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Evehime Gevurah	How a woman who is no stripe of wizard or wish-granter, who has no possession of holy grail or magic lamp, could possibly plan to grant the wildly disparate heart-desires of half a dozen near-randomly selected Elites --even only to put them on the path to doing so themselves-- would normally be answered with 'empty confidence', or 'she doesn't', under any other circumstance. Yet, it somehow feels merely inevitable, when after a lull in always-inconsistent contact, Marc Heller is the first to simply wake up one unassuming day and receive the call, delivered through roundabout means culminating in a literal physical messenger.     That he, who wishes to meet someone who may not even be stringly alive, disappeared from the world in a way that precludes ever being perceived by humans, is being answered first in the ostensibly readied string, may mean nothing much, or may mean a lot.     It's largely his prerogative who else to inform, though word of it escapes like steam into the cracks of where messengers meet and services are hired to send unusual signals. It is not, strictly, difficult to be swept up in random, localized hearsay. But it'd be very unusual to be here by accident, as the place Marc (and any he wishes to bring) has been guided to is one of a recurring theme, that the Gevurah seems to find with a certain kind of ease, despite-- by warpgate mapping-- persistently existing around the fragmented, shifting orbit of the Soft Expanse, on the precipice between drifting into a loose edge of the Superplanet and finding purchase, and disappearing into the silvery void forever.     What the ruins of a castle have to do with anything is enigmatic bordering onquestionable, but it's the grounds on which he is told to arrive. Rain-washed, slate grey walls and towers, patterned with orange and emerald moss, twice as steep as is realistic and thrice as baroquely buttressed and ornamented as is needed, look straight out of a storybook, and cast such long shadows in already thick white fog that it feels nothing less than chilly even at what must be high noon. Despite the odd call of a bird or rustle of sparse overgrowth, it feels hauntingly silent; the air, slightly too heavy, as if it could press down on his shoulders and hold his boots into the saturated earth.     The subtle vibration in your bones. The way you suddenly notice your own inaudible footsteps. It feels like there's a really loud sound, but you can't hear it.     Evehime herself would almost blend in as some mysterious statue or monument in the yard past the open(ed?) portcullis, were her singular presence not palpable as something separate and apart from whatever other thing fills this place with silently droning weight and tension. She reacts no differently according to the number of people, as if she had any idea of who and how many would be coming. She even skips customary greeting entirely, merely motioning for Marc and all to follow, and turning towards the desolate trek between the outer wall and the inner keep, and saying, rather than asking, "Tell me your thoughts on the old koan, of one hand clapping. Once you have said it, keep it in your mind as we traverse the gate." A moment later, comes "And do not step from the path, or you will surely never be found again."
Ishirou	Ishirou came because he wanted to understand.  Ishirou is always attempting to understand, though his primary gates through this are reason and logic, as opposed to a deeper understanding or a spiritual philosophy.  Though... even these paradigms can change.  Especially as his current one, trying to throw things into a microscope and learn them, or make it so they /can/ be learned, is failing.   Horrifically. Ishirou walks to the castle, inside to the spot where they would meet.  Something about the place sends a chill down his spine.  It forces him to shiver and draw into his hoddie more.  Right now the boy is wearing a hoodie that does a very good job of covering himself up, gloves that cover his hands, and jeans with boots that cover the rest of his skin.  POD hovers nearby.   He realizes that it isn't cold but something else.  A feeling?  The silence feels just slightly odd, and the sound seems perceptible to even him which makes it... even stranger.  Again, once more, the area around Evehime refuses to be understood in a way he can grasp.  He isn't sure how he feels about this.   The command seems... nonsensical.   The sound of one hand clapping is silence, isn't it..?  Sure /SOME/ people can make that weird flapping sound, but they're missing the point of the question... not that he understands it better himself, because he thinks there should be an answer instead of one open to interpretation.  He takes a breath and settles on an answer. "It just seems nonsensical.  Some people can make that strange flappy sound with one hand, or no sound at all, right?  So... I just think the question itself is flawed." Good job Ishirou.  You missed the point.
Remee Halcyon	Remee's had a rough couple of days. Getting back into normal missions, however unusual they may or may not be, is honestly a relief. Ideally she won't run into anyone who's particularly upset to see her, but she's still willing to risk that - Hibiki made it clear that hiding in safehouses all day every day isn't going to make things any better. And for this particular mission, whether Marc makes it known or word just makes its way to her, she's particularly invested - she has a stake of her own. A wish she wants fulfilled, one she's willing to suffer defeat for, as Evehime had originally said. And even if not, Marc's wish is interestingly difficult enough that she just *has* to see how it goes. Wishes, and the stories they cause, are part of her particular interest and heritage. ... Though, on showing up, she's immediately alert. Not because of anyone who happens to be there, despite expectations... she's on alert because of something her non-mundane senses are picking up on. "Wait, this is..." She jams a hand into her gear bag so fast that she cuts it on one of the knives there, and yanks out a fingerprint-locked reading tablet. Ignoring the blood dripping down the back of her hand, she unlocks it and starts quickly tapping away at it - glancing off into the distance to confirm whatever she's looking up. When she reaches a conclusion, she frowns to herself, and only then does she approach. "Miss Gevurah... are you sure about going in through there? I can't match it up with my research yet, but... I really don't have a good feeling about whatever's past that gate." She says this with the tone of voice indicating that she's not really expecting to be able to warn Evehime off in a million years, but still has to say it out of obligation. "One hand clapping is technically impossible. You need two hands. But supposing you have one hand managing to clap regardless of impossibility, it'd make half a sound - like... the square root of a negative number. Not like an actual sound at half volume, but half a sound cut in a way that doesn't make sense. And - and if you had a second single hand clapping, and brought them together, then together they'd make one whole sound."
Angela	Tennant ... well, Tennant is here to do their best. They are the Captain (by virtue of being the only active team member at present) of the Records Team, ie: Hokma's Team. They are an enby with short black hair carrying the gear of Der Freischutz. With Tennant is Justin Rook, wielding One Sin but wearing the EGO Armor of the Army in Pink. Only tough agents are being sent on this mission due to a lack of information and also a suspicion of high danger. Their purpose is to assist with local forces and learn more about the situation. "So the funny thing is, everybody looking for the Wish gets what they're looking for in the end without even using the Wish. I mean, they more or less say that up front. But the one who is an asshole doesn't get his wish." Tennant is saying. "Uh-huh. What about the guy who wanted to live forever so he could still be a hero?" Rook responds non-committingly. "Well, he doesn't live forever, but he still gets to be a hero. But the thieves get to keep their found family, the one looking for someone they can trust is able to find someone they can rely on. The one who didn't have a wish gets what he wants and realizes that immediately in finding his own found family." Rook slows to a stop. "Gebura, we're here." "Understood." Gebura says. "Don't shake the boat until we learn more." "I think the moral of the film is that everything we want can be in our reach--and maybe already is in our hands--and that while oblivion may be inevitable it's still on us to make the most of that life because nobody escapes Death." "Not even the cgi cat from the farting troll movie? Damn. Anyway, the sound of one hand clapping is silence." "I think it's woosh." Tennant says and says 'woosh' a few more times to keep it in their mind as directed.
Kukuru	How Kukuru gets here isn't particularly important. She's the sort to just show up at a designated time, after all, whether it's by sheer chance or completely intentional. She's even dressed in her usual comfortable but semi-formal outfit for the first time in a while, too, having had time to actually prepare ahead of time to get all manner of edible things prepared for everyone in anticipation of whatever Evehime might have planned for today. That's not completely true. Some of it is also to just have stuff to give her in case she wants to bring anything home as a personal treat. As usual, though, it looks like Kukuru's showing up empty-handed, just happy to be there among friends while she waves an arm high in the air in greeting. The somewhat desolate atmosphere around the ruined castle doesn't appear to bother her at all, and it even seems to be distracting her slightly for the first few moments before she remembers to continue her greeting. "He-llo, Evie! Hi, everyone~ Let's see... One hand clapping! Like this?" Kukuru raises her hand, and she starts tapping her fingers against her cheek near her mouth gently. It's a gentle noise that's far from anything resembling a clap or even a slap, and more like a patting noise than anything else. Committing that sound to memory, Kukuru only then realizes she misinterpreted the direction entirely, but she answers without missing a beat. "I didn't know there was a story about doing this. One hand clapping..." She keeps repeating that to herself, growing only more confused as Rook starts talking about a movie that may or may not actually be related. "Is it about... More than just making the sound?"
Redshift Operators	A nearby ninja steps along the path, regarding the castle surroundings. Was she and the other Redshifts invited? It depends, but likely not. Did she attend anyway, through monitoring of Evehime, an individual to whom stealth is more of a philosophical abstraction than a practical day-to-day concern? Undoubtedly. "You can express that old koan through many ways, but it is most often expressed in the phrasing: 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?'"     She chuckles, and raises her cybernetic arm, looking at the front and back of the odd hand and its weird mechanical grasper, not bothering with a disguise for it today. "If you'd spoken to me on that only a few years earlier, I'm sure my answer would have been far less wise. I would have told you about the demon that exists within the arm, or spoken about the *artistry* produced by one hand. But instead, now, I offer another thought: What is the *difference* between the sound of one hand clapping, and the same hand clapping?" She makes the odd flappy noise Ishirou's talking about, by causing her hand to rapidly mechanically split down the middle, and re-unify. It looks positively gross.     "In less indirect ways, what is expressed through change, and does it express oneness? When the hand is altered, when the hand is replaced, when a hand is changed even slightly by the tiny alterations of a day-to-day motion? Or, perhaps more relevantly," She clenches her hand with a sudden whir, and motors roil within. "When you clap a second time, is it the same sound as the first? Is that the sound of one hand, two, four, or an untold number? Can you hear the sound of one hand clapping again?"     "You had a thread at the start and then you went nuts. Total whackjob-posting." Her gruff companion mutters. "What happened to this castle? Big fan of anything that kills whatever nobility was here, but I'm betting it didn't leave a ton left, if this place wound up in the Soft Expanse." "And what is it you think one hand clapping sounds like?" "Gunshot." "Hah. Typical. I hope you do not change." "Sure. If I don't, you can hear that same-hand stuff."     The giant and the astronaut wander behind. The titanic slasher-villain-looking fellow near the back stares at one of his big gauntlets. He's trying to close it, quickly, over and over. It softly makes the worst mechanical wailing sound you've ever heard machinery make, in short bursts, over and over. He seems lost in thought about it.
