Nightshift 32: Sun Room

[clockmongler.livejournal.com]

[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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[blazing-general.livejournal.com]

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.

[hajike-tobiume.livejournal.com]

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.

[blazing-general.livejournal.com]

"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...

[hajike-tobiume.livejournal.com]

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.