When May gathered herself she would look around for Sora first but if she was unable to spot her she'd go to check on Hiro.
There aren't any other people in the theater, just Kiyomi and Yuki. The movie is hard to follow, and you know why: you weren't paying much attention. Yuki picked it out and it's one of those it's one of those Shonen anime, something terribly gruesome and full of gore. You would have had a number of reasons not to be terribly thrilled to watch the movie, but you can see why, sat in a dark room with nothing to look at but the movie, you weren't terribly focused on that night. Glued to the screen, and jumping with shock and delight at every crime against humanity, Yuki was holding Kiyomi's hand in a death-grip. Your stomach turns all over again as you watch, just remembering how it consumed your thoughts. Mercifully the scene around you begins to fade.
She doesn't have anything with her- this seems oddly important. Your hand goes to a pocket in your vest where the pastels are. It's easy to get lost in a Nightmare without a proper anchor. Although, you’re not sure that matters if the girl is a ghost.
The girl whispers in her sleep. The sound is small, and you think she may have been whispering the whole time, but you’re only now close enough to hear. “Grigori... they won’t leave. I need… I need...” The girl clenches at the moss around her, searching. What do you do?
In the food court, Hiro stands next to a man in a hooded red jacket. Both of them stand over Tracy who has fallen on her back. May canters across the food court to Hiro’s side. Naiad, drained and wounded, sits on the carousel, which spins slowly. Fleur and Sakura stand on the balcony, suddenly eye-level with a fully realized Youma. Ten feet of seductively taut muscle, the Youma is a thing of talons and horns with a whip-like blade-tipped tail. Still roaring from the fit of rage that created her, the Youma swings a talon at the balcony, making to tear the banister from the concrete by the font of gold filigree ivy.
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Back in the real world, Juno has mostly forgotten the incident with Sakura. Seeing the events in the screening room again, from a whole new perspective, pushed any thoughts of the child out of her mind.
「I... suppose it's useless to deny what I am, now. From the outside looking in, I could not possibly be more obvious about my feelings. Ho. Hohohoho. Ohhhhohohohoho. I am a such a gay mess!」 Yuki probably knows, too. Juno wonders why the scholarship student toys with her so; she could not fathom her motives. She sighs to herself, leaving the bathroom stall to rejoin with the others.
「Hmm... Seems things have gone rather poorly since I was forced out. Well, this will server as a welcome distraction.」 Seeing the Youma strike at the handicapped woman at the balcony, she flings herself over and draws a shield from a portal, placing herself between the talon and the unchanged girl. Juno speaks to the handicapped girl as she defends her. 「Crawl away now or make your contract. I can only give you this chance once.」
Just stay down. Surface cool. Feels good. Dizzy.
The aqua-haired girl attempts to force their eyes open. And then shuts them right away, because everything in their line of sight seems to be sliding past... only to return ever so slowly. The first two revolutions are what it takes for their exhausted body and mind to register that they are on the carousel.
Have to warn them, have to help them, if they don't know, they can't stop it. Come ON, get UP. Reveille! Reveille! Reveille! All hands heave out and trice up. Reveille!
There's a bit of a gasp as they attempt to lift themselves up, and slide back down, then grasp at one of the poles for a rhythmically bouncing steed. They miss the fact it's a unicorn for the moment as they pull their battered body upwards, whimpering a bit in pain despite their best efforts, hobbling from some sort of damage to their left foot before falling down in a heap once more, resting their back against one of the 'coaches' on the ride.
Baka! Just let it flow, let it all happen. They can't blame you, you've done everything you can. You're good at letting others be in charge, take a break.
And then they see Juno jump in the way to help another hapless victim of this situation. Don't even. She's got it under--hey... wait... what are you--
Naiad screams as they dig deep into the magic, deep into their blood from a dozen cuts, and flings it as a veritable wave at the eyes of the Youma to blind it and assist Juno in her defense of someone still faltering... and then slumps once more...
「If we don't stop it, we all die. I've seen it.」 Quiet though the words are, they are the first ones she's spoken in Japanese, and the weight behind them leans towards truth.
The talon collides with the shield, the gold and ivory folding around Juno's arm. The Youma continues its swing unabated, using the Diamond Sovereign as an exceptionally heavy bludgeon.
Just as Juno is slammed into the banister beside Fleur, a crest of water, like jumping killer whale, pounds into the creature's arm. The Youma growls in frustration as it swings wide, leaving Juno stradling the bent banister.
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Tenshi stands calmly for a moment, watching her. 「I don't know who Grigori is... or whether you should be awake or asleep.」 the young woman says, kneeling down beside the moss to look at the young woman, her own lips a thin black line, before she smacks them.
She stands and shakes her head. 「Could make things a lot worse. But... might make things better. But what if she's here because something imprisoned her? Maybe it's just not right to be trapped inside of a dream, justice or not.」 Her 'wings' flex awkwardly of their own volition, leaving her more exposed as she exposes her thoughts to the, for all purposes, empty space.
