Vera was caught off guard by Mina dragging her and Michael away to somewhere more quiet. She seemed... uhh... simple. Simple wasn't bad, though. Simple was honest and easy to work with... kinda. As long as you didn't need rocket science.
It was the other one she had her guard up around, and trying to link arms with her would be like trying to grab smoke for him.
"What are you doing? You're gonna hurt her feelings," Vera told him with a frigid glare. "Wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea." Speaking of Mina's honesty, and what she'd witnessed, it was clear that the beefy girl valued the guy in some way... for... some reason.
Once in that more "private" location, Vera managed to pry herself free and help get Michael laid down. It was then that she decided it was time to retreat, if she could. She just had to do it right.
"Look, Mina was it? You seem like a smart girl." Hardly, but Mina had no reason to expect Vera to know better. "Do me a favor, would you? Make sure Michael here makes it to his next match in one piece," she began, slipping Michael's glasses into the boy's pocket as she spoke. "You knocked him out, so it's only fair you make it right, don't you think? You might be fighting him yourself after all, and you don't seem like a cheater to me. Don't let anyone mess with him, not even this guy here." She pointed a thumb at Suzakura. "After all, it'd be a mistake to hurt a contestant outside of a match, and friends don't let friends make mistakes."
She did her best to be straightforward with her wording, but without appearing condescending. The last part wasn't too hard, after all. She just had to siphon all her anger toward Suzakura, which helped keep it from showing up as she spoke to Mina. She didn't really know him, but he'd made a terrible first impression so far.
"I'd stay and watch him myself, but he'd be embarrassed if he woke up and found me doting over him, and then he wouldn't be able to focus during his fight." She sighed. "But... if you really need me, I'll be over at the bar, OK?"
Once she was at least half-confident Mina mostly understood, she turned to leave, "Try touching me again and you'll be walking cross-legged for the rest of your life," she hissed icily to Suzakura as she walked past him.
Alex was wrenched out of her own thoughts by someone sitting at her booth. She wasn't exactly ready to field questions, but she knew eventually someone would come up and ask about her since her flashy fight with Vera. She'd have to brush them off as best she could.
But the weirdo didn't seem to want to talk about Andras's powers, or how she managed to punch that hard, or why she was getting tossed around like a toy before the end of the fight. Alex wasn't really sure if these were the standard clientelle of Midnight, but she was getting weird vibes from this one. Alex nearly welcomed the distraction from her own issues - which were currently a tumultuous vortex of anxiety and sadness. 'Is this guy a stalker or something? Why would he come to ask me?' Alex raised an eyebrow as she glanced at the picture.
Alex took a deep breath and tried to work back into character. She was Andras, the Demon Lady. Who fought in underground tournaments and cared not for the domain of the living. "I'm afraid you're mistaken. My domain is not this world, but that of the Underworld. Your boldness to ask a demon amuses me, but it is misplaced." She gave him a flippant wave of the hand.
'Not to mention, I've been completely removed from normal life for the last two years...' Alex thought to herself. 'So I've not been seeing anyone other than the five people at the hospital until recently.'
Mina looked at both Suzakura and Vera talking. Okay, using the Milk Thief's head as puppet she wasn't fooling her and was quite mean, but she accepted it because it was a bit hilarious and it was his King. However, what he said following that made the cow blessed sulk a little, her ears becoming slightly downcast. Manager? She hated managers. Her dad tried to become her manager to order her around and tell her whom she would give her Miracle Milk. She hated her dad. "I hate managers..." She pouted slightly.
However, the Pink Lady surprised her. "Moo?" She said in slight surprise. She had never been called smart frequently. Not even Suzakura did that to praise her. "Dummy", "Stupid", "R*tard", "Fat Idiot", "Beef for brains." All of those things. Her eyes beamed somewhat, as she pleaded herself she would put 110% of her brainpower to hear Vera's plea. She looked at her boyfriend. The pitiful milk thief. He was scrawny, and helpless. Maybe she had been too hard on him. Maybe he needed her Miracle Milk more than anything. She could understand his thinking now. He was trying to act tough, like all boys did. To win her girl a dinner or something. But he was tired, and his luck would run out.
Just like a toddler.
Her eyes then rested on Michael, then on Suzakura, then on Vera. "Mooo... Maternity leave!" She beamed as she began to search for a cloth to drape Michael with. "I'm sorry Suzakura. I guess I think I'll have to leave the tournament. Mikey is my baby now! He needs me!" She beamed as she began to craft a blatantly oversized baby carrier with some random cloth she found. Yes, she would protect him! Smart move, Mina!
"I'm too sore to craft a lot of milk." She would add. "So, if you want some, Suzakura, you'd best win the tournament for me, kay?" She would add as she tied the unconscious Michael to her torso and chest. To him, she would bestow her first serving of her remaining milk, hopefully restoring the Painter to top shape, while keeping a bottle apart.
Once she was set and with Michael fixated to her, she ventured out to reach Vera. "Heeeey, Pink Lady! Don't worry about your boyfriend! He's my baby now! I'll keep him safe and give him my miracle potion! Oh yeah, I'm taking maternity leave, so Suzakura will take over for me!" She would beam, before handing her a flask of her potion.
It was still oddly lukewarm.
Her outburst was by no means unnoticed, but a certain person who had hit the bar cursed under his breath. "Well...shit." Parker would say inbetween his teeth. Right next to him there was a scrawny teenager with braces and acne, a bucket right next to him with glowsticks.
"Gosh I wish that was me." The youth said next to Parker, while sipping a root beer.
"Pisslord, that's not helping." Parker would grumble. Maybe he'd need to help that umpleasant pink woman. She had some bad reputation in the streets.
Duke stared down at the downed contestant for a moment, as if to contemplate his response. Shortly afterwards, he dropped an icepack and towel onto the boy's lap. "A consolation prize, courtesy of Midnight." He said to him. Duke nodded to the bartender who nodded back. He scanned the room, watching as the night's festivities continued. Some contestants were making trouble nearby, creating an interesting web of interactions as personalities clashed together. Unfortunately for him, it seemed like he wouldn't have the opportunity to join the fun.
Duke squatted down next to the downed contestant, watching the proceedings on the other side of the room. "Bad luck today, huh?" He said idly. He had to be a little more sensitive this time to open him up. "I was looking forward to your matches today, you know. You put on a good performance, sometimes. Guess you just got unlucky today." Duke said, shrugging. "Although..." He made a show of thinking for a moment before opening his mouth again. "You two have always entered tournaments together so I've seen both of you fight a bit, and if you ask me, Buffy's powerup seems a little... unnatural, don't you think?" He waited for the injured boy to respond.
At first, Michael was groggy. There was nothing but darkness and pain within his perception. Then, something lukewarm and... milky entered his mouth. Instinctively, he drank it. He had no idea what it was, but there was little else he could do in his current condition. Almost immediately, he felt himself recovering. The pain subsided and his mind became clear. Michael opened his eyes, only to be met with blurred vision. He squinted, then realized he didn't have his glasses on. He patted his pockets, wondering if it might be on him, and then came into contact with some sort of cloth draped around him. It then occurred to him that he was not standing on anything, but rather than he was being dangled above the ground by said cloth, and to his back was something remarkably soft.
"What the heck..." Michael said as he finally reached into his pocket to put on his glasses. Around him were some familiar faces, Suzakura and Vera. Turning around, he could see that he was tied to Mina. To say the least, Michael was confused by this turn of events. "What the fuck? No, like, what the actual FUCK?!" Michael exclaimed as he looked down again, realizing he was being carried like a literal baby. "Whose stupid idea was this?! Hey, let me down. Right now," Michael demanded Mina.
Get the wrong feeling? What the heck did the pinkhaired girl mean by that? He wasn't romantically involved with Mina. She was his partner however, anyone who would mess with her would get their sorry hide whipped.
"Well, perkypinksy is right, we may be abit rough around the edges, but we don't cheat." Suzakura nodded while poking his one ear with his pinky finger, finding no earwax to his surprise.
"Mina what the holy hell are you doing to foureyes? Oh so -he- can get a drink? I see, fine! Bet you be bored with him in less than five minutes." Suzakura said in a scornful manner. How could Mina chose to pamper foureyes instead of him. And if that wasn't enough, she now wanted him to take her place in that tournament.
Then Michael had woken up and started to react in a manner which Suzakura could only regard as. "Great! Welcome back to the land of the not-passed-out, foureyes. This wasn't my idea of fun. But you friggin had some! Confriggingrats you lucky nerd!" Suzakura said aloud in a mocking tone to Michael. Vera was about to leave the room, with her clear warning. The bully couldn't help but whistle in a manner which made him seem impressed.
"Oho! Whoa! What a fierce little pink pixie! She's definitely into me. But who can blame her. Who wouldn't be?" The guy grinned and shrugged his shoulders before he ruffled his own hair in agitation at his evening being completely ruined.
"Why must this be happening to me right about now? Have I really been a bad human being? Come on gods! Fine, fine, have it your way. I will beat the living hells out of whomever happen to cross my way in that ring. Come to think of it? This might be just what I need to relieve this boredom." The bully moved his neck slightly and stretched his arms slightly, it was so tiresome that he had to work on his easy-life day. He set out, away from Mina and Michael and made his way closer to the ring.
"So who the flying shmusters am I going to fight? Oi! You there! Guy with the bad hair! Tell the manager the cow got a case of mad cow disease and can't show up, I'm the replacement. With a big Rrrrrrr..." He pointed his thumb at himself before sighing deeply, how had he ended up being goaded into filling out for Mina in this stupid fight with all it's rules.
Orpheuz kept a serious expression on his face when Alex spoke, he was paying much attention. As if every word Alex was saying, were getting X-rayed and dissected. After hearing Alex's full reply, the young man put back the photo inside of his jacket which was underneath the raincoat. Andras words about being from the underworld and that she were a demon made the hooded male chuckle slightly.
"Mistaken? Hardly. In a sense, we are very similar, you and I. We play with the hand we've been given, 'demoness'." He said the last word in a mocking sort of manner, as if it was a less fine nickname.
"I have traversed through that very underworld itself to get to here. It shouldn't come as such a surprise to you, one of the champions, to have a question hurled in your direction. Though perhaps you have not become a champion just yet... Andras. And it seems you do not hold the answers I seek." The male put both of his hands into the pockets of his raincoat, the hood slightly shading his face and his intense orange gaze.
"Have you been dealt a bad hand this time around? What of your comerades? Wolf? Michael? And the rest who stood against the shadow and made the sacrifice... perhaps it is a story yet to be written here. But not all fairy tales end in the same way. I guess that spiritual combatant were right in that at least. Hmph." The male allowed a smile to crawl up on his lips, his orange eyes glimmering under his hood. "I've come through space and time, to find what's mine. Rest assured, this time around we are on the same side."
"Train well, for this second try, or we may all die. In every world..." Orpheuz unbuttoned his raincoat and lowered his hood, before he walked closer, looking Alex into the eye. The dogtags around his neck clinging against each other. The very air around the young man would grow gradually colder, as if it were a late autumn night.
His voice would then be heard in a fiercer and more arrogant tone of voice, as he sang a short verse.
"So I will turn every dream into reality, and through the dark she will be the light to guide me!"
A bead of sweat formed on Alex's forehead as the person before her went off on their own tangent. 'Um. Is this guy serious?' Alex tried to work through what he said in her head. 'Is he threatening me? He's definitely talking about stuff that only someone stalking me would know. I've never seen this guy in my life.' Alex clenched her fists in her lap. 'What would Vera do right now?'
Alex knew that Vera would likely have decked the guy halfway through the sentence where he casually dropped that he knew what she and her friends had been up to. Especially the Vera she had just ran into, who after two years of separation had only become more tenacious. She'd probably also tell him that if he approached her again, she'd break his legs AND his face. The thought made Alex nearly snicker aloud. She couldn't imagine being so bold. At the same time, this guy was even crazier than she was. For putting up a facade, she could take some notes.
Alex felt unnerved at the guy getting closer to her, but she had enough adrenaline from the previous fight to stand steady. She had already stood up to things far scarier than this today. She narrowed her eye, taking a tiny gulp before firing back a response. "No sane man considers themself on the same side as a demon. In the end, I'll be the judge of who is my ally - regardless of space or time." Clasping her fist, the latent enchantment enhancing her strength glittered around her. "Remember that, if we ever meet again." It was a simple warning, but Alex was proud of her delivery. Not quite a level of a pro like this guy, but for something on the spot it was great.
Wolf heard... something behind them. He craned his neck, trying to see past Cel, but... saw nothing. Just the sea of ooze. Just the sea.
Finally it clicked. "W-wait! Go back!" But Cel wasn't stopping fast enough for his liking. Screw it, he was changing him mind already. He squirmed his way free of Cel's grasp and began to fall into the ooze, but before he hit it, a psychic bubble formed and imploded, blasting a small landing zone.
In his tired state, it wasn't exactly a happy landing, but he made it. Almost immediately, the ooze tried to rush back in on him, almost seeming angry.
Another bubble formed around him, but it alone did not slow the ooze. Suddenly something else burst into existence. Writhing, black vines covered in thorns encircled Wolf. The roots were wrapped around his waist, but the vines themselves almost seemed to have no beginning or end. They crawled and twisted, the thorns slicing through any ooze that tried to slide past. No matter what, a thorn always seemed to appear where it was needed to keep it at bay.
Wolf began to walk back the way they'd come, commanding three, long vines to extend out before him, rooting through the accursed muk. He caught a glimpse of Alyona making her retreat away from the ooze, but there was no sign of Kiwi. However, he could see one place the ooze seemed more... turbulent. Finally the vines found something there. The ooze did not want to let go, but the writhing thorns kept it at bay as the vines fished out their prize.
Kiwi, her many legs dangling limply. The ooze all around him grew more agitated, surging against his twisted defenses. He felt some of it leak through and drip onto his arm and hissed in pain, brushing it away back into the mess of thorns. To think Kiwi had been submerged it that. Even just the brief touch against his hand had burned.
Finally hew drew Kiwi all the way into his nest of thorns, though none of the thorns ever seemed to reach her. During it all, shapes began to form from the ooze, its aggression only increasing the longer he stood amidst it. In response, the vines retracted and wound tightly around him and Kiwi. In the dim light within the vines, he could see how badly she'd been hurt. He felt the throbbing in his head worsen. Whether from anger or the extended use of his powers, he did not know, but he grit his teeth.
"Enough of this..." he hissed. The vines unwound, all at once, like a dozen whips. The masses of ooze were shredded and dust fell as the vines left deep gouges in the surrounding walls. It hadn't stopped the ooze, but it had created a wide berth around him for the moment. "Hey!" He called to Celestine, though he'd never actually gotten their name himself . "Your friend ran off alone. We should go after her."
With the vines parted somewhat, Celestine would be able to see that Wolf's eyes had become bloodshot with a red trickle coming from his nose as he continued to manifest his ability. He paid it no mind, though. If it hurt, then it hurt, but this had progressed beyond too far. Celestine had said there was someone behind this, and Wolf intended to find them.
Celestine did a double take at the apparent knightly dive of Wolf, folding their arms as they waited for the student to fish out the spider senior. "Oh, so you are leaving me for her? Hmm I see. Can't blame you. She is cute, if you are into half-charred spider chicks." Celestine would add. "And she probably won't say no to you right now. No clothes either" They giggled impishly. "Scoop up fat hairy butt. I guess we are doing this and following my dear friend Aly." Celestine added as she hovered down to Wolf, and pronounciating a spell, enchanted the tree bodies with levitation.
"Well, I gave you flight. Let us go, then?" Celestine said, without mediating a word more and chased after Aly's trail. They could mention Kiwi could be healed with their powers, but they did not want to.
Finding Alyona on the trail of a bunch of goop minions, they would then join them facing the roof rat. "Morning delivery. Are you the key master?"
So you have chosen... Death, Erisse thought in rage at Suzakrua, rage which she hid with a false smile. As the group of young people left to pursue their individual plots and agendas, the 'Fairy Godmother' decided to pay for her food and drink, before literally vanishing into the crowds and into her 'parallel dimension' - She was going to make Michael's 'Relic' now.
To create said Relic, Erisse needed to visualize Michael's hopes and dreams, and goals, tapping into the sincerity behind them. Then, she needed to picture the Relic itself and its planned attributes, and pour the energy of the God of Stories' blessing into it. If she did it right, the magical energies she poured into the image would make said image real in front of her, and it would transform into a Mithril Paintbrush, a powerful tool which would amplify Michael's Gift and add 'Elemental Attributes' to its colors... As well as duplicate said gift for anyone else who used it.
She then wrote a note giving precise instructions on how to use the Mithril Paintbrush, before conjuring up a pair of ordinary glasses as well and a basket of apples. Then Erisse 'plopped' herself back into the mundane world, before following Michael, Mina, and Vera and activating Narrative Role of Familiarity once more to make them more at ease. She then handed over the glasses, paintbrush, and note to Michael, saying, "A gift from your biggest fan."
Then she handed over the basket of apples to Mina, saying, "And here, from your 'Apple Teach', as thanks for fixing up Michael here..."
The one before them stood there. He had a school uniform jacket laying on the roof next to him, leaving him with only a sweat drenched tanktop covering his chest. He was a lanky individual, but had pulsing veins like thick cords nearly bursting out of his skin.
"Didn't take you long..." he snarled. "Ah, well that's fine! It might be fun to see you squirm firsthand!" he chuckled darkly, turning to face Cel and Alyonya, eyes wild and wide-open. "So tell me! Did you like it? Did it get your blood pumping!?" However, he then paused and frowned. "Wait... who even are you? I don't recognize..."
Wolf was the last one to make it to the rooftop. As he stepped out of the doorway, he saw the individual in question. The roots unwrapped themselves from his waist, the nest of vines coiling tightly around Kiwi.
The wild-eyed student scoffed, "Hah, didn't expect to see you here! I'm surprised you-" And then he simply vanished off the face of the planet. All that was left was a faint shimmer in the air, with Wolf's arm now outstretched in that direction. Without a word, Wolf marched across the roof toward the shimmer and a moment later likewise vanished.
. . .
The student saw the three before him, but it hardly mattered. He had only just begun to flex his new power! He grinned when, a moment later, a massive surge of black ooze burst out onto the roof from behind them, swallowing them all up. He laughed maniacally. It was almost disappointing how quickly they'd succumbed. However, his laughter died away as the surge of ooze continued toward him, rising up and swirling around him. In hindsight, he hadn't remembered summoning it. It also no longer responded to his commands.
"Wh-what is this?!" Had he lost control of it? Was this some sort of side-effect?!
Then with no warning a hand burst out from the ooze, clamping down on his face...
. . .
He next found himself in a bleached white room. He tried to move but couldn't. He looked down to see he was seated in a chair, his arms and legs bound to it. Looking up, he saw the boy again, the last one to arrive. Wolfram, second-year student and competitor for dead-last at Clausewitz.
"What the fuck is th-" he pulled at the ropes, but they didn't so much as budge. If anything they felt tighter than before.
"Shut up." Wolf stared him down coldly.
"Hmph," he narrowed his eyes. "You're just mad because you never had the guts! This bullshit school stomps you down if you don't meet their absurd standards! You know exactly what I mean, you just don't have it in you to do anything about it! Those dumbasses finally gave me a leg up on you all, they just didn't expect me to turn it against them! I wonder how many of their precious good students I was able to swallow up!"
