1577/Grievence with HR

Grievence with HR
Date of Scene:	24 May 2024
Location:	Plot Room 1
Synopsis:	Hinoiri decides to grab a pair who have bugging her, but Lacuna comes to stop her. Devouring flames versus Devouring void, which wins? Either way, the crazy girl. Unfortunately, now the girl focused on destruction has gained the ability to do even more damage to others... and herself.
Cast of Characters:	Hinoiri Kirara, Fuyuko Yuuhi
Tinyplot:	Sunset of Sora

---

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
It was a bad day for those in Obsidian. But then, what day wasn't? It was obsidian. However, this day was extra bad. Fuyuko would feel it, the pull. The call... one of the DG girls. Which would, ironically, be probably strange to her. She hadn't given them the pen directly... It had been Hinoiri who had. Because Fuyuko had saved Sunbreaker in the past. The DG girls were new, so it was only right that Sunbreaker made sure that THEY had someone to have their back, like Fuyuko had hers.

So it was ironic that, when the time came, the one who was attacking he DG girls at the time? Was the very person who'd made sure they weren't alone. It was at an event, the DG girls were working in a duo, intending to drain a bunch of people at a Beryl Holding's event...

It never got off the ground. The floor was littered with the unconscious people who'd been drained, as well as Chaar, now out of henshin. Drie was against the wall, shaking, eyes wide with fear. Drawing frantically on the wall, begging for help. The youma they'd brought was *gone*. The lackeys? Gone. And now Hinoiri was getting, slowly, to her feet... and walking towards her...

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Kyouka had not been heavy on the answers, given that apparently, no one really had any. Mamoru Chiba was in the hospital, he was burned, and all his magic was stolen. And Sunbreaker was the number one suspect, given that there weren't many people with a history of burning their enemies -

And Fuyuko was hoping it wasn't her. Mostly because she didn't want to turn over her student for the ass-whooping of a lifetime, considering the target she'd picked for hospitalization, but also because it would be a pain in the ass to pick between obligations. She owed Mamoru Chiba a favor. She owed Sunbreaker protection, to an extent, given her actual job. Having to pick between the two wasn't something she was looking forward to -

And then, as she prowled the laboratory floors Obsidian, there was the pull. The call.

And Lacuna appears from nowhere, stepping into existence in front of Drie. The inky darkness of her power swirls around her forearms and hands, faint glimpses of white winking from the shadows like dying stars. Her face is set in a grim expression, and she takes in the carnage - the unconscious civilians, the burned girl, the terrified mahou behind her -

"Run," she orders Drie, voice hard, "Teleport out of here and run."

She shouldn't have bothered hoping. Her hopes are never answered.

"The hell is wrong with you, kid?" Lab-coat, mini-skirt and bow, lizard tail, what was this, some kooky idea of a costume upgrade?

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri glanced to Drie, who ran like hell! Teleporting away the moment the out was offered. She then turned back to Lacuna.

"Nothing is wrong with me anymore," Hinoiri said. "I'm no longer Sunbreaker. That was the name of a foal. I finally figured it out. My rules. My desires to be seen. It was all so *stupid*. I was limiting myself. I was *trapping* myself. I was so set on trying to be worthy... I forgot to care if Sora was worthy of me."

She held out her hands. "I limited myself. I bound myself in pointless, petty, pathetic rules. Certain they'd be enough... but I was wrong. Nothing changed. Nothing... ever changes. The only thing that I can change... is me."

"Now? I am more powerful than Beryl. More powerful than Sora. More powerful than anything. I alone can handle the power of a thousand suns. And now? Now I will take everything I deserve."

"I am Hinoiri Kirara, the Sunset of Sora. And you? You helped me once, Lacuna. You taught me." She held out her hand, black flames on it... "So I will give you a chance... serve me... or be drained like all the others." It was a hollow choice, mind. Either way she'd drain the other girl. But she'd be happy to turn Lacuna into one of her minions, should the opportunity come...

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
The terrified girl runs, teleports when the option is pointed out to her. Lacuna doesn't fault her; those girls are new, to magic and to Obsidian, the ink barely dry on their employment contracts. It's not the choice she would have made, at that age, but at that age she'd long decided she preferred to earn bruises rather than lose pride.