After a few moments, she focuses on the girl... she has the thought in her head of silver and gossamer threads, and she doesn't quite know why. But perhaps there's something that binds her to her anchor... and perhaps she could find it and bring it back.
It would almost assuredly be dangerous... but there was little that Tenshi could do, otherwise. She focuses on the girl, searching for any vestige of who she was, so that she could look through the parallel dreams, one by one, stepping sideways each time, to look for that which was lost.
'Eternal rest is surely something that one might seek, but if it came with an eternal nightmare... I can't imagine being left within that.' she thinks as she leaps from dream to dream searching for the proverbial needle.
Slipping through the dreams and nightmares, she sings softly to herself,
"But if you find it in your dreams, you can find it at your day job -
somewhere south of Hell~.
Take the path to left or right, with just your gut to guide you -
the story is not for anyone else to tell~."
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Juno curses a bit louder than intended when her arm smashes against the banister. 「Eurgh... I hope that heals quickly. It would not do to show up at school tomorrow in a sling.」
She looks back over at Fleur and shouts at her, 「Finish this fiend off, will you? I think you owe me that much.」 She had had very poor luck with relying on other people so far but Juno feels she has little other choice. At least the water-themed girl seems to know what she's doing. Juno makes a note to speak with her afterwards; sometimes the water one has healing powers. The stinging pain coursing through her arm certainly warranted such a thing.
The path through the dream is winding, and seems to alternate erratically between scenes within the mall and scenes of enchanting storybook vistas. There is something keeping the dreamer (whoever she is) in this location, and the gossamer thread leads you in, out, and around these scenes.
A vale stretches out before you, looking down on a vast building, arraigned in gold. It’s a little more modern than you would expect a castle to look, but you get the same sort of feeling you might at looking at the princess’ vaulted tower in a storybook. Lavish, comfortable, but ultimately a drafty cage.
Moving further, you come across a small den in the bookstore of the mall, with shelves and displays turned and stacked to create a wide nest of feathers and crumpled paper. It’s hard to say what happened here, but the nest certainly looks wide enough for a couple adults to roll around in. A bible sits, untouched on a shelf next to a magazine cutout of a model wearing a blue shroud.
This next room is a nursery for four girls. Needlework sits folded on chairs and it seems to be in the late afternoon. Religious icons decorate most of the room, like ofuda around a sickly child’s crib. You’re startled by the sound of shuffling from the other side of one of the beds. It’s the first time there have been signs of something living in one of these scenes. The door to the nursery opens, and the blanket on one of the beds shifts. No one is actually there, but you get a sense of heart-wrenching disappointment and intense, mixed feelings from the scene.
Part of your travels brings you through the second floor of the arcade. The hall is empty save for a single fortune-teller game. Rather than the usual gypsy woman or turban-wearing mystic, the game features a high-collared ascetic priest with a long, bushy beard and stringy hair that comes down over his eyes, which are deeply hooded. Despite such a severe appearance, the man wears a warm and welcoming smile. The words on the case seem to be in Russian.
Next, a winter has hit a small courtyard hard. Drifts of snow cover the even rows of lattice-work like rows of gravestones. There is a pit dug out of the hard earth near a wall in the garden. Four sets of footprints lay at the mouth of the pit, facing away. There is a towering basilica in the distance that seems to be ringing the hour.
Finally, in a room on the first floor of the mall, a wide hole has been bored out of the cement, like something thrust its way up and out. Below, there is a dimly lit room, like a crawlspace or a monk’s hole. There are low racks filled with ancient looking military rations, armaments, and, on a low shelf next to a lantern, a small collection of artifacts. Most of the stuff is just old junk, but one seems to drip with anger and jealousy. The thin trail of thread that brought you here is tied to this thing. It’s a necklace, or an amulet. It lies open on the shelf. The silverwork is untarnished. On one side there is a small faded picture, and on the other there are four lines of verse in Russian. Time has worn away the edges but what you can read looks like this:
...уг от друга. Судьба отм...
...ви и наизусть , я запеча...
...ть этот дух , включите б...
...еснуть , чтобы держат...
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Tiresias beamed as the memory of Miyako settled back in the classroom. They did it, they changed the past, she stayed! Did they change the past? Wasn’t it supposed to always end this way? The initial excitement died down as Tiresias struggled to remember a different reality than the one they witnessed but it seemed like she was just imagining it. Moments after the scene fades and she finds herself sitting in a bathroom stall.
As she regained her bearings Tiresias sees a girl, one of the transformed pass by her stall into the food court. The fight was probably still occurring against the Angry Princess, she needed to go help.
Tiresias stood up and searched the stalls for Chrysanth, since the memory they shared that she felt a somewhat faint kinship with the girl, when she found her she smiled.
Time to join the fray.
She beckoned the girl and left towards the food court just in time to see Juno absorb the hit from the now massive creature. She gasped as she realized that Juno was hurt.
