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Fate/Lunar Song (Nasuverse/Symphogear)

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Not canon to this quest, of course... but an interesting might-have-been that occurred to me.


Through The Kaleidoscope: Part 1

~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Hibiki took in the situation at a glance. Two late-stage vampires, not yet Apostles, engaging an unarmed human woman. She's not dead yet, and… yes, that's prana running through her, but not much. Reinforcement, probably. Not enough to be a threat to me. Distance between them… she has extra reach of some sort.

She leapt forward and up before materializing and transforming, stomping the closer Apostle to the ground. It twitched under her, and she shoved prana through her boots, the burst of golden energy obliterating it and leaving a crater in the floor.

The other vampire stumbled, shock and fear stealing its momentum, and she put her fist through its chest. Like the first, it didn't die. Like the first, a pulse of golden light ended it for good.

Weak vampires are a joke, even on the moon. Now, who is this…

Hibiki turned, to find the woman -- a girl, really, cute and pink-haired with a boyish build. Eighteen to twenty, probably -- staring at her, arms raised defensively. A cross dangled around her neck, and an engraved cuff was visible through her torn sleeve. A slight bulge under the other sleeve meant it was probably paired.

She let her transformation lapse. This girl couldn't hurt her even if she tried. Magus, but fights with Reinforcement, so probably not a proper one. Cross necklace, fighting vampires… "You're an Executor, I take it?"

"I- uh, yeah. Who are you?"

"My name is Hibiki Tachibana." She felt out her connection to the present… yes, this was her summoner and Master. Three commands, unable to be opposed… a very light leash, this time. Yes, this would do nicely. "Yours?"

"I'm… Jordan Hawkwood. Thanks for helping me." Jordan swallowed. "Uh, what are you, exactly?"

"I'm a Servant, who you have summoned… accidentally, it looks like."

"A Servant?"

"Think of me like a really overpowered ghost crossed with a familiar, and you're in the right ballpark. A Servant is a physical manifestation in the world of a Heroic Spirit, but a degraded one."

Jordan looked at her blankly.

Not very informed, is she? "A Heroic Spirit is a hero, basically, who exists in the legends of humanity and the world, and who passes out of the cycle of reincarnation after death."

"So you're one of these… Heroic Spirits?"

"Yes," she lied. "That's right."

There wasn't any need to explain about Counter Guardians.

Not before she knew why she was here.
 
Callin' the vote here.

Vote Tally : Fate/Lunar Song (Nasuverse/Symphogear) | Page 17 | Sufficient Velocity
##### NetTally 1.1.21
[X] Only a few feet from Jordan
- [X] Tucked into bed
No. of Votes: 5
[x] Alone and tucked into bed
- [x] In comforting darkness
No. of Votes: 1
justinkal
[X] Only a few feet from Jordan
- [X] Curled up on a couch
No. of Votes: 1
Azecreth

​
[x] Failure.
No. of Votes: 3
justinkal
Flibspeak
veekie
[x] Loss
No. of Votes: 2
horngeek
emeralis00

[X] Rebellion
No. of Votes: 1
Azecreth
[x] Drive.
No. of Votes: 1
4rt1ll3ry

Total No. of Voters: 7

That's right, it's mood whiplash time.
 
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Second Night: A Dream of Failure (Jordan), pt. 1
  • Threadmarks
    • Slight change of plans; this dream will take a bit longer than I originally intended, so the "where do you wake up" vote was a bit early. Oops!



    You stand in the vestibule of an old-fashioned marble mansion. It is tastefully decorated, with plants and probably-quite-expensive paintings hanging from the walls. It is also occupied; a half-dozen snarling faces surround you, fanged mouths seeking your blood.

    Your name is Jordan Hawkwood, and you have to admit you weren't expecting this many of them.

    One leaps at you from behind, and you slam your elbow into it -- directly, this time, amplifying impact force to maximum and blowing it apart. It's not the most prana-efficient means of solving the problem, but that's not something you generally find yourself needing to worry about, anyway. You dart for another one, and in two quick motions all that remains is a pile of ash and a shallow crater in the marble flooring. I'm not even sure why they bother with the Dead. They're useless except as chaff. Sheer sadistic glee?

