[ things devolve into chaos - which is saying something, considering. the garden comes alive in the worst way possible, as people scream and are dragged out of opulent and false safety by the vines that have ensnared them. many are rushing to cover their mouths, their noses, even as they bolt for any sanctuary that they can find. they're not so lucky as you, to have thought ahead for worst case scenarios. why would they? problems aren't for the rich.
but they can't go back the way they came. vines, briars, reaching branches, have crushed the tunnel back to the meeting hall - which is probably a good mile, two miles away, now, if your walk is anything to go by. many flee into the smaller tunnels, but you don't know if there's a way out through there. you just know the situation that you're facing, now.
the flowers have all bloomed, and the Blossoming Ceremony has truly begun. spores and pollen float through the air, glittering, beautiful, and those that breathe them in are left in a panic. you see it in their eyes, bulging with fear, the ones who have maybe come to the Blossoming Ceremony before. because they claw at their faces, their throats, as if desperate to rid themselves of what they've just breathed in. but the veins in their skin start to become more visible, thicker ropes across their bodies where you can see them, all the way up into their faces. almost like vines. almost like bark.
the prospects don't have masks, or helmets like you do, to protect them. but the rush of vines and thorns sweeps over them, too, so perhaps it doesn't matter. osomatsu karamatsu choromatsu ichimatsu jyushimatsu all seem to blend into one another in that moment, fighting, ensnared. they punch, kick, pull, bite at vines as best that they can as they're overwhelmed. they've been to hell, been through hell, so maybe this isn't it. maybe they'll make it out.
crick, meanwhile, doesn't stop fighting either. he didn't the first time, and he won't this time - but he does look up to find temenos in the chaos, and gives him a wan smile. he says something, though you can't hear it - and it looks like forgive me before he dives in to try and help the remaining sextuplets.
the group is more separated, now, considering what you all decided you wanted to do. lordy lord. alright.
temenos and todomatsu remain together, so there is that at least. but owner and kazuki are apart from them and each other. the announcer's body is snared in thorns and vines, dragging him and his silks with a long smear of blood along the stage and into the garden. he claws at the stage and screams the entire way, until vines wrap around his face and obscure his mouth.
out owner goes, like a goddamn crazy person. that's fine. a vine whips towards him, thick as his arm. more are converging behind it, washing over the announcer's body like a wave until he's no longer visible, rushing for where he is and trying to drag him in with other victims. rei is a copper brown and bloody dart of color into the atrium, going in the opposite direction of him, diving in with a shard of glass held securely in his hand. he doesn't give you a second glance, owner, but he is a willful child, isn't he? at least if things end here, he'll maybe think it wasn't your fault this time.
and there's kazuki, trapped in a smaller tunnel of glass with other people cramming their way in as if there's sanctuary here. but these tunnels... as it turns out, they're dead ends. especially when the vines crush and warp the structure of the tunnel and the entrance into the atrium. well, shit. the worst part of it all, though, is that there's vines wrapping around akito.
and there's nothing either of you can do, and he looks like he knows it. the last thing he does is look down to the vines, then up at kazuki, desperate, before the last thing you think he says - the way his mouth moves in the chaos and the glass separating you - is i'm sorry. then, he's ripped away and into the garden itself.
above you all, the small craft you arrived in is buffeted up by the winds and plants that have come to life in the garden, and you can just barely make out the sound of adrastea swearing as it gets knocked aside. they can't land, at the moment. they'll still try to help.
like a bolt from the blue - quite literally - something fires down through the vines that come crashing down from the broken atrium ceiling. through the opening created by this bolt is the ship, and the door is wide open with adrastea standing on the plank, a weapon in their hands and their helmet off. it's hard to make out any details from the distance, considering how high up the craft is, but you have some backup. ]
[ it feels like time stops, just for a second, with that wan little smile. for a second, all of the chaos and noise whites out, and all temenos can do is watch. maybe it's a mercy this time. what's worse? waking up in the morning and finding a corpse? or watching someone dive into danger, two seconds away from your grasp? the fleeting despair of knowing, once again, there was nothing to be done?
the worst part is he's not surprised.
everything moves again, and temenos grits his teeth. it's not real, that isn't really crick, no matter how much it looked sounded acted like him, because crick is dead, and he has no more time to think on it. he has to keep todomatsu, who is real and has no magic and right here next to him alive. he has to find kazuki. has to get to owner. who - owner was talking to the announcer, he might have been questioning him. his gaze snaps towards the hole he made earlier and he grabs tighter onto his staff. ]
Come on - move, come on. [ if he can get todomatsu to the craft, to adrastea, then maybe he can get him up into the ship - then he can go roast this plant over aelfric's open fire. he's barreling in that direction - firing off a luminescence spell directly in front of their path to try and clear the way with a - illuminate the darkness! for another spell, and then, to be heard in the earpiece over the chaos - ] Adrastea, Kazuki!
