@Sonnambula@ShadowSunRisen


When Riku had chosen to absorb the Lola card, she had earned the cards irritation with her. The Serei had chosen to offer no help with using it's powers nor point out how to better use it than simply giving the princess a pair of fluffy ears and tail. Cathardt was similarly silent with Thomas, though that was its nature and he was neither fond nor opposed to his holder.

But when the red eyed whale appeared before them, interposing herself between them and the dragon as she rallied them to violence against it, both Serei stirred. The wolf smelled an enemy and knew the Dragon was not it, while the feline hissed at the injustice unfolding before them. They restlessly growled to their Hosts as Kanbaru petered out, finding her lies falling on deaf ears.

There was a shimmer moving over her shoulders, the JSTR's presence just barely noticable to the two alone as it's arms curled covetously around Kanbaru's neck. The whale quirked her head, the motion now clearly in response to her parasite and not the two before her, only to settle on a savage smirk.

"Man, you two have some unlucky Serei. That naughty doggy and the Dos Equis cat really are headaches. Well, not that it matters any if you ignore them. So, why don't you put those pets in time out and help us fight the dragon? It's the quickest way out of this Abyss, and I don't think any of us have been enjoying our time in this prison."

Kanbaru wore an easy smile and conjured her sword, resting it over her shoulder as she half turned, baring a shoulder to both the pair and the dragon with her carmine eyes closed, projecting a comfort in her position that was marred by the intensity with which her parasite was eyeing Riku and Thomas.

"Or just find a rock and pop-a-squat while we sort it out. I don't expect a single dragon to be much trouble, but if you're one of those PETA folks looking to save the animals, we're gonna be having an awfully stern conversation."

She was standing there.
Watching closely.
Watching with a smile - and this smile meant little in regard to her usual smirk shaped on the lips. A cold and distant smile as if it was imprinted on her face permanently, on the never changing, constant, unamused face; it was not the case for the smile she wore on her face at this very moment. It probably was a detail of difficult significance to others and easy to remain unnoticed by many around her - or could be by everyone - but it was not to be missed by herself: Runa looked at the scenery unraveling before herself with a smile expressing an emotion of something that she would probably try to explain as joy. It was not to be put simply into the words as the source of that emotion lied elsewhere - it lied not in what she was watching to happen in front of her, it was not what caused it, and it was not what it was meant to cause further on as well. No, it was none of it, and all of it at the same time; the source of what she felt as joy was what she saw in that coenscision of events and all the numerous, countless branches which she saw, in which she was. She saw it all, she was everywhere, she felt it and at this very moment, her fragmented, scattered all across existence found the moment to align towards and in so to layer into the one specific spot of utmost precision.
What she planned, had come to fruition. All the little details, all the little movements. All was moderated by Runa - Runas, all of them - to find a loophole in the great plan of the Abyss and its fate and reach for that loophole and abuse it in her favor.

It was far from over though. There were still things to be done. But to feel all of this come into a single point of time, to moderate it into existence was a joy frilling the soul of the demoness, even though her eyes did express only the glint of intent somewhat uncanny to appear in the depth of the bottomless blue.

The dragon arose and it brought the excessive parade of pure power and destruction. The beast which once slumbered inside of one, now has awakened and growled, shaking the walls of the cavern with its loud growl full of pure undirected overconsuming rage. Its shape grew only more and further led to the cave around them to shake and to crumble, its walls painted with cracks and rocks falling out of them.
But it was only a mere beginning.

Standing still and watching, watching this rage in taken shape to grow in tensity, Runa only observed for the moment. Waiting for the beast to take the form which would show to her the path of its totality - the path which denied being looked onto, the path which denied the future. The path of destruction, the path of overconsuming destruction.
The path of apocalypse.

The demoness looked around and, watching closely at what was happening around her - Kanbaru addressing Thomas and Riku, pushing them into a fight, Akiko who already was seeking out the opportunity to strike the dragon at its possible weak point. But there was a resonance of hesitation formed in a cloud of doubt lingering over Nephetos's head and seeking deeply in her eyes. Runa sensed it, was not very difficult to for her as she knew the undead samurai all for too long of a time to pick up on things alien to her behavior like that on a moment. Without a word said she rested her gaze onto the space before Nephetos and a moment flicker she was standing right in front of her, eye to eye.

“Your hand is not as quick and merciless as it tends to be in times of different than now, Nephetos. ”, Runa said with her usual smile, “We have come to this moment, Nephetos. We have reached it, or would I say we made it to reach to us. And yet something holds your hand from the grip on the sword. What would that be?”

Much had happened since the princess was lost in the haze, but eventually snapped out of it by Thomas. When the visions of her mother had left her, her mind was still caught in a storm of mixed emotions in the illusion's wake. The loud beastial roars of the black dragon and Kanbaru's warnings soon snapped her back to reality.

"So that thing is Katie!? What!? We can't just go attack her!" The princess hesitated immediately.

"Can we try and speak to her? Being in that state can't be good for her and this isn't the way we should use to break out of here. Why don't we try and calm her? Maybe my Lola card could be put to work and speak to her."

Riku would channel the serei energy inside herself and prepare herself to try and talk down the mighty dragon.

"A dirty creature such as yourself couldn't match Katie anyways. I can speak to her on her own terms and there's no need to agitate her further. You'd likely just fuel her fire."

______________________________________________________



Nephy is indeed not her usual self. She is quiet and listless, keeping away from the group and observing the beast directly from afar. She'd check over the hilt of her blade and wonder what her family would've wanted for her. Her mother's dreams of her living a peaceful life fell away to Nephy's path to the sword. It did not sit well with her using Katie in such a manner.

"I am just feeling this is not the way we intended is all. Nor do I think this is our moment, as other forces that be have forced our hand in a way that I find annoying."

She did not want to speak any further of the JSTR, and would stick by Runa's side.

"I suppose they will know now that you are not who you say you are. Perhaps Katie will kill off some of the weaker runts of the litter and make our jobs easier."

The very moment the blackened beast filled Thomas’ sight was the moment a harsh and resounding melody screeched in his head. A noise and tune only he could hear; the instrument of Death’s calling filtered the screeches and monstrous roars of the black dragon into a melody that danced off Marianne’s fingers by their own making. Whatever it meant, it spelled the same dread the massive dragon evoked as it continued hovering above the party and what was left of the Abyssal caverns. But before the dragon could make its first move, another force stirred in front of Thomas.

Kanbaru’s appearance and words said one thing while the tune in Thomas’ head said another. The dragon’s song spurned into something else entirely that bristled with the unseen danger the whale brought with her. Still, whatever grievances Kanbaru had with Riku and whatever veiled implications her words held, there was little doubt those words were true. Even Riku agreed the dragon came as a first priority with an offered plan. All the same, the near-familiar song Marianne played out in Thomas’ mind didn’t cease.

It only took a pause when the dragon high up let loose another world-shattering roar. Its massively black wings beat once like a hammer driven into the nail and a gust of horrible pressure blew outwards towards everyone below it, friend or foe alike. The Abyss’ ceiling cracked from the sheer brunt of the force and the air weaponized and rocketed towards the entire party like an invisible sword slash. The black dragon waited no more and a horrid black flame leaked out from its maw.

The air around its jaws became dense and hot with an obsidian energy that bent all space around it. Gathered and constricted into an orb, the dragon hurled out blackened balls of fire nearly akin to meteors. They rained from above like heaven’s unholy judgement, arcing and streaking towards everyone be it Thomas and Akiko, Kanbaru and Riku, Runa and Nephy. The dragon lurched its wings backwards after the first volley and charged right towards the ground to bombard and ram everyone present with its own darkened body.

---

Thomas grit his teeth, an appropriately piercing melody played with perfect accuracy and articulation within his own mind and soul, a melody that only he could hear. A melody that screamed danger and despair, with the dragon's own guttural howls acting almost like a distorted countermelody to it. Quite the stark contrast to what followed quite abruptly after, as Kanbaru approached both him and Riku.

Now, instead of an outright burst of malice, the music instead told a far more subtle, but yet still sinister, story. It was much like Kanbaru's demeanour, her predatory smirk and the way it felt she was looking, staring at them... or was that even Kanbaru at all? Whoever and whatever didn't really matter though, what mattered was the way it came across, how off it felt. The recognisable quality of the melody didn't even rub off on the boy, not yet at this point. But it did give him the idea that something was up.

The realisation that this dark, menacing beast was Katie, however, was something that resonated loudly over the music in his already sound-filled mind. Not to mention the questions that came with it, but for now that was neither here nor there. Thomas' head snapped to Riku, his countenance creased with confusion and absolute bewilderment, and then back to the dragon. Or, well, Katie.

"That... that can't be..."

Now all ideas of attack and retaliation became a lot less favourable to the boy, as it did for Riku as well, though at the same time the task of talking her down or out of this state, of which she seemed to have little or no control over, seemed close to fruitless. How could they reason with a dragon that large on the attack, no matter who it was below the scales? And attack it did, a deadly rush of air pressure slicing through the atmosphere at a breakneck speed towards the group. Materialising his glaive near instantly and bracing himself, Thomas began to perform quick and precise revolutions with the weapon, spinning it and building up momentum, before that built up force and energy met the impact of the blow, blocking and practically negating it save for the boy being forced back a few paces.

But that was only the start of it. As the crumbling ceiling of the Abyss hurled debris down to the party, an onslaught of dark fireballs was launched their way as well, a lethal shower of obsidian flame. The boy weaved and dodged his way around them as best as he could, and with surprising elegance too, though a few small burns and singed hairs were certainly visible, even after using his glaive to ward away the last few that were sent towards him.