Ishirou	Ishirou pats the slasher-villain-looking fellow on the back. "I can't do that either.." he says, empathetically.
Persephone Kore	From: mheller@sapheu.org [...] A technique that brings people together in novel ways, the knowledge of a new kind of touch, can't be bad. How accessible or generalizable it might be, I can't say. But, the Gevurah permitting, I should be happy for any of you to join me. Meet me at [...] Regards, Mr. Marcus Heller Resident JN Practitioner, Sapient Heuristics      That job title totally sounds made-up.      Marc dresses his best for the occasion, which is to say he looks exactly the same as he always looks: a tall, pale, frosty-blonde man who could fit in at a snotty boarding school despite being in his late twenties. Button-up shirt, sweatervest, khakis, the works. He has none of Phony's smooth ease and none of her aura either.      "Evening, everyone I appreciate your company. It's quite the venue, isn't it?" he says, as his hike intersects with others. The way his eyes linger on the moss and small details of the stone, the little smile they conjure onto his face- those things hint he's not quite as above it as you'd guess. "I'm grateful to her for it. Castles are dreadful things in their time, I suppose, but they've only meant good to me."      Gevurah, he senses, isn't one for small talk. He acknowledges her with a respectful inclination of his head as he passes beneath the portcullis, then turns the question over. Fidgeting with a cufflink disinterestedly helps his concentration, but he's soon distracted from that pursuit, and looks up at Ishirou with a furrowed brow.      "Ishirou, the circumstances of your life haven't allowed for much engagement with the humanities, have they? I can't recommend them highly enough." He pats the poor boy on the shoulder. Then he looks up to Gevurah: "Its meaning is a technique to empty the mind. No-sound is a sound; no-thought is a thought."      Barely looking, he hands Remee a handkerchief from his breast pocket for the blood, and then follows Gevurah.
Remee Halcyon	Remee looks at the handkerchief, confused, then goes to wipe her face clean with it and put it into her pocket to be cleaned before returning it to Marc later. "Thank you, must have missed something when I was cleaning up from lunch." Her hand is still dripping a bit of blood.
Persephone Kore	Marc halfway turns to look back at Remee and presses his lips together like he's about to say something. He's struggling. His life is so hard.      "Don't mention it," he says, suffering. "Keep it."
Ishirou	Ishirou looks up at Marc as his hand touches his shoulder. Thankfully, he's not jumpy right now... despite certain arrivals. "Humanities...? Oh you mean like the academic course? I... guess I haven't. Not that Indus' culture is very good or advanced."
Kukuru	"It's a really big place, mhm!" Kukuru replies to Marc and waves lazily in greeting, humming softly as she taps her cheek once more. After finally lowering her hand, she looks back over at the ruins and covers her mouth to barely mask a light yawn. "Places like these can be pretty depressing for what they're used for sometimes, but... There's a lot of nice spots to nap all over, you know? The big towers, in the rafters, those little gaps between the..." She furrows her brow, then looks over at the ruins. "You know... Those little gaps in the high spots where you can look down from? Wedging yourself into one of those can be pretty comfy, too."
Angela	"Anyway," Rook says. "t seems pretty basic to me. Classic Appreciate What You Have, Live Your Life To The Fullest story." "It's more than that!" Tennant frowns, crossing their arms. "If you'd seen the original Puss in Boots then you'd KNOW he's still hurting over he loss of Humpty Dumpty--BASICALLY a story about trying to steal from a Literal Nest with Actual Wings--portrayed by the Golden Geese--protecting it--and is fleeing from both mortality and commitment. It's a multi-film epic!" They look to Marc. "You get what I mean, right?"
Nephra Tangent	It's daunting to stare earnest hopes and wishes in the face, and so, despite the effort to put an ear out for rumors and whispers of whenever that wish-granting woman would show back up (a significantly lower effort barrier than regularly checking her email, which, thanks to Marc, proved to somehow be the way she caught wind), and despite the effort to actually show up, she's decided to lean on a crutch, as she does with many things: alcohol.     She's red-cheeked by the time she shows up, even if the effects of it are quickly chipped away at by her implants, but the smell of cheap liquor lingers on her, and she's actively still holding a bottle of it, in clear disrespect. Her condition, beyond just the intoxication, is rough and frayed, still- there's little rest to be had bouncing between Watch-affiliated safehouses and the handful of other places she's been scrambling to, and the liquor does little to hide the present and timid fear in her eyes, as she looks between the other attendees, and keeps herself slightly distant.     She's not quite sure if it's been nine, ten, eleven, or any sort of other number of days, since seeing the familiar Paladin, at the chaotic invasion of Aegis Astray, but however many is likely too few for Ishirou to be back on Nephra's radar, and she'd certainly guess the mirror was true too.     Obviously, that means Nephra breaks out of the sloppy timidness to greet him with an exaggeratedly cheerful wave of the hand she's actively holding the neck of a half-empty liquor bottle in. "Fancy seeing *you*, huh, Ishirou? How's the neck feeling?" Her free hand tugs at the collar of her jacket, with a small giggle chasing close behind the gesture.     Her gait is steady, despite as awkward and stumbly the way her limbs move, footsteps just a smidge heavier than her boots ought to land on damp soil and rain-stained stone.     "This someone's house?" Her head cocks to the side as she stares up at the castle's towers, piercing out of the grey haze. "Doesn't look real cozy, y'know." Her words finish off with a quick swig, and ensuing wince.     Arms swing loosely as she walks, and, seeing Marc clap Ishirou on the back, she, too, steps up to do the same, hoping for a second the quietness of the air will help her be sneaky, and forgetting for that same second that Ishirou can't really be snuck up on. Her gloved hand delivers a hearty smack, and she breaks out into a fit of giggles-     "That's gotta be it, yeah? Clapping with one hand! How's that for nonsensical, hm!~"
Evehime Gevurah	"I enjoy the koans." says a woman who could only have learned of them not long ago and who also seldom expresses joy well. "I have said 'tell me your thoughts' and not 'tell me the answer' because they have none by design. Contemplating one is enough to realize that the experience of contemplation is the koan." This would explain why she has no response to any of them in particular. A forward-facing look of passive amusement at Ishirou, perhaps. A level hum at Remee. A deeper silence while distantly absorbing Tenant ramble about movies than their answer. Strangely unexpected contentment, in a quiet way, at White Dwarf's chaotic ramble. A glance back at Nephra's random assault on Ishirou. She continues when Marc gives his answer, however.     "Consider that it contains no conventional sense, inherently. That it is illogical and unanswerable. Yet, the question can be constructed, and conveyed, in a way that is understood, and seems, intuitively, that it must be answerable." she says, trudging through the overgrown fields in silence, though it slowly dawns that it is her footsteps alone that overcome the deafening, ambient hum your brains refuse to interpret. "This is an example of the human capabity to understand that which cannot exist, and to convey to others a thought which cannot be made sense of. The foundation stones of this koan are 'experience'. You know of the action 'clapping', in a way that is separate of hands and motions and base physical law. You struggle with the realization that you grasp an 'essence of clapping' that you cannot articulate. So you contemplate."     Evehime stops before the inner keep. Its gate has long ago been breached by force, twisted from its foundations and wrenched far enough to rust in the rain unsheltered by its alcove. She finishes the job by grasping the corner crossbars of the hundred ton gate and peeling it away like so much thunderously tearing tinfoil, shaking dust and verdigris loose, then tossing it aside. It near-vanishes into the misty distance, and lands with a faraway thud and cloud of soil that seems almost picturesque. "This is good. And this is what you will need."     Passing beyond, the ground sharply levels, stripped bare of living things. The inside walls of the keep circle are bleached as they might be blackened by fire. The keep itself, where it should be at the center, is clearly nowhere to be found, given its lack of looming silhouette in the fog. She proceeds anyways, sandals crunching a thin layer of petrified sand underfoot. "I am certain." she says to Remee. "You have instincts. Even a vestige of sense. You feel unease, because there is nothing good ahead of you. What you lack is 'faith'; the sight to see beyond 'nothing good'." Near to the center, she stops, only briefly, to answer Red Dwarf, simply.     "A war fought over the greatest koan of all. But if I must be more specific, then it was The Unconquered Night."
Evehime Gevurah	As if on cue, a cold, anaemic breeze blows through the blasted clearing. The fog parts reluctantly, pulled aside on rusted curtain rails. Beyond it, not far enough to feel safe, the air splits in a thin, uneven, vertical line. Deep blackness is drawn down from above you to six inches from earth, without quite touching. Like a shuddering marker scrawl on reality. Though ostensibly two-dimensional, its shaky contours stay constant regardless of which angle you view it from. The circle of sand just beneath it is choked with crawling roots, enmeshed without source or terminus. Purple ash and inky black, they squirm restlessly, bulging with mismatched eyes that lock on you with unwholesome unison.     Evehime scarcely notics them. It seems less like brave disdain, and more like simple familiarity. Which says something else.     "I repeat. Step not from the path." Evehime says, significant for the fact that she does, in fact, very seldom repeat herself at all. "The path we travel is one made possible by human enlightenment, but to venture from it will doom you to nothing less than an eternity of drifting through the void. You will wish for death before long, and not receive it. I will not retrieve you. It is likely no one will find you. Do not be eager to disobey me."     With that, Evehime approaches the squirming slash, and thrusts her fingers through the vantablack wound in the air, curling and gripping, pulling and peeling. The effort is completely different than the gate; slow and methodical, the sound of her breathing disappears, and not a muscle twitches from the uncanny-smooth motion. The split yawns wider and wider, tearing apart with the sickly wet ripping sound of a scabbed wound tearing open. The eyes beneath her feet quiver and bulge, pupils dilating wildly. It takes seconds to notice her fingers phase through the other side, gripping nothing tangible at all.     A final yank peels apart the gash in materiality just wide enough to step through two by two. The view through it is no less pitch dark, notable only for two things: the lukewarm un-cold that saps the warmth from your skin just by being near it, without feeling a chill, and the spindle gleam of a long, unbroken path through it; the facade of a great marble bridge, coated with a layer of steel-grey glass, broken up only by sparsely placed spires of fragile silver, their tips casting downward pools of soft illumination, like pools of lamplight.     "Now. Tell me your thoughts of the 'original face'. Without good and evil, before your mother and father."
