What If? Saga Part 2: What if Bloodedge decided not to sacrifice himself...?

Chuckling a bit, she leaned on him for support, not minding his contact at all right now. "I`m nifty, huh? I`ve heard that one before. Gotta make sure nobody abuses my powers for evil or something in the future."
Time travel was a wierd thing, you just kept running into coincences like this.

She had been walking alongside him for a while, but then frowned as the paths split. Of course the hallway couldn´t go on forever, but it seemed a bit inconvinent this way...
"Well... we could always head back and jump down the shaft, like you did earlier today."
Nine referred to his unlucky adventure in which the first elevator they had gotten broke down and Ragna had to use his sword to get Caelica to safety... before actually falling down the elevator shaft, but ending up completely fine thanks to his regeneration powers.
"Just kidding... we better look for a map or something."

Nine had to stop and blink, all of her thought processes stopping right that second when he picked her up and held her close, almost too close, on his arms.
"The hell....?" She breathed out, trying to cope with the situation as it was. "I... i see your arm works again, then..." That was all she could say,nothing else that ran through her head was even remotely pronounceable. Near automatically, her arms wrapped around his body and instead of looking for a map, she just closed her eyes.

Without even needing to think about it, Nine opened one eye, then pointed at a small red dot on the map, near the center.
"Thats where we are. Though truth to be told i have no idea where we need to go... down, probably. Far, far down." That wasn`t a whole lot, but at least it was better than what Caelica would have suggested. Nine groaned and buried her face in Ragna´s shoulder, while enjoying the closeness of him... she probably wouldn´t admit that, but she didn´t mind it at all.
She pointed at a staircase on the map.
"There... does that look like a reasonable option? Seems to go down, at least."

Nine had to grip his coat tightly as they decended downwards and impacted with the ground, she brushed a bit of hair out of her face and sighed.
"Something tells me this won´t be the only trouble we encounter. For instance i still don`t know where we are exactly."
Somewhere around the excavation site, yes, but not anywhere in preticular, as it seemed.
Out of nowhere then, a static noise came up in Ragna´s ear, faint but audiable to Nine as well. After a few seconds of static, a female voice could be heard coming through.
"-----edge? I repeat, Ragna the Bloodedge, can you hear me?" The voice asked, somewhat troubled by the sound of it.

"Who i am is none of your concern right now. ..but at this point it probably doesn`t matter. My name is Kokonoe, and i`m calling you through a boundary interference  connection right now, from a hundred years in the future.... " She sighed, realizing just how unbelieveable that sounded. "Listen close. You`re changing written history there, pal. Its already happening. The changes in the timeline are slow but they`re changing everything we know- while keeping our memories more or less intact. Alright, i`ll get to the point since we don`t have much time."
Nine was beginning to raise an eyebrow, feeling somewhat disturbed by the familiarity in the voice she heard. She was sure she never heard it before, but it seemed very familiar.
"Basically, your plan is going to fail if you pull through with it. You´ll never have enough time to organize a counter attack before mankind is wiped out. However, your little plan might fix some serious problems we have here if you manage to put it into motion soon enough... i`ll send you some stuff over to the laboratory you`re currently in, to the Cauldron- i don´t want to send myself or something, it might cause some serious time paradoxes. Instead, some information and materials needed to build Nox Nyctores, relative positions of the Black Beast during your time and so forth. Think you can pull through with that?"
Nine stared at his ear, swallowed, and spoke up.
"One question. Where the hell is the cauldron, from our current position?"

Kokonoe gasped, then had to stop and think for a moment now that her presumed dead mother was asking for advice- she´d think about the consqences for the timeline later.
"Uh.... further down. The lowest possible point. Follow the stairs."
Nine groaned in response. "Thanks, that really helps."

Kokonoe huffed a bit at Ragnas comments, leaning back. "I`ll try to keep the connection up as much as i can, in case you need help. Best of luck to you... and Ragna? Keep your hands off of my mother." With that she cut off, implying that Ragna actually knew who her mother was, one way or the other.

