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EVENT: Battle Against the Kishin Adachi
Characters: Anyone who signed up for Mission 254
Location: Matsue City, Japan
Rating: PG13
Time: September 11th
Description: It's time to bring down the Kishin Adachi, once and for all!
Matsue was once a lovely city and a nice place for tourists to visit.
It is now a ghost town.
Some lucky citizens had managed to escape the city before things got really bad, but they are the minority. Even fewer still are those who stayed and are still alive.
Most of them are dead, or worse, they had been driven mad by the Madness the Kishin Adachi exuded and killed their fellow citizens and consumed their souls, becoming Kishin Eggs. To make matters worse, sometimes when you're fighting you'll hear the distant rattling of chains and some primal part of your soul knows, something wicked this way comes.
And then there's all the Yellow Fog...
Only those who persevere will make it to their final destination: the Adachi Art Museum where Adachi is.
It will not be an easy fight, but in order to prevent the fate of this city from befalling on another, everyone will need to try.
((OOC: Please indicate in the subject: Character || OPEN/CLOSED. There will be a separate thread for encountering Adachi. Event information is here.))
Location: Matsue City, Japan
Rating: PG13
Time: September 11th
Description: It's time to bring down the Kishin Adachi, once and for all!
Matsue was once a lovely city and a nice place for tourists to visit.
It is now a ghost town.
Some lucky citizens had managed to escape the city before things got really bad, but they are the minority. Even fewer still are those who stayed and are still alive.
Most of them are dead, or worse, they had been driven mad by the Madness the Kishin Adachi exuded and killed their fellow citizens and consumed their souls, becoming Kishin Eggs. To make matters worse, sometimes when you're fighting you'll hear the distant rattling of chains and some primal part of your soul knows, something wicked this way comes.
And then there's all the Yellow Fog...
Only those who persevere will make it to their final destination: the Adachi Art Museum where Adachi is.
It will not be an easy fight, but in order to prevent the fate of this city from befalling on another, everyone will need to try.
((OOC: Please indicate in the subject: Character || OPEN/CLOSED. There will be a separate thread for encountering Adachi. Event information is here.))
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When it finally seemed safe, she stopped to slump against an alley wall, resting her aching leg muscles and taking huge gulps of air to try to soothe her burning lungs. It was a good thing they could talk mentally because her lungs certainly weren't up to the task after all that running.
"I'd say rode hard and put up wet about describes how I feel right now." Did horses feel like this after galloping for miles? She imagined they might. She was too tired to even care if he made some perverted joke out of it.
Shifting Lezard to one arm, she now took the opportunity to assess herself for injuries. The bullets that had been fired had all buried themselves in the pavement and walls of the alleys and shattered a few store windows along the streets. But bits of broken glass had hit, leaving a series of tiny scratches along her lower arms. And feeling something wet on her cheek, she reached up, fingers coming away from her face with a small smear of blood.
"It's just scratches, I think. I'll mix up some poultice to put on them after we get back. But I reckon we'd better try to find the others now."
Where was everyone anyway? Had they just run into the wrong area of the city entirely in their effort to flee that chain-rattling gunslinger?
As she peered through the mist, trying to decide which way to go, a shape approached from the far end of the alley. A rather familiar one that looked just like her but with yellow eyes.
"What in tarnation are you doing here? I thought I got rid of you!"
The shadow cackled, looking rather witchy in a black dress identical to Lily's own. "It's not that easy. You're still trying to keep a secret."
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"Agreed. The sooner we find the others, the better."
But then he felt something odd, almost like some of Lily's soul was leaking into the mists, spreading outward and mingling, like that first splash of milk added to a dark tea. He heard footsteps and silenced, steeled himself.
No chains. But was it another of the agents?
...No. It was a yellow-eyed Lily in a black dress. Her lips parted and her voice was strange, sounding mildly like her own yet worlds different at the same time. Rather than the solid soul he was connected to, this entire figure was made of a soft light of the same color. The pressure in the mist seemed to be feeding into it. Was this creature a part of her?
"I do believe keeping secrets is a part of the job description of the magically-inclined," Lezard added lightly, and none-too-privately.
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Still, Lily couldn't figure out was what in the Sam Hill that thing was talking about. She'd already publicly confessed to being a witch the night before. And Lezard even knew that story of what happened in her hometown. So, why the heck was her Shadow appearing again?
"What do you want?" She kept a wary eye on it as it sauntered over to them.
"What do I want?" Shadow Lily reached out to take Lezard's bookmark between her fingers and caress it.
