Mistwoven Healer

The sky is filled with the sounds of battle, and the streets are filled with fleeing civilians as the fight between Akari and her uncle begins. Just as Althia predicted weeks ago, the Volcora attack on the city has arrived, and perhaps at the worst possible time, too. Every sentinel in the city is deployed, and every A Ranker is battling in the sky against the opposing A Rank Volcora, sending shock waves across the city with every blow. The pale blue sky now above Akari was once cloudy, but the sheer power of the battle taking place in the heavens shredded the cloud cover.

Luckily, as their fight begins, the civilians rushing through the streets to safety leave Akari and her uncle alone. The mere sight of their high-level battle is enough to discourage anyone from coming closer. As such, the only people Akari has to protect in this conflict are herself and the still-unconscious Serena, who lies unmoving against a nearby building.

Akari started this fight upon seeing the man she hated most in this world standing in her way, and was surprised when her uncle didn't fold immediately under the weight of her attacks. She knew that he reserved the most powerful of the Reaver's Stygian Mana tattoos for himself, but she never imagined that they could elevate him to the level of a sentinel. Now, the already destroyed slum street is quickly getting even more ruined in the heat of their battle.

In a flash of conflict that lasts mere seconds, Akari slashes at her uncle in a strike that would take his head off, only to find him ducking under the swing. In retaliation, he aims a Stygian Mana-empowered punch at her stomach, which she avoids with a casual twist of her body. Mediative Focus allows Akari to engross herself in the fight to such a degree that, despite her uncle's speed and strength, his attacks feel predictable.

More attacks rain down from both combatants, each blow that connects sending out small shockwaves and shaking the nearby streets. However, Akari is aware that she has several distinct advantages in this fight. Powerful her uncle might be, but it takes more than speed and strength to surmount the multitude of advantages that a sentinel has.

While each blow he slams into her simply leaves a crack on her assault state shield, each cut of her blade leaves lines of red on his skin, allowing black lightning to tear at his very soul. Even so, the fight is far more even than Akari could ever imagine.

After only a minute into the conflict, her uncle's suit is cut into ribbons, and his entire body radiates dark energy as he moves with explosive speed and strength that's only building with time. While Akari scores hits with every exchange, she's startled to find that her blade never digs deep enough into her uncle's skin to leave more than shallow cuts. At the same time, however, his hammering blows are leaving more and more cracks in her barrier.

Normally, Akari considers herself quite skilled at close-quarters combat, but her uncle refuses to give her any ground. She finds that, even with his bare fists, he has the advantage up close, with her needing to keep him at sword length. This turns out to be a constant losing battle due to his speed, which means it's time to stop playing fair.

Akari's uncle blazes toward her, each step cracking the asphalt under his feet as he moves with the steady strength of a rushing river. Eyes burning with dark power, he spins a kick that would take Akari in the neck. Watching the now thoroughly destroyed black shoe move toward her with startling speed, Akari decides that it's time to play one of her trump cards.

The Legacy of Vyrannis, which Akari now follows wholeheartedly as her astral path, leaves no quarter for its followers. While other paths give frequent, if weaker, abilities, the Legacy of Vyrannis does the exact opposite. In exchange for having far fewer abilities overall, Akari's path ensured that every ability she receives is a powerhouse and can be used in every fight. This is the primary reason that, for the longest time, she's only had her Dominion Art and Mediative Focus to play with in fights, forced to make up the difference with skill and equipment usage. However, upon the return of her powers, when the overlord grew distracted with its current conflict in the sky, a new notification appeared before Akari in her cell.

Counter is an ability that, on the surface, seems quite simple. However, in the right hands, it could prove a powerful trump card. Akari is keen to show her uncle just how much it can do with the right timing.

The moment Hikaru's foot crashes into Akari's assault state barrier, she vanishes in an explosion of black lightning that rips into his body and leaves him screaming as his soul is ravaged by the attack. Akari reappears behind Hikaru at the same moment, blade already crackling with power.

