7873/Solipsism of the Sword (1)

Solipsism of the Sword (1)
Date of Scene:	11 March 2022
Location:	The Great Ocean
Synopsis:	An emotionally charged confrontation capending a long arc.
Thanks to:	Lilian Rook
Cast of Characters:	6953, 7435, 7412, 7377, 7359, 7417, 7408, 7308, Tamamo, 6895

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Muramasa (6953) has posed:
Following the map with an X on it - a magical item which revealed the location of any treasure that the holder desired - leads the Watch-affiliated group sailing the deep blue waves eventually to a particular, post-industrial world in the vastness of the multiverse. It was fairly contemporary to a modern-day earth with a mildly futuristic slant; seated upon the ocean is a man-made isle segmented into multiple shells, each connected by massive struts that served a dual-purpose as great bridges. The structures were constructed out of some space-age alloy, carbon fiber filaments, and a variety of other marvels that allow it to serve as a majestic metropolis floating out by its own strength.

Generally speaking, its only purpose was to serve as a garrison for local Paladins, providing them housing and various recreations in the city itself to spend their salaries on.

Arriving during the peak morning hours, the sun reflects in a splendid rainbow that seems to coat the city in an incredible atmosphere.

Sneaking in by way of the docks was unlikely to yield favorable results, and it goes without saying that they had no permission to be boating out in these waters - and so, the only real way to enter the island the way they intended would be by tresspassing shamelessly. The question is whether or not the Watchmen had the gall to do that, all for the sake of confronting one person.

    Meanwhile

A red-headed teenager sits seiza in front of a coffee table, a frown on his face. In the end, the weight that felt like it was going to crush him flat did not get any easier to carry, nor had he found any sort of fulfilment by accepting his lot in life. No matter how long I sit here and think about things, my prospects don't look any less bleak ... maybe that's just how it was always meant to be, hm?

Although it wasn't known to him at the time - his morning exercises and the wallowing that would typically follow was going to be cut short, this particular day.

Captain Hook (7435) has posed:
     Captain Hook always pays his debts.

     He can never pay off this one. Not to these people - not to Muramasa, to Hibiki, to the people who had pulled him out of his own story-imposed suicide and back into a world of bright and color and given him a *choice*, a real *choice*, for the first time since he was a small child. No, there was no amount of repayment that could ever call them square, no amount of aid he could render that would ever make this debt go away. Indeed even calling it a 'debt' made it sound dirty.

     On the other hand, calling it a 'debt' made it easier for people to understand why a pirate would be here on this speedboat, one leg on the railing, coat flowing over his shoulder, the Map With The X On It unrolled in front of him. 'Debt' was easy to understand. It made it sound like an obligation.

     Few people argued with or distrusted obligations. People distrusted 'friendship' and 'affection' a great deal more.

     A man who says he'll never fail to pay a debt is a man who can be trusted where the debt is concerned, after all. It was just easier that way.

     He has no fear of falling off the boat. He's Captain Hook, for God's sakes. Nor has he any fear of the Map being ripped from his hands by speed and wind. Indeed if he *wasn't* supposed to stand in front with his foot on the prow he'd be back at the controls.

     He really didn't want to drive a ship again yet. Personal reasons, he'd said.

     The boat passes through the worlds. Hook quietly takes note of various places, jotting them down in a mental notebook, in case he sees anything interesting as the ship slices through the waves.

     And then they've arrived.

     Vast structures floating on the ocean. Massive struts spreading over the waves. A city of splendor for the Paladins.

     For the moment, a prison.

     Hook rolls up the Map and disappears it into his breast pocket with a flourish of his hand. He leans forward, draping one arm over his knee. This reminds him of an adventure he didn't have, or did have, or may have had in the storybook world of his life that flowed together like grey water, like the grey and bleak misery of a red-headed teenager in front of a coffee table. Hook's hand tightens into a fist. He holds up a hand above his brow.

     Then he about-faces, his coat whirling like a cloak, his foot swinging off the railing and onto the floor of the ship.

     "Well, we've three options." He holds up three fingers, then lowers one. "There's the sneaking way, bit of a long trek through dangerous streets gambling on not being caught, which is never a gamble I like to take because a good story says you'll get caught quite quickly else there's no real tension. Nobody wants to hear that they snuck in, snuck out, end of story."

     He walks through the boat. Another finger lowers. "There's the forward way - land on the docks, fight through the alerted guards, derring-do sort of thing, blades flashing, et cetera. Very flashy but not very inspiring. Anyone can do that sort of thing to break someone out of prison."

     "But," Hook rounds again as he stops at the back of the speedboat and grabs the wheel, "We're not breaking him out of prison. No, what we need is a story that no one else could do. The kind of story that rouses a man from his misery and makes him go, 'wait, they did what just for me?'"

     He beams a winning grin. "And we want to hurt as few people as possible on the way, aye? We're not here to hurt them. We're here to inspire him."

Captain Hook (7435) has posed:
     "So!" Hook whirls the wheel into place, "We're going to speed up as fast as this can go, we're going to hit a great big bump, we're going to fly into the sky, we're going to land in the middle of the town, the boat is going to go into my treasure chest so we don't hit anyone, and we're going to run as fast as we can so that when Muramasa hears how we came for him he blinks and loudly goes, 'excuse me?' in the most incredulously shocked tones he can!"

     He holds up his hand, still pointing at the sky, as the boat starts to acceletate. "Any questions?!"

     "Unfortunately we've no time for them, so save them for later!"

     He stamps on the pedal and points the boat directly at the best possible beachhead for the best possible angle to avoid hitting any of the buildings.

     This might get a bit bumpy.

Featherman Neo (7412) has posed:
Of course Featherman Neo is here. Muramasa is a friend of his and Hibiki's, and he owes the man for being so eager about being a Featherman. Besides...

He knows Muramasa's truth - so it's only fair to help him in that regard.

As Hook explains the plan, Featherman is at the wheel of the large speedboat. He's listening. And then, suddenly, the wheel is yanked from him, the pedal is pushed, and-

He accepts it, laughing. "A hell of a plan! Sorry that I forgot the nitro on this thing, hope we get enough speed!"

Featherman braces for a landing once they go flying, moving to flip stylishly off the boat right before it enters the chest. This isn't the first time he's crashed a vehicle, and the last time was...actually, like, two days ago.

Candy (7377) has posed:
     Candy's on the bpat and dressed for the occasion. A red-and-white striped shirt that looks as though it escaped the pages of a pirate adventure story clings tightly to him, and his long hair is kept from his eyes with a matching red bandana. Denim pants and work boots round out the attire, the former both tighter and lower on the waist than they perhaps ought to be.

     Shading his eyes to peer out at the horizon, Candy utters a low whistle at the sight of the city. "Fancy," he says, taken in by the rainbow that glimmers above its skyline.

     Candy nods in agreement with Hook. "The Paladins are like the flies, over by the dock. I might have a way, but..." He pauses.

     "But you'd be out here with your d--" He stops himself, blinks, having almost forgotten about Rita--more specifically, Lilian's ultimatum regarding his language around her. "With your thumbs--" That one's not much better. "You'd be out in the open," he says after a huff. Why does Lilian have to make everything so hard?

     He opens his mouth for a question, a rare innocence gleaming in his eyes--before he's slammed back in his seat by the sudden acceleration. He's got the general idea, anyway! Playing cards fly into the air, timed at the precise moment the boat disappears.

     Illusory copies of everyone in the boat are conjured, none of them quite flawless in their imitation. All of them run in a chaotic star pattern the moment their real counterparts take off, the display intended to further disorient and confuse anyone who'd show up to stop them.

Hibiki Tachibana (7359) has posed:
    Hibiki's lead-up to the events of today was not in the form of any kind of real briefing or detailed plan to give a rundown of. As anyone who knows her would know very well, those are just about the opposite of her strong suit. Instead, she was completely transparent about what she's coming here for and what she wanted to do, one way or another.

    She's here to confront Sengo Muramasa and drag him out of whatever hole he's gone and put himself in, because she's not going to let him shut himself away from the world - and what he really wants - for all the wrong reasons. It's something personal to her more than anything else, so she wouldn't have faulted anyone for not wanting to come. Just like Lilian was talking about the other day, and just as she herself said she would, she's going to keep doing dumb things because it's what she thinks is right.

    If she wasn't okay being dumb, she wouldn't have approached Captain Hook days ago to tell him that she was finally ready to make good on something they had talked about what seems like forever ago. Nor would she be standing tall in this speedboat fast approaching a well-populated Paladins garrison shining on the sea, fists clenched at her side and expression resolved, looking 'past' the massive bridges and tall structures towards 'something' beyond all of it.

    She remains in that position all the way until the Captain mentions his final proposition, at which point she finally breaks the stoic act to look up at him as the look on her face lightens up, and she actually...smiles. It looks almost uncharacteristic for how she usually is. "That's exactly right. I want him to know that we're all here, coming for him no matter what. His head is so thick, I don't think just talking to him normally would get us anywhere. You know, I'd almost compare it to when you played back everyone's voices from that music box when you visited me before, but that didn't have any high-speed crashing."

    And she shifts back to resolve immediately after, punching a hand into her palm as they start picking up on acceleration without a hint of concern. Must be the fact she was in another crash not that long ago. "So I couldn't have come up with a better plan myself! Let's do it, and I'll apologize for all the trouble later! And...thanks, everyone!"

    he boat goes airborne--and it's going to come down with one speedy not-crash thanks to Hook's timely chest. And when it does, she's going to kick right out of it before it's gone to hit the ground at as fast a speed as possible, and let the momentum keep carrying her forward in a dead sprint towards where the crimson X marked.

Rita Ma (7417) has posed:
     Rita the perfectly ordinary girl is, totally unsurprisingly, a really really good first mate. In fact she's far too industrious at the job.

     "I took the noon sight and reduced it to a position, captain! From the known starting point, we're still on course." (But they have Hook's map, and probably a GPS too.) "I checked the hoses for cracks and tightened the engine mount screw clamps, captain!" (But they're only using it for a few hours...?) "Cleaned salt residue from metal surfaces belowdecks, captain!" (Rita please.)

     She is circumspect, knowledgeable, responsible, and dutiful. So of course Hook's plan terrifies her. And prior experience with Featherman's driving terrifies her even more. Her wide-eyed shock lasts long enough that she barely has time to open her mouth for an objection before Featherman fucking floors it.

     Whatever she was about to say is cut off by a strangled yelp. Her fingers grip the nearest handrail hard enough to leave indentations in the metal. When they 'land', she hits the ground in a perfect low crouch, then straightens up and takes a few ragged calming breaths to soothe the coursing adrenaline. "Aaaah... ahh. I've never seen anyone do that with a boat before. Can we please not do it again??"

     When she's adequately recovered, Rita shimmers out of view, leaving her illusory Candy-made copy as the only Rita around. When she shimmers back, she's being Hibiki's body double, sprinting right alongside the magical girl as her mirror image. The second Hibiki gives a reassuring wink to the first.

     Hibiki should be the one to make contact. Of course she'll be the tip of the spear. But it won't be that easy. If I can pull a little attention off her, that'll be a good use of my efforts.

Gareth (7408) has posed:
After so much time had passed since the disappearance of Muramasa, it's finally time to find their wayward brother in arms! Gareth's looking rather excitable as she keeps her hands braced on the edge of the ship, peering forwards while bobbing back and forth on her heels. She's dressed less like a knight and more like a stereotypical swashbuckler, complete with high boots, an unbuttoned top button on her loose-fitting yellow shirt, and a bandana that actually looks kind of bad on her.

