Excerpt of Old_Data on the topic of Muramasa from Pre-Collapse 'Website': WikiPedia.

It has also been told that once drawn, a Muramasa blade has to draw blood before it can be returned to its scabbard, even to the point of forcing its wielder to wound himself or commit suicide.[14] Thus, it is thought of as a demonic cursed blade that creates bloodlust in those who wield it.

December 19th

Silvereye

I felt it just a little earlier than everyone else did. Ripley had given the order, and at that moment, our attention was snapped away to some unknown corner of the room. I was the first to bring it back into position, observing the scene as it was. Bladedaughter's four remaining blades had encircled us; Sabrina was still mindlessly cooling the air to ward off the blue flames; Kim had just deflected Hexblood's blade, and was moving to intercept Bladedaughter, whose Vanguard blade was pointed to thrust into me.

This moment of awareness let me slash through her wrist, as I took the impaling and strengthened my body with the resonance disks on my suit. She mangled out of my grasp, blades ejecting from her elbows, which severed my forearms as the chains twisted her just in time to slash at Kim, whose focus hadn't been brought back. A third woman lost her hand in barely a second as it came flying off along with her blade, and that movement slid in a circle all the way to slash open Sabrina's abdomen.

A sheet of blood sprayed, but I couldn't process Sabrina's wound as the sickle came around for my neck. My hands and feet were torn off. I was only kept up with my suit's empowerment of my telekinesis. I had no way to move, I knew from my connection to Ripley that Dryder and Anomaly were both preoccupied with Bladedaughter's lower half.

I was going to die.

'Preservation Matrix' X 'Silvereye'

Through the catacombs of dread evolved a mindless resistance to that fate of severance, my face moving to bite down on the steel, it cut deep into my cheeks before I spat enough electricity into it to pause it inches from my spine. An amused chuckle spilled from Bladedaughter, but then a hand lathered in green stabbed into her chest. At the same time, what Ripley mentally called a Dreadshot severed the arm holding the blade lodged in my mouth.

Kim's blade arced, her eyes lacking any hint of pain as chains of green spread from her bloody stump to manipulate the hand into pushing deeper inside the Bladedaughter. "I've already been amputated once before… you want this blade? Take it."

Sabrina's eyes opened wider, and though leaking lots of blood from her stomach, she screamed out as frost engulfed us, ice growing over my wounds and turning them blue. Bladedaughter dragged herself away deeper into the mist, knives thrown from behind the shroud. One sliced through Kim's neck mid-way as she charged, another landed in my arm, the third hit Sabrina's chest, causing her frost to die out.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Ripley's consciousness reported to me that Bladedaughter's legs were running towards us. Dryder's shots sparked against the leg in the shroud of icy mist, enough that I could thrash my body into Sabrina's to push her out of the way.

She fell with no resistance, and I already feared the worst from her wounds. One leg sliced off Kim's knee, causing her to stumble down. I groaned in my own rushed need to act, barely picking myself up with my telekinesis as I tried to feel around for my severed limbs.

My hands responded, dragging to their stumps with the residual electricity still left in them. Begging my tired heart, I let flesh fuse with anything if it meant I could use them, blood soaked into the circuitry of my suit and stung as I mended myself together.

But then a shadow cast over me, and in that darkness was a pointed blade driving down on me. Blood splattered from behind me as Dryder groaned, my eyes fearing the scene but turning anyway to see him wrestling the Vanguard blade within his stomach. Remarkably, it refused to budge so Bladedaughter brought her hand down onto him. It dug through his metallic right arm, exposing the sickle underneath.

"Anomaly, now!" Ripley yelled, as the sickle began to hum.

The air was taken from my very lungs, it worse for Bladedaughter as the vibrations that travelled up her limb contracted her own body and crunched the metal to mangle her limbs and twist her down into a compacted cube.

She severed her own head off to save herself, but I caught it, frying into it with every ounce of rage burning through me. I saw her mask sear with the agony I instilled, melting away as I ripped it off her head to expose her face. Out came bundling white hair that I grabbed up in a fistful, looking at the eyes that had rolled back. I placed both hands on her temples, squeezing.

One of her creeping blades speared through me from behind, black threads wrapping around my organs to squeeze life out of me, but I didn't let go, I couldn't afford to. Not when she-!

