The Illusion of Control (Arczy and myself, private)

Allelujah Haptism trekked up the large hill to the area where the training grounds laid, a frown on his face. The Death Scythe didn't often visit the area, due to his.. "condition," as some called it. Personally, he just called the second person in his head an inconvenience. Hallelujah was there to protect him, Allelujah knew this. He just had a habit of forcing himself out at the most inappropriate situations. Like the last time he had been in the training grounds, where a spar with a student could have very well turned deadly had his now partner, Catherine Coon, not stepped in. This afternoon, he was once again in the training grounds for a spar. However, this time it was with a teacher and fellow Death Scythe by the name of "Corsair."

Allelujah had heard of the man before, and was aware that he had mental conditions of his own. So when it was suggested that he spar the fellow Death Scythe to practice keeping Hallelujah at bay, he was naturally skeptical. The extent of the other's mental conditions were what was troubling Allelujah. He didn't know if they both managed to have a break in sanity at the same time what exactly would happen. The last thing he wanted to do was harm this "Corsair" fellow on accident. Standing among the trees, Allelujah pulled his phone out and checked the time. Noon, on the dot. He was right on time. Now, where was this other man?

The Corsair, as everyone knew him, was already at the training grounds by the time that Allelujah had arrived. He had been there for a while, in actuality having arrived almost an hour earlier than when the time was set for the two Death Scythes to appear and try to safely beat each other up; or spar, as others called it. Corsair was sitting down below a tree, seemingly gazing into space with his ever-bored eyes and a temporary, contrasting, goofy smile; it was a strange thing then, that even if he didn't really look Allelujah's way beforehand, Corsair jumped up from his spot below the tree and walked straight towards the other Death Scythe, his smile turning rather quickly into a grin.

"12 o'clock noon, as agreed, and an adult comes along to the training grounds, looking around for someone! You must be Allelujah Haptism, as well as Hallelujah Haptism if what I've been told is to be believed? And I quite believe it, too!" Corsair called to the other man as he approached. "I've been led to believe that I'm here to fight you without killing you or dying myself! Should be fun!"

"Yes, that would be me," Allelujah started when his name was called, only to quickly be cut off due to not realizing Corsair wasn't done speaking. "Us. Yes, that's us," he replied, discomfort evident as he watched Corsair head towards him. Stuffing both of his hands in his pockets, he frowned at his peer. He sure doesn't beat around the bush. Nice that he acknowledged me, though. Hallelujah murmured in his head.

Brushing his other personality aside, Allelujah cleared his throat awkwardly. "Fight me without killing me, or dying yourself. That's an interesting way to describe a spar," he commented, earning a no kidding from Hallelujah. "But yeah, we're supposed to spar. I don't know how much you know about Hallelujah, if anything at all. With that in mind, I'll just give you the abbreviated version. If I start pushing a bit harder, fighting a bit more furiously than I was before, or injure you, it's no longer me in control. In that case, I've failed and I give you full permission to use whatever means necessary to subdue me. I intend to see if I can keep in full control the entire spar." He explained.

"I've been told quite enough to know that much." The Corsair began to explain, his chipper, overenthusiastic tone replaced with a more subdued one now that he was closer; his grin turned back into a simple smile too. "I was given the reasons when they chose me to fight you. I'll be safe, since I'm an entirely autonomous weapon, I can handle myself. I also teach that autonomy to students. Contrary to what it may seem like, I'm in control; my head's just a jumble." He finished his explanation with a gesture to the side of his head. Following that, he took some steps back, getting in a stance. "Le's get righ'n'to it?" He asked, in a completely different speech pattern, suddenly.

"The last spar that I had was almost deadly," Allelujah admitted, still frowning. Although now, the frown seemed more somber. "I almost killed a student," he sighed, running a hand through his hair. When The Corsair said that he was completely in control and autonomous, his worries were soothed slightly. The same worries quickly cropped back up once his opponet switched to a completely different speech pattern.

"Uh, yeah, I guess so," Allelujah replied, not overly eager to spar this man. He seemed too far gone mentally to really understand the troubles Hallelujah would pose. The Death Scythe took another few steps back, his arm transforming into part of his weapon. "I almost had to learn to be autonomous. No meister wants us," the man explained, waiting for The Corsair to make the first move.

The Corsair didn't wait for long after Allelujah transformed a part of his arm into a sword, with two long drills quickly appearing on top of the knuckles of his fists. He seemed to mumble something or other to himself as his eyes darted around taking in information. Corsair quickly reached up towards his head, flicking his hat away and behind him before be jumped off and charged in a semicircle towards the side opposite of where Allelujah had transformed his arm. It was clear now that at the bottoms of his feet there were also small drills, at least until they helped him gain momentum quickly by drilling in reverse of the ground they had been in previously.

Quickly, Allelujah moved his arm out to cut The Corsair's wrist. Before he did so, his partial Muramasa blade disappeared and his normal arm returned. At the same time of that happening, Allelujah's opposing arm transformed and swung towards his peer, aiming to slice into his shoulder if not blocked.
You could have done that better Hallelujah chimed in, causing the Death Scythe to roll his eyes and pull back a bit.

