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Lilian Rook	Lilian's message from an hour previous comes true just short of when it could be safely forgotten. A mid-priority urgent hail is received by Paladins strategic deployment and distributed to a small handful of pre-listed 'notify in-case of' Elites through secure channels; tagged with the name ODA SATSUKI and a disclaimer that the message originates from a world known to contain information contagions, and has not been scanned at the verified request of the sender.     The contents are a short text string, that reads: zone hot. request specialist. and we need to talk.     It's unusual for Lilian to leave her faerie circle 'fast travel points' connected to each other on their own; she habitually completes and destroys the arcane link wherever she goes, as a security precaution that has become more justifiable long after she started doing it. The directions disseminated through the transmission are legitimate all the same. One that still works inside Union Busan (Lilian's upper deck quarters, appointed and dusted but with nothing private), listed alongside the most obvious one she keeps in the Lobotomy Corp HQ facility (the same she'd used to break in during Binah's Meltdown), and one set aside in a Paladins secured transport area (that Lilian keeps requisitioned). Any and all of them remain alive with eerie lights and skin-prickling energy as they are, requiring only that you step into the circle to make like an old wive's tale and disappear.     The place you end up at isn't pretty. Except perhaps that it used to be, and maybe in the freakish way it almost sort of is.     The bones of an original building show through in the patches of soft carpet and cobblestone facade at ground level, and the oddly shaped, high-arched beams over your head that form a continuously curving roof, contoured to the single corridor that gently curves out of sight. Warm, diffuse lighting hints at some original purpose as a gallery or museum, shone from clever places in the tassel ends of massive braids of rope, decoratively woven across the ceiling and above every one of the countless glass cases you see lit up along the way. A segment of hall opens up its ceiling to natural light and the green of trees, shining between vast windows in the beams.     But there's no argument that all of the aesthetic is essentially for naught. Fully half of the man-made surfaces are rendered invisible under the massive, uncontrolled outgrowth of . . . something floral-pink and porcelain white, erupted into the shapes of split chrysalis and blooming gossamer wings and undulating rows of serrated shark teeth and pointed rose thorns. The air is thick with the glittering particulate of a coral reef dive; minute spores pin-sized air-swimming creatures and inkblots of ambient pink-verdant growth; lit like stirred dust in the lamp-beams of old exhibits, yet strangely unmoving in space. The structure hardly looks damaged, but simply wildly overgrown. As if that were somehow worse. It hasn't even broken the glass cases, filled with a never-ending row of beautifully glittering swords.     A short while after first perceiving your environment, you hear the iconic scrape-click of a naked blade being sheathed, and perceive in cognitive backlog that you've been slashed through with a sword. Unnoticeable, perhaps, for the lack of pain or even any ostensible effect at all.
Lilian Rook	Satsuki stands by the circle, odachi clutched by the saya in one hand, the other on the hilt, watching you with the most wariness you've seen from her. Wearing her Immunes junior officer-grade combat skin-- like Lilian's before she received her armour-- and surrounded by a loose litter of hacked-up bodyparts, it's still more telling of her being 'on the job' to see her wearing a twice-bound ponytail and anything featuring her emblem over her suit.     A hefty backpack is propped up against a decorative boulder displaying a massive chunk of rainbow tamagahane to her side, with an eerily beautiful katana strapped to its side. A smart device that is definitely not local; if you had to guess, Lilian's loaned StarkTech from back in the day, for special applications; is laid out on top of the case, holographically displaying several new messages.     "Before you ask, Commander Rook is somewhere else in the building. She's been fighting on and off for the past hour, but her vital tracker is still fine." says Satsuki, before you can get a word in edgewise. To indicate, she drags up a window on the tracker, which does indeed display L.ROOK and a green vital line alongside a blue supply tracker and violet magic-graph, like she's verifying the safety of a hostage. "I'm supposed to be retrieving a pair of Muramasas, no questions asked, but . . ."     Satsuki blinks. "Oh. Sorry for cutting you, haha . . . This place is under an Inverse Eternal Palace curse. A really scary one, placed fifty years ago by Saeko of Ten Tails, I think? I had to do that to immediately free you from it. That's the whole reason I think Commander Rook took me along at all."     "Wait-- no, first thing's first." says Satsuki, taking a deep breath. "How does Commander Rook know that Grave Blades are here at all? Why did she suddenly have the Muramasa of Distortions just on hand? Why is she involved? And who the heck is Sakura?!"
Tamamo	Tamamo is cut through, but without any of the associated sensations beyond the knowledge that it happened. It's not a terribly familiar feeling, which makes it harder to determine if it really happened. When she turns to look, she has her mouth open to speak, only to snap open a fan from within her sleeve and cover her lower face while Satsuki winds through her immediate worries and ends up at the questions that need answering.     "Saeko of Ten Tails did so? And..." upon looking around at the spores frozen in air, "...for what was this done? I am unclear on that which remains, versus that which should provide no worry."     The questions, being linked, she answers without particular order, and her fan still in place, golden eyes narrowing to look elsewhere. "'Sakura' is an alias, of course." You could find a more commonplace name if you tried, but only just. The fact that no surname was included should be telling, especially to someone who's been around Lilian to know how free she is with using proper forms of address. "If you are speaking of the Grave Blades, and she used that name, then she speaks of one connected to the Grave Blades, with information concerning their disposition, and reason to be holding something such as the Muramasa of Distortions. She is also... a faithful friend, to Lilian. You may trust me on that matter."     Without waiting for a full explanation from Satsuki, Tamamo glances at the tracker readout, and begins her own divination and analysis techniques, shifting her vision to look through the spectra more suited to understanding what it was Saeko did, and what it is, she supposes, holding at bay.
Kukuru	By mere happenstance, Kukuru happened to be awake when Lilian sent that initial message. She had been fairly worried about it at first, then less worried after finding the wrong definition of presumptuous with Angela's help in spelling it out. When the more urgent follow-up comes through later through roundabout means, then, she's fired right back up into more worry, and it doesn't take long for Kukuru to arrive at the meeting point inside what looks to her like... "Did this used to be an art place...?" Kukuru wonders aloud as she taps a finger to her chin, pausing to straighten out her jacket's sleeves before giving up when it happens again just from scratching her shoulder. She's dressed in a familiar-enough jacket and shorts combo with thick boots well suited for far longer walks than she might have ever had in her entire life. Hearing the blade noise far sooner than she sees or even reacts to it, Kukuru takes several seconds to even look down at where she... Didn't get slashed? How peculiar. Dismissing it as just another one of those phantom noises, she's already about to start heading deeper into the abandoned museum when she actually hears someone speaking. Turning to Satsuki with an unfamiliar stare, Kukuru catches on quickly enough that she's ostensibly a friend or underling of Lilian's just by the way she speaks. "Ohhh. Okay! Thank you, dear.That's good to hear..." With Lilian's status confirmed as alive, Kukuru's already about to turn around and start searching for her again before getting stopped by the social pressure that comes from Satsuki continuing to speak. Muramasas? Inverse Eternal Palace? Saeko? Grave Blades? Sakura? Every single one of those names visibly bounces right off of Kukuru's bang-covered forehead as she stares on at Satsuki blankly, and she takes a moment to inhale deeply as she tries to come up with the most important thing she can ask in this time crunch of a situation: "About all those things you said... What do we need to know right now to help Lilian out?" Kukuru asks with a strange combination of focus and her usual half-sleeping tone. She tries to put some of that together herself just from what she hears of  Tamamo's answers to Satsuki, visibly strains for several seconds, then snaps her fingers. "The Grave Blades and this Murmas... Distortion. Does someone dangerous have those thingies? And... Hmm. I'll ask about the rest later, okaaay?" Joining Tamamo once she gets whatever information Satsuki is willing/able to share, Kukuru peers at the tracker to try and figure out if it gives any directions at all to where Lilian could be. Whether she's following the tracker or just picking a random direction that looks like it might go deeper into the museum, she begins the search! She teleports  instead of walking, too, disappearing and reappearing in those dark clouds of hers to minimize how much time and effort she needs to take to actually walk.
Rita Ma	Revisiting Lilian's (now slightly tilted) room on the Busan's upper decks is nice, and being asked for help is as flattering as it is alarming, but blind insertion into a 'hot' area- couldn't she have been a little more descriptive? Rita mentally pouts- negates just about all of Rita's strengths.      Her mood is 'cautiously grumpy' on transit, and so she does about the only thing she can do: turns invisible before stepping through.      - - - - ?      "Ah-!!" comes from thin air. Rita jolts, twists, and stumbles backwards out of the faerie circle while rematerializing, chromatophore-wash like food-coloring-in-water filling her back in. Her teetering stops just short of collapse when she sees a friendly face: "... Oh! Ms. Satsuki! It's good to meet you again, it's been so long!"      Rita stumbles forward again, still a little like a newborn deer, and examines her surroundings while giving Satsuki a hand to shake. 'Sakura' is a name she's heard before, but lacking firsthand acquaintance, she lets other people tackle that. Instead, briskly and in order:      "'Inverse Eternal Castle' curse? That sounds scary."      "What is all this pink stuff? Is it one Antegent?"      and "What's happening with Ms. Rook? It isn't like her to call for backup partway through. Usually she knows exactly what she's getting into."
Xion	Xion isn't someone who gets alerts from the Union Busan or the Paladins. She had only been to Rita's world perhaps twice ever, and that was a long time ago. Roxas, in the Paladins, was busy on a mission and Xion wasn't going to bother Ansem or the other Paladins-aligned Nobodies with her little problems. She had alternate ways of following along, anyway, and knowing to ask after Angela was all the clues the noiriette needed to jump onto the ongoing events. Arriving at the Lobotomy Corporation facility via 'walking out of a black spot of a hallway' and then offering a concession-wave-and-introduce-herself to the nearest Agent or clerk so the intruder alarms didn't sound, the Hero of Somebody's Heart In Specific transferred from Corridor to Fairy circle to... --- Appearing in a slightly-disoriented fashion wearing a long black coat with cowl down, black gloves, and black boots -- standard wear for the Nobody on a mission -- the first thing she does is open her bright blues with a double-blink flutter to see the Wide World Of Biology display within the strange museum-chrysalis.     The second thing she does is be sliced through. Turning on Satsuki mid-'shwink!' of Keyblade summon, it takes a battle-ready-to-curious full second for her to come down from having metaphoricially rolled for initiative and then deciding to pass away the opportunity to counterstrike. Shouldering the Kingdom Key across her right shoulder with a swing back, the Nobody sighs and runs her left gloved hand through her hair, glove sifting back her bangs. Distracted by the floaty creatures like eyespots she's experiencing for the first time, Xion reaches out after mussing her own hair and tries to touch or close-cup her hand around some of the little coral reef creatures. Success or failure, empty handed or cupped-reef-captured, Xion is further distracted by... Swords as far as the eye could see? An unlimited blade works? Wandering towards the glass cases at a sedate pace, Xion elbow-gestures with her Keyblade-holding arm. "So are these cursed, then? Or..." The noirette is used to rows of art objects placed as part of the terrain, but it's a huge pile of swords! And she's also asked questions. 'How does Commander Rook know that Grave Blades are here at all? Why did she suddenly have the Muramasa of Distortions just on hand?' "I think Lilian's really good at divining for cool swords and needed treasures." Xion admits, with a flash of a smile back at Satsuki. "Is this part of 'no questions asked'?"
Petra Soroka	<Q-Conversation> Lilian Rook says, "I'm with one of my junior officers. If an Oda Satsuki sends out an alert signal, that means that I'm probably fine and she panicked."     It *probably* means that. Lilian being so careful as to set up multiple routes of assistance that she can summon if necessary is proof that she's probably well-prepared enough not to need it-- this is Lilian we're talking about! And besides, Petra's been getting a dozen texts a day about how Lilian would totally be stronger if she shed all of her attachments to the world and everything. She's *probably* fine.     Only a couple minutes after the text is sent out, Petra has her hand planted on the doorframe into Angela's office, breathing heavily. She takes a few tries to get words out, having raced up the stairs from Extraction dozens of stories below, and wipes her forehead with the sleeve of her EGO suit. "Per-- permission... to... rest of the day off?"     She probably could've just texted Angela. But she didn't do that!     It's a quick trip to pick up the gear she doesn't take with her to work, not wasting the time to change out of her EGO armor or put Pillar of Creation away, and then she's going through the circle at L-Corp with Shajo, Parker, and Ceri. And Angela, displayed on the Eggpack tossed on over Petra's grey trench coat, though the potential urgency of the situation prevents Petra from decorating it thematically for the mission like she usually does.     A monument to indistinct culture, parastitically overgrown with something alien and intrinsically hostile by nature to form a post-apocalyptic harmony, registers to Petra as beautiful on contact. It's the best of both worlds! She's scanning the area, getting her bearings and considering whether she should press her sleeve over her mouth to filter out the air, when she's bisected. "Oh. Sorry for cutting you, haha . . ."     "Oh, no problem." 'Muramasa' and 'Inverse Eternal Palace curse' pass through Petra's mind like a dandelion seed on a stiff breeze, so she just stares blankly at Satsuki for a few seconds before politely shrugging off being cut in half. It's not even the first time Satsuki has done it to her! Petra can't get hung up on petty grudges like that.
Petra Soroka	"How does Commander Rook know that Grave Blades are here at all? Why did she suddenly have the Muramasa of Distortions just on hand? Why is she involved? And who the heck is Sakura?!"     Several more words that Petra has no context for are launched at her in rapid succession, until the final one makes it all snap into place. Only, despite knowing Sakura, explaining that answer isn't something Petra can give away even to one of Lilian's closest subordinates-- a thought that makes Petra briefly muse on the fact that *arguably* she holds that position but a few steps *closer* than Satsuki does.     "So, um, if Lilian's fine on the tracker thing, what made you call us all in? Has she been gone longer than she said she would? What direction's she in?" Annoyingly, Petra answers Satsuki with more questions, but that's the most important one and Tamamo is better at giving answers anyways. "How'd Sakura come up? Did Lilian say her name, or did it, like-- you know, come up?"     To follow up on Tamamo after her explanation, Petra adds, "Probably, the whole reason Lilian's involved with all this is *for* Sakura. Not just because of her. But... I wonder why now...."     Petra frowns. Ash is so recently in her mind that she can't imagine that Lilian doing something for Sakura isn't somehow related to *them* too, somehow. But Sakura is the biggest mystery to her among the Blooms, somehow, so she can't make a guess.     "... Hey, Ange? Should we be breathing this stuff in? It seems, like, terrible." Petra tilts her head back over her shoulder to address her piggybacking boss, waving her hand through the floating particulate in the air.
Angela	''Per-- permission... to... rest of the day off?'' "I have not forgotten. The Dame Commander asks, we come to lend our services. Please take the Eggpack with you." She smiles a little, no doubt happy Petra actually dropped by to visit rather than just doing the lazy easy thing. She will rmember that because she cannot forget. NOW Cinder is still recovering from the last fight, getting knocked around by a few missiles will do that to a TETH EGO Gear wearing Agent particularly if those missiles also happened to be heat seeking and she carried a giant stick that was on fire all the time. But Angela has decided to adjust this time, sending three of the strongest Agents into the field this time. Shajo, a guy who is a bit sour but is equipped with Aleph EGO Gear--the best that the facility has to offer. The 'Smile' EGO Gear is anything but as its thick, black, and covered in spooky masks and the hammer is is similarly dessicated and happens to have teeth. Periodically Shajo murmurs to the EGO Gear as if he is attempting to communicate with it or is maybe losing his mind to the presence(s) that the EGO Gear contains! Ceri, of course, is arriving in her Trideag uniform and has her rapier at her side. Her work with Trideag means she is barely in the facility any more but she hasn't been divested of Sanguine Desire, which is a bloodied red axe strapped to her back. Just in case. And finally Parker, who has gone from wearing some of the weakest EGO Gear to some of the strongest. She is wearing the long fuzzy black eye covered sword with a golden handle that Gebura herself didn't get too much of a chance to use against Lilian in their battle during her Meltdown. Her bandage wrapped EGO Armor has a mouth in its center and is similarly covered in eyes along the shoulder. And finally Parker has a singular black feathered wing pushing out of her back, blazing yellow eyes staring out from it. A multitude of voices whisper to Parker, but she ignores it for the moment. She seems at once both wholly comfortable with the EGO Gear but also totally uncomfortable because the wing keeps flapping periodically. Angela is arriving via Eggpack and says, "We were given some warning and she had asked for specialists though, admittedly the manner of specialist was unclear to me so I am just sending three of our most equipped Agents with a mix of skill, gear, levelheadness, and power. We will be of more assistance this time. Or else." "Yeah it'll be fine." Shajo says. Ceri pretends to know what the heck all these words are. "Sakura? You mean... Someone else." Ceri says. ''Hey Ange? Should we be breathing this stuff in? It seems, like, terrible.'' "Analysis regarding the air quality rating is ongoing." Angela says.