[ wait— wait, no, the mood had seemed better there for a moment, when he and his brothers had been flinging insults at each other as normal. that was how it was supposed to be. he'd started to believe again that things really would be fine. because...
...well, they have to be getting close to the end of this stupid mission at this point, right? and two seasons in a row, that had been the pattern. the emotional pain and the deep existential fears of loss and change — those were the things that were supposed to happen in episode 24. and then episode 25, the season finale — that was when everything they'd just been through got overturned and they went back to their over-the-top, zany antics again. the opening theme would play as they all made their final move together, and win or lose, no matter how close they'd come to being torn apart, they'd all be reunited again in the end.
why doesn't it work like that anymore?
he's stayed attached to temenos for almost the whole mission up until now, following along with his every step, but now he hesitates, digging his heels into the dirt as the ground rumbles beneath them.
the music should start playing any moment now, right? he just has to wait for his cue. ]
[ how many people have you failed to save? too little, too late. you don't think it, but you do at the same time, temenos. roi. your own father. crick. too little, too late. will you fail to save them, too?
adrastea's voice cuts through the chaos. owner is gone, long gone from their sight. kazuki has disappeared into a tunnel that no one can access any longer. but there's still hope somewhere. ]
I'm going to try and get him. Stay alive, Temenos. Put your helmets on!
[ that's all they have for him, right now. the winds are roaring - audible, now that the glass of the atrium is destroyed - and the overgrowth floods through the warped metal of the broken structure.
the warning comes a little late, though. because you both feel the burn in your lungs of something creeping in, feel the ache on your skin, feel it in your very muscles. you're lucky in that the holy light has burned away much of it around temenos - but it can't keep it at bay forever. not when the flame fights to stay lit.
unfortunately for todomatsu, he's not in the right genre anymore. and the soundtrack for this episode is nothing but anguished screams, the cacophony of broken glass and mangled metal, the rush of wind.
it's just him, now. the last sextuplet standing. and a thought that isn't yours, but is at the same time. didn't you want to get out from under their shadows? you don't have to worry anymore.
a tangle of vines, making it almost thick as a tree, comes crashing down towards them as the pollen and spores fill the air. ]
[ too little, too late. in reality, temenos never lets him think it for long. he never lets himself wallow in it, because he can't. keep moving. keep walking forward. keep following the light until it illuminates the truth - solve the mystery for roi, for the pontiff, solve the mystery for crick. don't think about the way they died. don't think about how you still doesn't know what happened to roi, even now. don't think about how when you solve the mystery and you find the truth, you will come home to nothing but your own loneliness, to a house with one chair and the yawning, gaping darkness of loss. don't think about how aelfric called you his chosen and granted you powers beyond belief, in what almost felt like mockery for all that was lost.
don't think about it. too little, too late.
adrastea's voice snaps through like a beacon, and he can't, he won't let himself linger. he has to stay alive (because no one else ever did.) temenos' hand shoots up to turn the earpiece to a helmet like he's told, lets the pain of it try and keep him anchored to truth and reality. the world fills up in pollen and spores and color and violence, and he realizes that todomatsu isn't coming.
the vines come rushing downwards, and temenos doesn't have enough time to do anything else, but a - ] Todomatsu! [ and then fires off another sacred shield. it's not right, it's not as strong as it usually is, there's not enough energy to make it a higher powered spell, but he throws himself in the direction of the vines and the shield along with it, shiny and bright of holy light. let the shield protect todomatsu, aelfric lend us your light, do something - his reflexes aren't fast, but his magic is, and he can't stop him from getting hit, but maybe he can stop him from dying.
getting hit by the glass hurts, but honestly? pain is not something owner is a stranger to, so he doesn't let that slow him down as he runs. he catches sight of rei in the distance, and the image of the young man just makes owner laugh. yes, just keep going, don't let something this minor get in your way, rei.
he just keeps going out, using the katana to try to slash at any vines that come close to him. and remember how he has powers back? he does! sometimes, your strength stat on your ic profile is insanely low only because you are nerfed, and it is quite the opposite when you are not. he will use the arm that's not holding onto the sword to try to just rip apart what tries to go after him, although obviously it will be faulty considering the connection comes and goes but.
he is going for that stupid heartseed that brought them here in the goddamn first place. fuck off. they did not go to the worst party ever to leave with nothing. ]
[ what's a little pain when you already feel nothing?
you didn't think that. but you do, at the same time. your lungs burn, but your body rebels against it. thorns and briars on the vines rip towards you, but conviction to get to the end might be enough. maybe it'll be enough.
maybe you'll feel something.
owner runs into the vines, and cuts through them. they keep coming, but his strength is enough - tentative and unstable as it is - to at least get him through part of the way. there's no more thrum, no heartbeat pulse, to follow any longer. but there's a cascade of pollen and spores that cause his blood red clothing to shimmer and shine, iridescent as a butterfly's wing. all around him are past prospects that have succumbed to the Blossoming Ceremony, aged and twisted, older and older as he goes in. the wind whips around him, causing the true hanging gardens to sway in the trees.
everywhere he looks, there is a faint glow speckled throughout the plantlife. blossomed flowers, the anguished stares and wordless, open-mouthed cries of the damned. empty of life. hollow.
