#yura isla yura

[skullmysteries4]

I felt like posting older art again. I drew both of these in 2017. I think it would be fitting if intention of the abyss was named Ceila. I know this wouldn't be liked much by people who look at my stuff, but felt like sharing anyway... Pandora Hearts (c) Jun Mochizuki

[elegyofthemoon]

i kinda forgot how mochizuki does expressions so well that they speak more than texts in an image

esp for someone like oz who has identity crisis going on for him that he doesn't really care who he is as a person so long as it makes others happy (the way later he could care less if people see him as jack the hero rather than just oz)

but the shock in oz's expression as though he had been read so clearly by sharon's words.

also idk it never crossed my mind while i was rereading, but i love that this is just in chapter 2 -- that things would go bad if oz should ever lose sight of himself

bc that's the gist of oz's whole character arc, inching away from just being whatever people want him to be, shying away from his emotions, and accepting himself and what it means to be himself - emotions and past - alike.

[lilium-dragomir]

[fivekrystalpetals]

My thoughts for Retrace XLVII - Retrace XLVIII

Okay, so after these two chapters, I had a sudden realization that Oz is actually super smart. To say, I knew he was smart but to ad-lib or basically bullshit his way into the mansion in the possession of an influential guy from a neighboring country is just... wow lol.

I was cheering for him all along because he really, efficiently managed the whole Isla Yura business all by himself. The very reason everyone got to get into his secret castle was Oz. Isla Yura, being a person of another country, meant Pandora can’t even have a seize-and-search sort of warrant either.

The plan went something like this—

a. Jack Vessalius No.1 fan, Isla Yura would extend an official invitation to Oz to visit his mansion (where they suspect the third seal is hidden) if he brings out his inner Jack from within him.  

b. Oz does a perfect personification of Jack and recites a poem he had memorized from the papers given by Ryatsu (hold on, this means they had really formed a cult revolving around Jack??? I wasn’t wrong?!) Even their emblem is based on the description in the poem. 

I believed it was Jack, okay? I really believed Jack had popped out when Oz tried to stab himself. But then—

—he got me good grrr! I love his expressions here, and yes, Rufus Barma you too did your part (sigh he is needy for attention lol)

c. But the next problem is that only Oz has been invited to the mansion and he needs to get everyone in there so that they can hunt for the Seal together. A problem which he once again handles resourcefully. Well it isn’t exactly a lie that his first Coming-of-Age ceremony had been interrupted by the Baskervilles and that he never got to the end. 

d. Isla Yura offers to organize the second Coming-of-Age ceremony at his mansion (for his own purposes too ofc) 

e. annnnd Mission Complete!

I had the same expression as Gil here lmao—

2] When Alice sniffed at Elliot, my first thought had been—ooooh, more evidence for my Elliot being next Glen theory???

(unfortunately that theory is debunked now ofc) but this too was quite a bit of foreshadowing.

It’s a neat detail that Alice, a chain, could detect the presence of an illegal chain inside Elliot that he himself was unaware of; however, she couldn’t place it right away (had she figured it out earlier, could the tragedy have been avoided, I wonder? But the hand will continue to move whether they like it or not, right? Maybe, they could have killed Humpty-Dumpty before the hand moved back to the starting point? idk. Just me still sad that this too-precious-for-this-world boy was to meet with such an end *flips table and jumps out of the window*)

3] What a beautiful picture!

Somehow it makes me more worried about what’s coming up for them for the future :(( already one down, ten to go lol 

Oz is the only one smiling properly at the camera; Gil and Alice bickering as usual. Sharon wants Alice to call her Mom Big Sis. Break is trying to act cool and failing. Reim, smile properly at the camera, what’s with that :> smile lol? Uncle Oscar has adopted the entire town by this point, I am sure. Somebody pat Echo's head please! Elliot, cut out your tsundere act and join the others!

Well, let me end this small post with this picture of Elliot and Oz nostalgic fist bump TT_TT me sobbing over all the what-could-have-been-s

[hauntedphase]

is it the kids' play? or oz's ceremony in general...?

