A man in an orange mask and blue detailing leans back in his chair, closing his eyes and sighing in the dim, red light. Police reports were dry reading, even by his standards. But rattling Beast a bit had served its purpose, making the Bureau focus more on getting the job done than hiding his tracks. While discontent and attempted uprisings were nothing new, the would-be rebels deactivating their trackers was becoming more common.
He scribbles a quick memo to develop a better tracker, sticking it under the one telling him to make the Babel Departmentan actual thing before the others realize it doesn't exist. He reaches out towards the grey robes, which he would normally put over his clothes, and pauses for a second. He grabs the similarly-colored jacket next to it and tosses it on, leaving it open to reveal the dark blue shirt underneath. It was time for a bit of an image change, after all. He scoops up the half-dozen battle notices and leaving his office, suppressing the twinge of annoyance at needing to deliver them himself now that Mothman was jailed.
So yeah, new year, new BR. This time, the theme is Tarot. As you probably guessed from both the reservation in my userpage and the blog title explicitly saying so.
The Fool[]
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 Kai Leng forged paperwork to enlist in the Alliance miltiary at the age of 16, and acted pretty much how a 16-year-old would. He fought, was reprimanded for stealing, and killed a highly inebriated Krogan and figured he was tough. As proof of his declining mental faculties, the Illusive Man thought Kai Leng would make an acceptable subordinate. He spent his time there as an assassin, killing at the Illusive Man's command and indulging in petty acts of edginess. After trying to capture Jack and getting his ass handed to him, he blamed his most competent co-worker for the failure and threatened to backstab her if they operated together again. He then leads a squad of Cerberus operatives to capture a traitor to the organization. After a brief struggle, one of his men happens to have tranquilized the man's lover. Kai gets his only notable kill by slitting the unconscious woman's throat. Later, while the Reapers attack the galaxy, he decides to follow the Illusive Man in fighting alongside the mechanical monstrosities attacking Earth, the home of humanity, in the madman's quest to utilize the Reapers to elevate humanity. Kai Leng assists Ambassador Udina in his idiotic coup attempt, targeting the Salarian councilor. He is prevented from reaching his target by Thane Krios, who he flees from after flailing at the assassin who can actually kill a target who fights back. Leng feels a personal animosity towards Commander Shepard, and runs into them when chasing down a Prothain VI on Thessia, the Asari homeworld. He, now indoctrinated, tries to assassinate Shepard, but is unable to even scratch the elite special forces operative. He calls in help from a gunship, but is still unable to make headway until he tells his backup to level the temple itself. Thinking he won through his own power, he then sends a taunting message to the Commander. He meets his final end during the assault on Cronos Station, calling in several waves of backup. Despite the help, he is yet again unable to so much as wound Shepard, and is beaten and left for dead. Thanks to plot, he manages to struggle to his feet and attempt to stealthily assassinate Shepard, only to fail and get stabbed once again. The stain on the galaxy finally dies, no gunship in sight.
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The Magician[]
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 Azaka Kokutou is the biological younger sister and adoptive cousin of Mikiya Kokutou. She awakened to her origin, Taboo, at a young age, falling in love with her brother as a result. She gets herself adopted by her uncle, meaning to bide her time until she can successfully seduce Mikiya. Her plans hit a snag, however, when her brother meets Shiki Ryougi, and turns Shiki-sexual. Constantly seeking some edge over her rival, she learns a bastardized magecraft from Touko Aozaki. She additionally attends Reien Girls' Academy alongside Asagami Fujino. While there, she and Shiki collaborated to solve the suicide of one of the students, finding a link to a magus who controls faeries. Azaka successfully combats the faeries, using her abilities to sense their heat as she can't see them. After boiling the lead fairy from the inside and killing it with an axe kick, she confronts the man who gave the student access to the fae, but lets him be once she learns that he's trying to reclaim his own memories.
 Azaka is actually a very poor magus, with less magic circuits than Shirou Emiya. Like that dumbass, she makes do by utilizing one of her innate talents: Spontaneous Combustion. She wears a pair of salamander skin gloves as a Mystic Code, which helps make up for her lack of spellcasting ability. All her incantations are based on music terms, because she comprehends magecraft and combat through music. The exact mechanism of combustion is closer to electromagnetic ignition, as her Spontaneous Combustion is a combination of the Charged Corpus and Electromagnetic theories. It is not true Magecraft in the Nasuverse sense, but it mimicks it very closely. As such, combustion and its variations is the only "spell" she can use. She has displayed two forms of this: one is coating her extremities in flame, and the other is shooting fireballs. She can further use her abilities to sense heat, because... she just can.
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The High Priestess[]
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 Fiona is the adoptive daughter of Inui Naochika, and the non-canon love interest for Senri in Sorcery Jokers. Her adoptive father trained her in combat and magic, forging her into one of the most brutally effective assassins in his arsenal. She then poses as a lay sister in a run-down church, working with the resident priest to keep it running. She uses it to monitor the distribution of counterfeit Rings, essentially fake IDs for mages that liquefy those who use it too long. She uses her harmless image to be beneath suspicion as one of those masquerading as "Hood," a mysterious person who instigates chaos. Her act even fools Senri, a skilled detective who puts her above suspicion. During the terrorist attacks that end the first half of the novel, she finds the other main character, a dipshit named Haruto, and stabs him in the back to prevent him from uncovering the conspiracy which aimed to preserve magic, as the elements used to perform it were getting depleted. Haruto's clones were meant as guinea pigs to restore it by summoning an entity to regulate and generate magic, the woman later known as Noah. A year later, Fiona has taken a public post in the newly-formed Ministry of Magic, working directly under its minister, her adoptive father. She meets Senri again when she attacks a gathering of criminals, and he interferes. They pretend to cooperate, before being forced into an actual partnership due to Fiona's true employers trying to kill them both. She then takes some of the priest's last words to heart, deciding not to take a life if she can help it. Instead, she practices a cruel, almost sadistic mercy, leaving any foes she feels secure leaving alive wishing she had killed them instead. After Noah and Senri eliminate magic from the world, she decides to properly tend to the church, and is recognized as an ordained minister even though she isn't. In the canon ending, she throws herself into the institution full-time, becoming the holy woman she pretended to be. There is a non-canon epilogue where she does end up with Senri, getting the man recognized as a priest alongside her.
 Fiona also possesses a magitronic device that she can channel her magic through, creating a katana made of ice. When inactive, it takes the form of a katana's tsuka, with a oblong hexagonal tsuba decorated with a snowflake design. Saying the chant without the device will simply create a blade. Fiona is capable of manipulating the sword's length and cohesiveness without additional incantation. Additionally, the blade itself is cold enough to give frostbite on a graze, and a direct hit is theorized by Senri to be able to cause necrosis. Her skills and the blade's sharpness can prevent an opponent from realizing they've been cut for several seconds. The speed of her cuts makes the initial wound hard to feel, while the frostbite from the blade deadens the nerves, tricking the opponent into thinking they haven't actually been cut.
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The Empress[]
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 Queen is a orphan. Her real name is unknown; she was given the name Queen by her adoptive mother, Dr. Arecia Al-Raisha. She, along with eleven other children, formed the core of Arecia's experiment to manifest Agito and open Etro's Gate. As the adoptive child of an incognito goddess of surpassing power, she was trained in combat from a young age. Arecia gave the crystal-state of Rubrum her backing, and the children were folded into their command structure as Class Zero. Queen participates in Class Zero's first public operating during the liberation of Akademia, Rubrum's capital, university, military stronghold, and the housing of the Vermilion Bird Crystal, a godlike being known as a fal'Cie. After the liberation of Akademia, Rubrum's commanders assign Machina Kunagiri and Rem Tokimiya to the class as poorly-concealed spies. She, along with the rest of Class Zero, take the center stage during Rubrum's war against the Militesi Empire, which houses the White Tiger Crystal. After successfully pushing Milites out of Rubrum, Queen and the rest of Class Zero sneak into enemy territory and destroy the Empire's ultimate weapon before a ceasefire is declared. Class Zero then interacts with Concordian royalty, the third remaining power in Orience, and are framed for their assassination. After making it back home, they are once again tossed into the front lines, assisting Rubrum in a two-front war against both Concordia and Milites. With their help, Rubrum fully annexes the other two nations. Now controlling all four crystals, Rubrum has achieved sole dominance over Orience. This ends up triggering the end of the world. As the Rursus descend on Orience, bent on killing anything and everything alive, Class Zero takes one final mission upon themselves: to cut the Rursus off at their source, Pandæmonium. They succeed, sacrificing their lives to destroy the Rursan Arbiter. Arecia, seeing that Class Zero has finally brought about a different ending, calls her experiment off, leaving Orience to rebuild after the 600,104,971st try. She also splits off a separate timeline, one where the experiment never existed in the first place, to give the Classmates Zero a peaceful life.
 It's a normal sword.
 Magic is the Dominion of Rubrim's blessing from the Vermilion Bird Crystal. Its citizens can utilize various spells, which have all been given a military classification. Class Zero can use Dominion magic, but rather than originating from the Crystal, it originates from Phantoma instead. Queen is skilled in all types of magic, but is best with Thunder and Defensive magic. Using these costs MP, which can only be restored via Phantoma Collection or very specific abilities. For those unfamiliar with Final Fantasy spell namings, adding -ra and -ga indicates a second-level and third-level spell with a corresponding power increase and MP cost increase.
 Queen has several innate skills that are not magic:
 Queen's special accessory is the Lucid Lenses. When equipped, these glasses give her an extra ability in combat. If she is killed, she gets resurrected in a berserk state, with all her skills replaced by Devastate, a teleporting slashing move. She holds her sword in a reverse grip, and is invincible for 20 seconds. After that, she gains the Killsight status, meaning that any attack that hits her will kill her. Activating the Lucid Lenses does not count as being killed for Queen, but getting killed afterwards does. It also prevents her from receiving burns, being frozen, or any lingering effects of electrocution without needing to be activated.
 The signature ability of Class Zero is Phantoma Collection, which is used on dead bodies. The class members levitate all corpses in the area and make them explode in a spray of blood, freeing phantoma - the souls of the defeated. This then gets absorbed into the collecting member, restoring some of their MP. The process takes about three seconds from initiation to corpse explosion. The corpse explosion can damage or kill nearby enemies, however.
 The backbone of Rubrum's military might is its Eidolons. Any member with sufficient magical power can sacrifice themselves to summon an Eidolon, which is a beast suitable for combat. There are several different classes of Eidolon, but Queen will have Odin available. Queen will die if she summons, cannot summon while in her berserk mode, and summoning will not trigger her berserk mode. For this battle, Queen's death will only be counted after Odin falls in battle, or his time runs out. Odin, like Queen herself, is a solid combatant. He utilizes Slepnir, a six-legged steed, to maneuver around the battlefield, and is best known for his Zantesuken, an instant kill move. He requires a 1.6m radius of free space around Queen to summon, and has the highest movement speed of all Eidolons. Odin has the following abilities:
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The Emperor[]
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 Col. Roy Mustang, also known as the Flame Alchemist, is a State Alchemist in the Amestrian army. He was orphaned as a child, and was adopted by his aunt, the manager of the brothel that would later become the core of Roy's spy network. He trained as an alchemist, learning the basics of flame alchemy from Berthold Hawkeye before enrolling in the military. After reuniting with his master's daughter, Riza, he used the tattoo on her back to complete his studies, perfecting his alchemy and becoming a commissioned State Alchemist. His abilities were used to deadly effect in the Ishval War, where he became a decorated hero. The war shattered most of Roy's idealism, and served as the catalyst for his political ambitions. Years later, he becomes the CO for the Elric Brothers, and assists them in uncovering the conspiracy to create Philosopher's Stones. He follows the trail to seek vengeance for his murdered friend, and is instrumental in the defeat of the Homunculi and Father.
