Maybe if he had like a third of them, a stable arrangment could be achieved.
Usagi Quest (CK3/Princess Maker) (Sailor Moon)
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I can't remember any instances of the bolded part being a major element of Usagi's thought process. And without it, you're left with "well adjusted people don't risk their lives on a daily basis, full stop." Which is, well, a questionable take if you ask me.
- Location
- Dragyxx
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Research on the subject suggests that this would somehow make things worse. Adding more junsekyo curses usually does. Probably water-related problems.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well, curses stack, so bare minimum they'd be trading a possible male Ranma for a definite female one.
This is how Ranma manages to get engaged to himself
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
That's completely ridiculous. It would require Genma to be actively brain-damaged to even contemplate such nonsense.
Well done coming up with some original-flavor Ranma plot.
Otherwise Nodoka murders Genma or Ranma. Yes
bdun140
I have ideas. Sometimes they're even good.
Ranma-In-Girl-Form has a sudden brainwave and pulls the "You're not my real dad" line, and Genma can't refute this without revealing the curse so he just gets really really mad, which sends the rumor mill spiraling off in a completely different direction.
- Location
- San Ramon, CA
The Curse of Nerima: If you think you have a solution that isn't "leave and never come back," it's just going to make things more complicated, ultimately resulting in violence.
Almech_Alfarion
(Unverified Paradox)
- Location
- Roaming the Void of the Space between Spaces
Conversely, in the event that you meet someone and over the course of a week they don't attempt to either kill you or marry you, you're practically the equivalent of lifelong childhood friends.
- Location
- Peterborough
It might not be limited to Nerima. Someone could have cursed Ranma to live in interesting times.
Grue
滅亡迅雷
- Location
- -
Ranma is an outlier adn should not be counted, they outright have an entire section on their sheet for curses.
SuperBigMac
My titles: MacTheEditor; SuperiorPosterior
- Location
- Untitled States of Disarray
- Pronouns
- N/A
I've said it before, but Ranma's biggest flaw is that he's an exceptionally Honorable and Moral person surrounded by the most unscrupulous adults and peers imaginable, who all (whether knowingly or unwittingly) abuse his senses of honor and morality. The fact that his mental gymnastics are beyond Olympic level is the only thing preventing Ranma from locking up with indecision and committing seppuku.
Ranma's the Spiders Georg of random bullshit turning into violent havoc. That's why he and the rest of the cast are dubbed the Nerima Wrecking Crew by the fans.
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obssesednuker
Commander of 10 Million Men
- Location
- In the Kremlin, activating Perimtr.
Hacking through this, still back in November 2022. Came in because of the way it's been popping up on my searches for some good yuri content, but am also became interested in the "incipient godlings* from a forgotten age reincarnating and starting to rebuild a empire of magic" angle. Stopped reading the comments in-between because I realized it'll take an eternity to catch up that way, so consider this a semi-stream of thought exercise for the moment and given where I am, apologies if I miss anything or something I mention has already been resolved in the two years since. For full disclouse on my canon-material, I only ever really watched the original anime series (yes, all 200 episodes. It took me a couple of months), a few early chapters of a pretty bad translation of the manga, and a few episodes of Crystal... might pick up the latter two once again some time, especially because I'm pretty interested in a few dropped notes, like the 'Senshi accidentally jump into outer-space' bit. Anyway, stuff I like/find amusing (mostly the yuri related stuff, because my Himedanshi ass is really enjoying it):
*From what the quest is developing and some of the observations about their canon feats I've picked up, it's pretty clear that they'll probably eventually have a far greater claim to that title than the actual gods of the setting.
The running gag of Usagi seducing women unintentionally is great. I hope it keeps going even after Usagi realizes she's bi/pan and has some genuine gfs/bfs.
On a related note, the fact that Samiui has a crush on Sailor Moon can be reconciled even if Samiui is an actual adult by the fact that Sailor Moon's glamour makes her age unclear. If we assume Samiui is an adult by whatever standard applies to a Yukki-Onna, then she's probably seeing Sailor Moon as in the 20-30 year old age-bracket. Presumably, in such a case, were Samiui ever to learn Sailor Moon's civilian identity, that'd kill the crush stone dead. And if she IS NOT an adult by whatever standard is applied to a Yukki-Onna, then it's a non-issue and the crush may continue apace.
Until then, that Usagi managed to accidentally seduce a Yuki-Onna who is also the head of the nascent Japan magic-cop organization remains hilarious.
