damned_institute | Nightshift 32: Sun Room

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Nightshift 32: Sun Room

[From here]

If the nights here had taught Luxord anything, it was that he'd no wish to stay in this room for long. It was empty in here, which he supposed would be the other patients finally using their judgment, but he pushed it aside for now.

For now, he had a date. There was something just so... exhilaratingly at the mere thought of it, had he the ability to feel excitement.

"I apologize for leaving earlier, but there was just no stopping my friend, you see," he continued on, assuming the sylph would be able to hear him. "But tonight, I promise to spend every lasting minute with you, my love. Tonight will be something to remember."

[To here]

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You couldn't really call it a mistake; the girl was right to try to stay inside her reach and to try to attack her back coming out of an extended swing, but she'd tried to close too wide a gap in one motion, and it was all the opportunity Signum needed. She didn't bother trying to reverse the swing, just spun around in a full circle and made a second strike immediately, her sword splitting her opponent's like so much more air.

Her left hand came up off the hilt as she recovered. Crimson flames gathered in her palm, compressing until they glowed near-white, then leaped into the space between the two combatants and detonated, sending out a violently-expanding wall of scorching air. Only a tiny fraction of the spell's real power, especially when Agito was behind it as well, but enough, she hoped, to both keep the girl from trying to follow through on the attack and drive home for her the level of advantage Signum's magic gave her.

Momo hadn't thought Signum would adapt so quickly and she sighed heavily as the knight's sword cut straight through her katana. In all honesty, she'd expected it to happen at some point as Laevatein was quite a superior weapon. Couple that with the tremendous strength the knight had and any ordinary sword would have met the same fate. She just thought it wouldn't have happened so soon.

Then again, it was a sound tactic. From what Momo could tell, since Signum didn't recognize her nor what she was, the knight probably didn't realize she had kidou at her disposal. When faced against an opponent armed solely with a weapon, remove the weapon and your opponent is at a loss. At least Momo still had half her sword which was better than nothing.

It appeared as if Signum wanted stick a bit of emphasis on Momo's apparent defeat by using her fire magic. Signum didn't know much about Tobiume, the firebird that was the other part of the shinigami's soul, so the knight wasn't aware that the nature of her spell would not phase her. Momo had a pretty good idea what was going to happen, so she stood her ground, bringing one arm up to partially shield her face from the flames and, consequently, her mouth from the knight as she began to recite the incantations needed. The timing had to be right.

Whether or not the dull pink glow could be seen through the light given off from Signum's spell, the shinigami couldn't tell, nor did she care. Once Signum's spell died down enough that Momo felt she could get through it without getting too hurt, she charged the knight. Alternating the lines of the very brief incantations, Momo had to resort to kidou at the loss of her sword and, being as talented in the demon arts as she was, weaving two spells together was child's play.

"BakudoSai! HadouShou!" The two spells fired off in rapid succession at the knight as Momo beared down upon her from the effects of Signum's own spell.

The first was a binding spell that locked an opponents arms behind their back and the second was a destructive spell that simply forced an opponent backwards. Both were the very basics of both kinds of spells, making their linkage easy, and Momo didn't expect the binding spell to do more than momentarily distract the knight given she was more than strong enough to break out of the bind once she figured out what was going on. The real point of this was the destructive spell, meant to surprise Signum and perhaps even knock her off-balance just enough...

As the reiatsu from the spells left her, Momo continued to bear down on Signum, remnants of her sword ready to take advantage of the kidou and keep the knight focused on her and not the humans about. Unfortunately, she didn't close the gap before the backlash hit her. Her vision swam and she stumbled, dropping down to a knee as she gasped for air, blood beginning to drip from her nose. Thankfully they were both basic spells, but what bad timing. Tensing, the shinigami forced herself to focus, trying see where Signum's next attack was coming from.

"Where...?"

It didn't go as Momo had planned, but better in its own way. The attack spell was nothing to Signum; she simply willed into existence barriers that dispersed most of its power, and it was only due to the weakness of her defenses here that the force of the impact drove her back a step. It was instead the bind, totally like the equivalent magic of her own world, that overcame her. A creation of the Book of Darkness and a creature of magic as well as flesh and blood, she could better accept the idea and react to the feeling of having the spirit itself attacked by an enemy's magic than most mages, but the effect was still alien in its structure and hard to fight.

Her left hand locked behind her back almost instantly; the right, holding her sword, resisted and remained at her side- it was not for nothing that the knights of Old Belka called their weapons the embodiments of their faith- but nonetheless still and useless for attack. There was only one option left to her, and she took it immediately, recognizing that this unknown magic had suddenly made the outcome of the fight uncertain.

"Laevatein," she called to her weapon, and as it had with Wesker it acted according to her will alone, blade darting out towards the shinigami. She aimed off-center, still trying to avoid a lethal blow, but the care that had gone into making her earlier strikes unlikely to kill even an opponent who reacted foolishly was gone. Not a fight to the death, but this was certainly a real duel, now...

Momo was expecting to see Signum above her, swinging that magnificent sword down at her while in her vulnerable state. What she didn't expect was to feel the bind actually take hold. Momo blinked her eyes in momentary surprise before finding the knight right where she'd been when she cast the twin spells. Maybe she had a better chance at containing Signum than she'd originally thought she had.

