Wilhelm Seth's gaze did not waver. Taking in the carnage, the blood, and everything that had started. He had started looking away once he took a life, or when Yoshi and Tomoe took one in front of him. It wasn't that he was scared of death, but he was scared of overloading himself. He could see every last bit of the expression on Pedro Cabral's face from when he had died. The exact pattern of the spray of his blood when Tomoe took his head. Every little detail was made manifest, even the dissipation of the data making up his actual Spirit, returning to the world as a whole, was perfectly ingrained in his mind, albeit too complex to read.

  Yoshi had commented on him doing this a few times, but he let it go when he killed one of the enemy soldiers himself with Staccato and made it abundantly clear that it wasn't an issue of being unwilling to see blood or death as the man's head exploded apart from three transplanted knife strikes. In the three days they'd gotten to know each other, Tomoe had calmed down a good bit, though she still had a hard edge that made him jump slightly. Pad had been going through it. It looked rough, but he wasn't sure how to help the younger man, and didn't want to make things worse by stepping in. And Jojo... Had locked himself in the workshop the entire time. He considered telling him to lay off it for a bit, but Jill had been watching over him pretty closely.

  They were already at the foot of the palace. Craning his neck up, he couldn't help but notice that the defending natives were completely unprepared for a siege. The place was massive, made of an absurd amount of well-maintained bricks. The palace itself was made of several buildings, almost like a miniature city in itself. Within the exterior wall, there seemed to be no less than ten buildings, and it could take several minutes for them to search through all of them.

  Thankfully, the presence of many guards on the walls was but a quick distraction, with Yoshi and Tomoe having drawn bows and quickly killed all of them. It was awful that they were killing so many people, but... Within the Distortion, these people weren't quite 'real' to begin with. Their existence was going to disappear when the Distortion was resolved either way.

  He stomped down as they reached the main gate of the wall, a wooden gate that seemed to be copied from European designs. When his foot contacted the ground, he used Staccato again, shifting the point of impact within his view to the gate's hinge, directing all the force of his body into one point.

  Crack. And like that, the hinge on the left side of the gate broke apart, one door falling over and leaving the inner palace open to their attack. Glancing across the courtyard, he saw each of the buildings briefly and made a head count of every guard present. Sure enough, most of them were relatively unguarded, but two of the buildings near the center were clearly more heavily guarded. It'd be something of a fifty-fifty chance whether they got the right building, but there was also the possibility that the king of the Aztecs had separated himself and the plug, one in each of the two buildings. If he had done that, both buildings could simultaneously be considered 'right' and 'wrong'.

  It was okay to get a 'wrong' choice, as long as he got the 'right' choice too. Then, in that case... "Lady Tomoe, can you search that building? Yoshi and I will take the other one." He quickly pointed to the buildings with Litotes, his knife, as he spoke, making it clear which he meant. She sneered slightly at him, but ultimately chose to follow his suggestion without outward complaint, stepping forwards and cutting down two more guards who did their level best to stop her, with an efficient ease.

  The guards in front of the other building had rushed at Wilhelm himself, recognizing him as much weaker than the Spirit beside him and hoping to turn the tides slightly. He couldn't understand the words they were saying - ancient Aztec was one of the few languages that he both didn't know, and wasn't given translation for as a result of Heliopolis's implants. Despite that, he had a feeling they knew they were about to die, and were willing if it meant protecting their king just a bit longer. He turned his head away as Yoshinaka finished them with two slashes of his Tachi. Wilhelm's stride didn't stop or interrupt itself during the whole affair, trusting Yoshinaka to deal with them before they could even reach him, and he forced the door open with enough strength to crack the stone used to construct it.

  The room inside was slightly dark, though that didn't matter much in the face of his eyes. Physiomagical aberrancy, the docs called it. That's what all the things that made him 'different' were called. Yet, what he and Yoshi stepped into didn't seem to be a grand throne room, nor was it some huge warehouse where they might keep the plug that was causing this entire Distortion to begin with. It was a small foyer-esque room, meant to receive guests, and he could see a layout that suggested this was just someone's home. It was furnished lavishly, of course, but not to the extent he would've expected from a King's bedchambers.

  Soon enough, a woman stepped out from one of the adjacent rooms, clad only in a long, dark robe made of a coarse fabric that didn't match the rich atmosphere. It seemed to have been purposefully cut to reveal just enough to be seductive, showing off her hips and the tops of her breasts, yet still leaving enough hidden to be considered clothed. She had a coy look on her face, and though that face had a bit of a hooked nose, and was a bit fat, Wilhelm couldn't help but feel that she was beautiful in spite of those features, or perhaps even because of them. She slipped off the white headdress that had been keeping her hair held back, tossing out lengths of beautiful, black locks that made his heart skip a beat. Even compared to his costars in some of his best films, she was beautiful, and she seemed to know it.

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  "Monsieur, might I understand what you're doing in my bedchambers? I wasn't aware the King was open to sharing me with other men. Or, perhaps you're the type that likes to live on the wild side?"

