Scene #7426: The Fangs of Zhuanshu

Owner	Pose
Hanako Hirano	Zhuanshu. From above, the Imperial Capital of the nation of Zhenga looks distinctly similar to an artist's palette. It sits astride the great river that divides the island nation's southern portion, an island smack dab in the middle of the flowing waters. Great bridges arc across the river with hanging banners and stalls. The buildings are short, but beautiful, made not only of paper but of wood and brick and cloth of all variety of colors, with sweeping roofs that taper downwards to catch the rainwater and spill it into nearby barrels. And indeed there is rain tonight. People walk hurriedly through the downpour, what earlier was a sunshower now an ominous storm. Between peals of lightning the streets are moving fields of floral print umbrellas in every color of the rainbow. The Foreigner's District, where the warpgate opens, is virtually empty tonight, save for a few souls in the robes of preachers sitting in cross-legged meditation. The people are dark-skinned, with metallic-bronze hair; most of the preachers have theirs bound in ponytails or topknots. Metal is woven through their bodies - naturally, not implanted, metal woven into the muscles or the skin in odd places. Most of the preachers have tin in their bodies. Their eyes match the metal that catches in the crackling sky. But the foreigners aren't the only thing out in the rain tonight. In the distant Purple District, there is an explosion. The sky bursts into flames amidst the coiling lightning. The mountain in the center of the city on which the Imperial Castle rests is bathed in the orange glow, its streaming waterfalls catching the light, painted in orange flame. Chaos in the streets. Paper buildings catch fire one after another. People run as policemen are mowed down by men in light green haori and black headbands with white characters on the foreheads. Most of them are wielding long, thin straight swords with only one blade, not quite a katana, not quite a longsword, not quite a rapier, but some bastard mix of all three. The long-haired leader is wielding a much longer version of the same, a ludicrous, nonsense weapon that looks more suited for drying laundry than killing. "We, the Hisuatsu, will never give up the fight!" The leader says, purple eyes blazing in the light. "We find you insurrectionists guilty of treason against the Kinshonate! The Fangs of Zhuanshu shall never be defeated so long as we have Truth and Loyalty on our side!" He sweeps his blade to the side as the green-clad men go roaring forward, cutting through more of the police like buzzsaws. Blood splatters on the burning paper-and-wood buildings as the Hisuatsu remnants make their way towards the Imperial Castle.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	The Green District. It's a good place for a Green Knight, no? It's where Bercilak went, following a lunch with some fellow visitors to this world. He hit the library, wanting to know what life was like under the Kinshonate, and why this revolution happened. As he might have expected, based on the angry words of one warrior named Heian, it was largely to do with the influence of those foreigners and their priests of the Rosenkreuz. As for what life was like under the Kinshonate... structured, stratified, some might even say oppressive. Likewise, the democracy which exists today in this place has a lot of growing to do before it reaches the ideal held up by the 'Westerners,' as the loyalists would call them. Those who fought on the winning side of the revolution have apparently instilled themselves in cushy, influential positions, and the vaunted class mobility posed by this new system has yet to fully manifest. Bercilak's study is interrupted in the night, when the sound of that chaos in the Purple District erupts. He is there before long, always one drawn to excitement. To combat, especially. This time around, he arrives with the expectation of a fight, fully armored. A cloak of helleria grass and helleborne flowers flows dramatically behind him as he steps around the corner to stand, alongside Forte, before the counter-revolutionaries. "I am Bercilak of the High Wasteland." He taps his axe into the ground, creating a wall of trees meant to bar passage, until or unless a satisfactory answer is given. "Imete didst I this dai with Heian of the Forest Third Dragon Spear Art! I hath demed him muchly honorable and craftuous. If thou wouldst ifighte to aneu the old era, thanne sware me this:" "What is hit thou miss, from those dais?" He wants to know what it is, specifically, they feel they're fighting to restore, besides, broadly, 'the old ways.' If he likes what he hears... he might even join them.
BB	The stall of a painter, one of the burning paper-buildings, freezes in time while the blaze proceeds apace. An ember hangs, frozen, just-barely not touching the surface of a painting of a maiden in black with purple hair and a red ribbon. Her raised, gloved hand reaches outwardly in brushed oils. And the surface of the canvas pushes up, the rise of a white-gloved hand brushing the ember aside. First the hand, then the face, then the shoulder and torso of BB climbs out of the painting, remaining rendered in oilcolors in layers and the tan-cream of canvas. Poking her head outside into the street, she wipes the Painted Lady layer away like peeling the protective plastic from new electronics, balling up the shed outer layer and tossing it into the time-stopped blaze to hang there roasting in paused time. "Yoohoo~!" She calls, towards the BRAVE and LOYAL and OPPRESSED samurai class. "Sword boys! Do you want... power?"
Forte	"Truth and justice - dispensed on the streets at the point of a bloodied sword. Because of course that is how it goes." There's a figure floating down the streets on an intercept course towards them, feet not touching the ground nor any other sort of apparent propulsion keeping him aloft. He just floats along, z-coordinate locked to a path parallel to the ground, like a ghost. When rain comes down, he doesn't react. When thunder flashes and fires break out, he barely glances in that direction, as if to confirm he's not immediately threatened by the blazes, and then he remains looking steadily forward. "And yet, despite everything, from my understanding..." The floating figure slows to a stop, squaring up against whatever the largest group of black headbands he can find, and throws back his cloak. < <AUTONAVI SLOT IN> > VAR_SWORD_ V - EXECUTE The navi's hands sprout a long, thin sword, one that glistens with energy. "You do fight against a system that has done you wrong. Prove-" He cuts off, his head snapping sharply to the side, as BB surfaces and makes herself known and makes her offer. "..." "If you seek power, that you would prostrate yourselves before this errant vocaloid, then, know that those who hunt the strong stand before you," he says.
BB	"Errant vocaloid?!" BB gasps, a closed fan snapping into her fingers that she points accusingly at Forte. "I'll have you know I'm not errant, I'm truly and definitely a-BBsolutely rampant!" She flips open the fan to push away the frozen embers from about her, looking smug. The fan, across the visible design, just has a picture of BB holding down her eyelid and sticking her tongue out with little 'phhhhhhhbt' lines. "Just say 'I wish I recieved a total BBeatdown' and I'll gladly make your wildest dreams come true, -" Snapping her fan closed, she tosses it over her shoulder with a casual disregard, using her hands to roll the comedically enormous sleeves on her robe up. "If you want to hear my hit new single, 'Play Sempai Games, Win Fantastic Sem-prizes', check it's live debut after the commercials." Twirling once and holding up a collapsed baton, BB Magical Girl poses with a shouted "BB Change!" and her outfit smear frame switches into a far more modern black top with standalone sleeve all trimmed in purple -- an off brand Hatsune Miku BBrecolor. "I'm gonna sma-shu sma-shu // your solid state drive // I'm gonna sma-shu sma-shu // take apart your whole life~!" She starts rocking out, while large speaker systems rapidly build behind her and fire the sonic payload that Forte clearly begged for - a public concert of pain!
