RP:Requiem for the Powerful

Part of the The God of Undeath Arc

Summary: Shishi reminds Kasyr that when you strike the shield the spear moves in to skewer.

Vailkrin Capitol Foyer

The crumbling castle which stood here has been rebuilt and refurbished and now serves as the Vailkrin state capitol building, despite remaining a formidable fortress. The entrance has been outfitted relatively modestly, a simple red runner leading the way north into the main room while the stone walls are left unadorned but for several flaming sconces, although a series of banners running down the hallway boldly pronounces a patriotic spirit, each flag bearing the black hand of Vailkrin. At the opposite end of the foyer a series of arches invites visitors to continue forward into the great hall or to turn into one of the wings of the castle.

Shishi walks with a purpose through the City of Eternal Night, his right eye closed to the world behind scarred flesh bearing the telltale signs of dragon blood causticity. His left eye glows red, his family’s curse disturbing the shadows of Vailkrin, dragging them towards The Blue Demon as he moves. Some of them coat his left arm and hand in a black void while others slither up his back to the sides of his head where they curl into backwards facing horns, less fiendish looking than his stage name would suggest, having more of a fey-like shape to them. The Titan’s influence on the darkness of Vailkrin ranges quite wide today and the unnatural movement of the shadows will herald his approach towards the castle long before anything else.

Kasyr , for the third time in as many days, finds himself distinctly aware of a certain pointed ire being aimed his way. It's not the carefully refined disdain that certain nobles reserved for him, nor the cold murderous promises that lay discreetly nestled in the pages of proposals left at his doorstep. No, this was an acute anger, and from a party whose grievance had yet to be voiced. "Maybe I -should- take up Ashram on their offer of a 'Secretary Adjutant'. They can help me pretend I'm not here." Maybe he could set up an intricate network of tickets, and forms that needed to be filled out- to properly stall for time, and further stoke whatever ire was already there. Some artful antagonism, to keep whomever off-balance. Which, on that note- while the black spider silk pants and dress shirt are adequate in most circumstances, he was beginning to appreciate the subtle flex that came with dressing well when someone rolled up on his doorstep ready to verbally eviscerate him. ...Though, he might have chosen to be a bit subversive this time around, the midnight blue vest he'd been directed to left open, and the silver tie just slightly off center. As he passes towards the castles foyer, he briefly distracts one of the servants, "Could you send a pair of coffees to the Foyer? I think I'm expecting a guest." Maybe this time he can actually get them to eat something before they start to cycle through the litany of crimes he has to answer for. Still, that errand out of the way, the swordsman goes to wait for his guest- casually scuffing at the halls carpeting, as though some nightmarish play of shadows wasn't already in the process of painting itself across the walls.

Shishi , if he is molested by any guards or other castle staff as he approaches, would have just the answer, raising up an impossibly tall wall of shadow between them and himself in stride, ignoring any orders or questions as he continues to the front gate and then the front door, which he literally walks straight through. A human sized swatch of shadow lays itself over the doors and The Blue Demon steps into it, briefly venturing into the plane of shadows before he is spit out a similar portal on the inside of Vailkrin’s Capitol Castle. His one open eye finds Kasyr, his target, immediately. “Kas…” He raises that shadow coated left arm in an upward sweeping motion that crosses in front of his body, unleashing a flat wave of darkness across the foyer. It is planar in shape, encompassing the room in width and length, but remains impossibly thin in the height dimension. In all their years in combat alongside each other, Kasyr would have never seen this type of control over the dark matter from Blue. The wave moves fast in the way that only the antithesis of light can. Shishi has constructed this initial strike with great thought, the cut it will inflict, aimed to bisect the restored revenant at the stomach, will be so thin and swift that even an elder vampire’s rapid healing ability will close the wound virtually instantly, leaving no lasting damage, only supplying pain. “You know why I’m here?” He’s got his attention, now they can talk. The assassin’s voice is low, and measured, but the words are spoken through gritted teeth and fangs…