Persephone Kore	"There's lots of nice spots to nap all over, you know?"      Marc glances up at those high spots, looks genuinely thoughtful for a moment, then nods. "Especially those with the orange moss, I'd say, to soften the stone. It's a quiet place, and cool, and the height gives a sense of safety and 'domain', doesn't it? You're very observant, Kukuru."      He looks down from the high tower to meet her eyes, and smiles in that dignified, proper way of his. "It's good to have you here, Kukuru. I've come to feel that something's missing when you aren't around." And then he offers her his arm, as they continue to walk towards the keep.      "Hm?" he says to Tennant, partway through. "An English film, is it? No, I'm afraid I've been rather sheltered." For a moment it seems like he must not have been paying any attention at all. But then his eyes wander to the misty sky, and he rubs the back of his neck and breathes, and says:      "'One needn't wish for the impossible, because what one desires is already in one's grasp', may be a fine moral for some. But it forsakes those who do truly wish for the impossible- such as, perhaps, an end to Death. And to me those are the people who least ought to be forsaken. When put like that, doesn't it seem perverse to you too?"
Evehime Gevurah	Uncommonly, Evehime waits a moment, to say "There are words to be said, about greed and understanding. The misplaced desire to claim more when one neither comprehends nor appreciates the value of what they possess already. It is a plague amongst the humanities of these worlds, I know, to overlook value beyond plain sight, and hurry to add to it."     "But mortality is no such beautiful thing. It is no bitterly gilded possession. It is a wrong we understand from the moment we are born. Despairing of the challenge is the weakness of those who have much while understanding little of it. Seeing it for what it is, is often the gift of those who have contemplated much, and understood that they have nothing."
Remee Halcyon	"The sight to see beyond 'nothing good'..." repeats Remee, not sure she understands to any degree that matters. The warning about the path is taken seriously, and probably Remee can picture it most vividly of all here, having had a few close encounters with the question of 'what happens to a quasi-immortal who gets vented out into space'. (The answer is 'ends up getting pulled into the sun, if she's lucky'.) Remee shivers once she's through. "Nephra, make sure you don't stray from the path," she says. "Like, not even as a prank, okay?" "The original face? I don't..." Remee frowns. "I'm not sure I understand. Good and evil have always existed in some form, right? At least from the moment there was conscious thought and the ability for people to make a knowing choice between right and wrong." "I think my whole family were evil, honestly, no matter how far back you go from my mother and father. So... I don't know. I don't know if I have an answer, but those are my thoughts..." She takes a moment to observe the rest of the plane. "Miss Gevurah, we're... slipping through the cracks, aren't we? This isn't our destination, this feels like... a back alleyway. A shortcut. Or a gap between walls."
Ishirou	Ishirou goes from relaxed to jumpy the moment Nephra makes herself known.  Remee makes him uneasy, but not afraid she's going to stab him in the back.  They have an understanding... and a deal.  Nephra and Ishirou do /not/.  He turns away from her when she says anything and tries to ignore her.  He's clearly on edge... He also /should/ see her coming for the slap.  He does, those who can read his thoughts easily know he saw her coming, and know he could have avoided her.  He chose not to.   'Humans don't have eyes on the back of their heads,' is the persuasive thought in his head.  He sometimes acts as he thinks humans should, not how 'Ishirou' should.  Despite everything he's done to himself, he still wants that.   The slap hits, causing the 'clap' she is looking for and Ishirou stumbles forward through the castle glaring at Nephra.  "Leave me alone," he says, miserably to her.  Though he pauses at that and sniffs.  Alcohol?  "Are you drunk?" he asks, suspicious of the reasoning why.  This was an important thing for Marc, and she was here /drunk/.  He doesn't say anything but he's unsept.   Though he probably jumps /more/ at the eyes that open up.  He doesn't understand this, so he's immediately trying to analyze the eyes, the feeling coming from outside of the path.  Evehime said we shouldn't leave the path, but not attempt to understand what exists outside of it... though he does walk with them, not desiring to be either left behind or drawn out into the darkness.   "...I... haven't heard of this before, Evehime.  What is 'original face'?" he asks, clearly at a loss for what it could mean.  Without good and evil?  Before mother and father?  Not that he had a mother... Looking up from this he looks at the movie buff, "I think I agree with Marc.  Just because something is impossible doesn't make it inherently worthless to chase."
Redshift Operators	The gunman emits a short, nervous "hah..." He grits his teeth and gets an extra step back from the mists. "I spend all my time in outer space. I know to listen when an expert says to stay inside the lines, and when not to." He says. And he's the one who speaks up. "Original face. That's the one, the 'un-expression' kind of expression, right? The one about, the original face you had before your mom and dad were even born." He crosses his arms and squints all his optics at Evehime, uneasy about her space-wrestling. He's fought her before, but this just seems like a vaguely out-of-scope problem to look at.     "Foundational truths in your guts, right? Before I was born, before good and evil were even words anyone had. Well, I know that. I've done manifestos about it, lady. You want my *whole* manifesto?"     "The Original Face is rightness. It's the truths that have the lasting power after you blast everything else away. When there's no more big hard-choice good or fancy violent evil. Once you get rid of all the excuses for shifting how you are, you settle into your original face. No presumptions, no pride, just you and your deep-layer facts, until something muddies it all up again."     When he steps through, leading the Redshifts, he does it cautiously. Even moreso than the giant, who has to scoot through sideways due to his prodigious size in every axis.
Evehime Gevurah	The eyeballs in the ground are, unpleasantly, eyes. Their anatomy checks out, though there are scores of different creatures represented. Their blood vessels and nerves are wired into the roots. The mundanity of the answer is almost worse than scanning magic. "If you were to tear a hole through a net, it would have fewer holes than before." Evehime says to Remee. "The place we will go to is one of those gaps that was erased by the tearing of 'thread and hole' around it." She steps through herself. "This, too, is paradoxical. Consider it."     "Your original face. The expression you make when influenced by nothing. Not the blood of your ancestry nor the alchemy of your body, nor knowledge of good or knowledge of evil, peaceful or wrathful thought; an expression that you would make in liberating ignorance of all things." Her stare lingers briefly on Red Dwarf. "This is good." She probably means it about both things he says. "You are perhaps too perceptive for writing 'manifesto'. Spending words lavishly is to assist in defining a shape one sees poorly."     A thought passes through the air before she says it. "And do not push one another from the path, as well. This is one thing I will not tolerate, as it interferes with the pupil's learning."
Persephone Kore	"Leave me alone."      Marc sees Ishirou stumble from the corner of his eye. His hand grabs Ishirou's, helping him straighten back up, and squeezes (comfortingly) once before letting go. "Behave," he says to Nephra, though he only catches her eye for a second before looking forward again. "This is something solemn."      Marc's back straightens subtly when he sees the cut in space. His upper lip curls when he gets closer and spies the roots. He draws in a sharp little breath through his nose, and can't tear his eyes away, when the cut is pulled open- awe restrained only by knowing that now isn't the time to gush.      "Step not from the path," he repeats in firm understanding, before stepping through with Kukuru.      "My original face," he says, while his eyes wander the infinite black to one side. The sincerity and weight he gives it makes it hard to tell whether he's ever heard the concept before. His face draws tighter in focus. "You are asking... if there's an essence to a person that pre-exists everything about them."      He struggles in silence for several seconds longer before turning his eyes back to the path. "I don't know whether there is such a thing, Evehime. Will you educate me?"
Remee Halcyon	Remee takes the clarification from Evehime. "... I think..." "... I'm having a hard time picturing it, honestly. What I'd be like without the sum of my influences. What my original face would be like." "I'd like to hope I'd still turn out good. But I'd probably just... live a quiet life somewhere. Be a park ranger, not aspire to much." She rubs her face (current present literal, not original). "Still harder than that clapping one, I think..."
Angela	"Well," Gebura says as Marc and Evehime speak their peace on The Last Wish. "You gonna just listen to them stomp on your favorite movie like that, Tennant?" "It's not my ''favorite'' movie, I just think it is well made and has interesting things to say about mantaining joy amidst the--" "I mean, we essentially are Deathless under most circumstances. It's been a lot of loops by the sound of it." Gebura adds. Tennant goes quiet for a moment as she listens to Evehime. Tennant pulls their coat closer to their body. They do not stray from the path--they have been instructed to obey instructions and neither are inclined to test the rules outside of the one who seems to know what they are talking about and is giving them the rules on how to not die. The original face? "Mm... If we see the original face as a template, the one where all faces came from--or perhaps, as a kind of creator being...We could see that the evil and the good sprung out from those that sprung from that template. Cruelty, but all that is good with it." Rook grips Penitence tightly. It's maybe telling that a certain EGO Weapon helps inform his feelings on the words. "Mm. If it's without good and evil though, perhaps it is like--copying a VCR Tape? Errors are bound to crop up. But maybe there's a kind of beauty in that?" That's Tennant for you. They look to Marc first, reflecting on his words regarding the moral of Puss in Boots The Last Wish. They mull on it, stroking her chin with a finger. "Sheltered from movies? Mm... Well when put like that, sure... But in a world where everyone receives their most fervant wishes--even the impossible ones--would they not neccessarily conflict with one another?" They turn to look at Evehime. "Do you...mm... Do you have something, then? By which I mean--have you beaten Death when you dueled 'em?" Tennant seems intrigued by people actually engaging the ideas of the film and is starting to get excited. They give a small nod to Ishirou, mulling on the rest.
