2026-10-09: La Bête (THE BEAST II)

• Log: La Bête (THE BEAST II)
• Cast: Penguin Slasher, Yanagi Nagisa, Kanae Fuyuki, Isabeau Fontaine, Yuuki Hoshizora, Roger, Coin, Misato Fushihara, Katsuko Yoshinaga, Pernelle, Yoko Hirano, Tamaki Uchida, Umie Akabane, Kazusa Motojima, Saika Kikuchi, Eriko Kirishima, Tsumugi Kujaku, Kikuno Kisaragi, Shinichi Nagisa
• Where: Shinichi Nagisa's Atelier
• OOC Date: October 9, 2026
• IC Date: January 22, 2013
• Summary: Shinichi Nagisa is nearly gone, having been replaced by an awful parasite that has been terrorizing numerous Shujin Academy students for weeks. At the center of the Atelier, the Homunculus believes his victory is nearly complete... yet, he is swiftly proven wrong by the Persona Users who stand against him.

---

<Pose Tracker> Penguin Slasher has posed.

The door knob of Room 302 is warm. A little too warm. Enough to make one hesitate in worry that there's a fire behind it.
 
But as it opens, the red is revealed to be countless Higanbana, Red Spider Lily flowers, lining the floor, the walls, the ceiling of a far too large room. The walls move as if a sky full of clouds in animation, behind shadowy bars and crimson blossoms.

In the middle of the room is a hospital bed, with a cocoon whose webbing is stretched to encircle the bed from so many sides, like a restraint to keep it there. A monitor floats in space above it, several wires connected to the Cocoon, with an EKG tracing of beeps that are coming far, too slowly.
 
There isn't much time left.
 
A Sanguine Humor has died recently, her body is already being consumed by the crimson blossoms on the floor in a rapid decay. The room itself shifts, vision narrowing. Now the room itself pulses out of synch with the electronic beeps on the monitor, quickening. Like a predator ready for the kill.

The Homunculus is here. Even if you can't see him.

Breath begins to fog, as mist curls about the corners of the room, like a fog cloud that was let in through a suddenly opened window, gradually obscuring where the room begins and ends. There's whistling that echoes from out of that mist, to a slower more melancholy version of a tune everyone will recognize. A Japanese nursery rhyme about bubbles. As he whistles, the lyrics almost certainly spring to mind.

 All of them have disappeared,
 each and every one of them.
 So soon after they were born
 all of them have disappeared.

Then abruptly it stops the sound of the Homunculus speaking to them reverberating all around.

"You parasites have a lot of nerve- breaking into a man's home. What are you even here for? Trying to force me to change back to my past self? To that conceited sad sack that let the whole world walk over him? Hahaha-"

He lets out a little chuckle, before all humor drops out of his voice.

"Fucking morons. Let me tell you a story. Once there was a real stupid kid who lived in a town named Mikage-Cho. He had a sister that was deathly ill, and parents that spent their every waking moment with her. So this dumb kid felt really lonely- lonely enough that one day he told his sister that maybe it'd be better if she were dead."

There's a shape moving in the mist. It's there, and then gone. Then at another place- then gone. The Navigators in the room have difficulty tracking it with any accuracy, other than little blips that seem too erratic to narrow down like a radar.

"Then- that same day, she died. Except not really- spoilers." He adds, with a voice dripping with a sense of grim irony, "How she lived isn't important. What's important is the kid thought it was his fault. And on what felt like the very next day- Mikage-Cho went to hell. ... Literally. So a kid seeing all that happening right in front of him, he saw cause and effect where it didn't exist. He killed his sister- thus, divine punishment fell upon him. And he decided, when he got back to his middle school that had fallen into chaos that he had to spend the rest of his life atoning for his crime."

Silence, as if there were some gravity in the moment. Like there's more weight to that decision than his story would imply, until his voice angrily breaks the silence.

"... What a fucking laugh. The loser committed himself to getting treated like a dog, taken advantage of by anyone who wanted to. In fact he volunteered himself for people to take and take and take from- until all the parasites had had their fill and he was a shell of his former self. Then one day- he woke up. Realized what a stupid little shit he'd been. And decided, nobody was going to take anything else from him ever again."

The mist shines a deep crimson hue, like an emergency light shining from deep within the fog, a glare- a resonant anger so thick and palpable they can taste it on their tongues.

"So if you think I'm going to let you bring me back to that place- you've got another thing coming. I'd rather die than go back to being what I was... but, I think I'll just kill all of you instead, string you up as a warning as to what happens if you fuck with Shinichi Nagisa."

 OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE6BSNCg-co (Les Bêtes, Shirou Sagisu (Evangelion 2.0))

<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.

    Recently:
    
    Yanagi stands, supported by her polished gun-cane, by the bedside of the Cocoon where Shinichi Nagisa is trapped. Her peacock green eyes reflect nothing; her beautiful features are impassive. She may well be a statue for all she emotes. She barely even blinks. When she does, it's in time with those all-too-infrequent EKG beeps.
    
    The Homunculus speaks to her. It's finally become comfortable enough to let her inside this room, though of course not unmonitored. Never unmonitored. Much like how it does in the present moment, it speaks of the one in the Cocoon as its past self, that it will soon be reborn, that it will not let anyone drag it back to what it once was.
    
    Chin ticking up like the spindly fingers of a clock, or perhaps like a porcelain marionette on stage, she looks at it degree by degree.
    
    All she says is one word:
    
    "Oh?"
    
    
    
    . . .
    
    
    
    Now...
    
    Now, lost somewhere in the mist, Yanagi's voice hums along with that whistling. When it breaks off, she does not. That soft, melancholy humming keeps on as the Homunculus tells the story of a lonely boy and his dying sister.
    
    She keeps on humming until the Homunculus declares 'that boy' won't let anyone else take anything from him again. Then she sighs and falls silent.
    
    That deep and bloody shine overtakes the mist. The Homunculus's anger might be palpable, but there may as well be nothing at all in Yanagi's voice as she politely says, "Shall we, then?"
    
    There is movement and light in the mist--the flapping wings of a luminescent blue butterfly. It shatters with a BANG, and from the mist rises a mist-clad porcelain doll, crowned with jewels and pirouetting on needle limbs.
    
    Little origami angel-spirits phase into existence and fill the room. One for each person present, seemingly a guide to the land of the dead.

<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.

Kanae stands among the group when they open the door and head inside, her heavy coat and robes comfortable only because of their supernatural nature in this heat. There is no fire, but there is no Kanae readily apparent, either; to someone who doesn't know her battle form, she's unrecognizable with her tricorne hat down over her face. She can see, but she keeps her head down.

And there, the cocoon...

Kanae was here once before. And now, she knows they are not alone here. The whistling tune registers for her, a memory of when she had her parents...

She grits her teeth, thinking about that now. Combined with the eerie whistling, it's a bad time. But she doesn't speak up. She waits, until he tells his story, calls them morons, waits through his explanation... the shape moves in the mist. Still, Kanae conceals herself.

But it all adds up with what she knew: his guilt, his desire to help, his 'pushover' nature... until the mist shines crimson.

When the Guide to the land of the dead appears, Yanagi's doing--Kanae finally steps forward. She reaches up, takes her hat--and removes it. Her face is much darker than most here, her skin browner thanks to her other heritage. And her eyes? Her eyes are set.

"Hi, honey," she speaks up to the Homunculus, and throws aside the hat. Her long, black hair tumbles down her back; she hefts her gunblade in one hand to point it towards him.

"...You're done, as of today. I've been Hunting you all along. You're not a 'real man.' You're not even human. ...I was only with you to keep you going all-out with innocent girls.

"And now it ends."

<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.

    The cocoon -- the room. The Sanguine Humour. Isabeau advocates killing these women, just as sternly as she insists the Melanc orderlies ought to die; some could call them mercy kills.

    Others know better.

    But there she stands, as this one dies without the crescent-moon decorated spear in her hand, girlish silver ribbons tied about it. Her bronze vest exposes her bare arms, muscles evident even beneath her layers of fat -- though a white greatcoat hangs off of one arm, belted around her waist to keep it secure. (Another belt, securing her britches, holds a dozen pouches and vials and other helpful things -- alongside the empty hilt of a knife.) Her exposed arm is instead defended by a targe, the Eye of Ra staring imperiously out from it in eternal rebuke.

    "I do not think you will let me," she says, when he asks whether they expect trample him. "Still I have come."

    But he has a story to tell, and --

    "What do you talk about?!" Isabeau demands, sharply, when Shinichi finishes illustrating what happened. "The 'Mikage-cho Incident'?! It was a gas leak! A gas leak!" Her voice rises, as she yells -- "That is what they said, at the hospital! You damn Japanese gassed me with your kerosene heat! That is what happened!"

    The red flames of her truth erupt around her, as she grasps the side of her head, with a sharp cry.

    "Ugh -- 'that day'--!"

    OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noKmWtc0R9E Hozier - Through Me (The Flood)

    At once she is overcome, falling to broad knees. One hand curls, against the ground, as the full weight of her dreams return to her. "... no... that day... when monsters flooded the town... I remember. My classmates pushed me out the door as a sacrifice to them... while he just stood and watched!" She's pointing at the fake Shinichi, but that can't be his crime. "I ran away, but one of them found me... that 'Pixie'. Somehow, I impressed her, so she protected me from the others... but when the children saw me walking with her, unharmed... that is when they deemed me a Witch. Even after we forgot... they knew me to be a Witch..."

    Her fingers scrape the ground, as she realises: "Even after I forgot, that creature stayed with me... I forgot, but Mielikki remembered. A damn monster... a damn monster saved me, though she would eat the other...!"

    She takes a breath, harsh and laboured, as she hears Kanae speak. "... that is right," she says, as she staggers to her feet, lifting herself by her own spear. "You... you are Hunted by more than one Hunter, you who does not speak the word with its weight! MIELIKKI! My head is clouds, but my resources are not! Holy Arrow--!" She lifts a Skill Card -- straight from the Time Count -- high into the air --

    -- as a little spruce-haired fairy with blue wasp's wings appears above her, draped in a golden dress and an oversized bear fur, its claws gripped in her hands like weapons. As that Skill Card spins, its sign reflects in the gold of her dress, and she draws back her claws as if firing an arrow from a bow she does not possess.

    She knows it won't do him any permanent harm; she's been here before.

    It's about sending a message.

<Pose Tracker> Yuuki Hoshizora has posed.

It took Yuuki Hoshizora awhile to get here, along with Magus. The blue-haired girl looks a little roughed up; the long fall and making her way back here has her covered in dust and with a few small cuts and bruises here nad there, from the effort of clamoring back. She still arrives at Room 302.

And she listens, with an expression that's barely holding back outrage at the Homunculus's words.

She glances, once, at Yanagi's voice. Then, back at the mist.

"You're not him. You--you're just stealing his pain, to replace him, and hurt the lives of people around him! You... I can't stand things like you, for--for everything you take from people!"

She looks at the cocoon, then lifts her rapier. The tip of the blade glints, as she steps up -- just ahead of Magus, just a little behind Kanae and Kazusa.

"So I'll send you to hell, if I have to!"

<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.

    "Here!" Roger calls, boldly filtering in with the rest. They can already intuit that 'it' is 'here,' but as someone whose earliest semi-conscious existence is as a Sanguin Humor, there are some things about Ateliers that come natural to the now Persona-using Transmutation-ified human-shaped Roger - as he was named - snorting angrily all the while and stamping a foot.
 
     He's clad in a sports team uniform, envisioning himself as someone who gets to play with everyone as someone. The whistle on a chain dangling around his neck is not blowed. Tennis, specifically, is not quite a large number team sport, but this fact has not stopped him from wielding a tennis racquet and matching ball.
 
     "That's the Cocoon...! And that's another Sanguin Humor..." Roger has a very good idea what it means when nearly all Sanguin Humors are exhausted and removed from an Atelier's ecosystem. (Politely, he doesn't shout over the storytelling, though...)
 
     "...Um... are you listening?! Hey!! Are you listening?!" He calls. He is not Shinichi's Sanguin Humor. He does not reflect what of his goals, desires, and needs are, but there are just some things inherent when one's initial existence was of that manner of entity. "Don't let that Homunculus eat you up!! If your sister's okay," hi, Nagisa, though it is odd he speaks like she isn't here in the moment, this might be a localization phrasing issue that needed one more editorial pass, "then... why let this be you?! Come on! Come back and play with her! Think of all the fun you could have in the time you could make up!"
 
     "...Would she really be okay with you being like this?! Come on!! We're all here for you as you really are!"

AS: Kanae Fuyuki has cleared her buckets.
AS: Katsuko Yoshinaga has cleared her buckets.

<Pose Tracker> Coin has posed.

Coin promised Kanae that she would find her way to help her with the Hunt.

And yet, Kanae got to the day chosen for the Hunt without hearing from her. Coin is not exactly someone you can call on the phone or send a text; if she's not there, she's not there, and that's the end of it.

She made it through the entire Atelier without seeing hide nor hair of her. Nobody did, in fact. It's as if Coin simply did not choose to come after all, and ditched Kanae without warning.

Until...

The fog parts. Not all of it. It's more like a gust of wind caught a little patch of it and dispersed it a little, thinned it out; even there it's not *gone*. It's enough to see the silhouette of a figure much shorter than a human -

A silhouette that resolves itself into a small fox-like humanoid. Two and a half feet tall, orange-red and white and black, wearing a knee-length leather coat over a waistcoat and a hat with a brilliant green feather, wielding a broadsword scaled for it. Her coat has some of higanbana petals stuck to it, as if she'd crawled through a cluster of them to get here.

"So different than a Foraine," Coin says, more to herself than anyone else. "And still, both possessed of a quarry." If not a Quarry. Those are different. She orients herself in the place -

Okay. THIS part is nothing like a Foraine. Coin lacks a lot of the context to hang 'hospital' on, let alone 'Mikage-cho', but it makes her uncomfortable in a way she doesn't much like. This is what he hates, she thinks, not a place of desire. And yet, he's stuck in it. It makes her fur bristle, her tail most of all.

The sight of Roger makes her stop for a moment - well, lots of people, but especially Roger. She's momentarily taken with something that she doesn't quite recognize as stage fright - she has never seen so many humans in one place before! So she looks at Roger instead, long and thoughtful, for about five seconds before she shakes her head hard enough to make the feather sway; her ears flatten. Later. "Kanae!" she calls, scrambling through the mist.

"You found your 'quarry', the target of your hunt. Now, what will you do with it?"

<Pose Tracker> Misato Fushihara has posed.

Getting here was a trial for Magus and Yuuki. Magus's right side hurts all over from the fall, familiar old pains burning throughout her body. Nitocris's protection is usually enough so that she doesn't feel them until afterward, but if she's feeling them even now...

...She's going to suffer for this later. She knows that. But what's new, really?

They arrive later than the others - but not so late that they miss all the 'fun'. And as they step through the door, she can feel it. Like eyes on the back of her head - like an animal sizing up its prey, preparing to strike. A haunting whistle echoes through the room, a familiar tune bringing forth familiar lyrics.

And then it stops, as a voice speaks.

What is she here for? Is she here to change him back to his past self?

"No. I'm here to kill you." Magus states plainly. "If that's how he wishes to live his life afterward, it's not my problem."

She's not a person who saves people, except by happenstance. ...Or so she tells herself.

She listens as he recounts his tale. The tale of a boy who's loneliness lead him to wish death on his sister, if only briefly - and then blamed himself for the hell on earth that arose the next day. The bodybag, and the shoes within... so that was why.

And that was the warzone they walked through. The monsters roaming the city streets. This 'Mikage-Cho Incident', as Isabeau put it.

Of course it wasn't the result of a single boy's mistake - but it's enough that he thought it was.

It's enough to make her feel some small sympathy for him. But for the thing wearing his face, even if she can't see it now...

"...It's as she says." Magus says with a nod, as Yuuki tears him down verbally and declares that she'll send him to hell. Is that a hint of pride in her tone? ...Surely it isn't.

"You would not be the first to try to kill me. Do you think yourself capable of succeeding where others failed? That boy may be spineless, a 'loser'... but without him, there would never have been a you. What does that make you?"

<Pose Tracker> Katsuko Yoshinaga has posed.

Black and silver drifted into the room. A wraith, its form defined by sharp and sweeping curves, its limbs ending in vicious talons, its face forced into the rictus grin of a silvered half-skull, held its rifle at the ready, silver-laced fingers ready to pull the trigger at anything that dared to approach. Grim had entered the fray, and evaluated the situation with cold, composed, silence. Behind the darkness that cloaked whatever of her face was left unmasked, her eyes drifted across the long strands of crimson, lingering on anything that seemed of interest. Her expression twitched beneath the shroud as the readouts betrayed the truth of the matter - they were racing against the clock.

Her head snapped towards the source of the noise. She knew it all too well. It sounded like Shinichi, that much was true, but it hadn't been Shinichi that had stolen those images of her. It hadn't been Shinichi that had stowed those blades away, nor made those threats against the lives of those that had wronged him. It was the *thing* in his body that had done those things, and it was that which spoke to them as the massed group made their play. For her part, Grim remained quiet, listening intently while looking for any opportunity to press the attack.

For once, Grim began to get an inkling of what it felt like to be on the receiving end of her shrouded ambushes. Something moved in the mist, so close that she could reach out and choke it to death, yet shifting and changing and disappearing the very moment she laid eyes on it. Rifle raised fully and senses pricked up to even the faintest of hints of the Homunculus, Grim stalked the room as she had before, waiting for a lull in the conversation. The only sounds she made were the faint tapping of her feet against the floor, and the quiet clicking of her weapon being brought to bear.

"And this is your solution."
Grim's voice was flat as a razor blade, but like one, it carried an edge to it. Cold and cutting, she made no attempt to hide her contempt for the thing that piloted Shinichi's body, even if her nature did not let her express it any more strongly than that. "Strutting around like you're God's gift to the Earth, demanding everyone bow to you, and threatening to murder anyone that doesn't. Claiming his past as your own, and using it to justify your own actions... You're pathetic."

Grim called upon Dantes to envelope her in dark magicks, and drag her back into the shadows. As much a disembodied voice as him now, Grim uttered her judgement with a voice so cold that the air threatened to mist around her.
"If it's death you want, it's death you'll get. Justice comes for you, monster. And we will deliver it."

<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.

The iridescent, glorious, and altogether fantastic and magical mascot that is Pernelle looks... exhausted. His usual springy step and rambunctious tear are subdued as he beholds Shinichi and Yanagi, listening to the tale of a sad young man, and to the two huntresses who seek to bring him down.

An origami angel-spirit lights up beside him, revealing Pernelle has already been looking toward Yanagi's voice all the while.

With a deep breath in, he uses a pinion to push his orange tinted glasses further up his beak, and rustles his feathers to smooth them out as he brushes the dust and debris from his indigo vest.

"So it has come to this."

Pernelle outstretches one wing, and lowers into a deep, flourished bow, as slow to rise from it as he is to dip into it.

"But with the shine of the spotlight, the dance shall commence. I can do nothing more, and nothing less."

<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.

 
    She hadn't meant to come here at all, the first time.

    This is the second time, and Yoko Hirano is exactly where she means to be.

    It feels better, somehow. To be herself in this space, even though the place itself is terrifying and twisted and tragic. But the obi wrapped around her middle feels like armor, her bare legs are free to run, and her misshapen cat-like feet have no trouble wading through the spider lilies. She carries an equally-malformed stuffed animal in her arms, its legs dangling. It's a bear, kind of.

    The paper angels floating around her cast their ghost lights on the red flowers, through the red mist. It's scary, like clouds made of blood. Her mouth twitches unhappily as 'Shinichi' declares that he won't go back.

    It doesn't matter if he doesn't want to go back. He's not really Yanagi's brother. And Yoko could tell that Queen was frightened of him, and he has a hit list and he has Yanagi and neither of those things are okay!

    Yoko reaches out to delicately touch the paper angel that's come to her. "Yanagi-chan, where are you...? Oh."

    Surprise, Pernelle, there's a cat of a sort joining you...

<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.

    The color drains from Tamaki's face as she listens to Shinichi's 'story.' The shining red mist coalesces, but she has no retort for Shinichi. She's struck wordless, seemingly with the same exhaustion that Pernelle suffers from, and hardly feels like she can lift her sword.

    How can she face him when she's made similar decisions in her own life? What counterargument could she possibly have? The notion that she, of all people, could take Shinichi to task is outright comical.

    Isabeau's outcry that it was only a 'gas leak' causes her heart to sink even further with guilt, then immediately oscillate back in the other way to assert that she couldn't have had any more control over the Mikage-cho situation than she did, that she had put in her time once already. All the pain that she could have prevented, all of the secrecy necessary to protect the ones without a Persona from getting involved in this damned half of the world, all of the gargantuan effort that it would take and the sacrifices that Tamaki isn't willing to make ...

    "That was no gas leak," she relays to Isabeau, though at this point, Tamaki's sure that she's already figured it out.

    It's too much. It's too much! To Tamaki's shame, even though she tries to cover her face with both hands, she can't stop her delirious laughter from bubbling up.

    After a few moments, she regains her composure, claps her hands together once, and looks at the Homunculus with a wild-eyed grin. "Ohhh, you know, I think I might be one of the ones here who best understands you. I don't want to go back to being the old me, either."

    Tamaki drops into a fencing stance and levels her sword at the Homunculus, point-in-line. "... neither of my old selves. You and me both, let's figure out a new way to go forward!"

    Her hand reaches up to her necklace as she glares at her assigned guide to the land of the dead. She comments to it like she's making a grim joke with an old friend, "What, finally letting me through this time?"

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    "That's quite a pickle your other self was in. Definitely traumatic. Handling demons by yourself is pretty hairy with a Persona, but without one? Forget about it," says a voice, familiar to some, but entirely ordinary. "Pretty impressive that he managed to remember without a Persona in the first place."

    Suddenly, there's an Umie Akabane among them, complete with her own origami angel. With her hands in her pockets, the young woman is dressed in her usual utilitarianfashion, with oversized white hooded jacket, black leggings, red sneakers, and a half-mask: red checkboard with yellow peonies painted on the sides.

    (The cursed red glitter mask is back at her apartment, getting its glitter everywhere.)

    Yanagi's little paper doll gets a lingering side eye, as Umie considers something, in light of the full story of the two siblings.
        .... she huffs a sigh, looking up towards the slip of paper and raises her hand, in order to try to lightly bap an index finger against it.

    Now, back to (fake) Shinichi. "You can make all the proclamations you want, but if you want to evict us troublesome criminals out of your house, you're going to have to make a move."

    More people are coming; some she can sense with resonances, and others, she senses by their speech and movement alone, one of which is Tamaki, who she sends a half-grin towards. "I was hoping one of you guys would show up! I felt bad talking about all this like I was some kind of expert."

    Now, back to Shinichi again. While Tamaki plays good cop, Umie shall go ahead and play the terrible gremlin.

    "So come on, Shinichi-*kun*," she says, beckoning with a curled up right hand, like a cat. "Are you man enough to fight for what's yours, or are you going to wimp out like your other self~?" It's a ploy, drawing on his behavior at the Triple 7: insult the young man's masculinity, and draw him out with anger.

    Maybe, a little vinegar might help Roger's words echo into that cocoon, as well.

<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.

Kazusa didn't quite make it to Room 302 on her first attempt--her group's fight with the Melanc waylaid them enough to need to retreat and recover. Now, though...

She's here, clad in her Transmutation form, a long black starry cloak, moonstone circlet, princessly ragalia, and her wolf ears and tail. There is a quiet, subdued gasp as the Cocoon comes into view--she hasn't ever seen one from the outside before, but the monitor makes it clear: things are dire.

She pulls the cloak tighter as the mist rolls in, expression grim. The Homunculus speaks--she's heard this before, at least most of it. The rest she had to make guesses at.

Parasites... she'd been one of those parasites, once, foisting her school chores on Shinichi without a second thought, and even encouraged by her teacher to do so.

... She'd stopped, taken responsibility for her own chores, but not soon enough to prevent this. But that didn't mean she was going to give up now.

And when the butterflies appear to guide them, she follows. Her silver eyes are set as she takes in the Homunculus.

"... you think you know me. What a girl 'really wants', just because I was nice to you in the past." She lifts her chin up, defiant. "But what you never figured out was that I've been where Nagisa-san is now. That soft, nice girl you got fixated on? That was never me."

"But you were right about one thing. I do have a lot to make up for. And it's not easy, but I'm trying." She reaches for the silver clasp on her cloak and undoes it, throwing the cloak away. A coiled, bloody spine sits on her hip, which she snatches up and cracks into the air like a whip. Her silver eyes gleam. "And if I can change, so can Nagisa-san! We'll be leaving, and we'll be taking Nagisa-san with us--the real Nagisa-san, Homunculus."

<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.

 
The indefatigable force of Saika Kikuchi has, in fact, gotten kind of fatigued as they made their way to Room 302. Her hands look scraped up. Her demeanor - already somewhat grisly thanks to all that stapling - is smeared with dirt, the white tails of her embroidered coat stained gray with filth and burn-residue. (Somehow it makes the inscriptions *more* legible.)

But she gets there! She gets there. Despite the horrors. Despite the greasy, cloying familiarity, like meeting a cousin who seems so similar to you that it's like looking into a mirror. Despite the darkness. She hasn't been quipping much for a while.

Saika makes a hand gesture popular in the West (which she learned from DVDs) towards the Homunculus in the brief moments before the mist thickens. Saika grits her teeth again. She does it loudly enough to be heard clearly, despite the fog. It happens when the Homunculus says

        'it'd be better if she were dead'

In the mist, Saika, momentarily, sees red. Her eyes water. Her fists curl into tight balls of helpless fury. Somehow it's all just so fucking...

so FUCKING...

And there in that fulminant mist, there is a little angel. The light shines on Saika's closed eyes, enough to make her open them. She looks then, and she raises a hand. The little angel perches momentarily on her outstretched index finger. She gathers it close; she kisses it, lightly, on the top most vertice. A teardrop runs down her cheek.

It stings when it gets into the stitching.

Saika guides the little angel to her shoulder, and after two deep breaths, she speaks. She can hear others out there.

"Gonna follow up on your victory against a dying girl, huh, big man?"

Saika starts to spin the chain she has wrapped around her wrist and forearm, feeding it out. An eerie whirling sound as the wind snaps through the links of the bike chain.

"Smile, then; so I can see you," and she finds that she can grin even if the joy is a poisonous sort of thing. "Lessee who strings up who."

