She felt numb. The operation to stop the Saint's Cradle... well, it had succeeded, but in name only. Nanoha and the other mages had been unable to breach the throne room despite their best efforts, and in the end the TSAB's fleet had been forced to open fire in order to prevent it from reaching orbit. The image of the Cradle bursting into a yellow-orange flower of fire and death in midair was seared in her memory, and her hands wouldn't stop shaking. She'd failed. She'd failed that little girl who had been scared and alone and waiting for her mama to come rescue her.
She couldn't stop shaking.
Hayate, Vita - they all tried to say things to her, words of comfort, but they simply flew past unhearing ears as Nanoha walked through the world in a daze, only dimly aware of the world around her. Fate. She needed her Fate. That was all she could think at the moment - if she had Fate with her, then somehow, it would be okay. It was a wonderful lie, the only thing she could cling to. Fate was still at Jail Scaglietti's sanctum, so that's where she'd go.
She didn't remember flying there - only that one second she was on the TSAB flagship, and the next she was touching down in front of Jail's concealed fortress, staring in numb horror at the collapsed entryway. The scientist had activated a bomb that had caved the complex in, she was told, and they were trying to excavate as quickly as possible to rescue any survivors trapped inside.
Nanoha stood, unmoving, watching every rock as it was lifted, wondering how things could have turned out like this - how everything that mattered to her could be broken in what felt like a heartbeat.
And then she saw a familiar head of blonde hair being carried out of the rubble, white cape stained with blood, and the world shattered around her, eclipsed by a rush of something that made her vision go dark.
"Starlight Breaker: Armageddon Shift."
She wasn't sure what happened next. All Nanoha knew when she came to was that she was surrounded by fire in what she recognized as the TSAB headquarters. She still felt numb, but along with that deadened emptiness came something else - the knowledge that what she'd done (whatever it was) simply wasn't enough.
This world would burn.
(ooc: Nanoha has momentarily lost it, so anyone who wants to knock some sense into her before she starts throwing out Divine Busters at random should probably do it.)
She couldn't stop shaking.
Hayate, Vita - they all tried to say things to her, words of comfort, but they simply flew past unhearing ears as Nanoha walked through the world in a daze, only dimly aware of the world around her. Fate. She needed her Fate. That was all she could think at the moment - if she had Fate with her, then somehow, it would be okay. It was a wonderful lie, the only thing she could cling to. Fate was still at Jail Scaglietti's sanctum, so that's where she'd go.
She didn't remember flying there - only that one second she was on the TSAB flagship, and the next she was touching down in front of Jail's concealed fortress, staring in numb horror at the collapsed entryway. The scientist had activated a bomb that had caved the complex in, she was told, and they were trying to excavate as quickly as possible to rescue any survivors trapped inside.
Nanoha stood, unmoving, watching every rock as it was lifted, wondering how things could have turned out like this - how everything that mattered to her could be broken in what felt like a heartbeat.
And then she saw a familiar head of blonde hair being carried out of the rubble, white cape stained with blood, and the world shattered around her, eclipsed by a rush of something that made her vision go dark.
"Starlight Breaker: Armageddon Shift."
She wasn't sure what happened next. All Nanoha knew when she came to was that she was surrounded by fire in what she recognized as the TSAB headquarters. She still felt numb, but along with that deadened emptiness came something else - the knowledge that what she'd done (whatever it was) simply wasn't enough.
This world would burn.
(ooc: Nanoha has momentarily lost it, so anyone who wants to knock some sense into her before she starts throwing out Divine Busters at random should probably do it.)
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