[Episode 4.1] The Mantle of Responsibility

[Kokuten]

As the groups attention focused on Coco and the remaining stone Guardians, Raiko was indeed left on her own on her lonely part of the battlefield. There were a few trees and rocks to hide by, but they were closer to the crags poking out next to the mountain. Trudging through the tall grass made walking difficult, especially with a few gnarling roots reaching up to grab at her ankles. One especially troublesome root nearly tripped her over as she moved for cover, but with a quick glance, she would soon find that the root was not a root at all, but a hand.

"Psst." came a girly voice from the grass, a face to match poking out from underneath.

Crash! Went the raging torrent of Miyuki's final attack, drowning the area in sounds of a crumbling statue and a crashing wave.

"You're going to help me hurry this up," said the girl as the land below Raiko became thinner than air, and she was tugged under the sea of grass.

Though they fought for my sake, they were also hostile against anything they perceived as a threat. Sometimes it was an animal, and sometimes it was a Thrall coming up the road.

The small Riley statue stared up at the large wolf-warrior illusion. That frozen face, with those glowing eyes, seemed to contemplate what was offered to her. The statue slowly stood upward, balancing itself on its feet. After a moment, it looked around, seemingly taking in the wrecked battlefield around them. The statue turned its empty gaze forward again, and the glow faded off its face.

Once again, the statue was just a statue.

Once the threat was gone, they took their positions, and went back into their slumber acting as harmless decorations.

A comfortable wind settled over the group, battered as they were. The ruins, further down the grassy path, still stood in their limestone splendor, webbed and veined with vines. From here, the path seemed to clear, with empty pedestals guarding the way. Though, there were more immediate concerns.

Coco was bleeding profusely, suffering from a serious wound in the stomach, and reeling shock. At the very least, she had Ruarc to her aid, but the Druid was ill-equipped for medical aid. The incantation and rune he pressed on her shoulder seemed to glow with power, with the bleeding slowly staunching in the girl's stomach. At that, a small tendril of mana rose weakly from the ground and stabbed into the top of Ruarc's hand. With a sharp pain of a tattooing needle, the mana engraved his rune onto the top of his hand, leaving a neat, black mark, and empowering the effect of his summoned rune.

[CadetNewb]

"C-cold," the little girl managed to stutter.

The red ceased to spread across her waist as the druid worked hard at healing her wound, but Coco was shivering and pale. Already, she was cold and clammy to the touch as well - the fighting had stopped, but that didn't mean the danger had passed yet either. "How's ev-everyone else?" Coco asked as she sat there, shaking. At this point, the Little Litch didn't even know how to act - she wasn't just shocked in terms of blood loss, but was utterly shocked by this turn of events. She was used to being invincible! Or, more accurately, something resembling or close to unkillability. "Heh. Heheh..." she giggled, hiccuping at the end of her grim mirth. "Ne-ne....never happened before," Coco smiled at Ruarc, giggling yet again.

"Er...j-just once." The admission to him, though brief, was a telling one. "Will this finish soon?" She asked him, regaining a smidgen of her strength. "W-we need to find Percy!"

[Straken]

Ruarc winced as his rune bounced back and was tattooed onto his hand. It wasn’t his first tattoo, so he was able to deal with the pain easily enough; and while getting a healing rune tattoo would be very useful, he still wondered how permanent this was going to be. Focusing back on healing Coco, the Irishman noted that the bleeding had been stopped, but the girl still showed signs of shock. If the situation were ideal he would be able properly treat her with some rest and a variety of herbs, but time was a luxury and he didn’t have his medicines with him.

“Everyone is doing well, relatively speakin’. Just ya focus on healing, and it’ll be done be ye know it,” Ruarc said to Coco, if just to check lucidity. Right now his amped up rune was accelerating the natural healing responses of the body as it stimulated the growth of new tissue, and quickened the production of blood cells. While Coco was a unique position on the “Alive or Dead” scale, she was currently responding to Ruarc’s treatment, and so she could expect to function again fairly soon; once enough new blood was produced and made it to the brain.

“Someone check to make sure Miller is alright, and if ya’ve been hurt let me know and Ah patch ya up,” Ruarc called to the group. “Coco is gonna be ready to move pretty soon, so let’s get ourselves straightened up a bit not that we have a better idea of what ta expect.”

[Kalshion]

Sakura let out a sigh of relief, collasping down onto the ground on her rear and propping herself up with her hands. "That was tough..." she muttered and wiped some sweat from her forehead. As she looked around to see what else was going on, her eyes fell upon Ruarc and the stony arrow in his shoulder. She got up and fast walked over to him, "let me get this out," she said to the boy and looked it over curiously from side to side to make sure it wasn't in to deeply or that removing it would cause any further problems.

"Does it hurt?" she asked, and would use his answer to gauge how deep the arrow was.

[Kai]

Raiko's eyes widened as she looked at the unknown girl, and she gave a short, quiet yelp as she was whisked away- to somewhere, nowhere, everywhere. She didn't know.


***********************************

With the final crashing of her wave, Miyuki relaxed, her shoulders drooping as she realized that she was rather tired. Her chest rose and fell with each heaving breath, a sign of the amount of exertion it took her to summon and control that much water. There was an obvious sign of relief that came washing over her face with the end of it all, before she realized that they had some injuries- Coco, Ruarc, and even Miller seemed to be a bit worse for the wear.

