"Mitsuru-senpai told us to climb as fast as possible," Takeba-san states, as though you couldn't all hear her mental voice. Not that she has to worry about you not hurrying or anything, after your first time climbing this tower. Whatever Shadow it is that Mitsuru-san sensed, it's not one that you ever want to meet in person.
"I wonder what's up there," You comment. Akihiko-san nods.
"Yeah, she's normally pretty good about telling us things, if they're important." Despite the slight accusation in his tone, Mitsuru-san doesn't speak up.
Takeba-san doesn't seem entirely bothered by this. "All right. Let's try and avoid Shadows as we go now, all right?" You don't have a problem with that, and you're not sure the others do, either. Maybe Akihiko-san, but he's had plenty of chances to fight tonight, even if nothing can really stand up to his crackling lightning anymore.
Not that anything stood much of a chance to begin with. You're not sure, but you think you might be a bit too strong for the lower levels of Tartarus.
I think Yukari-san's the only one of us who isn't. And that might just be her lack of confidence showing.
Koromaru barks in agreement, and of course none of you particularly want to argue with Koromaru, so you climb the stairs and set off attempting to make your way through the tower with nothing but stealth.
It's not particularly easy. Shadows in general seem to be difficult to hide from, for some reason, though you're not sure why. They're also easy enough to lose once they've noticed you, but slipping around them is a lot more difficult than you'd expected.
Sometimes Koromaru just growls, and Cerberus appears to consign your most recent encounter to darkness, but that tends to attract more Shadows that you need to run past. But none of them ever manage to attack, and the thirteenth floor sets you literally in front of the stairs, so for a moment, things are fine.
And then you reach the fourteenth floor. You can see the light of the teleporter from the start, of course, it's the one real light source there is, but in front of it...
(Do not use physical attacks,) Mitsuru-san instructs you, as you take in possibly the largest Shadow you've ever had to fight.
...You're really glad this never showed up back when you were on your own. You can already tell that would have ended badly.
Still... no physical attacks? That cuts down a lot of your options. And you don't even know why using them would be a problem. What sort of things wouldn't get hurt if Akihiko-san punched them?
Rampage Drives, apparently.
The Shadow notices you, and moves forward more quickly than you'd expect.
You can already tell that this probably won't be the most enjoyable fight in the world.
Ken's HP: 45/45
Ken's SP: 59/75
[ ] Spells
-[ ] Kouha
-[ ] Zio
-[ ] Dia
--[ ] On Takeba-san
[ ] Focus on defending yourself. You don't think you'd like getting hit by that thing...
