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>>3701485
And now, at last, you have come to the end of all things.

You walk through the ruins, across the endless black sands – the faint scuff of your boots, the hum of your hydraulics, the only sound in all of that vast silence. There is no hope of shade, in this perpetual twilight: the lurid glow of the moon (Or is that the sun?) lending the darkness shape and form.

There is no wind.

Now and again, a sound breathes through the black space – a sound that reminds you, almost, of distant winds or the crush of acid breakers against an ocean coast. But it is neither of those things, and if you stop – if you pause, for a moment, to consider – it recedes so quickly, you may have imagined it.

Daegal. Where is he?

In this place, time has no meaning. The only measure of it is your patient footfalls against the sterile, powdery sands, your Assault Shroud rippling in the wake of you motion. As you trudge onwards, threading your way between fallen towers and the wreckage of great machines, only your tracks mark your passage across the vast expanse.

Your optics do not adjust to the light. They merely present the world as it is, integrating light and shadow into a scorched-pale landscape, a surreal monochrome vision of stark and unwavering intensity.

You've grown stronger. The damage from your fight with VOIVOID – from the thing that ALEPH FUESIL had become – were deep and rending. But even those terrible wounds have sealed, little more than shallow gashes in the metal skin of your crimson armor, receding in the same way a smile slowly fades.

Where are you, Kazuya?

Only static comes over the Dirac channel. Your Argus Sensor is dead, unresponsive, on your left arm – the Hollow Sun's silver insignia registering no response. TERRORSIGHT has burned them out, reducing their input to the shallow hiss of white noise, like a blank cathode-ray tube boiling with electronic snow.

You've left the Gate's fractured half far behind, now. The vast shape's bulk still casts a slanting shadow across the sands, a perpetual monument to the inhuman effort of your odyssey. You've searched it, thoroughly – wending your way through the shattered hull, threading through archways and stanchions and the ruptured innards of the great construct, Lachryma leaving an oily black stain as it seeps away into the sands.

All of that, and Daegal was not there.

The other half of the Gate came down in pieces, huge chunks of hull and sections of ring burying themselves into the sand. The devastation would have been extraordinary – That is, if there was anything left to destroy.

VOIVOID's Locus Seeker rests in the palm of your hand, a tiny blade sealed within a sphere of diamond glass. It points, as always, towards you and at nothing else. It seems you won't be finding Kazuya that way.

(Continued)

>>3701487
And then you see it.

On a stretch of half-collapsed wall, pale and white – almost incongruous in its familiarity, amid the burned-out leviathans of alien machines...

Charcoal markings, formed into drawings.

The art is impressionistic, the angles deranged. Two figures, two boys, fleeing across a street strewn with rubble. Above them, crows – all the crows in the world – swarm, diving and attacking them. They are rendered with such stark malevolence – beaks open, claws reaching, wings spread like blades – that they could only have been drawn from vivid memory, their shapes fluid and overlapping, rendering them into a single primal terror.

Their eyes are oblongs of animal indifference, their talons cruelly hooked and curves, the murder diving down towards their prey in a single unbroken wave.

There are names scrawled at the bottom of the relief – little more than indecphirable scribbles, though that is no surprise. Meaning is the first thing to be eroded away, here.

Your gaze follows the image, as it flows into the next. The next tableau is just a little further, and has the same mesmeric intensity of the first. A pack of twisted shapes – powerful, hideous forms, with wide mouths full of canine teeth – surge forward, in pursuit of four figures rendered in a sketchy, almost impressionistic style.

There is an immediacy in the image, as one of the figures – one of the boys – turns back towards the approaching pack. There is a tautness to his form, an absolute focus in his eyes, a terrible awareness of what is to follow.

Of what must be done in order survive.

There's more.

The blind window-eyes of a corpse that was once a city.

A lunatic procession, burning forms capering and writhing as they drown in raw flame.

A weapon, firing into something unseen.

A wolf smile, sealed away in nightmare armor.

The last image is merely a symbol, something hacked and carved and scored into the hull of some ancient behemoth, white against the blistered black. It is the symbol you've seen – once – that is somehow both a mockery and a mirror of your own.

The White Joker's mark.

> FOREBODE activated.

(Continued)

>>3701508
You are already turning, even before the grating voice echoes hollowly through the ruins.

“Is it coming?”

OSSEOUS HIEROPHANT steps into the light. Narrow frame, long limbs – Damaged, too. One shoulder is exposed, gearwork clacking, pneumatic tubes wilting around the joint. The high-crested skull is marred by large convex dents, optics clicking in that single eye. The remaining pauldron is adorned with – of all things – a painting, an abstract of geometric shapes that glimmer with delicate hues.

It lists to the side, leaning on a knotted length of wood, a staff that seems almost as old as it is.

You can tell, at a glance, that deep and permanent damage has been done to this Player. Fragments of armor gleam against raw myomer, the rest stripped away – when that head turns to regard you, with a single dull-orange optic, you can see the scars that criss-cross the back of the metal skull.

Too deliberate for mere damage, then. Surgery.

But Hierophant stands tall. There is something measured, something almost noble, in his slow forward pacing. Something in his bearing, that tells of former greatness.

Right over the player's ravaged torso, a single undamaged plate of armor remains – it, too, has been marked with the symbol of a wide and fanged smile.

“I w-wait and wait, but i-it never c-omes.” His voice hitches oddly in the middle of words, sputtering through speech.

“I wait f-for it, but it n-never comes.”

[ ] “What are you waiting for?”
[ ] “Who are you?”
[ ] “Are you the artist?”
[ ] “How long have you been waiting?”
[ ] Free

YOU HAVE CONTROL

>>3701546
OP, what's our current damage? Do we have any parts we can start repairing with Microassembler? If so, the order of parts to repair is
Incom controller
Autoloader
Vitae Booster
Cooling systems

>Start reloading the revolvers until every single one has a full bullet count again.
>Send out the Incoms as vectors and have them start searching for Daegal
>"Who are you? The artist? I like your work."
>"Waiting for what? For how long?"
>"Why the surgery?"

>>3701564
https://pastebin.com/UCzAGmC0 Here's the Memory by the way.

>>3701564
(I'd say that you're fully recovered. Keep in mind that you can't actually see through the Incoms / Interceptors.)

>>3701568
Alright, but can they give us targeting information if they detect, say, something made of orichalcum?

>>3701571
(Unfortunately, your targeting sensors are down due to TERRORSIGHT. You're aiming solely by eye. However, sending out the Incoms to look for Daegal is a perfectly viable idea.)

>>3701579
Please do that then JQOP, along with the other suggestions

>>3701579
If we're at full HP then switch the crux to the Vitae Booster.

>>3701564
Dude, fucking hell. We are standing before another Player and you want us to reload our fucking guns?

Save that for after, when it won't be seen as a threat.

>[ ] Free
"That icon. You are one of the White Joker's people?"

>>3701589
>>3701602
>>3701579
Would we retain our Vitae Booster charge if we switched to the Cobalt Booster?
Its endlessly refilling energy supply is perfect for powering the incoms right now.

>>3701653
Lad you can reload guns and NOT point them at people. Not only that, this guy is a White Joker friendo. I want our guns reloaded *ASAP* considering what we could be facing.

>>3701655
Lets not take out Booster as we could be fighting WJ's buddy any other second.

>>3701564
>>3701602

> Start reloading the revolvers until every single one has a full bullet count again.

The Caesar is in your left holster, Axanael in your right – At some point in your wanderings, you've reloaded them both. The motions are almost automatic, now, feeding bullets into the cylinder, snapping it shut, the hammer ratcheting back with a patient click.

You could reach them in a heartbeat. But the time hasn't come. Not yet.

The low hum of gravimetric suspensors linger, as your INCOMs detach. They briefly orbit you, like pilot fish, before zipping away in ever-widening arcs.

Perhaps he'll see them. Perhaps they'll find him first.

> “Who are you? The artist? I like your work."

“They twist, you know?”

“They twist and t-they twist and they twist.”

Claw-like hands clutch that twisted length of wood, blade-tipped fingers sliding over the curves. HIEROPHANT'S immobile features express as much melancholy as they can, as a shudder runs through his form.

“Even n-now, they s-still...”

> "Waiting for what? For how long?"

“W-waiting...”

There is an indescribable longing in HIEROPHANT'S rasping voice.

“F-for the moment. For t-the time that's...”

HIEROPHANT spasms to life once more, takes a twitching, jerking step towards you.

“I r-remember,” he says, without ever looking away. “S-so much and so l-little. It's h-hard. The o-only t-thing I know for s-sure is that I use them. I paint and paint so I r-remember. Moments l-like this, I know h-how I am. Fading. N-not always there.”

The single optic glowers, the light within flickering.

“It's v-very frustrating. Frustrating.”

“Even w-when I remember, I f-forget what they mean.”

> "Why the surgery?"

The dull eye turns away, staring out into the infinite gulf.

“To t-take me with him.”

One hand uncoils from the staff, pointing. “O-out there. T-take...”

HIEROPHANT's hand lowers, slowly, words faltering. A deep, ticking sound in the bowed figures chest grows in magnitude, grinding, squealing, stuttering. Long black streaks, like tears, ooze from the joints of his armor.

> "That icon. You're one of the White Joker's people?"

In answer, HIEROPHANT bends his arm, grasping one finger of his hand, and twists. There is an audible snap of shearing metal, as the finger – torn loose – tumbles to the ground. He looks up at you again, and – finally – you see how deep and rending the damage is.

Fibre-bundles and plating have been stripped from HIEROPHANT's frame, but the real damage is to the memory banks of his electronic brain. At a guess, you estimate that nearly all of it has been deliberately excised – leaving just enough to retain consciousness.

Like a broken phone, with the last few message looping, eternally, through the ether.

(Continued)

>>3701666

“M-maybe that will bring it sooner. Maybe it likes to eat them.”

There's an edge like pleading in that last statement, as it stares at the fallen finger. For a moment, you think HIEROPHANT has fallen silent, for good – But then...

“There were t-thirteen of u-us, on the first day.”

Clearer, now. Stronger. There's something familiar about the words, as if Hierophant has spoken them aloud before – Telling himself the same story, over and over again.

It turns away, limping along the length of the surreal gallery, Hierophant's shadow angling across the mosaics. Somehow, the perspective seems to be subtly altered, as he staggers along, leaning on his staff.

“W-we swore. From t-thirteen, one. We k-knew, you see? Only o-one could be the White Joker. Only one...”

That mangled hand presses to that remaining panel of armor, as if cradling something infinitely precious. Perhaps Hierophant is speaking only to himself, now – For he minds you not at all. But there is something definite in his motions, retracing the same well-worn winding path...A path you'd never have spotted by yourself.

“It c-could have been. Me. Could have.”

Your footfalls are almost silent, compared to that lurching, limping gait.

“Others...s-stronger. But I loved her. I *loved* only h-her. We a-all did.”

Gears ratchet in Hierophant's neck, that head tilting to the side, righting itself.

“I l-loved...”

That's when you see the first body.

(Continued)

>>3701689

It is, of course, a Player's armor. Heavily augmented, a robust build laced with fluid-lines and power cables. Once, it must have been savagely weaponized, like all who made it this far.

Once.

Now, it is headless and hollowed-out, gored through autopsy and drilling. The methods are brutal but precise, telling of the harvest that followed.

Hierophant stares at it for a long time, remembering.

“Should h-have died. Finish. Finished i-it. Like the o-others.”

The orange light in his optic glows brighter. Banked from an ember, to a fitful glow.

“But I w-wanted to live. No m-matter what.”

“I wanted...”

Mechanisms grind, within Hierophant. There is a throb of power – like a ghostly whisper – building within that frame, a feeble echo of what once was and might have been.

“Should have...”

And you see that he learned the same lesson you did, too late: That survival, mere survival, is not enough.

[ ] Free

YOU HAVE CONTROL

>>3701689
>“W-we swore. From t-thirteen, one. We k-knew, you see? Only o-one could be the White Joker. Only one...”
Oh, christ. The White Joker is like that Chinese story where a number of poisonous creatures are stuffed in a pot, and the winner is the most poisonous of them all.

>>3701715
Fire Axanael.

>>3701721
What? No. Jesus anon, there's 13 of them because they were the old WJ's apostles. When the Marshall flooded the Black, the Black Cardinal was forced to flee into it and he got lost, his body left to rot so his 13 followers had to come after him. They spent their 100 years looking for him while we spent 100 just surviving and stubbornly looking for a way out. THey aren't Gu.

