AN: Uggg. The Berserk Blade arc was created back in 2017, but between how long its been and the vagueness of my notes, presumably since I wasn't expecting it to take so long to get around to it that I figured it'd be enough to jar my memory, spoiler it wasn't, working out the dialogs of Marzanna's perspective were hard. Especially since my notes about them were like "kinda ghost of Christmas past?" and I don't know what the hell old me means by that at all.

Review Responses:

Zoran Dawn-Eclipse- ? To my knowledge, Nevan is not capable of materializing. If you're talking about when we see and fight her in Devil May Cry 3 that would be before she became a Devil Arm.

angel2u- Lol, I haven't done much work on it in general unfortunately… mostly because I'm trying to think of another 'supposed to return to later dungeon' that isn't just Catacombs of The Damned again, since while it's an original idea, I'd prefer to come up with something new. And that's been kinda holding ch2 hostage from being completed.

Warpixie- Whew. Wouldn't wanna lose the cool points! Lol, I'm just joking, but his car, the car in general, is badass. Although a thought occurs. I'm gonna say that it's the make and model, and not John Wick's car. Since even if he'd have issues taking out a Nephilim, I don't think that's a fight she wants. Especially given the lengths that man will go to for his car…

orion0905- Not as bad of a twist of events as you might think it'd be. And unfortunately, it will be a bit before he learns that lesson.

She stares at him blankly for a moment, only just now taking in his somewhat transparent appearance. She blinks, "Don't tell me my Devil Arms are going to start possessing their own consciousness. I know you guys were made from like, absorbed Demonic energy and stuff, but I thought the person it came from was totally dead. And my mind is a busy enough place as is, thank you very much."

He tosses his head back with another laugh, when he's done he once more returns his amused gaze to her, "Nah. The Devil Arm Lucifer is itself just a weapon. I'm the Lucifer it was made from, yes, and it has fragments of my personality, which is why it can pick a wielder like it did with you and your dad, but that's about it. I'm only here because it does make a connection to me, and with your current state…"

She narrows her eyes, "... You mean the fact I'm close to death."

He shrugs, "In part, though even that wouldn't have called me to you on its own."

She frowns in confusion, "What else would there be? And what do you mean called you? How are you even here?"

He smiles at her, but doesn't answer her questions, before looking away. His amusement drains as he gazes at the door, "I did try to warn everyone that humans were perfectly capable of being a threat."

She gazes over at the door Voldemort had left through as well, "Sometimes, yes." She narrows her eyes at him, "Though they're equally capable of compassion and mercy, which wins out more often than not."

He shrugs, "I never said that wasn't true. Just that they're also absolutely capable of being a threat, and just as capable of the cruelty of even the worst Demons."

She sighs, "... There is that. Even I can't necessarily argue with that to be honest." Her eyes harden, "But that doesn't necessarily mean I agree with the way you did things, make no mistake."

He spreads his hands, "I never asked for absolute compliance or agreement, despite what some religions may say about various versions of me. I'll admit the policies I had were a little… extreme, but no one would listen to me when I tried simply warning them. It was practically the entire reason I united Hell, so that even if they wouldn't listen to me, they had to listen to my policies as their king at least. I didn't have much of a choice."

She huffs, not willing to argue with him. There's a lull before she comments, "You're surprisingly good looking for a Devil."

His lips twitch, "Your great grandmother wasn't the first time a Devil had children with a Succubus." He shrugs, "Wasn't even the first time in our bloodline."

Her eyes go wide, and he smiles lightly, "I'm not surprised you don't know given how young Alessio was when the rest of our kind died. It wasn't something that he generally would have learned until later, but he, and by extension you, are very much part of my direct bloodline. My descendants in other words." He shrugs, "Devils do tend to keep track of lines of lineage, but it tends to be something that's learned in teenage years, so that the idea of trying to uphold the honor of ancestors or whatever has less of a chance of pushing one off of a path they're more suited for. So it's not exactly a surprise he didn't know given his age."

She looks down, "I see…"

There's another lull in the conversion, and as it extends the fatigue from her current state begins to catch up to her to drag her back down into the abyss of unconsciousness. It isn't long before Lucifer seems to notice, "Ah. But it looks like we're out of time for the moment." She lifts her head tiredly, just in time to see him smoothly climb to his feet before he moves forward, and to her surprise given that he seems to be a ghost, lays a hand on her head, "Rest now, little Devil."

She blinks tiredly at him, but doesn't really have a chance to corral her exhausted tongue to say something before black encompasses her once more.

He's staring down at the table somewhat blankly. Given the strain Marzanna was likely under given her distance to those she shares bonds with, there was debate about whether he should stay in Britain or not, but it was swiftly pointed out by Vergil that given they already know that the basement doors create a connection regardless of whether it was actively being used or not, and that Mike's bond tends to piggyback on that connection to reach Marzanna better, so it was soon determined that there wasn't really a point to him staying there.

Now he was sitting at the table, dully listening to the heated debate as to how to go about locating his mate, and just how much of a priority tracking down the rest of the Nephilim Blade is.

He draws in a shuddering breath. His mate. His wife. His Goddess. Where was she? Where was she? The question of whether she was ok was useless. Clearly she wasn't. Both from Shuraba's report as well as the fact she wasn't here. Hasn't broken free of wherever she's being kept and returned with a nonchalant shrug and a cocky grin as she brushes off the difficulty of the situation, maybe even throwing in a complaint about how boringly weak the enemies had been.

