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[Smoke Mirrors]

"Fucking finally!" Mori replied, "Do you know how annoying it was keeping him yapping this long?"

He turned to the toad.


"All 'a demon should do whatever they want' this, and 'chosen by the power' that. Dear lord, you are a bad shonen villain." he continued, "What's next, something about 'the next stage in human evolution'? Everything about you just screams 'Pay attention to me! I'm special!' I mean, I'm cliche, but at least I know it."

He turned back to Kanade.


"Can you stand?"

[IamanElfCollaborator]

Popular Group (Aika, Mori)
"I'm alright. You didn't need to heal me, by the way, but it sold the illusion, and I appreciate the sentiment. I was only bruised."
"You planned this from the beginning, Mishima?!"
"I rolled with the punches. I needed an opportunity to get close enough to return the favour."

"M-Mishima-senpai...you're a Kaijin?"

The masked Kaijin snorts.
"Shows how little you know. Of the three strongest Kaijin of the Mishima District, she's the strongest. The Black Princess of Calamity."
"You're making me blush."
"You...to fight the strongest of all Kaijin here..."
"Sawatari. You wanted to learn more about Kaijin. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you earlier. I needed to know I could trust you fully."
"If you follow my lead, this will be a lesson worth retaining."

[Smoke Mirrors]

"To avenge Sakurajima and Miyazono, and protect Yagami?" Mori began, as he placed Mishima down and drew his sword, "I'm willing to listen to you for a bit."

[IamanElfCollaborator]

Popular Group (Aika, Mori)
Kanade stands up, looking steadier than one might expect.
"Stay close, then. Scathach can protect you from his illusions, as long as you're nearby. Her power can sharpen the mind. You might've noticed, when you felt less tired and clearer-thinking. Her power isn't as effective as Tsukiyomi's, but it will do if it's just the two of us."
"No wonder you and Kazami could find me. But why explain your power?"
"Some toad like you deserves to know exactly who they screwed with before I squash you."

She snaps her fingers, before pointing a finger gun at Andras.
"Follow my lead, Sawatari. Come out to play, Scathach!"

A ghostly apparition of Scathach surges in behind Kanade at her call, rushing through her. In the blink of an eye, Kanade's physical form changes from that of a high school girl to a sleek robotic form, made from black metal, sharp edges and purple energy flickering across lines running across her body, crystaline wings protuding from her back and a large, pointed lilac visor concealing her face.

Her pointed finger, now turned into small finger-like blades, fuses into a single blade, which she sweeps to the side.

"Come then. Show the Black Princess of Calamity how you dance."

[SeriousConcentrate]

"Shit, why go ground floor? Hold on tight, Kasuga! We're taking the quick route!"

And with that Mildred ramped off of the roof, bike heading straight for one of the windows of the third floor of Hermelin.

[Smoke Mirrors]

"Dance?" there was a smirk in Mori's voice, "Princess, I've been dancing forever."

His hands moved in a way resembling a conductor or a pianist, as he focused on controlling the roots and pollen that still filled the room, focused more on supporting Scathach than on truly hurting the toad. He shifted the pollen to create blind spots, making it harder to properly react to Scathach's attacks, or the movement of the roots, which moved to bind the toad's limbs, but only for a second or two before moving away, hopefully too fast to be cut, in the hopes of hindering his ability to dodge out of the way or attack effectively with his throwing knives.

All the while, he did his best to keep an eye on Yagami.

Guard target Yagami

[IamanElfCollaborator]

[Now Playing: Theme of Kanade/Scathach ~Flash Control~]

What follows for Mori is a demonstration of why he, in all circumstances, should never piss off Kanade Mishima.

The moment Mori gets moving, Kanade is already right in front of of the masked Kaijin, who is almost a second too late to evade the lunge aimed right for his head. He pushes off backwards, aiming a kick at Kanade's head....or rather, where Kanade was a second before. In the blink of an eye, Scathach has already vanished.

Or rather, is standing right behind the masked Kaijin.

"!"

Scathach extends her right arm out, a whip comprised of purple energy extending down the length of her arm. With a single, swift cutting motion, she slams it into the opposing Kaijin, hurling him bodily across the room, as he barely manages to regain his footing, landing in a crouching position. The masked Kaijin snarls, moving to throw something, but he finds his arms trapped for just a split second, Mori's roots having entangled him.

