The girl drew in a deep breath.

Her hands tensed slightly.

You can always improve. You can always do better.

This was the thought process that had been ingrained in her since she could walk. Since her training began in earnest. Her grandfather had never told her to be satisfied with the level of skill she had obtained.

No, the message was clear.

She always needed to strive for more.

And thus, she trained.

For she could always improve. She could always get better. Even if she reached the peak of understanding, that only meant there was higher peak yet unconquered that she had to strive for.

Her left foot slipped back. Her right foot slipped forward.

Roukanken's blade gleamed in the sliver of light from the setting sun.

She could always go faster. She could always reach further. If there was something her blade couldn't reach now, then she would train until she could reach it tomorrow.

She raised Roukanken.

But then, she heard something. A sound from behind her.

Konpaku Youmu glanced back over her shoulder.

"Yuyuko-sa-"

---

"-ma-ghk?!"

This wasn't the garden. This wasn't Hakugyokurou's grounds.

That much was certain, even in a single instant.

But the question of where she was had to go unexplored.

She couldn't see her other half. Her vision already blurred. Her entire body felt stiff and immobile.

With a gasp, Youmu clutched at her chest, Roukanken falling from her grasp as she hit her knees.

Sweat dripped from her brow, her body shuddering now.

It wasn't a physical pain. There was no clear source. It was a twisting, burning emptiness, an agonizing absence that seemed to radiate through her entire body simultaneously. It was as if it was eating away at every single nerve ending, ever single muscle fiber, every part of her being. But there wasn't any question of why she felt this way. It was obvious from the very outset.

Half of her was missing.

Her vision was darkening already.

She wasn't sure if she could even live like this. Could she?

Was she about to-

"Y-Yuyuko-sama, I'm s-sorry, I-"

And then everything was clear again.

The pain ceased as abruptly as it had begun.

Youmu found herself on her hands and knees, panting, staring at the grassy floor. The searing emptiness that had nearly overtaken her was suddenly filled.

The small, silvery-haired girl's frame trembled there for a few moments, before she was able to raise her head.

There was the wispy, misty form again. The half of herself that had been missing.

Somehow, for just a single moment, Youmu had become disconnected from herself. It was a horrible, agonizing sensation, and something she never wanted to experience ever again.

As she took Roukanken in her hands and returned to her feet, quickly sheathing the longer of her two blades, she realized that just because the emptiness was gone did not mean everything was back to normal.

Her phantom half was not floating so freely, any longer. It was lower, and not moving as swiftly to follow the rest of her. And something still felt strange, as if there was a little hole somewhere.

It was as if her ethereal, noncoporeal half had been injured.

"Nn..."

It didn't make any sense. She couldn't figure out why it had happened, or where she was.

"Y... Yuyuko-sama? Something happened... where are you?"

Youmu cast her gaze about the area.

There was no-one else there, and it was certainly no-where she was familiar with. A stone building of a style she didn't recognize that seemed to have partially collapsed.

Yuyuko-sama wasn't there. In fact, this looked like no-where she'd ever been to before.

It was raining. It was, if nothing else, a little soothing to feel the rain now after what just happened.

If Yuyuko-sama wasn't here, she'd have to find her. If she couldn't find her, then she'd have to find a way back to where she was. It was as simple as that.

When she exited the building, she could see smoke in the distance.

Something told the half-phantom that immediately moving at her top speed wasn't a good idea, not after what had just happened and how she still felt.

But Youmu was still quite swift.

The village wasn't a recognizable style of architecture to her, either.

Especially when so much of it was destroyed. And as she pressed further-

There were bodies.

Someone who had been trained as she had was, of course, aware of the possibility of having to kill some day. But her contact with death had largely been through spirits in the Netherworld, and her own mistress. The sight of these corpses, many of them displaying grievous injuries, was enough to give her pause, her slender frame tensing for a few moments.

But all of this seemed... recent.

Youmu slowly moved one hand to Roukanken's hilt before she spoke again. Even if she'd been injured on a spiritual level, she was nothing but confident in her ability to fight.

So she prepared herself for such an outcome before she spoke.

"Hello?" she called, "Is anywhere here? Where am I?"

@PKMNB0Y@Raineh Daze@Drifting Pollen@EchoWolff

---

"What a mess..." Alucard sighed as he surveyed the damage done to the observatory...his observatory now that he was the ruler of Castle Dracula, the prize...he supposed...for slaying the vampire in cold blood, a prospect that hadn't sat well with him ever since.

Nearly all of the castle was ransacked from their brutal battle. Not a single room was spared from the two as they tussled and smashed through every wall and every floor. Finally, the battle came to its bloody conclusion when Alucard...did the unthinkable...staking Dracula through the heart. In that brief moment, as the vampire...no...the man who was his father turned to dust, Alucard witnessed Dracula stumbling towards him, his arms outstretched. It was not in a threatening manner, at least that's what the dhampir assumed. Rather, it was as though the man was trying to embrace him one last time. Alucard recalled his last words,

"My boy... I'm killing our boy, Lisa... The greatest gift you have ever given me...and I'm killing him...
I must already be dead..."

Alucard shook the memories from his head and resumed his inspection.

