>>6086809
“The four of you will come with me,” you declare. “We’ll be the first. Alexa, Nessa, Jenna, be ready to mount a rescue if any of us fall on our way. Valentina, Aurora, in that eventuality I want the two of you to cover for the three of them.”

“Laura,” you conclude, turning to the eldest non-awakened warrior present.

“Yeah?”

“I’ll leave you in charge of everyone else here,” you decide. “Salem, you’re her lieutenant this time.”

“That so?” the awakened being muses with a slight frown.

“I’ve got the experience as a leader,” Laura sighs wearily. “That’s what you’re thinking, yeah?”

You nod. “Any disagreements, now’s your time.”

“Then let’s move quickly,” you declare after hearing no disagreements, staring down the open ground which is now your enemy. “I don’t want any of us out there any longer than necessary.”

For the first few moments, it feels as if your enemy doesn’t realize that you’re actually trying to do something – perhaps being too concerned with the asarakam which by now they must know is on its way. But that doesn’t last forever. They quickly assign some of their remaining soldiers to hold to what this time yesterday was their front line even while most of their men shift to fire on the asarakam as it approaches from the water.
>2/3

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>>6086810
By and large there’s not much coordination, since there doesn’t have to be. Your mother rushes forward with complete disregard for her own safety, which for her part is totally justified – even if your enemy managed to hit her directly with a cannon shell her regenerative abilities are so ridiculous that you doubt she’d even notice. Helen’s approach is more preventative, having partially-awakened her legs to make continuous use of her Echo Sword technique through her footwork and forcing anyone trying to fire at her to simply make an uneducated guess as to where she’s going to be from moment to moment.

Justina and Serana however, the two quietest among your number, do seem to be working together. Serana is the faster of the duo, but her main technique here basically amounts to raising a ‘smoke-screen’ of dust every so often. Justina is fairly slow by your shared standards, but she has good instincts and particularly when half-awakened her regeneration is practically instantaneous. She can still be killed however if not enough of her head and spine are left, so she sticks to the clouds of dust Serana raises with her Earthbreaker technique, the duo splitting the fire between them as they work their way forward across the open ground.

Which leaves your own approach.

>You rely purely on the speed and mobility of your partially-awakened limbs – you do after all come the closest of your number to full awakening.
>Of all your number your predictive abilities are the most-practices, so it’s easiest for you to advance carefully while countering incoming bullets and shells.
>You too were once mostly defensive-oriented, meaning that you only really need to protect your pretty face while you’re advancing like this.
>Other?

>>6086813
>>Of all your number your predictive abilities are the most-practices, so it’s easiest for you to advance carefully while countering incoming bullets and shells.

>>6086813
>>Of all your number your predictive abilities are the most-practices, so it’s easiest for you to advance carefully while countering incoming bullets and shells.

>>6086813
>>Of all your number your predictive abilities are the most-practices, so it’s easiest for you to advance carefully while countering incoming bullets and shells.

>>6086813
>3d10 best of three

Rolled 7, 10, 8 = 25 (3d10)

>>6087602

Rolled 10, 1, 5 = 16 (3d10)

>>6087602

Rolled 8, 9, 2 = 19 (3d10)

>>6087602

>>6087602
You, however, fall into a somewhat different camp. While your regenerative abilities have always been much better than the average set by more offensive warriors, they’re nowhere close to those shown by Justina and by Sabela. Your signature offensive technique also has zero application to this situation, unlike Helen or Serana. On paper at least you could simply rush forward in a straight line, but that would still leave you open to a lucky gunshot or artillery strike from which it could be difficult to recover.

So instead you elect to take a somewhat slower pace.

For every few steps forward you take you’re obliged to slash a cannon shell out of the air, or deflect a bullet with the broad sides of your sword. Luckily for you there are multiple targets, otherwise the shooters who are presently trying their damnedest to kill you would be able to focus their fire more. Perhaps that might have been enough.

Eventually your cohort draws close to the front lines – you can sense the asarakam fighting beyond, on the other end of the town. You can even hear it from this distance as it attacks the other ships in the harbor.

…

Wounds are fairly light by the time you reach the enemy lines, and the artillery can no longer hit you. The soldiers you’ve approached train their weapons on you nervously, but for the moment they seem to be holding their fire – probably because they’ve already seen that shooting at you hasn’t really accomplished anything.

Sensing an opening, perhaps even a willingness to listen, you plant your sword dramatically in front of you and hold your hands up.

>Demand that the soldiers stand aside, make it clear your business is not with them.
>Inform them that you were literally created for this battle, and ask for their assistance.
>Demand to speak with their commanding officer.
>Other?

>>6091392
>>Inform them that you were literally created for this battle, and ask for their assistance.

>>6091392
>>Inform them that you were literally created for this battle, and ask for their assistance.

