[attr="class","castleonthehill"]Grinta's gaze cycled amongst the crowd, following them, especially Eiji, along as they each spoke their peace. Whether or not Eiji truly had the power to command the Hummingbirds as he claimed — bratty the "Heart" as ever — the power amongst his group, at least in whatever numbers it had, could prove a resource worthwhile. She couldn't imagine their individual outputs as extravagant, especially if someone such as Eiji was their designated leader, but she wouldn't turn down any such resources regardless.

Gadget, on the other hand, bubbly as can be and bounding about the warehouse, lifted a grin straight from behind Grinta's mask. And, with the card offered before her, Miss G accepted it, lifting a hand from her cloak and examining it. A vigilante with business cards? "How audacious," she thought. With that and her statement of repertoire prior, she couldn't help but offer a toothy grin, one just as bladed and pointed as the mask she wore it beneath.

"I promi'e, for whatever 'elp I ask, I'll give the same amount in turn. That's 'ow good deals work, shes?"

She hummed a chuckle, watching as Gadget moved on about the room with the rest of her cards. Most namely, for Grinta's sake, her fellow "Tech Team" comrade, Warper, would have to be another character to familiarize herself with, watching him as he received one of Gadget's offers.

And then, at last, her gaze fell to Ghouligan himself. He echoed the same distrusting sentiment, much as she did, but seemed to hold less account of the gravity that came with the magnitude of their alleged skillsets. To her, at least, their greatest dangers weren't heroes or villains. In the construction of this network, they were left most vulnerable to their ilk filling this room, as well as any backing behind each of them.

Grinta moved to towards the door, stepping across the facility's middle path and towards the opening.

"If that's all, I'll be ta'ing my leave, too." She'd wave a hand over her shoulder. "Don't forget our mee'ing, Ghoul, or I'll charge shou for missing it — at least fifty-thousand yen if shou do."

"And you, brat!" As Grinta stepped through the frame, the creature at her back became clear to see; a grotesquely grinning, fleshy creature shaped like a ball with red eyes, flashed its smile at Eiji. "Try not ta do anythin' stupid while yer at it, kay? Wouldn't want ya to get beat down worse than ya already have!"

The creature cackled as Grinta took to the sky, disappearing into the night, much as she imagined the rest of the congregation would do.

[attr="class","castleonthehill"]A buzz in an ear. Radio static hummed, crackling to and from transparency, disappearing and appearing again amongst the world's descent. The dial twisted, scraping and scrambling through semblances of coherence. Voices were, in one moment, a drumming of barks and commands; offbeat, and lacking rhythm despite their efforts, but nonetheless drummed.

"Corral the people inside!" they bellowed in a panic, "get them away from the drones!"

Then again, from the beating of their voices, they fizzled out into nonsense. Their sounds played on their radios, devoid of identity or understanding to the listener; in neither tempo nor sound did it make play anything known, and to the one listening in, it whirled a metallic cacophony through their head.

In the trial of The Elementalist, Japan fell again into the villain's jaws. Was it his blaze of glory, perhaps? Was it a melodramatic symphony of mayhem set to the tune of the man's genius — of the man's wandering mind? As the scene plunged further into the depths of his machinations, his devastation raining down and drowning the people beneath, the earpiece was pulled out; the discord of it came only from a distance as they looked out toward the scene.

"Got a plan?"

Standing atop the ledge, not yet in the district noted for the swarm hovering above, Grinta finicked with her hood. Pundit embedded itself into the back of her cloak, lifting the vigilante into the air.

"They're drones, shes?" She sat her cap atop her hood, gripping it by the brim and securing it to the top of her head. Along with it, her mask sparked to life. "We can 'andle that."

---

Up in the sky, tracing above where Yuki Onna called upon the citizens, a new entrant soared through; following along and orbiting around this stranger, a trio of spherical creatures with grotesque grins kept pace. Breaking from their paths and shooting away from their star, the orbs aimed to fall upon a drone each, primed to latch onto their exteriors and burrow their nerves throughout the machines. And with their grasp of them, the vigilante — casting a shadow from her place in the sky, eclipsing the drones she now made her own — she called down to the public below.

"Trample each othe' on shour own time!" she thundered to the crowd, flicking her gaze between the drones. "If shou can't fight, then get the 'ell out of the way!"

The drones infected by her quirk would, assuming their control had been attained, lock in on the rest of the swarm. Each Pundit — alabaster spheres of mismatched eyes and grueling sneers — cackled with glee as their hosts turned towards their fellow machines. With the lasers equipped, the vigilante fired the drones upon their others, utilizing the same equipment upon their brethren.