As excitable as Gareth looks, though, something does seem to be troubling her. She squints a little longer at that steadily growing pile of buildings before turning to to Hook as he goes through the three ideas of approach. She nods slowly in agreement with the first two's flaws, then nods the same way for the third before realizing that that one actually sounds way cooler.

"... Hmhm! I like it! We're meant to be protectors of the weak and heroes to all, so sneaking in or just fighting our way in wouldn't do at all." She announces her approval as well, waiting a moment, and then nodding in approval at Candy as well while giving him a thumbs-up. "That sort of mindfulness should make it easier for Muramasa to realize we're not just a bunch of idiots or criminals to be ashamed of, either. And if we do end up hurting a few people on the way..."

Gareth pauses, then grins at Hibiki's latter comment. "Yes, we'll apologize later! I heard a wise person on the internet once say that it's easier to ask for forgiveness instead of permission!"

The boat starts picking up speed, and Gareth settles into a crouch to stabilize herself for a little longer. "Ah, but how are we going to stay on the ship as it starts flying?" As she asks that, the boat goes speeding along, and she just winds up grasping onto the nearest fixture to maintain a MIGHTY STANDING POSTURE even if it means nearly falling off the boat in the process of coming down.

Once it's go time, meanwhile, Gareth starts sprinting in the general direction of the X, leaping onto smaller fixtures and using them as springboards to take the high ground whenever she can.

Chase (7308) has posed:
     Things have not very surprisingly, improved since Chase and Muramasa last talked. Even if the problem is technically over, there's a lot of unresolved feelings, a lot of lingering regrets. It shouldn't sit right by most people to leave things as they are. It definitely doesn't with Chase, and the fact that Muramasa has been incredibly silent since it all happened agitates him even more.

     Which leads to Chase being on the boat. It's a mostly quiet ride with him, with the only contribution to any conversation being a furrowed brow and a grunt. The man is too lost in his own thoughts over all that's happened to be a meaningful talking partner.

     At the very least, when Hook announces that they're going to be crashing into the port, Chase responds accordingly, pulling out the Mach Driver which he firmly slaps against his waist, causing a pair of straps to sprout from both ends of it as it fastens itself against him.

     With very few wasted motions, Chase opens a compartment on the Driver, slotting in a toy car. The great value doppelgangers that Candy made instantly mimic his motion, and there's a sudden overlap of multiple sound effects that both drown each other out, as if the devices are having a shouting match with each other.

     Whatever the Drivers are saying, it's lost to awful sound mixing as all the Chases transforms into Kamen Reaper Chaser.

Tamamo has posed:
    Tamamo isn't here in response to any alerts thrown out over the arrival of some air-boat-borne lunatics. She's here for much the same reason as the last time she'd visited Muramasa -- a firm desire to see him scraped off the floor and put back into a shape more 'human' and less 'undercooked pancake' -- but, as a major difference for this time, she's arrived with Lilian. Of course, there was a bit of conversation between the two preceding this, but the final result is the most important in the moment.

    It is therefore the moment they're on the crosswalk near their fellow Paladin's apartment when she gets the news. Even from here, her ears being rather tall, she can hear it, though not quite make out the voices. A sail-less boat sailing through the air and disappearing (into Hook's treasure chest), replaced by (illusory) duplicates of all its occupants makes for as attention-grabbing an event as (less than) reasonably possible, even before there are details on just who those sailors and/or passengers were.

    The only one with whom she has no familiarity is the gentleman pirate. Naturally, this does nothing to reduce Tamamo's curiosity. "Oh, well, we certainly cannot have a calm conversation, with this happening outside. Shall we take a quick trip over to see? In service of what terror might this intrusion be, I wonder."

Lilian Rook (6895) has posed:
    This had been a little time coming. Not a long time, like for Hibiki, but enough time that it had been bugging Lilian to think about. She's had her own . . . everything, to worry about, for months, after all. Sparing time for the people she'd hurt along the way was like a reservation list; one she had to stop and check down, step by meticulous step. If she tried to think of them all at once, she'd only fume and stress and break down and get nowhere.

    Lilian had really thought Muramasa's thread would resolve itself. She'd thought he'd be glad to get back to Hibiki. Maybe even (awkwardly) run home, after her difficult attempts to signal regret and bury the hatchet. But hearing from Hibiki herself that that idiot boy was still hiding from her has now escalated it to Her Problem. It's not really. It doesn't have to be. But she's stewed on it long enough that she's made it so.

    Lilian has of course not actually shown up prepared for battle. Maybe if she'd mass checked some futuresight permutations of this situation, she would have, but the honest truth (that she won't admit) is that she didn't want to stare down that gunbarrel of all the ways talking to Muramasa could hypothetically go wrong. She's just taken a deep breath and braced to take it in whatever form it comes.

    In fact, she's even dressed pretty abnormally for her casual ventures. Ever the one for expensive layers of chic but conservative finery, it's sort of surreal to see Lilian outdoors with a skirt of less than over knee length, shoes beyond the ankle, and especially not that dark patterned top that exposes collar and shoulders with those semi-detached sleeves, and even a tiny bit of waist where the buttons stop, and certainly never mind painted nails. Even walking closely alongside Tamamo, it looks like she's just slightly embarrassed, but excited, to be out here, at the same time.

    Stopping on the street in front of the right apartment complex, Lilian breathes deeply, straightens out her clothes, adjusts her hairpin, clears her throat, and says to Tamamo "I'm not leaving until I get this idiot off his ass. If I have to, I'm just taking him to Hibiki by force." She still hasn't lapsed back into 'Tachibana'. So--

    And then something fucking explodes in the distance, because of course it does. Lilian exhales with a tone of frustration bordering on a tiny scream. "What are these imbeciles doing? Ughhhhhhh!"

    It takes Lilian literally no time at all to get over there.

    §Multiple Hibikis; probably Candelario's doing. That Feathermoron is probably here too. Ugh, if Candy's here, he's probably dragged Rita into this too. I don't see her but-- who's the fucking pirate?§

    Making herself as visible as possible, Lilian points upwards and lets off a small explosion of magical energy into the air, raising her voice to get attention. "Don't think I don't see you there! You've picked the worst of all possible times for this! Now settle right down before you do something I have to punish you for; you already shouldn't be here! Now who's idea was this?!"

Candy (7377) has posed:
<Tac-Watch> [4] Rita Ma says, "Hibiki. You're the one who's got to talk to Muramasa, right?"
<Tac-Watch> [3] Hibiki Tachibana says, "Yeah. I don't know about anything else, but I gotta see him no matter what."
<Tac-Watch> [4] Rita Ma says, "Do you think you can keep moving? Or are you going to stop and deal with Lilian somehow?"
<Tac-Watch> [4] Rita Ma says, "I'll keep her busy, if you're going to beeline for him."
<Tac-Watch> [3] Hibiki Tachibana takes a moment. And then, "I'll tell her what I'm here to do, but I'm not gonna stop. ...Thanks, Rita."
<Tac-Watch> [4] Candy says, "I was hoping you'd say that!"
<Tac-Watch> [4] Rita Ma says, "Mmm! Good. I don't want to make this too serious. There's no reason anybody here has to get hurt. But... I'll do my best, anyway."
<Tac-Watch> [4] Candy says, "Believe me, Rita--serious is the last thing this is gonna be, ah?"
<Tac-Watch> [4] Rita Ma laughs.
<Tac-Watch> [4] Rita Ma says, "What are you going to do, Mr. Candy?"
<Tac-Watch> [4] Candy says, "I'm gonna clean the place up! To show I'm not here to cause no trouble.

    "Hi Lilian! Hi Tamamo!" Candy pointedly does not answer when asked 'whose idea this was.' But he does run his mouth, stopping in his tracks to answer Lilian as Candy illusions spread out and vanish further into the city. "Don't be that way," says Candy, brushing a lock of his hair behind his ear and smiling coyly. "I'm here to help! Honest!"

     There are a few more reasons for Lilian to be upset with Candy. The playing cards suddenly tucked into his back pocket, bent out of shape by the lack of space there, only account for some of those reasons. His hands are both in view at the moment.

     He definitely heard, when Tamamo told him he hadn't yet been forgiven. It is clear that he didn't heed that warning. He is no longer wearing the 'sailor' getup. Instead: fishnets, frilly garters, a black maid outfit with a low neckline, complete with a little bow to hold his hair back.

     There are several of him, taking to the scenery with featherdusters, brooms and dustpans. Only one of them is real, but the gauntlet has been thrown down.

Featherman Neo (7412) has posed:
Approaching forward with the others, Featherman is stopped by the signs of an explosion. He stances in a stereotypical hero pose, pointing finger at Lilian. "The answer to your question..."

"All of our bonds led us here! Our hearts are one! But..."

A sad smirk under that helmet. "I will accept any and all punishment you want to deal to them - after all, I'm a terrible influence. But first, we must snap our good friend out of his sorry state, and then you can kick my ass...!" He doesn't mean it in a way he'd enjoy it.

He's just willing to take all the punishment so that Hibiki can win...!

Muramasa (6953) has posed:
With the majority of the residents of the city being either Paladins or being Paladins adjacent in their employment, its only natural that the local law enforcement are also so, at the lowest rung. The first responders are lightly armed and have their torsos, arms, and legs encased in a foaming metal composite armor that is both sleek and lightweight. Armed with handguns that fired hardlight bullets for stun and capture, the men and women in blue-and-white on scene fit the generic imagery of 'future cop mooks' to a tee.

One, a fiery looking young man with incredibly bushy eyebrows follows suite to Lilian's proclomation with a hearty nod, "Right, stand down at once - please!" he says, affirmingly.

Truth be told, all of them felt far too underpaid to actually field any kind of engagement with Elites, and were hoping for a peaceful outcome.

Tensions rise as Candy makes his approach, and promptly plummet as he and his copycats revel in their maid outfit, dusting and sweeping fruitlessly. None of the beat cops know what to say to it.

    "You know, those garters are kind of.."

" - yeah, but, could you stop ogling his legs? It's weird." one whispers to another, who responds by saying, "Is it? Hey, I don't hate. Nice legs are nice legs."

"Isn't it really unfair that it seems like every elite is some kind of super model? Even when they're slumming it in 'normal person clothes' they all find a way to make it work. It's totally whack."

Bushy-brows frowns, "Now isn't the time for this kind of chatter."

Instead, he looks to Lilian and Tamamo, and defers to their authority as to how to respond to the intruding Watchmen. "Er .. orders, ma'am?"

Despite the klaxon that has the city block clearing out and giving them all space - a defensive measure of the city, with the block being cordoned off with hardlight curtains that no Elite worth their salt would have trouble jumping over - Muramasa had yet to show himself.

It's not a stretch to imagine he's quizzically, holed up in his apartment.

Captain Hook (7435) has posed:
     Hook lands with a dynamic flourish. The chest pops open and the boat vanishes harmly inside. With a light kick he sends the chest up and vanishes it back into his coat as if it was never there, a dazzling smile on his face.

     He doesn't know either of the Paladins ladies, either, so of course the proper thing to do is introduce himself.

     Every single illusory Hook turns to Tamamo and Lilian and bows low with a wide, sweeping arm motion. All of them. At once. They straighten, and then, "Good evening, madams. Captain William Hook. An inestimable delight to meet you both, though I confess it would assuredly be better under finer circumstances. As it stands I'm a bit late for tea and I've a debt to go repay. Captain Hook always pays his debts."