Ishirou	Ishirou is very thankful for Marc's save.  He stumbles and is held up, mostly using Marc to correct his footing.  Looking relieved, he smiles nervously at him.  "T-thanks Marc.." he says, brushing himself off.   Staring into the eyes and roots and looking at what they are is somehow worse now that he knows how mundane they are.  He shuts off his extra senses and looks up.  They aren't real eyes looking at him if he just ignores them.  Thankfully, Evehime saves him from this to put his self-torture back on track.   "I... see.." Ishirou says in response to both the Gunman and Evehime.  The truth is that he doesn't get it.  The him that is a him before the world forces him to be..?  Is there such a thing..?  Is it who he was as a human?  But then didn't they have an original face..?  Is that face him..?  No... that would be what makes up his current original face, right..? Then what is it..? "I... don't know..." he finally says.  He's never known, he's coming to realize, despite all that he's said.
Kukuru	Following Marc's gaze up to the mossy spots, Kukuru giggles softly and nods, already letting her thoughts wander a bit. "Mhm! They can be warm when it's too cold, cool when it's too hot, a little snack if they're not covered in white spots... There's a really nice one back home, if you or anyone else ever want to see it."  She offers with a lighter chuckle, taking on Marc's invitation and sliding her arm through his with a light squeeze. "Thanks for letting us come along, Marc~ Anything for family. Ah, that reminds me." Still beaming and slightly rosy cheeked, she brings out the snacks and starts distributing them to Marc, Evehime, and anyone else wants a refresher! Today's stuff is trail mix in long, thin pouches that are perfect for pouring down one's throat and chewing on a mess of peanuts, chocolate, raisins, bagel chip slivers, and small bits of pork cracklin. Also, water. "Just thoughts and not the answer..." Kukuru murmurs in something resembling thoughtful contemplation as she considers the matter of the clapping hand again. She clearly isn't the sort to have any kind of familiarity with such a story, but there is a thoughtful look forming on her face as she considers what the significance of such a gesture might even be. Evehime's reply to Marc has her stumped for a while, but things start to click together once the 'essence of clapping' is brought up instead of simply focusing on the action itself. It's not enough to come up with something tangible yet, and the words 'original face' just stump Kukuru even further, but considering the essence of clamping and this new term keeps them both fresh in her mind as Evehime starts talking about greed, wanting more without understanding value. That actually has Kukuru's gaze turning more severe, more thoughtful as she scrunches up her brow, not out of anger, but out of generalized discomfort as more thoughts start to flow together. "Or wanting everyone without really... Providing for anyone's happiness. Or just... Making things worse without understanding how it happened. Or trying to." With a somewhat more somber tone once Evehime gives more context to the term, she considers her next reply far more carefully than the last one, all while being careful to stay on the path Evehime opens up for the group. Her arm stays firm around Marc, and she tries not to let his or anyone else's answers cloud her own thoughts on the concept. "That's a tricky one... If I'm not feeling happy or sad, I'm still usually smiling because it's easier. But for something like... Uh. Not knowing about things you already know about, or not having thoughts that make you upset or calm... Can that happen?" It can. She's seen the Abnormalities. She's seen things that might not have even known right from wrong before her insistence on the matter. She's seen animals. What kind of original face could they have? "I think... Oh. Maybe we do have one. When... We're sleeping!" Kukuru concludes, smiling softly again as she taps her free hand against her cheek. "If we're not dreaming and just dozing, then that natural look is pretty normal. I like it."
Nephra Tangent	'Leave me alone.' 'Behave,'     Her forgery of a smile falters for a moment, and her slapping hand is quickly shoved down into one of her transparent pockets. "Ain't on business, Ishirou. Haha. Take it easy, or something. I don't know." A moment after Marc's face is once more turned away, her tongue is stuck out at him, a faint 'Mmnh!' noise returned. 'Are you drunk?'     "Haha. Sober as a fish." She lies, taking another swig. "Why? You want some?" The bottle is outstretched his way. She wags it, the liquid sloshing in the pendulum motion. It's thoroughly, thoroughly uninviting. Taken or not, once returned, with a quiet, totally-not-apologetic hesitance, she steps away and proceeds to leave Ishirou alone. '...and the height gives a sense of safety and 'domain', doesn't it?'     It's not a question thrown her way, but Nephra mumbles out a reply to Marc's overheard statement. "..What safety? Doesn't seem that safe, up there. It's real high, rock's slippery.." a sigh slips out, and she starts to follow as the group sets off.     As dispassioned as disinterested as she usually holds her face's expressions, Nephra's control over it is faltering, ever so slightly, and she catches herself staring up at the old masonry, the roiling clouds above, and peaceful fields. Oldness is a feeling not very welcome in her usual haunts, and if she had skin on the back of her spine instead of metal, it'd prickle from the pervasive and tangible feeling of history.     Watching the openeing be forcibly revealed is another matter, though, her own pupil dilating in tandem with the ones rooted in the sandy ground, and her mouth ever so slightly agape. "...Huh." 'Like, not even as a prank, okay?'     "Okay, mom. It's not like I was going to. I'll be good." Her eye doesn't roll, though- it fixes on the silver-lit bridge, and the inky nothing around it, her arms shivering. Can't die out there, or something? All that nobody and nothing? Well, that's... Her thoughts drift off, first as the 'no pushing' clarification rings out, and even more so as Evehime's question is posed, leaving Nephra chewing at her lip, and thinking.     "Think it'd probably be less busted up. Haha." Her half-answer slips out, one arm loose at her side, barely keeping grip of the bottle, and the other shrugging her jacket closer around her, as if it'd do anything about the warmth-sucking emenating outwards. "That's a weird question. It's not like... what it's supposed to have been like, or whatever, right? Or.." A little shrug. "Why's an original one even matter? The one you've got is the one you get."
Evehime Gevurah	For all its spiritual significance and terrible implication, walking along the bridge through nothingness is stressfully uneventful. The inaudibly deafening hum is all around you, clogging your ears and drowning your thoughts with its constant, meaningless nothing. Having concrete thoughts about anything feels measurably more difficult, like trying to have a conversation while paying attention to another one at the same time.     Your footfalls are silent, yet you can hear their echo, despite the lack of anything to bounce from. You perceive the flow of light and dark as you pass under lonely lamps, but the space between them is not particularly harder to see in. Though the space all around you is empty and infinite, the road twists and turns in places, sometimes slow and gentle, other times in seemingly pointless, time-consuming zigzags.     "There is, in any given moment, but this is unimportant." Evehime says to Marc along the way, conversational in a sense, but largely for the otherwise oppressive mental tax of the journey. "Good and evil are duality. Mother and father are duality. Peace and wrath are duality. So too, are 'mind' and 'body'. 'Pure thought' and 'chemical impulse', as other traditions allude."     "Your original face is your original nonduality. Yourself without an opposite. As a mirror perfectly unclouded can show you nothing but your own face, so is the impossible paradox of to be 'you' and in a moment of 'absence of thought'. Consider what it is to 'look at a flower', and also what it is for 'the flower to be looked at', as duality. And yet, you intuit, accept, and understand, 'the flower looks' when describing its aspects. This indicates that subject and object are not a pair. They are unnecessary to consider as a duality, as something may show an aspect without that aspect being beheld."     "I have thought on the matter of 'Emery', and concluded that this thinking prevents you from perceiving them. I would even think that it was their wish to escape exactly thus. This place will help you understand what might otherwise take a lifetime."     Evehime pauses.     "I know this, because I did much the same, when seeking to master 'martial art'."     As something comes up on the 'horizon', Evehime says "This is also good." to Ishirou. "You have done poorly in pursuing the the exaltation of Wisdom you promised me. Accepting that you have no answer to a paradox is a necessary step to take, before contemplating one regardless." She says to Nephra, "This is not. There is hubris in believing your face is one that you choose, for it makes you 'subject', but so is there greed in believing your face is one that you are awarded, for it makes you 'object'."     The arrival at your obvious destination is gut-churningly inexorable. Though it signifies the end of a journey, and the completion of intent, the fact that there is no possible purpose in doing anything but walking the one and only line towards it feels, somehow, identical to it drawing you in without your volition; more inevitable than falling in gravity.
Evehime Gevurah	As one might expect on a long travel route, you arrive at a wayhouse, of sorts. A building, constructed by human hands, attached to a bridge over infinity as if quaintly built by the road. Though a mere three storeys, it feels somehow towering nonetheless, given a lack of comparison. Its stark white stone and gunmetal glass architecture is somehow reminiscent of the castle built near the entrance to the way, but clearly built with far more refined technique, and more difficult to work materials. Entire walls are tinted-transparent like panoramic windows. Bone white pillars elegantly fork in double fractals to support tiers above with the same amount of material. Soft, colourless lights glow in its corners and recesses.     As you draw near it, you feel the silent humming abate, and tangible warmth seep into your flesh. You notice something that feels like your breathing restarting, though certainly you must have had air the whole way here, if you're still alive.     The doors here, too, are broken down. Without dust to settle, it's difficult to feel that it really is an old ruin, but it must be so, for the odd streaks of blood marring the surfaces inside are old stains in the stone. Entering in, you'd guess from the ground floor that it used to be some kind of lodge, relete with luxurious 'age of enlightenment' era goods of culturally difficult to place origin.     Thick curtains hang partially drawn, comfortable cushions are scattered around overturned tables, fallow planters fill corners, some spilled, some standing. Ornate lacquerware is broken and scattered here, artfully arranged there. Dividers torn and standing, create blind corners. Some hasty effort was made to fortify it with spare furniture and by breaking the stairs up, long ago. The damage is light, made without heavy force, but spread widely throughout. Blood, scraps of cloth, personal effects, but no bodies, and no bones. It somehow still smells faintly of smoke and spices, as if you might still find food somewhere. You hear running water.     "This was once a wayhouse of little significance, built by a people who were not my own. Such things were once common, when the the Unalloyed Roads were more commonly trod. If you care for its story, you will find it by exploring it. If you care to take from it, do so now. If you meet anything that moves, kill it." says Evehime, plainly.     "Marc. You will memorize every detail to the best of your ability. Every part of every room should be contained within your mind's eye as clearly as your limits allow. Do so not 'photographically', but by whatever mnemonic and shortcut and story will aid you in remembering." she says. "Others may join you. Extracting a 'true way things were' from the fogged mirrors of their memories will be equally illustrating."
