Explanation [Open]

Ragna led the way towards the 1st District. He just needed to get her there, and they'd be safe - he kept his senses alert as they headed over. There wasn't far to go, they were nearly there... Ragna looked back at his visitor. She seemed deep in thought. This wasn't the place for thinking about all these things... that should be done in safer territories, where you didn't have to worry about any of these little bastards getting the jump on you. As he walked through, he realised he had a bad feeling... his Azure was reacting to something. He could feel the Beast reacting...

"Shit... we gotta run, now!" Ragna reached and grabbed her wrist quickly, but before he turned, he could see he was too late. Letting go once more, he reached around and grabbed the hilt of his sword once more. "God damn it, does this ever end?" Gritting his teeth, Ragna looked up at the thing. "Listen, Azusa? I'm gonna draw it away from you. The moment I do, you get the hell out of here. Run right to District 1, got it?" Ragna prepared himself, talking to Azusa while keeping his gaze locked on the Heartless.

Ragna leapt at the pieces of the Guard Armour he could, his sword clanging against it and knocking Ragna back. "Tougher than the others... this ain't any one of them I've seen before." He kept a battle ready stance at all times, dashing to the left hand side of the monster's limbs. It had somehow missed them before, but he wasn't about to let that fall to something like chance a second time. Ragna leapt at the torso, it seeming to be the one commanding everything. With his leap, he swung his sword violently at it, seeking to do enough damage to distract it from attacking Azusa - if she could escape, all he had to worry about was taking it down.

"Go! Now!" Ragna yelled.

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[attr="class","boneslyricone"]Even so, we all still met –

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[attr="class","boneslyrictwo"]Our charming little angel girl.

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“Go! Now,” Ragna yelled to her; Azusa took no chances this time, breaking into a run over to the open gate as fast as her legs would carry her. Her guitar case bobbing up and down uncomfortably on her back as she went. It was very burdensome and she had a thought to drop it, but a voice in her ear spoke to her and said, “Keep it, Azusa. It's your own chance.”

She held it in place with her right hand to stop it from bobbing while continuing to run. As she ran, she took a single look over to Ragna; he was toiling in battle with the heavily armoured torso piece.
It was flying like a top, razor sharp and blisteringly fast; so fast – it was a blur. She must admit it was even more impressive that he can hold his own against something that strong, quick and massive. But this was no time to look at what he was doing, she had to get away as he said – Azusa had no chance against that creature and she could get in the way if she tried.

In this moment of misplaced though, the other pieces which till now had been floating mindlessly in mid-air; as if they were simply waiting to pounce on their prey if needed. This was when it decided it needed to move; the gauntlets shook, once and then extended each of its long claw-like fingers before flying straight towards Azusa. Ducking quickly behind a set of trash can, it flew over her head; narrowly missing her by centimeters and slamming it into the wall and managed to get lodged.

The feet, seeing its comrade in peril; moved in once more. Its heavy metallic feet stomping, shaking the earth with each step it took. Azusa didn't move; waiting for it to go past her.
The noise of the feet moved not closer, it moved away back in the direction of the torso in which Ragna was still engaged in conflict with. This was her only chance and she took it; running straight towards the gate.
Unknowingly to Azusa, the pieces were taking this chance too, and were joined together. The feet below the torso which had stopped spinning for a second; the gauntlets flew from the wall as if pulled in via magnet and took their place on the side of the creature. The creature clinked loudly as it spun it's arms and legs around to test them.

This was when it all went very, very wrong. The now complete armour looked at Ragna and then over to Azusa who was running across the street, seconds away from reaching a safe zone and just like that picked its target.
The body flipped up; pointing the empty torso out like a cannon and fired a straight blue beam in the direction of Azusa. The beam arced up and hit the gate itself, which shook and crumbled; heavy rubble fell from the stone arch and the wooden doors splintered sending debris all over. A large majority fell over Azusa and there was nothing at all; she could do to prevent it.

She had no chance. She was...she was –
The world stopped – or that is how it felt to her. Everything became very motionless and lost its color becoming solidly monotone.

