A large snake flew towards Sangre and bit her ribcage. Sangre looked down at the large shadowy snake with an eyebrow raised, then looked in the direction it came from while shooting a large blood arrow through it just to see Hirune, but a little different. Her hair fully silver and eyes glowing purple, a crazy smile on her face. A jaw of darkness shooting out of the dead snake's corpse and devouring her entire chest area.
Barely regenerating in time to dodge the next pair of jaws sent flying at her, Sangre made a cape of blood which shot a barrage of arrows and swords at Hirune. In response Hirune used her snake incantation again and made it coil around her to block the incoming fire.
Now having fully processed that Hirune nearly just killed her and blocked an attack that would kill most, Sangre saw her as a threat and closed the distance between her and Hirune, flipping her cape in the air and ripping her chest open before doing the same thing as the snake retracted back into Hirune's shadow. This was an attack that was guaranteed to kill her, yet she just smiled, her eyes suddenly turned from purple to red as she chanted, "Devour!"
A bunch of devourer jaws came out from underneath her nails and clothes devouring all of the incoming projectiles again. Seeing this, Sangre finally caught on and blew up her legs with enough force to send her flying back.
"Ellen! Why the hell didn't you tell me you had the user of Namulenza's artifact with you!"
Ellen just smiled weakly and grunted a couple times, yet these grunts couldn't be made out. Rolling her eyes Sangre shoot a bunch of hooks of blood at Hirune, which all connected, almost as if Hirune wanted them to connect. This confused Sangre, yet she took her chance and yanked Hirune towards her while throwing herself into the blood ocean. Confident in this, she kept her eyes on the blood ocean as they fell down the peak, the only reason she turned her head back up at the sky being that she heard thudding from it. A devourer jaw eating her arm, then another took a chunk out of her, then another. Hirune had used the devourer jaws on the cliff to catch up to her.
Then POOMF! They plummeted into the blood ocean saving Sangre's life as she instantly regenerated and used the blood in the ocean to hold Hirune and her many jaws in place and launch herself out back onto the peak.
"Okay, Tundra, me and Ellen are friends! We were sparring and I ended up hurting her pretty badly and I was trying to heal her. Why doesn't she do it herself with an incantation? I cut her tongue off; now shut up I don't need to be reminded of how dumb that was," Sangre clarified as she went back to Ellen and started healing her again.
Ellen was already mostly healed, and with Sangre rushing to heal Ellen, it only took her a couple of minutes. Ellen coughed a bit and sat up quickly, "All right, all right, all right! I was hoping this would never happen, but I guess now we're stuck with it! You see Namulenza's artifact works in a unique way from any other witch artifact, you see, since Namulenza was controlled by those around her, her artifact makes it so that if someone tries to control the holder of her power, they'll slowly turn into essentially the bad, or evil version of themselves. Of course, there's other artifacts that work similar like the Kindness artifact, the Life artifact, the Arthur artifact, etc. What makes this version of that polar opposite effect unique though is that to reverse it, you have to either neglect the effects, do an act of liberation, or leave it up to time itself. I'm guessing the reason for her going berserk like that was because Namulenza hypnotized her to make her mind susceptible and forced it in order to deal with you because she thought you were a threat to Hirune. She probably also hoped I knew of this and thought that using this to protect me would allow me to put an end to it quickly, so she shouldn't be rampaging anymore once she sees I'm fine."
"So, we're getting a bad Hirune for a while?" Tundra asked while still giving Sangre a slight glare.
"Yep, so make sure to be nice to her. Also get ready to say hi," Ellen said as Hirune suddenly flew back onto the cliff with seemingly more jaws around her than before. She seemed ready to rip Sangre to shreds, yet she suddenly stopped and the jaws went away as she saw Ellen was fine. Landing on the ground she walked over while giving the three a cold look.
Ellen gave her a little wave, Sangre apologized for making her worry about Ellen, to which Hirune scowled. As for Tundra, he was just staring at her and how much she'd changed not just visually but in her composure.
"What? Do I look funny?" She asked with a glare.
"Uh," Tundra panicked and remembered what Ellen told him about being nice to her. "Nope, you look gorgeous."
She blinked a couple of times before clenching her jaw and punching him in the gut, "Dumbass!"
Ellen chuckled, "Excuse me, I didn't mean to laugh at you." She suddenly cleared her throat and called out, "Kala! Get up here it's important!"
Sangre looked at Ellen and waved her hand up. A bubble of blood floating Kala in front of them before falling onto the ground in a puddle. Kala quickly stood up and looked around, instantly noticing Hirune.
"I'll explain, for now I'm afraid I must admit something to you all," Ellen said with a sigh. Tundra and Kala looked at her confused, Hirune scowled at her, and Sangre started laughing.
"You see, I lied about the assassin thing here just to visit Sangre. But we didn't come here for no reason! As she does think she might know something. While she healed me, she told me that there might be one in Hamava."
They sighed, they were already expecting something like this once they all knew Sangre was her friend, so it didn't really come as a surprise.
"So, can we go now? I'm pretty sure killing an assassin is more important than a little visit," Hirune said coldly while crossing her arms.
"It's okay you can go now! I'll be fine on my own for another decade or two," Sangre said while smiling. "After all she's right. Dealing with a bunch of government assassins is more important than visiting me, but I really appreciate the visit!"
Ellen hugged her and they were on their way. Where they now had to deal with a rude and decently foul mouthed Hirune who now believed in skipping the judgment and going straight to execution and thought that helping others if it didn't benefit you was pointless. The voice of Namulenza seemingly nowhere to be found or at least being completely ignored.
Tundra yet again found himself staring at Hirune, to which Hirune said without looking at him, "If I look funny just say so!"
