[center][h3][color=C0392B]Rudolf Sagramore[/color][/h3][/center]

There it was again. 

At the center of a growing umbral bonfire, the whirlwind of steel surged with redoubled desperation, as Rudolf hacked, slashed, and threw all his might into his strikes, each one boiling with abrading stygian flame— but each strike was turned away by the plating. The blaze itself found purchase, of course, the grinding and gnawing burn flooding each mote of damage, each fleck of indeterminate alloy their combined forces had spalled off. It crushed the exposed material, scoured it further apart, forced each minute scratch and crack wider and wider open— uncaringly weakening the constitution of the bleeding edge work of Valheim's military-industrial complex until Chisato's bombs, this time forewarned by a timely [i]Fire in The Hole![/i] at the back of his skull, blew the plating clean apart.

He leapt away as another brace of scarlet-orange flashes blossomed out from the damaged limb, watching the colored flames intermingle and dance with the lingering black before springing forth again behind another swing—!

And there. For a moment, a gleam of light within the burning shadow, and his dead steel found the briefest moment, one pure slice, of life. Why? He couldn't puzzle it out. He couldn't tell what prompted those instants of realized potential, no matter what he tried to keep track of—

Another spear from on high, forcing him back on the move before he could admire his handiwork, let alone even begin to divine what it was that made those two strikes different from every other. His breath was thick, heavy, smoke-laden. His lungs and blood afire. For a moment, he felt the dissonant urge to snicker bubble up within him— but it burned before levity could counter the weight of his inner blaze. A shame. The only one who'd appreciate the irony of just how literal his favored vows before a duel had now become was gone with the wind. She was better off for not seeing this.

He batted the last of the streaks of ivory talon away before they pulled back, and Reisa's tinny voice echoed again through the loudspeakers. Up at the weapon's top half, Izayoi and Galahad's efforts were writ large in more separated armoring, and one eye put out. The work was far from done, even as the mecha collapsed to a knee— but if they kept hammering...

[i][b]"Dying light, rend my sword and sing in shadow!”[/b]

'Sing in shadow'... [b]hold on.[/b][/i]

Before Rudolf could leap in and keep hammering at the crippled weapon in hopes of, however it came, catching lightning in a bottle a third time, he felt his muscles lock against his will.[sup]1[/sup]

His aethereal sense was nascent if it existed at all. There was a large part of him that had believed that, whenever he could feel a shifting in the winds before the release of magic onto the world, mostly from Miina or the sudden shocks upon the world that were materia being loosed— it was mostly background leakage from the shadow that resided next to his soul, his still-nameless passenger feeding him an undercurrent of insight that barely stirred the surface of his senses. Nothing so concrete as what he believed the naturalborn experienced, when they read the ebb and flow and twist of the world's current, or for that matter the warped expressions it felt he ceaselessly produced these days—

But this, he could practically [i]taste[/i].

[i]Oh [b]no[/b]. Your shield. Grab your shield.[/i]

Anima from the very fabric of the world around them was torn, rushing inward, coalescing against the frame of the stricken warmachina, warping space. The image of the deck itself seemed to bow inward, as the surge of aether swelled into the upraised palm, shriving clean life itself. In a wholly new sensation, Rudolf realized that a wave of fear was flowing out [i]into[/i] him, rather than [i]from[/i] him.

[i][b]”From the deepest pit of the seven hells to the very pinnacle of the heavens,"[/b][/i]

His instincts began to [i]scream[/i] at him, punching through the burning umbra, nearly drowning out the building panic from the second voice in his head. He planted his blades to the flooring, freeing a hand to dive for the pouch on his hip. His palm closed around averdant orb, used only twice before, but by all knowledge impermeable. Perhaps not the barrier he mustered on the dunes[sup]2[/sup], but...

[i][b]Not[/b] impermeable. Very, very strong. Shield is a spell known to me. So too is this. It is older, greater. When this world was young, it was primordial destruction. The light that cleft earth from sky. Ancient even in the age I lived. That it is manufactured in yours, bearing down upon us, is the worst card you or anyone might draw.[/i]

[i][b]"The world shall tremble!" [/b][/i]

A single point of light gleamed at the center of the maelstrom of aether. Around it, a dimming hurricane. Death itself. It seemed to even eat away at the prow of the ship careening into them from the side— the enormity of the moment slowing the mighty engines behind it to a crawl. The mote of diamond shone, again and again, brightening and brightening until even the rising sun itself seemed to be enveloped, defeated, folded in. He could even feel the fire that licked at his blood being pulled. The voice continued, even as the instant they had to mount their defense against this unfathomable collection of power hung. If that was all true, then—

[i]I cannot bring out Svalinn. You would not survive what it would take to fuel its constitution. You're too deep in the hole.

