Akane would have laughed at Ryoshi's words if she would have had sufficient time to do so. This was her element! Well, sort of… not exactly the whole undead type scenario, and her grapple worked much better in areas that had more things for her to hook to, like trees. Her technique was usually a sort of, dive in, get a few swipes in with her swords, before diving away and then doing it all over again. However, with nothing else high to latch onto, she was stuck in the position she was now with two undead grabbing at her!
All until she dislodged her sword and went tumbling to the ground while the world around her seemed to blur and suddenly breathes were harder to take in. With her mask removed, she wasn't exactly helping her situation, but she figured it was better than breathing in the black ooze that had somehow managed to slip inside her mask!!
"Fuck..!" She gasped and clutched at her stomach, wiping back tears from bleary eyes with her forearm as she bent over herself, feeling sick, and to make matters worse, the voices started up again. Her vibrant irises snapped upward, meeting that of the creature as its voice forced itself into her ears, as though jamming physical matter inside and scrambling her very brain.
"Ah—!" Her teeth clenched tightly together and her small form doubled over as her hands dropped her weapons and came to her head, pressing… pressing… pressing… trying with every ounce of her being to keep the voice from penetrating her thoughts! "Stop… please…. STOP!!" She cried in agony as her head burned, a sharp and painful throb that felt as through a building pressure was rising within, continuing until she feared the pressure would be enough to crack open her very skull.
Ryoshi's voice was there… but merely a whisper as it was blown away to be replaced with the ferocity of the creatures voice, pulling at her chest, feeling the very organ pounding away at her ribcage until it too felt like it was close to caving in. "I didn't mean… I wanted…" Her voice quavered through her mourning cries as the voices of those so familiar filled her head once more until her own fingers were digging into the skin of her arms, making them bleed. "I'm sorry…. I'm so sorry…"
Sweat trickled from her hairline as sh struggled with these vicious inner thoughts, but even through blurred vision, she could see that of Ryoshi not too far away, as though a dream, as he was loosing his current battle with the creatures before him. Time seemed to slow and she closed her watering eyes to the faces of loved ones before her, their smiles, their kind eyes, and then their hands as they waved goodbye and disappeared.
She missed them every day… but she could not help them now.
But she could help Ryoshi.
Perhaps she would see them all sooner than she thought.
Akane rose upon shaking legs, her head still feeling as though it were about to split open, but she forced through it, a fire of determination set in blazing eyes as the monster sought to take Ryoshi from this world…
No. She wouldn't let it.
The one person through years of loneliness and self-doubt that she was worth anything… he saw something in her and cared for her. Ryoshi, a man whom she still figured she barely knew, yet knew enough that he was a tortured soul just like herself. He saw her as she was and cared for her enough to keep picking her ass up off the ground so she could trail along with him. To most, it may not have meant much, but to Akane, it meant everything.
Hands moved of their own accord, dropping blades and aiming her grapple at one of the bodies near Ryoshi, hooking in and jamming the reel up to propel her body forward.
"Ryoshi… thank you…"
Striking feet first, the forward momentum of her body lurched into that of Ryoshi—which couldn't have felt amazing—but it sent him rolling out of the way only for her body to replace his as the target, although the trajectory of the bony maw was now skewed and instead of chomping down on the entirety of her body like it would have Ryoshi's promptly bitting him in half, it instead took hold of her arm.
Pain wasn't even a word strong enough to describe it. The bone gnashed downward, not sharp enough to cut, but instead crushed skin, muscle, and bone, as a scream unlike any other sounded from her lips as she dangled uselessly from the bony maw. Her vision swam and her breath became a stutter as she cried in agony, black crawling into her vision as white flashed behind her eyes, whirling color as nerves were nearly fried with the signal of pain zipping through her body.
End it… please end it… I can't take it…!!