[Shadow Hearts] "The Flooding Dark"
So, while I take breaks from challenge fics I've been working on this piece. I felt like indulging myself with some rampant symbolism, and I've been wanting to play around with the concept of other harmonixers' graveyard equivalents for a little while now. So! 1900-ish words, Kurando's first meeting with Tsukiyomi. Spoilers up to visiting Inugami village (beyond the point in the game this takes place at) because this is from Kurando's POV and he has some knowledge at that point that the player doesn't.
And for a note: the mythological Tsukiyomi (kami of the moon) is in fact male. Kurando's speculation there is actually rooted in what he would have already known.
Kurando knows that he's not really awake because he can't see his reflection in the water. It's matte black, and though the surface ripples when he shifts and it's cool through the knees of is hakama its resemblance to real water ends there. This is some sort of dream, the terrifying lucid kind that tends to presage something happening. Or at least, his mother's always do; Kurando never seems to see anything of note in his. Whether that's his age or his sex or his being only half his mother's blood remains to be seen. Once he realizes that this is all inside of his own mind, it's easier to relax and look around, to ignore the fact that he's kneeling on the surface of the water and it most definitely isn't any kind of water that exists in real life.
There are rocks around the edges, and solid ground beyond them. This isn't some endless stretch of blackness; it's a contained pool. It looks like it could be any of the pools of water around the old hidden places behind Inugami village. The Inugami had used them to look into the distance and the future once, a long time ago, but now very few of them did that. That was why they'd let an outsider and a woman take control of the village by marriage; Saki Inugami comes from a bloodline that hasn't been thinned over the years and Kurando was born with half of that bloodline, even if he hasn't shown any sign of power so far apart from a few dreams that might not have been anything more than the imaginings of a boy.
A flash of color and movement under the water catches his attention, draws it away from studying the rocks and ferns that are suddenly much more visible. It's like everything is coming into focus gradually, small details jumping out into his perception as he gets used to this place. The water isn't quite so opaque as it was before, and the bright moving spot under the water coalesces into a recognizable shape as the water clears under him. It's a hand, dark-skinned and palm-up and pounding on the water as if against a solid surface, as if Kurando was perched on a smooth pane of glass instead of water lapping around his seiza-folded knees. A second hand, identical save for being the left to the first's right, joins it a moment later and Kurando leans forward to see if he can catch a glimpse of whatever is under there.
When his palm touches the surface, it matches up exactly to the hand under the water, and though it can't come up Kurando can go down to meet it. The fingers are strong but smooth and free of calluses as if their owner has been locked up under the rippling water forever. Which isn't possible, of course, because this is a dream and not something that has existed forever (or exists at all), but that doesn't mean it's meaningless. Then the fingers lace through his own and jerk his arm downward, pulling him down into the water to his elbow. His other hand is fisted in his hakama, far away from the other grasping hand that matches it, and he never loses his balance or sinks other than his arm.
"Stop that. He will pull you under if you let him." The voice is soft and thin and utterly alien, nothing that ever came out of a human throat. "You are not strong enough to resist him yet."
"Who?" Kurando asks, his words cutting off into a cry of surprise as he's pulled further down.
"What is waking up inside of you." And that's when he knows what this is, and that this isn't some kind of prophetic dream. He may be dreaming, true enough, but this is the present and not the future. All of his mother's words of caution and promises of I'll teach you when you're of age are at the forefront of his thoughts, because he knows what's happening here if not why or how or who this is warning him. Kurando is being pulled down and all he can think about are the fleeting glances he's seen of the goddess who shares his mother's body and the stories she's told him of his grandparents and uncles and the strange, strange fusion ability in Yuri Hyuga that he uses so brazenly. "I will help you get to where you are strong enough."
Kurando manages, with great effort, to pull his arm back and untangle his fingers from the smooth grasping ones under the water. They look darker than his, too, but that might be a trick of the water since besides the lack of roughness from work and training they're exactly identical. His sleeve is soaked almost to his shoulder, and that will leave a stain on the silk when it dries. His mother will sigh and say that she expected him to take better care of his things, like she always does when something like this (well, not exactly like this, since Kurando is not in the habit of fighting what may or may not be a demon sitting inside his own mind, but like this in that something has accidentally been damaged) happens.
