[IC] Imaginary District: An Urban Fantasy RP reboot

[TheFake]

— Festival —

He looked at Hoshiko for a minute and then up at the buildings around them. They looked pretty residential, much like where he lived. Rooftop access might be hard to find and it would most certainly be locked. It might have been possible to have her pick the lock with her power but that would be a step closer to breaking and entering than he would have liked.

"Well, I could carry you on my back?"

@Dblade26@Raineh Daze

[Dblade26]

Dojima Tenchi

Tenchi nodded "Yeah, that seems like the easiest solution. That way all of us can get up there. In fact, I'll go ahead!"

Tenchi tensed up and gathered his strength, then made the leap all the way to the roof, still carrying the takoyaki containers in his arms. Once he landed, he had to admit that he had a pretty nice view from up here. It'd definitely be a great way to watch the festival. He plopped down to wait for the others to climb up, sitting back to watch things from above.

[easy modo]

The tennin, high in the sky, looked all around for any more people that fit the girl's description. A few more popped in sight, which better fit the clues that were given.

Then a sudden loud humming noise filled the air. The girl was startled enough that she briefly toppled and lost control of her flight, but regained her senses and shot herself once more back into the air. Makiko called her back down, however. Apparently, they solved the problem already. The rate at which the MYO did its job was typically rather slow, but it didn't seem to be the case today.

"Makiko-san! Already?" said the tennin as she landed back to the busy streets.

Suzuka tried to shake off thoughts of that odd noise coming from nowhere, but they would not stop plaguing her.

Some sort of premonition...

[VitaVitaAR]

Aoyama Makiko

Makiko winced when she saw Suzuka suddenly become disrupted and fall for a moment, before catching herself. What had just happened? The tennin always seemed to have good control of herself in the air... well, maybe she'd gotten a little distracted, or something? Regardless of what the reason was, it was good to see her land safely. Patting the little girl on the head once more to reassure her(though news of her parents had already cheered her up considerably), the scarf-wearing girl made a beeline towards Suzuka.

"It looks like we lucked out this time," Makiko said, brightly, "Ren-san must have been in just the right place to find Sayuri-chan's father quickly."

Speaking of Sayuri, the little girl was now looking up at Suzuka. The news that her parents had been located seemed to have brightened her mood to focus on other things a bit more.

"Flying onee-san is so cool!" she declared excitedly, waving her free hand as she did, "I wish I could fly! I could have found my parents so easily!"

Makiko let out a bit if a chuckle, unable to help it.

"Anyway, let's go!"

And then...

@easy modo

---

Honami Aoi

Aoi shook her head. Whatever that was, it wasn't the feeling of a lost child nearby. It was difficult to discern what it was, not when her abilities as a satori were in part sealed in order to avoid her being swamped in the thoughts of others. But she felt something, something that didn't feel right at all. In the most specific possible terms she could put it in, it was only possible to describe it as feeling like there was something warped somehow. Something corrupt?

"I don't know what it was, but it doesn't feel right," Aoi responded, a serious expression now on her usually-carefree face as she looked around quickly, antenna twitching rapidly in an attempt to pick up... well, anything. Anything she could. But with all the people around it was difficult to pinpoint anything from down on the ground. "It's like something, um..."

She trailed off for a few moments, searching for the appropriate words to describe what she had felt.

"... It's like something got all... twisted!"

And then...

@ERode

---

For a few moments, all the color in the world, in that split second, seemed to become inverted. A thick, black miasma of darkness, a slick and oily-looking tendril of energy, twisted towards the ground. When it hit the concrete, it almost seemed to scuttle and crawl its way along the ground like a red-black centipede.

It was searching for a suitable vessel.

The item it found was an unlikely one, a prize at one of the stands, a stuffed teddy bear. But almost immediately the energy poured into the toy, causing a surprised stall owner to flee several meters away as the prize began to convulse rapidly. Generally speaking, inanimate objects shouldn't be moving at all, especially like that.

The teddy bear's presence in the world distorted and warped. Spiritual corruption, after all, is a powerful thing. Just as quickly as all color seemed to have inverted, it returned to normal.

It would be impossible not to notice a now giant and very animated teddy bear, around ten meters in height, rising to its feet in the midst of the festival.

