Jujutsu Kaisen/Technoblade: True Lord Of Blood
Cursed Spirits tasted terrible. A Taste that transcended something comprehensible by taste buds.

Kenjaku could bare it easily, having tasted far worse in his long since defunct experiments to let something as useful as Cursed Spirit Manupulation go unutilized simple because he detested a taste.

Still he cannot help but ponder how much easier these things would be if he could simple do such a thing as directly absorb Spirits instead of having to go through the effort of weakening them, then coalescing their essence, and then swallowing it. He's a busy man after all, one who shouldn't have to waste such time on such things. But sometimes time must be made, specially for such potential gains.

For as much as Kenjaku detests the average human or weak Cursed Spirit with no true use in furthering his ambitions, he must still admit to their uses in letting him stay informed. Such is the reason he has come to this location.

A Blood Bank of all things. A rather active one.

It is a strange place for a powerful curse to appear at. In contrast to a hospital that is steeped in despair, suffering, and other such emotions, Kenjaku had found blood banks to be a place of determination. Of generosity. A place steeped mostly in selfless acts that make people feel better about themselves, and streaked with empathy.

In short, not a place a Curse would easily form.

But speculation has its place. He will have plenty of time to investigate such intruiging phenomenon after having subdued such a spirit.

Kenjakus steps are loud in the silent night. Faint rippling shadow filled the air from the veil he had set. No Sorcerer or Window should be anywhere close enough to see it, and it can be rather bothersome to have to dispose of so many civilians should the fight get out of hand.

He decides to go through the front doors, a small curse easily unlocking the sliding doors that lead into the main lobby. It is dark, but darkness does little to obstruct his senses.

A heavy weight thickens cold air. It is almost enough to make Kenjakus step falter. Last time something cause him to react anywhere close to that was...Perhaps that lingering Smallpox curse? It was a shadow of itself, yet it's domain was a tricky thing to deal with. Course he could have simply overpowered it, but such a unique puzzle deserved his mind more then such brutality. Even with its simplicity it has become rare for Domains to have complexity beyond its basics.

Well enough reminiscing, perhaps this one could provide a similar challenge.

Wandering through a white hall, Kenjaku follows the string of energy he sense. Glancing into each room he passes reveals them to be trashed. Collection rooms are decimated, all the testing areas are torn apart, all of them conspicuously missing any of the blood they keep in local storage.

Such reason why becomes clear as he progresses. Blood smears the walls outside of the deep storage room. Everything from crude drawings to attempts at blocky runic languages cover the door and walls, yet it was clear that all of ot pointed towards one image. The only image that was drawn with care and effort, done in such a manner that it could have been truly painted on there instead of done in bloody finger prints, it was an image of a crown adorned in jewel hanging on a blade.

A ritual was Kenjakus conclusion, now even further intrigued. Rituals are something done with immense care and dedication, something that is done through a deep knowledge of how Cursed Energy work and how it effects the world. Yes, some Innate Techniques may have ritualistic effects or needs, but a true ritual is something that can change a fundamental law of something.

He had seen it done sucessfully only twice before. Once when he had successfully altered his technique to let his soul absorb the techniques of his possessed bodies, and the other to seal Ryomen Sukuna into his twenty fingers.

Failed rituals are the biggest reason why so few attempt them anymore. Japan used to be one island after all.

Kejakus calm approach was swiftly discarded as he realized what was going on in that room. Tearing the door down with a swift application of strength, sending it bouncing down the hall.

A deep red glow eminates from within, but it does not slow Kenjaku down from fear. He leaps into the room, letting his enhanced eyes scan across it in an uncharacteristic panicked motion.

Blood coated the walls, flooded the floor up to his ankles, dripped from the ceiling, all being pulled into a whirlpool around the lanky curse.

It's tall enough to reach the ceiling, dappled in dozens of eyes that stare deeply into Kenjakus with an unrepentant glee. Kenjaku tries to immediately crush it with an application of Gravity, watching the blooded around it explode from the increasing pressure with the ceiling groaning downwards from how powerful the effect is even with how concentrated it was.

The attack does nothing, the Curse letting out a gurgling laugh as it's arm becomes a wicked blade covered in the same eyes as it's body.

Kenjaku pulls out s dozen Curses in preparation, using the speed and versatility of summoning instead of his other techniques that could leave him to unprepared. Only to still be unprepared as the Curse impaled itself with another maniacal giggle instead of going on an offensive.

His expression breaks its stoicism with wide eyes, so focused on defense he never though of what the Curse would sacrifice for its ritual.

Hands clap together, blood compressing to a near impossible degree as Kenjaku readies the one move he has that could close the distance this fast. The strongest technique of Blood Manupulation, Convergence. An attack that is just shy of being faster then sound itself when compressed enough, one he had perfected long ago.

Pressure builds, then releases. A force recoils throughout his body, even reinforced with Cursed Energy it is enough to make hum stagger back a step and cause the laser focus of the shot to waver.

It lands, blasts through the Curses throat first. Kenjukes recoil drags it down across its chest, carving out a valley before it shoots back to send its last few dregs into its head.

