EOJ Writing Room

Black Ritual, Black Blood

After allowing her to compose herself, the Emperor, still in Yurasaha's embrace, quietly speaks.

"Iwato, I need you to leave. I know you mean well... but you should not hear what I have to say."

Iwato is upset, but maintains his composure. "I am your sword, Hiromi, and your sworn guardian. I should know what you have suffered-"

She raises her hand, cutting him off. "I know. But your heart burns with anger and hate, and it would overburden your heart to make you know more at this point. I have overlooked matters for your sake, but I cannot lose you to anger, not when Darkness looms over us so."

Iwato makes a rattled breath, before bowing his head. "...I understand." He quietly leaves the room, leaving her with Leciel and Yurasaha.

"...The leader of the White Mist clan impregnated me with two children during my captivity. During each birth, they performed profane rituals on my body and soul, tearing pieces out and filling the void with the blackened souls of Yokai sacrificed to bypass my protection blessing. ...With my firstborn, I lost my courage. With my second, I lost my heart. Two thirds of my soul has been taken from me, and imbued in my children, while black spirits fuse with my fragmented self and..."

She shudders. "My body had almost entirely become a Red Oni. But I was saved before they could perform the final rite."

Yurasaha snarls as something occurs to her. "Leciel... this reeks of Maou's hand. What she's describing... it sounds like they were performing rituals to turn her into a Black Oni. I don't know how she has endured so long... but it is a miracle, and nothing less that she is still... herself."

The Emperor looks away. "The Blessing rages within me even as the spirits torment me. They feed off each other, and grow stronger with my emotions. Happiness, sorrow... forbidden. If I don't lock my heart away, one or the other will eventually take hold of me entirely and I won't be... myself. All I can think about is my father's sacrifice that I might be saved, and the people who need my guidance. My will is the only thing keeping me going now."

"Would that I had known of this sooner," Leciel breathes. "I would have offered magic rather than a potion. None of my own, I would rather not corrode your soul. I know of one who could, should they be reached, bring balance to the 'Blessings' though you would need to endure for several weeks more. Otherwise I would need a month an a half to create a solution capable of fixing what ails you. My supply of Philosopher's Stones and elemental concentrates are low and I can only utilize the highest of quality of both if I were to aid you in full."

The Emperor attempts a brave smile. “I apologize. I would have told all had it been with my power. I have endured this trial, by the grace of the Kami I hope to endure as long as it takes. …Though likely, I will have to journey upon another pilgrimage before either happens, recent events have made my decline faster than expected.”

Ashore from Home

The moon hangs low in the sky as dawn threatens to break, and the stranger to these lands finally makes it ashore. He hadn't expected to be accosted by monsters of every shape and size on his journey, but he had managed to make it, despite the patrol ships nearly catching him at every turn. Finally the hardest part of his journey would be over... so he hoped.

Because he couldn't shake the feeling, even as the reassurance of the wet stand beneath his feet affirmed itself... ...that the worst was yet to come. For he felt the eerie weight of eyes watching him from the shadows.

His longship dragged across the sand, passing the tide as he hopped off the kneel. He breathed the salty air, preparing himself for the journey inland, and set off on his way with an oar still in his hand.

As he travels deeper in land, he comes across a forested region, and makes the observation that few people must live in these parts as even coming ashore, he couldn't see hints of lights anywhere. Delving deeper among the old trees, he begins to hear a sound amongst the wind, fading in and out of his ability to hear. A melody, organic and intentioned. First there was one, then two. Two musical voices in the wind, and now with certainty, two pairs of eyes were upon him.

He hears a faint rustle of leaves, then just barely able to be heard is a soft voice.

"You have come here, in lieu of a port. The Eyes of the Emperor are many. Present authorization to be in these lands or return to your ship and do not return, Outlander. The world is unkind to our way of life and we will not suffer any attempt to usurp our rights of peace. I state again: Present authorization or leave and do not return. Otherwise... we will use force." The voice warns from above, within the canopy.

The tan-skinned oar-man holds his hands up, slowly placing his oar on the ground as he kneels. "I am not from the world of man, nor do I mean it any harm, but I must be allowed to pass. Distraction may lead to larger catastrophe than has been already made necessary."

Mirror

Riot bounds through the unfamiliar streets of his former nemesis, the Empire, ignoring the gossip and chatter of the locals as he surges past. Up ahead, he spies a fog bank beginning to roll in, and as he tries to avoid it, he hears the plucking of a shamisen, and his vision blurs as the fog overtakes him.

