So I'm editing this so that it will be much nicer and cleaner and not obviously written in a week for Nanowrimo. I will be leaving the original up, and I feel that most of it is solid enough to not need to be changed that much, but there will be differences. Feel free to point out things that are weird or inconsistent, it would be wonderful if you did!
At The Oceanside Hotel
Originally when Hinoto-hime had said that there were three Dragons of Earth preparing to take a flight to the sunny California coast, Kamui had thought that they were attempting to find a different way to break the spirit shields without being interrupted by them.
Now, standing in the doorway to the hotel that they had carefully tracked Fuuma and his companions to, he was quite certain that they had simply lost their mind.
For one thing, they had waded through the sewers, where there were rats twice the size they should be and a distinct smell of uncleanliness. The only good thing about that was watching Sorata attempt to talk Arashi into letting him carry her above the muck, and her actually seriously weighing the options between getting in the gunk and allowing herself to be carted around.
Then, when they had finally gotten past that messy obstacle, they had ended up in a construction lot, with NO TRESPASSING signs all around and a crane in the rain.
Fuuma and his duo, the bioroid that had been there when Fuuma forcibly removed Subaru's eye in a great pulpy mess, and the bespectacled girl that had attacked and killed Inuki with her cables, went into one of the two standing buildings in the lot, a small shed that they had spent almost no time in before reemerging with what may have been a key, but was too small in the dark to make out, and had gone to the other building.
This ruined hotel.
And ruined was the only word for it. Although the bottom floor of the three stories appeared to be pretty stable, it had marks of fire all over it, the second floor was in worse shape, with many struts and fresh boards of wood laid over the more prominent parts of the damage, and the third was a skeleton of a floor with maybe two or three rooms still standing in the front.
The sign on the front between the first and second floors blinked ominously. O E NSI E OT L; the more legible of the letters spelled out.
"Looks like a really nasty piece of work." Sorata observed sagely. "Why do you think that there are three Angels coming here for a ruined building?"
"Maybe there's a really powerful artifact hidden in the wreckage or something?" Yuzuriha answered apprehensively, holding her reborn Inuki off of the ground protectively. "That would be a reason, right?"
"Maybe." Arashi added calmly.
Fuuma and his followers walked up to the door, and Kamui saw his Twin Star raise a hand to protect his eyes as one of the lights by the door suddenly flashed bright and exploded into hot glass shards.
Fuuma shook off the glass with no effort, and opened the door after a moment of messing with it, and they vanished inside in a group of calculation on the part of the smallest girl and Fuuma, and confusion on the part of Nataku.
The doors slammed shut hard, and lights flashed on within the building before flickering out again.
The rain came down harder on their heads as they stood there, staring. "Do we go in or not?" Sorata asked, looking slightly nervous. Which said something about how weird the situation appeared to be, since usually he wasn't that uncertain.
"If they are trying to get something that can change the outcome of the battle, we should get there first." Arashi muttered darkly, staring at the broken light. "I don't think they'll be the only obstacle though."
Yuzuriha swallowed hard, but gritted her teeth wolfishly. "We should go in."
Sorata patted her shoulder comfortingly, then looked at Kamui, who hadn't added anything more to the discussion. "What do you think we should do Kamui?"
Kamui imagined something in there, something with enough power to make the battle significantly more one-sided, and what would happen if Fuuma got there first and got it in his hands. "We go in."
They walked up, a soaked quartet of apprehensive teenagers, towards the door.
When they got there, the glass on the sidewalk jumped up to cut at their legs, and they promptly leaped- in four different directions.
Sorata managed to trip and hit the door back first, stumbling in suddenly. Arashi sprang up gracefully, landing on the wooden supports of the third floor, before the whole of the third floor suddenly reappeared in something close to its former glory, blocking her from view. Yuzuriha landed on the sill of one of the few glassless windows of the second floor, and then appeared to be pulled in. Kamui alone jumped back away from the house, and was not caught by its sudden suction attack.
Or so he thought, until the dirt at his feet began to slide away, and he was caught up in the sudden slide of mud that dumped him into the basement.
As soon as he rolled to his feet, significantly muddier than before, the walls sealed back up and the mud vanished from the floor to refill the hole.
Then the lights went out.
Kamui swore violently as he was left in the dark, covered in mud and quite alone.
