Travis stared quizzically at Zuri. He honestly hadn't thought about how the curse would react, especially to its host, when it responds to being dispelled. Briefly, he began to have doubts if it was proper to carry on with his live trial with the Causality Scryer, after having been informed how the spell displayed a forceful tenacity while surgically unraveling problematic designs and incantations. Then, he was reassured, if not convinced, that this was probably the best chance of breaking Zuri's unidentifiable curse, regardless of the risks.

"I expect some discomfort, however I can't say how painful it will be, if at all. These are unknown waters we're treading here," Travis explained as he took the memory case containing the sell from the work table, "it'll only take a moment for the spell to warm up. Go ahead and stand in the center of the room and hold there. Hopefully this doesn't take to long."

With that, he began pouring mana into the crystal and the rune within began to glow. Seconds passed, and he raised his hand toward Zuri and within it, the spell ignited. The Causality Scryer run projected itself into reality and surrounding its notable small profile spun several runic rings, each rotating at a different and a directional vector. In retrospect, it resembled a armillary sphere moving on its own accord. A moment later, a ray of light shot forth from the eye of the rune into Zuri's center mass. The beam itself was harmless and merely acted as a guideline, prompting the spinning rings to unhinge from their spherical patter and aligned in the space between the rune and Zuri.

Eight seconds after the spell's casting, the lager of the ring that hovered before Zuri emitted a low and rune resonated with the other rings. From her perspective, it would be gazing into an glowing artificial tunnel where the heart of the rune stood at the other side, gazing back towards her. The rings immediately spun faster and hummed louder than before while additional threads of lighted casted from each of the articulated bands onto Zuri. Like a laser pointer, the smaller beams scoured all over her frontal profile. This was the phase Travis had been described to by the spell's developers as the scanning phase. The spell was now looking into Zuri; into the curse and compiling its make up and complexity before eventually dispelling it.

Twenty seconds in and the humming momentarily quieted down but not before the tinier lines of light conjoined their points to the main guiding beam. The rings themselves soon became even more lively and louder while the center design of the rune suddenly commenced a rapidly flashing its illumination. Travis then knew that the spell had the curse pinpointed and it was on the attack.

A second later, a surging bulbous pulse of shot down the guiding beam's trajectory and quickly leading into the mass of Zuri. The moment it would impact, the spell would then be fully committed in its purging phase. And it would not stop until its target was cleansed.

"I don't think dumpster diving is something I plan on doing anytime soon." Nemo replied as he walked out in the forest and found an open area. "Luckily, transmogrification magic is something I'm quite familiar with." Nemo held out his gloved hand, causing a stir with the dead leaves and sticks on the ground in the area. The debris levitated up and mashed together, compacting into four human shaped targets with sturdy rods sticking out of the bottom. Nemo gestured his hand to lower the sticks into the ground, sinking the organic targets down at varying distances to create a makeshift range.

Raiya began loading a magazine of the fancy 1911. There was a faster way to do it by magic but it felt more appropriate to load each round in by hand. After she was finished she injected the magazine into the bottom of the gun and pulled the slide, chambering a round. "do you wanna go first or should I?" Raiya asked.

"Ladies first." Nemo responded with the rifle still resting on his shoulder. "I only need to zero in the scope, nothing too exciting or pressing enough to hold you up." He added.

Nemo usually always wore his shirts either untucked or half tucked, with the other half out to cover and conceal his revolver. He lifted the cloth up and over the grip to reveal his trusty handgun. He let out a light chuckle. "That is unless you want to have a bit of a shooting competition, forty five against forty five?" He proposed, then rested his cheek on his fist as he pondered. "Though that does raise the question, what would be the stakes of the contest?"

Zuri smiled nervously as she heads over to the middle of the room as she watches Travis activating the rune. She was getting more nervous as the rune grows in size. More and more seemed to happen over time, her hands, arm pits, and head starting to sweat after the laser scanning before she gets struck by the beam.

The first few seconds wasn't as bad as she imagined, but that thought quickly dissipated when the pain of getting separated flooded in. She flinches before grabbing onto her shirt near her chest, her heart rate beating a lot quicker from the shock. It was an indescribable pain, almost as if she was getting ripped apart from the inside. The curse was latching onto her and didn't want to let go.

