The suddenness of the launch had Valentina stepping back, the whip flicking around to swat two of the daggers away, though one of them managed to get through and punch into her shoulder, drawing a grunt from her as she stepped back from the initial charge, scrambling to get her whip back around.  There was a faint flicker in her eyes as she did step back.  She recognized that style.  She had sparred with Shizuru once or twice, and had found even then that the woman was fast, fast enough to actually cause injuries to her own body.<br/><br/>She skipped several steps backward, the Reapers moving back from her to keep out of the line of the fight.  There were several rips in her clothes, and a few of them had trickles of blood from slices to her skin as she danced backward.  The whip coiled and danced, the ringing of metal against metal as the shards entwined in the whip clattered against Jurai's sword.  "Huh.  Well now, that's rather disconcerting," she said, her eyes focusing on the girl that had darted out toward the man that had been downed during the first few seconds, and a cruel smile crept across her face.  "I wonder, however," she said, and then there was an impact to the air, as her malevolent gaze bored into both Jurai and Fiona, the sheer power of her hatred for the mortals behind it.