Behind the Veil [Awkening]

[CleverYamanaka]

Kirigakure no Sato;
Tsurino's Bunker;
Day 25.

The room was small, though empty enough to avoid being cramped. Rectangular in shape with sharp edges, only one bed, and two chairs. A series of curtains sectioned the room into laborious bits, and bright lights illuminated everything somewhat boldly. Medical equipment lay scattered everywhere, oozing IVs and their thin, plastic syringe tips. A stationed monitor, connected to more than a few wires stuck through use of adhesives to Hisoka's chest and pulsing with noise accompanied pings at the beating of his heart. White skin pumped up and down as the youth breathed, but his eyes were yet closed. Whirling in tireless dream state under closed lids, no doubt caught in whatever chaos he had been subjected to. Emiko's shadow leaned across Hisoka's limp torso, her scaled eyes seething in search of life. She had revived in hours, absorbing and rebuilding herself. For Hisoka, this was week three, and in two more days it'd be the fourth. And so it was, even when his health returned something writhed within him which kept Hisoka chained to nightmare.


There were no nurses here, nor doctors, or people of any kind. This was secret to even Kirigakure's council, their highest reaching governing body, a location of Tsurino's. A series of seals had been woven up and around Hisoka's abdomen, wrapping around the temples of his head, and down in drooping inky black circles over closed eyes. Emiko hadn't let Tsurino attempt any of her medical seals either, applying those of her own making and welcoming Tsurino's medical expertise. Actually, Tsurino had displayed a trust far beyond what Emiko might have expected, leaving her alone to tend with Hisoka for hours on end-- Emiko had no reason to steal or loot, certainly not destroy anything. Her motives had already been made clear already, she had fight with Tsurino or Kirigakure's government.
 

With taps and nudges Emiko could survey all of Hisoka's outer shelling, the way in which he shaped himself, so primitive in comparison to her own make up. With more elongated searches, she saw it more as a puzzle of layers, an incomplete weave of Shikigami and Ryoku fusion, natural with the edge of augmentation. And then there was something deep which stung at her mind- Emiko had learned not to dig that deep all at once. She hadn't anticipated the kind of darkness she found dormant in Hisoka. Born of the Ryoku's chakra, or at least made inhabitable because of it, but so much more raw and uncontrollable. 


Hisoka was covered only by a sheet, folded in half so as to cover his middle most section. His arms lay without restraint on the bed to each side, lifeless but for his jaw which remained clenched and ground for hours. The muscles in his cheeks firing with each tightening second, biting back a scream he couldn't comit and sometimes he muttered things. Groans or whimpers, horrified shrieks which were somehow nearly inaudible, whispers of names in other languages. Calls to, someone. At times Hisoka begged and pleaded, asking that this person didn't do... something. Something she couldn't ever make out. 

"Oh wake up will you."

[Coconutly]

Thud,
thud,
thud.

The thick weight of bodies hitting the ground echoed in heavy base tones, as if in slow motion. The heat of their blood stung his face. It pooled on the floor, dripped from the walls, and covered his naked body but he couldn't look away. He couldn't run. He couldn't stop it. The confusion, the betrayal, the absolute horror of what he witnessed was overwhelming. And all he could do was witness it. The echoes grew louder and louder and louder until it felt as though his head would split in two. He slammed his hands over his ears but it made no difference. A scream rattled from his throat, a desperate sound that felt so loud and so long but could not be heard over the deafening sounds. All around him, the walls, the bed, his childhood home peeled away in flaked fragments of faux reality to reveal complete darkness.

The memory remained right in front of him, no matter where he looked or how he tried to escape. Over and over, he watched as they fell, each time more mutilated than the next, each time at the hand of the same perpetrator... Inoshi. Colorless eyes stared back at him. Then, there were more of them stacking atop one another in a gruesome pile of limp limbs, grey skin, and blood, so much blood. It enveloped him, drowned him, as the mass of death grew and grew. Their lifeless lips animated to cry out at him.

"Hisoka! Why, Hisoka?"

"Why can't you save us?"

"How could you let this happen?"

"Why are you so weak?"

"I hate you!"

"This is all your fault!"

       

"You are nothing but a burden!"

"Why couldn't it have been you?"

No, it wasn't his fault. Nothing about it was his fault. It wasn't suppose to be like this. This was out of his control. It was him. It was Inoshi's fault that this was happening. It was his fault that all of this happened. He began to recognize the bodies as more than just his family. The pile had developed into a mass of every death Hisoka had been responsible for. Every death that resulted from Inoshi's order. They all cried out now in a deafening chorus of rage and desperation.

This…
This is hell…
I have to wake up…
I... have to… please...

And then it came - the light he’d been praying for, the end to this nightmare. It’s warmth felt like a heavenly embrace compared the darkness he had faced for what felt like millennia.

“Wake up, Hisoka.

Wake up.

