I sigh as I now realise this girl is part of the standard age bracket of my current party. About thirteen, I'd estimate. Tanned olive skin, hair blazing red, bright purple eyes. Behind the blood trickling from her forehead, she has a thin but cute face. She is partially covered in steel plate, just her legs and arms. But her freshly blooming chest is literally just covered by wrapped bandages, and her shoulders have a feathery shawl and necklace setup that envisages something quite tribal. She has strong abs, but no obvious weapons.

Rishya, with a glare, grabs away the new girl’s hand. She has a funny eye twitch.

"D-do you not need healing!? I will get to that. Please be careful where you grasp. This arm is also hurt, no?" She splutters.

The girl cocks her head quizzically at Rishya, with a smile. I swear it feels like my thunder spirit wants to leap out my chest to create ambient sparks between them.

Seria watches this with an expression one step from berserk laughter.

Fortunately (?), the roar of the beast reminds us this is no time for shenanigans.

Aria arrives with her ninja and swordsman escorts, and dumps her burdens behind the sarcophagus with a wheeze.

"Yuuzu got fat!" She exclaims, glaring and rolling her shoulder before taking her spear from Kaede.

This is almost certainly not true. Yuuzu is a seriously curvy-in-all-the-right-places young woman. But maybe she is referring to the bosom. It's a DD-cup for sure. Is this Rishya's future? She is already bouncy... it is surely in the genes here!

A second punctuation of a roar dispels my wayward thoughts, and I look to the beast. It is still crackling with some electricity, but shakes it off and crouches to leap once more.

"It's coming, yes!" Kaede exclaims.

Kiku flings a sword, but it ineffectually pings off one of the scythes, ricocheting far off into the room’s corner.

It leaps, covering most of the distance between us in a single bound, even though it now only has one wing.

A sweep of its scythe annihilates the sarcophagus two down from the one we are behind in a hail of stone and dust.

I hold back from wetting myself. Can we even defeat this?!? What was I thinking!

"We have to try." Aria says, twirling the spear. "It must have a crystal!"

She grounds my fear. She's right. We don't need to destroy it entirely... just...

"Za...gemthang... tail it does sits on!" The red haired girl says. "It... hard to smack. Tail dances!"

Well shit. She's right. Inside the bones of the tail, about halfway from the tip, a rather huge blue crystal sits.

We need to destroy that?

Of course, it doesn't give us time to ponder. Aria and Kiku rush forth to intercept it. It roars as Aria skewers it from the side and Kiku leaps over the scythe to run a blade along its skull in a spray of sparks. Their attacks are fairly useless.

I realise they are not just being suicidal, but are trying to distract it from the unconscious girls.

Rishya, with a begrudging expression, is healing the red haired girl as well whilst Seria is chanting. These girls having such a controlled battle sense is a blessing to me, who clearly doesn't.

A crack similar to before is quite evident, but the red haired girl just grimaces rather than crying out. She's quite a hard case, eh?

"Ta mushily, litta' Yuuzu! I'll fight bester now!" She slaps Rishya on the shoulder, dazing her.

Then, grinning at me, she crouches, stretches, and then backflips over the sarcophagus, spinning and breaking into a run towards the skull beast in melee.

She bounces past a gawking Kiku, off an incoming scythe, and then uppercuts the beast’s skull with a cracking punch before flipping away once more.

It roars furiously from the attack. I just raise an eyebrow.

So this one is a brawler. The conspicuous lack of a weapon and the armoured limbs should have been a giveaway, I suppose.

As Rishya is shaking her cousin attempting to wake her, Seria looks to be approaching the full spell incantation, and even the new girl is attacking with surprising vigour, I need to step up my game as well.

Staring at its hollow ribcage, I come up with a stupid idea.

I pull another vial from the pouch. Can I finally make use of that iron meteorite sand I gathered such a while back...?