With a swift motion the book was taken from her hip and now floated before her, she allowed more of her magic slip into the pages of the book as several magical circles formed behind her like a wall. She felt the magic pass through the book and curve back to the circles as she tried to give form to bolts of pure magic.
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Tenshi takes in each of the scenes as she passes them, allowing any feelings to settle over her... she feels like understanding the feelings is quite important, to understanding the dream. A woman chased by dogs is not always frightened, after all, and a woman being served soup is not always thankful. The thought was somewhat alien to her, but she acknowledged it.
「Very religious, or at least the family is. Something... strange happened here. Good and bad...」
She slips away, regardless, the feelings oppressive, and she felt as though she shouldn't stay. She presses onwards, and discovers the Russian priest. That felt... odd. She filed it away but pressed onwards, tracing the gossamer cord.
「Four Girls, Four Footprints.」 she determines, and braves pressing forward to this dark and dismal for-all-she-knows grave, to ensure nothing is down below. Tenshi reaches out to the anchor, and picks it up, following the strand back as she looks at it.
The man reminds her of the priest in the box. Which reminds her of the bible. She passes back by the priest returning to the dreaming child, to retrieve first the bible, and then return to the priest in the box. The languages expressed both in the amulet, and on the machine seem to be the same, and while she's unable to make out, either, she can certainly hope. She moves up to the priest, asking aloud once more, 「Is he a terrible man with a welcoming smile, or a kind man cursed with a harsh visage?」
'Perhaps, as everything, he is a little of each.' she thinks once more. "I don't know if you can help me." she says aloud to the priest, unaware if it is a dream, or if she is truly back in the arcade. She feels foolish, regardless. "You remind me of the man in this locket, and there is a girl who is lonely, and sad, shackled to this place."
She pauses for a moment, watching the man to see if he responds... or if he asks for money.
Seeing the man clad in all red, I instantly begin to swoon... silently.
I've never had this feeling before, am I just envious of that jacket, or... I want him. I've never wanted someone before. Maybe it's just that I want to be him. Either way, this character and his apparel isn't safe in my presence.
"I dare to ask who you are, and for that matter, what you are. More to the point, what is this pact of which you speak?"
Feeling May's presence as she walks over, I begin to feel more at-ease. I hadn't been sure leaving her to fend for herself was safe, and knowing she's nearby and out of harm's way sets my mind at ease.
Now, I look back to the monster at hand, and the girls leaping through the air in historical reenactment attire.
Not to mention one of them seemed to be a full grown man before turning into a pre-pubescent girl...
Through grit teeth I ask the man in red: "Tell me what I can do to help them destroy this fiend."
A film like rising dust gathers around the machine, as though the entire box had begun to vibrate. The veil parts and descends, and the machine cranks to life. A single bulb sparks and cracks, but nothing illuminates the animatronic starets as it comes to life. The speaker cracks, and a deep, heavily Russian-accented Japanese voice says: “Come, my child, and witness God’s Word.” A motor whirrs, and a slip of paper slides out of a slot in the machine. The paper is a small perforated ticket, something that would have been a ripoff at the asking price, like a horoscope, but rather than a fortune, the slip reads:
A girl can lose her way, walking alone in the woods.
The shadow of Satan makes a tempting cloak.
Few are strong enough to brave the cold,
and raise their arms for the greater good.
The tools of faith have grown heavy for her.
Your thread is beginning to unravel, now that you are at one end. You now have two directions to travel, both would presume to lead to the dreamer. One leads through a darkened room dressed in red silks, and the other through a snowy forested path. You start to notice that you have been holding these paths open. It wasn't apparent at first because of the immeasurable well of energy you were drawing from, but now you feel like you might be pressed for time.
Tiresias, The demon is dancing around your erratic bolts with ease, but it’s only because you are trying your hardest to avoid collateral.
The man raises an eyebrow to Hiro, 「You have your anchor in your hand, it only needs contact with your essence. Most here appear to have used blood. The words of the pledge will come to mind when those two requirements are met. I trust you to know this goes deeper than putting on a pointed hat and boiling some herbs.」Gripping the handle of his cane he nods. 「You protect them, otoutochan, I have to do my thing.」
Tenshi nods. She should probably know better than to trust a card given by a machine that was likely older than she was, but regardless... it said that the path to good would be through the cold. And one seemed awfully soft and tempting. She moves forward into the snowy realm, continuing to follow her tether... she speeds her pace, worrying that she'd perhaps lose her way, or worse, never reach her goal.
Sakura stands from her previous position on the floor and looks over at the creature as her other self rushes from the bathroom. She unleashes her threads again trying to rake the bladed fingertips across the beast.
Tiresias muttered several curses under her breath as she saw the beast evade her assault. She bit her lip and searched inside of her for more power to strike the creature, any little fraction power even if just a breath was what it took to give them an edge.