[difranco]

Jun Mochizuki Fanclub now has the Church of Isla Yura

Join us, we have cookies and cheese

[mushroompollution]

Canon Divergence pt 1

Oh, how he wants to lie there forever. Wrapped in Elliot's arms, breathing the smell of his sweat and cologne, nodding off to the rhythm of his heartrate as it calms.

this must be Heaven, Leo thinks.

But as badly as he wants to drift away into the comfort of sleep, the valet forces himself to open his eyes. He's careful and cautious as he slips out from the arms of his lover, though his heart aches with guilt as he does.

Elliot's old speech about his feelings on liars plays through the back of Leo's mind as he redresses quickly and quietly. But he had proposed this forray for a reason. He can't go back now. There may never be another chance.

He tiptoes out of the bedroom with a heavy weight in his chest. Carefully, he heads downstairs to the Duke Nightray's study. The door is locked, of course. But with the temporary use of Jasper's powers he's been granted, he's able to easily bypass the lock.

The study resembles the one back at the mansion, just a bit smaller. Leo swallows down the lump in his throat as he looks around. In theory, he has the entire night to search for any clue, any shred of information about the House of Fianna's or Elliot's Illegal Contract. But he still feels the pressure of time on him. What if the nobleman wakes and wonders where his servant has gone?

Leo bypasses the cabinets and goes straight to the wall sconces, just in case. But of course, it's not that easy this time. The Nightray mansion must have been built around the same time as Lutwidge University, using the same sort of mechanisms. But this townhouse was built some time later. If there was a secret passage, it must be something else.

Something less obvious.

Leo sighs quietly and gets to searching the cabinets. He finds plenty of sensitive information, deeds to the family's properties, including the orphanage. But nothing on Abyss, nothing on the children.

And his stomach starts to sink.

Maybe this was a mistake.

Maybe he was wrong.

Maybe he just betrayed his closest friend's trust for nothing.

Maybe the ghosts were right.

Leo barely catches himself from slamming the cabinet shut in frustration. He has to be quiet. He can't wake Elliot...

His gaze rests on a photograph sitting on the Duke Nightray's desk. A photo of a little blond baby, hoisted into the air by one of his brothers, two others watching in amusement from an ornate sofa. A portrait of happier days, taken by the Duchess when she was well. Back when all three of those brothers were still alive.

Back before Leo came along.

A sour taste burns his tongue.

Remember this is all your fault.

Hesitantly, he reaches for the photo to get a better look, as guilty as it feels. Elliot had been such a cute baby--

But the frame gives surprising resistance when he tries to lift it. Leo gasps softly in surprise.

Instead of lifting, he tilts the frame forward, and his eyes go wide as it gives. There's a click, and then the sound of movement makes Leo spin round to watch as the bookshelf opens up.

hiding behind his own family....

Leo swallows down the thought along with the bile on his tongue and surges forward, into the secret room.

Unlike the one back in the mansion, this chamber is fully furnished, though much less ostentatious than the main study concealing it. A large, impressive, solid desk sits in the middle, matching bookshelves and file cabinets lining the walls.

A collection of printouts, handwritten notes, newspaper clippings, and other articles are pinned to one wall around a map of the country and surrounding region. Leo feels his hair stand on end as he approaches the display. It feels surreal, like a movie set.

Red X's mark Sablier, and a location somewhere in the Tor countryside, near a small town that Leo knew well, once upon a time. A question mark drawn over the neighboring country to the west is crossed out by a similar X. A large circle is drawn around an area in the country to the east, which Leo assumes must be Isla Yura's estate.

the locations of the Sealing Stones--

Leo isn't quite sure how he knows that.

Though he doesn't really know what to make of any of this, at least he knows he's found something. Hands shaking, he quickly grabs his phone to snap some photos of the wall. He can't waste time trying to decipher it now.

The cabinets below the assorment of documents is locked of course, but that means nothing to Leo while he has Jasper's powers. He opens it up, only to be nearly overwhelmed by the things he finds inside. He scans files, reports, and notebooks, key words lighting up all over the place.