The great mirror that stood in the middle of the grand, circular room, which Dracula used to peer out into the world beyond the cold, stone walls, was shattered into a million pieces. Shards laid upon the ground, glistening like stars amidst the warm glow of the early morning sun pouring through the gaping hole above. Alucard gingerly picked up one of the shards and clutched it in his bare hand. A small trickle of blood seeped from his palm and fell, the dhampir closing his golden eyes for a second.

Why...he thought to himself, surrounded by nothing but the grim silence of the castle. Why did it have to come to this? His father was dead, so was his mother, and now...the only two souls he had for companionship, Trevor and Sypha,...had left him. Alucard was all alone.

With a gruff exhale, he cast the shard away and turned swiftly on his heels, his long black cloak billowing behind him. Alas, as he made his first strides out of the room, something caught his attention. Alucard paused, slowly rotating his head to peek over his broad shoulder. The shard he had cast down in angst, still wet with his viscous blood, had a peculiar glow to it. Alucard sauntered back into the room and picked up the shard again, this time observing it curiously.

"Hmm?"

The shard began to glow brighter at his touch. "What the...?" Alucard's eyebrow raised. Before the dhampir could react, the room was engulfed in a blinding white flash. Alucard felt his body pulled away, as if through some kind of portal. Just as quickly as it happened, it was over. Alucard felt his feet land on solid ground. He looked up and beheld his new, unfamiliar surroundings.

---

---

"What is this place?" Alucard pondered as he scanned about. His vision, slightly blurry from the quick flash, gradually adjusted, funny, abstract shapes coming together in crystal clarity. A large effigy of a cross towered over his head, suspended to a crumbling stone wall. Grand panes of what were once beautiful stained glass windows were left smashed and barren. The great, vaulted ceiling above his head had a wide gash through it, rain pouring down in thick drops upon his head.

Flanking Alucard on both sides were rows of pews that were splintered, hymnals and tomes of holy text left tarnished on the ground, their leatherbound covers weathered with age, a few loose pages here and there fluttering about.

"Hmm...some sort of church." Alucard gathered from his observations. Normally, a church or any holy ground would spell death for one of vampiric blood. Alas, Alucard was not affected in the least by humans and their silly superstitions. Still, he was troubled. Somehow, that one solitary shard of his father's mirror transported him here. What sort of magic was this?

As he stepped forward, his foot sloshed in a puddle of liquid. At first, Alucard thought it was just from the rain pouring down overhead, but a familiar scent caught his nostrils and made him pause. He glanced at the floor. "Blood?" His brow furrowed, his hand instinctively reaching for the hilt of his sword. The dhampir cast a weary glance around. There were no bodies, nothing really to indicate a struggle except for the damage done to the inner sanctuary by something...or someone for that matter. Alucard continued to investigate. That's when he noticed a trail of blood leaving from the bottom of the pulpit and out the wide open door. "There must be a survivor." Alucard thought to himself before resting his hand at ease, though he still kept up his guard. This place was alien to him at best.

Following the blood trail, he stepped out into the open air. The skies above were a dull cast of dismal grays, fat drops of rain pouring down heavily in sheets. Thunder rumbled in the distance as lightning crashed overhead illuminating briefly the surrounding wilderness. Alucard slowly trod forward, keeping a vigilant eye out for danger. Should whoever attacked this church return, he would be ready to strike them down.

A chilling wind diced through his flesh and tore at his black cloak. Alucard pulled the drawstring tighter and resumed his steady pace. Then, he saw it.

Black clouds of smoke billowed over the treetops, like a blot of ink splashed against the drab canvas of the tumultuous sky. Alucard's nostrils tinged with yet another familiar odor, the acrid stench causing the dhampir to grimace. It was a smell...of death.

Without another thought, he sprung off his heels in a dead sprint, tearing through the forest with a speed that far outmatched any mortal being. Trees had passed him in blurring shapes ever so rapidly until he broke through to the other side, gazing out over the wide expanse of land and unto the ruined village. "Oh no!" Alucard halted in his tracks. Bodies lied strewn about the ground, some picked on by carrion crows. All the houses and buildings were demolished, still smoldering from fires that had since died out due to the rain. Blood was spattered across their marred surfaces and pooled at the feet of the dhampir as he strode carefully through the front gate. A bell in a nearby chapel's belfry tolled mournfully, amidst the cackles and caws of the swarming crows and the subtle rumble of thunder in the distance.

"What happened to this place?" Said Alucard aloud, his eyes taking in every grisly detail of the horror surrounding him. He was no stranger at all to the sight of death, yet the whole place gave Alucard an unsettling vibe. There were women and children among the dead, a wholesale slaughter. Nothing of the sort had indicated a battle. There were no weapons left lying around, no signs of combat. This...was a massacre. "I doubt anyone could have survived this."

"Hello? Is anyone here? Where am I?"

"What?!" Alucard tensed as soon as he heard the girl crying out. So someone did survive after all, he thought. He wasted no time racing through the village, yet being careful not to step on the corpses, following the girl's voice as it echoed through the dead air.

"Who's there? Show yourself!" He called. His hand reached for his sword. What if this was a trap set by the enemy? What if they were using one of the survivors to draw him in for an ambush? Alucard couldn't afford to let his guard down once, not in a strange...and seemingly unforgiving place such as this. Tightening his grip on the hilt, he prepared himself to draw at the slightest instance of danger. "Come forth now, and I won't cut you down where you stand!" He growled.

