Merripit House: The Dark Daiyokai
Character Death
Night fell swiftly on the battlefield, possibly helped along by gods looking to send Sesshomaru assistance. Sesshomaru did not tell any one of those generous night gods that Daiichi had lived in pitch blackness for many a century and would find this no significant hinderance to his efforts. Still, his army took advantage of the inky sky to advance their lines and cut down Daiichi's forces while their eyesight wasn't the best.
But on the outskirts of the battle, Liu and Rosario prepared for a different attack. Dressed all in black with the various tools of her trade strapped to her body, Rosario slid a knife into her boot before throwing her mostly-black hair into a ponytail. "I thought you had a ride for us," she snapped.
"Don't worry. He's almost here." Liu was dressed similarly, though he carried a bit less with him. Testing one of his wrist-mounted toys, he made sure it could show him a map of the fortress without giving off too much light, if at all. He had a pair of compact night-vision goggles set atop his curly hair and a small backpack filled with the various tools of his particular trade. "Our ride doesn't exactly have a phone."
A chilling laugh blew through the trees, and a pair of golden eyes glowed just yards ahead of them in the forest. "Magpie Girl, you seem unhappy."
Rosario's back stiffened. Gripping her sword tightly, she narrowed her eyes. "Coyote?"
Twisting and melting from the shadows between the sky and brush, the tricky beast soon appeared before the pair with an ineffable grin. "In the flesh and fur." Darting up to her, he gave her a dog's kiss all over her face, which she did not appreciate. "You taste like salt and gods' blood, Magpie Girl."
Wiping his slobber off with her sleeve, she tied a black silk cloth over her face. "Are you giving us a ride or not?"
"Testy tonight, aren't you."
Liu leaned over to murmur in his ear, "Now is not the time to be pissing her off. Trust me."
Rolling his eyes, Coyote's fur bristled and hummed as he grew large enough for both of them to climb aboard. With a final check over their weapons and tools, making sure they weren't leaving too much behind, Rosario hopped onto his back with a huff. She grabbed his fur a little harder than she needed to. "None of your usual antics, alright?"
"But Magpie Girl, that's why I'm here!" he chirped happily.
Pulling his night vision goggles into place, Liu got on behind Rosario, choosing to grasp her about the waist rather than Coyote's fur. She rolled her eyes at his choice but allowed it nonetheless. If they fell, she figured she could use him to cushion her landing.
As soon as Coyote felt confident that they were holding on tightly, he launched himself into the air toward Daiichi's fortress. Weaving behind wispy clouds and moonbeams, he flew practically invisible to every mythical creature and human eye down below. He darted left and right so hard that his riders nearly found themselves whipped off his back. But since every one of his tricky moves kept them from detection from any one of Daiichi's undead crows patrolling the skies, they didn't argue with his tactics. All they needed to do was hold on and not scream.
Which Liu would like to inform everyone was not an easy task.
Surging high, dipping low, racing across low-hanging clouds and scattering the wisps all over the night sky, Coyote seemed to stretch as long as a Chinese dragon and slip between the watchful eyes hanging above the fortress with the grace of a river and the agility of a kitsune. And not once did Liu or Rosario wonder if he was going to get them caught.
Landing as smoothly as a shadow, Coyote daintily set foot on an outlying parapet without a guard watching it. With no time to waste on catching their breaths or orienting themselves to their abrupt new location, Liu and Rosario immediately slipped off and ducked below a short wall.
"Will you be keeping watch?" she asked in barely a whisper.
Coyote's grin widened as bright and curved as the moon should have been tonight. "Probably not." And in the blink of an eye, his laughter became the night wind and his smile a constellation of starlight.
"Well that's just … that's just great," she remarked.
Liu shrugged. "He's Deus Ex Machina Airlines. Kind of have to take what you can get."
"I want a refund."
From the few cameras Liu had installed the previous days, coupled with the toys he had brought with him, he moved silently and stealthily through the tangled fortress, almost like a cat weavin through a maze. For someone of his stature, he certainly seemed to melt into the shadows and become as one with the wall. Before her very eyes — or not — Rosario could see exactly why Jenny had hired the thief in the first place.
Her own steps struggled to keep up or stay near as quiet. Rosario didn't entirely remember why she'd taken so much hardware along on this trip, or when she actually picked it all up, but now she had to make sure to keep it from making any decibel of noise at all. Couldn't afford to drop a bullet or let a sword brush against a stone wall.
