Encounterlogs
Ritsukas Odd Encounter Sr Victor 241209
Ritsuka, finding herself engulfed in the undisturbed normalcy of her pharmaceutical duty, unwittingly steps into a realm where the subtle anomalies of her environment gradually escalate into an unmistakable divergence from reality. The backward ticking clock and her coworker's unnaturally toothy grin signal the beginning of an odd journey. Despite the eeriness, the mundane continues to enfold her until a magical, green glade replaces the urban landscape of Haven. Suspecting the influence of a dream or another realm, Ritsuka tests her surroundings with a flicker of magical flame and finds her blade comfortably in reach, confirming her suspicions of being trapped in an unnatural scenario. Meanwhile, her protective instincts are subtly piqued by the notion that she is observed and challenged by a looming presence, leading her to confront an otherworldly entity that mirrors her own visage.
The confrontation brings Ritsuka's hidden resolve to light, as her counterpart advances with a threat disguised as an invitation to corruption. Defiance sparks within her, signaling the entry of her loyal team, ready to support her against this deceptive mirror. Their collective effort reveals the true nature of the adversary—a face-stealing noppera-bo. With a decisive strike, Ritsuka eradicates the entity, liberating herself and her team from the nightmare. However, the ordeal leaves a lingering unease, hinting at the continuous cycle of enigmatic challenges that lurk within Haven. In another peculiar incident, Illyana faces a confused, accusing spirit within her home, displaying her characteristic wit and composure in the face of supernatural adversity. Through dialogue, she endeavors to unravel the misconceptions of her spectral accuser, suggesting a peaceful resolution over conflict, thus highlighting the diverse array of mysterious encounters that one navigates in the realm of Haven.
(Ritsuka's odd encounter(SRVictor):SRVictor)
[Sun Dec 8 2024]
In Biolabs Pharmaceuticals - OTC & Supplements
Even the blind would be able to tell that they've just entered a pharmacy. The scent of isopropyl alcohol is the first to greet the senses. The tile flooring makes spills and accidents a breeze to clean, and even a speck of dust would stand out against all that pristine white. All the aisles are labeled with letters large enough for myopic townies, and the fluorescent lights wash everything in their true hues.
A pair of chimes that feature frosted glass tubes and shimmering silver accents, resembling icicles hanging from a snowy tree branch, are hung up by the door.
It is noon, about 28F(-2C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky.
(Your target has been singled out by a dream stalker who's invading their dreams. They cannot be woken, but their allies may be able to go into their dreams after them to help them fight off the invader and survive the nightmare.
)
Ritsuka is standing around at her pharmacy, not doing all too much right now. There is a brief talk with another staffer, but not too much is there that has her need to do very much. It is a slow and steady Sunday at a slow time of the day to it, as they come and go every day.
Naturally, it all begins as any evening does. Ritsuka, in her idleness of a steady and slow Sunday near-noon, sees or feels nothing amiss. Why should she? All is as it should be. There is a slight thrum to the air that goes unnoticed, unfelt, untouched. A feeling of Deja vu. It hangs over her head like a sword of damocles, overbearing and heavy, the slight, distinct sense that something is wrong but it's not one that she can place her finger on. It's the subtleness of it all, the slight faults in perfection. A clock on a wall ticks backwards, her co-worker, whom she was just in brief conversation, has too many teeth in her smile - yet it feels normal. It feels as it should be.
Even when the doors open in a direction they're not hinged to open from, or when people filter in en masse. Groups, as it were, quickly stolen by the other staffers to be tended to and ringed up, which leaves Ritsuka with woefully little to do still beside lounge at her spot behind the counter. Whatever conversation, order and banter happens with the quartet of customers and her co-worker not just sounds, but feels as if there is a barrier - as if they speak through a mouthful of water, distorted, unintelligible, but that too is normal.
Everything is as it should be, hard to pin, hard to discern. The laughters sound like they come a thousand miles away, as if Ritsuka is nothing but a bystander, a distant observer, someone who stares into the veil of normalcy and casuality of life through a screen. Part of it, but only in inspection and observation. Her limbs feel heavy, her eyelids take effort to keep open. She's not falling asleep, far from it, even though a nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach not just wants but desperately desires the comfort of a pillow under her head. How good would it feel to just lay her head and slumber, to forget the world that forgot her, to simply drift asleep here and now, be lost in her own world of imagination.
Ritsuka lets out a yawn, and she does settle down. There is... someone that fears her, too. One stranger customer, and maybe the other, too. It feeds her, but a break does sound just far far too fantastic. A little moment to just laze away and to just... rest. Haven-city was a ridiculous city, after all... And her staff will keep her, make sure she is safe in one or two moments of brief rest.
All it takes is but one blink. One rest of her head and she is off to dreamland. She's feared, and avoided, and no one would dare to disturb the sanctity of her rest, even her co-workers. The slight feeling of satisfaction from the fear of others in her vicinity-- it is strange. There is the inkling of it, the invigoration - but stranger still is that it doesn't nourish. As if it isn't real, as if that connection is artificial and non-existent in reality.
Her eyes snap open on their own. Her head was down on the counter just then, just for a second, her rest-- there was a crowd of people, customers that she can recall. Every single one is fresh in her memory. From the two elderly couple that wandered in, to the group of college youths that flanked them talking about buying condoms for a party. The more she tries to remember, the hazier it becomes, until after only a few breaths of time, she can't recall what they wore, how they looked, what they ordered, what they were talking about.
Another staffer, the same one with far too many teeth in her smile, is right beside her again, continuing that idle conversation from a second ago, but this time, Ritsuka can't hear anything of it. The unease of something being wrong grows in her breast, its nearly suffocating, but still everything feels as they should be. The clock ticks backwards, the pharmacy is empty.
That's when the doors open once again, in the same manner as before, in a wrong hinge, but no group wanders in this time. There isn't even the familiar sight of Haven's streets out there, but a lush spill of green that breaks the threshold of the door in invitation. Moss and vine, wet stone and dew-drops on every blade of grass that slowly rises out of the hard floors in splintering spiderwebs. The din of equipment, freezers, or other sounds, even voices, are not only muffled, but they are gone.
