And people. [She extends a hand; Izumo takes it without a second thought and the scene flits to one vastly different.
The birth of a child with strangely-shaped eyebrows, and the fading to disappointment on the faces all around. A scene where a woman wreaks havoc and a girl clutches another, a roar of fire and terror and demons, and it seems that all the anger and the despair stare her straight in the eyes. A purple-haired elementary schooler that walks alone, that picks fights and speaks harshly to her classmates, whose presence darkens a room; whose only friend, a brown-bobbed little girl as well, has a smile that fades quickly when she's not looking.
Later years, a green-eyed blonde girl in a kimono, whose smiles--the only genuine ones Izumo has seen as Paku walks her through her life--are whittled away by constant rebuffs and verbal assaults. Izumo sees herself using and abusing, sees the obedient smile on Shiemi's face twinkle uncertainly in her overwhelming presence and fade to bitter tears outside of it. She sees the way her exorcist classmates quiet and sober when she enters a room, the way they avoid her. She sees aspirations that she condemned fall and break on the ground, and she sees people break irreparably.
And she sees herself, the girl with long hair and odd eyebrows, walk through the invisible carnage without a trace of recognition. Her expression turns to one of horror.]
What--
[]Izumo holds tighter to Paku's calm, cool hand and watches events progress pass the point of her memory. But the visions have not passed. In fact, they change perspective: she is now not an outsider, watching the events, but herself again, living them. She watches Shiemi try to save her from the Impure King's clutches, only to fall to it herself. She watches Suguro's father sputter his last bloody breath at her feet, and surrounded by dead, she sprints through the brambles and the bush. Shima and Konekomaru, twisted and disfigured from the tentacles and the disease of the beast.
Her feet pound the grass and she runs. She does not know where Paku is--her guide is long gone--she's running to where she knows Suguro and Rin disappeared, and she's running fast. She bursts out of the brush on the mountain and teeters at the edge of a precipice.
There is panic and there is panting and she can't breathe and in a moment she is yanked from the scene, and once again, she holds Paku's hand tightly. She watches in horror as the girl with the long purple hair turns to the call of her classmates.
"Kamiki!"
Before them roils the huge, bulbous mass of the Impure King. A bloodied figure, mangled and slumped with a matted blond streak in his hair, lies at the feet of Rin. She can see those blue eyes plead, a hand held out, blood on his shirt, his useless sword clutched to his chest.
"Kamiki! I can't use my flames--you have to stop it!"
A paper is produced from the girl's pocket and in a stream of fervently-muttered words as the roar increases, a pair of kitsune familiars materialize.
But as Rin fights the advancing bulbous masses tooth and nail, the kitsune turn to her, hissing lowly.
Thy heart is weak. The likes of thee are unfit to command the likes of us.
The girl--herself--in Izumo's view tries to get a hold of herself, yells herself hoarse at the familiars who refuse to listen, but run away into the brush after seeing the King, and falls sobbing with frustration to the ground.
Rin is nowhere to be seen, and the sporangium grows bigger and bigger. Inevitably, it explodes. The Izumo holding Paku's hand, an onlooker, squeezing it so tight her knuckles turn white, turns away with shaking shoulders as the disease spreads.
She tries to look away as the scene changes: she sees the True Cross exorcists, and the Myo Dha, overcome and killed by the King and its disease. Kyoto is absolutely wiped out. The rest of the nation is left without a reliable source of exorcists, and more malevolent demons rise up even as the Impure King's plague spreads like wildfire.
The birth of a child with strangely-shaped eyebrows, and the fading to disappointment on the faces all around. A scene where a woman wreaks havoc and a girl clutches another, a roar of fire and terror and demons, and it seems that all the anger and the despair stare her straight in the eyes. A purple-haired elementary schooler that walks alone, that picks fights and speaks harshly to her classmates, whose presence darkens a room; whose only friend, a brown-bobbed little girl as well, has a smile that fades quickly when she's not looking.
Later years, a green-eyed blonde girl in a kimono, whose smiles--the only genuine ones Izumo has seen as Paku walks her through her life--are whittled away by constant rebuffs and verbal assaults. Izumo sees herself using and abusing, sees the obedient smile on Shiemi's face twinkle uncertainly in her overwhelming presence and fade to bitter tears outside of it. She sees the way her exorcist classmates quiet and sober when she enters a room, the way they avoid her. She sees aspirations that she condemned fall and break on the ground, and she sees people break irreparably.
And she sees herself, the girl with long hair and odd eyebrows, walk through the invisible carnage without a trace of recognition. Her expression turns to one of horror.]
What--
[]Izumo holds tighter to Paku's calm, cool hand and watches events progress pass the point of her memory. But the visions have not passed. In fact, they change perspective: she is now not an outsider, watching the events, but herself again, living them. She watches Shiemi try to save her from the Impure King's clutches, only to fall to it herself. She watches Suguro's father sputter his last bloody breath at her feet, and surrounded by dead, she sprints through the brambles and the bush. Shima and Konekomaru, twisted and disfigured from the tentacles and the disease of the beast.
Her feet pound the grass and she runs. She does not know where Paku is--her guide is long gone--she's running to where she knows Suguro and Rin disappeared, and she's running fast. She bursts out of the brush on the mountain and teeters at the edge of a precipice.
There is panic and there is panting and she can't breathe and in a moment she is yanked from the scene, and once again, she holds Paku's hand tightly. She watches in horror as the girl with the long purple hair turns to the call of her classmates.
"Kamiki!"
Before them roils the huge, bulbous mass of the Impure King. A bloodied figure, mangled and slumped with a matted blond streak in his hair, lies at the feet of Rin. She can see those blue eyes plead, a hand held out, blood on his shirt, his useless sword clutched to his chest.
"Kamiki! I can't use my flames--you have to stop it!"
A paper is produced from the girl's pocket and in a stream of fervently-muttered words as the roar increases, a pair of kitsune familiars materialize.
But as Rin fights the advancing bulbous masses tooth and nail, the kitsune turn to her, hissing lowly.
Thy heart is weak. The likes of thee are unfit to command the likes of us.
The girl--herself--in Izumo's view tries to get a hold of herself, yells herself hoarse at the familiars who refuse to listen, but run away into the brush after seeing the King, and falls sobbing with frustration to the ground.
Rin is nowhere to be seen, and the sporangium grows bigger and bigger. Inevitably, it explodes. The Izumo holding Paku's hand, an onlooker, squeezing it so tight her knuckles turn white, turns away with shaking shoulders as the disease spreads.
She tries to look away as the scene changes: she sees the True Cross exorcists, and the Myo Dha, overcome and killed by the King and its disease. Kyoto is absolutely wiped out. The rest of the nation is left without a reliable source of exorcists, and more malevolent demons rise up even as the Impure King's plague spreads like wildfire.
Japan is doomed.]
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