Arthur Lowell	-- ODA SATSUKI [OS] began pestering profoundBadness [PB] --           OS: zone hot. request specialist. and we need to talk. PB: HUH PB: wait how HOT is HOT PB: we talkin ASH HOT or like SPOOKEM HOT PB: am i rollin up on ANTEGENT or on GIRL SUFFERING PB: cuz WE NEED TO TALK is some GIRL SUFFERING NOISE PB: but ZONE HOT is some ANTEGENT NOISE PB: i gotta bring different loadouts FOR REAL          -- ODA SATSUKI [OS] cease pestering profoundBadness [PB] --           PB: WOMEN > Arthur: Arrive. Pack for both.     Arthur arrives, sylladex loaded with a combination of snacks and healing consumables, via gate-routing through faerie circles. "Holy shit. This is SO MANY SWORDS." His first wide-eyed reaction is to state the absolutely obvious. He instantly starts interrogating Satsuki. > Arthur: Where's Lilian?!     "Whe--"     "Before you ask, Commander Rook is somewhere else in the building." > Arthur: What's she doing?! Is she okay?     "What's sh--"     "She's been fighting on and off for the past hour, but her vital tracker is still fine." > Arthur: Why was she here? What was the objective?!     "Why wa--"     "I'm supposed to be retrieving a pair of Muramasas, no questions asked, but . . ." > Arthur: Wait, did you get cut with a sword?     "Wait, did I--"     "Oh. Sorry for cutting you, haha . . ."     God. Time-aspect teams, am I right?     "Sakura!! She's a pal! A special Lilian-flavor pal. God, I hope she's not here, don't know if that girl packs a punch at all. Lilian's been *sidequesting* this stuff, I bet, we picked up some Muramasas a while back 'cause of it. Must be why Lilian's here, must'a found a couple of those top-level Grave Blades. There's, fuckin', there's prophecies and shit! Damn, though, if Lilian got jumped and didn't take 'em down fast, I gotta go see what can keep her on her toes this long." > Arthur: And be careful not to blun--     "And maybe BLUNDER IN SUPER-CARELESSLY on some RITUALS or PUZZLE-SOLVING or somethin'." Arthur says, beaming his horrible little grin and setting his quest-marker towards where the tracker said Lilian is, and high-speed drifting that way weightlessly.
Lilian Rook	'.. Oh! Ms. Satsuki! It's good to meet you again, it's been so long!'     "Ma . . . ? Is that-- Rita?"     It has indeed been a while. In some distant sense, Satsuki is probably aware Rita is different now, and all; it's not like her to miss footage of Lilian, and the famous stuff that went around contains Rita, but seeing her be tall in person takes a moment to shake herself out of. "Oh. Ah. It's scary. The curse!" Satsuki hastens to clarify. "Everything inside the sealed area is defined as an 'inverted part of the celestial king's palace', facing inside instead of out, which--"     Satsuki shakes her head and slows down for the non-geomancers in the crowd. "Everything inside experiences time normally, but they're actually going way way slower. You see those skylights? Those trees don't exist anymore outside; it's just the light captured in here that hasn't updated. If you came in here normally, the Antegent would still be attacking you, and you'd leave like a hundred years in te future. It's part of how it doesn't get out, and how no one breaks in."     'So are these cursed, then? Or...'     Satsuki looks apologetically at Xion, and shakes her head. "Those are normal swords. This was open to the public. The treasury here for the imperial artifacts was evacuated a long time ago. But we do know two Muramasas, formerly owned by the Oda and Imagawa, were left here as part of sealing it. The Muramasa of Echoes, and the Muramasa of Distinctions."     Xion's answer makes her fold her arms obstinately. "Sorry but I'm asking questions anyways. It's too much not to know anything about. I'm honoured that she chose me for something this important to her, but it's like always . . ." Satsuki says. "Once again, I feel like she's keeping me in the dark because she thinks I'm not ready to hear something."     'So, um, if Lilian's fine on the tracker thing, what made you call us all in? Has she been gone longer than she said she would? What direction's she in?'     Satsuki, who is still incredibly not fond of Petra, looks at her as if she's certain that Petra has somehow suffered new brain damage since last she had the displeasure of seeing her. "Commander Rook didn't leave me with this as a panic button to save her. It's in case I need help. And I decided to use it because I need 'help' knowing what's going on. I'm supposed to retrieve the Muramasas while she tackles most of the dangerous parts, so if you want to be useful too, figure out how to do that."     The idea that Tamamo would ask a question back somehow stuns Satsuki a little. It's not unlike her at all to answer a question with a question, so it must be out of some assumption that Tamamo would simpy be all-knowing. "Yeah. She's the head of the Ayakashi Special Interest Symposium, and supposedly a big name in the Fuji faction, but obviously I've never actually seen her." she says, on the subject of Saeko. "She's really old, and, kind of a little bit famous, and . . ." Satsuki need only cast a glance around the area to answer much.     "To help seal one of the early outbreaks of 'The Jaws of Futility'. Along with the cooperation of the Oda and Imagawa clans at the time."
Lilian Rook	'She is also... a faithful friend, to Lilian. You may trust me on that matter.'     Satsuki does, indeed, seem to trust Tamamo on 'that matter'. It lowers her tension just enough to scoop up her smart device again. "With all due respect, 'an alias' doesn't really help, miss Tamamo." Satsuki says. "I'd really like to know which clan is backing her, but I guess I turned my back on that when I joined the Immunes, and the Paladins. Or I guess, I joined them to turn my back on it."     Kukuru's question gets the junion (same-age) Immune to hang in motion, then smile, faintly bemused in the original sense. "This used to be the Atsuta-jingu. A big famous historical shrine, in the territory my . . . ancestors, managed. It was partially converted into a museum and treasury, but obviously it's not something you can call a 'shrine' anymore." The more actionable question puts her back at ease, though some sense of confused softness for Kukuru's out-of-placeness lingers. "Well, I guess . . ."     Satsuki points down the circle corridor and begins to speak again. "This corridor goes on forever, as far as I can tell. I got into it from a different part of the shrine, but I can't seem to leave, except by the . . . circle thing that Commander Rook came up with. The 'Futility' is currently sealed, and can't do much to hurt you, but it's consumed some areas, and I don't want to cut through it in case that has an adverse effect on the curse sealing it. Every so often there are enemies, but they're not that strong; Commander Rook is already battling the main force of Antegent. She left for the interior, and was really insistent she do it alone."     She breaks just a moment to double back and specify for Rita. "This 'stuff' everywhere; that's 'the Jaws of Futility', 'the Invincible Maw', 'Of Infinite Teeth'; the God-Class neutralized in this region. It's imprisoned by the Inverse Eternal Palace Curse, and the placement of the Muramasa of Echoes and Muramasa of Distortions here, but it might be able to get us once we remove those swords. I don't know what happens if you touch it; I tried not to."     'Sakura!! She's a pal! A special Lilian-flavor pal. God, I hope she's not here, don't know if that girl packs a punch at all.'     "Nope. She's just on my phone." Satsuki says, and waves her smart device. "Mystery caller who can't have this number and suddenly started helping me out. Which is why I got fed up and called you here. Sorry not sorry?"     Huh?     "The Muramasa of Distortions went missing a while ago and was never accounted for, so I totally believe Commander Rook could have retrieved it; she's always doing adventurer hero things like that . . ." Satsuki blinks and shakes it off. "But it's strange that she kept it secret and held it in reserve until now. I think she knows I'll-- We'll need it, or at least I'd bet my name on a diviner like her, but that's not really the point, right?"
Lilian Rook	Arthur's (and Petra's, if she has it) fucking Pictochat jingle goes off. HAZEL: Hey! HAZEL: Sakura says hold out your phones near the window so the trees can see your phone number. HAZEL: Are you friends now? HAZEL: It's really fun working together like this! HAZEL: Like the hacker support character!     Kukuru's and Arthur's teleportation around the museum corridor confirms what Satsuki claims; leaving the sword hall leads right back into it. If they go far enough ahead, they eventually come up on the group from behind. If they go up through the ceiling or sideways through the walls, they end up back in the corridor in a place that seems random at first, but with repetition, seems to be 'coordinate roll-over', rounding the fractional distance they'd traveled at the end. It is perhaps dubious that Lilian's circle can actually go out; or if it can, there's a trick to it that a canny teleporter has to compensate for.     Trying to physically leave through a side door leads to an identical corridor on the other side, but its mirrorverse leads to rejoining the group again by following the curvature anyways. The water doesn't run in the bathrooms, and the switches don't operate no matter how much you flicker them; at least not at a scale you can perceive.     Tamamo's early analysis of the area confirms that the spatial looping and the time dilation are separate things. The former is something she isn't familiar with; the latter is an array she can somewhat make out the shape of, placed outside the building with conduits running under and over, which split and reverse the fabric of reality and the Otherside to localize an inside-out pocket of time much like the mythical Dragon's Palace and the tale of the man growing ancient in the blink of an eye when returning.     Arthur is the most able to sense the exact seam at which the corridor loops, where the ends have been slightly overlapped and blended together to make it not so visually obvious, but what to do about it is another thing entirely. The air quality according to LobCorp's scanning is completely abysmal, but functionally irrelevant; the Elites don't appear to actually be consuming any of the oxygen in the area, for some reason. That doesn't stop Rita from smelling everything in the area; from the wet sickly sweetness of the outgrowths to the faint whiffs of unappetizingly alien blood on the air; dust in the air vents, cleaning products in the bathroom, scoured human bones under a mass of Antegent growth, and fresh antiseptic and biospray on Satsuki.
Angela	Angela, who sent out a 'fighting' team rather than an 'investigation' team, frowns as she's informed that the purpose of the team sent out today is, this time, to discover information rather than bust heads. She runs her hand down her face in frustration and looks like she wants to scream. "Ten... Nine... Eight..." Angela says, staring up at the ceiling. ''Sakura! She's a pal!'' "I see." Angela asks, unwilling to ask what a Grave Blade is. She has a feeling she'll learn something about that when people inevitably run into one. SHajo makes his way over to Rita. "Hey, we aren't super filled in but it sounds like we need to find our way around some kind of super maze right? Mind company?" Ceri and Parker stay near Petra, Ceri startling a little as PICTOCHATS start to go off. "Petra, it seems the air quality is ... Hm. That is interesting. We don't appear to be ...breathing..." "What do you mean we're not breathing??" Ceri asks. "We're talking!" "We are not consuming local sources of oxygen." Angela clarifies. "It seems that spatial confusion is not the only issue we are facing." Parker, without anything to swing a ridiculous sword at, picks her nose absentmindedly.
Tamamo	Upon hearing which blades they're after, Tamamo says in a low voice, "What a terribly ominous idea, to cut apart 'distinctions.'"     'She's really old, and, kind of a little bit famous, and . . .'     "One could hardly have grown a tenth tail without being somewhat... experienced, after all." Tamamo's three aren't meaningfully comparable, and should not be stared at, even with this topic of conversation.     'I'd really like to know which clan is backing her, but...'     "Oh? Let us suppose, for a moment, that she was backed by the Oda, and I told you of this. What would you wish to do, knowing this?" Surely just a curious hypothetical.     Tamamo works out what she can, from this vantage point, of the shape of the containing curse. Importantly, she works out that it isn't related to the spatial distortion that's both blocking their way and the topic of Arthur's question. <J-IC-Scene> Arthur Lowell says, "Oh, I'm feeling it here. Someone stitched some of the geometry up for real." <J-IC-Scene> Arthur Lowell says, "I've got a seam, but shit-all to do with it. Anyone know if the geometry's tied to the containment? I don't wanna undo a knot and let some motherfucker loose." <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "I can tell that the..." She takes a moment to choose her words, "...curse of time is separate from that of space, and the former is one made to contain the enemy. This suggests that the space can be freed, though I know not whether it seals some other, second danger." <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "It does not feel as if they were made by the same artist." <J-IC-Scene> Arthur Lowell says, "It's the *Inverse Eternal* Palace that's got it stuck, right... but not the *Infinite* Palace part. Might even be the Antegent doin' it." <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "With such epithets as 'infinite' and 'futility,' I would not immediately deny the possibility. It has the feeling of a trap, though I have known the Antegent to be more interested in inflicting gruesome deaths than in allowing humans to waste away as they walk an endless corridor." <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "Well, that one in Russia kind of did the, mindfuck hallucination stuff. So it's not totally out of character for them?" <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "While it seems most likely to me that it was a layer of security for this building independent of the attack, it is also something impeding our own efforts. Mr. Lowell, can you loosen its stitching?" <J-IC-Scene> Arthur Lowell says, "Maybe. Might be able to do something better."
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: Hop on pictochat     God yes. Hell fucking yes. Arthur hoists his smart-shades up to a window, brandishing the CAPTCHALOGUE CARD that contains them, that should help out... the trees? Why the trees? Oh, wait, maybe Sakura doesn't want to hop on pictochat and they'll figure something out. "GET A LOOK!" He calls out, as if the trees will answer. > Arthur: Unstitch the hallway     Arthur goes back to wandering the hallway, finding the seam. He's got some intuitive sense for this, as if he might detect an odd way that the LODs load, or notice a flicker in a measured coordinate. No, in fact, that IS it. He's measuring his own coordinates in objective space, and watching where the details flicker just slightly. Doesn't take him too long to nail it down.     "Alright. If it got stitched here, gotta bet there was a way forward just past it." He kneels down and tries to "grab hold" of the stitching, planting palms on the floor. "They would'a snagged a chunk of space further back and rolled it back here, tied it off. If I can just... Reach along and *pull*..."     Sure, unstitching it might be possible. But if it's a stitched loop at the end of a longer spatial structure, what he can do instead is reach through the loop, around it, grip the attached length of space that is the passage, and pull it through the loop. If Arthur gets this right, it should bend the hallway into a visual loop, then start to pull the further passage into the space that the loop surrounds, threading it through.     He'll continue maneuvers like that, using the loop as a bracing point to tie more and more of the palace into a tight, complex knot that people can hopefully jump through -- even though it may get a little bit M. C. Escher in its outcome. Assuming this awful plant-life is part of it, he can pinch it between geometric lengths, grind it along hallways, even shred it in geometric disparities.     "If I start ripping the stitching out, that bastard that sewed it up is gonna start strangling me with the thread, I bet. Better I get the fabric all bunched up, get it around their neck instead." He's enjoying the structure of this challenge, a bit.
Kukuru	Kukuru's face lights up a bit when Satsuki tells her about the Atsuta-jingu and, notably, her connection to the place. "Oooh... Your grandparents used to own this place? Or even further...?" A pause, and then she shakes her head. There's more pressing matters to ask about, although this place being a treasury does start giving her some vague ideas of what to start looking for once Lilian's found. Satsuki's explanation about the circle corridor, though, is what really grabs her attention. Looking back at the way she had come from with most everyone else, Kukuru commits that particular spot to memory along with where Satsuki is right now, then turns back to her. "Maybe we can cut it up once Lilian's back, then! Ooor... Well, I'm sure her circle thingy'll be good for getting you back home, too, and then I can get us out even if it ends up making her things stop working. But..." A corridor that goes on forever? The temptation to test that out is strong, but Kukuru has to focus!  Lilian's counting on her to-wait. Her answer to Petra's question on why Lilian called them here comes back to mind, and Kukuru nods slowly in slightly deeper thought. "Ohhh, she wants us to help you, then! Okaaay." She doesn't stick around to actually mull that over, of course, since her priority is still finding Lilian to help her out against whatever it is she's fighting against. As she warps along with Arthur, though, she does try to multi-task a little by murmuring aloud to herself/Arthur. "How do we got more of these Murmasasas, then...? She must've left Satsuki here because getting them they're not as dangerous as fighting all those Antegents, so it's gotta be something she can safely pick uuuup...?" Wait. Isn't that the group in front of her? Coming across everyone from behind, Kukuru does, in fact, try to think outside of the box and look for holes to look and teleport through. Sadly, she's not particularly clever at this point, and finding more of the same through a side door just has her grumbling quietly in frustration. "What a tricky, weeeeird place. Satsukiiii. Was this place like this when your grandparents were maintaining it?" She asks while coming over from the front, eventually slowing to a stop. "No... This must be new like all those plants and stuff, right? Maybeee..." She looks over at Angela, then waves at the overgrowth. "Do you think those might be whyyy?" As she looks up at the overgrowth, Kukuru's brain functions again, and she squats in place before launching herself at the ceiling to dig upwards! When that ends up not working, either, she makes some more frustrated noises before settling in to listen to everyone's thoughts on this place. And that eventually leads to... <J-IC-Scene> Kukuru says, "Inverse... Is that the same as reverse? Maybe... What if we try going backwards?" Despite wanting to save her energy on not walking, Kukuru sucks it up and starts walking backwards through the circle corridor, fixing her gaze forward to see if she can actually see a point where and when it loops around.
