Mentioned: @VitaVitaAR @Raineh Daze @PKMNB0Y

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You really think we’re going to keep money on hand in the middle of an apocalyptic crisis? Where would we keep it in the first place? And why would we keep it instead of using the area to store something more practical?

Sol narrowed his eyes at the girl and her whining. “Shit, if I knew you were gonna whine about it…I’m not your accountant, how am I supposed to know?”

Claire then coldly turned to regard the other heroes, leaving Sol hanging on the deal. The mercenary stared at her speechlessly.

Did she just ignore me? he wondered.

Goldilocks (you have been nicknamed) then laughed at him in a rather condescending manner.

The entire reason we’re here is to help with things like this, Goldibanne thinks it’s awfully rude to demand money~

Sol cocked his lip dismissively at the weird doll girl. “If it bothers you girl, then how ‘bout you mind your damn business? I never said I was a nice guy. I am Sol Bad Guy. It’s in my last name.”

Figuring that he wasn’t going to get cash out of the mission, he tilted his head to the side and an irritable hiss escaped from between his teeth. “Shit…all right. I’ll help you with your problem, but I’m calling this a loan. I’ll be charging interest until you pay me back. A big tough guy like me has to eat and I got my own bills to pay.”

Claire then was on the phone and Sol eavesdropped on her conversation. It was something about an armed and crazy son of a gun.

Should we look into it, or do you want to deal with it? You can deal with the infected fine, but I’m not sure how well you can handle a possibly-crazed armed lunatic…

“That’s basically what I am, so I don’t see how dealing with another one would be that big of a deal.”

When doll girl chimed in: Goldibanne can solve that problem…

Sol peered over his shoulder to watch her twirl and dance away. “It’s better she goes. I would have just added psycho to your tab.” (talking to Claire)

The black-haired man -Kagura Mutsuki, his name was- accepted their assistance, on the condition that they refrain from slaying his opponent. While Akuma found the request questionable, given the circumstances, he would have to wait until after the battle for an explanation. Now, the three of them were currently clustered together, all facing their opponent. Unless they were to re-position themselves, his companions would only serve to get in the way. Thus, Akuma did the sensible thing.

The martial artist widened his stance briefly, causing a roiling crimson aura to envelope his body. Akuma then raised a single knee, and the aura vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Ignoring all common understandings of locomotion, the warrior's body suddenly surged forward whilst remaining motionless. At first, it seemed as if Akuma intended to ram into the red-haired girl, only for something entirely different to occur. The technique had rendered his body intangible, resulting in the martial artist simply going through his opponent.

Once he was behind his opponent, Akuma became corporeal once more. With not a moment's delay, the warrior aimed a low roundhouse kick at the girl, intending to strike the back of her knee. A simple, albeit effective strike, capable of unbalancing most foes.

One of the two guards stepped closer with his flashlight. Mithias could easily hear the conversation on the radio in his hand. He walked past the pile of weapons and told his friend to check them out while he dealt with the newcomer. Shining the light on Mithias, he immediately jumped when he saw the skin color, the eye color... Keeping his gun ready and putting on a brave facade, he spoke, "Sir. I don't know why you look like that, but to me, you look infected. Now I don't know what's going on with you, and why you'd be able to talk, but I can not let you into this compound if you're a risk for us. You make one sudden move, and I'll be forced to shoot ya."

Mithias blinked. "It's alright. I don't need entry into your compound. I only request an exchange of information. You humans have to do what you have to do, and I understand that."

The guard swallowed. This guy just admitted to not being human.

Mithias continued unphased. "Who is in charge of this place?"

The other guard commented on the pile the stranger had brought. "Jesus." It was a nice stash. Ammunition was precious. Of course, he had heard what was being said by the other two and promptly interrupted them. "Now hold on." He walked over as well with an authoritative stance. "... Sir, I'm afraid we don't know you and don't exactly want you to know everything about us. We've got questions for you too."

Mithias saw how his arms twitched, the way he was holding his weapons, and like an old knight, he knew this opponent was getting ready to pull something.

"Now get on the ground. Now. I'll tell you when you can move."

Brows furrowed. This was going a little too far. Mithias wasn't prepared to reduce himself to helplessness and hissed under his breath. The street was open and windswept behind him in the darkness, pavement glimmering like seawater in starlight. Disappointed, he slowly began to turn away.

"I said don't move!"