<Pose Tracker> Eriko Kirishima has posed.

    Coming back down memory lane is a different experience for everyone. Eriko, for her part, had relished the opportunity to revisit one of the greatest times of her childhood- except when it brought back some memories that stung a bit too much.

    And memories of things that even someone who had been in Mikage-cho at the time should not be aware of. Things that were supposed to be a bad dream.

    But making it to Room 302 had been relatively simple, now she knew the way. And she was hardly alone.

    -----

    At the same time, the Phantom Thieves have declared an infiltration- their strategist, Queen, leading the way, with whatever support she could get. Getting to 302 has been difficult. This place plays upon her fears so well, but the team continue to work as a team.

    For now, Queen watches the Homunculus from the shadows, eyes narrowed. The hospital is already quite crowded- and this place is still full of Melancs. Quietly, she gives her orders- the Phantom Thieves are going to be running interference today, as much as she'd like to take the fight to the homunculus herself.

    Even if she is surprised to see Yoko returning to the Atelier. Perhaps she shouldn't be- but it seems that the cat has returned beyond her curiousity.

    -----

    Eriko listens, as the story is told, and her eyes widen. Yanagi died...? Or was presumed dead? And the boy in the cocoon...

    And then the outbursts start coming, first from Isabeau, then from Tamaki. Eriko is worried for both.

    "...I didn't realize the effect had reached as far as the Middle School," Eriko says, after a moment. "But for a great many people, Hell did come to Mikage-cho. Demons flooded the streets and zombies walked the halls of this very hospital. Nurses, doctors, patients- corpses brought back to life." Her eyes look to Isabeau. "...The gas leak was an excuse. A justification- something to explain the deaths to those who couldn't remember what happened, but lost those they loved. A chance at normalcy for those that survived, to be able to believe they hadn't seen beyond the veil."

    A thin smile comes to Eriko's lips. "It seems for some people, though, that was simply a cruelty. Especially for a lonely child who made a mistake and lashed out because of his pain, and believed all that happened was his fault."

    Eriko shales her head. "Ah, but a 'man' like you would know all about invading someone's home, wouldn't he?" Eriko's smile disappears, and anger appears on her expression. "After all, you're nothing more than a squatter, intruding on someone else's heart- and tracking in all manner of things that you couldn't possibly know about."

     Eriko won't put her hand on her friend's shoulder with her sword drawn, she *will* draw her own and fall in alongside Tamaki, sword drawn, assault rifle slung over her shoulder.

    Memories of high school come flooding, but that's not what's important.

    "Tamaki," she says, quietly. "Normally, I might suggest keeping your cool, but I think we're past that. So all I'll say is remember- you don't have to find your way alone." Her eyes glare back at the Homunculus. "Fortunately, we don't need a Navigator. Today's path is through that parasite. Shall we blaze it together?"

<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.

The trip to this fated hospital room was a long one, and one not without suffering. Even years of experience with spaces like Ateliers means, most of the time, you know intimately well how wrong things can go within a heart's single beat. How much survival balances on the precarious razor's edge. How one person's selfish suffering can smother out the significance of your own existence and every ambition saddled alongside it in an instant.

It's thrilling. Isn't it?

And yet, rough and ill-fortuned as the ascent was...

                        "The villain has arrived~."

                                C L I C K !

The deadpan singsong of those words alights the sea of bloody blossoms as gold heels land upon a bundle of spider lilies with such detached decisiveness that it crushes that bloody bulb beneath it and cracks at the ground underneath, viscous red bleeding out from beneath its uncaring grind. On the proverbial heels of the heroes' arrival comes another:

Dressed in an eloquent three piece ensemble of a victorian white tailcoat buttoned high and a black vest accented in reds, and golds - just as much as the coat itself is - a column of roses like a natural epaulet drape their left shoulder, their petals gradating gradually from black, to white, to yellow, to red and seeming to glow with unearthly light, the newcomer steps inside calmly. Their skin is like the most excrutiatingly polished Calacatta marble. Their hair is a swept back, shimmering white. Their eyes, an inhuman scarlet and searing gold.

Beautiful. Yet in that cold, untouchable way a statue reminds you there is some beauty in this world that has no life or passion.

They seem rather indifferent to the words being exchanged around them -- the defiance, the disgust. They deliver their own greeting, and then simply... step inside, hands tucked in their pockets. 'The villain has arrived.' It's a greeting they offered the Homunculus the first time they encountered it in the depths of the Atelier. At that point, it was easy to assume they were referring to the creature itself.

Now, the actual subject is much more muddled.

It isn't helped by the fact that their attention seems to be on anything other than the unseen monster creeping in the corners of their vision, spitting vitriol upon this morbid, funerary space. Eyes lidding by half, their attentive stare seems more fixated on the actual landscape around them, from the spider lilies to the decaying Sanguin, to the thickening fog...

... to the Cocoon and the wires dangling from it like unspooled threads, thrumming out the dwindling vestiges of life within...

... to the familiar silhouette hidden in the fog, bringing that all-too familiar doll wrought of porcelain to whimsical, graceful life.

"... Isn't it interesting? Shame has a way of bringing out arrogance in humans."

They don't address the Homunculus still. They don't even try to look for it. As if it was beneath their notice entirely. No.

"They act in self-interest, and when they feel guilty about it, feel they are so important the world must be punishing them for their selfishness."

Their gaze is looking at - looking past - the Cocoon. Into and through it.

"A boy throws a tantrum for attention. And now the world must have poured horror onto unsuspecting innocents because of them. It must have been for them.

"Even in guilt, people try to make the world their revolution, even as they let themselves be dragged along its axis.

That rose-covered shoulder lifts, with the rustle of ephemeral petals.

"But I guess that's just another way humans tie themselves down."

Their attention isn't for the Homunculus. It's not even really for the person inside that Cocoon. No.

Their final words, their final question, make it very clear who has their attention:

             "Is it everything you expected it to be, Sa-ya?"

AS: Kazusa Motojima has readied for combat as Mina Harker! She is now fully healed!
AS: Tsumugi Kujaku has readied for combat as Jekyll! They are now fully healed!

<Pose Tracker> Penguin Slasher has posed.

The nothingness in Yanagi's voice is not remarked upon by the creature wearing her brother's shape, as she politely asks 'Shall we, then?' and origami fly out to mark each person.

"Sure sis. How about we make this fun for you too... you tell me who here you like the least, and I'll kill them first."

There's something beyond just braggadocio overconfidence in those words, like to him the outcome is a matter of fact certainty.

The Homunculus doesn't appear at Isabeau's demand, instead replying in a blunt tone as she's overcome by memory, "You never were particularly bright. You fancy yourself an expert on this kind of thing- and yet, you don't even remember your first brush with it."

It's only when she replies that he just stood and watched that the homunculus chuckles, "Man, what a cruel witch you really are, blaming me for not interfering in the justice of the mob. Just what about you would be worth saving anyway?"

Yuuki calls him out, and he says nothing at first, until she tells him she'll send him to hell. At that, he starts chuckling, then outright laughing in a horrible, grating way.

"Don't you get it? You're already in hell you wouldn't be sending me anywhere I'm not already. And now you're stuck here with me." Whereas Magus, well, the insults cause the one behind the voice to bristle, and grow deadly low, "Your mouth is writing checks your ass can't cash. I think you've never encountered anything like me before, bitch."

Tamaki is one of the few people in the room that knows, 'That was no gas leak,' "So you were there, huh?" 'I might be one of the ones here who best understands you. "You don't understand shit you ever stood across from a room full of people who are there to murder the 'new you'? How many people would you be willing to kill to keep that?"

And so too, does Eriko, "A living hell." He says, as if to sum up the reality, and to make another stab at Yuuki, but his voice turns threatening again in short order, "I think I recognize you- some sort of model, right? Well. Shame- a woman in your position really ought to know not to mouth off to a man."

Umie, tries to appeal to his masculinity, insult it, "Wimp out? Oh darling. You just handed yourself to me on a silver platter. I might not even have to do a thing here Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. Do you know how much time has even passed since you came here? Maybe- you're already gone, and don't even know it yet."

And Grim well, "Hahahaha, are you sure you aren't describing yourself? Just listen to that high and mighty tone of yours. Acting like I should bow to you. Well fuck that sweetie. You aren't justice. And soon you won't be anything at all."

'Gonna follow up on your victory against a dying girl, huh, big man?' Saika asks. "Dying but not dead. Can't you see? We made up." The Homunculus really is getting to that stage where he thinks he's Shinichi for real- evidence that he's nearly won, that Shinichi nearly is gone. "Think I'll give you that smile, right across that dainty neck of yours."

'The villain has arrived~.' Tsumugi sing-songs and the Homunculus seems to respond to the theatricality with a sneering tone to disguise his marked confusion, "Who the hell even are you? Make a wrong turn from a Dickens novel? If you want to bully Oliver Twist- you'll have to head for the next Atelier over."

The way they don't address him though seems to getting under his skin though, fast, "I'm not fucking tied down. I'm free. Free of that bullshit."

Whereas Kazusa makes a declaration, and he chortles, "The fuck are you talking about? Never you- wait. Ahhh now I get it. Doesn't sound like you're ready to take responsibility at all for what you did." He grins, "You kept running from me like a coward, freezing up whenever I came near. Where was all that bravado then? I think- you haven't changed one bit. You're gonna die here- a scared little bitch, and no one will ever find the body."

Roger calls out- and the Homunculus actually seems momentarily confused, "What even are you? You're not one of mine well whatever. Sure piggy. Our first game between siblings is gonna be slaughtering you and seeing what you taste like. Dibs on the rib meat, Sis."

Then Pernelle, in all of his glory addresses the room, and certainly he doesn't know he might be lamenting that he must fight Yanagi. Instead the Homunculus just, listens in silence, "The fuck is up with this guy? Dance? Just because you can talk doesn't mean you can throw down, Peacock."

On the same token, the Homunculus seems just as confused by Coin's presence, as if sensing something similar yet entirely different., "What do you mean 'Kanae'... you little shit? If you're with the hunters- I'll have you know-"

'Hi, Honey,'
"The fuck?" As she throws her hat aside, he doesn't say anything for a few long momenst, the air thick with the surprise, and fury, "Hey Babe. Nice night for a bitch to want to fuck a man over. So what else is new? Women really are the true parasites"

A shape appears right behind Kanae, still swathed in mist. A grey, stained duster with a hood that crests a baseball cap. The very image of a 'man you wouldn't want to encounter in a dark alley'. One hand brushes her hair, which is the first indication she receives that he's right there. A hand presses a rusted kitchen knife at the base of her spine. A sideways glare tells everyone not to move, or Kanae gets it.

"I'm as 'real' a man as it gets- sweetie. Your former flame? He didn't fight for you and you dumped him. Want to say it's because you pleaded with him? Asked him nicely? I know the fucking truth. You don't want a man like that, some preppy coward. You want a man you can submit to- and feel good about it, a man who takes charge so you can take and take and do as little as possible. A man who's willing to fight for what he wants- and feel like it's you."

He leans in to whisper in her ear, "Especially if he's fighting you. If not me, you would have married someone just like me- who knocked you around whenever you got uppity- and made you feel like he still loved you. That's the real truth- but now, you've lost your chance- not just with me- but at life."

<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.

    Persona Users of all stripes, including Hunters, arrive to declare defiance against the Homunculus, deny it its humanity and invite death. Kanae reveals her deception and her defiance; Isabeau remembers something she'd repressed; Yuuki projects her hatred for the Homunculus plaguing her life onto this one; Roger earnestly misunderstands the story and its characters; Coin bottlebrushes her tail and encourages Kanae; Magus speaks plainly and bluntly as she agrees with Yuuki; Grim sneers coldly as she stalks and hides; Yoko calls out to Yanagi as she touches the Wilis before her; Tamaki breaks out into broken laughter as she actually empathizes with the Homunculus; Umie taunts the Homunculus in a bid to draw it out into the open; Kazusa reveals her own experience with the good-girl Homunculus that had tried to consume her; and Eriko provides some valuable context about the Mikage-cho Incident.
    
    (The Phantoms, including Joker, follow Queen's lead here, as she's been appointed leader for this particular mission. There's no telling what might happen when it's all over, and there have been floods of Shadows in other Ateliers, so they've agreed to secure the perimeter so the others can take out the Homunculus.)
    
    Yanagi reacts not at all, even as the mists begin to part enough to reveal her form before her Persona's. She simply... stands there, if with the support of her polished gun-cane, staring into nothing even as those origami Wilis phase out one by one and back in front of her to pass on their information. Even Yoko in her Transmuted regalia isn't acknowledged, despite how excited Yanagi had been the other day for her Awakening; neither is Tamaki, despite her grumbling remark about letting her through 'this time.' At most, the arrival of Coin gets her to slowly tick her head in her direction and stare at her, head tilting to one side, then the other, as if the foxling were a bizarre specimen of butterfly pinned to the wall.
    
    The Homunculus invites its "sister" to pick who in the room she likes the least to die first, for fun. "Fun?" she echoes tonelessly. "Fun... hmm..." Her gaze, so dull despite the brilliant green of her eyes, passes over the room like a divine plague. It lingers briefly on Kanae; on Kazusa; on Kikuno; on...
    
    Her eyes widen a fraction. It's her stand-in Kikuno's presence that she senses, rather than Kikuno's physical self. Before her arrives Pernelle, Saika, and... None of them address her directly, but they know, they know. Pernelle makes his bows as if joining a grand ballroom before taking up the rear; Saika sheds a tear as she kisses her little angel and challenges the Homunculus; and Tsumugi...
    
    Tsumugi addresses the air, and then at last Yanagi herself. Is it arrogance, or ignorance, or both that led Shinichi Nagisa to this conclusion? Even without the Homunculus twisting the Atelier, its form wouldn't have changed that much. The nurses and the patients and the demonic Mikage-cho were all realities well before it infected this place. Yet, for all that her answer genuinely does tear at Yanagi's heart--
    
    "Nope! I never expected any of this at all!" she replies effusively as a fond smile parts her lips. "It seems I've been arrogant too, haven't I?"
    
    She gasps then, free hand raised to her mouth, a lively sparkle lighting up her once-dull eyes. "Oh! Tsumugi! Yes, that would be very fun!" she utters. She points to them and sparkles now at the Homunculus. "Focus on them!"
    
    And not at all on what Kikuno does next.

<Pose Tracker> Kikuno Kisaragi has posed.

    They're not the only ones here, of course.

    An unfolded black lace parasol, ornamented with purple and dark green ribbons, has hovered in the background, neatly shielding its bearer from view. With quiet slow steps, the parasol has begun to move through the room, a hovering dance over the green skirt and robes visible beneath it.

    Still a distance from the cocoon, it comes to a stop, almost as if its bearer were curiously investigating the Homunculus and the cocoon alike -- as well as those now engaging with it.

    'It', to Kikuno's way of thinking, would be the most apt description of the thing wearing Shinichi Nagisa like a suit. Whatever it might say otherwise. However human it might act.

    She would know, of course.

    "So, you're going to kill her, too." The parasol snaps snut all of a sudden, revealing Kikuno in full. Long pointed ears emerge from loose black hair shadowed with brilliant violet, and she peers at him over her glasses, her gaze straying only once for the origami angels.

    "Pathetic," she concludes, joining that remark with one thing more:

    "Beatrice."

    BGM: J.A. Seazer - Missing & Bo-Peep https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwSZkbGaP6M

    It emerges from behind her in a flurry of blue flame and scattered petals, an amalgam of long violet petals, wide lashed eyes and the long elegant arms and hands of a woman. For her, Beatrice is a throne, and she perches atop it like a queen.

    Crossing her legs, with her parasol set in her lap, she snaps the fingers of her right hand. Vines, trailing falling blossoms and petals, rush for the cocoon.

    "Didn't I tell you?" she remarks to the Homunculus.

    "That I'd have the last laugh."

<Pose Tracker> Penguin Slasher has posed.

Yanagi 'marks' Tsumugi for 'death'.

"Them, huh? Honestly they were starting to piss me off too. Think I'llstart with the tongue..."

-=-=-

When Kikuno addresses him, he sees his error right away, neck whipping around towards her, "Don't you fucking touch that you smug fat- BITCH!" As he shoves Kanae away abruptly, trying to cock his arm back for a sudden throw to stop her. He never makes it, his arm going limp mid-swing as Beatrice severs the threads.

Halloween 2 Main Theme - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JflWFBreok

The color drains from his face, literally as the cocoon threads are severed, at the whine of the EKG that rather than flatlining, picks up in pace- and rhythm, with the sounds of life as he staggers backwards. "Guh-ngh-AAAAAAA!" Covering his face with his hands he doubles over in a spasm that wracks his whole form, something flows out from beneath them, an intermingling of crimson and black, like life itself were fleeing his form. "I WON'T LET YOU- WON'T- WON'T TAKE THIS FROM-"

And then he cuts off abruptly, as if the ability to speak were taken from him.

A puddle pools at his feet, disintegrating, as he stands up again, straighter- taller. Three meters at least, only a dribble is left of the fluid that leaked out of him, coming from a pair of black pits that were eye sockets. Now his face looks pale, artificial, as if it were crafted from papier-mache and clay, with a shock of faded orange-red hair that's turning black even as they speak, it moves still, like a barely formed appendage, but little else.

He bears a similar old bloodstained duster as before, but a glance at his hands might cause someone to double take, because there are slits on the back of each one. Slits that flare open, revealing crimson irises with yellow pupils that shed a baleful light as the eyes swivel to look directly at Kikuno.

                       

Then, the monster just isn't there, despite the fact that so many were looking directly at it. Just like in a film when you blink- and it's gone, even if none of them have done that very thing.

Yanagi had pointed out Tsumugi when the Homunculus asked for a target that she hates the most and while he doesn't know this couldn't be the furthest thing from the truth, he appears right in front of them, that rusted kitchen knife still in hand. With a trio of powerful slashes, each one bears a flash of red hot anger- hatred. A silhouetted scene of a brother, yelling at their sister in bed.

                     

This psychic imprint adds the full force of Shinichi Nagisa's first 'kill', his elder sister, to every strike against them. One might get the impression, this Homunculus, can't even communicate without committing violence first.

Discarding the knife, he moves over to Roger, he slashes down. On the tips of each fingers are claws, which try to slash their chest with deep gouges. Then with slow menace moves towards Yuuki, then Misato and finally towards Coin, slashing, and slashing, and slashing with bloody efficiency that goes far beyond his actual reach- before he vanishes again in an instant.

A hand reaches for Umie's shoulder from the mist, before the rest of the creature appears. In a gesture of incredible strength, he simply hauls her up, then attempts to throw them into Badb, who she'll assuredly summon on reflex to defend, an impact that tries to shatter it into shards, before their trajectory takes them into Pernelle with an impact that will almost certainly take them into Saika too.

Is this the old saying about two birds, one Umie?

Then before others can react to his reappearance, he slashes down towards Eriko first, scything past Tamaki as he tries to carve a bloody swath through the pair with his claws. And last of all, Yoko, which he tries to bring down across her back before then disappearing again.

When he reappears again, this time he's bearing a simple meat cleaver. The room goes red in the hues of his anger, each becoming a silhouette as he swings the blade- as spurts of black erupt from the necks of each Personas he hits, first Leshy- then Mielikki- then Mina, then finally Dantes as if he were making this quite personal.

When the red clears, one can see that each font of black was merely shards from their Personas taking a great amount of damage... to the necks, perhaps even some being decapitated outright.

With each attack, he looks at Kikuno, every- single- time. The promise she called attention to is called to mind each time. 'Think I'll kill you last, just because you're such a funny gal.' And she will know that even with his humanity stripped away to that of a base monster- he keeps his promises.

AS: Penguin Slasher has readied for combat as Eshm the Wrath! They are now fully healed! Ready for 16 opponents!
AS: Persona! Penguin Slasher has used the Almighty skill Final Girl on Kikuno Kisaragi!
AS: Weapon! Penguin Slasher has used the Slash skill Original Sin on Tsumugi Kujaku! 3 Hits!
  | Aggression: Penguin Slasher gains 1 Limit!

AS: Weapon! Penguin Slasher has used the Slash skill Nightmare on Joy Street on Roger, Yuuki Hoshizora, Misato
Fushihara, and Coin! 2 Hits!
AS: Weapon! Penguin Slasher has used the Strike skill Him on Umie Akabane, Saika Kikuchi, and Pernelle! 2 Hits!
AS: Weapon! Penguin Slasher has used the Slash skill Nightmare on Joy Street on Eriko Kirishima, Tamaki Uchida, and Yoko
Hirano! 2 Hits!
AS: Weapon! Penguin Slasher has used the Slash skill Its AlleGOREy! on Kanae Fuyuki, Isabeau Fontaine, Kazusa Motojima,
and Katsuko Yoshinaga! 2 Hits!
AS: Persona! Penguin Slasher has used the Almighty skill Empty Wrath on Penguin Slasher!
AS: Take! Penguin Slasher takes 0 Almighty damage from Penguin Slasher's Empty Wrath.
  | Cloak (Non-Area Damage Mitigated!) and Eclipse (Weakness turned to Resist!) added!

AS: Persona! Penguin Slasher has used the Recovery skill Unstoppable on Penguin Slasher!
AS: Take! Penguin Slasher takes 0 Recovery healing from Penguin Slasher's Unstoppable.
  | Reflect_Phys (Phys Counter Improved!) added!

AS: Avoid Worst! Saika Kikuchi takes 150 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's Him. Critical Hit!
AS: Block Best! Saika Kikuchi takes 21 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's Him. Critical Hit!
AS: Block Worst! Kanae Fuyuki takes 70 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Its AlleGOREy!.
AS: Block Best! Kanae Fuyuki takes 18 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Its AlleGOREy!. Critical Hit!
AS: Avoid Best! Umie Akabane takes 0 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's Him. Critical Hit!
AS: Avoid Worst! Umie Akabane takes 94 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's Him.
AS: Avoid Neutral! Misato Fushihara takes 101 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Nightmare on Joy Street.
AS: Avoid Best! Misato Fushihara takes 0 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Nightmare on Joy Street.
AS: Avoid Best! Roger takes 0 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Nightmare on Joy Street.
AS: Block Worst! Tsumugi Kujaku takes 104 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Original Sin. Critical Hit!
AS: Avoid Neutral! Roger takes 104 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Nightmare on Joy Street.
AS: Block Best! Tsumugi Kujaku takes 15 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Original Sin.
AS: Counter Best! Tsumugi Kujaku takes 74 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Original Sin.
  | COUNTER! Penguin Slasher takes 21 Dark damage in return for their attack! Resist!

AS: Avoid Neutral! Eriko Kirishima takes 102 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Nightmare on Joy Street.
AS: Avoid Best! Eriko Kirishima takes 0 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Nightmare on Joy Street. Critical Hit!
AS: Block Worst! Katsuko Yoshinaga takes 73 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Its AlleGOREy!.
AS: Block Worst! Katsuko Yoshinaga takes 73 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Its AlleGOREy!.
AS: Block Worst! Kikuno Kisaragi takes 0 Almighty damage from Penguin Slasher's Final Girl.
  | Crt_Up (Critical Up!) and Spd_Up (Avoid Improved!) added!

AS: Avoid Worst! Yoko Hirano takes 164 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Nightmare on Joy Street.
AS: Avoid Neutral! Yoko Hirano takes 125 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Nightmare on Joy Street. Critical Hit!
AS: Avoid Neutral! Coin takes 121 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Nightmare on Joy Street. Critical Hit!
AS: Block Best! Coin takes 29 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Nightmare on Joy Street. Critical Hit!
AS: Avoid Worst! Yuuki Hoshizora takes 170 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Nightmare on Joy Street.
AS: Avoid Worst! Yuuki Hoshizora takes 170 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Nightmare on Joy Street.
AS: Block Worst! Tamaki Uchida takes 125 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Nightmare on Joy Street.
AS: Block Worst! Tamaki Uchida takes 125 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Nightmare on Joy Street.

<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.

Isabeau demands the story of Mikage-cho--and then--"--!" Kanae doesn't reveal herself immediately, but she takse half a step towards Isabeau as she falls to the ground. And then... she explains. Kanae's eyes widen under her concealment. A monster saved Isabeau...

But when Kanae steps forward, she has no reason any longer to hide hersself--or avoid Isabeau. "Isabeau, I had no idea," she says, in Japanese--and then switches to French.

"`...Just this once`," she says, "`We do this together.`"

She is surprised by Yuuki's vehemence, too--to send this Homunculus to Hell. And Roger thinks to reach out to the real one...

As Coin proves that she keeps her promises. Kanae grins at her, her gunbalde in hand. "Coin!" She calls. "I'm going to--"

The Homunculus is behind her abrubtly, and Kanae stiffens; there's no way for her to turn and parry the cleaver at her back. She has to put her faith in the plan. Nevertheless, the Homunculus will notice the way she swallows, and she feels that lump in her throat.

But her free hand curls into a fist at her side, and she practically holds her breath. What he says...

His attention is drawn long enough. Yanagi points out Tsumugi, and Kikuno strikes. A little smile spreads on Kanae's face. "Asshole," she says. Then she's shoved, hard, hitting the ground. "Gh--" But rolling around, Kanae gets her feet, holding out her saw-toothed gunblade once again. The rust and blood on the blade glint in the low light, as the Homunculus changes.

She calls forth Leshy immediately, the towering tree-woman raising club-like hands towards the Homunculus. "Hang on!" she calls. But--he reeappears. Black gouts of sap erupt from Leshy from the first strike, though the second hack it manages to turn and block. The Persona nearly shatters nevertheless.

"Gh," Kanae says again. "Fuck off!"

"...Instead of fighting for me, he fought against me," Kanae says of Touma. "I tried to keep him safe, and he threw it in my face. You're right. I don't want a coward."

"...Maybe I did want that. someone who could take care of it all for me. ...Even if he pushed me around. Maybe I wanted to be fought for, even though I didn'tw ant him to get hurt."

"...But I'm not done here. And I won't ever submit to a man like that again."

She breathes in, and Leshy disappears.

"Coin is my friend," Kanae explains once she's free, for Isabeau's benefit, and looks to Kazusa, who talks about changing. ...She really is trying. But she continues on Coin, "She's a Hunter, too. She's apparently good at getting around spaces like this."

"Now..."

