Encounterlogs
Hikaris Odd Encounter Sr Ritsuka 250211
In a serene bedroom illuminated by the soft glow of paper lanterns and the faint aroma of incense, Hikari contemplates the quiet surroundings. Nearby, Ritsuka sleeps peacefully, unaware of the urgency vibrating from a phone with a message marked URGENT. The message, intended for Ritsuka, reveals a dire situation involving The Destined Host's attempt to summon a demon known as Ao Oni-kun, the Blue Oni, using an ancient ritual. Hikari, upon reading the message, decides to take matters into her own hands despite lacking all her usual supplies. She quietly leaves the room, prepares herself, and sets off towards the mountains on her bike, determined to intervene in the ritual and prevent the summoning of the demon.
As Hikari approaches the ritual site, she discovers she is not alone; another individual named Bea, similarly drawn by concern and curiosity, has also arrived. Together they observe from a distance as the ritual progresses, with the cultist's actions growing increasingly fervent. The air thickens, a rift begins to form, and the imminence of the demon's arrival sends a chill down their spines. In a desperate attempt to thwart the ritual at the last moment, Hikari takes aim with her rifle, imbued with a blood-activated charm. As she fires, Bea watches anxiously, hoping the shot finds its mark and prevents the culmination of the unholy summoning. The tension mounts as the fate of their intervention—and the barrier between worlds—hangs in the balance, marking a pivotal moment in their unexpected partnership against the dark forces at play.
(Hikari's odd encounter(SRRitsuka):SRRitsuka)
[Mon Feb 10 2025]
In A tranquil bedroom
The soft glow of paper lanterns casts a gentle, warm light across the room, illuminating the delicate shoji screens that line the walls. The floor is covered in smooth tatami mats, their subtle scent blending with the faint aroma of incense. In the corner of the room, a futon is carefully laid out, its simple cotton sheets neatly folded, inviting restful sleep. Above the futon hangs a small kamidana, a household Shinto altar, where offerings of rice and salt have been placed in delicate porcelain bowls.
A katana on a katana stand has been placed down besides the tatami mats, quickly in reach for anyone sleeping and suddenly woken up.
It is afternoon, about 34F(1C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky.
(Your target and their allies stumble upon a hidden ritual being conducted by members of The Destined Host. They are attempting to summon a powerful demon using an ancient artifact. The team must decide whether they should try to stop the ritual, which could lead to a direct confrontation with the cult members and the demon they are trying to summon, or find a way to sabotage it subtly from the shadows.)
Sitting against the wall of the bedroom, Hikari murmurs to themselves whilst tapping away on their phone. Every now and then, they glance over to Ritsuka, who had been sleeping aside them. With a stretch, she eventually stands up, making her way over to her clothing to pull it on, "I should get out, can't be a shut in even over here." She chuffs to herself.
It is late evening, and naturally, as it is common, people do their random and occasional naps throughout the day. Really, it is quite normal in Haven-city and the secrecy and for people that travel without a truly set day routine, being needed at this or another place throughout the entire day. And this can often apply through into the night, of course it does. It is when most sleep and people can move to place the pieces onto the board in secret.
The woman that sleeps near Hikari breathes quietly, her phone resides besides her, lying on the ground looking as it slipped out of her hand, falling asleep while doing something. BRRRR BRRRR it starts to vibrate, urgently, but the woman won't wake. She makes a little grumbling noise and turns away in her futon. BRRR BRRRR But the phone continues to vibrate, and a message on her phone displays an unpleasant, red, URGENT. It is relentless and won't stop.
Crawling over to Ritsuka, Hikari considers waking the woman up, but maybe, either out of curiosity or merely not wanting to wake the woman up, she reaches for the phone, slipping it out of her pocket.
She bites her lip as she flicks open the phone, eyes flicking between it and Ritsuka before she decides to snoop and read the message.
