queenoflogs | A dish, best served cold. [CLOSED]

Entry tags:

A dish, best served cold. [CLOSED]

Characters: Amamiya Sakurako (

ported), and Akiha Tohno (

ritsu_kouyou)
Date: Midnight, 2/7
Summary: Amamiya storms the Tohno Manor looking for some payback
Warnings: Yeesh, this one's probably going to get ugly.

Amamiya stood atop one of the trees surrounding the Manor, hand held out in front of her. From her hand sprang a network of cables connected to tiny spy cameras, circling the enormous manor and trying to decide on the best way in. There are so many windows she could use for access, but where would be best...

Withdrawing her Peeping Lovers program back to her hand, she decided on a course of action. She would go in through the front doors. But not without first creating a distraction.

Amamiya dropped to the ground, as though the drop were nothing noteworthy. She found a rock on the ground nearby and hefted it - it was nearly the side of her head and every bit as heavy as that sounded. Giving it a telekinetic boost, she threw it high and fast, so that it shattered a window on the top floor with a clatter that split the night. She gave it a few seconds after that, and then crossed the space between her and the house in a sudden motion, nearly faster than the eye could see, throwing the heavy door open.

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The moment Amamiya was moving, so was Akiha. She never lost sight of her assailant as she moved with clear purpose, changing her position so Amamiya was always before her and she kept that chain in sight. She measured the trajectory and, at what seemed to be the last moment, dove out of the way.

And yet, Akiha never looked away. Mid-dive, her hair blazed a brilliant vermilion color and something completely unseen, feeling much like burning ropes, wrapped about Amamiya's upper body to jerk her straight at the wall counter to her current momentum. All accompanied by a wave of Akiha's arm as she rolled up onto her feet.

"I have asked you politely to leave my house. You are making the same mistake that girl did by attacking me first. If you mean to kill me, I will not be merciful. Leave."

Kris had extended her hand right then, just in case Akiha was in real danger. The only thing that stopped her from halting time right then was the fact that Akiha was handling herself just fine. Instead, she used that time period to cast another spell. One that turned her into a shadow.

It was silly enough, hiding in plain sight, but she was able to move along the wall slowly without seeming too out of place, a dark, flat shape moving in the darkness. No, that was nearly impossible for the naked eye to see as she worked her way forward toward the fight.

Amamiya gritted her teeth as she slammed into the wall. Just as Fionna had said, Akiha had powers of her own. This wouldn't be easy...but then, she hadn't expected any differently.

"Kill you?" she said as she regained her feet. "Oh no, I have far better plans than that."

And then she was off again, crossing the distance between them in an unpredictable zig-zag pattern to throw Akiha off. Again, the weighted tip of the chain was swung towards her, but this time when Akiha moved to dodge it, Amamiya grabbed it telekinetically, and changed its course abruptly.

Blue eyes followed Amamiya's path as she darted along the floor. She was making it hard to predict, but Akiha didn't really need to be able to predict her movements at all...

She moved to avoid the chain, but wasn't expecting it to suddenly change course like it did. So this one contained some powers reminiscent of the Demon Hunter Organization. The weighted end hit Akiha in the upper arm and she grunted with pain, but the bone didn't break. By all means, it should have, but Akiha was half-demon and she was capable of falling from a four story building without suffering more than simple bruises.

She needed to take away the ranged advantage of that weapon as she refused to just kill Amamiya outright, though the urge was very temping given how much this one made her think of the demon hunters she had been taught about. Her left arm wrapped quickly about the chain, seizing it with her hand, and she set herself to tether the weapon and its wielder.

Then she focused on the woman's other hand - the one holding the sickle - and started plundering heat from the limb. With an instantaneous surge of coldness for a second, the flesh ignited on fire.

"You are in over your head and my patience runs thin. Drop your weapon and leave; I will see it returned to you after your head has cooled," Akiha said, her voice laden with ice. "This is the last time I will give you the opportunity to leave intact."

Finally, Kris was close enough to react when she wanted without accidentally blowing apart Akiha with her own spells. Waiting and watching or going all out with spell casting were two roles she was acutely used to and right now, it was obvious with what she was going to do this time.

Now all that she needed to do was wait for the correct moment when her guard was lowered completely.

With pleasure.

Amamiya cried out when her arm burst into flames, but she ground her teeth together to focus through the pain. She released the sickle, true...but that didn't mean she was surrendering. It just meant she had Akiha right where she wanted her.