     They all say it at the same time. They all flash a dazzling smile. They wink at one of the lady cops.

     And then they're off, scattering to the winds. Hook himself produces a grappling hook (the irony is never lost on him) and fires it off into the air, vanishing up as he doffs his hat with his hook hand to the ladies and the police both.

     "You'll pardon me, but it wouldn't be fair of me to just let you catch me! Then you'd have one less pirate to chase, and goodness but if you're doing your job well your budget will be slashed quite extensively, I'm told!"

Hibiki Tachibana (7359) has posed:
    Lilian and Tamamo being here was not a part of the nonexistent plan. Actually, she kind of expected to take a lot of shit from Lilian specifically /after/ doing all of this (very rightfully), and that was a problem for future Hibiki rather than the Hibiki of the now. Now that things have turned out this way however, there's not really any helping it. Possibly blowing out any confusion as to which of the Hibikis running around is the real one:

    "Sorry, already here, not stopping any time soon! I really wanted you to kill me for it later, but I can't let you kill me now, even if I die for it! I'm going to drag that idiot out of wherever he is no matter what I have to do!" Despite the obvious attempt to get them to stop, Hibiki plainly keeps sprinting straight ahead at full speed without any intention of stopping anytime soon.

    If it comes down to it, she'll keep going right past her if she has to. Hearing Featherman take the fall for it, she shouts back out loud right after, "I'm the only person who can take responsibility for me, but..." Candy is going to get his ass kicked either way, honestly. ".../everyone/ here is here for a reason, so I guess you /will/ have to kick everyone's ass! By the way, I really like the look! I'd never wear it, but I think you look pretty decent in short skirts!"

    Hibiki is nowhere near smart enough to compliment someone just to get an edge, so she means it from the heart.

    Naturally, the klaxon ringing out doesn't do a single thing to deter her either, and she only takes a quick detour off a streetside object to leap up to something to grab onto and swing over the hardlight wall to keep moving on. That's not going to slow her down.

Rita Ma (7417) has posed:
     There's a reason Rita imitates Hibiki so often: they've got similar builds, her mannerisms are memorable and distinctive, and in a pinch she can imitate the idiot punchgirl physicality pretty well. So when the imitation-Hibiki turns her head to stare wide-eyed at Lilian's magical blast, then stops cold to leap over towards her and Tamamo, there's little indication that it's not the real one.

     Rita keeps the act perfect for a good few seconds. Everything's thought through: she adopts a tense but not yet fists-raised posture, she extends invisible tentacles to arc around them in a broad dome shape and thus delay disengagement when they realize she's not the real article, she gives Tamamo a wary appraising look before her eyes slide to Lilian-

     Lilian.

     "Ah- Ms. Rook?!" That definitely gives her away; tentacle-wrappings do nothing to alter her voice. Both of her hands cover her mouth. "What are you- why are you dressed like that?? Is it a vacation thing? I just..." Her eyes stick on Lilian's arms and abdomen. It's probably the novelty of seeing them at all. Probably.

     She lets out a little groan, carrying with it some of her stress as it leaves. The Hibiki disguise melts away into Rita's usual cropped-jacket-and-skirt look in a smooth rearrangement of colors and shapes. "Hibiki's here to talk to Muramasa. There's no reason it has to be complicated, right? Just let her, this once."

     Hastily clarifying: "And this one wasn't my idea, I promise!! You know what that looks like!"

Gareth (7408) has posed:
That voice... Gareth recognizes it! "Ah, Lady Lilian! Please, don't try to stop us!" She shouts in response, making it all too obvious which one of the Gareths is her even if Candelario's copies are actually pretty decent facsimiles of herself even if they're not necessarily perfect. "We have a very good reason for doing this, and we won't stop even for...!"

As she gets closer to where Lilian's actually shouting, though, she does pause to stare at her and Tamamo for several moments. She might be surprised by the wardrobe change, but she's certainly not shy about looking. "... Even for you! Now, you're welcome to come with us-" She pauses to glance at her allies, then back at the Paladin pair. "-probably!"

She actually has no idea. When the underpaid local Paladins come to respond, meanwhile, Gareth makes no move to actually attack them. Instead, she keeps her movements high-ish, bounding off walls and tarps to go higher while trying to keep property damage to a minimum despite all the rapid movements.

"Yes, please continue this line of conversation! Which one of us has the greatest legs?!" Somehow, Gareth makes it sound like she's bellowing that out as a challenge in all seriousness, and her copies start showing off... Actually, they're not showing off much at all. The regular her is still wearing swashbuckler pants and boots that leave a lot to the imagination with how poofy and flared they are, so there's not much leg to see.

The clones do stop to let the responders look anyway. The real Gareth, though, keeps on bounding along, broadly keeping pace with Hibiki while staying far enough behind her to try and make it unclear where she actually is. At least, Gareth thinks she's tailing Hibiki, but she soon realizes she's actually been tailing Rita all along when that tentacle disguise wears off.

She notices Rita covering for herself, and then Gareth laughs. "That's right! Rita here's far smarter than a plan like this. Her plans might have hints of excitement in them, but rest assured that they're much closer to the boring, yet practical side of things!"

Tamamo has posed:
    "Oh, a pleasure to meet you, Captain Hook. I am Tamamo-no-mae." She'd give a more full introduction, but the pirate is in a hurry to be somewhere else, and other people never stopped running, so she only asides to Lilian, "Should that name be familiar? It sounds somewhat so."

    At the overall situation, and upon Featherman admitting the reason they're here, she has to say, "This seems quite needlessly rude!" Butting in front of people already here to see the poor man, like this. While Candy is his own tier of cheeky, the whole affair is likewise. She may have forgiven Hibiki for one thing, but that doesn't mean she can encourage this kind of thing.

    "There is a contradiction between favoring words while acting without allowance of others to speak, you know? I assure you, I am quite good at listening." It's only for those running ahead, at least including Hibiki and Hook, then, that she's going to cause trouble. Rita won't be affected, if she stays back here. Being physically in the way isn't an effective block to magic this subtle, if she stays no-contact.

    Without a particularly-inclined sight, or special suspicion of the indicipherable subvocalizations of Tamamo's casting, there's little way to catch what she's done, at all, but the effects quickly mount past implausible, as every turn of 'luck' turns against those running ahead of the entrance, and the faster they move, the worse it is. Loose newspapers forming slips over spilled water right beneath their feet, passers-by turning corners into them, windows opening in the way of grappling hooks, unlucky birds not realizing they're about to dive-bomb one or another figure, perfect reflections of the Sun glinting in the eyes when they needed to avoid something, and any 'random' choice of direction being assured to have been the wrong choice before it was even made.

    It doesn't stop there, but only gets worse, involving dirty wash buckets, startled and defensive cats, even more territorial housewives, and every other thing that could possibly go wrong.

Lilian Rook (6895) has posed:
    "You!" Lilian calls out the moment she sees Featherman. "After everything I've just recently done for you as well! This is why you self-proclaimed hero types are insufferable! Absolutely right I'm going to get you after this!" Captain Hook swooshes in, bows dramatically, and introduces herself. Lilian's anger abates in favour of a moment of bafflement. "Who the-- Are you with them? The Watch has pirates now? Is this a thing?" Still, she's not about to let her confusion stop her from drawing and flick-extending the two foot black metal rod from its thigh holster over her tights. It hums with menacing energies as its spiral etchings glow.

    Hibiki comes barreling up. Lilian aims at her, stanced up like a pistol duellist. "That's what I was already doing here you dribbling idiots!" she cries out in exasperation. "Did it really not strike you to just ask?!" Light coalesces at the tip of the loosely gripped, classically sized, futuristically constructed wand, and then Lilian hesitates a little, sputtering faintly when Hibiki compliments her skirt(?!). Now suddenly direly self-conscious, one hand drops to the hem to fiddle with it. Moments lost, she turns to track Hibiki getting past her, as well as Hook launching away, and then . . .

    "Rita?! Oh no-- of course Candelario would drag you along for this. Rita I'm so--" Lilian, four seconds in, realizes where Rita is staring. Her face burns pink, arms reflexively clutched more closely around her now. All thoughts of this totally very dire situation flee from her head for a moment. The confidence drops out from the floor of her voice. "I-Is it too much? Someone told me to try being more confident about the way I dress, but . . ." The figure she was apparently hiding under all those layers and pleats and ruffles for three years is pretty astonishing, but somehow Lilian manages to look desperately nervous about it. When Gareth lines up too and starts trying to show off, Lilian practically steams. Her self-esteem and battle readiness are both ready to be gutted by the slightest negative word; a once in a lifetime chance.

    The cops show up. Candy shows up. Candy turns into a maid. Lilian's face goes from pink to red and nervous to furious. "CAN-DE-LA-RI-O!" She suddenly flips and reverse grips the wand. "So you've chosen death!" The air around her vibrates with the massive tick-tock double thump of something like a heartbeat. Dark and light invert for just a split second. Lilian starts to move, and then she is gone, leaving only smouldering, faintly radioactive footprints in the pavement. Pissed as all hell, the eye only perceives a flash of afterimages marking Lilian in several places at once, throwing hands to break Candy's nose, aiming for all of them until one hits the real deal.

    Visually acquiring her again shows her knuckles lightly smoking, though they're unburnt, boiling off strangely-coloured vapour. "Oh cram it." she shoots back, apparently to the one cop. "I worked hard to look like this. Apply yourself." A light frown teases her lips. "Not that I don't understand how you feel." Seeing Tamamo cast her spell, Lilian briefly projects a scatter of the worst possible times all Elites involved are bumbling into awful luck, and says "Stand back and let me handle this. I've beaten them all before. First I'll take them somewhere else to minimize collateral."

Lilian Rook (6895) has posed:
    Not caring to qualify that rather ominous (if impressive) statement any further, Lilian does exactly what she says she will. Barring a rather stupendous combined Insight and Reflex save roll (and Luck roll, with Tamamo's interference), each individual Elite is relocated in turn, the real from the illusory brute forced in six minutes of time that never existed. Nothing is felt or seen; a fraction of an instant flashes the acausal sense of being grabbed and pulled, and then the scenery changes all around them in slightly nauseating fashion.

    However, thankfully for everyone, they are not banished to the Quarry, like Lilian once did to Hibiki. They're all sent straight to Muramasa's apartment, where there aren't CCTV circuits. From the street perspective, of course this is indistinguishable from Lilian sending them all to a toku set for a mass kerfuffle. This, in the biz, is called 'plausible deniability'; something Lilian is a master of.

    Lilian brings Tamamo with her, of course, to the hallway outside. Tamamo is set down gently, the others, less so. Conservation of momentum bids Featherman and Candy to collide face first with the floor, whereas Gareth gets rather unceremoniously dumped on her ass, and Hook to figure out his own footing. Rita is popped down facing a time out corner, and Hibiki is thrown up against a wall. Lilian slams her hand against it right by Hibiki's head, looming over her so closely that she is practically breathing on her neck, eyes glowing faintly in her own shadow.

    "Don't make noise, or I'll actually kill you. I've let the security forces believe I've warped you all off for a beating somewhere collateral free, so behave, or else I'll have to do a lot of cleaning up, and I hate cleaning up. You can thank me after. Actually, I'd rather like it if you praised me, groveled at my feet, and begged for forgiveness." She reaches to grab Hibiki's chin and tilt it up to force eye contact. "Got it? I'm only letting you here because we want the same thing; I know that he'll respond to you. But the moment you step out of line . . ." She finally steps back.