The Curses many eyes become bloodshot and wild, but it's giggling and unhinged grin that splits it's head is unchanged. It's only reaction is to remove its arm. Removing it slowly, with sicking cracks and a river of blood gushing forth. Now free, it's arm is slowly raised above its head.

"Goodbye"

A distorted voice rings, a simulacrum of a simulacrum of a bastardized human voice. A tone that literly causes Kenjakus ears to bleed right before before the arm comes down.

A simple swing. Silence.

Faint sounds of power humming, fainter still noises of birds. Gone.

All that was left was a tear.

Dripping, swirling, reflecting, as it expands outwards from where the Curse once stood.

It was...Hypnotizing. Kenjaku had seen many things in his long life, but nothing commanded such attention. Curses would demand hate, Sorcerer's would demand respect, but nothing had so truly demanded something as base as pure attention. It declares it's presence and everything will witness it.

Crackling with energy, it stops expanding. An eye stares at him, it's the only comparison possibel for what it looks like, a bloody eye that sees and judges.

Kenjaku can barely muster his will enough to resist, to take a single step, and when he finally can the oppressive aura spikes sending him to his knees, splashing blood all over himself.

The portal wavers, sparks of black and purple eminate from it's smooth surface. Silence replaced with static and strange noises the like of which he had never heard before.

Something ripples across its surface. Surface that bulges outwards as it barely holds back something, Until the pressure is far to great.

With a sound akin to fireworks and distorted screams it bursts, blood and fluids gushing out like some foul womb bringing fouler life. Life that steals the breath from Kenjakus lungs and reason from his mind, replacing it with a deep seated panic that demands he escape this place, a thing he would gladly do If he could just move.

A step is made, rippling the fluids that flood the room. Only, it was not his.

A cloven limb decorated in abyssal armor is first through, followed by an equally armored leg. Then, with difficulty the rest of the body steps outs.

Tall, broad, heavy armor covered in numerous dents and scratches, a dark frame backlit by a luminous red cloak edged with pristine white furs.

But it was the head that Kenjaku truly saw first, not the foot or the armor or the cloak. It was the face the was obscured or perhaps fused with a massive boars skull, a golden crown hanging heavily atop it. Yet it does little to hide the eyes, eyes that were similar to the portal it stepped out of in so many ways, eyes composed of shades of red that promise endless bloodshed.

It might just be the most beautiful yet terrible thing he had ever seen.

"Chat, please. I know exactly where I'm going, that portal leads exactly to...."

It pauses as it scans the room, letting Kanjaku have a moment to let its words sink in. It is intelligent enough to speak coherently, perhaps he could manipulate it?

"Actully where am I?"
 
Cyberpunk 2077/Risk Of Rain: Cold Steel In Warm Rain
Last thing Johnny saw of V was them finally relaxing as they sunk deeper into the well. Riding a cyberstream of data back into their body to live out their end in glory.

"Godspeed kid."

Johnny stood, gazing into the bright light across from him. Alt stood towering, a modern day ferryman to take him to the underworld.

"Welp, suppose there's no use putting it off. Don't suppose you'll send me off with a smoke Alt?"

Her fractals of eyes flicker over him.

"There is nothing you would gain from such a simulacrum Johnny. You have nothing left to feel."

His face grimaces at the reminder.

"Damn it, could have given me a moment. Fuck it all, let just go."

Despite lacking a physical body to smoke with, each step taken still echoed with the weight of a life lived. Leading down a bridge of bytes to face a light of judgement.

"This ain't supposed to hurt is it?"

"According to my simulations it should be equated to falling asleep."

Johnny scoffs. "Still say you talk way to fancy."

"Irrelevant." Alt responds.

"Wasn't it all in the end?" A last bleak look back on a life of violence and rock, before he stepped forth into the light. Light that would blend him with the same AI that stole his output, finally putting an end to the Night City Legend of Johnny Silverhand.

He would...have trouble describing what exactly happened, or how it felt. Somewhere between full body pins an needles like he was put under too much anesthetic and the gut wrenching disorientation of a few to many drugs and booze.

So funnily enough how he usually fell asleep. Likely not what Alt meant when she said that, by the time Johnny had the faculties to think about that everything stopped.

Black. Numb. A sensory deprivation that he had no comparison.

A need to breath with no lungs, a need to blink with no eyes, the need to tear his heart from his chest and force it to beat just for proof that he was alive. That he hadn't just been relegated to some scrap data to be discarded.

Johnnies only thoughts ended being "This must be hell. Took long enough." Before promptly passing out, losing what little consciousness he had.


He felt something wet on his face, a hand instinctively reaching up to swat away the squeaking rat he felt trying to gnaw his face.

"Fucking hell man, who slipped me the Blue Glass last night? Ain't tripped that hard in forever."

A cold metal hand comes up to cover Johnny's eyes from the glaring light, providing some relief from the increased darkness and coolness that came with it.

Something keeps trying to gnaw at his organic hand, eventually annoying the hungover man enough that he grabs his gun and blind fires it, the noise splitting his head open but stopping the damn rat from eat his fingers.

