Loose

"Formation... GO!" Jinrai shouted, launching a set of speedy coordinated movements with Ryo that involved splitting apart diagonally aiming to weaken the Jester. When they separated and zoomed off in a cross-formation, their lightning-crackled speedy cyan aura followed with them. The Jester had extreme trouble following along with two individuals advancing on top of her, especially one that she had a hidden hatred for; Ryo.

The Jester screamed and summoned her tendrils from the ground to protect her surroundings. Yet just as she did so, Jinrai swept through all of them and slashed them apart in an instant. It took a few seconds for the Jester to realize that she was vulnerable, as her speed and reaction time were completely outmatched by Jinrai's.

"So fast...!" Natia expressed, unable to trace her comrade's exact movements through time and space. She edged herself back as she regained the ability to move with Ryo's nanomachines healing her throughout their battle.

Ryo and Jinrai's formation lineup stopped with Jinrai in the air in front of the Jester. Now that the Jester had a viable target, she launched a tendril assault combining more than five to drastically increase its power.

"You can't dodge in midair, no matter how fast you are!" The Jester roared, launching the bundle of tendrils at Jinrai.

Jinrai dove toward the Jester's tendrils head-on, sliding himself to the right to skid and ride on the tendrils as a form of transportation. He chuckled as the Jester involuntary created a path for him to attack. The Jester, who failed to comprehend his abilities, also failed to realize that Ryo was dashing behind her with his shortsword armed and ready.

She can't protect herself on all fronts, Ryo concentrated as he continued his speedy assault. Even if she did, her flank's attack would be much weaker than her front!

"You... VERMIN!" The Jester unleashed a flail of corrupted tendrils out of her back, aiming toward her back against Ryo to knock him off balance while she focused on Jinrai from the front. She primed her fist for Jinrai as he continued skidding down the giant tendrils. Yet before she could launch a successful attack on him, both Jinrai and Ryo vanished once more, zapping through the tendrils at intense speeds to swap positions with one another.

"NOW!" Jinrai cried, aiming for the Jester's back leg.

Ryo roared with his lightning-speed aura assisting him, aiming for the Jester's left arm. The Jester had no time to react. The two of them sliced through her body at the same time, impairing her strength for a brief time.

Blood spurted out of her bulging veins as their blades came into contact with her skin, vastly impairing her ability to focus her attacks with how afraid she was to launch another attack. Her insecurities and figments of imagination imposed upon her self-consciousness began invading her mind, hesitating her actions for how coordinated the two were; she was all alone, facing off against two skilled opponents that sought to annihilate her.

Tormented by the induced precariousness of her fears, the Jester launched herself into the air with a fully-primed leap, shouting at the top of her lungs to suspend herself in midair. She summoned more tendrils from the ground to ensnare Ryo and Jinrai who continued advancing on her. They platformed from tendril to tendril to advance toward the Jester's midair position. She had no time to block their coordinated attacks. They sliced through her sides at the same time with extreme velocity, weakening her even further.

Ryo and Jinrai reappeared on the Jester's side, prepared to attack her with her guard down. Both of their concentrated expressions; eyebrows slanted, breath held, and heightened senses from their speedy aura only endangered the Jester's focus even further. Four deep-black large holes opened up on both sides of the Jester's waist for a total of eight, shooting skin-piercing tendrils through all holes toward Ryo and Jinrai from the side.

With another well-timed and coordinated movement, Ryo and Jinrai anticipated the counterattack. They pushed themselves above the tendrils and fired up their legs for a volatile kick. They spun around and pivoted their balance by pushing against each other's shoulders. Both of them slung their legs against the back of the Jester's neck, sending her back toward the stone-scorched ground.

Natia's eyes gleamed at the sight of them overpowering the grotesquely transformed Jester. She longed to support the two, but her wounds were much too deep for her to enter the fray. She held herself back and watched as Ryo and Jinrai's plan came into effect, severely weakening the confidence and stamina of the Jester's attacking strategies.

Ryo and Jinrai dove back down, only to be greeted by another explosion of corrupted tendrils that slithered through the pavement. Ryo's feet slid back against the ground as he struggled to keep his balance. Jinrai spun swiftly like a corkscrew through the air, landing on his feet as he dashed toward the Jester once more. She began shielding her surroundings with her tendrils, forming a gargantuan dome-shaped barrier to protect her surroundings. Smoke, terrain, and rubble collapsed around the dome as silence ensued. Both the Jester and Jinrai vanished.

Jinrai managed to land a position inside the darkened tendril barrier. He began pummeling the Jester with a series of punishing blows from all directions, using the Jester's poor vision to his advantage.

