Under the Moonlight [Makoto]

Thu Oct 07, 2021 11:56 am

Oh Shit, Zombies:

Awoo!:

The clock had finally struck midnight, and the village of Yugakure had become a ghost town. The dusty streets were empty, windows and doors boarded up from every building across the street. The only sounds across the city were the quiet wind, the rattling of signs from the slight gusts, and footsteps as visitors entered the village for their very first time.

Yuri had never seen this place before, she didn't know how she got here, she wasn't sure where 'here' was, and she wasn't sure how to get home. All she knew was that she had a bad feeling about this place, like an indescribable pit in her gut. A dread that slowly took root and would blossom into unease and neurosis left unchecked. She puts her hands in the pockets of baggy grey sweatpants as she drags her feet through the village.

Keeping her head fucked low, as the wind easily flutters her thin white shirt, the word 'WORRY' on her shirt couldn't be more apt. Every single house was locked down right as she went down the thoroughfare. 'Keep out' signs and the paranoid gleemings of eyes peeking through the slits in the window boards gave an air of silent terror to the place. A wolf howls in the distance.

"What the hell is going on with this place..."

WC: 222

Thu Oct 07, 2021 12:39 pm

Makoto looks around the dusty streets, hugging herself with one arm as the other holds the quite disturbing companion she's found for the night. Her white shrine maiden outfit is slightly stained with some unclear fluid dripping from the black, meter-long centipede curled around her like a snake, gently resting it's head on her palm.

This is the first time in a very long while she's actually seen her God's body. It's warm, and much less disturbing to her now than when she welcomed it into her body. Her most steadfast and beloved companion, mentor and friend...

"Truly a momentous occasion. This place really seems deeply cursed, does it not?" Yul asks, looking around.

"Quite... Oh!"

That'd be...Yuri, over there! She walks over slowly, unsure how the whole "Hey, this giant centipede is my deity" thing will go over.

After all, Mitsu had called it a bug. It might not take such an insult very well when not restrained by her flesh.

Actually, for that matter, she feels strangely empty, and her posture's gotten visibly worse without the god correcting it, so she looks very tired as she approaches, waving her free hand.

"Yuri! Nice to see you here... uh..." Makoto stares at the boarded up windows, shivering.

"Well...As nice as it can be, being here."

TWC: 222

Thu Oct 07, 2021 2:41 pm

Yuri grips the hilt of the sword resting inside the scabbard at her hip. It was like a safety blanket made of iron with a cutting edge.

"Makoto?"

Turning to Makoto, perplexed at the familiar face. She wasn't sure how she herself showed up there, so Makoto showing up just deepened the mystery. "How did you end up here? I've never seen some place like this before so it'd be helpful if you had any idea how we ended up here. Is Mitsu with you? I haven't really seen anyone else here and it seems everyone's boarding themselves up and hiding away for...some reason."

Then she notices the 'friend' curling round Makoto. The off hand griping Karuma draws it one inch out of the scabbard, Yuri almost unconsciously drawing the blade and slicing the bug into pieces. The exact processes of her brain went unspoken though and all one would see was her drawing the blade slightly, before sliding it back in.

"What the hell is that?" Still ready to cut at a moment's notice.

WC: 397

Thu Oct 07, 2021 2:54 pm

Yul recoils upon seeing the blade be drawn a little bit, startling Makoto "Hey! Some respect for your elders, young lady" His voice is deep, and a little bit annoyed. "Have today's shinobi forgotten manners?"

"Um... Yuri, this is Yul. My, ah. My family's patron deity, as it were." The look of pure awkwardness on her face as she tries to console her god just makes the worm's annoyance flag. He lets out a sigh, poking her cheek.
"Truly, am I really so unnerving, Makoto?"
"Aha...I think most people have different standards than our clan."
"I suppose you're right..."

