Chevaleresse

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

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Hizuki gritted her teeth as her HUD popped up with damage readouts. This thing wasn't going down as fast as she needed it to, and the ongoing breakdown meant she'd have to discard SHOCK WAVE sooner rather than later. The force she exerted on her foe let up as she felt something hit her shoulder and slither between the armor plates and the underlying jumpsuit. "No-!" A flash of panic nearly took over as she felt the thing coil around her neck, threatening to choke the life out of her. Not good, not good, not good! Her situation was rapidly deteriorating, and the Demon of Hibusa seemed content to watch the light girl struggle three to one.

The Daybreak, however, wasn't just armor. With a strangled grunt, steel fingers opened, then closed around the tengu she'd been trying to smash. The mass of magic and metal twisted as Hizuki lifted it up and over her head, in a motion far faster than something her current size ought to be able to manage. I'm not done with you yet! As if it were a particularly irascible rock, she used the first miseria to smash down atop the tongue-rope, hopefully giving herself some literal breathing room.

Hizuki let her momentum carry her further forward, seeing the third opponent coming in. Rather than try to resist the trip, she leaned into it, throwing her weight atop the bird in her hand and reaching out with her free one. A mechanical fist closed around the rope and pulled, aiming to bring the creature it was attached to into crushing distance. Or close enough to use it to bludgeon the third one to death, she wasn't picky.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

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The curious part of Hizuki filed Rei's commentary away for later consideration and further investigation. The parts of Hizuki that weren't that part were all occupied with trying to not get killed by these monsters. The Detention Club's mysterious leader was, of course, correct; the Daybreak had never encountered a foe this clever before, having mostly fought the pittance of miseria that appeared in the City of Light and the weaklings that spawned in Hibusa overnight.

Daybreak's wings flared again as she kicked off the ground. She threw her weight upward, pivoting around her captive weapon in a way that might've wrenched it free from a less determined opponent. Retrieving Folkvangr, however, wasn't her objective. The light girl let go, sailing into the air feet first. She tucked her limbs in, turning the maneuver into a somersault that would land her behind the creature. As she reached the apex of her jump, a hexagonal shape appeared in midair below her. "Mode: SHOCK WAVE, engage!

Hizuki unfurled herself and fell through her gate. Additional armor appeared around her, rapidly unfolding from high-tech boxes that had appeared on her arms, legs, and back. Her wings folded in and integrated with the extras coating her from head to toe in a bulky powersuit, easily adding a foot to her height. She wielded no weapons, but the forearms held glowing lines reminiscent of her normal spear - which had rapidly disassembled itself and seemingly disappeared. When the new armor struck the ground, it landed with enough force to crack the pavement.

With her newly-deployed crushing strength, Daybreak's armored fist smashed forward into the undead tengu. She didn't stop there, however, letting the momentum carry her forward into a pinning charge. Her goal was to bring the creature to the ground and smash it to bits there; if she couldn't outmaneuver it well, she always had more options.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

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The light girl blinked as Evil Eye abruptly tore off, shouting about apes. Apes? It couldn't be her, right? Hizuki winced as Rei's comment about attitudes pulled her attention away from that line of thought. "I'm probably not changing my attitude. I made my wish so I could help people, after all. Although. . . what do you need miseria for?" She was once more interrupted by the appearance of another variable in the distance. A rather large and problematic one, given just how far it seemed to be compared to how clearly she could make it out. "What on earth is-"

Daybreak yelped in pain as a foe suddenly slammed into her. Too fast! She bounced off the ground once, but managed to convert her momentum into a roll. Her wings snapped out and flared, in turn converting the roll into a takeoff. Hizuki wheeled up and around to make some distance, readying her polearm in the process. They can't actually be faster than me, can they? A staccato burst of three lasers flew from her naginata, lancing out toward the birdman in an attempt to pin it down. This was a preface to Hizuki charging through the air with a shout, flaring her wings again as she tried to impale it, or at the very least get a slash of her blade through before it could recover.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

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"I'm a light magical girl," she said in response to Tsubomi's question. Technically she didn't know it was her, but that unique brain-lag was already pretty easy to recognize. "As in, a magical girl who has a bunch of powers around manipulating light, not a light magical girl as in a magical girl that isn't a dark magical girl. Although I am also that. I'm not like, an earth magical girl, so I couldn't make earthquakes even if I wanted to. Which I don't want to, because I'm a light magical girl." She cut herself off before she rambled further; the situation was getting to her.

