Scene #8206: More Honest

Owner	Pose
Hiromi	The snow has settled. From the air, once can make out the tracks left by earlier travel, dragging a sled to a sparkling hill, around it and up its side, disappearing beneath an overhang to a cave within. It's a too-perfect arrangement, a seemingly natural terrain feature that one with command over the underground places had commanded to be here, providing a place out of the wind on which to stand and observe the rest of the plain. Within, there's a wolf-miko familiar to some, a smallish young woman with pointed brown ears and a long tail, a pair of overly large white-bronze gauntlets hanging from her back, and a calm demeanor. Her name is Hisako, and she's here to greet those who came for purposes other than fighting. The overhang could very well be a cozy little wilderness home, with a properly ventilated fire pit, lounging furs, roasting meat, and an entire barrel of suspiciously strong-smelling drink. Outside, there are few other features that could naturally be called terrain, being buried beneat the snow and ice, but Hiromi the Archwolf still isn't the tallest figure out there. Ruined stone towers and walls jut from beneath the snow, the remnants of some past city or fortress that, by the open style of its walls and roofs, may have been constructed at a time when this place was not covered in cold. Right now, in midwinter, the ice beneath the snow is deep. Hiromi is, of course, waiting for Lilian, arms crossed, hair waving in the wind. The sun gives some warmth, but the wind steals it again. If this or the snow going halfway to her knees bothers her, she doesn't show it.
Remee Halcyon	Remee arrives early. "I have a gift for Hiromi," she says, first going to offer a large wrapped package, half as big as a person, to Hisako. "Could you see that she gets it?" Once that's sorted out, she goes to lie down near the fire, shifting to wolf mode since that's a bit more comfortable w/r/t heat capturing and trapping. She keeps one ear to the outside of the cave, listening for when the fight will actually start. Until then, lying next to the fire has the majority of her attention, as it should.
Hiromi	The wolf-miko accepts the gift from Remee with a bow. They're meeting for the first time, but she looks only a little surprised by the transformation. (It's the wolf-smell.) "I thank you on the Archwolf's behalf." Her overly formal speaking style is only a little at odds with how young she sounds. It's certainly different from Hiromi's.
Kukuru	A cloud of foul-looking magic appears atop one of towers, contrasting sharply with the whiteness of the snow covering the rest of the ruined structure. From that tower, a green and white mass falls out of it in a pile, then rises back up several seconds later. Kukuru shakes her head quickly and takes a moment to gaze around slowly while finding her footing, and then she lets out a pleasant noise upon spotting a familiar face. Another cloud appears in front of her and Hisako as she goes from one into the other, all for the purpose of greeting Hisako with a fond hug and an offering of fried fishcakes in a rectangular white takeout box. Homemade, of course, because Kukuru doesn't trust the storebought fishcakes. "Hi-sa-ko! Hello, dear... Here, in case you've been waiting long. Aaaand... This too!" She takes out a slightly warped water bottle, as if hot water had been poured in and closed up shortly afterwards. The bottle and the water in it are still warm. And then she's off to join Remee at the fire, reaching over to the wolf's head to give her a light scritching. Kukuru offers her a similar box of those fried fishcakes and a water bottle, too, although she'll probably have to open those up for Remee if she stays in that form for long. She also starts cheering the moment Hiromi might be looking in her direction, but she'll hold off on giving her a present of food until after the fight.
Remee Halcyon	YES! HEADSCRITCHES! No, wait, Remee is a strong independent wolf who doesn't need any headscritches. The box of fried fishcakes is taken as is if it's offered. Remee is well versed in the doggy skill of 'ripping apart the packaging to get at the food inside'.
Hiromi	"Oh!" Hisako is teleport-hugged. That's an unfair ambush tactic, but she turns out to be a naturally cooperative hug-ee. "Hello, Miss Kukuru." She is soon munching a fishcake, having a low natural resistance to eating food that's in front of her and allegedly hers, though she eats it slowly.
Lilian Rook	Though she certainly has the option to choose otherwise, the snow does, in fact, bother Lilian this day. Halfway to Hiromi's knees is most of the way up her calves for Lilian, and the knee high boots she's wearing, even fully buckled, barely help. Pushing through the white drifts themselves isn't physically difficult for her, but it adds a laborious air to the way she slogs forwards against the wind, pulling at her peacoat jacket and causing her heavy pack to rattle and bump where it swings from shoulder to hip. When she arrives in front of the Archwolf, the first thing she says, upon glancing sidelong to the firelight, is "You really invited an audience?" An uncomfortably reluctant stare later, she turns back to Hiromi, and more affirmatively says "Who's that cutie, by the way? She doesn't look like your daughter." She spends the time passed by answering on unlimbering that heavy bag, withdrawing the tightly strapped bundle of munitions, and throwing them in the snow, soon followed by an aluminium case of vials, a bag of runestones, and each individual round ejected from the sidearm on the top as she repetitively racks the slide until it clicks dry; and then the bag itself. Lilian reaches into the collar of her jacket, wrapping her fingers around something over her heart. "Not that it particularly matters, but . . . do you really understand why I asked you for this? We spoke a little bit, but I wonder if it's only your obsession with being 'the mountain' that finally brought you out here."
Hiromi	'Who's that cutie, by the way?' With just her eyes moving toward the opening to the audience's hilltop cave, Hiromi, with a clear, parental-flavored bias, correctly deduces which person Lilian means. "I've many pups." That's ambiguous. "Hisako is... promising. Worth favoring. If you were weaker, I'd wish you fight her." '...do you really understand why I asked you for this?' "You'll show me why," Hiromi says, notably less than concerned with what can be taken as an admission of ignorance. "You've reached far. I know. Small ones cannot reach me. How much farther? Will you stop...? No, you won't. You'll keep reaching. Seeing this, knowing this, you must know. You've succeeded. In catching my attention. I'll see your growth." The last words are said with that 'isn't it obvious?' inflection. As if it would be unnatural for her to be any other way than she is. Hiromi's posture changes, for the first time, her claw-like fingertips passing softly over the scar over her chest, where a beast-killing sword had opened the way for a second balde to reach her heart, seasons ago. Though she glances at the discarded items, Hiromi's only comment on them is indirect. "You're prepared. Now. Will you reach me, again? Will you touch my heart?" She laughs, more so when Kukuru and Remee both mention cheering. "Come! My body is ready. My spirit, prepared. Show me yours. Match me, if you can."
