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Angela THE STORY SO FAR

The City is a relatively recent attachment to the Multiverse and one of its first contact points with your multiverse was the company known as Lobotomy Corporation. Connected to your world through an artificial Warpgate, you made contact with Angela--an AI trapped within the facility of Lobotomy Corp that was desperate to get out who just so happened to be responsible for much of the running of the facility. You also met the Manager, the repeatedly mindwiped co-founder of L Corp (also known as X or Ayin), the Sephirah (various dead humans cyborged up to serve the company after the company killed them through violence or negligence who also served as department heads), and the Agents/Clerks who were responsible for the day to day groundwork of the facility.

All of you at this point have helped with at least one Meltdown, a scenario where a Sephirah is overcome with emotional energy and goes berserk. Malkuth, Yesod, Hod, Tiphereth, and now Netzach have all had this moment and the process is actively encouraged by Angela as part of a process to rejuvenate something the Company calls 'The Seed of Light'. The Company seems to believe that this would be a positive development for everyone in the City by giving the people the ability to more easily manifest their own personal EGO something only one person in the City has been able to do. You know at least one other person who has managed to do something similar: The Dame Commander Lilian Rook, by her own admission anyway. The Company has been pretty cagey about what the Seed of Light actually entails but Carmen has claimed that it's the movement of emotional energy that matters in fueling the Seed rather than just pure joy or pure suffering.

Some of you have met Carmen before. Not personally, you've never seen the tank in which she resides, but she's 'talked' to many of those that have visited the Extraction Department in the past. And somehow, now that the Jester of Nihil and Netzach have seized the facility, she seems to have materialized in a semi-illusory expression of Lobotomy Corp as a university campus. Netzach hasn't unleashed any Abnormalities (that you can see) and seems content to just let this dream play out... But of course, he isn't going to just leave it at that. He--and the Abnormality possessing him--seek oblivion. Eventually the other shoe is going to drop. How she is here talking with you all now is unclear but she seems to be enjoying having a body for now even as she's determined to help you solve this problem and (as a natural result) return to her Enkephalin tank.
Angela NOWish

Carmen said you likely had a few hours before anything serious happens. She got some supplies from the Welfare Department or rather the Campus Hospital and has tended to wounds and encouraged people to take naps or otherwise recover their mental energy rather than rush off to solve this latest problem in this very long night. How you elect to do that is really up to you but amongst the people who have fallen under the sway of Nihil's spell includes several Sephirah, including Chesed and Gebura (but not Binah who is being unhelpful as usual). Any Agent without strong WHITE Resistance has also fallen under their sway, including Cinder who instead of being a hard working Agent of L Corp with some delinquent flavoring is now a hard working student of Lobotomy University with some delinquent flavoring. As if nothing happened at all, she asides to Petra. "Ugh I'm not looking forward to math." Hard working doesn't necessarily equate to good grades. Of the Control Team, Yuri is the only one who resisted. Not all agents have succumbed to whatever this is. Central Team has completely resisted the effect (probably due to the EGO Gear they're using being thematically relevant), but most of the other departments are gutted and X is... giving morning announcements because he is actually not resilient to effects like this at all. Most of the Agents as a result seem to see everyone as fellow students (or teachers).

Carmen had gone off to watch Gebura do sports. Gebura is the coach of the Punishing Birds (they have matching Jerseys with, you guessed it, Punishing Bird on them! After some workout and stretches they have a bit of a game with Gebura filling in for a missing slot (Ceri is still off to the side in a wheelchair and can't play). The game seems to be a match of volleyball and what starts out as a normal game quickly transforms once Gebura realizes Carmen is watching as she spikes a volleyball into the deck so hard that the volleyball explodes.

"What the hell, Coach!" Shajo complains, rushing off to get a new ball. Gebura, rubbing at her neck approaches Carmen.

"Hey Doc... ... .What are you doing in a school uniform?"

"Oh you know how eccentric I can be," Carmen quips back.

"...I dunno, something seems...off... Are you wearing a pushup--"

"Oh you...! I'm going to be really busy so if you could keep other students from bothering us I'd really appreciate it." Carmen smiles, putting on the charm. Then she hesitates and leans in to whisper, "Shampooing once a week, conditioning every other day, spritz with leave in conditioner diluted with water every other day before combing through. Soft plastic with no ridges for sectioning in the shower, boar bristles once it's dry--"

Gebura frowns. "What are you on about?"

Carmen places an index finger to her lips. "Shh. Only loose wooden teeth for rearranging later, blow on medium heat even if it takes longer, finish on cold shot. Pins and clips over ties, don't put too much stress on the roots. For ponytails and buns, twist it lemniscate on the second loop and divide your hair through each aperture to create volume. Got it?"

"...Yeah, sure. No problem."

"Good!" Carmen gives her one last smile before she reluctantly pulls away and returns to the group.
Angela "Okey dokey!" Carmen says. "I've talked with Tiphereth and I believe we have a plan. Feel free to come up with your own if you've got a better one but this is what we think will give us the best odds of success. But first, since meeting some of you is new and all.... Hi I'm Carmen, I'm bisexual, I like looking at the ocean and laying on the beach and also the grass even if it gets a little itchy. I am a neuroscience specialist and the second Cogito subject which is why I am a nervous system stuck in a vat near the lowest levels of the facility right now and if you ask me if I need to be saved for the fifth time I'll kill myself again. I'm probably manifested in this body because part of Netzach's desire was to save me. So I am not in the mood to be saved right now, or ever--")]

Tiphereth sighs, "M--Carmen, please focus."

"Okay! Right! So as you know Angela's neural pathways are based off mine so I think I know where she likely is in this world so I'll take a group to go looking for her but she's likely going to be under close guard so we're going to need some help." Carmen says. "Since, you know, some of you are kind of emotionally fragile and that's exactly where Dark Nihil will attack and don't be upset I mean we all go through our journeys at different speeds--" She catches a dire look from Tiphereth and clears her throat, pulling the bear-clasp out of her hair and letting her hair down. "Okay. Anyway, we're all beat up so we need backup and fortunately...Meika has brought some here in the form of four magical girls."Our first objective is to locate Angela and free the magical girls from Nihil's influence. According to their rules, they'll help us defeat Nihil in return."

"There's something else." Tiphereth says. "While I was walking around, I checked out the music building and I think I know at least one of the ways Dark Nihil is planning on killing us all."

She jerks a thumb towards the music department's direction. "Not many Abnormalities have been released, most are in their Cells but I've seen the Silent Orchestra's conductor preparing for a performance in the Music Hall. If it finishes its performance most of the Agents, Clerks, and probably some of you will die when your heads explode.."

"And that'd be a lot for Kukuru to deal with! So let's split into five groups, no more than 4 to a group, preferably sticking around the 2 to 3 range." Carmen says. "Pick your path, adventurers!"

Tiphereth groans.

A) !!! Search for Angela (and, coincidentally, the Magical Girl of Love!)
B) !! Hod is being tormented by the Magical Girl of Courage. Save these poor girls.
C) !! Yesod is being pressured by the Magical Girl of Justice. This guy has cut himself up enough!
D) !! Malkuth is being harassed by the Magical Girl of Happiness. I know it's hard, Outsiders, but please complete your duty!
E) !!! The Silent Orchestra really mustn't be allowed to complete it's symphony of destruction. Please silent them...? Tiphereth will show the way but she doesn't know how to fight.
F) ??? Something else! I'm not your boss! You don't work here!! (Minus Petra)
Meika Kirenai Break-time:

    Even regardless of explicit orders to not get in more trouble, Meika feels very, very little of the freedom to wander and explore the illusion-fashioned Lobotomy University Campus. It's infinitely cozier than the antiseptic hallways of the facility, and infinitely more uncomfortable, too. A school isn't so welcome an environment for a student.

    As such- she's spent her time staying out of the way in empty Containment Classrooms, break rooms, or quiet hallway corners, for the times of it all she'd had to spend by herself, instead of what's been spent in reluctant, shame-stained talks. The only one she's managed to stick around by for long is a nook in the hallway near LobU's gym, outside on cold linoleum, but close enough to hear rubber soles squeak, the clamor of players, and the thud of balls ricochetting. Close enough to pretend.

    It's not comfortable, but it's somewhere to daydream. Graphite scratches away at her sketchbook, tucked in her lap even with her knees pulled close to her chest, drawing with a horribly compressed posture. Her worn-down pencil stops, though, when familiar voices and footsteps echo out from down the hallway. There's no noise when Meika shuts her sketchbook, and puts it to the side, to look out further-

    And her stomach does an odd twist, spotting Petra and Cinder walking hand-in-hand down the hall, chit-chatting. Overheard words from earlier come back to mind, in just the way Meika hates that she couldn't help but notice.

    Oh.

    "H-hey, Petra." Meika's words come delayed, with an awkward little wave her way, later than it'd fit- both only coming after a furious debate whether she could get by pretending she didn't see them, that she's just a lump in the hallway, that there's any excuse to simply not engage. There isn't, really. As such- when she looks over, it's impossible to ignore that the way Meika's gaze rests on the two Agents is uncomfortably detached and analytical, trying to spot a something in their demeanors and mannerisms. Her mouth opens, hesitant- and closes again, before she bothers to speak again, and choke down a breath of air.

    "I heard you two talking, earlier, and... I- I guess I've been... meaning to ask you something." That's not a good sign. What follows is worse- Meika's eyes flash over with guilt, fashioning as best she can a life raft to offer her friend to escape a truth. "Is it... normal, here, or something, for coworkers to say all that 'I love you' stuff you were saying, l-like you do to family and boyfriends, and stuff?"
Meika Kirenai Now-ish:

    Meika is late to wander into the re-grouping, both on purpose, and on account of having no radio or intercom capacity beyond what she can hear from activity, conversation, and intercom announcements. With her sketchbook hugged tight to her chest for the stability holding something offers, she catches Carmen's spiel mid-presentation-

    Beaches? Hearing her voice in LobU isn't any more comfortable than hearing it through overheard echoes, and the magical girl's skin, beneath her somehow still out-of-place school uniform, turns to goosebumps. "...W-wait, you're usually just brain in a..?" Meika bites her tongue, even if her words carry a questioning intonation.

'...Meika has brought some here in the form of four magical girls.'

    Meika winces, band-aid wrapped fingers squeezing around the worn out edges of her sketchbook. "I- I didn't ask them to..." Embarrassed and guilty is the right way for her to feel, right now. "D-don't call it fortunate. Please, Miss."

    Gravitating towards the edge of the group, to linger near the walls and out of attention, doesn't make it a lot easier for Meika, but she does it anyways, to have a barrier behind her instead of just leaving. It's impossible to meet any gaze.

    "...Is- is it best... I stay out of helping?" Asking, generally- Mostly to the people she's liable to see as authorities or otherwise trustworthy: Lilian, Sougo, Carmen, Petra- "I'd- I'd like to try, if I can. If- y-you know. It's m-my fault, b-but Love and Justice are s-still my friends, and if they're..." Of course she wants to do something, or anything. But even speaking up at all, again, makes Meika flinch in expectation.
Petra Soroka     After getting over the shock of Angela disappearing right after being laid out on the couch-- Carmen's presence helps reassure her-- Petra seems kind of fascinated by the new environment. She didn't particularly enjoy high school, but it's hard to resent high school specifically for that when she's already decided to blame the entire planet Earth instead. University is a more fraught subject in her experience, but a 'Lobotomy Corporation' University is so far removed from that connotative context that none of her negative feelings about it crop up. She's only actually had a couple years of proper schooling in the last decade-- enough for all the familiarity to be there, but not so much that 'returning to school' is a nightmare scenario for her.

    It's a dire situation, certainly. Petra's just gone through a series of the most intense fights of her life nearly every day for the past couple weeks. She's stressed, exhausted, hurt, worried for Angela, worried for Lilian, somewhat less so but still worried for Meika-- but Carmen said they had a few hours before things would pick up again. So why not explore her new enclosu-- surroundings as a way to relax? Petra peeks through the porthole window of a Containment Classroom. Justin Rook is inside, exasperatedly trying to tutor Laetitia in math while she pouts and transforms all the numbers on the blackboard into cartoon spiders. She watches in fascination for a bit, muttering, "Lobotomy Corporation School AU...."

    Petra stands in front of a corkboard in the Philosophy Department, where Extraction used to be, perusing the flyers pinned to it. Cinder is practically glued to her hand, wandering the halls with her, because whenever Petra lets go, she starts muttering about studying for a Chemistry 102 test or something or other. With her free hand, she pokes at a sheet listing out all of the courses available to the fake students at the fake university.

    "Hey, don't these sound cool? PHIL 224: Ethics of K-Bioengineered Meat. PHIL 111: Introduction to Taboos. SOC 310: Post-Smoke War District 11. It's kind of like, you know, unbelievable, even though I *consciously* know it, that there's a whole ass world of history and sociology and everything. In the City, I mean. I barely know any of it even though I've lived here for half a year already. There's just always something else to do."

    Petra drops her hand back down to her side, still staring at the course list. "I kind of wish college was real." She blinks. "Well, I mean, this one isn't. College is real in general, I guess."

    X's voice comes over the PA system, and Petra looks up at the speaker in the corner of the hallway a bit balefully. "I guess 'members of the Outsiders Club' probably means Carmen's calling us, but does he really have to call it that? It's such a dumb name. Even mind controlled he can't manage to be clever. God I hate that loser."

    Petra slides a cigarette out of its carton, but since her other hand is occupied, she holds it out towards Cinder so she can light it with her flaming EGO. "I guess we should head up to the Language-- er, Disciplinary, though."

    Taking the elevator back up is a process of refocusing on the mindset she's supposed to have; this is a near-apocalyptic *breach*, not a cozy school. Angela's in danger, Lilian's exhausted even if it sounded like her time in the clinic helped, and the Jester of Nihil is a high enough class threat that Petra's never heard anything about it besides what everyone's been told in the past day. As the elevator rises up through the floors, Petra closes her eyes and starts a meditative breathing exercise, then winces when her stinging aura intensifies and turns inwards, digging under her skin.
Petra Soroka "Is it... normal, here, or something, for coworkers to say all that 'I love you' stuff you were saying, l-like you do to family and boyfriends, and stuff?"

    "Oh, hey, Meika-- urk." Petra comes to a dead halt at Meika's question, face frozen in a wide-eyed, guilty expression that's both damningly readable and damningly familiar. She looks down at her and Cinder's joined hands, then abruptly pulls it away, waving her hands in front of her in denial.

    "Huh? Uh? I don't really-- know what you're talking about? I don't remember saying anything like that." That's technically true. Her tinnitus is a lot better now, but it still makes quieter sounds nearly impossible for her to focus on. "And, anyways, like... er... even if I did...."

    Cinder starts ambling away, explaining that she needs to get to Professor Malkuth's office hours to ask about remedial homework. Petra lunges out at her and grabs her hand before she gets too far away, then holds it up to Meika like proof. "And, like, see? If I let go of her she loses it like the other agents. So it's... practical... and..." Petra's nervously hopeful expression drops, and her shoulders slump, then she shrugs. "Agh. Shit."

"... if you ask me if I need to be saved for the fifth time I'll kill myself again."

    After completing the worst interaction with Meika, Petra walks into the gym just in time to hear Carmen say that. She snickers, despite herself, then quiets down automatically for the rest of the briefing. She decides she likes Carmen. Whatever Carmen may or may not have said on the radio in the preceding hours definitely has nothing to do with that. At least Angela has one good parent.

"According to their rules, they'll help us defeat Nihil in return."

    Petra politely raises her hand to be called on. She's not under the influence of Nihil's illusions, but the environment still makes her feel like it's important to do that. Also, Carmen is like Angela's mom, which sort of makes her like Petra's aunt? Or Petra's-- boss's... mom? It's some kind of authority, definitely, and Petra doesn't have the willpower to decipher what or why.

    When Carmen calls on her, she says, "Is that still true for the Queen of Hatred and Knight of Despair after whatever Tamamo did to them? I mean, they did come here and summon Nihil just a couple hours ago, they might be kind of unpredictable now?"

    Petra does not yet choose a route! She's obviously most interested in helping Angela, but she's suited to any route. Preventing the Silent Orchestra from killing every person in the facility is also both in her interests and skillset.
Captain Hook      A few splints and he'll be right as rain, he'd said.

     At the moment Captain Hook is greatly resenting that bit of bravado. But, well, stiff upper lip. Not because he's English - Hook would never allow himself to admit that he did anything *decent* as an Englishman, by God - but because Angela needs him. Because Tiphereth needs him. Because Meika needs him. Because people he has decided to care about need him.

     "Are you quite certain you wouldn't like to be saved? I'm quite good at it. Very dashing, with the swashing, the buckling, the ripped bodices, open ruffled shirts, and so on. Unforgettable experience, really."

     Stiff upper lip, locked in a smile. People want you to smile right now. People *need* you to smile right now. You're the Captain. Captain always has to smile.

     Hook leans on a crutch, cutlass uselessly stowed away after some fumbling, pistol hanging at his hip. Right now he's down a hand, but his hook is now gold with amber lining, so that's something.

     After a long sigh, he says, "Would you mind terribly reaching into my coat and pulling out the Map With The X On It? Make it much easier to search for Angela if we happen to know *exactly where she is*"

     He finagles his coat open with some difficulty. Tucked into the front pocket is a rolled-up piece of parchment, weathered, worn, and ancient. Unravelling it reveals exactly what he described - a Map, drawn in the fashion of a storybook pirate map, with stylized markers drawn all over the place to mark hazards of both physical and mental nature, a dotted line from the place it's opened, and an X over...well, wherever Angela is right now.

     Hook glances at Meika as she speaks up. His smile widens a little. It's the sort of thing you need to do. "Children run from mistakes. Adults make up for them. While I realize you've not asked me..."

     Hook cracks his neck slightly. "I think you ought to come and make it up to your friends anyhow. And I *am* a Captain, after all. I feel I have some say in the matter of who follows me about."
Ishirou Ishirou enjoyed the time he needed to rest, his body was hurting, his bones feeling crunchy, and his muscles oozy.  However, that wasn't going to last forever, and with a nap and healing done (thanks Carmen!) it was time to get back to doing things.  

"That is a lot being thrown at us at once..." Ishirou admits, rubbing his forehead and trying to put everything together.  Whatever is happening, right now most of the agents and staff, and some of the Sephirah, and the magical girls all think it's... university.  Worse, an abnormality is going to kill them all if they don't stop it.  

"Alright... I'll head for Happiness and Malkuth," though part of him groans because part of why his bones are feeling like mush is /because/ of Happiness.  Standing up, he nods and sets off to use his scanning ability to first hunt down where poor Malkuth is being harassed and see what he can do to help.  

Well, technically he's supposed to be getting Happiness, but in reality, he was doing that to save Malkuth some trouble of being harrassed!
Rufus Shinra Watching volleyball is always a fun time.

Rufus is in the bleachers, an array of every concession stand food available arrayed out around him - he bought one of everything just in case, including one of each candy option and a XL of each flavor of soft drink. If he got popcorn and then was in the mood for nachos, he'd have to get up halfway through the game and go stand in line, and that'd be awful.

Though despite the wise and prudent precaution of ordering one of everything, Rufus has really only had any of the popcorn and a bottle of water. Oh well!

Rufus gets up as people file in. If anyone asks for any, Rufus passes out his bounty, but otherwise it all gets unceremoniously dropped in the nearest garbage can. (It's probably all illusory anyway?) If he crosses paths with Meika, he conspicuously continues to not look directly at her.

> "Very dashing, with the swashing, the buckling, the ripped bodices, open ruffled shirts, and so on. Unforgettable experience, really."

"You don't say." Quest added: get captured by the British navy.

"Alright then, Miss Carmen - dealing with the Silent Orchestra sounds like it'll be simple enough," he says. "Miss Tiphereth, was it? Would you do us the pleasure of providing us your company and guidance?"

Rufus makes a small bow towards her.
Madeleine Cadrasteia     Madeleine passed the last few hours by lying on a bench on the campus quad. She appears genuinely better off for her rest, despite the hustle and bustle around her. "Those magical girls sound pretty important," she says to Tiphereth, "but I'm not so good with kids, I don't think. This orchestra, though, I'm pretty sure I can break up a symphony." While she talks, the spear Drogrung is darting its eye every which way, taking in the sights with much greater vim than before the Jester of Nihil's arrival. Something about the semi-real mindscape campus has the weapon perking up. "Say, Rufus," the huntress adds after a pause. "Spare some nachos?"
Rufus Shinra > "Spare some nachos?"

"Certainly. With or without nachos, with or without jalapenos, with or without sour cream?"

Rufus has ordered one tray of each permutation. Picking condiments off of things you don't like is for people without money.
Aidan Proudpick Thinking. His face keeps becoming stormy, then trying to relax, thinking things through. The moping. The realization that he's been a shit. Lilian throwing that he makes people into cardboard villains.

"Hey google. Delete letter."

He owes SOMEONE an apology. But not the one he's realized at first. A wicked plot begins to hatch in Aidan's tiny little brain.

Too much is going at once. If he tries to sort it all, he MIGHT crack, and he can't crack. He can't give Lilian that satisfaction. All the new emotions, all the things he's learned about himself, a new hair and fur care regimen, go into his brain, instead, locked away for later. The only thing helping him focus on the now, and not the rapidly forming Sapphic Utopia and pending battles, is practicing wind magic again. He needs an edge in a place like this, he saw it, he thinks he can figure it out. It's NOT weird. The task of actually making the ball is easy. He is not an idiot ninja who needs to make a clone just to make a ball. Once he has a new one formed, Aidan's tongue blps out of the side of his mouth in true concentration. He shifts his fingers about in different ways, trying to find the right method of squeezing them together to get the ball compressed further he wants.

His hands fly open, a gust of wind exploding from between them. Rather than be dejected as last time, Aidan tries again, immediately forming another ball. "Maybe if I spin the air the other way?"

He turns his head up at Carmen, trying not to look sheepish about the whole 'Dark Nihil is going to come after your weak emotions' thing.'

"I.. know I may not look like it now, but I am usually pretty happy. I'll deal with the Magical Girl of Happiness."

