Wanted: Amara Bloodthorne (Amara)

Amara, unlike many others in Heaven, elected to not carry on with a physical body. She existed as a slightly transparent spirit free of pain and the rules of gravity while still blessed with the ability to experience pleasure... like when eating food! A lil' side bonus was that she couldn't really be hurt or destroyed in this form whatsoever, merely dwindled down to a tiny speck of Ki which would slowly but inevitably regenerate within the confines of Otherworld. It essentially made Amara IMMORTAL! (Except when the time came for her eventual recycling, which is WHY the soul was indestructible in the first place). Not having a physical form to stress also meant that she didn't really need to work out. Lifting weights only tired her energy out without any muscular gain as no muscles were there to gain in the first place. So why go to a GYM of all places?

"You're doing a good job! Sixty-eight more of those and you'll have a full set done," Amara flashed a thumbs up, sipping on some sort of eternally slush slushie, lounging on a nearby spectators bench in her more casual getup complete with her classic 'Nope, you do it' shirt. "Don't gimme that look G, you asked for training and here it is!" The target of Amara's words was a comparatively short and lithe blue-hued Ogre, pouting at the spirit with intense faux hatred. "I'd complain that you weren't doing any work but I hadn't expected you to just... go ghost." Carefully setting the massive barbel she'd been hefting, the Ogre turned to face Amara with a swish of ash-white hair. "And so far all I've done is weight training!" Amara shrugged, taking another slurp before answering: "I genuinely had to do basic training for a while on Earth before coming to my senses. So keep at it till ya do, Kusari."

There was some sort of minor commotion coming from the courtyard's entrance, Amara lazily leaning her head over to try and catch a glimpse. "Is that a Demon I sense?" Weird time to be wandering about Heaven causing a scene when you were in the middle of a city. Kusari's eye switched, momentarily flashing yellow as the half-blood Ogre huffed. "Great and NOW I gotta go deal with this." Clad in little more than loose work-out attire and sneakers, she'd march over to where Zerori was busy shouting and attempt to cut the girl off: "SHUT THE HFIL UP AND LEAVE THE SOULS ALONE BEFORE I KICK YOUR ASS BACK TO THE DEMON REALM, GOT DAMN." Perhaps not the most elegant way to go about it. Especially given that Kusari's own battle power rested squarely on twenty-five thousand, but the Ogre was too annoyed to care at the moment.

"No excuse the F U C K out of you! Your second-rate two-bit dirty mockup Demon-lookin' ass KNOWS that you aren't allowed to go around wandering up in Heaven on a whim! So I'm gonna KEEP yelling and kick that bucket straight into your FACE unless you-" At that point Zerori had spotted her target, zipping past Kusari who blinked for a moment before wheeling around after her. "HEY GET BACK HERE WE WEREN'T DONE!" The blue-hued lass was THIS close to going full bulk power mode and beating up Zerori all on her own and NOW the little Demon decided to flee further into the establishment? "WHAT DID I JUST SAY!?" She'd storm over to where the two were conversing, though Amara managed to shush the irate woman with a single palm.

"Indeed it IS a slushie. However, it's also mine and you can't have it." Amara pulled the drink a bit closer to her body, eyeing Zerori suspiciously. "Yea that's me. Amara, dead woman extraordinaire. You seem surprised to see me like this." Perhaps in more ways than one. Kusari at this point simply shuffled off to the side, glaring at the intruder with a pout. "Yeah yeah I know who you are, I didn't suffer from amnesia for heck's sake. I shoved you into a building, 'member?" Haha that was fun. Back in the good old days of accidental teleportation and sneaking about the Saiyan slums with her disguise of Chaya not quite in place yet.

"You fool, there IS no backwash. I don't even have spit! Or a tongue, technically. It's all spooky spirit magic senses or something. Still haven't quite figured that one out yet, if I'm going to be honest with you, but hey! It functions." Apparently, Zerori had expected to come across a much different Amara in the afterlife. A fair assumption given her behavior pre-death and the one time they met. Though even then, it wasn't as if the Tuffle was the antagonist there! Ise just happened to lose control temporarily, which prompted Amara to take it upon herself to make sure the rampaging not-Oozaru was contained. "Well aside from the fact that getting killed sucked on ice, it's been pretty sweet so far. I mean Heaven has pretty much everything you could ever want in simulation form!"

Amara shifted into more of a proper sitting position as the Demon took her own seat, Kusari's eyes rolling as the Ogre grumbled before sitting a ways away from the pair. "I think that's one of the only memories you'd have of me," Amara replied with a light chuckle. "Considering it was our first and only meeting as far as I can recall. Though I'm glad to see it made such an impression on you." How well did Zerori think that she knew Amara at all? The company wasn't minded but her expecting someone else entirely when Amara hadn't shown much of her true colors in the first place was a telltale sign that they weren't exactly the best of pals.