@VitaVitaAR

It wasn't long before a few of the others from the church appeared, carrying a bloodied villager with them. Anne recognized Sanae, with her distinctive green hair, as well as the horned woman, who looked far too much like a Chimera for her tastes. On the other hand, she'd clearly been helping out the townspeople, and nothing about her movements gave off any kind of hostile intent. Under these circumstances, there's no choice but to trust her, whether I like it or not.

Anne's eyes followed Sanae around the room, and watched with curiosity as she used another Paranormal Power to stabilize each of the injured in turn. Just what bloodline was she from, to have so many different abilities? She wanted to talk to the girl, find out more about what she could do—but with so many villagers still in dire states, now wasn't a good time to interrupt her focus.

Instead, Anne slowly got to her feet and made her way over towards the horned woman. Unhurried, even a little reluctant about it, but she needed information. Once the other offworlder was in a position to glance her way, the Knight spoke up.

"It looks like both of our groups were successful... Were there any casualties on our side?" She was fairly sure she'd seen Lily come in with the others and find a quiet spot to rest, but Lewa and Rayne were still unaccounted for. "The children are unharmed, but the Heralds were specifically looking for the girl. If she's their objective, we can expect they'll be back before long—"

A commotion outside caught her attention. Unfamiliar voices, calling out across the village, one of them tense and aggressive. What the heck was happening now?

"...We should go and see what that is." She started towards the door, with more urgency now. The rest helped, it was a little easier to move around now, but she really hoped she wouldn't have to fight again this soon.

@Raineh Daze

“We’ll find them, I promise” Rayne reassured the man, making sure to memorize the name and description, and thankful that Lewa had thought to ask for those in the first place, before sending him back to the lodge, where, hopefully, he could help or at the very least some rest.

Once he was gone, the Knight Witch simply said “Let’s go find them” to Lewa and then went ahead with the plan she had proposed, picking up the pace of their search, dashing through the woods in flashes of light that made it fairly easy to keep track of where she was even if they split up a bit.

The new pace swiftly found them a second set of ruins, though these where in far worse repair than the abandoned church, which caused Rayne to wonder if the town had once been bigger, long ago, or if it had just happened to have been settled atop/near some a previous settlement.

She naturally gravitated to the one part that had any structural integrity, floating over the other ruins to reach the tower. Once there, she found the door and then, as she got close, her pointed ears picked up the sound of a baby's cry coming from somewhere down below, prompting a little sigh of relief from Rayne. This certainly was not the kind of weather an infant should be out in, she was pretty sure.

That little rush of relief was immediately replaced with one of concern as, when she turned to look to Lewa her vision slid over and then raced right back to the young girl standing in the rain with blood coating her arm. These were the only features that read as odd for Rayne incidentally, as many of the people she had interacted with on a daily basis back would have been described by some as monstrous, be it for their singular massive eyes, oversized horns, or just being skeletons. Bat wings, slitted pupils and pointy teeth? Not something she’d seen before but entirely within the bounds of the potentially normal.

Thus the first thing that came to Rayne’s mind was to call over “are you hurt?” in a concerned tone before it processed what had been said by the stranger and recognized the name “did you say Sanae? We know a Sanae! Long green hair and can fly? I can bring you to her, somewhere out of the rain”

With Sanae doing... something--exactly what, Saria couldn't say, except that this seemed far more like some esoteric arts than any medic's work, for all that it was helping--to keep people alive, that left more time for her to perform any necessary aid. Oh, they were still in triage conditions, which meant turning away some to follow after the green-haired girl and provide more lasting attention, but it was a bit less hectic.

It would have been useful to have an actual medic on hand. As much as she could conserve supplies using her own abilities, it would have been useful to have a larger supply of the bsaics, rather than conserving them and making do with whatever equivalents the locals could supply. As cold as it might have been, she had no idea how long they would be here or if she would ever be able to replace anything used up, and Saria didn't want to find herself needing to patch someone up during a fight and having nothing but a semi-clean bottle of medieval liquor to fall back on.

"No casualties to report." There was that enemy caster to bring up--more than the common soldiers, someone who could fly and repeatedly fire attacks of that magnitude needed to be considered as a major threat, although her apparent vulnerability to physical damage was something that they could take advantage of as a group. If she would even be back soon, given the injury already inflicted.

Unfortunately, it seemed that they were needed outside--which meant picking her shield once again and preparing to fight. It seemed unlikely it was the raven guard; after being driven off, surely they would need just as long to regroup before another attack as this village did simply to treat its wounded?

Somewhat to Lewa’s surprise, the poor man relented in the face of Rayne’s suggestion, putting aside his feelings on the matter to accept the little witch’s reason. Consenting to a one-way trip back to down courtesy of Rayne’s teleportation ability guaranteed (or at least, reasonably assured) his safety, but it also left Lewa without his guide through the woods or much to go on in his absence. Wife…hair…child…all words I definitely know. Uncertainty had plagued the toa the moment he involuntarily set foot in this alien world, but right now he felt it more keenly than ever. At least the crisis in the village could be resolved by axe swings and air blasts, inasmuch as he could resolve it, considering the Raven Heralds decided to leave. Now someone’s safety rested on his ability to parse the unknown and find a lost person. Lewa took a deep breath. Would that he could draw strength from being in his element, but these temperate woodlands had less in common with the humid jungles of Le-Wahi than he would have hoped.

