The fight had started out on horrible terms, and somehow it had only gotten worse up to this point. Kanashima just barely managed to survive the violent crash landing, and that was before the anger fueled powerup. Her running speed was hindered by her fractured and broken ribs, and she was delayed even more now that she had to retrieve her knife. A quick analysis of her internals showed low levels of charge in her internal battery, already approaching the automatic shut off the virus built in. If it was up to her, she wouldn't ever blow past the limiters ever again, but unfortunately, it didn't seem like she had much of a choice in the matter.
Luckily, the coffeehouse duo managed to regain some of their footing, and even began pushing the transformed captain back together. Both of them had landed hits that caused some actual pain and injury, but nothing had seriously threatened the man yet. At least they were able to find a start and recover from the abysmal position they were in, the scales were finally tipping the other way. It seemed Cipher gained some incredible momentum when she joined the frey too, just a little more and there was an actual chance for them to make it out of here alive.
Things are going well. Too well.
Her entire life, and especially as of recent, she's been incredibly unlucky. Things that went well simply never happened to her, there was always some unfortunate mishap to delay or hinder her. Lurking around in her invisibility, she had to drop whatever was plaguing her mind and pay close attention to find her next opening. The other Wild Eyes member was holding up fine, despite dropping his sword in favor of the stability provided by two hands on his rifle. Kanashima needed him to dodge the strike aimed at his liver, and generate another opening for her to come in. This sort of bait and switch tactic she managed to conjure up out of thin air was working very well so far. As long as she could keep on providing her Embrace of the Void with energy, Cipher could continue giving the Nihility captain the works whilst she continued her hit and run tactics.
Ah. I'm running low. It's okay, the next one can be the last… probably.
A spark of purple light rolled off the discarded sword on the ground right before her partner's white boot contacted the handle. Her eyes had long since learned to avert her gaze towards each instance of her bug, usually before her brain fully acknowledged Miss Fortune. It was worse that he was in the middle of a dodge attempt, and she simply didn't have the time to warn him. Watching in horror, her purple eyes followed the motions that ensued.
"Oh what the fuck—"
The effeminate man fell backwards as his feet flew right out from under him. The fist continued blazing forward, coating it with a bright orange. Instead of passing harmlessly through the airspace where his body used to be, it collided with his upper torso and flung him far away hard. The interaction was all too reminiscent of what happened to her, and left her in her sorry state, but this time he truly wasn't holding back. Just because the Nihility wanted her alive didn't mean the boxer was content with leaving Cipher battered, bruised, but still breathing.
The man was about to take off in his direction, intent on landing another huge hit to follow his haymaker up with. Kanashima had to do something, or the entire fight would get flipped on its side once again. This may have been the only chance she would get to salvage the encounter, so she stepped up and allowed the energy fueling her cloak to recede back to her batteries. Flooding the Loving Lullaby with the majority of the energy she had left, her arm faded back into visually perceivable existence. A streak of bright violet trailed from the tip of the sharp saxe knife as she made the swing.
Somehow, her early appearance caught the larger man off guard, forcing him to catch the blade with his upper arm still in the motions of a sprint. Dragging the vibrating piece of cold, purple steel upward, a deep gash tore through the fabrics of his clothing, shredding the muscle tissue under it. Finishing her strike, she brought the knife back down and took a half step backwards. Her entire fight just got incredibly harder now that she couldn't afford to take a few seconds to reactivate Embrace of the Void and fall back. One wrong step would spell disaster for her, and the ultimate ending for her companion.
He's gotta still be alive, right? It's not doomed, right?
Even her fragile, malnourished body was able to withstand the heavy hit to the ribcage just like the blue haired man just took himself. Granted, he was in this much more powerful and enraged state, no doubt amping up his strikes by an incredible factor. Maybe the stronger body of Cipher's was enough of an increase on the other side of the metaphorical scales to balance it out once more. Whether he was able to or not, Kanashima didn't have much of a choice but to hope he was able to. She had the resolve to keep on fighting, it was the most logical thing to do and quite possibly her only out, but the entire situation felt doomed if her stronger companion was taken out of the equation.
Even through her state of synthetic clarity, she wouldn't have enough time to come up with a different plan. She simply had to just keep on fighting and hope her companion was okay. Once he came to, the more experienced fighter of the two had to have some sort of plan or idea to take down the enraged man.
Going in for another strike, at the very last moment she dropped the entirety of her body weight off to the side. It was a completely unorthodox move, one no sane or highly experienced martial artist would consider. Luckily, Kanashima was neither. In the anger induced transformation, the man was not equipped to react to something that wasn't hardened and trained over his years as a boxer.
