[It could be said that Hayame is not as crippled by the loss of her eye as some others might be. It was common enough for archers to close an eye when aiming, she had trained since three or four springs to fight, to know exactly the limits and capabilities of her body... but now there is only pain and rage and the sound of the draconic thing in the sky roaring, drowning out her half-feral scream. All she can see is red, whether its blood in her socket or metaphorical...
Her cracked hooves pound the dark stone of the Achamoth streets. Her distorted vision mostly misses the play of shadow. Her hands reach, her long, thin legs tear up the distance between them, wanting only to reach the man who laughed and smiled and held her godsdamned eyeball between his fingers-
And then the strangely glowing blood falls from the sky. Her enemy isn't the only one hit, either, she feels the wet splash of impact on her rump, a foreleg, a shoulder and into her hair... But on her, it does not burn. It does not slow her down... He speeds up, though. It burns him, and in the space of seconds the distance between them is too great. The height is too great, he jumps straight from the street to a rooftop as if it were merely the space between one stair and the next, her bow is abandoned behind her, even if she could calculate the distance when firing...]
We aren't finished yet!
[If she could just-
She shouts after him, even as he waves (waves with his trophy still between his fingers), as he disappears from sight, and Hayame... slams into the wall of the building he had stood on, cracking her first impotently against the surface as she screams up at where he had been.]
Come back here, you demon!
[Another pound of her first, a rear and scramble of hooves, and yet each moment is more pointless than the last despite how much desperate violence boils over in her body, because he's gone, her eye is gone, and Estinien's twisted blood is dripping off of her and no matter how much she kicks or how many crates and festival decorations are destroyed in her vicinity...
Hayame stumbles, half-collapsing against the wall as she feels her throat begin to tighten, the threat of a sob trying to claw its way out of her mouth. To stop it, she digs her fangs into her lip, her fingers into her arms, slowly collapsing into a bloody, wretched heap as her legs finally give in to the shock of her injury and start refusing to support her weight.
She has to get back up. She has to keep fighting, because there is no honor in dying of a wound alone in a back alley. She has to kill the man who has taken something so precious from her. She has to take up her bow again to defend the man she had followed here to prevent him from being overrun by the Kenoma. She has to go back to her world, and die in Matsukaze's arms like she'd sworn she would, and yet-]
Come back and finish me...
[All she can do is let out that weak, shameful sob as she cradles her mangled face in her hands, begging for the glorious death in battle she has been denied time and again.]
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Her cracked hooves pound the dark stone of the Achamoth streets. Her distorted vision mostly misses the play of shadow. Her hands reach, her long, thin legs tear up the distance between them, wanting only to reach the man who laughed and smiled and held her godsdamned eyeball between his fingers-
And then the strangely glowing blood falls from the sky. Her enemy isn't the only one hit, either, she feels the wet splash of impact on her rump, a foreleg, a shoulder and into her hair... But on her, it does not burn. It does not slow her down... He speeds up, though. It burns him, and in the space of seconds the distance between them is too great. The height is too great, he jumps straight from the street to a rooftop as if it were merely the space between one stair and the next, her bow is abandoned behind her, even if she could calculate the distance when firing...]
We aren't finished yet!
[If she could just-
She shouts after him, even as he waves (waves with his trophy still between his fingers), as he disappears from sight, and Hayame... slams into the wall of the building he had stood on, cracking her first impotently against the surface as she screams up at where he had been.]
Come back here, you demon!
[Another pound of her first, a rear and scramble of hooves, and yet each moment is more pointless than the last despite how much desperate violence boils over in her body, because he's gone, her eye is gone, and Estinien's twisted blood is dripping off of her and no matter how much she kicks or how many crates and festival decorations are destroyed in her vicinity...
Hayame stumbles, half-collapsing against the wall as she feels her throat begin to tighten, the threat of a sob trying to claw its way out of her mouth. To stop it, she digs her fangs into her lip, her fingers into her arms, slowly collapsing into a bloody, wretched heap as her legs finally give in to the shock of her injury and start refusing to support her weight.
She has to get back up. She has to keep fighting, because there is no honor in dying of a wound alone in a back alley. She has to kill the man who has taken something so precious from her. She has to take up her bow again to defend the man she had followed here to prevent him from being overrun by the Kenoma. She has to go back to her world, and die in Matsukaze's arms like she'd sworn she would, and yet-]
Come back and finish me...
[All she can do is let out that weak, shameful sob as she cradles her mangled face in her hands, begging for the glorious death in battle she has been denied time and again.]