Cross Effects 3.0 - The Third Time's the Charm? The Velvet Room (NSFW version)

[Panda]

The punch caught the brooding Adjutor completely off guard, sending him flying back into the shelf full of bottles behind him. Some of them were smash upon impact, others when the impact jostled them loose, but the result was the same all around. By the end of it, not a single bottle of alcohol remained on the wall as the liquid soaked into Adjutor's clothing while Lorenzo made his passionate speech.

I like this guy.

Ow.

Oh be quiet. You can heal. And you don't need to in this case.

"I don't regret my path," Adjutor says, "It's just...lonely. And I lost the right to enjoy my life a long time ago."

[Kotomine_Rin]

"Shaddup, there are countless people in this world, there is no reason to be lonely, and besides..." Lorenzo paused, wiping the blood off his hand.

"...You're a good lad I say. There is no reason for you to doubt that, so don't worry.", and with that said, he held his hand towards Adjutor.

"Look, I don't care about whatever accursed sins you may or may not have committed in the past, but the past is in the past, and people shouldn't live there. Everyone has the right to enjoy a pleasant life, grow old and hit the bucket merrily, no matter who they are or what they did."

[Panda]

"...Literally all I've done for you is enable you in your quest to get impossibly drunk," Adjutor says, "And possibly high."

"I'd like to argue that point about my past sins with you," Adjutor admits, "But I get the feeling it would be an exercise in futility."

[Kotomine_Rin]

Before anyone could do anything, Lorenzo's fist came crashing upon Adjutor's head.

"Idiot!", he snarled. "First, when I offered you my gold for your silence, you could have spoken up and taken the money. Instead, you accepted to keep our secret silent and refused the money anyways!" He rebutted, pulling Adjutor by the ear, he made him stand once again.

"Second!", Lorenzo rebutted in an authoritarian voice, "You helped miss Noel not out of some obligation, but of your own free will. Many times you could have left her and I to our fates, but you helped us anyways!" And with that, Lorenzo gave Adjutor a backhanded slap in the face.

"Third, well damn I forgot..." Once he declared that, Lorenzo gave the bartender a violent headbutt.

"Anyhow, my point is, you're a better person than you think, and no matter what you think, you don't deserve misery. I don't give a rat's arse about your past, but your present actions are more than enough to show me you are not a bad lad."

[Panda]

"To the first," Adjutor says, ignoring the momentary throbbing from the pain that the pirate just inflicted on him, "That's what any decent person would have done. And to the second, all I did was pull Noel out of a pile of erotica."

"My point," Adjutor continues, "Is that the good doesn't wash away the bad, and my evils far outnumber whatever good I have done."

[Kotomine_Rin]

Lorenzo glared at the pathetic wretch that stood before him, his eyes were now filled with contempt, he almost pitied him. He felt it necessary to show him how wrong his mentality was, to perhaps turn him away from self destruction.

"So what, you're going to brood the rest of your days? What a waste." And as he said that, he drew his blade, cold and sharp metal aiming right between Adjutor's brown eyes.

"If you're willing to waste your life like that, if you truly have nothing to live for, you won't mind if I end it here and now, do you?", Lorenzo snarled.

[Panda]

"And that is where you are mistaken," Adjutor says, "First of all, I'm not going to spend my days brooding, I'm going to spend them killing. Second, I have something to live for, to ensure nobody goes through what I had to go through. I simply take the pragmatic route and kill those whose actions would ruin the lives of others, as opposed to stopping those lives from being ruined. I am simply tired of being alone in this."

[Kotomine_Rin]

"...that is not living.", Lorenzo muttered. In a sudden rush, he hugged the man with all his strength.

"Adjutor, there is no need for you to be alone in this." the pirate declared, his eyes watering and body trembling.

"Isn't there something you find fun in life? Something that makes you smile? Nothing?" he asked in a desperate tone.

[Panda]

Caught completely off guard by the sudden hug, Adjutor is unable to respond due to a need to process what just happened.

"...I...Well...If I can make someone else smile, then that's something worth smiling about," Adjutor admits, "And I'd rather not be alone, but I wouldn't wish my life or my ideal on anyone else, so I can't risk that by allowing someone else to..." he trails off as he realizes the pirate is trembling.

[Kotomine_Rin]

The trembling of the pirate became stronger and stronger. One wouldn't tell if the trembling was of rage or sorrow.
"You...you cretin!", Lorenzo yelled with all his strength and, in an instant, uppercutted the poor Adjutor with his elbow.

Blows raining upon the man's body like a storm, Lorenzo finished his combo with a mighty palm thrust. "I'm asking you if there's anything about life you enjoy! Food, sex, drink, adventure, anything?"

