Emeth

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

"I've got two words of advice for ya, kid: don't get hit, and whatever you do, don't get grabbed."

---

Evil Eye was about to make a comment about how it was hard, even for them, to learn anything about Rei—but any thoughts she was having exited her mind when the Devil herself appeared on her shoulder. "Jealous? ...Is she?" she replied, as if the idea hadn't even occurred to her. Her eyes rolled, partly in thought, partly in response to... Willow's childish teasing. She'd almost forgotten the girl's name. The song was familiar, even nostalgic once, but now her only memories associated with it were unpleasant. At least it was nothing new—but what was new was that, unlike in those days, none of the other girls were joining in the song... or making fun of her... or even acknowledging it at all. That was somewhat refreshing, at least.

"I've been waiting for something worth my time to show up," she nipped back, nonetheless checking on her Mogall for a report on the situation. "Not seeing any other light girls yet. Or anything much tougher than this horde. Shatterscape is bored. At least Nyxia and Willow are having fun," she ran through her many observations like a bored nurse delivering a diagnosis on behalf of a doctor who couldn't be bothered. "More damn monkeys!" she suddenly spat. "Stop attacking my minions, you monkey fuck!" She flew away, briefly—before Shatterscape swapped bodies, causing her to stop and look for her. Then, she made to fly off again.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

"My instincts may not always be right, but they're never wrong!"

---

Evil Eye pursed her lips. "That's fair. I should get a nauseating dark girl title, then. How about the Grim Weeper?" Her eyes widened as she wielded her cane with two hands, angling the handle as though it were the blade of a scythe. She swung it at a miseria and, like a maniac with a warhammer, comically beheaded it with blunt force, cackling. "I have not yet begun to mourn, sister. Don't you worry about me. As for the boss lady? She's... an interesting girl—likes interesting people." She scratched her cheek as she wracked her superior brain for words that weren't synonyms for "scary."

Were the rules being kept Rei's rules? It was a stimulating question, but one she didn't dare to answer while she was coming this way.

"Looks like we found the one person Nyxia doesn't hate immediately upon eye contact. I guess there are some things under the sun that I haven't seen," she joked, turning her head to Roche for a reaction. "Oh, no. No no no no. This was absolutely, positively Acid's idea. I just leaped at the chance to give it my full endorsement as soon as its profitability showed, like a true entrepreneur, and I expect to get full credit for it."

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

"It's something of a running joke."

---

"Eugh!" Evil Eye made a retching sound. "Lighten up, will you? I'm only joking. Your manners are so stiff! I'm shortening that to just 'Hizuki,' too." She waved her hand like she'd just smelled something terrible. "You already know my name. This is Earthshaker, the Rule Keeper. That's Earthshaker, comma, the Rule Keeper, not EarthshakerTheRuleKeeper," she clarified with her signature unnecessary snark. "If your friends ever wondered why the evil magical girls of the Detention Club don't kill people, you can thank her. She doesn't give performance evals, though... Maybe I should do it. Sounds like fun," she japed, her eyes going blank and unfocused as she checked on the others.

"Shatterscape gets a twelve for attendance. Everyone else gets a one," Evil Eye declared, deadpan, as she watched her partner fight. The Mogall tilted its... self inquisitively, as if to ask what Shuuko was doing all by herself. It began floating away, as if to lead her to the pillar of light. Next, she checked on Oros the Joyful—she could pull off the subtitle thing—though, right now she was looking more like Oros the Joyless. Was it Acid Drop's doing? Evil Eye chose to make no comment. "Nyxia is going places," she remarked, somehow both deadpan but also proud. And the last one was... "Uhh." Her eyes came back into focus, landing on Hizuki. "So, everyone is coming this way," she remarked blithely. "Remember to smile when you meet the boss," she said with a smile of her own, proud and catlike.

A desire floated into her previously content brain—to test the girl's sincerity.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

"Yes yes, there's text here again. Don't get quiplash."

---

Several floating eyes did find their way to Rei's side, but Evil Eye herself was nowhere to be seen. It wasn't unusual for her to be late, as she had a habit of getting absorbed in "preparations," whatever those might be. Her motorcycle's engine was usually audible not too far away in any case, but the hunt's cacophony was missing that particular sound on this night.

Evil Eye floated along, musing about how much she still hated flying, especially at night and at this altitude. It would always remind her of that night—betrayed by an ally, friend and lover all at once. The air was cold then, too. So was she. She wasn't bitter about it anymore, but remembering it was like hearing an annoying voice echo in a dark cave while stuck in a narrow space, realizing that there was nothing to be done except wait for it to stop, until sooner or later it piped up again in vain, unwarranted.

She amused herself watching her breath freeze, until one—or rather, all of her eyes spotted something. "To think I worried that I'd have to seek you out," she observed as her Mogall were collectively flash-banged. She supposed this was only a minor inconvenience, since any magical girls interested in a fight on either side were probably headed that direction now. Kiyo smiled as she gave her order to the Mogall. All at once, they began to weep, the tears falling like inky black rain. The pools bubbled like boiling tar, forming new monsters, and these were something like a cross between a moth and a mosquito, and they descended upon Hizuki's "flame" and the prey it had attracted in characteristic swarming frenzy.

Quickly they descended, impaling the lowly miseria with their proboscides and feasting upon them. They were an intangible plague, something that could hardly be fended off with the simple and uncoordinated physical attacks of such weaklings—so it was quite fortunate that, as of yet, they'd shown no interest in either humans or animals. What they did have an interest in was the miseria, and whatever could be drained from them. Could it be called blood, or was it more like an ectoplasm? The only girl who was likely to be interested in such answers, Evil Eye, awaited her servants' return with a mason jar. God only knew what the mad scientist had planned to do with it, because for the moment, she was more interested in the girl who'd delivered her prey to her.

"I do love efficient workers," she remarked with some enthusiasm, smiling. "But you should really pace yourself more. Leave some room for improvement on those performance evals, yeah? It's that kind of world, after all. It doesn't appreciate people like us who go all out." She flipped the jar around in her hand idly, considering a thought that she decided not to voice. "I don't think I caught your name."

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

---

Kiyo departed the ‘VIP table’ feeling vexed. It was the second time in as many days that someone had approached the Detention Club in some form, offering to "help" them. Perhaps she was beginning to understand why Rei was so angry. Being the center of attention in the Japanese magical girl world was a situation that threatened to become complicated, in a way that wasn't fun. Two factions of Kurai girls were about to fight each other, the Gems were threatening the Detention Club to stay put in this doomed town, and another light girl was offering to help the Detention Club. Would they really help the club take down Ashbringer in an alliance of convenience? Or did they plan to watch the fight from a distance and mop up the winning side in their weakened state? Would they help the weaker side eke out a victory for the sake of a quick power boost and then backstab them later? It felt like getting caught in a war drama, and there were few things Kiyo hated more than politics and self-important magical girls.

But before that, there was the simpler matter of addressing the new face. This was a difficult time to trust an outsider, but they did need all the help they could get. Kiyo found herself wanting a second opinion, which was a rare occurrence, and one that always left a bad taste in her mouth, as if her own superior intellect were somehow inadequate on its own. No, she reminded herself; what she needed now was some more perspectives, and the opinions of the other club girls were never anything if not fresh—and, as if on cue, two of them were coming in now, a pairing that had been unusual until just recently and was becoming more common: Roche and Shuuko.

Her gaze raised to meet them. Kiyo often looked lost in thought, but rarely did she appear genuinely troubled. Today seemed to be one of those rare occasions.

Roche’s offer was met with what anyone else would have called an epileptic fit. Roche would have been horrified with worry that Shuuko would bite off her tongue, but there was little in the way of seizing. Shuuko’s gasp was like a bag squeezed empty of air, a single wheeze before crumpling lifeless to the floor.

”You could at least have tried to fall into my arms.” The Rule Keeper said, the attempt was very much lame with discomfort, and it was only her assurance that this was an earnest attempt at forcing distance that kept her from acting on her worry. It stung to have Shuuko treat her in such a way, but she was still competitive enough not to fumble at such an overt display so soon after giving her word.

The odd pair came down from the room, Earthshaker casting her tribal aesthetic for the guise of a Track Captain once more, and they returned to the cafeteria. Its buzz seemed muted, and she was finding none of the sappy butterflies or radiant glow shows always spoke of after a confession of feelings. Much as with everything Dark Magical Girls did, there was a mess that would take sleepless nights and more anguish than one could bear before she’d make any sense of it.

Coming into the space felt odd. Like she’d missed something big going on. Eyes alight she found them locking upon Kiyo, the eye-themed Magical Girl already approaching. Giving Shuuko a nudge, she moved to meet Kiyo half way.

”You doing okay, Kiyo? You look like someone dropped something on your lap.”

"Do I?" Kiyo stopped chewing on her thumb nail just long enough to form a response. "I might have a stray cat in my lap, but nobody dropped it there. It came on its own." She grinned a little. Sometimes she referred to herself as a stray cat, but she also used it as a code word for a new magical girl in town. "I'm not sure if it's a stray, but anyway. I'm... undecided. Her positive attitude is a bit much, know what I mean?" Her eyes darted around at all the students as she chose her words with care.

Shuuko’s body lead the way in complete silence as Sylvia thought about the rulekeeper and herself. Contemplation was writ on her face, the expression only disappearing as she saw the mass of students unfolding before her and Ember switched out with the protector so the schemer would get her time back. An observant person could notice the subtle change in posture along with gait, no doubt, however, they would hopefully write it off as putting on a public facade. Whether or not Roche decided it was worth investigating though… well, Ember could do her best, but she was no actor.

Which presented a problem for the identity of Shuuko. The schemer had started with the best of intentions, yet now she found herself trapped in a web of her own making if they wanted to keep up the appearance of being one person. They had to walk fine lines to avoid rousing suspicion, something that both Hotaru and Sylvia were ill-suited for. Herself? She could toe it to a degree. She could borrow some of their mannerisms, but the truth would come out sooner or later. Or maybe they could just move cities again.

Smiling as a way to both greet Kiyo and an attempt to get rid of her thoughts, Shuuko’s body raised an eyebrow at the mention of stray cats and positivity.

”Kuroki-san, taking care of a cat is a major responsibility,” she spoke, choosing her words carefully. ”You have to feed them, care for them and play with them. Are you sure you can do that?” She sounded worried as she spoke, hiding her true questions behind the veiled metaphors Kiyo so liked to use. ”I mean, you say it might be a stray, but it might have an owner. It might only want to laze around in the sun, too, and that is no fun! Especially if its owner picks it up afterwards and you’re left only with bittersweet memories instead of a fuzzy friend.”