He's pulled somewhat back to the present as Shuraba, who's been sitting to his left tiredly watching the argument, sighs and breaks into the debate, "Theoretically," She doesn't so much as twitch as the intense focus of all the Sparda family turns to her, "I could try to find her with the bond. I… can't be certain, but I think my range increased when I reabsorbed Eryx." She frowns down at the table, then shakes herself, "Furthermore, I can absolutely say that being with Kazuto helps, presumably due to his own bond with her, as when he showed up I went from being able to faintly catch wisps of Eryx's presence to firmly having a lock on her."

There's a beat of silence at that as the Sparda's trade looks, before Alessio, who had been silently listening up to this point, presumably to gather the various ideas of everyone in the family he was technically head of, even if by and large most of them are too stubborn to be obedient no matter how much they respect him, breaks it, "Then it would likely be best if you two tried to narrow in on her location together."

He turns his gaze to Trish and Kat, "Kat, start going back through the records of the Veritaserum interrogations of prisoners on everything they knew, see if you can't find any leads there. Trish, try to take someone's place and get intel about Marzanna and her possible location from that angle."

He turns to Lady next, "Lady, start looking into any strange happenings that might point us at fragments of Marzanna's weapon, since if Shuraba gets better at sensing Marzanna with each she reabsorbs, then even if you ignore the possibility of one of them getting somewhere populated and wreaking havoc there's still value in locating them as soon as possible rather than putting it off in favor of focusing everything of locating Marzanna herself." He shakes his head, "And that's assuming that being separated from Marzanna will negate any easing of the strain on her from Shuraba's state, something we have no proof of."

He turns towards him and Shuraba, "Even if the girls are trying to chase down leads, there's no reason to waste time or the ability to try to sense her, so you two will head out and try to locate her that way." He nods firmly as determination swells within him. Alessio turns to Lily, "Lily, you'll have to take Kazuto and Shuraba around to see if they can sense anything. Be methodical about it rather than random." He glances back at Kazuto again, vague and strained amusement on his face, "I know you aren't a fan of magical transportation, but we don't have many options at the moment."

His own lips twitch in a faint smile and he nods. Then Alessio turns back to sweep his gaze over the rest of the table, "The rest of us will have to leave looking for Marzanna to them, since we'll already need to pick up the slack of them turning their attention away, and we can't very well abandon our duties, regardless of how much we'd all like to find Marzanna."

The rest of the family doesn't exactly look happy about having to leave finding Marzanna to them, but no one protests. Alessio sweeps one more look over the table, likely making sure there's enough time both for everyone to process as well as raise possible issues or complaints before he nods firmly, "Then we all have our jobs people. Let's get to work."

It's with a firm sense of direction rather than the senseless frenzied chaos that the table quickly begins getting up as everyone gets ready to head out to do their part. It's something he's always admired about Marzanna's family since he started to get to know them. Even in the rare instances that something sets them off and instigates chaos amongst them, it's never long before they quickly get a handle on themselves and a firm idea of how to handle the situation. Or at least, how they'll choose to handle the situation.

His attention is drawn by a hand on his shoulder, and he quickly looks up to find Lily smiling tiredly at him, "Come on sweetie, we should get going to get started."

He starts to push himself up, then pauses as his eyes land on where Yui is sitting with Eva, mostly ignoring the women's attempts at comfort as she stares at the table with a pinched expression since there's not a whole lot she can do.

He blinks as an idea occurs to him, and he calls out, "Hold on a moment."

The beehive of activity that had started around him stops, and Alessio turns to him, "Something to add Kazuto?"

He stares at Yui for a beat then nods absently, "Maybe…" He shakes himself, "Hold on a minute, I'll be right back!"

He's aware of the family sharing vaguely confused looks and shrugs as he rushes out of the room, it doesn't take him long to retrieve his bag from where he'd left it when he sensed the drain from Shuraba manifesting, pulling out his laptop as he hurries back into the kitchen. He glances at Shuraba as he moves over to Yui to set his laptop down vaguely in front of her, "Shuraba, do you have any idea the direction the other pieces of Marzanna's weapon were thrown?"

She blinks, then slowly nods, "Yeah. I mean, I remember where the indigo base was in relation to us in the designated drop clearing and using it as a starting point I know which way they went, but I'm not sure how I'd describe it…"

He glances at Lily hesitantly, "Do you think it'd be possible to use legilimency on Shuraba to get an image of their trajectories from her?"

Lily blinks at him, "Maybe? Kazuto, what-?"

He smiles faintly, "I know it likely wouldn't be pleasant to see when Shuraba exploded in Marzanna's face, but just humor me for a moment."

She furrows her brows, then shrugs lightly, glancing at Shuraba, who shrugs, "I'm fine with trying if you are. Besides, Mistress's mate doesn't do things like this for no reason."

As they'd spoken and then gaze into each other's eyes, both growing unfocused, he pulls up the map program that had been embedded into the Demon Detector program, then turns to his daughter, "Yui, connect to my laptop please?"

She blinks at him in mild surprise, but does as he asks. A moment later Lily pipes up, "I've got the image, Kazuto."