Still, it was his duty to help those in need. Lewa nodded a moment after receiving Elaine’s description, holding his splayed hand over his chest just beneath his glimmering heartlight. “Never fear, Marcus. We will see your ‘wife’ home safe!”

When the villager vanished, Lewa was left with nothing but Rayne, the rain, the trees, and the whispers of the wind through their boughs. Though typically outgoing and chatty, the toa knew when to hold his silence and listen close to what guidance the winds could give him. To someone who knew how to listen, the currents that flowed through and pored over every facet of the world had a lot to tell. But if these winds had anything to say, their words were not his own. No voices filtered through these trees, nor the sounds of a struggle. Well, no matter. Bearings or no bearings, Lewa had a job to do. “Yes, it looks like we’ve got our work laid out for us,” he told Rayne, his tone jocular despite the clouds hanging over their mission. “Let’s pick up the pace!”

Lewa moved quickly, utilizing his Kanohi mask to make himself weightless and leap across great stretches of ground at once. He swung between the branches and sprang between tree trunks, annoyed and at times hindered by the ease with which the wood tended to buckle beneath his weight. Every so often he paused to listen and scan his surroundings, but no voices reached him. Reasoning that the organics couldn’t have gone too far, he did not go too far in any one direction, but instead focused his search around the various desolate ruins that littered the forest. Most of them seemed too barebones to serve as any kind of shelter, so he zeroed in on the ones that seemed to be the biggest, or in the best shape. Eventually, the duo’s efforts bore fruit. When they reached a collection of sinking, eroded masonry that once stood tall amongst the forest giants, Lewa finally heard something. Crying might not elicit the same inherent biological reaction in him that it did in mammals, but the pitiful sounds of distress told him that there was something at the bottom of those stairs that needed saving. “Not a moment to waste-lose,” he said aloud. “Let’s get to the bottom of this!”

Before either of them could, Lewa found himself confronted by another tiny organic biped. The few that the toa had seen during his search-and-rescue in the village had all been drab in appearance, and terrified, but this one was neither. She seemed languid, with striking colors, and in a way she reminded him of Lily. One thing was for certain, though: nothing about her was light brown, and she wasn’t carrying anything but splotches of the same red fluid that leaked from slain organics. The searchers had found someone, but not who they set out to find.

Remilia broke the tension by saying something that Lewa understood very little of. When she said ‘green’, though, she probably meant him. Rayne took initiative before he could, expressing concern and then mentioning that yes, she and Lewa did know Sanae. She hadn’t been the one to send them on this mission, though. “I am Lewa, Toa of Air,” he informed Remilia, hoping to clear up any misconceptions about his identity. “We are looking for a wife named Elaine, and something called a child. To help-bring them home safe to Marcus, who is alive and well! Have you seen them?” He eyed the murky shadows beneath the ruins, anxious to see where -and to who- these stairs led. “We were just about to venture down there in hopes of save-finding them.”

Though rain had begun seeping through the cracks in the rotting wood, the steps leading deeper into the area beneath were only left somewhat wet. The lack of any guard railing would make travel downwards dangerous, and the lack of any direct light down the stairwell would prove dangerous without any illumination of the party's own. With the team at hand, though, it was unlikely that any meaningful issues would arrive in blindly traversing downwards, least of all the fact that they had ways of making their own light (or avoiding the possibility to stumbling down outright simply by flying).

The walk down the stairs would proceed more or less without issue, provided nobody accidentally slipped on the rain-soaked stone that had been smoothed over by who knew how many years' worth of natural erosion. The bottom of the stairwell would lead to an open room—one that, by the looks of things, had seldom seen any exploration since it was last closed. The sounds of the crying child were rather noticeable now that before, and a brief look around the room would reveal the source without much issue.

Would that the circumstances had been better, though.

Though the air was stagnant and musty, the smell of blood would be difficult to ignore regardless. An unconscious woman, clutching at her wailing child in silence, was leaning against one of the walls to the side. No bloodstains save those now marking the stone brick walls were visible on the walk in—likely due to the cut that had drained her having been shallow enough to only soak into her clothing—but given what the situation seemed to be, it was rather lucky that the group had stumbled upon her when they had. Any bit of light would reveal that the woman matched the brief description that Marcus had provided, but whether it was the Raven Heralds or something else that had injured her was something that remained to be seen.

There was a door further in at the other end of the room—this one built of some sort of metal—but given the situation, further exploration would have to be a consideration for the future—unless, of course, the group as it was thought that whatever was sealed behind it was worth the effort of trying to break through right now.

@DracoLunaris@Lugubrious@Izurich

"O-... oh?" Two things became immediately apparent to her, both of them equally unexpected.

Firstly, the "Green Pocket-Sized Hisoutensoku" - unlike the original skyscraper-sized mech - could... speak, while her mind might be quite delirious at the moment, but out of all her current physical and spiritual afflictions, hallucination wasn't one of them. Yes, she was confident that she just heard voices - words - coming from the 7-foot tall humanoid machine, not only that, it didn't talk like one of Nitori's automated drones, no, this... mechanical entity, it - he? - sounded sapient. He was more accurately a person than a mecha, a mech-person? Urgh... those Kappa and their inventions. Regardless, if he was a man who just so happened to have a mechanical nature instead of simply a machine, then she should treat him accordingly. She might have been spirited away to the Outside World, but there’s' no reason to abandon proper manners.