>>6091392
>>Demand to speak with their commanding officer.

>>6091392
>>Inform them that you were literally created for this battle, and ask for their assistance.
>Inform them that you were literally created for this battle, and ask for their assistance.

>>6091392
>3d10 best of three

Rolled 7, 3, 5 = 15 (3d10)

>>6092463

Rolled 9, 3, 9 = 21 (3d10)

>>6092463

Rolled 5, 6, 4 = 15 (3d10)

>>6092463

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>>6092463
“You’re dealing with an awakened dragonkin,” you declare loudly, “an asarakam. My kind were created by your own superiors for this specific battle – so either help us or get out of our way, the choice is yours. But just try to remember that if we succeed many of you will survive, but that if we die all of you will die too.”

With that declaration, you pry your sword free and rest it against your shoulder. Then, you take the first few steps towards the enemy line – practically daring them to go back to firing on you. It comes as something of a surprise that none of them do. Instead, one of the nearby officers begins shouting orders as your company passes through their line.

“I want mortars and machine guns to move and provide covering fire for the scary ladies!” he demands. “Cannons stay here, and I want riflemen running ammo! Get to it!”

…

Once you have a column of ‘enemy’ soldiers charging through the town carrying their heavy weapons and light artillery with them, it makes it hard for any other soldiers who run across you to immediately fire on you. When you start getting closer to where the asarakam has come ashore the officer who made the decision to redeploy to support you issues more orders, crisp and efficient.

“I want mortars in the courtyards east and west of this street!” he barks. “Spotting teams, top floors of the apartments north of those positions! Machine gun crews, corner apartments! Overlap your fields of fire northbound and cover the street up the middle! Infantry, secure access to the courtyards! Radiomen, run lines up the stairs to the spotting teams!”

“Move like you got a purpose dammit!”

He then turns to you. “We’ll have fire support for you inside five minutes, we’ll do what we can not to hit you by mistake… but no guarantees on the mortars.”

“Can you give us fifteen-second firing intervals?” you ask.

He nods once. “We can slow it down that much, yeah. At that rate we have four and a half minutes of ammo with each crew without replenishment.”

“Please do it,” you insist.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You heard the man,” you tell your comrades. “Let’s make those fifteen-second windows count.”

[What’s your strategy?] Serana asks with a frown.

>Rotate through our team, give each other time to rest. Play to our advantage of numbers.
>All-out attack. Overwhelm whatever regenerative abilities it may have then bring it down.
>I’ll hit it repeatedly in the head while the three of you look for weak spots elsewhere.
>Other?

>>6094827
>>Rotate through our team, give each other time to rest. Play to our advantage of numbers.

>>6094827
>Rotate through our team, give each other time to rest. Play to our advantage of numbers.

>>6094827
>>Rotate through our team, give each other time to rest. Play to our advantage of numbers.

>>6094827
>3d10 best of three

Rolled 1, 7, 3 = 11 (3d10)

>>6095632

Rolled 6, 6, 8 = 20 (3d10)

>>6095632

Rolled 4, 6, 8 = 18 (3d10)

>>6095632

>>6094827
“Play to our only real advantage,” you decide. “Numbers.”

“You want to rotate,” Sabela guesses your mind.

Your response comes with a curt nod. “I’ll go first.”

In your mind, this moment calls for the maximum possible effort. That’s why you start off by awakening as much of your body as far as you can while maintaining control – which for you is significant. Even the continental troops who have promised to back you up from behind must understand on some level that the warping your body undergoes represents near-monomaniacal focus on the battle in front of you – to their credit, they even manage to concentrate their fire on the asarakam instead of hitting you along with it.

That must take some effort, given how you look when you’re like this. Your limbs aren’t much more than vaguely human, although at very least your knees still face the same way unlike some awakened beings, and proportionally speaking nothing is quite ‘right’. In fact to the untrained eye you must appear to be closer to the asarakam you’ve attacked than to the humans who are lobbing explosives towards it.

“How are you holding out?” your mother asks you as you pass each other – not to be left out, your companions quickly take to darting in for opportunistic strikes that help keep some of the asarakam’s attention divided.

“Fine,” you reply, straining slightly for the speed you need to evade a massive counterblow aimed at you. “If I don’t get hit I can go a little longer!”

That’s easier said than done. You may be something of a natural when it comes to using yōki, but this level of physical transformation is still alien to you. While you can twist your body out of the way of the asarakam’s attacks, even using its own fist and arm at times as a springboard to do so, that sort of behavior puts a noticeable strain on you the more you have to rely on it. And while your attacks are capable of cutting behind the hardened, iron-like shells common to awakened beings and dragon-kin alike the simple difference in size renders it somewhat less effective in this case than you’d like.

