Scene #6576: Plague of Mind IV

Owner	Pose
Zero Kiryu	The mindscape falls quiet. There are only two places no one has explored yet, one of which is of dubious relevance. A little shop down in town, and Zero's place of employment. At this time the town itself becomes an actual tangible location, the transitional nature of Point A to Point B giving way to a nexus that can be visited and traversed. With night recently fallen and disruptions banished, a new transition occurs. The buzz of Cross Academy gives way to a memory of the Night Class leaving their dorms. Of students from the Day Class needing to be corralled at the edges of the road to keep them away -- by Yuuki and Zero, though Zero isn't doing much but looking menacing (and on closer inspection, perhaps a little miserable) -- and a quieting of the school's activities. Eventually the Day Class students are shuffled off to their own dormitories, with the gates shut and barred behind them. The main campus is filled with indistinct figures. A little glow emanates from each of their chests, making them highly visible from a distance, and making it easy to count how many of them there are. Not that many, compared to the Day Class. Perhaps a hundred, hundred and fifty at the most, to what must have been thousands of Day Class students. Soon after night falls, the scent of blood dominates the whole mindscape. Specifically, though perhaps only Yuuki herself has the context to parse it as such, the smell of Yuuki's blood. It grows stronger along the main campus building, and if somebody should investigate they will find that it leads to a stairwell. A memory of Yuuki lies dead on the landing, a sparse few droplets scattering the surrounding walls and floor. It's a strong scent, for so little blood left behind. There's a trail to follow -- a crisscrossing miasma of strong-smelling blood in places where Yuuki was remembered, but there's a problem with exploiting them. The memories are beginning to replay despite the 'dead' ones around them. On the stairs, a memory of Zero -- quite clearly crazed -- attacks Yuuki on the stairwell, ignoring the fading memory-corpse. The memory doesn't play out that way, after all. The whole interior of the campus is dotted with dead Yuuki lying amidst replaying memories. At the front gates, Yuuki is incredibly clearly stopping Zero from wandering off with the clothes on his back and a rucksack, while yet another dead Yuuki stares sightlessly from the ground beneath them. Each of the memories of Zero has that same little gleam in him that the rest of the vampires do. As Ichiru told Moonfin, the trouble with actually identifying the right one is that there's dozens of replicas, at least a few of which exhibit similar behavior.
Raziel	Raziel watches the transition of night to day, with the changing of the class from a large group to a smaller closer knit group. With only a few places left unexplored, it seemed like there was only so many places they could go to try and get to the root cause of all of this, and of course, destroy it for the sake of their ally. However, the familiar scent of blood catches Raziel's senses. While the old hunger had left him a long time ago, he could still smell as he did in unlife. The eyes of the ghoul narrowed, perhaps in thought or perhaps in expectation of some unseen danger, it was yet not certain. 'The sent of blood flooded my senses, so strong was it that it could not be hard to follow. Following it lead me to a set of stairs, and exploring those reveals the corpse of Ms. Kuran dead. What was surprising, besides the corpse of an ally, was the apparent lack of blood. Nowhere near the amount that should be there for the sent I was sensing.' Raziel continued exploration and found yet more dead Yuuki memories, alongside other memories with Zero in various states. 'The more that I explored, the more of these corpses that we found. Could this be related to the words that she said to him on that terrible night we had just experienced? Perhaps the sent would lead deeper towards where we needed to go? It was at least a trail worth following.' Raziel takes a moment, trying to once more follow the sent of blood and where it might lead.
Starbound Flotilla	Moonfin dusts himself off after the encounter, clearly drained and a bit peeved by the entire thing having dared to happen at all. Nevertheless, it is time to press forward. "Farewell to old traumas. Its final scars fade with time, as only such healing can ever truly mend. Let us move on." Moonfin presses forward. "The trouble, now, is what I spoke of earlier. We shall be unable to distinguish the shade from its counterparts. What gnaws within the self is impossible to distinguish from the self. Not without one who can pierce the veil and see the flaws in Zero himself, at least. That is why I have sought out one who may be able to assist us, or at least whose insight may grant us what we need." Moonfin sheds his armor in a small cyan lightshow as he moves for the town. "I intend to visit his place of employment, where I am told we shall find a critic. And the critic's eye, I should hope, shall grant us the insight we need. Who other than a critic could see the flaws in a man such as this, who shows little in such an artistic way? Unless you have another solution." He doesn't seem to think there's any other solution. He gets walking, giving the dead Yuukis as wide a berth as he can, and presses on to the town and that sturdy building he was interested in before, intending to just find someone else to solve this duplicates problem.
Priscilla	'I'm not the 'Yuuki' that Zero knows anymore. Because, the vampire side of me, ate the other part.' Those words are still ringing in Priscilla's head when the journey continues, and ring louder with each additional corpse they come across. Moments Zero had interacted with Yuuki from then on. Each one, the girl he knew, dead. A memory of another girl with Yuuki's face. Even if Zero would say otherwise, Priscilla sees exactly why Yuuki would coin those words, in retrospect, as the worst of all the words she could have chosen. Each glance at a replaying memory, each look to the dead girl lying at its feet, Priscilla's expression hardens, increment by increment, until she no longer looks down anymore, going past without any further need to see what these scenes contain. "True, psychological damage." she says aloud, slow and tense to start, like her willingness to speak had rusted tight along the way. "But, it wouldst seemeth not, a psychohazard. Not all memories can be positive. Even those that deeply scar art not necessarily a malady. At least, not one that couldst be simply cured." Finally, her chest heaves slightly as she gags at the taste of blood entering her mouth, so strongly and cloyingly. "Is it . . . always like this?" she half-questions of Yuuki, unable to keep ignoring the overpowering scent --nor quite the little beacons of the people from which it comes, currently drowned out by Yuuki's-- forever. She deliberates on Moonfin for an instant, visible through little swishes of her tail rather than any hand or head motion. "Agreed, though there is little sense in not at least exploring all unturned stones thusfar. I shall meet the shortly." she says, before deciding to hail mary and check the shop for metaphorical hidden coins first.
Aoko Aozaki	"So am I a mind vampire now?" Aoko asks Yuuki, completely nonchalant to the fact LAST TIME HAPPENED and taking it in stride. It had clearly not left her with any kind of real-world vampirism, which was both a relief and a let down in a variety of ways, but that won't stop her from taking it entirely less seriously than it should be taken. Or maybe she's intentionally trying to lighten the mood in the face of dead Yuukis everywhere. That's a lot of dead Yuukis. Zero needs a head janitor quite badly. Oh is that the smell of BLOOD? Strong, magical blood? What is this place, the Clock Tower basement? Ha, haha. No, this place doesn't have nearly enough things chained up to awful magical artifacts and doesn't have any high-strung englishmen lording over normies. Aoko still covers her nose with the back of her hand, even if she's entirely too used to that smell. Moonfin wants to see Zero's boss, Priscilla wants to go shopping. Aoko remains by Yuuki, waiting to see what the princess wants to do. "So, elephant in the room, if that's how strong your brother is, how strong have you been all this time?" She'd never really paid it much attention until now.
Yuuki Kuran	Yuuki walks among her own corpses, a modicum of thoughtless grace spent to gingerly step over her own empty shells drained dry as the party moves through Zero's memories. The scent would be overpowering to many, a lingering affliction of the upper nose that would settle in to stay, except... It doesn't bother Yuuki quite so much. Her eyes 'rest' aglow with an inner light that shines like moonlight reflecting off red pools, a silvery chill to her mein as she maneuvers around 'his' memories. "How awful it must feel. How terrible it is to live with such a... What was that word Hanabusa used..." "A ketosing mind? One that is consuming itself..." Yuuki gives a flickering smile to Priscilla's question. "It's... Mmm. I've only felt like this in his memories, but for him? Yes. Always this bad. And since we're mostly inseperable, out and about... It's why I have to be strong, too. For me..." "It's worse. My nose is much better than his." Moonfin's search 'for a critic' gets a slow nod, that turns enthusiastic towards the end. "Oh... Oh! Yes, that should help. I'm sure there's someone like that in here." As for Aoko, there's a helpless 'I mean... I guess?' shrug and sweep of the hands. "My brother is the Vampire King, and he's... complicated. He's very strong. I'm..." Yuuki considers for a few moments, before sighing. "Stronger than that shade of a memory. Not stronger than my brother. Make sense? And... Yes. I've always been that strong, as long as you've known me. I just wanted to be normal, so I acted normal. It was a foolish child's game. Still..." Yuuki finishes with a turning-happy exhalation of breath. "I made some good friends along the way, so it wasn't a waste."
