mazionga, my love

A swirl of Magatsuhi, red sparks defying the ritual of blood; Yoshitsune is well used to other demons disappearing around him just as if his very own blood-red swords had slain them, twain and then half again. It is only the Nahobino who appears and disappears, willfully, in blue, Knowledge-flected light.

Only the Nahobino who defies their ever-chaotic order of endless procession. But Yoshitsune does not mind this. After all, the Nahobino could fall at any time, and the Netherworld would continue. That is, the Nahobino is not immune to the demons' order of death. Why bother to remake the world when it would only return to this struggle, ever again?

Neutral. Yoshitsune is ever equanimously neutral.

Red, red - a redder red than the licks of Agi magic. Hassou Tobi pushes back encroaching foes en masse, and rarely reduces enemy demons to total annihilation - not at the first, unless they are too weak to even merit the fierce rain of blows. Yoshitsune does not indulge in the elements. Mudo spells are apt to come for them all.

Cu Chulainn, however, does whim to force. Gae Bolg is his very identity as a warrior. A single wound, split in thirty. The head of bone, deadly in an instant.

How noble it is to pierce, without fail nor fright. How reliable and enduring, to win a critical hit with every passing, pressing turn. To think of the discipline that mastering such an implement requires, no matter how heady the legend...

Yoshitsune does find him quite striking.

And though he will choose a spot to float, swords akimbo and skew but ever-orthogonal to each other, the perfect exacted pair, independent of the other demons the Nahobino has chosen for and from their stock, always forward-looking and centered, master of his mind and body... Yoshitsune will not be the only object of his own thoughts.

Though he should. Though his own nobility lies not in conquest but in self-possession.

How many countless nights in the demon haunt has he admonished the Nahobino of their transience in this plane; in every single battle's potential to be their individual last?

A ward of temple keepers and clan leaders, betrayed by the son of his cherished mentor for the fear of threats unfounded...

One fights to ensure their survival against the demon on the other side, not with the demons standing around one. This is as true in the Netherworld as it was in feudal Japan.

Now the Magatsuhi swirls a crimson warning, for the impending onslaught of a demon's utmost power. But their, the Nahobino's allies', sheer power has carried them this far, so they press on in hopes to vanquish the beast outright before it can even hope to attack.

It's what an enemy would do to them. It is not this world's way to achieve cower.

Pure chance. Pure foolish, selfish chance. The Nahobino resists electricity. Pixie does not, but she is agile enough to skirt to the side - clearly the Nahobino prioritized her safety via concentration in prescience from the very moment she became one of the party. There is an attachment lingering there that does not, cannot, spread to the others.

(And why, then, has the Nahobino even brought Cu Chulainn - to be his surrogate guard hound? Is he lazy, unthinking? Or is he that arrogant as to presume his power absolute, the demons at his side merely decorative accessories, to be infinitely substituted for one another? Is he that masterfully indolent and ignorant of his current world?)

Yoshitsune bears the blow distractedly, watching instead for the crackling hand of fate upon his lancer. Cu Chulainn is a far stronger demon than he, innately and in share of mental fortitude, but weakness is more powerfully wielded against its prey than any measure of strength in vitality could ever be to defend.

This is what Yoshitsune has found. He has not very much enjoyed the ordeal, to be summoned back again.

Is he only catastrophizing? Baihu, after all, is weak to Force. That is how these things go: each strength matched to a weakness in complementary pairs - what Neko Shogun would deem yin and yang balance. It is difficult, if not impossible, unless one is the ever-changing Nahobino, to overcome this fact. What harms the tiger hardly hinders the fae knight. It is simply so.

(He should erupt in Freikugel now, he should. Would it be too late? How else but through the auspice of Masakado to provide what skill he seems to lack, a brute who isn't even Brute enough to show so?)

But Baihu is a demigod of Holy Ssu-Ling temperament worthy to serve the Gold Dragon lord Huang Long, and Cu merely a hero Genma. Yoshitsune, below them both, a winsomely lauded and pitied tragic hero, simple warrior, general or lower tengu associate, never mind that he is dubbed a Wargod. He cannot compare to the likes of Fionn mac Cumhaill in stature, in character.

Wanton self-effacement. He might have tried, with Cu. But how is he to guarantee that the Nahobino will even summon Cu Chulainn again?

And here is the lightning strike, delivered without so much as a swipe of Baihu's shockingly white paws (that is, they should be, but they aren't; dull and disappointingly gray, as if Baihu needn't even appear in full glory of ethereal beastreal godhood's regalia). Each ray from tiger to target, cruel and grizzling. Oh, it is more potent than it has any right to be.

Pixie dodges. Nahobino flinches. Yoshitsune, bound out of time, cannot so much as remember what the flicker licking his tabard had felt like. There is only Cu Chulainn, an assailant unknown hailing - rather, approaching - from the west with claws of metal, and the difference between victory and a crushing defeat.

But Cu's soul, brave soul, endures. As his narrow eyes flick to Yoshitsune's, there may even be the suggestion of a smile laid near his thin, grim lips. Then, he twirls his lance and faces forward once again.