Reim Empire

[Apollymi]

Shadiya listened to the words spoken by her household member and as he continued to speak her face began to fall. What little hope she had left of settling this before it got out of hand seemed to disappear from her eyes. Just when she thought everything would be okay, just when she believed that she and her friends could complete their goals and continue moving forward, it would be the one person she trusted most in her life, who would stand in the way of her own growth. "It wasn't like that, you weren't there, I was. This is better, but you don't want to see that do you?" Shadiya wished to argue, but she wasn't sure if she'd get through to this man or not. On the one hand, she knew only one thing. "I won't let you kill them Shaka. We, built this together and we're better than that, and they're our friends." she stood between herself and him the heart shaped pendent on her neck glowing with the power of her Djinn. She would spare just a moment for Aiolia smiling over her shoulder at the young blonde man. "You don't have to stay here for this..." she said. Her eyes though seemed sad, it was like the young girl, just had an odd realization about what was going on here.

Among this group with Shaka was a girl with dark brown messy hair and she had a vessel which was a ring, which had the ability to warp space allowing her body to move through solid spaces. She did this behind Shaka and began to walk through the rooms, obviously looking for people to slaughter. She knew nothing of this situation, but she had nothing better to do, and as such she'd do this for a few minutes.

[Bloodedge]

"These are not my friends. They might be changing you, but I won't let them change me. If it's too late to being you back to reality, I'll take you down with them." As Shaka spoke, his arm was brought back down. Black Rukh began to spew from his Dark Metal Vessel, and the space around the item began to warp. Meanwhile, Aiolia stepped up to Shadiya's side. Though she cleared him to vacate the premises, the look she had when saying so made him want to do the exact opposite. "You're right. That doesn't mean I won't stay. You went out of your way to help me when we didn't even know each other. The least I can do is return the favor." Before he continued speaking, Aiolia used his left hand to grasp the sheath of his sword right next to the guard of the weapon. "Do what you can to save your friend. I'll deal with these palace thugs."

[Apollymi]

Shadiya looked at her friend and was amazed by the things he said, but not in a positive way. Perhaps she had been changed since coming into contact with Fudo and Yasmin, but she didn't consider this change to be a negative thing. To her, any changes that happened were much better than the status quo, than sitting and waiting while watching others suffer. Before she could open her mouth to speak on this though, Aiolia said something to her, which made the girl's eyes widen just a little. A glimmer of hope returned to the girl as his words touched her heart. "Alright then, I'll leave you to it." she said with a quick nod. After this there was the matter of figuring out how to deal with Shaka.

Shadiya knew her own strengths and weaknesses and though she was well aware that she couldn't fully use her Djinn Equip, in this case she figured she wouldn't rightly need to. She'd been learning the start of a new form of fighting and as such her own Magoi began to culminate within her hands. She didn't have that much, but she hoped she'd be able to disrupt whatever was going on with Shaka and bring him back to normal before that became a factor. "I don't want to do this, but you aren't leaving me very many options, Shaka." she understood that whatever his new magical item did it was similar to her own vessel, meaning she might have to do more thinking than actual fighting. Still she said that as a final warning those golden eyes of hers narrowing and burning with the determination to bring her friend back to himself.

[Bloodedge]

"Right. I'll be back," said Aiolia. It was his intention to clear out the six underlings and return to assist Shadiya in whatever way necessary. His eyes had followed the movements of five followers in Shaka's company, but one had managed to evade his gaze. Still, while having knowledge of the others' locations. As he prepared to take off, Shaka interrupted. "Such loyalty in only a day. You disgust me. You'll die first," he said. Shaka's Dark Metal Vessel was at the ready to assault Aiolia, but before this could happen, the blonde from Artemyra vanished. Numerous steps in rapid succession were made with enough intensity to crack the floor beneath Aiolia, but by the time this happened with each step, he had already moved on. His movements never seemed to stop, but instead seemed to pass each of Shaka's apparent underlings before they spurted blood from unseen slashes. One by one, they fell with deep slash marks across their bodies. This left only one person standing after about fifteen seconds... whichever person had evaded Aiolia's lingering gaze.