    Another of the Dead charges you; you pivot and kick, displacing your strike by about a meter. Your blow takes it in the chest; it flies back into the wall and explodes into ash. You hear a snarl and duck instinctively, avoiding the claw strike for your throat… pointlessly, as it turns out, because a pair of thrown Black Keys sink into its forehead, ashing it as well. You smile at the thrower, a short, curvy woman. "Thanks, Rhea."

    She waves her hand dismissively. "You had it covered, I just saved us time."

    You smile, and kick open the great double doors into the atrium. It is a standard fancy-mansion sort of affair; a large room, with staircases leading up either side to the open second level, and various doors leading off of it.

    A tall, slender woman stands at the balcony on the second level, sheathed in an elegant red-and-orange dress. Two men in suits flank her. All vampires.

    "I am Maly Bardye, the Flame-Touched!" she announces. You trade glances with Rhea; she rolls her eyes. "You have come far, dogs of the Church, but you will never reach my master!"

    Rhea yawns exaggeratedly. "So you're Maly Bardye? How… unimpressive. I expected the 'great' Hilex Stere to have a worthwhile servant guarding his mansion, but… oh, right." She smirks. "We already killed the others. I guess that warrants digging into the trash heap for replacements."

    "You… dare!?" she snarls, and the room's temperature rises sharply. The air ripples around her with heat distortion, and her attendants take a step to the side, out of it. "Know this: I will not grant you the mercy of a swift death. Take them!"

    Her attendants leap down from the balcony, and come at Rhea with a vengeance. Well, that would do fine; you intercept one, grabbing him by the arm and arresting his charge… or rather, redirecting it into the other. They both go down in a heap. You don't give them time to recover, lobbing the first one at the ceiling -- a perfect target for Rhea, who finishes it with four impeccably-aimed Keys. The second one almost reacts quickly enough to hurt you, but you twist aside in time to take only a scratch, and a pin followed by a flurry of punches finishes it as well.

    Rhea shouts a cry of warning, and you dive aside, barely evading the flesh-sizzling aura of heat surrounding the self-titled "Flame-Touched." You roll to your feet, but she's almost on you again, and you barely have time to throw out a hasty projected jab. Is three feet enough distance? Your hand screams with pain. No, no it is not. Nonetheless, the blow throws her off, and you manage to put some distance between the two of you.

    If I can't melee reliably, then… Rhea throws a flurry of Black Keys at her, but she bats them aside with only a single shallow-looking graze to show for it. You grimace. Guess I'll have to distract her so Rhea can put her down, then. Maximum displacement will probably keep me out of the worst of it. You catch Rhea's gaze, and she nods.

    Maly comes at you again, clearly expecting you to keep running. You don't play to her expectations, however, and come right at her instead, displacing the impact of a knee to the gut to her throat. Not expecting the angle -- or not realizing you didn't need to displace your blows along the line of the original attack -- she stumbles back and falters, and Rhea's Black Keys take her just to the side of her spine.

    You follow up, snapping a kick at her chest. She pulls her head to the side, expecting you to redirect the blow there, but you didn't bother with anything tricky; your displaced kick takes her square in the chest, driving her into the ground. Three more Keys pin her down. "Im-impossible," she gasps out, before Rhea's final flurry of thrown Keys finishes her for good.

    "...that was actually more irritating than the last one," you admit.

    "Yeah, but not too bad. How's your hand? I saw you flinch back from her."

    You glance at it, your glove hiding any burns from view. You're sure it's red beneath, maybe even starting to blister. That was going to suck. You close your eyes and chant in Russian, the short spell reducing pain signals from your hand. Normally a bit hazardous, since it leaves you less aware of any injuries you're suffering, but you don't have time to heal properly, so there's not much choice in the matter.

    "Operational. I'll want to heal it once we're done, but for now I'm good to go."

    "Alright, good." She looks around the atrium, frowning at the many exits. "So, now to find Hilex Stere somewhere in this place… how do you think we should do our search?"