A shot rang out, and Mithias dropped to the ground.

"Ted! The fuck you doin?" The one guard thought Ted had overreacted.

"Shut it. You want him bringing more?" Ted replied scathingly.

Gun ready, Ted approached the still and lifeless form of Mithias. It was the last thing he did.

----

Claire's radio chirped back at the compound. "We need backup! Ted's a gonner!" A frantic voice was heard as the other guard retreated back behind the gate.

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The man, who introduced himself as Kagura Mutsuki, accepted the situation he was faced and agreed to Alex and Akuma fighting on his side.

The redhead enemy dashed forward for a quick slash at Kagura's neck. Kagura responded by pulling his sword from the ground and kicking it upward, parrying the woman's attack. Meanwhile, Akuma raised a leg and, to Alex's understanding, shifted his position by passing through the woman all the while holding that particular posture. The virus figured that move somehow made Akuma incorporeal until he let go of the pose. A phenomenon that defied multiple laws of physics. Akuma's next move was a roundhouse kick at the back of the redhead's knee.

With two fighters on the woman's face, Alex stood in his place motionlessly so as not to get in the way and patiently watched how the fight would turn out. He would prefer if he did not have to fight so he would have reserve energy for the next battle they would inevitably have as they hunted for these 'distortions'.

"Why is this happening to me?!" The plaintive cries of a rather distressed Tailred rang out as she repeatedly dodged this way and that. Given that she was in an enclosed space with quite a few rubble and didn't want to use her sword on the quite frankly in-the-right if somewhat overeager catgirl, Taokaka got quite a few hits in with her claws. Strangely enough though, the costume didn't get ripped to shreds where the claws had hit but caused sparks to fly about, much like how action worked in certain sentai shows. "Guh..." Still, the hits had HURT. Stumbling backwards with a huge grimace on her face and clutching the areas hit, the magical girl responded in kind. "Tailred Emergency Technique!" Blurting that out, the girl focused so that her twintails lit on fire before venting off hot air through the hair ornaments to perform what was essentially a fancy augmented headbutt.

Before Ted could physical react, Mithias pounced up from underneath him. Ted was grabbed under his jaw and lifted off the ground by a clawed hand as if he were a bale of hay. His rifle was swiftly torn out of his hands, leaving him defenseless in shock. As he looked down, the color drained from his skin. The face of the devil himself glared up at him with glowing red eyes and fangs like a mad dog. The sight sent the only other guard sprinting back into the compound.

Mithias could have eaten him. He wanted to, but of course, another part of him didn't want to, crying 'not yet' to his darker half. Patiently, it stayed, agreeing to abide, for now, on the agreement that a promise had been made. Dealing with his nature was like a continual negotiation. Mithias would give in later. He promised. But for any vampire, there was only so long he could sustain denial.

Mithias tossed Ted's gun to the ground, rather than crushing it in his hand, which he could have done, and set down the trembling guard. Humans couldn't be blamed for their reactions. Mithias didn't hate them, and he didn't intend to control them, but he was lonely. And the fact that humans in this world faced potential extinction gave him much grief. Was there any hope of helping them, being what he was?

The bullet wound in his back had already healed when Mithias looked up to see the others arriving on scene. He was surprised to see other, non-human beings were here, apparently aiding the humans in some way. he glared warily, hope tethering his feet to the ground as he half expected more ignorant bullets to come flying his direction.

"I shall endeavour to prevent any harm occurring to either party," Artorias stated, affirming his duty as a knight to protect those that he was allied with--though, at the same time, it was probably a poor idea to question strangely armed strangers appearing in the middle of nowhere. One of those supposed to aid them against whatever ailed this world had run off shortly after their arrival and it was possible that they had returned.

With that, the knight rose and rushed for the gates before the more... mercenary (or outright insane) members of their group could do so, jumping to balance precariously on the entrance and looking down at the vampire before him, silently challenging the vampire to explain his presence here... and prepared to strike with full force if he made an offensive move towards the humans.

Artorias' sheer size was probably something of a natural counter to that.

---

Miku had no chance to suggest anything to Hibiki before, as usual, being caught up in the more hectic girl's wake, but had the presence of mind to change out of her transformed state once they were clear of the room. If their escape was noted, the Symphogears' rather indiscreet appearance would make it much easier to find and track them down before they found the people that they'd been separated from.

"We should try and be subtle, Hibiki."