"Motherfucker...!" The Jester coughed out blood as she regenerated her wounds. Her desperation and the brimming fear of death began to continuously take over in the darkness, which severely lowered her regeneration speed.

While at a severe disadvantage, the Jester released the dome of tendrils away to reveal Jinrai's figure in front of her, rearing his fist forward for another attack. His widened eyes and cold-blooded face were decisive in fulfilling his goal of stopping the Jester to save Claire. His passion for Claire fueled his unbelievably heightened reflexes and strength to the breaking point.

"You son of a-" The Jester yelped, using her black and pink hair to slice through the direction of Jinrai's neck, hoping to decapitate him. As she swept her head forward, Jinrai ducked down and slipped his right hand into his back pocket. As the Jester lost her footing from her poorly timed and lashed-out attack, Jinrai pulled out the memory fragment extractor from his pocket.

From almost a mile away, Claire had prepared a countermeasure to stop her twin sister, even though she had been injured. She set up a sniper similar to the one that her sister used for assassination purposes and aimed it directly at the amber-shaded memory fragment lodged in her sister's chest. With the perfect timing of her twin sister losing balance, Claire hesitated at first to release the bullet to crack the permeated shell on the fragment. But the more she studied the twisted, deformed abomination that her twin sister was in contrast to the beautiful young woman she was in the past, she pulled the trigger, accurately striking her in the chest.

The bullet pierced through the Jester's shattered memory fragment in the center of her chest. The eye in the center opened wide in surprise. Natia and Ryo watched together, tracing the direction of where the bullet was fired to assume that Claire was setting up a plan of her own.

Jinrai pinched the activation servos and circuits attached to the cylindrical extractor and activated it, releasing the elemental magnetic claw from within. He roared at the top of his lungs and attached the claw to the eye, using its mechanism to trap the Jester in a nearly inescapable hold. The mechanical magnetic claw clung to the memory fragment and attempted to pierce through it with the amount of speed and pressure Jinrai pressed against it.

When the Jester's eyes locked onto the extractor, she summoned a group of tendrils to wrap around her back to prevent Jinrai from penetrating through her body. Sparks of light and raw energy emerged from the memory fragment and the extractor, triggering a reaction of elemental energy to detach the fragment itself. But the Jester's support with the tendrils continued to prevent Jinrai from pushing through.

"COME ON!" Jinrai shouted, pushing at his full strength. His black hair blew back against the energy-laced wind, burning his right hand the more she continued to pressure.

The Jester grabbed Jinrai's right hand and prepared to stab his heart with her fingers. "Nice try!" She yelled. "But it won't work on me!"

"I don't think so, bitch!" Natia's cries came abruptly above the Jester and Jinrai's position. Ryo, who had held onto Natia's hand, both invigorated each other to strike down on the tendrils protecting the Jester's flank. Ryo and Natia gazed into each other's eyes for a brief moment and nodded at each other. Natia placed her forearm on Ryo's neon shortsword until her hand was connected with his, combining their strength and prowess to slice through the tendrils.

Her fiery passion and determination to save the people of Kathuz and Claire, combined with the realization of her affection for Ryo, she released her full impetus with Ryo. "TOGETHER!" They both shouted in unison, ridding the tendrils behind the Jester.

"No...! NO!" The Jester cried, panicking to summon more tendrils to protect her. But it was too late.

Claire watched through her sniper scope, while Ryo and Natia watched it unfold in front of them. Jinrai, using the memory fragment extractor, pierced through the eye and phased through the Jester's body. He pushed out an exact copy of the original version of Weiss in the flesh as if her grotesque monstrous body created a clone. This clone of Weiss was weakened, severely malnourished, and unconscious with a poorly nonrhythmic breathing pattern.

Jinrai grabbed the clone of Weiss by the shoulders and thighs to tumble forward to break their fall. The Jester's voice yelled aloud and gradually decreased in pitch and volume, collapsing to the ground limp and stone cold.

Ryo and Natia rushed toward Jinrai holding the clone of Weiss. Ryo deactivated his nanosuit and took off his white sweater to give to her, providing a large enough single one-piece to cover Weiss's torso, pelvis, and thigh area. Natia placed her fingers on the side of Weiss's neck to check her pulse; it was sluggish and weak.

"Is it... over?" Ryo struggled to speak as he hyperventilate with the amount of stamina that he had to expend to successfully separate the memory fragment from the Jester. He looked into Weiss's closed eyes, wondering what the nature of the separation was. "Did we do it? Did we save Weiss?"

"I think... this person is Weiss," Jinrai said. "This is the first time I've ever seen this. To think that it truly expelled the evil inside the fragment that Rion Stormfield tampered with. This is beyond my imagination."

"We have to get her to Claire!" Natia shouted. "Her pulse is weak and she needs food and water! We can still save her!"