A telekinetic nudge later, the chain tightened around Akiha's arm to hold her in place for the moment, and her right arm reached forward, hand open as she invoked her psychic specialty. The glow from the flames masked the glow of Trance until, when Amamiya's hand was right in front of Akiha, a trio of Wired Mind Jacks, a cable with a plug at the end, shot forward, aiming for different parts of Akiha's body. Any one of them would be enough to establish a mental connection.

Akiha pulled on the chain when the sickle was released, intending to jerk the weapon away from Amamiya, but her arm seized up with the telekinetic hold halfway through the motion. Her immediate reaction was to spread her plunder, to make the woman's whole arm ignite, and immobilize her in place, suspended in the mid-air.

She then made the mistake of thinking the wires were a physical attack. She pivoted on her foot and swept her free arm at them, knocking two of the three away. She thought the third was going to pass harmlessly over her shoulder, but she misjudged the initial trajectory of that wire, and it grazed her shoulder just enough to give Amamiya what she wanted.

Whatever it was, Kris was sure Akiha could handle it. Instead, Kris rose up out of the ground behind Amamiya, her body losing the dark blackness of the shadow and reverting to normal as it came out of the ground.

Akiha could probably see her fairly well at this point, her now emotionless eyes staring down the back of Amamiya and one of her daggers raised over her head. One step at a time, just like on the streets.

"Connection Established," Amamiya whispered as the jack sunk into Akiha's shoulder, and then dove into Akiha's mind, descending rapidly into the inky blackness.

It was...similar to when she had dove into Tatsuo's mind. There was nothing coherent, just an enormous blank field. But where the Taboo core had been simply blank, this interference was painted in a disgusting color: it was tinted throughout with a killing urge. It made her shudder to simply come into contact with it, but she forced herself in deeper and deeper, enveloping herself in it. If past was prologue, if she went down deep enough...

And sure enough, she hit them at the very bottom; Akiha's memories. They were fragmented and isolated, but there nonetheless, buried beneath an ocean of...whatever that was up there. She didn't want to think about it.

She rifled through Akiha's memories, but she wasn't here to learn about the story of her life. She found a particularly nasty on, and sent it up to the surface, initiating a vivid recall.

Let's see how you enjoy this, she thought as it drifted up and away.

Akiha certainly noticed Kris appearing behind Amamiya and that there was something very different about the magician in that moment than normal. If she gave it any thought, it would just reinforce a suspicion she had about Kris. But her attention was focused on her assailant. She was ready to throw the woman through the wall or let the flames grow when she felt something cold and alien shoot through her psyche.

Her blood raged, building pressure as her will fought to block out whatever the hell Amamiya had just done to her. It had to be the hunter bitch and that wire thing that hit her shoulder. Nothing else made sense. Hissing, Akiha reached for the wire, intent on ripping it free when it hit her like she'd just run face-first into a block of ice.

The summer sun beat down upon the three of them as they played outside, cicadas singing in the sweltering heat. Akiha chased after the older boys, following along as always, wanting to play. Her eyes looked upon innocent days, innocent times, with her brother by blood and her brother by adoption. These days would be the best days of her childhood... but not this day. Not this moment.

SHIKI had stopped suddenly. Something wasn't right. Something was wrong, but Akiha didn't know what.

"Onii-chan?"

She called out to him, approaching her brother, worried about what was wrong. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as he turned and she saw the look in his eyes. That... that wasn't her brother was it? That wasn't... that was... a... a monster.

The rest happened so fast, she could barely follow it. SHIKI lunged her her, hand seeming more like a claw or a blade than anything else, and there was a dark blur interposing itself between her and SHIKI. A cry of pain combined with a cry of... something else hit her ears. And then warm wetness splashed on her face. On her clothes.

Eyes wide, unable to breathe, she looked down to see Shiki, her beloved Nii-san, on the ground at her feet, slumped forward with a hole in his chest. Blood... so much blood.

She screamed. She screamed loudly, drawing her father and the other adults to their place of play. She continued to scream over and over, calling to Shiki, as she fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around his body. He was dead... No one could survive that. He was dead. She loved him. She loved him more than anything. He couldn't die. She couldn't let him. So she held him tight, held him close and pleaded for him to live. To live. TO LIVE.

In the few seconds all that replayed in her mind, the time it took to rip the wound fresh in her mind, in her soul, Akiha fell to her knees. Her hair immediately darkened to black and the force holding Amamiya suspended in the air disappeared, the flames went out (except for where clothing had caught on fire), and the most unlikely thing came out of her.