Remee Halcyon	Remee sits up. "Ah, they're about to start..." Seamlessly, she goes from quadruped wolf to an anthropomorphic wolf, opting for the inbetween wolf and human that combines the best eyes and ears with the best hands-having. Kukuru's offered water bottle is cracked open at that time. "Lilian seems more motivated, but I think Hiromi still has the edge..." she comments to Kukuru.
Kukuru	"Don't worry, Lili. We're here to cheer you both on!" Kukuru calls out as she waves broadly towards Lilian, possibly feeding fake meaning into Remee's reason for being there without being given any reason to think so. That won't stop her from saying it, of course. "Oh, and I've got something for you later." She adds moments later, winking playfully before returning her head to the independent wolf's head. It doesn't look like she's actually brought anything else with her, but she's shown off her ability to just pull stuff out of her pockets or literally nowhere before. Whatever it is she has for Lilian later, though, will have to be a mystery for now. Instead, she rests her chin on her knees while keeping a close eye on Hiromi and Lilian. "Lili does seem different today, yeah... Hiromi's still got all that power and stuff, but she's..." She squints at the motion over Hiromi's chest. "... That part of her might be important for both of them, and how they handle attacks going there. This should be really..." Kukuru chuckles after a moment, then turns to Remee. "This is gonna be way out of my league, but it'll be good to learn from anyway."
Remee Halcyon	Remee nods, and mmmhmms. "I'm hoping to learn at least a little bit..." If Kukuru keeps petting her even if she's not strictly in full animal form, she doesn't comment. "I've started realizing, now that I'm out in the wider multiverse and not just sparring against other werewolves or hunting things, I'm maybe a little bit... predictable? Like, I have my gun, and a few little hunting tricks, but... people have like, swords that shoot lasers or can attack with the color blue," she says. "And I mean I took down John just by hitting him a lot but I'm starting to feel like I need to step up my game."
Kukuru	Kukuru absolutely keeps petting Remee as long as she can reach her. She just won't stand up to do it. "Being predictable can be a problem, yeah. At least... Depending on who you're fighting, and what kinda message you wanna send. If you're trying to get stronger to fight someone stronger like..." She gestures towards Hiromi and Lilian. "... Then it's real important. You don't wanna fall behind if your strength and stuff isn't enough, and having cool techniques and stuff could make up that difference even if you're not as fast or strong or crazy smart." "If you wanna send a message to people instead of just being a better fighter, though, then... Maybe it's better to just get stronger and ignore all that fancy stuff?" Kukuru suggests, not sounding completely certain at first. "It's like... If regular humans try fancy techniques and weapons against you, and you just beat them up by hitting them really hard or not flinching when they hit you, it's..." She gestures with her hands as she speaks. "It sends a different message than if you had to dodge and do all sorts of fancy stuff, you know? But I think..." She peers at Remee again. "You and the rest of the kids that came around so recently... You can probably manage either one, depending on what you all wanna do. It's probably too late for someone like me to get smarter, though, so I gotta work on getting stronger instead. That way, we'll all have something we're good at~"
Hiromi	Once the attention is no longer on her (as far as she can tell, not being able to see Lilian too clearly from where she's standing), Hisako holds the fishcake in her mouth to very slowly munch it while she goes back to turning over the meat roasting over the firepit. It's possibly already perfectly edible, and the smell of it is almost torturously delicious, but she's doing it, anyway. Any drool is stopped by fishcake.
Lilian Rook	'I've many pups.' Without letting her fingers drift from her breast, Lilian's attention drifts, casting a second look back over to the glow of the firelit cave with more casual mien than could ever be appropriate for anyone ever staring down the Archwolf. It's as good as anything else that Hiromi can sense that Lilian's lapse of attention is a total fabrication. "Hisako." she says, repeating the name that she'd been given regardless as if to uncover something by exploring its contours on her tongue. "Worth favouring with what? I might wonder." says Lilian. "It hardly seems as if the ringside seat in this scenario is worth very much." There is the sense that, all at once, she is both deeply, unmistakably interested in why Hiromi has a tagalong apprentice, and already vibrating with anticipation of every movement from the Archwolf, perfectly alert to the subtle currents of how much she feels like striking. Even without ostensibly looking, Lilian mirrors Hiromi's scar-tracing gesture with her open hand, tracing under her eye and across the bridge of her nose with a single gloved fingertip. 'You're prepared. Now. Will you reach me, again? Will you touch my heart?' "So those are you terms, are they?" says Lilian. The catch of her pendant breaks away where she abruptly pulls. Swirling black fog, like ink underwater, spills from her fingers. "Well, that's sort of the point either way." she continues, as waves of black-gold light and particle and shadow and mass wash over her arms and legs, replacing winter coat with her impossibly articulated second skin. Insulative bulk becomes dark suit and plate and a subtle crown of black antler with a sound like spilling glass marbles. "That time, you actually praised me. For getting you like that. But that kind of praise was for cunning, wasn't it? Opportunism, really. That moment where I pulled out all the stops, and used my own allies, just to get that shot at you." says Lilian. Her hand drops away from where the radial lines pulse gold over her breast, and with a flick of her wrist, extends the full length of Night Mist in bladeform eruption of black smoke and embers. "Not that I won't admit that it wasn't a maneuver worth remembering. Precise, bold, perfectly timed; a little brave and a lot shrewd. But . . ." The snow shifts around Lilian's armour-shod legs whers she takes her stance, pointing her sword towards Hiromi, and, glaringly, no other weapon. "Ever since then, I think it's bothered me more and more. I don't regret taking whatever measures I needed to win at the time, of course. It couldn't be helped. It was a crisis, and I was the only one there. Even if I had to fight like a glorified assassin, the luxury of how to win belongs to those who've essentially already won." "And yet . . ." Lilian draws, holds, and exhales a single deep breath, fogging as