Upon the appearance of the Champion of Time, the Sword Saint pulled back from L. He withdrew a small dagger from his vest and attached it, somehow, to the inside of his bladed shield. He also tightened his greaves and readjusted his gauntlets. His eyes took on a more serious expression, at-least that was the way it looked to V. Had the Sword Saint just been playing with them this entire time? V had retrieved the vial of poison and stowed it on his person. L took this extremely short reprieve to catch her breath. She was still mumbling angrily to herself however, the curse of violence still ravaging her good sense.
The Champion of Time drew a rapier and a dagger. "This should be interesting if nothing else." He stepped past Eika and Luna as he spoke, not even bothering to spare them a glance. Eika withdrew one of her metallic balls that she used for her sling, still covered in the remains of the man's head she had destroyed with it. She pushed Luna behind her and turned to face the direction that time had thrown the women. "Eika will protect you! Stay behind me!" The anger in Eika's voice was clear. Luna did not respond, a confused and scared look frozen on her face. Eika's brow furrowed as she scanned the area. "Where did the women go? She was right there..." As Eika loaded her sling, she searched around for the mysterious women. She had been thrown to the ground by Time, she should not have been able to crawl out of their line of sight so quickly.
V mused to himself as the Champions of Time and Combat sized each other up. He was considering the probability of Time letting them go a second time. He also realized that Time seemed awfully composed. Perhaps he had found a way to remove the curse as well? He hoped so anyway, otherwise he doubted they would be able to get through this event without fighting him as well. Suddenly battle was re-joined. Time had lunged toward the Sword Saint, his rapier aimed directly for the Champions eyes. Time twisted his body at the last second, avoiding a strike from the Sword Saint's bladed shield. L attempted to follow up with a strike of her own, but was easily parried. At this point, V decided it would be best to do something that was more intended to be a distraction then an actual attack. The Champion of Combat only had so many arms, right? If he could give L or the Champion of Time an opening, it seemed a much more effective use of his time. He doubted he would be able to strike the Sword Saints under most any circumstance.
The Sword Saint had taken the offensive, he thrust his sword forward in an attempt to follow up on his parry. Fortunately for L, the Sword Saint was only able to scratch her before he was forced to block a strike from Time, who had regained his own footing nearly instantly. Time dodged an overhead swipe from the bladed shield, ducking underneath. He attempted to thrust toward Combat's abdomen with his rapier, and at the same time, use his dagger to stab downward into his leg. The Sword Saint had clearly anticipated this and had brought his knee up at the same time he had started the swipe with his shield. Time had ducked the shield only to find his face full of knee. Stumbling backward Time cursed to himself. At the same time, L had been parried again by the Sword Saint's other hand. V had gotten as close as he could before he simply let out a yell and charged, he was swinging wildly and unpredictably. He figured there was no possible way he would ever match the Sword Saint in technique, so he decided to go all in on the "distraction" plan.
Despite being behind the Sword Saint, V knew he was going to be in for a hard counter attack from the Champion of Combat. He seemed to have three-sixty vision, and perfect hand "eye" coordination. V hoped that was a feature of the Champion of Combat's blessing, and that it was a more passive thing. If the Champion of Combat had not even activated his blessing yet, V was fairly certain that when it was activated, L, him, and everyone else, would be extremely dead. What V did not expect however, was the Sword Saint's response to his "distraction." Faster than anyone in the area could even perceive, he had somehow detached the dagger from the inside of his shield, threw it into the air, and spun around, kicking it toward V. The dagger traveled with enough force that V barely had time to register what had happen before it ripped through his body. It tore completely through his right shoulder, exiting the other side like a bullet would have. However, the dagger was quite a bit larger than a bullet. V fell to his knees as his arm hung at his side, no longer usable. V was lucky, if the dagger had hit only slightly to the right, it was possible that he might have lost his arm, severed at the thinnest point of the shoulder. On the other hand, he could already tell that his lung had been damaged. On the upside, he was still conscious. As he struggled against the pain and the breathing issues he was now facing, he did his best to swap his constitution from B to A. He figured it might allow him to function slightly, even with a damaged lung.
As the Champion of Combat finished his spin kick to the dagger, he blocked an overhead slash from L. However, surprise suddenly erupted from his eyes. Somehow, the champion of time had appeared under his guard, the dagger sunk deeply into the upper thigh of the Sword Saint's left leg. The Champion of Time also seemed able to dodge the quick reappraise, a kick using the Sword Saint's other leg. As Time scrambled backward, a large amount of pain, exhaustion, and a small amount of confusion showed on his face, despite not taking any particularly bad hits, he seemed worse for wear. His breathing was labored as he struggled to regain his footing. Using the Champion of Combat's temporary surprise, L followed up with a strike aimed at his heart, it was deflected however, only scratching the surface of the Sword Saints skin.