[ the thought comes so out of left field that it almost makes him pause. only almost, since he knows if he slows down he'll likely get overtaken. is it a side effect of being here? no, that's not important. he ignores it.
he keeps going, slashing at everything, trying to find whatever it is that's causing all of this to go so haywire. he hears temenos on the earpiece, and he will try to add, ]
Hoshino-sama went into one of the tunnels, Adrastea-sama!
[ he has a ship! owner is not sure what the current state of that tunnel is, but kazuki has not responded to any of the calls, so something might be wrong. he thinks about how he let kazuki run off without him, and how that was another failure on his part. again and again.
for now, he will desperately keep trying to move deeper into the trees. ]
[ adrastea swears softly in the chaos, wind still loud. between temenos and owner, they get the message. ] Got it. I'll see what I can do - everybody get your helmets on.
[ and that's it. they haven't realized owner has run off, because they can barely see anything down below.
but owner keeps going. will you feel something if he dies, too?
over the rush of the vines, the way the katana cuts through them, hacking and slashing and slicing, owner will hear the sound of
a whistling through the trees. it isn't musical. the wind, playing through old bones. ]
he panics. it's instant, the second he realizes that the tunnel just ends. he's so close, so close, that he can't help but reach desperately for akito despite the glass, as if he can somehow break through and pull his friend to safety. his eyes go wide as the vines grab akito, and kazuki screams his name as he suddenly vanishes into the garden.
he slams his fists against the glass as if he could still get through to akito, and hits it a few more times for good measure, until his hands start to hurt.
there's no way out. the entrance is gone, and so is akito, and this damn glass won't break. what is he supposed to do now? he's as trapped as any of these people, and just as terrified. the difference is that it immediately makes kazuki even angrier.
so he hisses venomously into the earpiece, eyes locked on where he'd last seen akito, and pulls out his knife. ]
The fucking tunnel entrance collapsed.
[ the only way out now is to break through. maybe if he hits it right, the knife can do some damage against the glass? still sheathed for now, but we'll see how long that lasts. ]
[ all that's left, on the writhing mass of vines, are akito's glasses and a smear of blood along the ground.
there's no fight. no explosion to precede this. no ichika to tell you it'll be alright.
around him, people are crying and screaming, crushing one another - crabs in a bucket. the metal of the tunnel groans again, glass shattering closest to where the entrance once was. the vines are making their way along, and your lungs... they don't burn too much, not yet, but the pollen and spores glitter on the glass above you as the spiderweb fractures let in air from outside.
temenos, owner, adrastea - their voices, one after another. but adrastea speaks again, to kazuki specifically. ]
Listen to me. Put your helmet on, Kazuki. [ even. their voice stays even. ] I'm going to try and land closer to you, but it's going to take me time with these winds. Stay calm and try to find a weak point in the glass.
[ another groan of metal and glass, as the vines get closer to where he is.
But Akito - he's still... [ kazuki argues, still staring at the place where akito was, that trail of blood, and knowing that the worst has probably already happened but still unable to really believe it. it's so much blood. before last weekend, he'd never dreamed of seeing so much, let alone from his best friend.
"stay calm," they say, as he's being jostled, pushed away from that spot, and he has to fight to stay close to the glass. the sound of the tunnel giving way, falling apart, strikes a fresh jolt of fear in kazuki's heart, so much that he almost doesn't hear the rest of what they say. panic is a primal thing, overriding rational thought: he has to get out. he can't stay here. at best he'll be crushed in this mass of bodies, and at worst--
--he doesn't get a chance to think about that as he watches akito's glasses shatter under the vines, and he suddenly finds it hard to breathe. but not from the pollen, though that slight burn is starting to get to him.
helmet. helmet, they said. ]
A-Adrastea-san. [ his voice shakes, betraying the fear as he reaches up to activate the helmet. ] It's- I don't think... the tunnel's going to last. The vines, they're - they're getting closer.
[ funny. he always expected danger in shinjuku, but that was always from bombs, or guns. modern threats, all from terrible people who'd lost sight of reality or just never cared about others in the first place. it scared him, of course, but he'd come to expect the worst in people. he'd accepted that he could easily die at any moment, and he wouldn't even know what what was happening.
but staring danger in the face like this, hungry vines hunting down a helpless, screaming crowd? with the faces of those who'd already suffered in the past burned into his mind? knowing what's coming, and how terrible it must be?
