Chapter 91 - Warmup and Cooldown
Over the past week, you've hunted more Witches than most Magical Girls do over their entire lives. The overwhelming wrongness that bombards you the second you enter is easily batted away, along with whatever meaningless whispers follow with it. Instead, your attention is drawn to the scenery.
The sky is a slate-colored void that shines a dull, uniform light down into the Barrier. Warm rain falls gently from above, barely enough to be noticeable in the faint glow. Ankle-deep water is choked by brightly-colored flowers and plants of various sizes. There's no real logic to the colors, shapes, or textures. A thick green hydrangea towers over a small white lily pad just to your right, while a speckled orange rose has half swallowed what looks like a small blue tree on your left. The titanic fronds and blossoms form a dense jungle around you and Kyoko, guiding you along a wide path where the foliage is less heavy. Far ahead in the distance, something stretches up into the sky. The unknown object splits and branches, forming a huge web that fills the space where the sun should be. The way it spreads through the sky reminds you distantly of constellations. Regardless, your eyes are drawn more towards a different feature.
Off in the distance, lights are faintly visible. They're spread out through the Barrier, shifting about aimlessly. It seems likely that they're the Familiars of this Barrier. While nothing you've seen in a Barrier has been a threat for some time, it's no excuse to let your guard down.
"You see 'em too?" Kyoko growls beside you, voice thick with anticipation. The air around her shimmers and ripples with heat, and thick coils of steam rise up from the place where the watery floor meets her hooves.
"Yep. You can do as you'd like," you offer, following up with a warning. "But I'd be careful about getting caught in the light. Traits this noticeable are usually important in some way or another."
"Yeah, that's about what I figured." Kyoko confirms. With those words, the veins of fire beneath Kyoko's skin flare up. Instantly, the heat suffusing the Barrier's air becomes overwhelming. You can feel a faint sensation of your flesh burning, though between your enhanced recovery and durability it's little more than an annoyance. The same is not true for the Barrier, which has already started to wilt. The constant rains have stopped any actual fires from breaking out, but the formerly-lush plant life has become wilted and dehydrated. More importantly, Kyoko's display has called down a response. The distant lights have stopped their wandering and begun to converge on your location.
Lamp appears in your off-hand, giving you a better view of the now-approaching horde. The Uriels are little more than rosy scarlet spheres floating around head-height draped in similarly colorless robes that dangle down and drag through the flooded ground. The stark things look out of place in the colorful jungle.
With your targets marked, you let Lamp vanish. With your next weapon already on your fingertips, you call out casually to Kyoko. "Hey, wanna see who can kill more of 'em?"
Kyoko pauses for a moment, fire churning beneath her glassy flesh, then lets out a strained, choked laugh. "Oh, you're on!"
In a flash, a spear appears in Kyoko's hands. It's a jagged, brutal-looking weapon, blackened by soot and covered in demonic-looking hooks and barbs, but you still breath a silent sigh of relief upon seeing it. You were confident in your previous analysis, but the appearance of Kyoko's weapon confirms it.
Specifically, in comparing it to the weapons still lodged in Kyoko's body.
Several conclusions have been drawn from this particular trait of the Mosaic of Prometheus, the first being that Kyoko has internalized that she has been hurt or damaged in some fundamental way. While this is disappointing, it's not unreasonable given everything she has gone through. It'd be more surprising if she hadn't. More worrying is the second observation, how the weapons piercing her body are bright and clean. The pristine, decorated aesthetic sends a clear message: Kyoko believes that it was right that she was hurt.
As depressing as it is, the third observation comes as some consolation. Even if Kyoko believes it is right that she should suffer, it won't be by her own hands. That, at least, is a relief.
You have very little time to ponder these implications. Kyoko swings her spear towards the nearest Uriel, maybe three hundred meters away. The spear's shaft warps and stretches, and the extended weapon crashes through the jungle and into its target. Along with the swing, a wall of hissing fire slams into the Familiar. Earlier, you had noted the rainfall and ambient humidity preventing a forest fire from breaking out due to Kyoko's presence. Now, the "burning" part has been skipped in favor of going straight to the "total incineration" step. A patch of the Barrier is simply gone, the only evidence that anything had been there the few ashes floating in the steam-filled air.
Kyoko stares frozen at the devastation, spear held retracted at the end of its arc. She glances back and forth between you and the line of missing forest. It seems she wasn't expecting that much power. You just whistle in approval.