 Roy's signature ability is his (misnamed) Flame Alchemy. He utilizes the transmutation circles on his gloves to change the oxygen concentration in the air, making flammable pockets and a "fuse" of sorts that leads back to him. He can then use his gloves, made out of a special ignition cloth, to create a spark to ignite the oxygen. His gloves are unusable when wet. He can still use the transmutation circles, however, and can utilize the water in the air to perform hydrolysis. So long as another ignition source is available, he can ignite the hydrogen-oxygen mixture, producing a volatile explosion.
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The Heirophant[]
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 Artorius Collbrande is the head exorcist of the Abbey and the main antagonist in Tales of Berseria. Ten years before the story began, Artorius stumbled upon the village of Aball, alone and depressed. There, he met Celica Crowe, with whom he fell in love. He took the name Arthur, and settled down with his wife and her younger siblings. He would later lose Celica and their unborn child during a Daemon attack, the two becoming the malakhim later known as Seras and Phi. As losing your wife and unborn child is wont to do, this puts Artorius into a genocidal depression, focused on preventing all of humanity from experiencing any emotions at all. To this end, he sacrifices the entire village of Aball, killing his brother-in-law, Laphicet, to turn him into a vessel for Innominat, a previously unknown god. He also turns all the villagers into daemons, and his sister-in-law, Velvet Crowe, into a Therion, a special type of daemon that feeds on despair. Velvet is then thrown into a maximum-security prison. While she struggles to survive, Artorius uses Innominat's power to expand the ranks of the Exorcists, rapidly becoming a hero to the people by driving back the Demons. He eventually takes full political power, usurping the throne as the world's new battle-pope. While he is successfully able to enact his plans, he is prevented from expanding Magic Communism outside of his capital due to Velvet's interference. He then separates Innominat from the planet, creating a massive fortress in space to set the final showdown with Velvet. He loses, and dies lamenting he couldn't save everyone.
 Artorius has numerous techniques, known as Artes, at his disposal. These cost Soul Gauge to perform, and he can only combo as many in a row as he has Souls. He starts with three, but can have up to five. As Velvet's combat instructor, their fighting styles are similar.
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The Lovers[]
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 Len Ese is a homunculus who unknowingly lives as a normal teenage girl, complete with parents who pretend to care about her but are actually planning to use her as a vessel to reincarnate Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto. Her only special ability is the power to sense peoples' presence without seeing them. She gets kidnapped by her childhood friend, Shinonome, with the full blessing of her parents, and gets taken to a remote village in the mountains. She then learns that this village is the base for the Kunai Organization, an ancient organization created to fight incursions of demons. She is swiftly recruited into it by the promise of a large salary, and trains to fight using a Divine Sword, cutting through all the weirdness with an unstoppable stream of snark. She eventually hooks up with Shinonome's sister, Uzume, and decides to stay and fight for her. She trains to unlock the power of her sword, and assists Shinonome in unlocking hers by pretending to turn on her. After the Kunai Organization reveals itself to be evil, Len rescues Uzume and survives the apocalypse, living with Uzume, Shinonome, and the latter's lover, Ruka, in an abandoned house. The four lesbians plot and plan to try and overthrow the Kunai Organization, while trying to survive the resurrection of Yggdrasil and the attacks of the eleven archangels that guard its roots.
 Len's Divine Sword is actually broken, as the blade was snapped off around 90 years ago. It slows down her aging, and grants her superhuman speed, power, and improves her ability to heal. It additionally grants her night vision and extremely limited combat clairvoyance, on the scale of a second or less. These powers get stronger as she enjoys battle more, which affects her personality. The gem on the sword glows as the power gets stronger, and Len herself will have a faint red aura. Len's sword grants her a cooler head, letting her calmly and swiftly analyze everything in the middle of battle. She can use this to figure out an enemy's powers and how they work after a few blows, as well as their attack patterns and how they react in combat. She can use this to come up with counter-strategies on the fly. This specific sword also has a mechanism to retract the blade so that it rests alongside Len's arm, or extend it from that position. Divine Swords cannot be held by one that isn't their wielder. Similar to Mjolnir, it's simply too heavy for anyone else to lift, while their chosen wielder finds it light as a feather. Further, anyone struck by the sword feels its full weight, it absorbs impacts like Cap's shield, and cuts through steel like butter.
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The Chariot[]
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 Yukie Mayuzumi is the eldest daughter of the Sword Saint Mayuzumi Taisei. She trained constantly in martial arts from a young age, having very little time for anything other than her domestic hobbies. Due to the time she spent training and the level of power and skill it gave her, she found herself socially isolated from her peers. Seeing this, her father made her a carved wooden horse, which she named Matsukaze. Yukie would later develop ventriloquism skills to talk to and through the horse, and considered Matsukaze to be her first friend. A few months before her first year of high school (a few months before starting 10th grade, for us 'Muricans) her father arranged a match with Tachibana Takae, one of the four strongest martial artists in Japan. Yukie won handily and transferred to Kawakami Academy with little fanfare. There, she meets the Kazama Family and starts on a quest to make 100 friends. Yukie is considered the weakest member of the Big Four, though this comes with the oft-noted caveat that this is because she's the youngest and has the least combat experience. Her excessive humility and her stated goal to make friends mean that she doesn't fight very often, but she is very aware of her own strength; she often uses ambiguous syntax to make herself seem weaker and non-threatening so that her skill doesn't isolate her.
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Strength[]
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 Suzushiro Shikikagura is the princess of Shiho, a nation in Eldhiland. She is the token loli in Princess Waltz, and the subject of most of the fanservice. As the childhood friend of the prince, Chris Northfield, she was entered into the Waltz to become his bride. She interacts with Chris and Arata the most out of any of the Princesses during the first half of the game, and as a result has the most friendly interactions with Iris. She defends an injured Iris from Liesel Hansel, winning their duel and challenging Iris to a duel herself, seeing her as her main rival to become Chris' wife. She loses, but is spared from being sent home by the machinations of the thousand-year-old soul of Shichiou, a demon sealed within the royal line. The demon possesses Chris' body, and uses it to try and resurrect himself. Shichiou persuades Suzushiro that killing Arata will free Chris, but he uses her androphobia and some alma-sealing bandages against her. She is given the full story, and assists the group in combating Shichiou.
 Suzushiro is capable of manipulating the Alma, basically Mana/Ki, in her body. This allows her unarmed strikes to hit with far more force than they appear to and can make a specific place on her body more durable than steel. She can also boost bodily functions, and is able to launch herself at hypersonic speeds even on an injured leg. This does, however, leave any part of her body she is not strengthening defenseless and weak. A full-power strike, with her arm speed enhanced and her fist strengthened, moves fast enough and with enough power to turn the surrounding air into plasma for a few moments.
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The Hermit[]
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 Joseph Joestar is the grandson of Jonathan Joestar, grandfather to Jotaro Kujo, father to Josuke Higashikata, biological nephew of Giorno Giovanna, and a prominent real estate magnate. Joseph is the only character known to possess both Hamon and a Stand. Rather than brute-forcing his way through, however, Joseph prefers to utilize his wits and intelligence to fight. In his youth, he worked with Caesar Zeppeli to take out the Pillar Men, traveling the world and fighting vampires while World War 2 raged in the background. He was trained by Lisa Lisa, who was revealed to be his mother. After sending Kars into space, he rose to prominence in the real estate sector, fathering Holly Joestar, who would later mother Jotaro Kujo, and Josuke Higashikata. Joseph would find himself on another journey with his grandson, this time to kill Dio Brando, a vampire who had taken over his grandfather's body. They are successful, but at the cost of two of their companions and a good chunk of Joseph's brain cells.
 Hamon, also known as Ripple, is a special form of energy that is generated by breathing techniques. It is a positive force with similar properties to sunlight, and is thereby highly effective against vampires and other undead beings. Hamon is useful for healing, as well, as channeling it into an object strengthens it. Strengthening objects is also useful for making impromptu weapons, such as using spaghetti to shatter glass. Hamon can also be used to manipulate objects, as Joseph has used it to create a trap with a scarf. It can also be transmitted to a target in a large burst, a technique known as an "Overdrive." When transmitted to a normal human, Ripple causes similar effects to prolonged sun exposure: feeling pins and needles before fainting, and an increased risk of melanoma
 Joseph's Stand, Hermit Purple, is a set of
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The Wheel of Fortune[]
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 Algol, later known as the Hero King, was the only man to wield Soul Edge and not lose his sanity to the sword's demonic soul, as well as the creator of the Holy Sword, Soul Calibur. His son, Arcutus, grew jealous of his power and attempted to steal Soul Edge. The two battled for control of the sword, and Algol slew his son. He was overcome with grief due to his son's death, so he created the legendary sword Soul Calibur out of the shards of Soul Edge to act as a counter to the evil sword. However, in order to create a sword to oppose one with a soul, another soul was needed. Algol used his own soul for the ritual. However, his grief and hatred for Soul Edge corrupted the new blade, making it was similar in nature to Soul Edge. A tribe purified the sword, sealing the hero king away and making it a true counterbalance to Soul Edge. Algol, however, was still not without power. He shaped himself a new body, copies of Soul Edge and Soul Calibur, and a tower called The Tower of Remembrance to draw warriors to him in hopes he would find the swords and resurrect himself. He discovered that he currently exists in a plane of reality called Astral Chaos, a churning void created by the conflict between the two swords. This reality connected all points of space and all points of time, and he refined his goals. Now, he seeks to rule over Astral Chaos and then escape and conquer the world as a god-king.
 Algol's primary method of combat is to shapeshift his own body, utilizing both Soul Edge and Soul Calibur to create what he needs. He has displayed use of the following:
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Justice[]
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 Akechi Goro is the illegitimate child of Masayoshi Shido, one of the antagonists in Persona 5, and is himself a major antagonist. He holds a grudge against his father for abandoning him and his mother, who committed suicide. After being recruited by Yaldabaoth, Akechi rapidly learned and used his abilities in the metaverse to approach his father, intending to help him win public office before revealing that he is the man's illegitimate son, bringing the social ostracism his mother faced on his father. Shido, however, proved a far more ruthless manipulator, sending Akechi after any targets he feels might oppose him, and to find blackmail on ones that can serve him. Akechi continues his crime spree, unaware that his father was waiting for the chance to discard him. He comes into ideological conflict with the Phantom Thieves early on, developing an obsession with their leader, Joker. He keeps tabs on his rival, and helps the Conspiracy lure them into a trap, eventually joining them as a mole. Both Joker and Morgana had caught on to his true nature much earlier, however, and they and the Phantom Thieves devised a complex trap to shift his attention away from them. When he finds out they're alive, he enters Shido's Palace, a sort of mental realm in the metaverse, to confront them, only to be beaten first by them and then by Shido's view of the detective himself, a psychotic and loyal hitman. There's some other stuff in Royal, but I'm using the vanilla version.