Secondly, and with no less amount of unexpected surprise, the... Armored Witch Kappa(?) woman confirmed that they know a Sanae, and any notion of it simply being a case of someone sharing the same name was dashed the moment Rayne started describing this specific Sanae. Long green hair, capable of flight, "...dresses up like a shrine maiden, and insufferable. Yes, that Sanae." Remilia muttered in disbelief, the nonsense she blurted out turned out to be spot-on, So Sanae does have something to do with this... incident. By the Impaler, just what did you and your goddesses do this time, Sanae? Please don't tell me that I'm not the only one you dragged along with you to the Outside World... But she supposed only Sanae could answer that.

Now armed with this new, crucial information, Lady Remilia started pondering her next move. While she could ask these two curious individuals regarding Sanae's current location and immediately head there, the leaf-colored mech-person - Lewa, Toa of Air, was it? - spoke something regarding a rescue mission, a wife named Elaine and her child, then this Marcus ought to be her husband if she deduced correctly. Sigh, Sanae... if you want to play the adventuring heroine and her comrades like in one of your silly delusions, at least have the courtesy to ask us first. But what's done is done, she was already here, in front of two would-be rescuers of a lost woman and her child. One might speak ill of the Scarlet Devil, but let it never be said that she'd abandon innocents in need when given the opportunity to save them. Haa... me and my bleeding heart, perhaps this was why Sanae dragged me along, huh?

Nodding to herself, Remilia proceeded to properly face Rayne and Lewa, she's currently much less presentable than she'd like, but it'd have to do, "Greetings, Lewa, Toa of Air, and Lady Witch whose name I've yet to discover, you're in the presence of Lady Remilia of House Scarlet, I hail from Gensokyo, the very same land in which that troublesome wind priestess came from." She lifted the hem of her drenched dress a bit, curtsying to the Toa of Air and the Knight-Witch with all the elegance of a highborn woman. Her noble gesture done, she straightened herself, her mind addressing the matter at hand.

"As for your inquiry, Sir Lewa, no, I haven't seen Elaine, nor her child..." She paused, "However, I may have heard the latter." She turned her blood-red gaze toward the rotten wooden door, "Just before you arrived, I noticed an infant's cry coming from within these ruins. I believe it's quite plausible to hypothesize that your quarries have taken shelter here." She nodded at the two, "Let's find out, shall we?" Before commanding her wings to flap - with some aching pain that Remilia ignored - as the petite vampiress' body began floating off the ground. She then entered the ruined tower, but not to ascend, instead heading down below.

... As a sanguine mistress of the night, Remilia had little need of mundane light to see, her vision unhindered by the darkness and her flight allowed her to trivialize the seeping rain coating the dilapidated stone steps by not even using them in the first place. Thus, Remilia descended down along with her two impromptu comrades, using the infant's cry and her keen sense of smell to guide her, homing on the most distinctive of them all, the scent of the precious crimson nectar that her kind loved above all. "Blood." Remilia muttered as she came upon the sight of a human woman, still and unmoving, her arms wrapped around the source of the high-pitched wails. This must be who Marcus was looking for.

"It appears that she's quite fortunate that her child possesses such formidable vocal cords." Mistress Remilia quipped as she landed near the inert mother, noticing her injuries. "And it's also fortunate that I am here, fufu~" the lilac-haired youkai smirked as she reached out her unbloodied left hand to caress over Elaine's injuries. Tch... It's beyond doubt now that my powers have been exsanguinated... mostly, I think I can still do this much. Putting her concentration on what remained of her magical might, Remilia worked a simple yet effective spell through her Haemomancy, mending vessels and tissues, staunching off any bleeding - internal and external - and allowing wounds to heal, much more rapidly that they would otherwise.

"There." Remilia sighed softly in lethargic triumph as she retracted her hand, "I've mended her wounds, she should be fine now."

As for the matter of the metal door at the other end of the room, the desire to tinker with it didn't come into Remilia's mind at all. What she desired most above all is to find the errant Moriya Miko... and get some well-deserved answers.

@DracoLunaris @Lugubrious

“I mean, I wouldn’t know about those two things… but it's good that you know someone here” Rayne replied to the addition to her description of Sanae, not knowing what the first really entailed, and not really sure why someone would find Sanae insufferable. Not that she’d known her long, of course, but she was going to give both parties here the benefit of the doubt rather than choosing some kind of side.

First impressions wise, the little lady of house scarlet gave quite the complicated one it had to be said, with her the offhand derision of Sanae and her high class attitude clashing with her bedraggled and bloody state which clashed again with her willingness to help despite said state. All in all Rayne didn’t quite know how to think of her, but she was never going to nay say someone’s desire to help.

Well, assuming it wasn’t self destructive anyway. She was going to keep an eye on her in case her situation got worse, but getting out of the rain was going to help anyway, so she was more than happy to let her approach and join them in entering the building, as well as thankful that Lewa’s relaying their task had lead to this outcome.

It was only after she’d tried and failed to shake herself dry (dash blinking through the forest had meant dash blinking through the rain, with predictably soggy results) they were heading down that she took the moment to introduce herself “Oh, and I’m Rayne, and I’m a Knight Witch rather than a witch-witch. It's nice to meet you Rem- Lady Remilia”

Having lived underground for most of her adult life, Rayne was entirely used to the dark. It also helped that a spot on her breastplate over her heart and two spots on the backs of her gauntlets glowed with inner light, not to mention the soft golden aura that surrounded her whenever she floated anywhere, like a literal beacon of hope.