Wolf's pupils just shrank to furious pin-points at his words.
"Swallow up?"
Plip!
The student looked down at his feet. It was like a little blot of ink had dropped to the floor, seeping into the endless white to stain it black.
Plip plip plip!
More drops rained down. He looked up to see that the ceiling had a huge, dark splotch growing on it. It began to bulge out and distend, the rain of staining ink increasing.
"The fu-!?" He against struggled against his bonds, but they were tighter than ever.
Then in a sickening deluge, the dark blister burst open, a torrent of ink pouring out to cover the entire floor. From the hole a long, slender arm as black as the night sky reached out. Then another. And another. Four in total. Their collective fingertips gripped the edges of the opening to pull the rest of its body through. It's entire form was pure black, almost shapeless and near impossible to see against the increasingly stained backdrop, but enough of the white remained yet for him to see it.
It's head was large and bulbous in contrast to its thin, boney arms. Suddenly, one by one, eyes began to appear across its surface, seeming to float up from within its slick, inky face. One, two, then a dozen.
"Seriously! What the fuck is all this?!"
"You're pathetic," Wolf spat. "You complain about being weak, then the second you have power you lash out indiscriminately. Everyone was better off when you were nobody, because you've only proven the alternative doesn't deserve to exist."
The inky monster suddenly reached out with two of its arms, one clamping down on each of his shoulders. Every one of its many eyes was fixed upon him. Then its bulbous visage began to split apart down the middle until its entire head peeled open to reveal a massive, gaping maw.
"W-wait! NO! D-" Ignoring his complaints, the monster lunged forward, closing its teeth around his head and shoulders whole.
A piercing scream echoed off the walls of the white room. Every single one of his muscles tensed and strained against his bonds, but they wouldn't give. A moment later he went quiet, hyperventilating, trying to comprehend that he was somehow still in one piece.
He was again in a pure white room, still in the chair, and the monster was gone.
"It has nothing to do with guts." His head snapped back up as Wolf spoke again. "I'm just not that weak." Wolf strode forward and then kicked him in the chest, toppling him and the chair over backwards. He expected a short fall, but found himself tumbling painfully down and down. He finally hit bottom and the chair splintered on impact, freeing him.
He was now a the bottom of a stairway, surrounded by darkness with the only light streaming down from above past Wolf's silhouette. As he pushed himself to his feet, he realized the floor was damp. Looking at his hands, he realized they were stained with ink.
Plop.
Behind him he heard a wet footstep. Immediately his pulse shot back up to an erratic, frantic pace. He tried to race up the steps, but his legs felt like lead. Each step was a herculean effort and seemed to get him no closer to the top. If anything, with each step, the light he sought to escape to seemed to fade.
"This is my school." Wolf's voice echoed down to him as he felt a cold hand wrap tightly around his ankle. "You don't belong in it anymore."
"Stop! Please! Don't do th-" Another reached around to clamp over his mouth before the next two wrapped around his torso the drag him back into the dark.
. . .
Cel and Alyona would see the shimmer began to fade and then suddenly, only a minute after Wolf had vanished, he and their target reappeared. The boy had fallen to his knees at Wolf's feet, trembling and with tears pouring from his eyes.
"Wh-wh-wh-wh-" He seemed to mumble incoherently until suddenly Wolf just raised a foot and kicked him across the face, throwing him down. He lay there for a moment before he reached out, fingertips clawing at the rooftop as he tried to push himself back up with his shaking limbs. "Y-you... b-... b-bastard..." He snarled. "Y-you think... m-m-mindgames... can..." He grit his teeth, the veins on his forehead bulging, but then... nothing. "Wh-"
"I told you." Wolf stared down at him. "The alternative shouldn't exist. I just reminded you how pathetic you are," he scoffed and turned away. Now facing Cel and Alyona again, they could see the stream of blood running down from his nose to stain his collar. He began walking away, but the other student somehow found the strength to stand.
"Y-you... d-don't... you..." With a frantic shout, he surged forward, fist raised, but Wolf turned, leaning past the fist and raised a single finger to jab against the other boy's forehead. He froze, eyes losing focus. His arms then went slack as his entire body began to convulse before he collapsed entirely, foaming at the mouth.
Wolf grit his teeth, glaring down at him before huffing and once more resuming his walk back toward the others.
"Thanks for saving the school..." he muttered to them, clearly not caring to take any credit for what had just happened.
Mina blinked at the sudden turn of events. Her baby could talk now! She was so proud. Wait, her baby was Mike, of course he would be able to talk. She looked at the flailing Michael with a weird expression. "No. You're baby." She would say, unable to see the flaws in her argument. "You'll be safe here until you've got to fight. I promised the Pink Lady! That I would take care of you." Her eyes then darted towards the basket of apples present before her eyes, her mouth watering. It was then when she made a realization.
"Does Mikey want apple? I bet he does!" She cheered, grabbing an apple from the basket of apples. She was concerned about the gift the apple lady was giving to Michael. It kinda looked pointy, so she confiscated the Mithril brush. "Uh, I appreciate the sentiment but this thing is pointy! I will give it back when he grows up, okay?"
"I am NOT your baby!" Michael shouted indignantly at Mina, already getting fed up with this situation. It was already bad enough that she knocked him out in the first place. At the mention of whatever this was had something to do with Vera, Michael turned to the pink-haired girl. "Do I even want to know what she meant by that?" Michael asked Vera. Turning to Suzakura, he pointed at him and said, "I'm not even going to ask what you meant by that; I already know I don't want to know."
It was the last straw for Michael once Mina took away the paintbrush Erisse was trying to gift him. Now angered beyond belief, he slapped away the apple Mina was trying to feed him, then clapped his palms together like a monk. A large amount of ink proceeded to leak out of his skin, much of it dripping down onto the ground and forming a puddle. As the puddle formed, the ink also crawled up Mina's body in thick tendrils, forming thick chains and shackles around her arms and legs that began to pull down into the puddle. At the same time, the ink flowed from Michael's body and the puddle onto Mina's and proceeded to form a pattern of a net around Mina. On Mina's forehead would be a picture of a cow skull.
This combination of imagery would force Mina down to the ground, unable to gather her strength while weighed down by the strength of his art, while Michael would proceed to climb his way out of the cloth carrier Mina had tied him into. He wasn't very gentle either, often stepping onto Mina in his struggles. Once he was finally free, he would also take back the Mithril Paintbrush from Mina.
He sighed in exhaustion. The maneuver took some effort to create, but he still had some fuel in the tank, certainly more than enough to take on his next opponent. Turning to Erisse, Michael said, "Thank you for this, Erisse. I'll put it to good use."
Aly cocked her head at Cel's reference. "What is that? Key master?" The joke went right past her head, as most references to Rhean pop culture went. She assumed most things she heard were made up on the spot when it came to Cel, which didn't help.
She didn't get a chance to ruminate any further on the situation, because the forgettable guy that followed them up to the roof decided to phase out of existence. Once again, it was something Aly did not consider normal, but perhaps her frame of reference was merely out of date. She'd have turned to search Cel's expression, but she feared for what her grip on reality might end up being if she relied on them for a compass on what was normal. "Well. They're both gone, so problem solved...?" Aly pulled out her phone to check the time, turning to walk back home.
Before she could leave, the two reappeared. The forgettable one seemed to have completely taken the goopy one out... Somehow. So that move wasn't just to remove them both from existence forever. He had done something in the meantime. Alyona's stomach tightened at the thought. This kid was some slacker hiding out in the bathroom after school, and he could do something like that? Completely unacceptable. She was going to have to go toe-to-toe with the cretins of this school some day. The least she could do is try and remove this one from the pool of people she'd have to fight.
Alyona already had her phone up, so she quickly navigated her cracked screen to her camera. She managed to get it up just in time to record Wolf kicking the poor kid to the floor. "Oh my god..." She gasped quietly, making sure the video recorded her shocked disbelief. She had to try her best to sell it. After snapping the quick video, she quickly stowed the phone in her pocket. She'd have to get pictures of the trashed schoolrooms too, to really sell it, but she had formulated a bit of plan: Submit evidence that Wolf was fighting around the schoolgrounds after hours, trashing the place, and beating other students to a pulp. If that wasn't enough to get someone in hot water, Alyona would really have to give up on understanding this new city.
She gave a stiff greeting to Wolf as he approached her and Cel. "I would rather not take credit for something like this." She shot a glance at the person Wolf left on the roof. "<You are a real piece of work.>" She added in Yekaterinan, with a hint of respect. To think he'd not even kill the guy, but instead leave him a vegetable. Maybe he wasn't as boring as she thought.
Vera had to suppress a slight smirk at Michael's suffering. This was an acceptable comeuppance for the nosey little shit. However, as she made her way back toward the bar, something else was making its way around Midnight: the fact that Mina was dropping out of the tournament.
"Wait, what!?" The announcer hissed to the guy relaying the news. "Are you fucking kidding me? Again with this shit?! No one is gonna wanna fucking come here if we keep shuffling the brackets like this!"
"Well what are we gonna do then? It's the semi-finals! Just give them a pass?"
"Shit, no..." He began biting his thumbnail in annoyance. "Fuck it, whatever! I'll make it work!"
Vera's jaw dropped in realization. If Vera remembered correctly, that put Alex up against the sleezebag who'd been hitting on her. She didn't want Alex anywhere near that bastard. Alex had barely been able to handle her, and after their fight she'd be even weaker. Maybe she still had that super strength, maybe she didn't, but Vera was pretty sure she'd seen all of those fancy, glowing cards Alex had disappear right before she'd done that. Did that mean she was out of ammo? It was impossible to say, Vera didn't know a damn thing about Alex's new powers, but she was one to err on the side of cynicism and assume the worst.
Vera took her seat, back facing the bar, frantically chewing her nails while her friend was still conked out one seat over.
. . . wait.
BAM!
Vera's elbow shot out into her friend's gut, causing the other girl's eyes to snap open as she broke into a coughing fit.
"Yo, what the fu-" She was soon silenced as Vera grabbed her jaw and stared hard into her eyes.
"Shut up a listen."
"Ooh, sho fowcefuw-"
"Shut." Vera tightened her grip. "They're shuffling the matches again."
"Eh?" Even her friend, half out of her mind on drugs, was able to put together that that made no sense.
"I don't like it. First me, now some asshole against Al-. . . That Andras girl." Seeing her friend was at least half focused now, Vera let go. "I want you to go make a scene and fix it."
"Pfft? Me? Ur wayyy better at making a shcene," her friend slurred with a dry laugh.
"Yeah, except I'm suspicious since I started this whole mess," Vera told her. "Now pull it together and go do it."
The other girl rolled her eyes, "Ugh, fine. You care who she doesh end up againsht?"
"The painter kid would be fine." Vera shrugged.
"Cool, cool." The girl slid off her stool and stumbled to her feet. "Oh, and hwat do I get out of thish?" Vera, however, just reached over and grabbed her much emptier than before purse, holding it up for her friend to see. "You... make a sholid point." The girl rolled her neck, earning a few disgustingly loud cracks and then staggered off to do as she'd been told.
"Heeyyyy, what'sh the big deal? I heard you're screwin' with that denim lady's match again!" she grumbled as she stormed over to the announcer booth, earning a few confused looks as she did so.
"Wh-what? Where'd you come from?" The annoucer's face blanched at the sudden accusation.
"Well? What givsh, huh?!"
Unfortunately, he couldn't deny it. In a few minutes he'd be announcing it to the whole club! A thought that made his stomach churn, honestly.
"OK, look, shut up!" He hissed at her. "The other girl dropped out and this other guy volunteered to take her place! We can't just give a pass through the semi-finals! We're trying to put on a show!"
"Well... then make him fight shumbuddy else! What about that big brute who won the lasht match? New guy getsh pummeled, who givsh a damn?" Honestly, she was proud of herself for coming up with a more sly way of putting that Andy girl against the painter. She didn't even mention the painter! . . . Why the fuck was there a painter in the middle of a tournament? Questions for later... or never, more likely.
The MC held up a finger to retort, but then stroked his chin. It was a decent solution. At least this way Andras didn't have someone new replacing her opponent twice. At least Michael had earned his way to this part of the tournament. It'd be a way easier sell. "OK, OK, fine. That works, now go away!"
"OK, cool, but while I'm here can I order a drink, or-"
"This is the DJ booth, dumbass!"
"Riiiight." She gave him a finger gun and winked before staggering her way back to the bar, giving Vera a thumbs-up as she did. Vera just pinched the bridge of her nose, but gave a sigh or relief. Crisis momentarily averted.
A few minutes later, it was time.
"OK EVERYBODY! That last match was real quick, so we're gonna be running it back so to speak!" The MC called out. "Sadly, the milk truck that ran over the local pizza boy can't continue, but we've had a volunteer to take her place so you crazy motherfuckers can enjoy another fight! Now, since everyone's favorite underdog just broke one of our fucking tables, he doesn't get the luxury of any more rest! Get back in the ring! Now before anyone complains, I think you're gonna like this! Our replacement for this match is Suzakura Plagerzes! I think it's safe to say that whoever loses this match, we all win." Suffice it to say, Suzakura had a bit of a reputation, meanwhile the underdog had been throwing off the betting pool all night.
"Hmph..." The loser turned away from Duke, but then his eyes fell and he rubbed his jaw absentmindedly. ". . . he's been acting weird all night. Not gonna lie, either, normally when I lose to him it's my mistake, not him doing something right." His brow furrowed. "But tonight I didn't stand a chance. It was like running into a mile-high wall. I swear it was like he was roided out, but... that wouldn't explain this."
It was a moment later the MC made his announcement.
"Well, if you're so curious, looks like you get another chance to pay real close attention. Supposedly that Plagerzes guy can take a hit or two. Might last long enough to let you see what's going on..."
Despite the controversy of the surrounding events, it could not be said that the audience there at Midnight didn't appreciate the drama at hand. Nothing was more fun than seeing a plan go so awfully awry. Upset after upset, raised voices and friendships ended all around them. And now the fight of all fights.
To say that this looked even was an understatement. The new challenger was strong, yes, but this was Suzakura Plagerzes, 'The Degenerator'. Plenty of people entered the Midnight Tournament simply to have fun, and wouldn't mind losing if it meant a good fight. Suzakura was not one to entertain the idea of a "good fight". It was almost unfair how his gifts had been tuned for 1 on 1 combat. He could adapt to any fighter, and any fighting style, if he wanted to.
A regular, and a regular pain in the ass for the patrons of Midnight.
The match could not have seemed more lopsided. 'Seemed' being the noteworthy word here. It was just a moment later that the fan (dis)favored was flying through the air, 16 feet and straight through the announcer's table, which held upon it a nice glass of scotch he had planned to drink later.
"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!?!" He said.
He could barely be heard above the roar of the crowd. The winner of the match seemed rather obvious at this point. The challenger stood, seemingly none the worse for wear, but something was clearly wrong. He seemed to be moving sluggishly, and the audience couldn't be too sure but his muscle mass seemed like it had increased even more. He staggered away from the arena without so much as a glance at the carnage behind him.
One more match. And then it would be time for the finals.
The two Nightmans moved at once, though each taking a separate action. As Reverio’s blade of light swung, Nightman made a fist and he produced a light of his own. The wave of light broke against his body, never even threatening his duplicate.
However, this light was not of Reverio’s power, but the ring on his finger.
The second Nightman merely threw his arms out, stepping forward into the projectile furniture, hungry shadows springing forth to devour it.
“She really is quick…” Nightman sneered at Reverio, dropping the shield of light before suddenly his stolen, spiritual double burst out from him to clamp a hand down on Reverio’s face, lifting him off his feet before its grip began to tighten painfully.
At the same time, the second Nightman regurgitated the desk, the item arcing past Chinami and Ken to splatter against the wall behind them. It landed, a puddle of shadows seeping out of it. Then, something else was regurgitated. From that new puddle, the man in the suit was spat out, though he lay still.
More concerning was that it wasn’t done. Another hand reached out, a new figure clawing its way out of the shadows. It was… the man in the suit? An expressionless, desaturated, shadowy copy of the original had been spawned.
Now it was truly an even fight, at least in terms of numbers. Though, now one could imagine just how badly things could turn if one of them were to be swallowed next.
“You wanted my attention, boy? Well… there you have it,” Nightman said, and then the shadow copy charged at him. With that, he paid the boy no more mind and looked to Chinami, “Choices, choices…”
To help Ken any further, she’d have to turn her back on him.
Gritting her teeth, Chinami felt almost like something was clicking in her head regarding Nightman’s power. In fact… perhaps his name was more on the nose than she’d ever imagined… Were… the shadows actually his and not the Man in the Suit’s? If that was the case, however, then what exactly did that mean for the now seeming husk of a betrayed man. Unfortunately, there was little time to ponder the particulars at length. Blondie seemed to be dueling the first Nightman alone, but her situation was worse.
Outnumbered and stuck with a person she had to protect at all costs to keep the odds even close to even, there was no chance she was going to be aiding Blondie. Her eyes flicking over her copy of Nightman, she couldn’t find a single difference to the first. Everything about him was identical, down to the obvious magic ring on his finger. She’d seen the other Nightman use their own copy, but… the second one hadn’t. Was that because he preferred the shadows… or because he couldn’t? It still wasn’t explicitly clear which was the real Nightman -if, indeed, both weren’t equally legitimate, but her going theory was that if there was a copy between them, that’s what she was facing… especially given the sight of her stolen power being used against Blondie. Unfortunately, she couldn’t yet make any definitive conclusions.
Shoving the brunette behind her, as she took a step back from both foes, Chinami’s crimson eyes flicked between the desaturated Man in the Suit clone(?) and Nightman clone(?). Her lips drew together tensely, as her Spirit bristled beneath her skin. Moment of truth.
She could go after the shadow copy without holding back and obliterate him in a moment, but there was no guarantee that he couldn’t simply be “respawned” and that the Nightman wouldn’t be able to capitalize on her opening. If she went after the Nightman, she’d likely once more be testing her Spirit against his stolen copy… unless her guess was correct… hopefully. And similarly, there was no telling if the darkness clone wouldn’t be able to surpass her defense of the brunette the moment she was even moderately occupied. Between the two… the better target was clear, and yet…
No.
With these odds, the worst thing she could possibly do here was to continue playing defense while surrounded on all sides, when more light beams or darkness could punch through or swallow the brunette from any direction. She needed to stop waffling and start narrowing things down. She only had one target that she knew for a fact she could eliminate… at least temporarily. So, that would have to do.
Main goals: survive, protect brunette and Blondie and thus survive.
Time to stop holding off on pointless things.
As Ken was ushered back, his first impulse was to scold himself for his failure. Then his second impulse was to ask Chinami out loud, “What are the limits of your teleportation?! Can you teleport me that ring on Nightman’s hand or cut off said hand, then teleport it?! Or…”
He got it, “Teleport us both to a specific address; I have a sword as powerful as Rev’s but it’s in said address!”
Hopefully she believed him. Hopefully she trusted him enough to bring him back home temporarily so that he can get the Ame-no-Murakumo (and a gun) so that he can finally participate in the battle!
Yes, he knew how to shoot.
Pursing her lips, Chinami spared a brief glance at him with her real eyes, as her Spirit kept watch on the encroaching foes. Tensely, she asked in return, “Will your enhancement fade if you move far away from us?”