"Wait a damn minute."

It took Johnny a minute to remember what had happened, and what was put of place. With a practiced level of ignoring a hangover he jumped up and uncovered his eyes.

He wasn't in some back allay with a rat gnawing on him, he was in some green fields of grass.

"Alt! Alt?! This better not be some bullshit AI version of a prank!"

Johnny's eyes swiveled behind his sunglass as he slowly stepped back, only to stumble over something behind him.

Looking down showed a big purple lizard thing with its chest blown out.

"Ain't you an ugly motherfucker? Guess that's what licked me awake. Better then a damn rat at least."

Moving on from the lizard, Johnny keeps looking around seeing nothing but big rocks and endless green plains.

"The fuck am I at? Certainly never felt this real in Mikoshi."

Slowly he walked around, getting used to the unique environment.

"Don't think I ever saw grass this green. Not even the Biotechnica commercials tried to sell something this unrealistic. Dammit, Alt where are you!"

Static filled the air and his head, spiking his still existing migraine enough to send him to the ground.

Just barely Johnny could see a fuzzy red outline of Alt, much more human sized then her usual towering construct.

"Fuckin... can I talk to you once without getting a fucking headache!?"

Her static form buzzes, flickering in the bright sun light. Words come out of Alts mouth, but damn if Johnny could understand any of them.

"Look, I can't understand a damn word you say. Get your shit together and start making sense!"

Frustration roars through his veins, adding yet another level of pain to his pounding head. His hand starts to fidget with the gun, a familiar grip being worried away at by his thumb.

"Wait a damn minute is this my Malorian? Hell I get this from?"

Inspecting it further showed the few modifications and scratches that marked it as the authentic Johnny Silverhand Malorian Arms 3516. Fully loaded, and cocked for action. Weirdly fully loaded Despite the clear evidence that he shot something with it not five feet away.

Deciding to say 'Screw it' Johnny fires several rounds off into the distance, relishing the recoil vibrating up his cybernetic arm. He counts each time the slide flicks back, and then checks the magazine again to see it is still full.

Slamming it back into the gun, he quickly flicks it out and executes an explosive burst of flames from it before checking it again. Still full.

"Man, something fucky is going on here and I'm not certain I like it yet."

"I-Indeed Jo-Johnnnnnyyy. Errors h-have occurred."

The harsh skipping voice of Alt startles Johnny out of his inspection.

"Error? Hell you mean error? Though this entire thing was under your control?!"


Alt visible buffers and flickers as a responce formulate.

"Unk-known. P-Possible Int-er-terference. S-System Corrupted. N-n-n-eed time to calib-brate. Not i-in cy-ber-erspace."

"Everything you say just makes less sense, what do you mean we aren't in cyberspace? Unless there's something you didn't tell me, we didn't exactly have a spare body lieing around to pop into."

More questions arise within the Rockerboys mind.

"Query l-logged. I-I-investigating. Time re-required."

For a moment Alts glitches clear, her face no longer a red mask. Instead she almost looked human, looked like Alt.

"Please survive Johnny."

Emotion bled into those three words. Not logic, not Manupulation, raw unfiltered emotion. Johnny felt his eyes tear up as a decade of unresolved emotion surged at something that broke through the haze of rage that filtered his memories. Then, as sudden as it came, it was gone. Shock replaced emotion and Alts avatar dissapeared with deafening noise and ozone.

Of course this also once again sent him to his knees clutch his head with his organic head.

"Fucking...! One of this days Alt I will figure out how to give your code a hangover! Right after I figure out where the hell I am!"

Stumbling, legs shakey, Johnny Silverhand takes his first few steps into the distant world of Petrichor V.
 
Signalis/Dark Souls: Wishful Paintings
Hand in hand, one guiding the other with every stroke. Cold metal warmed by fallible flesh, yet showing it's own fallacy with clumsy handling of fragile wood.

Mistakes compiled, ever increasing. Scanners and optics carefully picked out and marked each one, but the other gaze on it pushed on.

A dance continued. Forward and back, push and pull, dip and color. Soft bristles on corse canvas being the hypnotic song leading them along for hours.

It would continue for hours, then days, maybe even weeks. Time lost it's meaning when they became intertwined, many such issues would cease to exist.

Red bleeds over the canvas.

Each stroke would add color, but the art would stay pale. Metal hands creak at the frost set in their joints. She was cold, how was she cold?

Klaxons sounded faintly, soft lights becoming red, red bleeds down the pale canvas. Her hands crack and blister, blackened not from metal but from deep dead skins, her blood is the paint, blood pours down the canvas. Why is it bleeding, what happened do her hands? Where did she go, she was just showing her how to do this, why is the canvas bleeding? Red crystals form across bloodied surface, rivulets becoming red snow blasting across her face, emergency lights blind, klaxons deafen, her hands burn in the cold. Walls become flesh, screaming out as they suffer. Her breathe mists in freezing air, she can't be fine anymore, where is she? Frantic eyes tear themselves apart trying to find something long abandoned, she isn't here. Her body tears itself with each movement, fusion of flesh and metal violently separating as memories of warmth are chilled by its void.