And, if that wasn't enough, the dragon followed in its projectiles' footsteps, swooping down and hurtling towards the group like a machine, uncompromising in speed and power and about the most menacing image Thomas had seen so far during his time in the Tower. Was this really Katie? This bringer of absolute destruction, attacking with reckless abandon and a lack of compassion that made the regular Katie seem like an overbearing aunt in comparison. Perhaps a previous version of the boy would've dived out of the way at this point into safety, or gone to someone else to help him or tell him what to do. But at that moment, given the circumstances, the idea of that was inconceivable to Thomas. Maybe it was partially down to the fact that he felt he had little, if anything, to lose at this point. But if there was any chance that he could get through to Katie, then he was going to take it, whether it seemed hopeless or not.

The melody in his head now played louder than ever, but Thomas didn't hear it at all. His violet eyes gleamed as he waited for the right moment, staring down a colossal jaw and a seemingly soulless pair of marble-like eyes while counting down the seconds. And then he closed his eyes, and leapt.

Palms clutching, fingers gripping for dear life, arms and legs wrapped tightly around that long and winding tail. When he opened his eyes, Thomas couldn't quite believe what he saw before him. A back. A gargantuan back. The dragon's back, just in front of him. He'd actually made it. Though the boy was hesitant to call it a success just yet though, in fact he was far from it, given that now came the equally difficult task of staying on the damn thing, as well as getting off of its tail and onto its back...

---

"It's simple, Thomas. We need to kill it."

She turned towards Riku momentarily as she snapped back from Kanbaru's comments. "Talking here isn't going to work. You've tried a couple of times before, it's never worked..." She glanced back at the dragon for a couple of seconds before she hesitated. That was Katie, whether Akiko wanted to admit it or not. Call her crazy for actually growing a heart, but... Katie meant something to Riku. Maybe it was the multiple times prying at her, but as rocks came crashing down onto the group they shattered over Riku and (the soon-to-be-moving) Thomas, Castle having stepped in.

"... but if you want to try again, I'll stay by you." Akiko nodded to Riku, taking a fighting position and staring at the monster. Never did she imagine that she'd be playing the role she craved, but here she was. A future queen fighting for a past princess. The irony was thick enough to stab.

Akiko's words had landed, but the group's actions worked before she could. Her eyes were flashing a myriad of colors, Castle standing at the ready as Akiko moved before she thought. They'd had a similar fight before this in another loop, they could do it again. The issue was how big this monster was, but the adage from ages ago gave Akiko the hope she needed. The bigger they are, the harder they fall, of course.

Runa and Nephy sat brooding, Kanbaru was watching the crew perform, Thomas had already jumped into action, and Riku was going to try and talk to it. The dragon still rushed for the group and it make Akiko need to act. With a flash of green and red, Castle emerged and chimed with its rush, uncaring of who heard or saw. "MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDA!" It beat against the ground, the world starting to shatter and restructure itself as if it had always been something else - a roof, catching a few of the meteoric projectiles and Castle's fist even smashing through a couple of them itself! Of course, it wasn't a perfect fit, Hellsword stepping in to provide support and piece everything together with bones and fungus, but it held up as more and more fire crashed into it.

"If you're going to reason with it, Riku, now would be a good time to start!" Akiko shook the blood off her hands, ignoring the wounds and lacerations that resulted in punching through stone. Hellsword felt the need to chime in.

"Why are we not assaulting it? Why aren't you and your stand attempting to break its jaws?"

"Well I didn't see growing a conscience in my future, Hellsword, now keep the barrier up!" Akiko's fists sputtered more blood as Castle pushed its range, taking out more fireballs but being unable to pursue further. Seems its range was capped at 7 meters maximum. An odd number, but Akiko never really contemplated how far Castle could go out.

"Sheesh, is everyone here a delinquent, cause no one is fond of listening!" Kanbaru wailed dramatically, swooning backwards with the back of her hand to her brow, overcome with glut of people actually trying to console the dragon and stop it's rage. Her parasite shared the sentiment with far less drama, the feeling of judgemental, disgusted eyes striking Nephy like a physical weight. After all, what beast would choose to remain in their cage rather then the bite the hand holding the door but one that had grown fat in their domesticated lifestyle.

"At least they aren't hindering us." Kanbaru consoled the silent specter as fireballs and force came crashing torwards them in a display of hellish fury. Still not enough of said rage for the Jester's plans, so she called upon her control of water and focused it upon herself. Both hands curled arouns her sword and she braced it low to her side as she felt the fluids in and around her musculature.

She pulled them tightly, lengthening every fiber to the limit without shredding them, forcing her peak ability out without pushing the boundaries. It made her sword light as feather and her feet felt airy against the stone. With a shout and heave she hurled her sword forward as a horizontal sawblade with a boom of displaced air as it parted fireballs on a collision coarse for Katie's tail and the only male in their party currently climbing it. "I told him to sit it out."

Though once her weapon was airborne she found the curious sight of Akiko trying to punch fireballs, made all the stranger by her seemingly helping Riku. It was abundantly clear that Riku would be in the camp of 'calm Katie down' so Akiko's support was....disheartening. She had mixed feelings on the cat girl but betrayal was not something Kanbaru took any pleasure in.

The JSTR even less so, her saw whirling with murderous intent before kicked off the ground dripping water from her hat and cloak. A dopple of her made from pure water was following her every action as she leaped torwards the pair of princess and queen. with clenched fists and a mirthless expression. She alighted outside of Castle's range, wisps of steaming washing off of her as heat and water clashed, but the spikes in heat wouldn't pull her gaze from Akiko.

"I really hope you're not helping that dog out of the goodness of your heart, cause we both know it's black as pitch."

Riku took cover and shelter among Akiko as she dealt with the hail of fire. She felt almost useless unable to withstand the fury of the unleashed dragon. Akiko and Thomas's support was motivating, and even Kanbaru seemed willing to help in her own way. The strain she was putting on the others was obvious and she would not have much time to make her attempt at talking to Katie. Once a clearing in the fire had been made, the princess ran ahead with brash confidence.

"Thank you! I won't forget this you guys! I'll do good for you, I promise!" The princess turned back to wave before nearly getting incinerated, dodging ahead and rushing up Katie's black tail.

Clutching onto a slimy scaly hide, the princess climbed up with her hands to pull up the beast's backside. She reached the spine scales of the dragon, calling out all the wild. She would follow Thomas's lead, spurred on by his success to move as fast as she could.

"Katie! I know you're in there! We're on your side! Not your enemies! Something else is pushing you to be this way! This isn't like you!" The princess asserted. She was not sure if it were true, but she would like it to be true so said so anyway.

"You're hurting our team! I know we're not friends, but we're stuck in these worlds together! There are greater things for us all to do here, and I know you are more than just a mad beast! You've protected me and guided me the whole time you were here! I'm sorry I ran off with Runa, I really am! Don't you want to chew me out over that instead of lobbing fire everywhere! That's what friends are for right, and that's what we are! We're friends!"

Thinking on her serei card, Riku tried to draw on Lola's charm for her words.

"Dog lady you really need to help right now! And quickly, please!"

Mercy? Compassion? Ridiculous, and the notions of any of that were lost on the rampaging black beast. Hell continued to rain down on the party as a whole. Great chunks of the Abyssal ceiling and splintered off segments of what remained as fireballs crashed into the ground and scattered the already ruinous landscape that was beneath it. It was no doubt a glorious sight for Runa to see. Even Nephy had to have been ecstatic at the prospect of freedom at last, though the bestial roars of the dragon reminded her of current events.

The beast rocketed down and forward just feet away from the ground like a hurled building. By the time it picked up ascension again two stowaways somehow proxied themselves on its back, albeit one slightly scorched from Kanbaru’s lack of care for redirection. What were they trying to do? Reason with it? Absurd. The cat and her Stand further ignited a deep and unsettled rage within the black dragon with its face looking down on the world below. An attempt to destroy it? The suggestion was also futile.

Of all the timelines that led to this conclusion, all of them led in whatever Floor they resided in burned to the ground and no victory against the fell beast. It stoked the dragon’s fires, externally and literally as the black flames leapt up and at any moving thing with a mind of their own. Billowing on the ground wherever they landed, they spread like physical wildfire to consume everything in their inky heat. The dragon puffed its wings and made way to dive again only to halt in its descent with a voice reaching its mind.

Where once before Riku’s words failed to breach even the beast’s skull, now they were magnified and reverberated like a megaphone. This was to be the work of her Serei card no doubt but to the dragon it only caused confusion and a pause in its behavior. Another roar shook the world and the winds as it thrashed its head manically, eager to drown the voice and words in its head. Its tail and body rippled, dangerously daring to toss Riku and Thomas off like bugs.

---

---

"Really, Kanbaru?" Akiko asked, not feigning any sort of fake joy or laughter, just speaking with pure disdain. "Are you really doing this right now?" She took a step closer to Kanbaru, with full intent to let her have it, but she held her tongue and instead relaxed. Coincidentally, as she relaxed, a red flash of her eye indicated something... new.

"Bluey, respectfully, I think you're ignoring the... ahem, dragon in the room." Akiko motioned her bloody and bruised hands towards the giant dragon made of darkness in the room. "Keeping the princess alive, despite any of your objections, is ideal for right now. Unless, of course you may be... jealous?" She let out a tiny smirk, Castle slamming through another fireball as the barrier held strong.

"And here I thought that you weren't capable of being jealous of the princess! Ohoho, how rich!" Akiko's hand curled smugly over her mouth, Hellsword turning to witness the full smugness with a shake of their head. "Though, maybe my heart can be so easily won. After all, her words, foolish as we both thought, do seem to be working to our benefit." She turned to look at the dragon's struggling. Most people around here wouldn't think twice about Akiko's musings, but Kanbaru had the disadvantage of daring to come close to the cat's circle of influence.

"Well, I'm afraid I must be off! It'd be bad politics if a queen were to let a princess die, after all, regardless of the ears decorating her head!" Castle grabbed Akiko by the waist as she waved to Kanbaru, the queen taunting the whale into action as she was quite literally thrown into the fray, herself bulleting through the air and landing next to Riku on the monster's back.

