Chapter 67 - Imperfections Made Whole
Years ago, Hana Yukino felt cold, it never bothered her as much as the people around her, although, everything was grey, felt grey so again it didn't bother her, not anymore. She sat with her hands on her legs atop an examination bed, listening to the murmurs around her downcast face.
"Her Quirk is strong, unstable too, everything she touches drops to temperatures no human could survive if she lets her emotions go," The Doctor echoed to the only person in colour to her, the man was her Mom's brother. "I'd suggest the medication that helps to... alleviate her stress levels."
"You mean drug her so she's docile?" The Doctor winced at the guy's tone, himself sighing. "Aren't you guys the peak of medical professionalism? Well, thanks but I think we're grand bud."
A hand lowered to Hana's, a smile so kind it reminded her how cold the world was to her. "Come on, squirt, I promised we'd grab that newest manga edition, right?"
"Duck!" Listening to Velk, Hana dipped from the corner of the wall toward the next hallway with a roll, evading the wave of scorching flames that nicked at her ankles. She drew her sword to guard her chest from the approaching blazing claws stretching from the shadows. "Of course, he was bound to be here!"
Infernal's jaws stretched into a grin, bending the flesh melding them together. "Hehehahaha! Come here, girl~!" Red hot flames spurted from his jaws, melting a portion of Hana's helmet while she swung back, leaving a large arc of rime in her wake, cold-snapping half the hallway out of haste.
Hana grabbed a lip on the wall, launching herself high with a burst of frost. The pair tore through into a server room of sorts, giving her ample time to flank from behind one of the pillars, tackling the Nightmare from the air as it missed its chance to attack. The pair tumbled through the air, smashing through two columns. Hana recovered quickly, kneeing Infernal before delivering a roundhouse to his jaw, knocking the beast across the room, his claws melting through the data banks.
He grinned at the sight above Hana, slipping away while Vandal Splicers armed with arc cutlasses dove from above, plunging their blades through her back and out her chest. Hana yelped but threw them off, swiping one with her extending tail. She threw herself toward the crossroads, bringing her sword across the forearm of Infernal, diverting his flames toward the room.
One Stealth Vandal swung down in the instance, swiping Hana's visor as another grabbed her shoulder, slicing her right side while she elbowed it in the face, gunning it down with shards of ice while another shot struck her left leg, shoving Hana into the waiting blades of a Vandal as it sliced both her left forearm and breastplate back into the one behind the teen. Acting quickly, she slipped under its shadow and out the opposite side, severing everything from the crown up with a sharp glade of blue ice.
Hana immediately was shot twice, then slashed from behind by a Vandal, his blade sunk through her barding, then one pulled her aside, the hiss and crackle of Infernal's palm built as the scalding blast sunk against her stomach blasting Hana far across the Server Room. Her back dug through the corner of a pillar, landing in a heap while the Fallen corraled around her. Sword only a few feet away.
"Ah-Ah-Ah~" Infernal's foot crushed her hand, sniffing up her burning flesh under his molten foot, the obsidian cracked like magma as she thrashed in pain. "Let's stop holding back!" He backhanded her with enough force to gouge out her right eye, singeing her hair with her charred hand under his foot, the blood evaporating.
"Hana-!"
"Don't worry about it, I... I can do this!" Hana snapped back at Velk's worry. This wasn't the time, but... but without her blade - no, she needed to focus! Even if... she can't risk using her power. The air crystalized around her bloodied arm, regenerating the lost limb.
Infernal danced along slowly, kicking the wrapped blade aside gleefully, "Harrow said you'd be trouble, a coward hiding in a single pathetic little Host," Fanatical like all the rest.
"So... Harbinger isn't calling the shot - grah!" Another kick threw Hana across the room, breaking another column with her spine. "*Cough-Cough*!"
The Nightmare's eyes glowered with malice. "Like we need some philosophical leader to finally cull the Great Ones!" Infernal's very temper raised the flames surrounding them, Splicers by his sides. Fanning his arms in splendour he grinned. "With the vacuum that ego-centric Nekros left, we finally have a chance to sever Eve's Visages one by one!"
