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"Gy- gyouch!"

His stomach still hurt something fierce, and the rest of his injuries were starting to catch up to him. It felt like a tiny butterfly landing on his torso would have felt like the stab of a knife, so having Sun throw an arm around him....

"You... grrk... did that on p-purpose... didn't you...."

Despite his commentary, he was actually laughing. Needless to say, he looked like something the cat dragged in, ate, then coughed up again, covered in dirt, blood (mostly but not entirely his own), scraps of the forest floor, and with a giant gash across the bridge of his nose, the blood from which was beginning to slow. With the adrenaline starting to reach normal levels and his head exiting the battlefield mindset, his injuries were finally starting to get to him.

"... guess I -- g'hack -- deserve it, don't I."

He was, of course, referring to the tail. If it hadn't blown away with the rest of the Salamander's body, it would still be in his hand, showing no signs of leaving. If it did fade to ash, of course, Rage would have offered his semi-apology anyways. Still, the man next to him was throwing a lot of words his way and he could only catch about half of them. This battle had just ended and it seemed another one was on it's way, and for once in his life he actually wanted to get a bit of a rest.

But, there was no rest for the wicked....

He sort of half-nodded along to what Sun was saying before cutting in just after hearing something about Alpha, a name that he recognized but didn't care horribly about. "Hey. If you need to go somewhere we can -- hack -- fly there... I mean, it's... ugh... how I got here, and I don't think Ryu would mind another... hold on...."

He faced away for a moment to have a coughing fit before turning back. "... um. Where was I? Right, time's wasting, right? Might as well take the fastest way there...."

Something was going on. He couldn't see it, but he could hear it, over everything else, Teira screaming. Something was happening, and it wasn't her taking up the hint and addling Ra'kar's brain with a sucker punch from a wing and getting clear of that danger zone. He started to turn to look, and found himself stumbling in retreat from massive fists making wide arcs toward him. Raising his blade in attempt to ward the thing off, he stumbled backward- right into a weight hammering the leather midsection at his kidney, and something striking his helm and trying to wrap-

"-hrrk!"

The pommel shot back, slamming into the pawn's hard midsection and indenting into it's shadowy flesh. As it stumbled backward Kael escaped, ducking under it's arm and weaving backward- a clumsy stumble more than anything. Weakness had shot through his body with that one well placed blow, and it was all he could do for the moment to escape the both of them.

But he was distracted.

What's going on? What-!?

The rook rushed him head on while the pawn was left behind for the moment, and Kael swung wildly, the shade's sense of self preservation just strong enough to keep it from venturing into rapid swings that were rapidly growing clumsier, long enough for them to wear off and an opening to appear.

What-?

The sword clattered uselessly at a fist once, twice, the pawn going around the rook as it made slow progress toward Kael- his breath was getting heavy, his eyes having trouble focusing on just the task at hand. There was something more important than all of it here, and he might not have been able to do anything directly about it, but-

-what's happened!?

Through the visor and all the obstructions, in just a slit of his view, he caught the darkness, the shapes disappearing into it- the man in finery, the demoness, and...

No-!

Without a thought he leaned forward and rushed headlong off that direction, as if completely forgetting about the rook just to the left of his course, trying to run straight for the disappearing shape of Teira, any semblance of composure disappearing in a single moment with what he'd been led to believe was more or less "the world's hope". The hero's desperate rush to a smug retreating enemy, a desperate attempt doomed to meet with disaster, but not until he'd made some good of the worst.

He was met with disaster, but no good.

The flitting of a black blur gave a warning his mind failed to register, and then suddenly he was lifted off of his feet, moving backward, on his back, world spinning upside down and up again. Something was tight, suffocatingly tight against his chest, something was wet there, and hurting. Echoing sounds- within his own helm? Wheezing, coughing, choking. It had to be him. Everything seemed to be moving so sluggishly. Vision blurred- just a little, enough to see darkness coming toward him, shadows in the shadow. Light, he'd caught it, where- there. His right hand went out, grasping at the blade of his sword, pulling it toward himself, grasping for the hilt, moving in a sort of dumb haze, taking far too long at the wrong moment to fix his hands to his preferred grip, right hand first on the hilt.

