Semi-Open ♔ Tu est belle

[priforprince]

Who: Hibiki, Lavi, & Maria; Hibiki & you
When: July 18
Where: Apollo's temple and thereabouts
What: A camp ex-villain wakes up to the knowledge that she's up three new shinki...and down one old one.
Warnings: MORE MURDER. Or, well, its aftermath. Hibiki's proclivity for very large font.

[ I. Morning, July 18 - Lavi, Maria ]

VENUS!

[ The front door bangs open, revealing Shikyoin Hibiki striding out into the early morning sunlight. She frowns. ] Where could she have gone?

[ This is...troubling. Truly terrible timing for Venus to have wandered off, with Hibiki having awakened in a cold sweat, gripped with certainty that catastrophe has befallen one of her shinki. Such a concept is, of course, a laughable lie, the latest torment inflicted by an incomplete Heaven. Hibiki is merely confirming its falsehood.

Except Venus isn't around. What does that woman think she's doing? Even the usual burbling fountain of love she causes in the pit of Hibiki's stomach has fallen still.

Hibiki wanders all over the temple grounds, taking her time, but no errant shinki appears. She speaks to an unseen audience. ] Hopefully she hasn't strayed into an errant mango grove...

[ Something is lying a ways back from the path, here on this road leading to her temple. The goats that tend Hibiki's grounds (and, when they so desire, the surrounding area) won't go near it.

Hibiki frowns. Hibiki's chest clenches up. She's tempted to just keep walking.

But willfully preferring ignorance isn't Shikyoin Hibiki's style. Hibiki's face sets. Gritting her teeth, she walks forward.

A splash of blood dyes the brilliant grass. A teacup falls off where some child had left it precariously perched two days ago, shattering against the hard castle floor. A meteor, hurtling towards the planet, extinguishes all life in an instant.

Hibiki's eyes widen. ]



VEEEEEEENNNUUUUUUUSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!

[ There's an echo. ]

[ II. Evening, July 18 - Open ]



[ If you helped a little girl with silver roll curls over the past two days, you will receive a bouquet of purple and gold flowers this evening. The card accompanying the flowers bears simply a small crown emblem upon it.

If, spurred by this, you go back to the little girl's castle temple, the door will be slightly ajar. But no one will come when you knock. ]

Comments

I

[lostinshadows]

[The echo is what catches Lavi's attention when he comes along the path leading to Hibiki's temple. He grimaces at the voice, immediately rushing forward once he recognizes that the voice belongs to Hibiki herself. However, he slows down once he sees the god, seemingly in horror.]

Hibi--

[Lavi immediately trails off, eye darting once he realized the splash of red staining the grass. His eye follows the broken tea cups and he cautiously walks over to Hibiki while not once taking his eye off of the corpse.]

Hibiki.

[declamando]

[Maria's only passing by the temple, but Hibiki's scream draws her attention easily - it's something she almost wouldn't have expected to hear from the girl, and it's the thought of what kind of horror must have transpired to get her to sound like that which drives her quickly to the scene.

She doesn't recognise the other boy she sees once she gets there, but she does see Hibiki, and starts to approach. However, the sight of the body stops her in her tracks, and her hands fly to her mouth in horror.]

Oh...oh god... [Maria's seen dead bodies before. Once, in times she'd rather not remember, she'd been the one responsible for them. But this is a particularly brutal killing, and as soon as her own moment of shock is over, she rushes to Hibiki's side, reaching out for her shoulder.]

Hibiki, don't look, please... [Her mind is whirring. They need to check for clues, see if there's any trace of who might have done this, but Hibiki reacting like that, that needs to be her first focus.]

[priforprince]

[ Hibiki doesn't appear to hear Maria. Instead, as Maria reaches out to touch her, she bends over and gathers Venus's body in her arms. ]

VENUS!! HANG IN THERE!!!

[ She cradles her shinki, but there's no response. Hibiki scowls. She holds Venus closer.

There's a lot of blood, but she can't care. She's too absorbed in trying to make her shinki respond. ]

ARE YOU GOING TO ABANDON YOUR POST?!

[ Really, though, she knows. She knows.

She's known since the moment she couldn't feel how much Venus loves her any more. That constant bubble of asinine affection had been so irritating.

And now it's gone. When she needs it. It's gone.

Hibiki swallows. She's sweating. ]

[lostinshadows]

Hibiki.

[His voice comes out a little forceful, though his expression is closed off. He looks over at Maria, a silent request for help to detach Hibiki from the corpse. With her like this, there's no telling how well this would affect Hibiki's mind frame.