Zero Kiryu	The trail of blood and corpses simply doesn't end, and there are effectively infinite incarnations of Yuuki to prey upon here. It could be hiding in the image of any one reflection of Zero Kiryu past and there wouldn't be a way to tell which one it was... or so it seems. It's hard to say whether or not it's quite that intelligent until it's been caught. There is a pattern that might be recognized-- it appears to be following the /schedule/ of rotating memories in some way, flitting from one to the next according to what it considers most 'safe' and desirable. It stands to reason that it might not be preying on anything in the school /after/ the battle concluded. Moonfin goes to HUNTER'S ASSOCIATION HEADQUARTERS. It is an old academy itself, hardened into a fortress. There's a feeling of electric charge around the entryway, though it's perfectly possible to pass through unhindered. A detection system, of some kind? Probably something to keep vampires out. This place, too, is a buzz of random activity. It is also one of the places relatively bereft of Yuuki. That's no surprise. She's never been a true hunter, and after becoming a vampire she probably wouldn't be welcome either. It's only by winding his way down into a basement level that Moonfin finds anything especially important. Numerous cells pack the walls, and in each of them is a vampire. They are all insane-looking, but they all bear the same tattoo that Zero himself does on his neck. The location is different, with some of them-- along the arm, or hand. But usually on the neck. None of them are coherent, except... For the one cell that contains Zero Kiryu. Chained to a wall, he sits in a daze. It's around this time that Moonfin gets the distinct feeling that he's been followed, or at the very least has been noticed by something. There is attention on him, somewhere, that isn't an ordinary memory. The memory playing out in front of him, on the other hand... A memory of Kaname Kuran stands at the portcullis separating Zero from the rest of the prison. "I forgave things that were not to be forgiven, all for this day. Soon you will become the most powerful hunter." Kaname says to Zero, "You are the only one who can break Rido's curse on me." Zero looks up at him scornfully. "Did you actually think that I would do something to save you?" He replies. Expressionless, Kaname replies, "You will never betray Yuuki. I will take Yuuki, and leave the academy. However, as long as Rido's existence is prolonged, he will continue to come after Yuuki." "Farewell."
Zero Kiryu	The memory continues. Soon after, a memory -- it is easy to tell the memory from the ghost, there is a certain vitality it lacks -- of Ichiru Kiryu arrives. Though on the surface he looks unhurt, blood of an unknown source -- most probably his -- spatters his face, and there is a smell of death on him. He walks to the edge of the portcullis and plucks Bloody Rose from the edge of it. Zero is struggling for a moment, not with anything Ichiru is doing but with a painful-looking distortion of his left hand. Once it passes he rises, looking at his brother with an expression of concern. But it isn't an expression of concern for /himself/. It has the distinct quality of a protective older brother fussing over his younger brother. "That is... what's wrong?" He asks. Ichiru raises Bloody Rose and shoots Zero through the left breast. The look on Zero's face does not match the tone of betrayal in the exchange in the slightest. The conversation that follows is a little glossed over. There is a sense of scolding from Ichiru that is mismatched with what just happened. Eventually the conversation returns to realtime. "Ichiru, let me ask you-- why are you injured so badly?" Zero asks. "My goal ever since the start was him, the man who imprisoned Shizuka-sama, who changed the list. Kuran Rido." Another skip. Ichiru collapses against Zero, blood flooding through the back of his coat, "Although I used all I've got... the result is very limited, I know." Another skip. "If you eat me, you will take back the strength that belonged to you before you were born, and the thing inside your body can be treated too." Zero refuses. Ichiru replies, "Why did you think I shot you using this gun? It was, in the end, an offer that couldn't be refused. The scene cuts forward again. Zero staggers out of the prison, blood dripping from his hands and mouth. His shadow distorts, a... /thing/ appearing in its silhouette and growling incoherently through the stone hallways. A sandy-haired young man -- bigger than Zero, though thinner by far -- makes his way down the last few steps, passing through the memory as he goes. He looks between Moonfin and the retreating shade. "You look..." The sandy-haired hunter hums thoughtfully before he completes the thought, "A little too straightforward."
Zero Kiryu	MEANWHILE, at the cafe... Another memory is playing out, seemingly benign. Yuuki is eating a parfait across from Zero, who looks only lightly grumpy by his standards. A waitress approaches, indistinct and washed out. Zero looks at her, and an exchange occurs-- something said perturbs him, but exactly what it was is glossed over. Zero gets up and begins to retreat from the cafe, as he had back then...
Aoko Aozaki	"Yeah?" Aoko replies to Yuuki, shifting her hands into her pockets. "I don't blame you. People can be judgmental jerks about stuff like vampirism. 'Monster', 'Blood-sucker', 'Not-human'. Oh, oh, my favorite!" It's with a certain disdain in her tone she says, "Enemy of humanity! I love that one." Aoko laughs. "Hard to get by when you aren't seen as normal. Hard to live a normal life when you're a magnet for the supernatural, too. It's a ticking bomb, waiting to blow up when people find out your ~terrible secret~." Aoko shrugs. "Sorry, sorry, didn't mean to pry. I'm not judging, for what it's worth. I prefer to look at what's inside people. What you are, what you can do? Who cares, right? Though, I wouldn't mind being a princess." For the money, mostly. They reach the cafe. A waitress offends Zero, who leaves. Aoko looks from him to Yuuki. "So, this is mostly the past, right? The long-ago? How'd the story end? Your brother still about, ruining everything?"
Raziel	'The smell of blood was everywhere, and lead to nowhere but an infinite cycle of a dead comrade. It appears there could be no more gleamed here than the words that hurt Zero seemed to have a lasting impact. It was sad, that such a painful time for such could lead to this. It reminded me of a phrase, of pen and swords.' Raziel, seemingly at no advancement turns to follow the trail back. With no sent to follow, and seemingly only two options before him, he decided to go to aid Moonfin, who seemed to have blazed his own trail. The strange, but honorable creature seemed to know what he was doing, or at least had an idea. Of course, unlike Moonfin, Raziel was both a ghost and a vampire.
Starbound Flotilla	Moonfin peruses the memories and mental activity of the HUNTER'S ASSOCIATION HEADQUARTERS, where he can examine the memories. Memories, it seems, of Zero being used in conflicts, being something like a man born a weapon in familial feuds more than anything else. "Or perhaps just driven by love to be easy to make use of." Moonfin thinks aloud. He makes sure to stream the information to the others, for whatever use it may be. That's before the sandy-haired hunter arrives. Moonfin bows a short, formal Hylotl greeting. "I am as straightforward as befits the matter. I am, after all, only ever as befits. I was told that a man of insight into Zero may be found here." Moonfin says, standing back up and taking a thinner, social stance. "One who could see through his silence and proclaim his flaws. Where there are no connoisseurs of his mind, I must find a critic; only such a man as that would be able to show me to the flaws we are seeking. This is a place of many shames and losses for Zero, it seems. I ask your help in finding only one more, that we may purge it." Worth a shot, before heading back! Because he does get the feeling he needs to get back on the road; maybe this guy will even be okay with walking and talking, if he doesn't mind helping out.
Priscilla	Thankfully for sssssomeone or other, Priscilla isn't currently privy to the really fucked up stuff happening in Vampire Jail. She gets to see a cute slice of life scene in a cafe. Is a maid cafe? Probably not. This is shoujo. It's a nice, much-needed reprieve after the extra memory she'd gone after last time. She can't really grasp its relevance as of yet though. Try as she might to stand by and squint and wrist tap, trying to figure out what could have been said, if the waitress doesn't have an identity and the words are all warbled out, it's probably not happening. Sighing to herself with some degree of reluctance, she tails Zero out like a jilted date.