Sorata had been pulled through the door, there was no question. He had no sooner gotten clear of the doors than they slammed shut and locked with a solid venomous click.
"Hey, you! Watch out!" The cry came from behind, and Sorata turned just in time to dodge a vase that was hurtled from the sitting table within.
Two boys, probably his age, stood on the stairs, one of them in an obvious state of panic, the other looking completely unruffled, even with the two puffballs that looked like pork buns with appendages bouncing about on his shoulders with glee. It was the flustered teenager that had called to him. "You have to be careful in here!" he added, shouting to be heard over the slamming of doors and the ringing of a clock that counted eight times. "Otherwise you'll get blasted by a vase or a painting or something else not nailed down- like that." He ducked as a painting flew straight at his head- before improbably reversing direction and tumbling to the floor to the cheering of the two puffballs. "Why don't you come over here?"
Sorata grinned. "I think I will do that!" he called back, before focusing on the lightning that lurked beneath his skin, feeling it prickle up and down every inch until the air around him gained a faint purple-blue glow around him from the controlled wildness.
When he took a step away from the doors, the painting that had originally tried to hit the boys flew straight at him, only to slam into his lightning barrier and miss shattering on his face.
Sorata made it, slowly to the first two stairs where the teens stood, and released the pent up energy with a groan, all the few lights that remained on flickering suspiciously bright with the same glow as his lightning. "Nice to meet you two, I'm Arisugawa Sorata." he gasped as he braced himself on the banister. Creating lightning was one thing, holding onto something that was meant to strike and vanish was a whole other.
The puffballs squeaked with indignation and hopped onto his shoulder. "Mokona count too!" they cried shrilly, one on each side.
Sorata grinned, still wincing from the noise. "Sorry, nice to meet the four of you. Better?" he asked the 'Mokona'.
They both cheered again, before leaping for the boy who was visibly nerve-wracked again. "Watanuki should stop staring and introduce himself!" the black one said, hopping onto his head.
"Watanuki needs to remember his manners!" the white one cried as it bypassed 'Watanuki' and went straight for the other one.
"Manners, manners, manners, manners!" the two of them chanted, dancing about. "Watanuki forgot his manners!"
"Yes he did." the other boy added, his voice giving weight to the truth that there were people who spoke less than Arashi at times, his voice quiet and very controlled.
The blue-eyed boy reached up a hand and caught the black thing. "Stop dancing on my head!" he yelled at it. "I don't know why Yuuko-san sent you both along when she could have just sent me. Hello," he said, turning to actually face Sorata instead of flipping out. "I'm Watanuki Kimihiro, and these annoyances making too much noise are Mokona and Mokona. And the-
Another painting flew from the shadows of the walls again, again doing its strange rotation and flying back away from them to land on the floor with a clatter, the silent boy staring at it with a hint of danger in his flat gaze.
That time, Sorata was pretty sure he'd seen a flicker of ghostly fingers on the edge.
The black puffball made another sound of indignation, but this was targeted at Watanuki. "We are making sure that Doumeki has enough help stopping all the paintings from removing your brains from your head. It's a hard job."
Watanuki's calm demeanor disappeared again. "ALL YOU TWO ARE DOING IS BOUNCING AROUND BEING NUISANCES! THAT DOESN'T COUNT AS HELPING!" he shrieked at the Mokona clenched in his fist, and Sorata saw too late that the other boy had plugged his ears before that sound rang through.
He certainly couldn't blame him. Watanuki could get louder than the suddenly silent room.
Apparently whatever was hounding them could be scared away by a loud enough sound.
The boy with golden eyes removed his fingers from his ears. "You shouldn't scream so loud," he rebuked the other. "You'll scare the ghosts."
Watanuki glanced around the room, expression slowly returning to a fragile calm. "Well at least I did better than you." he said with a scathing edge. "Why were we standing on the stairs not going anywhere, like out?"
"Because I lost my bow stopping you from getting hit in the head by a painting. Why else?" the boy deadpanned. "And if you haven't noticed, we can't exactly finish going up the stairs."
"I can see that. Who's the one with the second sight here?" Watanuki hissed, reminding Sorata very much of a wet cat. "And I can take care of myself, I don't need your help, Doumeki."
"Why can't we go up the stairs any further?" Sorata interjected when it looked like they were about to have the world's strangest cat fight where only one of the parties involved was even on the attack. "Is there something up there?"
