Nexus Campus Town

[Kotomine_Rin]

Inside la Creatura's Tummy

The brave scientist charged head on into the unknown, accompanied by its trusty dog! It would be so easy to get lost in this place, if it weren't for these helpful runes and inscriptions all over the walls, leading him forward!

What could they possibly mean? The dragon's curse should allow anyone in the Nexus to understand a language, no matter how alien. So why did these symbols look so different?

The lights started getting more intense as they travelled to the centre of its stomach, where all the digestion is probably going on. Actually, should he actually be going in that way? What if getting digested was dangerous?

Nahhhh. Keep going buddy.

The weirdest part was how it almost seemed like a voice was talking TO Joseph. Or at least about him. Hey, loser, can you hear me? Pft, no he can't. No way! Right Joseph? No, dude, turn to the fucking left. Goddamn it Joseph.

[YOLF]

Library Island

"Whatever shadows you carry," the cloaked woman said, "Not a good show to continue destroying my district while speaking like you're doing us a favor.

Her hand clenched. And in defiance of the creature's continued hazard, every piece of the building it knocked loose turned against it in a sliver of a second. A torrent flew in from every direction like cannonballs, and clasped around the shadowy being's midsection and limbs like a giant manacle of bricks, planks, and glass. There would be no easy moving on her watch.

Yusho took his chance and jumped. Enshrouded in storm, the bright point of the spear dived for the spine of the creature of darkness like the sling of the Sun.

[Kotomine_Rin]

La creatura

How incredible. Truly this resistance was something to behold!

How deplorable! The struggles of worms before one's feet!

As if to spit on his kindness, all his surroundings immediately shot back into him with explosive force, hitting him all over and causing him to reel back in place, bound by the crushing debris that was only tightening him after the explosive hit. Something strange was going on though. The rubble was sinking into him, as if its body was more like malleable play dough, it cracked and split inside, even forcing his face to erupt and split apart into two beastly figures. But as the monk kicked its spine and sent a spark of pain reeling on its two jaws, something terrible happened.


It was unfortunate, but as he kept going the temperatures kept rising. The purple glow around the walls was only strengthening, and an uneasy feeling crept up, the sort that tightens around its throat. As it happened, that guiding voice crept into his ears too.

Joseph, hurry behind that pillar!

It would be his one warning, with no time to hesitate. If he did for a mere second, he wouldn't have the time.

As a literal hall of flames was rushing towards him from the hall, leaving no room to avoid it at all.


Fire erupted. Everywhere, covering the beast, from every angle, came bursting out from it and its surroundings, slamming into everything around with explosive force. Green flames just kept bursting from him as he freed himself and spread its arms,  causing the explosive wall to break through the walls. A curse of old, forgotten by the stars. But of all the powers he had, this was the one thing he wished he wouldn't have to use.

". . . a m a z i n g . . .  y o u   a r e     t r u l y     h e r     i n h e r i t o r . . ." An almost reptilian protrusion, like a dinosaur's half carved face, solemnly declared. Meanwhile, the fox cackled evilly as the flames stormed around it. "Hahah... kahahahah! Wow! That hit even harder than the last time! You people really never change, hahahah!!"

[Umbra of Chaos]

Joseph

Fire? He didn't like fire! Burning alive was terrible, horrible, awful-- The dog beast tossed him over behind the pillar with as much grace as possible before the advancing wall of flame swallowed it whole. There was all the rumbling too, the tilting and shaking of the halls! He should really leave now...

But something he couldn't describe stopped him. A churning in his stomach and an itch on the inside of his skin that asked him to stay. He pouted a bit to himself. "You should hurry up and get us out of here if you don't want me to just leave. The explosive won't-- I don't remember making any bombs." He usually did after all. That was an important thing to remember. Why in the world would he have said that there was a bomb? Hmph. He was probably just annoyed. It wasn't as if those children could tell the difference between a bomb and a glowstick after all. He got back on track soon enough.

"Well, if we don't get going I'll be taking my shadow home soon."

[YOLF]

Library Island

The roar of flames overtook the reading hall, and Yusho was launched back at at the same time as the woman raised the floor in front of her. He crashed into the creaking, ashen floor with a thud, and a teeth-grinding scream tore itself from his throat. The curse burned through his muscles like needles and bit into his essence like a siaka, and he writhed in pain, rolling to the side. His knees shook as he forced himself to stand to his own defense on his feet.

