Just want to wish everyone a happy Valentine's day – even though by the time this chapter is out, it'll be near the end of the day. Regardless, I hope everyone's had their fill of love, because this chapter's gonna make you wish there was some proper lovin' here.
"Somehow... I feel like you would better understand my inner nature..."
Ninon could recognize the perpetual undertone of sadness in Shiki's resting face. A blue heart not full enough to become a properly warm red. Felt about time to take advantage of that...
"Most people seem too emotional, too colorful for my taste. Even some of my own family..."
"...'Family'?" Shiki was unsurprisingly stumbling over her thoughts as she considered that word specifically.
Ninon shook her head pessimistically. "It's complicated. Not worth speaking about. I'm more interested in you, however." She took a step closer on the gloomy assassin, reading her whole body like a book of spells. "By the way you dress yourself, and how you handle your swords... it's almost like you aren't meant to be here."
"I'm not from here," the dispirited yet pitiless Shiki admitted softly. "...I don't know where I am."
"Could be Hell. I imagine you'd think there's a possibility you are, by how your thoughts seem to reluctantly slide from your tongue." Ninon had walked around behind Shiki by this point. Her eyes looked as though they were starting to glue against the sight of the tattoo swirling down the blue-clad outsider's back. "And this ink you carry... was this by your choice... or someone else's?"
Shiki emitted a brief gasp as she felt a thumb travel its way down the trail of the snake on her back. The little witch circling her was certainly not pulling away from her attempts to feel about her body.
"...No response?" Ninon could consider Shiki's momentary silence as plenty of different things. "I understand... from the feel of things, it seems like you're not so sure yourself." Her hand started to reach elsewhere now from the front of the opponent – this time, towards the other end of the body-enveloping snake tattoo, which swirled around Shiki's left leg.
Ninon's focus on where she was feeling up her opponent wound up leaving her too numb elsewhere, not managing to realize she was swept at the feet until after she felt her balance knocked about with one swift sweep.
Shiki raised a blade, as she swooped an arm around Ninon's back, and then drove that blade down...
The sword landed very short of actually stabbing Ninon, managing to graze past the pitch-black, red-electric sabre of the young witch along the way – but the lingering sharpness pushing against the right of her face, wettened by the faint drips of blood, made it clear she wasn't getting off scot-free with how she was going about her business with the opponent.
The swift restraint in the violent tendencies of Shiki left her with not much to go by short of leaving all sorts of non-fatal cuts on her opponent – the most that could satisfy would be whatever to do with the blood on the blade.
Which she licked without reluctance.
Now Ninon was at attention. "I've heard of a bloodlust, but... there truly does seem to be true lust in what you're doing."
Shiki twirled her blood-stained katana to point ahead past the angle of which Ninon was leaned back. "I like your spirit... so dark... almost hopeless..."
Ninon retorted, "Not necessarily 'hopeless'. More ambitious."
She then retaliated with a brief stomping kick against one of Shiki's knees, only managing to budge her slightly. However, the witch managed enough leverage on her own to backflip out from over Shiki's holding arm. Flashing out from her palm came a spurt of flame, but Shiki quickly blocked it and confirmed her spot in the brawl with a dashing slash.
The slash missed Ninon as she waltzed backwards in a floating rotation, meeting back on her opponent with an ominous grin and a beckoning gesture with her magical weapon. "Come now; let's keep that spirit high, shall we?"
Shiki tightened the grip on her blades as she tried again, making a forward-leaping spin as she sent a leg swinging in a crescent, destined for domepiece on the drop of the heel, but Ninon narrowly caught it, and retaliated with her own kick up against Shiki's jaw.
Shiki caught Ninon's leg before it fully dropped back towards the ground, making a rebuttal with another low-sweep kick to throw the little witch off her balance. From there, she kept the girl from easily retaining her balance by dropping her foot down on her chest and pressing her onto the ground. Her expression grew a little testy, dissatisfied with choosing the taste of her own blood instead of another's once she grew to recognize how much her teeth clung on opposite ends of her tongue upon her jaw getting struck.