Monsters lurked around every corner. Every last one. Or so Liu noted and Rosario trusted. She could smell their blood and taste their stench on her tongue. But Liu was the one who could actually see them, predict where they would patrol next, even see through the walls with his collection of high-tech devices. As badly as Rosario wanted to dismember each one of them, she kept her sword close and redoubled her efforts to remain silent. After all, if Daiichi looked through the eyes of any one of his undead servants and found the pair of humans sneaking through his fortress, he might not be pleased with such an intrusion. She knew her role was secondary to Liu's talents and hers would only be put into use as a last resort.
In one darkened — the dark daiyokai had apparently not learned about lightbulbs or electricity or candles — hallway, Liu abruptly stopped in his tracks. Holding up a hand, he signaled for Rosario to do the same. A split second later, only six inches away, or perhaps a couple of feet or more, a grizzled ogre-like creature covered in graveyard soil and spiderwebs turned the corner with a dying torch in his hands. The light of this flame was barely enough to light a match, but it was enough to pierce the darkness and fill the hallway with dancing shadows.
Liu and Rosario pressed themselves flat against the wall, disappearing into a depression in the stone, and held their breaths as the ogre patrolled the area. For a gleaming moment of hope, it seemed that he would simply go on his undead way, not having seen a thing.
But then, he paused. He sniffed the air once. Then twice. Each microscopic droplet of sweat and fear and that floated through the air seemed to scream for his attention. He breathed in deeper, more than likely catching the hints of Sesshomaru's scent that must have clung to their bodies even after changing clothes completely. Rosario mentally cursed herself for forgetting to at least attempt a shower. Her enemies had never had such sharp senses before and it was growing increasingly difficult to counter each one.
She tightened her grip on her sword with such a slight motion that it seemed like an old, dead leaf clinging to some cobwebs on the wall had moved when the ogre stirred the air by walking down the hall. But Liu twitched his head so imperceptibly slightly that it was like a stone in the wall had settled down just a bit.
The ogre turned, almost looking straight at Liu's head all wrapped in black cloth. He blinked once or twice. And then turned aside, nearly grazing the tip of his ax against the thief's stomach as he did so. Liu certainly would have been gutted had he not sucked in his stomach at the very last instant.
Just as their burning lungs were set to burst, the decaying ogre seemed to shrug internally and continue on his way down the hall. They gave him a few moments to get well down the hallway before they inhaled enough air to decrease the oxygen level in the hallway by 90 percent.
For the next several moments, Liu's steps had a fantastic sense of urgency about them as he led them down the hallway. At the same time, he seemed just a bit giddy. Hysterical, almost. Like the thrill of coming so damn close to dying that he could smell Theda's breath and then not left him with the most fantastic high one could imagine. Rosario's limbs tingled both from stiffness and a need to run and fight and get rid of all danger now. It had taken everything in her power to not rip the ogre apart moments ago, and now she could barely keep up with Liu. There was certainly a reason that she generally left the sneaky stuff to him.
The sounds of battle outside grew dimmer and fainter the further they traversed this fortress. Screams became muffled by stone. Clanging of sword and claw against shield and armor became little more than a dull beat that could have been mistaken for an errant robin's heartbeat. Roars and battle cries and horrific howls became whispers on the night wind. Heard by human ears, and soon forgotten until they were nothing more than imperfections in silence.
Darkness soon swallowed them up to the point of pure oblivion. Rosario could feel her pupils straining to stretch painfully wide, all in vain. Liu had the benefit of the night vision goggles, which meant that the only way she could follow was to grasp his shoulder and hold on tightly.
But not too tightly because Liu did enjoy not having a broken shoulder.
Just as it seemed that they'd been permanently deafened and blinded, a faint light seemed to appear at the end of a narrow passageway. And a new sound broke through the still. One that chilled their bones. For a few moments, they froze in place as they listened to something like the screeching of a dying cat. And just as they focused their senses, it soon faded away.
"Come on," Liu said, his voice scarcely making a sound Rosario could even hear.
"What is it?" she asked, reaching for a gun holstered at her hip.
He paused before he answered. "Trouble."
With footfalls as silent as cat paws, Liu pressed forward until the light came fully into focus. It was a single yellow-orange sliver that danced about like firelight, peeking through the crack in a heavy, wooden door. Producing one of the tools strapped to his person, Liu took a small camera and slipped it through the keyhole to covertly scan the room.