Suddenly, there is no one but Ritsuka.
And that glade; the sound of a waterfall, chirping birds and bees.
Waiting.
If it is not real, it probably isn't. It draws suspicion over Ritsuka's gaze and though sleepy, something at the side of her mind marks it down, a little something that has her look around and then sigh. One of those days again, but she was never one to easily frighten... and now? When so many do fear her, there is not much left for room to actually be afraid of anything anymore. There is the glade and a waterfall, the chirping birds and the bees. One of her hands rise to snap at her fingers, to draw upon the flame of her heart - a simple attempt to check if this was something affecting her mind, or yet another. She looks around herself, to see if she bears the obvious marks of one in the nightmare, though she cannot be pulled into them. The fear empowers her, fills her with life so much that it makes her powerful. A hand reaches around her clothing, if only to see that the little blade was there, in this place, and if she was out, well, the aware among her staff knew who to reach out to to get some of it sorted.
The price of power, it hurts others, but the advantages should never be ignored either.
There is resolute satisfaction in the blade she feels at her back. It's there. It's rigid, solid. Everything is as it should be, there is nothing wrong here. It's further confirmed by the flame of her heart. It flares to her desire, unbridled, untamed. The clock keeps ticking once more, then again, then stops entirely. The staffer at her side, suspended in motion, doesn't move at all while the colour is drained of her face. Of everything, starting with her, barring Ritsuka herself. It is all a grayscale display of distortion, as if the space she occupies now is nothing but falsehood.
But there is nothing wrong here.
Even if the only colour here beyond her own is the green path laid before her outside the doors laid out like a carpet for her. The only thing that doesn't feel real is the power. The fear- the life derived from it. It is there, strengthening, but hollow. It gnaws in spite of it all in her core, that it is wrong to not feel sustenance, until that connection is cut altogether. There is no fear here, because there is nothing wrong here.
Her staff would naturally alert someone if something was. Though, if she was simply there, sleeping on the counter of her workplace while life went by on and on around her? There is warmth in her arms. Pressure, like someone touches, tries to stir her, jolt her, and though she feels, distantly hears the calls of familiar voices in the back of her skull, it isn't enough to wake her up.
Maybe because she cannot wake up.
The illusion of normalcy further cracks with another thrum, an echo of a wind that runs through the open doors. Sets everything in disarray, throws objects, topples fridges, scatters and touches upon everything but her, and it smells sweet yet acrid. Like rot, and ash. Burnt feathers spin through it, drift casually downward to settle upon her path chosen for her- the path she refuses to take.
That's when a shadow falls upon the only exit. Hard to discern what it truly is, but it is undoubtedly humanoid, albeit winged, massively, cindering at their back while that blotch of darkness is speared through with a pair of perfect hands that grab the edges of the doorway, lean in slowly to reveal cascades of black hair, a visage of simple perfection upon a masculine form. Equally black eyes rise up to meet her eyes, then they slowly shift. The iridescent tone shimmering to a perfectly mesmeric golden eyes, and a ripple running through his hair turns every strand faultlessly snow-white. Maybe he even resembles Ritsuka, in the fleeting, most distant ways.
Then inviting, seductive lips spread into a smile, and the clock begins to tick backward again.
One snap, and its all gone.
The doors are closed, the clock is ticking backwards, her co-worker has a smile with too many teeth in it, telling her about the most recent gossip in town to pass the time, chuckling to herself more than Ritsuka, who is left in the same place that she was behind her counter. Except this time, everything feels wrong, and nothing is right in this place. The doors, closed as they are, loom ominously for her.
Ritsuka lets out a little bit of a sigh, and she rises to her feet again. No, no, all of this feels wrong, even more so because the kami does not reach her here, does not fill her with life as it does with all of who dedicate themselves to Her. There is little emotion when she rises to her feet, and begins to wander forward to the door, trying to open it. "I believe I told you to not cause me any more problems. My teams are busy with one thing today, tomorrow they can also come for you." She says, not in English, but in the tongue of her thoughts, the tongue of her life. There is no snapping this time when the golden flame of her mixed blood forms this time, and then begins to float close to herself protectively. "I do not negotiate in other places, if you want to meet, this only happens in person."
Her fire is ethereal, and while it manifests, floats around her with all the strength she possesses, Ritsuka would find that her co-worker continues chatting with the air behind her, behind the counter. Where she moves, the world treats it as if she hasn't. There is no disarray, no grass, no nothing but the simple guise of a pharmacy in her surroundings with its suffocating scent of antiseptic and similar scents.
At least, until she opens the doors. Her tirade falls on deaf ears or so it seems, and with the exit unobstructed, that sickly sweet scent floods her senses again, mingled with a hint of acrid bitterness, of fire and flame, not her own. It's almost loud to her nose, how the rot manifests, and she knows enough to know that such a scent is only made by rotting meat, even if there is nothing of the sort in the blankness that she leaves into.
Vast stretches of emptiness, black, dark void of the Nightmare beyond the veil of life, yet strange in how it doesn't transition to the continuation of reality in manifestation. She's somewhere else entirely, on her own - but there is something else in the sea of the abyss. Standing some decent pace ahead, her hands cupping the air, beneath a waterfall that streams from nowhere- and only upon the illumination of her protective flame does this winged figure become clear, and what she washes in.
It is blood, and it is the sight of her, shown to her. Her own face, her own eyes and hair, laughing softly, almost bright with emotion and entirely identical to Ritsuka, save for the warped wings stretching far and mightily behind her back. Even they wither, slowly but surely, in a cascade of split feathers and decay. Ritsuka's own eyes turn upon her, her seductive smile plastered on her lips, beneath lidded eyes that seem adoring and threatening in their golden hue, watching Ritsuka like an infant in the midst of a tantrum, or like a predator that has stolen her face. She replies to nothing that she's said, but undoubtedly she is the cause. The reason of whatever transpires, and ails Ritsuka.
Behind her, the doors jolt. It has been long enough, and her 'protection', or rather, those of her staff who are aware and in her employ, are ready to barge in, and surely will in the next moment. Whatever is keeping her here is truly keeping her here, and so, they've done the only sensible thing; follow her in.
