Mayu Tsuzuki, Sukeban, Toby Aradam, Saori Maeda, The Figment, and Sitalkis. Thank you so much, everyone! ]

Early morning, Teas'n Tomes, April 4th..

"Don't lie. Nudies, pfft." It probably wasn't the first time he'd said that on their way back to the tea shop.

Eri looked over at Toby with an inquisitive and mildly jealous look. "Nudies? You got nudie pictures of Mayu??"

"He probably has a ton. Walking in on me while Sheridan and I were showering was probably the time he got a load of good shots, too," she says without looking back.

"I'm not telling," he grins wolfishly in a way that, somehow, also says 'Are you nuts?' Then--"HEY! That was *one* time and you'd *just* moved in and Sher *never* locks the damn door, *or* tells me she's in there! I didn't even see anything, there was too much steam!"

"And soap?" testing his knowledge.

"Of course there was soap, it was a shower. Sher was trying to make your hair into a--" He slides his phone closed with a click. "Nevermind," mumbles.

A secret grin meant only for herself sprawls across her lips. Motioning ahead of them, she spies the fabled tea shop. "Record time."

Red, like an artist's wrist had suddenly spasmed, slashes across his face with sudden ferocity. He puts his hands in his pockets and keeps his mouth shut.

Eri was getting a bit red in the face, though whether from jealous anger or embarrassment it was impossible to discern. A sound interrupted her thoughts, however, some evil roaring from down the street, like a gas chainsaw from hell. Eri looked in that direction, her posture tensing into a dueling stance automatically.

That wasn't a sound he heard often. It didn't make any sense, there weren't any trees anywhere nearby that were thick enough to need a chainsaw. At one thirty in the morning. He turns in place, trying to figure out where it was coming from.

The girl's nose turned up, as did her chin, to first take notice of the skybox at this late hour. Planes were a very far and between thing in RhyDin. Nobody had them, for one thing. What few did, they were a joke. She turned her attention downward, more toward the street that they were walking along, and paid attention. Unlike Eri, she wasn't poised for battle. She rarely was.

Saori rounded the corner nearest the tea shop, riding a bicycle of some strange design- it's frame made of a matte polished material that showed intricate ring and raindrop Damascus-like patterns in varying shades of charcoal gray and blue. In true bosozoku fashion, it had seven front fenders, pointlessly stacked one atop the other, and a ludicrously tall seat back twinkling with Christmas lights. The fittings and pedals were a brightly anodized blue metal, and the chainsaw sound seemingly emanating from -- a gas chainsaw, mounted obscurely on the topmost of the front fenders and stuck with the throttle wide open, the blurring blade projecting out over the front tire. The yanki was dressed in her normal flowing yellow coat, over black trousers, shirtless with a kendoka's wrappings across her chest, and humorously enough wearing a mad bomber cap and goggles that looked fit for some biplane pilot in a bygone era. Lashed to the package tray on the back with a number of bungee cords and adhesive tape was a bundle wrapped in canvas tarp, something about the size and shape of a petite human.

"Jesus Christ--" It was one of his favorite cuss phrases, even though he didn't believe. He can't hear his own voice over the roar of Saori's bike, lurching backward on reflex from the sheer monstrosity of the thing and its rider.

Eri looked relieved as she quickly recognized the driver, if not by her largely concealed features but by the rather distinctive Rappappa team jacket. "Oh.. it's just Saorin" The oni-ling had to pitch her voice high to be heard over the raving of the saw.

The miko blinked. At first, because she was feeling the sting of cold air in her eyes and they were starting to water. The next set was solely because of the image she was seeing before her: Saori, Christmas lights, a gas chainsaw, in what she could consider the most dangerous toy in all the land. That, and one hell of an amazing Destruction Derby warrior in all the lands. Her mouth flattens, trying her hardest not to shed a smile, and nods her approval. "Bitchin'!"

Saori climbed off the saddle, putting the kickstand down and carefully reaching over the fenders to hit the kill switch on the saw, mercilessly stopping it's hell raising racket and the blurring of it's chain. She removed the cap and goggles, setting them aside on the handlebar and shaking her now tousled hat hair out. "Just Saorin? Just?!" She protested. "As if the arrival of the greatest yanki in history is a banal occurance!" She grinned at Toby's reaction, and even broader at Mayu's.

"You like?"

His ears ring like he had a full choir in each canal. He works his pinkies around inside them, returning Saori's grin with one of his own. That he could understand. Words, not so much yet.

"I think the West would use a phrase here called... 'Heeeeeeell yeah!'" Two fingers slice the air in their pursuit of striking her temple, a grin on her mouth that splits it neatly in two--one ear to the other in a Joker-esque style format. Her eyes twinkle, even in the dead of night, like a thousand tiny stars in the abyss of open space, forming a kind of mirth that is impossible to deny.

"Hey, Eri, I think you've got some competition," he stage whispers to her, cackling as he thumbs Saori's bike. "I have to admit though, it looks real epic. I'd just turn it on and lean against it with some sunglasses like I'm a read badass or something!"

Eri nodded to Mayu's assessment. "Definitely hell yeah! It's the baddes bicycle in town" Turning to Toby she nodded. "Well, Saorin came first, so all I do is try and catch up with her accomplishment."