@TheFake@Dblade26@Lightning@Raineh Daze@Cherrywitch@AtomicNut

[Cherrywitch]

Kaminari Hotaru

The Firefly Maiden

Taking a simple sip of her tea, Hotaru would pause and lean back, looking as if she had just been stabbed.

Inugami noticed immediately, touching her shoulder that was visibly shaking like the rest of her body. "My lady?" He asked, near breathlessly. "What's wrong?" But as he said this, the priestess before him seemed to swap colors, darker. As he glanced around everything else had changed as well: red to blue, yellow to green, and then with a blink it was all back to normal.

The glass tea cup shattered on the ground as the brunette miko fell, holding her head in pain as a pounding headache blurred her senses.

"My lady!" But as the wolfhound spirit crouched beside the priestess he, too, could feel what was hurting her. A dark, disgusting energy that was choking with thick evil. Inugami quickly helped Hotaru to her feet, who was still gripping her head, as he raised his eyes to the towering stuffed figure of a not-so-cute-anymore teddy.

Hotaru noticed as well, pulling away from her spirit to open the pouch that rested at her side, pulling a red flute from the soft fabric: Heaven's Note.

"Inugami, help get the elderly and the youth away!"

The spirit did not hesitate, a dark smoky miasma surrounding him as he formed into a large wolf-dog appearance. He darted off, pulling smaller children and elderly onto his back before bounding off to somewhere safe to put them.

Hotaru stood before the possessed toy, placing the flute to her lips. Softly, a gentle but melancholy sound left the instrument as she played the Song of Fire. Balls of golden flame appeared around her, growing slowly in size until they were shot in a volley at the teddy's left leg, hoping to impair him from leaving this area and causing any more damage.

@VitaVitaAR

[Raineh Daze]

Mori Nana

The bear's rise was accompanied by the few police present in the festival trying to do their best to keep order and help people get away. Except for one. Someone had to try and take down the threat. Leaving it to the general public, and children at that, would be a moral failure. Out of all the police, it was the smallest member of the force that elected to try and take out the grossly swollen prize.

With an enemy of such size, it didn't really matter where Nana started from. Gather magic, focus it on the legs. Don't bind it so tightly as to leave the rest defenceless but use as much as possible to push far past human limits. A deep breath, focus on the landing point... and jump.

It was a majestic bound, taking it high above even the mutated toy's height. The reason for this soon became apparent: with an extra magical 'push', the small figure came plummeting down with leg extended. The resultant kick hit with enough force to knock the bear back and then--

Nothing. Aside from having sunk awkwardly far into its head, Nana's attack hadn't so much as scratched it. Hastily, the police officer pushed off of the thing, jumping back to a safe distance and landing beside the Youth Organisation member already at the scene. One that, a bit annoyingly, was taller than the white-haired detective. Though she was beginning to suspect that such a description applied to the entire organisation aside from her even-smaller cousin.

---

Mori Hoshiko

Hoshiko had just stepped forwards to take up August's offer when something caught her attention--leaving the tiny girl apparently staring straight at the nearby wall. In reality, it was more like she was seeing through the wall: the greater whatever magic was going on in an area, the more likely that her vision would notice it regardless of what the laws of physics might have to say about the matter. In this case, that meant that she may as well have been in a field for all that the wall obscured the giant bear from her.

"There's... a giant teddy bear attacking the festival?"

[TheFake]

— Festival —

All at once came the tingling across his shoulders that meant that something was going badly wrong. And then it got worse. One corner of his mouth lifted in an unintentional soundless snarl.

"I think you might be right there."

He put the crepes he was still holding down on the counter of the Stall.

"Hold onto these for me."

August turned back to Hoshiko and held out his hand.

"Let's still get up on the rooftops."

@Dblade26@Raineh Daze

[ERode]

What was going on? As Aoi’s expression became more and more dire, Hiraku could feel himself becoming tenser as well, the muscles in his neck becoming rigid as the satori tried to pinpoint the source of what she was picking up. Was it the thoughts of some gang members starting an operation? A recluse ready to go on a knifing rampage? The scale embedded below his yellow eye began to throb, and he blinked, his left eye tearing up from the irritation.

And, heralded by Aoi’s words, reality inverted.