When his vision clears, he is in a moonlit forest with a clearing up ahead. In that clearing sits a blue oni woman of large frame and wearing the noble clothes of a matriarch of one of their clans. Her skin shimmers like glass underwater, even the reflections cast by her scars have their own beauty to them. Rested on her lap is a long ōdachi, one that much like the woman herself, fills him with fond and frightful memories alike. How could they not?

For the closest he had ever come to facing the legendary Witch of Glass was through the one and only Masa Setsuko, the Matriarch of Moonlight Glass. Yes, a mission on a fateful night where he had been ordered to push back the Glass, only to be halted and forced back by Masa, though the large scar on her neck was a mighty victory of its own, for he had managed to wound the second greatest warrior of the Moonlight Glass, in exchange for a scar across his belly.

Her head lowered in meditation rises as her bright amber eyes slowly open to greet him with the same fierceness of that day. "Riot. I never dreamed to meet you on the field of battle once more. As irritating to play along with her games... I'll have to thank the Bringer of Death for this chance."

"A battle of the past..." A mysterious voice echoes as Masa slowly rises to her feet, slowly drawing the legendary sword of the Blue Oni, 'North Dragon'. "Surpass this trial. A boon to thee I bestow."

"Where have you taken me, witch?" the old man growls. "I have no more quarrel with the blues."

Masa's mouth spreads wide into a sinister grin. "Riot Hellbringer, wants not of the feast of blood and steel? What is this, parody?" Lightning crackles about her and North Dragon.

"No, you will sate my appetite, for I have starved these many long years without the glory of the battlefield. Only in this moment will I find my closure, in this age of peace and reason. We were brought here in spirit to do battle and partake of the most glorious of dances. To protest is to try and catch the very wind in one's grasp. Futile and juvenile, much like my daughter who thinks only of her indolence and defiant to the last."

Her eyes narrow. "Perhaps her sponsoring you is the proof I need to bring her to heel and accept her fate as my heir. After all, how worthy of her honor can you be if you have become as tame as a lamb?!" With that, her sword strike is as a clap of thunder, nigh instant and destructive as she aims for his gut.

He knocks the odachi aside with the hilt of his hammer, allowing her to ram her face into the mass of steel that made up it's head.

"I am not the child who once fought you. Do not push your luck, Crazed-Blue-One."

He feels the hairs on his body stand up and his body sparks with static dancing off it immediately after striking the metal surface of North Dragon. As she swings the blade in a wide arc, spinning backward from his blow but unphased, spirals of lightning course from her and the blade and hone in on him, and he remembers the rather fiendish property of the weapon to instill a powerful charge into those who contact it without permission, allowing any subsequent discharges of electricity to be attracted to their location and its effects magnified on impact.

"Indeed, you are not so easily goaded, your blows are decisive and you wasted little energy." She smirks. "You will find that Fortune and I have been long and true dance partners. Come now. Don't keep me waiting. This dance is for you."

As the lightning hits the scar on his stomach it daws a steaming blood from beneath his flesh. Once again, he swats away the blade with the wooden handle of his hammer, then faking for another face shot before kneecapping her as she runs past her target.

"End the riddles before more is shed than necessary," he says through gritted teeth. Riot's annoyance getting more clearly defined in his tone.

Masa gives him a cold look as she kicks his kneecap blow aside and he receives a painful jolt from the touch of her hand.

"To think this is what remains of Chief. Why did you live and he die? He would not have disgraced himself in this manner. To think my last battle with a Towering Horn would be met not in joyous battle but sniveling."

Striking him back to the edge of the clearing with the edge of North Dragon's pommel, she sheathes the blade as he eyes him with open disdain.

Amid the insults aired, he could not help but hear a semblance of... ...longing.

Yes, there was another look in her eyes besides animosity. Yearning. But it doesn't last long as a searing contempt takes hold.

"I won't have her waste any more time with rabble like you. It's clear her search is in vain. One such as you could never surpass the summit she waits upon." Her eyes narrow and her pupils are paper thin slits.

"I did not have the chance to show my children our ways," he says, his tone shifting to a kinder, more warm voice, "and, looking back, I wish I could have taught them how to show mercy. You and I lived in a world filled with war. We felt it was glorious..."

His eye shifts to the ground, closing as he chuckles. "The deaths of so many loved ones, the lives we took for nothing more than meaningless differences of opinion... There was nothing glorious to be had in such bloodshed."

Masa turns her back to him. "Mercy, or arrogance? You merely stood amid the ashes of your ruined home then hid away in shame. You comprehend little of loss or glory. Even less of what it means to be of the Glass. Such incomprehension will only lead to the same end all Reds and Blues who have tried to bridge the chasm between our people have faced."