Akari slashes forward with full force, leaving a long, albeit shallow, cut across her uncle's back. With a curse, she hops back before Hikaru can retaliate. How are his defenses so strong? she thinks frantically as she watches him recover. That was the strongest attack she could muster — at least with this backup sword. She needs to find a way to-

Akari quickly realizes her mistake the moment her uncle turns, not on her but on the still unconscious Serena, slumped against a nearby wall. Her girlfriend lies unmoving, fractured black sigils of dark power slowly spreading further up her arms. She looks half dead already, and Akari honestly isn't sure if the damage done to her body's natural magic can ever be fixed. She and Liora aren't the medics that Serena and Celeste are, but even they know that if nothing is done, the best Serena can hope for is to become a magical cripple. And the worse…

"Uncle!" Akari snaps, trying to distract him from her vulnerable girlfriend. Luckily, Hikaru turns back toward her, his face twitching with pain and fury.

"What's wrong, Akari!" he shouts, lifting arms littered with shallow cuts. "Having trouble injuring me?"

Akari grits her teeth; she is having a lot of trouble with that. Whatever tattoos her uncle has, they seem to be almost all defensive in nature. Even still, no number of defensive skills can protect him against her lightning, which attacks on a level deeper than the physical.

Forcing herself to grin with confidence, Akari lifts her crackling blade high. "You don't look so good there, uncle. How is your soul feeling?"

Hikaru snarls, dashing at Akari with blurring speed. The swordswoman levels her blade at him, forcing him to either divert his path or impale himself. To her surprise, however, her uncle shows no hesitation in letting her blade slam into his chest, the force of it knocking her weapon from her hands.

Panicking, Akari uses Counter once more, appearing behind her uncle once again, only to find that his punch was a feint. Hikaru spins, hitting Akari's assault state shield with a powerful backhand that sends spiderwebbing cracks through the violet barrier. Cursing, Akari tries to create distance, but her uncle gives her no quarter and quickly forces her away from where her sword lies on the ground.

"Liora, options!" Akari thinks frantically, continuing to dodge her uncle's relentless attacks but unable to properly fight back without the reach advantage of her sword. Despite her recent growth, Hikaru is still taller and stronger. She needs her weapon to act as an equalizer.

[That's already our backup sword!] Liora exclaims in her mind. [We have other weapons, but none of them have the kind of power that we need.]

"What about Serena's bow?" Akari asks, ducking under another powerful kick. "We have that, and it has bladed limbs. Will it let us wield it?"

Liora pauses for a few seconds as she thinks, forcing Akari to once again use Counter in order to stop an attack that would have certainly broken her assault state shield. Hikaru is clearly already used to the ability, however, and is already swinging behind him when she reappears, although even he is being affected by the constant detonations of black lightning.

[It will let us wield it at full power for a short time,] Liora finally decides. [We'll be on a ticking clock, though, and it might not work at all!]

"Worth a shot anyway," Akari thinks, reaching out her hand and grabbing Serena's bow from a tear in space. The grip feels awkward in her hands compared to the hilt of a sword, and Akari is momentarily baffled at how Serena is able to fight with this weapon at all.

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Still, she ignites black lightning along the edges of the bow and takes an unfamiliar stance. She can feel her dark power conflicting with the natural weather magic within Serena's weapon, and it quickly starts to reject her. However, she only needs to use it for a moment.

Akari starts forward, flashing blades slicing into her uncle's skin and immediately proving superior to her backup sword. With each cut, Serena's bow adds an additional jolt of normal electricity and a trail of spreading ice across the wounds. While the extra lightning itself honestly isn't all that effective, the ice very much is. Hikaru's fighting style is to go heavy into offense while forcing his opponent onto the back foot. While his style is great for relentless attacking, it more often than not leaves him vulnerable to heavy counterattacks, which he relies on his tattoos to nullify. So far, those tattoos have been doing an excellent job at stopping everything except Akari's soul-tearing lightning, but the ice has its own benefits.

