Disguised as Ruby Red:

---

Tomoe never expected that in the modern day he would be the kind of person that would be feared by the masses. Someone whom made the commoners wet their drawers and sleep with one eye open. A villain so dastardly that any scream of terror could be attributed to their actions. Their merciless behavior and reckless use of power would echo forth through the countryside, whispered of as a grim reaper living in Earthland. Such a creature, a monstrous and nefarious beast, would need to be brought to justice before they could fulfill their sick desires any further.

Thankfully, that person was not Mr. Tanaka, who was nowhere to be seen. Instead, it was Ruby Red, the ebony-haired assassin with bags and dark circles around her eyes threatening to remove the orbs from her face. Her gaze was penetrating and focused ahead, and at the thought of her next job and the carnage she would be allowed to cause, she licked her lips hungrily. She checked her gear – a well-oiled generic blade and a schoolgirl uniform partially covered by a ragged dark brown adventurer's cloak. The cloak bore a hood, and yet she decided to allow her face to be shown openly. Disdain lurked in her eyes looking at the clear blue sky above, growing to hate the day for its increased difficulty in hiding her approach.

Her employer was a sadistic man, being so willing to take her up on the task yet again. The first time wasn't enough, and thus she needed to inspect the mine and its secrets once again. Tomoe was fully embracing his character now, becoming the Bloody Barber of Dawncliff. An actor playing his role was who he was now; it wasn't him that was killing people in the name of the rich, it was a woman completely unrelated to him. Such was the curse he bore as a defender of justice, being unable to apprehend villains all over the world. How would he know of Ruby's attack and plans? He was absent due to his inability to be omnipotent and omnipresent, a lesson discovered cruelly by all people eventually.

Ruby approached the entrance of the mine with a goal in mind. In opposition, the newly hired guards armed and ready out in front had a goal as well.

Of course., she thought, gritting her teeth as she reached for the rusty yet oiled and freshly sharpened blade at her left hip, a sword that was unremarkable in every sense of the word and bore no identity of its own; a rusty katana that any thug might wield on the streets in a brawl.

The ravenous rogue made no effort to hide herself, approaching with the bright star high in the sky revealing her full and villainous features to all. They would shout, of course, alerting the cowardly rats lurking further back and fully prepared for such an occasion.

“Shut up with your screeching, it's been days since I last slept and you're making my head ring like a goddamn bell.”, Ruby exclaimed, dashing recklessly forward with her blade drawn.

---

Spells used:

WC: 517/1700 [15% reduced]

Disguised as Ruby Red:

---

After a solid ten seconds of clashing steel, screams and footwork tossing up the dust and dirt from the soil beneath, Ruby sat with a scratch across her right shoulder and surrounded by eight corpses. A fresh, small series of blood droplets ran down from her shoulder to her hand, stinging but not painful enough to bother or hinder her. She was still sloppy with her combat style, admittedly, especially due to the truth of the matter which was that fighting as a woman felt different than fighting as a man – not that Tomoe saw anything as better or worse, but merely that differences in weight and momentum mattered to him as someone who counted on and relied upon those things.

Ruby would use the corpse of the one who called for backup to clean her blade of blood, drying it with his ragged miner attire. It was symbolic in a way, with the mixed blood of all of his colleagues forming on his shirt at the hands of their murderer. There was something poetic there that was lost in the more simplistic mind of both Ruby and Tomoe, and thus she would say nothing in fear of breaking character by blurting out something stupid. Instead, she would maliciously chuckle, Tomoe somewhat unnerved thinking about how easy it still felt to commit to such things. Though was it really him? No. It wasn't. Of course it wasn't; such things were ridiculous to even suggest.

After dispatching the annoyances at the front of the mine, she finally descended inside with a stolen helmet to keep the corridors and paths visible. She heard pickaxes smashing against rocks and walls as she pressed on, and with lack of better options, decided it would be best to avoid some of the workers as she went. After all, as little regard as she held for the lives of such peasants, they still needed to exist on a large scale in order for her employer to benefit at all. In the end, Ms. Red wasn't appreciated enough! She had gone to such lengths to think about the long term pros and cons for her employer's wellness and the success of his operation upon taking over the mine. Such things wouldn't even bounce off the heads of the grunts and meatheads that would more often take up jobs like these. She had more than muscle – she had kindness, consideration and respect for the powerful and the ambitious.

