thenearshore | [closed]

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[closed]

Who: Ayumu, Goku, Hakkai, Chikusa, Ken, Ginia, Gojyo, Shun, Lavi, Nia, + brief appearances by Chinatsu and Caster.
When December 8th and 9th
Where: Goku's temple and various locations in the Far Shore's western district.
What: What starts out as an ablution to purify a blighted shinki turns into utter disaster in the western district.
Warnings: Character death, body horror, graphic violence, potential references to torture, sexual violence, and suicidal ideation in the ablution thread. Will add further warnings if necessary!

[The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Even in Heaven.

In the wee hours of morning before dawn, a loud, inhuman, cacophonic shriek shatters the silence in the western district. Afterward, a large, black mass hastily passes through the region. It skitters and softly thumps across rooftops in both pursuit of prey to sate its ceaseless hunger and flight from those intent on its destruction.

As it travels through the dark, the upper silhouette of a woman astride a giant spider can be glimpsed, ghosting and leaping across distances many more lengths than its size with stunning agility. For those that can steal a glimpse of the woman's face, they'll discover that the features are those of Ayumu Yamazaki - if hideously deformed by the addition of three extra pairs of beady, black eyes sprouting up over its forehead and beyond.

Those tracking its trajectory will realize that the ayakashi is bound for the northwestern edge of the district as if seeking desperate escape from every vestige of Amaterasu's realm and influence.

A telltale sign of the ayakashi's passing are faint wisps of spidersilk hanging from high places or bits littered across the ground. However, these secretions are dangerous to the touch, blighting anyone who comes into direct contact with them. A very faint, tar-like odor lingers in the air where it's been.

Maybe it'd be wise to keep under cover or at the very least, steer clear of its path until the danger's passed.]

[OOC: Ayumu's ayakashi form looks similar to this minus the skulls, with furrier black legs, and the aforementioned resemblance and eye deformities. Players are free to reference or comment on any of the description above in their own threads or posts if they like!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[When Ken's borderline snaps, the ache and fatigue of it drops him to one knee. But he still gets a view - a good view, a perfect view - of Ayumu, bearing down on Chikusa. On her limbs driving through him. And if Chikusa doesn't feel the pain of that, it's fine; Ken feels it for him.

It's like being catapulted forcibly back in time. It was a shotgun last time that caved Chikusa's chest in last time, not a spider leg, but Ken had never cared what actually did the deed. To this day, he probably would need several seconds to answer the question of how it happened. All that matters is that the last time Chikusa was injured like this - less than this, because Ayumu's impaled him in two places - he'd died. And he's dying again, and Ken couldn't save him.

Ken forgets everything. That they're shinki, that Chikusa is technically already dead, that he'll (probably) come back even if he's lost his memories - it's all gone. Chikusa's dying, and Ken couldn't save him - can't save him - and nothing else could possibly matter.

Because, dumb as Ken is, and even at a distance, he knows exactly what a mortal wound looks like. And Chikusa's got two.

The way Ken screams isn't even close to being words. It sounds like something wild and wounded, clawing his throat raw on its way out. He launches himself over to Chikusa and Hakkai, and for all his loyalty to Hakkai he's barely aware the man is there, much less is paying attention to anything he's doing. His tear-blurred eyes are hardly seeing anything anyway, but there's only one thing they're looking at.]

Kakipi...! [The word is strangled, almost sobbed.] I'm sorry...don't leave me again!

[It hurts so much. Hakkai can try not to feel things all he wants for his own part, but Ken's grief and agony and guilt (and some blooming blight to go with it) are crashing in like a tsunami whether he likes it or not. Ken's reliving the worst (and, incidentally, the last) moments of his life, right in front of him.]

[It takes Goku a minute to come back to his senses. To unwind Ayumu's feelings from his own and to dismiss both their fears. To shake off the wave of relief and loss.

When he gets back to his feet and turns to look at what he's unleashed, it's just in time to see Chikusa hit the ground, a brief glimpse of a monster he can barely recognise running away behind him.]

Ayu...