Just fast enough for Kanade to cross the entire length of the room faster than Mori can blink.

The masked Kaijin manages to rip himself from Mori's trap just fast enough to parry her blade with his knife, their faces inches apart.

"Such speed, such strength! It's exhilarating! A demon that can finally entertain me."
"Don't flatter yourself. The only person in this room who can satisfy me is helping me."

A blur of black slashes across the masked Kaijin's body, Kanade kicking upwards with her equally-sharp leg to catch the hooded demon off-guard. He barely manages to push away, whipping up a wall of ice to avoid being struck, one which Scathach's body cuts through with almost insulting ease. Kanade yells as she aims a slash downwards at him, only for the masked Kaijin to dissolve into shadows, sinking into the floor.

"So that's your game. Now I understand what you are."

Just as he did to Mori, the masked Kaijin erupts in a burst of shadows behind Kanade, knife aimed right at the base of her neck....or it would be if two things hadn't happened.

Firstly, a cloud of pollen obscuring his vision, throwing his aim off. He sweeps it away with a cloud of ice, but Mori's distraction bought enough time for the second thing to happen.

Secondly, Scathach having already turned to face him, blades at the ready.

She stabs him through the shoulder, pinning him against the wall with one hand. The masked Kaijin unleashes an unholy scream as Scathach skewers him.

Without turning to face Mori, Kanade speaks.
"What we're fighting right now, Sawatari, is not a Kaijin. Kaijin are a perfect blend of demon and human, blessed with great power and great responsibility. What this toad is is a Majin. It's what happens when the person who makes a deal with their inner demon has the willpower to hold their own, but is so depraved on the surface that rather than make a perfect fusion, the human takes over the demon."

She continues to keep the Majin pinned.
"They are more demon than man. They possess power of an Akuma - they could even take over the Domain of an Akuma if they so wanted to- and the heart of a demon, but the strategic mind of a human. They can even generate a Domain of their own, but need an Akuma's Onibi to truly fill it."

"That's why I knew I could trust you the moment you transformed. No matter how lost you think you are, Sawatari....the fact that you became a Kaijin tells me everything I needed to know about you."
Street Group (Mildred, Akihiko, Shiro, Jin)
And so it was that two holes were made in one of Hermelin's buildings; one through the ceiling, where Shiro and Jin, with Kazuya in tow, break through, and one through a window, where Mildred and Akihiko break through.

They are met with Saya, her own group in tow.
"Saya! Where are they?!"
"Down the hallway! But...I sense two Kaijin. And one....I don't know. It feels like a Kaijin, but..... "

[SeriousConcentrate]

Proioxis quickly dismounted both herself and Kasuga from the bike and picked it up like a baseball bat.

"That's probably the other asshole we've been dealing with, not the stalker. The guy in the hood. If someone's fighting him we ought to go back them up... and we did lose track of the stalker. If we're lucky he'll go there too. I'm going to go help our friends out."

Without waiting for the others, Mildred starting sprinting in the direction Saya had indicated. Not like she couldn't feel the Kaijin presence coming from that direction anyway.

[Chevaleresse]

Shiro runs in the indicated direction as well, needing no further prompting.

[Smoke Mirrors]

"Well, I'd be a bit more comforted if it wasn't for the kaijin names I have and..." he gestured with a hand that looked like it had been cut out of the world, as the remaining roots wrapped around the Majin's limbs and neck, forcing them against the wall, "but I'll keep it in mind."

He sheathed his sword and picked up Yagami.


"Now then, that's only one of two threats dealt with for now." he continued, "Probably best to meet up with reinforcements soon as my narrative sense says number two is probably fast approaching."

[IamanElfCollaborator]

Mori, Kanade
At that, the Majin laughs.
"Now it's your turn to not understand what you're dealing with, Black Princess. You just said it yourself. I can make my own Domain."

At that, Kanade's glance shoots towards Mori.

"Sawatari. Try the door. Now."

Should Mori do so, he finds that the door is not only locked, but fused to the doorframe, as if now part of the wall.

When she glances back at where she pinned the Majin, she finds him dissolving into the wall, the wall briefly resembling something more organic, pulsing veins and organic structures that did not belong in architecture before rippling back into wallpaper and plaster.

Scathach is right next to Reynart in a flash, circling both him and Yagami.

"Since you've been so kind to explain your power, maybe I should explain a little about what I understand about demons."

