Chevaleresse

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

---

"No one knows what it's like

To feel these feelings

Like I do

And I blame you."

---

The cannons on Hizuki's shoulders swung around without the light girl so much as glancing backward. They blazed to life, a fusillade of beams blasting the falling rubble (and vehicles) to pieces. Those were, in turn, blown apart by the eight drones which had left their idle positions in the meantime. It wouldn't make the falling debris completely harmless - she'd basically converted the trucks into shrapnel instead - but it would avoid smashing apart the building with students inside.

"You don't need to be strong!" she shouted. Her spear reappeared, folding out from a compartment in her mech's arm once again. She grasped the weapon in both hands and lowered it at Mr. Banana. "You have friends!" Hizuki's declaration held a slight quaver of sorrow. "You don't need to protect yourself from your friends!" The irony of the statement didn't pass her by as her wings began to glow, preparing to launch her point-first. "And I'll protect everyone from everyone else, until we find new ways to grow."

The whine of thrusters heralded Hizuki's own charge, using her superior speed to preempt a further assault and crashing into the gigantic simian. "And that includes Kouki, who helped me with my trigonometry homework." She pulled back, spinning in place to score a number of slashes with her wings. "And Emika, so she can take care of her sick cat." The spear shifted into a blade that would have been oversized on someone not currently in a ten foot tall mech suit. "And Saki, and Akito, and Kousei!" She finished off her blistering assault with a trio of sword strikes, each name punctuating a hit. She could feel her magic burning off by the second, but Hizuki still had a few minutes of full power. Hopefully, she could end this before that ran out. If not. . .

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

---

"If nothing else, I can at least offer this."

---

The impact hurt; this armor wasn't actually meant for close combat. She could hear the conjured metal screeching even before the titanic primate closed a fist around her. It wasn't really possible to get a solid grip on something doing its best to be fighter jet-shaped without crushing it a little, and this hadn't exactly been a careful capture.

Still, she ignored it. Or maybe she felt like she deserved it. It didn't really matter.

As she was hurled at Nyxia, she dimly picked up a flare of desires from Tsubomi. That didn't really matter right now, either.

She let her crumpled armor fall away and dissipate. This particular suit wasn't very important for what had to happen next. The entire club couldn't defeat Michi and the approaching giga miseria at once. Their ability to deal with one or another was dubious, but she could contribute something useful to them, this time. If there wasn't enough firepower in one club to fight both threats, then Hizuki would simply have to add an entire club's worth of firepower.

Hizuki turned her tumble through the air into a controlled spin, something she then converted into a hover - a less clumsy one than the unsteady floating Evil Eye had seen when they first encountered one another in a shady club. "I'll take care of her," she called out toward the rest of the detention club. "Protect the students and the town." Without waiting for a response, she flew toward Black Gate and her one and only friend.

One of her blue, hexagonal gates shimmered into existence ahead of her. Then, another, and another, until six floated in her path. "Engage: ZERO!" Hizuki flew through all of them in sequence, shining like her self-given title with each one. As a streak of light, she slammed into the ground ahead of the dark girl who had declared the club her foes.

The silhouette that stood in the path of the gargantuan stuffed animal was easily twice the height of the girl that had gone in. Twin rotary cannons rose from its shoulders, with powerful mechanized arms terminating in robotic fists. One held an oversized version of Hizuki's Sweet Arm. Eight bladelike wings fanned out from its back, each with a sleek drone hovering just past the tip. Powerful legs supported a sturdy torso, each with its own set of jets that still glowed with barely-restrained energy. As the dust cleared, the spear folded itself up and retracted into the mech's arm, allowing it to take up a braced position not unlike a sumo wrestler preparing for their opponent.

"This ends now, one way or another." Hizuki's voice rang out from within the armor, a tinny note to it as it came through a speaker. She could only manage this for about five minutes, but during those five minutes, Hizuki the Daybreak was free of her own limits. All the strength, all the speed, and all the ferocity she could muster at any time, brought to bear all at once in the face of a foe that seemed overwhelming.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

---

"I tried."

---

The light girl watched in horror as, in response to their various reactions, Black Gate chose the most extreme reaction. All of her attempts at kindness, all of her efforts to befriend the girl, to stave off and resolve conflicts before they came to violence, and this, it seemed, was to be the result. The school in far worse shape than it had been in the dream, people possibly dying as she watched the scene unfold in what felt like slow motion in front of her, because she'd refrained from prying, because she'd trusted this girl who acted like her friend to tell her eventually why she felt the way she did.

A part of her wished that she'd been crushed just now. It'd probably hurt less.

Haruna held her weapon out to her side, perpendicular to the ground. Then, suddenly, she was airborne, the speed of her motion sending a wave of force from where she'd just stood. There was an instant where one could see her THUNDER CRACK armor forming about her, the bulky thrusters augmenting her already impressive speed, before she rammed Black Gate's conjured companion. "I won't let you do this," she said quietly as she channeled more power into trying to force herself forward, aiming to shove the colossal monkey off course and away from the school.

