.:Aboard the Ark:.
"Orochi can only be defeated with the power of the Chosen One."
With those simple words, Waka destroys every chance of his redemption. Many would say that it isn't his fault, Amaterasu leaving or what happened after, but that of his heritage. His blood. It was a trait of the Moon Tribe, clairvoyance. He couldn't resist his legacy.
But if only he had learned earlier to keep control over his words, as his teachers often admonished him; it was and is his only imperfection regarding his visions. What use could these be if he couldn't choose who to give these messages to? Anyone in ear-shot could listen in on as he woke from his stupor.
He pauses to look at the faint purple glow emanating from where Orochi and Amaterasu disappeared.
But it pulses in a sick and twisted way, and he knows it belongs to a demon. So he launches himself into battle-frenzy, cleaving demons with Pillow Talk, his beam-sword, and his gold-detailed katana. He manages to make it to the large group of Celestials cornered by fierce-looking dragon-headed snakes and a large range of imps.
Waka shouts over the screams and battle-cries of the Celestials. "Attention!" When he does get their attention, he starts to panic. What is he to do? When he was young, facing the slaughter of his race, he took the Ark—"Go to the Ark of Yamato! Please!"
Many Celestials, dozens upon dozens, rush to what, to them, is their safety. A group of stragglers continue to fight, and Waka recognizes every Chief present in them. Kasha, Chief of Kabegami's Domain, sees him, too, but only shakes her head grimly before being forced back into the struggle, shifting into her Animal, a tawny feline with large ears and a short tail like a rabbit.
Waka knows they won't follow.
He runs after the retreating figures of the fleeing Celestials, somehow not relieved to see them disappear into the glowing, rune-riddled hull of the Ark.
He is relieved, at least, that these runes keep out demons.
The Ark is filled with panicked Celestials, most hurt and bleeding and requiring immediate care. Waka marvels at their bravery and strength; he surely couldn't make it this far with some of the injuries he sees—missing limbs, cuts of flesh nearly renting some from hip to throat, some nearly eviscerated, bleeding from severe concussions, missing eyes. The terrible list goes on.
How could one survive these injuries and still walk to the Ark?
Waka selects a young male Celestial who is lucid enough and tells to him to head up to the cockpit of the Ark and pull a lever to power the barque. Waka knows that is all that is needed for the Ark to work; he can think of a place and be taken there, since he is one of the Moon Tribe.
Meanwhile, Waka does what he can to help: lending a hand here and there, and, too often, helping a too wounded Celestial to a comfortable enough position to perish.
Waka pauses only once or twice when a few Celestials ask if he's okay; the bloodied clothing he wears worries them. Truly, though, he is more or less unharmed, a parting gift of Amaterasu. The blood he is covered in is that of demons and Celestials.
An hour or so after departure, after it is too late to land quickly, the screaming begins.
It begins to his left, towards the furthest side of the large room they are in. When Waka manages to get to the screaming, demons are clambering up and over the lip of the raised platforms they stand on. A half-woman half-spider beast swallows a helpless Celestial before grinning at him with bloodied mandibles. Her stringy black hair hides her blindness.
Waka draws Pillow Talk as panic takes over the crowd.
The monsters pick off outer layers from the crowd of Celestials, mainly injured ones, some healthy as they try to cling to their loved ones. Waka manages to land a hit on a large kitsune, ripping out its right eye. It screams as it falls, earning scars from its own companions' teeth and claws. Its single tail, a russet-red like the rest of its battered pelt, streaks red ink on the metal of the Ark as it writhes.
Mechanical clicking, like that of a giant clock, sets Waka's teeth on edge. As if needed another reminder that time is running out. A sword, not wielded by any warrior, produces sickly green smoke as it swings at Celestials. Those grazed by the sword, a katana with a blood-rusted blade, instantly crumple to the ground, retching and feverish.
Waka continues to fight, killing many demons, which fight with clumsy hits and poor accuracy. He's glad he doesn't face Crow Tengu, or even, Amaterasu forbid, demons that mock the True Tengu of the Lunar Ruins.
