Raineh Daze

Fate / Astrolabe

Hope you feel better soon.

Fate / Astrolabe

Saitō Yume

Yume was honestly quite surprised at the message that had found its way to her person. Not from any difficulty in finding her, of course, she made little effort to go out of her way to remain hidden. No, the impressive part was that the message had been handed over in such a way that the person leaving it failed to expose themselves. Not that much skill was needed to slide a message through the door of the apartment she was using... the clever part was finding where she was staying without being detected when she was in.

Whoever it was obviously had to have some tie to this servant-summoning business; the majority of her contacts in Tokyo had already been met or sent messages over the course of weeks. People appearing and disappearing... if it hadn't been Tokyo, then maybe nobody else would have ever gotten involved. It was the sort of thing a demon hunter existed for.

The rest of her contacts had to be reintroduced to the idea, of course. That was what the past two days had been for; there was nothing like getting to know someone by seeing how they fought, even if beating up a bunch of yakuza toughs was a waste of both her skills and Assassin's. Now that she had a proper low-level information network in place as the bosses got the reminder that Yume was very much not dead and able to come find them... maybe she could find whatever was behind these disappearances. Not that it seemed so simple anymore, with a seventy year dead martial artist being summoned and bound to her person.

Stepping off the platform at Ginza station and heading out onto the street, Yume was struck by something very obvious: there weren't enough people around. It should always be busier than this, and the number of people was only decreasing in the walk to Sukiyabashi.

"Notice anything?"

---

Nero

Skin soft and glistening, hair still damp... it was only too clear what part of the hotel suite the Emperor had been enjoying only minutes before, even if one were to look past her considerable state of undress. A state that was getting considerably less reaction than she had hoped for... really, this Master was almost no fun, not even giving enough of a response to tell if she was possibly interested or not. But she was able to maintain a suitable standard that, while by no means as palatial as Nero's tastes would have desired, was more than acceptable.

She might still need to go looking for more sources of attention, though. Perhaps staging some sort of concert...

"Nakano? If you must meet someone there, then I will accompany you for safety."

@KoL

Fate / Astrolabe

Anyhow, yes, looks like Nero's going to Nakano with Othis and Yume/Li are going to the crossing.

Fate / Astrolabe

I am the person who refreshes subscriptions rather than looking at mentions. I cleared them at one point, but it was up in the hundreds. :D

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

Tyaethe Radistirin

Things down here were really getting messy, weren't they? A lightning mage, the dead Baruksteadian's magic axe, the captain, liquified corpses... if she were to try and jump in now then it would go horrifically wrong. There simply wasn't enough practice at fighting in formation or as groups in the world to make sure everyone was safe when there were that many ally-threatening risks around, magical or stemming from simply having a big sword.

It would also probably get their hostage killed, so why not do something about that first?

Not making a big point of stealth, since it would only draw more attention away from the fighting, Tyaethe walked around the edge of the chamber, eyeing the prize and waiting in her head. It seemed that the lightning mage was going to cast something any second, so if she just waited for that or Maritza to swing the axe again, then... go.

The crucial flaw the conspirators had made in splitting up was in leaving a backline magic user as the one with the hostage. If it had been the burly warrior, then Tyaethe was sure this would have been impossible to pull off just because of how she would have been held. If it was Damon Cal, then he would have seen it coming just as well as she was able to pull it off. But a necromancer with one hand busy with his concoctions? He was frankly underequipped to even hold on to the Nem hostage, let alone react in time to the vampire that had sprinted with unnatural speed into his vision.

The completely unexpected feel of plate armour stamping on your toes was also another way to make someone let go in a hurry.

Having retreated with the retrieved hostage as quickly as she moved in, Tyaethe was left with the rather unenviable proposition of undoing these bindings whilst the remaining pair was dealt with. She should really learn to create a knife or something in the same vein as her armour, it would save so much time...

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

Oh right, turkey day and retail hell. Good luck.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

I'll get something up by Friday.

Fate / Astrolabe

Nope, I'm good.

Fate / Astrolabe

Right, which I guess means we pair Othis with Nero and Yume with Li?

