Hopping backwards and scrambling to keep distance from her, the mafioso babbled something under his breath whilst rummaging through his inner jacket pockets. Krahe wasn’t sure if it was an incantation of some kind or just a nervous tic. His physique began stretching his suit, tendrils bulging out from under his skin, which itself turned an unseemly shade of bluish purple. He became faster and faster, his apparent physicality now equal to a Mamon Knight using a High-Pressure type Dregsteam cartridge — only, with none of the finesse. More than anything, he resembled an ape in the manner he bounded from spot to spot. Between barrages of Tracers and Cinder Gatling rays, Krahe threw in a Six Trees Killer — but one of a different kind. Semzar’s movements were too erratic for a timed fuse, and as she understood the evolution of her thaumaturgy, she thought remote detonation ought to finally be within her reach. The mechanism was a simple pulse of thauma keyed to a particular thought-impulse, much like a real radio detonator would work. She couldn’t just release Thauma in all directions at any reasonable range, so she still had to keep the Burster in her sightline, but that was an acceptable limitation.
A satisfied chuckle rose from her throat when the bullet-propelled-grenade zipped over his head and the shockwave nearly knocked him off his feet a moment later. He quickly got his bearings, and with an angered gesture stood his ground, stomping with a great release of thauma. The floor cracked under his foot, the fissure racing forward as great gouts of blue flame sprung forth. A display of power to be sure, but a mere decoy. The real danger was a double-barreled pistol he pulled with his free hand, and from it set forth two Bloody Reapers in quick succession.
Krahe stopped where she was and simply dived, letting them pass through her as she made mocking gestures towards the mafioso. Immediately after emerging, she whipped a burster his way, and while his attention was on it, she peppered his side with a few Cinder Gatling beams. And so, the struggle continued.
As the two played cat-and-mouse through the nearly-deserted ballroom, Krahe scattered a great deal of smoke across the field, and it was not just smoke. Within the smoke, under tables, and even in plain sight, she dropped fuseless Bursters. By slightly reducing the internal pressure, she ensured they would last without maintenance for a little while.
It could not be said that Semzar was so gutless as to just take her onslaught whilst trying to run away. When she managed to slip a handful of Tracers past his Barrier, Semzar responded with a mighty flex, and a second pair of arms burst free from his trapezoid muscles. These arms were not of flesh, but of the same translucent purple force that formed his Barrier. Their fists were enveloped in dark-blue flame, with long wisps of it trailing off. Out of the four Tracers that she managed to sneak in, only one actually managed to hit — the other three were punched out of the air by these newly-formed arms. In the process, they fully detached from Semzar’s body, now floating above his shoulders. As for the single Tracer that struck home, it smashed right into the side of his face. Its scarlet-black explosion elicited a counter-burst of blue flame and a smattering of purple shards, akin to explosive reactive armor.
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The obvious answer to the question these arms posed was an attack that could not be shot down — Cinder Flash or Wandrei Faust. As things stood, she couldn’t get close enough to land a Cinder Flash. Barzai, though not able to inflict serious damage, aided in herding the bastard away from Casus… And towards one of the Bursters which she had quietly dropped earlier. However, before she could lure him to one of her traps, Semzar finally found what he had been looking for inside his jacket — a silver ring, with a faceplate wide enough to cover the entire lowest segment of a finger and a four-pointed star of deep red gemstone as the centerpiece. It was none other than his father's "Crimson Star" ring! The mafioso slipped it on his right-hand ring finger, his flesh deforming hideously before the band expanded to fit him. Then, he began a reckless counterattack. It was a barrage of superhumanly fast, yet also amateurishly telegraphed punches, his fists wreathed in blue flame. With each punch he sent flying a fist-shaped construct, each taking with it only thin ribbons of that blue fire. They were fast, to be sure, but not the speed of bullets — between the volume of fire and size of projectiles, dodging them was much like dodging particularly pretty fertilizer rockets. It was as if, with the ring on, he felt safe enough to finally stop running. Krahe decided it had to be a defensive artifact of some kind.
Nonetheless, dodging Semzar’s rocket-punches meant she wasn’t attacking, and eventually, he might get lucky. Unlike him, she couldn’t afford to eat even one unlucky hit, and she had to keep pressuring him. There was only one solution that came to her mind, a counter-intuitive solution that would bring her closer to danger: Smaller movements, closer dodges. Whether one dodged by a meter or by a centimeters didn't matter, so long as one didn't get hit. Less time spent dodging. Thus, more time for counterattacks.
“Sharper.”
Thirty centimeters.
“Sharper.”
Fifteen centimeters.
“Even sharper!”
Five centimeters.
The fire licked her skin and left the sensation of hot water behind — like going into a sauna from the freezing cold. It wasn’t even hot enough to cause a surface burn.
A state of absolute focus and perfect efficiency of motion, a pinnacle of clarity that warriors from eras past had spent their lives training to achieve and maintain for short bursts. A thing she had taken for granted, a thing she had considered as one of the absolute basics thanks to neural implants, cognitive conditioning, and hormone controllers. Krahe had slipped into that familiar place a few times since her rebirth, always in the midst of battle, but never to this extent. Never fully. She had never managed to truly snap into the zone until now, only ever veering in and out for moments at a time. The reflexes, the muscle memory, the cognitive conditioning — it was all still there. She just had to get into the right physical state to set it off.
ZERO HESITATION
MAXIMUM FOCUS
ACCELERATED COGNITION
TACTICAL SUPREMACY
A LONE OPERATIVE
PREVAILS AGAINST ALL ODDS
SECTOR 7 STYLE: RAZORMIND