Kael reeled from a sudden blow to the head, something heavy- knocked away, time seemed to pick back up, and he put a shaking arm to the ground, hand and knees, and suddenly he was on his feet, facing away and stumbling back, turning around to see the pawn that had kicked him approaching quickly in the blur of his vision, dark arm raised.

"-m'hve."

The word turned into a wheeze, but despite all the pain a wide indent in his breastplate was causing, he got the thrust out, spearing the shade clean through it's belly.

The armored swordsman made no motion to withdraw the blade though. Slowed, stunned by it's impaling, the pawn faltered on it's punch, but recovered more quickly than Kael did. The shade may have been mortally wounded, but it didn't suffer or think as a human did. The shadow soldier pressed its way up his blade, one hand grasping onto his forearm, locking him in place as the Rook stepped around it.

Through the eye-slit of the face mask, shaded eyes of dark color fell on the approaching shade, and went wide-

And then a man leaped onto it's back.

He could hardly hear the words, foreign sounds of a muffled voice forcing into his blurred world without meaning, but his mind picked up on what was going on, if entirely more sluggishly than should have been on the battlefield. His blade- it was still locked. Huffing, desperately trying to draw a full, readying breath with his chest restricted, he threw his weight forward into the pommel, knocking the shade onto its arse. This time Kael was not too slow- as the creature fumbled he raised one foot, setting it on the struggling shade's thigh.

"-hggshhhhhhhhhhhhhha!"

Right hand to base, left to pommel, twisting his grip to get it just right, he worked the leverage and made one long pull. A slow process of splitting the shade in two from it's navel right up to it's shoulder, sword flying into the air, flinging black matter as it exited the body and the pawn simply fell limp.

Yet wheezing he turned about, stepping his right foot forward and pausing to stare at the man on the shade. Seconds ticked by- only that, but a few.

These were hearty- and the vital points he couldn't hit. The head- couldn't strike it with the man clinging around it. The chest- couldn't pierce the shade without risking stabbing him on the other side of it. Kael didn't know if this was meant to be a sacrifice or what, but the option of cutting them both down never occurred to him, not as he was.

Another target...

The point of his sword dropped. Making a wide step forward with his left, he put the blade out to his offside, twisting his torso as far as he could, body locking up struggling to avoid coughing as the plate pressed in on his chest.

In a wide arcing motion, twisting from the balls of his feet all the way up to his shoulders and his grip, he hacked through the greater part of one of the rook's knees.

With a cracking sound, the remains of its leg gave under all the strain. Kael stepped in quickly, left hand flying behind his back, ignoring the struggling of the shade as it tried to support itself on its hands and one knee and shake its head free enough to see all at once.

It was just a good thing he knew these were human no more.

Kael's left hand came forward again, holding a sturdy hunting knife in a pick-grip, blade coming out the underside of his fist. He raised it high, placed the butt of his right palm- hand still gripping the sword- against the knife's pommel. With a wet crack the point of the knife drove into the top of the rook's head, leaving just as quickly, making a single flick to remove most of the shadow matter before going back into its sheath.

It would be wrong to say the armored swordsman looked thankful, or proud, or battle ready, or much of anything else, considering all but a small hint of his eyes was obscured by his helm. What he was doing was standing straight despite a large dent in his breastplate and a small one on his helmet, wheezing and panting. For a moment his eyes lingered on Kain as he took the much needed breather, and just as suddenly flicked to Rain and Kon, then to the two remaining Rooks guarding the passage into the unknown.

The rooks would be hard for him- he'd have a better shot this time, tactically, but for how he was feeling the battery. The problem was it took so much more of him to kill any one of these things where these other men were making cake of it. A difference that left him feeling more than a little helpless, unnecessary, in light of all that had just happened. Thwarted. Might be that he should have been looking to help Rain cut down the remaining pawns and they'd all work together to finish the job, but he wasn't thinking of helping them, and not just because it seemed like he was entirely unneeded.

The entirety of Kael's conscious thought was focused on the fact that the key to maybe saving thousands of lives lie in danger through that portal, in the hands of Victor- but more importantly the shadow, the one that would devour everything readily enough.

There was no time to dally so long as his lacking wouldn't spell Rain, the man, and the kid's deaths. Distracted as he was, distraught and befuddled, he didn't even notice Lucind.

How long will it stay open?