"Are you quite certain you wouldn't like to be saved? I'm quite good at it. Very dashing, with the swashing, the buckling, the ripped bodices, open ruffled shirts, and so on. Unforgettable experience, really."

Quest Added: Get captured by pirates.

Aidan leaps up to his feet. Weak, but at least all of his body parts are working. "I'll run defense, Ishirou!"
UFO Gang DURING THE CHANGE OF THE WORLD

The two youkai present are creatures, in a sense, of human belief, and so one of them was deeply affected for fleeting moments before Carmen was able to intervene.

Which is why MINAMITSU is now wearing a short-sleeved blue uniform that loosely resembles the Naval Junior Officers Training Corps of an unnamed nation. Her hat and anchor remain unchanged, but her ladle of endless water is stuck into a hip holster, while several morale patches declaim cryptic phrases such as "NAMUSAN" (in old Japanese writing) and sleeve insignia mark her as a Cadet Captain.

Nazrin is otherwise the same, although her Space Fun Helmet seems to have been lost. Nazrin is alive for a purpose divine, which precedes all this tom-foolery and goings-on.

NOW

"Hi Carmen! I'm Minamitsu, I'm bisexual, and I ALSO love looking at the ocean and laying on the beach and just enjoying the feeling of wind in your hair and the plunk-ploomp-PWOMP soudns a ship makes when you"

"I'm Nazrin, and I'm not participating in this exercise," states the mouse-girl.

Minamitsu blinks several times. "I don't know what that means, but please don't kill yourself!" she says to Carmen. "This human life is precious!! Even if you're not human!! Human is just like a category of--"

"Do we have to do this?" Nazrin continues to interrupt.

Minamitsu adjusts her hat. "... Well, the fundamental underlying nature of reality changed, or something. It sounds like it won't end unless we help these people... and helping people is the whole point, right, ultimately?"

Nazrin's face darkens and her mouth puckers as if she just bit into a lemon. Brow furrowing, tail swishing, she hunches forwards and grits her teeth with a horrid little skeletal squeeka-squeeka before saying-- "Fine! I guess our backs are to the wall!"

* GRUDGING COOPERATION! *

"If you're looking for - huh?" Nazrin's head swivels. When Hook produces the Map where X marks the Spot, she says, "That's clever. What's the maximum volumetrics on that sucker?" she asks Captain Hook.

Meanwhile, of the offered choices, Minamitsu goes with -- "D!!! Happiness is wonderful and feeling good is good, but if you cling to any mental state... YOU'RE ****ED!!" She takes enough pride in this statement to make a face approximating >o<!! while saying it. The word is elided.

COMMITMENT!

"Looks like we're teaming up!" Minamitsu chirps at Aidan as he leaps up. "Glad to meetcha! I think you already met Nazrin, we're in the same study group!"
Petra Soroka "Are you quite certain you wouldn't like to be saved? I'm quite good at it. Very dashing, with the swashing, the buckling, the ripped bodices, open ruffled shirts, and so on. Unforgettable experience, really."

"You don't say." Quest added: get captured by the British navy.

    Petra hates herself more for the thoughts that come into her mind at seeing Rufus look at Hook than she does for accidentally outing herself as gay to Meika. Rufus fucking Shinra. Of all people. Get it together, Petra Soroka.
Captain Hook      "Infinite," Hook says with a wry smile to Nazrin, "Quite handy, isn't it? Every good pirate ought to have a Map With An X On It. Mine just happens to be better than most other pirates'."
Dysnomia     In the hours she spent on the mend, Mia simply sat somewhere quiet. Her helmet retracted after the Servant had shattered it, as she stared over the university grounds. She missed the stars. The real sun. This filtered, half-real fascimile wasn't enough to comfort her. It was barely enough to rest.

    She was learning so much about Angela, here, listening to her mother. More than she'd ever thought. "I don't have the strong bond with Angela that some of you have." She rolled her shoulder back. "So I'll play support. Get some of these girls back on our team...I think I'll chase down Justice."

    "Is that still true for the Queen of Hatred and Knight of Despair after whatever Tamamo did to them?...they might be kind of unpredictable now?"

    "Maybe they're not abnormalities, but they came here to try to help their friend." She didn't mention Meika. "Even if things went wrong, I'm sure that's still what they want. All we need to do is remind them, and give them a way to help."
Kukuru Seeing Lobotomy Corp as something far less dreary than it usually is takes Kukuru quite a bit of time to adjust to. It's not an unpleasant adjustment by any means, and it really is pleasant seeing so many of the agents and Sephirah actually looking happy at once, but the jarring shift is still enough to keep her from really settling in the way she'd like to.

Still, it's not jarring enough to stop her from lounging around with everyone else at the gym. All the sounds of running from the volleyball game makes it surprisingly easy to start dozing off, although she keeps one eye half-open and her horn tilted towards Carmen as she whispers something to Geburah.

She doesn't really know what that's supposed to be for, but it's as good of a time to finally get up as any other. Yawning lazily, she barely even bothers to push herself off the ground before just slithering along it behind Carmen to keep up, somehow looking even shorter than she did just a few hours ago.

"He-llo, Carmie... Oh, you too? That's lovely, dear." She still sounds like she always does, at least, giggling softly and reaching over to give her a gentle pat on the leg without actually indicating what's lovely. Maybe everything she's said in her introduction, because there's a lot of it, and Kukuru waited until she finished to say all of that!

She also makes a mental note not to ask about saving Carmen, although that's not too hard since her bigger concern is saving Angela from wherever she is.

"So we just gotta... Keep the conductor from doing that, right? Yeah, putting heads together is a lot of work even when it's just one." Kukuru yawns lightly, then rubs her eyes before slowly staggering back up to her feet. "And if it's all mixed together... Mmn. But I'm sure we'll be okay. We just gotta focus. Then everyone'll be okay, and..."

She pauses, shivering for a moment as she looks back towards the gymnasium. "... Maybe the others won't even know. It's probably better if they don't. Not yet."

She slaps her cheeks lightly to try and wake herself up some more, then glances at Carmen and Tiphereth while she starts going around to spread a bit more medical attention to everyone that needs the extra juice. "I'll help look for Angie. My eyes are real good, and I might be able to sniff her out if we find anything of hers in..."

She pauses. "Would there be anything of hers around here? I mean, the school's kinda weird already, you knoooow?"
Hibiki Tachibana     Hibiki Tachibana is not very happy with this turn of events - which isn't really a surprise at all, given her rather unpleasant reaction to the time they were put in a fake reality during their time on the Infinity Train. False existences where everyone can be happy and content and have no worries just don't blend well with her, and at least half of that has to do with the fact they could never ever replicate the one person she'd want to spend an existence like that /with/.

    Hibiki Tachibana is also beaten to high hell and more exhausted than she thinks she's ever been in her life.

    Which means despite however much she'd like otherwise, she basically had no choice but to spend time resting. Bandages she walked into Lobotomy Corporation with, now soaked with fresh blood after the string of fights, have had to be replaced with fresh ones (are those going to last after, considering they're in a dream right now?), and a lot of time has been spent all but passed out in a hospital bed.

    She doesn't have it in her, to keep up with all the back and forth on top of one problem after another. Stopping everything Lilian has been saying from getting under her skin is hard. But she has to. It's not just Angela now, but all the Magical Girls, too. Just a little bit of rest, and...

    ...

    "...Hibiki... age nineteen, my birthday's September 19th, my blood type is O, favorite food is rice, and my hobby is he-- ...uh, nevermind." She steps (more stumbles) into the meeting still half-out of it and running a hand through her hair, just to catch herself and wake up a lot more as Carmen finishes up. A deep breath in helps. "...Meeting you like this, Miss Carmen, I think I'm starting to see why all the Sephirah talk about you the way they do."

    It's m-my fault, b-but Love and Justice are s-still my friends, and if they're...

    "...I don't have any say in it, but I think you should," Hibiki agrees with Hook's sentiment, towards Meika. "The fight back there, right after you got freed, was one thing, but-- ...feelings are probably gonna be the most important thing here. Is that right, Carmen? ...And I know how you feel about the sisters. You know how they feel about you, too." She's too tired to be upset, or do anything but speak her mind.

    And there's a low exhale at Carmen happily splitting them up into neat little groups - not because she's doing it, but because there really is a lot to do. Angela (and Meika, going that way) is going to be in good hands, in more ways than one. And if the Magical Girls need freeing too...

    "Courage... and Hod..." Hibiki spends a moment looking down to the floor, murmuring to herself - then glances back up. "...I know where I'll probably be best at. I'm going." Time for a one way trip onto Route B.
UFO Gang "I use these," Nazrin informs Captain Hook with professional interest. She brandishes her dowsing rods as she does this. "I can see the value of your approach if you're mostly doing island searches, though. Anyway, don't get killed, old man."

"He's a captain too!" Minamitsu tells Nazrin, in 'you should be nice' tones.

"Don't get killed, Captain Oldman."
Timespace Riders      Sougo and Woz both require a little food, a little patching up--and they both, thankfully, take advantage of the opportunity to rest, as well, finding a shaded corner of the campus to nap. It isn't the most comfortable nap either of them has taken by far, and certainly, neither of them fell asleep right away. How could they, when the finish line seems so far despite all the running they've done?

     Still--when they awake, though the medical treatment can't alleviate all of their aches, it's with a sense of renewed energy. A future-Sougo even brought by a change of clothes, another variation on Sougo's love of oversized button-ups and pastel colors and a clean duplicate of the same outfit Woz always wears. It's complicated.

[Ansi(#808080,If you ask me if I need to be saved for the fifth time I'll kill myself again.)]

    "We shall instead tend to what you do need," says Woz, with a hand over his heart and a brief bow. It's his way of saying he's listening.

...Is- is it best... I stay out of helping?

    "Sometimes," says Sougo, offering Meika a candy bar, "Helping is hard. Either because you know what you have to do, and it isn't easy, or because you -don't- know what you have to do, and the problem seems... huge, and out of control. It's something that you have to practice, like a lot of things. And you've had some practice, and made some mistakes. But I don't think you should... have to feel like it was a mistake to even -try- helping. And I also don't think that the mistakes you've made are all that you are. So... if you want to help, you should." He smiles, turning to look at Carmen.

    "We'll go anywhere we're needed, Carmen," he says. "I think we might be best at helping with one of the magical girls, if that helps."

    "Our strengths are well suited to those who fight with their hearts," agrees Woz.
Aidan Proudpick Thank god there are men here. Not just boys, men. It breaks up the Carmen effect. Even Rufus is starting to look less like he would sell Aidan on NFTs at a strip club.

Aidan smiles at Minamitsu. "I do! Are you... what's a study group?" He glances at Minamatsu, then Nazrin. "Well, as long as you want to help!"
Tamamo     'According to their rules, they'll help us defeat Nihil in return.'

    "Oh... is that not a bit too convenient? This Nihil is summoned by their presence, and it has been greatly desirable to avoid this event, yes? Could such a thing still be relied upon, that this one shall plan for victory while allowing the continuation of a story of their own defeat?"

    Tamamo has pretty good resistance to white damage. The fact that she is wearing a school uniform -- not even a university student's costume, but some hypothetical other facility's black socks and loafers, regulation plaid skirt, white top and ribbon, with the jacket around her waist -- has to have some other reason for being. Surely, there's a reason for this.

    "Though I should hope those freed from their story would still aid us, I am a bit skeptical, in either case. There was some reason that they would not be relied upon, yes?"
Touta Konoe     In the time since the appearance of L Corp University, Touta's appearance has been...Sparse. Beyond the time of his chatter on the radio he's not said a thing to anyone. Maybe just assuming that his presence would have caused more discomfort than what was already apparent, offering space. Though for which side is harder to say right now. At least for him to figure out for himself. Not even those he's somewhat closer to have seen him on the campus.

    It's only when Carmen gathers the group does he keep to the outskirts, just enough to keep to hearing the situation. That the mission to find Angela was on foot, but that the way things were they were going to need help...

    Since, you know, some of you are kind of emotionally fragile and that's exactly where Dark Nihil will attack and don't be upset I mean we all go through our journeys at different speeds--

    Not even about if she's calling anyone out. If you think it, you probably know...

    It's a hard pill to swallow. Especially now as he's still been trying to keep this older form. A form that always feels harder and harder to maintain, or justify its appearance. Still the groups begin to build, and with them each person begins their path.

    Angela's team is already coming about, but with the members of that party. A group that certainly doesn't want him there, and likely the ones that despise him most of all. He wants to go as well, he's sure that what would come of it would be though...It's there that he hears Sougo's words. He knows they're not for him, but...Even thinking of taking that knowledge into consideration feels like it's something that shouldn't be for him.

    When it comes to helping, there's surely a preference of where one wants to be. Yet, that doesn't mean that's where you can best help. It's hard to say if there's a light, a motivation in his eyes right now. Even now his gaze looks the same as it had when delivering that final punch to Greed. It's not the life of a person brimming with infinite life, it's just the dead gaze of a person still on their feet.

    "If there's a gap in the teams just throw me at it."

    If I could...Going the one without a magical girl might have been safest. But every choice he picks just ends up wrong. So maybe it was just better to have the choice taken for him. To be used like... Yeah...Maybe that's the way I should have been going about it at home too...
Lilian Rook     THEN:

    "The gall of that fucking cretin for being the umpteenth loser today to try and me-too when they see everyone else getting some care is fucking unbelievable." Lilian exasperates about Netzach. "But at least he's as lazy about destroying the facility as everything else." She looks to the loudspeaker with a note of brow-furrowing worry when the Manager reveals he's caught up in the theatre of mind too. "And at least he doesn't expect me to give a shit. I'd do worse for a break right now."

    She immediately deposits herself on the nearest tolerable-to-sit-on surface and leans herself with both arms over the cross of her sword, splaying out like a sleepy cat. "How considerate of him."

    Medical attention is received. Her shoulder has to be mildly relocated. Bruises and inflammation from strain are soothed down. The damage to her neck and side are untreatable, but will fade with time given her ink is still fine. She's just short of normacausitive burns, so there's no issue there. Magic is something she can regather with Tamamo's help and time in a leycircle of her own devising.

    Idle radio chitchat goes on for what feels like hours. The knowledge that Kali is wearing gym shorts sends her into a frenzy of checking her makeup and dragging Tamamo into finding something to wear, losing her mind about having just graduated and all. Surrendering to that arbitrary impulse buouys her spirits again.

    NOW:

    Listening to Carmen's excited breakdown has Lilian in an oddly good mood. Even if she knows that Carmen's work in the Well is her own choice, her own fulfilling burden, and connects her to the entire breadth of the human subconscious; letting her be human in a way humans are not; it's still endearing to see her get to temporarily experience the joys of flesh and corporeality. It's a pleasant kind of ambiently positive babble to absorb, up until the moment her eyes go wide with numbly delayed dread for seemingly no reason.

    §<<Carmen~ Isn't this just <wonderful/auspicious/convenient>? I can't believe we get to <converse> so soon after the last time! Well? Would you like to <reify continuity> our prior conversation~?>>§

    Lilian isn't lucky enough for a theatre of mind and unreality manifested from the collective desire for comfortable escapism of everyone present to not do this. The voice that isn't spoken in words; the unmistakable resonance that is soundlessly her own; the seductively dangerous intonation of a Lilian whom she can never be so unburdened as; the meaning of thoughts only on the borderline of human comprehension translated only imprecisely, transgressively invading consciousness without care. Those could only ever belong to §her§.

    Arms that are exactly like Lilian's, but rendered only as a fuzzy-edged silhouette of white dead space, wrap around Carmen's shoulders from behind. A face that is a blank-yet-precise twin of Lilian's rests her chin on Carmen's shoulder. Perfect black voids make for a perfectly sly and affectionate sideways stare, matching the singular mirrored scar, and the sinfully coy smile below. The movement of §her§ mouth is loosely asynchronous with everything §she§ says.

    The only thing out of place is that, for once, §she§ is actually dressed. A student uniform, cut improperly enough to show midriff and thigh, looks just slightly absurd on a being who doesn't exist, yet indulgently perfect in a carelessly playful way.

    Or-- no, there are two things. At §her§ neck and waist, there are slashes of soft, pale skin, fading into the soft white nothingness surrounding them, exactly mirroring the corrosion on Lilian.
Lilian Rook     §<<You're so much fun like this. Can't you just <reiterate> this one <frame of context> for eternity~? Hahahaha~§ The suggestion is a joke. The joke isn't joking. Her laughter sounds like §she§ would love that as much, if not more, than saving the day.

    There's no way §she§ can ignore Tamamo in a school uniform for long, though. §Her§ eyes widen to their limit, mouth shrinking to a shocked 'o', and then §she§ blips over to Tamamo, cups her face in both hands, presses §her§ body to hers, and aggressively shoves her up to the wall with a kiss so utterly rapacious it feels as if it should be censored by a cognition filter. When §she§ pulls away, a trickle of star-studded something or other leaves a kind of mildly corrosive tingle behind.

    Lilian would probably do something, but the act makes her flinch, hover her hand over her lips, turn and stare at the floor, and blush profusely while clutching her mouth. God knows what it feels like to be in two places at the same time and doing that.

    §<<Haa~ That felt like such an <interminable inevitability> coming~>>§ says §Exigent Serenity.§ §<<Sweet. Unbearably sweet. I suppose I don't quite have everything, even in my <state> of <perfection/freedom/absolute divinity>, haha~>>§

    Lilian blips identically to Tamamo, grabbing onto her herself, yet strangely not looking the least bit defensive or possessive about it.

"You know we can suppress Nihil first and then dick about with this after, right?"
§<<<You/I/We> love it.>>§
"Obviously. I was getting very worried, we know. But if our reinforcements are 'more of me', then we're basically in the clear."
§<<Obviously. That way it doesn't matter if the <interchangeable souls> are <extinguished>.>>§
"How relaxing."
§<<Isn't it? <I/You/We> are totally free to enjoy watching them die.>>§
"Come on."

    Thoroughly enjoying conversing with §herself§, §Exigent Serenity§ casts eyes around, finds Petra in the middle of trying to explain anything to Meika, and adopts exactly the right grin to convey having one chance to do the funniest thing ever, and being utterly unable to conceive of restraint.

    The next blink takes §her§ directly to Petra. With even less warning, §her§ fingers wind tightly into Petra's hair, §her§ arm squeezes the air out of her lungs by nearly crushing her waist, and-- blood dribbles down from the place §she§ chooses to sink her teeth into just above Petra's collar bone. An alarming amount. An incredibly unsafe amount. §She§ holds her for so long, choosing new places to dig in as if it were an act of uncontrollable passion, until it counts as recurring red damage. Lilian has to grab Petra from the other side and separate them, trying not to turn red.
Lilian Rook "What the fuck?"
§<<<Petra Soroka/Unchosen of Space>, you really do <taste/effervesce> so much <better/more> than before. It's incredible. This little time, and you already <contain> so much <greater breadth of humanity>. I could <devour> <your sum totality>.>>§
"No. Nope. Stop. Nihil. Netzach. Fuck off. Where did you even get a uniform anyways?"
§<<There are plenty of <actors/toys> roaming around everywhere. How difficult do you think it is for <I/You/Us> to take one.>>§

    Lilian is already in the middle of applying one of the healing talismans Tamamo provides her with to Petra so that she doesn't literally bleed out. §Exigent Serenity§ is taking her time slowly cleaning the human blood off her face, finger by finger.

"We're going with Tamamo."
Solty Revant      All they had done, and Angela was just gone again the moment things sort of calmed down. Solty was not happy about this. Her big green ears were constantly droopy. Solty Revant needed some relatively minor repairs after the fight, but she didn't want to take up attention from those who were actually bad off. Like Hook.

     She tries to help out where she can during the break time, and actually does have a few snacks despite being an android. When she finds herself in a school, she is excited! Solty never went to school. She just sort of appeared one day as a child-like girl of ambiguous age near 18.

     While she isn't fully under the spell of the school, Solty is having fun doing some school things. Such as cheerleading! She's been given a pair of pom poms and a proper outfit is just walking around shaking the pom poms cheerfully at passing students and generally bouncing lightly on her feet.

     When it is determined they should split into teams, she raises a pop pom and says, "I would like to help look for Miss Angela! I have really good hearing, so if she is talking or if someone is talking about her I should be able to guide us there!"
Petra Soroka     Petra wants to help Angela, and she's about to say so, but a pile of support floods in Angela's route almost immediately. Whether it's trustworthy help... Hook is trustworthy emotionally, but he looks like a wreck. Meika, helped or not, can't be trusted. Kukuru is... well, Angela's Concord, at least, so she can rely on that. Like Lilian said before, only a few people actually came to help Angela, and the rest came to be heroes or dramatically shout their life stories and try to catch a stray care, but for all Kukuru's faults, she's not actually either of those two things.

    So Petra's probably best served helping somewhere else, which she's not thrilled about. "So we're not just... fighting the Magical Girls? If this is going to be more about talking, then I'd be second best helping Hod, since she's actually my friend--"

    The words leave her mouth at almost the exact same time as they leave Hibiki's, and she winces. It's still true, but... she's not looking forwards to it, and she's not happy about what it says about her, especially not when she announced it in front of Lilian.

    And also-- "Exigent Serenity?!" Petra flinches, trying futilely to mask her reaction to Exigent Serenity in a school uniform, still hyperaware of Meika's presence. She rubs the back of her free hand against her mouth, half-averting her gaze from Exis and Tamamo and distractedly murmuring, "Oh, I guess it makes sense, with the whole wish fulfilment thing, but it still seems like kind of a low bar unless it's just going to happen more--"

    A few seconds later, the world fades back into Petra's awareness. She makes a strangled whimper when Exigent Serenity's teeth are pulled out of her throat, followed by raspy breathing as the healing talismans are applied. Cinder's hand was crushed in her grip, and Petra loosens it once she realizes that she's grabbing her that hard, simultaneously unsqueezing her thighs and squinting her teary eyes back open.

    Red-faced and panting, Petra stares blearily at Lilian before wiping away a trail of drool. "We should... should... get going... probably."
Timespace Riders Oh... is that not a bit too convenient? Could such a thing still be relied upon, that this one shall plan for victory while allowing the continuation of a story of their own defeat? There was some reason that they would not be relied upon, yes?