[ they can't do anything for akito, but adrastea can try to do something for kazuki. he won't be able to see where they are, but the sound of wind rushing across the communication feed fades away, and they keep as calm as they ask kazuki to be. ]
How far away from the end of the tunnel are you?
[ akito realized that there was no entrance, no exit, here at the tunnel before reaching the end of it. his handprints are still smeared against the glass where kazuki stands, as his glasses and his blood are devoured in the mass of overgrowth. this time, he's really gone - not just disappeared away, not just suffering the consequences of his choices.
but maybe adonis isn't wrong. look at what happened here, because of these people.
the thought is yours, but not at the same time.
the faces of the bloomed still stare down at him from the true hanging gardens, hands reaching, bark flesh weathered by time and the elements. like this, with the vines tangling everywhere, the throng of bodies pushing and clamoring for freedom, for safety, it almost looks like they're beckoning instead of reaching out for salvation. ]
[ the vine drags him across the ground littered in glass, snapping him through the wreckage of the atrium and the metal frame.
then, it's dirt and grass, leaves, other writhing vines. some thorns scrape across his body, but the helmet manages to protect his face from suffering any damages there. small mercies, but you're not one to believe in mercy from a higher power, are you?
it won't be enough. it's never enough. you're never enough. you couldn't protect them. you couldn't protect him. you won't be able to protect her.
the vine whips him, and there's a crack that comes with a searing pain in his leg as he's tossed aside and into the dirt.
now, none of you can see one another. none of you can reach each other.
[ he got the shield up. it was something - one last ditch move, and suddenly, the vines grab on. this is like the manymaws all over again (he was so calm, then, even as the monster was picking him up and throwing him aside, because he knew the travelers would take care of it). he's being dragged - thorns and glass shredding the front of the nearly papal costume he'd been put in, as he grabs onto his staff and white knuckles it, tries to turn in the thing's grip, tries to stop it and get back to todomatsu, but it's too fast.
worst. he can't risk snapping his staff and losing the tenuous grip he has on his magic, either - he tries to use it to catch himself in a doorway or what remains of one, but in the end, the staff of judgement is (one of the only things he has left) too important and all he can do is hold on.
it all happens so fast. he's thrown, and something snaps, a clean, painful break, and it knocks the breath from his lungs and puts stars in his eyes when he hits the dirt, vision blacking out. temenos lets out a pained noise as soon as he hits the dirt, unable to keep it back, stunned by the pain and the wind knocked out of him. but. he rolls, tries to force himself to get up, get up. get up, no matter how bad it hurts, you can heal yourself. get up.
(you won't be able to protect her. that's even worse. throné - he didn't even tell her he was leaving, and temenos promised her - )
he digs the pointed end of his staff into the ground. get up. get up. if he can push himself onto his good knee, he will try to right himself.
what are we looking at here? is it just vines for days. ]
[ vines for days, and the horrified faces of the damned. blood, smeared across the ground and the vines alike. a headless body of a bulbous man. the dark silks of a flamboyant announcer. a writhing mass of vines and violence.
the true hanging gardens oversee all, and those that have been warped by the heartseed continue to reach out, beseeching. above, just barely visible through the blossomed flowers, the falling pollen and spores, the treetops... is the craft you arrived in, moving against the winds and trying to remain stable in the air.
it's hard to say if there's any intelligence in these movements, any sentience to the overgrowth that's trying to consume everything. but another barrage of vines whip out towards him, trying to ensnare him once more.
it sounds like the pontiff, in his head, the voice of his childhood. it hurts so badly, and he only has enough time to look up, enough time to see the headless body, the sprays of blood and pollen and flowers. there's no god, up there, but there is the way back. waiting, if they can get free: reality.
what he needs, really. he sucks in a breath - sharp, and latches onto that flickering flame of his magic even harder. the one that the pontiff taught him and roi, that they perfected over years of scripture recitals and practice, the sort he couldn't do when he prayed by roi's bedside in desperation as a child. the sort he is so good at now. the vines rush at him, and whipping outwards, and temenos lets the holy light under his fingers sing.
radiance. a multi target light spell. it's got more juice than luminescence - he can't waste it, he can't waste it (what if they die, what if the other three die?) but he doesn't want to die, either. temenos can't die. he has a promise to keep, and he will be damned if an overgrown weed keeps him away from throné.
he can't evaporate this entire plant without blowing the entirety of his mana, but if he can keep himself alive long enough to stand up and heal his leg, then they'll be in business.
