[Event] Flame of the Soul and Flame of the Heart (Itori/Kenna)

Coming to a halt Itori held one hand above her eyes to shield it from the sun as she gazed forward, vermilion eyes taking in the view. Before her lay a large river, with in the middle an island which was dotted with quite a few buildings. It was the village most commonly known as the River Village, for obvious reasons. Despite the cold temperatures of the season the river refused to freeze, too big to easily be affected by the grasp of winter. Nevertheless it was certain to be cold if one were to fall in there, and Itori could see even from this distance that there wasn't any boats in the water. While there were plenty of people at the coastline nobody wanted to risk falling into the middle of the river when they could quickly freeze and die from hypothermia.

Around the river the land was covered with snow, and everything was also covered with the sensation that something ominous was looming on the horizon. Itori closed her eyes and frowned as she could feel the fragility of the barriers that kept the realms separate in this place. In all of Earthland, honestly. Her ears twitched and her tails moved from side to side behind her as she reached out with her mind and probed the area to see just how bad the situation was. During mystical times like the turning of the year there often was the chance of something unusual happening, but this year appeared to have been particularly bad. Reports had come from all over that portals were appearing everywhere, and that from those portals came creatures which should have been peaceful servants and pets of the spirit of winter but instead they attacked as if possessed.

A guild such as Sabertooth couldn't ignore this. After all, ever since they had to deal with those elder gods they'd taken it upon them to protect Earthland from extradimensional incursions. That these incursions came from a normally peaceful source did not change this in any way, except that maybe this time around they could deal with the issue in a more friendly manner than just slicing up the invaders and throwing their remains back into whatever dimension they originated from. Unfortunately despite the fervour of Sabertooth they didn't have the manpowder to cover the entirety of Earthland. They needed the help of every legal guild and even then they were, quite frankly, shortstaffed.

As it was Itori had been sent here together with Kenna to protect River Village, as there had been reports that some of those portals had been sighted in the area without there being enough mages to protect the settlement. The village hadn't been attacked by anything worse than some unusually disgruntled elves yet, but it was only a matter of time before something showed up that the villagers couldn't fight off on their own.

"What do you think of the situation, lady Terrynhain?" She turned to look at her friend and companion, indicating the scenery before them with one hand. "It appears to be peaceful for now, but I can tell that there is very little preventing anything from opening a portal. I do not hear the sound of grief in the village, so it appears we have arrived before something tragic occurred, but I suspect that our direct future will not be an easy one."

On their way here there had been the carcass of a rabbit lying on the side of the road. It had been torn open by something vicious, but with little trace of predation or even carrion. Instead it had just remained there torn and lifeless, the rot only prevented by the frigid cold. That was definitely one of the worst omens one could encounter using the mundane signs. A death without reason, without anything feasting on the remains, was the sign of an evil presence, and that they found it on the side of the road, practically on top of it, indicated that they would come across the evil as well. The only blessing was that the rabbit hadn't been in the middle of the road: that it was on the side indicated that it might yet be possible to avert a direct confrontation.

As Itori spoke to Kenna the white mist produced by her exhalations in this cold weather behaved strangely. It curled and twisted, taking senseless shapes before fading away. The kitsune herself appeared not to notice, her focus on Kenna instead as she folded her arms and hid them inside the wide sleeves of her outfit. Her white fur, and her white clothes, made the foxlike woman somewhat difficult to see at times amidst the snow that decorated the land. It was fortunate that there was also plenty of red present to help make sure she remained visible.

Even if for the duration of Itori talking about 'something tragic' that red appeared to glimmer and flow like blood before it returned to normal just as suddenly.

WC: 833
TWC: 833/3000

Itori showed little reaction to the cold other than the white mist that escaped from her mouth every time she exhaled. Her five tails gave her an advantage in enduring the cold: her fur insulated the vulpine limbs very well, which gave her improved circulation. This was also why she rarely adapted her attire to the season, almost always seen wearing the same style of clothes. Of course this also meant that during the summer she felt the heat faster than others but summers seldom got warm enough to be a serious threat, whereas the winter could be quite merciless if one were unprepared.