The phone unlocks, it is a burner phone, after all, quick to throw away, or rather intended to be. Old uncomfortable buttons, perhaps someone could question why someone as young as she would even know how to use one, but the message on the phone is far more important. URGENT is just the surface of the message, below, follows instructions, forwarded from Venice through others in the Tsubaki to Ritsuka. After reading through it for a couple of moments, Hikari can determine that it is, as it often is, about the Destined Host. They really ought to be called a plaque to her and the Tsubaki, somehow they seem to head into constant conflicts with them, and appear at every step of the way. As it is often the case, they are in the middle of yet another ritual again, to summon on another demon, and though many of Hikari's supplies remain back for the moment, she can recognize what the ritual would actually bring forth: Ao Oni-kun, the Blue Oni.
The telling was that, once, there was a Red Oni who lived in the mountains. The Red Oni wanted to become friends with the humans and live together with them in the village, but when they saw him, they screamed "Here comes the demon!" So the Blue Oni suggested that he would be the one to cause trouble in the village for the Red Oni to play here, and so it came to be. When the Red Oni became known as the demon who saved the village and befriended him. Eventually, the Red Oni grew worried about his blue friend and sought to visit him, with only a note left behind, telling that the villages would grow suspicious if they kept hanging out together and that the Blue Oni would have gone on a trip.
This surely got to be a mistake, right? Nope, that is definitely the name listed as the demon that is targeted to be summoned by the Destined Host.
Hikari is currently looking over the phone of a woman sleeping in this particular room with an URGENT message on the display talking about a demon the Destined Host is intending to summon nearby. Maybe Bea heard news about it in an avenue her own, a spy, a friend, or perhaps she, too, received the message about the Destined Host trying to summon a particular demon called the Blue Oni.
Hikari's eyes scan from left to right, reading over the message multiple times. Her lips purse, a moment passing as she considers it all, eventually sighing. "Well, can't let Ritsuka take care of all of it at the end of the day, I do wish I had all my things, but I guess I can make do with what's on me." She shrugs, slipping out from the bedroom as quiet as a mouse.
Suiting up in that hefty coat of hers and making her way to the driveway, Hikari kicks over her bike, yanks the ignition and is sent roaring down the road, towards the mountains.
Bea can't make heads or tails of what she should do. She had barely begun her journey here in Haven, and this certainly wasn't something she expected to get caught up in so soon, if ever. Carefully considering her next move, she nibbles nervously at her bottom lip, before finally allowing an exhale, slapping her thighs as she quickly stood up. Slipping her sweater over her head she checks herself briefly in the mirror before patting at her pockets, giving herself a nod of encouragement before jogging through the door of the house, making sure to keep a careful eye on her phone for any additional information as well as to ensure she's headed the right way.
It goes to the direction mentioned as the GPS location on the message itself. Though what was perhaps considered to be mountain certainly only turns up to be a hill somewhere in the forest. The fog flows and blows through, reaching up to the waist. The trees themselves are skeletal and barren, snow is carried atop the branches and has settled all around on the forest ground itself. A single pair of footprints leads upwards to the hill, where, at its crest, floats a singular large and blue symbol in the air that resembles a B.
It is also when both Hikari approach the place that both of the phones used get the single message that there is another person en-route to the location, as well, and the two can see each other in the approach to the hill, before it begins it slow ascend up.
From the distance, both Hikari and Bea can hear the low and quiet chanting of a singular figure. From the distance, hooded with the crimson hand holding the blacked, thorned crown. The hoodie itself is blue, and their arms are raised up on the air, spread apart in part worship of this great demon this Destined Host cultist is summoning.
Glancing to the distance and around, both someone and Hikari can be quiete certain that it is between the three of them, though which approach they would like to choose, they have yet to determine.
It goes to the direction mentioned as the GPS location on the message itself. Though what was perhaps considered to be mountain certainly only turns up to be a hill somewhere in the forest. The fog flows and blows through, reaching up to the waist. The trees themselves are skeletal and barren, snow is carried atop the branches and has settled all around on the forest ground itself. A single pair of footprints leads upwards to the hill, where, at its crest, floats a singular large and blue symbol in the air that resembles a B.