"VALKYRIE!" Kanae calls, and with a shattering sound like glass breaking, she calls forth another Persona--a masked woman on a horse wielding twin blades. Valkyrie charges behind her, but it's Kanae's weapon that moves first this time. She swings for the great Homunculus, and her weapon's gun fires with a resounding BANG as she swings it, pushing hot lead straight for the monster's body.

"I'll show you you never controlled me!"

AS: Weapon! Kanae Fuyuki has used the Pierce skill Brutal Shell on Penguin Slasher!
  | Aggression: Kanae Fuyuki gains 1 Limit!

AS: Kanae Fuyuki's turn has ended.
AS: Counter Best! Penguin Slasher takes 23 Pierce damage from Kanae Fuyuki's Brutal Shell.
  | COUNTER! Kanae Fuyuki takes 76 Strike damage in return for her attack! 

AS: Avoid Best! Kazusa Motojima takes 0 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Its AlleGOREy!.
AS: Avoid Best! Kazusa Motojima takes 0 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Its AlleGOREy!.

<Pose Tracker> Yuuki Hoshizora has posed.

Yuuki glances sideways at Magus as she speaks up. Harsh, but... she as a point, she thinks. Her jaw sets as she looks back at the Homunculus.

"This isn't--" Yuuki snaps back.

But is it that simple? She feels as if everyone is so distant, for a moment -- even Kazusa, who welcomed her; even the people of Peacock Silk, who said they would help; even Magus, who is... -- and she has to face that face that she has been put through the ringer.

"Shut--shut up!" she shouts, heatedly.

But Yanagi and Kikuno have a plan. Her too-bright green eyes hoot wide, as the Homunculus seems to dissolve -- and the truth of its nature is revealed -- and it comes at her, claws slashing down. She tries to duck backward, but the claws strike into her. Blue blood splashes on the ground and she gets hurled backward, hitting the ground and rolling.

Her breathing is ragged, then.

"D-Damn it..."

She pushes herself to her feet. She focuses, for a second, before she thrusts a hand out. "Galileo!" she yells. Teamwork, fighting with others, it all leaves her mind. She has to turn this around. She has to be able to handle a Homunculus.

Her Persona swirls around her. Clockwork rings, interlocking together, with crystalline orbs in it, move with clicks. And then, she is hurled forward.

Gravity shifts for her. She goes into a wild flight -- rushing away from Magus, and then between Kanae and Coin -- with a wide-eyed, furious shout.

"STRIKE!" she yells, as she thrusts her rapier straight for the midsection of the Homunculus.

AS: Tandem! Yuuki Hoshizora has used the Earth skill Mass Driver on Penguin Slasher! 3 Hits!
AS: Yuuki Hoshizora's turn has ended.
AS: Block Neutral! Penguin Slasher takes 16 Earth damage from Yuuki Hoshizora's Mass Driver.
AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 32 Earth damage from Yuuki Hoshizora's Mass Driver.
AS: Block Best! Penguin Slasher takes 6 Earth damage from Yuuki Hoshizora's Mass Driver.
AS: Block Best! Isabeau Fontaine takes 12 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Its AlleGOREy!.
AS: Block Neutral! Isabeau Fontaine takes 32 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Its AlleGOREy!.

<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.

 
Tsumugi, of course, addresses the real person in this situation. Saika exhales herself, letting the tension shift into something more ready. It's perhaps notable that Saika has actually had yet to fully show her Persona tonight. That is not going to last. The Homunculus mocks Yanagi.

Yanagi takes it straight and gives him an answer. An answer which seems simultaneously completely perfect for the ethereal spirit that Saika has cared for, that Saika in her own way loves, and also, which is - wait, Tsumugi?

(what,) thinks Saika, looking towards the direction of Tsumugi's voice BUT

                it's happening

the moment, the tension. The leaking. The pouring outwards. Something being assembled. growing. His hands are real and so are the eyes. Saika blinks--

-- the Homunculus isn't there--

Something's going towards Tsumugi. "Look out!" Saika cries out on pure spinal reflex, probably not the only one. Saika turns herself to face towards Pernelle just in time for Umie's manifestation to shatter and send jagged fragments towards her. Saika throws up her guarded arm, the chain serving as mail as one fragment breaks apart and another one rips a piece out of her thigh before streaking out through the back of her coat.

The line that flutters: 'Man, you shall repent of the injuries you inflict.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0JaUjpu3Lo

Because for at least a couple of seconds, as the Homunculus turns to regard the new meat (Kikuno is the new meat) (Saika didn't call her that but she definitely thought it) and even *addresses* her, Saika can see exactly where *HE* is.

And after this entire horrid journey, it's a relief. Because *now* Saika knows what to do.

Saika runs forwards, head down. She is not big, but momentum is one of those things that can address the balance. She brings her arm backwards, letting the trail of chain clatter faintly in the increasing chaos of the battlefield, and when she has closed enough to the Homunculus she whips it forwards, aiming for his face and throat!

That'd be pretty good on its own. Slash the guy across the eyes. Nice, moderate. Builds momentum, probably richly earned from that entire conversation right now.

Saika does not waste velocity. After the lash she is still closing the ground, letting the crack-lash draw her right shoulder forwards as she bears down. She makes a ragged alto-profundo roar in the back of her throat as that wedge-point aims to smash directly into the Homunculus's torso. If he was an ordinary boy, Saika - if she was plotting it out rationally rather than running on instinct - would say: this would probably be bad for his clavicle, his solar plexis, and his dermis.

Of course the Homunculus is not a normal boy.

But are any of them? Normal, that is...

<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.

    There's a moment where Roger stops what he's doing to consider Coin's presence. "Um? This is a..."
 
     Kanae helpfully explains. A fellow 'Hunter.' "Oh! Okay. It's fine. I'd never complain about anyone that's here to get rid of a Homunculus!" A bright, happy smile. "Hi! I'm Roger. I can tell you all about Ateliers later!"
 
     ...Back to facing the horror.
 
     His eyes widen at the threat of being eaten, recoiling at the very idea of it. "Ahh! Don't fry and batter me up!!" Still, with all this, he sees Yanagi over there as she's given an invitation by the Homunculus, and matters... play out as they do, with Kikuno's play to tear open the cocoon - that is finally opening, and with that...
 
     "There!! The cocoon is torn open!" Which Roger didn't really have a hand in, but he's narrating for everyone here who may not have a full understanding how this works. "The rightful Atelier owner can take back their place once we show this monster outta here!"
 
     An emboldened Roger snorts as the Homunculus warps and transforms in their desparate bid to keep existing, in the face of something so utterly gut-wrenching and scary.
 
     Roger snorts as the claws come swinging. He nimbly leaps back from the first swipe, only the second to catch him and strike true to both rip into him, and catch into his uniform to have himself lifted up and thrown away so the others in line can be similarly menaced.
 
     Sliced and battered (off-handedly) but not fried, Roger catches himself on the way down as a blue butterfly flits by.
 
     "...That Homunculus has already made a real sty of things for Shinichi-kun... I won't let him beat himself up over any of you either!" He swings for the butterfly with his racquet, flaying it into velvet-y blue energies that coalesce into the form of the resplendently-colorful hog-man that is Kamapua'a.
 
     "Persona...!" Roger calls, a flourish as a healing wave settles upon those most grievously wounded in the flailing Homunculus' opening volley - Yuuki, Katsuko, Yoko, and Tamaki - to quietly dull the hurts and offset the harms.

AS: Persona! Saika Kikuchi has used the Strike skill Saika Body Attack on Penguin Slasher! 2 Hits!
  | Defense: Saika Kikuchi gains 1 Limit!

AS: Saika Kikuchi's turn has ended.
AS: Counter Neutral! Penguin Slasher takes 0 Strike damage from Saika Kikuchi's Saika Body Attack. Resist!
  | COUNTER! Saika Kikuchi takes 45 Strike damage in return for her attack! 

AS: Counter Best! Penguin Slasher takes 0 Strike damage from Saika Kikuchi's Saika Body Attack. Resist!
  | COUNTER! Saika Kikuchi takes 60 Strike damage in return for her attack! 
AS: Kanae Fuyuki spends Limit on Shift! Roger can use another Weak skill this round!
AS: Persona! Roger has used the Recovery skill Healing Wave on Yuuki Hoshizora, Katsuko Yoshinaga, Yoko Hirano, and
Tamaki Uchida!
  | Support: Roger gains 1 Limit!

<Pose Tracker> Misato Fushihara has posed.

Magus has never encountered anything like him before. She hears the low tone to his voice.

"No, I haven't." Magus agrees. "Be honored that you will at last serve a purpose as an opportunity for learning."

She looks toward Yuuki, though, as she hesitates.

"Do not falter!" Magus calls out to her.

A plan is enacted - and the cocoon's threads are severed. The reaction from the Homunculus is immediate and severe - and so is his transformation. He looks less human than before but still just as much a monster, and he lashes out with cruel, intense efficiency. Claws seek her flesh. They dig in to a flash of blue flame - but Magus is gone, too, in the next moment before they can fully carve through her. She leaps back, taking a moment to assess Yuuki's condition before looking back toward the false Shinichi.

And as she rushes away...

"Crush him, Nitocris!" Magus calls, grasping her mask. The spectral form of a regal Egyptian queen appears behind her, and with a gesture of her hands, arrows of water appear around Shinichi. And as Yuuki races in, the arrows descend upon him.

AS: Persona! Misato Fushihara has used the Water skill Aqua Crush on Penguin Slasher!
  | Ruin: Misato Fushihara gains 1 Limit!

AS: Misato Fushihara's turn has ended.

<Pose Tracker> Katsuko Yoshinaga has posed.

"Strong words from a weak man. But you've got it wrong. I don't need you to bow for me - I need you to die."
A person might have elicited some restraint from Grim. Threats of bodily harm or blackmail, perhaps, or thinly-veiled barbs to verbally beat them into submission. But the Homunculus was not a person, and there was no negotiating with it - their only option was to kill the thing dead. And thus, it brooked no restraint. Grim might have smiled at the notion, were it not for the fact that everyone's lives were on the line.

So focussed was she on the Homunculus that even Grim herself hadn't noticed someone slipping through to sever the cocoon's threads. Part of her wanted to kick herself for letting anything escape her notice - if that'd been someone working against them, she would've been on the backfoot before the fight even started. But as luck had it, Kikuno (whoever that woman was) was someone fighting on their side, and Grim was of a mind to take all the allies she could get in that moment. Thanks would have to wait for after the fight, however. They had a job to do.

The glint of a sniper's scope created a pinprick of light in the dark while Grim levelled the barrel down towards the Homunculus. Through its sights, she watched as the thing shifted and turned, dragging itself up and draining itself dry, until a three-metre-tall monstrosity loomed above the gathered warriors. She looked it dead in the eye, fighting the urge to step back and cast her gaze away from the horror, but those few moments of hesitation were all that were needed. With her hesitating to pull the trigger, an opening was left for a cleaver to hack and slash away at Dantes.

There was no time to dart away. Much as she would have liked to slip away into the dark, the Homunculus was upon her Persona before Grim had a chance to blink. It was all she could do to have Dantes raise the blade in anticipation of the blow, but even that did little as steel scraped against steel. The first blow sent both Grim and Dantes reeling backwards, their guards wrenched open in a welter of supernatural sparks, while the second cleaved a bloody line into the Count's neck. That he didn't shatter was more a feat of will than endurance - Grim herself looked as though she was about to fall to a knee before slinking off into the dark.

"You made it. Good. This thing's dangerous - we need all the help we can get with this." She said eventually, seeming to manifest out of nowhere next to Magus. " She hated to admit it, but she hated the idea of dying an ignominious death at the Homunculus' hands even more. "Don't stop until it's dead. This isn't a person, and we can't reason with it." With her piece said, Grim issued Dantes' order to retaliate, and that began with a scathing condemnation. No damage came as the fog-wreathed spirit stretched out his hand to cast the Homunculus down. Instead, blackened energies sapped the strength from it, falling from the air like a judge's gavel.

"Judgement is passed, monster. Tonight, you're going to answer for everything you've done."

AS: Take! Yoko Hirano takes 0 Recovery healing from Roger's Relaxing Wave.
  | Vigor (SP restored on end of turn!) added! 10 SP regained!

AS: Take! Yoko Hirano takes 0 Recovery healing from Roger's Healing Wave.
  | Regen (HP restored on end of turn!) added! 30 healing!

AS: Take! Tamaki Uchida takes 0 Recovery healing from Roger's Healing Wave.
  | Regen (HP restored on end of turn!) added! 30 healing!

AS: Take! Yuuki Hoshizora takes 0 Recovery healing from Roger's Relaxing Wave.
  | Vigor (SP restored on end of turn!) added! 10 SP regained!

AS: Take! Katsuko Yoshinaga takes 0 Recovery healing from Roger's Relaxing Wave.
  | Vigor (SP restored on end of turn!) added! 10 SP regained!

AS: Take! Katsuko Yoshinaga takes 0 Recovery healing from Roger's Healing Wave.
  | Regen (HP restored on end of turn!) added! 30 healing!

AS: Take! Yuuki Hoshizora takes 0 Recovery healing from Roger's Healing Wave.
  | Regen (HP restored on end of turn!) added! 30 healing!

AS: Persona! Katsuko Yoshinaga has used the Almighty skill Judge on Penguin Slasher!
  | Ruin: Katsuko Yoshinaga gains 1 Limit!

AS: Katsuko Yoshinaga's turn has ended.
  | Katsuko Yoshinaga regains 6 SP from Invigorate!

AS: Saika Kikuchi spends Limit on Shift! Kanae Fuyuki can use another Weak skill this round!
AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 51 Water damage from Misato Fushihara's Aqua Crush. Weak!
  | Atk_Dn (Damage down!) added!

AS: Take! Penguin Slasher takes 0 Almighty damage from Katsuko Yoshinaga's Judge.
  | Def_Dn (Block Penalized!) and Spd_Dn (Avoid Penalized!) added!

<Pose Tracker> Coin has posed.

"I told you I'd be here and so I came," Coin replies to Kanae. She'd sweep her hat if she wasn't a little too occupied to do so. "Cognitive spaces... yes, I do. But we can talk later!" That is to Roger, because Coin definitely wants to pick his brain about Ateliers; they're one kind of cognitive space that she knows relatively little about, perhaps because they're harder for her to get into.

She had to follow everyone else into here, after all. It's not like a Foraine or even a Palace, where she can get in by herself...

Coin stares right back at Yanagi, apparently detecting the stare even though she was not, strictly speaking, looking at her originally. She's aware, then, and not just a Shadow or a Humour of some sort - though she certainly isn't a Humour from *this* Atelier.

But it's the Homonculus needling her that gets her to respond.

Coin draws herself up to her full height (not very) and puffs her chest out. "I am not *with* the hunters, I *am* a Hunter," she says, her capital letter practically audible. "I am called - I am Coin, and I'm helping with their hunt - of which you are the quarry! I can *feel* the cognitive distortion, and I cannot let such a thing pass!"

She's never been in an Atelier that's been taken over before. (Actually she's never been in any Atelier before.) She doesn't like the feeling. It's *wrong*.

So perhaps it's her inexperience with this particular kind of cognitive distortion that leaves her surprised when the thing *changes*, blurringly fast - or is it? The Homonculus - Eshm the Wrath - doesn't actually seem to be moving all that quickly. It's just there, and then it's somewhere else. It makes Coin's eyes water.

Her attempt to block with her sword is too slow, and the first stab strikes, but Coin is a slippery target. Coin dives forward, letting the follow-up strike pass overhead - she's small enough that she can, and is, using her lack of size to her advantage, so it nearly catches her coat but she scrambles underneath the second blow.

When Coin rises again, she has a ball in her hand. It's something she can hold in one paw, but not by much, like a baseball maybe. It appears to be glass, or something like it, and it's filled with something grey, slowly churning. She spikes it down at the ground, and vanishes in a cloud of smoke.

The smoke is faintly tinged with yellow and smells sulphurous at first, though the hellfire-ish smell pretty soon shifts to clean, fresh smoke, like a wood fire, pine and oak and apple.

"Come forth!" Coin calls, from inside the cloud... and something comes.

As the smoke clears, Coin is there, fist clenched around the blue-glowing light of a called Persona, and something is rising above her. A dragon; long and narrow and vaguely serpentine, but with the broad wings of a European dragon, a tail with a fan-like frill. It has big hands and big feet, making it look either comedic or vicious depending on how much you pay attention to the claws on them, and its toothy grin *is* a grin.

A monster, hunted for fear and for treasure, who killed those who threatened it but hoped for something new.
A chance meeting became friendship, and a friendship made the dragon the icon of a city, so perhaps the dragon got their wish.
But still: The one thing the dragon was never able to do was stay in the city that bears its image.
Because, after all...
It still wasn't human, no matter how well-mannered a dragon it was.

"Krepel!"

The dragon - the Persona - opens its mouth, and light starts to build up - not near it, but a patch on the ground beneath Eshm the Wrath's feet... and when it brightens enough, it explodes into a pillar of brilliant, shining flame.

AS: Persona! Coin has used the Fire skill Shining Flame on Penguin Slasher!
  | Aggression: Coin gains 1 Limit!

AS: Coin's turn has ended.
  | Coin regains 8 HP from Regenerate!

AS: Avoid Best! Penguin Slasher takes 0 Fire damage from Coin's Shining Flame. Weak!

<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.

Kazusa bristles at the Homunculus' words. She ahs been running scared of him, as much as she hates to admit it. "Your idea of 'responsibility' is to just punsih me and satisfy your own ego! Do you think a 'real man' needs to beat up someone weaker than him just to prove some kind of point?"

"But if you don't think I've changed, that's fine. You're not the one I need to make things up to."

She whirls around when the Homunculus finally apepars, gritting her teeth as she sees that knife. "Kanae-chan--" Crap.

Her heart beats a little faster when Yanagi is invited to pick the person she likes the least--she's not sure if Yanagi is holding a grudge against her or not, for what she did to Yanagi's brother.

... but she's got a plan, right? That was the deal--to let her handle this her way. Kazusa is really hoping the plan is still on.

And she picks Tsumugi--did they plan that? Her entire body is tense as she tries to keep her eye on the threat. But what is Kikuno doing?

There's an audible gasp as something drains from the Homunculus, as it changes, those extra eyes appear. This keeps getting worse--

No. Power through. You have to do this. For Shinichi's sake.

The Homunculus vanishes and then reappears with a meat cleaver, lashing out at the throats of several Personas. When the cleaver lashes out at Mina Harker there is a spray of black--but it doesn't stop there, instead the entire Persona seems to melt into a black mist, dispersing into the air, eddies of current still swirling from the force of the Homunculus' swing.

But Kazusa seems unharmed teeth grit as she tries to track the Homunculus. Mina Harker reforms behind her, as Kazusa stands up straighter herself.

There is a fox, and an introduction. Kazusa blinks as she looks at Coin. "Uh, hi?" Another talking animal? She has so many questions--that are best saved for later. "Kazusa Motojima. if you're with Kanae-chan, then fine."

A blue butterfly floats out in front of her, and her (still-bloody) whip cracks out to smash it and disperse it.

BGM: Face Down (Casette Beasts) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6BDtASMLAI

"The old me hated being closed off from people, but would never admit it--now I'm here trying to support everyone. Mina! Mediarama!"

Mina Harker, who is manifested as a floating woman with an ashen, corrupted left half and a more healthy-looking right hand, lifts her right hand as healing energy rushes out to envelop Yuuki, Saika, Yoko, and Tamaki.

(A moment later she catches sight of what Coin has summoned. "Wait is that a dragon!?")

AS: Persona! Kazusa Motojima has used the Recovery skill Mediarama on Yuuki Hoshizora, Saika Kikuchi, Yoko Hirano, and
Tamaki Uchida!
  | Support: Kazusa Motojima gains 1 Limit!

AS: Kazusa Motojima's turn has ended.
AS: Take! Tamaki Uchida takes 145 Recovery healing from Kazusa Motojima's Mediarama.
AS: Take! Yoko Hirano takes 145 Recovery healing from Kazusa Motojima's Mediarama.

<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.

    "A 'cruel Witch'... perhaps I am. No, it is certainly so... that is what I can be!" Isabeau's hand balls to a fist, beside her, as she brandishes her spear. "You think me worthless? You do not know the worth my father holds me! We are family!" Not that she expects the Homunculus to understand that -- with how it's speaking to Yanagi...

    (She feels disturbed, slightly, when she hears the cheer with which Yanagi responds to these events.)

    Kanae, though, suggests -- just this once -- and Isabeau issues back, her French heated and far less stilted than her Japanese: "`I don't need your help!`" She takes a breath, though... and shakes her head. "`... there's a lot you don't know about me,`" she says, then. "`And you'd better not go around asking. But... I told you I wouldn't let him have his way. So -- fine. Together!`"

    But then... 'things like you'...

    All this time, Isabeau had condemned them all alike. Now, as she hears Yuuki decry the thing wearing Shinichi's face, she feels bile in her throat as she realises she wouldn't be standing here if not for a monster much like him.

    That Roger and Pernelle are here -- with their typical bands of focus -- only seems to underscore the point. In each instance, she hates it -- is it more proper to say him, like he claims he is? -- but how many people has she seen him eat? Whether pig or peacock, what sins have they committed in front of her...?

    What is the thing which shifts such a creature from destruction to salvation? Should she be disturbed, hearing the Homunculus threaten to eat Roger? ... she knows, at least, that Pernelle can throw down.

    Back then... just because she made Pixie laugh... despite the horrors raging around them, by creatures just like her... no, by her, just as much.

    ... Isabeau realises, as she grapples with the dehumanisation she's laid on Roger and Pernelle, that her memories had no such weight placed on Pixie. Pixie does not cross her mind as an 'it', not until she consciously frames the question. Did she feel differently... back then?

    Did something change about Isabeau, between Mikage and now...?

    It's on that backdrop of her realisation that a diminutive fox girl steps into their midst. "You... you are not human!" She gasps, as she brandishes her spear. "What business have you with Kanae?! What do you know of the Foraine?!"

    (She forgets the honourific; sorry, Yasushi.)

    She's suspicious, but grant her this much: Isabeau -- a keen-eyed Hunter, though she was ever Eve's apprentice when she would deliver reports to their old Navigator -- understands immediately and intuitively the difference between Kazusa's wolf-tail and Yoko's cat-feet and the features of the Shadows and creatures she interrogates inside and out.

    "You," she issues, imperious, to Yoko and her mysteries. "You are new. No reports have we of a girl with cat's feet... why have you come?"

    (She will not admit she has things to work on, the way Kazusa does.)

    When Tamaki insisted it wasn't a gas leak, meanwhile, it was just one more brick loosening in the wall before it crumbled. That pain stayed there, trapped in the walls, until --

    "So you were there," she concludes, looking to Tamaki. "And you," she adds, to Eriko.

    Umie, meanwhile, does not address her own survival... but the words she speaks to Shinichi remain true for her as well. Perhaps moreso, that she made a Pact with no Persona to rescue her if she'd failed. "A 'Demon'... yes, I suppose that was the type of monster she was. I had no words for such a thing... back then."

    Back then, in middle school... "I wonder if he knew," Isabeau scowls, looking to Eriko again. "When I was cruel to him... when I asked him whether he thought his people would save him, and told him why they would not. There, on the train station... as I told him he would not be there when someone truly needed help..."

    She tilts her head, as she says, softly, "... did some part of me remember, too?"

    There, though -- the villain, not only Pernelle but Saika and Yanagi and Tsumugi, person of the hour, who is human but speaks as if they were not. Isabeau recalls her anger towards Shinichi, too... and wonders.

    She wonders, too, how powerful Tsumugi is, that Yanagi would urge the Homunculus's anger onto them as a fun little jaunt.

    Kikuno's power, at least, is more a blindside; and she was sure of Coin's place outside humanity, and sure of Yoko's place within it, but this girl confuses all her assessments in an instant. "What -- what strength is this?" She demands, though it is scarce little time she has to worry about Kikuno now she's met her in a Supernatural space, before --

    Without its Eyes, the Homunculus... is worse. It comes for Mielikki and at once shatters her, Isabeau crying out at the violence of it; with black ichor, there is a moment one might be able to glimpse a moment of great violence, before her red glass shatters.

    In that lacuna, she hears it --

    'You're right. I don't want a coward.'

    Kanae explains Coin, yes, and she hears Coin explain herself too... but it's what she says first that echoes louder.

    "Destroy him," she issues, to Kanae. "I will join you. But first --"

    -- she pulls out a ledger, the first copy of all those reports she presents to the Wild Hunt, as she turns to Kikuno. "You," she issues, to her. "That strange feeling... you will explain yourself!" Mielikki flutters into existence again, dusting fairy dust over Kikuno, highlighting strengths and weaknesses, and...

    "... so... you are not so different to the girls with cat feet and wolf tails," Isabeau concludes, as her jealous green eyes narrow. (Her power, particularly concerned with Hunting, is uniquely occupied with whether someone is or is not a monster worthy of the Hunt.) "Though your power is so unsettling... do not concern me this way."

    Is that really what's most important right now--?!

    ... Isabeau never promised she was the kind of girl who fought the boss so easily.

    (That Coin has a Persona is not shocking to her, at least; Mona had one too, when he fought the Wild Hunt, just as Roger and Pernelle do. That she is a Hunter? She will have to address a monster turning around to hunt other monsters later.)

AS: Take! Saika Kikuchi takes 145 Recovery healing from Kazusa Motojima's Mediarama.
AS: Persona! Isabeau Fontaine has used the Almighty skill Brutal Scan on Kikuno Kisaragi!
AS: Isabeau Fontaine's turn has ended.

<Pose Tracker> Eriko Kirishima has posed.

    "...Really though," Eriko says, in a perhaps all too chipper manner, as the Homunculus reiterates the concept of a living hell. "For me, it was one of the most fun times of my life." And there's not a hint of a lie there, the smile coming to her face joyous. "Demons, angels, monsters- all of them real, all of them walking around. You could talk to them, you could fight them, you could outsmart them. And then there were all the wonders outside- the stories of the Agastya tree, the Shrine, the dungeons below the ruins- I'm a little sad I didn't see you and your Pixie, Isabeau, I would have been most impressed. It's shame your schoolmates were such bullies and cowards about it." ...Eriko would probably bear the title of witch with pride.

    The homunculus tells her he recognizes her- and not to mouth off. "Your recognition fills me with disgust," Eriko says, flatly. "Because I recognize you too. You're every mediocre, pointless man who thinks he has worth because his reproductive organs on the outside, but who is useless on his own so blames women for his own pathetic nature. No ambition, no drive- just the feeling they deserve a women handed to her on platter."

