<div align="center"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong>The Fuchsia Fox and an Artifact Absent</strong></span></div><br/><div class="floatleft">(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/3f/cb/51/3fcb513183b094b643a10c74bed38b1e.jpg)</div><strong>NAME:</strong>Date Toshiro<br/><strong>DAY:</strong>December 26th, 2018 | 1:30 PM<br/><strong>LOCATION:</strong>SOPHE, Second Floor Balcony<br/><strong>TAGGING:</strong>Nerissa | Mentions: Albion<br/><strong>EXTRA:</strong><br/><strong>WEARING:</strong>An overly large gray hoodie with a Polkadot Stingray emblem (https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.746250090.2683/ssrco,lightweight_hoodie,mens,grey_lightweight_hoodie,front,square_product,x600-bg,f8f8f8.2u3.jpg), black jeans, and his worn running shoes.<br/><hr/>With every word Nerissa uttered, Toshiro's mind flew deeper into a whirlwind of loathing and doubt. Every instinct inherent to his character demanded that he reach out to the kneeling fox demoness and console her, to wipe the tears from her usually beaming face and apologize for his abhorrent accusations and monstrous behavior that had brought her to such a sorrowful state. Nerissa had always been such a source of boundless curiosity and joy, and Toshiro himself would often find his day made so much brighter by even glimpsing one of her peculiar faux pas or charming attempts at improving someone's day. There Toshiro was, tearing down an innocent soul as a result of misery brought on by his own ineptitude, except that wasn't how it was.<br/><br/>If there was one thing that experience had taught, it was that the true cruelty of a disciple of Calder was not in the just the physical harm they could inflict, but their boundless capacity for destroying a person's soul entirely by weaponizing their most harmful insecurities and impulses. It hadn't been enough that Nerissa had used his feelings for Albion against him only the night before, now she was trying to frame this confrontation as Toshiro greedily trying to deprive the once usually dour Albion of the one person that had seemed to brighten his spirits recently, to make it seem as if Toshiro was the larger threat to Albion between the two individuals who found themselves alone on that cold balcony.<br/><br/>“Albion is your friend? How could you say that?” Pushing Nerissa's phone away from himself as he averted his gaze to keep from having to watch the tears well up around the demoness' eyes, he subconsciously ran a shaky hand over Marceline's fur in response to her rubbing her nose against the pads of his fingers. “How could you call yourself his friend after you used his body to...to h-hurt...” He could still recall the pressure of Albion's body against his at the Indigo Lounge. Immaculate visions of a seductive gaze trailing behind the taste of Albion's whiskey stained lips against Toshiro's. Then in a flash pain screamed across Toshiro's body as he remembered those cold hate tinged eyes staring down at him as his only friend rained down upon the unmoving scientist with blow after blow.<br/><br/>What finally brought tears to Toshiro's eyes wasn't the pain, for he'd endured worse, nor was it the feeling of violation at having had a stranger take such intimate advantage of him. What crossed the threshold for the battered man before Nerissa was the knowledge that because of this demon, he would, until the end of his days, have a perfect memory of Albion's face staring down at him in utter disgust and contempt, forever inseparable from all other times spent with the man for it's impact and for how exact the illusion had been.<br/><br/><em>Toshiro always could remember their faces, all of them unfathomably wretched in their horrific state. It had nearly been ten years and yet not a single detail had gone astray. 'All my fault.'</em>“You made him into a monster... It wasn't what he wanted... Never would have... if he'd known...” Toshiro's breath began to quicken as memories bubbled up to the surface.<em>What could barely still be referred to as the anguished screams of humans still rung out as clear as they had on that day.</em>Toshiro raised his voice to be heard above them, the calls echoing from long ago that Nerrisa could not hear almost threatening to drown him out as he tried to unsuccessfully to continue, “I didn't... he wouldn't have...”<br/><br/>Staring ahead with tears now openly running down his cheeks, it took Marceline pressing the top of her soft head up into his chin for him to clear his head of where memories lead. Wiping his face free with the sleeve of his gray hoodie and taking a series of deep breaths, he regarded Nerissa once again, “The pictures don't mean anything Nerissa, I've seen Calder's kind fake greater proof that this. I wasn't as out of it as you thought, I saw Albion turn back into you after you'd...” The corner of Toshiro's nostril twitched in boundless contempt as he continued, “I saw you take the statue and put it in the bag you stole. It's why he... it's why you asked about the rubies at the bar, isn't it? To see what you could get for it.”<br/><br/>Not waiting for an answer to what he knew to be true, Toshiro continued with his voice reverting to the passive tone it had adopted when he first made his threat, “If you were after money, I can pay for the statue, far more than you'll get for the cost of the gems and metals. I can forget what you did to me, but if you if I find out you've done this to anyone else at SOPHE, there is not a power on Earth or in the demon realms that will keep me from making sure you do not have the chance to do it again.”