If that was a word in her vocabulary. Despite being childhood friends, Miku really wasn't sure...

"My my~"

Goldibanne stepped out from the gates, positioning herself beneath the imposing knight as he stood atop them. She cocked her head to one side with a smile, and then held her right hand out, palm up. Molten gold twisted inward from the joints of her fingers, producing strands of the incredibly hot liquid that twisted and churned above her palm. The living doll's smile widened into a grin as she eyed the figure who had assaulted the man.

"How rude~" she commented, brightly, "You could just try talking to them, you know~ Goldibanne thinks that kind of thing would be much easier then whatever you're doing."

She took another step forward.

"So explain yourself, or I'm certain at least one of us will be taking your head~ Fufufu~"

It seemed likely that he had been sent deliberately, but one could never be too certain, now could they?

---

"Ah? Miku..."

Hibiki realized that Miku had detransformed... but if she did too, how could she keep the other girl protected? It didn't feel right, leaving Miku vulnerable like that without the defense of an active Symphogear... But... maybe Miku had a point, being quite could help too, but... what if they got attacked too fast, and Miku got hurt? She didn't want Miku to get hurt, that would be terrible... Even if Miku could transform now, if she got attacked untransformed...

"I don't want you to get hurt, Miku," said Hibiki, frowning slightly.

As the woman attempted to turn and face Akuma, Kagura moved to stop her action, slamming his zweihander against her sword to cause a shockwave to stun her for a moment. It only ended up half-working, however; instead of the arm with her sword, Kagura's attack only ended up bashing against her shield, which in turn caused her to take the full brunt of the attack head on. With her weight having shifted towards Kagura, though, Akuma's subsequent kick managed to hit its mark, causing the woman to temporarily buckle and fall to the ground.

With that being the case, Kagura quickly moved to use his weapon as an anchoring point to swing around and kick her to follow up, but failed to do so as she rolled away. Deciding now that Akuma was probably just as much of a threat as Kagura, the woman opened her shield (which was, in all honesty, more a book than anything) and summoned a set of blades behind herself to fire at them both.

"Shit, she's actually starting to use Izayoi now...? We have to stop this fast, before this gets any worse!" Kagura shouted as he attempted to block once more. This time, however, the incoming attack seemed to curve around his weapon, stabbing Kagura's arms and legs.

"Gah! Swear they didn't do that before..." he complained, pulling out the blades as he readied himself to charge forward.


Tao's eyes widened for a moment as Tailred charged forward, causing the catgirl to be hit squarely in the chest before flying backwards into a nearby wall. It took a few moments for the disorientation to wear off, but if Tao wasn't mad before, well... She was now.

"Okay, no more holding back nyeow!" Taokaka shouted, leaping forward towards Tailred again. However, contrary to what had been the case up until now, there seemed to be an afterimage of the catgirl following close behind. One slash after another came flying at Tailred, with each one of the doppelganger's own following close behind. Though they didn't hurt as much, the barrage of attacks only got worse as time went on.

Especially when Tao began to jump around even more erratically, of course.


While the two continued to move ahead, the sounds of fighting began to rise up once more. The closer the two moved to get out, the louder it became; the sound was distinctly that of steel meeting steel, and their frequency only intensified as time went on.

"Come on now, you son of a bitch! Can't you do any better than that? If this is how you plan to kill me, then you might wanna think things over! Hah!" one voice laughed contemptuously.

"...I shall erase your existence. Terumi!" the other responded, clearly in no mood for games.

"Who-ho-hoa... Bit angry, aren't ya? Well, I think my stuff's about done prepping, though, so I'll be seein' ya!"

"I won't let you escape!"

The final sound of steel meeting steel rang out as the two escaping girls exited the hallway; now finding themselves in what seemed to be the backstage area for a theatre of some sort. A faint trace of green and black energy seemed to linger around the area, the only sigh of something else having been here. Staring at the center of the energy, though, was what seemed to be a fighter wielding an absurdly long katana, his face covered by a faceless white mask.

"..."

Though his face could not be seen, he was very clearly irate.

---

As soon as the person on the other end of the radio screamed for help, Claire moved into action, directing all personnel in the area to assume defensive positions as she moved to pick up her own weapon: an assault rifle, fully loaded and ready to go.

Following those who had left to deal with the issue, Claire readied her weapon at the apparent enemy, ready to fire at will if anything else went wrong. One man down was bad enough, but firing on an unknown enemy was suicidal.

