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Lilian Rook	Strategically, every plan that Angela's alliance came up with is dependent on not fighting both Lilian and Rita simultaneously, because even the full team of Elites and Agents can't match up to their coordination. So, hours later, when one team goes out to strike forth into Disciplinary to collect the Pale shields and neutralize Rita's ability to wield White Night against them, another team uses Angela's surveillance data to track down Lilian while she's on her own.     In the interim hours since the strategy meeting, people cycle the snippets of sleep they can get so that Asiyah is never fully undefended-- typically, there's a natural circadean rhythm to the dimming and brightening of the lights in the sleeping area so that the underground facility doesn't cause every employee in it to go insane earlier than necessary. Petra hotwired it for her own control. This is both convenient, because she optimizes the artificial solar cycle to encourage people to sleep at their allotted times, and horrifying, because Petra has essentially hijacked your bodily clock-- and occasionally endure frantic, bloody skirmishes with Lilian and Rita.     The Baba stew idea is regrettably busted by the Apostles' ashes being scattered among the other rubble in the intervening two and a half days, but the others are promising. Petra offhandedly mentions that the bathrooms might explode if you use them, and that all of the remaining vending machines should be checked for every poison you can think of. The only light at the end of the tunnel is a desperate Hail Mary that will instantly lose the war, and Angela's life, if it fails.     Thus the plunge deep into the heart of Disciplinary; the department vacant of its guardian Sefirah, and reduced to a skeleton crew of Agents before this all began. An encouraging prospect. If Lilian hadn't left half her mystery gear there, and taken to defending it with especially enthusiasm after she was told 'right now, you are Disciplinary'. Waiting until the other team has confirmed contact with her before sneaking into the undermanned zone is a solid strategy that she hasn't especially anticipated.     The accessible lockers have already been scraped clean by now. Spare equipment and ammunition are being stockpiled somewhere harder to reach. The unnecessarily ominous red lighting and dark industrial construction haven't become any less foreboding since the total ruination of the facility. At least once, you manage to set off a trap that hasn't actually been moved since Gebura's meltdown. Passing by the least important areas to repair; back corridors and maintenance shafts; you can still see the scars of that particular day. The remains of the latest Ordeal sent the enemy's way are still cooling on the floor. Rita's side at least has the manpower to clean up a little.     None of the surveillance detects anything amiss while the other team fights. The time pressure isn't easy to bear, given you have to move quickly while still not getting blown up. Teleporting is only so much of a help, since it can easily mean teleporting straight into a concealed explosive or invisible razor tentacle mesh. Lilian is catching up to Rita in her ability to hide things, having gone as far as to draw diagrams under individual small pieces of rubble. Progressing into central Disciplinary, when you finally accomplish it, almost feels like more than you could hope for.
Lilian Rook	The arms lockers are just a couple of corridors down, when you see tiny droplets of evil blue fluid dripping from the pipes that shadow the ceiling, and hear the sound of rapid footsteps rattling the electrical mesh overhead. The floor beyond leaves you ankle deep in brackish pink water. The security doors slamming shut in your vicinity feels more threatening than it actually is, given your number of teleporters. The sound of something rustling and slithering, followed by the crackle of the local intercom (wasn't that supposed to be blasting Petra's psychological warfare tracks? It was dead silent)] with Lilian's voice on the other end, actually is a little threatening.     The fact that, after yesterday's relative silence, she sounds strangely refreshed about all of this, addressing you like it's the third day of a badly needed vacation, is at least nearly as threatening on its own.     "What's this? A new split? Mix and match all you like, it still won't make a difference you know." comes out of the speakers all around you, though it has a distinct travelling quality to it. "Hmm, but you've really overloaded this one with a certain something, haven't you? I wonder what you could be after? Ah-- don't worry. I'll just make you tell me either way. But first . . ."     You're allowed to scan around the area until you notice her standing there where she wasn't a second ago. Ankle deep, wearing the heavily stitched up remains of her second outfit, lightly armed in as much as she ever is. She has her hand held up in a belaying gesture. Her voice doesn't echo through the comms, but it's a little creepy how her face softens on seeing you, tiredness creeping into the tilt of her head and her thin smile.     "Thy station is thee and thou art thy station. Speak always with its authority, and do not speak that which would tarnish it." Lilian repeats, in her usual way. "I'm ashamed to say that, in the petty interests of gaining some small advantage, I failed to exemplify this and several other codes, in pursuit of just one. And I am ashamed of it; because this is a battle that some of you are fighting as much for my sake as you are Angela's."     Her finger twitches, but it looks like a result of the arm Hibiki punched being stiff. He rhand stays up. "We're still going to fight. And I won't pull any punches. So don't misunderstand; it is still very much my goal to break you of this colossal sacrifice of the many for the few. I can't afford to go soft on you with everyone in the City at my back." Lilian says. "But I've had some time to think. More time than I get ordinarily by far. And I think all of this has . . . Well, forget it." She says, waving off her gesture. Nothing happens.     "You can hear it later if you still care. All that matters is I don't stand by what I said. I don't want to pursue one single goal at the expense of everything else I believe in. You're here for Angela and I'm here for everyone else who deserves what you want to give her, and won't get it if I don't stop you, and so I don't want to force myself to be someone I'm not. So . . . for the sake of it, since this might be our one chance . . ." Lilian looks directly at Kukuru, and says "I'm sorry for all the work. I know you always wanted to give me a hug, so, just this once."
Rufus Shinra	Rufus doesn't sleep well. He gets up in the middle of the 'night' and can be seen tweaking his equipment, moving the materia around, swapping them out, moving them back... The bathroom situation isn't good either. This, especially, feels like a war crime. (Literally it is?) They've got Petra doing her own cutthroat tactics and he's not making a move to stop her or even tell her off, so - how much should he complain, later, about being on the receiving end of psychological tactics here? ... After one particularly tense bathroom trip, he decides: he should in fact complain anyway. He should complain very much, and very loudly. --- "Miss Rook." Rufus tightly grips the hilt of his shotgun. He hasn't raised it, not yet, anyway. "I'm not familiar with your code, but there is one saying I'm fond of, that seems appropriate enough here. You are who you are in the dark." "And I'm going to remember who you are here a lot longer than I'm going to remember who you are outside." Hugs are offered. "Kukuru. Don't do it," says Rufus. He takes a half-step in front of her.
Riku Asakura	Tense bathroom breaks, barely any sleep, and the constant threat of food being poisoned or out of date in the case of what Kukuru brings are part of the reasons why Riku is weary of this mission.  He goes anyway because standing around doing nothing won't accomplish anything, or so he likes to say.  Right now, his catchphrase is sounding hollow because this has been hell.   Also, the dying he's gone through really has taken its toll on him.   Right now, Lilian has cornered them.  Their salvaging attempt was interrupted by the swordswoman.  One moment she was speaking to them over the intercom, the next she was standing before them.  However, this hasn't gone down like he thought it would.  There was no chance of the fight being pushed off or stopped altogether... But there was a humanizing moment in all of this.  A chance to see Lilian not as a butcher or some opposition they needed to face, but as a person who makes mistakes and wants to make a gesture of goodwill toward Kukuru.  Moved by this, Riku doesn't immediately change into Ultraman Geed, but takes a step back from Kukuru.   "Up to you, Kukuru, I'll go with whatever you decide, okay?" he says encouraging and his smile full of warmth for the first time in a few days.  They'll still fight, but it'll feel better, he thinks.
Timespace Riders	Before setting out, Woz demands a moment to search out potential traps. He feels vindicated in doing so, when the first and most straightforward question--'where has Lilian Rook laid traps'--provides a technically-correct answer which is useless in the sheer tangle of information present.     He tries again, after an aggrieved sigh, a question in mind that should hopefully have a simpler answer: 'which path to Lilian Rook's location involves the least danger of setting off traps with the best time to arrival, and where have they been laid along that path.'     Even then, the issue becomes working with something that is accurate in the absolute, when one's understanding of reality is necessarily human. The book may insist that a trap is present, and in the abstract Woz knows that it is correct--yet searching for 'where is the trap here' includes traps that he very much *is* aware of largely occluding the problem. Thus, having come here in his armor, he is left to use the touchscreen spear he carries as a probe, which on three seperate occasions triggers the trap. After an encounter with tensile razor thin tentacles, one with a cleverly hidden explosive and a third with a metal spike, he becomes a little more acquainted with her methodology. It still isn't great that he's coming into this already having taken a few blows. You can hear it later if you still care.     "Okay." Kamen Rider Zi-O, in the Sephirot armor--what else could he use--didn't know what to expect from Lilian. Had Rita told her what he said? Is that part of why this seems so... kind?     "I will. And I'll ask, when the smoke has cleared. About that, and about plenty of other things. I don't mind that you're not pulling punches. I realized you were right about the kind of strength it takes to be merciful. And... like I told Rita, no one who's that strong ever gets that way from pulled punches."     As far as Sougo is concerned, Kukuru can get that hug from Lilian. Maybe that shouldn't be his opinion--she did say that she wouldn't pull any punches, and they did wade through traps to get here. "Maybe it's too late for me to give that to the City. I guess that's what we're here to find out. But even if it is, you also taught me what it means to run a marathon. I have to keep moving so that one day..." A steadying sigh, as he grips the armor's sublimated interpretation of Mimicry and holds it in a fool's guard. "So that one day, I'm strong enough that people will look at me like I'm not human. You helped me realize I can stand not standing that."     "...I must concur with Rufus," Kamen Rider Woz advises Kukuru. Unlike Sougo, he isn't vulnerable to expressions of closeness in that way.