Makoto/Ami is my favorite Sailor Moon fanon ship and I'm pleased that the quest tends to be heading that way at least as of where I am. I tend more towards Rei/Minako then Usagi/Rei (tending more to just fall-in with canon when it comes to Usagi... yes, I do have SOME straight ships), but this is fine too. Bonus points for potentially magical/science/magiscience lesbian baby Chibi-Usa (and Princess Serenity herself possibly being one as well). I hope we get Minako her own GF at some point.
The conflict between the Government and Magical Government and respective allies is just FASCINATING to me, especially the side-stories. I am in love with that sub-plot as well as how it's part of the larger sub-plot of the Magic coming back. I kinda do hope we find out what happens to Qiqi...
EDIT: Just reached the end of Revelations of Silver and EVIL CHIBI-USA IS ALREADY HERE, WHAT?!
*From what the quest is developing and some of the observations about their canon feats I've picked up, it's pretty clear that they'll probably eventually have a far greater claim to that title than the actual gods of the setting.
The running gag of Usagi seducing women unintentionally is great. I hope it keeps going even after Usagi realizes she's bi/pan and has some genuine gfs/bfs.
On a related note, the fact that Samiui has a crush on Sailor Moon can be reconciled even if Samiui is an actual adult by the fact that Sailor Moon's glamour makes her age unclear. If we assume Samiui is an adult by whatever standard applies to a Yukki-Onna, then she's probably seeing Sailor Moon as in the 20-30 year old age-bracket. Presumably, in such a case, were Samiui ever to learn Sailor Moon's civilian identity, that'd kill the crush stone dead. And if she IS NOT an adult by whatever standard is applied to a Yukki-Onna, then it's a non-issue and the crush may continue apace.
Until then, that Usagi managed to accidentally seduce a Yuki-Onna who is also the head of the nascent Japan magic-cop organization remains hilarious.
Makoto/Ami is my favorite Sailor Moon fanon ship and I'm pleased that the quest tends to be heading that way at least as of where I am. I tend more towards Rei/Minako then Usagi/Rei (tending more to just fall-in with canon when it comes to Usagi... yes, I do have SOME straight ships), but this is fine too. Bonus points for potentially magical/science/magiscience lesbian baby Chibi-Usa (and Princess Serenity herself possibly being one as well). I hope we get Minako her own GF at some point.
The conflict between the Government and Magical Government and respective allies is just FASCINATING to me, especially the side-stories. I am in love with that sub-plot as well as how it's part of the larger sub-plot of the Magic coming back. I kinda do hope we find out what happens to Qiqi...
EDIT: Just reached the end of Revelations of Silver and EVIL CHIBI-USA IS ALREADY HERE, WHAT?!
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Great to see you here! We're acquainted from elsewhere, so let me just say hi!
And yeah, it's definitely reasonable to infer within the narrative that a fully realized Sailor Senshi is going to be just plain more powerful than, say, Thor or Zeus even in their heyday, though in all fairness we haven't seen them in their heyday.
On the other hand, the girls are, like, toddler Senshi compared to what that "fully realized" benchmark might be, for obvious reasons.
It's a fairly consistent pattern that the glamour causes people to think of the Senshi as adults unless they have fairly specific reasons to think of them as children.
Eventually you'll encounter someone who's convinced the Senshi are high school students, not because of any brilliant feat of sleuthing, but rather for very idiosyncratic reasons of their own that may amuse you.
Usagi/Tuxboy is a relationship with real potential when Tuxboy is presented well. This quest does strive to give Tuxboy some real moments that allow him to shine or to see him as a worthy person... but, uh, I don't know if you've gotten yet to the point where it becomes clear what the main impediment to Usagi/Tuxboy shipping is in the current quest, but it's a significant impediment.
With him out of play, well, the yuri shipping causes a musical chairs effect.
Though now I'm thinking there's at least one scene you'll find entertaining for specific reasons as a Minako/Rei enjoyer- PM me if you're curious so I can figure out how far away it is for you.
...
And since I try to stick to a three quote box limit, I'll just add:
4) I may be misremembering, but Minako may actually be the only Senshi to express current active interest in a boy on-camera, though the boy in question is kind of a special case for that. That's not to say she's not also into girls, but her situation is... complex. You'll see.
5) Definitely very unclear what Serenity's parentage situation is. I gather that in canon the Galaxy Cauldron is involved, so it's quite possibly if anything more esoteric than "when two sorceresses love each other very much they magitech a lesbian baby together."
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obssesednuker
Commander of 10 Million Men
- Location
- In the Kremlin, activating Perimtr.