A mischievous smile starts to play onto her lips as Ritsuka watches her own reflection, and she licks her own lips to watching the other her bathe in blood. She looks back and smiles to her own team, and then looks back to her own bloodied reflection. "Remember that part about not meeting in dreams?" The nightmare lies far beyond, and the silhouette of vulpine tails and ears, a radiant aura and solar eyes just briefly fill from the reflection she possesses in it. Invisibly, not shadowed, the simple and brief sway and haze in the air. She lets out a sigh. "You have one chance to explain in one sentence, if I don't like it, or you move, I am just going to hurt you." The flame draws to her hand, and the other readies to draw the little blade, should the reflection draw to assail or move, or not answer within the next five seconds.
Her own people might grant her the chance to question, and five seconds is the best they may offer. Ritsuka was not an inherently lethal person, but that can never be said for her any of her people. They are far quicker and far less merciful; patience in the Yokai world rarely is something that is wise.
What transpires is a chuckle. Low, hoarse, plentiful and pretty, spilling out of Ritsuka's twin. It falls on a short, sweet cadence to a dim pout, and she takes a step forward and inches closer contrary to what the real one has said. Her hands are risen, heels of her palms brushing the blood-stained features of her delicate features while a ray of light traverses across her entirety, too.
Behind, seven tails split where there were once wings. Sway and haze in the air, playfully fold and droop. "You are a bold one." She half-whispers in Ritsuka's voice. Whatever she was before was another face, stolen no doubt, devoured, and she, here and now, is the next. That's all there is to it, the machinations of this beast, face-stealer, skindancer. The clock ticks, the time offered dwindles-- the doors are smashed open.
In comes Ritsuka's team. Not that they were ever necessary- as there is nothing wrong with this place. They look worse for wear, both of them. Haggered in attire, slick with sweat like they ran a marathon to get here- and it appears they have. The sight behind Yuki and Lucienne is the long entry of a pharmacy. Far, far longer than it was when Ritsuka wandered in, suggesting foulplay at large to keep them out, but to no avail.
The latter of the two takes spot beside Ritsuka, both hands running through her hair to fix stray locks in place before her hands fall to her formal attire, tug it on proper and compose the imagery of impeccability, while Yuki is frazzled in her ponytail with jet hair amess from all the running, panting, and sweat-ridden in her JSDF uniform. Her gun is held up on the other side of Ritsuka, pointing straight ahead-- and they both speak at once.
"That's my face!"
Things become somewhat clearer, then, when another chuckle in the voice of Ritsuka ripples out, and actually ripples around on the abyssal sea under their feet like a droplet on a pond. It doesn't echo, but the grayscale somehow returns. The vast black remains, but the fake Ritsuka slowly drains of color. Their features are gone entirely, washed away like ink to leave only the vague form of the last person they were impersonating, with a blank, slate-like sheet of skin where their face ought to be.
"A noppera-bo!" Yuki is the first to hiss out beside Ritsuka, level her gun, but wait.
A chance was given, this is perhaps the one rule that Ritsuka still keeps. A single chance, for things to be peaceful. They are rarely taken, but they make it lighter on the conscience if it comes to take life. Everyone lives and justifies in their own monstrosity, humans and Yokai alike. There was no more need for words as the blade is drawn from its concealed sheath, and the golden foxfire is sent out to burn at the thief. "You are mistaken. I am not bold. I am impatient. Should have decided to work for a goddess from the start and you do not get to play with my property." Of course, this is not quite accurate, but she is not spared from some aspects of her other bloodline, and her property? Well, they are really her friends. She calls them friends, she knows them as friends... but in the Yokai world... they are hers alone.
Ritsuka's aid hardly need to to do anything. As things are, this thing, a dream-stalker, face-stealer as it may be, it is only mischievous. A leech, feeding off of the ambient energy of her simple presence. When the fire flies, it is caught immediately. Engulfed by radiance, screaming in a shrill sound of thousand voices, helpless beyond its guises. It warps, shifts, cracks. Audibly, wings sprout, disappear, followed by fur all across its body, broken forward an elongated like a wolf. Then a fox, then a badger.
It's continous, rapid, constant in screams and animalistic sounds while it rolls around and tries to flee in the emptiness of the void - until it falls limp, motionless, cindering within embers destroying a vaguely humanoid shape. The wholy body, ashen as it is, cracks like a hollow shell, then falls inward in on itself - scatters into a pool of dust that spins, elevates, and disappears.
While Ritsuka's protective detail glance at one another behind her, it looks like all is right, all is as it should be, and there is nothing wrong here- they sigh in unison, one of relief. Something gnaws within Ritsuka's core anyhow, a sense of unease while the world around them slowly falls and the Nightmare begins to refuse their presence. Through the sea of abyys, the walls of the pharmacy's outside are the first to be seen. Mirror sheen walls make for the perfect spots to step through and leave this hellish place.
Yet, Ritsuka can tell.
Some notion that this is not all over, because things never are in Haven. A giggle that sounds much like her own passes beside her ears, something brushes against her hair, at the nape of her neck- and then, gone. Nothing remains here anymore, and the nightmare doesn't hold much sway in oppression over them, nothing to keep her from waking up. There are people walking, seen only through the Veil, outside the nightmare, passing through the mall, wandering the streets. Too many to count, in fact, far more than usual, bustling at this early afternoon hours. Within them, a pair of golden eyes peers through straight at the trio, leaves nothing but a simple giggle, then dips into an alley while passing through several people to be gone.
Dangerous mischief, nothing else, but at least averted.
(A ghost with only fragments of memory that have driven them near insane is attacking your target. They must either defeat it or find a way to calm it down.
)
Another long and confusing day for the desire-and-suffering sensitive woman, traveling past and through exasperating people with a confluence of conflicting desires. At least it was navigated with the relative comfortable safety of a palace home. The delight of indoor heating, though even with the humming device it works doubletime to keep this particular room a mere few degrees above a freezing celsius.