"Signum," the shinigami said, trying to get the knight's attention so she could talk to her. Her thoughts had to be put on hold, though, when somehow the knight still managed to use the serpent aspect of her sword. The blade shot out at her and Momo reacted, recalling her past experiences and training, pushing herself up off the ground and tumbling to the side away from the stabbing point of the blade.

Landing on her feet, Momo coughed a little as she felt the knight's spiritual strength struggle against the bind. So far Signum didn't know how to utilize it well enough to unravel the reiatsu binding her, but how long it would take her to do so was unknown to Momo.

"Do you still not recall who or what I am, Wolkenritter?"

It was still too early to talk. Laevatein's blade kept extending, changing angle slightly as it pierced the far wall, and a wave in the sword followed its point, aimed to smash Momo backwards while she was still recovering from roll and vulnerable, knock her out or at least drive her back and buy Signum time. Momo had gained more than she had thought to, but not terribly much. Signum had faced a huge variety of magic over he centuries of combat, and though she lacked her creator's frightening ability to subvert all restraints she had perhaps been imbued with a small measure of its adaptability. Her experiences were not directly applicable but they had increased her ability to fight against the unknown intuitively, seek weakness to strike against even when all but blind.

But... to have unknown magic, to ask if Signum knew what she was, to use that secret name... could she be an opponent from the past, a creation of some world the Book, and she with it, had visited in one of their countless doomed lives?

If she was it would doubtless make for an interesting conversation when all of this was over, but such a fantastic thought did not shake Signum's resolve. The girl had insisted on this fight, and Signum intended to win. Even now her arms began to edge away from her body, as the strength of an immortal existence and Momo's present weakness began to tell.

No response seemed forthcoming from Signum and it saddened Momo even more than she already was. She wondered if this was the time to mention Hayate or not when the traveling bend in Laevatein's segments caught her off-guard. She had but a moment to react and, her left hand gripping near the broken end of her blade, tried to block it. The metal impacted her sword, but the broken sword was so unbalanced now that the shinigami could not control the force. As she tried to keep it at bay, the still moving segments caused her overcompensation to be a mistake as the force wrenched the end of broken blade out of her left hand.

Snap.

The sound of her left wrist breaking seemed really loud to Momo and she cried out in pain. Ouch, ouch, ouch! Damnit. Now what will I-- Angry that this damned place was continuing to suppress Signum's memories and in more pain than she cared to be as she didn't have time to try and set the break, Momo narrowed her eyes at the knight. She didn't want to, but she had to. She had to attack her, deal a debilitating blow while she still had the knight in the bind, a bind that seemed to be weakening along with Momo's own strength.

"Damnit, Signum," Momo said, closing the distance between them. "You are stronger than Martin Landel's magic. Remember who you are. Remember that your rightful master is Yagami Hayate and not the one that gave you these orders. You know, deep in your heart, this is not what Hayate-tono would want you to do."

Tears of sorrow, not pain, fell from Momo's eyes as she stopped before the knight. "I am sorry, my friend," she said in a quiet voice, "but I must do what I must." The shinigami then took advantage of the remainder of the bind to stab Signum in the side with her broken katana, not deep enough to kill, but deep enough to seriously hamper the knight, every fiber of Momo's being screaming out at her for drawing her friend's blood.

"You are stronger than this place, my friend," she whispered as she felt the bind break, knowing she couldn't defend herself against retaliation. I trust you, Signum.

"All of this is in her name," Signum called back, struggling against the bind. Her opponent had plainly been injured, but not repelled. Still, it would have to be enough. She could break free, end this-

But she didn't make it in time, arms breaking free just as shinigami struck her, too late to deflect the blow. She felt strangely calm, for being stabbed by someone invoking her master's name, calling her to her duty even as they tried to end it. For one known for her fierceness in battle. It should have made her angry, but...

For all her words sounded like some desperate attempt to instill doubt, Signum somehow felt that she had been honest in whatever confusion gripped her. That, and she could tell the fight was over. The wound the girl had given her was insufficient to stop one of Signum's nature, and her opponent was obviously spent.

Her hand closed around the other's, safeguard against any attempt to widen the wound. She could survive a lot more than a human, but that didn't make her like doing so. She forced the hand back and the weapon from her body, then drove her elbow into Momo's torso and stepped back, taking what was left of the katana with her.

"Your duty is done," she said. "Stay there and sleep for a while." There would be plenty of time for questions later, she was sure...

Momo had failed. The magic Martin Landel employed to brainwash the patients was very strong if using Hayate's name had no effect on Signum. The things Momo could tell she felt for her master when the knight talked about her had given the shinigami hope, but it wasn't powerful enough. Or was it?

She'd expected, knowing she'd failed, Signum to draw her blade back in and cut the shinigami down or something to that effect. That didn't happen, though, and there was something in the knight's eyes when she pulled out the broken sword from her side that lightened Momo's despair at her failure.

She was tired and didn't want to fight her friend anymore. She could still use Hakufuku, but... there was something about using that particular spell on Signum, especially now, that bothered her more than drawing the knight's blood had. Pain flared through her when the knight's elbow impacted the wound on her torso, tearing it wider, and the shinigami gasped. Her vision swam and, as the darkness started to take her over, reached a hand out toward Signum.

"I'm sorry..." The darkness engulfed the small shinigami and she collapsed.

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Nightshift 32: Sun Room

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