    As Yanagi solidifies, Eriko's attention turns to her. Someone who thought her a friend- so why would she be working with the Homunculus...? Is she placating it, or working with it? "...Are you content to let this thing speak for you, Yanagi? If not, this is a far less enjoyable prank than moving the mannequins." Eriko smirks, but she isn't particularly happy about it.

    But perhaps the prank is directed elsewhere- Eriko had not been sure what to make of Kikuno when she joined the investigation. But she knew the girl was another of Shinichi's targets. "...My, my," Eriko says, as her Persona comes, and she slices the threads filling the cocoon. "Rappacini's Daughter retains her poison, I see. Marvelous!" She switches between Japanese and English with ease- but then the EKG sounds speed up and the homunculus drains into something else. Robbed off metamorphosis, it becomes something archetypical in and of itself. And normally, Eriko would be happy to see a horror movie killer made flesh-

    But the Platonic Ideal of a Stalker is more than she was ready for. Her body freezes, and fear grips her. It puts her back there.

    -----

    In that apartment, she shared with a couple of other models. The door is unlocked- even though they made sure it was when they left. No lights are on, but things are disturbed. Stepping into her home and seeing him and Nike being unreachable and-

    -----

    The first slash catches Eriko flatfooted and the claw slashes across her chest, cutting at her jumpsuit, tearing free a button along with the blood, leaving a trail of claws across a breast, the carefully tailored outfit leaving her slightly exposed. The second, however doesn't get close.

    -----

    Even without Nike, she's not powerless. She doesn't have her sword, or her gun- but there is a very heavy lamp right there. She'll have to apologize to her roommate later.

    -----

    With a dart of unnatural speed, Eriko gets free of the Homunculus' claw range and clear of danger. One cut is enough. "What was it you said about 'mouthing off', squatter? It seems you've lost that capability- but let's make sure, shall we? Nike!"

    The Goddess of Victory with wings of steel comes to Eriko's call, and she raises her sword in a salute, just like she used to. "Let's not let it have any more last words, it's talked enough. Righteous Mafui!"

    The roar of Nike's jet engines echoes out, with a touch of divine song carried through. For the target, though, the song sings of ill fate and silence. Not a warning, or a premonition. A command with all the authority shy of the Metatron themselves. It's as though the Chorus itself is all saying one thing: 'Suffer silently, and repent.'

    Isabeau asks her a question directly, and Eriko nods. "I was. For almost all of it. I think... I would owe you an explanation once this is all over. You and the real Shinichi." As for whether Isabeau remembered... "Some part of him- or of you- might have. The masks inside of us carry things our conscience mind might not. There's so much the heart can hide- for our own wellbeing or to harm us."

    Coin, on the other hand, does get a smile. "Oh my- the Bytom Dragon? How wonderful. I see you have found a hunter rather than a farmhand- perhaps a more useful friend in these times."

    Still, she can't get distracted more- she's worried about Tamaki too, given the damage and healing sent her way.

AS: Persona! Eriko Kirishima has used the Almighty skill Righteous Mafui on Penguin Slasher!
  | Pressure: Eriko Kirishima gains 1 Limit!

AS: Eriko Kirishima's turn has ended.
AS: Take! Penguin Slasher takes 0 Almighty damage from Eriko Kirishima's Righteous Mafui.

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    There's a few things Umie only notices once she makes her entrance:

    - Coin is here with Kanae, the friend she mentioned. While under the effects of the Badb's feathers and the paper maiche half-mask made , Coin may not recognize Umie, but that may not matter the moment someone makes it clear who Umie is, by name. It was Mona and Belle mentioning her name (and Umie herself confirming it) that made it possible for Shinichi to pierce that veil himself, after all, and why would anyone suspect a thing? In a Palace, the ruler's equivalent in the physical world is none the wiser for most of it.
    - Wait. Why is Yoko here?! WHY DOES SHE HAVE A - focus, Umie, there's a predator in the room
    - Tsumugi's heels are very fabulous.

    'You tell me who here you like the least, and I'll kill them first.' "So she was the one you mentioned," Umie supposes aloud. "With her abilities..." She considers Yanagi, and quietly murmurs a reply at this supposed 'betrayal': "... was the izakaya I picked *that* bad... ?" It's a quiet acknowledgment, in a way, that things may likely be a lot more complex that Umie can give her credit for. Like Tamaki, there's a part of this, and that guilt the real Shinichi bared over causing his sister's 'death', that Umie can understand. Yanagi even picks Tsumugi, the person Umie would have least expected.

    (..... maybe Tsumugi's just really that difficult to have as a boss.)

    "Your *real* self was traumatized for years," Umie suddenly snaps at the false Shinichi, as he rounds on Isabeau. "For someone who hated his past self so much, you *really* want others to follow his example. And besides, it was her intelligence" -- pun fully intended -- "that helped others to not fall to the same threats."

    Isabeau sees herself in Umie's comments, and Umie nods. "A Demon can be your enemy or your ally, sometimes even both. A Pixie helped you." While it was a pixie (or several of them) that killed(?) Tamaki, in that sordid realm she was trapped in years ago. (Yes, Umie is looking up at Tamaki just then.)

    The homunculus's venom does not lack in targets, nor does it become any less diluted by the time he comes to her. There's a palpable pause, as Shinichi reminds her of how that clock is ticking.
    
    Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
    "Oh *please*," Umie belatedly scoffs with a cackle, waving a hand. "I've been doing this for nearly a *decade*. The ticker's broken. I'm your problem now."

    The appearance of Kikuno (ie, someone Umie does not know) is surprising, but equally welcome, as her interference moves the battle from words and tense standoffs to direct, immediate violence. Umie *could* make a quip here, but watching the 'human' drip out of the thing's body draws a sudden, icy chill from her.

    "He's coming, get read--!" Ah, FakeShinichi wastes no time.

    She nearly manages to escape the homunculus's hand, but her hood is snagged instead. Badb instinctively manifests, but instead becomes a mass of projectiles as Umie's body as flung right into her other self. As Pernelle is attacked with an Umie missile, Saika has to deal with the rest, with the blonde-haired young woman curled up in pain.

    ... And *angry*, as she gets up, readjusting her mask (and quietly apologizing to poor Pernelle, who will likely need to be paid in tater tots, as well as Saika). She'd even straighten, but her body's not quite ready to uncurl itself.

    "... A few days ago, you said you smelled death on me," Umie says, wiping the spit from her mouth. "_Did you ever pause to think it was yours?_"

    It takes a tense moment before Badb reappears at the slightly bent Umie's command, but the shriek that is cast on the field suffers no loss in volume as its omen is laid out on the homunculus.

AS: Persona! Umie Akabane has used the Dark skill Bad Moon Rising  on Penguin Slasher!
  | Umie Akabane takes 45 damage from Stress!
  | Ruin: Umie Akabane gains 1 Limit!

AS: Umie Akabane's turn has ended.
  | Umie Akabane regains 3 SP from Invigorate!

AS: Take! Penguin Slasher takes 0 Dark damage from Umie Akabane's Bad Moon Rising . Resist!
  | Omen (Damage in 2 rounds!) and Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) added!  damage!

<Pose Tracker> Kikuno Kisaragi has posed.

    He hurls insults at her, mocks her weight. For a moment and only a moment as the vines speed for the cocoon, her blue eyes narrow.

    Is it for better, or for worse that as the vines peel the cocoon free from its moorings that Kikuno, perched on her throne, regards Shinichi's Homunculus with a decidedly evil smile? Like the cat that got the cream, perhaps. It's certainly self-satisfied.

    "Too late," she tells him, even as signs of life pulse more strongly into this room. As the Homunculus begins to come undone.

    He's a monster under that veneer, just like she'd told him he was. Her gaze flicks to Kanae, and she thinks back on their previous altercation as the change takes hold in full.

    He's probably awake by now, she thinks, of the boy in the cocoon. He can probably hear everything.

    "Pathetic," she says again. "Taking the life of a boy like that just so you can have your own... you could do better, you know," she tells the monstrosity. "But it's already too late. You're back to being the little monster I knew you could be," she tells him, holding the gaze that burns from the palms of those hands. "Saving me for last just like you promised? You'll regret that." If her heart quickens a beat, if she's overtaken by a bad old memory, then--

    The only one who has to know that is 'her'.

    She glances at Roger. "Familiar with these, are you? I'll keep that in mind. For now, make yourself useful. In a battle like this..." She sighs. "Idiots have a way of keeling over otherwise." He'll be important for keeping people -- such as family -- alive, that is.

    Her gaze turns to Kazusa next. "You, too. I suppose I'll have to count on you to keep these fools alive." She sighs, as if burdened by her duty. "Leave him to me."

    But it's Isabeau who wonders aloud what Kikuno is and that draws her Kikuno's almost startled attention, as if she's been roused from her languid ennui and irritation at the world towards--

    "What are you-- I'm a person," she insists, doused as she is in fairy dust. "Go away. I won't explain myself to you--" she persists. "Don't you dare look at--"

    It's already too late for that.

    But she is human. She's very human.

    "...Hmph. I told you. It's not my fault if you don't listen," she complains aloud. "We're of the same cloth," she says, tossing her head and sending her long hair aflutter. "And it's also not my fault if you're concerned. Go be concerned on your own time."

    She points then at the Homunculus.

    "Now. Beatrice, take a closer look," she orders, and all at once Beatrice's many eyes focus to stare at the Homunculus to stare with an intensity that may well burn.

    "Let's peel back the veil."

AS: Block Worst! Kikuno Kisaragi takes 87 Almighty damage from Isabeau Fontaine's Brutal Scan.
AS: Isabeau Fontaine's Strength Scan! Kikuno Kisaragi resists Earth!
AS: Isabeau Fontaine's Weakness Scan! Kikuno Kisaragi is weak against Elec!
AS: Persona! Kikuno Kisaragi has used the Almighty skill Brutal Scan on Penguin Slasher!
  | Insight: Kikuno Kisaragi gains 1 Limit!

AS: Kikuno Kisaragi's turn has ended.
AS: Take! Penguin Slasher takes 158 Almighty damage from Kikuno Kisaragi's Brutal Scan.
AS: Kikuno Kisaragi's Strength Scan! Penguin Slasher resists Slash, Strike, and Dark!
AS: Kikuno Kisaragi's Weakness Scan! Penguin Slasher is weak against Fire, Water, and Light!

<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.

 
    Ah, there's Yanagi. She looks...

    That's not the Yanagi that encouraged her to Awaken, for the others to not let her die before she could, who congratulated her when she did. Who is breathless with excitement all the time, because she understands how beautiful and overwhelming the world can be. This one looks like...

    A squiggle of discomfort sours Yoko's stomach a bit and she holds her bear a little tighter. Everyone's yelling, and the Homunculus-Shinichi keeps talking but it's better to try to ignore him, probably? Even just looking near him makes Yoko uncomfortable. Like just seeing him will let him under her skin. So she looks around him, and is glad to be able to watch Yanagi seemingly come back to life when Tsumugi arrives and declares herself the villain.

    When Kikuno speaks, Yoko doesn't even recognize her voice. It's that different. And even when her eyes flick towards Beatrice and the figure reclining atop her, it takes Yoko a long, long look before she can resolve what she's seeing.

    "kiku...no...?"

    But it gets worse. It gets even worse! "I was right not to look at it," she mumbles, despite the fact that she's doing that, she's staring right at 'Shinichi' and its horrible curdled-ink-melt and hand eyes and, and! Because it's awful and mesmerizing, and Yoko is slower for it when she feels something coming to Get Her. She yowls in shock and pain, obi-musubi rent and tattered. The bear tumbles out of her arms as Yoko leaps away, ears airplaned so hard they've nearly disappeared into her messy black hair.

    Once Isabeau rounds on her, however! Even her black tail lashes back and forth. No reports of a cat-footed girl! Why is she here? A grumbling, growling figure pushes itself between Yoko and Isabeau, wisps of cottom 'foam' drifting from Bearemy's unstitched maw as he protects his creator. ...He's only a little over a foot tall. But the claws splitting apart the seams at the ends of his fuzzy wuzzy arms are very real.

    Roger's healing waves settle onto Yoko's shoulders. She's scowling at Isabeau, clawed hands balled into fists. "I'm here to save Yanagi-chan. So leave me alone!!"

    "BAKENEKO!" The cat that answers Yoko's call is nondescript, a calico, save for the sheet of cloth that slithers off of its head as it stands up on its hind legs and bares its teeth at Emsh, summoning an inferno.

AS: Persona! Yoko Hirano has used the Fire skill Sea of Flames on Penguin Slasher!
  | Ruin: Yoko Hirano gains 1 Limit!

AS: Yoko Hirano's turn has ended.
AS: Omen (Damage in 2 rounds!) applied to Penguin Slasher!
AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 133 Fire damage from Yoko Hirano's Sea of Flames. Weak!
  | Poison (Damage on end of turn!) added!

<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.

    (Take your pick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGMWL8cOeAU Transistor OST - In Circles - Darren Korb / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMyoI-Za6z8 Transistor OST - _n C_rcl_s - Darren Korb)

    Tamaki nods in Umie's direction, quietly catching onto their dual-sided dynamic, then turns to confirm for the Homunculus, "I was there, yes." She steps forward. "And I did nothing. I didn't even have your excuse. I already had this power to help,"

    She grasps at her necklace to illustrate, and the imposing figure of Arianrhod manifests in front of her while she continues, "and I stayed back to let others deal with the situation."

    She shrugs and shakes her head. "The main difference between you and me is that you went and made yourself a target. No, admittedly, I haven't had to stare down a room full of my peers out for my blood with my back against the wall to them."

    Tamaki lowers her head and gives Shinichi's Homunculus a sidelong glance. "I stopped sticking my neck out for others and let them suffer in my stead. That, unfortunately, included you." Quietly, she flicks her eyes in Isabeau's direction.

    "I see this 'new you' as my responsibility to fix." With that declaration, she begins to lunge towards the Homunculus to pierce it through, but it's then that Eriko admonishes Tamaki for trying to go it alone again, for having fallen prey to the very same follies highlighted by Tsumugi's monologue. Now acutely aware of her arrogance, she hesitates and loses her resolve to attack, turning around to start to protest --

    -- only to turn around in horror as the writhing form of Eshm bursts out from the Humonculus, only barely escaping certain doom from his scythe by hiding behind Arianrhod, who only barely manages to parry the scythe away from a more certainly-lethal blow.

    As she scrambles back to her feet, her mind spirals with panic at the thought that she's too in over her head, that she can't fix this, but Roger and Kazusa both lend their aid. "Th ... thank you both." She looks at Eriko and nods. "You're right. Let's blaze that trail together."

    Tamaki grabs her necklace once more, and Arianrhod strikes her blade into the earth, causing an incandescent pillar of light to erupt from underneath Eshm.

AS: Persona! Tamaki Uchida has used the Light skill Sealing Hama on Penguin Slasher!
  | Ruin: Tamaki Uchida gains 1 Limit!

AS: Tamaki Uchida's turn has ended.
AS: Avoid Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 187 Light damage from Tamaki Uchida's Sealing Hama. Weak!
  | Exhaust (Damage when using Weapon/Tandem!) added!

<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.

The Homunculus speaks to them. Tsumugi Kujaku does not answer. Their gaze doesn't even so much as flick in the creature's direction.

As if their taunts, and their growing defensiveness, are completely immaterial and only serve to create the context of their true interest:

Is it everything you expected, Sa-ya?

Nope! I never expected any of this at all!

Tsumugi Kujaku's gaze fixes forward on some distant point.

It seems I've been arrogant too, haven't I?

"Yes."

That blunt answer comes without hesitation, without bothering to soften it with platitudes. Their gaze remains affixed elsewhere, so far away.

"You are."

So often they do this. Like the concerns of the moment simply don't reach them. Like they never could.

"You..."

It makes the moments when they do decide to turn their attention back to the world all the more sharper for its contrast. When that cold burn of scarlet and gold fixes on something in the now.

        "... are one of the most self-interested people I've ever met. Sa-ya~."

Like right now.

It's a statement - especially with Tsumugi's dispassion, and the cold intensity of that stare fixing straight on Yanagi - that could easily be construed as spiteful by anyone who doesn't know Tsumugi. Doesn't know Yanagi. Doesn't know them.

Because to something that only parrots at being human, how could such a statement ever be seen as purest praise?

It's tinder to the fire of the Homunculus' angry attention, to perfectly - coincidentally? - tee up for that one moment where Yanagi urges it to focus on Tsumugi, to think only of killing Tsumugi for her, that indifferent, infuriating Tsumugi just standing there with half-lidded indifference even as Yanagi requests their likely heinous and brutal murder, like nothing in the world could touch them, least of all the Homunculus. To make it focus all of itself on THEM--

--just in time for Kikuno to make her move.

Didn't I tell you?

A rush of vines surge for the Cocoon. Tsumugi's stare fixes blandly forward.

That I'd have the last laugh.

"Ara."

The wiring threading into the Cocoon snap like so many snipped cords, whipping away from the cage - the chrysalis? - that made the Homunculus' dominance possible. Tsumugi's left hand falls to their side.

"I guess this is as far as you can manage."

Something sharp glints between their fingers.

"What a shame."

I WON'T LET YOU- WON'T- WON'T TAKE THIS FROM-

The Homunculus stops. It changes. Where once was a crude facsimile of the guilty boy known as Shinichi Nagisa, now stands the monster that was sent by the world to punish him.

Tsumugi's fingers splay.

And then it's gone.

Look out! cries Saika. Too late.

It's already there.

Tsumugi is moving as if on pure instinct the second the Homunculus disappears. But even that, too, is too late. The butcher's blade is brandished, and with its sadistic slice it carves carnage in a brutal tear across the cognitive clothes of Peacock Silk's tailor. It's painful - agonizing, the way that knife slashes an angry path up their torso with a red sear of fury. Rose petals burst outward from Tsumugi's shoulder as the first stroke completes, raining down between them in little shards of black and white.

The few droplets of scarlet splattering the ground beneath them prove that you can draw blood from this particular stone.

It hurts. Carves through flesh and blood and bone and soul. But it isn't what grabs Tsumugi.

                   A silhouetted scene of a brother, yelling at their sister in bed--

Scarlet-gold eyes snap wide.

The second slash comes. Tsumugi's arm is still swinging. Hints of something thin and metallic glint against the fog-crusted light of the room before they snag against that knife, dulling its momentum considerably to make that second swipe much more shallow as it slices at their hip.

Wires. With the full rotation of Tsumugi's arm, they yank that knife about like a puppet and slicing strings.

But not to avoid them. Oh no.

They pull that blade -towards- them.

The momentum is lessened. It dulls the pain a little as the blade tip bites in.

As stolen memories used as fuel fill their thoughts with the hideousness of a terrible mistake

    Isn't it funny, how something can be so intense, yet so dispassionate?

It is exactly the wide-eyed STARE that affixes on Eshm the Wrath as Tsumugi's right arm snaps out wide, wires attached to their glove swinging out a knife from within their sleeve that they grasp --

and then STAB with bulging-eyed intensity straight for the Homunculus.

Ultimately, it does very little. Even Tsumugi can feel how the shadow-tinged edge of their blade struggles against flesh that naturally resists it.

But sometimes, it's the gesture that matters most.

Like how that blade instantly swung for the eye on the back of the Homunculus' hand.

Blue light swells. A butterfly births and unbirths in a rapid unraveling of sapphire light.

"... Jekyll."

And a shadow casts overhead as a MASSIVE case of wood and glass comes crashing down above Shinichi Nagisa's parasite.

It's a feint, ultimately; this thing is fast, and disappears and reappears with all the horrifying implacability of an unstoppable slasher. The goal isn't to hit it. It's just to get it to move and in a certain direction, distract it from disappearing--

just in time for Saika to come roaring for it with all her beautiful fury.

No. Jekyll's attach comes after, as the sightless automaton within that case twists in an empty motion, lifts its cane... and slams it DOWN with a lifeless, mechanical whirr.

A second later, flashes of brilliant, blinding light bloom one after the other for Eshm, each one bursting with searing radiance one after the other.

Tsumugi stands back. Their hand is on their injury, pressing down tightly until scarlet oozes between their fingers. They feel the twinge of pain. They don't feel the memory anymore.

Hand removing itself, they stare at their bloody palm for a few, quiet seconds.

"..."

And then that gaze, calm once more, fixes on--

"Oh."

Coin?

Their head cants. "Another one? Interesting."

And then that gloved hand lifts to wiggle its bloodied fingers at the strange fox, one after another.

"Hi~" they say.

In cheerful(?) deadpan.

--

It's really not any weirder than ANYTHING ELSE going on right now, is it?

AS: Persona! Tsumugi Kujaku has used the Light skill Multi-Kouha on Penguin Slasher! 3 Hits!
  | Ruin: Tsumugi Kujaku gains 1 Limit!

AS: Tsumugi Kujaku's turn has ended.
AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 31 Light damage from Tsumugi Kujaku's Multi-Kouha. Weak!
AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 65 Light damage from Tsumugi Kujaku's Multi-Kouha. Critical Hit! Weak!
AS: Avoid Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 63 Light damage from Tsumugi Kujaku's Multi-Kouha. Weak!
AS: Regen (HP restored on end of turn!) applied to Yuuki Hoshizora!
AS: Regen (HP restored on end of turn!) applied to Katsuko Yoshinaga!
AS: Regen (HP restored on end of turn!) applied to Yoko Hirano!
AS: Regen (HP restored on end of turn!) applied to Tamaki Uchida!
AS: Vigor (SP restored on end of turn!) applied to Yuuki Hoshizora!
AS: Vigor (SP restored on end of turn!) applied to Katsuko Yoshinaga!
AS: Vigor (SP restored on end of turn!) applied to Yoko Hirano!
AS: Vigor (SP restored on end of turn!) applied to Tamaki Uchida!
AS: Atk_Dn (Damage down!) applied to Penguin Slasher!
AS: Def_Dn (Block Penalized!) applied to Penguin Slasher!
AS:  applied to Penguin Slasher!
AS: Omen (Damage in 2 rounds!) applied to Penguin Slasher!
AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) applied to Penguin Slasher!
AS: Def_Dn (Block Penalized!) applied to Penguin Slasher!
AS: Spd_Dn (Avoid Penalized!) applied to Penguin Slasher!
AS: Atk_Dn (Damage down!) applied to Penguin Slasher!
AS: Exhaust (Damage when using Weapon/Tandem!) applied to Penguin Slasher!
AS: Persona! Yanagi Nagisa has used the Almighty skill Full Analysis on Kanae Fuyuki!
  | Insight: Yanagi Nagisa gains 1 Limit!

AS: Yanagi Nagisa's turn has ended.
  | Yanagi Nagisa regains 10 SP from Invigorate!

AS: Persona! Yanagi Nagisa has used the Almighty skill Full Analysis on Coin!
  | Insight: Yanagi Nagisa gains 1 Limit!

AS: Yanagi Nagisa's turn has ended.
  | Yanagi Nagisa regains 10 SP from Invigorate!

AS: Persona! Yanagi Nagisa has used the Almighty skill Full Analysis on Yoko Hirano!
  | Insight: Yanagi Nagisa gains 1 Limit!

AS: Yanagi Nagisa's turn has ended.
  | Yanagi Nagisa regains 10 SP from Invigorate!

AS: Block Worst! Kanae Fuyuki takes 0 Almighty damage from Yanagi Nagisa's Full Analysis.
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Strength Scan! Kanae Fuyuki resists Slash!
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Weakness Scan! Kanae Fuyuki is weak against Dark!
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Support Scan! Kanae Fuyuki has passive skills Block Physical, Heavy Weapon, Peerless Skill, Pierce
Boost, and Slash Amp!
AS: Take! Coin takes 0 Almighty damage from Yanagi Nagisa's Full Analysis.
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Strength Scan! Coin resists Fire!
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Weakness Scan! Coin is weak against Water!
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Support Scan! Coin has passive skills Avoid Magical, Explode Shield, Fire Amp, Peerless Skill,
Regenerate 1, Team Player, and Third Eye!
AS: Take! Yoko Hirano takes 0 Almighty damage from Yanagi Nagisa's Full Analysis.
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Strength Scan! Yoko Hirano resists Fire!
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Weakness Scan! Yoko Hirano is weak against Earth!
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Support Scan! Yoko Hirano has passive skills Block Slash, Explode Shield, Fire Amp, Heavy Weapon,
Null Poison, Slash Boost, and Third Eye!

<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.

    Yanagi doesn't remark on Tsumugi's tongue. If she did, she might say something about how she'd go for that first too.
    
    That's something pretending to be her brother, though. Gross!
    
    Instead... no, instead her focus where Tsumugi is concerned is that moment where golden-scarlet eyes lock onto peacock green. In that moment, it's as though stagelights shine down upon the two of them, and all else falls back into darkness. Yanagi's gaze is wide and trembling as all cheer drops away from her.
    
    "Really...? I'm one of...?"
    
    She bows her head; her bangs cast her lovely face in shadow. Truly, is Tsumugi wrong? Yanagi left Peacock Silk, barely explaining what she was planning; it's no wonder that even Saika is surprised by what she's doing now. "Then..."
    
    And she sparkles with another smile. "Then I'll have to work even harder to be the most self-interested! <3 When I die, I don't want to leave behind such a half-baked memory for you, Tsumugi!" She pauses; then she giggles. "...Just kidding~"
    
    About what, she doesn't specify. Because it's time to observe.
    
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4ojG_Evkqc (I Want to Watch It Happen (The Nightmare III) - Brandon Boone)
    
    Kikuno calls up her Persona, Beatrice, and seats herself upon the throne of thorns with an imperious air as she snaps vines to rend the Cocoon asunder. Yanagi watches this, and though her expression is once more impassive, there is now interest gleaming in her gaze. Behind Yanagi, Giselle continues to pirouette in place, sending forth and calling back the origami Wilis spirits to gather information for her other self.
    
    Eriko asks her if she's content to let the Homunculus speak for her. Yanagi stares at her for a moment with soulless eyes. Then she tilts her head to one side as she smiles so brightly it squeezes those eyes shut. "Yup!" she chirps.
    
    Was that izakaya really that bad, Umie? Does she have a grudge against Tsumugi after all? Still she offers no answers.
    
    "Hmmm... You're really angry about that one in particular, aren't you?" she comments to the Homunculus of Kanae. "Isn't it awful when you thought you knew someone and you learn you never did at all?"
    