Then, she heard it; the same voice from before.
“D-Do yo-u-u st-till w-want t-to li-ive?”
The voice said in a loud voice, very distorted and echoing but perceivable.
“Az-Azusa. This is your chance. Bu-but, y-you”
The voice cut out for a second, but returned right away.
“The-e-e-re is no tim-e-ee.
The last words came very clear compared to the rest of the speech.
I need your agreement! Do you agree?”

What other choice did she have.
The massive chunks of debris from the door was only narrowly missing her due to the stop in time. If she didn't agree, she would...she would...
“I agree,” she said, very quickly. Only now noticing; while it was extremely slow, the debris was still moving, inch by inch and if she waited any longer it would still hit her.

“I agree! I completely agree,” she called out.
“Then – be saved; Azusa Nakano,” the voice rang out. As the words were spoken; a deep black portal opened right in front of her. She walked straight into the portal without a seconds hesitation which swallowed her up in a spiral void and then closed upon itself just as time returned to normal and the tons of debris fell over the place she had been standing only second before.

OPEN ● 726 ● N/A

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MADE BY VEL OF WW + GS

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Ragna engaged in battle with the torso, doing what he could to distract it. To an extent, it worked - the pieces remained in the air, almost mesmerised as he did battle with the Guard Armour as best he could in this base form. His shield was at the ready, himself ready to re-cast the ars if necessary to handle any hits from it. Blocking a hit with said shield, he focused on dealing as much damage as he could do - if he was doing any to this thing - so that he could keep is distracted long enough for Azusa to get the hell out of there.

Ragna cursed loudly as he saw the gauntlets fly off in Azusa's direction - they had paid attention to the one escaping and not the threat that plagued them right now. "Crap!" She ducked behind a trash can, and it ended with the gauntlets being lodged in the wall. He kept his eyes turned to Azusa, but that was a mistake as despite her assault, he felt the Guard Armour smash into him, spinning rapidly and knocking him into a wall. He grunted and climbed up, leaping towards his current opponent and smashing his sword against it roughly, knocking it back. He just wanted to make sure she got away safe before continuing...

However, Ragna looked towards the gate to see a pair of metallic knight-like feet slamming down towards him. Realising what that meant, he hopped backwards and continually backstepped away from them, ready to guard at any second. Thankfully, the two stopped when they were about halfway across the area. They moved back to the Guard Armour, connecting with it; not long after, the gauntlets dislodged themselves and flew back, connecting as well. This was a gigantic suit of armour, and Ragna was going to have to deal with it. He prepared for it to fight with him, since he was closer than his female schoolgirl counterpart.

It was not to go down strictly like that, though. Ragna could only watch as the torso effectively turned itself into a cannon, firing a beam that missed Azusa by not much, but struck the gate. "H-Hey, watch ou-...!" Ragna yelled. All he saw, not witnessing half the things that Azusa saw, was her glance up and then the rubble came crashing down, immediately crushing her schoolgirl body under the heavy, rough stone that fell to the floor. Ragna's mouth agape, he took a second to properly register what had just happened. Azusa had been crushed. She had been crushed to death by those pillars that this monster had shot down in her attempt to get to safety in time - he had told her to run there, had inadvertently led her to her death. "Shit... shit shit shit!" He cursed. "God damn it, why? She was just a little schoolgirl! Why the hell did she have to die like that?"


BGM: Rebellion

Ragna turned to the Guard Armour. He was pissed off. He may have led her towards her death, but this thing had been the nail in the coffin for her. He was sick - sick and tired of these damn Heartless, and now it was time to give them a real piece of his mind. He was going to use the power he wielded - the Black Beast's power - to silence this one for good, as far as he knew. "Yeah, turn this way, you bastard." His words thick with enraged venom, he growled at the Heartless. "If you have a death wish, I'm gonna fulfil it. Now sit there, stop this bullshit about clankin' around, and prepare your damn gauntlets, because I'm gonna make you eat 'em."

Pulling his arm up, Ragna gripped it. "Restriction #666 released. Dimensional interface forcefield deployed!" As he held his arm, a dark substance began surrounding Ragna, seithr; present in the air, it was what his weapon ran on. "BlazBlue... ACTIVATED! Get ready to die, asshole." Ragna commented, grabbing his sword.