His violent fist passed harmlessly through her previously occupied space just a few beats later. His arm was now at exactly the right position for Kanashima's feint attack. Bringing down the Loving Lullaby once more, she let it chew through his left forearm. She ran the play once through her head before going for the slightly more complex maneuver, and she felt it to be possible. Pulling it off with no martial arts experience was not something she expected to go flawlessly, and yet she was able to sneak in her blade.
Wow. I made that happen. That was… cool?
The last thing she had to do was plant her right foot under her, and use her leg strength to push off and put more distance between the two. It was a complete death sentence for her to get locked into that close quarters position with a boxer twice her size. Just as her foot was about to touch down, a luminescent iota of purple energy flaked off of her new boot. She didn't have enough time to redirect her gaze to figure out what Miss Fortune was going to make happen.
The ground fell out from under her once she went to push off the ground. Kicking up from the force was the same stolen military saber that Cipher was using. The same one that just did the same exact thing to him and forced him to take the hit to the chest. Now, she was going to meet the same fate as him, except this would no doubt spell the end of her short tenure of resistance. Normally, a person would feel panic, but she was slowly getting used to having her odd state of clarity replace such extraneous emotions and feelings.
Wow. What bad luck huh?
His bare knuckles reared back, going for another haymaker aimed right at her bleeding chest. Orange wisps curled around the fist once more, just like the beginning of every other instance of his Intrinsic. The armor was decent enough against the blunt force, but she was still one fragile, thin girl. She braced herself for a hit that never came. Instead of the booming sound that was his explosion, a much louder crack rang through the store.
One moment, the captain was on a full collision course with her. The next, he was prone several meters over to the right, a large hole torn through his chest. Bone fragments eviscerated the insides of his body. If he didn't die from the gaping hole taking out chunks of organs, the additional fragmental injuries would've finished him off. Blood splattered everywhere from the impact on the ground, even some of it splashing on Kanashima's seated position.
Cipher. I knew it.
Her body was completely spent, and her internal batteries were on their last legs. According to her summoned panel, she had less than three percent of charge left, much below the threshold on her shutoff. Her body was already teetering on the edge of collapse, the levels of exhaustion matching up to the level she pushed herself in the alley to. Laying fully on the ground, she let her eyes close. Just a few seconds more, and she would get that sweet respite of sleep.
"Wait, Kanashima! Wake up! Oh God, fucking keep your eyes open."
An incessant amount of slapping to the cheek of her face was keeping her from fully fading into slumber, and it was incredibly annoying. She tried to brush off whatever was doing it, but to no avail. Through sheer willpower, she managed to crack open her eyes once more, groaning in pain.
"Alright, up up up."
Taking a hold of her right hand with both of his, Cipher pulled her up onto her feet. As she wavered, trying to find her balance through the lethargy, he supported her from the side. After a couple moments, she was able to stand fully on her own again, albeit struggling. She managed without the extra electrical influence of the virus two weeks ago, before getting infected, but now it felt like her body couldn't live without the extra jolt.
"It's not surprising you have to push yourself that far. You have such a little battery."
Wait, what? This isn't normal?
Kanashima could already feel the raging headache creeping in, not helping her think in the slightest. Silently cursing the Inverted Pressure property for the amount of pain it lets through, she leaned on Cipher for a moment for support. As she clutched her own head to steady it, his longer arm wrapped around the back of her torso, keeping her upright. What her knowledgeable companion just clued her in on made sense when she thought about it, especially when it came to the powerful Nihilty leader and his explosions. He fired off ability after ability and showed no signs of slowing down, even in the transformation that was expelling major amounts of electrons. She wasn't sure how much Cipher used, but even after taking the hit that no doubt cracked at least a few ribs, he was doing much better than herself.
"How little?"
"You're like, a third of my own. Four units, I think? And I'm about average. In fact, I didn't know it went that low."
"Unlucky."
"You're telling me. How you fight though was impressive, that cloaking ability? You make good use of it."
The conversation was almost too much for Kanashima to continue, her vision beginning to go. Losing her balance, she fell forward. Her partner was right there to catch her again, leading her to a nearby shelf for her to lean against. Being in this drained state felt awful, but she was thankful the fighting was all over. Any more and she probably would've passed out completely from energy depletion, just like she did in the alley.
"We'll get going in a second. Hang in there."
Using her right hand to cradle her forehead, she tried her best to steady her shallow breathing. The pain was only stacking higher and higher, so she tried her best to ignore it. If pain was supposed to be a mental construct, then hopefully she could persist for now. Once her partner was sure she wasn't going to fall over, he went back to one of the groups of corpses, picking up the discarded saber on the way. Watching him collect the now ownerless armaments, a small smile curled up from her bruised lips.
The guns. There's a second one now. It kind of looks like a skirt.
"Hey, Kanashima! Any of these catch your eye?"