He smiles in gratitude at his mother in law, "Again, I doubt he wants to see that particular moment either, but from my understanding you're not that great with illusions and Vergil is, so could you pass it to him?"

The two share a look before shrugging with raised eyebrows and turning to each other to do as he'd asked. It's only a matter of moments before they shake themselves out of the mental communication, but before anyone can say anything he asks, "Does anyone know the GPS coordinates of the indigo base?"

Vergil blinks at him even as he rattles them off, he glances at Yui when he's done, "Pin that on the map please." As his daughter does that he glances at his mother in law, "You're in charge of making the portkeys to the bases, do you know the coordinates of where they drop off the top of your head? Specifically the ones for the clearing north of the indigo base."

She nods and recites them for him, this time Yui pins the location without being prompted, so he simply turns to Vergil, "Could you make some sort of illusion of the directions they went? It doesn't necessarily need to be of exactly the scene, just an image of the lines of the trajectories would suffice, but I'll need the direction the indigo base was in for reference, as accurate as you can make all of it."

Vergil blinks in surprise again, but quickly does as asked, though his brows furrow, "Mostly, but there seemed to be an extra one and I'm not sure what was going on with that."

He blinks at the man in surprise, but it's Shuraba who answers, "That isn't an error or something weird happening to the others, it would have been a form she acquired recently from one of the Great Demons she killed in the influx of Hell rescue missions. It was that one that she went with Nero but they had to split up because the bridge had broken into two pieces on opposite sides of that ravine in Hell. And everyone has been so busy lately that she hasn't wanted to take even more of their time while she was working to familiarize herself with Nephthys, so I'm not that surprised none of you know of her."

Vergil isn't the only one who gives Shuraba a surprised look, but he just nods and gets to work. As he's doing that, he turns to Eva and Alessio, "Do either of you have a good idea of where we found Eryx?"

Eva nods and leans over from where she'd been sitting by Yui's side. He doesn't even need to manipulate his laptop, given that as soon as she points Yui begins to manipulate the map to steadily zoom in until they have a good idea of the location, which she promptly pins before zooming back out.

He glances at the image Vergil has created, "Yui? Can you extrapolate from it?"

Her eyes widen before she turns to Vergil's illusion with sharp eyes. Alessio steps forward with a confused frown, "Kazuto?"

He gives him a faint grin, "You all tend to think of Yui as a fairly normal little girl, which is good, great even, but sentience or no, at her core she's an AI. She's very, very good at calculation."

No one gets a chance to ask anything else before red lines appear on the map and Yui turns to him, "Based on the trajectories in the image great uncle Vergil showed, the other forms should've been thrown in those directions."

Breaths are sucked in and Vergil loses control of his illusion, causing it to disappear, and Yui glances around before turning on the smart TV mounted on the wall, mostly used by Kyrie to listen to music when she's cooking, or occasionally by either her while cooking or the family in general while eating to watch news.

She turns her attention to it as she casts to it to pull up the image on it, causing the others to turn as well, "Eryx-san was likely this one," One of the lines blinks, "Given how close to the trajectory line she was found compared to the others. What's interesting is she was further off course then the trajectory says she should've been, and from elevations and town indications on Google maps, there isn't anything she could've slammed into that would've thrown her off course."

She glances at Vergil, "I don't need the image of Mama herself in that moment, but would it be possible for you to make a silhouette of Mama for scale and show the angle and speed they were thrown until Shuraba lost sight of them? Maybe when they got out of sensing range if she wasn't too distracted and you know?"

Shuraba shakes her head, "I was too distracted at the moment, sorry. By the time I could focus on trying to sense them, they were already out of range."

Lily pipes up, "And while normally I could try and get the information from the memory since she should've subconsciously remembered, going through Shuraba's memories is… difficult. I don't know if it's because she's a soul bound weapon or because I'm not Marzanna, but I'm fairly confident I could only get what I did because Shuraba was outright focusing on it and trying to give it to me. But without her being a practiced Occlumens and able to find that information in her own memories, I don't think I could get the info."

Yui nods, "Then just what she saw then, until they were out of sight. Preferably with a time stamp so I can get a sense of speed from it."

Vergil nods and quickly calls up an image of the information she'd requested. Yui watches the looping image of them getting blown away a couple times before nodding firmly, then turns back to the screen, "Based on that, the angle they were thrown, and the speed they seemed to be moving at, they should have landed in roughly these locations."

The lines shorten to indicate where the impromptu journeys should have ended, and she continues, "As you can see, Eryx-san actually landed in the ocean by my calculations based on speed, angle, and trajectory, and undoubtedly swam back. I can't say how far off course of her calculated trajectory compared to where she was found was because she was pushed by currents, but based on the online data on the local currents from that time, she wasn't pushed completely towards the location she ended up in, so she was very much actively moving that direction on her own." She shakes her head, "I couldn't say if she was wandering at random though."

Alessio smiles at her as he places a hand on her head, "Maybe, but this is still good intel."

He nods, "Yes, but more importantly…"

Alessio turns to him, "Kazuto?"

He chews on his bottom lip for a moment, "When I got the idea to ask Yui, originally I was just thinking that she could help narrow down where the other weapon forms may be, but… If Eryx was stripped down to a creature of pure instinct, and she was actively on the move… Well, personally if I'd been torn like she was, I would think my instinctive priority would be to be whole again. And yet as far as I can tell, she wasn't moving in Shuraba's direction at all. So maybe…"

Alessio furrows his brow for a moment before his eyes blow wide, "You think she was headed towards Marzanna?"

