Nexus Campus Town

[Kotomine_Rin]

Shinji

A red aura seeped from his wounds, and his muscles throbbed for a split moment. There was a lifeless lack of gleam in his eye while the beast charged at him. It came so close, its jaws so very close-

A skeletal palm slammed straight up its chin, sending its jaw slamming straight into its skull. A whirlwind of power sent a gust into its chest at the same time, in the form of an elbow that smacked into its side! Avoiding its claws and bite, it was enough to send a bear plummeting down face first into the pavement. There was no grace in that assault, it was the brutality of a killer focused on taking the monster down. But surprisingly, the beast didn't look all that messed up. Was he going easy on it?

His axe ground against the ground, waiting to be raised up again. The corpse hunter stared down the bat with a dispassionate look. What a slow boy.

"Oh? Have you dropped a coin somewhere? Yare yare daze..."

[YOLF]

Yusho

He clicked his tongue and spun, as guarding rather than ravaging wind flowed out of his skin and made an arrow-turning curtain. Yusho pulled and a spear crossed through the occultist's midsection and broke at the tip before it touched him, as the others slipped by his clothes and mid-section.

The dragon-blooded came out of the spin and thrust out his palm, shooting a maw-shaped gout of fire fed from his anima at the leech-devil. He could trust Shinji to take care of himself, but this thing that had once been others was persistent. The immortal boy swung in his grasp closer to him again.

"What do you want to stop them?!" Yusho snarled.

The building shook for a second around them, and dust fell in trembling clouds from the many bookcases and stairways.

[Umbra of Chaos]

Joseph

Really this was quite sad. His experiments were doing so poorly even for the haphazard wrecks that they were! The flesh of one of the leech's heads burnt and peeled away, the extreme heat revealing the skull as the muscle simply sloughed off rather than burn. The other was confused, uncertain at the sudden speed and strength of the other man. What a shame. But he was getting distracted; he had to focus on the man waving him about! "Well I'd need a donation of blood, a few limbs but I could regrow them for you, and that old man's guts seem--" He paused then, as if some thought had suddenly come to mind. "Oh, you're standing near my shadow."

The darkness cast upon and around Yusho suddenly grew pitch black. Jaws burst from it, hooks of bone dived for his skin, whips of flesh moved to restrain his limbs, soon he was covered in vaguely humanoid and canine beasts. The leech, uncaring of the damage to its third head, continued to spear the restrained man through with its claws. Meanwhile the beast followed its example, turning around and leaping with monstrous force right after the captured enemy rather than fight this strange newcomer.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Shinji

A venomous killing intent trembled right behind the bat creature, that so carelessly turned away. He flicked his middle finger in a 'get over here' sort of motion, and all of a sudden a flash of gold zipped through the room! It slammed without mercy through the white haired little kid, carving up a bowling ball-sized hole between his torso and lower spine, only to then slam straight into the bat's face, caving it inwards and forcing the creature to reel back hurling away from Yusho, towards Shinji. Or rather...

"Oh, looks like I found it. Too bad it won't be enough to fix it though."

His fist. Which only slammed into the skull harder, punching the coin deeeeeeeeep into its brain matter, straight through his eye socket.

"Your face that is."

Yare yare da.

[YOLF]

Yusho

Hooks and fangs dug into his body, tearing capillaries, sinking through hardened muscle and skin, and the dragon-blooded groaned in agony. The chimeric trap tasted his blood in shallow rivulets, though it refused to flow like from a ruptured well, and it happened too fast. Its master was blown through violently, but the aberration's claws still came for his face.

It couldn't be helped - Yusho dropped the youth and shielded his neck. Spears scraped against bone and rent other flesh instead, and his teeth ground noisily like clashing blades. But his impromptu help had given him enough space for something.

The man thundered, the dragonic image of his aura flashing in tandem, and a whirlwind flailed into existence. Yusho scythed through the shadows in every direction, forcefully freeing himself and shredding the leech's appendages. Roaring, unheeding of opening his injuries wider, the once-monk chopped sharply at the leech's necks and spun into an accelerating chain of hooked kicks.

[Umbra of Chaos]

Joseph

Blood, guts, and flesh... that was more than enough, wasn't it? He stumbled back a bit, it was hard to move without a spine after all, and for a moment his movements seemed a tad sluggish. His spine was visible through the unsightly hole in him for a split second before it connected. By the time he was paying attention to what was around him again everything had settled. The bat horror's head was currently spilling out onto the floor and the heads of the leech had fallen atop the ground, its body still twitching.

It wasn't too surprising. They were such haphazard things, nothing close to a true chimera. He smiled at the scene, even letting out a small chuckle. "Well well, that was pretty exciting, wasn't it? I don't get out too much, so sometimes it's worth it to get moving around." His shadow greedily swallowed up what it could of the dead creatures and the materials they had gathered.

"You couldn't have tried being gentle with them though? They're not cheap. Culture tanks, getting the parts, assembly, that's all a pretty expensive process." He walked towards his dead subjects, intent on gathering up all that he could.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Shinji

The skeletal figure dropped the monster down the ground and sighed, before picking up his axe and sharpening it against the ground. His flesh was slowly reattaching itself, now it looked like some skin was recomposing around the face area. His eyes were starting to fill with a lava-like gelatinous substance too.