[It's all their worst fears realised. Losing yourself to an outside power, driving you to be a monster, to hurt people who don't deserve it, who you cared about- ... And it's happened to Ayumu. Goku feels cold. He knows a lethal wound when he sees one, knows that whatever Hakkai's doing is in vain, but it's hard to process that. Then he hears Ken scream.

Right. Of course. Chikusa is dying.]

[Gone whispers a part of his mind deeper than coherent thought, and in a way that aren't entirely words, as he watches the mutilated and horrific body retreat. It's a relief in more ways than one because, without the ayakashi's limb holding him upwards, he hits the ground again.]

[This time, when the world swims, his vision doesn't clear up nearly so fast.]

[As his eyesight is a slow recovery, and one he doubts will last, he feels everything more than he sees it. With the threat gone, if not vanquished, his mind has a lot more time to take stock of the ruined state of his body. There's an impact by his side, a strange feeling as energy tries to knit flesh and veins together, but all it does is prolong an inevitable outcome. In the meantime, with his consciousness still mostly intact if fractured... He lay there, dazedly exploring the multitude of strange things he can feel, now. The last time he'd died, he'd barely registered what was happening. He'd been hit, he'd fallen, and there had been Ken, bloody and yelling and warm.]

[Chikusa is warm now, too. He can't feel his legs no matter how much he tries to so much as twitch his toes, and breathing makes his chest feel like a shattered ruin from the inside.... But his back is warm, clinging to him, and there is a hand against his chest and...]

[Someone is yelling something, and Chikusa already knows before his mind has had a chance to process it that it's Ken. It'd been the same the first time, too, hadn't it...? Just like then, he wants to reach out for him. Unlike now, however, with foreign energy buoying him just barely... He can do it. So he does, with hand soaked crimson from the blood which has been spreading out beneath him, fingers shaking violently even as he blindly reaches out to press them against Ken's throat.]

[He's in Japan. He's been speaking Japanese for over half a year, now. But he is Italian born, has spoken that for much longer, and so it's Italian that he speaks to the boy at his side who's been with him about as long.]

Ken. [One word, and the fragile breaths he's been taking- all of it has his chin slick with blood.] I'm... here. We're always...

[Too much blood in his throat washes away any other words he could say. And then, after a second...]

[Come, Chiki.]

[He doesn't get the chance to try again. As his eyes fall wearily shut, the rest of Chikusa's body falls apart into light from the name aching against his waist. It's the same procedure as usual, only now the scent of blood is heavy in the air: that strange transition from body to vessel. And yet... For a moment longer than it should, the light stops. There's no change from lanky human body to that of a long and delicate crane. Instead, the light seems to stay there, suspended i time for a second... before suddenly bursting outwards. It's not light, not anymore- only a mist pale enough to be mistaken as it, the shift so subtle as to almost be indistinguishable. It comes, and keeps coming, thicker than mist, thicker than a fog, enormous and all consuming... And with it, the overwhelming scent of rain although none falls, drawing along the heady scent of something almost reminiscent of the herb garden back at a certain temple.]

[It's going to be a very strange experience, for all of the people caught in the midst of it, to suddenly be right in the middle of a cloud, unable to see anything else.]

[....But there is something that Hakkai will feel, at the very least. That connection, solid, unsevered. Alive.]

[He feels it. The blood soaking his pants is still there, cooling, growing sticky. The mist around him is blindingly thick, and he finds himself lost, on his knees in the puddle of blood that no longer surrounds a body, blind in the fog--

-- still feeling the presence of four shinki. Ken's agony crushes the breath from him, too terribly familiar for Hakkai to find a way to separate now and then, Ken's feelings and his own, but Chikusa is there, too. The name remains. The conscious presence remains.

Is this how it feels when one of the new shinki dies, and returns?

Or is it something else entirely?

It feels like a long time before he can draw breath against the choking agony seizing his chest. Ken's, mostly. Hakkai's own shock and grief hardly register in the tumult, but despite

(because of)

the pain, his voice is still eerily calm when he speaks again. He could scream, but he doesn't have enough air for that. He could get up off his knees, up out of the blood. Theoretically. Instead, he simply speaks a name.]