He shrugs helplessly, "I don't know. Like Yui said, she could've just been wandering at random, but instinct is better at sensing things like the bond to Marzanna than the conscious mind like myself and Shuraba. I can't guarantee she wasn't just wandering aimlessly though."

Alessio turns sharp eyes towards the screen in thought, "Maybe so, but it doesn't hurt to try there first."

Yui pipes up at that moment as she suddenly adds to the image on screen putting a line between where Eryx should've landed and where she was found as well as a cone using the direction she was headed from her landing spot as reference, "I'm sorry grandpa, I don't know how far off Eryx-san was pushed by the currents, so that's the most I can narrow down the direction she was headed."

Alessio smiles at her as he runs a hand over her hair, "That's still a far better idea of where to start than we had fifteen minutes ago." He turns to both his group and Lady and Kat, "Coordinate with Yui as needed and let her know if you find one of the weapons as well as where if you do, since it'll give her more data to work with."

He gets firm nods then sweeps his gaze over them once more, "Well, unless someone else wants to bust out an idea at the last moment?" That gets wane smiles but head shakes, "Then we'll get to work as intended."

She's yanked back to consciousness by an intrusion into her mind, swiftly finding that Voldemort has returned and was using magic to open one of her eyelids for the eye contact necessary for legilimency.

He smiles maliciously at her, "And here I was thinking that your mental defenses would lower with a lack of consciousness. More's the pity."

She glares at him even as he continues to attempt to siege the castle of her mind, which normally wouldn't cause her too many issues, though the lack of finesse in his brutal roughness would definitely give her a headache, but with her current state is giving her a screaming migraine. That being said, given that he's still struggling to access the castle itself and hasn't even touched the traps and the like inside the castle, much less gotten the dubious pleasure of attempting to get through the SAO Floor labyrinth level replicas, she's fairly confident he won't be breaking in any time soon.

She scoffs before smirking at him, "You consider my mind to be such a challenge that you were looking for a moment of vulnerability?"

His face twitches, "Don't flatter yourself. It's unbecoming. No, it's more of a matter of why I would put more effort in if it's unneeded."

She huffs a laugh, "If you say so."

His face twitches again, and somehow his attack on her mind seems to become even more brutal, "You know, I think I'll enjoy breaking you."

She snorts, "Good luck with that."

He twitches a third time, but this time doesn't say anything back, and her attention is swiftly pulled away by someone hissing in anger, "I see even to this day some of the humans are as despicable now as they were in my time."

Her gaze shifts over to find a beautiful regal woman inside her cage with her, glaring down Voldemort. Despite not making eye contact with him any longer, now that he's established the connection he only needs to see her eyes, and given how little headway he's making she doesn't even care to be turning her attention away. This time, she notices the semi-transparent nature of the woman immediately, unlike with Lucifer the last time she was conscious.

Curiously, Voldemort seems entirely unaware of her presence. That being said, she has no desire to tip off Voldemort to… whatever is going on with Lucifer and whoever this woman is, so she says nothing to her. The woman shakes her head, and whether she wasn't looking for a response or doesn't expect one with Voldemort there, she continues on her own, "And here I thought that some of the loathsome members of their species selling us out to Demons were bad. At least there is a certain honesty in trading safety for them and their own for information on us, even if they knew they were practically trading our lives for it, then there is in how this Voldemort does things."

The woman turns to eye her, "And you. I may not be in my box, but my connection with it makes it easy to see its history. How could you possibly feel even a shred of guilt for culling some of the most cruel of their kind, those despicable beasts who took joy in slaughter?!"

She lets her gaze wander to Voldemort briefly, he seems to be rather irked that she's not even paying him attention despite actively sieging her mind, then looks back to the… ghost, she supposes, even though they aren't supposed to be able to just manifest. Either they choose to become ghosts at the end of their life and visibly haunt the world from there after, or they don't, they aren't just supposed to be able to show up out of the blue.

The woman sniffs haughtily, "Yes, I'm aware you don't wish to speak with him here, and no he cannot perceive me. You don't need to say anything. With my box's connection to your mind I can hear you just fine."

She tilts her head. That's the second time the woman has mentioned 'her box'. Given that and its apparent connection to her mind, she can only think of one person this may be, 'Queen Pandora?'

The woman huffs, "In the flesh. Or spirit I suppose." She waves her hand. Then her gaze twists with pain, "And I haven't been a Queen since even before I failed my people so utterly." Her eyes sharpen, "Failures that you seem rather determined to mimic, given that you haven't just crushed this fool and your heart foolishly wept for the deaths you rightfully caused with your deserved judgment."

She twitches lightly, trying to contain her physical responses so Voldemort doesn't notice, 'I assume you speak of the Laughing Coffin members. They were insane, and it's true they needed to be stopped, but-'

Pandora lifts her head to gaze down her nose at her, "But nothing." She huffs again, "Goodness, you did show mercy to a good chunk of those animals. That some were mad beasts who refused to surrender… on their own heads their deaths be. And good riddance."