---

Spells used:

WC: 927/1700 [15% reduced]

Disguised as Ruby Red:

---

Her respect and desire to see her employer succeed was why, in a moment of passion, she began to butcher and scalp any isolated workers she came across that were slacking off, or that caught her and asked such worthless and confusing questions like, “what are you doing here?”, or, “who are you?”. Those sorts of inquiries were the ones that set her off the worst, and as a bull upon seeing the crimson of a fighter's cape in the wind, she kept her title as the barber alive and well; in complete contrast, of course, to those on the receiving end of her own needs. Those folks were quite lifeless indeed.

Silencing them individually before they could speak out was easy enough, but hiding the bodies was another. No self-respecting assassin would ever leave such things on public display, but luckily enough, she held no true respect for herself. With that kind of happy technicality in play, she would leave the bodies in the utter darkness and tranquil corners of the mine for other curious fellows to discover as they will. It was their problem to handle the cleaning, not her own. After her last venture in this place, that was not something Ruby was willing to take responsibility for ever again. The sheer amount of crimson she had to wash off was horrendous, and it wasn't worth the effort when she received no appreciation or gratitude for doing so. The world was filled with such rudeness nowadays, and it was about time somebody like her pushed back against it by simply defying the ethics requested by all decent and respectable humans. To clarify once more as well, the barber girl was no kind of self-respecting individual, of course.

Whenever she would happen across a deposit of gold, gemstones or other ores that would be enough to set up a poor man's entire life for the better with a single grain, she took note. Those were the kinds of things her employer wished to obtain, after all, and she expected to be rewarded handsomely for working so diligently. Diligence, after all, was different from respect. She didn't expect anything extra for her hard work, simply the bare minimum. It was all about sending a message: that she was the go-to for any task that required any level of determination and grit, and for the best possible result by the time the sun went down. That was her promise – her selling point – and she'd be damned if any slow-witted and soot-clad mining folk would stop her from getting the best publicity she could. Their corpses were her canvas, their blood her paint, and she was out to paint the best portrait she ever could!

---

Spells used:

WC: 1383/1700 [15% reduced]

Disguised as Ruby Red:

---

After easily breaking through the entrance's security and then spending an hour noting the hidden and beneficial mining areas, Ruby had to admit to growing rather bored. She was not met with even half the resistance she was expecting to. The sleepy slasher had to boil it down to simple underestimation. They hadn't learned their lesson from the first massacre and had to suffer another to truly acknowledge her ambition and her artistic vision. Not a single hair worth cutting went uncut, and not a single customer left without wide-eyed enthusiasm plastered across their face. That was what she promised, and she delivered and then some extra for the simple fact that she needed exposure.

While exiting, Ruby breathed a sigh of relief as she gazed longingly out at the dimming sky. She took note of everything she needed to for the day, knowing full well her employer would be thankful. It was always her that did the heavy lifting, and she didn't mind it at all. She got her exercise in, and it was plentiful. As she stretched, something mentally clicked in her head: was she supposed to be someone else?

In that single moment, Tomoe, while still disguised, tugged at his – or her – own head in confusion. Spending an hour submerged in darkness, killing while assuming the identity and personality of another, the act was becoming too real.

What is this all about...? I'm me, right?, Tomoe thought to himself as he distanced himself further and further from the mine.

On the open road to report to his employer, still wearing the face of Ruby Red, he questioned himself. There was no doubt that Ruby was fake, but how fake? Was there any rule that said that a fake person couldn't become real over time? Some level of acknowledgement crossed the ravenous rogue's face as she scowled, waving her arm in dismissal. There was no way anything was truly happening. It was a mission which required the usage of another identity to achieve the maximum profit and the highest level of praise. Those folks at the mine would never listen to reason, and as such had to be put down like beasts whenever they decided to confront her. Or even if not. That was the kind of person Ruby was, but not the kind of person that Tomoe was. He had evolved beyond that by now, hadn't he? He wouldn't lose his own sense of self so easily, not after all he'd been through. There was too much on the line to think such absurd thoughts. His life was his own, and nobody could threaten to take that away from him until the day that he would die once again.

“Loosen up already. Not like there's anything to lose, eh? We're in it to win it now.”, Tomoe muttered to himself; or so he thought he had, but with the voice of Ruby trailing on the wind and still wearing her face, the Joyan had no recollection of wanting to say those words by the time they had already left her mouth.

---

Spells used:

WC: 1700/1700 [15% reduced]

- Exit -