Chapter Eight:

The two Umbra Witches managed to find a rather classic movie within the genre of slapstick comedy and enjoyed it with a rather large serving of popcorn. While Viola managed to watch the entirety of the movie, Heather, being six, didn't have the same ability to stay up late and fell asleep on the couch, with the rather bright light from the tv screen revealing that her shadow no longer matched her physical body. Instead casting a shadow in the shape of Lilith. As the older of the two looked to the side and saw the younger girl curl up in her sleep, she gave the sleeping Heather a smile before going and grabbing a pillow and blanket, putting the pillow below Heather's head and blanket on her and turning the tv off before going to bed herself.

Meanwhile, miles away to the east from Viola's apartment in New York in a certain office located in a castle in the Scotland highlands, several devices and instruments had been either going haywire for several hours or simply stopped working, and a very small few had any ideas regarding why the devices and instruments were malfunctioning. One of the devices had even all but exploded, a device designed to monitor the magical power level of the individual it was bound to. Another device designed to monitor the linked person's emotional state on the other hand was emanating a warm gentle light, indicating content and peace. While the status of that device was ultimately a good thing, the fact that it hadn't shown such results until after an instrument indicating whether or not the person many of the devices and instruments were monitoring were at their 'designated' location stopped showing the status as positive, meaning that the person in question was no longer there. Which was a problem for the person who had all that monitoring equipment as the situation just got a lot more variables for the next five and upcoming years. And with variables came unknowns, bethey people or otherwise.

Back in the Big Apple, more specifically the bar known as The Gates of Hell, the weaponsmith and bartender known as Rodin making the final adjustments to a new weapon before it was ready for its baptism. The infusion of an Infernal's powers. Imbuing the weapon with the properties (which sometimes caused a weapon to mutate (for want of a better word) into a form somewhat closer to the Infernal) and allowing the wielder to don a somewhat humanoid visage of the infused Infernal through the use of the technique known as Demon Masquerade. The only thing that Rodin could do now was wait for the weapon's intended return the following day and hope that the weapon earned the approval of the intended wielder's Contracted Infernal. While it was very unlikely for Rodin to admit it to anyone but himself, it felt rather nice to finally craft something that wasn't just a side-project or a distraction but something with a real purpose again, like how his previous projects had been created with the purpose of aiding in the endeavors of the original holder of the name Bayonetta.