Ramblings of a Machine !nmVOHsTRd. 2008/11/24 (Mon) 22:59 No. 69506 ▼ File 122759639495.jpg - (219.50KB, 525x700 , 06e7210ec677d13d2287b5dc238447f0.jpg)
It's a special occasion today, THP. Based on that, I was supposed to bring you a present, but thanks to the unfavourable circumstances hanging over my lately life, it did not turn out as I wanted it to. Thus, all I can give you is a summary... and a Reimu image dump.
TS Rem
A chance meeting in a cold night
The wind sweeps through my hair like a swallow sweeps through the treetops, grazing and brushing every leaf it passes by, yet remains unaffected, steadily persisting in it's flight. A noise, on the verge of hearing, but distinguishable even through the buzzing of the grass and bushes around me, a hint, a cue, a trigger for my senses to sharpen. Blot out all irrelevant factors, and focus, concentrate.
My sweaty palm clutches the knife, my trusty knife, like a sword. My only weapon, and my only shield.
I catch a glimpse of black cloth among the thicket.
Tonight, she's going to die. Someone's going to die.
Someone's going to die, so the other one may live on.
And as long as I'm in control of those overwhelmingly accurate senses...
I'm not going to die.
The story starts with Nanaya utilizing his skills to hunt an unnamed youkai girl some of you might be able to identify, based on the colour of her clothes, and that he shares a special relationship with a certain kind of youkai...
Mother night embraces those who are not scared of her ominous shades. Mother night rewards those who move about in the darkness.
I'm not afraid of darkness. Because the darkness is not my enemy, not my nemesis. Ever since the dawn of history, humans were afraid of shadows.
But not me. Darkness is a tool. A weapon. Without it, I would be no more. And without me... The night would be a lot less scary.
The very instant the distance between us lowers to under 5 meters, my body springs to life. Muscles contract, rebounding me from the surface, like a bullet hurling towards the target. I spin mid-air, facing the sky. My fingers touch the ground, gently, only brushing it with their tips, yet that alone is sufficient to raise my velocity enough to catch up with her flight.
Why would he be hunting youkai in a forest? Imagine what would happen if Reimu didn't come to rescue after the fateful meeting with Wriggle. If he lost contact with M&R and was forced to wander around the forests of Gensokyo, totally lost, leading a life of an anchorite, away from all the civilisation, depending on nature and himself only to survive.
I emerge from the bushes, and crossing her trajectory, grab her collar from below.
She can't even struggle when I flail her petite body around, completely reversing the situation - now me on top, her only staring in fright up at my face, stretched in a horrible grin.
We fall to the ground.
An interesting perspective, when it struck me. A whole new spectrum of circumstances, possible encounters and storylines, it occured to me that I came up with a rather nice idea to write some Reimu while still sticking to the premise of a Nanaya wanderer.
"Welcome."
Automatically, like a machine programmed to always take the same steps with the same timing, I change the grip on my knife.
And swing it down.
Not distinguishing between skin, nerves, muscles, veins or anything else. With a single slash, so clean one could write a poem about it, without any hesitation, without any remorse.
I cut that splendid neck.
Blood splatters around, and I make no effort to avoid getting it on my clothes. There's something oddly arousing in getting dirty like this. With a defenseless girl struggling against my actions, slowly growing senseless, powerless as I admire the spectacle.
Her eyes give me a weak, frightened, but hateful look.
I smile.
"To my beautiful killing chamber."
After killing the girl, he would drag her corpse to his shack, in the middle of nowhere. One he found and took away from the previous owner, not necessarily in a gentle way. Imagine that there was a timeskip between the moment he reaches the door, the first drops of rain banging silently on the roof of his little house, and a moment of temporal silence, peace, a feast ripening on a makeshift grill while he's trying to clean the sleeves of his shirt.
But it seems that I won't be given the leisure of spending the evening undisturbed.
Knock, knock.
Weakly, silently, something taps on my house's door. My body freezes, alarmed, stratled by the sudden noise. Just like then, when I heard the girl in the forest, my senses sharpen, like if a switch was flipped inside my head.
Knock, knock.
But a story wouldn't be a story if it were just about a brutal bastard living his everyday life, now would it? That's why, knocking on his chamber door...
Still anxious about what might be waiting on the other side, I violently swing the door ajar, one hand in my pocket, fingers laid on the only weapon I could count on.
But what meets my eyes is nothing I would ever expect.
Something trips forward, and weakly impacts against my chest, wrapping it's arms around my shoulders.
It's a girl. How can I tell? Let's put that aside for now.
Wet, drenched, her long, black hair sticking to her body, shining in the dim light of my grill's fire.
"P... please..."
She mutters.
And it is then I notice.
Her clothes, ragged, torn, as if someone tried to rip them off her body. Half of her top gone, revealing a rather small chest, wrapped in bandages. Piece of a sleeve hanging off her wrist. Scrap of a ribbon entangled in her hair. And most of all...
... two. No, three. Four. Five. Five pieces of bent steel wire sticking out of her naked back.
"It's..." she looks up at me, with tears - or perhaps just water - in the corners of her eyes. I swear that if one could whisper countless pleads with just a stare, those eyes would be doing this right now. Her hands, cold like the air outside claw on my back. She's not even standing on her own anymore. Just holding onto my perplexed figure, hanging off my shoulders like a powerless doll. "Cold outside..." her lips are almost as pale as the rest of her face "Can I.... come in?"
Partially out of perplexion that came from having been visited by a person - and a girl at that - he takes her in.
Following a short moment of consternation, he offers to tend to her wounds, sacrificing his own medical supplies.
She hesitantly agrees, while feeling embarassed about stripping in front of a guy, and relinquishes her will, giving in to his care.