Which is to say that for the effort, you don’t feel like you’re making nearly as much headway against the asarakam as you should before you feel the effects of your straining yourself starting to accumulate. Your body begins to feel slightly more sluggish, your strikes grow less crisp and precise, and you find yourself scrambling to avoid blows you could have dodged before with confidence.

“Time!?” you shout.

“Almost four and a half!” Helen calls back.

“Mother, switch!” you decide.
>1/2

>>6098507
Your mother goes a step further than you do – she fully awakens on the spot before rushing past you, far smaller than the asarakam but no less monstrous in her appearance. In fact, you’d hazard a guess that the similarity in size to a normal human would almost lead them to focus on how truly inhuman Sabela is in this form. Aside from her face, which preserves some of her features despite the fact that her skin is now no more than a smooth, armored mask, hardly anything is recognizable.

She simply takes many of the hits that you’d work hard to dodge. Mere physical abuse is hardly enough to even bother Sabela, and every attack on her person is met with instant violence. Her blade-like hair and the wicked edges lining her arms visibly tear into the asarakam with every clash, before both combatants’ regenerative abilities erase any obvious results.

>Focus on resting and recovering, You want to be prepared to take your next turn in about ten to fifteen minutes.
>Help your mother out by targeting the asarakam’s head and face whenever you can. This should keep it disoriented.
>Just rely on your awakened legs to make darting attack runs. Strike a bit of a balanced approach to your ‘out’ time.
>Other?

>>6098510
>Focus on resting and recovering, You want to be prepared to take your next turn in about ten to fifteen minutes.

>>6098510
>>Focus on resting and recovering, You want to be prepared to take your next turn in about ten to fifteen minutes.

>>6098510

>Focus on resting and recovering, You want to be prepared to take your next turn in about ten to fifteen minutes.

>>6098510
Sabela hangs in the fight for an impressive amount of time, trading blows with the asarakam in a way you’d consider somewhat un-sophisticated. But you’re aware of the strategy – your mother is great at shruging off punishment, and so her goal is to give as good as she gets for as long as she can. If she can even keep pace with the asarakam that means both that she’ll have pushed your opponent’s regenerative capacities and that she’ll have absorbed much more offensive output than any of your other companions could. She’s pushing the asarakam closer to the point of failure both offensively and defensively at the same time.

After what feels like much more than just five minutes, which is about how long you know their meeting lasts, Sabela disengages from the asarakam and lets Helen jump in to take her place. Immediately half-awakened, the former single-digit begins to show the true absurdity of what her Echo Sword is capable of. When used in three dimensions, the abrupt and unpredictable changes in direction allow for both tricky evasive maneuvers as well as momentum-enhanced attacks between which she can snap in an instant, without warning and without ever having to return to the ground.

>3d10, best of three

Rolled 3, 5, 7 = 15 (3d10)

>>6100197

Rolled 1, 9, 2 = 12 (3d10)

>>6100197

Rolled 9, 10, 9 = 28 (3d10)

>>6100197

>>6100197
There’s a certain tempo to this, which you notice as it unfolds.

Sabela’s full effort gives you the chance to recover, but Helen, Justina, and Serana were all fighting alongside you just the same as your mom was. And now, while Sabela is sitting out and Helen is facing down the asarakam, Justina and Serana are still helping in their own way.

As much as you’d be fine continuing to rest, that’s not what you should be doing right now – and there’s an obvious opportunity to help push your shared opponent while Helen is facing it down more directly.

A certain number of your supporting troops’ mortars fall off-target, that’s simply in the nature of trying to hit a moving target with a slow projectile based solely on secondhand information. But with a little ‘help’ from yourself, you can make sure that those missed projectiles each get a second chance at hitting their target. For the investment of just a small burst of yōki you’re able to snag some of these mortar shells out of the air by their tails and sling them forcefully at the asarakam. Sometimes you hit it in the shoulders or upper arms, which does little in the way of appreciable damage. But just as often you manage to get a clean shot in at the asarakam’s face.

“How’s that!?” you shout. “May not kill you with these, but I bet they’re a real nuisance!”

In response the asarakam lashes out with its spiny tail, just barely missing your body. The only thing separating you from losing an arm to that attack is a fraction of a second of reaction time. But the impact of some mortars hitting the asarakam in the face from a lower angle is actually appreciable – its attention is now split between Helen’s confounding angles of attack at close ranges, Justina and Serana’s distracting hit-and-run tactics, the mortars falling on it from above, and the mortars that keep hitting it in the mouth.

When you sense a gap in the mortar team’s firing pattern, you take a moment to flash a message to your mother. [Can it not grasp our strategy?]

She seems thoughtful for a moment before replying. [Perhaps. Having never met an un-awakened A S A R A K A M we can’t know.] The word ‘asarakam’ doesn’t exist in the monastic sign language of course, so she’s forced to take the time to spell it out.
>1/2

>>6101770
After a few minutes Helen dodges out of the way and Justina steps in.