Eh, you can feel free to drop it here (EDIT: Unless there's someone else here who doesn't want to be spoilered, in which case... DM it). I don't mind spoilers too much, ESPECIALLY if it's something as little as "you are X posts away from THE BIG PLOT POINT I WILL NOT SAY". I said where I was in a quick edit to that post you quoted you missed out on (probably because you were well into looking at it yourself). I'm keeping pace chronologically between the main story, side stories, and omakes, checking the posting dates of the threadmarks across those categories against each other.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Suffice to say that Minako got a fair amount of character focus in early to mid-2023, and you may like some of the scenes involved, and indeed off the top of my head I can think of good scenes at various points in there for several ships, including but not necessarily limited to Minako/Rei, Minako/Usagi, and Minako/Makoto, plus also Usagi/Rei and (I would argue) Usagi/Makoto.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah, the original parts of the setting have grown into their own really cool thing. It's great.
We called Usagi's daughter Minori, because Chibiusa is just the worst fucking name.
obssesednuker
Commander of 10 Million Men
- Location
- In the Kremlin, activating Perimtr.
Not entirely original, admittedly. I just hit the part where
Fine is name-dropped as the Earth Kingdom's smith, which with Symphogear (and I eventually know Nanoha) being the other crossovers I know stuff about here showing up making me finally smile and nod
I noticed that pop-up in the character sheet when I started!
EDIT: I just hit the part where Ramua appears again and daaa'aaaw. Please don't let the little former-Youma be bulli at school.
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Entirely fair, although I recommend you not neglect the sidestories. Some amazing perspectives in those.
obssesednuker
Commander of 10 Million Men
- Location
- In the Kremlin, activating Perimtr.
I'm not. And yes. They are awesome.
The Midnight Incident - Part 12
Lunaryon
Dual Aurora Wave
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And so it is that the first Onogoro warrior to emerge from the smoke cloud never has time to pick targets for his enchanted submachine gun. He is struck by a nekohito's well-aimed rocket-propelled grenade and killed instantly… The sudden burst of firepower roars into the smoke cloud, largely unaimed but deadly enough to inspire a lively sense of caution in all but the most reckless of warriors. The attackers reel backwards and to the sides, diving out of the sudden, unexpectedly massive barrage, which is accompanied by an increasingly thick rain of bullets from Lt. Meiou's soldiers as they take up positions in the prepared sandbag nests close to the foot of the outermost ring of the compound's buildings.
The flying squad's two kitsune attempt to conjure illusionary guardians and fail, then settle for throwing a temporary barricade across the open gate. This proves very temporary indeed, since the dragon-lance men are still nearly in position to re-open the way. But by the time the suddenly unexpected masonry is removed, Genjuro's RPG gunners and grenadiers have reloaded, once again making the gate an unwisely dangerous means of entering the compound.
There is a brief period of standoff, and shouts distorted by deliberate spells on the Onogoro side. Then smoke erupts from the east side of the wall in half a dozen locations as the crackling sound of the dragon-lances starts up again. If Onogoro cannot take the gate, it will make one of its own- or several.
Some of Lord Bojo's peers, in their cups, are given to teasing him for his stolidity. He's a very direct man, who usually sees only one solution to any given problem. But no one says that he is prone to hesitation or giving up in following that solution through. He has taken a prestigious responsibility, and he intends to carry it out to the best of his ability. Though he's glad that he has reason to expect reinforcement soon; his own forces have been hard pressed just to reach the wall at all.
He is not happy with how difficult this has been so far. The yokai are fighting fiercely, and their human thralls- willing allies?- are fighting no less fiercely.
To make matters worse, a strange, unnatural ripple of fear passes over his force as they prepare to breach. Something is coming. If he knew that most of the MCAT force was just as strongly affected as most of his own, it would still not relieve that vague sense of impending dread that creeps through him. This is a force that, plainly and simply, puts some amount of fear into the bellies of men.
Lord Bojo's troops are operating largely without his direction, having outpaced both the man himself and, to a lesser extent, his grasp of the situation. Though he is no coward, and though he shouts encouragement as best he can, he is simply not a mighty man of his hands, and is unsuited by temperament and constitution to set men's spirits afire by leading them in a heroic charge. Being badly knocked around by the blast wave of some screamingly fast MCAT rocket has done little to improve his military virtues. And in any event, apart from a certain gift for keeping calm and quickly finding the obvious solution in the face of the unexpected, those virtues are more notable off the battlefield rather than on it. But tonight, all the same, they have proven valuable to Onogoro's cause.