I felt my spine sever as my lower body gave way, momentarily letting go off her severed head which rolled away limply. I dragged myself with hands, claws erupting as blood merged with steel to-

"Diana!" Ripley yelled, and I felt him break the blade attached to my stomach as he yanked it's fibres out. He covered me from the back as chained blades slashed into us, until a shield blew up around us.

Archangel rasped heavy breaths as the blades battered at her shield. "Where the fuck were you guys? I was handling her all by myself!"

"What?" Ripley heaved, his Tetradyne falling apart along with parts of his arms and thighs. "We were fighting…"

Almost by themselves, the remaining blades died out and fell inert against Archangel's shield. Hesitantly, she let go, nervous eyes flicking along the fading mist. "Is she… done? Did we win?"

"You said you were handling her by yourself?" Ripley half-gasped in tiredness, unable to move in the state of his limbs.

"Yeah!" Archangel held a paranoid look in her eyes. "She just… kept on going in and out of the mist, entered for one second and came out with half a torso the next! Though, uh… she healed all of a sudden and…"

Ripley's eyes widened, looking into the chunks of Bladedaughter's fallen armor. Outwardly, it resembled Bladedaughter's… but… to him, those internal components were all wrong, I could feel his disbelief mingling with my dread. "Shit."

"What do you mean?" I refused to believe that something had gone wrong. Ripley dragged himself up by his severed elbow, using one remaining Tetradyne to prop himself up. Kim Liyung was groaning, her eyes festering with rage as she psychically pulled her arm back to its stump, the same with her leg. Dryder was missing an arm, but otherwise fine. Anomaly was the least hurt out of all of us, just crossing her arms and looking at the scene with mild confusion.

Sabrina was… I used any remaining strength in me to drag myself to her. Blood was still leaking from the gash on her abdomen, but a knife had jabbed itself into her chest.

"Don't pull it out, or her aorta will leak." Ripley moved beside me, black blood dripping as he removed his mask. He made a slit along the side of his neck, shiny black steel curling towards the wound. "She's… barely left. She needs medical attention and-"

He couldn't bring himself to say his thoughts, but he didn't need to.

I felt them. "Bladedaughter… we didn't defeat her."

Kim slammed her fist onto the ground, laughing to herself. "No, she swapped out during the mist… with Heart Seeker. Took my blade with her."

I felt ragged inside, like bits of me were torn apart. They were… thanks to that black threaded blade. When the hell did Heart Seeker even enter the room? Had that shapeshifter masked her appearance as one of us during the chaos of the fight? Were we fighting two Bladedaughters the entire time? It felt that way.

Sabrina coughed up, looking at me with weak eyes. "Diana… I- I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?" I held back my tears. "You fought."

"No… I didn't. I'm the only one who didn't." Her hands reached for my face, but never got there. They fell down while Ripley was doing his best to stitch the wound in her stomach with his nanites that now moved in and out of his body like threads of black, as he plastered med-sprays on her wounds.

Ripley's panic was shared with me, his thoughts echoing to his memories.

Of when Yvette was dead, and I was there as a mess.

Choking, my tongue stumbled. "Star, cut the-"

Our synchronization severed, and my grief was only mine to carry. Everything began to drag on me, I thought things would be different. That I could stop the people around me from…

"You can still save her." Ripley's voice battered against my dread. "Get her to medical… immediately. The Southern Ward should still have one up."

He grabbed my missing feet and latched them onto place, spraying them with his nanites before a burst of electricity cracked in from his Tetradyne. I didn't even feel the pain of it. There was too much inside me right now that it all just blended into noise.

"Diana!" He yelled, shaking me. "You can still…"

Dryder hoisted me up on my newly attached feet, picking Sabrina up and nodding to Ripley. "We'll get her there, both of them. You repair yourself and join us."

"I'll try, but I'm pretty sure that if I leave this place undefended that… The Dogwhistler will…" He looked away from me, down to his mess of missing limbs and the scrap around. "Just… leave it to me. I have to get out on my own before Yuzhou intercepts me."

I unsteadily nodded, silent as I used Archangel for support who didn't know what to say to all of this. Anomaly shrugged, muttering to herself. "All that time I try and get her to vibrate and it's not even her!"

It was Kim who joined us last, her wounds still healing but she nodded for us to go ahead.

———

Ripley

My eyes met Kim Liyung, accusation heavy in them. "Everything go according to you and your sister's plans?"

Kim didn't meet my gaze, shame heavy in them as her arm slowly healed into place. "I regret things ended like this, but there was no other way for us to…"

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Couldn't have just given up your blade without a fight?" I was tired of this honor bullshit.