"Heeey Riku~." Akiko started, her legs turning into tendrils to latch onto this monster with. "I know you reeeally care about Katie, but this monster isn't her anymore, and the only way we're getting out is getting this thing to destroy the Abyss. But, if it makes you feel better..." Akiko leaned over to Riku, almost tenderly so. "There will be one chance to pluck Katie out from this thing and separate her from it as it explodes." Castle began to slam it's claws into the dragon, drawing impressive amounts of damage from it's form as Akiko continued to chat. "I'll let you know when, but for now, you dying isn't going to help anyone, much less me. So... whatever power you can unleash on this beast, please, do it. So we can all get out of here."

Hellsword, meanwhile, kept themself near Kanbaru with the barrier sill up. They looked over at the whale for a moment before making a simple statement. "Bold choice, caring for that one. Far bolder to disagree, since she's seen through countless futures by this point."

They too started to work their magic as the abyss started to quake with some other presence. As if, somehow following behind them, the blue fungus that infected the crabs from the previous encounter started to sprout nearby, growing like a blanket of moss and mold throughout the battleground. It'd take a little time, but soon enough this monster would start feeling the influence as well. Maybe not overwhelmingly, but it'd hopefully at least contribute to the battle efforts to rile this monster up, maybe even destroy it.

"Do us all a favor, Kanbaru. Put aside your Jester and realize she has a plan, yeah? She was doing what she always does - biding her time."

"Katie! Please! Listen to me you big idiot! I know we haven't known each other for a while but you can't be that angry at me!"

The princess dug her feet into that scaly hide and held her ground, or the dragon in this case. She'd cling tight to the thrashing monster as Akiko offered her suggestions.

"I'm trying! It's a lot harder than it looks! This stupid card isn't giving me any suggestions either! We can do both! She can help us in this form I know it!" Riku wished to blame the card, but knew it was up to her at the end to summon the power forward.

With her resolve made up, Riku made the climb up the dangerous beast to reach into her ear. She'd summon the serei's power from her heart and imbue it into her voice as a golden power shined through her throat and mouth. With her voice so close that only Katie could hear, the princess would speak.

"Katie...I'm with you here. We can get through this together. Just follow me and I'll guide us both out of here!"

That was the last she is able to speak, as a black arrow sunk into her back and struck her down from the rampaging beast. The princess would scream and fall to the rocky ground. The arrow pierced her lung, causing blood to leak from her mouth instead of that potent voice, leaving Katie alone to continue her rampage.

Nephy stepped out from the cliff overlooking the scene. Her mother's bow disappearing into shadow, leaving her hands.

"I'm not letting the stupid runt doom us all. This is going to continue, and I will make sure of it."

Pathetic. It was pathetic; all these attempts to sway the black beast, more and more figures scaling up its form like bugs. The dragon’s roars became vibrant once more with Riku’s control stumbling no thanks to Akiko and others. The amalgamation that was Katie felt nothing of the blows put into it by the spectral Castle, nor did it find any interest in the supposed plan below. If anything, its rage was stoked more and a vehement stream of blackened energy came spewing at its maw to the world and its growing mushrooms below. The space around its breath distorted and collapsed upon itself, the same veil of gravity rushing outwards against its hide.

Thomas and Akiko would fly off easily from the sudden gravity rush, the raw prowess of space itself too much for either to handle. There was little care or virtue where they ended up but Riku cropped against the dragon’s head. By choice or chance, she avoided the dragon’s instinctual attack, once more trying to use reason to stay the beast’s wrath. And just like before the dragon abruptly paused in its wake, the powerful influence of Lola’s Serei card amplifying Riku’s suggestions across its ear. The dragon thrashed its head and snarled but it continued.

Hatred and a desire to burn all things festered in its heart but the smothering charisma of a wolf and a pup found itself slowly clouding even those instincts. So lost was the dragon in its haze it hardly noticed Riku plopping off its form with an arrow reamed through her or the influence ending just as quick. It was too late.

The dragon swiveled and turned. Its wings lost focus before suddenly bursting outwards in plumes of black flames. A new noise entered the dragon’s vocal range as it descended like a fallen angel from the skies. The fire ignited and spread more and more until it coated the dragon’s entire body.

Like a blackened meteor ripped out from the heavens the dragon fell off some distance from the main group with a resounding crash that rippled through the entire Abyss. The very ceiling it was destined to destroy remained intact albeit with several cracks and fractures thanks to the dragon’s assault. But it was not quite shattered and destroyed, the Floor remaining intact as it was.

Wherever the dragon landed, it was hard to say; the entire landscape was coated in blackened fire and abnormal mushroom growth with Katie nowhere to be found in the mess, assuming she was even back to normal.

Runa and Nephy’s plan failed for now. But there were contingencies.

---

It was a scream that forced Thomas back into consciousness, his head suddenly raising from the jagged, rocky bed it had landed on. And boy had he landed hard. An aching, throbbing pain cried and begged for release within his skull from the impact he'd had, and somewhere along the way he'd gained a large gash above his left eye, a stream of blood steadily pouring from it that forced him to keep that eye shut most of the time, unless he wanted it to start stinging like hell too.

He wasn't sure how it had happened, or how long it had been now since it happened, but it was clear to the boy that somewhere along the way he'd been flung off of Katie's back. Presumably before he could reach her head.

Thomas steadily raised himself up, supporting himself with various pieces of fallen debris as he gauged his surroundings. And, though perhaps just about recognisable, it was clear he'd missed some stuff. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly and indeed noticeably, Katie was gone. Or at least, her dragon form was. And secondly, was the sheer amount of destruction that had taken place in his absence. It was a wonder to the boy that he hadn't been crushed by falling rock in his state of vulnerability, or that he hadn't been completely scorched to a crisp by the raging flames that licked up aggressively from just about everywhere around him.

Before Thomas could even move to regroup with his teammates though, an almighty quake sent him right back down to the ground almost as suddenly as he'd awoken before even more debris fell around him as a result. By now the boy was shaking, uncertain, paranoid, even fearful. It was just one thing after another. But nonetheless he stood back up with a sigh, before groaning as some blood seeped into his eye despite his best efforts, and began to move. With a crash that sheer in scale, it didn't take him too long to figure out what probably caused it, or rather who caused it. And so, he'd try and make his way towards it and probably find the others along the way. And that's when he saw Riku.

It was odd that he was seeing her like this again in a fairly similar context to when he'd seen her like this last. But the reaction he had was completely different. And even the knowledge that she would most likely resurrect herself again even if the worst was to pass did little, if anything, to comfort him.

"Riku!"

A desperate cry echoed through the fractured chasm as the boy rushed to his friend's side, violet eyes fraught with concern and fear for her safety as he assessed her condition. With a gentle shove he got Riku on her side, letting the blood coming up from her mouth steadily pour out onto the ground instead of back down her throat. But at this point, the boy wasn't sure how much his efforts would be worth.

"Kanbaru, Akiko!"

He called out to his fellow group members, scanning wide-eyed over the surrounding flames and debris to try and catch sight of them, before turning back to the fallen princess.

"Hey, come on Riku, say something. Y-you can just come back, right? You'll be ok?"

Thomas began to sound breathless, his voice filled with panic as he held on tight to his bleeding friend.

---

Now that was not how she “expected” things to go - but expectations in case of Runa who defied time by her existence was a matter of somewhat different approach compared to creatures of different perception of time, one would say “normal” perception of time, but the term of normality made of little sense to Runa. As she viewed expectations different from others - they were more of a sketches of the future to come into a shape, shaped up from the multitude of perspectives her abilities allowed her to see, to take into consideration and narrow the events into the outcome she saw the most fitting for the collective of her presences. Even though the slips occasionally were to happen anyway.

But new circumstances were nothing but a new context for a new path to shape forward from where they ended up being in their existence. The turns of events were to unroll this way and now Runa had only to put it into a new perspective and onto new tracks - after all it was easier than putting them back on the old tracks.

The demoness shifted and flickered in the air, disappearing from being seen by anyone - in presence and sight she just vanished into nothing and from the same nothing she appeared alongside where the dragon fell. The dragon which was back to being Katie - despite everything the little Princess managed to get that beast to come into senses. It picked Runa’s interest for thinking through it later, but as of now she had other things to do.

“How fitting that you would end up laying in here”, the demoness was to say to the laying Katie. They both were to find themselves into a massive crater - a gigantic hole in the earth, a wound inflicted into the Abyss from the explosion and erosion old and massive - yet the ground around the place remained cold and lifeless, and was not touched not by moss, not occupied by a variety of creatures and monsters inhabiting the place. And it was not only the rocks alone - instead of the rocky ground on which one would expect to find themselves, Katie and Runa stood on a piece of structure made by a hand knowing of art and craft - and unlike the structures of the fort they were at before, this looked way more grandiose and rich, regal and signifying power.

They were standing on top of the palace which too was brought down from above to find its grave in this dark world. The various signs and marks of the crater and the palace were to look inward imploded, as if the ground itself was to blow up from inside, as something tried to burst out of the darkest depths of this place, and yet it was clear that the collision happened from above, creating massive walls of rocks to surround them.

“Remember my story about the world above us which once found its death and fell into here, like in a rain? It started here.”, Runa said as she made her way towards Katie, in a calm pace and her usual smile frozen on her face, “I do think it is a rather impressive exposition of how hungry this place is. The Abyss. It yearns to swallow everything on its way. It erupted here, reached over the above and pulled the world from above into itself, devouring it. It matters little if it is a single person or a nation. Such is the nature of this place. Hungry bottomless pit.”