A hundred years in the past, Kokonoe leaned back and sighed.
"I seriously hope he doesn`t fuck this up. More lives than i can count are at stake here.." Her ears twitched a bit, and she reached over to the top of her head- only to realize her ears were on the sides, and they were human shaped.
Kokonoe stared blankly into her computer screen that faintly reflected her image as her tails had disappeared and instead, she had a cybernetic implant on her cheek that seemingly kept her alive and young all these years, instead of Jubei´s blood in her veins.
She then shrieked loud enough to make her glasses crack.

---------------

"Further down, huh? Thats some great advice." Nine muttered, secretly enjoying to be carried by Ragna, who didn`t seem to have a problem with it so far. Safe to say she wasn´t as light as Caelica, but maybe he just didn`t mind her weight.

Nine chuckled, hearing that, and grinned up at him.
"Or you let me down and we both look for it. Even without magic i`m not helpless... and there`s no one around here." Or so it seemed- Remants of the Beast might still lurk in the shadows, even though the possibility was low seeing how there was no food to be found here.
Still, Nine grew tired of just being carried and desired to step into action again herself. They might find the package quicker if both of them would look.. and even if she probably wouldn`t admit that, she kind of liked this, exploring the building with Bloodedge by her side. She could finally see what Caelica saw in the guy.

"I can grab a stick and help you fight if thats what you`re worried about." She joked, following him as soon as she stretched her legs for a moment, seeing how they were a bit tired after being carried for so long.
Halfway down the next flight of stairs though, something started to creak underneath her... as she looked down, she noticed that the stairs they were stepping on were barely holding together, and cracks were beginning to form.
"Ragna... don`t run, but... walk faster." She said, in a bit of worry concerning just how deep the decent was underneath the stairs. One of them broke off as she walked over it, and fell for quite a while until it made a thud on the ground.

As there was practically no light at all in the abandoned complex, all Nine saw was that Ragna disappeared into thin air. He was just gone, and as she heard him land, she took a second, closed her eyes and jumped after him, trying her best to land on his arms.
...instead, when she opens her eyes again, she noticed Ragna fell on his ass and lies there, and she has no choice but to land there as well, somewhat softer than the ground but still not very comfortable.
"Ugh...! ...what happened with you catching me?" She groaned a bit angrily as she whiped a strand of hair out of her face, trying to ease the weight he had on his body by propping up on her elbow- her massive breasts still touched his chest, however.

Nine gave it a little grin as he claimed that he caught her afterall, then she rolled over, groaning a bit as she felt the side effects of the harsh impact- her back didn`t feel so good. Caelica would have to give her a massage or something later.
"Where the hell do we go now? The staircase ended here and i doubt this is the end."
Getting up from him, Nine stretched and looked around... a steel ladder came into sight, and she shuddered at the thought of that thing collapsing, despite the fact that it was probably a lot sturdier than it looked.
"....you go first." She said, cringing.

Seeing Ragna begin his decent with no problems so far aside from a little noise, Nine carefully followed suit, her high heel plumps not exactly made for this kind of thing, but she was a professional at what she did, so she managed it just fine.
She was stilll a little insecure about the whole thing after having the staircase collapse on them, but this seemed somewhat safer. It was getting warmer too, so they were close to their destination... in fact, the deeper she went, the more she could feel a magical aura in the area, which was likely Trinity or her sister.. or both.
Focusing on her senses and on not tripping and falling due to her heels, she completely forgot that Ragna was right beneath her and could stare at her butt if he wanted to.

Nine blinked and blushed, staring down at Ragna as he said -THAT- while she was clinging on to her dear life and this godforsaken ladder.
"HEY!!" She yelled down at him, climbing faster as well. "I can wear whatever i damn well want to! I`m not commenting on your stupid jacket either! Oh, sh-"
With that, she lost her footing, and slipped off the ladder, her eyes widening as the vain attempt to grab onto the ladder again was not sucessful.