First blood. [finished]

[ms_ema_skye]

Who: Ema Skye and the Reaper, then Ippongi Ryuuta
What: Body Count = 1.  Then Ryuuta swoops in to try and make things better. :)
Where: In the neighborhood, not far from Ema's house.
When: A few hours after Sermon Six.
Rating: R
Open: To whomever wants to find her body. to watch Ryuuta talking to the air over the body of a dead girl. Unless your

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[ms_ema_skye]

The entire out-of-body experience was strange, Ema decided. The whole affair was depressing, she had to admit that much, but from a scientist's perspective it was fascinating. So this was what it felt like to die. Even though she lacked the corporeal form to physically take down notes, Ema managed to mentally document every little thing she was (and was not) feeling and experiencing.

The novelty wore off in about five minutes, when Ema realized that she was dead, and that death was generally a permanent status. There was so much still left to do... so much change left to be wrought... and she had a sister to try and grow closer to... and instead of all those more-important things, her out-of-body self was staring at her dead-and-bloodied lifeless self. It didn't take long before the funk took hold, and Ema found herself just hovering there, unable to tear herself away for fear of being sucked into some heaven or hell and being lost completely.

After a time (Ema had no idea how long--time didn't matter at all after death, she realized), a young man she didn't recognize approached her corpse. Despite the sight, he gave the body a shake and called out to her.

With a dejected phantom-sigh, Ema replied, "Of course not, I'm dead." Not that he would hear her. There were two different planes of existence between them, after all.

[kakanniouen]

Her words would have passed to deaf ears, to any normal person, anyway.

Ouendan powers were tricky, linking together with spirits and auras that burned within differing persons. It was how those called upon were able to tell who was good, who was bad, and who really needed the help. They also dealt with the spirits themselves.

While Ema didn't call for his help, Ryuuta heard her voice, and after looking down at the lifeless body he realized it wasn't from her. The spikey haired red head gently set the girl down and turned to look, finding the flicker of energy that should have rested in the lifeless body by his feet. He stared at her, pale through confusion and the neverending fear from being by a body and in such a strange place and now... talking to a ghost.

"You... you're not dead. Somebody killed you." Somehow, this made a difference, but the last time he encountered a spirit there was no dead body around. Seeing one was.. making him feel ill. "What..." He couldn't finish what he wanted to say, and swallowed sharply, trying to look away from the body and instead towards the spirit behind him.

"Where are we?" Deciding that changing the topic was less traumatic, he went with it.

[ms_ema_skye]

He could hear her? That was unexpected. It was also oddly comforting; even though she was dead, she wasn't lost. Not yet.

She looked past the stranger at herself. "Yeah, someone did..." That fact was more depressing than being dead in the first place. Whoever it was took the form of Matt Engarde, but now that Ema was thinking rationally again, she realized that it couldn't have actually been him. Matt was long gone from the city, and Yuuko's spell should have triggered regardless. There was something horribly unnatural about the whole affair.

Not that it made much of a difference now.

Thankfully, the man didn't broach the topics of who and why, choosing instead to focus on where. "For all my time here, I never quite figured it out. It's the city at the bottom of the staircase, the city where the Church of Sin holds the power." She shifted uncomfortably. "It's a place of pain."

[kakanniouen]

This was happening way too fast. One minute, he was griping about how boring his evening class was. And the next.. he's talking to the spirit of a girl who must've been around his sister's age, trying to figure out where he was or what the hell happened. For all the rational thinking he tried to do, that odd sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach would not go away.

Whatever was in this town, it was evil. That much he could figure out. No way were his powers ever this screwy.

Who and why didn't really make a difference in his mind. Somebody did this, and even though he swore he'd never do it again he was more than tempted to break someone's face open over the girl lying at his feet. It made him angry: mainly because he doubted the fact that he could save her himself.

"Pain?" He repeated, beginning to hate talking because of how small and weak his voice was starting to sound, his normally rough voice taking on an unnatural quiver to it. His eyes narrowed. "That staircase.. so that's.." He rubbed the back of his neck. "That's what lead me here. Well, that.. and the voices..." Now the dead girl was going to think he was crazy, surely.

Why couldn't Doumeki be the one called here? Surely, the captain would know more of what to do in such a situation..

"There.. there has to be something I can do. I can't just..." He muttered mainly to himself, so torn between trying to make sense of the situation and the girl's spirit that he wasn't paying too much attention to his surroundings. There was a shift in the shadows nearby, and something calmly approached.

