-Misa Amane

John glared at the woman on the other end of his blade. Her lackadaisical response to being caught essentially red-handed was somewhat disrupting, but John didn't allow that to color his own reaction. John kept the blade pressed tightly to the woman's skin, ignoring the trail of crimson leaking steadily from its point. He wasn’t entirely surprised to confirm that the woman was the same one he’d met so long ago in that Cabal cell, given the description of her, but it still annoyed him that the woman had been following him so long without his notice.

"You'll find many of my skills to be beyond what you expect, and you'll find my patience to be far less than you'd anticipate if you don't speak quickly. Why are you following me? How long have you been following me?"

Willow bit the sarcastic response that was nearly upon her tongue before she opened her mouth.

"I'm simply trailing the strongest mage I've encountered in some time. I've been following you since I first noticed your presence… but I may have underestimated your skills, as much as it pains me to say that. Let me go and I'll not bother you any further."

"Bullshit."

John pressed his blade forward again, intentionally slicing deeper into Willow's throat. John could feel resistance - a clear mana barrier summoned to protect her most vital bits. A sadistic part of him thought of striking the rune on his blade to destroy that barrier and press forward, severing either her windpipe or a vital artery to strike fear into the mage before healing her and continuing the interrogation. Thinking better of revealing his hand so early into a confrontation, John simply glared as he drove the blade in at a slower pace, slicing apart only a micrometer of flesh at a time.

"Of all the mages in the market, of all those I've encountered, you're the first to follow me not only out of a Barrier, but back into one. Even then, you're the only one I know of to hold an interest in me that has lasted for more than a week's time. I don't know what personal interest you hold in me, or if you were simply hired to find something out… but I don't need to know. That's why I have you. Tell me what you are seeking, now."

"Tch," Willow grunted, feeling the warm trails of crimson leaking down her throat and across her chest. The warmth of blood spilling across her own flesh didn't last long, quickly replaced by the chill of icy pain. She knew if she let this go on long enough that the chill would spread, the cold touch of **** as blood and vital fluids left her body to spill across the ground. She had no intentions of allowing that today.

"I'll ask you one more time. By following me you place me at grave risk. Why are you doing this?"

"I guess you're just too damn interesting," Willow gasped, pulling herself just far enough away from the blade to get her full sentence out without struggling as much for air.

"Cruciare."

Willow inhaled sharply as a wave of shocking pain shot across her body like a wound inflicted on every bit of her flesh at once. There was no source to the pain, nor was there an end to it. It simply felt as if a knife were simultaneously piercing every cell of her body, forcing her to convulse in a vain attempt to escape a nonexistent assailant while gasping for air that was plentiful yet would not sate her needs.

John eyed Layla and Sophia as he cast the spell he had used only sparingly since its inception. Neither seemed to react - both of their gazes were focused upon the woman, appearing unperturbed by her sudden and visceral reaction to the pain that he had inflicted upon her. Somewhat relieved, John eyed the woman and spoke once more.

"I ask you again… why are you following me? Who are you working for? I have not seen you with the Cabal except as their prisoner. Do you work for the Albidians?"

"As if I would ever obey a contract for those shitbirds," Willow wheezed gleefully, shaking her head. "Do you know how many mercenaries go missing after accepting contracts from them? It's fool's gold, that payment is."

"So you're not with them, but you're a mercenary all the same," John noted. "Are you working for Lady Arista?"

"My master is my own, and so are my purposes," Willow growled, shaking her head at John Newman. "All the same… I don't hold any grudge against you, not even for this. Let me go and I can promise you I'll cancel the contract, refund the payment. I'll even send back what I received in advance, that way you'll know I have no intention of following up on my obligations."

"Not good enough," John noted, staring at the woman. During her speech her eyes had darted toward the necklace around her chest, but he wasn't sure what part of her payment the amulet he saw had constituted. "If you leave now, they'll just take whatever you refund them and send another in your place. I need to know names. I want to know who sent you, and why."

"Sorry, honey," Willow teased, working her hands toward her thighs slowly, sensually, hoping that the man's libido would work to her advantage. "I'm just not sure what they want, or who they really are. They sent everything anonymously… I normally don't take this kind of-" Willow cut her speech off with a hiss as she felt a burning sensation across her throat. The blade that had been pressed to her skin glistened with an orange hue.