A tense exchange of code words was not what Roche was looking for with her lunch, but she wasn’t going to avert her eyes to a brewing mess. The allusions didn’t escape her notice, and neither did Shuuko turning back into the weirdly fluent automaton that now stood beside her.

There was pulling herself together, and there was not showing a single sign that a breakdown had even occurred. It was akin to standing next to a stranger, and it was only the severity of the topic at hand that kept Roche from taking Shuuko by the wrist and pulling away.

”I know some of us have allergies to cats, but with many strays we’ve seen around the city, I don’t think a bad kitten would just fall into our lap. Those ones are more dangerous than that.”

It didn’t strike her as something the girls from the City of Light would bother with after such overt displays. Subtlety was not their way.

”I think I’d need to see this cat before I decide either way.”

"Cats laze in the sun seeking warmth, but a lap is better, if she trusts the hand that feeds," Kiyo mused. As far as she was concerned, the light was but an illusion with no substance, and all magical girls who lived long enough would embrace the darkness inevitably. The sooner they accepted the Truth, the better off they were. If Haruna was not a magical girl, it would be better if she didn't join the club, but if she was one, she should bring her into the fold regardless of if she leaned on the darkness or clung to the light, especially since Haruna seemed like the type to put others... first. Kiyo blinked. She looked at Roche and nodded soberly in agreement of something left unspoken. A moment of silence passed.

"I can handle the responsibility. In fact, I've made up my mind. I will handle it," she decided. "Are you opposed, Shuuko? It would only be for a while."

Ember winced as she heard Kiyo’s proclamation.

”You know my stance on those idiots, Ember,” proclaimed the warrior as she spat into the distance. ”They better stay away from Sylvia, Chiaki, or you, or I’ll fuck up their spines. If they even have anything to fuck up.” She all but growled her words, already sharpening the claws on Shuuko’s gauntlet just in case she met a light girl. How Ember or Sylvia would be able to talk her down, the schemer had no idea and the protector seemed to have withdrawn from such matters ever since that encounter with Tsubomi.

”Unfortunately, I’m allergic to cats.” She let out a sigh. A light girl would be a major asset to the Detention Club, but now they would be forced to go without or walk on eggshells because she did not know if she could hold the warrior back by herself. ”If I’m anywhere in the same room, I’ll break out in hives.”

On one side Kiyo was determined to own the issue before them, and it seemed to Roche that conversing with them had only galvanized her to her course.
The benefits were great, and the presence of a light girl among them might even dissuade the invaders from being too aggressive when engaging them as they’re forced to confront their own flimsy, untested morals.

She held no illusions that Morganite would be anything less than a total bitch about it, however.

”I’ll take you at your word, Kiyo. Just be mindful of others with their allergies.” Roche’s expression colored with concern at Shuuko’s behavior, her words as flat a rejection as could be expected in the circumstances. ”I’ll be there to make sure no one has a reaction, okay, Shuuko?”

Kiyo bit her nail again. She expected opposition, though it was much less than she imagined it would be. "Sorry for being pushy. It's just that I've dealt with her type before, and I can do it again without complaints. It's only until our numbers even out again, Shuuko," she reminded her apologetically. Then a thought occurred to her. "Actually, why not pair up with Roche for a bit? You two seem to get along lately, and Nyxia still seems to hate all of our guts."

Shuuko’s body frowned. ”I don’t know if either is ideal. I enjoy spending time with you, Kuroki-san, and I would be hurt if you preferred a cat’s company to mine.” She knew that was likely not Kiyo’s intention, but Hotaru… well, hell hath no fury like a teenage girl scorned, apparently.

"Huh..? No, of course not," Kiyo replied, a bit bewildered.

”Bullshit! So she’s picking a light girl over me? That’s just such bullshit!”

”No, she isn’t, Hotaru. She is worried about something - probably about how our group performed against Ashbringer. And then there’s-

”Oh screw yourself with your fanciful explanations, Ember! She’s trying to blow us off! We won’t even be at half strength if we team up with Roche. Girl’s a good sport, but…”

”Is there a way to work out a compromise, Kuroki-san? Perhaps if you cleaned up well after the cat, I could still sleep over from time to time.” Ember grit her teeth as she tried to withstand Hotaru’s barrage. How could Sylvia ever hold this back? That girl had more strength than she realised.

"Our apartment is for two. She'll be an outdoor cat. And I won't bring any dandruff home, promise."

”I don’t believe now is a good time for a change in partnerships.” Roche intruded upon the tension festering between Kiyo and Shuuko. While far from an expert she could plainly see the fear of rejection was tearing up in the latter girl’s heart.

”You two are great together, and I want you both to be happy even if it involves a cat in our orbit. We can make this work without any dandruff getting between us.”

Roche’s hand slowly rose to clap Shuuko on the shoulder, only the faint widening of pupils betraying her reaction to the whipcord tension she felt upon the other girl’s frame. ”If you need some space to air out the apartment, mine is open to the both of you. But we need to come together or we…won’t afford rent.”

If only Ashbringer was as easy to fend off as a landlord..

Kiyo averted her eyes. "Right. I can't... afford rent on my own." Her gaze lowered. "It'd be nice if we could be flexible, but I guess that's hard when I'm broke. I'll keep that in mind." It wasn't as if she didn't know. In fact, she'd expected Shuuko to make a fuss about how dangerous it would be to leave her alone with a light girl. The fact that she didn't must mean that the other Shuuko was taking point right now. It was convenient in the moment to make her case heard, but it raised a lot of questions, like how Roche managed to interact with this side of Shuuko that Kiyo had rarely seen.

”I… believe that may be acceptable.” Shuuko’s body reached for Roche’s hand, lingering there for a second to acknowledge her intentions, then she lowered it before it could be misunderstood. ”If I can call you and come home to a clean house, then it is all good. I apologise if I caused any confusion.” Not that it was good enough for the warrior, of course.

”She’s got some real explainin’ to do when it’s my turn.”

”Umm… Hotaru? Why are you so angry? I know it’s a light girl, but…” Sylvia stepped forward again, daring to thread murky waters.

”I don’t know! And that pisses me off even more!” Hotaru smashed her fists together as she spoke, pulling and pushing against her own muscles as she struggled against something she could not name.

”I do hope it’s the only stray we are planning to adopt, though,” added Ember in an effort to alleviate the tension inside Shuuko’s body. ”Would it be all right if we discussed the matter at great length later and in private, Kuroki-san? I believe I may have missed something important and I can barely hear over the noise here.”

"Sure. Roche needs to meet her, and it's not like we'll get the paperwork filed before tonight anyway. But right now, I need a shower. My hair is wretched." It really wasn't, but it was an excuse to get away and gather her thoughts.

”See? This is why we’re a good club.”” The lack of privacy was putting a damper on her energy but her smile still conveyed her relief that the two hadn’t come to verbal blows.

”Nothing is going to get between us. Unless it’s another one of us, but that’s just a group hug.” Roche wondered how far she could stretch the metaphor, but she hoped Shuuko understood her. A light girl could always fall, and with that fall would go the greatest boundaries dividing them.

Kiyo made her excuses and Roche stepped aside, opening a way past while tilting her head to the lunch line. As late as they were there wasn’t much of a line to speak of. ”Enjoy the shower. We’ll talk more later. Still want to eat together, Shuuko?””

”Yeah. I would really appreciate that H- Roche,” Shuuko’s body sighed again, this time much more explosive. The rulekeeper could practically see the tension unwind as Hotaru quieted down, which in turn had Ember draw out her shoulders along with her spine. She looked in her element, as though her being in the school was natural, wearing a genuine smile on her face despite what happened not too long ago. ”Please allow me treat you to something for staining your clothes.”

Kiyo raised an eyebrow at Roche's display of sentimentality. Roche was acting weird, but Kiyo wasn't sure she disliked this side of her or not. Of all the pairings that could have a falling out, though, was she worried about her and Shuuko? Then again, they did have something like an argument before, and Shuuko had been acting weird since. She heard something curious about Shuuko staining Roche's clothes, but she'd already been excused and she wasn't that curious, given she'd just had her own strange accident with Suki. "Don't overthink it, you two. It's just a cat." Those two could never be anything more than casual friends, anyway, she decided as she took her leave. If those two were sharing a secret, it had to be something she already knew about.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

"It's too late for tin foil hats, Suki. They're already among us."

---

None of the "normies" at Hibusa High really knew why someone like Kiyo would choose to hang out with someone like Suki. She was someone who had the looks to become popular if she tried a little, but they knew her as a short-tempered person, too self-important to be friends with anyone outside of the Detention Club. So when Suki's impromptu juggling act drew lots of eyes onto the pair just in time to see a bowl of one of her foul concoctions land on Kiyo's head, their first thought must have been that surely, this time Suki's antics had gone too far for Kiyo to keep putting up with her. Kiyo slowly removed the empty and slightly sticky bowl from her head and placed it aside—the calm before the storm if ever there was one. If there was a desire emanating from Kiyo in this moment, it was to skip her next class and take a shower, but to the rest of the room, she didn't seem bothered at all.

"That so?" she replied, as if what Suki just said and did weren't both completely absurd. "I don't really have any scandalous thoughts worth protecting though," she lied, casually. She took a sip of some apple juice, leering in the direction of Tsubomi and a new face she couldn't put a name to. "What about you? Hiding feelings from your unfeeling partner over there? Jealousy, perhaps?" she tacked on at the end, half-sarcastically with a lighthearted smile. She asked with a tone somewhere between casual interest and disinterest, like someone asking "what's up" without expecting a real answer, but still leaving room for one to be received without being annoyed.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

"Is this what being a schoolgirl is supposed to feel like?"

---

Evil Eye was always late, but Kiyo was usually on time, or close to it. Today, however, she was absent her first class, and one of the last to enter the cafeteria, with a hearty yawn but something close to a little bounce in her step. By the usual metrics, she was downright giddy, a stark contrast to the Doomer of yesterday, that Nyxia had accurately labeled 'drama queen:' a label that Evil Eye would certainly embrace gladly.