She clears her throat, looking up at Yuri again. "Normally he's supposed to be inside my body, so we're not supposed what's up with this. This place is really strange... Mitsu isn't here either, I think. Just the two of us and whoever's inside thouse houses."

TWC: 375

Thu Oct 07, 2021 3:33 pm

That thing lives inside her? "Ew." , pursing her lips as the thoughts in her head had swapped accidentally with the words she spoke. Forcing a smile as she looks at the patron 'diety' of Makoto's family. She was having a bit of a struggle believing something like that...

A massive oversized, slimey, admittedly nasty worm...

Was her family's god, but she wasn't one to insult someone else's faith. Forcing a tight smile before nodding along slowly.

"Alright, well a friend of Makoto's is a friend of mines, it's nice to meet ya Yul. I'm Yuri Karuma. Though if you're normally inside her you've probably already met me huh."

She stares at Yul fora minute, before something catches her eyes, looking behind Makoto and Yul as finally another noise breaks the peace of the night. Drowning out the night wind's passing was a loud groan. A dazed man stumbles through the street, dozens of meters away. His clothes were shredded, torn and ripped in awkward places and matted with blood. His movements were stiff and forced every single step was an agony brinking on failure that would bring them to collapse to the ground. There was a sickly ashen pallor to his skin and besides approaching the two and groaning there was little awareness displayed by this...man?

"Is he okay...?"

Yuri walks past Makoto, a slight jog as going to help, though she couldn't ignore the feeling of her hair raising on her neck.

WC: 640

Fri Oct 08, 2021 10:22 am

Makoto's hand shoots out on pure reflex, grabbing Yuri's wrist. The centipede coiled around her visibly tenses, rearing it's head back and dripping venom. Makoto herself pales, hands shaking a little.

"I think..." Her grip tightens a bit more "I think I know why he's like that. We should begin backing away. Slowly."

The centipede lowers it's voice, keeping very close to Makoto "Ah. Your predecessors and I dealt with things like these, on occasion. Yes, the undead... Yuri, was it? Keep your sword out."

Makoto gulps, nodding. This wasn't the sort of thing she ever expected to run into. It was one thing to be a shrine maiden, but she wasn't some sort of magical girl, and she'd certainly never done anything as spiritual as purging the lingering dead and letting them pass on. In fact, she was pretty sure that thing was going to try to bite her, and without Yul inside her body, it was unlikely she could purge whatever was keeping it... Like that.

A plague, most likely. Yes, a plague of some sort. It'd make sense people had quarantined and boarded up their windows and blocked their doors.

"...We need to look for survivors."

TWC 580

Fri Oct 08, 2021 1:33 pm

"I see."

Calmly digisting Yul's words, a contrast to Makoto's quiet anxiety. Gently pulling herself out of the girl's grasp. She was glad for the well meaning intent, though for some reason the idea of something like the undead wasn't worrying for her. In fact she could say her instincts were truly at peace right now, almost sharpening itself as the night went on. Nodding to the worm she draws out her sword. Moonlight dances on steel as Karuma is loosed from its sheethe, a feeling of quiet confidence filling Yuri.

A stiff breeze blows through the until now still air of the village, bringing the stench of death with it. Coming from behind Yuri and moving past her, she was sure now.

"So we're surrounded by them probably. They'd only hide away if it was bad which means..."

Yuri closes her eyes, as one by one silhouettes appear in the night. The groans of the dead became cacophonous dirge. The irregular shuffling of their steps thundered like infantry as a thin stream was starting to become a mass of the deceased. On the rooftops, in the alleyways, down the thoroughfares and, even, some trying to break free from those boarded up homes that had fallen to this malady before locking themselves away unaware of their own fate. A mass of bloated white eyes, falling out teeth, chipped nails and decrepit bodies.

That smell of the dead gave her a sense of Dejá Vu and Jamais Vu at the same time. A part of her felt like she had experienced such a smell before even though she didn't, and another felt as if they'd never felt this before even though they had, but even that inconsistency was nostalgic for them,even though they couldn't tell why.