    She reaches out her free hand. "Giselle," she half-calls, half-chants.
    
    The Wilis hovering near Kanae crumples into non-existence, then unfolds before Yanagi to display a brief animation. "So you, too, can change Personas. I wonder how many of you there are?" she remarks as she absorbs it. "This one she's wielding now is strong against slashing attacks, but weak to darkness. She's also skilled with slashing attacks--not that that'll help her much against you."
    
    Then, if Coin is here to support her... She's quite an interesting creature, isn't she? Yanagi wants to know about her too. The Wilis sweeps around the little foxling, then likewise crumples and uncrumples before Yanagi. "Speaking of how many there might be... this one is new! It's always so exciting, experiencing new things. She's strong against fire, but weak to water!"
    
    Yoko declares that she's here to save her. "Oh! Yoko, that's so sweet!" Yanagi gasps. She smiles and tilts her head as her Persona scans the calico. "I don't need saving. But you might! You should fall in with allies quickly!" And, as if to prompt her to, the Wilis that Yoko had touched earlier spirits itself away to transmit-- "Ah, this one's strong against fire too! But instead of water, she's weak to earth! Both of them are strong with fire magic. That might be troublesome to you, 'Shinichi'!"
    
    What is her plan here? Why was she so dead-eyed before and back to her 'normal' now? Why is she helping the Homunculus?
    
    Yanagi continues to offer answers to none of these things. Instead, she watches the exchange between Isabeau and Kikuno with keen interest, as one scans the other and the other scans the Homunculus.
    
    They're all the same manner of monster, aren't they?

<Pose Tracker> Penguin Slasher has posed.

The Beast - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KKkdIODSok

Tsumugi, in all of their glorious strangeness, has spoken many words that this creature cannot understand as anything but insults. After all, he does not expect that another human would share his point of view about self-interest- only Yanagi has, thus far.

They pull the blade towards themselves, as the Homunculus tilts that useless appendage, his head towards them, like he does not understand.

        ((why))
((welcome my wrath))
            ((who?))

But when the swing comes, instinctually, it protects its true eyes, blade moving to deflect the blow as much as it can. Jekyll's next spell may be a feint, but it's one that proves quite effective. The Homunculus interprets the action now as merely trying to get at its eyes and the contact is broken.

Light descends, flashes blooming upon its form, forcing the get of the dark back into the shadow. It's only as they cheerfully wiggle bloodied fingers that he returns back behind them, wielding a simple claw hammer.

It rises. It falls. It rises and falls again with brutal simplicity. An act that almost seems like black humor, with its timing.

Kanae will never submit to him, she says as she summons Valkyrie. The weapon pushes hot lead into his body- and he staggers back, a half step. Before lashing out with a vicious backhand across her cheek to send her sprawling.

    ((i still am))

Perhaps its only with raw physicality alone, but that is the monster's place of dominance, if he can't make her submit emotionally, then he will break her. Yuuki's rapier enters his gut at that moment, and he says nothing. He simply tilts his odd head appendage without true eyes as if it were regarding a little kid in the midst of an emotional moment.

Then he tugs out the rapier from his gut as if it were a insignificant needle. Shoving her back. When she looks again, he's gone, as she then feels the warning sensation of something behind her, as he swings an axe right at her back.

Which is the moment Saika's chain wraps around his throat. The creature reaches up, pawing at the chain, before seizing hold. And then as Saika moves to slam into the back of his torso, she finds that chain yanked to pull her- faster?

The impact is like striking a brick wall, as he yanks her up and over at that exact moment, to slam her against the ground, crimson flower petals fluttering in the air.

((big man))
    ((little girl))

As he looms over her, she can feel her spirit to fight him, draining right out of her, like an unsettling aura of terrible fear. Nitocris sends arrows of water at him, and the beast staggers under the power of that water pressure. And yet, it makes no sound at all.

A curse, as Umie postulates that the death he sensed might be his own. The curse falls upon him, and he reaches up a finger, to draw it across his fake throat.

Judgment passes, with Dante utilizing a certain spell, to sap energy out of him, like a gavel. And for a time it looks like it's working. Far too well in fact.

And then the spell sloughs off of him, the darkened energy pouring on the ground, the darkened pits of his eyes merely staring at her, before he then vanishes again.

He steps out of the mist moments later, behind Grim. In his hand, a Sledgehammer he wields only one handed. Then, in silence, he winds up- and aims a blow at the back of their spine. A shockwave of force erupting through them and into the room, that hurtles towards Roger and Umie.

    ((tell me again whose death i sensed))

A Dragon Persona appears, and Eshm stares at it- even as the flames come. But as they erupt from his feet, he's takes a slow step back- and vanishes. And not only is he gone, gone for several long moments.

Is he afraid of the flame, to have fled so? It's hard to tell, given his silence, but Coin might swear that he must be. After all, he shook off most other attacks, but that, he avoided.

Bakeneko erupts at that moment, as if to confirm what Coin might already suspect, in the flames, his arms arch back and silently, its like he screams, arms waving to try and get it off of him, as he steps out of the fire, burnt- right into Tamaki's pillar of light.

When he reappears from that flash of light, he's taken a knee. But then, he rises again as Eriko uses the magic of Nike to silence him. And the eyes on the back of his hands suddenly move independently of the body to look right at her.

And then they flare with a terrible light, as pentagrams appear at her feet.

    ((out))
        ((from my home))

Is this what it feels to be exorcised? Darkness falls, as he tries to force Eriko to leave his house... but not vertically. No he wants her to be quite horizontal when she does. Perhaps, even in his monstrous state, he still takes issue with her calling him a squatter in this place.

In this place he's taken over. More pentagrams appear, summoned by the eyes, as another one tries to remove Tamaki and the Magus in turn... then last of all, Coin, like he wants the dragon as far away from him as possible.
 
((can't fix))
    ((isn't broken))
 
Is that him taunting Tamaki??? Strange. Perhaps it realtes to Shinichi's interests...

Isabeau tries to take a peak at Kikuno. Eshm at least knows there is something strange back there, something he fears. But he's not about to communicate that, in turn- Beatrice reveals much about him.

His immense strength- but also what he fears.

He vanishes again, then there's the sound of a rope start sputtering as it's pulled in the mist. Then it tugs again, as it purrs to life in an ominous hum. Stepping out of the mist, he bears a chainsaw in his hands, whirring as he holds it so steady they can't even see it vibrate. Lifting it up with both hands, he slashes down. And the room is suddenly full of a motorized massacre of serrated cuts as he appears here, and there, and over there. It's not just that the killer is in the room.

The killer is everywhere.

Dropping the chainsaw, he then moves quite deliberately towards Kanae and begins slashing with a knife, mercilessly, aiming one even to try and move across her throat.

    ((scour you))
((from this world))
 
Yanagi is quite correct, he seems to have a particular grudge against this betrayal- of learning who she truly was. Just another parasite. Her insight drives his blade with greater efficiency towards her vitals.

AS: Persona! Penguin Slasher has used the Recovery skill Infatigable on Penguin Slasher!
  | Penguin Slasher takes 90 damage from Panic!

AS: Take! Penguin Slasher takes 0 Recovery healing from Penguin Slasher's Infatigable.
  | Atk_Dn, Def_Dn, and Spd_Dn removed!

AS: Weapon! Penguin Slasher has used the Strike skill Behind You on Yuuki Hoshizora!
  | Penguin Slasher takes 90 damage from Exhaust!

AS: Persona! Penguin Slasher has used the Slash skill Mikage-Cho Chainsaw Massacre on Kikuno Kisaragi, Kazusa Motojima,
Isabeau Fontaine, and Yoko Hirano! 2 Hits!
AS: Persona! Penguin Slasher has used the Almighty skill Parasite Eve on Saika Kikuchi!
AS: Weapon! Penguin Slasher has used the Strike skill World War H on Katsuko Yoshinaga, Roger, and Umie Akabane!
AS: Persona! Penguin Slasher has used the Dark skill The Exorcism of Shinichi Nagisa on Eriko Kirishima, Tamaki Uchida,
Misato Fushihara, and Coin!
AS: Weapon! Penguin Slasher has used the Slash skill Butcher on Kanae Fuyuki! 3 Hits!
AS: Weapon! Penguin Slasher has used the Strike skill Black Christmas-sacre on Tsumugi Kujaku! 2 Hits!
AS: Penguin Slasher's turn has ended.
  | Penguin Slasher: Exhaust, Omen, and Panic removed! Omen: 150 damage!

AS: Avoid Best! Kanae Fuyuki takes 0 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Butcher. Critical Hit! Resist!
AS: Avoid Best! Kanae Fuyuki takes 0 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Butcher. Critical Hit! Resist!
AS: Avoid Worst! Kanae Fuyuki takes 66 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Butcher. Critical Hit! Resist!
AS: Avoid Best! Coin takes 0 Dark damage from Penguin Slasher's The Exorcism of Shinichi Nagisa.
AS: Avoid Best! Saika Kikuchi takes -0 Almighty damage from Penguin Slasher's Parasite Eve.
  | Def_Dn (Block Penalized!) and Spd_Dn (Avoid Penalized!) added!

AS: Avoid Best! Misato Fushihara takes 0 Dark damage from Penguin Slasher's The Exorcism of Shinichi Nagisa.
AS: Kazusa Motojima spends Limit on Brace! 
AS: Avoid Worst! Kazusa Motojima takes 150 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Mikage-Cho Chainsaw Massacre.
AS: Avoid Neutral! Kazusa Motojima takes 103 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Mikage-Cho Chainsaw Massacre. Critical
Hit!
AS: Avoid Best! Katsuko Yoshinaga takes 0 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's World War H.
AS: Block Best! Kikuno Kisaragi takes 32 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Mikage-Cho Chainsaw Massacre. Critical Hit!
AS: Avoid Best! Tsumugi Kujaku takes 0 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's Black Christmas-sacre.
AS: Block Best! Kikuno Kisaragi takes 32 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Mikage-Cho Chainsaw Massacre. Critical Hit!
AS: Block Worst! Tsumugi Kujaku takes 104 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's Black Christmas-sacre. Critical Hit!
AS: Avoid Neutral! Eriko Kirishima takes 97 Dark damage from Penguin Slasher's The Exorcism of Shinichi Nagisa. Weak!
Avoid Dark!
AS: Persona! Penguin Slasher has used the Slash skill Mikage-Cho Chainsaw Massacre on Pernelle! 2 Hits!
  | Aggression: Penguin Slasher gains 1 Limit!

AS: Penguin Slasher's turn has ended.
AS: Block Best! Yoko Hirano takes 0 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Mikage-Cho Chainsaw Massacre. Critical Hit!
Block Slash!
AS: Block Best! Yoko Hirano takes 0 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Mikage-Cho Chainsaw Massacre. Critical Hit!
Block Slash!
AS: Take! Yuuki Hoshizora takes 145 Recovery healing from Kazusa Motojima's Mediarama.
AS: Avoid Best! Yuuki Hoshizora takes 0 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's Behind You. Critical Hit!
AS: Avoid Best! Tamaki Uchida takes 0 Dark damage from Penguin Slasher's The Exorcism of Shinichi Nagisa. Critical Hit!
AS: Avoid Worst! Umie Akabane takes 190 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's World War H.
AS: Avoid Worst! Pernelle takes 119 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's Him. Critical Hit!
AS: Avoid Worst! Pernelle takes 97 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's Him.
AS: Block Best! Pernelle takes 30 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Mikage-Cho Chainsaw Massacre.
AS: Block Best! Pernelle takes 33 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Mikage-Cho Chainsaw Massacre. Critical Hit!
AS: Block Worst! Isabeau Fontaine takes 164 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Mikage-Cho Chainsaw Massacre. Critical
Hit!
AS: Block Worst! Isabeau Fontaine takes 164 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Mikage-Cho Chainsaw Massacre. Critical
Hit!
AS: Avoid Best! Roger takes 0 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's World War H. Critical Hit!

<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.

Roger is helpful as always--but Kanae calls out to him, "Right! Homunculi are your area--we're counting on you!"

Yuuki going wild concerns her--but there's not a lot she can do about it in the moment.

But Family, Isabeau says. Kanae purses her lips but says nothing about it. Instead, she listens to her French. "`No promises,`" Kanae says. "`...Except that we'll take him down. That I'll promise with you.`"

'Destroy him'. Kanae says, "Workin' on it--"

She's backhanded. 'I still am', he says, and drives her back to the ground despite her bravado. "Ugh--"

Kikuno calls him pathetic. Maybe he will regret it. And Kanae? Kanae is curious about Yanagi. The most self-interested? And her friends are fine with fighting against her...?

Either way, Kanae must continue. "So, that's what his nature is..." She looks to Kikuno. The veil is peeled back...

"Thanks," Kanae says. And she considers, too--Tamaki and Eriko, who were 'there'. "You were at that place...?"

Kanae drags herself to her feet. And then, he strikes again. Valkyrie's power shields her; the first slash she evades completely, the second she parries with her gunblade--but the third, the one that could cut her throat, only tears a gash at her clavicle, failing to kill thanks to her Persona's fused abilities.

"You--"

Scour her. "You never knew me," Kanae insists. "I was playing you!"

She stumbles back, despite her bold words, because nearly being decapitated is still terrifying, and blood still runs down her front. "...You know," she says. "I learned a few things in your--no, in his Atelier."

"He gave me a new Persona.. I hope you like it. He's the judge of the dead."

"And you'll be meeting him for real, soon. Is your heart lighter than a feather...?"

"Come forth!" Kanae calls, and lifts up her gold vial. it shatters with the glass of her Persona changing, showering her with glittering dust.

"ANUBIS!"

"Judge him." She points her gunblade forward.

The black jackal-headed god, holding the scales, rises before Kanae. Presenting those scales, he attacks--

Prayer stripes burst into being at Eshm's feet. They rise, circling, gleaming, glowing with brilliant light, before a blinding flash--

To exorcise.

AS: Persona! Kanae Fuyuki has used the Light skill Hama on Penguin Slasher!
AS: Kanae Fuyuki's turn has ended.
AS: Avoid Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 227 Light damage from Kanae Fuyuki's Hama. Weak!

<Pose Tracker> Yuuki Hoshizora has posed.

It dawns on Yuuki a little belatedly that Magus is backing her up. She sees the water arrows rain down and sucks in a breath. Right, she has back up, and--

And she can't falter. Not here!

But when her rapier slides into his midsection and doesn't get a response, she freezes up for a moment. He shoves her back. Her feet stumble, but she doesn't fall. "What--what the--"

He just vanished.

Roger's racquet sends forth a wave of light across her. Yuuki breathes it in -- then glances back at him and nods. "Th--thank you, Roger-san!" she cries out, before she turns to look at Kazusa. She gives her a quick nod.

And then the Homunculus reappears behind her. But in the window, she sees the killer's reflection; she sees the axe coming down. Yuuki spins, eyes wide, and then gravity shifts for her. She falls -- towards the wall of the room, which becomes the floor. She stands on it, perpendicular to the rest of the room.

She sees the pentagram light up under Magus's feet. "Magus!" she calls. "Look out!"

Yuuki starts running up the length of the wall, towards the ceiling. It has the strange effect of running by Tsumugi -- while at a 90-degree angle to them. "Coming through!"

And then she throws a hand out.

Gravity forms up around the Homunculus, four little orbs of black -- and just after that flash of light erupts at Kanae's command, they expand and contract. Gravitational force threatens to yank the Homunculus back and forth, but into Anubis's exorcising light.

While also bending and multiplying that light, as the concentrated gravitatioal force causes the light to bend as if seen through a lens.

AS: Persona! Yuuki Hoshizora has used the Earth skill Precise Magryva on Penguin Slasher!
  | Pressure: Yuuki Hoshizora gains 1 Limit!

AS: Yuuki Hoshizora's turn has ended.
  | Yuuki Hoshizora: Gains 73 HP from Regen! Gains 10 SP from Vigor! Regen and Vigor removed!

AS: Avoid Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 232 Earth damage from Yuuki Hoshizora's Precise Magryva. Critical Hit!
AS: Yanagi Nagisa spends Limit on Shift! Saika Kikuchi can use another Weak skill this round! Hyper (Next Attack
Boosted/Incoming Damage Down!) applied to Saika Kikuchi! They both receive 8 SP and 30 HP!

<Pose Tracker> Misato Fushihara has posed.

"Indeed, I have come. And you as well." Magus confirms to Grim with a nod. "There is no need to fear. I shall offer him no quarter - for I can already see he intends to give none."

Her provoking him certainly didn't help with that, but things were already set into motion far before her arrival. This anger can't just be for her alone - no, she can tell there are those here for whom it is far more personal.

Eshm's eyes blaze terribly. Pentagrams appear under Magus's feet, and those of others. Yuuki shouts a warning. Magus feels it, that rejection - he's trying to expel her, remove her from this place. The panic tries to grip her. She takes a deep breath. She forces herself to focus. Fixate on the now - and leaps back, before the seal can fully eject her.

"I refuse." Magus forces out. She stumbles slightly when she lands, but she nods her thanks to Yuuki. It might have made the difference.

"I've already been invited in, you see. It's too late to retract it." She says. "Nitocris. Box him in."

As Yuuki draws the Homunculus into Kanae's purifying light, Nitocris snaps her fingers. Suddenly, spheres of highly-pressurized water begin to surge into existence. Many localize around Eshm, but others lie in wait around the room. At the slightest contact, they'll explode - turning Eshm's domain into a minefield of Magus's making.

AS: Misato Fushihara spends Limit on Psych! 
AS: Persona! Misato Fushihara has used the Water skill Pressure Mine on Penguin Slasher!
  | Ruin: Misato Fushihara gains 1 Limit!

AS: Misato Fushihara's turn has ended.
AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 139 Water damage from Misato Fushihara's Pressure Mine. Weak!
AS: Eriko Kirishima spends Limit on Shift! Tamaki Uchida can use another Weak skill this round!
AS: Vigor (SP restored on end of turn!) applied to Yuuki Hoshizora!
AS: Regen (HP restored on end of turn!) applied to Yuuki Hoshizora!
AS: Exhaust (Damage when using Weapon/Tandem!) applied to Penguin Slasher!
AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) applied to Penguin Slasher!

<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.

(It's fine, Isabeau. You and Kazusa are just on different paths.)

She glances over her shoulder at Kikuno as she comments on herself and Roger. "Roger-san and I know what to do--don't go issuing orders like you're in charge."

She turns her head to track the Homunculus again. "... but don't worry, I'm keeping an eye on everyone."

"Fontain-san, focus!" she snaps a moment later. (Kazusa what did you just say to Kikuno?)

"Of course," Kazusa says to Tamaki with a short nod. She returns the nod to Yuuki, too.

But the Homunculus isn't letting up in the slightest, and Kazusa shivers as she hears the start of a chainsaw. "H-how many weapons does he have!?" He's moving impossibly fast, she tries to stay alert--

And instead is sent sprawling as she's caught unawares, letting out a scream as she's thrown to the ground clutching her stomach. She shudders as she fights to push herself back up. "D-damn it..."

She's not even fully standing again before she sinks back to a knee. "I w-won't... let you... win. I'll show you how I'm changing--!" She reaches deep within herself to find the motivation. "Mina Harker! Show them!"

Mina's good eye flashes as she raises her hand again, and this time a much larger burst of healing magic pours forth, reaching for Isabeau, Umie, Tsumugi, Kazusa, and then a secondary wave hits Pernelle, Kanae, Eriko, and Kikuno.

She finally pushes herself to her feet. "I know what you did to him inside that Cocoon. How you made him suffer. And that's all you've brought to everyone else around you, too. No more!"

AS: Persona! Kazusa Motojima has used the Recovery skill Mediarama on Isabeau Fontaine, Umie Akabane, Tsumugi Kujaku,
and Kazusa Motojima!
  | Support: Kazusa Motojima gains 1 Limit!

AS: Kazusa Motojima's turn has ended.
AS: Kazusa Motojima spends Limit on Exploit! Kazusa Motojima can use another Weak skill this round!
AS: Take! Tsumugi Kujaku takes 146 Recovery healing from Kazusa Motojima's Mediarama.
AS: Take! Kazusa Motojima takes 146 Recovery healing from Kazusa Motojima's Mediarama.
AS: Persona! Kazusa Motojima has used the Recovery skill Media on Pernelle, Kanae Fuyuki, Eriko Kirishima, and Kikuno
Kisaragi!
  | Support: Kazusa Motojima gains 1 Limit!

AS: Take! Kanae Fuyuki takes 98 Recovery healing from Kazusa Motojima's Media.
AS: Take! Pernelle takes 98 Recovery healing from Kazusa Motojima's Media.
AS: Take! Umie Akabane takes 146 Recovery healing from Kazusa Motojima's Mediarama.

<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.

    "Right!!" Roger calls to the votes of confidence and trust in him. "This is the position I play!" There's an innocent gleefulness in that, despite the gloom. He has defined his desire to change through playing with everyone as someone, after all, and he is... someone. Here to play.
 
     To bring the A-Game.
 
     "...I really don't know what game she's playing, though," he says, head tilting over what Yanagi is doing over yonder. "All Homunculi are playing for themselves... aren't they?"
 
     Even he seems pretty unsure, catching that flip from dead-eyed to bright but not much more. He was a Sanguin Humor in one (1) Atelier, Taro Nakata's. He shouldn't have any sort of greater idea on how they all operate, should he? Well, never mind that, for now.
 
     He jumps at watching the way Tsumugi moves. Roger can't describe it - he has seen Tsumugi, knows their name, and everything, but there's something terribly inscrutible that just about anything they say or do seems unfamiliar and distant.
 
     There is something more profound being said and shared between them, that Roger doesn't quite catch. Still...
 
     "Um, even so," he admits in a moment of introspection, "the Peacock Silk people sure knew a lot about what was going on, too." Then, brighter. "They were very helpful!"
 
     The Homunculus does not let this conversation go unchallenged, and every word spoken is borrowed time while they flail to protect what existence the destruction of the cocoon denies them. The way they warp, move about...
 
     "Eee! Behind you!" Roger shouts at Grim as he leaps back from a shockwave of force that passes from where he was, entire person looking windblown in the wake of the displaced force but otherwise unharmed.
 
     As the killer vanishes, and reappears seemingly everywhere...
 
     "This isn't their house! They know it!! We'll get 'em out together..." There's the blue butterfly, which is out of racquet-swing range, so he throws up a tennis ball and serves it into them as they explode into Kamapua'a anew. "Come on! A Bright Revel!!" Roger cheers, as a celebratory, bright air of revelry falls upon Yoko and Coin - but also Pernelle and Tsumugi, of Peacock Silk.
 
     Tsumugi, especially, whom seems to be of great interest to said Homunculus.
 
     "Go hog wild!!" A level of trust, placed on those who seem close to those with strange machinations.

AS: Persona! Roger has used the Recovery skill Bright Revel on Pernelle, Coin, Yoko Hirano, and Tsumugi Kujaku!
AS: Roger's turn has ended.
  | Roger regains 8 HP from Regenerate! and  3 SP from Invigorate!

AS: Take! Coin takes 0 Recovery healing from Roger's Bright Revel.
  | Atk_Up (Damage Up!) and Crt_Up (Critical Up!) added!

<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.

 
Saika will, of course, accept tater tots later. (Oh, they're meant for Pernelle? NOW HE KNOWS HOW IT FEELS.)

More to the point, of course, is the healing energies that Mielikki pours outwards. Saika can feel the pain rise and flow out of her, like a horrid anti-blood that's been blessedly, delightfully loosened and liberated, free to escape. Or perhaps like soaking in a hot bath, all in an instant. It's hard to say.

She takes in a number of other things. The impression of Coin's Persona, the manifested wyrm, is notable. That one's going to stick with her later. Saika is in too much bloody, mortal, thrilling danger to *think* about it much. (Part of the liberation of this moment for her: she gets to get out of her head.)

What Saika also takes in is the force of her impact as her momentum is redirected. On her patchwork face there is a brief, arresting instant of 'ah, shit' a moment before she smashes into the ground, the crimson flower-petals falling down on her like bloody snow.

The Homunculus - the Thing - the Shape - it looms, and Saika looks upwards at him, and she can feel herself quail. She hates that flinch inside. She hates the hatred. She hates--

His attention, at least, is turning. Saika is trapped once more in her own mind, and the worries all bloom up like exploding airbags. Is Tsumugi OK? (Of course they would seem OK, doubtless even if thrown alive in a crematorium. Saika expects nothing less. But -- you know--!!)

Is Pernelle? Is...

Something runs up Saika's spine, and she heaves herself forwards. She reaches her feet several secounds later, hunched over. She hadn't dropped her chain. She swings it around to wrap it around her wrist as she straightens up. Slowly. Her back hurts in exciting and novel ways. Her hand goes momentarily over that seeming-permanent wound at her side.

It hurts. All of it hurts but she can rise above it, can she not? She can, she assures herself, even as she feels her head tilt back slightly, her spine finding its natural level and moving slightly past it. Saika stands right there and...

Watches it happen. All of it. The Homunculus rips and tears. Others throwing themselves and the power of their souls against the inhuman thing. It's not gonna necessarily be enough, either, is it? This is a strong one. Saika's chest swells as she breathes in, despite several different pains.

Did her spirit break? Saika's head bobs a couple of times, gently. Marking time. Watching the Homunculus, and then she suddenly goes still. A moment later she exhales, snapping a hand out -

The enormous black-and-gray-and-yellow form of The Monster rises behind her, already moving forwards. Frankenstein's Monster, of course, is renowned for his size, and Saika is pretty average height, which means that the first one to reach the Homunculus is the Monster. He reaches forwards with one hand. It's almost avuncular.

To clap the Homunculus on the shoulder. "Good,"

Saika says, as the clasping hand suddenly squeezes. It probably does hurt a little but the real problem is that the Monster's implacable strength is *just as horrible* as something like the Homunculus. If it is a contest of metaphor, of dream, who is the stronger? And if it is no more than it seems - a big Persona grasping onto a smaller cognitive being, for a few fleeting moments - well, the Monster is pretty big.

"Good hustle," Saika says during the second step, "but you new guys always, you know, it's just messy."

... is she critiquing trends in horror film? (Maybe, a little, but more to the point:)

"You just leave yourself" AND THEN both Saika and the Monster swing a fist forwards - in Saika's case, the one wrapped in the chain, and in the Monster's case the one not clasping the shoulder of the Homunculus:

            "WIDE OPEN!!"