"No." She shook her head, slowly standing up to stand on her healed legs. "I wanted to be the one to kill him. We agreed that a duel would decide it."

"And what about Sabrina, you agreed to your ex letting herself be used as a damn sacrifice?! Nice smokescreen." I grabbed the remnants of my arm, adjusting them into place with the Tetradyne. Just in case I wanted to shoot Kim.

"Sabrina... made that choice herself. Her SIM is the only cure to her nephew's condition. She… never had the intention of... getting through this alive. I respected her wish." Kim stepped away from me.

"Really?" That sounded like bullshit. "You respected your ex wanting to kill herself?"

"I wish I could say the curse of our blood ended with us, but Azure Phoenix's son… won't live for long. Sabrina's Implant would heal him under my father's ability to shape Implants into Catalysts. You would understand that. What one person would sacrifice to save family, wouldn't you? I hope you enjoy those Implants for your mother, Ripley Donovick. You performed better than either Mei or I expected."

I stayed silent, only speaking when she was in the dark. "You're the same as your fucking siblings, Jade Storm. Just wearing a badge to mask it. Just a fucking tool."

———

The Bladefather

In the middle of the chaos, a singular focal point had gathered the Bladefather's entire attention. He saw it through another pair of eyes, a masked man whose very presence dictated where your eyes followed, what your mind assumed was reality.

The Aether had blessed this child with a curse.

Seeing that precious resource, The Bladefather decided to end things quickly. His recovered biomass was already dwindling with the artillery fire from Yuzhou's massive Tenrai Aerodyne, another Ward only rubble under his many tentacles. Even the rain had ceased, the Leviathan always ran out of strength quickly.

Such was the price of commanding a power so universal.

Of course, Bladefather's biggest threat was the man standing in the Aerodyne's open hangar. A Commander of Yuzhou's Anti-Swarm personnel, probably the only Tier V they had stationed on this continent. And it was a familiar face from The Bladefather's past.

Jinsung wore what could have been assumed as a simple-fitting bodysuit of polished black and red steel. But the Bladefather had once worn similar armor, one crafted by the Founder of Yuzhou himself.

It carried within it authority itself. The very force of gravity began to break, torn remnants of two buildings lifting up with a simple raise of the man's arms. A disappointed look formed on his face. "I prayed I wouldn't be the one tasked to do this, Zero."

The Bladefather was silent, standing upon a piece of rubble, lifting itself up as he vanished before it could crush him with another. He was high in the air when his back bubbled out sharp-edged blades of black, white, and red, each forming a feather, adding to the appearance of wings.

He'd always saved those blades made from Espers for a purpose such as this.

This angelic horror of death blotted the afternoon sun as he called upon his most forbidden weapon. Finally unsheathing the Blade from which his dynasty was named. His skin molted further than it already had, bones and blood frothing through as though the blade forming in his right hand had rejected humanity itself, commanding those who wielded it to devote themselves towards bloodshed, carnage, and cruelty.

And yet, this was the one blade he had never made. This blade, which carried the heart of his past, of the many souls who'd suffered to a Titan. That which was born from the Titans.

This blade was a product of Yuzhou, of Amaterasu.

It was called Muramasa, for the very act of drawing it from out of the scabbard instilled him with all the rage he'd never been able to have back then. Jinsung's eyes flickered, Amaterasu's voice calling from beyond. "I see you've taken good care of it… but please, reconsider this, Zero."

The Bladefather was silent as the crimson blade shone like a blood-ruby, it's vehement malice radiated into the world and bled his thoughts into Amaterasu.

Rings of metal crackled out of thin air to form a protective orbit over Jinsung as they spun and altered reality itself. Space began to bend, floating debris warping as though seen through a fisheye lens, light and matter twisting in impossible ways as fundamental forces were subdued by Yuzhou's most advanced technology born of Aether.

The rings spun, before disappearing behind an imperceptible boundary as Jinsung's own form erased with them, but The Bladefather reacted by swiping the Muramasa Blade behind him, where a crack of black light saw Jinsung apparating into existence.

The sky flashed red, as the voices of Muramasa yelled their insanity through a blade's edge, stretching and bonding with existence, before prying it apart. The airborne stone split in half, but the edge merely curved above Jinsung like a tidal wave of blood. With a crunch of his fists, Jinsung altered the Bladefather's presence in the world as bones snapped and chunks of biomass were flattened.