A blackened blaze is what Runa found as if drawn naturally to the distortion that was Katie. The fiery energy died down, slowly but it did so like a dying flame, until the blackened etches formed into a familiar dark coat. Katie was no worse for wear, for the most part, scuffed and face down into the ground seemingly unconcious. Whether the sheer impact of her fall caused the crater or it truly was some relic of a time once told, it was hard to say, but she was beyond the help and the distance of the others. As Runa approached, a soft crack filled the air and a splintered section of the palace's pillars fell off like a jagged lightning bolt in front of Runa's feet. It was a bad omen, a sign of misfortune, but probably the only warning the demoness would get.

A plume of blackness manifested out of Katie, forming into a scaled spectral fist that launched itself outwards towards where Runa was standing. Whether she dodged or not wasn't really a concern, the arm's owner slowly lifting herself off the ground. "I really, don't give a shit. Lecturing like that is bad for my migraine," said an unamused Katie, already back to her feet and scuffing off the dust from her attire. The arm remained behind her, still attached to her frame and hovering like a massive cannon ready to fire again. "It's not often I get pissed like that. Maybe I should thank Riku for the pep talk."

Runa’s emotions and reactions were hard to read by anyone - and herself in that case as well. She felt the rising mass of energy forming around the downed girl, the shape of it coming to seep into the ground on which they stood and infecting the marble of the palace with a tingling flicker of electricity shifting and acting out of place - yet visibly Runa paid little attention to that omen. It was not about omens from now on, it was not about survival and winning either. A multitude of roads opened before her and she had to narrow that labyrinth down to a singular path.

The black haze to shape and manifest itself into a massive fist launched towards the demoness, to which she only flickered and moved aside from its trajectory, seeing Katie to rise up from her as hazy state and now standing face to face with her, the blackened cloud of her anger still held into a formed fist, visibly twitching from its readiness to strike once again if desired.

“I am not surprised. In the end, all of this is just a challenge to you all, adventurers. No matter”, Runa said and crossed her arms on her chest, her eyes cold and passionless as never before, “Yes, the princess managed to break against all odds. She is quite an interesting character. Things lay ahead of her, but she remains the most elusive. Evaded both you and me. Quite an interesting trait.”

"Out of everyone here, you're the one that always makes the least sense. Every time too. I bet you have experience in that," Katie said deadpan. The fist behind her began to fizzle away in drenched black smoke as the air itself contorted and burned. "If I'm remembering right, something, something, you and that mutt want out. It's all since come back to me, and every time I remember you being the most annoying one." Katie sighed to herself more out of the effort than anything else, already unlatching her blade and pointing Pendragon right at the demoness. "Frankly, I think I blame you for this whole mess. Or, well, I've got all this lingering rage still inside and you're the closest thing to kill," said Katie with a faint gleam in her gaze.

"It's nothing personal. You just piss me off," she said before gunfire filled the air and Pendragon lighting up.

“Oh, thank you for the compliment”, Runa said in regard to the line of making no sense to Katie, “I do feel it is only fitting for you to be at disadvantage to how you see things, but it is a matter of a perspective in the end”

Runa shrugged and watched the fist of anger fizzle and drench away, leaving a trace of smoke and burned air behind it, a cloud of shadows rising and coating the space around Katie as the girl then drew her blade out and pointed it at the demoness standing idly.

“Wanting out is only natural, is it not? But then again, no matter. We are at the different disposition now and the time of talking is no more”, Runa said looking at Katie and that sword of hers, while stretching her hand somewhat sideways in order to summon her spear, which soon shaped up in its form in Runa’s hand, alien and flickering as was herself.

“I do not take it personally, of course I don’t. We just happened to be at the place of space and time here, and we are at war which will help us both. So come. Lend your help.”

A shot rang out, echoing and bouncing between the marble of the palace and the rocky walls of the crater, as the charge was fired at the demoness, who again, met it with a flickering shape and disappeared from its trajectory, only to appear again in a fragment of a moment later - Runa’s dashing motions shortening the distance between her and Katie with the blade of the spear aimed at her in a simple and direct attack

"Nice trick. You must be the life of parties down here," Katie mused. She was already charging at the demoness step for step in a flicker of speed, blade swung low to high with enough force to smack back the spear the moment the metal clashed. Violent sparks rang out between the two, Katie's strength and experience hardly displayed in her motions. "I never took you as the fighting type. You left that part up to Nephy, so maybe you shouldn't bite more than you can chew." War or not, it meant very little to Katie in the moment. Already with the distance closed between them, she balled her free hand into a fist before launching a flat out punch into Runa's face. Or stomach. Or wherever really, as she aimed in the demoness' general direction, heels ready to pivot and dash towards the next spot Runa wanted to flicker towards.

"If it's having your head lobbed off, I'm happy to help."

The metal clashed, the metal caused the sparks of the fighters’s energy to fuel the air with shades, the weapons swinging and finding each other in the trajectories both girls put them into caused cascades of stretched out shapes of color painting the paths the weapons went in before the collision and after them. Even though Runa indeed did not appear as a fighting type, her agility with the spear was more than obvious to show she was more than capable of using this weapon and putting it into use. Even though the direct attack the demoness put on was rather easy to evade and deflect, Runa herself deflected and evaded well.

But it came out to be that her dashing was not the only way to abuse time and disrupt it. Right as Katie’s fist made its impact with Runa’s stomach, pushing through the solidness of her body and causing the demoness to take a step back, or two - pushed behind; a flickering motion was to appear again, but coming not from Runa..
But from another Runa, who appeared right behind the girl, the very same spear in her hands, flickering and aiming to strike down at her in a motion which made the appearance of the reality before Katie’s eyes itself to acquire cracks on its surface.

“You might want to consider saving that energy of yours”, both Runas said in the momentum.

"And you might want to watch where you step," was Katie's response.

Her instincts told her to turn and turn she did, Pendragon raised up as more metal kissed metal, pacing her steps as she spun away from between the two Runas. No sooner was she away did the first one find her foot stepping into a cracked portion of the ground. It gave away immediately as debris and crumbling terrain fell into the distance, the dark abyss that made for the ruin's pools. Katie was already back in position, Pendragon still aimed at both now. "You should have paid attention to that omen. Don't you know it's bad luck to hang around a raven?" she said with the shadow of a smirk. With two of them that made for two targets each for Pendragon to ripple and fire off bullets dense enough to rip through stone on impact as they launched out of the blade's mechanism.

Pair of spears hit the empty spot, making the ground to crack and shatter under the force of both strikes as Katie made her way away from between two Runas and gained a position to aim at both of them now, with the marble ground underneath them all to once again remember the sensation of scars to run through as the floor started to crackle and pieces of structure disappearing in the black pit of the Abyss under one of Runa’s foot; taking a moment for them to once again find a better positioning.

“Not bad. Usually it takes this little trick alone to solve it. You are the second one to do this. Congratulations”, one of the Runas said, the other applauding to Katie once after - only for both of them to flicker away in a quick dashing motion - away from the shots fired at them which left the drilling holes in the stone around them and two spear wielding figures to shorten the distance once again: one using the other’s spear as a platform for a jump during which she disappeared from the view into the flickering absence, and the other one once again aiming the piercing strike at the firing girl, slashing directly at her weapon of all things.

"Call it luck or call it a curse, but call it what it is. An advantage."

Katie continued firing off shots, the air billowing with smoke from Pendragon's discharge. No sooner did they ripple in the air and crack sound with force did the two demons flicker out of time again. "Oh typical. Are you going to do that the entire time?" Katie jumped away from the one rocketing towards her, blade brought up to slash upwards instead of blocking or deflection. Once more the sheer force in her swing was enough to send the air flowing, if not blow back the demoness entirely. But no, she wasn't supposed to play defensive. She wanted the demoness' head, didn't she? That notion alone made her pivot a step forward before rocketing at Runa be it blown back or not. Pendragon dancing along her fingers like bladed death, she slashed voraciously and without mercy.

As Katie went offensive, her swings aiming to push the demoness further back to stun her and further to launch at with a rocketing speed - the second Runa from before appeared once again from the position unorthodox for appearances in general even for the demoness herself. The raven aiming to blow the deadliest of slashes, cutting through the air and making it to flicker similar to how Runa herself did, made the first one to evade and play defensive - but then out of from under Katie’s feet the Runa who disappeared amidst the jump before, rocketed herself - the inertia gained by her in the jump - which she only accumulated as she flickered out of the place - was now to come out in the full force. Even though it was to come upside down in perspective, the power itself was there and the demoness’s kick was aimed at the attacking raven; enough of the force to disrupt her attack at the very least.

“Entire time? Now you make no sense to me. How amusing.”

But with the second the third would come as well, with the support of the first one they were to close up on Katie and start striking at her with the piercing strikes of the spears, aiming to abuse her offensive assault; the Runa who was to launch herself upwards was to slash her spear against the air, making the reality to shatter and crack once again and the small shards, reflecting fragments of reality with the edges sharp the demoness was to launch at Katie, throwing them at her with the spear and leaving the deep blue cutting shades of color to follow the thrown pieces and disrupt the coloring palette of the place they fought at: each shape of a trajectory disrupting the colors to be seen through.

"Oh so you can do more than buck and dodge," Katie mused at the demoness' manuevers. The multiple copies were little more than body shields for her to contend with as far as she was concerned. Pendragon was swiftly brought down with the brunt wide width of the blade taking the kick meant for her. Runa's-well one of them-boot met with the weapon before Katie threw them both backwards with a followup swing. Skidding backwards, she suddenly found herself in the opposite position from just a moment before, swinging and spinning Pendragon to deflect and physically bat away the spear strikes aimed for her by Runa's next onslaught.

