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The weather had finally decided that it was properly spring, and that meant the sun was finally warm and shining on new leaves rather than muddy snow. Cybele appreciated that, but the temperatures and longer days meant that the park still had a few people in it when she started her patrol. One mother stared at her outfit before grabbing her toddler by the hand and rushing past on the edge of the sidewalk. After that, Cybele stayed off the path for the most part, winding through the trees somewhat aimlessly until she felt the lark Chaos aura back towards the more structured area and went to investigate, a pit forming in her stomach. She had a feeling she wasn't going to like what she found.

She didn't see him until he was almost right in front of her, as she still was not really in the habit of looking up, and from the angle she was at, she could mostly just see the camouflage uniform among the new leaves, with only a few flashes of ...red?... to show his position. For a moment, she relaxed. "It's you," she said. Her tone wasn't exactly friendly, but it was warmer than the one she usually used with the Negaverse. Then, she walked around the tree to fully face him, then suddenly stopped, taking in the full effect of the dragon bits.

He's stronger... Is it a new weapon? No... I don't think... Part of his uniform, maybe? But he has a wing. There are scales on his face.

Her denial faded quickly enough, as did whatever trust she'd had for him, suddenly replaced by gut-wrenching disgust and almost a feeling of betrayal. She'd seen people turned into youma before, and merged with them before. "What happened?" she growled, visibly grimacing.

He had been almost nice. She had almost liked him.

"I found out about purification for you," she said bitterly.

It was probably a useless thing to say, but it was all she could think of, seeing him there radiating and even darker type of Chaos. She had tried to help him. That was what. she wanted him to know. Obviously, she had failed... but that was nothing new. Still, it stung, and she found her hands curling into fists almost unconsciously.

That was her response to almost everything recently. Anger, embarrassment, fear... it didn't take much to get her to attack. This wasn't like that, though. Maybe before, she'd hurt him in an attempt to make herself feel better, but then he'd shown her how stupid that was. So she'd let him go. Now, he'd come back as a literal monster. Even if he was telling the truth, he was clearly under the thumb of the Negaverse. There was no way she could let him go a second time. She had to kill him. There were no excuses at this point.

When he showed his full height, Cybele stared and took half a step backwards. She was 5'4", barely tall enough not to be considered tiny, he was almost a dragon and had an aura that said he was stronger than her. At that moment, she realized that there was more to a fight than just having the will to end a life. That didn't mean she was going to give up, though. She stepped forward as casually as possible. "Who is 'she?'" she asked, half as a distraction and half because she was genuinely curious. Whoever had done this to him... she would do her best to hunt them down, as well.

Cybele stopped for a moment at a conversational distance, forcing her fists to uncurl and her eyes to meet the gaze of the half dragon in front of her. That was when she realized that she didn't even know his name.

It was probably for the best. She knew the name of the one who had done this to him, and that was what she needed for the future. "General Painite? All right," The name itself sounded dangerous, and vaguely familiar, but Cybele had never really been stopped by things sounding bad. However, now that she had her information, thinking about it too much was procrastination and she knew it.

"I'm sorry this happened to you," she said. Then she lunged forward, not going for her usual dramatic punch in the face but sending a sharp kick towards his legs. She didn't want to insult him, she wanted him on the ground so she could end this quickly.

There was no rush when she kicked him, no adrenaline or grim satisfaction or whatever the thrill was made hurting people Cybele's first resort. When he toppled and looked up at her with shocked pain in his eyes, she managed to push down the self-disgust and regret and sudden, out of place compassion that always made her leave afterwards without accomplishing anything. It existed, but that was fine. Hurting people was supposed to make you feel bad

"What?" she asked, looking down at him with eyes that were supposed to be cold but were more sad than she realized. "I gave you a chance and this happened. I can't give you another." To demonstrate, she sent a kick at his midsection. Maybe it would keep him down.

"Even if you're telling the truth... even if you didn't want this.. youma eat people." She hated the Negaverse for doing this to him, on top of everything else, and this Painite especially, and she was sorry, so sorry, but that didn't mean he was allowed to walk away.

Cybele wasn't expecting a counterattack, although even as it was happening she realized she should have been. She stepped backwards, quickly but not quickly enough, arms instinctively going up to protect the rest of her. Consequentially, his claws raked her left arm and she gasped gasped in pain as he retreated.

He was still talking, still hoping, maybe, that this would be like last time and eventually she'd believe him and let him go. She did believe him, though, or at least she believed that he thought what he was saying was true, and it was tugging at her heartstrings, but as she looked down at the red scratches on her arm, which were throbbing but thankfully didn't look too deep, all she could think of was how perfectly they matched the now barely visible marks on her shoulder, from a youma that had turned a human being into a pile of viscera in a matter of seconds and had tried to do the same to her.

Then, she looked back up at him, crouched in a position that only made his human features stand out as unnatural. "You're this full of Chaos and expect me to trust the goodness of your heart? No. I can't," she said, the initial disgust creeping back into her voice. She couldn't believe that he was a good person, or anything other than a monster. Still, he was obviously stronger than her, so she shifted into a more defenseive stance rather than charging at him.

Cybele stared at him, listening skeptically. There was honesty in his voice. She could tell that he believed in himself, but that wasn't enough. She knew that from experience, so she shook her head, took a half step forward, and tightened her fists.

"Even the Negaverse says they're trying to help people," she said, because it was the first thing that came to her mind, but automatically her thoughts went past that, to so do the senshi who kill people just for having Chaos in them, and, like me. She didn't have second thoughts about what she was doing now, because the creature in front of her was a youma in her eyes, tragically stripped of his humanity but still a thing to hunt, but they were thoughts and emotions she didn't feel like dealing with right now, so she called out, "Hunter's Deadly Grace!"

Almost as soon as the bow had formed in her hands, she fired it, and as the magic took effect and her distracting thoughts were replaced with clarity, she charged. It wasn't tactically the best decision, and she knew it, but it was her only real option at this point. Hopefully her increased speed would keep her from being totally overpowered.

Charging was never a good idea, but in this instance it had seemed like the only option. Still, it was more to prover her intentions than anything else. She didn't want to walk away again. When he leaped out of her way, Cybele wasn't surprised, and she didn't allow herself to be discouraged quite yet. She whirled, fists clenched and eyes half closed in determination, and then his tail crashed into her torso and she flew backwards a few feet like a ragdoll and skidded a bit once she landed, barely even able to breathe. Since she still had a few seconds of magic left, she was able to drag herself to her feet right away and start after him, but even if she'd been at her best she wouldn't have been able to keep up. Even pushing herself with her magic active her motion couldn't be described as more than a stumble. Once it wore off, she stopped completely, gasping for breath with her hands on her knees.

After that, she stayed put and watched him vanish over the next hill. She had failed. She would have killed him with out regrets, except she couldn't, and even though he'd been a dragon and she'd been trying to take him down with her fists, which was ridiculous and obviously impossible, the failure stung.