Sniffing what Hana could imagine was ash, she picked herself up, observing how the Fallen moved to pincer her, a slow build-up of embers crackling around Infernal's claws, turning the dark Server Room a crude orange. "You'd never stop at them..." She seethed a white vapour, ice crystals formed at her feet. Her fingers grew, hardening with black ice. "I'll take you all on!"
Drawing her right arm wide she caved the first Vandal's head through the ground, kicking a spire of ice high while drawing her left down on the torrent of flames that consumed a number of Dregs. Slipping between the shades, Hana grasped Infernal's shoulder, tearing off some of the armour before ducking under the backswing of his tail, flames cast in a wave behind them. Hana smacked him across the jaw withdrawing with a twirl, seeing her ice and his fire collide with two more Vandals approaching from the back.
Frost was beginning to creep over the environment only to be evaporated, her knuckle curled against Infernal's hardened chest, tossing the Nightmare back with his claws rending the floor, blowing the metal apart to burn Hana caught in the blaze. It incinerated the Devils while Hana ran across the data banks vertically, propelling over a blast, landing on the edge of a pillar to dive backwards over another. Landing behind Infernal, his arms grabbed her and threw the girl toward another column, firing two more scorching orbs.
"We can't win like this, please, Hana!" Velk's words were ignored as the flames grazed her Host's stomach, the glare of Infernal's palms drawing near behind her weak dome of ice. Every blast rattled her bones, burnt the hair off her regenerating body.
"First Echo!" Another blast. "Then Chaser!" The fourth burnt her hands. "Spider!" Her dome shattered like glass before her pinpricked eyes left utterly defenceless against both hands condensing a miniature sun. "A finally, that nuisance Gambit."
This final blast threw Hana back in a silent shriek, armour melted down to puddles, skin burnt black, wounds hissing in vain to heal while collapsing into a pile of discarded trash and metal. Her eyes rolled back into her head, unable to sense the Nightmare approaching.
Hana wasn't always alone, her parents were caring but... that was before her Quirk manifested. When it did, Hana didn't see kind, loving smiles anymore, just terror as even the dust in the air froze in place under the intensity of her ice. Leaving her father's legs frostbitten while Hana felt... nothing, if she were honest, briefly, she felt like everything in her life was lost in serenity.
Looking up from her book, she sat on the porch of a more traditional style house. Her uncle took her in despite what her Mom argued about, she didn't understand why her Mom refused to look at her anymore, and Dad never showed his face to her again either. Hana's Uncle, Grey Yukino, owned a local Kendo dojo, he practised it quite often, something Hana took a liking to, seeing him smile proudly felt... nice, he was the only thing that felt bright in her bleak outlook.
But ridicule remained for years...
Walking out into the school grounds, Hana didn't pay much mind to the stares she got from a few that knew her well, rather, knew about how dangerous her Quirk was. Thanks to her Uncle, controlling her emotions got better, sadly, that didn't stop whispers purposefully heard from spreading. "There's Japan's newest villain." "Someone arrest her before she hurts someone." "Your parents abandoned you? Good, who would want some villain as a daughter!" "I bet they killed themselves."
It didn't matter to her, nothing really phased her anymore. During her walk through a small forest park, Hana admittedly, let her Quirk out even just by a fraction. Whisking snowflakes around her hand, high into the trees. She could control it but without her emotions playing a factor it might as well be useless.
"h...help... p-p-please..." Hana stopped dead in her tracks. Looking around the pathway, no one else was nearby. Her lips formed her usual downward 'V' before listening closely to her surroundings. "...a-a-ah..." Left.
Discarding her bag behind a tree, she stepped between the trunks in search of the voice, though something else called to her. It was cold, very cold. Being unphased by colder climates this feeling was unexpected to say the least. She followed the dropping temperature until the leaves under her crunched and snapped. Everything was coated in frost, even her breath started to appear.