The scent of the room abruptly changes. Most would not notice. But someone someone notices, the scent of herself and the room and the forest slowly seeping away in favor of incense and sandalwood. The texture and sight of the room begin to soften, the contorus and textures rendering slowly as if it was an oil paint or half-remembered image, colors becoming sharper and strident and higher contrast from each other with blurring between such lines and objects.
And there before her appears a man. He looks confused, black-bearded and tall, his nose broken and his face tanned and weathered from age and time. Cassock, clerical collar, greca overcoat to ward away from the the cold weather, and a surprisingly sensible coif tucked down beneath a black top hat. He turns slowly in a circle, the wooden cross bouncing around his neck and revealing three things. One, his remaining eye is a bright, sapphire blue. Two, he's see-through. Three, there's a 6-inch railroad spike shoved right through his left eye.
Left. Right. Hesitation. Around. Confusion. Turning slowly - and then his gaze espies someone and her dress, his hand crawling upwards to his chest, his cross, gripping it tightly and his expression hardening. "Of course. A demon." He says, displeasure in his voice, and the warmer scents of faith coiling and tightening into something - edging with the harshness of flames, of charcoal, the smell of oil and steel. "You will not tempt me from my path to the Faithless, or those of my flock!"
Another long and confusing day for the desire-and-suffering sensitive woman, traveling past and through exasperating people with a confluence of conflicting desires. At least it was navigated with the relative comfortable safety of a palace home. The delight of indoor heating, though even with the humming device it works doubletime to keep this particular room a mere few degrees above a freezing celsius.
The scent of the room abruptly changes. Most would not notice. But Illyana Illyana notices, the scent of herself and the room and the forest slowly seeping away in favor of incense and sandalwood. The texture and sight of the room begin to soften, the contorus and textures rendering slowly as if it was an oil paint or half-remembered image, colors becoming sharper and strident and higher contrast from each other with blurring between such lines and objects.
And there before her appears a man. He looks confused, black-bearded and tall, his nose broken and his face tanned and weathered from age and time. Cassock, clerical collar, greca overcoat to ward away from the the cold weather, and a surprisingly sensible coif tucked down beneath a black top hat. He turns slowly in a circle, the wooden cross bouncing around his neck and revealing three things. One, his remaining eye is a bright, sapphire blue. Two, he's see-through. Three, there's a 6-inch railroad spike shoved right through his left eye.
Left. Right. Hesitation. Around. Confusion. Turning slowly - and then his gaze espies Illyana and her dress, his hand crawling upwards to his chest, his cross, gripping it tightly and his expression hardening. "Of course. A demon." He says, displeasure in his voice, and the warmer scents of faith coiling and tightening into something - edging with the harshness of flames, of charcoal, the smell of oil and steel. "You will not tempt me from my path to the Faithless, or those of my flock!"
Illyana watches the man. It's a spirit. That much is clear, and he's unquestionably dead-- Or at least, one would hope he is with a railroad spike jammed through his noggin. There's also the overwhelming evidence of him being translusent. How can Illyana draw any other conclusion but that of a completely deluded lost spirit. It likely got home on the bottom of Illyana's sneaker when at the cemetery. Likely the second time, as surely it'd have manifested the first-- That said, leaving the first she went to try to get layed, so she never actually went home. So really, this is all because of the second cemetery time, and that means one thing: Those sneakers have to go. The grips are crap. Don't wipe your feat once and things like this happen. How vexing. Priest though. Collar and cross, so it's not some small timer. And full vestments. Oh boy this guy's going to be pissy when he realises, and Illyana has no intention of pointing it out. That'd be dum. So instead, she sits on the side of the bed and does the one thing she's good at; Talking-- Well, she's pretty good at hitting things, but she just refernished, so as the spectre stares at her, Illyana stares right on back. At the claim of being a demon, she cants her head, saying to the unfortunate. "Really. That's your first assumption?" Gesturing around at the room, she notes, "Why would a demon be living in a house this good? And really, I don't even have horns. And this is actually home invasion, so you'd think people in glass houses wouldn't throw rocks really. Especially a man of the cloth. Kind of rude, really when you think about it. I've not even done anything to you. Hell, you showed up and started making unfounded alligations of me being a demon-- In my home. You just wandered in here. That's gotta be home invasion, and some kind of litigation charges at least. And I'm alone here." someone has completely forgotten about the sleeping Ivy beside her, wrapped up in the covers- Besides, Ivy is more of a pet than a person. "So what. Home invasion, slander, should I add anything else, my guy? Or shall we try to figure out why you're here. You seem a little off." A lot off, actually. Illness stopped being the problem about the time the guy got a rail spike through his face. "So let's all calm our tits and talk like perfectly reasonable human beings, yeah?"
Illyana watches the man. It's a spirit. That much is clear, and he's unquestionably dead-- Or at least, one would hope he is with a railroad spike jammed through his noggin. There's also the overwhelming evidence of him being translusent. How can Illyana draw any other conclusion but that of a completely deluded lost spirit. It likely got home on the bottom of Illyana's sneaker when at the cemetery. Likely the second time, as surely it'd have manifested the first-- That said, leaving the first she went to try to get layed, so she never actually went home. So really, this is all because of the second cemetery time, and that means one thing: Those sneakers have to go. The grips are crap. Don't wipe your feat once and things like this happen. How vexing. Priest though. Collar and cross, so it's not some small timer. And full vestments. Oh boy this guy's going to be pissy when he realises, and Illyana has no intention of pointing it out. That'd be dum. So instead, she sits on the side of the bed and does the one thing she's good at; Talking-- Well, she's pretty good at hitting things, but she just refernished, so as the spectre stares at her, Illyana stares right on back. At the claim of being a demon, she cants her head, saying to the unfortunate. "Really. That's your first assumption?" Gesturing around at the room, she notes, "Why would a demon be living in a house this good? And really, I don't even have horns. And this is actually home invasion, so you'd think people in glass houses wouldn't throw rocks really. Especially a man of the cloth. Kind of rude, really when you think about it. I've not even done anything to you. Hell, you showed up and started making unfounded alligations of me being a demon-- In my home. You just wandered in here. That's gotta be home invasion, and some kind of litigation charges at least. And I'm alone here." Illyana has completely forgotten about the sleeping Ivy beside her, wrapped up in the covers- Besides, Ivy is more of a pet than a person. "So what. Home invasion, slander, should I add anything else, my guy? Or shall we try to figure out why you're here. You seem a little off." A lot off, actually. Illness stopped being the problem about the time the guy got a rail spike through his face. "So let's all calm our tits and talk like perfectly reasonable human beings, yeah?"