Of course improved circulation wasn't going to protect her against the enemies that they were facing today. While it was possible that the twisted spirits of winter would use frost, from what she'd heard so far most of their assault was physical, and even if frost was used it was of the magical type which mundane insulation couldn't much against. She might be better off than a human, but she wasn't built for resisting extreme temperatures if she didn't have her magic to bolster herself.

With Kenna admitting that she wasn't sure what to think of the situation the kitsune nodded, having to admit that she wasn't entirely certain either. The omens indicated that danger was going to approach, and that while it could be waylaid the odds were bad for them. It didn't say that the danger would be too much for them to handle, but this kitsune didn't become ancient by charging headlong into uncertain fates. Well, even if it wasn't for the fact that Sabertooth expected its members to protect this world from extradimensional invasions Itori wasn't the kind of person who would just abandon people to their fate if she could avoid it.

"Despite all attempts to learn the truth, I still have received no information about why these spirits of winter would have turned hostile. They are usually amongst those who spread warmth and comfort during the harsh winter, so having them be the threat this time around is a blow to the mental fortitude of many." She didn't mean to sound disheartening, but she was pretty sure that there were a lot of people who weren't happy with the current state of events even if they hadn't been personally attacked yet. When her partner mentioned how she wasn't very good at sensing breaches yet the fox-eared spirit nodded and returned the smile, her own warm and comforting before she returned her gaze to the area ahead.

"While I can sense the weakened fabric between realms I am also not sensing any portals being opened right now. Of course my expertise is the travelling between the realm of the physical and the realm of the spiritual, so I cannot be called an expert on the workings of travel between other realms." The world shimmer for a moment, everything appearing double, before reality reasserted itself in an instant. "However I shall try to explain in brief terms. It feels like a song where a voice is louder than the rest, forcing itself to the front until it can no longer be ignored. A portal feels like two instruments making the same sound when they should be playing different parts, a synchronization which allows for transfer." She felt like she should apologize for the explanation, since she was aware that most people simply weren't as invested into sensing the world around them through sound as she. However she couldn't think of a better way to say it.

"Suffice to say that rather than a disturbance it feels as if something which should be faint in the background has pushed itself to the front, and if a portal is successfully formed it is like this world and the other are in perfect unison at that location for as long as the portal lasts. That is the basics. My apologies that I cannot explain it any better." To her it made sense: those other worlds weren't unnatural after all, so while it could feel as a disturbance to have such a dimension invade this one it wasn't like nature itself was being torn apart by it... at least, not usually.

She caught onto the fact that Kenna appeared to be struggling with some kind of pain, the kitsune frowning and placing a hand on her friend's shoulder as she tried to figure out what could be the cause. There didn't appear to be an immediate threat to Kenna's health... Itori wasn't comforted by that thought. "Are you all right?" She asked softly. However before Kenna could give a clear answer beyond some muttering in a tongue that sounded unpleasant to Itori's ears another sound appeared. Both she and Kenna would hear it, like two voices singing in unison, although for the demoness it would quickly fade away even as in the distance figures appeared.

"It would seem that they have arrived." Despite her worry being clear she spoke calmly, her ears swivelled towards the oncoming group in the distance. Thankfully they were far away from the village, although still too close for her and Kenna to easily intercept them. The demoness had already realized this, and by the time that Itori was ready to act Kenna was already gathering power. Knowing enough not to get in the way the fox-tailed sorceress first waited to see what kind of havoc her white-haired companion would wreak before she'd run in herself. She wasn't going to let herself be caught in the blast of Kenna's infamous fire magic just because she was impatient.