Well recalling what had happened with her duplicates in San Jose, Lily frowned and tightened her grip on Lezard as the Shadow ran a finger along his spine and traced the patterns on his cover.
"I think I'll take that book of yours. After all, you still won't even admit you like him after all this time! Not even with all the times he's saved your hide."
The Shadow laughed and leaned over, face mere inches from the pages as if sharing a confidence with him. "She was even tempted to ask to sleep in your bed last night after that ninja was mean to her. But of course, she didn't."
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The Shadow approached and he wasn't sure what to make of it. It looked precisely like her save for the eyes, and wore peculiar attire. To what end, he'd wondered? They looked like a frock rather, but were a little too long. Dress robes?
Fingers closed around the ornate bookmark and the book was still, confusion blooming over the link. The wavelengths quickened briefly, pulsing like a heartbeat as it slipped between her fingers. They quickened further with a finger along the spine, the patterns, and the man within the book was silent. His side of the link was far from it however, emitting sparks of a deeper, darker desire.
She liked him. That, deep down, he knew. She fought to hide it, and with that thought he understood what they'd meant by divulging one's secrets. To her, how she felt was a secret along the lines of her 'witchiness', and the Shadow it seemed personified them. Had the boy spoken of 'accepting' them in his entry?
But there was more, staring him right in the face. Er, pages. He'd borne witness to the entry she'd made in question and held himself back from making any sort of input. It was her secret to release, and her fight. She'd taken her lumps but somehow stood. She was admirable for the lot of it.
"The fact that she did not speaks volumes. As much comfort as I could lend her in my bed, she is stronger for having stood on her own two feet and enduring. There are times and places to turn to others... that was not one of them."
He paused, rubbing his chin. "Long, tiring work days? I'd say that would be a prime example."
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She felt the confusion through the link and then something else. Desire? But they couldn't get distracted by this now.
"You don't have to tell him that!" she protested. "And I wasn't thinking of it in that way!" in case he got the wrong idea; with the mission today, she knew quite well that would have been a terrible way to mess with her energy, possibly disastrous.
But it was true. She had been tempted, nearly went to knock on his door before realizing it would have been pretty pathetic, like an upset child seeking a favored stuffed animal to cuddle. Instead, she eventually fell into a fitful sleep in her own bed after an hour of staring at the ceiling while the question of whether she made the right decision with that posting repeatedly ran through her mind.
The Shadow pouted at not getting a more interesting reaction out of him and turned her eyes back to Lily for the moment although her fingertips continued to slide over the pages, lingering on the sketch.
"And why shouldn't he know? He is your partner. Or did you plan to go back to denying that too?"
Stroking the bookmark again, the Shadow brought the charm at the end to her lips as she addressed Lezard. "How about you leave that witch and be my partner instead?"
It giggled. "Or I can at least tell you about that very entertaining spell she accidentally cast the last time she pulled a man into her bed..."
Cheeks burning, Lily huffed and yanked the book away from the Shadow. "Dag nab it! We've got more important things to do at the moment than discuss my love life!"
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But she'd had times where she wished to hide their partnership too, and he wanted to plant his hands on his hips and stare.
Instead, he heard an iiiinteresting tidbit. Giggling as Lily tugged the book closer, he had to ask.
"What spell was this? I'd never heard of this!" He enjoyed her stories. Was she holding out on him? For shame!
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"That's none of your business! Lezard, concentrate!" They had to get away from this thing and find the others.
But the Shadow wasn't content to let the subject go so easily and laughed at the original's fluster, latching on to the book again. "She made the clothes in her shop dance and couldn't get them to stop. They danced until dawn!"
The witch glared at her double. "Quit trying to air my dirty laundry and let go of my partner! We've got a mission to get back to!" The latter was as much a reminder for Lezard as for the Shadow.
"But I thought dirty laundry was your specialty. And you can't just leave without me. I am part of you..."
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"She is correct," he reminded Lily. Well, the original anyway.
"It is my understanding that to dismiss a shadowy clone is to accept the part of yourself it represents. One less clone is one less tool for the Kishin to use against us while we conduct our mission here." He looked up, the sketch canting his head.
"You've informed me of much about your past. What of your present?"
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"All right! So, I like you! Are you happy now?" The last was addressed as much to the Shadow as to Lezard.
"It'll do for now. But you really should stop hiding your feelings so much..." Appeased for now, it gave the book a smooch and then started to fade away.
Relieved to finally be rid of the Shadow, she looked down at the sketch. "Now let's get back to finding the others. Do you sense anything nearby?"