The Bladefather laughed, Aether from his blade forging the torment into a metaphysical medium. Wings beat into the air, each flap letting out scores of crimson as though revealing the bleeding scars of the world. Chunks of stone condensed and revolved upon themselves, growing denser as they contained the damage and Jinsung's orbiting hoops bent each strike away.

Even in madness, the Bladefather was an immaculate warrior, born and raised in the art of bloodshed. To humans, sustenance was derived through the consumption of food, but for an Evolved being such as The Bladefather, he fed and lived upon the art of combat.

And he had been starving.

The rings blurred, reality folding upon the Bladefather who let it break him down, desecrating his form into a mirage of torn and twisted shapes. So he abandoned all inklings of humanity, shifting as a mass of limbs crawling and slicing over one another amidst crashing stone and spilntered space-time. His wings sent shards of organic metal raining like meteors, where seeds of weaponry embedded and blossomed into tendrils lashing out in every direction. Jinsung's rings spun violently, black shockwaves of gravitational force clashing with thin sheets of crimson as the the battlefield twisted around them, a vortex of destruction.

One in Jinsung's control. "Zero, you cannot be allowed to live."

Dozens of mouths formed in pits of flesh roaming this alien landscape of ruined earth laughed out, chaos incarnating as the Muramasa blade carved into both stone and The Bladefather's mind. "Sixty years! I was waiting for this! Sixty years, for you to finally come and deliver unto me a destined death! Only to fail."

Jinsung had heard enough, black lightning shattering the air as debris collapsed inwards upon the Bladefather. An entire Ward's mass condensed upon his body as a jail. Stone crushed him, burying deeper as the rough jagged edges cracked inwards to become smooth and spherical under the sheer gravitational force.

Jinsung brought both his hands together, and in them he flattened the Bladefather's spherical coffin. But before he could manage, a sliver of red formed in the thin gap between his hands.

The clouds were no longer storming, but yet it rained.

Blood spilled from Jinsung, a Tier V, down the mid-line of his body. And it coursed further into the Aerodyne behind him. Both fell apart unceremoniously, crashing down into the city they'd deemed as trash. The Aerodyne's thick halves were large enough to topple buildings, the crushing of it's mass against the ground sending smoke belching into the air and trembled the ground to shatter windows, a sign of Yuzhou's defeat for the entire city to see.

A Tier V was dead, an asset worth hundreds of millions lay in two halves beneath all that rubble and dust. And dust is all that remained of the floating battlescape as the sphere containing the Bladefather dissolved away.

The Bladefather's arm sizzled, his eroded body and mind fracturing ever further as the blade gripped him. The wings on his back rusted and eroded, his body falling just like Jinsung's had.

Only he landed on his feet. He stood upon the barren remains of the Nothern Ward, looking into the distance where Yuzhou's crashed Aerodyne decimated the streets beneath it. He felt… unsatisfied, even now. So he turned to the man behind him, someone he'd called a friend many decades ago.

Krishav had that same look on his face, one of immeasurable disappointment. "Ken… you're always going too-"

In a flash of red, Krishav's head came clean off and into the air despite the distance between them, Kensuke always hated that tone. He also hated the tones of the Crimson Queen and Heart, but they were nowhere to be seen.

As he stepped forward, the blade dragged him down it's mad edge, each movement tearing flesh off his body and scattering earth around him. He trudged, flicking his ashy fingers over to a wall on the Southern Ward. It crashed down, and deeper in, he saw a Blade yet to be forged, one that would forever draw the attention of the world. Just as his children wanted from him today.

When his eyes met Quartz's, he vanished and appeared next to the resigned man. There was fear in them, like all those before, but The Bladefather's assured voice came out gentle and soothing. "Rest now, you shall be eternalized for the world to forever recognize your beauty, child."

His hand touched Quartz's mask, and it fell apart as those wrinkled, gnarled fingers clasped on his throat.

And another hand clasped on The Bladefather's wrist. One even more terrified yet looked exactly the same as Quartz's did. The Bladefather hadn't even felt this man's presence.

In that contact, Topaz did the only thing he believed would save his brother. He delved into that Mutation which had cursed him all his life, that one power which silenced him from people's awareness — now, it would be used on a being he hoped would never notice him.

Topaz's arm swelled and burst apart a blink after he did so, but to his credit, The Bladefather's torn soul was indeed impacted. In fact, he couldn't remember when was the last time he'd felt pain like that. It was humanizing, nostalgic, and he humored it.