Said situation grew more complex as two newcomers appeared, both of which were presumably dark girls, though one was as yet untransformed. Hizuki, frankly, had no idea how to respond to the catgirl's little songs, or the comment about the recently-arrived Oros. . . who was probably Suki. More concerning was the idea that clicked into place when the green-haired girl started talking to Superheavy Samurai - Earthshaker - about how she was handling the "infestation."

Well, there was good news and bad news for the intrepid would-be hero of Hibusa Town. The good news was that she hadn't been killed immediately, and she hadn't even needed to use up any of her armors to make it so. She had no less than seven dark girls around here, and not a single one had attacked. One was downright friendly.

The bad news was that, regardless of her current status of not being violently murdered for existing, the Demon of Hibusa was right there. That, or someone who spoke for her, at least, which was only marginally less dangerous. Hizuki had come here knowing she was putting her life in danger, but that didn't exactly mean she was eager to have the shit kicked out of her. "O-Oh, uh, hello. I see you already caught my name." She stopped short of actually asking for the names of the others, given her precarious position. "I'm not a big fan of the Gems, actually. I'm here for. . . sort of the opposite of their reasons?"

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

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"Wait, was the blast that big of a deal? It took some effort, but I just figured I needed something really big to get a whole city's worth of miseria to chase me." She continued to hang back, figuring that Neo Tempest Terahertz - er, Nyxia - over there had it covered, and would probably rather be left to her own devices. "Just wanted to make sure nobody was hurt by them all running loose like that."

Evil Eye's comment cut through her awkwardness, prompting a snort. "Grim Weeper is painful." Hizuki shook her head. "I don't know if I'm that interesting. Does going to a city where you've been told the local demon will rip your throat out or worse count as interesting?" She glanced back at Roche. "Is she actually that aggressive toward light girls? It's a little hard to learn much about anything magical in Hibusa when you live in the City of Light. Not that I'd really blame her, especially considering who else I've heard about coming here."

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

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Hizuki started to open her mouth to clarify that she did not, in fact, know Evil Eye's name. She closed it when she realized that she had, beyond all odds, managed to guess the dark magical girl's title exactly by referencing a children's card game. She opened her mouth again to remark on the sheer nonsense of that, then closed it again when she once again noticed she was in a rather tense situation for a light girl. Instead of enacting any of various methods she'd just concocted for making a fool of herself, she elected to reply to Kiyo's first comment with a self-depreciating shrug. "I thought you liked your mysterious euphemism speak, so I was playing along. And if I didn't have a nauseatingly bright title, I wouldn't make for a very good light girl, would I?" A slight smile managed to crack through her expression.

Said smile quickly faded in response to Evil Eye's last comment. She glanced worriedly at Earthshaker, then at the rest of the city around them, as if expecting an attack from one of them at any moment. "The boss?" The question was clearly not one of identity; their leader was infamous even if the members of the Detention Club weren't. "What's she like?" she asked, no longer able to keep the nervousness out of her voice. "I've heard she prefers her surroundings, uh, a bit more subdued." The technological wings on her back extended, retracted slightly, extended again. "I'm guessing the rules being kept are hers?" She shot another, almost hopeful look at the shield-wielding magical girl being referenced.

Hizuki scanned her surroundings again. She took her weapon into both hands, the blade flaring to life with a hiss. "The miseria are going to get denser soon, too. How long can your, uh, mosquitoes handle them?"

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

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The light girl watched the creatures descend on the miseria already attracted by her skyward blast with a guarded posture. She relaxed slightly at the appearance of Evil Eye, only to tense once again at the addition of a less familiar dark girl. Her words did little to reassure Hizuki, at least in this moment; the idea that there was someone needed to "keep things civil" was, itself, concerning. The newcomer's expression didn't give away many clues about her intentions, but she could take solace in that neither of these two had assumed that was some kind of challenge to the dark girls of the city. Of course, she knew of at least three more operating in the area, which meant it was far from time to relax.