She quickly cicled all that she could find through her magic circles bringing them new life and maintaining a focused assault on the enemy target even has she felt her strength drain from her.
Naiad watches the distracting assault from Tiresias with a bit of a nod. Distraction is good.
And then Sakura's threads go shooting out at the nightmarish girl-demon-thing.
Wait... stop... she'll slice...
They attempt to throw a feeble wave across the threads, to strengthen them a little bit against an attack. It's more reaction and pulling from deep within themselves to try and help the doll-girl not get hurt.
They can already feel their guts binding from that effort...
Rushing into danger, both Sakura dodge and weave through the arcane lighting and attempt to rake the youma with her threads. The two of her dodge a ground-shaking stomp and a clasping claw and close for the final feint, but before the final claw can be dodged, the youma lashes up the invisible threads with her tail and pulls. There’s a weak rush of magic, a translucent wave and the suggestion of an anchor’s chain, but it seems Naiad’s magic is overreaching in more ways than one. Sakura is hit with nausea just as the threads are tugged away. She loses her footing, and is pulled into the air. Falling through the air, one of the Exquisite Dolls is en-route to the creature’s gnashing mouth.
You walk through a lightly wooded area along what appears to be a woodcutter’s trail. By the time the trail ends, it’s reached midnight, but the moonlight catches the snow and bathes the area in a gloomy ambiance. The trail leads directly through the small building, down through a cellar door and into a dirt-floored basement. Three chairs sit in the middle of the room which is lit by five candles in a circle of salt. You can’t read what’s painted into the walls, but it gives off the scent of fear. The roar of tanks and mortar fire rises in the distance. There are no people in the room. This scene feels profoundly disturbing, like watching a butterfly being torn in half. Something beautiful ended in this room.
The thread crosses the center of the room and continues into a solitary door that looks out of place in the rest of the architecture. Where the walls are built from slats of wood, the door is small, narrow, and made of black stone. You would have continued without a thought, but you cannot cross into the circle of salt. The room is small, and other than the chairs, which you can’t reach, there’s no furniture. You could go around the circle, but you would have to let go of the thread. What do you do?
Chrysanth comes to with a start as the sudden sounds of battle hit her. She rubs her eyes and sits up just in time for Tiresias to pop her head in and beckon her out into the breach. She follows behind and stumbles back at the now monstrous sight of their opponent. As all hell seems to break loose and magic backfires one after the other, worry grows in the back of her mind like a storm cloud.
It takes a few moments to realize her own magic was again acting on its own, following her subconscious thought. Dark clouds began building along the ceiling of the mall, rolling with black thunder, the ominous sound growing louder. As one of the twin girls was sent flying through the air, the brewing storm reached a fever pitch. With a bone shaking crack, a bolt of black lightning struck the creature, hopefully causing a distracting burst of agony and panic to save Sakura from imminent digestion.
Tenshi, unaware of the the effect salt would have on her, walks face first into the invisible barrier, and stumbles over backwards in a heap. "Kuso." tumbles out before she even has a chance to think, rubbing her forehead as she takes in the continued scene. "Four girls and a priest. Four sets of footprints. Three chairs. Two choices. One path."
'Two roads diverged in a yellow wood... shut up.'
She pauses for a moment, puzzling things out. Why on earth would salt stop her? 'Because you're not on earth, dummy. You're in a dream.' but why would salt stop her in a dream? She wasn't quite sure. The occult wasn't really something she'd ever been interested in. She suddenly wondered what had happened to her bento box with all of its salt... which reminded her that her backpack was also missing, possibly due to the transformation. Her mind snapped back. It was so easy to get distracted here.
"If it keeps me out... maybe it keeps something else in?" she asks aloud, to no one in particular, before finally standing back up from the floor. "And if I'm moving around in the real world, too... like it seemed, maybe..." the only thing to do was to let the string go and trust that she could grab hold once again on the other side. Or...
She attempts to slip sideways, once more. Still holding the strand, to move to a parallel dream that didn't have the circle of salt, so she could press forward, and then slide back once she was on the other side. The anchors were the entire point of the endeavor, after all.
The dark bolts of Chrysanth's lightning twist and scatter against the turquoise bolts of Tiresias' magic, and the food court is filled with sundered tile and smoke. The Youma flinches and shudders against the onslaught, and Sakura tumbles into her own arms. The two land nearby to regroup and think of what to do next. The feedback from the conflation of your dual attacks fills you with the dread taint of your magic.
Hearing the words seem to slither from the man in red's mouth ever so fluidly.
It was as though they had some sort of mystical rhythm, taunting...
There has to be a reason for all of this.... quija boards?? Summoning spells? something had to have unleashed this chaos into our world. For that matter, who was this man to insist anything of us; and why would we listen?
Shaking a little I begin to bring the quill up to my face, I part my lips slightly and stick out my tongue and drench the feather end with my saliva.