He guffaws. "Are you kidding? You're going to roll over and take that from a bike? You get over there and whoop its arse right now!"

Saori produced a bali-song that was clipped to her pocket, opening it with some foolhardy overhand spin, then passing it to her left hand with a nerve wracking over the shoulder aerial, though she deftly caught hold of the handles, rather than the gleaming mirror polished edge. This was employed, cutting the bungee cords and duct tape as though they were warm butter. "The saw was a last minute addition. Figured you might have the elf ear guy try to hold you up on a delivery so you'd need primary armament. Dunno what the situation is with petrol supply over here, but you can always modify the saw engine to run on another fuel if you have to"

Eri's attention was held on the bundle that Saori was unloading now, rather than on the garish bike. She seemed eager to have a look, but hung back waiting for the knife to be put away in case any more circus tricks were forthcoming.

He takes a handful of steps forward, unwilling to be left out of the process of unpacking the corpse from Saori's bike.

Once the bundle was freed from the package carrier, Saori carefully hefted it over one shoulder, closing her knife with a more pedestrian maneuver and settling it back into it's clipped position in her trouser pocket. "Things actually went pretty well. Was finished about thirteen hours ago. Having the measurements helped a lot"

Eri looked more than willing to hang back, keeping her hold on Mayu's upper arm now while Toby helped with the cadaver unloading process. "So it's an exact match?" She asked her sister hopefully.

"So I wasn't naked without reason?" There was a sigh of relief, one available hand resting on her chest. The idea that she'd done it without reason troubled her immensely, as it did bother her that Eri was so upset. She conquer her concerns with a glance at her fiancee, teeth adding to an already wide smile.

Eri looked to Mayu's grin, seemingly reassured as her own smile formed slowly, and spread to a sunny expression of contentment. "I'm relieved to hear that too, Mayuyu!" she chimed.

Well, left out of the process of viewing, but if Saori needed help, he'd gladly offer it. He snickers to himself at the Asian's questions. "She'd be Mayu no matter what body she's in."

Saori offered the human size bundle to Toby, still wrapped in it's canvas tarp and secured with a ludicrous amount of gray duct tape. "Here ya go.. let's open it up and have a look. You'll see, it's an exact replica of Mayu-sama, right down to the last little toenail!"

His eyes gape to the size of plates. He hadn't been expecting to be given the body! He wraps his arms around what he assumes are the shoulders and the knees, lifting his chin at the door of the tea shop. "You guys want to do this in a place that won't get us all arrested?" snickering.

Eri hadn't seemed to have thought of that, the exotically shaped eyes widening a bit. "Ohh.. good call Toby! Yeah, let's get off the street!" She tugged eagerly at Mayu's arm, pulling the girl toward the entrance.

"You won't mind privacy, right?" grinning at Mayu, he turns to follow the girls in with his bundle of canvas, duct tape and body.

"Please tell me it's already clothed? I'm going to feel really silly if I have to get in a body that doesn't already have some kind of clothing involved with it." Their request was a sound one, and she was moving toward the door with purpose to get indoors. The tinny melody of the lone bell over the shop's entrance sang.

He'd thought of that too, but he looks at Saori for the answer. He had the feeling that if he raised the question, he wouldn't be allowed to carry it anymore.

Saori nodded as she passed through the doorway. "Yeah, I hooked you up with some clothes. There's all kinda wards pasted on it right now too. We don't know what kind of entity might be lurking around any given moment looking for a body to inhabit, and this is a potentially very powerful body."

Eri trailed along with Mayu, looking eager as she stood behind the girl with her hands planted on her shoulders in a possessive and comforting posture.

He heaves a sigh of relief. "Well, at least that part's taken care of." Once he's inside, he heads toward a collection of couches, fluffy chairs and low stands situated around a rather good sized coffee table. He carefully sets the wrapped body down atop the gleaming wood, pausing to touch its head with one hand, his other reaching for the cutter in his back pocket. "We all ready?"

It had taken many weeks of training to get him to the point where he could stand and move freely beneath another's spiritual pressure, but the added tumult of energy firing from Saori who was so close to him and the way Mayu's heat joined the oppression are enough to buckle his knees. He draws the chair out with an angry scrape of wood on stone and collapses down, possessing enough mental capacity to lift his crossed fingers to Mayu, keeping his grin on, no matter how strained it is.

Eri finally toppled over backward from the emanation of power and heat. Her masked features were unable to show an apologetic look, but something about the way she shrugged conveyed it anyway.

He blinks, all the air in his chest expelled in a single laugh as Eri fell. Breathing wasn't much of a necessity anyway, but he liked the way the world smelled. His chest moved on reflex. He feels sweat building at his temples and the small of his back, his palms slick.

Once Mayu had leaped into the new body and begun presumably acclimating herself and making the necessary connections to the flesh, Saori was able to drop her transformation, only a coal of yellow in each eye rapidly fading to show that it had been there at all. "So far so good, I'd say" She remarked.

Eri too was able to clamber back to her feet, looking back to her normal human self by the time she straightened and dusted off the butt area of her jacket. "Yeah, well Mayuyu say it will take her a few minutes. She sure enough look like she went in there, so we'll see!" The delinquent looked hopeful.