Ken nodded and said, “The range of my enhancement is the size of a billiards room in a casino, or a large classroom in St. Laurel’s. So it’s best if we do this fast.”
One of the elbows of Chinami’s Spirit moved back to lightly tap him on the chest, and Ken felt something ripple through him, a new form of strength that felt oddly similar to his own enhancement. If he looked up, he could glimpse the edge of feral smile on Chinami’s face, as her Spirit responded in his ear with a hushed whisper only he could hear, “Well, for the next little bit, bud, your range is city-wide, so… do hurry back.” She tapped him once more.
Ken felt again that strange rippling vibration, as the sensation of being in two places at once rolled through him. A moment later, he found himself on a rooftop overlooking the Nightman Clinic, the heavy rainfall soaking him thoroughly in moments. But, more importantly… he could feel a spark in his chest and an innate knowledge, like it had been implanted into him, an instinctual understanding that he suddenly possessed the ability to teleport anywhere he’d been before… along with the comprehension that he had only a few hours of it…
Chinami had clearly heard his request and done him one far better. Now, it was up to him to capitalize on the opportunity.
Back inside the clinic, Chinami sucked in a deep breath and firmed herself before the enemy. “I don’t know if you’re even the real Man in the Suit or what the hell happened to you, but-” With the effective hostage now removed from the line of fire, Chinami herself flickered, reappearing above and behind the shadowy clone. Legs sheathed in her Spirit were plunged into and through the wall behind her down to the knee, enough so to have her shoes protrude into the rain, anchoring the Goth firmly in a downward-facing position, as her Spirit left her form and lunged towards the shade of the Man in the Suit.
“-it seems like you’re already dead.”
This time, without holding back in the slightest, nigh-supersonic blows ripped towards the shade with every intention of reducing it to little more than swiss cheese in the shape of a person.
As the first Nightman figure had used its spirit double to grab Rev’s head and face, keeping him in place and inflicting pressure onto the troubled exile. The blonde still held onto his sword, and reacted in a fierce manner towards his attacker in conjunction with the pain he was receiving, making four slashing cuts vertically, aiming for the arms of the spirit, then two horizontal ones towards its legs. He wasn’t sure if his inherited sword would prove effective against a thing such as this. Yet in the situation in which he and his two newly met allies were in, there was no other choice but to try.
Nightman hissed in surprise as Reverio’s blade damaged the spirit and Nightman himself. Reverio was immediately released, the spirit fleeing back to Nightman as soon as he felt the first cut. This certainly complicated things.
One wrong move and that sword could prove highly problematic if not fatal. He still had more to learn about the powers he’d stolen from Chinami, it seemed.
Meanwhile, the shadow copy would prove no real obstacle for Chinami. It did not go down as easily as she might have expected, considering her power output, but neither could it really resist her. It simply took an extra few punches before it lost all integrity and dissolved into nothingness.
Then again, at the rate she threw punches, who could tell the difference?
As for Ken, he teleported back home, obviously, directly into his parents’ room; they were still away from home. He took out the case containing the Ame-no-Murakumo from under the bed, a case which had a retinal and fingerprint and DNA scanner for it to be opened, and pulled out the sword and its scabbard, before also grabbing his father’s 10mm Pistol and a few magazines from its own locked case (he knew where the key was).
Then he ‘blinked’ back to where the fight raged, drew sword and pistol, and fired directly at the head of the Nightman attacking Reverio; the boy knew that would not kill the duplicate, but in case it did, Ken could just ‘choke down’ the mental trauma from killing for the first time, especially as it might not even be the real Nightman.
“Hello, asshole,” the boy said before drawing the sword’s blade - The scabbard was hastily strapped to his belt - And sending a cutting blade of wind at the Nightman Duplicate he hadn’t already shot, a cutting blade which was enough to sever an arm, before mouthing off again as a small tornado surrounded him to ward off any attempts at counterattack.
“I opened my heart to you and you now know my grievances, concerns, and weaknesses,” Ken shot off a few more cutting blades at the Nightman Duplicates’ feet. “But you betrayed me. That said, there was a positive development: I now realize that my desire for Izumo’s throne and the red silk robes of the Emperor was rooted in the wish to wipe the tears of my people’s eyes and bring back their smiles.”
He then sent forth a gust of wind with the force of a punch at the face of the nearest Nightman duplicate. “And to do that, to wipe the tears and restore said smiles, I am willing to accept the fact that I am callous about killing, callous about my own life, even.”
Twirling his blade, a small tornado began forming in the center of the room, causing debris and objects to whirl around. “So I’ll weather the consequences for killing you, asshole.”
And he shot the nearest Nightman duplicate again, this time in his center of mass.
Before Nightman could retaliate against either Reverio or Chinami, Ken returned to the battle. NIghtman took notice the second he reappeared, a benefit of the spirit, and so was able to react accordingly. By the time Ken had taken aim and pulled the trigger, the first Nightman had moved himself into the path of the bullet and activated the ring again, the bullet exploding into harmless sparks against the glowing barrier.
He weathered Ken’s tirade with a passive look of derision, only smirking at the very end.
“Consequences? Child, I can assure you, you need not fear killing me,” he said, shadows beginning to crawl across his skin and then swirl around him. “For it is not within your power.” The half of the room Nightman stood in began to grow impenetrably dark, making it impossible to see past him.
He began to walk forward, the veil of darkness following close behind him. Then… he stopped.
“Let us end this farce.”
Nightman held out his arms and streams of shadows surged toward Ken. The tornado shield fended them off, whipping the shadows about and causing thick, dark globules to spray randomly across the room, threatening Chinami and Reverio as they did.
However, after a few seconds, the attack had ended and Ken himself was unscathed… at first. The air current of the tornado had drawn the shadows up to an intact portion of the ceiling directly above Ken.
Slowly, the second Nightman that had been obscured by the wall of darkness slid out from this shadowy portal, extending his arms. Ken’s own tornado would help hide him from view until it was too late. Shadows poured from his hand down upon Ken, and once the boy was completely enshrouded, the man himself would drop down and drag him into the shadows, the two vanishing.
As her hurried barrage of attacks wound down, Chinami gave a couple gasps for breath, frowning mildly, as the clone of the Man in the Suit crumbled and splattered into nothingness. There was a strangely painful pulse behind her eyes after that exertion, but it faded a moment later. Shaking her head, her Spirit wrenched her legs free of the wall and lightly swung her over to a nearby spot on the floor free of darkness. Her arms, still bruised from deflecting the barrage of darkness projectiles before, ached painfully again after the further pressure her furious attacks had put them under. Apparently, the fact that the darkness clone was, in fact, made of said darkness gave it enough of a spiritual aspect to incur some pushback on reckless attacks. Her knuckles ached, as she flexed her fingers.
Glancing over, she saw that Rev’s sword had indeed managed as she’d simultaneously hoped and feared it would, freeing him from the perilous clutches of her stolen power. Though… a writhing shroud of shadows now obscured Nightman’s duplicate from sight. It was there… but not acting immediately. She wasn’t sure how worried she was about that apparent strategic display of caution, but she’d take the moment to gather a little more information.
Her Spirit’s eyes still on the battle and arrival of Ken, Chinami crouched down to the prone body of the Man in the Suit and carefully checked his pulse and breath… Both were dangerously weak, but they were there nonetheless. A sharp pat to his cheek elicited no response, but perhaps that was for the best. Gritting her teeth, Chinami touched the Man in the Suit with her Spirit and transported him outside the window, out of the direct line of fire. Honestly, she shouldn’t have room for that kind of mercy right now… but… with the betrayal… She could offer him this much. What they’d do with him afterwards would be up to determining the extenuating circumstances.
Ken’s voice going on and on reached her ears, and Chinami’s head snapped back to the matter at hand… and the boy gloating at an incredibly inopportune time from within a tornado. “Fool! Stop talking and fight! We-!” Her words were cut off by Nightman’s cold response in the form of a surge of darkness. The brunette's whirlwind managed Nightman’s fresh assault admirably… Unfortunately, that had the side effect of redirecting a fair amount of the attack both her and Blondie’s way.
Blobs of softball size were accelerated and deflected off the surface of a gale force wind. Restraining a yelp, Chinami commanded her Spirit forth to defend as it had before. Only… these globules were far less solid. The moment the first one impacted her Spirit’s questing hand, it splattered, provoking a sharp flinch from Chinami, as her bruised hand spasmed like it had been punched. “M-mother-f-fu-!” Despite their fluidity, their increased size and acceleration were decidedly disagreeable, and Chinami couldn’t help flinching with each impact, her Spirit nonetheless loyally absorbing everything it could manage till its master’s arms were actively trembling. Worse still, the darkness clung to her Spirit’s arms, painting them pitch black from the volume of absorbed projectiles.
In the meantime, a growing expanse of darkness, combined with the roaring winds had cut Ken off from her sight. Moments later, to her dread, the tornado and a large section of the darkness collapsed, revealing both the brunette and the Nightman clone to have disappeared from view.
“Shit, shit shit!” Chinami hissed, as she glanced between the remaining combatants. She could still feel the strengthening effect from the brunette, so he wasn’t quite dead… yet. But who knew how long that would last with his reckless ass on his own? She’d granted him the same scrying protection as her, so wherever the hell he’d been taken, there wasn’t a chance in hell of her locating him and coming to the rescue. She’d simply have to trust him to make use of what brains and brawn he had to hold out and return alone. Hopefully, the teleportation she’d granted him would help… but all things considered, she wasn’t inclined to bet on it.
In the meantime…
Her Spirit harshly wrung its arms a bit, but the darkness continued to cling unbothered. She grimaced, as her arms twinged again, now thoroughly beaten black and blue… not that one could tell aside from her trembling hands mostly lying limp. Swallowing, Chinami considered her options. There was… a gnawing feeling of dread encroaching, like something rising over the horizon. She couldn’t pinpoint a particular source other than a gut feeling, and yet…
She tried to phase her Spirit through the clinging darkness, to have it slide off its arms as easily as the rain… only to meet failure… probably due to the spiritual element infusing them. There was… a feeling… Glancing around, Chinami couldn’t help getting the sensation that the darkness currently continuing to spread across every surface was… hungrier.
Furrowing her brow, Chinami turned her attention to her Spirit, activating its power in relation to the clinging shadows, only to flinch from a sharp stabbing sensation between her eyes and in her chest. For a moment, she blinked furiously, hesitating on going forward.
Something was wrong. Her powers…
Shaking her head, Chinami ignored the sensation. She didn’t have time for overthinking anything right now. The transformation resolved, the shadows upon her Spirit’s arms dissolving into water and sloshing onto the floor. The feeling of dread seemed to lessen, and yet- Chinami had to conceal a stagger, feeling almost like she’d been punched in the diaphragm. For a moment, she almost thought she couldn’t breathe, only for the sensation to die down seconds later, a bead of sweat on her brow.
Swallowing thickly, Chinami knew for sure now. Something was off. Her powers shouldn’t be accruing any backlash. She’d made sure of it, taken that forbidden step, and yet… There was a wholly separate dread building, entirely independent of Nightman. She… She needed to conserve her power usage. She felt like she was on the brink of something very very bad, but… considering the odds… did she really have any choice but to overflow?
Of anything she now was certain of, they needed to end this quickly, more than ever before.
That surety in mind, Chinami’s Spirit enveloped her body and propelled her across the room to land beside and slightly in front of Blondie in a defensive manner. Nodding firmly in the boy’s direction, she narrowed her eyes at Nightman. Trembling fists clenched weakly, as she addressed her remaining ally. “If he uses my power again, I’ll handle it personally… and as much of the defense as I can manage. I’m trusting you to take care of the rest. No matter what happens, don’t worry about me. Just take every opportunity you can.” Two on one, with her in… objectively better shape than she’d been the first time in terms of her Spirit’s physical capacity… With those odds, they could probably pull this off… She hoped.
"Believe in the heir of Izumo. A ruler's determination is not to be taken lightly when awakened from its slumber." Reverio had said to Chinami while slashing at the incoming darkness, the blonde boy had broken free from Nightman's spirit double and uncovered that one of his allies was none other than the heir to the throne of Izumo. And now he had vanished with the other Nightman.
'Cruel irony. So he did specifically select us after all. Did he seek to obtain the swords? Or did he truly...' There were many questions which only Dr Nightman could answer, yet this was hardly the time nor the space to ask them. It was beginning to dawn on him that there would likely never be such a time. Just what kind of game was he intending to play, placing the black king at the forefront would end with a checkmate. With Chinami ready to deal with the spirit double, and with Ken now missing. The time of hesitation was over. There was more on the line than Nightman's life. Everything could fall apart before it even begins.
Rev tightened his grip around his sword, before his light began to manifest his spectral looking wings, then without ado he dashed forwards towards Nightman. Would Chinami be able to stop the spirit double in time, if she wouldn't perhaps his sword could cut through it. When he got close enough he made an overhanded vertical slash with his blade towards Nightman.
'Simon!' He thought as made a thrusting motion with his free hand, his powers coating it in light. Its destination. Nightman's heart.
"I am a royal! Not an angel!" It was all or nothing, the memory of his brother's smile at the execution grounds began to manifest itself into his mind. It filled him with rage. It was because of people like Simon that the world was in the state it was. He was the source of this discord. The disharmony.
As Reverio charged, Nightman sneered. What the hell were they thinking? He’d already well established that Reverio was far too weak. He launched the spirit again, intending to avoid the blade and instantly throw down the boy.
He would not get his way. Chinami, having just a bit more power than Nightman still, would be successful in intercepting on Reverio’s behalf, keeping the way clear for him. This caught Nightman off guard. In stealing away Ken, he’d inadvertently allowed the two biggest threats to combine their efforts.
At the last second, he activated the ring’s shield, sparks of energy flying as Reverio’s blade struck it, attempting to dig in… but the shield held.
As the darkness swallowed Ken, his vision would fade. When it returned, he was no longer in the clinic. It was… impossible to say where he was, really. For the moment he was alone, unbound, and with Nightman nowhere to be seen. It was simply an empty expanse, but there was a familiar sensation to it.
It was not that he’d experienced this many times before, but that he’d experienced it recently, when he’d first been put into a “meditative state” by Nightman.
“You’re hilarious, you know that?” a voice pierced the emptiness. A sneering reflection of his own. Turning to face it, he’d see it had a face to match. It was him, but the demeanor and expression were all wrong. “Well, you would be, but really you’re just so pathetic it’s sad. Hard to laugh at something when you just feel bad for it.” It chuckled wryly. “You really see yourself on the throne someday? What are you going to do, support your way to the top? So far you’ve just been hiding behind others. Even if you survive this, by the time you got there you’d probably just be putting the crown on someone else!”
“You need a reality check! You screwed up so bad you could barely reinforce their powers! Hell, if they didn’t have to cover your ass, they probably wouldn’t have even needed the boost!”
Ken found that he was not as affected by those words as he should be; the only parts of the speech which pricked him were the lines about how he screwed up. He sighed and said solemnly, “You don’t get it, do you? An Emperor supports his people as he is supported by them. A True Emperor safeguards the happiness of his people and their prosperity is his own. A True Emperor finds the smiles of his people to be repayment enough for his efforts to ensure that they keep smiling.”
His eyes smoldered in rage, “It’s going to be a blow to my ego, but if someone else is more worthy of the crown, let them have it.”
The twisted shadow of Ken clapped its hands, “Look at you! Coping and seething just below the surface!” It chuckled, but then pouted, “It’s fine as long as I hold up to the moral standards! Even if I’m just a sad loser who will never measure up, at least I ‘did the right thing’,” it mocked him. “But hey, at least you’ve still got enough in you to get angry. I suppose that counts for something!”
Ken’s response was, “It does, doesn’t it? I was actually expecting to be even angrier, but your efforts to rile me up are so expected that I was able to brace myself… And realize, after having done so, that your attempts are pathetic. That I’ve heard worse insults over the flipping Internet. You can only barely make me ‘cope and seethe’ instead of making me fly off the handle - Doesn’t that mean that you suck?”
He tightened his grip on his sword, assuming he still had it. “Amazing! You had such an easy job, to rile me up by picking on the insecurities I foolishly confided just earlier today, and you screwed it up. If I am angrier now, it’s because I saw such a pathetic demonstration of psychological warfare that I am tempted to laugh in your face or slap my free palm on mine. That’s how much you screwed up something which should be so… Child’s play.”
Ken sighed in exasperation as he continued, “So, what now? Do we fight, or should I try and assimilate you into me? Assuming you are part of me, which you probably are not as you utterly screwed up the easy mission of driving me to a fit, angry or depressive…”
The dark reflection snarled, seeming caught off guard that insecurities that had been there before suddenly gained it no ground. It did not speak, instead lowering its stance and lunging at Ken. However, as it clawed at him, it simply dissolved into nothing, breaking against Ken like a splash of water over rock…
As Reverio’s sword strained against the shield, the golden aura holding it at bay suddenly flickered and then shattered, the blade immediately sinking into the man’s chest and bursting out of his back. He froze, gaze slowly turning downward in disbelief.
“Wh-... at?”
However, in a strange turn… the man’s form began to shrivel and crumble away, until his body just sloughed off of Reverio’s sword and turned to dust at his feet. The wall of darkness then faded as well.
At that moment, it was revealed that Ken had not been taken far at all, merely pulled to the other side of the room where they could not see him, but where the second Nightman could still be nearby… however it seemed that their ability to destroy one of them so suddenly had been unexpected, with the other not having had time to stop them.
That said, there was just one problem. The remaining Nightman stood over Ken, and even as the boy would slowly find himself coming back to awareness, Ken’s weapons had both been lost to him.
The sword lay on the floor a few feet away, and the gun… was in Nightman’s hand, the barrel aimed downward at Ken’s chest.
“You know… it didn’t have to come to this,” the man said. “I could have helped you.”
That was the last he spoke before his finger began to squeeze…
Chinami felt like her heart felt like it was going to explode in her chest, and not from fear… not that such a thing really made it any better. Though, the idea that she’d die in as mundane a way as a mere terrified rabbit was enough to spark a faint sense of amusement. But as the golden-haired prince(?!) charged Nightman, she held true to her word and stayed focused on the situation at hand.
Raising both its arms in a standard martial guard, [Living on a Prayer] leapt forward from her side in tandem with Blondie, as her true body approached at a somewhat more measured pace, not eager to leave the easy reach of her Spirit for an emergency. The charge of Nightman’s own spectral guardian was met with a fury, and yet, Chinami could only wince internally at the fact that she only barely notably surpassed him at this point, her own condition dragging her down nearly to his level even with the brunette other prince(?!)’s empowerment.
Even so… It was enough.
Nightman’s overconfidence was his undoing. Perhaps if he had trusted his stolen golden shield to handle the blonde prince for a while and focused on Chinami first, his defense might have held up better, despite her advantage. If he hadn’t been distracted, then he’d have perhaps stood a chance. However, it was clear from the outset of their high-speed clash that he was no real fighter. No, rather…
The wrist of Nightman’s specter rebounded violently from the swift downward chop of Chinami’s, staggering the ghostly being from the whiplash. A retaliatory swipe was leaned away from… and then caught, as [Living on a Prayer]’s grip settled around the newly “bruised” wrist of its counterpart with a grip like steel.