Xion	Angela looked at her again, the blank patience of a mustered face. Xion had set her resolve, but the plan seemed to weigh on Angela in a way that was just short of visible to Xion. Seeing color, paled auras, Xion found time to pull Angela aside. Without Petra in vicinity, the glow of healing Light lit the Nobody about her shoulders and the recesses of her coat and the shadows about her eyes. For a little bit, she was... fine enough. "There's a power, in my world - it's called Kingdom Hearts. I think it's just a corruption of what it actually is - the kingdom *of* hearts. Every... feeling, every emotion of every place and people. It's represented by... a door." Xion explains, speaking slowly, sharing carefully. In sequiter-aside, a faint smile finds her lips, away from the everpounding misery within thanks to the glow of wholeness without. "It's like that door that sometimes shows up - bigger, maybe. Through it is everyone, everything - but I think going through it would just erase most identity like a drop of water finding the ocean. There's a way to use it to travel to any place or any time, but to do it, you're 'not here any more'. And so the wizards, well." Xion laughs. "Have every kind of theory for it. I touched the door-handle, once, saw the light, and. . ." She has to close her eyes, whelmed with feeling for a moment. After, her thoughts are aside and elsewhere. "I think I can get you there and back, Angela. Suicide missions won't ever be my style. As long as I only have to work the handle," She clarifies, with a tight breath. "I'll be fine. I might even be better than fine!" Yet 'fine' has a low going rate in the markets of Lobotomy Corporation. The mission to Disciplinary hadn't been her top idea, but if Rita was going to weaponize White Night against the Angela party than any resources that could be used to create more Anti-Pale medicine, and all the anti-Pale equipment, were necessary. Planning an in-and-out while keeping an eye on Kukuru, Xion moves through Disciplinary accompanied by a creeping cloud of powdered glass like ice-mist or fiberglass spiderwebs. Her Petra//Beauty of Ash based medallion's power rendered much of her subtle telekinesis and gravity manipulations a lot more visible than usual, the creeping mist massively increasing Xion's touch-and-manipulate zone with particular feeling and sharp leverpoints as well as making the waves and ejecta-like expression of her brushing-faintly or touching quietly all around her. Searching for traps, taking peeks, spreading into broken-open lockers to search for their target items. Between Kukuru and her, Xion is confident they can pull out if they're just let move around. . . but they're not let move around. The intercom rings out. Xion keeps moving, not letting it freeze her, mentally focusing on finishing her sweep. With a spear of silver-cored glass at her left side, and the black twisted spire of Pylon over her right shoulder, Xion goes over the zone once and then doubles back when Lilian appears, expression hidden behind pink-magenta hatched +-mask. Pylon's red ball-tooth levers off of Xion's shoulder while she listens. Lilian's voice doesn't echo, so she only hears it the once and tries to pay attention to all of it, and her surroundings too. 'And I think all of this has . . . Well, forget it.' "I'm not going to forget it." Xion states plainly. "And I might hear it later. But if I listen to your rules, then which one tells me to stop, and which one tells me to go. . ." Forlorn behind shroud-mask for a moment, Xion tilts her head. "They've always been a mix that let you pick the one that gives you a path you don't regret, aren't they? ... Maybe I'll hear it all later." "Kukuru," Xion starts, not looking at the other woman. "I'd rather you didn't." But at her core, she can't distrust Lilian. She had a hundred awful things already thought up, but... "Do what you won't regret."
Angela	The intercom crackles--you can hear Yesod swear under his breath moments before he is cut off. "Ah, Dame Commander. It has been nearly a year since we last spoke." Angela's voice crackles on the comms. "It is as unbearable for me to have to keep away for so long as I'm sure it is for you but, even so, I was unaware you could be at two places at once, but I am sure Petra will manage." Plenty of people are advising Kukuru to not hug Lilian Rook which makes Angela want to say 'Kukuru, hug Lilian Rook' but the idea of actually issuing a command like that makes her think she may be losing her mind actually, not because she suspects a trap--that's hardly material to her reasoning--but because it is a ridiculously silly thing to order someone to do. Instead she says, "I know I said that I 'knew' I'd win, but to be honest since it involves standing against you I can't help but be a little insecure anyway. How have you been? I have an important question I had forgotten to ask before--it is my fault, I don't usually think about this sort of thing." There is a small pause on the intercom and then--"What is your favorite type of cake?"
Kukuru	Kukuru isn't normally one to have trouble sleeping, but the past several days have really worn on her. Not enough sleep, not enough time to recover, too many injured to treat, too many stomachs to feed, not enough time to prepare anything to soothe everyone that way she'd like to, not even being able to be at peace in the bathroom or eating what she can bring in... Nobody can really wonder why she's looking and sounding less upbeat and easygoing than she usually does, and why she's another few inches smaller than . She's really trying to hold it together with that sleepy smile of hers, too, but the end still isn't close enough in sight. If nothing else, though, she can still count on sticking to the plan that got cooked up to secure some kind of advantage against... Against... Night Mist? Yes, that sounds about right to Kukuru's moderately fried mind. She advances cautiously with the group seeking out Lilian's position, pausing frequently to point out the traps she manages to detect shortly before walking into a different one that wasn't a decoy or something. At least she can still count on being able to heal everyone whenever she or anyone else does run into a trap, although the first one is enough to slow her down a fair bit just so she can be a little more conservative with her own regeneration. In some ways, this trek to Disciplinary is almost like a break for her to recover instead of spending all her energy putting someone else together again and again. Hearing those footsteps in that ankle-deep fluid puts her right back on guard, though, and in a way that's somewhat nerve-wracking considering how much said nerves have already been frayed by this entire lowercase-o ordeal. She slows to a stop once she hears Lilian addressing the group, inhaling slowly through her teeth to keep her breathing steady as she prepares herself mentally to face off against one of the strongest people she's ever known. What catches her off guard, though, is hearing Lilian continue to speak, hand up, weapon down, and just... Talking. Speaking of her code, showing that she understands what this whole war is even about. The sensible part in Kukuru's mind tells her that she needs to stay on guard, that one slip-up here could spell doom for Angela. The fatigue makes it easy to stay where she is, too, even as she keeps listening to Lilian speaking, even lowering her guard for a moment to rub her missing arm with a light sigh. "I.. I'm glad you understand, Lili...an. There's... I know your job as one of the Paladins is super important to you. Your position as a knight, your... Being the leader of the Trid... Trideag-" She actually has to stop a few times to make sure she says it right. "-Association, being a role model to so many people inside and outside the City. And that Code..." She sighs lightly, lowering her hand from where her arm terminates at the elbow. "Of course you couldn't do anything else... You're not that kind of person, even if it means hurting someone you really care about and yourself for it." Kukuru shivers for a second and dabs at her eye, then steels her expression as she nods slowly at Rufus.
Kukuru	"But understanding that's... That only goes so far, you know? I can't pretend that I don't know a lot of people in the City will get hurt, but I can't abandon my family, either. Even if the entire city hates me, making sure Angela gets through all this okay is the only thing that matters. Her, her friends in the Sephirah, even the Agents that are left..." Kukuru inhales again, then steps over to pat Rufus' shoulder lightly. "It's.. It's okay, Rufus. I'm fine." She murmurs, muffling a light cough as she swallows all of that pain down. Her lip quivers briefly as she looks over at Riku and Sougo when they give her that encouragement, even letting out the briefest titter of a giggle a moment later. There's a lot of questions I want to ask, for sure... But after all this. When we all have time to..." Another inhale to steady herself, then a shake her head before a light pat against Woz's arm as well. "I'm okay. I'm okay. We... There's going to be time for this... Later." Xion gets a slow nod as Kukuru steps back again, clicking her claw digits together to make sure they're all ready and working properly. "I know... We still have work to do, and Angela's counting on us. We need to get through these last few days before we can relax and talk aaaall about those rules. I'm pretty curious about how they tie together, but..." Kukuru takes another deep breath, then turns to Lilian with a that ever-gentle smile of hers. "Let's leave it for later. Okay, Lilian?" "Do what you won't regret." "Don't do anything retarded while I'm busy." A portal opens up behind Kukuru a second later, and it deposits her right in front of Lilian. She practically flings her arm right around Lilian, burying her face against her chest and trembling almost immediately on contact with a clear inability to keep it together any longer. "I wish we didn't have to do this... I hate that you have to. Angie looks up to you so much, and even if she understands... I-I know this is tearing you up, too! Ju-uh-hust..." The half-foot height difference really makes her look less like someone cosplaying a mother-figure and more like someone's younger sister, wailing the entire time. "Y... You don't have to... Hold ba-hack, but... A-apologize to her when we're done, okay? Ma-hake it up to her the next time you see her, okay? Don't feel like you... H-have to be alone getting through this, even if we're... G-gotta do what we have to, okay?"