>>3701715
>Show him the Crux
"Mikogami once told me that 'I cannot give forgiveness, unless one asks for it - And, to tell the truth, there's very little for which people need to be forgiven. Absolution and penance...I have found, too often, that each is but a state of mind.' You shouldn't have died. In fact, you are here and now, right where you are meant to be."

"Did you ever talk about how you planned to bring Kotone back as the Black Joker? Did you have any ideas or plans?"

>>3701715
So, Naoya was one of thirteen zealots. One of them became the White, all of them believed in Kotone.
The surgery stuff reminds me a bit of the current White Joker. IIRC there've been passages mentioning his extreme precision.

So they basically made one of them the White Joker, then used surgery to cannibalize armor components in order to upgrade him?
I guess it was a compromise to allow the others to kinda follow Naoya and be able to leave the Black.


I wonder what he is waiting for.
For his death? To be collected by Naoya?

Maybe putting him out of his misery might be the best.

"What would you have finished?"

>>3701741
Don't shoot him yet. We still want to talk to him.

>>3701715
"Could you tell me the names of the other twelve?
Do you remember your real name?"

Maybe we can get a hint for Naoya's past player armor.

Hi, I just wanted to pop in to say I am extremely impressed by the longevity of this quest.

>>3701788
Suffering is best enjoyed in a draw-out fashion.

>>3701788
Stick around. New people are always great and fun to deal with.

>>3701786
This is a good idea.

>>3701741
>>3701781

Your hand hovers near the big iron, the one with the black-threaded mercury grips.

But not yet.

Not yet.

>>3701759
>>3701765

> "What would you have finished?"

“I...”

The light in his optic dims. There is a sense of rummaging, a sense of searching – a reaching for something that is no longer there.

“I d-don't know.”

> "Mikogami once told me that 'I cannot give forgiveness, unless one asks for it - And, to tell the truth, there's very little for which people need to be forgiven. Absolution and penance...I have found, too often, that each is but a state of mind.' You shouldn't have died. In fact, you are here and now, right where you are meant to be."
> "Did you ever talk about how you planned to bring Kotone back as the Black Joker? Did you have any ideas or plans?"

A strange, hacking sound echoes across the dunes, beneath the weird light of the moon. It is discordant, a grinding of metal-on-metal – then almost a sigh.

“I r-remember. T-thinking, planning...But i-it's gone. It's a-all gone.”

The dim light fluctuates, swells in strength.

“He took it. He has i-it now.”

Hands – One mangled and one whole – twitch against that gnarled staff, worn smooth by centuries, yet impossibly still in one piece. In a world that is all stone and metal, ash and dust, the faint glimmer of still-living wood is an alien sight indeed.

The Crux gleams, faintly, before you. It kindles something in Hierophant – Stiffly, as if only now remembering how to move, he straightens. You hear his spinal links ratchet, leeched of hydraulic fluid. That dull orange glow, like fading embers banked higher, seems to issue from fissures in his twisted form.

> "Could you tell me the names of the other twelve?
> “Do you remember your real name?"

Those shoulders lift in a creaking shrug.

“Not w-what I was.” That mangled hand, pressed to the dull, cracked orb of what might have been an Essence core. “P-part of me is here. The rest of me...E-elsewhere. On the other side.”

Hierophant's head swivels. There is a dusty, dry cunning – or the fading echoes of it – in that rasping voice.

“I can't leave. I w-was waiting. F-for something to happen, first.” He turns, slowly, traversing on tottering limbs. “Maybe y-you are it. Maybe t-this is what this part of m-me was waiting for.”

(Continued)

>>3701794
>>3701792
I would but then I would need to troll through a hundred+ threads worth of backstory to understand what is happening.

>>3701816

And, at last, the wind begins to pick up. The first breeze skims across the lone and level sands, whistling mournfully through the bones of fallen cathedrals and shattered machines.

“S-sometimes I still t-think there might be some way back. L-like a maze, a-and all I have to do is f-find the route through. B-become whole again.”

That orange-glowing eye flickers up at you.

Then – Slowly, wearily, as if it is inevitable:

“Will y-you fight me, J-Joker?”

Those hands, whole and mangled, twist the staff tighter, tighter, as if to snap it.

“Not f-for him. For m-myself.”

[ ] Free

YOU HAVE CONTROL

>>3701816
>>3701839
JQOP, are you saying Naoya operated on him to take his brain and organs? Did he literally harvest him for brain matter and spare parts?

>>3701856
Seems like he did.

>>3701839
"I'll fight you, if you want, but I'd rather you get out of here with me and my friend. Unlike you, I have a bit more on my side..."
Show him the Nihil Sphere. Take it out.

(Gentlemen, it's extremely late: I must turn in for now, but I'll continue at the first opportunity.)

>>3701969
Thanks for the run.

>>3701868

The shutters of the Helix Gauntlet iris open, to reveal the anti-radiance of the Nihl Sphere. Here, and only here, it glows like a violet star: It is a light that is palpable chiefly in how it makes everything around it less real.

A significance gathers, like a fever nightmare – it makes phantom nerves flare with a cold so deep it burns, a bone-deep ache racing through your arm.

Hierophant makes a low sound. A sound that merges a rasp and a sigh, a metal-on-metal scraping like the slipping of gears.

“The opener o-of the way...”

You feel it before you hear it – A pull. A throb. A craving, an unbearable longing.

Here on the precipice, where reality has worn thin, the Nihl Sphere cries out – a silent song – to its other half, to its twin beyond the veil. To Pazuzu's eye, a universe away.

The Eyes of Night, separated by the crimson ocean. Parallels and echoes, once again.

Beneath you, the world convulses. A tremor ripples through the landscape, a slow shudder like something stirring to life. Black sand twists and coils through the rising winds, as if – after eons of deep time – time is beginning to move once more.

> "I'll fight you, if you want, but I'd rather you get out of here with me and my friend. Unlike you, I have a bit more on my side..."

The grinding, scraping sound – A rasping laugh, you realize – judders from Hierophant's form. That battered helm twists to one side, then the next.

No.

Hierophant's mechanical face – what remains of it – is impossible to read. No emotions are truly capable of making their way through the metal. And yet, there is something there, in the dull glint of his optics. Some pathos, some empathy.

“O-only the Joker gets to l-leave.” There is a dread certainity in Hierophant's words, something that might almost be sympathy. “We k-knew, you s-see? I was h-his friend. He would h-have led me further. He would have taken me w-with him...”

“-Except I c-couldn't follow.”

Pistons and gears judder within Hierophant's form, as the Player – achingly, slowly – draws himself to his full height.

“One of u-us will die t-today,” he says. “I h-have searched for salvation, b-but instead I found t-this.”

The light in his optic flickers. Orange, to red. Embers, banked to a flame.

“B-but it will n-not be meaningless. I-it will not be a s-low collapse into d-dotage and madness.”

Acutators groan, as he shuffles forward – His unblinking gaze level.

“One of u-us will die f-for what we believe in – For legacy.”

“And the o-other will go on...alone.”

[ ] Free

YOU HAVE CONTROL

>>3703223
>*Nod*

There's nothing more to say.

>Draw Noctourne and unload It at Heirophant
>Aim Anaxel and fire when we're sure we have the shot
>Create both bandoliers If they aren't ready now
>Use EXEC Barrier In case of any codebursts
>Boost our Interceptors and set two of them to defend us and three to attack In sword mode

Let's probe him for the first round to see what he does, assuming he doesn't die outright from the first set of shots.

>>3703223
>>3703626
Our interceptors are still on a mission.
Agree with using the revolvers. Use this sequence of events to gauge his fighting style.

>>3703626
>>3703658

A warping blur, at your left holster – schematic lines sketching themselves into existence, like ink on parchment...

Thought becomes deed. You draw, and NOCTURNE is in your hand – the sleek black revolver rising, dead suns locked away within the core of each bullet. You have AXANAEL in your grip, at the ready-

But NOCTURNE fires first. A needle-thin beam of anti-light sears across the distance, a coruscating violet-threaded line of annihilation – the weapon makes a characteristic sigh-moan as it discharges, like the last breath of air from a dead man's lungs.

-Beneath you-

Instinct takes over. The Tempest Scrander roars to life, and you leap as the ground erupts. Red particles fume from your jump pack's nozzles, hurling you skyward with an effort as blunt as a grunt of pain-

Beneath you, the ground erupts. A great plume of black sand geysers upwards, as a hand – a titanic, skeletal hand, like something cut from a titan's rotted corpse – bursts from the ground. It looks less like bone and more like grey stone, like something throughly petrified by the turning of centuries – But there is tremendous force in the fleshless fist, great talons slicing the air as they shear towards you.

Each one is fully as long as you are tall. You twist, jinking hard to evade as the mass of petrified bone whips past you – You can hear the whoosh of displaced air, as a burst of thrust sends you spiralling upwards, between phalanges; they miss you by less than an meter, sand showering down from those scythe-tipped claws. They move with ponderous unstoppability, with an inexorable, implacable force-

A second hand has thrust Hierophant's ravaged form high, fingers curled in a petrified cage around the palm. His form is a mere blot amid all the vastness, the great column of stone rising, rising, almost faster than your Scrander can carry you – there is a massive bite sheared out of the stone, just beneath the wrist, where NOCTURNE's blast connected. Grey sand pours from the wound, lost amid the black motes that pour down the emerging limbs, with a waterfall's thunderous roar.

Each arm is already a hundred meters tall, and still ascending. The ground shakes, as the grasping hand slams into the earth with all the force of an artillery barrage – Clouds of sands gusting outwards on all sides...

But it doesn't stop there. It grasps, claws biting like pitons into the charred shape of some fallen hulk – part of a drilling rig, perhaps – and pulls. Quakes ripple through the earth, as you hear the screech of tormented metal-

It's pulling it up. It's wrenching it free, the way a rioter rips a flagstone from the ground.

(Continued)

>>3703766

You bank, hard. The first line of fire sear through the air, as EXEC_BARRIER's tessellated hexagons shimmer across the Sinistral – for the first time since your battle with VOIVOID, the hard-light field deploys, buttressed by the Codeburst as raw energies slash into it.

Hierophant, immobile, leans on his staff – the platform moving with him, a pinprick of indescribable crimson brightness hovering above the twisted wood. The arc of fire slashes forth from it, tracking you as you dip and weave to evade – but then a second winks into existence. A third. You hear the shrill shriek of the rising winds-

A second line of flame shears towards you, parallel to the first – never intersecting. The third blast is simply a powerful linear distortion, a cutting line blurred to invisibility as it sweeps through the empty air like a flashlight of annihilation. You can see the first vines – threaded with metal – unfurling from the sliver of wood he clutches, burying themselves into the lurching stone at his clawed feet; that single orange eye unblinking, as it rotates to follow you.

The iron mechanisms of your Aegis amulet gleam dully against your cuirass, stirring to life – but as streamers of flame whip away from your form, there's no response. He's using a Codeburst, certainly – Except it's the source of the attack, instead of targeting you directly. Unusual.

You race ahead of the rippling line of severing air, heat-distortion making reality wobble like a mirage in the wake of flames. He hasn't been able to hit you, not yet -

HP: 176.0%
VITAE BOOSTER: 142%
ASSAULT SHROUD: 138%
METER: 18%
ENCROACHMENT: 9%
REVOLVERS: CAESAR (6/6) / PEACEMAKER (6/6) / AXANAEL (6/6) / NOCTURNE (5 / 6)
CARTRIDGES: N/A

CRUX: VITAE BOOSTER

YOU HAVE CONTROL

>>3703790
(To clarify, the skeletal hands are massive constructs, and hideously strong. But they're slow, as you'd expect anything that size to be. HIEROPHANT is sheltering on one, and the other is attacking you.)

>>3703790

>Photonic Mantle - On
>Photonic HALO - Create
>Fire the Noctorune at the damaged part of the hand HEIROPHANT Is using as a platform, break It. Fire AXANEL Into the hand/cage at HEIROPHANT direcly
>Fire the Photonic HALO to convert the other hand and/or the rig Into dust before It can be thrown
>Exec BARRIER remains on
>Crux - BOOSTER

Did Exec BARRIER have an effect there? It seemed like while It didn't prevent It due to It's nature It was unclear If It lessened the damage at all.

>>3703839
(You basically blocked the attack completely.)

>>3703790
>Vitae Boosted Chain Mine at the one carrying Osseus
>Fire some concussion missiles at both arms
>Disrupt his staff
>photonic mantle

>>3703223
Fuck... even this guy is saying that only we can leave. We still owe it to Kazuya to try. If we have to sacrifice the Nihil Sphere and Cybele's bracelet for it I'm all for it.

