Crystal Palace; Special Guest

The old palace was just as he remembered it... maaaybe it was a little bit larger. He remembered when he had to build a machine so that Triere could sustain the extravagant mansion, but clearly she didn't need some silly machine to do that anymore. Hell, he'd go so far to assume that she stopped needing it immediately after he built it in the first place. His exponential learning curve was monstrous, but hers was even scarier.

Koudo rotated his shoulder, following after her as she beckoned him forward. While the outside hadn't changed, Koudo could actually remember the decor at all. There weren't many times where he was actually allowed inside her home before this, and they conducted most of their business in the old factory that he didn't have anymore. Seeing the interior now, it seemed like there were probably more people living here that just Priere and Frio, but it could also be there for show. Just a status symbol, more than anything else.

"So what have you been up too? Not wasting your life reading that book over and over again are you?"

Koudo couldn't help rolling his eyes at her comment that oozed more of that charming sardonicism she was known for. It gave him everything that he needed to know, without her having to go into anymore explanation than that. He knew of her pocket dimension, of course he did, and it sucked to hear that she was still reading that book. However, Koudo wasn't really well versed in the mystic arts and grimoire, so he couldn't really understand the importance of the book to her. He barely looked at the Blue Grimoire he was given watch over.

Koudo folded his arms as they continued walking, looking around the hallway as they passed by various works of art that had lined it. He never really took Priere for much of an appreciator of art, but he had to remind himself of the family that she came from. A family were aesthetics were basically everything. "Oh, that thing with the Mega Generator, huh? Damn." At least, that's what he thought she was talking about, though he could be completely off base. Not that it mattered, sounded like everything was all fixed up regardless and she was alright, even if it sounded like she was living a fucking boring existence with nothing to do.

"Oh, me? I'm just looking after my baby girl more than anything else." Really, once he'd altered Yui's genentic makeup to bring it inline with his own, effectively making the little girl his blood relative, he devoted most of his time with doing things that would insure her a future. It meant cutting ties with a lot of people, "betraying" some others, and working with some he'd never thought to work with in order to guarantee a safe world for Yui to grow up in. Times change and alliances always shift, it was the nature of Vescrutia. He NEVER compromised his morals though, and always remained true to his convictions, even if some questioned his elusively aloof demeanor and esoteric decision-making.

Even if that was all that she could manage to say, Koudo had always been more perceptive than he led on, and he led on that he was very perceptive. There was a hint of intrigue, if nothing else, about what he said, and Koudo supposed that he should clarify. Triere had never met the little girl that became his daughter, and he couldn't remember a time where he'd ever told her about Yui either. While allowing Triere, a friend, think that he'd gotten someone, somewhere, pregnant seemed an amusing misunderstanding he might have relished in before, he was slightly more mature than that now.

He followed her up the beginning of the stairs, rotating his neck and running a couple of fingers through his raven mane. "Yeah, I didn't either, but it helps I'm so overprotective and me and the twins saved her when she was only a couple years old. She's never known anyone besides me, so when she got sick, about the time the Horsemen invaded. I could only think to alter her DNA to make her more like me, so she could survive in such a harsh environment. Odea helped, and helps now, but Yui really doesn't have any parents, in the scientific sense of the word, besides me." He hoped that could clear up any misunderstanding. While Koudo was very much still about free love, and thought nothing of sex besides it being an act of pure pleasure, he knew the implications of reproduction and wasn't really keen on it if he didn't have more than a physical attraction to his object of desire at the time. Bimbos were bimbos, they came and went. Truly special companionship was something entirely different and you only got a couple of chances at that.

"Thanks for the invite, but I actually have a pretty decent place, cleansed of the Horsemen's influence by the lingering chakra of my grandmother and held firm by a combined effort on mine and Odea's part. I was staying on my own planet, but found it weird to do so since it was a gift from Mana and we don't talk much anymore." Now that he really thought about it, he'd lost contact with most women that he'd go so far as call a friend. While Mana was more than that, they had their falling out and he wanted to give her all the space that she could ask for. He'd learned to curb his overprotective feelings towards her so she could do her own thing. Elara hadn't been around much once she fell in love and had her child, and the story of anyone connected to the Tensei lineage was already known and didn't necessarily need an explanation.

