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The next morning came with a rather odd start to everyone, the entire city nursing a rather alcoholic reprieve courtesy of the illustrious dinner served at the church, as well as the odd deserter hitting the tavern at night. Mother Mariel was the only one awake currently as she walked her way through the grand cathedral of Lea Monde, checking to see if anyone required assistance in waking up. She never even drank that much anymore because of this but it did not dissuade her from having the odd aperitif every now and then smiling to see the local denizens passed out through every part of the cathedral. All of whom had been given blankets to not freeze the night before thanks to Mariel herself who had checked to see everyone was well-kept and rested, standing in front of the pews where at least nine people were now curled into the seats of carefully. "Goodness what a night," she said loudly, "winter always has the strangest things happening to our fair city. Hmm...I do so miss being able to turn wantonly bladdered but...luck of the Dark I say, eternal life but no intoxicants affecting me like this." She swept her hand out towards one belligerent-looking hume snorting in his sleep, lazily breathing in his comfort. "I suppose I can't complain...it's not like I wanted to live anywhere else but Lea Monde...hm...now where did Clan Koridai get to, I hope Baldwin won't need another hospital visit like the last time we had this celebration." The nu-mou headed off down the passageway towards the west wing through the bleak shadowed morn of the cathedral's inner walls like a viper, constantly shifting through the dark corners underneath the sun's glinting light. It had been a wild night, and she knew that most of the people would not even remember anything after the seventh hour checking every room she could. Fayne and Kruz were cuddling up together inside the brothers' bedroom, whilst Baldwin was twelve rooms away cradling a sack of flour in a storage area. Roy was in the reading room lying sweetly in front of the fire on his couch along with Berniere opposite him on his own seat. Both of them had rather interesting dreams according to their murmurs, covered in cloaks as the fire had long since faded into bleak ash. "Nnnnaaaaaaah...shuddup Kazooie, ah don' care about no camel guy." "Idunnowhut to do kupo...he...if only he had never met your two servants." "You don' tell me whut to do bitch...f'ah wanna pursue Lu Bu amma damn well do it." "T-...t-tomalag...tomalag who...who once dropped a key upon this place?" "You can't fight a yeti with a pie, thassstupid." "The vicious cycle...must end for this to be." "......James...wait...wh-who...zat you? ...whut you mean, w-wait...stop...whut should ah give him...sumthin' that means...too much to me...bell...bellringer-" "I must ring...the bell, before all is said, kupo..." Smirking at the odd dreaming two, Mariel walked through and heard the telltale sounds of someone puking thickly from the other end of one hallway, glad to see that someone was up and well trying to exorcise their contents of liquor. She let them be as she headed back round towards the other areas of the church. In the meantime, Navarro was slowly rousing from her sleep in the guest room that she had reserved wincing with sudden headache. "Nnnnnngh...k-kupo." The room was spartan but well-suited for her needs of simply needing a bed and chest of drawers to access her clothes in, shifting her feet out from the duvet before finding a letter had been taped to her dresser rather shoddily. With even more incomprehensible writing that she struggled to make out as well as the sloppy ink, trying not to get any ink on her hands.

**_I LO||||||||OU ARE GREAT AM|||||||THE BEST NOOGLE I EVER NET PLEA|||BE MI\NEED TO BE WITH YUU COMSTANKLY TO MAKE NE FEEL BETTER ABOUT NYS||||

SIGNE||||||

P.S. UM NO P.S._**

"Baldwin." She balled it carefully and tossed it away into a trash bin and walked out towards the restroom for women down the hall from her. The sound of Dahlia puking from within was one that Navarro had become familiar with unfortunately since her event with the esper as she walked over to where she was. The restroom had been well-maintained as was the necessary custom of the church custodians in utmost practitional health and safety, with four stalls and four sinks, one of which was being held onto desperately by the nu-mou retching into it. "HRRRUUUUH! UUGHK! Ugh g-godzzh." "Dahlia? Are you alright kupo?" "Uuuughk...nnngh...Nuvarro?" "Nnnngh...I take it that night went not as smoothly for you too." "Am alright...hrrrk...m'terrible today, don' look...disgusting." "I need to use the restroom." "I won't look." She rolled her eyes and went into one of the stalls closing the door to relieve herself. The sound of trickling water would have embarrassed Dahlia normally, but she was staring at a much worse sort of liquid in the sink as there came the dreaded warning sign of another great coming flood from her gut. Her mouth began to salivate immensely for the next fifteen seconds before her stomach launched from her throat, burning her mouth with acidic taste. "HRRRRYYYYUUUUUUURGH! OH COME ON, I HAVE NOTHING LEFT IN ME HOW IZZHERE MORE?!" "PLEASE do not shout, my head is burning!" "M'szzhorryyyyyyyyy...whut wuz IN that drink?" "Which one, kupo?" "Thuh fuzzy one wif thuh ztuff in it...wuz green on it." "James would know...mmmmph, he had a strange talent for identifying drinks." "He worked in tavernz Nuvarro, courzze he did." "You are right...hm, forgot about that kupo." With herself having finished, the moogle walked out of the stall and washed her hands and face at a sink within reach about two steps down from the queasy nu-mou. The fluid magicite-installation of water-giving was as pure as the snow on top of the cathedral as Navarro cleaned her hands on the towel beside the sink. "Where are the others?" "Ah dun know," winced Dahlia, "Fayne an' Kruzzh are off buggerin' zhomewhere I think an' Roy went back to thuh church." "We ARE in the church." "Then ah dun knooow! Ah think Berniere fell azleep in front of thuh fire, ah zaw him an-...oh godzz nnnnoooo." The dreadful salivating continued once again as Dahlia began to retch down into the sink, Navarro walking out of the bathroom with a shake of her head as the nu-mou sighed deeply feeling relief from the vomiting madness ending at last. She clasping her hot cheek until she noticed the black ink dripping on her fingers. She pulled away to look at herself in the mirror hungover with a large smear on her cheek. "...awwwwwww for godzzzhaaaaaake!" Navarro was walking through to the reading room murmuring underneath her breath all the while. "Need to find something for a cure...or at least to increase her tolerance to alcohol, now let's just...nnnnngh, fennel. Anise and fennel." She remembered what she had been drinking through the night before as she clutched her head. "I hate...fennel, that just never sits well with people, that damned green faerie of the tavern. Hope the church hasn't been compromised for it...practically open to attack from this." As she staggered her way through towards the reading room through her reflexive memory, she found Roy and Berniere curled on different couches mumbling in their sleep. The days of knight academy flashed by briefly upon hearing the moogle's sniffling murmurs that he always did. "Why do I always end up sleeping in rooms with men who talk in their sleep, kupo?" "Who wants a horseshoe?" mumbled Roy. "Oh for gods' sake, Roy! ROY, wake up!" "NNNNNGH! UHHH...w-whuh-whut's...happenin' aww jeezus mah head." "You drank the fennel anise too?" "Thuh whut-a-niece?" "Whoever suggested that is going to get a stern warning from me." "Nnnnzzhould be more than that," slathered Berniere upon awakening, "mmmmmmmmph...did I wake up tomorrow or two days later kupo?" "That is an excellent question, I have no idea." "Tcheh, some good you are." Lavant staggered onto his feet shaking himself roughly for awakening as he asked: "Was somebody ringing bells?" "Not yet," added Roy harshly blinking, "you heard them too?" "Indeed...I wonder what that signifies in a dream." "Heh, maybe you got married last night an' never knew." "I-i-i did not!" "Hey, hey, whut happens in Lea Monde stays in Lea Monde am ah right?!" "I-i do not know what you are implying kupo! I would never make a vow of sacrament whilst in that state!" "Really?" Navarro said glibly. "Because I remember after one particular bender you kissed the captain's chocobo and put a veil on his head-" "N-NO, TH-THAT WAS JUST A PRANK, I WAS SET UP!" "You had the veil well-prepared too."

She leaned over towards him rather fiendishly with a wide Cheshire grin that was simply terrifying for Berniere to witness. The raptor almost beget the same grin as he wandered closer with his hands behind his back with a gleeful set of teeth glinting in the morning mist. "Woah-ho-hooooo Bernieeeeere! Ah didn' know there wuz a MISTER Lavant, hhheheheheh-" "Y-YOU BE QUIET!" he started half-seriously. "I-i made my apology to that steed later on and explained myself!" "Ah hope so, you left him at thuh altar." "No I didn't, I gave respect! I knew Navarro would have been on my case if I had left him broken-hearted on false assumptions so I didn't! I KNOW THAT'S NOT MAKING IT ANY BETTER BUT SHE DID, SERIOUSLY!" "Good ah hope you did! Yo they ever throw birdseed at your weddin', cuz that wuz also thuh main course fer the other side of thuh family." "PFFFT, c-cut it out kupo please this joke is getting old!" "NO WAIT! You ever make him wear a bridal gown, or did he wear a bridal bridle?" "KUHOHOHAHAHA!" Navarro staggered almost bending over with laughter suddenly in a fit of derisive glee. "A BRIDAL...BRIDLE, KUHOHOHOHAHAHAHA!" "C-c-come on Navarro," stammered Berniere, "it was just a prank! I wasn't hurting anybody seriously!" "Hhhhhohoh...hoh...ohhhh...that...that was good, kupo. Very good wordplay indeed." "S'whut ah do," said Roy chuckling with a bow. "Mah pleasure." "Maybe write that one down, I could use it the next time we have an anecdote of that story-" " GAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" The sound of ruthless screaming came down from the hall leading towards the two brothers' bedroom, accompanied by a sudden frenzy of things being thrown against the wall as muffled voices panicked. They wanted to run before they saw Kruz flying across the floor and go tumbling through the doorway with Baldwin's voice screaming as an echo that followed him. "YOU FUCKING SSZHODOMITE! _" The kremling staggered back onto his feet with bleeding lip and his left eye punched ruthlessly to a bluish pallour before Baldwin stormed through the arch with a glower of bilious rage and tightened fists. But the captain did not even try to fight back as Fayne screamed hurrying from behind his brother. "_BALDWIN! BALDWIN NOOOO! _" "_YOU...fucking touch my brother AGAIN!" His fist slammed across the kremling's jaw to make it swollen with a lump. "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU! _" "_BALDWIN SSZHTOP IT! PLEAAAASSZHE SSZHTOP IIIIIT!" The second time he swung, Kruz dodged under and slammed his armstump straight into the bangaa's gut, firm as it was with a sixpack but still registering a hit from solid steel punching into him. Stumbling back with a hot winded gasp, the group saw their chance to interfere as Roy barged into Baldwin's way trying to shove him back being the strongest of all the onlookers. But even he was struggling to hold back the monk whose own much more brutish muscle had been honed well over a good many years longer than Roy had ever lived. "BALDWIN STOP! THUH FUCK ARE YOU DOIN'!?" "HE TOUCHED MY BROTHER! HE FUCKING INFECTED MY BROTHERRRR!" "WHU-C-CALM DOWN, YOU AIN' GONNA MAKE THINGS ANY BETTER BAH SWINGIN' YOUR FISTS AT EVERYTHIN'!" " GET OUT OF MY WAAAY!" With violent stomp onto one of Roy's feet he cried with sharp pain before a hooking slam of his elbow cracked the raptor across the face, leaving him wide open to be shoved powerfully back to slam against the settee that Berniere remained on. The monk stormed towards Kruz who did everything possible to evade the large swings from brawling hot fists that whooshed cleanly through the air like axes, strafing underneath with bent knees as he staggered from adrenaline. "YOU! ARE FUCKING! DEAD! _" "_STOP IT!" cried Kruz. "BALDWIN LISTEN! LISTEN TO YOUR BROTHER FOR GODS' SAKE!" " YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT HIM YOU SSZHITFUCKING WHORE!" Grabbing a wooden chair he swung it towards Kruz who dodged desperately forwards underneath, but unfortunately Baldwin predicted such a move and elbowslammed into the top of his head crunching fiercely onto the kremling's skull knocking him down to the floor. He stomped on him viciously, but Kruz managed to dodgeroll in time before another striking punch into Baldwin's face with the steel stump forcing him to move backwards in the blinding hit. The monk charged at him uncaring and grappled for his arms, shutting them down with a crunching grip on both wrists as Kruz gasped wincing. Around the same time was when Dahlia entered the room looking hungover before shock had come through giving her an intensely startling focus upon seeing the state of the room. Fayne's crying pleas as he tried to pull Baldwin's arm made it all hone in for her. "BALDWIN WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" "BALDWIN SSZHTOP IT, PLEASSZHE DON'T HURT HIM!" "THERE IS NO NEED FOR THIS KUPO!" cried Berniere. "WHATEVER THIS IS YOU CAN RESOLVE THIS WITHOUT VIOLENCE!" "BALDWIN SSZHTOP! HE'SSZH DONE NOTHING WRONG I BEG OF YOU!" "HISSZH TONGUE WASSZH INSSZHIDE YOUR THROAT! _" As he said this, the monk headbutted Kruz with a daring windup before brutally blinding the kremling's face with absolute pain as he was slammed backwards, but not before Baldwin grabbed at the pistol in Kruz's holster before everyone suddenly began to turn silent. The kremling shuddered wincing from the spinning room, but even he noticed the bangaa wielding his own gun back at him with shaking fingers, as his eyes burned piercing into his opponent with Navarro ordering him to stand down. "BALDWIN, STOP THIS NOW KUPO!" "_SSZHUT UP!" cried the monk. "DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO, NOT HERE NAVARRO!" "I AM YOUR LEADER YOU WILL ANSWER TO ME!" "THISSZH HASSZH NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU!" "YOU ARE DISGRACING YOURSELF!" " GO FUCK YOURSSZHELF YOU CHOCOBITCH!" His gun aimed pointedly at her briefly with a voice that boomed across the room forcing her to be silent. "DO YOU UNDERSSZHTAND!?! MY, BROTHER, WASSZH BEING INFECTED BY THISSZH THING IN FRONT OF ME SSZHO DON'T YOU FUCKING TELL ME I AM DISSZHGRASSZHING MYSSZHELF!" "You're the one screaming," gasped Kruz softly, "waving a gun around like a fucking kid." "SSSZHUT UP!" He tightened his finger, but the gun did not go off as they all watched with fearful apprehension. Dahlia was pulling her ears panicking all the more seeing Fayne sobbing as she cried out: "BALDWIN, STOP IT YOU'RE MAKING FAYNE UPSET WHAT'S GOT INTO YOU?!!" "It'sszh not what got into ME it'sszh what got into my BROTHER! THISSZH fucking sszhodomite RIGHT HERE wasszh holding him in hisszh bed, HISSZH OWN BED! I watched him, pouring hisszh sszhaliva into Fayne like sszhome kind of sszhick ritual, POISSZHONING HIM with all of hisszh filth!" "You mean KISSING?! What is WRONG WITH YOU?!" "I AM NOT THE ONE WITH A SSZHICKNESSZH HERE, THAT WOULD BE YOU! _ Misszhter flying-free and fansszhy do any of your CREW know you're a sszhodomite?! DO THEY?!" "Yes," said Kruz firmly, "actually they do and they don't care about it because one, it's not a sickness and TWO, they respect me because I am their captain!" "WELL YOU ARE NOT MY FUCKING CAPTAIN, OR ANY OF USSZH HERE! You...d-d-do you realisszhe what you have done, _DO YOU!?"

