It’s déjà vu that hits with all the force of a sledgehammer.
The radiant spear hits him straight in the chest, running him through, and he can’t help but recall how the dragoon had once done the same with a far more mundane lance, as well as the sickening vertigo of shock’s onset and the slow, steadily-crescendoing cascade of pain that had accompanied it. This time it’s all the same pain, but it’s more, because where the weapon doesn’t pierce his physical body, it does seem to directly target the Kenoma that has sunk in to suffuse his entire body — it reveals to him an entirely new way to feel pain, to feel the horrible shearing of something that had done everything it could to completely integrate into him attempt to tear itself away, regardless of the psychic damage it inflicted as it did so. Like the ebbing low tide, like a wave of vermin shrinking away from a pool of light, much of the Kenoma retreats from its foothold in Makoto’s body and hides away in his shard. His thoughts dilate and warp. It’s almost like it’s not enough that the spear had struck him right through the metaphysical essence of his being, but it feels like it’s pierced through his thoughts as well; the salient points of the events leading up to this altercation now burn so bright in his mind’s eye that it’s difficult to focus on them, everything connected to them through these last few days now growing confused and blurry. It’s like this exact moment of impact has punctured a hole in his memory with a white-hot blade, and everything around the epicenter of that damage warps and grows indistinct from proximity to the heat.
At first he can’t move, he can’t breathe, his lungs entirely arrested by the impaling blade of light. He lifts his hands, shaking, to claw at the weapon, but it’s all in vain as he can’t seem to find any purchase. His wings suddenly limp, his legs kick in a pathetically feeble attempt to get free. Then the spear slides free, and he falls to a collapsed heap on the floor.
The flame inside of him is beginning to gutter out. The enmity generated from the pain of his wounds and the lingering effects of Shimmer in his blood bolster him, but they cannot create something that doesn’t exist; Makoto’s rapidly running out of stamina, and what little he has remaining to him is slowly being stolen from the ghostly wings sprouting from his back, distributed to anyone close enough to receive it. He’s angry, he’s furious; a gutteral choking sound scrapes free from the back of his throat as he forces himself to his feet regardless, damaged in body and mind and spirit but still too galled by indignation and humiliation at his own perceived failure to make any sort of lasting mark on this thing. It blots out whatever self-preservation instincts that might have ruled in a more clear-minded moment.
Content to use the last of what little energy he has left to him, he launches himself into the air one last time: this time, far above the figures closer to the floor of the storehouse, dodging away from the section of brick wall that Gen had attempted to pull down over their opponent. This time, Makoto takes a page out of his book, scanning his surroundings long enough to locate his target: one of the metal beams protruding nakedly across the rafters. When he reaches it, he grabs hold of the steel with not only his arms but the talons of his wings, hacking and slashing and twisting and wrenching at it; the sound of groaning metal and splintering wood join the sound of crumbling mortar in the air. Imbued with Shimmer and his own pain and fury feeding back to reinforce his body, he’s able to damage both ends of a length of metal enough that the twisting of his torso can tear it free, turning for just a moment over the plane of one narrow shoulder so he can reorient and direct the length of torn metal, sharp end first, down from the rafters and tumbling in towards Estinien’s Innocence-possessed form right after the falling wall of bricks.
And it’s not alone — Makoto maintains his hold on the make-shift weapon, doing everything he can to keep its course true; vindictive until the end, he would like nothing more than to stab the creature with a lance of his own.
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The radiant spear hits him straight in the chest, running him through, and he can’t help but recall how the dragoon had once done the same with a far more mundane lance, as well as the sickening vertigo of shock’s onset and the slow, steadily-crescendoing cascade of pain that had accompanied it. This time it’s all the same pain, but it’s more, because where the weapon doesn’t pierce his physical body, it does seem to directly target the Kenoma that has sunk in to suffuse his entire body — it reveals to him an entirely new way to feel pain, to feel the horrible shearing of something that had done everything it could to completely integrate into him attempt to tear itself away, regardless of the psychic damage it inflicted as it did so. Like the ebbing low tide, like a wave of vermin shrinking away from a pool of light, much of the Kenoma retreats from its foothold in Makoto’s body and hides away in his shard. His thoughts dilate and warp. It’s almost like it’s not enough that the spear had struck him right through the metaphysical essence of his being, but it feels like it’s pierced through his thoughts as well; the salient points of the events leading up to this altercation now burn so bright in his mind’s eye that it’s difficult to focus on them, everything connected to them through these last few days now growing confused and blurry. It’s like this exact moment of impact has punctured a hole in his memory with a white-hot blade, and everything around the epicenter of that damage warps and grows indistinct from proximity to the heat.
At first he can’t move, he can’t breathe, his lungs entirely arrested by the impaling blade of light. He lifts his hands, shaking, to claw at the weapon, but it’s all in vain as he can’t seem to find any purchase. His wings suddenly limp, his legs kick in a pathetically feeble attempt to get free. Then the spear slides free, and he falls to a collapsed heap on the floor.
The flame inside of him is beginning to gutter out. The enmity generated from the pain of his wounds and the lingering effects of Shimmer in his blood bolster him, but they cannot create something that doesn’t exist; Makoto’s rapidly running out of stamina, and what little he has remaining to him is slowly being stolen from the ghostly wings sprouting from his back, distributed to anyone close enough to receive it. He’s angry, he’s furious; a gutteral choking sound scrapes free from the back of his throat as he forces himself to his feet regardless, damaged in body and mind and spirit but still too galled by indignation and humiliation at his own perceived failure to make any sort of lasting mark on this thing. It blots out whatever self-preservation instincts that might have ruled in a more clear-minded moment.
Content to use the last of what little energy he has left to him, he launches himself into the air one last time: this time, far above the figures closer to the floor of the storehouse, dodging away from the section of brick wall that Gen had attempted to pull down over their opponent. This time, Makoto takes a page out of his book, scanning his surroundings long enough to locate his target: one of the metal beams protruding nakedly across the rafters. When he reaches it, he grabs hold of the steel with not only his arms but the talons of his wings, hacking and slashing and twisting and wrenching at it; the sound of groaning metal and splintering wood join the sound of crumbling mortar in the air. Imbued with Shimmer and his own pain and fury feeding back to reinforce his body, he’s able to damage both ends of a length of metal enough that the twisting of his torso can tear it free, turning for just a moment over the plane of one narrow shoulder so he can reorient and direct the length of torn metal, sharp end first, down from the rafters and tumbling in towards Estinien’s Innocence-possessed form right after the falling wall of bricks.
And it’s not alone — Makoto maintains his hold on the make-shift weapon, doing everything he can to keep its course true; vindictive until the end, he would like nothing more than to stab the creature with a lance of his own.