[color=c0392b]A bit late for all that, isn't it? I've already set myself alight.[/color]

You're burning your blood. Your body in parts. You would be burning your heart itself. You would die, and then I would be rootless— my fundamental essence torn to dust, little more than smoke against a gale. Not happening. This is a bridge beyond what I can allow, beyond any destruction you have seen. In my tongue, for it was the end of all magic—[/i]

[i][b]"ULTIMA!!"[/b][/i][sup]3[/sup]

Rudolf thrust the materia forth, the orb of brilliant, polished emerald faint against the white-hot torrent of raw aether that swept towards the Kirins even as it thrummed with power, with blackened will. He could feel it, through his passenger's emotions, through their knowledge, through their unfathomable tides of experience, that the spell on its own wouldn't make the cut. Against such a massive surge of raw aether, the power that was available to the stone, even one so impossibly precious as Shield, would be swept away...

There was a faint howl, scattered against the rushing wind and blaze, but belonging to Izayoi— he knew the sound of her throwing everything she had to give and more towards certain death all too well by now. Sure enough, the blur of the samurai smeared across his vision, a streak of shadow against the wall of light spinning into a single, divine cleave. Shin-Zantetsuken struck the boundaries of the explosion and feld, one, two, three seconds. An impossible feat. Her [i]iai[/i] strikes already being the stuff of battlefield legend, with each moment that he was flooded by exogenous understanding furthered the absurdity.

But through the haze, through the flooding starburst bearing upon them, through the rank hopelessness of this struggle, it left him with an idea. He had no time to think it through. It was miracle enough that she'd bought them all this much. All he could do was try.

"Everything one has to give and more", surely, didn't just apply to the body. It applied to magic, as he'd seen from the others. From Miina, from Eve. It could be made of anything that could carry the will—

This time, the materia itself began to smoulder, burning black like the gamble of every swing of his armaments.[sup]4[/sup]

If Shield didn't have enough power to contest Ultima, then he would have to provide Shield with more. All materia was, when you boiled it down, aether compressed so thoroughly it became a stone that you could catalyze a specific spell through— an equation, supplying every input save the direction of the wielder. To maintain its use, there was only so much aether that could be released before the stone was rendered inert, lest the structure be degraded.

So conversely, if they intentionally pulled apart that structure, bit by bit...

[b][color=c0392b]"BEHIND ME!"[/color][/b] He bellowed, perhaps fruitless against the din, perhaps fruitless in its redoubled unclarity. Before him, meeting the wall of raw offensive might, the white-gold of Shield blossomed outward— then another. Then another! Like the tigerlilies of Crandor in the summer heat, the barriers seemed to bloom, petals of hardened magic overlaid atop one another, and burning black at the very edges of the gold luminescence.

In his palm, he could feel the energy that thrummed about the stone, so familiar after all the times he had asked materia for aid, beginning to leak through the gaps in his fingers. For as numb as his arms had felt since this fight began...

Even at the epicenter of a profane, twisted bonfire, the Garden of the Gods awaited the Kirins' victory below, the fate of the continents' most devout hanging in the balance even as they fought their own war. If not [i]here[/i], then nowhere would be close enough to the ears of the divine for Rudolf to pray that [i]this would be enough[/i].

The dome met the shield with an almighty, bronzed bell tone, and the through nothing more than the channel of his final link of will that Shield would ever know, Rudolf felt his arm jar against the joint, beginning to burn with the strain of forcing back raw power. He grit his teeth, almost tasting copper.

There would be no second chance if it wasn't.
[hr][hr]
[list]
[*][sub]1. When I say hold on, I mean it. I recognize that chant, enough that it gives me a sinking feeling in the stomach I haven't had for longer than everyone in this fight has been alive put together twice over.[/sub]
[*][sub]2. It was a reasonable assumption when he departed that they would be effectively interchangeable. The same way it's a reasonable assumption you wouldn't need a raincoat when it's a sunny day outside. But sudden storms happen, and that woolen sweater doesn't exactly cut it for rain the way it does a brisk wind.[/sub]
[*][sub]3. Oh, good. the name hasn't changed. I should hope not. This is the ideal destruction that all black magic chases the purity of— there are even schools of white magic that believe it to be their endpoint as well. The thought that all of order begins in an explosion, a burst of power unparalleled, is too rooted in faith. I guess.[/sub]
[*][sub]4. Remember the part where I said I love foreshadowing? I've had that hunch for a page and a half, and I spent it looking over just enough of the gradient of the stones he's got that we have a shot of pulling this off. Where would everyone here be without me? We'd all have to pray the capital ship slamming into her hull does the heavy lifting we'll be too vaporized to do ourselves.[/sub] 
[/list]