[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/moq2uR2.png[/img][/center]
[center] [color=LightBlue]S-Strange people visiting your house is never a good sign...[/color]
[color=888888]-Norika Tsukishima[/color][/center]

Norika only backed further into the corner of her bed when she heard the faint sound of the man’s voice, her shaking hands clasped around her pendant and her breathing coming in rapid gasps. Fear filled her wide eyes as her frantically racing mind tried to figure out just who this man was and what purpose he might have for coming to her home, but these thoughts abruptly ceased when she heard one of the servants answer the door. Now the frightened girl tried to focus all of her meager energy on making out what the servant and mystery man were saying. [color=LightBlue][i]Father wanted to see him? Numbers?[/i][/color] she wondered as she heard the man cryptically evade the servant’s questions. Perhaps this really [i]was[/i] just some innocuous business associate of her father’s, but a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach made her think otherwise. Something was seriously wrong here, and it wouldn’t be long before she leaned exactly what it was.

[color=LightBlue][i]H-H-He knows [b]what?![/b][/i][/color]

If Norika had been frightened before, now she was on the verge of a complete panic attack. [color=LightBlue][i]Nononono… H-He [b]has[/b] to be lying! T-There’s no [b]way[/b] he could…![/i][/color] By this point, she had begun to hyperventilate. Her head was spinning and her vision was growing increasingly blurry. She was close to passing out when she squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to calm down. [color=LightBlue][i]D-Damn it… I-I have to be stronger than this…! O-Otherwise…[/i][/color] Otherwise, she’d never learn who this man was, or how much he really knew about what she’d done. Slowly opening her eyes, she glanced at the clock on her nightstand. It would still be several minutes before a servant came to take her food tray and ensure she’d eaten everything (or berate her if she’d failed to). It wasn’t much time, but she figured it should still be enough for her to eavesdrop on her parents’ conversation with the mystery man.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, focused on the power within her pendant, and then…

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/cRMH2zR.png[/img][/center]
[center][color=Aquamarine]This fucker sure better talk fast...[/color]
[color=888888]-Nyxia Torrentia, Neon Tempest of the Ultraviolet Rainbow[/color][/center]

[color=Aquamarine]“Okay,”[/color] the Neon Tempest told her beloved weapon as she hugged it tight. [color=Aquamarine]“Let’s do this, baby.”[/color]

In a surge of motion, she opened her window, slipped out it, and flung herself up onto the roof. After darting across it, she leapt down behind one of the columns supporting the back porch. The dining room was set against floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a magnificent view of the backyard gardens, and on a pleasant day like this one, the glass panes had been slid aside to allow the crisp autumn air to fill the house. Yet, even though she would be utterly invisible to any mundane human, Nyxia didn’t want to take any chances. Thus, she stood stone still with her back pressed against the column as she held her massive energy cannon close to a chest heaving not so much from exertion, but from the yawning abyss of anxiety that even now threatened to completely engulf her.