Which was why he made Topaz's death painless. The man's body split in two ways, his top half sliding down with eyes that were filled with a belief that this one action had saved his brother.

It hadn't, Bladefather would have touched and killed the despair in Quartz's eyes before he could even grieve. The only interruption was the sudden cannonfire from the Crimson Queen, her armor now a walking artillery. The Heart appeared behind Bladefather, dozens of her, but with the weapon he had unsheathed, their future was certain.

His eyes had blanked out, consumed by the necessity of death, and consciousness faded to only leave him as a blank-stared emissary of the end. The realization of what he was doing only came to be when a blade he'd loved and called his favorite pierced his heart.

His daughter, The Bladedaughter, shuddered as though she couldn't quite believe it had happened. An emotion so strong that there wasn't even a name for it tore through her throat as she squeezed her dear sister's blade deeper into their father. This was what everything was for.

With trembling hands, her father graced the skin of her cheeks and asked a very important question. "Is the grandson of Hammer still wielding your power?"

"You're kidding me?" The Bladedaughter jabbed the blade deeper in. Her voice broke to the intensity of the pain and anguish this moment had been calling for. "I've finally fucking killed you, and you don't even acknowledge it?!"

"I'd known I would die for far too long." His soulless eyes melted away, the green in them haunting as his mask began to break apart. "But I refuse to acknowledge you as my heir."

"All it took was that bastard… he doesn't even care!"

The Bladedaughter slashed the blade up, parting the skull of her father in two. The corpse stood motionless, like a statue, as she stared at the line lacking of flesh and bone she'd drawn in a perfect vertical line. She never dropped that blade, never stopped doubting that her father had one more trick up his sleeve.

But out of that crevice she'd cleaved, gold emerged. The energy amassed over the flesh and birthed new life from it, as a golden centipede pushed through the split of the Bladefather's corpse, shooting out to wrap over her neck and crawl into her eye.

Where it met its BUG sibling and forged a harmony.

She contorted as it joined her, the SIM feeding on what little organics she had beyond her cybernetics. Its effects weren't immediate, she'd need to converge with it and slowly build its Mutations back up, but there was a sudden and overwhelming burden of knowledge drifting into her blood. A language she couldn't yet decipher.

Crimson Heart floated above her, arms ready to cast down upon her, but the Bladedaugther spoke first. "Take his body, don't let that bastard take him."

"Your fiance?" The Heart mused, before dropping down. "And what will you be doing now?"

"They can't kill me now. I'm too valuable." Bladedaughter heaved. "Skeleton won't let them, so I'm going to see how far I can cleave my way towards Omen's chest before they stop me."

The Queen sighed, fixing up her broken limbs. "You know you can run with us, right? Better than a losing war."

Bladedaughter scoffed. "Mikail's been talking about his Cadavers for the last two years, it's about time I see what they're made off."

———

Ripley

Reforging myself back together wasn't too difficult, but I'd been spent. If it wasn't for the fact that Twilight said that The Dogwhistler was bringing me some Shards and BUGs to refuel on, then I'd bet on Yuzhou capturing me.

Then I heard about the Aerodyne crashing down and was all the gladder I'd kept myself down here, next to these Implants. Speaking of; their containment was a bitch, but Twilight was working on it.

She was also… reaching her limit. As soon as the chest opened, I gasped at the potential.

It was so organized, so neat. Circular rows upon rows of Implants like they were fashioned as a platter of desserts for me to feast on, but I had to keep myself satisfied. They didn't even have any updates, they were fresh… which was what made them so valuable.

I picked up the Gold BUG first, leaving it's SIM twin much to the pain in my heart… but I didn't want to prove to Diana that I was only out for this profit. Then, I picked out the Silver BUGs, each moment stretching onwards as I plucked one, then two, three, four, fi-

I fell down as something grabbed my Implant from within my skull… a forceful breach into my head that went beyond Warpcode. My eyes didn't even blink before the scene of the chest and it's wonders became a city's cafe.

Except my eyes were looking at something I'd never seen before. A coastline past the cafe's windows, the water sparkled like it was all some melted sapphire, running and teasing the sand beneath to always shift, always change.

I shook my head, looking at the person sitting opposite me. He had green eyes, brown hair and was about middle-aged with a little bit of stubble. It was like looking at The R0N1N, only slightly older…

"I've been wanting to talk to you since Missy first mentioned your name, Donovick." The Bladefather smiled.

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