thenearshore | (closed) hunting you, i can smell you, alive

Entry tags:

(closed) hunting you, i can smell you, alive

Who: Elsa

reformedsinner, and some NPCs
What: Corruption, emotion, and an attempt on Heaven
When: April 20th, early morning
Where: Starts at Menrva's temple, ends up in Heaven's administrative offices
Warnings: Toku tendencies, violence (but no death), eventual exorcisms, and one very stern talking-to that might actually happen offscreen. Will edit as necessary.

Elsa doesn't notice the way her anger builds after the battle, and if she did, she wouldn't be able to identify the reason why. Surely, it's because she's upset over Goku, and not because Susano'o's attack left a curse somewhere that she fell upon, nor because that curse wended its way into her like odorless, colorless, flavorless poison.

It wouldn't be the first time she's had evil coursing through her anyway.

She'd hoped a full night's sleep would rid her of the lingering anger and dread, that they would melt away overnight along with her worry over Sanzo and Sanzang in Sanzang's temple, over Gojyo and Hakkai in Elsa's, over Goku in Heaven's custody. (As if it'd been his fault. As if he'd wanted to do all he did.)

But no; when she wakes, her rage is even more present, hot yet steady like she'd been made to be in her last year in her world. It's instinctive now, going to grab the sword Mesogog's power fashioned for her, tying it to her waist once she's on her way to the kitchen, her stride confident and cool in spite of how badly she wants to tear apart the home she's been given here.

Hakkai is there, as usual, looking so much better than he did after the battle. It's almost enough to settle her nerves some.

Then it hits her. Goku. Afraid. Panicked.

Helpless.

"This has to stop." Her hand goes to the hilt of her sword, and her eyes narrow as she thinks of what she believes that she must do. "They bring us here against our will. They make us gods or shinki. They expect us to do what they say like trained dogs, and when something like this happens, like with the chocolates, they do nothing.

"Amaterasu is punishing someone who doesn't deserve it. I doubt she even knows what she's doing." Pausing, she looks up at Hakkai with an icy stare. "I'm going to bring Goku home. You're welcome to come, but you won't stop me if you choose to stay behind."

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"Not exactly nothing," Hakkai murmurs. "They've taken Goku." Sho had been one of those brutalized, bloody heaps on the floor of the Great Hall, and Hakkai has seen no evidence that he's reappeared. Perhaps gods who die are simply dead after all. Perhaps Goku is the only one left to take the blame for Sho's manipulation of him.

A Heaven that needs a scapegoat, he thinks, is a Heaven that won't hesitate to make one of a confused young nora whose assigned god no longer lives to take offense. He'd seen Elsa's flinch, just after she'd walked into the kitchen. She's felt something, probably from Goku, something that sparked that rage simmering under the surface into a full boil.

His mismatched eyes narrow, green glass and living slit-pupiled gold, and he nods very slightly. He doesn't want to talk her out of it. It's foolish, but if the alternative is to stand meekly back and watch Goku take Sho's punishment, well -- they're strong together. Perhaps if they move fast, they'll have a chance. At least, his own anger whispers seductively at the back of his mind, at least it's something to do.

"I'll come with you."

"Good." Elsa relaxes a little as she breathes out, keeping her hand on the sword's hilt for a moment longer before lowering it back to her side. Odds of success increase if Hakkai is with her. She can escape nearly anything, and he can bind their enemies with his vines.

"We're going now, and we'll be faster if you're in your vessel form." She holds his gaze, gives him a sharp nod, and holds out her hand. "Gouki."

The familiar weight of the sword in her hand is a comfort to her. She takes a few seconds to inspect the blade -- immaculate; she'll have to thank Sanzang again later for healing Hakkai -- then pulls her old sword out from its sheath. She does a slow swing of each one, then both of them together, feeling out the weight of two weapons in her hands at once, of how she will have to move her feet to stay upright and keep the advantage.

The curse, which seems to reach back and pull up all those old battle instincts she possessed as Mesogog's general, makes it feel almost natural.

"Let's show Heaven what happens when you sin against someone innocent."