Justina’s partially-awakened form is rather serpentine, and while she’s not especially fast or strong she does have a fantastic way of just barely slithering out of danger with a smooth, albeit unnatural, turn of her hips or shoulders at exactly the right instant. Her attacks don’t seem to be aimed at cutting through, but rather digging in with the initial contact before pulling against the target to slice and sever.

Those cuts are totally ineffective when they hit hardened chitin, but when they find a softer and more flexible joint they do manage to leave noticeable wounds that bubble and steam as they heal.

Helen takes the time to rest, while Sabela rotates back in at a more conservative pace.

>Ramp up your own efforts to partly compensate for Justina’s less-offensive skillset.
>Continue using near-miss mortars as a distraction against the asarakam.
>Other?

>>6102315
>Ramp up your own efforts to partly compensate for Justina’s less-offensive skillset.

>>6102315
>>Ramp up your own efforts to partly compensate for Justina’s less-offensive skillset.
Thanks for the update notification.

>>6102315
>3d10 best of three

Rolled 3, 6, 7 = 16 (3d10)

>>6102916

Rolled 1, 9, 8 = 18 (3d10)

>>6102916

Rolled 8, 3, 9 = 20 (3d10)

>>6102916

>>6102916
Justina is the only ‘true’ defensive-type among the warriors you chose to accompany you, and although she can handle herself in a fight it’s readily apparent that her offensive prowess is still suffering for her origins – in retrospect, it always was a smarter idea to keep her paired with Valentina, who not only compliments Justina in terms of the offensive-defensive split but in how their techniques interact.

Well, since she’s presently deprived of her usual partner you’ll have to ensure that someone fills that role in Valentina’s place.

“I’ve got your back,” you tell her, stepping up during a mortar bombardment and partially re-awakening your legs.

After a moment, she nods. “Understood.”

The difficult part is making good on that declaration.

You know that Valentina’s specialty technique extends her range, allowing her to attack around and even from directly behind Justina with pinpoint precision, while Justina blocks the enemy’s line of sight and draws their focus from up in front. But you’re definitely not the type who can do much damage from a distance. You can throw your sword around, but like they say it’s not the fall that kills you but the landing. Any warrior like you can throw their sword, but getting it to return to you with any reliability demands trial, error, and extensive practice.

So if you’re looking for a projectile attack, like a thrown spear in flight, what you clearly need to do is become the projectile yourself.

The hard sword in your hands, the pride entrusted to you by those who didn’t make it this far, serves as the tip of this proverbial spear. Your body serves only as the mass behind that tip that multiplies the force of impact. Your awakened legs let you position yourself against the side of a building with a running leap, then generate an incredible amount of force that explodes upon release.

Working in tandem, these things turn you whole body into a deadly weapon – and that weapon takes advantage of the fact that Justina has been essentially tying the asarakam down. The impact does a little more damage than Justina has been doing on her own, forcing the asarakam to regenerate even as you impact the side of a nearby building and cling to the damaged stone facade.

The asarakam bellows… it’s hard to tell whether from frustration or pain at this point. In the moment of disorientation your partner lands a hacking blow at its legs, drawing its attention back by the second strike. After dodging and landing a third strike with a turn of her waist, Justina evades by backpedaling and leaves you with another opportunity.

>Continue your high-energy, hit-and-run tactics, then rest during Serana’s turn on offense.
>Keep a reasonable pace for now, but you want to try and finish this on Serana’s turn.
>Back off slightly – the point is to wear the asarakam down, so you won’t be satisfied until it’s weak enough to strangle with your bare hands.
>Other?

>>6105426
>>Continue your high-energy, hit-and-run tactics, then rest during Serana’s turn on offense.

>>6105426
>>Keep a reasonable pace for now, but you want to try and finish this on Serana’s turn.

>>6105426
>Back off slightly – the point is to wear the asarakam down, so you won’t be satisfied until it’s weak enough to strangle with your bare hands.

>>6105426
>>Keep a reasonable pace for now, but you want to try and finish this on Serana’s turn.

>>6105426
>3d10 best of three

Rolled 10, 2, 9 = 21 (3d10)

>>6106012

Rolled 4, 1, 3 = 8 (3d10)

>>6106012

Rolled 5, 5, 3 = 13 (3d10)

>>6106012

>>6106012
There are two options here that are tempting to your mind – the first is that you could keep driving hard alongside Justina then rest during Serana’s turn. That has the draw of giving you the most in terms of immediate results, but has the downside of leaving two of your warriors tired in the instance that something goes wrong for Serana. Backing off now means less damage in the short term, but continues your tactic of wearing the asarakam down gradually. If this were to work, at least in theory, you might even exhaust your enemy to the point that you could calmly snap its neck without facing any resistance. But that’s only if the plan works the way you would hope. The alternative possibility is that you could end up wearing yourselves down as well to the point that you too would become vulnerable, or to the point where you might not be able to take advantage of the unequal situation you’ve worked so diligently to create.