Zero Kiryu	The wards of the Hunter building permit Raziel through without issue. It appears as if they're only intended to account for something still living. Within the association headquarters, he starts to be able to observe... no, not ghosts exactly. Spirits, certainly. They're not detached from their bodies, but they aren't in control of them either. They linger, locked in, unable to go. But they're not real spirits. Memories of spirits, or perhaps simply metaphor for what was known to be going on here. If he joins Moonfin, he can observe the bodies to which the spirits are attached, each lined up in their portcullis-protected prisons. There's something else here, too-- an echo of something bigger, something more grand. The sandy-haired man doesn't bow in return. He's extremely loose-postured and relaxed, probably more so than he really should be. He nods to Moonfin, "Zero probably doesn't see it that way. He's a bit thick like that. So you're looking... for the one that's out of control, huh?" "Yeah... I feel him out there. Looks like he got finished with the school's pickings, huh?" Kaito Takamiya reaches into a pocket and produces, of all things, a brick of C4 with a bunch of strange-looking metal crammed into it. He tosses it casually to Moonfin, "Just try to get this off close enough. I'll help you with keeping track of him once you're on top of him. Speaking of... "Somebody who definitely isn't a vampire or a hunter is right on top of him right now. Similar signature. You should tell your allies in town to hit the nearest 'Zero'."
Yuuki Kuran	"It wasn't really about that, for me. I just wasn't used to living as something other than human. It took me almost a year before I finally gave up and started waking up during the night. It was..." A light frown, a memory flickering to the fore. "Shocking and distressing, that first morning I woke up. But habits a decade in the making are hard to break." "Still, it was never like that for me. I think I could have handled distaste. People looking at me with disgust. I was ready for that. I felt it inwardly." "Vampires are the enemy of humanity. Purebloods the most monstrous, avaricious, and terrible of them all. Isn't it terrifying?" Yuuki wanders over to her 'other self', swiping the parfait to scoop at it with her finger, asymetrically to her tone and topic. "A monster that can change 'one of you' into 'one of them'? It's revolting. How something so core can be snatched away at a whim. Even with the law, there's something terrifying about trading away the highest definition of what you are, 'a human', for something else, isn't there?" Yuuki leans against the table as Priscilla stalks off after Zero. This memory will reset... unless it doesn't. "It's fine to pry. You're here, aren't you? Anyway, you wouldn't want to be a princess - mostly it's about going to things you don't want to go to, smiling when you don't feel any happiness, and tolerating people you would otherwise throttle until their heads popped, and grind your heel against their skull until it was..." Yuuki stops. "Ah, I mean, tolerating people that're intolerable."
Starbound Flotilla	Moonfin gets on the radio fast. "It seems my grasp of the situation was quite accurate, and I can take great insight from it. The Zero memory that you are nearest is a falsification. The critic's eye is upon the flaw." He warns Priscilla, urging her to strike fast. He takes the C4, and nods approvingly. "I shall purge the flaw with neither mercy nor hesitation." He makes a smug sort of noise, and a smugger sort of smile. "It shall be upon the shade's back, as all things shortly shall be. I doubt he shall withstand the weight." He's doubting a bit wrong, but he's also an arrogant ass. He heads up out of the basement, already donning his armor. He's going to make his way to the cafe, sword drawn, ready to strike in no-doubt coordination with Priscilla's own surprise attack on Cafe Zero. He would, normally, insist on a dramatic challenge, but he knows Priscilla values the element of surprise, and, well, dramatically declaring the battle can still happen after it has started. Even if that's really only going through the motions of honor. But he's making sure to already be charging up the power systems of that blade. He may be his usual arrogant self, but when he rushes in for a big dramatic dash-slash, he /really/ doesn't want to be caught off-guard by the shade's potentially dangerous levels of extreme power...
Aoko Aozaki	Aoko ponders, as Yuuki declares the act of trading away your humanity for something else to be terrifying. Was it? Her grandfather seemed to think so. That's probably why he passed it down, instead of ever using it. She remembers the chills on the back of her neck when she stood in front of that gate herself, but... Really, it wasn't the prospect that scared her then. Mostly it was that red shadow. "Terrifying, huh? I guess when the stakes are 'stay you' or 'become a bloodthirsty monster' it might be. I don't know, though, I'm not one to put a whole lot of value on 'humanity'. There's more useful people-metrics, you know? Nevermind the big great debate we could get into on what humanity really is! Is it your flesh and your blood? Your mind? Is it a philosophy? That word is so many landmines." Aoko laughs, keeping an eye on the image of Zero that's leaving. "Yeah but, doesn't being a princess come with a kickass castle and money? Besides, nobody can tell you what to do! If someone's annoying you you can be like, guards, away with his head! And then Zero'd probably do it."
Yuuki Kuran	"I suppose that's true. Humanity is a state... But then again, I don't feel very human. All the way down to my blood, my heartbeat, the way my own voice sounds in my head..." Yuuki closes her glowing eyes as she leans against the table and noshes on memory-parfait with her index and middle finger standing in for a spoon. "But in my case, I was born a vampire, and merely spent a little time being human. When I was turned back, it was like coming home to a house I didn't remember, being forced into a routine I never had gotten down." "What you want to be is independently wealthy. If you wanted that kind of power, that sort of money, Aoko, you could always join us in the Concord. For this kind of service..." Yuuki re-opens her eyes, having attained a bit more serenity thanks to whipped yogurt, a soft little 'cmonnnnn' smile and a purr in her voice. "I'm absolutey certain you'd be paid a king's ransom."
Raziel	Raziel only barely manages to hear the last of the conversation, but the radio communication is basically all he needs to know. He pauses to consider the ghosts, and the feeling something else was here. His eyes take a close look at the area around him, but as Moonfin moves to leave, he starts to go as well but then pauses. 'While Moonfin decided to leave, I could sense the presence of another entity here. I did not know if it was really a ghost, or a memory of one, or something just resonating with the spirit world that I had grown accustomed to. Before the ambush was sprung, I decided to investigate.' Raziel does just as he thought, stepping through the place and trying to find the source of the presence.
Priscilla	Priscilla is still wandering after Zero, trailing close behind, deep in thought of how this memory could possibly be important if it were just about eating parfait and a nondescript waitress saying a nondescript upsetting thing. He had, in fact, walked out on Yuuki too, which is even strager. The other Yuuki isn't even chasing him like a schoolgirl romantic misunderstanding setup. Where is this Zero even going? What is the context here if Zero still remembers it? Does the other Yuuki still exist, or has that much reset already? Questions like these linger on Priscilla's mind while she tails 'Zero' at a distance. Moonfin spoils the conclusion, but it's probably best that way. Otherwise, Priscilla would be following him for quite a ways, until she catches on to the fact that he's traversing too much set. "Very well then." she replies through her radio without hesitation. "I shalt trust thee to be ready." she adds. Afer that, she takes ahead of the Zero's path, hopping to the generic town roofs in invisibility, to await a less-than-broad street he turns down, descending silently to wait directly ahead of him, remaining completely still of the stare-right-through-her variety. When he comes within reach, Priscilla extends her scythe back, allowing to walk towards the edge held perpendicular to the path, and before he makes any contact with it, swing it foward to catch him on the blade, and fling him back down the street, by way of sliding along the sharpened curve and rolling over the point.
Zero Kiryu	The presence in the depths of the Hunter's Association is a great forge. Inside it is a woman. By all appearances she is sleeping, but the heat of the forge itself is coming from her. Nearby metal is suffused -- in some way, it is unclear exactly how it works -- with life as it is put into molds. The metal is visibly identical to the one used in Yuuki and Zero's own weapons. Distantly, the woman herself resembles Yuuki. This doesn't appear to be an oddity of memory.
Aoko Aozaki	"Me? Concord? Have you spent even one minute with me, Perfectly Normal Teenager? I'm flattered! But that's entirely too much responsibility. I'm all about that sweet, sweet zero accountability life!" She wants a memory-yogurt too, now. "Anyway! Worry about being awesome to people you like, not about what you should be writing on your tax report on the species line. Or, you know, what the guy you probably pay to do that for you has to write on that line." Royalty has to file taxes, right? Aoko wouldn't know. It's not like she's ever filed any. "Besides, this is about helping a couple friends, not getting paid. If I want to mooch money off someone I'll go ask the King for my allowance real nicely, or I'll pick up some odd job from the Church or the Association and then uh... offload it on more competent people for a cut of the profit. Like the Forest!" That's about how that works. Outside, Priscilla and Moonfin launch their attacks. Aoko pauses, and looks at Yuuki. "Are we-- should we be helping them?"