The meteor strike did a wonderful job of keeping their enemies distracted and busy, halting their advance. With Kenna's first strike out of the way Itori began to run towards her targets. Her entire body glowed white and for a moment she looked like an actual white fox rather than a vulpine humanoid before her normal shape appeared again, but by that point she was already on top of her targets. Without hesitation she brought out the cursed beads, the air around her left hand emitting an ominous feeling. Darting from elf to elf she delivered an open palm strike to each of them, pushing them several yards back and away from the River Village and touching them with the beads in the process. The bears she took care of with her sword. While she did avoid killing blows she made sure each one got a deep cut from her white blade. Once she'd successfully hit every raider with either beads or sword she jumped away from them.

Upon landing she stabbed the ground with her sword, a simple white seal appearing on the location. From that seal formed ghostly chains, one chain for each of the polar bears. Placing her hand on the pommel Itori raised her left hand high into the sky with the cursed prayer beads dangling from it. The white ursine growled and struggled as the ethereal bindings began to pull them towards the source, showing great difficulty of movement. At the same time there was a shimmering in the air before Itori. It extended towards the elves, who all appeared woozy as something was slowly drawn from them and pulled towards the vulpine mage, condensing into an orb of spiritual and magical energy. With the bears struggling to escape from chains that they couldn't touch and the elves trying to stand up even as their vitality got drained Kenna could either finish them off or let Itori slowly incapacitate all of them.

WC: 1262
TWC: 2095/3000

The member 'Aura' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

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'Normal Dice' :

Despite the fact that she should be focused on the task at hand Itori found herself distracted by Kenna's health. The demoness was trying to hide it, but the spirit fox could sense that something was seriously wrong. She tried not to make it a habit to study someone's soul too closely unless it was for healing purposes, but what she was picking up passively was alarming enough that she felt warranted in taking a closer look. As soon as she did she quickly found out what was wrong: a chunk of Kenna's soul had been consumed by something, with only corruption left. Itori's experience allowed her to discern that what had been destroyed was the mana pool, the deep well that functioned as the arcane equivalent of the heart. Strangely enough she could also tell that Kenna still had a functional mana pool, which shouldn't be possible... She was seriously considering halting this mission and making sure Kenna was in good health. In fact she probably would have done that if it wasn't for the fact that they were here to defend innocent lives and they couldn't pull out before the job was done.

"Do not try too hard." Was all she could really say. The fire slayer's bursts of pain coincideded with her soul trying to draw power from the destroyed mana pool, receiving nothing but nuggets of corruption which caused miniature distortions inside the rest of the soul. While it didn't look like Kenna was in immediate danger that kind of thing could have long term repercussions if not quickly taken care of.

At least the demoness could still fight properly. While Itori drained power from their enemies and hindered the movements from the polar bears she watched as Kenna took care of the task of dispatching them fully. Wielding ash and fire her friend quickly moved through the ranks of their opponents, until all the elves and polar bears were down for the count. She could sense that Kenna had avoided inflicting lethal wounds, leaving it up to Itori to drain just enough life force from their opponents that they wouldn't be able to get up or move for quite some time without endangering their lives. While the kitsune wasn't feeling very sympathetic towards these creatures which had been planning to assault a village of innocents she wasn't angry enough to skip to straight up murdering them in cold blood.

Instead she took payment for their lives in the form of the orb of energy that now swirled above one hnd. A mixture of magic and spirit, it glowed with an otherworldly light while vague shapes and images kept appearing around it before fading away again. A close study would reveal that these were memories from the creatures Itori had drained, although too vague for one to be able to make out much. Shaking the cursed prayer beads back into her sleeve for a moment the vixen's arm looked like it was a twisted version of itself, with long red claws and pale as a corpse. It returned to normal at the same time as the whispers which had filled the air around Itori while she was draining the essence of their enemies went silent.

"I could sense a portal opening just before these showed up. It sounded like a big one, so we may not be out of the woods yet."

Truth be told Itori was pretty certain that at this point they'd already arrived at the point in destiny where they'd be meeting up with malicious creatures. She figured that the turning point had been when they engaged the elves and bears rather than attempting the diplomatic approach. Not that she really blamed Kenna: the twisted servants of Santa hadn't been very subtle in their desire to sow chaos and havoc, so the demoness couldn't be blamed for taking the approach which would present the least risk to the villagers.