>>3703839
>>3704056

Crimson light blazes – It crackles around you, like an empyrean mantle. The photonic light of your scarf flutters in your wake, like a banner; DESPERADO snaps as it unfurls, shedding fragments of energy that splinter and flaw with a sound like smashing ice.

As the halo device materalizes, rising over your helm like a hood, an alien radiance flickers. Flashes of your internal structure, of your bones, can be seen through your armor, like sporadic X-rays. Vapor streams from your limbs, cising sparks of colorless lightning leaping from the rivets and joins of your cuirass, gathering around your optic array-

Circles of energy radiate from NOCTURNE's barrel, an instant before the main beam ignites. The ray slices across the distance, and stabs deep into the petrified stone of Hierophant's construct. Half a tonne of stone sifts away, in a lightless flash of ash and streaming grey sand – it lurches, tilting to the side, a deep, primal tremor running through the tower's span. More stone tumbles away with an avalanche roar, like icebergs calving from a glacier.

Hierophant fires back. The rippling howl of superheated air, focused into a cutting beam – two parallel streams of thermic energy, turning green and then blue-white as he feeds the attack with everything he has left. His clawed fingers gouge into the living wood of his cane, the triparite assault lancing towards you as you dip and weave to avoid them, a huge first of stone rising up behind you...

And the air fills with flying metal.

The first hulk – Almost perfectly intact, apart from trailing treads – hurtles towards you, tumbling end-over-end. Your Abruption Jets punch into your spine, wrenching you unmercifully into an evasive vector – Your intertial damper straining, as grit and micro-debris spatters off your armor like hail. The burned-out vehicle smashes into a half-collapsed tower and topples it, disintegrating in a rain of torn plate and assemblies, shedding huge chunks of itself as components rain down.

It's not enough. It's nowhere near enough.

Your lifters cut in to arrest your plummet, as you twist round to face the titanic hand, empty now. It reaches for you, the scale so vast as to be almost surreal – there is a sound of grinding stone, like a landslip, like a mountain forced into lurching life.

Corospant flickers around you, and the Photonic Halo fires, just once.

There is no recoil. It is nothing like a conventional weapon at all.

A vast, expanding force detonates in the skies. False thunder shrieks, as blinding light blooms. The static discharge is enormous, as it saws through the dark – For an instant, you see the grasping hand writhe, as if trying to escape. In truth, it is merely stone shifting and jolting, as the disruption charge hammers it, turning the ossified column into something that simply cannot exist under local physics.

And, without any warning at all, the hand explodes.

(Continued)

>>3704122

There is a cudgelling boom, the rush of a shockwave. Debris – Ash, sand and fist-sized chunks of stone – rain down painfully, like the aftermath of a nuclear eyeblink. Mineral dust fills the air with a churning haze, clearing to reveal – faintly – the ragged hole blasted in the construct's palm. Utterly shorn through, pillar-sized fingers topple down to the bleak landscape below, like the plosive whoof of bomb-blasts.

You bank towards where Hierophant stands, lofting higher on wings of jetair and flame. Red particles stream from the Tempest Scrander's thrusters, as you accelerate towards him. The speed of your passage cuts a powerful linear distortion through the expanding dust-cloud, as he raises his staff in a gesture of warding-

Tiny glyphs swarm across your field of vision. Code-chains and algorithms, coalescing and calculating, solving the paradox.

Osseous Hierophant's stave detonates like a short-fused grenade.

The sound is a brittle bang, a spray of wood chips and splinters. It takes his hand with it, all the way to the elbow – shards punch into exposed myomer fibre-bundles, coolant weeping from the wounds in sluggish, viscous trails. The brilliant, lethal points of light around him wink out, as he stares down at the bare metal of his exposed bones.

Perhaps he knows what's coming.

You raise AXANAEL, in a unwavering hand. Hierophant is a shrunken, defeated figure, his shoulders slack, his remaining arm down. Despite everything else – Curiously, amid all the ruin – two things remain pristine; the landscape etched onto his pauldron, and the grinning symbol above his heart.

The big iron flashes, and barks just once. There is a brief flash of discharge.

Hierophant's head and shoulders – everything about his waist – vanishes in an abrupt impact. What remains of him snaps back off his perch, stone grinding as the unstoppable round pulverizes and crushes through the weakened platform. Rubble and massive fragments slide off into the gulf, vast chunks of stone slithering down as all animation leaves those great, petrified hands.

The noise of the tumult is as overwhelming as it is brief, as you hover above the churning haze of dust and black sand.

Gone, just like that. An eternity, ended in an instant.

(Continued)

>>3704148
Oh, the absolute joy I felt from reading what the Axanael just did Is just Incredible.

>>3704154
really? i thought it was kind of sad.

we shoukd give Kazuya the helix gauntlet and nihl sohere so he can supercharge them, and the orb so he can follow us. we use full bore to open the way so all he has to do is use nihl to stabilize and follow.

should be easier...

>>3704148
You wonder, distantly, if this was the end he was hoping for.

The view from above shows the extraordinary damage that has been done to the already-blasted land, in that brief, lethal exchange. The great skeletal hands have smashed apart everything in the way, in their singular, all-consuming drive to shelter Hierophant and to reach you – the ruins below look like a child's discarded toys. Great fissures spiderweb across the bleak earth, as the first faint glimmers of light catch your eye.

Your Incoms ascend through the vast palls of dust, clustered together like the points of a star. The blue light of their gravimetric suspensors is like a distant flare, hovering above the mangled, truncated wreck of what might once have been a ship. Wretched black fumes boil out of its innards, coiling upwards towards the sky.

Their simple hunter-seeker algorithms have found something.

[ ] Free

YOU HAVE CONTROL

>>3704167
Quick, to the source.

>>3704178
>>3704167

This, but load our guns. Load our Cestus with a couple of Silver cartridges.

>>3704167
Go to them

>>3704179
And since the structure might explode, we'd want to activate Anathema, just in case it blows, and throw Fortress Mode on the person that's in the wreckage, unless it's for example Voivod or something.

>>3704178
>>3704179
>>3704180
>>3704181

You descend through the roiling clouds of smoke and ash, the wind whipping in your wake. The backwash of your Scrander churns the sand around your landing zone into a frenzy, abrading your armor – leaving bright, silvery scars – as you land, gravel crunching beneath your boots.

Your Interceptors snap back into place, locking themselves into the charging racks at your spined shoulders and the small of your back. The cylinder block of your Cestus cycles, silver cartridges trickling into the chambers as frost fumes around the fist-weapon.

And then you see it. The leviathan's half-toppled shape presses down on a dull half-sphere of condensed nanomaterial, pinning it securely in place. Tonnes of metal, all jagged beams and shorted-out power lines, pressing down onto that tiny, unyielding shape, barely visible from where it lies buried in the sands. It is dusted with black powder, the low wind shivering through the wreck – brushing the fine, sterile sand into eddying gones, flicking like foam off the outcroppings of rock and metal.

All of that weight, in one place. Oily girders and riveted black metal and pipes, crushing it like an insect beneath a boot.

You turn AXANAEL's cylinder, snapping the revolver shut as the bullet slides into place. A distortion ripples around you, like a haze – You walk through the forest of girders and jagged spikes of shorn-off struts, striding through them without breaking them.

It's easy if you try. It's almost as if VOIVOID's power was made for you to use.

Kazuya? Are you there?

There's only one way to find out.

You reach out. The industrial talons of the Crisis Arm clamp down on the nearest girder, as you firm your grip – the zero-point field expanding, in a wave of rippling distortion. It lashes out, spreading tendrils and filaments of itself across the hull, metal creaking and groaning at the interaction.

And then, with a single effort that sends molten strength pulsing through your limbs, that makes the Vitae Booster flare in your torso, you wrench it aside.

There is a deep, rending shriek. Ancient, tarnished black steel crumples inwards on itself. There is a terrible screech as soot-mouth stacks vent dark fumes, the nozzles twisting out of shape – you can't feel it, but the temperature begins to rise, the cavern of metal revealing the damage-pocked nanomaterial of the sphere.

It crumbles beneath your touch, dispelled at last. Borne on friendly winds, it peels away in twisting motes, drawn inexorably to your Assault Shroud like iron filling to a magnet.

(Continued)

File: joker daegal.jpg (649 KB, 1087x2000)

649 KB JPG

>>3704185

Daegal lies beneath it, pinned like an insect beneath the collector's needle – the plinth of the Gate slanting across his form, his armored spine forced into an arch from the wedge of metal beneath. You can see where his right arm was locked in place, trapped beneath his own form – the sphere's lower half must have ruptured on impact, allowing the sand to pour in.

His head tilts downwards, one cracked lens pushed up against the ground, locked in that awkward position. There's only the faintest trace of light in the damaged optic, his body stiff, unresponsive – Rigid, as if in spinal lock.

There is a crackle. A faint, hoarse crackle, lower than a whisper.

"...Is this a dream?"

[ ] Drag him clear.
[ ] "No. Not for a long time."
[ ] “Time to wake up, Kaz.”
[ ] “...Are you all right?”
[ ] “-How long were you down there?”
[ ] “...Can you hear me?”
[ ] "C'mon, up you get. You need to walk it off."
[ ] Free

YOU HAVE CONTROL

>>3704192
>[ ] Drag him clear.
>[ ] “-How long were you down there?”

>>3704192
>[x] "No. Not for a long time."
>[x] “...Are you all right?”
>[x] "C'mon, up you get. You need to walk it off."

We ought to clear the debris from him before we move him.

>>3704192
>"Can you here me?"
>"How's your condition?"
>Use Anathema to pick him up and pull him out by himself. Then set the Crux to Booster.

>>3704192
Please tell me that you can still see

>>3704194
>>3704196

> [X] "No. Not for a long time."

“Thank-”

A hesitation, as if he's trying to remember the words.

“...God,” Daegal rasps out. “Thank God. I thought – I thought it was for ever. I thought...Though it'd never end-”

> [X] Drag him clear.

Your Crisis Arm locks around the plinth, and you pull. Iron bends, rivets tearing out as cables snap – You have just enough purchase to firm your grip on Daegal's gorget, as you drag him free. His limbs are still rigid, his gleaming plate scraping against the black sands with a hiss, shreds of his Mirage Shroud coiling away as it is abraded.

> [X] “-How long were you down there?”
> [X] “...Are you all right?”

“I...I don't know,” Daegal manages, still in that broken whisper. Blue light glows in his optics, wavering, spidery.

“I couldn't move. I couldn't move.” His fingertips trail in the sand, digging long furrows. If he could, he would be shaking.

“Couldn't get free. Couldn't move. I tried to reach you over the channel, but...”

The low clunk of his autoloader, cycling within him. “I screamed and screamed, until – Until I couldn't.”

“It felt – It felt like days, maybe. Weeks. I tried to get free, but it just kept crushing me *more*-” Something, some echo of desperation, haunts Daegal's affectless voice.

You can see where the Dirac-hub bulge on his collar has been crushed – or just damaged? - preventing him from shouting from help. Or perhaps it was working all along, and he'd been shouting across the channel – not knowing that you couldn't hear him – until he lost the strength to scream.

If you hadn't found him-

You decide not to mention it. Some things aren't worth speculating about.

>>3704199
> [X] "C'mon, up you get. You need to walk it off."

The throb of the Crux – a pulse, steady and just on the edge of awareness – shifts, subtly. Red light swells within your Vitae Booster, heat threading through your limbs.

“Trying,” Daegal grits out. “Just...give me a moment-”

(Continued)

>>3704205

His gauntlet closes around your arm, vicing tight. Gears mesh, as – slowly, haltingly – Daegal levers himself to his feet, supporting himself on you. He totters forward, in a blind stagger – Hunched, almost sclerotic as he sways upright, internal gyros spooling as his lurching walk straightens out.

“Why...don't I feel any different?” he wonders aloud. “It's been hours – days – and I *remember*, but it's like none of it happened-”

His voice wavers, dopplering in and out. He doesn't sound too steady.

But there's only one direction left to go, and the end isn't far away.

For long, interminable moments, there is nothing left to say. Just effort, trudging forward – One step after another, meandering over the dark sands. Towards the cliff that overlooks the chasm.

Towards the hole in the fabric of all things.

“We're...almost there, aren't we?”

There's something in Daegal's voice, that might be hope.

“This is where we want to be, right? Where we've been trying to get to? This is what we were looking for, isn't it?”

The broken causeway – the bones of the mountain that once was. If you look, you can perceive patterns in the darkness, as if the gulf is shrouded in mist – there is a sound right on the edge of perception, as if you could expect to hear a monstrous roaring cataract below.

“...This is it?”

Daegal goes very still, as a handful of pebbles – just tiny flecks of stone – trickle off the edge, plunging down into the endless drop. There's something mesmeric about the chasm, something about the perilous span of rotting black stone that turns the mind towards the plunge.

