"That's a nice rose," comments Iris. "And such a pretty butterfly! I'm sure you're a very cultured man."
"Quite."
Kristoph internally curses the unwelcome visitor.
It's that infuriating nun, Sister Iris, who, since a previous incarceration herself, likes to minister compassion to the inmates. She's wearing some kind of ridiculous nun outfit with a hood. Kristoph feels he would murder her, if only he could figure out how to elude detection.
Iris was attracted by a strange presence. It had a comforting familiarity.
"You do know murder is wrong now, don't you. I'm sure they'll let you out soon."
"Well, I wouldn't have had to murder them if they'd had the sense not to inconvenience me, my dear..."
Iris is still eyeing the butterfly, captivated.
Kristoph is slightly nervous. Nuns might know about this demon possession garbage. He hopes she won't object and meddle. He's taken to wearing gloves now - the Devil mark never fades and is liable to emit a pink glow at any hour of the day or night. He's not about to disrupt connection. Dahlia must be able to enact his plan at any time opportunity arises.
He's very annoyed she's made little progress, but she did significantly placate him by informing him that her actions drove Wright to attempted suicide, flinging himself off a cliff. The concept of Wright in such psychological torture as to want to kill himself is cheering, even if his attempt did fail.
###
Maya's chest wound wasn't that serious, she protested, and though she was supposed to stay in the hospital for a lengthy period, she checked herself out as immediately as possible and rushed to Phoenix's bedside.
It was just lucky that Maya had the forethought to have her phone among the items she'd taken to the training session, and she'd managed to regain consciousness long enough to crawl to it and call Pearl, who had been able to mobilise Emergency Services.
Phoenix's cliff-face plunge had thankfully been stalled by a stunted mountain bush. His physical condition had been pretty drastic, but they'd managed to expel Dahlia just before she could wreak permanent damage. He's stabilising, and again conscious.
"I'm so sorry Nick, it's all my fault!" Tears of distress blurred her eyes. "You were possessed, and I was supposed to be looking after you!"
Though, admittedly, she didn't think any of the other Mystics would have been able to do anything different. Phoenix's capabilities just seemed to defy the usual Kurain techniques. She never imagined he could be possessed so easily though, it didn't make sense. She had a horrible suspicion Dahlia had achieved it by utilising some external power source to support herself.
###
"Ok-kay Pearly, let's retread what we already know.." Maya choked back a yawn.
"Mystic Maya, you should rest! I will take your shift.."
"Are you insane!"
"Ah, True Love!" Pearl batted her doe eyes and gave up. "Oh, Mystic Maya, your powers must be immense! Only the Great Masters of Legend could break the Black Psyche-Lock! In fact, maybe they were of legend. It is like a fairytale!"
"PEARLY! This isn't helping."
"It is like Pink Princess in the beautiful episode defending the Foil Ronin!"
N-no. I won't lose focus. Despite her earlier expulsion, Dahlia had returned to try to possess Phoenix again. She was weaker now, and Maya's defensive paranoias attuned to her ghostly identity, so Maya had awoken and fought Dahlia off with her own will of psyche. But Dahlia hadn't given up, and her and Pearl had to take turns guarding Nick whenever his psyche was defenseless due to sleep. Lucky she's too weak now when he's awake!
"It w-wasn't the same, Pearly. The Psyche-Locks were on the butterfly familiars, not people, a-and the Magatama helped me direct my powers into the actual locks rather than just throwing it round randomly.."
"This is unprecedented! Your powers accessing the realm of the non-human, and being augmented by the mechanism of the Magatama!"
"Huh? Magatamas and 'augmenting' aren't 'unprecedented'. N-Nick's charge was off, and it did something weird." (But my instincts trusted it to support my powers anyway.)
Maya's head hurt.
"D-do you think I was breaking the psyche of the butterflies, or of the possessing s-spirit, or of the spiritual power that cursed the butterflies?"
"I have no idea, Mystic Master Maya. But Mystic Mr Nick's powers are undoubtedly very strange, and your own are unquestionably immense."
"D-do butterflies even have souls?"
"I believe it is irrelevant, Mystic Maya. I believe it is as you ascertained before, that they are imbrued with this 'energy source' of unforetold origin, and that this is the key to weakening this malevolent force. Now here is another ancient anti-curse charm I have uncovered. In its current instructions it does not appear to be relevant, but the Great Master Maya does not do things by the book!"
It was a demoralising process. Go fast and flagellate in attempt to build her power level to even manifest the charms in any strength in the first place, and rely on her intuition and instinct to modify the spells to suit the current situation, which bore only partial parallel to what the charms were intended for. But anything for Nick! On this motivation, Maya inflated the force of her will. But there was still no breakthrough.
###
Kristoph is viewing his surveillance tape with interest. Taking a leaf out of Wright's book, he 'accidentally' dropped a tiny spy camera when he was being escorted by the guards to the prison exercise yard.
Today he's observing the visitors, as it's prison visiting day. His heart palpitates momentarily as he views the entry of a pair of visitors - fraudulent Wright, and that crazy Maya Fey. He hoped that Wright wouldn't decide to visit him – that Fey woman might try to disrupt his channelling equipment.
Unfortunately it seemed their injuries were improving – Wright justseemed to have a few broken bones, and the Fey woman wore a hefty bandage – but it turned out they were on their way to another inmate, who he hoped would reject their gift of a 20kg bag of luxury coffee beans.
Upon their exit, they pause, close enough to Kristoph's cell to hear them but not where he could see them.
"You know what's in there?"
"Um.. that was Kristoph's cell," they collude in hushed whispers.
"But I feel.. something…''
"I don't."
Maya's sure that some weak but disconcerting power is emanating within the cell. One with which she is vaguely familiar.
But maybe it's just Morgan haunting the cell. She was kept there before her execution after all.
"Let's go, Maya," pleads Phoenix. "I kind of never want to see or hear Kristoph ever again."
Maya doesn't blame him. No sense in re-opening old wounds.
Something has to be done, though. Dahlia still keeps attempting to re-posess Phoenix, and she and Pearl still have to take turns sitting with him as he sleeps. They've spent a lot of time and energy trying to find a charm or technique to render him unpossessable, but none have suceeded thus far.