Reim Empire

[Apollymi]

Shadiya listened to the words spoken by her household member and as he continued to speak her face began to fall. What little hope she had left of settling this before it got out of hand seemed to disappear from her eyes. Just when she thought everything would be okay, just when she believed that she and her friends could complete their goals and continue moving forward, it would be the one person she trusted most in her life, who would stand in the way of her own growth. "It wasn't like that, you weren't there, I was. This is better, but you don't want to see that do you?" Shadiya wished to argue, but she wasn't sure if she'd get through to this man or not. On the one hand, she knew only one thing. "I won't let you kill them Shaka. We, built this together and we're better than that, and they're our friends." she stood between herself and him the heart shaped pendent on her neck glowing with the power of her Djinn. She would spare just a moment for Aiolia smiling over her shoulder at the young blonde man. "You don't have to stay here for this..." she said. Her eyes though seemed sad, it was like the young girl, just had an odd realization about what was going on here.

Among this group with Shaka was a girl with dark brown messy hair and she had a vessel which was a ring, which had the ability to warp space allowing her body to move through solid spaces. She did this behind Shaka and began to walk through the rooms, obviously looking for people to slaughter. She knew nothing of this situation, but she had nothing better to do, and as such she'd do this for a few minutes.

[Bloodedge]

"These are not my friends. They might be changing you, but I won't let them change me. If it's too late to being you back to reality, I'll take you down with them." As Shaka spoke, his arm was brought back down. Black Rukh began to spew from his Dark Metal Vessel, and the space around the item began to warp. Meanwhile, Aiolia stepped up to Shadiya's side. Though she cleared him to vacate the premises, the look she had when saying so made him want to do the exact opposite. "You're right. That doesn't mean I won't stay. You went out of your way to help me when we didn't even know each other. The least I can do is return the favor." Before he continued speaking, Aiolia used his left hand to grasp the sheath of his sword right next to the guard of the weapon. "Do what you can to save your friend. I'll deal with these palace thugs."

[Apollymi]

Shadiya looked at her friend and was amazed by the things he said, but not in a positive way. Perhaps she had been changed since coming into contact with Fudo and Yasmin, but she didn't consider this change to be a negative thing. To her, any changes that happened were much better than the status quo, than sitting and waiting while watching others suffer. Before she could open her mouth to speak on this though, Aiolia said something to her, which made the girl's eyes widen just a little. A glimmer of hope returned to the girl as his words touched her heart. "Alright then, I'll leave you to it." she said with a quick nod. After this there was the matter of figuring out how to deal with Shaka.

Shadiya knew her own strengths and weaknesses and though she was well aware that she couldn't fully use her Djinn Equip, in this case she figured she wouldn't rightly need to. She'd been learning the start of a new form of fighting and as such her own Magoi began to culminate within her hands. She didn't have that much, but she hoped she'd be able to disrupt whatever was going on with Shaka and bring him back to normal before that became a factor. "I don't want to do this, but you aren't leaving me very many options, Shaka." she understood that whatever his new magical item did it was similar to her own vessel, meaning she might have to do more thinking than actual fighting. Still she said that as a final warning those golden eyes of hers narrowing and burning with the determination to bring her friend back to himself.

[Bloodedge]

"Right. I'll be back," said Aiolia. It was his intention to clear out the six underlings and return to assist Shadiya in whatever way necessary. His eyes had followed the movements of five followers in Shaka's company, but one had managed to evade his gaze. Still, while having knowledge of the others' locations. As he prepared to take off, Shaka interrupted. "Such loyalty in only a day. You disgust me. You'll die first," he said. Shaka's Dark Metal Vessel was at the ready to assault Aiolia, but before this could happen, the blonde from Artemyra vanished. Numerous steps in rapid succession were made with enough intensity to crack the floor beneath Aiolia, but by the time this happened with each step, he had already moved on. His movements never seemed to stop, but instead seemed to pass each of Shaka's apparent underlings before they spurted blood from unseen slashes. One by one, they fell with deep slash marks across their bodies. This left only one person standing after about fifteen seconds... whichever person had evaded Aiolia's lingering gaze.