Rubbing her arms closely, she noticed how the ice had formed outward in a ring, her eyes travelled until she met the centre of it all. Gasping, she treaded lightly toward the entity responsible for the environmental shift. Laying in the snow, shivering from the loss of black mist from their body, was a creature made of darkness.
The entity's white-tinted scales were shredded or fading in the mist. A slender dragon tail tipped like a blade of blue ice lay shattered, one leg and arm missing, practically torn from the joint. A pair of wings appeared flailed and broken at angles that shouldn't be possible. The worst was the clearly female's chest, her breast gouged out, a strange, tiny lingering white flame, almost snuffed out in the cold. Her face was mangled across the right side, twisted and lined with claw marks through her horns.
Then, an ice-blue eye met Hana's wide stare, the pair silently wanting to know who the other was. The creature, with what little she had left, pulled her arm forward, the fingers fractured as they desperately begged for Hana's hand. "P-p-please... h-he-e-elp m-m-me-e..." A voice so frail it could break.
No one in their lives had asked that of Hana. A girl destined to be alone, perhaps a villain if she finally broke under the isolation. Yet now, someone was begging, reaching their hand to a girl with a power she couldn't control, yearning for aid when no other ear could hear.
Her body moved on its own before she had time to think.
"Please, rest," Hana brought her hand forward, interlocking her fingers with the creature's, biting her cheek as her hand began to freeze on contact. This only hardened her resolve. "I'll help you."
Time passed since that day...
Hana sat on the edge of her bed, contemplating all that had transpired at the Provisional Licencing Exam with her upperclassmen, her own friends, meeting Class 1-A of UA High. Yes, she met with Velk's old comrade, Viral, and his oddly chipper Host. Velk was silent for the day, contemplating the news herself, leaving Hana alone with her phone as it buzzed late that night.
Her head tilted, "Sero...?" Then she remembered offering the boy who saved her from harm during the exam. Although it was hardly necessary, he still felt the need to aid her when Velk could not. That, and she needed another contact within UA in case Viral was required, yes, that was her excuse.
Informant Sero: Hey, Yukino, how are ya? It's me, Sero, the guy from the exam? Just thought I'd clarify that
Informant Sero: Right, probably weird for me to be saying this, sorry
Informant Sero: Just ignore those last two
A tiny smile pulled at Hana's lips. "What a dork..." Being polite, she answered back.
Hana: You meant no harm, though I don't have many contacts so any confusion would've been simple to clear up.
Hana: Still, I appreciate the sentiment.
Informant Sero: Hey, not a problem!
Informant Sero: Yuki was telling us about her and Akio's battle with you - someone who actually put them two on the ropes, here I thought they were unbeatable but you really proved a lot of us wrong! That's pretty amazing!
Informant Sero: Sorry, I'm probably wasting your time with this...
Hana felt her face warm a little at the compliment. Yuki and Akio were extremely difficult opponents, and yet he says she had them on edge? She quickly put another reply through, invested in the conversation.
Hana: It's fine.
Hana: I... thank you.
"You seem very happy?" From the doorway, her Uncle startled her from her texting, looking at his dark grey hair still damp with a towel hung over his neck. "Who're you texting?"
"A friend, they aided me during my exam," Hana answered vaguely, actually hiding her phone from him. "I... think they're nice, if not a little unexpected." "I wonder if we can talk more...?"
He didn't seem to buy it but shrugged. "Hey, your business, squirt - just try not to talk your boyfriend's ear off too much before dinner." He cackled away down the hall at receiving a pillow to the face from the flustered ravenette.
Hana flopped back onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling with a pout. "..." Her cheeks still burning.
Hana felt her chest heave forward, fingers curled against the metal, making her palms bleed. She had suffered due to her Quirk because it could hurt the people she cared for. But since Velk bonded to her, gifted Hana a weapon to suppress her power to use it to save more people, she had the light return to her life. She joined one of the best hero academies in Japan, met people she could call friends. Meeting others from UA itself... it made her happy again.