“What now, Joker?” Daegal say, halting at the precipice.

“...What now?”

(Continued)

>>3704215
>“What now, Joker?” Daegal say, halting at the precipice.

>“...What now?”

Now I will do what I do best: break the rules by not understanding them.

>>3704215

A tremor runs through your right arm, like palsy. The shutters of the Helix Gauntlet can no longer hold back the Nihl Sphere's light; power boils down the snaking nest of cables in violet jags.

It glows. It glows like a star.

It glows like the only light that has any meaning, in this place.

It wasn't like this, before. Before, this place was swarming with vivid, hateful life. Before, all that lay before you was the ascent and the will to reach it. To push through, no matter what.

But before, you were here alone.

The White Joker must have come this way, too. Long after you did.

What now?

You'll have to jump. It's the only way.

You can feel the Nihl Sphere's chill radiating through your arm, a cold so all-consuming, so total, it reaches right to the very marrow. To your soul. It feels like the tips of your fingers – if you had fingers – are slowly, gradually turning black.

It wants to be used. It wants to return.

You've never learned how to use it. But you know, instinctively, that you can. That it was made for this, to fling you across the gulf between worlds.

To pierce the Shroud, one final time.

Except – Your control's an imperfect thing. Faltering, uncertain. You have no way to master it, no way to interface with the Sphere, other than the mechanism of the Helix Gauntlet – which was not made for this.

No way – Except one.

You remember Pazuzu's Nihl Eye, the lightless orb set side-by-side with the gleaming, rotating mechanism of the optic set in his skull. But something whispers, deep within you, of the price you might pay-

A price that might be forever.

But there's more.

You remember VOIVOID's words, then OSSEOUS HIEROPHANT'S. How only the Red – the White – Joker can leave this place.

And you wonder, not for the first time: Is that true?

The Eye of Night might take you home. But what about Kazuya? Can he come with you?

Can you afford to leave him behind?

You remember-

-the black smear of where Kazuya's eyes once were. The ruin of his torso, the deep, rending wound in his gut – the glimpses of hard red muscle, the webbed bulge of gut. And the stench you can only imagine, his legs broken and twisted beneath him-

Here, in the Underworld, Daegal is whole and alive. But will he be, once he leaves?

You don't know. You don't know.

(Continued)

(There's an explanatory post to follow after this one.)

>>3704228

He might be remade, hale and unbroken. But he might not.

If you return – If you take him with you – there might not be enough of him left to live.

Except-

You can't imagine what he would do, roaming the endless plains of silence, becoming strange, becoming mad like the others. Never sleeping, never resting, always dreaming of – ceaselessly craving – the time when he was alive.

But maybe half a life – a purgatorial existence – is better than no life at all.

Can you make the decision for him? Should you? He might not understand what he's choosing, even now. He might not be able to comprehend what it means.

The echo of his words:

What now?

The moment, heavy with expectation.

[ ] “We jump.”
[ ] Free

YOU HAVE CONTROL

>>3704231
Tell him the full truth, but we're attempting the jump. Use whatever we have to make the jump. Nihil supported by Cybele's bracelet. Fortress mode around us so we don't drift apart. Heck check if he can't super charge our nihil eye or the gauntlet to fine tune control. I refuse to go without trying. We're not going to just leave him rot here.

>>3704231

(Gentlemen, I'm going to lay the cards on the table, and explain – OOC – exactly what is about to transpire.

You have managed to retain possession of the Nihl Sphere over the course of your journey through the Underworld, which is commendable. As such, you have the power to pierce the Shroud, and attempt to return. You're certain – from experience – that the Red Joker's armor will protect you, through the descent: You're almost assured to survive it.

You don't know, however, whether Daegal can. It's possible that his armor won't be able to survive the passage through the Shroud: When you entered the Underworld, it was via Pazuzu's machine, which was meant to effect such a transition.

Kazuya was mortally wounded back in Episode 123, and he's been in his Player form since then. Like you, he hasn't reverted back at any point. You don't know whether he'll be healed, or whether he'll remain fatally wounded when you return to the Real.

An alternative is to leave him in the Underworld, with all the attendant consequences that might result.

At present, your (rudimentary) control of the Nihl Sphere is mainly facilitated by your Helix Gauntlet. However, you know that you could improve your control via Pazuzu's method i.e. Removing an optic sensor in order to implant the Nihl Sphere. Bear in mind, however, that you're instinctively aware that this will have consequences.

It's up to you how much you want to tell him.

This is a major decision.)

>>3704239
This. Tell him everything we reasonably can, make the preparations, and jump.

>>3704239
Oh and grab the guy before he tries to be a hero and just pushes us off.

>>3704231
>[x] “We jump.”

Gotta have faith otherwise all this was for nothing.

Also maybe leave this vote up for a while so more people can cast their vote. You are outside your normal running hours.

>>3704244
(Sure. I'll leave it up for an hour or so.)

>>3704240
What about the Joker's Memory?

>>3704255
(It's currently in your Beam Magnum. It's an option, but the Nihl Sphere has a significantly better chance in all meaningful ways.)

>>3704256
This might be a dumb question, but if say we implant the Nihil sphere, Could we house either the Cobalt Booster, Cybele's bracelet or the Joker's Memory in the Helix gauntlet? If so could we use that to assist our passage through the shroud in any way?

>>3704231
Either way, it's better if we take Kazuya with us. If we just leave him here, then he will almost certainly go mad or commit suicide (if that's even possible considering his armor).

Even if we entertain the possibility of stealing Pazuzu's Nihl sphere and trying to come back here to recover Daegal, the difference in time dilation will mean that even one day in the Real will be a century of waiting for him.

>>3704240
Op i vote for tell daegal everything . If he chooses to go back and potentially die, then we implant the sphere and take him with us

>>3704240
Will using the Nihl sphere kill us? If not, put it in. I don't mind losing an eye.

"Look. Kazuya, I'm going to try that honesty thing you kept talking about. This is it. The path to the Red and from there, home. The Nihil Sphere is made to pierce through veils and to go from one realm to another. Now I know that the Red Joker armor can survive the passage but I don't know if you can; it's likely, because the old Red Joker said I'd need you but I *can't* be certain. And, if you do go back to the Red, you have your body still. I don't know what condition it's in. As long as you stay here, you'll *live*. I could even try and come back for you... But it might ve centuries.

So, here's our choice. Do you want to jump and risk it or stay? I won't force you, either way. I can even try putting the sphere in my eye... But I'll lose an eye in the real. I don't mind that, not at all. I just want you to understand what's about to happen.

So, what's it gonna be Kaz? Try and fly or wait for me?"

If there's a tie, put me down for jumping.

>>3704267
I agree. Leaving him here is barely an option. In a way, this place is worse than death. Even if we can come back for him, how far gone will he be?

If he chooses not to come with us, we should see if we can find the White joker and and drag him back here and transfer the Armour to Degal, give him the Locus Seeker so when we return for him he can find us.

>>3704240
Kazuya, we have two options.
Either I tear out my eye and secure the jump this way or Ieave you here, steal Pazuzu's other eye and come back to get you.
The second option would take days, which means hundreds of years down here.

I think we both know what the better option is. You have seen voivoid.

Could we not give daegal the eye , maybe he can enhance it and not require an implant like us

>>3704293
Unlikely. It's ours. He doesn't have a Helix Gauntlet either; he'd still have to lose his eye.

>>3704294
>He doesn't have a Helix Gauntlet either
About that:

>There, on the right arm - Blue light fuming from the joints - is the unmistakable mark of the Helix Gauntlet. The ruby icon on his breastplate, glowing with flickering inner radiance...The fires of the Cobalt Booster, refined for a singular host's use.

>>3704294
He was able to interact with the gate without the memory if.only for a moment it's worth checking to see if daegal can interact with the nihil eye the same way

(Gentlemen: Locking in. You've decided to tell him everything you know, then make the jump without removing an eye?)

>>3704307
This, OP. Self-mutilation can wait for later.

>>3704307
I'd say with removing an eye, but it really depends on what everyone else says.

>>3704307
First op,
>we want to know what daegal decision is does he want to stay or go.
>if he chooses to go Next we want to try and give daegal the eye to see if he can enhance it so we don't have to give up an eye
>If that fails, we implant the eye and make the jump.and try to bring daegal with us

We have to do everything we can to bring daegal.with us. If we want that sweet hollow sun power up

>>3704314
We've given everything to bring him this far, we're not leaving him now. If we can leave without sacrificing an eye, even better.

>>3704311
Seconded. Maybe he can interface with our armor.
We are likely needed for our attunement with the nihl.

>>3704307
I'm fine with losing the eye if we have no better alternatives. We'd probably end up doing that eventually anyway, considering we'll need both Nihl's to save Hecate and (probably) deal with the Black Joker.

>>3704307
Remove our eye

>>3704239
>>3704242
>>3704244
>>3704267
>>3704270
>>3704275
>>3704290
>>3704278
>>3704311
>>3704318
>>3704320

And so the moment of decision has come at last.

Kazuya is silent, for a long, damned moment. Unspeaking, he might almost be a gilded statue – Unmoving, so utterly lost in thought it leaves no room for speech.

And at last, he turns. He looks back, at the endless dunes – then down, to the endless fall that awaits. In one direction, eternity: In the other, death.

But there's a chance-

White noise blurs from his speakers, as he exhales a breath he does not need. An inner light fluctuates within his optics, the wan light issuing from the joins of his armor.

“I don't know.”

Kazuya looks down at one gleaming gauntlet, his fingers curling, slowly, into a fist. There is a mute agony in the gesture, stark indecision in every line of his being.

“I...Joker – Anon...I don't know. I'm...Fuck, I'm afraid. Going back to *that* - I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I can face it-”

“...I don't know if I ever could.”

A silence descends, softer than splinters.

Then-

“You said – Time works differently, here. That a day there is a century here-”

Yes.

He's thinking, now. Turning it over and over in his head-

“Even if you come back,” Daegal says, low. “-It could be thousands of years. More.”

Yes.

His boots scuff against the black rock – He doesn't pace, doesn't prowl the narrow span, but for a moment it seems like he might.

No matter how you might try, you would never reach him in time.

“I thought-” Kazuya says, almost to himself. “I thought, at first...It'd be – be like an adventure. Just...just something to tell Natsumi, something to tell Akira. You know, before.”

There's a catch to his voice, now.

“-Nobody said it'd be like this.”

Yes.

You would make it different, if you could.

“No. No, not that. It's okay. I just...”

For a moment, you think he might fall silent – But he forges on.

“I know – I know there aren't any guarantees. I know it could be the end, over there-”

His arm comes up. It scrapes against the crusher of his helmet, metal-on-metal.

“But maybe that's all I get. Just an ending, that's all I want now. An end to this...This place. It's – fuck. I may never sleep again, you know that? This – this might be all I ever get to see. The last thing I ever get to see.”

“I just...I just keep thinking, it's going to be over. Finished. Done with. But there's always more, and it's always worse-”

Daegal raises his head. Slowly, with a hum of servoes.

“Anything's better than this. Anything's better than going on like this – forever.”

(Continued)

>>3704307
the Nihl sphere isnt ours, it belongs to Hecate. lets not replay EVERY part of the fucking play.

kaz could help us by interfacing with the helix gauntlet

>>3704336
Don't take out the god damn eye. Have you ever tried to fight with ONE EYE? You have no depth perception! OP, put it to a final vote before we make the leap.

Remember that interfacing with the Eye is a FUCKING BAD THING. It drove Montague insane!

>>3704365
We took out the Athame and found the axe already. Play is broke.

However, considering how we'll probably need to use the eye to resist Pazzy's and to find/bring back Hecate, it makes more sense to me to put it in now while we can ALSO help Daegal.

>>3704368
>You have no depth perception!
Not really an issue for cameras. Remember, we have sensors, not actual eyes.

>>3704348

Forever has a power of its own. The word seems to echo, all the way down – across the detritus of deep time, over the towers and blasted lands and the city of doubled shadow.

And for a moment, you think of acid breakers beating against the surf, under the endless night.

“We have to try it. I have to – No matter what.”

He says it as if the words will make it a truth. Daegal's limbs are so rigid they might shatter – You can see the spindle lock, to stop them from trembling.

The Helix Gauntlet's complex mechanisms rotate, as you remove the Nihl Sphere from the socket. The size is never quite the same – here and now, it seems smaller than a marble, tiny against the palm of your gauntlet. Daegal's gaze goes to it, and you see the hope – and puzzlement – in his stance-

He reaches out, tentatively – Never quite touching it, as he says what you've been dreading.