He stepped a foot forwards trying to test his aim keeping it lined up on Kruz's head, the kremling watching to hope that the monk would make a mistake. Fayne could only stand against the wall frightened out of his wits, grabbing his head desperately sobbing afraid to look through his tears as Baldwin began talking once again. "He had everything going good for him...my...my BROTHER...did not need ANYMORE of thisszh sszhit to complicate hisszh life and then YOUUUUUU jusszht come in on your airsszhip waltzzhing all over about being Jamesszh' friend, being helpful, alwaysszh sszhuch a weird likeable guy when ALL THISSZH TIME you have been tainting my brother...you...hhheheheyou are sszhome fucking piesszhe of work you know that?! You DISSZHGUSSZHT me!" "The feeling is mutual," said Kruz boldly, "I'm not the one that's making his brother upset, making the one I LOVE upset." "SSZHUT UP YOU FUCKING MOLLY, WHAT KIND OF LOVE HAVE YOU EVER KNOWN WITH THAT FILTH INSSZHIDE YOUR HEAD!?!? YOU INFECTED HIM! HE HAD A GOOD LIFE, ME AND HIM, ALL THE WORLD BEING OUR OYSSZHTER, SSZHO WE COULD BE A FAMILY ONE DAY, WITH WIVESSZH AND CHILDREN AND YOU RUINED IT! WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU ANYWAY, WERE YOU ONE OF JAMESSZH' LITTLE FUCKBUDDIESSZH?! HUH!? LIKE SSZHOME LITTLE DISSZHEASSZHE GROUP?!" "I WAS HIS BEST FRIEND YOU FUCKING PSYCHO, DON'T YOU EVER TALK ABOUT HIM THAT WAY!" "YOU DON'T GET TO TALK ABOUT ANYTHING AFTER WHAT YOU DID!" His gun began to tremble, shivering with anger as if about to go off at any second, the room waiting to hold onto its breath as Fayne pleaded with raspy voice turning hoarse from screeching. "Baldwin, B-baldwin, pleasszhe no no no d-don't DO IT Baldwin!" "Fayne...trusszht me." "HOW CAN I TRUSSZHT YOU, YOU ARE HOLDING HIM AT GUNPOINT FOR GODSSZH' SSZHAKE!" "Jusszht...have faith in me...don't worry...I'll make sszhure that he won't hurt you ever again." "HE WASSZHN'T HURTING ME! BALDWIN! BALDWIN PLEASSZH I LOVE HIM! I LOVE HIM, BALDWIN! P-PLEASSZHE BALDWIN DON'T DO THISSZH O-OH GODSSZH NOOOO p-pleasszhe don't do...thisszh..." Fayne went on his knees in tears with hands clasped to his face, shrieking for him to stop as his brother turned his head slightly. The pain and grief made him blink softly with tears as his hand steadied to the slightest tremble, before he turned cruelly back towards Kruz. "...you." His voice began to turn cold as he straightened out his arm holding the gun firmly. "You...have ruined my brother'sszh mind and everything that we have built together, all our...all of our dreamsszh and memoriesszh all becausszhe of you, thinking you have anything but love for him, do you not realisszhe anything? Your love...isszh a disszheasszhe and I have done everything I can to keep my brother away from that pain and misszhery of not knowing a better life...until you came along and ruined it. I hope the godsszh can cure you when I sszhend you to them becausszhe you won't find anything down here after-GA-AAAAAARGH!" Something had flown through the air shining like an arrow made of silver lodging straight into Baldwin's hand as he dropped the gun at his foot, clacking harmlessly as he clutched himself tightly. A dinner knife, hurled from Berniere's hand expertly burying itself a few inches into the back of his hand beneath the knuckle, blood trickling down his trembling fingers as Fayne ran to him by an instinct of need, along with Kruz wanting to retrieve his weapon. Baldwin's first instinct was to tear the knife free from his hand and brandish it towards Kruz but the kremling already knew it would be used against him. He slammed both arms against Baldwin's left wrist, spasming his nerves harshly with the bludgeoning force of both stump and fist combined forcing him to drop the knife as Fayne ran up behind him, struggling to stop the two from engaging but it was no use. Baldwin's right arm throbbed intensely as he tried swinging with his left, the kremling dodging fiercely before he uppercutted hard with his right powerfully into the monk's copper snout, hard enough to start bruising it as payback on the upper offensive. Blinded by the punch briefly, Baldwin swung a vicious haymaker far across his vision from left to right as he felt somebody's jaw crack hard upon his raw blistering knuckles. Someone fell beneath him as he smiled cockily before he staggered back with eyes slowly blinking to regain focus before he saw Kruz standing four feet away from him, with his hand over his mouth in shock. Fayne was laying down between them, crumpling onto his side with blood running out his jaw as soft whimpering came fitfully from him. Baldwin shared Kruz's expression gasping with fright. "...oh...o-o-oh f-f-fuck F-f-fayne, I...I don't, I didn't-" "Pleasszhe..." Hearing his brother's plea he bent down further trying to hear him struggle to speak. "Pleasszhe...s-s-sszhtop...f-fighting, Baldwin." "I'm not...I-i-i...F-fayne, it...I'm sszhorry I jusszht, he wasszh in front of me I wanted to-" "Sszhtop...d-don't hurt him, pleasszhe...I don't want anyone to be hurt by me." "Hurt by you? But, b-bu-but you didn't do anything wrong, HE did, not you! I won't hurt you for what he did-" "D-did...what? Love me?" "...he...he doesszhn't love you, Fayne you know that it'sszh not real-" "SSZHUT UP! SSZHUT UP BALDWIN I HATE YOU, I FUCKING HATE YOU!" Staggering up onto his feet showed the true extent of the damage done to Fayne's face, his jaw bruised horribly by a sweltering purple wound that extended up towards his eye like a port wine stain. Sneering thickly with raw hatred and a much deeper sense of pain, he shuddered his next words bitterly. "All...I wanted wasszh to be loved...and you...y-you are jusszht the sszhame asszh...asszh it wasszh before..." "What, b-before?! What do you mean before, you only jusszht met at leasszht a year ago!" "You...you do not know ANYTHING Baldwin...about me. I...I have tried to make you happy...and all it hasszh done wasszh bring me sszhuffering in return." "Fayne...... you." The monk turned fiercely towards Kruz with an accusing finger. "All thisszh isszh becausszhe of you...I, am going to sszhkin you alive and sszhow the world your disszheasszhed insszhide like the worthlesszh thing you are-" "_SSZHUT! UUUUUP! _" Screaming until his voice gave out to a crackling shriek, Fayne launched a sudden fist smacking Baldwin across the jaw as he stumbled back more from shock than with actual pain. He looked blankly at his brother with a wincing rub to his jaw, not particularly hard or strong but the ferocity of it stunned him. Fayne almost broke down with hands clasping over his face as fingers began tightening, breath pulsing deep inside his throat with a hot shiver of exhaustion. He felt his voice slowly begin to maintain itself, concentrating on repressing his emotions as best he could. Like he always had been.

"You...you n-never...lisszhten to me Baldwin. Alwaysszh I know you wanted to be the big brother, alwaysszh even when you admit your sszhtupidity, you never want to lisszhten to me. Alwaysszh you thought that I wasszh only a good authority on any matter intellectually or sszhpiritually, but you alwaysszh...thought I wasszh a naive fool about people, and what they were capable of. I...I know what they are capable of, no matter how hard you try to protect me from anyone coming closszhe, becausszhe I sszhaw all that you feared...insszhide you." "Wha-...wha-what do you mean?" asked Baldwin. "I know...the worsszht thing that a persszhon can do to me wasszh to torture me over yearsszh of unrelenting grief, of being called a degenerate, a freak, a worthlesszh sszhodomite sszhymptomatic of our world turning sszhick from disszheasszhe. A disszheasszhe I never wanted that you poisszhoned my mind with thinking I wasszh cursszhed to be thisszh way, and all you have done wasszh keep telling me how all thosszhe including mysszhelf have been nothing but a blight upon our world. And you know...what the worsszht part of it wasszh?" He stepped forwards causing Baldwin to flinch by a reflex in case of another hit. "I sszhtarted...to believe you. I believed what you told me, no matter how hard I committed to making you more sszhympathetic of our plight, to not hate them but to pity them and alwaysszh sszhtill...you would never have me believe in anything but them being the viral sszhcum of the land and I sszhtill believed it. I couldn't help it. It makesszh me wisszh that I had never loved you, for all it hasszh brought upon me and you wasszh nothing but pain and agony." "...wh-wh-what? L-love me? Fayne, no, Fayne you-" "No." He put a hand up towards Baldwin's face. "I am done Baldwin. Everything, I am done. I can't...I can't go back to the way thingsszh were." Fayne sighed as his face twisted into a look of sorrow, sniffling back tears from the welted pain of his cheek as well as his heart starting to break once more. He looked down on his feet with shoulders heaving. "I...I'm tired, Baldwin. I'm tired from all of thisszh, I have been sszhtruggling for more than fifty yearsszh and all I wanted wasszh to be loved. I love women, that hasszh never changed and I know you can attesszht that, I have never lied about that...but I alsszho love men, and I cannot hide that part of me no longer, no matter how much I did to not hurt you after all thesszhe yearsszh but Kruzzh...he helped me, h-he...he managed to help me overcome my own fearsszh and actually made me feel asszh if...asszh if I wasszh not the one to be blamed." "Blamed for what?" asked Baldwin. "My desszhire, the one YOU call a disszheasszhe that I have had for all thosszhe yearsszh that you have known me, don't you get it Baldwin?! Everytime I heard you, ranting about sszhodomy and thosszhe pitiful thingsszh, you hurt me...you h-hurt me every month of thosszhe lasszht fifty yearsszh and I am tired of it. I am sszhick and tired of all the pain I have felt, now that I am finally free over the passzht few monthsszh that I have been with Kruzzh and it'sszh all coming back to me again...becausszhe of you. You've hurt me more than you ever wanted to and I don't want to be with anyone. Not anymore." Baldwin started becoming scared, fretfully gulping as his throat turned dry struggling to find some way to pull his brother free from this darkness. Trying to reach out to him with his hand still bleeding he asked: "Fayne...Fayne come on, you...you're not talking right, you're not making any sszhensszhe." "Then let me put it much more clearly." His brother looked up, both towards Baldwin and Kruz with eyes burning red from tears. He backed away one step from Baldwin's extended hand. "I do not desszherve either of you. I don't want to sszhee either of you ever again, no matter what reasszhon there might be. I know...the godsszh have fated me to alwaysszh be...alone, forever and I-" "No, Fayne," said Kruz reaching out with both arms, "it just-we just had an argument, that's not how it-" "NO IT ISSZH!" shouted Fayne. "IT'SSZH ALL BECAUSSZHE OF ME KRUZZH, IT ALWAYSSZH HASSZH BEEN! IF YOU HAD NOT KNOWN ABOUT MY OWN GRIEF I WOULD NEVER HAVE BROUGHT YOU TO ME, WANTING TO BE NEAR YOU, YOU WOULD NOT HAVE HAD BALDWIN ALMOSSZHT SSZHOOT YOU AND BOTH OF YOU END UP FIGHTING EACH OTHER, ALL BECAUSSZHE OF ME! ...I cannot bear thisszh grief, I cannot...I don't want to feel thisszh again, sszho I won't feel anything, anymore. I'm...I'm tired of holding thisszh pain insszhide me." "Fayne...Fayne, no, p-please-" "W-we can help you," stammered Baldwin, "l-let me, let me take care of you, I can cure you-" "With WHAT?!" scoffed Fayne bitterly. "Your love? Well I'm sszhorry, but I have sszhomething to tell you about our sszho-called love." He walked straight up towards Baldwin until their faces rubbed neatly, staring into his eyes cold as death. "You never had a brother in the firsszht plasszhe." "W-wait...wh-what?" The hand of his brother Fayne reached up to stroke along Baldwin's cheek as a blank stare of empty grief came upon him. A face he had never seen on his younger brother that terrified him as he answered: "You usszhed to be sszho different...I thought I only had you...and I sszhtill did." "Wh-what you mean...different?" "Do you know why...you cannot remember anything back when you were a child? Do you remember that dream you keep having of the river, the sszhunlit plasszhe and the voisszhesszh that came before you? That isszh becausszhe my father almosszht killed you...when you tried to protect me." "H-he...wait, father?" "I told you, back when we were little, I told you of my love when I wasszh but asszh a young innosszhent child and nothing more. I had not chosszhen to like boysszh, I did not want to and yet I told you about thesszhe feelingsszh from me becausszhe I trusszhted you. And you told me that...you...you would love me no matter what. My father beat me for it...and you defended me...you...you f-f-fell becausszhe of me, I...I tried to sszhtop him b-but it wasszh too late...you fell, with me into the river and sszho we disszhappeared. You losszht your memory and I thought I had losszht you...until I rebuilt your memory asszh my brother...onsszhe again."

Kruz said nothing as he noted the slight twist of truth but let Baldwin try to take it all in consciously, the monk struggling to comprehend as he clasped his head softly "R-...r-r-really? Wait, you...you're sszhaying I knew, about you? But...b-b-but that'sszh not right, it can't be, I...I have thisszh feeling alwaysszh about...about sszhodomitesszh I've alwaysszh thought they were like-" "A disszheasszhe?" He did not respond to his brother ending his statement. "It isszh jusszht like father sszhaid. All that you sszhaid wasszh...it...it actually sszhtarted to terrify me that you were turning into my father. But I did what I could, I made you a more kindly, compasszhionate persszhon than him and yet sszhtill I am here, with black eye, broken heart and nothing hasszh changed. Nothing...hasszh ever changed for me, Baldwin." The bishop turned away from his brother as Baldwin felt something dissipate inside of him, anger eroding softly by a warm unsettling mix of frustration and empathy. His mind was in turmoil as both grief and fury began to give way but Fayne would still speak further twisting the knife in. "If I hadn't told you, if I had never...told anyone then nobody would have been hurt...you could have sszhtill had the brother you wanted, not thisszh...disszheasszhe that you call me over the lasszht fifty yearsszh of our brotherhood. Every year, every month...alwaysszh...and I would never tell you becausszhe I...wasszh afraid you would have done the sszhame to me asszh father had done and you have proven...that I wasszh never wrong about you." Baldwin tried to reach out to his brother, his hand calloused and bleeding but he refused, batting it away as he walked whilst Baldwin's voice turned pleading. "F-fayne...Fayne where are you going?" He did not even look back as he responded: "Don't come for me, either of you. Navarro...consszhider my resszhignasszhion asszh of now, permanently. You do not desszherve sszhomeone like me who only jusszht bringsszh ruin to everything. I wisszh...I had never sszhaid anything...forgive me. Forgive me Baldwin, for disszhappointing you." "FAYNE!" "Kruzzh...I cannot be with you anymore. I'm not...I'm not worth your-" "Don't," said Kruz fearfully, "d-don't, please. Please don't, Fayne! FAYNE!" As the bangaa walked through the hallways dragging his feet without care for himself, Kruz tried to run to him but Fayne simply pushed him back, shoving him with his hand roughly as the kremling kneeled down onto the floor and weeped. His hand and stump brought to his face gasping with tears as they all looked not daring to break the silence. "...what...have you done?" "What?" He stood up turning towards Baldwin with stinging eyes of pain streaking from his cheeks, even from beneath his patch. "What the FUCK HAVE YOU DONE BALDWIN?!?!" "I-I-I NEVER KNEW! I MEAN-WAIT, NO, YOU HAVE DONE THISSZH TO HIM!" "I HAVE DONE MORE TO HELP HIM THAN YOU EVER DID IN ALL THOSE YEARS THAT YOU KNEW EACH OTHER!" "BULLSSZHIT! YOU sszhtarted all thisszh, he had NO reasszhon to think thisszh whatsszhoever, absszholutely NOT!" "Do you really believe that?! Do you think that your opinion is in ANY WAY justified for what you have done to Fayne?! What kind of person claims to love him and just destroys him like this?! ALL THOSE YEARS he has been hurting, and YOU never noticed!" "I NEVER HAD TO! Fayne'sszh sszhtronger than me, hisszh head, he'sszh alwaysszh been able to hold himsszhelf good, he never opensszh up to me!" "And now we know why," said Roy. The monk turned towards his group seeing nothing but shame and intolerance from all around him, the raptor crossing his arms. "Bad fuckin' move Baldwin, ah thought you cared about Fayne." "I DO CARE ABOUT HIM YOU SSZHUT THE FUCK UP!" "And where is this care?" asked Navarro coldly. "The one time he needed it most and you cannot even overcome your own stupidity to accept him, kupo." "HOW ARE YOU ALL CALM ABOUT THISSZH, DID YOU KNOW?! DID ANY OF YOU KNOW?!" "We did," said Dahlia with icy stare. "We all agreed not to say anything, Fayne told us, begged us to keep it a secret from you. Because he knew that you would act like this and lo, he was right. Good work Baldwin, you've made your brother's fears a reality. I hope you're proud of yourself." "Wha-...wh-wh-what are you all doing, why did you-WHY DID YOU HIDE THISSZH FROM ME?! HE WASSZH SSZHICK AND NONE OF YOU EVER TOLD ME?!?! YOU FUCKING, S-SSZHIT I THOUGHT YOU WERE MY FRIENDSSZH!" "I thought you were my friend too...stupid bigot." "I'M NOT A BIGOT, I JUSSZHT WANTED MY BROTHER TO BE OKAY!" "He WAS okay," snarled Kruz, "until you broke him and almost killed me." "SSZHUT UP!" Swinging his fist wantonly towards Kruz, the kremling dodged back before Roy intervened, standing between them as he pushed the winded bangaa back. "Don't fuckin' start this again. Your brother is hurtin' an' all you care about is bein' proven righ'?! Thuh fuck kind of brother does that make you?!" "Wh-why have you done thisszh?! Wh-why did you let HIM hurt my brother, a-all of you! I did NOTHING to you, I even sszhaved your life Dahlia I FUCKING DID EVERYTHING THISSZH CLAN ASSZHKED ME TO!" "I am not saying this as clan leader," said Navarro, "but I am saying this as your companion, kupo. You have disgraced your brother, you have shown nothing today but the most useless of bigotry and now your brother has found the one person in his life completely turned against him. Do you still love him Baldwin? Do you?" It was that shameful moment that Baldwin hesitated. His voice struggled to reach out and it was then everyone knew. Kruz turned bitter all the more before he walked towards Fayne's room, checking through his bedside drawer before finding what he wanted as he returned holding an oddly familiar notebook. "Take this." He handed it over to Baldwin who asked: "What isszh thisszh?" "Your brother's diary. You ever read this?" "N-...no, why would I, it'sszh private." "Read the page that's dated back to our Breekheim case...must have been about seven months ago-ish." Turning over through the pages the monk glanced dumbly over his brother's handwriting until he spotted one page full of questions, all of which Fayne had wrote. All of them were pertaining specifically towards what he wanted to ask Kruz, with only one answer written in the kremling's less cursive hand. He also noted a few wet spots left imprinted on the page. "...what...wh-what isszh thisszh?" "Your brother...asked me a lot of questions during that whole case, before the anomaly, before Dahlia's esper, he asked me all of this. He wanted to learn about what it was like, and I saw that all of these questions, he wanted to ask himself." "I...I never knew he asszhked you thisszh." "He didn't want you to know. He wanted to try and figure this all out himself, hoping maybe there was some way out of it because of all you told him. Turns out, you don't get to choose this sort of thing, and just because Fayne is one of those able to still enjoy women, doesn't mean that he's okay completely shutting down one side of him. That was before I ever had anything to do with him, I promise you." "Thi-...thisszh isszh...no...th-thisszh can't be...u-u-um, jusszht-" "What?" "......I need to go sszhit down for a minute. Don't...don't go anywhere I'm...I'm watching you." The fight now slowly lost from him, Baldwin took his leave making eye contact distrustfully towards Kruz as he walked over to his room alone, sitting on his bed. He read through Fayne's notebook, never having seen his brother's private thoughts before, never pried or was allowed to either way. But going further back, he started from the beginning, noticing that the book had been bought only a few months before they had been with Clan Koridai as he noted all the questions about himself. All the urges and fantasies, shameful deeds all concerning in particular the love of men. As he read more of Fayne's innermost thoughts, his heart began to sink further into the bottom of his stomach as his eyes started to wince bleakly. Every single word of doubt and grief was in his own brother's handwriting and it wasn't until one particular page that he stopped reading. Written the night after he had been rescued

_**Pain won't stop. I can still feel it, I know it's not there but I can feel it. Writing helps me forget the pain trying to focus on something, the bleeding's stopped but that only makes it worse for me. It makes me know that I'm still alive.