Lord Bojo certainly did not anticipate either that the specific measures used by Lord Soga's demon hunters would fail as completely as they did, or that the result would be such a massacre. Like most Onogoro military leaders, his understanding of mundane infantry weaponry is still based around the firearms of the world wars. He did not anticipate the impact of modern antitank weapons in an infantry battle.
But where his judgment of modern weapons failed him, his judgment of men did not. Bojo, singularly unimpressed by those same demon hunters, made sure to take specific steps to prepare on the assumption that his own column would need to breach the walls of MCAT's stronghold with their own strength. He had different groups of retainers discuss and rehearse plans for variations on that theme, including the possibility that the gate itself would be impassible, blocked by magic or monsters beyond their power to push through. The exact scenario of "nekohitos with RPGs" has not been considered, but his men know roughly what to do.
In particular, mistrustful of the enigmatic and unaccountable Empty Faces, Lord Bojo planned on the assumption that the walls would be physically more robust than they had led him to believe. If anything, he overprepared for the breaching. Instead of bringing mundane explosives or relying on hand-cast spells, he brought dragon-lances.
Many of the most popular dedicated magical weapons in any given culture, especially one such as Onogoro's, are more or less direct imitations or adaptations of the mundane weapons popular in its formative years. Onogoro's formative period stretched from the mid-fourteenth through the early seventeenth centuries CE, a time during which China was widely regarded in their homeland as a source- albeit a foreign source- of advanced culture and technology. The Chinese had already been employing gunpowder-based "fire lance" incendiaries as short-range weapons for several hundred years before the first generation of the mage culture that would one day be known as 'Onogoro' went underground with the failure of Emperor Go-Daigo's line in 1392. And in those days, Japanese magical practitioners saw no reason not to duplicate or improve upon what strictly mundane alchemy could achieve.
The concrete wall of the MCAT compound was originally intended by the Kazanari Faction's architects- working years before the present crisis- to withstand considerable force from possible anticipated attacks. Crude gunpowder incendiaries would, of course, do nothing to such a barrier. But intense magical fire is quite another matter. The architects of the early 1980s did not anticipate the wall being targeted by the equivalent of directed energy weapons or heavy cutting torches. The former did not exist in their reality framework; the latter was unlikely to be used as a demolition tool against masonry in the kind of attack they anticipated. Therefore, the wall is made of material that, while durable and non-flammable, is not refractory.
Moisture that has worked its way deep into the porous concrete flashes to steam under the touch of cutting fire, causing explosive shattering. Those standing close to outside of the wall are pelted with a savage spray of gravel and sharp chunks of concrete. However, this is a known hazard with dragon-lances. Granted, the actual devices being used today are legacy equipment which date back to the Northern and Southern Courts period, and which received considerable enhancement during the Sengoku era. These have been maintained carefully without field deployment for nearly two hundred years. But Onogoro uses broadly similar if less storied equipment for noncombat purposes on a regular basis.
Most of Lord Bojo's operators are hastily trained. But they have been trained by people with practical experience, who were well paid to teach them well. One of those lessons was to bring a good deal of protection. And even those of the attackers not specifically prepared to work with dragon-lances only got here by wading through a storm of gunfire, much of it far more dangerous than flying masonry.
Slicing through the walls would be easy enough, given the vulnerability of the concrete, if not for a few maddening complications-
「Lunar Rainbow Burst! 」
Shattered masonry occasionally reassembles itself. If Sailor Moon had chosen to stick around and make a fight of it, she could probably have created a situation that mirrored the one Lord Bojo's troops faced minutes earlier, when they were reinforcing a barricade faster than MCAT recoilless rifle teams could knock it down. However, it is characteristic of these five to ten minutes of combat that Sailor Moon is here, there, and everywhere, having somewhat come adrift from the regular line of communication while whirling through space to cover as much ground as possible. And the cost of being in all places in quick succession is that one cannot make oneself fully felt at any single place for very long.
Eventually, the moon sets. Concrete collapses faster than it can be mended and raised back into place by the lunar halo, and the boldest of several lesser nobles shouts the order to charge, deeming that there are enough smoke-shrouded breaches to permit an assault.
This, too, was part of the plan, by Onogoro's good fortune, and Lord Bojo's men have mostly worked out their own groupings into like-minded sections. Bojo, unwilling to choose one method and insist that all his troops follow it on the attack in the last days before the battle, has simply divided them up into groups under lords and ladies championing this or that tactical approach. The warriors follow the pattern they've worked out in advance, largely through lateral discussion among themselves, even as Bojo himself is having trouble keeping up with events, though he does finally join one unit in particular and take command of it.