As a single bead of sweat rolls down my face, just as he predicted I found myself blindly whispering,
"A part apart; a fate undone;
By blood and rote, I seal this heart;
Bind this spirit;
turn the lock, and rise again to keep the watch...."
Hiro's pen burst with golden light, a squall of wind descending upon him as a circle is scratched into the floor around him. The energy is slow, almost viscous, and the lines of the magic circle are thick and crude.
this feeling, i've never experienced something like this...
Am I dyng or being reborn?
Feeling himself being lifted into the air by some unknown force, shimmers of light begin to spin around him. Spinning faster and faster the shimmers begin to force themselves around the different contours such as his hair, skin, nails, clothing of his body and sort of latch on right before bursting individually in unison to reveal a body clothed with light.
Mist appears to begin to gather from every corner of the room swirling as the shimmers did to form hair and clothing.
Revealing a feamle clothed in Mayan-esque garb with goldenrod ascents.
Nephele, eyes still closed seemed to glide downward with the wind as if the Air itself was at her every command. Being placed upon the ground, it is as if she was bowing geshia style to the being of destruction.
Looking up and upon the monster of darkness, her eyes appeared to contain the shimmers of gold that had tried to bind her...
"You..... fiend of the Mystics, are out of bounds here and I must rectify your presence..."
May being surrounded by complete strangers in a insanely strange place leaves her very overwhelmed she stays nearby when the man in red speaks but at the sight of Nephele's strange change she starts to back up to get a safe distance between them, she needed to find Sora and get out.
If the dream had been mildly disconcerting before, this was... she didn't know what. She'd seen the fake horror movies, and somehow, surreal as everything was, the not real that was the television was decidedly different from the not real that was being shown to her. She takes a step back, and starts to try to simply step back the way she'd come, in the less literal sense... but then closes her eyes and focuses once more. 'Control your breathing, control your breathing. Don't panic.'
There had been tanks, but there aren't any signs of them having been used, really. Well, besides the destroyed room. She opens her eyes and forces herself to focus on the clues, not the horror. She still has difficulty maintaining her calm, despite having had some minor success as an actress.
<Two lights snuffed, one fire still burns. But to rest, or to wake?> she says, before looking over the wall. She nearly misses the portions that she can read, thinking it was just blood spray and splatter... but then she does, and frowns.
Tenshi presses forward to the black obelisk that bars her path, and presses first a hand to it, somehow expecting to be pulled through, while clutching the amulet in a bonetight grip (leaving the gossamer thread pinched between thumb and forefinger). She took a deep breath, just in case. 'Her' feathers ruffled as her hand finally reached the black.
Your heart catches in your throat as you realize the thread leads to this closet, and does not provide a path beyond. You look back, desperate hope floundering as you see that the thread does not trail behind you. The sounds of destruction are growing nearer. You can hear thunderheads and sundering earth somewhere just beyond the back of the closet. The edges of the dream seem frayed and unstable, threatening to close around you.
The obvious options are to place the necklace in the closet, or take the other objects out. Unfortunately, while your expertise got you here, understanding this arrangement is outside of your knowledge base. You do feel as though the wrong move here would be worse than simply leaving with this knowledge. You can’t see very far in the wyrd directions of the dream world, but the scintillating light of the waking world can be seen, and you can surface, though you aren’t sure where you are in the waking world.
Out in the food court, the Youma roars with sinister laughter, shaking off the knotted lightning. "You children play with toys you do not understand. Let me show you what seven open gates can do." With a thunderous clap, she presses her hands together, then makes a series of signs with her fingers. Her tail lashes back and forth as a cold energy begins to swell within the creature's hands.
There is still time, as the magic gathers, but you all get the feeling this attack could do some serious damage.
Naiad panted a bit as they slumped down on the carousel.
See. You just made things worse. Take a nap. It'll be better for everyone if you Just. Go. The F***. To. Sleep.
Something makes them get up, though. Whether it's the surging magic screaming within them for some sort of action, or the wayward child in May looking more scared than a fresh sailor out of Basic in their first sea and anchor detail is uncertain.
I can't die yet, I haven't seen the Jolson Story. Where that came from is also a source of a lot of conjecture as Naiad pulls themselves along to a place between May and the horrific being.
「I just want to tell you all. Good luck. We're all counting on you.」
With grim determination the aqua-haired Magical girl stands, battered and clothes torn in front of May to protect her from any onslaught from the demon-girl-thing.
Naiad hadn't picked up on the fact that they were not bleeding. It felt like it to them...
That would be exceptionally troubling if they weren't Magic-addled and feeling the wear and tear of trying to do Way Too Freakin' Much.
Tenshi frowns... Looking to the displays. The necklace in her hands thrums with envy, but what do those not devoid of emotion speak of?
Just a dream... she thinks as she notes the lack of gossamer trail.
Coffins meant death. The room was intended to be sealed, clearly... But what exactly was it sealing away?
