ᴇᴍʙᴇʀꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴀ ᴅʏɪɴɢ ꜱᴋʏ | ᴛᴇɴᴢᴀɪ & ᴄᴀʀᴘᴇ ᴅɪᴇᴍ

[Carpe Diem]

◤━*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━✧༺♥༻∞━◢ ✬ Ophelia ✬ ❝ You paint a picture in my mind, you wanna leave it all behind In a world that's turning all the time, nothing could stop me longing for your eyes ❞​ While Ophelia wholeheartedly threw herself into battle with the statues, she had been oblivious to Shiro's countdown, and pretty much everything around her. It was all she could do to fight off the waves of enemies that came at them, her fighting style most suited for one-on-one battles rather than multiple enemies at once. She could clear the field of enemies if she only used her magic, but given its explosive nature, she could not guarantee that Shiro wouldn't be caught in the splash zone. Small-scale spells were all she could afford to do, using her uninjured hand to parry and block attack with her rapier while her other channeled her magic, chipping off parts of the statues. It didn't help that they were made out of stone that was known for resisting magic, either. "Wha--!" Of course, that was interrupted the moment Shiro grabbed her and forcefully pushed her to the ground. She was about to protest when she heard the whirling of something from outside the walls, a familiar silhouette right outside the painted windows overlooking the throne room. The gunfire was deafening, her hands immediately going to her ears to protect them from the myriad bullets that decimated the room and a good portion of the statues still standing. She instinctively closed her eyes too, the flash of bullets firing even more blinding than the sun itself. She wasn't sure if her ears still worked when she heard a thunderous roar come from within meters of her, a familiar sound that she'd only heard once or twice in her life. It came from exactly where she thought it would come from, her eyes darting up to the figure of the man who had exiled her as a villain to their kingdom, and her own father, standing regally as he shot the blast of pure magic energy at the ship. "MEDINA...!" She screeched in horror, standing up in half a second as the ship wobbled. Her heart nearly leapt out of her chest for an instant as she wasn't sure whether or not the ship would crash, only to breathe a sigh of relief when the pilot made the strategic decision to retreat, a soft muttering of gratitude escaping from between her lips when she did. If she'd been hot-headed like Neon, she feared she'd be stubborn enough to try and destroy the barrier her father's statue had erected to protect them from the bullet hell. "Looks like it'll just be us for now." Ophelia looked back to Shiro, Medina's support fire giving them a moment's breather to catch up and fill their lungs with oxygen. The enemy was wary to proceed for at least a few moments, unsure if another ship would come to replace the one that had just wreaked havoc upon them. "Yeah... it's fine. We can do this." She muttered, gripping her rapier tightly. She had to believe they would get through this. That she could keep Shiro safe, at least. That she wouldn't fuck this up, at the very least. "Stay behind me. Once the opportunity arises, take your father out. Other than that bitch on the throne and her pet bodyguard, he's our biggest issue." "Shiro, please don't be reckless. It's fine, I'll..." "Heh. Praying already? Is it that bad?" As if sensing the peril they were in, Neon's voice cut through the air like a blade. Ophelia's eyes went wide, immediately whipping around to see her with her own two eyes. Beside her was the witch she'd become so fond of as well. "The broken floor should keep them back for now but... I don't know how many spells I have left to cast." "Neon! Gust! Oh heavens above, I'm so glad you two are safe...!" Or rather, alive. Safety was not exactly how she would describe their current situation. Still, she could not help the smile on her lips as she ran for them, only to sense a growing surge of magic that she'd almost completely forgotten. "The crown! That's what's controlling them!" "How very perceptive of you. Too bad it's going to be your last realization!" A powerful sonic blast hit the floor between Ophelia and the others, sending the princess in the opposite direction and effectively separating the squad from her. Ophelia's body flew several meters before crashing against a pillar, the force of the impact sending the already crumbling marble crashing down onto the floor. She got up, coughing up dust and blood, just in time to see yet another barrier rising from the ground. Except this time, it was rising around her. Her eyes landed on a pair of statues. One of them was his father, and the other was... "... Ughhhh..." ... her mother. They alone had survived the hellfire that Medina had put on them, before even more statues came crashing through the door. It seemed that their showdown was fated after all. Pushing back against the discomfort in the back of her mind, Ophelia straightened up and raised her rapier, her eyes resolute. "... So in the end, you would put me in the grave again, father? King Aurelius, of the Lamprosian Kingdom. And... Lucina Lampros, heroine of the Battle of Ulz." She smiled bitterly, barely parrying the female statue's jab as she moved with comparable speed as her own. No, even as a statue, Ophelia's mother was still faster than her. