Snowflake Artifact: Dance for your life!

Tosca Fantasy -- Edvin Marton & Monte Carlo Orchestra

"What a queer fellow to stray so far from one's herd. I suggest turning back because the forest is not safe for those who go alone and away from the designated pathways or you would have to contend to the Beast's Shadow."

Behind the forest intruder (Hayato) was a tall woman with a strong build while her feminine figure is blatant. Her hair at first was blond, but then it shifts in water-fluent transition to dark brown in layered asymmetrical style that is leaned to her left while only down to her shoulders. The mere presence of her seems to make the day emulate her nature by darkening almost to night and starlight. Within this pocket realm, anyone is free to leave, but even if they stamped out the life of the flowers, they are not killing the ones that are in the real world. Yes, the woman seems to have isolated the intruder and herself into the realm separate from Earth itself. As the starlight could only provide dim-lighting, it was not enough to reveal who this woman was as a pair of violet eyes pierces through the cloak before vanishes.

"I have come as I sense...I feel...I know your very being. What is your resolve? If you don't breathe with resolve, then you have none to drive yourself."

What the woman was doing was playing mind games to get more information, a technique of yore that is still in practice, but this version is more gentle, yet just as painful on an emotional level. Normally, it would not be detectable when one does not know about it and if they did, they would have to discern if it was in use or was merely playing guessing games without giving away the answers. When her right foot steps into the starlight of the moonless nocturne, a pale yellow glint reflects the blue hue as if it is striking clean gold. The woman emerges from the darkness, donned in an armor of gold and hard fabric as only her collar, shoulders, and hips are covered in golden metal plates while she is wearing gauntlets and greaves of the same kind of metal. It would have looked similar to the armor that the women used in the anime, "Claymore," but the cape was missing and certainly, the sword they used was replaced by a Nodachi that rests by her hip; a Nodachi is a type of Katana that has a longer handle for leverage and a longer blade for reach. In the hands of a master, the Nodachi would be deadlier than a regular kind due to these two advantages. The normal frown soon turn into a menacing smirk while her relaxed brows sink as her gray eyes peer into Hayato's eyes as if shoving a holy rod through his chest.

"Resolve breeds determination and determination breeds fools who die for an unreachable goal..."

"...Or breeds great people like heroes of yore. And do not worry about the flowers there, we are isolated to an extent of my power. I cannot cover an entire district like the Beast could, but at least it gave us enough space to do what we desired to do without causing permanent damages. Besides..."

A chill creeps around the area as the area becomes colder and colder into the Autumn night. To those outside the area would see it as an ominous dome hidden among the trees until it became very visible when flying over the clearing that it is cover in the color of nighttime. They can enter it and leave it on their own whim, but given that the one who made the dome was possibly that powerful, there would be no telling what kind of strength the hostess bears for interlopers or meddlers. Unlike other domes, this dome can follow the hostess, thus no matter where the hostess goes, the dome will always isolate her and others within it from Earth. The dome would tax her energy, so it would not stay up for long, but given her control, it would just be long enough to do what is needed to be done. The woman brushes the left side of her thick hairstyle off to the side a little as she asks with a smile,

"Do you like my new hairstyle?"

"I have gone back to my natural hair color as it would do me a better service while this hairstyle would look more exotic or different since...I keep seeing those with long hair, parted, symmetrical, unkempt, spiky or the ever-lazy combed-down style."

A few barks echo through the space as a Keeshond puppy slips through the barrier of darkness and trots to the woman's right side as the woman looks at him. With smiles of endearment between the two, the woman squats down, takes off her gauntlets and pets the puppy and gives it a swift yet gentle rub down which the puppy enjoys before it looks at Hayato and tilts its head to the side like it is saying, "Who are you? Do I know you? I'm confused."

"Heyo, Cobes. What are you doing here?

"...Ah. Ya missed me. Don't worry, I will get back soon. Now go back home. Go! Go!"

