The swat slammed on nothing, smashing down another section of the floor into the rubble below. The creature shuddered forward as they fell forward unexpectedly, but their muscles pistoned visibly under thin skin to recover.
The feeling of flying that Hisako's power gave her, even in the snarling faces of the monster before her, was freeing. Even with Sasaki potentially down for the fight and Serizawa panicking above, she felt she could make a difference.
Without Sasaki weighing her down, she was free to fly. She rose swiftly, over the lowered shoulders and the limp bird head. When she was just above the wilting neck, she changed her "down" and prepared Toraichi.
The mother-head briefly looked up, and Hisako's blood chilled in her veins before Yasuda shot the distracted face in a wandering eye.
The head snapped back, and Hisako grimaced as the bolt splattered more eye viscera into the air. The father and mother heads ducked as the walker pulled their hand from the ground and went for a sweep.
Anxiety and concern made Hisako's heart tremble, but she focused; she had a role to play, and it would only waste the others' time and effort the longer she waited to attack.
She dove, Toraichi rising above her head. It was just like Fujioka-san's drills–a simple downward slash: twisting with her body, and snapping forward with her arms.
She felt the feathers clip, the flesh split, and the bone cleave. The blood followed a moment later, spraying viscerally everywhere. It blinded Hisako, and suddenly all she could smell or taste was iron.
She pulled herself upward with her power and rubbed her eyes clean, but it was too late.
A hand flailed upward as the creature bucked up in another scream that made her head ring. She had no time to dodge.
The back of the hand swatted her away with a power she wasn't prepared for.
The initial hit hurt, like getting slapped, but across her whole body–a crushing sting that definitely split skin and would bruise her entire side.
Between her inexperience with her ability and her disoriented state, she couldn't stop herself from getting thrown through the air. The cathedral was a whirl of ashen feathers and cold stone, then it was black.
She felt her body try to breathe, and she inhaled dust. Her lungs quivered. A cough. Pain wracked her whole body. She twitched a finger on her left hand, jerked her leg. Pain.
She tried opening an eye, then realized they were already open. She blinked. Blinked again. More blinking.
The blackness faded in spots. She could see rubble and smashed-up pews. Dark shadows criss-crossed before her. The floor was above her, she realized.
She'd fallen into the crypt.
She pulled her arms out from under her, taking the unbearable pain as the sign she'd survived the blow. She pushed herself up, out of the pile of debris she'd landed on, and that'd landed atop her, and she got to her feet.
She groaned weakly and leaned against the wall heavily. She'd busted up her ribs and gotten scratched to ribbons before, but she'd never felt the pain she was in then. Standing felt like she was stabbing the center of her legs with hot knives, and her torso and arms felt utterly run down.
She clenched her teeth and summoned her power. By changing her direction lightly, she could lessen the pressure.
Each step was still painful. She hissed lightly as she took more steps, limping toward a slanted, caved-in slab of the flooring above. She stumbled. She couldn't tell if it was blood making her leg cold, or if she was just too numb to feel things right, but her legs wanted to give up.
The floor shook again, and she nearly fell over with a scream when a hand smashed through the stone only a few feet away. Her breath trembled in her throat, but she saw it for the opportunity it was.
She threw herself sideways with her power, bounding to the hand in one sloppy half-jump, Toraichi appearing in a burst of light.
She threw her arms out, too desperate to follow Fujioka's advice from what felt like a lifetime ago. Toraichi bit true, wedging into the meat between the hand and the forearm, snagging on the little bones in the wrist.
The hand yanked back with an all-too familiar screech, and Hisako rose through the floor so fast her head spun.
She barely had the time to duck her head under her free arm. She was glad she did, because her left arm struck a stone brick so hard she thought for a moment it'd been snapped off.
"Mochizuki-san!"
Yasuda's voice blurred as Hisako went higher and higher, up to eye level with the mother-head. She almost laughed as the face looked at her in shocked horror.
