Chevaleresse

Kusuke peered into the darkness as he continued to move forward. "Satomi?" He was pretty sure that was her voice, even if he didn't recognize the other. "Is that you?" This place had a bizarrely oppressive atmosphere; not shocking, given what he knew of Traverse Town, but it was still at odds with the rest of the patchwork city. "This place is getting me turned around a little." Disconcerting, that was. Kusuke was a good navigator in most cases, a skill necessary to avoid unfortunate incidents when skipping about through time and space. He didn't often get lost, and doing so was not exactly comforting.

F25 bungus vuln Shin

E23, dance for Lysander and Shin

Tsubasa took a deep breath after the fighting petered out, feeling the all-too-familiar sensation of burning throughout her body as she did so. She opened her eyes after exhaling, dropping into a relaxed - if still ready - posture as the conversation continued. She gave the Makuta a casually questioning glance, before nodding at Gozer. "A part of me says I should apologize for cutting a hand off, but another says I should aim higher this time."

"Your attack was deft, yet not sufficient. Tell me," Mitsurugi began, raising her blade up with the point towards the vengeful spirit. "Do you believe you can cut the wind?" An instant after she finished, she darted forwards with blurring speed, closing the gap between the goddess and her target in an instant. Shukuchi on the Onryo, activating Phase, for a total of 2*([3d8+33]*1.2) damage.

Scarlet frowned. "Don't play dumb with me." She stepped back to match Harmony, visibly tensing. "Unless you're trying to hit me with some philosophical thing. If you know I'm, then you know 'what kind of being' I am. The guilt trip thing won't work, trust me." There's no room for more. "Better question is: who and what are you?"

Arthur to H24 Justine to H22, perform Arthur Arthur to F22 and equip Sacred Fire

The Palace of Earth Spirits "Kaenbyou Rin, but people usually just call me Orin." She frowned. "A phone is that thing Koishi started obsessing over during the whole urban legend thing, right? No, there aren't really any of those down here, unless she brought one." Muenzuka The pair doesn't get very far before they feel a hostile presence. The source of this, after a quick glance around, is an orb of pitch blackness that seems to drink in the light, slowly drifting through the air towards the road.

The Streets of a Former Hell The shot cleanly struck the dish. Rather than shattering, it popped off into the air and flipped end over end. Yuugi dashed to catch it before it fell into an errant lava flow, but the sake within was all gone. She turned back to IP with a glower. "I take back what I said. Typical human." She stalked back toward IP; one couldn't help but notice that the earth itself seemed to shake with each step. Once she was back within normal conversation distance, she turned to answer Lotus. "It means I'm one of the four most powerful oni in Japan. And I could fold the other ones in half if I wanted to." Yuugi returned her glare to IP. "So, clever hero, now that you've triumphed over the brutish oni with your superior intellect, what do you want me to teach you, specifically?" Youkai Mountain The guard gave Masako a put-upon look as he rubbed at his nose. "I wasn't sleeping," he said with a pout. "If I get in trouble for letting humans in, then you're the one who's going to have to deal with Inubashiri, not me." He pressed a button as he slunk away to patrol another section of the wall; the gate groaned open ahead of the party. It wasn't quite shocked silence waiting for them on the other side, but more than a few odd looks came their direction from the denizens within.

"Finer details. Sure." The explanation was clearly insufficient for the mercenary, but she didn't press the issue. . . yet. "And yes, we've been pressganged into working together. Not a typical associate of mine." Which wasn't quite true; she had encountered a number of characters over the years, and going legit had only made it weirder. Though, none were quite as insane as Walker. "So if you've got a file on me, you already know what you're getting into. That means we can skip the warnings, yeah?"

Scarlet stopped in her tracks as the strange woman called her out. She turned her head, silently giving her an appraising look. The brunette didn't look all that threatening, but it was never the ones that did that got you. "You're perceptive," she commented simply, before turning to face the stranger more fully. "I don't think we've been introduced." Her tone was guarded, suspicious. Suspicion was a natural response to her; it kept you alive. It was something she defaulted to, questioning the intents of everyone as if she were a machine programmed to do so. Strangers that knew how long she'd been around were especially suspicious.

Justine placed a hand on Arthur's shoulder. "Memories are a more complicated thing than some people think. I can't tell you what to do with all of yours, although I wish I could." She thought for a moment. "I think it's natural to wonder about what could have been. How things might have gone if we'd met someone earlier, or never met them at all. Especially when it's something as complicated and painful as this. All I can really say is. . . try to find the good in it all. It wouldn't hurt this badly if there wasn't just as much joy in it to start. Let yourself feel that pain, and then try to turn it back into the happy memory it once was."

"And I don't give a shit whether you think I'm 'unique or interesting.' You're gonna have to try harder to piss me off than that." Scarlet rolled her eyes. "My dipshit tolerance is up." If it were a few decades ago, she might have risen to the challenge, but she'd seen too many kids high on their own fumes at this point. Instead, she just headed off to see if she could improvise something to . . . or find something powerful enough to get her drunk. Sometimes she wondered why she even tried to go legit. Things were easier when she just killed everyone that annoyed her.

Hearing her name finally prompted Scarlet to turn around and acknowledge the newcomers. "Somehow, I also ended up being the only medical professional here. Which means I get to do whatever I want with you if you get any new and interesting orifices blown in you." Her dry tone didn't make it clear whether this was an attempt at humor or intimidation. Great, more kids to keep alive. She elected not to comment on the earlier exchange about hitting on her. The merc wasn't sure if she would even notice at this point. Not for lack of interest, but for the fact that most people who would do so were people she wasn't exactly interested in for one reason or another.

