Scene #8550: Bare Your Heart

Owner	Pose
Nephra Tangent	Tracking down a certain Nephra Tangent to anywhere, without an invitation, is a surprisingly difficult process. Her name provides very few returns from nearly any database, and when any do show up, they're nonsensical fragments of search engine tagging chaff. She's sparsely talked about where she's from or usual haunts, save that she moves from motel to motel, somewhere, at fairly frequent rate. No friends or figures mentioned often, no real links back anywhere, save for a few shreds of information available to Hibiki: 1) A handful of months ago, newsreels from the city of Point Celestine, an industrial port on a long-integrated Earthlike world's Great Lakes region, showed an instance of property damage to the Chalice Center, an ongoing construction effort for a branch office of a corporation native to that world, the Chalice-Keynes Industrial Conglomerate. Said instance is notable not for the world nor the damage, but that presence, injury, and subsequent recovery of known Paladins Chevalier Ishirou. The dates on the newsreels, Ishirou, and quite possibly the trend of property damage, coincide with Nephra having been involved with this event, despite the lack of much accessible or clear CCTV footage. 2) Hibiki, a longer-term member and Officer, no less, of the Watch, likely has higher capacity and familiarity with who can be nudged to provide payment details and scheduling, or otherwise determine that regular, if slightly infrequent, cashings and withdrawals have been made in a city ancillary to the exact same Point Celestine from those reels, barely an hour away. It wouldn't be a hard guess that it's just one agent doing so, and if coincidental, it's quite a strange coincidence. 3) Hibiki, ironically enough, has been to this world. Within a handful of hours by transit to a few cities, including Point Celestine, the warpgate access points she traversed to first face Petra after her release from imprisonment may have a few shreds of familiarity, even if other things were on her mind. Carnegie Park is even more unremarkable by foot than it is by transmit, and just as unreliable to navigate- it has quite the number of motels, too, as highway connections to larger and better places create cheap opportunity for those passing through, and nearly nothing for anyone else. Faded industry chokes the city like the ghost of a noose, crumbling and rusting buildings filling plots and only occasionally being retaken by new developments or squatters the corporate property owners haven't seen fit to apply costs towards removing. Closer resolution to where Nephra may be, in this city (if at all), requires a more direct and trial-and-error approach: she may be a brightly visible girl, awkwardly tall, obviously implanted full of cybernetic enhancements, and consistently injured, but she's still just one girl in a city full of thousands and thousands of occupants. Time's all this needs, though. She's not hiding. So no matter how long it takes, whether picking up supplies at a convinience store, or in the rain-eroded parking lot of an old motel, the magical girl will find Nephra easily enough, with little more than brute force.
Hibiki Tachibana	A certain magical girl has been doing a few things she doesn't normally do lately. Besides the (ostensible) murder of over a dozen. It might not seem like it, with how it looks like she never ever learns a thing from them, but Hibiki isn't bad at remembering things. She also has nothing but free time, with her current unwillingness to go home, that she can completely put towards doing what she feels like she has to do. And she's spent a considerable portion of it doing nothing but digging into and finding what she needs. Finding not-so-old news reports. Going through both public chatter and old factional radio logs. Actually using her status in the Watch for once, as she had with Remee. Occasionally taking detours to be 'the hero' despite her situation has never changed that screwed-up tangle of things in her chest. Even the events of yesterday seem like they're a mile away here - the slow and dawning realization that this world is one she's not only been to, but had /that/ fight in, is like a static fog over her mind and weighing down every step. In a messed up way, though, it makes it easier instead of harder to put one foot in front of the other in Carnegie Park's dour streets. It helps keep her focused on that wrenching feeling that refuses to go anywhere, makes sure that no amount of monotony or letting herself relax will risk dimming them or having them fade into the background. It's so easy to let negative emotions lose their steam when the thing that caused them isn't right in front of you. But not this time. And she has nothing but time. ... There's not really much to look forward to when going back to one of these dingy motels, is there? Especially not when so many of them are being there one day, and gone the next. There's no sense of truly having someplace to settle, and definitely not one of excitement, unless you're (un)lucky enough to have some troublemakers you'll probably never see again start something with each other in front of the place. That, at least, tends to make a pretty good show from the sidewalk, or the other side of a window. It's not so much fun when you're actually a part of it. Nephra might be stepping out to shift locations again, or maybe she's just going out shopping. Getting a bite to eat. Refilling on those lollipops she always has on hand. It doesn't really matter--not so much as the fact that she's going to be greeted not a dozen steps out into the lot. Not by words, but by a fist thrown for her face at the same moment its owner steps out from behind one of the few vehicles parked here. It doesn't really matter if it floors her, if it doesn't land at all, or anything in between. It's more the fact that it's Tachibana Hibiki slowly straightening back up from the unbalancing overswing. Accumulated scrapes bandaged over too messily to be professional, bags under her eyes more prominent than ever as they outright glower back at the other girl, and voice somewhere between a husky whisper and a muted snarl. "/There/ you are."