Chikusa...?

[Ken doesn't know what's happening. The initial transition as Chikusa's name is called as familiar enough, although there's an absolute twist of agony (enjoy that, Hakkai) as Chikusa's body disappears - Ken's hands automatically reach out to him, in fact, trying to cling to him, because the terror and grief of losing Chikusa can only get infinitely worse when not even his body is there anymore. But, of course, there's nothing there to grab.

But then things get strange; Chikusa's body disappears, but the crane Ken knows doesn't appear. In fact, nothing really seems to appear at all. Instead, a light bursts forth that changes into a sort of obscuring fog, damp and fresh-smelling, and Ken looks over at Hakkai in bewilderment.]

Hakkai-sama...? [The words he want to ask are locked behind a lump in his throat. He wants to ask where's Kakipi?, but he's afraid that the answer will be "he's dead". Not that Ken doesn't know he was dying; Ken's seen the dead and dying before, and he has no illusions to cling to there. But that answer - on top of being devastating to actually hear, when it's still too fresh and too much, wouldn't really tell him what he wants to know. Where did Chikusa's body go? Where did the mist come from?]

[Chikusa vanishes in a flash of light, evaporating into thin air, and Goku's stomach leaps up into his throat. He takes a few steps forward and reaches out, hand hovering over Ken's shoulder. ]

Hakkai? [Hakkai looks calm, but Goku knows he can't really be. Not after that.] ... What's going on?

[Is this just what happens when shinki are killed? Where did the fog come from? Goku has no clue what's happening right now, which isn't unusual but is concerning when he knows he should be stepping up right now. He should be helping Ken and Hakkai. But he doesn't know what to do.]

[There's the faint stirrings of... some sort of emotion in the connection shared between god and shinki. It's very similar to that feeling of dissociation that Hakkai has felt before, but subtly different. Yet it's only when Ken speaks up that there's a voice to the feeling.]

Ah... [The fog around them seems to shift, and there's a strange sound against the grass as if the wind has hit it too hard.] Ken...? Hakkai...

[More strange sounds- as if water is hitting the ground and grass, a strange rustling sort of noise, and the fog twists around them, away from them, until the mist pulls away sharply...]

[Only to reveal that it's coalesced into one enormous mass that rests against the nearby gathering of trees. It's enormous, larger than some planes, and the mist seems to curl off of it in tiny doses. The shape of it is hard to make out for a moment, just some sort of large shape that shouldn't exist. Yet there's something further from the trees that finally adjusts itself, much smaller forms of mist seeming to flow from patches of a long... long... neck. Pale and a ghostly sort of blue that blends in perfectly with the mist it is emerging from, it turns its head, and a pair of enormous eyes stare, a little unfocused, at the group still down on the ground.]

[Like this, it's much clearer to see that this isn't just fog. Instead, it's some sort of giant crane.]

[Chikusa's voice is distant, uncertain. Hakkai is still and silent for another second, then two, before his hands clench on the blood-soaked knees of his slacks and he forces himself to his feet. There's no pain, no injury on the strange misty body of the gigantic crane settled beside the trees, and its eyes -- Chikusa's eyes -- look clear, if confused.

Chikusa has not died.

He's heard of this: of shinki sacrificing their lives and becoming more than they had been. Yukine had done it, hadn't he? Become--

-- hafuri, that was the word. So had Kazuma, although he hadn't mentioned anything but the title.

Which means there's still one more shinki here who needs his attention. Her body is sprawled on the other side of what had been a triangle before the borderlines fell, and the blood there is bright, too.]

Chikusa, return.

[He forces himself into a run towards Ginia. She's losing blood, too; not as much as Chikusa had been, but--]

Ken, look after him!

[--but it has been almost a minute since she was shaken free from the claw, and if she's lost too much, Hakkai's powers will be useless to save her.]

[ Going to assist with an ablution, what can go wrong?