"Your new boy toy has a strong pair of legs on him. You must be so proud," Shaka commented, seeming apathetic about the likely death of his men. Whatever the case, they were expendable anyway. Before he continued, Shaka moved his hand and Metal Vessel in a sweeping motion through the air, accessing the item's magic to remove the space itself between himself and Shadiya. In doing so, he aimed to reach out and grab the girl by the throat with his other hand; a feat that would be more easily achieved with the space between them gone. "I wanted to see you rule the world, Shadi. Both of us standing high above everyone else, and me doing anything you desired. Why would you abandon that dream for these pitiful commoners?"

[Apollymi]

It seemed Aiolia was quite equipped to handle himself. She'd done no reading on Artemyra but, Shadiya figured if there was a man among them sent on such a task as the one he'd undertaken, then he was bound to be a great deal better than average. Even so, it appeared that Shaka had developed quite the unseen hatred for this boy without even bothering to get to know him. "Stop saying that." this was something Shadiya felt really strongly about which was the reference to Aiolia as her 'boy toy'. "He's a person, and he's strong on his own merit. He is kind to me, because I was kind to him nothing more. He's done nothing to you, why are you so content to hate him?" she asked only to find herself trapped within this young man's grasp. She still didn't seem upset by this, it was simply a matter of her figuring out the best way to go about her particular task. 'Hmm, so instead of stopping time like his Household Vessel, it alters the space found between two people. Practical, but... annoying to be up against.' the girl thought as her friend spewed hatred and dissent the likes of which she'd never heard from him before as she gripped at her neck and kicked with her feet off the ground she spoke. "I didn't." she managed as punched towards his arm, it was only for a second but the amount of magoi she positioned within this hit was meant to stun, to force his hand to release her body. If this succeeded she'd be capable of speaking properly, obviously her first friend and follower didn't understand what she was trying to do here.

Meanwhile the one brunette who wasn't soon joined by her friends was more than a bit a surprised. "Oi?! Am I supposed to do this all by my..." she started to question, only to find that five out of the six other people she'd come in with lay spread out across the ground with slashes on their person. To her knowledge the person known as Shadiya didn't have this as a power, and as such it had to be someone else. "Who... did this?" she asked.

[Bloodedge]

"Cut the shit, Shadi!" the boy exclaimed while his hand wrapped around the Dungeon Capturer's neck. "You and I both know you'll be chumming it up and trying to do his hair and nails as soon as there's downtime. But that's not what's important here." Shadiya's punch, while lacking in physical strength, somehow caused a painful shockwave in Shaka's arm, accompanied by the spewing of blood from said limb. This indeed caused his grip to loosen, which resulted in the boy staring at his arm afterwards. "Got yourself a trick? Nice..." Whatever Shadiya intended to say, Shaka didn't care to hear. After her claim of not abandoning any dreams, Shaka clenched his gloved fist and swung it in the girl's direction, aiming to use the Dark Metal Vessel to deal additional blunt damage with the punch.

Elsewhere in the building, Aiolia finally stopped moving. It had taken longer than he initially anticipated, but he finally found the last enemy, who seemed to have already taken note of his handy work. "That would be me, and you would be next. First, tell me... Why does the emperor seek war with Artemyra?"

[Apollymi]

Shaka's words still brought a great deal of pain to the girl's heart, even after she'd managed to free herself. She'd caused his arm a great deal of damage and it hurt her to do so, but she couldn't risk allowing herself to take too much damage. "I am sorry about that... really." she said of his arm. It seemed that she was quite remorseful even though she knew at this point she was simply defending herself. She was beginning to wonder if the only way to make her friend listen would be to completely immobilize him. But instead of anything good happening, his praise of her skills would simply lead into an attack with his new weapon, she aimed to stop it with her palm and then another quick Magoi infused strike was aimed near the joint of his shoulder, again it was simply meant to immobilize him, it was as if she intended to pick him apart systematically so long as she was within striking distance of him. "Really, would it be so hard for you to just stop and think about what you're doing here? You're my first friend and you're trying to hurt me right now, and you once promised me you wouldn't." she said to the blonde young man. It was sort of a surreal experience for her, having to fight her friend in such a way for no reason other than he just didn't believe in the same dream as she did anymore.

