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//Day 0 | Location: Nameless Forest - Clearing

Others roused themselves at Masato’s shout, some still groaning while others leapt up to their feet, scrambling for their belongings. The Ito twins, as Rin had understood, were quick to recover, rushing out from the front doors. Daisuke, alongside Maki and Fujita, took more than their fair load of discarded bags, urging others still weakened by the aftereffects of the crash to get going, while Kumi’s face transitioned from a sickly green to a mortified red when Yuki approached to help her, only to end up stepping on her vomit.

It had been a traditional Japanese breakfast. Miso, natto, fish, and rice, all chewed up and semi-digested, now a sticky, acrid mess that somehow even managed to overpower the stench of gasoline. A lesser man would have squirmed and writhed, would have been unable to hide the flash of disgust. But Endo Yuki? He had dealt with worst, and was happy to take Kumi by the hand regardless, leading her out to the back.

Mayumi, still trying to find her glasses, didn’t have a chance to act on the president’s orders before Rin had sprung into action. And as other students began filing out best they could, especially Shun who was swinging her hands like a baseball team advisor urging players to steal a plate, she resigned herself to being half-blind and scrambled out after the rest.

Kogen’s dramatics were enough too, to wrest Tsubaki out from the mound of cushions she was underneath. The short-haired girl yawned as she was pulled out, her free hand rubbing her head as if trying to shake cobwebs (or concussions) out of it, before the severity of the situation dawned upon her and the simplest thing she could say was…

“Fuck.”



But they all got out alright.

In the end, as Shun stood at the threshold of the back door, waiting for an epic explosion to jump out from…nothing happened. There was only a fwoosh of gasoline being ignited, before the front end of the bus caught fire. Oily, black smoke rose up in thick plumes, polluting the picturesque skies above. It had been an accident, to be sure, but as for the injuries…only superficial cuts and bruises were sustained. Some were woozier than others, having fallen down after they had all cleared away from the bus. Others had lost some of their belongings during the exit, though Hiroshi recommended not re-entering. Even after Shun had ate the bitter pill of disappointment, hopping off of a bus that wasn’t going to explode dramatically, smoke was still building up inside there, streaming out from open doors and cracked windows. Soon enough, the cushions would catch fire, and then, perhaps by tomorrow, there would be nothing but the charred husk of a bus.

Kumi was retching again, her empty stomach still trying to hurl things up. Of all those out on the clearing, only she could really smell it. Beneath the heftiness of smoke, laid the umami aroma of crackling fat and flesh, boiling blood and bone. The slight girl doubled over a second time, Hana rubbing her back with an unreadable expression on her own face.

No, perhaps, going by where she was looking, perhaps this was the first time in a long time that her expression was readable.

Gone were mountain roads and saltwater breezes, countryside desolation and rice field terraces. In its place, there was a cerulean sky and a hot sun. A forest of foreign trees, and a clearing of lush, uncut grass. It was nature, picturesque and untamed, unspoiled by even a hint of civilization. And, though no one really knew the how, the where, the why, they all knew the what.

This was the Otherside. This was what laid beyond a Portal.



“Well, Prez?” Daisuke folded his arms, looking down at Masato. “What’s next?”

Mayumi cast a glance over at him, glaring. Or squinting. “What do you mean by that? This isn’t school, Nakagawa-san.”



“Sit down, you two,” Tsubaki snapped, gesturing at the most obviously injured duo. “And stay still. Ayana-chan, look at my fingers. How many are there? And Ko-kun, hold fucking still. I’m trying to clean it up before you get an infection in your eye.”

“Dunno why you give a shit.” A familiar voice, crude and callous, sounded. Akito. “It’s survival of the fittest, Tsubaki-chan. Those clowns’re liable to get offed first when shit g- OW! Maki, watch where you’re going!”



“Heyo, passin’ by,” Yuudai sang, popping up before Shun. “Everything alright, Kanamori? Trynna tally up where everyone’s at right now. Emotionally and all. Ah, and...”

He managed a softer smile, gratitude dimpling his cheeks.

"Thank you for the shout,
But Nobel Peace Prize a doubt,
Poetry I..."


His brows furrowed in concentration.

"...seek out?"

...