The only good thing to come out of this was that James and Baldwin stopped arguing, I want to talk to him about our condition. To think he actually has the same thing I do of sharing love for men and women, I could ask him so many things but Baldwin is always...close to me, I can never find time away to ask him. He would never let me be alone with him after knowing of our leader's sickness.

I wish they hadn't come rescue me. I was ready. I was ready to let the pain end at last when they had every intention of killing me right then. When that stake went through my foot it made me forget my degenerate pain for once, and now it's gone. I have one foot left and yet still I feel this is not enough to punish me for my sickness. Why did you come save me Baldwin? Isn't this what you wanted? For those like me to suffer so deep, yet you were the one to rescue me? If only you knew how much of a hypocrite you truly are and yet I cannot tell you. I know I cannot speak.**_

There will come a day when this clan shall kill me, and I hope that it is soon. Faram forgive me for what I speak, but I don't want Baldwin to suffer because of me. Like he once had before. I love my brother, and I would do anything for him and that includes sacrificing myself for him. But I do not know if he could ever love me as much as I do for him. But I know what's best for him. I know that it would be better for his brother to be dead, then to be alive and diseased.

Baldwin began to clutch his brother's words tightly as he weeped. He pressed his fingers to his face, blood still trickling across his fingers as he dug them into his skin before tears squeezed through between them. The rest of clan Koridai heard him sobbing from down the corridor, looking to each other nervously not wanting to pursue either brother now lost within their own confusion, until Roy asked: "You okay man?" Kruz swallowed thickly with hot tears trickling down inside of him, gasping from the pain that wrapped itself around his chest crushingly tight with heat. "...I should have seen this coming. I just...didn't think it would be so bad for Fayne...I've lost him. I've lost him completely." "Nawww don' say that, ahm sure he...ahm sure he just needs sum tahm on his own." "No...don't you see? I just...I just wanted him to be happy, th-that's all I wanted and now he-" "Hey, hey...cummere." He walked forwards offering his arms open to hug Kruz sympathetically, backpatting him firmly as the kremling hugged back before he broke down completely, squeezing Roy tightly. Heaving his shoulders everytime he wept more he couldn't bring himself to speak only briefly as the raptor let him ride as much as he could out of his body, a good two minutes of gentle sobbing before he added: "S'okay...s'okay lissen, ahll go an' talk to him...okay man? Ahll just talk it over with him, cuz ah ain' Baldwin or you so that makes me more impartial to all this, righ'?" "C-could you...could you talk to him? I want you to just please, tell him it's not his fault, I'm here for him I just...I can help him work things out through a-" "Ah know. But ah think he needs a different sort of speech, jus' lemme try. Ah think ah have an idea, ahll go look for him. Talk to you later man." With Roy walking off into the early morning mist through faint corridors of grey, Dahlia stepped up towards Kruz taking his hand cautiously in light of empathy. He smiled down at her appreciating the gesture yet she said nothing. Rocino turned towards Berniere however who was standing on the couch, asking: "That knife...that was a dinner knife, the one I lost." "Was it kupo?" asked Berniere shrugging. "Why did you have that?" "I don't know, I guess it must have fallen into my pocket, good thing I had it to stop a tragedy don't you think?" "Yes...a little TOO good a thing kupo." "Ugh, don't you have more troublesome things to worry about than some excuse of fortune?" "Not at the moment, Roy will be able to handle Fayne, he is a very composite speaker. I am not as eloquent when it comes to such matters of romantic relationships." "Yes...quite the surprise you aren't kupo." He said this by a derisive sneer haughtily as he rubbed the back of his neck before sitting onto his seat with a flump of effort. Meanwhile Fayne was sitting outside in the cold at the garden beside the great cathedral shivering with hands wrapped firmly to his stomach gasping to keep warm. His pale robes were no good for this weather but he cared little for it, waiting for the cold to come take him as he heard a voice beside him. "Hey." He knew that it was Roy but did not look nor even say anything. The black raptor walked closer feeling the ice sting at his clawed feet. "Jus' wanted you to know that...Baldwin's sorta calmed down an' they uh both stopped fightin'. S'all good." Still no response as Fayne stared at his own feet feeling cold shoot up through his left whilst the right remained forever comfortably numb. He cautiously kept his distance as Roy sat next to him. "You know...ah could say a lotta things about that attitude, an' ahm not gonna insult you with all them platitudes lahk everybody else hears. Lahk there's more to life than this, you got so much to live for, so many people care about you', all that shit, everybody hears that. That don't make it any less true, all of those things are true, but you must have heard it plenty tahms before." The cleric stared bleakly still as if trying to stop his heart. "Well ahm gonna tell you sumthin' that nobody else has heard. A story ah wanna tell you, is that okay?" No response except for a gentle blink as he continued. "Ah had a friend, a hume you might say long ago, wuz quite a few years older than me, lahk old enough to be mah dad an' he wuz gay. Lahk completely, not even any interest in women, an' he wuz born in a real backwards society, constantly spitted on, hated, people never tried to attack him though cuz he wuz a blacksmith, he made tools fer people an' he wuz kinda good at it. They only found out about him bein' gay when sum asshole spotted him havin' a liaison with a local farmboy a couple of years younger than me. Then they forced him outta town, burned his place down with him insahd it an' he ran out with all his stuff. "He wandered thuh land hopin' to find sum new place, wishin' somewhere else would accept him but people heard, this town wuz big so a lotta people went in an' out so all thuh local villages knew about this sodomite that'd been roamin' thuh area. He wuz hunted, belittled, hated, ridiculed, no place would accept him until one day he wuz taken bah a cult in thuh mountains of sum far-off place. They kidnapped him because they wanted an experiment for their cruel rituals, to advance the next step of humanity. They tortured him, turned him into a monster. A lizardman." It was here that Fayne turned with odd curiosity at this phrase. "A horrible combination between reptile and human...but he managed to escape bah his strength, as well as a bunch of 'em that he made friends with an' kept enough of his own sanity to not go completely down an' bestial. Not everyone wuz so lucky, but he managed to gather a group of these lizardmen knowing now he wuz even more despised for his new form as he headed to a mountaintop, hidin' away from thuh world. He had a small group of new friends who all understood now that they would never be accepted bah their society, an' knowin' that they realised sumthin'...from all the grief an' hatred he had gotten." The bangaa's eyes turned wider with an interest as Roy turned to him fully. "He said...that 'the moment I realised that nothing good had ever been created out of Hate, was the moment I realised that everyone had been wrong about me. Every word, every spiteful look I was given, had come from Hate and nothing else. And nothing has ever come good from Hatred itself. Whereas Love, nothing but good has come from it. And it was then I knew, that I could no longer hold shame to myself, and I want you to remember this. No task, no undertaking, should ever be bound by Hatred, for it should never have need'. ...ahm ashamed to admit that, ah sorta forgot that along thuh way." "Really?" asked Fayne lowly. "Are you...alsszho one of-" "No, ahm straight, but ah understand cuz ah tried to build sumthin' out of hate, an' that didn't go anywhere for me. That friend...wuz mah master, mah teacher, thuh one who taught me all about bein' a swordsman an' upholdin' on thuh peace." The raptor clasped his hands softly almost as if about to pray. "His name wuz Nikolaides Hauzer, he forged to build a society of findin' lizardmen across thuh world an' have them brought back to their own new place. No more hate, no more monsters, no more acts of war but not in a pacifist sort of way. He wanted to train 'em to be able to defend themselves, to slowly move through society gatherin' supplies underneath these disguises, bandages, lahk lepers that no one would come near. Turns out when people think you got an actual medical condition it's a lot easier to swallow than other prejudices." "Not in my world," murmured Fayne. "But he managed to live a good life, not because of whut happened to him, but because of whut he took away from it. An' whut ah want you to take away from this Fayne...is that every single thing you have ever heard about yourself an' all this...disease-crap, it's always been borne out of hatred. An' that means it's wrong, it's a bias, an' biases can't be true now can it?" "...that...doesszh mean a lot of sszhensszhe but I don't think-"

"When has anyone's good research ever come out of hatred?" added Roy. "Nobody ever managed a good philosophy or built sumthin' good out of hate, an' if they did, then we could have found it without anyone needin' killed or hurt. No religion out there ever started with thuh words of a spiteful man an' any that did, trust me, have never managed to succeed in thuh face of history bah bein' built on sheer hatred ALONE." "What about war and masszhinery? You sszhaid that...thisszh friend, thisszh mentor wasszh a blacksszhmith, would he not have made sszhuch weaponry?" "You can build weapons to be practical, you can build them to protect people, but you can't build them cuz you hate the other person an' cause GOOD to happen. Sumbody try to build sumthin' evil, they ain' gonna use it for good an' they never gonna be right. Whut ahm sayin' is...everything you ever heard about yourself in that manner, is wrong." "Sszho...Baldwin hatesszh me?" "NO! Baldwin hates this thing about you because he don't understand it, he's an idiot lahk you said always. But that don't mean he doesn't care for you, he just wants one part of you to change but he's gotta accept that you ain't never gonna change because he loved you all those years when you WEREN'T different. You just hid sum part of you for so long an' now there's no point in hidin' it. He talks about you, lahk all thuh tahm, he's not gonna leave you Fayne. You have to put your foot down, an' show that you mean business." "With what?" "Make him accept you or else there is no Fayne, cuz there ain't never wuz a Fayne that wuzn't bisexual. He just never knew, but now he does, he has to accept you...otherwise he ain't gonna live without you. He has nobody else but you, an' ah know from whut we've talked about durin' our fitness trainin' over the past few months that...he don't wanna live in a world without you." "...I find that hard to believe." "Then believe it. Ah may not know Baldwin that long but ah can tell he legitimately cares about you, an' one day he will have to learn to accept you. You can't just let fifty years go bah without SUMTHIN', he can't throw that all away, but ah just wanted you to know, remember mah master's words. Nuthin' good has ever come from hatred, now that may sound simple...but it's a lot more intricate than you think, it means that everything ever built out of hatred has never contributed to a world's existence for thuh better. An' that includes all this talk about you bein' a sodomite. Whut good has it ever done to society?" "I appresszhiate your sszhtory, Roy...but I would like to be alone for now." "Alrigh'. Ahll leave you be after-...whut thuh fuck?" He heard a commotion clamouring from the front door of the cathedral, a roaring wagon of two chocobos squawking the place down as Roy rushed to the sound of someone screaming. Fayne could not help but feel pulled towards someone's distress as the townspeople gathered at the early morning. A hume with blackened burns all across his face, the wings of his steeds singed like the wagon half-rotting at the back before he cried out: "HELP! HELP SOMEBODY, I NEED SANCTUARY! _" The burnt hume made his way forwards staggering onto the church steps as people rushed to try and help him. Navarro was out almost immediately along with Dahlia, Berniere and Kruz with mother Mariel gently shifting into focus from behind the door. Dahlia cast her hand over the hume to try and ease his pain with a Cura spell as a cooling sensation managed to help him. "_Th-th-thank you...hoh gods...F-faram save me." "What has happened?" asked Mariel. "A monster...c-c-come to destroy us, he...he burned the place down, the entire town is...in burning, g-gods please my family, m-my friends are all-" "Which town is this kupo?" said Navarro sternly. "What monster is this?" "P-por...Pordana...it was some kind of demon, like dark skin, wicked claws and he had...p-p-pair of scissors huge like a sword and m-marks on his fa-A-AAAAARGH, AAAAAAARGH! _" The hume crawled backwards at the sight of Roy in the crowd pointing at him shrieking: "_THAT'S HIM, THE DEMON! RUN, PLEASE, HE'S COME FOR MEEEE!" "CALM DOWN!" cried Berniere. "You are among friends here, we have no demons in this place!" "IT'S HIM, THE DEMON HAS COME FOR ME, HE PROMISED HE WOULDN'T KILL ME!" "WHO PROMISED?!" "THE DEMON! HE SAID...TO WARN YOU ALL OF HIS RUIN, C-COMING FOR YOU! ...gods, oh GODS, HELP ME! HELP ME PLEASE, I WON'T -u-urrrghk..."

A sprinkling of sleep powder was handed to Mariel before she cast it over the screaming burn victim giving peace to his state. The townspeople all looked at Roy suspiciously before he started: "WHUT, HEY! Ahm not thuh only reptile in this damn place!" "Not the only raptor either," said Kruz, "you don't think that's-" "It's gotta be. It HAS to be." "It most definitely is," said Navarro, "we have to go to Pordana immediately, Kruz it's time for action." "Damn right it is!" clamoured the kremling. "I'll get my crew all ready, we'll be off within half an hour so get everyone ready." "Good, we need Baldwin with us the more hands the better. Berniere, you stay here and do your part." "Aye-aye madame kupo!" said Berniere with proud salute. "We will be waiting for your return eagerly!" "Then let us go, Fayne are you ready?" "......I am." The bishop stood firmly to attention understanding the severity of the situation. "A town isszh in peril and our leader may be there afflicted, I will not back down from thisszh." "What about your resignation?!" cried Dahlia. "Never mind that we have a duty to perform you sszhilly girl!" "W-well...um...if you are still capable of performing with us then yes, you're right you silly bishop!" He could not resist a tender smirk at this before heading off with the group to retrieve Baldwin, whilst Kruz ran off towards the ship to get all things prepared by the crew. The hume was taken to the infirmary whilst the chocobos were taken to the stables as Berniere ran off to his position but not before Roy stopped him asking: "Berniere wait!" "Wh-what, kupo!?" "...ah have sumthin' to ask of you, since you'll be here an' all once we get back." "Yes?! What is it?!" "It's this." Cautiously taking out something from his satchel, the raptor handed over to him an old-looking horseshoe, rather useless by itself but it had a particular scent still strong of burdened beasts. "What...what is this?" "Thuh most important thing to me of mah life," said Roy firmly. "Ah want you to give that to FG once we come back." "But...you are going to find him yourself, why not give it to-" "In case ah lost it or sumthin', lissen. Navarro told me that you're a cool dude an' ah trust you. Ah want you to give this to him an' tell him that...it wuz sumthin' the purple lady wanted me to give." "The purple what, kupo?" "Just remember that. Please." Roy grasped his hands firmly pressing the horseshoe into them. "Thuh Purple lady asked Roy to give this to him, now, you get all that?" Berniere looked at him oddly but then a flash had come to his vision, a warm trickling of fear creeped down his hot neck seeing something turn amiss, before he nodded firmly with a full realisation unbeknownst. "I understand, kupo. I...I know and...I am sorry." "Sorry?" "......never mind listen, I will take this and give it to him once you all may return. But there is something I must tell you." "Whut's that?" The moogle handed him a small bag of what appeared to be small explosives with a lightning mark through them, the size of grenades. The same type that Navarro had with her as he answered with: "Lightning must never strike at the first opportunity. The demon has protected himself, you must wait until her blade comes through his defence rendering him almost completely naked before you strike. Now do you understand? It will mean everything in a matter of life and death, kupo." Roy nodded slowly wondering about Berniere's odd nature but took the bag of explosives cautiously. "Alrigh'...ah will." "I hope you find peace...Roy MacGregor." "Thank you..." Turning slowly away he headed off towards the ship still docked outside of the city, the Broken Petal lying in wait for its big mission as everyone soon piled in within the next forty minutes. With no time to waste they headed off towards the direction of Pordana powered by the ingenious Tesla Coil throbbing as the new heart of the Broken Petal. Kruz was back in action on his firm stance as captain with everybody next to him on the bridge, the clan Koridai members including Roy awaiting as Tennyson stood before the assembled crew down before them on the deck. Many of them were braced for a fierce engagement despite what their first mate said, the tall hume walking along the bridge with Michelle on the wheel. "Ladies and gentlemen...the time has come for our mission that we've been waiting. A demon is now rampant within the town of Pordana, and we must act solely upon fighting it. There will be a grave encounter, and we are all to be completely prepared for anything possible. After all we have gone through with the esper, we shall not be taken down by some sole belligerent such as this. He may take on the form of one of our closest friends but do not be fooled, for we must act against it with extreme prejudice. "Do not give any quarter no matter what might happen, you all have your orders as you well remember them everytime we head out searching. We will engage with our own plan concerning the town set ablaze, so I want you all to organise your teams into the Shiva formation, is that clear?" "YES SIR!" "Good. You are dismissed." The crew dispersed back to duties as Navarro went down to organise her assistance to the Shiva group. Michelle waited to give Kruz back control of the deck as the kremling asked through the intercom: "What's our status?" "Engine running solid," said Cid dutifully, "we're gonna be good for dealing with this flight." "Alright good, Rzepka how's our fairwind?" "Thirty northwards," said the navigation, "the flames and smoke I can sense on the horizon but it's blowing north so we can get lucky and come down closer than usual." "Good, keep me informed if ever the wind changes." "Aye captain." The group stood apart from each other nervously, their emotions tense on swallowing as they clung on to their duty with Kruz looking over his shoulder towards Baldwin and Fayne wishing he had something to say. Roy simply stepped by him patting him on the shoulder. "They'll be alrigh' Kruz...ahm sure they will." "How'd it go talking to him?" "Ah think maybe ah gave him sum sense of reason...ah had him talkin' at least." "That's good...listen, I...know I'm not really the one to talk about secrets-" "Whut you mean your eye?" "Yeah...thanks fer giving me that excuse with the muscular palsy, I just don't want him worrying about it until I find a way to fix that." "You got other problems to deal with righ' now, he needs you." "I'm giving Baldwin an' him some time, they have to sort this through. If I start interfering then Baldwin's gonna think I'm just manipulatin' him, I want him to know whut Fayne thinks." "Alrigh', thas good...lissen, um...ah saw her again." Kruz turned his head towards him with a piercing look in his right eye as Roy gently rubbed over the uniquely dull wooden ring on his right hand, cautiously thumbing the mirror-like gem of simple glass that gently twinkled. "Ah saw her in mah dreams, jus' this mornin'...thuh purple lady." "Hm. Not seen her in a while, whut she say?" "...she said ah wuz about to find him...an' that...maybe mah answers would come sooner than ah expected." "She's never been wrong...it wuz her that told me about the Song of Souls, why does she know James that well?" "Ah dunno...ah guess he do got a guardian angel out there." "I wish she wuzn't so cryptic, would it kill her to tell me straight up?" "Dreams are a weird thing Kruz." "Not when somebody is guiding them, like a lucid dream. Why did she talk to us though?" "Ah think...maybe it's cuz we're both not from this world so it more makes sense to speak to us...we migh' comprehend things a little easier than these people." "This land's got espers and demons I think they can comprehend easy enough." "Ah know, just...brace yourself."