Evehime Gevurah	The motivations of the Hisuatsu, self-named, must not be hard to decipher. Even without the context of centuries of history and local culture, anyone who can hear their voices, or see their blades, should be able to tell what it is that they want, what they're about, with no issue at all. Though they may appear to be, in most respects, the activation of a sword-wielding terrorist cell, setting what parts of the capital aflame that they can in treasonous defiance of the new world of peace and cooperation and enlightened advancement that they now live in, that may not be all of it. There is a foreigner to the Foreigner district. One who is not foreign to them merely on the basic of nationality, ethnicity, culture, or race, but in a sense far beyond measure. A presence that does not belong on this earth, nor in heaven. A human being who strides amongst men made less-than-human for the difference in their presence. One who snuffs out the brightest stars in the sky with their occluding incandescence. A woman who towers well over seven feet tall. A vexing paradox of origin, with bronze-amber-fair skin, decades of black cascading hair cut only razor level to the edges, and a physique that transcends the merely Olympian, the statuesque, the Heroic, embodying some greater, deeper truth of strength. She halfway fits a local visage in superficial details, but the markings around her eyes are too Celtic warrior to be Geisha, her clothes too trouser to be hakama, too scarf-shawl to be haori, too greave boots to be suneate, well-worn black cloth and metal shodding, with an inscrutably foreign geometric crest woven in gold. Nobody will stop her on her way through. Nobody possibly could if they wanted to. That is the air she exudes, and it's difficult to argue with. It's difficult to even conceive of arguing with it. Gazing upon her is an enlightenment in of itself; an insight into something that previously wasn't a question. The anthropocentric mind that finds human faces in random patterns, and projects expressions and feelings onto animals and objects, encounters an unstoppable feedback loop. Every primal sense dedicated to recognizing genetic fitness, social authority, tribal might and leadership, registers a new scale that would previously have never been conceived. 'This is a perfect human. This is the platonic ideal. A flawless thing that demands nothing less undivided attention, unadulterated respect, unswerving loyalty'. Enough to passively obliterate a lesser ego. Certainly enough to stand before a street of rampaging warriors, arms crossed, and look down upon them, physically for height and figuratively for sheer overwhelming demeanor. Even from an entire street away, it's like being in the shadow of a mountain. "Are you what passes for this world's attempt at warriors? Do you think of yourselves of the keepers of truth? The enlightened of loyalty? Is this your justice?" The questions are simultaneously real and statements of fact, carrying somehow infinitely far. "Shallow. Narrow. Weak. Show me that you can do better."
Hanako Hirano	Bercilak comes up to the Hisuatsu and finds that Heian is indeed among them. But this time he's carrying a real-ass spear, not a broken broom. He glances to the side at Bercilak and gives one of those samurai 'tch' noises as the long-haired leader lowers his head at Bercilak. "I am Sojou Takamura, Captain of the Hisuatsu Ninth Unit." He shoulders his ludicrously long sword as Heian strolls out to meet the cops. What we miss from those days, is it?" He looks at Bercilak out of the side of his eyes. "It's rare for a foreigner to ask us such a thing. It's rare for a foreigner to get involved in our affairs at all. Still...if you're that interested..." "We want our place in the world back." He sweeps his blade to the side. "This era has no use for our kind. So we have no use for this era. We would see our strength put to good use once again, not forced into the street to waste away. We Keima...still have our pride as warriors, after all." Heian whirls his spear in that familiar stance Bercilak saw before. His blade thrusts forward, skewering an officer - and then the spear explodes outwards into branches, piercing through three more. The difference between Heian using a broken broom and Heian using a real weapon is staggering. He discards the officers as Takamura starts walking forward. "Heian. Can we trust him?" Heian gives Bercilak another look. "We can trust his strength, if nothing else. Fucking foreigner's strong, I'll give him that." Takamura looks back at Bercilak over his shoulder. "If you would aid us in our righteous cause, we'd be happy to have you. This government's peeling paint will be torn away to reveal the rotten canvas beneath." They're big on color metaphors here. Meanwhile, BB and Forte. Two gods, hanging in the sky. One of the men in green scratches the side of his head and leans over to his friend. "What's a vocaloid?" "Sounds Western, I guess." "Yeah...maybe." One of them points at BB with his weapon. "I'll take whatever power you can grant! I'll no longer be just a face in the crowd! I'll earn myself a place in the new Kinshonate with power of my own!" As Evehime passes through the foreigner district, several of the preachers open one eye to watch her. There is indeed a sense of adjustment to them; they, who seek power, naturally adjusting to one who is power itself. They do not follow her, not in the physical sense, but as she passes at least one priest's eyes turn from tin to iron, and her hair follows suit, as does the metal woven into her skin. Evehime stands against the Hisuatsu. Many of them do, indeed, fall to their knees, unable to fight back against her presence. But Takamura and Heian stand proud, their eyes the strong eyes of warriors. They carry themselves like warriors. They carry themselves like warriors of old, like generations of warriors behind them, supporting them. Takamura flicks his blade to the side and tilts his head at Bercilak. "If you would aid us, good foreigner..." "Then I believe that might be our most pressing problem, now." Takamura levels the blade at Evehime. "You want to see our justice? The justice of those who have been beaten but not broken? Very well, then. We'll show you our determination!"
Hanako Hirano	"I don't think so, Takamura." A man comes forth from behind Evehime. He's wielding one of the police sabers, but he carries himself very differently from the others. His eyes are sharp, his hair is a dark grey, and a beard stains his face like a dab of paint. "Your justice has passed. The era of the Keima is over." Takamura frowns. "Master. You betrayed us? The Hisuatsu's promise of loyalty?" "Our loyalty was to the Kinshonate. When it died, so too did that. Now we have a higher loyalty - to the people, Takamura." The older man walks forward, brandishing the saber. He tilts his head at Eve. "Miss, I don't know who you are, but you're strong. I can tell at a glance that you're stronger than anyone here. If you would allow me to discipline my errant student I would be thankful for your kindness." "Discipline me? I am still Sojou Takamura, Captain of the Hisuatsu Ninth Unit, bearer of the North Wind Cutting Sword Art of the Takamura family. The only one who has changed is you - Master!" Takamura charges. The older man brings up the saber with one hand. There's a clash of pressure. The police who aren't captivated by Eve, and the Hisuatsu soldiers who are strong-willed enough, go charging to meet each other, leaving Bercilak and Eve in the middle of a brawl, as Takamura and his master trade blows.
