposite direction.

She goes down. Down, toward darkness. The bottom of the elevator shaft, once well-lit by the seemingly endless window behind, has abruptly turned into a pit of black smoke. She does not so much fall in it as she falls atop it, feet touching down on some unseen surface beneath the boiling darkness.

Her eyes are searing yellow lights as she watches the cars ascend. She does not pursue.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka's eyes widen as a bladed wing pops through the ceiling next to her head. Getting out of this just got even more urgent. Shoving her sword into the metal crushed around her, Sayaka starts sawing back and forth at it. But without serration, this is difficult work, and Sayaka yelps as another wing punctures near her head.

"Kozue!" Sayaka objects, shocked that she'd drag her brother into this just to hurt Sayaka. "W-well, I'm too busy to tell anybody anything, if you haven't noticed!"

Convenient but also true, Sayaka has no bandwidth for repartee at the moment. She pries at her sword like a crowbar, partially freeing herself, as Mami engaged in ribbon-enhanced fisticuffs below, and Mikoto is blasted with water. Things have been better.

"Hrrrk!" Sayaka groans. She can tell that Cassandra has narrowed down where she is, now. It has to be now or get impaled. Wrenching her arm, she rips a curved hole in the ceiling, and her body drops. Unfortunately, Cassandra can now see down into the car.

Thowing her elbow, Sayaka rotates as she falls, eyes widening as she watches the wing plunging down even faster. Grunting, she swipes at the stabbing pinion with her sword, smacking it aside. Clang, clang, clang! Three times she parries, the third just as she hits the ground. A final, devastatingly strong downward slash is coming, using the angle to make a guillotine of the wing. Sayaka, still half-bouncing from the impact, rips a second sword free and crosses them just as the pinion stabs again.

On the ground, she lies, the metal feather inches from her forehead, her crisscrossed swords supporting one another while holding up the wing. Her elbows, planted on the soaking ground, support the blades in turn.

Pursing her lips, Sayaka blows on the feather, a quick puff of air, like an Old West gunslinger with a pistol.

Cassandra has to yank her wing back at that point due to Miroku swinging its massive weight around, and Sayaka wisely sticks to where she was. Rolling back on her shoulders in its wake, she springs up, brandishing both swords, ready to challenge Cassandra through that hole again.

But as she stares up, she sees nothing but empty elevator shaft, up and up, going until the end of the world.

"/No/," Sayaka breathes. And she turns her face to Mami Tomoe.

The pillar of water drops, swallowing Mami entirely, its driving force far beyond the one that had smashed Sayaka into the ceiling. And Mami... she can't heal.

"No!" she says again. Sayaka's keen blue eyes lift to a hole in the side of the elevator. As she bolts forward to rush past Kozue, she kick-lifts the dangling chain of her kusarigami, briefly setting it sailing, a length of links floating before the hole in the wall. With a sharp thrust, Sayaka neatly plunges her sword through a link, pinning the chain to the wall. The elevator has no mercy; if Kozue doesn't get it loose, her chain is going to start dragging out of the elevator fast. Sayaka fixes her with a brief glance of disbelief and anger, her tremulous lower lip hinting at the hurt beneath.

Then, hastily as she can while being as careful as she can, Sayaka body-checks the falling Mami, catching her about the lower waist. Sayaka is a bit too late for a clean save here; Mami has fallen too much and the weight is too low to balance well. There's a moment of struggle, then Mami is arrested, held up, hugged protectively. Her stockinged knees are a few inches from the ground. But they never touched, no, never hers.

Sayaka's are planted on the ground firmly.

"Ah," Sayaka exhales. She stares at her own knees for a few seconds, dully. She has to, as she's supporting Mami's good arm with her head.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has used Caprice on Kozue Kaoru.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru braces 12 Fatigue damage from Sayaka Miki's Caprice, taking 5 Fatigue damage! Kozue Kaoru's Block and Parry abilities activate!

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.
<SoundTracker> The End of the Line - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm7pN2oKV4M

The cannonfire bursts into Kozue - clipping her shoulder - causing red to enter her silhouette, "Guh!"