Captain Hook (7435) has posed:
     Ah, bad luck.

     A window pops open in his way as someone peeks their head out. Hook grabs onto the windowsill and dangles there for a moment before reaching up with his hook. "A hand, if you would? Mine seems to have got away from me."

     The flash of a smile is very persuasive from a man like him. He's pulled up. He balances on the windowsill very, very awkwardly. Hook is not in fact superhumanly dextrous or mobile. A lot of Elites are but he certainly isn't. In fact, he isn't superhuman at all. So for him this fall is indeed quite possibly lethal.

     "Pardon my intrusion for just a moment!" He says to the flabbergasted bystander as he slides in through the window and goes running through. "A lovely home and I much appreciate it! Have me over for tea some time! I'll bring something imported!"

     He slides out the door and summarily stumbles over a welcome mat. A quiet 'blast' under his breath turns into a much louder, 'Blast and bedamned!' as he trips forward and hits the floor. The mat must've slid out from under him.

     Hook pulls himself to his feet and grabs his flintlock off the ground. "God's wounds. I'll never get used to-"

     Blip.

     Suddenly his feet are pulled out from under him, again, as he's teleported directly into the hallway.

     He almost falls backwards. His arms rotate a bit childishly as he tries to find his balance. Then he straightens and sweeps his hook through his bangs to straighten his hair. "-that. Gracious."

     He adjusts his hat slightly. Man keeps in good humor. "Well, then."

Featherman Neo (7412) has posed:
Featherman Neo suddenly sprints forward for a dash, moving to leap the barrier curtain with jumpjets, and - time stops. When it returns, he's faceplanting into the ground, where he pauses for a second, before rolling to his feet. Only because of the request for a quiet does he practically whisper his words once he tracks down Muramasa, slightly dazed. "Featherman Neo...here to be your friend, Sengo Muramasa! Your friend, your ally, fighting for the same justice!" A quiet 'hoorah, hoorah'.

It's a show. A force of charisma. Featherman attempting to show his friend that he's the same guy he met before.

Gareth (7408) has posed:
"I have no doubts you're a magnificent listener and speaker, Lady Tamamo. Perhaps one day, we could-" Wait. Didn't her mentor get in trouble for this kind of thing before? "-listen to... Things! In places!" Sadly, Gareth is not nearly as quick-tongued as her mentor might have been, so she just kind of fumbles that pretty hard. She can at least blame the terrible luck of so many things flying arund her, though, as she raises a hand to shield her eyes from the sun just in time to miss a bird careening right into her face.

Sputtering a bit, she only just catches Lilian's apparent rage being directed everywhere, seeing her disappear, and then suddenly seeing a ceiling as she falls flat on her ass with a light thud. There's not enough time to process what's going on before she hears a certain someone semi-threatening Hibiki and also the impact of a hand on a wall.

Naturally, Gareth's going to be staring at that little exchange without commenting immediately. It's only after Lilian steps back that Gareth looks right at Hibiki, slowly nodding while looking proud of her for some reason.

"That's quite the teleportation magic in your arsenal... And those acting skills. Very impressive." Gareth comments, actually having enough sense to keep her voice down as she gets up while rubbing the numbness out of her butt. "I knew you were a reasonable person. If you're looking for praise, I'll be glad to give it."

Gareth raises her eyebrows a few times suggestively at that last part. Of course she does. She doesn't just hit on her and Tamamo throughout this whole process, of course, as she soon turns her attention to Muramasa with a broad grin and raised hand in greeting. She kneels beside him while looking like she's about to shout a greeting right in his face, but she instead gestures at Hibiki, then backs up to give them more room.

A lot of room. She's moving towards the opposite wall for some reason.

Candy (7377) has posed:
     "Oh, I don't mind," says one of the Candy illusons, fanning a hand assuagingly. "But it's sure sweet of your friend there to worry." A little further scrutiny causes this illusion to dissipate, bringing the number down to seven. "You know, they say that quitting the force does a lot for your complexion."

     "Hey, Bushy Brows! Us 'dribbling idiots' are just here to talk to Mr. Blacksmith," says another, while a third appears to have taken Gareth's challenge seriously. "How about you make like a tree and fuck off?"

     As it turns out, the one that uttered that last sentence was the real one. He is decked squarely in the face, and made eye contact with that irritating little smile of his all the way until he's knocked onto his stomach.

     "No collateral from me," promises the sole remaining Candy, rolling onto his side, lying on the ground unnecessarily in order to look up insufferably at Lilian with his hand on his cheek. He is... irritatingly resilient. Must have toughened himself up--her punch was enough to break his nose, but the fall was calculated.

     "I promised everybody else. But, you know, you can take me wherever--" Everything changes. "...you wanna. Wow!" The momentum of having been moved causes him to slam his head into the floor. "I really outdid myself this time." The floor is cracked for the impact of his head, but the man himself is infuriatingly unharmed for that particular experience.

     He stands up, dusts himself off, straightens his skirt and fixes his hair. "If you really wanna hurt me, I hope Tamamo packed you a lunch," he grinningly offers, fixing his hair bow just so. "Thanks for getting us clear of the cops, though."

Chase (7308) has posed:
     Everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. The Paladins and those aligned show up almost instantly, and a fight between some of the party is all but inevitable. It's very much turning out like one of Brain's plans. Hopefully, it also works out in the end like one of his plans.

     Placing a hand on the top of his Mach Driver, Chase prepares to push a button. He's going to freeze time, for as long he can to minimize confrontation, and make a strategic dash with the rest of the group once his time runs out...

     That was the plan, anyway.

     It doesn't happen.

     He's dropped on the ground with the rest of the group, though he surprisingly manges to catch his footing to prevent himself from face planting. He doesn't know what happened, but he knows Rook is probably, most likely responsible.

     Turning to nod at them and thanks, Chase makes his way to the door, placing squeezing his fingers between the cracks... And just simply pries it open, completely disregarding damage to the property.

Muramasa (6953) has posed:
A blonde, deeply tanned policewoman swoons /just a little bit/ at the incredibly handsome and pretty-faced Hook looking her way. "Uhm. Really? You gonna' do that if we book a mugger that pretty?"

With red tinted cheeks, she huffs, "Well, a mugger isn't going to look that dreamy, obviously."

    "But isn't a pirate just a seafaring mugger?"

The peanut gallery continues, much to Bushy-brows chagrin, even after Lilian retorts to one of them. Thankfully, though, he's given the perfect excuse to have everyone pull back, after being decked clean in the face by the real Candy, his massive eyebrows falling clean off his face to be abandoned on the ground while he squirms and is carried back by two of the officers from before, who looked exasperated. "You got it. We'll leave it in your capable hands!"

Capable to kabedon a teenager, anyway, not that he knew anything about that happening mere moments after he excuses himself from her presence and brings his fellows back to pace with him.

    Meanwhile

Muramasa's finger is frozen right above the blinds to the only window in his small two room apartment - indecisive in his willingness to crack them open and look outside to see what the commotion was about.

And now, everyone has appeared in his room and just outside it. The coffee table has sadly, not survived this encounter.

That's the second one I've gone through, he thinks to himself.

The apartment is simple and, as Tamamo and Lilian had both been here prior, it had not changed at all from that visit. The same barely functioning half-kitchenette merged with the living space, a single sofa with a pull-out bed, and a bathroom with a toilet, shower, and sink crammed off to the side.

It was not a bad quarters by any means. It was reasonably spacious for a two-room, and the furnishings it had come with were the bare necessities to live somewhat comfortably. He kept it tidy and spotlessly clean.

But as well, it held a smotheringly cold and impersonal air. There was nothing 'homely' about it the way that there should have been - and for Hibiki especially, who had actually lived with him for a time and had even seen into his memories, it was a stark contrast.

If one were to judge only by appearances, they wouldn't be blamed for believing that it was somewhere that wasn't inhabited at all.

    "...eh?"

There's a cringe of disbelief on his face.

Featherman Neo...here to be your friend, Sengo Muramasa! Your friend, your ally, fighting for the same justice!

As she soon turns her attention to Muramasa with a broad grin and raised hand in greeting.

Muramasa's somber eyes meet Gareth's, then trail to Chase, Hook, Candy, Hibiki, Lilian and Tamamo, and catch on Featherman's visor before he shuts them in sucks in a breath.

" - what the hell is all this supposed to be ..?"

Hibiki Tachibana (7359) has posed:
    "Sorry, Tamamo!" Hibiki shouts back in a less throat-destroying voice back to the bunrei, even though she still adamantly refuses to stop. "If I knew you guys were already doing it, maybe things would've gone different! But since we're already here--!" She hits the ground on the other side of the hardlight current and keeps going.

    Only to promptly slip on an inconveniently placed puddle of water, sending her almost comically flipping backwards and off her feet - it's only those ridiculous acrobatics of hers that end up her turning it into a proper backflip and sticking the landing, steadying herself out for a moment, and then continuing on around it. She proceeds to sprint right into a group of passersby, nearly getting bowled over as she apologies and pushes off to keep going, only for sunlight to force her to raise a hand up on her way to dash right into a lamppost pole.

    By the time they're stop-hauled one and all to an entire new location, and the magical girl (now half-blinded with a cats claw scratch mark on her cheek and a single pole-sized bruise down the middle of her face) is blinking the sense back into her eyes as she gets her back forced up against the surface, and then forced back further as she's menaced by the looming figure of Lilian Rook bodily trapping her against it.

    She's wide-eyed and unresistant to chin-tilting, her mouth stuck half open as she listens in stunned silence. The expression lingers for a moment even after she's released before she closes her lips back together...and despite the threats, she breaks out into another of those uncharacteristically light, wide smiles that really has no business being on her face. Genuinely, and completely against the whole 'don't make noise' bit, "I'll thank you right now; thank you, Lilian. I mean it. I'm sorry we got in the way of you coming to see him too...I know that couldn't be easy for you either. I'll give you all the apologies you want later." And in a far more normal tone than Good Girl, "...I'm not gonna grovel while I do it though."

    With that, she turns and steps away towards the door, meeting eyes with Gareth and giving her a happy nod. The door is ripped off its hinges, and entry is given the hard way. Hibiki steps past the frame and into the apartment proper.

    She doesn't pay any attention to the spartan affair of the place. Stopping just inside, she gives Muramasa one long stare as he turns and questions what they're doing here. Whatever's behind her eyes is entirely unreadable, but after that second, she continues moving inside to approach the redheaded smith directly. Personal space is entirely disregarded as she extends both hands to clap onto his shoulders. Here, eye to eye, she looks like she's bracing herself to say something difficult, taking in air heavily.

    And she rears her head back, before throwing it forward in a deafening, loud-enough-the-neighbors-will-hear THUD of forehead-on-forehead impact that's going to bruise and possibly even draw blood, and more than enough to send him back onto his ass.

Featherman Neo (7412) has posed:
Featherman waits for Hibiki's speech. It never comes. Instead, she smashes her head into Muramasa's, knocks him on his ass...Featherman's expression is inscrutable behind the mask, until he finally speaks.

"Hey, get up. That's not going to take a Featherman down, is it?" He tells Muramasa with a laugh. "What do you think this is?"

"We've come to bring our friend out of his slump."

Captain Hook (7435) has posed:
     Well, Hook supposes as Chase rips the door off the wall, that's really the door making the noise. It's something of a loophole! Good enough for government work, as they say.

     Once everyone else has walked through the door, Hook follows, stopping only long enough to hang his coat and hat on a coatrack and kick off his boots. Apparently he's familiar enough with that sort of custom to put in the effort.