it passes her lips. All thought of Hisako and her spectators has bled out of her stare. It is solely fixed on Hiromi now. The claws by her sides. The positioning of her feet. The tension in her muscles, and lack thereof. The habitual signs of a fanged grin. "I was reminded, not too long ago, that I didn't pick up a sword because I wanted to save the world. Everything I've added to it since then has just been a dilution of its purpose; a trick to stay ahead of the curve and keep the rest of the 'prey' beneath me." "I picked up a sword --not anything else-- because I wanted to be 'someone strong'. I wanted to be a knight. So, I want to try it honestly, this time. Strength against strength. Nothing and nobody else to use. Maybe you understand, maybe you don't, but either way, I appreciate your patience, in letting me start over and try to do this again. Without blinking, this time." Lilian's knuckles click ever so quietly as her grip settles on the hilt of her sword, like the ticking of fine clockwork rather than the clattering of mere steel. "Without lying." Lilian's complete stillness, safe for
Lilian Rook	Lilian's complete stillness, safe for the gentle fluttering of her unbound hair in the wind, is not an invitation for an answer. It is only the bracing calm before a stroke of lightning. Contemplative. Studying. Finding the shortest arc to ground. Snow settles into a crater already made. Diamond dust swirls and collapses together in a straight line to Hiromi. The stroke of a blade crosses --will cross --has already crossed --her chest right from the very start. Lilian doesn't vanish from sight. She suddenly fills Hiromi's vision, leaping just clear of the snow.
Remee Halcyon	"Well there's a bit of-" Remee starts to say. She's distracted by MEAT, to the point that she almost misses the start of the fight. Fortunately she has good ears. "Yeah, there, the... thing with the armor made of light. I don't think I have the head for magic specifically, but something like that." "But you're saying that just getting stronger, and... being better at taking hits without flinching, or hitting harder, would be enough..." She rubs her chin, and her gaze drifts from the fight to the MEAT. That looks really good. It smells even better.
Kukuru	Lilian transforms, and Kukuru is awestruck by the sight of it all. She doesn't even speak up again until long after she's already finished speaking her mind to Hiromi, listening long and hard to her motives for fighting in such a way that strikes her as so different from the norm. By the time she finally does speak up, though, she's brought both hands over to give Remee and Hisako attention. "It could be enough. It depends on what you want to do with becoming a better fighter, and how you want to do it. I think... Something like what Lili has there would be harder, and it's probably taken a lot of work for her to get there. Pain, time, all sorts of stuff we don't really know..." Despite the scent hitting her, Kukuru's eyes are squarely on Hiromi and Lilian. "Magic might not be impossible for you, either, but whatever you choose, you're gonna have to put work into it like they did. You're just gonna have to be willing to work that hard to develop it, or fight that hard to earn it, or pay that much in... Something to get it."
Hiromi	'It hardly seems as if the ringside seat in this scenario is worth very much.' Hiromi's grin incrementally widens, but she doesn't explain. Her claws are ready, her center of weight lowering, her stance widening. She's ready, as she said. Moreover, she's taking this seriously. Her attention is focused to a fine point. Only the motion of her ears betrays that words are still reaching her, rather than face or eye or hand or breath. '...where I pulled out all the stops, and used my own allies...' 'It was a crisis, and I was the only one there. Even if I had to fight like a glorified assassin...' We'll get back to this. 'I appreciate your patience, in letting me start over and try to do this again.' This, too. Lilian fills Hiromi's vision. The blade has crossed over her chest. Hiromi's claws are in the way, fouling the angle, subtly forcing a choice between an awkward strike and one that glances over her hands with no right choices, even this much attention to her own defense being unusual for her, to most who've had a prior chance to get this close to her in combat. The blade still sinks through flesh, though the shallow cut refuses to give more than an impression of blood. It can't be that her skin is really that thick... probably. Her forward motion was already prepared as Lilian advanced, though her invitation to take the first strike had been genuine, if unspoken. Hiromi's forward leg pushes through the snow as easily as air, sliding over ice before flexing with the force of an earthquake, merely from her ankle. Ice cracks thunderously, snow flurries in a thousand, scattered bursts, a nearby stone tower groans ominously, and the ground beneath Lilian's feet becomes that much more dangerous. The worst of it is the snow hides the ice's newly jagged form. The truly worst of it is the flicking swipe of two fingers from Hiromi's forward hand, poised low to launch Lilian upward and into the stone wall to Hiromi's right. The amount of force they contain would be deceptive, were it not for how the immediacy of the danger of being subject to Hiromi's strength is an instinctive screaming danger to any thinking being in her general area. "Were you alone? Did he not fight with you, for you? Was he not of your pack, a would-be hunter?" Her voice is loud, carrying, yet nearly calm in tone. There's only an undercurrent of imminent violence to match her actions.
Remee Halcyon	Remee hmms. "I'm a little iffy on paying more for it..." she says, with the understanding that Kukuru is talking about more than just money. (Which she has too much of.) "It sounds a lot like her 'power bled for' part of her code?" Actually bleeding for it wouldn't be terrible, if it was literally just bleeding, since she has a lot of blood. "But-" The fight advances. "Ahh - there's Hiromi's strength... not sure I'm all that eager to be on the receiving end of that again, even if it is just sparring."
Hiromi	Hisako is added to Kukuru's attentions. "Moh!" She's okay with it, though. This is pretty normal. "Did mu mont--" She pauses to swallow the rest of the fishcake, "Did you want boar, too, Miss Kukuru?" She doesn't ask Remee, possibly because the answer is obvious. The wolf-miko is brandishing a knife, while pulling the meat further away from the fire. It's probably going to take a bit to carve, having only been cut up to the point of not being able to easily recognize that it had been a board, before now. With head tilted to one side, Hisako adds, "That's right. About... working. But cunning is something you work to have, too, right? It's just not... something reliable."