With your decision not to chase either of those options, your plan emerges. When Serana steps up, Helen and your mother will have rested – and if you manage to still be rested enough yo go all-out that will mean all your strongest offensive fighters will be cooperating to take down a foe that you’ve spent all this time and effort to wear down. By your estimate that’s when the balance will have shifted in your favor – you can’t be sure that you’ll have maximized that payoff of course, but you can be sure that you won’t have overworked yourselves in the process.

And so you back off slightly during the next mortar barrage, and signal your intentions to Justina.
[Backing off – final push with Serana.]

She nods. [Agreed.]

After another minute or two of supporting Justina – this time returning to lobbing mortars at the asarakam – Serana partially-awakens and steps up. That’s your signal to do the same, allowing the yōki which flows through your body to transform it into something barely recognizable as human. Helen does the same as you and Serana, while your mother shifts her stance and yōki flow to a more offensive posture.

The first indications are good as Serana takes the lead, using her earthbreaker technique in a way that only her degree of awakening could allow. First she ducks low and aims all her power at the asarakam’s feet, the spiderweb of cracks spreading and throwing her victim off balance. Then she reverses direction, stepping under her blade as it rises again and aims the same technique upward. The result is far more effective than simply being a powerful attack, and causes immense damage to the asarakam where the blade bites into its torso.

>Strike at the joints with your White Strikes technique, counter its ability to maneuver and respond.
>Strike at the side opposite from Serana’s strikes, in the style of a hammer against an anvil.
>Just go for the head. Ring that particular bell as loudly and as longly as you possibly can.
>Other?

>>6107232
>>Strike at the side opposite from Serana’s strikes, in the style of a hammer against an anvil.

>>6107232
>Strike at the joints with your White Strikes technique, counter its ability to maneuver and respond.

>>6107232
>Strike at the joints with your White Strikes technique, counter its ability to maneuver and respond.

>>6107232
>>Just go for the head. Ring that particular bell as loudly and as longly as you possibly can.

>>6107232
>>Strike at the joints with your White Strikes technique, counter its ability to maneuver and respond.

>>6107232
>3d10 best of three

Rolled 1, 6, 9 = 16 (3d10)

>>6108077

Rolled 9, 8, 1 = 18 (3d10)

>>6108077

Rolled 8, 5, 3 = 16 (3d10)

>>6108077

Test.

>>6109359
Test completed without error.

>>6108077
You have a general idea of how this is going to have to go – the best use of your White Strikes is to execute strategies that might otherwise be difficult or impossible by ignoring a target’s hardened defensive layer, and in this case a warrior whose hands are so freed would make the greatest impact by creating opportunities for her comrades.

So that’s precisely how you approach things.

The first strike you aim for is the right elbow, which takes a few moments to manage. But after being nearly swatted away twice, you finally get a clean shot that strikes the asarakam’s bent arm just above the elbow, aimed in line towards the joint. Your blow severs the tendons inside and ravages the muscles on the inside of the forearm, leaving an opening for your comrades to attack.

Helen is the one to take advantage this time, using her echo sword to change directions midair to suddenly attack on that side. Meanwhile, after exchanging a few blows head-on with your shared opponent, your mother seems to have an idea that she shares at the same time as she calls out to you..

“Noel, keep its right arm damaged – attack as soon as you can see that it’s regenerated!”
[I want to know if it can understand our language – play along.]

“Understood!” you call back.

You watch your comrades continue to score hits against the asarakam, noting that its regeneration has slowed noticeably. Eventually however your foe does recover, and that right arm you had disabled becomes a lethal weapon once more as it smacks an incoming mortar round out of the air. That’s when you know to move in for another strike against the same spot you hit before – and to your slight surprise, the results are the same as the first time. There’s no sign that the asarakam actually understood what Sabela told you.

“Good, good!” she shouts. “Just like that!”
[Maybe not?]

>Continue with Sabela’s plan, wear the enemy down with repeated attacks all on the same side.
>Use this newfound factor to your advantage – plan and coordinate openly for maximum impact.
>If its regeneration is slower, hitting it in the head repeatedly might now be the best option.
>Other?

>>6109462
>>Use this newfound factor to your advantage – plan and coordinate openly for maximum impact.

>>6109462
>>Continue with Sabela’s plan, wear the enemy down with repeated attacks all on the same side.

>>6109462
>Use this newfound factor to your advantage – plan and coordinate openly for maximum impact.

>>6109462
>>Use this newfound factor to your advantage – plan and coordinate openly for maximum impact.