"Perhaps you do not need my help, after all." She speaks again, and now that he's free Kurando looks around for the source of the voice. He doesn't see anything until he turns around again, satisfied that whatever it is won't show itself to him, and he sees her standing before him.
"Who are you?" He'd meant to ask what are you, but he can't bring himself to be so rude even to someone so obviously not human. Maybe especially to someone so obviously not human, now that he's seen what havoc these demons can cause inside of a person. One look at Yuri Hyuga would tell anyone that it's not something to take lightly, not with the obvious burden he carries because of it.
"I have been watching you since you came here." Her feet don't quite touch the water, floating gently above instead of settling and rippling like Kurando's hands and knees have. Her long tails-- nine, like the fox-- do brush over the surface of the water, though, fanning out more like feathers than fur. "It has been a long time since one of your clan was here. And now there are two of you, right here in front of me." Her serene face darkens slightly, white-gold brows drawing down over her eyes with no white or black to them. "I would never make a deal with the other one. He has a darkness in him that I could never work with. But you are different."
"You're a demon." The accusation sounds weak even to his own ears, no force behind it.
"And you are a Hyuga." She kneels down so that they are closer to level, although her knees don't touch the water's surface, either.
"Inugami," Kurando corrects. "I am an Inugami."
"Perhaps that is your name, or what your father is, but it is not what I see. If you were only an Inugami, I would not be here right now." She reaches out and brushes a hand over the ruined end of his sleeve, water beading on her feather-furred fingertips. "You may be able to stop the beast within you without my help, but there are things outside even now that you would not be able to save yourself from alone. And you cannot count on the ogre's help, not even with his seal as thin as it is." There is another flash of skin under the water, an arm sliding up through the blackness and then back down again. "He will break free, but not soon enough to help you. And he sees no difference between good and evil as you and I do."
Good is a relative term with demons. His mother's goddess is always whispered of in superlatives, a good and generous and protective goddess, but the glimpses Kurando has seen are fire and fury. Even if this fox-woman doesn't see herself as evil, Kurando might.
"Who are you?" Kurando asks again, because he's tired of not knowing.
"Tsukiyomi." He'd always been told that the moon god was a man, but maybe that's another mistake the stories make along with thinking that his mother's goddess is benevolent. And maybe demons can change forms as easily as they want to, and Tsukiyomi could look like whatever she wanted-- man, woman, fox with nine peacock-feathered tails spilling out onto the surface of the water. "I do not like what this man you are fighting against does, and I do not like what this other Hyuga does. They both stink of the same evil."
"Yuri isn't evil." There is a darkness in him, yes, but not much more than that in some of the other clan members. After what he's seen here, in this dream or whatever it might really be, Kurando isn't entirely sure that he doesn't have that same dark place inside of himself.
"They are the same to me." Tsukiyomi holds her hand out to him, fingers still damp from where she touched his wet clothing. "Come. I will help you fight this evil. It is rare to find one of you with enough nobility of spirit to fight such a battle."
Kurando hesitates for just an instant, because he doesn't like the sound of they are the same to me. It's only an instant, though, because then he remembers men with machine guns firing at a little girl and her father and the crushing weight of the magic that had sent him into this dizzying dream in the first place. He has already proven he cannot not stand up to this alone. He takes the hand of the goddess-- his goddess, now, something that is strange and frightening to comprehend-- and she stands, bringing him to his feet with her.
Then, as suddenly as he awoke to find himself in a dream, he is looking at the forest again. Not through his eyes, though; he's been pushed aside and watches only as an observer as he lurches forward and drops his sword to the ground because his fingers won't grip it properly. And the magic is still there, buzzing in his head and making the goddess angry. She's the one guiding his steps and leaving his sword forgotten on the ground, her anger mounting until suddenly it's not even his body anymore-- he can feel her fur crawling over his skin and his feet lifting. Tsukiyomi has his body now.