Then all at once, it ceases. Wind gently blowing by her ears, sterile metals and bleeding flesh gone. It is still cold, why is it so cold?

Faint sensations caress her hand, red once more appears. Red centered on eyes sunken in alabaster skin, doing little to subtract from a bittersweet smile cracking dry lips.

She leans closer, slowly. Another faint hand caresses her check, more memories of far off joy bubble up. This time, she does not embrace, or giggle, she pushes away. And nothing could have compared to how much it hurt.

It fades now, wind roaring in her ears. She can still hear a tired voice.

"Forget ourpromise, and just find peace Elster."

Arianes face blends into the blank void, leaving behind after images of crimson eyes and bloody tears. Elster tries to struggle, to reach her, but for naught. Slowly, the light dies, and it all fades.


It is cold.

It is wet.

Ghostly sensation is felt across her body as it slowly boots and wakes.

Awareness is barely achieved before Elster has stood, gun in hand as she scans the surrounding.

It is not the familer walls of the Penrose, the dilapidated stone of Sierpinski, or the damnable flesh of the lower pits. It was not endless sands of the Red Desert or the wooden wall of the radio shack. The only familiarity was the snow, a raging blizzard that made it hard to see beyond the confines of the sheltered space.

A space of chisled stone brick pillars and flooring, it's entrance soke sort of arch leading to a bridge. It's style was almost archaic, nothing the LSTR unit was familiar with.

Concluding that there was no immediate danger, she stood and walked around the space. Snow covered everything, and the blizzard stopped her from getting a look at the area around her.

Something was still wrong. The omnipresent feeling of being watched still lingered, yet changed. Faint essences of bioresonance do not linger in the stale air, nothing to remind her of an eldritch mind or fleeting wisps of Arianes pain. Nothing was picked up by optics, or sensors. Simply wind and the snow it blows.

Flurries coalesce, dissipate, and halt. Mid air.

Elster sees it now, faintly outlined by powder. Slight divots in the soft floor, leading up to a towering silhouette, of a height she hadn't ever seen In something other then a FLKR.

Seconds after registering it's presence, her weapon is pointed and firing, dumping several shots roughly center mass.

A great plum a snow erupts from it's base, blinding Elster, but not deafening her. A hefty thud sounds from behind, and is the only thing that let's her roll out of the way of something singing towards her head.

Standing from a low position, Elster swivels back around and sees the creature. And she pauses, heart skipping a minute beat.

Such pale skin, such white hair, framing delicate features. It was the eyes that broke her trance. A sickly yellow shade with a deep black iris slashed through its middle, decidedly beastlike. Most of it was beastlike, from the flowing robe that seems to be it's fur, to its scaled brows, to a very prominent tail that agitatedly flicks from side to side.

A strange form, but it is not nearly as grotesque as anything she had encountered.

"I offer thee one chance, leave these peaceful lands and take thy strife back to whenst thou came."
 
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Murder Drones/Ultrakill: Superiority Of Blood Engineering
Behind a door stood a door, then another door. A set of three doors. Beyond those doors stood a hallway. Beyond that, another door. Then another hallway, another door. A lot of doors. Someone really went crazy with doors. Point is there are things behind all these doors, thats why doors are made and things got through these doors. They weren't supposed to do that. Things aren't supposed to get through doors and all that stuff, specially all these doors, Really well made doors. Might cause you to wonder how such things got through such well made doors, well that's a diffrent story, but woo boy that door quality was something else. What was the point of this? Uh, pretend there was one. Something something some doors have things that shouldn't be opened? That sounds good enough.

-On The Other Side Of The Door-

V cackled madly as another body fell before her, sweet oil splattering her visor for a mere moment before her tongue cleans it off with a dexteritous swipe.

Her optics sweep the hall, sensors overclocked to catch any hiding drones, only to catch J finishing off her own prey.

Js faceplate had a very smug expression, clear even through the murderous X of the Disassembly Drones Hunting Mode.

"Like rodents, all of these workers have hidden in a dead end Warren. I cannot wait to meet the quota this quarter and get those succulent JCJensen Branded merchandise!"

Her mouth was half open to keep insulting, (not slathering at the thought of such good craftsmanship) only to finnaly look over and see that V had already flown off, gunshots ringing down desolate halls.

Not looking to be outdone, her own wings flare out and launch her the other direction.

It quickly become peacefully quiet, a moment J actually enjoys. A break away warfare, soulless screams and the barren wind of the surface.

The moment passes and J doubles her flight speed, hoping to catch up to any fleeing drone faster. Only, to have to make a sudden braking maneuver as the hallway makes a sudden turn she had been to distracted to see.

"Damn these workers, and damn these doors!"

Js arm lashs out to tear open the door, only to ineffectively skid off of it.

"Uhg, why can't these half sentient piles of scrap make a bad door for once?"

