✮ Raisa A. Gremory ✮
Raisa skidded backward, slamming abruptly into something. It was not, however, the wall she had expected to run against. Rather, it was the telltale warmth and paradoxically yielding firmness of another person, one who caught her instinctively by the shoulders and halted her slide backwards. The mage swung about, twitching slightly in surprise as she tried to conceal her fright at the sudden feeling of hands holding onto her as she looked back, breathing a sigh as her scarlet eye met the twin azure orbs of the Qilin. It looked like he was unharmed, at least. Her relief, however, was short-lived, as his expression swiftly turned to a scowl as he glared daggers at her. She grimaced, slapping herself in the face mentally. It seemed the unreasonable boy was angry at her for the means she'd used, even if she had only been trying to save his life. He looked like he sorely wanted to give her another lecture about his freedom, and probably another rude gesture to go with it, but his attention was swiftly diverted by something - namely, the doppelganger of the headmistress who was already advancing on them with sword in hand, abruptly sweeping this weapon out at them as it coalesced the shadows surrounding it into a vastly expanded blade, aiming to carve through her head and the vitals of the taller Qilin behind her in one blow. Raisa was just about to disentangle herself from the angry Qilin and try to draw it off before it reached him - while she might not be able to match it in strength, her reinforcement magic would more than allow her enough speed to compensate, especially considering that the construct seemed to be favoring the ankle she'd slashed in her brief engagement with it - but, to her surprise, Makoto seemed to be ready to do anything but let go of her. In an instant, she found one of the hands on her shoulders releasing its grip, instantly winding itself downward around her knees and sweeping her off her feet as he knelt for a moment, pulling her straight down beneath the sweep of the blade, before bracing himself against the ground and launching upward in an instant as the doppelganger reversed its attack, hacking through the space they'd occupied just a moment prior as they soared into the air.
Raisa gave a cry of surprise and fright at the sudden motion, her mind taking a moment of confusion to process what had just happened. It seemed he was at least willing to pay his debts, as he'd gone out of his way to save her just as she had rescued him. However, what she didn't like was the means he'd chosen. People touching her unexpectedly wasn't Raisa's strong suit, least of all when they were handling her with enough force to drag her off her feet and carry her several yards into the air.
The backflip at the end of the jump really didn't make her feel very comfortable, either. Hastily disengaging herself the moment he released her, she stumbled to her feet, feeling almost as nauseous as if she'd just teleported. It seemed the boy wasn't keen on giving her a moment to compose herself after being bodily hauled - well, actually, now that she thought about it, he'd actually chosen a fairly gentle means of relocating her to safety, but a princess carry had problems of its own, ones that she really, really would rather not think about at the moment - one story upward, as he - the one who had gone charging off towards a violent and powerful creature without waiting for any support or assistance - began berating her - the one who had been forced to rush in after him to bail him out - for acting irrationally.
"For fuck’s sake! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?! What the fuck were you doing?!” He bellowed, all but shaking her violently to emphasize his exasperation and disbelief.
"Assaulting a humanoid facsimile of a powerful magician with nothing but my wits and a knife to buy time for a certain maniac to get himself out of the way," Replied Raisa matter-of-factly, her previously calm demeanor shattering in an instant as her eye narrowed in a scowl. She was practically snarling as she spoke, her words containing a icy, bitingly sarcastic air that was completely unlike her meek, polite attitude up until then. It seemed that Makoto's rudeness and lack of consideration for anybody but himself had finally pushed her past the breaking point, as she began snapping at him with all the repressed frustration she had kept bottled up since meeting the self-centered boy. "Which is still, I might add, a better plan that whatever the hell you thought you were doing!" She added angrily, cutting off the Qilin as he tried to tell her to just stay put. Even as he turned to leave, she continued shouting at his retreating back, her point not yet made. "Seriously, what even is all this hysteria about me supposedly mind controlling you people? If I could just snap my fingers and make you behave, do you think I'd have waited until you almost got yourself killed to do anything?! And what, exactly, did you think YOU were doing, just flying off all alone right into an enemy that was meant to be a challenge for all three of us?! What were you trying to prove?! What if you'd gotten yourself killed?! What is even wrong with you?! You... You reckless... hare-brained, clueless, annoying, so-unbelievably-irresponsible-you-make-imps-look-like-saints-PINHEAD!" Her voice slowly built in volume and anger until it reached a crescendo of exasperation and frustration that resounded off the rooftop and throughout the surrounding cityscape.
Taking a deep breath, Raisa's attitude snapped back to normal in the blink of an eye as she seemed to calm herself, remembering where she was and the mission she had been charged with completing. Her face once more donned its customary passive, unflappable expression. This was no time to lose her cool. They were in the middle of a battle, and by the look of things, even with the wound she'd inflicted on the doppelganger, it was still more than capable of defending itself. But that didn't matter. She had already managed to work out roughly how their opponent fought - and if she knew that much, then she knew how to win.
Leaping down from the roof, she flicked her knife into a reverse grip, concentrating what little remained of her power after her long range teleportation into her body as she bounded forward. With a clashing of steel against steel, Makoto's sword met that of the doppelganger as he tried in vain to pierce its defenses. Bellowing at the other Demon for assistance, he tried to hold it back, but to no avail. As it pressed its blade down against him, it seemed as though he would be overwhelmed - until a bolt of black and red seemingly materialized from thin air directly beside him, its knife plunging into the overextended arm of the distracted doppelganger. Concealed by her eye's power, she managed to sneak up on it while Makoto diverted its attention with his furious assault, and landed a solid blow that would cripple its sword arm. Slashing her knife out from the wound it had inflicted, she tried to follow up her attack, only for the enemy, stumbling aside to avoid being bisected by the Qilin's sword as its own weapon fell to the ground from limp, bloodied fingers, to slip around behind her, laying hold of her shadow with its powers and using it to grab onto her legs and fling her to the ground. Giving a cry of pain as her own shadow violently lacerated her ankles, she stumbled, collapsing as her knife clattered to the ground in front of her. However, as the doppelganger tried to expand its shadowy tendrils to finish the mage where she lay, it stopped, as though repulsed by some unknown force, and leaped backward.
Raisa smiled despite the burning agony working its way up her legs as blood stained her black stockings. She'd been right.
"Makoto! Your flames cause shadows to stretch away from them! Follow it and use them to keep it from using its magic to block! Rabesach, close in from the left! I've crippled both its arm and leg on that side! Aim for its throat and finish it off before it can get away!" She cried, hastily giving her orders before it was too late. In each engagement with the enemy, she'd focused on weakening its defenses further and further, disarming it, slowing its movements, and creating a massive opening on its left side. So long as it didn't have some sort of unseen third weapon at its disposal, it shouldn't have been able to react before the demon who had just arrived could cut it down from the flank. Raisa had gambled on the weakness in its shadow magic, and it seemed she had been right. She could only hope that the others could take advantage of the opening she had created to finish it off. Out of power and with her legs in too much pain to walk, there wasn't much more she could do to help in this fight.