Rita Ma	Rita's nose is slightly wrinkled at the smell even while she smiles, folds arms behind her back, and rocks on her heels.      "Mmmm! It's still me, Ms. Satsuki! At least, I hope it is," she jokes, which isn't going to make sense to anyone who wasn't there for the Busan, and isn't likely to be funny to anyone who was. "You didn't tell me you got shorter." That one's maybe a little funny.      'the Jaws of Futility'      That gets her to buckle down seriously again, tapping her lips. "I think Ms. Rook mentioned that once. Didn't she say it was--"      'the God-Class neutralized in this region'      Satsuki gets there first, and Rita audibly shivers, remembering the last time- no, the last two times she had to 'deal' with an allegedly dead-or-subdued one of those. "It's never worth it," she grumbles nonspecifically, depleted.      "How did Ms. Rook get to the 'interior', anyway, if it's just..." she looks over at Tamamo and Arthur's ongoings, then makes a 'circle' gesture with her finger. "Did she tell you?"      A pause. "Um, wait, you just called us because 'Sakura' was calling you? There's no reason to think Ms. Rook is in any danger?" Satsuki isn't that sort of brat, is she...?      'I don't know what happens if you touch it; I tried not to.'      "Well, I'll figure it out," says Rita, perkily enough to have a plan. "Thank you, Ms. Satsuki!"      And she does. After glancing at Petra a little worriedly, Rita crouches by a coral reef of teeth- "there's human bones in there," she murmurs dissipatedly, with no obvious way of knowing- and gestures for Shajo to come over. "If anything really bad happens to me, Mr. Shajo, just... pull me away or something, alright?" A pause as she glances back. "Are you... okay? That armor's sort of creepy."      But her plan's simple, and (hopefully) foolproof. Crouching with her back to Petra and generating a little peach-sized glob of slime in her hand, she drops it and lets it ooze over to touch the teeth on its own. If there's no obvious bad effect on the bibby slime, she has it acid-burn off a piece of ivory and bring it back for Rita to munch. Bio-airgapping!
Petra Soroka	"Commander Rook didn't leave me with this as a panic button to save her. It's in case I need help.And I decided to use it because I need 'help' knowing what's going on."     "Oh." Maybe Petra could've tried harder to conceal her disappointment at being here to help Satsuki, but despite the evidence to the contrary, she's not actually immune to being annoyed by people disliking her. Satsuki might have a reason for it that Petra intellectually agrees with, but she'll still be bratty about it. "That makes more sense."     Petra crosses her arms and pouts dubiously at Satsuki, glancing at Tamamo out of the corner of her vision for cues. "Okay, but, you're asking us for answers that Lilian specifically *didn't* give to you, right? It's not like anything's really changed from whenever she briefed you on stuff, so...."     "And I don't know what a 'Muramasa' is...." Petra mumbles to herself, annoyed about having to admit to not knowing something in front of Satsuki. "Nope. She's just on my phone."     Petra knows little enough about Sakura that this takes her by surprise, but not so little that she feels the need to question it. It's not... *much* different from how Nika always ends up messaging her when she's doing something in Lilian's world, so she rolls with it. Sakura's presence, insofar as she is, instead does something rarely possible, which is undermining the Lilian-centric position that Petra just took.     "Okay, well... Sakura is... someone important to Lilian? In a way that's hard to explain. And, um...." Petra struggles with words for a moment. "She's someone it's good to help. If Lilian *wasn't* here, and it was helpful to Sakura for me to do this, then I would do it. *For* Lilian, but for Sakura. So that's why." The transitive property of Petra's ideological loyalties probably only makes sense as an 'explanation' for who Sakura is to herself. "It's imprisoned by the Inverse Eternal Palace Curse, and the placement of the Muramasa of Echoes and Muramasa of Distortions here, but it might be able to get us once we remove those swords."     "Hey-- what does 'get' us mean? How is it going to try and 'get' us?" "We don't appear to be ...breathing..."     Petra is mildly nonplussed by this. The contexts in which she expected to not be breathing were always different! "Oh. Cool." Since she's not dying, that's one problem solved, and the other is: "And you're experiencing time like normal, watching us from out there? So we're not gonna get launched a million years into the future for you all of a sudden either. So that's good."
Petra Soroka	HAZEL: Hey! HAZEL: Sakura says hold out your phones near the window so the trees can see your phone number.     Of course Petra carries her Nintendo DS on her as part of her vital mission equipment. This isn't, really, as silly as it might seem; even without knowing that Satsuki's call for help was Bloom-related, Petra had the DS on her. Between conversations (both language-based and gameplay-based) with Nika via DS, her texts with Ash, the narrative-upending results of sitting down and talking with Lilian once way back then, and now Sakura's phone number divination, Petra's perspective on the Blooms is one *deeply* intertwined with 'communication' as a concept.     Petra's own feelings about the humanizing and dehumanizing capabilities of language certainly prime her to think a particular way. But it's hard for her to deny that selecting the 'Talk' option is staggeringly effective with these four, and being the *specific* audience and vector for their communication is important to her for selfish reasons, too. SILKE: (scribbled image of a big thumbs-up) SILKE: got ittttttttttt HAZEL: Are you friends now? SILKE: me and sakura?     While heading over to the window to hold her phone up to it, Petra diligently balances her DS in the crook of her elbow so she can continue Posting at Nika. Rather than doing the obvious thing of just opening up her contact page, Petra shows a notes file to the trees that contains both her phone number and a polite little 'heyy it's petra' underneath. It's hard to decipher why-- it feels a little bit like, somehow, she gets the feeling that *she* was given Sakura's contact information first, so neutrally introducing herself in the first exchange is the right thing to do. SILKE: well that'd be nice at some point but i don't think i've gotten a chance yet SILKE: tho that reminds me there's something else i should tell you about SILKE: but later when i'm not around all these swords HAZEL: It's really fun working together like this! HAZEL: Like the hacker support character! SILKE: YEAH !!!!!!! SILKE: maybe i should get one of those earpiece things to read out your messages like those spies have SILKE: we've got some real bowser's endless staircase stuff going on over here SILKE: did you know that staircase is real btw
Xion	Xion had been 'lightly joking', but thanks to the power of her incredible communicative ability -- she can read a face and spot displeasure thanks to the tremendous power of sight. "Well, okay then! Sorry, I don't really have the answers but I thought it sounded cooler to be a little mysterious. I think a lot of people fall back on mystery..." The Nobody's returning smile endoubles its apologetic slant, a tug of a half-frown turning her honest smile upside down but like a flicker of the lights that almost feels like a blink it comes and goes. "Well, I guess I blew mystery too. But that's okay! Gosh, look at all of these blades. I bet they're culturally relevant!" Xion, instead of Immediately advancing through the paradox maze filled with little bits, is entirely amazed by the glasses cases, not seeing any of the little spore-like infinite teeth inside the glass and after a moment of inspection tapping the top of the case with the Kingdom Key's length with a light touch. click! goes the row of cases, as the security systems (if any) disengage and the locks release. . . Infinitely slowly? Could a binary state change be delayed like that? Whether or not there's even a security system in a time displaced nowhere-realm that's perfectly paused to still even breath. Which-- "So even the air here is paused?" She asks, not looking directly at Rita but still at least acknowledging the useful information she's sharing. "Can we change anything here?" Xion turns back to Sakura, as the handsy-gloved Nobody touches the glass case besides her and wills open her Inventory, attempting to capture the closest sword -- and then the next, and the next, and the next, down and down the rows, adding each and every ??? Sword (Culturally Relevant) in its own discrete stack (pile nowhere) as unidentified blades. Thankfully she can Adventure Heroine (loot goblin) as she moves, cheerfully trying to capture every Culturally Relevant blade for later inspection as she passes them by. If there's an infinite hallway of infinite swords: She will remotely acquire as many as she can capture! "... Do you think this is the curse that those robot jerks used on us? It doesn't feel quite the same kind of gross, but... The *everything* here's pretty 'different'-" Not 'off', just 'different'. "-than normal."
Lilian Rook	'One could hardly have grown a tenth tail without being somewhat... experienced, after all.'     "I heard that she got that name by actually getting ten tails, because she cut the last one off each time it got to nine." Satsuki says, with an air of contemplative curiosity somewhat more respectful than simple recitation of a tall tale. "It's said that when a kitsune gets nine tails, they become all-knowing divine spirits, and ascend from the material realm. Every time I heard that rumour, I wondered why she'd want to stay."     'Oh? Let us suppose, for a moment, that she was backed by the Oda, and I told you of this. What would you wish to do, knowing this?'     Satsuki stiffens up. "I'd be unhappy that I didn't know. And not too surprised." she says, cautiously. "Sorry. One of my relatives had a Muramasa stolen from her a couple of years back. She was harshly punished for it." Satsuki ends her statement there, letting the rest stand to polite implication.     'Oooh... Your grandparents used to own this place? Or even further...?'     Satsuki looks uncomfortable despite Kukuru's Kukuruness encouraging a certain amount of operation-inappropriate softness. "The shrine was nationally managed. It's just in the territory that my-- extended family? Manages." She shakes her head. "Obviously it wasn't like this before. This is part of the seal to keep the Muteki outbreak contained."     'How do we got more of these Murmasasas, then...?'     "That's part of the problem." Satsuki says. "At minimum, Commander Rook seemed to think that she'd need the Muramasa of Moments and the Muramasa of Distortions to get here, but then retrieving Echoes and Distinctions would leave her with . . . four. And you can't collect four in one place belonging to the same people. Or else--" She waves her hands animatedly yet meaninglessly. "--the curse. So there need to be at least two of us to divide them up. And we can't be holding them for the same purpose, soooo . . ."     'You didn't tell me you got shorter.'     Satsuki begins to snort, then presses her hand over her mouth. "We split up earlier, before this corridor. I don't know what she encountered on the way in, but it was probably worse than this."     'And I don't know what a 'Muramasa' is....'     "You didn't have time to read a book in jail? Really?" Satsuki pronounces in barely veiled disgust. It's odd to see her actually hold disdain for someone, but the way she narrows her eyes at Petra isn't subtle. "You're usually great at sharing everything Lilian keeps private anyways."     'Hey-- what does 'get' us mean? How is it going to try and 'get' us?'     "It means it takes you apart into ten thousand little pieces and reproduces them infinitely to kill other people too." says Satsuki. "I'm curious if we'd see one iota of decency if it did."
Lilian Rook	HAZEL: That'd be super fun! HAZEL: I wish I could hack computers now. HAZEL: I kind of can if I ask them nicely. HAZEL: And that sounds really funny. HAZEL: Can you get out if you go really fast? Is there a skip? HAZEL: I tried to make one once but I couldn't explain it in a way that made sense. HAZEL: Space didn't get it. HAZEL: But that's okay. I didn't think about how to get out anyway. HAZEL: Is there a painting there too?     'Well, I guess I blew mystery too. But that's okay! Gosh, look at all of these blades. I bet they're culturally relevant!'     "They're pretty valuable I guess." says Satsuki. "Culturally. Don't go trying to sell them." A beat. "Not that I think you would. I don't know why I said that."     Xion's unlocking of the cases goes smoothly. If she chooses to physically manipulate them herself, nothing particularly stops her from seizing pricely cultural treasures from their picture perfect lighting and historical placard. None of them appear to be magical in any way, but it feels intuitively significant for the swords used in a seal to be deployed in a sacred place of swords.     Walking backwards is strangely nauseating. Everything works as Kukuru would expect until she bumbles past the party-- from behind, again, so she sees their faces first as she walks past them, but she went from behind and not by forging ahead.     Rita dripping Melting Love's slime on a time dilated outgrowth of shark's teeth growing from rose thorns growing from a split skull has no effect at first, merely rolling down it contours, but over the course of seconds, it starts to stick, warms up to active sizzling, and consumes several snow white teeth down to dewy fuchsia gossamer filaments; only to get no further than that.     The acid grinds to a halt again, the slimy glob shudders, and a wave passes over it like the fleeting press of a thousand invisible sharp points; just before it fragments like a corrupted image, decoheres into every individual hue of red and pink, separates its bubbles from its fluid, and dissolves into the acid wound. A brand new growth begins to take its place, but halts in a few more seconds, partway through forming a composite of bone and crystallized red-pink translucent glass. The intuitive thing she could compare it to feels like 'warming up' something cold by touching it, and seeing it freeze again without an interaction.     'There's no reason to think Ms. Rook is in any danger?'     "Obviously she's in danger, but the Commander would be furious with me if I second-guessed her capabilities right now." Satsuki says. "This time feels. Weird. For some reason."     '... Do you think this is the curse that those robot jerks used on us? It doesn't feel quite the same kind of gross, but... The *everything* here's pretty 'different'-'     "Robot jerks?" Satsuki says, trying not to sound excited.     'If I start ripping the stitching out, that bastard that sewed it up is gonna start strangling me with the thread, I bet. Better I get the fabric all bunched up, get it around their neck instead.'     "I don't really get it, but okay!"     It's easy for even Satsuki to say when whatever Arthur is doing appears to be working. The kaleidoscopic mirage of the blended hallway spirographing in on itself is deeply disturbing to look at, and tricks your inner ear into a debilitating sense of nausea to be near, but when you can feel space creaking and shuddering around you, it spits you out with a moment of physical recoil, and the loop collapses behind you.
Lilian Rook	Your current location exceeds the bounds of the loop and rolls over into placing you into a more spacious series of brightly-lit walkarounds, divided up by woven screens and standing glass dividers, delineated with bright scarlet cord and the omnipresent shimenawa decoration. The exhibit is divided into multiple winding lanes, each dedicated to a progressive line of swords dedicated to a single period or single maker, interspersed with miscellaneous works that are described as offerings to the shrine specifically. The overgrowth here is--     Null. Or not quite. You see a single thorn of fucshia snow crystallized on the center of the ceiling, and nothing else. It hangs directly over one blade that rests point down, completely shadowing the line of its hilt. The sword itself stands out at just a glance, clearly not part of the collection; not only is it visually distinctive, possessing a nonsensible sideways-rippling hamon, as if the wave pattern of the steel could transmit like a fluid medium, its aura alone drags your attention to it straight away. Even from across the room, you feel a certain, faint longing to reach out and take hold of it.     It's only separated by a maze of very fragile dividers, mildly inconvenient as they are to walk around. What it's planted in can't even be seen underneath the wrappings of talismans and protective prayer strips, and it's secured by braids of the shrine's own ropes.     "That's one already!" Satsuki says. The relief on her exhaled breath says something other than 'already'. Rita has already taken in the scent of her various injuries. "That has to be 'Echoes', right?" she says, looking to Tamamo, as if she were an expert on swords. "I can already guess how 'a sword that severs echoes' would be useful in containing this." she says, then points to the single growth of the Antegent. "That's the only blindspot of the sword's 'aura' in the room."     Then, oddly, she turns to stare at her phone. While she reads the text messages, yours (those exposed to the skylight) receive an incoming set of messages too. ¤Hello everyone. I apologize for interfering, but it looked likely that Miss Satsuki was in need. I humbly ask your understanding in this matter. ¤Lilian is currently in battle with the eleventh of the nineteen 'demons' within the Amatsu-jingu. She and Miss Satsuki have been present for twelve consecutive hours. Please do not stray far; when both swords are retrieved, the invincible one will be able to attack you. ¤Lilian herself will also be necessary to retrieve the second sword. Please do not worry; I am keeping a close eye on her! ¤Miss Satsuki doesn't seem to have explained, so I am afraid I must speak on her behalf. She is the current living wielder of 'the sword that severs moments'. Not only her physical self, to carry two of the swords, is necessary, but her skill in wielding it as well, to cut a way into the seal and to protect you. ¤If she is killed, or loses her Grave Blade, you will be stranded. She may be putting on a brave front, but the situation is very serious. ¤Saeko is my adoptive mother, so I can tell you anything you need to know about everything but the swords. ¤Lastly, Lilian's reasons for this are her own, and I suggest that you not overly speculate. They may seem strange, if you were to consider them, but I believe that they may be a necessary step towards a future that this world has not seen before.