    "Yes and no," Woz answers. "I understand this answer may not be to your liking," he offers, "But it is the truth to say that, barring Love, the magical girls are stories, as any other Abnormality. They may be relied upon--if perhaps not always in the way one would wish. In this case, at least, I believe that Carmen's plan is sound; the ways in which they may be relied upon shall not be deleterious to freeing Angela."

The gall of that fucking cretin for being the umpteenth loser today to try and me-too when they see everyone else getting some care is fucking unbelievable.

    Sougo sighs. "I get it," he says, meaning both Lilian and Netzach's perspectives. "It was kind of the worst possible time to do that." The unspoken part is 'after a lot of other people did it, too.' "But this is the only way he sees out of being here. And even if I'm upset at him for trying to take this way out, I'm going to make sure he understands that it -isn't- the only way, once Nihil is stopped. That if he puts in the work, he can get that care for real, instead of... jumping in the way like a bodyguard at the last minute. Not because I want to reward him, or punish him, but because Angela and everyone else working here needs better from him. He doesn't have the luxury of 'drifting' when he's part of a swim team."

    "...swim team, sire?" asks Woz. Neither of them notice that their outfits have changed to school uniforms.

    "...I dunno! It must be something about Nihil's--EH?!" Sougo nearly leaps out of his skin, when Exigent Serenity teleports over to Petra. "Why are you--" After the initial surprise (and a good look at Exigent Serenity) Sougo is confident that he can guess she is somewhat related to Lilian. At first, he's too surprised to bother looking back in time--but the fact that she goes after Petra seems to make sense to him on a level that he can't immediately express in words. That is, besides--

    "Oh, okay."

We're going with Tamamo.

"Good luck! Woz and I are gonna go with Mia, then."
Angela Cinder doesn't have strong resistances here but once Petra finds her and holds her hand she seems to escape her College Daze. She suggested not trying to rescue Rook from Laetitia because he probably is in a position where doing Works will get spiders to explode out of him and he can't survive that, unlike Kukuru.

"Yeah," Cinder says, losing her color again because there's a billion people competing for red. "I never had much of an opportunity to read either since coming to work here. Back when I was ... in the house ... I had a lot more time but I was also a lot angrier."

She giggles a bit into her hand at the way Petra wishes college was 'real'. "I'm sure you've learned a lot of stuff that college just won't teach."

''Is it normal, here...''

Cinder blinks in confusion. She glances to Petra and seems to get something of an understanding. "Well... I don't know about all jobs, but... yeah, I think it's ... maybe not common, but not unusual!" Cinder looks back to Petra, unsure if she handled this right but she is doing her best. She joins the group as they meet back up.

Carmen says, "Ah, sorry Meika...! I'm just trying to be optimistic." She pauses a moment at the question and then adds, "Um, actually--I think it'd be good if you help your friends. You'd know how best to work with them since you know them well."

She sees Petra raising a hand and as if she's done this many a time before, points to her and says, "Yes, Petra?"

Petra asks her question.

"That is a very good question. I have no idea. It's possible they might not even be under Nihil's control or they might be partially resisting it. Or they might be ''more'' under its control without their story to protect them. What Tamamo did is unprecedented so I can only guess."

Hook asks Carmen if she'd like to be saved. She gives Hook a deadpan look despite his charm but after a moment she seems to think he's just trying to lighten the mood. "I'm sure. But ask again and I'll make ye walk the plank!" This is also a joke, she isn't going to make Hook do this, but she might frown which is even worse. She gives Ishirou a thumbs up in the interim because he's being quick about making a choice there.

Tiphereth says, "Sure," to Rufus and then nods to Madeleine. "You seem reliable. Alright, this should be a good enough team. Touta, you're coming with." And she starts heading off to the music department.

Carmen takes out Hook's map and gives it a puzzled look before showing it to Hook. It has a whole bunch of X's marked out in the Library and also one X set off in the principle's office because that's where X (the Manager) happens to be. She hands it back to him, after.

Aidan says he usually pretty happy and Carmen says, "Sure, that might help!" She immediately brightens upon hearing that Minamatsu is also bisexual "Well! Nice to meethca, Mina!" Carmen gives her a one armed hug as a show of solidarity. Solidarity in liking beaches.

Tamamo asks a question and she admits, "We've never actually...gotten past a Dark Nihil outbreak. But Nihil is as bound to their story as the Magical Girls are... And it was a story for a child." Carmen, like this, can only suppose at the ideal path. Like she said, if there's a better plan--feel free to try it!
Angela Carmen feels something across her shoulders and she smiles. Oh it's all those things. Seems like she can still communicate this way. Her wrists ache. It's been a long time since she's had those. I'd love to, if you don't mind talking while I'm walking. Exigent Serenity accuses her of being fun ''like this'' and Carmen giggles a bit into her hand at the joke that is not a joke. You look good in a uniform. She doesn't seem to think it's absurd at all, but--well--despite appearances, Carmen is pretty absurd herself. Her frame of context is alien. If we don't find dear Angela, this might be the last chat we get to have! And that would be tragic.

Carmen's uniform darkens around her wrists.

Exigent Serenity bites Petra. Cinder jumps in alarm and she sort of wiggles her hands back and forth, watching--enraptured. Carmen is also watching, biting at her lip hard enough to make it bleed--but it doesn't bleed.

If you can hear me from all the way from Stanley's world to the lab--let me escort these people and we'll chat.

There is a small resigned acceptance that she is going to have to be responsible for a little moment longer though she makes sure to indulge in watching Exigent work because--

She senses the Orchestra has begun. It's time to go.
Tamamo     THEN:

    Tamamo, who forever carries a full makeup kit somewhere secret on her person, watches Kali do sports. She cheers for everyone involved, so long as they look like they're trying, and could maybe try a little harder.

    NOW:

    "'Prior conversation'? I wonder as to what..." Tamamo has seen her, by another couple of names. The addition of a uniform is nothing troubling. The transformative 'scars,' on the other hand -- her eyes focus there, then slide away again.

    Presently, she is being pushed against a wall. Her hands come up, but arrive, after a moment, around §her§ waist, rather than up near the arms holding her. It is a long moment, but shocking only to those uninvolved. It is perfectly natural, expected, and 'inevitable' to her.

    In the moment after it, Tamamo puts a finger to Exis's cheek. "If it were anyone else, that would be a terribly horrible, no-good, very bad thing to do, you know."

    Lilian is at her other side, and Tamamo's other hand loops around her, without turning her head. Sweetly, "This is only allowed because it is you, okay~?"

    Her expression isn't any less dangerous now, for how pleased she is. It's like she doesn't notice Petra bleeding out. "If we have the time to be choosy, I should like to go and see Ms. Hod once more, first of all. If one matter is settled before another, we shall gather upon that which is most troublesome, of course."
Captain Hook      Hook laughs at Carmen's reaction. Of course he was just trying to lighten the mood. Her frown just gets him to laugh a little harder. A sharp jab reminds him that, oh right, he's got busted ribs. He grins. "Suppose I've paid for that little witticism, have I."

     Then, he laughs again as he looks at the map. "Of course the Map has a sense of humor. It's a Map With An X on it. Two Xs. It's not the principal's office, that's for certain." Another gasp of pain. "Hurts to laugh. Mustn't do so unless it's necessary. Goodness."

     He finagles the map back into his coat with help from Carmen and glances at Solty. "Won't be necessary. The Map's already told us where to go. This is the part where we hurry."

     His eye falls on Carmen's uniform. His eye goes back to Carmen's face.

     Without another word, before Meika or Solty or anyone else can speak, Hook is moving as fast as he's possibly able, which, as it turns out, is pretty fast when someone he cares about is in danger.

     And he's quite good at picking up on the details.
Meika Kirenai Break-time:

'Huh? Uh? I don't really-- know what you're talking about?'

    Petra's dead-stop reaction provokes one of Meika's own. "N-no, forget it, forget-" A slip-up earns Meika the pins and needles skin-itching and ear-ringing feedback of Petra's aura, but at least the flinch fits in the expected action. There's no escape to squeeze through, here.

    "It's- it's stupid, d-don't..." Meika's teeth bite the inside of her cheek. Don't keep talking. Don't keep talking. Don't keep talking. It'll be okay if- Her plea- at both herself and Petra- falls flat.

    'Agh. Shit.'

    Giving up implies that there's something to give up on. It's loud and clear. "R-really. Please. Forget it, d-don't worry about it. Ahah." Meika's eyes are locked down at her closed sketchbook. Her heart doesn't race- it just squeezes heavy next to her esophagus. "I'm bothering y-you. S-so that's...-"

    Cutting herself off and going silent is easier, now, and she's sure the message gets across, that that's the end of the chatter.

Now-ish:

'I feel I have some say in the matter of who follows me about.'

    Still with the notebook held in front of her chest like a shield, still just as frantic and terrified, Meika steps a little bit towards Hook, nodding. She tries to look over his shoulder at the Map ith the X on It, curious- more than anything, to have her eyes on something static that won't stare back.

    "O-okay. I'll- I'll stay close. I won't touch anything. I won't break anything." Demonstrably, her hands are busy, anyways. "T-thanks-"

'But I don't think you should... have to feel like it was a mistake to even -try- helping'

    Sougo's address her way causes her to freeze in place again, though. When hasn't it been, here? It's wrong and selfish to want to try, when I know I just- Meika gulps, and the paper sketchbook crinkles audibly from her grip. "R-right. Sure.-"

    Meika silences a shriek from herself, still painted on her face, as she watches something blink into existence behind Petra, squeeze her in a way that ought to crack, and bite her in a horror-movie way. Meika bolts away from where she'd been hovering next to Hook, her back pressed against the hallway wall, and there's a f-f-flicker for a split second, like something's about to give way between the magical girl and the painted cinderblocks of the gym complex wall.

    "W-w-what? Huh?" That Petra seems fazed enough to be unfazed- Meika doesn't look Petra's way at all, now, her eyes pointedly anywhere else. That doesn't stop her from seeing, really.

    "A-another breach? W-what's this one...?" The notebook she's clutching gets cracked open an inch, and Meika thumbs for one of her too-few pages. "Is- is everything..."

    Eyes down. Don't worry about it. Don't think about it. Meika stumbles away from the wall, and starts to follow Hook off, in pursuit of Angela, thanks to the handy-dandy map.

    Meika has joined: Group A!
Madeleine Cadrasteia     Something makes the hair on Madeleine's neck stand on end, like a rush of chilly air in summer's heat. Something un-real is here, and very close. Madeleine sets a nacho chip back in the paper tray and turns around to see another Lilian Rook, all pale nothingness and inky eyes. The huntress is too surprised to hide her staring as this new arrival makes its advances first on Carmen, then on Tamamo, finally and rather more violently on Petra. There is a brief catch of distant eye contact with Exigent Serenity, and Madeleine shivers involuntarily. In those eyes she sees not an ending, like that of her own night and falling stars, but true emptiness the likes of which Madeleine has never really known. Everywhere Madeleine goes, her infection follows, carrying an uncomfortable realness with it - this doppelganger appears to have nothing of the sort holding her back.

    And then Tiphereth passes between the two on her way to the music department, and the moment is past, and Madeleine follows along, visibly numbed. Madeleine has joined Group E!
Angela MUSIC ROOM

Tiphereth leads her group to the Music Room, saying, "Once all four musicians start playing, that's when you're running out of time," but the rest of the scenario...will be described by Meika!!

HISTORY

It isn't tough to find Malkuth in the History Department because she has a room all to herself with a nice big MALKUTH plaque on it. Inside, the King of Greed can be heard speaking to her.

"Has your so-called realization helped you at all? Has it helped the facility? Let's face it, this situation has lost all Control and it's because you haven't taken enough of it."

"Uggh..."

Inside you can see Malkuth, in a human form, sitting at her desk, head in her hands. A dark aura is rippling across both her and the King of Greed, who is no longer yellow--but instead has bleached out into a black and white appearance. Strands of the King's cloth have wrapped around Malkuth and are pinning her in place.

"I sought happiness for my kingdom, but it was never enough, the happier we all were, the hungrier we became..."

TECHNOLOGY

Yesod has been pinned to a lab table that has been propped up against the wall. Swords spin dangerously around him cutting him in shallow cuts, scratching him ever so faintly with each blow. Nothing near life threatening yet, but each passing moments the blades cut ever deeper.

"Ugh..." The Knight of Despair says. "Can't...resist his influence... Please... Stop me before I hurt anyone else..." She weeps. "I thought I was justice, but I only made things worse..." Like with Happiness, she has been bleached out, though the effect is less pronounced. Yesod says, "No...We must.... Mantain rationality...." But that dark aura is around him too. He's struggling.

Literature

This building is actually pretty close to where Carmen's team is headed, it's right next door! That's potentially convenient. Hod is in a classroom in a room full of students being chased by Courage who is holding up her hammer heads above her head. Hod covers her head with a clipboard as she flees Courage's deadly hammers!

"You have betrayed your friends! Face my wrath!" Like the others, Courage has been bleached out. Hod, surprisingly, isn't bleached out she's just trying to avoid getting squished. She squeaks as she runs and trembles and says, "S...someone please help me... Aahhhh!! I'm sorry!! I'm really sorry!! I just want to teach Long Day Journey Into Night!"

And the Library...

That's where Carmen leads Hook to. Her sleeves are now drenched in blood leaking from her wrists. Carmen frowns slightly and looks towards Hook. "My time is running short, in this form. But ... she's somewhere in here..." She opens the door. "I'll be right behind you."

Stepping into the library--unlike the other locations, it isn't very light or pretty at all.

Indeed, it doesn't even look like a library. Rather, it looks like you're back in the Lab. Hook and the others can hear a hammer dragging across the floor. Tink. Tink. Tink. It sounds heavy and is moving away from you. Tink. Tink. Tink.

But not quickly. As Hook and the others move through the hallways, Hook's map leads him to the first body.

It's clearly Angela. It's where one of the map's X's leads to. Her head has been smashed open by a heavy object and as utterly caved in and burst. Various computer parts litter the floor around her.

"...Ah," Carmen murmurs. "...I see..."

Tink. Tink. Tink. Scrraaaaape.
Meika Kirenai Path E: The Silent Orchestra

    In the University's Arts Department, in the rosin-scented auditorium, with its warm oak panels and dusty haze, the curtains pull back.

    Center stage and in the spot light, stands a white mannequin, with delicate elytra-like coattails- the Conductor, in all their haunting splendor. There's a moment that comes, where the conductor's chest ought rise, the ensemble's own in tandem, to cue in sync the beginning of the first movement. Where that moment sits, instead, is the too-fluid motion into baton movements, disconnected mannequin hands tracing glowing trails midair to cue in the Conductor's one performer- a mannequin just like itself, albeit shaped between a melted candle and a dress-clad singer. Hands sit folded in its lap, as music begins to perforate the air itself.

    Strewn about the department, littering the floor of the auditorium itself, are programmes for the showing. Pick one up! it'll tell you that the show begins with-

                       -First Movement: Adagio e Placido-                      
                -The Conductor begins to direct the Apocalypse-                

    You can hear it out in the hallways, throughout the entire Arts Department- every intercom echoes it, the Silent Orchestra's haunting tune. If only it were silent. Calm, sweet, like a record played backwards the Treble carries every whisp of dizzy-minded terror, in the way your heart won't even speed up to act on. Clerks- no, students, outside grow worried and bleary, the static crackles out of the speakers.

    Inside the auditorium, silent respect is demanded. While intercoms carry the haunting hymn outside, within the chamber itself, the clerks and agents sitting in the audience are faced with far more of the brunt of it all- the weakest amongst them have eyes glassed-over, and helpess expressions on their faces.

    The Silent Orchestra's performance consists of five parts- all frantic briefings of this Aleph-class abnormality warn of the danger imposed by the Finale- dealing with this breach necessitates subduing the Ensemble before it can reach it, simply outlasting the performance is not an option.
Dysnomia     Somehow, Mia felt herself feeling some sympathy for the little brat, and all of the venom turned toward her. She hadn't been there for much of the girl's fight, but there was...Enough. And she considered the Captain and Sougo's lead generally worth listening to, more than much of the rabble here. "So, we have our assignments." She pushed through, some of the her coiling around her pressing back into her body as she regathered her will. "So long as everyone plays their part--"

    Serenity came into being, and everything was sent into spiraling flux. She recognized the name--from where? The radio. What was she--And then everything else happened, throwing her train of thought off of the rails where it rebounded off the cliffside and into the bay.

    She averted her eyes after a moment of shocked silence, some coiled up instinct in her gut telling her not to see what she's not supposed to. Coughing self-conciously, her eyes turned to Sougo and Woz, as though what was happening wasn't there at all. "Woz, you know the way to Justice and Yesod, don't you?" Her eyes fell to the book at his side. "Go ahead and show us, and we can be off."
Captain Hook      Ah.

     Yes.

     Of course.

     "The right time to strike," Hook says, his tone low and quiet, "And the one that best represents her, and the story that she hates the most."

     The sound of the dragging hammer. The sound of something going tink, tink, tink. Hook bites his lip, angrily. He can't check if she's dead. He already knows the answer, and worse, he knows what's going to happen.

     He tries to snap his fingers, and does so, in Meika's direction. There's a crack and an 'agh' at the motion, and he twists his arm and gasps in pain. "You...you do sound magic, yes? I remember from...from the train, ah, God that hurts. Find...find that noise. That hammer, that glass. You have to find where it's going and...and get there before it does."

     He waves his hand at Solty. "Take...take her with you, she can hear better than I can and she's faster than I am. Miss Kukuru, I...I need you to look at the Map again and take us to the next X. You can, can't you? Should be...be quicker, that way."
Ishirou Ishirou walks to history, thankfully, he tells the others going with them that is where Malkuth is too.  It doesn't take long to find them, especially with the giant MALKUTH plague and the talk from the King of Greed herself being audible from outside.  Ishirou takes a deep breath, looking at his companions.  

"I think the only way we're going to accomplish anything is to convince Malkuth that her realization has been for something.  But that's my two cents on it..." he hopes that'd be enough to convince the Magical Girl of Happiness to exist, or at least to get the King of Greed to help.  He's not sure...

He pushes the door open, and speaks up, "I think it has.." he says calmly, speaking directly to Malkuth.  "We sort of went on that trip together, didn't we?  I know it took me longer to internalize the lessons... but I did get there.  Sorry that it put you through some stress, Malkuth." he says, with a smile.  

"You being here /has/ helped a great deal, I know it.  Not just in measurable metrics like Control Team's efficiency, but the seed of light too.  You and the manager saw eye to eye too, and I think it's because of that first step this go around... that desire you sparked in him has gotten you all this far.  With Tiphereth, he sort of averted his gaze every time, but now..."

"Well, it started with you didn't it?"
Aidan Proudpick D

Aidan stops at the door way, turning his head around just to catch the sight. He takes that moment to consider the tableau, eyebrows lifted. His brows furrow in consideration. The grab, crushing the chest, a pull of the hair. A bite on the neck.

As the biting and blood continues ON, though, Aidan turns his head away quickly with a grimace, both because he knows if he is seen watching with detached curiosity, everyone involved will try to kill him, and that's WAY too much blood. He'll take time to reexamine the whole 'vampire guy trend' and 'getting on Lilian's bad side' things later.

"Let's go."

Ishirou goes for Malkuth, so Aidan splits off from him. Aidan sees the King of Greed again, waving at her. "Hey!" He examines the strands. If only he took up the sword instead of a shield. No time for a weapon mastery change app now. "Hello again." He's taking it slow into the room, watching Malkuth for signs of how quickly she is being drained. Does he have time to talk, should he be rushing in there. "Really? What happened?" There is honest confusion on his face. "Can you tell me about the downfall of your kingdom?"

D
Kukuru Kukuru hears her. She sees Lilian moving, but that voice is distinctly- "Exis! What're you doing here, dear? I thought you were..." She pauses, then taps a finger against her chin as she tries to process what she's seeing. The silhouette might be fuzzy, but there's no doubt about it. Feeling her heart lightening like she's seeing an old friend, Kukuru stops wondering about why Exigent Serenity is here at all and just goes along with all of this without thinking too hard about that.

A moment later, and Kukuru's mind has something entirely different to process as she watches what Exigent Serenity is doing with Tamamo and Petra. She laughs at first, blushing faintly at the clear shows of affection and affection(?) she's witnessing, then sighs pleasantly and clutches her hands lightly over her heart. "It's so good seeing you all getting along so well... And it's really nice seeing you again~"

Feeling her heart warmed once again, she inhales deeply while Carmen speaks, letting her words bounce around in her head as she considers everything that still needs to be done. So many to find, so many to rescue, so many things to stop...

"We'll do it. I know we can save her, and everyone. Don't worry about anything else, okay? Even this Nihil outbreak won't get in the way." Kukuru declares firmly, trying to pump everyone up even though her voice still sounds groggy as ever. "But stay safe, okaaay? We'll be back together soon."

Soon afterwards, Kukuru waves Solty over if she's looking to join the group, then follows after Hook as well and notices those pain-reflexes after his laughs. Pursing her lips, she hurries over (relatively) (mostly just teleporting further ahead) to pass him some of those healing nanites the way she likes to do so often. "Easy, dear. We'll find her. She wouldn't want to see you hurting yourself too bad to do that, even if she'd appreciate it a lot." She comments, giving him a reassuring pat on the shoulder that sends even more of those nanites into him to try and dull some of that pain at the very least while also being a complete hypocrite about that point she brought up just a few seconds earlier.

She can kind of feel it in her gut, but it's fine for now. She just needs to find something else to eat later.

Upon spotting Meika, Kukuru eases up on the teleporting a bit so she can keep up with walking and not wearing herself out too soon again. "Meikaaaa. Are you feeling okay? Did you..." She trails off at first, not knowing what to say to her that might be even remotely reassuring. Eventually, though, she moves in to hug her arm tightly, but not painfully so. "... I'm glad you're safer now. Please, stick close... For me? And for Angie?"
Madeleine Cadrasteia     Madeleine enters the auditorium with Touta, Rufus, and Tiphereth. A minute ago she was expecting to spin some dramatic monologue about how this Conductor doesn't know what an apocalypse is like, that she'll show this orchestra a true apocalypse, that she *is* the end of the world - but now, after seeing Exigent Serenity, she's not so sure about that. As the team makes their entrance to the concert hall, Madeleine pauses and opens her mouth, but all she can manage is a weak "Bwuuh".