She turns to look at Riot again and he is greeted by the inert, expressionless gaze he has often seen from Miyako.

"What a disappointment you are."

With that, the fog thickens, and a woman sighs.

"Well, that was not quite the show I had envisioned, but I know of you more all the same." The fog parts, and he is surrounded by tall peaks with a sea of clouds. Sitting opposite of him in meditation is a large white oni with large horns and impressive bulk, with robes akin to a priestess parted to show her abdomen and chest. If she stood, she would probably be close to him in height.

"Sit for a while. Tell me, do you still harbor regrets and doubts of the path you chose to walk?"

The giant sits softly, forearms resting upon his elbows as he sighs into his chest. Looking up at the sky, a strange calm overcomes him.

"If I had known to be better when I was worse, no good would've come from it. Only more loss for an equally greater needlessness."

"I must applaud your development over these years. You have grown since you were a boy. ...Not that I would expect you to remember. Still, in many ways, you have yet to truly mature in wisdom." The woman sighs.

"You were quite cruel. Not that you would understand as much in your sincerity. Masa Setsuko's days of glory are behind her, and it would have pleased her greatly to have one last dance in a form and potency she once had." The woman wearily smiles. "But I am not chastising you either. Masa resorts to her own cruelty in order to facilitate her dreams of glory through another."

"She is mistaken," he begins, turning his head down towards her, "in believing her best days are behind her. A leader's greatest achievements are proven in the aftermath of their death and the ways their people move past them."

"...Tell me, what do you know of the Blue Oni and their ways? Tell me what you have heard, seen, and felt as you have traveled with Masa's heir."

"I have as much understanding of their culture as I have of why the moon is in the sky. They are foreign to me... but since meeting the Blue-One-Who-Shines, I have heard the longing of a child lost in a world without care. I have seen a warrior torn between two battlefields. And I have felt kinship greater than I imagined possible with my past rival." He states all this plainly, the gleaming bead of his eye locked upon the living myth that sat in front of him. He raced his mind for the familiarity she drew from him, trying to remember the reason she felt as though she'd been at his back this whole time.

"A bird without wings, unable to fly, and bound in a cage. Tell me. Could you call that a bird at all?" The white oni's eyes crack only by a sliver, and yet it fills him with a cold shudder.

"If the Blue Moon's Gift fails to break through the clouds, only darkness will reign in the night above our world and that of mankind. The blazing Sun lent his mighty rays upon the Moon that she might spare all from the evils of night. It has ever been the role of the Sun to reassure the fragile hearted Moon of its power and beauty, that when his strength fails, he won't stand alone against the Night."

Hidden in cryptic words, he catches glimpses of an old folk tale he had never given much thought to before. Furthermore, he feels like he's heard her voice before, reciting a similar story.

"You have no need to worry of the Sun's warmth forsaking the Moon, seeress." The Red Oni stands, sighing as his bones creak. "The last time we met, I was far more confused. I do not regret my life, I do not wish to change my past. But the last time I saw Shining-One, she was headed for battle. I'd prefer if I could go assist her, if you wouldn't mind."

The white oni's eyes close again. "I understand. Before you go... Dusk approaches, and swifter than you dare hope. The Den of Spiders weave a sinister web, and should the Sun of the Empire be entangled, the Eternal Night will consume land, sea, and sky. The trial ahead... should you prevail, the Bringer of Death shall return to test your mettle as one to embody the light against the coming darkness."

The fog begins to deepen once more.

"I hope, for your sake, your path does not end the same like the path of the Darkened Sun and Moon. You both deserve happiness in this life."

Luring out Serpents

After a fair bit of waiting, Ark gets communications from Yurasaha.

“You can begin. The Anti Kaiju Squad shouldn’t be expecting you, but mind the mortar cannons and their other mounted armaments upon their walls. The girl named Miwa, codenamed Dragonfly is out but expected to be there momentarily.”

"Noted. I'll slightly adjust my pattern based on that." With that Ark looks upwards. His eyes narrow under his armor as a stormhead gathers and rain begins to fall rapidly. He vanishes a moment later as the winds surge and thunder rumbles overhead.

At the headquarters of the Anti Kaiju Squad, a man with black buzz cut hair, dark blue eyes wielding a blue great shield with the arm carrying it covered in similar armor looks up at the sky as the weather changes.

His companion, a gloomy looking individual with long black hair and grey eyes, wields a set of black leathery gloves and an ornate rifle. “Something wrong?”