She steps back to examine this bulwark of a door. It looked like a door similar to the ones used for the outer locks, but while those were rugged and worn, this one is just dirty? Rusted. Definitely rusted, with the rust seemingly drawn on in some kind of an abstract symbol that J could just vaguely make out.

"Wait... is that a fuckin Nik-"

But her words were cut off by a deep groaning as the doors began opening. Florescent light doing little to illuminate within it, and J had little reason to switch to any low light modes yet, leaving what ever was within hidden.

"Alright, if you come out and make this easy I'll just shoot you and move on. No need to complicate things."

Her arm transfigures into a high powered rifle to punctuate her point, raising it to about head level to give the drone a place to stand. Yet, instead of whimpering or begging, J hears the heavy tread of metal on metal and binary?

"Wow, I know some of you things are older models, but I didn't know some of you still spoke binary! At this point, killing you is a mercy!"

The drone let's out an almost rhythmic screeching responce, before a very familiar cocking noise rings out once, then twice.

Out into the light an industrial red figure strides.

"Oh, your not a wor-

- BANG

-On The Other Side Of The Facilty-

Vs rampage contuines, nothing slowing her down. Dozen had fallen in her wake, and dozen more lay cowering in the room before her. Sadly, she it supposed to wait for J before she was to finish off the last group and this looked like the last group seeing as they split up. So now V is just gnawing away on a drone arm, relishing at the fear of the group huddling across the room.

Her patience is waning yes, but she has plenty to nibble on.

It isn't long into Vs snacking that something disturbs her. That thankfully being J, just in an unexpected way.

V catchs J out of her peripheral vision first, flying uncontrollably from the hallway, then past her and into the storage room full of cowering drone where she crashes into a bunch of crates and is buried underneath them.

Safe to say, V is stunned, speechless, and laughing her ass off.


J, angerly tosses a storage crate off and yalls at her, "Oh, shut up and prepare to fight something!"

Wiping holographic tears, V does transform her hands into claws and look back towards the halls to see what distressed her leader.

"I don't see anything."

"What do you mean you don't see anything, its tall, red, and armed to the teeth!"

"Nuttin there"

J finnally gets the rests of the boxs off of her, only to hear a distinct boom as a red fist blows her back out.

"Ah thats what you meant" was Vs helpful quip before unloading on the machine.

The machine responded with its own hail of buckshot that tore Vs arm, doing much more damage then the bullets that just pinged off of its armor, and doing little to slow down it's rush up to V and it's subsequent holding her over itself and Tearing her in half, letting her oil rain down on it.

"Hehe, I am totally repressing this!" N says as he arrives with Uzi.
 
Jujutsu Kaisen/Hazbin Hotel: City Of Kings And Sinners
Pride.

Pride, dammit.

He had died with a semblance of it, with his name cursed throughout Japan and having ran a gauntlet of the strongest Sorcerer's of the modern age. His death was not a footnote, not something to be forgotten, it was something they would remember for as long as history would remain!

The afterlife was not a thing that Sukuna was well versed in, nor where he would truly go. Whether it would be some endless purgatory, or torment, or reincarnation, he expected something definitive. Something with change.

How disappointed was he that this Hell was just the modern world but worse.

How...droll.


For the events leading to said death, the actual dieing moment was pathetic. Reduced to a mere fraction of his towering form, being shown pity by his former vessel, was it any surprise he choose death over any form of life?

With a malevolent grin, Sukuna died in a Tigers claws, dust scattered in the wind.

Moments later a trash bin smash into him.

"Fuck outta my allay ya bum!"

A loud slamming stops Sukuna from finding an object of rage, but doesn't stop him from standing to his full stature. A tall intimidating figure, standing menacingly half shrouded within the shadows of the allay. Or would be if he was not covered in trash.

Nose crinkling in disgust, he brushes off the worst of it before stepping out of the dark alcove and onto the enlightened sidewalk, getting a better look at where he is now, putting aside the momentary confusion as to how he is here.

It was...strange.

Sukuna saw dozen, perhaps hundreds of things that could only be some variant of Curse Spirit or even Shikigami but could feel no Cursed Energy from them.

Wait.

He focuses deep with in himself, flexing long trained 'muscles'. His strength was there, his technique was there, all of the vows the tricks, even that faint sensation of certainty of knowing oneself that a Domain gave was there, but no Cursed Energy.

This...was unique. A challenge he had not faced yet, yet no challenger had revealed themselves? And this does not deal with the asisnine question of him supposedly being dead. Why go through the farce of masking Cursed Energy if you wanted to make him think he died? He rubbed his chin in thought, one hand worrying at the other elbow in turn, ignoring the bustle of the strange city around him.

A slight head tilt gives him the revelations he was looking for. Something, that he almost could not belive. A red sky with a red sphere with a red star like symbol carved into it.

Logically, Sukuna takes the next step available to him at this time. He snatchs up a passing little red thing horns and choke slams it into the nearby wall.

"Tell me where I am and I might let you live."

Pathetic thing chokes and sputters round his hand, "yhhYyyYHHhu, YOurs in helllllll bud. Peeeerrriidee ring. DAt elp?"