    [ ] You should clear the place by…
    - [ ] Splitting up and each taking half of the mansion, making sure he doesn't escape
    - [ ] Sticking together and searching room by room, making sure you don't miss any hiding places
    - [ ] Sticking together and pressing directly for…
    -- [ ] The top floor. He'll be in one of the fancy master suite rooms, for sure.
    -- [ ] The basement. Dead Apostles like their dark and spooky places.
    - [ ] Some other means (Write in)

    [ ] Once you find Hilex Stere, Master of Shadows, He Who Consumes The Innocent, Kicker of Many Puppies, blah blah blah, you should…
    - [ ] Not engage him alone under any circumstances. Fall back if you aren't both together.
    - [ ] Engage him solo if needed, but only as a delaying action -- don't do anything risky until the other arrives.
    - [ ] Take him down, hard and fast, the first chance you get -- you don't want him to escape and go to ground.
    - [ ] Do something else (Write in)
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] You should clear the place by…
    - [X] Sticking together and pressing directly for…
    -- [X] The top floor. He'll be in one of the fancy master suite rooms, for sure.
    [X] Once you find Hilex Stere, Master of Shadows, He Who Consumes The Innocent, Kicker of Many Puppies, blah blah blah, you should…
    - [X] Take him down, hard and fast, the first chance you get -- you don't want him to escape and go to ground.
     
    Hrm.

    Given the theme of the flashback (and the fact that it's a flashback, so we know Jordan survives and all), I think the 'optimal' choice should take a backseat to the... interesting choice.

    So.

    [x] You should clear the place by…
    - [x] Splitting up and each taking half of the mansion, making sure he doesn't escape

    [x] Once you find Hilex Stere, Master of Shadows, He Who Consumes The Innocent, Kicker of Many Puppies, blah blah blah, you should…
    - [x] Take him down, hard and fast, the first chance you get -- you don't want him to escape and go to ground.
     
    [X] You should clear the place by…
    - [X] Sticking together and searching room by room, making sure you don't miss any hiding places

    [X] Once you find Hilex Stere, Master of Shadows, He Who Consumes The Innocent, Kicker of Many Puppies, blah blah blah, you should…
    - [X] Not engage him alone under any circumstances. Fall back if you aren't both together.
     
    [X] You should clear the place by…
    - [X] Splitting up and each taking half of the mansion, making sure he doesn't escape

    [X] Once you find Hilex Stere, Master of Shadows, He Who Consumes The Innocent, Kicker of Many Puppies, blah blah blah, you should…
    - [X] Engage him solo if needed, but only as a delaying action -- don't do anything risky until the other arrives.

    A somewhat more moderate version of horngeeks approach. Jordan is guaranteed to survive, but I suspect Rhea has no such plot armour.
     
    [x] You should clear the place by…
    - [x] Sticking together and pressing directly for…
    -- [x] The top floor. He'll be in one of the fancy master suite rooms, for sure.

    [x] Once you find Hilex Stere, Master of Shadows, He Who Consumes The Innocent, Kicker of Many Puppies, blah blah blah, you should…
    - [x] Engage him solo if needed, but only as a delaying action -- don't do anything risky until the other arrives.
     
    [X] You should clear the place by…
    - [X] Splitting up and each taking half of the mansion, making sure he doesn't escape

    [X] Once you find Hilex Stere, Master of Shadows, He Who Consumes The Innocent, Kicker of Many Puppies, blah blah blah, you should…
    - [X] Engage him solo if needed, but only as a delaying action -- don't do anything risky until the other arrives.
     
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    Omake: Genjuro Dojo #1
  • Apocrypha
    • <Begin Omake Transmission>.

    LADIES, GENTLEMEN, AND BEINGS OF ALL KIND. MY TIME BEGINS!



    I am your host Genjūrō Kazanari, but you can call me Commander!



    That is the right way! With me is—

    Yes, yes, it's me! Assistant #1, Yumi Itaba!!

    And together

    We—

    We welcome you to GENJURO DOJO!!!

    Commaaander, we were supposed to say it together :<

    You've got to be more on the ball! To my audience tonight, we reflect on YOUR DECISIONS!