Nothing is wrong with me anymore, Sunbreaker says, giving a supervillain speech that Lacuna would personally grade a C+ at best. Too much focus on what she did wrong, not enough on what she did right, not enough on what's changed.

Not that she has to admit it. Lacuna can 'hear' it, the sour notes of dark energy, blaringly 'loud' in her magical ear. There's hardly anything left of her other sound, the goofy track of surprisingly optimistic music that was her original magic. For whatever reason, Hinoiri Kirara has decided to check out and hand her reason over to her surplus dark energy, and it's turned her from an arrogant upstart to a delusional fool.

"Kid," she says, again, ignoring the names - both of them - to look this Sunset of Sora in the eye, "Believe it or not, I don't regret teaching you at all. If this is where you want your path to go, it's your life - you get to fuck it up as much as you want. But serve you?"

She shifts into a fighting stance, and the liquid-power of the void swirls around her arms, endless, hungry. A vicious smile cracks the mask of her face, revealing a hint of the madness that lurks inside, the battle-hunger she'd cultivated as a child and let loose as a teenager bent on murder.

"You're going to have to put me in the fucking ground first."

Her shields aren't like Stellar's - they don't crash back, but devour, not rending flesh and magic but simply enveloping it, sending it to the endless destruction of the void. She almost hopes Sunset of Sora tries to reach through - she'd lose a hand for the effort.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunset of Sora was lost to her despair... and there was very little music in her now. Well. Very little music that would be considered good. "Oh, my life was bucked up long before I met you, Lacuna. This is just me... finally accepting it and having enough. I want power? I'll take it." She started to walk towards her. "I want to rule? I'll force it. I want the sun... it will be mine. I'm done letting others decide what I can, and can't, have."

"And if killing you is the only way? Well... I suppose this is the only way it could have ended."

She then launched herself forward. And Lacuna had been a good mentor. A good teacher. She'd taught Hinoiri well. She took the same fighting stance that Lacuna had taught her. The one that Hinoiri had asked the woman to beat into her, if it came to it. The stance that she had learned over many grueling sessions. The girl had thrown her all into it, to make sure she was good enough... a shame she had followed her mentor's path in more ways than just that.

And then she'd launch the first punch, going in for a high strike to the face, but it was a feint. Instead reversing into a knee strike towards the gut. And Lacuna's shielding was powerful... but the first time Lacuna blocked, she'd be able to feel it. Where her flames touched, there was a sizzling. It did devour... but so did Hinoiri. Draining the magic with every touch, her devouring flames versus the devouring void. While she was likely nowhere near as good at hand to hand as Lacuna, her raw power was... the kind of thing that would terrify most mahou.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"Yeah, that one's a no shit kid," Lacuna mutters under her breath as Sunset exclaims that she was bucked up before she ever met Lacuna. No one ever came into Obsidian - let alone picked up Dark Energy - because their life was peachy-keen.

And then there's no more talking, because Sunbreaker - Sunset - fuck it, Hinoiri, comes at her, launching herself at Lacuna with moves Lacuna taught her, moves Lacuna can predict and block, because even if she'd literally beaten these moves, these stances, into Hinoiri, she was the master here, she was the one who'd killed a hundred thousand monsters (not an exaggeration, shut up, there's only one person alive who can say otherwise and she won't disagree) in a fighting style she'd created and learned herself.

The feint for the face into a knee strike, and none of the blows hit, because the void is there, flowing darkness that devours, and there's the hiss of flames silenced as the void devours, as it slices but there's so much.

It's not that there's too much for the void to devour. The void is endless, bottomless, ever-hungry.

It's that something reaches back, a hunger that digs it's nails in to peel back flesh -

Lacuna laughs.

"Oh, Hinoiri," it might be the first time she's ever said the girl's name, and it's a mocking laugh, like recognizing like, "You think if you eat enough, bleed enough, kill enough, you'll finally have what you want?"