Lilian Rook	'Miss Rook.'     "Shinra."     For putting on all this tone, it stands out that Lilian isn't bothering to try and sound fond of, or even particularly familiar with him. It's nothing more than a neutral acknowledgement.     'You are who you are in the dark. And I'm going to remember who you are here a lot longer than I'm going to remember who you are outside.'     "Who I am in the dark is who I am with Rita, the Sefirah, the Agents, when you aren't looking. That saying is about when there are no consequences, not fewer eyeballs." says Lilian. "But if you decide to think of me as a monster, I won't shed tears over it. It's hardly an original take."     'Up to you, Kukuru, I'll go with whatever you decide, okay'     Lilian's lip twitches. Her eyes glass over in a thoughtful rather than dissociated manner. "I sorry you were wrapped up in this." she says, narrowly dodging eye contact. "All you wanted to do was jump in and help someone in need. If I thought it'd turn out like this, I'd have told you to stay away."     'I will. And I'll ask, when the smoke has cleared. About that, and about plenty of other things.'     "I'm a little relieved to hear that." Lilian says, then laughs from inwardly directed surprise. "Spouting off a kitschy come to Jesus moment just before running you through would be totally ridiculous, you know? 'I've seen the light, I'm a better person now, also die'; moronic. I already feel silly enough that this time off is helping put so many things in order."     'I realized you were right about the kind of strength it takes to be merciful. And... like I told Rita, no one who's that strong ever gets that way from pulled punches.'     "I also said whatever it would take to get people to not want to fight." Lilian frowns. "That wasn't one of them. I meant it. But if you could really pull out a miracle of some kind, I would have entrusted it to you." She sighs out loud. "As-is, beating me would already be practically a miracle, though. It's really only just that anyone who can't get through me after seven days of trying isn't someone that I can trust with this."     'So that one day, I'm strong enough that people will look at me like I'm not human. You helped me realize I can stand not standing that.'     "Then you get the idea." Lilian says, shrugging as if it were neither here nor there. "There are people in the City who deserve better heroes than mere humans. Angelas whom nobody is coming to save. I can't just step aside and leave them in the hands of someone who looks not all that different."     "Honestly." Lilian tilts her head back, gaze briefly wandering to the lights. "Besides the Code, I don't know if I can still hate the world enough to condemn it for one person anymore. Even if it's only one in ten thousand, I've met too many Angelas, Lalas, Luciuses, to think the way I used to. I shouldn't keep trying to force it."     'I'm not going to forget it.'     Lilian winces. Just a little.
Lilian Rook	'They've always been a mix that let you pick the one that gives you a path you don't regret, aren't they?'     "Any decent framework has a point where you just have to interpret it for yourself." says Lilian. "But as it stands, I don't regret trying my hardest to protect the people at my back, and I won't regret it if you somehow win, either. Your protecting Angela is why I can fight for the people who aren't her instead."     "For the first time, I'd be fine with it either way. So I don't really want to force myself to match Petra's pace. I'd rather lose than force myself to be that ugly."     'But understanding that's... That only goes so far, you know? I can't pretend that I don't know a lot of people in the City will get hurt, but I can't abandon my family, either.'     "I know, Kukuru." Lilian says, letting her eyes fall short of contact and drift uncomfortably to Kukuru's lips instead. "You never signed up for anything else. You're Concord. The thing that's precious to you is your family. I understand that. But it's like I told you before; do you remember? That you can't be a part of mine and a part of theirs at the same time."     "Saving Angela means that, one day, Lenny, Pete, Mang-chi, Knifty, Koffee, Sohda, Tee, Arachne, Ceri-- any of them could be swallowed whole by the City and disappear, and I'd know that I fought to deny them the power that could have saved them."     Kukuru teleporting in front of her brings her eyes back up in a hurry. Kukuru's constant teleporting hit and fade games have her pretty high strung about exactly that, actually. There's obvious intent in the way she starts to reach for a weapon automatically; trying to take advantage of the opening.     'I'm okay. I'm okay. We... There's going to be time for this... Later.'     Lilian breathes deep, puts her arms around Kukuru, and sighs into her shoulder, like a release of pressure. "You're really warm." comes out with a quiet giggle.     'Y... You don't have to... Hold ba-hack, but... A-apologize to her when we're done, okay?'     "Okay." Lilian murmurs against Kukuru's chest. "You're right."     At that instant, Lilian's hand on Kukuru's backsqueezes a talisman against her skin, the other oneWinter Crow clears leather and fires seventeen rapid shots across your line, and she reachesswings Night Mist in a cleaving down-blow at Kukuru's remaining arm. Her sword sizzles with the nightmare ocean blue of Rita's acid.     Lilian flicks away a burnt up cigarette, exhales the smoke, and says "That's that and this is this. Right?"
Lilian Rook	'Ah, Dame Commander. It has been nearly a year since we last spoke.'     "Yeah. It sucks." Lilian says, side-eyeing the intercom. Flick, venting, eject, ping, reload, snap; she holsters Winter Crow and withdraws a bent cigarette from a pack that happens to be the same brand Petra has, somewhere in her pocket. "I hope your idiots can pull off a miracle. You deserve people who actually can. As it is right now . . . well you have Xion I suppose."     'I was unaware you could be at two places at once, but I am sure Petra will manage.'     "I can, I just hate all the running back and forth." she says, so matter-of-factly that it only sounds like a joke because it's mundanely, darkly funny.     'How have you been?'     "Hot. Sweaty. Filthy. Nauseous. Aggravated. Emotionally distraught. Stiff. Sore. Everything stings from healing strain. Homesick. I miss Tamamo. I feel sorrt for Rita. And to be honest, I wish you'd picked a different week of the month for this. But I suppose I'm not tired, and I'm certainly not bored." says Lilian. "I actually sort of like the challenge. If Petra hadn't decided there were to be no showers, I might've tried to make it more sporting."     'What is your favorite type of cake?'     Lilian lights the cigarette, then smiles, in that order. She talks as she puts it to her lips. "Red velvet; the kind with ermine frosting. It's why I like the ice cream flavour."
Angela	''I hope your idiots can pull off a miracle.'' "I am accustomed to working with idiots as you know. In stories, heroes tend to be idiotic actually. It is part of their journey where they start as idiots, come of age and learn about the world, then stumble around for a little as they learn the wrong lessons, and then they square it all away with who they used to be. Maybe they return to their hometown, a little wiser-- but a little sadder... Well, I admit it would have been quite greedy of me to insist that you could carry me across the finish line==and I can hardly be upset since I would not have gotten this far without you, even if I admit I would have much preferred to face Gebura alone, in retrospect, than face you and Miss Rita. I feel like I chose for an easier stage earlier for a more difficult stagee later like in one of Rufus's video games." Lilian can't see the smile Angela makess at her joke, but she can hear it in what she says next. "The timing was unfortunately out of my hands. If it were up to me, I would have done this before I met you. But I think the way you helped me with Gebura was, strangely enough, the least way you helped me--is that strange? Some of the advice you've given me was simply provided because I was watching and listening, and studying--though plenty was offered freely as well." She doesn't seem troubled by Kukuru falling for an obvious trap because, like, if Kukuru hadn't fallen for that trap she wouldn't even be Kukuru. She might as well ask Hod to not go 'uwaa' or Gebura to not be so aggressively 'tsun' about everything, or demand Netzach to work hard. She takes a moment. "You sound like you are doing a lot better than my team, all told, but I will keep in mind that does not mean you are 'having a great time'. I was not aware you smoked." She supposes she's probably around enough Fixers that it wouldn't surprise her if she just went ahead and started because she might as well. She knows that much about Fixers just from osmosis at this point. "Ermine frosting..." Angela murmurs and then-- ''Well you have Xion, I suppose.'' Angela goes quiet for a minute at that. She thinks back... Back to the past... To what feels like 358 / 2 days ago. Angela listened to Xion intensely as she revealed personal details about herself. Of course she would. She doesn't look confused, bored, or weirded out during even a second of it. She listens as if her life might depend on it--because it might. That something so important is represented by a door, Angela thinks, she supposes doors mean a lot here in Lobotomy Corp too. They keep the monsters from eating you. The Sephirah had murmured about doors inside Ayin's mind. The way Xion speaks of Kingdom Hearts makes her think of The River. And the Light they transmuted that River into. Yes, she thinks, that must be why Kingdom Hearts is also Light. Xion claims she'll be fine, maybe even better than fine, so Angela can only think of one question to ask her in lieu of all the details she shared about herself just then. "Are you a magical girl, Xion? NOW "She has always seemed capable to me. I see why you can too. She seems rather hurt by all this." A longer pause, "But I have to commend your use of attachment work against Kukuru."
Riku Asakura	'"I sorry you were wrapped up in this." she says, narrowly dodging eye contact. "All you wanted to do was jump in and help someone in need. If I thought it'd turn out like this, I'd have told you to stay away."' Riku smiles warmly at Lilian.  "I would have come anyway, even with the warning," he says honestly.  "I can't stand to see someone who is in need go without help... but the thought is appreciated, Ms. Rook.  This has been... an experience," he admits, and nothing about how he says this means it was a good experience for him.  She can see the blood caked on his jean jacket.   All of it was his blood.   That was until Lilian made her play, tearing through Kukuru and splattering Riku in her blood.  He looks down at his body and then shakily towards Kukuru who was just opened up like that.  Why?!  It was a moment of humanity... it wasn't supposed to go like this.  It wasn't supposed to be like this!!! ULTRAMAN ULTRAMAN BELIAL ULTRAMAN GEED PRIMITIVE! Riku was now Geed Primitive, his so-called wild fighting style.  He lets loose a roar and jumps at Lilian.  He swings a wild punch at her and follows it up by throwing his body at her, aiming to try and knock her over and send her sprawling against the ground.  Riku was at a breaking point now, and just having watched that execution-style attack on Kukuru had pushed him over an edge.   All he wants to do right now is fight Lilian, pushing her away from Kukuru and trying to do anything he can to protect his ally from any more harm.  It didn't matter if Lilian was being sincere up until that point, what she did just now was unforgivable in his eyes.  Even as the sword strikes come in, even as the gun leaves sparks across his chest. Even when the blows knock him down, he gets back up to try and slam her again.