Ninon knew it would take a lot more than a single foot pressing on her chest to keep her on the floor, though she had a tendency to take the easy – read lazy – way out and throw some dark-mage bullshit into the fray. When she decided to take her magic to the advantage, she looked to phase through the floor, much to Shiki's subtle, though delayed reaction of confused fascination.
The brooding warrior only caught it at the last moment where her opponent was coming from, sneaking up from behind and trying to wrap herself around the weapon-clinging arms.
Ninon's eyes fluttered right against her opponent's, cocksure. "Surprised?"
"Irritated." Shiki drove an elbow backwards to physically tell Ninon to fuck off of her personal space.
Then, with a defiant gesture – spitting the blood from her bit tongue and letting it splotch on Ninon's face – Shiki briefly staggered the pale oddity and took her down with legs scissoring against ankles.
Again, after vanishing out from the floored position, the witch reemerged from wherever her magic tended to bring her in the midst of her dark translocations, dropping down from above and attempting to crush down on her opponent effectively with a double-stomp. Because it didn't fully follow through to a takedown, Ninon felt a chance to poke down on her opponent with the unreal sabre, to suffice instead.
Regardless with the opponent's methods of advancement, Shiki's stature proved strong against this sort of method, bracing her standing position as strongly as possible.
This was much to the bemusement of Ninon, who was able to platform herself into a stance on top of her opponent, pondering the predicament. "I see you can handle a bit of weight on your shoulders..."
Shiki's body rocked backwards against the delinquent witch and forced her off her back in a moment without notice; her legwork flowed through with continuous combat against the opponent, with a three-part layout in her next combo. One kick to the knee, to clip Ninon out from her own two feet; another to swat against the side of her head, and fully bring her down; the third to swipe up the dirt up until she again made contact with toes to skull. Ninon's whole body went rolling backwards over the floor for a moment as her mind went both straight and squiggly, but she shook it off in the next few seconds after.
From one moment to the next, Ninon felt the fight bounce out of her favor again; the focus came off the blood spat on her and onto the drips of red now coming from two lacerations upon her face, the second of which originated beneath the hairline where she was punted. "Not bad..." she admitted.
"You're nothing," remarked Shiki. "Nothing but a tiny being."
Ninon's lips contorted into yet another of her creepy, untrustworthy smirks. "You really think I give a damn?"
Before Shiki could get a long enough glance on Ninon's grin, the witch reached upwards with an open palm, and without any extra gestures, a blast of fire erupted out towards Shiki. The brief flame caught some of her face only partial, blocked with the handle of one of her blades as she hurdled over the defense.
Shiki took a short hop when Ninon tried to poke backwards with a low-sliding kick, landing back on the ground with one foot stomping down against the little witch's more-outstretched ankle. Despite the pressure plopped down on the leg, Ninon was able to force herself onto the half of her footing left unpressured, tiny brief hops evolving once she had her placement just right. Twisting back around, Ninon flung her free leg out across Shiki's head, clashing with a crushing kick before dropping back to the ground to handle the persisting ache riding down her ankle.
Thankfully for the magic-bearer, she bypassed the frustration of having to walk off the pressure pain on her leg by blowing herself forwards into a stance with a casual spurt of wind, immediately returning into the action with a spinning maneuver that carried that leftover wind in a curve around her weaponry and flung it straight ahead.
Shiki fought against the gusts by stabbing a blade into the ground and flinging herself forward with a dropkick crashing into Ninon's chest – Ninon was floored for only a couple seconds before again jumping back into the fray with a cartwheel kick that only missed Shiki by a narrow margin as she weaved backwards.
Ninon tried for another cartwheel flip, alternating with a dismounting slash with her accursed weaponry, but she was always just out of range as Shiki continued to drag herself out of the wake of danger. The blue-clad vixen swooped back in from Ninon's left and swept out the blade down at center on the battlefield ground, then spun back around to swing a roundhouse kick into the unscratched side of Ninon's face. Before the momentum completed its efforts in knocking Ninon's upper body nearly 90 degrees towards the right, she was compressed at the neck by the latching legs of Shiki, before being whipped straight back onto her face against the marble ground below.
