Mannequin Ch. 13: Gods & Monsters (Part I )
Title: Mannequin
Pairings: Matsumoto Jun x Sakurai Sho, Ohno Satoshi x Ninomiya Kazunari, Shibutani Subaru x Yasuda Shota
Rating: NC-17
The black mist was so thick around Jun, it seemed almost like the smoke that had engulfed them during the fire. It was opaque, and every second, it seemed to inch closer to Sho and him. It was almost suffocating, the closeness of the mist.
Or perhaps that was his fear, stealing the air from his lungs as the yurei crouched behind him. Ohno and Nino were gone, swallowed by the darkness… and now it was just Jun, clutching less and less tightly to Sho as he whispered regret.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispered, almost like a prayer. He felt the yurei move from behind him, and he couldn’t let go yet. As soon as she moved, he gripped hard. He couldn’t let go...yet. Not yet.
From the corner of his eye, he could see no feet beneath the ragged white cloth as it floated beside him. He knew that if he looked up, he would see the rest of her.
He didn’t want to look up.
But the thing was speaking again. “Give him to me, Jun. Give him to me, quickly!”
Jun clutched harder to Sho, stiff and cold as he was, “....Why? Why do you need him?! Why can’t you just leave us alone?!”
Jun knew he was hysterical and that is was useless to ask anything of this monster, but she was so terrifying and so close. There was a second of silence, where he only heard his own heaving breaths, but then he felt her thin hand-- like a claw-- grip his shoulder and throw him back, but still Jun didn’t let go. Sho’s head hit the pavement a little, and Jun gasped another apology, and then he saw her...in full.
Shrouded in white, her black hair fell in a straggly curtain over her face… but because she floated above him, Jun saw everything. Skin so pale it was shaded with grays, purples, and bruise-like greens…and it was marred. Across her cheek, leading to the corner of her mouth, it appeared the creature had fallen victim to pestilence. Boils and pustules were cracked, infected, and scattered with something black and oozing… Jun gagged. Her thin lips were cracked, raw, and only seemed to crack further as her mouth curled into a malicious smile.
Her eyes though… They were completely dark. There was nothing but black depths glittering in furious insanity. Jun couldn’t look away.
Suddenly, her head jerked, faster than any human could, and in a flash, Jun would have sworn he saw her nose distort -- lengthen then shrink back again-- and fangs appeared between her cracked lips, but then were gone. All in a jerk that his eyes almost couldn’t follow.
“I’m so hungry, Jun,” the yurei’s voice was quiet, but threatening, and an off-color, tensile tongue licked at her lips. “So hungry.”
“Sh-- Sho,” Jun squeezed his eyes shut as he trembled, “I’m so sorry.”
“JUN!” A shout not from the yurei came from the opposite side, and Jun’s head snapped up to look. At first he just saw a rosy glow, but then a burst of blood-red flame came shooting through the mist. Screeching, the yurei recoiled and surrounded herself in black shadows, so that she appeared as a black, cloud-like spectrum. Another burst of flame shot forward, and behind it, behind it ran Subaru, palms cradling two small flames.
“Don’t let go of him! Don’t let go! He’s not dead yet!” Subaru screamed, and his eyes had never looked so volatile as he charged towards the yurei.
Jun felt his stomach drop at the sight of Subaru running towards what Jun recognized as a yurei. Could Subaru fight it? And survive? Jun didn’t know, but he couldn’t deny he felt warmth pour through him at the words that Sho wasn’t dead. He clung even harder to Sho. With renewed need to protect Sho, he wrapped his arms around Sho’s body and covered it with his own. There was no way the yurei could get to Sho without going through him first.
Still, he prayed that Subaru would just make it go away.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he watched Subaru shoot flames-- something he hadn’t even known Subaru could do-- at the yurei, before she burst from her dark cloak of swirling mist to lunge at the red Guardian. She knocked him down, again and again, but he kept getting back up. His legs barely held him, but he wouldn’t stay down. Her nails dug deep, harsh lines that quickly ran as red as his flames. She hit him with an especially hard blow, but not before Subaru got a close shot at her, and she shrieked away-- but only briefly.
Only to turn to see Jun lying on top of Sho.