Handwritten notes on the Sealing Stones. On the Baskervilles. On the Chain Raven, and the family's failed attempts to form a Contract with it. About Vincent, about Gilbert, about the doors to Abyss that they each came out of.

The desk quickly piles up with the things Leo pulls out, and his stomach sinks. Even for him, this is an impressive amount of reading. Far too much for one evening. Where is he even supposed to begin...?

He opens a drawer on the next filing cabinet, and his heart skips a beat.

It's almost too convenient.

Inside are a number of documents and folders. Studies of Humpty Dumpty and a caselog of its victims and Contractors over the years. And in the next drawer of that same cabinet, a set of tabbed folders, each labeled with the name of a child from the House of Fianna's.

Not just any children.

When Leo had snooped around the office at the orphanage, he had found files on all the present children, as well as those who had aged out in time. But there had been no record whatsoever of any of those who had died during their time at Fianna's.

Instead, those records stare up at him from this locked cabinet in the Duke's personal, hidden study.

And amongst them, one name stands out above them all. A file thicker than any of the others.

Leo's hands tremble as he removes the folder with his own name across the tab.

why...?

He walks over to the desk, collapses into the oversized executive chair as if in a daze, his eyes cast down at that folder.

Why him...?

He forces himself to open the file anyway.

And after all of this. Does he really want to know....?

The first page is a pretty straightforward document, Leo's personal and medical records upon admission into Fianna's. It would be unremarkable, if not for one line:

EYES: See notes¹.

He takes a deep breath, turning to the next page.

The Subject possesses eye color and details which defy medical explanation. Iris color appears to shift between blue and violet, with black rings surrounding the pupil. More interesting are the flecks of gold which appear to drift freely throughout the anterior chamber. When questioned if these flecks interfere with vision, the subject reported seeing "white orbs," "golden lights," and "glitter" since childhood, as well as a "black haze" around the edges of his vision.

Furthermore, the subject also reported hearing unexplainable "whispers" and "voices."

Upon receiving this information, the decision to move the subject to the House of the White Angel despite being older than the usual admittance limit was made by the Great Duke Bernard Nightray himself.

He had always known he was weird.

Now he has medical record of it.

keep going.

Leo's chest feels tight. But still, he forces himself to read on.

The next page includes several eyewitness reports of his mother's final moments, her Chain going berserk in the middle of a crowded town square, killing six before dragging her into the depths of Abyss. Leo had been there, and each report brings her desperate screaming back to his ears.

keep reading.

Reports of his poor behavior at the orphanage, details of his building friendship with Elliot.

Then, finally, he finds it. A detailed summary of that rainy day, including the report he had given. The one the Duke Nightray had dismissed as a nightmare.

Three children had wandered into that crater in the center of the city, where they were attacked by a fearsome Chain. Though Leo found the third, shaken and scared, the monster loomed over them from a nearby cliff. Watching them.

Elliot had drawn his sword and run at the monster. In response, the Chain had pierced straight through his chest with a long, sharp tendril.

Leo's stomach turns.

Not to defend itself.

It was only protecting its master--

That's when he had made that fateful choice to save his friend's life.

No, not save.

Just prolong.

As he reads, he can feel the stares of those ghosts boring into him. Standing over him, drowning him in their shadows.

It's because of what you are.

Following this incident, the decision was made to allow the Subject to remain in the employ of the Nightray house in order to better study the correlation and relationship between Humpty Dumpty and--

"is this trying to say that i'm...."

Leo trails off as he comments to himself, already completely absorbed in the next line of his file.

It's because you are ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓

Those words that had overwhelmed him before come to his mind clearly now.

"Glen Baskerville...?"

"It's about time you finally woke up to the truth."

The valet jumps as a cold voice snaps him out of his reading. He looks up quickly, only to find the entrance, and exit, of the secret room filled by the imposing form of the Duke Nightray himself.

[yanderefairyangel]

I think it's very funny how I hear so many people say "if only we could have a game with Engage's gameplay with 3H's level of writing we could have a perfect game" because we already had a FE game with 3H's level of writing long before 3H came out... and that's Fates.

I kid you not. 3H and Fates have the exact same writing flaws when it comes to the story and the worldbuilding. And that's that it was waaay too ambitious for its own good.