The essence of a being was corrupted, and the land cried out in response to this supernatural infection. In his mind’s eye, Hiraku could see the serpent god watching the Imaginary District from another plane of existence, that bemused expression having not even twitched in the presence of such an insignificant obstacle. And yet, the extended hand remained.

Want it?

No.

Hiraku raised his gaze upwards once more, and saw it now, clearly framed by buildings around it. An obscene, bloated creation, it stood three stories tall, its size evident even from such a distance away. Wait, no…he recognized that bear from somewhere…

The blue-haired youth’s hand reached up, taking the teddy bear off his shoulder, looking back and forth from the toy to the oversized monster.

“Wow…” He lucked out there, huh? Smiling at how that giant teddy bear totally could have been flattened him into paste right at the moment, Hiraku flipped out his own phone once more, punching in Ren’s number.

“Yo, Ren, at the lost child station yet? Make a festival-wide announcement for me, alright? There’s a big ass teddy bear causing mayhem around the corkgun stand on…west side of block 81! Tell all MYO to head there immediately and for basically everyone else to evacuate! Looks to be a teddy bear thing, but setting it on fire would just cause a fire hazard and make that shit scary as hell. Cut along the stitches and just dismember it!”

He took a deep breath then, before grinning.

“Officer Himura, out! …Aoi, can you pick anything up? Is there more coming?”

[Lightning]

"Holy molly..." Ren said as the world seemed to go inverted. She looked up to see a giant teddy bear that seemed to pop up out of know where, it was the biggest thing in the fairground. Ren felt her phone go off in her pocket and instinctively answered, she was too astonished to reply to Himura. She shook her head and put her phone back in her pocket, she turned to the officer working the station to do as Himura said but they seemed to be making the announcement already.

Ren left the man at the officer booth to wait for his daughter, hopefully she was far from the giant bear. The Kitsune jogged toward the towering toy, people seemed to be quite literally "losing their shit". However, police were ushering the coward to safety, she could see her dad in uniform helping people and stopping the coward from stumbling on each other.

When Ren finally arrived at the scene she found officer Mori had already engaged with the monstrous teddy, she looked around to see if there were more combatants but as far as she could see there was only the bear.

"I got your back Mori..." Ren turned to the the familiar voice and saw her mom who was also assigned to work the fair. The officer did a couple hand signs and a dark purple magic circle appeared underneath the bear, a chain of the same color began to wrap up the bears legs, however, it only got about half way up the creatures lower legs. "I don't think this will hold for too long!" the officer called out to Mori hoping the small officer could do something now that the bears leg was bound.

[Dblade26]

Dojima Tenchi

Tenchi had to check to make sure he wasn't daydreaming or hallucinating. Was that...really a giant teddy bear attacking the festival?

It...definitely seemed to be a giant teddy bear, not that he would've believed that something so plush and cuddly could wreak havoc on the district before seeing it with his very eyes.

Tenchi looked down at Hoshiko and August, not yet on the roof, though he was pretty sure the giant toy animal wasn't very hard to spot.

"I'll stay put until you guys get up here. You're gonna want to see this before we go, anyways."

Well, so much for just eating snackfood and watching the festival.

[AtomicNut]

Shiki was not having a good day indeed. After some token looking, he had been unable to find both of the young girl's parents. It seemed that it was all for naught, as others already found the rest of the stranged girl's family. Now, he could resume his patrol... up until he felt a very characteristic chill down his spine.

He muttered under his breath as he saw the THING looming behind him, the mere presence creating chaos and widespread panic. Some of the MYO were already in the offensive, but as he quickly assessed, the stuffed cursed monstrosity was a juggernaut. He pulled out his phone in reply to the announcements that blared over.

"Shiki here. Will attempt to restrain and exorcise." He curtly shouted in the phone, before neatly putting it away, and drawing a summoning talisman. He unsheathed his sword so slightly, cutting one of his fingers, empowering the tag with his own blood.

"Go, Yamabaka" Shiki said, as in a quick motion, the tag exploded, materializing a red, well-muscled figure, who then eyed the bizarre monster with glee.

"OI, SHIKI! YE WERE HAVING ALL THE FUN WITHOUT OLE ME!" The oni brazenly exclaimed at the top of her lungs. "I BETCHA YER ARE FULL OF MOCHI!" The simplistic yet strong demon exclaimed, as she headed right into the fray, and attempted to clasp and supplex one of the bear's legs.