Despite Subaru sending more flames at her, and her flinching with each burning hit, she flew at Jun with her withered arms reaching towards him, screeching intelligible words.
He had barely ducked his head down when her nails dug into his back. She was pulling and clawing-- trying to rip Jun from Sho, but Jun wouldn’t let go. The yurei continued, and Jun realized, blearily through the haze of pain, that she wasn’t really trying to lift him off Sho.
She was going to tear right through him.
Jun screamed, his back raw and open with wounds as the monstrous ghost just kept pelting him with hysterical blows. Her nails dug into him, pulling back the flesh.
He was too weak to notice, as his blood began to pool on the ground around them, but a soft, red light was passing from Sho’s body into his. If anything, Jun saw the haze from the glow and thought it was just his eyes glazing over… but he really couldn’t see much as he began to succumb to the pain.
He couldn’t hear Subaru shouting, but Subaru was-- and he was fighting too. He was throwing flame after flame, but it was useless. He knew that going in. What he was really trying to do was buy Jun and Sho some time befo--
Colored flashes exploded like fireworks all around Subaru.
“Oh thank fuck,” Subaru muttered as five yosei stood when their brightly colored smoke faded. Orange, green, yellow, purple, and black smoke blended and faded into the dark mist surrounding the little clearing. Subaru followed as they immediately ran towards the yurei clawing at Jun’s limp body over Sho’s.
“Hit her with EVERYTHING you have,” the tall, pale, black yosei shouted, and the yellow’s hands were already sparking electricity as he raised them to attack. Black’s palms started to glow blindingly bright, and when Subaru threw flames as the yellow yosei shot lightning, white tendrils of spectral light flew from the hands of the black yosei, for he was a yosei whose natural talent pertained to the dead. The green yosei, being bound to the earth and its harvest, held two sacred stones in his hands that, when he whispered incantations, would light up likes curses and weaken the target’s stamina and agility. If she had been living, the green yosei could have even poisoned her with a specific stone and incantation. But being what she was, he violently whispered ancient words to weaken her. Because of their being full-blooded yosei; the black, yellow, and green’s power was more concentrated in their attacks, but Subaru fought just as hard.
The orange and purple yosei ran, then slid beneath the yurei to kneel beside Jun and Sho. The others kept hitting the yurei until she--covered in flames and sizzling with electrical surges as white, phantasmal ropes snaked around her cadaverous form--flew back to retreat into her cloud of black fog.
Then Subaru ran over with the three yosei to join the others huddling around the two fallen humans. As soon as they were down, the purple yosei thrust his hands in the air, palms up, and arched them down to his sides, creating a dome-shaped kekkai around them.
“This isn’t going to last long against her,” the purple yosei told them.
“Don’t worry, Hina. It’ll last long enough for Yasu to get here with the cavalry,” the green yosei responded, although his steady voice didn’t match the look in his eyes as they watched the shadows descending on their protective shield.
“Just heal him already, Maruyama!” Subaru snapped, and the orange yosei’s eyes flicked up to his.
“I am,” Maruyama replied, biting his cheek and seemingly warming his palms together. He had fluffy brown hair that fell around his eyes, which were warm. “But you know there’s nothing I can do for the poisoned one.”
“I know.”
The orange yosei stopped rubbing his hands together and moved to hold them gently over Jun’s wounds. Invisible to the eye, magical warmth radiated from his hands and sealed Jun’s wounds. He whispered a short incantation, and the color returned to Jun’s cheeks. Gasping, Jun’s dark eyes opened and cleared. He clenched his grip on Sho, and looked at the new faces around him until he found Subaru.
“ ‘Baru,” he muttered, “Is she gone?”
“...She will be, Jun.”
“Is Sho still alive?”
“He’s hanging in there. His soul hasn’t left yet, has it? Yoko?” The last bit was directed to the black yosei, whose hair and eyes were jet black, but his skin was the fairest of pales.
“No, it’s still there. It’s still hanging on. He’s a tough one. He doesn’t want to let go. He hasn’t gone ikiryo yet… But he will, soon.”
“I’m sorry, he’s going to what?” Jun blurted, running a hand through Sho’s hair.
“Well he ate something from the yurei, right? When it possessed Aiba?”