>>6109462
3d10 best of four

Rolled 1, 1, 10 = 12 (3d10)

>>6109684

Rolled 8, 8, 9 = 25 (3d10)

>>6109684

Rolled 5, 7, 4 = 16 (3d10)

>>6109684

Rolled 3, 5, 8 = 16 (3d10)

>>6109684

>>6109462
“It seems like it can’t understand us!” you call out loud, “Let’s try a coordinated assault – Serana, strike at its legs and around its feet, keep it unbalanced as much as possible! Mother, keep it occupied from the front, Helen, see if you can keep it guessing about which side you plan to strike! Justina, I’ll be relying on you to create openings for me to attack the head with my white strikes!”

The whole group adjusts swiftly to your decision, offering no arguments – Serana trusts your judgment implicitly, your mother is already doing what you just asked, Helen no doubt came to a similar conclusion on her own, and Justina is the type who’s fine with any strategy so long as she feels her abilities are being put to good use in keeping up the offense.

While Sabela takes a lot of the punishment, recovering from it just as quickly as the asarakam does, Serana strikes powerful blows that break the asarakam’s stance as well as cracking the armored carapace around its legs. Helen’s echo sword makes her completely unpredictable, striking at will around the asarakam’s torso and upper arms.

As for you and Justina, your compatriot’s mere presence serves as a distraction as the asarakam begins to lash out at everything it sees, assuming that any movement is prelude to an attack and demands an immediate response. So those overreactions become your openings to hit the asarakam in the head, the force of your attacks penetrating the skull and directly impacting the brain inside.

“I almost feel like we’re justifying everything the Organization did,” Sabela muses as she stops a wild blow from the asarakam, holding it in place just long enough for Helen to strike at its extended inner elbow. “It feels dirty.”

In a sense she’s not wrong. Using awakening like this, in a controlled and strategic manner, is exactly what they were aiming for – it’s just they didn’t want you to be using it of your own accord, to protect the things you value, instead of on their behalf.

“If they wanted this,” you muse, striking another opportunistic blow at the asarakam’s temple, “they’d’ve done it to themselves and accepted the consequences!”

Gradually, but very clearly, the asarakam begins to falter. Its blows become at first more wild, then simply unfocused, and are eventually diminished. It staggers once, twice, and on the third time it fails to rise from its knee.

>Continue beating it down until it stops regenerating, then pause to reassess.
>Finish this thing off. Right here, right now, no chances taken.
>Ease off. Try to assess whether it has the self-awareness to fear for its life.
>Other?

>>6111755
>>Finish this thing off. Right here, right now, no chances taken.

>>6111755
>Finish this thing off. Right here, right now, no chances taken.

>>6111755
>>Continue beating it down until it stops regenerating, then pause to reassess.

>>6111755
>Finish this thing off. Right here, right now, no chances taken.

>>6111755
>3d10 best of three

Rolled 8, 1, 7 = 16 (3d10)

>>6112190

Rolled 1, 10, 7 = 18 (3d10)

>>6112190

Rolled 3, 9, 8 = 20 (3d10)

>>6112190

>>6112190
“Cover for me!” you call out. “I want to finish this in one blow!”

And with that declaration you, at least for the moment, take yourself out of the battle.

You know what you intend to do, and you suppose your comrades assembled here know it as well. Or, at least they know the general outline of what you’re thinking. The whole white strikes form would be ‘perfect’ if not for one factor – that its power and cutting ability scale to your abilities, not your target’s. And while your ability to use yōki is exceptional even for a single-digit warrior, your ability to produce it is somewhat below average.

That means in order to get the maximum possible effect out of your technique, you’ll need to take some time to push yourself right to the very limits of what your body can do. Awakening is an investment – using your yōki to form your body into something better-suited to generating yōki. An inhuman form to match an inhuman ability.

Your companions continue to fight with Helen acting as a distraction, until Justina and Sabela can take hits that allow them to brace afterwards, two chains that bind the asarakam in place. Serana’s earthbreaker strikes its back, forcing it down to its knees. Its body is now in position, as though prepared on a block for an execution.

The yōki flowing through your sword grows to an audible crescendo, and you maneuver yourself back to a damaged apartment building where you can cling to the wall using your awakened legs. Your arms, you revert back to human along with the rest of your upper body, dumping the yōki in them into your blade until you can barely contain it all.

In the split-second when you’re closing the distance, you could almost swear that you see a hint of recognition in the asarakam’s normally-expressionless face.