Nephra Tangent	The motel Nephra's found herself staying in is the sort that still uses analog keys instead of rfid or magnetized cards, a fact that she herself has been making herself quite irritated about each and every time she's had to fumble with the keyring and its awful boot-shaped leather bobble attachment. Work gloves don't make for particularly dextrous finger control. But with keys stuck in her jacket's transparents pockets, and hands following behind as she descends wet concrete stairs, warm humid air coating the world in a scratchy sort of blanket, her eye is on anything but the strangers milling about the parking lot as she heads out to cross it. Shifty nervous gazing between the treeline, down at her feet, and at the windows of surrounding buildings is one thing, but she has to bodily turn her torso to see to the left, something obvious and easy to utilize to sneak up even with firm and determined footfalls. It's also harder to look down, something useful to Hibiki, as she rushes in and crunches her knuckles hard into the left underside of Nephra's jaw, the greeting of champions. Onlookers don't even flinch as the taller girl stumbles and catches herself on the hood of a parked car, barely avoiding falling fully sprawled across it. Flimsy fiberglass bends slightly at her landing. Nephra's heartrate spikes, and a hand is raised in front of her face, even before the flashing pain radiating from the impact site hits her brain. As she catches her breath for the spare moment she has, it's plain and simple to see that Nephra is doing anything but her ship-shape best. Wound-around bandages have replaced or covered up the leather top she usually wears beneath her jacket, fresh enough to not be blood-soaked but present enough to keep bruised bones and sutured-up wounds from splitting upen again. Bruises and burn scars surround the implanted studs down arms bare beneath her see=through raincoat, new and old alike, and the bags under her eyes and tremble to her posture hints it may have been quite a while since she's got sleep, let alone rest. Blood dribbles from her lip, and she turns her head to spit it out on the car windshield, before twisting her posture back upright. "Oh, for Pete's fucking sake. Haha. Of course you'd try something. Make better choices." She's here to kill me, isn't she? Despite Nephra's words, her pupil shoots wide, and her neck hunches down, even as overlapping sheets of metal flow like click-snapping waves of water from the folded-space storage compaction of her suit, neatly electromagnetized to her spinal column. Her heartbeat thuds in 2/4 time, breaths syncopated between it, not quite yet pulling on the world around her, but making its presence known. "Should have finished the job in one shot. Haha. You won't get a better one~ How fun of you to already be in that fancy little armor of yours, though!" The disconnect between her expression and words grows larger, closer and closer to how she acts on the radios than the awkward and desparate way she click-snaps the pistons in her legs to push off the car- immediately denting its side and setting off its alarm -to close the short gap between them. Clawed fingers lash out in a wide swing, unarmed except for her suit's own strength, to try and swipe at Hibiki's throat of all places. Her shoulder's momentum is furious, clicking and moving with inhuman speed, and pulling its downswing faster than a shooting star, interneuron junctions flaring with currents suited more for copper wiring, to operate the tank-like hulk of machinery she wears like clothing. "Don't tell me you wanted a fight! Haha. Fuck you, for that! That's no fair. It'd be so, so easy to have just gotten rid of me, wouldn't it? So shut up and bleed about it, if you won't do it clean."