“How did you… Yeah, he didn’t want me to eat it.”
“The food had a spell on it, to make the soul leave the body as an ikiryo. Essentially the body is alive, but the soul has left it. The body dies, though, when she devours the soul. That’s what she’s desperate for. She devours the souls in hopes of gaining their beauty-- or destroying it. I think.”
Jun opened his mouth to respond and choked. Tried again and started with a hiccup, “Sh-- Sho is. . . And it’s all my fault!”
“Don’t do that, Jun,” Subaru warned, “Don’t blame yourself. You couldn’t have known.”
“I could have loved him,” Jun responded, eyes flashing, “Like I wanted to… Like I didn’t let myself. I was-- am so much closer to him. I was afraid, and then I was stupid. And now Sho’s soul is going to leave his body?! His body! And because he… Because he wanted to save me.”
Tears were running down Jun’s cheeks, but the pale man didn’t seem to notice, or perhaps didn’t care.
“Where are Nino and Ohno, anyway?” Jun finally muttered, “Did you find them? Are they okay?”
“Your friends are fine,” the orange yosei, Maru, assured him.
“Yeah,” the yellow nodded, “They were really disgusting, though. So we sent them home.”
“At first we thought it was their blood,” the purple yosei, Hina, added, “But it turns out they barely had a scratch on them.”
“That blood… that blood is Aiba,” Jun whispered, and Subaru squinted his eyes at him.
“What?”
“The yurei, after I guess she was done possessing him, she. . . she exploded out of him. He just burst, everywhere,” Jun started to shake and tears kept spilling. Subaru made a thin line with his lips, shook his head, and stroked Jun’s arm.
“You know, the more I look at his spirit, the more it seems like there was another spell there… something that may have caused that onryo’s spell to falter, if only temporarily,” Yoko voiced pensively, dark eyes focused on Sho.
“The what? I thought it was a yurei,” Jun looked perplexed and wiped his face. He could have sworn he’d heard Subaru refer to it as a yurei a moment ago, and it looked like the yurei he’d read about in books. He was so confused. “And what other spell? Subaru?”
“I...another spell? Oh! Jun, show us your arm!” Subaru made a grab for Jun’s wrist, but Jun instinctively gripped Sho tighter until he processed Subaru’s words, eyes widening, as he held up his arm.
Subaru’s eyes flooded with emotion, and he blinked it away with a lopsided grin Jun hadn’t seen in such honesty, despite their current situation, in many, many years. Jun looked down, and he saw the circle was gone… but he didn’t feel the immense relief he’d expected. He had felt numb when he’d thought Aiba was his true love who made it disappear, and now . . . all he could feel was fear for Sho.
Jun had never, ever dreamed that breaking the spell would lead to him losing the promised lover.
Nino had been right. Sometimes you do lose… wait, no. There had to be something he could do!
“What about that onryo thing?”
“It’s just a type of yurei,” Subaru explained, but then Yoko took over.
“An onryo is a vengeful type of yurei, capable of inflicting harm, pain, and even death. Some have been known to possess their victims for a variety of devious purposes,” Yoko explained, cringing.
“I do not like dealing with them, but they’re often what I’m summoned for… That one there, though, is extraordinary. So weird. I’ve never seen anything like her . . . and yet, something about the way Yasu described her obsession with Jun and Ohno feels familiar to me. There’s something I’m forgetting, and it’s just on the tip of my tongue, but . . . I’ll think of it eventually.”
“So what do we do?!” Jun snapped, his body straightening abruptly, and Maru patted him.
“I can’t put the blood back,” the orange yosei said, his voice softening, “I can just heal the wounds and lend you some energy… but your body is still pretty weak. I’d lend you more, but I’m conserving as much power as I can until the Misaki get here.”
Jun scrunched his eyes like he was suddenly struck by a headache, “You people keep using words I don’t know. Who is coming? And will they hel--”
“The Elders are coming?!” Subaru practically shouted, “To this realm?! Amongst the humans?! How did you manage that?!”
“Yasu is bringing them. He explained everything after you left. The three clans who responded to his emergency call, including ours, decided the Elders were the only answer, considering Tegoshi couldn’t exorcise this thing… but I don’t know what’s taking them so long,” the green yosei muttered, glancing at Hina when the purple yosei gritted his teeth. The yellow yosei noticed Hina’s strain, too, and electrical charges dropped sparks from his fingertips.