Kasyr s' demeanour is, initially, almost cordial, one hand lifting up in a lax wave- one which belied the emotions which were aimed at him, "Long ti-" There's not much in the way of warning to latch onto, not in the face of the assassins measured intent, the solidication of sadistic animosity a threadbare indicator- even in juxtaposition with the Kensais augmented perceptions. In effect, all it meant was that he had an awareness of the shear in space as it occurs, a sort of grotesque understanding of the fracture in space, drawn out longer than it was likely intended. His only consolation comes in the form of the ichor weaving through him- maintaining his integrity even when it should falter. Reducing the stress on the thread around his heart, even as it yearns to pluck at it's distant twins. There's still a smile on the swordsmans face, but it's devoid of any fondness now- the tilt of his head more indicative of some feral curiosity then any real interest. "Tendering a resignation? Looking for a pine box in your size, peut-etre?" Size was the keyword here, because in that moment, the swordsmans intent was made manifest- wil coalescining steel not into the path of a waiting and willing hand, but rather, honed in on the blue demon with every bit of malignance due to him. Soul-forged steel set to manifest not from without, but within- an unsportsmanlike display that Kasyr has so oft refrained from doing out of a sense of fair-play. A courtesy they've mutually eschewed. "I'm not sure I care. You're getting in the way."

Shishi bares fangs in a sneer at the word ‘resignation’. If anything, Blue believes he’s here fulfilling his duties, not about to abdicate them. ‘Something’s coming. There! HERE!’ The assassin’s mind is assaulted by the hundreds of dark voices that come along with the use of the family curse. By his perception they come now from the two black horns on his head, perhaps an innovative technique developed by The Blue Demon to craft a pair of extrasensory antennae out of the shadows themselves. They alert him to the blade forming inside of his chest and take matters into their own hands. Another wave of shadow washes over the room, but this one is directed at Shishi, and when it crashes over him nothing is left in its wake aside from whatever steel Kasyr had conjured and the blood it had drawn from the intruder. Again, the control is something to be noted from Blue, he’s pulled himself into the shadow plane, but excluded the foreign steel from the trip. There’s silence in the foyer for a moment, shadows silently shifting around like a pack of wolves circling their prey. One patch of darkness opens up interdimensional space on the ground towards the revenant’s left side, another in the air directly in front of him, one more above the sword saint, and a fourth behind him. The same aura of malice emanates from all of them, making it seem like The Blue Demon is on the other end of each portal all at once, “In the way of what?” His voice comes from each rift, “My children live in Vailkrin,” but he finally steps out of the one behind Kasyr, blood staining the left side of his white shirt where the blade was forced out of his body while he switched planes. From the other three portals whip out thorny black vines, looking into the voids, one can see a line of demarcation where they cross over and change their nature. On the other side these are living plants being controlled by Shishi, yet here they shift to become mimics of shadow given physical form. They seek to entangle the revenant while Blue strikes with a black clawed hand towards the other vampire’s throat. “Quintessa protects Vailkrin…”

Kasyr doesn't seem overly perturbed by the display, before him, his attention briefly flickering down to his own person- at the exactness of the cut that had rent his shirt, and neatly adjusted his vest so that it appeared a few sizes smaller. "No wonder I get yelled at for the jackets." The remarks made to no one in particular, but the Kensai is almost certain there's someone there to listen- the intensity of the shadowpuppets dancing across the walls indicative that the assassin had not drifted far. His hand moves to the upper breast pocket of his vest, fetching a cigarette out as he waits for the first sign of something- for the inevitable interference with the rooms electrical currents. The portals certainly fit that bill, interrupting the flow of energy in the room, and painting a clear picture for the swordsman to latch onto, one which helps to pinpoint the moment tenebrous tendrils emerge from their hiding place, to slide around his limbs in a concerted effort to bind him. And really, he -does- offer a tantalizing target, his head bent forward, hands cupped over his face as he lights his smoke. There is no real struggle involved in those wicked shadows finding purchase across his flesh, their otherworldly thorns starting to grind into damned flesh. "Ah." There it is. As Shishi moves to drive his hand forward into a killing blow, the swordsmans distorts, it's cohesion abruptly lost in a shower of sparks- as the same energy that fuels his altered perceptions is pushed through his body, reducing him to an ionized parody of a man. A sparking skeleton whose after image promises an agony of contracting musculature and seared flesh, not only from the momentum of Shishi's forceful punch forward- but the sadistic manner in which the elemental lightning which composed tha man simply stepped back, to occupy the same space as Shishi. A neat little trick that comes to a rather abrupt end when his form flattens out to slip between the gap between portals. "s***." As he returns to solidity, his right hand flicks forward, trying to grasp hold fo the ambient empathic energies that might have brushed off on his smoke- seeking to yank it out from it's death spiral towards the ground, and towards himself. ...It's probably getting portaled. "Do you actually want the speech? I have a speech ready. I also have a body bag. Your choice."