Ishirou	Ishirou sighs at Nephra and looks a little... well not disgusted but unhappy.  It's not quite disappointment either, because it's not his place to judge her.  It just feels unpleasant to deal with her at this moment which is important for Marc.  Yet here he is helping him from not falling over.   "No thanks," he says dully to Nephra's offer.   Evehime speaks to him, and he shrinks slightly.  "Yeah.." he says, finally, "I thought I knew more than I did.  Or I thought I understood or..." he pauses, "Thought I could understand.  I thought I could turn everything I perceive into something that can be understood.  It just feels like I'm missing parts.." he says, sorrowfully.  So many things he seems to be missing. The feeling gets worse as they move on, for once it's the lack of thoughts forming that is the danger, rather than thinking too much.  There is a reprieve, though.   The house causes Ishirou's curiosity to spark.  Though it is for Marc, he feels drawn to the mystery.  To the desire to know the story.  "If you want I can probably help expand your senses, but I am not sure what they are.." he says, though he could PROBABLY force the issue, he doesn't.   If Marc does want access to his expanded senses, then an OPTION drone appears and hovers around Marc much like POD does for him.  Regardless, Ishirou pushes on, trying to memorize and search for the story too.
Remee Halcyon	"If others doing so will help, I'm glad to give it a shot..." Assisting Marc with his quest is Remee's main aim here - exploring and searching the secrets of this place would be nice, but not what she's here for. "Okay... memorizing every part of every room... in terms of story." "... There was... a fight here, perhaps. Or a siege. Something unexpected." Remee goes over to examine the spilled silverware, and then her nose wriggles. "Food. Were they making something? They were set up for a meal that never happened. Got interrupted." "..." Her eyes close, committing her version of events to memory - starting from what she sees at the end, and then building backwards from there. Why things ended up the way they are, even as conjecture, should help with remembering how things are *now*.
Redshift Operators	"Huh. Dialectics." "No."     The astronaut hasn't spoken up. They speak, at their own volume and timing, clearly but without an effort to speak over the others here. "It's not awarded and it's not chosen. It exists before everything else. Identity preceeds ideology, decisions, actions. The face exists before the choosing or awarding, it's what creates the motivations and achievements. But it's evasive because it tries to define itself through less abstract influences."     They stop for a moment, staring out into nothingness. "Confabulation. That's part of the core tenants of Verdant Texts, the idea of confabulation as an obstacle between your identity and your objectives, because it tries to complicate things with non-abstracted or sometimes abstracted dualities. Attempting to recognize it does take a lifetime. I don't think I've ever recognized it."     "I wonder what it would look like." They turn back to the destination. The little wayhouse of insignificant style. They approach. "Part of the exercise is Total Visualization. Imagining a right and true way for the world to be as an exercise in connecting with your identity through extrapolating an entire reality from it. So to do this right..." They tap the chin segment of their astronaut helmet. "It should be memorized as a state that comes from expanding your identity to encompass reality. It should be memorized as it would have been if there wasn't a distinction between you and the world. I think." They step forward through the shattered door.     "And that means the water shouldn't be left running."     The Redshifts join in, the largest of them choosing to go protect the most absent-minded. That astronaut will be focusing on the structure of the wayhouse as understood through the objectives being accomplished through its existence. What goals do its once-inhabitants express through what they left behind?
Kukuru	The lack of anything happening on the bridge gets on Kukuru's nerves fairly quickly. She's so used to hearing, smelling, seeing so much that such an uneventful walk with only that droning humming occupying her ears ends up being rather agitating even for someone as normally calm as her. She has Marc nearby to remind her not to step off the path, though, and it's easy enough to keep herself on track once she remembers that there's several others around that need a good example to follow! Never mind how exactly none of them would ever follow her lead, but it's enough to keep her focused throughout the excessively long walk. Evehime's words, too, are a welcome reprieve, and Kukuru considers the topic of the original face again with that same thoughtful, but utterly confused expression covering her face once more. "Without an opposite? Oh! So it's not something we can see ourselves, but other people can still see? And then they know what they're looking at, but we wouldn't..." No. It can't be that straightforward. "Mmn. This is really hard. But as long as Marc's still getting it, then...?" She looks over at Marc, as if to confirm that he does indeed get what Evehime is trying to show him. The temptation is strong to ask for the answer herself, but there's already more to consider the further they go. Thankfully, the humming stops, and Kukuru's able to look at the warehouse without further distractions. She seems to disapprove of the overall layout of its interior no matter how many times she glances around, but doesn't disturb anything right away when Evehime gives everyone the chance to go around and take or kill what they find. Instead, she listens. She hears the running water, and she lets that sound linger in her mind for several moments before letting go of Marc, giving his arm a gentle pat before pointing towards the sound. "I'm gonna go check on whatever's happening with that water. I'll try not to move too much stuff so it's not hard for you to remember it, okay?" After that, Kukuru starts heading towards the source of the running water sound with carefully long strides, relying on her great hearing to try and find it that way instead of just literally looking for it. Her movements are deliberately made to avoid knocking anything over, though, since it'd be rude to disturb something Marc's meant to memorize in some manner.
Angela	"You're strong, huh." Gebura says to Evehime. But Tennant and Rook quiet down considerably. They had their little discussion about movies but at the moment it seems that there's a job for Marc here. "Well you're the Record Team." Rook murmurs to Tennant, hanging back for now. Tennant has a solid memory, something that helps them in going on and on about details of movies about cgi cats and other such films at length. They take a look around the old ruin. The odd streaks of blood. Strangely ornate furniture despite the horror and destruction. It sort of makes Tenant think of Lobotomy Corp and so they tie their recollection to memories in Lobotomy Corp. A Mirror's world can provide reflection, they think, but taking something out of the mirror is... "Can still smell...spice? Water? No bodies. If they were going to rob this place I'm surprised the smaller items still linger. Feels like this was done a while ago." Rook adds. But Gebura focuses on EVehime, being here via a transmission device rather than actually present. "Why'd you take this job?" Gebura asks of her, curious about their guide.
Evehime Gevurah	"I am beyond 'strong'." Evehime says to Gebura, whose designation she miraculously does not know yet. "I have become 'strength', and then made 'strength' mine." It takes her a little longer to answer the question. Not out of difficult in finding one, it seems, but by being utterly unconcerned with the matter of time, and solely focused on the property of quality. "This is reversed. Marc is one who 'took mine'. Now, as all things are right in the world by my hand, I will pay him in what was promised. The granting of his heart's desire. That for which he would fight without hope of victory, without regret."     "These things are what gives a life its value, and your worlds are despicably poor in them."
Nephra Tangent	A twisting bridge over infinite nothing is somehow a little more comforting than the kind above highways and roaring rivers. Height is relative, and even if anything off the path is lost in horrific totality, the falsehood that 'what you can't see can't hurt you' feels like a blanket tugged over her head. Thoughtlessly, as her heartbeat pounds in her ears and up her nerves, contending with the ambient hum, she finds she's stopped to lean over the guardrail at the edge of the path.     She rests one hand on the bridge's barricade, her other reverses-grip on the now nearly empty bottle, spilling drops of its contents, splashing off her raincoat and scattering on the glassy surface underfoot. With a wide-swung overhand, Nephra rears back and pitches the glass bottle off the side. Abject curiosity, despite her lack of nearly any depth perception, pushes her to watch it fly as long as she can still make it out, or any other result of tossing something into nothing.     She stares out, and downwards, a little longer than one ought to, before pulling away to catch back up. 'This is not.'     "Haha. Yeah. Figures." Both hands are once more free to be shoved in her pockets simultaneously, which she does. "Bad grade. Greedy and prideful. Haha. Poor flower." She hums, otherwise quiet, her eye unfocused at the path at the group's feet, and how odd it is that the glass doesn't click-thud right beneath bootfalls.     Nephra's gloved fingers tap twice against the broken doorframes as she ducks- physically ducks, out of instinct more than real necessity- into the wayhouse. Her throat ties up at the old, old bloodstains, but still, she goes further in, and starts to amble off even as Evehime has not yet finished her warnings and instructions. She leans down to pick up an old cushion- and then puts it back, slightly off from how she found it, to pick up another one. Drawn curtains are pulled back- the wide, transparent walls were inviting in a way Nephra wouldn't be able to put words to, and looking out from behind something is always quite different than seeing in from outside. She drops the cushion down, and sits to look out the un-curtained transparent wall, at the bridge and its surrounding nothingness. Her knees tuck up as much as they can until sore ribs are enflamed, and she hugs them with both arms.     "Why's it so much warmer in here?"
Persephone Kore	"Thanks for letting us come along, Marc~ Anything for family."      "Anything for family," Marc repeats, with a kind of serene warmth you wouldn't expect from looking at him. He takes the trail mix with a grateful nod and exactly as much reverence as if he were receiving the gods' ambrosia, and munches on it contentedly en route.      "..What safety?"      Marc swallows some raisins and nuts. "I read once that we used to sleep in trees," he says afterwards, "and that's why we fret about monsters under the bed. Regardless, it is quite safe for her and me."      "Your original face is your original nonduality. Yourself without an opposite.      "'Myself without an opposite'," Marc repeats, committing it to memory. He must be uncomfortable in a place as chilly and 'buzzing' as this, but it barely shows. Maybe he's just that focused. Maybe it's because he's always uncomfortable.      Marc's eyes shut, and a little frown steals over his face. "You mean, not me experiencing them, or them experiencing me, but simply the experience between us. Seeing without perceiving, or perceiving without judging. But how..."      He sees the 'something' on the horizon, and wisely postpones the question.      . . .      The wayhouse itself makes him almost as uneasy as the dark. A test of vital importance, where a passing grade feels perilously un-guaranteed. When Kukuru looks at him questioningly, he just gives her a hapless little smile: he thinks he understands, but isn't certain.      "Alright, Evehime. Not photographically. I still find myself unsure what the 'true way things were' is, but if you'll forgive my limited means..."      He starts walking through the halls, still arm-in-arm with Kukuru if she allows it. Here and there, he stops to look closely at something, always a trace of people: the scraps of cloth, the bloodstains (with visible discomfort), the wear on a table that suggests long nights of use, the undisturbed arrangement of pillows where someone might have cast them after sleep. Long minutes later, he circles back and gives Evehime a nod.      "Yes. I believe I've found the truth."