“Ow,” hissed the green yosei, as a spark hit him, “Watch that, Ryo.”
“Shut it, ‘Kura,” the yellow yosei retorted, but he clenched his fists so the sparks were contained.
Jun just pressed his lips together, giving up on understanding. He’d heard of the Elders a few times in passing, especially whenever Subaru’s Guardian friend Massu dropped by, but he’d never heard them referred to as Misaki before. He just hoped whoever they were, they would get there before Sho’s soul couldn’t hold on anymore-- or this purple shield-thing broke.
There was a moment of quiet tension, when the group just looked back and forth between the kekkai, now opaque with black shadowy mist, and each other. Jun clung a little tighter to Sho in that moment, and Subaru swallowed hard.
And then the first hit pounded the kekkai. It was a hard thud that sizzled and sparked, and Hina winced as the others jumped in surprise.
“Oh shit, here it comes,” Ohkura swore.
“Maru, cover Jun and Sho,” Subaru commanded, as if he had the right, and Yoko nodded, but added, “But keep an eye on our clan. Don’t let Ryo get torn down. You know how he gets.”
“Shut. Up.” Ryo gritted.
“This isn’t something we’ll vanquish easily,” Yoko urged, “You need to keep your cool, Ryo.”
Another pound hit the kekkai, followed by a quick sequence of several blows. A crack appeared, and Hina started gulping down breaths.
“He’s going to lose it soon,” Maru whispered.
Ohkura clenched two stones in one hand and unclasped a leather pouch he wore on his belt with the other. Within, Jun could see polished stones and gemstones peeking out. Then, the green yosei rose on his haunches, in an almost feral crouch. Ryo followed suit, his hands practically glowing as they sizzled. With a little “whiff”, Subaru’s palms held flames. Another series of blows hit the kekkai, and Hina folded in on himself. His breath came in hisses through clenched teeth, but the kekkai held.
--Until the next set of blows, and then the hairline fractures across the purple shield shattered. Hina made a sound, almost like a scream, as the kekkai fell, but they couldn’t stop. Maru pulled the broken purple yosei over to Jun, who readily grabbed Hina’s upper arm and brought him closer.
Ryo’s voice rose in a battle cry to match the sound of his lightning as it cracked in web-like volts in his attack on the yurei. Yoko was intense as he concentrated his power, but the yurei didn’t waiver. She attacked full force, in terrifying fury, and Subaru’s flames caught her but didn’t seem to affect her. She shrieked and threw down Ryo first, battered Ohkura, leaving angry, bleeding streaks down his face and neck as he continued to mutter incantations, and focused all of her energy on reaching Sakurai. Maru’s hands radiated power as he quickly revived Ryo, just in time for the yellow yosei to prevent the yurei from reaching the humans. Maru lent Hina, then revived, enough power to create a barrier over Jun and Sho, but the purple couldn’t protect Maru too, who took an attack straight to the face.
Maru tongued the blood that oozed from his split lip, but didn’t pay it any mind. Instead, he focused on who he could revive next. Who needed healing. With this yurei attacking every which way, he was constantly needing to use his power. The whole area hummed with power, but it couldn’t last. Maru was more than a little relieved when bursts of smoke signified the arrival of another yosei clan coming to their aid. These yosei zipped forward with uncanny speed, aided by a spell. Clever.
These yosei also made use of weapons, in addition to their natural gifts. It signified them as a warrior clan, although it was hard to recognize which one as they moved in a blur around the yurei. They pelted the creature, allowing the others to fall back for aid, and an orange yosei slid to a halt, kicking up dirt, by Jun and Sho.
“Ah! Taguchi!” Maruyama greeted, recognizing his fellow orange yosei.
“Hey! The Misaki are coming, but Kame used his spell that let us speed ahead. How are your guys holding up? Who could use a little orange-yosei goodness?”
“Yoko and Subaru are taking a beating,” Maruyama frowned, “And Ryo just doesn’t know when to quit.”