The two of them huddled over a phone screen so dim, it barely had moving shapes on it. But so long as they could see a rough outline of the scene behind the door, they didn't care much for the photo quality.
A tall, gaunt figure draped with black silks stood over a heap on the ground. Given a few moments to sway and breathe, she soon fleshed out to something more conventionally feminine. Even with potato quality picture, the smile on her face shone through. It was smug, exhausted and victorious. And the object of which she gained this victory was a heap on the floor at her feet.
It had blonde hair. And form fitting black armor. Rosario thought she saw some dark red stains. This heap did not move. At all. It only took her a few moments to figure out why. "It's…"
"Boss lady," Liu said for her.
"Sesshomaru said to get her out alive." Even in the faint light, her face went visibly pale as she turned away from the screen. "She's not supposed to die."
"It's not quite that simple." He adjusted the screen so she could watch it once more.
It took a few minutes, but Theda soon took a deep breath and decided to do something other than gloat. After poking her with a toe to kick the corpse over onto her back, she got to her knees and held an outstretched hand over her body. Then she began to struggle and wince. For several minutes, it didn't look like she did much of anything besides strain against some invisible force that nearly crushed her. And then…
With a gasp they heard through the door, Jenny's back arches sharply. Air filled her lungs and blood surged through her limbs. She coughed for a moment before pathetic sobs filled the room. Theda collapsed to the floor, gaunt and frail once more. In a desperate bid to escape, Jenny dug her fingers into the ground and dragged herself any number of blessed inches away from her murderer.
"Where are you going, detective?" Theda said, sparing her thin breath for a laugh. "You already had a bathroom break."
Something cold and calculating lit up Rosario's eyes right then, and she got to her feet. Liu had seen this look many a time before, and usually only when it was useful. But right now, he needed some patience from this cold killer. "What are you doing?" he hissed.
"I'm supposed to stop this," she whispered back, loosening her katana in its sheath. "That's why you brought me in the first place."
"This isn't like running into a bank robbery. We need a plan before we go in there because if you rush in there now, Theda will kill you."
Rosario raised an eyebrow at him. "What makes you think I ever go into a fight expecting to come out alive on the other end?" Her eyes hardened and her body tensed up, ready for combat.
But Liu put his hand on hers, drawing her gaze to his. "We still need you in this battle, Rosario. Don't let Theda take you just because you're desperate right now."
She ground her teeth together, but soon released some tension and backed down. "Okay."
Sighing in relief, Liu pulled a couple smoke grenades out of his pack. "It looks like Theda is weakest right after she brings boss lady back to life. So we have to wait. Can you do that?"
Jenny's scream pierced the silence between them. The two of them flinched, but remained silent. Rosario nodded, but pulled her sword free. And they waited, listening to Theda snuff out the detective's life once more. The perfect stillness as Jenny stopped breathing sent a chill up their spines, making their hands grip tighter. They wanted to move, they needed to move. But not just yet. Not quite yet …
And then, a gasp of life.
Pulling out the pins of the grenades, Liu deftly threw them into the room. A moment later, as smoke filled the wide chamber, Rosario swept in, her sword eager for blood. Theda managed to look up in confusion an instant before her enchanted blade sliced through her chest and face.
Darting under the spray of blood, Liu dove for Jenny and grabbed her under the arms to drag her away. "What are you doing?" she groaned.
"I do believe this is our Big Damn Heroes moment, boss."
The cut across Theda's body managed to heal in just the amount of time it took for Rosario to ready herself for a second swing. She snarled something threatening, but the sword cut through her throat again before anything intelligible came out. Driven backwards, Theda stumbled and fell over a poorly placed armchair.
Jenny struggled to her feet, but she leaned heavily on Liu. Even with life back inside her, she was half dead. "Get out of here, both of you, before she kills you both," she said.
Theda's eyes burned as she regained her footing and her throat healed over. "What's a nobody like you doing with a sword as powerful as that?" she snarled.
"Getting my boss back home."
Rosario stepped forward with a slashing attack to take off the goddess's head. But Theda's hand was faster, catching the woman's wrist before the sword could connect. With her other hand, Theda dug her fingers into Rosario's chest. "Knock it off."
