A God and a Demon go Hunting

While Kenzo seemed to be right at home with wearing the uniforms from day one, to say that Illya was ill-prepared for such things would be an underestimation of her unsuitedness. They were still just slightly too tight, especially for someone as antsy as Illya. Regardless, this was one of Illya's few chances to truly get into combat. Her training within the halls of Dies Irae was certainly not without merit, but there was at least some hope for a little action in the throes of combat to truly test the mettle of the young God Slayer.

Perhaps as the name implied, River Village was a gloriously beautiful vista on, unsurprisingly, a river. Kenzo's plan had been prepped to take place in the dark of night and, as such, the amber waves of clouds that rolled through the sky painted the entire land with a calming feel as it told the story of a setting day, both the true day itself and a possible setting to the days of this criminal. Even as they traveled down the boat to River Village, Illya had to stay herself from trembling. She was more excitable than normal, having the possibility of purging a ne'er-do-well from the world, but she was afraid of that side of her. She had snapped once, in the town Commander West had sent her to for a quick learning task. It felt so calming, so refreshing, to finally snuff out the life of the man who had terrorized so many. Now, she had the chance to do it again. But how would the reaction be? She did not know anyone within Dies Irae all too well. She talked with Emma and William and Sage from time to time, but never was she able to make a deeper connection than that. If even Yemaya was disappointed in her, then...

She shrugged off her encroaching thoughts. She had a mission now, and someone was there to evaluate her. She was technically his superior. She had more experience within the guild. He was still a Neophyte, and Illya a Soldier within the ranks of Dies Irae. Yet Kenzo took the lead all the same. Illya did not mind. She was used to taking orders. Her bosses in Magnolia, her manager, they all told her where to go and what to do. This would be no different. She wanted to eventually lead a battalion of her own, but she felt ill-fit as a leader. So she accepted Kenzo's planning. Illya would have been fine with just waiting around anyways and listening for any suspicious activity before finally annihilating the foe with ruthless determination.

Stepping off the boat, Illya took the time to chat with the driver, an older chap by the name of Maro. Of course, Kenzo had already moved on, and Illya had to jog in order to catch up to the her elder junior.

"Yep! Got the plan all down pat!" Illya said, a big smile on her face. "We still probably have a few hours before Mister Silk starts getting on the move, but we'd probably do best to scope out the place first as a bit of a safety measure, right?" Illya quickly looked around, seeing a small grassy knoll just to the west of the town. "Alright! That little hill there! We'll wait up there and then once we hear Mister Silk, we'll pounce! Like...like a cat, trying to pounce on a mouse!" She giggled slightly. "We probably shouldn't need to worry about the danger at all. We've got two Slayers on our side, after all, but it's better safe than sorry, right? Sooooo...Yemaya's flying around nearby, just in case." She gasped slightly. "Ahhh! I haven't introduced you to Yemaya! She's kinda like a mother figure to me, and she's this really big bird-dragon! Well, she's either really big or she can be kinda small, depends on how mobile she needs to be. She's usually around me at some point, but no biggie! We'll be perfectly fine, even without Yemaya, but if we need her, she can pop right in and do some wonders for us!"

She slapped her cheeks. "Right! Focus! C'mon, Kenzo! Time to do a bit of scouting!"

Night fell. Just as Kenzo had asked, Illya remained silent, keeping her eyes closed and letting her ears trail for an unfamiliar heartbeat or a suspicious tone or even the crinkling of leaves where they should not be. Each second that Illya had spent in waiting felt like an hour, her ears having completely tuned to something that should not belong. Finally, it happened. Nearby. The sound of a lock being picked.

"Silk is on the move," she quietly said. "Picking into Mister Glass the Vasemaker's house. We should have no trouble taking him out. His breathing's steady and confident. He's not expecting anyone. We could sneak up further, but there's not much need. He's right down the hill. You pop out and begin your work. I'll give you some support."

As Kenzo did so, Illya lightly sang a few songs, her Wiseman Bassa Nova and her Fleetfooted Mambo to boost up his spells and his speed. After the first round of attacks, as Silk was stunned and slightly injured, Illya began work on her own, using the Fleetfooted Mambo to quickly encroach on Silk and use her own Sound God Bellow, engulfing the man in a mixture of holy flames and unholy sound. He was down, incapacitated, but conscious. Before Kenzo could pull out the handcuffs, Illya was already on silk, stamping her heel into his wrist. Right next to where the shoe punctured the flesh, she saw a sigil, a mark of a Dark Guild. Her blood began to boil.