With a deep breath, she teleports out of the kitchen and right into the lobby of Heaven's main administration building, appearing a few feet off the ground. She lands with a thud of her boots against the tile, swords out at either side of her. For a moment, she simply stands there, tall and imposing, glaring, the slightest hint of a smirk on her face.

Then she points Gouki at the double doors ahead, beyond which she has never been, was denied entry when she came to speak to Amaterasu in the wake of the incident with the chocolates.

"Pardon the interruption. I'm here for my shinki."

Her smirk widens, and then she's off at a dash.

He can't feel Elsa's anger the way that she can feel his own darker emotions, but Hakkai can still sense her rage; in the way her grip tightens on his hilt, in the cold satisfaction in her voice. Their feelings are as one. There's fury burning inside him, too, enough to mask the odd, secondary burning he feels from the touch of her skin on his. If he had noticed, he might have thought that it was a little like blight.

His focus is on the guards, though.

The left one first, he whispers soundlessly to her. Then the right.

They don't expect her speed, her strength, the edge that Hakkai's guidance gives her. Elsa moves like a professional dancer, following the steps Hakkai dictates, his anger supplementing and bolstering her own. She strikes left first, then right, disabling the guards.

Disabling, not killing. Not even wounding, if she can avoid it. Because while Elsa is enraged at the Heavens, she does not blame Amaterasu's shinki. Likely, they didn't get to choose their afterlife either, merely got brought here by the same power that has made slaves of all the rest of them.

"Where are you keeping him?" Elsa demands as she tries to kick open the double doors. "This will be much less painful for you if you just tell me!"

Most of Amaterasu's shinki, while on guard, are not particularly well equipped for a battle of any kind. They are startled, to say the least, by this onslaught, and the two that Elsa just disarmed - one male, one female - are quaking softly as they hold their hands up in surrender.

"My Lady has said that it is best to leave him be for now! Please... please leave...!" It's the girl who manages to speak up, the man looks more terrified than she is. Neither seem to be ready to divulge any information on Goku's position, though.

Threaten the man, Hakkai murmurs into Elsa's mind, his voice icy cold with calculation. Tell her you'll kill him if she doesn't speak.

He won't be speaking any time soon, if the terrified-into-silence expression is any hint. And making her fear for her own safety might frighten her into silence, too: threatening her comrade, though? That might be enough to force her to speak.

If not, then wounding or killing the man to prove it's no bluff won't cost them the one who's talking.

Elsa is silent as she listens to Hakkai, her gaze narrowing on the woman as if to speak to her. Then, when Hakkai is done, Elsa raises her old sword to the man's throat, Gouki raised high as if to deliver a fatal strike. She holds his frightened gaze for a second or two more, then faces the woman again.

"Your Lady doesn't know what she's doing to him. I'm the one who bears Goku's burden. She is punishing me for what Susano'o has done. Tell me where he is! I'm not leaving without him."

The man's breath hitches and he starts to breathe heavily. At a look from the girl, he starts taking slower breaths, as if he's trying to calm down, but it's obvious he's still terrified.

"P-please, there's... there's been enough bloodshed...!" There are tears in her eyes now, though she's determined to look calm all the same.

An understanding enters her eyes as she realizes that reasoning might not work here and she bows her head slightly. "He's upstairs. Please, we've hurt my Lady enough already..."

Let's go.

It's possible she's wrong -- and "upstairs" isn't much of a direction -- but Hakkai doubts she's a good enough liar to be deliberately misleading them. She, at least, believes Goku's here and upstairs.

"Was that so hard?" Elsa snarls at the woman.

But she does pull back her swords. The woman is right. There's been more than enough bloodshed, and Elsa has no intention to add to that. She does exactly as Hakkai says, heading upstairs, ready to fight (because there will be more guards the closer she gets to Goku, doubtless).

"Be ready with your vines," she says to Hakkai, and after a breath, she kicks open the next door.

The guards here look more prepared than the two downstairs, but she has Hakkai. She's never alone as long as she has Hakkai.