The air shimmered once before cracking, splintering more so from the demoness' abuse of time than anything else. It was beginning to get annoying and even a liability as those same shards of fractal reality came pelting at Katie like an ice storm. "How nice," she muttered, spinning Pendragon horizontally in one hand until the blade became more akin to a buzzsaw. More importantly, it was a shield against the fractal barrage as the shards burst on contact meeting the spinning metal. "I can do this all day Runa so let's cut this short-"

A heavy weight seethed somewhere in her chest that made Katie flinch. It burst at her nerves with a sharp pain and made her stumble about, some shards getting through and hitting her leg with equal pain. "Shit," she hissed, knowing full well the familiar sensation drawing upon her. She tore away the shard from her thigh and kept up her defense even as the fatigue of her prior rampage finally caught up to her in spades.

“So can I. Days and hours, weeks and minutes are of no matter to me. Or to us. However you would like to comprehend me”, Runa said with little additional tone put into the words - there was no hate, no cheeky intonation, no smugness. The words were cold and merely informative - informing Katie on the fact that this can go on, go on more and more, and the demoness would know of little fatigue.

The storm of shards of reality itself were still storming at Katie who covered herself behind the shield of her weapon as Pendragon adapted to Katie’s tactic in its spinning protective shape. Runa - or rather Runas - kept on pushing with the same tactic, only to drag on time a little more: the Runa in the air was using her spear piercing through and castiving more of the sharp reflective shards at Katie, managing to land a few hits. All while it was to come as a cover for two demonesses on the ground to shorten the distance between them and Katie, and while one was to push at the spinning weapon in order to stop its defensive shape, the other was to come from a flank and pierce the ground underneath Katie’s feet in order to send cracks across it too, the reflective shards forming underneath the raven, forming its spikes upwards, aiming at her and soon to burst at her like a closing beartrap.

"Tch."

Gravity distorted and bent along Katie's form. As if handled by an unseen force her body was launched off the ground and away from the Runas and their pronged assault. Pendragon remained spinning in her hand and with a hurl of her arm she threw her blade like a shuriken right at the one sending the shards her way. Pendragon hissed in the air as it traveled in trajectory, slight indentions made along its surface and wherever else it made contact with as space ruptured around the weapon before finally cutting through the attacking Runa. It grinded and cut into Runa's front and midsection before slicing through completely. The demoness, one of them at least was left with two halves flying with the dripping segments of her upper and lower torso sucked into the whirlwind that was Pendragon like a black hole.

Throughout all this Katie continued dodging and moving, running along the ruined structures of their environment parallel to the ground with little gravity to stop her. Some shards made their mark, piercing her coat and leaving red blotches along her inner shirt. These were soon dissolved away instantly with blackened flames as dark ichor came out of a coughing mouth. Black blood seeped and was spat from her lips as the tension of the black dragon's usage strained her body more and more.

“Oh no”, one of the Runa’s said once the launched Pendragon aimed directly at one of the demonesses and cut her in half, leaving the cut into two body to fall limb and disappear into the spinning blade of Katie’s sword, lost from sight in the crimson explosion.
“How unfortunate”, the other one said and gazed between that crimson cloud of dust and bones and Katie who kept on evading the piercing attacks of the spear and the shards; the ground from which she jumped away by altering the gravity explode into a mass of broken glass taking from reality, crumbling into a mess of poking sharp edges.

“Anyway”, another comment spoken - right from under that mass of broken glass by Runa who appeared from under that broken and twisted shape and launched it directly at the spinning Pendragon, causing the bear trap of the shards to explode like a grenade - the sliced up glass was to be spread all across the area, pushed onto to spread across by the Pendragon itself. Runas who remained on the battlefield flickered on the spot, allowing for the shards to come pass by inflicting little damage to them.

The entire field became a landmine of glittering edges and sharp reflections no thanks to Runa's latest move. It nearly reminded Katie of another person fond of glass but she refused to acknowledge either familial relation, at least not in the heat of a fight. She continued flipping and jumping back, defying the air around her. Staying still was hardly an option at this point and Pendragon was soon called back to her, spinning in the air and caught back in her hand. More and more red began to coat her uniform but her step didn't falter even as she landed on the top of a lopsided pillar. With both hands on Pendragon's handle she lurched back and slashed downwards at the area below.

At once a viciously black stream of energy burst out from her sword. Like fire it consumed everything, taking with it the rain of reality shards aimed her way. Moreover, it engulfed the remaining Runas in its sheer density and mass, the black energy eating them apart in its wake with a hunger that consumed the battlefield until the ground looked much like the land above with dark flames latched onto much of every known surface.

The massive tower of black light erupting from the blade once again summoned into Katie’s hands, fell crashing onto the palace, onto the ground on which they took battle and in that crashing the tower of black energy fell and collapsed into the mass of the fire, which in its endless hunger devoured the place around. The raven standing still on one of the columns was to see how the black fire clinged and spread through, catching up onto everything in its way, spreading and taking everything into itself.

The gasping flickers of the fire were to reflect in the cloud of glass shards which were now levitating idly in the air; the black light reflecting and forming lines and connections between each shard. Now all looking like a massive brilliant made out of black agony, its lines flickering in the fire alive and hungry and its edges slowly turning and shifting, moving; making the diamond to ever change in time, pulsating, and yet to remain still in time.

The Runas that were on the ground disappeared in the flickering darkness, consumed without a sound made and now unseen. For a moment only the storming of the fire was to be present, as the fire sought out to consume even the sound ambience into itself.
But then a voice would appear from one of the other pillars. As calm and cold as usual, Runa’s eyes directed at Katie’s, demoness holding her spear still for the moment.

“Devastating blow. Can you do even better? I am sure you can. I admire your ruthlessness, even though you don’t even know if you can land a fatal blow or not”.

Katie's answer was another volley of shots at the sole remaining Runa; for now. "You already know I can do better. Or did you forget the big black dragon?" Katie deadpanned. She cared little for the beauty of carnage that was their battlefield. The ruins looked even more ruinous and the power exerted from Katie's efforts left even the ground scorched hard. Another round of coughs seeped in Katie's system with more black blood splotched from her lips and spat out somewhere into the glass inferno below without care. "You ready to give up yet or what?"

“Of course you can, but you are holding back too, are you not?”, Runa replied and dashed with another flicker from the incoming series of shots aimed at her, moving in zig zags across the fallen structure of the ruins, evading both the fires of Katie’s power and the fires of her shooting.

“The nature of the events unfolding here are slightly off from what you might acknowledge in your perception. But no matter.”, Runa replied and as another series of shots were fired at her she waited for a little longer before disappearing into the flickering motion - and so the projectiles fired disappeared with her; only to emerge from a different angle together with the demoness evading them - only the projectiles were now flying towards Katie herself.

All while the shapes of Runas to emerge from the zig zagged trajectory of the first demoness were to come into existence and in a jointed effort one was launched upwards with others to follow with a flicker: the jointed hands of numerous Runas fused the spears they held into one to form a massively charged weapon, looking at this point like a gigantic magical drill which sought the collision with the ground - and of course with Katie which was on its way.

"Does it look like I'm holding back," Katie deadpanned with another splurge of black fluids boiling from her lips. If Runa was expecting the beast from before she'd have gladly gotten it were it not for the pain deeply rooted inside Katie. It was as if her stomach was trying to consume itself and every nerve felt like a firecracker of stinging pain. It nearly made Katie buckled and certainly was enough to make her handling of Pendragon wobble and shake at best. The demoness easily avoided her shots just as Katie avoided her own, the bullets redirected back towards her from Runa's mimicry of time. Leapt away from her perched position, Katie saw a myriad of different Runas all converge on her spot each with a spear each that was conjured and molded to form one singular point that no doubt rippled through this time frame.

"Fuck you-"

The drill lurched into a barely raised Pendragon as fractural sparks of time and leaked space emanated from the collision. The same spectral arm from before was summoned in some attempt to punch the lance away, only to falter and spurt out with another lynch of pain coursing through Katiee's body. The drill did it work against Pendragon's flat side but the momentum was too great. Katie was immediately forced down and down into the wreckage that blazed beneath her with the lingering wisps of her curse igniting the air hotter than any of her black flames. A great crash resounded as a plume of dust and debris marked her collision with the area baked in it.

The drill kept on pushing down and down onto the Katie blocking it with the Pendragon - the massive spinning spears fused into a singular force piercing through the space and time and quite literally spinning it around itself, like if a machinery rotor made a hole in the continuum and through which the said rotor would spin it further around. The fragments of time and space were flickering in the collision of Katie’s blade and Runas’s joined spear, the flickering shards and pieces of past and present, reflecting on each other showing future - many futures in which both would see the images to possibly come, or possibly never to appear.

Fighting the drill would be like fighting the force of space itself, it was the weight of the world falling on Katie’s shoulders and forcing her down into the ruins, pressing her down into it, as if aiming to make her one with the said ruins. Dust and dried blood flickering in the air and shifting through the reflective mass of glass from before, as the landscape for both of the fighters was to fuse into the blackened shade of flickering absence, robbed off of its contents.

From afar, where the rest were to see it, it looked like a massive circle of flickering black, where the fire collided with itself across time. The heat rising up and with it the drill gaining more of the momentum in its intensity, a singular voice to come to Katie through all the noise.

“Try it.”

Power.

Despite her natural prowess and own experience, it was clear to Katie the enemy in front of her was greater than her own strength. It was severely obvious she was lacking in. Power. The endless pools of her own curse beckoned at her mind among the taunting words left by the floating Runas. It was an option but fatal at this point, and she could already feel that beast begin to consume at her heart, tearing into her own chest. She lacked. Power. There was something else. Something greater than that desire; a deep and unending urge to kill. The enemy before her was a target. Something she wanted to vent at, to throw all her frustrations upon. To kill.

Power. Kill.