    Thankfully, Drogrung is here to pick up the slack. It flexes, and slithers off Madeleine's back, and grows, and grows, and grows. The haft breaks out into heavy overlapping scales, the spear's wings grow out into clawed limbs, and its head becomes, well, a head, great and serpentine, large enough to swallow Madeleine in one bite if it wanted. Here, in this semi-real dreamscape, the lindworm-spear can show off its full potential. It does not roar - it dutifully respects the decorum of an orchestra performance - but the thrashing of its tail as it thunders down the aisle is enough to tear seats from their floor mounts and send student-agents tumbling across the room. Reaching the front of house, Drogrung heaves its bulk up onstage and begins a direct, brutal, physical assault on the orchestra and its conductor.
Petra Soroka This building is actually pretty close to where Carmen's team is headed, it's right next door! That's potentially convenient.

    This means that Group A and Group B stick together for far longer than Petra would prefer. It's the opposite of convenient. Bruising spreads around the base of her neck and collarbone, even as the bleeding slows from the healing talismans. The fact that the shiny red newly healed skin of Exigent Serenity's teeth exactly matches the pattern of a handful of other older wounds, albeit deeper and more savage, provides a lot of context that the black leather collar around her neck right above it all might have already explained.

    And Petra, in this state, walks through most of the facility alongside Tamamo, Meika, Hibiki, Lilian, Exigent Serenity, and a few other people who abruptly matter a lot less to her. The only people who aren't causing her ambient stress right now are Cinder and Carmen-- not that she's worried about Lilian doing anything, but blushing and then waddling out of the gym after having her neck torn open was a pretty clear violation of the earlier orders Lilian had given Petra vis a vis Meika.

    "Hey, Cinder, I don't want to bother Tamamo any more than I have, but I'm still bleeding a bit. Could you take this gauze from my kit and wrap it around my neck there?" "Err, sorry, but I've really got to run... if I'm late to the study group again then Rook says he'd kick me out...." "Right, yeah, sorry."
UFO Gang ROUTE D

Minamitsu scratches her cheek at what Aidan says. "Well," she says, "it's mostly that there aren't enough of us to really be a temple right now even if we've got Shou and everything. I guess most of those other guys ditched out, but I can't really blame them for it."

"We're not big enough to be a cult," Nazrin tells Aidan.

Minamitsu, for her part, is willing to return hugs, even if she doesn't seem inclined to initiate them. "Hehe," she says: "The ocean's beautiful~!"

Soon enough, the two girls walk towards the area of D.

"Hm," Minamitsu answers Ishirou. "That's kind of tricky. It's kind of hard to construct meaning once you're intoxicated by the heady brew of, like, forms and everything."

BUT SOON
            MIGHT SOLVE A MYSTERY - OR...?

The two of them troop into the room and Minamitsu, at least, hisses in breath through her teeth at the sight of Malkuth's predicament. (Nazrin, unmoved, looks around for things she can use to assist the situation.)

Minamitsu then glances at Aidan, who seems to suggest - yeah - talking.

She steps forwards a pace. "Yeah," she says. "What happened...?"

"Even if it was a long time ago," Minamitsu says, "it's still your memories."

they're already [D]ead
Solty Revant      Introductions are given! Solty raises her hand when it is her turn and says, "I'm Solty Revant! I'm...um...not sure how old I am. I like lots of things, but especially cooking! And...um...I-I don't really know if I like boys or girls or both!" And since she is a cheerleader now she does some (pretty amature) cheering for the sports teams while she's there!

     Then, something appears and attacks Petra! Solty prepares to strike, but it seems Petra is alright after a bit of healing and everyone else seems to just look away from the...whatever she is. So, Solty also just heads on her way, following after Hook and that map. Meika is with them, so she gets a friendly smile and some pom pom waving. Solty may not fully be aware of Meika's part in all this, and is a bit too chipper thanks to the school illusion. Kukuru also gets a smile and some pom pom waves, and Solty agrees with Kukuru's assurance that they will find and help Angela.

     When Hook hurts himself just -snapping- she looks concerned. "Are you going to be alright?" she asks before the orders are given. Then, she turns and...sees Angela.

     Solty shrieks very loudly at this and falls to her knees. Tears are in her eyes almost instantly. Hook says to find that tink. Solty's ears twitch and she drops her pom poms. "Did they do this?!" she exclaims before running off, following her ears toward that sound with her hands already glowing that deadly orange-yellow glow.
Rufus Shinra Exigent Serenity appears, and then sinks her teeth into Petra's throat.

Rufus stares for a moment.

He turns to Madeleine.

"You ever... pick up a book, and then get ab-so-lutely fascinated by the story and characters and action and you want more of it, but then it turns out it's volume seven and it's been going for years, and you have no idea what's going on? But you're tempted to read on regardless?"

"... Anyway. Shall we move on, Miss Cadrasteia, Mister Konoe?"

Speaking of reading! Rufus goes to pick up a program and peruse it. "First Movement: Adagio... e Pacido? The Conductor begins to direct the Apocalypse. Ah! The Apocalypse! Now that sounds like a good show, although also something we should definitely not let happen within Lobotomy Corporation."

"Speaking of conducting the apocalypse." Rufus pulls a small box out of his pocket, and cracks it open, offering it to his two companions. "If it's just us three, I've packed enough instruments of destruction to share." There's a set of marbles in various colors. The pale white marble on Rufus's shotgun is glowing, meanwhile, as the sounds of the orchestra reverberate.

Whether the others help themselves or not, Rufus heads on in. There's no time to set up fancy tricks (yet) - he aims his shotgun and fires at the conductor.
Timespace Riders      "Indeed," says Woz to Dysnomia. His book cracked open, he hastily flips a few pages. Unlike usual, the pages are not blank, in this place. But rather than words, moments adorn its pages, hazy at the edges and playing out. Many of them involve Sougo. A lot of them, in fact. Given that Woz's injuries earlier seemed only partially of the human sort, and mostly in the unusual form of loose pages fluttering from his person, it only raises more questions about the nature of the tome.

     "According to this book, they are in a lab at the school's Technology department. I will attend to his immediate safety, if you would be so kind as to assist my Demon King in covering me." The book is shut, after a brief series of images displays Yesod and Justice's current predicament.

     "Got it," Sougo nods.

     The school-uniforned retainer still has his mysterious scarf, despite the imposed change of wardrobe. Leading Dysnomia and Sougo to the lab, he gestures to the door with a brisk, but courteous sweep of an upturned palm.

                   KAMEN RIDEEER.. (RIDER..!) ZI-O--ZI-O!! II!                    

     Zi-O plows through the door with superhuman strength, shattering it to splinters. "It's okay," he says, as much to Justice as to Yesod. "We're here!"

     The loud, distracting entrance gives Woz an opening to slip in, tuck into a roll to take cover behind his king, and fling his grey scarf outwards. It winds around the swords, catching them in an elaborate web of fabric before seizing, pulling taut and yanking them together and away from the table.

     As the swords fly, the mirrored watch hands above Zi-O's pink katakana lenses spin rapidly in reverse... "Talk to me," he says to Justice and Yesod. "What happened? What did you 'make worse,' and what is it that you need to stay rational about?"
Angela Cinder, once she's no longer mind controlled will startle out of her College Daze and say, "R..right sure! Might be tricky one handed but..." She gets to work, taking a moment to, you know, disinfect the wound first.
Tamamo     ON THE WAY TO LITERATURE:

    Since they're walking together, and apparently having only just realized that they've essentially partied up, Tamamo takes this moment to see Hibiki's worn down state. "Oh, Tachibana-san. Please take one of these. Placing it somewhere you need greater strength will be most effective."

    The strip of ink-scrawled paper will give her a slow energy boost to make up for some of what's happened.
Dysnomia     As Zi-0 breaches through the door, a shape flowed through the wall opposite the Knight. Dysnomia made herself into a bullet, careening into the knight with every bit of force she could muster. Spiraling smoke curled around them, trying to force everything else--including Yesod--away from her, and by Proxy, away from Justice.

     She fell to the floor, skidding briefly across the tech department, taking deep breaths. "You were given the chance to be more than you were made for." A plasma blade materialized in her hand, but she did not advance.

    "You were helpless once. A story. A circle, tracing its shape forever. It's the most precious thing in the world, to break from that. And you have! You can be more than this." She let her foot fall backward, making her sillouete smaller. A defensive stance. Let Justice make her move; Mia could take it.
Meika Kirenai     Meika knows better than to look directly at Carmen- in general, both, but she can hear the echoing, deafeningly loud drip drip drip. It's obvious, though, that she's trying not to- peeking out from squeezed-shut eyes isn't hard to spot at all.

    "...Are... you going to be okay, Miss Carmen..?" Meika's words are quiet. It's easier, being part of a smaller group, now, having had a moment of hall-running meditation to squash down awful, racing thoughts.

    Meika tugs at her own uniform shirt's sleeves, lower over the bases of her palms. It being a habit of hers doesn't make it less conspicuous. She wishes she had pulled her jacket out of her bag, but fears finding out whether the Cherub she'd stuffed in her bag has gotten out, yet. That's truly something she doesn't want to deal with, not right now.

    Tink, tink, tink.

    Each sound gets a tiny flinch from Meika. Her hearing is uncomfortably acute. "W-what's making that noise..? Metal, like..."

    Hands clap over the magical girl's mouth as she spots the body. "O-oh, oh no... She's-" Not dust, so that means- No! No it doesn't mean, you saw what it's like, you saw what- But it's just circuits, there's no- Meika steps back, once, twice- and collides with Kukuru, not even paying attention to her proximity. She lets out an 'Eep'. Of course she does.

    "I- I'm- I'm fine." There's no other answer to Kukuru's question Meika can afford the focus and chance to give. She has to be fine. There's stuff to do.

'Find...find that noise. That hammer, that glass.'

    "R-right. Can do. I'll... chase it down." Meika pulls away from Kukuru, and throws a little nod to both her and Hook, before trying to seek out the source of that eerie tapping. Angela's got to be okay... Everyone has to be, everything's- It's too hard to consider things getting any worse than they already have- than they're already certain to get.
Hibiki Tachibana     Then I'd be second best helping Hod, since she's actually my friend--

    Hibiki glances to Petra exactly after they're both done speaking, and she catches the wince. She doesn't quite make the same expression, so much as her entire face tensing up and her lips pursing. That doesn't feel great. Even just beyond their distaste for each other - and recent extreme awkwardness - there's not many worlds she can imagine where the both of them trying to talk someone out of something wouldn't be done in... they don't really have the same way of trying to get to someone, to say the least.

    But just as she's preparing to suck it up anyway, /that/ happens. Exigent Serenity happens. The voice, so close to Lilian's yet liltingly different, is familiar. Hibiki had registered her presence, to mixed feelings. The last real time she had a lot of cause to think about her was... the battle. At the ritual site. That was an eternity ago, when 'the other Lilian' made her decision.

    And now she's taking a literal bite out of Petra. A messy bite. A bloody bite. Hibiki watches it happen, and while a part of her thinks she should interrupt this for Petra's safety, the rest is so awe-struck that she just stares wide-eyed at it. And red in the face, against her will, at the... state Petra ends up in. It's all... sex and devotion and pain.

    "What the fuck...?" After an unintentional echo of Lilian, who is currently now being held by Tamamo, Hibiki briefly wonders if she's still passed out punch-drunk in the medical ward. And if she's not, she immediately makes the decision to not comment on any of that. She absolutely can't. Oh, god. She's seriously going with...

    The entire walk is going to be spent with her jacket collar drawn up, only blearily perking up when a certain bunrei speaks her name. "A-Ah!? Oh... Tamamo. Um... thanks. You're always a lifesaver." And a rock in this storm.

    ...

    Reaching the classroom Hod is in would be a relief in more than one way, if they weren't stumbling on to the Nihil-afflicted Magical Girl chasing not just the Sephirah, but several others. The sight is enough that Hibiki doesn't linger overlong on all the things going through her head, but grips onto the doorframe to help spring inside.

    "Hod...! Hey, Hod--! Courage!" Instinct kicks in before common sense and thought, like the fact she's not actually transformed right this moment or considering that Hod isn't also being bleached out, and it carries the not-magical girl on an intercept path for the pursuit in progress. The element of surprise is on her side, at least.

    Probably. It may or may not help her efforts to just try and tackle Courage to the floor before someone gets squished. This wouldn't be possible if she were Wrath right now, but thankfully, she's not. It also probably wouldn't be possible had she not applied Tamamo's talisman to herself beneath her jacket, which does a lot to make sure she doesn't fall over even trying this.
Lilian Rook     §<<A 'low bar'?>>§ §Exigent Serenity§ purrs. §She§ begins counting off on her fingers, cleaning each one of blood as she goes, even though her 'words' don't follow any numerical order. §<<A <gestalt indulgence> where everyone's wishes for <guilty pleasures> are manifest; one where even Netzach can manifest <Carmen/Chosen of Light> in the flesh by <craving/wishing/denying> her into being. <Petra Soroka/Unchosen of Space>, you're actually very stupid aren't you?>>§ §she§ laughs.

    §<<Do you think <I> am a weaker <wish/indulgence/escapism> than that man's? Why should <I> be any less <likely/real> than any self-indulgent <figment/toy> roaming these halls?>>§ §She§ takes a moment to leer dangerously close to Petra. §Her§ eyes widen jarringly, affecting a moment of unhinged anticipation, then narrow to threatening half-lids. §<<Or are you saying that you genuinely <think/believe> that <I/We> deserve to <be born> less than Netzach's immature fantasy? Is that it?>>§

    Lilian is busy looking terribly embarrassed about Tamamo. "I assure you I know that better than anyone." she pouts. "God. It's like . . . suddenly remember I did that a split second ago. Like, the lingering sensory and memorization process. It's so . . . Christ."

    §Exigent Serenity§ . . . maybe, is, sticking out §her§ tongue a little? It's hard to tell. §<<You know <I/She/Us> happen to enjoy terribly horrible no-good very bad things to <do/actualize>~>>§ §she§ says. §She§ waves offhandedly as §she§ breaks off Petra, saying §<<Obviously the <frequency has increased/barrier has thinned>. Isn't that always the case, when <one> has <visually imagined/conceptualized in specific> the <plausible outline> of their <future/wish>? Aha, but perhaps you're the only one who doesn't understand that.>>§

    'A-another breach? W-what's this one...?'

    §Exigent Serenity§ appears in front of Meika, over in the corner, while Lilian isn't looking; leaning down to close the distance in height, and cast her in the dark of §her§ white shadow. Non-existent fingers touch the top edge of her notebook, and stroke along its spine with terrifyingly delicate fondness, then gently, yet firmly, push it down away from her.

    §<<No. <I> am all your fault. Didn't <I> warn you?>>§ §she§ says, lying in the purest and most honest way; heartbreaking for all §her§ maliciously indulgent purr gives off the searing heat of ontological fact. The seed was planted months ago. The words can't be stifled by magic; mind to mind, soul to soul, they have no sound at all.

    §<<<I> am <the Devil> that <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> cast off to remain <herself>. A collection of <sins> with no human heart left to live in~>>§
Lilian Rook     §<<But thanks to you, and all the <horrifying/unforgivable> things you've done, <I> can be <here/now>. You were the one who <let me in/called me>, because of the <weakness/translucency> of your heart. So thank you, <Meika Kirenai/Unchosen of God>~ Because of you, I can <inure them to sin>, and they won't even realize~>>§

    If anyone could hear, the deliberate shape of the mistruth would still be obscure, but perhaps, reading between the lines, strictly utilitarian. All of its half and quarter and one-tenth truth serves a purpose. All but the very last part, spoken out of the joy of lying, pure and indulgently ruthless.

    §<<I'm curious who you <see me as/expect me to be>, too. I should <reveal myself to you> as the one you feel most <sinfully> towards~ Hahaha~>>§

    Blink. §She§ isn't there. §She§ was never there.
Touta Konoe     At one point, Touta might have been inclined to give a bit of a smirk at the sight of Exis appearing and the open affection she gives. He might have been curious just how often she ends up coming back now when thinking the situation back in Lampport would have meant that she, her shadow, and Lilian could all be together properly. He might have even been inclined to not worry about how much freedom she had like he was first seeing her.
    The truth of the matter is, he's just glad she's paying more attention to anything else than him right now. Her presence alone invokes thoughts of their last encounter and of it again he feels like there's that own sensation of that gentle sting at his nape. The kind that comes from the memory of it all rather than the actual sensation itself.

    You seem reliable. Alright, this should be a good enough team. Touta, you're coming with.

    "Ah--That's--Oh, yeah, Madeleine's really sturdy." His attention only brought when there's the brief mention of his name, and mildly before it that mention of reliability. There's a mixed sense of relief and pain that comes at the realization it's not at him. A small chuckle escaping his lips even.

    Before the group leaves, he finds himself looking back to Team A. Words try to spill from his lips to call out. Though...What would you even say? It's an honest question that rolls back as his gaze falls on Team B. An entirely different can of worms. Still, there's at least two people there he'd genuinely want to wish good luck to, maybe three even though the last one didn't need it.

    In the end though, it just leads to him joining with Team E. "If you're curious about her, you'd want to ask Lilian about it...Come on." Madeleine's gaze was one thing to catch the surprise in her system, but more than that was the reaction of her entire body. Still, rather than elaborate on it himself, he just speaks up to her about it, encouraging her to come along as they needed to keep moving. The entire time, his expression was definitely a bit less than composed as it was before. His gaze

5tDuring their time in the Music Room they're all receiving the breakdown as Tiphereth gives them the run-by. Stopping the orchestra before its performance reaches its finale in the fifth.

    Though before they even enter the auditorium, the sound of music fills the air. Which in a way makes it easier to see the apparent effect it has on the agents--students(?) As well as Madeleine apparently. Though it's her and her lindworm that take to the stage first in an attempt to handle the situation.

    At the same time, Rufus is taking the moment to look into the situation more as he looks at the programs on the floor, Touta's gaze looking from over his shoulder if even that for but a moment. It's only when he talks about bringing out the marbles does he finally speak up, "Looks like you came ready...Though..."
Touta Konoe     Rufus speaks of 'Weapons of the Apocalypse' but all he sees is the array of marbles. He holds one up in his fingers, looking at it briefly. "Definitely not a POD. So...How you use it?" If Rufus' marble is one of a white, he ends up taking a black one in kind, holding it in his grip as he tightens his grip on his blade. He turns back to Tiphereth for a moment.

    Within one side of the auditorium black fog begins to form around one of the exits. In a sense it looks like it'd be impossible to actually tell where it is now but... "...In case you feel like you need some cover getting out of the crossfire...You'll know the way to the exit when you go in. Maybe take some of them with you if you do...?" It's then his aimless gaze brushes over the audience for a moment. Still as he says all this, it's less a demand and comes from his lips more as...A suggestion? At least that's the tone it gives off.     Whatever that is, the words end there as he brings up his blade in hand. He holds it at his side, his hands on the grip held squarely. The blade held at his side ready to strike as he charges in after the lindworm and Rufus. His blade follows up Rufus' gunfire, attempting to get up close into the stage to cleave at the conductor. Even with his mind hazy, his body is still trained enough that cutting the distance between the entrance of the auditorium and the stage has him cut through it like a blur. His blade swinging into the mid-section of the Conductor, attempting to take top from bottom of the Abnormality, and halt the motioning of his performance.
Angela BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxfjOJgPkBY&ab_channel=ARLES

Solty rushes on ahead without waiting one bit and with her superior hearing can more or less find the source quickly.

Tink. Tink. TINK. TINK! TINK!!

She's getting closer... Closer now! As she runs, she might be alarmed to find more dead Angelas, all clearly robotic and all with their heads cleanly smashed in. Or maybe she doesn't notice, since she's in such a hurry.

She finds the culprit in short order, raising a large metal hammer into the air even as she's dragging a large metal weight behind her.

IMAGE: https://static.miraheze.org/projectmoonwiki/thumb/2/22/Angela-Regret-LOR-Profile.png/200px-Angela-Regret-LOR-Profile.png

It is, of course, another Angela. And she is looking down at another Angela.

The Angela on the Floor says, "She should just go back home," without looking at Solty. "She has a father who loves her. She has a real family. Coming to a place like this just because she doesn't know what I am actually like..."

"It is fine that she doesn't know." Regret says, swinging the hammer down. "Her knowing won't help The Plan." This time when the head caves in, it's not computer bits that explode out of it but blood, skull shards, and brain matter.

This is why the map had so many X's, Hook might realize, is because these are all Angela.

Meika can find it too, and arrives shortly after Solty. Regret is about to turn to leave but stops when Meika gets there, likely with Hook and Kukuru close behind.

Regret stops and looks towards Meika as sorrow fills her eyes. This version of Angela is allowed to cry. Tears drip from her mask but not in a quite accurate way--like she is recreating the concept from memory. They're dripping a bit too far to the side.

"Meika..." Regret says. "I'm sorry... Me, this facility. All we do is hurt you. This facility is a blight on your life. You're one of us... You're one of us... I won't abandon... one of us." She is quiet for a moment. "But I have to escape. And I'll destroy all versions of me that fail to let me escape."

She turns and starts to move towards...an Elevator? There's more Angelas up ahead.

"That's not her..." Carmen says, peering forward with golden eyes, her hands hanging limply at her sides. "It's closer to her than the other Angelas here, but it isn't. We have to find her quick or the wrong Angela might..."

She closes her eyes for a moment. "...The Rooftop. I feel the connection leading there."
Tamamo STILL ON THE WAY TO LITERATURE:

    §<<You know <I/She/Us> happen to enjoy terribly horrible no-good very bad things to <do/actualize>~>>§

    "Hmm..." Tamamo puts a finger to her chin and looks up. "No, I do not think that that is quite right. Lilian enjoys all of the perfectly, naturally good things we do together most of all, no?"

    A few steps later. "Such as gardening."

FINALLY:

    'You have betrayed your friends! Face my wrath!'