"You..." she growled, the demure and peppy Illya having long dissipated. "What's that guild?" Silk refused to answer. In response, Illya smashed her heel into his wrist further. "ANSWER ME!"

"A-Aidrest, lkid!" he yelped in pain.

"Aidrest? What's your plans?" Once more silence and once more, the wrist began to slowly separate hand from arm. "HOW MANY INNOCENTS HAVE YOU HARMED?"

"I-I don't know, kid! I'm just a lowly grunt!"

His pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears as Illya lifted her heel and stabbed it straight through his open palm. "You still bear the sins of your leaders, don't you?It doesn't matter if you joined fifteen minutes ago or fifteen years ago. You pledged yourself to a group that would harm the INNOCENTS!" Her voice cracked in rage. "You...you're the worst kind of scum. You're someone who just...joins something for power. For money. You don't CARE about who you're hurting, do ya?"

His eyes became rapidly more frantic. "I-I ain't hurting anyone, kid! I-I'm just a thief!"

Illya twisted her heel. "Thievery leads to robbery. Robbery leaves to assault. Assault leads to murder. You may be a petty thief now, but think of all the innocent lives I'm saving by ENDING YOU HERE!"  He screamed, trying to resist. Illya winded up her free foot and kicked the man square in the jaw, where it shattered with a satisfying crunch. "No. You can't die yet. No no no no no no." A smiled rolled over her face as she began to sing. The bloodied mouth of the man began to mend and heal, the wounded wrist repairing itself with the time. "You don't realize what you've done? You've become a criminal. You've become someone who ONLY DESERVES DEATH!"" She rapidly began smashing her left foot into the man's chest, singing a jarringly peaceful song to keep the man alive as she continued to pound away. "I think you've learned enough, scum." She finally said after fifteen seconds of the constant assault. Having said this, she stamped her heel into Silk's eye, where he roared in pain, before slightly twitching and giving way to his eternal rest.

Illya was suddenly exhausted as she collapsed her knees. She looked at the dripping blood on her hands, the crimson shade of blood dabbled against the white feckless hem of her Dies Irae skirt.

And she smiled.

All at once, the flooding noise came pouring in. She had been so wrapped up in her demand for vengeance that she had gone deaf to the world. She looked around, to see horrified villagers looking at the blood-soaked girl. Kenzo offered her a handkerchief as she gazed upon her work.

"What happened?" she said with a light despondency. She sprung up to her feet, back to her usual, cheery self. "I just made sure that that evildoer couldn't do any more evil! Yeah, I know the plan was to take him in alive, but that's not exactly foolproof, right?" She coyly stuck out her tongue. "If we kept him alive, then he could've kept on doing bad things, right? Well, we don't have to worry about that anymore! Pluuuuuss if you remember the job, it didn't say we had to keep him alive, right, Kenzo? I mean, it said 'if possible, keep them alive,' buuuut I'm using my rank to make the executive decision that he didn't deserve to live! After all, anyone who's in a dark guild must be purged!" As she said this, the light blue lacrima that had been implanted in lieu of an eye flickered red. "Although, I'm a biiiit sorry that you guys had to see some of that mess. I'd've liked if you all stayed inside while we were working, just for safety concerns, but I think I was a biiiit loud, too, so I'm a bit at fault, right? Oh well! Job's done! Oh, and I'll save you guys the trouble of having to clean up here."

She whistled as Yemaya flew down, her disappointed eyes glaring into Illya's soul. She grasped the corpse in her talons and fluttered off. Illya did not mind what Yemaya did with the corpse. Likely she would be going and burying it, knowing Yemaya, but whether the corpse was in the ground or at the bottom of the sea or in Yemaya's stomach made no matter to Illya. She waved good-bye to the villagers as she set out towards the boat, which was still there and the calming old voice of Maro sat talking to someone. Illya turned to Kenzo. "Ugh! The only thing that sucks about having to deal with dark guilds is the whole 'blood' thing. Why'd Dies Irae have to have white? They should know that blood doesn't wash well off of white! Well, at least from what I've seen and heard. I'm gonna really need to scrub for this one. So, Kenzo, do you have any recommendations for how to get this blood off of my skirt? I'm sure you can tell me on the ride back to Amber Island.