She pushes an aggravate breath out as quietly as she can, 'Perhaps. And you chastise me for not "crushing" Voldemort as you say, but I'm not exactly in any position to do anything right at the moment. I've seen both you and Lucifer, and while both of your weapons certainly have the strength to break me out without much effort from me, with my hands bound preventing me from both grabbing the explosive needle blades from Lucifer's Devil Arm or aiming your box…'

Pandora scowls, "Yes. But you and your family have not taken the fight to him as you should."

Her eyebrows twitch a little, 'And how, precisely, are we meant to do that when we've been having issues pinning the elusive bastard down?'

Pandora looks over at her scornfully, "Only because you've been putting too much effort into protecting others, when taking him out would have the same effect when his pathetic followers inevitably fall apart and scurry back to the shadows as they had last time he fell."

She frowns faintly, 'Saving lives while we search for him is important. And besides, there's still the issue of his Horcruxes.'

She waves her hand, "With your power, it would not surprise me if you could do something about that much faster." Then her gaze turns sharp, "If only you'd acknowledge it, instead of continuing to repeat my mistakes."

Her brow furrows, 'Acknowledge my power? What power?'

The woman eyes her, "You know very well that which I speak of, even if perhaps not conscious. It is up to you to acknowledge it."

That's as far as they get though, because despite her best efforts, the fatigue has been dragging her down over the course of the conversation and that's the last she hears before the darkness takes her once more.

He shakes his head after the loathsome magical transportation. As soon as he feels more stable, he does his best to reach out for the sense of 'Marzanna' that indicates one of her weapons.

After a few moments however, he shakes his head and glances over at Shuraba, "I'm not getting anything. You?"

Shuraba holds still for a few more seconds, then shakes her head with a sigh, "No."

Lily hums, "Then we'll use how far away you could sense Eryx as a gauge and start apparating in distance intervals based on that."

He nods, "Do you wanna try the direction of the cone Yui predicted Marzanna was in first? If they're just wandering randomly, whichever one landed here may very well be moving in the complete opposite direction, but…"

Lily looks thoughtful for a moment, then nods, "Yeah. And I suppose we'll cross our fingers that they aren't moving at random and whichever one it was also went that way, since unless we get something to show us their trajectories were just coincidentally lining up to an extent then it'll absolutely mess with the family's search."

He nods tiredly, then grabs onto the arm Lily lifts once more and braces for yet another rough ride.

The next drop doesn't reveal anything more either, nor do the next two. By the fifth in total, the constant apparition makes him feel like he's going to puke. By the eighth that's forgotten in the wake of his concern for finding the Goddess he's lucky enough to be the mate to when they're struggling this badly to find one of her weapon's forms when they have an estimation of what should have been the starting location. By the eleventh, he's terrified that it'd been the wrong choice to head in the direction of Yui's cone of the direction Eryx might have been headed in, and he can tell he isn't the only one wondering.

Lily sighs, "Let's expand the search out just a bit further and then will start trying the other directions from the starting point."

He and Shuraba murmur their agreements, however it turns out to be unneeded when on the fourteenth jump they finally sense something. They don't even say anything to Lily, they both just take off in the direction they can sense something in, and she's left scrambling to keep up, though thankfully given she's also the bonded soulmate of a Nephilim, they neither have to slow down for her nor worry about leaving her behind.

It's not very long at all before they spot the figure moving at a rather good speed across the rolling fields. Which, at the very least explains why they'd had to go so far out to find her, since while she was moving significantly slower than a Nephilim, she was still moving at a good clip.

The figure is so distorted, that it's not until they're almost on top of her that he makes out the bat like wings, smaller than he'd expect from someone mostly human in shape and size, where they were hanging down her back, almost torn from her shoulder blades tips him off to Arbiter's identity. And it's only after he realizes it's her and goes to look for it that he notices her dragging her ax form along the ground behind her.

When they reach her, Shuraba makes a desperate lunge for her weapon form with her own, but tipped off in some way to their presence, Arbiter turns with surprising speed, especially so given that the Demonic weapons were specifically slow but heavy hitting weapons. Whether it was the sound of them rushing forward or because she can sense Shuraba doesn't particularly matter, and her surprisingly swift turn pulls the weapon form out of the way.

If he'd thought she looked vaguely unnerving in her normal state, what with sharp teeth and the stitching spreading from the edges of her lips as well as going across her face from almost the middle of her forehead, down her nose partway before it's already off center trajectory curves a bit abruptly towards her cheek(1), then her distorted appearance was downright monstrous, especially with the added cracks from the damage and the ominous red glow emanating from them.

He braces for the possibility of a struggle to subdue her if Shuraba struggles to absorb her in any way, but any necessity for it vanishes in smoke when he sees her glowing red slit pupiled eyes have intelligence in them and her twisted face takes on an expression of relief, "Oh thank all fuckin' hell. For a moment there I thought it'd have to fight off some of those fuckin' Death Eaters or some shit."

Shuraba blinks quickly in surprise, "Arbiter? You're... Yourself?"

The ax's humanoid forms face scrunches, "Yeah? The fuck else I'd be?"

Shuraba shakes her head, "I found Eryx earlier, but… she was insane. Not a spark of intelligence and in a crazed frenzy on top of it."

Arbiter pulls away in surprise, "What?"

Lily tilts her head, "Maybe… because you're one of the original three core forms? So… perhaps that's made you more stable?"

Arbiter looks away in thought, "That… kinda makes fuckin' sense actually."