[ it'll be enough, but just barely, and he'll suffer for it.
the holy light burns through the thinner tendrils of the overgrowth, evaporating them, burning away and weakening the thicker ones. those that make it through don't gut him, but the blunt pressure of the impact will send him back and bruise him bodily with the force.
you'll die here and she'll never know.
temenos' landing isn't gentle, but nothing breaks this time. there's some time to heal. ]
[ adrastea turns her head when she hears todomatsu hobbling over, careful to help ease kazuki out of the tangle of vines that he's trapped in. she takes a step back, confident in her footing despite the messy landscape they've found themselves in now, and huff a soft noise out through her nose when she watches him just. put the wig back on. ]
Dedication. [ respect. you look like shit but at least you're sticking to it!
she turns her attention back to kazuki, helping him get his feet on solid ground instead of vine vine and more vine. her eyes are trying to focus properly, but the whirring sound that they make as the intake - like a camera - tries to do it grinds a little, but they ignore it. ] Easy does it.
Both of you, we're going to have to go pick up the other two a little further in.
anyway he's probably heard temenos's message about turning the ship around by this point, so he just tiredly nods after a you okay bro? glance to kazuki. (none of them are okay.) ]
Y-yeah, okay. [ hoping to god this means on the ship and not on foot. ] Can you tell where they are?
[ he probably doesn't even notice that look from todomatsu, and he probably can't answer right now with his throat like this. he'll just nod again silently. to the ship, then... wherever the hell the other two are.
i'll be real though kazui's probably just going to collapse when they get on the ship. ]
Temenos radioed in that it was deeper in the garden. So we're turning around, and then getting the hell out of here.
[ she eases kazuki into the ship, up the gangplank and right towards one of the seats that you had all woken up in earlier. and then she's shrugging out of her jacket, blinking away blood and an inability to focus, to drop the fur-lined officer's jacket onto todomatsu's shoulders when they go to help him next.
no one, and we mean no one, gets left behind here. ]
We need to get you all to the medbay as quick as we can. I don't want to stick around here longer than we have to.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
RUN: razor sharp flowers as they bloom, delicate are the colors piercing through
but they can't go back the way they came. vines, briars, reaching branches, have crushed the tunnel back to the meeting hall - which is probably a good mile, two miles away, now, if your walk is anything to go by. many flee into the smaller tunnels, but you don't know if there's a way out through there. you just know the situation that you're facing, now.
the flowers have all bloomed, and the Blossoming Ceremony has truly begun. spores and pollen float through the air, glittering, beautiful, and those that breathe them in are left in a panic. you see it in their eyes, bulging with fear, the ones who have maybe come to the Blossoming Ceremony before. because they claw at their faces, their throats, as if desperate to rid themselves of what they've just breathed in. but the veins in their skin start to become more visible, thicker ropes across their bodies where you can see them, all the way up into their faces. almost like vines. almost like bark.
the prospects don't have masks, or helmets like you do, to protect them. but the rush of vines and thorns sweeps over them, too, so perhaps it doesn't matter. osomatsu karamatsu choromatsu ichimatsu jyushimatsu all seem to blend into one another in that moment, fighting, ensnared. they punch, kick, pull, bite at vines as best that they can as they're overwhelmed. they've been to hell, been through hell, so maybe this isn't it. maybe they'll make it out.
crick, meanwhile, doesn't stop fighting either. he didn't the first time, and he won't this time - but he does look up to find temenos in the chaos, and gives him a wan smile. he says something, though you can't hear it - and it looks like forgive me before he dives in to try and help the remaining sextuplets.
the group is more separated, now, considering what you all decided you wanted to do. lordy lord. alright.
temenos and todomatsu remain together, so there is that at least. but owner and kazuki are apart from them and each other. the announcer's body is snared in thorns and vines, dragging him and his silks with a long smear of blood along the stage and into the garden. he claws at the stage and screams the entire way, until vines wrap around his face and obscure his mouth.
out owner goes, like a goddamn crazy person. that's fine. a vine whips towards him, thick as his arm. more are converging behind it, washing over the announcer's body like a wave until he's no longer visible, rushing for where he is and trying to drag him in with other victims. rei is a copper brown and bloody dart of color into the atrium, going in the opposite direction of him, diving in with a shard of glass held securely in his hand. he doesn't give you a second glance, owner, but he is a willful child, isn't he? at least if things end here, he'll maybe think it wasn't your fault this time.
and there's kazuki, trapped in a smaller tunnel of glass with other people cramming their way in as if there's sanctuary here. but these tunnels... as it turns out, they're dead ends. especially when the vines crush and warp the structure of the tunnel and the entrance into the atrium. well, shit. the worst part of it all, though, is that there's vines wrapping around akito.
and there's nothing either of you can do, and he looks like he knows it. the last thing he does is look down to the vines, then up at kazuki, desperate, before the last thing you think he says - the way his mouth moves in the chaos and the glass separating you - is i'm sorry. then, he's ripped away and into the garden itself.
above you all, the small craft you arrived in is buffeted up by the winds and plants that have come to life in the garden, and you can just barely make out the sound of adrastea swearing as it gets knocked aside. they can't land, at the moment. they'll still try to help.