The smell of cooked meat, burning hair and many other things filled his nose. Across his dragging field of vision, the exalt noticed that books were actually on fire, and the trap of debris around the twisting creature was shaking. But also, that most of the woman's cloak had been consumed into nothing.

She raised an arm which had crumbled into cinder and was growing anew, and through a cloud of vaporized skin, half of a fair face was gritted in concentration, eyes squinting aggressively under a burned fringe of golden hair.



"Don't speak of them," she whispered, and a stone globe twice the height of a person hurled itself at the beast like a meteor, flown in from who knew where. The restraints slithered like snakes and tightened around the new neck despite the swamp-like resistance.

[Kotomine_Rin]

La crea- bzzzzt -ekiel

The stone hurled at the creature, but a vicious paw clasped around the globe and clenched on it, stopping it short of its face as its surroundings began to melt.

"Kahaha! Game set! Didn't see that coming, did you!?" The fox gleefully cackled, clasping on the other chains wrapped around it and tearing off the molten remains. With a single movement, it spun to smash the globe with tenfold power into the wall! However, just as it was about to crush them with the fiery molten ball-

It stopped. It's not that the beast hesitated or had second thoughts. Its hand trembled, it pushed, but its as if an invisible force was pulling the globe back. It was as if something invisible was holding it back, forcing the molten ball to melt around his hands like shackles.

"You're so.... noisy..." Shinji was litterally a burnt half carcass, not a drop of living flesh in his body more than a moving plaque of coal. Yet he moved, weakly, just enough to raise his hand at the beast and hold the globe back. To pull it... towards him.... with all he had...

The draconian head's eyes glowered with rage, just as what was left of the chains around its neck tightened, and light burst from his all hating eyes. As it did, the flames swirled and conflagration with even more power, melting what little was keeping the floor together, trying to scald the undead corpse down to atoms.

"S h u t     u p . . .   n u i s a n c e  . . . d i s s a p p e a r . "

[YOLF]

Yusho

He bit down pain and coughed boiling blood from his throat. But the vitality of the wood dragon flowed through him, and still he moved. The ground broke under Yusho's feet, but he soared like the wind. His spear lit up like a purifying sun, and the Dragon-Blooded's barely functional gaze drove it home into an intersection of inhuman vital points.

A thundering dragon's image carried the spearpoint in its jaws, the icon of a soul placing its all in that moment into a tendon-tearing, blood and sweat-soaked movement, which he would have no chance to repeat. The final lesson of the golden janissary pierced into the shadow-wreathed menace: a lone spark lights the conflagration.

The shine infused into the devil flared out. A ghostly bonfire erupted from the inside out, and the area was washed in white light.

[Kotomine_Rin]

The Undying Vessel, La Creatura

The burning monk took this chance to charge through true hellfire! In shock, the fox yelped and tried stepping back, but its footing was too shallow, it couldn't deflect him in time! "N-no! Wait! Sto- stop it! Wait!"

And before the creature could cry, a flash of gold slammed into it, causing golden cracks to buld up and race all across the impact, before bursting into a dozen of golden flares, then hundreds, and before long thousands of unbelievably small golden flashes began to erupt through his body, growing as the area kept expanding into his chest, then torso, and soon its whole upper body!  The two heads screamed as they began to crumble, his arms began to crack and fade...

Crrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaccccckkkkkk!!

The sound of bones snapping filled the room, but it wasn't his bones, or the ones of his borrowed body. It was none other, none other than Yusho's spine.

A third arm had erupted from the vulpine mass of void curses and organisms. A third arm had shot straight into his belly, with a single finger pointed straight into his spine, with a single slaw punching straight out of it. The golden monk who braved hell so bravely looked no better than all the rest, impaled by a gigantic claw. And the once golden glow turned into a sickly green as the creature's body emerged-

Utterly unharmed.

"I  t o l d    y o u . . .  I     t o l d    y o u    t o    w a i t . . . u f u f u f u f u ."

He flicked the fool into the woman like a piece of trash, the wounds that should have resulted in him being utterly decimated now gone. As if they were never there.

[Umbra of Chaos]

Joseph

"What an interesting body you have. It reminds me of the things from that district." He patted the pillar a bit, having finished taking the beast around him from the point of death to the peak of health. "If you are going to kill them, swallow the pieces at least. A complete specimen would be... useful."

[YOLF]

Library Island

Yusho puked blood, all the oxygen fleeing from his chest through a ruptured lung, what was left of his flowing jacket stained at the back by the blood that splattered from an open hole. The pain was difficult to bear, and all intent to move, nevermind the strength to do so, met a hail of noise.

