towerofanimus | > Animus: Assemble

Entry tags:

> Animus: Assemble

Characters: Members of Group A and YOU
Setting: Fourth Floor -- the white lounge.
Format: WHO EVEN KNOWS
Summary: Karkat attempts to pull everyone into one place for counter-resistance.
Warnings: MALFUNCTION MAY OCCUR, that means depending on who you tag and who tags in, your character may end up injured. Please check individual sub-threads for malfunction warnings! There's also obvious body horror warnings here due to modifications from the event.

[In a room full of white, its not hard to spot the various victims of Jason's latest experiments. Each sits or stands in their own corner on or off furniture talking amongst one another or simply staring at the door waiting for someone to approach them.

Some of them don't look all that approachable, even if it appears that they are completely sane at first glance. Some of them might even look like they don't want to be there.

You won't really know until you approach them.]

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You should sit back down. Don't strain yourself.

[ Sakura's tempted to move to help him, but Saber's hand keeps her still. ]

['That' hurts? Saber's brow furrows, but her hand stays in place. No moving, Master.]

What hurts?

[There's no response. He...broke. Probably because the presence of a being who, in all rights, shouldn't exist.

Though, despite the lack of a verbal response, there is a physical one. One where all the eyes on his body turn from grey to a bright blue. And a sudden killing intent. One that would put even the Grim Reaper to shame.]

[ It doesn't take Sakura long to add two plus two together. She had seen what the other people who had been modified had done to other people. It was impossible not to see. ]

Saber, run!

[That level of killing intent was actually painful for Saber to feel. She barely managed to not flinch, instead acting against her Master's orders. She was NOT going to have another instance of Shirou and Berserker right now.

Armor flashing into existence and Excalibur, hidden by Invisible Wind, in hand, Saber's fingers gripped the back of Sakura's shirt and she pulled the magus behind her as she stepped between her and Satsujinki.]

No, Master. You will leave. Now.

[Her duty was to protect Sakura and her Master lacked the command spells to force her away from this.]

[No movement was wasted as the knife came out of his pocket. Small and insignificant compared to the sword but with the abilities of his, precision mattered more than power.

He held up the blade in front of him, tip pointing towards the ground. No words were uttered as he had no sense of consciousness at the current moment of time.

But, despite the clear power disparity he could see between the two, the moment Sakura became further away, it was as if she left his eyesight altogether. He could only see one person now.]

No, Saber, I think he's after you!

[ Maybe, just maybe, if the two run together, he'll give up. If anything Sakura would prefer to not have this end in death. ]

[Saber watches Satsujinki closely. The knife doesn't seem anything to worry about, but the level of killing intent makes her wary. She focused and readied herself for anything.

Including an idiotic Master.]

Do not be Shirou, Sakura. I am your sword, your shield, and you will leave. Do not make me say such again.

[The distance between the two suddenly grows and shortens again as Satsujinki dashed out at an angle to gain some more room, only to close in on Saber at full speed. It was at speeds beyond what Sakura's eyes could follow and even troublesome to servants. It was the true limits of a human body, bred and born for the purpose of efficient demon killing.

If Satsujinki were conscious, he would be more surprised that he could see the lines. He would also be screaming in pain as his brain couldn't handle the stress. That would have to come later because now, his own knife was aimed at slashing its way through a line that traveled around the middle of Saber's sword arm, intent on causing a loss of the limb.]

[ Sakura was about to leave, but Satsujinki's sudden movement sends her hands over her head in a defensive position. She has a feeling that her chance to flee has already left, and if she steps from behind Saber, she might die as well.

And that would be the last thing her servant would want. ]

[The speed and suddenness from him was surprising. Yes, Saber had noted that Satsujinki had a very high level of agility for a human, but he was still a human. This was what she would expect from a low-level Servant. While not anything she was overly worried about, it was something that almost caught her off-guard.