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The Shadow disappeared, but not without a parting gift. His cover and his pages jumped, then sagged. Lezard was momentarily lost in space, and jumped again when he was addressed.
"My senses are on overdrive, you could say. Yet I sense nothing of any concern."
Yet a pressure was building, something heavy in the air. It was foreign yet familiar.
"Shall we move on?" He added quickly. He didn't like that feeling.
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Lily felt the little jolt from the book and couldn't help a slight roll of the eyes. He had been enjoying the Shadow's attention a bit too much, hadn't he? "Let me know if you actually feel anything useful."
She continued down the alley way, watching for any signs of the other pairs who had joined the fight.
...Was that a figure in the street beyond the alley's end? She stopped and squinted, trying to better make it out in the fog. No rattling chains and it looked too tall to be her Shadow again but it didn't hurt to be cautious.
"Is that someone up ahead?"
It hadn't yet occurred to her that she might also meet someone else's Shadow...
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The moment he was unobscured, he raised a hand as it oozed a dark and angry energy. From out the windows, beneath the cracks of doors and from the mere shadows of fallen rubble and rubbish was a black ooze, growing upward and forming into varied creatures. Some were skeletal dragon men wearing odd masks bearing the roman numeral XVI, the Tower, and the ill omen it brings. Using their massive swords, they barred the alley way both front and back, and were still.
The Shadow lowered his hand and supported his elbow, propping the other arm to allow him to casually lay a hand in amusement against a cheek. He canted his head.
"Why are you running, me? Are you confessing to cowardice after managing to avoid your training? Avoid little old me? What have you to hide? ...Other than -everything-. You see, the man you hold in your very hands was a very, VERY busy boy right up until Loki's cataclysm sought to claim him..."
The flame drops sprung to life around the witch. Something strange was occurring in Lezard's soul, the openness shutting down in exchange for an unusual cool emptiness. He was already shutting everything out, but hadn't calculated for the resonance link making it obvious.
"We've nothing to discuss. Lily, strike the Bone Warriors in the masks or ankle joints, and we shall be on our way."
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It might have not been too alarming in itself but there was black oozing from crevices around them and taking shape as sword-wielding dragons. Or their skeletons anyway. And what was the meaning of the XVI? It read as sixteen if it was a Roman numeral but being terrible with all things divination related, she didn't make the connection to the tarot. Whatever the XVI meant, the critters didn't look friendly.
Worse, the Shadow spoke in a mockery of her partner's voice and although flames were materializing from their resonance, Lily sensed a wall going up on his side of the connection. Hand closing around a flame, she willed it to take the shape of the familiar athame but didn't yet attack, mingled uncertainty and hesitation emanating from her end of the connection.
"Lezard, what's the meaning of all of this? What is your double talking about?"
In the early weeks after she first met him, she had wondered if he was hiding something with his evasive answers on certain matters. But then things had happened like how he had thrown himself in the way of that spear to protect her, the other times he'd come to her rescue, the week when they had changed roles as Meister and Weapon. She'd allowed herself to conclude that maybe it didn't matter anymore and had largely stopped attempting to pry into his past. Had she been wrong?
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"Nothing that matters."
"If it's unimportant to the here and now, then I suppose there's no issue having a heart-to-heart, is there? After Lily Ivory finally admitted to liking you, when you've done NOTHING to earn it!" The Shadow suddenly turned his eyes to Lily, the dragons' masked heads turning in suit with the sound of stretched, rotten sinew and creaking bones.
"We wanted a homunculus, a body to house the soul of our beloved Lenneth. We knew when Odin's seal upon her memories broke, she would be destroyed for the 'crime' of being human once. We could not bear it. But we needed a body that would grow in power, one that could surpass even the gods... only the best for my love." The Shadow paused, startled when one of the flame drops was thrown haphazardly to his feet, and sputtered into nothing. Without the Meister's power, he couldn't properly function.
"Hahahaha! Oh, you're -cross-! My apologies; did you want this woman to think fondly of me? Oh no no no. She told me so much, but I've told her nothing. That's hardly fair, is it? Tell me- how many times was it that I entered the forest, gathering the key ingredient I needed for my homunculus project...? Would you like to know what that ingredient is?"
Lezard decided enough was enough, and shifted back, standing instead at Lily's side as human. He was advancing on the Shadow, who didn't move. It instead opened its arms imploringly. "Nobody was talking to you, -me-. I'm speaking with my friend in a way you never have."
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There were bits and pieces that were familiar, the name of the Valkyrie he had been so enamored with, the idea of creating a homunculus. Those had slipped out the time she'd loosened Lezard's tongue with a spicy dinner and a lot of wine. But the Shadow seemed to be implying there was more to the story...