“What do I...?”

In the end, it's up to you.

[ ] Free

YOU HAVE CONTROL

>>3704378
>>3704378
and our sensors are all borked we're relying only on visual input now.

>>3704368
>>3704378
(Gentlemen, my apologies: It's extremely late, and it's unlikely that I'll be able to get the next post - which is extremely long - up in time, but I'll strive to do so at the first opportunity.)

(To be absolutely clear, I confirm that replacing an optic with the Nihl Eye will negatively affect your accuracy and combat ability. It does not provide a substitute to conventional vision.)

>>3704380
>>3704382
Don't remove it, and jump. There is absolutely no reason to mangle ourselves permanently for a better chance. If we make it, we'll be permanently penalized for no reason.

The most important part of a fight is hitting things.

>>3704379
> This sphere can take us home but extracts a price, Daegal I am.willing to pay it, I owe you that much. But first I want to see if you can interface with it like the you did with the gate.

>>3704384
And leave daegal and the hollow sun upgrade behind. You outta your mind. We have the auspex and argus sensor to compensate for one eye

>>3704384
>If we make it, we'll be permanently penalized for no reason.
And if we don't, then it's game over for us and Kazuya because we were afraid of the negative consequences.

Even if we get severely penalized, direct interfacing with the Nihl Sphere should carry its own benefits and we will likely go down this path anyway if we get Pazuzu's half. We're also going back to the Real soon, so our other sensors will be back by the time of the next combat encounter.

We've also gotten a shitload of power-ups recently. We can deal with being penalized some.

>>3704389
Besides, we could look into getting the Nihil Sphere swapped with another optic. Imago still has a relic eye. If we can find him, perhaps we can get it from him.He'll likely not do it for free though.

>>3704382
In case we get the Nihl eye transplant: Any chance we can pull the same trick as with the Midas Arm back in the day and use part of the Assault Shroud to cover up the Sphere like an eyepatch. Give our Pazzy a nasty surprise when the time comes.

>>3704390
We are GUARANTEED to survive. OP literally said we have done this before. The only guy actually at risk is Kazuya.

>>3704382
Fucking hell.

We need our vision, but the only people we owe anything won't depend on the outcome of any further fights.
Replacing our optics will directly impact our chance of saving one of the few people we would do anything for. So we sure as fuck are gonna do it.
Yes, Mio and the Black Joker and shit are things that we need combat ability for, but Kazuya has a much higher precedence on our hierarchy of needs. How could we not do everything in our power to save him?

I do have one question, though. Replacing *one* optic? I thought we only had the one.

>>3704379
>>3704382
Replace the eye, I guess. I'm 100% confident this will not fuck us over at any point in the future.

>>3704424
(Technically it's your main optic, but you have secondary ones.)

>>3704430
Interesting.

By the way, for how long were we in the underworld? Have we approached a century at this point?

"Kazuya, I spent a century down here so that you don't have to. I will get you through this. Now help me replace my eye with an alien artifact."

Let's not replace our eye. It's a sacrifice we don't need to make, and not all sacrifice is good or necessary, even.

>>3704379
>"Kaz...I spent several centuries down here before. Much of which I spent crawling on what's left of my limbs. I came out nearly a vegetable. I don't want to subject you to the same fate."

>"If we're going, we're going together. And I'll do my damnest to keep you from losing you in the jump."
>"When we reach the other side...You'll be in safe hands. I'll hold on to you and hold youin case...in case it turns out...the worst case happens when we return from the real."
>Fortress mode, use the Assault Shrouds to bind the two of you together (preferrably around where he was mortally wounded before assuming player form) and wrap Deagal with as much armor as possible, Hold Deagal from behind, use any method to try and securely keep him from slipping away.
>Don't replace your eye

So if we actually replace our eye, we will want to put a level into Argus, as well as get the module that allows us to amplify its strength.

We should also look into other ways to offset this disability. I'm sure the Hollow Sun can create something.

Sure replace the eye. I want to see how that ends.

Why the fuck do you people want to replace our eye? We need the accuracy. Don't replace the eye, you idiots.

>>3704486
Because then we get the Nihil sphere upgrade and synthesis for better code bursts, its constant detection, being able to take in energy. Don't forget that Auspex/Argus are two sensor suites we have already, can be upgraded and have proven to be useful time and again.

Not only that, the sphere will help us find Hecate AND save Daegal. This is a no brainer to put the sphere in; we can even invest an upgrsde into sensors or the argus to compensate but we MUST get Daegal to the Sun, save Hecate and acquire the full Crux and both Nihil spheres.

>>3704495
What I wonder about is what the Helix gauntlet was made for, if not the NIHL sphere.
What else would we put there? The Cobalt Booster?

>>3704510
I've been meaning to give that a try.

>>3704510
It's meant to be a conduit for energy; it's the source of EXEC POWER TRANSFER, waives Consume's cost and decreases the cost of each codeburst. We should be able to place something else in there; the cobalt booster, the memory or some other kind of battery should work.

>>3704585
>it's the source of EXEC POWER TRANSFER
That's actually the ring that we got after the raid.

>>3704630
I thought that just let us do it at will? Maybe the Memory pastebin clarifies. Also, just a thought
>Nihil sphere + Aphelion

Don't replace the eye. I don't really care about the possible combat negatives or the eventual benefits we might possibly obtain, but it's Pazuzu's eye and therefore the symbolism will probably fuck us up.

>>3704751
It's not his eye, the Black Cardinal had it before.

>>3704732
By the way, the armory entry for The Aphelion also describes it as an optic. We might be able to swap it later. Unless it's already found it's place in another slot on our armor.

>>3704379
Don't replace the eye. Bind Kazuya to you with whatever we can, hold his hand In a deathgrip and we jump. God, please don't die Kazuya.

Would replacing our main optic with the Nihl even do anything for us, or do we just *think* It might? Just because It works for Paz doesn't mean It will work for us.

>>3704382
>can we use an EVOLVE option to gain another main optics later?

>The Nihl Sphere exists in the red and the real, so we are actually going to lose a real eye correct?

>can we remove the sphere later if necessary? not to regain our sight, but to say, give it back to HECATE?

>The sphere RAPIDLY drains people of power and HP, will we really survive imitating Odin?

>>3704387
This +1,000,000

deagal has a helix gauntlet analog, so he should be able to interface and boost the Nihl Sphere.

If that fails, then yes replace the optic. We arent leaving anyone else behind. And if need be we can tear the damn thing out and fight half blind if we need to give it to HECATE.

>>3704382
I'm pretty against swapping eyes. Currently, all of our secondary sensor systems are down and our visual optics are pretty much the only sensors operational. If we end up getting into a fight the moment we jump the gap, we'd be at a serious disadvantage.

And this all assuming putting in the Nihl Sphere actually improves our chances significantly enough for the risk. We still don't have any idea how it works besides pure instinct and may have a whole lot of other secondary effects besides impaired vision. Remember, we've still got White Joker and Pazuzu waiting for us on the other side. This is not the time to be considering a mystery box nerf.

Everyone all for pulling out our eye and replacing it with the Nihil Sphere is a retard.

Don't replace the eye, link up both Helix Gauntlets around the Sphere in a handshake so that Daegal can golden-enhance the jump instead.

If needed, fight him so that he charges to 100% to Ult into the Helix Gauntlet/Nihl Sphere.

>all these coward minmaxers so afraid of the penalties that they'd knowingly risk the survival of our one and only ally
Faggots, one and all.

>>3705210
>>3705221
>>3705241
Are you fucking dense? We already know that the Nihil Eye is a substantial improvement in our ability to pierce the Shroud; we can't even use it properly now and we STILL might be able to cross. Not only that, you're ignoring the fact that we'd be able to use it properly for once and that when we use our sensors, our suspect, aphelion and terrorsight, we can use them THROUGH the Nihil Eye.

Not only that, when we're back in the Red, we're returning to the Hollow Sun and then the real anyway.
>implying we can't just upgrade our sensors or get daegal to make more

Not only that, it massively improves our detection, ability to see through things and finding Hecate.

>>3705241
You think killing Daegal is a better idea than using the Eye in our head? Because he'll die if we fight him in this state.

>>3705253
Also this. You disgust me. Daegal is worth losing an eye for. We'd have died without him. Not only that, this is probably an upgrade anyway.

>>3705264
Just use lower-rank weapons, ffs, so he gets on-hit meter but isn't actually substantially damaged. Use Vulcans or fist strikes or some shit.

>>3705268
Literally will still kill him at this point, dude's got a fucking hole in his chest and we could still exist. I mean really anon, you gotta do BIG DAMAGE to get more meter

>>3705264
Golden Ult'ing the Nihl Sphere, if it works, would be at least as good as implanting it, so we are not missing out on the chances, or potentially even giving a better chance than what we get with implantation. It really depends on whether Daegal can do that and how far it goes.

Come the fuck on, remember what did he do to the Gate. He can enhance relics to utter fuck, and implanting the eye only gives a buff, not a 100% guarantee that he doesn't die in transit.

Like, as I see it, we have X% to have him make transit, and X+Y% if we implant. What I want to check is if we don't have X+Z% if we goldenboost it, where Z>Y.

(Hell, maybe he can golden-tendril -us- and we can get X+Y+Z% if we implant it and he is touching our eye, or something.)

>>3705273
Can we not give him the Crux for a bit? I don't remember it being Joker-locked in usability. Would heal him up a bit.

>>3705273
In addition, he can poke -us-. We are mostly healed, and we can weather lower-ranked attacks. And we have micro-reassemblers.

>>3705282
Bruh, we don't know if its permanent and more importantly, the Nihil sphere isn't just a normal relic. You're dealing with the highest echelon of power here.
>Daegal putting the Nihil Sphere in the Helix Gauntlet
No. It's an eye. It needs to be put into the eyes to work properly.

>>3705283
No, the Crux works by controlling the lachryma within us. It, in and of itself, doesn't seem to have an effect besides protecting us from the other part of the Crux.

>>3705286
Pretty sure that won't give much meter if we just punching bag anon. You need back and forth for meter; look at how little correctors or non Players provide when you try to fuck them up. Not a good idea. Especially because you probably can't enhance the Nihil Sphere, seeing as it's in the same league as the Chalice Armor, the Crux and the Fatal Abyss.

>>3705253
>>3705266
As someone that doesn’t really care that much the situation, it’s pretty clear. The choices are replace the eye, leave him behind, or take the very unlikely gamble that risks Deagal life. I don’t get what the big deal is with the accuracy penalty since having an ally offsets that massively and it’s likely to come with it’s own benefits. Not to mention it’s been hammered in pretty hard “nobody get to leave but the Joker”

So my question is: Do you think Deagal is worth sacrificing? Because it seems the answer is yes.

>>3705316
No, we aren't killing him. Fuck, we can get him to MAKE us sensors. I'd have RJ kill himself before we leave Daegal behind.

>>3705282
Thats if he even can interact with it. The Nihl sphere is finnicky.

Of we can get him to inteface with it without dying then sure.

But ultimately, if it means sacrificing some of ourself to save Kazuya, then we need to do so. Not just because he is our friend, but because doing so is the -exact opposite- of what Naoya and PAZUZU woukd do.

Naoya sacrificed his friend and allies, literally tearing them apart to make himself stronger.

PAZUZU used EVERYONE for his goal of reclaiming Mikogami's kingdom of impossible dreams.

Anon can finally give something up to save someone else.

And if we save Kazuya, maybe we can save Natsumi. And if we save Natsumi, maybe we can save HECATE. maybe by saving one life we can start a tidal wave of change. or maybe not. But we have to try, and we have to try as hard as we can.

The action may be the same as PAZUZU's, but the reasons are exactly opposite. And we owe it to Kazuya to tey, even if all thats waiting for him is death.

(personally fiven the amount of essence hes absorbed its likely that fate will find a way to preserve him. Like waking up in a sterling industries medical wing or some such)

>>3705316
Anon claimed the Red Joker after he returned to the real, so it has to be possible.

>>3704379
>>3705978
>The action may be the same as PAZUZU's, but the reasons are exactly opposite.

This convinced me. Remove the eye, try everything to improve our chances of taking Kaz with us. Screw that "Only the Joker leaves," noise.

>>3705978
Damn this is kind of a convincing argument for sacrifice.

>>3704379
OP, would ripping out our main optic and putting In the Nihl help us save Kazuya, or would It be just as effective as having It In the first place?

I'm coming around to the idea, but I'd like some reassurance that altering ourselves, debilitating ourselves, at least gives us the benefit we're hoping for.

>>3705982
Except that's bullshit.

>>3705982
No, anon became Joker before leaving.