The Champion of Violence watched the fight as he leaned on the cane he held in his left hand. "Avarice, I do believe that I will call upon your services around now. The Champion of Combat could use a little help." The male elf sighed, "Don't misunderstand, I’m not trying to help you. I'm just concerned that U would be upset with us if we did not help her favored slave some." The female elf, still resting her head on the male’s shoulder giggled. "Oh, she would be angry, but she needs us around. It's not like she could kill us!" The male elf ignored her and activated his blessing. The Champion of Combat's sword turned a dark black color for a few moments before returning to its normal color. A relaxed confidence returned to the Sword Saints face as this happened. Violence nodded "Regardless of your reasons, I appreciate your willingness to assist in the realization of my plan."
The blessing activation of the male elf could be felt by the others, not to mention the visual change to the Sword Saint's sword. Time's expression became even more strained as he muttered "Ya I guess this is why I came back to help... Who knew it would be this difficult?" L tried to attack the Sword Saint again, to no avail. She was rebuffed easily as a solo attacker. V struggled to his feet, even though his distraction technique almost got him killed, it did seem to allow Time to get the only good hit in so far. V considered running away, it was possible that he could escape while the Champion of Combat was preoccupied with L and Time. On the other hand, he did not know how running would help. Eventually this champion would come for him, as there could only be one victor. Also, he would feel bad leaving Eika and Luna behind, he was confident that L would be willing to sacrifice herself to save him, but not perhaps while he was running away like a coward. Besides, he had told Luna he would kill the bad man.
The Sword Saint advanced on L, leading with his sword. At first, nothing seemed to have changed with the activation of the elf's blessing. However after a few strikes, which L barely blocked, a change suddenly came over the sword. It suddenly segmented into pieces. It reminded V of a fantasy weapon he had once seen in a movie in his old world. A snake sword he believed it was called, although it might as well just have been called a whip sword. Of course, such a thing was not only structurally unsound, but also basically impossible to use in any real capacity. Of course, his life was closer to a fantasy than "real life" these days. The "sword whip" as V now labeled it, proved to be too much for L to handle. The Sword Saint quickly used it to entangle L's footing, causing her to fall backward, while also taking a few minor cuts. The follow up, which was almost instant, would have been her end, but the Champion of time blocked the strike with his rapier. Unfortunately, this resulted in his rapier being tangled up, and quickly torn out of his hand.
V figured there was no better time than now, considering both time and L were vulnerable, he had to act. Also, the breathing difficulties were starting to get to him. Better act while he still could use one arm somewhat competently. He dove toward the Champion of Combat, using every ounce of strength left within himself to try and buy them all a few more seconds. His action was in vain however, as the Champion of Combat and his weapon continued to move in an impossible fast and fluid manner. The whip sword was directed at Time, but in a single easy motion, he redirected the blade toward V. It wrapped around his torso, the edges of the blade digging into his waist. The blade obviously now held strange properties, as the sword whip held him aloft in the air, mid dive. The bladed segments sinking deeper into him as his own weight pressed against them. V once again could feel that his death had arrived. L was standing, but what could she possible do at this point? Time had retrieved his rapier, but again, what could he accomplish at this point? V sighed, he apologized in his head to Luna, and to Eika, and even a little to L. This was not exactly the blaze of glory that L deserved. She was a gibbering mess, fighting in a city filled with the blood of the innocent. As V closed his eyes, a strange instinct took hold of him.
"Order her to kill." V could not tell if he was losing his mind, or merely talking to himself in his own head. He had an overpowering urge to order L to kill the Champion of Combat. As his mind struggled to piece together the strange sensation, he wondered why he would even do that? It was not like L was *not* trying to kill the Champion of Combat already. The instinct pushed harder against V's resignation to die, "Kill! Order her to kill!" His own thoughts raged at him. What was the difference? He would look like a fool as he died? V opened his mouth, and with the little air remaining in his body yelled out. "I order you to kill The Sword Saint!"
V was unsure if he was dying, or if he was just insane at this point, but he could have sworn the air suddenly became colder. A strange smell passed over V’s nose as well, sort of like sulfur. He was definitely dying; this must be what hell smelled like. He figured he had not earned redemption. He did not apologize to the Mother Goddess, even though he had not been able to redeem himself, it was not like she really did it for his sake. He felt himself fall. "To hell I go, I guess." However, rather than falling into some hell or afterlife, he hit the cobblestone of the road. "Ugh what?" V groaned as he opened his eyes. The Sword Saint had dropped him, and was quickly removing his bladed shield from his arm. V struggled to get onto his knees, the pain and lack of air was really not doing him any favors, he could not imagine the blood loss was doing anything good for him either. His eyes traveled from the Sword Saint to where L was standing. Her blade was sheathed, that was sort of weird. Her hand gripped its hilt, and she stood in a wide stance, unmoving. The Champion of Time was nowhere to be seen. Looking back toward the Champion of Combat, he had removed his shield, planted it in the cobblestone street, shattering the rocks. He took cover behind the shield, placing his back against the inside of it, and planting his feat against the road, bracing himself between the road and shield. As V's brain struggled to fight against the fatigue and confusion, he heard a strange sound, sort of like the noise of a blowtorch clicking on.