Hibiki Tachibana	If Nephra's misbegotten appearance draws any kind of shift in feeling out of Hibiki, it doesn't show on her face. It's hard to tell what's going on beneath the oversized scarf looped over half of it, but the glare piercing right through the exhaustion that should otherwise be in her eyes hasn't changed at all. Not until plates of armoring move to cover limbs, and mechanical joints begin creaking into motion. Which forces her to brace in preparation, not even bothering to try and move herself out of the way of the charge barreling in towards her. Instead, the half-cylinder gauntlet on her left arm comes up in a block. Whatever alloy makes up a Symphogear, and some of the internal machinery lying underneath responsible for those devastating punches of hers, is shorn into by vicious and far, far too forceful claws tearing uneven gashes deep into it. And in that split second where metal screeches through metal, Hibiki actually pushes /further/ into the attack, into her--briefly locking Nephra's fingers inside, further tearing them through the internals and nearly reaching the actual forearm beneath it all, as her other hand goes to seize Nephra's free arm. She twists on one heel and then the other, using the other girl's own momentum in a reversal meant to swing her around and straight into the closed door of the truck with a deafening, resounding slam that nearly topples the whole thing on the spot. "...You make me sick to my stomach." The momentary grapple and resulting impact locks them close enough that Hibiki is very much face to face with her. It's uncharacteristic for her voice to be so painfully level, but even moreso to have that tinge of revulsion to it. "A sincere word can't come out of your mouth even when someone's right in front of you. Can it? Even when you're throwing yourself at me looking like that." The digits trying to keep hold on Nephra's arm crunch down, threatening to not just cave in dense plating but penetrate into it entirely, solidfying her hold. "I'm not letting you off the hook that easily, either. I'm going to look you in the eye--" A wrench of her wrist, to dig further down into the limb plating. "The whole time. This thing isn't going to protect you from that, is it...!? You want to talk about my armor--" Hibiki's voice finally raises, at the same time she... ...pulls back just enough prime a knee to smash straight into Nephra's gut, to try and send her /through/ the shut door of the vehicle she's forced against and out the other side, blowing both of them off their hinges in the process. But Hibiki cares less about whatever will happen to her still-impaled gauntlet from the sudden removal of Nephra's claws, and more what'll happen to the exoskeleton arm that'll be suffering the same. "--There's a /world/ of difference between what I clad myself in and what you clad yourself in! What the hell does that thing mean to you, besides something to fight and kill with!? Does it mean /anything/!?"
Nephra Tangent	Playing into Hibiki's attempt to jam the Androktasia suit's claws into the meat of her own gauntlets may not be the wisest of ideas, but Nephra doesn't want to look this gift horse in the mouth. Vice-gripping finger claws clasp and grab at whatever they can, shearing metal and trying to tear themselves deeper, like an EMT clawing through guts to find a busted artery to pinch, with the complete opposite of any benevolent healng intent. She wants to find where Hibiki is, underneath the armor, and make her face the damage. Gravity flares, the split-second Hibiki motions to try and swing Nephra's momentum around, and the girl's boots are locked down tight against the pavement, asphalt cracking beneath the gut-churning onset of high-G. Instead, the rocketing kinetic force Hibiki puts behind it just careens up and through Nephra, armor echoing like a cracked and tarnished bell with the impact. It runs through dampening systems and rattles even the bones in her torso, teeth in her mouth clacking together in a pained impact that managed to even catch the side of her tongue. "Ow, Fuwk.." She whines, as Hibiki moves face to face, a dangerous place to be across from a girl whose mouth is gently filling up with blood. Nephra leans in closer and spits, the expression an ugly taunt right back a brief moment after Hibiki describes how sickening she is, as if to prove the point for her. "Haha." A ragged cough shakes her, arms locked as they are by the other girl. Metal squeals and bends, but doesn't quite give way, plates shifting in adaptation to the consistend pressure, reacting back to keep their shape. Nephra herself winces, though, as criss-crossing sensory wires built-into and covering the material bend and sever themselves, even as the pressure beneath the casing stays workable. "What's it even matter if I'm sincere or not? Is that really the worst you could say 'bout me? Maybe I mean every word I say, and you just don't like them, huh?" Again, the knee blow that ought to have sent Nephra flying, doesn't, instinctive reactions preventing the two of them from budging an inch. Equal and opposite reactions when neither party can turn energy into motion are achingly painful, it turns out! The car, however, doesn't get to be unharmed, as gravitational flareups crunch its suspension to the limits and then some, while blood struggles not to flow backwards. "Huh? What does it mean to me?" Nephra wants to scoff and brush it off, and also wants to vomit and collapse as her empty stomach wrenches itself from the resonant impact. Ugh. Are my stitches going to hold? Cracks are forming in her gaunlet plates, the twisting, fibrous mechanisms and rigid piston framings still holding firm, though. "Sure! Haha, it can fight and kill! Done a lot with this lump of metal, y'know! But I'm still standing here, yeah? You're here in part of it, yeah? Haha. Fighting and killing's a way to be seen and matter, yeah?" The turquoise and crimson striping paint on the armor are far more chipped than the first time Hibiki's ever seen the suit, even if the changes have been gradual. But it's still vibrant, and sickeningly insectile. Nephra may not be able to overpower the other girl in raw physical strength, much as her suit's pistons strain themselves, but as her intakes suck at the surrounding air, fueling reaction mass for the reactor at her heart, a leg click-snaps out to try and twist their grappled-together masses to the ground- if Nephra can wedge Hibiki's limbs or torso beneath any of hers, then gravity itself can be the impact force she has to fight against, as crushing as newly-born stars.