"We will stop the evil here, and then we will save your friends," she promises, and whatever spell is on the cemetary is so strong in his ears that he doesn't argue. It's all blending together, and he thinks dizzily that perhaps she was right all along.
And for a note: the mythological Tsukiyomi (kami of the moon) is in fact male. Kurando's speculation there is actually rooted in what he would have already known.
Kurando knows that he's not really awake because he can't see his reflection in the water. It's matte black, and though the surface ripples when he shifts and it's cool through the knees of is hakama its resemblance to real water ends there. This is some sort of dream, the terrifying lucid kind that tends to presage something happening. Or at least, his mother's always do; Kurando never seems to see anything of note in his. Whether that's his age or his sex or his being only half his mother's blood remains to be seen. Once he realizes that this is all inside of his own mind, it's easier to relax and look around, to ignore the fact that he's kneeling on the surface of the water and it most definitely isn't any kind of water that exists in real life.
There are rocks around the edges, and solid ground beyond them. This isn't some endless stretch of blackness; it's a contained pool. It looks like it could be any of the pools of water around the old hidden places behind Inugami village. The Inugami had used them to look into the distance and the future once, a long time ago, but now very few of them did that. That was why they'd let an outsider and a woman take control of the village by marriage; Saki Inugami comes from a bloodline that hasn't been thinned over the years and Kurando was born with half of that bloodline, even if he hasn't shown any sign of power so far apart from a few dreams that might not have been anything more than the imaginings of a boy.
A flash of color and movement under the water catches his attention, draws it away from studying the rocks and ferns that are suddenly much more visible. It's like everything is coming into focus gradually, small details jumping out into his perception as he gets used to this place. The water isn't quite so opaque as it was before, and the bright moving spot under the water coalesces into a recognizable shape as the water clears under him. It's a hand, dark-skinned and palm-up and pounding on the water as if against a solid surface, as if Kurando was perched on a smooth pane of glass instead of water lapping around his seiza-folded knees. A second hand, identical save for being the left to the first's right, joins it a moment later and Kurando leans forward to see if he can catch a glimpse of whatever is under there.
When his palm touches the surface, it matches up exactly to the hand under the water, and though it can't come up Kurando can go down to meet it. The fingers are strong but smooth and free of calluses as if their owner has been locked up under the rippling water forever. Which isn't possible, of course, because this is a dream and not something that has existed forever (or exists at all), but that doesn't mean it's meaningless. Then the fingers lace through his own and jerk his arm downward, pulling him down into the water to his elbow. His other hand is fisted in his hakama, far away from the other grasping hand that matches it, and he never loses his balance or sinks other than his arm.
"Stop that. He will pull you under if you let him." The voice is soft and thin and utterly alien, nothing that ever came out of a human throat. "You are not strong enough to resist him yet."
"Who?" Kurando asks, his words cutting off into a cry of surprise as he's pulled further down.
"What is waking up inside of you." And that's when he knows what this is, and that this isn't some kind of prophetic dream. He may be dreaming, true enough, but this is the present and not the future. All of his mother's words of caution and promises of I'll teach you when you're of age are at the forefront of his thoughts, because he knows what's happening here if not why or how or who this is warning him. Kurando is being pulled down and all he can think about are the fleeting glances he's seen of the goddess who shares his mother's body and the stories she's told him of his grandparents and uncles and the strange, strange fusion ability in Yuri Hyuga that he uses so brazenly. "I will help you get to where you are strong enough."
Kurando manages, with great effort, to pull his arm back and untangle his fingers from the smooth grasping ones under the water. They look darker than his, too, but that might be a trick of the water since besides the lack of roughness from work and training they're exactly identical. His sleeve is soaked almost to his shoulder, and that will leave a stain on the silk when it dries. His mother will sigh and say that she expected him to take better care of his things, like she always does when something like this (well, not exactly like this, since Kurando is not in the habit of fighting what may or may not be a demon sitting inside his own mind, but like this in that something has accidentally been damaged) happens.