God Damnit. Ive been reading this quest for years and only now have I realized that we could have used EXEC_REAP to steal knowledge of Codebursts from fallen enemies.

GRAND MAGUS had a wonderful "bullets curve to hit you even if they miss" field that would have been amazing.

>>3707392
We never killed him, dude ran away.

>>3707392
What makes you think that's possible?

>>3704437
(You would estimate that it's been several months, but your count is inexact. The long periods of unconsciousness have thrown it off.)

>>3705241
>>3705282
>>3705316
>>3705978
(Upon consideration, I'd say this is an entirely viable option. It makes logical sense that Daegal would be able to use his primary ability on your Helix Gauntlet as long as he remained in physical contact with you.

He may not be able to augment the Nihl Sphere, but he can certainly augment the Helix Gauntlet to increase your control.)

>>3707147
(The most effective option would be removing your optic and replacing it with the Nihl Sphere. However, allowing Daegal to augment your Helix Gauntlet would also be extremely effective. You could attempt to use the Nihl Sphere without either of the above, however.)

>>3707392
>>3707438
(This was, in fact, the unstated intended use of EXEC_REAP.)

Gents I think our best option is to go with daegal enhancing helix gauntlet. We can always implant the eye if things look dicey

>>3707453
Let Daegal enhance it. Also FUCK. How many codeburst enemies have we fought anyway? Only like 3, right?

>>3707453
>He may not be able to augment the Nihl Sphere, but he can certainly augment the Helix Gauntlet to increase your control.

I guess this would be a great compromise for those who do not want to remove the optic and those that do.

What do you guys think? Want to give it a go? If so, should we give him the compass so he won't get lost, and cybele's bracelet just incase? If I recall correctly it worked in a similar fashion as the Nihl Sphere, only less potent.

>>3707467
I am for giving him the locus, but against giving him the bracelet, it won't provide him any protection

>>3707467
>>3707475
I still think it's quite likely we'll need to implant anyway but fuckit, let's just have him enhance the gauntlet. I think implanting it is safer but OP said 'extremely effective' so it should still probably work.

>>3707485
This.

>>3707453
Can we use ANATHEMA in such a way that would target DAEGAL exclusively while passing through the shroud to shelter him by shunting it's negative effects away? Could we give Kazuya the APHELION and just use EXEC_REND in between teleports to make sure the shroud won't start to erode him upon exiting the quantum conduit?

>>3707453
The handshake to end all handshakes. Let's do it

>>3707485
(To clarify, I confirm that implantation is safer. Augmentation is still extremely effective, but not as much as replacing your optic with the Nihl Sphere. Think of it as the median solution.)

>>3707509
Has the vote been locked in yet?

>>3707513
(I'll consider this locked-in, in the interest of continuing. I'll give it half an hour, then begin the next post.)

>>3705241
>>3705978
>>3707465
>>3707466
>>3707467
>>3707475
>>3707485
>>3707502

You consider.

You don't like it. None of the choices available are good ones, but they are all you have.

But you understand, now. You know what has to be done.

The Helix Gauntlet's shutters iris open, as you place the Nihl Sphere into the socket. It keens, as if agitated – You sense a terrible need, an awful longing that remains unfulfilled. It is a sound on the very edge of perception, an atonal moaning that never quite reaches the realm of human speech.

Violet sparks dance across the Helix Gauntlet's cables, like a nest of writhing snakes. Jags of colorless lightning flicker, as you make a fist.

You stand on the threshold, now. Here, at the very end of the world, the Nihl Sphere's power makes the air shake.

You taste electricity on your iron teeth. Space flexes, as the wind picks up, the first gusts scudding across the dunes. They suck and screech, as tendrils of corospant slide across your armor, grounding themselves on the black stone of the broken causeway below.

Daegal takes a wary step back.

“Joker-” he begins, cautious now. “Anon...Do you know what you're doing-?”

No.

His optics flickers, as you push the Locus Seeker into his hand – For a moment, he clutches the small orb of diamond glass in gilded fingers, before comprehension dawns. The tiny, gleaming bauble locks into his Helix Gauntlet as if made for it – the blade pointing at you, unwavering.

“If we get separated...” Daegal says – But his words trail off, leaving the rest unspoken. What, then?

He stares down into the chasm, for a long, long time. The darkness yawns below you, the long, final drop beckoning.

You can feel the pressure of the gathering storm, now. Ancient metal sighs and creaks and groans, as the wind stirs it. Flecks of ash, borne on the gusts, sweep past you into the waiting void.

Power gathers. You realize, distantly, that your right hand is shaking – You force it to be still, but it's just a matter of time, now. You can feel the force building within, like a grotesque pressure: the light of the violet star shining forth, stark and eternal.

You raise your right hand, and regard the Nihl Sphere, through the crackling swirl of rising static. For a moment – Just a moment – it feels like you should be able to see your future within.

But all you see is power.

A high wail is rising with a coil of wind, as it circles the two of you. Snakes of anti-light writhe through the air.

There is a low rumble, far above. A distant flash.

Thunder.

Rain, heavy drops of it, is beginning to fall.

Now.

(Continued)

>>3707597

Daegal's hand rises – And he hesitates. Just for a moment, the lens of his optics darkening to something black and almost opaque. You think he might push you away, over the drop – Make his choice, and yours, in one single swift motion.

But then he steps forward, to your right. His orichalcum gauntlet vises down, almost convulsively, as he stands by your side. He may be saying something, but all that comes over the Dirac channel is white noise as his fingers bite down into your arm-

Golden light pours forth.

The Helix Gauntlet lights up, like a phosphorescent flare. It is a light that casts all else into shadow, that bleaches all color from the world. It burns down into the stone, as luminous filaments bridge the distance – linking you together, as the grand transmutation begins.

The storm breaks.

Lightning blasts the cloudless sky, savage bolts tearing down from above. It detonates against the scorched black hulls of marooned leviathans as the downpour begins. In the weird illumination that writhes around you, the rain is sticky, tarry, gleaming in the storm-light. It falls in huge, swirling curtains, as if it will never end.

Perhaps it won't. Perhaps, one day, the entire Underworld will be drowned by the deluge.

You will never know.

Your Assault Shroud's nanomaterial turns dense, unreflective – A prelude to Fortress Mode. The dull, lightless gleam is mirrored by the glossy sheen of Daegal's Mirage Shroud, reflecting all around him in a shifting mosaic of mirrors; In the amber light, you see yourself, reflected over and over again.

The Helix Gauntlet cycles, abstruse mechanisms whirring and ticking as they spin up. The light radiates from you, now – New schematics sketching themselves into existence, the shadows and lines of gears and wheels beginning to chug and clatter. They etch strange circles and hoops in the falling rain, like ripples in water – the sound of frantic industrial life almost (but not quite) drowning out the low hum that builds in your skull.

It gleams. It gleams like it did when you once held the Hand of Midas – the source of the gleaming armor that sheaths Daegal's form, the power that remade him when he was broken.

The twisting cables of the Helix Gauntlet shine, now. Feed-lines and accumulators gather around them, plates of armor sliding into place along support struts, clamping down. Radiant glyphs shimmer, above each knuckle – the eerie glow, violet and gold at once, expanding.

Daegal's expressionless helm turns towards yours, as if impressing this moment into his consciousness.

And he says-

“On three.”

“One.”

The world is bathed in aurora light.

“Two.”

The deluge pounds down around you, a curtain thicker than fog.

The Nihl Sphere's song – or wail – builds to a painful pitch.

“Thr-”

You jump.

(Continued)

>>3707624

He's a heartbeat slower than you are. Some last instinct, some remaining sense of self-preservation, stopping him from taking the plunge.

But when you leap – fall – you are linked to him, as he is linked to you. The causeway vanishes from beneath your feet – You hear Daegal's strangled shout, hear his boots scuffing for purchase, as your weight pulls him with you-

And then there is only the descent.

There is no wind, in the darkness below. Just an utter, consuming blackness.

Down.

There is the impression of tremendous speed, of vast walls of stone rushing past.

The lightning-streaked sky vanishes. The Tempest Scrander at your back pulses with the false promise of escape, as if anything could ever escape the drop of rushing nightmare.

You plunge through the blackness.

Down. Forever down.

Daegal falls with you.

His arm judders, his form contorting in a convulsion of motion. The only other thing in the world, his gauntlet grasping your arm so tightly, the metal begins to buckle.

Please, you think he says.

God-

No.

But you can't be sure.

The Nihl Sphere glows bright. Brighter. It is as if the void between worlds has cast aside the last restraints, to release all that pent-up radiance in a single surge.

Everything fades, in a blaze of violet fire. Perhaps this is death, to fall forever and to burn, until all else becomes a distant memory-

And for a moment – Just a moment – the light is not violet, but white. Bright, cold – a white that is somehow more hideous, more terrible, than the blackness and the Underworld you've left behind. There is a sense of terrible force being brought to bear, like a bottomless maw yawning open to devour you-

Your sensors blur to nothing. Static fills your displays. The horrific un-light – all colors and none – well up from the cracks in reality, as everything shudders, flexes and shivers around you. It feels like you are being smashed and pulled apart, a vast roaring filling your very core – An onrushing pandemonium that would shake you to pieces, as you're wrenched into the churning maelstrom.

Terrible sounds, across the Dirac channel. Sounds that are almost words.

Faster.

Faster.

(Continued)

>>3707662

The light twists around you, and carries you forward. Forward, into the emptiness – through oceanic blackness, across the vast expanse of infinity. Screams, boiling around you – the same sound twisted and stretched across the void, until even the meaning is lost-

And then the pain begins.

It is a pain like no other, like nothing you've ever experienced. An agony so fundamental, it spears into the very center of your being – into all that remains – like threads of burning black venom. Worse is the knowledge that what comes with it is eternal, that the essential core of your being is flayed away one sliver at a time.

A certainity blossoms that what is happening to you – what is being done – may be forever.

Thought becomes will becomes form.

Something grasps you. Something utterly inimical, something not meant to exist in the same plane of the universe. In all that vast, consuming whiteness, the essence that clings to you is in irreconcilable conflict with your own, and it brings with it only inarticulate pain.

But you grasp it, too. Awareness flickers across your consciousness, a whisper of something fundamentally important – something that you fight to hold on to, even as it tears you apart.

And it is ripping you apart. The one certainity you can seize upon is-

If you let go, the pain will end.

[ ] L͜et̢ ̡g̵ơ.͘
[ ] H͢o͝͝ĺ̴͞d ̴͢͟o͝n̡
[ ] F̷r͜e̴͡ę

YO̡͝U̧ ̢́Ḩ̸͜A̧̢V̛̛E Ć̶O̡͝͠N͢͜͡T̴̛R̕͡Ơ͠͡L

>>3707687
>Hold on!

>>3707687

>[X] H͢o͝͝ĺ̴͞d ̴͢͟o͝n̡


>"Awareness flickers across your consciousness, a whisper of something fundamentally important -"

Makes me feel like holding on and trying to tell Daegal to do the same if possible would make sense here.

>>3707687
>[X ] L͜et̢ ̡g̵ơ.͘

>>3707687
U̞͔ş͇̘̭̦͇͍ͅe̱̻̙ͅ ̖t̯̻̘̯̣h̞e͔̕ͅ ͖̤͓̞͟C͇̱̣͍̬̣r͉̬̺̠̣u̶͉͓̱̫̗͔̖x̱̺̖̪̟͉̭ ́a͍͞n͉̜̫̦̙͝ḍ͉̰ ̮͈̼͇ͅB̢̝͕̠͖͕̼l̛̯a̭c̳̠̬̰̞̩̠k̴̼ ͎J̨̥͇o̤̟͉͈͎k̢̝̜͍̭̹̖͖e͔͎r̮͈̹̘ͅ'̛̹̪s̢̺̝͉̱̖̬̖ ̤͇̫H̨̤̹̳e̪̖͙͇̹a̧̮͍̦̰̙r̢̤t̮̤̣̻̳͇ ͎t̖̦̻͕̘̣͟ͅo̩̫̬͕̜ͅ ͚͔͈͖̪͠ḫ̠̭e͇͇͚͓̜̗̫al̴͔
R̼̮̜̳͜e̱̖͎̠̣͓i̸͔̬̙͉͎ͅͅn̼͉̦̜̞f̴̯͕̣̣̥̟̟o̢̬͉̗̻͙̥r͕͉̩̤͖͈c͓̣͔̬̜̥e͜ ͎o̷͖u̶̱͚̬̮̭̤r̫͍̼̠̹s̛͔̳͔e̟̘̞̗͓͔͠l͎̭̥̕v̶̳̝e͓̼͕̼͠s͕͇̙̮̺̮ ̗͓͇̩̩̝w̦i̸͖̦t̟̬͘h̼͈̮̘͟ ̨̘t͞h̸e͚̰̣̼͓̣ ̺M̮̳̯͓e̝̦̙͇͢m̭͡o͚̝r̡̙y̼

͓Ú̬̝͚s̺̺͚̪͜e̪̪̤̘͞ ̤̥̻̬̝̹̭E̳͙̰X̵̗̟E͓̳̥͇͓͕͉̕C̶̟̝̝̭̰ ͎́B͉́A̝̹R̝͖̪̗R̤͔̣͔̗͟ͅI͞E̷͈ͅR̘

I told you guys we should have put the fucking eye in. Now we might lose something ANYWAY.