Some sections advance gradually under waves of spellfire, barricades of raised earth, and angled walls of force in the air to deflect rockets and catch grenades. They are met with return fire, mostly mundane, from the mingled mix of MCAT guards, Lieutenant Meiou's force of MPs, and Genjuro Kazanari's flying squad. Other attackers take a more traditional and kinetic approach, charging with melee weapons and linked defensive wards to take the defenders' sandbag positions with live blades and whatever echo of their ancestors' valor they may possess.
The fighting through the breaches of the west wall is the most intense combat of the Midnight Incident to date. The MCAT defenders have had time to prepare themselves. Despite the mysterious gut-clenching anxiety that pervades roughly eighty percent of the combatants on both sides even over and beyond the stress of battle, both sides maintain cohesion. Neither side breaks and runs short of the point of contact. Both sides have prodigious firepower even by the standards of modern twentieth-century warfare, and both sides are treating this as if it may be the decisive moment of the battle.
Behind the sandbags, Toji Meiou fights down the slowly rising sense of sick, belly-squirming fear- a man can't ignore it, but he can fight through it- and stops to look around himself. The dozen or so of his company's MPs who have rallied around him are all still there. So are three wolfishly grinning yokai- well, one wolfishly grinning woman, and two wolf-men who look as uneasy as he feels. It's easier, somehow, knowing that even the devils are scared.
Of course, if any of the three yokai had rifles, the things are now missing in action. Hmph. He'd be more troubled by that if he weren't sure that it's going to come down to hand to hand soon enough. All his men have fixed bayonets, except the gunner who's setting up the .50 caliber machine gun with help from one of the wolves.
The loader swears he can still handle ammo belts, but Toji doesn't trust that arm of his. Not after the poor guy got tagged with a spell up on the wall. And that one gun is all he's got for heavy weapons. Well, they've at least all been able to top off on the fancy new rifle ammo. Captain Sano planned for this and Toji's damn glad of it.
And then the wall erupts in green fire for the fourth time, and this time it's not stopped by rainbow magic from a woman in white-and-blue who vaguely, troublingly, reminds Toji of something half-glimpsed in a dream. No, this time the concrete shatters and falls and stays down, and smoke pours. Five hand grenades soar through the air from his lines into the breach as a special prize for the bastard samurai everyone knows to expect. The book says that grenade range is thirty-five meters. But the book didn't count on his boys' physical training regimen.
The grenades disappear into the smoke- except that almost instantly, there's a strange powerful sizzling sound and five grenades are coming back out of the smoke the other way.
Luckily, everyone had already ducked for fear of the shrapnel, except one of the wolfmen, who Toji jerks to the ground with a hand clamped around his ankle at the last second. Luckily, the vollied grenades aren't what you'd call aimed. They fall short, and no one's hurt, but his men are damn sure suppressed for those first few seconds, and it just plain doesn't take that long to run the seventy-meter dash. The boys pop up and start pouring it on, and one of the attackers goes down as glowing tracer-like .50 caliber rounds spark off some kind of force field, but they're not stopping. Shit shit shit-
The fear twisting Toji's gut gets worse, suddenly-
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzsSAjdI8yc
Chris Sakurai remembers talking about the Monday night raid the day before yesterday. Tsubasa Kazanari described how it felt for her when she took off the cerebroenergetic rig and started carving up the youma that almost killed her uncle, Mr. Kazanari. Tsubasa talked about a thrilling, wild exaltation that swept her body as Mother's harmonic feedback loop fed on itself, drawing vast power from the shard of Ame-no-Habakiri. For those minutes, Tsubasa found a strength fit to rival that of the greatest yokai and youma MCAT's come across so far. For Tsubasa, it felt fluid, it felt straightforward if not easy, and above all, it felt natural.
Using the Harpe armor is… not like that. Something about the process makes Chris feel like she's trying to force her voice out through a throatful of molasses. Her tongue keeps wanting to stick to the roof of her mouth. But the Symphogear still picks up on her words, and the amplified sourceless song still rises all around her, even if it quavers and sinks and wobbles around some of the notes.
She wouldn't be out here if the situation weren't desperate. Onogoro is here for everyone, but even more so for the yokai. They might not know about Mother's ancestry, but then, they might. And Mr. Kazanari is out there too, fighting the enemy samurai with his special squad, and if the enemy's giving even him trouble, how can she hold back? Somehow, she'll just have to twist the vicious, unruly serrated edges that keep fighting against her into place, and put them between her new family and the old enemy coming to take them all. They won't touch her new mom. They won't touch Director Samui or silly Yuko or the home of any of the yokai kids that don't have anywhere else to go.