Rita Ma	Rita watches the Melting Love acid-goop react with the Invincible Teeth- corrode, assimilate, regrow- in muted lips-tight eyes-wide horror. She scoots back a few more inches in her crouch before starting to speculate.      "So it was fine for a few seconds, but then... no, that's probably because it's 'frozen', and we're not. If time 'unstopped' here, that'd be instant, wouldn't it?" The way she looks at Satsuki, and then at the Teeth, and then guardedly steps back as she rises silently conveys I don't really know what to do about this if it starts moving again.      Then the tilt of her head and dangerously eyebrows-lifted-thoughtful second glance on her way out convey or maybe . . . ?      She takes the space-warping hallway as well as anybody can, which is to say not very well at all, but bravely staggers through. Away from the other human just-barely-remains, there isn't anything to distract her from Satsuki's wounds, so she covertly slides up next to her mid-walk and offers her a glowy healing touch. "Are you still hurt, Ms. Satsuki?" she asks, with a little swallow, and odd certainty that she was.      Text messages! "Oh. That must be Ms. Sakura," Rita says, ill-familiar.      rm22@throwaway: Demons? I thought it was just the God-class.      rm22@throwaway: ... Ms. Sakura?      rm22@throwaway: Is Ms. Rook trying to get the blades, or trying to free it? Which part is the goal?      Either way, better her than anyone else, as usual. Rita slips carefully around the dividers on an intuition that breaking them is bad, lays a hand on the sword (pinching the flat between fingers) while eyeing the thorn warily, and then tries to pull it out of whatever-it's-in with the intent to give it to Satsuki.
Angela	Shajo, who is happy to be 'a guy with arms that can help Rita out a little'. When she says that the teeth are made out of human bones, Shajo gets, well, a little more unnerved than if they were just teeth. Most all-devourers aren't as sweet as Rita, sadly, but what a world it would be if they were! "Don't worry, ma'am. I've got a pair of chompers too if need be." Shajo says, referring to the giant hammer he's carrying. He pauses, though, when Rita asks him if HE'S okay. "Well, it's tellng me I should eat dead bodies." With Petra being the main elite that utilizes EGO Gear it can sometimes be missed that everyone else who uses EGO Gear actually can kind of communicate with the essence of the Abnormality it came from. And even be devoured by it. "My affinity is in a stable range so I should be fine. Enough to use it proper, but not enough to risk getting corroded too easily." He then smiles, "Thanks for worrying after lil ol' me, Rita. It's creepy, but ... It reminds me of the people I lost, so I'm not afraid. You don't be too afraid either, arright? This is a real weird space here." He readies both hammer and hand to prepare for--well--he has no idea what will happen. BUt he'll probably grab Rita or swing the hammer if something horrifying happens--most likely the former. His eyes are wide open like he's too concerned to blink. When Melting Love gets to work, he tenses for several different reasons. Shajo is smarter than Nonon but after he sees what happens, he still has ot ask, "That about what you expected?" Angela, having helped both Petra and Xion get here, already feels broadly helpful is still not inclined to return until they've properly lended Lilian a hand. When Kukuru asks about the overgrowth, Angela has to admit, "I would need to have a far greater understanding of the systems of this world to begin to speculate. My understanding is best settled as an overview rather than the sort of in depth analysis I typically look for. We are gathering data and will eventually be able to build on it in useful ways. I am considering more efficient methods in the future but--ahh. Spoilers." ''And you're experiencing time like normal--'' "My understanding so far seems to be that the distortions are more spatial than temporal because as far as I can tell I am experiencing time in the usual way." Angela explains. "BUt of course Analysis is ongoing. Fortunately Xion is with us if we have to fall back but I would prefer to be helpful than embarrassing." It is her turn to look a little nonplussed as Soroka starts using a video game console to text. She knows that this is actually useful but it is just silly enough that she can't be too enthused about it. ''Stuff about kitsune.'' Angela's gaze flicks towrds Tamamo. ''This time feels. Weird. For some reason.'' "Correct we should not second guess her. We can worry about what is 'Weird' once it is properly analyzed," Angela agrees. And then the Eggpack starts receiving text messages that appear under the screen underneath Angela's face. ''A future that this world has not seen before.'' Angela can't help but smile at that, reaching out and placing her hand on the screen. "That is what she does." She says, with endless fondness. This holds her attention depite the thorn.
Kukuru	Angela hints at something that may be planned for the future regarding the overgrowth (or plants at least), getting a lighthearted chuckle out of Kukuru in the process. "I guess we don't have a looot of time for that right now, nope. We'll have plenty of time for that when we're all back home and not worrying about Lilian and the swords, mhm." She affirms with a quick nod, then pinches her fingers in front of her face at the spoiles comment with an eager grin. Kukuru doesn't know shit, of course, but she's still willing to stay quiet about that all the same. Satsuki provides another name that Kukuru doesn't recognize. "Muteki outbreak..." Kukuru murmurs in return, straining visibly again as she tries to commit it to memory. It might be connected to the... Antegent? The Grave Blades? Saeko? Maybe the first thing, but swords don't strike her as something that there could be an outbreak of, and Saeko... Could that person have something to do with it? She recalls Satsuki saying something about her being involved with the curse, but that has to be more of a Murmasas thing, right? "So if Lilian already has two, then she'd deeeefinitely need you around to get those other two. She really couldn't do this alone if she's worried about that curse doing... Cuuurse things." Affirming that with a nod, Kukuru visibly murmurs 'Moments' and 'Distortions' to herself, but she doesn't do the same for the other two. "Is it a problem if someone just takes one and then a third person takes one, then?" a beat, and then Kukuru strokes her chin again. "But it'd have to be someone she reaaally trusts to be able to protect it, and not to do something crazy with it." She concludes, pausing to stare at Satsuki for a few moments before looking away with a coy little smile. The smile doesn't stick around for long, though, as Kukuru moves on to moving backwards! Getting hit with that wave of nausea suddenly has her lurching momentarily, sliding one foot out from under herself to brace a hand against the ground. She inhales lightly while fighting off that discomfort, then shakes her head quickly and keeps herself low to the ground to give herself some more time to rest. There's far more going on here than she's used to keeping track of, and she really wants to take a nap to just let it simmer for a bit, but... Not yet. There's still work to be done, and a Lilian to find! As she looks back up and over, she freezes up as the hallway turns into something completely different she can't even begin to comprehend, and all Kukuru feels is more of that awful nausea until she ends up in the newly lit place with everyone else. Her eyes dilate briefly as she's hit with yet more new sights that don't fully make sense until she takes a couple of seconds to just absorb it all. She looks up at the sword Satsuki identifies as Echoes, then follows her gaze to the phone after not hearing Satsuki speak for a little while. Following that cue, Kukuru takes out her own phone, nearly drops it on the way, then mimics holding it the same way towards the skylight. "Satsukiii...  Do you wanna try teleporting up there?" Kukuru offers and squats in place a bit, waving herself around a bit like she's signaling a readiness to be used as a temporary mount. As she does, though, she opens up her messages app and starts tapping away at her phone. > hello!! no need to apologize if you're a friend of lilian and satuski > don't worry we will stay close to satsuki and then lilian once we find you both > i can fix her if she dies but she won't because there's lots of us here to make sure everyone gets home safe <3 > after we get the murmasas of echoes, what do we do about the invincible thing? escape? > if she doesn't want us to to think about her reasons, then we won't. she'll tell us if she ever wants to.
Rita Ma	- - - -      "Well, it's tellng me I should eat dead bodies."      Mid-scoot-backwards, Rita looks over her shoulder at Shajo and smiles in an almost nostalgically warm-bittersweet way.      "I'm glad it's not too bad, Mr. Shajo. We could get burgers later, if you want?"      "That about what you expected?"      "It's worse," she says bright-candidly, while dusting herself off to stand, "but I should've expected worse. I might have a way to make it less-worse, but let's not push that unless we have to, okay?"      "You're really good at supporting people. I get why Ms. Nonon hogs you," she adds on the way out.      - - - -
Tamamo	'Every time I heard that rumour, I wondered why she'd want to stay.'     "There are some things that cannot be reached from the heavens, perhaps. 'Attachment' takes many forms," Tamamo says, and leaves the matter of Sakura's backing be.     'This time feels. Weird. For some reason.'     "It is... weird?" It's this declaration coming on the back of 'Lilian is obviously in danger' that has Tamamo's attention intensifying. "Please think carefully over what has occurred, in consideration of whether this might be explained in greater detail."     Arthur succeeds(?) in his arts of space, and the group is soon transported forward, before Tamamo can think how to explain to Kukuru that 'inverse' can mean any of 'reverse,' 'upside-down,' 'inside-out,' 'opposed,' or 'negated.' That's probably not part of the spatial seal, anyway... isn't it? Hm...     'I can already guess how 'a sword that severs echoes' would be useful in containing this.'     Tamamo is not an expert swords. The fact that she had opened her mouth to ask a question is hidden by her fan, but she pauses, glances to one side, then upward, and finally says, "I see. An 'echo' is a 'repeated reproduction,' is it not?"     Rita goes to pick up the sword. Tamamo starts to say something about it being sealed, before she realizes. The seals aren't on the sword. They're not on barriers set up around it. The seals are on that something into which the sword has been stabbed.     Quietly thankful for the hands-free, subvocal communicator hidden in her jewelry, Tamamo responds to Sakura at the same time as tossing out talismans to set up a sealing barrier around the sword, out to a distance of a dozen paces. It won't be of any help to Rita if something happens, with her being at ground zero, but it'll help a lot for everyone else to provide even an extra moment to react, if this does turn out to be just like that time with the Muramasa of Distortions. If Tamamo's worries are misplaced, she can break the barrier in time for the sword to be handed to Satsuki. ¤Hello, Sakura! :tea_fox: ¤Should we be worried over the curse of four? :quizzical_fox: ¤This was not left as an exercise for those late in coming, surely? ¤Oh, I did have a question. The looping of the halls, was that her doing? :chasing_tail: A defense? A trap? ¤Knowing how that battle progressed would be very useful. :fox_wave:
Arthur Lowell	> ==>                        -- SAKURA [¤] started a memo --                         ¤Hello everyone. I apologize for interfering, but it looked likely that Miss Satsuki was in need. I humbly ask your understanding in this matter... ... ¤...I believe that they may be a necessary step towards a future that this world has not seen before. PB: I MEAN PB: All I gotta do is FOCUS on FIGHTING THE ANTEGENT right? PB: If there's SCHEMES and MOTIVES and stuff that's WHATEVER. PB: REMEMBER, it's my WHOLE JOB to not keep track of that.     He heads for the folks moving to take the sword out. It looks like the sword's facing is relevant to the enemy. And hey: Geometry is his thing! Maybe he can fold space around a few times so that there's no real space that the sword isn't facing when Rita picks it up. He's gonna leave the sword-grabbing to her, though, given his... let's just say, *complex* relationship with weaponry, especially swords. Ideally, the Antegent will be kept at bay by his spatial warping, but the blade should still let Rita grab it.
Xion	Xion has never seen more swords than in this room, except once before. And at that time, what she saw were blades that were emotionally relevant ones - blades of the heart, detached from their owners and rusting where they had fallen on a lost battlefield - now, what rested before her in cases that barely needed unlocking yet she went through the motion deliberately. A reverence, an operation of proper bearing at incredible speed. Click! Lift. Reach.     Disappear. goes the blades, down the line. One by one by one by one the swords are disappeared into Xion's inventory, dismissed with a touch into smoky dark motes and skipping the intervening frames of motion and existence and breathless revelry of history and restoration already dreamed about. Click! Lift. Reach.     Disappear. goes the Nobody, trapped in time. Eventually the 'loop' ceases to loop and the line of Culturally Relevant Empty Cases replaces the line of Culturally Relevant infinite swords, each and every mundane masterwork gathered within the nowhere-place that the Nobody kept her everything else. 'Fortunately Xion is with us if we have to fall back but I would prefer to be helpful than embarrassing.' Catching up with the group still holding the Kingdom Key in a loose shouldered steady, the noirette slides her free hand into coat pocket as she approaches the removal of the Culturally (& Magically) important Muramasa, curious eyes tracking between Rita, Angela('s telepresence), and Arthur('s posting foolishness). "For getting everyone out of here, I'd actually stick close to Arthur. If he can do some... space stuff, he might be able to delay the start of the terribleness and get everyone through a portal before the teeth get them. I might be able to hold them off for a little while too, but. . ." Rita's exploration with Melting Love on the teeth had given Xion a fair idea of the threat, and was why the Nobody hadn't reached out to steal a slice of heart for her quilt from the local God-class entity. "... I don't know if my heart wouldn't turn to teeth if I touched it too uncarefully. So if we're here to do something - let's do that thing, find Lilian, and get out of here. Being frozen in time is only my second biggest fear." One she had experienced, and kept the keepsake from another Xion on the path after it was returned to her.
Petra Soroka	HAZEL: I wish I could hack computers now. HAZEL: I kind of can if I ask them nicely. SILKE: that's /way/ cooler than doing it nromally SILKE: trust me i know, i used to sort of do it and the way it works in games is a lot more interesting than in real SILKE: actually that kind of /is/ how it works in games HAZEL: Can you get out if you go really fast? Is there a skip? SILKE: kukuru walked backwards a bit and now she looks like she'll barf SILKE: a blj might make me explode SILKE: arthur's gonna oob us or something though lmao     While tactically tippy-typing away on her Nintendo DS, Petra considers how useful the framework of video games might be to planning out missions. It's not exactly an unprecedented thought-- how many video games are modeled after adventures Elites have gone on, already? The ouroboric nature of using video game mechanics from games based on Elite missions to then conceptualize how to get through missions of her own is rotated around in her mind for a bit, and then she realizes she's getting dangerously close to understanding Arthur so she shelves that thought for now. HAZEL: I tried to make one once but I couldn't explain it in a way that made sense. HAZEL: Space didn't get it. HAZEL: But that's okay. I didn't think about how to get out anyway. SILKE: want me to take some pictures? SILKE: space worked it out at least once here, so it's like, study material     After sending that message, Petra looks up from her DS again, to see Arthur's awful reality-tangle that he's weaving, and the infinite skulls and teeth blooming out of flowers all around the shrine. She winces, trying to imagine an angle where this *doesn't* freak Nika's gourd. To Ceri beside her, she says, with absolutely zero context provided, "Hey, can you find some corner of this where it isn't evil?" and then goes wandering off in search of the same herself. "... Do you think this is the curse that those robot jerks used on us?"     "Nahhh, probably not, since--" In a flash of pettiness, Petra decides to withhold Ash's name from Satsuki, because she's being annoying. "I heard they're still, like, testing and developing it. So even, like, besides the fact that this is the other side of the world, they probably didn't have it fifty years ago or whatever." "You didn't have time to read a book in jail? Really?"     "Okay, well, I did, and I *did* read." Petra huffs, increasingly irritated at Satsuki. Maybe if Satsuki had been *honest* about what the summon was for, then Petra wouldn't have even bothered coming, and Satsuki could just go get eaten by a million fucked up teeth or whatever. "And it was Lilian who gave me books, anyways. It's not like I could go out to a fucking library and choose." "It means it takes you apart into ten thousand little pieces and reproduces them infinitely to kill other people too. I'm curious if we'd see one iota of decency if it did."     "Okay, well, noted." Even as Petra brats, she's compelled to appreciate the useful scrap of information. She's just also compelled to grumble about a whole lot of unimportant stuff, too.     "I've got a bunch of iotas. I've been *working* on my iotas. You'd *know*, but you haven't even *seen* me in over a year, so why's it so hard to believe I figured out a little bit of how to be good since then. I'd have even *more* iotas of decency if I got disassembled sometime in the *future* too." Satsuki isn't actually meant to hear any of that. Petra's just whining.