 Robin Hood is Akechi's Persona while he works with the Phantom Thieves. As he is a Wild Card, he can access both Robin Hood and Loki, in the next tab, at the same time. Robin Hood is specialized in Bless and Curse attacks (essentially the "holy" and "unholy" elements), and is further specialized in the one-hit kill moves of those lines. It acts as a powerful support, despite the chances of success in the one-hit kill moves being rather low. Note that Akechi can use either Robin Hood or Loki; he can swap between them freely, but cannot use both at the same time. Skills
 Loki is Akechi's "true" persona, which he uses in his guise as the Black Mask. It is an all-rounder, with support, physical, curse, fire, and almighty (non-elemental) spells. It appears to be able to drive any Shadows without masters into a berserk rage as an additional ability. Note that Akechi can use either Robin Hood or Loki; he can swap between them freely, but cannot use both at the same time. Skills
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The Hanged Man[]
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 Matrim Cauthon was a young farmer from Two Rivers, a small town ignored even by its king. He, along with his friends, fled the village when it was attacked by the Dark One's forces. While they took refuge in Shadar Logoth, Mat took possession of a cursed dagger, making him paranoid and drawing out the strong Manetheren blood within him. After being severed from the dagger, he assisted Rand, one of his friends from Two Rivers, in unlocking his potential as the Dragon Reborn. They work both together and separately to fight the Dark One, and Mat gains the memories of ancient generals to patch the holes in his own. Matrim then accidentally marries the empress of the invading Seanchan, securing their armies and alliance against the Dark One. He saves several cities form being overrun by trollocs, and gives up his eye to take Moiraine out of the Tower of Genji. Mat takes command during Tarmon Gai'Don, the Last Battle between the Dark One's forces and those who oppose him, and his abilities enable the Dragon's armies to find physical victory while Rand secures a metaphysical victory.
Mat's main weapon is his ashandarei, a long, two-handed polearm. Much like the contemporary glaive, sovnya, or naginata, it has a sword blade instead of a spear point. Mat wields this with uncommon skill, utilizing both the memories the Eelfinn implanted in him and his prior experience with a quarterstaff. Mat's ashandarei has a single-edged blade with a slight curve, and is power-wrought. This means that it cannot be broken through normal means, never needs sharpening, and will never rust.
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Death[]
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 Siegfried is the child of Siegmund and Sieglinde, a pair of twins who ruled Xanten, a city in the Netherlands. Refusing to take the throne while his parents were still alive, he set out to journey and prove himself as a knight. He set out to woo Kriemhild, the fairest woman in the land, over the objections of his parents, who believed her brother, Gunther, to be treacherous. Along his adventures, he slew the dragon Fafnir and bathed in its blood, making his skin impenetrable save for a linden leaf-shaped spot on his back. He eventually made his way to Worms, where he entered the court of Gunther as an equal. After his service in the wars against Saxony, Gunther continued to string Siegfried along, keeping him at his court but refusing to let him meet Kriemhild, until a feast, where he allowed him in her company to bind Siegfried to his service. Gunther continued to dangle the prise of Kriemhild in front of Siegfried, before finally consenting to the marriage should Siegfried help him woo Brunhild. Siegfried does so, assisting Gunther in cheating using his invisibility cloak. After successfully overpowering Brunhild, Siegfried pridefully steals Brunhild's ring and belt, which are traditional symbols of chastity. After returning to the Netherlands, he gifts his own wife these objects. Upon returning to Worms at Gunther's invitation, Brunhild snubbed Kriemhild, and the latter displayed openly the belt and ring which Siegfried took from her. While Siegfried publicly refuted his wife's claim that he took Brunhild's chastity, the Queen of Worms was nevertheless incensed against him. Hagen, Kriemhild's friend and Gunther's closest advisor, then hatched a plan to kill Siegfried and steal his wealth. Hagen tricked Kriemhild into telling him about Siegfried's weakness, the leaf-shaped patch between his shoulder blades where he can be killed. She marked it on his tunic, thinking she was showing her friend where to protect her husband. Then, during a hunt, Gunther, Hagen, and their followers killed Siegfried while he was getting a drink, taking great care to separate him from his weapons and armor. Once news of this reached his wife, Kriemhild fell into despair, before being married off to Etzel, whose court she used to exact revenge on her kin.
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Temperance[]
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 Hitomi Hitoyoshi is the mother of Zenkichi Hitoyoshi, one of the main characters in Medaka Box. Her unnamed (and likely lolicon) husband married her because he was attracted to her excellence as one of the foremost psychosomatic surgeons, but later left after their child was born because he couldn't handle how superior she was. She eventually left her job to raise her son as a single mother, utilizing her Abnormality to its fullest extent. She appears in the story after Kumagawa is introduced, using her stature and signature red bag to pretend she's an elementary-schooler to prank her son's friends. She then transfers into Zenkichi's class, doing her best to embarrass him as much as humanly possible. She later saves him from Emuake Muake, and assists him in fighting off Kumagawa's attempted hostile takeover of the school. She then fades out of the story, only popping up to help Zenkichi train, give him a pep talk, or repair the mental damage Iihiko did to Kumagawa and Zenkichi.
 Hitomi's Abnormality, Mother's Task, is the ability to be extremely skilled in domestic tasks. She has perfect chainsaw skills, as gardening is a domestic task. She is skilled enough with a needle and thread to create an entire combat style based around it, including suturing someone into concrete. She can hold her breath for abnormal periods of time thanks to her experiences with the Lamaze Method. While it is never shown, she also has the ability to utilize cooking and cleaning tools to their maximum potential. It's more useful than it sounds, honest.
 Hitomi is also a master of Savate, a French martial art. Rather than the combat sport Savate, however, she appears to be skilled at Savate des Rues, or Street Savate, the original form of the martial art that was specialized for street fights. Her son and principle disciple, Zenkichi, is able to use its techniques to disarm Kei Munakata of every weapon as it is pulled out, including pistols, grenades, and a rocket launcher. She utilizes her Abnormality as well as her experience as a doctor to supplement this, adding in several types of weaponry to the style. This includes gardening shears, a pair of Nata, a chainsaw, scalpels, marking pins, and sewing. She has additionally developed a further style, known as the "Cut and Sew Discipline," incorporating her sewing skills to bind and trip up foes.
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The Devil[]
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 Hanakamakiri, or Flower Mantis, is an assassin working for The Organization. Born Kozue Shiihara, he was orphaned in an accident. After a few years in an orphanage, he was picked up by a wealthy couple. Due to his kleinfelter syndrome, they then raised him as a girl, and she grew to identify herself as such. Her adoptive parents, however, were killed by her stalker; she then killed him in turn. She was then taken in by Kinohadakamakiri and trained to be the perfect assassin, and to fit the man's tastes. She learns her lessons all too well, however, and escapes by blinding him in his moment of weakness. She then joins the organization fully, eventually partnering with Imomushi. She assists her partner during the Caterpillar Hunt, and ultimately survives the sinking of the cruise ship. Once the rape zombie apocalypse destroys Japan, she goes missing. This prompts Imomushi to find her, vowing to seduce her once they reunite.
 Hanakamakiri's specialty is disguise and concealment. She can quickly and effortlessly swap clothing and mannerisms to imitate others, though she cannot change her build. This is a core part of her skillset, as she uses both disguises and psychological tricks to fool her enemies into thinking she's weak or defeated. Then, when their guard is down, she strikes with her claws. Her acting ability cannot be overstated; she is able to successfully pretend like she has completely given up on a fight and is pleading to live, to the point where experienced assassins fall for it. She uses this to successfully find a foe who cannot be observed with human senses.
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The Tower[]
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Tal lived the first fourteenish years of his life in relative comfort, as one of the Chosen. After his father disappeared, however, he tried to regain a Sunstone, a tool and source of prestige, and fell off the towers of the castle he lived in. He was thrown into the dark, and forced to make his way back alongside Milla, an Icecarl. He seeks and finds the Codex of the Chosen, basically fantasy Wikipedia. After he retrieves it, he finds out that his father was sealed inside one of the Keystones that hold the Veil, the curtain that keeps the sun out, active. He retrieves the Red Keystone, and seeks out the Empress of the Chosen to release the woman trapped inside, only to find that the Empress was merely a puppet to her own Spiritshadow, a being from the alternate world of Aenir. He then stops the Veil from being destroyed, and takes his place as Emperor of the Chosen.
The Sunstones of the Chosen are their weapon, shield, and support. Able to store and release the sun's rays as needed, they can give light and heat to their darkened world. A simple white blast from a Sunstone can char and burn bone, and there are further techniques involving the use and creation of light. The generated light can either act like actual light and be immaterial or be "hard" light and take on corporeal form. Sunstones can also absorb and disperse low-power light-based attacks, and all forms of Sunstone magic can be deflected with mirrors. Tal's sunstone is half of the Violet Keystone, an ancient and extremely powerful Sunstone. He wears it as a ring, and must point it at what he wants to cast magic at. Each technique has a different color, corresponding to one of the colors of the rainbow. Red is the weakest, and Violet is the strongest; a Violet Ray of Destruction, for example, can easily destroy that which a Red Wave of Destruction would struggle to dent. Additionally, different hues of different colors have various social meanings amongst the Chosen. Known spells are:
The Chosen also bind Spiritshadows, denizens of Aenir, an alternate world, which turn into three-dimensional shadows when taken back. Tal's Spiritshadow, Adras, is voluntarily bound, instead of being forced. This allows him to act of his own free will. All Spiritshadows gain and lose strength in proportion to the nearby light, can affect the physical world, as well as share emotions and the effects of sleep and poison with the person they are bound to. Adras is a Storm Shepard, a shapeless mass of clouds with the ability to generate lightning. He is not particularly intelligent, but is fairly brawny. Storm Shepards are very sensitive to changes in the air.
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The Star[]
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 Aoi Kamishiro is a vampire hunter who works for the Holy See. As part of Rubina, she is tasked with eliminating any non-humans her organization finds. She normally works as a pair with her best friend, Lycoris Radiata, and was dispatched to Japan to investigate the re-emergence of a prominent vampire family. She meets Shuma Kusanagi, the heir to the Embroche vampire family, with his arranged fiancee, Calendula Officinalis, part of another prominent vampire family. She attacks him, but is swiftly subdued by Calendula, who takes control of her body with a glance. She ends up teaming up with Shuma and Calendula to fight off Lycoris, who was kidnapped and turned into a vampire. She continues trying to kill the pair despite their alliance, but Calendula continuously foils her efforts by utilizing her mind control. Her ultimate fate varies depending on the route chosen, but in most cases she helps Shuma control the invasions from alien vampires. Except in her route, where she dies.
 As an agent of the Rubina, Aoi has access to several different types of holy weaponry, though she has a distinct preference for her daggers as well as the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. Yes, the one from Monty Python. She is highly skilled with her daggers, needing only to have her physical capabilities boosted to fight Lycoris, a fairly strong vampire, on even ground. Her usage of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch is interrupted every time, so her exact proficiency with it is unknown. While she is not the most effective for the bulk of the story, every finale shows that this is less due to her own failings and more due to her opponents being the strongest beings in her universe.
 Aoi's body constitution allows her to be possessed and controlled easily, which is usually used to make her homicidal impulses humorous and easily stopped instead of psychotic. This tendency, however, is also utilized by her God to use her as a vessel. While under divine possession, her attacks are sharper, faster, and she displays greater strategic ability. Further, God can also take control of susceptible creatures, such as familiars, ghosts, zombies, and similar existences. Because her God is actually the will of an alien vampire-planet trying to devour life on Earth, this possession can be broken if another vampire sucks her blood or if the extra soul is somehow pulled away from hers.