She sees green flames and shattering concrete and smoke and flashes, and she knows what that means. It means they're coming again. The walls are falling again. She won't let it happen again!
Chris knows what she wishes she could do. She wants to rain fire and destruction on all their heads, to make them reel and break and scream for mercy to a sky that gives them no answer, to feel what she felt when the mortar bombs came down and tore her first family apart around the aid station. But she can't do that. Not today. It isn't possible.
So what she will do will have to be enough!
And as she imagines the bloody visions in her head becoming one with the monsters coming for her family, and the monsters becoming those visions, her sickles sit just a little more firmly in her grip. The jagged growl in Chris' spirit where the Harpe fragment wrestles against her turns just a little bit less hostile.
And she belts out her song all the louder and forces it past the molasses, past the sticking point, forces all of that out of the way, and starts a full-tilt run at express train speeds in the direction of the enemy. She picks a smoke-shrouded hole in the wall where who knows how many of the people who are coming for her mother must be pouring through right now. She vaults over the allied soldiers still rising from their sandbag walls and blurs forward to leap into the midst of the band of Onogoro fighters.
Dr. Ryoko Sakurai is a rigorous enough experimentalist to have long since determined that every test of her foster daughter's Symphogear armor, derived as it is from the Harpe fragment, strikes fear into the hearts of men just by proximity. Specifically men, nearly invariably men, and nearly all men. So far, the details elude her. Dr. Chiba has been far too swamped to interview Dr. Sakurai's subjects, and Sakurai's own lines of questioning yield very little insight. But without that minor matter, Symphogear song being weakly psychoactive is nothing new to her as a concept, and shadowy instincts tell her there's potential there. Regrettably, so far she hasn't been able to get enough of a handle on the effect to turn it into something directly weaponizable.
Which is a misfortune for MCAT's cause, because with Fudo Kazanari having ordered his granddaughter to be kept out of this, Chris Sakurai is the only Symphogear Adapter on base, and Chris Sakurai can use all the help she can get. Her sync rating with the SG-r02 Harpe armor is barely supercritical. There are constant problems with the armor's generated equipment coming out dysfunctional in failed transformations. And even on her best day, the girl has to scramble and fight her own equipment to match the kind of raw power output Tsubasa can attain, with a superficially similar rig based on a different mythic blade, with her limiters.
Dr. Sakurai has cursed, many times, the intricacies of international shipping. And the challenges of moving an artifact of major mythic and historical importance from one place to another. And the obstacles that constantly spring up around her while she's far too busy with the technical work itself to intervene in person.
It's been clear for weeks that SG-r02 is simply not working for Chris. Another armor, based on another relic, might be better. But that won't matter if MCAT isn't around to help her build it.
It takes a certain desperation to send a half-functional prototype into combat. MCAT's forces are starting to feel that desperation in more than one place, the west gate among them. Even so, Director Samui would never have authorized Captain Sano to deploy the SG-r02 to the gate if Genjuro Kazanari's flying squad weren't already there and in real danger of not being enough. And Dr. Sakurai would have vetoed the idea ruthlessly if she weren't already aware of the same fact.
Of course, even half-functional, a Symphogear suit is by no means an unworthy weapon. But it is nonetheless, as noted, regrettable that when young Adapter Sakurai's sprint brings her close to the west gate, the aura of squirming discomfort and fear that settles across roughly eighty to eighty-five percent of the combatants on both sides plays no favorites, affecting both sides alike. Much might have been accomplished, in such a mass-combat situation, if the effects could be made more concentrated, more selective, or more directional. Instead, she is going to have to make her presence felt entirely by the ferocity of her song and the jagged edges of her sickles.
The former carries more weight than nearly anyone had expected, including SG-r02's maker. As she approaches and raises her voice, Adapter Sakurai sings a sudden half-berserk ferocity into the defenders. It sits strangely with the twisting anxiety generated by the Harpe fragment, and yet the two effects wash across the mix of guards, MPs, and yokai all the same, and both tangle with the gentler and more subtle effects of the lunar blessings spread so widely across the battlefield.
If MCAT or the JSDF were in the habit of employing more poets in their ranks, a man among them might say that he feels wide-eyed, startled and shaken awake by the chill of the new moon, suddenly eager to bravely confront death, whose terrors have receded in comparison to, and under the hand of, forces and causes he cannot name.
