KoutaKouta: 5, Hyper[6]
Hunter Tactical A: 1
Hyperspace Dopant Squad B: 4, Hyper[4]
"Aramitama inbound.""Take out the heart, get the hostages out of there."No need to tell you twice.
You let loose your arrow, blasting apart the heart and only the heart. Mrs Kato's too close to the squad leader for a larger blast.
The doors snap open as you activate the Ardent Module and you feel a new heartbeat begin to beat. The heartbeat of Sendo itself.
You charge forwards. The Dopants raise their weapons, spinning round to meet you. But you are not alone. You have a teammate. You have covering fire. The first bullet strikes one of the Dopants in the chest, though by then it is no longer a bullet, for it had become thing else. A flash of white light that seems to tear a gaping hole in the armor leaving the body intact. Then comes the second bullet, right after the first. A hollowpoint round, tearing into the flesh before the armor can flicker back into existence. A lethal one-two punch, delivered in a staccato burst fire.
By the time you've closed in, three Dopants have fallen. By the time you've closed in your hoodie has become a mantle, and upon your head rests a crown. Power surges through you. Great and terrible power. Ever growing. Ever increasing. A deluge not even you can withstand. You feel it. The power you attained in that singular moment when you made the contract. The power beyond what you wield now. The power you had discarded. The power that would make you not who you are. Bit by bit it is returning to you.
You cannot maintain this form forever you realize. For eventually, you will not be you. But until then, until that instant Kouta Fuuri forgets all that he is, your powers will continue to grow. And if that is what it will take to save your friends, then so be it. You can endure this. You can hold on. To your humanity. To your sense of self.
A Dopant swings their rifle barrel to your head. You grab it by both hands, tearing it free from their grasp and slamming its butt against its ally's knees. Pretty sure you broke them.
Deciding that they'd rather not be near you while you're doing whatever the fuck you're doing, the squad leader releases their grasp on Mrs. Kato and does their weird FTL backwards, using the time brought by their ending I-frames to stab themselves with another syringe.
"「Ambitious」"Black smoke emits from their body, congealing into a group of mimes. Two of them mime out walls in front of them, not really going to stop you, but likely providing some measure of protection against Yuri. The rest mime firing guns. At the hostages.
It's a simple ultimatum really. Take the bullets. Or watch your friends die.
Course what they didn't account for is for that sword to fall out of the sky.
Well, sword might be a bit of a misnomer here. It's not
really a sword, rather it's just this massive sharpened hunk of metal. A heavy cleaver wide enough to serve as makeshift shield, one that catches the bullets for you. Darkness erupts from the blade, rippling out across the roof, and covering it in a thin film of black ink, a film of ink that the blade sinks down into.
It is from this black ink that a massive metallic gauntlet erupts, seizing the Dopant squad leader and dragging them down into the depths of something that by all rights should be less than a millimeter deep.
"Your backup is here."You glance over at Yuri. He wasn't your backup?
He shrugs
"Was just passing by."Well, looks like you've got two teammates now to help brace for what happens next.
Which as it turns out is an Aramitama attempting to drag everyone into its Sanctuary. Emphasis on
attempting. You feel
something slam shut. Like a metaphysical beartrap. Choking. Choking on prey far too big for its maw.
It's you, you realize.
You're jamming it.
It's trying to drag you in. Drag everyone in. But you're connected to Sendo. All of Sendo. It may be able to drag a boy in. But it can't drag the entire city in. It won't be getting a home field advantage here.
Either it cuts its losses and runs, or it mans up and fights you outside.
It opts for the latter. The air slices open and it appears before you, a knightly figure clad in armor of quicksilver, swinging a liquid blade. It's really long blade. Like, absurdly long. Like, you full on can't dodge it horizontally because
the swing covers half the roof.
It is here that you get to see your new ally in their entirety, a hulking figure clad in what is best described as a mutated sci-fi rendition of an old-timey diving suit. A hulking, heavily armored figure, that moves in a way no human could, less leaping from the ink and more being
swung like a marionette missing half its strings. They don't so much parry the blow so much as they just collide into it, blade-first, cleaving the Aramitama's sword in half.
"Aria von Dermitz reporting for duty!"...Okay yeah, if you were expecting any voice to come out of that
thing, it probably isn't that of a cheerful young girl. Yuri doesn't seem too phased, instead he just uses this time to execute the remaining Dopants.
Anyways... with its attack foiled, the Aramitama steps backwards, the two halves of their broken sword retracting back into their hands and congealing into a pair of light machineguns that they bring to bear against, really just, everybody. You, Yuri, Aria. Okay now that, that's more your department.
As for the Tactical all the way at street-level... it's now just, drinking. Heavily.
- Skirmisher Module [4]: Effect unknown. Suspected to be the "default" module.
- Assault Module [4]: Effect unknown.
- Brawler Module [4]: Effect unknown.
- Hunter Module [5]: Increases bow attack power and blast radius. Reduces bow rate of fire. Adds stealth capabilities. Reduces movement speed.
- Ardent Module [6]: All parameters continually increase at the cost of eroding Kouta's sense of sense.
Kouta
Status: Slightly hurt, Ardent Module, 1x healing potion
World Line: 2 1 3 6 2 1 4 1 2 6
Alterations: 3.5
Resolve: 3
Yuri
Status: Fine, armed with knife and handgun (empty, 3 spare magazines), 1x healing potion
Location: Roof, on one of Kouta's flanks.
Aria
Status: Fine
Location: Roof, next to Kouta.
Argyros
Status: Fine
Location: Roof, in front of Kouta
Details: Firing a pair of LMGs at Kouta, Yuri, and Aria
Hunter Tactical A & Smooth Operator
Status: Fine, apparently completely drunk
Location: Middle of the street
Details: Drinking heavily
Hyperspace Dopant Squad B
Status: Dead