Johannes Volkner bid farewell to the daylight hours as he held up the finished Beissende Hunde. It had already been far into the evening when he finished his work of art, and let it rest within its sheath. By now, the laboratory had more or less cleared out, except for a single person. Jill, that was, Jack the Ripper, was still watching over him, even though he had not spoken with her and she knew nothing of magic. Perhaps it was only now that he'd truly paid attention to the Spirit he contracted when he should have been watching from the start, but her clothes were unseemly. Burnt, and cut, and damaged by smoke. He could see all sorts of damage from when she had fought Boudica for him, and even more little cuts and tears from the group's impassioned fleeing from bombardments and seemingly the wrath of the Gods themselves. Despite all of it, and despite the fact that he had ignored her for large portions of the time they worked together, despite supposedly being partners, she had still stayed by him.

  Walking closer, he sat down on a chair beside her, sighing gently. "Jill, am I that interesting to watch? I'm sure you have other things you'd like to do. We're very different people, with very different sets of interests."

  She swallowed lightly, and did not look towards him. "You... Know, don'tcha? About what happens when I black out. About wha' I do. Johannes, you know." Her voice had that cracking inflection once again, the one from the other night that made it seem as if she was about to cry.

  The accusation hit him like a bullet. She was, of course, completely right, but he wasn't ready for this talk. His heart dropped and for a second he thought that it would fall out the back of his chest and to the ground. He briefly considered stepping out the laboratory entirely and trying to leave the conversation. To run away, because that worked so well for so many other things in his life. But he knew he'd only find himself hating himself again. Even if she ended up forgiving him, it would be another weight on his back. Every time he ran away, it was another shackle. A chain weighing heavy on both ankles and dragging him backwards with every step forwards he took.

  He let out a long, deep breath. "I do. I've known since we fought Boudica. Jill, you're really Jack the Ripper, aren't you? The legendary seri-"

  She exploded out and cut him off. "Don't call me that! I'm not a 'Ripper'. I've been a killer, yes, but the women I killed aren't innocents. It's not as cut and dry or as easy as you make it seem. I... I don't even know how I killed them, m'self. But I know it was me. I'd wake up some nights, with blood drying on my hands, as if by a surgery or messy birth I hadn't worked on. Tools going missing from the clinic. Coughing fits like I'd been out on days I'd kept holed up 'cause I knew the smog and the fog and the smoke were too bad to go out in. But, those women weren't innocents. They couldn't have been."

  She was shaking, now, half from anger and half from some mixture of guilt and sorrow. Johannes was fairly certain the women she’d killed, outside of being whores, were innocent. They had never done something to deserve their fate. He was working with an honest to god murderer, but if he threw her away now, he would be working with no one. Could he really hope to survive like that? Heliopolis's team as a whole was already working with so many blatantly evil people, he didn't have an idea of how it could be any worse to allow himself to work with one more. He couldn't see where the line between 'good' and 'evil' fell, when associating with evil.

  He placed one hand on her shoulder. "Jill, it's okay. I knew, but I didn't tell you. Because I didn't want it to hurt our ability to work together. You might be the famous Jack, but I've seen the way you help people. The way you genuinely worked on patient after patient for hours on end in the wake of Boudica's attack. You're a good person, I know it."

  ...His own words made him sick. He needed her help, but even if her 'Jill' persona was a good person, she had done so many awful things. He was lying through his damned teeth, and for what? To get her to fight for him? The command array on his right arm could force that to happen anyways, if he had half the mind to use it. It wasn't as if he'd spared her from its usage prior. Was it to make her feel better about herself then? He didn't know, but those questions arose within him once more, and he sighed, standing up and pulling her into a hug as she sniffled and still tried to find her own pace.

  He needed it more than she did, he thought.

  "Johannes... Am I gonna end up like Tadakatsu? Am I gonna die suddenly, and nobody even has time to grieve me, 'cause you have to keep working and fighting on? Am I gonna just be vaguely remembered as 'We summoned Jack the Ripper once and she helped us out'? I don't want that, Johannes! I want to live, even if it's just a little more!"

  He didn't have answers for her. Each sentence was like another bullet as they hit, because the accusations and worries all seemed right. They hadn't gotten to know Tadakatsu, the samurai with the long spear. They'd barely even learned his name before he wound up dead, sacrificing himself to keep Wilhelm alive. His own Caller, Pádraig, must be grieving the hardest, and feeling the most vulnerable and exposed out of anyone. And any one of them, perhaps more than just one or two, could be next. Callers might at least be memorialized back at the base for their sacrifices, and for laying down their lives, but the Spirits?