It is also when both Hikari approach the place that both of the phones used get the single message that there is another person en-route to the location, as well, and the two can see each other in the approach to the hill, before it begins it slow ascend up.
From the distance, both Hikari and Bea can hear the low and quiet chanting of a singular figure. From the distance, hooded with the crimson hand holding the blacked, thorned crown. The hoodie itself is blue, and their arms are raised up on the air, spread apart in part worship of this great demon this Destined Host cultist is summoning.
Glancing to the distance and around, both Bea and Hikari can be quiete certain that it is between the three of them, though which approach they would like to choose, they have yet to determine.
Noticing the footprints leading away from the road, Hikari is forced to ditch her bike there. She shivers at the thought, but slaps her own cheeks before pulling her rifle from the sling on her bike. Hooking it over her own shoulder, she begins the hike up the hillside, trudging through the snow with a huffy grumble. She pulls up her hood, tucking her messy curls in and focusing more on the destination than the current numbing cold gathering around her ankles.
is under-dressed and was apparently over-confident, the snow falling into the opening of her shoe and biting at her ankles. Patting the hunting knife in her pocket, Bea reconsiders her choices. She spots the discarded bike, crouching down beside it to feel it. Still warm, recently left behind. There are two sets of footprints... that could both be a great and horrible sign. She decides the best approach will be to watch from a distance, to really get a glimpse of what is going on before making any moves. She quietly follows the steps in the snow, careful of the noise she is making with her own.
The chanting grows louder as Hikari and Bea approach the hill - and with it the ritual site. It remains a single figure, they move around and for a moment, their gaze might have looked to turn in the direction of both Hikari and Bea, but they move on and away, in another direction alltogether. The air ripples and crackles with fine lines of aquamarine blue and the lines of the A take up another shape, changing in the middle of the air. There is something gray, an altar in the center of the hill, with small and little items placed atop of it. There is definitely a ritual knife somewhere among those items, and some little red of blood, too. The ritual itself continues, and neither may have yet been noticed by the ritualist of the Destined Host.
Finding some flora to crouch beside, Hikari pulls out their rifle alongside a set of pre-inked talismans. One by one, she loads rounds into the port, eventually snapping the lever and adding one last cartridge. From there, she begins to climb one of the towering pine trees, huffing and grumbling as the would-be shut in finally gets some exercise towards her vantage point.
The cold ocean winds of her hometown gave Bea a fair resistance to the cold that nipped at her ankles and seeped through the woolen knit of her sweater. Despite this, the pumping of her heart and her careful, deliberate movements had her sweating, her bright and alert visage constantly scanning as she moved. There was no denying it, the tip she had gotten was honest, what she was seeing was something that, if she even attempted to describe these things, would have her deemed insane from the residents of her hometown. It would take a while for her to grasp the idea that this was not necessarily an uncommon occurrence in Haven, but seeing it first hand was certainly much different than entertaining these storybook concepts. Bea found herself at a crossroads in the tracks, turning her head to follow a pair that ended at the tree line. She glanced upwards, a dark mass moving in the branches above. Her breath hitching, she dropped onto her haunches, adjusting her fogged-up glasses to hopefully get a better look. Judging by the location, this particular individual was not working against her, but there was no guarantee they were working with her either. She debated the best way to approach them, without making herself a target for their weapon.
A breeze carries along some of the snow off of the branches, and some of the snow does fall from the branches as Hikari makes her way up, piling up underneath. Her rifle makes a cling with each bullet that is loaded into it. The air crackles in the distance, up on the hill, the symbol is starting to take up form, and it is growing more and more evident to Hikari that the ritual is drawing to completion. Bea underneath can see the crackling in the distance, and not just Hikari up in the branches, as symbols begin to surround the cracks that have formed in the middle of the air, with the singular letter behind it... and the rift slowly begins to crack and rip open the veil that separates hell and here.