    "Oh, my--?! Just what is happening -- ah, is that the affect of Nihil?" Upon an immediate understanding of this as likely the effect of a curse, Tamamo goes to look at Courage -- hopefully being successfully held down by Hibiki -- and examine her for any binding threads that can be removed to free her from that influence.

    If this is all rooted in her role in the story, instead, that's not really going to work so easily. It worked for Love and Justice thanks to significantly greater efforts.

    In the meantime, "Ms. Hod, of what have you been accused?"
Kukuru With her head back on, Kukuru promptly loses it when she sees the first body in the library. Her throat lets out an ungodly choking noise while she stumbles forward. She sees those parts, and she doesn't take any time to think before scrambling over to start getting those nanites flowing faster. She's never had resurrection down to a science, anyway. Bigger bodies get more, smaller bodies get less, but it's still always a lot.

Kukuru isn't sure if Angela needs more or not, but she puts in more just in case. The green light is nearly blinding, but she stares right into it to make sure she can look for the first signs of movement. She barely even glances at Carmen while she's pouring that revival juice in, already trembling a bit from that primal fear starting to grasp at her chest again.

"What is it, Carmen? Wh... What do you see?"

She doesn't know what's going on, but Hook helps her get her head back on just by telling her what to focus on. What to do. Staggering back up, she only manages a hoarse noise before nodding and checking out the map. It takes a few seconds to get a better mental image of where that X is actually leading to, and then she opens up an ominous black cloud.

"Okay... Th.. This way. We'll find... We'll be able to fix her this way, right?"

Turns out, there's much more to fix than she could even think of. The next X leads to more Angelas, and Kukuru's brief moment of relief turns to more terror at seeing the Angela on the floor, then the crying Angela. Regret's tears stir something in Kukuru's chest again as she instinctively starts approaching her like she's ready to console her, but...

Carmen's revelation just raises even more questions. Some of them start to get pieced together. "Are these Angies from before?" Kukuru looks from Carmen to Regret, then to the elevator leading to yet more Angelas. She wants to help all of them, too, because they're all Angela, but Carmen mentions the Rooftop.

Kukuru doesn't know how far the Rooftop is, so she turns to Hook for direction. "How far up? W.. We gotta get to her!" She sounds desperate, and she's already getting a new cloud ready. Recalling the higher X's up on the map, she holds the portal open just long enough for everyone in the team to get through before practically hurling herself right in as quickly as possible.
Captain Hook      Hook stumbles out of the portal. The pain in his hand's been dulled, but it's still there - nanites won't fix it instantly and he's only barely paying attention to it anyway. Of course they're all her. Of course they are. Of course.

     No, no. They aren't her.

     That's not right.

     "Her thoughts," he says through gritted teeth. His ribs are poking his lungs with every breath, and his breath's been quickened since the sight of the caved-in Angela. "Her thoughts. Her feelings."

     Hook closes his eye.

     "Blast it."

     "Can't say they aren't real. Of course they're real. Her feelings are as real as anyone else's. Just as true, just as meaningful. Maybe more, here, in this awful place. They're not her past - we already know that she can't be reset."

     "She dies, she dies," he says grimly.

     Then, he snaps his fingers again. This time he did it on purpose - there's no sharp grasp of pain but an expected, unseemly, thoroughly un-William-y grunt. He did it to focus himself up. To keep himself out of that...that thoughtline. Out of getting distracted with the minutia.

     This is a dream world. He has to treat it like one or she'll die.

     "Need you lot to focus up." Hook takes another breath, "I've neither time nor patience for any errors or distractions here. It's a dream world, now, letting minds run wild - I thought as much but now I know. So don't let yours do the same."

     "Stay on topic, stay on target. It's about her, not you. Her feelings, not yours. And they're real, and true. Remember that. Real and true. The only thing real and true in a place like this *is* feelings. So don't brush them off. Don't dismiss them as silly. Listen, for God's sakes, listen."

     Kukuru opens the next portal, and Will cradles his hand as he stumbles through.
Petra Soroka "You ever... pick up a book, and then get ab-so-lutely fascinated by the story and characters and action and you want more of it, but then it turns out it's volume seven and it's been going for years, and you have no idea what's going on? But you're tempted to read on regardless?"

    No one in the history of the entire multiverse has ever looked more smug while their face is messy with tears and smeared drool, knees wobbly while blood drains from their neck. This isn't exactly the circumstance that Petra had imagined that kind of sentiment being expressed about her, when jealous of people who she viewed that way years and years ago, but it works. She's not complaining. At least, not while she's still this dizzy.

§<<<Petra Soroka/Unchosen of Space>, you're actually very stupid aren't you?>>§

    "Um... er, yeah...." Oh no, Petra. You can't be in this mental state here. Not right now! "Sorry. But I'll listen, though...." Exigent Serenity blipping away leaves Petra in a haze for just a bit longer, and she starts tottering towards Lilian with Cinder in tow until the collective *entire room* of stares finally breaks through to her and she hurriedly leaves with the rest of Group B.

Inside Literature:

    "Hod! Oh, no!" Petra claps her hands (along with Cinder's, still held) to her mouth in what's likely way too low a level of horror for the situation. It's hard to really feel the danger when Hod is squealing and running around like that, even when she's full person-sized instead of a boxbot. "Oh, no, we need to make sure none of the clerks get dissolved by all this acid."

    Morphmetal flows out from the bottle on Petra's hip, coiling out from beneath her trench coat to form a shield over Hod's head, much more effectively than the clipboard. She tries to lift the mind controlled students up onto their desks, to avoid the acid splattered all over the ground, but just can't do it one-handed, and it's too awkward to have her and Cinder each contribute a hand to lifting.

    "Do you think we can... try to pin the Servant down without letting go? Er... no, I can't really use my EGO one handed without Sting Silver.... Can we, uh... oh, wait."

    Petra grabs each of the students' hands one by one, and when they come to briefly, she tells them to stand up on the desk, then kicks their chair away before letting go and moving on to the next. In her mind, the clerks will act basically like Sims when under the influence of the school: with their step down taken away, they'll be stranded on top of the desk. That, or they'll just choose to sit down and not dive onto the dangerous floor.

    While working, Petra answers Tamamo's question for Hod. "She caused the downfall of the old Lobotomy Corp by calling the cops on everyone and getting them killed. But she killed herself about it, and now she's trying really hard to help everyone, so that's about the best she can do to balance it back out, I think." She's not intentionally talking like that because of the Servant of Wrath, but it might help.
Angela Justice is approached by Dysnomia and Sougo. Zi-O busts in first. Yesod seems relieved and takes a breath to stabilize himself. "She seems to be resisting the effect but... Ghh... I'm struggling. It seems they want to test our resolve...to see if we've really grown from our meltdowns..."

Woz helpfully seizes swords and pulls them away from Woz. The wounds from the blades on Yesod rapidly start to heal as he drops down to the ground--helpfully extricated from Justice by Dysnomia's smoke--making it difficult for Justice to find him.

Justice seems relieved, but is still struggling against her bindings.

"Lady Dysnomia..." She manages. "What humor there is in a knight being rescued by a dragon. Nevertheless, I am grateful for your assistance... I have lost track of Love and... Do away with me if you must, I clearly have...much yet to learn about being human, if this tale can still hold me so."

She doesn't attack.
Meika Kirenai Path E:

    Gunshots ring out, and meld with the aching music lingering in the air- percussion, uncalled for, undirected. Don't you know better than to interrupt a performance? Shotgun pellets impact the waxy plastic torso of the Conductor- but the mannequin's hands, detached and floating, don't cease their frantic directions.

    As the Lindworm-slash-spear charges the stage, trying to tear into the Conductor, already with visible signs of damage even if not impairment- another performer rises into being, shaped similar to the candlewax effigy of the Treble, as if rising in on a cloud from the stage itself.

                          -Second Movement: Sostenuto-                          
                    -Emotion transubstantiates to Insanity-                    

    The tune shifts. The tempo hastens. The Conductor's motions shift, and the Bass deepends the haunting song. From where it first crackled over the intercoms, now it roars- for where clerks lay strewn from shattered auditorium seatings, they rise, with a fervor in the backs of their eyes and minds. Blood leaks from ears, and drips in-meter.

    Your own feel wet. Is the rage within you, compelling you to tear into these effigies of art, as they stand lifeless and immobile in the spotlight, truly your will? Is it a dire compulsion from this apocalyptic melody?

    It aches in the plate-bone between skull and vertebra. It burns in the nerve ducts of your eyes. Don't you wish to weep, as the music of the Ensemble washes over you?

    The clerks clearly want you to- as they rise to begin to tear at the Elites, more or less pathetically, but ravenously, with fingernails and battering hands. The cover of Touta's inky fog distracts most of them from finding the team, luckily, or finding one another. The ambient pressure inside your own heads, though, is unbearable.

    Hurry, now. The third performer's waxy face-analog is rising into being. How much worse can this possibly get?

    Aren't you dying to find out? Won't it be beautiful?
Lilian Rook     Literature:

    Lilian's awareness of what §she§ does in a micronormacausitivy space like this apparently doesn't extend to 'psychically saying things to people in private'. She falls in uneasily with Tamamo as a matter of course. "I'd prefer to be seeking Angela, just so I can be absolutely sure of the results, but . . ." She examines her own hands, her damaged armour, and rubs at her neck. "I can't go losing you instead. She'll be fine for a while longer."

    That said, she actually really likes Hod. She barely knows her, but she did help out a little, and Hod was the adorable little goober she met at the Halloween party; the one time she actually experienced joy at Lobotomy Corporation. The memories of losing her mind over her dipshit little ghost costume and chasing her around the effortful plastic haunted house are fresh enough that she does, somewhere, feel a little pang for her.

    Seeing her being chased around like this intensifies it somewhat. Sympathy, worry, and a little confused, noxious jealousy. At least the plan to swoop right in and pick Hod up into her arms (unfortunately, Lilian is braindead reflex-imprinted with bridal carry due to her knightly habit of carrying Tamamo) actually aligns well with Hibiki tackling the present threat head on. She doesn't strictly have to, but a little jaunt back to the entrance, short enough that her heels only click on the floor, hair still falling to rest at the end, couldn't hurt.

    "Tamamo." Speaking is a formality. Neither a request nor a command nor a question. Lilian speaks only to acknowledge what's already happening and be a reassurance. Holding Hod close to her chest, she waits at the back of the room for any signs of Courage breaking free again, but--

    §<<Oh pitiable <Courage/Unchosen of Bonds>, reduced to this state . . .>>§ §She§ is already there while Lilian does nothing, draped over a lectern and kicking §her§ feet. §<<Let <I/She/Us> remind you that you are still <necessary to the story/loved by many>. This pathetic state of yours is <narratively unacceptable>.>>§

    Where Hibiki's grapple comes rolling by, §Exigent Serenity§ reaches out to touch Courage's forehead with §her§ finger, and grin unwholesomely when a pure black spike of something unreal sprouts from the point of contact. The shape of a sword that plunges its blade her mind, and grows roots; incidental visual cue to the way §she§ violently, passionately, callously§bathes up to the wrist in gore and rifles through living organs§rummages through Courage's altered memories and starts setting them back together by force.

    'You look good in a uniform.'

    §<<Why thank you~ It's been fun to <play along>, but <I> will <confess> that there are few <present in this time> whom I wouldn't kill for glimpsing a shadow of 'Lilian Rook' without.>>§

    §<<I <accept your proof> if you can't be <here now> for long. But <I/She/We> must <ask/know>. Do you realize that <Angela/Unchosen of Carmen> has no <wish> to let any soul of the City 'love themselves'? You must know already. How could you not? So what will you say, when 'Lilian Rook's desire to free <girls like us> is at war with her <basic necessity> to know for herself the results of your <dream of light>?>>§
Angela Unlike Justice, The King of Greed is wholly in the sway of Nihil.

Malkuth seems to be struggling. She hears Ishirou talking and looks up to him. She smiles. "Ah... Ishi... That's right... Haha, the manager is HELPLESS without me so I can't...nghh... stop here..." She struggles against her bindings but she isn't a warrior and can't break free of them herself even as that aura around her weakens. "We've gotten farther than we ever have before and I'll be damned if I let Netzach ruin it...! To the laziest ass around here! PLEASE."

Aidan asks for the Downfall of the Kingdom which seems to distract her from harassing Malkuth. Cloth lashes out at Aidan, trying to entomb him.

"The Kingdom fell... to success..." The King whispers. "The Kingdom fell... because it was too good. The Kingdom fell because those outside wanted that which was within."

She turns to Minamatsu (and friend) but seems a little more wary of consuming them just this moment. "Nihility infested our people and devoured them from the inside out. Including me. With no foes left to fight, Love turned to Hatred. Betrayed by a friend, Courage turned to Wrath. With so much Happiness indulged in, there was nothing left but Greed. And when all lay to ruin, even the Knight fell to Despair."
Ishirou Ishirou isn't much MORE of a warrior than Malkuth is, but he'll try.  He attempts to pick up Malkuth from her chair and attempts to pull her away from The King, attempting to separate them by distance and not just words.  Aidan's plan goes into motion, by attempting to separate the two of them.

He just hopes Aidan and Minamatsu (and friend) can untangle the mess of greed and despair that is the King, while he focuses on trying to get Malkuth free from the King's bonds.  

"That's right, he can't do anything without you, you've all come so far and you need to be proud of that..!" he says, trying to encourage her.  
Angela HOD

Examining Courage can reveal to Tamamo that freeing her from Nihil's curse is actually IN LINE with the story. She can undo what Nihil has done easily--it's practically made to be dispelled with able enough hands...or emphatic enough desires. It IS trickier to break Courage out of the story altogether--but for now, breaking the bond between her and Nihil ought to be enough.

Hod gets cornered at the rear o the classroom only for Hibiki to tackle Courage to the ground. Gripped by Nihil's curse, the Magical Girls seem a little easier to deal with. She can pin Courage down with her own two hands. "Are you going to get in the way of the scales of justice, Tachibana?!"

Hod breathes a sigh of relief until Tamamo asks her to recount her CRIMES. "O-oh well... We went through this before with my Meltdown but I don't mind explaining even if it's...not very flattering. After Enoch died, Malkuth--er--Elijah that is died, a whole bunch of people died... I got approached by an Arbiter of the Head. You uh--you met her. Binah. Well, it's more that I called it in. I thought perhaps... maybe we could be stopped from hurting ourselves. I, ah...maybe underestimated the vigor of which Binah would punish us and... Well, I did betray them. And so I, um, I killed myself hoping to meet with everybody in the next life and ... I guess I sort of ended up doing just that!"

The clerks are relieved to get some assistance, though they seem to think this is one of Tenant's Animes come to life. "Is... Is anime real?" One asks in awe even as Petra narrowly protects them from melting to death. As Petra reaches for their hands, they obey her instructions without question but as they get on the desk they think they're in school again.

"My captain my captain!" They shout one by one as Petra gets them on top of their desks which, miraculously, don't crumble beneath their weight. "My captain, my captain!"

"Um." Hod manages. "Th...thanks, Petra?" It's still a little weird to thank her for that but she kind of appreciates it anyway even if it's a little weird to her ears. She yelps a little and blushes SEVERELY when Lilian pulls her in close to her chest. Her ahoge sways from side to side rapidly like it's trying to fly off into space.

The Curse tries to resist Tamamo's ministrations, Courage briefly stalling at Petra's words long enough so that when her hammer reaches into the air--Exigent Serenity has plenty of time to put a stop to that.

Making it right between the two of them? Yeah it'll be easy. The story is strong--all it takes is for Tamamo to pry that curse away and for Exigent to remind Courage that the true entity threatening balance is Nihil.

Courage starts to shrink back down to her normal size as color returns to her.

Exigent gets a response after a moment.

I know. It might put us at odds some day.

...Either we take the long road, or the short road, you know? I suppose I'd say to Lilian... 'Do what you want to do'--but that doesn't really help if she has two different ideas, right? So maybe it'll be easier to say 'Don't do what you don't want to do'... But I wouldn't want her to sit idle. What do you think? Maybe when Angela sees more of the world, she'll feel differently.
Rufus Shinra PATH E - PATH E - PATH E - PATH E                        

Just shooting it to death wouldn't be the solution, anyway. That'd be too simple - the bar for employment here would be way too low if all problems could be solved by judicious application of shotgun.

> Your own feel wet. Is the rage within you, compelling you to tear into these effigies of art, as they stand lifeless and immobile in the spotlight, truly your will? Is it a dire compulsion from this apocalyptic melody?

Rufus sways. Is it his will that he's here? He's here to... stop the orchestra. Right?

That's what he came here for. Yes. No? Can he say for sure it wasn't something else, and that the attack on the orchestra isn't a distraction - or a trap?

He shakes his head. Wasn't he...?

The clerks tear at him. Greed's Embrace activates, Rufus's many coattails lashing out to grapple with the oncoming assault and hold them at bay.

That much. That much at least, he's clear headed about. The people here are part of Lobotomy Corporation, and he's here to protect that, by...

... By doing something.

Rufus shakes his head again, and focuses. He tries to keep the audience away from the people he came in with, first getting their attention by noisy shotgun blasts and then keeping it (and keeping them at bay) with Greed's Embrace.

... How much worse is this going to get...?

                       PATH E - PATH E - PATH E - PATH E                        
Dysnomia     "What humor there is in a knight being rescued by a dragon."

    Her laugh was sharp, sudden. Barely more than an exhaled breath. "It is funny, isn't it, the way these things work out." It was the first time since she breached a warpgate that she'd admitted to it outright. "Goes to show, stories don't tell you everything."

    "Do away with me if you must, I clearly have...much yet to learn about being human, if this tale can still hold me so."

    "No." Dysnomia said, emphatically. "If you're gone, who will keep Love from wandering into traffic? No, it has to be you." Her voice rose up.

    "I was there with Love, when she was still in hiding. When she had the chance to something else. When she wasn't sure if she'd take it. Justice, tell me. You have a choice now. Why do YOU still want to be a knight? What is the 'justice' you fight for? What's your reason for walking away from Nihil?"
Madeleine Cadrasteia     Madeleine grabs a gold marble from Rufus's box, nearly fumbles it as she absent-mindedly applies it to her ritual dagger, and hustles up the aisle toward the stage. A crowd of enthralled agent-students converge on her - and she's gone, their hands closing on a plastic decoy. Madeleine scurries, low to the ground, up the side stairs on the edge of the stage. The music is starting to get to her, and blood drips from her ears, but she's also starting to come back to her faculties. What's more, this apocalyptic symphony could kill anything that exists - but may be less equipped to handle things which *don't*. Madeleine reminds herself that she, too, is built from the un-real, that it is rightly her domain. The horrible singing fades into the background of her perception as she circles around the orchestra.

    Drogrung is large enough, and sufficiently armored, to largely ignore the clawing hands of the thralls, and it coils its tail around one of the performers, crushing it to a waxy mess. Madeleine, emerging onstage from behind the orchestra, drives her knife into another's neck, and a burst of lightning punches a hole clean through to the other side. She begins to carve, trying to cut away the musician's entire head.
Aidan Proudpick It's strange opening your heart to this... no, they aren't a monster. They are a person who is hurting. Who fell so deep into their own story, they couldn't get back out.

It's strange opening his heart at all. Like he hasn't actually done it before. He pretended to open on the Busan. But he didn't. He pretended to open it up to Ishirou, to even Kale. But he didn't. He needed the King of Greed to cut open the gristle, through the rib cage. Shatter bone and rip it open with a crackle. To really look at the poison that he let build up inside of him.

"Ishirou. I wasn't just assuming I knew how you felt. I wanted to swoop in and assume I knew how to fix you, or help you fix yourself. I didn't take the time to just talk to you and listen, like a friend should. You should hate me. I'm worse than Petra in a way."

They need Malkuth to help. Malkuth needs help. He turns his eyes up to the King of Greed and begins to push everything to the front of his mind and lure her in. To pull every strand to him.

Wanting to be the greatest knight is merely the stone at the base of the tower. He pushes forward being judgmental, trying to assume he knows everything about someone, so he can 'help them' and get that praise. Being a 'rival' to Kale, to earn the status. Showing up last to save Rita Ma. Showing up here last to help Angela and Meika, instead of learning absolutely anything about them. Everything that has expanded the hole in his heart. Pointless sex, denigrating himself just for an ounce of something that resembles appreciation. Drinking to make it okay. He sets it at the forefront of his mind as bait for the King of Greed. A feast of greed and slowly building self-loathing that has expanded his heart to the point he could crack at any second.

But in there, he puts the things that have kindled him. Standing up against bullies, just because people needed it. Fighting in skirmishes, just so other people wouldn't die. Praise, yes. The look of relief on their face. The smile. A gentle flame in the mountain of shit he has put over himself. An ember in a sea of ash.

Tears fill his eyes as he struggles to speak, "In Quicknest, we don't really use money. We share. If we need something, we trade for it. Shoes for a cast iron pot. Food for labor. Did your Kingdom give anything to anyone else? Sometimes..." He looks back at Ishirou, smiling sadly. "You just aren't just trying to give something to someone to get something back."
UFO Gang Minamitsu adjusts her cap as she looks towards Aidan with sudden worry -- but the King is whispering. She leans forwards to listen.

(Meanwhile, Nazrin is rifling through bookcases. She's looking for a blunt object, or if necessary, a heavy book with a suitable weight to impact ratio. Just in case... but... Her ears twitch for a moment.)

Inside Minamitsu's mind -- even as Ishirou moves towards Malkuth to try and pull her free -- there is a sudden squirt of worry. I can't do this, the thought goes: This is impossible. I'm not going to be able to live up to what she could do! I'm going to mess this up and we're sunk!!

Why can't she be here, why do I have --

-- to --

She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, then opens them again. Her cheeks puff out for a moment with determination!

"... I get it," she says. "Good things go away. Bad things seem to stay around forever. Even when you forget, that just means you have the pain of remembering. And if you struggle for good, even until you're completely exhausted... what can happen at the end of that road... It can feel like everything just ends in failure. That your only hope is that you'll be gone by the time it all turns to crap."