"We can't risk it," Ryo said. "What if she wakes up and attacks her?"

"We deal with it then," Natia cried, shaking her head in denial. "I'm not going to let her die!"

"Then I'm leaving her to you," Jinrai said, placing Weiss's unconscious body in Natia's arms. "Get her to Claire as soon as you can. You're officially withdrawing from this battle. Make sure you get some rest as well."

"Okay," Natia acknowledged, sweeping past the two of them until she bumped bodies with Ryo. After reminiscing all of the memories that she had experienced with Ryo during the perceived final moments of her life when she was being executed, her face flared up in embarrassment and flushed nervousness after credulously gazing into his eyes. Her eyebrows perked up and her heart skipped a beat as she shyly brushed his arm with her own. Her eyes traced themselves down with her head, embarrassed under his presence. "See you later, Ryo." She casually said, elated that he fulfilled his promise and came when she called his name; he saved her life.

"See... you." Ryo voiced out after seeing her unexpected reaction to her response. He also appeared flustered as her touch connected with his but spoke no further.

"Wait..." The Jester's monstrous body croaked in a raspy tone as she stood back up. Natia stopped moving, and the three turned around to face what little life the Jester had. As the separate entity for all of Weiss's evil intent and insanity, she turned her head like a reanimated zombie revived from the dead, creaking her head until it faced the trio. Her body began twitching and convulsing uncontrollably as the life inside her spirit drained in strength.

"It's... not... fair..." She sobbed and sulked like a child as tears drenched down her cheeks.

"You picked a fight with the wrong people and lost," Jinrai spoke for his disciples on the team. "I don't see what's so unfair about that."

"Yeah, and you used the people of Kathuz to get what you wanted," Natia added, holding onto Weiss's body tightly. "You tried to use Claire and the Seraphians to have the people side with you because you manipulated them into thinking that they needed you to live freely. But they were smart and didn't fall for your bullshit lies."

"She's right," Jinrai continued, approaching the Jester little by little. "You were the one that made the game unfair in the first place. Talk about self-righteous and entitled."

"No..." The Jester moaned, denying all of their statements in a single statement. "I won't... I won't call him. I won't call him... I won't call him..."

It was at this moment that Ryo realized that something was dreadfully wrong. The atmosphere in the air began to sink dramatically, making it much more difficult to breathe a full breath of air. His shoulders tensed up and his eyes widened, sensing some unknown peculiar force weighing down upon his chest like a burden that could not be eliminated. His eyes turned to Jinrai and Natia, who both were not impacted by this tenseness.

And there it was. The same ringing sound that played whenever he stood next to the Albastor Courthouse's bronze statue of the robed acolyte. This time, the ringing sound began to gradually build up through Ryo's ears until a hissing sound resembling a frightened snake took over his entire hearing sensation.

Jinrai and Natia were too fixated on the Jester to notice that something was wrong with Ryo. He cupped his ears hoping that the ringing would stop, but nothing changed.

"I'm sorry..." The Jester whimpered like a child, clutching onto her shoulders like a scared little girl. Saliva drooled down her chin until it splattered across the floor by her shriveled feet. Her skin was shriveling up and thinning itself like a decomposed corpse. "I promised you, Mr. Oni Man. I promised you.. that I wouldn't fail you... and that I would be something worth to you..."

"What is she saying? Oni man?" Natia asked Jinrai.

"Just forget about it. She's lost her rocker." Jinrai replied, shrugging off her statements as she was nearly death's threshold.

Ryo bent down until his knees hit the ground. The ringing sound was about to erupt in his ear drums. Jinrai wanted to support Ryo and find out what exactly had happened to him, but the Jester finished off her statement with one final decree.

"I'm sorry," She repeated, hunching over as she clasped her hands in prayer. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY! I NEED YOU!"

The ringing sound ceased completely.

The bronze god-like statue rocked back and forth until it could not contain its seething hate.

At the top of her lungs, the trio watched as the Jester screamed so loudly that it shattered the atmosphere with her pleads.

"DADDYYYYYYYYYYYY!" The Jester's ear-splitting voice pierced through all.

From the far distance where the Albastor Courthouse remained, the suspicious bronze statue that Ryo despised for its sound, in both reality and his dreams, came to life. Jinrai sensed it. The strength that possessed the statue was infinitely stronger and faster than Jinrai had ever anticipated in his entire life, splitting his gut and confidence down to the bare minimum. The sound that imitated the explosion of a nuclear power plant split the skies as the statue traveled at godlike speed toward the trio's destination, targeting Natia and Weiss.

Jinrai, who took notice of the statue's arrival, shouted at Natia and dove to protect her. Ryo, who recovered from the ear-splitting sound, had no time to anticipate the statue's movement.