I mean, Fates orginal script was literaly so big it was massive novel trimmered down for video game format as for 3H's well...

10 freaking thousand years of worldbuilding for a video game story.

See the problem ??? That's something you do for a novel not a video game !!!

The main reason why stories in video games tries to stay simple is because they are aware of the medium they are dealing with !!! Fates and 3H are both game that are very, very long. Do you have any idea how long they would be if they went fully into developping all of the worldbuilding and lore they were supposed to have ?

That's the problem with big worldbuilding. As ambitious as it is it comes with the downside of requiring a lot of screen time to make every bits of it story relevant in a way or another and to flesh it out well. Do Fates and 3H do it well ? Well, Fates is a tought subject seeing how the localization removed a lot of its worldbuilding and created incoherences and inconsistencies on top of that, but we do see that in the original there were some of them not that developped such as the 12 dragons having only 3 at least that are very plot relevant : Hydra, the Rainbow sage and Moro. You don't learn a lot about 3 more of them, the Ancestor of the tribe we do meet in Fates and the one that shared their blood with the Royals, but there is still some stuff missing and that could have been developped more. And this problem Fates had, 3H had this too, but multiplied by 4 because of 4 routes. And the Hopes recton. And I know Hopes takes place in an alternate timeline but some of the change are way to weird to attribute it just to Shez's survival. Like, the complete shitf of personality from Dimitri's uncle : in Houses he is supposed to be a useless lecher, in Hopes he is a depressed Claudius trying to kill Dima.... what happened exactly ?

What those game tried to do was waaay too big. They have the exact same problem in the story and lore. They also have the same strengh as in a strong cast with good characterization. And if I consider 3H's stories to be weaker then the 3 stories in Fates, I think the 3H''s cast had a stronger characterization compared to the Fates one.

Again, I can salute the ambition, but if we encourage the devs to follow that direction, we are basically begging them for half finished story with improper lore and worldbuilding.

A good worldbuilding isn't a gigantinc epileptic. It's one that is consistent, well used in the plot and despite of his tenght is rich enough. Take Pandora hearts. It's worldbuilding is small. Literaly. We only know the name of 2 city, Sablier and Reveil. We don't even know the name of the country we are in ! All that we can recognize is that the character are dressed in the 19 century victorian era seetings and have English name. But the country has 0 name. You can look, it's called and I quote the material world only to distinguish it from the Abyss !!! Even the characters comming from another country such as Isla Yura or the Duc Barma's family, characterized by their red hair and special clothing, we never learn which country they come from not the name ! And that is perfectly FINE. Because learning the name would eventually change nothing. Not having the name removes nothing from the story because PH focus only on those setting in a way that matters for the plot. Reveil being the capital of their country only matters to localize Gil's appartement and the Pandora's base. Sablier matters because it's at the core of the plot, the only historical aspect that matters is the tragedy of 100 years ago. All the other important place such as the Abyss, the monster, the chains, the system of contractor etc all of this is detailed in a way that is not thousand of data but only the essential to keep the plot moving foward so the story feels focus and only has some elements to flesh out rather then 1000000. And even then, Sensei still managed to improve that with the VNC worldbuilding that is much richer but that still is focused and that focus comes from how she is using a size that fit for the medium she writes for !! And the PH lore is still rcih in references, metatextuality and wink wink to Alice in Wonderland

And the main reason why I think Awakening and Engage had stronger stories then these 2 game was because they knew what they were doing. And by that they knew what they were : video games. Think about it 2 seconds.

Awakening was written as a random regular video game script. Fates became a novel. 3H had an over 10 thousand years woth of lore chronicle going on. Engage was written as a random regular video game stories keeping with a traditional RPG vein.

And out of the 3 Engage is the most consistant. It's not without its flaws, but it objectively does better because it knows the format it has. It knows it is a video game. You can't expect a video game to be has rich and have the same writing as a novel. Each medium as it's own rules : that's why when manga or novel can adapted on screen, the screewriters as to adapt it to the medium he is dealing with. Because it's not the same medium, it has different rules, different challenges etc. If a video game adapts a novel, you can't expect it to be as much in depth because a video game is supposed to be shorter then a novel. Same for a manga. Same for a movie.