"'ow do I clea' out so many?"

[attr="class","castleonthehill"]Grinta watched the ronin attentively. Her gaze, soft and subdued in its clownish countenance — her chin dipped slightly, her cap shadowing the top of her mask — followed the man along as he spoke. Besides the occasional flicker, her expression didn't change; neither soured nor eased, she stilled and, eventually, nodded when Warper confirmed the ring.

"I've met many who use that sy'tem, worked with a few of them on occasion — I wa' e'en offered to join." She'd motioned, with a hand lifting up from her cloak — a deep shade of sanguine wrapping over her arm like a cast — and motioning towards the phone. "There' a great deal of things worth replica'ing. 'owever, for devices, I advise again't any tracking-re'ated functions."

Lifting her opposite hand from her cloak, and in doing so reveal her attire, she brushed the collar off from her neck and over her shoulder, loosening the strap that held her cloak around her torso. Her skin was hidden, but her stature bared itself, including the bracer wrapped around her left leg with it.

"We don't 'ave the numbers for that type of ri'k; not with ju't us for the 'tart, anyway."

Crossing her arms under her chest, she tipped her brigadier cap sat atop her hood. Her posture eased as she sat her weight on her casted leg. "A' for what shou may call me, I am 'G.' I will accept 'Miss G.' as a substitute, but I will not acknowledge alternatives. Unless they're clever. Then I will acknowledge them. Maybe."

She tilted forward an inch. Her arms remained across as she craned towards the tech duo, offering them her sight and her time. "I could offer a favor for the sy'tem, sure. I may also 'ave some worthwhile connections for thi' project, depending on what we end up needing — I can promise, at the ve'y lea't, its quality will rival ENKI's."

Her gaze turned, having finished her address, now to her last focal point: Eiji. In this sea of shaded figures — Gadget aside — his red hair burned loudly, screaming for eyes to watch it dance. Grinta's watched that dance once before, watching how it swayed when she dripped blood from it, and now, she had to look upon it again. The blood had been cleaned.

Tilting an arm up from her cross, she rested her chin against the fist, tilting her gaze at the Heart.

"Do shou 'ave any loca'ions outside of Shinjuku, 'top-sign?" she asked, tilting towards him from across the warehouse. "And if shou don't, would it be possible divide you' forces to cover mo'e territory?"

[attr="class","castleonthehill"]Grinta watched on as the many vigilantes — more than she'd anticipated — went on about their pieces. First, as both this show's beginner and epicenter, Ghouligan called for their gathering — their purpose in his objective — speaking of unity in this place he laid. Where the predominant front, the pro-heroes, had once reigned supreme in their resources and cooperation, now too had villains managed the same; she couldn't deny what ENKI wrought, of what greater organization lay just beneath its creation. No, that day wouldn't be the end of it. Days more vile than that would surely come.

Grinta bit down on the inside of her cheek.

The second man to take the stage, a man adorned in vibrant, neon shades of violet, immediately clamored for a role; so quick? She supposed it wasn't yet a commitment to anything, but to so brazenly accept it? To take one listen and immediately bet on it? That couldn't have been a normal response, not even normal amongst the freaks at this show. And to so blatantly state his part, to throw together something he wasn't even sure he'd achieve — such people were the ones to respond to Ghouligan's call. Not a surprise, she supposed.

No, as the cynic then claimed his spot, it would only further sink down her back. From her shoulders down to her spine, like a chain clamped around her neck pulling her down, she bit harder on her cheek, the faint taste of metal filling her mouth. Were they all so emboldened as to immediately take up the offer? And he, just like what came before him, dropped everything that marked him; for him, as "Stalker."

But, as Ronin stepped forward from the shadows, opening his lips and speaking as he did, Grinta's gaze focused. Where with the other she peered in their general direction, her luminescent gaze now honed intently in on the swordsman, seldom straying from its focus. Even as he tossed the phone to Warper, her gaze fixed on Ronin.

Even as Gadget went on in their amusing display of bubbly optimism, Grinta didn't shift away. She stood there, rigid and unmoving, as she examined him, listening to the present rant. Were her gaze elsewhere, Grinta might have melted in laughter; no, she almost certainly would have. But something else, something in Ronin's words, grasped at her, strangling her with only a few words left to fit through her throat — only so many things she could say from it now.

"'ow 'trange shou a'e." Pulling an arm from her cloak — her gaze having lifted away — Grinta traced a hand inside her hood, scratching at the back of her neck. "It 'as no password, shou say? That means shou've alrea'y opened the phone befo'e — but if that's the case, and if my eyes 'aven't de'eived me, I didn't see its control ring."