He nodded with constant vigil on the wind heading north as they followed after the cold morning air towards the forsaken settlement, the smoke turning visible within range on the horizon as a smouldering dark red grew thick on the pale winter sky overwrought by clouded smog. Baldwin looked to his brother as he nervously stood alongside him asking: "Are you...okay bro?" The bangaa cleric did not turn towards him simply staring into the forests down below with a sigh of heaviness. "Fayne...pleasszhe sszhay sszhomething. P-pleasszhe...I don't...I don't want you to...be alone anymore. Pleasszhe, tell me." Nothing could be said, the brother holding his staff firmly with a duty to commit and he did not speak for the entirety of an hour it took to reach Pordana itself. Baldwin stood waiting as they approached feeling the flames turn faster onto them. The town of Pordana was drenched with dreadful flames, roasting the very air above itself as if the gates of Inferno had opened up before them as the city of Dis. The airship struggled to move closer against the roaring chaos of crumbling wood as Cid squawked through the intercom: "Captain, this blaze is gettin' too hot! If we get any closer this engine's gonna get antsy!" "Hold your distance then," replied Kruz, "we'll make our stop off here, me and Clan Koridai will go down and check the remains of the town." "What are your orders?" asked Tennyson beside him. "You stay on the ship in case anything happens. I'll need some hands with me to scope out for any survivors." "I already have twelve men ready to assist for ground duty captain, the Shiva division is ready for departure." "Good, are you all ready to leave?" "Yes," added Clan Koridai firmly. The ship rested itself down close enough to the ground by a small forest clearing placing the drawbridge down as the crew stepped off to search for survivors. The fire sweltered even from a distance of twenty feet turning them feverish with warmth as five mages from Kruz's ship came out with charged Blizzara spells, two black and three red along with seven mixed helpers of various species. With Clan Koridai out front along with Kruz they headed down through the main thoroughfare of the settlement, burning amber fully devouring their vision with hot flames and gasping coughs as buildings began to crumble groaning under their own decrepit weight consumed as Kruz ordered: "ALRIGHT SHIVA GROUP, DEAL WITH THE OUTSIDE AREA FIRST! ANY SMALLER HOUSES A GOOD DISTANCE AWAY, YOU WORK FROM THEM AND GO INTO THE TOWN BY A CIRCULAR ROUTE!" "YES SIR!" "WE'LL BE DIVIDING YOU UP INTO GROUPS OF FOUR, EACH GROUP WILL HAVE AT LEAST ONE MAGE AND BE NO SMALLER THAN FIVE PEOPLE, DO NOT SEPARATE FROM EACH OTHER AT ALL COSTS, IS THAT CLEAR?!" "YES SIR!" Navarro made her command to her group as Kruz chartered out a street plan to best deal with the fire. "Baldwin, Fayne, you will be part of Group A along the west side of the settlement, kupo. Dahlia, you will be with me and Roy in Group B along with two helpers so we can go into the main town together, where he shall act as our own mage equivalent." "Finally," quipped the utahraptor, "a chance to become a REAL black mage, hmhaha." "Kruz will handle Group C with two mages, both of us will walk into the town centre diffusing the flames as best we can do before we split up. Group D will circumvent around the east, if you catch sight of James, remember our plan kupo." "Righ', you'll know if it is but don' be fooled bah anythin'. Whutever might have happened if you let your guard down for an instant then you gonna pay." "Alright," said Dahlia firmly, "I-i will...just try to find people." "Are you alright?" asked Rocino. "I'm fine...the flames are very...distressing but I will not turn away from those needing help." "Good, then stay with me kupo." "YOU HAVE YOUR ORDERS?" cried Kruz to the whole group who nodded firmly. "LET'S MOVE OUT!" Both bangaa brothers headed west with one moogle helper and two hume black mages, whilst Dahlia, Roy, Navarro and Kruz headed into the town centre armed with two bangaas, two nu-mou mages, one viera and a hume. The mages blasted ice across the flames doing their best to stifle them, seeing they were caused by natural rather than magical means which made them easier to stifle. Smouldering wood and crackling burns rose to a deep intensity that almost burned their skin being within the middle of, but despite the singing oven sensation, they pressed on for any survivors. Roy felt his own armour starting to bake him from the inside, glistening upon his skin as Navarro and Dahlia turned rather matted with sweat. Kruz belted down his cloak to prevent his coat-tails from being burned as the wind began rising, causing the flames to turn harsher with a greater spark of fury above their heads. Fires danced on the breeze, bristling ash like fireflies rasping across the houses as a deep humid rumbling noise overwhelmed them almost entirely. The fire's hunger was constant, neverending despite their best attempts with ice spells and nanopower blasting from their staffs and fists. They did all that they could but it seemed a greater ferocity laid beyond the flames trying to stop them as they pushed their cold offensive front. At one point they slowly began to separate along various alleyways trying to find someone that had escaped the flames but no luck so far. Burning flesh permeated the entire settlement, the storehouses roasting with their remains of meat and sugar scorching to create a sickening sweetness across the air as the wood continuously crackled to a deafening screech. Navarro noticed a shadow dashing off beyond one house as she rushed after it, hoping it was a survivor. "HELLO!? DO NOT BE AFRAID, WE ARE HERE TO RESCUE YOU KUPO! WAIT, COME BACK, WE ARE PUTTING OUT THE FLAMES DO NOT BE ALARMED! COME BACK KUPO!" Running after, she slowly skirted around the town outskirts as the shadow moved constantly, always flitting through the bleak doorways and wild burning flames as she darted inbetween the wreckage. Bodies of men, women and children remained smouldering but she noticed something odd amongst them. There were wounds on the bodies burning to a black cinder, scarring deep gouging strikes as if a battle had been happening, but no weapons had been found upon any of the victims' bodies. Her warning sense triggered as she cautiously walked through seeing the shadow once again, passing through a house to navigate back towards the town square. It was once a storefront she noticed, which had an open easy access point yet she saw no bodies within the place, not a sense of life anywhere within the rotting vegetables and charred meats. The smoke turned thick in front of her face a with a bilious heat, gasping as she saw something strange. A face wreathed within the smog screaming silently, its eyes black against the grey fog before it began to fade away. She would have considered it nothing more than playing tricks from her eyes but she was even more disturbed by the fact the same shrieking face had remained on the burnt wall. She was certain it had not been there before, a hume's jaw lengthened to a blackening abyss. She turned to her left and saw another set of eyes burned into the wood, then another, and another. She saw the shadow just briefly from the corner of her vision running up the stairway. "WAIT, PLEASE COME BACK KUPO!" Staggering her way up to where the fire had not reached just yet, she found the main bedrooms and living quarters as the floor scorched to a fierce intensity, before finding the inhabitants of the shop at last burning in their sleep. They were far gone to a cinder as if they had never woken as she saw something at the window to the children's bedroom. Scraping claws shrieking across the room louder than the crackling fire was as she went out onto the balcony. The landing however had crumbled down into a slope towards the village where she saw thick streaking marks of a monstrous pair of claws dragging across the wooden remnants, all across the ground to where the town square now stood before her. The central large area untouched except by that of a grand obelisk made from marble shining above all else as the original foundation of Pordana. She was now enclosed by the houses crumbling into a near-perfect circular area. The heat was sweltering, unmitigatingly hot like inferno unleashed as she wiped the sweat of her brow noticing a familiar shape now wreathed amongst the reddened backdrop.

She was not certain until she approached to get a look of his weapon, the long familiar handle like eyes glinting from a darkened forest down on her face from his brown scaled back, whilst still wearing the same armour he had always worn in Ivalice. Blood covered him from head to toe, the handmarks of several species forever imprinted upon his flesh like a hundred voices silenced within each print. And yet despite all of the heat and deprivation he did not sweat, not a single drop as she heard him mumble to himself. "He...he went away...he went away and I saw him...I saw him disappear on the edge of the river's moon." "James?" "Sorrow has taken him for I have never known. A dream we carry out...in secret, for where would we go without sorrow...and death all around me? All...all around me...why? Why has this happened? Why...why are my hands so stained with misery that I could never want?" "...James. Is that you? I'm here, please, answer me! Speak to me!" His head looked up on hearing her voice, slowly turning around to show the faded green in his firelit eyes, bloodshot with paling skin and little trace of energy left as a mournful look came over him. He looked as if he was on the last ebb of his existence as he gulped feebly at the sight of Navarro staring at him. "They couldn't......they couldn't stop, none of them...the flames, why couldn't they...h-hoh...god, help me...h-help me somebody." "Are you...a-are you alright, kupo?" "I...I think...no. I am all responsible for this. So many deaths of this place, hundreds...s-s-seven hundred I have watched burn and bleed..." "S-seven...hhhhoh gods..." Navarro clasped her lips with hand over mouth in horror at this, before realising why she had come knowing this was not the first friend with a great atrocity upon their sins. "Are you...feeling alright, physically?" "My body...does not even matter anymore...none of this does. Please...h-h-help me...h-h-h-help me...so I can forget what I did." "I will...I just need to find the others and tell them, we have all come here James, we searched for you...you are safe kupo." "Thank you...thank you, my little friend." She turned away cautiously as she walked towards the town square entrance with a stridant posture as James followed after with his feet dragging slowly. His hand slowly raised itself towards his back with fingers twitching forcefully to try and resist. "Do you need to rest?" "I'll be fine...just...let me...let me get back to our friends." "You cannot push yourself too hard, who knows what you have been up to." "I have been...up to a lot of things...and I won't be stopping anytime soon." "Pardon?" "I won't...be stopping...anymore from now onnn-n-n-N-NAVARROOO!" Swiftly she dodged at the sound of James' voice hearing the whirl of the scissorblades come down upon her head, her feet scraped harshly into the ground turning to see James' eyes turn fully black. "USELESS IMBECILE!" The demon's voice pulsed from within as an aura permeated from his skin, crawling down to his feet as his body darkened potently, claws elongating to wicked long knives holding the scissors within. Navarro thought he heard a faint scream recede within James' throat as his voice turned fully corrupt into a beast infernal. "He could have given you a swift merciful end had he not struggled to break free, but now you must face your own mortality face to face." "I was not fooled," said Navarro fearlessly, "you are a terrible liar, moreso than James was when he first met, kupo." "And why is that my little rabbit?" "Do you really think that James would even call me a little friend? Or that I would be so foolish to drop my guard after your own warning message of a burnt hume came screaming towards Lea Monde?" "Hmph, was worth a try just to make things pass easier for the eventual death of all his friends." "What do you want?! Why have you done this, this great atrocity?!" "We all have to feed at some point my little beast, you must feed from the cattle and I too must feed from the same. Except that I feast upon everybody's souls and that makes ME the apex predator of this existence, along with every other world that your new leader shall come through." "YOU are not my leader, demon. James is, but he is also my friend!" "HAH, now who's the terrible liar? A cold insipid little beast, do you think I will be fooled by your spirit of mercy long forgotten?!" "Whatever you might think, I have been waiting for you demon. I will battle to the last breath for my leader to regan his self." "Hmmmm...that is a proposition I can comprehend." Floating slightly above the ground as his dark energy firmly clouded around his existence, the Scissoraptor's weapon throbbed with vile presence almost shimmering beyond mortal eyes as Navarro stood firm in waiting. "You wish to challenge me, knowing I am responsible for the death of this town and sacrament?" "I have no choice, kupo. Even if I wanted to run, it is my sworn duty not as a knight, but as a warrior of Ivalice to strike back against evil wherever it may be...even from within one of the hearts of my own friends." She drew her sword with a stern look, mournful resignation briefly crossed before her as she composed her battle self once again. "Forgive me James. I know you would want this demon to not succeed but...I will not let him abuse your body like this." The moogle raised her blade as it glinted with a blood red. "You shall pay dearly for the massacre of this place kupo." "I have never needed to pay the price...nor shall I ever will my worthless dear hart."

As the demon lunged forwards he vanished into thin air as the flames smouldered across the new battleground, Navarro watching with her blade in wait before she saw a glint of darkness shadow from across her left. The monstrous raptor flew with a sweeping cut, slicing for her head as she dodged underneath before shanking through one of his legs violently tearing across the sinew. But it did not stop the demon as he kicked her away by a hefty slam, his scissors upheld high before crashing down on her face as she dodgerolled right. He swung towards her but she clashed perfectly upon exiting the roll with sword out fully left, striking steel upon mythril with a sudden clash as the moogle used the recoil to push herself back. The creature waited smugly grinning in the firelight, deathly pale as Navarro saw even more the bloodmarks on his body. Hands of the people that had desperately tried to push him back in their last moments as she felt determination run through before charging forwards, seeing the raptor's arm swing cleaving towards her head. She dodged low and to her left, leaping high up to stab into Scissoraptor's shoulder with a plunging tear scraping harshly down his right arm before the beast elbowstriked her ruthlessly in the stomach, knocking the wind from her stomach harshly as she rolled into a tumble to break her fall. Just before she stepped out of her roll she saw the sweeping arm of the demon tear down upon her face with its claws out and ready, her sword immediately striking across all three claws trapping them. Pulling back to slice his hand open, she lunged with her blade jamming straight into the raptor's chest, hitting the sternum brutally scarring across his bone to rattle deeply throughout the possessed body. But Scissoraptor barely felt such pains as he swung his evil blades right, left and then from above before thrusting eagerly towards the moogle knight. Managing to dodge it each swing with practiced proficiency, Navarro dared not clash her sword against his much stronger body knowing he could tear through any block she made. The moment he thrust, she strafed to the right watching the movements of his dark muscular hand seeing which way he striked before stabbing right in the gut, cleaving his belly open as the monster shuddered with fiendish excitement. His other hand came down upon her head in a bestial slash, as she dodged his between his legs before lancing her sword deep into the back of James' knee, the demon's gasp of surprised pain ringing true yet no blood ever spilt. Very little did he ever bleed which she found disturbing, but she gave no quarter. She knew that James feared this beast and everything that it stood for. The Scissoraptor turned with powerfully low swing towards her feet, which she leapt over perfectly before he swung again the opposite way to make her leap once more. His hand striked out as she jumped the second time but her sword was up and ready striking across his claws to send them ringing with harsh pain from his bloodied torn digits now exposing the bone within. And yet even with such wounds the moogle saw that his evil essence was slowly regenerating his skin, knitting together like the cruel patchwork of flesh he wore as his new body. "Nnnnngh...hhha ha ha ha ha ha, fascinating, your eyes are very swift my little rabbit." "Swifter than your blade ever shall be, demon." "Indeed, I realise that you are well-trained and have most exquisite sensory awareness of one's enemy movements...but only when your enemy is still alive." "What, kupo?!" The demon grinned as he suddenly began to snap his limbs violently with a dark pulsating strength, a horrid tearing twist of bone inside of James' arms contorting his muscles to begin completely rending themselves asunder as they hung limply at his sides. The Scissoraptor grinned as he held his blades again in one hand crippling itself to grasp onto them, for what little time he had until his essence would have to reheal them. "Can you predict my blade now, when my body is mangled in rigor mortis?" "Your...wh-what have you......no. I won't be fooled by your macabre trickery!" "No...it only needs to murder you without any foolish trick. I can kill you where you stand with both this form and the weapon that I wield...but I enjoy your strange determination, you amuse me little one." "Your weapon was foolish to begin with and I never took you seriously, nothing can compare to my blade kupo!" "I wasn't talking about the scissors as my weapon...THIS body is now my TRUE weapon!" With broken arm he swung his scissors down before a violently fast spin, faster than anything Navarro had witnessed as she dropped and rolled in the burning streets, waiting for the next attack. He swung from the right, but then stopped and thrust once more just briefly slicing across the moogle's cheek as she stumbled gasping from the pain. His hand movements were odd, stiff and unknowing, none of the muscles were giving her any sort of clue as the monster striked forwards with diagonal swiping cuts. Wherever his arm moved she could tell when to dodge, but it was only when he stopped and tried to swing the other way in mid-strike she was unable to react. The demon had learnt her weakness, slicing from left to right to a diagonal upper swing from the ground that smacked against her sword violently, causing her to flinch from the ringing sensation that was numbing her grip. In that moment, his left hand reached out and tore across her right arm, scraping from the outside and almost ripping across her armoured chest. Navarro shrieked briefly, not so much from pain but rather the shock of being hit as blood seeped thickly from her upper arm, cursing under her breath as she firmly began to bite her lip. Firmly rearranging her stance, she watched the monster grab both handles of the scissorblades and sweep them out open before cutting forwards violently. She barely dodged with a ducking roll to the left and forwards, pushing herself out into a sidestrafing motion with hand in the dirt, leaping towards the monster and viciously tearing across the right of his waist, slicing partly across the red sash that was holding his armour together as tendrils weakened. Like his veins cut from within. Blood barely drifted from its passing as she sliced through the abdomen, ripping across the liver as she saw within briefly by her sword being stuck deep inside of James' bowels. Yet nothing had moved inside of him, no heartbeat, no pulse, almost as if James' body had completely become a corpse, a cadaver of ruin. She dared not contemplate, focusing on defeating the creature now inhabiting her friend and former leader as she watched for the arms swing back their scissors dual-handed. The monster turned and snapped his blades shut, with Navarro pulling her blade free as she pressed her feet tightly against James' side and rebounded off with perfect athletic skill. The force of her backwards leap managed to dodge the reach of the scissors as she landed firmly onto the soil, warm underneath her fingertips as blood trickled down her right arm still. She waited for the next attack, the monstrous incarnate rushing forwards with a one-handed swing as both scissorblades lashed out with dual tips streaking towards her face.