Engage and Awakening knew their size. They knew what they were doing and avoided being so big. Because even if the 3H writers had kept in check all of the ten thousand years of lore they wrote, nothing would change the fact that they don't have the time to flesh that out in that game. The data doesn't allow it. The timing doesn't either.

Another example. Recently, Goody two shoes came out. And despite it being a prequel to Pocket Mirror, it has a very good story and a simple one with a few very important characters and enough lack of information for it to be a mystery and not just something that was left as is without proper developpement. And that's because it knew what it was and stick with it : being a prequel to Pocket Mirror.

Engage and Awakening, while not perfect, also stick with what they were : video game stories. Fates and 3H were more then that because they have enough of information to be literal novels. If you compare Engage to the manga, you'll noticed that the manga get to expend more on a lot of things and again it's all because of the medium. If Engage had a serialization as novel, it would be the same, more dense. If Engage had an anime, same. The same story will have different management of its ressources depending on the medium you are writing it for. Fates was written like it was a novel when it was supposed to be a video game. Same thing for 3H.

When the fandom says they want a story or writing on the same level of 3H they don't think about how a lot of 3H's flaws comes from the very core of the project, the size not fitting the medium or try to handwave it as "a game can be ambitious" but the problem is that 3H and Fates biggest flaws WERE their ambitions. The more your project is ambitious, the more it requires you time and effort and date for it. So when it doesn't suit a video game format because of the several restrictions, you know your project will end up feeling incomplete. The writers of 3H themselves said it. 3H is the smaller picture of a bigger one.... so how many Foldan game do we need to have the FULL picture ??? Knowing that Fire Emblem's settings keeps changing, 2 are clearly not enough.

Again, it's the aesthetic of depth that speaks. The fandom loves big stuff. And while 3H's worldbuilding isn't an empty shell, it has way too many elements to flesh them out entirely leaving holes that aren't of the level of mystery or ambuiguity, but of half cooked. However, fandom LOVES HOLES, it adores void so each time they'll spot one they will try to fill it imagine something bigger then it could have been implanted within the canon. Because it's more interesting to them then whatever IS could have actually written. And it shows that the aesthetic plays into this because 3h and Fates have the EXACT SAME LEVEL OF WORLBUILDING and it follows Seisen's too. 12 important figures ? Check ! Weird wonkery of blood givins special power to an elite of favored people? Check ! Lizard like creature revered as deities ? Check ! Magical weapons only some people can wield ? check ! The list goes on. But for some reasons people acts as if Fates had no lore (that's wrong, you can even check what the FE wiki says on that matter) because it doesn't have the same aesthetic as 3H despite all the common points these 2 games have.

And even if they decided to do 3H but less big, I don't think it would work because 3H's story also ended up being relying on its size and it would have worked had it had more lore... but that's the thing ! it already had TOO MUCH lore for a random video game and it was over 400 hour long and no matter how many DLC they would have released they just can't dwell into all of this ! Might as well create a new franchise entirely focused on the world of Foldan !!!

So really, be careful what you wish, because if you keep making believe to the devs that what they did with 3H was the way to go even though it's clearly disadvantaged by the size and the format of the medium, they will never manage to improve what was flawed in 3H. And that's mainly because what was flawed in 3H was that it needed more then it did when it already did something gargantuan which imo is the evidence that the level writing of 3H doesn't work on a video game. At all.

Again, take Goody two shoes. It had little going on but it explore it to its fullest resulting in very simple story with little stuff yet very rich and full of emotion and its simplicty made it work very efficientely. That's good writting. Not throwing in very big stuff and struggling to finish it, but managing to exploit to the fullest even the smallest thing to create a rich experience. Something that manages to be rich even though simple is what's actually impressive. That's the route to follow for a good game story.