"Your new boy toy has a strong pair of legs on him. You must be so proud," Shaka commented, seeming apathetic about the likely death of his men. Whatever the case, they were expendable anyway. Before he continued, Shaka moved his hand and Metal Vessel in a sweeping motion through the air, accessing the item's magic to remove the space itself between himself and Shadiya. In doing so, he aimed to reach out and grab the girl by the throat with his other hand; a feat that would be more easily achieved with the space between them gone. "I wanted to see you rule the world, Shadi. Both of us standing high above everyone else, and me doing anything you desired. Why would you abandon that dream for these pitiful commoners?"

[Apollymi]

It seemed Aiolia was quite equipped to handle himself. She'd done no reading on Artemyra but, Shadiya figured if there was a man among them sent on such a task as the one he'd undertaken, then he was bound to be a great deal better than average. Even so, it appeared that Shaka had developed quite the unseen hatred for this boy without even bothering to get to know him. "Stop saying that." this was something Shadiya felt really strongly about which was the reference to Aiolia as her 'boy toy'. "He's a person, and he's strong on his own merit. He is kind to me, because I was kind to him nothing more. He's done nothing to you, why are you so content to hate him?" she asked only to find herself trapped within this young man's grasp. She still didn't seem upset by this, it was simply a matter of her figuring out the best way to go about her particular task. 'Hmm, so instead of stopping time like his Household Vessel, it alters the space found between two people. Practical, but... annoying to be up against.' the girl thought as her friend spewed hatred and dissent the likes of which she'd never heard from him before as she gripped at her neck and kicked with her feet off the ground she spoke. "I didn't." she managed as punched towards his arm, it was only for a second but the amount of magoi she positioned within this hit was meant to stun, to force his hand to release her body. If this succeeded she'd be capable of speaking properly, obviously her first friend and follower didn't understand what she was trying to do here.

Meanwhile the one brunette who wasn't soon joined by her friends was more than a bit a surprised. "Oi?! Am I supposed to do this all by my..." she started to question, only to find that five out of the six other people she'd come in with lay spread out across the ground with slashes on their person. To her knowledge the person known as Shadiya didn't have this as a power, and as such it had to be someone else. "Who... did this?" she asked.

[Bloodedge]

"Cut the shit, Shadi!" the boy exclaimed while his hand wrapped around the Dungeon Capturer's neck. "You and I both know you'll be chumming it up and trying to do his hair and nails as soon as there's downtime. But that's not what's important here." Shadiya's punch, while lacking in physical strength, somehow caused a painful shockwave in Shaka's arm, accompanied by the spewing of blood from said limb. This indeed caused his grip to loosen, which resulted in the boy staring at his arm afterwards. "Got yourself a trick? Nice..." Whatever Shadiya intended to say, Shaka didn't care to hear. After her claim of not abandoning any dreams, Shaka clenched his gloved fist and swung it in the girl's direction, aiming to use the Dark Metal Vessel to deal additional blunt damage with the punch.

Elsewhere in the building, Aiolia finally stopped moving. It had taken longer than he initially anticipated, but he finally found the last enemy, who seemed to have already taken note of his handy work. "That would be me, and you would be next. First, tell me... Why does the emperor seek war with Artemyra?"