Like the relief from pain, all the pressure on his body lets up at once and he leans into the elbow he had planted on the table, drawing in a breath until his chest strained. "It'll give us time to think of something awesome to say when she gets up. Any ideas?"

Eri moved midway between Toby and Saori's table and the place where the Mayus lay. "How about.. aren't we all good citizens?" She replied, a little nonsensically.

"The fat is in the round of the lake" Saori supplied helpfully, ever the genius of non sequiteurs.

"Cabbages, knickers, it's not got a beak" Eri suggested.

He cracks up, pointing at Eri. "I like it. Let's do that one."

The fallen body of the vacant body of Mayu stirs with slight motion, a grumble followed by a sputter of some sort. "Nrr... nh..."

Saori looked to the vacant and suddenly animated Mayu. "Hm.. supposed we probably should have warded her previous body.. this is rather an unexpected development"

The body sits up, its hands resting atop its head and shaking out all the tousled hair that blanketed it like a cocoon. "Mrr. Mrrr! ...mrr."

"Say wh--is she awake?" The voice he hears is Mayu's and without the pressure of the atmosphere threatening to rend whatever his body is made of, he hauls himself to his feet and takes a single staggered step, then a handful of normal ones toward the coffee table. "--Wait, Mayu's still asleep." He's never actually seen Melissa's device in action, he didn't know what to expect. He squints at the body now erect. "...Maaayuuu?" tentatively called.

Eri began shifting her weight from foot to foot, eyeing the now mobile Mayu shell. "Say.. Mayuyu.. something wrong?" She called out tentatively.

Tentatively answered. "MRR!" A bowling ball had momentum when it was lunged from an underarm pitched, and the body resembled such a devastating reaction once it hiked itself off the floor. "Whoaaaaaaaaaaaazzzzzzzz...zz..." Teeter. The voice didn't resemble Mayu's by very much. Strikingly similar in one instance--high pitched. That was it. Looking between Eri and Toby, it dropped its hands and stared. "Mrr."

Eri looked back to Toby, glancing nervously back at the non-Mayu Mayu. "Hey Toby... get a load of this! Any idea what is going on?"

"You don't think something possessed her, do you?" he calls back to Saori, his voice an octave higher than it should be. "Holy crap, maybe you're right." He stares, wide-eyed at Mayu's previous body now that it was standing over her new one. "MRR to you too, who are you?" His shrug to Eri says Uhhhh. He's got less of a clue than she does.

Saori was doing that absent minded scientist thing, rubbing at her smooth chin with her fingertips, dark eyes studying the animated clone. "Hmmm.. I think that's exactly what has happened. I'm not sure exactly how the process occurred.. I assume a side effect of that device she used to enact the spirit transfer"

Blink. Blink. It looked from Toby to Saori with a dumbfounded look. "Mrr? Spirit transfer? Mrr!" Looking back at Toby, it lunged out at him, arms in the air in an attempt to tackle him straight to the ground.

Eri's eyes cut rapidly between the three of them, listening to Mayu's words. She finally shrugged and began. "Well, hi new..AHH!" She darted out of the way, uncourageously diving for cover as Toby was charged.

His eyebrows fork down over his eyes as he reels back to the conversation he had with Melissa. "According to Melissa, she said--that that device would create a soul to take over Mayu's body so she could--GEH!!" He stumbles backward, but not quickly enough to get out from under the little madwoman lunging at him. He goes down, with Mayu's old body on top of him, and he doesn't know how to feel about that.

For one, he doesn't know where to put his hands, so he holds them up like he's got a gun pointed at his face, staring up into not-Mayu's face, trying not to let her position atop him get to him. "What the heck was that for?!"

How does he feel about getting her tiny hands around his neck and try to choke the life out of him? Cackling, the body pulls his head up by the neck and shakes it like a maraca. "KER-POW! KEEEEEEERRRRR-POW!!!"

Saori stood as Toby was tackled to the floor, looking back and forth for a moment. In a sheepish tone she explained. "Sorry Toby.. I know I should probably help you.. but.. well.. she's cuuuuuuuute!" The yanki retiree jammed her fists under her jawline, staring at the throttling creature with heart shaped eyes.

Honestly, at first, not so bad. Until the pain started. He squawks and shrieks and bucks beneath non-Mayu, prying at her ice cold fingers around his throat. "Let go, let go, let go!!!!!"

Eri was about to charge to Toby's assistance, a look of confused determination on her face. She was halted by Saori however, freezing under her elder sister's commanding "stop" gesture and sudden menacing look. "Erm?"

In a surge of righteous strength and inspiration, he attempts to roll with the non-Mayu until it's her on her back with him on top of her for a change. "What the hell's the matter with you, that hurts, damn it!"

Saori looked at Eri with blazing eyes, her hand diving to her jacket and coming up with the sawed off kanabo she carried, slapping the club down into the palm of her empty hand. "Sister.. if you harm the cuteness... a world of trouble! I want to study it's habits!"

"KER-POW KER-POW KER-POWWWW!" Since he's asking to be let go, it obliges. Taking him by the face, it attempts to slam his head back down into the stone. A level of resistance shows in its fluid motion, the amount of force behind the attack not enough to willingly smash his skull like a melon if it happens to succeed.