"Nice. I bet Mami's gonna be impressed. Though don't think I'm gonna back out." you tack on at the end, as though you weren't planning on losing this little contest in the first place. Ah well, might as well make it look good. Plus, obliterating Witches makes for some pretty alright stress relief.
For only a moment, Mimicry sits comfortably in your hand. The sword is an immense thing, more a sharpened chunk of metal wrapped in strands of muscle and flesh than a proper weapon. The mismatched eyes glance about, scanning the environment with an unsettling eagerness. A slight mental tug is all it takes, and another flicker of light washes over your weapon. You note the whine of protest from your insides, but set it aside. Digging through the annals of your mind, Eternal Meal rises eagerly to meet your attention. The Ordeal's essence floods your weapon, transforming it.
The new form of Mimicry is still an enormous sword, now covered in light brown chitin broken up by glassy amber growths that could maybe be considered eyes if one were liberal with their definition. In one fluid motion, you bring the blade up and draw your free hand down its length. A piece splits off under your touch, thinning and sharpening into something that looks closer to a javelin than an arrow. The sword itself changes, folding in and shrinking until you hold in one hand a bow larger than your own body. You rest the arrow against the blackened tendon that serves as a string, drawing back with a slow and deliberate motion. You spare just enough time to shoot Kyoko a playful smile before you release the string.
The wedge of jungle at which you had aimed is no longer there. Water from the rest of the Barrier drains in to replace what was spread into the atmosphere by the force of your shot. The Uriels you were aiming at are completely gone, as though they'd never existed. On an intellectual level, you know this isn't as much of a feat as it seems. Most of your EGO can accomplish such things, and Mami would likely have little trouble replicating the feat given a fair amount of exertion. Frankly, a less destructive and more precise attack would be stronger. But there's more to this display than power.
It's about having fun.
Witch Hunting is a dangerous responsibility. Treating it like a game is an easy path to letting your guard down and getting punished for it, and you're not going to fall into that hole any time soon. But the point of this venture is to let Kyoko relieve stress. If she ends up feeling like an outsider, like there's a distance between her and everyone else, that defeats the whole purpose. So for now, you'll stick to flash and show for as long as she does. And beyond that…
"Eight to five. Don't make this too easy for me, 'kay?"
It's a bit surprising how, even without any clear facial features, you can see Kyoko returning your grin.
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"Ninety-eight to eighty-four. This looks like the last area, so I might have this already."
It's not. You can sense more Familiars hiding in the endless white sands of the Barrier's apex, under the empty blue sky. They're not visible yet, but you can bet that as soon as the Witch makes itself apparent they'll join in.
"The bow ones should count for two points, though. They're harder to hit." Kyoko protests without much real dissatisfaction.
"You sure? 'Cause if they do, then I'm actually winning by-"
"Never mind!"
You chuckle, and over the sound of crackling fire you can hear Kyoko join in. It's nice, this little back and forth between the two of you. It feels a bit like working with Chesed or Tiphereth, being able to act playful and joke around while still dealing with things seriously. This sort of faux-confrontation is closer to your relation with Tiphereth than the old Welfare Head, but both would still be vaguely applicable.
Of course, now that you're starting to enjoy yourself, you are interrupted.
Angelina bursts from the scattered clouds and crashes into the ground where you were a fraction of a second earlier. A mess of monochrome arms thrashes about, scattering the sand up into a screen that hides the Witch's preparing of a beam of golden light that screams through the air between you and Kyoko.
You just can't catch a break, can you?
You draw Lamp to your free hand, the enhanced vision it provides easily piercing the Witch's improvised smokescreen. Angelina's "core" is a ball of pinkish colors contained within rings encircling rings. Each ring is lined with bright pink eyes with heart pupils, the only spot of color on the Witch's otherwise black and white body. Two enormous feminine bodies emerge from this core kneeling and facing towards each other, each one's neck connecting to the ball of light as though it were their head. They wear oversized white robes in contrast to their pure black skin, slate-colored eyes opening across their bare legs and arms. The bodies hold hands on the side of the Witch facing away from you, their arms nearer to you dividing into a churning mess of pitch-black limbs. These masses of arms contain inhuman appendages as well as human ones, from bestial claws to snake heads.