Watanuki stopped hissing through his nose, and looked at Sorata with a moment's confusion. "Oh, you can't actually see them, can you? There's a lot of ghost fire on about a five-stair block right where it drops to the basement. If we step on it, we'll fall. It'll hurt."
The black puffball nodded sagely from its sanctuary on the cobwebby banister. "Watanuki almost stepped on it before he saw. Watanuki doesn't pay attention to what's in front of his face."
The white one standing safely on Doumeki's shoulder snickered. "Watanuki is too busy yelling to be smart."
For once, Watanuki saw that the two of them were trying to rile him up, and although he huffed in annoyance, he managed to not burst into screams.
Sorata and his ears silently thanked him. "And your bow is up there?" he asked, targeting the question to the boy who stared intently at a shivering vase until it stopped rattling and remained on its end table, looking deceptively innocent.
"Yes. Every time I try to grab it by myself, the poltergeist chucks something at his-" he glanced at Watanuki, "-head. If we both go, it pulls it out of reach. If one of the Mokonas go, we have to catch them. We're sort of at a standstill." he finished with a hint of explaining the obvious.
Actually, it was the only thing in his tone really. Sorata would have been more amused if it weren't for the suddenly rattling chandelier, struggling against its base in their direction. "Hey guys..." he said, watching as the purple traces of ghost fire yanked at the metal bolts, pulling harder and harder. "Do you think you can block that when it gets momentum, or should we find a different place to hide?"
Doumeki's face showed a brief flash of emotion, of fear, and he stared hard at it. "Not without my bow. We should find a different space"
Watanuki grabbed up the black ball that was trying to hide behind him now, and his friend's arm with his other hand. "Then let's move."
Sorata agreed, and they all sprinted off the stairs towards one of the hallways as the chandelier detached from the ceiling with a metallic shriek and smashed through the ornate wood where they had been standing.
Arashi had drawn her sword the instant that the missing top of the hotel appeared, and had been just in time to prevent the photo frames that had been thrown at her face, slicing through them so that they fell to much smaller pieces on the floor.
The whole thing reeked of ghost activity, and not the nice kind. More like the kind that would sooner dump a chandelier on your head than stop to explain why they were unhappy.
She glanced around the room to ascertain the space. Most of it shimmered awkwardly, barely more than a ghost itself, but there were things that were solid, like the burned husk of a bed that was bolted to a wall, the frames at her feet, most of the floor.
And lots of ghost fire, purple and vicious creeping over everything. She pointed her sword at the biggest collection, and it spread apart, whooshing around to behind her, and over her.
The air felt hot, like she was standing in a furnace. As the fire collected over the remains of the bedstead, she hastily moved away from it, grateful that the floor supports were still strong enough to support her weight, and then the fire exploded into a violent violet tangle of agonizing heat and raw emotions.
The floor under her feet began to smell of burning wood, and she realized that it was the hotel itself, remembering the fire. She again leaped back, and smacked into a ruined wall, a momentary flare of pain throbbing in her shoulder where it had contacted hard.
The violet fire oozed off of the bed, growing in intensity as she attempted to back away from it, following her.
"This way..." a voice, faint, like it was filtered through a thousand veils, called to her, and a piece of the wall of the bedroom crumbled away till she could see the hallway. "Hurry..."
Arashi glared at the fire, and trusted in that voice for lack of other options, bolting into the hall as her position was consumed by the fire.
"Don't stop...find the girl..." the voice instructed, soft blue fire like that of a dream cooling the floor as the more violent purple followed her, flaring up in her footsteps as she ran, the heat a constant hunger at her heels.
When she rounded the corner, she ran smack into another person. Looking up, she saw one of the Dragons of Earth, the bioroid, standing there with its ribbon-cloth held out, weaving against a stream of fire that seemed to be playing with it.
Blue fire raced over a doorway at the end of the hallway, and Arashi heard the voice again. "Bring the child...quickly..."
She glanced around for a child, and saw none. Only the Angel fighting against an opponent it had no idea how to fight, or method to fight it with.
And yet, it was still fighting, using the only thing it had. Like a trapped child with only toys.
Maybe the ghost could only sense energy, and not form? It would make sense in a twisted way.
"Hurry...!" the voice was a scream, and the fire was a distant roar now, consuming the top the same way it had before.