She could feel the curse slowly being lifted, but she felt like it was going to take her with it. Zuri starts to lose control of her body as the curse starts taking over. Her arm slowly but surely starts aligning with Travis, a magic-disabling shard starts to slowly form before it aligns near perfectly at center mass of Travis over the span of 10 whole seconds.

This attack will bolt out with so much speed that no human being would even see it leave the palm of her hand, let alone dodge it, but considering how long it took since Zuri was trying to hold it back with the little control of her own body she had, she knew that Travis would be prepared to counter this attack. Hopefully.

Travis observed the Causality Scryer's progress in purging Zuri's curse. For a moment, it appeared as though the process would be without incident. If that were the case, he would have had to give its architects far more credit than he had previously given. However, it was evidently a foolish appeal in the end. Travis watched as Zuri began to recoil, expressing clear tension and what appeared to be growing agony across her face. Travis bore his clenching teeth. This was what he was concerned from the get go; a potential side effect of the curse being aggressive and procedurally cut out.

Seconds later, he soon found that whatever was befalling Zuri was not simply pain. Travis watched as her right hand slow and unsteadily raise upward. The act and movement of Zuri's arm betrayed her painful reactions, almost as if it was moving on its own accord and yet there was apparent resistance or struggle in the motion. It soon became brutally clear to Travis that this wasn't a mere byproduct of the curse being remove, it was in-fact the curse quite literally fighting back. And Zuri was trying her best to keep it in check and stop it from taking notable aim at the spell's caster.

"Aw hell," Travis muttered, quickly concluding that curse was now taking extreme measures to stop its dispelling.

In the brief moments, if not seconds before Zuri's curse would pull something, Travis recalled their battle with Rutger and remembered how Zuri formulated her attacks. Crystals. Shards of dark palette variety capable of disrupting magic and the flow of a caster's mana. The thought of either being jabbed by a large crystal or being obstructed from maintaining the spell was unappealing put the Untalent into high alert.

Sure enough, Zuri's efforts were at the breaking point as he quickly caught the materialization of one such crystal in her hand. Travis noted the first time she has had lobbed one of these projectiles and identified the insane speed it flew. It was outstanding untraceable to the common eye and that put him at a serious disadvantage, resulting in very little time to respond effectively. He had only a few seconds to spare.

"Incoming!" Travis yelled, hoping to alert Felix to the impending danger that was about to befall them, namely the Untalent in this instance.

Timing was now everything as he had no way to evade with the juncture given to him and the spell essentially kept him in place anyway. If he was going to get out of this troubling event alive, Travis needed to make his reply head-on into the trajectory of Zuri's possessed attack. Gambling on an educated guess, Travis drew his left hand out and casted instinctively projected a repulsion spell. Seeing as Zuri's crystals would likely punch through any barrier he could produce; his one methodology was to instead alter the course of the inbound crystal. Honestly, a grazing hit was better than a direct hit in his book.

Sure enough, the attack came but as Travis predicted, he, at least physically, couldn't see it coming. However, with his response planned out with mere seconds ahead of time, he concluded in the split-second moment that the crystal thrown at him was no longer in Zuri's palm and thankfully neither was it stuck into him. He however dared not draw his eyes anywhere else other than to Zuri and whatever her curse has in store. Presumably if that one stroke of defiance was the curse's last hurrah. Anticipating any more trouble, Travis began conjuring up another spell to better his defense just in case.

The curse started to manifest itself through Zuri's body as it bursts out of her back, rupturing her flesh and blood as it started to form some sort of limb before it starts charging at towards Travis at quarter of the speed of an arrow. The tip was like a spear using the same weightless armor plates she wore before. It didn't have any magic piercing ability, but instead compensates with brute strength. Zuri was in pain, blood was seeping out from the side of her mouth and eyes. Her body wasn't handling this well at all. However you could see that Zuri was still hanging in there, though it was uncertain for how long. It was a race to the finish line, and it wasn't looking good for her.

Apparently, Zuri's hideous curse had not given up and surely was far from through with Travis. To the Untalent's horror, some kind of dark and twisted entity had grotesquely revealed itself, violently through Zuri's flesh and took a near sapient shape before him. Fear and dismay was painted on Travis' face. He quickly regretted his decision in putting forth this plan of his, now having seen first hand what this curse was capable and what awful effects it was inflict upon Zuri. Thoughts of stopping the Causality Scryer ricocheted through his mind, believing that by ending the aggravating process, perhaps he could end Zuri's suffering and calm the curse residing in her.