Since he managed to get it on its back, it resigns to kicking and flailing at him, teeth gnashing up at the air and staring intently. "MRR! Bad! THIS IS NOT KER-POW!"

Eri growled at the challenge, diving at Saori and making a low pass intended to dive under the arc of the inevitably lateral swing of club. Catching the larger yanki at the knees, she took them both down in a flurry of punching, wrenching, twisting and biting. The bundle of warring siblings moved around the floor like a confused hurricane moving across a weather map, menacing anything in it's chaotic path.

"Of course it's not KER-POW, will you quit squirming and calm down already, you're going to hurt somebody!" He only has two hands, one of which he tries to keep around one of her wrists. His other aims for her sternum, right between her small breasts to shove her back down toward the floor. But with her legs kicking beneath him, and they were powerful legs, it felt like he was riding a really, really small horse.

Saori managed to snag her glass on the way by, promptly conking her sister over the head to release the latter's teeth from her shoulder. "Hey, let's all knock it off! Police are going to be coming for us!!"

It doesn't adhere to his request, still kicking despite being pinned at one wrist and the small definition of her chest. There was still one arm available and warranted being used and it swept across the air in a hook for the point of his chin. "KER-POW!! Mrr."

Eri made some unbelievably hilarious high pitched noise when she was clobbered with the heavy base of the glass, slumping to the floor where she remained in a stupor, cheek against the stone flooring and butt high in the air. "Mmn... my.. headneys.." she mumbled, incoherent.

"Bwah!!" Everything about his grip on non-Mayu unsettles except for his hand around her wrist, clenched tighter in reaction to the punch. He yanks on her arm like he means to whip her straighter over him in an arc and send her into the floor on his other side. Whoever this was, they were insane, they weren't Mayu, and Melissa was going to get an earful.

Well, at least about how the artificial soul was nuts. It got Mayu out of her body alright. They can get points for that one.

Rolling on its tiny spine, it leaps to its feet. Its knees were bent, spaced shoulder width apart, and cradled it arms close to their respective hips. "Mrr. Mrr!" It stared at the space between Eri and Saori, maintaining a deadpan, stoic expression. "Mrr."

He shakes his head, his eyes rolling around until he could focus the image of the tea shop properly, then he hauls himself up behind non-Mayu. She didn't look like she was going to be attacking anything in the next three seconds so he felt it safe to look at the real Mayu, still on the table.

Saori looked at the serious expression on the lunatic Mayu look alike, then cast a look at the door. "Well!" She intoned with forced good cheer, a rictus grin appearing on her face. "I'm sure it'll all work out. Devil's in the details, I always say! Gotta be getting on back to my workshop.. lots of irons in the fire and all that happy crappy!" She made a dash for the doorway.

"MRR!" Facing Saori, it lunged like a lioness after the fleeing zebra, making an attempt to catch the woman by her top and throttle her at the nearby wall rather than the door. It didn't like things that moved, apparently.

He didn't blame Saori for bailing. If his best friend wasn't in such a situation, he'd be on top of one of the bookshelves by now, throwing all the heavy books at non-Mayu.

He should probably do it, anyway.

"HEY!" At the moment, he leaps to try and catch non-Mayu's legs and bring her down with him on his impending belly flop.

Eri had recovered her senses enough to make a leap at Eri's feet, but was knocked off course by the hurtling Mayu thing, crashing under a table and going face first all over again.

The book thing will probably come later.

Its legs were lassoed by Toby's reach, and it tumbled to the floor before it could fully reach the retreating Saori. Its chin met the stone floor and bounced with the consistency of a helium-filled balloon. "MRRR!"

"Go! Run! Save yourself!!" He's hoping he doesn't get kicked anywhere important. It could happen.

Saori spun at the last moment before she could be caught from behind, but ran straight into the wall as she was looking backward instead of where she was going. Knocked senseless, the elder yanki made several abortive attempts at the doorway before getting it right, tearing the door open and lunging to the street beyond.

Eri had recovered enough, bless her quick healing, to join the fracas once more, launching herself into a fully horizontal dive toward the prone figure of the insane creature, eyes glassy and wide with a trail of spit like a comet's tail from the corner of her mouth.

It looked over at Eri's impending addition to the one-man dog pile and gasped, doing what it could to brace its chest under a cross of arms to reduce the amount of damage that it'd take from being crushed.

"You got it? You got it? Good, sit on it! Don't let it get up, or so help me, I'll take Mayu and leave you to deal with this thing!" He lays on top of the pair of legs he's captured like he can suffocate them to death.

Outside, a chilling disposition consumed the atmosphere. The temperature flooded to below freezing, oxygen and carbon molecules condensing and shattering until air mass was deadened and barren. Dense air funneled in through the imperceptible space in the panes of glass of windows and around the thickness of the front door. The immeasurable weight crushed the support of the building and threatened to shatter the building's foundation under feet. A separate wave of mighty energy overlapped and collided with the initial force, blowing out the door and sending a torrential wave of shrapnel and splinters throughout the inside of the shop.

Eri landed on it with her full weight, which wasn't very much. She quickly made every effort to keep atop the thing, trying to use her hands and legs to entrap each arm respectively. This heroic effort was forestalled as she was sent rolling like a boulder backward from the explosion of energy.