The swords dropped down at a scissoring cross on the opposing sides, inches off from the shoulders of Ninon, as Shiki committed to her legwork and commission to gravity the rest of the way through. She didn't have a lot in the way of deviancy from motive in her thoughts – but to combat with the youth, she was a little more willing to spare Ninon the cuts that otherwise would push her some steps closer to surrender. That possibility of surrender, however, was a lot harder to tell from the delinquent witch...
The cut off on the right of Ninon's face stretched open a slight as she scoffed at the blades looming aside. "Do you expect me to try and snail my way out of Hell? As though I'd be scared to bleed even more than I already am?"
"Do you wish for an ultimatum?"
"I'd rather not..." With a grasp with two hands, Ninon clutched onto the twin katanas and let her magic run wild on them with a fury of dark electricity coursing out.
Even the handles of Shiki's blades managed to catch a bit of the voltage struggling through the steel, but she tolerated enough of the pain to keep a tight hold for a few moments, planning her next move.
Ninon was not through yet with her efforts; pushing her weight forward with the balance of the swords grazing across the ground, she somehow managed to roll herself over while taking Shiki along for the ride. The two continued to roll about over each other in a strugglehold over the weapons, even as the positions swirled into the opposite of how it initially was, with Ninon now behind Shiki, clinging onto one of her adversary's arms until she decided it was enough and started elbowing against the witch's favor.
Ultimately, it came to an impasse between Ninon and her opponent, standing back-to-back against each other; meanwhile, the wind between Shiki's fingers, in just one of her hands, felt more open than she realized. From that, she could recognize she was one sword short of what her arsenal carried – and it was in the hands of Ninon, outstretched backwards and laying itself short of touching Shiki's gut. On the other end, Shiki held onto her remaining sword with a tighter, slightly more paranoid grasp, returning the favor by poking Ninon in the side without pushing far enough to break clothing or skin.
The pale witch of the Bearts stayed calm, even in the potential of blood spilled further. Fortunately, her mind was far too deep towards the more deviant side of things to get hung up on those worries.
"How about I offer you an ultimatum – unless of course, you're willing to have blood drawn at the blade of your own belongings?"
Shiki's legs struggled to bend down at Ninon's level, knees bent at an angle for longer than she would ever need. Being dragged down peg by peg, by the young witch she was intertwined with, only reminded her further of the future she could be blessed with... if it wasn't for her less-than-impressive success rate with finding the mate necessary. All this thought nearly took a toll on the handling of the one sword remaining of the pair that she kept out of that little witch's hands.
As for Ninon, she had no such maternal crisis, so she was a lot more free to the idea of harming the opponent, being forever willing to force the other into submission. You wouldn't expect a lot from a relative youngster like her – especially one related to a much pluckier, if more obnoxious, individual – but one could imagine all the dark clothing, pale complexion and seeming inability to be happy in a way that isn't in a sinister under-meaning.
However, there was one factor that was successfully preventing the bloodshed to escalate: Elisabeth's cold, focused stare over the battle...
Meanwhile...
The stamina-drained Momoko, being carried her way onto a comfortable bed, was the first trip to the infirmary for someone this morning, and an obvious guarantee not to be the last, considering the track record...
"Pardon me if I haven't yet grasped what Momoko could handle..."
"Miss Kagura, don't worry about it; she's still learning."
While Chizuru had stealthily handled the first of the free-for-all eliminations the whole way to the needed room for recovery, she had come across Athena and Kaoru, who chose not to risk trying to step past what would be an ongoing fight to tend to their friend directly.
"Poor Momo'..." Kaoru sighed.
Athena admitted to a shrug... "That's the risk you take in a fight; sometimes you're the reason for your own loss..."