She moved to follow after the fire demoness when said demoness suddenly lashed out with fire to destroy something that was thrown at her from the treeline. Seeing the scorched and burned presents (along with the explosions) Itori entered a low stance as she realized that the reinforcements had already arrived. Like Kenna at first she prioritized dodging while figuring out what to do, but like her friend eventually things went sideways and got a little more hectic. While she was reacting to the warning of enemies to her left she saw her partner get hit by one of the presents. Distracted she was too slow to respond when she noticed something headed her way as well, and the result was that the five-tailed fox was launched by an explosion caused by a present hitting the ground in front of her. She tried to recover in the air before two presents nailed her head on, a red-green light engulfing her form before she could be seen crashing into the ground.

Feeling the cold permeate her entire body Itori gasped. Her fur stood on end and she immediately began to shiver, feeling the snow burn her skin as if fire. Her form turned pure white before dissipating into a swirl of snow, reforming on the same spot but standing upright. And stark naked, just like her friend. A blush covered her face at the realization: while she wasn't exactly embarrassed at the thought of being seen naked she usually was in a better position to handle it mentally, not in the middle of a fight after she'd just been jostled about by two explosions.

"It is a good thing we intercepted them before we got in range of the eyes of the villagers."

Fortunately she at least managed to keep her composure to the extent that she didn't fly into a panic or lose focus. In fact she would have gone to counterattack if it wasn't for the fact that Kenna was already taking care of that, with plenty of interest. The kitsune could do little but watch as the demoness let her fire magic rage free, consuming most of the treeline and leaving little in the way of enemies. Or trees. Or enemy trees. Itori was pretty sure those fires were a bit hotter than usual. She'd have to create some illusionary clothes for the two of them until they reached a place where they could get the real stuff.

But they weren't at the point where they could relax yet. Ignoring the shivering of her body (and curling her tails around herself to both deflect some of the cold and cover herself at least a little bit) Itori tilted her head as she heard very heavy footsteps advancing from the scorched forest. A figure larger than life, clad in red and white and with a large beard that reached to the stomach. A wide body which one could mistake as fat if the sharp eye didn't realize that was the kind of bear-type build which contained a lot more strength than those herculean muscles bodybuilders like to show off. While not a native to Fiore Itori knew enough about its customs to realize that this was the mythological Santa Claus... except normally Santa Claus wasn't brimming with malevolent intent.

Normally Itori would have tried diplomacy. She didn't want to fight the winter spirit who was known for spreading cheer to those struggling to survive the harshest season. However she had to give up on that for several reasons. They'd already killed a fair amount of Santa's followers, so she doubted he would be open for negotiations. Kenna didn't appear in the mood either. And finally the issue that Santa had been assaulting the entirety of Fiore with his twisted elves.

Moving next to Kenna Itori kept her vermillion eyes on the large bulky figure approaching from the forest, noting that the magical trees which had produced those embarrassing presents weren't quite dead yet. Scorched, but not completely. "We might freeze to death if we do not finish this quickly Kenna. Please strike with as much power as you can, I will ensure that it will be enough." Holding both hands in front of her the spirit orb hovered between them, its light growing stronger as she sacrificed the comfort of her fur to instead spread out her tails behind her and focus her magic energies while waiting for Kenna to begin the spell.

Once the demoness had created her signature move, Corona Blast, Itori got to work. She'd already prepared beforehand, the orb between her hands looking like it was burning with the flames of the netherworld. Once the three fiery circles had appeared around their target Itori hummed, her normally gentle voice filling the air as she attuned herself with Kenna's magic. Since she'd done this before it was done quickly. The miniature suns vibrated for just a moment before their flames changed colour. From the standard vibrant and vigorous red and orange they shifted into a rich purple. The physical flames from Kenna's magic were joined by the spiritual flames from Itori's magic, and with Itori harmonizing their spells she made the two flames of different worlds merge into a fire which connected and burned in both realms.

