Memories (Of Dreams and Demons)

Vault - Part 4 Draft Notes

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Mere moments before I know I will succumb to the rodent's blade, blackness roars through me, a dark sensation I've never felt before, and it doesn't stop.

Immense strength snaps me back into place, my heart spits poison to the breeze, and I roar back to my feet. Blackness swirls throughout my vision as I almost stumble backwards, struggling to control the power that runs through my veins, a raging torrent. From the waters a tide of darkness rises alongside me, until the entire ocean is a pitch black.

As time returns to normal, the shadows embrace their new home, the scene around us returning to sight. Yet the world has shifted, as if unreal, a story corrupted, from one of crystal blue seafaring to oil-choked misadventure.

Kaiken turns to the capybara as he pulls his blade from my side, my wounds instantly closing. The skies follow the water, a black mirror the clouds slide off of as if losing their stickiness. No stars fill the midnight globe, no light.

"Why you little.." Kaiken hisses.

The rodent sniffs in her direction, before grinning widely and vanishing in a puff of smoke. I gag and turn away as a strong smell of toxic chemicals blasts against my face.

A loud grinding sound pulls Kaiken's attention back towards our chase. The last of the Stomach Skewer shatters completely as our collision runs its full course. Splinters, nails and wood explode in every direction, until nothing of its frame remains but a footnote in some history book that will tell our tale.

But a new danger has been born. Large shards of blackness given form shoot forth from waves as they begin to freeze, the Light's Pursuit groaning now against a different type of pain. Sharp stalagmites piece its frame; black hail begins to fall from the sky.

Black chains whip out from the sludge that once was water, tentacles of some mindless leviathan. They wrap around the masts of the ship, cling on to railing, and hold us in place. Shadows flow about the deck, streamers that slice at flesh and beam, they cut and slash away. The shield of light that protected us begins to crack beneath this fresh assault.

"Hannya," Kaiken says quietly.

The silhouette, Hannya, stands alone, facing us, surrounded by the death she sowed with a laugh. We all eye her warily, our own conflict given pause. What happens next?

Hannya does not move, frozen amidst the shadows that grow, silent, savoring the fall of friend and foe. A gore red mask covers her face. I can't see any straps or locks, as if it were fused to her face rather than a mere decoration. A painted face upon the leather bares fangs; a face torn between sniveling mockery and irrational anger.

She wears an ebony dress, patterned in flame and spun of fine silk, tucked tightly beneath strapped barbed armor. Black-feathered streamers flow about a hood that wraps up tightly around her head. Her bloodshot eyes are locked on Kaiken, as two tekko-kagi, sharp steel claws wrapped around her fists, curl out from beneath the sleeves of her dress. That grating sound of metal scratching against metal reaches me even up here.

"Finally," Hannya says simply in return. Her voice is hoarse, resigned, toxic; a whisper in the shadows.

The laughter that follows though, it reverberates across the seas, surreal, unnatural, as if her mockery was embedded in the very essence of the darkness that surrounds us; the shadows and death manifestations of her will. It grates against the insides of my skull, a painful distraction from sanity.

And though she has stood still, her laughter the only hint she is not a statue on the deck, I can tell she's about to make her move. Readying to strike, Hannya tilts her head ever so slightly and squares her feet. The tekko-kagi claws now fully extended, the laughter stops.