damned_institute | Nightshift 49: 2nd Floor Staff Lounge

The office supplies didn't seem to do much damage to the monstrous spider; instead it simply seemed to make it angrier, and it surged forward to lunge at Raine, attempting catch a hold of the girl in its huge jaws.

[[Come to think of it, my bad; Raine's broom broke quite a while ago and her weapon is a closet rod now... whoops!]]

Raine backed away as fast as she could without tripping, but not daring to look behind her; she held her makeshift staff at an angle in front of her, hoping to make it that much harder for the giant spider to get at her.

Her mind was whirling, trying to think of a way out of this, but she was coming up blank so far; it wasn't even likely that they would be able to hide anywhere. Sheena, whatever you wanted to show me, it had better be a new combat technique.

Lucky for Raine, what Sheena had wanted to show her was precisely what the half-elf wanted at the time. Normally, she didn't like calling upon her pacts so soon in a fight - she would not be worthy of being a summoner if she called for help any time there was combat - but this wasn't just to deal with the spider, but to verify the pact was more than just a feeling she and Yukari had.

The ninja darted to the side, flanking the spider so she could see it, Raine and Yukari all at the same time. Pulling one of her thicker cards out, the ninja drew in a deep breath and delved deep into her mana well. Grasping the magic there, the only magic Sheena possessed, she began to chant, using the card as a focal point.

"I call upon the Youkai or Borders and Boundaries..."

A small ring of pale white light, mana made manifest, started to swirl around the summoner. Closing her eyes and trusting in her sense of timing, concentrating so that nothing would break her from the summon, Sheena felt the mana connecting her and Yukari start to pulse.

[ooc: All information regarding the summon is located here (http://mizuhomaiden.livejournal.com/3794.html). The actual summon will occur next round.]

Unfortunately, while the junk she'd dumped on the spider had certainly gotten its attention, that attention didn't change from Raine at all like Yukari had hoped. Thinking quickly, she discarded the notion of trying to jab it with her parasol. Perhaps she could fling a chair at it? The youkai was just about to do so when she heard the ninja begin chanting and saw the light.

"Is that..?" Yukari's unfinished question though was unmistakably answered when she felt that force inside her stir. In her core, and in Sheena's, she could feel the bond that lay there pulse and grow. Her skin tingled, like the feeling of standing in a thunderstorm, a feeling almost electric. And with these sensations physical and magical came the response emotional: a big grin spread across her face.

"Oh, this will be good."

The light nor the chanting distracted the massive arachnid from its target; as far as the creature's brain was able to process, the other two patients were happy to stay clear while it fed on the girl. It lunged forward again, trying to strike around the irritating stick that was being waved at it.

Raine could only glance at her companions, but her eyes certainly went wide at Sheena's incantation. She had made a pact with Yukari??

...As soon as this battle was over, she was going to be bombarding them both with questions for the rest of the night.

For now, though, she had to stay focused; Sheena couldn't defend herself while she was summoning, and she had no idea what would happen to a summon who was being called but already in the room. Fortunately, Raine could defend herself well enough for a brief time; she'd just be hard-pressed to keep it up.

The sensation of summoning was nothing Sheena would ever be able to properly describe to another that had never experienced something so grand, so powerful, so very much a part of her. It wasn't like metaphorically reaching a hand out to something greater than you and pulling them to help you. No, it was like the junction of two streams of mana, connected always and yet still separate, twisting about each other to reach a certain synchronization. For a small moment, it was like summoner and summoned where one in the same. In any other instance, two beings cannot occupy the same space, but that was contradicted metaphysically when the pact is used. Individually, both Sheena and Yukari were strong in their own right, but together they were powerful.

Feeling that connection, that oneness, the swirling mana about Sheena flattened and then spread out across the majority of the floor in the small room they were to form the specific glyph that signified summoning magic.

Opening her eyes as she spoke the final phrase of the incantation, the pale light did suddenly reverted and turned a deep, dark blackness. She had been expecting the see the youkai's summoning glyph to be a shade of purple, but not this. This wasn't black, this was an absence of light, such a contrast to what it had been before, visible even in the already darkened room.