Ribbons burst all around, and Kozue just starts swiping desperately. Trying not to get caught - the ribbons slice through the water, trailing sparkling droplets. "You're right. I don't know anything about you." It's a brutal dance for her to keep ahead of them. "I don't need to though." The ribbons extend, almost completely slicing through her bonds. Kozue swipes madly, hacking like she's trying to make a path through the Amazon. "No matter what girls you've known - no matter what wishes you've seen - no matter how many monsters you've slain."

Cassandra's baleful glowing eye can be seen in that moment through the hole in the elevator ceiling. Focused eerily on Mami. "... It's the same for every girl." To Mami Tomoe's great credit, it does not blindside her. The great torrent of water that slices down like a great arcing wave catches into the great golden lengths that she's summoned. In the end though, the great force behind the crashing wave ust barely manages to outdo the ribbons.

"Especially me." It's so muted that noone even hears that one - and perhaps there's something sad there.

Mikoto perhaps, Kozue thought - was gone. She's just as surprised when she comes back - and Cassandra is too - squawking in alarm as it swiftly retracts its wing to keep Miroku from slicing it off - thus freeing Sayaka. What did she find to hold onto down there? "Just - stay - down!" The girl has just barely cleared the ribbons - as the girl hefts her blade up in a two-handed swing.

Kozue hastily flattens herself to the side of the elevator, bringing up her sickle blade up for a desperate parry, which swings the chain mid-air. And it's that same moment that Sayaka's blade catches a link - pinning it to the shaft - distracted from the cleaving threat of Miroku - Sayaka catches her off-guard like she's a rank amateur. "Damnit!"

The sickle blade whips past her hand, and the girl hisses like she's been caught in a simple kitchen knife accident. Leaving her disarmed, wringing a hand that's now dripping blood. Well... as disarmed as someone under the protection of the Giant Swan Child can be. There's something that's almost twisted in her smile as she raises her arms in what looks like surrender. "Let's go back..."

It's like she's just echoing the words. And perhaps it does reach her. Like there's a nostalgic synchronicity to it. And something about her fighting spirit just - fades, "Wouldn't that be great? My brother would love that you know." Her eyes touch upon the sopping blue hair that Sayaka is right now, "She would too." She says in a sotto voce, a little emotional, "You can't fight time though. You can't fight change." She takes a step towards the hole, eyes on Mikoto, "... And you can't fight the way things are. It was always going to end up this way you know?"

She takes another step towards the hole in the floor. The step back allowing both Mikoto and Sayaka cradling Mami's head to come into view - as if she were taking in the full scope of her betrayal - able to witness it now, "It always does." She does not sigh - but the comment is perhaps like one. Like a fact of life. "Sometimes it's a slow thing as you grow up... and sometimes it happens all at once... but no matter what eventually..."

The girl whispers softly, "... it's the end of the line."

Another step and there's nothing left beneath her - gravity is another thing one person can't fight. Right?

The cage suddenly lurches - like a great weight just shoved off it, rattling the whole thing in a gut-wrenching moment as Cassandra dives out the building's window.

One might expect something to happen just after.

Nothing does.

Other than the elevator suddenly giving a distorted 'ping' of letting them know they've reached their floor.

[[Category:Logs]]

Previously On Battle Fantasia

2019-02-10T22:44:42Z

Bloopbloop: Endo + Ye-jin Timeline 3

2018-04-04T04:45:55Z

Bloopbloop:

Ohtori Academy was founded by the Ohtori Group in the early 1900s on Southern Cross Island. The Academy was built out of a number of smaller schools acquired by the Group, but all of those are now just parts of the Ohtori machine. Based on principles of elegance, nobility and talent, Ohtori Academy is considered an elite institution for elite people. As it boasts a healthy, even aggressive, scholarship program, students from the middle classes and up are perfectly capable of attending, but the best-known students are for the most part very wealthy, very powerful, and very dangerous. That density of wealthy students gives Ohtori a disproportionate influence, with businesses lining up around the block to win the favor of future magnates.

Ohtori Academy's emphasis on personal greatness gives it a number of eccentricities. Its sports programs eschew 'commoner' activities for gentleman's sports; while [[Juuban Public School|Juuban]] practices lacrosse and [[Infinity Institute|Infinity's]] as likely as not to field an ultimate frisbee team to a regional event, Ohtori's top coaches teach combat sports like fencing and boxing, and refined athletics like basketball and rugby. Similarly, Ohtori expects all of its students to obtain a broad education, bulwarking its wide-based general program with after-school arts programs. Unlike Infinity, it offers little in the way of specialty programs; Ohtori expects excellence in everything, from everyone.

