[A dissonant sound of an off-kilter ticking clock echoed through the endless expanse, yet not a single whole clock could be seen anywhere. It was nothing except a pile of broken pieces, loosed cogs, shattered wheels, garbage as far as the eye could see.
Yet she could hear it.]
t-tick t-tick t-tick...
[It echoed with the sound of her own aching, thudding heart in her ears as she stared upwards to the blank nothingness above, lips moving as she mumbled to herself. Mumbled about her fate, about her father, wondering why he had saved her. Why, why, why was her life spared? Why had he gone to so much trouble to not just save the life of but raise the daughter of the most hated demon in all of existence?
But no matter how many times she asked, there was no answer. There was never an answer. There couldn't be. He was gone and if anyone else knew, they certainly weren't making a big deal of it.
Not that it mattered. Her death sentence had been handed down, she was trapped in this forsaken place, waiting the inevitable end that would make everything Shiro had ever done for her completely pointless.
It wasn't like anyone was going to save her.
... wait. No. She'd been here before. Hadn't she? Was the Bastion just a dream, hallucination brought on from being trapped in this hell away from Hell, or had that really happened and this was the hallucination of a revisited nightmare?]
Shit...
[She pressed hands to her eyes, grinding her heels in, but all that did was force spots to dance in front of her vision, but at the same time the ticking stopped, and was replaced with other noises. Like a rustle of leaves that didn't exist, the sounds of animals she couldn't see.
This didn't feel right. Like she was straddling some line between reality, illusion, dream and memory. She remembered Bon being with her, and the putrid haze of a swamp as the last place she had been, as opposed to the cell she was locked up in before winding up in that odd limbo of containment so many months ago.]
God damn it... what the fuck-- Bon?! BON!
[Her voice came out shrill, and she turned around repeatedly, desperate to know that she wasn't the only one in this hell. She couldn't be, right? She wasn't alone when that... thing had spouted it's gas at them.
Finally a form appeared, distant but there, clad in that cloak they had all been wearing when they came to rescue her from this place. But it wasn't Shiemi, who had been the one to come in and force Rin to see that she was still worth something to them all, but Bon standing there. His back was turned to her. Maybe he hadn't heard her calling out... ?]
Bon! There you are! C'mon, let's get outta here!
[She scrambled over the rubble and debris to him, but just as she reached him that already precarious rubble shifted beneath her feet. A noise not unlike a burbling stomach sounded around her, and the mess that surrounded her was suddenly no longer solid. It shifted, changed, oozed in to a growing, twisting mass that latched around her legs and pulled her down before she could even scream. It swallowed her up, and for a moment she thought for sure she was going to die in that disgusting mass of slime. The last thing she saw before going under was Bon's back still to her, having never moved, not even at the sound of her screams.
Just as quickly it was over, though, and she came out on some indeterminable "other side", breaking through the bottom of the mass like it was suspended in space somewhere. It didn't fully let her go though, entangling limbs he keeping her hanging just below it. There was a possibility this wasn't real, and she wanted to tell herself that until she was convinced of it, but the oily sensation on her skin, against her face just made her nerves crawl and her stomach twist. She had to resist the urge to retch from that alone.
She struggled for a bit, twisted and turned and tried to lash out at the tendrils of ooze with her arms, legs, even her flames, but none of it worked and it only seemed to tighten around her, constricting to a point of near-suffocation.
It was only when she stopped that she realized... she wasn't alone. There were other people hanging from the ooze, some feet away from her and obscured by the lack of decent light.
No.
Not people.
Bodies. Rotten corpses hanging with tattered clothes and putrid flesh barely clinging to bones, and where it wasn't rotten it was covered in disgusting boils, oozing just as much as the slime the bodies were hanging from.
... the rot of the Impure King. They had all been taken by it, devoured and left there to dangle for eternity.
It couldn't be! She saved them! She saved them all!