Lilian Rook	¤As Saeko once told me, the feat of sealing the Amatsu-jingu was one that could not have been accomplished in secrecy. Many warriors, some human, stood by her for it. To make best use of their sacrifices, the bearers of 'Echoes' and 'Distinctions' lead many powerful 'Antegent' into the shrine, to be sealed at the same time, and allow the surviving heroes to escape. ¤Miss Satsuki has done well to thwart several of their designs to come this far. Lilian has spent days preparing to slay the remaider, if she must. Her 'sight' does not equip her with the answers to every question she could ask, but all of those she will need, should it be to satisfy her aim. I am fondly familiar with it. ¤And though it is impolite to speak for her, often I feel as though I should. ¤In this case, it is true that Lilian is angry with herself, and seeks the blades on my behalf, to prove something to herself, and that she has no desire to release this 'Muteki no Ha', but this ordeal is of her own choosing, to satisfy 'another' aim. ¤I think that her instincts have told her that Ashley has outpaced her in some way. ¤Miss Kukuru; I appreciate your help, but please remain wary. It is possible that you will be unable to retrieve Miss Satsuki if she were to die in one of several possible ways. ¤I would suggest you immediately escape. The Inverse Eternal Palace Curse alone is able to restrain the 'Teeth' for another nine years and six months. Of course I will notify Saeko immediately, so that it will be seen to long before then. ¤As for Muramasa's curse, yes, please do be wary. The sword that Miss Satsuki carries is none other than one of the Grave Blades we require. No doubt its nature caught Lilian's eye when she first took her on. ¤I believe it is Lilian's plan to carry at least one sword for herself, and so she has divorced herself from Miss Satsuki's cohort, to avoid the arcane link of fellowship that could consider them 'one clan'. ¤Given 'certain circumstances', however, I believe it is likely that you are, as an individual, within the clan of 'Lilian Rook', Lady Tamamo; at least here and now. ¤The corridor appears to be the work of the sword of 'Distinctions'. By severing the differing qualities between its beginning and end, they cease to be distinct points in space, and naturally lead to this result. As lightly as we are given to treating them, the balance of power in this country is heavily reliant on these swords for good reason. ¤Lilian is doing well, by the way. Her unique abilities are very well suited to this battlefield, and there is violence in her heart, best spent here. It is difficult even for myself to keep track of her, but I will inform you should I believe there to be cause for worry. ¤You even speak so in text? ¤I think I applaud your intentionality. ¤Or is it 'style'? ¤Nevertheless, you are correct. I cannot see the future, but I can see much of the present, and I believe that the shape of things now motions towards an outcome where these motives will reveal themselves to you very soon. ¤To us. For all I have watched, this is something new even to me.
Lilian Rook	'Are you still hurt, Ms. Satsuki?'     "Negative. Status green." says Satsuki to Rita, before halting and blinkingly adding "Huh? Wait, did--?" She shakes her head a second time, though. "It's nothing special. Commander Rook and I were together for the hard part. We didn't split up until we'd cleared out the tougher customers and some of the scary traps. I can do first aid, and this much is basically nothing compared to my upbringing, haha."     'Is it a problem if someone just takes one and then a third person takes one, then?'     "It depends. The curse can bring ruin to an entire clan if they possess four swords in such a way that they deem 'theirs'. Even taking branch families into account, a unified organization can't do it; so anyone who accumulates three can't steal or buy or seize a fourth without also getting a fifth at the same time; and even then, if you only have five, you're screwed if you lose just one. Since there's eleven clans running things right now, it's hard to keep stable, but also hard to push against."     Satsuki rubs her face tiredly. "Nobody even knows why they're cursed. Just being forged by a ghost doesn't do that. It probably wasn't even on purpose." She then nods at Kukuru's pointing, saying "Worth a shot!"     'Please think carefully over what has occurred, in consideration of whether this might be explained in greater detail.'     "U-um, M-ma'am!" Satsuki stiffens up. "It just seemed like . . . she came here, because, ah . . . I don't know-- it's just a feeling-- but-- like it's as if . . . it had to be something that she'd have to push herself to do. Like, being tough for her was the point. A-and . . ." Satsuki nervously adjusts her ponytail. "I've never seen her try to tackle anything she wasn't sure of. Master Gerart says that it's a quality he tries to teach all of his students, and that we should take her as an example."     'Being frozen in time is only my second biggest fear.'     "If it helps, we'd perceive being killed nearly instantly." Satsuki says, grimly. "'Futility' was partly so difficult to defeat because of its structure. It's described as an 'infinitely reiterated self-proving function of sympathetically distinct particles that reflect changes in state without ever actually exchanging information'." Satsuki says, in rote schoolbook tones. She did, in fact, get taught this in school. "It has a kind of 'airgap armour'; by all arcane means, no part of it can be considered to be related to any whole. Whatever you do to part of it doesn't affect the rest, but the rest still learns from and adapts to it."     She gestures at the hall behind her. "We tested using Commander Rook's 'bloodline cutting' technique, and it had no effect, so . . . If any part of it were fully freed, we wouldn't be lucky enough to stay on another time-scale."     Rita is freely able to enter the rows of dividers. Going straight ahead, she comes to a left bend, then following it, a right, and then a left again, and--
Lilian Rook	Stops. Without a physical obstacle, or any force that she can feel acting on her, her left turn goes nowhere, simply leaving her walking in place. Passing up the turn until she can take a right has the same result. And then doubling back on the same route, also. Which is very bad.     'I've got a bunch of iotas. I've been *working* on my iotas. You'd *know*, but you haven't even *seen* me in over a year, so why's it so hard to believe I...'     Satsuki stares at Petra as looking at walking garbage. "Hey. Why don't you get on your knees and grovel for what you put Lilian through first." she says. Her usual affect drains out of her voice, becoming flat and archaically formal. "If you won't gut yourself in shame, that much should be a given."     She isn't paying that much attention to the sword when she holds Kukuru to teleport with her. The jaunt is a trivial success; they're both deposited right at the sword in its . . . pedestal. A display case? Taking a deep breath, Satsuki gingerly reaches out to take it, winces as she lays her palm on the hilt, exhales with a quiet exultation, and then pulls back.     Nothing. Not like it's stuck. Like Rita is stuck. The exact same way.     "A-ah . . . haha . . . this is . . . nnnnh . . ."     Tamamo's barrier lays in place perfectly fine, but Arthur finds he can wrap space around the sword exactly: once. HAZEL: Thank you! HAZEL: Nobody ever says it's cool. HAZEL: Pressing all the keys is cool too though. HAZEL: Doing things fast makes them cooler almost always. HAZEL: Be careful! HAZEL: Wait. HAZEL: Do you know what a QPU is? HAZEL: Does Arthur? HAZEL: It's important. HAZEL: Sometimes I can get things to study. HAZEL: Some of them like it and some of them hate it. HAZEL: I never asked space. HAZEL: It's really old, and important. HAZEL: And it always has a really simple and smart answer for everything. HAZEL: Like mom.
Tamamo	'. . . it had to be something that she'd have to push herself to do. Like, being tough for her was the point.'     'I've never seen her try to tackle anything she wasn't sure of.'     '...and seeks the blades on my behalf, to prove something to herself...'     'I think that her instincts have told her that Ashley has outpaced her in some way.'     "I see," says Tamamo. More quietly, "She took those accusations to heart, of being made 'soft,' then."     'It has a kind of 'airgap armour'; by all arcane means, no part of it can be considered to be related to any whole.'     "How terribly and unfairly inconvenient, as if it constructed itself specifically to..." No, that's silly. It must be a coincidence.     Several have arrived at or near the sword, but not reached it. Tamamo has more time at hand to lay out her barrier and prepare her defenses and curses than she'd expected, but doesn't see, from where she is, why she would have this time.     "Is something the matter?" An additional barrier around the blade comes first to mind, to prevent it from being drawn. It would be easier to analyze it by getting closer, but that's something she'd very much rather not. She'll just have to look a safe distance. If it's a curse or a barrier, it should be easy for her to figure it out. If it's the effect of a sword... maybe less so.     'The corridor appears to be the work of the sword of 'Distinctions'. By severing the differing qualities between its beginning and end, they cease to be distinct points in space, and naturally lead to this result.'     It's probably the sword.
Rita Ma	"Huh? Wait, did--?"      Rita smiles in relief. "You just still smell like blood is all, Ms. Satsuki. If it's okay, then it's okay," she lies, because it isn't quite okay for her-of-blown-pupils-and-swallowing-drool, but at least it's not much blood. "Thank you for taking good care of yourself."      "It has a kind of 'airgap armour'; by all arcane means, no part of it can be considered to be related to any whole."      "That's fine," Rita says distractedly, as she enters the little maze. What does she mean 'that's fine'?      I can't count on controlling Muteki no Ha if I eat some, then. But I wasn't planning to risk biting it anyway. 'Let's see who absorbs who' is the kind of reckless thing you do when you don't have any other chance. I can still- and ask Arthur to-      Her thoughts are interrupted by realizing she's been walking in place for five seconds.      "Huh?" That's strange, but not too concerning. But when she tries and fails to take the next right, her blood suddenly runs cold.      "I... I can't go left. Or right. Because I just took a left turn, and a right one. I think the sword won't let me do the same thing twice," she says, voice formal-stiff-chilled-slow. 'Muteki no Ha' only does the same thing over and over, so it can't grow here. And I'll have to go backwards 'twice' now, so I can't do the same thing..."      Something more clicks. What if it stops me from breathing?! No, wait, I can still do that. But-- "Ms. Satsuki. You can't draw the sword because you drew a sword recently. Someone else needs to do it."      On a hazarded guess, Rita tries to leap over the dividers, and if that works she draws it herself- are 'up' and 'down' still legal moves for her?
Kukuru	"Ashley...?" Kukuru murmurs aloud as she reads Sakura's various messages, glancing around a few times to see if anyone else looks as confused as she feels. She soon realizes, though, that not everybody reads at the same speed, and she instead just looks over at Satsuki directly and mouths 'Ashley?' quietly in her general direction. > then we will make sure satsuki does not die even for a second. it is better that way that's for sure. > escaping right away after that is a good plan. is it fast? if we teleport out of here, I  want to make sure it does not follow us. Learning more about the need to keep the Grave Blades separate in that clan-described manner has Kukuru's brain starting to activate again. She looks at those already gathered here today, and then she starts counting quietly in her head. "There's a lotta people here that are super close to Lilian, so that could be real tricky, riiight? But... Does that mean those blades haaave to go to people that don't like her so much? That might be a big problem, too, unless..." Tamamo's a given as someone that would be part of the same unified organization. Would anyone in the Paladins count? She could see Xion being at least one separate entity, and Arthur would also be easy enough to consider separate. Angela and Lobotomy Corporation would probably be one organization outside of that, but what would someone like Petra count as? A sister? A member of Lobotomy Corporation? Would she count as part of both? Would the Concord itself count? What about Rita, and those on Apple Tree Island? Or the Watch? This must be part of why Lilian's so stressed about handlingt hings here. Just trying to think of the math alone is making Kukuru's head hurt more. Closing her eyes, she tries not to mull on that any longer while getting to work helping Satsuki reach the Muramasa of Echoes with those ever convenient teleportation clouds of hers. She does't notice that Satsuki's stuck until she reopens her eyes a few seconds later, but she does notice that something's wrong fairly quickly afterwards. "Satsuki? You're..." Wait. The danger bells ring in Kukuru's head for once. She grabs Satsuki's shoulder, pulling on her a bit before- "I think the sword won't let me do the same thing twice," "Ms. Satsuki. You can't draw the sword because you drew a sword recently. Someone else needs to do it." -wracking her brain for ideas of how to get herself and Satsuki out without risking a repeat of not being able to get them out of a similar jam later. It does sound to her like Rita and Arthur are handling the actual retrieval, at least, so she can really focus on this task instead. She tries to open open up a set of teleportation portals first, waiting to see if it even works and if Satsuki wants to back off that way after the fact. If it doesn't work, though... "Lemme know when you wanna get away from here, okay? I'll throw you, so you can still walk in here later if you ever need to~" Kukuru offers, looking ready and willing to actually just chuck Satsuki out of the pedestal/display area if she's given the go ahead. She's not about to move away herself just yet, however. She needs to be careful right now!
Angela	"Mm? Well if you say so, I trust your judgement." Angela says, regarding Arthur. ''I'm glad it's not too bad, Mr. Shajo. We could get burgers later, if you want?'' "Yeah, sounds good. If it wouldn't put you out." ''I see why Ms. Nonon hogs you.'' Shajo flinches just from the suddeness of a comment like that coming from someone like Rita. "Yeah..." He rubs at his neck sheepishly. "I uh. Luckiest man alive. Y'know, even after we settle down--you can always count on us to back you up, Rita. Nonon's also been talking about really getting to know the sealife of your world, she's really excited for it--" Angela glances over. A sudden worry hits her wholly unrelated to the mission. "...Speaking of, Miss Rita. We should ... speak on matters regarding their retirement from L Corp." Angela says. "There are particulars that would be better to get done with in advance." Angela looks to Petra thoughtfully but doesn't say the same to her just yet. She has... thoughts. But she doesn't really know how to get into those thoughts right now and she has a feeling she'd be chided for even trusting a Plan B may be neccessary. But she has no idea what Rita feels about the odds. ''Being frozen in time is only my second biggest fear.'' "What is your first?" Angela asks, hoping for something she can fear more than being frozen in time just for her first worst fear to be ''different''. Angela loses focus a bit as people talk about bloodline cuts and the like. Angela is not a master swordswoman and doesn't even have a mild interest in sword techniques. But eventually, it's too weird an idea for her to just leave it be. "What exactly is a bloodline cutting technique?" She asks. ''Hey. Why don't you get on your knees--'' Angela looks to Satsuki but says nothing. ''Does that mean those blades haaaave to go to people that don't like her so much?'' Ceri and Shajo glance towards Parker, the only person in the group here that hasn't reached the Devoted Minion rating.
Xion	'If it helps, we'd perceive being killed nearly instantly.' Xion shakes her head with a sad smile. "No. It doesn't really help. Sorry." The noirette admits with a lowered tone. "'You'll die instantly', just like 'it'll be quick and painless', are just ways to rationalize around terror. I don't really need to wish it away, I was..." Lifting the length of the brushed-metal round Kingdom Key off her shoulder to resettle it on a slightly different place, a discomfort of a moment, Xion's squiggle-lips mugu-mugu-mugu for a moment before she exhales and lifts her shoulders in a shrug. "Something that was supposed to happen in a single instant can still last a life-time. Sometimes whole worlds exist and collapse between the strokes of the clock-hand, and all the possibilities of a life can be found there. It's--" 'You can't draw the sword because you drew a sword recently. Someone else needs to do it.' For a few seconds, Xion is absolutely eager to get into that ring and get One More Sword, and then realizes that there's absolutely no way she didn't count as Drawing A Sword. She's almost ready to lower the Kingdom Key and dismiss it when her hand reflexively re-closes around the black grip framed in yellow-gold bracket-guard. "Aw, dangit. Guess I'm crossed out for drawing that sword from the stone." Xion laments gently, not exactly broken up about this. It seemed like Kukuru and Arthur had ideas! So the noirette lingers by Tamamo instead, looking at the increasing layers of divine energy-work and blinking with a flutter. "As if it constructed itself specifically to what, Miss Tamamo? Have you figured it out, or, just thinking aloud?" 'What is your first?' "Ceasing to exist completely as myself." Xion answers. "All of me is the part of Xion that wanted to live, to exist. I can't wish otherwise - I wouldn't."
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: Keep bending the space     Can't do that. Arthur tests the boundary of the bend, and notices it can't happen more than once. No, this effect... it's stopping space from echoing itself, isn't it? Or it's stopping him from doing the action twice. Wow, he stops for a moment and scrolls up his own command list. He's got a *lot* of old commands. What are the oldest of the old, though? Well... > Arthur: Use that complex relationship with swords     Yeah. He hasn't used that one in YEARS, objectively, and subjectively at least an eternity. While he fishes out some part of his interface, he actually has to blow the dust off of it: His STRIFE PORTFOLIO. He chatters as he does, alternating between DS and smart-sunglasses: HAZEL: Do you know what a QPU is? HAZEL: Does Arthur? PB: FOR SURE PB: I had to BUILD THE GRID on those fuckin things AGES BACK PB: took me WEEKS PB: units of geometric planes running next to each other PB: that one measures four 'cause most universes are made out of fours PB: but you can make sets of any PB: i'd say THIS SWORD is saying JUST ONE ¤To us. For all I have watched, this is something new even to me. PB: STYLE yeah PB: it's my SICK FLOW PB: keep watching though PB: buncha this shit's ALL NEW to ME TOO PB: you'd think that doesn't say much but it really does PB: hang on i have to play CARDGAMES for a second     He finally fishes out the thing. "Grab this!" He shouts, tossing it to Rita, and expecting it'll probably get used properly in a moment. It's... a STRIFE SPECIBUS, allocated to the KIND ABSTRATUS of SWORDKIND. What, precisely, that might actually fucking mean is probably not relevant to the exact function it has, which is that if a sword can be picked up nearby, it will be -- and stored away in a small green card. Hopefully something that can isolate its effects, but dangerously something that's likely to suppress its echo-cutting field and thus release some more of the antegent's power.