Each of these objects was likely an anchor... Or a part of an anchor.
She recognized each object as it was. The room had had sewing. Dancing shoes and make-up brush suggested a performance career. The ring, spoon, and letter holder likely spoke of her station.
But her station had borne loneliness... Decisions, decisions.
Ultimately, it came down to emotions and passions... So while she was in a hurry, she needed to make certain she was getting this right.
The ring was the first. You’re not sure how you know. It still beams with energy, untarnished by the fallout around it. The ring's glow flair as you watch, and frost begins to accumulate on the metal.
The brush had been the obvious next choice. The bristles are singed and mostly missing. There is almost no emotional energy here, no remaining spirit in the object. This one was destroyed very early on, perhaps by accident.
The shoe is torn, and the life it once held is lost to this world. You get a faint feeling of embarrassment, and an image of accolades, but not much else.
The spoon lies in a gloamy gel of energy that drips down from the display. There had been hesitation with this item. More was better; more protection, more power, but for some reason the dreamer sees this as a turning point.
You can see the nursery again as you look at the letter opener. The ivory handle is cracked, and it too lies still and cold. the emotions around this object are complex, and faded, a combination that renders them inscrutable. You do get a feeling, though, that while it sat on the bedside table, it was never used to open letters.
The needle was perhaps the newest, if the difference in age of a handful of century-old artifacts mattered when they came from the life of a teenage girl. It’s the only anchor that does not seem to belong to the dreamer. You get a sense of her mother, happily embroidering a small dress for a ball and at the same time desperately sewing diamonds into the folds of a nightgown. You can feel the needle still pulsing with the same hate that was on display in the basement.
As you said, the amulet thrumms with envy, though you’re not sure it started that way. It had taken time for the necklace to become an anchor, and its meaning had changed drastically in the process.
You pull the handfull of pastels from your pocket to compare them. You notice that the bright colors have all changed to that impossible midnight black, though the labels remain. This anchor is very different from the dreamer’s. Unfortunately, you aren’t sure what differences matter and why. The energy around your pastels doesn’t have a shape that evokes emotions, or a sin like the others. You feel the history, and the closeness, and the object seems to contain something, it just doesn't quite compare usefully to the other seven anchors.
There is nothing left of the dream but you and the small black closet. You have time to do something, if you dare, and float to wakefulness on the tides of your action, or throw yourself back into the waking world safely.
Tenshi wasn't certain of what she needed to do, but she knew of what she had intended to do. And that was to make the little girl whole again, so she could awaken, rather than being trapped in her unnatural nightmare. Grabbing as many of the objects as she can, Tenshi steps sideways - towards the dreamer.
Samurai growls seeing red at what this monster caused to happen, she launches her threads. Marionette Suicide!
Tiresias places the book back in her belt, keeping it floating in front of her was proving to be a bigger task than she thought at first. Both her hands now laid besides her as she tried to catch her breath.
In that moment the creature spoke and started gathering her magic. Tiresias looked around with a building sense of dread.
What to do? What should I do? That looks like it will hurt but I don't think I can do anything to stop it right now. I don't think I have anymore power in me.
As she looked around evaluating possible escape routes she noticed the water girl, Naiad, stand up even while weakened to protect her teammate. That display of courage filled her with a warm feeling of admiration and even some shame that she ever considered running. Instead she approached Chrysanth standing near her placing herself between the girl and the growing magic.
Kurosawa! Run for the bathroom, that blast doesn't look safe but maybe you can escape it and deal more blows to that thing when it's safe. I'll try to shield you.
As soon as Nephele sees the beast making symbols in the air with her fingertips, and knows now is the time for action.
A two meter long wooden pipe, carved along its entire length with solemn imagery of children in torment, journeying to the gates of judgement. A small bowl near the top holds a glowing nodule of incense, tendrils of smoke curling up and around a floating golden orb. The stem wraps around the staff like carved smoke, branching off from the staff near the top.
Nephele takes a long draw from the pipe, noticing the survents still mulling about in the background. As the smoke leaves the shaman's lips, it loops and curls round the nearest ghost, causing them to drop a tray of untouched drink glasses, and drift nearer.
Nephele draws a crooked knife from a free sleeve and holds it over the sacrifice.
"Ancient courier of the sky, Bacab, drop your burden on this unworthy beast."
You dive into the dark, clutching an armful of sacred objects. You can feel them, frigid in your grip, calling out to… something. The veil parts, and you tumble into the forested glen.
It’s dark now. The clearing is much less inviting in the light of the full moon. You can see the girl, curled in the fetal position in the center of the stump, but between you and her stands a man that is not a man. His presence is warm in this stark vista, and seems to give the clearing a sense of safety and homeliness; however, you are excluded from his welcome. He poses no objective threat to you, but he watches with a hostile, disapproving gaze. There is a resemblance between him and the priest, but here he is more wild, more eternal, more fae.