Koudo sped up his pace, to get in front of Triere, and turned around to walk backwards so that he could see her face while they chatted. He didn't really enjoy talking to the back of her head. "So, you got any little ones running around, or you still too young for that?" Not to mention any men folk, but he figured she was quite abstinent consider the nature of her family and how powerful emotions could effect them. Besides, she spent all her time cooped up in her pocket dimension, in this palace, in this empty city. There was no way she was getting any strange.

So she wasn't getting any strange. Ha!

Koudo tried not to laugh at the fact that Triere's answer and quick to action response, in order to humiliate him, told him that she wasn't having any of his brand of fun. He'd actually really calmed all that down, for the most part. He wasn't romantically involved with anyone, however, Odea being much more than that since they were spiritually intertwined, so he messed around a little bit when he had the time just so he didn't go mad.

His ears twitched at the slight shift of Triere's grand staircase, and he flipped backwards over the step that she misaligned, circumventing her trick. Reputation and status and all of that were things that Koudo didn't really think about anymore, not that he ever really paid any mind to it before. He liked being able to do what he wanted, when he wanted, and so having those things play very small roles in his life was much better for him. It stopped him from killing himself while trying to please everyone. He'd rather throw hands with someone that didn't like him than smile and cozy up to them. But Triere already knew that's how he operated anyway.

"Mmm." Her question definitely stumped him. He hadn't heard from Perura in a time longer than he had Triere, herself. If he was an anomaly, and Triere an enigma, then Perura was the embodiment of mystery. Ever since she shacked up with the man she called 'King' and took over Arachne's old castle, she'd really become a shut in. As far as Koudo could understand, from the last time he spoke to her and King, they weren't ever anywhere and everywhere at the same time. "Last I checked her and her husband became embodiments of heat and cold and exist everywhere those things are on Vescrutia." He shrugged his shoulders, "Don't ask me how it works. Seems like a magic thing, of which I am not inclined to understand."

If that was how what Perura described herself, and King, to be were called here, then Koudo suppose that it was what they were. On Vescrutia, he assumed they would have just been called Gods, since anything and everything called be called a God if they had the power to back it up. Koudo couldn't lie and say he never cared about titles, even if he could say he didn't care about reputation, because he knew that titles always preceded the person in question. People knew your title and heard about your reputation before they ever really met you as a person. Truthfully, that was how the Tensei would forever be shaped by the annals of history now that they were all wiped away from Vescrutia. Soon there would be no one left to remember the good deeds Khrona, and his brood, had done and their legacy, as far as Vescrutia was concerned, would always be blighted by the Tensei curse.

Triere was right though, Vescrutia did need that diversity, and with the failure of what was suppose to take the Veritas' place on Vescrutia's surface, run by the lazy brother of Triere's father and the mistress he cheated with, many of the races that were sheltered by the Veritas, who did not make the transition, were going to have to be accepted by the populace of the other major countries, i.e. the Neo-Nightmare and the Chaos Kingdom. Diversity would do Vescrutia good in the long run, and hopefully breed more capable warriors, so that the old legends could finally give up their mantles and pass them to the young wolves. Young wolves that included Koudo, no matter how reluctant he was to align himself with, and think of himself as, an equal to the likes of Kham's and the Chaos King's first borns. Certainly he didn't have the same clout.

But he digressed, he was sure that Perura would eventually find her way here, somehow. The woman had a nasty habit of showing up when people least expected her, but it was part of her charm. She was like a passing blizzard in every sense of the world, especially when on the battlefield. She could be a calm and light snowfall, or a heavy snowstorm whenever she saw fit to be so. Same as Priere, probably why he respected the both of them so much.

He was digressing again.

