Mitsuru is unharmed, but she learns the armor is far from a perfect defense...

Mitsuru skid across the floor of the tower from the **** of the attack, then quickly rolled around onto her side before she even came to a stop. Facing the enemies, she wore a fierce expression and called her attack: "Penthesilea! Mabufula!" These might sound like nonsense words to the Japanese citizen, but the SEES team knew better: it was the name of her trusted persona, followed by that of that persona's powerful ice magic. The knights reared back and groaned as their armor went from gray to frosty blue, surrounded by a sudden, swirling blizzard. Seizing the opportunity, Makoto and Akihiko each followed up in the place of their two downed allies, smashing two of the knights into pieces with a combination of sword and fist attacks. The remaining two knights raised their fists in anger, but despite their bravado, they were already weakened. It would be a simple task to mop them up!

Rather than allow the knights to get a cheap attack in on Mitsuru, Akihiko jumped in to defend her, adopting a boxer's stance and blocking his face with his taped fists. The knight's lance glanced off with minimal damage; it growled in annoyance, before being obliterated by Akihiko's fist. "Hey, wasn't it you who told me not to be sloppy?" Akihiko taunted, as he turned around to help the leader of SEES off the floor.

"Y-Yes..." Mitsuru muttered, accepting his hand awkwardly. She seemed unusually dazed. Just past Akihiko's leg, she'd spotted something disturbing: a large, gray piece of armored plate, partially shattered and laying upon the checkered floor of Tartarus. Could that be a piece of the shadow they just killed? Impossible... that same shadow was currently dissolving into its namesake, becoming nothing more than a black smudge upon the floor. The pieces of it disappeared one by one, until just the mask was left; that shriveled and vanished moments later. If that armor didn't belong to the shadow... it must belong to her. That attack had dislodged a piece of the armor.

Fuuka's voice spoke into Mitsuru's ear, over a private channel. "Mitsuru-senpai..."

"What is it, Yamagishi?"

"I finished analyzing that Antique Armor you all just picked up... It has a high defense stat, but..."

"Quickly, Yamagishi. We're in the middle of a battle."

"From what I'm seeing, it's only going to be good to stop a few attacks in total. Be careful..."

Mitsuru's eyes widened. It was true; she had barely taken any damage from the enemy's attack just yet, despite how it ought to have rattled her. Junpei was still rolling around in pain from the strike that hit him, while Makoto handled the final shadow. The leader had no reason to doubt Fuuka's analysis... judging by how large a chunk had broken off just now, "a few attacks" was an accurate assessment. She stood up with her back to the wall, feeling her face heat slightly... behind her, everything from the neck down to her hips had broken off cleanly, giving a bit more of a view than a backless dress would from the rear side of the armor. "Equipping this armor was... an error in judgment," she admitted to Fuuka. "I should have waited for you to complete that analysis before I equipped it."

"... There's no time to go back and get your gear. The Reaper could show up at any moment," Fuuka warned her ally.

To SEES, the Reaper was like a living time limit on all of their activities; take too long and he'll show up, brandishing unstoppable power and impenetrable defenses. Fighting him would be a non-option. Loath as Mitsuru was to admit it, she'd have to abandon that old gear and stick with what she had.

"I'll see this as... an exercise in evasion. Right. It's very important that I don't take any additional hits," Mitsuru reasoned out loud.

"I-If that's how you want to see it," Fuuka agreed hesitantly. "You could always head back?"

"No. I won't jeopardize our mission for the sake of my own pride. But... I don't think there's any reason the others necessarily need to know. Yes. It would be a useless distraction. We'll simply finish our mission for tonight before it becomes an issue," Mitsuru reasoned, while pushing her imagination to one side. That imagination of hers was showing her a future in which all of her armor was broken off, forcing her to complete the rest of the mission in her underwear. As a sheltered girl, Mitsuru might be a bit behind-the-curve as far as social relationships went... but she knew that was the kind of embarrassment that wasn't easy to wash off, especially for someone intending to be a leader.

Finally, Akihiko interrupted her. "You seem like you're spacing out there, Mitsuru. You're going to have to keep your guard up. Just cause that armor's sturdy doesn't mean you can afford to get knocked down."

"Right. My apologies. I was... unused to the additional weight of this defensive gear. It won't happen again," Mitsuru answered with a strained smile. They were still a long way from done with their current expedition... "I'll bring up the rear as we proceed on. As the healthiest of our team, you should take the front."

"Aye-aye." Her ally returned a no-nonsense nod, before stepping off to the front.

Makoto's eyes moved silently between the oddly flushed Mitsuru and the gray scrap of metal laying upon the ground, before he finished helping a particularly dizzy and addled Junpei up off of the floor.