The two words blended in her flickering mind among blood and rubble and the unending noise of the lance drill with consciousness sliding in and out of reality. They melded into their very concepts but burned away with that same passion that she sought. She wanted power. She wanted to kill this demoness. She wanted both. More. There was more. Something pulsed near her hip and she latched onto it without thought like a parasite. No sooner did she do so did a new energy enter the air and she screamed. A horrendously choked noise echoed in the Abyss as the fractured sky started to crack once again; but whereas before in the dragon's rampage there was destruction without relent, now there was the tell-tale sign of coding and token numbers, data glitching as the Floor itself was affected, as if something was overloading its systems.

Power. Kill.

These two ideas made itself manifest through Katie's flesh as a storm engulfed her broken body, eating her apart in a viel of black until she emerged again. The lance stopped, breaking down at its core molecule by molecule. Even the flames parted away suddenly by a gale as Katie stood like a point in the storm, the Bastion card fully absorbed into her.

"......."

And then it came to a roar. The roar. It came from Katie and from the deepest pits of her entire being. It was obvious to Runa - to all of them as they looked down from behind the glowing, flickering, reality shattering shape of a drill. They could not read what exactly happened, but they could sense the shift, the change in what Katie was to appear the moment before and in how she was to appear before them now. The change came together with that roar.

The chuckle, it was a reaction from Runa. Looking at them from Katie’s perspective she were to spot them spinning and floating, clinging at the handle - or handles - of the combined spear, shifting around. They were all the same, and yet they could have some difference in their appearance, some were to have different hairstyles, some wore different dresses. But they all looked down at her, the mass of blue eyes was all directed, pointed down at her, looking into Katie’s eyes, with the cold deep blue of the color drilling through in the gaze, as if aiming to look right through her. It was as if the ocean of the Abyss itself looked deep into Katie. Coldly.
And after the roar came quiet. Her entire self consumed by and coated in the black of the veil disappeared and then reemerged anew - bringing the splash of energy tremendous and destructive, causing the reality behind the reality itself to finally show up as behind the shifting shattering reflections of the Abyss, the glitches of the Data emerged to be seen for the eye of anyone now.

“Finally”.
Runa said, seeing these glitches to emerge, all while the great lance of hers came to the disappearance once Katie’s energy explosion disintegrated it, it followed with the variety of Runa’s to flicker away too; leaving only one to stand before newly appeared Katie, eye to eye, face to face.

“Now you see. Now we both see.”

Runa's words were met with a slash through her that crept from her shoulder to her abdomen. Before the demoness could finish Katie was upon her, eyes empty and the intent of a killer marked across her features and aura. The glitched data that made the Abyss' falls faltered and soon stabilized back to normalcy. There was no rampant outbreak of madness like before, only the cold and calculation of the Bastion card puppeting Katie's body. Something was wrong. The slash did more than harm Runa, as a great entropy ate away at her body....no, her data. All things were data in the Tower after all, and even this Abyss prisoner was no different. The final death loomed upon Runa as her body broke itself down into fractal code and numbers. Erasure. Katie slashed again, this time at Runa's arms until both were lobbed off and dissipated.

Purged forever from even the confines of time, let alone the Floor's data.

Katie now too moved like a pure force, pure power - just as she desired it to be. Her body was fast and she quickly closed the distance between her and Runa, sliding through her appearance and slashing through, slicing her body into pieces. And more so this time it leaked with more than just her time, or presence - now it leaked with the Data.

Heavy weight of entropy touched upon Runa’s shape and presence, biting away a bit of herself as yet another body of hers appeared atop of the column once again, looking down on Katie and her own body fading away into the leaked data.

The touch of death creeped through her body, feeling its cold rush rushing through her presence, as if trying to find something in there.

“Better, much better.”, the demoness said, looking around the Abyss amidst which they stood still, despite all the damages done. Not the first time this place took such a damage, but certainly now of all times they pushed up to the limit, and it was just a bit before pushing it further on.

“Don’t stop, raven. This time is not over yet”

---

"Hey! Hey now! That's literally the exact opposite of wha-" aaand the point was moot since she was now dead. Great. Should have figured from the dozens of timelines that Riku would still opt for a peaceful conclusion, but there was something in Akiko that knew better. That knew that Riku might go for something that would crack through the Abyss. Alas, as the dog fell towards the ground, Akiko slapped her hand against her forehead.

[That's not what you were hoping for, I suppose.] "Yeah, no shit. Thankfully, we might still be able to pull something out here."

As the dragon roared and thrashed, managing to shake Thomas and Akiko off, Akiko's arms stretched into the large wings of a vulture, and she quickly managed to right herself before she started to glide towards the ground. The perks of being a shapeshifter knew no bounds, and with the dragon imploding in on itself, it left Akiko in silent contemplation for a moment.

As she landed near Thomas and Riku, she found herself walking through the blackened fire with... intention. She stepped towards the duo, her steps somehow piercing through the crackling fire and dust starting to fall around the world. The world was starting to crumble, no doubt due in part to some extension on forces largely unseen except for a battlefield that she had seen once before. She suspected this was Runa's doing, but she was uncaring at the moment.

Instead, she mused.

"But who are we to mess with the throes of time? Madmen? Mortals? Misaligned misanthropes? The world around us crumbles within a roaring fight, the data of this very world struggling to keep up with the force of the individuals around us. Who are we but Nobodies, reaching out to try and become Somebodies?" She stood over Thomas and Riku, a grim smile over her face. The plan had succeeded, it just took a different route than normal.

She bent down to Thomas, placing a hand on his shoulder and gently taking Riku from his grasp. "She'll be back. Try as some might, she'll come back." Akiko laid Riku out on the ground, letting the air cover her and giving Thomas some distance, but she stepped closer, hovering her foot above Riku's lifeless body. Her eyes were flashing crimson, as if she was reading the outcomes before they happened.


She snapped back from zoning out, but she kept her eyes on Riku, pulling her foot back before she made a decision she wouldn't come to enjoy. Something about the outcomes there... didn't seem enjoyable. She wiped the tears from her eyes all the same, though.

"Make no mistake, Thomas. Riku's an idiot." Akiko's voice was blunt, her tone nonchalant. "But it's better that you two are alive for now..." She paused at that statement. "... you one? Eh, she'll get back up. For now, we should regroup with the others."

Akiko bent over and lifted Riku up onto her back, struggling a little bit initially but seeming like she could handle it. "Don't worry about me. Go find Kanbaru and the others. This place is going to come down and we need to be ready when it does."

Castle manifested overtop Akiko and Riku. [You're not sure if Runa's visions and the sudden enlightenment are helping, now, correct?]

"Yeah, but across everything I've never been this... disorganized." Akiko didn't care if Thomas was listening to her ramble, she needed to talk this out for her own sake. "Something's different. I don't know if that's good or bad, though."

[Perhaps time will tell. It's about the only thing you can do right now, anyway.]

Over on the other side of the arena, where Kanbaru and Hellsword were standing, Hellsword mused to the two. "We're not going to act like we know what to expect from you Jesters, but I will say that she's unpredictable." The world continued to crumble, with rows and patches of fungi being the only solid ground in the entire area. Hellsword made sure to keep their web up so they could reunite with the rest of the group, not that they had any issues. "Serei tend to know their masters pretty well, and she's a whole other beast entirely. The only one who's managed closeness so far have been you and Lorelai, but even the knight was hesitant when the illusions of this world failed on Akiko. She changed, and we don't know if it was for the better or worse."

They turned to Kanbaru. "Be careful, Kanbaru. You might be a Jester, but I don't think she cares for labels." With that, Hellsword gave a tip of their hat, and fizzled away to return to Akiko.

Though Katie was a still a danger and Riku was acting to make all the suffering they'd put the dragon through pointless, Kanbaru found herself gripped with indecision. She stood there beside the fungal skeleton, brow furrowed and gaze intense as she watched Akiko ignore her challenge. Yet it wasn't because Akiko didn't care how her actions were perceived, but it looked to her that Akiko didn't even register she was betraying Kanbaru in the first place.

As Katie plummeted and the Abyss still stood, shaken but unbroken, the whale's gaze followed the static hiss of her parasite and saw Nephy no longer deigning to conceal herself. The piss poor attempt at resolving herself was too little, too late, and Kanbaru had far less compunction with venting herself on the wolf then the feline she was steadily realizing her no basis in Kanbaru's reality.

She flickered in and out of sight, each Dash a bound closer to the wolf before appeared before her with Kanbaru's cloak billowing outwards to drown Nephy in its shadow. The JSTR didn't need to offer it's own bloodthirst when the back of her fist swung for Nephy's cheek. "For someone who ached for freedom, your hesitation tells me you'd prefer to remain here. If you've grown so soft a heart you'd rather break trust with me just to spare Katie a little pain, do speak up if I haven't dislocated your jaw."

She was already gone. That much became clear even before Akiko came to burst any sort of bubble he might've had left about Riku's chances of survival. Obviously she wasn't going to be gone forever, he knew that. But holding the lifeless body of a friend is holding the lifeless body of a friend, no matter which way you slice it. For a little while he was inconsolable, violet eyes blankly staring into the fallen girl's face. He cared little for the battle between Kanbaru and Nephy raging on some distance away, he cared little for Akiko coming towards him, the words she spoke to him, in fact he barely reacted as she took Riku from his very grasp and carried her away. And he cared little for the world as it fell to pieces around him and everyone else who'd found themselves in this forsaken place.

What broke him out of this trance of pure apathy was a premonition, a sickening aura of pure anger only a stone’s throw away from the boy, as Akiko stood threateningly above Riku’s body, her mind in a world of its own, a foot hovering above the dead girl’s chest with grievous intent. Had Thomas felt as unstable as he had been hours before, he probably would've engaged in battle with Akiko then and there. His eyes glistened with a golden hue as he let himself slip. It would only be for a moment though, and it was the bard’s hesitation and subsequent retraction of that aggressive position her foot held that forced the boy to hold himself back similarly, his eyes reverting to their usual violet tone.