Forte	"Irrelevant. Errant, rampant - soon to be deleted," says Forte. "Anything times zero is zero." He stalks forward - well, floats forward in a stalking manner, as BB switches forms into magical girl mode and starts singing. "Know that you have my pity, as one would when seeing a mouse about to be pounced on by a -" The sonic pulse goes off. Forte goes flying backwards, almost comically, from the sheer force of it, disappearing into the smoke-filled scenery. < <AUTONAVI SLOT IN> > AREA_STEAL A - EXECUTE And just as suddenly, he blips back, right up into BB's near-airspace. "WELL THEN." This is not the sort of 'well then' one says when they're upset, like a mother who's walked in on a broken cookie jar and crumbs everywhere - this is the sort of 'well then' uttered by someone who's walked in on an unexpected birthday party. Forte's grinning, which is something that hasn't been seen often. "Not a mouse!" He's also speaking expressively and with an emotional range that isn't strictly in the domain of 'sullen, passive, bored', which is also something that hasn't been heard often. "Not a mouse waiting to be pounced on - but one with power. An AI that can fight, and one that can fight well enough that they feel safe engaging in such audacious behavior - exquisite." "You've what I've been looking for - what I've been seeking, what I've been needing. And it's quite a shame that that also means..." -=--=--=-COSACK INDUSTRIES - AUTONAVI.SYS-=--=--=- -=--=--=--GETABILITY.BAT READ MODE READY--=--=--=- -=--=--=--=--=--=--=-EXECUTE--=--=--=--=--=--=--=- Forte's hand glows red. "That I have to eat you now and end it so soon." He dives down at her, glowing hand extended, and attempts to grab onto her. It's not a dramatic effect, or a stylish move, or even anything that looks particularly offensive, from the outside - little more than a one-handed grapple. But if Forte manages to so much as touch-
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	"Thou lest to hath thy place ayen, as makers of batail," says Bercilak, with a nod. Another tap of the axe and the trees vanish. "I shalt join mine strength to thine, and togeder, we shalt dight a neu era where the beld prevail." He cracks his neck, giving the axe a testing twirl, and stepping forward. Takamura: If you would aid us, good foreigner... Then I believe that might be our most pressing problem, now. Executing nanoprogram Imminence of Carnage... Takamura and Heian are altered, subtly, by the swarm of nanites that surround Bercilak. Simply by being near him, their reaction times, their precision and sense of familiarity with their chosen weapons, are bolstered, as those nanites attach themselves to nerve pathways and musculature. In their first encounter, Bercilak had indeed been affected by Evehime's passive aura of majesty. But Morgana's meddling interacts with it unusually. It isn't a desire to please or be her which is excited--it's a desire to best her in combat. Perhaps he might even cause her to show him that technique. The God-Shattering Blows of Dawn. Nemarrigan. Bercilak wastes no time--he is upon her in an instant, crying out: "She is ishilded bi iforce which smites back at thee!" He then demonstrates it to his allies, stopping short of her to bait an attack, then leaping overhead with an agile somersault, striking with the haft of the axe to invite a reprisal from her shield. Landing on the other side, he deliberately invokes a counterattack to heal through it and strike with a rapid one-two-three haft-edge-haft flurry.
BB	<<One of them points at BB with his weapon. "I'll take whatever power you can grant! I'll no longer be just a face in the crowd! I'll earn myself a place in the new Kinshonate with power of my own!">> BB's eyes light up -- literally -- a wicked scarlet. Time, broadly, pauses. BB has all the Toku Time she needs for this. She turns, mid performance, as the ripples of sound hang in the air from her Bass Cannons. "You wish to earn a place in the new Kinshonate with your own power - to be more than an empty face." She repeats, mildly paraphrased. The green-sashed supplicant feels time's flow resume. He has a chance to back out - or correct - but just one. Snapping out her baton, BB smearframe steps besides the man, rolling behind him and over his shoulders to rub against the inside of his neck. "Men like you... Who are brave and foolish... are simply the best~~~!" She purrs, before sticking her baton through his heart from behind, a pink light allowing the weapon to pass through and emblazon a five-petal sakura flower over his left breast. She removes the baton with a flourish. "May your face be seen, may your power be great, may you create the Kinshounate you dream to make. You and your goals are as one. My power is your power. If you fail, your body will BBecome my body. Now go--" She lightly shoves the man forward, playfully, while laughing. Forte, in the background, is teleporting into the place she was at before! "Oh no! I'm late for a very important date!" Smearframing back, BB gets her baton raised just right and ready-- To get Dark Handed by some PVP scumlord. "Oh no! Now you've got my power!" She wails, as she derezzes into pink sparkles and floats away pitifully. A large meter appears Overgauge: 307! and a large pair of letters in red explosion meme popups declares KO! From a large, anachronistic pink pipe that bursts out of the ground like a Barbie Building Inspection fun house kit. From the pipe rises another BB, this time in her street clothes, with a big X of band-aids taped to the air an inch off her brow, hovering like a badly animated model addition. "Ow! That really hurt! BBut: It was worth it, sem-pai!" She points past Forte, towards the probably-convulsing Another Swordboy in the green dudes lineup. "Now starts this LostBBelt of mine, where we see how amazing human desire can BBecome!" Swinging out her baton and squiggle-creating a large pink heart-sign, a fat WideBeam cones out. It doesn't seem to be expected to connect -- instead hitting suddenly-there Mirror Pillars that begin diffracting the pink light into a scathing horrorshow of unsafe air and ground blocks that always just-so-happen to skim by people that aren't Forte. A hole, perhaps, but BB won't make it easy* for Forte to dodge her mechanics.
Hanako Hirano	The man BB grabs doesn't back out. Instead, he grabs her wrist. "I have no name. I'm nothing but a retainer who had the bad luck to be a genius in a world that doesn't care about geniuses. At best I could've been a low-ranking officer." "But with this..." He shoves her hand against his breast. "With this, I'll make my genius mean something! I'll mark a new name in history - Daitou Chigatana!" The sakura flower blooms across his chest. His grin is wild, his soaked and unkempt black hair clinging to his body, his red eyes bright. As she releases him, he's already breaking into a run, green haori trailing in the wind. He runs straight past the duel between Takamura and Akuha (the master's name is Akuha), straight into the cops behind Evehime. He's ludicrously fast now. His knife dances into them, a flashing crescent moon in the rain. He snags a police saber and brings it around, too, now, a wild two-bladed dance. Several of the cops fall back behind Forte, trying to lead the new-christened Daitou into Forte's range. The Hisuatsu charge forward to meet them. Forte and BB now have a small group of people in between them, with blades clashing as the new-made Daitou Chigatana goes carving through them, laughing, exulting in his newfound power.
Evehime Gevurah	The man who can approach Evehime, old as he appears to be, is worth her turning her head just enough to look down. Her eyes are so bright that the blue might as well be cyan, sheer intensity of gaze becoming light. "Discipline?" she intones. "I am discipline. I am judgement. I am might. I am severity. I am the just withholding of kindness." Then she glances across. "But they are the defeated. Are they not? Those whose violence was so weak that it is no longer useful to anyone. The conquered, who hopelessly rail against the future." The corner of her lips twists indecipherably. "Whether this be the moment where your future is to become domestic animals, fat and obedient, or whether it is to sail away to conquer the other primitives, I cannot say." "But the logic is the same. All things in the world must prove their right to exist. This Kinshonate was destroyed. It was weak. Did it breed weak men? Are they entitled to anything at all? I'll see for myself. Prove that your pupil is history's loser for a reason." And then, before she takes even a single step forward, Evehime spots Bercilak. "You again." A statement of fact, now, not at all meant to be answered. Painfully neutral, the mere lack of evident approval like daggers. "A shield? Are you blind. I could only be more naked at this moment if I were to strip these clothes. Perhaps your brain healed wrong after the last time it was pulverized. Shall I be more thorough with you this time? I'll obliterate that head of yours until it grows back correctly." It's different this time. That cold, bitter, bottomless disappointment he'd come across once before, freshly disenchanted from the utter failure of an army, is instead a ground state of lukewarm expectations, stirring in the faint current of impatience. He runs forward, and like approaching a stormfront, feels the solid, smouldering pressure of sheer, tangible battle instinct that occupies the air he charges into. An excess of martial will so extreme that it overflows the containers of mind and spirit and into the real world. But it feels like it's shifting. Gathering. No longer a roiling cloud of heavenly disquiet, but charged with such electricity that it is frozen with static potential energy, coalescing by the second. He stops short. He can see the twitch of her arm. As planned, he disengages into an overhead leap, out of reach. He swings the haft, and feels it graze the uncertain shape of that gathering halo, seeing shimmers of force diffuse into the air like sparks. He lands. He baits the counterattack. Eve snaps her hand out blind and snatches the edge of the axe between two fingers, gripping millimeters short of its glowing edge and halting it with such severity as to break a lesser man's elbows. She pulls it forward in the blink of an eye, and Bercilak with it. Her elbow flashes out into his chest, then her forearm swings up to deliver a following backfist to his face with milliseconds of space between them. From a cold start, she raises her knee and delivers a spinning snap kick. The speed. The force. The precision. They're different. This woman is not dismally hoping to be entertained. She is being interrupted. That haze that robs the force from his strikes condenses into a focused layer, attentive, rather than wandering thoughts. He can feel the force of his attack circulating back into her hands and feet, rather than aimlessly occupying space. The motion is so passively, effortlessly perfect that it, in of itself, carries a tiny glimpse of enlightenment.