As the woman pats her laps after releasing Cobes from her grasp, the puppy rushes off back to which it came and yet in a flash of white light, it vanishes like a teleporting dog. The woman watched it go off before she stands up and looks at Hayato with a vanishing smile. It is clear that she intends to show him her resolve as she draws out her Nodachi and holds it vertically almost against her right side with her left leg in front and right leg behind it. She then bows her head and breaks the silence with an expeditiously leap with her sword trailing behind to slash across intentionally for Hayato's midsection as the Nodachi was leveled with her midsection and aligned horizontally from her right side. At this moment, only a truly skilled swordsman would recognized it as a Shii-Cho form.

When she slashes, Hayato can see the streak of blue light passing through the air in a long line as the slash was quite fast and precised. If anything it would have grazed his vest if he was lucky, but one could believe in miracles with what ineffable reputation she may have on her belt. She looks at Hayato and then looks at her Nodachi.

"I know I don't like it either, but anything for my charge..."

"...Anything for a friend."

Yuu lowers herself for a brief moment before jumping high into the air and arcing towards Hayato while rolls clockwise on her side and her Nodachi would likely to land on top of Hayato if he chooses to stay on his new position. Should she land it, it would cause severe wounding because of the Nodachi spearing into either one of Hayato's shoulders. Should she missed, her Nodachi would bury itself into the ground and deep enough that the only part of the sword visible was its dark violet-blue handle. Yuu then backs up and observes the situation; expecting Hayato to have dodged this remarkably slow-paced "savage pounce" technique.

"Better define your resolve or..."

"...I will kill you for referring me as a man again, good friend! I AM A WOMAN DAMMIT!"

It is one thing that irritates Yuu because she took great care of her body and made it look feminine as she naturally has an hourglass shape and yet her height penalized her for not being petite like other guys would of liked as her size would be thicker than the smaller women by proportion alone. To some guys, she is an Amazon while her foul temper often would drive men away as she would be called a demon if they are any normal. Simply, she is rather sensitive about her figure while she could barely sense the thoughts through knowing the person like Hayato. However, it is not as bad as it would have been since at least her hair change worked great according to Hayato. Nevertheless, she heard a voice telling her to give Hayato a hard time because he needs a new layer of hide.

"How would it respect you if you lack the resilience and resolve to inspire others to follow or have faith in you? To have resilience in your resolve, you have to bear your own definition of innocence. That innocence will be your shield against fear, doubt and self-destruction."

Yuu shifts her stance where her right hand is extended outward to him and her left hand is behind her back, her right leg is in front while the left leg is behind it. Her stance is straight and solid like a defensible statue. Then...she bends her fingers forward and back, beckoning Hayato to come at her. To the unwary, this is a stance used for goading a challenger to abandon their defense and tricking them into putting themselves into a position that counterattacks are most effective. Usually the counterattack would be in form of a grapple maneuver or a parry-to-a-swift-strike. Considering that she is unarmed, Hayato may not need to worry about that sword, but considering Yuu is a trained weapon-user, there could be more to it than it first appear. If Hayato takes the bait and go for the offense, Yuu would.use the momentum to direct the punch along the path, but away from her, spun around and punishes Hayato with a hammer-hand to the upper-back that would force his balance to focus more on the upper-body instead of around the belt. In short, she would deflect the attack and potentially knock him down with a slamming fist to the back with her adept strength. Yuu knows that while Hayato is trained to take hits, he would easily outlast her in endurance, so if she desired to win the fight, she would focus more on disabling him before he could get in the second attack.

If he was going for something else, then Yuu has to improvise quickly.

Yuu's gaze was sharp and directly jabbing into Hayato's character as she knew he would be dodging her attacks and she can tell from his face and his posture. He is spooked and is likely to try a different strategy than what he would have gone. Perhaps he was testing the water around her danger zone. She shifts her hand to vertical orientation as if her hand is becoming her blade. When he jumps up and his posture is not leaning forward, Yuu detects that he is trying to wear her out with ranged attacks before coming in. How would she know? She would do the same thing if she knows that her close-quarter offense would be no good against an opponent who could be more skilled than she is. The strategy Hayato uses was to keep himself off the ground so she could not rush him and get too close to him while he uses ranged attacks to exploit Yuu's speed. However, Yuu constantly thinks two steps ahead while not knowing about her own strategy until the moment she used it. She is a postmortem thinker, not a silly dreamer or planner. She acts with her heart and acts with her soul as her mind has nothing to do with it. Such as her defense against telepathy that she severs her mind from her instincts. Yet an avid warrior could be able to detect it if they fought her before.

