sun, through snow || vbs au (updates weekly!)

028 || one last stand

❃.✮:▹ pov: the hero ◃:✮.❃

I braced myself for impact, and readied myself for defending whatever came at us. Predictably, she attacked first. But I wasn't ready for what happened.

Dark tendrils sprouted out of her palms. I braced myself, grabbing my sword as one veered towards me. The tendril came fast, and I stabbed it through the middle.

The tendril split into two. Just my luck. Black blood splatters my face. Was this a hydra scenario? "Everyone, aim for her palms and don't keep stabbing the thingies!" I say, using the dull side of my sword to push the roots away.

Everyone seems to be uninjured because she isn't attacking to injure right now, just to kill. I manage to inch closer and closer to Ena's palms, but more roots grow out of them and try to push me back.

I try to chop through the trunk, but it's too thick. I look back at Kohane, who's behind me and guesture for her to come closer. "I have an idea!" I say once she's in earshot, even though that idea is still very much formulating.

That's it! The roots take a small bit to regrow once they get chopped off, and if Kohane gets lots of them at once, I might have a chance to get Ena's palm! And then we could help the other two with theirs!

"Okay. You try to chop off as much heads as you can, and then I'll stab it through the palm. The trunk is choppable, right?" I say, trying to fend off the intensely growing roots.

Kohane nods, and goes to the plan, and I give her a countdown, taking a deep breath before. "Three... two... one!" Ena senses we're doing something, and sends a higher concentration of roots to our side than the others. Perfect.

I chop through trunks on my way right to her palm. I feel bad for doing this. Ena winces at me. The trunks grow and grow, and I reach her palm and skewer it.

Ena screams out in pain and the roots on our side dissipate. Toya seems to get the idea, and stabs Ena through the other hand while she's distracted, which makes her scream way more. I feel kind of bad.

"You... You will pay!" Ena growls, and stuff starts to levitate behind her. It seems like glass, but many, many splinters of it in pieces.

And then the splinters come at us. I instantly feel them serrating my skin, but after they make contact they don't dig any deeper. I shield my face using my arms and shield my arms using my sword.

I look to everyone else. "Group up!" I command. Everyone shuffles into a group to protect eachother from the brunt of the shards. "It shouldn't go on for too long, righ- Watch out, An!" Kohane says to me, and I turn around to see Ena right behind me.

I manage to parry her attack, thanks to Kohane's warning. The four of us begin to attack her, unanimously deciding that killing her will stop these shards.

As I aim my sword at her, I get a clear view of her chest and thrust it... into air. I look at her, and she'd jumped from an impossible distance in that timespan.

"Huh?" I say, still trying to block the splinters. "She dodged... it isn't worth attacking. Unless..." Toya says, dodging one of Ena's swings. "...We take her by surprise." He whispers to me, since I'm the closest. I smile.

Ena was already hurt by the two swords that had been thrusted through her palms. I whisper to Kohane to try and surprise attack her, from a place that she was vulnerable.

We manage to come up with a plan quickly thanks to Toya's quick thinking. One of us would pretend to be injured, and the others would attack from the front, retreating, and the other would attack from her back. Naturally, I was nominated to faint since I seemed most injured.