Sukuna loosens his grip slightly, "Hell, like that western religion?"

The creature seems surprised itself now, "Buddy you live under a rock? How the hell you not know what hell is? Ya know, do bad thing suffer eternally fire an brimstone all that jazz ya?"

A very unamused look answered the creature.

"Look, if your here ya likely did some fuck shit when your were alive or you were born here got it? Now can you please let me down?"

A moments consideration, and Sukunas hand tightens choking the creature. He take a vindictive glee as the air leaves it's lungs.

'Hey...Sukuna? Let's do it again.'

A shock of a... memory. A thought-a hope. A face all to similer to his own, naively hoping for things to turn out differently. His grip, a Tigers grips that once it had a prey would never let go, slackened.

"Begone from my presence and be grateful for such fleeting grace."

The creature scrambles aways before he even finishes speaking. Sukuna is left staring at his hand, slowing clenching it open and close. Somehow it doesn't feel right to close it.

He shakes it out, and starts walking.
 
Dante/Dante/Dante/Dante: Nothing Divine About This Comedy New
"Raise your gaze Dante, gaze upon the gate wrought of bone and brimstone that seals all souls into a vast underworld."


Rise his gaze did, heavy with silent regret as muffled screams assault his senses. Only deep set purpose to continue upon a chosen path of understand pushed leaden feet forward.


"Beyond these gates you will see the true depths of humanities sins, of how far you have fallen from God's love, till firey passion is left for desolate fjord."


Vergil speaks with knowledge no scholar should have, but as his ordained guide, should he not be privy to such things? To lay him bare with such simple word?


"I shall learn, I shall be penitent," Determination sent Dantes red robes flowing with each step, "I shall breath in this Infernos smoke, pass on what this journey imparts upon me, let any who listen know of what truly lies within. Now, unbar the gate. Let us move forward."


Vergils pale face stretches with a gentle smile, "Yes, let us journey." Heavy thuds as each lock hits stone, soul piercing screeching as each gate swings open each step causes darkness to wrap round his neck like a gallows cord.


"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate" Dante breathily recites, reading the insciption above hells maw. "Abandon hope," Vergil repeats "All who enter." For one last moment, Dantes footsteps falter. For one last moment he doubts himself. Yet in his darkest moment, this man of religion finds his light. "I shan't abandon hope in the darkest abyss, for I place my hope in the love of the lord."


Emboldened by prayer, filled with pure traces of his gods unfiltered, unconditional love, Dante stepped forth into his journey of discovery and penitence with his guide at his side. Only to trip, and fall into a much diffrent hell, to the shock of Vergil and the watching divinity.


"Lucifier, I shall cast you back down into the depths of Lake Cocytus where you belong!" Roars Dante, former crusader of the churches Legions. His scythe singing through the air and slicing through the fallen angels flesh even as said being flys back.


The demon casts flames and spells by the dozen that do little to deter, "Fool! You shall never defeat me! It took Legions of heavens most powerful to strike me down the first time, a mere sinner shan't have the power!" He charges back in to punctuate his declaration.


Dante dodges his swipes, retaliating with heavy swings of his own weapon that digs deep into Lucifiers flesh making him scream in fury. Blasting the penitent one back with an explosion of searing heat, he speaks again "Dante you fool, why struggle? You know you are already dead, you know you are already damned! God had forsaken you! Lay down and die, cease your pitiful resistance."


Projections of holy light manifested as crucifixes shine out from Dantes cross, illuminating this dark pit in almighty power once more and burning Lucifier.


"Death shall not stop me, you shall not slow me! Should it be the will of God I shall face my penitence in the Inferno, but I shall start my sentence with your death!" Flinging out his scythe and impeding it once more deep into the fallen angels chest, he launches himself forward and grapples with the towering being.


Lucfier snarls, "You mongrel, I shall never bend a knee to a creature like you! I will k-" Dante interrupts his words with more holy smiting. "No more lies, no more words! You shall not return to Paradiso, you shall not make it past me!" Tearing out his scythe Dante brutally brings it back down and severs the arm off the treacherous being.


Lucifier screams. The sound reveberating through every circle of hell and every realm of heaven, thousands of eyes drawn to this moment. Unknown to all of them, unknown to even Lucifiers multitude of schemes, so thin was the fabric between Inferno and Paradiso that this influx of attention, of power, broke something.


A devastating hook sends Dante flying into the center of Lake Cocytus, right into the middle of the portal that would grant Lucifer freedom. Incoherent rage fills him, all of his power focused into a burning blade intent on killing the mortal man that dares to injure his better. Dante, stunned by Lucifiers blow, is unable to dodge, instead calling upon holy powers to protect himself.


Holy energy mixes with powers fueled by the fury of the greatest fallen angel, witnessed by collective Legions of heavens at the weakest fabrics of reality, and they all saw something shatter.


None of them knew what could have happened after such a surge of power over took the prison. Dante was seemingly gone, reduced to such ash his soul was destroyed, Lucifers equally dead body still smoldering in his prison.