By far the most unique feature of the school, however, is Ohtori Academy's enormously powerful student council. A powerful student government has been a part of the Ohtori Group's dream since the foundation of the school, and the student council has long wielded very wide powers. In the modern Ohtori that power has expanded to the point the students wield sometimes more authority than the staff.

Although an informal rule, it is widely known among students that those who oppose the student council quickly find themselves expelled, and by the same token, working with the council provides enormous benefits. Nominally, the student council's task is to protect the interests of the student body, but the current council often seems more interested in its own...

The student council is broken into two parts: The actual Student Council itself, which governs the junior and senior high schools; and the Guardians, a smaller, somewhat more idiosyncratic body which protects the interests of the elementary school students. The youthful Guardians are easily the more idealistic, and although technically they govern different spheres, there are plenty of rumors about the Guardians and Student Council coming to blows over one or the other overreaching their authority.

Ohtori, being a home for elites and nobles, is inevitably rife with intrigue. The Student Council, and a select few other students, wear a rose signet they guard jealously; some say there are others around campus who wear a strange golden mask. People in black suits who won't talk to anyone, businessmen of world-class companies who come by seemingly much too often. Ohtori is a hub of mysterious agendas and transformative people, and the rumors about those many agendas are myriad.

Unbeknownst to the normal students but nakedly obvious to those with the sight, Ohtori is a veritable goldmine of mystic power. Where Infinity's very foundations were designed to leash the World Tree's power, and Juuban draws strange people to it like a magnet, Ohtori Academy's grounds are rife with the seals and signs of ancient evil. The island is so thick with ancient powers of the soul that emotion on the island runs thicker - passions higher, obsessions hotter, loves more powerful and hates more virulent.

Perhaps that should have been the first sign of the doom that lives on Southern Cross Island, but it is far from the only. The clock in the library ticks on, but not to anything so pedestrian as tomorrow; the mine in the hills leads down, but what is the light at the bottom? Witches, Orphans and Noise throng across the island, drawn to a rich stew of emotion, and in turn thickening that miasma of obsession. Above it all, the Castle Where Eternity Dwells looms invisible and insubstantial over the island - a silent harbinger of the coming revolution of the world.

__TOC__

==History==
Long ago, in another Age, there was the Land of Fuuka - a shining island of light and wonder. In that place, the Obsidian Lord held court over his kingdom; a demon king of phenomenal power, sealed away by the power of the Silver Crystal. To placate him, and to serve as entertainment for the masses, once in three hundred years the HiME Festival was held, where those chosen by the King's power would battle for supremacy, the King's hand in marriage - and the honor of a single miraculous wish from their new groom. It was one such wish that allowed the release of Metallia, bringing about the fall of the Silver Millennium.

Amid the ruins of the Serenity Dynasty, the Silver Queen's bindings shattered, and at last the Obsidian Lord was free. Summoning to his side the spirits and powers of his innumerable brides past, the Obsidian Lord called forth the beacon of his omnipotence, the HiME Star. With the Senshi fallen and the Earth Court sundered, the few surviving HiME themselves were forced to rise to the challenge, binding the King to Fuuka, and using great magic to seal the island away; then giving their lives to hurl the HiME Star far into space, where Serenity's final wishes ensured it would once again wander, lost.

The Age turned, as ages do; but the new world would not be safe forever. Clow Reed wouldn't break the Earth's seals for hundreds of years, but another force found its way across the stars, an alien race seeking respite from the destruction of their world by their own hubris. Crashing to Earth, the power that their science could barely contain blew through the seals hiding the Land of Fuuka from the world; when people arrived to investigate, the visitors begged for the aid of magic to seal away the accursed legacy they had created, and together, they settled what would become Southern Cross Island - and buried yet another terrible secret beneath its hills.

The greatest seal broken, the HiME Star veered toward Earth anew, beginning yet again the ancient Festival - more savage now, without the Silver Queen's bindings to soften the Obsidian Lord's ravenous malice. But the Earth was lucky, for the Obsidian Lord's new bride was cunning and brave, and found a way to cast him back to sleep and send the Star hurtling back into space. On the site of the island, before vanishing into history, she founded an academy that became the moniker for the whole island: Southern Cross.