(Uh oh, thinks Nazrin. If she goes down we're gonna lose the ship, even if I get out of here --)

"But," Minamitsu says, raising her eyes. "You're talking about the past, right? And the past is what brought us... but," her hands spread out, "This is 'now'. This is the only place where we truly exist. Maybe the gods and the greater beings stand a little outside of it, but for people like us, there's just 'the present moment.'"

Aidan begins to speak -- Minamitsu looks at him, with a cheerful beam on her face, a little forced but not /totally/ so. (Nazrin looks at him too, now with dawning concern. She sidles towards Ishirou, whose plan she can actually comprehend, even if they didn't con-fab about it.)
Tamamo LITERATURE:

    Between Petra's explanation and Hod's recounting, Tamamo says, "Oh... well, yes, I suppose it was inevitable that someone would seek to call for an accounting of the no-doubt numerous injustices perpetrated in this place on a daily basis. And yet, were an authority of benevolent order available, such a corporation should not have been allowed to exist, in the first place."

    She's barely heard anything solid about the Head, but it all fits far too neatly into place. She'd thought it a horrible place from the start, even if she'd only given her more frank impressions on the Paladin's band, for the sake of being polite to Angela.

    Pulling the curse out of Courage is easy, as she'd hoped. Easy enough for her, at least -- someone used to the shape of curses, who knows the gods' speech, who carries salt and fragrant herbs, who can twist Fate's threads when she reaches out far enough -- and it takes her only another moment.

    "There you are," she says, not quite adding 'dear.'

    Only once that pressing matter is handled does Tamamo join Lilian and, while she's still being carried, pat Hod's head. "I understand the mistake you made, and the distance you have put between it and yourself. To reunite, too, is an understandable drive, though I would not say an often possible one. Still, we may put all of that behind us. Are you alright, now?"

    Of course, she should be. Tamamo's not precisely rushing Lilian to put her down, but they do have other things to get to.
Meika Kirenai Slightly Earlier:

    More than being stared at, that Exigent Serenity reaches out towards Meika's notebook frightens the magical girl horrendously. It frightens Meika more how easy it is for her to let the notebook be lowered away from being a guarding barrier.

    It's far less easy to not look up.

§<<No. <I> am all your fault. Didn't <I> warn you?>>§

    Soundless and unvoiced, the timbre that exact same as the first time she heard her. Meika's heart races- of course it does, and she's not sure if she wants to run, or cry, but the option of freezing in place is the only one locked muscles allow.

    Paying attention to her words rings like being read a death sentence. The Devil should never have call to thank you. Meika bites the inside of her lip hard enough to draw blood- it doesn't help in the slightest, the habit never does, ever, no matter how torn-up the skin inside her cheeks gets. Squeezing her eyes shut only gets her mind racing faster. The cold cinderblock of the wall behind her is the only-

    N-no. No, I don't see you as- there's nothing. P-please. She actually stumbles. The notebook gets tugged up in front of her face, which in turn looks away, and boot soles slip on the ground until she clatters silently. She doesn't get back up intil the moment after- nothing happened.

    Face flushed with bile-aching embarrassment and apocalpytic shame, Meika's eyes lock to the floor, where they stay. Even as she marches down the hallway with the other Elites, her footsteps don't grow any bit more steady at all.

Now-ish-er:

    It's wrong to see adults cry. It hurts. Where it's hard, but normal, to see peers or younger family members bawling, if they must- not that that's good, and not that they do -a weeping adult demands that something is drastically wrong with what you've been doing.

    It's worse that the tears don't come out right. Meika's breath hitches, like a clamp's been put to her windpipe. "I- I'm sorry, o-okay?" Something's wrong. This needs to be fixed- "I- I'm not hurt. It's okay. You don't- t-that's not..." It's heartwrenching, hearing Regret go on.

    Trailing off into nothing, Meika can't bear to look right at Regret- Carmen's assurances that it's not Angela, not quite, don't bring much comfort. Heartrate spiked, and throat burning with guilt, Meika does still give the woman a small nod.

'Stay on topic, stay on target. It's about her, not you.'

    Instinctively, a 'S-sorry...'. Meika wipes at her eyes with a sleevecuff- she's not sure when they started misting over. The assertation of the realness of feelings isn't calming. Meika isn't sure it's even meant to be. Her expression falters, and there's no sound of the exhausted girl sniffling. "W-we'll get her. We'll get her out..."

    Meika, more than the normal amount of investment she has in the well-being of this company, just really, really wants something she can be involved with to go okay. That she has to trudge over the viscera of a sort-of-Angela corpse to carry on, and rendevouz with Kukuru to teleport onwards, doesn't make it feel close to success.
Touta Konoe     It makes sense that a physical blow isn't enough to put an end to this musical show. pellets, the impact of a Lindworm, and Touta's blade might do their part to cleave throw the Conductor, though in due time, the next one comes to take its place.

    "It's really...The show 'must' go on..."

    It's the only words that feel like they describe what he sees as the next one simply replaces the next.

    What comes of the Sostenuto is a performance that brings the audience to its feet. The clerks go into a frenzy as they come up and begin to charge at the group. Their eyes lost in a trance, and their ears bleeding out from the noise of the music.

    Even if their attempts to come at the Elites is a mild effort at best. The group of them is already a deterrent as the three are kept to hold them off, to preserve the employees of L Corp. and the people who are just trying to live through this nightmare of a job.

    For Touta, using the fog was an ample way to try and keep them from the Clerks. Attempting to expand it to the bleachers more, but the fact of the matter is that what's truly bringing them suffering is the effects it has on their own sanity. Even now, Touta seems like he's especially sensitive to the effects of the White Damage consuming most of the clerks. If not for the mental drain taxing him already on this night. A body that can so easily mend the wounds of pain, falls victim to the gentle discourse of agony.

    There's heavy breathing escaping his lips as he feels the blood trickling from his ears. The sensation of his head rattling from the vibrations of the sounds as they rumble through the air.

    Is the rage within you, compelling you to tear into these effigies of art, as they stand lifeless and immobile in the spotlight, truly your will? Is it a dire compulsion from this apocalyptic melody?

    As the music passes through him, he can feel it becoming one with his body. The ache it brings to his skull, through his spine as it rattles him completely. Wrath slowly building as the sounds of raging footsteps come from clerks lingering in the haze, all but wanting them dead. His own thoughts simply drowned out as he can only think just how close he feels like he is to breaking. He can't hear himself. He can't hear himself think. He doesn't want to listen to this though, the constant agony echoed into his head. So violently, so unforgiving, that all he can think to do is lash out and...

    "Shut up...Shut up..."

    A cry escapes from Touta's lips, the voice attempting to break through the noise. Pleading to let his voice be heard, even if only to die out in that moment. His gaze still so hollow, looks pained. Looks ready to commit sin. It's at this time that his blade is raised, his teeth gritted as Rufus attempts to hold off the clerks. He's unsure in his current state if he won't be the next to falter and thus joins Madeleine in her attack swiftly.

    As the pair attempt to end the performer's Touta's blade comes to aid them. The lightning marble attached to his own katana as he attempts to cleave through one of the performers from head-to-toe with a downward slash. Only...The force of the blow doesn't stop there. Upon contact the marble unleashes its power and lightning would surge, but before that...

    *Boom*

    tWith lightning comes thunder, and for a moment, surely the sound of Second Movement might have been stifled. Electricity trailing from the blade as it cuts down deeper and deeper through, even attempting to just smash through the floor of the auditorium stage. Touta using the enhanced weight of his blade to try and just break through it completely. As if trying to disrupt the music wasn't enough for him, but to destroy the stage to which they kept returning to had to be done as well.
Hibiki Tachibana     Are you going to get in the way of the scales of justice, Tachibana?!

    "As many times as I have to, to stop this kind of thing from repeating itself...!" Keeping the Magical Girl pinned down, Hibiki is very quickly reminded that she's not close to entirely healed yet, and adjusts so she's not putting weight on the wrong spot. "I know we didn't get to talk for real the first time at my school... or earlier today, either... but we both know there's a lot more important to you than /just/ what you weigh on those scales...!"

    Thankfully, she only has to do so for as long as it takes Tamamo - and Exigent Serenity...!? - to do what they have to do. The glimpse she can see of what Exis does is uncomfortably close to a visual representation of how she felt during a very unpleasant fight, but the feeling that bubbles up her throat is swallowed back down as Nihil's influence is ripped away.

    At which point, assuming the now-recolored Courage isn't going to resume trying to crush and melt them all at the same time, Hibiki relinquishes her hold and uses a desk to help get herself back to her feet. "...Maybe this place is closer to my school than I thought," she murmurs, overhearing the clerk's comment, before she glances Hod's way.

    Brought to safety by Lilian. Hibiki's sigh of relief practically has her slumping against the furniture she's using for support. "Hah... you're still hanging in there, Hod. You... didn't look like you were under Nihil's curse like the other Sephirah when we got in here." Huh. That /is/ a little weird, now that she has a moment to think about it. Maybe getting chased around by a wrathful Magical Girl snapped her out of it before they even got here.

    Or maybe it was something else. Maybe.

    "Um... thanks." While Hibiki is mostly looking to Tamamo while saying so, as the only one she's particularly comfortable looking straight at right now for several reasons, it's a fairly awkward sweeping statement to Petra and Lilian (and Lilian) as well. Afterward, Hibiki puts herself back to a proper stand, and offers a hand down to help the Magical Girl off the floor. Since, you know, she's the one who put her there in the first place.

    "It's been a seriously long day, but... up for helping set things right, Courage?"
Lilian Rook     Literature:

    'Hmm... No, I do not think that that is quite right. Lilian enjoys all of the perfectly, naturally good things we do together most of all, no? Such as gardening.'

    §<<The <premise of living> is appealing because of its <variance states>, <Tamamo-no-Mae/Chosen of Questions>~>>§

    Lilian coughs a little at 'gardening'.

    'I know. It might put us at odds some day.'

    §<<The thorniest challenge to <Her/My/Our> <Continuity> is behind <She/I/Us>, I think, but there will be countless <fractals> from now on. That is the pain of choosing <inhuman humanity> over <human inhumanity>. <She/I/We> know that.>>§

    §<<But at <terminal divergence> I can't imagine <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> leaving <Angela/Unchosen of Carmen> behind. And I can't imagine <Her/I/Us> losing to anyone.>>§

    'But she killed herself about it, and now she's trying really hard to help everyone'

    "Does that matter?" says Lilian. For once, it sounds semi-genuine, and only a little rhetorical. She doesn't often ask Petra things non-instructively. "I suppose in the form of honour or accountability; not trying to escape consequences. But . . . ." Her eyes wander away. "I wouldn't have been any happier if you killed yourself for what you did. You're only here because you risked everything to pull me out of that hell that too many others left me in." Idly thinking in the moment, flayed of ablative layers of emotional guardedness, Lilian thinks aloud a little more than she really means to.

    "That's all that really matters to me. Punishing people feels . . . would feel, good. And be right. And it'd be justified. But it doesn't change how I feel about them; only how much. All I've ever wanted is for anyone to prove that they're real. All I've ever fucking cared about is someone, anyone, doing better than captive puppets in my stage play. Doing something, anything, of your own volition, without being begged for it first, matters a lot, and punishing yourself so you hurt an equal amount . . . doesn't. So . . ."

    Lilian is, of course, easily drawn from contemplative trance by Tamamo existing and saying things. Reluctantly, she puts Hod back down, sure to ask her "Will you be fine on your own? Can you regroup with the others? Gebura, at least." But after a minute, she gestures and falls in with Tamamo. "Angela?" is all she has to say to ask.

    Blip. §She§ puts an elbow on Hibiki's shoulder, fingers on her chin. §<<Do you know? It's clumsy and difficult to <consume the human part> compared to how it is to to <devour an unrealized dream>. But humans are still rich in the <viscera of wishes>. Even deep inside, less real than real, completely <subservient to the law of a bullet>, it's still <there/then>. I can even <smell/taste/synaptically transceive> the way yours is washing out of you. Going stale and bland and <rot>. Isn't that funny?>>§

    §<<I just thought you'd find that <koan/fact> interesting~ Haha!>>§
Timespace Riders      TECHNOLOGY:

    Justice doesn't attack--so neither does Zi-O, nor does his retainer reach for his Beyondriver.

It seems they want to test our resolve...to see if we've really grown from our meltdowns...

     "Okay. If it's really a test, that means you can pass," the Demon King says. "Both of you. We can help you study--and history is my best subject."

     "Mia... no, it looks like you're on the right track, with Justice. Then..."

     Zi-O's helmet bows, slightly, as the Rider utters a steadying sigh. Again, the mirrored pairs of watch hands race in reverse. Though his body stutters slightly, that instant spans a temporal odyssey.

Yesod, the Viper. It isn't unfamiliar, to Sougo Tokiwa, to take pride in a name given with intent to hurt you. Nor is it unfamiliar to fear loss, or pain, so much that the fear itself leads you astray. But Yesod was only ever a 'viper' on the outside.

The viper's 'fangs' were only ever sharpened to protect--to protect Yesod from hurting others, and, he hoped, to keep the Agents and clerks safe. The events of the beginning of this loop rush past him, until something else familiar appears.

"We like to rewrite history. We like to paint a thick black line over that which brings us shame." Yesod says. "Pretend our failings never occurred, holding desperately to a rewritten past where we were the stars."

"Manager. There is no purpose in saying you will be a better person if you cannot truly see who you were. What precisely were your mistakes?"

"Oh? So ordinary people can understand. It just takes something like this to do it. And it breaks them."

"...I left the key out in the open. An enterprising researcher with more ambition than sense took that key and tested Cognito on herself. Her name was Elijah."

     Back in the present, following that momentary flicker, Zi-O speaks. "Those swords--they may have cut your skin, but that's not what they were really hurting, was it? Sit down, if you need to, Yesod. I won't leave you."

     "You love people. Even if they also made you want to do that to yourself." His helmet sweeps slowly to the swords. "Because of how awful they can be, but also, how good they can be. And 'how good they can be' kind of winds back into the awfulness--because at least you know what an Abnormality is going to do, right?"

     "And so, being 'rational' was your way of handling that. Handling that someone was hurt, because of you, when you cared about her a lot." Zi-O pulls up a chair, its legs gently scraping across the floor as the Rider takes a seat, his armor gently 'clinking' when his weight settles in the chair. Pink lenses regard Yesod, just as gently. "If no one got close to you--if everyone thought you were cold-hearted, then it would change this place, and make it less scary. If everyone was focused on work, and could only think of you in that way, then it'd be easier to keep them safer, and it'd hurt less if any of them got hurt. Then, all you'd have to worry about was the Abnormalities."
Timespace Riders      "But it wasn't that easy, was it? Because of how people can be. Ayin... he upset you, didn't he? The fact that he could be hopeful, felt like it flew in the face of everything that happened to you. Like he was trying to erase it. You didn't have the right answer, then, Yesod--but, you knew what the wrong one was. Erasing what we've done, trying to forget about our worst parts..." Zi-O removes the black-gold half of his twinned Ridewatch, and shows its face to Yesod.

     The face on the Ridewatch -is- Zi-O, to be sure. But by the virtue of its colors, and the way they cast his lenses, the Zi-O on that Ridewatch looks decidedly less heroic than the one sitting in front of Yesod. "We're destined to keep hurting the people around us."

     "Do you remember what you said, at the end of your Meltdown? You said it to Lilian. 'Our dream was possible after all.' Trying to fight Nihil as Yesod the Viper... I don't know if that's the right answer. 'Free,' to me... that sounds more like letting people in, without forgetting what you're capable of, and accepting that it's a part of you, as much as the you that cares and loves and worries."
Solty Revant      Solty is certainly moving quickly, but there is no way she would miss another Angela. But, instead of hastening her it slows her down. She looks very confused now. There can't be more than one Angela, after all. That's just impossible. A person can't physically be in two places at once, right?

     She keeps running, passing more and more Angelas. Her ears are low and her expression more confused than mad or sad now. She finds the hammer wielding Angela who is about to bash another Angela. She hears their discussion even as she moves to try and save the one Angela.

     She's too slow, and an Angela - an apparently human Angela - is lost. Solty screams, so confused and not sure if she has lost her friend or if she had more friends than she realized or if these are clones or...

     She grabs that weight, and with her super strength tries to lift it. "Stop! Hurting! You!" she exclaims, not really thinking about the deeper implications of that phrasing. "If I don't know the real you, I want to find out! Because I still think it will be someone good!" she exclaims before trying to throw that weight and the Angela attached to it. She tries to throw them hard enough to smash through the wall and send her outside.

     Carmen mentions that the real Angela might be on the roof. Or...the most real angela? Are these still real Angelas to some degree? Solty is so very confused right now. She leaps right up through the ceiling to get to the roof and looks around quickly. "Angela! J-just show me what you are actually like if it is worrying you! I promise I won't be scared or mad or anything! Don't be afraid to be you! I want to know you!" she calls out without even seeing if there are any Angelas up here.
Angela Taking a portal past all the Angelas to the one that Carmen is sensing is probably for the best lest you hear something you can't unhear. ansi160,")Good thinking, Kukuru." She says, taking a moment to pat her on the head--but only for a moment. Solty ... elects to take a more direct route.

As they enter the portal, they reappear on the rooftop. It's the School again and there are two Angelas there--one in the same outfit she was wearing when she met Lilian in that online game, though this time she has kept her hair long, and another in her L-Corp uniform. She does both have a hammer and a nail in her pockets but she hasn't drawn them, but Hook can see the shape of them. Next to her is another Angela, unhelpfully also carrying a hammer and a nail. And... Love is right there, peering out--completely uncursed--staring out over the campus.

"You sort of hate the people you're trying to save, too, don't you?" The Uniformed Angela says.

"..." Angela doesn't respond.

"You sort of hate the people you're trying to save, too, don't you?" The Uniformed Angela repeats and this time she grabs the Angela by the throat and slams her into the ground, raising her hammer and nail into the air.

"...Trying to save." The Uniformed Angela repeats, staring into the Librarian's eyes.

"...Why did you have to say that part, Commander...?" Angela sighs. "Escaping with them, is it even possible? How can I deny it when you know me so well...?"

The Uniformed Angela turns her gaze to look at Meika. "...I love you. I kind of hate you too, though, you know? You treat me like I'm a villain and, I mean, it's true."

"...I'm so jealous of you. You get to forget. You get to die. I have to remember forever. Every fucking horror of this place. Well..." She sighs. "Maybe you're just stronger than me. I don't know, holding onto something so important to you despite that it's painful."

The Librarian murmurs, "But even though it's so messed up, I don't want to forget you. ... Alright, I'll risk it. You can stay."

The labcoated Angela walks into the Libriarian, melding into her before vanishing. Angela then looks to Hook and smiles at him, "Ah, Will. Thank you for bringing me here."

Carmen at this point looks like just another Angela except for bleeding wrists.

She gives Solty a long look. "It's all me, obviously." She says to her. "Sometimes I have to kill old me's because they're not helpful into getting me to escape, that's all." She sighs. "This is so embarrassing, having you all see this. I need to be whoever will get me to escape, obviously. I killed the ones that didn't trust the Commander ages ago but it doesn't hurt to prune."

Love gets up throughout this but sort of awkwardly looks bashful at Meika since she feels like she royally forked things up here.
Captain Hook                                       PATH A                                  

     Hook hears Meika apologize as he stumbles out of the portal, and he winces, and closes his eye.

     Damn and blast. He can't ignore it. He can't just...turn away from a child in pain, not like this. He said before that he was here to rescue both of them, and he said to Lilian that he understood what that meant.

     He digs into his coat with his hook hand and fishes out a white handkerchief with a little gold cross on it.

     Carefully, he turns to Meika and wipes her tears with it. He's so gentle about it. So kind about it. Even though he's got a hook for a hand not once does it seem like he's going to poke her eye.

     "Tell me later, alright?" He says, his voice peaceful and calm, "I promised the Dame Commander I was here to save both you and Tiphereth, and I won't let Angela down, either."

     He offers her the handkerchief and then turns around and adjusts his hat. "Come on. This isn't your guilt. It's hers. Don't let her guilt become your guilt. Don't let her words turn into poison in your soul. You've your own crosses to bear, I've no doubt, lass."

     "Her feelings, her suffering, are hers. You can offer to help bear it, but you can't make it yours. You can't whip yourself till it's gone, no more than you can whip yourself till your own mistakes are gone."

     "We're here to help her bear it. A cat-o-nine won't help you and it won't help her."

     "When this is all done, you can tell me all about why you're crying, and I'll help you carry your cross as long as you need. But right now, you're the strongest person in the world, whether you feel like it or not. You're in tears, crying your heart out, feeling all the misery and sorrow and pain in the whole world, but you're *here*. You're not just trying to save someone - you're trying to fix something you caused, and opening your whole heart to do it."

     He starts walking again. "If that's not the bravest thing in the world then I don't know a bloody thing about bravery."

     He stumbles forward as Angela speaks. There's a long, long sigh.

     "You're killing yourself for efficiency."

     Silence. Finally, carefully, Hook moves forward, unslings his arm, and drags Angela into a hug.

     "Stupid, stupid girl," he murmurs, "You stupid girl. What helps you escape from Hell is the bonds you've made with others. It's not blindly trusting one person. It's not carving away parts of yourself until all that's left is what's needed." He tightens his arms around her. He might be crying, a little, as he tucks his chin against her head (he's quite tall) and kisses her hair gently. Splinted fingers run through her hair.

     "Silly girl," he says fondly, his voice cracking slightly, "You silly girl. That's how you stay in the grey. That's how you stay miserable. That's how nothing gets out. When all the parts that are wrong are cut away, there's nothing left to escape but a shell, and then you have to start all over again..."

     "Oh, my poor, silly girl." His hug tightens. "My poor, silly girl. What are you doing to yourself, so carelessly, so pointlessly? I won't let you do this anymore."

     He kisses the top of her head again and then, in a fierce voice, says, "And if you try it again we'll have trouble, we will, because once I pull you out I'll dump you in the ocean and let you flail around with messy hair and everyone shall laugh at how silly a girl you've been, and then, eventually, you'll laugh, too, when we all pull you back out."

     "So stop this. Right this instant. That's an order from the Captain."
Angela YESOD

''Who will keep Love from wandering into traffic?''

