Nyrita makes her way to the center of the land, a cocoon of rusted girders at the heart of the vast ruined cityscape. And what she finds there…man, does she wish it was a surprise. The butchered corpse of Hades, the denizen, lies sprawling. Of course a denizen would be no match for her. She sighs, and looks up at the tealblood standing, arms crossed, waiting for her. “You took far too long,” Yamrtu said, looking stony and unimpressed. “How do you plan to overcome the further trials with such a pathetic effort?” “Oh, shut up. I’m not in the fucking mood.” Nyrita pulls her chain out, causing Yamrtu to pull the executioner’s sword from the ground. “You died. You’re not even here, you’re just some… thing the game pulled up. Some scar on my soul. I don’t need to hear it from someone dead and gone and unmourned.” “Then why am I here, idiot girl?” Yamrtu rushes. For a big woman, she can move fast, and the speed and power of a runaway freight train bears down on Nyrita, bringing the sword down in a perfect, practiced headtaker arc. “If I’m not a lesson for you, am I here under my own power?” Nyrita’s weapon and Yamrtu’s clash, the clang echoing among the corpse and rusted metal. Nyrita’s retort gets tossed aside to try and hold back the blade, leaving Yamrtu to continue. “Am I an echo of my own will, made manifest? A claw from the very void?” She leans forward. “Yamrtu Tarrus, reborn again to sup the sweetness of life? Unfinished business?” Nyrita twists, the blade sliding off and thudding to the ground. She pants, thinking, trying to get the feeling back in her arms. “...No. Everything you did was to die. You failed, but died anyways. You’re happy, gone.” Yamrtu nods. “So it would seem you do learn eventually. Perhaps too late. Perhaps I won’t have a choice of coming back, at the collapse of your session when you fail and die.” Yamrtu stalks around in a circle, before lunging again. Nyrita dodges, this time. “Fucking. Fine. What the fuck ever. I’m here to hear you out. What’s your message?” Nyrita swings, gets parried, and swears as she’s not fast enough for the riposte. Gray blood splatters onto the ground. “That you will /fail/, and /die/, and be lost /forever/. That your efforts are pointless, and paradox space will swallow them up and there will be no evidence you ever existed.” Each point is a devastating blow. Nyrita’s strikes she can snake past feel like bee stings in response. “The lesson I have always taught. You and your companions were simply the last in a long line.” Nyrita feints, dodges, and her chain wraps around Yamrtu’s ankle as she overextends. A yank, and Yamrtu hits the ground. Nyrita circles, bringing her chain down in a solid hit against Yamrtu’s arm as she reaches for her sword. “...No. No, you’re like the last one. You’re an echo of my trauma. Subtext made text. Beating your ass is me healing.” Yamrtu lunges, and her glasses crack when Nyrita boots her straight in the face. “Heal from what?” Yamrtu snarls, shouldering Nyrita with a sudden surge. “I’m not some child who got their hands on a scrap of power and thought themselves a god! I am a Muse of Doom! I am tied into the fabric of reality itself! I have seen the bleakness of all that is, and so have you, because I showed it to you!” Yamrtu is on top, now, her hands wrapped around Nyrita’s throat. “That is what I am, Nyrita. I am your own fear of the pointlessness of it all. The inevitability of suffering. What do you have to say to the only truth of existence?” What could she say, then? That her joy is all that matters? She’s been chasing that for six sweeps, and it still isn’t enough to avoid this lesson. “Y’re… wrong.” The chain wraps around her fist, and she smashes it into the side of Yamrtu’s head. Coughing, gasping, but getting to her feet. “Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. All the time.” Nyrita brings the chain down again and again, every time Yamrtu tries to fight back. “All the trials and setbacks and obstacles mean nothing without everything else. The structure they give is there to give structure to something, otherwise it’s pointless.” Maybe some other time Nyrita’d be screaming now. Instead, she just wraps the chain around Yamrtu’s throat and squeezes. “And since they do mean something, they’re not all that’s there. You fucking idiot.” Yamrtu’s flails and thrashes, but Nyrita endures. Each blow is weaker than the last, the life and strength being choked out of Yamrtu’s body. And when Yamrtu goes limp, everything goes white.
[/-∊n♱rΩpy gr-∊yƗng Ωu♱./] -- Ⱥnd ♱ⴵ-∊ MȺƗd Ωv-∊r☪︎Ⱥm-∊ Ɨ♱ Ⱥll, nΩ mȺ♱♱-∊r 屮ⴵȺ♱ 屮ȺΣ ♱ⴵrΩ屮n Ⱥ♱ ⴵ-∊r, Σⴵ-∊ |⟨-∊p♱ puΣⴵƗng Ωn屮ȺrdΣ. 屮-∊ll dΩn-∊. -- [/ΣȺmΣȺrȺ'Σ Σ屮ȺnΣΩng./]