"Gentle doesn't keep the neighbours down, and It's about time you were..." He raised his axe with a clean swoop against his elbow.

"Evicted."

He turned to Yusho, giving him a ghastly look, or perhaps it was his appearance that was ghastly. It was the look of a warrior about to communicate battle strategies, the look of-

"Did you get it? You got it right?"

[YOLF]

Yusho

Was it appropriate to laugh or cry here? Yusho couldn't do both, he only had one eye left to shed tears with, but he tried anyway through his exerted, heavy breaths. It was a dry, hacking sound that was soon replaced with silence and a heated glare at the callous, aberrant youth. As he thrust his hand out, his crackling anima dimmed into a winter day's brighteness around him, forming a spear of electricity.

"I wouldn't want to live anywhere with such gross visitors anyway, no matter how low the taxes were." He mouthed without meeting Shinji's eyes, before pointing the speartip forward in an aggressive stance. If the boy moved an inch, he would skewer and burn him like exorcism bells to misfortune.

"Talk to me, or by Mela I'll immolate every one of your limbs until you're as stuck as a quartered turtle. What are you?!"

[Umbra of Chaos]

Joseph

"Me? I'm more interested in asking the two of you that question. But for me..." He trailed off for a second, face scrunching up in a bit of confusion. "I'm human. I think. I've lived a very, very long time and humans don't usually do that so it's hard to say. What about you two? I was curious if your unique attributes were directly related to your physiology or not." It wasn't as if Joseph was necessary motivated by fear to stop moving. Pain was just so... uncomfortable. He'd rather not feel it if he didn't have to, so he stopped for now.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Shinji

Before he could get to the whole I was curious bit, the huge axe went hurling down straight into the kid's mouth and lodged itself straight into his teeth, splitting his jaw in two neat bits. Kids who asked too many questions gave him a headache. "You talk too much." His stance was lowered into a throwing position. Who could have done such a terrible thing?

"Slip of the hand."

[YOLF]

Yusho

The exalt was keeping his eye on the boy's shadow, gone still as a lake hiding the mother of all predators, but suddenly recoiled at the axe's interjection.

"Hey!" Yusho snapped at Shinji, as unamused as a bodhisattva carved of stone. With a finger, he tapped his brow, sighing. "I don't suppose you have anything reliable to restrain him with?"

Not for the first time, he pondered the questionable merits of demonology for tasks like these.

[Umbra of Chaos]

Joseph

Something between annoyance and anger overcame Joseph at the sudden, violent interruption to his talking. His head leaned forward with the weight of the axe, so it was awkward to get his hands around the handle to try and yank it out. There were a few moments of grisly pulling then; blood, saliva, and bits of teeth spilled from his mouth. By the time the axe hit the ground it splashed in the small pool of the stuff. Then there was a bit of spitting afterwards as the wound healed, more pinkish than red as the bleeding stopped.

"I don't like pain. I'd appreciate it if you didn't do that again." He paused again for a moment before spitting one last time. "Bleh. It would make this whole thing worthwhile if you two decided to help me as research specimens!" There was so much potential here, even just with the bits he had collected.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Shinji

A dark mood flashed over him when he touched his axe, but despite the tough act his body took a lot of damage. He just gave him a glare, hands in his pockets, while his skeletal body started growing more and more flesh back. It was mostly the superficial stuff, but his head was starting to regrow skin and hair back at an accelerating pace, until you could see the semblances of a face on three quarters of his skull.

"Yeah, tough luck. Turns out I don't either, and lo and behold."

He spared a glance at Yusho and shook his head, before taking a step forward.

"Cut the crap, I don't need a nose to smell the stench off you. You're the same as me aren't you?"

[YOLF]

Yusho

In the heat of battle, he had barely taken notice of the miserable state of Shinji's appearance, and now that he squinted in his direction, Yusho couldn't help but remember his own, far less gruesome injuries. He winced in a full-body shudder, leaning on his elemental spear as it touched the dirtied flooring with a thunder-like clack.

The same though, they weren't the same. Shinji hadn't ripped into a place of reflection and study with horrors and beasts and attacked him for no reason. Yusho could still hear fighting reverbating through the halls. He should be going, moving, helping but his gut warned him against leaving this seeming culprit alone.

"Research specimens, are we" he said, laying a firm hand on Shinji's shoulder where it looked the least torn, and looking to the boy. If he could discharge storms from his gaze, there would be one covering him now. "And everyone else in the castle?"

[Umbra of Chaos]

Joseph

He addressed Yusho first, hands clapped together with a bit of a smile on his face. "Of course they are as well! Very useful, very unique. I'm sure that I've managed to collect more than a few of them as well. But there's just something about you and him..." The boy shifted his weight from one foot to the other for a bit, almost tottering over himself. "It would be very useful for my research. I need to build a proper chimera after all."

Joseph nodded at that thought. He wasn't quite sure where it had come from, but it felt right. "But as for you!" His gaze switched over to the other man. "We're not the same at all. If I was that hurt I'd be healing up as fast as I could; anyone normal would do the same. You seem just fine."