>Head
>Neck
>Heart

>>6113285
>>Heart

>>6113285
>Neck
Who knows whether it has multiple hearts

>>6113285
>>Neck

>>6113285
>>Neck

>>6113285
>3d10 best of four

Rolled 6, 10, 7 = 23 (3d10)

>>6113693

Rolled 1, 6, 3 = 10 (3d10)

>>6113693

Rolled 2, 7, 2 = 11 (3d10)

>>6113693

Rolled 5, 7, 10 = 22 (3d10)

>>6113693

>>6113693
In the last possible instant you finally commit to your target: the neck. It’s a big target and one which even without a thorough knowledge of your opponent’s anatomy you know is likely to be vital – the asarakam may have multiple hearts for all you know, but anyone can see that it has only the one neck.

The blow lands solidly, precisely were you aimed it, with an amount of yōki behind it unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. You have trouble focusing it into a cutting action – there’s simply too much for that – but a stunning amount of the force it represents transfers through the asarakam’s outer armor and into its body. Exactly what happens inside of the asarakam’s neck isn’t clear to you, since it happens where you can’t see it, but you can tell by the results that it can’t have been pretty.

It isn’t just blood that comes up out of the asarakam’s mouth, but fist-sized bits of pulpy soft tissue that stain the roads and broken walls around where its body falls in vile shades of magenta. Fragments of sallow, wet bone pelt the street below where you struck, and the asarakam’s head rolls lifelessly by the remaining armored connections.

The asarakam doesn’t move.

“Is it… dead?” Justina wonders, still on her guard.

“Wrong question,” your mother declares. “The real question is whether it’s going to finish dying or regenerate.”

It’s essentially been decapitated from the inside. You’re not even sure that there’s anything in the way of flesh connecting head to body at this point. But your mother is correct – regenerative capabilities don’t always respect such trivial matters like your own sense of the possible.

>We need to finish decapitating it. Everyone, strike the spot where the soft tissue has been destroyed.
>Helen, Justina, grab as many explosives as you can, and detonators.
>For a moment, let’s observe and not do anything that may prove to be unnecessary.
>Other?

>>6115527
>>We need to finish decapitating it. Everyone, strike the spot where the soft tissue has been destroyed.

>>6115527
>We need to finish decapitating it. Everyone, strike the spot where the soft tissue has been destroyed.

>>6115527
>>We need to finish decapitating it. Everyone, strike the spot where the soft tissue has been destroyed.

>>6115527
>We need to finish decapitating it. Everyone, strike the spot where the soft tissue has been destroyed.

>>6115527
>3d10, best of three
>kind of a low threshold on this

Rolled 3, 9, 8 = 20 (3d10)

>>6116169

Rolled 6, 4, 9 = 19 (3d10)

>>6116169

Rolled 9, 5, 10 = 24 (3d10)

>>6116169

>>6116169
“Something feels wrong about leaving it ‘mostly’ decapitated,” you admit. “Justina, please position your blade where I tell you. Serana, I want you to hit Justina’s sword with the earthbreaker using the side of your blade.”

With a few jabs at the neck of the fallen asarakam you probe for weaknesses, where the muscular and skeletal structures inside have been the most compromised, before settling on a specific spot and laying your sword across it. “Here, please.”

Justina places her sword-edge along the line you indicated to her, and clearly adjusts her own joints in order to properly receive Serana’s next move. Then the hammer-blow falls, driving Justina’s blade deeper like a wedge, with Justina continuing to adjust her joints to keep the edge from deflecting. And that’s the key – the asarakam’s armor plating isn’t just hard, it’s also curved in such a way that it makes it very hard to get the force from a blow to do what you want it to.

But with Justina’s adjustments and your sense of where to aim it, the full force of Serana’s earthbreaker can be delivered to the exact weakest point in what’s left of the asarakam’s neck. The hollow armor cracks like an eggshell, and a second blow from Serana shatters it. In another rain of purple ichor the neck separates, and the beheading is complete. The yōki, which had been fading rapidly, is extinguished.

…

A few soldiers approach you as you take a brief rest amid the ruins of the asarakam’s fall. Your sword is propped against you, and you yourself are leaned against what’s left of a brick wall. A heavy scent is in the air, probably from all the blood mixed with the smoke caused when explosives started apartment fires elsewhere in the town.

“What the hell was that?” an officer in this group presses. Not an accusation… he seems genuinely disturbed by everything that’s happened so far today.

>Possibly just the beginning. The asarakam apparently know we’re here now.
>I could ask you the same thing. This is the first asarakam we’ve ever seen here.
>The result of your superiors’ meddling. They’re why we’re here. They’re why that thing came here.
>Other?

>>6117317
>>I could ask you the same thing. This is the first asarakam we’ve ever seen here.

>>6117317
>I could ask you the same thing. This is the first asarakam we’ve ever seen here.

>>6117317
>The result of your superiors’ meddling. They’re why we’re here. They’re why that thing came here.