It'd have seemed that the dual drill formations on the Corsair's knuckles were very much premeditated, as they allowed him to easily parry or catch the blade of Allelujah's weapon form. With one arm he deflected the blow, while he attempted to intercept the blade aimed at his shoulder in between the two drills of his other; if he were to catch the blade and get it stuck between the two drills, it'd allow him exceptional leverage.

Allelujah, it appeared, was out of practice. His blade fell right between the drills on the Corsair's knuckles, trapping it there. It made sense, because he hadn't sparred in a long time. But at the same time...awkward. A flush appeared on his cheeks once he realized that he'd managed to trap that arm, but it only distracted him for a second. The Death Scythe used his free arm, transforming just his hand in order to bring it up and point it at the Corsair for defense purposes. "It's been a while since I've sparred someone on my level," he admitted, chest rising and falling rapidly as he took a second to catch his breath. Hallelujah pushed at the edges of his mind, wanting to take control from Allelujah in his vulnerable state so they could both get out of the spar unharmed.

"Fight like a Death Scythe. Make yourself a damn pin-cushion of blades if you damn well have to to get out of a bind." Corsair said sternly before allowing the knuckle-drills to disappear, leaving him free to simply hop backwards and away from Allelujah. "You seem to fight like any old weapon! You don't need to trade limbs, not all the time! No fuckin' shit you're rusty!" He shouted at the other weapon, and he would have seemed angry if not for the fact that at the very least the lower half of his face was still locked in a smile.

Allelujah had caught on that the Corsair’s facial expression didn’t always match his mood, which was irritating enough to try and figure out. When he began to be berated, Hallelujah rose up inside their mind. Fight like a Death Scythe, he says. I’ll show him how to fight like a Death Scythe. Work with me here Hallelujah growled, his presence slowly starting to seep into Allelujah’s mind. The man froze, eyes widening a little bit. The blade on his arm disappeared. He started to sway back and forth, black spots dancing in his vision. “Oh my Death,” Allelujah muttered, his knees buckling as he hit the ground.

“I said WORK WITH ME, you idiot! Stop fighting me!” Was the next thing out of his mouth. Allelujah winced as Hallelujah slowly retreated to half of his mind, head starting to throb. Grunting, the Death Scythe let Hallelujah force them to their feet again. Conflict waged in his mind as Hallelujah’s oppressiveness threatened to overtake Allelujah and cause him to black out. He battled it until they were both sharing control, a rare occurrence.

“You don’t insult us and get away with it,” the two men growled. With that, Allelujah’s body sprouted several blades. One blade was on each palm, along with smaller ones at the end of each finger. The fabric of his skin tight shirt ripped along his arms, 8 blades on each. Allelujah took a defensive stance, waiting for the Corsair to make the first move.

"Oh good! Pin-cushion!" Corsair shouted out with a wider grin as soon as Allelujah and Hallelujah were done with their whole losing control thing that was going on. He transformed his hand and a small part of his forearm, a somewhat hypocritical gesture if you don't consider how difficult it would actually be to truly trap his weapon form, into a drill and summoned up the knuckle-drills he had previously on the other; now, however, the top side of that hand and the forearm was dotted with short, wide drills as a sort of makeshift plate-mail. He ran straight for Allelujah then, the armoured arm up as a defensive measure and the larger drill held back as he looked for any opening.

There was an opening near Allelujah's torso, but as soon as the Corsair began running towards him he switched defensive stances. More smaller blades appeared on his arms and he raised one, aiming to clash directly against the drills on his opponent's arm. Meanwhile, the blades on the fingers of his opposing hand disappeared and reappeared around his ankles. All while he was being charged at, the Death Scythe anticipated the speed of Corsair's next few moves and prepared adequately. "Good to see you're cooperating with me now, Allelujah," Hallelujah grunted. "I only mean to protect us," he added. Allelujah rolled his eyes and muttered, "just for now. You make my head want to explode," right back.

Rather than clash and bind with Allelujah again, Corsair bent down below Allelujah's strike, plunged the drill into the ground some way in front of the other Death Scythe and spun it up; pushing off with the leg of the same side as the drill, along with the previous motion he aimed to kick at Allelujah's side with a now drill-studded shin and foot. The kick, powered by his drill, was of course faster than his normal movements.

The two personalities were growing tired of cooperating with each other rather quickly. They only worked together for a few seconds longer before Allelujah had had enough of the slowly building pressure in his head, pushing Hallelujah out of control so that he was the only one preparing their attacks. Unfortunately, with this, his ability to anticipate his opponent's movements and possible variations he might try vanished into thin air. Allelujah saw Corsair's foot coming at him much too late to counter it, and a medium depth cut to his ribs was the price he paid for it. "Okay, okay, that's it. I'm done," he spoke immediately, all blades on his body disappearing as he raised his palms into the air as an act of surrender.