Mentioned: @VitaVitaAR @Raineh Daze @PKMNB0Y@Wraithblade6

---

When the bossy girl’s radio crackled with a frantic report, Sol had a feeling that the entire compound was about to be on red alert…over one person it sounded like. The group had left to go confront the problem, leaving the mercenary standing there and contemplating whether he felt like following or not. With the silence filling the room, he sighed lazily and followed after them.

I should get paid for this, he mused.

As he arrived at the compound gate, he saw that the giant knight and doll girl were there, facing a man who was as pale as Slayer. Sol stared at Mithias and blinked, seeming unimpressed.

“You want to stop all operations for one guy?” Sol scoffed.

Whatever. He was outside, which meant only one thing. SMOKE BREAK! Reaching a hand into his pocket, the mercenary removed his box of cigarettes and took a seat on the cement barrier that a few soldiers had taken cover behind and had their rifles peeking over top of. They glanced strangely at Sol as he bit the end of a cigarette and slid it free from its box. With his lips, he rolled it over until it touched the side of his Fuuenken. A gray sliver of smoke ascended into the air before he rolled it back to the opposite corner of his mouth and leisurely watched what the group would do with the guy.

What looked like a giant clad in knightly armor suddenly landed atop the entrance gate, stopping to peer down at the scene. Mithias shot his gaze at it, or him, without otherwise moving, and the two merely observed each other for the moment. Both warriors took in the details of their opponent: size, weapons, the condition of the armor Artorius was wearing, the grace with which the behemoth had made his landing, etc. Any knight in any realm, for any time in existence, all of them, knew that in war there were no rules. There was no beforehand knowledge of what your enemy was bringing to the table and no expectation of honor or mercy from an enemy. As a knight, if you picked a fight, you had to be ready to deal with the consequences.

Goldibanne stepped out from the gates. Keeping Artorius in his peripheral vision, Mithias switched his attention to her. Yet another inhuman being had stepped out of the woodwork of this world. Her voice was bitter and repulsive, filled with arrogance and mockery. It seemed she had not heard the radio report from the guards, and the pile of gift weaponry had also escaped her notice. Still, she would prove herself to be much more of a danger, exposing some sort of magic that looked like liquefied metal, and it was extremely hot.

At the very instant that Mithias recognized a threat, he pulled his two, titanium swords. Upon the sound of unleashed blades, the guard that had been cowering just in front of the vampire's feet suddenly leap to cognition and scrambled to his feet, fleeing with wide eyes back to the safety of the gate, stammering incomprehensibly. He was terrified, having just seen this monster take a bullet and show no signs of injury. His instinct was to gtfo.

Mithias could have held him hostage, using him as a human shield, but he did not. He had let the man go and instead kept his watchful eye on Goldibanne and her pretentious display. Neither did Claire and her rifle in the background escape his notice, as he made it clear that he was ready for her attack. Long black hair wreathed about his chest and back as clawed white hands leveled his swords toward Goldibanne. He wasn't here to assault the compound, but he wasn't going to be taken prisoner either.

Sol showed up, casually late in the middle of a tense stand off. Flippantly, he mocked the others and took out a cigarette. Mithias glanced at him, swords still poised, and regarded him as the most sane character he had seen there yet. Exhaling over pursed lips, the vampire looked again at the doll mage that gleefully anticipated a slaughter. He would make one last attempt to communicate with this Blackwood Circus and said one word, "Lydia."

With general confirmation from the rest of the group, Satori walked with the others into the coffee shop. Even at this early time, there seemed to be a lot of patrons, which... In all honesty, was actually somewhat useful, if not a very annoying experience for the youkai girl. The strong smell of bitter coffee caused her to recoil a bit, simply because it was far stronger than she was used to.

"Ah... Hrm. This is... Do people here tend to like this sort of drink?" she asked, shaking her head as she looked up at the menu overhead. As expected, there was... A lot of coffee choices, most of which made absolutely no sense to her. Why would there be so many names for a single drink? At least tea had a reason for all its names, but... Coffee? Was a different amount of milk or tea really warrant another name?

Shaking her head, Satori walked up to the counter, where a young woman seemed to be manning the counter. A few other people seemed to be preparing the other customers' drinks, and with surprising speed. Was this...?

"Ah, may I take your order?"

So it was.