Kyoko wastes no time, twirling her spear to toss out lines of fire that condense into chains around the Witch of Advent and bind her to the ground. Familiars flood in to support their master, but a barrage of gunfire and rays of silver light from you cuts their numbers down as swiftly as they arrive. Kyoko's presence in the Barrier has already weakened the less-durable Familiars, and most of their population was wiped out during your approach. They won't be much of a threat.
One of Angelina's twisting arms draws a titanic sword, so pure white it looks less like an object and more like a hole in space, to cut away its chains. The other arms that spew from that sleeve conjure their own blades, and together lash out at Kyoko. She charges forwards, batting some of the blades away, but many strike true. Her skin chips and cracks, and you have to remind yourself that she isn't really being hurt. Kyoko's real body is the nerve-like network of flames sitting beneath her silicone exterior, and damage to her outer layer is easily repaired. One might think that kind of resilience would be derived from something positive, some sort of self-confidence, but the truth it quite the opposite. Both Kyoko's incredible survivability and her burning aura are a product of the same self-destructive belief- Specifically, the belief that Kyoko's failures and mistakes always hurt the people around her more than they hurt her.
You can see it in action as the fight continues. The more Kyoko fights, the more damage she takes, the brighter she burns. Barely a few exchanges in, and you're certain that without the enhancements to your eyes you'd go blind just glancing at her. Kyoko strikes and it struck, fires growing more intense with each exchange against the ancient Witch. Illusions dance out from her body, faking assaults that the Witch wastes time trying to defend against or counter as the real Kyoko tears into it.
The heat has gotten getting worse. It was negligible when the two of you entered, but as Kyoko fought the flames within her glass shell grew higher and higher. Now, they shine brightly through the cracks in her body. It's a rather brilliant image, though your attention is more drawn towards the sound of your flesh slowly burning. A simple thought conjures a silvery sheen over your dark purple coat. Between Sound of a Star's healing and Mimicry feasting on any Uriels or Azraels unfortunate enough to underestimate your reach, you can outpace the rate at which your flesh burns. You chop away at Angelina's extended limbs, pushing past the mass and towards the Witch of Advent's main body. Your modified sword splits into two in your hands once again, and you bring the twinned blade scissoring down on Angelina's left body. The altered Mimicry shreds through the Witch's flesh, letting it fall away and deform into abstract masses of nothing.
At the same time, the Witch lands a lucky blow on Kyoko's side. Glass shatters and sprays out, and liquid fire bleeds out from the wound. The burning heat relents and fades back to manageable levels, but Kyoko seems no worse for wear. She gallops forwards, dragging her spear through the Witch's still-extended arm all the while. Behind her, the puddle of molten fluid rises into a semi-humanoid shape. The living flame joins in the assault, and it's clear that the fight is as good as over.
Not to say that the threat is done, you mentally correct yourself as you just barely dodge another beam of light from the Witch's main body. But the conclusion is decided. Angelina is clearly an old Witch, judging by the rudimentary strategies it's displayed, but without its Familiars to back it up it's at a major disadvantage. The faint shimmering of the Witch's body whenever you stray too far from melee range also tells you that Lamp is cutting into its strength further, wiping away some sort of activated enhancement it's trying to use. You have too many advantages for this fight to end any way except victory, so long as you don't let your guard down.
The end comes sooner than expected. Kyoko raises her spear, and the whole Barrier dims. The living fire beside her is snuffed out, drawn back into Kyoko's body. Molten glass creeps over the injury that spawned it and swiftly cools, leaving no sign Kyoko was ever injured. Perhaps the Witch could respond somehow, if it survives Kyoko's next attack.
It does not.
Kyoko's spear whips out and encircles Angelina, leaving the Witch of Advent trapped beneath layers of diamond-shaped chains. It cannot avoid the oncoming spearhead, erupting as it strikes with all the radiance of a dying star. Then the gleam fades, and the Witch is gone but for a Grief Seed falling to the ground.
"That should be worth at least ten points."
"Hey, no arguments here. You did good."
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Kyoko seems to have forgotten about your report on her personality traits. It might be upsetting to reveal some of her insecurities…
[] Say nothing
[] Give explanation
[] Write-in
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Der Freischütz's Sapling- Observation Level 2/3
Porccubus' Sapling- Observation Level 2/3
Wow, I really let this chapter get away from me. AVLS update will come soon, although that's a vague "soon" definition I'm using.
Aside from this Quest and AVLS, I also have some plans for Arknights or Chainsawman. I'll probably start one of those once this story is concluded.
Huh, I really do have a type, don't I?