[Apollymi]

Shaka's words still brought a great deal of pain to the girl's heart, even after she'd managed to free herself. She'd caused his arm a great deal of damage and it hurt her to do so, but she couldn't risk allowing herself to take too much damage. "I am sorry about that... really." she said of his arm. It seemed that she was quite remorseful even though she knew at this point she was simply defending herself. She was beginning to wonder if the only way to make her friend listen would be to completely immobilize him. But instead of anything good happening, his praise of her skills would simply lead into an attack with his new weapon, she aimed to stop it with her palm and then another quick Magoi infused strike was aimed near the joint of his shoulder, again it was simply meant to immobilize him, it was as if she intended to pick him apart systematically so long as she was within striking distance of him. "Really, would it be so hard for you to just stop and think about what you're doing here? You're my first friend and you're trying to hurt me right now, and you once promised me you wouldn't." she said to the blonde young man. It was sort of a surreal experience for her, having to fight her friend in such a way for no reason other than he just didn't believe in the same dream as she did anymore.

Meanwhile the chocolate haired lass, was asked a question by the blonde young man who'd dispatched all her friends. And in response to his question she laughed. "Yes, because the Emperor really wants to discuss his plans with me." she said. Though she had some knowledge of what the head of this country was planning she had no desire to explain this to an enemy. "Besides, you're planning to end me too... I got nothing to say to you." the girl mentioned her dark eyes fiercely burning beneath that mop of dark colored hair.

[Bloodedge]

"Yeah... Go ahead, make it sound like I'm the one with empty promises. You're a King's Candidate who's no longer fit to be above anyone." The block of his punch meant nothing to Shaka. An important matter, though, was the following strike to his shoulder joint, which made his arm go limp immediately. This was very strange, and very annoying. "Of course you'd go the passive route. You don't even have what it takes to take out a traitor."

Aiolos' left hand remained on the sheath of his sword. The woman before him was not at all willing to give him the information he sought, but she didn't seem to know, either. "It's not my goal to end you. It's my goal to stop you by whatever means necessary. From your attitude, I'm willing to guess those things are one and the same. That's disappointing."

[Apollymi]

"No longer fit to be above anyone?" she questioned this because it made it sound as if she ever truly thought herself to be above anyone in the first place. Her strike having succeeded she backed away stopping the flow of her own Magoi so as not to waste it and perhaps hear out what her friend had to say about this entire situation. She was starting to think her friend her took a very different view on their previous lives than she did and now she was almost tempted to see exactly what it was he meant by his statements, because unraveling them would be the key to stopping this fight. "Nothing has happened here that can't be forgiven." she said this because she meant it. Yes, he'd led an assault on their home in a misguided attempt to apparently sway her beliefs, but this wasn't something that was horrible in any way, no one had died. And nothing had changed... she saw no reason to try and harm her friend more than he forced her to.

Meanwhile, the girl with the dark hair seemed to be watching this boy. His words about not wanting to do anything to her made her smile, but it wasn't a nice or friendly smile. It was the sort of smile, which an animal created when it was backed into a corner. It was malicious and cynical. "It isn't as if you can hit me with that sword, so there is nothing to stop me from walking out of here anyways." she said there wasn't nearly as much commotion in this house as she expected so she figured their new leader was behind held up. Still, she didn't really have time to worry about this, instead she simply walked towards the boy as if she was going to go past him towards the front, but at the point where they would have touched she simply phased through him a small dagger appearing in her hand after she was finished she'd aim to plunge it through the back of this boy's head as she passed him. Her intention to go check on Shaka and see what was taking him so long.

[Bloodedge]

"You're wrong... You can't be forgiven." If he couldn't move his upper arm to assault Shadiya, Shaka would go for another method. The palm of his right hand opened and warped the space between himself and the girl once more. This time, however, the space was twisted, which created an effect akin to a spiraling strike of Shaka's right hand toward Shadiya's face. Once his attack had been attempted, Shaka aimed to return space to normal, restoring the distance between them.

Aiolia scoffed. Never had he been unable to strike anything with his sword technique, and as far as he was concerned, this would be no different. As such, when the woman moved toward him, he aimed to slash at her neck with great speed and pinpoint accuracy. To his surprise, the blade passed through her without doing any sort of damage, and she went on to phase through him just the same. As she did this, he turned to have her within his gaze again; the end result of this being Aiolia leaping away at a moment's notice due to the sudden dagger coming toward his face. "What the hell? What sort of magic is that?" he questioned aloud as he aimed to lunge his blade through the woman's torso.