Navarro blocked but only by the edge of them, if only to allow her momentum from their swing to duck and spin but she misjudged the monster's movements. She was hoping for a backhand strike but the creature managed to twist its own hand inside of itself by snapping the wrist double-jointed, plunging forwards as the blades snapped shut just before stabbing right through her foot. Crying out as she felt the slicing cut, the thick scissors had misaligned briefly to rip across the leathered boot, but not enough to avoid the moogle's furred flesh which began to bleed out hotly across the cobbled streets. She dared not look at the newly-formed gash, almost certain that she had lost a toe now thickly drowning in her red ichor, her boot now feeling slightly heavier. By that moment of weakness, the creature plunged his blades forward with closed tips as she jumped suddenly, regretting it almost instantly by the aggravating pain of her leg throbbing begging to be healed. The Scissoraptor raised his signature evil weapon with jaws wide open, trying to trap her inbetween. The moogle lifted her legs tightly to her chest, desperately avoiding the long blades snapping shut like a monstrous maw underneath her tail as she landed on the blades. She ran towards the Scissoraptor, leaping upon the screwpoint of the scissors and plunging her blade downwards with a skywards strike, screeching as she impaled fully into the monstrous skull of the demonic raptor. His eyes trembled bleakly, her feet planted upon his cheeks with darkness glimmering as the sword drove deep inside his host's brain, powerfully to the hilt. She thought she had won but at a cost. But then the creature smiled as blood poured down his cheek from her own foot. "Useless." His hands were now free of his weapon as he smacked her across the face, by inhuman force from a vicious backhand that bloated her left cheek to a horribly bruised welt as she fell back onto the warm ground. "Do you truly think I need your former friend's stupid BRAIN in order to exist?!" She staggered back onto her feet, her sword having planted itself still within James' head as the monstrous Scissoraptor spread his arms widely, reassembled of their broken ligament back to their former state by his own regenerative state. Before she could even react as her mind began swimming with pain briefly, her eyes doubled over in vision, she saw the demon pull out her own blade from its head before hurling it straight at Navarro's chest. "Here is your toy back my dear CHILD!" Whereas they had both expected the sword of mythril to plunge deep into her breast, a hot pain of agonising sudden breath lost from her being there came not any such feeling. A sharp ping silenced the air itself resonating harshly enough to deafen Navarro briefly as a dull trembling deep pain began to vibrate through her ribs. The world suddenly had fallen into slow motion as she reached her height of adrenaline, the prospect of death almost instant now briefly delayed. Her sword had striked powerfully against the badge that Berniere had given her, crumpling it slightly inwards but still enough to protect her as she saw her blade spin briefly above her. Her eyes widened at this chance to live and fight, as she grabbed her sword by the handle expertly before a sudden spin fully in one circle, standing down against the Scissoraptor with her mythril blade pointing straight towards him. "I...am NOT a child, kupo. My NAME is Navarro Rocino, Knight of Clan Koridai!" "A pathetic fairytale and NOTHING MORE, my little hare of burden!" "And YOU are nothing more than an old wives' tale! Frightening me will do no good but to delay the inevitable!" "Frighten you? No...I have no intention of frightening you..." Slowly he began to float, his claws hovering above the ground as his eyes turned another shade of dark amethyst outlining across the rim of his pupils. The scissors began to rise above from behind him, shimmering with a vile presence of foetid indigo. "I have EVERY intention of making you scream however, a much deeper sense of fear old wives' tales shall ever do...your scream forever transfixed upon your SOUL!" With roaring deep the monstrous scissors hurled themselves towards the moogle as she clashed against them, powerfully flung back by its potent momentum. The possessed pair of shears swung without need of any master to hold it, slicing back and forth as if cutting ribbons across the flames themselves at an incredulous speed, almost too fleet for Navarro to block every attack with. For the most part she dodged, strafing around it trying to figure out how to fight the creature as it striked unendingly upon her. Left, right, diagonal-right, thrust, sweeping left as it spun from above like an axe thrown from its wielder almost carving her head wide open. Navarro could only guard herself, the demonkin's strength still evident upon its weapon swinging powerfully with just as much force as when James' body had held it. Sudden snap, carving thrust towards the earth, open-and-shut snapping for her feet as she leapt forwards across to try and grab the handles themselves but it spun round perfectly in sync slicing across her shoulder from its thrust just barely missed for the back of her head. But the wound on her left shoulder streaking upwards was enough, like a monstrous tooth ripping out half her skin from it as she cried out staggering forwards. Blood dripped from three places upon her, her face still bruised and swollen all down its left cheek but she could only swallow back her bloodied spit and stand firm to attention. It was in that moment the demon's scissors thrust forwards, cutting wide open at her feet as she leapt forcefully above into the air and it was only then she felt a sudden wind passing through before piercing her body. Her eyes opened wider than her scream came through. "_A-AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGH! AAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAGGGGGGH! _"

The monster stood before her, suddenly like a spectre, his hand now thrust deep into her abdomen with arm outreached as her blood poured through down his fingers. Claws rubbed thickly into her lower body, tenderly stroking across her organs as she hung desperately in midair now fully impaled upon his arm as she struggled to breathe, gasping as her legs kicked feebly from shock as her whole body began to shiver. "J-j-james...J-james, p-please...wake up, k-kupo...JAMES! JAMES, PLEAAAASE! _" **"You know very well he cannot hear you, foolish hart."** He grabbed her throat by his other hand as the scissors hovered closer to him. **"And if anyone can, well...the more the merrier."** " **_A-AAAAAAAARRRGH!" The hand that impaled her tore into her wounded lower belly, twisting as he grabbed onto an organ feeling something snap like elastic onto his fingers, blood seeping out of her strangely neat incision. **"Even with one rabbit your problems will multiply...let's take care of that shall we?" "YOU...WORTHLESS FU- AAAAAAAAGH! AAAAAAIIIIIIIIIAAAAAARRRRRGH! _" As if he were peeling the bandage of a sucking wound, the monster pulled from her abdomen a thin fleshy length with two small circular tubes, one on each side with a stem-like tip at the end as Navarro sobbed feverishly with gasps transfixed. Choking with horror and disgust, the raptor's hand held something that resembled a wilted flower stalk now drowning in the river, withering at his touch. **"Hm...I thought that was your small intestine but...hhhmhmhm, not as if you'll ever have children with THAT attitude won't you my dear?"** "_H-hhhhh...h-hoh...g-gods...wh-what...h-have you...you...will PAY FOR THIS-GUUUH! _" His other hand slammed her into the dirt before both wrapped themselves filthily around her throat discarding the organ from his grasp, fallopian juices dripping sweetly down her neck as he squeezed tightly enough to make breathing a constant battle. **"Pay...with what? YOU are nothing more than a pathetic little runt with a toothpick, do you really think that YOU of all creatures could possibly stand against me?!"** "_I...h-h-have faced...worse than you." She spat in his face lightly, the beast twitching his cold dead eyes at such insolence before squeezing harder, almost enough to snap her neck as she plunged her blade into his chest. The last weakening strength she could muster, she thrust upwards along the tender ribbons of James' clothing, slicing off the weakened power sash always V-shaped on his chest, slowly falling forwards rendering his body half-naked. But it would do nothing to stop him. His hands tightly gripping around her throat, the demon pushed his thumb down upon it slowly testing her resilience. Watching. Waiting for her to give her last breath to him as he licked his lips eagerly, seeing her bleed futilely from her abdomen with her eyes rolling upwards, hands grasping at his arms with feebleness, her fur now caked with her own blood as he slowly grinned with orgasmic rapture. "Ohhhhhh...I love this moment...always I hope to see the very last breath of any mortal round my fingertips...such a beautiful gift to me, I only wish I could breathe every last breath that every mortal had ever given me...just so I can savour them all once again." Navarro could only scream silently, her voice barely heard amongst the scorching flames and yet in that silent plea for help, there came down upon him a great thunderous strike from behind the Scissoraptor, which struck him fully into his spinal column. "GRRRNNNNRRRRRAAA-A-A-A-A-AAAAARRRRRRGH!" "NAVARROOOOOOO!" The voice of Roy came to her ears faintly before her eyes began flickering, the world consumed into darkness and fire as pounding footsteps of someone bigger came to her. The demon turned swift to find Roy almost upon him, staggering in his dodge with electricity coursing fiercely through him as absolute pain began to drive his host's body to ruin. Desperately consuming his energy to heal by instinct, the monstrous possessed swung its blades towards the other raptor beside him, who ducked and shouldertackled him powerfully before shoving one of his thunder bombs deep into the demon's throat. "TOUCHDOWN MUTHAFUCKA!" In the midst of this distraction, Kruz grabbed Navarro and bundled her into his arms like a newborn babe before storming through the flames until his legs burned deeply. Dahlia followed after looking confused with Roy coming up behind to grab her arm as she panicked with some resistance by an instinct, before he shouted: "COME ON!" "WHA-WHAT ARE YOU-" "WE GOTTA GO! EVERYBODY GET BACK TO THE SHIP!" "WH-WHAT IS HAPPENI-" An explosive burst came from behind them before the monstrous scream. "RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGH!" His pain echoed throughout the night, the thunder bomb that went off inside its body tearing through FG's mortal weakness and shattering completely through his veins, ripping them through into blackened tendrils like burnt rope as he staggered towards them. Through the roaring fires he came, as everybody evacuated best they could with Fayne and Baldwin hurrying back before the cleric turned to see the ruthless blood-soaked beast that had taken his former leader. It was in that moment he felt a mortal fear and yet also something else more peaceful before Baldwin dragged him further. "C-COME ON FAYNE WE GOTTA GO! FAYNE!" The ship's drawbridge pulled up almost instantly with everybody on board as they flew away from the town's burning remnants, keeping a slower pace than usual as Baldwin and Fayne stood at the stairs near the bridge with Roy standing beside Tennyson at the wheel. The demon roared behind them as they slowly lifted just above the treeline, rising constantly as Kruz carried Navarro over to the ship's surgeon, a hume female in a white apron waiting below deck for casualties coming in. Dahlia headed after him panicking at seeing raw blood leaking from the moogle's hand dripping limply from Kruz's grip. "OH MY GODS!" "TAKE HER DOWN BELOW, SHE'S BLEEDING OUT BADLY!" The medic ran down instantly carrying Navarro in her arms desperately as Dahlia began screaming from the shock and horror. "H-HE, HE... NAVARRO! NOOOOOO! _" "YOU'RE A WHITE MAGE, AREN'T YOU?! NOW GO HELP HER IF YOU WANNA DO SOMETHING FOR HER!" "_B-BUT SHE, SHE-" "ENOUGH!" He grabbed her by the shoulders fiercely as she began sobbing with a mix of pure rage and deepening sorrow. "You have medical experience, if you want to do something about her you get down below deck and do what you can with my surgeon, we're not letting anyone die if I can help it!" "I-i-i...I can't!" "You have to...Navarro's life depends on you, now are you going to disappoint her? She hired you for a reason to be part of this group, so prove her why she hired you." His words struck truthfully into her breast, continuing to ebb a soft weeping maudlin from her tears as she breathed deeply to regain some professionalism. She struggled, panic-ridden but at least she tried managing to stop screaming as she gulped bitterly. "Y-y-you...you are right, I will...go and see to my leader." "Good, go and make sure the door is well-fortified, if anything happens do not be afraid to fight back." "Y-...y-y-yes. I won't...um...can...Roy?" She looked towards the utahraptor standing on the bridge. "Could you...come with me please a-and...help guard the sickbay?" "Alrigh', thassa good idea, come on." The nu-mou headed downstairs by a fitful state of tears with Roy gently walking in step with her as the kremling headed back to the bridge, standing next to Michelle with Tennyson on point at the wheel. He shouted at the crow's nest above as he ordered: "SET THE FLAG UP AND READY!" "AYE AYE SIR!"

The crewmember unseen raised the flag now above them, replacing the usual ship's streamer by the standard traditional banner of Lea Monde. A dark-blue background showing the emblematic Rood of Iocus, upon a graceful Kildean light showing on all six points briefly by its soft flutter on the breeze. The kremling captain turned towards his boatswain asking: "Michelle, how is our target?" The red-cloaked nu-mou watched through the trees with a telescope scanning firmly across the forestscape for any sign of movement. She saw a noticeable blur chasing after them harshly as it leapt through the trees, powerfully fast with supernatural fervour. "He's coming fast, right on schedule!" "Good, we'll keep trailing him behind us back to the city, don't go above six-hundred feet, we want to make sure that he keeps up." "Aye-aye sir." "The trees are rather thick," noted Tennyson, "are you certain that he'll keep seeing us?" "He'll sszhertainly hear usszh," said Fayne firmly, "Roy sszhaid that the demon hasszh a very heightened ssszhensszhe of awarenesszh, he can do a lot more than you might think." "Captain!" The voice of the mapmaker called from the intercom as Kruz responded: "What is it Rzepka?" "The wind's turning, it's coming towards us we might get smoke from the flames." "Just keep an eye on things, we can get away from it." "No, that's the problem...the wind wasn't meant to shift." "What?" "Something turned the wind against us, that's not natural." "Are you sure?" "Yes." As if on cue the fog began to wrap itself around the ship, slowly sweeping over their vision with a choking blindness that stung bitterly in their eyes with the hot smoke. Coughing harshly, Michelle struggled to keep a mark on the demon trying to focus through her lens before the smog drifted through them. She panicked slightly as she quickly scanned the trees. "I've lost him!" "What?!" "I've lost him, captain I can't see him!" "You can't have, where else could he-" THUNK. "A-AAAAGH!" "Wh-what was that?!" cried Michelle "It came from the side of the ship!" said Tennyson. "CAPTAIN!" A voice screamed from the intercom as Kruz took the call. "Rzepka what is it?!" "SOMETHING JUS-...pierced through the wall of the ship, some kind of...steel blade almost cut right through Korsin's face!" "...what." Fayne looked over the side and indeed saw something had gone piercing through the wood and steel plating of the starboard ship's hull. The bishop looked up towards Kruz with an eerily voice still of blank emotion. "He'sszh here. The demon isszh here." "TH-THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!" shouted Kruz. "WE'RE SIX-HUNDRED FEET IN THE AIR HOW COULD HE POSSIBLY GET UP HERE!? WE'RE HIGH ABOVE THE TREES!" "Sszho isszh he now." "WH-WHY ARE YOU SO CALM!?" "...I don't know." "Fayne," replied Baldwin, "you're sszhcaring me. A-are you okay?" He turned towards his brother with the vacant stare of having shut down completely, his staff tightly gripped as he blinked slowly trying to answer with great effort. "......I think we both know the ansszhwer to that, Baldwin Sszhmithee." "Wh-what?!" "WHAT IS THAT?!" The intercom shrieked once more as something began attacking the inside of the ship. The navigation went insane with panic as voices clamoured with the clattering of wood along with the tearing steel that shrieked through deep vibrations of the entire hull. Everyone felt their skulls pulsing with a horrendous noise screaming across the ship as Navigation turned into chaos. "SOMETHING'S TEARING OPEN THE SHIP!" "EVERYONE OUT, G-GET OUT BEFORE SOMETHIN-" "Knock-knoooock." "OH GODS!" "NO NO NO NO NOOOOO!" "RZEPKA GET OUT OF THERE!" Someone had escaped, running through the halls as a door opened but two voices were unlucky, as violent ends were heard by the screams and sucking flesh that was ripped to pieces with fleshy thuds hurling against the walls. The crew on the bridge felt sick with nerves as Kruz called out to everyone below deck, the sounds of monstrous tearing of claws heard throughout the lower deck, steel scraping across the walls with scissors now gone from the ship's starboard. "WE HAVE AN INTRUDER! I REPEAT, WE HAVE AN ENEMY ON DECK, DO NOT ENGAGE HIM! HE HAS THE BODY OF JAMES CAMPBELL BUT DO NOT APPROACH HIM! UST USE MAGIC AND HIDE!" "CAPTAIN, CAPTAIN HE, HE JUS- AAAAAAAAAGHHHH! _" "TAKE HIM DOWN! _SHOOT HIM WITH MAGIC GOD DAMMIT!" The sound of spellcasting could be heard throughout the various rooms the intercom was connected to, the screaming started intensifying as there came a neverending bloody swathe that they could hear every inch of. Carving flesh, ripping teeth, shattering bones cracked underneath the foot of the demon as Kruz gripped the wheel tightly, fearfully with intense guilt overcoming him as the voices continued: "I CAN'T, I CAN'T DO THI- GHHHRRAAAAGH! _" "_HE WON'T STOP! HE WON'T STOP, S-STOP PLEASE! STOOOOOOOP! _" "_HE CAN'T, HE CAN'T- DAVID NOOOOO! _" "_NO! DON'T TAKE-DON'T TAKE MY SON! NOT MY LITTLE- A-AIIIIIIIIIIIAAAGH! _" "_ENOUGH!" Kruz slammed his fist roaring into the intercom. "COME UP AND FACE ME DEMON, UP ON THE DECK! I CHALLENGE YOU! I FUCKING DARE YOU TO FIGHT ME, NOW FUCKING FACE ME! _" There came a silence, briefly the sounds of screaming had faded into oblivion as the captain looked around himself nervously, hoping for a real fight but then the sounds of killing resumed. Hearing the slaughter of his crew he screamed once again: " **_YOU FUCKING COWARD! YOU CAN'T EVEN FIGHT ME LIKE A REAL MONSTER, COME OUT AND FACE ME! FACE MEEEEEEEE!" "CAPTAIN ENOUGH!" roared Tennyson. "You won't do any good antagonising him, we have to keep him contained!" "HE'S FUCKING MURDERING OUR PEOPLE AMBROSE!" "I KNOW, BUT WE HAVE A PLAN! If that demon escapes then all of their lives will be for nothing, our people knew what they were getting into and we made precautions!" "He'sszh right!" shouted Baldwin. "We got a few backup plansszh you know, don't worry, I know it might look bad but I think that you-" "SHUT UP!" he screamed fiercely. "_I DON'T CARE, THIS IS MY SHIP YOU FUCKING BIGOT! **MY! FUCKING! SHIP! " "...Kruz." "_WHAT?!" Fayne pointed up towards him blankly. "...your eye, it'sszh sszhtartin' to-" "WH-WH-WHAT?! NO!" He quickly scooped up a hand checking to see that blood was gently running down from his left eyesocket covered underneath by the medical patch as he began trembling with a feverish desperation. Without even pausing for a second thought, he ran down to reach below deck despite his first mate and Baldwin objecting out loud. "CAPTAIN, NO!" "KRUZZH WAIT, SSZHTOP!" With sword readily out for a fight he entered to the hallways of the ship seeing nothing too out of order for the upper deck's inner section despite the brazen panic of his crew. He also noted that the medical room was conveniently away from the source of carnage apparent hopefully tending to their new patient amidst the sounds of frenzied panic that had filled his lower ship. The moment he reached down to where the middle deck was he could leave very little to the imagination. A constant stream of blood flowed through the main hallway. Navigation was the starting point of the carnage as blood gently wrapped itself around Kruz's feet, the soft red sickeningly spongy by its thickness flowing from the bodies of his own crew, decimated beside his feet. He couldn't even recognise which part belonged to who, faces now unblinking with silent screams towards him, half of them twisted with skulls simply ripped from their bodies. Arms laid down beside broken necks, legs drowning in shallow pools that stuck grimly sucking to the bottom of Kruz's feet as he saw that Navigation had been ruined by a huge tear in the side of it. Half of Rzepka's maps had long since lost themselves to the wind but he himself was nowhere to be seen. His bangaa assistants however were gone despite still remaining there in pieces, their remnants now smeared all over the walls of the once-neat cabin room. "C-c-c-captain?"