Evil Eye was always giddy, so it didn't really mean anything, but when Kiyo was giddy, something was up. Whether or not that something was good or bad news for everyone else was going to remain a mystery until she felt like talking about it, and that would be whenever the dramatic reveal was most potent. Until then, she would sit quietly with Suki at the 'VIP table' and enjoy her chicken parmesan. If she was in a good enough mood, she might even share the bruschetta.

The night had gone off without a hitch. The numbers of the Mogall had increased, and she'd met a new light girl in town. That would be cause enough to celebrate, but the girl had called her by name. She knew who she was. She'd called her 'Evil Eye,' and yet, she'd still looked directly into her eyes, despite whatever she'd been told about her by the Gems or the local light girls. It wasn't really done as a power move, either. She didn't do it to prove she wasn't scared, or any of the other nonsense reasons other light girls might do it. That last face she made, too, was quite amusing. Finally, Hibusa Town had another light girl who was a fun person.

There was just one little problem. One tiny fly in the ointment. I was having so much fun acting like a cool oneesama, I didn't get her name. Goddammit. She pounded the table with her fist—just once, and not very hard. I said all that, but I kind of want to meet her again soon, she thought. She'd given the girl a chance to chase her, but she hadn't taken it. Her mind drifted to Boleite, another light girl who hadn't chased her when she had the chance. Coincidentally, she found herself curious about what that girl was doing these days, and wanting to meet her again. Kiyo thought that she could be a fun person, too. Why did the fun ones never give chase? It was always the boring 'heroes' who chased, because it was their 'duty' or whatever. Worrying about the dark girls... that kind of thing couldn't even be classified as thankless work. It was nobody's duty. Evil Eye did it because she felt like it. What was that girl's reason for doing it? Something more than idle curiosity, but less than a sense of duty...

How mysterious. How fun.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

"You know what they say..."

---

Kiyo watched, wide-eyed, with an unreadable expression as Shuuko shambled over to Roche's side like a possessed Jiangshi, embracing her just as stiffly, receiving stiffness in return. What is THAT supposed to be? she wondered. Elsewhere in Hibusa Town—somewhere far away—an eye twitched. She thought their last interaction had ended amicably enough, but... perhaps not? Was this "bad girl" Shuuko? No, no, no. The aura was all wrong. The hug was no clever scheme, but an earnest display of affection from Shuuko. All this time, was there a third? And when did she get close to Roche? In fact, the same question could be asked of Nyxia. Just when did Roche get so popular—and why did she care, exactly? Even now, Suki was leaving them all behind, and somehow, it irked her. Then, like a bolt of lightning, it hit her, and if it were even possible, her eyes widened further.

Ah. No one is looking at me, she realized. Not for wise counsel, not for sisterly affection, not in admiration or fear or even base lust or hatred. Everyone's eyes are on someone else but me. How vexing. I'm not myself when no one is watching, she lamented with a quiet sigh. She, too, turned towards the door, gnawing contemplatively on her thumb nail. "Haha. Now I feel less like a third eye and more like a third wheel. ...I'll be going now. Be evil, sisters," she said, the same way an adult would normally say "be good" to teenagers left without supervision.

"Hehe... the more the merrier."

---

Evil Eye flew through town, somewhere above eye level but below the rooftops. Roche was right, of course. Traveling alone was a bit foolhardy, but she didn't care. In fact, the thought made her smile almost uncontrollably. I've found it, Rei. The chink in your armor. You're my polar opposite—you don't spare a thought about the girls... but if something threatens the claim you've staked over Hibusa Town? Ohh, noo~! Her smile became manic. "Eyes on me, girls. I have the perfect plan. It's so flawless, even failure is an option! Khhk-khhk-khhk-khhhhhhk!" She snickered, her body trembling with both gleeful anticipation and terror. Yes, what Hibusa Town needed was not less light girl activity, but more. If what passed for incompetent leadership with Rei caused her to lead where Roche had failed, then if Evil Eye failed as a supervisor, Rei would supervise—and if Rei supervised the Club, surely she would see what Evil Eye saw: that the girls needed her. If she didn't see that, then it would confirm to them all what Evil Eye already believed: that Rei didn't care. The best part was that, just like with Roche's party at the beach, she could accomplish this with no real harm done—except to Rei's ego, as well as her own image, perhaps—but no stain to her reputation would last forever.

I wish they could see my brilliance, but I suppose it takes a few billion years for some stars to become visible to the feeble human eye, she thought with a sigh. I need a hero. If she were a choosy beggar, she would find someone with an aura like Nonsuch, but who would actually follow through when given the right enemy to fight. To find such a person, she would need Mogall. A lot more of them. She'd been saving her strength for Ashbringer, but this was an important moment, and even if no "ceiling" was quite apparent in her ability to store this evil energy in her eyes, diminishing returns certainly were apparent. I can afford to cry if it's only a little...

So it was that, this evening, and well into the night, the Mogall would multiply. They swarmed around the bathroom as Evil Eye gazed into her own eyes in the mirror. They trickled out slowly, so as to not draw too much attention to the night club. I don't need them to recognize my efforts. I do my best work when my heart is empty, she told herself as she cried. They will die if I fail, she willed herself to think as, behind her, the night club caught fire—though, it did not. Shuuko's head didn't explode beside her, either—for several reasons, among which was the fact that Shuuko wasn't even there to begin with. She maintained eye contact with herself for as long as she dared, which was up until the point that she began to feel the sting of smoke in her eyes that didn't exist. The smoke, that is. It was the smoke that didn't exist. Her eyes certainly did, even if she couldn't exactly see them anymore. I cried too much. It's been too long. Trespassers... I can barely sleep. She pulled out her handkerchief and wiped her face with it, even though her tears had all birthed Traumas, and there was nothing to wipe. Years had passed, and this realization would never not be weird. "Why is this part of my magical girl kit, anyway? What's wrong with standard issue tissues? Besides, it's never useful to me," she pouted as she inspected the useless kerchief in her fingers. Her mind drifted back to the one time it had been useful. It was Oros she'd lent it to, which was fine, but she wasn't even crying at the time, and she'd been the one being comforted, which was just backwards! It's not like they even spent that much more time together than with the other girls, either. Well, they all spent the most time with their own partners. What was she even worried about, anyway? Shuuko had no choice but to keep spending time with her, and time healed all wounds. The two of them would be fine.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

"You'd think Nyxia believes Rei only keeps me around for my devilish good looks."

---

Kiyo's eyes remained locked on her newspaper (seriously, who reads those anymore?) but her attention was devoted to the other girls. "Ooh, right. We're getting stronger to fight Ashbringer, not just for fun. I nearly forgot the main quest line, there," she replied lazily—but, Nyxia was ignoring her now, to get the last word in. Kiyo couldn't fathom how quickly this girl who seemed obsessed with wanton destruction of miseria suddenly grew an attachment to a flower shop of all things. As for Kiyo, she couldn't care less if the town was flattened as long as these girls survived.

These girls who, to put it simply, had devolved into chaos. Roche was moping, Nyxia was still rampaging, Tsubomi was tripping, and Shuuko seemed... out of it, somehow. Only she and Suki seemed to have any semblance of "chill" left, and Suki was eager to change the subject, to Rei of all things. What did Rei gain from keeping all of these girls entirely dependent on her, anyway? What was so damn cool about being the Queen of Hibusa Town? She would be glad to abandon this place if they could find peace somewhere else. She'd already done it once, after all, and only come back because it seemed as if Rei might have learned something about being a proper leader while she was gone.

Just then, though, came the news that Rei would be joining them. Finally. A familiar smile emerged from behind her paper. Well, well. Seems a third option has just presented itself. I know what I'll be doing tonight. She had no intention of sharing her plan with the other girls, though. None of them were interested in hearing her out at all—but that hardly mattered, in the grand scheme of things. "For once, Nyxia is speaking sense. There would have been no Detention Club worth returning to if you'd just been Rei's obedient dog. You want my sincere advice on how you can 'do better?' Allow yourself a pat on the fucking back once in a while, huh?" This time, her voice was calm rather than emotionally charged, and with that, she let it rest. She'd already vented to Roche about this.

She stood, rolling up her newspaper, and limped her way to Shuuko's side. "Cat got your tongue?" She bonked Shuuko lightly on the head with the newspaper, grinning. "This upcoming hunt is the most important one in a while. I need your head in the game, high priestess."

The Hourglass Order

Fate Breaker

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Captured by Palaparese rebels, Raffaella must bargain for her life. Unaware that she is aided by a familiar face, she weighs her political priorities against those of her nation and her captors as she is presented with an offer she can't refuse.

Palapar 4: Negotiations on the Balcony

When Raffaella awoke, her magic had been taken away. She was not trusted with it, but she was not restrained either. Mixed messages were being sent here.

It was not some dark room that she was in, at least. Instead, she was seated on a chair on a covered balcony. It was sunny - sometime around midday - and they were outside of the city, overlooking it.

A man who she vaguely recognized - that rebel leader - stood with his back to her, watching something in the distance. A second figure, only a silhouette in the shadows that pooled in the verandah's corners, had seemed to be talking to the first when he noticed Raffie stir.

"Ah you're awake, how are you feeling?"

The shadow spoke in Avincian with a deep smooth voice. It had much of the inflections expected of a Revidian native speaker. The shadow shifted, as when the shadow fully turned their gaze to Raffaella, 2 orbs of burning rainbow energy cut through the shadow casted. The shadow, Black King, was sitting at the table with Raffaella, as a hand appeared from the shadows with a cup and a small serving plate.

"Would you like a drink?"

The freckled redhead gazed groggily from behind the bags under her eyes. She met the two lights of the unknown man for a prolonged moment, seeming befuddled. Then, she grinned. "I know I'm little, but I wasn't born yesterday." Her voice was also raspy and weak without her magic accoutrements. "I'd like to know why I'm still alive, though."

It was in response to this that the other man turned about. He didn't make a show of it. he just turned on the spot. "You're alive because - as crazy as it might sound to you given what just happened - we prefer not to kill." He was the small man with the deep voice who she had encountered at the gala. He shrugged with some regret. "Not unless it's necessary to achieve our goals." He glanced over his shoulder at the city in the distance an continued. "He thinks that your death isn't necessary." He jerked a thumb the shadowy man's way. "I need some more convincing."

Black King lightly set the cup near Raffaella as he allowed his compatriot to speak. When mentioned to have been the one to believe Raffaella's death was unnecessary, he lightly waved to Raffaella. The burning orbs where eyes would be turned into crescents from what could be described as a smile.

