A hand clapped Shinsou on the shoulder, interrupting his sleep and scaring him into uttering an involuntary noise. The brown-haired man looked upwards to the dawn’s light, slightly startled, to meet the eyes of his friend Storm Veritas. The sudden rush of adrenaline faded as he relaxed, noting as always the remarkable colouring of the electromancer’s eyes - blue as the tempestuous lightning he controlled.

"We're nearly at Tylmerande, Shin." Storm’s voice was as harsh as the elements, but it masked a note of genuine warmth towards him. "Thought you might want to get prepared."

Shinsou, realising for the first time that his friend had secured him to Slepnir for the long journey they had made, sleepily nodded his gratitude in reply. Picking up the reins offered to him by Storm, the Telgradian rolled the leather-bound straps around his forearms. "Sorry, by the way." he spoke with equal warmth in his tone, his voice gentle and quiet, “I should have used something a little more practical to kill him. I let my heart rule my head.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Came the response as the electromancer savoured his cherry tobacco, lit in his pipe by a simple click of his fingers. “You love a flashy spell. Still, one less asshole to worry about. One to go.”

A moment's pause ensued for him to inhale deeply of the pipe, before he led the horses in a canter to the fore of a hill for a better view of Tylmerande ahead and the low-slung port beyond. They were both used by now to the sight of ships cleaving through the rollicking waves, the green hills on the horizon, and people marching around town, and that’s what they got.

"A normal morning in Tylmerande, apparently." Storm murmured as he gazed upon them, thoughtful and pensive. “Can you sense him?”

"Yeah," Shinsou confirmed as he joined his charge at the hill’s crest. “He’s- wait. He’s not in the town itself. He’s slightly west, I think. Over there…” A finger pointed to the left of the town’s perimeter, towards a large wooded area that had been boxed off with a concrete wall. It was impossible to see what the squared area contained beyond the trees that shrouded the ground, but the Telgradian was certain of what his senses were telling him. “What’s that place? Some sort of public garden?”

"Not sure, but it’ll be hosting a funeral shortly," was the response, voiced in such a way that it conveyed depths of urgency. The smile masked Storm’s desire for vengeance well, and the humour was evidence of this. “Let’s go kill this son-of-a-bitch before he gets wind of us.”

Shinsou nodded, indicating forwards with the reins, and the stallion Slepnir obligingly followed the motion into a gallop across the rolling field. Storm and Atilla followed suit, gliding across the grass with comparably more grace than his counterpart ahead. The pair were specks against a broad horizon of green and cloudless azure blue sky, and on any other day, it would be a good day to be riding.

The Telgradian blinked at this thought as the wind hit his face in a thick sheet, before pulling back alongside his friend and studying him as they rode. Everything they had gone through together recently had built up to this moment, but he wondered what would become of them and the Brotherhood once this was over. For all of his self-depreciating humour, Storm was definitely more perceptive than he let on. He'd managed to piece together a lot of things over the course of the long journey to keep the Brotherhood running in the background, and exactly how he did it was beyond Shinsou’s comprehension. The warrior-mage both admired and respected the electromancer not only for coming to the conclusion that the Brotherhood had been worth building in the first place, but keeping it running tightly until the very last moment. But now that Whitevale was gone, what would happen to their lives? Would Storm stick around and rebuild, or move on and look for pastures new?

That’s a matter for him to decide, Shinsou resolved, He deserves to do whatever he wants after this. It’s taken its toll, and god knows we paid for it all in blood. No-one deserves to make that choice more than him.

By the time Shinsou finally turned Slepnir away from the onrushing trees, Storm had long given the silent orders for the horses to be berthed and for them to go on foot into the gated woodland before them. They were a trained and stalwart pair and knew their duties well; the Telgradian responded quietly and immediately to his friend’s every hand gesture, and glided through the gates like a graceful swan down the longest of stone paths that carved this odd forestry in two.

It was then, as they made progress down the straight path, it became obvious where they were. Facing the older man, Shinsou frowned and quietly mouthed to him.

"You weren’t wrong about the funeral. Why is he at a cemetery?”

Shinsou’s eyes swept the pathways and beyond the final row of trees to the tombstones. Across the rows of assorted, jumbled headstones and the thousands of graves, a solitary man could be seen walking about one hundred feet away in a very deliberate manner. Weaving between spent candles, generic floral tributes and portraits of loved ones, the white coated Arius Mephisto seemed utterly and unusually pre-occupied as a thin trickle of sunlight bounced off of his smooth scalp. Whether he was seeking answers, seeking inspiration, seeking something else...It didn’t matter. There would be no answer, and there would be no comfort. There would only be the harsh, unyielding reality that fucking with the Brotherhood and destroying all of those innocent lives in Whitevale would bring him, and that was all the treacherous wizard would ever find here, delivered personally by Shinsou Vaan Osiris and Storm Veritas.

“I’m going to hit him with everything I’ve got from the offset,” Shinsou’s voice was low, but reverberating with power, “Whilst I’m laying down whatever I can, get in close and do what you do best. He dies today.”

Shinsou lifted his arm level with his shoulder and muttered a quick incantation, exposing the air to his volatile dark matter once more. A smell of horrible torn flesh, that the breeze nothing to disguise, wafted through the air as deep purple stains spread in widening ovals behind him. His hand began to pulse purple and black, tendrils of his dark magic crackling as they formed a plethora of Enpera Kurohitsugi spears; far more than he would normally conjure. As the scent of ozone filled his lungs, displacing the sickening smell of dark matter, over fifty lances now momentarily hung in the air, accompanied by an unmistakeable ethereal hum.

Arius, making another pass down a particular area of interest, turned just in time to see the pair, and the wall of sheer darkness behind Shinsou that contained his dark arsenal.

Without even having to motion, Shinsou commanded all of the projectiles to attack at once. They shot out of the portal and wildly tore towards their intended recipient, forks of black and purple electricity tearing at the stone, dirt and marble around them and scorching the surface of the path as they travelled. Through the hazy trail of his powerful volley, the Telgradian gave the nod to Storm, a signal for his friend to strike. As the electromancer began his nightmare sprint, Shinsou afforded the implacable Arius Mephisto an incredulous stare.

As soon as Storm gets to you, I’ve got a little surprise for your murdering hide, the Telgradian determined, bringing Enpera to his side.