When he called it out, Yuu grunts out a "tch" as she braces her foothold and prepares for the barrage. He launches out a storm of bullet-like spheres as Yuu breathes deeply. Her right gauntlet begins to glow bright with sunlight as she rapidly shifts her arm side to side, up and down. To a trained eye, Yuu was using little movement, but all her movements are with purpose as each one of them strike the bullets away from her like a hundred blades thrusting out against the incoming arrows. It is her Makashi Form, using her swiftness as a key factor while her sunlight energy to repel the incoming energy forces that she struck. In the end of the barrage, Hayato would see Yuu's right hand was glowing like the sun before it dims to reveal scorch marks on her gauntlets like her hand was taking a beating throughout the barrage. In truth, her hand feels rather numbed after the multiple shocks reverberating throughout her gauntlet by the force of each bullet she deflected.

She breathes deeply once again with a sigh of relief as she focuses a bit more on replenishing her spiritual stamina as the defensive measure does minimize the damage to her, but the regeneration process in her hand will take some of her spiritual stamina to heal. Yuu looks around and sees the dome was not shrinking at the moment, so there is still enough time. If Hayato would put two and two together, then Yuu assumes that her actual speed is revealed to him that if she was still using her sword, she would have overwhelmed him a short while ago. She will have to keep up with him by using varying speed to keep his tempo out of synchronization. She tips forward and then a glint of light appears under her right foot before a sound of a gunshot disturbs the brief calm. Upon that gunshot, Yuu would already be underneath Hayato before another gunshot sounds off and Yuu is now right behind Hayato as she grapples him with a bear hug. She then hoists him over her while she realign her body to be upright while Hayato would be upside down. The rest is up to gravity as they plummet with Hayato being on the receiving end of a pile-driver move. The abrupt pace from Yuu is absurdly different and erratic from her past two attacks that Hayato would have a slight issue re-correcting himself about Yuu's speed unless he could piece together how she could deflect his Royal Machine Gun attack. Plus the gunshots, it would be a power and yet Yuu did not call it out as if she instinctively know how to make them work without speaking at all.

If he manages to get out of the pile-driver, Yuu would land on her feet and then prepares herself for the next attempt with her posture similar to that of Ryu from Street Fighter when he is looking out into the horizon. To a sharp eye, one would notice that Yuu stamp her right heel onto the ground as if using seismic wave to detect something.

With her instincts kicking in overdrive and her senses wired to the heat of battle, Yuu can feel the energy radiating around Hayato and that is a clear sign that he is going to counterattack, given that he is facing away from her and he is in an awkward angle for a reversal, he may try a detonation force to force her away. Purely on reflex and by the time that he flickers, Yuu loosens up her grip and lets go of him. By doing so, she limited the damage of the blast because she does not have anything behind her and she is not resisting. When it comes to explosion, it is a bad idea to brace. The explosion erupts and sends Yuu flying a couple feet away as she kicks up to do a partial back-flip. Upon landing she catches herself by her hands and completes the back-flip onto her feet and a crouching position. She then notices Hayato going to use that machine gun again as Yuu already have experienced its drawback. Using the Royal Machine Gun as the cover, she uses BURST again to launch herself with another gunshot noise drowned out by the Royal Machine Gun, along with her position due to the natural lighting of the attack. When she lands quite a distance behind him, she uses the time to pull her Nodachi out of the ground and then dismounts her sheath so she is dual-wielding with the Nodachi handled in reversed in her off-hand and the sheath in her right hand with proper handling. This style is an imitation of Ikkaku Madarame's signature Sword-&-Sheath style, but in reversed.

"So you can think on your toes quite faster than I anticipated. I honestly would have bitten the bullets if I hadn't let go of ya in time. Then again, the burst was enough to force me to take a breather after escaping the Royal Machine Gun the second time. To be dull is a sin and I reinvent in atonement."