"Hizuki the Daybreak," she finally replied to Kiyo's question. "And I'm not working to get good evaluations. It's work that needs done, no matter what, and I take pride in being able to accomplish it. Although the help is appreciated." She watched the swarm around her do its work, figuring that there was no need to attack on her own yet if it was handled for the moment. Is that how dark girls get stronger? Absorbing miseria? But then, not all of them would have a power that let them summon weird mosquito monsters. The rather unpleasant mental image of the becloaked girl nearby chowing down on a miseria like it was a delicacy flashed through her head. Maybe it's a little different for every dark girl. Learning much about their shadowy mirrors was hard for a hero of the City of Light; all she'd really been able to learn is that they needed to do something with miseria, and that Schrade would definitely kill her or worse if she went to Hibusa Town.

Pushing that particular series of memories aside for the moment, she turned to address the unfamiliar girl. "I'm only planning on fighting miseria tonight. There's no need to worry about anything from my end." She tried to project confidence, and the visor did a good job of masking her expressions, but the tension at the corners of her mouth and in her posture betrayed her anxiety. Her goals here all depended on hostilities not opening up between her and the Detention Club, and she was acutely aware of the fact that, despite her natural talents, she couldn't possibly hope to win against the full force of a team of dark magical girls with the Demon of Hibusa at its head, not even with that armor.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

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Times like this made Haruna once again regret that she’d been unable to convince any other girls to follow her to Hibusa. One moment, she was eating a bit of curry she’d managed to prepare for herself (in a large batch, so she’d have leftovers for a few days) before her nightly patrol. In the next, the building was shaking, the power was out, and most importantly, miseria were seeping out of the ground left and right. Miseria which she was currently churning through in a back alley, her naginata flashing as she fended them off left and right. I was expecting them to be scarier, she thought, not for the first time since she’d gotten here. After piercing one last amorphous blob of negativity, the Daybreak flew into the air to repeat the process for. . . the fifth time? Sixth? She was already losing count.

Two dive-bombs into clearing the next area, she stopped in midair. This isn’t working. They’re too spread out. Going street by street just wasn’t going to work, not with the level of distress in the area - and that was without even mentioning the more rural area surrounding the town. “Don’t let me down,” she said under her breath, glancing at an emergency vehicle speeding past below. The light girl would have to trust first responders to take care of the fearful desires she heard all around; she had a different threat to handle.

There’s gotta be a way to do this better. She had armors better at handling crowds, but they wouldn’t address the core issue. Sighting a clump of miseria gathering around one of the few remaining streetlamps that functioned, an idea popped into her head. ”That’s it!” Hizuki said triumphantly. She fired a few lasers down to disperse the things, then set her sights on the center of town. ”Mode: THUNDER CRACK, engage!” A shimmering blue outline of a hexagon appeared in midair a few feet away, between her and her destination. The magical girl darted through it, and as she did so, armor coalesced around her in a flash.

The wings on her back slotted down into much broader, heavier wings of futuristic alloy as they folded out into a delta shape. Between them, on her back, two enormous jets appeared with a shimmer, then flared to life with a roar. A bulkier, more triangular visor fitted over her head, and her polearm grew to become something more adjacent to a jousting lance that jutted out ahead of what now resembled something similar to a twin-engine fighter jet with Hizuki in place of a cockpit. The extra power flung her across the city, letting out a sonic boom that somehow managed to leave the bystanders below unharmed and unbothered as she sped toward the middle of town.

“Mode: SKY FIRE, engage!” She shouted again as she neared her goal. The same blue gateway appeared again; flying through it removed her boosters and wings, and replaced them with a fan of stabilizing heatsinks attached to her back. Her lance shifted once again, into a large, futuristic cannon with an elaborate sight. A sci-fi lens fitted itself as an attachment to her helmet, slotting over in front of her right eye. She tilted backward and let herself fall to the ground, skidding to a halt as the weapon twice as long as she was tall began to glow with a golden light. “SKY FIRE: SOLFLARE, fire!” Her stabilizers anchored themselves to the ground as she turned her weapon skyward. Here’s hoping this isn’t a horrible mistake . . . !