Shard of Bishamonten Activated! [10%]
Rune of Resonance Activated! [10%]

John glared at the woman, not quite sure why he was so certain of her lies, but certain all the same. As his blade began to shimmer and shake with a fiery orange hue, John dug the razor-sharp edge forward, unsure if he was trying to silence or intimidate the woman. Either way, he was quite tired of her deception.

"You know fully well why you are following me - I can tell by the way you're acting. You at the very least know how dangerous I am and what has happened to those on the other end of my weapons more than once. Tell me who you serve now and I might let you leave this place freely. Refuse… and I'll turn you over to the Order. You know I work for them - that much I can tell. I wonder what their Inquisitors would do to uncover the secrets of a mercenary hired to track one of their contracted mages?"

That had done it. John had no intentions of turning the woman over - much as he hated to think of what secrets the Order could reveal, he was **** to subject anyone to such extensive and blatant **** as the Order would unleash upon her. He still wasn't entirely sure what had become of the necromancers who had assailed him at the Riverside mall, nor was he aware of the fate of the Cabal mages who had surrendered toward the end of the war.

All the same, the woman had no idea of any of that. The look in her eyes as John threatened her was one of a panicked woman with no other options, one who found herself caught between a physical blade and the existential nightmare of a thousand similar edges, pressed just as precariously into her flesh.

"You wouldn't dare."

"I would. But only after a few more hours of trying to pry the information out of you myself… Cruciare."

This time the woman actually cried out loud. John fought the urge to wince. This woman - who his Observe had identified twice now as a "Willow Bianchi" - was not some Cabal misfit, certainly no murderer or slaver (at least so far as he was aware) for him to hate. Inflicting such pain left a sour taste in his mouth, but leaving himself and his allies to be victimized by spying and subterfuge left a far worse one. He had to be sure of who was trailing him, and why.

"Now… you have made no efforts to escape. I assume you're more suited to combat on an unsuspecting foe than you are to escaping bindings and confrontation. Are you going to give me a name and a purpose, or are you going to sit there and endure while I inflict greater and greater punishment on you? I assure you that, whatever I can do to you, the Order's Inquisitors will have in store far worse ideas."

That was something Willow was quite sure of. She had heard of the Order's cruelty many times, mostly from the few survivors they allowed to return to magical society - those just pathetic and cowardly enough not to seek ****. Anyone they deemed to be a threat was simply never heard from again… and Willow had the distinctly sour impression that she would fit easily into that second category. Still, a mercenary's loyalty to coin was one of the few things that guaranteed them employment. A deeply embedded part of her screamed for her to pull away from the blade only far enough to draw her own, even knowing that her proximity meant there was no hope of deflecting the surely fatal blow that would come the moment she pulled away. Willow did her best to suppress that part as she replied.

"Fine… just pull that blade back so I can breathe properly, and I'll tell you."

John didn't oblige her. He kept the point of the blade right where it was, digging painfully into the woman's throat. He only made the barest movement backwards, enough to prevent his sword from slicing further into her throat.

"Speak quickly. My patience is thin, and the Order has plenty of cells to spare."

"Gaia, but you've embraced this life, haven't you?" Willow chuckled darkly, rubbing an unopened part of her throat against the blade teasingly. "You'd make an excellent mercenary."

"And a better executioner."

John thought the line was quite intimidating for such a quick-witted response, but Willow seemed unimpressed. She cast a wry grimace his way and rolled her eyes.

“Sorry, John, but you make bad assumptions. I’ve seen what you can do, and I’m a better fighter.”

The women behind John took up stances, spacing themselves about as best as they could between the shelves of the store. John pulled his blade up into a proper stance, grimacing as the woman’s tattoos began to glow.

“Got some good intel out of what you can do, though. Now, since we both know you aren’t going to step aside… I’m gonna have to move you. Pity, I’m pretty sure I’ll get my pay docked for leaving you bloody!” Willow’s skin began to emit that golden aura from her glowing tattoos as she shot forward, going low, her fist cocked back and-

John had his blade halfway into a downward strike when the woman froze in place, completely halting her advance in a way that defied momentum. Her eyes flickered slightly, glancing away from him long enough to look with panic on her extended fist and down toward her immobile feet. Her mouth twitched but made no sounds.

Fighting the urge to step forward and bring himself closer, John pressed his weapon toward her again. Behind him, John could hear Sophia and Layla stepping closer, nervously edging forward, uncertain of the woman’s strange reactions.