The dream world is tugging at you, rejecting you from its firmament, but you can still persist in your folly. The objects have spilled on the floor, and the moss around them browns and curls at their touch. The ring leaves a circle of frost on the ground which is growing rapidly. There is a distortion in the air between the anchors and the girl on the stump. What do you do?
Sakura can feel the tug on her own nerves as she draws out the threads once more and casts them around the Youma’s twisting hands. The accumulation of energy halts, but does not fade, as the two doll-like girls pull the two massive claws apart.
The beast cries out in frustration and abject horror as Nephele’s knife enters the ghost’s throat, and he breaks apart into dissipating smoke. Then, there is a crushing rush of air that slams the massive beast down onto the floor. When the ghost is slain, the rest of the spirits are shaken from their methodical stupor and stare at the girls. Some scream and run, some find places to hide, and some begin to pray.
The tide of battle is turning, but there is still damage control to consider. With the prayers of the ghosts around her, the beast’s spell begins to swell slowly. The girls who have transformed already are drained and some are beaten. They will need help to drive this into victory. Outside, the clock finishes tolling a quarter to the hour.
Hearing the slight mumbles of the ghostly servants Nephele turns now to the ceremonial smoking staff.
Glowing ever so brightly she begins to blow upon in as if it were an ember getting brighter with every breath. Exhaling and inhaling seem to fade as the orb itself began to shine brighter and brighter.
Closing her eyes, Nephele began preparing her counter reciting the chant over and over...
She attempts to contact Tepeu the father God that had breathed life into us all....
"Father Tepeu take their breath,
silence them till nothings left..."
Tenshi inhales slowly, and then exhales. She gathers up the objects, including the frigid ring, as quickly as she can. "Explain to me what's going on, or I give her the things that belong to her." she says, with steely and defiant determination. If she was going to make a terrible mistake, she could at least do it with conviction, she supposed.
If Tenshi is uncertain that she'll be able to make it in time, she'll try to return the objects now. She was starting to grow weary, and the poetry was becoming harder and harder to remember and draw upon, as each path she walks along seems to vanish into the void behind her. She had to trust that the objects were anathema to the dream, not a warning against what she intended to do.
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“I’m afraid I have something to attend to, ladies. You can step off here, or come with me, but I won’t be able to stay here much longer. I don’t know which would be safer for y’all, but I need to go further up.” The man releases the controls of the car to point up meaningfully. There is no third floor to the Mall, and you don’t recall the elevator having roof access.
The sight is just the nearest fraction of the horrors on display to Fleur from her front row seat at the balcony. The creature has been thrown to the ground by what looked like a fist of solid air. The steampunk girl from before and her twin are crisscrossing the beast with lightly glowing threads. There are other girls, it’s been hard to keep track. Five girls of various levels of demonstrated magic stand in the destroyed food court. re-destroyed? It had looked very nice a few minutes ago. There had been a guy in a red jacket, but he disappeared the last time you looked away. The two homeless girls are still in the elevator.
The ghosts, which had been performing their jobs like little clockwork dancers, have all stopped. Some have run, some have hidden, but a few are praying, and the energy the monster had been rapidly accumulating for her spell was being finished slowly… until it stopped with a hush of air.
The ghosts, which had been performing their jobs like little clockwork dancers, have all stopped. Some have run, some have hidden, but a few are praying, and the energy the monster had been rapidly accumulating for her spell was being finished slowly… until it stopped with a hush of air.
The ghosts, who do not look like they appreciated one of their kind being used in Nephele’s strange arts, have scattered from their places. Some have run, some have hidden, but a few are praying, and the energy the Youma had been rapidly accumulating for her spell is now being finished slowly. Nephele finishes a second spell, and the weaving takes its toll. There is a rush of air, and the prayers around the room are silenced. Unfortunately, the air around the two of you also vacates. Nephele can end the spell, or Tracy can transform and hope her new form doesn’t need to breath, but Tracy only has one lungful of air to work with.
May, something is not right. The light of the room swims before you and you can feel yourself losing consciousness. Your ears are ringing with the sound of the clock striking a quarter to midnight.
It looks like the new girl has this under control, and the steampunk girl from before and her twin are crisscrossing the beast with lightly glowing threads. The scales are tipping, and as long as this last spell stays halted, it looks like the worst is over. There are a couple other girls ahead of you, the one with the water attacks and a lost girl in white. The golden girl that was thrown upstairs seems to have moved.
From your perspective in the back, it certainly looks like this battle is winding to a close.
The air grows cold, your breaths rise in visible clouds.
You stumble forward one last time, catching yourself. You are at the stump.
“No… Grigori… it’s too much. Make them go away.” The girl tenses in her sleep, clenching and unclenching her hands. A layer of frost has overtaken the moss, and the girl’s lips look blue with the cold. “I can’t do this anymore.”
This close, it’s no longer a choice. The objects lift from your arms and make a silent procession around the stump. The distortion in the air, like the heat coming up from a boiling pot, is drawing something out of the dreamer and into the seven relics.