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  They were summoned down into these vessels to fight for them. From the start, their role had been an expendable one. They were meant to die during this fight one day or another, and to cut their journeys short. Yet, that image clashed heavily with the crying young woman he was holding onto. She had been brought here just to die again, after a life filled with struggle and strife and hunger. To be unremembered except as a footnote of a grander journey. It was unfair.

  "I won't let you die, Jill. We still have two days to prepare. I don't know what the rest have planned, but we're going to fight Boudica ahead of schedule, okay? And we're going to win, both of us. I'm not going to let you die unanswered, unmourned, or anything like that. I promise."

  Again, his words made him sick. He knew that whether or not he kept that promise wasn't up to him. He didn't have a goddamn choice in whether she lived or died. He could try his best to fight beside her, but it was most likely that they would both die horribly as a result. Yet, despite that, Flash of Inspiration was gently drawing him towards that path, as if it was the right one. As if risking death and some shabby memorial here, for the sake of a woman who'd committed several murders was the right path among all the courses of action he could take. His own eyes were stinging by this point, though he didn't remember when he'd started to shed tears. Was it that she started to remind him of Jessica, back home, still enduring pain after pain while he ran off to some odd and spectacular adventure? They looked nothing alike, but he couldn't help but think back to her.

  "We're going to beat Boudica, even if that's all we can do. I'm going to bring out every single stop to make sure that happens."

  Jill didn't respond, just nodding lightly against him, and the two stood like that for what felt like hours. Eventually, she finally stepped away, her tears dried. "Johannes, I'm going to go and get some food. I think I need some time alone to think about... What we talked about."

  He didn't say anything, letting her leave as he tried to figure out what the hell he was going to do. He needed to work, there was no other way around it. As much as he wanted to talk with the other Heliopolis Callers, to socialize and to keep their morale up and learn more about his own allies, to ensure Pádraig was hanging in there despite what happened with Tadakatsu, he didn't have time. He needed to spend every minute focused if he and Jill were going to defeat Boudica on their own, especially given the fact that Boudica still had trump cards up her sleeve that they hadn't identified in their first fight.

  Still, they knew her name, and her history. He could use that if he put himself to proper use. Gathering a large gemstone from the small hoard of armaments and wealth in the laboratory, he began to carve into it, slowly but surely engraving the white topaz with a set of Runes that came to him quickly, one that he would only get one chance to use, but that could quickly turn the tides of this battle if used properly.

  Berkano, the Rune of the Birch Tree, symbolized growth, renewal, and new life due to the tree's forests being short lived but quick to populate. He carved it in, championing new life and a more modern era. Afterwards, he quickly added Ansuz, Nauthiz, and a reversed Ehwaz, making an array that could best be described as a 'targeting array', BANE. So long as he poured enough magical energy to overflow the already near-breaking storage of the topaz, he would be able to force the arrays into action on a target, hounding and chasing after them like a rider on a horse.

  As for the other array that it would target Boudica with-

  His train of thought was cut off by a noise beside him. The light setting of pewter on wood, as Jill set a hot bowl of some stew with beans, chickpeas and chicken down beside him. Had it really been so long that he'd completely forgotten to eat? He sighed lightly, before setting the gem down carefully and taking the bowl. "Thanks, Jill. I got caught up in everything. I'm sorry if I worried you any."

  Her face was dry by now, and she seemed to be in better spirits as a whole. She nodded lightly, a smile crossing her face. "Not an issue, Johannes. You're just working so we can fight better, right? Um, if there's any way I can help, let me know, but the best I can do is be a bit of moral support and get you some food. Haha, I never got married in life, but I imagine this is something like how it might have felt to have a workaholic husband."

  He almost spit out the spoonful of stew he'd taken to try. There were no romantic feelings between them, but he hadn't been ready for her to suddenly joke about marriage, much less while casually mentioning that she'd never been married in the first place as if it was an offer. He hadn't accidentally given the wrong impression when he held her in his arms, did he? Shit, shit, shit, no, surely he hadn't messed up that bad.

  "...Pfft. Lighten up, you should see the look on yer face!" She lightly punched at his shoulder, though with the incredible strength of a Spirit, even a 'weak' one like herself, it felt like he'd been slugged full force. It was really all he could do not to spit up food as he quickly swallowed, before glaring over.

  "Jill, that's not the sort of thing you should drop on someone when they're eating! That's totally unfair, you know!"

  She had an all-too-pleased, almost feline smirk on her face despite his grievances, as she turned away to go sit in the same chair she'd used prior. "Too bad. Now eat up, or I'll really be cross. No food and no sleep means we won't win, no matter how much you work, Mister."

  He sighed as he accepted his fate, eating his stew before ending the first of the three days they had before the attack.