A voice came to him from behind as he readied his sword seeing from the opposite side of the hallway a small room as domestic living quarters where a rather shaken-looking hume of raw ginger hair poked his head from feebly. "H-h-he passed...he passed by me, I hid, I-i-i hid, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I-i-i know we had orders but I c-c-couldn't stop him-" "Where is he?" "D-d-down...where engineering is." "No...he can't be-" "I-i-i saw him, I don't...please d-d-don't let me look, I don't wanna-" "Is anyone else still living?" "Y-y-yeah...um...that thing went to engineering b-b-because he...saw someone run." "Stay here, don't come out and lock the door until everything is down tight." "Yes sir." He closed the door locking it as Kruz made his way down to the engine room, feeling the buzzing whir of the Tesla coil pulsing thickly throughout the ship. It was here that he lamented briefly in never managing to find a way to make this engine work with his sails which had become simply useless other than as a testament to the age-old traditions of being charted by the wind. But he could not leave his habits behind him as he realised upon looking at his own reflection, within a puddle of thick blood from four different people laid beside each other. His own blood began to trickle from his face neatly forming a gentle ripple across his face, blurring into a horrible twisted look as he reminisced. "I could have been this," murmured Kruz, "I...I could have...I could have been like you Captain. But I won't...I won't be like you, not even after I promised." A bitter look formed on his features squinting ruthlessly with a pure sneer of hatred. "I won't be like you. Not ever I won't...I won't let this crew suffer like you did with us." "G-GET BACK!" He heard a voice familiar to him panicking down below. "GET BACK I'M WARNING YOU!" He ran fully to the engineering section where the Scissoraptor stood, long blades of glinting red forming a dead trail from the stairs to before the great pulsating electric transformer. Resembling a giant turbine, sparks began rumbling from within as searing strikes of brilliant white remained firmly inside of its containment, a wild beast kept caged viciously lashing out against the elements as the whirling platforms remained hovering on all four points outside of the ship, constantly fed with electricity. Rzepka was backed up against the generator, his robe torn but unharmed with the demon perhaps 20 feet away from him as Kruz shouted: "HEY!" The creature his head slowly with a cruel glint in his dark pupil as he chuckled smoothly. "Hhhm hm hm, you came to challenge me then, did you?" "You never came to face me, you fucking coward." "I was...busy, I had not realised you were so impatient...a bad quality in a captain of what's soon to be a lost ship." "You take my friend." Kruz raised his cutlass firm. "You murder my people, but you are NOT going to walk away free from this." "Do you really think that I would be intimidated by you? Hm...you remind me of my host, except far more inferior." "Except the part where I run this sword through your fucking teeth." "Can you do that? Really?" The demon glowered in his look carefully shifting his eyes back towards a familiar green, his skin now paling less to a healthier brown scale as his voice turned to its normal state making Kruz tremble with softly-turning hesitation. "Can you kill me, Kruz? You love me, don't you?" "Wh-what...no...n-n-no I...I know you're not him." "Do you really? What if somehow I managed to regain control of myself right before you slit my throat? Could you ever live with yourself knowing you just killed your dearest friend and lost to all? ...I hope you can explain that to Koopin, trying to take his lover's heart and so unsatisfied without it you took his life instead. How many families have you told saying their wife or son is never coming back? How many more will you need to bear the grief from after this fateful week shall end?" "NO!" The kremling shuddered not even tempting himself to think. "You...are NOT my friend! You're something else!" "But I thought you loved me...Kruz." The raptor walked up to him with the harmless smile he always knew he had. "I know that you loved me...and I know how much you need me, don't you?" "...no. I don't need you. Not anymore." "No?" Kruz stepped aside neatly by a cold grin softly growing on his lips. "You don't really brighten up my day like you used to, not anymore. But this will." "What?" He pointed to behind James seeing a small indeterminate person wrapped in clothes wielding an awkward-looking weapon resembling a shotgun around 4 feet, coated blue with yellow forked tip. The chief engineer stood boldly in front of Rzepka and aimed without hesitation. "Thundaga, bitch!" Cid fired off a hot scorching burst of electricity piercing white blue through the raptor's veins as Scissoraptor reverted by an instant back to his own state of decay, shrieking from the raw pain as his monstrous form was pushed furiously back into the corridor itself. "R-R-R-RRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGH!" "STEEEERIKE ONE!" shouted Cid. "NOT GONNA KILL ANYBODY ELSE WHILE I'M AROUND!" "GOOD WORK CID!" cried Kruz. "NOW COME ON, TAKE THAT THING WITH YOU, I NEED YOU TO PUSH THAT THING BACK ONTO TOP DECK!" "I'M ON IT CAP'N! ...hey." He looked towards Rzepka giving him a wink and a nod beneath his goggles, shaken but unharmed despite a rising disbelief at the oddly-calm engineer. "We good about me takin' yer name an' all that shit right buddyboy!?" "Wha-! You-...UM, aren't you more busy with an ACTUAL problem?!" "I'm just sayin'!" replied Cid. "Didn't wanna leave it hangin', yanno in case things get risky!" "J-JUST GO KILL HIM ALREADY!" "Alriiiiight......so, we good then?" "YES WE'RE GOOD THANK YOU NOW WOULD YOU JUST PLEASE GO?!?" "ALRIGHT alright already! Sheesh." The kremling captain ran off ahead with Cid following after as he kept his new weapon hot, seeing the creature retreat briefly from the agonising burn that coursed through his host's body. "USELESS! W-WORTHLESS THIIIING!" "GET OFF OF MY SHIP!" He fired without warning hitting the demon easily in the hallways as Scissoraptor ran towards the easiest place to avoid being shot at, having very little room to navigate as he whirled his scissors fiercely towards them at one point. The two dodged ducking fast before stumbling back and forwards through hallways dripping in blood as his engineer followed sharply behind him, without breaking a sweat. "When did you build that thing?!" asked Kruz. "Just yesterday!" replied Cid. "Roy told me about some ideas he had, said he'd seen a rifle that could fire lightning once and I thought 'hey that's a really neat trick!' an' then he told me that uh, note to self, your ol' buddy there's got a SUPER big weakness to electricity!" "But he's got a demon inside him!" "SO?! He's still wearing a body an' if that body's got a weakness well we just know how to use it against him, told me all about it! I guess he wanted to be just real careful about this!" "...huh...wow he really did plan ahead, remind me to buy Roy dinner after this." "Hey, I thought you were with that bishop!" "I MEAN PLATONICALLY!" "Suuuure ya did captain." "ENOUGH!" The demon turned with burning look piercing into their souls starkly as Cid aimed his rifle, almost at the top deck as they stood on the larger ramp. "YOU are going to wish you had never been born, BOTH OF YOU!" "Hah, sure, I mean I've done enough shit in my life that uh I'm kind of used to these paths of destruction, yanno where I used to be?! Rozarria, FUCK that place, you think I'm scared of anything YOU ever do? Yanno I shoulda said this while Rzepka was around cuz he's like the weatherman for us, but uh we got a chance of lightning today and uh-" "JUST SHOOT HIM!" cried Kruz. "ALRIGHT SHEESH everybody wanna be rushin' today!" "I...will exTERMINATE YOU!" The demon advanced towards Cid as he fired another shot, the demon dodging the lightning itself as it streaked through the doorway shooting out violently into the air, his shadow stepped forwards by a blur from existence. He fired once again, keeping sure of his aim as Scissoraptor whirled his blades towards him forcing them to duck. The lightning arced towards his scissors as a conduit diverting them with their metallic form as the demon rushed at the mechanic, clocking him viciously in the face as he fell against the wall wordlessly, his goggles shattered painfully inwards into his eyesockets like tiny clear daggers softly dripping with red. The claws of Scissoraptor firmly gripped the electric rifle and snapped it in half from his strength possessed, before Kruz shouldercharged him fast into the ramp as they both fell out onto the top deck. The wind was starting to howl by an abnormal sense of breeze as the kremling rushed towards him, the creature swinging his blades with perfect block against the captain's cutlass. Kruz ducked a ferocious horizontal swing before he spun onto his knees and slammed a backhand of his left fist ruthlessly across the demon's face, standing up directly at his side before he twisted his body round to plunge the cutlass in. The momentum of his spin drove it harder inside the beast, but he simply smiled with gritted teeth punching Kruz hard in the sternum with a force nearly cracking his ribs, wheezing as he stumbled onto one knee with his sword still driven through James' body bloodlessly. Then there came a second sword literally growing from his chest, a violent thrust from behind as he staggered forwards. "NNNNGH! Hhhhhohhhhh you are VERY much beyond my caring for any of you." "We will not surrender," said Tennyson boldly, "you come onto our ship with intent to kill, you shall not leave it alive." "I did not come to your ship alive you insolent jarheaded reprobate, and I shall not leave it alive either...but neither will YOU!"

Taking Kruz's sword in his left hand, the monster pushed forwards to separate himself from the first mate's sword of prim Archadian standard, long and shining with Arthurian simplicity as the two met in battle. The hume swung first waiting to see what the demon would do as Scissoraptor guarded with Kruz's blade before thrusting with his other weapon, the scissors scraping neatly past the waist of Tennyson as he dodged swiftly to his left. Scraping his blade free from the cutlass, he spun once by momentum but heard the monster step heavily with a whoosh of the scissors raised high above him. In midstep he dodged to the left again by a soft leap a few inches from the ground before he swung down upon the demon's neck as Scissoraptor guarded with the cutlass across his face. The sword of the first mate streaked down slicing through the monster's wrist which normally would have severed all ability for a living being to hold anything with that hand. But not for a creature of darkness. Tennyson tried to circle around but the monster swung both sword and scissors in a vicious spin as the hume ducked harshly underneath before he waited for the demon to slow down his whirling death. He thrust once again into the darkness of its heart, plunging as blood leaked feebly from his back beneath the first wound that he had been given before this fight. It was a grave mistake as the creature pulled himself away powerfully taking the sword from the first mate's grip before he threw his scissors upwards into the air. The monstrous weapon began to softly glint with ethereal darkness above them as the raptor's form pulled Tennyson's blade from his back, flesh sucking against the steel sharpness as the Scissoraptor rolled his neck slightly. Little snapping cracks as he held both cutlass and sword twirling them expertly, bringing them together to form another shape of scissors to snap shut and separate as either two blades or one. Just before he could rush at the defenceless hume the voice of Fayne shouted: "TERRRSANCTUS!" Burning with raw holy energy the demon was delayed briefly from attacking as he staggered roaring with fury as the cleric tossed his staff towards the first mate. "QUICKLY, DEFEND YOURSSZHELF!" Sweeping across the air Tennyson grabbed hold of Fayne's crozier but the demon now had another target in mind turning towards the priest. Baldwin however stood fiercely in front of him readying his combat stance with feet firmly planted onto the deck. He almost did not notice the scissors directly above him as Fayne grabbed his hand and throat. "LOOK OUT!" Fiercely pulling him before the blades plunged deep into the deck where Baldwin stood, Fayne almost staggered back as his brother grabbed him by the cloak to keep him steady against the railing as the demon advanced upon them. The bangaa monk stepped forwards while at the same time Tennyson approached from behind with staff ready to hammer holy might before the scissors came whirling across over Scissoraptor's head to strike harshly upon the hume, blocking horizontally by the rod in both hands. The weapon possessed began viciously assaulting Tennyson as he gripped the crozier, trapped in a battle of attrition to defend with no means to attack the monster itself. Slicing from the right and left, he mentally regressed to days of training with a wooden staff and blocked perfectly from every direction. Left, right, spin, left, ducking sweep, overhead, thrust and dodge, every attack he managed to guard as he soon began to feel the stress of battle upon him. He would soon tire out, whilst the scissors would not. The demon-possessed former leader of his group stared down Baldwin with twin blades as the monk charged against him, ducking beneath one sword swipe that went for his throat before uppercutting viciously into the creature's neck, snapping his jaw back ruthlessly to crack it bluntly. Snapping jaws wide open he launched into Baldwin's shoulder to trap him on the spot as the monk flinched from such a raw pain shattering into his joint. He punched his fist repeatedly into the monster's eye, bursting through the pupil as he broke through the actual socket, crumpling the skull inwards as he forced the demon to set him free pulling back to thrust his swords into the monk's stomach. Baldwin rushed him by a shouldertackle as he stomped his foot hard onto the raptor's claws, his elbow slamming upwards as he turned his body and snapped the jaw violently out of alignment. A crackling sound rippled through his body as the monk came down with a hammerfist upon the wrist that held Kruz's sword as it shattered through with bone jaggedly underneath almost severing it completely. The brother kicked the sword away towards Fayne shouting: "TAKE IT TO KRUZZH, GO!" Not even questioning, the bangaa bishop picked up the sword and ran towards Kruz watching Baldwin fight against the demon with bare hands. The Scissoraptor however saw where Fayne went and hurled Tennyson's sword like a burning lance to plunge through the cleric's heart. Fayne could not move, rooted with fear and something more as he watched the sword fly straight towards him, feeling every heartbeat last for an eternity. Last for too long. It plunged deep, stopping as it reached 3/4ths the way in as the warm body of its victim began to feverishly spasm with hot breaths of desperation. Blood trickled through along the fine hilt as Fayne's eyes widened with horror and a pain he had never felt. Because it was Tennyson who now stood in front of him. "GH-GHHRRRK!"