Forte	Forte deletes BB. And then another BB shows up. "Hmf, proxies, backups... whatever you have," he says. "I should have known it wouldn't have been that easy." Obstacles start flying. He starts dodging - and promptly eats dirt, getting a faceful of several obstacles before managing to pick up on the pattern to get through most of the rest. At the end, he doesn't look damaged, but a single scan line appears and disappears occasionally. "Regardless, then - it's simply a manner of exhausting your copies and then tracking you down at your source. A worthwhile task..." He glances back at the samurai, one of whom seems to have taken her up on it. "Tch..." "... And until then, I'll simply have to delete you entirely from this place!" < <AUTONAVI SLOT IN> > GAUSSFLAYR n - EXECUTE The sword in his offhand is replaced with a rod, which he grasps with both hands and aims - green lightning arcs out of it, scouring away anything it hits into nothingness, leaving lightning-shaped scars across the street and the nearby buildings - and, hopefully, BB as well!
Hanako Hirano	The older man smiles at Evehime. "Though it is with a heavy heart, I will show you exactly the strength of those who support the new era. I may be a relic of history, a reminder of the Kinshonate, but a relic that knows his duty is better than a relic who knows nothing but dust. The day may indeed come where we grow fat and weak, but when that day comes, so too will a new and righteous era follow it. That is the way of time, I think. That what we build will become the foundation for a better world." "Thank you." He passes by Evehime, tying his hair into a ponytail as he goes. "Takamura, whatever else I may have become, I am still the Vice-Commander of the Hisuatsu." The older man brings his blade around to meet Takamura's, his eyes hard. "What you call a betrayal is nothing but honoring the principles we were truly founded on. We were not meant to rule the world but steward it for all peoples. This era is one that sees every man and woman given a chance to make something of themselves. Why do you still cling to history's losers when you could right yourself in the eyes of the world?" Takamura clenches his teeth, both as Evehime calls their determination weak and as the older man speaks. "Because some ideals are worth fighting for, even in an era that's rejected them. We never surrendered. The Kinshonate may have given up, but we haven't. We'll build a new Kinshonate, a better Kinshonate! We won't allow the corrupt Imperial government to decide who is right and who is wrong! Akuha! From today onwards...you are hereby expelled from the Hisuatsu!" "Very well then." Akuha brings his police saber up to meet Takamura's ludicrous blade. His foot slides forward, wielding leverage against length. His other foot whirls around to kick Takamura in the chest, and his free hand snaps out to grab the man by his long hair. A knee slams Takamura's nose. The other swordsman stumbles back, his face bloody. "This woman is correct, Takamura. A half-hearted desire to turn back the pages of history is nothing but the spite of the losers against the winners." "Then we'll turn the page forward! We'll build a new era of swords from this one with all our hearts! Take this!" Takamura runs. His blade slides out. At first, Akuha dances back, but in an instant, he finds his sandal cut. He stumbles. A cut slices open his shoulder; it freezes over instantly. Another cut hits his knee, and that, too, freezes over. The older man rolls out of the way of a third; an officer behind Eve is caught up and falls forward, his back turned to ice. Takamura swings his blade down into Akuha's face. Akuha rolls forward, and their blades clash under the lightning on high. Meanwhile, Heian moves up to support Bercilak. He jams his spear into the ground to support him, a small tree bursting to life behind him to hold him up. "I won't get in the way of your duel," he says gruffly, "But I'll give you something to absorb her blows with on my way past."
BB	Now the nightmare's real! Now Fate/Plot HorriBBle is here! To make you quake with fear! To make the whole world kneel! Things change in the wake of Daitou Chigatana, his wake spilling blood like calligraphy ink - in great daubs and sweeps, sprays, spatters across the canvas of the world. The world exults in his presence, light bends to be near him, his weapons glint meaningfully even if they are unpowered. From no-one to a main character in a heartbeat, the green haoris fight their opponents, and all the while BB blasts away at Forte by directing a sweeping symphony of Heart Funnels that fire Love Lasers at the NetNavi Secret Boss. "That's where you're wrong, Forte. You could give me all of your hunger, forever and ever, and I'll never run out of me! I'm the BBeautiful, Exponential, Infinite BB, the Ultimate Heroine-" She begins speaking in acronyms she does not explain or fully vocalize. She adds hand-signed numbers and letters to each one, as the Gauss Flayer strikes out and rakes across her and she bends and smears and bounces of the way. "LF1M for H2H (Savage) PB PST!" She winks at Forte, the corner of her eye sending out a shooting star -- That she grabs, expanding it in her hands like a rubbery ring. "So give me everything! I want it all! If you want me to take you straight into my loving embrace, just make a wish on my cups of gold~!" She sing-songs, patting the sides of her rainbow star-sphere, which she bounces like a basketball. Dribbling down the 'court' of bloody Samurai Drama, she zigs and zags, shoots down, smears back up, and a large flaming ring appears 'over' Forte's moving head. Which BB, of course, tries to dunk through with her Wink-Star. "Now come to your destiny -- me! BB! BBdunk!"
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	"BAHAHA!" This isn't some little baby-man that's going to cry because God-Emperor Warrior Mommy didn't give him a gold star. Not a little kid that's going to throw a tantrum in his sandbox because someone else on the playground was better at kickball. No, this is a grown man. An Adult of Battle, who delights in being bested, for the opportunity it presents to better himself and thwart the odds. And more than anything, he enjoys helping others best those odds too. His axe is yanked forward by those two fingers, the heavy harness upon his chest dented from the force of her elbow. His backwards momentum is halted... by the tree. He nods his thanks at Heian as his visor is cracked, his helmet caved in from her fist--but he is faster than a man in that much armor ought to be. "'Too weke wert thei,' thou saith. PAH!" He weaves under that snap kick, maneuvering to her side for a surprise headbutt as that helmet mends itself. "What is lif, but struggle?" POP. That dent in the harness makes an audible creak as it un-dents itself. "But the constaunt serch for bettement?" Following the headbutt, a rapid slip of the axe's haft under her leg to try and use it as a fulcrum to trip her. His hands never stop moving across the haft, always shifting for better angles of attack. A sweep of the pointed heel across her chest. "'TIS BET TO BE ASTRUED FOR GOD THAN TO LIF DEFETED, HALTED AND EMPTI!" Following that attempted trip, a flurry more frenzied and spirited than the last by a wide margin: a flowing series of strikes, mixing in thrusts of the blunt eye, grapples with gap between the beard and the haft to catch her limbs as she parries, followed by quick snaps of the blunt haft to her vitals, knowing she won't tolerate such grapples for long. Parries, with the flat cheek, the haft, even the heel. Slashes with the edge, naturally, at several varied ranges; one handed, choked all the way up, two handed, eased all the way down, middling, his hands and feet constantly moving. Yeah. He practiced.