     He doesn't even look up at the impact.

     As soon as he's heard Muramasa hit the ground, however, Hook walks over, cool as you please, crouches down, and holds out his hook hand with a gentle smile.

     That's why he's here. That's it. He doesn't say anything.

     Just a hand outstretched.

Rita Ma (7417) has posed:
     For a brief and terrible moment, Rita holds a metaphorical silver bullet. She knows she does. Of course a sensitive girl like her notices when the confidence falls out of Lilian's voice all at once. Of course she notices the desperate nervousness. Rita very purposefully doesn't let that knowledge show on her face, but she can't keep it out of her thoughts.

     I think I understand. You've tried really hard to present yourself a certain way; to cover up things you were scared might be ugly, or out-of-line with the kind of person you want to be. And now you're more comfortable revealing those parts of you. ... You're really braver than I am, Ms. Rook. But you're also prettier on the inside than me.

     I can be happy for you, even if that's a little unfair.

     "No. You look great, Ms. Rook," Rita says. It's earnest, but also a little bittersweet for reasons that are outwardly hard to guess. "You should dress like that more often. I'm proud of you."

     ----

     Rita's startle reflex on being suddenly relocated is- of course- to turn invisible. She reappears in the same spot after a few seconds in the middle of letting out a shaky little sigh. "I was going to be a little grumpy if you really meant that," she says. "About having beaten all of us before. ... But thank you, Ms. Rook. This is a good way for things to work out, I think."

     She examines the kabedon in a strangely analytical, thoughtful way. One might expect her to be struck by the emotional splash damage, but she isn't. Rather, it's as though she's committing the angles, the motion, the mood of it to memory. For what purpose, it's hard to guess.

     I've heard Hibiki talk about Muramasa so much on the radio. But I don't even know what he looks like. It's probably best to leave this part to them, isn't it? She's likely not even visible from inside the apartment when the door's pulled off its hinges, standing behind several taller and broader figures.

     Her voice is audible though, soft but clear. "Ms. Rook? What's 'groveling'?"

Candy (7377) has posed:
     Candy doesn't come in at first, but he does peer into the doorway, looking over (very likely, looking -down-) at Muramasa post-headbutt. "We came to say we want you back, Mr. Blacksmith! This isn't part of that," he clarifies, gesturing up and down at his outfit. "But I didn't feel like changing a second time. We all miss you! Especially them two." He nods, first towards Hibiki, then Lilian.

     There's a black carpet bag in his hands, now. He sets it on the ground, bends over and opens it up, talking as he 'works.' "So we pulled a dumbass stunt to show you how much. Well, Lilian," he again clarifies, index finger on his lower lip, "Her and Tamamo, they was gonna do that without the dumbass stunt. But where's the fun in that?" Candy shakes his head, brown eyes rolling as if to say 'oh you.'

     "Don't worry, we didn't bust nothing up besides this here. And the floor, but I'll get that, too, ah?" He hasn't come in because he's fixing the door with a slew of carpentry tools. "Fu--," he stops himself for the presence of Rita. "*Golly*, Chase, you stripped the holes. So strong!~" Because of this, he's using a combination of nails, a hammer and industrial glue to fix the hinges back on--coating the nails in the glue, tapping them into place with the hammer.

     "Coyotl says it needs to dry 'bout an hour, then it oughta be good to put back up," he quietly, proudly announces, before taking to fixing the floor with that same bag of tools. "Don't worry yourself none about it! I know you're good with your hands, but after that shiner she just gave you, I'd be surprised if you knew your name, ah? Hahaha."

Tamamo has posed:
    "We were to visit you, Muramasa-san, when this group insisted -- very rudely insisted, in fact -- on seeing you, ahead of us." Tamamo answers this right away, while the kabdeon is happening, and then takes a few steps over to leave her geta by the doorstep. She steps back to her original place, now substantially shorter, wearing slippers that appeared from nowhere apparent, in time for Hibiki's headbutt.

    Hm. Is that a kind of language...?

    Rita asked a question. "It is when one begs while bowing as low as possible, Ms. Rita."

Gareth (7408) has posed:
Chase's door removal notwithstanding, things are relatively quiet! At least, by Gareth's definition of quiet. She's content to keep her mouth shut for the time being as Hibiki has her moment with Muramasa, moving over to join Featherman in waiting for a speech that ultimately never comes.

Instead, there's a headbutt. Gareth bites back a chuckle at that, finally stepping forward roughly when more encouraging words and (hook) hands are offered. She squats by Muramasa, getting up if he does, but never breaking eye contact all the while.

"They've all said it better than I ever could, but I'll say it anyway. We're here to bring you back to your senses, whether by..." Gareth gestures vaguely at Hibikis' head, then continues. "... Or by raising your spirits. We made a grand show of coming here, and we did it all without hurting a single innocent person."

A beat, and then she smiles broadly at Lilian and Tamamo. "Well, not actually hurting anyone. But I doubt anyone would complain if we corroborated a little on the details for Lady Lilian's sake."

Gareth goes quiet for a few moments, hurrying over to the door as she realizes a few things from watching Tamamo earlier. She takes off her boots, leaves them by the door, then heads right on back over.

"After all, we can't forget one of our friends when he's in trouble. That's not the way of the Watch, the Feathermen, or of proper knights."

Muramasa (6953) has posed:
The question had ultimately been rhetorical - it was obvious that they'd, somehow and for some reason, come to see him. It was just one more thing in a long list of them that he'd need to put to bed once and for all, he tells himself, shadowboxing in his head the various ways the next few words could play out while Hibiki clasps her arms around his shoulders. Nevermind that he was taller than she was, so it looked almost ridiculous.

    THUD.

Muramasa sees stars, as she jerked him down at the same time she butts her head forward to assault his noggin like a vicious battery ram. "Augh?!"

Hard enough to draw just a little bit of blood from the busted, bruised skin on his forehead as he wallows painfully on his thankfully pristine floor for a moment, the burning and stinging thrum remaining like an unpleasant after-taste on his lobe. "Jeez..."

Featherman and Hook's friendship extending to him made his stomach turn in nervous nausea. It became worse every time someone opened their mouth to address him.

At least Gareth was nice enough to follow Tamamo in taking off her shoes.

After a short beat, Muramasa diverts his eyes and uses the back of his hand to push Hook's hook away, rejecting all of it - their kindness, their hearts, and the history they all shared.

To Candy and, more broadly the room, " - there's no need for that. I'm just a Servant, you know?"

Muramasa pushes himself up off the floor. " 'Friend' 'Featherman' 'Na ka ma' .. that's wrong. And the more you keep pushing those expectations onto me, the more hurt you're going to be in the end."

It hurt greatly to spew all that garbage from his mouth, but it wasn't the first time he'd done something like this - he supposed some things would never change, not even after fusing with a Heroic Spirit.

There's a deep, deflated sigh, " - just, go home .. everyone. I'd rather not fight in here, but if you stay, then - I'm going to arrest you." he forces the hardness to come to his voice.

"Most of you are wanted criminals," Muramasa asserts. "So do us all a favor and beat it."

From the moment I put my life above the others burning in that flame ... yeah, ever since then - all I've done is selfishly step on the heads of others to get myself just a little bit farther. I've done so shamelessly and without a single person admonishing me for it. It's detestable, living like that. Such a person deserves to be hated by every person around him, and yet ... and yet they're all still trying to cling to my hands and drag me to safety.

But if he took their hands, then - he tells himself, assures himself, reinforces to himself despite the contrary - that the very same hand would be lopped off. And it would be his fault, not theirs.

    His, for being shameless.

And greedy. And selfish. And completely, unabashedly, unrepentant.

Featherman Neo (7412) has posed:
Featherman Neo listens to Muramasa push himself off the ground. His words that follow are almost admonishing.

"So, you lied to me? All that enjoyment and excitement was just breaking my heart? I want to hear you say it."

Featherman's voice isn't actually rough, but it is firm.

"That all the excitement about making armor, all that time you wanted to take the trial, you picking out colors, it meant nothing to you? You were never Featherman?"

Featherman Neo then lifts his hand up...and interrupts before Muramasa can respond. Sure, he'll be able to tell what Muramasa thinks, but he doesn't let him voice it.

"I don't care either way, so nevermind. You're still my friend. I'm not going to give into your self-loathing. I gave into mine long ago, and it tore me up inside. I wanted to die, so bad, because I thought I was so worthless, everyone getting hurt for me. But there's still a light at the end of the tunnel. This isn't all you can be."

"You don't deserve anything but to strike forward and take another step, friends at your back. And if you can't listen to me..."

Featherman gestures to Hibiki. "Listen to her."

"And if you're going to arrest us...come here and do it. I'll have to use Kanshou and Bakuya. They'll lose against yours - but maybe that'll prove a point."

He still has them from the bond. He even remembers their names.

Captain Hook (7435) has posed:
     Hook simply adjusts his top button and turns around. He moves over to pick up his coat and his hat, to put on his boots, with every intention of leaving, or so it seems. But as he puts his hat on, he says, without looking at Muramasa,

     "You know,"

     "I don't really like dour endings like that."

     "When you get older, the more you live through things like that, the more you wind up wondering what it'd be like if things had been different."

     "Unfortunately, I'm not a hero, or a counselor, or even a blacksmith. I'm nothing but a pirate."

     "Even so, I'd really like it if everyone could walk away from this with a smile."

     Those are the words Muramasa said to Peter Pan, in earshot of Hook, trying to persuade Peter to save Hook's own life.

Candy (7377) has posed:
     "Nope," says Candy. "Not happening, Mr. Blacksmith. For one, I ain't fixed what I broke yet." The berber carpet here is cheap, but acceptably so. Still, it's cheap enough that he can pull it up in a corner. Peeling it back reveals the floorboard his dense head had cracked. Candy daintily dabs beneath his bloodied nose with a handkerchief, then pries the floorboard loose and begins replacing it. Where did he get a replacement?

     "And for two," he says, after a few swift hammer blows, "Hook, he's got his head on straight. We jumped a boat into the middle of town to see you! What the fu-- mngh. ...what kinda story would it be if we came all this way just to go back home?"

*Can't say none of the fun words. Godddammit, Lilian, you're choking me alright.*

     Candy huffs, as he tears up the rest of the carpet, rolling it up and rolling out a brand new, perfect imitation of the same, as well as better padding to make the hallway a little more comfortable to walk in.

     Tack strips are laid out around the perimeter of the hallway, Candy's brow furrowing in concentration as he extends a bulky tape measure. "I promised no collateral. Don't make me a liar *and* a wanted criminal," he says. He could stop time, and have it all done at once, from the perspective of the others. But this is an excuse, a way to drag things out. A way to say that no, he won't go.

     "You and me," he says, taking a piece of chalk along the bottom of the replacement carpet to mark a cutting spot along the length of the tape measure, "We're not 'friends,' exactly. But I got friends who really like you, and want you back, and to me, that's worth a busted up face and whatever the hell you think you're going to do."

Lilian Rook (6895) has posed:
    Looming over Hibiki for those last few moments, Lilian pulls a little face at Hibiki's big innocent grin. A little twitch of annoyance, combined with a light flush of colour. "Gross. Don't look so happy at that. I'm going to think you're like Candy." She walks aside, folding her arms. "I've really been too soft on you for a couple of months. You're starting to slip."

