(A/N: REALLY long note at the end that takes up a third of this chapter. Nonetheless, read it.)
/"Okay, I let you hit me a few times. What of it? Don't you worry your pretty little heads, I'll make sure you don't leave this place unscathed~!"/
The way she worded her sentence unnerved the fighting trio to some extent; Jewel smirked at this, but her face quickly took on a serious calm afterwards.
Raising her shining blade, she took a standard fencing stance and spoke in a robotic, monotone voice:
/"Midnight River."/
Sickeningly light-purple wisps gathered around her silvery double-edged sword, swirling in a toxic fashion. Making an intriguing gesture with her sword, the wisps turned to purplish flames, licking at the air with a wild desire to destroy.
She bolted at an amazing speed towards the group of Players, who could do nothing against her swiftness; Asuna managed to snatch up Yui and create a makeshift shield from her rapier to block the unpredicted attack, but Jewel wasn't targeting her: she was targeting Kirito.
A sound of clashing swords echoed throughout the area, the walls lengthening the voice of conflict. Both sides struggled to avoid the blades as they wield great damage towards either opponent.
A few seconds passed as crimson orbs stared into dull black then split in opposite directions as they used the point of collision as a launching point, continuing to slash at each other as they were locked in the heat of battle; at some point in time, a red orb was placed in the center of their fighting ring and grew larger, enveloping all that was inside and was unable to be shattered by anything on the outside- the female Party members managed to discover this fact quickly.
"Daddy's Health Bar is starting to go down! He's probably getting tired, Mommy! We have to help him somehow!"
"I know, Yui, I know! Unfortunately, there's nothing we can really do about the shield!"
Asuna and Yui were unable to find a time in which they could assist their most-likely- exhausted Party member, making many attempts at breaking through the barrier.
"There has to be a way into the fight, somehow! Yui, how are you doing with the Boss's analysis?"
"I've almost found it... Here! The weaknesses are her ears and tail. Anything else that takes damage can regenerate if cut off, it seems, but the damage would be done." The AI looked up at her foster mother after her summary, subconsciously hoping for a bit of praise at her work. Luckily, her hopes were met:
"Good job, Yui! Now all we need to figure out is how to get to those weaknesses..."
Asuna contemplated her next move, trying to find a weak point in the glowing barrier. She took a few quick laps around the area, ignored by the fighters inside the red dome, and managed to gather up a bit of knowledge to aid her and her spouse somehow:
After she took a closer look at the radiating orb, she could tell from her previous attempts at breaking the spherical shield that it was strongest near the Boss's ears and tail -'probably to add defenses to her weak points,' the brown-haired teen mused- and weakest near her limbs- as they were being protected by the enemy's peculiar sword. The teen attempted to pass along her newfound knowledge to her exhausted teammate, who was taking a beating with a Health Bar at 44%.
"Kirito! Hey, Kirito!
"Kirito, can you hear me?!"
A wisp of a voice wafted through Asuna's mind as she called out to her spouse, and with its arrival came a searing pain to her head. The voice sounded amused to the point of laughter, which added to the agony and mental suffering the brave female fighter had to endure.
/"Haha, I'm sorry~! Your hubby can't hear your screams! He's too focused on fighting me and the fact that my barrier is soundproof helps him turn a deaf ear to you!
/"It seems you found my weaknesses, but if only there was a way to either break the barrier or tell Kirito to aim for them... Well, I'll have you find that out on your own~! Nyahahaha!"/
With that last surge of pain ringing through her head, Asuna took a few moments to realize that the voice of the Event Boss had left her. 'It'll leave some sort of trauma after all this is over, though...'
"Well, Yui, the best thing we can do is to try and weaken the barrier! Aim for the legs: the barrier is not as strong there!" As soon as those words escaped her lips, the light brunette began slashing said location repeatedly, making haste in every movement.
Yui hesitantly nodded in acknowledgement to the new plan and proceeded to follow directions, with her Silver Rapier trembling in hand. The girls decided to take a side of the dome: Asuna on the left and Yui on the right, opposite each other.
She wasn't sure how well her Attack would play out -as she only got a half-hour to learn it-, but to her surprise the AI executed the move without a hitch.
"Linear Attack!"
'It must have been because I mastered the starting gesture that I had been able to use the move...'
'Either way, that was a great job! I'll just keep on doing this!'
"Linear Attack!"
Meanwhile, her foster mother was not feeling so ecstatic. Being only able to use a special move only once every few minutes added more agitation and restlessness to her concern for Kirito.
"Star Splash!"
'A few more seconds of this and I'll just snap!' Asuna growled in frustration and impatience as the red, glowing shield refused to show any sign of weakness... Unless...
"Mommy, Mommy! I found a crack in the shield here!"
"Did you?! That's awesome! I'll be right over!"
(A/N: I KNOW Y'ALL HAVE BEEN SKIPPING TO THE LATEST CHAPTER WITH THE FIGHT SCENE. I KNOW.
...But seriously. If it's for the fight scene only, then I wanna know how you think of it. Dialogue is fun to write, so are descriptions and visuals. I'm not so good at action-dense scenes, so I don't like writing them too much. You've probably noticed that from all the complaining I make in the A/Ns...
Late chapter is late because of my dislike of fight scenes and I can't fix the problem. This is also pretty short, sorry 'bout that.
Guess what I was gonna do? I was gonna force a cliffhanger on you at the part where Asuna thought the attacks weren't working and give you hell. But I decided not to because I am nicer than that. And because I wanted to show that she had a chance to fight.
Probably not gonna go too much into detail on Kirito's side at all. I don't feel like writing it, since he is basically fighting with Jewel the whole time and I don't want to create synonyms for "They clashed swords" and "Kirito got tired" because I'm lazy.
If you have tolerated this story so far, be sure to leave a review and tell me what I'm screwing up! Thanks!)