Hibiki Tachibana	Nephra's ability to stay exactly where she wants to be and nowhere else is, for someone like her, incredibly obnoxious. Regardless of kinetic energy still transfering through to do just as much or worse. It's not about being able to toss her around to cause gross amounts of collateral damage, although that'd feel pretty gratifying. It's the fact that she's so, so, so dedicated to not budging an inch on anything, regardless of what it is. "I think it /matters/ to you a lot," the magical girl forces out, in the moment where gravity wreaks havoc around them and floors that unfortunate vehicle. She hasn't bothered giving care to the blood still splattered on her cheek. "...Even right now, you're making that damn laugh. The one time I never heard that out of you--" She pauses to strain with exertion, and realizes her own knee is dully throbbing after that impact. "--was the fight with Evehime." Fighting and killing's a way to be seen and matter, yeah? The sudden movement to try to bring them both down catches Hibiki mid-wince, and she shifts a foot and buckles her knee, bracing and locking against the attempt. It's not entirely successful; she doesn't let herself be brought to the asphault of the lot, but she ends up on the backfoot of their grapple, the height disadvantage not making being beared down upon any less easy to avoid. And though she could simply brute force her way out normally, Nephra has more than just raw machinery to make that quite so easy. But she stays firm, even as limbs shudder underneath the threat of being floored and kept there, and her next breath comes heavy. "A way to be seen and matter...? That's it...?" It sounds disappointed and incredulous at the same time, even somewhat disbelieving, before she begins...pushing back. "You want to be paid attention to--but you lunged at me like a cornered animal after I came and made you move. All those people that died because of us--" Rather than continuing to wrestle it out in a losing position, Hibiki roughly tugs and withdraws her right hand from the internals she was prying into, just to instantly tighten it up into a fist. One that swings in a vicious uppercut for the bottom of the other girl's jaw, to try and clock it cleanly enough to rattle her skull. "Is /that/ the only reason you're here!? In the Watch? /Alive?/ Is it all some damn playground for you to get recognition and not take anything seriously!? Tell me! What are you even here fighting for in the first place!?" When she pulls back, it's only to drive it up again a second time, for the same exact spot. "Because if you wanted to be seen so badly--I don't have eyes for anyone else in the world right now!"