He huffed a calming breath and turned as Priere made her final quip about locks and keys and opened the door to her private chambers. "Clearly." He responded in kind, leaving no hint whether he understood or misunderstood her cryptic words. He followed her inside the quarters that were certainly very familiar, unlike the rest of the house that appeared much larger on the inside than it had on the outside. He hadn't really gonna a good feel for its depth from an outside perspective, so that was probably why. Whenever he used to come to bother her, and she opened her front door, it seemed like it connected directly to this place instead of the actual grand hall. He wouldn't put it past her to be able to shift the rooms as she saw fit.

Yeah, he was right. The room hadn't change, not even a little bit. Everything seemed to be in the same place, as if Triere never got tired of where her furniture was situated and rearranged the room. She came from a family all about order and stuff, so it was to be expected that once she found something she was comfortable with then it would remain so. He noticed these weird little idiosyncrasies about the certain members of her family that he came into contact with the most and though a lot of them did the same things, sometimes, they all had little things that differentiated them.

Before she even ushered him towards the couch, Koudo was already stretched and spread out over it. Sitting deep in the cushions, he spread his arms across the back of the couch with his legs spread apart, man-spreading as it was so "positively" referred to as in other realms. No matter what their relationship was, or what they went through, Koudo could and always would remember that Priere had the most comfortable couch he'd ever had the pleasure of sitting on. Without ever telling her that, he was sure she could deduce it from the look of pure bliss on his face and how quickly he spread himself out on it before her express permission was given.

It took him a while to break from the lull of the siren couch and listen to what she was saying, and he looked up and over to her inquisitively. "Not as far as I can remember, no. There's nothing. We've pretty much worked through what happened and we're all good." He lifted his arm from the back of the couch and poked his chest, where his heart was located, with his thumb, "Holding a grudge ain't good on the heart, ya know?" He couldn't practice what he preached if he didn't learn to let things go, especially when it came to handing down life lessons to Yui and whatever other children he may or may not have.

"Honestly, once the little shepherd girl, Tina, said she was Veritas. I just told her to send me to someone. The headache for them would be all the same. She chose you, though Chiiiita~ would have been an excellent choice too." He didn't mean to linger on Chita's name and give it a little melody as he sang it, but he couldn't help it. While he had accepted that they could never be anything more than friends, it was just really fun to say her name that way. Her mother's, Zita's, name was also said this way, but not Rita's. Never Rita's.

Koudo laughed. He knew saying Chita's name, no matter how he said it, was going to get a rise out of Triere. It was the same why whenever he mentioned Mana. It was funny that he was attracted to one of the daughters on all sides of the family: Tensei, Rituke and L'sia/Lombardi. However, he'd chosen to try and remain friends with one, while he dated another, and felt strong emotions that weren't reciprocated by the third. That was Triere, Mana and Chita respectively by the way.

He took a breath afterwards and moved his arms to his lap as he looked towards Triere, with a smile to hopefully diffuse that piercing stare of hers that he willingly conjured up. "Relax. She'll get her shot, she'll probably want to fight after seeing how I've physically grown, but I'm here with you right now and I'm in no rush to leave." They were catching up after all, even if they had done most of that while they climbed the stairs to get to Triere's room in the first place.

Now that he thought about it, he wasn't really sure why Priere had chosen to bring him to her room, specifically, in the first place, other than for nostalgia, which he can certainly understand. He crossed a leg over the other and spread the arm that was in the direction of her throne across the back of the couch. He continued smiling, but used his other arm to stroke his chin and he huffed a short laugh. "So what do we have left that's unresolved, Triere? What, pray tell, do you want to resolve so that you can remain at peace?"

Koudo closed his eyes once she said the word. He sighed. She hadn't necessarily struck a nerve in him when she mentioned it, and it was right and proper of her to ask about it. Unfortunately, Koudo already knew what to say to her and didn't really have much else to say besides it.