But then what was the point of going this far now? Travis however knew that there was no stopping the spell now as it was set on eliminating. Clearly, it was working if the curse was resorting to lash out in such a manner.

Travis swallowed hard and maintained his posture, sweat accumulating and running down his skin. A moment later, the curse fully manifested itself and came with it a set of armor that Zuri had worn previous while they had fought Rutger. Without warning, the cursed entity lunged out toward Travis whom was more or less ready for the attack. Travis would however admit that facing off against something like was not what he had planned for. Still, his was nevertheless ready for it.

He quickly raised his left hand again and casted a cryo rune. The rune projected rune glowed a light bluish hue before activating and vomiting a miniature blizzard into the path of the entity, surely slowing it down and preventing it from getting any closer to him. Travis gritted his teeth as he now had two spells firing at the same time. Even with the runes being mana-efficient, he could still feeling the fatiguing effects settling in as his small reservoir of mana was being drained away. For a brief moment, he wondered if he himself or Zuri would make it though this nightmare at the rate they were going.

It was then something had caught his attention. It was the Causality Scryer and one of its rings expanding in size just before it separated into three stylized and sectioned verses of the tune they made up, forming a figurative vertical that even dwarfed him and the entity. The new runic construct then emitted a thick but transparent field within its space and pushed toward Zuri and maybe inadvertently toward the entity as well. Soon the field lit up and pulsed every half second that passed and along with his cryogentic rune still at work, it was pushing the cursed form back. Upon close exception, Travis quickly noted that each pulse was eating away at the curse while the circle drew closer.

Travis finally understood what the spell was now doing; finalizing its purging efforts.

Felix continued to sit calmly and watch the process unfold, not even flinching at the powers being displayed. It would seem to onlookers as if he was bored, as nonchalant as he was being. However, it was quite the opposite. Felix was relaxed because he was watching the events unfold through manalysis. He was concentrating on what he was seeing and feeling, and he trusted Travis would be able to face whatever was coming. The curse didn't seem to be a typical curse, and the more Felix watched the more he realized the true nature of the curse.

In a moment Felix abruptly stood up and shouted, "STOP!" the stern loudness and commanding tone to his voice would be foreign to everyone present, "TRAVIS THE CURSE ISN'T A SIMPLE CURSE. THE DARK ENERGY IS INTRINSICALLY LINKED WITH HER MAIN MANAWELL IF YOU CONTINUE TO PURGE IT ALL SHE WILL DIE!" Felix shouted frantically.

---

Raiya shrugged her shoulders, "I don't mind a friendly shooting competition, but I don't compete with a gun I am unfamiliar with. Give me a moment to play with it a bit and then we can compete."

Raiya squeezed the trigger, the fluid motion of the unique gun resonated with her body, begging her to squeeze off more shots. Raiya wasn't even focusing on the targets, she was solely focused on the gun itself, the feeling of the safety grip, the recoil and smoothness of the slide, the smell of the gun smoke. Everything clicked with her, bringing her a great sense of joy. Before she knew it she was out of ammo, the gun's sliding remaining open as the magazine ran dry. It was then that she focused on the targets, realizing that every round hit the first humanoid target in the head and the ten-ring.

Raiya let a puff of breath that she had been holding in the whole time before speaking, "Wow, this gun is amazing." Raiya said in awe.

Travis shot Felix a panicked and obviously stressed look, "now you tell me?!"

With Felix having been on the sideline the entire time observing the events as they came to be, finally hearing the Arch-Magi's desperate feedback was almost unwarranted to Travis, even after having gone so far in cutting out the curse deeply imbedded within Zuri's manawell. It was clear that the notion wasn't well received. Nevertheless, Travis frantically complied and attempted to have the Causality Scryer go a full hard stop; something he had not even performed and neither believed it to be a necessary resort. He turned his right hand in the spell control scheme, manipulating its directives to cease all actions. It was tight, but Travis managed to stop the cleaning circle within a meter of reaching Zuri and the entity before them. In procedure, the guiding beam, along with the scanning threads disengaged and vanished in response to Travis essentially throwing the spells kill switch.