So you wanna know what IS should do ? Follow what they did for Engage but simply improve what in Engage was flawed. Because Engage has the right size for a video game format and even if you think they would have expanded on more, the additions are so easy to spot that you can see it's not level of 3H big, but simply some polishing, maybe some chapter added, but not something as astronomically tall as Fates or 3H since those game had the problem of not going more in depth with the lore, requiring more lore to something that was already too big and too long for a video game. And again, I am not saying they can't take anything from 3H cause 3H does a lot of good things notably regarding the characterization, such as the idea of personal paralogue for the characters. That's great. This should come back. But when it comes to the story itself... gneee... nope. No. 3H's ambitions and tenght is way too close to to the core of the project yet it's the main thing that hold it backs and lead it to slip so often.

Imo the perfect FE story would be able to managed to combine simplicity and ambitions since the more simple story could feel like it needed more, but that's the same problem with the much more ambitious project. The writers of IS should try to find a balance between the two to fix that issue, but I don't think 3H has this balance

[burton-adib]

Pandora Hearts Characters I will NEVER make into Customs 👎

Isla Yura and Levi Baskerville are just so creepy and huge trouble makers that have no respect for others or any thought to their actions. I felt so bad for Lacie when she was left alone with Levi, learning about her fate and the "experiment" he wanted to try with her, urgh makes my skin crawl 😔

Zai can just go to hell. The only enjoyment I'd get making him into a custom is throwing him in the bin

Rufus Barma, no hate - I just didn't find him interesting. The way he spoke gave me a headache at times (however, that could be due to the English translation)

And lastly, Zwei... she's just too unhinged and cruel. If I had spare space on the shelf, I might make her... but I'm restricting the number of characters, and I'd rather make Lily and Fang more than her. Sorry, Zwei

[ozlices]

Top 3 Pandora Hearts characters you'd fistfight and why?

jack vessalius. very obvious reasons. he is written very well and i enjoy his character for that reason alone, but he is also my most hated character of all time, always has been and always will be, for what he did to oz and i would deck him on sight. gil would have to pry my feral ass off of him bc i'd get him within an inch of his life on sight.

levi for what he did to lacie. and like everyone, really, but if i think abt what he did to lacie my blood boils

isla yura. also for what he did to oz and alice and also just being an insufferable little freak. i am grateful to him for giving me peak little shit oz content though. but i would also be less inclined to hurt him than the others bc ik oz would get to him first and i would let him. i'd be shouting "go, baby!! off with his head!!" it'd be great

[gloomy-glen]

I took a nap, I had a dream that Isla yura and Miranda were the core of the abyss and they were following Jack around...

[schleckermaul]

𝙣𝙤𝙣𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙗𝙖𝙡 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙩𝙨! [ dance ] for your muse to dance with mine  — by @reinzuwaasuu

' you know, ' break mumbles, quietly, as he walks out onto the dancefloor of the rainsworth mansion, ' i've been practicing this. a little bit. '

   the last time the two of them tried dancing with each other was during oz's coming of age ceremony ... in isla yura's residence, on the balcony. the music had barely reached them, and sharon's eyes were teary (his eyes were teary), but he'd taken her offered hand and let her lead him towards a more open space, for them to dance.

   to move in tandem with each other.

   his hand finds her waist instinctively, from years of people trying to teach him how to do this, before he stops himself. interrupting her questioning of what finally got him to practice, break smiles at her, teasing, soft. ' you'll have to lead. worked better that way. '

   it does, in fact, not work better that way.

   it does get sharon to blush, though, as they both bumble through the steps. turns out that it's not that easy to dance when you suddenly don't know the instructions, put on the receiving end of her endless scolding. he remembers, vividly, a much younger sharon begging him to dance whenever the rainsworths would host a ball. he'd done his damnedest to avoid them, and she was sorrowful about it each time.

   there's no sorrow here, anymore. there are giggles and laughter as he pokes fun where it's allowed, follows where she leads. a year ago, this would have felt impossible to even imagine. a year ago, he was dying, and he was leaving, and there was no room for happiness. grief stuck between them like fog, making it hard to see.

   he sees her now, as they draw circles around the ballroom. there's the music of a record player, but they're only barely dancing in tune. and when she smiles, break can hear it in her words. and when she laughs, he can picture her smile in his mind.

   and he's happy.