Nephra Tangent	'-was the fight with Evehime.' "Yeah? What a-fucking-bout it has got you thinkinbg, huh? That wasn't for you. So, spit out what's on your wagging little tongue or I'll rip it out of your mouth." As violent as her words are, there's a shock of fear on Nephra's face. Staged jabs can only be so convincing. 'That's it...?' "Haha. What if it is? What if that's it. What if all little old me wants is a few people caring that I'm even in a room? You're right, though! I'm no good at it! I wasn't ever meant to be. So what're you going to do about it?" As Hibiki's fists get yoinked back out, a clatter of sparking metal fragments come with it, faint shrapnel pressure-welded around other material, easily torn. Hibiki's fist short-circuits Nephra's vision, figuratively and literally- the clack of jawbone-pressed teeth up against her skull shocks her vision fuzzy-white in her fleshy eye, and click-pops some sort of wire in her eyepatch-ish prosthetic's camera. As soon as the former fades back, her ears ringing, she hasn't moved enough to react or dodge the second blow. Instantly blinded in her left, as the world fades out into ringing roars, with- 'I don't have eyes for anyone else in the world right now!' You just want to watch me bleed out and die for this. I don't want your eyes to see anyone under here. Her breathing comes faster, sympathetic nerves overcharged and overridden by signals from her spine until she's snapping back to action. Just look at what's easier for you to, why don't you? Before she can clearly and coherently think and talk, she's back to acting, reeling into more clawing swipes, with crushing force pushing them along. 'Is /that/ the only reason you're here?' "Fucking shut up! I don't want eyes like this!" There's a weight behind her blows and the general tug at the world around her. A sinking pit into hardened tar, reflecting humid summer heat in a way that'd redden skin that touched the pavement. "Ain't it fucking great that it works like this? That I'm right? That my name's on your tongue and my face in your eyes because I did that? Would you fucking care otherwise? Would anyone? The world wants things that pop and shock. Haha. If you ain't anything else, you gotta be that, or you don't get to be anything." She's aiming for blood with her desperate swipes, trying to advance once more with footsteps that make craters just on impact. Just give up and go home. You won't get anywhere. There's nothing you'll be able to find.
Hibiki Tachibana	Nephra's heavier breathing, her sudden and violent swipes, they all say plenty enough on their own. Even before she begins shouting back between them, words overlaid on top of the sound of whirring pistons and air being displaced far too quickly. Her left hand gauntlet is a total mess she can't even use for blocking right now, so the magical girl is forced to just barely duck under the first one-- So, spit out what's on your wagging little tongue or I'll rip it out of your mouth. "'You can't make me deserve to get that.' I'm stupid--" Hibiki repeats, right as she takes a step back while the other girl takes a ground-indenting step forward, leaning back yet still getting raked along the cheek. Blood gets drawn, and some of the fabric of her scarf is rent apart in the process. "--but I'm not deaf...! Is she the only thing that's able to drag that out of you? You can't even say it to yourself?" Ain't it fucking great that it works like this? That I'm right? That my name's on your tongue and my face in your eyes because I did that? Another swipe, another step back - this one nearly a stumble as she has to adjust to the latent pull and the tarriness of the asphault underneath their feet, leaving the space she was just occupying to be shredded through. "Like hell it is," she practically spits back. "So don't ask rhetorical crap we both know the answer to!" Would you fucking care otherwise? Would anyone? "There's always /someone/ who'd care, even if you don't think so, you idiot!" Hibiki doesn't backpedal away from the next one. She steps back in, scarf catching entirely on the swing and tearing apart in the process, ripping it away enough to show the bared teeth and snarl underneath. "Who put it in your head you need to screw around, kill people, and be a piece of crap for that!?" She held back, even unconsciously, on the blows aimed for Nephra's head. The same doesn't ring true for when she sends a swing in towards the other girl's armored side, a sudden and heavy hook that would make the body of anyone less immovable crumple with the attack. "When you went out of your way to join the Watch--what the hell was your big idea for getting what you wanted!?" And just like the uppercut, she layers on a second punch almost way too rapidly behind it. It's easy to forget that Hibiki is plenty fast to go with everything else, with how often she just stands and takes it. "You could have joined the Paladins and been a big damn hero!" Punch. "Join the Concord and be an awful supervillain!" Crunch. "But you came /here/, where everyone should be doing what they can to try and make things better for people! Where nobody should be expecting any thanks or any eyes on them for doing what they do--" Her still-functioning gauntlet's internals shift back while winding up again. And she strikes for the same point one last time, this time packing the disgustingly powerful one-two impact of bare fist and focused explosion of kinetic force threatening to blast a hole into the exosuit. "So what kind of eyes /do/ you want on you, Nephra!?"