Raziel	'An intense heat met me as I moved deeper into the facility. In the room itself, I spotted a woman who looked similar to Yuuki herself, which did not seem to be a corruption of memory. However, what was stranger was the metal, which seemed to be infused with life somehow...I wondered if this was a similar process to how the Reaver's corporeal form was created.' Raziel reaches to touch the metal, trying to see if he could get a better feeling for how it was processed. After all, if the target was a Zero...then the weaknesses he had should carry over and would help them exercise the demon from their ally's head. Time was drawing short, and he had to get back to help them soon. After deciding that something was important here, Raziel turns towards the forge. Even here, another world represented by the brainscape of another person, there was a Reaver forge. He dips the reaver in Metal, aiming to infuse the blade with the properties of the forge itself.
Yuuki Kuran	Yuuki slides off the table into a walking pace as the fight -- and the 'surprise round' starts. "I've spent more than a few minutes with you, Aoko. And as Director, I can basically hire anyone I like, given good cause." Yuuki gestures around, leaving the parfait container mostly-emptied on the table as she moves her arms. "I'd say this is more than good cause. The Concord is about helping friends as well. So, please, keep my offer in mind. And yes." With a practiced flick of the wrist with baton transferred to hand, she extends Artemis out into its full scythe-y length. "This is what we're here for. Don't hold back." Jojowalking towards the apparition-of-Zero that Priscilla and Moonfin go for - their target - Yuuki begins exuding a tangible pressure. goh goh goh goh Anyone who's familiar with how she fights could follow that pressure towards the 'Wrong Zero', a grinding sort of air pressure that would be at least annoying to move around in.
Zero Kiryu	The Zero Kiryu leaving the memory at the cafe stutters and fizzles as Priscilla drives her scythe towards it. The point drives in, catching it in the chest but-- but it's strong. Seriously strong. /Far/ stronger than the Zero Kiryu of reality. It reaches out and seizes the end of the scythe for a moment, holding itself fast in place rather than being tossed down the street. Moonfin executes his coordinated attack with Priscilla's own, and owing both to the fact that it held itself in place and his own remarkable skill, opens it up from shoulder to waist for a fleeting instant. It jerks itself off with a gush of blood, and the memory of Zero continues while the level E remains. He is, deceptively, similar to the real Zero. Dressed identically, and in most ways indistinguishable. But there's an emptiness to his eyes on closer inspection, a lack of true presence. Like an animal squirming in a man's skin. Unfortunately, it DOES appear to retain some notion of form. It is GOOD at using the body in which it is trapped. The wounds that both inflicted heal, muscle and sinew and bone drawing its torso back together most of the way to reasonable functionality before it properly reacts. It pushes out towards Priscilla first, aiming an earth-shattering kick towards where it assumes that one of her legs must be relative to the scythe that was swung at it. With the opposite hand it swings about to slash momentarily elongating claws at Moonfin's own legs, before springing away towards a near target. Perhaps it is because it's a representation of Zero Kiryu, or perhaps it's because it observed the previous battle. Either way, it focuses in on both Yuuki and Aoko immediately. It tears a streetlamp out of its moorings and HURLS it towards Yuuki simultaneous with the descalating pressure that she is directing towards it, simultaneously swiping a clawed hand through the air in a motion that is aimed towards Aoko's head. Raziel, elsewhere, receives a WEAPON BONUS. The metal is oddly hostile-- it's painful to be in contact with, or have 'on' the Soul Reaver, but it's tolerable. There is a sense that this is 'the best it can do', and that it simply opposes his nature by its own.
Aoko Aozaki	"I will, I will! Just, no promises, you know?" Aoko replies. With a confirmation she should be helping, Aoko withdraws her hands from her pockets, but it turns out Zero is a FAST BOI. Luckily, she's well aware that vampires can do cool air slashes. That's vampire hunting 101 right there. She kicks the table of the cafe up and in the way, just as she elects to leap aside! The table dies an unfortunate death, and it only barely helps, since Zero's claws dig into Aoko's sides instead. She tumbles on the ground, rolls behind another table, and darts back up with the same motion, but that absurd mane of red hair makes it impossible to just hide. "Alright, well, one, ow, two, Yuuki you need to tell your boyfriend he's being a bad Zero and to stop that." As if it was going to be that easy. So of course Aoko invokes lasers, because why wouldn't she. A dozen blue spheres appear around her, launching through the walls and windows of the cafe straight for Zero, from every possible angle! They're just a feint, though. Aoko kicks her new table up like the first, and then blasts it with a ray of blue light, sending a splash of extremely molten slag and burning wood straight for the memory-Hunter.
Priscilla	Priscilla is pretty good about her footwork, both in practical terms and in not being easy to pin down and anticipate, as such a fundamental basis of how to engage with a foe. Long dress, invisibility, nonstandard weapon, learning and training. Instead of having her knee stomped out by a ridiculously turbo-powered psycho-Zero juiced up on all his negative thoughts, his heel collides with the side of her shin hard enough to split skin and smear his shoe with blood, before smashing it into the pavement. Even that's kind of impressive. Priscilla isn't made of soft stuff. She needs her legs too. The scythe twists and wrenches free of 'Zero' when Priscilla moves, pulled out in the opposite direction she's actually sidestepping, leaving behind a subtle whoosh of air as she starts at a clip that slightly exceeds her invisibility's threshold of canceling. A whirl of glittering frost kicks up into the air, rolling in as if blown from the top of a deep snow drift and caught in a sudden updraft. It seems to grow thicker and mistier over several seconds, instead of dissipating, limiting the E-type's vision in a blueish, reflective haze. Then part of it shreds apart with a cold, metallic shriek, where a curved blade slams down over his shoulder in rapid passing, angled to hook around his neck and slash it down to the spine, concurrent with twisting his head fully around.
Raziel	Raziel braces himself, as the pain racks his body as the two opposing forces seemed to collide. Kneeling over in pain he tried to push through it, crying out only a little. However, as soon as the reaver was infused, he pulls it out and holds his hand hunched over. Breathing heavily he examines the reaver, a silver metal color mixed in with the normal color. 'Now infused with the properties of the strange forge, I felt the Reaver strengthened by the process, even though it was incredibly painful. I felt the two forces were in opposition to each other, but they managed to find a balance. Rather this was the result of being in Zero's mind, or because of some unknown reaction between the Reaver and this metal, who could say...' Sounds of combat were bleeding through to his location, quickly, he turns to run out. He was already late, and he knew the fighting had already got underway. Hitting the top of the building, he runs towards the Cafe, the other direction of the two paths. Raziel would leap onto the Cafe itself, aiming to get the high ground before aiming to drop down on Zero, thrusting the infused Reaver into the creature before him. "Sorry for my lateness, I found something of interest that I hope will assist us in this encounter."
Yuuki Kuran	No promises? "Of course. I've been around you long enough for that, too." Yuuki returns to Aoko, in relatively high spirits. The lamp-post thrown Yuuki's way carries a giant clod of earth and concrete with it, and when it 'impacts', it sprays rubble and the squeal of shearing metal and snap of tension cabling (dwangngngngngng!) as it crashes into and pivots around her body and raised weapon. That blood-scent, the sweet vitae of a pureblood once more fills the memory, though it's from the true source - and lacks Zero's hungering spice. Yuuki just keeps on walking, a single swipe of Artemis to clear hear path as she marches towards Zero. "No. I don't know anything about how to fight this thing. We've never met. Zero and I - we've never fought like this. And he couldn't hurt me the way that this monster could. It has committed the gravest sin of all, a greater pain than even my most thoughtless words! The spectre of a crime fifteen years ago, a lurking monster that should not be." "That's not Zero, and its most heinous crime is attacking us while wearing that face!" Yuuki joins Raziel, Priscilla, and Moonfin in the melee, spinning Artemis up to a ready stance and diving through Aoko's explosive magic to carve, to split apart the head of Zero's Monster.