The confrontation brings Ritsuka's hidden resolve to light, as her counterpart advances with a threat disguised as an invitation to corruption. Defiance sparks within her, signaling the entry of her loyal team, ready to support her against this deceptive mirror. Their collective effort reveals the true nature of the adversary—a face-stealing noppera-bo. With a decisive strike, Ritsuka eradicates the entity, liberating herself and her team from the nightmare. However, the ordeal leaves a lingering unease, hinting at the continuous cycle of enigmatic challenges that lurk within Haven. In another peculiar incident, Illyana faces a confused, accusing spirit within her home, displaying her characteristic wit and composure in the face of supernatural adversity. Through dialogue, she endeavors to unravel the misconceptions of her spectral accuser, suggesting a peaceful resolution over conflict, thus highlighting the diverse array of mysterious encounters that one navigates in the realm of Haven.
(Ritsuka's odd encounter(SRVictor):SRVictor)
[Sun Dec 8 2024]
In Biolabs Pharmaceuticals - OTC & Supplements
Even the blind would be able to tell that they've just entered a pharmacy. The scent of isopropyl alcohol is the first to greet the senses. The tile flooring makes spills and accidents a breeze to clean, and even a speck of dust would stand out against all that pristine white. All the aisles are labeled with letters large enough for myopic townies, and the fluorescent lights wash everything in their true hues.
A pair of chimes that feature frosted glass tubes and shimmering silver accents, resembling icicles hanging from a snowy tree branch, are hung up by the door.
It is noon, about 28F(-2C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky.
(Your target has been singled out by a dream stalker who's invading their dreams. They cannot be woken, but their allies may be able to go into their dreams after them to help them fight off the invader and survive the nightmare.
)
Ritsuka is standing around at her pharmacy, not doing all too much right now. There is a brief talk with another staffer, but not too much is there that has her need to do very much. It is a slow and steady Sunday at a slow time of the day to it, as they come and go every day.
Naturally, it all begins as any evening does. Ritsuka, in her idleness of a steady and slow Sunday near-noon, sees or feels nothing amiss. Why should she? All is as it should be. There is a slight thrum to the air that goes unnoticed, unfelt, untouched. A feeling of Deja vu. It hangs over her head like a sword of damocles, overbearing and heavy, the slight, distinct sense that something is wrong but it's not one that she can place her finger on. It's the subtleness of it all, the slight faults in perfection. A clock on a wall ticks backwards, her co-worker, whom she was just in brief conversation, has too many teeth in her smile - yet it feels normal. It feels as it should be.
Even when the doors open in a direction they're not hinged to open from, or when people filter in en masse. Groups, as it were, quickly stolen by the other staffers to be tended to and ringed up, which leaves Ritsuka with woefully little to do still beside lounge at her spot behind the counter. Whatever conversation, order and banter happens with the quartet of customers and her co-worker not just sounds, but feels as if there is a barrier - as if they speak through a mouthful of water, distorted, unintelligible, but that too is normal.
Everything is as it should be, hard to pin, hard to discern. The laughters sound like they come a thousand miles away, as if Ritsuka is nothing but a bystander, a distant observer, someone who stares into the veil of normalcy and casuality of life through a screen. Part of it, but only in inspection and observation. Her limbs feel heavy, her eyelids take effort to keep open. She's not falling asleep, far from it, even though a nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach not just wants but desperately desires the comfort of a pillow under her head. How good would it feel to just lay her head and slumber, to forget the world that forgot her, to simply drift asleep here and now, be lost in her own world of imagination.
Ritsuka lets out a yawn, and she does settle down. There is... someone that fears her, too. One stranger customer, and maybe the other, too. It feeds her, but a break does sound just far far too fantastic. A little moment to just laze away and to just... rest. Haven-city was a ridiculous city, after all... And her staff will keep her, make sure she is safe in one or two moments of brief rest.
All it takes is but one blink. One rest of her head and she is off to dreamland. She's feared, and avoided, and no one would dare to disturb the sanctity of her rest, even her co-workers. The slight feeling of satisfaction from the fear of others in her vicinity-- it is strange. There is the inkling of it, the invigoration - but stranger still is that it doesn't nourish. As if it isn't real, as if that connection is artificial and non-existent in reality.
Her eyes snap open on their own. Her head was down on the counter just then, just for a second, her rest-- there was a crowd of people, customers that she can recall. Every single one is fresh in her memory. From the two elderly couple that wandered in, to the group of college youths that flanked them talking about buying condoms for a party. The more she tries to remember, the hazier it becomes, until after only a few breaths of time, she can't recall what they wore, how they looked, what they ordered, what they were talking about.
Another staffer, the same one with far too many teeth in her smile, is right beside her again, continuing that idle conversation from a second ago, but this time, Ritsuka can't hear anything of it. The unease of something being wrong grows in her breast, its nearly suffocating, but still everything feels as they should be. The clock ticks backwards, the pharmacy is empty.
That's when the doors open once again, in the same manner as before, in a wrong hinge, but no group wanders in this time. There isn't even the familiar sight of Haven's streets out there, but a lush spill of green that breaks the threshold of the door in invitation. Moss and vine, wet stone and dew-drops on every blade of grass that slowly rises out of the hard floors in splintering spiderwebs. The din of equipment, freezers, or other sounds, even voices, are not only muffled, but they are gone.
Suddenly, there is no one but Ritsuka.
And that glade; the sound of a waterfall, chirping birds and bees.
Waiting.