“You’re a faker,” Chinami’s Spirit chuffed out, before wrenching the enemy ghost’s arm forward and side-stepping, its free right arm settling onto the other specter’s left shoulder. “You’re not a warrior. No. You stole everything you have. You’re a jack of all trades, master of nothing, too spread thin to ever truly master even a single profession, much less a manner of fighting! And in a straight fight, on even grounds? You are-” Nightman seemingly had enough sense to try and take advantage of the gravity-unbound nature of the duel by kicking off the ground to try and twist and break the forming hold.
“Useless!”
[Living on a Prayer] was as if carved from stone, its whole body following the motion in the same exact position it had held at the start, seemingly entirely separated from momentum. A split second later, superior speed, just enough of it, allowed Chinami’s guardian to lock its legs around the waist of its opponent and lean back, painfully twisting the arm it had trapped into position with it, locked behind its opponent’s back.
“Now then,” Chinami whispered coldly, though Nightman’s Spirit was sure to catch it. Her crimson eyes flicked to the golden barrier currently warding off her ally’s sword and narrowed. “I’ve gotten sick of that particular trick.” [Living on a Prayer] then, without fanfare, took hold of one particular finger of its captive, the finger that upon Nightman, himself, held the glowing ring… and wrenched it back, before ripping it off with a sickening crack.
By all rights, the barrier certainly wouldn’t provide a single whit of defense against the direct spiritual backlash of the attack, instantly cutting Nightman off from the source of his protection... That was the plan, anyway, but with her accelerated perceptions, Chinami couldn’t help but notice the golden ward flickering and faltering even before she could complete the act. She still followed through, of course, just to be sure, even as the golden prince’s blade exacted righteous vengeance against Nightman in a definitively lethal manner.
For a moment, Chinami breathed a sigh of relief, her body still trembling with adrenaline… only to look on in trepidation at the clone(?!) crumbling away… along with the remnants of the lingering wall of darkness. The sight of the brunette prince(?) being held at gunpoint, however, once more dropped a cold pit into her stomach.
Rev had let out an exhale when the first of the two nightman twins had gotten struck down and reduced to dust, though there was still the other one and it was now standing and looking over at Ken.
The blonde's eyes narrowed, his facial expression growing grim. He felt anger, but also a feeling of loss. But it wasn't the loss of the first Nightman, nor was it the deaths in his past. But he was losing... hope. The realization of his faith flickering adding to his anguish, the blonde took hold of his sword and then hurled it towards Nightman's pistol holding arm. Were it to intercept the aimed gun or slice off Nightman's arm, it didn't matter. It was secondary.
What mattered were that Ken had a weapon. A weapon which he could tap into even. If he truly were the heir to the Izumo throne.
"Ken!" Reverio yelled out in the same moment he hurled his sword like a straight arrow.
Ken remembered the girl’s gift, the one which allowed him to teleport, and did so twice, the first to get out of the way of Nightman’s bullet, and the second to grab Reverio’s sword, which glowed brightly in his hand and hopefully blinded his foe.
He cut at the last remaining Nightman clone, saying, “The burden of taking another life is mine!”
The bullet screamed out of the barrel, punching through the floorboards, but nothing else. Ken was gone. The next thing to hit the floor was Nightman’s forearm, the sword of light barely slowing as it cleaved right through the man.
Nightman barely had a chance to react to Ken reappearing before him with that same blade now in hand before his chest was carved open in kind.
He fell to the floor and went still… and his body crumbled.
There was the briefest moment to take in the sudden silence as the last Nightman lapsed from existence, and what that truly meant. In the next, a pillar of shadows exploded in the middle of the room.
The first to truly understand their situation would be Chinami. A thunderous impact would strike her midsection, a concentrated burst of power that would seem to resonate through her core. It would be as if a dozen threads stretched to their limit would suddenly snap and curl away.
“I will not lie, child.” A hand reached out to grip Chinami’s jaw, forcing her to look up and view her attacker. It was Nightman, fully intact. “You gave me no end of grief. You stand as living proof as to why I must do this. The world cannot be entrusted to individuals like you. But, I must still thank you. One cannot grow without first overcoming obstacles, after all; and you were an obstacle like no other. It did take me some time to comprehend your powers, and even now I feel I’ve only scratched the surface.” He chuckled. “And yet now, I may never be able to. I had to make a trade, you see. To forge a key; a master key to you, and it was not cheap.”
At the same time, Reverio and Ken would feel a similar sensation, a feeling of something within them shriveling away to nothing.
Everything Chinami had granted them and herself was now gone.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you. You still have something I want,” he told her. “But I am a fair man. In return, you won’t remember any of this. You and your friends will finally know peace.”
Once more, Nightman seemed to split apart. One remained to hold Chinami in place while the other turned to face Ken and Reverio.
“Now…” His first action was to casually wave his arm at Ken, globs of shadows flying at him. Even if the shining blade he now held protected him, it didn’t matter. He had proven to be nothing special without his toys. The time he needed to protect himself was all Nightman needed.
For if the blade now provided a bastion of safety for Ken, then it did not provide for Reverio. In a blink, Reverio would feel multiple impacts, as the spiritual projection he’d stolen from Chinami careened into him, bashing him off his feet and slamming him against the wall.
He then held out a hand, and a pool of shadows at his feet regurgitated an object. Like a fish jumping from a lake, the gun from before jumped to his hand, another puddle of shadows on the floor where it had once lay.
BANG-BANG!
Ken would feel a searing pain in his knee as one of the bullets hit home. A second later and the spirit would come for him next, striking him in the throat and then the wrist, forcing the offending blade from his grasp.
Glancing around, one at a time, to each of his incapacitated foes, Nightman took a deep breath and then slowly let it out.
“What an absolute mess,” he muttered under his breath. “Have you any idea how much trouble this is going to be? I’ll be short on sleep for a week. Hmph, and I suppose I’ll have to reschedule who knows how many appointments.”
He chuckled. It was funny, really. Such precocious children, and so powerful… yet in the end, nothing more than an overblown inconvenience.
Was this… death?
The thought occurred to her almost distantly. She could barely recall where she was. A haze of pain rippled through her being. It felt… like her very soul was eating itself alive. It was a pain that not even unconsciousness could separate her from.
But… perhaps the mercy in that unyielding assault was a… glimpse, a reminder of just what exactly had put her here. It felt like she was drowning, suffocating under a pressure that seemed to crush her just as much as it wished to erupt from her body. She… recalled… a battle? Yes, a fight, a bad one, the kind that had pushed her to her limits -past them even.
She had… gambled…
And lost…
Lost…
To… what? No… who.
A shadow… a hungry darkness in the shape of a man.
Nightman…
Remembering was almost as agonizing as the pain that already thrummed through every pore of her being. She was… dying? Probably. In this moment of relative quiet -for a twisted definition of it, she examined things, tried to see where she’d gone wrong. It was clear that, as much as Nightman had surely legitimately gotten one over on her, she too was at fault for the failure of her enchantments. It seemed… she had misstepped. She had been overconfident. In stepping over that line that she’d long since resisted scuffing, she had entered unknown territory. Her folly was assuming that she could achieve her desired result so easily, that her power would accept such a thing so easily.
It was clear that there were depths to her ability she had yet to explore, limitations she may have yet to ascertain simply by nature of having resisted ever trying to push those boundaries. She hated to blindly ascribe undue importance to things, but perhaps there was an element of… almost cosmic backlash involved, beyond the exhaustion, something almost conceptual… something she had merely managed to delay for a time, not negate. Perhaps if she had been far more exacting and careful… if she’d been less reckless with her power once she’d crossed that line… then things wouldn’t be at this point.
They had lost. Of that, there was no question.
No. The only variable here was… how badly.
Her hesitation had cost her.
Her… cowardice.
Always afraid of taking the actions that needed to be taken. Always afraid of upsetting the status-quo. Always oh-so-concerned with walking the party line, not sticking out, just getting by in life. She was… admittedly terrified of herself, of what she could do if pushed into a corner, and it bothered her that she wasn’t sure if that concern was entirely self-centered or altruistically inclined towards the well-being of others. She… just wanted to live a quiet peaceful life… Was that really so much to ask for?
Maybe. Maybe the world was unfair. She couldn’t deny it. She was asking for a life of ease, a life without trial -or at least, not trials she didn’t choose for herself. Even so, she had stubbornly pursued that future, despite the odds, pridefully rejected the idea that failure was even an option.
And so, of course, she failed.
So…
It was time to put the pride and cowardice to the side for once.
She may have lost consciousness… however… her soul was still connected to her mind… Therefore, so long as she was at least lucid…
She reached, and splitting agony was her answer. It was almost like being sharply slapped on the hand… if it were her entire body… being dipped in lava. She reeled mentally, and yet… She knew she had touched upon it. That pain… that was the pain her Spirit was in, the agony that unconsciousness was sparring her. She would have to push through that… manage that… for just a moment.
That would have to be enough.
One last enchantment.
She needed to focus, to clearly visualize her desire. She needed to know exactly what she wanted going in, or she’d lose it in the rush, in the tide of mind-boggling agony. And… after a timeless moment, she knew what she needed to do.
“One last time…”
It was difficult to even define the pain that awaited her, as she reached for her Spirit. It was something that encompassed mind, body and soul in equal measure, as she reached for her Spirit’s senses. Past a certain point, it became difficult to tell if she was even feeling pain at all. It was incandescent, an existence all its own. To define it as pain almost seemed to make a mockery of the sensation. It felt more like the conceptual rejection of comfort itself.
But… even so… that torturous consciousness did come to her.
Her body felt like lead. She couldn’t move a muscle, not even open an eye. She called for her Spirit, and her entire existence felt like it would rebell. But she managed to summon a single one of its eye-panes, overlaid with her right eye.
The situation was grim. The brunette was bleeding profusely, and the blonde looked like he’d just gone ten rounds with her in the ring, which… well, he likely might as well have. Neither seemed to be unconscious outright, but they certainly weren’t in much position to retaliate. Meanwhile, Chinami could vaguely discern through the agony the sensation that she was being held, likely by a fresh Nightman clone.
Yes… they had lost, definitively and inexorably. There was no question that Nightman had won.
And there was no shame to be had -no Pride to be lost- from avoiding certain doom.
There were many things she could have done then. She could have run her mouth like the boys constantly had… like she had admittedly made the mistake of slipping up on herself several times. She could have overthought the situation, wasted time and energy forging an enchantment that “conserved” her abilities according to her rampant hesitation to be significant. She could have arrogantly entertained the fantasy that there was some sort of victory to be had here other than plain old survival. She could have deluded herself into attempting to finish this fight here and now, making some sort of empty-heading “heroic” comeback and beating the “villain” and saving the day. She could have wasted time with parting words and monologues and promises of retribution.
Absurdity.
[Living on a Prayer] cracked.
Beneath her skin, fissures crawled across her spiritual guardian’s form, as an eerie prismatic light began to seethe forth. Her true body was not spared. As if made of glass and not flesh, blood spurted from the spiderweb of breaks that erupted across her skin, her clothes quickly sullied and partially torn in turn by the sympathetic backlash.
Within her, the weight of the world pressed down and throbbed against the insides of her body, roaring to break free, to blow her Spirit to pieces and her along with it. And yet still, she reached for that power one last time, a shape already in mind.
Activation.
White-hot light erupted from her body, charring her skin like a volcano lay beneath the surface. The room was instantly cast in blinding shades of kaleidoscopic energy that scoured through the area, tearing through shadow and flesh alike. Where they touched, they acted completely outside Chinami’s will. It was as though her body was merely a medium, a gate for a power far greater than it could possibly hope to contain. Ice and fire, steel and flesh, flora and crackling lightning scoured the area in a cacophony of chaos. The clone beside Chinami was torn apart and vaporized in an instant, but she couldn’t have possibly noticed. Her vision had cut out, her eyes incinerated.
As the burning rays of energy tore almost indiscriminately through the room, one found its way through the fallen man in the suit behind her, laying all but forgotten in the chaos. Another found its way to the original Nightman himself. At the last second he threw up his arms, the golden shield once more appearing. The shield seemed to scream in protest against the assault.
And then suddenly it all cut out. Chinami felt something like a cold shot of ice go down her spine.
“That stung, you crazy little shit!” Chinami would feel the faint sensation of something brushing over her charred eyelids. Suddenly, her vision began to come back and reveal a tall man with pale skin and long hair like a wildfire running down his back. She’d soon recognize him as Kiburi himself, the head of her school.
His fingertips were charred and split open from touching her, presumably in order to stop her from blowing herself up. However, just like Chinami’s eyes had healed, so too did his fingers a moment later. He lifted her up, placing her against the wall.
“Not gonna fix the rest of it, though, kiddo. That’s all on your stupid ass. Now just let me handle the rest, got it? And watch closely.” He patted her on the head before standing up and turning to face Nightman. “Now… are you the dumb asshole who suggested one of my kids needs fucking therapy? I mean seriously? Fucking therapy?”
Nightman swallowed hard. The ring on his finger crackled weakly, completely overloaded by Chinami’s final assault. His shadows had also all been banished and no longer responded to his call. He grit his teeth in realization, seeing the now charred corpse of his subordinate.
“Lord Kiburi… to think you’d come here yourself…” Nightman’s jaw tensed anxiously. He then smirked wryly, “Well, she did just try to immolate herself. Seems a sign of instability to me.”
“You talking back seems like a suicidal tendency to me, and you don’t see me causing a scene.” Kiburi replied as he walked over towards the burning corpse. “Damn, who did this?” He asked, a wide and wicked grin creeping across his face.
Ken was crawling towards his sword while also trying to find the Ankh of Life, the artifact he could use to regenerate his wounds and replenish his blood. So the mysterious girl was a Kiburi student, he thought. I will never underestimate the people of his school ever again.
“Like I said,” Nightman grit his teeth, trying not to let his nerves show too much. “The girl is quite unstable. I’m not sure she was even aiming at him. He couldn’t even fight back.” Nightman sighed. “Look, the girl attacked me. However, if you claim her under your protection, well, I’m certainly not going to argue with her. I’ll just drop the whole thing.” A minute ago he might not have capitulated quite so quickly… but, well, the damn girl wasn’t done being a wrench in his affairs it seemed.
Ken decided to speak up and snapped at Nightman, “You invited her and us into your clinic to drain and copy our powers, you prick!”
“Oh, is that so?” Kiburi says before walking over to the beaten and bruised pile of twerp who spoke up. He takes a pointer finger and stabs Ken in the back with it, and within a few moments Ken feels like he is on fire. However the intense burning and itching gives way to his wounds closing as though he had been given a regenerative factor.
Ken stood up, bowed to Lord Kiburi with respect, then said, “Yes, it is so. To make a long story short, ‘Doctor’ Nightman invited us over, trying to gaslight us into thinking he can help with perceived psychological issues - Which granted, I did have and he did help with, although that last part was unintentional, and then it turned out that being around him at all allowed him to drain and copy our powers.”
He then paused and continued, “But he cannot drain yours’, right?”
“Hmm, I’m unsure. Nightgown, wanna take a crack at it?” Kiburi asks, turning to look at Nightman with his ear to ear grin. “I’ll give you half a minute of just whatever it is you do. I’m downright curious to see how good your ability to steal powers is.”
There was nothing else left at that point. Going through Kiburi, of all people, was the only avenue left to him. It was hardly ideal no matter what happened. Kiburi was about as high profile an individual as one could get. He would have to disappear for a while after this.
“You always were an arrogant bastard, weren’t you?” Nightman let his facade drop again. His best option was now the power he’d taken from Chinami, though after crippling the girl, his own version of the power was no longer as potent as it had been. But the physical prowess of the spirit should still do plenty.
As for stealing Kiburi’s power? He was not so foolish to think that would be so easy, not in the thirty seconds he’d been granted. Not when it came to this man.
In a flash the spirit burst from Nightman’s body, blitzing the distance between them and slashing a knife-hand across Kiburi’s eyes, aiming to blind the man so he could not react to his next move. His next move was further brutal still; a punch to the man’s gut that would pierce straight through his abdomen to burst out his back through his spine.
“You know,” Nightman scoffed. “You stand atop all others as an example of why I need to do what I do.”
And then… Nightman did indeed get a little greedy. It was well known how hard it was to truly hurt Kiburi, but blinded and impaled, perhaps there was a moment of vulnerability to take advantage of. Nightman strode forward, focusing his true power.
It was… overwhelming. The sheer amount of power was more than he could grasp onto. It was like trying to pluck a single drop of rain from out of a hurricane. It was too much.
No, the man simply needed to die. He should have just killed him when he had the chance! Perhaps, he still did have it… The spirit raised its other hand, now poised to pierce the man’s heart.
The slice across the eyes, the punch through the gut, it all went exactly as Nightman imagined, and to his joy he felt Kiburi’s sternum give no resistance as the pointed hand pierced through, and emerged out of Kiburi’s back, a beating heart threaded around its fingers. However, with a deep sigh Kiburi shifted his bisected eyes to look Nightman over.
“Really? That’s the best you can do, a heart shot? Should have splatter my brain, would have given you a few more sec-” Kiburi began before his leg shot up, connecting with the spirit and shearing off its ethereal arm. Seemingly able to touch the entity, Kiburi rips the arm out of his chest, and looks at his own still beating heart. “If I were a more clever man, this would be the moment for a witty heart pun, or a philosophical quip. However, I don’t have the heart of a poet…”
The arrival of Kiburi probably shouldn’t have elicited the sort of mixed feelings it did in Chinami. Granted, foremost among them was relief, the kind that was hard to describe, the type of almost final relief so potent that it killed adrenaline, knowing that things were over, that the day was “saved”. At least, that’s what she imagined was what people felt in all those superhero comics or whatever.
Because really, dubious morals or not, that’s what Kiburi was. An unstoppable force and immovable object all in one. An invincible titan that swept away the competition, entered a long-standing Academy market and managed to skyrocket to compete with the best of the best through sheer brute force. He was definitely a “hero” in perhaps the most classic mythological sense really. An asshole, but one that would definitely save you at the end of the day.
So, really, the relief was understandable.
It was the annoyance she wasn’t sure how to deal with other than smothering it with a mental blanket and ignoring its screams. Despite knowing that what she was about to do would make the revelation that her ability was definitely more than healing inevitable, she still couldn’t help but be… peeved that it was Kiburi, himself, that had to see it. Even so, she wasn’t so foolish as to express even the slightest bit of begrudging for his intervention.
After all, she was… probably about to die. She hadn’t quite acknowledged that fact when she made her final act. After all, she was trying to teleport, to get herself and the boys directly to Kiburi’s office at his Academy to begin with. She had assumed that with that, she could survive, so long as the blonde boy was in a state to stabilize her, but…
Those beams of light… the pressure.
Crimson eyes drifted briefly away from the confrontation at hand down her ruined body to where she could see her Spirit flickering over her right arm, weakly, so intangible it almost truly seemed ghost-like for once. The spiderweb of cracks that ran across it were no longer bursting at the seams, merely sitting there silently… ominously, like fissured glass, like even a slight jostle could undo everything.
Even so… propped up against a wall and in… moderately less hellacious pain than she’d been moments before, she couldn’t help but worry… Kiburi was playing with his food, confident, arrogant… And why shouldn’t he be? He was undefeated in memory. Why shouldn’t he assume this was anything but a foregone conclusion?
But what if Nightman’s power did work on him…?
The cold chill that slid up her spine was so strong that not even the fire in her veins could subdue it.