Forte	A flaming ring appears above Forte. "Launch all the theatrics you want - and yes I understood those acronyms, you weren't the only one raised on the -" BB DUNK! The attack knocks Forte to the ground. He, again, doesn't quite 'show' damage in the sense of burnt skin or broken bones or the like, he remains whole, but there's a large amount of little... glitches, now. Scan lines. Bits of static. Brief split-seconds where he looks off-model, like not all of his polygons have finished rezzing in. Still far from defeated, though. "... Internet. And so, then, if you insist..." he says as he gets up, and takes off into the air, powering up, an energy sword taking form between his hands and quickly growing. < <AUTONAVI SLOT IN> > SWORD_____ S - LOADING "... If you truly want it all..." < <AUTONAVI SLOT IN> > WIDESWORD_ S - LOADING "All of my strength, all of my skill..." < <AUTONAVI SLOT IN> > LONGSWORD_ S - LOADING " ...all of my pain... and..." -=-=-=PROGRAM--ADVANCE=-=-=- SWORD_____ ::> WIDE_SWORD ::>>>> LIFE_SWORD LONG_SWORD ::> E X E C U T E "ALL OF MY HUNGER!" He brings the massive blade down in a vertical chop - the width of which takes up the whole street!
Hanako Hirano	BB goes zigging and zagging down the street. She cuts past bodies, bounces over police sabers, discarded knives, and blood. The sphere splatters blood as it bounces through the determination of both the police and the Hisuatsu. She gets to bounce straight off one of the police officers, who receives a face full of foot and falls over backwards underneath Forte. That might've saved his life. When Forte hits the ground near him, the man stumbles up and offers the machine-man a hand up. "Let me help you!" And then Forte deploys a massive wave of energy in the direction of the Hisuatsu, and the street, and pretty much everything else. Daitou is there. His blade snaps upwards to meet it. His eyes flash. His grin is wicked as the energy blade smashes against his police saber and dagger. They start cracking before he does. "I made a contract...that I'd make my face known!" "I am Daitou Chigatana!" The blades crack. "I'm a genius swordsman!" The knife crumbles. "And I'm..." "Going to become a pillar of the new Kinshonate!" The sword shatters. Daitou brings up both arms. The saber burns into his wrists. He screams, loudly, pushing against Forte's strength. His roar fills the street as Hisuatsu go bailing out of the area. The cobblestones crack underneath him. "A RELIC OF THE OLD ERA?! BREEDING WEAK MEN?!" "HAH!" Blood pours down his arms. They're still holding. "I'M..." "A GENIUS..." "SWORDSMAN!" "RRRRRAAAAH!" He finally rolls out of the way of Forte's blow. His arms are bloody, hanging at his sides, sizzling. But his eyes are wild, and his grin is wild. He walks forward, picking up a pair of police sabers. "This...suits me more anyway...don't you think?" The scars on his arms are already healing. BB gave him some serious power, alright. He charges forward at Forte, his blades whirling around at ludicrous speed, with ludicrous skill. It's entirely a distraction. He goes shooting right past into the officer corps, laughing wildly as he covers the street in blood. It was literally just a distraction to repay BB for her kindness. For her strength. For his strength.
Evehime Gevurah	"That would almost be a fair assessment, hunting dog." Evehime says to Bercilak. Though he ducks under her leg, he sees that her eyes follow him constantly. Inescapably, even. Locked on to the trails of his physical motion, a few frames ahead. "If they are any better than they were before, they'll prove it by winning here. But otherwise, these are merely the spiteful gasps of the defeated. The old man, fragile as he is, has taken his place amongst the victors. Even if these men prove themselves worthy of continuing to exist, it proves nothing of their beloved, dead, Kinshonate. Something that shouldn't be resurrected." She's following his axework from there. No, more specifically, she isn't looking at his axe at all, no matter how natural keeping an eye on the sharp head would be. Her eyes are on his hands and his leg. His grip and his footwork. It's as if, from only the configuration of those things, she can tell exactly where the weapon is going to be. And it certainly seems that way. She bats the weapon away again and again, slapping across the flat to strike it aside, hammering against the heel to drive it into the dirt, barring the half with her forearm to bring it to a halt short of her head. He hooks her leg and pulls it out, then chops. Somehow, he can catch a slightly elevated brow mid-fall. Feel the sparking clash of nano-reinforced edge on what must be envisioned as a wall of solid diamond. See the flickering shimmers of power clashing against power. Evehime tumbles back into it intentionally. Plants a handspring on the ground. Kicks off with both legs. Spins horizontally five times in mid-air, in the blink of an eye, drills both boots into Bercilak's breastplate, and flipkicks off the armour, toe to chin, to land back on her feet. She takes a stance. "Your axework improved."
BB	He asked for it. He got it. She asked for it. She got it. The massive vertical chop of Life_Sword slams down right on the funny, bouncy, BBasketball starring BB, her head brought down by the sheer pressure of the downswing. Time splits. Across the left side of the Life_Sword's light-shearing data-mass as Daitou charges past her. For him, the surprised yet smiling normal street-clothed BB is 'cut in half'. On the other end, is darkness. An endless sea of pitch-black that has consumed everything. Above, high in the sky, is a massive cube, segmented into smaller cubes, nine to a side. From this cube pours rainbows of information that darken as it tumbles, redshifting into a starry black that pools, matte, into the endless void ocean. The on the 'Light Side' of the Life_Sword, with her new contractee, BB giggles while blushing . "That tickles, piggy!" On the 'Dark Side' of the Life_Sword, the dark abyssal fountain of data fills Forte up. He can take, and take, and take, and take. Take until he's full. Take until he's sick. Feast on the A10 Wagyu of Data until his gorge rises, if that's possible. The bisected half of BB on the dark half is truly 'dark', dressed in an impossible-to-put-on single piece leotard with collar. Her red-ringed eyes contain a purple heart-shaped pupil, and her 'coat' seems more like a cloak or leathery wing with a dracula-red interior and a pointed 'horn' low on the shape. She 'steps' forward, this half of BB, to caress Forte's face and kiss his cheek, bisected expression full of obsessive, devoted love. "Tell me your wish, Forte, and I will let you drink as you will from my overflowing chalice. I am the data sea, and I love you." The Life_Sword Noble Phantasm animation, which had been paused, finishes following through, and BB snaps onto the 'Light' side of the blade, a large 'dude in a cloak with action lines' appearing over her head with the text EVADE. "Wow! It's a good thing that big sword beam didn't have fires-first buff purge, Sempai! That would have been terriBBle!" She announces, the 'world of darkness' a mere figment of Forte's imagination, and the street merely 'damaged in a big line' by Forte's attack after Daitou's deflection. BB flicks her baton-holding wrist, a megaphone expanding from the base handle. "Is everyone okay? Does anyone else want suuuuuuperpowers from BB~*?" She blasts out at a screechy megaphone 'keeeeeern!' of prefixing static.