Calming waves rushed underneath the boat as Illya and Kenzo floated away, beginning to make their way back towards Amber Island and the home of Dies Irae. The rise and fall of the tide coincided with Illya's calm demeanor as she had a bucket of water nearby her, sitting upon the deck as she attempted to scrub away the blood from her heels. The rest of the clothing would likely have to wait, though she could always call for Yemaya to grab a change of clothes once more, since they had left from the job site. That was something meant for another time, however.  Right now, the primary focus was trying her hardest to wipe away the crimson-red blood on her lighter-red heels. She had already managed to wipe away what little residue there was on her legs, and now there was only the issue of the blood on the clothing.

She had been more focused on the blood removal while Kenzo came over and started to lecture her. "I honestly think you're giving a bit too much credit to the headsman, Kenzo," she stated in a matter-of-fact way. "Say they let him off with only a warning or...oh, I don't know...a few years of jail time. What's stopping him from going back and committing more crimes? What's stopping him from doing worse crimes? He was part of a Dark Guild. He was a villain, Kenzo." She sighed, setting her right heel down on the ground beside her, now that it was completely clean of the blood. She would wait on scrubbing off the left. Laundry was always difficult work, and stains were the worst to deal with. "I don't really think I acted out of line, though. Silk made the decision to join a Dark Guild. He made his decision to be met by the law a long time ago. He needed to know the consequences of his actions. If he just got a quick death, his soul would have been content with what his life became. If he didn't die, not only would his soul be content, but he'd've been alive to feel that contentment. A criminal isn't just going to change their ways, Kenzo."

She shrugged as she picked up the other shoe, stretching her legs from thigh to toe before she began to scrub again. "The job said 'dead or alive,' Kenzo," she continued to explain, tossing her rag into another nearby bucket as she set the shoe down beside her, going to grab another one from the third bucket nearest to Kenzo. "Plus, I wouldn't really worry about the whole 'no proof.' The townsfolk can always attest to Silk being taken care of, and, if nothing else, Yemaya can always scrounge up the body if they absolutely need proof. I'm guessing they've probably already sent a letter or something like that back to the guild, or at least it's on the way there now, saying that we've taken care of Silk. It's not really a problem, I don't think."

She grabbed a clean rag from the bucket, playfully hitting him on the nose with it. "And I don't really think there's much of a 'what happened.' It just...I dunno...seems natural to dislike villains. Though, I guess..." she mulled over her thoughts for a moment as she took a seat back at her cleaning station. "...ah whatever, I can at least share a bit. I don't really know all too much about it, but I don't think it's too much. Pretty much the first thing I remember is waking up in some basement three years back with nothing more than a note with a bunch of Jewels and a bit of information about who I am, and also Yemaya. I don't know much about it, but whoever gave me that note and money and Yemaya said that my parents were part of a dark guild and-"

Her words were suddenly halted by a rifling sensation of pain firing into the entire right side of her body. She collapsed on the spot, tipping off of her chair and barely managing to halt her fall with a panicked release of her left arm, which, too, shot up in pain, but to no extent even magnitudes similar to that of her entire right side of her body. Jolts of pain raced up and down her body, head to toe, without leaving a single inch of that half of her body stable. Swords of naught but hurt seemed to pierce into her neck and arm and leg, all of which had all of their sensations replaced by pain. Nothing could be felt from the right side of her body, each nerve ending being wracked by a thick layer of agony. Her ear was numb to the world as a screech worse than that of a thousand nails on a thousand chalkboards rang out. Even the scents in her right nostril became assaulted by a filling, nauseating stench of misery. Her trembling, now-reddened and slightly flashing eye, throbbed in torment as it wrested control from the rest of the body and left Illya's vision as a field of red-tinted hues with bars of nothingness streaked across haphazardly.

No! she thought. I...thought...I thought that I was done with this! I thought that-

Even her very thoughts became enveloped in the rapidly rising sensation of anguish, leaving her to have no choice but to succumb to the acceptance of the pain. This same sensation, though only lasting for half a minute, felt like an eternity to her, and when it finally had vanished, she found herself staring at the deck of the ship, short of breath. "Dangit! That's not supposed to..." she muttered to herself. She looked up. "S-sorry about that, Kenzo. That just kinda...happens sometimes."

She gave a weary, obviously pained, smile as the color in her eye receded to its normal state.