Waka's gut twists when he realizes that the situation is useless. The battle is over before it ever truly begins. Celestials fall quickly, screams cut off by the silencing jaws of their killers. Hordes of demons rush at the wounded, and Waka can't help but think that this is overkill.
His katana bites into the hide of a large bull-like creature. It swings blindly at him with giant clubs before removing its stone mask and breathing fire, lighting a few of its brethren.
Then the world begins to tilt.
At first, Waka thinks it is another of his visions, and, already exhausted from his first that day and the battle at hand, panics as the floor continues to list. It seems right, just, really, that he will perish at the mercy of his ability that sent Amaterasu to her death as she tumbled down like a fallen angel.
But his vision does not blacken nor fade out into spectacular colors.
Instead, the hair on the back of Waka's neck stands on end at the sound of metal rolling on metal. The floor is awash with burning demon blood, black and thick, and littered with the corpses of the dead. No luminous blood or Celestial bodies remain; they are eaten as soon as their executioners fasten their teeth into the flesh of their victims.
But the rolling sound comes closer and closer, belonging to a pulsing metal sphere. Evil emanates from its contours, crushing some demons beneath its weight. Rune designs designate its body is the making of the Moon Tribe.
Later in life, Waka will have time to realize what—who—resides within this sphere, but the floor tilts again, and demons and Moon Tribesman alike are sent off their feet. Metal squeals as it rips and shatters, icy wind breaks into the hull, and the room fills with the satisfied, almost robotic cackles of Yami as the world goes black.
What wakes Waka is the silence. When he opens his eyes, his face is pressed up against a cool, smooth surface. Cold bites at his bones. Having grown used to the nearly tropical heat of the Celestial Plain, Waka finds himself shaking.
He can't breathe. The metal—because that is what he assumes it is—presses against his chest, impeding his lungs, only adding to the painful effects of several cracked ribs. When Waka tries to heave the metal from his body, his arms collapse under the strain and his palms cannot find purchase on the blood streaked surface. He tries again, succeeding in moving it enough for Waka to see weak light bleeding into the Ark. Somehow, it only makes his heart ache more.
After a few more heaves, the metal is off. Waka lays there, beaten and shivering, and he wonders why nothing is attacking him while in such a sorry state. Relief, however brief, washes over him when his hands find the hilts of his beloved swords.
But it is silence again to wake him from his peaceful stupor.
Not one Celestial, not one demon, not one being, is in the Ark. Silence screams against the walls of the empty room.
It takes Waka a few seconds to understand, because, surely, there would be bodies and corpses of the dead on the ground if he is the only survivor of this deadly ride, wouldn't there? But when he looks at the rip in the hull, with weak, watery light leaking in, he knows. He can hear the distant yells of those unprepared for the arrival of the demons.
Waka has killed the entire Celestial race, and has endangered the lives of so many mortals.
Mechanical screeches and clicks resound from the center platform, which glows with the green light of a teleportation pad. That pad, specifically, leads to the largest room in the Ark. A rolling sound rocks the Ark.
The Ark tilts again, and Waka scrabbles along the floor until he can stand.
Gravity, after a moment, slams him into the wall, and Waka realizes the Ark is rolling. No, he thinks as the floor jerks under his feet and the room fills with metal screeching, it's sliding.
With that panicked thought, he rushes for the ramp, tripping from the sudden jerks the Ark gives or from the sheer weakness of his legs. The door-ramp is open, gaping at his feet, and when Waka starts slipping towards the edge, his fingers scramble to find purchase on the smooth metal and don't find any.
Soon he's flung off the lip of the ramp, flailing through the biting cold, and landing painfully in the thigh-deep snow. Groaning, he tries to sit up and is relieved to find his katana in its sheathe and Pillow Talk, dormant as a flute, in the snow beside him. Then a massive ear-splitting shattering fills the path he's fallen on.
Morbidly fascinated, Waka watches as the Ark of Yamato, the ark of demons, slides into the lake that ice it shattered.
Tempest Bound: Left over stuff. Wrote it quickly and without much thought, though it expands on what happened the night of the attack on the Celestial Plain.