Akiha Tohno let out a choked sob and tears spilled down her face.

"Nii-san..."

Kris didn't speak but she most assuredly saw what happened to Akiha in the space of a moment. Her mind wasn't focused there but on the opponent in front of her.

A slight grunt gave her away before she brought the dagger down towards Amamiya's back. She wasn't physically strong or fast but she did have stealth and some extra bits on the side to keep her even with others.

Amamiya felt a surge of triumph and reached for the next memory, but before she could surface it as well, a dagger sunk deep into her back, and with a cry of pain she was ripped out of Akiha's mind. She staggered and fell over, down to her knees, blood gushing out of her wound, pain searing like her whole back was on fire. She was barely able to maintain the presence of mind to put out her burning sleeve.

Stupid, weak little girl, a voice in the back of her mind whispered. Should have kept an eye out back there! Now things are looking bad, aren't they~

The moment there was a weakening in the link Amamiya had established, Akiha's will surged and burned away any remaining connections into her mind. Her eyes snapped open as she shook her head, stifling the sob that was caught in the throat.

"How dare you?"

She blinked away the tears, feeling... violated. Violated. Those were her innermost memories, the most painful thing she kept deep inside, that she purposefully didn't think about. And it had felt like she was seven years old again, back in that moment, giving half her life to Shiki so he would live.

"How dare you?!"

Akiha lunged forward with as much speed as her demon form could grant her, hair once again brilliant crimson in color and seeming to move of its own accord... like it was alive, as she closed in on the kneeling wounded woman. There was a pure killing intent in everything about Akiha right then as she wrapped Amamiya up completely in her power, plundering life from her. Her torso lit on fire as had her arm and the demon bearing down upon her grabbed for her shirt to haul her up off the floor with her bare hands.

"I should make you feel the agony you just inflicted upon me. You wanted revenge for Fiona, correct? Do you think a hero like her would approve of you violating the mind of another? I should kill you right now. No one gets away with doing that to me."

Edited 2012-02-21 06:09 (UTC)

Her blade was dripping with blood. The thought came to mind that she should have poisoned the weapon beforehand but it was too late now.

Even more confusing was Akiha's reaction. Why not just kill her? Talking always took up too much time and would let someone escape. Kris ended up making a noise in protest but stopped. Better to let sleeping dogs lie at the moment. Instead, she raised her hands, preparing a spell for when Akiha let go.

Amamiya's whole body felt like it was on fire. Correction: it was on fire. Her eyes closed from the pain, and Akiha's voice sounded in her ears but it seemed like a million miles away. She felt herself being hoisted into the air...

Let your big sister take care of everything, the voice in her head said, and she gave into it.

Her skin tone instantly darkened, and the expression on her face changed from one of pain to one of glee. She actually giggled, despite everything, and then used her Burst powers to block the flow of heat away from her body, turning off the tap fueling those fires.

"Don't care~" Abyss - for it was Sakurako no longer, her alternate personality was in the driver's seat - sing-songed. And then a pair of blades grew from her back, whipping around like scorpions' tails to slash at Akiha.

Akiha's gaze darkened as she saw the change in Amamiya, wondering if she has her own inversion impulse to deal with. She grunted as she felt the heat flow cut off, grit her teeth and focused more, pulled even harder to get that heat, get that life force. She would make this bitch feel her life fade from her moment by moment.

Her hand came up to partially guard her face when those blades lashed out at her. Akiha jumped backwards out of range, but not before they sliced a line through her sleeve, staining her white blouse red.

"Then you are no better than I was." Her eyes widened, her hand reached outward with her fingers curled inward as she took from Amamiya.

Kris needed time. And time was what she get as she drove time to halt with her magic. She had a good thirty seconds but there were rules to follow when time was halted. First, she couldn't directly effect anything that wasn't hers. So no grabbing or redirecting the blades or even directly harming someone.

But indirectly was another method. She dropped a fireball right in front of Amamiya. It was just a floating, red blob right now but it would violently explode in a 30 meter radius once time started back up. Kris couldn't be harmed by magic and she knew that Akiha would be immune to the heat so she wasn't worried about that.

Six seconds up.

Secondly, she opened up a dimensional door behind Akiha and set the exit behind Amamiya. Akiha's momentum would carry her through it, hopefully.

Twelve seconds up.