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The Moon[]
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 Darth Bane, formerly known as Dessel, is a Dark Lord of the Sith and the Sith'ari. Born on the mining planet of Apatros, he worked the mines until he killed a Republic officer in self-defense. He fled the planet to join the Sith forces, initially a simple trooper. His latent force abilities led his unit, the Gloom Walkers, to be one of the most decorated units in the entire army. After committing mutiny over a suicide order, he was then captured and recruited into the Sith ranks. He trained on Korriban, awakening his powers in the Dark Side alongside Githany, his lover, teacher, and apprentice. Rather than joining the swelling legions of Skere Kahn, however, he strikes off on his own, abandoning even Githany. He finds the abandoned world of Lehon, where he learns further Sith teachings from a holocron of Darth Revan. He pretends to rejoin Kahn and Githany, while plotting the destruction of the entirety of the Sith, excepting himself. He goaded Kahn into using a Thought Bomb, a weapon that trapped the souls of all the Sith and Jedi nearby, and caused an ecological disater on Ruusan. He found and took in a young girl named Zannah, who would become his apprentice. After escaping Ruusan, Bane seeks more power, and makes his way to Dxun to plunder the tomb of another Sith Lord, Freedon Nadd. There, he gets encased by the parasitic Orbalisks, which feed on their host while amplifying its pain and rage. Bane uses his Sith abilities to turn the relationship into a symbiotic one, as the Orbalisks can withstand even lightsaber strikes, and are only harmed by electricity. Bane bides his time while training Zannah, laying the groundwork for the Rule of Two and Darth Sidious' eventual takeover of the Republic. He is ultimately killed by Zannah, his superior command of the Force and lightsaber combat beaten by his age and Zannah's studies of Sith Sorcery.
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The Sun[]
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 Miu Yarai was born a vampire to vampire parents. She fled discrimination to Aqua Eden, an island city built to provide vampires a safe haven to live alongside humans. Her parents were too distrustful of humans to live there, so Miu entered the city alone. The mayor, a vampire herself, guided Miu into schooling and a dormitory. At some point, she joined the Public Safety Bureau, a peacekeeping organization that hires vampires. There, she assists in keeping the peace in Aqua Eden, using her powers to restrain criminals. She meets the protagonist, Yuuto, while acting as bait to lure out a slaving operation. She successfully completes her mission, though Yuuto is turned into a vampire in the process. Feeling guilty about his situation, Miu walks him through life in Aqua Eden, facilitates his transfer to her dormitory and her school, and gets him assigned to her unit in the Public Safety Bureau. They work alongside another dorm-mate, Azusa, to keep the peace. This generally boils down to breaking up drunk fights, dispersing illegal businesses, and getting into firefights with smugglers importing uncensored porn. The bureau then gets caught up in a drug bust. From there, Miu's activities vary depending on the route. On her route, she and Yuuto fight against the government forces trying to destroy Aqua Eden, culminating in them taking out several black ops squads and exploding a missile. Other routes involve her helping to put down a coup, fighting the KGB, or doing fuck all because it's a joke route.
 As a vampire, Miu has excellent night vision. She feels uncomfortable and sluggish during the day, and too much light can hurt her eyes. If she doesn't consume blood for a while, she feels dizzy and anemic; this can be alleviated by artificial blood packs, however. Seawater acts like a corrosive acid to her, so getting splashed by that is fatal. Going without blood, artificial or not, for too long will kill her with similar symptoms to a flu. As a vampire, she an also access superhuman strength and reflexes, as well as a unique ability. For this, she must drink the blood of a human; artificial blood packs will not help.
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Judgement[]
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Kaladin was born to a darkeyed surgeon, basically a serf that knew medicinal practices. He eventually left to join the army, because the local lord was an ass. After years of successful campaigning, he took down a Shardbearer, an elite troop nearly invulnerable to normal weaponry and who could kill masses with a single swing. The new lord he served turned out to be an asshole, too, and imprisoned Kaladin's squad so that he could claim the shardblade for himself. After being sold into slavery, Kaladin eventually finds his way into the camps of Torol Sadeas, one of the Alethi highprinces fighting the Parshendi. He gets assigned to a bridge crew, running portable bridges across the plateus to assist the army. He and his crew eventually get noticed and recruited by Dalinar Kohlin, who later goes on to re-found the Knights Radiant. As the first of the new Windrunners, an order that manipulated gravity to make the sky their own. He performs as a Windrunner admirably, driven by his need to save others, and fully forms his order, recruiting other Bridgemen who could bond the correct Spren to become Windrunners.
Kaladin's bonded spren is named Sylphrena, who also answers to Syl. She is an Honorspren, and gives him the abilities of a Knight Radiant. This includes the use of Stormlight, detailed in another tab, as well as the ability to become a Shardblade. Kaladin is unique amongst Shardblade users in that he doesn't have a set form for Syl; he reshapes her into a spear, shield, knife, or sword as needed. As a Shadrblade is a form of Investiture, it will have a hard time cutting through magical barriers. It slices through nonliving matter cleanly, however, and passes through any living beings, killing the soul instead of the flesh. As Syl is an Honorspren, Kaladin must act honorably. A failure to do so will weaken the bond, and can outright sever it if he continues acting dishonorable or if the act is particularly severe. This will kill Syl, and leave Kaladin without access to his Stormlight abilities or his Shardblade.
As a Knight Radiant, Kaladin is able to take in and utilize Stormlight, the type of Investiture that leaks out from Shadesmar to Roshar. The Knights Radiant take in Stormlight via inhalation, and exhaling will cause the power to leak out faster. While holding Stormlight, one is swiftly healed of injuries and cured of intoxicating poisons, as well as having any fatigue wiped away and being filled with energy. Kaladin can additionally utilize Stormlight to fuel his Surgebinding. As a Windrunner, he is able to utilize the Surges of Adhesion and Gravitation. Windrunner techniques come in three basic flavors, which are termed as "Lashings." The Full Lashing utilizes Adhesion, allowing the Windrunner the ability to stick items or people to any surface they infuse with Stormlight. The Basic Lashing manipulates the force of gravity on an object, and is able to redirect it as the Surgebinder pleases. A Basic Lashing can tether someone to any object, and will strengthen the gravity between the two in proportion to the amount of Stormlight used. A Reverse Lashing also utilizies Gravity, but instead imbues the Lashed object with greatly increases gravity, making it pull any nearby objects towards it. Windrunners are also capable of making Squires, essentially lesser Radiants who can utilize Windrunner abilities. In order for a Windrunner to create a Squire, the prospective Radiant must at least have the mindset of wanting to protect others. For this match, Kaladin will have access to 18 minutes worth of Stormlight, stored across 6 Spheres.
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The World[]
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 Haar started his career as one of Bengion's finest dracoknights. Despite his laziness and borderline narcolepsy, his prowess in battle and sharp insight got him promoted to the right-hand man of Shiharam Fizzart, marking him as the best of the best. He and the rest of the Fizzart Platoon then get fed up with the corruption rampant in Bengion, and desert. They join Daein, and fight for their adopted country. During the Mad King's War, Shiharam is killed in battle, leaving Haar to command the remaining members of the platoon. They turn traitor again, joining up with Crimea and the Greil Mercenaries, joining Jill, their commander's daughter, who had already been fighting with them for some time. Haar fights alongside the others for the rest of the war, and after Ashnard is killed, he and Jill part ways with the others. The pair start a wyvern courier service together, and successfully maintain it until Jill gets caught up in the Daein Liberation movement. Haar has a chance meeting with Queen Elincia of Crimea on a delivery, and ends up protecting her on a whim. This gets him pulled into the Crimean Guard to assist Elincia in fending off a coup, followed by assisting the Greil Mercenaries once again when Bengion attempts to attack the Laguz nations, which are allied with Crimea. He is one of the few able to resist the awakening of Ashera, and joins the strike force to attack the tower. He carries the entire goddamn army on his back through waves of Ashera's soldiers, and ends up weakening the goddess enough for Ike to finish her off. He finally retires from full-time combat, becoming a co-governor of Talrega as Jill's husband.
 In Radiant Dawn, characters can equip certain skills, which have a chance of activating. Haar, as a flying unit, has an innate Canto skill, which allows him to move again after taking any action. As this is not turn-based, it's not detailed here, but it's there.
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Scenario[]
As yet more warriors seek admission into or advancement within DFederal, the districting committee has decided on a simple way to determine who goes where: let them fight in each district. After a certain number of people are lose per district, an announcement will be made for all survivors to move to the next district. There will be noncombatants present in each district.
Ambushes, alliances, the use of terrain, and the use of the civilians around them can make the difference between victory and defeat. As usual, this isn't a straightforward fight.
Lose Conditions[]
- Die
- Be incapacitated for more than 60 seconds
- Death does not count as being incapacitated
- Leave the bounds of the current district
- Fail to reach the next district within ten minutes
Should a warrior meet one of the latter three criteria, before or after the first, they will be removed from the field.
Win Conditions[]
- Don't lose
Districts[]
- The Sewers
- A narrow, cramped maze of pipes. The pipes themselves are large enough to fit three people if they squeeze in. There are a few open areas, most notably maintenance hubs, and small crawl-holes where the worst-off warriors live. An occasional wave of raw waste can be expected. Warriors with mounts will not have them in this district. A district change occurs after five losses. (Under the entire city)
- The Slums
- Similarly cramped, but with wider areas thanks to the narrow "streets" and cheap markets. The buildings aren't very well-constructed, and can collapse fairly easily. Any warriors with mounts will receive them here. A district change occurs after four losses. (Red)
- Blue Collar District
- Despite the name, has more pink-collar workers than blue. Has two main areas: a wide, open space that serves as a trailer park, and a more urban sprawl dominated by duplexes and low-rise studio apartments. A district change occurs after four losses. (Blue)
- White Collar District
- Despite the name, has a pretty even blend of white- and blue-collar workers. Dominated by high-rise apartments, getting more lavish as one gets farther from the Blue Collar District. Some overlap between the higher end of this district and the Wealthy District exists, so several smaller houses are included. A district change occurs after three losses. (Green)
- Wealthy District
- A wider district separated into neighborhoods. The size of each plot of land varies by neighborhood, but it tends to have a good deal of open space. Major shopping malls also exist here, mixing open spaces and more narrow areas. A district change occurs after three losses. (Black)
- 1%er Community
- Home to large, sprawling mansions, the 1%er Community has the most open space. The immense gardens and lawns are ideal for long-ranged battles, but how much cover there is can vary from a lot to none. All construction is done using rare and durable materials, so warriors will find the homes and ornaments hard to break. (Yellow)
A rough map of the outlines of each district is below. The boundaries of each district are marked with signage, so that warriors will know if they're about to go out of bounds, if they're safe after a district change, and that Epstein didn't kill himself:
Canons[]
As with Operation Zodiac, certain warriors are pulled from very specific timelines and versions of their canons. Below are the participants and the canons they are pulled from. This totally isn't just me realizing that I forgot to put their origin on their cards.
- Kai Leng: Mass Effect 3
- Azaka Kokutou: Kara no Kyoukai Movies
- Fiona Annabel Kousaki: Sorcery Jokers VN, just before fighting undead Inui
- Queen: Final Fantasy Type-0, last spiral
- Roy Mustang: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
- Artorius Collbrande: Tales of Berseria
- Len Ese: Ne No Kami: The Two Princess Knights of Kyoto
- Mayuzumi Yukie: Majikoi Visual Novels
- Suzushiro Shikikagura: Princess Waltz
- Joseph Joestar: David Productions anime, Stardust Crusaders
- Algol: SoulCalibur V
- Akechi Goro: Persona 5 game, vanilla version
- Matrim Cauthon: Wheel of Time books, just before Tarmon Gai'Don
- Siegfried: Nibelungenlied
- Hitomi Hitoyoshi: Medaka Box manga
- Hanakamakiri: Caterpillar
- Tal Graile-Rerem: Seventh Tower series, just before releasing Adras
- Aoi Kamishiro: Libra of the Vampire Princess, Calendula route
- Darth Bane: Star Wars Legends
- Miu Yarai: Dracu-Riot!, Miu route
- Kaladin: Stormlight Archive, post-Oathbringer
- Haar: Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn
Voting[]
- The battle is not a straight-up fight. Any votes treating it as such will not be counted.