The hume fell onto one knee ruthlessly impaled by his own sword as he tightly grasped onto Fayne's tipstaff as if it were his life existence. The bishop gasped with guilt burning deeply through him as the first mate slowly pulled back onto his feet. But the sword had gone through too deep only hitting just below his heart, showing the blood a more darkened colour towards Fayne as it bled through the hume's back, leaking from the tip of his blade. "C-cu...c-c-cura-AAAGH!" Before he could chant his healing unguent the demon was before him with a vicious backhand that felt even worse than Baldwin's, further rendering his face puerile and bloated with raw throbbing bruise as blood spatted from his lips to fall clumsily on the floor with Kruz's sword beside him. Baldwin was now against the railing with a few ribs cracked through and clawmarks on his face, bleeding from the shoulder with a deadened arm numb from pain overwhelming more than anything he had felt to this point physically. The demon cracked his knuckles snarling at the hume. "For a worthless group of debased, you are IMMENSELY annoying." "H-hhhhh...that...is a good thing to me." "And why is that?" "Demons...h-have no business in our affairs." "Affairs? Your existence is paltry, would you honour such a wish from an insect below your foot?" "If...they had spoken to me, I would. Gods made us so that we would learn of humility...and respect for all upon this earth." "Gods made you as a totem of their arrogant folly. You..." His scissors came down back into his beastly grip. "Are no different." "STOOOOOP!" Hearing a woman's scream he stayed his hand as someone stood fearfully before him, gasping with her hands up in pleaful tones as Tennyson gasped struggling to keep his heart still beating. "S-S-STOP IT! PLEASE STOOOP!" "MICHELLE!" "LISTEN TO ME, I KNOW YOU ARE IN THERE! JAMES, JAMES CAMPBELL I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME!" "MICHELLE DON'T!" "YOU LOVE SOMEONE TOO, DON'T YOU!? I know you...that you loved someone, captain told me that you did, you have a lover too don't you? I love...I love this man...I wanted to be with him for all these months and we have everything here...life above the seas free as a bird, haven't you wanted that too? A life without being imprisoned, wanting nothing more than s-someone to be with, to keep you warm at night so you won't feel alone e-ever again. P-p-please...please spare him. Please..." She clasped her hands together in blissfully innocent prayer as her eyes burned thick with pounding fear in her chest, the demon lowering his scissors curiously as his eyes began to flicker. But Kruz was not so innocent to his ways. "Michelle...Michelle, stand down!" "I beg of you, don't...d-don't do this you can fight that monster." "I SAID STAND DOWN, GET AWAY FROM HIM!" "You have someone you love too, you'd never want their heart broken, never want them to be...waiting for you to not know what happened to you, just disappearing forever like this as they grow old and feeble and just...die of a broken heart. You have enough blood on your hands but we can clean them for you, free you if you just stop fighting us. Please...p-please James...s-stop hurting all of us, you can fight this thing...you can, I know it. The captain told us all about your...bravery and your stupid determination I know you can fight this too! Look at me...look..." Her eyes began turning crystal clear from the pitiful desperate plea. "Don't take my love away from me..." Something in the demon stirred softly as the darkness started to dissipate. His eyes turned paler back towards a gentle green, the brown scales turning lighter as his claws receded. He gave a kind smile despite the tension in the air as James' voice came through. "Michelle...?" She smiled happily with Kruz feeling his face fall flat. "You...you managed...I heard you." "Did you?!" "I did...I managed to...hold onto my feelings and managed to...love and remember it." "I knew you could do it. I-i-i knew...I knew that you hadn't lost hope, I knew that you were always still able to-" "I know. I just had to hear the right words and I...thank you." "No...thank...you for being able to break through so we can stop this evil- GHRRRK!" His smile never moved when his claws plunged through her very throat. Gasping shock as Michelle struggled to comprehend the last inches of her existence, staring up towards the sky beyond FG's pale look. Tennyson watched with horror burning deeply in him, as his heart fell through with a shudder throughout his body. "I meant thank you...for that little saccharine display. _" "_GHHHRK-KRRRHHRRR RRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! _" Her scream resonated throughout the deck as the demon's claws tore through her entire body downwards, slitting the throat vertically as her abdomen was flayed open like a cloak of brimming flesh. Her organs briefly put on display pulsating their last violent spasms of sweet vicious agony, like a gruesome triptych as he turned her on the spot to show Tennyson every detail, holding her from behind like a hostage. She couldn't even see him from the last second of intenseful pain as the raptor sunk his fingers deep into her heart, before he crushed it like a grape. **"Sweet...and...saccharine."** He released her as she fell into a bloody pool underneath, her soul screeching through the air briefly a few inches above her body that no one would ever see, except for the demon and Ambrose himself on the edge of death. His dearly beloved devoured by the monster receding into his throat, gasping at her extinction as he watched his own red ichor mix and sweetly blend against hers, almost as if reaching out to him. There was a light in some people that could be reborn by an instant, and for the next few minutes that he felt he had left Tennyson found that light burning within him. "_You...w-will h-have to do better than THAT, DEMON! _" The pain now silenced from his body, his heart felt an ever deepening sense grief that completely consumed him, stomping his feet with determination born of hume spirit as he pulled out his sword cleanly from his chest, like blood from the stone as it pulsed from his stomach. "_YOU...SHALL PAY FOR THIIIIIIIIS! _" With brutal swing as agony burned through his arms, the Archadian former knight tore through the Scissoraptor's guard and spun deftly on one foot, grinding his teeth to resist the pain as he carved deeply across the demon's chest. The vicious gash almost cleaved him in half but he resisted, gasping as his darkness reformed itself slowly in knitting the wound back together whilst he blocked against Tennyson's bloodied sword. Pushing all of his stamina forwards, his hands forced his blade harder against the demon's block as he swung his fist across Scissoraptor's face, knocking him deftly off-balance as he pulled back his sword ready to thrust. The creature faded from his sight by a soft shimmering of darkness like a blur in a photograph, reassembling his form by a smoulder behind the first mate whose vital senses felt him. Claws sweeped through the air with ruthless force as Ambrose ducked in the last second, feeling blood scrape across his hair before turning fast with rising upper swing like a mace. Breaking through the Scissoraptor's guard by such fury of determination, the wrathful hume wasted no time in rearing back to plunge blade first into the monster's gut, tearing his wounded body all the more now showing two huge gashing streaks of his upper and lower body. The monster was surprised briefly by such ferocity but simply recomposed himself, ignoring the desperate need of his darkened form to regenerate his host's mortal essence as he striked down upon Tennyson's face with scissors raised high and claws from his left. He dodged the blades but not the claws that ripped across his skull, tearing his right eye clean from its socket as he simply bit his tongue until it bled with hands trembling from the end of his life. He was not going to survive this day, that they both knew. But as for how long he would live would be unknown to either of them as the demon waited for his next move. Tennyson gripped his sword firmly to the death before he swung right and left diagonally without quarter, never stopping, burning deep within the muscles of his arms pulsating through the pain as they begged him to stop. His whole body was struggling to stay on its feet as every part of him felt weak and intensely raw with the heat of coming death as his heart pulsed rapidly. It wasn't until he reached the twelfth swing, whilst the beastly scissors clashed against them every time in opposing strikes, that he found an opening point to break through. "_RRRAAAAAA AAAAAARGH! _" Through the wild momentum of an upwards swing, he carved straight through the right shoulder of the Scissoraptor severing his arm completely. Blood only trickled weakly, the lighter fluid from the artificial left arm turning more stark against its recently-lost companion. But the scissors simply untwisted themselves out from the deadened grip of the right arm as whilst Scissoraptor was certainly feeling the constant effort and painful regenerative need to keep maintaining his host's body, he but simply laughed in the face of Tennyson. **"HHHHHHHHHRRRK! HHhhhhhh....hhhhmhmhmhmhhahahahahahahah, HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAA, YEEEEEEES THAT'S IT HUMAN! SHOW ME THAT PATHETIC LITTLE LIGHT INSIDE OF YOU, FINALLY! I have not seen such a soul that determined ever since that poor male scavenger of the wastes but one year ago."** "_My...soul will NOT DISAPPEAR! NOT FOR THE LIKES OF YOU, NOR ANYONE IN IVALICE EVER AGAIN! _" **"You will be much more delectable than your dearest Michelle ever tasted my most brave little morsel."** " **_DIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!**"

Smiling at his advance, he waited for the final blow knowing precisely how to kill him watching the eyes of Ambrose Tennyson become raw with tears of fury. But just before he could rob his life by a twisting of his blades, and a violent biting crunch upon the throat of the hume, something came from out of nowhere by a brutal gust of wind, and cracked the demon's head practically wide open. Falling heavily across the floor of the deck by a thin sliver of blood, the body of James crumpled sickeningly with snapping bone before he stopped against the railing of the starboard side. Staggering onto his feet, his darkness slowly re-cracked everything back into place as joints untwisted, he saw a most unwelcome sight before him. "Mah turn now, bitch." Roy MacGregor stood fiercely before him, the gasping form of Tennyson struggling to walk himself to the nearest doorway to try and rest for his last moments. His adrenaline had run through, knowing it was time to be at peace. Kruz softly closed his eyes with tender hand stroking his first mate's cheek, calmly soothing his restless spirit The black utahraptor unseathed his blade from his back, snapping it free from its magnetic joint that once held it in place before a heavy clunk upon the deck, the names of his mother and father engraved upon the Great Knife and handle. "You...irascible little SNAKE!" The demon swung his blade forwards pulsing with a deathly cold, his right arm still missing from his body. "I was enjoying that fight as well as taking that worthless human's SOUL!" "You not gonna take anymore souls today," replied Roy deftly. "Why don't you pick on someone your own species?" "...you...have no idea what I truly am." "Ah told you before, you nuthin' but an animal, prowlin' across thuh wastes huntin' for food. You got no place amongst people, all you do is scavenge upon thuh weak lahk a carrion beast." "YOU are before a GOD you disgusting whore of CHRIST!" "You keep bringin' up God, not me. Heh, sound lahk sumbody got a persecution complex." The raptor smugly grinned as his armour flecked softly with the first drops of snow that morning. A tender white crisp and kindly in the air as Scissoraptor managed to reform himself fully, the dark trails of his essence creeping along the deck to fully consume the dead right arm before it faded from existence, as if burnt to a ghostly ash. It was then in that moment that the demon noticed something odd about Roy, asking: "Why do you resist your joyful want for revenge?" "Whut you mean?" "Here lies before you the perfect chance to destroy your enemy, your one TRUE archfiend that you have hunted for so long like the dogged little hound that you are! And yet you resist?! No wild sneer of imposed justice, no self-satisfaction of honouring your parents, none of this I see since we last met." "Things have changed." "WHAT has changed between then and now?" "Thuh truth. Sumthin' ah thought ah knew until one day...ah realised whut it could be." "And that is?" "Thuh one ah thought wuz mah worst enemy...wuz in fact gonna be mah true nemesis. You know whut that means originally don't you?" "I know well enough what it means despite the great erroneous definition that many think." "Good. Cuz thuh only thing that's in mah way from findin' out thuh truth, is you." He swung back his blade with a heavy sound of the wind sweeping back against the snowdrops. "Thuh last tahm ah fought you, wuz to get mah revenge. Now...ahm here to save mah friend." "Do you honestly think that James even cared about you?!" "He woulda had plenty opportunities to kill me if he didn't, an' ah know now that he does. No matter whut you may think, no matter whut you ever tell me, ah will not let a monster such as you exist. Ah will NOT let James bear thuh weight of your sins anymore, an' ah will avenge those that you have slain! Not James, not FG, but YOU Scissoraptor!" He braced himself to run. "YOU SHALL PAY FOR ALL THOSE THAT YOU'VE TAKEN, FROM EVERY WORLD BEYOND!" With a storming rush of winds from behind him, he brought his Great Knife before him and clashed violently hard against the monster, his own pure strength of demonic origin firmly resisting. His claws dug into the deck before they forced each other back as Scissoraptor swung his titular blades in diagonal sweeps, constantly scraping against Roy's huge steel weapon acting as a mighty shield until the demon gripped both handles of his scissors before snapping shut on the top of Roy's greatsword. With brutal strength unholy he tore it free from the black raptor's hands slamming down to the deck. Disarmed only briefly, Roy dodged the first thrust towards him by a gustful wind pushing from his hands that forced him to the left, his nanos charging up to shatter a hot burning ice particle deep into Scisso's eye. The frigid cold burning deep with violent flame forced the ice to set in his socket, before deeply scarring as the fire reacted to melt into his skull as he screeched with absolute fury from the pain as well as blocking his vision briefly, just enough for Roy to pick up his weapon once more and start swinging by a large sweep of his whole body as if tossing a hammer. Grievously scarring across the demon's torso far deeper than Tennyson had done, the raw sheer weight of the giant blade almost completely eviscerated the monster in half as Scissoraptor staggered back feeling barely anything hold together on both sides of it. He forced his darkness to pulsate much more powerfully, pulling his hanging halves back into one single form before whirling his scissors ruthlessly towards the raptor. Roy swiped at them with his blade clanging fiercely against, deflecting as he watched the demon charge towards his exposed right with no time to swing his weapon back to defend himself. Despite a furiously cold fist of ice crackling along his knuckles readily shattering into the beast's neck, the force of his evil strength sent Roy powerfully flying by a few feet as he stumbled heavily, shaking his head clearly before he turned and fired with right hand shimmering into a thick steel cannon-like length, coloured blue. "BUSTER!" The shockingly powerful blast was oddly reminiscent to that of James' own plasma shot as Kruz, Fayne and Baldwin noticed, watching the fight with feverish tension in their hearts as the demon was blasted full force in the chest. The hot blissfully penetrating energy of unknown particle force completely decimated through his flesh, tearing completely past James' left lung and half of his heart with a scorching hole through his body. But all wounds could heal, and Scissoraptor cared little other than being intensely furious at such resistance as he sent his scissors flying towards the raptor. "BEGONE!" Roy kept cautious for this attack, waiting to send it flying back across the deck by a diagonal sweep going upwards, clashing once again knowing that the demon would come to rush at him in his moment of weakness. But this time Roy kept swinging, whirling as he threw the Great Knife up into the air directly above him by a perfect release. The beast came charging as he expected and Roy in turn showed his own ruthless advance, the faintest memory of high school days storming across the football field. "_GEEEEEEET FUCKED, BITCH! _"

Slamming his arm into the demon's throat, he clotheslined him brutally before grappling his head and slamming him violently to the floor like the perfect touchdown, crushing him by the skull to crack and bleed pitifully underneath. The twitching spasms of wrath came forth from the demonkin as his claws reached out grasping onto Roy's armoured pauldron over the shoulder. He tried to pull back but his arm coverings were simply ripped off by a brutal strength, peeling from his skin leaving his right arm exposed fully. He staggered back as he felt the claws sink a little too deeply, scratches on his arms showing a soft bleeding emanate as his sword came down from above perfectly right on cue. He grabbed without thinking as he ducked low upon seeing the demon's claws shriek through the air towards where his head had once been, slicing the impenetrable wide blade ruthlessly across Scissoraptor's legs. With cut-open knees and the weight of his swing snapping one of them broken, the beast simply floated to prevent stumbling a fall as his scissors hovered bleakly before him. It almost felt as if the eyes of its handles were watching Roy with deep fury as they thrust themselves towards him. "Insidious feeble ORPHAN!" Forming a shield of pure ice from down his left arm he blocked against the brutal strike, clanging off the thick sheet bristling across his armoured plating before he charged up a storming fireblast from his Great Knife. Trickling down like oil burning along the trench, his mother's name glistened with sheer flames from his body as he swung against the scissors as they recoiled from his icy shield breaking slightly through. But the moment his blade brimming with fire struck against cold demon steel it sent a ferocious burning sensation throughout his entire essence. The flames wrapped briefly around the scissors like a serpent's coils embracing its prey, the Scissoraptor gasping as he shook briefly with a fierce agony that he resisted. The scissors pulled back sharply into James' grip, his soul unwilling but the body merely bending to its new master's will as the demon flocked towards Roy with blade reared back about to swing. The striking clash burned sparks across each other's skin as snow began falling through, the black raptor swinging out his fist to try and catch Scissoraptor with it but he dodged fast with a mauling bite upon Roy's left arm. The teeth managed to sink in ruthlessly sharp, filed down to lethal points by the dark essence fortifying them much greatly than ever they would be by their mortal state. He felt the crackling steel shatter underneath the pure strength of his bite, slowly scraping across his upper arm flesh as he swiftly tore himself away watching the demon crunch the solid steel between his now-broken teeth. It wasn't so much strength but simply lack of pain and mortality without having any wound become permanent to him. But Roy knew that he had a way to its heart of weakness, he just had to buy himself time. Time was everything for this fatal flight as the monster snarled to him: "I will send you to your wretched family, and all those who shall suffer before me!" "Good," replied Roy sneering, "cuz they at least gonna be sumplace safe you ain' never gonna find them!" "Safe for NOW!" Lunging forwards by a sudden leap, his scissors outreached fully as he gripped them by both his hands snapping shut tightly for Roy's throat, the raptor pushing himself back with a blast of wind forcing their distance apart. The demon had anticipated such and as the nano-formed wind had shoved him back, he spun backwards in the air before hurling his scissors violently like a scythe vertically towards Roy's beating heart. They found their target but only partially, the raptor not anticipating it fast enough as one of the scissortips exposed gouged deeply into his chestplate, scraping finely across his chest. Blood began leaking from within, but he was certain that it was not lethal as he watched the scissors pull out by their own will before snapping viciously at his head. Thrusting for the raptor's face, the scissors glinted with vile intent as it striked towards Roy's cheek scraping harshly, almost cutting off his eye as blood flecked across his vision creepily before he blinked harshly. He dodged low before spinning violently fast, by a roaring blizzard that he formed from his fingers of both ice and wind. Like the rings of Saturn they began sparkling, of white cold oblivion amongst wintry air certainly aiding matters as he swung his blade towards the monstrous scissors' direction, casting his full voice. "FUUUUUS, RO-DAH!" Storming hail shrieked howling upon the scissors buffeting them violently with all the force of a New York winter as thick chunks of ice crackled and burst like shrapnel upon the demon blades. The monster shrieked and snarled from being ruthlessly assaulted, struggling to try and break free as the sheer focus of the small blizzard whitened out his sight briefly, right before Roy powered through the ice fog between and swung his great knife scorching hot. The flames of justice burned deep within the demon's sins as a wild gust began pulsing through behind the raptor's uplifting strike, sending the Scissoraptor's blades straight into the skies above.