Perhaps this was how they coped.

Perhaps they were simply made of stronger stuff.

Or perhaps, they were being willfully ignorant.

Of the children of the Otherside.

Of the monsters.


~1440 | PARIS | FASHION SHOW VENUE


A mesh of bone criss-crossed out like a network of nerves or blood vessels rather than what they truly were. Neither a barrier nor an obstruction, they served only to be caught in the deluge of tendrils that slipped into the gaps before splaying out. The net was torn apart in mere seconds, the necromancer’s magic doing little to dissuade the flower-wisp’s wrath.

But Edward only needed a handful of seconds.

For in the next instant, everyone in the room that had even the slightest sensitivity to magic could feel it. A tingling upon their skin. A tremor of truest power. Twas the wrath of the storm condensed, black clouds forced into the shape of a black gem, a weapon of destined destruction forged by the greatest smith within the realm of the dead. Today, all wisps would learn to fear him. Today, Edward was motivated!

“Witness my power!”

Arcs of electricity gathered upon the magical focus like a Tesla ball, before the invocation of the reaper sent a stream of power right towards the surging vines. They tried to curve away, to evade the blast, but what plant could outpace sky-fire? It carbonized instantly, green replaced by smouldering black as electricity raced upwards into the main body of the flower-wisp, before exploding with such force that the massive phantasm was sent flying back!

Back, dragging the lights down with it.

Edward saw all those entirely physical lights falling, falling, falling.

Upon crowds of people who just now were noticing something was wrong.



Dragon breath scattered against the Globe of Invulnerability, ethereal flame generating neither heat nor smoke as Vera’s shield held strong. Her sword was at the ready now, her bastion enough to withstand the skeletal monstrosity’s blast. Amid the roar of phantom-blaze, she could hear the crackling of Edward’s lightning, the accompanying crash and crack of ceiling and wisp.

And then, the ear-piercing ring of the fire alarm.

But all this, she could only hear, sealed as she was inside the haze of flame. Her defensive position meant that she had to wait this out. To wait for it to fade. Even if she knew, experienced as she was, that the act of casting ended before the effect of the casting. That a dragon breathing ended before the dragon’s breath.

By the time the flames scattered, Vera was already a step behind. The skeletal dragon had changed targets, about-facing to charge right for Lucian and Celeste, its jaws open this time to maim rather than burn. And stuck deep in a corner that the airhead reaper’s good fortune had guided him towards, there was no room at all now to get out of the way.


"Far more desperate. Far more forward." Words echoed, their fight stalled for a brief moment. Serenity narrowed her eyes incrementally, hollow light within the cerulean gaze. There was nothing pleasant about such laughter, even if Damon wasn't a blood-thirsting zombie. "You would compare yourself favorably against the common people of Thaln, yet ignore that unlike them, you were born into House Cazt."

Born to privilege and education, to mannerisms and the noble's obligation. To be an exemplar that common folk aspire towards, to be the paragon that common folk shelter before. And that was not a duty one was freed from in death, for their life has been blessed many times more than the son of a peasant, a merchant, a craftsman, a servant. If they were a steward of the land, it was their duty to see it flourish. If they were gifted the swordhand of a war-spirit, it was their duty to restrain it, to lash out only against foes of the realm.

Your Ancestors rest in the Elysian Fields.
Die they may, but forever stand as humanity's shields.

She would not understand Damon. Damon could not understand her.

So onwards, the shadow-dance continued, wind whistling and sparks clashing as steel met steel, boots sliding against cold stone, dust kicked up into clouds of haze with the blasphemed crypt. She could see it in his face now, curiosity and thought behind the veneer of a vampire-noble. But so long as he remained within the realm of a duel, she could follow along. His manual of swordsmanship was centuries out-dated, and as for herself? The lion was ready to try.

Steel sang its deflectional parry, the longer blade's tip flicked aside by the forte of the shortsword. In the same motion, Serenity released her grip on the mace, momentum sending the flanged head towards Damon's face without any telegraph. It wasn't a maiming throw. Just a distraction for what happened next.

A step to the side. A spin of the wrist. Shortsword slicing towards the extended forearm, angled so that even if retracted, flesh would be drawn against the edge. Free hand now, grasping the blade. Pulling at it, pulling with the intent of disarming a vampire who would hopefully have just had the tendons of his arm severed.