"Arthur, it's okay to think about these things." She took a step closer. "I can't imagine the pain that memory brings, I know." Justine paused, considering her words. "But. . . if you run from it, it will never stop hurting. Suffering and grief are just as much a part of life as hope and happiness; if we refuse to acknowledge the former, then we won't ever be able to find the latter." She sighed, chuckling ruefully at herself. "I'm sorry, I might not be the best one to lend my shoulder at times like these. I think, though, that if you really want to hold onto her memory, you have to accept these awful feelings as well."

A memory - or perhaps a vision - bubbled to the surface of her mind, at the bidding of the strange sight before her. A sight of warriors laughing at their foes by dancing in the most improbable locations; atop a downed Hydra, in the midst of no man's land, balanced on a speeding hoverbike. Armed with this idea, Thunderlord jumps atop the tallest object nearby and performs the classic Guardian dance.

Scarlet's expression was a faint mix of horror and disgust. "Sapient life isn't a frivolous thing." She shook her head. "Lesson number one in morality, I guess."

Justine takes Thrusting.

Justine chuckled softly at Arthur's awkward attempts to relax. It was a little sad, if she was being honest, but it was nice to at least see him making a token attempt. She followed lightly behind him as he walked off a short distance. By this point, she'd let the front of the coat open enough that it was clear she was wearing her bathing suit underneath, as entertaining as it had been earlier. "You know, you usually come to the beach for the ocean," she commented, looking out over it. Justine's tone made it clear that she knew there was probably something else on Arthur's mind; he could talk about it if he so chose.

"Well, humans don't really come in templates like that. Not for lack of trying." It sounded like wherever Sucrose hailed from had it down to a science, however, if they were able to create sapient life by "incubating" some sugar. Scarlet wasn't sure how to feel about that initially, but the way Sucrose continued pointed her in a decidedly negative direction. "You sure you want to go back? They decided that you were so useless you didn't deserve to live, sounds like." It wasn't hard to figure out what "harvesting" meant here, even if the specifics weren't known to her. "People with technology and morals like that are the kind you need to stay far away from." She gave a bitter-sounding laugh. "Not that I can talk about morals."

Lucine drew back a bit at the giggling, looking self-conscious. "Is there something wrong with it? Did I put it on inside-out? I thought it fit okay. . ." The girl might have continued to speak, but Nader's words to Asgore and the ensuing reply provided enough of a distraction. At the mention of someone being scattered through time and space, Lucine frowns as well. "Oh!" She moved closer to the pair, red eyes bright with excitement. "I know a little bit about something like that! Well, um, it's not really exactly the same, and I don't know if it actually applies, but Heroic Spirits supposedly exist outside of time and space. Maybe I could use some of my magic to help?"

"Yes." Scarlet stifled another sigh. Just treat her like a version of Sadish that's a toddler. Except she's also kind of racist. It was moments like these where the ex-pirate almost wished she were religious; people with something to pray to seemed to be more able to deal with nonsense than she. "I need the disinfectants to sterilize the wound and needles to close it. The anesthetic is to make sure I'm not torturing someone at the same time." Despite her irritation with Sucrose, she couldn't help the curiosity that had slowly crept up about certain things she'd said. "What's all this about testing your line, anyway?"

Lucine shrugged, doing a cursory and not at all sufficient check before heading over to the nearest bathroom to swap out for the new outfit.

"I haven't exactly met a lot of talking rocks." She wasn't deaf to the tone Sucrose's remarks on organic life were taking, and she wasn't above retorting with her own. "I'm also not really here to give you a lecture on the difference between biology and organic chemistry. I'm just trying to make it so the number of corpses per job is as low as possible." Any heat that was in her tone faded to vaguely annoyed exhaustion once more. Here's hoping this shit actually works. Scarlet still wasn't clear on what happened between now and the last memory she had of her previous crew, but judging by the circumstances, it was probably what happened to most mercenaries.

The Streets of a Former Hell IP uses Aim Boost, preparing to fire. Meanwhile, the oni takes a single "step" forwards. Though her foot strikes nothing, it feels as if the earth is shaking regardless. Layers of bullets in twisting circles spring to life ahead and behind IP, threatening to trap her in place. . . Status: Initiative: Hakugyoukurou Youmu simply shrugged, going back to her gardening as the pair headed out. Eventually, they found themselves at Muenzuka; they could feel the hostile spirits permeating the air in the field of unmarked graves. Fortunately, a sign nearby pointed towards a few places, including the Human Village, the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and a place called Kourindou. The Palace of Earth Spirits "Probably? Satori's not much for visitors." The catgirl pursed her lips thoughtfully. "But. . . if you see Koishi again, and you're still in Hell, let me know." Youkai Mountain The tengu settlement on Youkai Mountain was likely an odd sort of thing to an outsider. It was walled off and patrolled by a number of wolf tengu (who watched the individuals trailing Masako suspiciously.) Though the walls may well have come from a castle in feudal Japan, there were more modern structures visible past them, or at least things that looked a bit like modern factories. However, the group didn't get much of a view before they were halted some distance away from the gate by a rather tired-looking guard, whose ears kept drooping regardless of his efforts to keep them pricked and alert. "What. . . Chichimura, why do you have two humans with you? Did you miss the 'closed to outsiders' memo somehow?" She didn't recognize this individual and their exhausted speech; the wolf tengu probably knew her by reputation. The dark-maned individual halfheartedly flapped his arms at the people in question. "Shoo."