"Now, per'aps shou simply tried it fresh after collecting it; shou would 'ave been clo'e enough, certainly." Her hand arm lowered. With it, in its return to her side, her cloak would fall closed again. "Shou know enough of 'ow the sy'tem works, but shou don't bring the tool ne'essary to access it? Shou bring a device capable of pinging ENKI users — crimi'als and villains alike — to its loca'ion, and shet shou leave out such a cru'ial part?" She tilted her chin up. "Sounds a bit 'trange as an offer, doe'n't it?"

[attr="class","castleonthehill"]Grinta hummed to herself, a hum taken from the laugh in her throat and sent gently out her nose. Squatting down to Eiji's level, a hand placed on either of her knees, she scanned what remained, of what will she could find left in the man. By this point, the opening she'd left had closed. Not that he could strike it now even if he wanted to.

"Su'e," she'd muse, "let's say I'm ti'ed." With her cloak, heavy and lifeless for the time, still hanging from her shoulders, doing as she did took more than it would otherwise, than if she let it drop to the floor and reveal the rest of her bodysuit. How many times had she struck him now? She hadn't even bothered to count. She could ask Criollo, or—

"'ow many times 'ave I 'it shou now?" She could ask the beaten himself; she figured his answer would be more useful than any literal count would anyway. "Four, fi'e times? Shou're 'ave to be some kind of masochi't — that, or shou might ju't be insane. Lord 'elp shou if shou're both."

A quiet whirring came from the criminal. A humming, shifting sound, like grains of sand falling down an hourglass, sounded from their cloak. In its song, the garment lifted itself from the floor. At the end of it, and trained now to lift Eiji's chin for what little strength he had left, a blade brought him to meet her mask's blank gaze. Grinta made not so much as a lift of a finger, a twitch of an eye, and yet the cloak moved regardless.

"Carrying thi' thing around's pro'ably mo'e of a ti'e for me, though." The blade traced the underside of his chin, lightly cutting into his flesh — barely enough to draw blood, but sufficient to have air sting the wound. "But this," she'd tap against the cloak, "doesn't get ti'ed — not li'e shou or I do. Thi' could go for hours if it wa' commanded to." It cut another wound into Eiji's chin. "But at thi' point, I don't think I need to prove anything."

"Shou're lucky, shou know." Tilting back, her cloak caught her weight on its back, still poising the blade at his neck. "Shou know why?"

[attr="class","castleonthehill"]Whether or not she could track this man down to his origin, she held no interest in making him her mark. Though she may, with the assistance of her third eye — her guardian AI — be capable of such a feat, she had little reason to expend so much effort; especially not against a target with whom she'd acquired little data thereof, either as an enemy or an ally.

With a target such as Mr. Yamamoto, Grinta could only see so many types of people interested in the criminal. It was also no coincidence that she and the masked man arrived at such a similar time — they were both, at the very least, familiar with his story if they knew of his release. But for what purpose had they come?

Grinta had her own ends in mind. However, for the stranger, whose bizarre ability seemed to levitate objects — was it telekinesis? — he'd backed Yamamoto into a corner, right up to death's doorstep. She wouldn't think a villain — not what she considered one, anyway — to be interested in disposing of a man like him. As a requited man, Mr. Yamamoto would likely remain to be a useful asset; could they be a liability, in this person's mind?

"If shou under'tand me, then listen well."

Peaking out from her cloak, two more of those orbicular creatures appeared — one white and one black — taking to the air at either of her shoulders. Their human eyes, stretched grotesquely like taxidermy, stared towards the ghoul. The white one, on her right, stared with a crimson sheen, and the black one, on the other side, looked with a green hum in their focus.

"Look 'ere, Skeletor," came the alabaster creature, lifting its gaze as it continued, "ya can't go damagin' product — keeping tabs on this guy's nothin' easy, understand?"

The other one, retaining its calmer stare, sighed. "It'd be a waste to not sweep 'em up when his ties are cut. Even worse, he might get his associates' business again now that he's free — can't go havin' that, neither."

With her hands returned to her cloak, and her figure once again hidden within it, Grinta kept her blank stare forward. The elements of Ghouligan's quirk were still a mystery to her. She didn't know enough to let her guard down; even if it meant coming off as hostile, she would do it.

"I can't 'ave shou ending 'im ju't yet. He 'as enough informa'ion in 'im to 'top a whole lot more than 'is whole life's work."