Petra Soroka	HAZEL: Pressing all the keys is cool too though. SILKE: hmmmmmmmmm SILKE: i mean you're the expert SILKE: but isn't hitting the keys a way of asking the computer too? SILKE: so it might work anyways even though you don't need to SILKE: sort of like 'dressing up' for it SILKE: like how Lilian wears armor sometimes even when she might not really need it HAZEL: Do you know what a QPU is?     Petra *so* does not know what a QPU is. But it's important, apparently, so against her better judgement she does ask Arthur. After being looped around by his complete nonsense for a few minutes, Petra just drops her forehead onto the top edge of her DS in defeat when it turns out to just be more Mario 64 terminology that she hadn't osmosed from Nika already, something she could only discern by reading past what Arthur actually said. SILKE: he FOR SURE does SILKE: why's it important? SILKE: for mario or other stuff?     Once through Arthur's terrible hall of reality mirrors, scrubbing at her ear to irritatedly try and reset her internal pressure after spacial distortion fucked it up, Petra straightens up to look around the room. Her eyes land on the sword in the center of the room within a moment, drawn towards it with a quiet inhalation.     "Oh. *That's* a Muramasa. I get it."     Not just because it's a cool-looking sword. The meaning of a 'sword that severs echoes' becomes a lot more clear to her, seeing how the Antegent withers away from it like that. "Hey. Why don't you get on your knees and grovel for what you put Lilian through first."     "Do you think I *haven't* already?!" Petra protests, voice pitched up. "I've done that a lot! To her, and a lot of other people, and obviously that's not the end of it, but we're in the middle of--"     In the middle of whining, Petra hits the mental wall obstructing her from stretching her sworn attempts at self-betterment and flagellation any farther. She cuts off with a heavy sigh, fluttering out all the air in her lungs to droop her head and shoulders down, and then after a quiet breath, continues in a much more serious tone, head staying bowed. "... No, you're right. I'm sorry. And I'll, you know, always keep being sorry for it, for the rest of my life, and there's not any amount of getting better that actually lets me stop saying that. So... yeah. I'm doing everything I can to be better to Lilian. Sorry." ¤Lastly, Lilian's reasons for this are her own, and I suggest that you not overly speculate. » arthur and kukuru have got it right » i'm way too dumb to speculate so i'll leave that to Lilian » and just do whatever i'm needed for ¤I think that her instincts have told her that Ashley has outpaced her in some way. » that makes sense » that's probably why she's doing that part alone too ¤Given 'certain circumstances', however, I believe it is likely that you are, as an individual, within the clan of 'Lilian Rook', Lady Tamamo; at least here and now.     Petra looks briefly guilty at her phone screen, since there's zero chance that she *doesn't* count as being, at least, a clan follower of Lilian. On the other hand, though, having a deadly sword curse validate her ideological allegiance doesn't feel *that* bad, and it spares her from nervously having to handle a very important and culturally valuable artifact, so she concludes that she's fine with it.
Tamamo	'As if it constructed itself specifically to what, Miss Tamamo? Have you figured it out, or, just thinking aloud?'     "Oh, did you hear...? It is nothing important in the moment. Only... you have seen how the forces of Nazca prepared themselves against us, yes? An army that has yet to meet an enemy cannot do such a thing. Why, then, would the Antegent, who existed only beyond this world, and have nothing recognizable as spies, nor even a meaningful ecology among their strongest members, have just so happened to deploy an entity best suited to denying sympathetic curses to the place on Earth that may have the best preserved traditions of such techniques?"     Tamamo pauses. "It has often seemed to me that the Antegent are driven by a certain perversity, more so than 'just so happening' to be where they are for having been those who survived. On the other hand, sympathetic magic is hardly limited to this land, and war is a thing that sorts survivors. I may be seeing only the ghosts of patterns." And not something made just to frustrate her own magic.     "That aside, we should be wary, in case the object into which the sword is presently stabbed is one of the demons sealed within this place.
Lilian Rook	'How terribly and unfairly inconvenient, as if it constructed itself specifically to...'     "You could think of it a different way." says Satsuki. "Only a monster with that kind of ability would have been classified as a 'God'. We did a respectable job of killing all of these kinds that were susceptible."     'Thank you for taking good care of yourself.'     "In a funny kind of way." she says. "Prevention is better than cure, you know? If you push your limits early on, then you won't need to spend so much time treating yourself later."     'Ashley...?'     Satsuki shrugs. "Isn't that a tree?"     'What exactly is a bloodline cutting technique?'     "It's a sword technique that exploits the sympathetic links between parts and wholes that magic uses by precisely cutting along them. Like how you can curse someone with a lock of their hair or a vial of their blood, even if they're not there, but swith a sword strike. Commander Rook is very good at them."     ''You'll die instantly', just like 'it'll be quick and painless', are just ways to rationalize around terror.'     Satsuki squeezes her lips together. "Yeah. Being a hundred times shorter doesn't mean much if something is a thousand times worse. The way you experience things and remember them isn't that kind of relentless one-one tempo. It's more like gravity, bending the space around it."     . . .     'I think the sword won't let me do the same thing twice'     Satsuki laughs nervously, still hesitantly holding the blade. As if almost knowing what Rita is thinking, she says "Well, isn't that poetic? That each breath and heartbeat isn't an echo of any other, but a brand new moment of ever-changing life, inimitable and irretrievable." Her nervous gaze goes into shadow, for a moment. "I guess 'left' and 'right' are different directions, but 'going back' is an echo of 'going forward'. And um. Either that, or 'retrieving' is an echo of . . . ? I don't know. It kind of clicks intuitively. You'd think that'd ban you from walking at all, right? Since you were walking recently? Maybe it's based on distance to the sword; that's not uncommon."     Rita leaping up into the air appears to be legal; once. And so long as it goes over a divider and not just right down a pathway she's already forbidden from walking down. And fortunately, Arthur's solution is fit for both possibilities. The ridiculous notion of captchaloguing the Muramasa of Echoes has nothing to do with anything, and banishes the presence of the blade throughout the room in short order. An easy task for four different people with various skills and shared information; and quite easily certain death for a single person.     Just as the blade is removed, the talismans plastering its pedestal catch fire and corrode black. The covering peels away around a glass case, within which is a historically preserved example of an edo period allegedly-cursed Heian period--     Satsuki tackles Kukuru away just as the hellish burst of energy crashes into the boundaries of Tamamo's quarantine barrier. Rita sees something lunge out towards Arthur, and dissipate into thin-air in an eyeblink.
Lilian Rook	'An army that has yet to meet an enemy cannot do such a thing.'     Satsuki, catching her breath, makes a deeply uncomfortable sound. "All six God-Class threats appeared in the final three years of the Onslaught." she says, grimly, and leaves it once more.     'So... yeah. I'm doing everything I can to be better to Lilian. Sorry.'     Satsuki gives Petra a dirty look, but it lacks the motivational fire of earlier. "Whatever. I know you're doing something or other. But you'll excuse me if my memory goes 'everything you said and did when we dragged you kicking and screaming down' and then 'now'." HAZEL: You're smart Petra! HAZEL: I can just hit the keys myself too. HAZEL: And then when someone asks me what I'm doing, I can tell them, so it's not just movie stuff. HAZEL: I wanna see her armour! HAZEL: Oh and it's important so the oob doesn't misalign you and throw you into infinite negative space where you can't move. ¤Congratulations! HAZEL: Sakura says congratulations btw. ¤Due to the design of the Amatsu-jingu, and the intuitive necessity of fastening both ends of a wreath in the same place, I believe that the other sword is immediately nearby. ¤Or in other words, go through the door ahead of you, and then into the room across the corridor. ¤I'm advising Miss Satsuki right now. HAZEL: Sakura is telling Lilian's friend what to do. HAZEL: Let me ask if she's okay. HAZEL: Sakura says she won. HAZEL: Is Xion going to open her own sword museum? HAZEL: These instructions sound really complicated.
Rita Ma	"Ceasing to exist completely as myself." Rita finds time in her predicament to wince guiltily. Fortunately, Muramasa guarantees she can't guiltily wince twice! yay!      After her ten-foot-hop she lands with a sigh of relief more than exertion, reaches up to snag the Strife Specibus card that Arthur throws through the air- "Huh? Mr. Arthur, what's this supposed to-"- and then startles with a little ! noise when the Blade of Echoes vanishes (and an evil spirit, that just now appeared? That's really above her paygrade).      'Where'd it go' is a complicated question that Arthur surely has the answer to, so she doesn't worry about that just now. Instead she puts herself through a little animation test: hop, turn left, turn right, step forward and back. Then she can be fully sure that its effects don't still ripple out.      "Thanks, Arthur," she breathes, still not totally certain what he did, and then turns to go to the next room as asked.      "Y'know, even after we settle down--you can always count on us to back you up, Rita."      "Huh? Of course I know that. I mean, I'd want to let you have your peace and quiet, but... why are you sounding all serious-and-guilty like that, Mr. Nonon? You're making it sound like something bad might happen."      "We should ... speak on matters regarding their retirement from L Corp."      Annnnnnd there it is. Her gut tells her that's the 'something bad'. "U-um, of course, Ms. Angela! Like their severance pay and stuff?" Not like their severance pay and stuff. But a girl can hope.      ". . . It's probably fine if I carry the Blade, anyway," she says, vaguely about the limit of fours, and vaguely unhappily. "We've been having a lot of arguments lately."
Xion	Standing idle besides Tamamo, and scanning about in a kind of vigilant teeth-following ready state in lieu of relaxing past the state of letting her Keyblade fall aside or ramping up to activity. Vigil is a compromise, and also, an easy way to keep herself active and not thinking about being replaced by teeth. 'It has often seemed to me that the Antegent are driven by a certain perversity, more so than 'just so happening' to be where they are for having been those who survived. "I think..." Xion's left hand, in her pocket, pulls from pocket, and about her wrist, at the top of her glove, is a black band that resembles a jade ring if not for the vantablack emptiness it is 'colored' by, making the simpler shiny-black of her gloves stand out like brightly lit color compared to the un-lighted silent object she wears. It hovers, and touches nowhere on her, despite following her hand around. "... I've seen some things, through the eyes of others. I've seen some things, fluent in seeing both sides of a spectrum's coin. In my own world, you might be familiar with the 'world-that-is', the world of Humans and upright color, a spectrum defined by light and its absence. But, imagine, that that's only half of things. Not the whole spectrum, but an incredible crescent, half-a-cycle, only one side of a coin." Holding out her left hand casually, palm down, Xion turns gaze gentle-bright blues back over to Tamamo, following to make sure she wasn't just talking out of turn and being unseen. "The way eyes work, the way perception work, the way light works, teaches you the way to communicate between yourself and a world of brightness. But have you ever wondered about the colors of darkness? Things still exist, in shadow, but where light doesn't exist at all, there's still a kind of 'seeing'." The Nobody's palm turns over, and in the center of it is a 'glass' bead - a crystal container of something like 'red blood'. The ball at the top of an Antegent pylon, captured like a marble or a keychain charm. "The colors of 'darkness', what's seen through eyes that know the other side of the spectrum, don't intersect well with light at all. The ways of seeing are even how whole species know what's 'good to eat', and what's something repulsive. So if you saw with 'dark eyes', you might think something brightly lit, something to the antithesis of you, would presumptively be negative." Closing her hand around the nerve-ball keychain charm, Xion frowns. "I think it's not a coincidence at all that the Antegent fell in such an opposite-way, took from one spectrum to invert it. I think the inversion might be the exact way that it all happens, the easiest path through, to turn things in-side out." "When I first touched it... What I saw was vast tapestry of things, like I floated over all things, like gravity reoriented as I turned, because, no matter how I looked - it was as if I was 'looking down'. It was all down, down like a drain, down like a gravity well, down like the other end of a singularity is all down, down down. Past that 'event horizon' of existence, a painful and peeling-apart transmutation, maybe the Antegent are trying to be born 'again' in a world of light. To make a spine, you need what spines are made out of, and to make a mind, you need what minds are made of, and so, moving from a world of darkness to a world of light must be..."
Xion	Xion sighs. "Incredibly strange. Painful, even. To want it so bad that even being nothing, being opposite, being empty by the standards of the world, is the first thing that has to be overcome." "Because there's no choice at all, to 'live'. Even if you have to make yourself anew, piece by piece." Sliding her closed fist back into her pocket, and sleeve falling over vantablack ring, Xion looks up juuuuust in time to see the wards come active, fry alive, and without the intervening motions Xion interposes between Tamamo and the 'stone' that Rita succeeded at pulling the Sword from, holding Kingdom Key ready in a one handed guard, but the wards hold, and after a moment, the thoughtful Nobody slowly glances at Rita - no harm seemingly done - and relaxes by degrees.
Petra Soroka	HAZEL: And then when someone asks me what I'm doing, I can tell them, so it's not just movie stuff. SILKE: YEAH SILKE: omg you know what SILKE: i have my little ratbots right SILKE: and i've had them carry tablet screens and stuff SILKE: and i could put a keyboard that slides out on one or something SILKE: and you could do that whole sort of remote connecting hacker support thing sometimes SILKE: matching outfit too SILKE: i do that with angela, another friend of mine, since she's got a screen in my backpack SILKE: hold on i'll put her on for a sec     "Hey, Ange," Petra reaches around behind her back to show Angela the DS screen, letting her grab it with the Eggpack's hands. "Could you draw something or say something for Nika? She's having a good time, like, doing mission control stuff from far away, so, like...."     "Oh, hold on. Here's a stylus." Petra squeaks out just a drop of morphmetal from her bottle, nudging it with a finger so it floats through the air to the Eggpack's hand and stretches into a little rod. It's perfectly smooth, perfectly conductive, pure and near-unbreakable! Petra's former blood makes for a perfect DS stylus! All Jesus's ever did was make you tipsy. HAZEL: Oh and it's important so the oob doesn't misalign you and throw you into infinite negative space where you can't move.     After getting her DS back from Angela, Petra stares into the middle distance for a long minute of contemplating how that feels extremely possible with Arthur's magic. Meanwhile, in her vision cone but not the focus of her attention is the squad working together to retrieve the Muramasa of Echoes, and she turns her face back down to the DS to respond right before getting startled by the sudden flare-up of energy. SILKE: well we landed on solid ground SILKE: so we're probably f2i14wjkq     Petra sighs and picks her DS up off the ground and hastily inspects it for any damage, clicking the top screen back into its correct position. SILKE: probably *fine ¤Congratulations! HAZEL: Sakura says congratulations btw. ¤I'm advising Miss Satsuki right now. HAZEL: Sakura is telling Lilian's friend what to do.     Petra habitually checks both of her devices at the same time, whenever they alert her to a message, and the quick series of corroborating chimes makes her break out into giggles. Hand over her mouth, shockingly unreserved, in the middle of the cursed seal of a God-class Antegent, Petra's fond giggling fit fades away quickly, and she wipes at her eyes with a knuckle.     Sinking back into more seriousness, Petra double-checks Sakura's instructions and then looks around to locate the proper door. "So... if the next one's Distinctions... are every one of the Muramasas going to be, uh, recognizable, or is this one maybe not? You know, among all the other swords." HAZEL: Is Xion going to open her own sword museum? SILKE: i don't think so SILKE: she just likes swords a lot SILKE: so i think she didn't want them to be stuck and forgotten here "We've been having a lot of arguments lately."     Petra winces guiltily. Thankfully, the sword that severs echoes can't stop her anymore.
Kukuru	As she continues to ponder how the rule of clans and fours would work, Kukuru finds herself suddenly starting to fall and Satsuki suddenly... Hugging her? The pleasant surprise quickly gives way to understanding, however, when she sees the energy burst passing by overhead and slamming into Tamamo's barrier. Instinctively, Kukuru wraps her owns arms around Satsuki protectively and holds her close, then takes advantage of the removal of the blade to open up a portal beneath herself to drop them both right in and deposit them Further away from the case that those blasts had come from. "Are you alright, Satsuki? Oh dear... What was that?" Rolling sideways to keep herself between Satsuki and the direction of that blast, Kukuru peeks behind herself before releasing Satsuki, slowly staggering back to her feet once she gets her bearings straight. "What was that just now, anyway? Was it that invincible thing we're supposed to be avoiding?" She asks while glancing around again, letting herself zone out a little and just watch Xion while listening to her speaking about her perspective on perception. "Is that what the Anten... Antegent are, then? Inhuman, but... Not too different if you look at them like something completely different from humans?" A pause, and then a troubled noise. "Different from some of us, but still wanting the same things we'd want? Like how we wanna live and eat, even if their food must be reeeeal different. Something that can..." Kukuru looks over at the sealed cases. "... Needs to be wrapped up that tight like a bunch of other stuff out here?" After thinking about that for a little while, Kukuru lets out a quietly anxious noise as she remembers something fairly important. "We still gotta regroup with Lilian, though... Do we have anything else need to do here, or can we go look for her now?" A thought occurs, and then she looks to Satsuki. "Ohhh. How's she looking on that tracker of yours, dear?" "We've been having a lot of arguments lately." Kukuru turns her head slowly to Rita, staring right at her as she all but beelines straight for her. Despite the height difference, she reaches up to pull Rita into a gentle embrace, even waving her around a bit if she comes down for that. "Rita, Rita, dear... That just means you're even closer than you think. People don't have arguments with people they care about unless it's real important stuff they wanna work out with each other, you know? If neither of you cared about each other... Neither of you would still be worried about this, you know?" So long as she can hold onto Rita, Kukuru even pats her hair gently. "I can't even remember the last time I had a real argument with anyone over anything..." She adds, going quiet after that as she realizes the implications of what she just said and looking a little vaguely unhappy (or at least uncertain) herself.
