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Pandora's Fox II
PANDORA'S FOX II
If you were here last June, do you remember that app that appeared on the relics then, Pandora's Fox? It's all about finding your Familiar bond. It's been available for people to use since every Star Child was forced to fill it out or have it filled out for them with its grand reveal. However, it's sat quietly in the background unobtrusive to those who didn't click to see what it was about.
Until now.
That's right, Pandora's Fox is back! (and with a makeover). The app has been rejiggered with old questions and new, including some specific to each Role! The app will buzz and open itself with a blank profile waiting to be filled out. Star Children can fill it out for themselves—as long as they don't lie. This app will not allow Star Children to lie. Honesty is important in a Familiar bond. Star Children who lie may find that answer filled in a little too honestly and unable to be deleted. Anyone who waits too long to fill it in will find it answered for them!
Familiar bonds come in all different shapes and sizes, so find the right person for you!
This is game canon!
Forms for your characters!
Myths:
Legends:
Familiars:
cw: brief mention of attempted child murder and torture
It's easier to see in retrospect, but part of Vergil's attraction to Mizu has always been the degree to which she's always accepted him as he is. Nothing of his past that she's been told or seen for herself has made her pull away or think lesser of him than she did before. And when it comes to what Vergil has expressed in terms of how has changed, how he wants things to be different, she's never spoken of them in any way that could be considered less than supportive. Whatever Vergil wants, Mizu does not dissuade him from seeking out. Mizu's opinion of Vergil has never been blind, however. She does not ignore his shortcomings or his failures. She just does not let them be the sole determinant of her thoughts.
In some ways, that remains terrifying. To be seen so completely is something Vergil really only knows to meet with fear. But he is determined for that fear not to have the final say. It may lead Vergil to withhold some of what he feels for Mizu from her. He avoids certain words in both his own and borrowed words for a reason, and he is not so willfully ignorant to not know why. Those young feelings of love he knows he possesses are dangerous to him, and he does all that he can to keep them from taking a deeper root because he knows he cannot survive the heartbreak when Mizu inevitably leaves for her revenge or he stumbles into some means of messing this up.
"No, I wouldn't," he says softly. Vergil exhales sharply in light amusement. "And you wouldn't have been all that successful in trying regardless."
She would only need ask Dante as to how well trying to change Vergil tends to go. He tried hard to convince Vergil, to save him from his blind arrogance, but Vergil could never accept the possibility of what Dante was arguing held any merit to it. All Vergil could see is someone who chose weakness over strength, who rejected who and what they are, and for what? It's an argument they seem to still be locked in with one another if their last conversation was any indication. Vergil's gaze drifts to the fire in front of them, subconsciously pressing Mizu a little closer to him even as she relaxes against him now. Vergil's decision to change, to accept his humanity for what it is were all choices he had to make on his own, through his own observations and terrible, bloody mistakes.
Vergil knows he should probably tell her. She should know about V and Urizen. She should know how much he hated and resented his mother even as he mourned her. She should know how much he hated and resented his brother for being saved when he felt left to die. She should know how his stubbornness had only increased and intensified his torture until Mundus finally, finally carved what was left of his heart from him to bring him to heel. They're terrible, shameful things, but they are still part of him, and what has led him here today.
He can't even truly blame Thirteen for his continued silence on those matters. She tried to strip him of his choice, that much is clear, but Vergil knows deep down that's not why he chooses to say nothing of it to Mizu. Her understanding and acceptance of him appears to be limitless, and there is little to indicate that even with all of that, there is anything he could say she would revoke it. That is not the reason either.
The reason simply is Vergil does not wish to relive those moments.
cw: references to drug addiction and betraying/killing within the family
Mizu once changed her mind about her path. She strayed from the path of revenge for love, for her mother. She married a stranger and agreed to a life she did not want to take care of her. That things worked out as well as they did for a time with Mikio was not guaranteed. Even after Mikio sold Kai, she tried to mend things, both for their relationship and for her mother. The reason she'd been there in the first place. It doesn't matter which of them betrayed her for money. They both betrayed her. No, that's not quite right. She realized her mother never loved her and only saw her as means to an ends, the way so many fathers see their daughters. Mizu lost her importance once she no longer a means to get more opium. Only once Mizu would abandon one or both Mikio and her mother (and with that, her mother lost housing and free food) did the woman beg for her attention. Perhaps her mother wanted to marry her off to another man. Mikio and her mother both died there that day, so there's no way to know. It doesn't matter. The woman wasn't her mother, but even years raising Mizu from when she was a day old wasn't enough to make her capable of loving Mizu. With no love, it's not a betrayal, only the cloth falling from over Mizu's eyes.