“I’m scared.”
The dreamer fades to nothing.
The dream world consumes you.
There is a terrible tremor, and the Youma convulses. Pustules ries all over her skin, and erupt into masses of tentacles. The threads are holding, but something horrific is bound to happen.
「Damn it... what did I do?」
'The wrong thing was worse than nothing at all.' she thinks, as she drifts to the side once more, not controlling the direction, but instead being content to simply float away for now. Away from whatever she'd just done.
May would be too busy looking for a safe place and Sora to really notice Naiad setting between them. She begins coughing into her mouth as she feels herself losing consciousness, she starts to slump to the ground and sees blood in her hand before she final hits the ground out cold.
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「Well... Those are probably not good tentacles.」
At a full loss of what to do, Juno stares at the horrific abomination before her. Juno was in no condition to fight; if she tried she would likely only make things worse. Her fate was entirely in the hands of a motley crew of complete strangers, and Juno could not possibly hate that more. She collapsed, her back hitting the tile floor hard but not even coming close to the pain her arm was experiencing.
「This has been a truly awful night.」
Naiad, to their credit, will attempt to grab May to keep her from hitting the floor, and failing at that, attempt to 'plink' her with some water from somewhere and then try to pull the apparently unconscious girl to wakefulness.
「"HEY! Hey! Get UP! On your feet! We NEED you! C'mon! GENERAL QUARTERS, GENERAL QUARTERS!」
And then the eerie parallel between their own situation and this swooning person's becomes evident.
Well, paying it forward works, right? Gosh, I hope so.
"A part apart; a fate undone!
By blood and rote, I seal this heart.
Bind this spirit; turn the lock,
And rise, again, to keep the watch."
And... I'm sorry if that killed you, but you weren't looking in great shape otherwise? Of course, Naiad doesn't feel in the greatest of shape right now, either, but that's besides the point.
The aquatic girl will act as a 'meatshield' for the wayward child in any circumstance, though.
Chrysanth was just about to run back into the bathroom at Tiresias' warning, until the monster fell and whatever spell it was trying to cast paused. She doubted the magic would stay contained forever. 「W-We have to find a way to d-dispel that thing completely.」 She stammers, 「I'm n-not sure if anything I can do w-would help.」
The body of the Youma quivers and expands like a souffle in an oven, rapidly loosing its humanoid shape. Masses continue to blossom into clusters of shapeless tentacles. One such mass opens up to deposit Tenshi, along with seven white stones, on the floor of the food court.
The girl is covered in a thin layer of mucous, and seems to be weak, but conscious. With a shuddering cough, she evacuates a thick black fluid from her lungs and gasps for breath.
Tracy, on the other hand, is beginning to feel light-headed for lack of air. The whole first floor is a near-vacuum to prevent the ghostly chanting from completing the Youma's spell, but Tracy is the only one left who seems to be bothered by it.
Juno and Naiad, the small cuts on your bodies have all healed in the few minutes since you were each injured. The broken bones may take more time, but you both are healing at an unnatural rate.
The lines that encircle May appear as though they are being traced by a protractor. Small figures write themselves into the corners like latitude and longitude marks. The light that envelops her is furious and passionate, rings of orange and blue fire circling through waves of white light.
Naiad, seeing that the girl they were protecting is on their way for good or ill to some sort of transformation limps over towards Juno, and winces when they see the majestic ruler-ish's arm all mangled like that.
They take a deep breath, and with a wince and a turn of the head attempt to bleed off some of the power of tides nearly boiling within them by using the wild energy to heal Juno.
Everything on a human body is eighty percent water. Control the water, heal the arm, make it whole again. It sounds simple enough, though they've been having a problem with simple of late.
Broken, unbroken, two states, just like high tide and low tide. Balance them out, make her whole!
Tenshi crashes into the ground, not realizing the dream was over, and weezes for breath. How long had it been since she'd stopped dreaming? Since she stopped breathing? Had she even needed to breathe in the dream?
Odd questions to think of. But her head hurt, and she didn't exactly want to think about it. 「Ow.」 she says, sighing, and rubbing her butt this time. She was going to wind up doing serious damage to herself by not noticing all of these things.
She notices her friend, unconscious, but transformed... and the other woman slowly suffocating. She looks to the transforming girl (does she look like the dream girl? Or does she look utterly changed?), and shakes her head, trying to determine what to do. "Salt!" she yells to the others, which creates a bubble of black for a moment. "Make a circle of salt!" She hopes she said that right.
Naiad, the trickle of magic you were able to send into Juno's arm seemed like it would be barely enough to dampen a paper towel, but the flows cross-cross her arm, set the bone, and close wounds without much problem. If you had to describe the sensation, you might compare it to pushing a round stone down a steep hill. Once the magic took hold, the healing seemed to take care of itself. If you make an attempt, you are able to fix yourself up just as easily.