If it is not real, it probably isn't. It draws suspicion over Ritsuka's gaze and though sleepy, something at the side of her mind marks it down, a little something that has her look around and then sigh. One of those days again, but she was never one to easily frighten... and now? When so many do fear her, there is not much left for room to actually be afraid of anything anymore. There is the glade and a waterfall, the chirping birds and the bees. One of her hands rise to snap at her fingers, to draw upon the flame of her heart - a simple attempt to check if this was something affecting her mind, or yet another. She looks around herself, to see if she bears the obvious marks of one in the nightmare, though she cannot be pulled into them. The fear empowers her, fills her with life so much that it makes her powerful. A hand reaches around her clothing, if only to see that the little blade was there, in this place, and if she was out, well, the aware among her staff knew who to reach out to to get some of it sorted.
The price of power, it hurts others, but the advantages should never be ignored either.
There is resolute satisfaction in the blade she feels at her back. It's there. It's rigid, solid. Everything is as it should be, there is nothing wrong here. It's further confirmed by the flame of her heart. It flares to her desire, unbridled, untamed. The clock keeps ticking once more, then again, then stops entirely. The staffer at her side, suspended in motion, doesn't move at all while the colour is drained of her face. Of everything, starting with her, barring Ritsuka herself. It is all a grayscale display of distortion, as if the space she occupies now is nothing but falsehood.
But there is nothing wrong here.
Even if the only colour here beyond her own is the green path laid before her outside the doors laid out like a carpet for her. The only thing that doesn't feel real is the power. The fear- the life derived from it. It is there, strengthening, but hollow. It gnaws in spite of it all in her core, that it is wrong to not feel sustenance, until that connection is cut altogether. There is no fear here, because there is nothing wrong here.
Her staff would naturally alert someone if something was. Though, if she was simply there, sleeping on the counter of her workplace while life went by on and on around her? There is warmth in her arms. Pressure, like someone touches, tries to stir her, jolt her, and though she feels, distantly hears the calls of familiar voices in the back of her skull, it isn't enough to wake her up.
Maybe because she cannot wake up.
The illusion of normalcy further cracks with another thrum, an echo of a wind that runs through the open doors. Sets everything in disarray, throws objects, topples fridges, scatters and touches upon everything but her, and it smells sweet yet acrid. Like rot, and ash. Burnt feathers spin through it, drift casually downward to settle upon her path chosen for her- the path she refuses to take.
That's when a shadow falls upon the only exit. Hard to discern what it truly is, but it is undoubtedly humanoid, albeit winged, massively, cindering at their back while that blotch of darkness is speared through with a pair of perfect hands that grab the edges of the doorway, lean in slowly to reveal cascades of black hair, a visage of simple perfection upon a masculine form. Equally black eyes rise up to meet her eyes, then they slowly shift. The iridescent tone shimmering to a perfectly mesmeric golden eyes, and a ripple running through his hair turns every strand faultlessly snow-white. Maybe he even resembles Ritsuka, in the fleeting, most distant ways.
Then inviting, seductive lips spread into a smile, and the clock begins to tick backward again.
One snap, and its all gone.
The doors are closed, the clock is ticking backwards, her co-worker has a smile with too many teeth in it, telling her about the most recent gossip in town to pass the time, chuckling to herself more than Ritsuka, who is left in the same place that she was behind her counter. Except this time, everything feels wrong, and nothing is right in this place. The doors, closed as they are, loom ominously for her.
Ritsuka lets out a little bit of a sigh, and she rises to her feet again. No, no, all of this feels wrong, even more so because the kami does not reach her here, does not fill her with life as it does with all of who dedicate themselves to Her. There is little emotion when she rises to her feet, and begins to wander forward to the door, trying to open it. "I believe I told you to not cause me any more problems. My teams are busy with one thing today, tomorrow they can also come for you." She says, not in English, but in the tongue of her thoughts, the tongue of her life. There is no snapping this time when the golden flame of her mixed blood forms this time, and then begins to float close to herself protectively. "I do not negotiate in other places, if you want to meet, this only happens in person."
Her fire is ethereal, and while it manifests, floats around her with all the strength she possesses, Ritsuka would find that her co-worker continues chatting with the air behind her, behind the counter. Where she moves, the world treats it as if she hasn't. There is no disarray, no grass, no nothing but the simple guise of a pharmacy in her surroundings with its suffocating scent of antiseptic and similar scents.
At least, until she opens the doors. Her tirade falls on deaf ears or so it seems, and with the exit unobstructed, that sickly sweet scent floods her senses again, mingled with a hint of acrid bitterness, of fire and flame, not her own. It's almost loud to her nose, how the rot manifests, and she knows enough to know that such a scent is only made by rotting meat, even if there is nothing of the sort in the blankness that she leaves into.
Vast stretches of emptiness, black, dark void of the Nightmare beyond the veil of life, yet strange in how it doesn't transition to the continuation of reality in manifestation. She's somewhere else entirely, on her own - but there is something else in the sea of the abyss. Standing some decent pace ahead, her hands cupping the air, beneath a waterfall that streams from nowhere- and only upon the illumination of her protective flame does this winged figure become clear, and what she washes in.
It is blood, and it is the sight of her, shown to her. Her own face, her own eyes and hair, laughing softly, almost bright with emotion and entirely identical to Ritsuka, save for the warped wings stretching far and mightily behind her back. Even they wither, slowly but surely, in a cascade of split feathers and decay. Ritsuka's own eyes turn upon her, her seductive smile plastered on her lips, beneath lidded eyes that seem adoring and threatening in their golden hue, watching Ritsuka like an infant in the midst of a tantrum, or like a predator that has stolen her face. She replies to nothing that she's said, but undoubtedly she is the cause. The reason of whatever transpires, and ails Ritsuka.
Behind her, the doors jolt. It has been long enough, and her 'protection', or rather, those of her staff who are aware and in her employ, are ready to barge in, and surely will in the next moment. Whatever is keeping her here is truly keeping her here, and so, they've done the only sensible thing; follow her in.