    Shortly after releasing Hibiki, Lilian eyes Candy's chipper expression with a fuming look of intense annoyance. "Yet again, you fuck around and make trouble, and yet again, you owe me in the end anyways. Don't you ever get tired of it? Do you have a conscience at all?" She glances sideways at Hook, no longer able to tolerate Candy's smug maid-self. "You're not welcome, but I can do the right thing without being happy about it." Lilian mutters. The look she favours Chase with is a little sour, but she says evenly "Happy to meet you." in reference to his last words the time they had actually met already. Then she flinches as he rips the door right off. "Oh god dammit, what did I just say?"

    "Yes. Teleportation magic." Lilian replies to Gareth, staring at her with the weary eyes of someone who's been through this song and dance for three years, but isn't about to needlessly explain it that easily. A tiny smile graces her lips as her acting skills are praised, though it is utterly joyless. "Thank you. I've had sixteen years of constant practice from acting like I'm fine."

    Finding Rita again in the hallway, Lilian finally gets to release the tension she had been holding since asking her. "You're far too sweet for me to deserve, Rita. And you're too canny. It's almost eerie. But don't get tangled up about what's 'inside'. People say that to cast doubt that horrible people are really horrible and good people are really good. As far as doing the right thing, your track record still exceeds mine." Her little smile is irrepressible though. "But thank you again. Maybe I will." She makes the mistake of turning her back. And then a trademark Rita Question causes her to tense up and cough. "L-like Tamamo said. It's when you apologize in a really obsequious way. Like, excessively contrite and obedient and attentive. Making yourself small to show how serious you are."

Gareth (7408) has posed:
Muramasa tries to deny their welcome, and Gareth closes her eyes. She listens at first, both to consider her own answer, but also because there's several others pouring their hearts out to convince Muramasa to get up. She's not going to get in the way of that, but instead is going to be there to bolster her friends' words.

"We aren't going to be let off any easier if we stop now. It only stands to reason that we might as well see how far we can go." Gareth breaks into another smile. "Besides... You know where I'm from. A knight's word is their promise, a solemn oath, a vow that can never be broken. I've already promised to support my allies... No. My friends here as long as I still draw breath. No matter how much I might falter, I know they'll be there to help me, and I'll be there to help them when they falter. That includes you."

Gareth gets right in Muramasa's face, still wearing with that ever beaming smile on her face. She inhales slowly, exhales, then claps a hand on his shoulder. "I haven't stopped breathing yet, and I don't see you arresting me yet. Now, shall we get going? I did promise to carry you both back if need be, and it wouldn't be the first time!"

Hibiki Tachibana (7359) has posed:
    The time it takes for everyone to get their own words out is about as much time as it takes for Hibiki to recover from her own headbutt, a double-bruise and a trickle of blood forming over the spot she's holding while slightly staggering. Despite her aggression, she doesn't look angry. If anything, everyone gathering together and doing this makes her chest turn in exactly the right way.

    It's only after that, that her lips purse back together tightly, going more taut with every word that comes out of the smith's mouth as he gets back up entirely on his own. The hand on her forehead slowly comes together into a tightly clenched ball, scraping some blood onto her fingers. By the end of it, the entire limb is shaking some, running down to the rest of her body as her grit teeth become visible. All at once, after everyone else has continued on, she steps back forward into his personal space.

THUD.

    --And her head crashes back into his at the exact same points, differences in height be damned. Blood splatters properly this time from the impact, but there's no stumbling away from Hibiki this time - she doesn't /let/ him hit the floor again, grabbing him by the collar before he can slip away and tugging him down to face level with her, almost nose to nose. Her eyes are fierce and almost manic...or they would be, if there wasn't nothing but sadness past the surface of anger.

    "Do ourselves a favor? OURSELVES? I was fine, you know; waiting for you to come back on your own after everything. I didn't mind giving you however much time you needed...and I was even scared I wouldn't know what to do if I did come and find you. I told myself it'd be fine, totally fine. And then--"

    She reaches into her jacket with her other arm and practically rips out a familiar, unmarked letter that had been left in a mailbox. "This! You came ALL that way, after so long, and you end up just leaving this and disappearing again!? Are you dumb enough to think that this is what I wanted? That it's what /you/ wanted!? If it was, then what the hell were you spending so long just standing outside the door for!? Because you knew what you actually wanted was right behind a crappy piece of wood, didn't you!?"

    She gives him a single, almost violent jolt with her hold on him, and it still doesn't break the eye contact. "You really think everyone here is going to do that same thing? Every single person who came because they WANTED to? Because they care about me, and /you/!? Chase and Candy! Gareth! Rita! Featherman and Will, who I'm not going to let you turn yourself away from! Tamamo and Lilian were coming to see you already! Lilian! Do you know how much she's been through, and how hard it has to be for her to come do that too? You don't, because you've been doing nothing but feeling sorry for yourself for MONTHS now!"

    After a squeeze to his collar she lets go, only to hold that right hand straight up to his face. There's nothing on the back of it except normal skin, but the implication is there. "Are you going to sit in my face and tell me all that time didn't mean anything to you? Working together? Living together!? Miku wanting to get better at cooking to match you, or Tsubasa finding someone she could connect with a lot more than me? Do you think I lost my hand because I thought you were 'just a Servant'!?"

    She looks like she's on the breaking point of anger...until tears start pooling at the corners of her eyes.

Hibiki Tachibana (7359) has posed:
    "You're not, you idiot! You're our friend, a Featherman, a partner, and a /person/! I don't want to hear any crap you have to say otherwise! I've seen your memories, remember!? I saw what you saw! I felt what you felt, like that self-loathing, like when you lost /your/ bond! I know how you think of yourself--not only just because of that, but because I KNOW what that's like! You're not the only person in the world who thinks they don't deserve what they have!"

    The letter is tossed to the ground unceremoniously, and Hibiki jams her hand back into her clothes to grab at something else. She's still at a halfway between anger and losing her composure, and visibly stopping herself from sniffling while she lowers her voice. "I'm not gonna let you push people away when you know you want the opposite in your heart. I'm not gonna let you sit away in here instead of having a real place you go back to at the end of the day. I don't care how much trouble you make for me, or if you think you haven't earned it."

    She takes out a single glove, part of a set, with a red seal embroidered on the back of it. Lilian's late gift.

    "And I don't care if you think it's greedy, or selfish, or indulgent, or anything else. I'm greedy and selfish all the time. I can't help it, but nobody can live without that, I guess. I don't care if you can't stop living for other people. But live for yourself, too. You're not a tool."

    She takes a moment to fit it onto her right hand, then holds it back up again, the back of it pointed up to him as if she were trying to invoke the fake Command Seal. Back when she still had them, she never used up a single one.

    "...I just want you to be happy. So shut up with all the stupid excuses and just come back already, Shirou."

Lilian Rook (6895) has posed:
    "Oh trust me, they're all in for hell later. I'm not over them by a mile." Lilian says all of a sudden, entering the apartment and just making her boots appear by the door, now a good several inches taller than Tamamo too. "And you're not going to fight them. I'll take care of it if they make too much of a fuss. I brought them here, so it's my mess to clean up, and I'm nothing if not a consummate professional at denial." she adds.

    "But I was on my way here already, so they're not going to get in my way either." Lilian sighs. Utterly heedless, she kneels down by the table too, hands in her lap, fiddling compulsively with a little wristband with a black stripe. "And now they've totally disrupted my flow and everything. I forgot half of what I originally meant to say."

    ". . . I really thought you'd have figured it out by now." Lilian says after a long pause. "It's been so long already. There were so many people I hurt that I can't hold all of it at once. I had to break it up and take it one step at a time, or I'd collapse. I thought you and Hibi-- you and Tachibana were so close that it'd take you no time at all. I thought that I could say sorry to the both of you, in my own difficult way, and when I turned around again, it'd all be better." She reaches up to rub her temple softly. "I suppose I have rather a habit of putting too much faith in you, you brat."

    "I can't stand this. I hurt Tachibana very badly, and that idiot still cared about me anyways, so I've done my best to make amends appropriately. And hurt you, less, but enough, that I can't stand seeing this either. I can't leave things that are my fault alone to fester like this." She suddenly raises a hand, as if to cut off objection. "And don't say it isn't. It is. I'm the villain. There was a whole . . . thing about this. People died, and then didn't. The was psychic . . . whatever. I won't allow you to not let me fix it, sitting around here sulking and rubbing my nose in it forever."

    "Because now you're the one who's hurting Tachibana, badly, and that idiot still cares about you anyways, so you're supposed to make amends. Brat."

    "I know what you're thinking. You have some stupid idea about how you brought it on her. That you exist by taking advantage of others in some screwed up way, and that you're a danger to be around; a burden, a problem, and nobody has punished you for it. But you didn't move in with her to take advantage of her. You're an imbecile who only thinks of other people. That other imbecile was so hopeless, you just couldn't help but try to see to her; and only after you'd been taking care of her for a while, you suddenly realized you enjoyed it."

    "Good. That's fine. What's the point of choosing a calling if it doesn't bring you any joy? Any sense of worth? What you were doing was good. She needed you then. Feeling like that-- being happy about it doesn't cheapen it." Lilian's voice briefly becomes uncharacteristically rough, as if she nearly choked on a few words coming up. "Feeling like a human being can't be wrong, no matter what. I won't allow a good person to feel like a pariah, a problem, instead of a person, because of me. So fuck you for making me come here and have to say it face to face."

Tamamo has posed:
    "He is quite surprisingly handy, no?" Tamamo says in aside to Lilian, while watching Candy work. She'd looked something closer to 'deeply concerned' while Chase took the door off. Why did he do that, anyway? Did he have trouble with doors? Perhaps he was from a culture that had none. That would be a halfway acceptable excuse.

    Tamamo's broken out of her wondering over what Gareth meant by 'listening to things in places' by first Muramasa's, and then Featherman's and Hook's words. "In the matter of us having intruded, I extend my apologies. I shall note, however, that should you be a servant," without any meaningful capitalization, "then you have few means by which to enforce such will. It is quite the contradiction, is it not, to be so certain of the rightness of one's position, when that position is a denial of one's own rights and wisdom?" Waving off the topic (with a fan produced from inside her sleeve), Tamamo continues, "Oh, I know, of course. 'This and that are different topics,' one might say, in response."

    After a moment, "What was it you had said, once? 'I will not waste this life, once again. I will walk this endless road for as long as I can.' Perhaps I have misremembered, yet in words as these, and the care you showed, I felt a sense close to kinship. Need I explain why?"

    'And the more you keep pushing those expectations onto me, the more hurt you're going to be in the end.'

    "You will worry for others to the end, I see. How very human of you."

    ...the more you wind up wondering what it'd be like if things had been different.

    "Given another chance, I could not claim to have lacked all worry, related to my own past. And yet, I still stand, and still walk, and it is by no inhuman quality that I have managed this."

    Glancing toward Featherman without moving her head, Tamamo adds, "I had occasion, recently, to speak on that matter, of the risks of caring. I made the claim, that is, that one cannot care if one does not also worry. One cannot find more than a shallow and isolated happiness, without the possibility of anything more than that, if one does not risk unhappiness."

    She shakes her head. "Ah, my apologies. A tendency to ramble over one's own past and circumstances may be a hazard of age. I am sure you understand. Perhaps you would be content with only an isolated contentment, like a stone set upon a hill, to 'merely be,' but this does not seem to me the case. To feel worry is the proof that you care. To feel pain is the proof that you cannot remain still."