>>6117317
>3d10 best of three

Rolled 9, 5, 2 = 16 (3d10)

>>6118297

Rolled 2, 7, 6 = 15 (3d10)

>>6118297

Rolled 3, 1, 10 = 14 (3d10)

>>6118297

>>6118297
“An asarakam,” you reply flatly. “If you want more than that you’ll have to ask someone else, this is the first of these I’ve ever actually seen.”

“I mean the way you all fought,” the officer presses. “You fought like they do.”

“By design,” you counter. “How did this one get here?”

“How the hell should I know?” he counters. “Probably swam or something.”

That’s actually not that far off from being believable. But it’s also clear that you’re not destined to get much more out of this conversation, so you move on to a topic that this officer hopefully can speak to.

“So where does this leave us?”

“Right where we,” the officer begins, reaching for his pistol before suddenly stopping. “Care to explain yourself, lieutenant?”

The crisp officer who brought in soldiers from the outer defenses to provide you covering fire earlier has moved up with a few of those men, and all of them have raised their weapons. The officer in particular has made it clear who they’re aiming at, with his revolver leveled at the other officer standing in front of you.

“The way I see it we’d be screwed if these scary young ladies hadn’t shown up when they did,” he answers, his aim never wavering. “Figure that means we owe them something, and I hate being in debt.”

“I don’t much care for what you hate or what you can tolerate,” his accuser insists. Despite his assertion and the clear hostility with which he made it, he still isn’t reaching for his own weapon. “Now lower your weapon, soldier.”

“No.”

“I gave you an order.”

“And I gave you a refusal.”

“Both of you at ease,” a new voice, belonging to an older man with white hair and a mustache, orders. “Now’s not a good time for you to start blowing each others’ brains out over nothing.”

“General Waverly, sir!” the loyalist officer acknowledges his superior with a salute.

“No salutes in a forward area,” the general replies curtly. “Stand down Captain, you’re making a fool of yourself.”

“And you by implication,” you add with a slight nod. “General Waverly, was it?”
>1/2

>>6119492
“That’s correct,” Waverly replies. “Am I to understand that you are the queen of the nation calling itself Hazaran?”

“Noel Tiberius di Hazaran,” you introduce yourself. “Am I correct in assuming that you are the one in command here?”

“You are,” he confirms. “What would you imagine I would have to discuss with the Witch-Queen herself?”

“Your timely surrender.”

“And what makes you believe this is the appropriate time for that discussion?”

>Because while my side could simply continue wiping yours out, I’d rather present an alternative.
>That asarakam started by attacking your forces, not us – which means they know where you are.
>If you disagree, then I’ll leave. Goodbye, General Waverly. We will not meet again.
>Other?

>>6120681
>That asarakam started by attacking your forces, not us – which means they know where you are.

>>6120681
>>That asarakam started by attacking your forces, not us – which means they know where you are.

>>6120681
>>Because while my side could simply continue wiping yours out, I’d rather present an alternative.

>>6120681
>>That asarakam started by attacking your forces, not us – which means they know where you are.

>>6120681
>3d10 best of three

Rolled 1, 2, 7 = 10 (3d10)

>>6121169

Rolled 4, 6, 10 = 20 (3d10)

>>6121169

Rolled 9, 8, 1 = 18 (3d10)

>>6121169

>>6121169
“Last night that asarakam started by attacking a ship without any of our warriors aboard,” you observe. “And this morning, it immediately attacked your forces after making landfall – it made no special effort to reach us. That makes me think it may not have expected us, and may not have fully understood what we even are.”

There’s a pause before the general speaks. “And what significance does that hold to you?”

“I doubt it came here on our account,” you conclude. “It came here for you. And the fact that it knew to come here may mean that the rest of its kind know that you’re here.”

You’ve kept one thing hidden – the fact that by your estimation the asarakam wasn’t fighting you with its full power. Very close to it, but you sensed some hesitation that you didn’t feel when it was attacking the Organization’s soldiers. Even if that were something you might otherwise have shared with your still-current enemy, you don’t know enough about why the asarakam would have hesitated in that way. So you wouldn’t be inclined to share anything about it until that changes.

General Waverly considers your perspective.

“And what can you offer us to remedy this… situation?”

>Safe passage off our island. Nothing more.
>Depends. There’s still the outstanding issue of Lavinia to solve.
>Disappear. Doesn’t matter how.
>Other?

>>6122032
>>Depends. There’s still the outstanding issue of Lavinia to solve.

>>6122032
>Depends. There’s still the outstanding issue of Lavinia to solve.

>>6122032
>Depends. There’s still the outstanding issue of Lavinia to solve.

>>6122032
>3d10 best of three

Rolled 4, 8, 3 = 15 (3d10)

>>6122577

Rolled 3, 7, 6 = 16 (3d10)

>>6122577

Rolled 10, 9, 8 = 27 (3d10)

>>6122577

>>6122793
damn son.