Tundra tripped over his words again like last time before saying, "I'm just taking in your beauty, that's all..."
Tundra flinched expecting her to hit him like last time, yet when he looked at her, he saw her looking away with her arms crossed, "Whatever!"
"I sense some good tea~!" Ellen said with a giggle while piloting the speed boat.
"Whatever! Can we go to the coast near my abode?! I have some stuff I need to get from there," Hirune said rudely.
"Sure, sure, but watch your tone with me alright?" Ellen said while holding a controlled black hole in her hand. Which Hirune simply walked over, grabbed it, and then proceeded to start eating it like a cookie.
"I'll make sure to watch my tone with you simply out of respect for you," she said while taking another bite out of the black hole. The only thing keeping her hands from being spaghettified being the devourer jaws wrapping around them. As for how she's eating it, there's a bit of the Devourer's power in her amino acids.
Ellen stared at her in amusement, "Well isn't that something?"
Hirune then proceeded to walk back over to Tundra and sit very close to him while taking another bite of the black hole. She took a glance at him and held the black hole near his face, "Say aah~..."
Tundra's eyes widened a bit, "I'm sorry Hirune but not everyone can eat black holes."
Hirune looked at the black hole then back at him, "I can fix that." She said while leaning in a bit.
Kala whistled, Ellen sipped the tea, and Tundra sat there in disbelief. "Hirune, you can't-" Hirune kissed him on the cheek then sat there as if waiting for something to happen.
"Okay it worked, now say aah~," Hirune repeated. To which Tundra replied with a sigh, "I can't-" Hirune took a small bit of the black hole and shoved it into his mouth, "Just eat it! Can't you tell I'm trying to reciprocate your kindness?!" Tundra stared at her in shock, as eating that small part of the black hole didn't kill him.
"You see, with but a simple kiss on the cheek Mr. Devi will give whoever I kissed special amino acids just like mine," Hirune said as if she's always known this. After what Namulenza did it seems as though a lot of knowledge about her artifact got transferred directly into her brain.
"Who's Mr. Devi? And how does that even work?" Ellen asked.
"Mr. Devi is the guy who allows me to use the devourer jaws and other things of the sort. As for how it works. I don't know. It just does," She responded while splitting what's remaining of the black hole to share it with Tundra.
"So, not trying to insult you but, how do you suddenly know so much about your artifact?" Tundra asked while taking his half.
"You see, after I went berserk back there because of that blood... fiend, simply to not insult Ellen's friend as much, Mr. Yellow talked to me while covering himself with a huge blanket so I wouldn't see him. Which I found weird until I found out it was for my own good because it would make me go insane if I saw him. But he told me more about my artifact like how I can control the shape of the devourer jaws and how I can control what my summoning incantations do. But besides that, he didn't tell me anything else."
"So, Mr. Yellow is the King in Yellow and Black, and from what it seems Mr. Devi is Beelzebub considering what each of them do," Ellen said while pondering.
"How did you..."
"Doesn't matter," Ellen said while slowing the boat down near the shore. "We've arrived at the shore near your humble abode. Me and Kala are going to go ahead to the base, Tundra, stay with Hirune at all times while she gets her stuff."
They split ways as they got into the street, the sound of bike bells and horse hooves striking the ground following them on the road. Tundra and Hirune got to her house pretty fast as it was only twelve blocks down from where they got onto the street.
Hirune turned to him. "Hm... I guess I'll let you in, but only because I don't know if any assassins broke in," Hirune said before walking in and instantly heading towards her room.
Right next to the door there was an open kitchen with a small stove, a couple pots and pans inside the over under the stove, which was open, and some dishes in the sink. If you ignore the kitchen and walk a little further into the small house, you find yourself in a living room with two matching velvet sofas with an old-timey rose pattern on them, and a small glass coffee table pushed against the wall with a box T.V on it. One of the Antenna's lying on the floor in front of it as if it broke off and Hirune had planned to fix it. Finally, to the left of the living room there was a curtain that led to an extremely small room with a one-person bed, a pretty small closet to the right of the bed in the corner of the room which didn't allow for much foot space towards the bedside table and fan as the closet wasn't in the wall.
Hirune suddenly rolled out from under her bed and put a small little box with a lever on it on the bed and opened it; a small little tune playing from the box as a ballerina in it spun.
"Out of all people I didn't expect you to have a music box," Tundra said while sitting down on the floor.
"Quiet peasant! I'm trying to listen," she said while resting her head on her arms.
Tundra sat there for a moment before standing up, "Is that all? Or would you also like to get some clothes?"
Hirune glared at him, then her gaze softened. She closed the music box and walked over with it, struggling to open the closet with one hand as the rough wood rubbed against itself before suddenly opening hard. She sighed and held the music box a little tighter as she nearly dropped it, then picked out a couple pairs of clothes before turning to the bed again.
"Hey Tundra, could you grab that pillow and reach inside of it?"
He did as she asked and pulled out a necklace with a beautiful amethyst gem in it, a small little glowing purple rock dangling from the diamond shaped embellishment. He tried to hand it to her, but her hands seem to be too busy.
She turned around, "Put it on me. If you don't mind of course."
He did as she said and gently placed it on her neck. She turned back towards him with a satisfied expression, "Okay, right after we deal with the person in the kitchen, we should be good to go."
"Person in the kitchen?"
"I'd left the oven closed and there were no dirty dishes when I left. So, this assassin should be pretty easy to take down," Hirune said as she placed her clothes and music box on her bed. "In fact, I'll do it myself. Whatever you do don't come out until I say you can, I plan to test out Mr. Yellow's basic Incantation. So, I beg, please don't come out until I say you can because if you do, you'll go insane and if you do, I'm not sure what I might be forced to do to you."