-Overflow- for 015 | Sky Full Of Stars

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: Tanabata Festival
When: All day July 5
Where: The Near Shore
Summary: The Heavens are throwing a party and you're invited!

Continuing from HERE!

Comments

Jay/Farfarello

[volksdaemon]

[[OOC: Cont. from here]]

Oh hey there horrorshow, long time no see. That's how Schuldig reacts simply to sensing the viewpoint of the fesitval-goers as demons and the way their bodies get manipulated. He doesn't even know at first where the nightmarish daydreams are coming from - they're just such a stark contrast in this milieu of fun and fancy free that he can't help but be drawn to them. These are the types of tendencies that got a person targeted by Schrient for their daddy's experiments. He's not thinking of anything so grand for whoever's brain is the container for such intense visual imagery, but he would certainly like a face to go with them.

He just doesn't expect the guy to direct any attention at him.

Once the guy's on the move again, Schuldig dares to make a more concentrated sweep. He dares to actually scan the crowd with his eyes while he does it, catching sight of the very real flower crown atop a man's head and wow is that who he thinks it is. He can believe Farfarello showing up in the Far Shore. He can even believe that - god or shinki - the man wouldn't have come up to him specifically and instead made his way through the crowd, looking for any sort of target to stab in the back on a whim. Maybe he already did, in so deft a fashion that no one's even noticed yet and wouldn't find out about until tomorrow. He can even believe that maybe Farfarello's not acting that way because - last Schuldig knew - the man had settled down, but then again Crawford knew nothing of the sort. So what sort of Farf was he going to find if he peeked into that mind a little further?

Judging by the flower crown atop his head in sharp contrast with the horrorshow thoughts, while some things may change, some things are definitely the same about the man. Tailing Farfarello of all people is asking to get cut, but Schuldig's going to live dangerously for about 30 seconds with his mental trigger finger on his newfound Teleport ability, so he moves closer to the Wish board in a wide arc not directly towards his former teammate.

[rev13_3]

No, he's spilled no blood today. The desire to do so is a tight, sharp tension in his throat and the back of his skull -- he's gritting his teeth hard enough that it would register as pain for anyone who could feel such things. For Jay, it's merely a need. He stalks through the crowd, surface thoughts flickering with the what-if deaths of the braying crowd.

Beneath those simple bloody desires, though, is something glowing. Jay is a shinki, and has a shinki's patchwork personality. His mind churns with knowledge, but its knowledge adrift -- there's no recollections of the experiences that provided that knowledge. His whole self is a thinly stretched web, suspended over a white-hot core of faith and beauty and love and the certainty of Tot's ultimate divinity and truth. It burns, there at the center of his mind and heart. His body feels no pain but there's pain when he mentally reaches for that light -- which he does, over and over, a habitual action like tonguing the gap of a missing tooth, or the telling of a rosary. In his mind, Jay sears himself against Tot's glory, rejoicing in the agony her presence causes.

And every time he reaches for that light (a dozen times a minute or more, craving support and protection here as he navigates this festival pandemonium), his damaged (scarred, bruised, in some places surgically modified) brain shows him angels, in all their terrible beauty.

It's the angels who point out the lovers. A boy and a girl, grown but not yet adults, their faces bright with the colors of the festival and their obvious care for one another. Jay tracks them as they cross the street, heading away from the festivities. There are dark places in that direction, Jay knows. A park with softly rolling hills and hidden valleys, a grove of trees thick enough for a man to hide behind, a wall, a trash bin.

These two, he thinks, he won't label, and there's a flash of memory as he recalls the carving of DEATH TO AMATERASU onto the chest of the handsome young god. These two, he thinks, he'll leave pristine, and the angels howl their approval.

For you, Victorious, he mentally prays, gripping Tot's flame in his mind so tightly that he sways on his feet, mouth gone dry from the agony. No life without death, their flesh food for the bloom of your glory. The lovers vanish through the crowd, but Jay doesn't worry. He turns calmly on his heel and pads after them, keeping a distance well suited to avoid suspicion. The angels won't let him lose his prey.

[volksdaemon]

Schuldig was amused - at first. It was a daring telepath that wanted, genuinely wanted, to know where all of the little cracks in Farfarello's reality were and what they looked like inside of his mind. Whether it was angels or dancing lights or cobwebs or flower crowns, you could be sure that the landscape of his mind would be littered with imagery that would give a surrealist painter enough work for a hundred lifetimes.