like a bolt from the blue - quite literally - something fires down through the vines that come crashing down from the broken atrium ceiling. through the opening created by this bolt is the ship, and the door is wide open with adrastea standing on the plank, a weapon in their hands and their helmet off. it's hard to make out any details from the distance, considering how high up the craft is, but you have some backup. ]
TEMENOS & TODOMATSU
no subject
the worst part is he's not surprised.
everything moves again, and temenos grits his teeth. it's not real, that isn't really crick, no matter how much it looked sounded acted like him, because crick is dead, and he has no more time to think on it. he has to keep todomatsu, who is real and has no magic and right here next to him alive. he has to find kazuki. has to get to owner. who - owner was talking to the announcer, he might have been questioning him. his gaze snaps towards the hole he made earlier and he grabs tighter onto his staff. ]
Come on - move, come on. [ if he can get todomatsu to the craft, to adrastea, then maybe he can get him up into the ship - then he can go roast this plant over aelfric's open fire. he's barreling in that direction - firing off a luminescence spell directly in front of their path to try and clear the way with a - illuminate the darkness! for another spell, and then, to be heard in the earpiece over the chaos - ] Adrastea, Kazuki!
no subject
...well, they have to be getting close to the end of this stupid mission at this point, right? and two seasons in a row, that had been the pattern. the emotional pain and the deep existential fears of loss and change — those were the things that were supposed to happen in episode 24. and then episode 25, the season finale — that was when everything they'd just been through got overturned and they went back to their over-the-top, zany antics again. the opening theme would play as they all made their final move together, and win or lose, no matter how close they'd come to being torn apart, they'd all be reunited again in the end.
why doesn't it work like that anymore?
he's stayed attached to temenos for almost the whole mission up until now, following along with his every step, but now he hesitates, digging his heels into the dirt as the ground rumbles beneath them.
the music should start playing any moment now, right? he just has to wait for his cue. ]
no subject
adrastea's voice cuts through the chaos. owner is gone, long gone from their sight. kazuki has disappeared into a tunnel that no one can access any longer. but there's still hope somewhere. ]
I'm going to try and get him. Stay alive, Temenos. Put your helmets on!
[ that's all they have for him, right now. the winds are roaring - audible, now that the glass of the atrium is destroyed - and the overgrowth floods through the warped metal of the broken structure.
the warning comes a little late, though. because you both feel the burn in your lungs of something creeping in, feel the ache on your skin, feel it in your very muscles. you're lucky in that the holy light has burned away much of it around temenos - but it can't keep it at bay forever. not when the flame fights to stay lit.
unfortunately for todomatsu, he's not in the right genre anymore. and the soundtrack for this episode is nothing but anguished screams, the cacophony of broken glass and mangled metal, the rush of wind.
it's just him, now. the last sextuplet standing. and a thought that isn't yours, but is at the same time. didn't you want to get out from under their shadows? you don't have to worry anymore.
a tangle of vines, making it almost thick as a tree, comes crashing down towards them as the pollen and spores fill the air. ]
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don't think about it. too little, too late.
adrastea's voice snaps through like a beacon, and he can't, he won't let himself linger. he has to stay alive (because no one else ever did.) temenos' hand shoots up to turn the earpiece to a helmet like he's told, lets the pain of it try and keep him anchored to truth and reality. the world fills up in pollen and spores and color and violence, and he realizes that todomatsu isn't coming.
the vines come rushing downwards, and temenos doesn't have enough time to do anything else, but a - ] Todomatsu! [ and then fires off another sacred shield. it's not right, it's not as strong as it usually is, there's not enough energy to make it a higher powered spell, but he throws himself in the direction of the vines and the shield along with it, shiny and bright of holy light. let the shield protect todomatsu, aelfric lend us your light, do something - his reflexes aren't fast, but his magic is, and he can't stop him from getting hit, but maybe he can stop him from dying.
for once. ]
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TODOMATSU
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OWNER
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getting hit by the glass hurts, but honestly? pain is not something owner is a stranger to, so he doesn't let that slow him down as he runs. he catches sight of rei in the distance, and the image of the young man just makes owner laugh. yes, just keep going, don't let something this minor get in your way, rei.
he just keeps going out, using the katana to try to slash at any vines that come close to him. and remember how he has powers back? he does! sometimes, your strength stat on your ic profile is insanely low only because you are nerfed, and it is quite the opposite when you are not. he will use the arm that's not holding onto the sword to try to just rip apart what tries to go after him, although obviously it will be faulty considering the connection comes and goes but.
he is going for that stupid heartseed that brought them here in the goddamn first place. fuck off. they did not go to the worst party ever to leave with nothing. ]
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you didn't think that. but you do, at the same time. your lungs burn, but your body rebels against it. thorns and briars on the vines rip towards you, but conviction to get to the end might be enough. maybe it'll be enough.
maybe you'll feel something.