More recently, Southern Cross Academy and several other Island schools were acquired by the wealthy Ohtori family, and the whole collection of schools renamed after its new masters. Patterning the new curriculum after Western academies and building toward a future of excellence, Ohtori became known for its harsh studies but sterling graduates. Building on that tradition of superiority, the Ohtori student council was given phenomenal power, and faculty allowed to override them only rarely. In time, a young prodigy in the elementary school campus, with bright eyes and a powerful insight, even convinced the Family to create the elementary section its own body, to protect the hearts and interests of the younger students: The Guardians.

In the last few years, the present head of the Ohtori house has fallen ill. The position of president of Ohtori Academy - de facto master of the grounds - has fallen to his daughter's fiance, Akio. Akio is perhaps the most hands-off president the school has ever seen, leaving things largely to the respective principals and student bodies of the various schools; however, when Akio speaks, every student listens.

==Student Body==
''This list can be edited by players to add their characters and NPCs to their appropriate grade. Feel free to add your name as a link to your character page!''

{| class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed wikitable" style="border:0px solid #ffffff;background: #ffffff;vertical-align: top;"
!style="text-align: left;background: #hhhhhh; width:1000pt"|''Ohtori's Student Body''
|-
|
'''[[Schools: Faculty and Staff#Ohtori Academy|Faculty and Staff]]''': [[Midori Sugiura]], Akio Ohtori, Souji Mikage, Yuu Nikaidou.

'''University''':

'''Grade 12''': Kyouichi Saionji, [[Mamoru Chiba]], Shizuru Fujino, Touga Kiryuu.

'''Grade 11''': [[Azyana Konstantinov]], [[Chihaya Izumi]], [[Juri Arisugawa]], Kanako Watanabe, [[Mai Tokiha]], Natsuki Kuga, Shiori Takatsuki, [[Takeo Akamizu]], Takuta Tsunashi, [[Ye-jin Song]], Yua Chouku.

'''Grade 10''': Georgia Jenks, [[Kasagami Araki]], [[Mami Tomoe]], [[Mikoto Minagi]], Nao Yuuki.

'''Grade 9''': [[Anthy Himemiya]], Daiki Asuka Jr., [[Eri Shimanouchi]], Homura Akemi, [[Madoka Kaname]], [[Meimi Haneoka]], [[Nori Ankou]], Rei Hino, [[Sachiko Majime]], [[Sayaka Miki]], [[Inori Yamabuki]], Umi Ryuuzaki, and [[Utena Tenjou]].

'''Grade 8''': [[Miki Kaoru]], [[Kozue Kaoru]], Nanami Kiryuu, Takara Maki.

'''Grade 7''': Kukai Souma, Haruka Haruno.

'''Grade 6''': Amu Hinamori, Kairi Sanjou, [[Nadeshiko Fujisaki]], [[Tadase Hotori]].

'''Grade 5''': Yaya Yuiki.

'''Grade 4''':

'''Grade 3''':

'''Grade 2''':

'''Grade 1''':

'''Grade K''':
|}

==Student Council==
Among the significant adults of Ohtori's staff, Elementary School Principal Tsukasa Amakawa and Middle/High School Principal Mashiro Kazahana report directly to the headmaster of the overall academy; the Ohtori clan patriarch is presently very ill, however, and so the acting headmaster is Akio Ohtori, the fiance of the Ohtori heiress. Akio engages his duties extremely rarely, but when he does, his word is absolute.

However, Ohtori is notable for its especially powerful student body. This is an old tradition, and it is one of the few things Akio Ohtori has involved himself directly in maintaining. The Middle and High School Student Councils in particular wields nearly absolute authority, even able to overrule Principal Kazahana if they wish to... although that might be more the fact that the faculty lives in elemental terror of [[Juri Arisugawa]]. Indeed, there is a policy - informal and yet absolute - permitting the council to unilaterally expel students who defy their will (although often the Guardians of the Elementary School involve themselves when this clause is enacted).

It is entirely common for positions to be made up and eliminated by the Councils as necessary. While there are occasionally elections, Ohtori isn't exactly a bastion of democracy, and councilors are often summarily replaced by siblings (or rivals!) if they become mysteriously unable to perform their duties.