Rufus Shinra	> "It's.. It's okay, Rufus. I'm fine." Rufus grips his shotgun. "Kukuru..." He *should* say something more than just her name. But - the same cowardice of convenience that's keeping him from getting on Petra's case about her tactics, is keeping him from getting on Kukuru's case about what he really thinks of her choice. Needlessly, he steps aside. She teleports, meaning that he couldn't have stopped her anyway. And... the hug is actually happening. Rufus feels like a bit of an asshole. Tensions are high. Everyone's fighting for what they think is right (or in his case, fighting for what he's admitted he thinks is wrong but doing it anyway). He's misjudged Lilian. He should probably apologize. > "That's that and this is this. Right?" No, okay, he's pretty sure he's judged her right. Poisoning food, booby-trapping bathrooms, blaring that awful noise over the intercom. Or - was that Petra? No, Lilian probably did that too, he figures. Rufus swings his shotgun around, aiming behind himself, and fires. The supercharged recoil, aimed backwards, sends him flying forward, even amid the shots he's taking. Kukuru is still mission critical, and definitely more mission critical than he himself is, so he needs to get in close if he wants to try to rescue her. "Was that that, and - this this, then?" he yells. He starts casting. |Enemy Skill - White Night|. Give her a nice big dose of pale damage. Let her get another taste of what killed so many that night, and what lead to Cinder's demise. Let her suffer a bit. Let her see if this is this and that is that, after this. < ... No. < I told myself I wouldn't do that. I don't think I would be able to stop myself from doing it again if I started by doing it once. The spell fizzles, only half-charged. Instead he just focuses on getting Kukuru some space, by whatever means he can. Knocking one or both of them aside, breaking Lilian's hold on her, or just whatever he thinks might work.
Kukuru	"That you can't be a part of mine and a part of theirs at the same time." Kukuru's lip quivers again as she nods slowly, struggling to stop her teeth from chattering at how hard it is to even hold it together that much. "I know. But... Maybe that's one of my bad points, you know? Being greedy about these kinds of things... Because I'm Concord. We can't become the greatest if we settled for anything less, you know?" Another sniffle, and then she turns her head away to cough a few times. That crying is really coming from her gut. "And... Please don't blame anyone else for whatever choices they made if... When anyone dies from this. Everyone here... They must've had to think hard about how many people they know that would be.. Mmh. Like you said. Swallowed up by the City. " "If there's anyone to blame about all this... I'm here for that, too, okay? I didn't think about it a lot at all." "You're really warm." Between that and Lilian's giggling, it's nigh impossible to ignore the high-pitched whine coming out from Kukuru's chest in a similar pressure-release sort of way. "Oh, Lili... I-if this was just a few days later... I wi-hish I had both arms for this!" She starts bawling again and clings on to Lilian tighter, only lightening up enough to turn her head and cough a few more times after several seconds. "O-okay. I.. I'm good. I'm.. Okay." Deep breaths. She can do this. Her hold goes a little slack, even if she's not quite ready to let go of Lilian yet. Even though she has an inkling of what's to come soon, she truly does hope that moment can last even a few seconds longer. She knows it can't, though, and she can't even get mad when she feels that burning on her back. It's still enough to have her recoiling and screeching in pain, of course, and she only gets far enough from Lilian to have Night Mist carve through her arm from the shoulder down, narrowly aviding getting it cleaved right off. The pain is almost worse that way compared to having it removed entirely, but at least it's still attached enough that her nanites can piece it back together! Any... Second now? Still gritting her teeth and stomping around as the pain overwhelms her senses, she stops just long enough to notice that something's off about her arm. Namely... It's not healing right. It's happening, but far more slowly than she's used to with how her nanites usually work. It's burning in a familiar way, too, and that gives Kukuru enough clues to realize what's happened as she staggers back with Riku and Rufus stepping in to buy her some breathing room. "Oh, that... No, no, it's fine. You're... You wouldn't be honest with yourself if you didn't do that." Even now, Kukuru's trying to make excuses for Lilian cleaving her arm in half, struggling to get her arm back into working condition with the effects of Rita's acid. With her healing not working to numb the pain, she really only has one other trick up her sleeves to mitigate it even a little. She settles down into a crouch, letting her hand hit that wet ground beneath her as she turns her head aside for just a moment. "... Fuck." She mutters under her breath, then jams her foot right into the ground with a far louder crunch to drown that sound out. With a heavy swing upwards, Kukuru rips some of the flooring right out to kick-launch it at Lilian in a spray of high-speed debris trying to buy her comrades-in-arms more opportunities to strike back and recover from their own injuries as the battle commences. "But I have to commend your use of attachment work against Kukuru." "Angie... We're trying to be serious here!" Kukuru scolds, her amused tone tempered sharply by how much her arm and back still hurt right now. Still, it's hard not to get that feelign from her even as she keeps searching for some kind of edge she can buy in this fight against Lilian. Healing? If Rita's acid gets on everyone else, then that won't be as useful. Brute force? Not with her arm still doused in acid like that. But if she could get the acid off.... The l
Kukuru	Not with her arm still doused in acid like that. But if she could get the acid off.... The liquid. Against her better judgment, Kukuru promptly dives to the ground, legs bent upwards somewhat oddly as she tries to slough off some of that acid with whatever that pink floor-water is.
Timespace Riders	The golden, mirrored watch hands on Zi-O's gleaming white, silver-lensed helmet race rapidly forwards, ahead of Lilian's attack.     Potential futures play out in slow motion, during which he attempts to mitigate the harm done to Kukuru. But in the end, she can handle that better than I can. I just hope that's true of her heart, too. The sword, though--     Zi-O pulls the trigger on the ivory-gold greatsword. The clock on the hilt spins up, and the Sephirah boxbot eyes along the blade open and glow, all the way to the top, a brilliant white eye representing Keter, the will to create--an idea shared by the Sephirah rather than representing an individual in their midst.                                   CROWN BOOST!                                       Zi-O's black-gold cloak flutters and whips in the air as he first flicks the greatsword up from the fools guard to deflect the bolt headed for him, then darts down the line, striking the bolts away with the flat of the sword until one inevitably strikes his shoulder. The impact is true, the sparks fly, and he grunts in pain, but doesn't budge from his spot, having protected the allies he can.     Woz leaps over Zi-O's head to bait her with a predictable roll-into-stab attack. Zi-O surges around both his retainer and Ultraman with the same blistering speed. He flickers, along his trajectory, closing the distance on the downward swing of Night Mist. This, too, is a distraction.     A second Zi-O appears opposite him, to her left, holding the trigger on the same triggerpull that the present Zi-O has just started. The boxbot eyes on the sword open in sequence again, this time stopping on--                                 HOKMA GIRI-GIRI!                                     The light representing Hokma. The future Zi-O stabs the greatsword into the ground, and a disembodied pale clock face appears over Lilian's head. When it strikes midnight, a pale light glows under Lilian's feet, shortly before condensing into the blade of a greatsword to strike at her from below, hopefully creating some distance between her and Kukuru.     After that, the present Zi-O disappears, traveling into the past to charge up the attack that just happened.
Xion	Lilian doesn't make eye contact with Xion. Even if her eyes are hidden behind the shadow of her Keyblade Armor's mask, the spot where they would be still finds Lilian, watches her with a slight cant of the hood. It's more visible, and not less, the little turns and considering looks of the Nobody's head when her face is occluded. At helmet-point, she leans in just a bit, and takes a quarter-breath when Lilian and Kukuru hug. Xion doesn't believe that Lilian will continue to be the monster she was. The last times - the last pains, 'This' - were something that Lilian regretted. The mask can't hide the way her weapons shift, as her whole heart rests on this gentler roost: a terrible thing happened, going too far. It wasn't like that. It wasn't really like that. "I don't think this is interpretation, Lilian." Xions answer comes, miserable-flat. She's not going to debate the finer points, on this eve of clash, but as a romantic warrior she can be held for want of a touch in another. Love can do anything. Love is armor - love is a sword. >>'I suppose you were never very good at mine.'<< It hurts. Just to watch, it hurts. Lilian cannot see the contortion of Xion's face, just the recoil of shoulders and hooded head. A too-tight grip that cracks the middle of a glass spear and ejects a crushed-fruit leaking of silver without deforming the weapon. The jaw-clicked 'kuhh', a stiff-lipped inhalation, joins her spear in breaking-note. There's no seconds for voice to speak, but the glass about her hardens into a sudden barrier that - for the frames of leather-clearing spray - exactly Lilian to herself. Holding a hugging Kukuru, lying for an advantage, and shooting at . . . An image of herself. The glass breaks, but Xion isn't behind the mirrorglass when Winter Crow shatters the shield. Instead, winged in shards of glass and spears in hanging constellation, Xion swings Pylon in a vacuum-sweep slash to check Night Mist, the anti-regeneration acid too dangerous to go unchecked. Unchecked, also, is her whole approach. The weapon in her other hand is uncertain, though she swiftly brings it about in a backhand-with-greeble spin. "Call me whatever title you want, Lilian!!" The brakehandle pistol grip in her hand creakingly trickles with the leading edge of a wave of purple Heaviness as she goes right to trying at glitch-corrected speeds and accuracy to drive the Chase's signature weapon into Lilian's helmet. The little stub-nose muzzle bashing causes the loud report of BREAK-- as she pumps the transformational object through kinetic induction. "But you must think -- something! You must think becoming a heartless monster will give you some advantage!" The Heaviness - the 'bbrum-brum!!' of a bassy combustion engine being pushed - drives Xion's mixed armory through thrust, slash, adjustment and parry. It's not the same as the fight before, the dream of having a 'fair clash' to decide things. With the power of the Reaper that Doesn't Kill, Xion pushes all in on fighting to defeat the monster in front of her. 'Well you have Xion, I suppose.' ... "Are you a magical girl, Xion?" Xion thinks about that for a second. Then, with an unplaceable feeling, exhales. "Sometimes, I have to be." . . . "When we knock you down -- the *second* you falter, I'm ripping you out of here and locking the door behind you!" Xion claims, driving hard during her offense, and putting threat to every clean connection. How much would she need to tackle Lilian and simply remove her entirely from the fight?