Frustration and contempt manifested through his angered expression, initially throwing his exhausted gaze at the cursed being before glancing back to Felix and then to their original quarry. He breathed heavily having used both spells non-stop in over the course of a minute. While he still retained some mana left, the stress of running more than one spell lingered one but regardless of that, he still kept his left hand trained on the curse's physical profile, unsure and even doubtful if the being before them still held and volatile intent towards him.

"...well?" he loosely asked the cursed form, honestly not expecting a verbal answer though rather wanting it to disperse as he became more concerned with Zuri's condition as seconds pasted. With the entity still at play he rather not aggravate it any more by pulling anything further. Even trying to get any closer was out of the question.

Nemo grinned. "Of course it is!" He said. "It was one of mine after all, I like to maintain them as original as possible, but a few small tweaks can make all the difference. However even one of my own pieces will degenerate without proper maintenance." Nemo noted as he took a couple steps back and flipped the safety off of his rifle. "Though seeing how well you take care of your sword tells me that it's in good hands."

Nemo shouldered the rifle and took a shot after a brief pause. Nemo handled the heavy kick exceptionally well, but the hit was to the left and high of the center of the furthest wooden target's body. He didn't seem to upset about it however, and began adjusting the scope via dials on the top and side. After a few clicks Nemo shouldered the weapon, cycled the bolt, and fired again, this time hitting much closer to the perfect center.

Nemo shaded his eyes from the sun to spy the hit, after a couple moments he uttered a tsk sound to express his dissatisfaction with the result. He adjusted a dial one more tick before firing once more, this time hitting dead center.

"That'll do for now." Nemo said with a slight smile as he cycled the spent round out of the action. He flipped the safety back on and then walked back over to Raiya. The three shots weren't that impressive of a display all together, clearly he had no intention of showing off quite yet.

Raiya looked at the shots that were placed by Nemo it, it seemed to her that either he was rusty or his sights were uncalibrated. She began to reload her next magazine as she spoke, "You sure you want to do this? I might just give you a run for your money if we were to also bet on this little competition." Raiya taunted.

Nemo sent his rifle to his inventory to free up his hands. He drew his revolver and began spinning it around by his finger, staring at the weapon as it twirled. "Maybe you're right, I am starting to have second thoughts." He replied. "I don't think you have anything of value to me to bet, nothing worth the risk of losing." Nemo scoffed, abruptly stopping the spin as he finished his sentence. "It's not like I have any need of money, there are no cliched chores I can pawn off on you either. What do you have to offer? And what do you want if you win?"

Raiya stopped and thought for a moment, raising her right index finger to her lips before speaking, "How about, the winner gets to ask one favor from the loser and the loser has to do it..." Raiya paused before correcting herself, "within normal reason, of course." Raiya added. Raiya was now done loading the magazine, which she promptly slid back into the mag well, not yet pulling the slide back to charge the firearm.

"Hmmmm." Nemo emitted as he pondered the thought. "What a rather bold proposition, Raiya. I accept" He answered. "What shall the rules of this game be then? I am the most experienced marksman here, so I'll allow you to form the challenge in any way you like." Nemo said.

The extension of the curse that lunged itself towards Travis was put to a halt by a freezing spell before it could come in contact with. Zuri barely heard what Felix said to Travis, but a little while later, the pain started to slowly subside. The dark entity that crept out of her back slowly returned to the host, even healing the rupture after all of it returned. What only lasted for a few minutes felt so long to her as she returns to her own senses. Zuri looks up at Travis and Felix with tears in her eyes and smiles before she lays herself down on the floor to rest up as she didn't have any energy left to speak or move. The floor wasn't comfy but it was the only option she has, hoping that someone would pick her up and place her someplace where she can get a bit of rest before the next mission.

Travis retained his cautious posture but found that the entity no longer any harmful interest in his wellbeing. He watched with caution as the cursed form slowly retreated back into Zuri's body, seemingly uncaring now that what ever had caused it and its host harm was finally gone. Just as the entity fully withdrew back into the wound it had initially created, Zuri's bloodied and scarred flesh by that time had fully healed as if there was no paranormal rupturing to begin with. Travis gazed with astonishment, having been rightly worried for Zuri's welfare prior, now feeling strangely reassured despite the standoff that had occurred between him and her curse.

"Fascinating..." Travis muttered under his breath, temporarily out of the moment of concern for his comrade until he validated he was within safe passage to render assistance.