  Yoshinaka was the first to move, pointing his Tachi directly at her and speaking. "Out of the way, we're here for that plug. Wil, you can get a common whore any day, focus on the mission. If you need a wingman, I'll help you when we get back, ‘kay?"

  ...Wilhelm had no idea how he was supposed to respond to that. To any of it. Still, this lady was clearly a Spirit, he could see it. She seemed to be of the Binah class, one filled with manipulators and spellcasters. On top of that, she was a French woman. Already, he could narrow down a good amount of who she might be, as he slowly stepped forward, trusting his suit to protect him.

  "Miss, that's a lovely offer, but we have work to do. I'd be happy to come back next week, but for now, we're looking for a particular 'plug' the king is quite fond of. I don't suppose you've seen it anywhere?"

  Her gaze slowly traced him up and down. It seemed seductive, but the way it slowly scanned over him felt almost predatory, like she was deciding what to do with her food. He couldn't help the shiver that ran up his spine as she giggled lightly.

  "Monsieur, you are too forward. Inviting yourself to my bedchambers, and now asking to use a plug? Yet, that forwardness is exciting too. Of course, I don't carry such a big, thick, important package with me, that's the King's personal toy."

  A sigh exited his lips as Yoshinaka stepped forward and he stepped to one side, between them. Yoshi was already almost out of patience, they'd need to leave or things were gonna get ugly. Yoshi probably had the advantage against a spellcaster this close up, but there was no telling what special preparations she might've made in such a small space. Wilhelm turned, and began to leave.

  "As promised, we'll be back. Yoshi, let's leave this lady to her rest."

  ...Yet when he turned to the door, it had already been tampered with. Where once was a cracked door made of stone, he found roots and nettles growing through the cracks and entrances, sealing it tightly against the wall. Rather than try to simply open it, he clicked the hidden button in the side of Litotes to begin its charging function, and slashed at the nettles, only to find they seemed to be unreachable despite being right in front of him.

  "Going so soon, Monsieurs? Such a tease, promising a girl a good time with two big, strapping men, and then trying to leave before she's had her fun. I've locked us all in a barrier field, you know? It took a little bit of work since you busted up the door, but vines and tendrils can reach so many deep crevices."

  Before Wilhelm had finished turning back towards her, he already heard a clash of steel, and found himself watching Yoshi make the correct move of trying to take out the caster herself. Rather than steel on steel, it had been steel on bone, as Yoshinaka's sword caught on what seemed to be a mass of flesh extending from the wall, with all sorts of fused bones inside, and what looked like little, half-formed faces on the outside. Was it made from...

  He stopped himself from thinking about that, rushing forward before kicking the wall beside him, using Staccato to plant the impact of the kick on the woman's face and cause her to stagger back. As he did so, she reached into the robe she was wearing, to a thin band around her hips that he'd thought was just an intentional peek at what she was wearing beneath. She threw a small vial of green liquid from it to the ground, and that liquid quickly turned into a thick, voluminous mist that made it hard for him to see what was happening behind it.

  "Yoshi, it's pois-"

  "I know, Wil, I'm not an idiot. I just don't have time for bullshit like this." Yoshinaka had quickly cut off his warning, and rather than trying to cross the poison, he turned and slammed his full weight into the interior wall beside him, shattering the wall into pieces. His Aristeia was useless in an interior battle, and they both knew it, plus he didn't have an Artifact to level the playing field right now, only his skill and strength, alongside the fact that there were two of them against only one enemy.

  Of course, Wilhelm knew that he wasn't as fast or as strong as a Spirit, even one focused on casting spells over fighting with a sword. Despite that, he was still fast enough to keep up, they could win this as long as they played their cards right. Meanwhile, Lady Tomoe was surely fighting the King himself one building over, and they could help her once they were done here. Litotes was building up its charge well, it should be able to slice through almost anything soon, so he just needed Yoshi to help give him an opening, or vice versa, and they could stop this lady.

  Copying Yoshi's tactic, he blew apart the wall into the other room with several slashes, leaving all three of them in different rooms as he could hear the Binah-class Spirit running through the main hall. The room he was in, he'd thought would have been the woman's bedroom, but given the sheer amount of medical tools, herbs, vials, and workstations, it seemed more like a lab than anything else. Perhaps she was working on something just before they interrupted her, rather than resting and enjoying a night's sleep.

  Rather than try to find her location and strike her directly, he burst back out of that lab before anything bad could happen, ending up on the opposite side of the cloudy, green fog. Thankfully, whatever it was made of didn't seem to spread like a normal gas would, instead lingering in a small area. On his left, he caught a glimpse of her, and that was all he needed to punch the wall and use Staccato to trip her up with a sudden strike to the ankle.

  "Yoshi, now! Cut her down, we don't have time for this."

  The words sounded so harsh, but he knew they needed to move quick. Lady Tomoe was likely in a seriously tough fight, and they didn't have time to keep fighting a Spirit he'd summoned to act as some right hand or backline support for him.

  Yoshinaka burst into the room, swinging his blade down, and unceremoniously ended the unknown woman's life, his sword piercing straight into the center of her ribs. It would have been nice to know her name, or maybe even recruit her, but they needed to move quickly.