"So we're going to be overrun soon, with souls remaining from regret."

She rests the blade against her shoulder, watching peaceably as the dead near closer.

"You said you've seen this before then haven't you? Well go ahead and tell us how we should deal with it. I hope you aren't just going to tell us to run."

WC: 993

Sat Oct 09, 2021 1:59 pm

Makoto takes a few deep breaths, adopting an imperfect fighting stance. Drawing one foot back and tightening her fists as she lets chakra flow more freely through her body.

It is always a refreshing sensation. Even without Yul helping her, she has been practicing this for quite a while, not only because of her duties, but because of one simple fact- Strength feels good. For someone always made to learn, to follow, to speak the words of others in the name of the clan, the kind of strength Makoto now had was like a divine blessing of it's own, flowing through her body like cleansing waters. Her anxiety slowly recedes, and she steps forwards, beside Yuri.

"Target their head. They'll move even if you relieve them of their limbs, so you must sever their head with clean cuts or break it with your hands. We will have to burn the bodies and wash away the ashes afterwards, but Makoto will handle it."

Makoto winces a little, but nods. "Let's do our best. These people...Cannot be allowed to remain like this."

And so, as the zombies advance, she moves forwards with measured steps. She does not run- she knows she is slow, and so are her foes. Instead, her movements through her clan's style, even unpractriced as she is, are all about gracefully intercepting the undead. A single, solid blow punches the torso off one of them, tripping the one behind as it's weight slams against it. Her stomp crushes both of their heads.

Bile rises up from her stomach, but she does not stop, bashing away a zombie's limb with the back of her arm as she draws back to give Yuri an opening.

"Let's do this."

The silent approval of her God fills her with confidence. And if setting their spirits free is his mandate...

...Then it is only her duty, of course.

TWC: 899

Wed Oct 13, 2021 3:40 pm

The first lesson, the way of dying. When forced to choose between life and death, choose death. It was maybe a bit cruel of a lesson to teach a child but it kept her mind sharp. Banishing any fear of the moment as she centers her mind. Releasing a single breathe and going into the Ko Gasumi stance, facing the opposite direction as Makoto down the street.

Her style was opposite of Makoto, quickly closing the gap between her and the undead like wind rushing into the battle field. Using the reach of her blade as she cleanly.decapitates the heads of walking corpses. They fly into the air, framed with putrid blood that spatters along with it. To practice 'shifu' meant to follow the way of thinking of a samurai, a thing distant from the normal shinobi, except for her. She was close enough to it that she could almost see the movements with her eyes closed. As she cuts her way deeper into the mass they start to surround her, trying to dogpile her with an army of bodies.

They all lunge at her, and she leaps into the air just a few meters high enough for them all to collapse on each other in a mass of arms and grimacing corpses. The sight of all those corpses.piled together was nostalgic yet unfamiliar. A sense of Dejá Vu taking her as she steps across like a child skipping on stones of a river. Weaving sign after sign for the samurai saber technique with patience, so as to keep her sword firmly gripped and pointing downward.

"The farmer reaps the grains of his effort as the warrior reaps the souls of the wicked."

It almost felt like someone else was moving her as she adjusts her grip on the sword, with one hand as a blade of chakra curves the edge into the shape of a scythe. Facing across the field of heads she reaps them one after the other working herself into a frenzy of motion. Moving in a circle about a meter in diameter. She had to move quickly so that the zombies she balanced on wouldn't grab her, and she had to strike swiftly to give herself breathing room. Having made enough space for there to be a few meters gap between the zombies approaching her and the zombies she was dancing on as if a platform, she leaps into that free space. The bodies were horrible footing as she did her best to keep balance on the bloodslicked corpses.

