towerofanimus | ninth staff♞ and a sound like poison

Entry tags:

ninth staff♞ and a sound like poison

Characters: Sayaka Miki ~and pals~.
Setting: Floor Eleven.
Format: I wrote the entry in prose, but I can match you!
Summary: Sayaka's been complacent, and it leads to an encounter with a Phantom. You can tag in before, during, or after.
Warnings: pretentious matchre-ing, phantoms being... phantoms

Before:

It's dangerously late for a kid to be on a floor this far from the dorms, but this isn't exactly a helpless kid and she doesn't exactly care. Scurrying around according to the day-night routine somehow felt intrinsically irritating, like just one more concession to the tower itself. Maybe she's going a little far with her spite - but why shouldn't she? There was no reason not to want to trample over anything that could be just another symbol of their captivity.

So Sayaka was here, generally goofing off impetuously.

During:

The noise of the moving water had been lulling, earlier, when Sayaka had come to this floor to gawk at the hanging field of flowers and persisting rainbows in kind. She could have any myriad of excuses - it was evening and she was tired, maybe she'd just grown too complacent - but Sayaka had dozed off into some sort of bleary state of not thinking, and before she knew it night had fallen down hard.

But now the sound of water made her ears prickle as she regained herself, reminding her uncomfortably of the rattling of chains. She blinked away the remaining traces of her daze, eyes automatically flicking back up to the sight she'd been admiring before.

...was it normal for them to be upside down? She's pretty sure there's - something bad about that. Falteringly, she stands up, brushes her clothes down to get rid of wrinkles, and turns to the spindly-thin staircase. On most floors, it looked fine - but here, and right now, it's eerily reminiscent of a skeleton of a real staircase, like bare dry bones that you just happen to be able to walk up.

Something brushes past her. Too damp to be a gust of wind, too light to be a splash of water - honestly, it's more like the feeling you get when someone briskly walks past you just too close, but doesn't bump into you properly. She feels... cold, or nearly less, and remembers the sound of chains again - but it can't be, right? Minato was fine now.

"...Hey, Sayaka?..."

The voice of the one person the tower could always hold against her was in her ear - Kyousuke Kamijou.

Later, either a few floors up or down from 11:

Run away was her first instinct, as soon as she'd recovered from her mind going into a shocked blank. It was the tower and it was Kyousuke and whatever that had been, she wanted nothing to do with it, nothing nothing nothing.

It'd taken her a heap of precious seconds to snap out of it, and she still felt weak - was it from being weak-hearted, or some side effect of the usual bullshit of the tower being itself? Both, maybe - when she felt safely far enough away, Sayaka used a handy wall to lean against for support and just.. y'know, let herself feel really upset for a while.

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Aleph had been patrolling the tower that night, and immediately noticed the girl who ran into the media room in a state of terror. She was hard to miss, actually. He sheathed his sword - he didn't want to scare her any more - and approached her.

"Are you okay?"

Well that was a stupid question.

"Can I help you at all?"

"..Do I look all that okay?" Her answer is in a rather dulled voice, coming after a heavy silence she'd left between Aleph's questions and working herself up into answering.

"You could look 'n see if anything followed me, I guess."

"Stupid question, I'm sorry."

Aleph checks the stairs, even going to the floor below to see if there's anything before coming back up.

"Nothing's there. You're as safe as we get in the tower."

She watches him leave while her thoughts actually start sorting out - normally, she'd be worried, but he's out at night on his own volition and people can handle themselves here, she knows that much.

It was so stupid, how much power one person, one name, gave this place over her. It was stupid but there's no way she could possibly help it, there was no way she could stop caring - on that train of thought, words she'd said while barely herself come flicking back into Sayaka's mind--

_{'..A couple times, I saw a dream of a me that could really live like that - just going with every day without regards to feelings in the past. She seemed really happy, and I might have envied her, a little. But for some reason, she seemed really terrible.'}

--By the time Aleph's returned from checking the floor below, Sayaka's not sure if she's regained composure or just feeling worse, but she has stopped using the wall as an aid to stand.

"..Thanks. Usually, I don't let myself get startled like that. It's pretty embarrassing..."

"We all have our moments." Aleph shrugs. "Would you like me to escort you to your room? Rest might help a little."

..She thinks about it. Sayaka carefully fiddles with the ring on her hand, realizing she can still feel some of that odd drain from before - practically, it was a good idea to not go alone.

It did feel like a continued exhibit of being weak wanting someone as a buddy just for traipsing around the same old tower. But as is, she honestly didn't want to refuse.

"You wouldn't mind? Doesn't even have to be the whole way. Soon as I see an elevator, bam, I'm fine."

"I'm walking around here anyway. You're the best company I've seen so far, a lot better than the monsters." He cracked a smile. "Don't worry about it."

There is nothing especially witty to be said of their trip, other than it happened and that there was, presumably, a lot of attempts at banter on Sayaka's part because that's just what she does.

Aleph was happy to indulge her and banter back, though he let Sayaka carry most of the conversation. That is what he does.