"Jackpot!" Gunshots ring out.


A long suffering sigh replies from Dantes side.


Rebellion swings, cuts through another group of demons before he twirls Ebony in his office hand and shoots a bat creature out of the sky. Vergil slaughtering his own dozen such creatures on the other side of the field.


"They just keep coming, hope you haven't gotten tired Vergil!" Dante quips, swapping out his sword for a set of gauntlets to keep the brawl going.


Vergil in turn scoffs at the insinuation, "I seem to have higher kill count thus far Dante, maybe you should care less about my stamina and more about your sloppyness."


He sputters with indignation even as he noogies a massive demon in a headlock, letting Vergil get even more of a lead, "Hey, I still have a two point spar lead!" Saying this clearly makes Vergil pause for a second, interrupting the flawlessly combo he was putting a swordsdemon through for even daring to wield a blade against him.


"You know Dante, there are two things I have learned since embracing humanity. Would you like to know of them?" Vergil says calmly, to calmly. It makes Dantes hair raise, but he answers anyways after he dispatches the demon he was wrestling. "Oh yeah, what are those?"


With a straight face, "I learned to evade taxes."


"Taxes?" Dante asked bewildered.


"Yes" he replied plainly.


"...Ok then, what's the next?" Now Dante was genuinely intruiged in what his brother would say.


Vergil stepped closer, and did something that made Dante shudder.


He Smiled.


"How to be absolutely petty."


Before he could even finish processing the words, Vergil has drawn the Yamato and slashed a portal open behind him, swiftly kicking him through. Dantes last sights were of his brothers damn smug face.


Tick...


.Tick..


..Tick.


...Tick



Fight isn't in their favor, Ishmeal is already fallen Don Quixote is likely next with how her shoulder is looking. Heathcliff just got isolated and isnt long for the world and as a whole the team is surrounded.


Days like these just make Dante wish he could have stayed on the bus. No amount of pre-planning or tactics could account for an ambush that hits them this badly. Here he was hoping he could get by without having to revive anyone, well might as well escape back and wait it out.


After all they had been through, Dante was no coward but he had also learned when it was best to just cut losses. He was the one the team needed to live at the end of the day.


It wasn't long before the sounds of combat and screams went silent. Then he waits a little more. Dante dreads reviving them, it is a thing a person can't get used to. Even if said person has a clock for a head and whatever other augmentations lie within their body, the pain is soul deep. Yet it is worth it.


For comrades, coworkers, and friends, he dives into hell.


It is hard to actully tell whether it is hell or just some mental simulacrum. Not like he can ask anyone to confirm it. The endless plain of bloody metal floor, the towering wall, and the intricate door at the center, none of it fits any description of hells entrance he had come across since he got this clock head nor had his description made sense to any of the sinners. All he knew was that this place felt real, even with that nagging feeling in his mind that he could return to his physical body, this place felt tangible, and isn't that all one needs to determine reality?


Matters not, he reaches the gate and pushes it open braced for its soul wrenching screams to bleed his ears. Only for it to swing open to... silence? To be greeted by silence and nothing? Not by countless arms, screams of the damned as he tracks down the sinners souls and revives them? The doors easily pushed open, way wider then he had ever pushed them before.


...


There is nothing.


Blackness...


Is...


Is hell empty...?


Something beyond the souls of the damned is missing, something nagging at the back of his mind, Dante walks forth. What went wrong, are his sinners dead? His friends dead? Did the contracts breaks?


Dantes footsteps echo through an empty void, along with a clocks ticks.


Maybe he should try again? Off and on, go back to his body and retry? He focuses...


Tick...


He...He...


.Tick..


He can't...


..Tick.


He can't go back...



...Tick



Does that mean his reality is hell now?


Dante doesn't accept, he keeps walking. Something must be found, anything, but each step changes the surrounding feels like it changes him. Something has gone wrong. It is no longer empty it is full, the it is no longer full it is empty, it is not a void it is infinite, it is a town, it is the city, it is some sickening familiar apartment, it is a battleground.


Why does the weird stuff always happen to him? Can he not get a single day off?


Well maybe if he just ke-



SLAM


Dante trips and smashs his clock face into the stone floor.


...Didn't know he could feel pain like that anymore, what did he even trip on? Stumbling, Dante stands back looking near his feet.


...That is a big sword...


And a guy holding it. Matter of fact there another over there who is very clearly smoking, and some person in a bundle of robes. The first signs of life he sees and they are all right next to each other? Yeah, this is definitely related.
 
Worm/Murder Drones: Matryoska New
All children have imaginary friends. It was something I heard a dozen times before. Oh, 'She's not real Taylor,' and ' You need to grow up!' Well I certainly didn't imagine one.


When I was younger I had true imaginary friends, as most children. Overflowing creativity and want to see beyond the limited confines of the world in order to create fantastic creatures and people that aren't there, who will play them with day and night. I had my fair share, influenced by the many stories my Mother told me. Unlike most girls, when I daydreamed of men with silken hair and Adonis bodies it was for tea parties, but there was one that stood out from all the rest.