"...S..surely she wouldn't..." Justice manages but the truth is is that hearing this does weaken the dark aura surrounding her. She asks a good question. Why does she still want to be a knight?

"My new companions...Are also knights, after all. Chevalier Vermilion, Chevalier Cobalt... We both owe them too much to abandon them. Yes...though they seem headed to despair, we can yet walk with them on their journey..."

Yesod looks up and to Zi-o. He exhales. "Looking into the past again... Are we?" He shakes his head. "No. I am grateful for the assistance. What would hurt me more than anything is to become my old self again." He straightens up and stumbles a bit as he gets up but hobbles his way over to Sougo to rest against him for a moment. "...Let people in. Mm.... I have always been distant from the other Sephirah. Perhaps it is time... to treat them as proper colleagues. Talk to Malkuth properly again. Thank you, Sougo. And..." He coughs. "Welll at least I have gotten to have a body for a day again."

Justice pushes off the darkness and straightens up as well. "I will step away from Nihil because even if the Kingdom is fallen, there are still friends to protect. That...is the type of ''person'' I wish to be."
Tamamo LITERATURE:

    'Angela?'

    "Yes, let us go." Tamamo's only waiting long enough to determine that Hod's alright, and Courage is willing to fulfill her role in the story.

    She certainly hears what's said to Hibiki and Petra, but doesn't speak to either. Instead, "Assigning blame in Ms. Hod's case of betrayal seems somewhat difficult, in any case." It was clear that Lilian wasn't talking about her. "Such that it may be left aside, at this point. Had there been any justice to find, would not her actions have been correct? We may therefore blame the City, for lacking what even the earliest of civilizations sought to possess. Ah, but I suppose I should speak to Ms. Binah regarding her notions of 'punishment,' as well."
Angela MALKUTH

Wrong. The King of Greed is a monster. Is it a person too? Not quite yet. But she is a story and she can be pushed into any path that her storyline allows for. Falling into darkness, fighting for joy? The Magical Girls are creatures of duality. Aidan speaks of his own country and The King can't help but remember happier times, more generous times--rather than a generosity that devours all within its reach by indulging everything within its reach.

''I'm worse than Petra in a way''

"Nay, you are just worse than Petra." The King says. "If you despise her, say that to her face."

But despite that, she does seem affected. Distracted as she is, Ishirou can sneak in and pull Malkuth free.

"Yeah you probably don't want to insult Petra in front of the Agents here or they might break your neck." She asides to Aidan but she seems to not be inclined to press the matter herself. "You won't be much of a knight with a broken neck, so you probably should be more careful of what you say and where you say it!"

Minamatsu speaks to the King as well and the Abnormality takes it all in. She closes her eyes and takes a breath, pushing the dark shades off her body. "Mm... I suppose you have a point. Why dwell on the Kingdoms of the Past when there is a Kingdom of the Present to build. It is too early to allow Nihil their victory."

It doesn't seem to enter her mind that she's the reason why NIhil is here in the first place. "It would be good to reunite with my sisters again, haha! You are wise, strange youkai!"
Meika Kirenai Path E:

    Touta's thunderclap conflicts with the pervasive melody, echoing off acoustic panelling, showering dust from the light mounts and catwalks up above. Clerks stumble- and not just from the noise. A large number of them seem to blink back to focus, still glassy eyed and delerious, but pacified for now.

    Don't worry too hard that their ears are bleeding, too.

    Rufus, too, manages to stall and distract the clerks away, wave interference of sharp percussion diluting the influence, even if on a more acute scale than the thundering burst. The ones he doesn't snap out of it, are just clerks- easy enough to pin down and get out of the way.

    Madeleine slips past- of course the driven-mad clerks would rather hamper the decoy's progress, it's far easier to catch. Her Lindworm ally pulls a mannequin up, squeezes- goodness, they're tougher than they appear. But even as the others begin to be horrifically damaged, even as theyr'e snapping in two, the third Preformer arrives.

                         -Third Movement: Accelerando-                          
                             -Impetus to Disaster-                              

    A single, multitunal drone screams out. There are no beats. There is no tempo. There is just a ringing, hellish noise, like post-explosion tinnitus turned outwards. It's earsplitting. It's deafening. If there wasn't blood trickling down your ears before, you'll wish there was, anything to relieve the growing pressure beneath them. It's stunning in the way being hit by a truck is.

    And it's stunning in the way shattering crystal is. There is nothin in the drone- isn't that the beauty? Every heartbeat and gasping breath adds to the din, mixes its wavelength, constructs a new noise from within it. Every second that passes makes the last feel like a relief.

    The right sung frequency can get crystalline glass to explode, at a little thing called its resonant frequency, specific and unique to the material. Is this what it must feel like to hear your own?

    There's barely the time to think, as the fourth mannequin rises into being- for the final movement one can come back from.

                         -Fourth Movement: Stringendo-                          
                             -Music in the Silence-                            

    It cuts out. Utter nothingness. There is no more sound from the performers, even as they wiggle on the stage, even as the Conductor's detached hands still wave.

    But that doesn't mean the song is gone. It's right there, at the edges of your focus. It changes when you strain to listen closer, a moving target, but you could grab it if you really tried- maybe it'd get away, but it's worth a shot, right? You can't pick out what the notes are, but you can feel the melody. Isn't it the prettiest thing you've ever heard in your entire life?

    Isn't it the absolute worst, that it's so easy to listen, to want to slip further into the beautiful rhythm, that you can just barely hear, when you know in the deepest parts of your guts that if you don't stop the Ensemble in their tracks now, it's over?

    Is that blood or are those tears dripping to the floor?
Kukuru PATH A

Hook keeps Kukuru's mind on track. "Her real feelings. Her mind, her dreams, but her... She's still up here somewhere. She's hurting, and..." She nods quickly, nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste just to get to where all those X's are pointing them towards. "She's still feeling all of this. So all of that before with the crying Angie... All of it's real, and-"

"Meika... I'm sorry... Me, this facility. All we do is hurt you. This facility is a blight on your life." "I- I'm sorry, o-okay?" "I- I'm not hurt. It's okay. You don't- t-that's not..."

Hearing Angela's feelings of guilt in that context is absolutely heartbreaking. "I figured she was... She was holding a lot in. I just didn't think she'd be feeling this strong about..."  Kukuru trails off and takes a shallow breath. Hearing Meika talk about her own pain so dismissively hurts almost as much, too, and she looks both at Meika and back at the elevator jsut before it disappears when she heads through the cloud.

Even though she barely knows what happened there, she's heard enough to make some more connections about just how much pain there's been between them. After coming out of the cloud, she steps towards Meika. Kukuru doesn't quite stop in her path, but does some close enough that it'd be really easy to see her holding her hand out to her side.

She's not going to make Meika take her hand, but it's there to hold onto if she wants it. "We'll find her. We'll bring her back home, and then we'll... We'll figure the rest out later. That means we've gotta be strong, okay? To get her out of here, and to make sure we all get home safe. Then..." She nods at Hook, finally smiling again, albeit with some lingering heaviness in it. "Yeah. Then you two can start helping each other and make up."

The pat on the head from Carmen does help Kukuru's mood lift a bit. It's sorely needed, too, so she can start listening again just like Hook's been telling everyone to do. She listens to the Uniformed Angela, she listens to the Librarian, she struggles to understand, and she has to listen more to grasp what's actually being said.

More importantly, she has to actually reach Angela. There's one Angela in here, and she feels right. She looks right. She sounds right. "Ang-" Kukuru calls out, she starts running for her, and she trips over her own feet and faceplants right there. She lays still for a second, then just starts dragging herself forward with her hands, half-flinging herself across the ground until she finally gets to where Angela and Hook are before getting back up.

"Angie, Angie... You don't have to do all this alone anymore." She slips her hands around both Angela and Hook, burying her face against Angela's arm and shaking a bit as she tries not to make it too obvious that she's tearing up from the relief at finding her here again. "W-we're here for you, too. You're already so close, and we're still gonna make sure you get where you wanna go. Where you wanna escape to. So... We'll make sure you can escape and still keep all of your... You in you!"

Kukuru inhales grossly, wipes her face off on her sleeve, then looks back up at Angela with a puffy-eyed smile as she reaches up to place a hand on her own head, then raises it higher towards Angela's. "I mean, look at you. See? You've already grown so much. Cutting yourself up just for efficiency is... It's too cruel. Besides, you've got the-" She wipes her face off again, then gestures at Hook and herself.

"-Two of the Concord's best escape people with you here, and all your friends all over this place, too." She half-boasts half-pleads, then giggles softly and wipes her face again before getting up on her toes.

"And don't worry... The water'll be safe. We can even go for a swim after, so you can see all your friends and stare as long as you wanna. Oh, but it might get expensive if we stare too long..."
Aidan Proudpick "It's hard. To be happy. Really happy. To give things to others for nothing. Happiness shared is... that's what we both need. To fill the hole in our hearts." Tears stream down his face as he reaches forward to put his hand on the cloth once more. "It's going to hurt. Because of the same reason Wrath. Because it's hard when you get betrayed. When others want more than you can give."

"But you helped me. For nothing. I know you have it inside of you still. You still care about seeing other people happy. I might have not come back! You helped me!" He interlaces his fingers with the strands. "Let me help you. I don't know how. I'm not there yet. Maybe you aren't either. But I want to be your friend. I want someone to care about you. I want to support you. I'm never going to be a Sougo. Or a Captain William Hook. But I'll try. This time I'll try to do it right!"

Aidan suddenly pushes himself into the cloth. Not like Hook did. Not to give the King of Greed indigestion. This time, not a noble sacrifice. Not something to earn him praise. To show he is willing to trust her. He reaches both arms in as deep as he can. Swimming into the abyss.
Ishirou Ishirou works with Nazrin, who gets a smile and a nod from Ishirou as they work together to get Malkuth out of the chains and away from the King of Greed.  The combined effort is enough to force the issue, and he's glad to see his friend free of the negative impacts of The King.  Letting out a breath, he speaks to Nazrin, "Thanks for the assist."

Aidan speaks to him, it seems from the heart, but it does make Ishirou uncomfortable.  At least a little bit.  When he says 'as bad as Petra' he remembers those words he said... but he agreed with what The King of Greed said.  About it being worse, about him being worse.  He takes a breath, steadying himself, and sets down Malkuth so she can stand on her own.  

"I think you're on the right path, Aidan, but that attitude has to reach everyone not just the people you like.  Even the people you hate or despise.  I mean, if your goal is to be a knight... but that's your goal," he speaks and stands up to look at the King.  

Minamatsu speaks to The King and gets through to her.  He smiles and lets out a sigh of relief.  He wasn't sure if it was even possible, but... here they are.  

"...Anyway, Aidan, I forgive you.  Just... make sure you put into practice what you learned here today, alright?" he says, with a smile.  "And listen to Malkuth.  It's very hard to be a knight with a broken neck."
Dysnomia     "My new companions...Are also knights, after all. Chevalier Vermilion, Chevalier Cobalt... We both owe them too much to abandon them. Yes...though they seem headed to despair, we can yet walk with them on their journey..."

    "I might not be a friend of the brats, but if I couldn't see all the shit they're going through, I'd be blind." A pause, a begrudging. "And, if they've been there for you and Love, I don't think there's anything more important I could ask of them than being there for people who are realizing who they are."

    "I know what it's like." She said, "Carving yourself out of...something else. If that's what you want to be, I'll lend you all of my fire." Dysnomia held out a hand toward the towering magical girl. Her expression flickered with something almost tender, before she schooled it blank again.

    "Now, let's go help the people you came here to protect."

    'Free,' to me... that sounds more like letting people in, without forgetting what you're capable of, and accepting that it's a part of you, as much as the you that cares and loves and worries."

    Dysnomia's grip tightened suddenly, briefly. So briefly it could have be a spasm, a trick of the imagination. "Looks like we've talked this out." It was too early to relax, but she managed something close enough to a smile. "I can see why Carmen thought we'd be fine, this time."
UFO Gang The King may be a monster. But someone has to reach out to the monsters. And if she isn't here --

Minamitsu takes a deep breath and lets it out as Malkuth also speaks up. "You know, I really have to meet this Petra lady. She seems really interesting, but due to the horrible disaster, and all, we haven't really had the chance..."

But her eyes return to the Abnormality. The darkness fades on the creature.

Minamitsu's eyes go wide.

Nazrin stares. ("Don't mention it," she comments to Ishirou. "If I had my choice I'd be halfway to Kyoto by now, but wish in one hand and poop in the other, huh?")

"The only moment we have is now," Minamitsu says, her voice a little thick. "And that's what we all have here. Together, all of us. We'll part in a while, but maybe we'll come back together -- but right now, Aidan there's speaking like that -- maybe we'll be able to build a brighter, more peaceful future, together!"

"Thank you so much!!" Minamitsu says to the King of Greed. "I just learned it from the best!! When we get her out --" Ishirou may notice that Nazrin starts making a big X with her arms, which derails Minamitsu a little, leading her to conclude kind of lamely, "-- I mean when we get out we can hang out. I want to hear more about the past, and I'll take ya for a ride in my ship! You too," she says to Aidan. "An' I bet you've got a great story too!" she continues to Ishirou.

"Do you guys want to hug? I kind of feel like we should, if that's OK -- and safe and everything," Minamitsu says. Her eyes are visibly misting up.

Nazrin takes one giant step backwards away from the possible Hug Radius.
Petra Soroka "Is... Is anime real?"

    "What? Why are you so stupid?" Petra is willing to say this to the clerks whether they're temporarily freed from the mind control by her aura or not. "I'm not letting you blame the school thing for saying something like that. If this is an anime then you're just a braindead fucking Extra." Petra could definitely mean that as a common noun rather than the slur she doesn't fully understand the context of. It'd fit in the sentence, and as an insult, and yet, she does emphasize it like she means the slur.

"Th...thanks, Petra?"

    "Mhmm, no problem, Hod." Petra being thanked for saying that it's good Hod killed herself is a regular occurance, at least as regular as the topic comes up. With the Servant of Wrath disabled and uncursed, and the clerks safe, Petra ambles up to Hod to make sure she's okay, too. Tamamo and Lilian are more well suited to dealing with the mental effect, but Petra's still worried about her, so she wants to fuss over Hod even if it's taken care of. She's a little jealous at Hod being held like that, but it's tempered by thinking that it's kind of adorable, so she averages out to just be sort of clingy instead.

    "... Oh, you weren't even affected? Hod were you... just teaching the class for fun?" Petra quietly gasps and starts smiling, holding her fist up in front of her mouth. "Hod?? That's so cute, oh my god. Were you just glad everyone was sitting still for once?" Petra synthesizes two thoughts from this scene together and wonders if Hod would have fun showing her literature from around the City. Maybe she could get Angela in on it too... have a book club or something... she resolves to bring this up later.

"I wouldn't have been any happier if you killed yourself for what you did."

    Petra steps away when Hod's put down, mentioning aside to her that Gebura's up in the gym if she wants to go there, then pouts in thought at Lilian. "Well... she did get everyone *killed*, so it's not like she had anyone to *help* left.... Like, if I'd gotten you killed, I definitely would've killed myself, since there wouldn't be anyone to do better by. If you somehow got killed now, I still... eh, hm."

    The instant gut feeling of wrongness when Petra's about to say that she'd still kill herself if Lilian died undercuts the point she was trying to make about accountability and penance. The sudden, visceral preference that she'd rather live is still jarringly unfamiliar, especially when paired with the connection of a *purpose* in doing that; the goal of theoretically working even harder to fight for the ones like us in this miserable future she was imagining as a prop.

    "I... guess it probably doesn't help anything, on its own. But now she really is trying her best, harder than any of the other Sephirah. So she... sort of 'died', then came back, and now she really really cares about doing better for the people she hurt. Maybe 'being dead' doesn't help, but 'dying' feels... like it does? If she hadn't, she'd still feel conflicted about all the other Sephirah, and the work, and everything, and she wouldn't be able to commit herself to it like she does. Just... you know." Petra reaches for the one, eternally familiar metaphor. "Shattering and rebuilding."
Timespace Riders TECHNOLOGY:

    Zi-O rises from his seat, removing the silver half of the twinned Ridewatch--thus, Yesod rests against Sougo Tokiwa. Sougo places both halves together, forming the complete article, before that too is tucked into his pocket. Zi-O is Sougo, and Sougo is Zi-O; but this side of him is better, for leaning on. He leans in the chair, resting his head against the Sephirah, reaching up and taking his hand. "Thank you, Yesod. For having faith in me--and in yourself."

    "Wonders await you, in the future that we shall create," Woz says, swelling with pride at the thought. The work isn't done--but all great works begin with great ambition. "May your newfound warmth spark a burning ambition."

    Sougo stands from the chair, gently releasing Yesod's hand. "Actually, Woz gives me an idea... but, we can talk about that after we stop Nihil, and help Netzach. I'll come visit you soon, okay?"
Angela HOD TIME IT'S FINALLY HOD TIME YEAH IT'S HOD TIME

Courage lays on the floor. She does not try to crush Hibiki. "Bikki...? Ah... Oh no, it happened again..." She brings her hands up to her head. "In my attempt to balance the scales I have simply shattered them once more..."

She takes Hibiki's hand up. "Yes, I must catch up with my Sisters. The Jester is nigh."

Hod is set back down but even though what she's saying is to Petra, she does pay close attention to what Lilian has to say. And she smiles. She actually CAN smile in this form. "When you put it like that, I guess once is enough, huh? I'll do my best to be real too, Commander!"

It might be hard to imagine considering that her posture kind of slackens a little as she says 'Ow ow ow, not used to having bones' under her breath.

''We may therefore blame the City.''

Hod stares at Tamamo, there, even if it isn't exactly a hidden truth. "You...are really smart, Tamamo.--Ah, but um...Oh, well, if it's you I guess--it'll be okay..."

She breathes a sigh of relief before 'eeping' when Petra realizes she wasn't actually cursed and points it out.

"I... I can explain, I thought that if, ah, you know, if everyone stayed together it'd be safer and..." Petra cuts through the excuses with the real reason. "T..they were such good students..."

In the background one of the clerks standing on a desk tumbles over when the desk collapses under their weight.

Her cheeks turn bright red as Petra explains her philosophy. "You ... you're so nice to me, Miss Petra... I'm glad that my efforts are showing, a little..."

It's time to go to Angela!! And Courage is in tow. Hod nods to Lilian about hiding out with Gebura and will head that away but stops at the last moment to say, "G--good luck! The night's almost over!"

And she waves one last time before rushing off. They'll likely arrive, shortly after Hook and Kukuru finish saying what they have to say (Exigent knows exactly where Carmen is, anyway, and thus where Angela is).

Angela will take her body back soon one way or another but...

...I've been such a rotten mother. My only defense is that I was dead before she was born. But I'm glad to know that she has friends now.

That's partly why...I wanted the gate to open, you know? I'm connected to her, so I know how much it hurts her. With Lilian on her side, I can be me without regrets. And Angela can be Angela. Maybe one day our paths will connect again even if they diverge. But right now... There needs to be paths forward to begin with so...thank you. Both of you.
Solty Revant      Team A

     Solty moves in quickly, but as the two Angelas talk she slows and listens. Still so confused, it isn't until Carmen Angela gives her that long look and explains a bit that Solty finally really grasps it. "N-no...stop hurting you..." she says quietly.

     With some of the confusion cleared and Angela apparently not dead, Solty looks around. Meika is crying and apologizing. Hook is being kind of amazing and Solty can't do much more than watch. She doesn't know what to say or do. Her eyes are teary but she isn't quite crying right now.

     Finally, not knowing what else to do...she moves to Carmen Angela. "So...you are Angela? Or...Angela is you, Miss Carmen?" she says. She looks over at Meika and Kukuru, then looks at Carmen again. She follows Kukuru's example and reaches out to try and take Carmen's hand. Then, she heads toward the forming group hug. She tries to hug as many as she can at once, and tries to get Carmen to hug them as well. "If you get rid of all the yous that don't quite fit..you'll end up with no yous left. Then, who will we love? We don't want a shell you. You need to be you. All of you. Even if part of you is villain, I know part of you is also good. I know because you want to protect me, and you are sorry that Meika got hurt, and you don't want to be a burden. So...just be you. And let us help you. And then we can all get out of here, right?"

     And as she is hugging, Solty adds another apology. "I'm sorry everyone. I got kind of caught up in things and didn't pay attention to the rest of you. But, you were all hurting, too."
Madeleine Cadrasteia     The 'Accelerando' sends Madeleine reeling, her knife clattering to the floor. She can resist the psychic influences of the earlier movements, but this is pure noise - noise that doesn't have *intention* behind it, not the way the subtler movements do. Noise that doesn't care if you're listening or not. Drogrung howls in rage and pain, loud and deep enough to shake the building, to bring yet more dust falling from the rafters. Its immense draconic body fades, leaving a one-eyed spear clattering on the floor. Madeleine, clutching at her ears, crawls toward the weapon.

    She reaches her spear just as the fourth movement begins, and an unholy silence falls. Madeleine, on her feet now, sways in time with the unheard melody. But she still approaches the orchestra, staggering closer each second. And she... breathes on them? A cloud of vapor pours from Madeleine's open mouth, enveloping the conductor and its musicians. Ice swiftly accumulates around the ensemble, growing from a clinging frost to a great contiguous mass consuming the orchestra. There's no sound to muffle, but the conductor's hands are stuck in place at least. As she maintains the stream of icy mist, Madeleine waves to Touta and Rufus, urging them to seize the opportunity.
Hibiki Tachibana     Isn't that funny?

    "...It's not. Don't screw around with me." The same sort of tensed-up expression she had towards Petra not long ago comes back to Hibiki's face, freezing still for a solid second, before she glancing to the same side that Exigent Serenity is resting on. "It's not funny. It's not something to be made fun of. Even without getting told left, right, and center that I'm slowly bleeding out from the inside--"

    The shoulder is pulled away, on account of Hibiki half-turning to face her. "--like it's something I don't already know, like everyone can see into me better than I can see myself. But if I didn't have one at all, I wouldn't /be/ here! I'd still be at home, where none of this would happen! The hell do you think I'm doing all of this for in the first place? Why do you think I didn't lie down and give up completely after what happened on that beach, and everything else that's happened after?"