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ​ "Careful, asshole. These blades don't look like they go for cheap. One wrong move and they'll shatter... Just like you." "Heh, I wouldn't know." Arashi nonchalantly let go of the blade she bent, paying her back for destroying it with a boot to her gut in order to put some distance between them and reassess his approach. Three-on-one was hardly fair, after all. "I take my blades from my fallen foes. Spoils go to the victor, after all. Besides, if they were so precious, they wouldn't have lost to me, huh? I'll just take yours as payback for that one. I'll take pleasure prying it from cold, dead hands!" The hilt of his main blade opened up, revealing five chambers within it. The swordsman stuck his hand into his pocket, pulling out five shotgun shells and swiftly filling the empty chambers with one each. He pulled the trigger on his katana, letting an explosion from the bottom of the hilt propel him forward with speed beyond the sound barrier, his blade clashing against Neon's and pushing them both back. "Hey, tell me...!" With a laugh, the swordsman pulled the trigger again, this time staying on his feet as he instead allowed the explosive speed to propel his blade alone. "Do you trust each other with your lives? Cuz' I can't get enough of the faces people make when they lose their loved ones! It's the whole reason I do this kind of shit! I can't wait to see what kind of face your friends will make when I take your head...!" "Haa... this is the kind of help I get." While Arashi focused on his fellow warrior, the crowned woman finally got up from the throne. But just as her feet touched the floor, she was gone, only a shadow left behind. The next instant, she was in front of Shiro, brandishing her own knife to clash with the angel's. "By the way, I resent being called a bitch. You better take that back, or I'll take my time cutting off your fingers one by one." With her other hand, she released another sonic boom to push the gunslinger away. "My name is Serena Lampros, 354th Princess of the fallen Kingdom of Lampros. The kingdom your friend destroyed." She stood up straight, her form dignified despite the title holding no prestige. "... Or did she not tell you, of the thousands of lives she took? Of how she decimated our planet out of some petty revenge being exiled? After she was the one to consort with a being beyond comprehension? Or maybe she did, and you just didn't care. It would make sense for the ones that took my family from me." Serena scoffed, channeling a spell with the power that her crown granted her. The rubble that had gathered around them rose from the ground, merging together into stone drills, which she sent flying at Shiro and August with the flick of her wrist. "... No matter. I shall be the one to kill you all. Even if the Lamprosian Kingdom is no more, this is my providence! I will not let this castle fall to you outsiders!" ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ɴᴏᴡ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ: Skin-Deep Comedy | (Mili) ver. eili ↻ ◁ || ▷ ↺​ "Would you accept me if I asked for forgiveness?" Pushing back her mother, Ophelia pulled out her gun and got off a shot on her father as he was channeling a spell, effectively cutting him off. If there was one thing Ophelia had always had over her father, it was the speed with which she could cast spells. "I know you wouldn't. And I'm sure you know... I wouldn't either. Because... I never once regretted taking that deal. I did what I had to." She spoke to an expressionless statue, her smile bitter and wistful as she was besieged by her mother's wordless barrage of jabs. It took all that was herself to parry them and push her back in time to avoid a lightning blast from her father. If it was just one of them, Ophelia could easily overpower them, but together... Together, they had always been unbeatable. At least, that was what the stories always said. Unfortunately, Ophelia had never been able to see them fight together until today. Lucina, the lightning fencer, fast enough to stab her foes a hundred times before King Aurelius was done charging up his spell. King Aurelius had been caught up in an ambush that fateful day. When the fort city of Ulz was besieged by three-thousand soldiers, he had taken the fastest horse to reach his wife, Queen Lucina, who was stationed there. It was supposed to be an easy defense job, so the queen had been left with only a small force of two-hundred soldiers. The battle raged on for seven days and nights, but by the end of it, it was said that the queen alone had slain half the enemy's forces on her own before dying on her feet. In his rage, the king