Fighting through the screaming sense of
wrongness, you toss yourself over the edge, diving after Mami. No time to suffer, not when Mami needs you.
The antimagic dissipates as you fall like a thunderbolt, arms by your side in as streamlined a position as you can achieve, and you can
feel another tidal wave of disruption gathering on Kirika's position. Without pause, you pull another hammer from the aether and spin in midair in stark defiance of the laws of physics. You whip your already existing hammer in a circle, and let it fly at Oriko, head first.
She's already sidestepping the hammer throw, but you can see her face contort in pain as the movement jolts her broken arm.
A pulse of magic below and to your left - Mami rights herself, regaining control of her graceless tumble. You can see that none of the spheres seem to have actually broken skin, but not more than that from this distance. She finally snatches a muskets out of midair and fires it at Oriko.
Oriko starts to shift aside, but it's already too late - the shot clips her side, sending a spray of blood splattering across the ground. She remains standing, though, and summons another swarm of spheres she fires at Mami. This time, the blonde manages to evade it, twisting adroitly in mid air with a burst of magic.
"Oriko!" Kirika screams.
The nauseating pulse of antimagic ripples out from Kirika, bearing down on you again, and you let out a scream - of rage, of fear, of defiance.
Mami lands clumsily on her feet, tarmac cracking underfoot, a short distance from Oriko. Without pause, she snatches another of her muskets before it even hits the ground, the others landing with clatters. Her movements are perhaps a little pained, a little less sure than they usually are - broken ribs? Mami levels the musket and fires, but one of Oriko's ivy-patterned spheres smashes into the musket, knocking it out of line.
A moment behind Mami, you also land on your feet, shattering the ground and sending chips of concrete flying. You take stock of the situation - Kirika, at a bounding sprint and seconds away, Oriko, broken arm, growing red stains both in her side and her sleeve.
Oriko's eyes widen. "Kirik-"
A thundercrack of noise above you, the buzzing chatter of a machine gun firing on full auto, and another scream as Kirika's forced to duck behind cover. Looking up, you can see Homura firing the MG3 one handed, braced against her shoulder and over a railing.
You take the moment to send your hand diving into your bag, and pull out a handful of marbles to toss at where Kirika had ducked behind a metal support beam.
"What was all this
for?" you snarl as you round back on Oriko, trusting Homura to cover your back and keep Kirika suppressed. "How was this
necessary?"
Mami snatches up her last two rifles, leveling one at the white clad seer, who freezes, panting and looking between the two of you.
"Ever since I met you, you've done
nothing but antagonize us," you roar at her as you stalk closer, coat billowing out around you. As you pass the hammer you'd thrown earlier, still embedded head first into the ground, you snatch it up by the handle with your free hand. "You set their
homes on fire, and you've brought pain, suffering, and maybe even
death to
dozens! How was
any of that
necessary?"
You stop, just out of reach of the seer. The wind gusts, setting your coat flapping out to the side. "Do you even
realize what you're
doing? What was the point of it
all? No matter
how I look at it, that's the actions of a
villain, Oriko!"
"Watch ou-!" Mami.
You spin, just in time to see Kirika launch herself at you from behind the fallen beam. Homura's machine gun chatters out its deadly bursts with unerring accuracy.
Bright red arterial blood gouts again, splattering across the ground, but Kirika, eyes wide and manic, charges through the hail of gunfire, which ceases as she closes with you. She's been hit at least once in the torso and once in her leg, you notice, as you bring both your hammers up to meet her charge.
The gunfire shifts to Oriko as Kirika gets too close to you, but Oriko's already taking the momentary distraction to duck behind cover, pursued by Mami.
The pulsing, unnatural deadness fades, and you can feel Kirika gathering another one.
The Grief marbles scattered across the ground explode into motion, lurching into the air before lancing directly at Kirika's back like arrows loosed from a bow.
"
Duck!" Oriko, again.
"
No you don't," you snarl. You swing a heavy, overhand blow at the black-haired berseker, which she meets with a single blocking hand. One of the claws cracks under the power of your blow even as Kirika shifts
under your blow, slicing at you with her claws.
Searing lines of fire sear themselves across you as she effortlessly shears through cloth and flesh alike, raking deep cuts across your lower ribs and abdomen. You snarl, spinning away from the deadly claws.
Your improvised Grief bullets bite home into her back, just as Kirika releases the antimagic pulse.
Kirika screams. Not all the marbles hit, and all but one not very deeply, but you can already see the blood staining the tails of her coat, dark red on black. The one grief marble that
did make a clean hit, however, tears an exit wound through her torso, just under her ribs.
You stagger from the nauseating,
greasy sensation of the antimagic rippling out, but manage to take advantage, bringing up your other hammer in an arcing blow.
An ugly, cracking noise as you connect with her knee, and her leg bends
sideways in a way that legs really
shouldn't. Kirika screams again, falling to the ground. She pushes off the ground with her three working limbs in a convulsive burst of motion, just in time to avoid your follow up swing.
"Kirika, we need t-" Oriko's frantic voice echoes out from somewhere you can't see, before she's interrupted by the distinctive single crack of Mami's muskets. Above, you can see Homura leaping for the next tower over, MG3 resting effortlessly against one shoulder.
When you look back again, Kirika's springing at you again. You swing a hammer up at her, only to hit air as she halts impossibly in midair and flings her hands at you, loosing both sets of claws at you like throwing knives. You dodge to the side, biting back a scream as one sinks into your meat of your thigh.
Not actually an issue, as you let the pain wash away, and you lunge, hammer coming up in a flashing arc.
Kirika's already dancing away, scrambling on three limbs. She skitters away, remarkably fast as you give chase.
A thundercrack of noise - Homura opening up again, out of sight.
Following Kirika, you round the corner, around the rusting hulk of some enormous machine, and see - Kirika, still scrambling away at top speed, chasing after the elusive white form of Oriko some distance away. Mami's leaning against a wall, panting and cradling a broken left arm. Around her are the spent forms of several muskets.
The anti-magic pulse fades, and you can again sense Kirika gathering another.
Oriko's getting away, juking and weaving to evade Homura's fire, Kirika similarly ducking shots, though Homura's mainly firing at the white-clad seer.
[] Write-in
=====
This entire fight, such as it is, lasted maybe a minute or so. Meguca fights are
fast.