Starbound Flotilla	"Wasting disease, know this. Your end has now come, and this mind shall no longer be yours to take. You stand in the way of love, and in doing so, you make a mistake most grave. Your purpose is complete, and your baleful influence shall no longer mark this mind." Moonfin says, skidding to a stop and jabbing his blade at the shade. Then: Close shave. Moonfin plants his blade into the ground, making it a bulwark against the strike, but barely maneuvering around it to get away from the elongating claws, which rake against him. "Now..." He moves in, maneuvering, trying to find a good angle. "Third Sea Hylotl Style: Streams Carving Canyons." He calls out, rushing the man. His effort here is not to deal damage, but to explore openings, to seek out opportunities. His slices are artful, cautious, probing for weaknesses and trying to wear the man down. If he's going to plant that C4, he's gotta make it snappy and make it effective. He calls out to his allies, "I've an opportunity to slay him, but I must ensure it is not wasted! Keep going-- I need to find the /perfect/ opening!"
Zero Kiryu	The feral Zero spies Aoko starting some of her Magic Nonsense. He doesn't know exactly how it works, but he does know that it hurts about as badly as anything /can/ hurt. He raises a hand immediately and brings it down into the ground with an earth-shattering shudder, before bringing it up again and wholesale shielding himself with /a sizeable portion of the street/. The lasers and slag alike are forced to poke holes through the makeshift shield before they reach him, and though they /do/ reach him and sear into his body, by the time they do they've been robbed of much force. It brings the hole-y chunk of concrete about, still one-handed, as the mist rolls in on him. His eyes narrow, and his consciousness slips back into his mind. To the sixth sense of a Hunter. It's not until the very last moment that the feral hunter catches Priscilla-- her power to conceal is too comprehensive for him to follow her until the very moment that she attempts to strike him. He swings the chunk of concrete up to meet the scythe, the blade crashing down through what remains of it with a thundering crunch and biting into his shoulder with another splash of blood. At the moment of contact-- Zero swings the opposite fist out in a single mighty blow, then kicks backwards to gain some ground. Another blip appears, charging at him out of the dark. Zero turns and pushes into Raziel's space, moving to get him into a hold but-- the weapon is one that he was not expecting to /exist/, and the moment his arm brushes it his skin blisters and steams and he retreats at once, swiping blindly with his claws to gain some distance. His skin surges and ripples, as if some unseen mass bubbles underneath the surface, attempting to escape. Another scythe comes charging in, and as it happens his body really IS trying to grow out of its own skin. Arms momentarily bloated with grotesque, cancerous mass rise to meet the scythe, which cleaves through one and gets halfway through the other before it catches on bone. The feral draws its remaining arm back and, quite unnaturally, begins to regenerate in spite of the wound that was just inflicted upon it. It might occur then of the /why/ -- it has absolutely gorged itself here, today. Has been gorging itself for a while. He begins to advance on Yuuki, when Moonfin rushes in and begins placing unexpected cuts across his body. A monstrous growl rumbles out of its throat. It sweeps an arm out towards Moonfin with a howl of frustration and leaps. It lands adjacent to Yuuki and spins, taking -- attempting to take -- her back. A newly-regenerated arm that has not quite recovered all of its skin draws in around her and tries to size her by the neck. "We HAVE met." It says, attempting to bite her even as it off-handedly sweeps the claws of its free hand in the general direction of Aoko's blip on its mental radar.
Raziel	Raziel leaps back, blade swinging around to try and stave off the strike from Zero, perfectly parrying the attack, but it does give him the desired effect as Raziel has to get away to properly avoid. Though the damage is noticeable from the strike, which causes Raziel to know that his delay was the right one. He approaches, but then he goes after Yuuki, which Raziel moves to try and intercept. Too late to stop the charge, but not too late to get retribution and draw attention. Raziel dives at, aiming to repeatedly thrust his weapon at the false Zero, and tear through the reality hazard. 'Skin bubbled and hissed, as the creature that wore the face of our ally recoiled at the blades touch. I knew now my choice to delay was the right one. However, if this continued it might cause in farther harm to Yuuki, which it seems to be focusing on.' Raziel draws the blade forward, aiming to defend his allies, "Perhaps you should focus your attacks on someone that can hurt you, creature. My blade's effect on you is the least of your concerns with it. It's quite hungry, being left without an entity with a soul for so long." Perhaps it was a bluff, but Raziel could only do what he thought was right in trying to keep its attention.
Aoko Aozaki	Did Zero just lift up a chunk of the street. "Yuuki how strong IS this version of him? I've never seen him do THAT!" He usually fought with his guns. Or the cool whip-vines. This Zero seems more... animalistic? Wild? Maybe more of a monster than he normally was. Whatever it is, it's bad. Aoko doesn't, at any rate, intend to have her head sliced off, or to have her sides torn open a second time. Once was quite good enough! And Kaname taught her a thing or two about lowering her guard. And so the Magician, still in the cafe, dives behind the counter, as Zero's claws shred it to pieces and scatter glass wood, metal and glass everywhere. Aoko shuffles in her pockets, pulling out the gun she'd taken from Zero's chest. "Huh. Right, right, I did take this. You gave me a nasty zap when I picked you up, didn't you? I might not be a gunman but you give me an idea!" How much mana can she pour into that thing before it melts in her hands? It's time to find out. Aoko pops up from behind the ruined counter, wielding the pistol with both hands. Aiming's not too hard. Blue circuitry leaks form her hands and arms into the weapon, and the barrel glows like an ominous cyan sun. "Alright, let's see what you can do! Don't melt in my hands don't melt in my hands don't melt in my--" The pistol unleashes a massive FTHOOOOM as it lets loose a bright blue laser half the size of the cafe, tearing up the front of the shop and the street between it and Zero with impunity. It's anyone's guess if the weapon can withstand that kind of use, but it should pass its properties on to the laser whether it gives up or not.
Starbound Flotilla	"Second Sea Hylotl Style: Parting Waves." Moonfin mutters dramatically, just after he managed to sort of slide on both knees, bending backwards to evade the frustrated swing. He winds up kind of spinning and sliding on both knees, twisting around and halting himself with his blade. "If you have familiarity, then you shall soon find this meeting to be the last. Plague, you shall be purged as you deserve!" Alright. He's gotta figure this out. It's regenerating, but when it does, it sort of draws back. Regenerates muscle-first, from the inside out. It's truly recoiling from Raziel's weapon, which means Moonfin might be able to use that for an opening, or to be an opening for it. He moves back into the Streams Carving Canyons style smoothly and fluidly, trying to get in close enough to weaken and to observe but to also working to keep that aggression off of him and hopefully on the more appropriately focused folks foremost. All three eyes are wide, all of his mind is keenly tuned to the flow of the battle. Gotta find that one moment where he can rush in and plant it...
Yuuki Kuran	'We HAVE met' is the words the monster that wears Zero's body announces. Not shout, not growl, but intones with the terrible gravity of history. The weight of a hundred little moments. Aoko asks how strong 'this Zero' is. "He's stronger than Zero, but he can't use Bloody Rose! Desperate and terrible and stronger for being all monster!" She replies, trying to think of the specific moment that she had met the 'other' Zero. The plague inside of him. But she's inside Zero's mind. This is his place, his castle, his fortress. A place that she had not been let in, truly, until very recently. A bastion against all. As she's grappled and the arm goes around her neck, she thrashes about, stamping on his feet and driving her elbows back into the Monster, but his fangs sink into her shoulder all the same - barely missing her pulsing, throbbing, blood-filled carteroid. "It wasn't the day we met!" "It wasn't the day in the stables!" "It wasn't the day on the roof!" "It wasn't even the day in your room!" "Not the day on the stairs, where you could barely look at me, nor the day you handed me the gun..." "If we had ever met, I'd remember those eyes. I'd know what those fangs felt like! But even that day, when I was still human, but I let you drink from my neck -- That 'you' was Zero! Not this ugly monster. Never!" Yuuki drops Artemis, bringing both arms up and over her shoulders to latch onto !Zero's shoulder and hair, and bends forward, tearing him away and down, onto the ground, while shouting. "We've NEVER met! Because Zero would NEVER hurt me!!!"