Nephra Tangent	'There's always /someone/ who'd care, even if you don't think so, you idiot!' "This isn't some god-damned pep talk. You ain't some god-damned guidance counselor. You damn well know I don't need that drivel. You're not deaf, right? So what'd I fucking say? I know what's in store for me." Blood glistens on the claws-like fingers of her gauntlets, droplets spraying down to the pavement far harder and faster than liquid should fall, under the intense gravity. "I'm no goody two-shoes. I'm no everyday Joe. I'm here till I'm taken out of here kicking and screaming, and all I'm trying to do is see how loud it can get, how much of a splash my splatter will make. Haha." 'Who put it in your head...' "Shut up." Cold, sharp, immediate, far unlike her usual tones. "You don't get to pick it apart like a fun jigsaw puzzle." The flash of anger across her face is cold and quiet even as she makes no more active moves yet. '...screw around, kill people, and be a piece of crap for that!?' "Nothing I do works right if someone ain't bleeding at the end of it. Me or them. I don't have other ways, this wasn't made for anything else, and I fucking promise you I'm reeeal good at lettin' it be me who is. Haha. I don't have stake! It ain't some miracle! It's the fucking worst!" She's full on shouting, as car alarms blare across the parking lot. If police have been called at the disturbance, no sirens break through the air. 'You could have joined...' The sideblow doesn't send her reeling, it can't quite match her heart's pull, but it does send enough force to stun her thought processes out for a solid half-second, to make her fleshy heart feel like it didn't beat for a moment, before she intentionally stumbles back a step, to spit words out. "Woulda's and coulda's don't got no place in them for this. Why, you feeling-" A hacking cough punctuates her words. "-feeling regret, or something, that you want to crack open the skull of someone on your side?" She tries to smile, teeth bloody. "Honestly think anywhere else would take someone like me? Tough luck. I'm just nobody. Being better than I am wasn't ever in the cards, and it's never going to be." A strange pang crosses Nephra's face, and she tries to chase it away to think of her own fight plan. It's an ugly brawl, after all. Her breaths come with shudders. "G-guess it's pretty easy to think I'm not hopin' for brighter things for people, huh? That I don't work for it? What do you think I do? Laze around and say shit? I'm muscle, I work at that day-to-day, ain't that fucking hard to get. This still about the fucking Kana? Think I haven't been fieldside enough to know it was a rotten op? Think I also don't know it's still a tank in our hands that ain't in theres? You think this is get-along-hour with the fucking Paladins? They're in the game too, just like us, don't you dare fucking think it's as ugly a situation as it is for any other reason than you and your buddies on their side got to see it with their own eyes."
Nephra Tangent	Armor cracks and boots carve trenches in the asphalt as Nephra can't avoid the double impact, pouring horrific quantities of red-dyed hydralic fluids out, as she lets out a scream from the neuroreplicated sensory hell. It still- luckily or unluckily -functions fine with the frontal armor shattering and crumbling, the back-braced vectoring limbs being the real mechanism for Nephra's motions. The girl inside is still fragile, though- and still healing from her own injuries. She coughs, and it's impossible to tell if the red fluid on her face is from her mouth, her lungs, or the piston suites. When she finally speaks up again, feet still firmly upright, her tone takes on a more resigned note, flatter and ragged. "Haha.. think I don't make the world a better place? That's your call. Do something about it. Don't- don't fucking drag it out. It hurts enough already." Click-snapping limbs flex and groan as Nephra struggles back towards a fighting stance. The fluid pouring out does slow to a halt, quickly, a fair number of the missing or broken overlapping armor plates hanging loose on connective sliders tied in spiderwebs of exposed, damaged-up kinetic-absorbing weave. Instead of swiping more at Hibiki, and despite the gravity, Nephra takes a moment to turn, and pick up one of the blaring cars from around them- joints locking to hold it overhead, casting Hibiki in an ugly, impending shadow. "One chance."