"I can't consider myself a fighter – I think it's worse when you have trouble understanding this 'fighting spirit'."
"I'm sure she'll be fine," Chizuru assured the more fight-inexperienced of the Psycho Soldier girls. "...I hope so, at least."
…
On the second layer of things, Iroha had a moment to survey everything else on the young capo-dancer outside of the obvious stamina troubles... Nothing but a few notable scratches and the occasional bruise spot. Shiki may have gone off a little easy on Momoko, for the sake of the former's almost fetishistic methods to her motives.
"She hasn't received too much in the way of physical injuries," the shamelessly-clad maid detailed. "At best, she just needs rest, and maybe a few bandages where necessary. Apologies if I can't help too much with her immediately; I've got plenty on my shoulders already..." Potentially so much on her shoulders, from what she could see of the patients within the room, that she could collapse under the pressure.
"Don't get too worked up... just your help does a lot for these ladies. Otherwise, if some of the worst comes to pass in the tournament, it'd probably be a little bit more difficult."
"Miss Kagura..." Instead of feeling flattered, Iroha felt just that slight addition to pressure. "I don't know if that's supposed to make me feel better, knowing it's almost entirely up to me..."
"I'm trying while I can – before I outstay my welcome, at least. I'm not supposed to be here for long anyway..."
…
After being assured of Momoko's newfound comfort, Athena had a little time to spend between now and whenever her number was coming up in the tournament, to take a look around the infirmary at the other patients. Good to know that most seemed to be settling well by now with their surroundings, ready to take on the day despite not being in the tournament anymore.
And then there was Mignon – the rival the Psycho Soldier wished she never got – with a ten-thousand yard stare up at the nearest television, hugging a pillow in silent fear as though it was her sister, who was in the middle of combat right now...
Yesterday was... quite the day for her, and between her fight and what happened to her in the events after, it was something Athena wouldn't wish upon anyone outside of her absolute most loathed. No, the pink-haired witch was not one of them, just a simple annoyance.
"Uhh... Mignon?" Athena surveyed the frozen stiff and scared witch. "Are you okay?"
"Maybe she's dead," interjected an ever-snarky Nagase, on the bed beside Athena's other side. "I know I'm not the only one hoping..."
"Shut up..." the Psycho Soldier grumbled back, returning her focus to Mignon as quickly as she could.
"...Athena...?" It was then that Mignon finally spoke up, very quiet and uncertain with her tone.
Athena was, with little choice, all ears. "...Yes?"
"Could you do me a favor?"
Athena almost didn't want to ask, because knowing the young Beart, it was going to be an awful favor to take up. "...What?"
"Don't chase me."
And she immediately sprung herself forwards off the bed, off to speed away as it became clear what she was doing – her sisterly instincts were tried and true, and weren't going to let it slide, even if it risked the tournament's proceedings.
Not without a couple road bumps, clearly...
"Aah!" Iroha crumpled against the crossfire, collapsing from beneath her bad ankle as a result of Mignon's ignorant mad-dash.
"Oh crap~!" Athena was sparked with surprise at the maid's collapse, sliding down onto her knees to get up to her.
"Athena, you need to catch Mignon," advised Chizuru, knowing her leave would have to wait just a little longer as she quickly tended to Iroha. "I imagine it's more of your personal business to deal with her."
Athena knew she had little choice, even in regarding the recent protection of Momoko. Things may turn out a lot worse if Mignon was left uncontested in her attempted rescue. "I'd be damned if I don't." She turned aside, "Kaoru, watch over Momo for me..."
"A-Athena?!" The nerdy girl was highly hesitant to be left outside of the Psycho Soldier's guidance, and on top of that, it was already late for her to object.
Athena was already on her way out; she got back up, carefully walking past the crash-and-burn and running out of the infirmary.
Though she almost didn't get a clear grasp of which direction the runaway witch sped off at, her second-sight perception was capable of more exact directions than a map-app on a smartphone.
