Post by Sinthe on Nov 26, 2018 14:09:16 GMT -5
'So what is it?'
'I dunno, came down from above so I guess it's a soul. Not like any one that I've seen before though.'
'Right... so what is it?'
'Ugh.'
Oni did not have the greatest reputation for feats of outstanding perception nor imagination and honestly such traits might be considered handicaps to what were essentially glorified bureaucrats, but the elder of these two brothers would have traded away whatever sainted virtues of efficiency and consistency his race possessed if it meant that he could posit a decent theory as to what they were looking at. Roiling lakes of blood were about what one would expect to encounter whilst they were taking a sojourn through Hell, as a matter of fact some of the most pleasant picnics he'd had were on, beside or overlooking roiling lakes of blood. The thing about this one was it was meant to be still... and also made of water.
'Wait, so did that little cloud do that?'
'I... don't want to think about that.'
The little cloud in question was not an unusual sight in one of the Other Realms, whether above or below it was the standard form that a spirit would take when said powers, neither high nor low had taken interest in them. For those in Heaven they were able to live out a peaceful, blameless existence and await reincarnation at a later time, as for those in Hell they were subject to widespread predation were they unlucky enough to stumble across any who had regained their mortal form first. This one though? Floating in the center of a swirling blood lake which up til recently hadn't been made of blood? It felt a little different.
'So, do you think if we took it to the gate--'
'Shh! Something's coming!'
The little cloud, whatever it was began to drift down towards the surface of the lake and the lake seemed almost to bow to its presence, the blood parting as a red sea to form a maelstrom the center of which the cloud now floated in. A few moments longer and the walls of the whirling vortex closed in about it, drawing in the blood around so that in time where once there had been a small lake there now floated freely a spinning orb of liquid. The sphere continued to shrink down, compressing itself in to something... else. The arms of the creature emerged first, reaching out from oblivion and parting the crimson waters of its rebirth, the lower limbs extended thereafter before finally the strange creature parted what was left of the blood orb as it lifted its head. The form was not unlike that of a Terran cat, it might in fact be mistaken for a Zoanthrope of the same region but the ki which it now exuded in a soft, constant pulse felt decidedly unlike one. Dripping in the viscera of what must have been dozens if not hundreds of wicked souls the creature shifted uncomfortably, newly made bone and muscle finding its place as he rolled and stretched his limbs.
Finally, settled in to the new body the creature let out a burst of ki from its entire body, vaporizing the gore which still clung to it and leaving the creature with no outward sign of its grisly remaking.
Sinthe was back.
Sinthe was back, but he wasn't alone. Shifting his gaze to one side, not so much as turning his head he lifted one finger towards an outcropping of rock on what previously had been the shore of his impromptu blood lake. With the merest flaring of his ki the rocks obscuring his observers cracked and split apart to reveal them. Something the Oni siblings seemed none too pleased about.
'Ah-hah, don't mind us, we were just curious what was going on here.' The older Oni's tone grew more fevered as the creature floated over to them, planting his feet softly as he crossed his arms behind himself. 'We heard people had been disappearing around these parts, but since you're obviously the cause of that we'll just--'
'These guys? No, I just lead them all here, they died on their own.'
'That's good,' the older Oni heaved a sigh as he said so, shooting his younger brother a fiendish look. 'And here I was afraid you were some kind of ridiculous monster!' In a flash the brothers had appeared beside Sinthe, one on wither flank and were already throwing attacks thick and fast. Sinthe, un-amused by this development, did not so much as raise a hand, instead weaving his head and upper body between their strikes deftly and with little apparent effort. The brothers responded by upping their tempo, throwing two strikes for every one they had previously but it was to no avail and only made their form sloppy and easier to read. Tiring of their display Sinthe crossed his arms, catching the next blow from each of the Oni in either hand and holding them fast with an iron grip.
