A Broken Heart Attacked [Beast Totem Hunt]
Nov 4, 2019 2:14:58 GMT
Post by Sho Tsuginaga on Nov 4, 2019 2:14:58 GMT
It was one of those still days. No one asking for him to be anywhere, no reason for him to port back to his house, no creature threatening him within an inch of his life if he even stepped close. Sho could just sit in the matted grass completely relaxed, eyes glued to the cloud-coated, cream-colored sky above him without a single brush of wind to even flick past his hair.
But there was a lurch.
A sudden pull to attention, a momentary crushing feeling; someone must’ve been trying to pull his heart right out of his chest. And in the complete disorientation that twisted his vision, his own voice began to clearly speak within his own mind.
So that’s what you think.
It couldn’t have been anything more than a firm tone, but with the shock of that sudden burst of stress, it was like a shout straight into his soul.
No...No...This isn’t what you had before. You knew it as well as I did.
Sho winced at the voice, recoiling to cover his ears with full knowledge of what was coming.
That something needed to be done about Uehara Tsuginaga!
Mother. Just call her my mother. He tried to think. No, he hadn’t known that name he’d seen typed into countless prescriptions he’d come by and charts he’d gotten short glances at. He’d known her as ‘Mom’.
Yes. Your mother, but you don’t act like it. You don’t act like you’re watching her rot.
I’m searching! I’m doing all I can! You can’t say that to me! Sho rebuked at the mere image being melted and braised into his mind. There had to be a wind blowing, there had to be something shifting below him with how sick the voice made him feel, but he was breaking a sweat in complete stillness. Alone.
I know. I know it best. That’s what you’ve always thought. That’s what you’d think every single time you felt like this. Like things were getting worse and worse without you...You’re so...frozen...You’ll be thinking ‘I’m doing all I can’ even as you stand above her own reserved plot.
There’s a plan to all this. An order. You know how I go about things… He couldn’t stand hearing it, so he stood as if he could retreat from the voice in his head and the tug in his heart.
No, there isn’t. I’ve searched for it for over seven hundred sixty-six thousand eighty minutes. With every beat of your chest. You’ve never had an inkling of a successful thought about it. Ever since the beginning, you just thought you’d been saved from everything.
You did save me. I would’ve been fried… Sho’s thoughts began to shrink and quiet as a shaking left hand fell to his digivice, the desperation deluding him into thinking it’d help.
This is true. Now I’ll have to save you again. From your own dismissive self. Teach you how to soar with your own wings before I let you fall from the nest like the others I’ve seen.
I thought you said we were the same now… He couldn’t help but recall, trying to digivolve to no avail, every motion and gesture failing at every turn.
Prove it. Only then will I gift your wings again. Get your blood flowing.
Even in his nerve-shattering state of distress, his path was clear. If he was going to soar anywhere, there was only one place to soar to...and he’d have to get running there before his stress threatened to split his veins...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You’d be insane to think you could find a place in the clouds on the ground. But, believe it or not, this was what Sho was tasked to do. It had to be the perfect spot, and whatever it was, the spirits that bustled inside his heart knew it well. Well enough to make sure he never had a still moment deep into the evening that hung over the plains and sparse forests. If he had to have a snack he’d have it while walking, because if he stopped for a second, the voice would come back and bombard him until he got moving again. Sho could feel the air going thin in his lungs before he felt something he thought was unearthly after all this time.
Relief.
Here, said the spirits. Right here. It was a mere instant before Sho unleashed the digivolution that he’d used to cross the skies so many times before. Out of a wide burst of digicode, streamed a chimera of a beast, straight into the sky. The wind cooled his senses, the clouds he burst past soothed his wings, and shortly afterward there was a crumbling crash of stained glass and stone that broke around him at his soaring speed. He’d thrown himself past the shattered dome aimed at the ground, crashing into the base of a decrepit viewing floor and shifting out of the Griffomon’s form in a sea of code. Sho shuffled to his feet, covered in small cuts and a bruise underneath his cheek from the landing, heaving, finally able to catch his breath.
You’re not done.
The voice was as calm as it had been the whole night. It did nothing to Sho’s oncoming dread as he regained his bearings, dusting himself off and looking around the overgrown marble and cobblestone that extended up from the viewing floor into a long, spiraling staircase that spread up into a platform. A platform that streamed righteous, silvery light down throughout the ancient building. He’d taken a step forward, felt his knee buckle a bit from a hint of fear. By now, Sho knew to trust his instincts. Every inch of this place was probably trapped to the teeth, and for that, he did have a plan of action.
A burst of digicode revealed his next evolution, a rushing silhouette with long, maroon hair. A Bastemon leaping over the harpoon that had shot out past it from Sho’s very first step. It was a dance from there, a sharp, serrated trance as the half-panther woman traipsed over spikes, scratched its bangles on arrows, had its hair cut by axes and scythes and harpoons. Stopping was impossible. Stopping meant death. But Sho was used to enduring. He’d done this before, kept his balance before, kept himself alive by the skin of his teeth before. And yet, it all wore at him; he’d stumble into pressure plates, trip off the stairs and shuffle along the edge whilst maneuvering his tails out of the way of the turrets. On the very final step of the trip, he’d rolled into himself, scratching along the surface of the platform just to keep himself from falling. Now...to scale the walls, and head off into the crack that lined the ceiling above him…
Light bathed his face and his form as he’d reached the surface, clawing onto countless intricate designs of unrecognizable origin as he stood upon the wide roof of wherever he’d been before...but as he stood, the answer to that question became very obvious. Below the light of the Empyrean Skies, he was encircled by an expansive concave set of marble seating and a circular wall. With him at one end...and a screeching, cracking door of metal at the other. He’d been led straight into the stage of a coliseum. The coliseum’s gate was opening right before his eyes.
