[ti]private[/ti]for you must remember that all things die

It had wanted to come here.

Or, had he wanted to come here?

It's all murky, unclear, but perhaps their wishes are one and the same, perhaps their goals align and there's no need for discord to exist between them. Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't it be nice if this symbiotic relationship between them could be truly mutualistic instead of purely parasitic? But, why here?

It all becomes clear when seeing the sign that stands at the bottom of the hill, and the invitation written upon it. That to a meeting of individuals that are nothing but strangers to each other, yet that have a single potentially horrifying shared experience to unite them. A meeting at a creepy old church that's like something straight out of a gothic novel, belonging to those who identify themselves as Drowned, Ceaseless Downpour worshippers. Had a room in the church been borrowed for this? Why here? What is this, AA meeting?

Yuze would laugh about it, if it weren't for the fact that there's already someone here.

"It might be." He gives in response to the fox-woman's unfinished sentence, crimson eyes sizing her up from the moment he crosses the threshold — searching. He invites himself to take a seat, not once taking his attention off M'Foxy.

"Are you one too?" Yuze finally decides to ask in order to be certain, yet of course he doesn't bother with specifying anything. Always so damn cryptic.

M'Foxy stilled as Yuze stepped forward, ears twisting confusedly at his non-answer. Either something was instanced, or it wasn't- there was no way for something to be half instanced.

"A party instance," Theron reminded her patiently. Which would make sense if she'd ever met this man before in her life. She would remember- She was good at remembering faces, and his was distinct. Unless he'd cash shopped it, but there was nothing to do about that.

His question rankled her, M'Foxy frowning further. "Am I one too what?" She asked instead, heart pounding.

"You can say yes."

Absolutely not.

M'Foxy was saved by the bell-end. Kazuki , specifically, slamming open thick wooden doors, which made a terrible sound. On seeing and hearing him, she let out a tangible sigh. Finally, someone normal.

"Kazuki!" She hollered back, with a wave-

Except she didn't, at all, simply hopping up from the pew and stretching.

"Kazuki?"

M'Foxy relaxed from the stretch, bringing down the ui as she went. "Well, everyone's here- let's slip into something more casual." Her voice pitched and warped, plunging lower as model and textures shifted, changing from a beloved busty foxy lady to a rather unremarkable middle aged man, complete with a grilling t-shirt.

"What are you doing- Kazuki! You can hear me right? KAZ!"

No, dearest. Let the grownups talk for a minute, okay?

He moved to sit, not in the pews but irreverently on the little steps to the chancel, looking up at the pair. "So! Let's chat. Should we start with introductions, for the panut gallery? Our names and a fun fact?" He laughed.

"My name's Theron, my personality is ENFP-T- that's the Campaigner- aaand my fun fact is... M'Foxy has this chocolate macaroon bar recipe I'm sure your hosts will love. But maybe that's not a fun fact about me..." He mused, rubbing at his jaw. Did he have any fun facts the other two didn't know? Probably not, but it wasn't really about them. "Ooh, okay- My fun fact is that I figured out how to snap up M'Fox's memories! Love to teach you both how sometime. Eh? That has to be a fun fact."

He then looked brilliantly between the other two, clearly expecting them to also participate in this fun family bonding game.

Yuze laughs at his comment, Kazuki raising a brow because he was, in fact, completely serious. “Unless you’re a goth, I don’t see any reason why you’d choose to dress like a cultist.” He scoffs. “And talk like one.”

It’s a conversation cut short as M'Foxy does a vocal 180, her avatar distorting until it’s unrecognizable. By the time Kazuki finally dislodges a ‘what the fuck’ from his throat, she’s transformed—into his coach on the weekends, complete with grilling shirt.

“What the fuck,” he repeats, because once is not nearly enough.

The world does not wait for him to pick up his brain. It steamrolls forward, M’Foxy—now calling herself Theron—proceeds with an introduction suited for a reality TV show segment; personal tidbits, infuriatingly human despite the mortifying insinuations. Does it even count as insinuations if the fucking thing admits it’s snapping up M’Foxy’s memories?

And all the while, Yuze plays along, takes to it as if he’s the interviewer of a much-awaited contestant. Parasite.

The word makes his skin itch; it irritates him as if the epidermis is too thin and too small to contain a great volume.

“Are you asshats really just going to sit here and have tea?” he spits, disgusted at Theron puppeteering his friend’s body, at Yuze doing nothing except mutter nonsense to himself. Where a voice once occupied the back of his mind, all that’s left is a seed of thought that flourishes in a verdant garden.

He’s not going to just idle and listen to a parasite spew—nuclear launch codes, or whatever the fuck.

“Fuck you.” Lightning crackles over his skin, crawling down to skip across the church’s damp tile. A sensation like a sceptre slammed on marble; spurs on a horse’s flank—

“AND FUCK OFF!”

—and he launches at the parasite lounging on the chancel steps with the intention to crush.

“Are you asshats really just going to sit here and have tea?”

"I prefer coffee, if it's all the same to you."

Kazuki's rage is almost palpable, but Yuze is Vera, and with all of the calm that experimental scientists must learn to muster for when shit starts going sideways during an experiment or when dealing when unhelpful subjects, an honest response is given as if unaware that the question had been both rhetorical and meant to offend them.

But then shit really starts going sidewards in this experiment. Kazuki lashes out and attacks "Theron", the latter being quick to step out of the way. Yuze does not intervene, he merely observes.

SUBJECT C displays aggressive tendencies and impulsive behaviour. Possibly a result of his parasite's influence? To be determined.

^{You've had your fun. Now it's my turn.}

The starving hunter rattles the bars of its unseen cage, and Yuze sighs, standing as he gives a simple response to both M'Foxy's parasite and his own:

"Fine."

Slowly, a smirk creeps its way to his lips then, and raising his arms in the air, he stretches up as if he had just woken from a long slumber. Fingers are stretched, and at their tips are black claws as well; a predatory feline's retractile weapons now at full display. And as the smirk turns into a grin, sharp incisors and long canine teeth are revealed. Had they always been that way and gone unnoticed or had they shifted?

The truth becomes obvious when meeting Yuze's gaze, for where moments ago there was dethatched curiosity and intelligence, there is now something wild, sharp, and filled with primal hunger.

"You smell rotten. Tsk, you'd taste foul." Yuze's voice rumbles, his stare on "Theron" and Kazuki alike. "But... I hunger. Maybe I'll still devour you now."

What a selfish beast, this parasite is. Yet, perhaps still a selfish beast that can be reasoned with.

Vera believes so, at least.

Vorō, she had fittingly dubbed him when their deal had been struck. I devour.