She frowned at the Shadow, suspecting the answer wasn't mandrake roots. What was it after anyway? "If you just wanted a friendly chat, I reckon you could have done without the critters." She was tense and it didn't help when the spellbook suddenly shifted.
"Lezard, what are you doing?!" The way he left her arms and advanced on the Shadow worried her. Their connection broken, there would be little she could do if the creatures in the alley attacked them now. She rushed after him, throwing a hand upon his shoulder in an attempt to stop him. "Come back here!"
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He started when the Shadow's eyes turned on him, the smile widening somehow further. Into inhuman territory. "Don't you even think about discretion. You weren't exactly discreet about the kidnapping of countless elves for your experiments, to the point where the entire race had you on 'kill on sight' status."
"To house the soul of a god, you needed the perfect vessel. You needed something otherworldly, something that could grow. Odin, as a half-elf, could develop and grow as a god. So naturally, the elven blood is the catalyst. We cared little for their loved ones, their families as we stole them away into the night. Elves had little purpose to the gods, other than to be makeshift vessels should a god lose his current body and need a new one. And so close to their precious Yggdrasil, too. Why can't a human do the same... in the name of love?"
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"...Kidnapping? Lezard, is that true? You didn't really do such a thing, did you?"
Grabbing for his arm now, she tried to pull him to face her. The look in her eyes was conflicted, half hoping it was just some kind of misunderstanding and half fearing it was all true and that she had come to trust, had been falling in love with a madman... The old doubts welled up again. Had he just been using her this whole time for his own purposes?
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"Oh yes... I was very busy! It's too bad the experiment was for naught. When Loki claimed the Dragon Orb, that was that. He eliminated everything on the planet, human or god, the ones in between. My hard-earned Philosopher's Stone... sacrificed, in hopes to survive the calamity. I'd hoped Lenneth would succeed, using the body I'd created for her when her sister murdered her in the name of Odin. Alas, with no signs of life on the planet beyond what I could see, it's easy to presume her heart was too human, too frayed with the memories she regained. She died along with the rest. Even when I soaked my hands in blood, something that needed to be done... I failed."
"I failed then, just as I am failing now. You look at me with fear and it excites me, and yet it pains me at the same time."
"You speak too much." Lezard's voice was even, the coolness broken. It was a new tone, low and quiet. Typically, this would be followed with flame, with crushing, with ice. But without his powers...
"I'd hoped to use you, Lily. I wanted to use you to circumvent the fates themselves and attain new power here, seize destiny and mark my own path through the Hel we're given here, this war of hatred I've grown to care of less and less as the madness of the world builds. What's one war, only to be thrown into another seemingly without end?"
But then the Shadow looked disturbed. The smile faded and he looked away.
"Yet I don't want this war to end. Should it, and I return to calamity. I cease to be. To be erased is unthinkable, not after everything I've achieved. Not after everything that has occurred here."
He looked up as Lezard's hands shook. If he couldn't use his magic, he could tighten the collar around the Shadow's neck and silence the fool.
"'Tis unthinkable of a genius to have his doubts. Yet, I was born. I was born from such a man that perceives to have all the cards at hand, every answer within his grasp at any cost. Power, knowledge, that is what I know. ...Stubborn witches, on the other hand, I know not. You appeared and I felt conflicted for the very first time."
"I've hidden information from others because I felt it was irrelevant. I hide everything from you, because you are the one person in every realm I've tread from which I could not weather hatred."
"Ha! To what end do you seek by speaking of such things?"
"She is no fool. I, on the other hand, am."
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"...You were just using me?"
Was it really as she had worried about in the beginning after all? Why she had hesitated to get involved with him for so long. The idea that like that psychic back in Geneva, he might have just been interested in her for her powers and how it might benefit him, rather than for herself. After all they had been through, the idea hurt. She looked between the Shadow and the original, eyes sad with tears that it was impossible for a witch to shed.
Yet even after the Shadow's confessions of wrongdoing, she couldn't deny that she would have been sad if Lezard were to be sent away by that contraption, back to his ruined world, to his death.
But what was this...? He couldn't stand the idea of her hating him? Despite the Shadow's claim, she felt like a fool. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been in an alleyway surrounded by skeletal monsters and clinging to Lezard's sleeve, desperately hoping it was some nightmare and that things would be okay again. Why didn't she just run away, abandon him?
"Why should you care if I hate you? You seemed to care little of people, always hiding away with your books."
