Kochiya Sanae
??? — Burning Town
Despite the response that her words seemed to have upon the mage opposing them, Sanae noted that nothing in particular actually seemed to
change with regards to how the battle was panning out—at least, not at first. Her danmaku being blocked by an array of defensive spells wasn't something foreign to her, but seeing Saria's own projectile pierce straight through caused the flying shrine maiden to pause for a moment to register the impact. The injury that came about as a result of that attack seemed to be somewhat shallow, but the fact that she could make it out from this distance—and how the mage seemed somewhat rattled by the attack—meant that it could just as well be an opening to exploit.
Of course, that brought with it a renewed offensive from their opponent—and one that Sanae would choose to meet with more
aggressive movement. While she had been careful until now, the new cluster of laser beams seemed to be trained onto her position. So long as she didn't stay in one place for too long or could simply
outpace the speed at which they approached her, then they wouldn't be an issue.
With that thought in mind, Sanae quickly barreled into the array of lasers and began to weave through the barrage on a path towards the mage. If Saria's own attacks were more likely than her own to leave any lasting damage, then it fell to her to force her opponent's eyes on her to allow for another opportunity for those hits to land.
As the lasers seemed to crash into one another or miss outright, Sanae quickly closed the distance between herself and her opponent before attempting to barrage the mage with even more bullets. While the earlier engagement had resulted in her bullets being rendered ineffective, maybe reducing the amound of time between impacts would allow for some of them to get through at this distance.
If not, though, maybe it'd give Saria's next attack a chance at leaving more of a lasting impact.
@VitaVitaAR@Raineh Daze
Outclassed though the archer was, surrender seemed to be rather low on the list of things that they seemed to be considering as they continued to fire away at their target. The combination attack that they had loosed seemed to do little to actually disorient the girl in front of him as it had traditionally done—no thanks due to the muscle memory that had caused them to fire the flashbang arrow above rather than below them. The ensuing combat had left the plant he had caused to sprout little more than a mild nuisance, but there seemed to still be some amount of confidence in the archer's actions as they began to retreat from the fray. Pursuit was buit a given, but the girl's apparent recitience towards taking a life was something that they reasoned could be taken advantage of.
Dropping a small orb of
something as they fled, the sniper began to run into a more claustrophobic area between the houses. The alleyway was narrow and left little room for cover to dodge behind, but that was an acceptable trade given the situation. As the knight-apparent gave chase and fired away, her opponent would leap against the walls, gaining
just enough vertical distance to be able to fire another few arrows from above.
The goal, however, was not to actually
hit the girl this time, given how well that had fared the last few times. No, the goal this time was whatever had been dropped behind moments prior. The follow-up attack cracking their bow in half had left their defeat all but guaranteed, but the impact of one of the stray arrows onto the orb below had caused the latter to begin to light up and glow an unnerving mix of orange and white.
Then, after a brief delay, the
reason for that glow made itself known as an explosion rang out from behind them, destroying the nearby walls and the pillars supporting them and causing the buildings to begin to collapse towards both the archer (who had begun to fall back towards the ground) and their opponent.
"I'd sooner bite off my own tongue than surrender," the sniper—whose hood had finally begun to fly off from the descent to reveal the face of a teenage young man with matted red hair—said as he threw what remained of his bow away as he fell. "Better to die a person than live as a slave."
@DracoLunaris
The fact that the cloud of poison had been nullified in an instant seemed to cause the assassin to grow at least
somewhat agitated. No matter how they assessed the situation right now, their chance of victory was infinitesimal; the initial sneak attack had failed miserably, their backup plan was made nonexistent with next to no effort, and at this point in time recovering their discarded blade to try another attack could only end in a humiliating death given how quickly the girl seemed to be able to switch between summons.
As the girl seemed to prepare a counterattack, the assassin's eye seemed to flash for a moment, and a magical sigil appeared for but a brief moment before the orbs rained down upon them. Rather than attempt to dodge, though, the assassin's body seemed to slacken as they stared at the oncoming attack.
The cloud of dust and dirt thrown into the air left the air humming with tension, but the sight of the assassin's body now left headless and peppered with holes made it quite clear that the only result from this last attack was a quick but brutal execution.
@VitaVitaAR
The fact that his slash hadn't exactly pierced through the toa's open body didn't seem to concern the blonde man as much as it did annoy him—though maybe such a result would have been expected when he was facing an enemy he knew next to nothing about. The blows he had taken were incredibly weighty, but the glaivier felt that the attacks were nowhere near as calculated as those of a fighter's should have been. Rather than fighting people...
"A golem made for fighting monsters, huh?" he guessed, readying himself for another clash of blades as the toa retreated for a brief reprieve. "I guess that if you just hit beasts hard enough, they're bound to die eventually."
Almost as if in response to his taunt, though, his opponent loosed a howling gale towards him. The Heralds who were waiting in the wings were swept back by the attack if not barely holding on, but the blonde man facing the attack head-on chose to dig in his heels and keep his eyes trained upon the golem ahead. With his cape flying in the wind, the glaivier simply braced himself and remained steadfast. All the while, of course, the glow upon his weapon began to flare up once more.
What he did
not expect, though, was the toa closing in upon him in mere moments. Leaping high into the skies was no odd feat in his eyes, but a massive golem closing that distance in next to no time caused the blonde to flinch. That hesitation would prove to be his undoing, as the spiraling winds in the golem's hand swiftly met his torso and sent him flying backwards. His stance broken as he careened backwards and into a tree, the blonde man let out a cry of pain at the moment of impact before falling to one knee.
There was a brief pause before he slowly rose back to his feet, though, a look of indignant anger on his face quite evident to see as he spit out a bit of blood from his mouth.
"You're smarter than you look," he growled, stabbing his weapon into the dirt to push himself back up, "Guess I need to take your head first."
By now, the aura that was radiating off of the blade had consumed the weapon in its entirety and seemed to be slowly crawling up his arm. Even so, the blonde man seemed to not be going on to counteroffensive—at least, not
quite yet, if his previous mannerisms were anything to go off of.
@Lugubrious
"To be quite frank, I don't know what madness would have caused that fool to stretch his forces even thinner," the woman responded, disdain evident in her voice, "much less the rest of the things he's done since arriving here. I have dozens of complaints about him acting as he has, especially given how we could've resolved this issue in a matter of hours, but I suppose there's no merit in telling you about his failings when they're evident enough."
With a sigh, the Raven Herald shook her head and glanced at the group. Her gaze lingered for a moment upon the young boy who had begun to move behind the two older people in the group, but soon enough her attention shifted back towards the woman who had taken the role of de facto representative before she continued.
"But that's neither here nor there. I have no reason to disclose why we came to retrieve her, though, so I would advise against prying into—"
Before she could finish speaking, though, a small white magic sigil would appear next to the woman's ear, and her previously impassive gaze turned to one of mild concern. There was a pause before she nodded her head and responded with a simple 'understood' before turning back towards the four people in front of her.
"...Well, that certainly changes things. Maybe leaving her in your care isn't the worst idea..." she mused out loud before throwing a small box towards the injured woman. "I suppose this works just as well, then. A different choice, then. Hand the child over, take the items in that box and fall into hell with me, or a fight. Given the current situation, my leeway for negotiations has been cut rather short, but I presume you're still not willing to hand her over. The choice is yours, and for your sake I hope you choose quickly."
@Drifting Pollen@EchoWolff
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