Lilian Rook	'I feel like I chose for an easier stage earlier for a more difficult stage later like in one of Rufus's video games.'     "There's no point in planning for the future if you can't get through the present. Regretting your choice to make things easier up front is something you can only do if you made it through." says Lilian.     'But I have to commend your use of attachment work against Kukuru.'     "Thank you. But I also just feel badly enough about what I'm going to have to do to her that I felt like I should give her something first."     'I can't stand to see someone who is in need go without help... but the thought is appreciated, Ms. Rook. This has been... an experience,'     "Feel free to blame Petra for it entirely." Lilian says, hefting up her sword and tapping it to her shoulder. "I'd really have rather settled this with a single big flashy duel. Do you have any idea how disgusting it is to do this?" She kicks some of the newly reddened water around her feet, slowly diffusing into the rest of the pink sludge. "Blood is clean by comparison. Putrefying filth is her style, not mine."     His flurry of punches is easily dodged; at first. Fighting wild and angry is exactly what Lilian excels against. She backsteps from one blow, weaves to the right of the left, ducks under a hook, turns sideways past a straight, shoots Riku half a dozen times in the chest at point blank, then blips back with a little "My. That was close. Aren't you getting a little too angry about this?" She pivots around another hook, turning ninety degrees against his onslaught, backsteps out of range of another, and turns one aside with the flat of her sword against her shoulder.     "As long as you're enabling that war criminal, it's a bit silly for you to-- no, isn't it silly in the first place to get angrier about being kind first and cruel later instead of just cruel from the start?" Or so she says, until she brings her sword back, swings at his ribs as she ducks under his arm, and slips in the sludge underfoot, taking a partial blow to her other shoulder where Hibiki had hit it before. Lilian bites down on the cigarette and plants her lead foot to compensate, grunting and throwing herself into the followthrough to launch Riku away on the edge of her sword rather than back off.     'Oh, that... No, no, it's fine. You're... You wouldn't be honest with yourself if you didn't do that.'     "Of course it's fine. Anything goes." Lilian says, strangely businesslike, as she turns her gaze back, assesses the hail of debris in the blink of an eye, and vanishes to the other end of the room, where the water steams around her feet. "I didn't tell a lie, did I? You weren't on your guard, so you get hurt. Same as everyone else. Oh but--" A detonator drops into her hand. The floor beneath Kukuru blows out with surprisingly little fanfare. It drops her diretly over a pool of nightare fluid left there in advance; before Rita moved out.
Lilian Rook	"I wouldn't teleport if I were you. That talisman is Tamamo's; you won't cure a curse that powerful with some nanites. I was waiting until we had few enough days left that it wouldn't wear off in time." She doesn't explain why Kukuru shouldn't teleport, though.     Lilian leans over Rufus' shoulder. Smoke blows into his eyes. She murmurs "You're a good guy in the end. You should have pulled the trigger." only to thrust her sword at his wrist via a line drawn straight through his other arm, followed by a leg sweep to drop him into the water-- now mingling with anti-healing acid, slowly going from pink to violet.     Hokma's power, particularly beloathed by Lilian, increases her enmity threshold again. She barely escapes the blast from underneath; first only leaping back from Rufus and Kukuru, then upon recognizing the clock face is tracking her, dodgeparrying only in the latter tenth of a second the blade actually exists, stumbling back under fireworks of sparks and freshly shed blood. Hissing through her teeth, old superficial timestop wounds are opening up all over her bare arms, drizzling red as if to counteract the blue. The little saccade to Sougo tells him exactly where her priorities are now.     She leapspirals through the water to skid off her landing momentum as Xion's heaviness wave goes by. Night Mist jumps up to attention to catch thrust between forté and quillion, slashes wide and shallow at her wrists to turn the weapon aside at the same time, the slash is stopped short by Lilian's bare hand catching Xion's elbow on the outside, she shoves her back and swings down, smashing Night Mist's edge on her parry, then scrapes the blade sideways into the crossguard to cut it from her hands, lunging forward into another shoulder chest and belly thrust, only to blink sideways from a blow that rips into her shirt and tears through the waist, exposing bruised skin.     She can feel the exhaustion in Lilian's arms from each interaction. The subtle tremoring that tolerable sleep doesn't fix that fast. Her shallow wounds smoke from strain. She still feels half a degree weaker than that. But it's the talisman suddenly thrown at her from behind that seems to be the point.     'But you must think -- something! You must think becoming a heartless monster will give you some advantage!'     "Sorry, but trying to be a monster just makes me feel miserable. I realized I can only do heartless." Lilian says, drawing and shooting again; first to suppress Xion, then angling and firing to press back all the others. Her cigarette has somehow, miraculously, burned down to half. It looks strange in place; better suited to someone with more scars than one. "Or perhaps that's not true? Otherwise I wouldn't have put you on the 'forbidden' list when Rita asked me." she adds, like an afterthought. "I've just decided . . ."     'When we knock you down -- the *second* you falter, I'm ripping you out of here and locking the door behind you!'     "If I win, I've saved the City. If you win, even if the villain triumphs, then Angela is saved. So I'm just not going to think about it too hard." Lilian speaks through an inscrutable half-smile. Tired of the stick in the way, she spits the cigarette into the water and grinds it under boot. "Someone else broke all the rules first. We all know the score. And this is the first time I've ever been pushed this hard by all of you, too. So why anguish about it? I'm going to keep pushing myself to see how far I can go, and be satisfied with the outcome either way."
Riku Asakura	'As long as you're enabling that war criminal, it's a bit silly for you to-- no, isn't it silly in the first place to get angrier about being kind first and cruel later instead of just cruel from the start?' "I'm not enabling anyone!  I am trying to save the lives of people!  Stop trying to compare what you did to what I am doing.  I have done nothing but fight fair and square, while you two have fought... have fought like this!  No more!" Riku roars at Lilian, and as he comes back she deflects his momentum and he goes skidding away.   Sparks rang out across his ribs and chest, the blow was heavy, and he wasn't going to last like this against her for very long.  The chest crystal is already blinking red, indicating he's nearly running out of energy to keep up the Ultraman Geed form.  Still, he drags himself up and drags his arms up.  Energy surges through his body. Black and red energy surges from his body directly, and his eyes seem to glow like lanterns as he roars at the sky itself.  His head finally snaps back down, the energy concentrated into his arms as he pulls them into a cross and fires them into a beam at Lilian.  The beam, firing out despite her attacks breaking bones and reducing his ability to fight.   Then, despite it all... he falls back from the attack hitting the ground hard, and transforms back into Riku Asakura.  Blood still covering his body... and only a majority of it is his.
Timespace Riders	I wouldn't teleport if I were you.     While Lilian focuses on Zi-O, Woz takes the opportunity to change forms.               Dare Ja? Ore Ja! NINJA! Futurering Shinobi! SHINOBI!                   Surely he doesn't intend to teleport. But the ninja-themed form's iridescent purple scarf nevertheless flicks outwards. Does he mean to test what Lilian said? After all this time, is he just going to make some boastful claim? No--it extends past Woz, and straight for the pit of acid, entwining first around Kukuru and then Rufus. Woz wraps a length of it around the kama-headed Jikan Despear, and with a burst of speed, tows both of his allies away from danger. The scarf snakes past both of them once they're on solid ground again, and he harasses Lilian from range with a spread of exploding shuriken while she clashes with Zi-O.     Zi-O, then, locks blades with Lilian. He doesn't have the skill with the weapon that she does--but in this form, with that boosting capability, he's as fast as his fastest forms, as strong and durable as his strongest and hardiest. What he lacks in concrete skill he makes up for with his precognitive ability--and though he takes meaty hits from Night Mist, he scores plenty of his own, both from his swordplay and from the form's special attacks.     This is more or less what I expected. It would have been nice for things to go better than this--but...     "You're making me glad I took notes."     His precognition visibly warns him of his weapon being turned aside--but he allows it to be, retaliating with a snap kick from the right leg, carrying an audible crack from the speed and force of the blow. He flickers in place. The obvious place for his temporal duplicate to be is behind her, because everyone with the ability to be duplicitous like that thinks that they're the first person to come up with the idea of abusing sight cones.     Planting his foot after the kick, he pivots to the right, and pulls the trigger on the sword, just in time to reveal an overhead from the future Zi-O, whirling wide to control the space as the light on the sword stops at--                                   DA'AT WAVE!                                       There is no Da'at among the Sephirah--but its position central to all of them, and that particular red, is unmistakably the person whose unwavering hope for the future bound them together as one.     A surge of red travels across the ground, creating two damage planes to beware of--the edge of future-Zi-O's greatsword, and the surging explosive force racing to meet Lilian on the ground. Present-Zi-O adds a third, with a lightning-fast shoulder-to hip cut at the apex of his pivot, disappearing shortly after to venture into the past and release the weapon's special attack.
Rufus Shinra	> "You're a good guy in the end. You should have pulled the trigger." Rufus gets another deep cut, and gets leg swept and dropped into the anti-healing acid. Taken by surprise, and with his shotgun unloaded, he's unable to do anything but fall, fall towards the pool- He's saved by a timely assist by Woz that'll get edited in later. "I-" He steadies himself, back on solid ground. He doesn't have a way to heal. Kukuru's assistance would be nice but her priority needs to be defending herself. One of Sarracenia's healing powerups would be nice, too, but she's on the other team. "You're right, I *should* have." "But once I start pulling that trigger, I think I'm not going to stop..." Is he admitting this stuff out loud? To Lilian, who he's actively trying to fight to save Angela? "I don't think that makes me a good guy. Blasting you with White Night feels like it'd feel *really* good right now..." > "As long as you're enabling that war criminal..." > "Of course it's fine. Anything goes." "Yeah? You know, you're kinda right, Miss Rook?" It's a lot easier admitting things out loud when you've already admitted them to yourself. "It's selfish of me. I want Angela to live. So - I'm letting Petra do all the things I wouldn't want to do. And I haven't even so much as spoken up to her about it." "And - and I don't think I'm going to even speak up now, either, when we've come so far and we're getting so close." "It'd be nice if there was - some sort of rules of engagement, before all this happened, but - I don't know if they would have stuck even if we'd agreed. Everyone's throwing their chips on the table." "For the record-" Rufus charges. ENEMY SKILL: FIRMAMENT DRIVER "I don't think you're a monster, then," he says, just as the giant laser starts firing.