"Ngh!!" He lifts his head from the legs beneath him, throwing looks at the ceiling. "This--this is spiritual pressure--" He buries his face in the backs of non-Mayu's knees to ward off the sudden and immense tsunami of pressure bearing down on the tea shop. His yell is lost in the explosion of wood and glass and he doesn't wait for the pieces to stop falling before he tries again. "ERI!! ERI, are you alright?"

Mayu, the thought hits him as hard as the outward attack on the shop.

He claws himself upright. "Eri, get up!! We've got to get out of here!!" Stumbling beneath the several ton weight of pressure, he throws himself into an unstable run to get to the comatose body still laying upon the table.

Eri played her trick in the next bare instant, the oni's booted feet launching her forward onto her left foot with such force that the right and propelling foot left a smear of rubber from the bootsole burned onto the floor, the edges of the mark actually sprouting flames along little piles of powdered vulcanized grit. The bizarre backward stance showed it's purpose, Kurome being dubbed a 'queen of spades' with good reason, as the trick would never work twice on the same opponent yet was a filthy one, that left leading hand now pressing the raging hateful blade into a straightward thrust aimed not at where she'd seen the figure but several meters ahead, guessing that he'd be making a detour around her to get at Mayu and driving the attack at that exact point in space with speed that would threaten to drag race a bullet from a gun.

The trick itself? Stupid simple, but a mere optical illusion. The backward hand and footwork allowing the very end of the thrust an extra one half yard more than a standard kenjutsu stance would have allotted it's travel, so that an opponent thinking they were standing in guard out of range of a thrust would actually be in imminent risk of twelve inches blade to the renal artery and liver.

He doesn't have any time to think. He doesn't even have time to really act. "Sonofa--" He had just put that damn chair in place and he was already throwing his shoulder into it to get it to move, enough to wedge an arm into the darkness. His hand grazes the hidden girl's knees, telling right from left with ease. "Forgive me," he says under his breath, his hand finding purchase not on Mayu's hip, but the phantom hilt that he knows is there. He wraps his hand around it and pulls.

Hellfire erupts in a roar like the chorus of fallen angels, spitting, writhing, screaming, overtaking the blade in his hand. He's only ever held one in practice, never for real, never to injure someone else. He can feel its power surge up his arms, into his head until his scalp tingles, until the light bathes his hair making it gleam like the flaming blade he holds. "You've never fought him before, Eri. I know you've faced down a Servant, but this guy is on a whole other level." He affirms his grip on the sword, turning his body one way, his head the other. He swears he can feel his anxiety stain the air, the taste of fear in his mouth like a handful of copper coins. "He's coming."

The Dweller's business was not with Eri, and he'd paced himself past her at such a rate that she seemed to be moving at a span of one-third her normal speed. The grace of his steps, the way his waraji sandals hit the floor and how the air pushed around him: it was all so captivating were it not shrouded by inherent speed.

His reappearance bled cold, bitter life into the environment, ambiance turned solid ice; water molecules suspended in mid-air. There was an obligatory crackle and pop, a lake bed undergoing a radical freezing process in less than a nanosecond--the time it took for him to arrive beside Toby's risen figure. He didn't bother studying the sword in the Opes' hands. He didn't bother acknowledging that he was even talking. All the Dweller did was come out of an arching sweep, nodachi parallel to extended arms and in the process of sheathing the hilt between the expanse of his forefinger and thumb. What catastrophic damage he happened to unleash, were it possible, wouldn't present itself for several seconds to come.

"Your voice bothers me," the boy tells the treasure bearer, staring straight ahead at the shelving of books and tomes. His haori overcoat drags in his wake, fettered by time and unable to keep up with what had been an unorthodox stride. He finalized the waltz of his dash--if it even could be called such a maneuver--with a final step ahead, and turned, chin arching over Toby's shoulder and facing outward toward the building's collapsed entrance.

There wasn't a moment. There wasn't even an eighth of a moment, a hundredth, a thousandth. Mid-sentence, his words die on his tongue, his eyes locked on Eri's face, her stance, her backward attack meant to catch the Dweller off guard. The sword in his hand flickers like a lone candle, wreathed in flame that's ready for use, ripe and powerful, waiting for the wielder to acknowledge its existence and use it to carve and rend and maim. But there wasn't a moment.

Toby's spine arcs back on itself, his head thrown back, glacial eyes as dull as a clouded window as a violent eruption of cyan crystal spews from three slices cut diagonally across his body. His chest, his stomach and down his face from his right eye toward his left hand. Like handfuls of glass, the crystal sprays in all directions. Choked murmurs squeak from his throat, his mouth slashed and parted in shock, in pain and in terror. He sinks to his knees, and falls forward on his front, motionless as the rattle of crystalline gore rains down upon him, only to disappear in speckles of stardust.

Eri had tried her best and it had come to naught but the entirely comically useless expenditure of the bulk of the energy she had. Her demonic aspect disappeared in a blink and she was just a foolish girl pretending to be a samurai, the hamon of the blade no longer glowing like the spray of stars in the milky way, she dejectedly looked at the weapon and cast it on the ground like a tantrumy tennis player throwing their racket. Kurome's fine tool steel bent about one third of the way from the tip and snapped straight in half on the rebound. Eri fell to the ground, dismayed and no longer a factor in the event.