She was not going to let things get too far out of hand because of one dumb pinkette...
That one lingering thought in the battleplan during this odd back-to-back blade-drawing standoff was the idea of teleporting out of danger – both ladies were capable of such powers, but neither went ahead on the idea.
Ninon considered it an easy way out, and clearly wouldn't let the situation break off like that unless it meant her opponent was put into a disadvantage. Teleporting out of the clutches would mean she could get an opening, but she may leave herself open as well, in the case that the dark-haired foe's instincts kick in faster. On the other hand, Shiki's power was an odd mistress, as the sinister strength beyond the dark blue ink across her body hadn't considered what would happen if she were to wrap while in the clutches of another. Her weapons handled fine with the magic, but the body of another? To her, it was almost unheard of...
Shiki's legs were not any more well-adjusted to the collective bent angle of her knees as they were in the first few moments.
The backwards cling clutched tighter between the two, the blades pressing against either respective body just a little bit more while Ninon began to shift herself over on top of Shiki's back. Some could detail that she may have shifted a little too far over, once she was starting to drape over one of Shiki's shoulders, allowing the blue-clad assassin to find a new spot opening up upon the witch. She eventually committed to a full combat roll forward, risking her unheld blade grazing against her body as she crushed down Ninon's body between herself and the hard ground, hooking around on the witch's sword-bearing arm and grappling it with the might she could muster up.
Ninon seemed ready to draw blood with the blade if Shiki was to make one false move towards the direction of the grazing steel. She could already tell that there was a scratch or two forming around the stomach area of the blue and black fabric, but on the other hand, she faced the bending, potentially breaking efforts being pressured straight on her blade-wielding arm. She saw her rightful blade sitting just near the battle where it was dropped, right before the back-to-back (or quite literally blade-to-stomach-to-blade-to-stomach) deadlock, and she was soon enough crawling towards it at a trudging, slow pace due to the weight pressing down on her limbs and body.
It quickly set in just as hard as the pressure on the wrong end of the arm-lock – knowing how tightly wrapped around the arm Shiki was, Ninon came to realize that the hard way was not the optimal way... she decided to do away with the effort, and said 'to hell with it' at the end of it all.
With a desperate warp out of the hold, Ninon took the easy way out – she needed to, to get her weapon back and to attempt to pursue Shiki one last time with it.
But then suddenly, without even a grasp of a transition between moments in the battle, things took a turn again.
SHLRRRK—!
There was a gruesome noise, a new slow downpour of blood, and Ninon's advance completely stopped before it could ever begin.
She lost grasp of her accursed blade once the feeling in her fingers numbed slightly; she felt an uneasy piercing sensation fly through the side of her body, from a corner of her chest and upwards through the shoulder, and it was this unwelcome, piercing pain that finally started to crack the scratched poker face of stoicism that she worked up so much effort maintaining in this match.
The agony came not from the opponent's blades, but from... chains? Chains protruding from the opposition's dark aura seeping within the floor, in fact...
"I didn't want to have to do that to you..."
Shiki's body dragged onwards with a reluctant limp, and an ever-present shiver in her voice. "Not to anyone... as precious... as you."
It almost looked as though the power used upon her opponent left a bit of a toll upon herself as well – the veins around her left leg and back, where the tattoo was most prominent, looked a little more visible; darkened, even...
Meanwhile, as her eyes having not left the battle this whole time, Elisabeth was just as much rattled by the invisible shockwave of dark energy as the ladies – she held her riding crop tightly, feeling little choice but to prepare in case she'd need to step in; enough blood was starting to spill already, to the point where she felt her advice wasn't quite keeping its hold in Shiki's mind.
Ninon grunted as the dark, rusty chains ached within her wounds, with every little movement made. "Just tell me what you really feel, and get it over with. I can only bleed for so long..."
Without a second or even third thought, Shiki clung onto the young witch's body with an utter lack of shame presenting any potential affection, not bothering to let go even as she felt the leaking redness of her opponent drip down slowly upon her jet-black hair and cold, barely emotive face.