'Sorry,' he said heavily as they stood agog at the speed and power they'd just now witnessed. Sinthe paused, as if in wonder at the sound and feel of his own voice renewed. 'But I'm definitely some kind of ridiculous monster.' Uncrossing his arms the Anubian set his feet and leveraged his not inconsiderable strength to bring the two crashing in to one another. Fighting as a team was okay, he didn't like it, but it was only okay for as long as you were able to stay out of one another's way. With a smirk he swept the two tangled bodies out of his way with a spinning back kick, depositing them off somewhere to the side where they couldn't get in his way for a quick sec.
Fighting for his life was all well and good, but since he was already dead conflict seemed sort of mooted. Taking inventory of his body was a little more pressing just now. It felt right, everything was in roughly the place he'd left it, his teeth tasted a little weird and actually having a mouth after being a cloud for so long was actually kinda gross as he shifted his new-old tongue around it. In spite of all this he was satisfied, he'd have to thank Suusao when next he saw the young Hybrid. Without him it might have taken Sinthe quite some time to come to the realization he could restore his lost form.
Ah, that was the other thing.
With his own body, mouth, teeth and indeed voice back there was something which needed saying.
'JUMPED UP ONI BITCH!!!' One might have presumed that he was addressing the two brothers that had just jumped him, but no. From the way he was screaming insults at the vaulted ceiling of HFIL it would appear that he had not yet forgotten nor forgiven the reason for his being down there. 'You better hope I'm stuck down here! Cause if we ever meet again you'll WISH you could go to Hell!' The two brothers, even as they struggled to disentangle from one another, were at a loss presented with this spectacle. That is until the elder realized to whom the peculiar and powerful cat-man's tirade was directed.
'Say, you?' Thee Oni shoved his younger brother down in order to clamber off and away from him finally, approaching the Anubian with some degree of caution though he'd not even deigned to divert his attention from arguing with the sky. 'Uh, hey... fella? You wouldn't happen to be shouting up at Queen Aka, would you?' Only then did Sinthe turn his attention back to the two Oni, his scowl sending a very mortal chill up the elder brother's spine, such that he took a step back at the sight of it.
'So what if I were?'
'Ah, well, it's just we're not really fans of hers either.'
'We actually used to work for her,' his younger brother elaborated as he got up to dust himself off.'
'Mm, long story short we let the wrong person through a door we were supposed to be guarding and boom, here we are.' Sinthe expected there was probably a lot more to it than that, he'd been tripped up by long stories told short before. 'Anyway, you know what they say about the enemy of my enemy, so how about you let us tag along wherever you're headed now you're in your own body again.'
'Not a chance,' the statement came with such a blunt brutality that it caused the younger of the two Oni to visibly deflate. Far be it for Sinthe to not take the opportunity to kick a man down though. 'I've no use for a couple of horn heads who suck at attacking just as much as they do guarding. Unless one of you can cook, unlikely, I don't see that there's anything you'd be able to offer me.'
'I can cook,' the younger Oni offered to the Anubian's already steadily retreating back.
'Shut it, you. Listen, I know we must not look like much but like I said we used to guard doors for Queen Aka, that means ALL the doors.' This at least gave Sinthe a reason to stop in his tracks, clearly listening for whatever bargaining chip were going to be offered next. 'Yeah, see everyone thinks that in the lower realm the only way to get out would be to go up, but there's another way, down and in, a hidden gate back to the mortal plane.'
'Fine... come on then if you're coming.'
'Uhm, okay then. This is Naraen, my younger brother and I'm Misshaku.'
'Didn't ask,' the Anubian replied bluntly.
'So what do we call you?' Naraen chimed in from the back of the pack.
'Sinthe,' came the clipped reply. He was done with this conversation, so done in fact that for once he didn't even go to the effort of adding his preferred affectation of 'Lord' to the introduction. Being dead had this funny way of removing the pretense from everything and right now Sinthe was wholly focused on trying to find a way out of his current predicament, so focused in fact that he didn't much care that he was probably walking in to an obvious trap. These Oni weren't particularly good at ambushing anyway, it seemed and even if they were he seemed to be more than a match for the both of them even combined.
His attention focused inward, Sinthe proceeded in leading the caravan in silence. The two brothers continued to occasionally strike up conversation but it ebbed and flowed, quickly petering out after the start. Even so he took no part and as best as he could carried on navigating towards the center of this realm he was imprisoned within.