With every cut and second that passes, more ice builds up on Hikaru's body, slowing his movements and radiating cold. So far as Akari can tell, the ice isn't actually hurting him so much as annoying him, but the protective inscriptions of his tattoos must be starting to fail by now. Or at least, so Akari thinks.

The moment the spreading ice becomes too much for Hikaru, he pauses in his assault, seeming to focus for a moment. Then, Akari's uncle slams his fists together with enough force to send a resonant shockwave through his entire body — a shockwave that shatters the ice still gathering on his skin.

For a moment, Akari simply stares at her uncle in shock. How can he be this strong?! There has to be some kind of price for his seeming invincibility, right? Going into this fight, Akari thought that her uncle would be strong but manageable. Maybe a little stronger than the normal tattooed-up grunts the Reavers employ, but nothing like this. Nothing that could be a genuine threat to a real sentinel. No, this is too much; she can't justify risking both her and Serena's lives on a personal vendetta. It's time to call in backup.

"Liora! Get the team!" Akari shouts mentally, even as her uncle rushes her once more.

[On it!] her familiar cries, manifesting in a crackle of dark lightning and darting away to fetch the rest of Team Picnic.

Last Akari saw them, Baylee and the others were holding off a veritable tide of Volcora, trying to make their way into the city. The plan was for them to hold them off while Akari rushed ahead to get Serena to the healer team; encountering her uncle was never part of that plan, and struggling to put him down absolutely wasn't.

For now, she just needs to hold her uncle off until Liora can-

A powerful punch slams into Akari's knee, breaking through her assault state shield and making her cry out in pain. Eyes wide with fury, she shoves Serena's bow forward with all her strength, screaming in frustration as the razor-sharp edge once again utterly fails to pierce her uncle's invincible skin. Still, she will not let herself die like this; she will not let Serena die like this!

As Akari screams, a torrent of black lightning flows through Serena's bow, which was never made to conduct it. If Akari can't hurt her uncle's body, she will simply tear apart his soul piece by piece until the very concept of him ceases to exist.

Even as Serena's bow attempts to reject Akari's influence over it, she forces it into submission with an iron will. This is for Serena. If her girlfriend doesn't make it to the healers soon, she will die, and this bow will have to look for a new owner. Somehow… the mana within the bow seems to understand that and, for a brief moment, gives Akari absolute control.

Channeling more lightning than she ever has before, Akari throws everything she has at her uncle, who is pummeling her last resort shield with his fists. She can feel his soul breaking apart, feel the man he is being stripped away layer by layer until only the savage animal under it all remains. Even if he does kill her, Hikaru will never be the man he was before this fight. His soul is too feral to even be called human anymore.

With a final, primal scream, Akari forces more power into Serena's blade than it can possibly hold and gives it one final order. Kill.

Akari feels the moment her uncle's soul winks out of existence… the same moment that Serena's bow explodes.

For an instant, the entire city trembles as a cataclysmic detonation of wind, ice, and black lightning thunders out of Serena's fragmenting bow. The explosion annihilates Akari's last resort shield and disintegrates the majority of her arms before she uses the only ability that might save her. Activating Counter, Akari uses its effect to teleport to Serena's side, sheltering the smaller girl with her body as the explosion washes over them. For a moment, all Akari can feel is pain… pain and hope that the one in her arms might just survive this. Then, everything goes black.

Baylee and her team are sprinting after Liora, rushing to reach the battle between Akari and her uncle in time. As they run, however, the air temperature suddenly drops several degrees as a detonation of black lightning lances through the sky up ahead. Baylee can instantly tell that this isn't a good sign, but when Liora simply vanishes without a word, she fears the worst.

Pushing as hard as they possibly can, Team Picnic reaches the site of the explosion in mere minutes. Initially, they can only see a crater filled with slowly spreading frost. Despite the general warmth of the day, standing near the source of whatever this explosion was feels like a freezing winter night.

"There!" Hayley shouts, pointing to a building near the edge of the crater. Slumped near the side of the building are two unmoving figures, although from the colors of their outfits, Baylee can instantly tell that these two are Serena and Akari. Even from here, she can tell that Akari looks… bad… very, very bad.