Lilian Rook	Hiromi actually blocking her is something relatively new for Lilian, but not something wholly unexpected. Having fought the Archwolf several times, she knows very well that the effort she expends to defend herself, whether physical motion or the literal hardness of her body, is directly proportionate to whatever she finds most necesary, followed by most amusing, which typically means that Hiromi usually allows lesser blows to strike her just so she can defeat a plucky hero or heroine in one or two hits in exchange. But the last time had been different, by the end. It'd been . . . §Angle left. Slide the flat from the strong. Side cross coming. Just ride the momentum and roll into the snow, under her arm. Break off, circle behind her, break her line of sight, then approach from behind.§ Lilian leans into the blow. Her weight subtly tips upwards around the fulcrum of the hilt, the force of her springing lunge going down her arms instead of away from Hiromi instead. The blade bites deeper, aggressively working its way into flesh. A shallow cut, barely bleeding. Lilian's breath fogs the side of her sword. Twin pulses of blackness and and embers flash beneath her airborne feet. Lilian flips completely over Hiromi when the icy ground explodes beneath her, reacting slightly before Hiromi's power flows through the Earth, and lands delicately on the side of a jagged spear of frozen earth, supported wholly by mystical rejection of gravity. Her eyes dart to the flick-swipe from the side at the same moment the Archwolf's muscles tense. Her body compresses in readiness. §Kick up snow. Block visual. Stop and drop. Cut across under the arm at its furthest extension, fourth section. Cripple and close.§ Claw tips hammer against magnetite with a deafening spang like steely ringing glass. Colourless sparks fly from the grazing impact. Lilian goes flying off to the side of Hiromi's directed fa jin, angled away from the wall with the sword held close against her body. A light vapour cone puffs up around her and turns to fine snow. She skips off the jagged ground, bleeding off momentum in a wild spin, reorients herself in mid-air, and hits the wall with both feet, only to rebound straight back at Hiromi quicker than blinking. A head on aerial approach, guard tucked to her shoulder and blade trailing behind. Lightning fast, with lots of momentum put into the sword, but one that should leave her an easily intercepted target, save that the instant an attempt is made to stop her, a dissipating wake of energy marks where she has already shifted her course with flight, and she comes over or under or past it, trying and preserve all that momentum and cut deeper into Hiromi's ribs this time. It's the moment after she crosses up again where she says- "No. He was just there. We had no relation. I used him because he was convenient."
Kukuru	The fight is already reaching a point where Kukuru can only comprehend about half of what's happening. Hiromi's powerful movements are easy enough for her to follow, but Lilian's sudden adjustments force Kukuru to struggle just to try and realize that they've happened at all. Her hands on Hisako and Remee stop every now and then as her attention gets monopolized just by watching the spectacle, and it takes quite a while for her to even realize that her fellow spectators have even said anything to her. "... Huh? O-oh, yeah! That... That'd be great, Hi-so-ka." Her face relaxes considerably as her attention is drawn away from the fight briefly, giving the wolf-miko another affectionate pat on the head while trying not to look directly at the meat. She needs to keep her eyes and mind sharp, after all, and there's also those comments about cunning. "I tried taking some... Shortcuts for that before. To get smarter, I mean. I got some other stuff instead of that, but it'd be nice to be able to think as fast and good like everyone else." Remee's words do remind her of something, though, and she laughs quietly while shifting around a bit in her seat, then giving up and just straightening her legs out in front of her. "Paying might not always be with money, but in a more... Um... You know the word where it's kind of the same, but not?" She asks, reinforcing the fact that vocabulary isn't her strongest point. "Like that. Some people do get power, but they gotta sacrifice stuff for it. Relationships, blood, smarts... Hisoka's right, though. If I wanted to win better and convince people better, I think..." She taps her chin after a moment. "I think it'd be more useful to be strong instead of smart, if I had to choose one. I can't protect anyone if I'm super smart and too weak, but it doesn't matter how dumb I am if I'm strong enough to do anything to save them."
Hiromi	Again, Lilian comes straight at Hiromi. Again, Hiromi reacts with more thought to defense than she's shown, before, in nearly any fight of the past few years, save one. There's no way to entirely avoid the explosion of ice in front of her, brought about by the earth beneath it thrusting upward, still hidden by the snow. No way but to either push through the cloud, or to sacrifice momentum into a detour. Again, a strike that should have cut deep cuts shallowly, even as the blade runs against her. Again, the blood shows, but doesn't flow. 'He was just there. We had no relation.' "Did he think this?" But that's not really a question for Lilian, even if it's one posed to her. It's a question for and about someone else. Hiromi doesn't doubt her answers. The return blow is faster, kicking off the new, chaotic ice sculptures, shattering them into hundreds of pieces for the sake of less predictable motion. The swing swing of both arms together would crush whatever was caught between them, but Hiromi expects that much to be avoided. It's a clap of palm against palm that instead creates a fresh explosion of concussive force, blowing away the fresh snow and revealing the jagged ice beneath all at once. The thunder is followed by a twisting kick, palms to the ice, the Archwolf's whole body turning about without losing its momentum, flashing out with one foot followed by the other in a pursuing two-step on her hands, claw marks left to mark her passage, a final, spinning twist regaining her feet. "'Assassin.' You regret this. Approaching honestly, now. 'Knight.' No, more than honest. And less. Not yet. I haven't seen enough, yet."
Hiromi	'That'd be great, Hi-so-ka.' The wolf-miko's ears tilt one way, then other. Mildly, "It's Hisako, miss Kukuru." '...it'd be nice to be able to think as fast and good like everyone else.' "I think so, too," Hisako says, and then blinks, confused, on realizing that Kukuru was talking about herself. "Don't... you..." ...already? There isn't anything strictly plate-shaped in here, but there's at least one sanded wooden platter, and that's what Hisako starts transferring cuts of roasted meat over to, sizzling fat included.