If one were talking about worst case scenarios… of powers that Nightman should absolutely not be allowed to have… Of those she knew of, Chinami would have placed her own in the top spot… until Kiburi showed up directly. She didn’t even really understand what he did (and she was suddenly quite motivated to rectify that ignorance soon after she got out of this mess), but she knew just from reputation alone that Nightman stealing Kiburi’s power would be… worse somehow. And she really didn’t like to contemplate how much so.
Even if she “broke the stitches” to do it, she couldn’t leave that possibility to chance.
Her Spirit, with aching slowness, slipped out of her concealed back and into the wall, before beginning to traverse beneath the floor intangibly. In this room, they were close enough… If she could just touch him once… have her Spirit reach up through the floor and make even a singular surprise use of her power, she could end this… If she…
A sharp pain in her chest made her body briefly shiver.
What?
4 meters…
The tether had maxed out at 4 meters… instead of 5. She grit her teeth, testing the boundary, but the sharp pain returned. Squeezing her eyes shut, she blinked away the stars in her eyes and tried to ignore how sticky the blood on her was starting to feel already. At only 4 meters… approximately 12 feet… she was out of range… and in no position to even think about moving closer. She’d have to wait for Nightman to approach instead… Just a little closer.
And as Nightman’s own stolen version of her power tore through Kiburi’s flesh and bone, she had her wish, the man arrogantly striding closer to the hulk of a redhead… and closer to her. She didn’t know if Kiburi could no-sell her ability, but she couldn’t take the chance that he couldn’t. He’d saved her, so if nothing else, she was just repaying the favor.
Beneath the floor, her Spirit inched for Nightman’s foot…
“Dost thou pursue thine end mayhap?”
The voice stopped her cold, a fresh shake briefly rippling through her body. Her eyes darted about sluggishly, but no new intruders to the scene revealed themselves. Her mouth felt almost sticky, too dehydrated to speak, and she husked out barely, “Wha-?”
“Thine ripplings of self shalt do. Waste not thine waning strength to respond to This One,” came the voice again, a deep, rumbling baritone that seemed to come from all around, like she was wearing headphones and having it broadcasted directly into her skull… which might not be all too far off.
After all, based on the non-reactions of the others present, it was clear that only she could hear it…
“This One shalt mercifully reiterate. Dost thou pursue thine end this day?”
What was it (he?) talking about? Ripples of self? Her end? Wait… that sounded like it was referring to-
“Thine ‘thoughts’, as they art commonly referred. Such are easily perceived by This One.”
A new sort of cold overtook her. It could read her thoughts? It was in her head? And Kiburi was distracted-! She-!
“Quell thine fear. This One couldst not harm thee if This One tried.”
Yes, because she was absolutely going to believe that. Definitely. Totally going to take the mysterious stranger’s words at face value with no prompting.
“Sarcasm is unbecoming of thee.”
Well, how the fuck else was she supposed to react to an unwanted mental intrusion?! And that aside-! She really didn’t have time for this! Kiburi was in a dangerous situation, and she needed to-!
“‘Die like a bitch’, as they say, was it?”
Excuse him?
“The… being thou refers to as ‘Kiburi’ is as endangered as a dragon might be from a rodent, besieged not a little. This One saved thine life. Twer thou to have pursued such a foolish course, thine savior might not have the capacity… or willingness to save thee twice.”
What? Her wounds were… well, she wasn’t actively bleeding out now, and the pain felt lesser than it had been when she awoke from Nightman’s last strike… So, surely, if it was just one, she could manage another enchantment…
“Deceive thyself not. Only the reaper’s embrace would await thee. Thine physical wounds have been tended to… but thine soul is another matter.”
Her… soul? Chinami really wished her throat was wet enough to swallow thickly at that statement.
“This One did not take thee for a common ignoramus.” Chinami’s ears burned at that, but her mental retort was cut off before it could truly be composed. “Thine power takes a dual toll, physical and spiritual in equal measure. Thou hast known this, perceived this. Yet, such an outcome is so outrageous to thee?”
The long moment of silence was interspersed with Kiburi seemingly turning the tide… were one not aware that the tide never needed to be turned to begin with. Chinami’s headache pounded a little harder at the not-so-subtle pun the redhead tossed out cheekily while holding his own damn heart. Honestly, Chinami was more offended by the pun (or rather, that she’d have actually chuckled at it if she physically had the capacity)… and entirely too desensitized to react to the gore, not with her own body in such a state.
“Thine Lord’s healing restored thine body alone,” came the baritone again. “Thine soul being brought back from the edge of oblivion was a miracle by proxy. Thou tis lucky thine soul is intertwined so thoroughly with thine guardian. In repairing thine body, thine Spirit twas repaired, and in repairing thine Spirit, the cracks in thine soul were sealed… if barely… but not fully. No, such proxy healing is insufficient for the wound thou hast dealt thyself.”
Then…
“Thou musn’t use thine power again.”
What?! That was-! Wha-?!
“Belay thine panic,” the voice spoke clinically, all too damnably calm. “Thine spiritual wounds will heal as surely as thine physical… But thou must comprehend, such mending must be allowed to go uninterrupted. There is a price for touching such things as thou hast.”
Chinami almost wasn’t sure what she should be feeling at that moment. This… entire day had been emotional whiplash after whiplash, and after hearing that… Well, that was just the cherry atop the shit cake, wasn’t it? But… maybe it wasn’t so bad? How long could it take to heal anyway?
“Inconclusive.” Her optimism faded. “This One has observed many souls, broken and whole alike, but this case is… refreshingly unique.” Chinami’s lips downturned dourly at the sound of… almost glee in the baritone, like a scientist leering at something under a microscope. “Fear not,” it assured her, “The damage to thine Spirit guardian shalt fully mend with thine body. Thou shalt hardly be helpless for this period.” The voice rumbled in a hum, as if musing to itself (himself?). “Consider thyself being tested mayhap. Truly, canst thou say thee require such power in thine common life?”
Well… no. Not really. Honestly, it was only useful when… when bullshit like today came up, when the stakes were higher than they had any right to be… It wasn’t like she’d used it for anything except healing at the Academy or when she needed to duel someone for reasons she typically didn’t care about…
“Then thou hast thine answer.” She could almost feel the mental nod. “Be assured, thine Spirit shalt return to full strength… mayhap thine range as well. But thine power to touch upon the boundaries… Such must be rested. However, know this. Thine patience, shouldst thou possess the fortitude to endure, shalt not go unrewarded. Like any muscle or bone, thine soul shalt -once healed- be stronger than it once were. When thine power returns, as it shalt inevitably, thine oh-so-coveted ‘safe’ limits shalt have expanded.”
Well… that was… something, at least. So, she just had to endure, huh?
Sucking in a slow breath, Chinami tried to purge the dismay from herself. If this… voice wasn’t lying, then there was really nothing for it, no use getting hung up over something that just… couldn’t be changed. There was everything to gain from following its instructions and everything to lose for diverting from them. She had no choice… but to suck it up and play it safe. But then, what else was new?
She blinked sluggishly, struggling to wipe the haze from her vision with only her eyelids. And what was that about her power “touching boundaries”? And actually, for that matter, who the hell was just talking to her?!
Only silence greeted the girl, no matter the provocations she mentally slung in the moments after, before eventually grumbling internally and refocusing on the situation at hand… as Kiburi did what he did best.
Meanwhile, as the spirit lost its limb, so too did Nightman. He stumbled back, falling down to a knee and gritting his teeth, just trying not to scream. It took far too many painful, bloody seconds before he remembered the ankh he’d taken from Ken. A faint glow came from beneath his shirt as the bleeding began to slow and his pained breathing steadied. “Very well…” Nightman grunted, clutching at his still pained limb. “Get it over with then. You’ve made your point. It’s obvious this was over the moment you decided to come here.”
“I at least wanted to give you a fighting chance, to make this fun, but you had to go and hit me with some piss poor attempt at killing me. You should have taken my offer of stealing a bit of strength. I would of given you some if only to elicit a tinge of challenge.” Kiburi begins as he turns his back on Nightman and walks over to the charred corpse on the floor. Holding his own heart at an angle to hide it from Nightman’s view he squeezes it, dripping a strange liquid onto the dead body. The liquid was not blood, for it was blacker than black with the faintest hints of blues, and dots of light. As this liquid fell onto the body it began to twitch and breathe again until it stood up of its own volition.
“Maul this fool, but do not kill him. I want to enjoy watching this.” Kiburi orders as the living corpse begins a mad dash towards the doctor, intending to grab his remaining good arm as it got close enough.
Ken gaped at Kiburi and said, in full hearing of the others, “That’s sadistic!”
Chinami couldn’t help smiling grimly at that, her Spirit speaking over her shoulder where her own lips would struggle. “That’s Kiburi.”
Ken nodded again and said, “You’re strong too, umm… What should I call you?”
He only received an incredulous stare in response, as the girl’s crimson eyes bored into his before flicking back to the man that was currently being tormented. Clearly, considering the atmosphere, she wasn’t in a mood for introductions. Rather, if anything, despite Nightman being scum, he was a worthy opponent. It almost felt disrespectful to her to chatter on casually and ignore his end… no matter how much he might deserve an ignominious death.
From the moment he was forcefully flung into the wall, Reverio had remained immobile. He had sustained damage, his usage of his powers had their toll on him as well. Thus he was forced to watch and recover his strength, his blonde hair obscuring his face slightly, but he could still see through the strands.
It had indeed become all too clear that Simon, if that was even Nightman's true name, was someone whose ambitions would never walk alongside his own.
Yet amidst all the chaos, Rev had received clarity and it came from Nightman himself. To thank Nightman was out of the question, for the man's ambitions were most surely the complete opposite of his own. For all his power and knowledge of the human mind, not even he could have imagined it would be him who would cut off that final string which Rev had clung to for so long. The final push over the edge.
People like Nightman, he knew them all too well. Obsessed with power, perhaps it was because they truly never held any and in their search for it, they allowed it to destroy them. Whichever the case, it didn't matter anymore. The young man who had now appeared to battle against Nightman held the same aura around him, Reverio couldn't help but draw the conclusion.
'You are all the same. Consumed by your lust and greed, filled with pride and envy towards each other. It takes quite some time to create a vase, forming it through clay, letting it dry and then painting it. But to destroy one, you simply need to push it over. To see the world through these eyes of mine. Am I a prince of darkness..? Or am I...'
The blue eyes shimmered, as if revelations had been playing out before the blonde's eyes.
Ken turned away from the mysterious girl, but could not bring himself to look at Nightman as Kiburi toyed with him. So after a moment, he turned to Reverio, and for a brief moment, he didn’t know what he found in the other teen’s expression and shimmering eyes.
Building up his courage, he walked up to the other teen, Ame-no-Murakumo in his right hand; on the way, he picked up Rev’s own sword with his left.
He then made to hand over Rev’s blade back to him, hilt-first, asking, “Are you okay?”
Rev began to rise the moment Ken got close, taking hold of his blade again and answering the Izumo heir. "Yes.. I think so.." He answered in a solemn tone of voice, then threw a glance towards Chinami, followed by Kiburi and Nightman.
"How about you and the girl?" Rev asked Ken without looking at him, his blonde bangs fell over his eyes, giving them a bit of shade and providing himself with a more enigmatic appearance.
Feeling the grip of his sword made him brace himself, for who knew what would happen next. 'Simon...' Rev kept watching, it was as if it was something he had to see. Something he couldn't keep his eyes closed for.
“We’re okay,” Ken said as he stood behind him and watched. “By the way… We’re friends now, right, Rev?”
Rev allowed his mouth to open briefly, as if surprised by Ken's words, before his lips formed into a soft smile. His gaze still fixed towards Nightman.
"Friends...? Yes, that's right. My friend. After all this is over, let us have some tea and brioche. Away from all this fighting..." Rev said, his voice gradually going lower until he became completely silent.
'All of us.' The young blonde thought to himself, his eyes narrowing under his hair as he awaited Nightman's possible demise.
Ken hugged him impulsively, then detached himself, saying, “Sorry if you didn’t ask.”
Rev's eyes widened to the sudden hug before he hastily pushed Ken back, his breathing was heavy and the blonde grit his teeth together before flinging out his hand in an attempt to slap Ken across the face. Rev's eyes falling under the shade of his hair again.
"Pay attention! Ken. Look." He said through gritted teeth nodding towards Nightman. That Ken all of a sudden had awakened a memory in him. A terrible memory. A final betrayal. A thing he couldn't forget, a thing he couldn't forgive. But Ken didn't know any of that. But what they both knew was that this wasn't a time to get carried away, not with promises of drinking or pleasant conversation. They were not out of harm's way just yet.
Ken nodded, cowed.
Between the damage, exhaustion, and shattered morale, Nightman could do nothing to defend himself as, in his horror, the animated corpse of his former subordinate descended upon him. Before long, he didn’t even cry out, his consciousness eventually fading as the thing savaged him.
A short time later, the three former victims of his schemes would feel the sensation of something flowing back into them and reinforcing them as what had been taken from them returned, broken free of the man’s grasp.
Ken recovered his power, but didn’t feel satisfaction. All he wanted now was to go back home, shower, and rest after retrieving his items and finding out just how to talk to the girl from Kiburi’s without pushing her away or coming off as a creepy stalker.
Actually, that wasn’t all he wanted; he wanted Rev to be safe as well, emotionally as well as physically. The Vanquelin Prince had gone through so much, and Ken didn’t want him to go through more pain.
They’re all hurting, Ken said. I’m hurting…
The realization was like a shard of cold ice being jabbed into the back of his neck.
As Nightman’s cries died out and unnerving silence followed, Chinami could only grimace at the returning flow of energy. Honestly, compared to the damage she’d sustained, even this much returning strength barely felt passable to operate. Yet… her Spirit seemed a little less faded now. The glassy cracks in its form perhaps felt less brittle… or maybe that was just her wishful thinking.
Even so, her gaze didn’t leave Nightman’s savaged form, a strange feeling curdling in her gut. It took her a long moment to realize it might actually be… pity. Her lip curled in displeasure, as her somewhat reconstituted Spirit enveloped her body. Her true body was still unable to move, but at least in this way… Her body lurched a bit, uncomfortably, as her selectively tangible guardian lifted her up, puppeting her otherwise limp form while wrapped around it. She felt weak as a kitten but forced herself to jerkily stumble over to where Kiburi was standing, before kneeling down next to Nightman.
She eyed Kiburi’s abomination, the… undead(?) that used to be the Man in the Suit and grimaced. She hadn’t meant to kill him… She would have spared him… probably. She just wanted to get them all out, to escape. Turning her gaze back to Nightman, himself, her lips pursed as tightly as her weakened body would allow, before she allowed her arms to slump to her sides, her Spirit’s own appendages leaving them to slip the troublesome ring off his finger. A moment of remembrance later saw her checking his neckline and slipping off the magical item hanging there too.
Her eyes flicked to the brunette boy, before her Spirit huffed. “These are yours, right?” She knew the ring was, at least, but she didn’t recall seeing him make use of the necklace back in Nightman’s office during his session. Without waiting for an answer, she tossed them underhanded his way.
Her gaze went to the blonde, who now stood with his sword in hand, beaten but not broken. He did seem rather agitated though… She directed her attention to Lord Kiburi instead, her ruby eyes flicking between him and the still breathing Nightman intermittently. “So… What now? This guy’s Gift is really troublesome to handle. Honestly, if someone of your caliber weren’t here… Well, I guess only the boys would be walking out of here.”
Ken caught the ring and the ankh which had been attached to Nightman’s necklace, and bowed deeply to Chinami as a mark of respect, before waiting for Kiburi to speak.
Reverio stood in silence, while waiting for Nightman to join him in it. When the doctor no longer made any noise, the blonde sighed out deeply and unsummoned his sword.
'Maybe next time we meet, we can have that game of chess, Simon. But you did do what a therapist should do, you made me realize what I need to do with my life. So for that I thank you. There's no reason to hesitate, when the truth is laid bare before me. I have been dormant for three years, ever since that fateful day changed everything for me. But what I told you in that room was true, I just didn't give you all the details. Perhaps someday, someplace I will be able to tell you the entire tale.' Rev gave a soft nod towards his fallen foe and then turned to face Kiburi.
"Your arrival was most timely. Thank you for your aid, Lord Kiburi." The blonde said in a sincere manner, while offering a flourished wave with his arm as he bowed in a very Vauquelian manner. He soon however assumed a straightened up pose and began walking over towards Chinami.
"I will tend to her injuries, I still have power enough for that at the very least." Reverio took a slight inhale, before he attempted to use his Purifict Anatomia power, to remove any negative conditions of physical and mental nature from Chinami, as well as heal her wounds.
"You did well, both of you. Our paths are now entwined. What is your name miss?" Rev asked in a polite manner.
The blonde’s approach, to Chinami’s relief, seemed to indicate that his physical state was passable. She had been admittedly worried in knowing he’d been subjected to her power at the hands of another. She had trained for years to hone her control over her Spirit’s monstrous strength. In the hands of an ametuer, it would be all too easy to go too far… but it seemed Nightman really had been true to his word that he didn’t intend to kill them…
When Blondie declared his intent to attempt to heal her, she allowed her Spirit to slide mostly off her form, remaining behind her and propping her up somewhat, as the energy that soothed and strangely revolted her all at once flowed into her.
On Reverio’s end, it would become quite clear the… severe extent of the physical damage. The expansive spiderweb of partially sealed rents in her skin aside, every fiber of her body was overheated, seared, even scorched to a tenderness not unlike meat thoroughly subjected to an oven. Extreme dehydration was an issue that also required supplementation, and her blood loss in the time she had been burning alive had lost her a full 20% of her internal supply. Her bones too had suffered a loss of integrity with fine cracks or outright breaks dotting throughout her skeletal structure. And then… there was the bone-deep unnatural exhaustion oozing from every pore, like every cell of her being had been sucked dry to the point of almost no longer being self-sustaining. Were she not to have been treated here and now, even after being stabilized by Kiburi, a hospital stay wouldn’t have just been a possibility but a requirement for her survival.
To say the least, the amount of energy required to put things in order was… likely not small. And that only covered the physical end of the spectrum. Mentally, there seemed to be nothing out of order, aside from obvious stress and an emotional weariness accrued from the ordeal, both of which were likely best left to smooth out naturally. Otherwise, there were no supernatural mental afflictions to be found.
And there was something else… just out of reach, something his power almost seemed to notice but couldn’t quite touch. Even gliding over the problem area within seemed to accrue a sympathetic burning sensation. Whatever the case, it was something that couldn’t be managed, not with what he had to his name. He’d done all he could.
For Chinami’s part, she wondered if this kind of relief was comparable to what one might feel when going from their mortal body to a good afterlife, free of former ailments. To be sure, the strange, stomach-churning discomfort seemed to ebb and flow simultaneously with the healing energy, but it couldn’t shut her out from experiencing the good in it as well. It was a truly odd and contradictory sensation. The bone deep ache had faded. Magma no longer ran through her veins. Her body almost felt light enough to walk on air, freed of the weight of the world. She knew that wasn’t so, of course, but compared to not being able to move at all? Normalcy was like being Superman.