"I died from death," Amara replied unhelpfully, stirring her perpetually cold drink. "Nah but for real, the whole Yangcong thing was originally gonna be a secret entirely. And then I told Korado. And somehow everything went way downhill from there." Apparently, the madman made a deal with the Devil. Or in this case Zerori's confusingly attractive mom. "Not to throw shade on her or anything but like she TRUSTED Yangcong of all people?" Perhaps she thought the no murder stipulation would.be enough to keep the man reigned in, though obviously it didn't help much in Amara's own case.

"Why?" Echoing the question back with a small amount of surprise, Amara turned to glance at her visitor. "There wasn't really a strong why. I was investigating some ruins alone, Yangcong showed up outta nowhere, and then he went mental. Shouting about how I betrayed him for saying 'stop committing war crimes'. I still don't know why he acted the way he did in retrospect, not that it matters much anymore. Last I checked he sacrificed his soul to a different Demon so he could grant his dead son the chance to become a tangible ghost in reality. Weird right?" And that was only a tip of the iceberg into the sheer oddity that was Yangcong. It was almost a shame that a veritable lexicon of crazy had up and vanished from the entirety of reality.

"And I have no idea what other judgments she's made other than making a deal with Yangcong. For obvious reasons, it is safe to say that would skew my bias slightly more towards negativity. It's alright, though! Not like I actually knew the lady well enough to go around passing judgment on her." Not like it mattered much. Her killer would've wound up in the exact scenarios with or without the intervention of Zriacha. Amara was sure of that. "Sad to a degree, but I can't imagine that man would have fared much better living the rest of his days in Hell. He was surrounded by vengeful folk who wanted nothing more than to hurt him specifically." Zerori at least had the surprisingly mature reaction of feeling some amount of empathy over the sacrifice. Amara wasn't quite that fond of Yakone either, but she couldn't blame him for having stunted social skills.

"A plan to come back-? As in resurrection entirely? Not particularly, no. To my knowledge, that's quite impossible to perform. At least in a way that would restore your body and mind to their full original capacities. I've seen a few ghosts manage to take enough of a physical form to slip through the cracks, but they're exceedingly rare." And also not exactly how she'd want to end up living her life again. Sure being a ghost allowed an individual to roam about, but it was a simulacrum of life. As far as Amara was concerned, nobody that died had ever been brought back before the same. "I've had a surprising number of people ask me that exact question. At first, I thought it was just a fluke. After the nth time, it was something that I really sat down and considered. I do like my arrangement here in Heaven. Although... it wouldn't be that bad if I ended up getting a second shot. S' how I see it, at least."

And as for what Amara had been doing all this in Heaven? "Oh, this isn't my usual gig. You kind of caught me during a special promise event. Kusari helped me out with some stuff before, so I agreed to help oversee some training. She hasn't come very far, but everything improves with time!" Slurping again, it almost seemed like Amara's choice of beverage was infinite. "I usually just like spending my time working on my magitech gear and whatnot. It's cool to learn new things, and it definitely helps pass the time in a way that I find fun."

Zerori's immediate deflation wasn't wanted, but it was expected. Amara didn't distrust the younger Demon, but when it came to matters of extreme instability, she'd rather ask the girl's mother instead. The task of yanking a soul back to the living realm alive and well along with a functioning body and no lasting psychological damage wasn't going to ever be easy. Based on what she saw from Yakone, any sort of soul manipulation had a chance to... mess with one's head. That was the exact sort of thing Amara was hoping to avoid if the possibility of a second life ever came to her.

"Well, golly, glad to see you got over that so quickly," Amara spoke in good humor, a small smile visible on her lips. "It's-" She'd have no chance to get a word in as Zerori went on her whirlwind of questioning, the woman blinking thrice at her antics. "To put it simply, yes. It is a mixture of magic and technology. The bridge between them is something special I call hardlight. It's based on programmable matter, something that the Tuffles had invented a while back, but is essentially a completely unique branch path." Trying to describe hardlight in a way that others could understand only helped prove its validity as a nigh perfect mix of both arts.

It was a good thing her ghostly body could simulate a state of being solid on command, else Zerori would've fallen straight through her and onto the bench below. As it was, Amara was a bit surprised that the spitfire child had decided to actually act her age for once. Amara had never been good with children, but Zerori was thankfully talking about something she already had a wealth of knowledge on. "I don't really have a lab per se. I have a small storage area for some of my physical pieces, and anything else is summoned or duplicated on the spot." Whatever the case may be, Zerori's interest was obviously piqued.