had decimated the city that had been occupied by the remaining soldiers, leaving nothing but a crater in the wake of his grief. "I never was quite the daughter you wished for, was I? I never wanted the crown, after all. Even so, there were only two times I saw you shed tears." Even if they could not answer her, she knew that the part of them that was stuck in the statues could hear her. There was a half-second's hesitation in her father's statue at those words, enough for Ophelia to blast him back with a shot of frigid ice that covered him completely. It gave her enough time to parry her mother, and then follow up with an empowered jab to her shoulder. The stone crackled, but didn't break off. "Once... when Mother was buried. You shed a single tear for her. What more could you offer her, when you were The Invincible King Aurelius? That crown... it was heavier than its own weight, was it not?" Her mother was not so easily shaken, her soul hardened from the moment she was born. Or perhaps, she was resolute to give her own daughter the best fight she could. The lightning jabs only got quicker, leaving Ophelia in the dust as she was left defenseless to allow some of them through, puncturing through her armor and bleeding through various holes. The pain only steadied her, however, and she returned with power what she could not compare in speed. All it took was one powerful stab to break off her shoulder, her arm falling to the ground and shattering. "... And the second, when you pushed me down that chasm. I still remember tears that were not my own touching my skin. To this da, I still dream of falling endlessly. The dreadful pain of hitting the floor. But... I don't blame you for any of it." The ice that encased her father crackled as he forced himself to move, channeling magic to heat himself up. But it was too late. As Lucina crouched down to grab her rapier from the ground with her remaining arm, she looked up to find herself staring down the barrel of Ophelia's gun. It happened in an instant; a powerful blast of black lightning completely enveloped the fierce warrior's body, and when the darkness dissipated, she was gone. Though the statues could not speak, Ophelia swore she could hear a guttural scream of anguish, following by a giant ball of fire headed her way. The princess followed with her own, the ensuing explosion causing the barrier to shatter and an aftershock to shake the throne room. "... After all, we both did what we had to do. I only regret that we were fated to oppose one another. Rest now, Father." And when the smoke cleared, she stood still, while King Aurelius' statue laid shattered on the floor. A lump caught on her throat as she bit back a sob and the tears that pricked at the corners of her eyes. There was no time for grief. In the time that it had taken her to defeat both of her parents, it seemed things had started to look dire on the other side of the barrier. Serena had been throwing spell after spell with the power of the royal crown, giving no quarter to the already exhausted party. It was a miracle they were still alive at this point. Meanwhile, Neon and Arashi seemed to be evenly matched. And while the constant stream of statues had slowed due to Serena focusing her magic on fighting, there were still at least a dozen more statues to take care of. Ophelia hadn't run out of steam just yet, though. She pointed her gun at her fellow princess and shot a beam of fire in her direction, throwing her off as she was getting ready to cast a powerful spell, apparently fed up with Shiro and August's persistence. "You..." Clearly not expecting their fight to be interrupted so soon, Serena stared at the rubble Ophelia had left behind. In her eyes, she had just callously destroyed the remnants of her own family. "... you truly do not care about your own blood, do you? Family holds no meaning to you." "I've... found a new family. But that doesn't mean I intend to disregard the past. Lay down the crown, Serena. We don't have to kill each other." She reached out her arm, stepping forward to offer it to Serena in a peace offering. "NO!" Instead, she was answered with a fire blast that sent her barreling through the rubble, her body flying and crashing limply against the floor that cracked under the force of her landing. "You don't GET to ask for peace after what you did! When my family had to leave this planet and drift through space for thousands of years! After we were enslaved, and broke free! It was YOU who caused it all! And after finally becoming free... my family was taken from me! You don't know any of my pain!" The crown responded to her emotions, blasting off rays of fire and lightning in every direction. She turned to the others, pointing her finger at them. "NONE of you do! You don't understand a fraction of what I've lost! You don't know how I, how MY people toiled away, all for freedom from people like you! People who would take my loved ones away from me!" "But I'll make you suffer all the same!"​

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