Shishi ’s one open eye widens as he passes through Kasyr’s throat and the surge of electricity has him convulsing while the skeletal lightning repositions itself. Shadows move to cover The Blue Demon’s body again, dissolving some of the portals to make use of their material. This time they do not transfer Blue elsewhere, but instead form a dark armor around him, insulating from the shocking interaction. Smoke rises off the assassin in various spots as he spins to face the reforming kensai, charred fabric concealed by the shadows covering it. He growls now, the feral nature of The Blue Demon finally showing through with that last jolt of pain. The fingers on his left hand close around a dark wand that appears there out of thin air. The tip of the magical weapon ignites in black flame and every bit of shadow under Shishi’s control here does the same. The mordant flames will not burn flesh or other physical material, but being touched by them in anger will inflict a burning of energy, both magical and whatever else might be keeping an undead being ‘alive’. Converting himself into electricity isn’t a trick that will save the revenant a second time. “Let me go first, maybe I can get you to think for a second.” He says, clad in black flame armor now, “Any attack on her makes this place less safe for my family.” With a flick of his wrist, those vines creeping through the portals change shape and take the form of dark burning serpents that seem infinitely long as they continuously slither more and more of their bodies out of the rifts to chase after Kasyr. “So you can keep cowering over here, blowing up buildings, and attacking kids like her, accomplishing nothing and having to go through me to do it…” The horns on Shishi’s head are the last things to burst into those abyssal flames as he takes one step towards his old friend, “Or you can do what you should have been doing the entire time, the insane thing I’d expect -you- to do, and go after the real problem, go after the Bug!”

Kasyr finally manages to get a puff of his cigarette, an achievement that has him breathing deep- his lungs filling with acrid ash, pulling until it's a burned to a dull nub. The exhale is something else entirely. Were Quintessa here, the seeping darkness might be familiar- the incarnated blaspheme of Elazul and Khasads might laced through the smoke, a gaseous ruin that swallows stone and shadow, and leaving only desolation behind it. An ashen oblivion that continues to spills forward as a monstrous reply to Shishis' continued conjurations. A sufficient enough display, that when the much beleaguered servant opens the door to the foyer with coffee in tow- they abruptly back out of the room. "What do you think I've been doing?" Kasyr can hear the indignation, the sincerity in what -sounds- like Shishi trying to reach out to him, as though he were some creature that had lost it's way. That had gone adrift. But were the words his, or was it the changelings toxic framework? Machinations that might have already been lain out, or put in place so that she could carry out some fascimile of the bugs agenda. "-Why-, en fait?" It's a lofty question, perhaps- and one that the swordsman feels is owed proper time to consider it. And so, though the swordsmans hands lay poised to clasp over a sword that has yet to appear, he simply stands his ground- observing the Blue demons preperations for war with a stoic sense of resignation. "Quintessa protects -herself- Vailkrin is a happy accident, at the best of times. Et we are far from those."

Shishi stands his ground in the face of the approaching destructive smoke. Beneath the closed eyelid of his injured right eye a red glow begins to shine through the skin. The radius of The Blue Demon’s shadowy influence seems to expand as more shadows from inside the castle and perhaps outside as well come rushing into the foyer while the burning serpents are engulfed in the smoke. The newly recruited shadows join Vailkrin’s Spear’s burning black armor and ignite themselves in turn, making him seem a bloated version of himself for a moment before they venture forth. The dark fires spread out in a wall that meets the acrid smoke, struggling against it as it holds it in place, keeping it from advancing towards Shishi and burning away at the ancient vampiric energy that makes it so dangerous. “She’s done a better job of it than you right now.” He flatly says this into the clashing walls of smoke and fire that separate them now, standing upright and still. “And you’re wrong. She doesn’t protect herself. That girl is under my protection, and this is as civil as I will get in her defense.” The Titan stares through one red eye at the fire he’s conjured that is continuously being fed from the city’s shadows. “Vailkrin is a dark place. I can do this for a long time… So the choice is yours. Go through me to get to her and then still have to deal with whatever you think is controlling her without me to help…” Red mist starts seeping out of his eye, rising in the air and the wall of mordant flame seems to push forward, gaining some ground, “Or go for the insect’s head and leave the henchmen be. I could be a force in your favor just as easily as I can be a roadblock… You know that.”