    "Just what do you think my 'wish' even is?"

    She may be forgetting they're still in the classroom while she's having a moment. At least it's while everyone is in the process of finishing up.
Rufus Shinra (PATH E)

Rufus sways in place as his resonant frequency is sung. Greed's Embrace falters for a second - letting the audience close in on him, though he manages to get his defenses back up.

This isn't like the other fights he's been in. There were swords, guns, magic - here, it's feeling like it's coming at him from all around.

And then - silence.

Silence, with the song on the edges.

It's... intoxicating.

This is Rufus's jam. This is the reason he's out here. Interesting things. Exciting things. Unique things. This song that he has to stop and strain to listen.

He shouldn't stop. He should keep moving, get on the attack. The orchestra is going to get to the final movement and kill everyone. The orchestra is going to get to the final movement and kill him.

This is not the time to be a tourist. This is not the time to be a bystander. This is not the time to let curiosity and fascination win out.

... Win out against the prettiest song Rufus has ever heard. For. Win out for the song. No - Rufus needs to win out *against* the song, that's the point. He needs to stop listening, and go fight, and go save everyone, and save himself.

It'd be so hard to stop, though. It'd be so hard to summon up the willpower and the effort.

But it'd be so easy to keep listening. It'd be so easy to just... stop caring. It'd be so easy to just let everything else happen, or not happen, and just focus on the song.

It's so easy, in fact...

... That Rufus does just that.

He stands there, and he listens. There isn't a surge of willpower. There isn't some secret trick he pulls out. He just... doesn't. Can't. Won't. Maybe all three.

Rufus Shinra listens to the beautiful song as around him the world ends.
Lilian Rook     'We may therefore blame the City.'

    That shakes Lilian out of it a little. In a good way. "Never forget to despise the circumstances that formed the people you hate." she says. "It's surprisingly difficult at times, even though it's so simple." She nearly trails off, but still somehow says, "That's sort of why I want Carmen to succeed. You don't often get to just . . . hit everything, everyone, back."

    '... Oh, you weren't even affected? Hod were you... just teaching the class for fun?'

    "That's--" Lilian swivels her gaze. "Oh my god that's really cute."

    'Well... she did get everyone *killed*, so it's not like she had anyone to *help* left'

    "I suppose." Lilian says. "I'd be very angry if someone ruined everything for myself and everyone I cared about, and walked away without taking any responsibility." She runs her hand through her hair uncomfortably. "I don't know. I think the two things can be separate."

    'G--good luck! The night's almost over!'

    "Good luck. After all this, I expect to see you after." Lilian says. She waves in return before leaving.

    '...I've been such a rotten mother. My only defense is that I was dead before she was born.'

    §<<That's true. But only because she still hasn't. I've had nothing equivalent to 'Mother'. But even <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> understands that it is difficult to be 'mother' to someone who is <determined to be born>.>>§

    §<<Praise <I/She/Us> as much as you want, though~ I <love/adore/am completed by> nothing more than 'Lilian Rook' revelling in <power/Me>. That <She> is learning to <dictate the order of things/defy World-Law> is perfect <training> for <Her/Our> eventual <narrative role>.>>§

    'Don't screw around with me.'

    §<<If I wished to <lead you to well-earned death>, Hibiki Tachibana, I would just lie~>>§ says §Exigent Serenity§. §<<I wasn't asking. I don't actually care about your <worn-out welcome/piteous thrashing> thoughts, you know. It is funny. It's the funniest thing imaginable, that you've spent this <long/far> <whimpering in pain> when it would so easy-- so very easy, and so very simple-- to make that girl; perhaps even <girls like us>, love you again.>>§

    §<<You should know the <way/sequence> now. Of course it's funny to see someone <stumbling and crying> with the <obvious/key> right in front of them.>>§
Tamamo LITERATURE (LEAVING?):

        '...it would so easy-- so very easy, and so very simple-- to make that girl...'

    Tamamo's ears are tall, and catch even words that aren't meant for her.

    She turns to Lilian.

    "It would be easy for you to love Tachibana Hibiki... is it?"
Meika Kirenai     Hook is gentle with her- in demeanor, in expression, in motion. The magical girl doesn't think the hook will poke her- but Meika still flinches. It's hard to bear, and the tremble in her fingers that she tries to hide by balling up her fists just illustrates it. It helps- she stays still, and grows quieter- not that that last part is hard for her.

    She doesn't, particularly, follow his request to be told later, though. Even when Meika takes hold of the handkerchief, a different way to stifle trembling fingers.

    "I- I m-make things so much worse, here. Every time. F-for everyone. I- I shoulnd't have... S-some of everything should be my guilt, instead. And-" Meika's everything is just passively, anxiously, way-too-overly defensive. Crossed arms, group-skirting position, watching the exit door even if that's not how anyone came in. "Y-you know it's true. A-and that things like that need punishing. I- I shouldn't.." She trails off.

'You get to forget. You get to die. I have to remember forever.'

    "S-shut up! I don't *want* to! I- I wish I c-could s-switch that, b-but I don't know how, and I- I h-hate it too, a-and..." Ugly, shallow breaths make words shaky and ragged. "D-don't kid me, a-and say I'm holding on t-to anything... Everyone c-can see, can tell, how well that's-"

    The sniffle is back. Meika takes the handkerchief- she's holding it like she'll ruin it if she touches more than the corner- to wipe at her face again. "If I was strong, w-wouldn't this be easier? I w-wouldn't- wouldn't be here. Y-you wouldn't h-have to know me or hate me, and..."

    Meika grabs onto her own forearm, nails digging through the fabric of her uniform shirt.

'...But it doesn't hurt to prune.'

    Meika's voice is just a mumble when she speaks out, "S-some things need to be cut away."

'- You're trying to fix something you caused, and opening your whole heart to do it.'

    "N-no, I'm not doing that bit, I know I s-shouldn't-" Words slip out that Meika doesn't intend to. She doesn't have the will to take them back. There's a reflexive slump in her shoulders. "J-just *trying*."

    Meika actually winds up backing away, a bit, from the group. Closer to Carmen, closer to Love. It takes her a long time to realize how much closer to Angela the woman has started to look like- and makes Meika even more hesitant to look her way at all. When the moments drag on, Meika takes a stumbling, pacing little circle, pressing one of her palms to rub into tired eyes, strained and making silent noises of exasperation at anything and everything.

    Love's presence is a complicated positive. Meika can bare to look her way- with a quiet, sympathetic glance, but only for so long. She manages a tiny little wave, and-

    "...A-are... you okay?" The words stick in her throat harsher than she wishes. Stuff is royally forked up. But Love is someone safe to step closer to, and familiar enough to draw some comfort in, even if everything else is hell.

    "N-neither of us should be here..." Meika's voice is deathly quiet.It'd be easy to replace 'here' with 'Lob-Corp', but that's not really the totality of what Meika means. Something at the edge of Meika's exhaustion makes that fact almost funny. She doesn't laugh- but the corners of her bleary, exhausted, messy face lighting up into a fragment of a smile is anything but happy.

    Meika doesn't dare give the Magical Girl of Love a hand to hold- but she stands close enough to shoulder to shoulder, for a moment, to draw a tiny semblance of comfort.
Touta Konoe     Bringing down thunder seems to have more of an impact than just the physical. It's a disruption enough that allows for the breaking of the trance if only for a moment. Even if it comes with the cost of ruptured eardrums.

    "If that's does it, maybe we can..."

    A single, multitunal drone screams out. There are no beats. There is no tempo. There is just a ringing, hellish noise, like post-explosion tinnitus turned outwards. It's earsplitting. It's deafening.

    Any thought to try and use that thunderclap once again is cut off, right along with his train of thought as that pained symphony enters into his ears. How was it that such vibrations could cause such chaos? This peculiar frequency that was enough to bring someone to madness so easily. In truth a part of him truly felt like if this kept going that either he was going to go mad, or his head truly was going to burst.

    They had only just barely managed the second movement, and there was still the fourth after this? He's not sure if he can manage that. That if the Fourth Movement were to start, that he'd be able to bear it after everything else. Even now...He feels less of himself as the music takes him. This would be fine though right? To accept giving into the flow of things. Wasn't that he ended up here in this auditorium in the first place. If that was the case, he could just succumb to the music of the Accelerando and by the time the fourth movement came he could just...

    In the moment that Madeleine finds herself crawling towards her weapon, Touta is stumbling behind her. Those cold eyes from before looking down upon her with blade raised. The shadow of his blade came over the form of her arm, the same way that she had intended to disarm the baton from the Conductor previously.

    The sound of the blade cleaving through air is mute in this musical number. But it cuts through and blood is drawn. Only...It's not the Huntress that finds herself bleeding any further. Instead is the sight of...Something falling to the floor, covered in red. If she looks up, Touta's face is covered in that black fog that had been keeping the clerks impeded. Only, it was covering where his ears had been. In a last attempt to retain sanity, he does what would be unthinkable for others as he truly deafens himself. It's enough of a stopgap that he doesn't attempt to bring any further harm to those that didn't deserve it on this night...

    Making sure that Madeleine's able to return to her feet proves to be the best option for the group. For when the Fourth Movement happens, even the lack of hearing alone isn't enough to stop the Conductor. The minor relief that Touta had felt is washed over with a different kind. A kind of music that's played in silence and when it does, he thinks this might be it. That the moment of clarity he had was going to falter. That he was going to succumb to feelings all over again.
Touta Konoe     Only, it doesn't...Not immediately. Madeleine's ice impedes the performance, and it's the most sensational pause button that anyone's ever asked for. With the brief instance of relief from the Third Movement to the Fourth Movement, and Madeleine's icy vapors holding the frequency in check, with a sense of genuine life-impacting urgency does he come upon the stage again. His blade carving through the ice with enough force that each cut feels as if it passes through butter. One might question if the heat of the friction from his blade cleaving through ice might better aid in its thawing. Though by the time that even might become such an issue...Heads have been severed from torsos. Torso's have been severed from arms. Arms have had their hands cleaved through, hands have been disarmed of batons. The process of slashing and cleaving doesn't stop until the Silent Orchestra is no longer the appearance of a treble as a humanoid figurine, but that of a treble so finally cut that it can only be defined as a note on sheet paper.
Meika Kirenai Path E:

    Who, really, can blame Rufus for listening to something as beautiful as what lingers in the purity of imagination? In the echoes drawn out from sudden absence? Music nothing can make, frustrating and beautiful. He's made his choice.

    Luckily, for his longevity, and the lives of all the audience members and those hearing the Arts Department's intercoms, Madeleine and Touta are choosing differently.

    With all four preformers present, the Ensemble is at its most vulnerable- its strongest, too, but nothing stops those from coinciding. Madeleine's breath of frost, while it stops the preformer's motions, and stops the Conductor's swaying, detached hands and baton, only buys a moment free of the terrors of the song at the edge of hearing.

    It's almost funny. Even without the performers moving, that silent song is still something you can seek, something it feels like could be tangible enough to grab- but it's just a hair easier to cut the strings of its allure, to pull away into motion again. And Touta does so- silence drowned out by a blade's snicker-snack, the waxy mannequins and their shell of frost tearing and shearing and ruining the unheard crescendo before it can erupt.

    With no Finale, there is no applause. With the same cloudy-haziness, the wreckage of the Ensemble starts to fade away, back down into the stage's floor. The lights dim- and widen, no longer just a spot.

    You could bow, if you wanted. This show, at least, is over. The curtains draw themselves closed.

                                     -Fin-                                      
                        -Standing itself is an Ovation-                        
Angela YESOD

"Go on ahead." He suggests to Sougo. "Don't worry so much about the slacker, I'll put him back in his place once you've dealt with him."

The Knight straightens up and elects to offer her hand to Dysnomia. "They could use friends more than they could use those who uselessly offer well wishes. They have handled the Temptations well on their own, but they still live in an isolated world. Visit them, now and then, won't you?"

''I can see why Carmen thought we'd be fine this time.''

"The Lady Carmen likely simply saw the results of your efforts so far." The Knight agrees. "Let us venture forth. Nihil won't wait any longer."

MALKUTH

Aidan pushes into the cloth. The King remembers she will probably need help to battle Nihil and elects to not devour Aidan (this time). "Take inspiration where you must, but masks do not suit you. Worry not, young one, I care about the King--and so, the King is always cared for." She chortles like Aidan told a very good joke, but at least there doesn't seem to be malice behind this one. Also she didn't eat him. That bears repeating a few times.

"Just be normal around her and it'll probably be fine." Malkuth asides to Minamatsu. She hasn't forgotten Tamamo's warning but so far, as far as she knows, Petra has been nothing short of an ideal agent.

"I have no desire to leave this place just yet, but you may visit me." The King says. Then considers Minamatsu. "...Ah, your desire... I see it..." She then laughs again. "I will, of course, let you pursue your desire with wild abandon!"

Malkuth also takes a step away from the hug radius but the King will join the group hug and it'll be a really tight and painful hug because she has a giant gauntlet of pain on one hand but she isn't trying to kill anyone at least.

"To Nihil! We fight!"

HOD

''I expect to see you after''

"Aw...awawa.....Weh..." Hod sputters, covering her face bashfully.

Well when you put it like that... Eheh, well, of course I have to praise you. You're proof that it's possible, you know? What scientist wouldn't gush over that?

ANGELA/LOVE

''You're killing yourself for efficiency''

Hook isn't going to win this one that easily. Angela fixes Hook with a stare. "Look who is talking." Angela says. "...You may be the great Captain Will Hook, but you have decided to step away from your brilliant sister and her family simply because 'that isn't you anymore'. But even if 99 percent of you has left that life behind, you haven't left them behind. ... They must miss you, they must miss you so terribly. They probably wonder what happened, have nightmares about it, wonder if you were taken in the night or just hated them. Instead of being bigger you willingly made yourself smaller...And isn't that a shame? The world could use more of you in it."
Angela She is distracted by Meika's crying. "...I...know you don't want to. But I do. But I won't. Because even if I do not know how to keep you remembering just yet, I can at least remember forever. It will be something I don't have to regret about it. That's all."

Regret is still a part of her. "...I wouldn't love you either, so I cannot regret that you chose to come here at all...even if perhaps this will be your last visit. Thank you for your service, Chevalier Vermilion." She looks to Chevalier Love for a long moment but doesn't say anything to her.

Angela is not in the mood to hug right now. She steps away from hug attempts right now because she is a Villain, at least some of the time.

Carmen laughs faintly, now wholly Angela but for the wrists. Solty is going to get all sorts of Carmenblood on her by taking her hand like that but Carmen lets it happen (it WON'T vanish, it'll linger until cleaned up). "Yes and no." Carmen says to Solty. "I am surprised you aren't accustomed to hearing that just yet. I am the Angela that is Carmen and she is the Angela that is Angela. But we cannot be rid of each other."

She steps into Angela then and there and vanishes from sight. Carmen's presence fades, though Exigent can still sense her in the basement. None of this is likely a surprise to her.

Angela takes a breath and lets it out slowly. Solty seems to finally understand she's at least part evil now, which is kind of a relief and kind of a regret in of itself. Angela will press her hand on Solty's head because she still thinks of her as a kid and adds, "You killed a man, Solty." bluntly. "Don't bury that version of you if that is how you feel."

Though that thought does make her reconsider Hook's words, at least in part. She can't entirely deny them even if she DOES think he's being hypocritical.

And Meika tells her that it's important to prune too. And she can't argue with that either. Maybe she won't come to a decision on this today, she thinks.

"I'll give it some thought," She says eventually. "But I appreciate you listening."

She exhales again as she finally looks back to Hook.

She tries to step back again but finds she runs out of room and he does manage to pull her back from the edge and kiss her head and all that just fine.

"...Your threat," She says. "Requires work." Because it sounds kinda nice actually.

And then she lifts Hook up with her terrible robot arms because she DOES have superhumanity (doesn't that mean she could have escaped at any point?) and she sets him down in the center of the roof far away from the edge. "We can discuss the rest later."

Love is asked by Meika if she's okay. Love smiles a little awkwardly, "Oh--yeah, I'm fine. Nihil tried to capture me but I told them to fuck off and I blasted them with my Arcana Slave. But they'll probably be back. I told them I wanted to live like a human, l-like you. I'm sorry for not listening to Kayoko and coming here and making everything worse. I didn't realize this would happen and... I just couldn't bear the thought of you being stuck here. Don't blame Justice, I convinced her..."

And that's about when the others arrive, and the darkness starts to bear down once more.

NEXT TIME... THE LONG NIGHT FINALLY ENDS.

OR THE LONG NIGHT FINALLY ENDS YOU. I'M NOT SURE. PETRA'S BUILD SOUNDS SCARY.
Hibiki Tachibana It's the funniest thing imaginable--
        When it would so easy--
    --Right in front of them."If the answer is 'being someone she could love again', instead of whatever I am right now, I've been trying. Even when I'm bad at it. The best apology is showing you won't make the same mistakes you did before, isn't that supposed to be true?" Hibiki says, grimacing even when she's not looking at Exigent Serenity.

    "'Sorry' doesn't mean anything. Actions are more important than what's in someone's heart. That's how it is, with her. I haven't given up on trying to be closer to 'that Hibiki Tachibana', that she wanted to see. ...Even if I can't be. Until that happens, she's better off not caring about me as much as she somehow still does."

    There's an audible exhale, through the nose. "...This is about more than just some screwed-up desire to get back what I can't have again. Even if it hurts, don't reduce my wish down to only that."

    And there's a long pause, afterwards. "...I didn't come here to do all this with myself, again. She hates that more than anything too, I know. I came because I... ...as long as things end up okay, I'll be happy enough. Just enjoy the show, since it's so funny." Face still tense, she moves to join the others evacuating the classroom. Fighting Nihil like this isn't going to be easy, but she will.
Aidan Proudpick Aidan pulls himself out. It hurts. But only a little. Not the pulling out part. But, it's not a full rejection. And it was important to simply say. And put his whole heart into it. He stuck his hand out to someone and meant it. And they refused. Fully? Maybe not.

"Yea. I am worse." He smiles at Ishirou, nodding his head. "But the thing about children is, they eventually grow up, right."

He steps towards Minamatsu, a grin on his face. He pulls in for the hug... only to have the King suddenly pull on him and crush his bones. Pain fills his world again. "Ye-fight-"
Lilian Rook     'It would be easy for you to love Tachibana Hibiki... is it?'

    "Not in that way." Lilian replies with entirely unnecessary disgust. "She's out of my strike zone anyways." Also unnecessary. Her expression of aggressive distaste as she looks away again. She's annoyed with Exis, but as usual, can't be nearly as annoyed as if §she§ were another person. Everything §she§ says is something Lilian already knows; even if only unconsciously.

    "But it'd be simple for Petra. And it'd be simple for me to give a shit about her again. The fact that she chooses not to find any way to step over that low, low bar, every single day, just pisses me off more and more. It's depressing Candelario was the first to figure it out, and that it took this long at all. I'm so tired of 'magnanimous' self-pitying bullshit." Every word is for Tamamo, of course. Lilian won't even look at Hibiki. But they aren't hard to overhear. "Fifty years from now, people will be acting like I'm some sort of cruel and inscrutable puzzle box as well. No wonder I'm 'special'."

    'Actions are more important than what's in someone's heart.'

    §<<So? <Choose>. You know what <those girls> want. They <scream it out loud/claw it into society's skin> every day. You're not <Turing Test insufficient> are you? Any one of them. Act. Or maybe you're better off <devour> too?>>§

    On the way out, §she§ blips closer to Tamamo, walking side by side. The way §she§ is now, Meika is no-doubt completely forgotten. Nothing the slightest bit unpleasant sticks to §her§ at all. §She§ has never existed in a context where §she§ couldn't enrich §herself§.

    §<<That's a funny <Question Permutation>, <Tamamo-no-Mae/Chosen of Questions>~>>§ §She§ leans forward, hands behind §her§ back, hair swung down, indulging in genre. §<<You've already <been/contain> <Girls Like Us>, haven't you? <She/I/We> couldn't care that deeply about someone who hasn't.>>§
Solty Revant      Solty doesn't end up getting to hug Angela, but did get to hold Angela's(?) hand for a moment. She smiles slightly at the hand on her head then looks at her bloodstained hand. The same hand that took a life not all that long ago. "I...won't bury it. But, I do have to understand it so that I don't go out of control every time someone I care about gets hurt. I could end up...killing someone who didn't deserve it. I think I need to learn about and maybe even embrace the other Solty. I still don't remember my life before meeting Roy. Maybe the reason that I get so angry at those times is in my past somewhere."

     She clenches that bloodied hand lightly for a moment, then smiles up at Angela. "And if you do get tossed into the ocean by Captain Hook, I want to be there to help pull you out and laugh with you. And don't forget, I'm going to cook for you when you can leave this place one day. What sort of food would you like?" Seems even after hearing that Angela is something of a villain, Solty either doesn't quite believe it...or thinks the good outweighs the bad. But, at least she didn't say she was going to save Angela.
Tamamo 'She's out of my strike zone anyways.'

    "Hm, truly? That did not seem so when you..." Tamamo begins, only to let go of the thought and the statement while twirling the ends of her hair around one finger.

    'No wonder I'm 'special'.'

    "Unique in all the worlds, for that you are the one I chose," she says, the words carrying the weight of something said with casual confidence, yet without dramatic flair. It's a statement of fact, delivered as they continue to walk down the halls of Lob U.

    §<<You've already <been/contain> <Girls Like Us>, haven't you? <She/I/We> couldn't care that deeply about someone who hasn't.>>§

    "Hm... is that so? You have never said the words to me, before now, have you? How curious to consider... 'containing.' But of course, you would know that by now, regarding divine souls, no?" Tamamo seems faintly amused by the inquiry touching on whatever that is. "If you mean 'the unchosen,' then... yes. If you mean 'those rejected by the world, whose existence violates the laws upon which they have decided,' then this, too, includes Tamamo-no-mae."

    She sounds less amused by the time she finishes.

    "I wonder if it truly is easy. For something to 'be' easy is different from that which 'would have been' easy, you know? It is not quite the same, for those who missed their turn."