Chevaleresse

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

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One moment, Daybreak was struggling to get through this alive. Winded, wounded, surrounded, outnumbered, and caught off guard by an unexpected foe, she was starting to think her destiny was to fall in defense of Hibusa. The inside of her helmet blared warnings about systems failing, lines between a girl and her cybernetic combat suit blurring as her flying tumble became more of a fall. Hizuki felt what she assumed was the chill of death about to take her (perhaps some result of the foul substance the tengu had spewed, she thought) as she fought to right herself.

Then, suddenly, she was ascending. In a bridal carry. Performed by Rei Ishiko of all people. Daybreak had considered many potential results of tonight, a number of potential events leading to those, and none of those thoughts had included "bridal carried out of danger by the Demon of Hibusa." Either she was actually dead, or the rumors about Schrade had been greatly exaggerated.

Well, in some ways.

As she started to fall, she saw the disintegrating remains of the tengu she'd been locked in combat with, effortlessly dispatched in less than the time it'd taken for her to execute her first attack on one. Then she was in Rei's arms again, and then on the ground. "Huh?" The bewildered light girl almost didn't see Rei effortlessly dispatch the entire force of miseria in moments, distracted as she was by trying to sort out exactly what the fuck just happened and how she felt about it. A complex mix of emotions including relief, dread, and abject confusion swirled about in her head as she looked around, trying to verify what she was seeing.

Her eyes turned to Evil Eye, seeking confirmation. "That just happened, right? I didn't actually get killed there?"

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

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A tengu attacking from an unexpected angle was something Hizuki had taken into consideration. She'd also considered several maneuvers they could potentially make that might make defending from the air like this harder, and had already accounted for them in her combat tactics.

Being abruptly seized by the gigantic steel claws of another magical girl who seemed hell-bent on her death for no readily apparent reason? Technically, also something she'd considered, actually. Given her heretofore positive reception, however, it hadn't exactly been in the front of her mind. Hizuki yelped as the wind was suddenly squeezed out of her to the screeching cacophony of metal on metal. She could feel the vanes currently comprising her wings doing their best to resist being crumpled underneath forces they were never meant to resist. Oh, a distant part of her thought. I guess this is it. I thought I'd have a little longer.

The rest of her did its best to ignore the tired voice of acceptance as it frantically searched for a way out. Under normal circumstances, all she had was another Tank Purge, possibly even a Luster Purge, both of which would leave her unarmored and vulnerable, especially if it didn't actually get her free. She didn't have the ability to execute her Maneuver pinned in place like this, or leverage her superior speed. The desires she got from the girl were strange, too, now that her attention was entirely on Shaddoll here. Don't kill her, she's different. Kill her before she can hurt anyone. Don't kill her, she doesn't deserve it.

She felt her new foe's grip loosening even before she started to speak. "Y-you don't actually want this," she said with a strained voice, hoping to encourage Shaddoll along. "I'm here to help if I can." Hizuki glanced to the side at Evil Eye's call. "You can trust her, right?" There it is. Whether it was her words, Kiyo's, or whatever conflict was raging behind the hateful crimson eyes that glared at Hizuki, the vise opened enough for her to slide out with another painful metallic shriek. Knowing there were still foes about, she rather gracelessly stumbled backward before kicking into the air, using her tumble to send both her sword and her superheated wings scything about in unpredictable directions, hoping to ward off or even get a lucky kill on one of the disgusting tengu in the area. Her chest heaved, lungs struggling to keep her as she launched into yet another strenuous maneuver after being kicked in the chest, strangled, and nearly crushed to death.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

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Hizuki might've liked to respond to Rei's compliment, but the light girl was a bit preoccupied with not dying at the moment. Neither did she have time to consider why the miseria might be ignoring the dark girl entirely. Rei was a mystery that bore further investigation, for sure, but that investigation could wait until Hizuki was reasonably certain she and Hibusa were going to get out of this situation relatively unscathed. The burning sensation in her armor wasn't exactly a good omen for that outcome, and it made it harder to focus through the pain. These things are gross. She'd been trying not to consider that, either, given how the mangled flesh and foul odors made her want to hurl already.

She yelped in pain when she was slammed off her imprisoned foe. SHOCK WAVE caught most of the damage, but the armor didn't exactly make it painless to get kicked around. Shrapnel flew off from the impact point as it disintegrated rather than pass the injury onto the Daybreak herself, something she was grateful for as another tengu began beating through it with its fleshy hammers. Hizuki hissed alongside her burning flesh when yet another disgusting lump of bile splattered against her exposed shoulder. Try as she might, she just wasn't able to overpower all three of these opponents at once without them letting her, and flashing warnings inside her helmet let her know that it wouldn't be long until she couldn't try. Time for more desperate measures.

"Tank Purge!" Her armor burst outwards in an explosion of light and flying metal, scattering debris around the area and flinging Hizuki skyward. Detonating an armor this early in the fight was bad, but she'd been left with little choice. SKY FIRE was still recharging, and would suffer for the lost airborne agility besides. SOLAR PRIESTESS wouldn't help against such melee-heavy fighters, and LUNAR DRAGON was for clearing chaff, which these weren't. That left one option, as she wasn't confident she could end the fight now, and wasn't about to run away. "Mode: ARISE HEART, engage!"

She flew feet-first through another gate, switching around her armor once again. Her wings were replaced with a series of swordlike vanes, her armor covered most of her body (though with far from the bulk of SHOCK WAVE,) and her polearm, appearing only briefly, transformed once more into a hand-and-a-half sword. Curving beams of light lanced out from her new "wings," aiming to slice through the already-injured tengu as Hizuki prepared for the inevitable assault. "Alright, then, come and get me!" Taking up a fighting stance, she readied herself to intercept a foe trying to catch her with another tongue, or remove the offending limb before one of them could kick her again with a superheated slash. Occupied as she was, the Daybreak was in no position to even notice other dark girls coming into view of her once more, including one she hadn't been introduced to yet. . .

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

---

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.