Legends No Nihon
Profusely bleeding from his spasmodic eye, fingers ineffectively stopping the crimson flow, Hunter lurched forward almost drunkenly. Thin rivulets dribbled through his fingers, the flow still not staunched after so many ours, the ebb of the pearl moon waning.
The still, backwoods temple foundation in which he found himself was dead, a pitiful mosaic monastery of cream, lavender, and the most opalescent of baby blues. The outer edges of what would have been the altar dais were of esoteric design in these soft hues, edges beginning to crumble into fine powder with age while a holy, surreal song of chanting hymns filled the air, provided by the monks and innocents who had led to the site's desecration all those years ago.
Slumping against a tall, mythically ancient oak of surpassing regality, the young man sighed despairingly, clamping his sticky hand more securely to the right side of his face. Tilting his head to the heavens, glazed eyes watering, he looked at it theologically if not somewhat remorsefully. His mother slumbered somewhere up there in restless bliss, unaware of the plights of her children. 'If it were only her, I would rejoice to go home,' he thought abstractly before fixing his eyes upon the earth.
Bathed in a gleaming pallor labored two figures likened to angels, androgynous and macabre though of an Oriental cast. Silk strands draped over small, delicately boned noses and high, finely chiseled cheeks, highlights of red, blue, and silver shining by the light of the moon, illuminating their ivory skin. The more masculine of the two clutched his feminine beauty to his chest, half conscious.
As Hunter approached the two, he saw the man lose his celestial attire, becoming a bluntly handsome young man in his late teens with long demon ears. Hearing the other's tread, his sensitive opaque eye pleaded with the man; it was with a start that Hunter recognized him to be the same man who had attempted to choke him earlier.
"I need your help," the young man pleaded desperately, looking up at him imploringly. "My fiancé and I are in need of aid. Can you…?"
It was then that Hunter became fully aware of the young woman pressed into the man's white arms with her deathly bland but open face. Passion was inflamed in his chest, eyes rimming yellow as they and his sleek hair flashed to a vivid, violent green. Forgetting about his pained face and balling his beefy fists, the eighteen year old advanced, fully intending upon bringing every possible infliction of pain unto him; such foul deeds would not go unpunished.
But the sight of such a strong, fragile man hunched over the thin, unearthly beautiful woman, long, dark hair shielding his face like a curtain could not fail to move him. Pity grew as he beheld the man wrenching up pools of blood, careful to move his face from his fiancé's.
Bowing his head, the green slowly fading to mint, Hunter reluctantly agreed, cursing his fabricated chivalrous knight episodes. So it was with shock that he felt a light body being pressed into his arms before he was encased in a warm, if somewhat feeble, embrace, the man losing any formalities that he might have harbored. Stepping away from the man who he believed might be saving his future wife's life, he smiled down at him, tears shining like diamonds in the corners of his eyes.
"Thank you, thank you so very much, sir, thank you, thank you," he bowed repeatedly though quick and fluid. "Will you direct us to the nearest facility?"
Looking about the alien surrounding uncertainly for a moment, Hunter finally turned towards the exuberant man who was valiantly staying on his feet despite obvious fatigue. About to shut the man down, he snapped his mouth closed at his innocent, naïveté expression and swung his head to cast about at his surroundings again, knowing that he would never find the path. Even using his abilities did nothing for his benefits and he sighed, knowing the repercussions of his next actions.
"I have a special trick for just this situation," he lied, intentionally not looking at either the man or the woman who drew his attention so completely. "It is a little unorthodox but manageable. Can you accept that?"
"Anything for my kon'yakusha!!" he answered vehemently, shaking his head for emphasis, blue-red highlighted black locks fanning about his head with emotion. "It will be done!"
Sighing with fatigue, the young man placed the woman in the other's arms once more before stepping back, spreading his legs shoulder length, and holding his arms out in front of him stiffly, fingers curled near his palms, knees bent slightly. Opening his eyes widely, he stared at the white tile, letting air in and out of his lungs while crickets sang. The man watched inquisitively, trying not to voice his anxieties, overcome with curiosity as he was.
Unnoticed, the whites had drained from Hunter's eyes into a liquid-y black that rimmed his eyes like fine mascara, his irises and pupils expanding to compensate, colors already dimming to grays blurred at the edges. Underneath his shaggy mane, his ears grew pointed and wide; skin thinned to a fine sheath before they were encased in gently fluffed gray/blue fur.
An implosion struck Hunter then, whipping back his head, thrusting eyes to a placid gray/blue, forehead snapping back in on itself, hair cascading into a true mane that swept along his spine to the nearly sprouted tail, a gasp emitting from the young man. Horrified, he watched as the former young man tumbled backwards, shifting halfway and spinning before landing lightly on soft pads just as his black toenails grew, clicking on the shifting tile.