[Apollymi]

At Shaka's words Shadiya's eyes widened. She couldn't believe at that this very moment, she was being blamed for this incursion. What came next to her was a manipulation of time and space, which ended with her receiving a twisting punch to the face and sent her flying backwards. She hit a wall but seemed to be fine other than the extreme soreness her body would likely feel because of this later. "Uh-huh... so I've broken our promise because I've changed. Not because I've done anything wrong, or because I gave up on my dream... but because I found another way, which doesn't require me to climb over a mountain of bodies?" she questioned rhetorically as she rubbed her cheek. It had hurt, but she supposed, she'd done worse to him in the last few moments. And with that in mind, she couldn't help but wonder how such hypocrisy had been seeded between the pair of them, how had she not noticed that he'd been stuck on these things while she moved closer to their overall goals.

Meanwhile the brunette girl was rather surprised by her opponent's aptitude. It seemed he was at least able to follow her motions even if he couldn't touch her with them. His question as he backed away from the dagger she'd been about to plunge into the back of his head made her brow raise. "I should be asking you that question, it isn't everyday someone dodges a back stab assassination attempt." she chuckled only to point at the black metal ring she wore on her right hand. "It's the offshoot of a Dark Metal Vessel. Like the ones which belong to those little nobodies who follow King Vessel's around. But... connected to something else. Mine allows me to make my body intangible so I can pass through solid objects. So... you can't touch me." she said with a smile on her face. It seemed this girl had no intention of falling here, or giving up any information and though this boy had jumped away from her first strike, this would only lead her to try again, right up until the moment she'd chose to strike her body would be passing through and around this blonde boy, but after a few passes she tried again, this time aiming the shot with her short blade to his kidney on the left side.

[Bloodedge]

"You just don't get it. You never will," Shaka said while warping the space between them again, this time moving himself closer to Shadiya. Being the taller of the two, he perfectly aimed this movement so he would be just outside of Shadiya's physical reach, while she would be just within his if necessary. "It doesn't matter. I'll sever my ties with you here, and move on with my life." With that said, Shaka raised his left foot and aimed to stomp Shadiya into the floor with it.

The brunette's assertion of his dodge caused Aiolia to chuckle briefly. "You'll no sooner hit me than I'll hit you, I'm afraid," he said. Though, this woman's ability to avoid all forms of physical contact until she chose not to was troublesome indeed. This meant that even if he managed to keep her attention, he would only end up being the one to tire out and lose in the end. Once more, he found himself shifting about as she continued phasing through his body, anticipating the next strike. When it came, he avoided it just as he'd done with its predecessor, but his blade would do nothing for him here. 'This is bad,' he thought. 'She was on her way to Shadiya just then. As long as I can't cut her, I can't do anything. I have faith in Shadiya's abilities as a Dungeon Capturer, but with everything going on... I can't let this sort of distraction make its way to her now. But... how the hell do I stop it?'

[Apollymi]

Shadiya seemed to be having a rough go of this day, the space between the two of them disappeared again, and soon the man known as Shaka was standing just outside of her reach but aiming to harm her once more. She was mortified but ready for more violence, as apparently this was something that her friend could just dish out. "No, it's you who doesn't get it... but somehow I'll make you understand." this as the difference between Shadiya and Shaka, as he was content to let his point fall to the wayside and separate himself from her. She wanted him to understand, to learn, to grow, and to get better as a result of this interaction. It was all she ever wanted, her own thirst for learning was never probably brought to the surface but she loved this in other people. She loved helping people find understanding. She wanted a world where people were free to purse their academic interests and where there was nothing stopping anyone from finding out anything they wanted to know. As his left foot came into her person she didn't stop it, after all, she couldn't reach him until the impact was made. But even so, once he was stomping her, she used her new technique again, this time she would aim hit him with her Magoi forcing a lot of it right into his Achilles Tendon and thus mar his leg, her intention beyond what it had been in her hit before, to maim the muscles there. If she succeeded the tendon would snap, as every one of these hits was layered and intended to cause stacking damage as well as cut off the flow of his Magoi. As she went through this ordeal, a Rukh Bird would fly from her necklace and head for the young man who was presently nowhere in sight.