>>3707687
Oh fucking hell. Hold on, no matter what.

>>3707718
This and also
U̸̻̜̭͙͙̙̦s͜ẹ̵͚ ̗͇̣͙͓̰H̢̗̭a̱̠̬̼͍͝r̤̗̦̬m͕͞on̠ia

>>3707709
>>3707712

Don't let go.

You hold on.

Blink.

A haze of sterile light, outside time. Between one breath and the next.

The pain is your world, now. All-consuming, devouring you whole. It feels like parts of yourself are being shorn away, like dry leaves put to the torch.

But you hold on.

You feel the grip weaken, like a candle guttering out. Like quicksilver, slipping through your fingers even as it burns you.

But you hold on.

Blink.

Cold light, eons old.

>>3707718
>>3707712
>>3707726

You reach out, for something. For anything. For some anchor, in all that consuming vastness.

But there is nothing. Nothing you can do-

Except hold on.

Don't let go.

Across the interstellar gulf. Through the eternal night of the blind.

The fire rages inside you, the hungry cold burning without end as you fall through the endless black. It feels like you grasp a single thread, a filament of the sun, thinning to almost nothing-

But you strain harder, not knowing what you're doing. Not knowing how. Only-

Don't-

-let-

The fire is all.

Drowning in an ocean of acid, the waves rising to pull you under. Half-glimpsed forms, beneath the raging surface. Thoughts like flecks of static against solid blackness.

Blindness.

Centuries reel and unspool with arctic slowness, and still you fall. In the slow creeping course of eternity the universe churns itself to completion, and all things become again as they were uncounted eons before.

Blink.

(Continued)

>>3707752
I think what's happening is that Daegal's essence is entering our armor, as he is augmenting the Helix Gauntlet.
The end result is that the Red Joker armor, which has a way to protect itself from this transition, is trying to purge his essence as he is overtaxing the protection by essentially being a semi-part of us.

I'm sure we are suffering damage, but Kazuya is too important. We already lost Haze and Akira.

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>>3707752

...

..

.

The first dawn of light in your universe brings pain.

It burns you, as you become aware of it – as it fills your unblinking eyes.

It is grey, pale – an expanse that stretches on into infinity. It brings with it a force, an immense pressure – a hundred times harder than rock, a thousand times harder than iron – that presses against your skull, in a hard line of pain.

Light. It should mean something.

You feel-

A memory of fever, a sickly heat prickling through your bones. Bruises.

A smell. Cold stone. Something burned. An earthy reek.

For the first time in forever – Like a dreamer awakening from a long, long nightmare – you feel the breeze against your skin.

And you realize-

Here and now, you are alive.

Flamelight, blurry. There is a smell of smoke and sweat and blood. Your head pounds – your mouth, your throat, is as dry as a desert on fire.

It feels-

Breathe. Breathe.

Your vision swims. You feel weak, pitifully weak – Slowly, achingly, you heave yourself over. Push yourself up to hand and knees. For a moment, all you can see is the grey floor on which you had been lying, bits of charred red cloth mixed amid the scraps and detritus-

You remember. You know where this place is.

You stomach heaves and twist, as you fight down the dizzying nausea that roils within your gut. Sensation returns, in a rush – the abrasions on your hands and knees, like papercuts. The dull pain in your bones-

You're in-

You're...

Moisture patters down the wall of the alley. A shape scuttles, darts across a puddle of rainwater.

And your gaze is drawn – inexorably – to the mark carved into the wall, left curiously untouched despite everything else. The one you've seen before, a long, long time ago.

You're back.

You're back.

(Continued)

>>3707772
Dude it's obviously Harmonia or, more likely, the activated Black Joker's Heart. I doubt it's Daegal mingling with us; look at the descriptions used. Threads of heat and cold? Endless voids? An acid sea?

>>3707786

Back, at the beginning of it all.

It's night. Night, but – the sky. What's happened to the sky?

The sliver you can see, through the rising walls, is a bloody arterial red. There is a smell, like salt, borne on the wind. It roils, shifting in patterns on the very edge of making sense-

You have to look away. You look down, dizzy.

Somehow, you feel – know – that something is wrong.

Where's-

And then you see him.

You see a crumpled form, sprawled face-down on the alleyfloor – lying there, as if it will never move again. Kazuya's shock of black hair is threaded with grey, now – He's still in the gilded coat (the sequins peeling away, now, like fool's gold) he was wearing on-stage, a lifetime ago.

As are you, you realize. The weight of your long coat settles heavily on your shoulders, but you feel things move within it, familiar shapes.

The Carnifex. You've brought it with you.

The Nihl Sphere – glittering dully with oblate fire – winks at you from the gutters. As if it wants to be found. Instinctively, you reach for it-

And then you notice it. The final detail.

As if your mind was blocking it out, and absorbing everything else around you, until you couldn't put it off any longer.

Your hand doesn't move. Neither does your arm.

You try, and nothing happens. It hangs at your side, limp, dead.

You can't move your right arm.

[ ] Free

YOU HAVE CONTROL

>>3707807
>losing an arm over an eye
GOOD JOB YOU FUCKS I TOLD YOU

>Check to see if Kazuya is still alive
>Check our phone
>Start trying to move our arm slowly

>>3707811
Also grab the Nihil Eye and see how spent it it.

>>3707807
Our arm doesn't fucking matter right now.

Check on Kazuya. Is he injured? Do we have a phone? Is there a phone booth?

>>3707807

Work our way up from wiggling our toes to more complex stuff until we gain enough articulation to go see Kazuya.

Also try to communicate

>>3707811
>I TOLD YOU
You what?

>>3707807
OP, can we still wear the Carnifex? Do we have Harmonia?

>>3707807
We ought to check how Kazuya is doing pronto. See if we can't call an ambulance or something.

>>3707816
That there'd be a cost ANYWAY

>>3707811
>>3707813
>>3707814
>>3707815
>>3707817

You try-

Dark spots dance in your field of vision, across your brain.

All right. All right.

You breathe. Breathe. You try again.

You have to turn, to reach for the Nihl Sphere. It's cold, that light undimmed – the violet anti-radiance flaring through the cage of your fingers.

Getting to your feet is Everest.

You can't move your right arm. You feel – nothing. Not even pain, not even numbness. Just...An absence. As if it's no longer part of you. And that, perhaps, is the worst thing.

There's a faint chime, a scrape of sliding segments – the cut stones of HARMONIA rattling around your left wrist. They glow, with a light of their own – a sullen radiance that does nothing to the darkness except to make it dirty.

Kazuya.

You try to say something-

A rasp, a croak. You bite your lip, until a bead of blood wells up in your mouth – Coppery, metal, but better than the dryness that rakes your throat.

Better.

You look around-

Later. Later for that.

The Carnifex. Maybe it can-

You reach for it. Then you remember, and you reach across yourself with your left hand. Brass – or is that red gold? - glints in the poor light, as you bring the half-mask of grasping skeletal fingers to your face.

It locks in place. It catches, and you feel the pinprick of micro-filaments as something scrapes against the skin, fastening itself. There is a pins-and-needles sensation, fierce and deeply uncomfortable, a sense of something returning.

The world blurs at the edges, as you stumble forward. Your legs feel like cloth beneath you, on the verge of buckling. You reach up to steady yourself against the wall-

With your right hand.

You did it without thinking, the way you've done countless times before. Your fingers flex, and you stare-

With the Carnifex, you can move your right hand. Your entire arm. But without it-

(Continued)

>>3707807

>Use your left arm to take the Nihl Sphere and pocket it
Then
>See to Kazuya, see if he's alive.
If anything, if We took Kazuya's hand during the Transition, Kazuya theoretically would also have a dead right arm.

>>3707836
I hope you have some upgrade path that leads to Carnifex Synthesis, JQOP.

>>3707851
It already exists. I wonder if we can fix this. The White Joker can recreate things. Getting his power could allieviate this issue.

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>>3707836

Better, now.

You should feel stronger. You should feel quicksilver strength surging through your limbs.

But all you feel is exhaustion. Worn, wan, as if you're made of paper.

It takes four strides to cross to his side. A single motion, to sink to your knees.

Kazuya.

He doesn't stir.

You reach out. Grasp him by the shoulder. Turn him over.

For a moment, you're not sure what you're expecting to see. For a moment, you expect that eyeless, nightmare visage, smeared with gore. And you can see where ichor and other unnameable fluids have soaked into – through – his clothes, in old, ochre stains.

But-

His eyelids flutter. His limbs twitch, like a dog in a nightmare. His chest rises and falls, as he shudders – A bone-deep shudder, a spasm, curled up on his side...

“Hhhhhhhhhhkkkkk-”

The first breath rasps from his lungs, his fingers curling into claws. His back arches so violently, as Kazuya let out a strangled, choking cry as he reels awake. It is an awful sound, the sound of a man who has been drowning, who never thinks to breathe air again. The sound of a man waking from an immobilizing nightmare, as he shudders himself back to consciousness.

For a long, long moment, he lies there. His eyes open, motionless.

“I-”

“-I was dreaming,” Kazuya rasps out. Low, almost on the edge of hearing.

“I dreamt – I remember...”

He begins to shake, violently. His arms curl around himself, as if to banish the cold, to ward off the shock that racks him. He retches, as if hoping to empty out everything that remains in his stomach, but all that comes out is stringy bile.

“Jesus,” he whispers. “Jesus.”

In the poor light, his face is achingly pale – as he turns bleary eyes towards you.

Then-

“A-anon?”

It's a papery whisper, disbelieving.

“You're – We're...”

Only now remembering, his eyes roll down. Cords bunch in his neck, as he tries to sit up.

His eyes are wide, now, and they seem to hold the light. His voice is still a whisper, but its hush is no longer lifeless.

“-alive.”

“You – you held on – to save me...”

At the very edge of perception – there is a buzz. A drone. A pulse, coursing up through you.

For a moment, you wonder if something has come back with you. Something, clinging on like a tick. But the vibrating pulse lingers, and your hand drops down to your pocket to find-

Your phone. The screen is cracked, but the dull, dusty blue light is still there. Half a charge.

The number-

Mio.

[ ] Free

YOU HAVE CONTROL

>>3707870
(Gentlemen, I have to stop here for the night. However, I'll post at the first opportunity, when I get a chance. Good night, and God bless - I hope to see you all soon.

In addition, congratulations on your escape.)

>>3707870
"I held on. It cost us both, but it was better than losing you.

>Mio
Oh god oh fuck. Answer it I guess?

>>3707870
My boy is alive! Thank god. Only thing I'm worried about is how our arm is in the red. I kinda feel like being a dick and not picking up. Might even be for the best. She might be in Naoya's grasp and picking up would tip em off. It's probably best if we lay low and head off to the hollow sun, or either lay low and rest for a bit.

>>3707877
Is there no way to repair our arm? What are the mechanical functions of this OP? No usage of our arm without the Carnifex?

>>3707870
"Always. I'm pretty sure Natchan would kill me if I came back alone. Now, I need you to call her. Call Asuna. Call anyone. We have to see who's still here. Now, I have to take a call."

Answer the phone. "Mio?"

>>3707877
Thanks. How well did we do on the way out?

>>3707897
We're answering Mio ffs, this is too important to head in the sand.

Seriously, if we've lost the use of our right arm in the Red, this is catastrophic. No Golgotha, no Caesar, no Beam Magnum, no dual wield Chagan, no Providence and Lucid EXCEPT in carnifex. Not only that, we STILL may end up losing an eye anyway if we have to bring back Hecate or hunt down Pazuzu.

>>3707870
>"I couldn't let go, I refused to let go. Letting go would mean losing you."
>"It did cost me the use of my entire right arm...
>Flex your right arm, make sure all the joints are working properly.
>"the reason I can move it at all is because of the Carnifex mask I'm wearing...but for what it's worth, it's a good price to pay for getting you out alive and whole."