Lavi also knows Hibiki isn't stupid enough to believe that she can make her shinki respond.

The redhead is devoid of any emotion as he places a hand on Hibiki's shoulder.]

Hibiki, let me look at her. [A silent please is there, but even so, he looks over at the other woman.

He doesn't know what kind of relationship they share, but the other seems familiar enough with Hibiki that maybe she is able to help her like this. Right now, this sort of thing really isn't good for 'Apollo' right now.]

2

[fullcowl]

[He is very, very tired from everything he's seen this morning. A body and it's decapitated head, even worse he knew that person.

But he's a hero. All Might said that the strong ones are the ones who are smiling, despite everything that's happened. A smile that can soothe people and can say "It's okay now because I'm here" is a heroes greatest asset. It's definitely one of All Might's, part of the reason he admired him in the first place.

Maybe he can't do that much right now, but he can at the very least manage a small smile. He can let himself fall apart at home. Later. Not now.

He'll knock on the door, and when there's no answer he'll call out.]

Hibiki?

[priforprince]

[ There is no answer. What's more, there's no light coming in through the doorway.

No lights on in the temple of Apollo. ]

[fullcowl]

I'm sorry for trespassing.

[He'll slip into the hallway and look around. Is there anything around here that might indicate where Hibiki is?]

[priforprince]

[ Well, there's a trail of broken china that wasn't here two days ago. And some sort of slick brown liquid pooled on the floor beneath it.... ]

II

[sweetdeath]

[He's still got her name on his chest: really, when the big bouquet showed up on Sakura's doorstep, Tsuzuki'd had no choice. He's going to have to talk about it with both of them now, he guesses, unless maybe now that everybody's back to normal the silver-haired girl just wants to revoke his name and forget about it.

Anyway, he has to talk to her first. He'd arranged the bouquet in what turned out to have to be two different vases (neither was quite big enough), pocketed the card and headed for her temple.

Except now, no one's answering the door. He pushes it open with a foot.]

Hello?

Hello?

[... okay, he's just going to barge in and go looking for her, then. The door's open, so it's probably fine.

(Or something's really wrong, in which case, he should definitely be barging in.)]

'Scuse me, I'm coming in!

[priforprince]

[ The temple is quiet. When one first wanders in, there aren't even any lights on, but a dim glow can be seen down one opulent hallway.

Following said glow takes the traveler past several sitting rooms divested of all their chairs and one where all the chairs have clearly ended up, along with miscellaneous tea-and-dessert-related items. From the looks of the place, a bunch of unsupervised children had a Very Good Time.

But that isn't where the light's coming from. The light's coming from this door at the very end of the hallway.

This door, that's fancier than all the rest. ]

[sweetdeath]

[Tsuzuki raps his knuckles against the doorframe, pausing outside it. Man, this place needs to be tidied up. And those desserts are going to go bad if they're just left out like that... maybe he should pack some up on the way out to take home....

Right, he's not focusing on desserts! He's focusing on Hibiki and whether she's okay, he tells himself sternly, and knocks again.]

Hey, are you in there? It's Asato. Can I come in?

[priforprince]

You're noisy.

[ The voice sounds cross, but at least it's present. So that's probably as good as you're going to get.

Door's not locked, either. ]

II

[very_goodman]

[Barry was definitely not expecting flowers after all of that. He'd honestly been expecting to get yelled at or punched in the face instead. He's feeling pretty weird about the whole encounter with Hibiki's younger self, after all, so he can only imagine how someone as proud as her might be feeling about having interacted with him the way she did. So he heads to her temple and knocks, waiting there for a little while before he slowly creaks the door open.]

Uh... hey. You home?

[priforprince]

[ There is no response. There aren't any lights on, either.

And the place is pretty much a mess. It looks like a pack of wild puppies had a grand ole time....Except the footprints, where they appear, are bitty. And human.

No Hibiki in sight, however. ]

[very_goodman]

Well, uh... comin' in, then!

[Barry heads inside, electing to follow the footprints for the time being.]

Hibiki? You in here?

[priforprince]

[ Most of the footprints lead to a sitting room with too many tables and chairs crammed into it, still set for what appears to have been a very successful tea party. For small people.

Following them will, however, take Barry deep enough into the castle to notice that around a bend at the far end of this hallway, there's a glow. ]

II~

[smilingbullet]

[ It's not that easy to figure out who the sender of the flowers is. He's a little confused as to why, but he doesn't necessarily need to ask.