Cutting into the zombies she'd disrespectfully used as a dancing stage, the extra two meters of blade made all the difference as she decapitates the small group of simultaneously. Now back to where she started again, in some ways. More zombies arriving, almost as if a faceless horse. Bodies were littering the floor, and blood was dying her clothes red. It didn't matter how many she killed, the numbers made it irrelevant, though their goal really wasn't to kill them all was it? It was just survival.

"Makoto!" Using her little breathing room to shout, cleaning the blood off her blade with the crook of her elbow as the blade of chakra dissipates, the jutsu had run its course.

"We need to get to higher ground and find a safe place, there's no end to them."

For every meter a zombie moved she could cross ten but she didn't want to run the risk of eventually being caught if she ran across their skulls. Taking a deep breathe, she backflips off the redeceased bodies she stood with a wet crunch, landing on the walls of the village buildings in the thoroughfare. They were packed right next to each other which made for the best running space. Going up the wall, towards the roof top as she tries to find a break from the horde. Leaping up, the zombies dressed as nin finally sprang to action. Their movements were faster, and more graceful than their civilian cousins.

She wouldn't say they were graceful, just more. Their movements were still sloppy, numb, that was all she needed. The first zombie nin ran directly at her, going into a dropkick to try and catch her just as she lands as two of its 'allies' try to pincer her from the side. Gritting her teeth, she turns on her side as the wind brushes just over her. The zombie going right over her body as it throws itself into the streets below. The moment of relief was immediately followed by the brief flash of pain as her ribs hit the roof plates and she forces herself into a role, the other two zombie Shinobi trying to dive on her.

She was starting to regret the rooftops already.

Scrambling up to her feet she rushes to cut off both the remaining zombies' head at the same time. The blade finds purchase as a single head and a shower of blood flies into the air.

The leftmost one had died now, but the one on the right has taken just a second too long to get back up,and now she was suffering for its slowness.

What a selfish corpse, the body of its friend beside it hadn't even hit the floor before it lunges at her again.

Yuri ducks forward and left, going under its arms and shoulder checking the decapitated body as it went flying in the streets as well. Turning on her heel to decapitate the other, another flash of steel as the head found itself loose, and three enemies became zero.

Panting at what was, in a way, her first battle Yuri let out a deep breathe. The hidden tension that had been building in her body releasing if ever so slightly. Waving at Makoto, she beckons for her friend to join her.

WC: 1966

Fri Oct 15, 2021 10:43 am

Makoto moves slowly through the crowd like a one-girl wave of crushing force, grips the skull of a zombie child before crushing it in her hand, still moving forwards. Long, twisting kicks break legs and torsos among the horde, creating an increasing amount of space around the shrine maiden, and her god writhes around her, lashing out to keep it clear.
This feels right. But it is not sustainable- she's already breathing heavily, stained thoroughly with blood and bile. Her white priestess outfit is already unrecognizable, likely unusable ever again.

Taking a deep breath, she kicks down a wall onto the horde, jumping above them and taking to the rooftops as well, running up the building's side. and almost getting her foot caught between the boards keeping a window shut, tripping forwards and sticking to the wall with her hands. Twisting around, she narrowly dodges an attack from an unseen zombie-nin, pushing herself up as it too latches to the side of the wall and runs after her, swinging a sword at her head. It catches her cheek as she steps back, foot stomping on the ground and cracking the wall as she retreats, the zombie-nin losing his footing for a moment mid-lunge, tumbling forwards and into the path of a swift roundhouse kick that beheads it in a single strike. It poofs away-

"Substitution?!"

-And a the sword comes swinging for her back

"MAKOTO!"

She whirls around, the overhead slash shearing off a lock of white hair as she brings her own counterstrike down, severing it's arm with the side of her hand. The wall creaks under her, and she feels panic rising for a moment, finishing off the zombie with a heavy two handed blow over the head that pulps it to little more than gray paste.

She rushes up onto the rooftops with Yuri, panting and trying to catch her breath as well.

"There really is no end to them..."

TWC: 1225

Under the Moonlight [Makoto]

Under the Moonlight [Makoto]

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