Hibiki Tachibana	You damn well know I don't need that drivel. You don't get to pick it apart like a fun jigsaw puzzle. It ain't some miracle! It's the fucking worst! Every last word rotates through her thoughts in a mixed-up spiral, with the horrendously cutting and sharp line in the sand being drawn standing out like a sore thumb, given Nephra's attitude. It's all too much to sort through and deal with in the messy haze of this parking lot brawl, but some of them strike too deep to brush off. Being better than I am wasn't ever in the cards, and it's never going to be. You think this is get-along-hour with the fucking Paladins? In the wake of her heavy impact on Nephra's exoskeleton, Hibiki is hunched over, panting for air. Scarf ripped apart, left gauntlet shredded into a complete mess, and enough claw-made cuts across different parts of her body that she's going to have more bandages to apply later. The bags of exhaustion, mental and physical, under her eyes have darkened even without the shadow of the car looming overhead. "...It's easy to think because you don't do a damn thing to show it," she spits out between breaths. "And the only thing I regret...is my own stupid inability to stop any of that crap from happening. The Kana...everything before it..." There's a moment where her face contorts into a truly miserable and hollow-looking expression, gaze cast down to pavement. "None of it should have ever gone like that." She remains like that for a single second, then glances back up as her face stiffens up and her eyes narrow. "...Do something about it," she repeats. "What do you think I'm here for? I can't change anything that already happened...so all I can do now is try to catch up on everything I /should've/ done. Even when it's too late for any of it now..." Almost unwillingly, she forces herself to straighten back up, fists clenching again at her sides. "...You're right. I've spent too long not doing that." Not making calls. Not doing anything about it. So she stomps forward, digs her heel in, and uses the foothold to launch herself at Nephra, crossing the short distance in the blink of an eye. Fist-first, gauntlet's piston primed back in a half-punch half-desperate tackle, aimed to smash into a portion of the exosuit's frame that still holds strong. Just so she has the excuse to ram into it as hard as possible with minimum damage to Nephra, another deafening, visible blast of kinetic force erupting to crack and send shudders through it and into its user. But the real intention is to make her move as she had only a moment ago. Blow her back so forcefully and suddenly that the car that was being held aloft will fall and crash right back down into now-empty space--as the both of them are hitting the asphault in a metal-sparking skid, with Hibiki intending to do the same as Nephra had attempted earlier and bring them both down to the ground, only with her on top. And by the time they come to a stop, teeth grit and the look in her eyes just a little manic, she has her arm raised again.
Hibiki Tachibana	And it comes down in a punch for Nephra's shoulder. One embedding itself right into the powered suit wrist-deep, and almost in imitation of Nephra's own claws shearing at everything they could within her destroyed gauntlet--grasp for anything and everything they can. Fibrous material and sensitive wiring is torn out when she grips onto it and wrenches her hand back the way it entered, just to punch it back in to find the overworked pistons and crunch them into unusability as soon as she grasps them. The hole she made is bigger by the time she withdraws than when she first made it. Screech. One of the half-connected pieces of armor plating lets out a horrible sound first on being roughly seized, and then much louder as it's wrested upwards off its moorings and discarded before the next gets the same treatment. Crack. The very same arm she had failed to disable before is assaulted again, denting in joints with physical force before digging into the weakened metal to ruin internals, just to dig her fingers against exterior steel from the inside to better rip it away and expose what's underneath. There's no rhyme or reason to it. It's nothing more than Hibiki tearing and prying away at various, entirely random sections of Nephra's exosuit until they're rendered inoperable and the wearer beneath can be seen. Visually much less a dismantling done with purpose, and more like some kind of animal dug its claws in and tore away without regard for what would or wouldn't still be working. But she never even touched the half of the chest containing the Penrose Reactor. In its place, she ends off by driving her fist into its mirrored side, leaving a gaping cavity in the suit exactly over top of where her genuine heart should be. And that's where her fist stays for seconds after, as the magical girl responsible heaves and gasps for oxygen overhead, the look on her sweat-soaked face stark. "...I never planned to kill you. You make me sick to my stomach," she repeats from earlier, "because I still can't help but feel sorry for you. Even when I have a responsibility--" There's the metallic grind of her yanking her hand back out, shrapnel following. A few of Nephra's wounds probably opened back up during all of that. "--to do something about so many things I've always just watched from the sidelines..." Hibiki pushes herself off of the other girl, stumbles back to a stand, and nearly falls. "Our hands...their hands...what a load of crap..." But she catches herself. "Don't throw 'us or them' around like that was ever really a part of it...like it was about factions, and not people. Like it /ever/ was. I'll never...accept that as a reason for what happened." "...Exposing your heart to the world is one of the most painful things out there. Try it out for a while." Maybe she's a pretty cruel person after all. Maybe some part of her thinks it'll magically do something to help in the long run. Or, maybe selfishly... ...Either way, she's leaving the ruined parking lot behind, much worse than when she found it.