[Event] Invasion!

[soul_mods]

Characters: OPEN to everyone!
Location: All over Death City
Rating: Various
Time: February 2nd
Description: Witches have invaded and are attacking the city!

The attack, when it comes, happens quickly enough that Death City would have been caught flat-footed had there been no prior warning, but it's not completely unexpected because of the city's heightened state of alarm the past day. Warning sirens start sounding to alert the citizens and guests the moment a dark, slow-moving mass out in the desert to the south-east of Death City is spotted by Shibusen sentries. There's even time for civilians to run and hide before the mass is identified as an army of what looks like decaying, shambling corpses. The city's defenders are slow to move, however; most of them are distracted and are having trouble dealing with the black blood in their bodies. While agents are gathering to head out to deal with the zombie threat, that's when the witches make their move.

Portals begin opening in the skies above the city, disgorging hideous familiars: bulbous spiders and leggy ants the size of dogs. They drop hundreds of feet down into the streets and alleyways of Death City, and scuttle off in search of victims. The spiders are poisonous and can spin copious amounts of web to capture their targets, the ants spit acid that cause agonizing, paralyzing pain. Their masters bear down on the city in a cloud of black shadows--massive ravens strong enough to carry off adult men. There are five witches, women on broomsticks, beautiful if not for their crazed grins and obvious glee at the chaos descending upon the city. At some unknown signal--maybe the cackling from a couple of them--they dive in concert and disappear into different areas of the city.

Their masterful plan has begun!



ooc: Feel free to make your own threads. Please follow the format: [Character][Location/Time][Open/Close]

- if you want your character to run into a witch, please comment here!

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[megitsune]

That one simple, unfortunate gesture broke the pleasant feeling she'd had about the whole encounter.

Megumi's eyes widened in shock at the brush against her cheek. Her head moved backwards on her shoulders, and her hand moved to guard herself. She'd never been kissed before-- not willingly. Dark memories flickered past her mind's eye. Flinching away in fear, she almost expected this young man to try something else-- grab for her wrist maybe, or try to hit her. That's how it had usually been followed up, in her old life.

"Don't," she pleaded like a knee-jerk reaction, quietly enough that he may not have even heard. He was already moving away from her.

[quarterlynx]

Haru came to a pause, curious about her reaction. A reaction that spoke of abuse. Trauma. A reaction he knew far too well because he experienced the same thing in his life. Lavender eyes focused on her, trying to read in more without having to dredge it up in conversation. But from that point forward, he knew that he would have to put a special focus on Megumi. After all, maybe working on her through her own trauma would be a way of reconciling his past failures with his wife.

He had to try.

A warm smile reached his face, and he kept his distance -- if nothing else, than to show that she could trust him. "Don't worry. I wouldn't hurt you."

[megitsune]

She snorted despite her fear. "You aren't the first person to say that to me," she said truthfully, her shoulders hunched high and her hands still up to guard her chest. Takeda used to say shit like that all the time.

Megumi's eyes were trained on Haru's feet, she was too frightened to look at his face. If she watched his stance, she'd be able to tell which way he'd break if he lunged for her. Her heart was pounding in her ribcage like a rabbit's. God dammit, she scolded herself inwardly, she'd gone and gotten herself into the stupidest situation. There wasn't anyone around and here she was alone in this alley with a person who seemed rather unpredictable. She could hear a little voice in her head hoping that someone would come and whisk her away so that she didn't have to deal with it.

No. Sanosuke wasn't around to punch people in the face for her. Kenshin wasn't here to make a dramatic speech. It was up to her or nothing, she had to handle this herself for once. Megumi took a deep breath. "Don't... touch me, please," she asked, mustering her courage. She tried to manage to sound firm but remain polite. "I have only just met you, Haru-san. I don't know you well." To tell the truth, she didn't even exchange touches with those she did know well-- but that was too much to let a strange man know.

If this man Haru wasn't going to accept that, she figured, it'd bring the situation to level two. She ran over her options for defending herself while waiting for his reaction.

[quarterlynx]

"I'm a pretty touchy feely guy," Haru pouted -- noting the way she didn't look at him. He bent forward and down -- squatting so he could catch her eyes and for all it was worth, he looked like nothing more than an innocent and curious cat right now. "That's not gonna be easy for me, Megumi-chan! I always kiss my friends to say hi and bye! But I'll try to remember."

He hopped up to his feet again, cheerful and perky and practically skipping away from her. "Because I really do wanna go on that date with you." His smile slipped away from his face, draining. "And I know what you're going through. Someone broke you. So let me fix you, okay? I'll do it as slowly and gently as possible -- because not everyone's as bad as the scumbag who did whatever he did to you. And you can't let him win. 'cause you'll be missing out on so many good things if you do."