Noticing the other woman trudging through the snow, as much as Hikari wanted to call out, she also didn't quite want to give away her position. Instead, she levels her rifle ones she finds a stable branch that supports her, eye scanning over the group and looking for who was leading the ritual. She holds it, the wind in the air shaded by the pines of the tree she perched in. She drew a breath and readied to squeeze the trigger.
Sucking in her breath, now able to better understand what she's looking at, Bea watches as the easily distinguished barrel of some sort of firearm aligns itself with the figure below the dancing symbols within the sky, her head craning to watch in absolute astonishment as the crack begun to seemingly tear through the air itself. Her blood ran cold, colder than the snow that rested against her now numbed ankles, the hair on her neck standing stiff and still. "Holy fuck, don't miss" she begged quietly under her breath, the sound of her heartbeat in her ears nearly deafening her in that moment.
Only a single person seems to be working on the ritual. There are no odd outlines, or other footprints, and the single set that followed along and then up the hill seem to be that of the single figure garbed into an aquamarine hoodie, hood pulled over their head to a point that it almost conceals their eyes. The figure is more feminine in built, and the features, as far as Hikari might notice, lean towards confirming that. They walk around, for six seconds each time, then raise their hands for a louder chant for six seconds exactly, then lower her hands, down to their hips, holding her hands out and apart from the hip bone for yet another six seconds.
As Bea speaks, the crackles begin to tear open, and a single, glowing blue eye begins to stare through the opening rift. The ritualist's ritual is seconds away from completion. Clouds begin to accumulate in the air above, dark, stormy, wrong while the fog begins to surround everything around, leaving everything covered behind the pair and further in the distant, behind the hill, like a circle wrapping itself around. The form of dark blue skin, crackled and ugly begins to show below the eye, shadowed yet.
Seeing things going towards their apex, Hikari mutters a few words as she drags a pricked thumb along one of the charms, wreathing it in blood. Once her hand was steadied on the stock again, she sucked in a held breath and squeezed the trigger, causing the crack of the gunfire to echo out throughout the mountainside.
Bea cursed herself, knowing what was to come but not preparing, too awestruck by the nightmarish display to protect her ears. She ducked down when the shot rang, as if it would be anywhere near her, the beating in her ears now accompanied by a high-pitched whine. Before she made any movements, before she even allowed herself another breath, she watched the figure intently to see if the shot connected, praying to whoever might listen that it wasn't too late to put a stop to the horrors waiting on the other side of that growing tear.
As Hikari approaches the ritual site, she discovers she is not alone; another individual named Bea, similarly drawn by concern and curiosity, has also arrived. Together they observe from a distance as the ritual progresses, with the cultist's actions growing increasingly fervent. The air thickens, a rift begins to form, and the imminence of the demon's arrival sends a chill down their spines. In a desperate attempt to thwart the ritual at the last moment, Hikari takes aim with her rifle, imbued with a blood-activated charm. As she fires, Bea watches anxiously, hoping the shot finds its mark and prevents the culmination of the unholy summoning. The tension mounts as the fate of their intervention—and the barrier between worlds—hangs in the balance, marking a pivotal moment in their unexpected partnership against the dark forces at play.
(Hikari's odd encounter(SRRitsuka):SRRitsuka)
[Mon Feb 10 2025]
In A tranquil bedroom
The soft glow of paper lanterns casts a gentle, warm light across the room, illuminating the delicate shoji screens that line the walls. The floor is covered in smooth tatami mats, their subtle scent blending with the faint aroma of incense. In the corner of the room, a futon is carefully laid out, its simple cotton sheets neatly folded, inviting restful sleep. Above the futon hangs a small kamidana, a household Shinto altar, where offerings of rice and salt have been placed in delicate porcelain bowls.
A katana on a katana stand has been placed down besides the tatami mats, quickly in reach for anyone sleeping and suddenly woken up.
It is afternoon, about 34F(1C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky.
(Your target and their allies stumble upon a hidden ritual being conducted by members of The Destined Host. They are attempting to summon a powerful demon using an ancient artifact. The team must decide whether they should try to stop the ritual, which could lead to a direct confrontation with the cult members and the demon they are trying to summon, or find a way to sabotage it subtly from the shadows.)