Lilian Rook	§Wide area explosion. Is she catching on? Abort. Back off to fifty meters. Spool out more line. Approach slowly this time. Don't risk taking a single hit.§ Lilian's rebounding lunge zigzags between two earthen ruptures, blasts of accelerating force making up for bled speed. Rock and ice pings sharply from her armour, shattering where it strikes an odd flat angle, and sparking like molten steel rather than mere debris. The sword bites through Hiromi. Closer to her heart. Only glancing from iron rib, coming away barely red-smeared. "Does it matter?" says Lilian, breathing the words out with her bracing motion. "I never treated him as an ally. I treated him as an opportunity. That's fine if you want to win. But it's not the type of strong I originally wanted to be. It's the kind that crushes weaklings, not the kind that slays dragons." §Stop. It's not working. You don't need more force. Back off. Feint. Get her guard down. This whole area is fit to blow to pieces. You can't control her center line. You know better than that. Get out of her reach. Force her to range. Move! Lilian lifts her sword high above her head, leaving herself nearly unguarded. Her lead foot slides out and traces a quarter circle clockwise, steadying her stance against the ground. Her armour clicks and creaks with the subtle tension imbued into it, glinting gold flashing incendiary beneath the seams. The blast of force hits her head on, throwing off another blast of dazzling sparks --more fiery motes of light-- despite having no mass at all. Her hair whips out behind her. She slides fast, back over the ice, nearly into a jagged outcrop, and arrests her momentum on energy alone. A thin trail of breath fog marks where the wind had been fractionally knocked out of her. "Cleasa!" Half-red light divides up the air between three sharp crashes of othersteel on wolf heel; a hard down, rebounding to a diagonal back behind the head, and then a full body spin that brings it down over the shoulder to intercept the final strike, returning to the original position with a spirographic triangle of sword-cuts. There's no possible way for Lilian to match Hiromi's sheer force, but each counter is applied with uncanny prescience and supernal timing to hack into Hiromi's legs and turn each kick just barely away from her body. From her hands down to her elbows, her arms faintly glow with a gradient of absorbed heat, but her sword flares bright with power. The spinning twist attack launches her flat from the ice, but Lilian expends her spare time to say otherwise, deciding not to go flying, but to come plunging back down on Hiromi instead. A falling cleave like this is deeply out of character for her, but the impact is shockingly meteoric, sacrificing the element of surprise for strength and aggression. It accelerates at the last possible instant, before Hiromi can harden the earth, to drive her up to the knees into solid stone, should she block it. Suspended air explodes with the volume of a small bomb. Lilian allows it to hurl her back only as far as it helps her get her feet again, skidding slightly and leaning counterbalance sideways to accelerate back at Hiromi. The ice melts shallowly where she reaches out her hand to stabilize. The frosty air shimmers with the force absorbed by her suit. "I don't regret it. It was the right decision. But I want to be capable of more! I just remembered what I always wanted to be, so forgive me for seizing it the way I know how!" Lilian calls out, rushing down Hiromi yet again.
Kukuru	"Hisa... Oh, sorry. That does roll off the tongue way better." Kukuru smiles apologetically at Hisako, giggling briefly before shaking her head. "I wish. I was supposed to get smarter a while back, but some stuff happened, and I didn't. I can fix people's bodies, though, and I like that a lot more." She takes the offered food gratefully, resisting the urge to just slam it into her face in favor of snatching up individual cuts with her tongue to really savor that flavor so it can last throughout the battle. "Although... I guess it would still be nice to be smart, too. Then I'd be better at convincing people to join the Concord, and not getting confused whenever people like Woz and Lili and Ishi talk about complicated science stuff, or time things, or magical weirdness. I'd like to be able to help them when those types of problems come up, but..." She trails off for a moment, looking towards the battle again as Lilian gives her a new perspective on this fight. Her expressions hardens for a moment, then softens again as she settles back into another smile that's far less airheaded than her usual sort. "If I can help them do their best without having to worry about what's going on behind them, that's fine too." She notices that shift in Lilian's usual tactics, too, and she even holds off on eating just to see how that plunging attack works out.
Hiromi	Even slight redirections require both consummate skill and power of undeniable significance. Barely, the strength of the blows is avoided. There's no time given to acknowledge the feat. Snow is blasted away, ice cracked, even anomalously melting from energy and force. The view from the audience cave is still good, though Hiromi spared all the attention that would be given before the fight started. Before Lilian arrived, even. It can hardly even be said that Hiromi makes decisions based on where Lilian is, though the flick of her eyes and turn of her ears acknowledges each reposition. Where she might have prepared for an attack from behind, again, it comes from the front. Not below, beneath her guard, but above, like a meteor's strike. The ice has already been broken by the stone below it, and and the next strike pushes Hiromi down into it., the cleaving strike taken on the black bone-claw suddenly bursting from her previously merely claw-like hands. "No regret? You look forward. Good. If... you're proud." She's buried up to her knees, but the stone runs over her legs as if molten, less slowing her than launching her back onto the broken surface of the ice, fresh cracks running through it. "Patience, I have. For others, to grow. For myself, to grow. Only for those who stop, there is... none." There's no rush. Her approach is one step after another, a stalking gait, but not a hidden one. She's still much too far away when she raises her leg, bringing it down in an axe blow to the ice, burying through to sink into what remains of a stone structure just beneath. The entire area tilts, the ground lifting up beneath Lilian as if hinged, a city block of barely-visible ruins lifting beneath her to form a ramp down toward Hiromi, followed by the constant crashing of suddenly loosed stones tumbling from the tower at the far end of it. Those would be easy to avoid, if Hiromi wasn't rushing forward to meet her, bounding steps with claws poised and ready. They flash just before the last possible moment, not for Lilian, but for her sword. It's Hiromi's shoulder check that threatens to hit Lilian, herself, up into the rush of stone and ice that is about to all crash down again.