It’s time for you to wake up,”

A woman’s voice coed into his ear, exactly how he remembered it. It's muffled texture didn't keep him from confirming that it was his mother’s. Whatever was left of his consciousness clung desperately to the sound, infinitely grateful for its presence and praying it would never leave. He begged, beckoning to her with every once of his being but could not reply. A violent cackle shattered the silence and violated the moment with a fear like none other.

“YEs! CLinG tO YOuR HoPEs, WoRm! IT MaKEs It sO mUCH sWEeteR WHeN I DEStrOY THEm!"

***

The first thing he felt was his face, as if emerging from boiling water and into a block of ice. His bare chest contracted in a deep gasp and his eyes shot open, quickly adjusting to a blink when blinded by the incandescent worldly light above him. His body didn't feel like his own. Every inch of him tingled with numbness, as if each and every muscle was attempting to wake from it's slumber simultaneously. Steadily he became conscious of his breath as it quickened to match his racing heart. His arm fired a test run, flexing from finger tip to shoulder. However, lifting it felt like lifting thousands of pounds. His head felt even heavier. One knee tried to bend and then the other. Intended to subdue and calm him, the woozy and weak state caused anxiety to boil within him. As the blare of new light adjusted, his golden eyes panned frantically around the room before resting firmly on the woman at the foot of his bed. His mind spun with questions as it struggled to grip this new reality.

Where am I?
What happened to me?

...Where is Inoshi?

He wanted to ask them, scream them. But he couldn’t. He only watch her with the glare of a cornered animal. Still rather delirious from the sedatives, he sloppily pulled his arm up causing the liquid feed to his arm to pull with it. He snarled at the feeling of the needle moving under his skin and decided to relax it. His eyes darted frantically along her unfamiliar frame once again, examining her with as much concentration as he could muster.

“Who… the fuck… are you?"

[CleverYamanaka]

Emiko’s expression copied that of the younger man's own with an aerie perfection, both faces moving in unison and for the same reason. Hisoka was waking up, small wisps of light were returning and animating him. Shreds of pieced together soul, something she had aided in snatching back together directly. The only time anyone, ever, would lay witness to the effects of such a seal as the Sin of Ascension— even in so incomplete a form. And with the spectacle returned her most valuable catch yet. Well, her first real catch at all. In fact Hisoka seemed to react just as all caught quarry would when first captured, scanning then bucking against the reins of control. When Hisoka tried to rise, Emiko rearranged him matter-of-factly by swinging him back against the cushions at the peak of his momentum. Already the beginnings of a cold sweat were sweeping over that barren musculature, skin pale if not for the bruising which had seemed to creep over him in the recent days. Her hand fell with his body and lay there, resting against him in a silent, passive firmness. More caring than threatening, and therefore disarming. She was however alien to such contact, just as he, and found it difficult to maintain for more than a few brief seconds. Instead, as she reclined and withdrew Emiko let loose a subtle landscape of burning inkwork across the youth’s chest. Seals in lines and dancing shapes which rose and clung to the boy’s neck before fading into his skin. Puckering her lips the frail Ryoku managed an authoritative tsk then shhhh. “Relax Hisoka, you’re safe. You’re back here, back home, in your body.” Again he bucked, this time with the weighted pull of his arm, and again she let their skin touch. “Stop moving, you’re safe—“ then "well there’s no point in snarling at me.”

Her sedation seal was certainly taking it’s toll, that familiar feeling of vital energies seeping from Emiko's body only intensified by her own poor state of well being. What it lacked in sheer combative power it made up for in strategic interference, careful, precise control. Seals like this were considered highly inefficient by her peers, though Emiko had found them to be especially useful in situations of subtle necessity. Without being able to see or feel it, the effects would be similar to any other artificial depressant, some kind of euphoric dumb-numbness. This time she fought to keep her hand firmly pressed into the crevice of pectorals, her eyes strong enough to meet Hisoka's wild glare without wavering. All while the second hand, her left, was secured around Hisoka's forearm. “You’re in Kirigakure no Sato, try your best to relax." Like everything else about the strange female Ryoku was strong at first, then eased back into something far more empathic. "My name’s Emiko, I'm Ryoku like you, I-- I knew your mother. You're safe."

[Coconutly]

The abruptness of her touch startled him and his chest tensed. Spooked eyes flickered at her like a dog about to strike the hand that dared to draw near. It was a reaction driven more by fear than anger. Then, slowly, he sank into the bed, his muscles began to loosen again and his breath steadied. His eyes rolled up to the ceiling and slowly closed. Perhaps it was the effect of the seal or perhaps the impact of her words, but a sense of calmness washed over him - a feeling so sorely missed it nearly brought tears to his eyes. You're safe. Those words... They meant so much more than they ever had. For a moment, he savored the feeling offered. He was free. Finally, he was free of the nightmare. Or was he? Could he really know for sure? This reality could be yet another dimension of the hell he'd known for some untold amount of time. His eyes opened and darted anxiously around the room with a reborn spark of paranoid delirium. 