>Answer the phone and put it on speaker phone.
>"Anon speaking, fresh from Hell."

>>3707870
Kneel and set a hand on his shoulder.
"For what it's worth, I'm kinda glad that you were with me. I never had the opportunity to level on this entire shitshow with you before.
Also, you can now be the golden boyfriend to Natsumi's chrome armor.
There is one thing that I can assure you off, and it's that you won't ever need to see that place again."
Then stand up again.
"Anyway, I got a phone call. I'm pretty sure that's not Mio who's calling."

>>3707854
Checked the level up list. We can upgrade the Carnifex but not Synthesize it

>>3707870
>"Don't sweat it. Would be dead ten times over without you anyway."
Check for any wounds just to be sure.

Only answer the call once we know Kazuya won't just die on us.

>>3707919
Gotta upgrade it at least once. I cannot overemphasise how much of a disaster this is.

>>3707931
We use the Carnifex in any fight that matters and regularly fight with missing limbs anyway. It's a bad situation, but hardly crippling.

>>3707811
It's just the Real nigga. Who cares?

>>3707934
We literally can't use any of the weapons I mentioned in our default state, the cestus, the crisis arm and anything two handed without busting out the carnifex, which we can be knocked out of and tske increased damage in. This isn't a small debuff.

If we'd tried to fight Vovoid like this now, we'd be fucked. Seeing as WJ and Black Joker are likely more dangerous than Voivoid, this is a disaster.

>>3707951
It's going to carry over, just like sacrificing an arm to the Nihil Sphere would have.

>>3707966
You seem to be under the impression that replacing our eye would only have cost us said eye. It also would have slowly driven us insane and made us forget everyone. Every option had downsides, we don't even know if this is permanent. Chill the fuck out.

>>3707966
We literally don't even know what happened to our arm in the Red. Maybe it's gone, maybe it just needs a few repairs, who the fuck knows? I don't, and unless you're JQOP I don't think you know either.

>>3708012
It clearly wouldn't because Pazuzu didn't forget everyone. Fuck, the eye doesn't work like the Play; we don't have a boat and the Diadem is dead. No one has ever said the Sphere effects your sanity; in fact pretty much everyone we've met and shown it too has expressed lust and seen it as a positive. I said all of this yesterday and nobody listened.

>>3708024
>the artefact that exists in two places and would have taken out our eye had fucked up our arm
>it won't effect us in the Red
You're kidding

>>3708027
Pazuzu is pretty blatantly fucking insane.

>>3708030
He is more sane than most of his subordinates

>>3708029
Did I say it wouldn't affect us? No, I didn't. Calm your tits and stop prematurely drawing conclusions from your own, hysterical interpretation of half the facts.

>>3708034
>following a basic trend of logic where the consequence of the Nihil Sphere is inflicted on us in both worlds is 'hysterical'
K

>>3708030
Pazuzu isn't insane at all. He's selfish. He always has been; he wanted the Diadem for himself and that's it. Hell, he didn't even use Lachryma on himself because he was afraid of it. Pazzy has always been rational just like Naoya has. They just have goals that they'd go to any lengths to achieve.

>>3707870
oh god damnit. the loss of an arm is actually -worse- than losing part of our vision. AND we dont get whatever changes or upgrades might have attended the implantation. Deagal is alive, but weathered by the transition. We -might- have greater control over the Nihl Sphere with the helix gauntlet now, or we might not.

Weve lost half of our total damage output per turn, the use of Golgotha, and the ability to attack and use a shield at the same time. We are also heavily limited in our ability to use heavy weapons, and might have lost the use of the Frost Cestus.

Compare that to losing our primary optic, which has happened before, and which we have numerous ways to get around. The passage would also have been safer for both us, and Deagal.

This is not what i meant when I said we should sacrifice something for Kazuya. Half measures never work.

on the plus side, woo kazuya survived!

>answer the phone.
>just listen for now.

maybe its her, maybe its naoya, maybe its her in league with naoya, maybe she got free. God in Heaven I hope she got free.

>>3708636
>AND we dont get whatever changes or upgrades might have attended the implantation.
Or we might have avoided a horrible death as both Anon and Kazuya were drawn straight into the heart of the Black adn drowned in unending Lachryma.

Seriously where are you guys getting this bullshit? For all we know we'd have been entirely blind if we'd implanted the Sphere.

>>3708687
>Seriously where are you guys getting this bullshit? For all we know we'd have been entirely blind if we'd implanted the Sphere.
Because JQOP bloody fucking told us. Work on your reading comprehension.

>>3708721
Let's look at what JQOP actually said.

>>3704382
>(To be absolutely clear, I confirm that replacing an optic with the Nihl Eye will negatively affect your accuracy and combat ability. It does not provide a substitute to conventional vision.)
>will negatively affect your accuracy and combat ability.
>It does not provide a substitute to conventional vision.
Knowing what we now know, that the limb we chose to use the Nihl Sphere with was damaged, it is entirely possible we'd have been entirely blind. And unless we visit the Red we can't fucking tell what the changes to us actually are, like I've been trying to drill into your heads.

>>3707509
>To clarify, I confirm that implantation is safer.
>safer
What, in this context, does safe mean? It's not clear. It could mean having a higher bonus to rolling how well the escape goes, but it could just as well mean higher chance for Anon to survive even if it means Kazuya dies.

>>3708780
>Knowing what we now know, that the limb we chose to use the Nihl Sphere with was damaged, it is entirely possible we'd have been entirely blind.
He also said that we are only replacing our primary optic and our secondary ones would still work. We would likely go blind in one eye and get severe accuracy penalties and so on, but we would not just completely switch to bat mode.

>>3707870
"Always, Kazuya."
>Answer the phone

He's alive. Fuck all that other noise about whether our arm Is fucked up, we did It. We can recover an arm with the right means, but Kazuya? You can't get him back.

He's alive, he should be dead but he's alive. We saved him. We actually saved someone. We're not alone anymore now. For the rest of this, we have Kazuya by our side, he didn't die, flayed to nothing by the void. He Isn't lost, losing himself down In the underworld becoming a shell like Anon, or Voivoid.

We brought him back. This might be the most triumphant, albeit bittersweet victory of the quest.

>>3708780
The Nihil sphere works in both worlds. We'd lose *one* eye and our main optic but gain new abilities in turn. Now, we've gained nothing (besides Daegal obvi) and lost the use of our arm.

Anon leaving was never the issue; we were always going to survive. Implanting the eye means safer for Daegal and a smoother transition.

>>3708903
I'm not sure if we can get our arm functioning without the Carnifex again. It's irritating because we had anons saying to remove the eye for a number of reasons
>Help us find Hecate
>Provide new abilities
>Maximised safety for Daegal
>Greater protection against Pazuzu's bullshit

Like okay sure, we saved him, but we could have done that by implanting the eye, something we may have to do anyway for the multiple reasons stated AND he would have been safer. Even if we had bad to severe targeting penalties, we have Argus and Auspex to compensate along with the actual sensors upgrade itself; right now, I'm not sure if we *can* compensate for a ruined arm besides using the Carnifex.

>>3709107
yeah pretty much this in its entirety.

Most of our entire "build" relies on having two functioning arms. from the plasma vilcans on up.

And yeah rereading through the passage, this did permanent damage to our actual essence or soul. We have every reason to expect that the damage in the real is a reflection of damage in the Red.

I mean -maybe- we can have new artficial nerve pathways built or use the assault shroud to wrap around the limb and puppet it. the Carnifex reactivates the limb, so its not impossible, just very limiting.

We might potentially get it fixed at Sterling Industries. They have medical filaments based on Argent's design. And Daegal is essentially the endgame upgrade to all of Argent Prominence's abilities.

Plus I suspect the old man left something behind for us in his final hours, he did always talk about wanting to upgrade us. Its worth a shot.

Plus we might be able to link the Manifold Network to the Hollow Sun to create something to rival or surpass the Diadem.

>>3709312
Argent is dead and I'm not sure there *is* a Sterling Industries anymore. The good news is that the damage is likely just nerves given the fact that the right arm is fully functional, we just lack sensation/control over it. That makes it a hell of a lot more repairable. Not only that, the White Joker's power could potentially allow us to repair ourselves... Likely at some other cost however.

>>3709312
Wait, if we can't use our right arm, does that mean we have to use the Carnifex ALL THE TIME?

>>3709360
just because argent is dead doesnt mean he doesnt have a legacy.

we dont know what happened to our robot form during the transition. But from the sound of it the damage was extremely permanent.

Im not saying there wont be any way around it, but it wont be easy.

I had a shower thought. If our arm in doesn't function in the red without the carnifex either, what about repurposing meridian blade tech into a functioning arm? It already uses donor player components, maybe through The Hollow Sun, and help from what's left of Argent Prominence's group we could make do. And yes, I know it's too early to say what's possible or not, but I'd rather speculate than bemoan the loss of an arm.

>>3710805
Would that even work? We can't use it without an arm, anyway.

White Joker seems to have a kind of cannibalization power. If you read between the lines, he got to EXACTLY the same place as us and made the ruthless choice. Instead of taking his best friend with him, he took all his shit and left him behind. That might be the most personally evil thing he did so far.

>>3710839
To be fair, unlike RJ he didn't have the choice. We could only do what we did because we had the Nihl Sphere. If he did that, he'd get himself killed along with anyone he'd tried to take with him.

Also, I seriously doubt any of them were really "friends" in the conventional sense.

>>3710841
They all were in love with the same woman. They also clearly fought together, Hierophent did all the art commemorating their adventures. The question is whether they all died, or if a few were still roaming around at the end.

If they started out with 13, they must have lost some people on the way out.

>>3710851
Pretty sure Hierophant and WJ were the only ones left. When we faced WJ, he said: "There were thirteen of us down in the dark. Now there is only two."

>>3710891
I misquoted. What he said was "THERE WERE THIRTEEN OF US, DOWN IN THE DARK.

A THOUSAND YEARS LATER, THERE WERE TWO."

>>3710839
No, White Joker has a creation power but his frame isn't built for combat. To honour his allies however, he harvested some of their best bits and then remade himself with them. Remember how Kraken was remade using Corrector parts? White Joker did the same but using his fellow disciples which is why Kraken was used as a test dummy.

>>3710900
I'm seriously curious what his Eidolon will be like.

>>3710900
It seems our power is more direct, while he needs to get creative with his. Remember, Mikogami (a former priest) fought off RJ, but he lost the final battle. His plan was 'I'm going to die, but someone will continue my work', which RJ didn't plan for.

>>3710900
Naoya's shtick has always been surgery. Remeber the seisen high simulation bodies? he had an entire fucking program set up.

Its no surprise he did the same with his allies.

He is, again, in many ways the opposite of Anon. Naoya is a man who heals people but destroys countless lives in order to achieve his goals. Anon is, and has always been, a destroyer who is trying to save as much as he can despite the onus of the red jokers armor.

>>3710908
Mikogami built the Final City, or found it. Whatever he was doing his daughter Kotone had a way with the black joker. And the Black Joker can use lachryma to make ANYTHING.

Imagine living forever in a place where your wildest dreams can be made real with little more than a thought.

Then the Marshal flooded the place with pure lachryma and killed pretty much fucking everyone.

PAZUZU wants to get back and live forever as god-king of paradise.

Naoya wants to bring Kotone back either because he loves her, or because she has a way with the Black Joker. Maybe both.

>>3710908
Well there's a reason Mikogami STILL lost despite having the crux, both Nihil spheres and lachryma but, that being said, we didn't see him with any of those when he fought the RJ after making his city in the Black. His frame isn't made for battle but... Well, he can make things right? Create to a level no other Player can? When we fought Naoya before, he didn't seem to use any meter abilities or anything beyond relics. I think he was using relics he'd specially created for killing Players; a sword that rends essence, some mind reading device, his shadow cloak. Not only that, he used a codeburst or two and also had sword legs; what if he got those two pieces from his cannibalised fellow disciples?

I think the White Joker can mitigate his combat issues by Relics he himself makes. Mikogami decided to spec into codebursts and sneaky bullshit to avoid damaging his vulnerable frame but Naoya thought it might be a better idea to recreate the armor, like the Marshall did with the RJ armor, but did so using lachryma and his fellow combat ready Players to create a WJ that can fight like an RJ. Hence, why he looks more like us than how Mikogami's WJ looked. He's changed the core frame to be as combat ready as a normal Player while keeping all the WJ advantages.

>>3710952
I think it might also be WJ being significantly higher leveled than us. Remember, he was stuck in the black for a thousand years compared to our hundred. Could be he had to heavily invest in combat related skills to get on the level we were during our battle, because his armor might be more creation inclined than anything else.