Still, he doesn't really have anything to do at the moment so he might as well have a look to see what was up with the flowers, and maybe ask if she knows how to make them last. Or maybe he should just dry them or press them between the pages of some books.

So when he finds that no-one is showing up when he knocks (despite the fact that he can tell that the door is unlocked! he has some manners at least!) he finally decides to enter. (He has friends here though; coming to see Wendy would totally allow him to enter without knocking, right?) ]

Hellooo~? Anyone home? Apollo? Wendy?

[priforprince]

[ Neither person answers. The lights are out, too.

There is, however, a muffled sound from down one of the temple's many hallways. It sounds faintly like laughter, but rather forced laughter, and dies down as quickly as it began. ]

[smilingbullet]

[ As a person who laughs a lot (even when he doesn’t feel like laughing, though that’s pretty rare) he can definitely tell that the laugh is forced, however muffled by distance it is.

D2 decides to head further inside, only looking over his shoulder to make sure he doesn’t drag any dirt over the floor, which he isn’t, before he searches for the source of the voice. ]

II

[oldblue]

[ So somehow Ao found out who sent those weeds flowers. He asked his god first, but even if Kija knew or not, Ao didn't want his help to find the temple belonging to the god. So it gets pretty late before he's managed to maneuver to the temple, partly because he scared off at least half the people he asked for directions because apparently his glare is scary (even though he's a blind man) and then he scared even more of them off because he sounds so irritated.

Which he is. He doesn't see that the door is ajar, but how could he? So when he knocks (way too hard) the door crashes open. ]

Fucking hell!!

[priforprince]

[ The crash from the door opening is echoed, down the hallway, by the smaller crash of porcelain hitting marble.

Granted, this place is already looking the worse for wear: like a horde of small children with no manners had recently paraded through (fancy that). But, down the hallway from the entrance, frozen in the middle of passing from one doorway to the next, is a completely white statue of a young person with a shocked expression on their impossibly handsome face. A cup of tea lies broken on the ground directly beneath their outstretched hand.

Your entrance (or your language) appears to have surprised somebody, sir. And now they aren't moving. ]

[oldblue]

[ He can’t actually tell the state of the hallway, but he can hear the sound of another crash that he definitely didn’t make. And after a moment or two, he can tell that there is a person up ahead, too. ]

Oi!

[ His unseeing eyes looks that way, and since he can’t do anything about this damn flower situation unless he can find the sender, he heads for the person. Hopefully there’s nothing on the floor that he’ll trip on. ]

III, all the late tags

[thirdbeauty]

[So. Um. Natsuru woke up after that little recess from young-adulthood with a rush of new memories as a child in this place... and a new name branded just over her heart.

Neither of them had known any better at the time. And part of Natsuru would have been happy to become Hibiki's shinki. But she'd already promised her services to Maria, and Lightning always warned her not to spread her loyalties among gods. She has to honor the god she promised herself to first, even if it means turning down someone equally important to her.

Hibiki had been difficult to track down directly afterwards, though. Finally, Natsuru opted to sit in Hibiki's temple, waiting for her. It's basically her second home at this point, which she hopes it still will be after she has to make a request like this of Hibiki. She doesn't feel awkward at all about entering without direct permission.

What she does feel increasingly awkward about is every moment that passes while she sits and waits. Hibiki has to show up eventually. Natsuru knows her well enough to have selected a location the princely idol couldn't avoid forever. But it sure is taking a long time... and she's questioning her own certainty over her decision nearly every moment.]

whooo~ also i saved this high-tier cousbian joke for you, you're welcome

[priforprince]

[ Natsuru might be sitting and waiting in the darkened temple, but that doesn't mean it's an abandoned temple, necessarily. Either that, or it's haunted.

Because, as she sits there, assuming that some day her Prince will come, there is suddenly a loud blast of music from deep within this labyrinth of gorgeous (if currently somewhat messy) hallways.

Which is not ominous even in the slightest. ]

I feel so honored by this dramatic nonsense!

[thirdbeauty]

[The blast of music makes Natsuru jump, and there might have even been a faint shriek in there. Not that one would have heard it over the music! Right?

But even though it startles her at first, the music is the first indication she's had since she came here that someone might actually be home. Slowly, she gets back to her feet and listens for a direction to follow.]

Hibiki-sama?! ... Wendy?

[She calls for the only people she would expect to be here, her voice only trembling a little bit. For now, all she can do is keep following the music and hope it brings her to her Prince (and hopefully-temporary god).]