Shiki, on the meantime, had no time for the creature's japes, as he closed his eyes and clapped his hands, starting an exorcising chant.

[easy modo]

Luck was on their side today. One job done, without a hitch save for stumbling in the air and well, nearly slamming herself to the ground. Makiko the Dear Leader went running to the tennin, briefing her a bit more about Sayuri's parents' whereabouts, but possibly with a bit of concern about Suzuka's freefall judging by how fast the girl had run to her.

Sayuri, meanwhile, was doing what Imaginary District kids were best at doing the most: being cute. Normally, Suzuka wouldn't bother with them aside from giving one simple headpat, but today was a fine day to give five second long headrubs like Sayuri-chan was a lost puppy.

"Stay safe, alright?", said the tennin to the child. "Even you can get hurt while flying."

Cue teddy bear kaiju rising in the middle of the markets. A few people began flailing whatever they had on hand-- weapons, powers, food-- towards the stuffed monster, while others hurried away. Whether their attacks had any effect, Suzuka was yet to see.

The tennin locked eyes with Makiko, hand on hip.

"Okay, hm. What do we do with that?"

[VitaVitaAR]

Honami Aoi

"G-giant teddy bear?!"

Everything had felt so wrong, and it still felt wrong coming from that enormous teddy bear, but Aoi couldn't help but stare at the giant stuffed toy in mute shock. It wasn't as if weird things didn't happen in the Imaginary District all the time, but an enormous animate teddy bear was a bit of a stunning site to say the least. For a few moments, the satori was a bit distracted to realize that Hiraku had said anything, but she eventually managed to snap herself out of that state and refocus on the task at hand. Aoi had to help out in any way she could! Even if she couldn't fight...

Concentrating, Aoi's antenna twitched several times as she tried to detect anything unusual. Aside from the strange corruption in the teddy bear and the neigh-unreadable noise coming from the townsfolk, she couldn't discern anything else.

The yokai shook her head.

"I can't find anything else. That's our only target!"

---

Aoyama Makiko

Sayuri smiled up at Suzuka brightly, but that was all interrupted when the huge teddy bear rose out of the midst of the stalls.

For a few moments, Makiko's eyes were wide with surprise, but she quickly placed one hand on the hilt of her katana and glanced back over her shoulder at the tennin and the little girl.

"Suzuka-san, try and get Sayuri-chan to the lost child's station as quickly as you can, and then come back!" Makiko declared, as she noticed the huge teddy bear stumble briefly. She could already see some people were attacking it, good! "We're going to stop it before it can do any serious damage!"

She gave the tennin and the frightened little girl a bright smile, before her attention returned to the enormous stuffed toy rather quickly. The ofuda pinned to the inside of her skirt let out a faint reddish glow, and she felt power flow into her legs. With that, she was off like a rocket, heading right for the massive and strange monster.

---

The teddy bear quickly rebounded from the kick to its soft and fuzzy head. The kick had done... basically nothing aside from slightly delay its move forward, as it took a step to begin advancing. No sooner then it had, however, then did golden flames erupt up its leg, scorching the artificial fuzz. Wordlessly, it raised one soft arm and swung it downwards in a bid to disrupt its attackers. And then... chains up its other leg? The teddy tugged, the chains already straining, but they managed to hold for now.

Expressionless, as would be expected from a stuffed toy, the teddy kept attempting to move as the oni suddenly grasped one of its legs, forcing it to steady itself as it was shifted. While no serious damage had been done yet, the advancing threat was for now rendered immobile.

@Cherrywitch@easy modo@AtomicNut@Dblade26@Lightning@ERode@TheFake@Raineh Daze

[ERode]

So that was the only target? Hiraku let out a sigh of relief. Great, if it was just an over-sized teddy bear, and if everyone actually took heed of his advice, they shouldn’t be having any problems at all dealing with this fluffy threat. He could relax then. Everyone else could handle this.

That was, of course, until he saw golden flames erupt from somewhere.

Ah.