[He was confused.

He was confused and disoriented and denying everything.

The world couldn't have ended, it couldn't. He vividly recalled a somber day that happened just yesterday for him. Memories swam in his head, telling him to not believe the lies told by the letter. And yet the sinking feeling in his heart told him that yes, his world is dead.

...He was lost in his thought, so lost in fact, that...

He didn't notice a shade of blue hair for the split second, before he felt that something had just hit him.

Collisions between two people are never a painless thing, after all.]

_{[Where normally she'd stop and check to see if the other person she'd bonked into way okay, this time Sayaka is only slowed down - she nearly slips into the walls of water, stumbling past whoever it was. A flare of conscience orders her to stop and turn around, though - if she's still being chased, it'd be cowardly as hell to leave some other poor resident to her pursu....er...

She didn't think it was possible to be even more freaked out, but hey, look at that, it happened. Her breath catches in her throat in a gasp.

It's enough they're taunting her with his voice. But this is too much.]}

[...He's still sitting there on the ground, while hitting the ground was pretty painful, he was used to falling, especially during his therapy sessions to get him to use his legs again. Nevertheless, he's going to stand up, and dust himself off, not really aware that the one who bumped into him is still there.

...

Well, at least until he heard that gasp. He's going to turn around to address it, before he himself found himself stop in his action.

His eyes widened, and his heart apparently forgot to work properly as he could feel the skipping around of his own heart beats.]

S, so. Twice in one night? Isn't that laying it on a little thick, guys...?

_{[Her voice starts tiny and strained, like she's funneling all her panic through her vocal chords in order to keep from acting on it. What would happen if she runs again? The same thing that happened just now?]}

[There's no mistaking it, strained and... weak-sounding it was, there was no way he could forget the voice of someone who had been beside him the whole time he spent in the hospital. Memories, good and bad flooded back, as if threatening to consume him within those, and to never let him go. His body took an involuntary step forward, as opposed to backward. He needed to find out.

He needed to know whether the person before him is real or just another illusion his deluded mind decided to show him.]

S-sayaka...?

_{[...For his step forward, she takes a step back. She'd only stuck around long enough for the last apparition to try and greet her. What would this one do now?]}

..That's right.

[...She answered. But his mind's still clouded. He slapped himself, as if as a reminder for himself to be awake. The pain stings, and he found her still standing right before him, her light-blue hair blending well with the water around them, wearing a nervous expression on her face, which is there all the same on his.]

...Why... are you here...?

[She's dead. He saw her coffin being lowered into the ground, her face never to be seen again. Her peaceful, and yet... sad expression that was there was seared into his memory, a reminder of how he let such a close friend slip away from his reach...]

'Why?'

_{[That's a weird question. She's figured what was dogging her, before - it was one of the phantoms, right, mentioned in the guide? - but those were 'ghost-like' creatures.

This Kyousuke - he'd just slapped himself, like somebody would if they were wondering if they were in a dream. He looked too real, even with the pale refraction of light from the water making everything eerie.

Her brain doesn't want to click with the possibility this is the real deal. It's too easy to say 'it's a tower-induced illusion' or 'I'm just losing it again.']}

Why's anybody here..? Because they just take us, right?

_{[Carrying on conversations with people she thinks aren't real are something she's gotten used to, though. Some of her nicest interactions with Kyouko were all in her head.]}

Edited (you saw nothing) 2012-07-31 04:38 (UTC)

Y-you're...

[Another step forward. Without even thinking, he continues to close the distance. He can't finish it, after all, acknowledging it would mean that the person he's looking at right now as just an illusion. Step.

Without noticing it, she's now within his arm's reach. And without thinking, the next thing he remembered, she was enveloped by his hands. The feel of her body was real, as do the warmth she carries. Ah, he was not dreaming wasn't he? This was not an illusion, this tower was not an illusion, and... Sayaka Miki is...]

...Alive...

_{[She plain.. doesn't think to move, when Kyousuke approaches this time. She's worked it all out - she's dreamed this up, so a dream's not really going to do much to her, right? So what would be the point in mov...ing....

When arms close around her in a desperate hug, her brain comes to an abrupt stop, like a planet that suddenly ceased its rotation - everything was hit by the upheaval. This had to be real because a figment of her imagination wouldn't touch her, especially not a figment calling himself Kyousuke -

"I can't hug him like this!"

- she wouldn't dream that, it'd just became all too wrong in her head to even dare to imagine anymore. In the case of this being reality, what could she do?

...what could she do other than hug him back?

With monsters and Witches and Puella Magi selfishly put aside, that was what she really wanted.]}

You're alive...

[He spoke this sentence again, all while she's still within his grips. She's real. As real as Hitomi was, as real as she was during those hospital visits, vivid memories continued to assault his mind as he remembered their meeting, all those visits and even his last sight of her. He knows it's silly, hugging a close friend like this, but after everything that happened...

...

He's afraid that she'll disappear again, just like he did to Hitomi, ah... everyone must be worried sick... The thought played in his head, but it's still marred with the noises of static as his cognitive function continued to accept the fact that she's still alive...]