Suffice to say there was little issue navigating in the dark for Rayne as she drifted down the stairs, so she instead focused her attention on Lewa just in case he had any issues, being the only one actually taking the stairs and all, and acting as his lightsource if he seemed to need one as she did so.

“You… said you didn’t know what a child was?” she asked rhetorically as she drifted down, reminded of the odd way he’d said they were looking for Elaine and her child while watching his steps, and then explain “its, um, well children are like small inexperienced people who gradually grown into bigger people as time passes, instead of just being made big right away which I assume happened with you?”

Whether or not that was a good explanation, and the two unusually small adults before him most likely did not help matters, the mechanical man soon got to see a live example, as well as its very injured mother.

“Oh no” Rayne whispered in quiet alarm at the sight, before she floated closer alongside Remilia to inspect the situation. As the vampire quipped and inspected the mother’s injuries the Knight Witch drifted down and to try and to console the crying child “shshsh, it's going to be ok now, we’ll get you both to safety-” before going “huh?” and then “oh wow” in amazement as she watched Remilia casually healed the injured woman right before her eyes.

“That’s amazing!” the Knight Witch whispered-cried (not wanting to upset the baby any more than it already was with loud sounds), looking upon the little vampire with adoration for her healing powers, before realizing with even more amazement“you could help so many people!”

“The town they’re from was attacked, and I’ve been teleporting everyone we’ve found that survived back to this hunting lodge. If we get you back there, could you heal them too?” she asked, filling in a tiny bit more context in the process, before adding “oh, and that’s where Sanae and all the others who were brought to this world are too” which likely only raised further questions.

There was another voice. A man's. Somehow, while the words sounded unfamiliar to her, she could understand their meaning.

It didn't make any sense to Youmu, but that was beside the point.

What mattered was the fact that he'd made a threat.

Her grip on Roukanken's hilt tightened. Her feet slid slowly apart, squaring themselves into a combat stance as she inhaled, leaning forward. While her phantom half had been injured, yes, and she could sense moving too quickly for too long would only worsen it, that didn't mean she thought her speed would be insufficient for this.

Draw, move, and slash, all in a single motion.

Each action had already outlined itself in her mind, even as her lips parted to speak.

"I am Konpaku Youmu," she introduced herself, "In service of the Lady of Hakugyokurou and Princess of the Netherworld, Saigyouji Yuyuko-sama. I wouldn't suggest drawing your sword, but I won't hesitate if you try to attack."

@Vlad Tepes

Although he hadn’t hesitated to ask this small stranger for help, Lewa didn’t expect her to do what she did next. After providing him and Rayne with a rather grandiose introduction that confirmed some sort of shared origin with the one who called herself Sanae, Remilia decided to throw her lot in with the two of them and help expedite their search and recovery. To Lewa, that was a welcome surprise.

Back home on the island of Mata Nui, it was true that matoran didn’t always get along, and the different tribes might have different ideas of how to best serve and protect their people, but the differences and disagreements between matoran never escalated into conflict and strife. They were, after all, one body, one family of brothers and sisters bound by the virtues of unity, duty, and destiny. Even their leaders, the wise and venerable Turaga, had once been a part of the same team just like the Toa Mata were now. Life on Mata Nui wasn’t easy, what with dangerous rahi and now the Bohrok hordes, but the matoran lived in relative harmony with one another. In this world, that wasn’t the case. In the brief time Lewa spent here, he’d seen people fighting and killing one another without a second thought. Helpless villagers slaughtered by their own kind. It boggled Lewa’s mind, and he could only assume that was just how things were here. As such, encountering a friendly and helpful stranger in this world helped shore up Lewa’s spirit a tiny bit. Maybe these organics weren’t all bad.

Now a trio, the seekers descended the dark, treacherous stairs to find the source of the infant’s cry that Remilia identified. As they went, Rayne shed some light on what exactly they were looking for. "I see. Thank you," he replied, nodding sagaciously. Small people...growing like plants? What a novel concept. Since he lacked the vampire’s sense of smell, Lewa put his trust in her to lead him through the dark, his hand never far from the shaft of his axe. The others could disappear into the darkness down here, hiding in the same shadows that could shroud unknown threats, but between his glowing eyes and heartlight Lewa knew he was a prime target should anything be lurking in the gloom. Instead of hidden enemies, however, the three found a body, stained with the red fluid that by now Lewa associated with the loss of life. “Oh no,” he murmured, echoing Rayne. As unfamiliar with medicine as he was with organic biology, he could only assume that the poor woman was already dead. At least it seemed like the ‘infant’ could still be saved, but just the thought of telling Marcus about his wife’s demise brought Lewa great anguish. What was he going to do?

Given the circumstances, he couldn’t help but be baffled by Remilia’s carefree attitude. Did this loss of life mean nothing to her, either? Only when she took action did Lewa begin to realize he might have been mistaken. He watched, perplexed, as she did…something…to Elaine. After a moment, she declared that the woman would be fine. Lewa stared between the two in silence, his wide eyes saying just like that? It seemed impossible, but then again, it was just another in a long string of impossibilities. Lewa decided not to question it. It seemed like Remilia had been right: these villagers really were fortunate that she’d been here. The toa didn’t want to think about how this would have ended if only he and Rayne reached this place, so rather than fret about the past, he began thinking about what to do next.