And if not? Then that was fine too. The more weapons Serenity discarded, the lighter she got.


Where Mel was quick to cut questions off, Yasu was totally fine with answering in the older cleaner's place. After all, Honest never turned on the radio, so someone had to fill up the silence! Why not herself then?

Sitting in the back, with ol' Niid stuffed between the two of them, the odd-eyed cleaner was more than happy enough to chatter on about all the relic-demon-books that were absolutely awful to read. There were self-help books that turned out to literally be a possessive, controlling parent in text form that would brainwash you into becoming a perfectly boring adult. There were stereotypical books of evil that tempted you with the power to summon murder demons (rarely) or sex demons (commonly) at the cost of your soul (wallet). There were books that would consume all the time in the day once you made it past the first three pages, forcing you down deeper and deeper rabbit holes of fictional lore and conspiracy. And of course, there were books that had pictures in them that once seen, could never be unseen. Outis was no library, but that simply meant that forbidden books could proliferate to all corners of the cursed city, infecting even the mindspace of the illiterate.

By the time the car arrived, Yasu was about one-third of her way through her personal listing of cursed literature, and she was the third to enter as well. It was building barren, but not dilapidated. Accordion music flowed within, a novel instrumentation in a time of synthesized beats, while the poster that remained upon the wall...oh, fun! 90% of what she saw featured some form of the 'first hunter', but then there were outlier posters in the last 10%: fat green men traipsing in swamps, rock bands with wild hair and wilder makeup, a swordsman sitting on a lawn chairs, slasher films inspired by childhood cartoons. She was curious too though, about the consistency of music, and while Emm and Niid did as they wished, the Tiger Cub drew her sword as well.

Polished to a mirror sheen, enough to reflect her mouth. To reflect her mouth in the infinitely-branching presents and futures. To sate what she wished to learn, from the Yasus that found themselves in similar, yet alternate, situations. So she mouthed those words, and that odd eye of hers' read the reflection in the sword.

'Accordion music'.

'Violin.' 'Piano.' 'Grand piano!' 'Some sort of plinking thing?' 'Rock. Classical.' 'Just screams. Human.' 'A wolf howl.'


Damn. She sorta wanted to see a wolf...

"I'll take the right then," Yasu said, sheathing her sword again. "Or, wait, Emm, we could just get your friends to do all the searching, right? Flush 'em out with rats and all. Ah, but Niid's already off...Cam, could ya go with him?"
'

//Day 0 | Location: Kuroshio Community Bus

It had been an ordinary day, for as ordinary a day as a monsoon could have been.

The bus, more crowded than normal owing to the unpleasant weather, thrummed with conversation and action. The Ito twins went over English flash cards together, fumbling over any word that was longer than three syllables. Yuudai, buzzcut already dried, teased Tsubasa over the perm that her hair always became in weather like this. Ayano, as always, fussed over the bags beneath Fujita’s eyes, her chidings much too affectionate for Kumi on the seat behind the couple, who turned up the volume on her smartphone higher but failed to realize that her headphones were unplugged. Hana leaned against Maki as the two went over their mock exam scores together, muted whispers belying the gravity of their academic situation, while Daisuke and Yuki swayed with the bus, challenging each other in a duel of core strength. Perhaps it would have been a duel for the ages, if Mayumi hadn’t marched past to get to her usual seat in the rear, where she could watch the happenings and goings of her peers. Others kept to themselves, flipping through their smartphones or going over their study notes. The day had been ordinary, and the day would be busy.

No one thought much of it then, when the bus driver, the sixty-three year old Fuchizaki Takechi, let out a strange sound. Barely any of them even heard him, in truth, so wrapped up as they were with the future that was encroaching upon them.
But none of them could ignore the light that swallowed them up one second after.



Disorientation. Discombobulation.

As if their guts were being rearranged, as if they were plummeting down a spiral staircase. As if they were detritus in the ocean, scrambled by incomprehensible undertow. They were sublimated by the light, atomized and categorized, abstracted into concepts of egos and attributes, before stitched together in patchwork mosaics. In one instant, they felt themselves amongst individual grains of sand, and the next, they hurtled through eons and galaxies, grasping onto the substance of stars!