((Head...spinning...confusing shades...x_x

This is a late post x_x, and I know I'm missing something somewhere that I should have asked Rain about, but let's just say Kon was knocked back by a Rook as it went to guard the gate.))

"YEAH! That's how you do it! Kick some--"

Unfortunately, Kon had greatly underestimated the Shades.

The last few hits he had scored were mostly sucker-punches, and although Kon's speed and strength were great using Ichigo's body, he wasn't dealing with mere low-level Hollows. Shades were much more resilient than that.

Kon would realize that after getting clocked by the Rook he had kicked earlier as it got up to go protect the rift. With a simple backward swinging hammerfist, Kon was send straight into a tree.

"GUHH!!!"

All of Kon's playful nature was sucked out in an instant as he realized the severity of this attack. It was like when you got punched for the first time in a serious street fight. That feeling that washes over your body when you realize...

s**t...this is real...

Kon's pep talk had gotten Rain and Kain fired up against their enemies, and that was good. But that was all Kon could do now. These shades weren't pushovers, and Kon's priority as a modsoul was to protect Ichigo's body. If he stuck around here, Ichigo wasn't going to have a body to come back to.

But he couldn't just leave either. If he ran he'd only be persued like an injured animal. Along with that, he'd lose track of these guys, and for some reason he felt Ichigo wanted to stay by them.

But now someone else had come onto the scene. Someone he didn't notice until now. He had no idea who the guy was, but at least the odds were a lot better. Now that the three of them were on the offensive...

"Come on," Kon said, struggling to his feet, his side bruised from the three and his face equally bruised from the strike to his face., "You can take 'em out, guys..."

((List has been updated, yo))

All at once, Rain was besieged by three pawns, all trying to lance him simultaneously. They all reared back for another trio of thrusts...

And just like that, they stumbled back, clutching at their heads, groaning in some long-damned language. Rain wasn't sure if this was some sort of feint, or a distraction, so he hesitated just for a moment.

That is when Lucind made her presence known. Someone who was singing, and this was a technique used by many a song-user that Rain had ran across in his experiences. It wasn't hard to put two and two together.

"Whoever you are, keep doing what you're doing!" Rain called out to her, waving one arm in acknowledgement.

"Engage security measure alpha." he muttered quietly, returning to his most basic cybernetic state, to have full fluidity of motion and agility. He took a step forward, and...

"NANI?! What the...?!"

That rook from before? He was pushed back for a moment, but now that he was in full-on RAMPAGE mode, the Rook wanted something to smash with, to bludgeon things with in his fit of rage.

Unfortunately, the nearest bludgeoning weapon was Rain.

With a sickening CRNCH as its mighty Rook fist tightened around Rain's leg, the older fighter just kind of looked down, in shock of what would later be found as a completely shattered lower leg. Just like that. And in that moment of shock, Rain was powerless as the last standing rook that wasn't guarding the rift, began to storm about in a blind fury.

On the good side, the Rampaging Rook took out three of the remaining Pawns in the process.

On the bad side, he used Rain to do it.

...

"Whoever you are"WHAM"STOP DOING"WHAM"WHAT YOU'RE DOING!"WHAMWHAMWHAM

"Oh dear, that's going to leave a mark..."

But Lucind didn't stop. Instead her song increased, which wouldn't tame the rooks at all, of course. But it had another effect.

And only a moment later, Rain (and the rest) would realize that, even though those rooks being alive were still pretty much pissed, all they were trying now was to get past the fighters - to do something about the goddamn woman whose song hurt their very soul.

The remaining pawns on the other hand seemed about to succumb to the Siren's voice: falling to their knees or doing feeble steps without any sense of direction, they started bleeding a thick, black liquid. Or was it more like their armour...was melting?

But well, the problem at hand would be the last ((how many??) rooks stomping towards Lucind, who did nothing else but slip the black book back into the bag - and change her song: where it had sounded clerical and somehow a tad too...pure a moment before, the character her song suddenly changed to was of the typical rough and rich Siren timbre, featuring a primal touch.

The change alone brought confusion back to the rooks: those invisible fingers seeking to probe their inner beings had dissolved. Yet, that woman hadn't stopped doing something with them. And that something urged them to walk on, even though each step forward seemed to become heavier and heavier. They tried. Hard. To reach her. Looking as though they were walking against a heavy storm.

By then, there wasn't much space left between the shades and the Siren.