“Well, whatever,” he shrugged helplessly, “Guess we can just be cheerleaders or something, Aoi. Hopefully they don’t set any stalls on fire.”
@VitaVitaAR

[Cherrywitch]

Kaminari Hotaru

The Firefly Maiden

Hotaru moved her mouth away from the piece on the flute, looking with wide eyes as other attackers flooded in. The priestess could barely recognize them. From the youth organization? Yes, that seemed right. Hotaru herself had never asked about the organization or joining it, but she had indirectly helped them fight off twisted spirits before if she remembered correctly.

It was then that Inugami returned, the wolfhound spirit shaking out his fur as he came to a stop beside the miko. "The elderly and youth have been taken away from the immediate area. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. I need your help still, hold on."

From her belt, Hotaru ripped a piece of paper and an ink brush. With a few swoops of the brush, the paper was revealed to be a talisman, and as she threw it into the air a golden glow surrounded it.

"The spirit of the water snake, I ask for your assistance. Nure, I summon you to my side!"

Immediately as the incantation ended, the glowing of the talisman twisted and expanded into the shape of a lithe man, he landing on the ground as the light refracted away in shattering pieces. Nure stood straight, flashing a loving wink at the brunette who summoned him. "You called, beautiful? I knew you would get bored with the mutt~"

Almost immediately, the wolfhound growled offensively at the sparkly handsome man, fur bristling. "Stupid snake..."

But Hotaru shot out a hand, as if to hold back the menancing canine spirit. "There's no time for fighting, you two! The bear's legs are bound, but not its arms. I need you both to restrain them so he can't cause any more damage while I try and exorcise him. Can you do that?"

Nure slipped over beside her, getting much closer than needed to give her a hug around the shoulders. "I don't know about muttly, but I can certainly do that for my favorite girl~!"

"Be silent, you pervert and come help me."
"See, this is why girls like me better!"

The handsome blonde formed into a huge white snake, hissing and curling as the green eyes flashed at Inugami. The two spirits went forward, charging at the teddy.

Nure twisted up the right side to the bear's arm, binding his snake body around the stuffed appendage tight, keeping it restrained against the bear's own body. Meanwhile, Inugami leaped up the sides of the buildings before attacking the teddy's left arm, sinking his claws and teeth into the stuffing and holding it firmly against the bear's side. Whether they would succeed in holding down the animated limbs on their own was unclear, the best they could do was cross their fingers and hope Ted didn't get a sudden burst of strength.

Hotaru gave an approving nod, lifting the mouthpiece of Heaven's Note back upon her lips. Using a simple talisman or prayer might not work on such a powerful entity, even if its physical inhabitant was bound. She first would have to dilute its spiritual strength with the Song of Purity. That should cleanse the evil from the bear and might even make the spirit show itself.

She played the notes of the song, and as she did a golden aura surrounded her feet and pulsed outwards. As soon as it hit the bear's bound feet, the light encircled the teddy, and began to glow brighter gold under him. A warm, soft light that would attempt to purify the evil spirit.

@VitaVitaAR

[easy modo]

Run, or fly. Fly, or run. Would it be safe to fly while carrying a little child? Or would they rather run around by foot?

Nah, fuck running, thought Suzuka as she recalled the girl's cheery "I wish I could fly!" earlier. The tennin quickly lifted grabbed Sayuri into a princess-carry, and she was quick to rocket out of the scene. Never mind that Sayuri gets second thoughts, but Suzuka better get this done quick and without hassle.

Suzuka and Sayuri floated high in the air, and a little up ahead was the place where the lost child station was. The giant teddy bear was fortunately a little far from where they are and where they were going, but they're probably dead if it breaks free and chases them first.

[TheFake]

— Festival Rooftops —

The had to move fast so he lifted Hoshiko up onto his back and scaled the building. It would have been nice if he could have jumped that high but it just wasn't possible in his human form. On the roof he put the girl down and turned to survey the disturbance with his own eyes.

"Stay here."

He began to walk across the roof, in the instance between one step and the next he changed, seemingly instantly, into a massive wolfhound. A low, rumbling growl emanated from him that reverberated in the chest like the bass at a concert. He picked up the pace and leapt to the next building.

[AtomicNut]

"KEKEKEKE, YER A FEISTY ONE!" Yamabaka exclaimed, as she kept her grip stubbornly, her shark grin as wide as the country of Japan. This was so much fun! And that fop of her master had made her lose all of this. She'd have to scold him once this kind of fun was over. Or perhaps not. She was having fun, right?