It never occurred to Caster to confirm where exactly she went, to help who with ablution. Now that the wave of intense emotions - fear, anger, desperation and pain - hit him, he curses himself for lack of a bit of forethought. But how could he tell, and asking his shinki to tell where they are going each time they leave a temple would be treating them like children.

They're not that, they're comrades. And now one of them is in danger. Since he knows wherabouts of other two, that leaves only Ginia.

But using just their link as a lead to teleport isn't as easy as it could be, and it works only after the link falls deathly silent. Suddenly he materializes on the side of the scene. It's hard to discern what's going on- what just happened. More or less familiar faces around that he pass by looking for one- Did he missed her again?

No, not this time. ]

Ginia- [ Caster whispers and steels his heart as he finally notices her lying in the pool of blood. He approaches from the opposite side, steps quick, he probably makes it to her at similar time to Hakkai. Thoughts racing- god medicine, right. Caster never was made to be a healer, he never liked using magic either- but in moments like that they are of use. Without thinking, he inscribes a short spell above Ginia, for now just intending on strengthening her body, her link to life if there is any. To buy time for anything more complicated. ] She's still breathing...

[ That much he can tell. ]

Can you save her? [ He directs the question to Hakkai ]

I can try.

[He doesn't hesitate, falling to his knees beside her and reaching out to place both his bloodstained hands over the brutal gash in her shoulder. There's another power supporting her, strengthening her heart, holding her back from shock and death; Caster's, he thinks. It's unfamiliar, but it doesn't interfere with the heat of his chi rising to his palms, and so he ignores it as he focuses on the wound.

Through and through; the edge is ragged, shredded by the teeth of Ayumu's insectile arm, but by some miracle it had missed the major arteries. The bleeding is terrible, but--]

-- yes.

[His tone is distant, his focus on the energy he's pouring into the wound, coaxing abused tissue to knit, torn veins to seal. Yes, he thinks he can.

He doesn't want anyone else to die of his decision tonight.]

[ Runes he carries are ancient and powerful, capable of affecting the fabric of the world-- if you know how to use them. If you know what verses to write - in which processes to inject the new code in. But his mentor Scáthach was no healer, so he isn't one either. If he doesn't know how the healing works, he can't know how to affect it.

All he can do right now is to keep Ginia stabilized and allow the one who knows what he's doing do his job. Hakkai's magic is unfamiliar, but he's not trying to interfere with it. Both powers work together if separately.

What kind of creature could cause wounds like that? What had the hell happened here-?

Don't get distracted, those questions can wait. He bites on his lip and continues writing, that's all he can do now. ]

[Slowly, the flow of blood under Hakkai's hands ebbs, then stops. His expression is distant. Shock and distress, secondhand, ricochet through him from Ken, but the ache slips by. It's not his focus just now. He'll worry later; Ginia's life is an easy goal to focus on right now, as he begins to knit muscle and skin together to shroud the veins, supporting them. Luckily, there's no break in the bone; although he can speed bone healing, it takes much longer.

It's a few more moments before he looks up at Caster, eye still vague with concentration, although the light in his hands is fading away.]

She'll be all right. Please make sure she rests, and eats; broth is good for healing....

[He sits back on his heels, wiping the blood away from his hands on his already-ruined pants. Ayumu is still out there. Goku must be suffering; Ken's pain is tangible, Chikusa's numbness almost as great an ache, and Gojyo is back at the temple, still, not knowing how badly this has gone.

His smile is automatic, and slightly more false than usual.]

You're her god, I assume?

I am. [ Caster confirms seriously.

Yeah, no. That smile is plenty terrifying. To be able to force a smile in a situation like this- Hakkai is either the best actor to walk the Earth, or he's the scariest medic- sure why not both? Caster is reluctant about carrying Ginia just yet, but he places a hand on her - good - shoulder, and another on her hand, preparing to teleport them away to the safety of their temple. ]

Thank you. We took enough of your time. Go to your people.

[ They need you.

Just as Ginia needs him. ]

[His people.