Squeezing just a little bit, she reached out for the woman's heart in her mind and froze it instantly. There was no scream. Just one final breath before the light faded out of Rosario's eyes. She was nothing but a rag doll now, and Theda simply discarded her like one, tossing her across the room towards Liu and Jenny.
Bony tentacles whipped through the room, clearing away the smoke. A second later, her eyes locked on to the fleeing pair who were still in abject shock and disbelief over seeing Rosario's lifeless corpse crash into the wall behind them with a sickening crunch. Jenny had recognized immediately what had happened, though Liu still didn't want to think it true. "She can't be…"
"Liu, run!" Jenny begged, pushing him away.
"Yes, Liu." Theda wrapped a bone whip around his ankle and hurled him 20 feet away into a pile of cabinets and chairs. "Run."
The whips became hardened spikes flying at his prostrate body. But with some nimble moves, rolling this way and that, he managed to avoid each one and find some cover in the form of a heavy wooden desk. No matter. Theda simply knocked aside every large piece of furniture around, one by one, taking away all his hiding spots.
"Come on, little thief. I have such a busy day ahead of me," she said with a drawl. "I have to kill Jenny some more, then put an end to Sesshomaru's army and make my son the rightful ruler of this fallen world. So I don't have time for this." Growing to monstrous proportions, Theda ripped aside the alcove formed by a fireplace where he had to have crawled off to. But to her consternation, she found no thief.
Scanning the room, she found he'd slipped away and was scrambling toward Jenny. With a scowl on her face, she aimed her spikes at Liu. This time, she would not miss. This time, he had nowhere to hide. She reeled back and prepared to strike —
"Don't you touch him!"
Jenny's desperate plea froze Theda's entire body. Not out of some pathetic human quality like empathy or compassion. No, she simply could not move. Her feet wouldn't move one in front of the other. Her bone whips and spikes fell flat when she tried to aim them at Liu. Even her hands felt like they were hitting an ice wall when they tried to reach for him. For whatever reason, she did as she was ordered. Turning slowly to the weakened woman on the floor, she narrowed her eyes at the only cause of this sudden handicap. "Detective … What did you do to me?"
Shock crossed Jenny's features as she began crawling away from Theda's fearsome expression. Why had Theda stopped? She honestly couldn't say. But Jenny, above all else in the entire world right now, did not want Theda to kill Liu. So she would worry about the logistics and logic and reasoning behind this strange occurrence later. All questioning had to go on hold anyhow as Jenny found it rather necessary to get away from the Death goddess's encroaching wrath. "Stop," she said feebly.
"You can't tell me what to do, Detective," she said, turning her full fury onto her. "You can't tell me what to do!"
Jenny huddled against the wall, putting her hands up and bracing herself for Theda to tear her apart bit by bit. The goddess, in all her fury and blackness, drew herself up to her full height, her hair brushing against the high ceiling. When suddenly a blade sliced straight through her midsection, bisecting her.
Blood sprayed across the room. Letting out a single screech, Theda collapsed into a pile of her own body. But what caught Jenny's and Liu's attention was the royal-blue haired woman standing right behind her with a blank, calm expression and Rosario's enchanted sword in hand.
Liu hastily crawled over to Jenny to help her up, but he stared at their savior in amazement. "Rosario? What happened to your hair?"
It was Rosario's body. Just with blue hair. This much Jenny could see. But she held herself differently, a bit straighter and leaner. She frowned at Liu with confusion in her eyes. "It's always been like this, Liu."
"Rosario," he insisted, "you've never had blue hair. Well, maybe blue roots."
She wrinkled her nose. "Who's Rosario? You hit your head, didn't you. I thought I was the one with memory problems. It's Eva. Eva Nova, remember? He never remembers," she whispered to Jenny as if Liu couldn't hear them. "You need some help there, Ms. Harkness?"
Her eyes perked up at this rather formal and polite title. Definitely better than 'boss.' "Oh, I think I'm going to like this one. No thank you, Eva. Liu has me. He does, and he's going to get us out of here now."
Theda began to moan and stir as her body once again grew back together. "Rrrrgh…" she growled. "I killed you … Why aren't you dead?..."
Eva reeled back her fist and punched Theda clear across the room. Both halves. As she landed with a crunch, she turned back around to follow after Liu and Jenny who were in the process of getting the hell out of there before things got worse. "Alright, so, where are we? And why did I just attack that person?"