The shield bearer grimaces. “The air moves in unusual ways. There wasn’t supposed to be weather like this and yet…”

The long haired individual sighs. “I can scout with my friends for trouble makers, Noboru.”

”…That might not be necessary. Go get Ran, Isao. We need our long range options.”

The black haired man, Isao nods and runs into the complex while the shield bearer Noboru tenses, and the shield expands to the size of his body and grows a neon blue eye with a dead stare towards the clouds. A bastard sword grows out of his armor as it expands to his shoulder, grabbing the hilt he watches the clouds as though scanning for danger, all the while a sharp odor in the air begins to waft.

Noticing the reaction of the two Anti Kaiju agents, the various soldiers of the complex begin to assume formations throughout the complex, some begin to arm and mount the mortars and various large scale Armaments standing by on the wall.

Lightning crackles once, briefly flashing black as the sea churns. Four great serpents made of water and fog twist free from the depths and roar as a black figure in dead coral armor floats behind them.

"Lash out and rage," the figure intones as the four serpents unleash streams of compressed water at the mortars.

Noboru inhales. "So it's one of these," He speaks calmly as the eye on his shield flares and a barrier rises to block the streams of water. Meanwhile the mortars open fire on the serpents, while a particular mounted Armament begins to glow blue, a faint hum filling the air.

In the complex, Isao reaches a room and enters as alarms begin to sound, the occupant looks up at him.

"Trouble?" The woman asks.

"Noboru is manning the defense, we need our crowning sword and spear if we're going to deal with an ocean based enemy." Isao intones.

"Then let us go." She grabs a blade composed of purple crystal and dons a suit of armor, soon after a pink glow begins to emit from her chest...

As Noboru defends against the serpent’s assault, Ark senses multiple presences arriving on the scene after a few minutes. The first to arrive is a woman accompanying Isao, whose black hair fades into a bright pink at the roots, with eyes shaded with violets and pinks. Her ears are pointed and there is a discoloration of her skin in blotchy patches that matches her hair color. Her presence, more than the other two Kaiju Squad members, reeks of Kaiju contamination. It’s shortly after this newcomer arrives that he senses a second presence soaring through the air at great speed, just under supersonic speed.

Like the first newcomer, their presence even from a great distance has the sense of a Kaiju. However, the presence is less of a corrosion and more as if a Kaiju slept in the form of a human. It doesn’t take long for this second presence to arrive, firing off a rapid fire assault not on the serpents, but the black armored figure.

”This one is not like most… got any thoughts in that head of yours, or are you just oblivious to whose front door you are pounding on?” The flying newcomer shouts playfully, while brandishing two rifle like appendages grown from her arms, covered in an armor creepily reminiscent of Aceda’s armored carapace. Beyond that disturbing thought, she looks almost exactly like her, as if only a few years in age apart.

"The Hall of the False shall not be allowed to stand," The figure roars in answer, summoning a tall wave of water—only to cut through it with a trident made from numerous clams and broken seashells, sending super sonic blades of water towards the wall and the flying target. Meanwhile the serpents of water reform and split, becoming writhing masses of brackish water as they fire more beams of water towards the base. Beyond them and the figure forms a swirling mass of sea foam and salt, pulsing with the power of the sea.

The pink haired woman narrows her eyes and presses her hand to her chest, which causes a loud and rapid heart beat to become audible as she glows violet, before her body begins to spasm and jerk, plate armor growing around her neck and growing into the form of a Kaiju's lower jaw, while the armor of her legs thicken and take the shape of draconic limbs. She sucks in a breath as the changes continue and a tail grows, shortly accompanied by energy wings. Glaring at the coral armored figure, she suddenly leaps up and takes flight.

Weaving through the first few attacks, she begins slashing at the beams of water, which cause her gemlike blade to glow brilliantly while sucking up the beams it slashes, and she begins to glow violet after a few slashes, centered in her chest. She points her weapon at one of the writhing masses and it splits open into two halves up to its hilt, a orb of violet condensing before being shot off at the mass, vaporizing a large area surrounding it on contact, water rushing to fill the void.

Meanwhile Miwa ducks and weaves through the attacks, shooting away those which her currently heavy armored form doesn't let her nimbly evade. She flexes one of her arms, and the two rifle like armaments disappear, only for her right arm to grow a massive cannon which she supports with her left, aiming it towards the figure, but her eyes are on the large mass of foam. He senses a large volume of power being drawn.