The Reaper had indeed been watching, and was rather curious of the new arrival, changing his appearance before approaching. If he could catch the red head, as strange as he was, before he noticed... that'd be two in one shot.

[ms_ema_skye]

Ema looked at the staircase in the distance. So he had heard them somehow, realized that they were suffering? Bizarre, but no less so than talking to spirits, she supposed. After living in the city for as long as she had, very little seemed to surprise her anymore.

The idea that he was sent to help alleviate their pain might have been inspiring, if he didn't look ready to be sick. The poor guy was obviously shaken at the sight Ema's dead body. Not that Ema blamed him. Still, despite being so worked up, he was trying to help. That was worth something, at least. "I... just let everyone know that I'm sorry. I've let a lot of people down, both when I was alive here and now." She paused for a bit, collecting her thoughts. "Tell my sister--her name's Lana--that I love her, and that I'm sorriest to her."

The ghostly scientist didn't notice the movement in the shadows until the figure came close enough to address them.

[kakanniouen]

"No!" Despite the tugging knowledge in the back of his mind that he couldn't save everyone, Ryuuta was determined to try. "There has to be someone who's... good at this sort of thing!" Bringing people back to life? Only in the movies, Ippongi. But still, he was determined to try.. if he was brought here, then maybe someone else who was brought there knew of that sort of thing too. "I'm not going to just leave you behind."

It was a possibilty. He now had a mission: this girl had so much to live for, he wasn't going to abandon her.

"Playing with dead girls now, are you, Ippongi?" An extremely familiar voice chided from behind, and if Ryuuta thought he was on the verge of a heart attack before, he was even closer to an infarction now. He twisted and stared up at the familiar man, with the all too familiar smirk and the familiar long blonde hair.. clad in a blue and white uniform different but slightly similar to his own black one.

For a moment, Ryuuta was entirely dumbstruck. "She.. she's not dead!" He responded defensively. "She's just... not alive right now!"

There was something off about the blonde, the man that was the leader from that town across the river, the leader of the opposing squad. His rival. There was something off about his aura, but Ryuuta wasn't sure if it was because he was in the strange city... or because he really couldn't focus on it with too much outward stimuli.

Ema might recognize the expression on the man's face, as his smirk was oddly similar to the one that was worn on the man that took her life, especially when his eyes cast over towards her before looking back down to the red head. There was something wrong, at least he could tell that much, and he slowly rose to his feet, affixing a rather serious expression towards the blonde in question.

"Charming, really." The blonde stated. "I'm sure she asked for it, though.."

Ryuuta took a step back, gritting his teeth. "What are you talking about?"

The blonde advanced, seeming not to care about the girl floating nearby, although there was a glimmer from one of his clenched hands. The knife. He still had it, of course. "Everyone gets the same offer, Ippongi.."

[ms_ema_skye]

Ema saw the blonde. She saw the smirk. She saw the knife. Her stomach would have plummeted with dread if it were still a part of the equation.

Whoever--or whatever--had taken the form of Matt was now this guy, someone from her would-be savior's past. And all she could do was float there and do nothing except try and warn him.

"Don't listen to him! He's got a knife, look out!"

[kakanniouen]

A knife? Ryuuta shifted his eyes towards the girl, though he looked back just in time to see the blonde lunge towards him. He dodged, barely, eyes widened.

"What the hell, Saionji?!" He snapped, mostly out of reflex: they might have been on... the worst terms imaginable, but there was no way they'd try to kill each other.

The dodging was ended when Hayato - the man who was attacking the red head - grabbed him and held him up against the wall, tapping the knife to his chest. "I'm not here to screw around, Ippongi. You have the same choice she did." He gestured to Ema, though his eyes remained on Ryuuta. "You either join the church.. or you die. Simple enough for you, hmm?"

The red head felt his throat tighten. This was insane. He remembered Ema mentioning the church, as brief as it was, but it was something he had no intentions of ever joining up with, especially if it was that evil building that radiated all that wonderfully evil aura.

Church of Sin sounded like such a wonderful family gathering place anyway. Well, if they were a family of zombies.

"I'll... think about it." Ryuuta managed quietly, eyes on the knife pressed dangerously close to his neck. He wasn't a coward: he just.. wasn't too keen on dying.

