Harrowing Retreat! Escape from the murderous... Estrella?!

Vayle watched Arcadia's changes, and felt a certain pang go through her chest. She had chose to say so little, she'd been so afraid to bond too closely with the human in front of her...

Who knows? Maybe that had been the correct choice. For someone as long-lived as Shale, a few months were not much different than a couple days to the average human. she'd barely known Estrella, really, before her sudden change into... this.

And yet... Those couple days were enough that seeing her like this already caused a dull ache to grip her heart and set fire to her nerves.

It might not have been a correct decision to associate with a human like this. But it was a choice she'd committed to, now, and what had happened since she'd entered this world firmly laid as Vayle's own sins.

So she'd suck it up and fake a smile, even if it wasn't convincing. Because she was a death god, and death gods were meant to be above breaking under pressure.

"Well, see, there's a funny thing about that." Vayle would add with a grin. "You'd absolutely be able to reap his soul in even just a minute, s'long as you rushed and got to him before the Senkaimon opened... thing is, I'm not just a death god. I'm the twentieth seat of squad seven. and that means I get to yell at other people to do the work I'm too busy to do just that second.

-----

"Move your fuckin' legs, Miyako!" A death god with white hair yelled, huffing and puffing as she ran off with the bleeding human they'd managed to nab. "I know you hate doing it, but it's called exercise! And if Vayle can't hold back that murderous reishi, that creature's comin' for us. And if we can't make enough distance, I'm entirely fine leavin' you as a sacrifice!"

"Shut up, Mokin!" A beautiful woman with long, black hair yelled back with a childish look of anger. "Only one of us had to burn half their reishi on kido to keep him stable! Just because one of us spends half their life making sure they have all the strength and looks of a gorilla doesn't mean we both have to!"

"Oh, I'm a gorilla! What's that make you? An albatross!"

"It makes me the fairest of the land, peasant!"

"Laziest of the land maybe!"

The two bickering girls continued to shunpo forward, heedless of anything else.

----

"So yeah, that. and given how quickly you got here against my flash steps, minus the doubled time from going in both directions, the fact we've been here for 3 minutes, add in the circumference of the moon and solve for the air pressure in italy this time of year... 0 percent chance of catchin' em before we get our boy through the senkaimon." Vayle would add with a large grin.

"Well, anyways... 'till then." Vayle would say, after leaving off her last stalling gambit. She would flash step as far away as she could, racing away from Arcadia at full speed.

She wasn't worried Arcadia would come to catch her, no.

She was just... worried she'd manage to catch a glimpse of her crying.

"...Damnit damnit damnit" Vayle swore, as her voice started to crack and grow hoarse.

Estrella never deserved this.