Chris Sakurai isn't really aware of the effect she's having on the defenders. She does notice the huge JSDF lieutenant, but only because he's big and partly in her way, and in the moment, she jumps over him like he's just another sandbag. And before his troops have even begun to sort themselves out, while they're still wondering what's happening, she's already closing on the enemy. Because she's much faster than any of them, faster even than the yokai.
Several of the Onogoro breaching force get off spells on the approach, in the very short time before she gets to them. Most are loosed from defensive charms or sigils already raised in preparation- but those preparations are in place, and the spells go downrange all the same.
A ripple of flesh-powdering desiccation rolls off Chris' body and dissolves into night. A hissing, barely contained mass of ball lightning the size of a football dissipates in a crackling roar as she ducks low and snicks through the stream of guidance and containment magic with a gleaming sickle-cut. She has to take a firebolt on her shoulder but has just enough time to lean and twist a bit to angle the impact- it leaves a splash of char on the plate, but the heat isn't transmitted through. The sudden flash-freeze intended to reach to and through her heart might have been more deadly, and it catches her squarely, but the frost's bite breaks on her song and bounces away.
Even with the ability to match the speed of Chris' charge, a vengeful yokai or rogue samurai of the sorts Onogoro usually faces would thus likely be reduced to a freeze-dried or otherwise heavily mauled corpse by such forces in short order. The chances of reaching hand-to-hand with a force of sixteen alert and prepared warriors would be very slim indeed. But Chris closes the distance gracefully and almost unharmed. The Harpe armor may be out of tune and hard to work with but it is a Symphogear.
.
Two men in the armor of ancient samurai, feeling a far more ancient terror they cannot properly name at the sight of Chris' approach, flinch. She strikes and cuts and one samurai's armor yields to her rising note and falling sickle-tip. The steel parts like cardboard and the enchantments on it fail in a hissing spray of sparks. He drops. The other man recoils faster, falling back and out of the girl's way in his own accord, raising his sword only defensively. Which gives her the freedom to leap forward onto this enemy- a mage in embroidered dark blue robes, who tries to defend himself with some kind of flowing river of fire and fails.
It's a messy way to fight, with fearful enemy soldiers scrambling back and trying to defend themselves as best they can. Her blood is up and her vision is blurred and sharp all at once. The Onogoro weapons have terrible clarity and seem to move in lucid slow motion, even as the faces of their wielders twist into blurred, leering iron masks of kidnappers coming for Mother like they did, like they did for her. And she screams with battle-lust and smites and men fall bleeding like they didn't the first time but did, in the end, when Mother found her. And some of them fall back like wolves at bay, and some of them scream and bleed, and it'd rattle her, but this isn't the time, they're here for Mother, they're here for Mother, and she clings to that thought as she strikes. Everything else will wait, will wait while the fire in her heart carries her through!
Chris tries to be what she remembers Tsubasa being, during the practice sessions they had together. To dance with whirling, deadly grace, able to block and slash anywhere around herself with equal ease and poise and speed. But even if the armor isn't fighting her quite as hard, has reached part of an understanding with her, Chris doesn't feel even remotely like that.
She whirls, but it's a heavy chaotic twisting thing almost entirely outside her control. Her gruesomely serrated sickles block some strikes, and more ring off her armor, but only because she's pressing an unending onslaught of destruction. She's not grace, and she's not beauty, but that doesn't matter, because for one second, two, five, ten, she drives Onogoro back, scattering them before her!
But her spin brings another samurai in an iron mask into her field of view. There's something almost serene about the black steel, and nothing fearful in the new warrior's posture. Chris slashes out, but this samurai was ready and already has paired flaming blades in hand to parry her strikes. And the swords manage to deny her sickles' cutting power. Before Chris can react to her attack being stalled, the samurai counterattacks with a high-pitched kiai. And that falls into place as a dawning realization along with the long braid swaying out behind the samurai's helmet- that the one behind the mask is no man. Whoever she is, she's obviously put a lot of hard work and practice into her bladework- honestly, a lot more than Chris has.