Then he has to back off for a little bit because the thought of being that 'close' to someone's mind while they're in a flagellatory mood seemed like it would put a damper on his night. Sure, for Farfarello, it's probably like the closest thing to pleasure that he ever feels, at least from Schuldig's perspective, but he only had to feel the pain side of that once in the past to know when to back out.

What confuses him for a moment though is that his old teammate keeps thinking of himself but not with the name Farfarello attached to it. Shinki or not, it made Schuldig wonder if Farfarello had died in some sort of lovers' suicide gambit with his wife. Maybe that's why he's after the boy and the girl-- wait, it's the Bombay brat and his sister. Now, Schuldig's not about to defend them against the menace that is Farfarello's fixation on their demise, but... he doesn't even know them, right? He can't, if he's a shinki.

Schuldig dares to take another dip into the very surface thoughts of the other man's mind and manages to glimpse the DEATH TO AMATERASU part. Angels howling or not, he recognizes the words if not the body of the handsome... young... no, he does know that guy. That's the guy with mental defenses powerful enough to expel Schuldig from his library-like mind with the force of several thousand spiraling pages. He hated that guy.

Now, the other person with that carved into them though... that makes him watch Farfarello disappear into the crowd with only a tangential tracker on him. His mind is refusing to put the pieces together, because it's just too outrageous and stupid and why would Crawford let this happen? Let their serial killer former teammate turned shinki kill his best tool for taking out ayakashi and playing nice with the heavens? BOTH of the Schwarz members that had abandoned the team turned up as shinki. How's that for karma? But that short tirade has him balking anyway. He's mad, but he's not mad enough to confront Farfarello and turn him ayakashi mid-Tanabata, tempting as it is.

No, he's just mad enough to want words with Crawford. Like, right now if possible, but if not... he's at least going to enjoy watching Farfarello kill the two "lovers" as payback for his losing Jennifer.

[rev13_3]

Something's wrong.

Jay freezes, just out of sight behind the stall selling children's toys in the shape of a holy man who crippled himself for his faith. The angels break around him in a wave of chiming light, assuring him of the joy to be found at Tot's feet, but he's not questioning his place beneath her blessed heel. No, he's questioning whether he's the only monster hunting this particular festival.

Somebody is watching him.

It's a feeling, nothing more, but with or without memories he's a creature of instinct. The metaphorical hairs are standing up on the back of his neck as he tilts his head gently one way, then the other, listening for any sounds that don't fit in with the brilliant chaos on the other side of this canvas wall. The angels shriek at him to continue in his pursuit of the young lovers, and it's with tangible regret that he loosens his grip on Tot's glory, the better to concentrate on his potential pursuer.

It's entirely possible that he's imagining things. He's figured out by now that he sees things others don't (thanks to the hand of the Most High), and this wouldn't be the first time that he's identified a threat where none exists. Her touch is a gift, and it's entirely his failing that causes that gift to sometimes show him things he cannot comprehend. Perhaps this is one such time.

Or perhaps there really is someone -- or something -- out there.

Where are you? he thinks, fingertips grazing lightly over the handle of the knife taped to his forearm. I know you're out there. Show yourself!

[volksdaemon]

He doesn't send it to Farfarello - to "Jay" - but he does think to himself, 'Not today.' He has too many questions and too much desire for retaliation. It's not out of some love for a former teammate either - he cares about his own skin first and foremost. If he's going to take a risk like that, he's going to do it when he's had more time to plan for how to avoid getting caught, just like 'Jay' had.

At least now he knows where to find Farfarello again, and how to twist him a little better if Tot's the one holding his leash these days.

His only other goal for today is to be sure that this is Farfarello's new favorite pastime - to make sure that when he kills the two kids, which will surely happen if Farfarello's already decided on it, that the state that he leaves them resembles how Jennifer was left. If so, then Schuldig's definitely got him and it's not just some kind of impression that his former teammate's got stuck in his head. How many times had they found or become copycat criminals in order to take down the real one? It would be more certain. But he had to keep hidden if 'Jay' had even a fraction of Farfarello's old senses to know when he was being watched, in particular by a nosy telepath.

Schuldig stays where he's at and tries to keep a visual on him, not daring to sneak any subtle cues into the man's mind and tip him off. Not yet.