For now.
TWC: 1,810
'I dunno, came down from above so I guess it's a soul. Not like any one that I've seen before though.'
'Right... so what is it?'
'Ugh.'
Oni did not have the greatest reputation for feats of outstanding perception nor imagination and honestly such traits might be considered handicaps to what were essentially glorified bureaucrats, but the elder of these two brothers would have traded away whatever sainted virtues of efficiency and consistency his race possessed if it meant that he could posit a decent theory as to what they were looking at. Roiling lakes of blood were about what one would expect to encounter whilst they were taking a sojourn through Hell, as a matter of fact some of the most pleasant picnics he'd had were on, beside or overlooking roiling lakes of blood. The thing about this one was it was meant to be still... and also made of water.
'Wait, so did that little cloud do that?'
'I... don't want to think about that.'
The little cloud in question was not an unusual sight in one of the Other Realms, whether above or below it was the standard form that a spirit would take when said powers, neither high nor low had taken interest in them. For those in Heaven they were able to live out a peaceful, blameless existence and await reincarnation at a later time, as for those in Hell they were subject to widespread predation were they unlucky enough to stumble across any who had regained their mortal form first. This one though? Floating in the center of a swirling blood lake which up til recently hadn't been made of blood? It felt a little different.
'So, do you think if we took it to the gate--'
'Shh! Something's coming!'
The little cloud, whatever it was began to drift down towards the surface of the lake and the lake seemed almost to bow to its presence, the blood parting as a red sea to form a maelstrom the center of which the cloud now floated in. A few moments longer and the walls of the whirling vortex closed in about it, drawing in the blood around so that in time where once there had been a small lake there now floated freely a spinning orb of liquid. The sphere continued to shrink down, compressing itself in to something... else. The arms of the creature emerged first, reaching out from oblivion and parting the crimson waters of its rebirth, the lower limbs extended thereafter before finally the strange creature parted what was left of the blood orb as it lifted its head. The form was not unlike that of a Terran cat, it might in fact be mistaken for a Zoanthrope of the same region but the ki which it now exuded in a soft, constant pulse felt decidedly unlike one. Dripping in the viscera of what must have been dozens if not hundreds of wicked souls the creature shifted uncomfortably, newly made bone and muscle finding its place as he rolled and stretched his limbs.
Finally, settled in to the new body the creature let out a burst of ki from its entire body, vaporizing the gore which still clung to it and leaving the creature with no outward sign of its grisly remaking.
Sinthe was back.
Sinthe was back, but he wasn't alone. Shifting his gaze to one side, not so much as turning his head he lifted one finger towards an outcropping of rock on what previously had been the shore of his impromptu blood lake. With the merest flaring of his ki the rocks obscuring his observers cracked and split apart to reveal them. Something the Oni siblings seemed none too pleased about.
'Ah-hah, don't mind us, we were just curious what was going on here.' The older Oni's tone grew more fevered as the creature floated over to them, planting his feet softly as he crossed his arms behind himself. 'We heard people had been disappearing around these parts, but since you're obviously the cause of that we'll just--'
'These guys? No, I just lead them all here, they died on their own.'
'That's good,' the older Oni heaved a sigh as he said so, shooting his younger brother a fiendish look. 'And here I was afraid you were some kind of ridiculous monster!' In a flash the brothers had appeared beside Sinthe, one on wither flank and were already throwing attacks thick and fast. Sinthe, un-amused by this development, did not so much as raise a hand, instead weaving his head and upper body between their strikes deftly and with little apparent effort. The brothers responded by upping their tempo, throwing two strikes for every one they had previously but it was to no avail and only made their form sloppy and easier to read. Tiring of their display Sinthe crossed his arms, catching the next blow from each of the Oni in either hand and holding them fast with an iron grip.
'Sorry,' he said heavily as they stood agog at the speed and power they'd just now witnessed. Sinthe paused, as if in wonder at the sound and feel of his own voice renewed. 'But I'm definitely some kind of ridiculous monster.' Uncrossing his arms the Anubian set his feet and leveraged his not inconsiderable strength to bring the two crashing in to one another. Fighting as a team was okay, he didn't like it, but it was only okay for as long as you were able to stay out of one another's way. With a smirk he swept the two tangled bodies out of his way with a spinning back kick, depositing them off somewhere to the side where they couldn't get in his way for a quick sec.
