006 [Action]

[threeswordsoul]

[It's the day before Halloween. The costumes have gotten less and less amusing as they've started to shift and seem real, as the cries of friends have lured them to barrel out into the foggy night to return battered and without memory of it, as the hallucinations have started to tear at people, little by little.

Yeah, this damn experiment can be

Comments

Oh hey look, it's the next morning :|a

[mikangirl]

[No, she's not worried. She's never worried about Zoro. Nor has she been up all night waiting for him to return home; that's just silly. Nami has maps to work on and nightmares to avoid and an excess of candles to burn and keep the darkness away so it doesn't look like it's dripping down her walls. See? Plenty of reasons.

Zoro's absence is just one of them. The fog is dangerous. So is Zoro, so she'll try and reassure herself that he's just working the stress off, but...all the same, she's sensitive to the sound of anyone approaching the house.

...she really hopes this is one time Zoro can find his way back safely. Otherwise, she suspects there will be a search party the moment the fog dissipates.]

And what a lovely morning it is! No trauma here, no sir!! ...>.>

[threeswordsoul]

[Blood stains the frame of the front door from small, mysterious cuts as Zoro stumbles out of the dissipating fog to lean against it. The unsteadiness from intense adrenaline-overdose-fight? flee? fight, but fight what...?-would infuriate him if his mind and body weren't too exhausted for even that.

There's a doorknob under his hand. There's something awful about that, something really, really-bad, but he's incapable of giving a fuck at this point. Sleep. Sleep fixes everything. Sleep and booze will make his head stop spinning and the icy, chaotic blur of the past twenty-four hours fade-

His hand slips, and the door creaks open inward. He's standing at the bottom of stairs. ...He stops breathing even before hearing the first thump.

More follow, but not many, because it happens fast. Thump thump crack thump thump and an animal moan tears from Zoro's throat as he crashes to his knees and Kuina's body tumbles down out of the dark into his arms

Oh excellent, I'll go back to my coffee then.

[mikangirl]

[Nami sets her half-finished cup of tea down on the map table when she hears the subtle, quiet thnk of Zoro leaning against the front door.

It's about time. She's allowed to be relieved here in the privacy of her room, after all; she'll just make sure her face is schooled back to irritation by the time she crosses the room, fully intent on finding fault with the amount of noise he's making, even if she can barely hear him at all.

Only he calls out, then, and she freezes, hand on the doorknob. She's never heard him sound like that and any faint curiosity over those desperate words (who's Kuina?) is buried shortly after in the realisation that whatever drove Zoro from the house earlier, he is still hallucinating--

--and so any pretense at annoyance is far from her mind when she yanks the door open and starts to step out, intent on snapping him out of it.] Zoro--

[threeswordsoul]

[Nami is just in time for a ring-side seat to the house getting cut in half. The destruction is heralded a bare instant in advance by a raw, tearing scream-it accompanies the unseen slicing rush past her face, flung from the wild swing of Wadou Ichimonji-then is swallowed by the immense splitting sound, like a too-close bolt of lightning cracking the sky-and the shockwave of force and devastation blasting through.

Away. Away. Make. It. Go. AWAY!]

[mikangirl]

[Her first thought is that the crew is under attack-- that half formed sense of panic that hits as her orange bangs are whipped back from the sheer fury tearing into the house.

...it's also her second thought, because Nami just can't fathom the idea that Zoro would actually attack the house. She heard him and she knows he's there, but the rest hasn't fallen into place yet, and instinct takes over as the deafening shockwave hits.

Nami falls back into her room with a surprised shriek, covering both ears and putting distance between herself and the living room. Or...what was once the living room. In a second, she'll go for a weapon. Right now, she's trying to work out what the hell is going on.]

[tanukipoint]

[There is something wrong - incredibly, wrong, - when the house feels like it's buckling on its own weight. Chopper doesn't have time to cry out before his bookshelf topples; he abruptly changes forms, catching the wooden shelf before it slams into the floor, and is awarded with a shower of paper and glass as his library comes loose. Bottles shatter on his shoulders and there's the steady thupthupthup of books hitting the floor as the doctor hefts it back upright.]

[He doesn't give a second look at the books. Instead he stumbles to his desk, scrabbles together a portion from his rumble ball collection, and turns heel to run into the living room.]

What-?!