"MOVE!" Jinrai cried, shoving Natia and Weiss out of the bronze statue's collision path. The statue attempted to strike Natia down to execute her, but Jinrai blocked it with his arm. The statue severed Jinrai's entire left arm off, meeting the same fate that Claire had in the past. The statue's fist grazed against Jinrai's forehead, slicing through it to release gushing blood from his body. The statue collided where the Jester stood, exploding and creating an obscured wave of dust and smoke to shroud their position.

Natia and Weiss collapsed to the ground, and Ryo immediately took notice of Jinrai's severed arm. "No! JINRAI!" He cried, diving in to catch his fallen mentor. The loss of his arm could not be fixed with Ryo's mere nanosuit. After Jinrai's blood leaked out uncontrollably and beyond repair, Jinrai went into a state of shock before falling completely unconscious.

"Jester, my darling..." A shockingly low voice trilled from where the statue collided with. The smoke and ash cleared, revealing the statue kneeling to embrace the Jester's crying tantrum. "My daughter. My beautiful daughter. I apologize for taking so long. You deserve better than this. You... deserve it more than anyone in this world."

"RAI!" Claire's screaming voice came to light as she rushed toward the fallen Jinrai, bleeding out and on the brink of death. She slid down and tried to block the bleeding. Natia moved in and transferred her entire nanosuit to Jinrai, putting pressure on his life-threatening wound. "I have to take him. I won't let him die!"

"I'll go with you," Natia said, holding on to Weiss. "We can take your sister together. We can make it!"

"It's them!" The Jester yelled, pointing her finger at them as she babbled like a child. "It's them, it's them, it's them, it's them!"

"Don't worry, my dear," The statue spoke, caressing the Jester's hair to ensure that she was safe. "I will handle them. Just for you."

"Daddy..." The Jester cried tears of joy. "I love y-"

The statue punched a hole through the Jester's chest where the memory fragment used to be with its fist. The Jester convulsed and choked on blood trickling down inside and outside her throat. Ryo and the others watched as the statue betrayed its fatherly bond, instantly killing the Jester. Her eyes rolled back as her arms dangled like a corpse. Instead of letting her fall to the ground, the statue began absorbing the corpse of the evil form of the Jester through a swirling invisible psychic mass, entering the statue itself.

Ryo, Natia, and Claire watched as the bronze metal surrounding the statue began to crack. Pieces started falling off until all of them fell. They were shocked to see that it was a humanoid creature with a pale white outline of an adult-sized human being, standing at approximately six feet tall. It was naked to the bone.

There were no features of its human significance at all. It looked like a target dummy that was molded to shape like a human, but its skin appeared completely synthetic. As the being showed signs of failing to even stand on two feet, crimson and violet blips appeared as massive orbs circulating both of his hands and legs, lifting him into the air and setting him down safely.

All the others witnessed the revealing of its face; nothing showed at all. The being's head was cleanly bald, no eyes, nose, mouth, or ears could even be made out. It was like a wiped slate of a human being tossed for imitation.

The pale being lifted its hands slowly up into the air to acquire a feeling of its missing face. Ryo watched the colored blips reappearing across the being's body, zapping in different parts of the human body with its mouth being the first. The short and stout mouth appeared along with the outline of the being's chin.

Next came its nose, shaped to perfection to fit the perfect being. Muscles began to arise from the being's body structure, creating a foundation for its first bodily appearance. White elongated silky hair endowed the body, wrapping it up in safety while more and more human adjustments and additions were being made. The hair began shortening itself and at long last, its amber-colored eyes formed with a small black outline forming underneath its eyelid, highlighting its perfection and attractiveness.

Before, he was a plaid mimic of a dummy that could have been used to test car accidents within trials. Now he was a completely new different being that resembled a captivating male, godlike in his appearance. With his hair cut short by unnatural cause, his torso muscles defined, and his slender yet elegantly buffed legs and arms, it was another maniacal enemy that had to be stopped.

"I see." A mechanical voice imitated the traits of Jinrai's vocal cords, copying it for its abilities. Jet black areas around the man's legs and arms surfaced, covering and imitating the idea of clothing. He took a single step towards Ryo and the others with a smile on his face, completely captivated by the beauty of himself combined with the Jester. Another memory fragment surfaced in the center of his chest; only this time, it was Weiss's lifeless closed-eyed face melded in amber.

"What the fuck..." Natia muttered.

"So this is what it feels like... to be whole again." The man spoke in Jinrai's exact voice and tone. He looked deeply into Ryo's bewildered eyes and chuckled as if he knew him.

"Isn't that right?" He finished. "Ryo Nakai?"