The tone of her compliment was eerily calm as she somehow changes from upbeat, irritated, then to confident. There was a chance that Yuu could be toying with him with feints and near escapes, but it may as well be honesty in the battlefield that Yuu ended up underestimating Hayato. In the sublime, a ring of reiatsu is picking up around Yuu's feet as her reiatsu is rising slightly. The aura was black with violet outline, but only with the ring around Yuu. Using a form of visual representation would yield that Yuu's reiatsu is gaining strength, but not enough to be readily visible and it leaves an egg-like atmosphere around Yuu that is invisible to the naked eye. She draws her sheath back and around her left arm and over her Nodachi while the Nodachi shifts further back. In the stance, the sheath glows violet while the Nodachi is glowing gold.

"Runde der Löwe und Drache."

Upon saying the line, Yuu swings her sheath across, spins around once and swings her Nodachi across in the same direction. The first swing releases a slender bolt of black mist crackling with violet lightning while the second swing releases a sharp bolt of white mist crackling with golden lightning. Upon arrival to the target, it encases around in a cyclone as the white and black mists mix and swirl around Hayato while the crackling snaps almost thrice a second. It would seem unwise to try and pass through it while it would be too high to jump out of it. A wise combatant would know that the technique was a learned technique probably through observation and Yuu just makes it her own. As the mist and lightning roar like two legendary beasts of yore, Yuu uses BURST to launch herself with both her sheath and Nodachi in proper handling. As she is over Hayato, both her sheath and sword are extending outward to cleave Hayato from above. Upon landing, it would disperse the two mists harmlessly and cancel the effects outright. Like she can do it, Hayato could easily dispel the effect by attacking it if he could catch onto the disadvantage of the ability over the presumably immediate threat of the lightning bolts swirling around him.

Without a time to think, Yuu sees that she missed and can tell that he would be trying to mimic her past technique. Then she feels a tingle on her behind and she judges to be her right side, so she twists counterclockwise and could feel Hayato's fist grazing her butt while Hayato can somewhat feel that Yuu's muscles are relaxed and she is wearing hard fabric apart from the metal plates. What Hayato could feel is the end of Nodachi's handle ramming into his stomach bluntly as given that he exposed himself to try and punch her in the butt, the strike would be guaranteed. This will likely cause Hayato to have the air blown out of his body quickly and potentially start heaving if he recently ate something. Yuu steps off around Hayato's left side before ramming the end of the Nodachi's handle against the spot on the back of his neck that the neck-to-head joint is located. Not only it is close to the brain, the impact would cause some trauma that would disorient Hayato. And then, Yuu walks behind Hayato and kicks Hayato in the butt with her boot like a soldier's boot to a wooden door. Yuu drops her sword and her sheath as she squats down and grabs Hayato by the left ankle. Upon a successful grapple, Yuu would drag Hayato into a circle before gaining the momentum to start swinging Hayato around like an Olympian throwing hammer. After a good couple rounds, Yuu thinks she gained enough momentum to make the attempt.

"I pick you up...!"

Yuu leaps high into the air with gunshots going off from her BURST, which to Hayato would be almost as being carried off by a jet. At the peak, Yuu curls inward and swings Hayato more vertically than horizontally. The experience would feel like the world around him is being thrown into visual chaos where control is no longer existent. At that point, Yuu descends quickly down to the ground while still having Hayato caught in the tumble of doom.

"...To put you down!"

By the time they landed, there would be a loud crash as Yuu literally used Hayato like a maul to pound into the ground with. The force is great enough to leave a crater where Hayato landed or a man-shaped impression. Yuu backs up and collects her sword and sheath before sheathing her sword. Yuu thinks with that much force, defeat is assured as Yuu speaks out.

"If you keep failing to recognize your foe as who they want to be, then how different you are..."

"...From them?"

"Pretty Cure seems to fail when you discard the heart within the night. I embraced my night while someone else I know only embraced the day..."

"...And I missed her still. And still I am determined to be someone's new day."

"Even if I am born to be the night's child."