Fate / Astrolabe

sword

• Name: Saitō Yume
• Appearance: Once, she would have blended in with any Japanese lady. A lifetime of magical reinforcement has had some effects.
• Age: 466
• Gender: Female
• Personality: A lifetime of fighting hasn't dulled the desire to fight at all, only sharpened it. Endlessly pursuing mastery with fewer to test it against only makes those opportunities to see where you stand more exciting and Yume is both very skilled and very old. Otherwise, what she carries with her is a feeling of preternatural calm, a mentality that remains unfazed by any disaster or trouble surrounding her.
  Her connection with other humans was never strong to start with and that has declined precipitously with age, retaining only a few professional contacts amongst those that hunt demons and magi of various schools. The idea of a relationship with another person beyond immediate gratification is as foreign to her now as it would have been when she was a teenager.
• Skills: As her age and choice of weaponry would indicate, Yume is a master swordsman, trained in the art long before the schools were closed and so much knowledge lost and with lifetimes of practice putting her beyond the reach of the normal population of the world, even modern prodigies. Of course, her choice of using an odachi is a bit strange, hardly seeming suitable for fighting other people but the improvement she gains in a duel by using a normal sword is negligible... and some things are much easier treated as a horse.
  In unrelated skills, Yume is extremely good at reading old or nonstandard Japanese, even if her own writing tends towards the same, and she is technically cultured... not that anyone cares too much about such old things.
• Abilities: Despite her focus being primarily on how to best put a sword to use, Yume is a demon slayer and an onmyouji at that, despite her current dress sense. Although technically able to, she has minimal interest in divination or fortune telling, preferring to focus on curses and exorcisms lifted from Shinto--from the oft-useless Curse of Binding that can do exactly what it says to the purely demonic, to effects that would be familiar to western magi, such as invoking the elements, or reinforcing her sword.
  The sword itself could be considered a mystic code, despite its lack of intrinsic effect, simply through the centuries of constant usage, reforging, and the magecraft worked upon it like clockwork. Receptive to enhancements to an unusual degree, magical energy alone is enough to let the sword cut through many things that would otherwise be immune--stone, metal, ghosts... the component spells themselves as much a part of the blade as its own metal is.
  The real question that Yume invites is how she manages to still be so alive? She doesn't give off the aura or interests of a great magus, which would normally be explanation enough for the why, if not the how. Certainly, magecraft plays a part in it, growing old and dying would be counterproductive to hunting demons down, especially for someone with no interest in raising a successor. The rest could be said to come down simply to a perfection in breathing and movement, Yume linked to the world itself and capable of effects similar to magecraft that way. But she was no miracle child when she learned it, nor a learned old priest who would banish evil... no, she was a swordsman first and foremost, and has always simply turned this perfection in movement to reinforcing her body and focus in combat.
• Backstory: It's an undeniable truth that Japan, as long as it has existed, has had something of a problem with its own demons. Many of the oldest heroes are such because of their interactions with oni and other beasts. Even with the great calamities defeated, the demons themselves hardly went away, breeding into even the lines of the nobility in part and continuing to haunt the mountains and forests. The integration with humanity presented a problem, though: the purity of binding became even less appropriate for dealing with the threats and other methods had to be developed to counteract them.
  It's from one family that Yume hails, drawing more from the most famous demon slayers than is normal due to their own samurai heritage. A daughter as an heir was hardly desirable in such a time period but with magical ability being inherited and Mino province being hardly the most peaceful of locations... there was little choice but to train her and hope that a suitable marriage would present itself to pass knowledge on. But soon the province went fully to war, the Oda engaging in infighting over their new daimyo and then taking on the Imagawa. This scenario left Yume at a loose end, surviving her parents but having a rather interesting feudal lord to take note of.
  Of course, everyone in the country knows what happened after that. The first unifier was betrayed, the second lived to old age but wasted too much on failed invasions and failed to secure inheritance, and Tokugawa formed a shogunate in the end. By that stage, not only was Yume thoroughly jaded towards acting as a loyal samurai between fighting with things that honestly seemed more important, but her lack of age was becoming suspicious. Shortly after Sekigahara, she faked her death and became just another ronin, albeit one with a monster hunting bent.
  It's something that she found herself regretting as the centuries passed, with such a lifestyle passing up the chance to take on many vaunted swordsmen. By the time the shogunate was approaching its end... well, she had no investment in the political landscape or being little more than a glorified street thug, so why get involved? It was another chance passed up.
  Yume knows that her life should soon be approaching its end, even as her current vitality remains undiminished beside some visual changes. No amount of efficiency in one's actions, no mastery of yin and yang, can stall forever and still remain human. And as Japan continues to change around her, as it has ever since the Meiji Restoration, it becomes ever more unlikely that each year will pass without something breaking, some fundamental separation between humanity and the demon kind she hunts will be lost. She should just accept it and save demon hunters the trouble of fighting one of their own kind. Yet... now her skills are demanded, and Servants are around? Yume will just have to keep going a little longer and take advantage of this opportunity. The possibility that a hero of her own lifetime might be summoned and she could see finally how they compare, whether had she died a glorious death she would be one of them... who can pass up that kind of opportunity? Losing herself is an acceptable risk.