Target: Daud

Emily noticed as everything stopped moving. The biggest giveaway was the water; it's distinctive rushing noise had stopped, and at a glance, it seemed to be frozen in place. Her body felt fine, moving normally, but her Outsider's mark burned; she had the distinct impression that this wasn't something it was conditioned to deal with. Her opponent, however moved fast. Really fast. He drew a blade from a sheath that she felt she ought to recognise but she didn't because of how fast it was going, and she barely brought her own weapon up to stop herself from being bisected, instead she was knocked back into a jump and landed metres away, but he was upon her again the moment her heels touched the wooden boards.

Now or never I suppose. She called upon the power she had last attained, almost accidentally, when she had confronted Hiram Burrows, and hadn't had a chance to test out since. Beside her, two copies of her assembled out of the shadows. Two more little veiled girls in white dresses appeared, wielding two more blades, and they swung back at her aggressor. She had no experience in swordsmanship, introductory fencing lessons prepared her in no way for wielding a dagger half as big as she was. But there was three of her, and her clones didn't seem to care about muscle pain, and between them swinging wildly they were able to survive the assassins lightning fast onslaught. For a few seconds at least. It wasn't long before the rightmost clone was impaled, vanishing into shadows. Emily backed away as the other clone was swiftly dispatched. Her only thought was to make a grabbing motion towards herself, then towards him as he turned to her and blinked forwards. The kick caught her in the stomach and threw her backwards, the pain igniting her ribs in protest. After a second, the domino power she had cast on herself kicked in, the attack transmitted along the connection to her opponent and forcing him backwards a few steps, though the larger man took the attack a lot better than she had. But it was enough. The river started flowing again. The pain in her mark relented. Her opponent returned to moving at normal speed, then sagged. The power had clearly taken a lot out of him. Now. "You are Daud, aren't you?" She said, staggering to her feet. He had to be. None of the other Whalers could do anything like this. He did this. Hiram orchestrated it, but He started all of it. The Whaler moved back a step. Gripping the dagger in her right hand, she broke into a run. He blinked away, and she followed, grappling after him. The time between his traversals had gone up significantly, a sign that he was at rock bottom in terms of power. Emily, on the other hand, still had a few spells left in her. She caught up to him just as he reached the statue, and there she struck. His shadow on the dirtied marble reached out to grab him, pinning him against the statue's lower face. His left hand stretched out to the side, but she wasn't having any of it, launching a grapple, the blue tendril caught him around the hand and pulled her towards him. The man to his shadow and Emily to the man, she was anchored against the essentially vertical surface of the statue through the mark on her left hand. Her feet braced against the surface and her right hand, still holding the blade, pulled away, preparing to thrust back against the man's unprotected chest. Kill him kill him kill-

Emily froze. Because she was right there. Above the Whaler's head, as she traced the contours of the statues face…There were the lips that had kissed her forehead at night. There were the eyes that had shone so brightly in life. Watching her was the face of her mother, Jessamine Kaldwin. Emily choked back a breath, the blade falling from lifeless fingers. And then the Whaler headbutted her.

._.

The tendril broke, as did the shadow, and Corvo fell. The girl essentially went limp, dropping away from him as they both went plummeting away from the statue. When he realised she clearly was not about to save herself, he grabbed her, and then launched one last blink to put them both on a rooftop before they gained too much momentum. He still landed hard though, crashing into the stone with a grunt as the girl rolled away from him. They both lay there for a few moments, panting, before Corvo slowly crawled to his feet. The girl barely managed to kneel, resting mostly on her hands. "Why." She whimpered. He tilted his head at her, genuinely curious. "Why did you kill her?"

Does she think I'm...? The heart in his pocket was beating wildly as he replied with "Kill who?"

At that, she pointed behind him. "My mother." He turned, wondering who she could possibly mean. None of the other Whalers were nearby, her fingers almost seemed to be pointing at the…statue…

The statue that had caused him no end of stress ever since he'd first seen it. Of all the places for Daud to be based, had he had to pick a building with a giant statue of the Empress.

Empress Kaldwin. His Empress.

Suddenly that veil didn't seem to mean anything at all.

"…Emily?" She twitched at the name. "Emily Kaldwin, is that you?"

Almost as though she couldn't bear to wear it any longer, the girl grabbed her veil and hurled it to the side, sending it skittering into some debris. She looked up, and his heart broke. Grabbing the back of his Whaler mask, he slowly pulled it over his head, matted hair falling over his shoulders from too long under the sweaty thing. She gasped. "Corvo? Is it, is…Corvo?"

He staggered forward and fell to his knees in front of her, then grabbed her in the tightest hug he'd ever given to her. They sat there for a long moment, wrapped in each other's arms. Both finally unmasked, neither hiding the tears streaming down their cheeks. But it was okay. Neither was looking.

Okay, this chapter messed up, my bad. Fixed now.