"I'm sorry for being so selfish," She murmured through bloody teeth, blood crystalizing by her hands. "I... am afraid of our combined strength, now more than ever."
"I burdened you with my power, you were forced to bond with me," Velk admitted but Hana shook her head, frost rising from her every breath.
"No, I chose to save you, and I do not regret it, because..." Her mind flashed with images of her Uncle, Draco, Kaneko, Ms Joke, Yuki, Midoriya, Sero. "You gave me my life back - and I refuse to go back there again." A whitish-black bolt of lightning intersected in her eyes, their shade turned ice-blue. "Unleash... Everything."
A sudden bolt of black lightning struck where Hana once lay, a strong backblast sending Infernal flying onto his hands and knees to face a tornado of ice and snow gathered around the girl's body. From the ice, a hand swept it all aside, two wide arcs of wings glossed with various shades of blue to act as a membrane.
Her skin turned onyx, layered under an elegant and pristine armour of dark ice. White accessory beads hung over her chest and across her windswept skirt forged from several shades of blue scales. The gauntlets were reinforced with silver scales embroiled in white frost hardened into spines jutting from her shoulders and forearms, fingers sharp and black. The mouth of the Nightmare was exposed, the rest concealed behind a white veil atop a crown of rime. Two ice-blue eyes glared through the beads.
A tail infused with a blue rapier of ice swiped the blizzard away, the snow cast across the Server Room before the might of Velk, Iceborne Nightmare. Infernal cackled madly, clapping his hands in glee. "HAHAHAHA, the coward wants to finally fight!? Heheheheahahahaha-!"
Her fist met his face, releasing a sudden glacier that pierced through the mountain above, tearing through several layers of the facility with ease. Half of Infernal's face remained, stumped with fear briefly at the sight of the hateful gaze burrowing into his own.
With one swipe of her arm, Velk fanned her wings, crystalizing moisture in the air to fire dozens of projectiles toward the cackling Nightmare, forcing him to blow it and the glacier away with a tsunami of flames. Through the middle, a midnight blue contrail split the wave, leaving a row of ice in its wake as the tail retracted, giving Infernal time to block Velk's fist again, ice and fire expanding between them before exploding under the super-cooling pressure.
"You... are nothing...!" Infernal clicked his tongue angrily, seeing Velk regenerate her scales with ease, his fire engulfed his body. "...NOTHING!"
Like a serpent of flames, he tore through the Server Room, attacking from the back to which a barrier of ice expanded from Velk's palm, using it to divert the Nightmare's flow, erecting another shield to her left, then the right until he soared from above, his foot left an impression below Velk's feet while withholding his heel with both hands conjuring ice constantly. Flames dancing above the barrier between them.
The two broke away, Velk sliding back on her ice to conjure dozens of ice blades, ushering them forward. Infernal tore through them, shattering them with ease while others tore into his flesh, though his unstoppable momentum forced her to guard with both arms, only for his flames to sweep the ground under her, grasping her tail to sling the female Nightmare through the room's remaining data banks, sparks igniting an inferno around them.
Velk caught herself, eyes wide without her veil as Infernal brought his left arm back, a reddish-purple seal manifesting with an adding ring of tiger orange. "Inferno... Nightmare...!"
"Velk!" Hana's voice chimed in her ears, the pair unifying their minds to stand strong, Velk flashed a smirk then folded her right, several spirals of frost swirling to the eye of her storm, ice stretching in curves toward her spell.
"Squall... Nightmare..."
"RAIN!"
The lightning of orangy-gold and purplish-blue flashed, expanding forward to collide in the middle, two concentrated beams of dark ice and hellfire, breaking down whatever material was caught in its harrowing radius. Their elements were merging, dripping like molten iron.
Infernal growled, trying to withhold the strength of Velk, his Host forever silent, weak and forgettable. "This fleshbag can't handle the strain!? I can't... win against her!?" What frightened him further? The mere sight of Velk approaching, holding back his flames without any strain present on her face, increasing the intensity of her ice, hyper freezing anything in her path, shattering the server towers that remaining, black shards of ice hovering around her with every step. "She's nothing but a coward, why... why am I losing to her!?"