Priscilla	Priscilla trades with Zero-E. It's not a winning trade. She's not a poise build, and doesn't handle it well. Something with the guts (or lack of awareness) to try and do that against her, and actually succeed, is pretty rare in the first place, and she takes the punch straight to the collarbone. It really, really hurts. Worse than anything she's dealt with in a while. It drives the breath out of her, and lifts her from the street, firing her backwards more than just launching her, until she crashes from a post hard enough to crumple it into a V shape and sprawls off of it into a nasty roll on the asphalt. Even the minimal focus she needs to maintain invisibility didn't survive that one. For a moment, her world was just little black spots and pain. She reappears the moment she hits the curb, pushing herself up by shaking elbows for a breathless minute, before rediscovering the ability to inhale, and then abruptly coughing up a mixture of blood and saliva from the chest spasm it causes. The fact her bones don't really break like that is a small consolation. Priscilla staggers to her feet, still reeling, buying time while she recovers from that one. She backs up, clutching a couple of small, round, black powder bombs in her palms, and hurls both simultaneously at Zero-E's feet, not blowing up like grenades, but rising into conflagrations of intense fire, apt to scorch a whole body on the outside rather than put shrapnel through it or blow limbs off. Once she gets a little distance, she disappears again.
Zero Kiryu	Zero's monster pulls its head away from Yuuki and releases her -- if there is still a need to do so -- as Raziel comes at him. But he doesn't /move/. He doesn't get out of the way. He casts a tired, distant look towards the spirit vampire as the weapon enters his "flesh". He tilts his head to one side, slightly, as the wound gushes blood around the crackling silver that coats it. Something is keeping it from hurting him as horribly as it did before. It seems to consider saying something, and then thinks better of it, pulling itself from the weapon and driving a fist determinedly towards Raziel's already-ruined jaw. The holdout gun does not falter in Aoko's hands. A thing alive lends weight to what she is doing-- something distant, something sleeping. The beam bursts into existence with casual ease, and there is a sense that in the right hands the weapon might have done something like that itself. That Aoko happened to be able to facilitate it only made her attempt stronger. The feral hunter sees it coming and darts to one side, the beam shearing through its right shoulder and leaving behind a lingering, smouldering hole. It is not the first wound that in some way "stuck". Most of the injuries by 'special' weapons have not fully healed, though they managed to regain functionality enough that they didn't stop him from fighting. Moonfin continues to chip away at him-- successfully, maneuvering about and keeping the feral tense. Cuts open, bleed, and continue to bleed and-- And then there is Yuuki. It is not an attack that should work. Between the two, Zero -- even the monster -- knows better how to use his body. And yet, it does. She seizes him and slams him into the ground, eliciting a choking gasp as bones are crushed and organs pulped. It might have killed him outright, if he had not just consumed a little of /her/ blood just now. It knits itself back together, enough to rise to its feet, spitting blood as it goes. This phantom of Zero Kiryu regards Yuuki quizzically for a moment. "I suppose... it's easier this way." It decides, without explaining further. Black powder bombs burst at his feet, scorching and burning him and-- in that instant, he moves. Its burned, broken body looms momentarily over Raziel and bloats once again as it had before. It swings a powerful fist towards him and then lunges back towards Yuuki, attempting to drive his shoulder into her chest. Then he seizes a memory of a car parked alongside the street and HURLS it towards the diner that Aoko is taking cover in, not an instant before KICKING the discarded Artemis towards Moonfin. It finishes its assault by bringing a fist down on the pavement and sending a spray of concrete shrapnel in Priscilla's general direction.
Aoko Aozaki	Aoko is amazed the weapon isn't a mess of molten steel in her hands. Apparently these people are better at making weapons than the average Church smith. Or they're working with better materials. She's certainly not about to complain. But there won't be a need for a second shot. That massive beam, as it blows past (and partially through) Zero, suddenly curves upward and into the sky, as Aoko lifts both of her hands up to guide it. She slams her hands back down, and the beam does a full 180 in the sky, heading straight back down like an orbital ray, blasting deep into the ground. Right for Zero, as he hurls a car at her. And her arms are down. "Sh--" A car smashes Aoko into the back of the cafe, which crumbles atop her like a cafe just can't help to do after this much abuse. Well, this time she's not on the brink of death, but there seems to be a pattern that mind-vampires get to knock her right out of being helpful past a point!
Raziel	The fist from the creature crashes into Raziel's jaw, staggering him and knocking him flat on his butt. The second one smashes him while he was down, putting him a good inch into the concrete. it was fortunate for him he did not have a jaw or organs, or that might have killed him. However, it still did not feel pretty. When it turns it's back to focus on Yuuki, he peels himself off of the ground, fighting against his struggling and wavering body, as he leaps forward, thrusting the blade right at the (hopefully) exposed back of Zero, aiming to drive it deep into the creature and out the front. The Soul Reaver starts to burn brightly, hungrily trying to devour what it strikes into, trying to draw whatever it can into the blade once more. Growing excited by the moment as Raziel tries to hold onto him with those claws of his. "You heard her, you are not wanted here any longer."
Starbound Flotilla	Moonfin stands his ground. He sees the scythe incoming. He can see where the blade will strike him, where it will cut deep through armor. He sucks in a deep breath. "First Sea Hylotl Style." He readies his blade... And then drops it. In a single clean motion, he grabs the scythe by the neck right as it nearly plunges its blade into his body. He twists with its spinning motion, his feet skidding over the ground as he's suddenly matching its speed, then slowing to a standstill. His armored, webbed hands smoke and sizzle with the impact. There's a noise like an anti-materiel rifle's bolt action ejecting a spent round. Two heavy glass cartridges eject out of the armor of both forearms. Depleted hyperglass, warped by heat. "Taken Beneath Waves. You are impurity. Plague. You are an absence of balance. I was brought here with the duty to purge you, and you shall be purged. This above all else is truth. Come, disease. Will you face the light of healing? Will you fall to the strength of my Director's great love for you?" He flicks the blade, turning it to one side, readying to strike and testing its balance. "You will not speak an answer. And it would not matter if you did. For what happens next is an inevitability. Do not dare to blink. Your defeat is inevitable, but I will not forgive you if you fail to witness its beauty." He rushes with the scythe instead of his own katana. He springs off of the ground, using it like a pole vaulter might, to arc into melee. Something moves... strangely, on it, like its weight is off, even in Yuuki's own familiarity with it. Still, though, he does not go for his killing strike yet. Gotta find it. That one moment. That singular opportunity. In sweeping, twirling swipes with his Director's scythe, can he find what he's looking for...? He wants to force the man to move what is rounded, to regenerate inopportunely-slashed tendons, to give himself every possible advantage in this preface to something tremendously dramatic. He goes for a truly dramatic heavy, finishing swing that looks like the end of his dramatic sequence, a final wide swipe meant to bisect the man, even though it probably won't. It has enough force to send him back to his discarded blade, left in the ground. Something in the shadow of the scythehead moves into place, out of sight, perhaps where nerves have been flayed and harvested from the form. Moonfin hopes it's where it ought to be.
Priscilla	This fight is really, really not going Priscilla's way. She'd assessed this psychohazard to be something incrementally stronger than Kaname, as he had been his wolf. If she'd known this one would be so ridiculously overpowered, and possibly worse, animalistically canny, she would have set up in a more substantial way than an opening sneak attack and combat maneuver. She'd been on the back foot ever since trying, and can't seem to recover her breath. She'd barely taken her five foot move before Zero-E just nukes the whole street with flying pieces of superspeed concrete. She can only duck so much of it and turn herself sidelong to make herself only so narrow of a profile before the rest of it just crashes into her and pounds two dozen fresh, bloody bruises into her skin, knocking her straight down again as her poise breaks a second time. She needs to not be in the position she is, but can't get any time or maneuvering space to get a counter offensive going. She's just been sent tumbling on the broken street again, revealed as having not even made it across the road. "What is this creature?" she gasps from a split and bloodied lip. "Or rather, what is Zero's conception of it? Certainly it is not so powerful as he believes, even in this accursed business of mental symbology." Priscilla heaves out as she pulls herself up off the ground again. Moonlight appears with a reflective gleam of cyan light that trails behind her, where she turns, swings the blade upward, releases a tilted arc of cleaving, sorcerous energy, and then falls back into an adjacent alleyway, trying to get out of sight.