"You may be on the wrong side, however, that does not mean we must be enemies."

"In other words, you want to know who's paying the ransom, and how much you can get," she replied to Dani, inspecting her nails dismissively. "Sadly, no one's paying. Unlike the nobles you so despise, I worked hard to get where I am now, which means my life is worthless by reason of birth. For what it's worth, I profit nothing from the suffering of your people. All of my funds come from my late adoptive mother's inheritance and a charity called Vaşdal's Hope for the Infirm. My bank records could prove it, were we in Virang."

Dani snorted and turned away to look outside. This girl was either dumber than he'd imagined or it was an attempt at emotional blackmail. In fact, he decided to call her out. "Shut up," he told her, point blank. "You know that if we were looking to ransom you, you wouldn't be talking to the two of us, uncuffed." He turned partway back and smirked crookedly at the other man. "Though I guess we could ask you to drain that fund of yours."

"Without the Gift, being uncuffed makes no difference. It's called playing with your food," Raffie replied with just as much snark. She met the Black King's strange eyes, dismissing Dani entirely. "The fact is, I am not an enemy of your cause. Everything I've done was in service of accumulating more influence, and someday, the power to make it all stop—to point at corrupt nobles like that fat bitch from before, who let her son rape their servant girl, and say: 'off with her head!'" Her eyes went manically wide. "No long moral debates, no sitting around a table with useless bureaucrats—just swift justice, like Dami intended." Her eyes narrowed and her smile vanished. "But until then, I had to keep 'playing the game.' Not that you'll believe a word I say. Of course I'd tickle your ears by agreeing with your ends, if not the means—but, I do mean it. While you're killing the corrupt and cruel, if you happen to remember me, know that I'm smiling on you from the endless dream beyond."

She leaned back into her chair and broke a nail on the armrest in frustration. "So whatever you plan to do, do it swiftly. As I said, I hate sitting around a table discussing the fates of other people's lives."

"Gods, you're dramatic." Dani rolled his eyes. "and you can drop the nail, by the way." He nodded slowly, stroking the short sparse beard on his chin. He glanced the other man's way. "What do you think, Volto?"

Black King lightly nodded as he listened to what Raffaella believes and is doing. He shifted back lightly as he continued to listen. Even lightly whistling when she spoke of swift judgment, of both others, and herself. He turned towards Dani and almost chuckled, "Quite dramatic indeed. Entertaining even."

Black King shifted as he instead took the cup meant for Raffaella. Lightly shifting it in his hands as he says, "I believe someone this dramatic would have an easy time lying."

Black King lifted the cup to his face. Masking it in shadows as a solid clunk sounded. A moment after he spoke, "However not when a good portion of what she speaks of is the truth. Much of what she said is already known."

He looked back to Dani, "What of you? What do you think?"

"Pfft," she scoffed, placing the finger with the broken nail against the artery in her neck. "You thought it was for you. That's pretty funny." She smiled darkly, but then she lowered her hand. "My whole life has been one long lesson in acting. Excuse me for the dramatic flair."

Dani scowled for a moment and let her speak. "I think that the only way to be certain is to put it to the test." He shrugged. "For what it's worth, I would like to believe you. As I said, you are here and not tied up in a cellar for a reason." He turned, once again, to the masked man. "What say you? How might she demonstrate where she lies?"

Black King almost scoffed out a laugh when he saw Raffaella hold the broken nail to her neck. He couldn't think of any reason why she would make an attempt at her own life. Martyrdom was not something that would come from it. Yet after a moment of thought, Black King spoke, "Yes I believe a test is in order. And I believe there is a perfect situation coming for this".

Black King's gaze moved to Raffaella as he continued, "There has been a plague within Palapar. One that was brought from the outside and that feasters. The Virangish had brought with them their Darhannic religion. Yet that is not the worst of it. If it was just the religion itself, it would be well enough. However the head of the Blue Star Idasque, Imam Tilki, is a corrupt man who has only been a vermin within this country. While spouting his poisonous religion he had taken much from the people of Palapar. All in the name of this religion."

Dani scowled slightly, taking perhaps a less extreme line than his counterpart, but he went along with it. "I would not put things in such tones of brimstone," he admitted, "but my counterpart and I are in agreement. He is a symbol of a foreign religion imposed upon our people, just as the Idasque he preaches out of was built on the backs of our uncompensated labour." He shook his head. "So long as he and that Idasque exist, those who use religion and bureaucracy as tools of coercion and domination will continue to thrive here." Dani went still, biting his lower lip. "I say with some regret, that he must die." His eyes bore into Raffaella, asking of her a question that he did not yet put into words.

Raffie's narrowed eyes regarded him lazily. It seemed their goals weren't aligned, after all. Darhannic religious hegemony was absolutely part of her plans. "Vaşdal has shown me what he intends: to die a martyr. Seems like a problem that will sort itself out." Her dull eyes drifted meaningfully to the man that Dani had given the title of "Volto."

She let her eyes settle on him a little before continuing. "So, you think I can convince him to get out of there, so he can instead die of 'old age' rather than upon the world stage?" she summarized. "I am a prophet, and the progress you've made towards liberation thus far has lent credibility to my dreams. If I say that he must live, at least a few on my side might be willing to lend a hand in his escape—by force, if needed." She tapped her broken nail on the armrest, thinking.

The downfall of Virang was not her end goal. A purge of the corrupt, and regime change, if necessary, yes—but not destruction, and certainly not a barrier to the expansion of Darhanna. There was also, of course, Zarina. She would, in theory, betray Virang if it somehow served her ends, but Zarina was off limits. She also didn't want the Imam to be killed. She fully intended to have him die of old age, indeed.

But that damnable cult that stabbed her mother in the back. A chance to align herself with Volti interests may represent a possible opportunity to remove their strings from her life and her purse for good.

The tapping grew in speed as the wheels in her mind turned. She didn't seem aware of how uncomfortable she looked. With her mask of magic peeled away, her lack of poker face was obvious. "He doesn't have the patience for my speeches—very much like you, in that regard. I will pull him by the arm, if that is what you intend—but I will not spill his blood. Get one of your dogs to do it." She spoke loftily, as though such a task were beneath her, but she obviously wasn't the dainty lady she portrayed herself as, to grow pale at the sight of blood. The true cause of her protest was poorly masked.

"You don't have the stomach to kill him," Dani observed, and it sounded oddly unjudgmental. "Is it because you find him to be a good man?" He crossed his arms, leaning against the railing. "Or is there more to it?" He shrugged. "If we're to be bedfellows, hiding things from each other won't make for the most comfortable dream." He arched an eyebrow.

Raffie's eyes flicked to Dani. "Oh, you can be poetic too if you try," she observed with a small, short-lived smile. "I don't know much about the man, but my intuition tells me he's not a bad person. If he's engaged in corruption as you say, it was not for self-gain," she said confidently.

Her mind drifted into a fragment of her dream. "He reminds me of my mother, who repaid evil with kindness. A good-hearted fool who marches to their death, carrying holy scripture where their dagger ought be instead." She opened her eyes. "There are those in Virang who await his death with plans at the ready, but those are destined to ruin. As it stands, his death will bring me nothing but sorrow, and I daresay it will bring your people nothing but more pain and death." She spoke matter-of-factly, as though the winds of politics and the course of fate were matters of certainty.

Yet, she had been willing to stand aside and let him die, for the sake of standing by Zarina in her desperate hour. "What became of Zarina Al-Nader?" She asked as if expecting an answer.

If Dani smiled, it might've just as easily been some other expression, for he did not smile much. He glanced over at the hooded man, who let out a muffled snort from behind his mask and nodded. "You may be right, and his death will cause more harm than good for all," he admitted, "though I hope you will see what we are trying to do and make the right choice."

He allowed the statement to linger for only a single extended moment, and it was during this that Raffaella posed a question of her own. If the hooded man gave away nothing, the rebel leader kept true to his side of the proposed agreement. "She is unharmed, though I understand we were forced to give her plushtail oil so that she would not kill our people on the scene." He nodded slowly. "She has been sent up north, into the countryside in the path of the Company's expansion, to see for herself how the people of Palapar live."

Raffaella nodded solemnly and exhaled. So, placing a spear in Zarina's hands did not doom her. It might have even saved her life. "If you tell her I'm alive, it might do you both some good." Some time to process their failure to stop Raffaella's prophecy could help as well, but that was less important than ensuring she didn't give in to despair.

"I won't fail, so long as the Gift is returned to me—and, my cat would help too. Gabriel is the only other ally I trust completely." Her eyes searched Dani's. She was not in a position to make demands, but she made them anyway. He was not the only one who needed to probe the other side for sincerity.

The two men exchanged a quick look and the hooded one nodded.
"You weren't given a large dose. You should be back to normal in a couple of days," Dani remarked. "As for your friend, she will learn what she learns." He gestured for her to stand and pointed down towards the gardens. They'd taken over one of the Company executives' houses and it was rather opulent. There was a greenhouse in the middle of them, for growing plants from different climates. "Your cat nearly killed a person on his way in. They've put him in there for now instead of something more permanent." He nodded. "Go retrieve him and then you're going to be ransomed."

"For optics' sake," the hooded man assured her. "Wouldn't look right if we just let you walk free."

"I suppose we have no time to stage something more convincing," Raffaella surprisingly agreed. She scratched her chin as she walked through the garden to the greenhouse.

She paused when she came across an Elder's Embrace and admired it. "In that case, let's let Ren Baykara foot the bill," Raffie suggested, as if the thought amused her. She heard no complaint from the two men, so she proceeded to the greenhouse to pick up Gabriel.

"Heel, Gabby. Sit," she commanded to the grumpy feline. "It seems our captors have an eye for good people, my dear." She stroked his chin affectionately. "Perhaps a liberated Palapar does stand a chance, after all. I may have to take back what I said."

Marked for death by Osman the Prudent, Imam Tilki's fate may be sealed, but Raffaella seeks to overturn it. Rather than flee, she faces an opponent she cannot defeat, but he exposes her identity. To forestall possible execution for betraying the Virangish crown, she stakes a claim to divine authority, much earlier than she originally planned.

Palapar 4: The Burning of Blue Star Idasque

One Week Previous

He had been giving nonstop since the idasques had reopened. They almost hadn't. The vizier had felt it was a risk. The populace, for now, was too hostile. Imam Tilki had argued that they would remain so without the idasques trying some form of outreach.