Lilian Rook	Satsuki is indeed engrossed in study of her smart device, consulting a scroll of messages from Sakura as well, sent separately and privately. Her look of cold study lacks of the fondness of familiarity that most of you are afforded, perhaps imagining her mysterious benefactor behind the alias to be an ice cold shadow agent of some greater force playing her. ¤I look forward to the day, when I might be able to tell her of our interference with her family, and why Lilian choosing her was inevitable. ¤We have already come upon a time where these events no longer resemble any given one of the 'hundred nightmare paintings'. No specific version of those prophetic events currently aligns with the present. ¤I am optimistic.     Sakura's incredibly simple directions are complicated to follow in reality. The through-exit is easy to reach now that the room is clear. The only immediate change you can see is beyond easy to not notice if you aren't looking; the single thorn in the ceiling has changed its bone white consistency to pink-red gelatinous crystal. It's the corridor beyond-- bridging two main exhibits and running from the visitor ring to the central offices along its parallel axis-- that proves challenging.     It's nearly impossible to tell where the door is. You can definitely see one, and the glowing ray of warmth it spills over the cooler-lit hallway floor, but its actual location proves frustratingly vague. Walking towards it doesn't seem to bring it closer at all; then you blink and you've already gone past it. Look left and you're too far right; right, and you're too far left. Try to view both at once, and the twins space themselves beyond the edges of your vision. Try to locate it by magic, and an endless sequence of doors infinitely repeats in downwards spiral unto oblivion.     Turning back is now a harrowing experience. Do so, and you're already in the room you came from. Leave it again, and you're entering it from the way you first came in. Towards the visitor ring, the distant skylights muddle together with the decorative rope-lamps, and the sun shines from shimenawa while trees can be seen inside electric bulbs. Towards the main offices, and each step changes the angle and distance ahead of you without rhyme or reason, culimating in suddenly feeling scorching heat intense enough to flinch back, and enter the room again, shivering cold.     Satsuki probes its edges for a while, quiet for a little while, in the way she is when focusing too sincerely to fill the air with performative city-girl chatter. Sighing to herself at her conclusion, she carefully straps her odachi back over her shoulder, and unbuckles the katana mounted to the side of her backpack, holding it only by the saya at first, and only hesitantly laying fingers on the hilt. Something about it causes her to grimace, but she pulls until she feels the habaki click free. Then her careful breathing, the precise alignment of her stance, the gathering points of tension in her muscles, and the flow of natural 'energy' within her, don't seem too different from Lilian of another stripe.     You barely catch the motion. Or rather, drawing and cutting and resting are all indistinguishable in speed and direction and force, and all you perceive is the blade; the mirror bright steel reflects you the right way around, instead of how it should. The cherry-tree-and-nameless-cousin fighting for space depicted on the mounting is the same as years ago.     Then the hallway splits in front of you, and you perceive the image in your left and eyes separately, without depth. Sliding apart from one another, one collapses away, and the one that remains standing snaps into focus again. You can freely step through the marked entrance, and into the matching hall.
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: OH SHIT DODGE     Arthur wordlessly jumps back about half a second after the presence slams into the barrier, shouting, "OH FUCK!" He was not nearly fast enough to have dodged that without the helpful god's aid, which earns a quick, "Shit, thanks Tamamo." No 'Tammy!' He's too disoriented, I guess. > Arthur: Check up on Lilian     "Wait, just now? Or--" PB: wait JUST NOW? PB: oh fuck dude was she WAITING ON US to pick the SWORD PB: duuuuude wasn't she FIGHTING IN THERE for like a WEEK PB: HOLY FUCK that's gotta be so ANNOYING for her PB: everyone in this chat remember to be like PB: "FUCKIN' FINALLY this problem got solved" PB: "wow it was so inconsiderate of this palace to be structured that way" PB: "I HATE the EXTERNAL ANNOYANCE (not my negligence)" PB: OKAY? okay.     "Okay? Okay." He rambles, putting the sunglasses away and regarding the burned talismans with a grimacing expression. "Alright, let's find Lilian... Or I bet she's on the way here. Hey, Rita, keep the card but hand me back the pixel-ass-lookin' thing, I need that one." > Arthur: Hit the road! Door's right there     Instructions, though? Well, Arthur has objective markers, but they only get so precise. And the issue of space is still a little stricter than his abilities help with. He experiments for a long while, trying to grip the edges of the twisted space and not feeling like it's wise to do what he did twice.     "Hey, bet I could unfold this and break something when I do, so maybe someone else got it?" Satsuki's the one, ever-reliable it seems. Arthur exhales, and heads onward.
Angela	Shajo says, "Well..." slowly. "I guess I was just thinking--you need to go on these wild adventures but Nonon and I will be able to just--decide for ourselves? I mean I know you don't ''need'' to need to..." He frowns. "Maybe I feel a little guilty we're getting to live happy lives. Lots of other folks don't get it--hell, even outside of LobCorp, most people don't get happy endings like that. Maybe I feel like I'm a little too lucky? I know it's nonsense But it's harder to let the heart believe it." He frowns thoughtfully. Of course, something bad MIGHT sitll happen. ''Of course, Ms. Angela! Like their severance pay and tuff?'' "It is not pay-related--they are moving to a place that, as far as I'm aware, does not exactly make use of currency but pay is simply math. Easy enough. It is simply for avoiding complications during the most sensitive part of the Project that I would rather speak of personally and privately for your benefit." Well mostly Nonon and Shajo's, she figures, but she doesn't want them to think something strange might be going on. ''Hey Ange'' Angela immediately turns her attention back to Petra, staring at her--eyes open. ''Could you draw something or say something for Nika? She's having a good time, like, doing mission control--'' Angela's expression softens considerably. "Ah, I understand. I too enjoy this from time to time. But I imagine in some ways I have less experience than her, as I primarily work within the facility rather than providing such support outside of it where I usually can rely on the Dame Commander--" She carefully takes the DS out of Petra's hands with one pincer hand and then grips the stylish gently with the oth4r. She attempts to draw one of Petra's rat drones on the screen. It's a little sketchy because she is using a pincer claw rather than, strictly, her hand but she does her best. A little speech balloon from the ratbot says, 'Hello Nika!'. She hands the DS back. "Is Nika a friend of yours?" She asks. "I am glad you and she have one another. Perhaps one day we could talk a bit more when the situation seems less dire and pressing."
Lilian Rook	The focus changes entirely from swords and smiths to armour, clothing, banners, emblems, and helms. Whether in free-standing cases, insets into the walls, or only cordoned off by rope, a staggering number of gorgeously arranged ensembles burst with colour in spotlight pools around every bend of the theatre-dim interior. The placards are probably fascinating. Many come with specific paintings or scroll-scenes relevant to the creator or the wearer; notable artworks, famous battles, and so on; and most come with either historical portraits or artist's renditions of an ancient individual of note to it. There's no sense of anything cursed or even powerfully magical, which makes things simple, given the last sword is right there.     Sheathed in a completely transparent saya, steel patterned like wood-grain and polished like lacquer, tied with colourful carrying cord around the sharp, you'd notice it even if it didn't have that aura about it; and even if it looked totally ordinary, it's the only sword in the room anyways. It's just . . . everywhere in the room.     It's being held in the outstretched palm of every suit of armour in the entire exhibit. No matter how you look at it, you only sense one sword, visually and otherwise, but wherever you let your focus rest, there it is. There's probably some hint in the exhibits themselves, but once you start paying attention to them, a similar problem arises. By the time you've reached the last syllable of a name, you've lost track of the first. You can count the number of swirls and dots and leaves in any given emblem, but not make sense of the whole. Date displays on the museum's modern digital screens tick and flicker like every optical illusion surrounding clock-watching is at play.     The more you think on it, the less you can tell apart colour. Each and every portrait is a messy blur of different human-like features with varying hats; you can describe the particulars, but only as if the shape of a nose is totally unrelated to its placement on a human face. Even navigating from exhibit to exhibit is a messy, chaotic affair, simply taking you where your route pleases you in an orderless snarl. The only point of reference you have is a single outgrowth of Muteki, suspended without gravity or direction in the center of the room, teeth blooming out in every direction. Focusing on it, the room seems to slosh like waves around it, and the individual protrusions fold and wither like the petals of a rose under time lapse; but it stays in the same place.     Satsuki tries to do some quick counting up, gags, and then says "Th-there are more sets than there are us, so . . ." queasily. She can't think of anything else before the floor rumbles beneath you and the lights flicker. Dust swirls in the air, caught in the lamp-beams, and then slows into utter stillness again. "Okay, maybe I see why she gave me your number."
Rita Ma	Rita, as she walks, gives the corner-of-eye-looking-back impression of listening attentively to Xion. For all she absorbs, she doesn't find something to comment on until:      "Because there's no choice at all, to 'live'."      "Does that mean that 'being alive' is easy?" It's said lightly-thoughtfully, without the 'for you' that would make it heavier. "Or is it still hard, even if it's not a choice?"      "Rita, Rita, dear..."      "Mmmp-!" Rita says on hug, slowing to a stop with Kukuru glommed onto her side. She smiles down, bending her neck to be at easier patting-level, and puts an arm around Kukuru too.      "Well... I know we care about each other. But that doesn't fix the problem. I don't feel like we're on the same team anymore. A couple years ago, she told me to catch her if she slipped; I couldn't catch her the first time, and now it feels like all over again..."      The Muteki-spike changing color to a familiar hue snags her peripheral vision. She remembers that this is business, and laughs uneasily, and pulls away from Kukuru. "... I'm sorry. Forget it. We're still in danger right now, after all."
Xion	'Does that mean that 'being alive' is easy?' Xion's lips squiggle again, the question one she knows the answer to and yet at the same time is difficult. She, as well, does not meet Rita's eyes, does not look for the source of the question. "No." Xion answers more quietly, breathily, like the root location has shifted from a conversation out loud in an adventure, to a conversation in confidence at a graveyard - though still audible enough for textbox timings and the sharing of truths. "It's always hardest to live. A lot of... potential 'people', never make it past waking up. Before I was me, I was filled with this clinging lack of momentum, the slack-state of not existing, not doing, not being. And it's so much easier for 'not' to win, unless 'living' wants it more, so much more, overwhelmingly more. It took... more than just me, everything of me, for me to live. I needed a little help from outside, too. Someone who cared already, someone who added a little push. If I hadn't had that, well..." The squiggle line of her lips presses tight for a moment, and Xion draws a time-displaced breath in that is dissatisfyingly reflexive. "Living with less is even harder. To want more than a hole in the heart, to want more than being half-gone already, to trim away dead branches and weight so that something new can grow, so that anything can be, is a lot of wanting - and sometimes, it's a lot of screaming." Xion's chin tracks away from Rita Ma. "I don't think living is that easy at all. But I have to. Because I chose to. And a lot of my friends and family did too. So... I try to understand."
Lilian Rook	HAZEL: Outfit? HAZEL: I forgot. I kind of wear the same thing all the time. HAZEL: I could probably ask Miss Psycho? HAZEL: Saiko* HAZEL: Saeko** HAZEL: Okay that makes a lot more sense. HAZEL: I can totally help if I can talk to where you are! HAZEL: Which is like seeing but more complicated. HAZEL: Mom's friends helped me talk to the mountains really far away, but now only Sakura can really do that with me. HAZEL: If you're not fine then Sakura will fix it anyways. HAZEL: She's always fixing stuff. HAZEL: She's really nice. HAZEL: She won't show me how she does it though. HAZEL: That's fine since I can't explain talking to space either. HAZEL: Sakura is how I'm sending the wifi to you btw. HAZEL: I'm talking to your DS and it says it loves you but you need to be more careful. HAZEL: Kind of weird since a DS can't tell you're in a dangerous place normally. HAZEL: I'm happy for the swords! HAZEL: I wanna talk to them too! HAZEL: The normal swords. HAZEL: The Muramasa swords all just say the same part of a sentence whenever I talk to them. HAZEL: Endings always says the same haiku. HAZEL: I think it's actually haiku. HAZEL: Not just because it's Japanese.     'Is that what the Anten... Antegent are, then? Inhuman, but... Not too different if you look at them like something completely different from humans?'     "What the are is 'trying to kill you', Kukuru. Curiosity is nice, but don't ever forget that." ¤You're making adequate time, Arthur. Don't worry so much. ¤Lilian was prepared for this. ¤In actuality, the effect of 'Moments' has already worn off on her. She is proceding under her own power. HAZEL: JTTE@ HAZEL: CUTE!* HAZEL: You have robots that look like that? HAZEL: Can they talk? HAZEL: Normal talk I mean. Not like how I talk.
Angela	"I apologize for scaring your DS, Petra." Angela says. "I hadn't considered how frightening claw hands can be." The Eggpack's pincers clickclack. "Can your DS communicate to others? I had assumed they were nonsapient and nonsentient but I may have underestimated the device."
Kukuru	"I couldn't catch her the first time, and now it feels like all over again..." Kukuru can easily guess how much this is eating away at Rita, and she tightens her hold a little more. "I wish I had... That I knew what to say to make this better. I still believe you and Lilian can really figure this out, even if it hurts real bad right now and... Even if everything feels like it's working against you with both of your other friends." Right. They're still in a dangerous situation! After another squeeze, Kukuru lets go as well, then offers Rita a sympathetic smile. "If it helps any... Anytime you want me to come see you both or bring anything by to snack on, let me know. I can still do that much even without good answers, okay?" "What the are is 'trying to kill you', Kukuru. Curiosity is nice, but don't ever forget that." Kukuru nods slowly at the warning, pursing her lips briefly as she gets exactly the kind of simple answer she was hoping for. "That makes things easier, mhm. It's a little sad, but..." She pauses, then goes right back to her usual gentle smile once something clicks. "It'd be sadder if you or anyone else got hurt. We'll just have to make sure none of them gets to do that so we can go back home with Lilian and everyone sooner." Following Sakura's directions is difficult, but Kukuru has a trick up her sleeve: Following Satsuki. Who better to follow the lead of than someone smarter than her? Granted, that could be just about anyone, but she's confident enough in Satsuki's abilities based on Lilian trusting her enough to bring her here as a lead. Besides, Kukuru knows she isn't the most observant, and she doesn't even realize that she's spotted the color changing thorn in passing. She also doesn't consciously register it in her mind, as she's busy enough focusing on making sure everyone gets out of this place alive. That means doing a headcount every now and then, especially when leaving through that strangely distorted hallway ends up being far more painful and tiring than expected. That last part is mostly because of the hallway splitting, and from having to adjust to her eyes actually comprehending both sets of images separately despite not making any sense put together. Further into the room with so much gear, Kukuru's mental implants do their damndest to try and keep her from getting too misled by the effects of Muteki. Sadly, that really only goes as far as 'dulling some of the weirdness coming from the outside'. She's already in the middle of overthinking things too much as someone who normally isn't used to thinking much at all, and that clearly shows as she starts going around to look and touch every suit of armor, every display case, every placard in hopes of figuring out what actually do with this sensory overoad. Eventually, Kukuru starts shoving things into her pocket. One less suit of armor means one less false positive, and she has far too much space in her pockets. What should only be a non-functional women's shorts pocket can easily accommodate those suits of armor wholesale with just some sideways-leaning and cramming, although she still has to be careful with the sharper edges of everything. Apparently, she's going for the brute force approach of just narrowing down the field until someone identifies the real sword.
Arthur Lowell	> ==>     Arthur regards the next room with a concerned look. Pursed lips and a contemplative stare. He's struggling to examine the multifaceted sword... He keeps looking, squinting... and moving on. > Arthur: Wait, what are you discarding results for     He seems to be looking, indirectly, for the reflection of metal. Whenever he sees it, he moves on almost instantly. Anything metal is discarded. > Arthur: Wait. Anything metal? As in a wooden sword?     Yeah, a wooden sword would work. > Arthur: fucking > Arthur: That's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, you fucking moron     Arthur suddenly pulls back from the challenge, awkwardly. He's struggling to find somewhere to rest his eyes. These blades... they were deliberately used to seal an Antegent. Which means he can't even use Muramasa's insight, and hope to find a portrait or a display with clothing that most resembles Sakura. "Someone else better take the lead on this one, think this thing needs some *senses*." Best he can do is channel his rather unrefined magic-sense and feed whatever data he has to whoever manages the solution here.