[rlxb]

i know practically everyone and their mother has already written post-isla yura party breakreim but fuck it!! its MY TURN

[fivekrystalpetals]

Retrace LII is my favorite chapter in the Head Hunter Arc. Not only because ofc it has teeny crumbs of my self-indulgent ship,,, but also because.... Transitions! oh boi, the transitions from one suspenseful scene to the next and the overall tension kept me on the edge of the seat the whole while, I didn't even know when I had gotten to the end of the chapter...

See:

1] Let The Party Begin—

I legit thought it was Break who lost his head; it was impossible but my first reaction was to shout out "WHAT!"—

2] This one ;-;

⬇

3] the one where Break apprehends an unknowing Elliot

[hauntedphase]

we've only slept together once since coming back here, and that was only. last night.

but

[schleckermaul]

   HE CAN'T KILL IT. he can't kill it. he's already used mad hatter plenty of times before stumbling across wang yi, most of its appearances involuntary on his part. controlling his chain within the mist has turned out to be increasingly difficult, draining him far quicker than he's used to, control slipping from him when he's usually clinging to it. consciously summoning his chain isn't an option. he can't kill bandersnatch without passing out.

   or worse. who knows, at this point?

   ' ugh, alright— ' the space is too tight for him to concentrate mad hatter's powers within the sword. but bandersnatch knows him— bandersnatch knows his chain. even if it doesn't carry the memories of the incident at isla yura's mansion, and break is fairly sure it does, considering its vicious anger, it still knows mad hatter's power intimately, created for this one, sole purpose.

   break pulls backwards, into the seat, pressing himself against it as hard as he can, trying to keep stable in between the car going every direction imagineable. he hasn't hit his head yet, but he might as well have. his ears are ringing. one arm against his chest, he pulls forth as much of mad hatter's powers as possible, shadows near swallowing the both of them up in the small space of the front seats.

   the darkness is pulled higher, frantically, with a strong wind, high-pitched howling through the metal, reaching for the hound desperately. mad hatter's insistence to kill stays in his mind as it keeps mumbling, screaming, but break is silent even as bandersnatch yelps, its claws digging deeper into a different part of the roof, closer to his own head, in response to the sudden pain.

   just a little more. just a little more.

   break pushes. mad hatter shoves. a wet gasp escapes him, half a bloody cough, his chest burning, but it seems to somewhat reach a desired goal— bandersnatch is catapulted backwards, and as it tries to cling to the back of the car in an attempt to get back up, the vehicle swerves, thrown off balance entirely.

The crazier things got, the more important it was to stay practical. So while Break suddenly getting stabby out of nowhere is surprising for Wang Yi, it doesn't stop him from turning on the windshield wipers to clean the windows of gunk in the aftermath of zombie girl's final death.

Schwump schwump schwump schwump—

Right, better add some wiper fluid for a better cleanse and—uh-oh, Break's yelling—some weird black shadow's leaping at them—and Wang Yi's hands on the steering wheel shake with the impact of the added weight above them.

'Oh yeah, he seems friendly,' he retorts as green eyes narrow at the road. 'Hang on!'

He starts swerving back and forth on the road in an effort to throw their new hitchhiker off—instead the growls intensify and there's a disturbing screech of something clawing through the metal above them as they drive. Wang Yi looks up and sees a tiny sliver of sky before it expands to a jagged hole as the bandersnatch rips away a section of the car roof.

Cold wind streams into the interior as he locks gazes with its pupil-less gray eyes. Then the hound strikes—and Wang Yi slams the butt of the AK-47 to meet its jaws—

CHOMP! Craaack!

...annnnd there goes half of the gun with the rest of his cool.

'Seriously?!'

'Did you forget to feed the dog or somethin—gehh!'

He ducks as the creature tries to bite his head next, missing with a snarl as its snout gets half-stuck in the car. Spittle sprays everywhere from its mouth while Wang Yi plasters himself against the wheel as much as possible.

'Okay fine, your turn!' he shouts at Break while driving at Way Too Many Miles Over the Speed Limit.

Holy fuck.