Shiki's concentration wavered so slightly as he opened one of his eyes, still chanting his exorcism ritual? So more people with spiritual powers were coming? That was reassuring. A priestess with her own share of summons... Had he seen her somewhere before? Well, it was not important. As the chaos raged, it was important to steel his concentration. He drew his exorcism tags, as he sent them flying against the bear, his raspy voice becoming an ominous chorus, as he intensified his own attempt at exorcism aswell.

[Dblade26]

Dojima Tenchi

Tenchi followed after August, leaping from rooftop to rooftop with casual ease. There was an ever present problem if Tenchi was going to fight for real though. There was too much to worry about with his powers. He wasn't sure he felt comfortable using them at their full potential unless they had a backup plan, but he had no idea what he could possibly do to prevent them from running wild on the off chance that he was pushed too hard in the ensuing fight...

Luckily, he spied someone in a familiar and specific form of dress getting involved in the fight against the giant possessed Teddy Bear, giving off exactly the sort of aura he needed to keep himself under control. He dropped down from the sky with a much less dramatic landing this time around and spoke up to make himself be heard over the din of battle.

"Um, excuse me! Miss Shrine Maiden!" Tenchi had seen the girl and her familiars around during a few crises, but couldn't recall Hotaru's name during the ruckus and stress of the moment.

"You're capable of sealing away evil energies aren't you? Well...I mean pretty obviously yeah, you're kind of busy doing that right now, in fact, right? But um...that's not the point...what I mean is...um..."

Tenchi realized he was babbling in an attempt to delay the inevitable.

"Please, stop me if this goes wrong!"

Tenchi grabbed a bit of loose bandaging around his hand and tugged hard on it, unraveling the bandages around his arm and letting several sealing ofuda that had been tucked into the wrappings fall out. His now-freed arm immediately began to pulse red and black, revealing itself as an inhuman construct made entirely of demonic energies. Wanting to get this over with quickly, Tenchi charged the gigantic bear, ready to wallop it with the full power of his arm's physically strongest form.

@Cherrywitch
@TheFake

[VitaVitaAR]

Honami Aoi

"Um, shouldn't we help somehow though?" Aoi asked, looking up at the boy with her antenna twitching. She couldn't fight, but it didn't seem right to just stay back... she shifted from one foot to another, frowning slightly as she did. What, exactly, had caused the teddy bear to become giant and aggressive? After a few moments, her antenna twitched again. Something else was there too, that fading feeling of terrible corruption...

"... Hiraku-san, help me get up somewhere high!" Aoi declared, waving her hands in the air.

---

Aoyama Makiko

The teddy bear reeled. Multiple impacts across its body, one of its arms bound to its side by a snake, its body under attack from multiple angles, its feet secured... swayed from a sudden, sharp impact from the hanyou's fist, too, only unable to fall due to its immobile legs. Needless to say, the enormous stuffed toy was not in a good position to fight back. Still, with its remaining free arm, it attempted to raise up for a strike...

The ofuda attached to Makiko's skirt blazed red, her form blurring as the power in her legs was boosted several times, greatly enhancing her speed. Her scarf fluttered behind her, and as she placed a hand on the hilt of her katana. Red mana leaked from around her hand as she drew the blade in a flash... and lept.

When she landed, she sheathed her katana.

Behind her, the teddy bear's arm fell away at the seam. The light poured up its body, too, intent on driving out the strange force that had entered the toy. Satisfied with how cool her entrance had been, Makiko turned on her heel to look up at the enormous creature... but wait.

Something was wrong.

"Eh? There's something-"

From the severed hole of its arm, an enormous, shadowy from erupted. Twitching legs sprouted from it, flailing. It looked like a centipede.

Kegare.

The purifying spells were driving it out, but it wasn't done yet...!

---

Sayuri, meanwhile, was not entirely prepared for the sudden liftoff into the air. For a moment she was surprised, and even a little scared, as she was carried higher and higher, trembling slightly... but as the sensation of weightless, of being so high up, began to get to her, any fear faded into excitement. Even the giant teddy bear was forgotten to now, as the little girl stretched her arms out like a pair of wings.

@Cherrywitch@easy modo@AtomicNut@Dblade26@Lightning@ERode@TheFake@Raineh Daze