She called out to Toby from her knees. "I'm sorry! That was all I had. I'm totally trashed. Can't even move! Do your best!"

The chair was brushed away with the back of his hand, his frigid eyes low and staring at the girl that was huddled in the crevice in Toby's weak-willed attempt at hiding her away. Dropping to one knee, he reaches in and scoops her out of the hole, his hand cold around her frighteningly warm neck. "Divine Maiden of Dreams. In a new body. It seems you were intent on getting your powers back. Such a shame it's come to this."

The blade in his hand is exchanged for a jut of fingers, four neatly stacked all atop one another and resembling a skewer. Quickly, suddenly, the hand drives forward into her chest, forming a large cavity in the surface of flesh that goes straight into the core. The newly formed body was dense, like working through thickly clotted mud, but doesn't stop until he streamlines to where the presumed heart rested. His hand coiled around the strange new device, teasing with the array of pipes and arteries. "Such a strange creature. Most certainly not from the Soul Sector. They wouldn't deal with such technological marvels."

Water swims before his vision, his body catching up to the agony it feels, causing tears of pain to fill his eyes and drip. The furniture looks like its moving through a haze of black, in and out, in and out, like petrified fish in a tank. From far away, so far away he hears a voice. It's high, it's lilted, it's familiar. But it is not the voice he wants to hear, saying words that meant nothing.

Do your best? Do your best?! "Do..my best? What kind--of bullsh*t--is that?!" A sphere carves itself into existence around his fallen form, stone scored by phantom blades in hashmarks. Violent spires of cyan hued light shoot upward toward the ceiling of the tea shop, the air around him suddenly beginning to vibrate. Books rattle in their homes. Chairs and tables skitter across the stone floor. What glass is left in the windows surrounding them quakes, spidercracks appearing between the panes as a testament to the malicious pressure they're trying to contain. "What do you think this is, a game? Do your best? Like if you lose, that it's no big deal, that you can go home and cry to mommy and she'll kiss your tears away?!" His voice, reverberating with duality strains a throat previously slashed.

Within his circle, he lifts his head, forcing his broken body up onto its elbows, its tremoring knees, its feet until he sways with the momentum of his own spent energy and the weight that his muscles cannot fully support. He regards the Dweller with a cock-eyed stare, eyes blazing a turquoise inferno. He lifts his right arm above his head. "I told you, you bastard. You won't lay a finger on her. And you've laid four. You'll lose four. She doesn't belong to you, she belongs to me. TAKE YOUR HAND OUT OF HER!!!" With a roar, he thrusts his hand outward. The same crystalline substance that he had bled earlier rockets from his palm with amazing speed. His specific target being the very arm the Dweller has outstretched and pinned into Mayu's chest. The intention of so many projectiles, at such a speed, was to vaporize that limb until nothing was left.

The sight of Mayu attacked made Eri change her mind about being done for, eyes springing back to yellow light as a new reserve of power was discovered. As she laid her hand on Kurome's tsuka the blade reformed itself, the hamon flashing the bright aqua of her aura as the bent section of steel straightened. Seeing the kid occupied, she rushed in at high guard, her voice bellowing the reedy ear piercing whine of her oni-kind, stupid and stubborn, her footwork gracefully transitioned into a series of crow hops that were meant to transition her to a diagonally slashing attack sequence without forcing her to give up favorable footwork for the high guard. The blade looked hateful once more, sparking and cracking ozonic little fits at the Dweller, as it truly and sincerely did harbor a hatred for their kind. "AIIIIIIIISHiii!" Eri screamed, the howling note in her voice rising from ear splitting to something that could render eardrums to tatters.

A finger plucked the aortic vein teasing around his one finger, the spray of gore from his original attack subsiding into a bubbling, frothy afterglow. Callously, he seized the large artery and choked it, cutting off the natural supply of blood from reaching the still functioning core of Mayu's new body. His head snapped up and aside to Toby's lift, unable or unwilling to follow his aggressive antagonistic shouting at the woman that threw herself to the floor in a heap.

"Still alive? You're quite the pe--" Frigid eyes flashed brighter than twin suns encased in frost when a spew of crystals centered around the inside elbow of his arm, forcibly retracting his hand from the self-made cavity of the girl's chest. The attack forced him up from his knee, zipping back to avoid the cascading flow of crystallized matter until he hit the furthest bookshelf that impeded potential travel. Before he could trigger another step that would clear him from danger, he was struck directly in the chest and thrown through the foundation of bookshelves and solidified stone. In a way, he would have to thank Toby for it saved him from Eri's slice that would have tore through makeshift flesh like paper.

His arm, still outstretched, continues its spritz of crystal even as he darts forward from his crouch. The spires of glass light shatter in a cloud of glittering dust as he breaks through them, his other arm thrown out to catch the Divine Maiden who, without the Dweller's aid, would certainly crash lifeless on the ground. He draws her into his chest, pressing her body flush against his own in an embrace and a serious attempt to staunch bloodflow as he assesses the Dweller's position.