No matter how much she wanted to help. No matter how much anyone from the Tensei family wanted to help deal with the Horsemen situation, there was nothing that they, or Koudo could do, about the stigma that their familial curse had given them. Especially when their patriarch might have been being controlled by it at one point or another. As far as Koudo could understand, and from all the people he had spoken to, there were few that looked positively on the Tensei family and most would just like to forget that they ever existed. Koudo was sure that even Khrona's on lazy brother and his mistress, not his wife Sadako but his mistress Hakku, would rather forget about the person that brought them up out of obscurity. In fact, as far as Koudo was concerned, those two failures and everyone associated with them would rather forget about the motherland entirely and move on to save alternate dimensions and universes as they were doing when the Tensei curse first got out of hand.

The only person Koudo could think of that might like to have a newly reforged and more powerful and confident Tensei clan, in full control of their family's curse, at his side when he decided to engage the Horsemen was The Great Destroyer, and Koudo hadn't heard from him in close to a year and wasn't even sure if they were on speaking terms. People on Vescrutia held grudges, that was just the way that it was. The stigma wasn't going to go away.

Koudo adjusted himself, straightening up and dropping his arms in his lap as he clasped his hands together and hung his head. "I'm sorry Triere, but you have to give up on Vescrutia." He could understand her feelings of not wanting to pretend that the people that were still on Vescrutia weren't actually there, dealing with the Horsemen in real time, but Vescrutia's populace had short attention spans and would never remember the triumphs that the Tensei clan had helped in establishing. He'd rather she just forget about it, instead of worrying herself endlessly over it. Dwelling on it, especially as a Tensei, would surely only bring her madness.

He'd seen had madness, he never wanted to again and never wanted her to have to experience it again either. He looked up, towards her now, "We'll be okay, we always pull through, please don't worry yourself over this. I can at least promise you I won't die." He gave her a smile after that, as if it was the only actual solace that he could offer to ease her mind. There wasn't really anymore to say than that, and he really didn't want her to press the issue either. To the general populace, and the majority of the most powerful beings on Vescrutia's surface, the Tensei, and their cocoon of paradise, were not welcome.

Koudo let out a breath and relaxed his posture, since it seemed like Triere understood and was only raising the question to see if there was any chance of offering aid. Once he told her there was no chance, she seemed completely okay with that and he was glad. Obviously, they'd both grown because they didn't come to an argument over something like this, and Triere had her section of the Veritas to worry about. He'd assumed she'd allow him to handle Vescrutia, if he could, which he wasn't too sure about himself.

He leaned back again and spread an arm across the back of the couch and crossed one of his legs over the other. "No, you didn't tell me, but that's pretty awesome. I guess he's the second guy of an older generation that passed the mantle down. Kham gave up his seat as a leader of the Neo-Nightmare and handed it down to Atra." While he told her that, he let his mind wonder on who the other sisters were. The only one that he knew definitively, and had met before, was Chroma, if she was even still called that, and that was the only one that he could think of. He remembered hearing from somewhere that the new Lord Death was a little girl no older than Yui, but he never got the chance to witness her himself, sooo... yeah. He just went ahead and assumed that she was the other sister.

"But you got stuck with the Dawn, huh? Gross. It's probably like super boring. I'd of traded for the Dusk." He said with a laugh, just poking funny at her. He was sure that the Dawn was lovely, he just never really cared for it himself, for pretty obvious reasons. Now though, with the way he'd been living his life, he'd probably feel more at home here in the Dawn than he would in the Dusk.

Ah so Tina was the last sister then, guess it made sense why she looked so much like Triere, Koudo just now beginning to realize the visual similarities. They even had the same crystalline skin, but he assumed that most, if not all, of the Tensei had skin such as that. Probably not the L'sia/Lombardi sect, and certainly not the Rituke. He'd done... extensive research on that line of the family. If ya know what I mean. *winkwinknudgenudge*

He supposed that the Delta was probably the place that he should stop by next. As interested as he could have been in hearing about how his Sage Arts may differ on the Veritas, if they would different at all or if he could even use them, Koudo didn't really have an inclination to training those abilities, or any abilities right now. He just happened to be tampering with his portal creation and ended up here. It wasn't necessarily training, and more like experimenting. Besides that, Tina had helped him enough and she seemed like a fairly busy young lady, considering she had to deal with the ins and outs of the Universal barrier of the Veritas. There wasn't really a need for him to bother her over some trivial. That's what he had Priere and Chita for!