The void flows, stretches, devours, but she can hear the orchestral strength of Sunset of Sora's terrible potential, every note off-key, every instrument rotted through and sour. It hurts, not just the sound, but the feeling of being eaten from the inside out, her magic tearing away from her, ripped strand by strand by something that doesn't care about being eaten if it can eat in return.

If it didn't hurt so fucking much, she'd pity this girl.

"People like you don't get to be happy."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
"No," Hinoiri said, that cruel, vicious grin on her face. "I thought it would. I thought if I suffered enough, I thought if I worked enough. I thought if I did everything right, I'd finally, just... finally... earn my happy ending." And she plunged her hand into the void. And it devoured. And it hurt. But those flames burned back. The fire devouring as it was devoured. When she pulled her hand back, it bled... but it remained.

"It hurts so much... but I learned. I finally learned... it'll never be enough. If I bleed, I shouldn't have. If I fight, I should have kept my cool. If I help someone, I help the wrong person. If I am *perfect*, then I should have been *more than perfect*."

There was a sizzling sound from her, one that hadn't been there before, as steam flowed from her face.

"I thought I could earn my happiness. I thought if I just *sacrificed enough*, it would matter. But you know what? You're right. People like me don't get happiness. No matter what we do, we're never seen as enough." She put her palm into the void again. The sound of burning and destruction filling the air before she pulled it back again. This time... the flame and void were swirling around her hand.

"So... I stopped trying. Now? I'm taking what I want. I'm done asking for permission. I'm done playing nice. And I will shatter bones, break bodies, devour magic and bend minds to my whims... if there is no place for me in any world, then I will *create one myself*!"

Then she punched Lacuna again. It was an easy blow to block. To deflect.

And it would devour all of the void in its path, the fist covered in scars and burns.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
It's genuinely only fitting that Lacuna's - she's not met her match, let's be honest. Hinoiri has drowned herself in enough darkness that Fuyuko would have struggled with her when she had all of her power, let alone now, when she can only use it to defend herself, and it's still not enough. So no, she's not met her match. But she's met something like an equal, in madness at least, reflected in the cruel, vicious smile on that face, the way her own smile had been madness incarnate.

"You poor, stupid fucking kid," she says, without a bit of pity, and she's thinking of how she can kill her. It's life, right? Sometimes the magic goes wrong. Sometimes the journey has to end. You take the ride as far as it can go, and eventually it has to stop.

Hinoiri thrusts her fist into the void, flames devoured, flesh devoured, and Lacuna twists the magic, ready to sunder flesh from flesh, to devour the hand that so foolishly enters the void -

And it's not that the void doesn't do as the void is meant to do. The void does not cut or slash, does not tear or rip, it merely is and it ends -

But the hand bleeds instead of breaks. Flesh and bone are stripped away and devoured as readily as flame, but there's a golden core that flows into the wrist, that flows and builds even as matter is destroyed, and with every second, Hinoiri is devouring Lacuna.

There's a sound in her that's sickeningly familiar - the strumming of heavy strings that is Mamoru, and the sense of golden-home that is his calling card, his healing that even now, feeling the very edge of it as it rebuilds what the void devours, draws a sour pinch to her mouth, and Lacuna understands that it isn't just that Hinoiri is consuming magic. She's assimilating it.

It's probably a third of what's wrong with her now, becoming more than she is, by tearing away pieces from other people and grafting them onto herself.

"You're taking the wrong things," Lacuna says through grit teeth, as flames sizzle, as flesh is devoured and regrown and stripped and burned and still remains -

As something in her being tears away, and the void around her fists begins to flow around Hinoiri's, the power shrinking, siphoned away, torn, and she isn't going to run but she kicks out at Hinoiri, aiming to stomp her knee, crack her joints and bones and kill, while she still can, if it will stop this kid from having her lethal power -

It's too late. She should have gone for the kill right off, because her flaming, void-strewn fist flies at Lacuna, and the last of her void-shield disperses before the fist can fly through.

Lacuna's henshin flickers. She tucks her head in, clenches her neck, until every muscle is bunched, and moves in, taking the punch in motion, because trying to get away will only whip her head back -

The thing is, nothing prepares you for taking a flaming, super-strong fist to the face, aside from getting hit, a lot.