There is a sound like thunder in the middle distance, or like a stout-struck iron plate. It happens whatever Saika ends up *actually* hitting.

AS: Persona! Saika Kikuchi has used the Almighty skill You're Wide Open! on Penguin Slasher!
  | Defense: Saika Kikuchi gains 1 Limit!

AS: Persona! Saika Kikuchi has used the Strike skill Sonic Punch on Penguin Slasher!
AS: Saika Kikuchi's turn has ended.
  | Saika Kikuchi: Hyper removed!

AS: Take! Penguin Slasher takes 0 Almighty damage from Saika Kikuchi's You're Wide Open!.
  | Strike_Break (Strike Affinity Down!) added!

AS: Avoid Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 112 Strike damage from Saika Kikuchi's Sonic Punch.
  | Haze (Physical and Block Penalized!) added!

<Pose Tracker> Coin has posed.

Coin does recognize Umie over there, as much from feel as anything else. 'Something about battle seems right for you', indeed - and here we are, at a battle. "It is good to see you again! I will support you, too!"

Fire support, anyway (the literal kind). Coin doesn't really do the other sort all that much.

That Coin has a Persona may not be that surprising to Isabeau, given the others like her - Roger, Mona - do, but that's the less important part anyway. She is more surprised that someone recognized it. Eriko actually knows more about it than Coin does, for Coin has never read a book on Silesian mythology; she looks startled. "You recognize it?" she asks, before: "That isn't important. Call your chariot for victory!"

The *more* important part is that she's bristling over being called not a Hunter. That's the kind of thing that might cause a fight of its own...

...though Coin is not interesting in pressing it with Isabeau, at least. Instead, she calls, "This is a Hunt - it's dangerous to look away from your quarry like that...!" Focusing on Kikuno instead might get you killed!

And then Tsumugi waves at her, and Coin goes against what she *literally* just said. "...hi?" She raises one hand - paw - and wiggles it back. This is some sort of secret code, she's sure of it. Perhaps this is how you are initiated into the final secrets of fashion, not that Coin is particularly aware that Tsumugi is one of the arbiters of fashion. (Yet. She will. Coin always has things in her pockets to trade.)

Returning her paw to her sword, Coin hefts it two-handed as Eshm comes back. It's not a physical strike this time, and Coin doesn't parry as if she was blocking a physical blow. Instead, she does something with her thumb, and whirls it over her head.

Whirls, because the sword has 'fallen apart'... sort of. It's now a cable, quite a bit longer than the sword was, with individual segments of sword evenly spread along it, each of them angled rather than straight across the blade, though with a sturdy-looking dagger-like blade at the tip of the cable.

It sweeps through the pentagrams with a slash, dispersing them before she's banished, and with a click-click-click Coin's sword snaps back to being a sword, each segment locking into place against the next. "I can't be taken that easily." Coin looks over her blade, eyes glittering in the strange light. "You..."

"I understand."

What does she understand? She doesn't say, as Krepel moves again when Coin gestures. It lifts away from her and dives, wreathed in flame as it chases the homonculus down. It fears fire? Coin can manage that. And a moment later, and her Persona snaps its wings, rises up, and exhales a gout of fire. (What were you expecting?) "Thank you! I'm in your debt!" she calls back to Roger, as the feeling of revelry fills her.

But while she does that, the Wilis whirl around her... "Hey!" Coin hops from foot to foot. So much for her more serious mien. "My secrets! I've been detected! Studied! Examined!" Coin is the one who examines Shadows. They (well, Personas) don't examine her!

AS: Coin spends Limit on Exploit! Coin can use another Weak skill this round!
AS: Take! Yoko Hirano takes 0 Recovery healing from Roger's Bright Revel.
  | Atk_Up (Damage Up!) and Crt_Up (Critical Up!) added!

AS: Tandem! Coin has used the Fire skill Scorching Dive on Penguin Slasher!
  | Aggression: Coin gains 1 Limit!

AS: Persona! Coin has used the Fire skill Fire Breath on Penguin Slasher! 3 Hits!
AS: Coin's turn has ended.
  | Coin regains 8 HP from Regenerate!

AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 213 Fire damage from Coin's Scorching Dive. Weak!
AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 103 Fire damage from Coin's Fire Breath. Critical Hit! Weak!
AS: Block Best! Penguin Slasher takes 17 Fire damage from Coin's Fire Breath. Weak!
AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 64 Fire damage from Coin's Fire Breath. Weak!
AS: Take! Pernelle takes 0 Recovery healing from Roger's Bright Revel.
  | Atk_Up (Damage Up!) and Crt_Up (Critical Up!) added!

AS: Take! Isabeau Fontaine takes 167 Recovery healing from Kazusa Motojima's Mediarama.
AS: Take! Eriko Kirishima takes 98 Recovery healing from Kazusa Motojima's Media.
AS: Katsuko Yoshinaga spends Limit on Exploit! Katsuko Yoshinaga can use another Weak skill this round!

<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.

Pernelle's dramatic demeanor begins to crack as the Homunculus shows its true colors. His glasses go opaque, and his attention sharpens. Only the slightest tilt of his head indicates he hears Yanagi's call on Tsumugi.

Instead, he leans toward Yoko in a too-loud, conspiratory whisper that is in no way a whisper at all. "I do not mean to be rude, but is it just me, or had he hardly emblazoned himself in enough tints and shades to be judged as... manly? An eensy extra preening might have endeared him to potential mates more than the knocking around business, yes? No?"

No one need worry about answering, for a moment later, Pernelle is stuck by an Umie-shaped project that is in every way the actual, factual, entire Umie.

Pernelle lies sprawled from the strike, back flat and legs straight up. His train feathers are on full display, which means nothing with them laid out across the ground, every eye spinning in dizziness.

"My word, are the two of you quite all right?" Pernelle asks the double-visioned Umie as she herself apologizes.

(MEANWHILE SAIKA PLANS TO BETRAY HIM)

Does the peacock even have the strength to stand, to see a fracture in the members of the boutique he has fondly called his comrades? Horror is descending, Yanagi's keen sense piercing into the group before the Homunculus capitalizes in violent pursuit.

A glimmering butterfly flits to Pernelle, landing on his beak moments before he is lost in that flurry of chainsaw cuts that splatter the room.

Yet there is a terrible crunch of a carapace.

And then there is fire. Nuclear, blue and green and white fire that detonates at the Homunculus' position.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyPFT_p7SoU

"I believe --

Once: sudden and sparkling as a two birds spin past. One is a green and iridescent peacock, the other is a gold and rainbow stitched doll of a Persona.

"I promised you --"

Twice: brilliant and bursting, bending back around to catch under the wave of Kazusa's Media.

"A dance!"

Thrice: explosive and efflorescent, ever entwined in Roger's Bright Revel.

"I too am a selfish creature!" Pernelle declares. "A veritable beast, with a hungering heart! Whatever you think you have reclaimed, I will not relinquish without objection! If you are left with nothing again and again and again, so be it!"

It is taunting and provocation, yes, but it's also true what the Homunculus has 'reclaimed' in the moment is Shinichi's elder sister.

AS: Persona! Pernelle has used the Fire skill Freila Freila Freila on Penguin Slasher! 3 Hits!
AS: Pernelle's turn has ended.
AS: Block Best! Penguin Slasher takes 22 Fire damage from Pernelle's Freila Freila Freila. Weak!
AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 166 Fire damage from Pernelle's Freila Freila Freila. Critical Hit! Weak!
AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 83 Fire damage from Pernelle's Freila Freila Freila. Weak!

<Pose Tracker> Katsuko Yoshinaga has posed.

Grim was used to Roger's presence. She'd seen him around, she'd reconciled his existence with her knowledge of the supernatural, and nobody else seemed to take umbrage with his existence. Nobody but Isabeau, but she seemed to be having a crisis of her own about such things. Grim was not used to Pernelle's presence, but his wasn't a new one, and she'd had time to take in the fact that there was at least one sapient bird prowling around Japan. What she'd not had a chance to get used to was Coin, and her existence.

The second she had a chance, Grim stole a look at the new arrival. She was, she had to admit, strange. Not in the way that Kanae was, where her powers made her a unique presence in the world. Not in the way that Yanagi was, in the sense that looking into her eyes for too long made it feel like something crawled down one's back. She was just... odd. A part of the world that stuck out, and all but demanded investigation. Someone to investigate later, she supposed, once she wasn't busy trying to keep herself alive.

What was less strange and more frustrating was how her efforts to strip away the Homunculus' defences had been rendered null only moments after she'd levelled her ire at it. She briefly considered having Dantes issue the same curse again, but stopped that train of thought before it could leave the station. It'd turn into a constant back-and-forth she didn't have the resources to win - a new approach was needed. Something else to work around the thing's strategies, and pry open any weaknesses in her armour. Silently, she cursed herself for not taking any offensive skill cards - that holy set looked a lot more tantalising now that she faced down something that, if its reactions to others' attacks was any indication - resisted the majority of her arsenal.

"Then we're of one mind. Don't die in here - I still need someone to help me find that treasure." With that pithy remark given, Grim backed away, giving the both of them room to work. Even so, she took a moment to look at Yuuki, and speak with a firmer tone than she'd addressed Magus with. "Keep it together. Focus, and we'll all make it out of this alive." Any friend of Magus's was an ally of hers, and with that came all the dubious benefits she offered. Words of what could maybe be construed as some form of encouragement was just one of them.

Grim felt a chill behind her the second she finished speaking, but it was Roger's panicked shout that confirmed her suspicions. She didn't think, in that heartbeat after the raising of the hammer. She simply moved, leaping across the ground like a shadow flitting from one end of the room to the next.
"Thanks for the assist. Looks like I'm in your debt again." She said to Roger, only partly intending it as a wry remark on the situation. No further gratitude was spared, however. There would be ample time for it later.

"Dantes." She commanded, once more shrouded in the safety of the dark. "Bind him, and break him." The wraith of a man obeyed his wielder's orders, and as his hand rose into the air, so too did a pillar of earth. Stone, roughly hewn and slick with saltwater, heaved itself out of the floor while chains shot from its sides like striking vipers, lashing against the Homunculus' limbs to imprison him and force him to face justice. Justice that Dantes wielded in the form of a saber lined with a black darker than the night itself. Once close, he heaved the blade in, slicing at the Homunculus' throat in a single, clean, motion - a vicious variation of the blow it had landed on the Persona before.

AS: Persona! Katsuko Yoshinaga has used the Earth skill Imprison on Penguin Slasher! 2 Hits!
  | Ruin: Katsuko Yoshinaga gains 1 Limit!

AS: Persona! Katsuko Yoshinaga has used the Dark skill Coup de Grace on Penguin Slasher!
AS: Katsuko Yoshinaga's turn has ended.
  | Katsuko Yoshinaga: Gains 72 HP from Regen! Gains 10 SP from Vigor!
  | Katsuko Yoshinaga regains 6 SP from Invigorate!

AS: Block Best! Penguin Slasher takes 7 Earth damage from Katsuko Yoshinaga's Imprison. Critical Hit!
  | Bind (Magic and Avoid Penalized!) added! Haze removed! Explosion! 60 damage!

AS: Block Neutral! Penguin Slasher takes 28 Earth damage from Katsuko Yoshinaga's Imprison. Critical Hit!

<Pose Tracker> Kikuno Kisaragi has posed.

    "Do you?" Kikuno wonders as Kazusa says she and Roger already know what to do. "Do you understand what's really going on here?" Kikuno says, only to shake her head. "Of course you don't. Yet another thing I'll have to correct," she sighs, shutting her eyes briefly.

    "But he's an interesting one. I suppose we'll all just have to talk about it later," she says, of Roger.

    Slowly, Kikuno turns her head, her attention zeroing in on Yoko. "...Cousin. I thought I felt something familiar creeping about," she says, which is hardly polite to say about someone who is family. "Get out of here, and quit worrying aunt and uncle," she tells her, not mincing any words.

    Her gaze abandons Yoko here, moving on to Yanagi, who has roused somewhat from the state she'd been in before and made a semi-formal return to the twinkling fairy princess. It's a contrast to Kikuno, perched atop her throne of flowers, thorns, and flesh.

    Whatever Kikuno might think about that, she doesn't say.

    "Well... look at you," she says, flatly, to Eshm. "Such a big man. Strong against slashing, striking, and darkness of course." She sighs, as if for effect. "But fire, water, and light hurt you. That's just too bad for you, now that everyone knows your secrets." She leans back a touch against her throne. "So, now what? You're only making this harder, you know. You've already lost."

    They're brave words, sure enough, until the moment there's a rev of a chainsaw rising in the midst of the parasite's terrible fury. Those half-lidded blue eyes of hers go suddenly wide. "What are you--"

    The shriek that follows as she curls back into Beatrice's petals -- rising to intercept the grinding blades of Eshm's weapon -- might sate something within the Homunculus. It's unlikely to be 'enough', though.

    "You... you-- sicko!" she shouts out, once she rallies from a frankly petrified state. "Horror movie freak!" (Bold words perhaps for someone who sits on a throne that has eyeballs.)

    The healing magic that follows at least does some to soothe her nerves; she shoots a narrow-eyed gaze at Kazusa before looking away sharply once again.

    "Water," she tells Eshm, "That was one of the things you're weak against. Too bad for you," she says, pointing directly at Eshm.

    Water, interspersed with violet petals, rains as a sudden torrent upon the Homunculus.

    But Kikuno isn't finished.

    "Did you think that was all?" she wonders, before thorny vines snake off from her Persona's bulk, racing and shedding flowers as they rush down Eshm. Only if they snare him do they wrap him in a tight embrace, bloom in full...

    And explode.

AS: Kikuno Kisaragi spends Limit on Exploit! Kikuno Kisaragi can use another Weak skill this round!
AS: Take! Kikuno Kisaragi takes 98 Recovery healing from Kazusa Motojima's Media.
AS: Persona! Kikuno Kisaragi has used the Water skill Maraqua on Penguin Slasher!
AS: Persona! Kikuno Kisaragi has used the Earth skill Full Bloom on Penguin Slasher!
AS: Kikuno Kisaragi's turn has ended.
AS: Block Best! Penguin Slasher takes 14 Dark damage from Katsuko Yoshinaga's Coup de Grace. Resist!
AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 81 Water damage from Kikuno Kisaragi's Maraqua. Weak!
  | Paralyze (Physical and Avoid Penalized!) added!

AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 126 Earth damage from Kikuno Kisaragi's Full Bloom.
AS: Persona! Yanagi Nagisa has used the Almighty skill Full Analysis on Umie Akabane!
  | Insight: Yanagi Nagisa gains 1 Limit!

AS: Yanagi Nagisa's turn has ended.
  | Yanagi Nagisa regains 10 SP from Invigorate!

AS: Persona! Yanagi Nagisa has used the Almighty skill Full Analysis on Kanae Fuyuki!
  | Insight: Yanagi Nagisa gains 1 Limit!

AS: Yanagi Nagisa's turn has ended.
  | Yanagi Nagisa regains 10 SP from Invigorate!

AS: Persona! Yanagi Nagisa has used the Almighty skill Full Analysis on Isabeau Fontaine!
  | Insight: Yanagi Nagisa gains 1 Limit!

AS: Yanagi Nagisa's turn has ended.
  | Yanagi Nagisa regains 10 SP from Invigorate!

AS: Persona! Yanagi Nagisa has used the Almighty skill Full Analysis on Katsuko Yoshinaga!
  | Insight: Yanagi Nagisa gains 1 Limit!

AS: Yanagi Nagisa's turn has ended.
  | Yanagi Nagisa regains 10 SP from Invigorate!

<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.

    Tamaki half-smiles sheepishly at Kanae after she realizes what she's admitted to. "Ahh, well, yes, though perhaps I shouldn't have said it in front of so many people ..."

    '((can't fix)) ((isn't broken))' Tamaki tilts her head in curiosity towards Eshm at that, then nods. "You're right, I wouldn't consider myself broken. More like I'm making up for my own wrongdoing. Repentance of a sort. After all,"

    A pentagram of ill portent appears under Tamaki's feet. Recognizing the threat it poses, Arianrhod, with her blade still in the ground, cuts through the earth to sever the one circle underneath Tamaki's feet, dispelling it.

    " -- as I said earlier, I do think I'm one of the people here who best understands you." She grimaces slightly. "Not all the way, mind you. The whole macho act isn't my thing at all."

    While she may have been fortunate enough to avoid the brunt of the spell, not everyone was. Her chest tightens as she realizes Eriko was caught in the attack, not to mention how Yanagi's begun to relay information on them to Eshm. "Why are you ..." she begins to ask Yanagi, but trails off.

    She looks between Eriko and Tsumugi briefly, then decides to take Eriko's advice to heart and share the burden she believed was solely her own. While her friend revels in the awe and wonder of the supernatural world and its spine-tingling tales, Tamaki takes a different denial-based approach. Arianrhod carves a circle in the air as tall as herself, from which a transparent image of the moon appears and spread out to Eriko, Kanae, Coin, and Yoko, reasserting a sense of 'normality', scrambling and obscuring the very flaws in their defenses that had been brought to light earlier.

    In another quick motion, Arianrhod raises her sword and covers Tamaki, Eriko, Tsumugi, and Roger in an iridescent light, bolstering their spirits and empowering their attacks. She even encourages Roger further by adding, "Hey, you can be in the spotlight too! I know you try to cheer everyone else on, but let yourself shine sometime!"
     

AS: Persona! Tamaki Uchida has used the Recovery skill Silver Wheel on Eriko Kirishima, Kanae Fuyuki, Coin, and Yoko
Hirano!
AS: Take! Eriko Kirishima takes 0 Recovery healing from Tamaki Uchida's Silver Wheel. Melody! Buff durations extended!
  | Eclipse (Weakness turned to Resist!) added!

AS: Block Best! Kanae Fuyuki takes 0 Almighty damage from Yanagi Nagisa's Full Analysis.
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Strength Scan! Kanae Fuyuki resists Light!
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Weakness Scan! Kanae Fuyuki is weak against Fire!
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Support Scan! Kanae Fuyuki has passive skills Dark Boost, Dark Resist, Fortify Spirit, Heavy Weapon,
and Light Boost!
AS: Take! Kanae Fuyuki takes 0 Recovery healing from Tamaki Uchida's Silver Wheel. Melody! Buff durations extended!
  | Eclipse (Weakness turned to Resist!) added!

AS: Persona! Tamaki Uchida has used the Recovery skill Per Aspera on Tamaki Uchida, Eriko Kirishima, Tsumugi Kujaku, and
Roger!
  | Tamaki Uchida takes 45 damage from Stress!

AS: Tamaki Uchida's turn has ended.
  | Tamaki Uchida: Gains 69 HP from Regen! Gains 10 SP from Vigor!

AS: Take! Katsuko Yoshinaga takes 0 Almighty damage from Yanagi Nagisa's Full Analysis.
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Strength Scan! Katsuko Yoshinaga resists Pierce!
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Weakness Scan! Katsuko Yoshinaga is weak against Light!
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Support Scan! Katsuko Yoshinaga has passive skills Ailment Boost, Bind Boost, Dark Amp, Invigorate
2, and Paralyze Boost!
AS: Take! Eriko Kirishima takes 0 Recovery healing from Tamaki Uchida's Per Aspera.
  | Atk_Up (Damage Up!) and Inner_Strength (Affinity Damage Up!) added!

AS: Take! Yoko Hirano takes 0 Recovery healing from Tamaki Uchida's Silver Wheel. Melody! Buff durations extended!
  | Eclipse (Weakness turned to Resist!) added!

AS: Take! Roger takes 0 Recovery healing from Tamaki Uchida's Per Aspera.
  | Atk_Up (Damage Up!) and Inner_Strength (Affinity Damage Up!) added!

AS: Take! Coin takes 0 Recovery healing from Tamaki Uchida's Silver Wheel. Melody! Buff durations extended!
  | Eclipse (Weakness turned to Resist!) added!

AS: Take! Tamaki Uchida takes 0 Recovery healing from Tamaki Uchida's Per Aspera.
  | Atk_Up (Damage Up!) and Inner_Strength (Affinity Damage Up!) added!

AS: Take! Umie Akabane takes 0 Almighty damage from Yanagi Nagisa's Full Analysis.
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Strength Scan! Umie Akabane resists Dark!
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Weakness Scan! Umie Akabane is weak against Light!
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Support Scan! Umie Akabane has passive skills Ailment Boost, Break Limit, Dark Amp, Explode Boost,
Fortify Spirit, Invigorate 1, and Jamming!

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    ---EARLIER---
    ".... eh?" Umie blearily looks up(!) at Pernelle from where she's doubled over (in more ways than one, from Pernelle's point of view). "... both...?"
    Also, *when did Yoko get a Persona*?! Was Umie konked out that long?!

    ---A LITTLE CLOSER TO NOW---
    "Wait, _you saw through it_?!" Umie squeaks, as Coin valiantly declares that she'll support her too. "Focus on your friends, he's got it out for Fuyuki-san!" (Does she seem like she's a little... flattered?)

    ---NOW, AS UMIE'S HUBRIS TURNS EVER ONWARDS---
    "Mm." Umie regards Yanagi's seeming indifference with a curious glance, trying to understand.

    Something in the reflection of Umie's gaze may look back, if Yanagi happens to glance past those eyes, peering from the yellow peonies of the mask.

    'Imagine how much easier it would be...'
    Tick tock. A finger slices across Eshm's neck.

    Time'll run out before you know it, Umie Akabane.

    "Don't worry about it," Umie spares, for Tamaki. "We have ghosts from the past lurking around. Sooner or later, they're going to figure things out." As to what Umie means specifically...

    "Motojima-san, remember, men like him thrive on attention. Don't give it to him, _make him beg for it instead_-" Yeah, Umie's lips are sealed tight.

    Ah, hubris. The shockwave from Eshm's sledgehammer violently smashes Umie into a field of the ominous red-petaled lilies, painting the white of her jacket with splotches of crushed red and sap.

    Kikuno, though. Something in the taunting tilt of Kikuno's words excites the Badb, and in turn the Umie, who cackles. "Water, eh...."

    It's not much, but a spray joins the girl's watery onslaught, as Umie leaps backwards into the shadowy black and grey feathers of the Badb's mantle.

    Thankfully for Yanagi, the Badb's cloaking abilities cannot compare with that of Giselle.

AS: Umie Akabane spends Limit on Exploit! Umie Akabane can use another Weak skill this round!
AS: Persona! Umie Akabane has used the Water skill Aqua on Penguin Slasher!
  | Ruin: Umie Akabane gains 1 Limit!

AS: Avoid Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 168 Water damage from Umie Akabane's Aqua. Weak!
  | Paralyze (Physical and Avoid Penalized!) added!

AS: Take! Isabeau Fontaine takes 0 Almighty damage from Yanagi Nagisa's Full Analysis.
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Strength Scan! Isabeau Fontaine resists Wind!
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Weakness Scan! Isabeau Fontaine is weak against Dark!
AS: Yanagi Nagisa's Support Scan! Isabeau Fontaine has passive skills Block Magical, Defender, Explode Shield, Fortify
Spirit, Peerless Skill, Quick Weapon, Recovery Boost, Skill Card Affinity, Sneak Guide, and Wind Amp!
AS: Persona! Umie Akabane has used the Recovery skill Dark Tear on Umie Akabane!
AS: Umie Akabane's turn has ended.
  | Umie Akabane regains 3 SP from Invigorate!

AS: Take! Umie Akabane takes 0 Recovery healing from Umie Akabane's Dark Tear.
  | Cloak (Non-Area Damage Mitigated!) and Eclipse (Weakness turned to Resist!) added!

AS: Take! Tsumugi Kujaku takes 0 Recovery healing from Roger's Bright Revel.
  | Atk_Up (Damage Up!) and Crt_Up (Critical Up!) added!

AS: Take! Tsumugi Kujaku takes 0 Recovery healing from Tamaki Uchida's Per Aspera.
  | Atk_Up (Damage Up!) and Inner_Strength (Affinity Damage Up!) added!

<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.

    "They knew nothing," Isabeau scowls, when Eriko speaks of her middleschool classmates. "But you... what a strange woman. A person should not wish to see the unseen... value your normal life more strongly. Are you not Eriko Kirishima? You, who was cover girl of Coolest... it is strange to see you speak so highly of strangeness so often. Enjoy your glory more, and lust for Hell less."

    "... explain as you like. I am as I am."

    (And, indeed, she is not disguised -- easily identifiable as the contemptible Isabeau Fontaine of Shujin.)

    Tamaki, though, did nothing. "I will have my answer from you," she issues her, for her crimes, "in another place than this. Your cowardice I will answer, at that time, and not before. Prepare yourself."

    "But," she adds, to Umie, "a monster is a monster. Never should you suffer a monster to live... it always was very simple! Just... on suffer of a monster did I live, and..."

    She probably didn't say that right. Don't think about it. Move on. Keep going forward.

    "I look as I like!" She snaps, to Kikuno, then. "My father will hear of this! You claim on my nerves... now it is clear to me you are worth the sensitivity. Bah... if you did not want me to question it, you should not be so creepy!"

    That's not the only thing that will have to feature in her report, though. Once again, Isabeau witnesses the titanic strength of Tsumugi's Jekyll, counterpointed with their casual speech. That bloody palm... "Do you not feel your injury?" She asks, sceptical and impressed both.

    Speaking of creepy -- Bearemy. "What manner of magic is this?" She asks Yoko, as she takes a step back, scowling. "It is not alive, but still is it made animate..."

    Yanagi, meanwhile, shares insights on Kanae with her 'brother'. "What is your plot?!" She snaps, having not attended any teamwork-focused planning meetings beforehand whatsoever. (Kanae, luckily, thought ahead to intercept her so she wouldn't charge in alone... this time.) It means she wouldn't know if there's some secret reason why Yanagi is helping him...

    ... though she knows that her erratic behaviour sets her teeth on edge.

    Manic women are the most unreliable women of all.

    When Shinichi backhands Kanae, though, Isabeau's attention snaps back to him. "You dare?!" She barks, as she leaps forward --

    -- only for her eyes to widen, as he isn't where she thought he was, and she has to bring her targe up to protect the twin sides of her skull as a chainsaw roars down towards her centre of gravity. The Eye of Ra barely holds against it, a deep scar carved through its centre, as if Ra himself were blinded through a solar eclipse...