With the unholy exposure to Trasim came a certain awareness: there was no escape. Somewhere within each and every shadow, in every dark corner, under every rock and in every crevasse, it was there. Watching, scheming, hating. Now, he realized that same darkness was here with him, inside of him, and always would be. The thought made his pulse skip and his stomach churn.

There were still far too many missing pieces. Dissonance tore at Hisoka's mind with each question that he couldn't answer. Sure, he knew who she was and where they where, that is if she was telling the truth. But he still had no idea why she was here and what she had done to him. Desperately, he attempted to recall his situation. He needed something familiar, a memory, a reason to anchor himself in reality for fear that he may be forced back into the nightmare. But the more he thought, the more his head reeled and pounded. The more he tried to piece together what had happened, the less it felt like reality. Cat-like eyes, filled with determined fear, locked with the Ryoku woman once more.

"Where... is he? Where is Inoshi?"

[CleverYamanaka]

Emiko watched Hisoka as one might view a movie, unsure of what to make from the rapid exchange of emotion, or the unstable forms each expression took on. She couldn’t be sure he heard her, and he certainly gave no clear indication either way. Maybe things here were worse than she had presumed, maybe words alone, explanation, comfort, maybe none of that was enough to ease someone back into a world they had just left in the strangest way. Emiko couldn’t help but to cast a withering look at the heap of medical technology beating and pulsing around the bed, thinking it could hardly be a comforting sight to wake up to. One often associated such apparatus with dire peril, or medical emergency, neither of which were the most calming ways to say 'welcome back.’ Nothing says ‘you’re safe’ like a slowly beeping heart scan and a room full of deceptive, draping and shadow. Shhh, she chided smoothly, honestly unsure of how to answer the question at face value. Sure, she had foresaw its coming, but not at so early a stage, not while jarring responses were still dangerously unpredictable. “I know you have a lot of questions, Hisoka, I’m sure this is all,” she didn’t finish, instead giving Hisoka room for what she thought might have been speech but turned into something of a whining groan and attempted movement. “Save your energy,” her tone now lowered, caring eyes maximizing their size to the extent of what might still look calm and endearing.

“Inoshi is,” but it seemed all of the pre-packaged answers she had come up with paled in comparison to the plain and simple truth. “I,” no “we,” this time "don’t really know.” She offered, self mutilating for giving so bleak a comfort. It wasn’t the kind of answer which could idly sit in solitude for long. “The both of you were… found. Unconscious, unmoving. Not even breathing, we,” no, this time “I’m not sure what happened.” Her words continued to sound worse and worse, but she had taken the road of honesty and mutual confusion, at least giving Hisoka an out in not being the only person without an answer. Much worse for establishing dominance and persuasion, she knew, and much better for laying the groundworks for friendship. “Tsurino,” a familiar name, “has speculated that your a-joined state, the unconsciousness, you and him, Inoshi, was due to some technique he had previously made use of.” She took a moment to suck in a deep breath, showing that she didn’t want to start asking him questions so soon after pushing him towards silence and the conservation of energy. “Do you remember any of that? Inoshi, a technique, the briefing room… anything?"

[Coconutly]

Hisoka studied the woman deliberately, looking more irritated than comforted when she shushed him. At first, she dodged the question but before he could protest, she began to answer so he shut up and waited.

"Inoshi is..."

He listened intently. He wanted a certain answer, a simple answer, and he wanted it now. Of course, she didn't give him what he wanted. Instead she stuttered out an 'I don't know' and started recapping the situation in which she found them in. Her description was too vague to successfully jog his memory. However, the pain that accompanied what memories did revisit him was overwhelming, abstract and always lead back to Inoshi. What he was able to pull from the wreckage of his mind was the unfathomable amount of unanswered questions he had and that there was only one person who could answer them.

This Emiko woman was strange. In fact, watching her bordered on uncomfortable. She looked, sounded, acted, so oddly familiar. Hisoka knew he’d never seen her face before so why did he feel as if he had? She spoke as if she wanted him to believe she was being honest. But there was something guarded about her words. Either she was lying to him or she was trying to protect him. But why the hell would she want to protect him? He didn’t know this woman and, as far as he knew, she didn’t know him. So why would she give a shit about him unless she wanted something from him. Because they were blood buddies? ‘Cause they shared the same last name? No way.

“Tsurino.”

More clarity came to him at the mention of the familiar Kaguya. He definitely had some questions for her too. The fiery Ryoku boy grew exponentially impatient and irritated with each word. He hated how she was beating around the bush and asking stupid questions. His eyes rolled and he cut her off half way through her last question. His words were even sharper than his glare.

“Don’t think for a second that I’m gunna tell you shit, bitch. I don’t care who you think you are. I don’t know you. Now, where. The fuck. Is Inoshi?”

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