(how much is) that monster in the window [fuuyuko+iko]
Jun 30, 2016 10:59:15 GMT -5
Hope, Iko, and 3 more like this
Post by Fuuyuko Suwa on Jun 30, 2016 10:59:15 GMT -5
There's a small gash and a throbbing welt on Fuuyuko's head when she wakes up. Handcuffs on her wrists, too. Stuff comes back to her in fragments; breathless running (running into the forest), other people (twenty, maybe, including herself), monsters closing in behind them. No need to explain the handcuffs; she remembers full well how that happened.
She gets up when she's ready to move--when the last bits of yelling in the distance cease--and dislodges her right foot from a root. Fuuyuko starts to walk, but it's not long--ten minutes, perhaps--before she stops. Someone laying in the path. Through the matted blood, she recognizes the pattern of the dirty kimono. One of the women that'd been running next to her. She'd met her before the stampede, saw this tall woman pulling bodies out of rubble. They'd exchanged names after clearing out a few houses together.
A dead person can't be left like this. Even if the world is ending.
Fat woman--or maybe Fuuyuko is just weak. Hoisting her over to a tree and setting her up against it takes longer than expected. After that, grabbing one palm at a time, Fuuyuko gathers and lays the dead woman's hands on her dead woman lap. They're tense, so it doesn't exactly look right. She's no lady of combat, but Fuu recognizes that tension. This woman went down swinging. Good for her. Not a spiritual girl either, but Fuu prays whatever it was is walking around with at least one decent gash.
She (cautiously, at first) tries smoothing the rictus away. Not a tendon gives, not even after applying more pressure; the blood and the flesh and the bone have set. Fuuyuko does nothing more, clinging to those cold hands by their dirt-packed fingernails, and when she--finally--lets go, they are respectfully, gently placed back upon their owner's thighs. Then, unholstering her dagger with both hands on the handle, she leans above the body.
Wood shavings snow down on the deceased's head. Splinters settle in the hair. A gentle breath follows, a fleshy thumb wiping over the engravement; Fuuyuko, somber-faced, is examining her work. The tree carving reads Yasuko. It's spelled with the wrong characters. But in Fuuyuko Suwa's whole life, from fish to the violent younglings of 71st District, it's her best use of a dagger. And besides, what use is a piece of weak-held steel against a monster? Nothing. Might as well go into the fight wielding sharp fingernails.
Fuu stands up, still clutching her blade-turned-writing instrument between two hands, and jams steel deep into the tree trunk.
And that's where it'll stay.
--
Fuuyuko constructed a memorial out of every body and nearby tree she found. Most people--all Rukongai citizens--fell without a blade in their possession; so, she uses the tip of her parasol and (eventually) scratches the date on the tree, for that's only what is known about them. A Shinigami, a young girl she'd found with red pulsing out of punctures in her throat, is the only other soul to get their name engraved. Fuuyuko took up her sword--one of the generics, freshly-issued and catching the sparse canopy light, she couldn't have killed a single thing with it--leaning over the body as done before, and that body opened her eyes, and those eyes looked right up at her. They were the fiercest blue.
The only thing Fuuyuko could do was ask what they called her. And the only thing the girl could do, at that point, was whisper.
She left the sword resting against the tree, next to the owner.
Fuuyuko found the next dead body with eyes open. She had to brush his lids down over eyes so brown, and so lined, so narrow, and so much like Tomie Magahara's that it made her heart hurt and her eyes run wet. Of all the things to cry about, this is the one. This is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Her tears aren't wholly parented by tragedy; she's walking faster, the force with which she wipes at snot and tears leaves her skin red. There's frustration behind them.
These were people, and they may not have been strong or smart or whatever other desirable trait that people use to determine worth, and they weren't just like you, but. In a way, they were. They were the hero in their own story and one of many cameos in yours; just as you're someone's background extra, someone's face passed on the sidewalk. They thought sherbet was spelled with an "r", they held a strong opinion about the sound cicadas make at dusk. They already had meaning before they were the inevitable stastic in the Seireitei-issued report of total damage caused. That awfully large number that Shinigami will be roused by. A reason to take up the sword and the spell for talented Rukongai souls. You can't live safely as a soldier, nor can you live safely as a civilian.
All the heroes risen from the ashes today? They won't change a thing. They won't make the 70th districts, the 60th, the 22nd District any less prone to mass events of death and misery. Souls like Fuuyuko will always just be someone's reason to aim for a better seat, or more power. Another powerful person who will change absolutely nothing about how the world works and how the meek live. Or even worse; someone who'll make it much tougher to live peacefully.
She knows she'll come across another soul before she leaves the forest. And she does. Immediately.
Though, this one appears to be. A puppy?