Rita Ma (7417) has posed:
     Rita, trying to steal a peek from behind the rest of the party, flinches at the sharp thud of Hibiki's headbutt. A second later, as blood wells out of Muramasa's forehead, a different stimulus reaches her. Her eyes dull and defocus, no longer searching for an opening in the crowd. Her half-slackened jaw pulls her lips apart.

     Then she blinks, 'comes back', and startles a little on realizing that she's being spoken to. "Ah! ... Mmm. 'Begging with as much deference as possible'. Thank you, Ms. Tamamo. That, ah, that makes a lot of sense."

     'Kabedon' and 'grovel'. People are teaching her such useful things.

     For Lilian, she resumes that little bittersweet smile- after all, to her, it's only been a few moments. "Oh. I keep forgetting you can do that. ... I don't think I'm that canny, Ms. Rook. Birdwatchers find lots of birds. That's all." A soft little exhalation follows. She folds her hands dutifully, and her smile gets a little more sweet than bitter. "If you say I shouldn't get tangled up in what's inside, I'll believe you."

     Then, on 'track records', it becomes a little more bitter than sweet again. "It's irresponsible to just guess at things like that, Ms. Rook. But I'm glad you think so."

     She sits down next to Candy, staring at the chalk markings he's making. "I want to help," she says firmly. "Can you give me some tools, Mr. Candy? Just point me at what to do." It's not for his benefit; she's definitely picked up on the fact that he's doing this as a dsiplay, more than to just have it done. But there are enough emotions and thoughts rattling around in her head that she must figure working with her hands could get some of them out.

     One of those thoughts, about Lilian's flustered explanation, bubbles to the surface. "'Making yourself small to seem serious'. That doesn't make much sense. ... Am I serious, Mr. Candy?"

Lilian Rook (6895) has posed:
    "Tachibana was never your fault. I was the problem, and I was . . . am . . . a lot of people's fault. I was the one who couldn't stand you being happy. I was the one who was selfish and dangerous and who nobody punished in the end. I'd just gotten to like you, trust you, and then you said . . . 'that', and I couldn't take it. And then you ran off to help some other girl; someone I thought I was going to be able to help, even teach, but who just started stealing people away from me instead. And then the two of you . . . on the mountain . . . how clearer could it be that you didn't need me at all? Didn't think of me? Thought you'd be better off without me? Together, happy; a girl who has all kinds of things I wanted, and a man who got all kinds of chances I didn't. And, just . . ."

    "I couldn't let go of the idea that you saw too far through me, and you knew I was disgusting as I felt I was. You made it real, and I had to make it fake again. Make it go away. And the harder I tried to stop it, the worse it got, and the more angry I got at Tachibana for not getting it, and it all just . . . exploded."

    "You never once used her. You never once used me. Never once did you do anything wrong. You were unlucky enough to be too perceptive and too dumb at the same time. So stop sulking that you couldn't protect her. Nobody could. I'm sorry to tell you, but I'm about the scariest thing there is, and I was never going to let you get in the way no matter what. I had it all planned out exactly so you couldn't throw yourself in the way, like you always do, sacrificing yourself. That was the whole point. I couldn't stand you spending yourself on a better, kinder, more whole girl, and condemning me with that pity."

    "Those thoughts aren't yours. Those stupid ideas are your bratty, sullen, interpretation of them, but they're not original. I put them there. On purpose. And I succeeded, because I know all about coercing and scaring and manipulating and intimidating people, and I turned that shitty domineering aspect on you, to break you two up. You're not being noble; you're falling for the lie I fed you on purpose. So stop it. Because I don't know how to undo a lie. I'm not even good at telling the truth."

    Lilian winces when Hibiki gets up to full steam.

    'Lilian! Do you know how much she's been through, and how hard it has to be for her to come do that too?'

    "Come on Hibiki. Haven't I suffered the indignity of being humanized enough by now? After the mortifying ordeal of being known, I wouldn't mind if someone still thought of me as a picture perfect bitch." Lilian tries to laugh, but her heart isn't in it. "Don't. Everything that's happened to me isn't a good reason. It's just context. Cause and effect aren't right and wrong. The fact that it's hard to be here is my own fault-- the fact that we're all here at all is my fault. He shouldn't feel sorry for me at all."

    Hibiki takes out the gloves. Lilian's eyes widen. "Oh. You . . . You liked them. I'm-- glad. I'm really happy."

Candy (7377) has posed:
     "...you know I got one," says Candy, pouting as he makes relief cuts in the corners of the replacement carpet. Of all the things she's said and threatened, that this one gets him to shut up is baffling. Of course, Rita is there, to cheer him up.

     "Sure, Rita," he brightly offers. "Take this knife and cut along them lines I drew. Then," he explains, "Put your knee on this thing, and you gonna -whoop- nudge it against them tack strips there."

     He flips a cut section of replacement carpet right-side up, and demonstrates. The tool he's using to do this is so solid, in that same outmoded way as the tape measure, that it looks like a tool someone's visiting grandpa would insist on using. Or perhaps a blunt instrument or means of torture. Still, it comfortably seats one's knee and makes the work easy enough.

     He's remarkably good at using it without scuffing his knees or the outfit he's wearing, and he finishes the hallway repairs with Rita in relative silence, save for quiet little grunts of effort, and a response to Rita's question.

     "You can be serious, sure," he says, "But you never struck me as -that- type of serious. I dunno. Just can't picture it, me." An answer that will no doubt raise even more questions.

     When it's all done, the tools and spare supplies just disappear, with the retreating sound of sped-up footsteps despite the fact that Candy doesn't appear to have moved.

     He wipes his brow and tucks a stubborn lock of dark hair behind his ear. The second headbutt had happened while he was working. So, too, Hibiki's impassioned speech. Hands clasped in front of him, he sighs deeply, nodding. "...Mr. Blacksmith," he gently begins, hand on the doorframe. "Even though I don't know you like Hibiki and Lilian and Featherman, when you talk about yourself like you're not nothing, something inside of me twists up. Ever since the first time I heard you say it." He pauses, searching for words in the grain of the carpet beneath. "I call you Mr. Blacksmith 'cause I think being good with your hands, making stuff, fixing stuff, is something to be proud of. I still remember fighting back the Noise with you. How ready you was to work with a troublemaker like me, if it meant saving people."

     His brow knits with concern. "I don't know how else to ask you but plainly," he says, fingers trailing on the frame. "Please don't talk about yourself that way."

Muramasa (6953) has posed:
Featherman refuses him the ability to force the matter concerning his Feathermanhood - or more seriously ..

The passion he'd had for the bonds he was forging. And in the idea of playing at being a hero - Muramasa's fingers tighten into curled fists pulling the skin at his knuckles so taught, it turns white. "Oh..? - if you're itching to use them, I'll break them into pieces."

Those swords, which came to to be a physical representation of those ideals in their own way. But, it was plain to see his dishonesty. Even though he was blithering away such hot air, his hands and arms were not at all in a position ready to begin his Projection Magecraft - nor were his magical circuits thrumming with life.

Hook and Tamamo both, one after the other, turn his own utterly insipid and foolish nothings back onto him.

There's nothing he can respond to it with, though, because anything he could say -particularly to Hook - would mean invalidating what happened. And while Muramasa held no desire to grasp onto any kind of accomplishment, he couldn't find it inside himself to imply that the words that helped pull Hook to a new life were meaningless - that choosing his life over his death was meaningless.

But it's not the same. Why don't you get that? I'm someone who should have died many times. And every time I defy that death I'm left to wonder what the point of it was.

His association with Candy extended as far as casual banter and the incident with the Noise - the self-same one that the maid-clad magicman mentions. "Stop wasting those kinds of sentiments on me. Stop - "

    "Stop expecting this out of me.."

Gareth, Candy, everyone - even Rita Ma, a girl he'd never seen in his entire life, he felt the weight of their expectations crushing him like a hundred thousand tonne weight. As if he were being dragged down to the bottom of the ocean and left to crumple under the immense pressure.

"Stop pitying me. Stop forgiving me! What's wrong with you all..?!"

    THUD.

He's not given the luxury of falling down this time, and he gets right back into Hibiki's face. "And what did you see?! Not enough to actually understand any of it. You're - so damn stupid! All of you!"

He genuinely felt like he was losing his mind, "No matter how hard I've tried, my hands have never held anything at all! It's all slipped through like blood caked dirt, and rightly so - because I'm a degenerate that can only thrive by feeding off of others. I did not save anyone. Moreover, because I was arrogant enough to say that I could, the world ended. And me .. me, my awful, unforgiveable self was saved with a wish. For the second time, a miracle saved me and no one else."

The tears mix with blood, "And I lied. I lied to myself so that it wouldn't hurt, so that I could make it count, so that I could say I was doing my best! But I wasn't! I didn't improve, nor did I change at all, because I am incapable of it!"

He's coming very close to throttling Hibiki, shoving her back to the point she might begin bumping into Lilian, "It doesn't matter what your intention was in bringing these thoughts of mine back to the surface. It doesn't matter if you think they're lies that you told me, because they're not lies. It's the truth."

It's almost freeing, how honest he was being. How he was able to show him his most disgusting, vulnerable self.

He pants, "I don't understand."

"I can't wrap my head around this - why .. "

Muramasa (6953) has posed:
People had gotten in his face. He'd gotten in theirs - now all he can do is lean back.

I just want you to be happy. So shut up with all the stupid excuses and just come back already, Shirou.

"Why .. don't you hate me? Even after I've tried so hard to hurt you. Hate me. Please, tell me to die."

    "I hate myself."

"I can't withstand living if the rest of you don't hate me, too. Make me take responsibility, if you don't, I ..."

"I don't know how to keep living this lie. I don't want to do it anymore. It's made me so sick, down to my soul. All these memories, and I'm not sure if any of them are mine. I don't know who I am. And no matter which me I decide is real, they both should have disappeared."

I - almost want to believe them. No, I do. I want to extend my hand. But I can't, if I do, that's - .. it's too scary. I don't want to hurt others anymore, but I don't want to be hurt, either. I know that it's selfish. But I don't have the strength inside of me to stand up to my despair again.

Candy (7377) has posed:
     "Mr. Blacksmith... I'm real, real sorry you feel that way," says Candy--once again, at a loss for words. Something turns around in his head, and he chews on his lip nervously as he tries to define it. "I don't want you to feel so bad. But if none of these people can hate you..." he laughs quietly. "How the fuck can I? ...sorry, Lilian. Sorry Rita."

     "I don't want you to disappear, because it'd make all these nice people sad. And, ah..." He knits his fingers together and squeezes his hands anxiously. "You don't wanna live a lie no more. But the thing is, you can be around, and not live that lie. You know? Don't tell me there ain't no way. People change."

     "If they don't, if they can't, then... then what the fuck is the point of all this, ah?" He can't stop his voice from faltering slightly. "I'm stupid. But you are, too, motherfucker," he sniffs. "The whole reason they're all here is 'cause they wanna make new memories with you!"

     His chest heaves after having hurled that Muramasa's way. "...would that be so bad? Wouldn't having something rattling around in there that you could look at, and say 'ha, this is mine, and nobody else's...' wouldn't that help? I hope it would."

     "You keep talking about this 'degenerate' that's 'feeding off other people.' But I don't see nobody like that here." Candy heaves a sigh. "Please come back. For them."

Lilian Rook (6895) has posed:
    Lilian explosively sighs back at Muramasa. "The entire point of a lie is that the person you tell them to believes they're true, you idiot. What on god's green Earth do you think you're going to accomplish by arguing with me that you believed them? I didn't do, didn't say, anything carelessly. I really sat down and crafted this. I labbed it out. I worked hard to make something this awful happen. Of course it worked! Of course you--" She cuts off with an aggrieved little noise, standing up sharply.