Sitting against the wall of the bedroom, Hikari murmurs to themselves whilst tapping away on their phone. Every now and then, they glance over to Ritsuka, who had been sleeping aside them. With a stretch, she eventually stands up, making her way over to her clothing to pull it on, "I should get out, can't be a shut in even over here." She chuffs to herself.
It is late evening, and naturally, as it is common, people do their random and occasional naps throughout the day. Really, it is quite normal in Haven-city and the secrecy and for people that travel without a truly set day routine, being needed at this or another place throughout the entire day. And this can often apply through into the night, of course it does. It is when most sleep and people can move to place the pieces onto the board in secret.
The woman that sleeps near Hikari breathes quietly, her phone resides besides her, lying on the ground looking as it slipped out of her hand, falling asleep while doing something. BRRRR BRRRR it starts to vibrate, urgently, but the woman won't wake. She makes a little grumbling noise and turns away in her futon. BRRR BRRRR But the phone continues to vibrate, and a message on her phone displays an unpleasant, red, URGENT. It is relentless and won't stop.
Crawling over to Ritsuka, Hikari considers waking the woman up, but maybe, either out of curiosity or merely not wanting to wake the woman up, she reaches for the phone, slipping it out of her pocket.
She bites her lip as she flicks open the phone, eyes flicking between it and Ritsuka before she decides to snoop and read the message.
The phone unlocks, it is a burner phone, after all, quick to throw away, or rather intended to be. Old uncomfortable buttons, perhaps someone could question why someone as young as she would even know how to use one, but the message on the phone is far more important. URGENT is just the surface of the message, below, follows instructions, forwarded from Venice through others in the Tsubaki to Ritsuka. After reading through it for a couple of moments, Hikari can determine that it is, as it often is, about the Destined Host. They really ought to be called a plaque to her and the Tsubaki, somehow they seem to head into constant conflicts with them, and appear at every step of the way. As it is often the case, they are in the middle of yet another ritual again, to summon on another demon, and though many of Hikari's supplies remain back for the moment, she can recognize what the ritual would actually bring forth: Ao Oni-kun, the Blue Oni.
The telling was that, once, there was a Red Oni who lived in the mountains. The Red Oni wanted to become friends with the humans and live together with them in the village, but when they saw him, they screamed "Here comes the demon!" So the Blue Oni suggested that he would be the one to cause trouble in the village for the Red Oni to play here, and so it came to be. When the Red Oni became known as the demon who saved the village and befriended him. Eventually, the Red Oni grew worried about his blue friend and sought to visit him, with only a note left behind, telling that the villages would grow suspicious if they kept hanging out together and that the Blue Oni would have gone on a trip.
This surely got to be a mistake, right? Nope, that is definitely the name listed as the demon that is targeted to be summoned by the Destined Host.
Hikari is currently looking over the phone of a woman sleeping in this particular room with an URGENT message on the display talking about a demon the Destined Host is intending to summon nearby. Maybe Bea heard news about it in an avenue her own, a spy, a friend, or perhaps she, too, received the message about the Destined Host trying to summon a particular demon called the Blue Oni.
Hikari's eyes scan from left to right, reading over the message multiple times. Her lips purse, a moment passing as she considers it all, eventually sighing. "Well, can't let Ritsuka take care of all of it at the end of the day, I do wish I had all my things, but I guess I can make do with what's on me." She shrugs, slipping out from the bedroom as quiet as a mouse.
Suiting up in that hefty coat of hers and making her way to the driveway, Hikari kicks over her bike, yanks the ignition and is sent roaring down the road, towards the mountains.
Bea can't make heads or tails of what she should do. She had barely begun her journey here in Haven, and this certainly wasn't something she expected to get caught up in so soon, if ever. Carefully considering her next move, she nibbles nervously at her bottom lip, before finally allowing an exhale, slapping her thighs as she quickly stood up. Slipping her sweater over her head she checks herself briefly in the mirror before patting at her pockets, giving herself a nod of encouragement before jogging through the door of the house, making sure to keep a careful eye on her phone for any additional information as well as to ensure she's headed the right way.