Yuuki Kuran	It may be easier this way. Disarmed, bleeding heavily from her shoulder, as she looks down at Zero-E from the heartbeats between the vicious attacks of her companions. When it's just her, and Zero's Untamed Monster. She had not really interacted with Level E's like Zero had. She hadn't even lived with them. The times she had been alongisde Zero's mind, those quiet and personal moments where it was just them, and his heartbeat, it had been forced into the deepest, darkest recesses of his heart. She had only met this Zero - Zero-E - in passing. Each of those time she had named, when his hunger threatened to destroy him, and he had been at his thinnest and most desperate had she caught a glimpse. She had never seen the defeated, 'guess I'll die' side of Level-E's. She barely maneuvers at all before she's elbowed, smashed in the solar plexus and sent tumbling and sprawling out just as Moonfin dives in, his form perfect, his aim -- well, immaculate. Asking Moonfin to help out had been a stellar call. Asking everyone to help had been a stellar call. Yuuki finishes her tumble next to a piece of glimmering, perfect steel. Priscilla's question tugs at her understanding, and, dazed, Yuuki sits up. "This isn't just a monster, a trash vampire, dredges. It's not about... Just killing someone of Zero's power. That'd be hard, but not as hard as fighting my brother." Yuuki grips the shimmering object next to her - Moonfin's 'discarded' katana, the Hylotl blade inexpertly gripped with the gingerness of someone hoping not to cause damage with a piece of fine art. "It's hard - so very hard - because it's surgery. Pulling out a terrible tumor, or a kudzu - something entwined into Zero. So much harder than giving something a clean death." Yuuki raises up Moonfin's katana, sighting down the blade in an amateurish thrusting stance, clearly copying someone else's style. Tight, focused, but in the micro-adjusting way of playing something by secondhand memory. "We're giving Zero a clean life. The difficulty must be commensurate! It's why I needed so much help. Why we waited, so long." From her distance, and with Moonfin's katana as her focus, she delivers a single standing thrust through the air, the sword ringing with harmonious reverberation as her kinetic power became an amateurish gatotsu-beam of power.
Zero Kiryu	Bombarded from above, the feral hunter's body is badly shredded by the attack. He remains standing, and only by virtue of the fact that Raziel is himself a form of vampire does he sense the other coming in with his killing blow. He moves forward -- too quickly, too soon, for him to have actually reacted to a normal knowledge of the phantom's approach. He turns, preparing a counterattack-- Then there is Moonfin, who frustrates this Zero greatly with his onslaught. He doesn't notice what Moonfin is doing-- has no special sense for unexpected invasions of festering wounds. What sensations he /does/ feel he chalks up to impending crystallization. In all, he's been rendered so badly wounded and so insensate that he manages to evade nothing and all planning goes unnoticed. And soon after the First, sending an arc of power washing over him that reopens the great wound she had inflicted at the outset, leaving his body stitched together by bare strands of muscle and sinew near where Aoko had cast a hole in it. The monster Zero Kiryu breathes heavily. He cannot tell where she went, but... He does answer her question. "I am no more a figment of imagination than the vampire half of Yuuki you have met." "But..." "I'm tired." He complains, almost child-like. A swordpoint of kinetic force rips through his left breast. The injury it inflicts-- does not mend. Where the blow was struck, the feral hunter begins to crystallize slowly, as the black wolf had. It glances down towards the injury, unsurprised -- indeed, unconcerned -- with what appears to be its imminent demise. It seizes a stopsign, jerking it out of the ground and twisting the sign itself into a makeshift spearpoint with the ease of a child snapping the leaves from a twig. Its breath turns ragged as the crystallization reaches one of its lungs. The feral hunter rushes Moonfin first. Each time it's tried to land a decisive blow this one has skirted out of the way, wearing it down by a thousand cuts. It brings the point of the sign to bear and thrusts for center mass, aiming for what it knows will probably be its final attempt to scar the Hylotl. In a smooth, quick movement it reaches out and twists the end of the sign off -- in Moonfin, if need be -- converting it into a club and moving on to the next target. Next it charges Yuuki, swinging a wide, powerful blow aimed at her midsection, releasing the makeshift weapon as he goes. For Raziel he pulls the bumper from a car, hurling the object like a not-very-aerodynamic spear. At last he comes to the First, following where he remembered her voice to have come from. By now, he is overextended-- he pants heavily as he seizes a dumpster at the mouth of the alleyway and swings it wildly into the surroundings in hopes of making some sort of contact. As soon as he releases the dumpster, the feral hunter stops breathing-- though he doesn't stop moving. The crystallization has reached his other lung.
Starbound Flotilla	Moonfin suffers the heavy impact of the makeshift spear. It plunges into his armor, and keeps him at bay, preventing him from using that scythe to reach back and attack. It launches him back, a hole finally torn in that armor, bleeding. But he is serene. Peaceful. Silent, even through the pain, until he speaks calmly. He answers the feral hunter's complaint. "Then rest in peace." He brings out the detonator to that C4, and presses the button.
Starbound Flotilla	THIRTY SECONDS AGO... Moonfin regards the weight of the newly acquired scythe. Taking a deep breath, he snatches the C4 from his matter manipulator, deftly slips it into his choked scythe grip, and then rushes. TWENTY SECONDS AGO... Moonfin has slipped into melee range. He knows this disease will be aware, and will shake the explosive off before it has a chance to do its work. He has to plunge it in deep, where nerves have been seared away, and he has to make it secure, to ensure it can't be removed even by the healing or accident. TEN SECONDS AGO... Moonfin confirms what has happened, recognizes the dangers incoing, and resolves to take them head-on. As he's struck by the spear, he gets a moment, just one, to look at the disease's back, where he can see the glint of C4, a confirmation of his grim work completed. Now to just be knocked clear, and... ONE SECOND AFTER... Moonfin turns, elegantly flicks the scythe, and plants it hilt-first in the street for Yuuki's later recollection. The explosion reaches his back. He, in all his douchey pretentious inner-peace samurai warrior nonsense, does not pay it heed.
Raziel	There is precious little that needed to be said right now, the fight continued on. The attempt at assassination was missed, Zero too fast for him and had seen the attack coming. Staggering forward from overextending from the attempted final strike, he sees what comes next. Raziel, in only a body without much of its substance could achieve rolls forward, bringing the Reaver up in a swing to catch the bumper of the car. The attack was not powerful, nor did it need to be. It nudged the improvised weapon just enough to allow him to roll the opposing direction. This placed him right near Zero, and this time he jumped into the air, aiming to bring the Reaver down in a single strike. If he strikes true, he spins on a heel, aiming to shove the sword into the chest of the hazard. There are only the blazing eyes of the ghost staring back into the dead ones of Zero.
Yuuki Kuran	There is a moment of choice. A moment, as she can sense the dissipation of Zero's awful monster - the ashen smell of crystallization - that gives her a pause. In this, she trusts Raziel's blade, Priscilla's life hunt, and most of all... The serenity, and the surity of purpose, that Moonfin has. She had personally requested him, among all the Flotilla members, to be their avatar, when Biteblade had helped her in her mind so passionately. The surgeon, the hyperglass samurai, Moonfin. When he takes the hit - when she sees him stand resolute for the stopsign spearthrust, she knows... This is it, the decisive moment. When Zero-E goes in for his sweep with the red metal signage club to her chest, she brings forward Moonfin's sword and then, realizing what she is doing, lifts up her guard over the weapon's sweep, and the absurd strength of Zero-E's final blow runs the metal through skin, muscle, bone, and between as it opens up her chest, a spray of blood as she goes down hard, sprawling out and bleeding on the ground. It is, from her hesitation to use Moonfin's blade to guard - and her overall state of burnt-out exhaustion - a mortal wound. But that's not really stopped her before. She rolls onto her side and sucks in a shallow breath, as Moonfin thumbs the detonator stud while Priscilla and Raziel close in like dark avenging spirits. Seconds pass, and Moonfin twirls Artemis to a stop to plant it in the ground. Yuuki remains on the ground, kneeling and holding where her chest had been opened up, both arms slickened with her own blood, though some of it retreats back inside of her as her wounds close. She raises both hands, balancing the blade's hilt and mid-end on her bloody fingers and gives a quiet "I'm sorry" to the Hylotl. "I messed up and got my blood all over your sword, Moonfin." She offers, holding up the otherwise pristine blade from her sitting position. She has no real words to spare for Zero-E, nor an attack. Her friends - her allies - were here to do the thing she couldn't, finish the fight where she faltered. It was always planned like this. Yuuki was just too emotional to win an attrition battle against something wearing Zero's face.