Before you see the dawn again...you will know what it’s like to ‘do all you can’. Or...my work will be for naught...and your heart will finally stop. Survive. Survive my champion…
What challenger could possibly be held within the shadows behind that ominous portcullis?
But there was a lurch.
A sudden pull to attention, a momentary crushing feeling; someone must’ve been trying to pull his heart right out of his chest. And in the complete disorientation that twisted his vision, his own voice began to clearly speak within his own mind.
So that’s what you think.
It couldn’t have been anything more than a firm tone, but with the shock of that sudden burst of stress, it was like a shout straight into his soul.
No...No...This isn’t what you had before. You knew it as well as I did.
Sho winced at the voice, recoiling to cover his ears with full knowledge of what was coming.
That something needed to be done about Uehara Tsuginaga!
Mother. Just call her my mother. He tried to think. No, he hadn’t known that name he’d seen typed into countless prescriptions he’d come by and charts he’d gotten short glances at. He’d known her as ‘Mom’.
Yes. Your mother, but you don’t act like it. You don’t act like you’re watching her rot.
I’m searching! I’m doing all I can! You can’t say that to me! Sho rebuked at the mere image being melted and braised into his mind. There had to be a wind blowing, there had to be something shifting below him with how sick the voice made him feel, but he was breaking a sweat in complete stillness. Alone.
I know. I know it best. That’s what you’ve always thought. That’s what you’d think every single time you felt like this. Like things were getting worse and worse without you...You’re so...frozen...You’ll be thinking ‘I’m doing all I can’ even as you stand above her own reserved plot.
There’s a plan to all this. An order. You know how I go about things… He couldn’t stand hearing it, so he stood as if he could retreat from the voice in his head and the tug in his heart.
No, there isn’t. I’ve searched for it for over seven hundred sixty-six thousand eighty minutes. With every beat of your chest. You’ve never had an inkling of a successful thought about it. Ever since the beginning, you just thought you’d been saved from everything.
You did save me. I would’ve been fried… Sho’s thoughts began to shrink and quiet as a shaking left hand fell to his digivice, the desperation deluding him into thinking it’d help.
This is true. Now I’ll have to save you again. From your own dismissive self. Teach you how to soar with your own wings before I let you fall from the nest like the others I’ve seen.
I thought you said we were the same now… He couldn’t help but recall, trying to digivolve to no avail, every motion and gesture failing at every turn.
Prove it. Only then will I gift your wings again. Get your blood flowing.
Even in his nerve-shattering state of distress, his path was clear. If he was going to soar anywhere, there was only one place to soar to...and he’d have to get running there before his stress threatened to split his veins...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You’d be insane to think you could find a place in the clouds on the ground. But, believe it or not, this was what Sho was tasked to do. It had to be the perfect spot, and whatever it was, the spirits that bustled inside his heart knew it well. Well enough to make sure he never had a still moment deep into the evening that hung over the plains and sparse forests. If he had to have a snack he’d have it while walking, because if he stopped for a second, the voice would come back and bombard him until he got moving again. Sho could feel the air going thin in his lungs before he felt something he thought was unearthly after all this time.
Relief.
Here, said the spirits. Right here. It was a mere instant before Sho unleashed the digivolution that he’d used to cross the skies so many times before. Out of a wide burst of digicode, streamed a chimera of a beast, straight into the sky. The wind cooled his senses, the clouds he burst past soothed his wings, and shortly afterward there was a crumbling crash of stained glass and stone that broke around him at his soaring speed. He’d thrown himself past the shattered dome aimed at the ground, crashing into the base of a decrepit viewing floor and shifting out of the Griffomon’s form in a sea of code. Sho shuffled to his feet, covered in small cuts and a bruise underneath his cheek from the landing, heaving, finally able to catch his breath.
You’re not done.
The voice was as calm as it had been the whole night. It did nothing to Sho’s oncoming dread as he regained his bearings, dusting himself off and looking around the overgrown marble and cobblestone that extended up from the viewing floor into a long, spiraling staircase that spread up into a platform. A platform that streamed righteous, silvery light down throughout the ancient building. He’d taken a step forward, felt his knee buckle a bit from a hint of fear. By now, Sho knew to trust his instincts. Every inch of this place was probably trapped to the teeth, and for that, he did have a plan of action.
A burst of digicode revealed his next evolution, a rushing silhouette with long, maroon hair. A Bastemon leaping over the harpoon that had shot out past it from Sho’s very first step. It was a dance from there, a sharp, serrated trance as the half-panther woman traipsed over spikes, scratched its bangles on arrows, had its hair cut by axes and scythes and harpoons. Stopping was impossible. Stopping meant death. But Sho was used to enduring. He’d done this before, kept his balance before, kept himself alive by the skin of his teeth before. And yet, it all wore at him; he’d stumble into pressure plates, trip off the stairs and shuffle along the edge whilst maneuvering his tails out of the way of the turrets. On the very final step of the trip, he’d rolled into himself, scratching along the surface of the platform just to keep himself from falling. Now...to scale the walls, and head off into the crack that lined the ceiling above him…
Light bathed his face and his form as he’d reached the surface, clawing onto countless intricate designs of unrecognizable origin as he stood upon the wide roof of wherever he’d been before...but as he stood, the answer to that question became very obvious. Below the light of the Empyrean Skies, he was encircled by an expansive concave set of marble seating and a circular wall. With him at one end...and a screeching, cracking door of metal at the other. He’d been led straight into the stage of a coliseum. The coliseum’s gate was opening right before his eyes.
Before you see the dawn again...you will know what it’s like to ‘do all you can’. Or...my work will be for naught...and your heart will finally stop. Survive. Survive my champion…
What challenger could possibly be held within the shadows behind that ominous portcullis?