From there, the red garbed rebel leapt towards the Guard Armour. He swung his sword, clashing it against one of its arms; Ragna immediately started riding his sword downward, striking the arm every step of the way. Fuelled by anger, he landed and immediately swung his sword in a downward motion, a different kind of darkness struck the Armour - a vicious maw of darkness emerged, teeth of what appeared to be rough dark energy smashing and biting cruelly at the monster. The monster stumbled backwards, floating in the air and spinning slightly due to the extreme amount of damage taken. One of the arms flew forward, smashing Ragna sideways into the wall. Having made an actual crater in the wall from where he had hit, Ragna fell to the floor. He rolled again, despite all odds - the Azure was absorbing whatever force powered this creature as he struck it, healing him of his wounds.

With another leap, Ragna slashed his sword a couple of times, striking the same arm he had focused on. The moment he did, he immediately shot up into the air, his sword hitting it on the way up. "INFERNO DIVIDER!" From there, a following punch was delivered, smashing upwards. He then brought his foot around, the dark energy of the Black Beast smashing into the arm and causing it to smash into pieces, knocking the creature around. "SHATTER!"

Ragna landed, the Guard Armour recovering. He slid closer, leaping once more and extending his blade - it extended into a razor-sharp scythe made of the same darkness that had surrounded him, seithr. Slicing the monster, he kept the offensive up by shooting his foot out skilfully to kick the thing, swinging his sword across once again, and then leaping through the air, swinging his foot around as it was coated in seithr. "GAUNTLET HADES!" Swinging his arm after that, he attacked the creature's other arm with a monstrous-looking claw, slashing it brutally.

In the general scheme of things, Ragna wasn't all that strong compared to monsters like Terumi or powerhouses like Sol Badguy - but with his BlazBlue activated, he was definitely above this thing's level. The thing reacted once more, smashing the feet into the ground again and again to catch him off guard with his assault, making him stumble backwards slightly and take pretty severe damage. Ragna gritted his teeth once more, swinging his sword up and down at the creature's arm brutally, pulling his fist back and imbuing it with the same dark power, swinging it and punching at the creature's arm as it grew close to the ground. "Hell's Fang!" He then threw another gaping maw of the Beast at it, biting at the arm and shattering that one, also.

From there, the legs that remained swung back and kicked Ragna, sending him flying and smashing into the wall with enough force to break concrete. Being a character from a fighting game - an anime fighting game, at that - Ragna climbed onto his feet once more, and targeting the two feet that were there... rushed them. He slowed and stopped himself right before, pulling his Azure backwards until it looked like a demonic claw. "Darkness, consume you...!" Reaching forward, he grabbed and gripped one of its legs, sinking the claws in - from there, many tendrils of dark seithr bombarded the Guard Armour, smashing against it again and again and again without remorse. With a loud shatter, the feet took too much and were promptly smashed.

Ragna looked up at the torso. It started spinning, so he readied his sword. This would be over soon... "Azusa... I'm sorry." He whispered under his breath, apologising for failing to save her. "CARNAGE..." He shot at the torso, stopping just shy of it as it spun. As it came at him, he spun around himself, shooting seithr at the thing. "SCISSORS!" As the seithr hit the Guard Armour, the Armour hit Ragna, knocking him back once more and off his feet. However, the Heartless wasn't able to withstand a hit of that power level from an activated BlazBlue; the BlazBlue borrowed the power of a world-destroying beast, after all. The torso and head rose into the air, shuddered for a second, and then exploded into many pieces, all the pieces of the armour poofing into Heartless-style darkness with no heart rising. As much as he may think he was killing them, Ragna was no keyblade wielder, after all.

Gripping his arm, Ragna concentrated. The area around him shuddered as he focused, and then... it was shut off. His BlazBlue closed, and he knelt for a second, panting. "Shit... that took more than I thought it would..." He got up, and looked towards the direction of the rubble pile. He didn't even want to look at the body. It was too cruel. Ragna fell backwards onto a bench, his hand on his forehead. "Shit... I... I failed." There, he sat for a while, catching his breath and losing himself in thought.

His work was done, for now.