Kasyr dispassionately observes the confluence of Vailkrins shadowed heart, and his own tainted power. And for the moment, Shishi seems to be doing the same- for though he continues to fuel the caliginous conflict at the heart of the room, he neither cedes ground nor gains it- using this moment to attempt at a dialogue anew. And though there are elements of the speech which elicit frowns, or disgruntled rolls of his eyes- it's at least enough of an opening that he finds himself willing to summon a sword into existance- specifically, so he can lopsidedly lean on it. "If I intended to go after her further, -why- would I walk away in the first place, Monsieur?" The frustration of dealing with so many people in her pocket, the possibility that she might be peering in on each and everyone. " I achieved my end. The necessary goal. C'est tout." And yet, the Blue Demon persists, struggling against the Revenants might in a manner that was almost analagous to their own struggling agains the dead god. Valrae and Karasu had voiced it- placed him as the oppressive entity that stood in their path, some terror to deal with in the future. But here Shishi was, playing the hero- buying time with words he probably didn't even mean. Words the Kensai could feel himself closing off to, as the magic devouring flame reduces the space between them to nothing. "...I'm not sure I believe you, anymore." For the first time during their confrontation, some fascimile of true lethal intent ripples from the Kensai- mirroring the upward swing of his blade, as a quick sequence of spells is cycled through. The first is a simple entropic cantrip, meant to eat away at the fabric of his blade, a precursor to what's the come. The second, is more abundantly clear, for within the span of a blink, a shimmering rift has opened up before the Kensai, a gleaming twin opening up behind Shishi's frontlines, deliberately proximal to one of the portals he's shadowy serpents emerge from. "So, I'm going to solve you, then get back to saving everyone else." Though the Kensai outpaces Shishi, he's almost certain he'll see the motion all the same, the manner in which the sword is sent hurtling through the portal and towards his own creation. Perhaps he'll even catch the moment in which it fragments apart beneath the weight of entropy, as the final bit of portal magic imbued into it activates- opening a chaotic storm of minature portals in the midst of Shishi's own. Kasyr doesn't, his own spatial rift denied magic to fuel it- and so, he has no direct avenue to witness the spatial annihilation that unfolds behind the wall of their combined magics. He'll wait.

Shishi snaps at the other vampire on the opposite side of the smoke and flame. “So that’s it!? You tear a hole in that girl’s chest and think your work is done!? Like you’ve solved anything!? Like you’ve done anything but divert people’s attention onto you while they should be fighting that Thing!? You’re doing more work for It than anyone else at this point!” The Blue Demon shakes with anger now, his scarred right eye forcing itself open, illuminating his side of the foyer in a terrible red glow while the dark flame horns alert him to the new threat porting in behind him. It is something neither Shishi nor them completely understand, and it will require a new type of solution. “You aren’t saving sh-!” a Vailkrinese seagull caws loudly as the explosion of chaos erupts around The Blue Demon. Portals bursting out of portals, rending the very space that Shishi’s vampiric matter resides in. At the first twinge of strange, new, incomprehensible pain finds him his burning armor explodes outward, stopping when it meets the smokey barrier on one side and just before it finds the walls of the castle on the other. Space is instantly swapped. In a part of Vailkrin’s burning counterpart in the Plane of Shadows, furniture, part of a stairway, and the floor of the the capitol castle suddenly appears, the red dirt and dry, leafless trees that were replaced now surround Shishi in that space cleared by the mordant flames. However the effects are much more than the mere transportation of material. The cursed assassin now stands in a pocket of The Shadow Plane that now exists in Lithrydel, and with that, the effects that he can command there he can now command in this relocated piece of that place. His control and his curse’s control over this place extends beyond just shadow, the entire plane is his domain. So it doesn’t even require the effort of thought to do what he wills. Just as each of those tiny little tears in spacetime are torn open, so quickly are they closed by The Blue Demon’s force of will. The air in that pocket shows the telltale little particulates that are suspended in the atmosphere of the other plane, and are harmful to those not of the realm, but it can not be more clear, Shishi is of that realm… With a lift of his wand carrying hand, one can see that the wand has vanished, but his fingers still appear to curl around something invisible of the same shape. A tree, or the portion of it that was transported, is uprooted at his command and hurled into the smoke towards Kasyr. When it passes the barrier between realms it becomes incoherent and bursts into those dark flames. It may still bludgeon the revenant if it hits him, that much isn’t clear about what is happening right now, but at any rate those black flames will burn him…