It soon appeared to him that Zuri quickly came to, showing no signs of discomfort any longer. Travis was still concerned as far as how the Causality Scryer failed to take into account of the livelihood of Zuri as it attempted, and nearly succeeded, in purging the still-unknown curse. Clearly, the spell nerveless did its job but not in the specifics that would meet Travis's expectations. It nagged him so and he was so close too that it seemed unreal that this was the end result of his live trial of the spell, even after all those hours spent verifying it's effectiveness. Coincidentally, the irrational contempt he presently had for Felix, whom had stopped him likely seconds away before the Causality Scryer could finish the job, was slowly eroding away.

Zuri's eventual innocent smile swayed relief over him but her silence still pulled the tight feeling of failure in his chest. Travis moved in but watched as she coiled into a ball on the floor with near child-like fashion. Certainly, it was an unusual response however not one without some justifiable merit. After what she went through, he honestly couldn't blame her. Feeling pity, guilt, and sensing the lack of resentment; his best surveyed guess anyway, Travis then scooped Zuri into his cradling arms and carried her off out of the laboratory, with him meeting Felix's eyes in the briefest of seconds in the process.

With culpability still at his throat and clouding the apologetic thoughts he so wanted to vocalize badly, he remained silent though the short trip until they had arrived at the mansion's living room. Gently, he lowered her into one of the sofas and insured her head was leveled upon one of the lying cushions. For a moment, Travis stared down at his friend with somber highlights painted unto his face. Regret and responsibility continuously jabbed at him as if subconscious was trying to tell him something; whatever that was, he eventually relented.

"I'm sorry," he spoke finally, "I wished that would have gone better than it did."

Zuri could feel someone carrying her off the floor and eventually onto a sofa with a pillow to rest her on. She briefly opened her eyes just a tiny bit when she heard Travis apologizing for what happened. Zuri looks at Travis with an empathetic expression, along with a soft smile as she says "You tried, that's all that matters.." before she closes her eyes from the fatigue.

Felix followed Travis as he carried Zuri. After Travis placed her on a couch, Felix pulled Travis aside, speaking in a hallway out of earshot of Zuri.

"Look, I'm sorry it took me so long to warn you. To be frank, I had never seen anything like that before. As I was watching through manalysis, I tried to observe her manawells. But they were shrouded with the same blackness that overcomes her when she goes berserk. It was only as it waned from your spell that I realized that there is little to nothing else inside her manawell besides that sinister blackness. I couldn't be positive until more of the blackness was erased from her manawell as your spell worked on her." Felix looked extremely concerned, his voice frantic. "The thing is, it was almost as if that berserk state was her natural state, and that the Zuri we all know is the byproduct of the curse she had placed on her. What I saw as the darkness faded around her manawell was a white seal placed around her talent well, her latent well was fueling the seals around her talent well. If that seal were to ever fall apart, we'd all be in trouble." Felix finished his explanation as he rested his hand on Travis's shoulder.

Felix let out a deep sigh. This was a serious problem for everyone. The true Zuri might be a demonic presence capable of unimaginably powerful thaumaturgy. Felix was certain that even if he was complete like he was a year ago, he'd still have trouble contending with what he saw. Who is the real Zuri? Is it the quiet and shy girl that we know? Or is that personality simply the effect of the seal that had been placed on her latent well long ago? Felix curled his forefinger on his chin as he thought to himself. Eventually he just shook his head.

"No matter what, we will treat Zuri like we always have. With respect and love. I have to believe that the part of Zuri that we see is intrinsic to her. The good nature she has has to outweigh the destructive potential she poses. In the meantime, I will study sealing magic. If that side to her ever takes over completely, we'll need a way to suppress it again. I also think that we should tell her what I saw. If she knows, perhaps she can learn to control the darkness within her, and harness it for good."

---

Raiya thought about the rules for a bit. She didn't want to tilt the odds too much in her favor, she didn't think it was very honorable to create a game where she was certain to win. "How about this? We'll have a gun race. You can use any pistol that is not automatic. We each stand 15 yards away from the mannequin target. The first one to unload 14 rounds and hit the mannequin with all of them wins. Does that sound fair?" Raiya suggested.

"Does it sound fair?" Nemo repeated, spinning his revolver again. "Raiya, even if I had two revolvers, which I do, I still wouldn't have fourteen rounds. These things aren't easy to reload you know." He replied.