His people? Caster's caring, proprietary gesture towards Ginia hurts to watch, more than Hakkai had expected. Ayumu had not, truly, been that close to him. They'd fought the last time they spoke; they had fought more often than they'd been able to speak peacefully to each other.

He'd failed her, and Goku through her, had let Chikusa die in his place and left Gojyo at home when he might have been able to get through. Perhaps it was because he saw Kanan in her that he'd let his thinking be so badly clouded. Perhaps it was because he saw himself in her, instead.

His reasons didn't make any difference in the end. The smile, automatic as it is, lingers well after his eye loses focus.

Caster's rightly focused on his shinki, a part of his mind notes. Ken is with Chikusa. Goku... Goku will still be all right, if Hakkai, for a moment, lets himself slip. After the other man leaves with Ginia, he'll take that moment.

He doesn't quite notice he's forgotten to respond.]

[Ken stares in absolute bafflement at the massive crane, trying to figure out where it came from. In the depths of his confusion - and it runs quite deep - it takes awhile for Ken's brain to connect crane with Chikusa. And, to be fair, the crane Ken's used to Chikusa being never looked remotely like this, so his needing time to connect the dots can perhaps be forgiven.

It doesn't help that his brain has been stunned almost senseless with grief, either, although confusion has temporarily outweighed sorrow. Partially because, if he doesn't know what's happening or where Chikusa is, he can't even confirm that the worst has actually happened, which means he's not sure what the appropriate response is right now.

But as Hakkai moves away, the words sink in. Chikusa, return. Hakkai's calling Chikusa, so...then the weird mist-bird really is Chikusa? Does that mean he's okay...?]

Kakipi? [Ken's voice is somehow small, with so much pain and uncertainty and hope locked in a three-way war that no one is winning.]

[At the call of that name, the twisting fog which makes up the enormous bird twists and warps, pulling back into itself in defiance of the commonly known laws of nature. It shrinks, and tugs, and becomes all the smaller, glowing with light back into the much smaller form of a human back on his own two feet.]

[Chikusa Kakimoto stands there, no more dead than he's ever been in the Far Shore.]

[The utter blankness in Chikusa's eyes is no doubt familiar to Ken, a sign that he's as away as his mind can possibly go, and he sways unsteadily from side to side. His clothing is still soaked through with blood, despite the fact that he's quite clearly alive, and that fact is very clear considering that the only holes around are in his clothing and not his actual torso. Fresh scar tissue can be seen, stretching across his chest and stomach where he was impaled... but that's all.]

[Yet while his body might be healed, that doesn't erase the fact that it went through some extreme trauma. The after affects of blood loss, the shock.... All of it has thrown his mind for a loop. Now that there's no threat for him to automatically focus on, Chikusa tries to take a step forward, and immediately fails as his legs buckle out from underneath him and his face starts to go towards the ground.]

[He's really not fine here.]

Kakipi!

[When Ken sees Chikusa, the relief and joy of knowing he's alive will hit Hakkai like a hammer. (At least this time it's a pleasant sensation, aside from how overwhelming it is.) He's darting forward even before Chikusa's unsteadiness is evident, throwing his arms around him in a hug that serves the dual purpose of catching him. He buries his face in the crook of Chikusa's neck, breathing in his scent while ignoring the still-wet blood on Chikusa's clothes, soaking into his own.

Then, as shock and grief and happiness and confusion all pile up into a massive snarled mess in Ken's mind, Ken starts to cry. Not just tears, but actual sobbing.]

[Ken always seems to hit him like a freight train, in all sorts of different ways, and the way he barrels into him is no different... but Chikusa hardly seems to comprehend it. The world is a blur, moments disjointed and out of sync with one another, and he's left staring blankly up at the sky for a few seconds without any realization how it happened, or how his head fell back from the force of Ken's hugs.]

[The warmth, the pressure of arms wrapped around him, the violent shake of tears which makes his own body shudder by association and the dampness spreading along his neck... Automatically, dazed, Chikusa reaches up to curl his fingers limply into Ken's side.]

Ken... Ken...

[Blank repetition, the only word he can think to say even as his legs go out from underneath him. If not for Ken's grip on him, he'd definitely be on the ground.]