Kukuru	Naturally, Lilian avoids the debris. That feat isn't surprising to Kukuru, but the fact that she does it at all still is. She's seens Lilian take far stronger/more skillful attacks head on before, so why would she be worried about that suddenly? Unless... There's something in the flooring that Lilian is worried about. Or is it the water? Whatever the case is, Kukuru gets some precious seconds to scrub just enough acid off to get her nanites to actually stitch part of her arm together again, although it's still messed up enough that her arm still feels off even though she's able to move it again. "Fixing this is going to be terrible later..." Kukuru grimaces as she pries herself off the ground, grateful for even more breathing room courtesy of Zi-O's pale greatsword and Xion's Heaviness-infused offense. She even gets some time to actually hear Lilian saying she feels bad about what she's doing to her personally, small comfort though it might be considering how much everything already hurts. "Blood is clean by comparison. Putrefying filth is her style, not mine." Kukuru looks at the ground again, then at her arm that she just scrubbed with that water. Her teeth chatter lightly again as she exhales wearily, a little more of the light in her eyes fading again.  She's already taken plenty of mental damage on top of all hte physical damage, but somehow this still wounds her on a spiritual level. At least it's not going to hurt as much as what's waiting for her below once the floor gives way right beneath Kukuru. Yelping as she starts going down, she doesn't have quite enough time to finish processing everything Lilian says about the talisman and her teleportation before she's getting pulled right back up by Woz's scarf. It certainly saves her from testing Lilian's warning, at least, as she lands with a somewhat clumsy stumble and gives the shinobi Rider an appreciative nod. She doesn't have much time to thank him, though, as she instead hurries over to check on Riku when he comes out of his Ultraman form. Without waiting to deliberate on what to do next, Kukuru hurries over to pour some nanites into him to help keep him from bleeding out. It's a bit of a tax on her reserves, but it's fine. He's fought to protect Angela, so he's good in Kukuru's eyes even if she can't recall seeing him before the past few weeks or so. Only after she's done getting some of those nanites into Riku does she finally get back up to start approaching Lilian at a languid pace again. "That's kind of unlike you, Lilian... Fighting like this, but telling us about the... Tamamo's thing. No, this war's supposed to be all about deception, riiight? So warning us not to teleport is like..." Kukuru's brow wrinkles up as she tries to figure out what to compare it to, giving up with a dull grunt a few moments later.  "It's... Not very deceiving at all unless you were trying to make me think you were deceiving me when you're really not, right?" There's a pause as she has to consider what she just said, gives up after a while, and starts running at Lilian. As she draws closer, one of her usual clouds appears between herself and Lilian, and a second one appears right behind Lilian seconds later. Kukuru doesn't pass through either of those clouds. Instead, they dissipate just in time for Kukuru to hurtle right through the disappearing first one entirely, lunging forward to slam head-first into the knight to try biting right into her shoulder with all those shark-like teeth, trying to rip off a whole swath of it with all of her might concentrated right into the bite.
Angela	Angela is briefly distracted the the Sephira armor of Sougo's, particularly wh4en he he unleashes the power... OF DA'AT WAVE. There is no Da'at among the Sephirah. Even Angela, who is considered a Sephirah, doesn't go by Da'at. It's a wonder what she DOES go by. Perhaps the Da'at is that river of light soaring into the sky right now. Perhaps that is what Ayin sought. The Knowing I. But if Angela isn't Da'at, what is her Sephirah name? Does she just not have one? She watches for a spell, perhaps wondering if the true knowledge of the unhidden self takes the form of red energy blasts. She closes her eyes for a moment and then fearing that she might leave them closed too long, quickly reopens them. ''It's selfish of me. I want Angela to live. So - I'm letting Petra do all the things I wouldn't want to do.'' Angela supposes that is what people tend to use Petra for. She thinks, for a moment, of how she killed Ayin for her. And maybe that was unfair of her, but she just couldn't, again. She just couldn't. She's done it before. So it should be okay. ''There's no planning for the future if you can't get through the present.'' "Too true." Angela admits. "At the very least, a future is unavoidable now and that is something I can accept, win or lose." ''I felt like I should give her something first.'' "...I am glad you are getting along with her again." She says, suddenly thinking about Rita. Though it might sound like she's saying it about Kukuru. Angela's tone is odd, like she's wistful about old times. "You are right to oppose me too. They are bound to find out about me after this, and if you even went so far as to help me escape... it would no doubt be made annoying for you. If I do escape even with you trying to stop me, it may still be a bit annoying."
Xion	"I don't blame Petra for what Lilian does." Xion answers, cloaked in a mirage of glass as the fiberglass filiments sweep up at her back and swish into the span about her and between the Nobody and Lilian. "You're responsible for what you do! The lines you cross, the oaths you break! You're not--" Blade-slipped by Night Mist while her priority is on Sougo's sword strikes, Xion finds her wrist caught again and this time doesn't simply let herself get yanked around. Her skin, cracking like glass underneath Lilian's guard, has the touch-sense revulsion of contact at a nervous impulse level, bypassing conscious thought to react immediately. Her wrist - the whole Xion - disappears in a blink and shifts away, Pylon sucking water in as it lists and sinks. It's taken up in a reversed grip a blip after, drawn up with a spray of dredged water. Pushed while fading-slashing, the follow-up geyser of glass spreads a fresh one-way mirror between them, that keeps reflecting Lilian from every angle like a trick eye painting, despite the acrobatics of the black-cloaked Xion. Smashed, slashed down and disarmed of Pylon, Xion pivots into a kick while reaching through her cloud, only to be thrusted again-- clunk! --and impact on the heavy Roidmude chassis armor under her black coat, a gravity barrier of Heaviness growing more and more vibrant at her chest as the thrust. Again -- it holds, again and again Xion has match-and-response. An arc of filthy water swings on her metal-shod boot that waves with a leading edge of some effect, and she's blinked around and slashed-down on. Even her armored chassis can't take a bladefall well, sparks blooming metal-on-metal down the rend of her pristine coat. A talisman is stuck to her back, and she remembers the threat-- She doesn't even make a pained noise. It's nasal frustration, hard-breathy disappointment, with none of the deadfall that not making contact provided. That she kept touching, kept clashing with Lilian was like reminding Xion that everything here was real. So terribly, awfully real. So she shouts, and not in pain. "--you're not trying to save the world with us in it! You're not trying to save Lilian! Are those billions of people going to HOLD you?! After meeting Haru," Winter Crow comes up. Xion doesn't hesitate. "After meeting Kamen Rider, do you somehow think this looks like a hero, a knight winning?!" She shouts, 'suppressed' only as much as Starlight jumping metallic-note into her hand to swipe aside the shots is slowed down. Lilian blinks away again, and Xion switches the Break Gunner up to return fire in a quick burst of 'doo! doo! doo!' plastic toy with grunge attitude effect, walking shots to catch the cigarette-discarding woman. Even without the fuzzy locational assault of the Corridors -- Xion is still fast, and with the power of the Grim Reaper, buoyed by the Heaviness. 'If I win, I've saved the City.' "You're responsible for this, even us, even Angela, even if you don't like this!" Xion races the edge of the Ultraman's beam attack, lit in blue and red and black as she dodges the cast-off energy of the almost-unrestrained spray. "Even if she was supposed to quietly die, the power was always Angela's - not the City's to *have* for free!" The pseudo-Fragments of the Universe that cloaked Xion swim out in a cloud of knives to harry, stab, slice-somehow-nonlethally. "Didn't she earn it? Did the city?!"
Xion	Sliding around more fire, Xion rolls her shoulder and follows with a two-armed fling of heart-hilted knives - each of which becomes a hurled bolt of lightning. "Is it your power to bestow?!" Two spears in hand - a simple spear of ash wrapped in greyed red like old scars, and a more noble spear of hawthorne tipped in moonlight - exchange for keys as she lunges with Aoibheil's spear at Lilian rolls and sweeps with Scathach's moonlight tip across. "Isn't this a shortcut?!" For a moment, coldly calculating. "Is it even worthy of you?" "To flaunt that you win either way is beyond gauche! You're *familiar* with your victory, already, and clearly -- contemptuous of us and Angela too!" Xion continues her onslaught. Those in the know might be ticking off numbers. "And this lying, this deceiving, this underhandedness is FAR from absolute!" A sick laugh, Xion having to be run away from to stop her from running through spear after spear after spear. "But you won't just KILL me about it, will you? You'll kill Angela -- but you won't kill me! And the part that gets me?! The worst part!" Now she's just shouting them. "That the righteous outweigh the unjust! So why am I the just one?! This half-ways half-sides NOTHING that you've become is awful!" 'So - I'm letting Petra do all the things I wouldn't want to do.' "So, who is this that I'm fighting, this imposter?! This laughing harm? Petra did this? Make you speak, make you tarnish?!" Her last moment is simply an explosion, howling stress as 'spears' become pain that no little bip or blink away will contain. "Why does your absolute code of thirteen somehow not apply here?! Why are you doing the same as her?"
