#now time to plan assault on anger bunny: with maidel and xrumon's funny music box

[cloudbattrolls]

You & Me (Part Two)

Jikiro Takami | Gliese Benral’s Hive | Present Night

The preceding drabble is You & Me (Part One).

The blueblood’s fear turned into a snarl.

“So what, I killed the lusus. You would’ve realized you had to do the same. I just got right to it, instead of trying to pretend there was another option to feel better about myself.”

Jikiro’s eyebrows raised.

“You know.” He said casually. “People like telling me that I’ll have to be more ruthless or whatever eventually. I don’t know why that’s such a popular thing to say; it gets kind of old after a while. I also don’t know why they think I’m going to wring my hands if I have to do some dirty work. I’ve done it before.”

“Whatever.” Replied the cerulean dismissively. “Just go away. There’s nothing for you here.”

The tealblood scratched his neck idly.

“Yeah…about that. See, you killed me, so I think I deserve a few answers. First off: what’s your name?”

The blueblood froze, her lusus sniffing the air suspiciously, his long ears pricked in alertness.

“Gliese.” she said at last. “My name is Gliese.”

“Cool. So…why did you really kill the lusus?”

“Excuse me? I told you when we first met.” She said, irritated again.

Jikiro raised a finger in objection.

“No, you said you didn’t owe me an explanation and threatened to chop my legs off.”

“Should’ve done that to begin with.” He heard her mutter, looking directly at him. The lusus continued to watch the tealblood, nose twitching, and then she spoke again at a normal volume.

“Fine. I killed it because I’ve seen an abusive lusus before, I saw exactly how fucking bad it got. It’s horrible in ways I can’t even begin to describe. Watching it was hell and I don’t even like that girl. Eichio…he’s a pain too, honestly, but who the fuck wouldn’t be with a lusus like that? He’s so fucked up, but now he finally has a chance to get better.”

Jikiro sighed.

“You thought stealing and killing his dad was the best way to help him? I do not want to know what it’s like in your head.”

The hare troll bristled. 

“Get yours checked, asshole.” She barked. “I looked in and I immediately looked out, it was fucking terrifying. I have dealt with the creepy overlord of undead before! You’re worse.”

The tanuki troll blinked, then snorted.

Hanabi had mentioned back in his hive, after Jamie had left, that his nature protected him from mental attack now…but he hadn’t realized it was automatic. Or horrifying, apparently. 

He shrugged.

“Don’t be a nosy little jerk rifling through my thoughts, then. Just talk to Eichio, he at least deserves an explanation.”

“What good would it do?” She snapped. “Do I seem like I’m great at being tactful and sensitive? I fucking know myself, I don’t want to hurt him further.”

Jikiro sighed, crossing his arms. 

“Eichio’s stronger than you think. You should at least try.”

The cerulean bit her lip with her long front fangs. She hesitated, her ears flicking as she thought.

“No.” She said after half a minute or so. “If I came and talked to him, who knows what’s waiting for me? How can I trust you? I don’t know you.”

The air was still, silence stretching between the two trolls as the hare lusus shifted beneath his daughter, his long limbs as tense as the atmosphere was.

Jikiro took out some ink and drank it, then extended a hand.

A cloud of darkness swirled into existence, surrounding the blueblood and her father as the tealblood ran over.

Skeletons broke through the ground to drag at his legs, and he gritted his teeth, rapidly drawing rough symbols on their skulls - they fell apart into piles of bones.

Cold. Cold again. Frigid, choking on frost in his throat  -

Then it stopped. All at once everything stopped.

Jikiro kept running, slipped inside his cloud - 

- narrowly avoiding the snap of the lusus’s large fangs as it tried to take his arm off, feeling its warm breath.

He grabbed the thing by the throat, ignoring its kicks, and drew a symbol on its fur to subdue it. It slumped, and he looked at the prone highblood on its back.

She had passed out. Why? The darkness? That seemed unlikely.

Jikiro easily plucked the small girl off her prone caretaker, and less easily choked in shock when she leapt out of his arms, stepped back, and ran him through with a long, bladed weapon faster than he could react. His thick, dark blood ran slowly down his shirt and pants.

“Nice fucking try.” She snarled. 

“Shouldn’t have done that.” Jikiro coughed.

A brief look of confusion flitted across her face before she raised her blade again, only to have the cloud of darkness condense and wrap around her in undulating coils, staining her body and clothes black as her arms were pressed against her body. Her weapon dropped to the ground.

Part of the coils returned to the tealblood, liquefying and sealing his wound. He breathed heavily, still feeling the pain of it, slightly bent over with one hand braced against his knee.

“Stop.” He said through gritted teeth. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”

The clatter of skeletons reassembling themselves and running at him was the only answer.

Jikiro quickly downed more ink, and climbed on top of the prone hare lusus, who hissed in pain.

He breathed.

In.

Out.

They came closer, jaws clattering, eye sockets glowing orange.

The tanuki troll drew on his own skin, covering his face and arms with a rapid swathe of symbols, and as the bony fingers reached for him, they all linked together - swarming onto the bones of one skeleton, then another and another until all of them were covered, the white bone only half visible under the swirling ink.

The constructs stopped cold.

Jikiro’s dark eyes glowed slightly orange, and he saw the blueblood’s widen. 

Then she screamed, loudly enough that the mage covered his ears, and he felt a sickening lurch as the air filled with cold and malaise.

He couldn’t win this, he realized, as he vaulted off the animal.

Not yet, not alone.

Jikiro withdrew the coils around Gliese and wrapped them around himself instead, turning them into a shield to keep the ghosts out - not for long, he could feel the press of hundreds at his barrier.

Quickly, he drew more symbols on his clothing, ink flying in his haste - headed not for the shrine, but somewhere closer, somewhere he needed to be. 

Again Jikiro was enveloped as phantom energy tried to drag him down - but his magic whisked him away, leaving not even a stain behind on the grass.

—

The businessman reappeared close to the lake near Viltau’s hive. He stretched heavily, but he was definitely going to ache for a few nights from that wound and the lusus’s kicks. Damn blueblood.

Yet she’d hesitated. She’d genuinely considered his words. He had been so close.

He could discuss it with the others later, figure out a strategy. First he had something else to take care of, something important.

The tealblood closed his eyes, focusing. He hasn’t used his power from such a distance before, but he knew he could do it.

He left directions in code on the kitchen counter, ones that would slowly fade to nothing when touched, so the reader had limited time to copy them down. When decoded, they’d give the first location of an arrow in the hive, which would have more instructions leading to another, which would also fade slowly when touched. 

The second would be harder to find, the last harder still - and when touched, it would fly off its surface and away, leading the indigo to where he stood. 

Jikiro pulled out his phone to answer business messages, ready to wait patiently; he wondered how long it would take. Then he paused and straightened up his outfit and his hair, throwing on a nice jacket to hide the hole his shirt had gotten from the blade (and as many of the ink stains as he could).

He smiled, knowing exactly what he would say when his friend figured it out and found him. 

Hey, Viltau. Got time to talk?

#cloud writes #jikiro takami #gliese benral #now time to plan assault on anger bunny: with maidel and xrumon's funny music box #ripple effect