The Headmaster caught the exalt's ragdolled body against her shoulder with a grunt of pain. His burned limbs shook and twitched pointlessly, hardly able to even seek support. It was testament to a Chosen's toughness that he hung on to consciousness, but the injuries had robbed him even of proper sensation on his extremities. She secured him, her now intact face twisting into a cold glare forward, but Yusho didn't even take notice of who had grabbed him.

Dragons don't fail him now. Don't let him fail the Dragons. Something had overturned his final blow, as if it was waiting for it. His thoughts raced, what capillaries weren't damaged twitching on his face with a complicated tension as the explanation clicked.

He still could not will himself to move. But the Headmaster thrust a fist at the beast, and the whole wing of the castle shook.

The next instant, a human statue large enough to have been carrying the stone globe on its shoulders rushed into the burning space, past the woman and the injured man with speed unnatural for its mass. Hardened to the point even rockets would not faze it, it threw its full body into a smashing fist blow at the monster.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Zeke

It was only sheer luck and battle instinct that had the beast cross its arms just in time, for the stone structures to slam into its arms. The fist's strength was ungodly, and the monster clenched its teeth to no avail before being sent reeling back into the wall, only for it to crash and the beast to fall.

But deep within the creature's guts and cavernous halls, there was a pleased guttural sound that roamed through the stone structures, like a gleeful wind akin laughter.

Nah. I think I'm done playing around... for now. As the voice spoke to Joseph, something flew past him. As it careened into the air, the beast grinned smugly and stared at the hole inside Yusho. Or rather... what was crawling inside that hole. A darkness that had already latched into his heart.

Above its shoulder too, a shirtless man was staring daggers right at the scene. His eyes as placid as calm as the most pleasant of lakes, and his smile more cruel than any devil.

"Remember, three days!" He pointed at her... no, Yusho, while flames engulfed the beast, turning the body into a comet-like rocket that zig-zagged away from the scene. The last thing she saw was that damnable man blowing her a kiss.

[YOLF]

Headmaster

She didn't respond with words. She knew it was over.

Which didn't stop a dozen of pieces of rebar from flying after the thing like homing missiles, freed from the debris of this library floor, booming with speed. She hoped they got embedded as painfuly as possible.

She looked to the valiant man leaning on her shoulder, and saw that he had finally blacked out. As she set him down, seeing that he was miraculously still stable, and her gaze swept over the other man's still gruesomely surviving form, feminine and male voices rang in her head.

'Headmaster, all the threats have been repelled! The west wing kept shaking, are you fine?' 'On the bottom floors too! But...'

The woman shook her head and retorted. "Of course I'm fine. How many got away? With bystanders?"

There was silence for a moment. The male voice spoke first this time. 'One...' 'No, two. It was two. They jumped into the water and vanished, I'm sorry.'

"... Unforgiveable. But still, we have to go on. I'm taking someone to the hospital right now, wait for me."

Two stretchers floated in, and she deposited Yusho in one, before pulling Shinji's body to another. She swung her hands, and both rose in the air on their own, and everything there she was supporting began to return to its place, where it hadn't been melted or destroyed entirely. She headed for the door at the end of the hall, bringing the two injured people with her, and left behind the stone sculpture holding up part of the ceiling. When the door slammed closed, they were gone.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Zeke

"Woah!" His eyes stared wide at the stream of rubble, abd he crossed his arms with a stream of flame around them to shield himself.

It didnt do mych good.

--- 2 minutes later

"Tch. Godfuckingdamn it." He pulled one more piece of mortar from his eyesocket, sliding the jammed bit from his brain. It was mostly just curses and tentacle critters anyways.

"And here I was being nice... Pah!" He dangled it in front as the flame flew away. Then, he glanced down at the creature...

"Hey. Thanks."

[Umbra of Chaos]

Joseph

With a sigh of relaxation, Joseph rested his back against the pillar. "I wouldn't let you just die there." He was far, far too useful as a specimen after all! This might not solve anything, but Joseph definitely felt the seeds of progress sprouting all around this little excursion. "You don't mind taking us back to the district, do you? There was a wonderful restaurant that the locals showed me to, and I've worked up a bit of an appetite."

Enough blood and flesh for a new range of specimens along with two fully intact bodies! They were even alive. Very rare.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Zeke

But sadly he forgot that he was now outside, and Joseph was in there, and so he couldn't really hear.

Sad.