Chris can win this one on sheer strength and speed, she knows it, but time, time- Silently, another Onogoro fighter lashes out with a spearpoint. Chris sees it coming and jerks back and to the side, eyes wide, still singing- but the point grates against her armor and nearly drives into her side, and the magic clashes in another shower of sparks. Something thumps against her backplate and she doesn't duck quite far enough and the masked woman's long sword scrapes against her helmet in a rush of flames. And then there's another crackle of dissonance and another and there's just too damn many of them all of a sudden-
ROUND THREE MCAT Guard Force + JGSDF, West Gate
d100 + 17 (Lt. Meiou Martial) + 18 (Typical Soldier/Yokai Prowess) + 1 (Lunar Rainbow Burst) + 5 (Charms and Cynicism) + 5 (Chokepoints) + 10 (Genjuro Inspired Leadership) + 8 (Chris Sakurai Prowess/4) + 5 (I Sing of Arms: Chris Sakurai Diplomacy/2) - 4 (All Men Fear)
Vs
Onogoro Heavy Infantry
d100 + 14 (Lord Bojo Martial) + 18 (Typical Attacker Prowess) - 5 (Armchair Operational Planning) + 3 (Thick As Grass) + 5 (Samurai Tradition) + 5 (Loaded for Oni) + 5 (Utility Casters) + 5 (The Rockets Are Ready) - 4 (All Men Fear)
d100 + 65 = 8 + 65 = 73
Vs
D100 + 46 = 81+46 = 127
Major Onogoro Success!
d100 + 17 (Lt. Meiou Martial) + 18 (Typical Soldier/Yokai Prowess) + 1 (Lunar Rainbow Burst) + 5 (Charms and Cynicism) + 5 (Chokepoints) + 10 (Genjuro Inspired Leadership) + 8 (Chris Sakurai Prowess/4) + 5 (I Sing of Arms: Chris Sakurai Diplomacy/2) - 4 (All Men Fear)
Vs
Onogoro Heavy Infantry
d100 + 14 (Lord Bojo Martial) + 18 (Typical Attacker Prowess) - 5 (Armchair Operational Planning) + 3 (Thick As Grass) + 5 (Samurai Tradition) + 5 (Loaded for Oni) + 5 (Utility Casters) + 5 (The Rockets Are Ready) - 4 (All Men Fear)
d100 + 65 = 8 + 65 = 73
Vs
D100 + 46 = 81+46 = 127
Major Onogoro Success!
An enchanted sword bites into her leg.
The Symphogear's protection is boiling away faster and faster now, and this time it slows the blade. Slows, not 'stops.'
Another samurai comes at her and Chris tries to dance back to get some distance, but something… goes wrong. Her body feels sluggish, and as she shifts her weight and starts to put it on her right leg, the whole world tumbles sideways. She crashes to the ground and looks down at her thigh and-
Blood.
So much blood.
Her words catch in her throat, her tongue so thick she starts to choke on it, and the midsummer night turns bitterly bitterly cold. She starts to shiver uncontrollably, so thickly and heavily and fast that the chipped, ragged, serrated sickles nearly fall from her hands.
It takes everything Chris has to force her eyes away from all that blood but something hot and heady flashes in her mind as she wrenches her gaze back up. Because the monsters are… are circling, wary, afraid, even when Chris can't even pull herself back to her feet.
Because she's left at least five of them on the ground and it might be more, she may have lost count. Dead or wounded at her hands. The rest of them… they're not quite all the way wrong to still worry.
Dark smoke shot through with sparks and little twists of light boil away from her armor, and she can feel it losing not only power but something more crucial, something that may not be replaceable.
The remaining Onogoro troops are eyeing her, stepping closer, probably thinking that the fight's out of her, but still… cautious. A few raise talismans, as though still afraid of her. Rage floods her- they can't have stopped her, not now, not like this, damn it!
She bares her teeth defiantly and tries with a grunt and strain of effort from her upper body alone, one that still manages to bring fresh agony from her right leg, to raise one of her sickles. To block the finishing strokes she's sure will be coming. But the armor is dead metal on her body and the blade is dead steel in her hand and she's as weak as a kitten and she can't even stand-
-Something rings like a bell and a dark crushing shadow falls over Chris Sakurai.
AN: Happy Lose an Hour of Sleep Day!
DocMatoi
Theoretical Lover of Girls
- Location
- within 2 hours of the White House
- Pronouns
- They/Them
AUGH
please be backup please be backup please be backup please be backup please be backup
- Location
- Victoria
Onogoro, for all their strategic Problems, is a real and serious opponent with certain competencies that no other Japan-active faction (short of like the Dark Kingdom) has.
So THAT is what it WAS!? I had a feeling I'd never heard this precise thing strongly associated with Nanoha as an explicit effect!
Ah. So that is how we got these numbers. Thick As Grass is heavily eroded, at least? And Chris Sakurai...the previous text, it's quite strongly signposted that /4 would be a /3 if certain things were different.
Oh no.
Oh no.
...The cavalry? crosses fingers
"Rings like a bell" is suggestive.
P.S.
Huh. Some particular personality trait, applying not (primarily) to Prowess or Martial...well, the man himself isn't up for much, anyways. I still wonder, from a mechanical curiosity perspective.