Santa Claus stopped as he saw this development, looking around him with clear suspicion. Pulling out a present from the sack he was carrying on his back he threw it at Itori, which ignored it as she was fully focused on the Unison Raid that she was creating on the spot. Thankfully it looked like Santa was unfortunate, as when the present hit Itori rather than exploding it burst apart into a wave of healing, removing the wounds the kitsune had received earlier from the bombardment.

While their enemy did this Itori expanded the spell, feeling the magic burn between her hands and feeling it flow through Kenna as well as, just for now, their magics had been combined into one grand magic. Sweat formed on her forehead as she frowned in concentration while the mystical flames surrounding Santa and his surviving Christmass Trees began to spawn more flames. First three, then nine, then twenty-seven... It didn't take long before the red-clothed man couldn't move without touching one of those unnaturally-coloured flames, a move he was obviously reluctant to take.

As for Itori, she was busy pouring in more magic. The orb between her hands began to flare up and then die out as all the energy she had stolen from their previous opponents was consumed to power this one spell. The forest of violet flames grew brighter and bright, the harmony between the two mages reaching its peak until Itori's eyes flashed purple and she spoke with two voices at the same time: her own and the demoness next to her.

"Court of Burning Souls"

For a moment Kenna could see her own demonic form surround Itori like a ghostly image, and then the kitsune brought her hands together as if in prayer, the last remnants of the essence orb disappearing in the process as the area in front of them was hidden behind an intense lightshow.

From the edge towards the centre one by one the mystical flames exploded. A chain reaction which took less than a second, turning a sea of dancing flames into a pillar of red, blue and purple, reaching high towards the heavens while producing enough heat that even back in the village people felt the wave wash over them. The air shimmered, the snow flashed white before evaporating... It was like a bonfire, except where a normal bonfire would be used to help ward off minor evil spirits this one was used to send a much bigger threat back to his own realm. Flesh, Spirit and Magic were all consumed in these flames, even the sound of Santa's angry and pained roar disappearing. The flame's roar sounded more like a howl, fierce and wild as if belonging to an ancient beast or an angry god.

As powerful as the attack was it didn't last for long, the realm-crossing pillar burning itself out until its flare became weaker and weaker. In the end there were only a few weak flames remaining, which faded away silently. Where the pillar had been everything had been eradicated: beyond just the trees and the snow the ground itself had been burned away, leaving a bowl-shaped crater. While it wasn't deep it was still a testament to the ferocity of the combined attack. The other evidence was the fact that there was no sign of either Santa nor any of the Christmas Trees that had survived Kenna's wrath, all of them having disappeared as if vanished into thin air.

The kitsune released a deep breath, opening her eyes and gazing upon the devastation she and her friend had created. While the trees had definitely been destroyed she'd sensed that before he was completely erased Santa Claus himself had created a portal just large enough for him alone to escape. She hoped that whatever had affected the winter spirit would fade away, but at least it was certain that he had taken too much damage to try any other assaults for the remainder of the season. "I believe we have successfully repelled the invasion. Given how much damage their leader sustained he should not attempt any other attacks this year, especially since i do not believe he can enter this world outside of winter."

Now that the pillar of fire was gone the cold began to return, the naked fox shivering as she looked at Kenna. "Shall I create some illusionary clothing Kenna? It will not be very effective at holding back the cold but at the very least we can enter the village for some new clothes without causing a scene." She almost offered to use her tails to help keep Kenna warm, but hesitated for a second before pressing on. "Unfortunately foxfire is ineffective for warming the body, so unless you have enough mana left to create flames for the both of us the best I have is my tails." She shivered again as she realized that the sweat covering her body from the heat and effort was beginning to freeze.

WC: 2370
TWC: 4465/3000

The member 'Aura' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

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'Monster Dice' :