The compromise was that his house of worship was now a fortress. Janissaries entered and exited through every door but the most holy, always on patrol, glaring at the locals who came for food and blessings, interrupting those entering the dream with the clap of their boots, and barking orders at each other and those who walked where they were not supposed to.

And yet, they, too, were part of the Dream. They prostrated themselves in prayer. They conducted their ritual ablutions. They heeded their Imam when he called upon them for assistance. They cooked and cleaned when they were not guarding. They ensured that all business and charity was conducted fairly and, when they did not, they asked earnestly for forgiveness.

The locals had been hit hard by the sanctions, and they had little in the way of recourse, and so they came. Most did not pray. They cared nothing for his religion. They wanted food and, in some cases, shelter. He did not judge, for he was not Dami. He merely provided. Yet, as he did, he saw the beauty in it: how they helped each other, how they greeted him with respect and even fondness, how Virangish and Palaparese stood in the same chambers and conversed around meals.

And Imam Tikli, for all of his wounded idealism, all of his golden dreams of a better world trampled by the marching boots of his own nation, began to believe that there may have yet been a chance... for peace.

Raffie had volunteered to assist the Imam—not as the prophet-dreamer, with her shining visage and frills and ribbons, but as a humble redheaded girl with a face only the Imam would recognize among those present. She handed out food and joined others in prayer. If she offered them a blessing, she did so quietly and without fanfare.

She was only just recognizable in her humble maidsclothes on account of her extraordinary shortness, and one brief glimpse she had given him of her true face within the Chamber of Deep Dreams. "I'd appreciate it if you could keep this a secret between us. I do have an image to maintain, but doing any actual work in that getup is a bit much for me," she'd managed to say during a brief and lucky window of relative privacy.

If they knew, the Janissaries might have been grateful to not have yet another high-profile public figure to keep track of. Not that it mattered—Raffie stayed within sight of the Imam at all times. For all her glamour and childish attention-seeking behavior, it seemed she really was concerned for his safety. If her eyes flicked his way, it was to make sure he was still there. She worked hard even when he wasn't watching, because she, too, wanted peace to be victorious.

The Gift kept her frail muscles going. She drew from the heat in the air, slowly as to not draw attention to herself, but a few people did notice. Soon, she accumulated a small group of young followers crowding around her for relief from the heat. Somehow, she was able to both secure their silence and get them to assist her. The girl had amassed a 'cool kids' club and she was at the center of it.

It felt nice enough to not have to worry about what other people thought of her, but to be liked when she wasn't cute or wealthy? When had she ever experienced such a thing? It made her want to cry... because she just knew—barring a miracle beyond her ken, this peace and these smiles would not last much longer.

The most humble and fairest of scholars Faiskal Al-Shujeira was helping out with the walls that kept him fed and was willing to entertain his rather heretical questions. The Imam was among the religious figures who were among the few who genuinely seemed to care about the betterment of his community.

He seemed to be sewing?.. within the courtyard of the Idasque, repairing a young scholar’s robes. ”Now, don’t run around too wildly or you’ll fall and I might not have the time to repair it then.” He handed it back to them before packing up the little kit they had.

Days passed by with the young man doing small-time labor, fixing clothing here, helping carry there. He offered to be of help in the kitchen, yet they denied his request by sending him to assist with the preparations of the prayers. It was not world-altering work, but it was fulfilling. Such a peaceful life was scarce to find.

It could almost wake him from a pleasant sleep. Faiskal’s eye went wide. Was he starting to think like a Darhannic? He might have stayed here for quite a while already, and the discussions with the Imam were nice… but he had to remember how a good person like him was prosecuted by these self-centered gods…. Vashdal was neither present, nor mentioned by the other five.

And so the days ebbed and flowed: a Habenaki Summer of tranquility even as clouds that so many refused to see gathered on the horizon. There were some who came to the idasques to cause trouble: at least once was the fountain of ablutions damaged. Twice, people tried to break into the vault. Some would try to chip pieces of precious lapis lazuli from the walls. More than once, when caught, they would decry the building itself: how these stones were taken from their land and raised for the glory of a foreign God with either no or paltry recompense. There were thefts, of course, as well. Some would still take more than what they were given freely.

However, by and large, the numbers coming to the Blue Star Idasque continued to grow, even if they did not quite swell. Aira, the queen's favourite, continued to make her presence known there occasionally, causing headaches for the janissaries who stood guard. They were rough military types, almost to a man, but perhaps even they softened. It was not out of the question that maybe some had started to believe. The imam went about his daily rituals. He led prayers. He meditated in the Chamber of Deep Dreams. He did not say it, but many thought it, in those antebellum days: there may yet be a chance for peace.

These people were fools. So long as men like Piyale Karga and Ertan Kashani remained in charge, it was a fool's errand. So long as Ren Baykara continued to press his boot to the necks of the Palaparese people, so long as executions continued and people were pulled from their homes and the fruits of Palapar's soil flowed unabated into foreign hands with precious little benefit to its people, there would be no peace. Some saw this and tried to make changes. Others saw it and tried to tighten their grip. Most, however, were blind - some willfully.

Then came Nox Arcanum: Panday, Jores the first. Those who did not will themselves to look away had seen it coming, but they were precious few. It was almost as if...well, it couldn't have been. Yet, it was. There were people at the top - the very top - who had plotted this crash course, because they believed that they could control it. They believed it would be cleansing. Had they truly been ready for the violence?

Faiskal had been missing from the Idasque when it happened. Some whispered that the queen had taken him for a lover. Others said that it was Aira who had. Some found either claim to be baseless slander against a man who had spoken softly to power and done nothing but good. Seong Ae-ra, as well, had not been present. She had been, as she often was these days, at the Queen's side. Finally, Raffaella, a heretic to some believers and a prophet to others, had found herself at the gala when knives were drawn and blood was spilled.

So it was that the palace on the hill burned and hundreds died. Its conflagration spread rapidly throughout the city, consuming all that reminded its inhabitants of Virang in a catharsis of pure anger. One by one, those houses of the wealthy were put to the torch, ships fled harbour or were ransacked, and houses of worship found themselves under siege.

For five nights and five days, this carried on, and 'The Company', as it was called, lost its grip on Ceboyan. The final nail in this coffin was the fall of Fort Limanagzi. Yet, the janissaries at the gates of the Blue Star Idasque held firm and the local converts came out to speak, and perhaps Imam Tilki had earned his house of worship enough goodwill that it was not a favoured target of many but the most radical elements of the revolution. Many would-be mobs dissipated before they could truly coalesce. A couple of bricks punched through the beautiful stained-glass windows, and a torch or two ricocheted off of the walls but, fundamentally, the idasque remained untouched.

Some who could not make it out of the city and many of those who had converted fled to the safety of its ornate but solid walls and, there, they huddled and prayed. Incense burned and soft voices could be heard. Many were stunned into near-silence. Some murmured in helpless anger. Others begged for deliverance. Some cried, the soft sound of their sobs carrying within the great echo chamber of this holy building. Maybe they cried for what they had lost. Maybe it was simply an animal reaction. Most likely, however, it was fear.

There was a mob coming, and in earnest this time.

Just as before, in those—she could almost rightly call them joyous—days, Raffaella arrived at the Blue Star Idasque whilst blended in among the crowd. This time, she wore a simple black dress. For what she was mourning, those terrified huddled locals could only speculate, given just how much had happened.

There was no time to waste for comfort, either for herself or for them, however. There was a very simple reason she was here, and it was with this mission in mind that she sought out the Imam. She beheld the Idasque burning in her dreams, and so she knew exactly where she would find him.

Yet, the mob was already here, and her dream had ended with the Imam's presumed death. If she was to do this properly, she would need to buy more time. So, she turned back to face the mob, expression solemn. "Will you consume even the innocent in your wrath?" She stood in the way, drawing only a cautionary amount of manas for now. "Allow me to evacuate the Idasque, and you may do with it as you please afterwards. This is all I will ask of you." A great swell of chemical magic descended upon the crowd in an attempt to pacify them enough so that they didn't try to kill her on the spot.

A theatre of killers calling each other foul is what this had become. How could they murder with less than a second thought? He had felt left in the dark on the greater scheme at play. His head turned towards Aira, the single person whom he could keep safe from the murderous rage of these so-called freedom fighters... Was she more in the know than him?

Not that it matter now. They had left him to a fate befitting cattle and now he only sought to return to the simple times he experienced on the isles before. On his frame was no longer the visage of the Queen, but of the simple scholar, Faiskal.

The mob was approaching and time was of the essence. He did not want to hurt these people, there has been too much of it the past days. "Why are these uniforms so... uugh." Yet it was not the time to be critiquing their attire. Their looks did come in handy, however. Using his sonic magic to have the sounds of multiple boots matching on the roads, illusory bodies moved to the beat of the march and with a little extra touches of light, the false army was finished.

They were shouting and chanting in ragged unison, their cries spilling over one another's, their rushing feet heavy on the street. The sun hung low and moody in the sky.

Amid the cacophony, few heard Raffaella's pleas. Her magic was skilled and effective but, with a capacity as low as hers, it made little more than a dent in the overall numbers of the mob.

And then there was an enemy to match them. Where this many janissaries had suddenly come from, none could say. The city was in rebel hands and had been for a few days. No major pockets of resistance remained. Yet, there they were. Perhaps they had been hiding in the idasque all along, under the guise of peaceful refugees. Perhaps there were more inside. Perhaps there was a portal open to some great Virangish city or fortress and they were streaming through, this very moment.

Regardless, the peace that the place had seemed to represent - the promise of a better and more honest kind of relationship that it claimed to be seeking - appeared to have been exposed as a lie.

So it was that the mob roiled in its fear of the small army marching towards it, and this made war against its inflamed fury and sense of urgency. If they did not stop this army here, then who would? Who could? Yet, to do so, might mean putting everything on the line for that which they believed in. Did they truly believe in it enough to die for it?

It was no use. It was never any use. No matter how she lowered her head, or her voice, or raised them, spoke many poetic or a few harsh words, whether she gave or did not give concessions, no one listened. No one ever listened to her. They heard, but did not listen—not her mother, neither friend nor foe nor neutral party. Not even Zarina.

This.

This was why power was absolute.

It was the only currency that was respected.

The only language the masses truly understood.

Something within little Raffie was breaking. Was it her heart? Was it a moral code she'd tried to adhere to until now, in spite of her better judgment? Whatever it was, it broke slowly and painfully like a bandage being removed from a partly dried wound. As it did so, she slowly drew, more and more. She drew beyond the meager 6.0 capacity her classmates knew her for, until the torches held by the first few rows of the mob were beginning to snuff out.