    That's right! And since this isn't an anime, your decisions affect the livelihoods of all those future people on the moon!

    Let's talk about this lancer fellow. He certainly hurt my star pupil! If only she heeded my advice more often.

    And what advice is that? Run more laps? Do more push ups?

    No! It's always go in with back up! There was a potential ally who may respond, Julia! Friends fighting together would forge far more trust!

    But... they are supposed to fight each other eventually.

    All in due time, sure. But that could change. We don't really know what's going on.

    Well Commander, as I always say, this isn't some anime. Hibiki should have run away with Jordan.

    And get attacked from behind? He was much faster! You should face forward.

    Well, it was a more sure bet then fighting or waiting for help! Hibiki isn't in a state to deal with a full powered servant un..unless she does e-e-embarrassing things!

    Hahahaha, I'm sure that will be handled fine! Hibiki will surely remember a lecture I gave the three about safe s–

    And that's all the time we have today Commander! See you next time!!

    <End Omake Transmission>
     
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  • Apocrypha
    • Flibspeak said:
    Omake starts.
    Click to expand...
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    Excellent xD I heartily approve (and have threadmarked it at the appropriate point in quest).

    As an Omake reward, you can have 5 points of progress on one of:
    • Sync Efficiency
    • Any single splash page move (whenever you actually take that training option and/or I list them out ahead of time)
    Choose whenever you like (as in: yes, you can wait for me to actually list those). Once you actually start training, you'll get the number of points you need to reach the next level of a move (or learn it at all). You currently have no means of estimating when you will reach the next level of Sync Efficiency.
     
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    By splash page moves, do you mean unlock one of those named attacks that gets one of those fancy freeze frames?

    If so, curious to see which ones you come up with, because Hibiki's only canonical solo one of those isn't exactly canon to this quest...... Also that it requires X-Drive.................
     
    justinkal said:
    By splash page moves, do you mean unlock one of those named attacks that gets one of those fancy freeze frames?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Yep, that'd be it.

    [ ] Head someplace outside the city (with no fragile buildings to damage) and train. You have more experience now than you ever did with Gungnir inside you in life; maybe you can figure out some new techniques.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    The benefits of being a walking time paradox! Exploiting traits you never had the skill to properly use when you had them in life.
     
    Yes. Convenient utility abilities that give her a useful tactical ability beyond 'punch in face, harder' (or contextual benefits to punching in face, harder I guess).
     
    veekie said:
    So like her friends' special moves?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I would assume its newly made up named attacks.

    I don't think we'll be able to get anyone else's moves, although I would not at all be opposed to Hibiki picking up Megadeth Quartet or Liuxing (and not just because an anti-magic Divine Buster is pretty fucking OP in the Nasuverse).

    Edit:
    Just remembered that there IS a version of Divine Buster that was modified to be a punch, used by Subaru and Vivio. Hibiki should totally be able to pull that off with Liuxing :V
     
    Last edited:
    justinkal said:
    I would assume its newly made up named attacks. I don't think we'll be able to get anyone else's moves
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Inspired by? Maybe.

    But she can't actually emulate anyone else's moves even if she tries, by simple virtue of all of their moves requiring their Armed Gears.

    There are two exceptions to that.
    • Chris' Reflector, which Hibiki can't learn for conceptual reasons. Chris closes off and turns away the outside world; Hibiki takes it with both hands. Her Power of Holding Hands (or, in Nasu terms, Origin) is just not compatible with the Reflector.
    • Tsubasa and Ogawa's Shadow Bind, which is not a Gear technique at all but rather a ninja move, and which Hibiki never learned in life because she's just pretty bad at ninja.
    In any case, emulating the techniques of another, in my read at least, would be a lot like using another person's spell in Nanoha; you can do it but it pretty much requires you looking at their end state, studying the process they used to get there, and then completely reworking it to be compatible with your Gear and style. Doable, but a big hassle.

    justinkal said:
    Liuxing
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Heh.

