Tooru collapsed into the ash, the urgency of the situation overwhelmed by the sheer pain. She gasped and coughed, the inhalation only serving to get flecks of ash into her throat. She pushed herself to her feet haphazardly, trying to get away from the stuff before it caused her coughing fit to continue. Mina had gone silent right then, right as that terrible feeling exploded like a bomb in her head.
<Mina? Mina!? Are you there? Please tell me you're there.> Each second seemed to stretch out into eternity as she waited for a reply. She barely knew the girl, but they'd just been fighting for their lives together. And now, it seemed, no longer, as the only response she recieved was a crushing, thunderous silence.
She couldn't cry. Not yet. Not until she knew her sacrifice wasn't in vain.
Detonate the bomb.
You grit your teeth and focus on the subtle tug of magic that you can feel still linking you to the bomb,
willing it to come undone and release the energy stored inside. There's a brief pause, and you look up at the witch, just starting to stand back up. Her wings spread out as her weight shifts back onto her feet, and then the bomb goes off exploding in a blinding flash of rainbow light! You wince away from the light, covering your eyes with one arm.
And then you hear the witch scream again, clearly tortured, but also clearly
still alive. You uncover your face and look up to see her standing again, both of her arms bent backward into the shattered remains of her neck, her head entirely gone. She reels backward while screaming, taking quick short strides that still cover an impressive distance, and on her third step one of her feet--you can't tell which--smashes through the surface of the frozen lake, a geyser of water shooting into the air around it and stopping her in her tracks
The witch raises her wings high into the air, clearly about to return to the sky, but instead she screams again as one of her wings suddenly detaches and falls away behind her. Her arms release her decapitated neck, one reaching further behind her to claw at the severed wing's stump, and the other reaching forward to catch herself as she falls back forward onto one knee, her other leg still trapped in the ice.
"Mina!"
With that, Alida redoubled her efforts.
Mina.. she tried. I can't let her die for nothing. I need to kill this witch now before any more people have to die.
It's.. just so big, and I'm not strong enough.
Continue with CC activated, the body on the witch will try to move a bit higher on the witch and smash harder. Closer to where the heart and lungs would be, maybe? The important bits? The other body will try to activate berzerker by dislocating her left shoulder.. by pulling on it with the right arm.
This is.. going to hurt. It did a lot last year, when I fell off that roof and my sleeve got caught in the gutter.. but I have to. It hurt but they could pop it back in, and hopefully it'll be like that this time.
<Tooru.. can you do me a favor?>
<Stay alive. Don't worry about me if you have to blow up the bomb. If we all die, this witch will just kill more people, and more people..>
[Joy]You react to the witch's shifting position instantly, spinning around and running back up towards the witch's wings at a dead sprint as she rises below you. After only moments she's already standing tall enough that you lose your footing and start to slide backward, but you take your bat in both hands,
holding it in a reverse grip and stabbing it down into the witch's glassy surface as hard as you can. At the same moment your strike connects, you kick off and leap forward as hard as you can, using your entire body to launch yourself farther upward. Your flight only lasts for a moment before you slam back into her surface, sliding up the uneven stained-glass right past her wings, and then there's a deafening explosion from above, and from a distance you watch as the witch's head explodes in a multicolored shower of shining glass shards.
[Mercy]The witch begins to stumble backward, screaming at a deafening volume, and you start to slide back down her body, steering yourself to land atop the base of one of her wings. You collide with it earlier than you expected to, finding that it's only slightly wider than you, and difficult to keep a hold of, especially with the witch stumbling around so violently. You growl and hold on tight to the appendage, waiting until she stops moving long enough for you to strike. Meanwhile, you grip your other body's left shoulder, and roughly yank it out of position, the pain jolting through your nerves like lightning, though you don't utter even a peep.
[Bravery]Instead, you shout in rage with your intact body as you find your footing atop the witch's wing, again taking your club in both hands and beginning to smash it against the verticle wall of her shoulder, each smash shattering the glowing stained-glass windows into even more pieces, hundreds, then thousands of tiny individual shards, many flying off around you like shrapnel. Many of the flying glass shards hit you, cutting into your skin, but the newer--
weaker--pain only sharpens your anger and drives you to hit even harder.