"Perhaps you do not need my help, after all." She speaks again, and now that he's free Kurando looks around for the source of the voice. He doesn't see anything until he turns around again, satisfied that whatever it is won't show itself to him, and he sees her standing before him.
"Who are you?" He'd meant to ask what are you, but he can't bring himself to be so rude even to someone so obviously not human. Maybe especially to someone so obviously not human, now that he's seen what havoc these demons can cause inside of a person. One look at Yuri Hyuga would tell anyone that it's not something to take lightly, not with the obvious burden he carries because of it.
"I have been watching you since you came here." Her feet don't quite touch the water, floating gently above instead of settling and rippling like Kurando's hands and knees have. Her long tails-- nine, like the fox-- do brush over the surface of the water, though, fanning out more like feathers than fur. "It has been a long time since one of your clan was here. And now there are two of you, right here in front of me." Her serene face darkens slightly, white-gold brows drawing down over her eyes with no white or black to them. "I would never make a deal with the other one. He has a darkness in him that I could never work with. But you are different."
"You're a demon." The accusation sounds weak even to his own ears, no force behind it.
"And you are a Hyuga." She kneels down so that they are closer to level, although her knees don't touch the water's surface, either.
"Inugami," Kurando corrects. "I am an Inugami."
"Perhaps that is your name, or what your father is, but it is not what I see. If you were only an Inugami, I would not be here right now." She reaches out and brushes a hand over the ruined end of his sleeve, water beading on her feather-furred fingertips. "You may be able to stop the beast within you without my help, but there are things outside even now that you would not be able to save yourself from alone. And you cannot count on the ogre's help, not even with his seal as thin as it is." There is another flash of skin under the water, an arm sliding up through the blackness and then back down again. "He will break free, but not soon enough to help you. And he sees no difference between good and evil as you and I do."
Good is a relative term with demons. His mother's goddess is always whispered of in superlatives, a good and generous and protective goddess, but the glimpses Kurando has seen are fire and fury. Even if this fox-woman doesn't see herself as evil, Kurando might.
"Who are you?" Kurando asks again, because he's tired of not knowing.
"Tsukiyomi." He'd always been told that the moon god was a man, but maybe that's another mistake the stories make along with thinking that his mother's goddess is benevolent. And maybe demons can change forms as easily as they want to, and Tsukiyomi could look like whatever she wanted-- man, woman, fox with nine peacock-feathered tails spilling out onto the surface of the water. "I do not like what this man you are fighting against does, and I do not like what this other Hyuga does. They both stink of the same evil."
"Yuri isn't evil." There is a darkness in him, yes, but not much more than that in some of the other clan members. After what he's seen here, in this dream or whatever it might really be, Kurando isn't entirely sure that he doesn't have that same dark place inside of himself.
"They are the same to me." Tsukiyomi holds her hand out to him, fingers still damp from where she touched his wet clothing. "Come. I will help you fight this evil. It is rare to find one of you with enough nobility of spirit to fight such a battle."
Kurando hesitates for just an instant, because he doesn't like the sound of they are the same to me. It's only an instant, though, because then he remembers men with machine guns firing at a little girl and her father and the crushing weight of the magic that had sent him into this dizzying dream in the first place. He has already proven he cannot not stand up to this alone. He takes the hand of the goddess-- his goddess, now, something that is strange and frightening to comprehend-- and she stands, bringing him to his feet with her.
Then, as suddenly as he awoke to find himself in a dream, he is looking at the forest again. Not through his eyes, though; he's been pushed aside and watches only as an observer as he lurches forward and drops his sword to the ground because his fingers won't grip it properly. And the magic is still there, buzzing in his head and making the goddess angry. She's the one guiding his steps and leaving his sword forgotten on the ground, her anger mounting until suddenly it's not even his body anymore-- he can feel her fur crawling over his skin and his feet lifting. Tsukiyomi has his body now.
"We will stop the evil here, and then we will save your friends," she promises, and whatever spell is on the cemetary is so strong in his ears that he doesn't argue. It's all blending together, and he thinks dizzily that perhaps she was right all along.