    ... but the killer is not finished. As Isabeau sprawls on the ground, that chainsaw lifts, from another imperceptible angle, to carve down again. Already downed by his savage critical hit, she has no choice but to summon Mielikki to absorb the blow; her bear claws cross as she stops that horrifically steady downward slice, but the struggle lasts only long enough for Isabeau to roll away from his arc before her Persona shatters in a shower of red glass once again. Isabeau's hair tie catches on the ground, tearing her drill curls free as she makes her hurried escape.

    And that chainsaw scores a deep gash in the ground, where she laid only moments prior, so deep that even her large chest would have surely been carved straight from sternum to spine.

    Speaking of that carving -- when Isabeau kips up, weight swaying from shoulders to hips to press herself upright with her momentum, she sees Kanae's red blood spilling down the front of her vestments.

    And Isabeau's seeing red, too.

    Leave Magus to Yuuki; she has her priorities, even as Kazusa's healing weaves through her.

    "I know that!" She snaps, angrily, to Coin, when she reminds her to keep her eyes on the prize -- though she's angry because she knows she looked away. "What business has a monster as a Hunter, in any case?! You... you are not sense-making!"

    Kikuno lists off his weaknesses, but Isabeau snaps: "I need it not! I have a power he cannot resist or reflect! MIELIKKI!" Her curls scatter across her face, half feral, as she crushes a bronze vial in her hand to issue more power to her battered Persona.

    The data Yanagi will get from Isabeau suggests a greater power than some here...

    ... because she wouldn't normally be here.

    But here she is.

    And here's her solution --

    Mielikki summons the birth of a star onto the false Shinichi, as Megido forms in a chirascuro silhouette of white on black, and EXPLODES.

    In the weight of the youngests' might, a paling shimmers, as it erects, over Kanae, shining with the green light of the forest.

    "You did not contend," she issues to Shinichi, then. "No more will you touch her."

AS: Persona! Isabeau Fontaine has used the Almighty skill Megido on Shinichi Nagisa!
  | Defense: Isabeau Fontaine gains 1 Limit!

AS: Isabeau Fontaine's turn has ended.
AS: Isabeau Fontaine spends Limit on Exploit! Isabeau Fontaine can use another Weak skill this round!
AS: Persona! Isabeau Fontaine has used the Recovery skill Ally Guard on Kanae Fuyuki!
  | Defense: Isabeau Fontaine gains 1 Limit!

AS: Take! Kanae Fuyuki takes 0 Recovery healing from Isabeau Fontaine's Ally Guard.
  | Full_Cover applied!

<Pose Tracker> Eriko Kirishima has posed.

    Eriko smiles a bit more as Tamaki agrees to work together. "That's more like it." This time, she puts her hand on Tamaki's shoulder for a moment. "If you start to step back, I'll catch you- and help you keep walking forward. You'd do the same for me." That bolster of confidence said Eriko takes her position back up again.

    Eriko frowns at Yanagi's response. That deadness, marked with a wide smile and closed eyes. Eriko is quick to make friends- but perhaps she has been more shallow than she thought. Perhaps everything she knew of Yanagi was surface level, and Eriko was just ready to decide the two were just similar. Even so, that's not what Eriko wants. "Why bother with even moonstone, if you'd settle for glass and plastic? Are you even going to try and find those pearls you were after?"

    Tsumugi calls Yanagi the most self interested person they know- even if Eriko isn't sure she can see it. She can't really understand it.

    Normally, Eriko would be thrilled by an exorcism, even a dark one- but it isn't an exorcism if it kills the host. The gold and onyx garter on her leg glows, and while the spell causes her pain, it doesn't cause Eriko to fall. Indeed, that magic that Yanagi put into that piece of jewellery saves her again.

    "You can't remove me from a place that isn't yours," Eriko says, firmly. "You can't even clean up Mai's abandoned toys." There's a shakiness there- Eriko does not care for the feeling of the Killer being everywhere, all consuming and ever present. "After all, that Iron Mouse roaming the streets isn't something you OR Shinichi could know about. It never existed in the same world as he did."

    Kanae gets a smile from Eriko. "Oh, yes. For almost all of it, in fact." Coin too gets a nod of acknowledgement. "A bit! Polish mythology isn't my strongest suit, but you see it so rarely out here."

    Eriko calls out a chipper 'thank you!' to Kazusa, as Mina's healing washes over her. "We'll make sure it doesn't escape, Kazusa. Just keep fighting."

    Isabeau recognizes her, and even chides Eriko for her willingness to find hell. "Ah, I'm afraid it's as I said- this other side is not hell to me- it's more like Wonderland. Full of dangers, certainly, but full of wonderful things as well." There's a slightly manic joy to her words- and something in her wording makes Eriko giggle, though she stops herself. "Ah, I apologize. It's just... you sound like my agent. I'm afraid that I am not in modelling for fame- I have a much greater aspiration." No matter that Tsumugi has said she's already fashion royalty- a crown isn't what Eriko seeks.

    Tamaki's assistance washes over Eriko and she embraces it. It's a pleasant light that surges through her and Nike. "Thank you."

    "Now then, I believe you were trying to exorcise me, Mr Nobody. You're technique is all wrong, though. I hope you won't mind me leaning on a more... international approach." Eriko starts to call on Nike again, the engines flaring again. "Ave Maria, gratia plena," she starts- but, really, she's not feeling the rest of it today. "Etcetera, etcetera- HAMA!"

    It probably would be a waste to throw actually devout catholic prayer over, well, the Asian style exorcism summoned from the pillar of light that starts to rise underneath the homunculus with the intent to give it a taste of it's own medicine. Or at least, similar enough medicine.

AS: Persona! Eriko Kirishima has used the Light skill Hama on Penguin Slasher!
  | Pressure: Eriko Kirishima gains 1 Limit!

AS: Eriko Kirishima's turn has ended.
AS: Isabeau Fontaine cancels 1 attacks on Shinichi Nagisa.
AS: Persona! Isabeau Fontaine has used the Almighty skill Megido on Penguin Slasher!
AS: Isabeau Fontaine's turn has ended.
AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 207 Light damage from Eriko Kirishima's Hama. Weak!
  | Exhaust (Damage when using Weapon/Tandem!) added!

AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 168 Almighty damage from Isabeau Fontaine's Megido.

<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.

 
    Emsh burns and burns and screams and burns. Yoko frowns past it, at Yanagi. She still doesn't understand. Maybe it's a sibling thing. ...Yoko doesn't know anything about that. Maybe that would make someone want to fight their friends. Even if the Homunculus isn't really Yanagi's brother, after all. Maybe if she asks, Yanagi will explain.

    But not right now.

    Eshm demands her attention, after all. Everybody's attention, everybody's apologies, everybody's submission. Everybody's terror, as it rampages in flashes of crimson red and a roar that has Yoko covering her ears - the presumably human ones, still hidden underneath her tangly black hair. She stumbles back, squeaking in mortal dismay, when...

    KTANG! KTANG!

    Bearemy, all fifty centimeters of him, launches himself claws-first into Eshm's path, knocking away both swings in a shower of sparks. He rumbles angrily, squaring up to protect Yoko from danger with every fiber of his being.

    Yoko is breathing hard but she's still okay. Roger and Kazusa's healing energies have seen to that. She has to be sure to thank them. When this is over, and everything is quiet, and she's burned away everything that--

    Yoko takes a deep breath. Because of Kikuno. Because she's never heard Kikuno talk like that, ever! "Are you really-- mnnngh!" It's a sound of frustration more than anything. Because everything's weird. Because Yanagi and Kikuno are both acting weirder (bad weirder) than usual and Yoko hates it. "Don't tell me what to do," she complains, ears flat. "Why are you so... not like you??"

    But fire, Kikuno reveals. Eshm is weak against fire. And Yoko will eventually burn it all down, anyway. At least Pernelle is a strange comfort. A better kind of weird. Expected and normal weird! "...I don't think there are enough fancy dances in the world to fix him," Yoko tries, straight-faced -- an affect that's ruined when a masked woman is hurled directly into Pernelle, bowling him over. :I

    Yoko calls for her Persona again, Bakeneko's scratchy mroooooooowr echoing as a pillar of flame burts open around Eshm.

    Bearemy hasn't forgotten about you, Isabeau! He stares up at her, lifeless button eyes somehow conveying the message that he is ready to swing on her. Give him a reason, Isabeau. "I just made him. I don't know how he moves. It doesn't matter, does it?"

AS: Yoko Hirano spends Limit on Psych! 
AS: Persona! Yoko Hirano has used the Fire skill Agilao on Penguin Slasher!
  | Ruin: Yoko Hirano gains 1 Limit!

AS: Yoko Hirano's turn has ended.
  | Yoko Hirano: Gains 66 HP from Regen! Gains 10 SP from Vigor! Psych removed!

<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.

Then I'll have to work even harder to be the most self-interested! <3 When I die, I don't want to leave behind such a half-baked memory for you, Tsumugi!

In the moment, Tsumugi Kujaku doesn't answer the one who excitedly ordered their immediate evisceration, the one who now reacts with such beaming delight.

...Just kidding~

The briefest glimpse of the scantest hint of a placid, enigmatic smile is all they offer in that moment, perhaps confident that Yanagi will be able to come up with a more interesting interpretation of what kind of answer that could mean all on her own.

In this moment, there are more pressing concerns. Like Isabeau, asking if they can't feel their pain, a question that earns the curious cant of their head.

"Of course I do," they say simply, distantly, as if it should be a given. After all...

"I want to feel it.
    "I just don't feel the part that interests me."

And other pressing concerns still, like the appearance of a new animal-like creature with a Persona, so very fascinating. Fingers wiggle in a most surreal and casual greeting.

And then a long shadow casts over them, its dark silhouette of an arm raised.

S W I N G

The first swing is met with air as Tsumugi's slender figure snap-pivots on a heel, turning them to face Eshm's unseeing plaster mask of a face directly, expression alert yet unreadable.

C R N C H

The second swing is not so unlucky.

Blunt force bludgeons Tsumugi's right shoulder until something makes a sound it shouldn't.

A starburst of pain. And with it, words.

Why?

Why welcome its wrath?

Who...?

The scattershot smear of sentiments blend so pristinely with the pain as Tsumugi is brought low with the power of that blow. Gloved hands touch the ground -- and they feel another swell of sweet agony as they push -off- the hospital grounds, launching into the air to land in a beautiful stagger next to Jekyll's uncaring frame. They hold tall for two seconds -- and then drop to one knee, head bowed as they suck in a deep breath. Even they can be moved by things. Physically, at least.

And yet...

Something warm suffuses them, knitting at wounds, mending the superficial hurts of the body. Kazusa. The Demon Queen who yearns to relinquish her title.

"Hah," exhales Tsumugi, before an echo of the assessment they offered her last they spoke spills past those beautiful marble lips:

"Truly breathtaking."

And yet more. Revelry alights the scarlet-soaked gloom of the Homunculus' hijacked sanctuary. Energy dances electrical urges along Tsumugi's nerves until the very tips of their fingers tingle -- until an exquisite shiver rolls down their spine.

Until their heart yearns to sing in the chaos.

All thanks to Tamaki and Roger.

The detective who spun such a fascinating story for them with Eriko and Masao.

The Humor that rejected its very nature. The fascinating mystery.

A smile cracks at those lips.

... Jekyll suddenly twitches with the tug of those facial muscles, like someone experiencing an unwanted spasm.

"... 'I'm not fucking tied down.'"

Tsumugi's voice does not raise higher from that ever-even level -- yet somehow, it cuts through all the same as they speak those words. Recite those words. The words Eshm spat at them, before the violence began -- until it was caught in this desperate struggle to prove that claim once and for all.

Tsumugi's bloodied hand raises to their throat, until fingers hook at their collar.

"Aaaah..."

pop. pop. pop.

The buttons of their high-collared shirt pop open, one. by. one. With every one, Jekyll jerks faintly in its glass confines.

"'I'm not fucking tied down,'" they repeat, as marble flesh is exposed inch by inch, a scarlet smear dragging down in that bloody hand's revelatory wake.

"'I'm free. Free of that bullshit.'"

pop. pop.

"Show me."

The porcelain plates of Jekyll's body bulge. Something dark swims within, anxious. Impatient.

pop

"Show me."

Perfect plating distends as Jekyll lurches forward, cane released as it grabs at its midsection.

pop--

"SHOW ME!"

And something beautiful and hideous screeches as glass and porcelain SHATTER just as Tsumugi surges upward, yanking the last buttons away with the outward sweep of their hand.

Something dark and sinewy surges past the wreckage that was Jekyll, bits of glass and wood and porcelain puncturing its dark, organic corpus. Like Eshm, it is there and gone in a moment, leaving only Tsumugi...

... Tsumugi, who looks different now. Who feels different now. Their tailcoat has blown open, revealing pants with meshed, hip cutouts that didn't seem like they were there moments before. Their hair is longer, wilder, blowing outward to reveal the shimmering gold-to-scarlet gradient glowing at their undersides. Their torso is now bare save for the coat now draped decadently at their shoulders, polished marble decorated - sullied - by the lingering slash of Eshm's initial blow --

And a bundle of religious scrolls wrapped around and binding their chest with sacred texts and maxims, the most prominent of which is this, and simply this,

                  DO AS THOU WILT IS THE WHOLE OF THE LAW

"You're free!" Tsumugi cries, cries with unbridled elation, that smoky voice of theirs pitched with interest, fascination -- passion.

"So what will you do? What will you be? What are your dreams?"

Black drips from the ceiling.

"Will you spite women? Will you love men?"

It's above Eshm. Hanging there. Upside-down. Black and inky and strangely feminine, smaller than Jekyll, its entire body from arms and legs to victorian coat and tophat looking entirely, offputtingly organic. Like Eshm, it has no eyes to be seen. Its tailcoats sway behind it, sinuous and slow.

"Will you hurt people? Will you let them hurt you?"

And then seams in each of those tail coats split open, revealing splendorous, breathtaking, terrifying eyes of several concentric colors -- green, blue, yellow, and the deepest sapphire and the most molten gold at the center. Eyes, beautiful like the eyes of a peacock's tail. Hideous like a human stare.

"Will you find purpose? Will you lose it?"

The second those snap open, something snares at Eshm. Something strips away the resistance to the shadow that sheathes it.

"Will you desire? Will you grow sick of desire?"

And then that thing - that hideous, haunting Hyde - drops, those tail coats SCREAMING quite literally forward.

"I want to know! Show me!"

To PIERCE into the Homunculus' shoulders, its knees, as Hyde SLAMS into its back to DRIVE it forward--

"Show me everything you want to be with your freedom!!"

Right towards Tsumugi, their arms wide, their eyes wider. Ready to experience the violence in Eshm's answer in a way that is sure not to help Saika's worry as to if they're OK.

If Tsumugi was like a distant, apathetic beautiful that couldn't be touched before, then this --

This is like an intimate, mad beauty you hope does not touch you.

AS: Tsumugi Kujaku spends Limit on Exploit! Tsumugi Kujaku can use another Weak skill this round!
AS: Persona! Tsumugi Kujaku has used the Almighty skill Dark Break on Penguin Slasher!
AS: Tandem! Tsumugi Kujaku has used the Dark skill Unholy Wrath on Penguin Slasher! 3 Hits!
AS: Tsumugi Kujaku's turn has ended.
AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 204 Fire damage from Yoko Hirano's Agilao. Weak!
  | Haze (Physical and Block Penalized!) added! Bind removed! Explosion! 120 damage!

AS: Take! Penguin Slasher takes 0 Almighty damage from Tsumugi Kujaku's Dark Break.
  | Dark_Break (Dark Affinity Down!) added!

AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 98 Dark damage from Tsumugi Kujaku's Unholy Wrath.
AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 98 Dark damage from Tsumugi Kujaku's Unholy Wrath.
AS: Block Worst! Penguin Slasher takes 98 Dark damage from Tsumugi Kujaku's Unholy Wrath.

<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.

    Yanagi hums softly, thoughtfully, as Kanae changes Personas again--this time to Anubis, Egyptian lord of the dead. "Changing your Persona won't shield you from my eyes, you know," she says with serene calm as an origami spirit circles her anew--two, now, spiraling in opposing descents like a double helix. "This one resists both light and darkness, and is particularly strong in using those elements too. However, it's weak to fire. I suppose he's not that kind of lord of the dead?"
    
    Coin yelps about having been scanned. Yanagi shoots her a bright smile. "You have! <3" Her Persona Krepel's even been tutorialized, thanks to Eriko! She's so familiar with all sorts of supernatural things. To Eriko, she breathes a bit of a giggle. "Oh, but it's rubies I'm after this time."
    
    She looks thoughtful when Kikuno and Yoko address each other as cousins. Family... It seems like a contentious relationship. Yanagi knows a thing or two about that. She doesn't share what she thinks of it either.
    
    Instead, she clasps her cheek with one hand. "Oh my, she's revealed you to everyone, 'Shinichi.' Don't you think you ought to do something about that?" she wonders to Eshm.
    
    Saika brings down massive superviolence on the Homunculus. Yanagi, having already known how well she can smash through things, was perfectly comfortable letting her do her own thing. She stops and admires her and the Monster as they face off against the faceless monster. Pernelle meanwhile doesn't need to smash through; though he may have hollow, fragile bird bones, his heart burns hotter than the sun. His flames are more than enough to scorch the soul. (Do Homunculi have souls...?)
    
    Are they not all self-interested creatures, the four of Peacock Silk? It is the biggest thing that binds them together and makes them a team--a family. Yanagi rests a hand over her heart, which swells with love for her dear companions as they continue to get brutalized by the Homunculus she's actively aiding.
    
    However, even as she watches it happen, Giselle's Wilis shimmer and shimmy, trembling around their targets as they send back visual feeds. After Kanae, it's...
    
    Isabeau: "Oh, my. This one is not only a strong healer, but also very good at defense and attack! However, she's weak against the darkness. I don't think her strength with or against wind will benefit her very much here! Good thing for her she has other options!" ("Hmm? Plot? ...It's very cute of you to just come out and ask that! I'm not going to tell you." (That answers that, Yoko.))
    
    Umie: "Ah, she resists the dark, which she's also strong at using, but is weak to light. She's prolific at landing damaging ailments, too. Ah, and she has water attacks! She seems troublesome! But maybe that was already obvious?" (Does she see the flowers on that mask? What do you think, Umie?)
    
    Grim: "This Persona is strong against piercing attacks, but is weak to light. Oh, but it's highly effective at using darkness element attacks and landing ailments! Hmmm, haven't we seen this before...?"
    
    Finally, for all that Yanagi had not acknowledged the Homunculus calling dibs on rib meat, she rests her smile on Roger. He doesn't know what game she's playing, he doesn't know she's Shinichi's sister... "You really don't realize at all. I like that about you, though. It's nice to see someone get to stay innocent." Especially since he acknowledges how helpful and knowledgeable Peacock Silk has been so far! For that, he gets a giggle and no scan--yet.
    
    It's Tsumugi, though... It's always Tsumugi. They don't respond to her in words--only the faintest hint of a smile. That, too, Yanagi shares with them, mirroring it--or perhaps they've been mirroring it at her?
    
    The two of them have their own mutual understanding. They have for a long time now. That's why Yanagi didn't hesitate--why she watches, enthralled, as they Transmute anew and call forth their own other other self, exploding out from within. As if bursting through Jekyll's chest, perhaps.
    
    Kanae, as it turns out, isn't the only Wild Card here.
    
    And as Tsumugi bombards Eshm with ecstatic questions, many of them not so different from what Yanagi has already asked the Homunculus in their private conversations, Yanagi sighs with an ecstasy all her own, staggering into her twirling Persona as her gun-cane barely keeps her upright. Despite the contact, the twirling does not stop.

<Pose Tracker> Penguin Slasher has posed.

Tamaki indicates again she might be the one who best understands him. The Homunculus regards her with a strange confusion, like he doesn't understand why she might still be trying to claim this. 'Not all the way, mind you. The whole macho act isn't my thing at all.'

((of course))
    ((you're a broad))

And yet, he can only dismiss the fact that she can't do the macho act in the respect of her being a woman, why not the rest? Maybe because he doesn't know if he can, any longer. Even as his humanity slips away like a cloak on the wind, he desperately seeks anything with which to reclaim it.

'You you sicko!' 'Horror movie freak!'

    ((yes]
((so))
        ((very))
    ((human))

A strange point, to assert his grip on his humanity even as he loses it, yet all the same- he does have a point. Are those insults one would use merely for a monster?

Too bad for him, she knows all of the secrets of his constitution now. A water spell nearly blasts him off his feet outright, as he plucks a violet petal from the center of his forehead, and stares at it with unseeing eye sockets.

Then he crushes it between his fingertips as more and more flowers wrap around him, the creature flailing as he tries to tug through them with raw strength, even as they explode. Right as Umie's water moves to douse what's left, leaving only steam.

As the steam clears, a hand clasps the shoulder of the sodden Homunculus. Its head slowly turns, even though it needs it not to see. A hand reaches up to grasp that of Frankenstein's Monster, as it tries to squeeze its fingers in a contest of strength.

    ((messy?))

This very human critique is confusing for it, which has been cut off from most of its source of humanity. Fom behind, the Persona has leverage- and so the Sonic Punch from both of them striking at once catches them completely off-balance.

The creature staggers forward, right into the flaming hell that Krepel conjures, with several gouts of fire, as it becomes erratic in its movements for a few moments, trying to escape from the flames.

Anubis judges Eshm with that awful light, as the creature arches its neck back in agony. But then his eyes on his hands look right at her.

    ((know you))
((better than you think))
            ((not the first woman))
((to play games with a man))

Isabeau, in her anger sends the birth of a star right onto the Homunculus in that moment. And while he has mostly shown only a great aptitude for physical strength thus far.

Taking Yanagi's wisdom in mind for Isabeau the creature raises a hand in response, which flashes, and abruptly, spheres of deific power form around Kanae and Isabeau, orbiting them- as they grow closer and closer in a fraction of a second, boxing them in.

Then imploding point blank near each of them. Some might realize its the Megidola spell, a power greater than the Megido she cast, which Isabeau often boasts of.

How rude.

((you don't tell me))
    ((what to do))

Highly pressurized spheres of water detonate on his position, seeming to break his concentration. Which is when Yuuki's sudden Magryva spell cause its shoulders to buckle, and feet to drive further in the floor, as it cracks. The floor gives- the Homunculus looks like it is to fall.

It's it's not there.

No in fact, he's right behind Magus as he aims the blow of a fireaxe right into the back of their Persona's head. Then on the backswing, tosses the axe as easily as one might a hand axe at Yuuki.

An aim which is spoiled by the sudden Hama spell that erupts on his position from Eriko, who has some pointed criticism of his exorcism technique.

He will remember that.

And then the Homunculus actually pauses, because something so absurd has happened as to throw it off-kilter. The bright display of Pernelle's sudden reentry onto the dance floor.

    ((dance?))

Which is why when nuclear fire rains down upon him, he's taken completely unaware. The creature holds up an arm, palms facing out, as if to try and shield itself from it as it backpedals in a stutter step, trying to vanish again.

A rope then flies out of the mist, in the form of a noose aimed for Umie's neck. Then another- and another, trying to catch Eriko and Pernelle!? How did he conjure up a peacock sized rope!?. They each are tugged off their feet, then dragged abruptly into the mist, as Pernelle hears in the midst of the sudden violence.

    ((objection))

The motion of their dragging causes the mist to part from the sudden motion. Where they see the Homunculus, with multiple ropes wrapped around a hospital light fixture. With a quick tug they're lifted into the air- finding themselves momentarily strangled, a rope twisted upon a familiar figure's hand as they're hauled up to slam into the ceiling, with a brutal impact.

    ((if i only break your neck]
((will you try to tell me))
    ((how to improve))
((or will you be too dead))

A terrible taunt of one of his victims, indeed, he remembered that.

Dantes appears, trying to imprison him in that moment, forcing him to drop the rope to shatter the sudden pillars of Earth before they can cage him in, showing he is certainly, not even close to done. And each of his victims will hit the ground roughly.

Another pillar of flames drives him further back in this moment, as he's forced to abandon his assault in order to prevent being consumed by Bakeneko's flames.

Tsumugi echoes words the Homunculus said earlier. And it reappears right in front of them, as if it had sensed the change, and wished to see it with their own eyes.

    ((free))

It echoes, in chorus, as it witnesses this odd transfiguration with the narrative of Jekyll transforming into Hyde. A glorious thing, that leaves the Homunculus only watching.

Question after question after question. What will he do? So much potential. A life that he could live.

Hyde strips away his resistance as a get of the dark, he doesn't even move. Wrath descends in the form of its tailcoats piercing its shoulders. Causing it to shudder in a different sort of emotion, in the violence of the moment.

It is free.
    Yet it cannot answer.

A contradiction. It grasps for a way to answer. It finds nothing to answer to all of the unlimited potential. All of its pretend answers for how it would live its life once it took over Shinichi Nagisa are lost to it.

    And without any possibility of a human life.
    It leaves only the self-loathing,
    Of a creature that knows its a monstrous parasite
    And nothing more.

It moves from being mesmerized to furious in a fraction of a second, as its hands try to wrap both around Tsumugi's neck- and to squeeze, harder- and harder- with increasing pressure.

    ((shut up))
((stop talking))
    ((forever))
        ((that is my freedom))

His answer to what he would do with his freedom- to become anything, is only the pathetic lashing out of a creature with no answer, but to silence the person who forced him to understand this of himself.

Showing just how weak he truly is.

It's rage causes the whole room to glow red, as those deific orbs it summoned before, descend- descend, DESCEND in his incandescent, uncontrollable rage, as he focuses solely on choking the life out of Tsumugi- Hyde.

AS: Penguin Slasher has set a trigger!
AS: Persona! Penguin Slasher has used the Almighty skill Megidola on Kanae Fuyuki and Isabeau Fontaine!
  | Penguin Slasher takes 90 damage from Panic!

AS: Weapon! Penguin Slasher has used the Strike skill Night of the Living Homunculus on Umie Akabane, Eriko Kirishima,
and Pernelle! 2 Hits!
  | Penguin Slasher takes 90 damage from Exhaust!
  | Aggression: Penguin Slasher gains 1 Limit!