owner runs into the vines, and cuts through them. they keep coming, but his strength is enough - tentative and unstable as it is - to at least get him through part of the way. there's no more thrum, no heartbeat pulse, to follow any longer. but there's a cascade of pollen and spores that cause his blood red clothing to shimmer and shine, iridescent as a butterfly's wing. all around him are past prospects that have succumbed to the Blossoming Ceremony, aged and twisted, older and older as he goes in. the wind whips around him, causing the true hanging gardens to sway in the trees.
everywhere he looks, there is a faint glow speckled throughout the plantlife. blossomed flowers, the anguished stares and wordless, open-mouthed cries of the damned. empty of life. hollow.
you're not so different. ]
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he keeps going, slashing at everything, trying to find whatever it is that's causing all of this to go so haywire. he hears temenos on the earpiece, and he will try to add, ]
Hoshino-sama went into one of the tunnels, Adrastea-sama!
[ he has a ship! owner is not sure what the current state of that tunnel is, but kazuki has not responded to any of the calls, so something might be wrong. he thinks about how he let kazuki run off without him, and how that was another failure on his part. again and again.
for now, he will desperately keep trying to move deeper into the trees. ]
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[ and that's it. they haven't realized owner has run off, because they can barely see anything down below.
but owner keeps going. will you feel something if he dies, too?
over the rush of the vines, the way the katana cuts through them, hacking and slashing and slicing, owner will hear the sound of
a whistling through the trees. it isn't musical. the wind, playing through old bones. ]
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KAZUKI
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he panics. it's instant, the second he realizes that the tunnel just ends. he's so close, so close, that he can't help but reach desperately for akito despite the glass, as if he can somehow break through and pull his friend to safety. his eyes go wide as the vines grab akito, and kazuki screams his name as he suddenly vanishes into the garden.
he slams his fists against the glass as if he could still get through to akito, and hits it a few more times for good measure, until his hands start to hurt.
there's no way out. the entrance is gone, and so is akito, and this damn glass won't break. what is he supposed to do now? he's as trapped as any of these people, and just as terrified. the difference is that it immediately makes kazuki even angrier.
so he hisses venomously into the earpiece, eyes locked on where he'd last seen akito, and pulls out his knife. ]
The fucking tunnel entrance collapsed.
[ the only way out now is to break through. maybe if he hits it right, the knife can do some damage against the glass? still sheathed for now, but we'll see how long that lasts. ]
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there's no fight. no explosion to precede this. no ichika to tell you it'll be alright.
around him, people are crying and screaming, crushing one another - crabs in a bucket. the metal of the tunnel groans again, glass shattering closest to where the entrance once was. the vines are making their way along, and your lungs... they don't burn too much, not yet, but the pollen and spores glitter on the glass above you as the spiderweb fractures let in air from outside.
temenos, owner, adrastea - their voices, one after another. but adrastea speaks again, to kazuki specifically. ]
Listen to me. Put your helmet on, Kazuki. [ even. their voice stays even. ] I'm going to try and land closer to you, but it's going to take me time with these winds. Stay calm and try to find a weak point in the glass.
[ another groan of metal and glass, as the vines get closer to where he is.
outside, the glasses are crushed beneath them. ]
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"stay calm," they say, as he's being jostled, pushed away from that spot, and he has to fight to stay close to the glass. the sound of the tunnel giving way, falling apart, strikes a fresh jolt of fear in kazuki's heart, so much that he almost doesn't hear the rest of what they say. panic is a primal thing, overriding rational thought: he has to get out. he can't stay here. at best he'll be crushed in this mass of bodies, and at worst--
--he doesn't get a chance to think about that as he watches akito's glasses shatter under the vines, and he suddenly finds it hard to breathe. but not from the pollen, though that slight burn is starting to get to him.
helmet. helmet, they said. ]
A-Adrastea-san. [ his voice shakes, betraying the fear as he reaches up to activate the helmet. ] It's- I don't think... the tunnel's going to last. The vines, they're - they're getting closer.
[ funny. he always expected danger in shinjuku, but that was always from bombs, or guns. modern threats, all from terrible people who'd lost sight of reality or just never cared about others in the first place. it scared him, of course, but he'd come to expect the worst in people. he'd accepted that he could easily die at any moment, and he wouldn't even know what what was happening.
but staring danger in the face like this, hungry vines hunting down a helpless, screaming crowd? with the faces of those who'd already suffered in the past burned into his mind? knowing what's coming, and how terrible it must be?
maybe bombs aren't so scary, by comparison. ]
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How far away from the end of the tunnel are you?
