Post by Dew on Nov 30, 2016 21:56:51 GMT -5
She cried out and held out her hands to help reinforce the barrier between her and the freezing onslaught. Even if she could outmatch in skill, there was something about the child’s power. It continued to poke through her swirling darkness. Freezing. Prickling. Stinging. Burning.
Burning?
Her eyes shot open and she cast her hands to the side, dispelling the storm against her along with her own defense. Not snow. Not ice. Not frost. Not cold. “That was light.”
The black sand gathered around her, but it was black no longer. It swirled with color now. Crimson, ochre, gold, viridian, aqua, indigo, violet, black and white. A display of her power her domain. “That was light! That was mine! This is mine! What right do you have to use it against me? To challenge me in my own domain? Just who do you think I am?”
Swirling, surging and rushing. The colors crashed forwards, bade by her will to utterly destroy any that might think to intrude upon her territory. A spiral of both beauty and cruelty. A spear that crashed.
A spear that shattered.
Without so much as a sound. Without so much as a sign of effort. The force of her will made manifest was turned away like the fist of a child in the midst of their tantrum. Not only attacked by her own aspect, but to have her skill rebuffed, she attacked once more. An onslaught of every trick she knew. Every construct, every imagined spell. All poured towards this pretender to her title in a mad rush to reduce them to the speck they so clearly were.
And yet they still stood there. Alone, defiant, their clothes not even so much as ruffled.
“Those clothes... Wait, no. No!” She leapt back from the figure. So easily the distance had been closed, their flash of green fading in time with her own, if slightly ahead. Again she threw her assault, and again the figure turned it aside with hardly a gaze toward the chromatic end.
Those eyes were set so clearly on her. All else was trivial to them. No fear in those eyes. Only determination and anger. They goaded her.
She rushed forward with her assault. If those eyes wished to look upon her, then she could tear them out. Make a collection of them. Leave them on the stand next to her bed so that they could look upon her while she slept peacefully while this intruder lay dead on the ground in this world.
This world. For only a moment, she looked around. They were not in the world of the shinigami. The classical architecture was instead replaced with a void. A cold, uncaring abyss that stretched out in all directions. The floor might swallow her up if she didn’t cast light down upon it. If she didn’t give it color so that it might exist as fact.
She looked, and she thought. And in just that moment, her wrists were caught, and her assault brought to an end. She tried to direct the dance of colors with her fingers, but their feeble motions were turned aside more easily than with her whole body swaying to the tune of battle. She could not swing, she could not bite. She could not move.
She could only look into those damned eyes and wish a crow might peck them out before she became sick.
“You are impossible. I see you, but I shouldn’t. I can turn her away, but I can’t get rid of you. You shouldn’t exist. You can’t exist. I am here. That alone is proof. Who the fuck do you think I am to exist here and now?”
“That’s an excellent question. Just who are you?”
She roared. Those argent eyes saw through her, but that voice was a melody too steeped in misery for her to endure. She would not endure this insult. She would not allow this thing to continue as it had. Even if it meant she had to bathe in corruption.
She could almost feel the liquid rolling down her back. Almost. Instead, she felt the flames bursting from her right side all the more. They shifted and rolled beneath her skin, then slipped between the cracks and cuts. The pretender released her and calmly stepped back, but she wouldn’t allow it that respite. She was back upon it, guided and fueled by that dark fire threatening to consume her side. Breaking and repairing her each second, she would spread it to this thing. Let it go through the same and see how if it came out anything but blackened.
She laughed as she fought. That was her voice. It could not be stolen from her, and it would define this space. Her pain, her struggles. They were what made her what she was. With each tongue of flame that missed or was cast off by the intruder, another aspect of her arena was defined. They were losing space to run. She dominated the abyss now. She could control where light was, and she could control where it wasn’t.
The fire was spreading now. Over the space and over her. Warping them. With each strike, she felt herself grow larger and the space grow smaller. A turned over couch. Torn pillows on the ground. Blood. So much ruby blood amongst the black flames. The room could barely contain her. She stood over the intruder, her grin wide, and her teeth sharp. She towered over it. Small, pitiful, a weakling. A pretender could never measure up to the real thing. “I will only ask this once. Who. The fuck. Are you?!?”
It smirked. It looked at her, and it smirked. “That depends. Who are you?” Something was wrong. She could feel it. So very wrong. And yet, she couldn’t move an inch. Not on her own. The fire pushed her forward still. It raised her claws and brought them down against the copy. “A human?” Again.