"Come with me!" She yelled at the bioroid who was holding onto the tattered cloth with a scared expression on its face. "Come if you don't want to die!"
It looked at her, and followed without complaint, or even a word, clutching the cloth gently.
Arashi shoved the door that was mysteriously cool compared to the rest of the building, and they were stumbling in as the hallway burst into angry violet flames, furious at being deprived of a new life to take.
The door shut hard, and blue fire ran over the room like a cool stream, bringing the ruins back to their original glory.
"Well you've got us in here, now how do we get out, Rikuo?!" an indignant voice called from the corners.
Arashi and the Dragon of Earth turned at the same time to look at the new speaker, both brandishing weapons again.
Apparently it was a day for an alliance between a Seal and an Angel against less distinctive foes, Arashi would take whoever she could get as an ally in this cursed place.
Yuzuriha had landed in a hallway with exploding light bulbs where the glass flew back to its original places just to try and cover her in sharp glass again.
Inuki yipped at her to move when the window behind her broke in much the same way, and she skittered to a blanker part of the wall, between two lights that shone with an eerie purple glow in between breaking.
"Get out...bitch...!" a cold voice, sounding many years away, and furious enough to kill, hissed at her from the wall. "This place...is mine...MINE!"
The wall groaned and buckled, the sharp sounds of an ax smashing into the wall echoing through the room.
Inuki leaped from her arms, running down a hallway with fewer lights to shatter across her back, barking frantically for her to follow him.
Yuzuriha saw the corner of a bloody ax, strangely solid for a ghost, break through the wall, and heard the insane laughter of the man involved before she bolted, unable to fight back against an opponent like the one behind her.
Inuki stopped in a dark part of the hallway, and growled low in his throat, fear making the hair on his back stand on end till he looked twice his size. He barked twice at her, and she darted into the darkness as well, just as the last light-bulb at the end of the hall exploded again, for good.
"My place...bitch...your pup...does no good...bitch..." the voice hissed, a cackle in the air.
And then she saw him, a man covered in blood up his arms, holding an ax with a lot of blood, and pieces of flesh clinging to the blade. She could see the window at the end of the hall through him, but he approached her with real sound, giggling madly all the while.
"Game over...bitch...just like that...slut...my wife...I'LL MAKE YOU BLEED LIKE HER!" the voice finished in a scream, and she ran from the ax that split the floor where she had been standing.
Yuzuriha ran around one bend, and another, Inuki following on her heels, and the madman right behind him, until she ended up at a dead end.
"All mine...bitch..." the voice crooned, soft enough to be a lullaby.
Inuki stood in front of her, barking up a storm at the man, before he leaped into her hands as a sword.
She caught the blow on the edge of the blade, but her arms wavered under the tremendous strength of the ghost. She blocked a second swing, and dodged a third that left the ax buried in the wall. But the fourth blow clipped her sword arm, and she cried out as the blade bit into her skin, leaving blood dripping out heavily. Inuki fell from her hands as the pain ran down and forced her fingers open.
He grinned, some grotesque twist of lust and hatred curling his lips, and he raised the ax again. Inuki charged at him, and yet only passed through his legs.
Yuzuriha saw the brutal futility of fighting a ghost, you couldn't strike back to kill them, they were already dead. What could you even do if you couldn't reach over the plains to hurt that which didn't live?
She clutched at the throbbing pain of her arm, prepared to run through him, to any freedom that there might be past him.
"Sword!"
The cry came from behind the ghost, and a glowing blade cut through him, and his grin twisted to a look of shock as he dissolved into purple fire, the ax clattering to the ground heavily.
Yuzuriha looked up at her unexpected savior, and saw two girls standing there, one of them holding the sword that flickered back into a card and a staff as she said something too quietly for her to hear, and in a very unusual dress, pink with an enormous ribbon at the back, the tails on the floor, but with the skirt only long in the back, allowing her strong legs clad in a deeper pink to move freely. The other girl stood a ways behind, holding a video camera to her eyes.
"Thank you," she said to both of them, holding onto her arm where it refused to stop bleeding.
There was a sound of shattering windows, and the girl who saved her, previously looking so brave, promptly squeaked and hid her face. "Please...no more ghosts." she whimpered.