Almost hesitantly, she stood under her own power again, sparing a glance at her Spirit. The spiderweb of breaks themselves seemed to have faded from its form, but… in their place she could see angry crimson marks and lines criss-crossing the formerly unmarred expanse of pearly white and electric blue. Metaphysical scars of sorts, she could only assume. No matter her physical condition now, she could still feel a throb somewhere within. Her soul was still damaged. That wasn’t going away so easily it seemed. Just her luck… But it could be worse.
She smiled at the blonde’s words. They were flowery, sure, but she couldn’t begrudge him some eccentricities, not after what he’d done for her. Sure, it was the polite thing maybe, but he hadn’t been obligated to act on her behalf. He could have followed Kiburi’s lead, and that would be that. “Chinami Nadakai,” she finally replied, holding out one hand towards the blonde. “A name is the least I can provide to thank you, really. A hospital stay would have… Well, it would have been the perfect shitty way to end a shitty day, honestly.” A breezy sensation got a low chuff of annoyance out of her, as she readjusted her tattered, scorched clothes. She frowned at the trashy state of them and the… rather risky state of the chest area. Clucking her tongue, she bunched the fabric up and began to tie a knot under her chest. At least her shirt could still effectively pass for a sports bra.
Well, at least now, torn pants, makeshift top and covered in drying blood streaks and ash, she could pass for a punk with an edgy sense for body paint, so she could hopefully head home and expect to not be randomly accosted by law enforcement. A moment after making that little observation, she blinked and said to the blonde, “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name either.” Her crimson eyes flitted over to the brunette. “Or yours.”
Rev having noticed the state of Chinami’s attire decided it was the Vauquelian proper thing to offer her his long coat, even if it had taken some damage itself from the battle. Thus he held out his brown overcoat, with its golden coloured buttons. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, miss Nadakai. I go by the name of Reverio Galand, here in Rhea. But I am certain you may know me by the name the common man calls me…” Rev said in a friendly manner, before leaning down to take hold of her hand then attempting to plant a kiss on it. It was the proper court ethics, and such manners die hard. Perhaps harder than Nightman even. At least he was able to patch up Chinami with his remaining power, he felt good about that. And then he felt bad because he felt good about it. Then it became a deeper question as to why had he done it at all? Was he still having doubts about himself? The very question itself, was enough of an answer in itself.
Ken didn’t know how to greet Chinami, or rather, he didn’t know how to not look like a boor when compared with Reverio. Nevertheless, he introduced himself and said, “My name is Ken Illustrious Ikari; claimant to the Throne of Izumo. I used to be proud of that, but now… I feel like this is all my own fault.”
He paused, then smiled a little before the smile faded, smoothing out solemnly, “When the doctor put me in a trance, I had a dream. A dream where my people - The People of Izumo - were smiling. I realized then that hiding behind my own ambitions was out of a fear of making my own sacrifices, of trying to desentize myself to forcing others to sacrifice for me. What’s the relevance of this? Well, I keep feeling like I forced you to sacrifice for me, if that makes any sense. And if so… I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve hurt all of you.”
“‘Miss’, huh?” Chinami could only respond with bemusement at the blonde prince’s formality. She couldn’t recall being addressed that way except by teachers on occasion, and mostly, they just used her name directly, even then. “Well, Reverio, the pleasure is all min-” She trailed off slightly at him taking her hand but didn’t protest. Maybe he thought he’d missed something when healing her. At least, that was the assumption, so she was caught completely off-guard by him actually kissing it. The girl had to suppress a splutter of surprise and took her hand back fairly quickly the moment his grip loosened. “Um, okay-! So, that was… a thing…” She cleared her throat. “Not a bad one necessarily, but you caught me off guard there. Sorry, I’m not upset or anything,” she clarified. “That just wasn’t necessary.”
Did her cheeks feel a little warmer? Holy shit, that better not have awakened something in her. After dealing with Suzakura’s bullshit for so long… including him doing more than a little to drive away other potential options, she’d almost forgotten what it was like to be wooed with actual class. ‘Down, girl! You just fucking met him.’
Shaking away the thought, she mused to Reverio, “Honestly though, I don’t actually know what they call you around here. I mean, I knew of you vaguely, not your name but just generally that there was an… exiled prince around Rhea, but I’ve… not really kept up with Vauquelin stuff… or national news in general, I guess. I used to, but nowadays…? Eh. Honestly, didn’t even know what you looked like before. Sorry?” Looking down at the coat in her hands, she started a bit before also asking, “Is this really okay? Looks pretty swanky, and it’d be a shame to get blood all over it. I’m sure it’s already going to be a big enough pain to repair it.”
To Ken’s own introduction, she nodded before raising a brow. “Uh, dude, I don’t really see how this could be your fault.” Her tone was genuinely confused. “Like… at all.” His elaboration almost seemed like TMI rambling to her, until he somehow tied that… “dream” of his into her and Reverio getting hurt?
She openly scoffed at the melodramatics of it all, before coughing into one hand. “Uh, no. I don’t know if you noticed, but Nightman absolutely schooled us even while we were working together. The idea that you could have handled him alone is absurd.” Her brows furrowed. “You’re assigning blame because he stole your shit to use against us and left you as nearly dead weight? That’s what you’re thinking?” She snorted. “If so, knock it off. Without your power boost evening the odds, we’d have gotten stomped even harder. I’m not gonna say you made the most tactically sound decisions at every point, but you were a net positive more than a negative.” She crossed her arms, smirking. “Take Pride in that at least. Your contribution mattered.”
Chinami’s internal considerations were a might less positive, however. Truly, if anyone was to be blamed for their loss, it was her. And that was no exaggeration. More than Ken’s stolen effects, it was her own power that had screwed over Reverio, allowed Nightman to trivially dodge and otherwise react to Ken’s attacks and to defeat her in turn. Worse, she had, despite everything, continued holding back until it was far too late. If she really wanted to, she had options nigh-unlimited… but she hadn’t used them. And why? Because she was still trying to play things fucking subtle?! To conceal her true power from the general public and continue living a quiet life.
Well, she noted a bit bitterly, now she didn’t even have the option anymore. What an ironic punishment. Her own hesitation to use the power to its fullest in the one situation it would be needed had cost her the ability to use it at all… for who knew how long. Oh, and then there was that voice she really needed to investigate…
"Forgive me if I startled you, old habits die hard. As for what you can call me? Rev works. I don't like using my old Vauquelin name here. Brings back too many memories in myself and others. Oh and don't worry about not being up to date about my homeland... I haven't been either for the last three years." Rev explained while scratching his neck a bit awkwardly, he was clad in a white frilled shirt with long puffy sleeves, along with a ruffle and broché at his neck. The brooch depicts the last king of Vauquelin or so it would seem by the silhouette.
His introduction had gone smoothly enough and it was indeed far overdue, his introduction to Ken had been half-ways been made before they had entered the clinic. So this was a clear improvement. It had been a long time since he had greeted a girl around his age in this manner, but maybe that was because he mostly tried to stay clear of most people in Rhea. Or at least he had until now. He couldn't help but smile softly, as he had eye-contact with her. Blue and red, like water and fire. Her red eyes did remind him of the Vauquelian princess which had met her end too early. But why did it cause him to feel such an odd mix of feelings? It was as if he was falling, perhaps it was an aftereffect of Nightman's powers or his own weariness. Or was it because it reminded him of something? But such observations would have to wait, it had been an eventful day and all of them no doubt needed to recuperate.
"You may keep the coat, miss Nadakai. You look magnifique with it. I mean, I am not saying you look bad without it- I mean- It may still be raining outside! And I still have my umbrella by the door... probably." He said as he felt a sweatdrop fall down. Had Nightman stolen that from him too? An umbrella thief as well?
"Don't be too hard on yourself, Ken. Likewise it is a pleasure to meet you despite the circumstances. Miss Nadakai is right, what happened wasn't your fault at all. It was no one's fault but Nightman's. You helped as much as everyone else to stop him. Also do forgive me for hitting you, it just wasn't the time to be careless. As heir to the Izumo throne, you have the right to reprimand me for it. It was ungentlemanlike of me and not befitting in the presence of a young lady and Lord Kiburi as well." Reverio said in a manner which certainly showed that he was displeased with how he had behaved. To lose composure in the middle of battle, it wasn't befitting of either of them.
Ken smiled and said, “Thank you; you are pardoned. I’m just happy you and Chinami are happy.”
A tacit implication that whatever he felt for the girl, he was willing to let her choose someone else, namely him (or even choose no one).
‘Happy?’ Rev blinked as he thought more about the very word, what did it mean to be happy? Was it even possible or just a hopeless dream?
“You are most gracious, Lord Ikari.” Rev solemnly nodded towards Ken.
Chinami made an odd expression at the seemingly completely unironic exchange, her brow furrowing with a stare that implied she had some morbid desire to access Ken’s thought processes. Her gaze flicked back to Rev at his own completely dead serious response, eliciting a lopsided smile that to the common man probably easily spelled out her internal ‘WTF’.
Outside the shattered and scorched hole-littered wall of the room, a car could be visualized driving up to the parking lot of the clinic; it was the teal color of his Parents’ van. Ken then spoke, “My parents are coming to fetch me; I left timed messages before coming to this place just in case something happened, and those seem to have been sent.”
Then he impulsively asked, “Why don’t you two come with me for a sleepover? You two look like you can use some hot tea and ramen and chicken teriyaki. Who knows, maybe it’ll help us recover.”
Honestly, I feel like I learned something from Nightman - Life isn’t cheap.
“Uh… Excuse me?” Chinami’s head jerked back in confusion at the sudden, unsolicited offer. While one gluttonous part of her was actually half-way tempted by the offer of what would, frankly, be comfort food after… everything, the rational half of her brain smothered the other with a pillow. “As… nice as that is…” The look she briefly flicked Rev’s way conveyed her bafflement. “I’m not exactly in a state to be going anywhere… especially not to a… ‘sleepover’.” Her voice trailed off into something of a deadpan, as she gestured down her body, blood, ash and tattered clothes alike standing out starkly.
“What I want- What I’m sure all of us need, is to go home, take a long-ass hot shower of the gods, and sleep like we’ve never fucking slept before.” Her body may have felt nearly fresh as a daisy thanks to Rev, but her mind… Pinching the bridge of her nose, she sighed. “I can’t handle much more ‘people-ing’ today, I don’t think. Outward appearances aside, I’m feeling a bit dead inside.” Her bright smile was devoid of any true jubilation. “I just need to sleep on this and… process today.”
"Fair lady Nadakai is right, we should return to our respective residences, it has been an eventful day to say the least. And much to think upon later. With that in mind, I think I shall have to respectfully decline your generous offer, Ken." Rev offered a soft bowing motion before proceeding to talk. "However it would be appreciated if you were to ask your parents to deliver myself and miss Nadakai to our respective residences." The blonde explained as he shifted on which leg to lean on, spotting Chinami glancing his way. Was there a hole in his attire somewhere he hadn't seen? She did look a bit flabbergasted. Perhaps the whole sleepover thing was more intricate than he had first thought.
Would they have shared a massive bed with the three of them? Then again there were those rumors he grew up hearing, that the people of Izumo sleep on the floor like dogs. If there was something he didn't need it was to sleep on the floor after Nightman had thrown him against a wall.
“You-” Chinami chuffed out a small noise of bemusement. “Rev, you can really just call me ‘Chinami’, you know? If I say I’d prefer it, would that help?” She smirked almost playfully. Clearly, however long he’d been away from Vauquelin, those so-called “old habits” of his really were hard to break, huh? But then again, if he was raised as royalty, having traditional nonsense ingrained into him literally before he could walk made that understandable perhaps.
“Sure!” Ken said, “My parents and I can take you to your homes!”
"It could help! As you desire, Chinami. Your name is like the Izumo name for a great tidal wave. Ts-tsh.. Tsumani? Though I think Chinami feels better on the lips. No offense, Ken."
Rev smiled softly towards Chinami as he walked closer to her. "So shall we go to to Lord Ikari's carriage then?" He offered out his arm for Chinami to hold onto if she so desired. Old habits die hard.
“Ah…” Chinami hesitated, quelling the internal discomfort from showing on her face. Certainly, these two could be considered comrades, at least in a sense of trial by fire, but… realistically, what did she even know about them? She didn’t even tell her actual friends where her house was unprompted, much less invite them there. So, two strangers… “Well…”
Her hands rumpled Rev’s coat anxiously, the introvert within her roaring to life. Then again… her “friends” almost entirely amounted to Mina and Suzakura, so not bringing them near things she liked intact was… really only common sense. And despite Mina being, well… Mina, even this Ken guy seemed less impulsive -and destructive- by comparison… Still didn’t mean she wanted him having the ability to show up at her safe place unsolicited. And besides…
She couldn’t allow healers near her mother… certainly not ones this powerful. No.
Then again, she was going to need to return the coat to Rev… But that didn’t mean he needed to know either. She just needed his phone number, right? Shaking her head, Chinami plastered on a wry grin and carefully rejected Rev’s offered arm. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll make my own way home just fine. The coat will still need returning though… Hmm…” She dithered, before checking her phone and finding, to her relief, that it had miraculously been missed by the light beams erupting from her body. Honestly, you never realized how much you missed the ability to instantly repair things until you lost it… “I don’t suppose you have a cell or home number I could call to set up a return meeting?”
Rev raised his non offered arm up to awkwardly scratch his neck. "I am sorry, Chinami. I.. uhm.. don't have... a phone." He said and smiled awkwardly, he knew that someday his old fashioned Vauquelian ways would catch up with him. But he wasn't concerned with his coat, he was more concerned in letting Chinami or Ken leave the place on their own. Lord Kiburi could manage on his own no doubt though.
"Uhm. You have a messenger phoenix-pigeon? Don't worry about the coat, keep it as a memento of today or discard it if you don't like it." Rev walked closer. "But I can part with my address of residence, in case there's any trouble or the like." The blonde looked around to make sure none was eavesdropping. Like shadowy clones or such things.
"Alto Road, 34 C" He said in a hushed manner as he got close enough to whisper to Chinami's ear, before backing off to give her some more space.
Chinami’s mouth opened, ready to ask who the hell didn’t have a phone in this day and age, but it snapped shut a moment later, biting back the likely insensitive remark. She was hardly totally blind to the goings on of things outside Rhea. It was easy to forget after spending so much time here, but Rhea really just stood head and shoulders over most other nations in terms of advancement. And the nations that, in particular, didn’t move forward as efficiently were prone to discord… and revolution… like Izumo… and Vauqulen.
Despite the inconvenience of the situation, her mouth quirked in amusement at the following statement. “Phoenix-pigeon,” she mouthed aloud, practically tasting the concept, before chuffing. “Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure of even meeting one, to my knowledge.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Seriously, I’ll return the coat. It’s fine…” She trailed off as he stepped closer. “Ah-” The oddness of him seemingly feeling the need to conceal his address aside- Wait, scratch that. With both Kiburi and Ken present, and Nightman still breathing, she could understand the caution. Still, when he whispered his address in her ear-
Oh dear, did that do things for her. As a frequent stressed purveyor of ASMR to sleep, the tingles that immediately reflexively shot down her spine… Well, she was far more concerned with shoving down the flush that wanted to rise to her face when he stepped away. “Ah-” She blinked a couple times, sucked in a breath and recounted the address mentally a few times, just to be certain she remembered it. Oh, better yet- She quickly opened up a phone app and jotted the address down, before sliding her phone back in her pocket. “Right.” She cleared her throat and smiled. “Got it.” Taking another calming breath she shoved down the remainder of that… bothersome sensation curdling in her gut. Hormones could fuck right off; she had shit to do today. As in nothing. She was going to go home, shower, and do nothing but sleep.
It turned out, Ken still had his smartphone, as his parents were calling him now. And so, with his magic items and Relic, he went to the car which was waiting to take him back home…
Reverio nodded softly as Chinami seemingly got his address down and wrote it into her high technology device. While he didn't have one like it, he knew their usefulness to provide light. "I can show it to you if you ever come by, it's pretty big and red and well warm." He paused for a moment. "I can't quite tell if the bird is a male or female though, thus I decide to label it.. well it." He smiled at that, the bird had been his lone constant company, yet despite all that time he had not given it a name. Perhaps out of respect for not knowing it's sex. But who knew.
"It's not that I doubt your abilities, Chinami. But I am still feeling uneasy about letting you walk home alone. If it wouldn't be too much of a bother for you, allow me to accompany you there. My gift allows me to take to the skies, It would not take long." He lowered his head in a polite manner as a noble asking for a request, and when he looked back up he noticed that she had gotten a tinge of red to her face. Just a slight bit. A fever? Had his powers been insufficient before?
A serious expression began to decorate his face as he stepped up again, and slid one of the sleeves of his shirt up before trying to lean in to place his arm against Chinami's forehead. "Your face is... red, are you having a fever?" He asked in a concerned manner. While his thoughts were swirling within, why was he so curious and eager to step in to provide assistance. Was he yet again becoming too drawn into other people's lives? Nightman and others had shown him the evil people could create by their desire to help. Was he slowly falling into the same thing?
As Ken began to make his own departure, Chinami nodded his way and shot him a casual two-fingered salute farewell. A strange guy but not abjectly dislikable… unlike certain people in her life. She’d not be opposed to meeting him again maybe, no matter his eccentricities… Well, she’d sleep on it. She just couldn’t handle any more oddness tonight.
Pulling herself back to the moment, Rev’s talk of this strange bird of his was sounding more interesting by the second. Chinami tilted her head slightly, trying to visualize what he was describing, but she was sure her imagination didn’t quite compare to the real thing. “Hah, well, I did say I was going to return your coat. I might just take you up on that offer then,” she chuckled.
His offer to escort her… Well, she couldn’t say she wasn’t tempted, but after having a bit to adjust to the… ebb and flow of this sensation that was suddenly smacking her in the face, she could somewhat more objectively peg that feeling for the hormone-fueled nonsense it was.
‘Godsdamn, girl, you’re down bad. Calm your shit, and use that brain you’re so proud of.’
Honestly, Chinami had never taken herself for being so… easy? Damn, just defining it that way alone was enough to kill a lot of the buzz. Shaking her head, she laughed a little at her own ridiculousness. Here she was, in the middle of a ruined building, bloodied and tattered, and down badder than she’d ever been for anyone over a guy she’d not met properly more than ten minutes ago. Looking at things objectively, he wasn’t even doing anything deliberately, and she was tripping over herself.
She needed to get a grip. She knew what this was. It was an almost entirely biological thing, a “crush”, as they called it. Not something likely based in objective interest so much as her body reacting at the first opportune moment to something that struck right in her zone. Fucking Suzakura leaving her bereft of experience… If her powers were working properly, she could have purged this easily before it had a chance to settle and been done with the matter, but that wasn’t an option now… It also really didn’t help that it was probably being compounded by another thing that she couldn’t name, an occurrence where life and death situations had a similar effect to a “crush”.
So, the only real question here was… Was she going to mentally dissect and purge this? Or explore it long-term? A combination of those? Was it in her best interests? Was it good for her goals? For Pete’s sake, she’d just met the guy.
She shook her head at Rev’s offer and waved him off. “Your chivalry is endearing, don’t get me wrong,” she chuckled, before fixing him with a notably more composed glint in her ruby eyes, “but I can handle myself just fine… in case the life or death battle we just had wasn’t enough of a clue.” She winced a bit at remembering the final use of her power. “I mean, burning light beams and self-immolation aside. That was… something I didn’t know my power would do. I’ve never been pushed this far before, tested my boundaries like this. But now that I know… you can be certain I won’t be making that same mistake again.” Speaking of that light… If she recalled…
She turned her gaze inward, before blinking in pleasant surprise.