Having fed their child and tended to the needs of their home, then left the toddler in the care of their trusted servant, the dakini was missing her husband while he journeyed to his family's home, so she decided to return to one of the places they had courted at, hoping the pleasant memories would cheer her up as she entered the door of Teas n Tomes.

"I'm sorry I was late," he intones in a low voice down to the top of his favorite Asian's dyed head. Once more, with her in tow, he leaps backward. "No more games. Her life is in serious danger."

"This sounds to be like a demon of darkness that preys upon the souls of the innocent, such is the hereditary enemy of Sitalkis' kind. She must journey to the temple of her sisters soon and tell them of this new danger."

"Blood," he echoes, his fingers around Mayu's squeezing tightly. His own hand is gloved in it from where he attempted to staunch the bleeding, his front in tatters, the aftermath of the Dweller's slashes stained crimson with more of Mayu's blood. Beneath his clothing deep scoremarks yawn like hacks in a piece of paper, the most superficial of his wounds the slice across his face, from the bottom of his right eye all the way to his left earlobe, glittering with turquoise crystal dust. "But you're alright now, Mayu. You are. This woman," he turns to look at Sitalkis for Mayu's benefit. "She healed you, you're just fine. You're not in any pain, are you?"

"Probably isn't even in this dimension anymore. Think he kinda comes and goes as he please"

A moment passes where she tends to Toby's face with her bloodied fingers, swiping across the thin lines in his face dusted in crystallized powder. Per his shift of attention, Mayu turns to face Sitalkis and quickly clambers to her feet, sweeping off Toby's contact with her against the expanse of a thigh. "Thank you for your trouble. You are a kind soul to so quickly tend to another that's in danger. I appreciate it. Greatly."

His eyelids droop low at her touch. He doesn't have the presence of mind in the aftermath of sensation to keep her there with him. Without her hand to hold, he briefly puts his forehead on the edge of the coffee table, then hauls himself upright with effort.

"Then he is surely a demon of darkness and Sitalkis must warn her elder sisters at the temple," she said to Suke before .... Ahh, youngling, gratitude is welcomed but is not needed nor expected, it is the will of the goddess that Sitalkis heal all who need it." she replied to Mayu.

Eri had been about to sit down on the edge of the surviving table, but seeing Toby on the move once more she halted in mid-sit, turning to face him with a downturned frown.

He blinks at Eri, getting her in focus. He doesn't understand the look, nor the distance between her and Mayu. "What?" he asks, a little sharper than he meant to.

"Perhaps so, but there are very few who would remain so devoted to a tried and true cause of justice and light. It is, therefore, my honor to thank you from the bottom of my heart." Mayu's hands clasp together at the hip, her spine arching low in a formal bow that's so quick, it resembles an axe cutting through a block of wood.

She spoke in a tired tone, with a trace of bitterness. "I'm sorry I couldn't help. I was stupid.. burning off so much on one attack that it put me down. Stupid stupid move.. and I almost got us all toasted. I'll never forgive myself for botching that up.."

"Namaste youngling, Sitalkis is honored to take you into her heart as friend." She bowed also, hands palm to palm in front of her heart chakra.

Eri shook her head, the brimming tears in her eyes splashing onto the toe caps of her now rubble-dusted boots. "Everybody counting on me and I choked, couldn't even slow that kid down"

Rising, Mayu issues a proud, albeit sloppy, grin. She wasn't presentable with her clothing bloodied like they were. Shamefully, she crosses her skinny arms over the grotesque image.

He could almost believe her, if he hadn't heard that trace, that is. He turns to face Eri, fully, then reaches up, fisting his hand in his shirt. With one firm tug and the sound of ripping cloth, it falls away, leaving the expanse of his two injuries on display. An ebony abyss is all that's behind rent layers of faux flesh. No blood, no bone. "Look what he did to me. And I got back up. I pulled my arse up to my feet and I kept fighting. You--I'll say it again. You're pathetic. You had a plan and it fell through, so what? Think of a new plan. Think of a new strategy, don't ever give up. You're damn right you almost got us killed. That's a risk that I can't take anymore. You won't forgive yourself?" He scoffs. "Good, because you're never getting any forgiveness from me."

"Mrr." Turning, the artificial spirit infested body looks at the shattered counter of baked goods. "Apple pie? Mrr. No hose!" It bounds hand over fist toward the back. Since the place vacated quickly from the chaos, those apple pies had no guards. None!

Seeing the chagrin on Mayu's face she murmured, "do not be ashamed of merely cloths, for they are nothing but second skins, and what are skins but merely vessels for souls, and is it not our souls that souls shine brightest of all?"

Those hose aren't hose.

Eri went livid, going from bitter to hot in the space of a second. Her eyes were still brimming tears, but her jaw set in a rigid ticking clench. "Tell you what you do.. you go find you a nice big sandpile. Get you a hammer, and you pound all that sand right up your arse you sanctimonious self-righteous little maggot. Forgive me? I'll go you one better. Don't let me see your face again, or before God I'll stomp your bloated head in." The oni-ling turned on her heel and made for the exit, calling back over her shoulder. "And if you put your hands on Mayu ever again in my sight, I'll kill you graveyard dead. Please do not think I am jesting you, sir"

"Mn..." A moment of deliberation, the girl paying close attention to the tips of her paratrooper boots Saori donned on her new body. "Yes. The soul is the purest form one has. It is..." Eri and Toby interrupted her train of thought, looking over at the captain leaving. Looking back at Sitalkis, she bowed again, much more hastily. "Please, excuse me." A look was passed over to Toby as she turned and vaulted over some of the mess left in the shop, amazed her body was so nimble--she felt like she was flying on a cloud. Catching up was no demanding task, falling in line beside the captain without a word.