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"But rather than discard me or strike me as others have, you 'put up with me', as the saying goes. You showed me a patience I hadn't yet known, and as time passed, my resolve to use you lessened. I would instead work with you... protect you, as your partner. You were something I never could and still cannot understand. You wield great powers but fight to hide them rather than embrace them, live as a woman with no Sway. You've a passion for the past, of ones happier than your own, a rich culture that intrigues me. You're strange, Lily Ivory, with your idioms, and stranger still for becoming friends with me... even feeling the way you do - or perhaps in past tense now - for me."
"I woke up one morning, long ago, and realized that I adored the passion, the culture, the strangeness, the idioms and the stubbornness. When I transformed, when I pulled magic from my soul, it was to guard you rather than use you. Lenneth stopped crossing my mind completely as it had day after day. Instead it was you, a fact that perplexed and angered me at first. But, it grew into something I accepted."
The Shadow clutched his stomach as he laughed, his face bright red for once, flushed with the pleasure of the truth. "Ha ha ha ha! Lezard Valeth had fallen in love again, in another doomed world! And so I hid and I hid and I hid. A man with bloodied hands in the name of one failed love can't possibly start over again!"
Lezard stepped around to leave the scene, but was met with one of the Bone Warriors raising his blade and pressing it to his throat. The man sighed and shrugged with a devil-may-care manner. "You presume love pains me, that I'm weak."
"You ARE weak." The Shadow then began to thin, cheek bones sinking inward and his frame shrinking. He began to look malnourished, then almost deathly starved. The cloak, the fine clothes began to darken, build dust and tatter. The Shadow looked so much older now, haggard.
"You are vulnerable without your magic. It has left you susceptible to pain. To fear. You would once laugh in the face of gods themselves, at Hel herself, but you fear the end of the war. You fear the pain of the calamity claiming you. You fear the pain of Lily Ivory turning her back on you when she finds out just what you've done. You had always said you needed her... but the word 'need' can change in so many ways. Funny, how that works."
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So, he really had fallen in love with her for herself if the Shadow was to believed... Although she was torn on how to feel about it now that she had the details of his past. It was a heavy accusation but redemption wasn't necessarily impossible. He had protected her many times, fought the numerous demons plaguing this world. Even if they hadn't managed to rescue everyone in each case, they had prevented demons from adding to their lists of victims.
Lily let out a cry when the skeletal monster pressed the sword to his throat. "Lezard, stop! Are you trying to get yourself killed?!" She threw her arms around his waist from behind in an attempt to pull him back. The Shadow was beginning to distort as hers had in the foggy tunnel but this one seemed to be decaying, a gruesome approximation of what the sorcerer might look like as a corpse. "Kanji said if you deny your Shadow, it'll turn into a monster and attack you!"
"It's okay to be scared." Her voice trembled as did the arms around him. "I reckon I've been just as scared here, knowing the people here don't cotton to witches. Or worrying what my friends would think if they knew about the folks I accidentally killed in Jarod. People can change and even if you did something wrong in the past, I can't just hate you after everything that's happened between us."
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But Lezard actually took a step back, feeling those arms straining around his middle. He looked back, his expression passive. Perhaps he didn't believe her, or he'd fought to keep everything in check when everything he'd guarded was spread out in the open. He couldn't 'no matter' this like he could back home.
"I've committed acts that mark me for death by the gods themselves. I've been branded the most dangerous mortal being in my world. To feel hate for me is natural, Miss Ivory."
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"I won't say I'm not disappointed at the things you did in your world and hurt that you tried to hide those things from me." The witch frowned seeing that passive look—was he still trying to hide things from her?—but didn't let go.
"But if you realize now that you were wrong, doesn't that mean you can try to make amends? Or do you intend to just go on hating yourself for it? Because it sounds to me you don't like yourself very much right now."
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"Hate myself? Ha! Quite the opposite..."
"You hate yourself now because you are powerless, just as you were powerless to save Lenneth even at full strength. I'm you, after all. You are a husk of your former self. Your magic made you. Now it unmakes you."
"Then you suppose I'm disappointed in myself."
"Such gentle wording. Do you intend to deny me?"
"And turn you into a monstrosity? No. We've better things to do than fight my own personal 'demons'. Are you quite finished?"
The Shadow gave them what could only best be described as a Stink Eye. Lezard sighed, adjusting his glasses.
"How does one 'accept' their Shadow, Miss Ivory? Simply tell it, yes, you're right?"
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She couldn't help a tiny flinch when the Shadow looked at them. It was already halfway to becoming a monstrosity with its withered form and worn clothes.
"I guess you have to acknowledge that what it says is true. That it really is part of you."
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