Kasyr s empathy starts to flicker back into existence as the magic consuming flames cease to consume the center of the room- the interference they provided ceding away to reveal the almost incomprehensible gaps of material. Swathes of vacant space, whose forms were only hinted through slivers of unreality. "Maybe I -should- have finished the job. corroded her out of existence quietly. At least then, I wouldn't have to worry about her destroying the trees a ...Fourth time?" It's while he's working out the logistics of the matter that a flicker of something emerges from the portal, erupting at a speed that seems in strict defiance of it's size. Well, so much for destroying reality that way. Onto the next. Not for the first that the evening, another sliver of steel materializes into the Kensais hand, and yet- it's not the arcane which the swordsman leans into. No, there's a simple whispered song that issues from his lips, taking hold of his core and filling the emptiness that had begun to emerge in the midst of the fight. His feet kick off the ground, rattling the ancient stonework of the castle- his body hurtling into the tree like a comet. This, he feels- perhaps even more intensely than the brief severing of his flesh, because though the phasmagoric vestige of the tree is rent asunder, it's flames live on, slithering over cloth and flesh to greedily drink at the surfeit of energy which courses at the heart of the Kensai. Over the countless lifetimes he'd ended and consumed- over the courses he'd embraced and bolstered. It strives to eat him alive, even as his body transcends the boundaries of flesh, his movement an ionic shadow only perceived in after-images. Because he knows. From his years of studying deities and madmen, that to enter anothers domain is suicide- That to breach this place is a deathwish, and one that now carries repercussions across not only his life, but the pair joined to him. And yet- This also presented an opportunity- a test to see if it -could- be overcome, if they were forced to confront Caluss. For a singular gleaming moment, the swordsmans form flickers through that hostile reality, to find a home at it's beating heart- the song he started reaching a gleaming crescendo of divine light meant to carve into the man. To see them both rejected from that reality by the introduction of it's anathema. "And what are you doing? Raging? You used to have resolve."

Shishi shakes his head, first at his surroundings because he doesn’t quite comprehend what he’s done, and second at Kasyr’s call. The Blue Demon stands at the center of this pocket of The Shadow Plane that he’s displaced, the space immediately around him shimmering and distorting much the same way the shadows do in his proximity when he is within the realm of Hollow. “I still have it. You must not have understood what it was about before. I will destroy anything that threatens my family. I couldn’t give less of a damn about these gods you’re dealing with. We will survive or everything will die with us.” The revenant steps through the now permanent bubble between dimensions and Blue simply pleads, “Don’t…” but the Kensai does. Crimson eyes look on emotionlessly at the approaching light and the space around him distorts so that the beam curves around him and is spit out the other end of the bubble, impacting with its full force on the wall of the castle behind it. The assassin lifts his empty wand hand again and a wave moves through the red clay ground inside the bubble like it was made of some viscous liquid, rising all the way to the top of the displaced extraplanar space, seeking to sweep Kasyr back out of the little realm within a realm. “You have my one term. If you’re really done with Quintessa then we’re done here…” He turns and starts walking towards the boundary of the bubble, “...If you’re not, then I will be there when you come for her again." His voice seems terribly far away when he reaches the line separating the two planes, “What do you even want? Just to fight? You need someone to make you focus again…” He steps through the boundary, but doesn’t move back into Hollow and the castle like logic dictates he should. Instead he disappears from view, somehow moving into the shadow plane proper. From there he can go where he pleases…

Kasyr can feel the world rejecting him, can feel himself getting pushed back again- and it infuriates him in a way he cannot place. Even as the vestiges of shadowy flame lap at his skin, he struggles- a blackened cobweb of electrical energy forcing it's way through his form. The flame flares and sputters, before it's stifled- it's existence canceled as the Kensai's life begins to burn at both ends, his form lingering within the event horizon of the world. This time, as bits of his body begin to fragment off into scattered wisps of ash, replaced by black scales of ionized tissue- there seems to be little in the way of control. Just a desperate struggle to hold on. Because just for this moment, he's almost certain there's noone looking in, "It was the only way to save her, from herself and it. To stall, gods damn you." The words start to become more incomprehensible, as raw emotion and element intertwine, a static aftermath to every painstaken word, "The world doesn't -end- with you." What happens to that immense potential, when it's clarified into a few sparse moments, substantiated so that it might defy the miracles of gods and their harbingers. The answer comes in the subtle discord wrenching through his body, at the song his existence was maintained by going awry, as he blasphemes to exceed them for a moment, and force the boundary back. There's a pain here, and it goes soul deep. "But it nearly ended with her. So I-" didn't kill her. At the end of the day, he couldn't kill her. And then Shishi had presented himself- an easy target, that had come to slay a monster and save the day. The kensai's miracle distorts, the hand that had strained to hold onto that pocket of reality fracturing under the weight of the realization, and setting him adrift.