[Round Zero: part 2]

[utopiamods]

Those of you who managed to survive the massacre stumble outside in twos and threes, leaving the bodies of your friends and family behind. Some of you remain behind, too injured or broken to move further. The campus is bathed in light, deep red and purple, with shifting clouds and a thin layer of mist curling around your ankles and across the paving stones. Just discernible over your harsh breathing is a low, dischordant hum. The air is resonating with it, as the towers around the campus glow the colour of a new bruise.

Ahead of you, sprawled over the courtyard like a huge guard-dog, is a tiger.

Or rather, it is something that has taken the form of a tiger. Real tigers aren't ten metres tall with corpse-blue fur and eyes the colour of the red sky. Real tigers don't smile like this one does.

Real tigers don't laugh.

Its voice is harsh, every word drawn out with the arrogance of a creature who knows that when it speaks, lesser beings have no choice but to listen.

"Admirable," it tilts its head, slowly. Deliberately. "You have exceeded their expectations, but now you are only prolonging the inevitable. You are all still so far from facing me."

It turns its great head towards the lobby, and considers it. "Unnecessary," it decides. "To determine your level I require only these few." Its eyes flash, pits of scarlet, and the building is consumed in fire and screams.

Then it looks towards your group.

Two of your number, knights both, exchange a single glance. A regretful look back at their friends. In unison, they run forward. Chests flash as swords are drawn; at the tip of one shines a star, bright blue.

Suzaku runs forward, not attempting to feint or dodge. He ducks one swipe of a massive paw, slicing along its leg to no effect. The second swipe, vertical, too fast to follow, pins him to the floor with claws through his torso and shoulders. Sora runs left, crouches, jumps...

"Determine this!"

It flinches back from the blade, hisses as her leaping strike cuts a shallow line in one shoulder.

Eyes flash again. Sora screams. She's dust before she hits the ground; the sword clatters to the stones only to vanish an instant later. It writhes around, looks down at the surviving knight for a brief moment, then its head descends, its teeth sink in and tear, and the attack is over.

"Come," it says, with bloody jaws. "See how far you have yet to go."

[YOU KNOW THE DRILL, OOC POST VEGGIES BEFORE DELICIOUS TAGS]

Comments

[monkeystail]

Huashi pushes Kotarou behind her, but she has a feeling it won't matter. As long as it is fast, then. But then she tilts her head and stares up at the tiger.

"You're no real animal." She says it almost accusingly, weighing her staff in her hand, as if contemplating to throw it. Not that she would.

[queenscheckmate]

Okay, no. This isn't happening. Her and Suzaku were basically on par in skill level. Maybe she was a little bit better, but the Knight of Zero didn't even get a chance to hurt it. Kallen was in no condition to fight probably. It started with her fight with Sulu. The blade's cut was pretty deep and kept bleeding. When she finally had gotten it to stop, she re-injured her arm during her fight with her shadow and Suzaku's. Soon after that, no healing Kotarou did could reverse what happened.

She lost all feeling in her left arm.

Kallen was down but not out. She had told Suzaku to make a sling for her arm and tie her hand to the gun. That way, she could hold it up, have some leverage, and be able to shoot. Hand to hand combat was just way, way out of the question.

This was bad.

Really bad.

The question of 'What do I do now?' constantly resounded in Kallen's head. They had no plan, they had what weapons they could muster up within themselves, and that was it. In a blink of an eye, two people were killed. They couldn't win. Maybe if they had more numbers and had gotten the medical attention they needed, there would be some sort of fighting chance. They could retreat but where could they even go?

She stepped forward in front of the group. "The most I can do is buy us some time. I'm in no condition to fight, and well, like this I'm just dead weight. Go somewhere safe."

"What's the point in all this anyway? You take us from our homes and kill us? What purpose does that even serve?"

[frozen_desires]

'Miracle... A great power beyond reason that makes the impossible possible.'

That was the power Himoto Sora had held. The ability to defy all odds and continuously come out victorious in the end. The one being who had defied the god of Utopia to save the tortured souls that had been the females.

God was dead.

The miracle was dead.

As Tougyu watched both knights fall prey to the tiger's prowess, he felt a heavy weight settle on his heart. The crushing weight of a belief that had gone unfulfilled. He had believed in both El and Sora to some extent, even if he hadn't wanted to. He had depended on them to do the impossible and now all that belief had turned into a crushing, oppressive force on his soul. A weight he could not hold back even as his grip tightened around the stave of his scythe.

As he raised hollow eyes to gaze upon the tiger, Tougyu finally let that pressure seep through him, crushing any and all hope he had left.

"We're all going to die."

[chainedbyred]

Russel panted, keeping Fletcher near him. He hadn't even been able to catch his breath, yet. He glared up at the tiger as it taunted them, killed the two people most likely to put up a fight, and incinerated anyone that couldn't leave the lobby. And all the bodies left behind. Not that he was personally attached to anyone, yet, but that's just inhuman.

As the tiger began setting more people on fire, crushing them, and chewing them up, he realized there was nothing he could do here. He didn't fire an arrow, he didn't even open his mouth to mock it. He hoped that staying invisible to it would be enough to survive this.

He looked to Fletcher. "We'll be alright," he whispered. "Follow me. Slowly. We'll find somewhere safe."

[willbeurprincess]

Koharu's grip on her rifle suddenly seemed unimportant. Her body went slack, eyes going wide. A dream. Just a dream right, a bad dream. A nightmare. Sora wasn't dead, because Sora could not die. A knight didn't leave her princesses alone. They prevailed and Sora always won, against all odds, against every odd--

Her feet moved forward, one step, then another, eyes fixed on the spot where Sora just was. Her mouth opened in a wail, tears streaming down her face.

"SORA!"

[bitofafiction]

Sherlock listens to the tiger's challenge and watches it kill the remaining survivors without appearing to react. His face is blank and his grip on the hilt of his rapier is painfully tight; he is not sure he remembers how to let go.

There is no chance at all he will live through this. It's not even very likely that he'll do any damage before he dies.

He starts walking forward anyway, one step after another, in no hurry and letting nothing deter him.

[firstlady]

El was dead. Sora was dead. Kuchinawa was in no condition to fight, given how he could barely stand. So he wasn't even going to try. After all, if this Exaclan was similar to the one in his world, then there's a huge chance that he'd still be alive after this.

Really, why was everyone screaming over in-game deaths?

He sat down on the pavement and watch everything go by through half-lidded eyes. The tiger will come for him soon. It was inevitable. There was no need to put extra effort into meeting it.

He'll have his chance to ask his questions, if the tiger was inclined to answering them.

[dancingflames]

Mai stares in horror as Suzaku and Sora are easily dispatched. Fortunately it's not looking at her - yet. But against a foe this large, this powerful, she essentially has no hope on her own, unless...

"Kagutsuchi!" she calls out, though not as loud as she normally would. Her Child, if it could come, if the laws of this place had changed enough...

But an answer never came.

Maybe it was too much to think that maybe she would have its power to help...but she tried.