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One could scour the Negaverse top to bottom, but would be hard pressed to find two individuals more opposite than Tanzanite and Serandite. In fact, perhaps only Nealite and Uranophane could pose a threat to their title. Serandite, despite her corruption and the promotion to Captain - which Obby would have referred to as the “Immaculate What The ******** Happened? - was still a picture of youth and energy. From the roots of her pink hair to the tips of her fashionable shoes, it was difficult to imagine that Serandite was a corrupted Captain of the Negaverse, capable of things that would make a grown man shudder. It was almost impossible to think that Serandite, pretty as she was, would reach into your chest and snatch away your life without a single bat of those long lashes.

Tanzanite, however, had not been so fortunate.

Her hair was a disheveled mess as she stopped in the streets below Serandite's perch, braided with feathers and falling loose down her back. She had been pretty once, even beautiful, but her face now held the telltale signs of a disturbance that ran far deeper than a lack of sleep. Gray eyes, now staring silently up at the young Captain, were underlined by purple crescents. Her cheeks were too hollow, her frame too thin. Where she had once possessed the body of a dancer, the limbs she still had were now marked by scars and bruises. She'd always been tall, almost always thin, but now beneath the uniform her frame had begun to waste away into a rail-like thinness. For anyone who had known her as Aree Cadence – a girl who Tanzanite would deny was still a part of her – it was a shocking transformation.

“Punctuality. Not my strong suit.”

Tanzanite looked at the candy, and it might as well have been rat poison for the look it put on her face. The corners of her lips pulled down slightly, one brow raising. The declining twist of her head shook several strands of hair into her face, and she clawed them away with the purple-painted nails of her human hand. The other twitched towards Serandite, but relaxed as Tanzanite clicked her tongue. It sounded like a command given to a disobedient canine. For all intents and purposes, that was exactly what it was. The arm fell to her side, but the leathery skin seemed to twist around the muscles as though itching to attack.

“I'm fine,” she said, and the words were no surprise. Of all the things Tanzanite ever claimed to be, 'fine' certainly topped the list. She could have been bleeding from her eyes with her guts pouring out of her and the last words she spoke while choking on her own blood probably would have been I'm fine. Possibly <******** you. It was a fifty-fifty chance, really.

“That explains a lot,” Tanzanite murmured, eyes on the bag full of candy, “Don't you have a mother or something? Your teeth are going to rot out of your ******** head.” What seemed like legitimate concern was balanced out by her willingness to drop the F-bomb in front of a girl she has always assumed was twelve years old. If someone told Tanzanite that Serah was only two years her junior, she would have either laughed or punched them in the face for being a lying sack of s**t. Again, fifty-fifty.

“You got promoted,” it was spoken without the sarcastic twist Obsidian might have given it, loud out in the air as nothing other than simple fact, “But you've got a long way to go before you earn their respect, Captain.” No elaboration was made to further define 'them', and none would be, “So come on. I'll control myself the best that I can.”

Tanzanite, of course, wasn't making any promises. She stood with her legs shoulder-width apart, assumed a defensive stance, and nodded. In interest of fairness, she was giving the younger Captain the first attack.