[ akito realized that there was no entrance, no exit, here at the tunnel before reaching the end of it. his handprints are still smeared against the glass where kazuki stands, as his glasses and his blood are devoured in the mass of overgrowth. this time, he's really gone - not just disappeared away, not just suffering the consequences of his choices.
but maybe adonis isn't wrong. look at what happened here, because of these people.
the thought is yours, but not at the same time.
the faces of the bloomed still stare down at him from the true hanging gardens, hands reaching, bark flesh weathered by time and the elements. like this, with the vines tangling everywhere, the throng of bodies pushing and clamoring for freedom, for safety, it almost looks like they're beckoning instead of reaching out for salvation. ]
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TEMENOS
then, it's dirt and grass, leaves, other writhing vines. some thorns scrape across his body, but the helmet manages to protect his face from suffering any damages there. small mercies, but you're not one to believe in mercy from a higher power, are you?
it won't be enough. it's never enough. you're never enough. you couldn't protect them. you couldn't protect him. you won't be able to protect her.
the vine whips him, and there's a crack that comes with a searing pain in his leg as he's tossed aside and into the dirt.
now, none of you can see one another. none of you can reach each other.
but being alone is what you're used to. ]
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worst. he can't risk snapping his staff and losing the tenuous grip he has on his magic, either - he tries to use it to catch himself in a doorway or what remains of one, but in the end, the staff of judgement is (one of the only things he has left) too important and all he can do is hold on.
it all happens so fast. he's thrown, and something snaps, a clean, painful break, and it knocks the breath from his lungs and puts stars in his eyes when he hits the dirt, vision blacking out. temenos lets out a pained noise as soon as he hits the dirt, unable to keep it back, stunned by the pain and the wind knocked out of him. but. he rolls, tries to force himself to get up, get up. get up, no matter how bad it hurts, you can heal yourself. get up.
(you won't be able to protect her. that's even worse. throné - he didn't even tell her he was leaving, and temenos promised her - )
he digs the pointed end of his staff into the ground. get up. get up. if he can push himself onto his good knee, he will try to right himself.
what are we looking at here? is it just vines for days. ]
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the true hanging gardens oversee all, and those that have been warped by the heartseed continue to reach out, beseeching. above, just barely visible through the blossomed flowers, the falling pollen and spores, the treetops... is the craft you arrived in, moving against the winds and trying to remain stable in the air.
it's hard to say if there's any intelligence in these movements, any sentience to the overgrowth that's trying to consume everything. but another barrage of vines whip out towards him, trying to ensnare him once more.
The Sacred Flame shall light our path, Temenos.
roll to do some sick shit or eat shit. ]
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it sounds like the pontiff, in his head, the voice of his childhood. it hurts so badly, and he only has enough time to look up, enough time to see the headless body, the sprays of blood and pollen and flowers. there's no god, up there, but there is the way back. waiting, if they can get free: reality.
what he needs, really. he sucks in a breath - sharp, and latches onto that flickering flame of his magic even harder. the one that the pontiff taught him and roi, that they perfected over years of scripture recitals and practice, the sort he couldn't do when he prayed by roi's bedside in desperation as a child. the sort he is so good at now. the vines rush at him, and whipping outwards, and temenos lets the holy light under his fingers sing.
radiance. a multi target light spell. it's got more juice than luminescence - he can't waste it, he can't waste it (what if they die, what if the other three die?) but he doesn't want to die, either. temenos can't die. he has a promise to keep, and he will be damned if an overgrown weed keeps him away from throné.
he can't evaporate this entire plant without blowing the entirety of his mana, but if he can keep himself alive long enough to stand up and heal his leg, then they'll be in business.
sisi 👁 🐏 sacred flamer Request: [1d20] Roll: [14] Result: 14 ]
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the holy light burns through the thinner tendrils of the overgrowth, evaporating them, burning away and weakening the thicker ones. those that make it through don't gut him, but the blunt pressure of the impact will send him back and bruise him bodily with the force.
you'll die here and she'll never know.
temenos' landing isn't gentle, but nothing breaks this time. there's some time to heal. ]
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TODOMATSU & KAZUKI
Dedication. [ respect. you look like shit but at least you're sticking to it!
she turns her attention back to kazuki, helping him get his feet on solid ground instead of vine vine and more vine. her eyes are trying to focus properly, but the whirring sound that they make as the intake - like a camera - tries to do it grinds a little, but they ignore it. ] Easy does it.
Both of you, we're going to have to go pick up the other two a little further in.
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anyway he's probably heard temenos's message about turning the ship around by this point, so he just tiredly nods after a you okay bro? glance to kazuki. (none of them are okay.) ]
Y-yeah, okay. [ hoping to god this means on the ship and not on foot. ] Can you tell where they are?
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i'll be real though kazui's probably just going to collapse when they get on the ship. ]
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[ she eases kazuki into the ship, up the gangplank and right towards one of the seats that you had all woken up in earlier. and then she's shrugging out of her jacket, blinking away blood and an inability to focus, to drop the fur-lined officer's jacket onto todomatsu's shoulders when they go to help him next.
no one, and we mean no one, gets left behind here. ]
We need to get you all to the medbay as quick as we can. I don't want to stick around here longer than we have to.
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