However, once the man who looked like his rival but clearly wasn't shifted his eyes almost smugly towards Ema, Ryuuta balled up his fist and slammed it against his head. The grip on him was freed, and despite how oddly satisfying it was to strike someone who looked like the blonde, he just wanted to get out of there. "I just thought about it." He mused to himself as he ran towards Ema's body once more and began picking her up.

"Come on! We're leaving." Despite the fact that Ema was the safest of them both, he was bringing her along anyway. There was that promise he made, after all.

[ms_ema_skye]

Ema didn't have to be told twice. Already, he had come dangerously close to being a floating spirit right next to her. She wasn't the one in danger, but... he had her body, and he had treated her body and spirit with nothing but kindness. There was no reason not to follow him. She hovered over to him. "I'm right behind you."

[kakanniouen]

While Ryuuta was strong - and tall, in Japanese standards - hefting up a girl's body took more effort than he realized, especially with his focus all out of whack and the fact that there was a psychotic person trying to kill him. The smell of blood wasn't helping, and he cursed himself inwardly at how easily squirmish he was over this.

The moment of hesitation was costly, and the attacker slammed his arm at the back of Ryuuta's head. The man barely managed to refrain from crying out as he hit the ground and tumbled, disoriented from the hit. As the blonde approached once more, Ryuuta pushed up to his feet in a single fluid motion, getting into almost a fighting stance as he glared at him.

"Still have fight in you, don't you?" The blonde sneered, and Ryuuta braced himself, narrowing his eyes. If nothing else, he knew what he had to do: he just hoped, that for nothing else, for no other time, it would work at that moment.

"Back off!" His rough voice sounded rather authoritative as he punched out one of his fists. The air around him almost crackled like fire: his aura, what he used so many times before. "You've done enough damage. You will not cause any more!"

The blonde recoiled a bit, seeming to sense either the determination or the intimidation, and turned, melting away into the shadows around them. Ryuuta waited, breath held and heart pounding in his chest, before slowly his shaky knees gave out beneath him, and he slumped to the ground, trying to control his breathing once more.

[ms_ema_skye]

Woah. This guy was capable of some serious stuff, scaring off the demon chasing them like he just did. All in all, he was turning out to be absolutely amazing, and oddly altruistic. Why was he going through all this trouble for a soul long since lost to the pain of others? Why was he going through it for a dead person?

Was human kindness really not dead? Had Kamui been wrong?

Ema lowered her immaterial self closer to the ground, concern flowing through her. "...are you okay?"

[kakanniouen]

Ryuuta's initial response was at how cold he felt, but he really didn't want to worry her further. He does shift his eyes enough to look over at her, though he doesn't raise his head initially.

"I'm fine." He replied in an exhale, having to bite back the returned question. Of course she wasn't fine: she was dead, after all.

He finally gathered enough energy to push himself back to his feet, trying to ignore the feeling that clutched his chest, wanting to cause him to burst into tears. He hated this place, and how weak it made him feel.

"What's your name?" He asked after a moment, leaning against the wall behind him for support as he tried to regain his bearings.

[ms_ema_skye]

He said he was all right, but he didn't really seem okay. He seemed ready for a breakdown, and he had only been in the city for less than an hour. Ema found herself feeling oddly protective of him, probably because he was being so protective of her.

"My name? I'm Ema, Ema Skye. What's yours?"

[kakanniouen]

"Ryuuta. Ryuuta Ippongi." He stated, mindfully apparent of speaking English and trying to speak it correctly, as it was never his best subject in school.

"Does it hurt?" He asked suddenly, glancing over to her body, before he blinked and lowered his eyes. "...Nevermind. That is.. rather inappropriate to ask." He tugged nervously on one of his white gloves before he opted to remove them both, shoving them into the front pockets of his uniform.

"Is this place always this dangerous?"

[ms_ema_skye]

Ema let the question go. While it was far from pleasant to hear, she realized where it came from. Her body was bloody with a slit throat, and it had hurt terribly when she sustained the injury. A ghostly hand went up to a ghostly throat, trying in vain to feel for any remnants of the wound.

"I-it's good to meet you then, Ryuuta." She fell silent before continuing. "And yes, yes it is. When I first got here, I...." Even in death, it was too painful to articulate. "I've been attacked before. But that was months ago."

The spirit girl fell silent.

[kakanniouen]

"Months.." He tipped his head forward in a slight bow, half out of greeting and half out of respect. Damn. What kind of hell had he stumbled into?

"I'm... sorry." He said after a moment of quiet. Although the words felt dumb to his own ears, he truly meant the words. Nobody should have to endure anything so.. terrible.