    Incidentally, Liuxing would be anti-Gear (or anti-Noble Phantasm; it's not like we ever got to see it used on a Relic that wasn't built for that purpose), not anti-magic. Though it was a pretty damn hefty attack in raw energy output, too.
     
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    notthepenguins said:
    Inspired by? Maybe.

    But she can't actually emulate anyone else's moves even if she tries, by simple virtue of all of their moves requiring their Armed Gears.

    There are two exceptions to that.
    • Chris' Reflector, which Hibiki can't learn for conceptual reasons. Chris closes off and turns away the outside world; Hibiki takes it with both hands. Her Power of Holding Hands (or, in Nasu terms, Origin) is just not compatible with the Reflector.
    • Tsubasa and Ogawa's Shadow Bind, which is not a Gear technique at all but rather a ninja move, and which Hibiki never learned in life because she's just pretty bad at ninja.
    In any case, emulating the techniques of another, in my read at least, would be a lot like using another person's spell in Nanoha; you can do it but it pretty much requires you looking at their end state, studying the process they used to get there, and then completely reworking it to be compatible with your Gear and style. Doable, but a big hassle.


    Heh.

    Incidentally, Liuxing would be anti-Gear (or anti-Noble Phantasm; it's not like we ever got to see it used on a Relic that wasn't built for that purpose), not anti-magic. Though it was a pretty damn hefty attack in raw energy output, too.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Derp, yeah, probably should have said anti-Noble Phantasm. Used to using the term anti-magic in the generic sense about that relic.

    So it's possible to obtain an Anti-Noble Phantasm punch?
     
    justinkal said:
    So it's possible to obtain an Anti-Noble Phantasm punch?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I think this will make more sense if I lay out the process in a bit more detail.

    Part One: Comprehension

    If a Gear-user wants to emulate the effects of another Gear-user's technique, the first thing they need is to understand what that Gear-user is doing. After all, you can't copy something if you don't even know what it is.

    For some things, this is simple -- Tsubasa's Blue Flash is simple energy projection, for instance, as is Maria's Horizon Spear. There are differences between the two, of course, but they're like the differences between different punches -- important to the end result, but the general principle is pretty comprehensible. All you probably need to do to figure out the effect you are trying to emulate for something like this is watch it used a time or two.

    For others, it's not so simple -- Chris' Reflector, as an example, turns aside energy-based attacks, but it doesn't do that by simple dint of meeting force with force. If it did that, it could never have stopped Kadingir, because she just doesn't have enough output for that. For something like this, the details of implementation are very important, and just knowing that you can theoretically make something that does that doesn't help a whole lot. So you'd need to observe it in use a lot, get the user to explain the technique, etc.

    And for some, it's really complicated. Case in point, Liuxing. Liuxing isn't just an energy beam; if it was Chris' Reflector would have slapped it aside trivially. It's not even in the details of how that energy is produced and focused, though there are certainly implementation issues to be ironed out there. No, the real effectiveness behind Liuxing is on a conceptual level, and that is far more difficult to figure out the details of (and when you're working on a conceptual level the details are really important).

    Part Two: Emulation

    Once you know what you need to accomplish, though, you need to figure out how to do it. The difficulty here is mostly related to how close it is to something you do already, or already understand how to do.

    Laevateinn, for instance, is a sword with strong fire associations. Tsubasa's Ame no Habakiri is a sword, and she also displays a number of fire abilities. Emulating abilities back and forth between the two is likely to be very easy as a result.

    You don't need to be nearly that similar to copy a technique, though. Take Chris' Giga Zeppelin and Tsubasa's One Thousand Tears (there's no canon basis for this, but it makes sense for the former to be an adaptation of the latter so I'm rolling with it). Tsubasa manages the "wide-area kinetic attack" by simple virtue of materializing a lot of swords in the air and launching them in the right direction. Chris, when trying to develop the technique, finds that she's just really bad at manifesting things at a distance. What she can do, however, is make crossbow bolts! So she makes some big crossbow bolts, shoots them into the air, breaks them apart, and cribs some notes from Tsubasa on how to make them come down violently rather than with simple gravity. Bam, adapted technique. Probably didn't take long at all.