As she charges, toward the city is spotted flashes of electrical energy as something from the city seems to be traveling at speed towards the battle. Furthermore, a host of Samurai seem to be closing in on the compound. All of this being watched by a man with short black hair and brown eyes, wearing a lab coat and glasses, his eyes a hollow stare regarding the scene dispassionately.

The samurai close in, and abruptly breach the front of the facility, swarming it from behind the ranks of the Anti Kaiju Squad. The pink haired woman is the first to see this, and angrily charges toward the Samurai, and can be seen yelling at them. A fierce exchange begins, until finally she shakes her head in disbelief and begins running into the compound itself. The man, Daisuke, narrows his eyes and gives another look at the coral armored figure as he silently grasps a manner of firearm with a violet substance, eyeing a suit of armor not unlike the Armaments coldly.

"It seems that an old friend has come to play... and has sniffed out something problematic. Well, no matter." He glances at a calendar and the faintest trace of color on his face fades as he grows somehow paler.

Miwa. Return to the lab. You're overdue for treatment. Now.

Kind of in the middle of something, it can wait right?! Miwa shouts at her father as the sudden communication distracts her enough for a beam to almost knock her off balance.

Do not talk back to me. This is urgent.

Miwa swears in frustration, the internal conflict making her unfocused.

The moment Miwa's focus drops, a bolt of lightning strikes nearby and a black and red clad figure akin to a heavily armored ronin materializes. The world seems to freeze for a second as they flash behind the girl and strike at her neck with a palm coated in deep blue energy.

In the meantime the seaborn Kaiju gathers seafoam around the orb, shifting into a sphere of murky looking water with a deep pearlescent glow within it.

Daisuke looks at the unfolding chaos with a stoic expression, looking at the armored ronin striking at Miwa in grim silence, then at the rushing samurai flooding the compound. He fingers the weapon with violet fluid for a moment, as the fake smile he perpetually wore for the first time slips away from his face, a tight frown revealing itself.

Ark had never seen the man angry, but if he could have seen the look on Daisuke's face, he'd know the subtle shift of his face for what it was.

"I almost convinced myself that I was being paranoid. But if the Emperor is moving against me at the same time..." He fully arms the weapon.

His eyes narrow into furrowed slits. "Then the time for my trump card will be at hand. Fire up, Giginoxis Armament. We've moving things ahead of schedule. Even flawed, he will be no match." The suit of armor rumbles as lights begin turning on within. His head shifts toward the doorway as running can be heard.

"Time to tie up a loose end."

Abruptly the shield generated by Noboru bursts, and some of the kaiju's attacks are let through, but only temporarily, as the remainder are swatted aside and absorbed by a sudden wave that surges in the opposite direction of the wave pattern, then surges to monstrous heights. Riding its crest is a completely armored Noboru with his shield greatly grown and a eye piece over one of his eyes. At the end of the shield is a cannon, but his sword has disappeared. Accompanying this change, there is a heavy shudder of pressure in the entire region as the sky turns ink black and thunder roars, right before a massive downburst surges in the direction of the kaiju, and a blinding torrent rushes into being as the seas writhe and rage with a frenzy near indescribable, the winds screaming and howling as if a colossal typhoon had descended in seconds.

"No more games, Kaiju!" Noboru roars with a deep dragonic quality.

Isao, watching his friend's abrupt charge, shudders, realizing that Noboru has gone into a rage and activated the Hadal Configuration.

"You fool... finish this quickly before you drown us all!"

A flicker of lightning sparks next to him, and a female blue oni lands next to him. "Ryoma has gone mad. How are we going to be able to assist if he's made the battlefield inhospitable even to his allies? You humans are fools indeed, always at the worst times."

She gnashes her teeth in frustration. "Right when Miwa could use help the most."

Miwa's senses scream danger, and in her desperation to react attempts to shift into Configuration 1, disregarding an often repeated warning by her father never to attempt such a thing while her Armament is already channeling high concentrations of power, her body becoming encased in a thick exoskeleton of armor, only for her arm to glow violently bright and explode, clutching her arm and screaming in pain as its energy suddenly surges and instead of continuing to fly out, condenses into the wound and floods into her body.

The destroyed limb suddenly and violently regenerates, but any advantage the attempt to defend would have made becomes irrelevant as she suddenly vomits as the absorbed energy begins condensing in her chest, a deep and powerful glow in her chest, along with a reverberation begins emitting. He watches as the core in her Armament suddenly harmonizes with this effect and suddenly slips into her flesh and joins the glowing energy inside, causing her to lose control and vomit even more, her body suddenly beginning to steam immensely.