Lacuna has been hit a lot, at least. Her henshin shatters, leaving her in business attire, and there's agony, as bones crunch and flames burn the perfect impression of Hinoiri's fist into her face.

She goes down, but there's still magic in her, because Hinoiri hasn't had enough, and she struggles to her knees, spits blood from where her gums were cut by the impact of flesh and bone against teeth -

She's still laughing.

"You think you can create anything? You take the essence of destruction and think you'll build yourself a world? Stupid fucking kid, you're just destroying the only places you could have fit in."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
"I was," Hinoiri said. "So stupid. So Naive. I couldn't see. Nothing I did ever mattered... nothing."

And when she watched her mentor, the woman who taught her to punch, fly away.... she laughed. Walked to her. Her hands, ever so gently, reached out. And gripped her cheeks on either side. No fire. No pain. In fact, there was that warm, golden glow that Mamoru gave so, so well... Healing... her?

"I am nothing. I was nothing. Do you know who I was? I was a child abandoned in the woods to die. I was the student who was never perfect enough. I was the disappointment cast aside because nobody wanted her. I was never chosen for power. I was never given some grand destiny. As your little... 'friend'... heh... said... I'm not 'special'..."

"I am just Hinoiri Kirara. Unwanted. Unneeded. Abandoned. Cast out. There is no place for me that I don't make myself... This isn't even my world, Lacuna. Here? I'd just be a girl who used to be a unicorn... who lost everything to the veil. A mockery... without a past, a family... without anything."

She leaned in, smiling to her.

"And if I cannot make a world where I belong... then I will destroy everything that was denied to me. I will no longer settle. So... I thank you. For your generous contribution to my destiny. Thank you for everything, sensei."

And then there was pain. As Lacuna found herself drained. Viciously. Cruelly. The void tearing at her as it was forcefully sucked out from her body, as the flames enveloped her... before she was finally shoved aside, the wounded, likely agonized woman pushed away before Hinoiri disappeared in a burst of flames. Left just short of unconsciousness thanks to that prior healing... As calculated as she was cruel.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Everything she did mattered. That's what Hinoiri didn't understand. Everything she did, made her who she is. Everything she did, made her more than who she had been. Made her the person she would always know she had been.

Kyouka had said it best. You can't talk someone out of something they've already done. It's why Fuyuko hadn't tried.

As she struggles to her knees, as she spits her blood, as she feels the burnt skin of her face split from the force of her own laughter, she wondered if Hinoiri was cleared headed enough to understand that this would always be a part of her.

No matter where she went from here. No matter how low she fell or how high she climbed, this would always be who she had been.

There's a touch to her cheeks, gentle and foreign, no pain, but instead, the absence, and then the warmth and the soft glow, something like - not like quite like home, not quite like the Earth, solid and calling, but something warm nonetheless, hearth glow instead of sunshine.

"You're too in your own head," she says, as the burn fades, heals, as dead skin flakes away to reveal new, shiny and soft. Her mouth is puckered, as though she's bitten into a lemon, at the touch of that healing glow. "You care too much about what other people want. About what other people think. That's why it hurts. That's why you're angry. Because deep down inside, you still think you aren't worthy, and you're running scared for anything that will hide that feeling. I've got this job because I know entirely too much about that - "

And Hinoiri thanks her.

And takes everything, peeling it out of her, piece by piece, as flames erupt and envelope her, searing flesh and lighting clothes aflame and Lacuna - Fuyuko - Lacuna, always - laughs.

It's not that it doesn't hurt. Gods, but it hurts. She smells her flesh cooking, her hair burning, and she laughs instead of screams, because she won't give Hinoiri the satisfaction (or the misery, after).

And then she's pushed away, and Hinoiri disappears in a burst of light and flame, and Fuyuko sobs then, a single, choked, agonized burst of noise. Her skin - every inch of it - is agony, kissed by flame. Her clothes are blackened, and bits break away as she reaches -

But her closes blistering fingers around her phone, and manages to call emergency services.

"My... name... is Fuyuko Yuuhi... there's been - an incident - "