She grabbed at the feathers of the wrist with her numb arm and pushed Toraichi free, throwing her sword through the wrist and toward the face.
Her whole arm screamed in pain, and her vision danced, but she managed a shallow slash that cut across an eye and a brow, damaging the functioning eye enough that Hisako was sure they'd blinded the mother-head entirely.
She pushed off the hand and fell upward, out of the way of the flailing. She had to grip Toraichi with both hands to lessen the tearing pain in her arms. If she didn't grit her teeth, her head buzzed, and her vision went fuzzy.
Below her, the walker slowed their flailing, both hands gingerly raised to examine the mother-head's broken eyes. The father-head was lifting against his floppy neck, trying to glare up at Hisako. The pained hunch expanded–the walker was straightening up to meet Hisako.
Hisako reached the bell tower, bumping against the broken-down bell and throwing an arm out to catch herself on the rough tower wall. Far below, she could hear that Yasuda and Rao were shouting, perhaps trying to get the walker's attention, to no avail.
The hands clawed against the narrow sides of the bell tower as the creature tried to squeeze their arms in. It was impossible without ripping the tower in two, but the attempt left Hisako only two choices: slip through the hands to get back down, or jump out of the open sides of the tower, and the gaps to slide through were just barely big enough for her.
Third option, she thought, gritting her teeth to stave off a pounding headache from all of it. Cut through it all.
She took a deep breath and steadied herself, readying Toraichi. They had to end the fight quickly, and she'd be either a part of that effort or a dead weight against it.
She shakily eyed the swaying gap between the clawing hands. She stared at the dried blood on one of the forearms. She–
She tipped forward. She hadn't meant to move–had she fallen or had her feet taken steps independent of her mind?
Either way, she fell. Her vision spun as she plummeted the last handful of meters to the hands. She pushed Toraichi down, plunging the blade downwards. She had no coordination left in her to slash.
The blade punched through fingers, then the meat of the hand, then the wrist. The creature's howls echoed down below, but Hisako was already too deafened to feel any pain from it. The hands collapsed back, pulling Hisako with them and lowering her back down into the battlefield.
The ground grew closer as the creature moved to retreat onto all fours. Hisako saw movement against a wall–the landing where Serizawa and Sasaki were. Her eyes swam to the heads–they weren't paying attention.
She let go of Toraichi, and the blade vanished with a hiss. She reached out for her power and threw herself towards the ledge. She didn't realize how fast she'd thrown herself until her body stopped violently against the stone wall above the ragged choir box.
She briefly passed out, her vision shuttering, before she landed painfully onto the mezzanine with a croak. She gasped raggedly but was too winded to inhale.
Serizawa entered her vision, then consumed it as he hurried closer. Her eyes saw the edge of Sasaki's form, still behind the organ, but she appeared to be sitting upright.
"S-Serizawa-san," Hisako gasped.
Serizawa's hands began to glow–the light enveloped everything and bathed her in the soft, warm light. She sighed as the pain lessened, but didn't disappear.
"I-I think you broke your legs, and your ribs and organs…" Serizawa gasped. "I'm too weak, and it's been too long–I can't heal you fully."
Hisako gasped as her lungs finally took in air, and Serizawa helped her sit up. As she rose, she saw something shifting behind him, past the edge of the ledge.
"Serizawa!" she exclaimed hoarsely.
Her hand snapped out, grabbing the collar of his dress shirt and dragging him down with her. A breath later, she was sliding them away with her power, sending them tumbling to the other side of the mezzanine. A blink later, a fist blew through where they'd been, clipping the organ and smashing what remained of the choir box to smithereens.
Serizawa rolled out from under her and looked around wildly. "Sasaki-san!"
There was a haunting moment as the dust settled, and then a light cut through the cloud and the creature's wrist–a sharp star preceding a splash of blood.
