"Hey, some of us remember mysterious reports that came into our hands under questionable circumstances almost word for fucking word." It's teasing, because Jade knows that and Asch knows Jade knows that and so on up to several layers of abstraction, because he reproduced said report several months ago for Jade to read over.

The first thing Yuri gets, though, is a core crystal ping - not the resonancing type, but a diagnostic sort from a healing blade who has worked with other blades enough to know what to look for. Give him your ether outputs and your sync rates, buddy.

"You made the mistake of wandering around with an open shirt anyway, so you get to lean back instead of forward," Asch says, keeping his hands very much where Yuri can see them. Putting down his hair brush and getting up provides plenty of warning long before he's going to have to touch the other blade's chest. "Has anyone ever actually checked your pulse before?"