Meanwhile the chocolate haired lass, was asked a question by the blonde young man who'd dispatched all her friends. And in response to his question she laughed. "Yes, because the Emperor really wants to discuss his plans with me." she said. Though she had some knowledge of what the head of this country was planning she had no desire to explain this to an enemy. "Besides, you're planning to end me too... I got nothing to say to you." the girl mentioned her dark eyes fiercely burning beneath that mop of dark colored hair.

[Bloodedge]

"Yeah... Go ahead, make it sound like I'm the one with empty promises. You're a King's Candidate who's no longer fit to be above anyone." The block of his punch meant nothing to Shaka. An important matter, though, was the following strike to his shoulder joint, which made his arm go limp immediately. This was very strange, and very annoying. "Of course you'd go the passive route. You don't even have what it takes to take out a traitor."

Aiolos' left hand remained on the sheath of his sword. The woman before him was not at all willing to give him the information he sought, but she didn't seem to know, either. "It's not my goal to end you. It's my goal to stop you by whatever means necessary. From your attitude, I'm willing to guess those things are one and the same. That's disappointing."

[Apollymi]

"No longer fit to be above anyone?" she questioned this because it made it sound as if she ever truly thought herself to be above anyone in the first place. Her strike having succeeded she backed away stopping the flow of her own Magoi so as not to waste it and perhaps hear out what her friend had to say about this entire situation. She was starting to think her friend her took a very different view on their previous lives than she did and now she was almost tempted to see exactly what it was he meant by his statements, because unraveling them would be the key to stopping this fight. "Nothing has happened here that can't be forgiven." she said this because she meant it. Yes, he'd led an assault on their home in a misguided attempt to apparently sway her beliefs, but this wasn't something that was horrible in any way, no one had died. And nothing had changed... she saw no reason to try and harm her friend more than he forced her to.

Meanwhile, the girl with the dark hair seemed to be watching this boy. His words about not wanting to do anything to her made her smile, but it wasn't a nice or friendly smile. It was the sort of smile, which an animal created when it was backed into a corner. It was malicious and cynical. "It isn't as if you can hit me with that sword, so there is nothing to stop me from walking out of here anyways." she said there wasn't nearly as much commotion in this house as she expected so she figured their new leader was behind held up. Still, she didn't really have time to worry about this, instead she simply walked towards the boy as if she was going to go past him towards the front, but at the point where they would have touched she simply phased through him a small dagger appearing in her hand after she was finished she'd aim to plunge it through the back of this boy's head as she passed him. Her intention to go check on Shaka and see what was taking him so long.

[Bloodedge]

"You're wrong... You can't be forgiven." If he couldn't move his upper arm to assault Shadiya, Shaka would go for another method. The palm of his right hand opened and warped the space between himself and the girl once more. This time, however, the space was twisted, which created an effect akin to a spiraling strike of Shaka's right hand toward Shadiya's face. Once his attack had been attempted, Shaka aimed to return space to normal, restoring the distance between them.

Aiolia scoffed. Never had he been unable to strike anything with his sword technique, and as far as he was concerned, this would be no different. As such, when the woman moved toward him, he aimed to slash at her neck with great speed and pinpoint accuracy. To his surprise, the blade passed through her without doing any sort of damage, and she went on to phase through him just the same. As she did this, he turned to have her within his gaze again; the end result of this being Aiolia leaping away at a moment's notice due to the sudden dagger coming toward his face. "What the hell? What sort of magic is that?" he questioned aloud as he aimed to lunge his blade through the woman's torso.