The hand tried to retreat but couldn't. Sasaki pushed herself up from the side of the organ, rings lit. She could barely stand, but the light of her attack stayed strong. She flung her arm out, and the star exploded and split in a dazzling gleam.
The star pinning the arm remained, but the splinter grew and became a spur-like wheel. The spur shot off down the arm, toward the elbow. At the elbow, it sprang off on a branch at the father-head, whose eyes widened at the nearing attack.
The other hand drew back to shield the walker, but not before the spur exploded out into a flat shuriken-like star at the neck. The light blades snagged through the meat, nearly tearing it free. The mother-head wailed, flailing blindly, and the arm snapped away, breaking the line and destroying the star, but the damage had been done.
The father-head hung on by a thread for a moment, then a massive bolt shot above the wound and tore the head free. Hisako only saw it because she hadn't blinked. When she did, the bolt was over their heads, and hot blood dripped down the wall behind her.
The only head that remained was the mother-head, and it was blinded and already wounded.
Hisako looked up at the decapitated head and Yasuda's bolt and laughed. She was as surprised by her laughter as she was by the attack, but couldn't stop until she began to cough.
Serizawa looked at her with manic eyes, then hurried to his feet, flinging Stinger out at the mother-head's neck. He ran to the edge, fighting the bucking mother-head.
"Rao-san!" he shouted over the edge. "Get ready!" He turned back to Hisako. "Summon your sword!"
She could hear the loud snap of bolts piercing the wall, offering Rao a way up. She had to act quickly to help with whatever plan Serizawa had.
Hisako struggled to lift a hand, but she did, and Toraichi appeared, then fell to the ground before her. Her heart lurched when Serizawa grabbed the hilt, but the sudden twisting in her chest she felt as he dragged it toward the edge silenced her.
Her head swam, and the booming headache turned to nausea as she watched Serizawa pull Rao up the wall and onto the mezzanine. Rao rose, and Serizawa handed off Toraichi, making HIsako inhale sharply through her teeth as her chest twinged painfully again.
"Hold the sword, and be ready," Serizawa ordered.
Rao nodded, though Hisako could see on his tight face that he was obeying blindly rather than out of understanding and supporting the plan.
When the mother-head rose to listen for them, Serizawa leaped off the mezzanine, and Hisako understood.
She sat forward, hands clenched unconsciously as anticipation gnawed at her.
Serizawa went down, pulling Stinger and the head with him. The head went down, down, down toward Toraichi hanging out over the edge. Rao hurried to angle the blade right–lift it a bit, even, but Hisako knew it wouldn't be so easy.
Light flashed out–Sasaki created beams of light to reinforce Rao as he created a reverse guillotine with Hisako's blade. Hisako reached out too, sending her power out to pull Toraichi up to lessen the weight on Rao and keep the blade level.
It happened in a moment.
The jaw went down right past the blade, and the neck just past the head split like hot butter against Toraichi. There was a shrill scream of metal-on-metal as Stinger sang past Toraichi.
Hisako slumped down. She felt Toraichi fade, and for a moment she was afraid they'd failed–that she'd failed them–, but then a fiery warmth burst before her, and a hand flew to her jaw.
"Mochizuki-san!"
Fujioka.
Her vision was fading. She didn't know when she'd closed her eyes. Internally, she sighed; not another trip to Dr. Moon.
Distantly, she heard a ringing clack. Familiar, but she couldn't place it.
The cold, deathly air of the door left her as a gust of warm, fresh air burst beside her. She opened her eyes briefly, fueled by pure curiosity, and she saw a torii gate with a beautiful courtyard garden through it.
Her eyes drifted shut slowly, enchanted with the soft waving of potted lilacs on a pebbled pattern. She could see bonsais that looked older than time, and carefully trimmed rosebushes.
She made eye contact with someone in scrubs sitting on the edge of the garden. They rose suddenly and shouted, beckoning for others–more and more people in scrubs.
Oh, she thought as her eyes finally weighed themselves closed. That's not Dr. Moon.