Fighting for his life was all well and good, but since he was already dead conflict seemed sort of mooted. Taking inventory of his body was a little more pressing just now. It felt right, everything was in roughly the place he'd left it, his teeth tasted a little weird and actually having a mouth after being a cloud for so long was actually kinda gross as he shifted his new-old tongue around it. In spite of all this he was satisfied, he'd have to thank Suusao when next he saw the young Hybrid. Without him it might have taken Sinthe quite some time to come to the realization he could restore his lost form.
Ah, that was the other thing.
With his own body, mouth, teeth and indeed voice back there was something which needed saying.
'JUMPED UP ONI BITCH!!!' One might have presumed that he was addressing the two brothers that had just jumped him, but no. From the way he was screaming insults at the vaulted ceiling of HFIL it would appear that he had not yet forgotten nor forgiven the reason for his being down there. 'You better hope I'm stuck down here! Cause if we ever meet again you'll WISH you could go to Hell!' The two brothers, even as they struggled to disentangle from one another, were at a loss presented with this spectacle. That is until the elder realized to whom the peculiar and powerful cat-man's tirade was directed.
'Say, you?' Thee Oni shoved his younger brother down in order to clamber off and away from him finally, approaching the Anubian with some degree of caution though he'd not even deigned to divert his attention from arguing with the sky. 'Uh, hey... fella? You wouldn't happen to be shouting up at Queen Aka, would you?' Only then did Sinthe turn his attention back to the two Oni, his scowl sending a very mortal chill up the elder brother's spine, such that he took a step back at the sight of it.
'So what if I were?'
'Ah, well, it's just we're not really fans of hers either.'
'We actually used to work for her,' his younger brother elaborated as he got up to dust himself off.'
'Mm, long story short we let the wrong person through a door we were supposed to be guarding and boom, here we are.' Sinthe expected there was probably a lot more to it than that, he'd been tripped up by long stories told short before. 'Anyway, you know what they say about the enemy of my enemy, so how about you let us tag along wherever you're headed now you're in your own body again.'
'Not a chance,' the statement came with such a blunt brutality that it caused the younger of the two Oni to visibly deflate. Far be it for Sinthe to not take the opportunity to kick a man down though. 'I've no use for a couple of horn heads who suck at attacking just as much as they do guarding. Unless one of you can cook, unlikely, I don't see that there's anything you'd be able to offer me.'
'I can cook,' the younger Oni offered to the Anubian's already steadily retreating back.
'Shut it, you. Listen, I know we must not look like much but like I said we used to guard doors for Queen Aka, that means ALL the doors.' This at least gave Sinthe a reason to stop in his tracks, clearly listening for whatever bargaining chip were going to be offered next. 'Yeah, see everyone thinks that in the lower realm the only way to get out would be to go up, but there's another way, down and in, a hidden gate back to the mortal plane.'
'Fine... come on then if you're coming.'
'Uhm, okay then. This is Naraen, my younger brother and I'm Misshaku.'
'Didn't ask,' the Anubian replied bluntly.
'So what do we call you?' Naraen chimed in from the back of the pack.
'Sinthe,' came the clipped reply. He was done with this conversation, so done in fact that for once he didn't even go to the effort of adding his preferred affectation of 'Lord' to the introduction. Being dead had this funny way of removing the pretense from everything and right now Sinthe was wholly focused on trying to find a way out of his current predicament, so focused in fact that he didn't much care that he was probably walking in to an obvious trap. These Oni weren't particularly good at ambushing anyway, it seemed and even if they were he seemed to be more than a match for the both of them even combined.
His attention focused inward, Sinthe proceeded in leading the caravan in silence. The two brothers continued to occasionally strike up conversation but it ebbed and flowed, quickly petering out after the start. Even so he took no part and as best as he could carried on navigating towards the center of this realm he was imprisoned within.
For now.
TWC: 1,810