Kukuru	Kukuru, true to her word, is going to remain on the sidelines until the battle is finally over. She promised Lilian that there would be no need to worry about anything else during her struggle against Hiromi, that there would be nothing to worry about during this challenge, and that she'd watch the fruits of her efforts to the end. She's fullly intending to give these two warriors their needed after-battle care once it's over, too, whether it's healing, food, or even a bit of resuscitation. She's even prepared to provide her assistance in getting one or both of them back home after the fact! Regardless of whoever emerges from this still standing, though, one thing is certain. Lilian is finally getting her birthday present, whether or not she's capable of realizing it by the time she gets it. It comes in a long, flat-ish box if something as tall as a shoe box and three times as wide still counts as flat, and the wrapping is immaculate as though whoever did it put a lot of care into making sure to get it just right. Inside, there's a neatly folded scarf bearing none of the tags nor perfect alignment that would indicate it was storebought or even machinemade. No, this whole thing was knit by hand with those alternating black and gold stripes, and there's plenty of pockets stitched on the inside of it that could easily fit water bottles or smaller food containers. Oddly enough, those pockets are spaced out enough that it looks like this scarf should actually be worn by two people at once.
Lilian Rook	Lilian can't disguise the sound of irritation she makes when Hiromi responds to her further escalation of force with a parrying tool. Under other circumstances, she might feel a little swell of pride about it; after all, Hiromi is someone she's known to take Hibiki's heaviest punches head on and enjoy it. Right now though, she's far too focused on the task in front of her. The mountain she had never quite thought of as one, until she decided to climb it, rather than fly past it. "Proud?" That gives Lilian a moment of pause. "I'm not proud of the way I threw him under the bus. I'm not proud of the way I've sometimes approached things in the past. But I'm proud of my strength. I'm proud of how far I've come and what I've achieved. And I'm starting to feel more proud of the person I think I can be." Lilian suddenly laughs. "Besides, what is it except pride to try and take you on with just a sword and a will?" §No amount of trying to hit her harder is going to help. You need a clean angle too. Look at how her ears swivel. She's hearing you first. She can smell where you've been, but only as fast as the wind can carry it. Get inside her guard. Use it.§ The ground lurches up underneath her. Lilian is briefly divested of her pretense of remaining fixed to earth by gravity, then regains her feet a second later. Every instinct screams at her to relocate. To back off the collapsing landslide of debris and poor footing that only works to Hiromi's favour. To force the wolf to chase her. But a different, nameless urge is far stronger, and it compels her to stay. To look the wolf in the eye, and show no fear of . . . What, exactly? Lilian lowers her stance, subtly shifts the the press of her weight by degrees, and accelerates towards Hiromi downhill, weaving on a trail of grinding sparks. Faster than the debris can catch her, so she doesn't have to track it. Faster than she can have second thoughts. For an instant, it looks just like Lilian is about to try and take Hiromi blow for blow again. Her sword twitches up, alive and thirsting. They're almost hand to hand when Hiromi sees Lilian's eyes widen and her breath split from her lips, and then her entire posture shifts, allowing the first blow to tear right past her-- the second to just barely flash past her chest, bent backwards to skid under it, with the third nearly tearing her cheek as she hugs her sword to herself. The stone hisses and spits where she tries to strike Hiromi in passing, only to abort that as well, cancelling the risky maneuver and ricocheting away from the shoulder check with a steely spang, spinning out to a halt at the head of a spiral of ruin-dust and snow-steam. For a moment, she was defending her sword with significantly greater seriousness than herself.
Lilian Rook	<J-IC-Scene> Hiromi says, "Are you... distracted?" <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Why?" <J-IC-Scene> Hiromi says, "Your steps, approach, swings. Aggressive. Your 'route.' Deadly, enough, for most. But not here. Is something missing? Is it newness? Or is this where you must still grow?" <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "How am I supposed to cut you if I don't get aggressive?" <J-IC-Scene> Hiromi says, "That is this strangeness. You're not aggressive 'enough.' I haven't felt your strength, 'enough.' Why? Unsure. I can see your claw. Not wasteful. Not fearful. Then, why?" <J-IC-Scene> Hiromi says, "Come, again. I must feel it." Night Mist jumps back, aligned with Lilian's line of vision and mirrored along the length of an outstretched arm. Her knees flex with the subtle click of metalloid plate. The snow explodes. The stone cracks. "Cleasa Iontach--!" Lilian is superimposed into Hiromi's face. A quantum flux of potential places, collapsed into the inescapable orbit of arm's reach. Power courses through the runes and fuller and down both edges of her weapon. A searing line is carved down through Hiromi's right shoulder, where it joins her neck. Where it first meets bone, it shatters into a spray of mirrored slashes, lesser ghosts of potential flensing muscle and sinew with sheer volume. A second blow follows from behind, flowing from the first, this time under the shoulderblade. A third, from her right side, drawn up and across from Lilian's side to flick through Hiromi's bicep. It finally resembles a strategy, at least. An acceptance that she is unable to cut right through Hiromi's bone claws, and so she has to start with breaking her inexhaustible defenses; no matter how fast Hiromi regenerates, theoretically, someone who can move infinitely fast and briefly overwhelm it.