    Of course, the further you get from what you do normally, the harder it will get. Tsubasa, in theory, could adapt Maria's cloak shenanigans from Symphogear G, but she's pretty monofocused on swords -- and, on a more conceptual level, being rigid, strong, and hard. Going from that mindset to something suitable for animating a 'cloth'-part of her Gear, extending and contracting it, and simultaneously keeping it solid and rigid enough to knock people around would be really hard, because it's very foreign to her nature and that of her Gear's. There's no deep conceptual-level Cannot Do about it, so she could, in theory, eventually do it, but it would be so slow to do (and be so frustrating) that in practice, there's no real point to trying it.

    Special Limitations

    Now, normally, those are the only limitations. However, Hibiki, as a special limitation, is barred from anything that requires use of an Armed Gear (which is quite a few abilities). She simply can't adapt something like Heaven's Wrath, because she has no Armed Gear to draw a basis from, and very limited ability to manifest things that will remain coherent when detached from her. That's the price you pay for bullshit energy manipulation powers.

    And Back To The Point...

    So, as to your actual question...

    The Shen Shou Jing doesn't display anything that's truly obviously an Armed Gear. Liuxing has a very strong conceptual basis behind it, but it's not one that's outright contradictory to Hibiki's, so she's not outright barred on those grounds. So, assuming that the ring thing that manifests when Liuxing is used doesn't count as an Armed Gear...

    In theory? Absolutely.

    In practice? She would need access to someone using the Shen Shou Jing to demonstrate on a regular basis, a hell of a lot of practice, and an insane amount of time and work. Significantly more effort than the above cloak example for Tsubasa, into double-digit years land, though I don't care to pin down the exact time more precisely than that.

    So Why Is Being Fused With Gungnir Important, Again?

    Well, normally a Gear user has pretty solid control over what their Gear does at any given point, but it's not really like their own body. With Hibiki right now, it literally is, which gives her incredible ability to control the fine details of her Gear's structure, and vastly quickens the 'actually figure out how to generate this effect' stage of things (except for any conceptual parts, which the ability to control physical structure doesn't help much for).
     
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    Current vote tally:

    Vote Tally : Fate/Lunar Song (Nasuverse/Symphogear) | Page 18 | Sufficient Velocity
    ##### NetTally 1.1.21
    [x] You should clear the place by…
    - [x] Splitting up and each taking half of the mansion, making sure he doesn't escape
    No. of Votes: 3
    horngeek
    Flibspeak
    Imrix
    - [X] Sticking together and pressing directly for…
    -- [X] The top floor. He'll be in one of the fancy master suite rooms, for sure.
    No. of Votes: 2
    veekie
    justinkal
    [X] You should clear the place by…
    - [X] Sticking together and searching room by room, making sure you don't miss any hiding places
    No. of Votes: 1
    emeralis00

    [X] Once you find Hilex Stere, Master of Shadows, He Who Consumes The Innocent, Kicker of Many Puppies, blah blah blah, you should…
    - [X] Engage him solo if needed, but only as a delaying action -- don't do anything risky until the other arrives.
    No. of Votes: 3
    Imrix
    Flibspeak
    justinkal
    - [X] Take him down, hard and fast, the first chance you get -- you don't want him to escape and go to ground.
    No. of Votes: 2
    veekie
    horngeek
    - [X] Not engage him alone under any circumstances. Fall back if you aren't both together.
    No. of Votes: 1
    emeralis00

    Total No. of Voters: 6

    You've got seven hours before I close the vote so I can write the update. Change votes or debate as desired.

    justinkal said:
    Ahh, I was assuming that being really close to a gear user would make emulating their techniques easier.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    In general, it would make the 'understand how the person does their technique' stage faster, but not the implementation.

    In Liuxing's case, it's a bit of a wild leap that Hibiki really understands Miku as she was while wearing the Shen Shou Jing. Miku was traumatized, manipulated, and brainwashed at the time (and don't forget mind controlled), making her different enough from the norm that it's entirely possible that Hibiki relying on her understanding of Miku to interpret anything she did with the Shen Shou Jing would lead her astray because of false assumptions.
     
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