Xion	Xion, seeing a massive room full of armors, doesn't have the exact same reaction to things as a room full of culturally relevant swords. Instead, her eyes swim with the visual glitches, lifting empty-banded left hand to press gloved palm over one eye just to see if seeing things straight on might help... But it kind of doesn't. Wherever one eye looks, there the sword is - and maybe even behind the shield of her glove. "Hey..." Xion wonders, a little queasily. "Do you think -- the swords from before, can go in the hands of these armors? Then, maybe, uh..." The noirette trails off, thumbing the fall of her bangs down the side of her face and wincing. "We can find the one that stands out? There's 'only one to take', but maybe we can figure out which one that is. Do you think?" Approaching one armor, Xion gives a careful attention not to sword (even though she still sees it, everywhere, the first syllables or the middle or the last) but to the armor itself, and tries to match one suit of armor with one recovered blade from before.
Rita Ma	"'No'. I get it."      The small, thin breath Rita draws in inflates her spine and straightens her shoulders, matching the solemn-graveyard mood. "Good job, Ms. Satsuki," she says earnestly, but a little too subdued. She hadn't had the pep to search for a solution first. Arthur gets his Strife Specibus back with a similar lack of fanfare.      She lingers behind enough for Xion to catch up to her, at least vaguely side-by-side, even if they aren't looking at each other much.      "The less you are, the harder it is to become whole. Everyone who's ever been 'nothing' needed help at first." These aren't well-formed thoughts; they sound like she's talking herself through them for the first time. She's walking between the suits of armor, tapping the maybe-swords to see if they're material, but her mind really isn't on it.      "I was 'nothing' for a while too. People had to pull me up out of that. It was hard. I don't know why..." Fingernails tap armor, and it sings. "... Why I thought it would be easy for anyone else."      "Maybe I feel like I'm a little too lucky?"      "We're definitely lucky," Rita agrees melancholically with Shajo. "The dead can't talk. But... I have to believe that the dead wouldn't want to drag you down with them. It's better that someone's alive than nobody. So even if there's no good reason why you're alive, and not someone else, try not to feel guilty, okay?"      No word on whether she follows her own advice.      ...avoiding complications during the most sensitive part of the Project...      "Oh. Making things safer. That's all," Rita says warmly, relieved. Maybe she shouldn't be.      And Kukuru lifts her a little further. "Anything to snack on," she repeats, charmed by the simplicity of it. "Well... having you around does make me happier. And you know what I like. So, maybe. I'll just keep trusting that there's an 'other side' we can celebrate on."      Absently, Rita tries something almost childishly simple, in line with Satsuki's suggestion. There's a little noise like snake-slithering in the air, and enough invisible tentacles to check the hands of every suit of armor simultaneously, do so. Maybe it can be pinned down like that?
Petra Soroka	"Is Nika a friend of yours?"     Accepting her DS back, Petra taps on the screen with her blood stylus while responding to Angela. "Mhm, she's one of--" Suddenly conscious of Satsuki's presence still, Petra changes courses and corrects herself. "One of Lilian's friends. Like Ash."     "I was kind of shitty to her when we met, but...." Petra sighs, and Satsuki's indicator flashes in her awareness for a second time, but for a guiltier reason. "We've gotten along since. Cinder's met her, sort of, since I'm usually around her when we're hanging out. She's really sweet." HAZEL: I can totally help if I can talk to where you are! HAZEL:Which is like seeing but more complicated. SILKE: oh does seeing help? SILKE: if you had a camera or something SILKE: or is it moooooooooore complicated     Petra isn't considering giving Nika a RatCam so that she can utilize her in missions as a NAZCA-flattening artillery. She isn't Ishirou; the Nika-stream should be limited to normal things only! But she knows how useful 'being helpful' and 'being copresent' are, and rotates the possibilities she has of filling this need for Nika in a healthy way. HAZEL: If you're not fine then Sakura will fix it anyways. HAZEL: She's always fixing stuff. HAZEL: She's really nice. HAZEL: She won't show me how she does it though. HAZEL: That's fine since I can't explain talking to space either. SILKE: like talking to space? SILKE: i thought the way sakura could see things far away was hard to explain like that SILKE: or     Well, it's possible that Nika is comparing things like 'knowing how to use a screwdriver' to the esoteric power to converse with fundamental concepts of the universe as anthropomorphic friends that can have things requested of them. Petra's assessment of Nika's intelligence is a *little* too high for that, even given the blissfully familiar attitude that Nika has to her power, but she can't shake the idea completely. SILKE: i'll have more time to talk with Sakura eventually i bet SILKE: it's just hard for me to come over for a visit HAZEL: I'm talking to your DS and it says it loves you but you need to be more careful. HAZEL: Kind of weird since a DS can't tell you're in a dangerous place normally.     The dread that Petra feels upon reading that message is something she's never felt before. The dizzying vertigo of guilt at the idea that even the objects she interacts with can be intrinsically poisoned by her presence, fundamentally altered to be attuned to violence and misery by her hands, and worst of all, to love her *anyways*, feels like unveiling a new color, gaining a sixth sense of imagination for a new realm of fault that can be assigned to her.     Petra glances to either side to make sure no one's looking at the moment. She lifts her DS up and holds the microphone close to her lips, and quietly says, "Love you too. I'm sorry. I'll be more careful." SILKE: well i love it too SILKE: thanks for listening to it for me
Petra Soroka	"Can your DS communicate to others? I had assumed they were nonsapient and nonsentient but I may have underestimated the device."     "No, they--" Petra starts to answer Angela in the negative, but like some sort of parasite, an ancient ad for the Nintendo DS proclaiming how revolutionary it is that it can communicate to other devices without a link cable plays in her head in full. After its 39 second runtime, Petra stalls for a moment longer, wondering if proximity to Nika and Arthur simultaneously is somehow doing this to her.     "... They don't. Aren't. Sapient. Nika can talk to stuff other people can't. But it's kind of... nice to know, anyways?" HAZEL: You have robots that look like that? SILKE: YEAH SILKE: i built them!!!! SILKE: hold on if i take one out could you talk to it? SILKE: this is twopence!     Petra now has a ratbot floating next to her! This won't help with recovering the Muramasa of Distinctions, but it's cute. Right now, Twopence is still holding a miniature banner carrying her Quicknest empire flag that she gave it for fun in Elibe, and she hastily unequips that from its hook and stores it back in her compact. She already looks a *little* silly without that. "Th-there are more sets than there are us, so . . ."     It's so over. This is the best solution that Petra can think of, too! With all of her problem-solving skills engaged, Petra focuses and eventually comes up with...     "... Well, Qetra can be one more set of hands...."
Angela	Angela, in truth, hasn't really noticed that RIta and Lilian were getting 'in more arguments', and she is thinking about whether she should ask Lilian about that. Not that it really involves this mission or her goals or anything like that, but she is pretty sure they were close friends. Maybe she can help! Though it isn't exactly her business either, is it? .... Well. Actually in this particular case it is SOMETHING of her business as she considers Lilian a dear friend and Rita is also a friend. Angela is stunned for a moment thinking about how something is even her business THIS much as opposed to, you know, how much something is usually her business which is none. ''I have to believe tthat the dead wouldn't want to drag you down with them.'' Shajo, who wasn't just thinking about the dead, nods a little. He suspects there are some people in L Corp--without its backing--will probably be in a much tougher spot. Whatever the Seed of Light is, he's dang sure that the Head wouldn't like it. That's why they sent an ARbiter to kill everyone in the first place right? ... Or is that just what Binah had said? Sometimes this intrigue is too much for him. "I'll do my best." He says. Angela stirs a bit and gives Rita a small nod before looking back to Petra. "...Ash is one of Lilian's friends?" Angela asks, skeptically. "Well you seem rather close to...Ash." ''I was kind of shitty to her when we met'' A common refrain, Angela laments. She wonders if she would think any differently of Petra if she got to know her before. "She seems sweet." Angela admits. "I am grateful you patched things up. I would have never guessed you had such a conflict before." This is true, she wouldn't have. Which suggests she can tell that's the case with Lilian--but she doesn't say that. Unable to detect Petra's dead, she actually lets out a small laugh as she tells the DS that she loves it. "That was sweet." She might have earned some empathy for Petra's Nintendo Product now but, well, she knows that not every AI has humanoid forms and however strange the DS looks to be as far as a 'person' goes, well, she thinks it's nice. She blinks, though, as Petra takes 3,900 seconds to confirm it. ''They don't. Aren't. Sapient. Nika can talk to stuff other people can't. But it's kind of... nice to know, anyways?'' Angela isn't sure she underrstands. Surely, something is either intelligent or not intelligent. Perhaps the DS's intelligence is not quantifiable by normal means, but surely it is still a being capable of love if Nika can communicate that out of the DS. Love, Angela feels, is difficult to obtain as it is. Shouldn't it be more difficult for something that doesn't really think. "Perhaps... But even so..." She leans close to her screen. "Thank you for looking after her, Mx DS." She is naturally thrilled that her drawing of a ratbot has spurned on interest. She smugly smles about this. "I am literally a backpack right now--" Angela adds on the topic of carrying capacity.
Lilian Rook	"Wait Kukuru maybe don't--"     The hard part of brute force becomes apparent too soon. The sword is in every hand, because the distinction between this armour and the other is severed. It is always before you, because the distinction of directionality, near and far and in front and behind, likewise, is severed. There can be as many or as few as you perceive, without the distinction of a number even as simple as 'one'. It is beyond your grasp and outside of it; coming so close, even the distinction of whether or not you actually possess it is fuzzy.     And it is both sheathed and unsheathed, cutting without distinguishing whether or not it is actually drawn. And thus reaching out for a place the sword 'might' be slashes as deeply into Kukuru's hand as it takes for her to stop. Without any certainty that it may or may not be there, it isn't-- enough to take hold of-- and it is-- enough to cut her with a naked blade of preturnatural sharpness. This is plenty of warning for Rita, who finds it increasingly difficult to keep track of her tentacles as she splits their attentions, before causing harm to the possibly-very-dangerous substrate of the pluripotent semi-unspecialized cell mass in her tentacles.     Knowing that the swords are earthly creations of magic and spirit, even if forged by a mad ghosts, helps Arthur some, but it isn't much easier until Xion goes around slapping swords in outstretched palms; then he begins to feel a radius of uncertainty shrinking, bit by bit as she places them.     Because of course, Muramasa did not build tools for creating, nor repairing; though the sword is unmistakable as a Grave Blade, it can only cut, not reify, the distinction between itself and a distant cousin. The swords, part of the museum for so long, known by no other purpose, are already so indistinguishable from 'an exhibit' that they pass over and around that edge like water. Solid steel in solid hands is now a place where something is, and not where it could be.     "That's . . ." Satsuki stares at Xion like she wants to say 'completely stupid'. "You're a genius?" she decides instead.
Lilian Rook	HAZEL: Seeing helps! HAZEL: Still more complicated than seeing though. You can't talk to things on TV. HAZEL: Sakura sees things far away different. HAZEL: She said it's like how Lilian sees things that didn't happen yet. HAZEL: It's related to and part of a different thing. HAZEL: She can see a lot of the stuff that happened to something too, if she holds it. HAZEL: I think she's really talented. HAZEL: Not like me. HAZEL: She knows a bunch of other Japanese magic too. HAZEL: Also obviously a DS doesn't have love like a cat or a dog or a person does. HAZEL: It's like. It has a connection with you, and you have a connection to it, and the connection is healthy, and mostly has good feelings invested in it, so there's some of you in it, and that's like it has you in its heart. Sort of. HAZEL: If I asked it to zap you, it would probably only zap you a tiny bit. HAZEL: Not like if I asked a light switch. HAZEL: Those never care about anyone. HAZEL: It's like how I can't just ask someone's body to become a completely different thing. HAZEL: Your own flesh and blood loves you the most. That's why it does everything it can to keep you alive. HAZEL: But bodies are really complicated. They like getting broken in some ways. They break in a lot of little ways every day. It's normal. But they really hate other ways. HAZEL: It's hard for me to understand. I don't get it at all. HAZEL: So basically I don't think of them as different from people. HAZEL: It's really blurry and complicated, so I talk to things that aren't already people. HAZEL: Anyways it's just a good idea to be nice to your stuff? HAZEL: Mostly stuff that already is lots of different ways. HAZEL: Game consoles already do lots of thinking and changing and communicating with people, so they're my favourite. HAZEL: Maybe don't worry about your shoes or whatev. They don't say anything. HAZEL: Not like plants and cats. Like amoebas and cats.     It is probably a very good thing that NAZCA literally can't be here to hear Oreshnika explaining the limitations of her powers like a shounen battle manga character, in the interests of conveying to Petra that she should be careful with objects significant enough to constitute a sympathetic arcane link but not feel guilty about stepping on floor tiles, and the heady distinction therein. It constitutes a hyperfixated babble. The number of swords in honoured places has reduced Arthur's bubble of awareness right down to where Rita can hold all of them in her perception at once, and choose.     The sheathed sword cuts her for touching the hilt. It is an ordinary cut, however. Once disturbed from its perfect place, its power no longer radiates in all directions.
Lilian Rook	That its power no longer radiates in all directions is worry enough. Before that, whether Rita, possessing two swordss, counts as Satsuki's cohort, also possessing two swords, is a question easily dodged with a little musical chairs between herself, Satsuki, Arthur, and Tamamo. After it, when the ritual awakening of the blade is finally undone, reason to panic manifests in the glitch-like candle guttering of the toothed growth in the center of space, and what appears to be the process of sorting through and shedding its myriad integrated shapes. Something that you imagine should be instant, but which you can watch in grotesquely surreal, one millionth speed slow-motion.     Like it's rolling through the collective assembly of every single conceptual particle currently embedded in its mass, and sort-purging the cross-contamination enforced on it by the second Grave Blade, now that the first no longer prevents it. It's like watching the individual transistors on a circuit board working at a speed and scale you can nearly comprehend.     And it almost immediately culminates in the side door to the exhibit crashing inwards. Glass and bent aluminium corkscrew-drifts through the air without landing; the heralds of writhing blood and flesh and broken bone that spews violently into the room around--     ". . . What . . . Report! . . . What happened?"     Lilian staggers into the room, breathless and unsteady enough to slam her palm against an exhibit case for support, and leave a bloody palm-smear behind. Her armour is cracked down to the underlayer, flaking motes of gold as she moves, and her face is mottled with ash and blood and dust, hair plastered to her skin with sweat. Her footsteps faintly glow where she leaves them, traced by where she drags Night Mist along with her, drenched in carbonized gore and visibly shimmering with heat. Under her arm, she carries a cloth-wrapped case the length of her entire arm, bulky enough to be awkward to move with, but cradled against her as if it would shatter if she dropped it. Momentarily stunned by the sight of you, she loses track of her breathing, coughs, and then begins catching her breath again.     "Officer?" "As you ordered ma'am. But we really have to go. We've collected both packages, so I don't know how long the AO will remain secure." "Both? Already?" "Yes Commander. You were gone for some time." "The emergency codes? You look . . ." "Progress became impossible without external assistance, Commander." ". . . Alright. Noted. We'll debrief later."     Shuffling her hold on the box against her chest, Lilian stands up properly on her own two feet, and changes Night Mist back to her dominant hand. The air around her subtly crackles with a black-gold haze. The handprint on the glass is more red than not. "You understand the situation, right? Let's talk after this. And not waste any time getting back."
Arthur Lowell	> ==>     "I'm gonna be real, the uncollapsed-quantum-waveform sword can kiss my ass. Time-aspect shit is *incomprehensible*. Thanks for covering for me." Arthur rambles, finally able to look at the environment. He's swinging his eyes around, when a door crushes in behind him, startling him again. "Holy shit!" He observes the bloody woman for a moment. Then the bloody handprint. And struggles with-- with something?     Something?? He's struggling with something. A gamer nearly evolves into an ensouled being, a process nearly occurs that wipes every slur out of his memory, when he tries to connect the braincell that's observing the bloody handprint with some other braincell. But no dice. The future refused to change, or maybe Arthur just actively chose to reject ascension into a better person. He whirls to Lilian. "Shit, right, let's bounce. Hitting that circle again? Or can you help me open it up to Gates?" > Arthur: Get outta here     With pleasure. Either a Gate to the circle, a circle-powered Gate, powering up Lilian, or just *running* should get folks out of here quick. Rita first, ideally, given the circumstances.