Shuraba nods slowly, still clearly surprised, then she shakes herself off, "I don't suppose you were heading the way you were because you have any idea on Mistresses location?"

Arbiter shakes her head, expression frustrated, "No. I can't sense her at all. I was just headin' this way because I was going for the azure base. Since, y'know, it was closer than the indigo base from where I landed from what I could tell."

Shuraba tilts her head, "Ah. Right. It is, isn't it?"

Arbiter shrugs, "Only thing I could think of to get back from the middle of bum fuck nowhere."

Shuraba nods slowly, "Not a bad plan…" Then she shakes herself, "Anyway, I managed to reabsorb Eryx when I touched my weapon form to her own, so I think that's all we need to do." Then her face becomes pinched, "Which we should, since it helps our range to try and sense Mistress. Besides, we have no way of knowing if the distance will impact the effects of us being broken on Mistress, nor if us repairing will manage to help her even if we can't sense her."

Arbiter nods, and she swiftly hauls her ax form forward, though she doesn't bother lifting it off the ground. Shuraba brings the tip of her own sword form forward until the two weapons meet, and in a process much like had occurred with Eryx, Arbiter swiftly turns to energy and re-merges with her ax form before it's sucked up like smoke by Shuraba's weapon form.

Shuraba doesn't sway or anything this time, but she does suck in a breath harder than is normal as her eyes slip closed. A noticeably larger amount of the cracks all over her heal up almost immediately, which makes sense actually, if Arbiter is one of the cores. It was likely significantly harsher for Shuraba to be separated from Arbiter and whichever of Marzanna's two Angelic weapons was the third original core.

He sighs, "Well, that was easier than expected."

Shuraba opens her eyes, "Mm. But if Mistresses mother is correct, that's only because Arbiter is part of the core. Eryx has already been absorbed from the non core forms, but that still leaves Aquila and Nephthys."

He blinks, then turns to Shuraba, and he's a bit validated when even Lily looks a little confused as he asks the question they're clearly both wondering, "Nephthys?"

She flicks a look over at him, "That extra form I mentioned when Vergil was going to make the illusion of their trajectories."

Realization sweeps over him, "Oh yeah. You did mention her, didn't you? I kinda forgot in the rush…"

Lily nods, "Especially with the possibility that Eryx was moving towards Marzanna being suggested…"

Shuraba gives a nod of her own, "Quite understandable." Then a faint smile tugs at her lips, "Actually, Nephthys is kinda funny, if only due to her coloring."

He tilts his head in confusion, "Her coloring? How could that be funny?"

Shuraba shakes her head in mild amusement, "Because she's an Angelic form. And yet the hair her human form has is red. So is the jewelry it possesses in that form as well as the adornments on her weapon form."

He blinks in surprise, then a small smile draws over his lips, "Ah. Yeah, I suppose there is a bit of humor in that."

Lily chuckles lightly, but soon shakes herself as though ridding herself of the thought process, "Anyway, we should get going to try and track down another."

They both nod with murmurs of agreement before grabbing onto the arms she holds out to them.

The next time she wakes, Voldemort thankfully isn't around to annoy her. As she refocuses on the world around her, a voice off to her side grabs her attention, "Back amongst the living I see."

She blinks over at Lucifer, who's once more sitting and leaning against the bars, before casually saying to him, "You know. Between the damage done to my mind by my soul bound weapon breaking and the fact I keep seeing two long dead people, who neither left ghosts nor seem to be visible to that bastard, I'm starting to wonder if I've gone insane."

He smiles lightly at her, "No more mad than any born Devil. You certainly haven't started following the ancient Queen of your old brethren if that's what you're concerned about."

She hums, "I would imagine that an insanity induced delusion would insist I'm not mad."

His lips twitch up into a bigger smile, "Fair enough. Though it really isn't your sanity you know. It's you, definitely, but it's not due to your sanity or lack thereof."

Her gaze drifts away in thought, "Mmm. And yet, Pandora seemed more sane than history would say she was. Which makes sense if you're both delusions, since I'd imagine even an insane mind would conjure people they could actually understand."

Lucifer snorts, "Oh, she's mad alright. But she was a Queen. She's very good at seeming to be sane. At least until she does something like make that box of hers and ends up showing everyone just how twisted her mind is."

She hums, "If you say so."

She shivers faintly, as it finally registers past all the damage to her just how cold it is, "As if I wasn't cold enough on a warm sunny day, he makes it cold down here?"

He shrugs, "He's not exactly known for his care. It's not surprising he wouldn't bother to make it warm if it was somewhere naturally cold like a cellar. Fuck, given the cruelty he's notorious for, even if it's somewhere that should be warmer, it wouldn't surprise me if he put cooling charms and the like here just to fuck with prisoners."

She hums, then eyes him thoughtfully, "Then again, given it's as cold as a fucking ghost down here, are you sure it isn't your fault?"

He snorts, "No more so than the issues with temperature you've already been having." He tilts his head, "Though your wording makes me wonder if on some level you do know what's happening."

Her brows furrow, "What?"

He shrugs, "It makes sense in a certain way. You certainly have the bond, and it did pick you after all."

She blinks at him, "Bond? I can't sense any of my bonds."

He nods, "That's because dickwad placed a curse on you to block them off. Hell, if this was just an underground chamber with barely any dirt above it, even if your mate, your brother, or weapon, stood right above you, they still wouldn't sense a thing."