The walls briefly throb as if made from flesh rather than stone. The Majin's voice echoes through the room, the walls pulsing as if he were speaking through them.

"The name of a demon reflects the nature of your demon, but it is but one aspect of the demon. Scathach was a teacher and warrior, yet here her wielder is, neither. Reynart was a trickster scarce better than his enemies, yet here he is, defending others out of duty. Tsukuyomi, an enigma, yet one that uncovers other enigmas. Ibaraki-Douji, their bloodlust bound to seek justice. Ooh. Kasuga has a lot to unpack with that one. A demon can claim many names, but has only one true name."

Scathach's gaze seems to be following something Mori can't perceive.

"Mine is called Andras, the demon that sows disharmony."

Before Reynart can react, Scathach's blade has already cut apart a shard of ice aimed at him. It clatters apart, cut with a blade thinner than a thread of spider silk.

"Such speed, Princess. You really want to protect him, don't you?"

Kanade doesn't grace him with a response.

"Demons are the reflection of the soul. What does it say about you two that your demons are a robot that can't touch anyone without cutting them, and a faceless shadow that changes shape?"

"You said it yourself. A demon's name and a demon's appearance are but one part of them. A demon can do whatever they want. I choose to protect others. No matter how much Sawatari wants to say he doesn't, so does he. You're the one bound by your own name."
Street Group (Mildred, Akihiko, Shiro, Jin)
The groups get to the end of the corridor, where Saya glances briefly at them.
"That's odd. I feel like the door isn't....that's not right. There's a Domain here, but....how? "

[Smoke Mirrors]

"A-are you serious? I just went over that... less than five minutes ago?" Mori replied, sinking into Yagami's shadow, "Empty space where a human heart once was? Taken so many forms it no longer has its own? We kind of did an analysis into the whole 'My kaijin names are all terrible monsters and the form I take is the hollowness of my own soul' already. I mean, I knew you were a bad shonen villain, and kind of an idiot anyway, but seriously, we don't need to fall into the bad trope of repeating what we just said."

"The demon that sows disharmony" he said? Well, that fit with what Mori had seen of his MO, essentially being a terrorist who seemed to attack only to cause chaos and panic and with no obvious goal. Of course, that didn't mean there wasn't a goal besides the chaos, or even one that the chaos fed into, but without enough information, he couldn't say.


"Anyway, yeah, we're all a bunch of psychological issues, duh. Gawain's got a savior complex, Pyrrha's got daddy issue, Proioxis doesn't understand the word 'de-escalation', and you're some kind of... owl... toad... hybrid abomination made by a scientist trying to make a villain so bad they'd finally get the fangirls not to simp? And I must say, the experiment was a massive success."

[SeriousConcentrate]

"If there's a domain here but no door, then we gotta make one into it."

Mildred started to lift the bike over her head in preparation of slamming it into the wall as hard as possible, but there was still time for Shiro or Kasuga to stop her and suggest an alternative.

[Chevaleresse]

"Physically bashing in probably won't work on its own. See a way in anywhere, Akitsuki?"

[IamanElfCollaborator]

Mori, Kanade
"You keep talking like you're in one of your plays. That's your problem, Sawatari. So caught up in thinking you know what comes next that when it doesn't match your expectations, you choose to panic. For a planner, you can't really adapt to change, can you?"

Mori feels....something in there with him as he fades into Yagami's shadow.
"You idiot. In my Domain, the shadows are mine."

He, just fast enough to run or leap out, sees, within Yagami's shadow, the visage of Andras, several icy knives between his fingers. Getting out would leave Yagami vulnerable, but Kanade was out there too; if he could pull Andras out with him, Kanade could carve him like a well-prepared roast.

On the other hand, if he stayed, Andras was, for all his subterfuge, strong enough to go toe-to-toe with multiple members of his own team and was only subdued by the strongest Kaijin in the Mishima District. What hope did he have of holding out long?
Street Group (Mildred, Akihiko, Shiro, Jin)
Saya closes her eyes.
"Akari's right, if you do that, you'll just break your way into the classroom and nobody's in there. The opening of the Domain is...."

She points out of the window, at a spot of wall near a ground-floor classroom that, for all the rest of them can see, is just an ordinary wall with no door.

"Ground floor. Akihiko, if you blast it with some fire to expose the Domain Door, Mildred or Akari can break in."