>You are Nazrin, a newly inducted member of the Seeker's Guild, and you are dying. You are also bleeding from a half-dozen places, but that somehow manages to be only incidental to this fact.
>After unsuccessfully scouring Braston for a means to overcome this Blight, you have decided that your best hope for answers lies in Val Razua, the intellectual capital of Gensokyo. To that end, you arranged for transport on the Blue Maiden, an unusually sleek and speedy cargo transport commanded by a Captain Murasa, and helped them obtain permission to leave port after their export license was stolen.
>After a surprisingly eventful night flying through an aether storm, you awoke to a peaceful afternoon. Unfortunately you had only a short while to enjoy it before the Blue Maiden was ambushed by tengu pirates. During some staggeringly dangerous evasive maneuvers on Murasa's part, this ship collided with the underside of an island and sustained engine damage. Its crew scattered to evade a consequent rockfall and you've spent the past several minutes engaged in a fierce melee with a tengu boarding party belowdecks. The whereabouts of the rest of the crew remain uncertain.
>Though injured repeatedly and in pretty lousy shape now, your group has managed to subdue two of the three pirates near you. Their apparent leader has decided to break away from you to assist her injured comrade.
>"Hey!"
>A mouse would almost think she genuinely cares.
>If she is still in range, slash at her wings if we can.
>"Chisato, incoming!"
>If she is not in range, sidestep in directly behind her, wait until we're sure she can no longer see us in her peripheral vision, then hurl a kunai at her. Aiming somewhat high, so as to not risk hitting our friends in the completely likely even she dodges. Even if she dodges, gives our friends more time to prepare, because she'll get there long before we will.
>Regardless of whether we hit or not, follow down the corridor after her, and locate that other discarded kunai, the one we passed by before engaging this tengu again. Grab it with our tail if we get close.
>Either that or she's a surprisingly convincing actor.
>You attempt to slash at the tengu's wings, but your defensive stance leaves you poorly positioned to quickly intercept someone trying to avoid you. Your attack cut through the air behind her as she dashes past.
>You yell out a warning to Chisato as the redhead bashes Kazuha in the head again. She looks up at the onrushing tengu with a scowl. Miyuki turns around as well, being the closer of the two to her. Visibly dazed, Kazuha drops unevenly to the ground as the other tengu cuts a wide wind blade across the hall without even slowing.
>You shift in behind the tengu leader and line up a high shot, hurling your kunai towards her and following in after it.
>Miyuki slides down the wall she's propping herself against and rolls away from the tengu's charge. Chisato drops into a crouch as she angles her staff to the side and jabs at Kazuha's arm. You hear a very faint sizzling sound and the tengu groans weakly. Chisato kicks her sword away as her grip on it loosens, then turns her eyes back to the other tengu as she closes in.
>The tengu traces a second wind blade through the air at an inverse angle to the first, aimed to push Chisato away from her new position and fence off the ways she can evade.
>At this point, you kunai catches up with her. Though the tengu's own forward momentum dulls the speed of impact, your weapon still finds purchase in her back. She grunts as the tip sinks into her and her wings and movement falter a moment, but only just. You scrabble to catch up with her, cursing your leg as you push forward, but you're stil not going to be fast enough.
>Chisato ducks lower and falls to the ground as the second wind blade rushes past her side. She raises her pole to ward off the tengu's charge but her foe merely bats it aside and dives towards Kazuha.
>"We're falling back," she says firmly as she reaches a hand out towards her arm.