Stumbling backwards, eyes wide with repulsion, the man hobbled away from the sight, clutching the dark haired woman to him compulsively. Tongue tied, he managed to sputter, "Kitsune!*" The next instance, he was turned, wobbly legs sprinting to get distance from the fiend.
But the beast stood before him, bushy tail swishing in front of his haunches, trailing the ground, swiping at the air, brushing itself off. Expansive canines gleamed as he growled up at the man hoarsely, muzzle shifting upward, ears flattening down on his skull. Stepping forward menacingly with one paw at a time, he slunk closer, liquid eyes glaring balefully at his prey.
Frozen, the man swallowed thickly, eyes wide in fear. Had he known better, he would have immediately hunched down into submission to pacify the creature, but, no, he stood upright, towering over it by its shear size. Breath caught, he shifted his foot to glide backwards.
The creature saw the threat and leapt forward, paws outstretched in front of it, claws out to hit the man on the face and tear away flesh. Hitting the man with a dull thump, he noticed that the force resisted him more often then usual and bent to savage the face and neck before a scent caught him.
It was musky, subtle, glaring, alluring, unlike what it had even scented before though familiar. Bending its neck, eyes sleek with curiosity, it saw the image of the woman beneath it and sniffed. Yes, the scent was she, this female. Inhaling deeply, it couldn't scent anything amiss crippled but found the female in perfect form. Licking its chops, it wanted the female to notice it, thus being why it nearly missed the odor of bloody. Alarmed, it bent down, nose quivering before the female's chest, and inhaled deeply, receiving a coarse, foul odor tinged with blood and trepidation, cleverly masked by this flawless female who was tinged with celestial scents. Miffed, it sniffed, turning, and hopped off the bodies, tail swishing haughtily.
Padding to the edge of the area, it looked over it shoulder pointedly at the man, eyes boring into his. It wasn't until the creature paced back and forth between him and the edge, pausing at the edge and looking back at him, did he conceive that it wanted him to follow him. Slowly getting up, crouching low reflexively, he took his time so long that the animal came back, nudged the woman closer to him [the man] with his nose, and hit him in the back of his knees with his tail. Not wanting to displease the animal, the man hastily bundled his future wife in his arms and hurried after the creature, which had disappeared into the dark, oppressive forest.
Winding along an invisible path, the creature shown silver in the filtered moonlight, tail sweeping so vividly that it appeared to split into two independent appendages. The fur was mattered down, white edged in gray, silver, and light blue, the body massively large with a head the size of the man's torso and paws just as big and half as his own hands. Stiff strands tinted with yellow were streamlined down its sides while the muscles moved beneath its expensive pelt, shoulder blades moving up and down with a slow rhythm. So lost in appreciation for the creature, the man didn't even look to where he was headed but instead instinctively trusted the creature. Taking such a careful observation, he noted that the creature wasn't a kitsune as he had first thought but a different animal altogether, albeit a divine thing what with its size, majesty, sentient eyes, and former form of a man.
In what seemed like seconds, though it was several hours at the least, the creature vanished in a break, the man hurrying not to lose it. Pushing through the tough brush, he found himself in a long, sweeping field, thousands of gleaming artificial lights at the end like a beacon of hope. And there, standing in the middle of the field, feet splayed it steady itself, was the mythic creature, intelligent eyes looking at the young man as if to say, 'Do I meet your standards? Now come along.' Not awaiting the answer, it loped off, trusting for the man to follow, which he did. Deep within themselves, both of them knew a hospital lay close by, just within those shallow lights, and the woman stirred, pain throbbing within her psyche.
~ * ~
'My arm! My arm! Where is my arm?!!' the silver entity shrieked, panicking at such close confines. The host was breathing, still alive, and trapping her within it! 'My arm! Where is my arm?!!' she moaned again, furtively pawing through the elements of the host's essence.
At last, she paused, sinking low in on herself, her sea of hair floating about her pale, masculine feminine form. Her brow sank to her arms, resting on her knees, and she felt despair. 'It will never be found,' she murmured mournfully to the nothingness. 'This host was meant to be untapped and I was duped to the trap; I was the fool. Now… there is no escape.'
'You do not know that, little master of ages,' a voice breathed deeply, appearing beside the form's side, leaning against her, giving her strength. 'There are ways upon ways to remove yourself from a host.'
'Not a pure celestial, she is not a true host,' the figure argued defensively, low in depression.
'True,' the other agreed reflexively before wrapping itself about her, coils of ethereal haze encasing her. 'But a Shattering will work – ALWAYS.' Tawny hellish eyes glittered in its dark recesses.
~~~ * ~~~
* Kitsune – a creature from the Japanese/Shinto religion; it is a fox like being that can assume the forms of others, such as humans, in order to often do trickery or mischief. Sometimes these white creatures (though they are other fox colors not limited) do aid those that come across them, though not often.