She blinks, "Oh. I honestly thought it was distance or the damage from my soul bound weapon breaking…"

He shrugs again, "That undoubtedly only makes things worse, but it doesn't matter with that curse being in place. But something like that cannot block it from reaching you." He gives a one shoulder shrug as his head tilts towards it at the same time for a moment and his eyebrows lift briefly, "Hell, might've given it an opening, since your mate has been unknowingly protecting you from its reaching grasp since then."

Her temper flares, "Since when?"

He smiles faintly, "You know when."

She shakes her head, "No I don't. I don't know what the hell you and Pandora are talking about, and neither of you will say a damn thing."

He huffs a laugh, "We could. There's nothing actually stopping us, but, well, I'm rather big on independence, and from my understanding, Pandora was too, so it's not too surpassing that neither of us would say anything."

She twitches, "Why are you both bringing it up then? And at that only to dangle the answer out of reach."

He shakes his head in amusement, "Because we're being called here and you don't even know why even though it's sort of your doing."

She grumbles in annoyance, but it isn't long before she realizes the weakness from her current state is taking her once more.

He sighs tiredly after the twentieth jump. Then he runs a hand through his hair, "At this point, I'm starting to think that we should try the other directions before we expand our search any further…"

Lily nods with a sigh, "So was I…"

There's a beat of morse silence, mostly at the possibility that Eryx hadn't been moving towards Marzanna. After a few beats Shuraba shakes herself, "Well, there's no point putting it off."

Lily nods again and once more holds her arms up for them to grab onto her forearms. After they start sweeping the other directions from the start point, he almost hates it when they find the weapon personality moving in a completely different direction than Eryx had been, and he clearly isn't the only one.

Nevertheless, it doesn't stop Shuraba for going for one of the weapons in the hands of what the broken looking white wings makes clear is Aquila, and after seeing a couple of them, even without particularly obvious traits like them he's starting to get better as seeing the forms he's familiar with underneath the distortion to their appearances and the glowing cracks in their skin, though unsurprisingly as an Angelic weapon, Aquila's glow blue rather than red. Unfortunately, while Shuraba manages to make contact, nothing actually happens except the Angelic Weapon turning with a shriek and throwing one of her weapon forms, which Shuraba barely deflects with her own sword form.

He moves forward, swinging his blades at her, though he's careful to do so in a way that even if they connect it won't possibly kill her, if she even can die, since he absolutely agrees with Alessio that it's a bad idea since they don't know the possible repercussions of it.

Aquila jumps back to avoid the attack, but it gets Shuraba some breathing room to recover from the shock. He frowns as he chases after Aquila, not exactly keen to have a throwing weapon like Aquila at a distance, though even as he does he calls over his shoulder, "Why the hell did you just need to touch Eryx's weapon form, but that didn't work with Aquila?"

Shuraba is quite for a moment before she slowly responds, "Maybe… because she landed in the ocean? And the amount of energy she burned swimming back made her easily absorbed?"

He deflects one of Aquila's weapon forms careening towards his face, "So we just need to tire her out?"

When he hops back to avoid the way she uses her energy to manipulate the two weapons' trajectories to move in small circles in the place he'd just been, Shuraba suddenly darts past him, and it's abundantly clear that she has- had total access to Marzanna mind, since it's practically a perfect rendition of a VR style switch.

There's a certain ache to seeing her go at Aquila, since other than the minor differences made due to the location of the claws, she fights almost exactly like Marzanna does, both in Aincrad and later in Alfheim. Which. Makes sense of course, but he doesn't exactly enjoy watching his beloved Goddess's fighting style when he doesn't know where she is or what her condition is.

Regardless of how he feels about it though, it does mean they don't really need any time to adjust to each other's fighting style, nor learn the pattern of switching with the other.

To that extent, the moment she begins shifting her weight in an incredibly familiar way, he knows she's about to jump back, and is perfectly prepared to dart forward when she does.

They're both being careful not to hurt Aquila too badly, but if the goal is just to tire her out, then that should be fine. Especially since she was rather freely using her energy to manipulate her two throwing weapon forms, which should fairly quickly exhaust her enough for reabsorption.

When she manipulates her thrown forms to orbit her, with substantial speed at that, for obvious reasons Shuraba doesn't jump forward when he moves back, but he can see that she's poised to move forward as soon as they return to Aquila's hands.

When they do return, Shuraba moves in. After the first few dodged blows on Shuraba's part and return shots that Aquila ignores, they lock weapons, and this time Aquila suddenly goes slack. Like a puppet with its strings cut, though she doesn't outright collapse.

She turns into streams of blue energy that gather in her own weapon form that was in contact with Shuraba's, and she's soon naught but blue smoke that's pulled into Shuraba like stardust to a black hole.

More of the cracks on Shuraba disappear and she lowers her weapon form with a thoughtful expression. He approaches her with concern, "Shuraba? What's up?"

She glances over at him, "Nothing major, and it's sort of sorted now anyway. I just… hadn't realized how imbalanced I was until I had reabsorbed at least one of the Angelic forms to balance out the two Demonic forms. As much as they may be opposites, as a Nephilim soul bound weapon, it's our natural state of being to be mostly in balance with both."