But that did nothing to assuage the monstrous body of the physically possessed, the brown paling raptor dodging forth underneath the heavy blade to suddenly strike. With claws tearing at Roy's throat, missing by an inch as his jaw suffered the worst of it, the black pain burning through him before he resisted to punch back. The monster scarred at his chest, tearing across the armour and forcefully ripping the first layer off until Roy stomped on the demon's foot before suddenly grappling him in a headlock with a violent twisting snap of his neck. Not even fazed without any lungs to breathe, the broken-necked raptor shrieked with horrifying sound warped from his throat as his claws shanked him through the weakest point of his armour. He almost felt something dig at his liver, the raptor crying out as he hammerfisted onto the gouging demon's arm to snap it free before stepping back with a wild sweep. It was in that moment that the scissors came back to its host, perfectly timed to strike and completely shut down Roy's advance. The raw strength of the unholy beast overwhelmed Roy in that moment, suddenly surprised as he charged forwards by a spinning strike knocking the greatsword away before the plunging thrust. He managed to just deflect it but only enough that it went lower than his chest carving deeply through his thigh, roaring with pain as he felt himself rooted by where he stood. But he knew he could not stop for an instant to allow his enemy anytime to think as he blasted him backwards with a dual palm blast of wind that burned deep from his nanostrength, forcing the demon with blades and all to pull back from the intensely blistering gale focused on him. Staggering with wounded leg as blood dripped gently down his foot, he held his stance waiting for the lethal strike as he defended himself firmly. The monster spun twice with scissors outreached, hurling them from his hand once again as the wicked blades whirled to dodge Roy tricking him to move. The moment he did they doubled back and gouged deeply across his back armour slicing through to the bone of his shoulder. It was in that same move that the Scissoraptor advanced once again, locking him trapped by a pincer movement of both blade and cursed host. Roy waited for the right moment as he spun himself on his good foot carefully pouring out water from his fingers, trickling with the sparkling glint of nanopowered chemistry as he formed a circle from around him. Thinking it was some foolish holy ornery the demon charged without a care smiling at his wounded enemy before Roy sparked with white-hot glint from his fingertips, sending a deep cold blistering down his feet. In but an instant he stomped his feet punching the water upwards with much more strength than he would even do normally as the wind picked up around him, forcing the pressure to rise the water around him in but a few seconds. The demon struck out, the water formed solid into a perfect prison of pure ice crackling sharp and deeply encasing Roy for but a moment of shielding against the raw physical attack from both sides of him, the howling gust of wind dissipating by an instant. Before the creature could even comprehend what he did, Roy stomped his foot with a deepening roar as he aimed his fist towards where the weapon itself remained hovering, blaster cannon reassembling as a blue sheen before he shattered through the ice with a hot plasma shot. The result of a direct hit of concentrated energy obliterating itself onto the primary source of demonkin was intolerable. The monster roared in abject fury and deep ruthless agony as the monster's host in turn began shrieking from the pain, a dual experience that Roy grinned before the ice rapidly lost its form from instability. With plasma blaster broken down again he struck out his long greatsword with burning strength towards the shivering weapon hovering in the air striking harshly across the handle. More pain rattled through Scissoraptor's essence, but Roy had left his back open towards the body of James who charged forwards into a blind tearing rage now leaping on his back. He panicked finding the weight of the beast desperately grabbing at his throat feeling claws scratch horribly across his face, ripping his cheeks as he screamed before grappling behind him to feel the foot and twist it off from him brutally. Hurling the beast down he brought up his Great Knife in an overhead swing ready to carve the monster in two, but in that moment the scissors flew. He wasn't ready to regain his balance from the swing as the perfect opportunity to overbalance him came through. The monstrous blades plunged forwards to his chest, the raptor stumbled backwards as the weight of his weapon faltered. The scissors went downwards like a falling lance scraping into Roy's different leg as it teared through his armour more. His bad leg already needed help but now with his other leg being wounded by a scarring blade he fell backwards completely, straight over the starboard railing of Kruz's ship. "SH-SHIT! SHIT!"

Dropping his weapon from his hands almost immediately as he felt gravity consume him, he spun in midair like a falling blimp grappling desperately onto the railing he now looked at above him. His sword had disappeared, falling into the abyss of at least a thousand feet below, hanging on dearly by his right hand as the ring of Truth glinted feebly from his finger. He cursed himself for his foolishness shaking his head. "Awww hell...not this." "Ohhhh yes this." The demon smirked from above him as Roy grabbed on tightly to the railing as the Scissoraptor grinned with an immense effort. The great melee had clearly taken enough out of him as his multiple wounds began to knit themselves cruelly back together. "What a most grievous predicament you are in, now hanging like a strange fruit." "F-FUCK YOU!" "Now now...I might just save your life if you do something for me." "Lahk hell you will!" "...you are right, I won't. But I will however gladly take your body for it." "W-w-wait, whut?!" The creature grabbed Roy's hand by the wrist, tightly enough to hurt him gently as Roy winced but not from the pain of physical feeling. It was rather the pain of something else burning inside him more deeply as it flooded along his right arm's veins seeing a raw purpling bruise develop on the inside of his arm. It felt as if he was bleeding internally, gasping as he gritted his teeth hanging over the abyss of the forest. "NNNNNGH! A-AAAAGH!" "I have seen your skill, and how you are so comparably similar to my dear James in skill...but yet so much more difficult to kill with all that brutish strength and fine-honed intellect. ...I know I have almost succeeded in consuming James but if I can have a BETTER model of him well...I always love breaking new toys in." "AAAAAAAAARRRRGH!" "Don't be afraid my boy...did you know I can possess other people too, I had a small practice of it the last place we met...you remember it don't you? All I have to do is feed my essence into your veins and I shall take you completely...even though James took over ten years that is nothing more than a blink of existence to me. I can wait Roy...I can wait through all of eternity and if I can obtain something stronger than him, with all the same abilities...then it's just as well worth waiting to see you bleed from out of existence." "AHM NOT! GONNA BE! YOUR SLAVE, AH WON'T BE LAHK WHUT JAMES WUZ TO YOU!" "James already has been...what makes you any different?!" "A-A-A-AAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAGH! _" **"DON'T!"** He warned Kruz and Baldwin behind him trying to advance on the demon as he turned his head towards them. **"I can always snap his neck from here, then you'll never see him again."** "SO WHAT?!" cried Kruz. "YOU'LL JUST DO TO HIM WHAT YOU DID TO MY JAMES?!" **"YOUR James? Hmhmhm, noooo no no no, this James has always been MY James, he never was your James or even his gentle Koopin's James...but you can have him after...when I am done pouring my essence into this new version I find much more...stimulating."** "YOU FUCKING SHIT! _STOP THIS, WHY WON'T YOU FUCKING DIE?!" "I CANNOT be killed, you imbecile! I am an ancient eternal being that long since pervaded mankind and I shall continue to call my reign amongst all your incessant futility of life upon all mortals." "FOR WHAT?! WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO PROVE WITH ALL THIS?!" "That you are on borrowed time like every other worthless creature that exists, all you ever think is about your greater sense in life, what existence you could live without knowing that your own simple mortality is but the most dreadful curse of existence. You have no purpose...but to serve...ME, as your new predator." "Predator?!" cried Baldwin. "Sszho Roy wasszh right, you are jusszht a fucking animal!" "SHUT UP! YOU KNOW NOTHING OF MY EXISTENCE!" "All I sszhee isszh a fucking animal wanting to eat everything, YOU DON'T GOT SSZHIT TO TELL ME ABOUT MY PURPOSSZHE BEING HERE, OR ANY OF USSZH!" "YOU shall know your purpose VERY soon you swollen-headed abortion!"[/u] Without the demon looking, Roy slowly pulled out something with his left hand from his satchel. A firm metallic gauntlet covering his hand ending on three wicked clawpoints. He watched the ring of Truth glinting desperately in the light of morn knowing it held the key to everything he wanted. But he saw also that his arm was slowly becoming possessed with an intrinsic evil that threatened to turn his soul weak. He already could feel it pulsing at the very back of his eyes and into his beating heart, as if he were about to suffer the stroke that would tear every sense from him, everything that he cared and felt for. He had no choice but to do this. "I may not be awakening anytime soon once I take Roy for my new host but I will not be disappearing anytime soon." "Maybe not." The beast turned towards Roy at hearing his voice, seeing the skyhook snugly placed against the wrist of his right hand. "So ahll jus' disappear for you instead." "WHAT?!" "...goodbye, James." KRAKK. A gentle whirr of a magnetised device was all it took to suddenly snap his wrist completely from his body. Roy fell into the abyss of the dark forest a thousand feet below him as the demon held onto his hand now severed, the bone violently mangled at the bottom of it as he stared with shock before pulling it up for all of them to see. Kruz tried to scream out knowing that he was already far gone beneath the Broken Petal. "ROOOOOOOOOOYYYY!" The Scissoraptor looked over the railing into the trees as the last sight of a black small speck had faded from his vision, the glimmering of dew in the early morn washing the world by a small blue twinkling in the morning mist of the forest. The raptor dropped the hand over the edge sighing with such pity. "Pathetic, the coward's way out is infinitely more insulting for me. But if I must now take this body fully within the next three months by my own account, then so be it. Now, which one of you shall like to face me next me at my almost-complete capability?" "Me." Before anyone had said anything, eyes turned towards the bishop who walked forwards with one step. "I sszhall take thee, with a challenge o demonkin." "F-FAYNE!" shouted Baldwin. "FAYNE NO, D-DON'T-" "I will challenge you...by an offer I wisszh to make." He tossed his staff to the side as well as his mitred hat, his robes now ragged by the sweat and tears of this day as he walked forwards with open arms intriguing the demon. "And what...offer can you possibly make, my scaled priest?" "You are a vile demon, and one sszho infernal asszh to relisszh the sszhuffering among othersszh, isszh that not true?" The cleric even dropped the hidden knife from his cloak, pulling it out and completely discarding it without a care in the world left for him. Baldwin in absolute shock barely managed to speak out against his brother's actions as the demon grinned at such flattering description. "The little children enjoy pulling the legs of insects and watching them struggle, what difference is that with me to those such as you mortals?" "Do you ever take offersszh, my good sszhir?" "F-f-fayne?!" cried his brother. "Fayne, wh-what are you doing?! D-d-don't go near him, DON'T!" "FAYNE STOP!" shouted Kruz. "Depends on the offer, my dear priest of another cloth. Do not think you can try to absolve me for I have no soul of my own to do absolving with." "I know," said Fayne with eerie calmness, "I know that you are sszhoullesszh, that you are a horrid corrupted beasszht of another realm and I want...I want you...to kill me." "...what?" "WHAT!?"

Kruz and Baldwin spoke in unison as Fayne continued to approach, his voice calm beyond normal means. "I want to make you an offer. I will come with you, without quarrel and in return I want you to let them be, everyone on the sszhip to not be harmed by you in any manner left alive. I will let you take me...and hurt me, violate me to your whim and absszholutely desszhtroy my being." "FAYNE S-SSZHUT UP!" cried Baldwin. "DON'T DO THISSZH FAYNE!" "And why..." The demon was close enough to bring the raw tips of his scissors neatly against Fayne's throat which bobbed threateningly. "Do you think I would be interested in that offer?" "Have you...n-never wanted to inflict sszhuffering upon a holy man, a man of godsszh with the wealth of Faram'sszh knowledge and Hisszh richnesszh of being? Have you never wanted to torture, to maim...to desszhtroy thosszhe like me asszh a call of rage to the heavensszh upon thee?" "Hmhm...it always has been a rather fond memory of me, when I had a priest of the local charter come to my former host's home back in Norway...and I drove him to devour his own wrists within two days." "Why not perhapsszh more than two with me? I heard in your...conflict that you enjoy having a new...toy, well let me be your toy to abusszhe. To hurt, and kill." "FAYNE STOP!" screamed Kruz grabbing his head. "FOR GODS' SAKE WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" "Indeed, what ARE you doing my dear priest?" The scissortips pressed gently enough to cause an intense feeling of pressure on Fayne's throat as he coughed slightly, almost feeling himself about to bleed from it as the rusted tips caught his larynx briefly with surgical precision. "I...h-h-have n-nothing more...to live from thisszh." "You are too feeble to end your life, sszho you would rather I take it from you?" "I would have only offered you to kill me, I know you call it a coward'sszh way but can I be called a coward if I begged you to hurt me? You sszhaid you had a priesszht in your capasszhity for two daysszh...I can make sszhure I lasszht a whole week of unending torture. Asszh I plead you." "Are you a masochist? I despise those people, they do not give me the thrill I enjoy from such pleaful lament, like your Michelle most sweetly." "I am not anything of the sszhort. I will beg, I will plead, I will cry and I will lament when you evisszherate me. But I alone know that I desszherve it, and I sszho wisszh that I haven't. I want to make the sszhecond greatesszh misszhtake of my life with you demon." "What was your first?" "Being born asszh a...s-sszhodomite...pleasszhe...take me..." The cleric clasped his hands firmly on the demon's blades as the darkness rumbled within seething against his flesh, his palms starting to burn as he gasped sweetly. The crew watched in horror at him submit with tears in their eyes gently sobbing as their hands shook feverishly. "I want to be given wh-what I desszherve, by you...kill me...make me sszhuffer for my disszheasszhe and let my sszhuffering put an end to thosszhe around me." "I don't care what disease you so call it, but I find your pathetic state rather endearing." He grinned wickedly as he pulled his scissors away harshly, slicing Fayne's hands as he cried out with blood dripping neatly from his palms, almost like stigmata forming through him. "It always pleases me to see a member of the cloth grovel before me and I can so enjoy seeing the inside of your body...I know all of a human's parts but never..." His claws reached out to suddenly choke Fayne to a crippling strangled gasp. "That of a reptilian cleric. Do you know I once made a human live for three days without a stomach?" "H-HHHRRRK!" "I wonder if I can...bring you that same obscenity for that long or perhaps even longer with that devotion of yours." "NOOOOOOO!" Two voices screamed from the silent crew as Fayne felt the demon's grip get shoved back away before his own hands were grabbed tightly by scaled hands on both sides of him. Feeling his eyes adjust bleary from being suffocated, he heard Baldwin's voice from his right screaming beyond grief. "DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH MY BROTHER!" "I WON'T LET YOU TAKE HIM!" said Kruz on Fayne's right. "YOU'LL HAVE TO KILL ME FIRST!" "B-b-baldwin?" murmured Fayne. "K-Kruz?" "I'm not leaving you," said his brother, "I won't, I won't let anyone hurt you...I promisszhed you bro." "But I...I am a di-" "SSZHUT UP YOU'RE MY BROTHER! YOU'LL ALWAYSSZH BE MY BROTHER OKAY? I WON'T LEAVE YOU!" "AND I WON'T LEAVE YOU EITHER!" shouted Kruz. "We both love you, differently but we love you always and if there is ONE thing that we can agree on is that we never want you to be hurt...right Baldwin?" "Right...Kruzzh." "Ohhhh spare me your sickening heart embrace." The two gripped the bishop's hands tighter as blood poured between their fingertips, watching the demon snarl at the three people before him. "Your little sodomite made an offer that does NOT involve you now back away or else I shall make you wish that you had!" "HE'SSZH NOT A SSZHODOMITE!" screamed Baldwin. "HE'SSZH MY BROTHER! HE'SSZH MY BROTHER AND I LOVE HIM, NO MATTER WHO HE CHOSSZHE TO BE WITH, I DON'T CARE! I DON'T CARE ANYMORE!" "Y-you...don't?" asked Fayne. His brother turned to him with tears down his cheeks, bruised and heaving from his wounds as he breathed funnily from his cracked ribs but smiling all the same. "I'll...I'll do whatever makesszh you happy Fayne. I want you to be happy." "And I too," said Kruz agreeing, "we would never want you to be dead...why would you ever think that was something that we would need?" "I never wanted," mumbled Fayne, "t-to be a burden." "You are NOT a burden. You never will be." "Never," replied Baldwin. "We either live together, or die together, there isszh no 'you an' me' Fayne. There'sszh only usszh. If you're not happy then I can never be happy either." "ENOUUUGH!" roared the demon. "ENOUGH of this turgid passion play, if I cannot have your priest, then I shall take all three of you inSTEAD along with this worthless vessel's souls!" Swinging his scissors readily to carve all three of them through their very throats at once, his anger glinted from his eye wounded before he heard a sound calling forth from the distance. A gentle timbre always softly echoing across the the city they now neared in the distance. His eye glanced towards it as he felt a deep trembling startle of pain burning from the inside of his stomach. "What...no...n-n-no...you cannot be serious." "What's wrong?" said Kruz smiling with trembling nerves. "Do you not know what that sound is?" "That is...not...ohhh...you thought that you could trap me-" "TERRRSANCTUS!" Fayne shot out without thinking as the demon recoiled back viciously from the holy light charring through him as he grinned with renewed strength inside him, but only just briefly. The Scissoraptor felt his skin start to burn from the light of Kiltia as the sound came closer towards them. Kruz and Baldwin stood ready to fight as the best readily lunged towards them, the kremling swiping harshly at his throat with Baldwin straight underneath the cutlass with pulsing white fist, bringing his own strength of Kildean lore from within as he punched through the scissors. "FAAAAAAAAAARAM!" "GHHRRRRKHHH!" The demon crumpled by the shocking fist bludgeoning his essence as his scissors were shut down by the blessed raw fists, the three slowly backing off as the sound turned greater from the distance. The city of Lea Monde came into view as they witnessed the very height of the cathedral as it rang beautifully across the morning light. The sound of bells chiming throughout the winter mists of west Valendia. Every sound of ringing purity felt like a dagger driven into the demon's heart, gasping as his eyes twitched, his head trembling with an intense pressure borne within as if about to detonate from his sheer agonising claws scraping through his skull. The scissors themselves shuddered violently, swiftly spasming throughout the air before they fell upon the deck with their essence slowly diminishing as if receding back inside its own self. The evil began to retreat from a mix of exhaustion and his deep penetrating weakness as he snarled with bitter acid inside his throat. "You...can never ring your godsong forever my sweet clerical bastards. I will awake...within three months I shall have taken him fully and when that comes I shall take you, I shall make you suffer your brother's sins so you BEG me to renounce your filthy wretched light." "Fine," said Kruz, "I don't care, I'll never stop fighting you if I have to." "Oh...you WILL have to one day for even if your body does not demand it, your soul shall soon cease to be...after all...James is not the only one who has given his soul to a contract...isn't he, Kruz?" His face began to turn pale with shock as he watched the demon finally succumb to the pure ringing of the bells, that wondrous tender song of bronze tongue that chanted for the sun's beauty upon itself. The three of them stood waiting for the ship to slowly drift towards the city as Kruz went back towards the wheel, desperately trying to ignore the bloody swathe of the crew's remnants from all around them. The two brothers looked briefly at each other before Fayne turned away by a deep trembling shame from within until Baldwin touched his shoulder. He said nothing as he pulled him into a deep embrace as if never wanting to let go again. In the belltower, his hand on the rope pulling constantly without end as was his part of the plan upon seeing the flag of Lea Monde hoisted from the ship, was Berniere Lavant. Sombre was his face struck clean by the light of the sun's rays as he shook his head with a disappointment, for himself as he waited for the ship to dock before finishing the song of the cathedral's bells.