Lilian Rook	'I'm not enabling anyone! I am trying to save the lives of people!'     "It's fine if you're forgiving Angela for everything she's done. I know I have already." says Lilian, weaving between a fresh barrage of wild blows, stepping back and countering with swift interpositions of the point of her sword, using Riku's momentum against him. "But being a willing pawn of Petra sort of denies you the right to get righteous about me getting one of your people with her guard down, no? Didn't you stand by while she burst the pipes, flooded the elevators with toxins, stole all the food, started blasting klaxon sounds day-in-day-out to deny us any sleep, unleashed swarms of monsters on not just us, but her own allies, and-- Well I suppose you don't care if you're used as ablative meat. You're a hero."     Lilian backs off Riku's rising momentum after a satisfactory number of strikes, repositioning to take him on again just as he'd started to break through her guard. The cross beam gives her precious little room to maneuver. He hears the sound of impactLilian tumble-splashing through the kicked in door to the back hallway. Black magic barely keeps her balance steady, expending energy just to stay on her feet.     The distance gives her a few seconds to catch her breath, coughing in the middle of her heavy panting. "It's not as if I hold you accountable. It wasn't your idea, after all." Lilian wipes a little blood from her lip. Combat breathing is something she's good at, but still. "But you let the stakes be raised to that point. You're part of that unspoken agreement too, you know?" Her knee wobbles out of position, then firms itself up. "So no complaining. I don't hate you, but I really do hate people who complain only when things don't go their way."     The scarf pulls Kukuru out just fine (particulars of Rita acid aside). Lilian positions herself to stop him, but holding Kukuru under with her heel is interrupted by Sougo; to use her power defensively, she still has to move, not hold her ground. During his head-on rush, he sees the exact instant Lilian locks eyes on his helmet, hisses out a tightly controlled breath of bracing smoke and embers, and finally, after the first few furious exchanges that leave her reeling back from the combined onslaught, her 'sight' kick into gear properly. A slice on the bicep he couldn't reach before. A blow to her leg she just barely diverts from her knee. A body blow she takes through her hilt. And then his final blow is parried away again, flicked high overhead, as her futuresight catches up.     Which means, at least for the moment, more than she wants Angela to win, she wants to beat Sougo. It's the most intensely she's looked at him in ages.     'You're making me glad I took notes.'     He can hear Lilian saying 'At least somebody is' without having to stretch his imagination at all. She says "You should see mine." instead. She lunges seemingly straight into the wavediverts sharply swith sword out readied to cutthe kick at the heel at her back leaning into the momentum and charging forward with her sword out of position to tackleslide around him from the left trailing sparks from an inverse pendulum parry at the waist, staggering and out of breath. His precognition ramps up to a soft warning of intense, impending perilLilian blinks past him to Woz to scatter talismans in all directions, overusing her remaining supply to ensure the third sticks.
Lilian Rook	"I'm going to need you out of that suit now." she says, turning on Sougo, sword levelled flat behind her as a tail guard into an aggressive forward posture. "Tormáil in Aghaidh na Haille!" is the first invocation of the sword he's heard in hours. The blow is exactly as much of a thunderblast as he should remember. Lilian modifies it with her lower leg to take him down into the viscous, bloody, acidic water without engaging a takedown herself.     'That's kind of unlike you, Lilian... Fighting like this, but telling us about the... Tamamo's thing. No, this war's supposed to be all about deception, riiight? So warning us not to teleport is like...'     "You're stupid, so I don't need to lie to you" Lilian says, bordering on a laugh. "It's bizarre, actually. I used to lie constantly, about everything. Since coming to the Multiverse, most of what I lie about is how I feel, and even that's lost its purpose over time. So-- Hey I said--"     For an instant, Lilian actually looks perplexed. Concerned, maybe, but it vanishes again under anything but slow motion. Lilian catches Kukuru's bite with the edge of her blade, brought just barely up over her shoulder, the reverse side pressing into bleeding skin. She wrangles with Kukuru, teeth grit, muscles cramping, quillion pressed right into Kukuru's throat, until she extends her leg, twists her back, and with a great heave of effort, throws Kukuru over her knee, and stabs her on the way down, planting her boot to the back of her head to try and keep her pinned.     Unfortunately, she was telling the truth. 'Divine punishment' occurs on teleport, both gouging Kukuru's internal batteries of energy into the redzone, and layering on a deadly 'fatal ill-luck' curse. Lilian doesn't have nearly the specific talent to make it last indefinitely like Tamamo, but even if she's wrong about it lasting the remaining four days, it's a massive problem.     'You're right, I *should* have.'     "And you hesitated. Why?"     'I don't think that makes me a good guy. Blasting you with White Night feels like it'd feel *really* good right now'     'But once I start pulling that trigger, I think I'm not going to stop'     "Nine tenths of being 'good' is being afraid. Take it from me." says Lilian, turning aside and focusing. "'What's inside' is bullshit. It's only ever 'what you did'. Whether you understand or not is immaterial; taming those animal impulses and doing the least awful thing within your power is beyond the abilities of most people. So at minimum, you're better than average."     'I don't think you're a monster, then'     "Hahaaa . . . You get it huh?"     Encouraging words, shifted by doppler, as Lilian streaks right past the firing laser, into the minimum safe reach between Rufus' shotgun and his face, and throws out a crossbar takedown with the flat of her sword.
Lilian Rook	'I don't blame Petra for what Lilian does.'     "Maybe you should start." Lilian snaps; finally, for whatever reason, irritated. "Blaming me for being dragged down by the worst people near me is what everyone else does. But only for looking after myself, of course; not any of the parts before."     The sheer ferocity of Xion's attack forces even Lilian to buckle down and conserve her breath. She already went into this fight at seventy, and under the combined effort, she's skimming the top of forty. Covered in open wounds, Lilian flickers back and forth effortfully between ribbons of cast-off water, eyeing them as much as Xion's blades, like a boxer still watching the left hand while being jabbed by the right. The noise she makes is more than just pain when some splashes against her right arm anyways.     '--you're not trying to save the world with us in it! You're not trying to save Lilian! Are those billions of people going to HOLD you?!'     "You'll still be here when this is over. And you'll be pissed off at me for months, maybe years, maybe forever. And if that's all it takes, I can fucking live with it, Xion!" Lilian snarls back. It's bereft of the venom of two days ago, but leaks raw, sizzling frustration. "Whatever you think it looks like, what I can't live with is knowing that I didn't do all I could! If I split the difference, shined up my armour, gave you a kiss and told you it would be fine, and held back, then either way I'll know that it was all just fake fucking grey nothing theatre of mind smoke and mirrors pageantry and bullshit."     'You're responsible for this, even us, even Angela, even if you don't like this!'     "So I can live with hurting you for a cause, even if it's miserable, and if you want me to tenderly feed you another drop of blood, then it can wait! How the fuck can I take responsibility for something if it isn't even real?!"     'Didn't she earn it? Did the city?!'     "Yes, she did! No, they didn't! So fucking what?!" Lilian shouts over the constant clatter of Fragments glass, pushing into the swarm where she should void space, her heart rising up hot and painfully thudding. She takes both bolts with a rolling lemniscate motion of her sword, discharging them into the water rather than her body, then takes the tackle. "Nobody's fighting over that! Fighting over it is what makes <You People> fucking worthless! The reason none of you can make a miracle happen is because you don't even know how a miracle is bought! You just fucking make tiers of people you rate as deserving it and then wipe out all the work someone paid for to try and make one happen!"
Lilian Rook	'To flaunt that you win either way is beyond gauche! You're *familiar* with your victory, already, and clearly -- contemptuous of us and Angela too!'     "I lose either way too you naïve piece of shit! Why even ask me to choose between them?! Do you want me to flip a fucking coin?!" Fully swept up, Lilian churns water to steam and blood to water, bleeding and burning between the thrusts of Xion's dual spears, finally catching one on the hilt and running the edge all the way down to hack off her arm.     "Why the fuck does Carmen get nothing! Elijah, Gabriel, Giovanni, Michelle, Lisa, Enoch, Daniel, Kali, nothing! Ceri, who threw her life away and lost her legs for me! The Rats desperate to get off the street and depending on me! G Corp's throwaways dying by the day, having faith that I can fix it! Why does Angela have the right?! Why do you have the fucking right to tell me to throw them away for your fucking pick?!"     "I can't abandon them, so here I am! Fighting! I can't abandon Angela, so here I am! Deciding it like this! And I can't abandon you, so here I am! Listening to you scream like every other infinitely entitled parasite while I know if my heart was any stronger I'd back up my own words by killing you for good!"     'So, who is this that I'm fighting, this imposter?! This laughing harm? Petra did this? Make you speak, make you tarnish?!'     "This is the most I can do and the most I can stand. Any more in either direction and my heart would break. If that's unacceptable to you, Xion, then find someone more vapid and hypocritical to call a hero." Some setup, some handiwork, done, Lilian finally pushes herself to kneel into the acid-bloody water, subjecting her own hand to its anti-healing properties, and sends black-gold lines of energy; coruscating vertical sheets of eerie bubbling-crackling-fizzing-seething-popping; through the entire central chamber. The array on the floor is totally obscured by the opaque slush of gore and acid. The effect is felt first and seen never.     The whole area has turned into a temporal acceleration field, tuned to a multiplier of several zeros, concentrated exclusively on 'metabolism, energy, stamina, entropy'. A zone where one starves out in seconds.     "This is the one part we've never fucking moved an inch on, isn't it? It's been years, Xion. That's too long. I don't care if you don't get the closure you want anymore. I've let trying to be what you want me to be turn me into a predictable little puppet going through the motions for long enough already."
Angela	"Even some part of me still thinks I should just let them devour me completely." Angela admits. "Like a good little pomegranate. But you gave me the strength to do this. Even if the world accepts me one day, I won't stop being grateful for telling me to shut up when I offered to lay down and take it. For giving me hope and showing me a little light. Being grateful to you forever, that will be my first Code." There is a quiet pause from the intercom, as if Angela is thinking about adding saomething else but-- --that's when Yesod seizes the intercom again, kicking her out of the local system.