Try as he might though, the boy couldn't yet manage to fully conceal nor control the feelings that festered deep within him. It could be seen in his face and his eyes, usually vivid they now looked dark and sunken, reflecting his conscience whether he liked it or not. And Akiko’s casual insulting of his friend certainly didn’t help. In fact even as the girl lifted the fallen princess onto her back, he could feel tension and anger seeping into his heart like black tar. He was tempted to snatch Riku’s body away from her for a moment, but it seemed that whatever violent animosity the boy had sensed from the girl before had seemingly dissipated for now and so, owing to his better judgement, he decided to leave it at that.

Even so, Akiko got no response from the boy other than a glance of disdain, before Thomas turned on his heels to make his way over to Kanbaru and Nephy. He didn't even wait for her to finish before he did.

The battle between whale and wolf had ended in a pretty decisive victory for the former, and though the boy would usually be full of awe for the scene in front of him, Kanbaru standing with a curious looking sword of some sort a short distance from the kneeling Nephy, instead his countenance was painted with a look of disinterest. He was about to call out to Kanbaru and wave her over so the two could regroup with Akiko, but something stopped him. It was like he'd suddenly become mute, words refusing to sound from his mouth no matter how much he worked his lips and tongue. His hearing dropped as well, and suddenly even the rumbling of the Abyss falling to pieces around him became nothing more than a low, ambient groan as room was made for something else to fill his ears. A voice, and a familiar one at that.

"She killed her, you know... She was just trying to help, but she showed no mercy."

Like poison those words filled Thomas' mind, echoing and banging against the inside of his skull, forcing him to hold his head in an effort to comfort the splitting headache that resulted from it. There was no figure to accompany the voice this time, but his imagination did the work for him, conjuring the same image of the man he'd seen before. The man with violet eyes.

"You know what to do... you know what you can do... use them. Use them and kill her. She deserves to die."

At this point, Thomas felt that he wasn't in control anymore. It was like before, but this time was different. This time was worse. He couldn’t cry out in defiance of that voice, he couldn’t call for help. Then again though, was there anyone present who would help him regardless? Through no action of his own, the boy's vision turned to the crouching Nephy, focussing in on her until she was all he could see. All the while, he could sense the emotions he'd tried so strongly to supress now bubbling to the surface, even his anger towards Akiko playing a part in the boy's steady descent into losing himself for a second time. Now his eyes glowed with that raging golden hue once again, even more than ever before, flashing back and forth between it and composed violet as the internal struggle for control began once again.

"Be the vessel you were made to be... become the heir you are meant to be. For those with violet eyes, are cursed to descend into darkness.”

But this time the winner was as clear cut as the arrow wound on Riku’s back. Any shred of hope or positivity the boy had retained or held onto since his previous battle with Nephy was shredded, replaced with such burning anger and hatred that the boy felt it like flame beneath his skin. He let out a guttural, anguished, predatory cry as a shroud of darkness wove its way around him, a void-black aura that shimmered and flickered about his person. That veil of shadow was contrasted by the piercing glow of his eyes. Those Gold Eyes. They honed in now on Nephy like a wild animal targeting its prey, and it this point it was clear that Thomas was gone. Consumed by the influence of overwhelming emotion and unseen forces until he’d become a distortion of himself.

There were no words that followed, no hesitation. In an instant Thomas had flickered to Nephy’s side in a trail of darkness with immense speed, emerging with his shadow-cloaked sword already drawn. He pierced forward in an almighty strike, intending to skewer the wolf through the chest and end her pitiful existence then and there.

The area around them continued to be froth with destruction. The entire Abyssal Floor was looking more like a wasteland with each passing second as the world shook and turned. Even the threat of Death itself was forgotten in these new turn of events that threatened to engulf every life present. But these thoughts were empty to the Bastion possessed Katie, who looked up her target up high as another Runa placated herself on a platform. Once more Katie stepped forward and once again she was upon the demoness in a flash, a blade not her own flickering in a downwards strike up high with two hands to bisect Runa where she stood.

"......."

Runa smiled as she looked over the ruinous landscape around them - and more importantly what was to expose from under these ruins; the reality itself began to shatter and fall apart with the twisting and twitching motion, spasming with the glitching convulses. Flickering shapes of the structure, the reflections leaking out and dripping down out of the shards floating in the air amidst the crater, even the light itself started to lose its stable form.

It was all just like Runa wanted, but it was still not enough. And there was more to that - an incoming slashing attack aimed right at her; as Katie with the power of Bastion aimed to crush onto the demoness - who was to evade the attack just in time. She flickered again, preparing her spear once again for the attack.

“These eyes of yours speak of no reason to remain in your head. No matter. But I wish we could appreciate the fruits of our efforts here”.

Indeed, the scenery and landscape were all quite beautiful in Runa's eyes, a testament to her plans coming together perfectly. It was all too unfortunate her data would be erased far before she would realize her ambitions. A hand flashed outwards and gripped the end of Runa's spear just as it manifested. Katie was already in front of Runa as a heavy shroud of pure energy densely sparked around Katie's body. But that was neither here nor there. Katie yanked forward to pull the demoness along with her before spinning around and tossing both demoness and spear into the nearest ruin, slamming Runa harshly like a ragdoll before her body crackled in fizzling data as Katie's blade was already lodged in her chest.

Words were no more between the two fighters, as with the spear manifested, Katie once again launched her attack at the demoness - gripping at the handle and spinning it around with a flash of energy exploding in colors around the raven and the thrown demoness. Launched into a nearby structure of a ruin with a clutter of stones and dust rising in the air and a loud cracking sound of the hard rocks shattering in the impact, a light flicker appeared on the spot of Runa’s shape, a flicker causing her appearance to change for a second - right before Katie’s blade pierced through Runa’s chest, leaving her essence to leak out in all the forms Tower had given her.

Runa did not say anything - a smile was still shaped on her lips in never changing form, and her eyes aimed directly at Katie’s as she looked into them, with a hint of curiosity; even though in general two blue eyes remained completely unfazed and emotionless, they reflected deepness with no actual bottom.

A slashing flickering was to appear again, once the air around Katie was to shiver in exposing a hole, a hole through which more holes appeared, a hole followed a hole, cracking through them a spear’s blade was to push through, in its copied multitude; the holes moved and appeared everywhere in the tight spot of the ruin, creating a deformed and ever changing web of sharp blades aiming to entrap Katie within and grind her in cuts.

Katie wrenched the hilt of her blade tighter into Runa's chest, dispersing the data immediately and erasing more and more of the demoness. Guided by the Bastion card, there lay only one objective in her mind and that was the desire to kill. She was gone by the time the blades appeared, much too slow compared to pure living energy itself. A flash of dark blue like a bolt of lightning zipped and sped around the different blades, dancing along up the curvature of each spear as it dove into the hole from which they came. Like a line of code tracing back to its source the bolt crept through the Tower's data in a shocking display before tracing the spears back to the source. Regardless Runa's insane plan to destroy the Floor, she was still only data; data that could be changed and copied, manipulated and altered.

This same data led Katie to the next Runa, appearing once more as a flicker of electricity before a knee slammed into Runa's head as Katie's body took shape once more. She spun around, dragging the demoness off her feet from sheer momentum and throwing her like a bowling ball to the other Runas as if they were pins. The source code surrounded Katie's environment as dragged digits and numbers along the "walls" of the world as she moved, slashing away at any that approached her. One by one with each destroyed Runa the source code that made up her existence in the Tower faltered. Perhaps the true one would have danced with time to avoid her, though even time was subject to energy. But as data, each destroyed version left a bigger and bigger hole into the main file that was Runa.

It was only a matter of time before Katie's Volunta would erase the demoness completely.

Katie moved as a flash, flash too fast to capture, flash too fast to squeeze down or cut through. Her shape too lost its stability in the jumping around as she aimed to find every single copy of Runa she was to feel - tracing them down by a code they bled out. All connected into the array of data that Runa was; all to be further found and slashed by a numb and unworded rage of Katie’s.

Slashed and kicked, grabbed and thrown - one thrown into the group of others was caught up and petted on the head before they scattered away from the attacking raven, keeping their defense. They flickered and shifted their position, changing each other on different spots to confuse the berserk. They bent time and moved through it, launching counter attacks ahead of time, the spear slashing through forward in time, and from the future it attacked backwards, leaving flickering shapes and shards of the corrupted Abyss to fly out and cut with their paradoxical density.

The fallen bodies laying in the crater flicker before disappearing, as if lost in the haze of the fight.
Runa observed it from a distance. One of them at least. She kept herself away on one of the peaks and watched with her never changing smile, sitting on the edge with her head resting on her hand. She flickered every once in a while as she was tracing herself away from Katie’s narrow rage. She knew that something like that were to happen. The growing hole in the essence of her being in the Abyss was making the cold of the death getting closer to her, but it was also opening some new possibilities. She did try doing that thing a few times once, but never on such a scale - after all, it demanded a lot and was a last resort. Frankly the time here and now was exactly asking for that. Emptiness of her hollowing data was to be filled. And the lingering pattern of erosion and entropy was Katie’s gift to the demoness.

Flickers of metal scraped off digital coding as splinters of time and data came loose from Volunta's rending. Like a reaper of Death, Katie manuevered her way through each and every copy thrown at her. She jumped around, slamming the fortunate ones with physical blows that broke horns and shattered bones. The unlucky ones were felled by her blade, erased forever within the Tower. One by one the fragments of blue dwindled as only black remained. A hand lashed outwards and grasped one Runa by the horns, violently slamming her into the ground with enough force to crack the Floor's floor; no sooner was she spinning around to send another Runa flying with a foot to the cheek, the demoness spinning near-comedically midair as she was struck. Another leaked out bluish coding from a horizontal strike above her chest while yet another was missing limbs and a tail.