The group runs along the edge of the crater, careful to avoid the spreading frost, although that seems to be starting to stall out. As soon as Baylee reaches her teammates, her heart nearly stops beating in her chest.

Akari clearly sheltered Serena from the explosion, and… well, she paid the price for that decision. Her body is covered in frost, but that's the least of her problems, with the majority of both arms just… gone. Akari is a frozen, bloody mess, bits of sharp shrapnel having lodged into her body and leaving gaping wounds.

"Check on Serena," Baylee orders, instantly summoning medical supplies from her inventory. "I'll do what I can for Akari."

Bending down over Akari, Baylee desperately wishes that Serena were awake. Even if she couldn't use her magic, Serena's knowledge would be a great boon in trying to save her teammate.

Moving fast, Baylee injects the mana-empowered medicine directly into Akari's neck before immediately producing another syringe. Multiple rapid injections like this would rapidly build up Akari's mana toxicity, but Baylee's medical expert is unconscious, and she has no way of knowing how much is too much. When the first two injections have no visible effect, however, she just keeps going, throwing hundreds of credits worth of healing supplies into Akari. Still, no wounds begin to close… and even Baylee knows why.

Dreading what she might find, Baylee puts a finger to a vein on Akari's neck. There is no heartbeat, and a mere glance at her friend's body tells her that there's no point in trying to resuscitate. Akari is dead.

Baylee blinks back tears at the sheer unreality of the situation. She… she knew that losing teammates was part of being a sentinel team leader. What they do is dangerous, and losing people is an inevitability. Even still… she never thought it would happen to her team… her friends.

"Serena?" Baylee asks, swallowing down her fear. To lose her bubbly blue sentinel as well… it would be too much.

"Alive, if barely," Haruto says, his tone grave. "She's on the edge… It… it might already be too late to save her."

Hating herself, Baylee stands, looking down at the violet sentinel that she hated upon first meeting. She and Akari never got along well, but Baylee learned over time that Akari always wanted the best for everyone. She was dangerous but also incredibly protective and kind. And now… now she's just gone.

Letting out a shuddering breath, Baylee gives the order. "Help…" Her voice breaks, tears streaming from her eyes. Blinking rapidly and clearing her throat, she continues. "H-Help me collect… Akari's soul gem. Then… w-we need to keep moving."

These words have every sentinel present whirling to stare at Baylee, but she can't meet their eyes. She lost one of her teammates today, and if they don't hurry, she will lose another. Even if Serena survives… well, after losing Akari, Serena will be broken inside. Baylee doubts that her friend will ever lift a bow again. But… if she at least survives, that will be a win. Baylee can't imagine having to go tell her kindhearted father that his daughter is dead on top of everything else.

Claire flicks her eyes between Serena and Akari. "Maybe… with her soul gem… Maybe Serena can…" Claire trails off, unable to speak through the wracking sob that escapes her.

Baylee, however, latches onto this idea, suddenly unable to accept that anything else might happen. "Yes," she says, her voice suddenly firm. She believes wholeheartedly; she… she has to believe. "Serena is a genius of a healer. She is the first one to ever heal Stygian Mana corruption in another person, she saved hundreds of lives in Shirakaze, and her astral path is tailor-built for healing impossible wounds. We collect Akari's soul gem, we save Serena, and… she'll figure out how to save Akari. I'm certain of it."

Despite Baylee's forced confidence, it's with somber expressions that her team gets into gear. Haruto bundles up Serena in a bubble shield, unwilling to let anything from the outside world touch their vulnerable healer again. And although she gave the order, Baylee collects Akari's violet-black soul gem herself.

As Baylee reaches into Akari's destroyed chest to withdraw her soul gem, she burns the memory of doing so into her mind. In the future, she will use this memory to push herself harder, to make it impossible that she ever has to do this for another team member. Because if anyone else on her team dies… she thinks that she might just die as well.