A mischievous smile starts to play onto her lips as Ritsuka watches her own reflection, and she licks her own lips to watching the other her bathe in blood. She looks back and smiles to her own team, and then looks back to her own bloodied reflection. "Remember that part about not meeting in dreams?" The nightmare lies far beyond, and the silhouette of vulpine tails and ears, a radiant aura and solar eyes just briefly fill from the reflection she possesses in it. Invisibly, not shadowed, the simple and brief sway and haze in the air. She lets out a sigh. "You have one chance to explain in one sentence, if I don't like it, or you move, I am just going to hurt you." The flame draws to her hand, and the other readies to draw the little blade, should the reflection draw to assail or move, or not answer within the next five seconds.
Her own people might grant her the chance to question, and five seconds is the best they may offer. Ritsuka was not an inherently lethal person, but that can never be said for her any of her people. They are far quicker and far less merciful; patience in the Yokai world rarely is something that is wise.
What transpires is a chuckle. Low, hoarse, plentiful and pretty, spilling out of Ritsuka's twin. It falls on a short, sweet cadence to a dim pout, and she takes a step forward and inches closer contrary to what the real one has said. Her hands are risen, heels of her palms brushing the blood-stained features of her delicate features while a ray of light traverses across her entirety, too.
Behind, seven tails split where there were once wings. Sway and haze in the air, playfully fold and droop. "You are a bold one." She half-whispers in Ritsuka's voice. Whatever she was before was another face, stolen no doubt, devoured, and she, here and now, is the next. That's all there is to it, the machinations of this beast, face-stealer, skindancer. The clock ticks, the time offered dwindles-- the doors are smashed open.
In comes Ritsuka's team. Not that they were ever necessary- as there is nothing wrong with this place. They look worse for wear, both of them. Haggered in attire, slick with sweat like they ran a marathon to get here- and it appears they have. The sight behind Yuki and Lucienne is the long entry of a pharmacy. Far, far longer than it was when Ritsuka wandered in, suggesting foulplay at large to keep them out, but to no avail.
The latter of the two takes spot beside Ritsuka, both hands running through her hair to fix stray locks in place before her hands fall to her formal attire, tug it on proper and compose the imagery of impeccability, while Yuki is frazzled in her ponytail with jet hair amess from all the running, panting, and sweat-ridden in her JSDF uniform. Her gun is held up on the other side of Ritsuka, pointing straight ahead-- and they both speak at once.
"That's my face!"
Things become somewhat clearer, then, when another chuckle in the voice of Ritsuka ripples out, and actually ripples around on the abyssal sea under their feet like a droplet on a pond. It doesn't echo, but the grayscale somehow returns. The vast black remains, but the fake Ritsuka slowly drains of color. Their features are gone entirely, washed away like ink to leave only the vague form of the last person they were impersonating, with a blank, slate-like sheet of skin where their face ought to be.
"A noppera-bo!" Yuki is the first to hiss out beside Ritsuka, level her gun, but wait.
A chance was given, this is perhaps the one rule that Ritsuka still keeps. A single chance, for things to be peaceful. They are rarely taken, but they make it lighter on the conscience if it comes to take life. Everyone lives and justifies in their own monstrosity, humans and Yokai alike. There was no more need for words as the blade is drawn from its concealed sheath, and the golden foxfire is sent out to burn at the thief. "You are mistaken. I am not bold. I am impatient. Should have decided to work for a goddess from the start and you do not get to play with my property." Of course, this is not quite accurate, but she is not spared from some aspects of her other bloodline, and her property? Well, they are really her friends. She calls them friends, she knows them as friends... but in the Yokai world... they are hers alone.
Ritsuka's aid hardly need to to do anything. As things are, this thing, a dream-stalker, face-stealer as it may be, it is only mischievous. A leech, feeding off of the ambient energy of her simple presence. When the fire flies, it is caught immediately. Engulfed by radiance, screaming in a shrill sound of thousand voices, helpless beyond its guises. It warps, shifts, cracks. Audibly, wings sprout, disappear, followed by fur all across its body, broken forward an elongated like a wolf. Then a fox, then a badger.
It's continous, rapid, constant in screams and animalistic sounds while it rolls around and tries to flee in the emptiness of the void - until it falls limp, motionless, cindering within embers destroying a vaguely humanoid shape. The wholy body, ashen as it is, cracks like a hollow shell, then falls inward in on itself - scatters into a pool of dust that spins, elevates, and disappears.
While Ritsuka's protective detail glance at one another behind her, it looks like all is right, all is as it should be, and there is nothing wrong here- they sigh in unison, one of relief. Something gnaws within Ritsuka's core anyhow, a sense of unease while the world around them slowly falls and the Nightmare begins to refuse their presence. Through the sea of abyys, the walls of the pharmacy's outside are the first to be seen. Mirror sheen walls make for the perfect spots to step through and leave this hellish place.
Yet, Ritsuka can tell.
Some notion that this is not all over, because things never are in Haven. A giggle that sounds much like her own passes beside her ears, something brushes against her hair, at the nape of her neck- and then, gone. Nothing remains here anymore, and the nightmare doesn't hold much sway in oppression over them, nothing to keep her from waking up. There are people walking, seen only through the Veil, outside the nightmare, passing through the mall, wandering the streets. Too many to count, in fact, far more than usual, bustling at this early afternoon hours. Within them, a pair of golden eyes peers through straight at the trio, leaves nothing but a simple giggle, then dips into an alley while passing through several people to be gone.
Dangerous mischief, nothing else, but at least averted.
(A ghost with only fragments of memory that have driven them near insane is attacking your target. They must either defeat it or find a way to calm it down.
)
Another long and confusing day for the desire-and-suffering sensitive woman, traveling past and through exasperating people with a confluence of conflicting desires. At least it was navigated with the relative comfortable safety of a palace home. The delight of indoor heating, though even with the humming device it works doubletime to keep this particular room a mere few degrees above a freezing celsius.
The scent of the room abruptly changes. Most would not notice. But someone someone notices, the scent of herself and the room and the forest slowly seeping away in favor of incense and sandalwood. The texture and sight of the room begin to soften, the contorus and textures rendering slowly as if it was an oil paint or half-remembered image, colors becoming sharper and strident and higher contrast from each other with blurring between such lines and objects.