Hiromi	"Not proud but, not regretting that past. Is that it? You still look forward." Of course Hiromi can talk, uncannily calm, even when charging in. She's never been the least bit short of breath, that anyone has been able to notice, regardless of circumstance. Her own eyes are too focused to tell what she thinks of Lilian's determination, solely through them. Watching her body tells more stories, though they're ready with difficulty. She moves with unthinking honesty, even when that means taking the flurry of overlapping blows to her shoulder. She approaches in to meet the attack, as Lilian's blade finally finds proper purchase, tearing flesh and spraying blood. Those wounds can't close again faster than she can close them, so long as an attacker can keep that up, at that pace, on and on. And so long as she neither tightens her torn muscles around the descending blade, nor strikes with any other limb, both of which near-immediately occur. "You wish..." It's no more surprising than any blow she'd given before, save for its sudden ferocity. It's a focusing of bodily energy, not in the manner some call ki, but in a more essential sense. A simple, thrusting strike of black bone claws accomplished like a climax without build-up, aimed for the moment when Night Mist undoubtedly exists in Hiromi's shoulder. It most certainly must have crossed intervening space to reach its destination. The snap of wind at its passage even proves that fact, if eyes were to slow to catch it. As if still confident this will prove no impediment to hearing her, Hiromi's still speaking. "Hesitance, there. Defensiveness. Was it that? Only for that, is it, you defend? That strike, was better. I feel your claw. You've found my blood. Is this 'a knight'?" She pauses to consider something. "'Knights.' I remember. But, they... were taller. You're still growing. It's good." Cuts take only a moment to heal, when she considers them important. Hiromi flexes each muscle from shoulder to claw-tip individually. "It's not enough. But, it can't be. 'Enough' is for... goals. And prey-creatures. But, you know this, yes?"
Lilian Rook	"Don't get me wrong!" Lilian calls out over the scraping of her downward charge and the crumbling of ancient stone, in the few moments she has to. "I'm not proud of every single moment! But I'm proud of where I am precisely because of everything I had to go through to get here!" Night Mist flashes through air. Through snow. Through blood. Through time. Through Hiromi. Lilian's hands on its hilt, when Hiromi can even see them, embrace it like a childhood friend, and wield it like a piece of her. Compared to her bullets and bombs and cunning tactical runes, it is a straightforward sort of pain to receive, and yet it strikes far more deeply, more willfully, seeking bone, inching towards marrow, thirsting for heartsblood. The final questing strike drives nearly up to the hilt, and is seized in the bind of Hiromi's living muscle itself. And yet Hiromi doesn't feel Lilian try to pry it free, nor does she feel her relinquish the weapon. She senses the thrust so readily, there is no longer any doubt that Lilian has intuited it at the same instant Hiromi had even thought to do it. She can feel all those perfectly fitted little plates and pieces of dubious metal flex under the backbast of the blow, see lines of energy spark defensively, sense Lilian's arms quivering with strain, smell shallow bleeding somewhere out of sight. And then she says "I said it back then, and I don't take it back! I am better than all of those people, and I'm tired of pretending that I'm not!" "Cleasa Iontach ~ Slais Gearradh Fola!" Hiromi's wounds stubbornly refuse to bleed. This is wise. But there's nothing to be done about blood already being inside her body. The beating of the Archwolf's heart is sufficient to send it coursing under the edge of Night Mist, and the ancient technique, executed by a young prodigy like Lilian, can find it from a near standstill with fully mustered effort and focus. The blade budges only a hairsbreadth, but the 'slash' travels up the bloodstream by the arcane link of fresh blood itself. "A real knight would be even more incredible than this! There's absolutely no way that this would be enough for me!"
Hiromi	When Lilian stays there, hands to her weapon, stuck fast to Hiromi, and takes her blow, is the first time Hiromi's eyes widen in surprise. Her teeth follow, that grin widening, ecstatic laughter just touching her lips when the curse finds her. There was no flaw in the execution. It was a strike made with all due effort. Hiromi's heart does beat at all times, whether or not she takes breath. The defense of her skin is bypassed, and all muscles in-between. And yet, the result of that earnest effort is only that Hiromi's heart skips a beat. This close, there's little chance of avoiding the follow-up blow. Some, certainly. For someone of Lilian's ability, there's nearly always time to think, if only she would give up her blade for a moment. If not, she'll contend with an attack far worst than that simple thrust, as Hiromi's fingers clamp around her armor. Purchase gained, being stabbed proves no issue for the Archwolf's freedom of motion. She drives the both of them into the nearest wall, and through it, cleanly shattering ancient stones. "Yes! You see, you're different." Inside and shadowed, Hiromi drags her night's partner up crumbling stairs the hard way, scraping over or through each obstacle, to burst back into the fading polar light. "Grown where they haven't, wouldn't." The initial grip shifts to double-hand in time to drop back to the ground, Lilian-first. Bereft a wall and a supporting pillar clipped on the charge toward the stairs, the ancient halls collapse behind her. "Not enough, yet. You're not there, yet. 'Grail Knight.'" The term is almost recognizable English, another thing Hiromi must have heard, and not in the native tongues of the humans of her pack. "You'll grow, still. As strong as them." It's when her grip shifts again to begin squeezing down on Lilian's armor that the clear opportunity to escape her presents. "Then, you'll keep growing. Yes?"
Lilian Rook	Finally, the battle comes down to that do or die question. To relinquish Night Mist even for a second, or to try and be tougher than she has ever been before. The choice is an absurd binary, with a clear right and wrong answer, from any sane perspective, and it is one that Lilian predictably chooses wrong. It is the dangerous choice she will always favour the opposite way to her usual absolute aversion to risk and harm. Extra time is only used to kick through the stone wall herself, breaking it ahead of the charge, and pelted with rubble through the other side. It's used to flicker intangible, into ghostly roiling shadow with four burning eyes for just long enough to avoid being crushed against the floor. It's used to coil her body for where she is slammed into the rapidly degrading inclines, and dig in her heels and flex her legs against the ruthless grinding of her whole body against the crumbling rock. The last of the breath Lilian can hold is squeezed out of her by Hiromi's grip, until the frost runs dry from her lips. The skin-warm metal keens and sparks and shimmers with heat from the force applied to it. Power bleeds away into the ice cold wind. Lilian's exhausted body shakes in Hiromi's grasp. And then it all plays out in the fraction of an instant the Archwolf changes up her grip. The plates Hiromi grips disperse into what feels like a cloud of glassy black sand and hot gold embers. Where a thin quilted gambeson would traditionally be beneath more realistic platemail, a similarly fitted glossy grey-black and gold-shot bodysuit denies purchase. Lilian flickers out of her grasp with the centimeter of clearance she has. Armoured boots plant viciously against Hiromi's shin and knee. Raven hair flares out. A pulse of kinetic strength disturbs the air. And Lilian wrenches Night Mist along the grain of the sinew in the same instant she strikes Hiromi head on with a bloody-mindd, teeth-gritting headbutt, partially shielding her own skull (and menacing Hiromi's eyes and nose) with the brace of metal antler. Sword back in her possession, Lilian hits the ground with her back, rolls rearward over one shoulder, and lands in a shaky crouch. Heaving for air, she points the bloodied long blade up to ward away Hiromi, though her ragged breath steams in the cold, and her trembling limbs are clearly losing too much strength to be useful. A trickle of blood freezes on her split lip. "I don't know . . . who that is . . . but whatever they are . . . they aren't strong enough for me." Lilian pants. "If they can't take you out, then I need to do better than them . . . I want to be better than them. The greatest knight . . . means what it means . . . and should be able to defeat the strongest beast. Not by conveniently using other people . . . but just by being more than them all."