He's eyes trailed upwards towards the ceiling, "Ah yeah, I suppose you never actually came across Atra at all, just Cross. Maybe you have heard of him though. Shadowy puppet dude. Came to your pops to turn his shadow into a soul partner, then ended up fast tracking that partner to death scythe in little over a week or so?" In the grand scheme of things, it really didn't matter if she could place this description anywhere or not. The main purpose of his statement was to convey that besides her father there was another older legend that decided to pass the reins to someone younger than him so he could adventure freely and handle the matters of his own secret agendas.

Koudo sat up now. Surely he was aware of Priere's love for combat, but he really wasn't interested in throwing hands with her. Just with the air that she was going off, Koudo could tell that she was much more powerful than himself. The Veritas, despite how he might have felt about its leadership and able body denizens of its armed forces, was a place that foster creativity and unparalleled growth. Vescrutia took a huge hit with the Veritas uprooted and many of its most famous and accomplished combatants were scattered to the winds. None of the other country leaders really bothered with trying to gather them up and so their battle prowess went neglected and unused. Most just tried to find somewhere else to call home. Moirai promised that, but it was a shallow and pedantic promise.

Koudo wasn't one that squandered his potential, but he had a hard time finding places to train without upsetting local governments. Moirai considered him a criminal, by all rights they should, and tossed him in the pen when he tried to have some good old fashion fun with Khrona's lazy brother, where destroying private property was the most polite way of saying Hi. He allied himself with the Pirate Queen and that immediately put him on the Neo-Nightmare's shit list and he wasn't sure, but he assumed that being friends with Savaj didn't do him any favor in appeasing the Neo-Nightmare or the Chaos.

"Maybe I should go see my 'precious little Chiiitaa~.' I wonder if I can get her to let me chat with Rita." He hummed, making sure to mock Priere's mocking tone, stroked his chin and shot Priere a roguish grin, "Think I got a chance with her instead? I always thought she was kinda cute. In a terribly spoiled rotten princess kinda of way. Does that half of the family even work like that anymore?"

Koudo went ahead and listened closely to what Triere had to say. No matter how warped his perception of the Tensei family had gotten due to the rumors of them, and his personal experiences with their patriarch, he still enjoyed listening to the lore behind how their family was founded and how each branch of the family functioned independently, but for the greater whole. He supposed it was because he didn't know much about how his own various families functioned, but he really didn't care that much either.

Koudo stood to his feet. It was quite handy that Triere would be able to drop him off, so that he didn't have to meander around and find his way. While the Veritas seemed to be the same, there could have been minor changes that would throw off his navigational skills. "Chiiiitaa~ has secrets huh? Neat, I love secrets and we're totally besties." He said, jokingly of course. Sure, Chita and him were definitely friends, but he and Triere had been through much more than he and Chita ever had. No one could take Triere's place as one of his closest friends.

He laughed his joke off, even if he was the only one laughing, and looked at Triere with a roguish smirk. "If you can drop me off, I give you thanks, but before you do, tell me something." He said before he appeared standing in front of her throne with a massive grin on his face as he leaned in to get his face dangerously close to hers, "Are you gonna miss me?"

He was definitely expecting that response, but it was all in good fun. Getting on her nerves was always the fun part of their friendship, but he had learned not to annoy her too much, or risk her overpowered wrath. After she learned his one true weakness, his fatal Achilles's heel, he really learned not to press his luck.

Instinctively, though, he grabbed hold of her throne's back, being tall enough to do so, and held on to the deeply rooted chair for dear life as Triere's Ice Seal's force quintupled the more she pressed her fingers together. A testament to how much she wanted him gone. He smiled, through it all, "Love you too bestie." He whispered with a quick peck to the tip of her frosty nose and let go of her chair to fall backwards into her generated portal and be off to bother the other person he most wanted to see. He wondered how teaching at a school was actually going for her since she really didn't seem the type, and had been a really... rough Head Witch.