"That's enough. Come no closer."

Her voice was even and cold. She knew that someone had conjured an illusion, but the mob's approach had to be stopped now before they figured that out for themselves.

She stood atop the steps, the one place she could look down on them from, and did so, her face neutral and dispassionate. The girl was not so very intimidating herself, but the presence of something else—something more than human—was it a deception, or a sign given by something divine?

It worked well enough! Another visual win for the greatest lightbender the academy had even known!. Even if the mob would only be convinced for a while, every moment counted. Faiskal stared at the mob and bit his lip in utter frustration. He is not a one-man army as that boor Zarina, hells, even that avatar's strength could restrain the mob for long enough for everyone to stay safe.

He knew that just illusions weren't going to be enough to deal with this, but what else could he do? There was that lingering feeling to try and trigger the sensation he had at Kiluaho. But would he die again? Could he come back again? There were so many uncertainties, it drove him mad.

Then as he was at wit's end, he noticed a girl stand between the Idasque and the occupied mob. "Scheisse! Why would they even think about-" He had to help, yet he could not move his limbs... except away from the issue. This place really sucks worse than Escheran's heaven... All he could do was stare at the heretical air disguised as the holy.

What could they do in the face of someone more powerful than they? What might they do against someone who could crush them? None were willing to simply throw away their lives. For all of their rage, they had been trained by their prior lives to bow their heads meekly to shows of force.

Now, this habit, beaten into them sometimes literally, resurfaced. The leading edge swirled back, stumbling into those behind them. With regimented precision, the serried ranks of the janissaries came to a halt, presenting a deadly line of pikes, halberds, and muskets, mounted officers stopping beside them with swords raised. It appeared that this was where the Darhannic faith had chosen to make its stand - alongside a heretic - in the city of Ceboyan.

For a moment, they halted there, seething and shouting and working their way up to the level of courage needed to place their ideals before their lives. "Go home!" one shouted. "Out of Palapar!" screamed another. "Thieves!"

"Murderers!"

"Slavers!"

"We no want your God!"

"Go home!"

Inside of the idasque, a very different sort of scene prevailed. Imam Tilki rose from prayer as religious men and women hurried about, gathering their belongings, saving priceless tapestries and adornments, and gathering close to one of the doors. The holy waters of the fountain in the Chamber of Deep Dreams were rerouted via a valve that sent them back into the aquifer from which they had come.
How long this stalemate would last was anyone's guess, but Raffaella's and Faiskal's approach seemed to have bought them some precious time...

Just like in Kiluaho, Raffaella bore the hatred of Virang, a country she had no connection to prior to her adoption, and took the blame for their sins which she did not commit. "Are you listening now? Good. Once I've finished evacuating everyone inside, you may do as you please. The gods I serve are gods of people, not of monuments."

Once the Janissaries had formed a line, Raffaella hopped back and glided into the Idasque. She'd done all she could to cause them to hesitate for as long as possible. Already, the mob was gaining momentum in a courageous and dangerous direction right before her eyes. Her time to save the Imam was limited.

Faiskal blinked as the girl that looked like they were helping him stop the mob go back into the Idasque. "Come on little lady, why couldn't you be the one here that could cut me some slack in this place." He began to sweat, the concentration necessary to keep such a detailed illusion made up of several separate components was straining his mind.

He tried to adjust his senses to keep focus, but it did not work. Nothing worked the same in his body since he came back from that so-called heaven. Even the peers into the direct future hasn't been happening since then either. How long could he keep this up? He also had to make sure the Imam gets away safe, that the people who fed him make it out with no casualties. Come on... you're the best illusionist. The future Hugo Hunghorasz of lightbending. You can do this for at least a little longer!

It was at that moment that one of the mounted officers - who had been eerily still, suddenly leapt upwards in his saddle. In fact, he didn't so much leap as he just floated shakily up, otherwise unmoving. After a second, he was back in his saddle, but the damage was done. "Eh! What's up with him?" shouted one of the rebels, and a handful pointed. At least a couple dozen glimpsed the error before it was rectified.

Once Raffaella found the Imam, she alighted her feet upon the ground and bowed in respect. "I come bearing an oracle from Vaşdal." She smiled enigmatically.

"Don't."

She paused. "That is the entirety of the oracle, Imam," she finished, completely seriously.

The Imam walked quietly beside Raffaella. She could feel the beginnings of the weird-churning energetic surge that most often denoted the rare use of temporal magic. He clasped his hands at the small of his back. "You have succeeded in changing a fate many thought ordained," he said with quiet respect, but he shook his head. "But Vaşdal has had a greater dream and I have seen it." He nodded slowly as reality some five or six yards distant from the pair began to twist and swirl. "That dream is for you."

Outside, it was time to run. Faiskal had singlehandedly held off an entire mob of hundreds with an illusion to make even the likes of a Joao Fabio proud. It had allowed every other soul in the Blue Star Idasque to make their way towards an escape, but it was now too much to maintain.

A hooded figure in the crowd stepped forward and called it out with a sonically-enhanced voice: "It's an illusion! They've got nothing!" A good player knows when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

The great scholar's jaw dropped low as someone called out his artistry as a mere illusion. But it was not proper etiquette to yell at your audience when there was but one rude viewers, hence he bowed elegantly before his legs went in full sprint. "And that was all for this showing, folks! I hope you have enjoyed it!"

He had to find the Imam, to beg him to evacuate everyone as fast as possible. Next to that he had to find the important religious articles... some of which he could keep for himself, right? For who would be able to take better care of them than him, a renowned scholar. A famous figure among the people of the Idasque. Just for safekeeping, Fiske...

A portal opened.

A mob charged.

A treasure waited, locked away and unclaimed.

And amongst it all, a little girl protested, shaking her head urgently. "If you die, there will be no dream, only a nightmare. If you do this, you advance the agenda of those who signed your death warrant! What good can be done by repaying evil with kindness? Please..." she reached out with a gloved hand, as if to forcefully seize his arm, but stopped just short of actually doing it. She knew she could not afford to use all the energy she'd just drawn fighting the man she was sent to rescue.

"I am not giving up, young one." The Imam reached out and patted her fondly on the head. "I have not seen all, for I was weak and did not wish to. So, if Vaşdal dreams of my escape, then I shall, but it is a shepherd's part to protect his flock." He shook his head and the portal opened in earnest, now. Imam Tilki took a hiatus from their desperate discussion to urge people through. "Go!" he roared, "Go through! Safety waits on the other side. I took help from a Tarlonese - curse me for it, but she offered and I was loath to decline. Öjeran spares us this day and we question him not." He twisted to Raffaella as the great sound of the front gates giving way could be heard. "Only long enough for these people to get -"

"It is not Öjeran you need worry about," boomed a voice, and twenty people simply... ceased to exist under a massive kinetic crush that turned their organs to slurry and their bones to splinters. Ribbons of bloody skin trailed across the idasque's illuminated floors.

Unbeknownst to the pair who now watched in horror - "Go, girl! You have a grand destiny!" Imam Tilki shouted, "Go!" - Faiskal was one of those caught at the very edge of the crush. Only his power in the Gift saved him from a similarly grisly fate. He merely stumbled and half-fell. Whoever this was on the attackers' side, he was mighty. His ire turned in the direction of the few in the vicinity who had survived his initial onslaught.

Imam Tilki's focus turned to him.

Hearing someone else besides herself and her mother talk about her grand destiny gave Raffaella pause, if only for a moment. "Are you just saying that to encourage me to flee?" she half-asked with a smile. Her attention turned to the leader of the mob at the same time his did. "Will I find that destiny by running away..?" She asked the question to herself as much as the Imam. Until now, she did run away from all her battles, with precisely that reasoning—or excuse, perhaps—just like in Kiluaho.

There were, also, the Volti. Just what did they expect from her? They'd tried so hard not to tell her. Was it a greater fear of them than the mob that stood before her that kept her feet rooted to the spot? Whatever it was, it wasn't the frozen stance of a frightened prey animal. She stood ready to fight.

Imam Tilki said no more. He nodded and there was a surge of energy from his direction and then the walls ripped free from the hallway and slammed shut around the advancing rioters, crushing at least a dozen.

For a moment, the black-robed man, who had been caught between with the others, seemed to have disappeared with them, but it was always going to be wishful thinking. A section within the middle of the grisly sandwich began to splinter and collapse, its centre disintegrating.... inward until it imploded.

The Imam did not strain or waste any time. More people: the huddled masses - ladies in once-fine dresses, shivering clerks, praying zealots, the entire lot - funneled through. Some pushed and butted, but it remained an organized, if desperate, affair for now. Getting them through was his goal. He drew from the force of the walls' shattered remnants bursting outward. Bits of human clung to them and, as they hammered into fleeing believers and charging rebels alike (for the robed man seemed to have no qualms with friendly fire) - more joined these.

Then, Raffaella felt a pinch behind her ear, as did Faiskal and the Imam <Eyes. Close.> Moments later, there was a blinding flash in the rebels' direction. People staggered and shrieked, holding their eyes. Aira stood in the atrium, arms spread, chest heaving, and eyes blinking open. Veins bulged in her hands and face and her hair hung in great black curtains to either side.

The black-robed figure stood stalk-still, head bowed, as Aira's hands fell to her crutch handles and she made absolutely no bones about running. Then, after a moment, the monster who had casually flattened dozens and overpowered the Imam straightened. He strode forward once more, and now Raffie could feel it. The portal! Its fringes wavered and went choppy.

The portal was failing.

Any notion of the Imam being yet another hapless pacifist exited Raffie's mind with a force to match the walls as they closed in around the mob. She froze, not because the sight was too gruesome to behold, but because of the sheer shock of it.

She did not dwell on it for long. The portal was failing, and she decided that this man was the source, intent on not only destroying the Idasque but taking as many lives as possible with it. She could not overpower him, at least not alone, but she could make his advance more complicated. She could distract him from his temporal interference.

Debris thrown at the escaping crowd of believers was smacked aside with kinetic energy as she shielded her eyes from the flash. Then, she held an arcane lance in her hand and threw it right at his face. Magnetic forces carried a sleeping gas along with it that would envelop both him and the rioters when the lance was blocked. She did not expect or need the attack to succeed in stopping him for now, only to draw his attention away from the portal, and hopefully, the Imam's more impressive follow-up attack.