“A superhero?”
Again.
“A freak?”
So much blood.
“A monster?”
She screamed.
“A hollow?”
She blinked and looked up. Five glistening razors of black fire descended towards her again. A quick roll was all that saved her from the end. She rolled into the corner, and crouched there, gasping from breath. She blinked several times, but no matter what way she looked at it, all she could see was a hollow. A massive, grinning oni with two long horns scraping at the ceiling of her apartment.
Her home as painted by those black flames.
It laughed at her. Using that voice. Her voice? Was that her voice? She looked down at herself, but all she could see was red. She’d been attacking the pretender. No, not a pretender. Herself. She was only hurting herself. “How-”
It didn’t allow her long enough to finish the thought. It started to chase her about the house, crashing through the walls and floor, but never to the outside.
“Or maybe you’re just a scared little girl that can’t accept the truth.”
It was her back this time. It’s reach was further than she thought. It hurt, but it only made it easier to think. “What truth? What do you know about it. You’re not-”
It was like the world collapsed down on top of her. She fell through so many floors, and still ended up right back in her living room. Her whole body felt like her right side had, and her tears obscured the thing again. “Not what? Real? Ha, I’m as real as those two puppets you left home alone. Just like you left their models to their fates. I’m as real as the thought that you can just go back to how things were before with your little toys and nothing will ever harm you. The arrogance that you can walk into someone else’s world and do to them what’s been done to you, and nothing will come of it!”
It picked her up and slammed her back to the ground. She could see again, but it was only stars. Stars that danced to the sound of the voice she’d so proudly declared her own moments ago. Laughing at her. Mocking everything she’d tried to do. What she’d tried to protect. “Why can’t I?”
“Still got a voice? Admirable with those ribs turning your lungs to deli samples.”
“Why can’t I?”
“Why can’t you what, sweetie? I’m afraid you’ll have to speak up.”
“Why can’t I just go back to the way things were? No one will know. I can just replace-” It slammed her again.
“Oh dear, sweet, spring lamb. Why can’t you? It’s quite simple. You can’t go back because you were too weak.” The hollow turned her over and took a few steps back. “Weak. Too weak to sense the hollow stalking your mother. Too weak to skip the training that gave that burglar enough time to stick your father like a pig and turn your mouthy flea motel into a handbag. Too weak to even scratch the hollow your temperamental boyfriend put a hole through. Speaking of him, I wonder if your weakness is what drove him away.”
Her vision was starting to clear. She could see it clearly again. It was, shrinking. The mask was warping the body returning to something human. It was still her, but the hair was black and wild. Golden eyes framed in black. Gray skin with two long horns poking out from her forehead. It giggled. It laughed down at her, then walked over and picked her up. She was whole again. No bleeding, no breaks, but she was still covered in the scars from it’s claws. No, nails now. Nails used to pick specks from her clothes.
“I mean, you were so weak, that was really all you had going for you. And without it, well, what reason did he have to stick around this dump you call home?” It, she, shrugged and took a few steps away. “Well, that was before. Quite the looker now, aren’t you? See, the fact of the matter is that the weak have to endure reality. The fantasy life you want to live? That’s reserved for the strong. They get to recklessly charge ahead, damned be the consequences for everyone else. I mean, just look at Sekai. Putting KK Town at risk again, then dragging humans into a war they really have no stake in? Or the kings of Hueco Mundo. They just do whatever they like, don’t they?”
It made her hair stand on end, and her stomach roll. Just listening to her was horrible. The voice was smooth, sensual, and yet every word was like blood dripping from a corpse. And she had used that voice? She’d wanted it? Cultivated it? It and all that came with it.
“Quite frankly, reckless doesn’t work for you. Every time you charge ahead, you end up hurt. You don’t have the strength to do as you like yet. But just look at this.” She called forth those tar colored flames once more, let them lick and dance over her as though they weren’t there. The copy wriggled, but the original trembled as she could feel the flames slide over her as well. “His corruption, mixed with your own power. A flame that feeds on light, not oxygen. One that can burn unless subjected to an absolute vacuum of light. Heat, radio, ultraviolet, they’d have to get rid of all of it to snuff this fire out. It spreads over anything and corrupts it all while it burns. That’s the power you need to be reckless. To go back to how things were without anyone bothering you.”
Power. She’d always sought it. But why did her hand only hover? With power, she could live in that…
That fantasy.