Pivoting automatically, years of battle experience coming to the fore, Saber kept herself between Satsujinki and Sakura. She was displeased her Master was still there, but at least she was using Saber as the shield she'd been told to use her as.

Eyes narrowing as she noted the location Satsujinki was aiming for - was that just luck or did he know that was a hard location for her to defend? Most never thought to target that spot.

Twisting her upper body to flow with the momentum of his charge, Saber barely managed to get Excalibur up in a position to guard the length of her swordarm and deflect the knife away. She stepped forward and followed up with a slash aimed toward his leg. She didn't want to kill him, just disable him.]

[And that was fine. As he was now, he was more than willing to trade one body part for something else. His sense of self-preservation was completely non-existent in this state.

That's why, instead of stepping back or trying to guard, his left hand grasped the straight katana hidden at his waist underneath his cloak and drew it forth with the same blinding speed. It was just a normal weapon but it didn't hold him back, aiming to diagonally bisect the king from the hip on up.]

[ Unable to keep up with anything that's going on, Sakura loses her balance, stumbles, and falls over. Though she's still behind Saber, she scoots back a bit anxiously to put some distance between her and the situation.

She would try to use her magecraft again, but after that first failure, it probably isn't worth wasting time on. ]

[Nor would Sakura probably have the time to do anything with the speed the battle was moving.

Blood splattered the ground as Excalibur cut through the muscle of Satsujunki's leg, but Saber had to take one hand off her sword's hilt when that katana came out. The speed in which he could draw that weapon had caught her off-guard. The best she could do was catch his wrist and stop the strike, but not before the sword had somehow parted her armor and flesh underneath as if it didn't exist, from her perspective.

How did he do that? It was the perfect strike and had he been a Lancer class Servant, Saber wouldn't had been able to move fast enough to stop it. Locking his arm with the katana before it made it too far into her stomach, she grunted in pain and squeezed his wrist with intent to break it with her monstrous strength.

Steel in her gut, it was her own blood spilling onto the ground and she grit her teeth, voice betraying her pain when she spoke.]

Master... go...

[It wasn't like he had super strength. The bones in his wrist were crushed with ease and all of his weight was on his unharmed leg.

But unlike this servant, he still had one free hand that possessed a weapon. And it was right here, at this range, that he could unleash an attack that had run through the Nanaya family for generations.

With the knife arm back down in a neutral position, he could use it like a sheathe. It was the Iaido version of knife fighting, the 'sheathe' granting his arm speed that was blinding to the most powerful of Dead Apostle Ancestors. Seventeen separate strikes in the space of a bare moment, all at those 'lines of death'.]

[ Sakura gets up from a kneeling position and sprints to the doorway. But she's an average person, running at an average speed. She's probably not even going to reach the door by the time Satsujinki's done killing Saber. ]

[Saber had the moment of realization, just as she had when the Shadow appeared under her at the Ryuudou Temple, that she wasn't going to make it out of this. Something, for some reason she couldn't fathom, had her number, just as Mordred had.

But she wouldn't go down easily. It was an intense attack, but not all seventeen would hit. Dropping Excalibur - the blade fading back to wherever it was when not in use - Saber brought her hand in to block as many of the strikes as she could.

Her armor faded first before pieces of her body hit the ground, the blade of Satsujinki's knife buried through the palm of her hand though it did little to stop her from perishing.

As long as Sakura got away... Saber had done her duty and protected her master. And she was okay with that.]

[If he could complain right now, it would probably be how long it took for servants to die. He wasn't going to kill anything else while she held the knife and the grip wasn't going to let up until her arm vanished.

Sakura had a few seconds to get out if she wanted. Out of sight being the best bet for the moment.]

[ Sakura hits the door, and runs out into the hall. Guilt flips in her stomach, telling her that running away is the wrong thing to do, but what else can she do? She can't let her servant's death be completely in vein even though she already knew it was her fault to begin with. ]

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> Animus: Assemble

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