The magical surge that came next was... titanic. A half-dozen people collapsed, unconscious. More than one retched blood onto the floor. Others folded over or staggered from the sheer energetic pressure.

Seong Ae-Ra was stronger than most. The Tan Keoulean stumbled, one of her crutches slipping sideways, but caught herself. Blood left a single deep red line beneath her nose and she looked up to regard the man who had done it.

The portal flickered and wavered, but held. Whoever was on the other end, must've had the capacity to match their assailant? Was this a high ranking Volto?

Regardless, as Aira stared death in the face, she began to feel the strangest sort of pain: as if every piece of her body was starting to separate from that next to it, as if she were about to completely dis -

She dropped to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut as the black-robed monster turned his attention to dissipating an arcane lance. It was an effortless thing, but it shielded a clever second attack that drew his attention from his relentless pursuit forward. He stopped in place and seemed to waver for a moment. There was a surge of energy and it was clear that he was fighting off a chemical attack.

He'd win.

Yet, beating him soundly was not the goal. Around him, a half-dozen other rioters collapsed. More refugees streamed through the portal though, strangely, despite its assailant's distraction, it continued to waver just as greatly.

Imam Tilki was drawing as well, and it was not a negligible amount. Refugees streaming past him winced in discomfort, and a few crashed into others, dizzy. There was nothing he could do about that save to hope that their fellow believers would treat them with the kindness Oraf expected.

He regarded Raffaella with a strange species of respect and frustration rolled up into one. His eyes went from her to the attacker and back again, before finding Aira, as she hobbled up to where they stood. They seemed to ask a question: "Do you want to push more?"

Raffaella's eyes flicked to the Imam, meeting his gaze. "What? Are they not my flock too?" she asked, her childish voice caught somewhere between innocent and indignant. She might have pursed her lips if she weren't staring death in the face. She drew again, though without the advantage of having done so in advance, her second attack would not be as strong. She was no longer alone, however.

"I can't beat him, but all of us together can at least keep up this stalemate a bit longer." She blasted a stream of fire at the floor and hurled its rows of now-flaming pews with kinetic. They would be easily blocked, but she hoped more debris would scatter about and join the bodies of the unconscious. It would shower them with projectiles and slow their advance further with more obstacles. She sought to cause the mob to stampede over each other and become a stationary mass of tangled and helpless bodies.

Over half had made it through, to this point, and perhaps one in ten had been killed in the attacker's initial onslaught and by projectiles from the mob. It was a truly ugly scene, but with the power of all three of them combined, there was a burgeoning sense of possibility. They could do it. They could hold this guy off.

But he burst free of their magics and now there was no toying with the trio. There was no leisurely stalking forward, no confident saunter. He bolted, mowing through Raffaella's attack effortlessly, even as it scattered some of his fellow rioters. They took heart in this charge, in fact, and began to rally.

They twitched, suddenly. Some shrieked. Most writhed. Some collapsed. Tendrils of lightning twisted and danced across their forms. The hooded monster was no exception. He wavered for a second, slowing, but he was not stopped.

That was when Raffaella felt his strength for the first time. A colossal wave of kinetic energy slammed down on her from above, and it was like having something the size of a Royal Sand Wyrm dropped on her head.

If Raffaella's show of courage was more form than substance, she was still just as quick as the fleet-footed coward that cried her way through most of the Trials. In an instant, she was out from under that crushing force, but then that same force was slowing her down, as though she were flying through water instead of air, and the hooded man was gaining on her until the Imam intervened.

Oh you're a really inspiring figure, attacking the little lady first. She had no time to let the thought settle as a flank of the mob approached her with torches and rocks in their hands. Before they or the hooded man could get too close, she surrounded herself in a pillar of Marhazannet fire, bringing down part of the ceiling with it, and bolted away again. If the hooded man wanted to chase her, she would let him chase her, away from the escapees.

It was Aira, however, who found herself a target first. Their main enemy surged forward and the portal flickered. Perhaps a quarter of the refugees were left, their escape blunted by the combat, as some had passed out, others had cowered, and a stampede had, inevitably, begun.

The Tan Keoulean froze for a second and then took off backwards, hurled high towards the wall above the long hallway to the Chamber of Sacred Relics. She impacted with a great cloud of dust and falling plaster and stone. It was a good sign. Had it been her soft human body hitting something that hard, the surface wouldn't have shattered. She'd ensconced herself in some sort of kinetic bubble.

Raffie was still the target of his ire, but then... the portal winked out. A man was not able to arrest his momentum on time and was turned into threads of meat and skin that splashed messily to the floor. Others screamed and swirled around, a woman falling partially through and having her arm shredded.

Then, it flickered back to life and more people were shoved through. As Raffaella looked down at her hand for a moment, feeling static electricity build in it, she could swear that she felt a tugging from all directions...

Raffaella had the man where she wanted him, which was away from the portal. Now, if she could, it was time to make a stand, if only for a moment. If her strength was still not enough to impress, perhaps a divine power could.

She tapped into it, that strange power given to her by the yawning fish—the thresher's spine which allowed her to withstand any one attack without fail. While she did so, she cast a spell just a bit beyond her current level of study.

With an energetic gaze of deception, she aimed to make it seem as though it had been her that stopped the spell so effortlessly, rather than an outside power. She aimed to panic and stall the mob yet more, creating the illusion that she was drawing in more energy than she could, in reality. "Burn the Idasque and claim your moral victory, but this is as far as your massacre goes."

Aira was a small crumpled thing lying on the floor. The last of the refugees staggered through the arcing flickering portal. It would last for naught but a few more seconds. She would not make it, not as she was.

The hooded figure paused in his tracks at Raffaella's effortless defence of one of his most powerful spells. "No," he replied, his voice sepulchral, "Just you, Raffaella Mataraci." If he had been given pause, he was not cowed. If anything, he seemed to burn with a sudden eagerness, and he began to draw once more. "You are my obstacle and this old man is who I need to kill." He leveled a finger at Imam Tilki, even as the others around him swirled back, wise enough to avoid the certain death that awaited them should they step between two powerful mages dueling.

"Go, young one!" urged the Imam. "Go and so will I. I need only buy Aira a few seconds more!" Already the one-legged woman was rising. One of her crutches was shattered, but she limped with surprising speed on the remaining one.

The portal cut out for a split second and there was a scream as another refugee's arm and leg were splattered across the broken tiles.

Aira ran with everything that she had in her injured state. It would not be fast enough.

Raffaella blinked. "Oh? It's you," she replied blankly. A thousand thoughts tried to come to mind, but she only had time for one, and that was that Ren had seen through her ruse and, judging by his challenge, somehow knew what she intended to do as well.

Between the two of them, one had failed Osman's test, and it wasn't clear to her yet what the exact nature of the test was or which one of them had failed it. It didn't matter, for there was not enough time to think of the political implications of this clash of wills. All she could do was make a gambit to secure, at the very least, her own survival, in the face of her defiance of Osman's supposed will. After all, the Darhannic world was bigger than just the Virangish crown.

"You are a man of grand ambition indeed, Ren Baykara, if the will of the divine daughter is a mere obstacle to you," she judged.

She'd said it, then. She'd staked her claim and there would be no going back, but she had her narrative. She had just rebuffed a mage three times her strength, and it appeared nothing short of a divine miracle. What would Ren's story be—that he'd failed to apprehend the lowliest mage of the Virangish court? No. He could not let her escape here, which was why, if there was even a fraction of a second of hesitation or shock at her bold words, she bolted at the portal right then, just as the Imam urged her so.

Unfortunately for Aira, they did not have "a few seconds more." Though it had taken her the entire battle until now to notice, it was Ren's mere presence that caused the temporal instability that was the portal to stabilize. Ren was chasing Raffaella, and that meant that if she was even lucky enough to make it into the portal herself, she would be the last one through. If he, too, knew this, every moment she played cat and mouse with him was a much greater risk than she'd initially estimated. No matter how cruel the cat, all eventually got bored of playing with their food, and when he did, their escape would be cut off. She had to go now.

So, at the last moment, she would swerve into the Imam and attempt to take him with her. The impact would cost a few ribs between the both of them, but she wagered that they had both endured far worse injury before. "There is no time!" she barked. She prayed their tethered friend would assist Aira, but she could not wait out another round with Ren. He would call her bluff, exhaust the last of her strength, and it would all be for naught.

Would he acknowledge that he had been outed or remain silent in the face of the revelation? Did anyone else even hear them? "I liked you," Ren announced. "You saw things the way they were and you were useful." The rest was implied instead of spoken.

Raffie was already hurling herself into the portal, however, leaving the speeches to the arrogant. Imam Tilki cried out and stumbled as she crashed into him. "Girl, what are you -"

The portal flickered and, just as it did, a wave of kinetic energy pushed them back from diving through. It was too much! Raffaella was splitting her focus between Ren, trying to stick the landing with the Imam in tow, and the possibility of pulling Aira in after them.

She left the Tan Keoulean. There was nothing she could do. Now, however, they had lost their momentum and were stumbling on the precipice. Now, however, Ren pulled in earnest and his power was massive.

The portal faltered, and it sent shivers up Raffie's spine. She and the Imam had nearly been turned into pasta—truly a horrible fate.

She whirled around to face her pursuer. She'd hoped to save the other half of her limited divine power for whatever lay on the other side—she hardly trusted some unknown Tarlonese yasoi and whatever passed for their allies—but Ren was here and she could scarcely imagine a greater threat than him appearing out of nowhere.

Again, she was able to stop his kinetic pull and make it appear as if she'd done it with her own power. "Stubborn," she remarked. "as always." He, too, had been useful, in spite of seeing things in a warped way. She spared no more words, however, and simply grabbed the Imam and fled through the portal.

Then, she was in a clearing in the middle of a village. It was early morning, the sun just peering over the horizon and warm blue shadows stretching across the grass. Dozens of others shuffled or lay scattered about the lawn, in various states. Before her, sitting back in a state of profound exhaustion, chest heaving with her recent exertion, was a one-legged yasoi woman.

It was not her who addressed the girl, however. It was Dani. He was leaning forward, elbows resting on a bamboo fence. He looked Raffie up and down. He regarded the Imam, and he smiled. "Good work."