Another scream this time, and her flames lashed out, finally breaking her bonds and sending her tumbling down. She landed hard on something wet, an entire flat surface covered with no more than six inches of some sort of warm liquid. Whether it was blood or something else, she couldn't tell - it was simply too dark, but it didn't matter much. She forced herself to her feet, only to be startled by Bon standing in front of her.]
--Bon!
[Startled but relieved, she moved to hug him, never seeing just how blank and emotionless his eyes were.
She was stopped, though, not by words but by his hands reaching up and grabbing at her throat. She let out a choked noise of fear and worry, her own hands clawing desperately at his. Her weak voice pleaded with him, but it was as if he couldn't hear her at all.]
Demon spawn...
[His voice was distorted, wrong, even his Kansai accent was missing, yet his words struck her harder than any physical blow.]
Wh-...a...t?
You failed everyone. Nothing but demon spawn. Satan's brat. Useless.
B... on--... Ryu--... ji... please...
[Tighter and tighter his hands squeezed until she couldn't take in air any more. Her lungs screamed for it, yet not a single breath could make it past her crushed throat. Things cracked, made sick popping noises, and her hands fell away, too weak to continue struggling.]
Just die.
[SNAP
On the Skyway, Rin's body twitched and jerked. The half-demon sat up with a start, gasping for air as if she had truly had the life choked out of her. Her chest heaved, and tears rolled down her cheeks and mixed with the sweat already dripping from her face. Her vision was still compromised, hazy over hazy in the sickly orange smog of the swamp. It tilted and dipped in and out of focus, and she was forced to turn on to her hands and knees to retch, letting out everything from her stomach and then some before it was over.
A hallucination. That's all it had been. Yet Bon's distorted words still rang in her ears.
'Useless. Just die.'
No. No that wasn't Bon. She had to keep telling herself that--
Bon! He had gotten hit, too!
Turning, forcing herself to see past compromised vision, she found him not a few feet from her, still unconscious but breathing. She grabbed clumsily for his shirt, shaking him rougher than she meant to.]
no subject
[A dissonant sound of an off-kilter ticking clock echoed through the endless expanse, yet not a single whole clock could be seen anywhere. It was nothing except a pile of broken pieces, loosed cogs, shattered wheels, garbage as far as the eye could see.
Yet she could hear it.]
t-tick t-tick t-tick...
[It echoed with the sound of her own aching, thudding heart in her ears as she stared upwards to the blank nothingness above, lips moving as she mumbled to herself. Mumbled about her fate, about her father, wondering why he had saved her. Why, why, why was her life spared? Why had he gone to so much trouble to not just save the life of but raise the daughter of the most hated demon in all of existence?
But no matter how many times she asked, there was no answer. There was never an answer. There couldn't be. He was gone and if anyone else knew, they certainly weren't making a big deal of it.
Not that it mattered. Her death sentence had been handed down, she was trapped in this forsaken place, waiting the inevitable end that would make everything Shiro had ever done for her completely pointless.
It wasn't like anyone was going to save her.
... wait. No. She'd been here before. Hadn't she? Was the Bastion just a dream, hallucination brought on from being trapped in this hell away from Hell, or had that really happened and this was the hallucination of a revisited nightmare?]
Shit...
[She pressed hands to her eyes, grinding her heels in, but all that did was force spots to dance in front of her vision, but at the same time the ticking stopped, and was replaced with other noises. Like a rustle of leaves that didn't exist, the sounds of animals she couldn't see.
This didn't feel right. Like she was straddling some line between reality, illusion, dream and memory. She remembered Bon being with her, and the putrid haze of a swamp as the last place she had been, as opposed to the cell she was locked up in before winding up in that odd limbo of containment so many months ago.]
God damn it... what the fuck-- Bon?! BON!
[Her voice came out shrill, and she turned around repeatedly, desperate to know that she wasn't the only one in this hell. She couldn't be, right? She wasn't alone when that... thing had spouted it's gas at them.