"I summon thee." And then withing the utter blackness, the emptiness of the glyph itself, pulsed red, baleful eyes. If Sheena wasn't as disciplined as she was, she might have lost the summon right then. Those eyes, the glyph... it was just like one of Yukari's gaps. It had been a long time since the youkai's gaps creeped her out, but this summon, this glyph did. But she pushed past that. She was a summoner.

"Come, Yukari!"

As that electric tingle came to a climax, Yukari could feel the bond between her and and Sheena, summon and summoner, stronger than she'd ever felt it before. It was almost as if she was one with the ninja, in the same place as her - no, she was going to be in the same place as her, right now. Forgetting anything she'd learned so far about her limitations in this place, Yukari opened a gap behind her and stepped back into it, disappearing in an instant.

It was quick, it was simple, but the youkai's reappearance was anything but. A long, thin line appeared in the air before that strange glyph between Sheena and the spider, a thin slip in the dimensions. And so slipped through two long, slender legs, feet first sticking up into the air, followed by that violet dress as they turned back towards the floor, the rest of her body and that mass of golden hair following as Yukari appeared, sitting atop that nearly imperceptible crack in reality from which she'd appeared.

"Call and I'll come, my summoner," she said with a dark smile and a snap of her fingers that produced several unearthly black and white butterflies that flew up from the gap she was seated on and disappeared into the ceiling. "Ooh, I haven't felt this good in a while..." her eyes drifted to her target though and in turn, its target. "Well, I suppose I should take care of this troublesome insect before we lose our healer."

She raised her arms dramatically - a completely unnecessary gesture, but she felt like showing off after so long being deprived of her abilities - wide, then sweeping up like a conductor leading the climactic height of the symphony.

"Now, disappear."

When she dropped her arms, so too did the spider drop through the floor, disappearing into the endless void that swallowed it whole, sealing up behind it like the gates of the underworld. Of course, she couldn't really send it there; who knew where it actually ended up. The important thing was that it was no longer here and neither was Yukari. One moment she was there, the next she'd simply stepped at an angle perpendicular to reality as most mortals knew it and disappeared.

Of course, she was quick to reappear, a gap opening back at her original location. However, when the youkai stepped out of it, she tripped over her own feet and promptly crumpled on the floor, landing on her knees and roughly taking a seat. Her head felt dizzy, but there was still a smile on her face, a lingering buzz from that rush of power.

"Well, that was fun."

[OOC: As noted, eliminating the spider through use of the summoning pact (http://mind-the-sukima.livejournal.com/2194.html)]

Raine just stared, barely remembering to even keep an eye on the spider while Sheena summoned Yukari; she would have wondered what the point was, with Yukari in the same room, until she saw why. Apparently, joining with another's power allowed the youkai to rip at the limits on her own power and use her gap to swallow something far larger than she normally could here. The spider simply vanished into the hole that had opened up underneath it, and as Raine watched, the gap closed up again before the monster could even try to struggle out.

She was concerned when Yukari fell to her knees, but she seemed to be all right; so, she decided to give the girl some space and instead made a beeline for Sheena. "When--how--did you make that pact?!"

The creepiness was well worth it, the card in her hand vanishing in a flash as Sheena's mana consumed its focus and call the youkai to her. Not that she had much to do to get to her, but that hadn't been the point. The point had been to make sure it did work and how effective the gap was.

Sheena always remembered the first time she summoned any of the spirits she had pacts with. She instinctively knew what the spell's result would be, but that first moment of summoning, of feeling the pact for everything it was, was something unique and special for each pact. It was no different with Yukari. The summoner couldn't help but grin when the youkai made her dramatic appearance, eyes filled with the wonder of a child as she watched the display. And then it was over.

And then Sheena felt like she got hit with a ton of bricks. The light, or lack of light, from the mana disappeared in a flash and it felt like every single, itty-bitty iota of mana was sucked right out of her. Her vision swam and she took a wobbly step back, hand moving to her head as she blinked her eyes and shook her head in an attempt to refocus. This wasn't good. This wasn't normal. She'd never felt like this after a summon.

As Raine zoomed in on her, the ninja fell backwards onto the floor, landing softly despite the angle of the fall. She wasn't out of it enough that she couldn't keep herself from getting hurt on something as simple as a self-induced fall. She was just... dazed and disoriented. And still...