Hiromi	Neither the retrieval of her sword nor the idea of a headbutt are enough to surprise Hiromi over again, though the fact that the latter was delivered by Lilian is something she only just avoids taking the antler to an eye. That she chooses to avoid it at all may be taken as curious. Struck solidly, metal to skin and bone, Hiromi snorts. Distracted, at least. Stunned, maybe not. Standing, still, and more easily than her opponent. Her breath, as ever, is steady. Blood remains over her many fresh wounds. "You wish for strength." She'd left the thought hanging, earlier. "Strength, enough, to choose how. Not just 'victory.' I see, now. I've felt you. I know. Strength of your own. Standing, above." Hiromi spreads her arms, slowly, laboriously stretching. The black bone claws disappear back beneath her skin, openings closing, skin healed bloodlessly, there. "But, to grow, you have more to learn, to try, to do. Before you can take 'strongest beast.'" Hiromi reaches out toward the hill with Hisako, Remee, and Kukuru. The word she speaks isn't a word, but if it truly were, it would be "Here!" Immediately understanding her intent, the wolf-miko comes running. It's a normal pace, sliding down the snowy hillside and taking loping, short-girl strides through the snow, forcing her way there in a rush, but not one possessing the strength of either combatant. It's an efficient method of communication. Concise, yet nuanced. Nuanced, yet unambiguous. That Lilian is also able to understand the words clearly addressed by Hiromi to Hisako may be unintentional. "Take our welcome visitor to the hot springs near the home of your sisters. Care for her wounds as if she were a younger sister." Lilian is now surrounded. She would need turn her sword at the earnest Hisako before being lifted, to avoid the fate Hiromi pronounces for her. Even growling might not be enough discouragement, with Hiromi's presence enforcing the order.
Lilian Rook	Hearing Hiromi begin to speak on the concept of strength for yet another time doesn't budge Lilian's wary focus for even an instant. She isn't fresh enough to take it for idle philosophizing; the subject is one she's heard from the Archwolf even in the midst of laying waste to a city. Her attention is so steady and unwavering, in fact, that Hiromi can see the exact instant that, near the end, some long half-comprehended idea sparks in her eyes, inched wide in ephemerally gleaming wonderment. 'Strength, enough, to choose how.' "So you do understand?" Lilian quietly gasps, then blinks in back-straightened startlement for realizing she'd hesitantly phrased it as a question. "It's . . . not enough for me, anymore, to just win. Not for the sorts of battles that I usually fight. With the type of strength that I have, I can't trust that the victory will always be . . ." She trails off, staring past Hiromi and somewhere deep into a space of memory. "I want to win in the way that Dame Commander Lilian Rook should win." she says. "If I have so much strength, I'd like it . . . I need it to be the sort of strength I can be happy with. The kind that brings about victory in a way I live with." She sighs. "The kind that I wanted more than anything, a long time ago. Before I went and . . . before life made me forget." The half-formed expression falls off her face, in favour of a sort of stunned-exhausted vintage of blithe confusion, when Hiromi starts talking to Hisako. It's not that she hadn't heard wolf-language before, nor that she hadn't comprehended it before, but something about it appears to hit her differently, though nothing is new save that kintsugi-like armour. When her lips part, and begin moving in dumb startlement, Hiromi and Hisako could swear that there are two people speaking at once, their voices overlaid in a strange-familiar harmonic way. "Wait. You're talking about §pack / family / way of life§ aren't you? Hold on now, I didn't say anything about-- I only asked you to be §a large boulder / safe-dangerous and magnanimous / living proof§! I didn't promise I'd do anything as ridiculous §hear doctrine / accept uncertain truths / try other ways to be§! We're fighting! I especially don't need §medical care / being cared for / anyone to care about me§!" Her extremely stange pouting is irrelevant. Hisako is here and Hisako is going to obey Hiromi. Lilian staggers back up to standing, hesitantly pointing her sword at the small wolf miko, but she doesn't really mean it. She's too wobbly and uncertain and she's not really going to attack a cute girl over something stupid like this. She yells when she's grabbed, and thrashes and whines and digs in her heels, complaining at Hisako in shrill-conflicted tones, but with the adrenaline abruptly running out, and exhausted from fighting Hiromi in the least sensible way available to her, Lilian has little effective rebuke to deliver. Her armour is starting to flake away into black metal and gold light, without sufficient will to sustain it.
Hiromi	"Were fighting," Hiromi corrects. "You wish to avoid lectures, avoid 'do this different,' yes? Yes, all pups do." Amused at some joke she, at least, understands, Hiromi smiles. "'Not this time.' You'll be stronger. You'll try again. 'Rest and listen,' is your small price. I am Hiromi. I bring destruction, obstruction, and guidance." Hisako is under orders. She's wary of the points of swords, but she's also a close-in fighter, and she's fresh and determined. Without the same determination to resist, her picking up Lilian to carry off is inevitable. Being less than literally carried is the best she can get.