And then she heard the tone of the conversation between what she had thought were comrades in arms and her jaw dropped.

A sandpile? And hammer it all up his ass? He'd laugh if the situation was any bit different, but he can't bring himself to crack a smile. He flings the remnants of his shirt onto the floor. "Are you running away *again*?! Is that all you can do, *ma'am*? I told you you didn't know anything about that guy! I told you he was in another league, and *you* reassured *me*. And yet I still watch you throw your sword away like it's nothing and fall at his feet, just letting him shove his fist into Mayu's heart." His eyes widen, watching Mayu fall in step beside Eri. "...Mayu, don't. Please don't leave with her."

With a mouth laden in apple pie, the Gikon runs out from the back, tossing several pie pans of crusted apple on the floor as she follows the other two out. "Mrr! Mrrrrr!"

Stopping, she glances back at Toby, slanting eyes more slender than usual. The viridian disturbance of her irises whirled like camera lenses as they focused on him. "...mn? Why wouldn't I?" She'd heard everything he said, and she made certain he knew that. "Because she didn't protect me against something? I have no idea what the hell just happened in here."

With his shirt off she saw the extent of damage that had been done to Toby and she began to weep again and slowly began to move toward him, hands outstretched in both an offering and a plea.

Eri spun violently around once more, detouring from the door and heading back toward Toby, wading in with fists raised. "Guess you're even stupider than me. So you admit you're trying to steal her from me? Now you think I'll let you live? Spend the rest of my life worrying about what you're scheming? Uh-uh.. not on your life friend-o. Here I come for you." Her footfalls were picking up pace now, the twitch at the corner of her mouth picking up pace along with them.

"I'm not trying to steal her away from anybody, I don't want her to get killed and if her goddamned fiancee can't muster up the strength to deal with what will inevitably come with being with her, then you shouldn't be with her at all. Especially if you've already sworn you'd protect her." He curls his hands into fists, moving one foot backward as Eri advances. He can't afford looking at Sitalkis. "You sat there," he hisses. "You sat there and watched. You didn't even try."

Faster than mortals can move, the dakini interposed herself between the two, "has there not been enough violence and shed blood already today?"

Mayu turned when Eri did, her eyes remaining slender, almost noncommittal by what she was seeing and hearing. Taking the hand of the gikon housed inside her old gigai, she simply turns herself back around and leaves.

Eri stopped, screaming at his face. "I got back up and made attack, when I could move again! Ok, I missed, maybe you didn't see that I tore every muscle in my back leg when I make that attack? Stretch every tendon in the leading? But it's fine for you to be all self-righteous!"

"You think that saves you? It would if you'd been injured. If you'd been attacked and you'd fallen, but you didn't. You fell on your own." He looks up at the door over Eri's shoulder. Deep in his core, he wants to follow. But he also knows to do that would risk an attack. "If you're so injured, then what the f*ck are you doing picking a fight with me? Because you think you can take me instead?"

They will not listen to her, and then she hears a very very very bad word used, one her husband said never should be used except to refer to a demon of the darkness and it is being used now, so she slowly steps back out of the way.

"You don't even bother to know the facts, even when you know them! You remember when the three of us meet? I heal fast. Fast does not mean instant! It took minutes when Mayu stuck me with that fork. It takes minutes to ... you know what? I don't have to justify myself to you. I've had you berate and insult me all I'm going to listen to! That's just about all you've done from the word go! You act all friendly, then when it suits you you belittle and mock me! I won't have it! So either bring it right now, or go your way and don't darken my doorstep ever again!"

Blushing furiously she headed out the door, in search of Mayu to ask a currently urgent vocabulary question.

"Are you kidding? I haven't done squat to you but tell you what you need to hear. Not to mention, where do you get off?" He folds his arms across his naked, scratched chest. "You're honestly one to talk. You act all friendly to my face then when it suits you, you rip my head off. What's with that?"

Eri's eyes lit up. "Tell me what I need to hear? What are you, perfect? You my father and mentor? How 'bout I tell you what you need to hear? You just can't stand for anybody to be happy, that's what the problem is. You want everybody miserable as you are!"

He wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of striking first, but he wanted to. It was plain as the nose on his face, in the way that his eyes glinted with silver fire. "I'm hardly miserable Eri. I always find it real convenient that when you've done wrong, somehow it always gets back onto me and what I do. What the f*ck does it matter to you? At least I did *something*. If it weren't for me, that Dweller would have ripped her heart out and you wouldn't have anything to scream about."

Eri shook her head. "There you go again, with the sanctimonious act. You always got the high ground, never been wrong huh? There's no point talking to you. Negotiation has collapsed. I'm leaving. Don't speak to me again" She turned and made for what was left of the exit, searching for Mayu.