[megitsune]

Haru was just trying to be nice, it seemed... some part of Megumi could sense that from the innocent, trusting way he was looking up into her eyes. She pressed her lips together, unsure how she should navigate this situation. after all, she was the foreigner in a foreign land. However, she had never been a person who changed for others.

"I'm twenty-two, and I'm set in my ways," she explained, much more gently than she'd said the same thing to Sanosuke. Ah, how she'd teased him so boldly, licking her lips and running her fingers under his stubbly chin just to toy with him and feel powerful. Because she knew he liked it, it was there in his eyes...

Remembering that made her heart feel warm and... at the same time, it felt sour, like the bottom of a jar of pickles, like picking open an old scab. That all seemed like so very long ago, now. It had already yellowed and gathered dust.

"This is what I am," she heard herself explaining, as if someone else was speaking the words for her as she looked back on her happier days. "You can take it or leave it, if you really want to be a friend to me. And I'll return that favor to you in other regards, as yours. Maybe we could make a compromise--"

But then he said something so very serious and intensely personal-- those sweet words about fixing her slowly and gently-- that STUNG. It stung like hell, and there were a million reasons she could name as to why, none of which she wanted to actually admit honestly to herself.

Megumi froze in place, and her hands balled into pale little fists at her side. Her ego pulled hard one way, her heart quite the other. Suddenly she felt as if the ground was rushing up at her, and her world was tilting hard to the left. She took a step back, blinking her eyes and trying to get a grip on all of this. "Fi--"

[quarterlynx]

Haru was right. And he knew he was. He'd been intimate with so many types of people, seen how each of them reacted to things, seen how trauma affected them, and experienced trauma of his own. Megumi's stance and her frozen frame are enough to indicate that. And Haru could leave right then without any explanation, having just brought her past (or present who knew) to light, having made her relive emotional scars that he knew she tried to hard to repress -- or he could share something of himself, if only to make her understand.

He gnawed on the inside of his lip, so hard that he tasted blood. This would be the first time he ever brought it up to anyone -- and it would be to some complete stranger. But she wasn't a stranger to abuse was she? She understood better than anyone, wouldn't she?

"My wife. Or, well, ex-wife really. The mother of my child -- she was raped right in front of me. And I couldn't stop it," because he was also raped but he left that detail out. "I saw what they did to her. They forced her to give birth. It..."

Haru trailed off before he got too emotional over the situation, before he broke down about it because he was always so close to snapping. He kept it at the surface details only, refusing to go any deeper than that. "My point is, I know how fucked up people can be. I couldn't do anything for her. But maybe I can for you."

[megitsune]

Megumi's eyebrows knit together in the middle, and she swallowed hard. She'd felt angry just a moment ago, not just at Haru for offering something that was so clearly not his place-- but at others who should have said things like that to her, who should have been the ones to offer, and yet hadn't.

But now her thoughts went over what he was saying, shifted to put her attention on Haru, his feelings, his pain. It was so clear that he was from a drastically different world, with a drastically different culture. He'd shown right through to something so deep, secret, and painful and this was only their first time meeting each other. She'd never been in a situation like this with people she met.

Megumi's brown eyes looked Haru over, troubled on his behalf. She searched silently for what she could say to help him. What could you say after hearing about something as horrible as that? There were many things she wanted to say, but being of the time that she was from, people weren't so verbal with their feelings as much as they used unspoken means of communication.

"I don't have anything to say," she told him quietly, her eyes filled with shock and deep sadness. "I'm so sorry, I don't think there's a thing I can say that will make that better. What a disgusting thing to do to people."

[quarterlynx]

Haru's expression softened once again and he held up his hands in protest, "You don't have to say anything. That wasn't why I told you. I just want you to know that I understand how bad things can be and that I'm here if you need someone."

He let his words linger there. Right now, Megumi was the one who was needed, though. People out there suffering -- they needed the touch of a doctor and Haru was keeping her from that. The lynx took a step back, canting his head and flashing her a little wink before he turned on his heel and sprang off into the chaos once again. But at least he had reason to make sure he survived now.

He had to live so he could take Megumi on a date, after all!

[megitsune]

She couldn't help feeling terribly awkward after that. Her ears buzzed, and she kind of wanted nothing more than to be back home, among people she could predict much better. She turned and took a staggering path back to the street, her medicine box feeling heavy on her shoulders at the moment.

Maybe she'd see this person again, she knew. Next time she should be more on her guard.