At the back of the villa the brown haired girl was trying but failing to slash this blonde man before her. "Ugh, just die already, it will be quicker for everyone." the girl mentioned as she continued her assault which kept her just out of the range of danger that physical attacks would cause. But at this time a small Rukh Bird would nestle itself into the guard of the boy's sword right behind a red gem and it would speak to him, as it did. "I'm a familiar spawned from the Djinn Dantalion. If you really believe in her, you can call upon my power and go to her. Call upon me and become a Member of the Household of Space & Time." said the little bird as it waited.

[Bloodedge]

"Shut up," Shaka said as his foot made contact with the purple-haired girl's torso. Immediately after he gained this bit of satisfaction, the enjoyment was taken away from him. Whatever the contact with his leg did, it caused a sharp pain to shoot up to his core, and afterwards, he could no longer command the limb for some reason. He remained standing due to his right leg, but he was now two limbs down in a battle he thought he was sure to dominate with this Dark Metal Vessel. "Bitch. This resolve of yours is pissing me off. Just give up and die!"

In the midst of his dodging, Aiolia was visited by a mystical being the likes of which he'd never seen, though it gave him a feeling of comfort somehow. When the familiar spoke, it was as if he understood its very will. With it in his sword, he knew what he could do to be of use here. 'Household of Space and Time, huh?' he thought. Aiolia then ceased his attempts to look behind him as the woman went about phasing through his body. As he faced her, he followed the given will of the familiar in what was now his Household Vessel. "Household Vessel: Miftah Danti!" As the brunette came his way to phase again, Aiolia slashed at her midsection. Though he was sure she'd be using her magic tool to phase through it again, this time, he had countermeasures against her attempts. His sword was now a weapon with the power to cut whatever he wanted it to, leaving everything else in its path unharmed much like the woman's own ability. His aim was to phase through the magic affecting her body as she moved, and specifically slash through the internal organs of her midriff horizontally. If this worked in accordance with his faith in the Household item, Aiolia hoped he simply would not have to worry about the next attack this woman had in store for him.

[Apollymi]

Shadiya was told to shut up, but it only made her laugh. She completed the action she'd intended and with the man two limbs down she finally began pulling herself up off the floor. There was a large bruise covering her exposed midsection and one across the side of her face as well, but she didn't seem discouraged at all. In fact, there was the light of her resolve burning behind her eyes, and beyond that she simply felt pity for Shaka. Because he lacked understanding something for simple. Because he threw a tantrum like he was a toddler instead of asking her to clarify her motivations, because he didn't understand the friendship they were offered because he didn't want to work for it with his own two hands. "No, I won't give up and just die, I still have something I need to do, but you should. You're hurt, Shaka and if you continue attacking me... I'll have to keep hurting you." she said calmly though there were tears forming in her golden eyes. "And I really don't want to."

Meanwhile the girl with her Dark Metal Vessel was content to try and attack this boy again, not knowing of the magic she now possessed and this time the strike just like the ones she'd been avoiding made contact with her actual torso. The magic she'd cloaked her body in was cut through by this boy somehow. He'd become a Household Member already? He'd given himself to someone like the girl in front... The only thing that registered on the girl's face was shocked as her blade fell out of her hands inches away from this boy's person, she opened her mouth to speak, but blood flowed out and across her tongue instead. She fell to the ground then the light beginning to fade from her eyes.