“Last one, huh?” she whispered quietly, an edge of almost mournfulness in her tone. She was… worn out… tired… but when would she next have another opportunity like this? It was impossible to say… So, she’d just have to make the most of the moment.
She started a bit, as Rev stepped up to her again. This time, however, a bit more… prepared for how touchy-feely he could casually be, she stepped back and warded off his arm from her head lightly, shooting him a chiding look, before shaking her head in bemusement. “Like I said, I’m fine now. Your healing did the trick, as well as anyone could ask for.” The lingering flush was fading from her features even now, as she muscled back her composure with long-earned experience. “Tonight has just been… emotionally charged, more than I’m used to managing. I’m just a bit out of sorts.”
Taking another glance at the retreating Ken, Chinami’s words were addressed back over her shoulder at the blonde prince. “Say, Rev, is there anywhere you’ve always wanted to go… like a dream or fantasy… except, you know, real?” Shaking her head, she clarified, “I mean, like a place you’ve just always wanted to go… or revisit and never had the chance?”
“Such a place doesn’t exist anymore. When one makes all the wrong moves possible, and doesn’t realize it until it’s too late. But that’s a story for another time…” The blonde answered, as he slightly turned to look towards the exit of the building. His bangs falling over his eyes obscuring them momentarily.
Chinami’s lips pursed. On the one hand, every fiber of her being wanted to go home right then and just be alone for a bit to process… everything. On the other… Well, she never was good at resisting the urge to grind timed events, especially at the last minute. “What about… just a really notable place… like a famous waterfall or something. Just… something… somewhere significant. A place you’ve considered vacationing… or just experiencing really.” She glanced back at Ken again. Honestly, why the hell not? She might as well include him in this impulsive little plan too… assuming his probably worried sick parents didn’t shut that right down.
Rev tilted his head slightly to the side, looking over towards Chinami. “A hot and long shower… wasn’t that what you intended to go for right now? To be honest that doesn’t sound like a bad idea after this endeavor.” Reverio tapped his chin with one of his fingers, one of those Rhean futuristic things. The bathtub was so far behind? Or one of those open bathing areas? Well, at the current time he had gotten used to the showers. He could still recall his first experiences with one, which involved a lot of screaming after finding out it had hot water connected with it and that no matter how much you pressed your hands against the handle, the water sprouting didn’t stop. It had to be manually twisted with some device. Why did things have to be so advanced?
“But I suppose that in itself isn’t something significant or an experience. As far as I know, it is more about who is with you wherever it is that you may go. But if one has great sights, I think that could be an experience. Can’t say I am overly familiar with the Rhean vistas however. If we were in my homeland, I could have shown you plenty of things. Hmm. Come to think of it, I do recall hearing that Rhea had this sandridden field near the ocean, they call it a beach from what I hear. Many foreigners of my homeland used to speak fondly of it. Sand… won’t that just get in everywhere?” He felt another sweatdrop down the back of his head.
“If you ever come by to visit, I shall see about letting you have some Vauquelian batonnet, it’s long and quite tasty, goes well with cream and various other sweet things. Even if it can get a bit sticky and messy if you are not careful, not to worry though. I can show you how to avoid the rookie mistakes if you haven’t had it before.” Rev smiled, gesticulating with his hands and arms, describing how one would properly handle a Vauquelian piece of bread with its accessories.
“It’s usually best when they are hot, they kind of swell up abit compared to if they were kept in the cold. If one wishes, one could also have milk alongside it or something like that. Have you ever baked before? Believe it or not, it can be quite the workout. Makes for a stronger grip around one's sword too when you end up in a ruffle.” The blonde blinked, curious if the people of Rhea were as fascinated by bread and pastries as the people of his homeland. Well, at least they were surely not trying to poison you, like those emissaries from Albion.
Ken stopped, turned back, then said, “Why don’t we make arrangements to visit a flower garden some time, the three of us? Of course, we might need to find a place to meet up first, so that we don’t miss each other…”
"I like that idea, Ken. We should really talk about how to proceed from here on out. However, we are into this together." Rev gave a firm nod towards both Ken and Chinami, and then looked to Kiburi and gave him a nod too. Then Rev went up and whispered his address to Ken as well, just for safety reasons. Who knows who else could be listening.
Grinning as she was finally presented with some semi-concrete options, Chinami opened her mouth to give actual voice to her specific idea, before pausing and then closing it again, her enthusiasm abruptly tempered by a harsh reality. Instead, she glanced between both boys and said, “I’ll sleep on those possibilities, all of them, but…” She chuckled wryly. “Yeah, I’m not sure what I was thinking, Rev. Tonight isn’t the night to double down on impulsiveness. It’s one to just cool off, to go home and rest.” Metaphysical fingers grazed over the final enchantment in her possession, the teleportation one she had been aiming for before everything went to shit, approximately only 3 hours and 50 minutes on the clock remaining… She swallowed lightly at the bullet she’d likely just dodged with some foresight.
She shook her head. “Sorry, I got myself all worked up over something, and then realized I was simply being foolish.” And just downright stupid. Honestly, what was she thinking? That she was just going to have a last little hoo-rah with the dregs of her power? That she was going to see the sights and mess around till the final bell tolled? Did she really think for one second that using this power wouldn’t still damage her soul further? After all, at the end of the day, wasn’t it still being fueled by the same power that was the entire cause of her problems? Sitting passively as it currently was, it was manageable enough that it hadn’t provoked a mention from the mysterious voice… but if she actively used it and tugged on the flow of energy, potentially widening it? Well, would that really be any better than actively forming a fresh enchantment to begin with?
Reluctantly, Chinami exhaled and released the enchantment, frowning at the sudden cooling sensation in her chest, like an overheated electronic had just stopped running. It seemed her intuition was correct. Even maintaining that much was doing more harm than good. If she’d actually gone through with such stupidity, she’d have torn her spiritual stitches wide open. “Sorry, it was a ridiculous idea, honestly a pretty poorly timed one as well, considering… all this.” She gestured vaguely at their surroundings. Glancing at Ken, she added, “And besides, I’d be inconsiderate to keep you from your family. I’m sure they’re worried sick by all this.”
To Rev, she finished with a firmer tone than she’d managed before, “I won’t put you out for escort. In fact, I insist on it. Despite everything, I can handle myself. I sense your intentions are pure, but it’s considered rather insulting to continue pushing after I already said no… twice. This is the third time, and if I have to tell you once more, I’ll be leaving without that coat of yours as well.” She raised a single, questing brow. If he was such a gentleman, she figured he’d understand that she was offering a “lesser of two evils” situation. She could either go home alone and decent, or…
"Worked up?" Rev said in a ponderous and hushed tone, stroking his chin. The blonde quickly shook his head.
"You don't strike me as someone who does foolish things. Don't worry, we all have ideas and things we would like to put to the test. But not always do we get the chance or the time we need for it." The underdressed exile allowed one of his hands to traverse through his long hair as he pulled it backwards slightly, before making a head motion causing his hair to swing from the left and to the right.
Then he set his piercing blue eyes back on Chinami and offered her a polite nod followed by offering the same to Kiburi. "Do forgive me. I shall be on my way then." Then he turned around to walk alongside Ken to get a ride to his home, unless they would turn out to be kidnappers or extortionists. Those kinds of people did exist.
'Just what was that barrier... Perhaps someday you could tell me, miss Nadakai. But why do I still feel doubt? I know the path I need to tread, the path I must tread. Yet along the way, I keep stumbling over things. Oh you gods of near infinite wisdom. What choice shall I have to make when I finally reach the crossroad of no return? Brother. Princess. Watch over me.' Rev thought as he walked to find a light in the dark. His umbrella had not been stolen by Nightman at the entrance of the building, and thus he picked it up.
'If only there was an umbrella to ward off the conflicts and bloodshed of this world. This nigh endless struggle that gradually drowns us...'
Ken’s parents, Shinsei and Maki, looked like an ordinary couple clad in raincoats and carrying umbrellas of their own. Shinsei, however, looked like he’d scold Ken, before seeing the look on his son’s face. Then he said, “You’ve gone through a lot, you and your friend. So, will you two get in the car? Maki here will be driving.”
He then introduced himself to Reverio with a bow and spoke in the courteous way common to most royals, “Greetings; my name is Shinsei Ikari, Imperial Prince in Exile and Keeper of the Ame-No-Murakumo. I also act as regent for my son, the current Imperial Claimant. I am happy to meet someone who has saved his life, and whom I hope has not been too much trouble to you.”
There were things which he wanted to discuss in regards to Nightman however, but also learn more of Ken and Chinami. If they had all been selected at random, or if they were chosen. Then the looming question, was Nightman working alone? The blonde unlocked the door leading into his humble apartment, he wanted to take a shower but he decided to take one in the morning instead, not wanting to sleep with his hair all wet.
As he undressed and slid into his bed, which was not a mattress on the floor. Those Izumo people really made some bad choices with their beds and their kitchen utensils. Despite having won the battle of the day, why did it also feel like a defeat? He had not wanted to kill Nightman to begin with. But the doctor had made him remember that which he had tried to keep locked away in his mind.
'Why do I still feel doubt. Is there still hope for humankind? I don't know anymore. Indecisiveness is a terrible thing...' The blueyed young man placed his arms above his head as he lay down in his bed, his eyes fell on the ceiling.
'Some things were so much clearer back then...' Rev allowed his eyes to close as his mind traversed back to memories of a not too distant past.
"The master of the mask"Reverio backstory part 2/3. Starring: Liger du Main, King Marlan Maressan, Princess Lalamarie de Cloverhart and Lord Gilbert, the duke of D'Contre.
In the King's private dressingroom
"Here we go again..." The King sighed out deeply, overlooking the attire that had been chosen and designed by the court officials. Like most other things of the Kingdom of Vauquelin.
"Look at the bright side, your majesty. You will be the most colourful thing in the room." The peasant prince said in a jesting tone of voice, amusement written all over his face.
"That's what I feared. Who ever thought to mix pink and green together? Most royals end up wearing red or yellow, and in some cases blue. But this?" The King said in a highly disapproving manner, as he indicated the intricate but snot green and baby pink masquerade attire.
"At least the mask is golden." The king's brother replied, as he helped the king tie the ribbons of his shoes.
"If only I could live every day of my life wearing another mask, that would have been a dream come true..." The king blew some air out through his mouth, causing his hair to flicker upwards, slightly ruining the perfectly arranged hair which they had styled for him for hours.
"Don't you believe it would become a sad existance being a person without a face, your majesty?" The peasant prince smiled softly as he rose up from his kneeling position, to help the king with the unnecessary corset which came with his attire.
"Ahh.. my brother, can't we swap costumes? Yours does look much more comfortable, not to mention it isn't green or pink. Or both!" The King said aloud in a gasping manner, but there were a joking tone to his voice.
"But your majesty, that would mean you would miss out on your dance with the princess." The brother turned servant said in a reminding manner, as he tied the last strap on the King's attire. "Speaking of which, she should be heading into this room at any moment, your majesty."
"You are right, I can't abandon her in this, and it is my duty to bear this crown, not yours. Have you ever thought of yourself in my place? What would you have done differently?" The King asked, as curiousity got the better of him. His brother was known to always provide him with an answer, usually one which sat very well with him. Though at times he had no doubt wondered if they were truthful.
"Your majesty..." The peasant prince stopped mid-sentence. "I have never imagined myself being in your place, but If I were, your majesty. With outmost respect. I would have done precisely what you've been doing." Liger du Main offered a respectful bow to the King.
"But what have I done? The common folk are unhappy with me, the nobles are only concerned with grabbing more political power and wealth. War with Yekaterina is a potentiality not to be overlooked, if one is to believe Lord Gilbert." The king lamented. Lord Gilbert was an influencial man in the Kingdom of Vauquelin, a rich man, both in material and political matters. Yet he was a strong supporter of the royals. In the common people's view, he could even have been considered to be the regent for the young king.
"Not all things happening in the world is because of your majesty. Sometimes things spiral out of control and all you can do at the time is to go along with it and make the best out of it. Perhaps you should consider taking up more time writing poems and rhymes? It won't solve said issues for the kingdom, but it may temporary relieve your majesty's worries." The peasant prince suggested, knowing fully well that the King himself wasn't as fond of those things, in stark comparison to his servant brother.
"Hah! I am not that desperate, dear brother. Those things give me headaches, mostly because I do not know what they should be about." The King said with a slight chuckle, looking at his both hands, and how every finger had been decorated with the finest of jewelry.
"It's easy once you get the hang of it, your majesty. It is all a matter of getting into the feeling of it, try to think of experiences you've had and your feelings about them." Liger explained while he brought a handmirror to the King so he could inspect his appearance.
"What experiences? The dull seven hour dining banter with those emissaries from Albion? Come to think of it, I would rather have eaten the poisoned pastries which I was told they brought with them. If only to not having to listen to their culinary massacre." The king shook his head as he thought about it in horror. Pudding. A thing which could be used as a weapon in the right hands. The King allowed his focus to shift to his handmirror. "Do you know why I dislike seeing my reflection, dear brother?" The King asked.
"Your majesty, surely the Albion cuisine isn't that bad. But they do smell bad. As for why your majesty is displeased with the reflection? Could it be because it reminds your majesty of his illsuited brother?" Liger asked with a fake smile on his lips, his hands behind his back as he looked into the same mirror the king was.
"Certainly not! It is because I cannot stand to see the sight of myself. How despite having this crown and scepter, I am unable to qwell the problems of my Kingdom. Sometimes I cannot help but feel that someday they will all be fed up with me." The King had a solemn look on his face as he put down the mirror on a nearby table, before rising out of the royal stool which he had been seated.
"Your majesty, you must not worry, if such a day will come I will be there for you. I am, and shall always be your shadow." The peasant prince raised his right hand to his chest, right over to where his heart were before providing a butlerlike bow to his royal brother. The king, who was often moved by his brother's very reassuring words was about to reply, when there was an announcement at the double-sided doors leading into the chambers.
"Announcing her royal highness, Princess Lalamarie de Cloverhart." A pious sounding and high strung guardsman announced, while another played a small trumpet. Two other servants opened the doublesided doors and in strode a young lady with determined steps.
"Your majesty, your bethrothed has come to meet you~! I am so lucky to have such a handsome King~ Ohohoho~ I see your majesty still have a tail." The princess said aloud, while waving her fan at herself, her long blue and white dress was large enough to likely fit three people under it. Her red eyes scanned the King's attire. Soon she was accompanied by two female servants which each carried two big fans which they used to help the princess feel cool.
"You are beautiful, Lala. Are you ready for the dance? And what do you mean with tail?" The King blinked and looked over his terribly designed attire for any sign of a tail.
"Him." The princess said in quick succession, pointing a finger towards the King's brother. Liger du Main. "He is constantly tagging after you as if he was a tail, It makes me wonder if he is going to be there when you invite me to your royal chambers. Fufu~" The princess waved over a male servant which was carrying various refreshments. Whereof the princess quickly grabbed two sticks with tasty treats and a soft drink.
"Lala, he is my brother. He is my royal aide and friend. I trust him with my life. Surely the princess won't mind that he is going to also accompany us to the ball." The King explained with a soft smile, as he turned to give his brother a slight wink. There was a sense of playfulness getting the better of him, despite all the worries and problems the King and the kingdom he was serving had.
"Ara ara~ Well I hope he will not steal your majesty for the dance? My you are so handsome~ But who did your attire? You may have to banish someone after tonight." Lalamarie laughed softly as she went closer to the King, taking hold of his hand while giving his servant brother a look which clearly read. 'Back off'.
Later in the evening...
The ball had proceeded as planned, there had been music, drinks and food in overflow. The ballroom had been affected by a zone of gift negation, projected by the most elite of guardsmen. To prevent unnecessary accidents or gods forbid. Assassination attempts. The various display of coloured outfits and masked dancers filling the great hall's floor. Nobles had been invited and even their servants, for those were considered accessories rather than actual people to most influencial people.
Lord Gilbert had his grand speech about the grandeur of the royal family, how the kingdom was prospering and how the future would be bright indeed. Both the king and the peasant prince couldn't help but to disagree. It was a true masquerade, a deception. Yet those which had all the things of the world didn't care, for they couldn't be bothered with problems other than those affecting themselves. The King had taken his eleventh dance with the princess when suddenly things would take a change of turns. The peasant prince himself was not found on the dancefloor, he was standing in the front row line watching all the dancer, but more specifically the royal duo. That someone like Liger du Main, which had the same status as servantfolk was permitted to stand next to the nobles in the line was something most of the nobles found horrid.
They looked upon him as if he was a disease or a disgusting piece of art, their furrowed eyebrows, wrinkled noses and raised napkins was signs enough for it. The peasant prince however chose to ignore them, he had other things on his mind than having to care for what some nobles thought of him. King Maressan and Princess Cloverhart was in the spotlight of the evening, not only for the nobles, for the peasant prince, Lord Gilbert and the guards. But for one dark clothed and black masked man which strode into the crowd of dancers just as the music had come to a pause.
From his pocket he drew a dagger and then shoved a dancing woman out of his pathway as he made a quick dash towards the King and his princess, as they just turned around to spot the assailant. But he was approaching so fast. The brother of the king ran out from the line of people and managed to trip the man, but the masked assailant quickly rose back up and was about to resume his charge. That's when Lord Gilbert stepped forth and drew his foreign 'handcannon', sending a single round metallic ball into the masked assailant. Shooting him dead on the spot.
"Your majesty! Are you allright?!" Lord Gilbert yelled, as he holstered his weapon and leaned down to confirm the assailant was indeed dead. Guards began to swarm the floor, and began to form a protective formation around the king and the princess. Amidst the ensuing panic of the nobles running off in various directions, and the servants being pushed out of their paths, the peasant prince was shoved back and down on the ground by two guards.
"Keep your distance!" The guard yelled in his face. The peasant prince gave a narrow eyed stare towards the guard, then it fell upon Lord Gilbert which now was the one with the majority of focus on him.
Soon the ballroom was back into order and the would be assassin was taken out of the place by order of Lord Gilbert. King Maressan and princess Lalamarie found themselves watching their evening being completely ruined. The King's eyes then fell on his servant brother, which he could recognize by attire alone. "Dear brother, over here. Let him through!" The King demanded to a few guards which were not eager to let the peasant princce near their sovereign.
"Are you allright, your majesty? Your highness? I managed to trip the man. Sorry, I should have been the one to take him down. Good thing Lord Gilbert was present." Liger said, yet the King knew that Liger did indeed not like Lord Gilbert the slightest. To the peasant prince, Lord Gilbert was one of the reasons why the kingdom was in peril. It was his constant meddling in the royal affairs that kept ruining everything.
"I- I think so. Lala? Are you allright? What about you dear brother? Did you get injured?" The King asked in quick succession.
"Ohoho~ Your majesty, with you by my side what could I possibly be worried about? Some good for nothing ruffian trying to interupt our dance, good riddance to him and all like him." The princess was brutal, but honest in her opinion, as her gaze shifted to the peasant prince. No doubt the prince felt that in her eyes, he was just another one of those ruffians.
"I'm unharmed your majesty, thank you." The prince nodded deeply.
Little did Reverio know, that this was the last ball he, his brother and the princess would attend. Soon the ultimate betrayal would find it's aim true.