His obsidian skin was flaking, his flames were beginning to recede under her ice curling around the intense force of magic applied between them. Velk's glare was drawing near until she pushed her arm forward with a cry, releasing everything a flash of blue that sheered a massive wall of ice through the chamber and beyond, snuffing out every flame in an instant, silencing the noise to a mere crackle of ice underfoot and in the air.
Infernal fell backwards, losing his arm, the ice frozen most of his body to the point both his feet snapped and crumbled toward his waist. His face fixed into a petrified stare, his eye trembling before the ice dragon snarling a frosty breath. "I-I'll k-k-kill you! I'll K-Kill Y-You!"
Velk couldn't reach for him in time, seeing him retreat into the shadows, escaping in a heartbeat before her ice could freeze him in place. Releasing a sigh, her armour began to crumble to snow, her body fading away in place of Hana who collapsed against the glacier, sweating up a storm with her sword tucked close to her chest again to suppress her power. The whole room was frozen, not a speck untouched by their ice.
Closing her eyes, Hana knew she had spent a lot of energy so Velk would need to take over, but the longer they wait, the bigger the risk that Dren does something to Yuki and her Quirk. Opening her eyes to her sword's mummified exterior, she clutched it tightly. "You are no coward, so go, and cover this world in ice."
"You know it," Hana's vision fell back into her own subconscious, allowing Velk control as she cracked her neck, swinging the sword around sharply, casting off the snow gathered on its face. "I hope you don't mind but I may have picked a few things up from your Uncle."
A Long Time Ago...
Aksis wandered the graveyard far from his House's lair, no Kings were present, giving him ample time to search the hollow husks of planes and tanks without anyone to bother him. He wasn't half bad at tinkering with his bare hands, and these moments to reflect were helpful to starve off the issues concerning leadership among the Devils.
He snorted at the issue and traversed the pathway between two planes, hearing the metal bend and groan to the wind howling against it. However, Aksis withdrew his sword, posing it around the corner at the sound of scuffling through the snow. The scent he picked up... ether, and it wasn't one from his House. A King? Out this far into the wasteland?
When he investigated with a reflective piece of metal, he found no rifle or pistol pointed in his direction, nor one of those bearers of Light. What surprised him was the fallen state of a young Eliksni, headfirst in the snow bearing... a light blue cloak? "One of Winter's?" His questions grew extensively.
House of Winter were stationed upon Venus, why would one travel to Earth? No, they wouldn't. Approaching the collapsed Eliksni, Aksis noted his barding was in tatters, torn with wire poking out like loose hairs. Burn marks, dirt and grime, and his breathing was hoarse. The Dreg shuffled his head, pushing his cloak to reveal... bandages under his arms, he was Docked recently - a crude method of de-ranking Eliksni by ripping their lower arms off, starving them of ether to keep the limbs from regrowing. Aksis had seen it far too many times.
The head of the Dreg craned to meet Aksis's hunched form shadowing his own. The larger Devil watched as the Winter Dreg attempted to reach for his pistol, far too weak to manage the buckle. "You're starved and exiled, yet you came to Earth?"
"Sent to die." He hissed, coughing through his mask. "Draksiskel left me to die, I didn't wish to die by the machine spawn..." A wise decision.
"Kings would gun you down like an injured beast, Hive would tear you apart." Aksis warned him.
"And Devils?" He wheezed, noting a hand... placed on his head, almost comforting against the winter wasteland.
"See no reason for a young hatchling to die wastefully," Aksis proclaimed. "All Eliksni are not Fallen, yes?"
Dren... he was the Fallen Aksis had saved long ago, once part of Winter and now a Splicer under Aksis. It all made sense to Yuki now, the confidence in an idea so hopeless yet... how could she saw it was foolish? She desperately wanted All Might to live, even if Sir's Foresight was never wrong, she selfishly wanted him to survive.