"Don't be afraid to bleed on me... I just want to preserve the future..." Her clingy nature upon the smaller, often younger generation was flourishing yet again. First with Momoko, and now with Ninon – Good lord, was she that desperate?
Once again, it was safe to acknowledge Elisabeth's judging stare over the situation, and that if neither lady in the match were willing to give up at this point, it could potentially become the noblewoman's decision if boundaries were overstepped – hard to say at this point, however, considering previous bouts such as the infamed Angel vs. Yuri affair... however, something threatened to catch her attention...
The sound of something cartoonishly bouncing down the stairs past her. A prop of something seemed to just sneak past her, as she didn't choose first to look at her feet where it was rolling by.
Shiki took notice next. "Hmm?" Something seemed to roll beneath her, stopping very lightly against an ankle. A ball the size of a watermelon.
With a clear fuse fizzling out.
"Oh no," Ninon realized, recognizing the cat pattern beneath the bow of the blatant bomb, just before Shiki silently punted it, straight back and diagonally up to where it bounced down from...
...flying past a still perplexed Elisabeth, who could only look back for a split second...
...before a big smoky POOF unleashed right at the top of the central stairwell. It slowly pushed past Elisabeth's position as she shielded herself from the soot and rainbowy mist... she swore she could recall something like this having happened in the previous round...
"What the hell... the hell is going on—"
"Out of the way!"
Elisabeth felt herself getting roughly shoved against one of the railings of the stairs – the shrillness of the voice belonging to the pusher was not exactly unknown anymore... and it was without saying they weren't going to get away from her righteousness for too long.
Shiki was probably the most confused of all, naturally due to her very surreal way of thinking. The spreading smoke didn't help, either, as she had to shield herself. "What is that...?"
Ninon's answer, the clearest of all currently present: "A failed abortion."
This was right before Shiki was suddenly pounced on by a pink blur that was unfortunately all too familiar by this point in the tournament.
It was official, even if the medical attention necessarily remaining proved otherwise – Mignon had come to '''save''' the day!(?)
Who'd think that not even 24 hours after getting stabbed by the dangerous beauty, the obnoxious witch would be pursuing the same lady with very little she felt she could regret, thanks to that risky sisterly nature?
Well, she wouldn't get too far into her rescue before she was shoved off casually by Shiki – just in time to get taken down by the slightly late-to-arrive Athena, who slid down one of the railings and flung herself onto , taking her to the ground with the overpowering force that of one of her idol-tour security guards.
Mignon struggled with all the ferocity of an angry kitten not getting her way, and double the whiny frustration to boot. "Get off me! Get off me, you bimbo, you don't know what you're doing!"
"I know exactly what I'm doing!" It was frustrating for to have to dispute that she was doing the right thing, unlike the annoying pink turd she was dealing with.
Elisabeth was still recovering somewhat from the hard shove she took, that caused her to bump her gut something fierce and nearly floored her – mostly in due part to her simply being unprepared to take a hit like that at a time like this. As she waited for the smoke to fully clear, she started to see a couple more people making their way down the stairs – Chizuru, with a limping Iroha draped against her shoulder.
"What's happening up there?!" Elisabeth asked her cohort, sounding growingly aggravated as the smoke that remained, continued to agitate her eyes.
"It was all on her, really," Chizuru replied, of course referring to Mignon. "Broke out of the infirmary, and really took a number on Iroha without even trying..."
"There's something wrong with her," Iroha added. "I just have a feeling, if we don't deal with her now..."
Suddenly... CHOMP!
Mignon was completely without subtlety now with her 'spirit animal', as she growled like a mean cat and started biting down on one of Athena's arms as it wrapped around in front of her face.
"OW!" Athena reeled away her arm from around the front of Mignon's face to break free from the biting, and brought it down right in the back of her head with a jabbing elbow to press down on the colorful witch's face against the ground. All the while, she took a look at her forearm and saw some skin already opened up and prepping to bleed where the tooth marks laid.