Priscilla	Finally, with the heartfelt dialogue, with the Pyschohazard's fixation on Yuuki and its focus on Moonfin, with the Hunter-dipped Reaver scouring away at its substance and with its regeneration pulverized by repeated gigantic laser blasts, Priscilla has a moment to bounce back. Though forced to run like a hare for the moment, it is one that outspaces the dog's snapping jaws the fraction necessary to cause it to lean and lag, and from there, she turns about to face it, seizing the moment by any means. The dumpster crashes wildly into both walls, denting and crushing itself as much as everything else in the alleyway. There's an errant impact and a clang of sparks, a whoosh of air tumbling and turning over the top, and the receptable flexes and is jerked downward for a split second in Zero-E's hands. For a moment, it's completely quiet in the alley, as if it has already been vacated, to lead him around again. Then there's a glint of cyan-white in the air. The whipping of wind and faint glitter of snow. A streak of pale, blue Moonlight drops down and through like a single streak, preemptively visible, but extremely fast, audibly humming and leaving behind a sound like bells, casting off motes of glowing magic that embody Guidance and Revelation; things that keep at bay these sorts of beastly madness and clear doubtful hearts. Because the Plunging Attack is the most reliable move in the game, Priscilla intends to just land straight on the Pyschohzard, ramming several feet of glowing, metaphysically significant sword through his chest on the takedown, then use the leverage to swing him back out into the street again for the others to leap on, kicking fiercely while withdrawing the sword from his torso.
Zero Kiryu	The core nature of the feral Zero Kiryu is a foreign thing. It did not exist in him in the beginning, and was forced upon him by another to begin with. Even so, it is, after a fashion, Zero Kiryu. In the same way that Yuuki's other self is still Yuuki, even if it is not precisely the Yuuki that everyone recognizes. But there is a difference. To be born with it is less jarring than to be transformed into it. Its body does not even have the strength to contain the fullness of its power. When it is forced to try, it all begins to come apart. It shares many of its original self's interests. If it was capable of picking someone not to bring harm to then, most likely, Yuuki Kuran would have been it. But it isn't like that at all. It doesn't have that choice. What love it has is lensed entirely through the full weight of a vampire's instincts. That is to say: Even the things that it loves, it wants nothing more than to devour. There is no breath in its lungs. It has no lungs. Soon it won't have a body at all. But it just can't help but reach for a little bit longer. It's greedy. That, too, is what it is. The soul reaver cuts across his body and passes into his chest and little motes of stardust race away from the wounds instead of flesh or blood. It looks at him-- not desperate, or pleading. Perhaps a little relieved. But even so, it can't stop. It raises a hand in preperation to counterattack. Priscilla comes like a roll of thunder, driving her blade in through its shoulder and down the length of its body. Crystalline dust rolls off where it makes contact, and it emerges in below through the hole made by Soul Reaver before it is ripped out in Priscilla's retreat. It cannot breathe. It barely has a body left. But-- it DOES still have a body left. There is a brief moment where it summons the will to force itself to function, against all rational logic. With a terrible cry it lashes out, its arm crumbling apart as it swings towards Raziel to gain some distance. It hunches forward and over, poised to spring-- perhaps to die in the process, but to spring all the same. BEEP. The C4-laced-with-metal explodes. For a fleeting instant, the feral hunter realizes what's happening and reaches its remaining arm down towards itself to try to jerk free what it assumes is a more obvious plant than anything else there is. Crystalline dust blows through the alleyway, illuminated momentarily by the light of the moon passing dramatically and conveniently overhead. The buzz of townspeople returns to the surroundings, the unnatural quiet lifting. Though it is night, the world simply returns to life and Is. From the cafe emerges the memory of Zero, who puts down his rucksack and chases after something that carries him by the alleyway. In the distance, a memory of a Level E stares down from a rooftop. Finally, and with no clear signs of having approached, a sudden arrival offers Moonfin a square of cleaning cloth. Ichiru Kiryu, who remains a ghost and not a memory, smiles faintly at the Hylotl.
Starbound Flotilla	Moonfin takes up the sword elegantly. "Do not fear, Director Kuran. You honor my works." He holds it expertly, taking the cleaning cloth with a single, smiling nod to Ichiru. He wipes one side in a single elegant motion. He wipes the second side, and flicks the last drops of blood from the tip stylishly. "You see? With even a small amount of love, the worst bloodstains and the greatest sullying can be undone, even upon the most dangerous surfaces in the world. It is important that you remember that." He flips the blade around several times, ensuring its balance remains perfect. He slides it along his matter-manipulator-sheath, then gently brings the freshly cleaned blade into it with the sense of finality that's clearly meant to imply their work here, in this mind, is done at last.
Yuuki Kuran	Yuuki makes a mocking, good-spirited 'nyeh'-face retort at Moonfin as he speaks of 'the greatest sullying undone'. "It helps when you use a non-cloth grip that doesn't drink in sweat and blood. But I suppose, for a sword, that'd just be plain sense and good planning." She looks past Moonfin, her bright smile returning and eyes dimming. "Ichiru. I'm... Glad you're alright. Of a sort. I'm just pleased you weren't harmed during all this." She offers, fumbling a bit over using the 'right words' for the situation because, quite frankly, if she didn't fumble over herself and sound like a stupid moronhead, she would blurt out 'oh wow! it's that asshole Zero with fuckboi hair who tried to murder me in an elaborate revenge fantasy! I'm so glad you're still alive, oh wait, you're not, jackass'. Truly, she is possessed of a silver tongue and a calm and unflappable mein, as befits a Vampire Princess. "I'm... glad it's over." Yuuki stands up, favoring each of Priscilla, Raziel, and Moonfin once more with a bright smile. "The worst is over. Thank you all very much." "You... all." Yuuki pales - a sight, since she's already fairly pale from losing 'around one shoujo' worth of blood. "Oh no. Aoko! Are you OK? Are you pinned under a mind-car? It's just a mental construct! A mental construct..." Yuuki flashes back to Flamel's explanation. "... With weight and mass and fully able to kill you. Hold on!"
Priscilla	"Sir Parsons didst sayeth something to that effect . . ." Priscilla finally replies to Yuuki in the same motions of heaving out a long-clenched breath, letting the tip of Moonlight clink to the ground as she slumps partway into the bend in the street light she'd made, half-sitting in the warped crook. "Of how entrenched aspects of a mind of strong will, whether they art wanted at all or not, becometh so much more difficult in these places. In the guise of an entity, but in truth, an aspect of the land itself." "Such is the monster, or . . . the looming shadow of the monster, and his worries and fears and misgivings of it, that didst defineth so much of his past, I imagine. Less a 'class E', and perhaps the embodiment of the hanging sword of becoming one, for so many years." Priscilla muses, a little tiredly, a little introspective, and a little sadly. ". . . a worthwhile task, at least, for so many." She can't help but swivel in her 'chair' and tilt her neck aside to see what the hell Moonfin is up to now. "Thou hast made a friend." she states plainly. "Here. Somehow. Well, I supposeth there is a reminder not to underestimate a Hylotl missionary." she says. Oh right. Aoko. "Ah, let us . . . deal with this." Priscilla waves off, stiffly getting to her feet and helping Yuuki with removing mind-rubble.
Raziel	Raziel drops to a knee after the beast was defeated, he would wipe his brow...but he had long since lost the ability to sweat. Slowly, he raises once more to his feet and looks towards the others. Moonfin seemingly unphased, Yuuki moving to help the red-haired mage who apparently fell underneath a car, and Priscilla who mused about the nature of the thing they faced. "Fear of what someone sees's as a possible inevitable fate wears on one's soul," he comments, perhaps knowingly before moving to help lift the car with the others. it was going to be a long night getting out of here with the injured. At least it ended well, and Zero should be better for the aid. Still, he considered the Reaver again. Was there such a forge in the real world? Would it work the same way? Why did it have such an effect on the Reaver? The Reaver was a wraith blade, not a vampire. Raziel is filled with more questions than answers.