The copy’s face turned in an instant, and it looked ready to grow again. “Don’t you look at me like that. Are you thinking about reality? A weakling like you would willingly choose to endure that pain with the way out right in front of you?! Do you think you could actually come to terms with that? They died on your watch! You said you would keep them safe, and yet for all your efforts, some street rat with a toothpick took them away from you! You’re choosing to accept that? To live that reality?”
It did grow. Far larger than before. The room could hardly contain it. It’s face stood out like a gate before her, those stalagmites and stalactites it called teeth mere inches from her. “You’re not strong enough for that. Not physically, certainly not mentally. You’re having a conversation with a figment of your weak mind trying to separate the bad in you from the good when the bad is clearly so much more. You don’t get to use names like Dew in reality. You don’t get to wear a tiara. You don’t get to spend your days free of worries like rent or a job. Don’t be so naive!”
When she opened her eyes again, the oni had shrunken once more. It looked like a twisted copy of herself again, and leaned against a wall next to a door. She glared at it, and went to strike the handle only to be stopped by a spark leaping off the metal. “You really think abandoning your ways now is any better than continuing on? You were just too weak before, but you have the chance now. The chance to live the perfect fantasy. Sure, you could leave for reality, but come on. Look at it.” She shot another glare at the plain looking door. “Is that really you? Doing something other than rushing into the next fight, the next relationship, the next encounter? Planning? Weighing the odds?”
She offered the black flame again. The promise of power to continue as she liked, opposite the chance to try something new. “Ask yourself. Well, ask yourself again. Who are you?”
The copy was gone, but the flame remained. Hovering in the air. Just long enough for a hesitant step towards it before it went flying at the door to spell out that same question, with just a few different words.
What is your name?
She stood there for eternity, one hand stretched towards door and flame. She’d seen her cat as a bloody mockery of itself. Her room painted in blood. Her own face on a hollow as she killed it and drank its blood. Skulls piled beneath her feet between her and the power she sought. So many hallucinations, visions. So much death and destruction, but now a simple door with flickering black lettering caused her true pause. She took another step, and the door moved away. Another, and it moved further. She ran for eternity again, the door growing further away.
“My-” The door stopped.
“My name?” It drew closer.
“My name is-” It stood just beyond her reach now. The message was rather simple. She took a small breath. Just enough for a handful of words.
“My name is…”
Final Word Count: 2513
Burning?
Her eyes shot open and she cast her hands to the side, dispelling the storm against her along with her own defense. Not snow. Not ice. Not frost. Not cold. “That was light.”
The black sand gathered around her, but it was black no longer. It swirled with color now. Crimson, ochre, gold, viridian, aqua, indigo, violet, black and white. A display of her power her domain. “That was light! That was mine! This is mine! What right do you have to use it against me? To challenge me in my own domain? Just who do you think I am?”
Swirling, surging and rushing. The colors crashed forwards, bade by her will to utterly destroy any that might think to intrude upon her territory. A spiral of both beauty and cruelty. A spear that crashed.
A spear that shattered.
Without so much as a sound. Without so much as a sign of effort. The force of her will made manifest was turned away like the fist of a child in the midst of their tantrum. Not only attacked by her own aspect, but to have her skill rebuffed, she attacked once more. An onslaught of every trick she knew. Every construct, every imagined spell. All poured towards this pretender to her title in a mad rush to reduce them to the speck they so clearly were.
And yet they still stood there. Alone, defiant, their clothes not even so much as ruffled.
“Those clothes... Wait, no. No!” She leapt back from the figure. So easily the distance had been closed, their flash of green fading in time with her own, if slightly ahead. Again she threw her assault, and again the figure turned it aside with hardly a gaze toward the chromatic end.
Those eyes were set so clearly on her. All else was trivial to them. No fear in those eyes. Only determination and anger. They goaded her.
She rushed forward with her assault. If those eyes wished to look upon her, then she could tear them out. Make a collection of them. Leave them on the stand next to her bed so that they could look upon her while she slept peacefully while this intruder lay dead on the ground in this world.
This world. For only a moment, she looked around. They were not in the world of the shinigami. The classical architecture was instead replaced with a void. A cold, uncaring abyss that stretched out in all directions. The floor might swallow her up if she didn’t cast light down upon it. If she didn’t give it color so that it might exist as fact.
