2025-12-16: A Wreckage
- Cutscene: A Wreckage
- Cast: Shiryuu Ryouhara
- Where: A Basement in Hirasaka
- OOC Date: Dec 16 2025
- IC Date: Aug 26 2012
- Summary: A young man copes with his limitations. Meanwhile...
"The shirogarasu has disappeared...."
"Suspected dead. As expected of a foolhardy child."
"Be careful."
"The supernatural killer is no inferior foe."
"Even supralunar power is not enough."
"Even so --"
"-- Yes. A body has not been recovered.."
"We have spies on site, no one could have survived..."
******
The light fixture flickered, a bare socket with a bare bulb in it, filling the air with a harsh, septic buzz, the only sound in the room. It was attached to an old, ancient beam supporting an unfinished ceiling in the claustrophobic ten by ten room.
The frequency of the light hurt his eyes when he opened them, so he elected to do so as rarely as possible. He was supposed to be meditating anyway.
The boy was still wearing the same ridiculous five yen clown-pun t-shirt the card dealer gave him, but even in August it was much colder underground in a damp basement. Luckily, he was able to find a set of longer, warmer pants in the cardboard box sitting on top of an old, unplugged TV. Less luckily, they were a set of eye-wateringly electric blue fleece cargo joggers, with a thoroughly insufficient drawstring closure. The entire affair made him seem like he lost more weight than he'd had, and every time he looked in the mirror, the clown on his shirt seemed to judge him more harshly.
So, he elected not to look. To rest, as he'd said he would. To leave everything in the charge of his people. That would be the easy route, wouldn't it?
The harsh, vivid buzz left no space for any other white noise. It filled his skull with reedy 100 Hz droning, crowding out any attempt at any other thought. Any other attempt at peace.
Soft, aggravated sigh raking the air, the boy shot from the stained cot in exasperation. He padded barefoot past the three-legged table, upon which his effects had been haphazardly stuffed into a knapsack next to a wooden bowl of fruit, the only splash of color in the room aside from him. Getting all the way into his tiptoes, he tried to tap the bulb harshly with his index finger, causing him to be poradically dipped in pitch black as the lightbulb rebels against him openly. It was only until he felt his middle begin to ache that he dropped back onto his heels, defeated.
The sound was almost more maddening than the pain. It kept him from making sense of anything, from reasoning anything. A hand lowered to his hip, absently tugging at his drawstring. It kept him from ...
Kept him from...
The boy caught sight of himself in a mirror, a threadbare, skinny thing, trussed up in clothes two sizes too big and an inch too short, tied at the waist in bandaging, left arm in a sling to immobilize his hand, wrapped loosely around a metal grip.
Kept him from acknowledging the massive hole in his memory where the grandest aspect of his self-identity used to lay. It was almost like looking at someone else entirely. In his place was someone else. "A coward..."
That's what he said.
The boy's mouth set in a thin, pressed line. He turned away from the mirror, palm resting flat on the table. His phone was somewhere in the knapsack. If it wasn't damaged, a few phone calls would settle matters. It would be easy. But...
The boy looks just past the knapsack, just past the wrapped length of his sword, contemplating the fruit bowl all the while. He stared at it. Longer than should have been comfortable. Two tones of brown eyes regard the colors, the shapes. And settle on a single one.
"...!"
The boy moves. Not for his phone. His sword drags across the wood, temporarily drowning out that obnoxious buzz as he gathers his knapsack. House shoes slipped on like a shot, the boy was up the stairs and pushing the bolt on the door open with the hilt of his sword in an eyeblink.
The young man takes his leave in haste, taking the house shoes with him and that gaudy outfit. He leaves only the fruit on the table, a single apricot sitting out of place atop of the group.
******
"...You know the boy possesses the power of 'that eye'."
"He could be anywhere.."
"Even irrespective of that, we must move as if he is gone."
"You don't mean to enact --"
"It is the only sane way to proceed."
"The shirogarasu has not yet approved..."
"Neither has the sunrise. And yet, we do not heed that even when we can clearly see the morning come."
"...."
"Do not fret. We will seize the future, by any means...!"