"Yes, please. One black tea, please. Nothing else."
"Small, medium, or large?"
"Small will be fine."
"That's fine. Name?"
"Ah... Family name Komeiji, given name Satori."
"No need to be so formal; Satori, is it? Please wait a moment. Next?"

The woman turned around and handed off a piece of paper she had written on to one of the people working on the machines before turning to the next member of the group. Unsure of what to do next, Satori carefully edged away and moved to take an empty seat near the windows, closing her eyes and trying to see if she couldn't filter out anything helpful to their cause.

Oh, he was drawing weapons, too? How uncouth, even before saying a word. At least she'd introduced herself. Goldibanne let out a somewhat mock sigh as she raised on hand back... and paused.

"... Lydia?" she cocked her head to one side, and then lowered her hand, "Ahh, Goldibanne doesn't understand why you'd pull out weapons first. Isn't explaining yourself so much easier~?"

It wasn't even like he HAD explained himself. But the living doll understood what he meant to a degree, at least. After all, Lydia was the one who had called all of them here in the first place and given them their mission. It seemed unlikely that some random madman with lots of trinkets would know exactly who she was and to say her name in the face of impending destruction. Really now, what was all the posturing and stuff about if he'd shown up for the same reasons they had? It was silly.

The gold receded back into the joints in Goldianne's fingers and thumb.

"I really would have killed you if you'd just attacked, so be more careful~" she continued, brightly, before casting a glance back up at the knight perched on the gate, "Or he would have. You should have seen what he did earlier. Goldibanne never saw anyone kill that many animate dead in a single blow before~"

---

Saber had no real qualms with approaching the coffee shop in order to continue planning. However, upon entry, the coffee itself was entirely disregarded. Instead, the blonde girl, still in full armor, approached the counter, her eyes travelling downwards to firmly lay upon the array of pastries stored there and on display. There was, along with the scent of coffee, the smell of these items... and they smelled quite pleasing. Indeed, there was no way she could deny her interest.

But which to choose? She could not buy all of them, the money Rin had granted her and the rest of the money given later was certainly not sufficient for such a purpose...

Artorias surmised from the single word answer that the man had given that he was an ally of theirs: no-one else would have a reason to produce that name when challenged for their presence. Strange that he seemed ready to fight back against a group such as theirs; though he had a sword, without any further protections, to engage in a battle of blades would have been an ill-fated decision.

The knight dropped from the fence, his companion having trailed out of the building after the group and clearing the defence to sit beside their master as the somewhat tense staring contest continued, finally confirming what Goldibanned had implied: "Then thou art an ally of ours, despite this dismal first meeting. Our single trail is to find a 'terrorist' group."

Embedding his sword point-first in the earth to free a hand to point, Artorias began to introduce the rest of their little party, starting with himself--as Sir Artorias, naturally--and finishing with lowering his hand to stroke the oversized wolf besidehim, "... and this is Sif."

---

"It would only be a few words," Miku pointed out, frowning a little at Hibiki's belief that she couldn't keep herself safe despite evidence to the contrary. Yet the idea of being subtle went completely out the window as they moved on and the sound of fighting began to pick up again, though the black-haired girl opted to stay out of her transformed state because running was a lot more useful than flight in corridors.

Then they found one of the fighters; the man stood in the middle of a surprisingly intact room. Despite his clear displeasure and feeling somewhat intimidated by the mask--oversized swords being nothing new after hanging around Tsubasa--there was no reason to assume that he would be treating them as an enemy. Especially if they were polite first.

"Could you please tell us the way out?"

That was true... and Hibiki realized that she kept forgetting that Miku could defend herself now, with a small pang of guilt at her absentmindedness. But there wasn't much time to contemplate this, as moments later they seemed to run right into the tail end of some kind of conflict. Hibiki moved ahead first, because, well... it was hard to let old habits die, even if Miku could defend herself now. When the two girls arrived, all she saw was a man in armor, wielding a huge sword that reminded the girl somewhat of Tsubasa. He seemed pretty intimidating, but he could talk, right? That meant that they could understand one another. When Miku pointed out that they needed to find a way out, Hibiki stepped forward.

"We don't really know how we got here," she began, "But if you knew how to get out, it'd be really helpful."

Hibiki paused for a moment. Maybe she should introduce herself, too! That could only help.

"And... my name is Tachibana Hibiki!"