"I understand, you looked up to Aksis, you felt it this was something to 'had' to do," Yuki was burdened with a perspective none had for those she saw as her enemies. It wasn't conflicting, not as much as when they first took root.
Dren nodded, grimacing at the memories. "Docked and left for dead by Winter, how ironic, Guardians killed that overconfident Kell and the Wolves finished them off - if not for Aksiskel I'd have died back in that graveyard," He placed his hand on his chest. "I cannot stop until that debt is repaid, that his kindness was not wasted on a lowly Dreg like me."
It was touching to remember it from SIVA's perspective, and Yuki understood where Dren was coming from, All Might had saved her too when all passed her off as nothing aside from SIVA himself. However, she sighed, exasperated. "But that's impossible, Aksis is just a consciousness in my head now."
Dren waved his finger pointedly. "You would think that, but I finally have the solution Kovik never had," He started to pace frantically. "Vosik was a failed experiment but it opened possibilities, with the copy of the original SIVA from you I created... this," He raised his arms toward the blue nodes. "This... Perfected state based solely on past experiments against you, in a way, you crystalized what I sought for."
"So it's true..." The Guardian spoke up from her silence, looking at Yuki in disbelief. "Horizon really didn't kill you after all, figures, the Fallen are good at picking themselves up." She did smile. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not angry just... I've had a lot to bear in mind the last few days - same with Tekres over there - say 'hi', you emo."
"|He wants my Kell's tech, yours too|," The other Fallen captive, a Wolf called Tekres, grunted.
"Eh, close enough." The Guardian rolled her eyes. "Oh, call me Rayla, sorry, I knew your name never gave you mine, I do that a lot."
"Still, he's right, you know?" Dren motioned to the conflux brimming with life. "Hehe, these two surprisingly working together, they tried to stop me from reaching Kovik through the Vex Network, ultimately, they came with me, it took time but I ensured they'd provide some merit to the project." He chuckled.
"Bite me, asshole." She spat, making Yuki snort.
"I second that notion." Both saw the Splicer roll his eyes.
"Yes-yes, humorous - back on topic, while mine and your SIVA will rebirth Aksiskel, it is the Wolf's dead Kell and the Light of the Great Machine I needed for this delicate process," Dren's voice dripped with fascination. "Why create mere proxies of my kin when I can do what the would-be 'Kell of Kells' did-" He spat venom at the title. "-using the same technology to bring an army out of nothing!?"
The news eventually dawned on Yuki, making her struggle in her chains. "You... no, if you do that, you could kill this whole world if a connection is made!"
"What's he using Tekres's tech for? Sure, he's a good tinkerer but..." Rayla paused, realizing what that would imply. "The Vex Conflux, you... you're going to pull the House of Devils through time? That's insane!"
Dren tapped the barrier between them, dragging his claw as he strolled toward a console connecting Yuki's restrains to a large cryo-pod. "Perhaps, but what's innovation without a few risks? Besides, this Conflux took so long to replicate with SIVA and connects only to an Expunged part of their The Nexus, located in something they called the Distributed Cognition Domain." He waved off their worries nonchalantly while working on the commands, causing the machinery to whirl to life.
"Leave her out of this, you already have SIVA, don't you!?" Rayla protested, slamming her fists into the barrier. "She's not needed for Aksis, dammit!"
Dren looked to her, then back. "On the contrary; without the consciousness from the original, it'll just be another mindless drone," His throat clicked. "So I plan to rip every last speck of SIVA from her body."
The revelation slammed into Yuki, pupils shrunk in terror. She... would be Quirkless again, SIVA would be gone, free from her body. "You've been quiet, I'd thought you'd have more to say?" She hadn't realized it, but SIVA was silent throughout.
I... have been thinking | I cannot hack any of this | There is no escape
Despite the horror that awaited, Yuki smiled reassuringly at the girl trying to defend her, seeing the pit in her eyes. "It's okay, I've taken worse than this, trust me," Yuki peered down at her armour, how it... trembled on her. "SIVA's given me so much, it's only right he can be at peace without me to burden him."