And at the apex of that impossible high, they crashed. Dragged down by gravity, their substance funneled into the thread of a meteor’s tail as they twisted and twisted and dropped and struck! Bound into flesh once more, trapped in entropic decay, their stomachs churning, their brains aching, every blood cell rushing through their veins possessed with a frigid cold or a searing heat, their senses stirred to frenzy by mismatched stimuli for an eternity and an instant!

Then, they felt the ground beneath them stop, and felt themselves launched forth by inertia, the first real force that had been applied to their body since the light.

Some caught themselves on poles or seats, whether with their heads, hands, or chest. Others found themselves sprawled to the ground or upon each other. A lucky few had braced themselves and only ended up crushed a hard surface. A terrific crash sounded in that same instant, the bus’s windshield fracturing like a spider’s web, and then…silence.

The engine rumbled still, but now that old junker’s rattling was accompanied by the blaring of the bus’s horns, over and over and over again, each screech driving another nail in their addled minds. Groans sounded aplenty, none of the students willing to get up yet. A nausea overcame their thoughts, breakfast bubbling with bile to crawl up their esophagus.

But you. You could smell it.

The heady, intoxicating stench of gasoline, leaking out from ruptured fuel lines.

That was how accidents went, right? A terrible crash, followed by a slow-motion explosion.


That was a big frog. A sharpened stick probably wouldn't help here, and it wouldn't even feel a rock slung by a sling, hm? And it came from the sea too. Sea-frogs weren't a thing, so that meant...

"Yup. This isn't Earth."

Sofia fell over. First to fall, first to die, but her sacrifice will buy others time. Victor was giving out orders he wasn't following. Frankie looked to be hydrated at last, and disappeared into the brush. Imogen followed soon after. Prodigious size alone made it out to be the sort of monster that could swallow them all whole. Were those webbed arms meant to help it swim, or could it achieve true flight too? Did it come here, chasing after castaways, or was it a migratory predator that leapfrogged (heh) from one island to the next? If she had an oxygen tank and some sort of hooking implement, could she ride on its back to the next island?

Mhmm, yeah, Verity could understand what was happening. In the face of the truly incomprehensible, she kept her emotions in check through pointless musings. And as its six eyes looked into the treeline, she sank further down into the brush, comfortable enough with following in the example of the birds and bugs. Her breaths measured. Her heart pounding. A smile on her face, and a flicker of regret in her mind.

Oh, if she had brought a gun to her swim, imagine how great their food situation would be!


~1440 | PARIS | FASHION SHOW VENUE


There were plenty of words that Vera would say, of course. Plenty of sensical words, spoken of my a woman with more common sense than Lucian and Edward combined. But by the time her words reached the point where she was speaking about ‘a dragon, a fucking dragon’, that dragon indeed, did appear. It had, after all, followed after Celeste. And now, though it seemed willing to let Lucian in, Vera was a different question.

Vera wasn’t being dragged by the pink-haired ghost-seer-model. Vera wasn’t affecting the mannerisms of a cheese-chomping buffoon. Vera, instead, was being stared down by a beast with no eyes, and unless she was going throw that first punch, she could not get close to those two models at all. Ethereal flame flickered out, perhaps a warning for the uninvited.

But Celeste too, would have noticed Vera.

“Of course, I can see you!” she snapped back. “And unless you had actually faked your death and then somehow gained the powers of a prodigious wallflower, you’re definitely dead. But wait, so that woman over there is like, working with you then?” Gears were turning visibly now. Thoughts parsed together, spun into thread, thread that wove a story. The excitement bloomed further and both of her hands now grasped Lucian’s, as if afraid the connection would disappear if she let go.

There was something brighter in Celeste’s smile. Something zealous.

“You’ve died, and become servants of the Holy Maiden?”



The two stepped upon the stage. A well-groomed man with the eyes of a muddy lake. A petite woman possessed with an aura of professionality and pragmatism. Edward would note the hush in the crowds, the dimming of the lights, but it was none of his business. His was work that pertained to ghosts and dragons, after all, necromancy and the naturally-dead-but-still-floating-around-not-due-to-magical-means. The ghosts continued to float about, their advance towards that pink-haired model paused by the presence of the reapers, and yet not noticing Edward amongst their kind yet. Vera was facing off against the dragon herself, yet neither of them had broken the equilibrium of caution and warning.