World of Light: the Endless Now (The Ultimate Smash Bros Crossover)

Esaka, the Tiered City

Yayama Yama
Status: Ruminating
LV: 6, EXP: 39/60
Word Count: 469 (+1)

After everyone had begun filtering out of the restaurant and into the casino, Yayama had declined to follow the rest. She fully intended to get a solid night's sleep while it was a possibility, and she'd had quite enough Manderville nonsense to sate her appetite for seeing casinos for the next two centuries. Not that we have that time. She trusted the others not to do anything terribly stupid, so the lalafell headed back to the Roman Cancel on her own, setting a leisurely pace.

While she walked, she considered what her tournament future looked like. Yayama hadn't heard anything about her next foe, which probably meant she could overcome them with a bit of luck and a bit more grit, but what she was hearing about the one after that concerned the dark knight. Big contender, huh? And apparently I'm not a big enough obstacle to consider, if this Azrael guy's supposed to get a clean sweep after me. No information on his capabilities was bad, too. We're - I'm - so much weaker here than I was, too. It's not just the Principles.

The original Yayama Yama was something of a unique existence, even stood next to the famous Petra Stelle. Her soul was denser than everyone but said Au Ra's, and it had swirled with a blend of light and dark-aspected aether rarely found in combination. Her current incarnation had faithfully recreated the problems that arose from that, much to her dismay, but something about the process just hadn't remade her in full. She supposed it made sense; if Galeem were actually fully recreating Hydaelyn's blessings, for one, then its unique form of tempering wouldn't have worked in the first place.

Yayama shuddered at that thought. Thankfully, gleaming seemed to be easier to cure than tempering, but the idea of existing for so long with her will suborned like that was. . . disturbing. Moreso was the idea that she'd done so potentially dozens upon dozens of times, each time unaware she was merely serving to keep a perpetual engine of death running. There was a sick humor to it, as well, with how she'd been traipsing about in an outfit she'd designed to be a warning to the residents of the Crystarium, proclaiming herself to be a champion of Light all the while.

Guess I'll just have to hope I get to punch the bastard in the face before I evaporate this time, and maybe that someone finds the next Warrior of Darkness faster this time.

Unless they could fix themselves somehow, of course. Do something to bring back their worlds in all their former glory, restore their original existences. . . "Gods damn you, Hades. I didn't want to wear your blasted boots, much less walk a league in them."

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

---

"Right, mortal peril, that works for me."

---

Haruna listened quietly to the goings-on in the room, neither pretending to remain asleep after her outburst nor making any particular attempt to do anything but lie on the ground and process everything that had been said and done. It seemed Miss Gate really did have good intentions, or at least she still claimed to. It didn't take away the fact that she'd hurt the others, but the attempt at doing something nice, however clumsy, counted for something in her book.

Responses to what the goat girl had said rolled around in her head. She didn't know how to respond to this situation, and none of the options seemed to be the right one when she mentally hefted them. All of them, however, clattered to the floor as Haruna's blood froze.

It wasn't as if she'd never seen a miseria before. She went out of her way to track down the things on the regular, dispersing them before they could get close and actually put someone in danger. Haruna had not, however, seen a miseria coalesce in the middle of the day, inside a school packed full of dreaming students. She sprung to her feet in a manner that almost made her prior miserable state look like an act, stance full of tense energy. "You need to wake them up," Haruna breathed, before transforming. "Otherwise you really will summon a giga miseria in the school."

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

---

"This is fine."

---

When Haruna last believed she was conscious, she was Hizuki, flying ahead at full tilt, having narrowly evaded the grasp of a foe with a vulnerable innocent in tow. When true wakefulness came to her unexpectedly, she was still trying to use parts of her body that didn't exist, manipulate flows of magic that were still dormant in whatever space the bodies of magical girls hid while not in use. The result was an uncomfortable lurch upon the transition from being asleep to being awake, and her body electing to flex what limbs it did have in response to the confusing signals sent by her mind.

In other words, shortly after Kiyo asked the newest - and, at this rate, likely shortest-running - member of the Detention Club a startlingly heartfelt question, the second-newest member hurled herself up and forward, collided with the table she'd been slumped at, then flopped sideways onto the floor, grunting in pain at both impacts.

Another moment, and she realized where she was. In the club room, in a significantly more rumpled version of the casual clothes she'd worn yesterday after leaving school and changing out of her uniform. Where they had, evidently, all ended up, as she glanced around, including a still-transformed Black Gate.

Dream manipulation. That explains a lot. The situation had seemed impossible because it was. There was no world where Black Gate's ape creatures were that powerful, no world where she caused that level of widespread disruption. No world where Tsubomi's problems were solved so easily, no world where the GEMs just left well enough alone and trusted her, of all people, to watch the situation.

There was, however, a world where a magical girl used Haruna's aid to strike at the hearts of the rest of the club emotionally, exploiting a belief that an increasingly large number of people - including the girl doing said exploitation - had told her was far too foolish and naiive to cling to. Yeah. I'll just stay right here for a moment. I probably can't make things worse from down here.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

---

---

Were there less going on, Hizuki might've stopped to comfort Tsubomi. She understood all too well what her dark mirror was feeling at the moment; after all, it was being reflected in the background of her mind, beneath the fire and fury currently driving her forward. The uniquely horrible feeling that one had, with only the best intentions, brought about the worst suffering.

