"So much for havin' faith."
"YOU PESSIMISTIC SHITHEAD, THIS IS NOT THE TIME!"
"Kira, Sasha, focus that energy in working together and beating the enemies before us."
"But, Master Yuma, two of these are our friends..." Klaus says. The remaining members of Helios Circle find themselves circled, penned in by the triangle formation of Djinn, Zura, and Havana.
"Damnit. I should have seen it the moment Havana pulled up on us...the way her bugs had become so dark, the way she walked and talked. It was all unlike her."
"There you go beating yourself up again, Klaus. You need to stop defeating yourself if you are to defeat the enemy! Become your own friend!" Yuma scolds, hardening Klaus' self-confidence. However, Djinn chuckles at this reassurance.
"Yuma Mita, ever the wise one. It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same."
Yuma puts his attention on the scarred individual, scowling with anger at the way his guild members had been possessed.
"You say that as if you've been around long enough to know," Yuma replies.
"I say that as if I was the one who saved your life from that dark guild back on Alakitasia."
Yuma's eyes widen in shock, realization striking him through familiarity.
"Djinn...is that you?"
Djinn answers only with his eyes.
"I know that stare of determination, the look you gave whenever you were intent on saving the next life, no matter how dangerous the situation might have been...but, now that look has become synonymous with the grim reaper himself. How far you've fallen from grace, my boy..."
"Master, what are you talking about, who is this guy?" Klaus asks.
"He looks like death-"
"KIRA!" Sasha exclaims to once again cut off Kira's incessant, emotionally grim expressions.
"His name is Djinn Al-Uzza. I used to work with him back in my Magic Council days. But, now, most people know him as the dark mage Tomokawa," Yuma explains.
Despite Kira's usually dark personality, often called the scariest member of the guild for his pessimism and gothic style, he was now the one trembling just from the mention of the name.
"T-Tomokawa? The Friend-Wearer?"
"Yes, the very one. And yes, he did kill his best friend and adopted his skin."
"What oversimplification of our history and my deeds, Yuma. It almost sounds like slander. I thought we were friends." Djinn teases.
"The world gave up being your friend a long time ago, myself included. I have no obligation to honor any sort of companionship we used to have, especially not after the atrocities you committed."
"I see your hindsight is deficient. You have yet to see why I did all of that, you have yet to understand why I stand here before you now with two of your people under my control. People like you are why I exist, why I do the things I do."
It is Sasha's turn to speak up to Djinn, shifting her position in the defensive circle that the final four Helians had made so that she could face the dark mage.
"People like you are why we exist, to defeat you and bring light back into the world you've made so dark. Regardless of any philosophy you may carry, your actions are wrong at base, and cannot go unpunished. This especially stands when you get between friends and family."
"Stupid girl. You wouldn't be in such peril if you understood my philosophy. I will do you a favor and force you to understand so that you may die enlightened along with the rest of your group."
At the conclusion of this generous offer, Djinn's hands ignite brilliantly with a black flame, Zura's body begins to spill a dark aura which cascades along the ground around her feet, and Havana summons her invertebrate servants to swarm to her aid.
"Zura, can't you recognize us? Your friends? Don't do this-"
"All I recognize is your betrayal and abandonment. YOU'RE NO FRIENDS OF MINE!" The end of her declaration is ghostly, though it effectively cuts off Klaus' appeal. Her body disappears from sight entirely. In the timespan of two breaths, she reappears, suspended in air, her leg swinging into the back of Kira's head.
Kira just barely avoids the aerial kick, remembering Zura's flash-step spell just in the nick of time to dodge with a duck.
Unfortunately, Kira cannot remember moves that Zura did not have before her transformation, and he is therefore completely caught by surprise when her fist shoots out of his very shadow and delivers a jaw-breaking uppercut.
Kira spits upward from the force, striking him dumb besides lifting him off the floor. He rushes to his feet after finding solid ground. His hands spawn chainlinks in their palms, and he takes a glance at Zura to summon the rest of the chains out from around the ground under her.
Zura accepts these chains without a fight, letting the metal wrap around her and squeeze her tight. Luckily, her new master had her accustomed to this treatment, so it is of no discomfort. Her sadistic smile clearly off-puts Kira, who seemed so confident in his binding abilities. She takes hold of the bindings themselves and uses sheer darkness to burst out of them. Similar to what she used to be able to do with her powerful light magic, she commandeers these creations of Kira's ethernano and whips them toward their former master.
The chain mage finds himself choking and his ankles bound by his own productions. In an attempt to get free, he clutches the chains to grow them on Zura's end and restrain her as well.
Predicting he would do this, Zura utilizes her flash-step to keep up with his chain creation, and orbitsKira until he reaches his exhaustion point, and his entire body, save for his nose and eyes, is wrapped in linked metal, rendering him entirely immobile and subject to the Slayer of Light's mercy.