[Unseeing, a clawed hand paw a bit painfully at Chikusa's stomach, bared through the hole in his clothing, verifying with Ken's own fingers that there's no hole there. There's scar tissue, he can feel it and it feels weird, but Chikusa's not bleeding. The injuries are fixed, even if they're not pretty.

It's awhile before Ken can even get words out, and when he does they're choked enough that it's hard to understand them. But Chikusa will make them out if anyone can.] I thought - [Ken inhales, raggedly.] I thought you left me again...

[Painful for any other person but, even more than usual, Chikusa can't feel it. He can't even feel Ken's hand, knuckles tugging at the hole in his clothing and claws scraping at his stomach. Instead, he only sways against Ken, and unable to fight for his vision to clear.]

[When his partner speaks, Chikusa's mind can't even adjust itself to the language of the land they technically live in, now. Instead, with the recent trauma, shock, and blood loss, he's still stuck in the language that he's grown up with.]

I'm here. Still.

[It's a little disjointed, slower than usual, and really all he can say. For all that he ignores pain, whether he wants to or not, his body still was impaled in two extremely vital areas.]

[Ken slips into Italian, too; Chikusa's using it, and it comes easier, and he's not really thinking about it.]

I saw you...I saw her... [Each time he stops short of finishing the sentence, sounding confused and scared. He's almost afraid to put words to what he saw happen, as though the universe might hear him and realize its mistake in seemingly undoing what happened to Chikusa. That saying it might make it real again.] How are you still here?

[By all rights, Chikusa should be dead. Ken knows what mortal wounds look like. Instead he turned into a giant mist bird, then came back without any injuries. Even if Chikusa's ever told Ken about shinki becoming hafuri - and he quite likely hasn't - Ken certainly wouldn't remember that discussion within such a fraught context.]

[Chikusa has only ever heard of a hafuri from the sidelines, eavesdropping at people during gatherings such as the Gods Meeting. He knows of it, academically. Right now, nothing seems academic. His mind feels fractured and distant, a dozen splintered pieces that he doesn't know how to pull back together. Not right now, anyway. All he can do is stare, shellshocked, at Ken's clothing, and wordlessly shakes his head.]

I'm... really here...?

[Answers will come from Chikusa later. Just not now. The shock isn't doing much for his thinking, and that's on top of the usual issues.]

[Ken does what he always does, when he needs to ground Chikusa to reality. He leans in and bites him. This bite is at the junction of Chikusa's neck and shoulder, and stops just short of breaking skin; anything less wouldn't register to Chikusa much, really.

Other days, Ken might not worry about breaking skin. Right now...he doesn't want to see or smell any more of Chikusa's blood.]

I can feel you! I can bite you! You're here! [There's an almost frightened urgency to Ken's words, as though he's worried that if he can't convince Chikusa of it, it might prove to not be true after all.]

[Oh. There's something, he thinks. Something past the haze which fills his mind so thoroughly and blocks the connection between body and mind. It takes him a moment to make the connection between that sensation and the movement of Ken's head, of what he's done. His fingers twitch against his jacket, an uncertain spasm.]

Feel you... [He finally tries to move his legs again, to not much avail. He tries to press them against the earth, to get himself to stand up properly, only for it to go out from under him again.] My legs...

Your legs are here, too! [No, Ken, that's not what Chikusa's worrying about.

He eventually notices the shifting, though.] Are you okay? Should you be getting up? You're still covered in blood... [The last sentence comes slowly, reluctantly. Ken's never been bothered by blood, but...when it's Chikusa's, it's different.

Interestingly, he remembers being much more blasé about Chikusa being bloody and messed up when they were alive. Maybe because he'd never seen Chikusa die. Maybe because they hadn't been close in quite the same way when they were alive. Being dead and in the Far Shore, not remembering each other for a time but gravitating to each other on instinct and familiarity, has changed their relationship in a lot of subtle ways.]

[closed]

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Splitting off to a separate thread from here would be best I think?

splitting!

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