It goes to the direction mentioned as the GPS location on the message itself. Though what was perhaps considered to be mountain certainly only turns up to be a hill somewhere in the forest. The fog flows and blows through, reaching up to the waist. The trees themselves are skeletal and barren, snow is carried atop the branches and has settled all around on the forest ground itself. A single pair of footprints leads upwards to the hill, where, at its crest, floats a singular large and blue symbol in the air that resembles a B.
It is also when both Hikari approach the place that both of the phones used get the single message that there is another person en-route to the location, as well, and the two can see each other in the approach to the hill, before it begins it slow ascend up.
From the distance, both Hikari and Bea can hear the low and quiet chanting of a singular figure. From the distance, hooded with the crimson hand holding the blacked, thorned crown. The hoodie itself is blue, and their arms are raised up on the air, spread apart in part worship of this great demon this Destined Host cultist is summoning.
Glancing to the distance and around, both someone and Hikari can be quiete certain that it is between the three of them, though which approach they would like to choose, they have yet to determine.
It goes to the direction mentioned as the GPS location on the message itself. Though what was perhaps considered to be mountain certainly only turns up to be a hill somewhere in the forest. The fog flows and blows through, reaching up to the waist. The trees themselves are skeletal and barren, snow is carried atop the branches and has settled all around on the forest ground itself. A single pair of footprints leads upwards to the hill, where, at its crest, floats a singular large and blue symbol in the air that resembles a B.
It is also when both Hikari approach the place that both of the phones used get the single message that there is another person en-route to the location, as well, and the two can see each other in the approach to the hill, before it begins it slow ascend up.
From the distance, both Hikari and Bea can hear the low and quiet chanting of a singular figure. From the distance, hooded with the crimson hand holding the blacked, thorned crown. The hoodie itself is blue, and their arms are raised up on the air, spread apart in part worship of this great demon this Destined Host cultist is summoning.
Glancing to the distance and around, both Bea and Hikari can be quiete certain that it is between the three of them, though which approach they would like to choose, they have yet to determine.
Noticing the footprints leading away from the road, Hikari is forced to ditch her bike there. She shivers at the thought, but slaps her own cheeks before pulling her rifle from the sling on her bike. Hooking it over her own shoulder, she begins the hike up the hillside, trudging through the snow with a huffy grumble. She pulls up her hood, tucking her messy curls in and focusing more on the destination than the current numbing cold gathering around her ankles.
is under-dressed and was apparently over-confident, the snow falling into the opening of her shoe and biting at her ankles. Patting the hunting knife in her pocket, Bea reconsiders her choices. She spots the discarded bike, crouching down beside it to feel it. Still warm, recently left behind. There are two sets of footprints... that could both be a great and horrible sign. She decides the best approach will be to watch from a distance, to really get a glimpse of what is going on before making any moves. She quietly follows the steps in the snow, careful of the noise she is making with her own.
The chanting grows louder as Hikari and Bea approach the hill - and with it the ritual site. It remains a single figure, they move around and for a moment, their gaze might have looked to turn in the direction of both Hikari and Bea, but they move on and away, in another direction alltogether. The air ripples and crackles with fine lines of aquamarine blue and the lines of the A take up another shape, changing in the middle of the air. There is something gray, an altar in the center of the hill, with small and little items placed atop of it. There is definitely a ritual knife somewhere among those items, and some little red of blood, too. The ritual itself continues, and neither may have yet been noticed by the ritualist of the Destined Host.
Finding some flora to crouch beside, Hikari pulls out their rifle alongside a set of pre-inked talismans. One by one, she loads rounds into the port, eventually snapping the lever and adding one last cartridge. From there, she begins to climb one of the towering pine trees, huffing and grumbling as the would-be shut in finally gets some exercise towards her vantage point.