Chomping straight into skin was generally easy when intentionally meaning to, but it was another beast for it to actually break skin. To do that to an idol who's meant to have spotless skin and a beautiful body – well, it almost deemed itself a deathwish by that point.
The forethought to work things out with some semblance of peace seemed to fade – instead, blind with anger and frustration with settling this stupid incident by more optimal / less ethical means, Athena started to form a Psycho Powered blade within her unscratched arm. It was at this point that she almost stopped trying to salvage Mignon's stupidity, and now it looked almost like attempted murder was about to be done...
...if it wasn't for outside involvement to catch Athena's arm where it stood.
"That's enough."
Elisabeth's voice rattled seriously through Athena's ears, and the Psycho Soldier snapped out of her brief blind rage. "Huh?"
She didn't bother putting up a fight to Betty's further resistance, as she was pulled back and helped even further into the arms of Chizuru, while Elisabeth walked past and tended to Mignon without even saying as much as a single word further...
The pink witch seemed grateful enough not to resist, seeing as it was the woman in charge helping her up. "Oh... thank you, my lad—"
SMACK!
The left side of Mignon's face went red and numb with a harsh pain as she reeled sideways, almost into a full 360 spin – she almost couldn't believe it: did the hostess just slap her!?
Mignon couldn't find words to express how shocked and dismayed she was. "Wha~?! Why—!?"
"I was referring to both of you," Elisabeth responded. You could really tell so much anger was hiding behind the somewhat stoic shell of her neutral expression, and you could also read how much she was growing sick of the unsanctioned bullshit.
She turned her head towards the next matter, voice no less cold than before. "Shiki. Release her."
Without objection, Shiki understood Elisabeth's demand and complied – the veins beneath her tattoo calmed, and the chains draped through Ninon finally let go, allowing the pale witch to finally fall down under the lowering energy caused by the momentary blood loss.
Meanwhile, Mignon was sitting on the stairs at this point, not feeling in the mood anymore to stand as she watched her sister laying, bleeding and seeming far too serene than it should be in a situation like this.
All of a sudden, another sensation started to pull her away – Elisabeth's hand clutching her by the ear, yanking her away from the scene like a mother sick of her bothersome daughter's bullshit.
"N-no! My sister—!" whined Mignon.
"She'll be taken care of when necessary," Elisabeth responded. "As for you – I'll be sure to see to your punishment soon enough..." She turned her attention back to her cohort and the Psycho Soldier. "Chizuru, if you could, please help Athena into this room with me – I'm counting on you to be in charge for a little bit while I take care of these ladies..."
It didn't take much for Athena to comply to where she was needed, however. "It's fine, Chizuru – I'll accept responsibility..." The guilt beneath her momentary frustrations was more than enough for her to go on her own will. She followed Elisabeth, and an unwilling Mignon, into the room at the back end of the stairs, all three disappearing behind the double-doors after they opened and then re-closed.
With the responsibility of running the tournament held on her for these few moments heading into the next round, Chizuru put her attention on the one-woman medical personnel beside her. "Iroha... I hope you don't mind..."
"I'll try..."
"Don't," objected Ninon "It's just flesh wounds. Nothing serious."
"Definitely looks serious to us," Chizuru mentioned otherwise, on account of the witch slowly oozing with blood before everyone. "Besides... you do realize you technically lost due to all of this, right?"
Ninon didn't give a shit, clearly. "Would much rather lose and bleed like this, than to have her help."
So it seemed to settle things, in regards to the match...
Winner, by disqualification / possible forfeit?: Shiki
Don't worry, I'm certain Ninon's learned some sort of healing spell in case of injuries like that – I've at least seen that Mignon had a super in Maximum Impact 2 that healed a bit of her health. Speaking of, well, she's lookin' to be in a whole lot of trouble...
Next Chapter: From the solution of one controversy to the arrival of another; while Elisabeth takes care of business, the tournament finally gets back into the thick of things with the start of the third round!