"No, that's not right!" Rayla's bound hands grabbed Yuki's restrains but they were fixed against her armour, welded even, there wasn't anything without her Light she could do. "You can control SIVA, right!? Use it to bust out, come on!" She begged.
"I guess this is it, right?" Yuki looked to the ceiling. "You'll be free again."
|Indeed...|
He was still quiet, Dren then sighed as he held his finger above one final command, wavering while the rest of the machines were greenlit. The bluette didn't resist, nor did she yell profanities. She looked... completely passive. She would lose what made her special in this world, despite retaining her healed limbs and Eliksni DNA, she would be normal again. Dren always wished he didn't have to push this button.
"This process will... be very painful, I'm afraid you may not survive it," Dren held true to his beliefs as Yuki had proven to him. "I pray, you will live, Azuru." His finger entered the command.
Static discharged between the two devices, lights and vitals flashing to life before the trio as a tingling sensation struck Yuki's nervous system. She braced it until something akin to lightning rattled her body from the inside out, as though being microwaved. "GRAAAAAAAAA!"
Her screams shattered the still environment, eyes bulged in agony as what little room she had to move was filled with her convulsing with bloodcurdling screams, feeling each tiny nanite pinched from her flesh, the connection lost as the light gradually filled the Cryo-Pod beside them all.
Tears sprung from her eyes while she panted between the massive waves that crashed into her body, releasing more ungodly cries that not even Tekres nor Dren could bear to listen to, choosing best to ignore it as the Guardian stood there, trying to help Yuki through her torment, eyes blazing like magma. "Come on, Yuki! Hang in there, alright!"
"Grr-r-r-r-right - AHHH - F-f-f-fuck this h-h-h-h-hurts!" Her eyelids squeezed shut, static peeling in the back of her head until she slammed her forehead into one of her restraints to shut it up, blood dripping down her forehead.
For the remainder of the transfer, Yuki never stopped screaming between breaths.
Dren, choosing to focus on the conflux he recoded, his greatest achievement that could turn this war in their favour. "Skolas was an idealistic lunatic, but his invention is something to admire," He started to imprint the coordinates between the Vex Nexus and the time streams he had stolen the contents of before coming to this reality - it was all a gamble. "What better way to test such a device than on your home invaders? It's within my rights, isn't it!?"
Imprinting the final commands, the conflux released a quake, two pulses of white code shimmering under his feet, the sound blotted out by the girl's screams while Dren's gaze grew impossibly wide, stretching his arms out. "I want nothing more than to repay my Archon, but before that, I endeavoured to see what became of the would-be Kell of Kells work!"
"|My Kell was fanatic, but he was no fool - you are for thinking a novice Splicer could perform as great as he was|." Tekres hissed behind his barrier. "I fear, I cannot stop him; Skolaskel, Rayla, I... failed you both."
Storm clouds gathered above, lightning caught in the dark with gridwork manifesting from space and time. The ruins of the Vex anchoring the timeline briefly to this reality. All Tekres and Rayla could do was watch, defeated and powerless against the Splicer Priest.
To Be Continued...
Hana's backstory, Dren's, and the plan to revive Aksis, and now he's pulling the House of Devils's Splicers through time! What a ton of new information but what's to come of Yuki and SIVA? I hope you enjoyed, appreciate the support as always; seeya in the next chapter, Heroes!
Fact: Since Beyond Light, Fallen, when addressing their leaders by name, most apply 'Kel' to the ends of their names in tangent to their title as Kell of said House.
Next Chapter: With or Without Perfection
Jin: We will not fail in our mission
Drevis: Compared to that heretic, you're a gnat
Rayla: Hold on, Yuki!
Dren: Soon, my Archon, and our army!
Dren: To come; With or Without Perfection
Rayla: How does it go? Go Beyond?
Jin: Plus Ultra.