    "I don't pity you in the slightest! I regret what I did you to you and Hibiki, but I don't feel sorry for you at all! I won't take back a single thing I said about you before or now! Even now, there are things that I hate that you got to have! Ways you were able to be! But know your place doesn't mean 'as a cretinous pariah', it means you don't get to talk to me as if you know!"

    "And I haven't forgiven you either! You were so far out of line! You made Strawberry cry! I didn't deserve that! You didn't have the right to make that judgement! And running off to the Watch was an utterly ridiculous idea! You caused us all so much worry and stress and heartache; how could I possibly forgive you that easily?! How could I forgive you for changing the rules on me?!"

    "To hell with you! I'm not here to tell you that you were right! Especially not about me! Everything you did was stupid and out of line! I'm here to make right what I did, which you're still acting complicit in, long after it's all been over! I feel sorry for what I did to you, not sorry for you!" Lilian's frustration reaches a blowoff point, and she barely restrains herself from stomping another hole in the floor Candy and Rita are dutifully repairing, venting it by pacing around in a circle.

    "So how about you fucking apologize instead of being such a weak little bitch!" she cries out. "And mean it! Not this half-assed self-pity! You're obsessed with how others want to spend themselves to help you, and even though you do the same thing, you're too dense to realize they want to help you for good reasons too! You don't get that they value you! That you did good things for you! They want to repay you! They want you to be happy! So stop hurting them for no good reason!"

    Lilian steps forward to grab Muramasa by the wrist, painfully tight. Despite how utterly livid she is, from white knuckles to bared tooth, her eyes are wet. "Someone like you, someone decent, someone people love, someone who can hurt people just by disappearing, doesn't get to talk to me that way!"

    "You think I don't know what it's like to reach out for something, anything, and only get empty, bloody hands?! What do you think I'd give to be the kind of person whom everyone would care about if I just vanished?! To be someone people see value in, instead of something they barely tolerate?! I can't stand how spoiled you are! How entitled do you have to be to stake your personhood on failing too many times; all that tells me is you've never once had to fight for it!"

    She releases her grip in a distraught huff, pressing her eyes to the back of her sleeve. "I hate this. I hate you. I did this, so let me fix it. Just make up and let me get mad at you. Let me hate you for being too nice, too happy, too compassionate, too human, and not for this. You can't just change the rules. You can't tell me this isn't good enough. You can't keep telling me I'm not good enough. Stop making up reasons for me to be wrong. Stop lying and give back Hibiki what she deserves. Give it back!"

Chase (7308) has posed:
     "You'll hurt those around you more acting this way than your poor attempts at shouldering things yourself. You are not an island. The last we talked, I told you to support Tachibana, but it's now clear to me the one that needed support is you..."

     No longer content to stand outside of Muramasa's apartment, Chase finally makes his way in, ducking his head through the doorway as he towers over the group.

     His towering presence is short-lived, however, as he reaches towards his belt, opening up the compartment and sliding out the small bike slotted inside. In a flash of light, the armored suit he wears disappears, and with it, most of his height.

     "And if you do not know which of your memories are real, you can at least be certain the ones you've had with Tachibana and the Paladins are genuine."

Gareth (7408) has posed:
That's another headbutt alright. Once again, Gareth doesn't so much as flinch as the impact, simply backing off to give Hibiki some space to talk some sense into Muramasa. That emotional outpouring has her forcing her jaw to maintain the most solidly neutral expression she can, since smiling is a bit hard right now.

Indeed, that poker-faced mouth is completely ruined by the tears streaming down Gareth's face and how disheveled the rest of her face looks. "There's nothing wrong with seeking help from others, Muramasa. Even Servants like us aren't bound by whatever happened in our pasts, or lesser beings just because we were summoned. Besides..."

Muramasa pleads for people to hate him, and it's Gareth's turn to give him a headbutt of her own. It's not nearly as rough as Hibiki's, and it's more of a light tap in comparison, but she does grind her forehead into his as if that'll help her emphasize whatever point she's trying to make.

"You ask the impossible of us, Sir Muramasa. I couldn't even hate the man who killed, so what chance is there of me hating you?" She inhales sharply once to snort in some of her ugly crying face, then backs off again to gesture over at Hibiki and Lilian. "And look at them. They've gotten past all of that, so of course they wouldn't be able to manage something so cruel against you. And if you don't know what old memories to believe in, then your solution is clear."

Gareth takes a knee, offering a shoulder to Muramasa. "Make new ones! Make better ones! Make them with us, and..." As quick as she was to offer that shoulder, she's even faster to stay out of Lilian's warpath. Instead, she gets to work aiding Candy and Rita in trying to patch up the floor, occasionally putting her ear to the door to listen in case anybody's coming towards that apartment.

If nothing else, Gareth's still trying to keep her volume down.

Hibiki Tachibana (7359) has posed:
    Hibiki is pushed back, and she's left listening to the red-haired teenager in front of her pour everything in his heart out for the world to hear. Maybe for the very first time. She has to stand there absorbing every last word, and not only what he says. Everyone else's words still ringing, everything that Lilian had said, doing the same...

    In the brief moment silence following Muramasa's last upheaval of emotions, Hibiki does not move right away. It takes a moment, but before anything else, she looks back over her shoulder...and gives a small, maybe even slightly tired smile still without having gotten rid of those building up tears, lifting up her glove-covered hand again. There's a thousand different things she could say after all of that, but she settles on, "....Of course I do. There's no world where I don't. I've kept them with me since I got them, you know."

    Slowly, her focus returns entirely to the smith, and there's a sense of her words catching in her throat. Her eyes close for a second...and then reopen without any real change in expression, but a glint of /something/ behind them. The rememberance of words from a long time ago.

This is it. This dark place is...where I belong.
    . . .
        Why? Why would you do this for /me/?

    She's quiet as she listens to everyone else again - although there are more near-sniffles at Candy's comment, what almost seems like surprise at Chase and Gareth, and...more than once wince at Lilian's turn to reach her emotional peak. There's another long inhale, and then an exhale. And then she walks forward, to get within headbutting distance for the third time.

    It doesn't come. Hibiki brings a hand in, while he's busy leaning back and stewing in his own feelings, to take hold of his hand. Palm to palm, fingers between fingers, gentle but firm enough that he won't easily escape it. And then she lifts them both just enough to be at chest height.

    "Your hand is holding something right now. Look. It's not slipping away at all. ...I'm only here because of a miracle too, you know. More than one. Hating you is something I can't do."

    "I won't hate you no matter how much you hurt me."

    "I won't tell you die when I want you to live and be happy."

    "If you don't know how to keep on going, I'll help you find the way."

    "Maybe I don't know everything about the 'both' of you, but I know the person in front of me is real, and everything that you and I...you and everyone has been through isn't a lie. And I don't want them to disappear.

    "And if you can't take my hand, I'll take yours - and lift you back up. Because that's...what they're for." Those tears are now, unbidden, becoming streaks down her cheeks. "And I know how hard it is to do that on your own."

Muramasa (6953) has posed:
Ever since that time back then - he'd felt like he was traversing an ocean of tar. Wading through black pitch that tried to drag him down deep and smother him fully. And each day he was able to tell himself something to keep going. At first, it was the responsibility he'd felt towards his situation in the Seven Swordmaster Grail Battle - and after that, it was the debt he felt he'd owed Musashi, his master who had died.

And he'd kept adding on more reasons to the pile over time. Things to weigh him down, to fill up the emptiness that swallowed his whole being.

Each one of Lilian's accusations stung, but in a good way. It was all of his petiness and his cowardice being thrown into his face over and over again. Yes, he was pitiful, and he reveled in it. Yes, he was arrogant, and he'd reveled in that too. He'd said and done things he should not have and as a result of that, he'd caused others problems.

    But.
    Just make up and let me get mad at you.
Stop making up reasons for me to be wrong. Stop lying and give back Hibiki what she deserves. Give it back!"

It wasn't that easy, he wanted to say. To hurl it all back in her face like acidic spit.

Inside of his world, the place that existed inside of his soul, Muramasa stands with his feet firmly planted on water that does not break and drag him under to drown him. The sky is a dark and ominous color with a dull moon hung overhead.

The reflection of the water showed a hill, a barren wasteland of swords - but the place he stood on, the real side of that reflection, was consumed by red hot flame that burned so deftly that it was not extinguished even by the lake. Intersecting with their dopplegangers in the reflection, an endless amount of blades stuck up out of the water's surface.

    Standing here in the flames, his body did not burn away.

Even as I piled on endless reasons and excuses for myself to continue going on - they still believed in me. Even now that my ugliness has been exposed to its core, the products of my rotten character revealed, they still want to reach out to me.

The embers reflect in his dull eyes, ash stinging away at the edges of his vision, All of those platitudes I gave myself never had any meaning. Because I knew instinctively that the character I was crafting for myself was just an image .. yes, a fake. It was my ideal self that I was trying to create. Maybe that person was not Emiya Shirou at all and thus he was ideal. Maybe that person was Emiya Shirou who had rejected such a notion, and was thus ideal. The truth was that .. the image which rejected being Emiya Shirou didn't have to carry the burdens of that name. He could speak as if those sins were divorced from himself. I grew to understand Archer a great deal more than I thought I ever could even if I refused to acknowledge any of that as fact.

But it did not once stop me from hurting. Yes, even by rejecting myself and imagining someone in my place, it did not change anything. And most of all ..

That other imbecile was so hopeless, you just couldn't help but try to see to her; and only after you'd been taking care of her for a while, you suddenly realized you enjoyed it.

That's right. Something was finally able to start filling up the gaping void where my human heart should have been. It couldn't replace everything I lost to get there but .. it didn't have to.

Cooking with Miku. Cleaning up after Tsubasa. Getting into trouble with Hibiki. Being a pest at SONG. Being able to connect to others and feel something genuine because..somewhere along the way, the image started fading away. I felt real again.

    "I ..."

Make new ones! Make better ones! I told you to support Tachibana, but it's now clear to me the one that needed support is you.
The whole reason they're all here is 'cause they wanna make new memories with you!

Muramasa (6953) has posed:
    Hibiki takes his hand.

A dozen small wishes of happiness, for his sake. Inside his soul, the dark sky begins to brighten under their glow, and they take the form of a rolling and bright night sky, as the moon moves to the horizon and became daybreak, paved on a road of starlight - an eternal road that he would walk, painted by the colors of his bonds.

Slowly, his hands closes around Hibiki's, and he recalls the very first of those wishes. The wish that put him here.

Do you want to die?

He hadn't. More than anything, he begged for a way to change that ending. I see .. then - if that's so then .. I'll grant your wish. But you have to grant mine in return. I want you to live and have just a bit of happiness, just for you .. Shirou.

It was impossible for him to do that by himself. But if he could fill himself up with all of these wishes, then he knew that one day, maybe he could. Not because of any kind of obligation, not because he felt like he owed it to anyone to do so.

But because he wanted to be happy, too. "I'm very sorry.. - no, let me try again." his voice cracks, "Thank you all very much. I don't deserve this. Maybe I never did and, maybe, I never will .. but I still wanted it more than anything. For my whole life. I'm not strong enough to have it. I can't stand up on my own because I'm weak."

His grip becomes tighter, and tears fall freely. "So thank you, for helping my weak self stand. If .. - it's really alright, then I'll be in your care."