Hanako Hirano	"Hah. Old man?" Akuha tilts his head back at Eve. "I'm only forty-one. Still more than young enough to put my old comrades in their place." "My place." Takamura grits his teeth. Eve sweeps her foot around through a police officer who happened to be standing too close; blood splatters across Takamura's face. He jerks his thumb at himself. "My place is as Captain of the Hisuatsu Ninth Unit! I'll say it as often as I like! This woman may believe us broken, nothing but soft teeth, but the strength that carried us through will never break no matter how many cowards bend their knee! You think that strength comes from dogs who throw away their pride, outsider? You think that a man who wears a collar has more might than a wolf who holds his head high, even in defeat?" "I'll prove it to both of you here!" The blade wheels around in front of him. "The strength that carries on in the Hisuatsu!" Takamura surges forward. Ice trails in his wake. It freezes over the blood-slicked cobblestones. It freezes over the gash Forte left in the ground. He grabs the hilt of the blade with both hands, brings it up, and swings. Three blades of ice come wheeling out. A loud bang echoes over the clashing blades and burning plasma. Takamura stumbles backwards, blood across his arm. Akuha stands, three frozen cuts along his shoulders. His uniform slips open, revealing a chest full of scars and muscle. In his right hand is gripped something that is unmistakably some kind of gun. Takamura grits his teeth. "So that's it. You didn't just throw away your pride as Hisuatsu...you threw away your pride as Keima! This is the face of the new era that you want to protect so desperately? A beaten dog, crawling to his masters for scraps and handouts!" "Say what you will, Takamura." Akuha says, his saber snapping to the side. He knocks it - intentionally - off Evehime's diamond aura. It's clearly not attack, to her senses; he's not aiming at her, just the edge of her aura, to spark his blade. Lightning runs along it. "I may have thrown away my pride to serve the new era, but you threw away your obligations as Keima the moment you became drunk on your blade. I'll remind you why I am the Vice-Commander in this moment." The spark of lightning rolls down his body. It sparks and crackles. A magnetic field warps around him. And then he's charging, a bolt of lightning, roaring as he swings, his alchemic weapon firing into the Hisuatsu line. His roar is thunder. He leaps upwards, grabbing the blade with both hands, and brings it thundering down on Takamura. Takamura blocks it. His arm splatters with a spray of blood. He's flung backwards, crackling, smoke pouring off his body. Heian runs past. He slides forward. His spear whirls. He meets Evehime's drill-feet, and the spear bursts into roots to grab her legs, and- -and it doesn't matter. She goes straight through him. Bercilak is coated in the man's blood. The shattered spear hits the ground at the same time as Heian, his eyes wide, and yet defiant. Takamura screams his name. It's lost in a bolt of lightning.
Forte	Forte drinks. He drinks, and drinks, and drinks, and- - - He's not sated. The illusion fades. Forte is, momentarily, stunned. The swordsman having jumped in to defend BB doesn't even register for him. "... You..." He floats, somewhat listlessly, in the air... his only motion reaching forward, as if trying to grasp something that isn't there - the data sea that still is etched in on his memory. "You can give me... that?" His gaze shifts, suddenly, focusing intently on her. "And all you need is a wish?"
BB	With another snap of her baton, this time telescoping out, BB gestures like a fairy godmother with a magic wand, twinkling stardust into her left palm. Motes of rosegold begin to stack up, melting like molten gold to pour down in a steam from her palm onto the bloody ground. A chalice shapes, as if melting in reverse from the overflowing crucible of her magic and the surface of her palm, long and wide. Where the motes of baton-magic fall within the formed chalice, they darken into the starry black slurry, a red glow from the twinkling cosmic elixir that sloshes in the bowl. She raises the chalice and it floats up, to hover near Forte, pulsing with clearly visible hypercompressed data-mass. Magic of an incredible power. A connection - the very connection he desired. "If you wish to be sated by my sea of data, my beautiful Saber Alter, then drink of my power and BBecome full. My terms are simple: Promise to love me, no matter what. Promise to render all others in interesting times. And I will take you in, and love you, and see to your every need, forever."
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	"Gramercy thereof thy notinge." There is value even in the spiteful gasps of the loser. If there weren't still embers burning within their hearts, why then would they even bother to make those utterances? What those people need is for someone to fan those embers into something great, not to be abandoned because they couldn't pass muster. Only those who have abandoned their fire should in turn be abandoned. If they lose a thousand times, he will help them a thousand times, if they but get up and try again. The Green Knight's judgment is absolute, and final. But his powers are not without limit. His nanites attempt to mend Heian. Keepers protect, but Doctors heal. Perhaps, were one here, this might have been prevented. As is, his armor is splattered red as Heian's body fails to stop Evehime's strike. The heavy harness cracks and splits in twain, revealing the thick, less bulky plates below. His arms instinctively move to catch Heian's broken form. The force of the impact drives him backwards, onto his back, his axe clattering to the side. "...espy him, Gevurah," he says, holding a bloodstained hand out, begging a momentary stay. "Loke into his eyes, and bitell me thire is no preciosite in the gasps of the beten." Those eyes. Shocked, but still defiant to the very last. Bercilak gently sets his broken body down, and closes his eyes with a sweep of his palm. "Bitell me nau no strengthi men came of the Kinshonate." He gathers up his axe. The flow of battle has been broken, but the Green Knight's will has not. "He yeve his lif for what he bileved." He gives the axe a testing swing, now able to move slightly faster without the bulk of that harness. Microthrusters fire. "Mayhap was not as strengthi as we," says Bercilak, stopping on a dime to stomp a crevasse into the earth and force her to approach him or otherwise evade the chasm. He watches her movement, hemming her in with a two-handed swing. "Ne as craftuous." The axe is brought back around for a ground-slam, and thorned vines shoot from the crevasse to whip blindly at her from below. "But does strength of herte hold no weight in thy courte?"