She looked, and she thought. And in just that moment, her wrists were caught, and her assault brought to an end. She tried to direct the dance of colors with her fingers, but their feeble motions were turned aside more easily than with her whole body swaying to the tune of battle. She could not swing, she could not bite. She could not move.
She could only look into those damned eyes and wish a crow might peck them out before she became sick.
“You are impossible. I see you, but I shouldn’t. I can turn her away, but I can’t get rid of you. You shouldn’t exist. You can’t exist. I am here. That alone is proof. Who the fuck do you think I am to exist here and now?”
“That’s an excellent question. Just who are you?”
She roared. Those argent eyes saw through her, but that voice was a melody too steeped in misery for her to endure. She would not endure this insult. She would not allow this thing to continue as it had. Even if it meant she had to bathe in corruption.
She could almost feel the liquid rolling down her back. Almost. Instead, she felt the flames bursting from her right side all the more. They shifted and rolled beneath her skin, then slipped between the cracks and cuts. The pretender released her and calmly stepped back, but she wouldn’t allow it that respite. She was back upon it, guided and fueled by that dark fire threatening to consume her side. Breaking and repairing her each second, she would spread it to this thing. Let it go through the same and see how if it came out anything but blackened.
She laughed as she fought. That was her voice. It could not be stolen from her, and it would define this space. Her pain, her struggles. They were what made her what she was. With each tongue of flame that missed or was cast off by the intruder, another aspect of her arena was defined. They were losing space to run. She dominated the abyss now. She could control where light was, and she could control where it wasn’t.
The fire was spreading now. Over the space and over her. Warping them. With each strike, she felt herself grow larger and the space grow smaller. A turned over couch. Torn pillows on the ground. Blood. So much ruby blood amongst the black flames. The room could barely contain her. She stood over the intruder, her grin wide, and her teeth sharp. She towered over it. Small, pitiful, a weakling. A pretender could never measure up to the real thing. “I will only ask this once. Who. The fuck. Are you?!?”
It smirked. It looked at her, and it smirked. “That depends. Who are you?” Something was wrong. She could feel it. So very wrong. And yet, she couldn’t move an inch. Not on her own. The fire pushed her forward still. It raised her claws and brought them down against the copy. “A human?” Again.
“A superhero?”
Again.
“A freak?”
So much blood.
“A monster?”
She screamed.
“A hollow?”
She blinked and looked up. Five glistening razors of black fire descended towards her again. A quick roll was all that saved her from the end. She rolled into the corner, and crouched there, gasping from breath. She blinked several times, but no matter what way she looked at it, all she could see was a hollow. A massive, grinning oni with two long horns scraping at the ceiling of her apartment.
Her home as painted by those black flames.
It laughed at her. Using that voice. Her voice? Was that her voice? She looked down at herself, but all she could see was red. She’d been attacking the pretender. No, not a pretender. Herself. She was only hurting herself. “How-”
It didn’t allow her long enough to finish the thought. It started to chase her about the house, crashing through the walls and floor, but never to the outside.
“Or maybe you’re just a scared little girl that can’t accept the truth.”
It was her back this time. It’s reach was further than she thought. It hurt, but it only made it easier to think. “What truth? What do you know about it. You’re not-”
It was like the world collapsed down on top of her. She fell through so many floors, and still ended up right back in her living room. Her whole body felt like her right side had, and her tears obscured the thing again. “Not what? Real? Ha, I’m as real as those two puppets you left home alone. Just like you left their models to their fates. I’m as real as the thought that you can just go back to how things were before with your little toys and nothing will ever harm you. The arrogance that you can walk into someone else’s world and do to them what’s been done to you, and nothing will come of it!”
It picked her up and slammed her back to the ground. She could see again, but it was only stars. Stars that danced to the sound of the voice she’d so proudly declared her own moments ago. Laughing at her. Mocking everything she’d tried to do. What she’d tried to protect. “Why can’t I?”
“Still got a voice? Admirable with those ribs turning your lungs to deli samples.”
“Why can’t I?”
“Why can’t you what, sweetie? I’m afraid you’ll have to speak up.”
“Why can’t I just go back to the way things were? No one will know. I can just replace-” It slammed her again.
“Oh dear, sweet, spring lamb. Why can’t you? It’s quite simple. You can’t go back because you were too weak.” The hollow turned her over and took a few steps back. “Weak. Too weak to sense the hollow stalking your mother. Too weak to skip the training that gave that burglar enough time to stick your father like a pig and turn your mouthy flea motel into a handbag. Too weak to even scratch the hollow your temperamental boyfriend put a hole through. Speaking of him, I wonder if your weakness is what drove him away.”