Raffaella looked up at the man and blinked. "Good night," she replied with a yawn, drifting off. The girl's exhausted response drew a few chuckles from the grateful crowd of lingering refugees. She was vaguely aware of her surroundings as she leaned on the Imam for support. As her eyes lazily drifted about, she saw near her eye level little children with eyes full of the vibrant curiosity of youth. They peered from behind their parents to catch a glimpse of the person the adults were whispering about. The person who protected them, was it really her? But she was so small, just like them! Briefly, those curious glances morphed into fearful ones as Raffie wondered if they would feel the same if their parents had been able to hear her declaration over the din of chaos. She didn't allow the distortion to last long, for she had some mastery over her own dreams. She blinked slowly, like a cat, as she pondered what Ren must be thinking right now. Had he felt a sting of betrayal? Was it disappointment? Did it really matter what that swine thought? Not really, but he could cause a lot of trouble for her now. She hoped he would decide that it wasn't worth the humiliation of reporting his own failure to assassinate the Imam... because of little Raffie. ...She had humiliated him a bit, hadn't she? The thought made her smile a little.

After a short rest, she decided she'd enjoy this opportunity—perhaps her last—to just be a normal girl who did a good thing.

Amidst the chaos of the burning Idasque, as Raffaella rescues Imam Tilki and his flock of refugees, Faiskal seizes an opportunity to salvage a holy relic and save a life left for dead on his way out, leaving no victory for the rebels but for the spectacle of the Idasque itself in flames.

Palapar 4: Holy Heist!

He ran and ran, and ran. Faiskal had to find the Imam now! Something felt off as the gates were caving in to the mob’s pressure put onto it. Yet as the moment arrived when he finally stumbled upon the Imam. As he ran towards him, he could feel it… A massive surge of energy right around the point where he was standing. Sweat rolled down his forehead, this had to be an illusion. It must be! He could not be as confident as before. There wasn’t a perfect, small peek into what has yet to occur, only a feeling that something big might happen. ”There is more than the mob! We need!-..”

His mind raced, milliseconds felt like hours. Everything felt so slow, but the one thing he knew was that death was looming over him. ”..-to run.” The energy he sensed before was gone. Not just the energy, but the Imam and the whole Idasque were gone. ”Am I dead again?” His eyes raced, scanning his surroundings. It was a vast expanse of nothingness. ”No, this can’t be death. There is no tribunal present.” He shook his head.

His mind settled on the theory that he was alive, but if he was alive… what was this space? Maybe it’s an illusion! But would he be so easily tricked by those? Perhaps Arch-Zeno Fabio was his opponent, but would he really be in Palapar? Deep down the answer seemed all but obvious. But he was a Sensemaster, the Zenos told him. Yeah, WAS, you dumbass. A voice rang in his head.
You again? Even when there is nothing, you show up. The voice cackled. Fisky boy, of course I do. We’re one and the same.

The boy sighed. Look, buddy. While I love our chats, I really don’t have time for this. Even if Fiske couldn’t see it, he could feel the voice shake its head. How heartless. Even when I just saved you from certain death. Fiske grew increasingly frustrated. Just tell it to me straight!

The voice clicked its tongue. Let’s play a guessing game then. He began. You can’t use your senses like you used to.

You were about to die, and now you are here. In a world devoid of anything.

The boy put two and two together and became profusely angered. Do the gods hate me that much?! They’d rather have me fade then return to their heavens after I redeemed myself?... He ran around in an attempt to find some light, something! You won’t find anything here, and if it makes you feel any better, I’ll disappear alongside you

It doesn’t make me feel any more relieved than I already am… He responded. Just help me get out of here, okay?.

Do you not read read at all? The voice called out, frustrated. Don’t you mean we?

Just try to like, think of the Idasque or something. the voice instructed. Then, try to let yourself fall. The boy closed his eyes and let himself fall.

A thud would sound as the boy quite literally fell back into reality. The Idasque looked so different. What had happened while he was gone? A robed figure appeared to have a standoff with the Imam, but before he could act much, he felt a few pinches. As instructed he closed his eyes. Finally, after opening them once more could he assess the situation. ”A portal? What is going on? Right, the mob. Right, right, right.”

Faiskal found himself behind the action, staring at it from a wide gilded hallway. He closed his eyes and turned his back and Aira's blinding light washed over him almost without effect. When he opened them, there was a gate, beautifully embellished and magically sealed to the nth degree. What had lain beyond there, again? The Imam - or perhaps it had been his disciple, Ibrahim - had told him. It had been something valuable. It had been guarded. his mind was still scrambled. Fear and urgency and adrenaline coursed through his body.

<Fiske.> It was tethered pinch language, and had a distinctly different feeling than Aira's. He knew this feeling. He had looked forward to it on many occasions. <Holy. Treasure. Behind. Gate. You. Save. We. Benefit. You. Benefit.>

He stared at the gate, knowing well he couldn't just open it.... mostly since he already tried. It had nothing to do with stealing! He was just curious. Whilst he looked upon the guarded door, he felt another couple pinches. There were enough that he would be reminded of a overly pinchy grandmother. Ooooh, you're going to try IT again?

If I'm able to move within that space... juuust right. I might be able to find my way inside. The voice sighed. Well, don't blame me if you move there only to end up falling multiple feet from the sky. Yet the warning came unheard as the visage of the scholar disappeared once more into nothingness.

This time he knew what he was doing... mostly, but as long as he can move and leave it with much issue he could pass through the gate.

Then, he was in. He emerged facefirst into a wall, squished against it but uninjured. The chamber was surprisingly simple: little adornment: just a series of platforms plated with silver to display the holy relics, a series of benches and carpets, and an ethereal glow from an arcane-bound lantern and a series of strategically placed mirrors. Faiskal was in and, there int he very center of the room lay one of the six great relics of the Darhannic faith.

They'll thank me later. Keeping this safe might finally lead to some recognition. He stated, his paws so close to touching the relic. But... before I grab it, I should look for some potential dangers on and around here, huh? And thus he looked around while he sensed.

He wished to investigate the room further for anything strange, yet did he have the time to afford such a thing? Faiskal did not know about such parameters in the current situation, all that mattered is that he would keep this relic safe from utter destruction... or worse, looters. However, once his hands were on the relic a small glow appeared from the lantern and soon after a beam of what seemed to be light bounced off every single mirror.

The boy's form was now in a weird S shape, he was not scared of light... however the heat that radiated from it seemed deadly to anyone that touched it. Why would they make such a trap?! It's not as if someone would ever steal-. He paused, contemplating his words very carefully. He had to get rid of this lantern, that was for sure. With a heavy heart, the boy lifted a coin from his purse and with the maximum velocity slammed it against the lantern. Shattering the mechanism within.

Once the beams of light dissipated, he grabbed the relic and stood in front of the gate again. One more time into that horrid darkness... He let out a deep sigh, before jumping into that space once more.

It was not a graceful landing, but it was not a near-disaster as it had been the past few times. Faiskal stumbled into the main foyer and, in front of him lay... Raffaella bodying Imam Tilki through a flickering portal, the dark-robed man pouring all of his focus into stopping them, and the ragged remnants of the mob's leading edge picking themselves back up and engaging in looting and destruction of this sacred place.

Most importantly, however, there was a message: <Aira. Left. Running.> There was a brief pause. <Fiske. Where. You. Go. I. Not. Sense. You.> It was then that he spotted Aira, limping for the portal on a single crutch. She had clearly been injured. She would clearly not make it. The enemy had not seemed to have spotted her yet except for a handful of looters. Their eyes went her way just as the portal winked out.

The hooded man stood there for a moment, unmoving. If Faiskal made a scene, though...

The young brother looked at the destruction with utter disdain for the looters. How dare they destroy such magnificent architecture? But that was not his main issue at hand. First came the message. Such a matter could be discussed if he does not die again, but then again... would an early trip to the afterlife be better than disappearing forever?

Aira was in danger. He had to jump in, he had to help, but this figure's energy was through the roof. He could not win against such a threat, right? Not the way he is right now, but he could try to save the one from death. He cloaked himself, running up to the crutched girl. Once He was near her he began to cloak her, her arm being pulled over his shoulder. "Let's get out of here." He whispered.

And so there was no brave final stand, no brilliant ploy, nothing of the sort. In his satchel, Faiskal held one of the holiest artifacts in all of Darhanna. On his shoulder, he held up a friend and ally who had been near-inseparable from him these past few weeks. They did what they had to: He cloaked them with an illusion; she aided it. They wound their way through crumbling wreckage, a hostile mob, and at least one wall of flame.

Ren Baykara found them right near the very exit, though they did not know it was him. With two broken ribs and a wrist, a fractured collarbone, a concussion, and a missing crutch, Aira ran just about as fast as she ever had since losing her leg. Faiskal, who had found the wherewithal time and again to head off dangers as they appeared, made a guess: no matter who this man was, he would not want to tangle with the Dieci Volti Nascosti. He was right for the wrong reasons, but it didn't matter. He managed the subtlest of chemical manipulations, stoking his pursuer's paranoia, and the two of them faded into the crowd, mere meters from the monster who had been hunting them.

It was the closest-run escape imaginable, but it was complete.

Some time later, they found themselves on a hill overlooking the city. Aira had taken the time to heal her body, and whatever small wounds Faiskal had picked up as well, but she could not heal away what she had seen. She could not heal Palapar. The young woman sat in front of a bonfire in the predawn glow and hugged her knee to her chest. It was in ruins - all of it. The Blue Star Idasque: her friends, her purpose, her future. "I never imagined it would end this way," she said in a voice soft and dazed. "I believed that there was something more - something better - to people." She had cried exactly twice before in her life, but a tear slipped free of her lashes now and traced a line down her cheek. "Is there really nothing left?"

"There is something left." He slowly opened his satchel, thinking if it was for the best that he'd reveal it to her in such trying times. "I was able to recover this before they could destroy it." And in his hand was the relic, the very heart of the Idasque. "As long as this is safe, we can still hope for the better to come, no?"

For a moment, Aira merely arched an eyebrow, not quite believing Faiskal. "You could've fooled me," she replied glumly, but then the boy who did not trust people with his secrets decided to trust her, that cool Rezain morning on that hill. Aira's eyes widened in wonder and relief. "Kabir's reliquary..." How fitting that it should go to those who had been patient. She placed her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arms around him and melted into him. Faiskal, a man who had come to understand the Darhannic faith, had not saved the Blue Star Idasque. Perhaps nobody could've done so.

"Thank you," Aira whispered, as the sun rose over Ceboyan.