Angela	Gebura says, "Huh. That's interesting." She shares a name with Evehime, actually, and knows it but Gebura doesn't get that strong need to point at that and go 'Hey! Same names!'. It wasn't really until Evehime said that she became 'strength' and then made it hers that she even really though about it. If anything, what Evehime says makes Gebura actually notice Marc for the first time. Gebura focuses on him--and Kukuru by proximity. The softspoken can escape notice but she has an eye for those who are ''Serious About It'' rather than simply delusional. When she spoken to Carmen, she knew she was ''Serious About It''. Even with her taking that one last bath she still believes she's ''Serious About It''. Is Marc? He must be, or this Gevurah lady wouldn't be escorting him down this path. "Well, appreciate letting them stick around to help." Gebura says, with a kind of emphasis on help that suggests she didn't really feel it was that neccessary. Tennant and Rook linger. Rook stays quiet. There's something...spiritual about this process that makes him want to not speak up too much. Tennant is a dork though. "Yeah? Congratulations!"
Evehime Gevurah	Evehime seems to find something warmly amusing about Neutron's comment. She repeats "Identity preceeds ideology." with a certain kind of pensive fondness. It's fascinating how little it takes to be completely sure she is already taking it apart and integrating it, inside her head. "Creating reason to explain what has been done, rather than to contemplate why it might be. These are the moments that asphyxiate 'mastery' before it grows." she replies to them. "The Ten Truths." she says, affirmatively, of 'Total Visualization'. "I see why your companion is perceptive, now. Your words are precise."     Nephra's glass tumbles weightlessly through the void. The moment it leaves the road, gravity loses all hold. It disappears into space between spaces, never to be found again. "I will grant yours in due time." Evehime says to her. "I have already heard your heart of hearts, even if but for one moment. There is no use in attempting to hide it with these acts, now. But if it brings you comfort, pity yourself as long as you like, until then."     A moment passes. "Because they wished it so. This is, after all things, a place for humans to rest, on long and weary treks between shards of the world. In these small regards, we were not dissimilar."     Exploring the space paints a more vivid picture than one would expect, given its sense of age, and its total isolation. Perhaps it is the latter; the absence of anything that could be called anything; that prevents what is from escaping; like a hermetic seal of narrative nothingness. The door seems as if it were broken minutes ago, from outside, with great force down its middle, fracturing it at its furthest point of contact from the frame, dislodging its simple bolts from their threads. The coats of fine fabrics, silk ties, and silver buttons, haven't been retrieved from the space for travelers to hang them, as some mild protection from the cold-lukewarmth outside. Many are festooned with badges and medals, or accouterments of foreign nobility. Blood and flinders by the entry indicates a destruction of a barricade, and the light and bloody wounding of those behind it.     A comfortable reception hall for parties of single digits. A modest lounge of fine quality, permanently set in rotations of drink and food, it seems, by shifts of servants. Comers and goers of all hours, at a steady trickle. The remains of some tile game lay in a corner, from idly passing time, before the table was used as cover, now covered in raking marks and peppered with splinter marks. A broken lamp, carried along the road, unnecessary here, the oil hard and dry on the stone and soaked into the wood, itself dark, dense, and boreal.     Astonishingly, there is, actually, still edible fare in what must be a service kitchen. Ordinarily locked cupboards and closets are stacked with grains and hearty vegetables, flour and soy, packs of spices and salts, cuts of wrapped meat and cheese, all without a hint of decay, though there is so much empty space it speaks to lack of supply for some time, and the asymmetry of its remains speaks to the singular preferences of one group eating from it for nearly as long. The sound of water running, as Neutron surmises, is related, but comes from what would otherwise pass as a decorative fountain, perfumed with water flowers, save that it comes through the wall from nowhere. One person could live here for weeks.
Evehime Gevurah	The destroyed stairs lead to simple bedrooms on the floor above. Cuts and scrabbling abrasions cover the shattered bottom, then track up the walls. Stains on the steps show where blood ran and dripped down many of them before drying. Uniform chests for personal belongings are largely empty, but some have been hastily broken open, leaving piles of clothes, books, and pack stuffings, seemingly raided for a handful of purposeful objects in a hurry. Valuable messages, important keepsakes, and sidearms, most likely. The beds are low and soft, and some have been so thoroughly stained they were clearly used for repeated patients, tatters of clothing-makeshift bandage cloth left in woven wastebaskets.     And discarded by a back door, a handful of loose jewels and chains, a metal-sided fan, two different swords in simple wooden travel mounting and scabbards, and a badly rusted long knife in the same. "Very well." Evehime says to Marc. "If you believe--"     It's rare to see her cut off, but the instant, thoughtless alertness she takes on somehow feels deeply characterful, though it is impossible to imagine anything genuinely threatening her. It is simply the autonomic prelude that comes from sensing something first.     Something like a blot of liquid shadow, oozing out of the ceiling corner and pouring down the wall. It sounds like fast-pounding hands on doors and scratching nails and the rustling of leaves under running spiders. It zigzags down the wall, and splits in two, then four, then eight, without diminishing in size, each rolling to the floor like raindrops and splashing out the shapes of arms and fingers in roiling, forward chaos, crawling over the tables and chairs at lightning speed, limbs forming and dissolving without pattern in the frantic process of carrying them forward at the inattentive, leaping from the ground on palms and fingertips with singular malice for the human face.     Evehime seems unconcerned. For the barest of instants, a faded, faceless doppelganger exists in the space behind her, feet squared, stance strong, arm braced, backfist thunderously planted in the monster; a vision of self-defense that could have happened, but didn't. It's more memory than seeing it, but the blotch of shadows falls to the ground, stunned, and she snuffs it out of existence with a floor-rattling thump of her heel, dispersing fine ash into the air. She doesn't twitch a muscle to save anyone else.     "Finally. Your original face is 'your' original nonduality. Not all without duality is yours. Not all that is original can bear your presence. Your 'self' cannot bear the presence of all original nonduality, for some of it is anathema. You are able to feel it, but not grasp it, as inexorable as gravity, and as inescapable as your own shadow. It is not enough to perceive and contemplate the paradox; you must separate it from meaninglessness, and contain no uncreated thoughts. Things without answers are not things without meaning. That without an answer may beg to be understood in its own way, as surely as it may deny you."
Remee Halcyon	Memorizing, memorizing... Remee's narrative constructs itself further in her head as she walks through the house. Evehime said 'best of her ability' - and that's what she's going to do. No detail going unnoticed, no scratch on the wall or errant grain on the ground is going to escape Remee's memory. The game gives her pause - she tries to divine the rules, but then just moves on after a bit. She'll just make up some rules in her head, same as everything else. The end result is the important thing, and the story is only there to support it. More food. Perfectly edible food, even. If Remee hadn't just been snacking on Kukuru's trail mix, she'd... well, she wouldn't be tempted to eat any of the food stores she's trying to memorize the locations of, that'd be stupid. Her other senses pick up on the liquid shadow well before it comes into view. Her ears track the blob that's headed towards her, but she doesn't stray from her task at first, only subtly moving her right hand to a specific spot on her lower chest... ... and she remains still until it's flying at her - at which point the face it was jumping towards isn't there anymore, Remee going from 5' girl to 8' monster in approximately one instant, and where her face was her open hand is now waiting to catch and squeeze it to death. Or whatever amount of nonexistance it has in place of 'death', here. "Can't use my weapons or we'd have new bullet holes we'd have to memorize..." she complains idly to herself as she goes back to her standard form, and resumes spinning a yarn in her head about the placements of the salad forks. "... If the big bad wolf can be careful to not knock the house down, I'm going to have words for anyone else who isn't..."
Ishirou	Ishirou is sure to have his answer in a moment.  Looking at the freshness of the place, time doesn't seem to work here as it does in other places.  It is not simply a place where life 'does not exist' either, because it obviously did... and while rotting didn't happen, it is not for lack of life.  For all he knows this could have happened a millennia ago... or last week.   Also, there are cooking supplies, he could cook a meal if people are inclined to stay a spell.   Upstairs, things become a lot more obvious.  Non-human monsters, obvious... but what kind?  There seems to be little trace of their passing besides claws and splintered barricades.  This leads him to think of enough of an answer he could achieve.  Maybe. Until the shadows came.  He watches, trying to use his scanning on them and try and figure them out before they attack.  However, one appears behind him.  Ishirou knows humans can't see behind them.  His mind struggles to make an excuse... But not before the strike comes.  He tumbles, and falls, trying to recover and look up at the monster that got him good.  Breathing a little raggedly, he holds a hand out, aiming to catch the creature in an electromagnetic hold.   "POD.  Beam!" he calls out, aiming to have the laser beam fire, trying to evaporate the shadow that tired to kill him.  He winces, unable to see the damage on his back from the strike, but his hoodie is ripped, and there are sparks coming from where the claws dug into flesh and revealed metal.  He'd be very self conscious of this if he could see it.
Redshift Operators	The astronaut regards the fountain. "Why is it like that?" "What?" "Intentional. Intentionally doing that with water." "Couldn't say." "That's wasteful." "Hmm."     None of the Redshift Operators have ever seen a fountain. Water is too precious in the Frontier, especially in outer space.     The gunman and ninja each bare their weapons almost instantly when they see motion. "If you meet anything that moves, kill it." Right? The safety on the heavy shotgun flicks off, and an inch of the blade is drawn... The pair go back to back. "That's the koan you talked about. Got a little too pondered. Is that how it is?" The gunman mutters. A finger shoots to his earpiece. "Team, fall in, there's trouble." He racks the shotgun and blasts. Remee may be holding back on the bullet holes, but the gunman isn't. He'll figure out memorization later. "Don't let them touch you. If the Gevurah won't let them make contact with her," Another blast. "Then it's either embarrassing or lethal if we do, and I don't take either of those."     "By my predictions, they should fall easily enough. But they present more a psychological and metaphysical risk. Take care. Keep a clear mind. Focus, remember, and strike." The blade in the ninja's hand moves elegantly and stylishly, but efficiently and brutally, slicing and dicing with strikes each practiced a hundred thousand times in practice and a dozen times in precognition before now.     "Two o'clock. Ten. Seven. Five." The astronaut's head is on a perfect swivel, around and around, calmnly walking under the heavy fists of the giant, who smashes them with disturbing capacity for ultraviolence... and hard-to-notice care for the environment. Crushing a shadow-monster's skull to make sure that some furniture stays intact is a terrifying kind of visual contrast.