And there before her appears a man. He looks confused, black-bearded and tall, his nose broken and his face tanned and weathered from age and time. Cassock, clerical collar, greca overcoat to ward away from the the cold weather, and a surprisingly sensible coif tucked down beneath a black top hat. He turns slowly in a circle, the wooden cross bouncing around his neck and revealing three things. One, his remaining eye is a bright, sapphire blue. Two, he's see-through. Three, there's a 6-inch railroad spike shoved right through his left eye.
Left. Right. Hesitation. Around. Confusion. Turning slowly - and then his gaze espies someone and her dress, his hand crawling upwards to his chest, his cross, gripping it tightly and his expression hardening. "Of course. A demon." He says, displeasure in his voice, and the warmer scents of faith coiling and tightening into something - edging with the harshness of flames, of charcoal, the smell of oil and steel. "You will not tempt me from my path to the Faithless, or those of my flock!"
Another long and confusing day for the desire-and-suffering sensitive woman, traveling past and through exasperating people with a confluence of conflicting desires. At least it was navigated with the relative comfortable safety of a palace home. The delight of indoor heating, though even with the humming device it works doubletime to keep this particular room a mere few degrees above a freezing celsius.
The scent of the room abruptly changes. Most would not notice. But Illyana Illyana notices, the scent of herself and the room and the forest slowly seeping away in favor of incense and sandalwood. The texture and sight of the room begin to soften, the contorus and textures rendering slowly as if it was an oil paint or half-remembered image, colors becoming sharper and strident and higher contrast from each other with blurring between such lines and objects.
And there before her appears a man. He looks confused, black-bearded and tall, his nose broken and his face tanned and weathered from age and time. Cassock, clerical collar, greca overcoat to ward away from the the cold weather, and a surprisingly sensible coif tucked down beneath a black top hat. He turns slowly in a circle, the wooden cross bouncing around his neck and revealing three things. One, his remaining eye is a bright, sapphire blue. Two, he's see-through. Three, there's a 6-inch railroad spike shoved right through his left eye.
Left. Right. Hesitation. Around. Confusion. Turning slowly - and then his gaze espies Illyana and her dress, his hand crawling upwards to his chest, his cross, gripping it tightly and his expression hardening. "Of course. A demon." He says, displeasure in his voice, and the warmer scents of faith coiling and tightening into something - edging with the harshness of flames, of charcoal, the smell of oil and steel. "You will not tempt me from my path to the Faithless, or those of my flock!"
Illyana watches the man. It's a spirit. That much is clear, and he's unquestionably dead-- Or at least, one would hope he is with a railroad spike jammed through his noggin. There's also the overwhelming evidence of him being translusent. How can Illyana draw any other conclusion but that of a completely deluded lost spirit. It likely got home on the bottom of Illyana's sneaker when at the cemetery. Likely the second time, as surely it'd have manifested the first-- That said, leaving the first she went to try to get layed, so she never actually went home. So really, this is all because of the second cemetery time, and that means one thing: Those sneakers have to go. The grips are crap. Don't wipe your feat once and things like this happen. How vexing. Priest though. Collar and cross, so it's not some small timer. And full vestments. Oh boy this guy's going to be pissy when he realises, and Illyana has no intention of pointing it out. That'd be dum. So instead, she sits on the side of the bed and does the one thing she's good at; Talking-- Well, she's pretty good at hitting things, but she just refernished, so as the spectre stares at her, Illyana stares right on back. At the claim of being a demon, she cants her head, saying to the unfortunate. "Really. That's your first assumption?" Gesturing around at the room, she notes, "Why would a demon be living in a house this good? And really, I don't even have horns. And this is actually home invasion, so you'd think people in glass houses wouldn't throw rocks really. Especially a man of the cloth. Kind of rude, really when you think about it. I've not even done anything to you. Hell, you showed up and started making unfounded alligations of me being a demon-- In my home. You just wandered in here. That's gotta be home invasion, and some kind of litigation charges at least. And I'm alone here." someone has completely forgotten about the sleeping Ivy beside her, wrapped up in the covers- Besides, Ivy is more of a pet than a person. "So what. Home invasion, slander, should I add anything else, my guy? Or shall we try to figure out why you're here. You seem a little off." A lot off, actually. Illness stopped being the problem about the time the guy got a rail spike through his face. "So let's all calm our tits and talk like perfectly reasonable human beings, yeah?"
Illyana watches the man. It's a spirit. That much is clear, and he's unquestionably dead-- Or at least, one would hope he is with a railroad spike jammed through his noggin. There's also the overwhelming evidence of him being translusent. How can Illyana draw any other conclusion but that of a completely deluded lost spirit. It likely got home on the bottom of Illyana's sneaker when at the cemetery. Likely the second time, as surely it'd have manifested the first-- That said, leaving the first she went to try to get layed, so she never actually went home. So really, this is all because of the second cemetery time, and that means one thing: Those sneakers have to go. The grips are crap. Don't wipe your feat once and things like this happen. How vexing. Priest though. Collar and cross, so it's not some small timer. And full vestments. Oh boy this guy's going to be pissy when he realises, and Illyana has no intention of pointing it out. That'd be dum. So instead, she sits on the side of the bed and does the one thing she's good at; Talking-- Well, she's pretty good at hitting things, but she just refernished, so as the spectre stares at her, Illyana stares right on back. At the claim of being a demon, she cants her head, saying to the unfortunate. "Really. That's your first assumption?" Gesturing around at the room, she notes, "Why would a demon be living in a house this good? And really, I don't even have horns. And this is actually home invasion, so you'd think people in glass houses wouldn't throw rocks really. Especially a man of the cloth. Kind of rude, really when you think about it. I've not even done anything to you. Hell, you showed up and started making unfounded alligations of me being a demon-- In my home. You just wandered in here. That's gotta be home invasion, and some kind of litigation charges at least. And I'm alone here." Illyana has completely forgotten about the sleeping Ivy beside her, wrapped up in the covers- Besides, Ivy is more of a pet than a person. "So what. Home invasion, slander, should I add anything else, my guy? Or shall we try to figure out why you're here. You seem a little off." A lot off, actually. Illness stopped being the problem about the time the guy got a rail spike through his face. "So let's all calm our tits and talk like perfectly reasonable human beings, yeah?"