She's never seen a pup like that, but it has all the hallmarks of one. Fluffy paws, wagging tail, drool-soaked maw. Fuuyuko Suwa stands roughly ten feet away from it, she herself wet of cheek and dirt-soled, heaving for breath in between sobs. Her lips tremble. She sinks to her knees, patting the caps of them with her hands. Handcuffs jingling.
"C'mere."
She gets up when she's ready to move--when the last bits of yelling in the distance cease--and dislodges her right foot from a root. Fuuyuko starts to walk, but it's not long--ten minutes, perhaps--before she stops. Someone laying in the path. Through the matted blood, she recognizes the pattern of the dirty kimono. One of the women that'd been running next to her. She'd met her before the stampede, saw this tall woman pulling bodies out of rubble. They'd exchanged names after clearing out a few houses together.
A dead person can't be left like this. Even if the world is ending.
Fat woman--or maybe Fuuyuko is just weak. Hoisting her over to a tree and setting her up against it takes longer than expected. After that, grabbing one palm at a time, Fuuyuko gathers and lays the dead woman's hands on her dead woman lap. They're tense, so it doesn't exactly look right. She's no lady of combat, but Fuu recognizes that tension. This woman went down swinging. Good for her. Not a spiritual girl either, but Fuu prays whatever it was is walking around with at least one decent gash.
She (cautiously, at first) tries smoothing the rictus away. Not a tendon gives, not even after applying more pressure; the blood and the flesh and the bone have set. Fuuyuko does nothing more, clinging to those cold hands by their dirt-packed fingernails, and when she--finally--lets go, they are respectfully, gently placed back upon their owner's thighs. Then, unholstering her dagger with both hands on the handle, she leans above the body.
Wood shavings snow down on the deceased's head. Splinters settle in the hair. A gentle breath follows, a fleshy thumb wiping over the engravement; Fuuyuko, somber-faced, is examining her work. The tree carving reads Yasuko. It's spelled with the wrong characters. But in Fuuyuko Suwa's whole life, from fish to the violent younglings of 71st District, it's her best use of a dagger. And besides, what use is a piece of weak-held steel against a monster? Nothing. Might as well go into the fight wielding sharp fingernails.
Fuu stands up, still clutching her blade-turned-writing instrument between two hands, and jams steel deep into the tree trunk.
And that's where it'll stay.
--
Fuuyuko constructed a memorial out of every body and nearby tree she found. Most people--all Rukongai citizens--fell without a blade in their possession; so, she uses the tip of her parasol and (eventually) scratches the date on the tree, for that's only what is known about them. A Shinigami, a young girl she'd found with red pulsing out of punctures in her throat, is the only other soul to get their name engraved. Fuuyuko took up her sword--one of the generics, freshly-issued and catching the sparse canopy light, she couldn't have killed a single thing with it--leaning over the body as done before, and that body opened her eyes, and those eyes looked right up at her. They were the fiercest blue.
The only thing Fuuyuko could do was ask what they called her. And the only thing the girl could do, at that point, was whisper.
She left the sword resting against the tree, next to the owner.
Fuuyuko found the next dead body with eyes open. She had to brush his lids down over eyes so brown, and so lined, so narrow, and so much like Tomie Magahara's that it made her heart hurt and her eyes run wet. Of all the things to cry about, this is the one. This is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Her tears aren't wholly parented by tragedy; she's walking faster, the force with which she wipes at snot and tears leaves her skin red. There's frustration behind them.
These were people, and they may not have been strong or smart or whatever other desirable trait that people use to determine worth, and they weren't just like you, but. In a way, they were. They were the hero in their own story and one of many cameos in yours; just as you're someone's background extra, someone's face passed on the sidewalk. They thought sherbet was spelled with an "r", they held a strong opinion about the sound cicadas make at dusk. They already had meaning before they were the inevitable stastic in the Seireitei-issued report of total damage caused. That awfully large number that Shinigami will be roused by. A reason to take up the sword and the spell for talented Rukongai souls. You can't live safely as a soldier, nor can you live safely as a civilian.
All the heroes risen from the ashes today? They won't change a thing. They won't make the 70th districts, the 60th, the 22nd District any less prone to mass events of death and misery. Souls like Fuuyuko will always just be someone's reason to aim for a better seat, or more power. Another powerful person who will change absolutely nothing about how the world works and how the meek live. Or even worse; someone who'll make it much tougher to live peacefully.
She knows she'll come across another soul before she leaves the forest. And she does. Immediately.
Though, this one appears to be. A puppy?
She's never seen a pup like that, but it has all the hallmarks of one. Fluffy paws, wagging tail, drool-soaked maw. Fuuyuko Suwa stands roughly ten feet away from it, she herself wet of cheek and dirt-soled, heaving for breath in between sobs. Her lips tremble. She sinks to her knees, patting the caps of them with her hands. Handcuffs jingling.
"C'mere."