- Please rank these warriors by who you think will survive the longest. Ties are allowed for any point in the rankings if you think two warriors are equally likely to lose.
- I will be counting votes by giving each warrior a score based on their placement. First place gets 22, second gets 21, and so on.
- Please give at least two sentences on why you think the warrior will rank where they do.
- Any votes that are constructing scenarios will not be counted, either. Assuming any specific NPCs in your vote counts as constructing scenarios.
- I will be counting votes on this blog and on this blog only. Not in a Discord PM, not on my Talk. 99% of the "Wikia eating a vote" is solvable with simple and easy-to-replicate steps, the first of which is to not have a comment box open for long periods of time.
- If you think I should not count a vote or that I chose to not count a vote that should be counted, contact me via Discord.
- Voting ends at 00:01 March 1, 2020
Other[]
As always, thanks to the various scanlation groups and VN translation teams (A3 when?) for their work in making these things readable in English.
Battle[]
Prologue[]
A siren resounded through DFederal, drawing the notice of the several of the newer residents. The announcement that followed, however, drew the attention of everyone. A battle was to take place within the city itself, a full twenty-two people fighting for the chance to live in luxury. Darth Bane, one of those potentially lucky souls, slams Palpatine’s head into a wall one last time before striding out of the alleyway he had been calling home. He finds himself in a grey, featureless room instead of the streets, surrounded by a slate of colorful characters. He takes stock of his foes, some faces familiar and others seemingly far too young.
Taking similar stock is Kai Leng, the arrogant ninja holding back a sneer. If his foes were of this caliber, he should have no problem taking the top. The organizer this time must be insane, including not only a schoolgirl but the fool sleeping against the corner. Or they might just be allowing him to finally get his due. He smiles as the door opens, letting in a man in an orange mask with blue detailing.
“I’m Leo, your host this time,” the man says without preamble, “And most of you should have had the rules this time directly implanted in your minds. Try not to get too distracted you don’t hear the district change announcements. Let’s start.” And at that, the man snaps, teleporting all of them to random points in the sewers.
Kai Leng appears next to the cookfire of a man in a leather cap and a maille shirt under a cloth tunic, damp and dirty. The other man jumps, startled at the sudden appearance, but smiles at his visitor.
“Hail, Kai,” Diarmuid says with a smile, “I wish you good luck in your fight.” The Irishman toasts to his unexpected guest, general good nature unaffected by his surroundings. Kai returns his politeness with discourtesy, and kicks his fire out.
“I have no need for encouragement from someone so low,” he sneers, and draws his sword, intending to cut down the man as practice. Diarmuid, however, dodges the blow while picking up a small spear next to him. A series of slashes from the ninja are dodged with relative ease, while a pair of swipes from Diarmuid’s spear find their mark, leaving long, gashes on the arrogant man.
Kai Leng lashes out with his palm blaster, firing at the floor to create an escape route. The spearman had gotten a few lucky hits in, no more. He simply had larger fish to fry; he wasn’t fleeing a losing fight. Like everything else he has done, however, Kai Leng made a grave miscalculation. The floor crumbles under his feet, sending him plummeting into an abyss.
He eventually slams into the ground, the impact knocking the wind out of him and sending more blood through his wounds. He gets up and looks around, seeing the rows upon rows of people in illuminated tubes. One behind him starts to shake, and he turns to watch as a man with an owl mask slams his head into the glass repeatedly, eventually breaking it open. The fluid within pours out as the man leaps out of his tank, knocking Kai Leng back to the ground.
Stunned and weakened from the wounds Diarmuid gave him, he can only watch in horror as the Owlman, crazed from repeated confinement and deaths, scratches at his cybernetics. The insane man’s fingers get under Kai Leng’s mask and pry it off, opening his face to the continued scratching by the screeching warrior. As he convulses from the pain of having his skull worn away by human fingers, Leng remembers one of the many rumors he had heard on the DFederal streets. A place known as “OCity” under the sewers, a place of madness and death. Those who entered were killed and returned aboveground, their memories erased save for the terror.
His last thoughts as the fingers finally scoop out his brain were a curse towards Leo, for sending him so close to such a deadly place.
Chapter 1[]
As soon as he appeared in the sewers, Tal fell back on his usual plan when things go wrong. He simply ran like mad, ignoring the disgruntled grumbles of his Spiritshadow. He vaults and sprints through the pipes, barely missing the denizens of DFederal’s underground. He stops short just before an intersection spews a gout of sewage, narrowly avoiding being swept away like the large, blue-skinned person who was running ahead of him.
Another pipe takes him to a large, circular junction, which has two other entrances aside from his own. Footsteps in both of them come to a halt, as a red-haired teenager with blood trickling out of her mouth appears in one and a man with an eyepatch stumbles into the other.
“Blood and ashes,” Mat mutters, “Of course the dice stop now.” He throws a knife at each of his opponents as he finishes, the first cut down by a ray of light from the child and the other simply stopping in midair in front of the girl before plopping into the murky water. Tal immediately retaliates with a Red Ray of Destruction, but his attack fizzles out before hitting the older man. He then yelps and ducks, barely dodging Miu’s punch, and tries to sweep her legs out from under her.
The vampire leaps back and thrusts her hand out towards Mat, who feels his medallion grow cold has her attempt to pull him off balance fails. He lets another knife fall from his sleeve into his hand, and catches the boy with the other, halting the youth’s attempt to charge him. He throws him at the girl, but to his surprise the youth cocoons himself in light.
Miu dodges him, unsure of what such a massive blast of light would do, and Tal slams into the wall, nearly knocking himself out. Miu, seeing the opportunity to incapacitate the youth, throws another punch with one hand while using her telekinesis with the other to pull the knife out of Mat’s hands. Splitting her attention allows Tal to attack, however, and in his panic lashes out with a Violet Unraveling. Miu disintegrates without a sound, and the knife she had intended to catch flies through the space where she was and into Tal’s throat.
Mat, horrified, runs towards the boy, but arrives too late. The child, barely fourteen, had already bled out in the filth and grime of the sewers. Mat grimaces and closes the boy’s eyes, trying not to liken him to Olver and failing. He sets the boy’s body down on one of the ledges above the water and runs off, hoping that no one had noticed the brief but deadly fight.
As Mat’s footsteps fade from the junction, Haar steps out from behind a corner with a sigh. He walks through the battlefield, yawning, and takes a different pipe to the other man, hoping to avoid combat. In the dim light, he notices iron rungs leading up to a small round metal plate. He lifts his axe up and pokes it, revealing the light of the slums above him. Yawning again, he settles into a nook across from the cover and falls asleep, intending to nap and let the district change be his alarm.
A few junctions away, Yukie also sprints through the pipes. Unlike the dead Tal, however, she was looking for an opponent instead of fleeing. She feels a presence behind her, and swiftly draws her katana to shatter the icicles raining down on her. A flurry of slashes deflects those about to hit her, and the rest crater the steel floor around her. A woman in a heavily modified nun habit, almost a cosplay piece, crystalizes out of the shadows, confident smile on her face.
“Patterns in the ice / melt away beautifully / and fade with cruelty,” she says, and a runic circle appears over her hand. Yukie coats her sword in her fighting aura and bats away the long, spear-like icicles that threaten to gouge her flesh and chill her blood. As she defends, however, she notices her foe running towards her, whispering another poem.
“In a silver world / act with ice-cold precision. / Leave nothing to chance.”
The assassin materializes a katana blade of ice and launches into a series of attacks, fast enough that she seemed to be wielding three swords instead of one. Yukie moves faster, however, and is finally able to strike back. Her foe freezes the air in a makeshift shield, dampening the blow enough that she can catch it with her ice and retreat. Yukie pursues, realizing only as she brings her sword down that this was Fiona’s plan.
The nun manipulates the ice in her blade skillfully, softening it just enough to capture the swordswoman’s katana. Freezing it back to solidity, she wrenches it from Yukie’s grasp and throws it at the wall. Unperturbed by the loss of her weapon Yukie punches, almost faster than the eye can see. Fiona deflects it with similar speed, and strikes back. The pair trade blows, each one thrown with enough force to kill, and destroy the pipes around them while looking for an advantage.
They leap back to a neutral position, a fierce joy in their eyes at being able to fight to their fullest, a pleasure Yukie was denied upon her entrance to the city. Fiona breaks the stillness first, with another of her senryu incantations.
“With my wish fulfilled / I prostrate as it plummets/ That shower of stakes,” she says, sending another rain of icicles down around Yukie. The youth dodges and deflects the scattering spikes, sending one down a connecting pipe. It misses a man in an eyepatch by a hairsbreath, nearly throwing his newly-reclaimed hat off with the force of its passing.
Mat curses his luck, annoyed at being nearly killed yet again. First the battle against two children, and now a random icicle from nowhere. Even in this place, the world seemed to simply want to make his life miserable. As if laughing at his recollection, Mat once again stumbles on a pair of his opponents, one a man in a blue uniform and the other a young girl in a black one and a plaid skirt, of all things.
“Oh not again,” Mat groans, again throwing a pair of knives. Just like the last time, one is incinerated by the man in the blue uniform and the girl simply dodges it.
“Do you always greet people by throwing knives?” Queen asks, fixing her skirt.
“Only if I know they’re trying to kill me,” Mat says, hoping his light smile was charming enough to get her to back off without using one of the other knives in his sleeve. She wasn’t his type, but he didn’t want to kill another woman if he could help it.
“Well, we’re not,” Roy interjects, “at least I’m not.”
“I also do not wish to fight,” Queen says primly, “And I believe that we should, at this stage, ally with each other.”
“I agree with the girl,” Roy says, and the two look at Mat.
“All right, all right. You’ve twisted my arm,” he says, throwing his hands in the air. It might not be bad to have some friends. And if they have to kill each other later, well… they’d get to that when it happened.
“First thing’s first,” Roy says, sounding more relaxed than he looks, “Information.”
“At least two of them are dead,” Mat says with a frown, “We fought.”
“Three,” Queen says, causing the two to look at her before she continues, “If I only remember nineteen people from that room, that means three are dead.”
“Look, lass, I don’t think a bad memory is proof of anything.”
“I forget the dead. Part of the Crystal’s blessing.”
“Burn me, girl, that’s no blessing,” Mat says with a scowl.
“It can be, at times,” Roy mutters, before realizing they had all forgotten something fairly important when making allies. “I’m Roy Mustang,” he says, nodding towards his new companions.
“Matrim Cauthon,” Mat says while tipping his hat.
“Queen,” Queen says while adjusting her glasses.
“And I’m Aoi Kamishiro, and it’s hunting time!” a teenager wearing a nun costume shouts as she charges at the dumbfounded trio, a dagger in each hand. Queen materializes her blade and utilizes Justice Guard, parrying the strike and hitting her point-blank with her repost. Aoi leaps back, only for Roy to snap his fingers and explode the air behind her.
She falls to the ground, dead, the Killsight having done its work.
“Guess that makes four,” Roy says, looking incredulously at the dead woman.
“Oh. Was she one of them?” Queen asks, dismissing her sword into thin air while fixing her skirt.
Chapter 2[]
Darth Bane stalks through the pipes, the narrow confines unpleasantly similar to hit time on Apatros as Dessel. The area he wanders through is pitch dark, the only available illumination his red lightsaber. His rage boils, hatred of the system that kept him down first as an illegal resident and then as a homeless Sith rising to form a sweep of power, rippling the sewage away from his feet as he walked. His Force-enhanced senses picked up the sound of another stepping delicately through the pipe ahead, moving in his direction.