The only time Mizu changed her path for love, it was with someone who didn't love her and someone for whom love wasn't enough if he really loved her at all. Vergil cares for her as she is and knows her for who she is. What happened before won't happen again. Even could Vergil betray her for money, she knows he never would.
No, as with most of her relationships, it's far more likely to end because Mizu messes it up or leaves. No way around that. She supposes there's a slight chance the fox spirit provides Vergil (and possibly Dante) a way back to the human world and therefore Nero, so that he leaves first. She would not hold it against him when that is his whole reason for coming here. Of the many things she would never ask of Vergil, she would not ask him to value her above his son. Mizu doesn't want that for Vergil, nor does she want that for Nero. Someone's parent should love them.
"About as well as anyone trying to change me."
Never mind that she already feels different from knowing Vergil. Mizu could not explain how exactly, but there's a reason she made her sword the way she did. Mizu wipes her hands on her cloak, roughly cleaning them, and considers her sword. Mizu promised Vergil all of herself and even offered to let him ask her anything. However, that offer hardly makes it likely for Vergil to ask something he has no knowledge of or wouldn't think there's anything particular to know about. Why would he ask if anything of his is part of her sword? She collected his glove and his shredded coat after parting ways with him and stored them hidden in her cabin. Vergil will likely never know unless she decides to tell him, but it's still too much in the moment. Too large a declaration to give, especially when she made the sword before they came to Amrita Academy.
Mizu unsheathes the sword and rests it across her lap, its unique blue color as stunning as ever. Mizu says, "I don't know that I'd have felt ready to remake my sword without the conversations we've had."
It's a large enough confession.
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He watches her with her blade as she unsheathes it, resting it in her lap. Even in the fading evening light and the glow of the small fire, it shines brilliantly. And then it's Vergil's turn to find himself brought to silence and uncertainty in what to say, his gaze immediately drawn to what he can see of her face in his disbelief.
Mizu doesn't need to say it directly. She told him before. Of the barrier between her and remaking her sword. And she's spoken of how, in retrospect, it had been a mistake to forge the blade as she had, when she was not ready. So, Vergil doesn't need to hear her say it explicitly to know what her words truly mean and to have them cause his heart skip a beat or two upon hearing them. But still, his mind mulls over the words as though he might reveal another meaning behind them, something that would seem more plausible to him. That level of scrutiny is likely something he would continue for longer were it coming from anyone but Mizu, who has never felt compelled to ever soften the meaning of her words. As it is though, his mind simply goes quiet as he sits with them, his gaze drifting away back to the fire.
Vergil is not... To say that he's ever been nurturing even for a moment is a significant stretch. Nor does he possess the capacity to be all that persuasive or inspiring considering he's never much concerned himself much with others. The only real influence he can say he's ever possessed has been a minimal one on Dante, and Vergil wouldn't really consider counting that. He's made his arguments, of course, and they continue even now, but his influence has come more from his actions forcing Dante to change if he was truly going to stand as opposition to Vergil's designs. That is not nearly the same thing even if he also lacked intention with Mizu. Between Dante and Vergil was an argument regarding their very existence, the meaning in which they should find in their heritage. Mizu speaks of something personal, but of a different nature than that.
But even setting aside Vergil's tendencies often posing as a sharp contrast to something that could lend itself to influence and to do so in a positive manner, Vergil cannot help but feel the tug of something more. He draws a breath before pursing his lips. She will leave. He will break it. It will one day come to its end, and Vergil will have done all that he can to guard his heart against it. But he feels some piece of himself weaken and come loose at the idea that somehow, in some way beyond his comprehension, she feels he has left a mark upon her. It's something intangible. Something that could carry beyond them and this place. But it is there.
His instinct is to deny it. After all, it is not as though Mizu isn't prone to focusing solely on her flaws both perceived and real. It could just as well be that he's held up a mirror enough times for her to see past them, to see and understand herself from a different perspective that isn't necessarily softer, but certainly does not erase the good when taking stock of the bad. He also has never made any effort to change her, only for her to see what he does when he's with her. But to deny it feels as though he is denying her in some way or another. Perhaps discrediting her feelings for him? Or maybe it is casting doubt that she became ready to remake her sword in the first place? Regardless, the instinct burns on every nerve-ending, but Vergil does not concede to it. His discomfort with his own vulnerability should be no reason to cast doubts upon hers for himself or Mizu.
He looks at her again, feeling his silence has likely stretched on far too long as he's been reeling from her words. A smile manages to make its way across his face.
"You would have eventually," he says, not disagreeing or deviating from the sentiment he expressed to her at the bonfire all those months ago. It was always an inevitability in Vergil's mind that she would be ready for her sword once more. "But maybe it would have taken you a bit longer to hear the things you needed to get there without those conversations."