“Excellent!” He clapped his metal hands, his infectious joy lighting up the dreary underground space. “We will have happy-good news for Marcus!” Just as he went to pick the humans up so that he -being the biggest and strongest of the three- could carry them back to town, Rayne reminded him that she could just teleport everyone right back to where they started. Though the door down here did make him curious, he saw no reason to prolong the villager’s reunion. “Our task is complete. Let’s not linger-wait a second longer!” he urged the others. “Whatever damaged the wife could return at any moment, after all.”

---

Konpaku, she called herself. Konpaku Youmu.

What a strange name, Alucard thought as he stood there, his keen eyes ever alert with his hand grasping the hilt of his blade. It sounded foreign to the dhampir, as well as the dialect of her tiny voice. "If they attack, they will be dead before their bodies hit the ground." He assured himself in his mind. Even if his opponent was quick, he was quicker. There was no mere mortal who could outmatch the speed of the dhampir.

And so, he waited patiently for his opportune moment to strike.

Alucard's eyes widened. A figure soon came into his view, that of...surprisingly a little girl. She had two swords of Eastern make strapped to her right hip, one of which she had firmly wrapped her slender fingers around preparing to draw. Alucard sensed there was some sort of magic pulsating from the twin blades, an aura he could see radiantly as one could view the halo of mist around a full moon. His sharp nostrils winced. There was no scent of blood upon her, so she couldn't have been the one responsible for this slaughter. However, Alucard was taking no chances in letting his guard down, not even for a second.

"Alucard." He introduced himself with a curt nod, briefly allowing the stern features of his face to soften. He let up his grip on his weapon just a tad, but his hand never left his side. "What are you doing here, Konpaku? More importantly, what is this place? This is like no village I have seen in Wallachia." Indeed it wasn't. The architecture of the houses and shops were similar, yes, but they had more of an English style to them. Alas, even with this notion, Alucard was still uncertain of where he was transported to. He was hoping someone had an answer, even if it was just a small shred of information he could glean.

Given the nature of what had just transpired, it wasn't at all surprising that the baby would continue to cry as the group approached it and its mother. As was natural for children (as one might have presumed), the presence of strangers and lack of response from its mother only seemed to further exacerbate what fears it held. Newly borne into the world as it was, the lack of a familiar voice, the darkness, the smell of blood—it almost seemed as if everything was lining up to make sure that the child would never be at ease down here.

But be it for safety or some other reason, the woman and her child had not only ended up here, safe from the elements and whatever beasts may have lurked above, but also found themselves miraculously found despite the logic of the world dictating that rescue in such a situation would have been almost impossible otherwise. Even so, that still left the problem of transporting the pair home.

With neither child nor parent capable of movement and the rain pounding down from above, it fell to the group to decide whether or not to remain in the darkness until the storm passed or to brave the elements and simply push through back to town in spite of it. The lack of any ability to simply teleport back meant that much would be an issue regardless of choice.

With that said, though, the baby did seem to stop crying for a moment as Lewa drew nearer, for whatever reason. The presence of the others didn't seem to help in calming it down, but at the very least there was something about the Toa that seemed to put it at ease.

@DracoLunaris@Lugubrious@Izurich

Huh... For a brief moment, Remilia felt a tinge of curious amusement from the way Lady Rayne the Knight-Witch and Sir Lewa the Toa of Air reacted to a simple display of Blood Magic, a minor healing spell to mend an equally minor wound, most certainly nothing to write home about let alone be impressed by. It was only after a following moment of epiphany that Remilia realized something, that living in Gensokyo for most of her life had accustomed her to Gensokian repertoire of powers, made worse by the fact that she often mingled with individuals of more or less equal standing as herself. I suppose for the less... endowed folks, what I just did already counts as a miracle? Heh, it's... nice, in a way. The Scarlet Devil certainly wasn't one to rebuke compliments when it's deserving.

"You're very welcome, Lady Rayne, Sir Lewa, fufu~" Remilia chuckled elegantly, flashing a subtle smirk of vain smugness, "I see... so that is the reason why these two humans fled their home." The lilac-haired girl nodded as she took in the information relayed by Rayne and Lewa; the cause of the exodus, the current state of the town, Rayne's teleportation abilities, and last but certainly not least, Sanae's whereabouts. So there are others? Unsurprising, she picked me, what was stopping her from grabbing another? I wonder who they’ll be; Flan? Sakuya? Marisa? Perhaps even Reimu? Regardless, I'll find out soon.

"Most certainly," The Blood Mistress chuckled in agreement at the Knight-Witch and Air Toa, "After all, I am nothing but magnanimous. Bring us to this lodge, then I shall mend their maladies, and since I'm feeling generous, 'they' include Sanae as well." She was already ready to depart just as Lewa embraced the wife and her child with his sizable emerald limbs. "Well? What are we dallying for?" Remilia asked Rayne, assuming that she'd teleport them all right about now.

@DracoLunaris @Lugubrious

By the time Anne emerged from the lodge and limped her way to the source of the disturbance, the two strangers were already facing off. A tiny, silver-haired slip of a girl and a tall pale pretty-boy type, both dressed in completely different styles and carrying long blades. By the standards of the Knight Order, they weren't even that strange—Anne had fought alongside her fair share of weirdos in the past.