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Alex watched, with slight amusement, his two allies attempt to bring the rampaging woman to heel. However, the woman fired magical blades she materialized out of thin air at the two fighters, some of them hitting Kagura in the limbs. The virus noticed there was little attention being paid to him and figured it was the time to strike. He was not exactly hiding so saying he had the element of surprise was a little inaccurate.

The Blacklight virus leapt into the air and over at the woman's position before lunging himself downward in breakneck speed. Alex aimed his landing just near to the woman as Kagura said they should not kill her. With his heavy mass and the high speeds, the virus' landing should create a shockwave to knock the woman away and disorient her. If she evaded though, at least she would be distracted for the others to get her.

”The usual, Philip?” Shotaro asked his partner. The young man seemed to be pondering the menu for a bit, considering some kind of changeup to the norm before merely shaking his head.

”Just the usual.” Philip stated and moved from Shotaro’s side to let him order for him. Rather than stand aside with Satori, however, he went to Saber’s side to eye the confections along with her. He wasn’t actually interested in eating anything right now, but he felt the need to point out Saber’s appearance before they went any further. ”Not to interrupt your decision, but is your armor necessary for our mission right now?” he asked, ”I don’t know if if you can change out of it without issue, but it helps us stick out like a sore thumb.”

On Shotaro’s side he just gave his order as ”Two large coffees. One black, one with cream. Half and half.” He paused for a moment and then asked, ”Do you need me to pay up front? I’m paying for a group.

So it appeared that they understood. That was a good sign. Mithias seemed to relax slightly as Goldibanne put away her magic, yet he watched her with cautious suspicion. Her tone of voice, her continual reminders of how powerful she and her allies were, was a red flag to the often misjudged vampire. Prideful and arrogant, she appeared to be very comfortable with having the upper hand and expected to be untouchable. She was a being that had probably never known suffering or fear in all her life, and like so many of the oldblood vampires from Mithias' home world, power had made her haughty and coldhearted. It was she who would be the danger to the group. She would be the one most likely to abandon the others and turn tail when the going got rough. After an accusatory moment, Mithias dropped his judgemental glare and listened to Artorius.

Clipping his swords to holsters on his hips, Mithias returned to a casual stance. He bowed, introducing himself. "I am Mithias. I mean you no harm, and I will help you find these 'terrorists.'" He gave no answer to what he was, but left it as either obvious or oblivious, depending on who was wondering. He blinked at Claire out of the corner of his eye. She was still watching him. Yet he continued, not certain if they were going to talk out here or allow him to enter within. "Please tell me more."

"Waaaaaaaaaa, I feel like a certain action movie star that comes from China!" Tailred was not having the time of her life at the moment, if only because an angry catgirl with very sharp claws were trying to cut her up. Thankfully she had armor on her body, but what if the claws had hit her hair?! What then?! Attempting to catch the blows with her body and gauntlets while wildly shifting her head to and fro was only making her feel more hurt and tired, especially with how wild the girl was being at the moment. Huffing and puffing while guarding her sides that were aching something furiously, Tailred's eyes were bleary and the girl herself was wondering if she should just take the hits to get the catgirl to go away. All of a sudden though, a certain event had occurred that caused the diminutive warrior to suddenly ignite with a fierce fighting spirit. And fire. Lots of fire. In the air, few strands of red hair were fluttering in the updraft, severed by sharp claws... "No. One. Damages. My. TWINTAILS!" Grabbing two somewhat intact tables in each hands, the now thoroughly reinvigorated Tailred slammed them towards each other to try to sandwich Taokaka in between the wooden furniture.

The swordsman's assistance proved to be a boon, as he divided the attention of their opponent. While this allowed the warrior's kick to find its mark, the potential for a follow-up was hindered by one minor complication: the opponent's shield had opened, releasing a flurry of knives. Now, a normal warrior would take evasive action, re-position, and seek out an alternate avenue of attack. Akuma, neither a normal warrior nor a normal man, took the shortest available path.

Akuma tightened his stance, entering a meditative state. After a moment of focus, the warrior's crimson aura flared into existence once more.

"Messatsu!"

The martial artist cupped his hands and thrust them forward, loosing a fiery orb of force. Much unlike the one used against the puppeteer, however, this one possessed superior speed, size, and strength. Against this embodiment of raw might, what could a swarm of mere knives hope to do? Or at least, that was how Akuma viewed it.