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She's proud of that, and Mizu's certain Master Eiji would be proud of this sword. Perhaps even of her. If one item reflects her time in Folkmore, it's this sword, both what came before it was made and after. It carries that too, always with Mizu and a part of her. It's the only possession of hers she truly needs. If her whole house is destroyed and the forge with it, she can rebuild. She can get a new set of tools (even if she has a fondness for the ones Vergil obtained for her). She can replace everything else except this sword. It's one reason she isn't worried about what Folkmore will look like when they leave the school. Mizu will be okay. Vergil may miss his books if he loses them, but they can be replaced. Mirage Edge cannot be taken from him, and he has his amulet. Vergil too can rebuild as needed. They are themselves, and they carry what's important to them. They've both lived lives where they needed that to be the case, and it places them in a better situation here.
If she hadn't forged her sword before this happened, the metal might be lost, and Mizu would feel that loss keenly. It's one more reason she's grateful for the pillar Vergil has been in her life in Folkmore.
"I know," Mizu says wryly. She doesn't doubt that she's better off, both for herself and for her revenge, to reach that point yet again. It's true, and Mizu's not one to foist her own growth and forward momentum onto anyone else. Still, getting there via a different path would make her a different person. It would make this a different sword. "I prefer it happened this way."
With Vergil a solid part of it and connected with it. He's also only opponent she's wielded the sword against so far. The only one worthy of it. Oh Mizu offered to fight Dante and respects his abilities as an opponent enough to use her sword, but that seems to be on the horizon, if he agrees to it at all. She might not be fun enough to fight, certainly not with Vergil here. It doesn't matter. She'll use it when her opponent deserves it and use her other sword at other times. Weapons aren't hard to find around here. She'll find a new one if that one's gone.
Even though the sword cannot, she suspects, return with her, Mizu will always have made this sword. It is always a part of her. Mizu holds it another moment longer then sheaths it. An unsheathed sword longs to be used, and Mizu has no use worthy of it at the moment, not even training. Between Vergil's arms around her waist and the food cooking, it's not the time.
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"As am I," he softly murmurs, the words at once feeling far greater in weight than they seem on their surface and not at all enough.
Because there is still so much to explain to her with all the things he doesn't want to talk about and relive for her understand it fully. But there is, for now at least, enough context for her to know that Vergil has spent much of his life alone, and there has been little room for anything beyond his vying for power. And what little he'd allowed in the past, Mizu knows Vergil had been so uncertain and she knows how it ended. There is enough for her to know that she is remarkable to him even if she doesn't know the true, full depths of it as she manages to stir the humanity within him that he's kept buried and locked away for much of his life.
Vergil doesn't know what their lives will look like beyond these moments they've shared since he was brought in from the storm beyond Amrita's walls. It's entirely possible that a distance could form with Mizu's attention focused yet again on her revenge and less on her desires in these moments where they are alone. He will not complain, nor will he offer protest if that is her will. Vergil had absolutely no expectations for moments like this as it was. So, to make demands for more, particularly when he knows the matters awaiting Mizu are life and death, feels inherently wrong of him to do. And foolish, too, as they previously established. But he would be lying if he were to claim that he would not miss them, not miss the closeness and touch with her that does not involve the blood and violence that's marked the rest of their lives.
But regardless of what is to come, Vergil is quietly grateful it has happened at all. That even if for these moments alone, he felt a bit of safety and respite with his heart in her hands. That she would part with secrets, trusting in him enough that she willingly provides him with the offer of everything. Vergil knows that he will gladly accept whatever longing or heartbreak is yet come to have known these moments because she has made it feel more real, more possible that he might someday be a better man.
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Except Mizu knows she needs to find a different way to approach it all and to think about it. To find the way to give everything to her art. Eating food. Sleeping. It is all part of the work. Vergil and Rin both contributed to her sword—something Mizu can understand both in the literal and the philosophical. How to do that with revenge? It's an idea she has yet to manifest as a part of herself, as all of herself. Swordfather is the master artist. It's possible. What she wants don't have to be at odds.
The fire crackles, and Mizu exhales. Whatever time and space Vergil needs to reconnect with his brother and to handle Dante living in his small apartment, Mizu can give him. The brothers can do... whatever siblings do both in general and after long estrangement. Mizu has little idea on either count and remains uncertain whether they have much greater an idea on the latter. Not her problem. She cares, but it's not a place where outside meddling, she imagines, would help. A thought the fox spirit is unlikely to pay attention to.
Mizu and Vergil will make what space for this as they both want. She rests her arm over his again and tries to believe that it will be possible. The sparring, oh yes, Mizu longs to spar again, but the rest of it too. Quiet moments, conversation, coming together, and sitting comfortably as they are. Vergil will probably want to spend the night at his place, so as not to give Dante free reign to terrorize his apartment if nothing else. That's okay. Somehow, life here has become good. It will last however long it can last. Then revenge will be hers.