Finally a form appeared, distant but there, clad in that cloak they had all been wearing when they came to rescue her from this place. But it wasn't Shiemi, who had been the one to come in and force Rin to see that she was still worth something to them all, but Bon standing there. His back was turned to her. Maybe he hadn't heard her calling out... ?]
Bon! There you are! C'mon, let's get outta here!
[She scrambled over the rubble and debris to him, but just as she reached him that already precarious rubble shifted beneath her feet. A noise not unlike a burbling stomach sounded around her, and the mess that surrounded her was suddenly no longer solid. It shifted, changed, oozed in to a growing, twisting mass that latched around her legs and pulled her down before she could even scream. It swallowed her up, and for a moment she thought for sure she was going to die in that disgusting mass of slime. The last thing she saw before going under was Bon's back still to her, having never moved, not even at the sound of her screams.
Just as quickly it was over, though, and she came out on some indeterminable "other side", breaking through the bottom of the mass like it was suspended in space somewhere. It didn't fully let her go though, entangling limbs he keeping her hanging just below it. There was a possibility this wasn't real, and she wanted to tell herself that until she was convinced of it, but the oily sensation on her skin, against her face just made her nerves crawl and her stomach twist. She had to resist the urge to retch from that alone.
She struggled for a bit, twisted and turned and tried to lash out at the tendrils of ooze with her arms, legs, even her flames, but none of it worked and it only seemed to tighten around her, constricting to a point of near-suffocation.
It was only when she stopped that she realized... she wasn't alone. There were other people hanging from the ooze, some feet away from her and obscured by the lack of decent light.
No.
Not people.
Bodies. Rotten corpses hanging with tattered clothes and putrid flesh barely clinging to bones, and where it wasn't rotten it was covered in disgusting boils, oozing just as much as the slime the bodies were hanging from.
... the rot of the Impure King. They had all been taken by it, devoured and left there to dangle for eternity.
It couldn't be! She saved them! She saved them all!
Another scream this time, and her flames lashed out, finally breaking her bonds and sending her tumbling down. She landed hard on something wet, an entire flat surface covered with no more than six inches of some sort of warm liquid. Whether it was blood or something else, she couldn't tell - it was simply too dark, but it didn't matter much. She forced herself to her feet, only to be startled by Bon standing in front of her.]
--Bon!
[Startled but relieved, she moved to hug him, never seeing just how blank and emotionless his eyes were.
She was stopped, though, not by words but by his hands reaching up and grabbing at her throat. She let out a choked noise of fear and worry, her own hands clawing desperately at his. Her weak voice pleaded with him, but it was as if he couldn't hear her at all.]
Demon spawn...
[His voice was distorted, wrong, even his Kansai accent was missing, yet his words struck her harder than any physical blow.]
Wh-...a...t?
You failed everyone. Nothing but demon spawn. Satan's brat. Useless.
B... on--... Ryu--... ji... please...
[Tighter and tighter his hands squeezed until she couldn't take in air any more. Her lungs screamed for it, yet not a single breath could make it past her crushed throat. Things cracked, made sick popping noises, and her hands fell away, too weak to continue struggling.]
Just die.
[SNAP
On the Skyway, Rin's body twitched and jerked. The half-demon sat up with a start, gasping for air as if she had truly had the life choked out of her. Her chest heaved, and tears rolled down her cheeks and mixed with the sweat already dripping from her face. Her vision was still compromised, hazy over hazy in the sickly orange smog of the swamp. It tilted and dipped in and out of focus, and she was forced to turn on to her hands and knees to retch, letting out everything from her stomach and then some before it was over.
A hallucination. That's all it had been. Yet Bon's distorted words still rang in her ears.
'Useless. Just die.'
No. No that wasn't Bon. She had to keep telling herself that--
Bon! He had gotten hit, too!
Turning, forcing herself to see past compromised vision, she found him not a few feet from her, still unconscious but breathing. She grabbed clumsily for his shirt, shaking him rougher than she meant to.]
Bon! Wake up! Please!