Miyuki trotted over, still breathing hard, and watched as Ruarc got to work on Coco, and then Sakura began to look into helping the Irishman. Feeling that enough was being done there, the girl went instead to the teacher. "Ah, Miller-sensei, are you alright?" she queried, looking over the armored form of the teacher. Miller could see, that Miyuki seemed anxious, though not necessearily toward him; she was looking from side to side, and her body language- through the obvious exhaustion, showed that she wanted to hurry up. But there was something else- she was looking around, looking for-

"Where's Raiko?" she asked suddenly, to no one in particular.

[Luca]

There was a streak of red running down Mr. Miller's left arm beneath his armour and dripping. If it wasn't his blood, it would've dried up a long time ago. His breastplate and metal collar sported a variety of scratch and bite marks which once spectral shadows becoming real as the phantom wolves sapped more strength from him and imprinted on this reality. He took a few deep breaths to regain his stamina and composure.

"Aurus has given me worse." He admitted quietly to the magical girl before moving towards Coco with a slight limp, the greave on his right leg was dented inwards near the knee by a nasty fall during the battle. "Pardon me, Ruarc." He said as he knelt down, then winced and knelt with his left knee rather than his right to keep pressure off of his knee. He placed his sword down by his side and looked at his hands for a moment and focused on channeling Michael's energy.

He could feel it welling from his chest and running through his arm, eventually manifesting as a shimmering white ball of light. He lowered his hand towards Coco, and let it stay over her wounds, moving back and forth across her body as motes of energy sprinkled over her, each making her skin tingle as though a butterfly had landed on it for a moment before flittering elsewhere.

[Straken]

Ruarc turned his head as Sakura approached him with her question, and was reminded of the weight pinned onto his shoulder; he had mostly ignored it up until now thanks to adrenaline, and with that wearing off he was beginning to notice the sharp pain a lot more.
“Its gotta bite to it,” Ruarc said in a slightly vague manner. “Thankfully ma robe kept it from causin’ more damage, so it’s not in too deep. Think ya could pull it out for me…” He paused for a moment as he remembered the young girl’s name. “Sakura, right? And are you hurt anywhere? Ah can patch ya up if ya need.”

Turning back towards Coco, Ruarc braced his shoulder in anticipation of Sakura pulling out the arrow when he was surprised by Miller’s sudden appearance. Raising a questioning eyebrow he wondered what the man was up to. The questioning look shifted to a smile as he appreciated the man’s assistance, but he looked like he needed help more than Coco did at the moment.
“Thanks for the help, Miller, but Ah’ve got her wound healed up already, and now she’s just replacing lost blood. So since she is stable, you should see about healing your own wound,” Ruarc said, from one medic to another.

Off to the side Miyuki had also raised a good question that Ruarc was also wondering about, specifically, Raiko’s location. Many scenarios had involuntarily run through his head that made him sick with worry, and he desperately wanted Raiko to just walk around a stone and be okay.
“Actually, yeah, Miller take over with Coco, as I said she is stable and just resting now, but she still needs someone to keep an eye on her,” Ruarc said as he shifted back a bit to show he was going to move on. “Ah’m gonna go find Raiko, and make sure the way ahead is safe.”

Ruarc shifted to get up, but received an unpleasant reminder that the arrow was still in his shoulder. “Sakura, pull the arrow from ma shoulder, and then Ah want ya ta come with me as Ah scout around.”

[Kalshion]

Sakura gave a nod and grabbed the front part of the arrow nearest Ruarcs shoulder. "Here goes, one... two..." she then carefully began to pull on it, enough to where she saw it begin to move but doing so in such a way as to make 'sure' that the arrow actually didn't penetrate the skin and cause any internal damage, after all, it was always possible.

[Gwathdraug]

“Bleh.” Was the only sound Riley made as she struggled to her feet. The little girl wanted nothing more than to cloak up and pop through a couple things to help her nerves, but seeing as her mantle was still bundled tightly underneath her clothing that wasn't an option at the moment.

Instead, the Stage Magician looked towards her phantasm as she finally stood straight once more and gave the warrior a short nod as silent communication sparked between the two of them. Tensing as a tight pull on her mana reserves caused her to twitch – Riley refused to full out wince seeing as she was the least damaged out of everyone after the fight – the young girl tried to smile but found herself just wishing she could sit down again.

Coco 's right though, Percy is what matters here. Riley reminded herself firmly.

The young stage magician shivered and rubbed her hands against her arms as if it was a dark winter's night as she watched her dog-helmed warrior combust into a blaze of ethereal fire before being blasting into the sky. Once the sorcerous comet reached its zenith it exploded outwards and split into a multitude of lesser flames that quickly gained speed and veered towards each member of the group. When the streaks reached their target instead of exploded they swirled around each person leaving a brilliant light blue glow around everyone as they infused the group with renewed vigour before finally fading away.

Swallowing and hoping everyone would ignore the grey tinge to her skin as another side effect of being where they were Riley stepped forward, still clutching her arms, and lifted her right hand just enough that she could make a small waving motion. “Everyone feeling a bit better now?”

[Kokuten]

In the quiet of the day, with battle and groans of pain settling, there came a clatter of noise from the ruins towards the center of the plains. A small girlish yelp with quick shushing became audible, and the silence that pervaded the noise before began to take over again.

It seemed they were not alone in this valley.