None of them were the original as far as Katie's one track mind was concerned; only the one that held the final batch of core data would prove to be the last. It was no different to sniffing her out, Katie appearing above the one hiding from the others. Standing above her peak, Katie slashed once with enough force to send any approaching others flying, a density sharp enough to cut this Runa's horn clean off. She thrust downwards, both hands on her Volunta as the tip burst through Runa's chest and reamed right through her to embed itself into the stone. The demoness remained there pinned and fauxly crucified as Katie loomed over her with an empty expression. The both of them could feel it; the last of Runa's existence as a digital frame seeping away into nothingness.

Runa waited and watched still as the numerous copies of her were to fade away one after another in that chase of pure killing energy. If the world she was trapped in was to fall, it was only fair that she was to fall with it, one way or another. She was after all, just about to cancel time itself, space itself, and break free from this limiting existence; and the sacrifices were many, and her own existence being put at risk was of course necessary and unavoidable.
She accepted that. Even though it brought her onto the edge.

Finally Katie was to find her, the one, and in that cold methodical rage she was to find her way onto the cliff and push herself through the attacks. The spears of many pushed away, the launched attacks, flickering dashes and shards cutting through the reality itself, the temporal traps and patterns, twisting turns of the ruins and attacks coming from all directions and all times were not to stop Katie from approaching the demoness and slashing through, once again piercing her body and pinning it to the stone behind her, leaving her to dangle on the edge of a blade. Runa’s hands resting on the weapon, clutching at it and bleeding out, the face frozen in a grimace of fading, the blood and code in unison flowed down Runa’s wounded body and collected into a flickering puddle on the ground underneath her feet dangling over the ground and unable to reach it. Just lightly swinging left and right as her weight rested on the sword in her.

She was put against the wall, literally and figuratively - and even then her eyes did not expose anything of an emotion. Empty stare of Katie’s was to be met with as empty stare of Runa’s: two bottomless pits staring at each other, reflecting in each other in their incomprehensible density of reflecting the lack, rather than anything else.

The demoness leaned closer to the raven, smile still on these lips.
“Let me show you a trick..”, Runa said, still holding at the blade with her hands, “...It is worth remembering”. A shape of hers flickered again, but this time it did not do it like a broken frequency; it turned into a ghostly shape split from its form and a second later, disappeared from the view, leaving a ghostly shape of a body behind. One last split Runa pulled in order to escape Katie; demoness’s data forcibly relocated elsewhere.

But that was not the trick Runa spoke of.

Katie's eyes sharply flicked to the fleeing essence that was Runa's code, lurching Volunta out of the stone and rearing back just about to hurly it like a javelin. But just as she made to let it go a sharp pain spiked through her own chest and she stumbled. No sooner did a blackened discharge of electricity crackle out from her back that brought her to stumble to her knees. Hands on the ground and staring at the floor, expression finally colored itself back to her face. Volunta dropped from her fingers as Bastion's card slowly slid out from her back in ejection, the strain too much and the power used to its limit on her body. Some manner of curse was brought to her lips as she gazed on the fading image of Runa's essence, her vision faltered before black became her landcape and the Bastion card burned completely in its own energy.

---

---

Thomas exploding onto her with the power of the golden eyes was something Nephy had never expected. She had thrown away the runt as a useless hanger on that lacked the power the other team members had. Now she is getting pulverized and nearly obliterated as a violent hit of great energy cracked her cold shell and sent the wolf flying. She landed several yards away, colliding with a cavern wall and falling to the ground in near pieces.

Her fake body is breaking down, her face coming undone like an old mask. Her veins are black with the witchcraft that powered her struggling to keep working after all the damage sustained. Like an automaton falling apart to rust, Nephy is breaking down and coughing up black bile.

"What the hell is all of this..." She'd wheeze through heavy pain, attempting to stand herself up. She couldn't even see Thomas or Kanbaru, having been flung so far away. She'd attempt to pull herself up but instead fall flat on her backside, letting out a pained gasp.

"R-runa! Runa!" She'd call out, desperation settled in her voice.

It felt like the end for a moment, that her life of pain and struggling would end here in this damp and ugly pit, a thought that terrorized her cold heart.

A contrast to all the noise, it was peaceful. Quiet and silent, with only faint echoes of explosions coming from far away, the battlefields Runa left in her one final attempt to escape the cold and methodical rage of Katie’s. The demoness used her spear to hold onto and help herself stand still and walk onward, carefully, enjoying every second of this moment of peace.
They were at the eye of the storm. It was all brought in here and now they could enjoy this short moment of peace. Runa stepped carefully, slowly - it could’ve looked as if she was wandering aimlessly, but she knew perfectly where to go - one gift to herself from the knowledge of the future. Careful, slow footsteps to shuffle along the dead sandy lands of the Abyss. She walked alone, through the desert, through the barren landscape, with a massive fire storming behind her.

"I am here, Nephy. I am here.”, the wolf would hear to be said above her as with a grunt the demoness would finally drop sitting on the ground, breathing heavily and grunting still, blood leaking from her wounds. Her hands softly clutched at Nephy’s shoulders and pulled her closer, to her, head resting on demoness’s lap.

"I think...I think I'm dying..."

Nephy struggled to pull herself up, supporting herself on Runa. She could barely move and possibly suffered from a concussion. The world was spinning and images were not clear. She only felt Runa and her flickering presence, and gravitated closer to it for comfort and safety.

"I can't...not the true death. Not here! We're not ready yet!" The wolf barked, summoning her remaining strength left.

Runa’s body felt as real as it ever was, the demoness had to put all her remaining strengths and her entire will of existence into supporting her being from slipping away; the waves of time and data corruptions were washing over her, aiming to claim her and make her disappear forever. She struggled against it with her whole being - as usual, never showing it, her smile as cold and cheeky as always.

As Nephy were coming closer to her, Runa pulled her closer, holding in her arms, while she struggled to sit properly, tossing away the remains of her ruined clothes, leaving her sitting in her shirt and shorts alone. The warmth of her wounded body collecting over Nephy, giving her the sought comfort, as they were to gaze from the distance at the sign of the great collapsing.

“Don’t you think it is… rather poetic that in the reach of freedom, it being so close to us now; we have to suffer the lowest of our existence..? We are very close, Nephetos. Take a rest right now, look at the fruits of our efforts”, Runa said, lifting her hand up to point at the dance of fire and glass in the distance, which reflected the flickering shades of Abyss being corrupted.

“All we need is one last push”

"I know...we can make it...I want to try...we need to come together."

Nephy's fondness for poetry was lost at the moment in her desperate state. She'd strain to pull herself together and use Runa's legs to support herself up onto her bottom, sitting next to her.

"Come into me and we can finish this...now is the time. I offer myself to you, and I'll be your weapon to shatter this jail."

Runa’s hand, warm and soaked in blood caressed over Nephy’s cheek, rubbing it softly like this and looking eye to eye with her when Nephy spoke up. A frozen smile on the demoness's lips held still as she parted her lips to speak.

“A secret there is to reveal to you. In the state I am in now… this power of ours would work the most extraordinary. The most marvelous of all times”, Runa said. It was true, her essence stained and corrupted by the shape of entropy allowed Runa to reshape it according as she saw fit. She closed her eyes and concentrated in her inner sense, her inner existence and twisted the remaining bits of herself to form a shape. To form a circle.
Her lips unstuck from the smile to part and press against Nephy’s in a warm blood soaked kiss. Pressing Nephy closer and feeling the circle starting to fill.

Their bodies flickered against each other, shape of breath shared and to become united, the shape of eyes watching at each other were to reflect the endless corridor of possibilities.
Hands touching pushing through each other.
"Let's claim what is ours."

Nephy returned the kiss, squeezing Runa's hand desperately like a child gripping it's mother. She'd open herself up to the flickering demon and offer all the strength, power, and pain that made up the wolf's being. It was time to bring down this jail by any means necessary, and as Runa said to claim what was theirs.

"Let's do it, together!"

Two became one.

***

A bright light of explosion was to be observed from every angle of the Abyss, and the whole realm was to become subjugated to this light for a moment or two. The concept of the “moment” itself was to dissolve in this light, as the time stood still only to expose the spraying shade of the blue light piercing through the ground and lighting up the ground under everyone’s feet, the corrupted and damaged matter of the Abyss itself was to become gripped by the light and squeezed in its firm, unyielding hold.

And then the world started to twist, its shape turning and coming out of its rigid condition; the broken caskets of the old world shattering and sweeping into dust as the winds were to crush through them and to erase their shapes from existing. The mountain peaks were to touch as they leaned and bent towards one another and ground peaks were to disappear in the cracks of reality falling apart. Grounds were to touch the sky with its broken edges and the sky itself exposed in swirling darkness, the shapes of the souls imprisoned there shifting the clouds into the grimaces of vile rage, pointed downwards onto the reality which was to close up on the top.

The falling and shaking Abyss revealed its true form - an isolated prison of no exit, an inside wrapped sphere.The heart of the abyss is laid bare and exposed, a large blinding light that is sealed over by powerful chains enshrined by god like denizens long long ago. The only way out is through.

Flickering into existence and taking shape, Runa and Nephy's combined body is able to stay together in a single sphere. Clad in a long black cloak with striking contrast of white and black in her long hair, the ultimate challenge in Abyss floor prepared herself. The Nekuromata flickering with the edge that Runa's spear had as its main attribute, the raging winds blowing and bringing the dust up through which the figure were to approach with of little effort and attention to the raging nature with the floating crown of Runa's spears shaping a massive fan behind her, edges aimed at whatever was in front of the approaching warrior.

A line was to be said with two voices, speaking simultaneously.
"This world has opened up at last. Revealed its true shape. There is no escaping this place, unless..."

The pair of cold eyes of two souls held cold rageous fire as its owner looked over the folded and twisted landscape.
"...Unless it is to be destroyed. It is to be done. And you will be, together with it".