Just like the group at the church, however, the two of them spoke of places and people she'd never even heard of. The Netherworld? Wallachia? She rubbed one hand against her temple, already feeling a headache coming on. Just how much more of this nonsense would she have to deal with before the day was out?

"I expect she's here for exactly the same reasons as you." She spoke up as she came into earshot, though she doubted it was necessary to get their attention. Neither of them would have missed her approach even from a distance, and she could already tell enough about them to be certain of this fact. "Transported with little warning, across great distances, without any explanation nor obvious culprits. There are several of us here already, and we still haven't even worked out what planet we're on."

Her hands didn't stray towards her swords even as she drew nearer, and the green-eyed glare that fixed them both in turn spoke more of irritation than of fear. The scent of blood lingered thick around her, but it carried the same smell she did: chemical, artificial, and not entirely human to begin with. If he could sense the magic in Youmu's swords, Alucard would likely feel the blood-red power lurking within the Knight as well, though in her case it seemed less like magic than a curse, an insidious poison that slowly ate away at her even now.

"If you join us, we might manage to figure out some answers together. Or if you'd rather fight each other, then at least have it out somewhere else. This is a populated area, and the colonists here have already been through more than enough."

@Raineh Daze@VitaVitaAR@Vlad Tepes

---

"I expect she's here for exactly the same reasons as you."

Alucard turned his head slightly, fixing his attention on the woman to the left of him, though he kept his hand hovering over his weapon.

He was well aware of her presence beforehand, having noticed a faint hint of blood in the air, but this wasn't like the blood he smelled earlier upon entering the village. It had a sharpness to it, a cold, metallic sensation Alucard couldn't place. It didn't even smell remotely human. His eyes met with the piercing green of the stranger's, immediately recognizing her stern demeanor, not once a betrayal of fear upon her....rather charming face if Alucard could be so bold as to admit. She had quite the commanding presence, yet the dhampir couldn't help but detect...that she was suffering inside from a sort of affliction. Was it a curse? No, the feeling wasn't arcane or magical in any sense. A disease, perhaps? If so, what kind of disease?

These questions mulled Alucard as he issued his own hardened glance at the mysterious woman, silently listening to her as she spoke, acknowledging her words with a curt nod of his head. He noticed briefly the sword at her side. Another combatant, he thought.

Populated she said the village was, but by whom? From what Alucard could tell, there was nobody left in this village but corpses. He hadn't seen a place so thoroughly razed than when his father waged bloody war against the humans of Wallachia. The poor souls who were lost in those wretched days...especially in Targoviste where the war began.

After she had finished her sentence, Alucard reluctantly released his hand from his blade and rested it at his side, issuing a bothersome sigh and shutting his eyes briefly. "Hmm...so it would appear." He muttered giving a short look around his dire surroundings. At this point, the shock of seeing so many dead had subsided. It almost felt mundane to the dhampir. Besides, death was nothing new. "If what you say is true, then we are all strangers in a strange land. I do not know what sort of magic, if any, it was that brought us here, but I intend to find its source."

A wry smile he put forth as he placed his hand over his chest and gave both females a gentlemanly bow. "Forgive my earlier brashness. I was merely keeping my guard. One cannot be too careful in a situation such as this. It is not my intention to harm others, lest I feel they are a threat."

When the tall man, Alucard, introduced himself, Youmu's grip on Roukanken's hilt finally loosened. With the appearance of the other woman, who hadn't yet introduced herself, her ready stance grew less tense, and ultimately she let go of her blade's hilt entirely before straightening.

"There's still people alive here?" she asked. It didn't look good where she was, to say the last, and the more she dwelled on the presence of the bodies the sicker it made her feel. However, she could glimpse more intact buildings further along. Was that where they were?

She paused for a moment, and bowed in turn after Alucard bowed. Now that it was clear there wasn't about to be a fight, she couldn't simply forget basic etiquette.

"I apologize as well, I wasn't certain about your intentions," responded the white-haired half-phantom. If there were people dead here, that meant that danmaku rules weren't at play. While Youmu wouldn't have tried to kill anyone, the mere thought of such a thing certainly set her on edge on top of everything else.

@Vlad Tepes@Drifting Pollen

“Ah, well, I would, but it's not that simple. I can’t teleport myself for one, and in order to teleport someone else they need to be part of my Link, which people join when I've earned their thanks. It's what my magic is all based on. I help people, my magic gets stronger, and that makes me better at helping people. Which is nice, but also makes it unhelpfully conditional at times“ Rayne explained while scratching the back of her head embarrassingly, before concluding “so we’re gonna have to go back the old way. Sorry.”

“Elaine won’t though, which is good, I wouldn’t want to put her through any more than she has been already. I know I’ve already had enough of the rain, the novelty wore off almost right away” she said, as she turned to look at the formerly injured woman, before adding, worriedly “shouldn’t she have woken up yet?”

Indeed despite her wounds being gone, the woman they’d been sent to find hadn’t roused from her unconscious state. At least she hoped it was an unconscious state, and until otherwise she was going to go with that optimistic take, asking Remilia “Should we try and wake her up ourselves? Is that safe to do” hoping she knew what she was doing in that regard.

A potentially alarming prospect, what with the strangers and the golem who’d be greeting her upon awakening, but she needed the woman’s concert before she could send her off anywhere. Also the peace of mind that really was fine and not an immaculately repaired corpse wouldn’t hurt either.