''If you'd like to join the Student Council (new characters can easily be retconned in), please contact the Staff on-game.''

{| class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed wikitable" style="border:0px solid #ffffff;background: #ffffff;vertical-align: top;"
!style="text-align: left;background: #hhhhhh; width:1000pt"|''Ohtori's Student Council''
|-
|
====High School Student Council====
* '''President:''' Touga Kiryuu
* '''President's Dubiously-Ranked Flunky:''' Kyouichi Saionji
* '''Vice President:''' Shizuru Fujino
* '''VP's Aide:''' Reito Kanzaki
* '''Secretary:''' Yukino Kikukawa
* '''Treasurer:''' [[Juri Arisugawa]]
* '''Disciplinary Executive:''' [[Kasagami Araki]]
* '''Disciplinary Committee Flunkies:''' [[Takeo Akamizu]], Haruka Suzushiro

====Middle School Student Council====
* '''President:''' Open!
* '''Vice President:''' Open!
* '''Secretary:''' [[Miki Kaoru]]
* '''Treasurer:''' Takara Maki
* '''Club Executive Auditor, Middle School Division:''' [[Nori Ankou]]

====The Guardians====
* '''King's Chair''': [[Tadase Hotori]]
* '''Queen's Chair''': Open!
* '''Jack's Chair''': [[Nadeshiko Fujisaki|Nagihiko Fujisaki]]
* '''Ace's Chair''': Yaya Yuiki
* '''Joker's Chair''': Amu Hinamori
* The '''Chair of Ten''' through the '''Chair of Two''' currently don't exist, but would be invented on the spot by Tadase and Tsukasa if they were needed.
|}

==Clubs==
Owing to its venerable history, Ohtori's clubs are often especially formal and tradition-heavy. Many observe their own small holidays on especially significant dates, such as the anniversary of the club's founding. Clubs of the same and different types often engage in intrigue against one another, to their own ends or simply for pleasure.

''This list may be edited by any player who wishes to note the on-camera existence of their club. There are many other clubs at Ohtori not listed here because they don't currently have any player characters in them.''

{| class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed wikitable" style="border:0px solid #ffffff;background: #ffffff;vertical-align: top;"
!style="text-align: left;background: #hhhhhh; width:1000pt"|''Clubs of Ohtori''
|-
|
====Aikido and Aiki-ken Club====
Founded by Morihei Ueshiba, Aikido is a 'peaceful' martial art performed by blending with the motion of the attacker and redirecting the force of the attack rather than opposing it head-on. This requires very little physical strength, as the defender 'leads' the attacker's momentum by using entering and turning movements. The techniques are completed with various throws or joint locks. It is a very 'ki' centered style. In addition there is the Aiki-ken club; Aiki-ken is the art of the sword based upon the principles of Aikido, originated by Ueshiba and his student Morihiro Saito. Aiki-ken uses wooden bokken, and currently shares the Aikido-club's funding.

'''Members''': [[Azyana Konstantinov]]

====Animal Care Club====
For horse enthusiasts who don't care to focus on competitive riding, and budding veterinarians.

'''Members''': [[Inori Yamabuki]]

====Boxing Club====
This is not Fight Club, so you can talk about it. Widely admired throughout the school.

'''Members''': Touga Kiryuu, Yua Chouku

====Crafts Club====
Ohtori has clubs specializing in every conceivable art and craft; essentially all of them see the Crafts Club as a bunch of amateur dilettantes, because this club's stated goal is to explore and enjoy different crafts through weekly, monthly and annual projects. For those interested in being a jack of all trades but a master of none, it makes for a fun, relatively casual place to be.

'''Members''': [[Madoka Kaname]], Kairi Sanjou

====Dance Club====
All people, they love to dance. Separate from Ohtori's extra-curricular dance classes, dance club focuses on creative choreography and fierce competition. Classical styles are always in fashion, but more modern routines also see some representation.

'''Members''': [[Ye-jin Song]]

====Falconry Club====
A school as prestigious as Ohtori wouldn't be complete without sports of nobility, and it's Falconry Club is both well funded and well respected among animal lovers as well as those that enjoy hunting. It's birds are both rare and expensive, the club's members sparing no expense in showing their mastery over such beautiful, dangerous birds.