Third, she set up a Prismatic Wall right in front of where Akiha was currently standing so the blades would be blocked by that as opposed to following her through the door.

Eighteen seconds.

Kris spent the remaining time loading her daggers with spells, Chain Lightning in one and Meteor Swarm in the second one.

The moment time caught back up, the fireball exploded, turning the room into a burning hellhole.

Abyss could feel something happening, Akiha trying to suck away something from her. Unfortunately, Abyss' mind was like that of a child, untested in the real world, uncertain of her own limitations. Her only response was to press on with a second strike.

And then suddenly there was a fireball in her face.

She instinctively threw up a Burst shield in time to avoid having her face scorched off, but the explosion still tossed her away and obscured her vision.

"That was the same bitch who stabbed us, right?" she called out as she rebounded off of the walls with the same speed Amamiya had earlier demonstrated. Her eyes scanned the darkened room for signs of Kris. "I think I'll take care of you first!"

"Then you are no better than I was." Her eyes widened, her hand reached outward with her fingers curled inward as she took from Amamiya.

Only suddenly her perspective was different than before, now behind Amamiya than before her and there was fire washing over her, instantly being taken in by her ability and letting her keep an eye on her target. It only took as long as it did to notice Kris was by her side to piece together what had happened. She didn't know how her magician had managed to do it all so quickly as she wasn't aware of the time manipulation magic Kris possessed, but the other two spells were known to her.

Kris and her were going to have to talk after this was over. Akiha knew quite a bit of Kris' 'mannerisms' were a front now. But she had something more pressing to deal with now.

Wrapping the woman up with her power to keep her in place - she wasn't about to let that extremely fast thing at her magician - Akiha's power flared and she demanded from her target. Heat, whatever she could take, she would - giving Amamiya and this other side of her pain.

"You will not touch her. I told you I would not be merciful."

Kris knew better than to open her mouth. She knew better than to even move since eyesight was attracted to sudden movements. Then again, the way Akiha was talking, there wouldn't be an issue. Hopefully, it gave her a moment to catch her breath since doing all that was a bit of a drain on energy. Kris could move or cast a spell again if she needed to but she'd prefer not to be pushed that far.

Abyss shrieked with pain and...basically started flipping out. Still resisting the draining of her heat, she began sending out blade after blade, pressing her psi to the limit. They manifested all over her body and flew outwards, striking at everything around her blindly in a deadly tantrum. She wasn't going to stay down unless forced to.

When Amamiya started struggling, lashing out at everything around her, Akiha was glad she had her held in place and far enough away that the attacks fell harmlessly short of her and Kris. She did step a bit in front of her magician, putting herself between Kris and their enemy in case one of those blade suddenly became a projectile.

But the resistance to her absorption just made her begin pressing her own power to its limits, as angry as she was. She didn't want to kill the woman, but she was almost too gone in her need to hurt Amamiya for messing with her memories and making her relive that one moment. It wasn't until the absorption moved past heat into Amamiya herself, Akiha getting a feeling in the back of her mind that she only ever encountered while killing SHIKI, that she realized she was starting to take the woman into herself, all of her. If she continued, there would be nothing of Amamiya left.

Akiha stopped cold, her hair instantly returning to black as she forced her anger down, force her demon blood to still. The restraint on Amamiya vanished, as did the sucking in of her existence. If anything, the rebound of Amamiya's 'self' combined with the physical wounds and blood loss, should be overwhelming enough to end this. Otherwise...

She leaned down and picked the sickle and chain up off the floor where it had been dropped and started slowly approaching Amamiya with the sharp blade of the sickle at the ready.

Abyss was pretty drained, no pun intended. She could feel her time running out, between the blood loss and...whatever the hell that other thing was. The spectre of unconsciousness was flickering at the edge of her vision. But she still got up to her feet, looking ready to fight.

But then...

"No!" she grabbed the sides of her head, staggering back, as it fighting with herself. "You can't make me go back! It's not fair, I can still take her!"

You're an idiot, Sakurako said disparagingly in her head as she threw up the Trance blockers and walls to restrict Abyss' control of her body, taking it back. She'll kill us. I'm getting us out of here.

The darker tint faded from her skin, until Amamiya was back in the driver's seat again, wincing at the pain. She immediately darted for the door, putting all her remaining psi - a fountain of blood burst from her nose as she reached her limit - into a burst of Rise to propel herself through it at top speed.

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A dish, best served cold. [CLOSED]

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