"You were saying?" John pressed, daring to step forward close enough to grasp the woman by the arm. His grip only lasted a moment as his fingers touched upon her skin - his touch revealed the freezing cold that had gripped the woman's extremities, so chilled that it was as if he'd grabbed an ice sculpture. John recoiled in shock, taking in the woman's features once more. Her subdued but haughty gaze was now unfocused - her pale but flushed skin was now the ivory tones of untouched paper. Even her flowing blonde locks had frozen as if in place, some dangling mid-air from the motion of her forward thrust.

"What's happening to her?!"

John’s demanding question went unanswered. A silence fell across the Barrier he had erected, only long enough to emphasize what came after. Crackling, a slow and growing sound like ice crystals breaking on the first footstep of winter. Where John had touched cold but pliable flesh a moment ago, Willow's skin began to shimmer and crunch as it froze into place. From the amulet just barely visible thanks to her low-cut top, a radiating circle of ice rapidly expanded, consuming Willow's body inch by inch.

The woman groaned, her arm shuddering into movement again as she reached down and grasped the amulet herself. As her hand reached down, the sound of crackling and snapping grew overpoweringly loud and sickening to the ear. Her body froze in place while her moving arm snapped off entirely - no blood flowed from the severed limb; rather, as if subjected to temperatures far colder than the streets of Springfield, it fell to the floor and clattered loudly. Even the stump was staunched at the breaking point, as if she had been frozen that way for decades.

John recoiled as even the air around Willow fell to deathly cold temperatures. Despite being a few feet away with his blade extended to her throat, the air started to feel as if he were in a deep freezer, and only continued to plunge from there. It wasn't until his third step back that John started to feel something resembling normal temperatures, all in the span of well under a second. Willow herself remained frozen in place, every inch of her exposed skin freezing perfectly into place.

"What the hell is this?" John asked when he regained a measure of his senses. "Some kind of trick? An illusion? Is this a method of escape?"

"No," Layla replied quietly, "I can feel her aura there, and I have sensed no illusions or trickery. It seems that her amulet was enchanted with something immensely powerful. She is an Exuder - controlling the mana in and around her body is one of her greatest strengths… but this spell is nearly toying with her.”

John stepped forward again, grimacing as he willed up his Elemental Control. Knowing it could do little damage to him, he ignited fires around his limbs, focused around his armor set. Mundane fires were at this point incapable of inflicting damage to him, but it kept John warm as he strode closer to Willow, now immobile and frozen with a look of horror upon her face. John reached out a hand, flushed with the heat of the gauntlets surrounding it, and tapped once upon her cheek, searching for any sign of life in the woman's being.

Willow's cheek and face shattered on contact in a horrendous way, one that John felt would haunt him with nightmares for weeks to come. Her body followed mercifully quickly with an explosion of ice, evaporating the image of a woman rapidly breaking apart at a cellular level. Ice shards with only the barest coloring of human flesh flew around John like petals in a windstorm, cutting him off from the world surrounding him. John started to breath heavily, the implications of such powerful magic not escaping him as he furiously twirled, searching for an exit to the macabre display.

When John finally stumbled free of the icy display, his face ragged and raw where ice crystals had struck and ground against him, Sophia and Layla were pulling him free, their eyes equally full of concern. They spoke words of worry and encouragement, patting him down and warming them with their bodies as his fires died out of shock. John couldn't process any of it - couldn't understand what they were saying. All he could do was turn slowly in horror, glancing behind himself with morbid curiosity.

Where a woman had stood only moments ago… where there had been a living being, where someone with hopes and dreams and goals of their own had existed… John saw only the remnants of the world's most centralized blizzard. Snow, ice particles, and nauseatingly crimson patches of red dotted the interior of his Barrier, staining the carpet of an otherwise innocent game store.

John fought back the urge to vomit, beginning to peel his eyes away already to avoid the gore and horror of seeing a woman essentially vaporized before his eyes by some terrifying magical power. But before he could **** his eyes away entirely, John noticed something he hadn't at first in his horror-induced panic. A pattern in the ice shards. Melting slowly in the room-temperature Barrier, but present all the same. Words that John read with perfect clarity… and just as quickly wished he hadn't.

"Well played, my love. Soon you will be ready."

"Soon, we will be together."