It all laid in balance. A quiet balance.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement to make.” A soothing, confident voice. Practiced and planned, from a man who was born with a silver spoon. “Jeunes Fleures and L’ile aux fees will be merging.”

That balance was broken.

Even as a reaper, the necromancer could feel the surge of excitement rippling through the ground, followed by undertones of anxiety and fear. Two influential companies had joined forces permanently! A competitor had suddenly become just that much stronger! Goddamn, imagine the pieces they could create together!

In ordinary circumstances, this was nothing. But when there were ghosts present? That influx of emotion triggered something.

A twitch. A gleeful laugh.

The young child, clutching a flower-shaped bag to her chest, could finally remove it, exposing her bones. Bones studded with flower seeds, which sprouted and expanded, shooting upwards towards the ceiling. They snaked around the lights, but the rumble of discussion of the guests made them deaf to the rattling of the ceiling, and from those sky-lusting roots, carnations bloomed. The two remaining ghosts, shook from their deathly trance, tried to float off, but their incorporeal limbs were snagged by thorn whips, dragged into the back-bending embrace of the child.

Embraced, until petals closed over all three, sealing them in bulb of motley purples and oranges.

Cannibalism. The nature of wisps was to consume those who had yet to turn and to use that energy to further fertilize their phantom-being.

And though two were already being digested…there was another. One that had yet to draw his weapon.

Tendrils, laced with the ceiling itself, reached out for Edward. He could rip through one or two, perhaps. Three even. Four if he tried. He could handle a dozen at once with good positioning. But how many branches did a rosebush have?



It was chaos invisible to all but those who were dead and those who could see.

And the dragon, certainly, must have been dead.

Ephemeral flame, once nothing more than an illusion of that element, sparked with true power now, broiling within its exposed chest.
There was a strange woman, and a stranger wisp, and its bestial rage was enough to encompass them both. With a snapping that sounded like a lighter’s spark wheel, the dragon’s jaws opened up and delivered a jet of flame to burn the two of them alive!

…or dead, one would suppose.

“A true relic of the past, to be so blasé about intimacy with a stranger.”

And it was indeed, a vampire’s nature to justify their own existence. A rescue opportunity, at the cost of a Princess’s life? For the sister of a conspirator? There were oaths to be fulfilled, indeed, but Serenity understood too: the blood of a royal was worth more than the life of a peasant. Thaln could not function upon principles of equality, no matter the ideals of the church, the virtues of the crown. If the vampire had thought himself to be ‘good’, then it would have ended at the end of his own sword. Such was the might of an immortal nightcrawler, possessing strength both physical and magical that belittled the efforts of the mortal.

If Damon had considered it, and decided that he was incapable of it, then Fanilly was doomed to fall, alongside two archers of remarkable skill and a warrior who had yet to realize his goals. If he had considered it, and decided that he didn’t want to do it?

Then he was just a vampire.

But words transmitted through tongue and breath had no meaning now. Now, it was but the death-dance, one that demanded the entirety of her attention, no matter how carefree, how flippant, her foe was. And so, the world blurred away, elaborate statues rendered into grayscale shadows, brilliant walls made to vague boundaries. In that world, only Damon appeared in full-detail, raising his arbalest upwards.

The trigger was pulled. A heavy bolt whizzed past her, Serenity sliding one foot back to shrink her profile. The wall cracked from the force of the shot, her legs coiled up. He was fast, but she could read the starting movements still. The bending of knees into a lunge, a thrust. She had already become the smallest target she could, and with that, the trajectory of his sword’s point could be read as well.

So she advanced too. One step before he’d expect his sword to reach. The heft of the mace warded off his thrust, diverting it offcenter. Her shortsword swung under her leading arm and she caught the crimson flicker in his offhand. Visual guides to strike for. Vampires could heal. Weapons couldn’t.

The shortsword swung for the tautening string of the crossbow.

And whether or not it truly found its mark, Serenity finished her step regardless, pivoting on her feet to face Damon once more.






















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