“Always on the offensive, never the defensive, huh?” Taguchi Junnosuke commented, warming his palms to heal them, “Kame would kill him. Ueda gets like that.”
“Ueda is ridiculously fast though, holy cow,” Maru commented, watching the blue yosei armed with enchanted sai blades in each hand.
“He got those from Koki,” Taguchi muttered, “but he would probably prefer his fists.”
“Fists aren’t going to help much here.”
“I’m surprised Yoko isn’t using his sai, or kama!” Taguchi shouted over the fray, as he knelt to heal Ryo, whose stomach was cut so deeply that his ribs were visible, “Now would be a good time!”
“Yoko knows what he’s doing when it comes to”--oof!-- “yurei and yokai,” Maru grunted as he took a blow from the yurei to protect Taguchi and Ryo. He was barely down, though, when the warrior clan’s purple yosei was there beside him, casting a barrier to protect them.
“Nakamaru, thank you,” Maruyama winced as he regarded the panting yosei protecting them.
“This thing… this thing just doesn’t seem to weaken,” Nakamaru returned, then to Taguchi said, “Get Ryo patched up because Ueda is going to burn out soon.”
As he said it, Nakamaru threw up several small purple barriers to protect the yosei from blows, but he couldn’t protect all of them. Hina noted his technique and immediately began to replicate it, creating small walls and casting them out ahead of his comrades.
Jun’s eyes widened dramatically, as he looked up at the new purple yosei who was protecting them alongside Hina. On his hip, this Nakamaru wore a holster, and from it, he pulled a Nambu Type 94-- a pistol. Jun recognized it from the war, although he hadn’t been issued one.
Nakamaru caught the human staring and said, quickly, “I was better with a bow, but this frees up my one hand for casting barriers.”
He looked back down at Jun when the man didn’t say anything in response, and added, “This can’t hurt you, you know. It’s enchanted.”
Jun nodded to show he understood, but it didn’t stop him from recoiling and pressing his face into Sho as the shots rang out, fiery purple bullets striking the yurei. She shrieked and dropped Subaru, whom she’d held in her clutches.
Jun cautiously watched the battle, as he pressed himself over Sho, and noted how quietly the blue yosei fought, wielding sparkling three-pronged blades that stabbed and sliced through the yurei’s attacks. The pink warrior yosei was quiet in the sense that he didn’t constantly shout to the others or swear like Ryo and Hina did. But he did cry out or shout in rage as he dealt swift blows with his daishō; the long and short blades sluicing through the yurei in alarming, pink flashes.
And yet, despite the magic they wielded against her, she did not fall. She barely yielded-- and the yosei were losing strength quickly.
Yoko crumpled after a devastating blow, and Hina dropped his barriers to throw a larger one over the black yosei as Maruyama ran to heal him. Ueda Tatsuya, the blond blue yosei of the warrior tribe, had been able to evade direct hits from the yurei thus far. It was when he was distracted by his own exhaustion and the sight of the yurei sinking her claws into an unsuspecting Taguchi healing Nakamaru, that he let down his guard to try to move his friends to safety. In that moment, she struck him down. Her high-pitched cackling ran cold through Jun as she turned on him and Sho. There were vulnerable, without purple or orange yosei to protect them.
Kamenashi, although a severe gash on his arm left a trail of blood in his wake, flung himself at the yurei just as she was about to reach the two humans, and in her absolute fury, she thrust her hand straight into Kamenashi’s stomach-- essentially goring him with her jagged nails digging fatally deep. Kame’s eyes grew wide as blood bubbled from his lips.
There was what sounded like an explosion in the sky, and Jun’s eyes snapped away from the fallen pink yosei to see a burst of red smoke and a figure appear from within it.
“That yosei is on fire!” gasped Jun, gaping at a descending yosei completely engulfed in crimson flames.
“That’s Kimura Takuya,” Jun heard a familiar voice from behind him and reeled, “His origin is red, but being Misaki, his power is magnificent.”
The voice belonged to Yasuda Shota, cradling a fallen Subaru, who had appeared out of seemingly nowhere, but Jun had never been so glad to see him, or the imperial-looking yosei who flanked him.
“He looks furious,” Jun whispered.
“Oh he is…We arrived just as that monster stabbed Kame,” Yasu responded.