Fortunately, she had a physical problem to sink her metaphorical teeth into instead. "What the hell!?" She grunted as her armored plating absorbed the worst of the gunfire. These things had no right to be as apparently powerful as they were. She'd seen magical girls conjure some powerful familiars, but how could Black Gate be working at such a scale and still have minions fast enough to catch a charge from her individually, and powerful enough to stop Earthshaker in her tracks?

The light girl growled, running through her options inside her head for a moment. If Michi meant what she said, that she didn't want to hurt Hizuki. . . well, there was an obvious option for the wannabe hero. A somewhat cruel one, in the end, but it was self-sacrificing enough that in Hizuki's mind, it was more than justified. "Hold them!" She barked at Roche before pulling back. It was going to take too long to remove the assailants, so she'd have to protect Sylvia a different way.

The Daybreak rocketed forward again, but this time she wasn't charging at the apes, not exactly. Instead, she flew at Sylvia directly. If she couldn't carry the other girl away, then she could at least use her own body as a shield. I just have to move her a few feet. If she could manage to move Sylvia any meaningful distance, she could carry her through a gate and give her SHOCK WAVE to use in place of Shatterscape's own powers - and if not, she could at least take a few hits before her own armor broke under the assault.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

---

"Why are you like this?"

---

There was another flurry of activity. She saw Kiyo and Willow bolting out of the room for some reason - presumably something important, as she found it hard to believe that the former would abandon this scene without cause - just before Hotaru crashed into her. Then she was spinning, then released after a timely intervention from Suki.

Then Michi crossed another line.

Hizuki didn't know everything that was going on with Shuuko. She didn't know that the girl she'd spoken to last was Sylvia, or how many parts of her fragmented identity had existed. She also didn't miss the signs presented to her. The mix of terror and reverence for authority, the way she froze up at the slightest physical contact. . . Hizuki hadn't asked, but she had a couple good guesses as to why Sylvia acted the way she did. What Michi was doing to her was heinous by itself, but to pick Shuuko of all people to subject to it was beyond the pale.

The light girl roared in an incoherent rage as she shot forward like a bullet, disorientation or no. She had enough presence of mind to put a gate between herself and the apelike familiars Michi had called to abuse Shatterscape - so when she careened into them at full speed, she was covered in armor, with six razor-sharp wings carrying her forward. Her Sweet Arm, now transformed into a sword, swung in a vicious arc, aiming to decapitate all the apes in one fell swoop.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

---

"You know less than you think."

---

"If you believe that calling me a voyeur is going to get to me somehow, you're mistaken. I think about how to use this power responsibly every day." It wasn't as if she had much choice, either, as it wasn't something she could really turn off. Much like any other sense, she could muffle it, try not to focus on it, but it would still be there. "Because, to answer your second question, Michi, no, I don't. I haven't asked, and you haven't chosen to tell me. I wanted to make sense of it by getting to know you like anyone else would. I could probably dig it out if I really tried, but I chose to respect your privacy." She sighed.

"As for the first question. . . I'd like to think so. I put a lot of work into my nightly patrols, and into helping people here at school when I can. It's not always much, but as far as I can tell, everyone I help is happier for it." She glanced down for a moment, then back up at Michi. "I'd hoped you were included in that, too, even if I messed up a couple times. I guess you could have just been pretending so I'd keep doing what you wanted, but you seemed genuinely happy when we made stuffed cats." Hizuki shrugged. "So you tell me. Have I made anyone happier, Michi?"

World of Light: the Endless Now (The Ultimate Smash Bros Crossover)

Esaka, the Tiered City

Yayama Yama
Status: Machinations
LV: 6, EXP: 38/60
Word Count: 291 (+1)

"I've personally got a couple more matches tomorrow; I'll be turning in pretty fast after this meeting. I don't know much about the next guy, but assuming I get through him, the next name on the list is Azrael. I unfortunately haven't had much time to research either of them, owing to today's events, so if someone wanted to catch me up, that would be much appreciated." Yayama gestured vaguely to the table around her where she stood. There was a certain irony in her and Band having near opposite issues with seating, but almost always arriving at the same sorts of results.

"And speaking of those events, we intercepted a vehicle full of Jack units. No losses other than some maintenance on my Chopper, but our friend Anji got roughed up quite a bit. Most of them were the smaller ones, but there were a few big bastards that presented some issue. The kids did most of the heavy lifting in taking out the chaff. They didn't self-destruct like the ones that came after the last place." She paused to think for a moment. "We might wanna be careful if we run into more of those. They didn't dissipate like things here normally do until we pried open what I assume is some kind of core. G-Corp might be able to retrieve information from wrecked Jacks if they happen to recover them."

She then glanced towards the rest of the team present who had participated in the convoy attack. "Feel free to fill in the blanks if I missed anything important." With that said, she propped herself against the table and started going after a significantly-closer-to-sumo-portioned meal, a hearty mix of meat and vegetables with an eye-watering amount of spice.