Silently, she watched through the holes in the wall and curtain of rain, watched from inside the room that had become a battleground, as Ken and Reverio went on their way. As the downpour continued overhead and drowned out the retreating wheels of the Ikari family’s car, Chinami’s face slowly drained of even faux happiness and relief… into something far more ominous.
A cold glance was turned towards the prone, unconscious Nightman, eyes like dull rubies almost seeming to briefly gain an inhuman glow, as they narrowed minutely. Glancing at the brown cloak in her hands, Chinami frowned at its already sullied state. The streaks of blood and ash on her arms had already dirtied it beyond reason even from only being shuffled around in her grasp. Wearing it now could hardly make things much worse. And besides, she would sort of be breaking a not-exactly-promise to Reverio if she didn’t.
Exhaling, she smoothly slung the coat over her shoulders, threaded her arms through the sleeves with a light flourish and strode back towards Kiburi and Nightman, broken glass, wood and other debrii noisily tracing her footsteps, as she stopped just short of the expanding puddle of blood around the mauled, yet still breathing Nightman. Glancing at the undead Man in the Suit and then to Kiburi, she asked, “What will happen to Nightman?” There was an almost feigned disinterest in her tone. Feigned, in that she only cared about one answer.
“I’m unsure what to do with him. I could steal his powers, but they require a lot of set-up from what I am able to sense. I could just let him go as a cripple, a lesson for those who would think to assault my students in such a lame way.” Kiburi begins, before he looks over to Chinami. “Would you like to kill him?” He asks, flatly.
“Yes,” Chinami answered bluntly. She was emotionally drained, cracked. And furthermore, what was there to hide from someone like Kiburi at the end of the day? It occurred to her that, for better or worse, in this matter at least, she might have found a disturbingly kindred spirit. “But… I don’t just want him to die. I suppose it might be considered ‘cruel and unusual’, but I would very much like to make him suffer for the trouble he put me through.” Her eyes narrowed at Nightman, her lips working thoughtfully. “Headmaster, I wonder… what sort of afterlife awaits him…” She cupped her chin with one hand. “Are his actions venerated by the god that gave him his Gift, or did he misuse it? Did they intend for him to take this route? After all, such a power… would surely drive corruption into the heart of all but the stoutest man.”
“Corruption, veneration by gods, these things are for those who worry about the repercussions of their actions after death. The gods arm us for their own protection, and for some their own amusement. Many do honestly care for humanity but enough just tolerate us until we prove ourselves to them.” Kiburi begins, as he waved his hand in the air conjuring what looked like a baseball bat lined with thin razor blades, the blades peeking out just enough to split and peel skin rather than properly cleave flesh.
“In this world we must do as we believe, not the gods, not others. Our own paths are carved from the grime and dirt of this rotting mud ball. Here I now gift you a choice, a fork in your path. If you wanna kill him, beat him to death with this. It’ll hurt for the both of you, seeing how you are still a little injured but it will show your conviction for the kill. That you want it. Do you want it?” Kiburi asks, flipping the bat over in his hand to offer it to Chinami all the while smiling.
A small chuff escaped Chinami’s lips in something close to disbelief. Her eyes ran across Kiburi’s form with a look of almost wonder in them. This man… was speaking her language. She almost couldn’t believe it, believe that he -the head of one of the greatest academies in the nation- was being serious. But excessive violence or no, the core of the values he expressed… Yes, that was exactly what humanity needed to be, arbiters of their own destiny. Gifts or no, what right did any higher being have to determine humanity’s destiny? It’s not like the current gods were responsible for their creation. That was the mythical Overdiety’s domain alone. So, in what universe did humanity need the gods or owe them veneration? Wasn’t it the other way around even?
She grinned slyly. It wasn’t a nice smile. “Oh, well, I didn’t ask about the afterlife for some reason as banal as concern over Nightman’s guilt. You see… I’ve wondered for a while now, but I’ve never really been able to test.” Her jaw worked musingly. “What do you suppose happens if… a soul were to be torn apart?” Her eyes gleamed with interest. “It’s a little too high-concept for me, the answer. And really, what chance does a mortal have of witnessing the results, but as a thought experiment…”
She crouched down next to Nightman. “Suppose that when he dies, I were to… take hold of that fleeing soul… just for a moment… and tear it to pieces... Would it even matter where he’s going? Would such a tattered wretch even be able to go anywhere? Would he be cast into oblivion?” She hummed. “Normally, I don’t think of myself as a sadistic person, but…” She laughed lightly. “I’m certainly not doing this for justice, and if there’s even the slightest possibility that I can ensure his suffering truly is eternal… Well, why pass up the opportunity?”
“Ah,” she chuckled. “I don’t suppose you mind healing him enough to be conscious? I can’t imagine this would be very satisfying otherwise.”
“Killing his soul? What a horrifying thought. I like your style, but from my experience there’s very few things that will keep a soul shattered forever. Some gods are bleeding hearts and look down on that as it could deprive a so-called good person from eternity, and deprive their families of ever seeing them again. Imagine, for example, if some nutjob did that to a doctor for shits and giggles. Maybe they’d do it to a father of twelve….or maybe to a spirit wielding girl who did it to their father, meaning you’d be on the receiving end of it depriving your parents of ever seeing you again even if you became a shitter.” Kiburi begins. “...But I do have one of those things in my arsenal. I can heal him, let you beat him, and obliterate him…but it’ll come with a cost.”
“Hah…” Chinami sighed. “Perhaps I was being a little too greedy.” She shrugged. Most people would have settled for death, but her paranoia screamed at her. Resurrection wasn’t unheard of entirely as far as she knew, and even the idea of this man having a route back by the slimmest margin was enough to drive a cold sweat down her spine. She wanted him gone for good, but even getting this far had cost her dearly… If there was a price to be paid, was she really willing to pay any more this day? Shaking her head, she answered, “Like I said, I’m not usually all that sadistic. And really… I’m just pissed off, not stupid. Really truly killing a soul… If there’s a cost for that, then it’s one that I like to think I’m not unwise enough to pay. However…”
Her Spirit reached down, taking hold of the unconscious Nightman’s lower jaw and levering his entire body up till he hung limply before her, supported only by his knees. “Even if I can’t destroy his soul entirely, I think I can do it temporarily.” She smiled almost pleasantly. “An eye for an eye, one cracked soul to another. Both of us will heal… in time, and neither of us will have it pleasant. I think that -making things even- will satisfy me. As for killing him to begin with? Why, that’s just a matter of course.” She glanced back at Kiburi. “So, unless there’s anything in particular you’d like to add to his karmic tab personally, healing him enough to hear should be plenty. I’d at least like to afford him a send-off, and somehow, I doubt loose souls have the best hearing.”
Kiburi laughs a bit. “The cost was more to me than karmic, my girl, but it’s good to see one of my favorite students is frugal. You’re gonna go far, kid.” He declares, before stabbing Nightman with his fingers, the flesh around the injection point pulsating as soon Nightman would groan, barely conscious and still unable to move.
Nightman's eyes opened slowly. Mostly he was just confused. He was still there. Kiburi was still there. Chinami was still there. Finally his faculties returned just enough.
"What more could you possibly desire from me?" he rasped weakly.
Chinami’s ruby eyes closed briefly in thought, as she tilted her head. Her brows scrunched lightly in thought, before jumping in remembrance. “This situation looks familiar, right, Nightman?” she asked lightly. “If I recall, this is just the way it looked… when you shattered my power. And you know? You said something to me then.” One finger tapped her lips in consideration, her human arms folded atop one another. “What was it…? Oh yeah! Something like: ‘I will not lie… You gave me no end of grief. You stand as living proof of why I must do this… The world cannot be trusted to people like you. But, despite what it cost me, I suppose I do have to thank you in a way… One cannot grow without first overcoming obstacles… and you were an obstacle like no other.’ That’s how it went… right?”
There was a sharp, wet crunch, as without fanfare, the razor, bladed baseball bat was shoved through the area that once contained Nightman’s heart by her Spirit’s other hand.
As the instrument pierced through the man’s heart, the room seemed to freeze. The walls around them faded to black and Kiburi vanished from her sight. A moment later Chinami would find herself standing next to… herself, watching herself impale the man. A moment later, another Nightman appeared standing next to himself.
“Not a pretty sight, is it?” he asked, then held up his hand. “Fret not, child. My power will fade soon. More than likely, even before then Kiburi will notice something. Should give us a few uninterrupted moments. The mind can work quickly, after all.” He put his hands into his pockets. “This is hardly what my power is meant for, but I can make do. Would that I could, I’d have done this before you cut me down yourself, but… you are a quick girl, after all.”
Glancing at it all from an outside perspective, Chinami felt remarkably unworried… enough to even surprise herself, despite the situation. Striding forward (was it really striding in what was clearly some sort of mental landscape? It was hard to say), she circled the gruesome scene, feeling little more than a vague, disconnected relief. She knew this was it, that it was over. She’d evened the score. The battle had cost her dearly, but…
“No,” she agreed verbally, snorting. “It isn’t pretty. I told Kiburi, and I’ll tell you as well. I’m not a… Well, okay, I’m a little sadistic, I guess, but not for no reason.” She sighed, running one hand through her hair. “Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. An old parable or something I heard once.”
“Yes,” Nightman interrupted. “And an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. We can trade idioms and justifications all day, but it will lead us nowhere.”
She shrugged. “True enough.” Working her jaw, despite herself, she felt curious. “Why do this? I get that people like Kiburi exist… that they make use of their power selfishly… But people like Rev… He doesn’t seem the sort. He didn’t deserve to be attacked for no reason. He didn’t do anything to you.” At the core of it, that was what really pissed her off. She had been living quietly, responsibly. She had all this power, and yet, despite all odds, she had actually been responsible enough to… almost pretend like the Spirit was all there was to it. She didn’t go around tyrannically imposing her will on others, hadn’t allowed it to go to her head… Or, at least, she didn’t think so… hoped so.
She had done nothing to earn this sort of assault either… at least initially. Once negotiations -if they could even be called that- had broken down, it was hard to say who had really struck first between them. “And somehow, I doubt he was the only one… the only person who was -if not innocent- at least not actively abusive of the power they possessed.”
“I did not attack him, at least not in the way you attacked me…” Nightman scowled, but then paused, and raised his hands slightly in capitulation. He sighed and waved away the gruesome display next to them. It was replaced by a pair of chairs, like the ones in his treatment rooms. He took one and motioned for Chinami to take the other if she wished, but did not wait for her to do so before speaking further. “My motivations are no longer relevant. You’ve seen to that yourself, and because of that you no longer get to know them. Pry them from my head yourself if you wish, or I’m sure somewhere in Kiburi’s endless closet of stolen powers he has the ability to do so. Do the work yourself, for I shall not.”
And yet, he furrowed his brow, going on further, “I did used to do this the right way, you know. Or at least the acceptable way. But I failed too many times. Either my own inadequacy, or simply the fact that my words could not protect them from the outside world. So, with my work at an end, allow me to try it the old way one last time. Let me leave you with a bit of advice,” he told her, giving her a granule of the story she’d asked for in spite of himself.
Seeing little harm in it, Chinami sat across from him. “That’s true… but I’m starting to think I may see the disconnect here.” Closing her eyes, she sighed and nodded. “With this display, it’s obvious now. Your mental power was never one you stole. It’s part of your core set, potentially integral to how it functions. Of course that would shape how you view its use, even if it were to be used entirely altruistically. On the other hand…” She gestured to herself with a humorless smile. “I am what you might call a free will absolutist. To me, there is no difference between memory manipulation and murder. The sanctity of the mind, soul and core self is paramount, necessary to the civility of humanity itself. In some ways, I see such things as worse than murder, distinctly so, which made your power and methods… even if they may have been intended altruistically at the start…”
She sighed and shared bluntly with him as well. “So, I overreacted. Of course I did. I was terrified beyond what I can put into words. Maybe if I had just given into cowardice and run away… that would have been the right thing.” Her jaw worked. “But I stayed. Some glimmer of altruism saw me concerned enough about those boys to not prioritize my own well being alone… Though, admittedly, I was all but looking for a fight at that point… Two sides of the same coin.. Fight or flight… And look how that turned out.” She shook her head. “But I’m digressing and wasting our time. I apologize. Say what you must.”
“Look indeed. You, damaged, but with all three of you your minds your own,” he chuckled. “Isn’t that what you value so dearly? You chose the harder path, but upheld what matters to you, sloppily undertaken as it was.” He shook his head. “But that is a conversation I cannot continue to entertain right now, because I saw something else in this moment.”
He stared her in the eyes, “I saw a dog, thrown into a pit and spurred on by its master to kill. You’re a child. If that man saw fit to ensure my end he should have done so himself. But you are much more than a dog, Chinami, and in all the ways that matter, great and terrible. And even a dog can come back from such violence. Look at him, Kiburi, and ask yourself… do you really want to be anything like him?” He gave a long sigh. “It’s easy to slip. With my work threatened I pulled the trigger on that poor boy. I can say it was the heat of the moment, or even that it wasn’t really me with my mind split into three, but that means little in the end. It was something my actions alone led to. In my desperation I became what I was trying to put an end to.
But… I think you have a long way to go before you risk becoming like him. And yet, it can happen in the blink of an eye. For better or worse, my work is at an end, and thus this world is left to you. So, in the meantime, just… don’t become like me.” He closed his eyes, sinking back into his chair as if enjoying one last moment of relaxation. “You’re a smart girl, Chinami. Smart enough to know what that means. At least… I hope so.”
As he spoke his last words, the darkness around them began to rush in, blowing everything away like a puff of smoke until she found herself back where she’d been before, her hand once more wrapped around the handle of the bat.
It was almost like coming down from an adrenaline high, yet strangely muted. The intoxicating sensation of channeling the will to kill had almost entirely drained from her, as to her eyes, the faint spiritual whisps that she knew comprised Nightman’s soul began to rise from the fading body. There was no saving him now, even if she were to decide to have a last-minute change of heart. Even then, she doubted Kiburi would have spared him. No, at the end of the day, Nightman had lost his way, and she wasn’t sure if he could have been brought back from that.
As Nightman’s corpse slumped back bonelessly with a sound Chinami didn’t particularly want to acknowledge, her Spirit cradled the whisps far more gently than she might have been inclined prior. She didn’t know if Kiburi could see souls… but the fact that he claimed he had something that could destroy them… and the fact that he was apparently a Gift stealer as well… and leagues beyond Nightman for that matter… She wouldn’t put it past his capabilities.
There were many things she’d have liked to do with that soul, questions she’d have liked to ask him. If possible, maybe… she could have taken him to a scenic place to release… or taken a last message to whatever family he might be willing to tell her of, but she couldn’t see that going through Kiburi. The flood of sadism and spite that had practically strangled her thoughts moments prior was absent, and she… somehow, didn’t want to let the Headmaster play his own hand.
Reluctantly, Chinami released and watched quietly, as the soul flowed into the ether and the great beyond outside her perception. Whether she liked it or not, Nightman had given her something at the end of it all, evened the scales a little. She’d repay that with this much mercy. “Now we’re square, Nightman.”
Good luck. Maybe the afterlife will be kinder to you than this world.
Outwardly, she stretched, popping her back a bit and displaying a bright smile of satisfaction that she suddenly felt not at all. “Well, I’m off!” she declared jovially to Kiburi, waving lightly, as she hop-skipped over the various pieces of rubble strewn across the room towards the blown open wall. “Barring anything pressing, I shouldn’t miss classes this week. I got healed by that generous blondie, after all. It’d be pretty lame to be absent after that.”
Stepping out the gap, Chinami closed her eyes briefly, as she allowed herself to be soaked to the bone by the ongoing downpour. With any luck, by the time she got home, most of the blood and ash would be rinsed away.
The front door of a modest, single-story house creaked open quietly, as Chinami padded inside, water sloughing off her as she went and landing cleanly on the porch, thanks to her Spirit’s selective intangibility. The door slipped closed far louder than she’d had quite preferred this particular late evening, and the lock flicking into place with a habitual motion sounded no less conspicuous to her ears.
“Chinami?” came the voice off an older woman from the kitchen.
“Yeah, Mum?” The girl in question winced but padded forward, slipping past the open arch between the main foyer and said occupied room as casually as she could. Her Spirit flickered out briefly to fret over her appearance, super-speed fingers combing through her hair and checking for any remaining semblance of the night's filth on her skin. Her pants were all but a lost cause, but the coat covered the worst of things if kept closed. Satisfied with her preparations, she stepped back into view, glancing over a counter of sorts and the kitchen sink set into the other side of it to see her mother hopping about with kitchenware in hand.
Chinami frowned, her Spirit itching to lunge forward to quell any chance of accidents, as her mother, Harumi, set glassware on the island counter and glanced at the running oven. “You should be using your wheelchair. You’re going to make a mess of things.”
“Nonsense,” Harumi waved her off, precariously twisting on her single leg to slide a large platter of finger-foods into the fridge. “See?” She sounded far too smug... and far too confident and capable for Chinami's liking.
“It only takes one slip up,” Chinami snorted, eyeing the timer on the over judgingly. One hour… What the hell was she making at this time of night? Well, at least that gave her time to handle her own affairs and then intercede in the nonsense idea of her mother getting that out alone. “You lose nothing by not being reckless. I’m not always going to be around to save you.”
“Chinami, I-” Harumi’s voice trailed off to the sound of footsteps already padding down the hall out of sight. After a quiet moment, she added, almost to herself, “The new coat looks nice…”
Chinami almost slung her filthy, ruined clothes into a hamper, before reconsidering and tossing them to the floor. The garbage was the only place they were bound. Although… perhaps the pants could be salvaged in some manner. Her thankfully intact phone and lighter had been left by her bedside, and preparations done, she proceeded with her best attempt to drain the house’s entire hot water supply.
The hard scrubbing her skin received didn’t quite manage to make her feel clean.
Next on the agenda, after donning a fresh set of garments and wringing out her hair to dry, was to get the coat washed. While the rain and her Spirit’s selective intangibility had done a good deal of the work, there was no substitute for a good cleansing… especially for the smell. After double-checking the coat’s tag for care instructions, she eventually settled on a gentler setting for the wash, wary of worsening the hole damage with a truly thorough deep-clean.
A timely break from that to help her mother in the kitchen and handle the oven nonsense soon informed her that the reason for all this recklessness was a party Harumi would be attending early tomorrow. Hence, her own overeager contributions to the collective buffet. After mildly wishing Harumi the best with that and concealing her own anxiety over her mother driving anywhere alone, Chinami otherwise wordlessly fixed herself some leftover stew, handled her dishes and went to bed.
She’d have liked to say she was asleep the moment her head hit the pillow… but that would have been a bold-faced lie. Between being unable to stand sleeping with wet hair and her overall wired and physically refreshed body, Chinami wouldn’t find herself drifting into the land of slumber till some hours later. Instead, she could only lie awake, half-heartedly flicking through her phone, her head clouded with thoughts of the day… what she could have done better… what she should have…
No-! She had survived! She was a survivor! Her caution had paid off! And by alerting Kiburi beforehand and provoking his intervention, she had indirectly saved them all! Rather, in the end, did that not mean that this really and truly was her victory, despite everything? That despite failing on a direct level, she had still pulled out a win by ripping the rug out from under her opponent and flipping the game board?! She… had definitely won…