Her vision was starting to clear. She could see it clearly again. It was, shrinking. The mask was warping the body returning to something human. It was still her, but the hair was black and wild. Golden eyes framed in black. Gray skin with two long horns poking out from her forehead. It giggled. It laughed down at her, then walked over and picked her up. She was whole again. No bleeding, no breaks, but she was still covered in the scars from it’s claws. No, nails now. Nails used to pick specks from her clothes.
“I mean, you were so weak, that was really all you had going for you. And without it, well, what reason did he have to stick around this dump you call home?” It, she, shrugged and took a few steps away. “Well, that was before. Quite the looker now, aren’t you? See, the fact of the matter is that the weak have to endure reality. The fantasy life you want to live? That’s reserved for the strong. They get to recklessly charge ahead, damned be the consequences for everyone else. I mean, just look at Sekai. Putting KK Town at risk again, then dragging humans into a war they really have no stake in? Or the kings of Hueco Mundo. They just do whatever they like, don’t they?”
It made her hair stand on end, and her stomach roll. Just listening to her was horrible. The voice was smooth, sensual, and yet every word was like blood dripping from a corpse. And she had used that voice? She’d wanted it? Cultivated it? It and all that came with it.
“Quite frankly, reckless doesn’t work for you. Every time you charge ahead, you end up hurt. You don’t have the strength to do as you like yet. But just look at this.” She called forth those tar colored flames once more, let them lick and dance over her as though they weren’t there. The copy wriggled, but the original trembled as she could feel the flames slide over her as well. “His corruption, mixed with your own power. A flame that feeds on light, not oxygen. One that can burn unless subjected to an absolute vacuum of light. Heat, radio, ultraviolet, they’d have to get rid of all of it to snuff this fire out. It spreads over anything and corrupts it all while it burns. That’s the power you need to be reckless. To go back to how things were without anyone bothering you.”
Power. She’d always sought it. But why did her hand only hover? With power, she could live in that…
That fantasy.
The copy’s face turned in an instant, and it looked ready to grow again. “Don’t you look at me like that. Are you thinking about reality? A weakling like you would willingly choose to endure that pain with the way out right in front of you?! Do you think you could actually come to terms with that? They died on your watch! You said you would keep them safe, and yet for all your efforts, some street rat with a toothpick took them away from you! You’re choosing to accept that? To live that reality?”
It did grow. Far larger than before. The room could hardly contain it. It’s face stood out like a gate before her, those stalagmites and stalactites it called teeth mere inches from her. “You’re not strong enough for that. Not physically, certainly not mentally. You’re having a conversation with a figment of your weak mind trying to separate the bad in you from the good when the bad is clearly so much more. You don’t get to use names like Dew in reality. You don’t get to wear a tiara. You don’t get to spend your days free of worries like rent or a job. Don’t be so naive!”
When she opened her eyes again, the oni had shrunken once more. It looked like a twisted copy of herself again, and leaned against a wall next to a door. She glared at it, and went to strike the handle only to be stopped by a spark leaping off the metal. “You really think abandoning your ways now is any better than continuing on? You were just too weak before, but you have the chance now. The chance to live the perfect fantasy. Sure, you could leave for reality, but come on. Look at it.” She shot another glare at the plain looking door. “Is that really you? Doing something other than rushing into the next fight, the next relationship, the next encounter? Planning? Weighing the odds?”
She offered the black flame again. The promise of power to continue as she liked, opposite the chance to try something new. “Ask yourself. Well, ask yourself again. Who are you?”
The copy was gone, but the flame remained. Hovering in the air. Just long enough for a hesitant step towards it before it went flying at the door to spell out that same question, with just a few different words.
What is your name?
She stood there for eternity, one hand stretched towards door and flame. She’d seen her cat as a bloody mockery of itself. Her room painted in blood. Her own face on a hollow as she killed it and drank its blood. Skulls piled beneath her feet between her and the power she sought. So many hallucinations, visions. So much death and destruction, but now a simple door with flickering black lettering caused her true pause. She took another step, and the door moved away. Another, and it moved further. She ran for eternity again, the door growing further away.
“My-” The door stopped.
“My name?” It drew closer.
“My name is-” It stood just beyond her reach now. The message was rather simple. She took a small breath. Just enough for a handful of words.
“My name is…”
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
{Thread End}Final Word Count: 2513