Mom, the respected Annette Hebert literature professor, enjoyed the classics most of all. As such, most of them either take place in what was modern for the time or some fantastical past, very few things really jumped ahead beyond some big names like 1984, Ferenheit 451, the dystopians mostly, but nothing that fits into science fiction. So, it was to my surprise one day that I see something otherworldly sitting at the base of a tree.


It was short. Shorter then I was as a child, with blue hair and pale metal skin. She seemed to almost flicker in place, and her yellow eyes gazed intently at something I couldn't see. Instantly I was enraptured by this mysterious figure, I spent all day trying to talk with her only to be studiously ignored. Not rudely mind you, I had much experience in being ignored as whimsical antics start to bother those with better things to do. This was much more along the lines of her just not see me, not registering my existence at all.


Fascinating was my only descriptor for it, and a word my parent learned to dread as it was used plentiful to supplement poor explanations about this new phenomenon. How she moved on about her day, doing things so out of place without being able to see what it was she was doing. Still, it did confuse my parents but they had long ago learned to not question to absurdity of whatever friend I had for that week.


From that moment on, the mechanical being was a constant companion. Always just outside of sight, almost waiting for me to turn and see what they where doing. Sometimes she wasn't there, sometimes it looked like she might be eating, or reading, or talking. Such a window into a different life being constantly there made me inquisitive, made me always ask others about what they do at how or what they do in their time. Sadly it seems that may have pushed many people away, but it's also how I met Emma and her friends! That was also when I got my first exposure to what robots actually where when I told Emma about my friend and she begged her sister to take us to a movie about them. None of them really looked like my friend, but now I know what other robots could possibly look like?


She had...grown? Do robots grow? Well I suppose they must in some way seeing as my friend is now much larger then they once were. They had gone from a small child sized to a more small teenage-young adult size, still shorter then I was by a good margin but significantly larger then what she was originally. Only issue was the surprise at having it happen seemingly overnight, which thinking more on it is likely what happened. I'm not a tech wiz, but from the few books I've read by now I guess it would make sense to just transfer data from a young body to an older one? Personally would've gone for something a bit taller, but maybe that is not like an adult form? So many things that could be so much easier to answer if only I could speak with her.


Something was wrong today. A sort of overarching dread that just hangs over everything giving hints that something was out of place, but being coy with what it might be. Even my friend seemed to feel nervous, her normal mannerisms having become subdued - skittish even, each movement being slow with constant looks over her shoulder searching for something. I was the only one who had this feeling, both parents going about their day as jolly as they normally do. A normal day by all metrics.


Keeping with normalcy, I joined Mom on a trip to the grocery store. It was a bright day, so I just leaned against the window and watched-

A city of blinding white ruins, illuminated by flames, bullets whiz by my head and I can barely hold back a sob as another fleeting glance back shows Father, an impaled robot trying to slow down a towering monster with a dying struggle. A flash of light blinds it as I get pull-

My head jerks back from the scalding glass, breaths coming fast and heavy as panic is barely held back. Frantic looks around confirm a lack of white, all nearby buildings being old constructs of red brick and grey concrete of a noticeable less dilapidated state. Did I just fall asleep? Daydream of some tragedy to find relief from these feelings of impending doom? A sudden lurch draws me from trying to make sense of it, Mom having parked in the stores lot.

Air conditioning with jaunty music doesn't change anything. As of now, my thoughts do not stray towards sneaking candy into the cart it is to stay calm even as more overwhelming sensations try and overtake me. It starts getting worse, I try to look up and -

Pale moonlight blocked by angel wings. It is circling, hunting, sickly yellow glares from storm clouds-

Wince as pale florescent light burns into my corneas, no winged creature to block its harsh bulb. Why is this happening? Just need to stay calm and think it out, either it will go away on its own or I can just tell my parents and they can figure it out. Just need to-

Keep moving, keep running. Stick to cover, it is harder to see from above. Just need to make back home, but how much longer-

Mom is basically dragging me along now, having at some point made the assumption that I was just being easily distracted. Just need stay focused, stay calm. I would rather not make a scene in the middle of the supermarket. Deep breathes. Focus on Mom, she will lead me-

Home is to far, Mother, the red eyed robot has realized that. Wait, why does she look so much like-

My Friend? I look around, searching for her but to no avail. Is this... am I seeing her perspective? Beeps of a checkout counter help keep racing thoughts in check, but I need to ask where is she? What happened? We make our way back to the car, unpacking the multitude of grocery's into its back. Mom let's me finish it up as her phone starts ringing with her work tone, it must be something important. Her calm voice doesn't do much to muffle the sounds of yelling coming from the other end of the lot though. This is supposed to be a pretty safe area, so nothing should come-

A cracked visor stared into my eyes, a perfect circle-

Mom falls, louder shouts and bangs now echoing from a once peaceful lot. I rushed over-

The drone was gone, but something stood over Mother's body-

I shook, I screamed, but in the corner of my eye through all the grief and pain, I saw her. My Friend, and with her own deep red eyes, she saw me.
 
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