_{[He's said that twice now, that she's registering it. Wondering at her alive means some kind of belief that she may be to the contrary.

..does she really want to think about all that right now? There's a knot growing in the pit of her stomach as it all sinks in, where for one impossible moment it'd been free-floating butterflies.

She was right in that nasty, creeping realization she'd tried to trim out of the back of her mind, wasn't she? The one she'd admitted and pushed back away when Madoka appeared, that back home, the fate that'd been drawing quickly near to her was...

..she can feel a weakness that has nothing to do with phantoms, settling over her body. Like she's a little wobbly.]}

...and you're real, too. So, we're both here, and...

This tower is not a dream...

[...He finished the sentence for her. There was no way for her to be alive, right now, and yet here she is, hugging him, as well as speaking... While this is bad and good simultaneously. Kyousuke's just glad that there's at least a familiar face in this tower to lean on...

...

Speaking of leaning on, he's hugging Sayaka oh god why is his face slowly turning red???]

_{[So this is most definitely not a dream and they're clinging to each other and wow,

her stomach just did a backflip

Sayaka is juuuust gonna step back now, sheepish and trying not to turn too red.]}

--so we're both real, super real, gee, that's...

_{[Sayaka, you're rambling off into saying absolutely nothing at all.]}

Um.

..this is still bad. _{It's still night.} We probably shouldn't hang out here forever.

E-er yeah, I think I... might've gotten lost somewhere along the way, d'you know the way back?

[...This is really awkward, since he's also broken off the hug now.

...Yeah, of all things to happen on his first day, it had to be running into his... sort-of dead(?) childhood friend.]

Uhuh, I do! I've been here long enough to know the way kinda well - _{[play it down, Sayaka, play it down]} We just have to be careful. _{An' quiet, I guess.}

...W-well, lead the way then.

[Because he's still awkward about this.]

_{[She awkwardly reaches out, for a second - then hastily rethinks the idea, turning the motion into a sweeping turn as she starts, well, leading the way. The smaller fish dart away in flashes of light-on-scales as they pass by, but some of the larger ones begin keeping pace with them. ...Great.

The stairs aren't that far, though.]}

So...

[While they're walking, he can't help but to break the silence. After all, it has really been a while since they talked, whether it was about random subjects, or just him...

Nah, let's not think about it.]

How have you been? Are you doing alright?

While Sayaka may have been focused on the appearance of the Phantom, there was someone else on the floor more focused on the fact that it was a Phantom. A red blurr flew as fast as it could across the floor and slammed right into Sayaka, tackling her to the ground and a few feet way from the Phantom.

It wasn't a particularly heavy blurr, but damn if she couldn't get some of the job done.

"Oof--?!"

A happy little chime from near her hip told her that no, that wasn't going to leave a bruise, and Sayaka boggles over the potential identity of her erstwhile savior - before glimpsing the ethereal body of the Phantom begin to churn its energies into following after them. Rapidly, she regains her feet, and nearly bolts right there.

The Red Blur (TM) wasn't as fast as Sayaka. She got to her feet as Sayaka bolted and spared another look at the Phantom. Any other time Jade would've rushed in guns blazing, but it didn't take her much time in the tower to learn that it nerfed what shitty powers her Time-i-ness did afford her.

She jumped back a foot or so to put enough distance, between them, and in the next instant it seemed like she just appeared next to Sayaka.

Frivolous use of her powers? Yes, but she panicked.

"Next time, hold the heart felt reunion for something like a puppet, a'ight?"

"Heh, heh, believe me, I'd rather have dodged this little get together entirely."

So they're olliesing the hell out of there, right? Yes. That is what they're doing, or at least it's still Sayaka's plan.

There is more olliesing going on here than in a Tony Hawk Skatepart or some trippy futuristic Tokyo. Though Jade was gonna have to do the olliesing without more time hax or any particular speed affinity because hahaha she didn't wanna test doomed lines in this place--

"My advice; next time just send them a christmas card. Way easier and you don't even have to make eye contact."

There'd been someone else here from the very start, seeming absorbed in thought. He got up to stretch his legs one last time before the sun truly set, finally looking at the source of the movement somewhere behind him. At least it was a face he'd seen before. Enoch gave Sayaka a nod in acknowledgment.

[This is not a good staircase.

Tara is sitting huddled on it, taking up as little room as she can and being forcibly reminded of her first day here when she'd been left wounded on a crumbling staircase over a drop to her death.

But it's different, this time. Now, she has a notebook. And she's busily making one-handed observational notes on a bullfairy that's had its mouth stitched shut and is making a spirited effort to bash its brains out against Tyr's Warding Hand.

It provides a good distraction from the environment, if nothing else. A near miss on the way down had been enough for Tara to learn that flying wouldn't save her, here.]

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ninth staff♞ and a sound like poison

After, floor fourteen.

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i can't write posts about travel for the life of me OTL

/pat

After, floor 10

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During

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Before; they're in the same place at the same time, after all

Before, floor 11