Bane glares as he sees a flame flicker, and a young girl peers incautiously through the darkness, wearing a long, blue gown and a pair of gloves. As she moves her flaming hand across her face, Bane recognizes the girl: Azaka Kokutou, one of the other homeless residents who wandered the alleyways of the blue collar district. And one of his opponents in the current fight.
The girl stops, evidently noticing his lightsaber, and the man shoots his hand forward, fingers twisted into a claw. A half-dozen bolts of blue lightning arc out and strike the girl, and she barely has time to scream before the Dark Side fries her from the inside out. As she falls, the crashing of a gong roll through the sewers, followed by an announcement.
“All right, Tarot competitors. Five of you are dead, so now it’s time to get to the Slums. You have ten minutes to leave the sewers and get to the slums. Everyone else… try not to get in their way.”
Bane meets the eyes of one of the sewer’s residents, who appeared to be drawing the vestiges of his lightning into himself, and the man takes a step back through the broken hole that counted as an entryway in this section of the city.
Bane himself growls and thrusts his palm upward, straining as the steel and concrete above him buckles and cracks.
Elsewhere in the sewers, Fiona and Yukie pause their battle upon hearing the announcement and look at each other. An unspoken understanding sparked between the two swordswomen, and Fiona taps the ceiling with her sword, adjusting its shape to send it through each and every minor flaw in the pipe and the surrounding earth. An entire stretch of ground slowly but surely freezes and warps, before the nun draws her blade back, nodding at the younger girl.
Yukie returns the nod, and closes her eyes for a second, concentrating her fighting spirit into her blade before opening them and striking upward, a movement so efficient and swift even Fiona could barely follow it. The ground above them shatters and launches miles into the sky, and Yukie wastes no time in executing a series of leaps up the broken steel, earth, concrete, and asphalt.
“The nameless deceased / have but a single purpose / as a stepping stool,” Fiona says, and the incantation creates her own footholds to leap up herself. She lands to see Yukie staring at her with a cramped attempt at a smile on her face.
“I am Yukie Mayuzumi, of the Mayuzumi sword style,” she announces, “Would you do me the honor of continuing this bout?”
“Fiona Annabel Kousaki,” she replies, “Self-taught. I suppose I can play with you for a while longer.”
She flips forward, and makes an ice platform at her feet to launch a strike from above. Yukie parries it, and barely leaps out of the way of the razor-sharp pillar of ice that would have cut her hands off. She bats away a sweep intended to hit her legs, and strikes back. Fiona leaps back while parrying one of the seeming five blades coming at her, narrowly avoiding decapitation. The soft tapping of steel on ice lost itself in the cacophony around them, other warriors either replicating their stunt or simply leaving through actual manholes.
Fiona snatches one of the many pieces of rubble now coating the DFederal slums and slings it at Yukie, who shatters it in midair with a swing and hits it with the flat of her blade on the return, sending the pebbles back fast as bullets. Fiona makes a swift wall of packed snow, the pebbled that would have hit her sinking harmlessly into the moisture while letting the ones that wouldn’t slice through the cardboard shanties behind her.
Yukie, sprinting behind the makeshift projectiles, brings her sword around in an arc, scattering the snow in a burst of wind. She freezes, honed senses momentarily overwhelmed, but her reflexes allow her to parry Fiona’s flurry of thrusts at her face. She leaps back, with the nun hot on her heels. A split second later, and the two have their swords at each other’s’ throats. Fiona disengages first, sliding back on a sheet of ice. She readies her blade, now stained with a speck of red, as Yukie brings her own spotless steel to bear.
The sounds of their continued clash even reach the sewers, as well as the desperately running Hitomi Hitoyoshi. The red-haired girl she was chasing pauses her flight, swinging the broken blade extending from her shield. Hitomi ducks and sweeps out with her foot, her perfect Savate strike only throwing the girl farther back and breaking her momentum. Len flips through the air, and extends her fist to touch the ground before extending her sword, sending her sailing aboveground as the gong reverberates through the sewers once more.
Mere moments later, a blue-skinned man in similar-colored armor appears before her, seemingly out of thin air. He sighs before drawing his curved, red sword and pointing it at the diminutive woman.
“I’m no longer his representative, but I can’t even retire,” he grumbles as he squares off, before simply extending his arm and incinerating his target in a gout of fire.
On the surface, Haar and Siegfried swing themselves into their saddles, the latter riding off to find a fight while the former lifts off, flying above the war-torn slums in the center of DFederal. As the city shudders below, the gaping wounds in its streets bleeding raw sewage, Haar – and his dragon – yawn and close their eyes.
Nothing’s better than the sky for a nap.
His shadow passes over the trio of Mat, Roy, and Queen, picking their way over the rubble and chaos. Even those not in the competition were being swept up in the violence, as the now-charred Irishman shrieking about God had decided now was the best time to attack three strangers with a flamethrower.
They hear maniacal laughter in what was left of the alleyway next to them, and peek in to see a white-haired man, naked save for a loincloth, hitting a giant spiked turtle with his throne, while some creepy blue-furred elf lay collapsed in its own blood, twitching with pink froth gushing out of its lips. The man teleports his throne over Bowser’s head and sits in it, finally crushing the Koopa King’s head and putting him out of his misery.
“He dared call himself a king in my presence,” he snorts, reveling in the slaughter, “And who’s this? Three more sacrifices before the mighty Algol?”
He gets up from his throne, facing the trio with a snarling smile on his face. He wastes no time getting into combat, shifting his hand into a cannon and launching magic at the group. Queen and Roy, acting as one, shove Mat forward while rolling out of the way.
“Oi!” the general yells as the magic fizzles before hitting him, “Just because it doesn’t hurt me doesn’t mean I like it!” Mat unsheathes his ashandarei in indignation, taking a couple swipes at Algol to keep the maniac at bay.
“Better you than us,” Roy says, snapping his fingers and exploding the air in front of Algol’s face. The Hero-King simply manifests the crystalline hilt of Soul Calibur, absorbing the impact before rematerializing his throne and throwing it at the alchemist with one hand. His other shifts into the red blade of Soul Edge, turning aside Mat’s thrust. He then casually manifests Soul Calibur’s blade, warding off Queen’s flurry of sword strikes before the young girl disengages, landing and launching magic at him.
While Algol cancels it out with his own magic cannon, Queen swiftly manifests and slashes a Mana Sphere, sending it at Algol from three directions. He cuts them all down by sprouting silver spikes from his back and arms. An explosion from Roy blinds him before he can strike back, however, sending him reeling for the first time in ages. He hears a sound in front of him, and shoots his ribcage out of his chest to impale the cretin bold enough to attack him while stunned.
His efforts are met with a squelching thud and piercing pain, and his vision returns to see Matrim impaling him on his spear. He twists the shaft and yanks it out, leaving the Hero-King on his knees. Algol opens his mouth in a snarl, intending to praise his opponent, but a snap and a spark from Roy explodes the air within his lungs.
Without those organs, as vital to kings as they are to Hamon users, Algol slumps on the ground, dead.
Chapter 3[]
Akechi Goro laughs, Loki manifesting prominently above him. A group of homeless monks with laser swords gathers around him, having initially mistaken his own beam sword for their own. Now, driven mad by his power, they set about tearing down and ripping up the slums. The low hum of lightsabers flashing is almost drowned out by the screams of the dying, which fall deaf on the manic Jedi’s ears.
Another lightsaber ignites, the crimson color standing out amongst a sea of other hues. Strikes rain out from its wielder, quick as the lightning that sparks from his free hand, swiftly cutting a path through the crowd. The enormous man, emaciated and pale but still solid with muscle, casually slices through the ranks of his most hated enemy until Akechi spots him. The detective makes an exaggerated attempt to attack him, but is unceremoniously cut down by Bane’s superior skill.
A girl in a kimono peeks out from behind a wall after the man passes, the only intact thing left in the street. A red-haired girl peeks out from the other side, and the pair catches each other’s eyes.
“Hey, do you think we can maybe… not?” Len says, giving the other girl a friendly smile.
“I saw what you did with Hitoyoshi,” Susushiro replies, “Do you really think I’d let such dishonor stand?”
“Ah, I guess not,” Len says, grimacing, and places her weapon against the wall behind her. She then extends the broken blade of her sword, launching her at her enemy. She cartwheels in midair, going for an overhand blow, but the girl simply punches the Divine Sword aside. Falling back on her instincts, Len brings her shield up in time to block another punch from Suzushiro, sending her flying backwards. She lands on the wall and springs off, aiming to get close before Suzushiro can react.
A sudden, sharp increase in gravity slams her out of the air, nearly knocking her out.
“You’re not the only one who remembered the other loss conditions,” Suzushiro says coldly, “I merely have to wait here for a minute, and you’ll have lost.” She smiles, confident in her victory, and does as she said. After a minute, she simply returns gravity to normal and walks off. Len rolls on her back, gasping for air.
“Well, I’m at least alive,” she says, groaning as she struggles to her feet, only to see a British male in a beret looking at her sadly, revolver drawn.
“I’m sorry, girl, but El Alamein demands blood,” he says, and fires. His shaking hand did not throw his aim off, and Len falls back, dead.
As she hits the ground, a gong rings out in the slums, followed by an announcement of a district change.
Yukie runs towards the blue collar district, sending a strike at Fiona as she does so. The nun casually deflects it and calls down yet another rain of icicles, which Yukie, too pressed for finesse, simply obliterates with a single sword slash that breaks the sound barrier. Fiona is nearly blown away by the air pressure, but catches her balance at the last minute before hurriedly parrying another strike from her foe. That does knock her off balance, but even that was within her expectations.
“Pushing through the ground / seeking the bright light of day / mete silvery death,” she says, touching the ground as she regains her poise. A forest of spikes erupts from the ground, chilling the air to stillness. Yukie is able to react, jumping over the spikes and using her speed to bounce between them too fast for them to give her frostbite. Siegfried is not so lucky, as the spikes impale him and his horse both, their blood running through the forest of icicles.
Yukie skids to a stop in the blue collar district, looking around for Fiona in vain as the spikes grow ever taller, piercing through even buildings. She hears the sound of ice hitting ice, and barely manages to deflect the frozen spear before it pierces her flesh.
As if that were a cue, she hears the sound start again, this time repeated several hundredfold. Yukie takes a defensive stance, hoping to survive the oncoming storm.
Chapter 4[]
The shards of ice bear down on Yukie, pushing her concentration to the limit. Simply deflecting them could send them back at her after a bad ricochet, so each razor-sharp chunk found itself winding outside the forest of pillars. As she finds a rhythm, Yukie broadens her senses, trying to find the nun trying to kill her. The effort makes her sweat, despite the surrounding ice.
She finally notices a speck of life, and immediately calculates how to send the ice back at her assailant. The speck flares up in surprise as her own missiles find their way back to her, and that’s all Yukie needs. The icicles stop for a split second, and a swing of her katana shears through the ice. For the first time, Fiona’s usual composed face drops in shock as Yukie pins her with a glare before leaping towards her, moving almost too fast for her to react.
Barely in time, she manages to snap her magi in place and generate a new blade. It shatters under the force of the blow, but allows her to leap back. The wind from the passing slash picks her up, however, and blows her through the door of the house across the street. Yukie shakes the thin drop of blood off her sword and dashes forward, intending to impale her foe on her blade. She sees a glint of ice ahead of her and plows through the attack, splitting the shard in half and impaling the figure behind it.
Her moment of victory quickly turns into surprise, as she sees she’s impaled an ice sculpture instead of Fiona. A sound of rushing wind behind her causes her to let go of her blade and turn, catching Fiona’s hand in her own as the nun assassin tries to slash her from behind.