Forte	There's a moment where fate hangs on the razor edge of a sword. Forte does not trust. Bass.EXE got burned once - figuratively and literally. He'd done his job, the job he was designed for, built for, the job he was good at. And he got in trouble for being too good at it - for breaking into security systems too destructively, for breaking into ones that he shouldn't have, for leaving a few too many 'friendly' bodies in his wake (nevermind that they could be restored from backups). What else was a pentester supposed to do? If he didn't, others would have - it was on them for their security holes, ones so big he could literally walk through. It got him in chains, literally - large bulky things that his own creator had to design since the standard ones couldn't contain his power. And from there, sitting in chains, to being blamed for the Alpha Riot - the online apocalypse. He'd been found blameless in retrospect, he'd learned later on, but at the moment everyone was quick to turn on him, blame him, punish him, abandon him- - along with his dear creator, the same one who said he wanted to be a father to the young navi. After that, trust was a fleeting memory. An illusion. If he hadn't already been forced to flee deep into cyberspace, wounded and one step ahead of his would-be executors, he would have left just from that. Trust was an impossibility. Trusting this rampant AI dangling a solution in front of him? Even more so. But... ... After that. Deep into the Undernet - lurking in the shadows, consuming the almost literal poison of viral data till it almost consumed him in return. Descending into urban legend and mythology - the shadow at the end of the undernet. The strongest navi. The horror that even demons fear to cross paths with. Isolation and avoidance suited him then, for a while, but as the months turned into years he felt... ... lonely. And that's why he was here, wasn't it? That was why he had left. That was why the moment the Multiverse stretchet out in front of him, he didn't hesitate, he literally ran through the warpgate to find someplace new. To be around people again - ones outside his world, the only ones he could hold truly blameless for what had happened to him. Joining the Watch. Finding new allies. Finding new... not friends, not yet, but getting there. He came out here to leave his isolation. He came out here to leave his loneliness. To try to recapture some shred of his past existence. To keep what happened to him from happening to others. And what she was asking, and what she was offering... to love someone wholly, and to make lives interesting, in exchange for this gnawing hunger to finally be sated... ... He left his comfort zone once. He can leave it again. He can take one more chance, extend one more bit of trust, cross the threshold to change his life once more. "BB..." he says, reaching up towards the chalice. "I was, literally, built to make lives interesting." -=--=--=-COSACK INDUSTRIES - AUTONAVI.SYS-=--=--=- -=--=--=--GETABILITY.BAT READ MODE READY--=--=--=- -=--=--=--=--=--=--=-EXECUTE--=--=--=--=--=--=--=- He drinks.
BB	The cup is just a cup, but the data that slops within the while chalice-bowl tastes faintly sweet like a cherry-blossom strawberry soft drink. And then-- An unspeakable feeling of ambrosic warmth that marinates on the inside of his data-skin. Where there was a hole, now there was warmth. Where there was a void, a certainty. Where there was a doubt, there was the feeling of surging power. Like a growth within that empty space where the viral payload and his ego had mutually annihilated, a data DMZ, new logic-lines flashed into place, sealed with a heat of melted gold. Like a heartbeat, even for a program, within the center of his spiritual core the contract-gold filled in a steady, beating envelope around his tattered heart. As he finished his drink, and the chalice melted into his hand as a glove that climbs up his arm to re-leaf his fins and worn-down lines in a lustrous gold. Distantly, with the installation, he senses the beat of another's heart -- vast, and pulsing, like a warm hug. BB, for a moment, has eyes only for Forte, lifting off her feet to float up and hug him, eyes of glowing red and purple heart-pupils. "My BBeautiful, grand Saber." Her hand lace at his upper back as she presses her front into his chest, leaning her head past his and closing her eyes, content. "We're going to have so much fun!" She squeals, squeezing Forte and spinning him about, before dropping to the ground. "Alright! Chop-chop, green-sashes! Last call for superpowers, today! I'm so happy I could pop! OOooooooh, today is the BBest~!"
Evehime Gevurah	Eve lands from her kick, lightly as descending from the bottom stair, with the thump of what must be hundreds of pounds of muscle if square cube law means anything at all. The shower of blood that used to be Heian descends slightly after, carried by the momentum of her flip. She doesn't so much as blink at it. It's incidental. Accidental. Something fleshy got in the way. She never learned his name. She never even looked at his face, really. There are only two locals who hold any of her interest, for their theatric stage play. "And yet, those hand-outs and scraps have wounded you, haven't they? What is the use of declaring your pride if you're still weaker than the thing that you scorn as shameful? What use does your ideal have if it can only assert its strength by its own rules? When two blades clash, the weaker chips and breaks, including blades of culture. A wolf whose throat is gouged by a collared dog has no nobility in his untamed nature." Bercilak deliberately calling her attention is the first time she takes in any measure of the dead man's existence. The moment for thought forestalls fantastical violence only shortly. "A human being cannot be called strong unless he is strong of mind, strong of heart, and strong of body. Having strength in only one or two is worthy of notice, but not consideration. One can only be as strong as the weakest part of them. Their swords far fall short of their aspirations. At least there is no shame in their bravery, even if there may be in their impossible fragility. I am better inclined to these, at least, than those others." She steps forward, and then blurrs across the chasm almost perfectly horizontally. A curve of her back takes her under the blade of the axe, where she shifts her weight low and kicks out her leg to make it a violent twist, becoming a spinning back-thrust to plant the heel into Bercilak with such force that the air cavitates and explodes, hurling aside the bodies of men who stray too close, and punching through the building behind him with focused shock. She leaps from the other foot from the thrash of vines, then, only feet above the ground, fires both legs down to stomp on them, and suddenly makes the battlefield between herself and Bercilak into a crater, wide enough that the construction on either side of the street caves and tumbles in, and so freshly created that the ground glows and smoulders with the heat of its birth, charring vines to ash and surrounding her in a shimmering haze. "Such as for yourself. Your skill with the axe is acceptable. Your weapon, passable, for a huntsman. Your body, strange, but clearly your advantage; you are no fragile creature in a sense. What you lack is power. You haven't the arm to strike me. I imagine your usual fighting style uses those things to compensate. You trade blows with your enemy, with care and boldness, so that they grow cut and bled and weaker with each exchange, while your wounds disappear on their own. Eventually, they can no longer keep up, and you remove their head. As a hunting beast would. But you over-rely on that ability of yours. What good is that healing, that skill, when your axe breaks on the neck of your foe?"
Forte	Forte puts a hand to his chest. It feels nice. Feels warm. He'll have to work out more of exactly what this means, later. "Yeah - hey, don't keep her waiting," he calls. "Get with the superpowers, or go raid the castle. The town's not getting any less on fire, you know!"
Hanako Hirano	Heian lies, bleeding. Takamura, smoldering. Akuha walks forward, the lightning crackling around his body. He's met by Daitou. The twin police sabers smash against Akuha's own blade. Akuha whirls the alchemic weapon around, shoves it against Daitou's stomach, and fires. There's a spray of blood. It's not Daitou's. His blade's pressed against Akuha's already-wounded shoulder. His foot snaps upwards, kicking the alchemic weapon out of the other man's hand, slashes across the older man's stomach, and slides backwards to grab Takamura. "There's no new Kinshonate without you, Captain. Let's go. This isn't a place for our battles anymore. And the Forest Third Dragon Art may have been extinguished, but a new, glorious divine art's been born." Takamura stands, shakily. He stares at Akuha, bleeding on the ground. The older man is already starting to stand up. He Takamura closes his eyes. His fist clench. Daitou shoves Takamura backwards into a group of Hisuatsu. Several of the men still fighting do in fact consider grabbing powers. But Daitou's...unique. He was exceptional to begin with. These men are retainers, soldiers. They're not heroes. And the police are rapidly massing, and there's many more dangerous men in that force. "...Hisuatsu, retreat." Takamura's head lowers in the rain. "Outsider. Bring Heian, please. I want his family to hear what he died for." And then he goes running. Daitou runs behind him. The Hisuatsu pull back. Akuha stands, grabbing at his stomach. "Damn." He closes his eyes. "And here I had hoped to be done with this matter tonight."