"Don't stop me unless you're at your limit for pain."

As soon as she gets confirmation on that, she'll charge them.

Don't worry, I won't.

Tension -- psychological more than physical -- winds through Hakkai's mind, and he glances ahead to the guards. The moment he strikes floor or wall, he'll be ready to snare them: they can't fly. They have to be on a level with him.

How many between them and Goku?

It doesn't matter. They can't expect any reinforcements, so they'll just have to defeat everyone in front of them. In a narrow hallway, the main problem of numbers is exhaustion, and if he can slow them down, it'll lessen Elsa's strain.

Perhaps it can be done.

Being a god comes with perks, not the least of them the ability to do the acrobatics she got used to last year. Elsa charges forward, leaping over one guard and turning in mid-air to kick them in the side and throw them to the ground. Their weapon clatters out of reach.

Her footing is good when she lands, but even confident in her ability to fight, there are just so many ahead of them. If they use their supernatural speed too, this might become too difficult. She might push Hakkai too hard, strain the blade, crack it like in the fight at the school. The blade may have looked intact, but he'd been injured yesterday, so the metal may be more fragile than it seems.

"I have an idea."

Gouki is in her right hand, her dominant one, so it's easy enough to flip the sword so the blade points down when she holds her arm out, raise it, and stab the blade into the tiled floor.

"Bind them!"

She lets Gouki go, takes her old sword in her right hand, and readies herself to run once Hakkai's vines go ahead of her.

Done. Hakkai's vines race out along the floor and up onto the walls, an inescapable web that reaches up to snare shoes and coil onto legs, pinning the guards for Elsa's blows -- or, at least, that was the plan. There are too many of them: he feels his grip weakening as the number of feet he's snared grows from two, to eight, to twenty and more. He focuses frantically, feeling as though he's trying to capture a flock of sparrows in flight. There's too much.

Careful--! he warns her desperately, focusing on the nearest guards.

It goes so well at first. Elsa knocks out the first one or two guards easily with Hakkai's help, but then his alarm filters through the potent, steady rage that has been fueling her all this time. She notes how he is struggling, notes the way the guards see their chance and take it.

A glance back at the sword stuck in the floor is all the time one of the guards needs to come right up to her and attack. Elsa blocks it with her sword, pushing the guard back with a cry, then kicking him in the chest to knock him off his feet. The next nearest guard is to her left, and she disarms her easily enough.

There are just so many of them. This isn't going to work.

"Gouki--"

She refrains from calling his name for fear of reverting him. The last thing she needs is for him to hurt himself more than he was hurt yesterday, or for his vicious-looking claws to kill one of the guards here. Elsa is angry, but not murderous. She elbows one guard in the gut, hits another in the side of the head with the hilt of her sword, making her way back to Hakkai far too slowly for her liking. As the guards converge upon her, she reaches for Hakkai. Maybe it's better to fight with two swords after all, maybe it'll intimidate the guards and give her the chance to disarm them.

And more importantly, they won't separate her from Hakkai. Amaterasu already has Goku. She won't take Hakkai too.

Edited 2016-09-04 20:24 (UTC)

She's not killing, and because she's not killing, she's being slowly overwhelmed. Hakkai forces down his own rage and fear: he can't distract her. He comes easily free from the floorboards as she grabs for his hilt, almost leaping into her hand as the vines dissolve from the feet and legs of the few guards he'd still had restrained.

Aim for their legs. If she won't kill them -- and he doesn't want to have that fight with her now, though if he had his own hands, their blood would be running down the stairs -- then she can't try for knockout blows, not with two swords. Cuts to the legs will disable faster.

The shinki here are less skittish than the ones down below. They realize that they have a job to do and they are going to do it however they can - though they cannot kill a god, they can certainly take her into custody, if they can overpower her.

There are enough here that one has already run off, pulling a phone from his pocket and calling for backup. The others are working hard to subdue Elsa, encircling her and offering no route of escape.

"Please, Menrva-sama! Lay down your weapons!" The shinki who is farther away and was calling for help is the one who speaks, looking disgruntled at having to tell her this.