Kukuru	'Well, appreciate letting them stick around to help.' "Things like this are usually easier with more heads to piece things together, right?" Kukuru replies as she follows along with Marc, not bothered in the slightest since it means she can put her eyes and nose to better use. It does distract her some from following the water, but she's not going to be bothered by that too much. Humming softly as she tries to piece things together herself, Kukuru starts staring at the scraps and bloodstains, sniffing the latter briefly while trying not to let it look too obvious that she's leaning forward to do just that. Getting that opportunity to inspect these things more closely certainly helps paint a better picture mentally of what might have happened, especially when she starts piecing together where the blood stains are and where the marks in the wood show up. All that said, however, Kukuru hasn't quite managed to comprehend all of it or even half of it by the time Marc makes his announcement. As hard as she tries, she's still slow enough on the uptake that his sudden declaration about finding the truth gets a curious and slightly surprised noise from her. "Already? Wow.. That's really impressive!" There's a genuine awe in her voice as she says that, and Evehime stopping herself even gets a surprised look from the woman in white. At first, she might think Evehime's been astounded by his intellect, but she soon realizes that there's something coming out of the ceiling. It's certainly concerning to look at, but Kukuru remembers what she had told the group earlier... 'If you meet anything that moves, kill it.' Although Kukuru isn't particularly fast, she's already raising her arms to start intercepting the strangely shaped... Hands? No, claws, trying to tear into and through her face. Sadly, this does mean she'll probably have to let go of Marc, but it does also mean she'll be in a better position to help fend them off! She muffles a pained noise as one manages to stab its claws into her hand, but she winds up using it as a weapon herself like some kind of fucked up bludgeon. Broad swings of her arms, first with the captive splotch and then with her bare hands, keep more of those things at bay, and then Kukuru eventually shifts to healing duty for the crew once there's enough breathing room to do so. Despite the setback, however, she still tries to focus on what Evehime's saying rather than just ripping up things that might remind her too much of herself. "So even if there's no clean answer, we should... It's important to keep looking the deeper meaning, right? Not just to come up with answers to something that doesn't make sense or that we don't like hearing, but to... To understand ourselves better?" Kukuru has yet to fully grasp even the questions she wants to answer yet, but she's starting to get an idea of where to finally start.
Angela	Gebura's eyes slant towards Ishirou, who seemed to have something to say about Carmen but didn't end up saying it. But she doesn't press the matter. If he has someting to say, she imagines it will come to light. Instead she quiets down, sliding a cig into her mouth (how this works with her actual Sephirah body is a guess as good as yours or mine). "The heck..." Tennant has seen strange things before but these liquid shadows--can they even be fought, or killed? Evehime seems to have a suggestion on how to handle them. Tennant and Rook glance at one another and they actually go for a shadowbeast each, the ones that spawned closest to one another. Rook beats down with Penitence harshly and repeatedly until the Shadow stops moving, Tennant just points their rifle in an arbitary position and fires bullets. Portals open up before the bullets, swallow them up-- --then another set of portals open up and send them all surging towards another beastling. Gebura doesn't help either, not with advice or lifting a finger--the latter of which she just can't really do anyway. But she probably wouldn't, even if she was physically here. Tennant has one more question, looking over to Marc in the process. "Say." They say. "What was your impossible wish? Can you say or is it one of those--'speak the wish and it doesn't come true' wishes?"
Persephone Kore	Earlier: Exploring the place is nice, in a melancholy sort of way. Marc knows full well that Kukuru can teleport, but when he comes to the broken stairs, he offers to scoop her up and carry her before simply levitating to the top himself.      The fan tempts him, but for some reason, the only keepsake he ends up taking is that rusted knife. Maybe even in the gay paradise of Sapient Heuristics, boys still love cool knives. Or maybe something so worn just feels like it has more of a story.      Now: "If I believe...?" Marc is later noticing the threat than Evehime, but not too late. He turns urgently just before Kukuru does to look at the nearest one lunging at him, grits his teeth in ugly shock, draws in a little breath, and--      (Marc, one may suddenly realize, has only a fraction of Persephone's power but can afford an even smaller fraction of her restraint. Dealing with things so far from 'people', on top of that, demands less than his utmost.)      There is an imperceptibly-thin black line stretching from floor to ceiling now.      Stepping to the side or tilting one's head reveals it to be a pitch-black flat vertical plane.      A second later, it turns to dust as these things do on death, and he wishes the same of the one stuck to Kukuru's claw if she hasn't yet dealt with it herself. Before even straightening his shirt or settling his hair (which are themselves of utmost importance), he slips back next to her and immediately starts fussing over her injuries, offering her another handkerchief.      "Are you quite alright, Kukuru? There's not any pain, is there? Oh, I'm so sorry. If I'd noticed a little sooner..."      He soothes himself afterwards by fidgeting with cuff-buttons and tugging on his shirt to get out the wrinkles, with the same aura as a cat licking itself after a fall. "I may begin to see, Gevurah," he says when he's gathered again, managing to sound only mildly rattled. "To not think of the flower, and yet to think of no other nothings. That is the goal you mean, isn't it?"      By the time of Tennant's question, he's his old prim self again. "Perceptive, aren't you? I can say it," he responds, and shuts his eyes to sift through memories. "To put it to words... I want to realize the Project's dream: mankind changed forever, and the old universe destroyed. And then all my obligations will be settled, and I'll be free to join my sibling."      The way he says it, it sounds very final. "Have you any wishes like that?"
Nephra Tangent	'I will grant yours in due time.'     "I could make you a liar. You said you wouldn't help if.." Her shoulders roll, watching the bottle tumble weightlessly off, forever. It's not even falling? "Haha. Due time." 'But if it brings you comfort, pity yourself as long as you like, until then.'     Her eyelid twitches, and her lips move silently. "Maybe I was just lying to you. Haha. I mean, it's been months! Don't organs change and grow themselves back every now and then? Still even the same heart?" Each word out of her mouth feels like stumbling down a gravel slope, until she finally shuts up and follows along. 'Because they wished it so.'     Nephra isn't doing a particularly good job of focusing on the task at hand, of taking in and memorizing the surroundings. She's caught herself up in staring out that window-wall instead, hunched over and making herself as small as someone as tall as her really can. Instead, she's focusing on the warmth, and the feeling of a space like this- spices and woodsmoke, talk that sounds low enough to pass as ambient conversation if she doesn't listen close, the shuffle of footsteps and furniture. 'Recently abandonded' has a way of feeling like 'still occupied' if she's not looking at the bloodstains. It's not the sort of place she's used to, but despite her trepidation, and actions keying in to just how much she'd rather not involve herself with anything but sitting still and pretending she's invisible, she doesn't look around to spoil the feeling.     "...Wished. It's a lotta wishes with you, y'know. Haha. Guess I shouldn'ta questioned it. It's nice that it's warm, though." She sticks a lollipop in her mouth, fished from a pocket, the wrapper of which floating down to join the detritus of the waystation's floor, and goes back to being motionless and hunched-     -Until Nephra sees the ceiling starts to drip shadows, motions in the window's faint reflections, and ice-cold fear and neuroelectric current shoots through and up her spinal column, shivering at the hair-raising sounds and their rush-scrambling gait. The waystation's momentary tranquility had done some, but not much to push the skittishness out of Nephra's mind, and her split-second fear reactions are barely even up to her. A creeping foe lunges, and she's dipping off to the side, and pulling the cushion from under her to use as the world's most pathetic makeshift shield.     Frantic, her breathing heavy against sore ribs and still-healing wounds, she only needs a moment for her armor to start flowing its creaking plates down her limbs, but until it does, she's scrambling herself back against the window-walls, losing ground, pupils wide and fearful, until metal claws can dig into the pillow and any such objects interspersed between her and the creature, and subsequently dig at and into it- her heartbeat is racing, electronically-mimicked adrenaline-response neural input forcing it to, but her suit's reactor doesn't even spool up. Just instinctive claws and inch-thick steel.     "What the fuck! What *are* these!" Her voice is higher, less flat, and hoarser- the lollipop shattered by motion and flinch response, but its stick still sits held in the corner of her lips. "C-could you not have given a little warning *what* might be moving?!?"
Angela	Tennant is about to answer Persephone in the affirmative but Gebura is one second quicker. "Yeah," Gebura says to Marc. "That's Lobotomy Corp's wish too. Carmen's. Mine." Tennant is a little slower and they laugh a little, almost bashfully. "That's right. Of course, it seems like Persephone's way is a lot nicer, but thanks to the help we're getting--we'll probably realize their dream in no time. I'm feeling confident in this Loop--NDidn't really feel the same with the others." Rook is the slowest to answer. "We use the tools we can reach." Rook says slowly. "But when we succeed, no matter what happens... The City will never be the same again." Gebura's eyes focus on Marc. Yes, she thinks, the people from Sapient Heurestics. The shape of it... "I wonder how it'll look to you folks." Gebura admits. "Our Seed germinates in blood after all. Not just Hope. Even if we could only walk with you here, well..." Gebura actually smiles. "It's been an honor."