As the superhuman struggle continues, a young girl in a poofy dress makes her way past, exuding an aura of harmlessness. Hanakamakiri places her hands together under the sleeves, trying to betray no hint of her actual skill. She barely dodges out of the way of a grey man in grey clothes, the only defining feature the massive red lenses on his mask, as he approaches a heavily-muscled man in black robes.
“Lord Bane!” the Sith calls out, causing the man to look towards him. And towards her. Hanakamakiri immediately suppresses any hint of bloodlust, needing to remain entirely harmless if she were to get her target.
“What?” he growls, overlooking the frilly, weak-seeming woman in favor of the one trying to get his attention.
“The slums were nearly leveled, my lord. If that devastation were to come here…” he starts, clearly nervous about the battles to come
“Then what? You are Sith. You grow strong, feed off the weak, and make your way to the top. That is the way of the Dark Side.”
“We might not be strong enough to survive…”
“Then perish,” he snarls, not even moving as he grabs the lesser man in a force choke, “A Sith does not cry for help. He takes what he wants!”
His tirade is cut off, however, as he feels a blade sink into his shoulder. Hanakamakiri, having failed her one chance, kicks off of Bane’s back, pulling her claw-blade out and trying to flee. Bane, however, simply holds her fast in the air with the Force. He sends Force Lightning into his own wounds, using the heat to cauterize them, before turning to her.
“This is it,” he says, exulting, “Trickery, deception, making a foe drop their guard… You know power, girl. But you missed.” He ignites his lightsaber, holding it before his helpless foe. “Come find me after this fight. I will train you. Shape you, give you the strength to not miss next time. You will be a warrior like no other. But you are not yet there.”
Bane caps his soliloquy with a flick of his wrist, throwing his saber and impaling the girl, before yanking it back with the Force. He catches it and turns, striking the Sith Assassin down.
Overhead, Haar naps peacefully in the sky, his black dragon sharing in the simple pleasure of ignoring everyone else. That, like much else in the city, was broken in short order, this one by a blonde twat riding a blue dragon, shouting something incomprehensible and holding a sword.
“Up and at ‘em, partner,” he says, patting his dragon on the neck, “No shortage of idiots with swords.”
His wyvern roars in response, and he draws his axe as he flies over the rube, unaware his friendly greeting was taken for a threat. The wyvern then pulls into a dive, plummeting down towards the boy, who holds his sword up to block. The axe rends through the magic steel, Nihil disabling the magic holding it together, and digs deep into the youth’s shoulder.
Momentum pulls the idiot out of his saddle, sending him plummeting to the earth as Haar’s wyvern spins into a roll, its talons and teeth opening the blue dragon from belly to neck in an instant. After another couple rolls to shake the blood off, the pair climbs a little higher, hoping to continue their nap.
Yukie narrowly dodges a boy falling from the sky, not able to spare a thought for the new red stain on the ground. Her duel with Fiona continues yet on, seemingly without end. She tenses as Fiona draws a breath, intuition telling her what came next would be bad.
Fiona strikes at Yukie without pause, the usual rhythm broken in an unending hail of slashes and thrusts. Yukie blocks and defends, knowing that when Fiona did need to pause and take a breath, it would leave her vulnerable. She just had to be patient and wait for her chance. Surely, after the next flurry the woman would disengage to breathe.
Fiona just keeps attacking, the breathless rush abandoning subtlety and tricks to overwhelm with pure, unrelenting violence. Her continual strikes, coming fast enough that not even her opponent could react, were finally interrupted not by her need to breathe but by a pair of fiery slashes coming from her right.
Artorius continues the attack by slicing at Yukie, before intercepting Fiona’s next strike with a kick. The nun kicks back again, sending yet another a rain of icicles at her foe. Yukie, now needing to defend against two foes, also falls back slightly, taking stock of the situation. She and Fiona throw a glance at each other, and wordlessly commence their joint assault.
Artorius, unable to utilize his dominant hand, struggles valiantly for a few seconds before being impaled on a blade of steel and one of ice. The swords, moment of harmony over, once again aim at the throats of their foes.
Chapter 5[]
Two men and a schoolgirl pick their way through the broken buildings and broken people, Roy and Mat looking around in horror while Queen has a detached expression on her face. She steps around a pair of corpses, who had gotten on the wrong side of one of the intermittent icicle showers. One man in Greek armor lies bloody on the ground, seemingly about to gasp his last breath. Queen kneels in front of him and casts Cura on him. The man gasps in air and faints in relief as she gets up and continues on.
“You’re too used to war, Queen,” Roy says, “What kind of life have you lead to know this devastation at such a young age?”
“This isn’t devastation. The city’s still here,” Queen says, leaving Mat and Roy speechless.
“That’s not a very normal standard of war damage,” Mat says, tossing a knife as he rests his ashandarei on his shoulder, “Though I can’t say you’re wrong. If balefire was used here…”
“It’s also getting less ruined as we get farther from the slums,” Queen points out, “As the field thins, I think it’ll probably return to the usual style of urban warfare.”
“Quick ambushes and retreats,” Mat nods, understanding perfectly as they continue their stroll.
“Fighting in a city is never good,” Roy says, grimacing, “Even if you win, you’ll never live there peacefully.”
“Peace would be nice,” Queen says absently, “Would be a change from either losing a war and forgetting everyone I knew or winning and accidentally starting the end of the world.”
As the two men try to figure out how to respond to their companion, none of them notice a parasol dashing back around the corner. Suzushiro holds her breath as she creeps off in the other direction; she knew when she was at a disadvantage. After feeling she’s finally far enough, she leaps back from a flash of light, as a heavily-wounded man stabs a glowing spear through the heart of an older one.
Kaladin collapses as Joseph falls, his soul killed. The older man was cunning, and guileful foes put Kaladin at a disadvantage. The strange power he wielded had forced Kaladin to use up almost all of his spheres, leaving him with almost no Stormlight. As its glow left him, a gong rings out, announcing the district change.
He fumbles towards his sphere pouch before Syl, shifted back into a Spren, stops him.
“Let’s ask her for help,” she says, pointing at the still frightened Suzushiro, “I like her.” He nods and pulls his bruised and bloody body to rest against the wall as Syl flits over to the girl, requesting aid. Suzushiro walks over and closes her parasol, holding it out to Kaladin with the tip facing the ground.
“I have taken an oath not to touch a male other than my fiancée,” she says, “but you can at least use my parasol as a cane.”
Kaladin grabs hold of the wood and pulls himself to a standing position, too injured to do more than nod in thanks.
As they step into safety, however, the pair spot the three that Suzushiro had tried so hard to avoid. Kaladin inhales Stormlight from his last two spheres, healing his wounds and Lashing himself and Suzushiro in opposite directions, soaring over the massive explosion that nearly killed them both. He lands on the side of a building, while Suzushiro kicks off of the lamppost she had been Lashed to and throws a punch at Queen, who blocks with her sword and fires off Thunder ROK with her free hand. The ball of lightning hits Suzushiro sqare in the stomach, dropping her to the ground where a swift sword stroke finishes her off.
Kaladin, meanwhile, struggles to make headway against Mat, the Sylspear not damaging the power-wrought ashandarei. Mat the slams the butt of his spear into Kaladin’s chest, causing him to gasp in pain and let a little Stormlight leak out. A well-timed explosion from Roy sucks out the rest, leaving him ripe for a stab from Mat. The bridgeman dies, lamenting that he hadn’t more Stormlight.
Across the district, Haar swoops down alongside his dragon, touching ground for the first time in hours. He lands outside a café and enters, ordering food for both him and his wyvern. He then steps outside, looking for a place to sit, before approaching a blonde teenage girl and an elementary-schooler in a mouse-eared hoodie, and motions to the empty seat at their table. They nod, and he takes a seat as his wyvern lumbers up next to them.
“Hi,” he says, breaking the ice, “I’m Haar. New here.”
“Ayaka,” the blonde says, “and the short one’s Parcel.”
“Your part-time job doesn’t let you afford this,” Parcel points out tonelessly, and Ayaka simply pats her head in response.
“And I still don’t get how yours does.”
“Our pay is based on our wins, remember?”
“So if I do well now I can just sleep and be fine?” Harr interjects, hoping for a ticket to luxury.
“No. You don’t work, you don’t get paid. And have to pay more for school, if you’re a student,” Ayaka replies, grimacing, “I just wish any of the schools had dorms. “
“I keep telling you to sleep at my place. The mansion’s too damn big, and after his fight finishes it’ll just get bigger. Got to be better than your hole in the sewers,” Parcel says, trying once again to get the stubborn girl to sleep somewhere proper.
“Ah… If you live in the sewers you might not have a house,” Haar says, “The others kind of destroyed most of the system.”
Ayaka gasps in horror, turning pale, while Parcel gives a triumphant smile.
“Now you have to find somewhere else to sleep,” she says, “And I have a spare bedroom. Or more like ten.”
“All right, you win,” Ayaka says, grinning at the younger girl through a mouthful of burger, “Still wish they’d kept the dorms from Operation Zodiac.”
“Operation Zodiac?” Haar chimes in as he tosses another cut of his steak to his wyvern, “Sounds like a pain.”
“Ah, right, you’re new,” Ayaka says, “So here’s how things work…”
Chapter 6[]
Queen hangs back as her allies walk ahead of her, and looks around. She could no longer remember most of the other competitors, and as she had predicted the wanton property damage and general chaos that had defined the early stages of the competition died down considerably. With that in mind, an alliance was now a liability. With no way of knowing when she would be betrayed, the logical option was to betray first.
That in mind, she summons her sword as Mat turns to ask her why she had stopped. Queen uses Speedrush, appearing directly before the man and slicing him open from hip to shoulder before he could so much as shout in alarm. Another Speedrush took her to Roy’s side, where she repeats the maneuver. She fixes her skirt and dismisses her sword as the gong signaling a district change rang out once again, her former companions already forgotten.
Elsewhere, Yukie parries yet another series of strikes from Fiona, grimacing at the effort. She immediately pivots her sword to block a razor-sharp pillar of ice that threatened to gouge her side, and lets go of the handle to punch Fiona back, the nun vulnerable from her leap to strike overhead. Fiona flips in midair, launching horizontally off of one of her ice platforms aiming a slash towards Yukie’s neck with one hand while using her other to call down an icicle from above.
Yukie, however, was simply no longer there. The younger girl sprints towards the boundary to the wealthy district, aiming for safety before continuing the fight. Fiona indulges her, also sprinting to safety, and parries another strike as she crosses the line. A follow-up punch catches her unaware, and she ends up flying through the air again. She rights herself, and sends a flurry of ice spears behind her to destroy the house wall before it hits her.
A path of ice underneath allows her to slow her momentum, skidding to a stop below the large chandelier, shaped like an A without the middle bar. Yukie pursues, not letting her foe catch her breath with a furious series of slashes and stabs. As she keeps up her assault, however, she sees the blue circles indicating Fiona’s magic appear and disappear. She draws back, not sure what her foe was planning, and evades the pair of icicles that would have split her head in two. Fiona sides in under them, preventing Yukie from continuing her attacks by launching a rush of her own.
As before, she strikes without even pausing for breath. Yukie, however, has formed a countermeasure. Instead of wasting her energy seeking an opening, she instead stores it, compressing her muscles and fighting aura into as small movements as she possibly can. After the gong finally sounds again, signaling ten minutes since Queen had killed her comrades, Fiona finally makes a low dash back, gasping for breath.