As soon as she grabs Gouki, the guards nearest her get a slash to the legs. It's not much, given the cramped quarters with so many of them nearby, but it's enough to hold them back. As they fall with pain and shock, Elsa weaves her way through them, keeping with the swift, low strikes.

It's so difficult. The escape route her intuition keeps calculating gets narrower and narrower. If not for the effects of the curse, she'd surrender -- she'd not even be here -- but its power over her is too strong. It speaks to her in her own voice, with her own words and convictions, so she keeps pushing forward.

"Not until you let Goku go!"

Of course, even as she says so, some part of her knows she's going to fail. She and Hakkai are hardly enough to make a stand against the forces of Amaterasu herself. Still, she'll fight, even as her strength begins to dwindle in the face of so many opponents. Goku has been so wonderful to her and the others, a spot of sunshine in the temple. She won't go down without a fight. He deserves this level of loyalty, especially when his first god treated him like little more than a toy soldier.

As his blade parts flesh, Hakkai's vines lash across the skin of each opponent, yanking them violently off balance and sending them to the floor bleeding. There are still too many, even with the bodies on the floor making it harder for their enemies to approach. Even with the guards distracted by helping their injured opponents --

He doesn't speak, too intensely occupied with the split-second timing of the cuts and his vines. The calculations are going against them more and more. Elsa must know, too; the margins by which she's evading are getting narrower, her movements slowing as though she's growing weary.

The shinki who receive the brunt of her attack topple backwards, but there are enough here to pull them back out of harms way and still keep Elsa and Hakkai surrounded. For the briefest of moments, it looks like Elsa might be able to break free.

But that is when the reinforcements arrive. It isn't long before their sheer numbers close them in so tightly around the fighting god that each of the ones closest to her can grab a limb to try and bring her to a stop.

"Quick! Tie her up!"

There is rope on its way to the shinki nearest to her and they are fighting hard to keep her where she is while the rope comes to them.

There are just too many of them, and she can't fight them off once they grab her. It's all she can do to make sure she doesn't let go of Hakkai.

She tries to fight, though. Tries to kick the ones holding her down, the ones with the rope, the ones standing ready to subdue her if she breaks free. If she could just manage one strike at the rope--

In a last-ditch effort, she cries, "Monki!" But of course it doesn't work. Amaterasu wouldn't be so careless as to allow one of Goku's gods to summon him while she's keeping him prisoner. Still, Elsa tries a few more times, with no more success than the first. If not for the curse that has corrupted her, she'd surrender then and there, but with that poisonous power overriding who she truly is, she doesn't relent until she's bound and all hope for escape is lost. Her intuition has gone silent.

"This isn't over," she growls at the guards -- at any and all of the shinki here working for Amaterasu. "I will get him back."

Hakkai tries to turn in her hand, to place the edge of his blade against the rope and slice it away as the other shinki press in, but there are too many of them. Too many shinki overpowering them, and the rope catches him in against Elsa's flesh, where he doesn't dare to move for fear of slicing skin before he cuts away the bonds.

Rage burns cold inside him, and he watches the shinki pressing in, staying tense and ready to strike.

Stay calm, Elsa, he whispers to her. Let them think they have you. Wait for our moment.

There must be a moment. There must be a moment, if they aren't both about to die, and if they are about to die Hakkai'll ask her to revert him. Then he'll fight. The shinki may be powerful fighters, but he thinks he can kill them all. Elsa doesn't want them dead, and yet -- and yet if it comes to that, they will die.

The shinki are quick to wrap the ropes around Elsa as soon as they can. They tie her up tight, making sure to capture her shinki with her as best as they can. One shinki steps in from the back now, looking very much like someone who is in command.

"Take her to a solitary room for the time being. Separate her from her shinki. I will ask Lady Amaterasu what she would like done with them."

With that, a few of the shinki start tugging at the ropes binding Elsa, dragging her towards a nearby room. Apparently, they'll be able to lock her up in this room easily enough.

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(closed) hunting you, i can smell you, alive

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