AS: Weapon! Penguin Slasher has used the Strike skill Him on Tsumugi Kujaku! 2 Hits!
AS: Persona! Penguin Slasher has used the Almighty skill Megidola on Tamaki Uchida, Katsuko Yoshinaga, Saika Kikuchi,
and Roger!
AS: Persona! Penguin Slasher has used the Almighty skill Megidola on Kazusa Motojima, Coin, Yoko Hirano, and Kikuno
Kisaragi!
AS: Avoid Neutral! Tamaki Uchida takes 194 Almighty damage from Penguin Slasher's Megidola.
AS: Block Worst! Isabeau Fontaine takes 220 Almighty damage from Penguin Slasher's Megidola.
AS: Block Worst! Kanae Fuyuki takes 0 Almighty damage from Penguin Slasher's Megidola.
  | Cover! Isabeau Fontaine takes 258, protecting Kanae Fuyuki!
  | Isabeau Fontaine is unable to continue fighting!

AS: Take! Tsumugi Kujaku takes 142 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's Him. Critical Hit!
AS: Take! Tsumugi Kujaku takes 117 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's Him.
AS: Avoid Worst! Pernelle takes 123 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's Night of the Living Homunculus.
AS: Block Best! Pernelle takes 6 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Night of the Living Homunculus. Critical Hit!
AS: Block Best! Coin takes 93 Almighty damage from Penguin Slasher's Megidola.
AS: Avoid Best! Roger takes 0 Almighty damage from Penguin Slasher's Megidola.
AS: Block Neutral! Kikuno Kisaragi takes 152 Almighty damage from Penguin Slasher's Megidola.
AS: Avoid Neutral! Umie Akabane takes 73 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's Night of the Living Homunculus.
AS: Yoko Hirano spends Limit on Brace! 
AS: Avoid Best! Umie Akabane takes 0 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's Night of the Living Homunculus.
AS: Block Best! Yoko Hirano takes 61 Almighty damage from Penguin Slasher's Megidola.
AS: Block Worst! Eriko Kirishima takes 120 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's Night of the Living Homunculus. Critical
Hit!
AS: Avoid Neutral! Eriko Kirishima takes 74 Strike damage from Penguin Slasher's Night of the Living Homunculus.
AS: Block Worst! Saika Kikuchi takes 246 Almighty damage from Penguin Slasher's Megidola.
AS: Block Best! Katsuko Yoshinaga takes 94 Almighty damage from Penguin Slasher's Megidola.
AS: Weapon! Penguin Slasher has used the Slash skill Tuesday the 22nd on Yuuki Hoshizora! 2 Hits!
AS: Weapon! Penguin Slasher has used the Slash skill Tuesday the 22nd on Misato Fushihara! 2 Hits!
AS: Avoid Worst! Misato Fushihara takes 94 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Tuesday the 22nd. Critical Hit! Wound! 9
TP damage!
AS: Avoid Worst! Misato Fushihara takes 94 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Tuesday the 22nd. Critical Hit! Wound! 9
TP damage!
AS: Avoid Worst! Yuuki Hoshizora takes 85 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Tuesday the 22nd. Wound! 9 TP damage!
  | Yuuki Hoshizora is unable to continue fighting!

AS: Avoid Worst! Yuuki Hoshizora takes 113 Slash damage from Penguin Slasher's Tuesday the 22nd. Critical Hit! Wound! 9
TP damage!
  | Yuuki Hoshizora is unable to continue fighting!

AS: Avoid Worst! Kazusa Motojima takes 231 Almighty damage from Penguin Slasher's Megidola.

<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.

    Eshm the Wrath is, as its name implies, a creature of violent fury. When it does not, /cannot/ answer Tsumugi's questions--when it tells them to shut up and moves to strangle them, calls silencing them its freedom--

    when it calls forth those twin scarlet orbs--

        Yanagi's eyes lid.
    
    All appearance of cheer is gone again. But this time, there is a needle focus there.
    
    Giselle's catheter limbs provide her support; she pushes her forward, staggering on reinforced but still weak legs towards Eshm's back as it is wholly focused on murdering Tsumugi with its bare hands and thus wholly ignorant of what is approaching it from behind.
    
    Closer.
    
    Closer.
    
    Closer.
    
    She reaches out, and grasps the orbs--

        --which transform into a knife with two ruby blades, that she thrusts down into and across its neck.
    
    No hesitation. No remorse.
    
    Simply a pitiless look in her dead eyes as she watches it fall.
    
    "She was right; you aren't a man," Yanagi says softly, referring obliquely to what Kanae had said ages ago. "You're a Thing. And now, you are no-thing at all."

AS: Yanagi Nagisa sets off Penguin Slasher's trigger! 6666 damage!
AS: Penguin Slasher is unable to continue fighting!

<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.

    'Megido' is the smallest of the great powers.

    There are greater powers, still, on Heaven and on Earth, than a girl who is so dedicated to self-sufficiency that she is able to heal, defend, and attack all in one.

    Megidola --

    "A power beyond Megido--!!" Isabeau gasps, in that breath of a moment as Megidola's orbs orbit her, remembering the terrifying aura of the Reaper as Vivienne aborted her efforts to hold it off with a swift escape.

    First, she knows hunger.

    Then she knows pain.

    (And unlike Tsumugi and that terrifying Hyde... she does not want to feel it.)

    Megidola drives into her once, with that massive explosion -- and then once again, as Isabeau's spell reveals that there is one way to reflect Almighty damage.

    Not onto the attacker... but onto her defender.

    She crashes into the complex machinery of the ICU, the back of her -- thick? -- skull cracking a display, body tangling in IV tubing as she's thrown clear through it to slam into the wall behind it all.

    She does not rise again.

<Pose Tracker> Yuuki Hoshizora has posed.

Yuuki's head turns to stare at Tsumugi as they change. It's a thorough change -- one far beyond the different Persona. They aren't the same person they were in the shop; or, maybe, there is more to them. The teenager stares for a second.

Then, she looks back up at Eshm. But Eshm isn't there, and--

Her eyes widen. She shouts a wordless, panicked cry to Magus. It doesn't quite come out.

Then the axe goes flying.

There is a meaty THUNK, and Yuuki drops to the floor -- to her floor. She hits the ground hard, a spray of blue blood-light splashing the wall and then dripping down. Then, her manipulation of her personal gravity gives way.

And she falls in a heap, landing like a discarded rag doll at Magus's feet. Her eyes are closed. Her hair, previously bright blue, starts to fade to the more ordinary chestnut brown.

<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.

"It doesn't have to," Kanae answers Yanagi. "I've prepared enough Personas that I can handle whatever he throws at me. You'll see."

Light... bends. Yuuki really knows what she's doing. "Great work!" Kanae calls to Hoshizora. "Keep it up!"

"Thanks, Kazusa-chan." Kanae offers a shaky grin. "Still got a problem saying we've been stalking him?"

The smile doesn't quite reach her eyes. She's puffing herself up because she's afraid. Determined... but still afraid.

But Peacock Silk... through Pernelle's words, it's clear to her; they aim to leave the Homunculus with nothing. And frankly, as far as she's concerned... that's a good thing.

Tamaki is sheepish, but Kanae calls back, "Probably not! Makes me want to ask more questions!" To Eriko, "And to you, too!"

She feels Tamaki's strength next; that 'normality' helps her, makes her feel... better. And she always has felt an affinity for the moon.

But she learns something, from Tsumugi. She sees that exultation, that exhortation to freedom--but she sees their Persona change, as well. "You, too...?" Different from her--but alike to her, too. Kanae wonders, in that moment: what could summon forth that...?

But she does not get much time to contemplate it, in the end. Kanae sees that barrier light up before her. "Isabeau?" she wonders, looking towards her in surprise. 'No more will you touch her.' "That's--"

But she is 'not the first woman to play games with a man.' How many 'games' has she played? Was Touma that different?

But...

The beautiful, terrible starlight does not touch her. Kanae realizes this as she sees the rest of the room red and quaking--as she sees--

"NO!" Kanae calls in alarm, banging on her side of the barrier with a fist. "Isabeau!"

"Don't touch her," Kanae says sharply. "DON'T TOUCH HER!"

Darting in front of Isabeau, Kanae pulls a vial from around her neck, starting to tug at it--

But then Yanagi strides up. Closer... closer... closer, before Kanae can gt clearnce to attack, and then--

"That's--"

She was right, Yanagi said, and kanae blinks in surprise--and then laughs. "...You really did take care of it your own way," she comments. "Ah... hahahaha..." She laughs in relief, in shock, and a few tears.

"...That's..." In a moment, Kanae will tend to Isabeau--in a moment, when the shock lets her move more at all.

<Pose Tracker> Katsuko Yoshinaga has posed.

Grim had noted Yanagi's presence - and her apparent cooperation with the Homunculus - but she had been on the periphery of Grim's notice the whole time. Until she scanned. Noticing that Yanagi had laid bare her every strength and weakness, Grim brought her rifle and Dantes's pistol around, locked squarely onto the one that had performed the scan, and a slight scowl began to creep into her shrouded features.
"All of this. Why?" She asked. There wasn't much in the way of accusation or reproach in her tone. No approval, certainly, but Grim didn't have the luxury of anger either.

She didn't get the luxury of a response. Not from yanagi, at least. The Homunculus was only too keen to level that monstrous force at her, and it surged towards Grim with such ferocity that she knew she could not evade it. Thus, she did the only thing she could, and called Dantes to defend her. He was no great shield, nor some titan of a man whose body could withstand any blow. But still, he deflected it, and spared Grim the worst of the damage - even if he shattered in the process, leaving Grim staggering backwards from the backlash in her mind.

By the time her vision returned to her from that nova-bright flash of energy, Grim had only the strength to watch as Yanagi approached the Homunculus. Hands gripping the rifle for all the god it would do, she waited for an excuse - any excuse - to fire. But none came. With ruthless efficiency, Yanagi executed the Homunculus, and the fight (she hoped) was over. But there was no time to rest. There were many wounded, and she yet had reserves left to heal. The Homunculus was gone, but was the fight truly over?

She didn't want to sit around and be halfway dead if the answer proved unfavourable.

<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.

Yoko offers a heavy wisdom, and Pernelle sighs. "I fear you are all too right. Ah, to be a lost soul, even to the spirit of da --" That was when Umie had hit him, before.

Now, he dances, for he is neither lost, and depending on who you ask, he only questionably has a soul himself.

After his own fiery assault, Pernelle spots Yoko calling forth Agilao, and meeting her with a cheering EEEYAW of a squawk. "Fervent enough to set fire to my spirit! Excellent, excellent, most excellent!" Who should question Bearemy? Isabeau? "Is it not obvious? Artistic passion itself animates her adorable agent!"

Does it count as making things up if he believes it?

Past his fire, Tsumugi demands a demonstration. Pernelle pauses, watching them make their demands of the Homunculus. To be a self interested creature, a selfish beast, to be free, free, free... Pernelle's eyes brighten with every question that leaves their mouth.

Here, in this supernatural space, Pernelle is an animated creature, a peacock, but a little more than a peacock: some fae thing. But even here, as a little more than a peacock, his eyes have turned beady in blank animal hunger.

It is only a moment, for there is a dance. A dance of fire and a dance of ropes.

A peacock sized noose for a peacock's slender neck loops around his throat and yanking with force quicker than furious flapping of his wings can slacken. He squawks the terrible sound of poultry facing slaughter as he's dragged into the mist.

objection
stop talking
forever

Rope pulls, and Pernelle collides with the ceiling before he is left to dangle. It is a posture ready to be defeathered by the butcher... until his head turns one hundred and eighty degrees -- rather like an owl or a possessed corpse -- to look to Eshm.

"Oh, the ache of the void where your answers should be."

Oh, to be no-thing where a Thing used to be.

As Yanagi dispatched the Homunculus without remorse, Pernelle's rope is no more. He drops, hitting the ground in a tippy tappy dance of his clawed feet as he looks to Yanagi in purest delight.

"Did I sound suitably forlorn at the onset? I did my best, but it is truly is so difficult to act against one's natural demeanor."

<Pose Tracker> Coin has posed.

Coin gives Yanagi a slightly offended look. "I am not for studying!" she objects, even though she is an oddity in the first place. She feels seen! She pulls her hat down a little bit over her eyes, her ears flattening down along with it.

Is she shy? Coin has never considered that she might be shy before. She's usually so not... but she's never had to deal with this many humans at once before, either!

But... "Should I not have?" Coin seems baffled about Umie's objection to being seen through. She literally *told her* that her Persona was the Badb, right after she sensed it the first time in the Dark Hour, and then she went and summoned her! Coin isn't going to forget the feeling THAT fast!

What business does a monster have with being a Hunter?

...

"We can talk about that when we are NOT on a Hunt!" Coin didn't have an answer she cared to say here... or perhaps she didn't have one at all. Either way, Isabeau is not getting her answer.

The falling explosive orbs are sufficient to keep Coin occupied for some time. She dives, covering her body with her coat; it's knee-length anyway and she curls up underneath it, using the whole thing like a shield. Her Hunter's outfit is significantly more durable than she is...

...but unfortunately her tail sticks out through it, and it has no such protection. Coin decides to stay down for a few moments.

But.

She feels something.

Coin rises, the back of her coat smoking slightly, either from Krepel or from the Megadola. She is staring directly at Tsumugi. Her ears vibrate with something like startlement - and excitement. She can feel it. Feel it resonating. Passion, freedom -

This is what Tsumugi desires.

It's magnificent and terrifying at the same time, and it makes some internal part of Coin's spirit sing at the same time it's repelled. She stands there, ears quivering, tail swishing, for several long seconds, until the spell breaks; she realizes there has been a killing, and a new (old?) voice, like the Homonculus but not the same.

Coin attempts to regain her composure by pulling her hat straight again before she scampers over toward Kanae - and Isabeau, as she's fallen.

<Pose Tracker> Misato Fushihara has posed.

Magus believes she has him pinned down. Spheres of water limit his movement - but the one place she does not predict is behind her Persona rather than behind her own physical form. The axe is swung, and a gout of blue flame issues forth from Nitocris as it meets its mark. Her Persona shatters into glass - and with a gasp, Magus is sent to one knee. The pain in the right side of her body flares up intensely in that short moment that Nitocris is lost to her before she recovers from the Break, but it's enough.

She meets Yuuki's eyes in that moment that Yuuki shouts to her - and then the axe swings again.

"Yuuki!" Magus calls - in a rare instance of dispensing with the theatric 'full first-name last-name way she does'. Yuuki lands at her feet - and Magus casts her cloak protectively about her as she forces her body to move in front of her. Fury crosses her face as she begins to draw something from its depths.

She can still fight - she must still fight, exact vengeance for what that thing has done to her...

...but in an instance, a fatal blow is struck. ...But from an unexpected source. Surprise crosses her face - and for a moment, she has no idea what's going on.

<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.

    'Do you understand what's really going on here?' Roger isn't directly spoken to, but somehow his attention manages to drift that way to Kikuno's exasperation. 'Of course you don't. Yet another thing I'll have to correct.'
 
     "Um. What's more important than getting rid of the Homunculus?!" Roger asks. "It seems simple enough to me," but he is also a simple-minded creature who has both a greater grasp of, and not quite perfect, idea of what it means to have a mind at all.
 
     It makes some of Yanagi's teasing a little louder. 'You don't really realize at all. I like that about you, though. It's nice to see someone get to stay innocent.'
 
     "...I like you too! I like playing with you," Roger says, from their time exploring Night Parade and that bizarre wall-graphic character. "I don't want that Homunculus to hurt you or anyone else!"
 
     Then... Hyde. Enough, to break things into silence in awe of what transpires. The power, the presence, the will.
 
     'A power beyond Megido--!!'
 
     "I don't like this!" Roger says, flinching as he tries to dive for it - but it's not because of his attempts that he avoids harm.
 
     He is an accidental beneficiary by relative proxy of who Isabeau protects from it. He's left lying prone and flabbergasted. Isabeau's name would be on his tongue.
 
     He watches the way Yanagi just quietly strikes into the Homunculus - just like that, after her bizarre game with rules that Roger simply did not understand.
 
     He can only tilt his head quietly.

<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.

Kazusa glares at Kikuno. "If you have something to share, share it before we're in the middle of a battle next time. Otherwise, worry about yourself."

She doesn't look at back when Kikuno looks at her after the Media works its magic on her.

Umie has some advice, and Kazusa looks at her and blinks. "Ehhh? H-how am I supposed to do that!? The only thing I want to make him beg for is his demise."

There's a nod to Eriko at the thanks, and the encouragement to keep fighting. "Right! But-- I can't keep dropping heals like that. My well is running kind of dry..." She's breathing hard, even after having her wounds mended.

Kazusa would be interested in talking to Yoko later--now's not really the time for a chat, as it happens.

"Demon Queen" is a hard title to give up, sometimes, for a variety of reasons. But Kazusa watches as Tsumugi... changes? Their Persona does, too, and Kazusa finds herself glancing quickly bewteen the both of them. "Wait could you always do that??"

At least the idea of summoning multiple Personas doesn't seem so weird--but the change of outfit is definitely a bit odd.

Kazusa has been doing so much to keep everyone up, but sher strenght isn't unlimited--and when the terrifying explosion of Megidola comes she's too winded to outrun it, getting caught up in the blast and thrown to the ground once more.

"Guh..." she pushes herself up to her hands and knees. Her clothing is a bit singed now. She looks up to Kanae. "Kill that thing first," she says in between gulps of air. "Argue later."

Kazusa's scared too, Kanae. She'll nag at you later.

She looks around. Isabeau and Yuuki are dropping, but Tsumugi is in danger right then. She grits her teeth. She doesn't have a lot, but if she ahs to keep the right going--

"Mina, Rec--"

Her call is cut short by a startled gasp as Yanagi just rips the eyes out of the Homunculus' head. The sight is gruesome, but Kazusa is momentarily distracted by a memory.

That.

She shakes her head and forces herself up. She staggers her way over to Magus, who is protecting Yuuki. "Magus-san, here, let me help Hoshizora-san."

There will be time for more questios later. First she'll do what she still can for the wounded...

... and then see to the person they've come here to rescue.

<Pose Tracker> Eriko Kirishima has posed.

    The shift in Tsumugi's presentation is jarring- and with that presence, that resonance of mad beauty makes Eriko step away- the relative ease she had had around Peacock Silk's proprietor on Christmas vanishes suddenly and unpleasantly.

    Maybe it's simply that she has been around too many people she really didn't want to touch her. Maybe it's just Hyde living up to the hype.

    It means she's shaken when Yanagi simply says she came here for rubies. "...what do you mean rubies?" Eriko asks, completely baffled now. Why would there be rubies...?

    That's all she can posit before the noose slips around her neck and yanks her off her feet. She tries to get her hands in the way, but she's far too slow. The force is not enough to kill her- but it is enough to strangle her, and the cry she had in her throat disappears to give way of airless choking as Eriko struggles and swings. Her hands grip around the rope around her neck, to try and pull without luck. Her rapier has fallen to the floor.

    It's only by sheer luck that she's able to shift her body and spread out her brutal impact against the ceiling of the atelier- and even then it's painful. She would cry out if she had any air left in her lungs to share. Instead, she drops unceremoniously, hitting the floor with a painful thud as she gasps desperately, trying to breathe, trying to get enough air to remove the noose by any method. Not everyone here has the wonderful, flexible neck of a peacock, Pernelle.

    It means she can barely watch as Yanagi finds her rubies- and uses them to end the thing that was fighting them.

    Normally, Eriko might have a comment, a thought, something to add-

    But right now the extent of what she can manages is a few more wheezes as she slowly regains her ability to breathe, rolling onto her back. She will... probably need some help with the rope, but that's going to be easier without the Homunculus in her way.

    Still, her thoughts linger on the wounded juniors and one simple thought.

    Eriko's not sure she understands Yanagi at all.

<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.

    Tamaki jumps slightly when Eriko touches her shoulder, but she turns back to smile and doesn't pull away. "Yeah. We've got each others' backs."

    She winces as Isabeau responds. "... understandable. I'll be ready for it," she replies. Similarly, she hangs her head when Kanae says it just makes her want to ask more questions.

    She cranes her head to one side in response to Eshm, opting to not clarify her stated position out loud -- not yet, at least. Whatever enmity she held towards Eshm in the initial moments where she had rushed towards him was now gone, held back after Eriko's earlier exhortation.

    Tsumugi's tirade sends a shiver up Tamaki's own spine. She's heard it once before, against a different Homunculus, but new information has come to light since then. She stares at Tsumugi and feels the sting of envy start to take hold in her chest.

    What does it say about her that she just wants to be 'normal' again? To have the 'gas leak' truly just have been a gas leak? To have any claims that someone 'must have been daydreaming' be just that instead of her cover story to dissuade people from learning about Personas and Demons?

    It'd ease her sense of guilt, earned or unearned as it may be. It'd mean that she wouldn't have been reminded of this aspect of herself.

    All of her moonlit veils can't hide from Megidola. There is no escape from such a spell; it will find its way past any defenses, save one throwing themself in front of another to protect them. Wide-eyed with panic, Tamaki scrambles to flee and save her own skin from the almighty. She dives away in a last-ditch effort to avoid the brunt of the blast and lands on her stomach with an undignified grunt of pain.

    As Eriko lands to the ground, Tamaki staggers over to her. "Elly! Elly, are you okay?!" Every other concern is gone from her mind as she works to loosen the knot to give her friend enough slack to get free.
     

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    Coin's reply reminds Umie of something important.
    ... ah, right, it's Umie who is bad at opsec

    "Ah, right, right. Sorry. It was late at night..." The many sides of Umie Akabane: a menace to beings threatening her life, an apologizer to anything below her in height (but still mighty!).

    But what's also top of Umie's mind in terms of 'that is something that maybe should be concerning' is Tsumugi's transformation. Umie, however...

    ... watches in awe. ".... So Personas can do that too, huh..."

    But the homunculus still stands, and Yanagi has fed him information about Umie. But really, is there anything he doesn't already know? The most important parts are laid clear...

    _Umie Akabane is a troublemaker_. And she *will* make good on her omen, one way or another.

    The noose comes for Umie's neck, and manages to snag its mark-- or, well, a bun. "SH---" Blonde hair comes away as she is snagged, slamming down onto the ground with a painful thud.

    *RIPP*

    Umie lets out a hoarse shriek as the noose leaves her, her left hand clutching the now tender (and possibly bleeding) part of scalp and hair that was thankfully freed. It could have been worse, had she not managed to keep it from taking part of her scalp.... or if she was Eriko.

    "Kirishima-san?!" Umie scrambles over besides Tamaki, attempting to help her free Eriko from the knot still around her neck and carefully lower her down. "... Careful now... just keep by me." She also casts a look towards Pernelle, even if she's unsure of how such a magnificent bird could be deterred by such an attack.

    .... is that... Yanagi...?
    Maybe, the headache Umie's beginning to feel is affecting her eyesight...

    But no, no. Yanagi paid her brother in full.

    "Well, aren't you a little schemer..." Umie breathes, despite her shock.

<Pose Tracker> Kikuno Kisaragi has posed.

    "Oh, it won't change the outcome here," Kikuno tells Kazusa. "But please, keep on telling yourself that."

    "You'll see," she tells Roger in turn. "I promise."

    She shoots Isabeau a glance that may as well be a thrown dart. "Then go tell your father. It's not my problem," she tells her, waving a hand dismissively. "Now, shut up. We're fighting a real monster." As if, somehow, /she's/ the normal one here and Isabeau is the oddity.

    Then again, when set against the likes of Peacock Silk, as demonstrated thus--

    (But, wait does that mean that Kikuno, despite entering alongside them, counts herself not among their number...?)

    (And, for that matter, whose side /is/ Yanagi's on right now, anyway...?)

    She turns her head to look at Yoko, her younger cousin. Her mother's younger brother's daughter. Who now wonders aloud what /happened/ to her. Why isn't she... herself?

    "Shut up," Kikuno tells Yoko, quite bluntly.

    And then, to rub salt into the wound, she turns her attention away.

    Her honest reaction to Eshm's attack, on the other hand...

    "Ch..." she hisses, glaring at the Homunculus from behind her spectacles. "Don't put words in my mouth." He doesn't need to, technically speaking: she'd said as much herself, when last they'd met. She's wondered it herself, anyway.

    Just what's the difference between parasite and host? From where do the darker impulses really spring? Knowing what she knows, knowing twice-over the invasion of the soul by another, can she really claim that the thing that had once taken her and herself are so very different?

    That a horror movie can spring from a human heart alone?

    There's little time to consider it now. Before her, there's a star. From that star, there's light, and terrible soul-scouring force. Kikuno yells something: it's swallowed by the detonation's roar. Her throne melts away beneath her as Beatrice shatters into dust, sending her toppling to the ground. This is where she lies as Eshm tells Tsumugi exactly what he -- it -- thinks of them.

    This is as far as its expression of humanity can go, though. In the end, an imitation is just an imitation. But does that mean that it will necessarily fail? Kikuno, on the floor, gazes up at Eshm as he -- it, it, he's no man -- descends upon Tsumugi.

    Yanagi, in that moment reveals precisely whose side she's on.

    A terrible snicker, even as she pants for breath and slowly rises from the floor to then stand, escapes Kikuno. "Didn't I tell you...?"

    Her own gaze then turns towards Shinichi, waking at last from his slumber.

    "Oh, he's awake now. Hurry up," she says, limping her way over towards the cocoon and fallen Homunculus alike, "or you'll miss your dear sister a second time."

<Pose Tracker> Penguin Slasher has posed.

The Homunculus is not merely distracted, it is consumed by an urge to reduce all Tsumugi is to nothing. To obliterate all memory of them from its landscape. It is utterly single-minded in this.

Which is why, when Yanagi reaches, it does not notice her at all, until it is

far
    too
        late

Its neck slashed. The Homunculus lets go of Tsumugi, to grip its own throat- as black ichor pours out of it. It holds it, as unseeing sockets stare right at Yanagi - for the betrayal.

'She was right; you aren't a man,'
'You're a Thing. And now, you are no-thing at all.'

A twist of the knife, without any motion of the knife at all, it seems the creature will take those thoughts to its grave. Without its eyes, silenced, no retort at all, just- pathetic flailings of a creature that already knows its dead.

The Homunculus shudders, as it loses its strength, arms falling away from its neck to its side. The creature staggers backwards as more and more ichor pours out of it.

Then falls to the ground, unmoving, as that dark fluid pools beneath it. There are no signs of life whatsoever as it lay there- as if in state.

And it's at this moment, that a boy who had been trapped in a cocoon for so long, surprisingly- not merely his Shadow says the words, "O... Oneesan?"

TO BE CONTINUED