Taking her chance, Yukie unleashes all her stored energy in one swift strike, moving so fast that not even Fiona can track her movements. Her simple forward charge leaves a wake behind her, only halting when Fiona’s length of ice wire slices through her neck and arms. Momentum sends the pieces of her body slamming into the wall in front of her, and her katana clear through the rest of the mansion and impaling its owner as he entered through the back door.
“A valiant life / shining brightly like the sun / cut by silver strings,” Fiona says, eulogizing her opponent before breathing a sigh of relief. She lets her sword melt, stretching after nearly two hours of continuous combat. She is about to close her eyes when she looks up, spotting Haar and his dragon circling the area. She grimaces as she mutters the incantation to form her ice platforms, the words matching her profession but not her current mood.
“The nameless deceased / have but a single purpose / as a stepping stool”
The shock of an impact on his armor shakes Haar awake, and he sleepily swipes at Fiona, who simply lets her blade break as she falls, using another platform to leap over the dragon and re-forms her sword to strike the beast’s neck. Haar’s axe intercepts the blow, shaking the pair fully awake. Again she flips and bounces off of a sheet of magic ice, and aims another strike at Haar. Barely making it past his guard, it rings off his armor.
A sharp pain runs through Fiona as Counter activates, nearly throwing her out of the sky entirely. She freezes the cloud below her, getting her bearings back as Haar wheels around for a counterattack. Fiona parries the blow, once again flipping through the sky and leaping off another platform to strike back. Her blade meets his axe, and her eyes widen in surprise as her ice spears fail to materialize before momentum brings her past the pair. She creates a wall in midair, which she uses to change course to the side as Haar, flying upside down, slams his axe through it. He wheels around for a follow-up and strikes again, the force behind it throwing Fiona away despite blocking it.
Another series of ricochets brings Fiona in range once again, and she brings her blade once again into a slash. Haar leans back in the saddle, avoiding the blow, and slams his axe into her unprotected back. The gong rings out as her lifeless body falls, signaling the final district change.
Chapter 7[]
Haar follows into a dive, knowing that he could no longer avoid combat. He pulls up before hitting the ground, flaring his wings before the enormous, muscled man staring down a petite schoolgirl. The three pause, each taking stock of their final foes. The wind blows dramatically between them, as their stare-off continues, until the second gong rings out. Taking that as their cue, they all move at once, a whirlwind of light, steel, and fangs.
Queen opens with a Speedrush, hoping to kill Bane before he could pull out any of his tricks. As she appears in front of him, however, the larger man is already bringing his lightsaber down. Queen immediately rolls to the side while charging up Thundaga SHG, and lets loos a barrage of lightning at Bane once she lands. The Sith Lord catches it on his lightsaber, and redirects it to blast at Haar while he returns fire with his own barrage of lightning.
Queen swiftly casts Wall, and the torrent of Dark Side energy breaks the magical barrier but goes no further. Haar dodges, directing his wyvern to stall Bane while he slashes at Queen, but Bane lets loose a powerful Force Push that sends him careening towards the teenager. Queen leaps back, letting loose a point-blank gust of wind that Haar’s wyvern uses to right himself. Bane takes the opportunity to stab forward with his lightsaber, aiming directly at Haar’s heart.
Luckily for the wyvern knight, both Miracle and Counter activate, forcing the deadly blade off-course and causing a spurt of blood to erupt from Bane’s side. Haar’s wyvern flaps his wings, sending Bane off-balance while gaining distance. Bane, noting the retreating Haar, instead grabs Queen in a Force Grip. He squeezes the life out of his more dangerous foe as he sends his lightsaber towards her to finish her off. Before it hits, the girl falls limp, red mist leaving her body.
Bane sneers and lets her fall, noticing the glyph on the ground too late. As Queen touches it, she vanishes. Instead, a massive, armored knight on a six-legged steed appears in her place, kicking the ground and sending the other two reeling with its mere presence. Odin immediately fires off Moonring Blade, which Bane dodges. Haar takes a glancing blow, but with Killstrike that’s all that’s needed.
Haar drops out of the sky, dead, until Bane catches the corpses with the Force and throws them at the rampaging knight. A single strike from his sword sends them sailing through the air, shattering the windows of a mansion. Bane rips pieces out of another mansion, throwing them at Odin, who either dodges the rubble or smashes them with his sword. Bane keeps the assault up, hoping his foe tires first.
Odin takes an opening, however, and fires off a volley of Moonring Blades. Bane deflects the strikes that would have hit him with the Force, and lets the rest slam into the mansion behind him, reducing it to rubble. Rather than letting it fall, however, he redirects the avalanche of stone and brick towards his enemy, hoping to get at least one hit in.
Odin, defying all his expectations, instead rides along the stream of rubble, an orb pf magic glowing at the tip of his sword. He disrupts the path with a single gesture, sending the knight into the air. As Odin falls, however, he lands on a piece of rubble and lets loose his ultimate attack, Zantetsuken.
Before Bane can so much as blink, Odin has crossed the several meters of air between them, swinging his sword. The Sith barely has time to feel surprise before the massive chunk of metal shears through his body, tearing him in half. A second later, Odin also vanishes, leaving both Queen and Bane dead on the ground.
Epilogue[]
A few minutes later, Queen, now alive again, stands outside the grounds of her new 92,000 square-foot mansion, next to the man in an orange mask who had sponsored her entry into the city.
“Congratulations on your victory,” Leo says, gesturing at the home, “It’s yours. On the opposite side of the district from where you wrecked things as Odin, and about ten minutes’ walk from DFederal North, which has facilities for students your age.”
“Thank you, though I’d also have thought you’d be able to fix the damage with how easily you made this home,” she says, adjusting her glasses in disapproval.
“That was the original plan, but well… one of the bureaus requested it. I may have stepped down from their number, but it’s still helpful to have him owe me a favor. Especially if I don’t need it for a bit and can watch him worry about what it’ll be.”
“So even here there’s politics,” she sighs.
“Yes, but you’ll likely find it won’t touch you much. In fact, with this you’re now the wealthiest warrior in the city. You likely won’t need to worry about more combat, either.”
“Peace, huh,” Queen says, looking again at her new home.
“Ah, I almost forgot,” Leo says, his deadpan manner making the statement seem a lie, “I’ve got a bit of a tradition in these. The victor gets a wish granted.”
“In that case… I’d like for my classmates to join me.”
“That’s doable. Should take a little over a year for the whole class. Ace and Deuce might be coming in a little earlier than the others,” Leo says, scribbling a note on a pad.
In the depths of the sewers, Kai Leng lies in his new hole, the 25-by-25 square placed strategically by one of those running the city near an intake pipe. A wave of raw waste surges through, passing through his home. The water rises over him, causing him to cry out in pain as it sweeps over the gangrenous, bleeding wounds he had received from Diarmuid. His cries echo through the tunnels even once the waste stops flowing, interrupted by the harsh sound of stone scraping as someone outside opens the ineffective door.
“Well, aren’t you unfortunate,” a soothing voice floats into his ears, “I think we can help you out.”
Kai, grasping onto any form of salvation, cracks his eyes open and sees a man in a wolf mask staring down at him as others in similar garb prepare what appears to be a stretcher.
“My name is Alpha,” his savior says, “I think we can work together to get you what you deserve.”
Report[]
- 22nd: Kai Leng, 8 points
- Woefully arrogant and less than competent, Kai Leng did horribly. He simply did not live up to his ego. Eat shit, Kai.
- 21st: Miu Yarai, 17 points
- Miu fell second because of her general naiveté and lack of proper combat experience. Further, her general mindset of de-escalation simply does not help during a BR when opponents can be far stronger than she is.
- 20th: Tal Graile-Rerem, 19 points
- Tal suffers from similar pitfalls as Miu, and only really places higher because his light-based magic fucks with her vampire shit.
- 19th: Aoi Kamishiro, 31 points
- Aoi, while significantly more capable than Tal and Miu, is also kind of an idiot. Not even the most unexpected Monty Python reference could save her from her own recklessness.
- 18th: Azaka Kokutou, 35 points
- Azaka simply didn’t have enough power to muscle through all the competitors in the sewers, and not enough room to use those powers to their fullest. Also fucking fire in a tunnel is a terrible idea.
- 17th: Hitomi Hitoyoshi, 50 points
- Hitomi was unlucky, as the scenario tests not only pure combat ability but also mobility. Her heelies fucked her up there, and she never made it out of the sewers.
- 16th: Algol, 53 points
- Much like Kai, his ego was far greater than his power. Unlike Kai, this is actually saying something. Regardless, he makes more reckless decisions than his power can handle, and ultimately got shanked for it.
- 14th: Akechi Goro and Len Ese, 54 points
- Akechi likes to showboat and feed his own ego, which is a fatal flaw against stronger opponents. Len simply doesn’t have enough combat experience to make it much farther, and is only able to get this far based on her inherited knowledge and quick wit.
- 13th: Siegfried of the Netherlands, 71 points
- Despite his large arsenal, superhuman strength, and nigh-invulnerability, Siegfried is ultimately just not strong enough to survive his good nature. He does make it this far due to still being a crafty bugger, but from here up there’s mostly schemers and people who can get around his invulnerability.
- 12th: Hanakamakiri, 82 points
- Hanakamakiri is highly skilled at disguise, misdirection, and stealth. While she would have done very well in Operation Zodiac, where keeping hidden is key, this match also has open combat. That is her biggest weakness, and ultimately what places her in twelfth.
- 11th: Artorius Collbrande, 86 points
- Artorius bows out at this point due to his unusable dominant hand limiting his options. He has ample skill and magic abilities, but one glaring weakness does him in.
- 10th: Joseph Joestar, 87 points
- Similar to Hanakamakiri, Joseph’s wits and quick thinking get him far in this match. While he is fairly capable in open combat, he’s ultimately at a disadvantage with his powerset.
- 9th: Suzushiro Shikikagura, 95 points
- Suzushiro’s main failing is that she specializes in one type of attack and one type only. She makes it this far because her abilities allow her to force two of the loss conditions on her opponent – incapacitation or outright murder. She’s reaching the point where others can counter her, though.
- 8th: Kaladin Stormblessed, 103 points
- Kaladin’s powers are practically tailor-made for this match, granting him superior fighting ability, healing, and unmatched mobility. He falls because those powers are restricted by his behavior.
- 6th: Matrim Cauthon and Roy Mustang, 116 points
- Both Mat and Roy have abilities that are simple, but very powerful. They’re both fairly good at gaining allies. All the remaining combatants are also able to counter their special gimmicks.
- 5th: Mayuzumi Yukie, 127 points
- Yukie’s simply too good with her sword. She misses the top four because her skill is fairly narrowly focused on sword combat and speed, while the rest are either good at everything or can metagame.
- 4th: Fiona Annabel Kousaki, 133 points
- Fiona’s gotten this far on her versatility, skills, and inventiveness. She’s smart enough to plan carefully and skilled enough to put those plans into action. She misses the top three because she’s missing a way to metagame.
- 3rd: Haar, 142 points
- Haar gets this far because he can just sleep on his dragon and surprise foes with Nihil. His actual abilities are very straightforward and nothing really special, especially when compared to others below him. He can force a fight on his terms, however, and can throw an opponent’s plans off by just enough to give him a kill shot.
- 2nd: Darth Bane (Legends), 145 points
- Bane has everything necessary to do well in this match: raw power, mobility, intelligence, and the ability to cheat the loss conditions. He misses first due not to any major flaw of his own, but rather a bad match-up.
- 1st: Queen, 154 points
- Queen is an excellent all-rounder, which is exactly what this scenario favors. What propels her to first, however, is her ability to cheat death while making it easier to kill those who would have been victorious.