rattle...what’s that rattle?

[felinemystique]

Characters: Bastet/Yoruichi felinemystique, and OPEN to witnesses/arrivals after the fact
Date/Time: late morning, Monday, August 15, directly after/during this entry.
Location: A remote area of the Park
Rating: PG-13 or so
Summary: Yoruichi has unwisely taunted the Tree and its creator, and so pays the price.
Notes: While I know some people will arrive during

Comments

[crimsonmischief]

Crimson had been working in his lab, lost in his various researches, his journal sitting next to him on the table, unopened and unchecked that day. So it wasn't surprising that he missed Bastet's outburst and loss of control due to whoever the anonymous writer had been. However, what he did not miss was the flare of that familiar reiatsu, turning it from a lazy summer breeze to a raging, fiery tiger. It caused his head to snap up in alarm, grey eyes flashing with worry as he dropped the test tube he had been holding

[felinemystique]

It took a few seconds to register that someone was calling her, and another few still to realize it was Kisuke. She was exhausted; her insides felt scraped out and battered, and she knew the rest of her would follow suit soon enough.

He must be frantic with worry; she knew she had to look a mess. Blood mixed with dirt itched as it dried all over her skin, and her injuries had soaked through most of her rainbow fatigues.

Still, though, she managed to lift a hand and pluck at his sleeve, her grip feeble compared to the force she'd used earlier to destroy the ground. Her eyes burned as she looked up at him; despite her injuries, she was still as angry as she'd been earlier.

"Still...here," she gritted out, taking short, shallow breaths. "I don't...think he could kill me...this time." Her grip on his sleeve tightened as her voice grew more fervent. "Have to...tell people. He's getting weakerIf he was getting weaker, then there must be a way to take advantage. Yes, he obviously still held significant power, but there had to be a

/sneaks in here

[weaver_girl]

Kagerou had been running in the Park after her morning training with Gai. In fact, she'd mostly been walking in between short skips and hops at a jog, as the sparring part had already expended a good part of her effort. In midstep, she jarred into a halt as a tremendous, jagged wave of energy went up somewhere in the more wooded area ahead. She'd felt Yoruichi's presence there earlier and filed it away like she noted the weather or a fetching hat on a passerby, but the morsel of information slid into acute context with the swelling of her reiatsu

[sting_to_death]

As soon as she felt Bastet-sama's reiatsu flare Lin wished to run where she was, but she'd been told times and again about boundaries, about leaving the woman some space, about being reasonable... So she waited for a while, being as reasonable as possible, but when she felt Crimson's reiatsu joining her mentor's she had no doubts anymore.

She ran there as fast as she could, ignoring the elevator-- almost taking a branch right in the stomach on her way there. Lin stopped for a moment, utterly shocked. Something like that had never happened to her. Not like this, the Tree had never tried to stop her in such a way. Why? Why now? She had no time to think about it, she had to get to Bastet-sama, no matter what.

She jumped over the branch, planted both feet on it and used it to launch herself even faster towards the point Bastet-sama's desperate reiatsu came from. It was the feeling of her mentor's energy growing so erratic and angry that made her lose focus, made it impossible to think about anything else but getting there immediately

[witness/locked to Hawk]

[lingeringlegacy]

She is going to die.

Uncourteous as that thought may be, the feeling Stellaris got upon seeing Yoruichi's journal outburst was reminiscent of moments before Grift had died.

She is going to die and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

Or perhaps not. Yoruichi was strong, wasn't she? Stronger than almost anyone in the Sphere, that was what everybody said, especially the Guards who served under her. If anyone stood a chance surviving, or at least surviving longer, after provoking the Tree, it would be her likes, and therein lied the opportunity

Sorry for all the edits! This is Typo City and I AM THE MAYOR this morning

[crimson_seeker]

Strictly speaking, Hawk would not have had the time. As a Watchman and Guard, and one of the few who could speak to everyone unimpeded, he was in demand whenever he wasn't sleeping, it seemed. However, he was a soft touch when it came to Stellaris and the Planetarium was the apple of her eye, so in the end there had hardly been a question about stealing an hour or two from his rest to lend a hand

[lingeringlegacy]

"Neither am I, but... well I know it's easy for me to say, as I don't have the power to help either way, but trying is better than waiting in dread." Her eyes were on him, wavering between insistence and worry that she had imposed too much. Yet had she known what had befallen him recently, she wouldn't have asked him this freely. "And how the Tree acts... whether it had blind spots or weaknesses... that knowledge disappears too often with people."