The other girl immediately lowered her camera and went to wrap an arm around her shoulder, at the same time that a floating stuffed toy rose from the girl's hair to go over to the shaking girl in pink. "Sakura-chan..." it said awkwardly, with an Osakan accent that strongly reminded her of Sorata. "Let's find the brat and his hanger on so we can get out of here, okay?"
"You're doing great Sakura-chan," the girl with the camera said, "You brought him down like he was nothing!"
"I know." the girl, presumably Sakura, whimpered. "But I've already done that twice and it's really scary when he does something like-"
The window at the end of the hall broke and his laughter rang through the walls. "That!" she finished, burying her face in the other girl's shoulder. "I don't want to be in here anymore Tomoyo-chan!"
Yuzuriha shuddered in agreement. "Umm, thank you both for saving me. I'm Nekoi Yuzuriha," she introduced herself, trying to cheer up as Inuki stood on his hind legs to try and get up to her injury. "Have you seen anyone else alive in here?" she asked both of them, trying not to think of the alternative if her friends hadn't been prepared for something like what she'd just seen.
Even though they were all powerful, they were not immune to death.
The girl with a camera and long dark hair smiled at her over her friend's hair. "I'm Daidouji Tomoyo, nice to meet you. Oh!" she appeared to actually notice her cut. "Sakura-chan, I need to get into my bag, I have bandages in there."
The girl let go of Tomoyo reluctantly, shivering when another cackle rent the air. "Hi, I'm Kinomoto Sakura and I'm not quite sure why we ended up in here." The window pieces lifted themselves from the ground to slot into the frame seamlessly, and she squeaked. "He's so angry!"
The other girl finished removing a roll of white fabric that Yuzuriha recognized as being a very fine gauze. "It's not exactly regular bandages, but it should work."
Inuki yipped in uncertainty as Tomoyo walked forwards with the fabric, but ultimately just sat at her feet, teeth bared at the floor.
Sakura slid the card that she had been holding into a small case on her waist and took out another one. "Are you sure you want that one Sakura-chan?" the stuffed animal asked with concern in its voice. "It's only for defending."
The girl nodded with a shaky certainty, cringing when the window broke again. "Shield will keep anything more from happening to us. And he can't get through it when I need it to be strong."
Tomoyo tied off the fabric in a deft knot. "Would you like to come with us Nekoi-san? I'm not sure it's safe to be alone in this building." She put the remainder of the fabric back into her bag, and the quick glance Yuzuriha got showed that she was decently prepared for anything they might encounter. Which was more than could be said for her and the other Seals.
"You can call me Yuzuriha-chan, if you'd like," she said, picking up Inuki. Tomoyo's eyes slid over him, but Sakura and the stuffed animal appeared to see him just fine. "And I think I would like to come with you. I lost my friends in here, and I want to find them so we can go home."
Sakura took the pretty staff with a star on the end that she hadn't released, and held up the card in the other hand. "Welcome to our little group then Yuzuriha-san." she said with a smile as the animal alighted on her shoulder. "This is Kero-chan right here," she gestured to the suddenly scowling plushie.
"It's Cerberus." he corrected with a frown. "Is it really that hard to say?"
His question remained unanswered by the girl who's eyebrows had pulled down in concentration. She spun the staff in her hands, and the air lit up pink, with magic, Yuzuriha realized. "Sakura card, hear my plea, lend your powers to my key! Shield!" she cried, holding the staff with a rapidly spinning star within. "Release!"
The card flashed, and grew into a transparent bubble, stretching around the three of them with room to spare. As it closed off, the sound of the ghost vanished, and the window put itself back together with a very fed-up vibe to it.
"Wow." Yuzuriha breathed, touching the edges of it and feeling that it was solid and gentle.
Tomoyo had her camera up and recording again as they walked. "So now that we've met Yuzuriha-chan, and Sakura-chan has defeated our resident mean spirit for the third time, we continue on our mission to find Li-kun and Yamazaki-kun who have vanished within here after they got a case of hotheadedness."
"You mean that the brat tried to charge in here to look dashing and then didn't come back out." Kero muttered darkly.
"Oh, be nice, Kero! He is not a brat!" Sakura reprimanded him with a very annoyed scowl on her face as they turned into a lit hallway with lamps that were much nicer when not raining glass on them.
Yuzuriha smiled and whispered to Inuki, "I think we've found some good people here."
Inuki barked in agreement.