He blinks, "Huh. Honestly, I've been so focused on getting you guys back in one piece and finding Marzanna that it… didn't even occur to me. But if there are two Demonic forms to one Angelic…"

She shakes her head, "No, when we slay a Demon with enough power to give us a new form we get them in alternating energy types. So it's not that out of the norm for us to have one more of one type than the other."

He nods in understanding, then turns to Lily, but before he can even say anything, she gives him an apologetic smile, "Unfortunately, as much as I hate to say it, we're done for the day."

Shuraba turns to her in surprise, "Lily?"

She shakes her head, "Apparating so much would be tiring on its own, but with two passengers as well…" She shakes her head again with a somewhat self admonishing smile, "I think we were a bit too optimistic about the ease of finding them after Eryx was located so easily."

He frowns in concern, "Are you alright?"

Her smile turns more genuine, "Oh I'm fine for now, and one more jump to get us back to the closest base so we can return won't push me too far, but I really shouldn't do more than that until I've had a little time to recover."

He nods in relief, then turns guilty, "I'm sorry Lily. It didn't even occur to me how much this has to be taking out of you."

She shakes her head, as her smile turns material, "None of that now sweetie. It's not your job to monitor how much more I've got in me. It's mine. So you can take that self blame my daughter likes to grumble about so much and you can tell it to kindly fuck off, because I'm having none of it. Not for decisions I myself made regarding how far I pushed myself." Then she raises an eyebrow at him, "Unless you're trying to imply that you're the boss of me wholly and completely to such an extent that I don't have freewill?"

He gives her a sheepish smile, "No Lily, I wouldn't dream of it. And I'll try."

She nods sharply, "See that you do."

Then she offers her arms to them again for one last jump for the day. One more uncomfortable trip later, which he's fairly certain his brain was more aware of now that it knows they have to take a break from looking for its beloved Goddess and can spare more thought to such things. It certainly feels much more uncomfortable, unintentionally disproving the vague notion he had that maybe he was getting more used to it.

When they get into the living room, they find most of the more fighting oriented members of the family, making it rather clear that either there hasn't been much work today or they've all trickled back home already after dealing with as many jobs as they can, as well as Kyrie and Yui.

Never one to beat around the bush, he's not surprised when Vergil cuts straight to the chase, "We checked on Mike, the downside of actively being in a school of magic means he'd used enough of his own that he passed out, but Pomfrey said he'd be fine with a night of rest. How'd it go with you guys?"

Lily sighs, "I think we were too optimistic because of Eryx landing close enough for Shuraba to sense."

Nero frowns, "Was it that bad?"

Lily shakes her head, "Not entirely. We tracked down two of the four that were still missing after Shuraba reabsorbed Eryx, but it took fifteen jumps the first time to find what turned out to be Arbiter. On the plus side, it may be since she's one of the three original core forms, but she was in her right mind at least, even if her physical form was in just as bad a state as Eryx's."

Kyrie wrings her hands, "And the downside?"

Lily smiles bitterly, "She didn't have a bead on Marzanna either. She was just moving in the direction of Eryx's predicted path because she was making her way to the closest base compared to where she landed. And when we found Aquila it was proven that it was very much a coincidence when we found her going in a completely different direction. Her path had absolutely no chance of crossing Eryx's. Which not only means they are moving at random, but that there's no hint of Marzanna's location to be learned from them."

Yui slumps, "I'm sorry Grandma, I-"

Lily cuts her off swiftly as she moves towards her, "I'm not having that from you anymore than from your dad." She runs her fingers through Yui's hair, "So don't go picking up his worst habits with your learning algorithm, understand?"

Yui sniffles, then nods, "Ok…"

She smiles, and he sighs, "While luckily the fact that the cores may still have their minds intact means we should only need to track down wherever Nephthys wandered too after landing, unfortunately it took so many jumps we had to call it a night."

He glances at Shuraba, "I suppose it's possible that Osiris had the same idea as Arbiter and may show up on her own over the night, which should certainly make it easier to find Nephthys since reabsorbing the others is improving Shuraba's range, but otherwise well just have to wait until tomorrow and hope that of the two, the landing spot we pick ends up being hers."

Shuraba shakes her head, "I doubt very seriously that Osiris will come here even if it occurs to her. With how headstrong and bloodthirsty she is, I'd find it more likely for her to beeline for either suspected Death Eater bases or aim for the Demons V-Mort has at his disposal."

Nero twitches faintly, "Either of which could go bad very quickly or just generally make things harder as a result."

Alessio nods a little tiredly, "Indeed. It's a rather good thing Marzanna does not share her… impulsiveness, or if she does she has enough control of those impulses that I've not seen it."

Shuraba just nods, seeming to be a mixture of tired at the very thought of what mess Osiris may make and grateful that Marzanna was more controlled. Not that he can blame her, while he doesn't necessarily have anything against Osiris, she had certainly irked him more than once with her comments directed at Marzanna, though they never went far enough for him to outright dislike her.

Nevertheless, having met her a few times in Marzanna's mind, he doesn't envy Shuraba's self appointed task of attempting to corral her.

(1): I actually made an image of Arbiter's human design back when I made the others, but since she hadn't properly popped up yet, I've been sitting on it. Anyway, I did try to add a link to my profile, but those don't seem to work no matter what I do, so if it's broken, you can see it either on my DeviantArt or over on AO3 at the end of the chapter since it actually allows you to put images into them and I always add them to the bottom notes.