The cold ocean winds of her hometown gave Bea a fair resistance to the cold that nipped at her ankles and seeped through the woolen knit of her sweater. Despite this, the pumping of her heart and her careful, deliberate movements had her sweating, her bright and alert visage constantly scanning as she moved. There was no denying it, the tip she had gotten was honest, what she was seeing was something that, if she even attempted to describe these things, would have her deemed insane from the residents of her hometown. It would take a while for her to grasp the idea that this was not necessarily an uncommon occurrence in Haven, but seeing it first hand was certainly much different than entertaining these storybook concepts. Bea found herself at a crossroads in the tracks, turning her head to follow a pair that ended at the tree line. She glanced upwards, a dark mass moving in the branches above. Her breath hitching, she dropped onto her haunches, adjusting her fogged-up glasses to hopefully get a better look. Judging by the location, this particular individual was not working against her, but there was no guarantee they were working with her either. She debated the best way to approach them, without making herself a target for their weapon.
A breeze carries along some of the snow off of the branches, and some of the snow does fall from the branches as Hikari makes her way up, piling up underneath. Her rifle makes a cling with each bullet that is loaded into it. The air crackles in the distance, up on the hill, the symbol is starting to take up form, and it is growing more and more evident to Hikari that the ritual is drawing to completion. Bea underneath can see the crackling in the distance, and not just Hikari up in the branches, as symbols begin to surround the cracks that have formed in the middle of the air, with the singular letter behind it... and the rift slowly begins to crack and rip open the veil that separates hell and here.
Noticing the other woman trudging through the snow, as much as Hikari wanted to call out, she also didn't quite want to give away her position. Instead, she levels her rifle ones she finds a stable branch that supports her, eye scanning over the group and looking for who was leading the ritual. She holds it, the wind in the air shaded by the pines of the tree she perched in. She drew a breath and readied to squeeze the trigger.
Sucking in her breath, now able to better understand what she's looking at, Bea watches as the easily distinguished barrel of some sort of firearm aligns itself with the figure below the dancing symbols within the sky, her head craning to watch in absolute astonishment as the crack begun to seemingly tear through the air itself. Her blood ran cold, colder than the snow that rested against her now numbed ankles, the hair on her neck standing stiff and still. "Holy fuck, don't miss" she begged quietly under her breath, the sound of her heartbeat in her ears nearly deafening her in that moment.
Only a single person seems to be working on the ritual. There are no odd outlines, or other footprints, and the single set that followed along and then up the hill seem to be that of the single figure garbed into an aquamarine hoodie, hood pulled over their head to a point that it almost conceals their eyes. The figure is more feminine in built, and the features, as far as Hikari might notice, lean towards confirming that. They walk around, for six seconds each time, then raise their hands for a louder chant for six seconds exactly, then lower her hands, down to their hips, holding her hands out and apart from the hip bone for yet another six seconds.
As Bea speaks, the crackles begin to tear open, and a single, glowing blue eye begins to stare through the opening rift. The ritualist's ritual is seconds away from completion. Clouds begin to accumulate in the air above, dark, stormy, wrong while the fog begins to surround everything around, leaving everything covered behind the pair and further in the distant, behind the hill, like a circle wrapping itself around. The form of dark blue skin, crackled and ugly begins to show below the eye, shadowed yet.
Seeing things going towards their apex, Hikari mutters a few words as she drags a pricked thumb along one of the charms, wreathing it in blood. Once her hand was steadied on the stock again, she sucked in a held breath and squeezed the trigger, causing the crack of the gunfire to echo out throughout the mountainside.
Bea cursed herself, knowing what was to come but not preparing, too awestruck by the nightmarish display to protect her ears. She ducked down when the shot rang, as if it would be anywhere near her, the beating in her ears now accompanied by a high-pitched whine. Before she made any movements, before she even allowed herself another breath, she watched the figure intently to see if the shot connected, praying to whoever might listen that it wasn't too late to put a stop to the horrors waiting on the other side of that growing tear.