[crimson_seeker]

There was an untold story between them, one Hawk would have to tell soon enough. He hadn't wanted to weigh this brief encounter with his concerns, however. He nodded shortly to her words.

"You want to observe. That, I can do something about." He glanced about, searching the roof and the nearby trees for a small form he knew was not far away. "Fuu!"

With a warbling noise, the dragon familiar slithered off the sun-warmed roof of the Planetarium and floated down to the two of them.

"Captain Yoruichi," Hawk said, speaking clearly. The little dragon was far smarter than he liked to make people think, but Hawk couldn't afford him mistaking his captain for someone else right now. "She's somewhere here. She's fighting." She will never go down without resistance. "Find her, see what happens to her, and come back here soon as you can. Understand?"

Chirping in affirmation, Fuu shot off into the sky above the islands, such as it was. Hawk glanced back at Stellaris. "Afraid that's the best I can do right now. He flies faster than I would,

1/2

[pimpcoatbankai]

Toushi was struck with a feeling of nervous anxiety as he ran in pursuit of Yoruichi's reiatsu. If the Tree didn't find a way to kill him after what he'd written, Kazahana sure as hell would find some sort of way to wish it had, but that wasn't important now. Fugue had deliberately set out to hurt his friend, the closest thing he had to a parent in this place now that Koi was gone again, and he couldn't remember ever having wanted to hurt anyone or anything more than he did right now.

Fugue was responsible for it. All of it.

Fugue had taken his life, his family, everything, and he was going to pay

2/2

[pimpcoatbankai]

"Ugh!"

Toushi went flying, and braced himself for the impact of the hard baked dirt beneath his back as he landed, but instead of stopping on the dirt, he went through.

Shock was the first emotion that registered, but that wasn't there long as all that he could feel was pain; sharp, sudden, all consuming. It came after a moment of calm where Toushi registered nothing more than surprise, a stinging ache through his side, and then he opened his eyes to see a sharp, bloodied wooden spike poking straight through his thigh and he couldn't even open his mouth to yell out or scream because his chest hurt, and he couldn't move his hand without pain blooming out from his palm. He coughed, blood bubbling up over his lips and then his heart started beating too fast, his breath came out in hoarse rattling gasps and he knew that there was one in his chest and it hurt, it hurt, everywhere hurt and he couldn't even think straight, he couldn't-

Damn it, damn it, I'm such a fucking idiot I-Tears were streaming from his eyes as he screwed them shut

[starstruckstray]

Kiba had just finished a double shift at work, and was just a few hours into some much needed sleep. The swell of reiatsu from Yoruichi tugged at his sleepy senses, and he opened his eyes, looking around blearily for whatever had woken him

[pimpcoatbankai]

The feeling of Kiba's reiatsu hit him with an wave of relief, and for a moment Toushi let his eyes close as he let out a sigh of relief that hurt like a bitch and caused him to to cough, the fresh blood on his lips stark against his paling skin. It felt like just moving his eyes to look at Kiba as he landed in the pit beside him was enough to make his head split open with pain.

"Sh-" He could hear his breath hissing from his chest as he tried to speak and collapsed into another coughing fit that spewed more blood.

There was so much he wanted to say, but he couldn't find the strength or the breath to speak. He felt hot, his hair was sticking to his forehead with sweat, everywhere, everywhere hurt.

His eyelids started to feel heavy, be had to tell Kiba he was sorry, he had to-

Everything was starting to look fuzzy and dim, but he couldn't die this way in a dirty pit. Kiba would never let him live it down, and his books-

"-orry."