A massive pillar of light, easily visible to any magical girl in town, erupted into the sky, piercing a hole through the clouds of the evening. Its brilliance almost seemed to turn night into day, briefly. It lasted for about three seconds, before Daybreak ceased, cutting power to her weapon and letting her extra armor disappear into motes of light. She’d need one of her Modes if this actually worked, doubly so if the Detention Club or their mysterious leader took this as an act of aggression, but for now she needed to let them recharge. Hopefully, the massive surge of magic, light, and positive energy would draw the miseria together around her, and away from the vulnerable people of the town.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

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Haruna's emotional landscape was complex, full of concern and anxiety yet shadowed by lingering grief. Worry and a hint of embarrassment colored the terrain a few moments after Suki started thinking Suki things, something that remained even as it was illuminated by a flare of confusion. Haruna blinked twice at being asked what she needed help with. I guess I should have expected the kurai girls to be a little weird. Fortunately for Haruna, this unexpected response wasn't calling into question her philosophy, motivations, or future; it was just perpendicular to what she'd expected.

"Er, no," she began, sparing another brief glance for the girl with the untoward desires. Was her silence because she was checking Haruna out or something? Not that she had much to check out, so it was probably just pointed at someone else that Haruna happened to remind the girl of. She couldn't really tell without transforming, and Haruna definitely wasn't doing that in school unless it was absolutely necessary. "I wanted to ask if you needed help. From me. Or, not me specifically, because you don't really know me. . ." She took a breath. Focus, Haruna.

"Actually, let me just start there," she said hurriedly. Introducing herself would buy her a little time to think about how exactly she was supposed to go about inquiring after this girl's problems without admitting that she'd used her magical abilities to pull her suicidal urges straight from her skull to read them. "My name is Maeda Haruna, this is my first day here. I want to do better at being kind to my classmates this year." Even if there wasn't the ever-present fear that the dark magical girls and/or their leader would figure out who she was and then kill her or run her out of town, the invasion of privacy might bother people. Haruna would only use it for good, of course, but she was also a stranger poking her nose into the most private possible place.

"You kinda seemed out of it, I guess, so I wanted to make sure you were doing okay." A whiff of frustration entered her emotional palette as she searched for a more polite way to phrase her next statement and ultimately failed. "Not to be mean or something, but I saw you kinda zombie walking over here. That can be a sign of depression. And stuff." Excellent work, Haruna, very normal and not at all weird to say to a total stranger.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

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As Haruna ate her cup ramen in her little corner, having a moment of (what she considered to be) selfish peace she rarely afforded herself, something pulled at her awareness. It took a few moments for her to even realize something was off, like a whiff of sulfur in otherwise clear air. Her eyes darted up despite the weight carried beneath them, her back straightened out of her customary slouch. Most of the desires she sensed through the day were fairly banal: a wish for class to be over, a want for lunch, a prayer for minimal homework. This familiar-feeling void, however, was something that actually needed her attention.

The transfer student stood hurriedly from her seat, nearly tripping over herself in her rush. She pulled the cord connecting her headphones to the cell in her pocket, abruptly cutting off the wall of sound separating her from the school. Haruna's headphones slid off her head to rest around her neck as she stepped forward, briefly glancing around her surroundings until she could match the desires to the body they inhabited. Another girl, achingly slowly settling into a seat from a third, neither of which she recognized (not that this was a surprise.)

It took until she'd moved four steps for Haruna to realize a detail she hadn't picked up on before. The desire she'd felt wasn't crystal clear at all; it was strange that she could recognize that self-destructive urge so clearly in the first place. She hadn't noticed the dark fog muffling it, much as it was currently doing to the wants of the girl she sat across from. Too late to turn back now. Haruna should have realized earlier; this was why she came to Hibusa in the first place, after all.

Continuing forward with trepidation, she walked until she was in the slow girl's sightline. "Um, sorry if this is out of nowhere or something, but. . . are you okay?" Her voice came out laced with equal parts hesitance and concern as she spoke to what she had now realized was an untransformed magical girl. "You just, um, seemed like you weren't doing very good. I guess. Not to try to insult you or anything, I just wanted to see if I could help?" She glanced at the girl's table-mate, expecting a look of irritation or anger at her intrusion and the potential implications thereof.