Timespace Riders	Blaming me for being dragged down by the worst people near me is what everyone else does.     "Xion is not 'everyone else.' That is to her credit."     "Woz, look out!"     The talisman that inevitably sticks sees Woz misplace his footing on the approach to Lilian. The battered floor gives at the worst time, his ankle twists and he falls into the acidic pool. Dipping below the line of the indoors crater, his scarf can be seen, following an upwards spew of sparks.     The iridescent purple scarf shifts to its mundane, unarmored grey, snaring around an empty pipe to pull the retainer free of harm's way.     Zi-O has one last trick up his sleeve. I'm going to need you out of that suit now.     The golden watch hands race forward. Well... I'm not making it past that. But I can put it off.     "I'll take that to mean I did good."     "Haaaaahhh!" A second Zi-O, still clad in the armor, shoves the present Zi-O aside and takes the hit for himself. The greatsword clatters to the ground as his back collides with the surface, skidding across the floor to land in the water. A pink flash illuminates the lip of the pool, and Woz's scarf snakes downwards from the hanging pipe to retrieve an exhausted Sougo Tokiwa from it before its deleterious effects can harm him outside of his armor.     The Zi-O of the present attempts to use these scant few seconds to make a last-ditch attack on Lilian--but all he manages to do is push his past self out of the way.     The remaining Sougo dangles helplessly, his shirt stained through with sweat and blood--his and that of others. His vision blurs, his hearing buzzes and rings. The Sephirot armor gives something close to the kind of power it takes to be merciful--not quite, but close. To hold onto the story of 'Angela, and the Sephirah, alive and better for it,' so distant and hard to grasp, takes its toll. Consciousness dances in and out of his reach.     "I think I did a pretty good job... following the advice you gave Eyewon. The only thing I couldn't manage was... getting someone 'inside your ranks.' If I'd managed that..."     His eyes grow too heavy to keep open.
Kukuru	The struggle with Lilian and her blade, even with Kukuru's freakish strength, can't be turned around with brute strength alone when she's only got the use of half an arm at best. Getting stabbed through the gut draws another pained scream out of Kukuru, and presses her head right against the ground just so she isn't forced all the way down against it. The fight isn't going quite as well as she hoped it would, and there's a distinct sense of frustation that's coming back to her as so many thoughts keep swimming around in her battle-addled brain. "You're stupid, so I don't need to lie to you" "It's always... About that, isn't it? I already know I'm not smart like everyone else." It's an odd feeling, certainly. Not thinking too hard about things has always been Kukuru's way of living, hasn't it? She could always find reasons to excuse someone's questionable behavior towards herself, no matter how terrible, just by coming up with reasons for it all. Maybe there's a good reason that hasn't been explained yet, honest mistakes leading to that behavior, or even just social pressures to act a certain way that she certainly wouldn't follow herself. She's never been smart enough to understand the intricacies of what many people are going through, after all, so it's only natural that she should be sympathetic. Patient. Accomodating. Nice. "I want to understand. I want to... Know what you're feeling when everyone's angry like this. Or sad, or... Everything. But even when I listen... I-it's never enough. If I can't figure it out perfectly, then everyone starts getting upset again, and..." It has to be some kind of deficiency in her understanding, right? It always is, because being the nice one is all she's ever allowed herself to do. It should be fine, because she's too stupid to really know any better, anyway. ... So why does this still feel horrible? Everyone's shouting, everyone's angry at each other, nobody seems to be happy with any of this... The more Kukuru listens, the more she feels like crying again. It's not the happy kind of crying she did with Lilian just a few minutes ago, but the hot, ugly sort that really only feels like it'd be better if she could scream it out... No, that's not a crying feeling, even though she does feel the heat rising to her face. She hears that same heat from Xion addressing Lilian, and she heard some of that fire in Riku's tone as well. She's heard some of it from Petra over the past several days, and she's felt plenty of that same emotion between Sougo and Rita over where the line of acceptable losses laid.
Kukuru	"But you won't just KILL me about it, will you? You'll kill Angela -- but you won't kill me!" "Would you kill me, Lilian? Would you kill anyone else? You're ready to kill Angie over all this, but... Why?" Kukuru hisses painfully as she closes her hand around the blade coming out of her, trying to figure out whether she should be pushing it out or pull it through. "If it's not for her, and it's not for you, and if the City doesn't deserve it... Who's it for? Is torturing and killing everyone for nothing okay? Is it fine as long as I'm around, because it doesn't count if I can just bring them back later?" Her hand goes from the blade to Lilian's ankle, and she clamps down on it with her messed up hand just to try and stop herself from crying purely from the heartache. "If you can't stop being cruel to yourself, then... Wh-what about me? How much do I have to keep seeing them hurt like this? If you killed me and everyone else Here for this... Would you really be okay with that? Not what your.. P-pride says, but you?" She tries to heal herself, but the effects of Rita's acid and the curse just have Kukuru coughing out a grimy mess of blood onto the ground in front of herself while her vision starts to swim from the unchecked blood loss. She can't even pull together enough energy to summon a portal under herself. It's all she can manage to hold onto Lilian's shin, although she doesn't know whether she wants to throw her off or bite her. It's kind of hard to see already.
Xion	'Maybe you should start.' "I blame the people that made this place wrong. I blame the world, for being uncaring. I blame the City, for seeing and doing nothing. But I don't blame her for what you do." The power of the Grim Reaper allows Xion to run counter to Lilian and strike without holding back. Not even Petra's sharpness overrides the Absolute Justice of the Reaper's programming. Lilian is pressed by Xion's whole crying heart and all that she is, and the Fragments Dripping Silver reflect that as much as it reflects Lilian. It takes her a while to have breath. Waves of glass, swung spears, and reacting without teleportation drains Xion of more stamina. Yet she chases Lilian with leaps of glass bounding ahead in flows of clear metal-cored crystal to turn jagged and seeking. The return of Starlight and Pylon in her hands leaves a battlefield of frozen glass behind her - jagged memorials to clashes and deflections, some still crackling with buried lightning-knives. At her fore, as she keeps swinging, is Lilian. 'maybe forever. And if that's all it takes,' Xion is twirled to be disarmed again and she just opens the hand and lunges in to feint a high punch with her hand -- Lilian's boxer insight -- to switch Pylon for the Break Gunner, and fire a 'doo-doo!' blast to put pain to the flow of parry and riposte. "I know you can live with it." She states, dull. There's a slackness that comes over Xion, like she can read anything and everything Lilian can swing at her, and adopting a wobblingly easy weave she snakes into for a moment with a whip-out of keyblades to resume her combo. "I could live with it too. One way or the other. My promise, against your pride, and we'd touch swords and settle things. In misery," Xion can't even take offense. She's hurt, but she cares about this more than she cares about being hurt. "-at least we'd be knights about it." She cares about this more than living. It breaks the rules she told the others to hold to, and perhaps she wouldn't burn away with the heart she found, half-full again after the Pale damage. But her whole Will behind this struggle was a pressure that she couldn't keep up. And -- she could not truly put her whole Will behind hurting Lilian. She had to lie to do that. Starlight, but not the Kingdom Key. "I thought you wanted to. I thought it'd be different. I thought you'd talk to me." Xion speaks in answer. The grim and somber truth of knowing even now why Lilian couldn't do any of those wonderful things she premised. And when it turns to nursed drops of blood... "Even pulled taut, I thought you'd still talk to me." Is all she can really reply. "Instead, you were--" She begins to get some shape of what 'This' is. 'Why do you have the fucking right to tell me to throw them away for your fucking pick?!' "I didn't tell you to do that. I know you can live with stepping over me. I was ready for us to clash, but if you'll throw that in the mud because someone *made* you, tarnish your oaths because things became *hard*, and make me play the knight across from it while pouring pitch on yourself, then yes, Lilian!" "I'm going to make some noise about it." 'Do you want me to flip a fucking coin?!' "I wanted you to ask me! I, me, wanted you to challenge me for my allegiance and just beat me out of my promise if that's what it took! You knew it'd work! It worked on Binah, and that's why I'm here! You KNOW this!!" 'And I can't abandon you, so here I am! Listening to you scream like every other infinitely entitled parasite while I know if my heart was any stronger I'd back up my own words by killing you for good!' Dark, Xion hardens her heart with disbelief. Lilian had been carving her with words deeply all conflict. "You're fighting on the side of the infinite parasites you've decided to feed. Don't ask me to like it while I respect you so much. Don't compare me to the crowd. Don't lie to me,"
Xion	Lilian moves to channel near the acid-water. Xion finally eases off, knowing she has to finish what she's doing before bailing with Riku. Kukuru will have a problem, especially with the draining talisman... So she sighs. "Please, don't lie to me." The momentum runs out in the fight. "But you've talked to me. So, finally, I get it. At least,' Gore and acid erupt. Xion's Heaviness-boosted gravity lensing makes the eruption creak down to speeds that the incredible reaction speeds of the Nobody can manage, and impossibly she ends a flip clear and away from the runes, splashed more with glass than with water, as her field of summoned weapons is erased. "I know why you'd do anything - but not what would win this for you outright. So I'm sorry, for needing to be told this time, this way." A lift of her shoulders, and a Demi-heave of purple to pull the time-washed Ultraman over her armor-assisted shoulder, is the half shrug she can finish with. Sougo, believing in her, also goes down, and there's not enough momentum to keep up the pressure and get what they need done. Rufus had broken off to secure the supplies, which means she was on recovery. Kukuru fighting through the acid would probably mean she needed recovery too. Still a few more miserable moves to go. "I hadn't prepared myself to be relied on, this way." She admits, and begins to make her fighting retreat. Xion resiliently believes she faces some Grendel-like construction of Lilian caught worse than she is, but... Finally, knowing the messy shape, did it even matter? It wasn't just Xion that Lilian seemed to be venting away the 'choice' towards, and so... 'Petra was right' had cost this. What had she amputated in her ignorance?