You feel the wing shift below you, nearly making you fall off, and you look away from the invisible crater of a wound you've made to look at the wing behind you, rising into the sky and billowing out. The witch is about to take flight, and you likely won't be able to hold on to her very long, certainly not while continuing to smash her apart. You don't have time to think, but you don't need it; the solution is obvious. You twist around and bring your club down on the glass between your feet, and it shatters even more easily than her glass shoulder had.
Unfortunately, shattering the glass that you'd been standing on causes you to fall downward, collided painfully off the jagged stump that you just severed with a single blow and opening up a series of fresh wounds along your side, and causing you to bounce away from her body. You tumble through the air, shouting a couple choice insults at the witch as you flail impotently at her, then you turn and see the ice below, racing up to meet you!
((Map and next update date later.)))Soul Gem: Glowing with a shadowed light.
Form and location: Medallion, pinned to her left breast.
Age: 14
Hair Color: Salt-stained blonde.
Health: Main body's arm is dislocated; secondary body is extremely cut up and bleeding heavily.
Inventory: A magically-lengthened club, tied to her arm with one of Asha's ribbons. Both bodies have one.
Totem: A fishing club.
Stats:
Bravery: Talented~
Joy: Skilled!
Innocence: Amateur...
Purity: Amateur...
Mercy: Skilled!
Creativity: Cursed ;-;
Love: Cursed ;-;
Abilities:
Mobility Lvl2
Close Combat Lvl3+1
Totem Manipulation Lvl2
Berzerker Lvl3 (Active (Bloodied); One less cheap cost per turn!)
Painless Lvl2
Effigy Lvl1 Active; Cheap cost per turn!
Soul Gem: Glowing with a warm light.
Form and location: Ring, worn on her left ring finger.
Age: 13
Hair color: Ashen
Health: Wet, ashy, and with a bunch of glass and gashes in her right hand. Has a fair bit of living clay on her, mostly her clothes and right arm.
Inventory: A short rusty metal shiv, broken off from a longer piece, and a brick.
Totem: A Ribbon. The one her late sister wore.
Stats:
Bravery: Skilled!
Joy: Cursed ;-;
Innocence: Cursed ;-;
Purity: Amateur...
Mercy: Talented~
Creativity: Amateur...
Love: Skilled!
Abilities:
Mobility: Level 3
Close Combat: Level 2
Totem Manipulation: Level 1 (+1)
Heal and Steel: Level 2 (Active; Next attack rolls on Mercy)
Soothe: Level 3
Flagellation: Level 3
Memento: Level 1 (Given to Aleksandra)
Soul Gem: The light is gone.
Form and location: None...
Age: 14.
Hair Color: Bright green.
Health: Dead and gone...
Body Modifications: No longer matters...
Inventory: Shattered souls hold nothing...
Totem: A halberd.
Stats:
Bravery: Amateur...
Joy: Skilled...
Innocence: Amateur...
Purity: Skilled...
Mercy: Cursed ;-;
Creativity: Talented...
Love: Cursed...
Abilities:
Mobility: Level 2
Close-Combat: Level 2 (+1)
Regeneration: Level 2
Sixth Sense: Level 3
Semblance: Level 2
Projection: Level 2
Soul Gem: Glowing with a shadowed light.
Form and location: Necklace, worn around her... neck...
Age: 13
Hair Color: Bright scarlet.
Health: Has a bunch of shallow cuts across her back, and the upper right third of her face is severely swollen, blinding her in the right eye.
Inventory: Nothing useful.
Totem: Ofuda talismans, primarily thrown as manabolts.
Stats:
Bravery: Cursed ;-;
Joy: Talented~
Innocence: Skilled!
Purity: Amateur...
Mercy: Cursed ;-;
Creativity: Amateur...
Love: Skilled!
Abilities:
Mobility II
Mana Bolt III (+I)
Regeneration I
Totem Manipulation II
Invigorating Passion I
Outburst II
Duet with Reality II
Ward: Glowing with a foolish light!
Age: 12
Hair Color: Black.
Health: Scared and hiding.
Inventory: A cute blue ribbon tied into her hair. She's wearing Alida's coat, now soaked with water, and wielding her grandfather's AK-47.
Stats:
Bravery: Skilled!
Joy: Skilled!
Innocence: Talented~
Purity: Amateur...
Mercy: Cursed ;-;
Creativity: Cursed ;-;
Love: Amateur...