Evehime Gevurah	The writhing shadows feel worse to kill than they do to watch, and only slightly more to be hit by. They split apart like putrid melon and splattering mud, and they crush like breaking tendons and popping eyes. Deathly lukewarm, numbing fuzz and slimy oil to the touch, their striking limbs burst from nothingness in little fits of rage strong enough to cohere into form, and dissolve with the slightest shift of context, without reason or consistency.     Despite their unthinking violence and penchant to multiply under duress, however, they aren't particularly a match for anyone present. A large infestation would certainly be a serious danger to a handful of weary travellers, but they are clearly little more than the leftovers of whatever really came through here, once upon a time.     "That is so." Evehime says to Kukuru, as if nothing at all had happened. "Many hear this. Few accept it. Even fewer attempt it. That is why there are so many confused, unhappy, weak, and failing amongst you."     Her eyes slide in that saccade-less way to Red Dwarf. "The things of the Night Before have always been thus, since they were first revealed when the skin of the worlds was cut apart. The koan is the paradox that consumed us so that we flensed apart the foundations of the universe to interpret it. The war that was fought over . . ." Unusual, for her to pause so. "It would be a hazard to you, to say. Contemplate the knowing that the thousand peoples turned to 'God', storming 'Heaven' and demanding their singular wisdom in divining it, for that is the only viable path they saw." A beat. "Again, we were not so dissimilar. I differed only in that I made war on 'God' to prove mine."     Evehime spares a moment for Nephra in her panic. The piercing too-blue stare almost looks sympathetic, yet functionally incapable of the expression; as if she couldn't bring herself to pity someone who hates it on a subconscious level. "It would have made no difference. A description would make you no more ready. And besides." She visibly tracks her eyes to where Nephra was sitting. "That moment, where you permitted yourself the small indulgence of existing; I wished to see it, and it was valuable to you. It would never come, should you be appropriately afraid."     She affords Marc a very small smile. She isn't good at them, he knows, so it feels like a lot. "You are a swift learner." she says. "Though I could tell from our sparring-play. I have high hopes for you." Evehime begins trudging towards the back door, long strides at her height carrying her deceptively far in little time. The toe of her sandal catches under the guardless bevel of a sheathed sword, and the slightest twitch of her foot kicks it spinning up into her outstretched hand. "Now that you have grasped the fundamentals of the exercise, there is only the matter of completing it." she says. "I would advise all of you to crouch low, if you wish to keep your halves joined."     Though she doesn't elaborate, it isn't difficult to understand that the Gevurah means it, and the sheer pressure exerted in the seconds between her saying it, and the scabbard falling to her side, matching sandal sliding backwards, posture counterbalancing forwards, fingers touching the plain hilt with their surprising delicacy, is primally unignorable. More than physical tension, or coiled energy, or even pure intent, the feeling of energy building from her, concentrating into every line of her body, is so direly intense that it feels like it freezes the air in place, squeezing out breath and sending electricity coursing under the skin.     A reminder, penned in flesh and blood, that physics doesn't actually distinguish between mass and energy; whether solid rock, cosmic gas, or starlight, a black hole can form all the same, if it is concentrated enough.
Evehime Gevurah	The fact that the Gevurah cuts while drawing doesn't seem to be a purposeful choice, so much as it is merely convenient when finding an unused sword. The motion is visible only by reflected light, briefly imitating the black line Marc had created in blinding white, horizontal and five feet from the ground. Sound, even the deafening soundlessness of outside, is briefly drowned out by an ear-splitting low frequency thrum. The building loses a centimeter of height.     Then, where she gently lifts one foot, only to violently sweep it in a full circle around her and direct unbelievable speed and force into the ceiling through a functionally vertical back kick, the building above head level disappears. Weightlessness kicks in for the briefest of moments, hair and loose clothing leaping upwards in the ripple of leaving air. Anyone looking quickly enough can see the upper two and a half floors of the wayhouse ascending into the void, breaking apart into thousands little pieces as the shockwave propagates through it slightly more slowly than it had been launched. The debris, all the little fragments of a place people once lived, will surely scatter into the Night unto infinity, never to be found or recovered.     Evehime smoothly swings her leg down and pushes her fingertips off the floor to right herself. Examining the edge of the blade, now sandblasted smooth and dull, having lost its ripple pattern, she sheathes the metal into wood with a slick snap, and says to Marc, "You will now reassemble this place as it was. Nothing will be incorrect. Nothing will be misplaced. As you do so, contemplate the 'one hand clapping', the 'original face', and what I have said of the Night. You have weeks of provisions. Your signal will reach the outside, as you are not prevented from leaving; however, I advise you not interrupt your training any more than necessary. I will return, occasionally, until you have completed it."     "What you must retrieve to rebuild the wayhouse is now lost in an infinite space of non-being. There is no hidden means to reveal it. No trick will present itself to you that may allow you to see or reach. The pieces you require are an infinite distance away from you, scattered over infinite potential places, shrouded in infinite darkness. Yet you will collect them as your memory speaks to you. This, too, is a paradox. Contemplate it."     "Once you have mastered it, I am confident, you will meet your sibling again. In their chosen form, and not a form you can know."
Kukuru	EARLIER: Teleporting is easy enough, but getting carried is even easier! Plus, it's not something Kukuru gets to do a lot these days, so she's more than happy to go along with Marc's offer. She'll even be calm and a little giggly throughout all that, interrupted only briefly by a bout of slightly more nervous clinging when he starts floating. NOW: Getting fussed at over her injuries also isn't a thing Kukuru's particularly used to! She's usually the one doing the fussing, after all, so having someone checking on her this frantically is... ... Actually, it makes her feel a little guilty. Chest-fluttery, too, but not without a bit of guilt. "I'm okay, Marc-y~ Don't worry, I've gotten through way worse than this before. Besides,everything'll be fixed up in another minute or so." She affirms with a light pump of her fists, glancing at them briefly and quickly tucking the bloodied one under her arm to let her nanites do their healing thing. In her haste to hide the blood, though, she realizes she's still wearing white, and so she winds up taking the handkerchief after already dooming that shirt to a more thorough cleaning later in the day. Hearing his dream stated outright, meanwhile, doesn't bother Kukuru as much as it might have if she had heard such a thing from anyone else. "It's a nice dream for a great project...  Don't be afraid to ask me or anyone else for help if you want it, okay? I'm sure we'll all be glad to help~" She looks over at the gathered crew of exactly one other Concord-adjacent group in the form of Gebura, Tennant, and Rook, then turns right back to Marc with a thoughtful noise to consider his question. It doesn't take long for her to nod firmly. "Mhm! If I could change the world... No, the universe that much, then that'd really solve a lot of problems. And... The wish I had with Evie in the first place." Considering everything that's happened since her last talk with the Gevurah, however, it's far easier said than done. Evehime speaks of the few that hear and understand, and that has Kukuru letting out a vague, strained noise. "Unhappiness, huh...? Y-yeah, there sure is a lot of that going around these days." From the way she says it, it's probably an understatement. Kukuru doesn't need to be told twice to get down, at least, and she gives Marc a light tug before falling sideways so as to not risk getting her head taken off by that sweeping movement. The display of pure power involved in punting the rest of the building into somewhere Kukuru can't even comprehend yet has her staying right where she is, too, And it's not until Evehime finishes explaining that she finally looks back over at Marc with a somewhat confused, but sympathetic smile. "How about I... Help prepare the provisions, then? Ah, if that's okay with Evie. I won't be a distraction!" She will absolutely be a distraction, if not necessarily on purpose.
Persephone Kore	"I suppose we're dream-family, then," Marc says to Gebura, his smile finally returning post-attack. "If it isn't selfish to say, with your motivations being purer than mine. I expect we'll differ in the details, too, but..." His smile graces Tennant and Rook in turn.      "However your wish looks, I'll be happy it came true. We are all making do with the methods available to us." He brushes a lock of hair behind his ear and looks off to the side. "Far be it from me to judge."      He looks like exactly the kind of asshole who would be judging actually.      Marc, wisely, takes Evehime's advice and crouches. He still tensely sucks a breath in through his teeth when her sword cuts barely a foot overhead, and reflexively scrunches his eyes shut with the bone-rattling impact of the launch. It takes him a moment to feel comfindent in standing up again, and when he does he brushes some dust off his sweater-vest with the back of his hand.      "Recreate it as the flower, without perceiving or judging it," he says slowly. His eyes linger on her for a moment before sliding past to stare out at the Night, where the infinite pieces lie. "I see the shape of the lesson already. You're quite a creative teacher, Gevurah. I never doubted your ability to climb; perhaps I underestimated how you pull others up after you."      He walks to the center of the way-station, hoists himself up to perch on the perfectly-smooth stump of a decapitated interior wall, and stares off into the black to contemplate the task. He likely will for a while. "Oh, but..."
Ishirou	Ishirou stares as the house is obliterated.  Why is he surprised at this?  He's fought her before, he's seen her vaporize large plots of land.  He's seen her create a sun with her hands.  Yet... being this close to it and  /not/its target is a new feeling.  He just watches the building break apart... and the lesson... That'd sound impossible, but Marc isn't exactly the average person either... but still, everything from memory is exactly how it was... Was it about remembering things exactly as they were... or removing your perception..?  He can feel the edges of the lesson but seems to not grasp something about it.  Something still feels out of touch for him... It's frustrating.
Nephra Tangent	he Gevurah's stare isn't quite met by Nephra, once the sickening task of dispatching the creatures is over, the remnant dust of it filtering out from her claws. Her breathing, rapid as it is, isn't visible below the neck, below her armor. Her eye flits around the room, at any dancing shadows from other's movements, and small piles of dust, as if scared they'll get back up, or more will pounce from somwhere or nowhere.     "That's not fair. I didn't- I don't-" Her words are stumbling, jittery nerves and intoxicants jumbling them up. Her face is something close to pouting. "I didn't want to be looked at. You should have spoiled it instead, if it'd get spoiled no matter what. Wasn't real." She huffs, and as the armor starts to collapse itself back across her limbs, pulling away from electromagnetized neural implants and folding itself up beneath her rainjacket, her obvious jumpiness is left far more exposed, her mannerisms more awkward and shaky.     "Halves joined?-" As bleary, muttered words parrot Evehime, recognition shoots across her face and she drops- not just crouches -flat to the floor. Is that enough? What's going to happen? What's that noise-     Nephra lets out an unceremonius yelp in the moment the impact-kickback weightlessness knocks her up off the floor, and her eye squints as tightly shut as it can be- a hand reaches under her to try and grab at anything, but before she can, the motion abates and she simply falls back awkwardly on her own arm wincing. It takes her a good long moment before she stands up, and looks at the wayhouse's skeletal remnants. She swallows back at nothing, knocking a pang of empty sadness out from where it tightened her throat. A flat smile sits back on it as she comes to sit on her knees, twisting her gloved palm against a still-ringing ear.     "...Haha. Uh, good luck, man. With this all. You've got, uh..." Slowly, she stands, and looks towards Marc. A hand fishes a few lollipops of varying artificial flavor out of her coatpocket, and she places them down for him, even if refused, near the other still-fresh-enough supplies. She winces, unable to pull out more words not in the shape of what she's already said. "...Yeah. Good luck."