Her lips curled up in a brilliant smile, a giddy laugh coming from her. Ignoring Raine, she tilted her head back so she could see Yukari and reached a hand out to her. "It worked..." Another one of those giddy laugh. Never mind the complete loss of mana. That'll come back in the morning, she believes.

"Yukari, it worked." Sheena could just kiss her youkai right then. She heard Raine, but she didn't care to answer at the moment, still coming down off of the rush of a brand new summon in a place where she was once deprived of them all.

Raine's reaction was amusing - stunned, surprised and far too interested. Of course, if the healer's reaction was amusing, then Sheena's was hilarious. That child-like giddiness, despite having practically collapsed, much like she had - really, what a cute girl.

"It worked," she agreed softly. Much as Yukari would have liked a kiss, she couldn't find the strength to move over to the ninja. Well, maybe she could have, but that would have taken effort. Of course, she couldn't refuse that hand reaching out to her. It was a little far away, but who would she be if she couldn't close a gap that trivial? Opening one of her holes in space, the youkai reached gently out, her hand appearing in midair and taking the ninja's.

No, this had not been a bad night at all, no matter how tiring it may have been.

When both of them collapsed, Raine finally realized how exhausting summoning must be here; there was a reason even at home Sheena didn't generally use her summons at the very beginning of a battle. And they had done it when Raine would have said it was impossible, due not only to their being from very different worlds but to their power restrictions.

Seeing them hold hands even when physically too far apart to touch made her smile very slightly; it was sweet.

Of course, her reaction then went straight to wondering if she could get Yukari at least, who seemed far less secretive, to tell her anything about how many levels that connection was on. If they were not only bound together by a pact, but lovers, how would that manifest when intimate?

Predictably unable to contain herself, Raine didn't give Sheena much of a chance to even get her breath back before she was asking "This was the first time you tried it out? Or just the first time using Yukari's powers in actual combat?"

Meeting Yukari's eyes, Sheena smiled affectionately, squeezing the youkai's hand.

It was after a few seconds that the ninja finally turned her attention to Raine. "We made the pact last night, Raine," she said, exhaustion in her voice. "And it worked." Another one of those giddy laughs.

She was still a little light-headed, but it was starting to wear off. Not feeling like quite getting to her feet yet, Yukari instead shuffled on her knees across the room until she could connect her hand back with her wrist, settling down back into a sitting position next to the ninja with a sigh.

"First time," she replied to Raine's question a little more clearly, letting her eyes fall closed and just concentrating on the feel of that hand she was holding.

Raine checked them both over and was relieved to see that they were most likely just completely exhausted from using up so much mana... or whatever Yukari had.

Of course, the fact that they were just fine also meant that she didn't have to push down her excitement.

"The fact that you were able to do this at all is just incredible! Reinforce can copy my magic, but even she proved incapable of Sheena's... Yukari, have you ever allowed someone to make a pact even remotely like this before? I remember we were talking about this last week, but your details were a little scarce..."

She wasn't going to shut up for a while unless someone made her.

The ninja's eyes also fell shut, Yukari's physical proximity in combination with the pact making her far more content than she'd ever shown in front of Raine with anyone other than Corrine. In a way, it reminded her of the times when Corrine was on her shoulder and the two of them just looked out across the land from the top of a hill, waiting for the others to catch up.

"Raine... shut up," Sheena eventually replied. "My magic is connected to my blood. Nothing can copy it. There hasn't been a summoner other then me since Mythos. Doesn't that tell you something?"

The youkai was no where near as tight-lipped as Sheena when it came to how her powers worked, but right now? Right now she was just the right level of tired to be at ease and just let herself drift. Answering questions? Not something she was too interested in at the moment.

What she was interested in? Moving her legs around so she could flop over next to her ninja and then doing just that. Still holding that hand, she leaned her head against Sheena's shoulder. Her summoner's shoulder, content to let them do the talking as she drifted on the border between sleep and waking, dreams and reality.

Nightshift 49: 2nd Floor Staff Lounge

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Sorry for the slow guys, I'll try and be more on the ball for you.

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No worries. This is almost done anyways.^^

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