"A deal, huh? Thought we just went over a case of one of those failing." Amara shot the girl a wink. "Oh, but if you insist on it, then I suppose I can agree. Dunno how much you'll actually be capable of holding up your end of the bargain, but maybe... I'll be pleasantly surprised."

"Yep! Hardlight. Though it's one word in my case since I have a totally legit patent on the thing. Hard light is the generic brand." Not that a generic brand of her own invention even existed. Few people alive had even seen her technology close up, and none showed any remote interest in replicating it. It'd be hard to even copy as it was, given that Amara's unique mixture of magic and technological hard copies are specifically tuned to her own personage. "Well, yea. The primary basis of hardlight is taking physical pieces or schematics of tech pieces, coating them in magic, and then using an adjusted form of magic materialization to create copies. Of course, you can also make unique constructs. Just takes a bit more oomph to do so!"

Amara lazily opened her palm, a few polygonal blue-white particles swirling around freely. "Magic and technology help me shape the stuff, but ultimately anything I make or use draws from my Ki. See, my body is still charged with Ki. It makes me pretty dang durable up-close, but I have no way of projecting it. All of these bells and whistles are just fancy ways of extrapolating my own internal energy." That was the main point Amara wished to always get across. She didn't need external power sources to fight or be strong. Her creations were her lifeforce manifest. "I also can just use normal magic materialization as well, if I felt the need. A lot of my early time in Heaven was spent restlessly picking up the basics of regular magic, and that happened to flow into magitech."

As cool as her innovations were, they were technically pointless. Anyone with the ability to actually project their own Ki could create techniques equal to hers. AND without the necessity to make weapons beforehand. "Don't worry about the whole deal thing too much. Expecting you to do the impossible isn't exactly a fair thing to come out of this exchange." Showing someone already proficient with magic how to apply it differently would be much easier than literally defying death. "If it were easy to do, we'd probably hear about it a lot more. Well, that and Yemma would probably crack down on the methods used to do it in the first place. You know that guy drove back an entire invasion from the Demon Realm by himself? Crazy."

A gun of all things? "Like an Earth-based firearm or something more sciency?" Amara's typical cannon of choice materialized on her right arm in an instant, the Tuffle hefting it with seemingly no issue. A metallic blue bullet-based handgun formed a split second later in her free hand, Amara pointing it upward. "Given that the stuff is made out of Ki and light, it basically doesn't weigh anything. Though I CAN manually adjust the weight to give it some heft if necessary."

"Easier maybe, but not easy. Granted, I managed to invent it in..." Amara's face went slack for a moment as she stared off into space, eyes dilating for a second. "Oh, er, well in whatever timeframe it took. Trying to think about it too long kinda makes my head all fuzzy, so I try not to do that." On some level, Amara assumed it hadn't been that long at all since her sentencing to Heaven. An equal part of her also felt like it'd been ages, and when the two clashed, it wasn't pretty. "Bottom line is that with your natural talent in one area, it should expedite the process." Amara wasn't an expert with tech, but a talent for it ran in her blood.

"Bend but never break. I don't think anyone alive wants to have to suffer the immense POWER of a Yemma lock." Amara wasn't quite sure what a Yemma lock was. Or if it was even real. It WAS fun to say, so she was going to keep repeating it like some ominous children's tale. In this case, it kind of WAS a tale that was keeping some child in check. Whether Zerori would actually heed the threat of the Ogre King or not was entirely up in the air, but it was none of Amara's business.

Then came time for the practical demonstration. "They're constructs made from equal parts Ki and magical energies. There's a physical presence, and other people could theoretically hold them, but it'd be dead weight with my designs. Or dead nothingness, seeing as they don't weigh much, to begin with-? Er, regardless, all of my common equipment is essentially enchanted physical copies which I can call upon to replicate in the moment with magitech principles. My specific arsenal is all stuff that draws energy from the user to function since I'm not that great at using my own Ki." It answered the basic questions but Amara figured she should fully elaborate just be sure: "In essence, my specific use of hardlight weaponry just weaponizes my Ki like many other regular folks can do already. You'd be able to make independent weapons that don't technically draw from yourself in theory, but seeing as you need to use magic to make them real it's arguable that you're still using your own power at the end of the day."

Zerori's own personal problem with physicality and having to make new copies was also essentially solved. "Like I said I do 'remake' stuff but some clever enchantments and tech doing most of the work means it hardly takes anything at all to do it. And at the end of the day, you can dispel any hardlight constructs with a thought!"