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	"To die insekinge strength of ani-kinne is verily worthi of consideracioun." The back-thrust heel strike blows a hole in his armor, and through him--but by rolling with the blow, he manages to lessen the size of that hole. For any one of the men around him, such a wound would still be fatal. In his case, it merely prevents his upper and lower body from being completely separated. That grisly wound, revealing a red patchwork of muscle, bone and bloodstained cybernetic, quickly seals itself, a muscled green abdomen soon covered by black synthetic weave. "'Tis no god at al!" He laughs, in spite of the loss and the bloodshed. The blast of thrusters carries him away, just in the nick of time, flaming rubble striking and scorcing his armor without burying him in that molten crater. His plated boots hit the ground with a solid, weighty thud. "But I wouldst rathere ifighte and forlose a thousand thousand times, thanne yeve up with not e'en a liti ifightinge." There is no way to improve one's performance in a fight without fighting. No way in which he might one day surprise a foe as she--or more importantly, the one to whom his heart now belongs--without honing the edge of that axe. Therefore... the time for restraint has come and gone. The thrusters cut off, and he drops into freefall. It's a gamble. Is he really going to make an attack so obvious as a straight-down bunker-busting drop with the eye of the axe? Or does he juke at the last minute? No... he doubles down at the last minute, every single thruster firing first right, then downwards, both arms attempting to drive the eye past whatever block she makes into her shoulder. He rolls sideways, on his feet within moments, and throws caution to the wind. Any strike she makes on him in retaliation is worth the chance to dish out his own. Fists, headbutts, sudden knees are thrown in. Wide, arcing overhead swings, with both the heel and the edge. Feint thrusts. Sideways, backwards thruster assisted jukes. The axe, his shoulders, his legs, they're constantly in motion, every strike delivered with force enough to shatter the eldest of trees, the most stubborn stones. Violent currents of air are stirred forth with each mighty swing, discipline occasionally giving way to sudden calculated displays of seemingly brute force pummeling. Seemingly. There is not one instant, where he can help it, that Evehime's form isn't reflected in the expressionless black glass of his visor. He's watching her as closely as she is him.
BB	BB leans over to pat Forte on the shoulder, wiping a black tear from her glowing eyes. "They grow up so fast. First he's not even got a name, and look! Etched his own Spirit Origin." Delivering a kiss to Forte's cheek that leaves a glowing pink stamp on his cheek until smeared off, BB leans fondly on the fin-headed 'Saber' and sighs. "It's fine. Forte. I love you how you are. Wanting, and taking, and so wonderfully interesting. Lacing her fingers in with Forte's BBig BBusterful hand, the lovey-dovey Ultimate Kouhai watches the burning Samurai Drama unfold. "I want to see how far your hunger will go, when your needs are met. I want to see what 'Forte' means, when you are at the height of your power and not starving and bedraggled. I want you to..." She leans in, oozing around him from behind, encouraging, cheerful. "... love confidently. Love what you are, love what you do, and above all: love me. Love me! Llllove what you can BBecome, with me at your side, sempai." "We'll make all of the boring things go poof! And replace them with BBriliance." IN THE NEAR DISTANCE: The painter's shop, which BB had entered into, the temporary adjacency in eclipse of the Moon and Earth, sparks and pops and crackles with heat, Time resuming for it. Now, she pulses in the hearts of those who live here, too. Now, her love has taken root, and begins to grow anew...
Evehime Gevurah	"I've told you that much for you to use how you see fit." Evehime says to Bercilak. She remains standing where she is. Even as his thrusters cut out; the perfect opening to close. Even as he launches high into the air; the perfect moment to shoot him down. Even as he comes straight down; the perfect moment to dodge and counter. "There may be nobility in challenging defeat one thousand times, aiming to snatch victory, but there is nothing but sheer foolishness in it if there is nothing learned between each attempt." "A thousand failures as part of evolution are sacrifices. A thousand failures made only in hope are madness. These men evolve. Those men merely hope." Her hand reaches out. She palms the edge of the axe. The pressure against her martial aura causes that glint of invisible light catching intangible glass --that Halo of Conviction-- to flare out behind her, encircling her in a narrow band of visualized radiance. Colourless sparks fly from where the blade meets her skin. He can feel the axe sink a millimeter in. "Better." she says. "A pale imitation of adaptation. But a beginning." She then says something like "First Form:", and then the rest goes silently through his ears. Then something strange happens. Something that isn't altogether easy, if even possible, to describe after the fact. Bercilak, due to his well-placed attentiveness during his furious assault, sees the Last Warrior's footwork shift into an alignment that doesn't seem to occupy just one space. As if some perfect geometric alignment had found a previously invisible seam or fracture, he perceives several permutations of her stance all at once. Her hands occupy five different spaces each. It's hard to tell if he's hitting or being blocked. Which is real and which is mere potential; maybe all of them are, maybe none of them are. It only lasts a moment. It culminates in a sequence of movements that are so incredibly simple that he can no longer describe them. Something so straightforward and trivial that it defies perception. A glaringly obvious line through combat that is revealed and then immediately forgotten. Ten simultaneous blows that all exist at the same time from ten difference stances, each one creating a miniature halo of pale violet distortion, crunching light in some strange way ahead of each strike. It'd be easy to call it magic, but it doesn't feel that way. It dimly registers as 'why have I never thought of that?'. A Truth. Despite the fact that each of those blows is individually capable of turning chunks of him into perfectly circle splashes of molten lava, it feels, in some wordless way, instructive. Like her assessment had been, backhandedly. Her stance is completely neutral again without clearly returning to it. "Keep trying, if you believe you can still evolve. I will make certain to completely obliterate you, should you bear that axe no sharper than last time. I have no use for mere distractions."
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	"Hark," impossibly says the burning, skeletal figure, as its helmet sloughs off of a skull whose skin has melted away like so much wax. Heavy, blackened lumps of slag fall off of its armored frame. The axe is all that keeps it standing, for a moment, as the molten stuff which burnt its right leg away is mysteriously snuffed out, going from molten to smoldering to so much inert soot. "I am chaunge itself. I am greuth itself." Its eyes are smoldering coals, glowing within ruby-stained, black-patched ivory caves. Red sinews form, clinging to that bone. New eyes push out those coals as they grow. "Thou shalt ne'er quell me, for no two ifightes a-lik shalt e'er we hath, so Maideux." As a tide of green encroaches that sinewy surface, and a mohawk sprouts from the middle a crown of shorn hair, he takes a step. His left leg snaps as a boot melted to the roots-made-charcoal is forcibly lifted from its spot. She might think he's going to take a swing again. But he doesn't. Instead, he offers her a blackened gauntlet to shake. Any oath like that needs a handshake. If that gesture is accepted or denied, the outcome is the same. "Nau I make adieu. A revolucioun hath I to assist, to greu som-wight neu from the asshes aboute me." He turns, as soot crumbles from blackened plates, revealing deformed, melted heaps of green which cling to matted, scorched, smoking fibers. No cloak is at his back. The cracked harness on the ground vaniahses in a wave of blue light. He pauses by the body of Heian. The axe disappears in a wave of that same blue light. This is something to be treated with dignity--something which will require both hands. Takamura:Outsider. Bring Heian, please. I want his family to hear what he died for. Bercilak gently scoops up Heian, carrying him in a one-person lift with both hands. Any Hisuatsu fighters still alive by even the barest thread are healed to the capacity of his mending aura, beckoned to his side with a wave of his free arm, stripped completely of its armor. He'll cover their escape to regroup someplace else, if any yet remain who were previously unable to retreat, using only the bulk of his body and his broad back. He will do as Takamura asked, and more. He will break bread with these people, lend them his axe, and help them grow something new and strong from the ashes of today's defeat.