The pirate took a deep breath, trying to keep it together. "Life is about living for yourself and only for yourself, if you're going to make yourself a martyr for some random buckos till you hit the bucket, your life isn't worth a dog's arse!"

Lifting the bartender by the bloody collar, he smashed his head against his skull. "Bastard, don't you get it? You gotta enjoy the simple pleasures in life! I tell you, there's no meaning in brooding alone; that's why god created bars and taverns: to have shits like you bitch and moan in company of others while revelling in cheap ass alcohol!", and as he said that, Lorenzo flipped poor Adjutor and slammed him on the table before leaping on his body, the pirate sitting on the man's stomach.

"Do you get it? You were never alone, you just drove people away with your own cowardice, you didn't want to get others hurt, so you decided you'd live a lonely boring life. But make no mistake, a man can choose loneliness over company, but no man can stand this very loneliness and live merrily."

[Panda]

Adjutor simply groans as he lies on the table, beaten, dazed, and with an irate pirate straddling him.

...Everything...hurts...

At least he's not actually trying to kill you. Merely beat a simple idea into your admittedly thick skull.

Beating aside...I might be inclined to agree that we should indulge ourselves every now and then...

"You're the one who doesn't get it," Adjutor says, tendrils slipping out of his arms and wrapping around Lorenzo to keep the pirate from interrupting him, "To live merrily, as you call it, to live for myself, that is something I don't deserve. Something I've lost the right to. As for what I enjoy, I'm neutral on food and drink, adventuring used to be fun, and...no comment on sex."

Wouldn't it be so convenient if you forgot about what just happened with that masochist?

Actually, yes, to a degree.

No, goddammit!

[Kotomine_Rin]

"...what a load of BULLSHIT!", the bound man yelled, an irate voice directed not at Adjutor, but at his twisted ideology.

"An enjoyable life is something anyone deserves. No matter how many atrocities one has committed, there is still no reason to destroy oneself over them!", he roared, struggling to unbind himself from the tendrils.

"From the moment I saw you I knew you had seen your share of blood, your eyes are the same as mine, the eyes of a killer!" with that, he threw himself at Adjutor, Lorenzo's head violently banging the bartender's.

His teeth were gnashing in rage, and yet... his eyes flowed with tears, the tears of a man who  felt incredible pity for another man.
"You... sicken me. You are but a ghost tortured by the past, your eyes are only looking back, but one day you will finally see how much you have missed. And when that time comes, it will be too late to change anything!"

[Panda]

"My life for the lives of how many others? How many people can I ensure never go through what I did?"

But we never save anyone.

And you never will, not the way you're looking at it. You've saved countless potential victims, but you keep getting there too late to save their last victims, and that's what you agonize over. Nobody's perfect!

And that's the final stroke. The Armogarians retract, his mind no longer maintaining them. Suddenly, gouges are torn into the table they're on, quickly reducing it to rubble and dropping them on the floor, the impact forcing Lorenzo off him just as Adjutor's rampant mana tears a gash into Lorenzo's front, just barely avoiding doing anything worse than flaying a strip of flesh from the pirate's bones, taking any clothing covering that area with it. Fortunately the falls ends up rolling Adjutor away from Lorenzo, as numerous gouges are torn into the floor around the teen. Even more fortunately, Adjutor soon masters himself once more, taking hold of his mana once more and forcing it back under his control.

[Kotomine_Rin]

"...Ow" Lorenzo grunted his pain, touching his wound with his hand. "That was uncalled for, you scurvy dog.", he added in an annoyed tone.

Looking at the destruction around them, he whistled in amazement, before giving Adjutor a violent jab to the stomach. "Now, you're an odd fellow, but I can't let that pass."

In a sudden twist, his mood seemed to have lightened up, the tension in the air had mostly dissipated, Lorenzo sat on his usual seat and laid his feet on the torn table.

"Look, I'm beating the crap out of you not because of some enmity or anything, but because I like ya, you're a good fellow, and to be fair I do consider you my friend in a way... but you're too god of a person, mate!"

Taking hold of one of the few unscathed bottles laying around, he took a long sip of it's contents, grimacing. "This bullshit spoiled my drink... but I'd be damned if I didn't finish what I started."

In a calm, almost jovial tone, Lorenzo spoke to the man who stood before him. "Now look, Adjutor, you can't possibly hope to live your life as some sort of manslave for a higher purpose. You might save those around you, but you'll never save yourself."

[Arch-Magos Winter]

Rin

Rin looked over at him, still almost dizzy from her excitement, but still able to speak.

"W-what do you think? O-of course I'm ready!" Her voice was airy from being short of breath, but her message got across loud and clear.

Archer's hesitation rose for a second, before he angrily tossed it aside and out of the way. Rin was waiting. He lined his shaft up with her wet and waiting slit, slowly pressing his length into her as he quickly bent down to meet her lips with his.