'''Members''': [[Kasagami Araki]]

====Fashion Club====
Ohtori's fashion club is about as cutthroat as the industry itself, but friendships are founded here on shared enthusiasm and obsession, and there are very real connections to be made with Ohtori alums who've gone professional.

'''Members''': [[Inori Yamabuki]]

====Fencing Club====
With over a century of tradition behind it, Ohtori Academy's fencing club is among the most glamorous clubs on campus, and unquestionably the most prestigious fencing club in Japan. They primarily practice classical fencing, but swap to sports fencing a few times a year in order to dominate regional, national, and even international meets. They don't win everything all the time, but it's always notable when they lose. Members who are not dedicated and passionate for the sport do not last long, but no prior experience with a blade is expected in order to join the fun; they train fencers at every level, from the simple to the sublime.

'''Members''': [[Juri Arisugawa]] (Captain), [[Miki Kaoru]], [[Nori Ankou]], Umi Ryuuzaki

====Gardening Club====
Landscaping is a little bit declasse by the standards of Ohtori's elite, who mostly prefer less dirty and more formal clubs like ikebana, but the gardening club toils gloriously onward with justifiable satisfaction: the Academy is overflowing with flowers, and while they certainly don't tend every lawn or trim every terrace, most of the truly spectacular manicured gardens and endless fields of blooms are their pride and joy. Those sufficiently interested in the study of botany, such that they're willing to get their hands a little dirty, can learn many secrets about the language of flowers, and other, more subtle plants besides. With the destruction of most of the forests of Southern Cross Island, the Gardening Club is leading the effort to restore greenery around campus.

'''Members''': [[Eri Shimanouchi]], [[Madoka Kaname]], [[Tadase Hotori]], [[Anthy Himemiya]] (vague affiliate)

====Kendo Club====
The ancient art of kendo has been performed at Japan's most prestigious private school for a very long time. They enjoy a proud and ancient tradition -- and a rivalry with the fencing club.

'''Members''': Kyouichi Saionji (Captain), Masashi Takeda (Sub-Captain), Kairi Sanjou, [[Kasagami Araki]], [[Takeo Akamizu]], Touga Kiryuu

====Music Club====
Ohtori actually has lots of music clubs which form along genre lines or a desire to form a coherent band, but the overarching umbrella exists, mostly to give them more clout in efforts to lobby the Student Council for funding. It tends to focus on classical music.

'''Members''': [[Georgia Jenks]], Yua Chouku

====Softball Club====
Sumo may be Japan's ''official'' national sport, but everyone knows it's actually baseball. In the Softball Club, the balls are a little softer, but the romance of the ballgame is the same. Pitchers stare down batters for an elemental duel, home runs rush toward the sky with all the force of an untamed metaphor, and individuals become something more as part of a team. A few times per academic session, the coaches will wrangle seats at a professional game, too, and the club will go meet their jerseyed heroes.

'''Members''': [[Sayaka Miki]] (centerfield/batter), [[Sachiko Majime]] (starting pitcher)

====Swim Team====
Ohtori has a long and proud tradition in swimming, an underwater torch carried forward into the future by its latest batch of students. The sweet silence beneath the water, the roar of the stands above it, the burn of screaming muscles... it's all here.

'''Members''': [[Eri Shimanouchi]], [[Kozue Kaoru]]

====Tea Ceremony Club====
One of Ohtori's oldest clubs, the Tea Ceremony Club owns millions of yen in equipment and kimono (a sentence they would find redundant). Many of the wealthiest children are enrolled in elementary school, and the clique is a tight one. Visitors by invitation only.

'''Members''': [[Chihaya Izumi]], Shizuru Fujino

====Tennis Team====
A very popular and glamorous sport at Ohtori, played extensively by many students; the girls' team tends to get more attention.

'''Members''': [[Chihaya Izumi]], Nanami Kiryuu, Wakaba Shinohara
|}

==Uniforms==
Ohtori Academy's yellow-themed uniforms may be found [[Schools: Uniforms#Ohtori Academy: Elementary|here]].

For more information, please see: [[Schools]], [[Organization: Ends of the World]], [[Theme]]

[[Category:Schools]]
[[Category:Ohtori]]
[[Category:Theme]]
[[Category:History]]