"She wanted to talk to me~! she wanted to talk to me~! Ahahaha!"
Gods, it had been hard enough trying to sleep and avoid listening to this tripe the night before, much less now. From behind eyes very firmly clamped shut, Astaire tried his best to ignore the incessant, childlike giggle of his Shadow orbiting around him, singing and hollering about talking to Rise the day before.
"Gods, I still haven't gotten over it! Imagine! Being as bloody frustrated with your piddling about as I am! We have so much in common, she and I!" His Shadow continued, ceasing his orbiting to lean in and flick his human self in the bridge of the nose.
Right, that did it. "Oh, would you ever just piss off?!" Astaire roared, reaching out to go for his lesser self's throat and falling short as he backstepped in time with him. Another plain white landscape surrounding the two of them. He had all the running space a pernicious little bastard could ask for. No use in trying to catch him now.
Which was a shame to think, because that annoying laugh of his was beginning to feel like a nail being hammered into his skull. That, along with that dung-eating sneer of his. "Oi, I'm not the one who took your glasses off, I think you'll recall. In fact, I was the one who slipped them back on! No use getting ornery with me." The Shadow's hands whipped out of his coat pockets and pointed accusingly at Astaire himself. "If you want to start getting prissy with anyone, you might want to start with the apple of your eye first."
...Damn it. The yellow-eyed bastard was right. Rise had taken off his glasses. "As if that matters any. Don't try and eschew my thoughts with your drivel."
"What, you think I'm being dishonest, do you?" The Shadow asked, hands to his chest and his eyes wide. He began orbiting Astaire again, the sound of his shoes like a skull-rattling metronome. "Go on. Admit it. Be honest about something that matters, for once."
"I don't know what you're-"
The Shadow lunged at Astaire from behind and put him into a headlock. His grip was tight. Ironclad. As much as Astaire tried to claw his way out of it, he felt the bones of his own wrist dig deeper into his neck by the second. "You were angry, weren't you? Absolutely fucking livid. Fuming that precious, innocent Ms. Kujikawa would dare wish to talk to me instead of you. Why, it's enough to make you want to pop your lid even now, isn't it?! You've been wearing a bloody mask all day, haven't you?!"
At last, a breach in his defences let Astaire slip out from his other self's grasp. He was into his coat in an instant, bringing his Zweihander out with ease and raising it above his head, rage clouding his vision as he turned around, willed his muscles into motion and-
"Are you mad, Astaire-kun?" Rise had taken his Shadow's place, looking up at him with sorrowful eyes.
CRASH.
His chest felt like it had imploded in on itself at the thought of what he'd very nearly done. His sword left a wide gash in the floor mere inches from the imaginary Rise's feet, the result of every fiber of his being willing himself not to do it. He dropped the sword and hung his head low, clutching his temples as though he were trying to crush his skull with his bare hands.
He'd been angry. Was, angry. That anything this abhorrent facsimile of himself should say would be trusted over his own word was a thought too infuriating to be put into words. The longer he dwelled on it, the more he wished he could crush the loathsome, shadowy bastard all over again. As if that would solve anything. As if he'd asked to be brought out.
He was of two minds. Two truths lay solidly in his head, but neither were compatible. Like oil and water, they simply could not coexist.
He was angry. But it was Rise who he logically should've been angry at.
He should've been. But he couldn't be. He simply could not do it. Nothing short of her stabbing him in the back and twisting the knife would make him feel any better about being angry at her. He didn't want to be angry at her. Bad things happened to those who angered him, and he couldn't hurt a hair on her head.
Far from being angry at her, the thought only made him angrier at himself.
"A wise choice. You're just the poster child for forbearance, aren't you?" His Shadow asked, his voice making Astaire feel lightheaded as he whispered in his ear. "I meant what I said back then. I won't accept anybody bringing her to harm. Not even you."
Seemingly having made his point, the Shadow began to walk off, no doubt heading to lie dormant in the depths of his subconscious for the night. He'd had his fill.
"Wait. Tell me one thing."
The Shadow paused. Turned on a heel. Sneered and raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Loathe to let me go, are you?"
Astaire could only wish his own face didn't look as vexingly punchable all the time. "You know things I don't. Things about my past, so you must know." He raised his head and locked eyes with his doppelganger, his own swimming with a mix of desperation and panic. "Am I originally from this world? The world of humans?"
…
…
The Shadow began to clap.
"My my, I almost thought you'd forgotten about my last little riddle. Fine job, really."
No. No, it couldn't be. He was lying.
"You are correct. This world is as much your own as it is theirs." His Shadow's sneer widened, almost to where it seemed like it would stretch off his face entirely, as he watched his other self stare into space, eyes filled with a thousand-yard stare. "I shall leave the details to your own imagination, I think. Ta-ta."
Leaving the awful, awful truth in his wake, the Shadow receded back into the recesses of Astaire's mind, leaving him to stew in the silence.
He was human. Had been human. Hadn't always had the Darksign branded in his eye. Hadn't always wandered a broken and decrepit world, doomed to die over and over until the end. He'd had a life in the world he now inhabited. And something had resulted in him losing it.
He might have had friends. Family. And every memory of them was diluted. Destroyed. Like a crystal-clear pond being polluted with dirt and filth, leaving nothing more than a foggy, indecipherable mess in its wake. Whatever life he'd had, it was now forever intangible to him.
It seemed the more Astaire learned about himself, the worse he felt. His mood didn't improve, even after his Shadow had departed. It wasn't much better when he felt himself begin to waken up, either.
It certainly shifted to something else when he became lucid of his surroundings, though.
He felt the soft fabric of his pyjamas shift and stir, disturbed by some unseen force behind his eyelids. The middle of his torso felt cold, then immediately felt warmer. Whatever was warming him felt smooth and soft. What's more, it began to move, sliding around to his right side.
Before curiosity restored his vision, his hearing caught something first. A whisper, as slight as a breeze against his ear, spoke gently, directly above his face. "Please don't wake up. Please don't wake up."
Astaire woke up. His eyelids shot wide open.
So did Rise's as she gasped, staring directly down at Astaire from a ninety degree angle. She was situated to his left. She was leaning forward to loom over him. Her arm was extended at a downwards angle.
Her hand was fishing around his chest.
"Uh." Astaire's jaw hung loose as his face went white.
"Um." So too, did Rise's, as hers went red.
Her hand darted back to her, soon enough to not be ripped off as Astaire quickly scuttled back across the floor until he hit the wall, limbs naught but a blur. He eyed her up like she had just floated through the wall moaning and rattling chains. He attempted to untie the double-knot his tongue had tied itself into, and finally succeeded in time to ask: "What in Gwyn's name do you think you're doing?!"
Not as prone to scuttling away at lightspeed, Rise instead opted for burying her face in her hands, which surprisingly didn't burst into flames upon making contact with her furious blush. "I-I'm so sorry! It's not what you think it is, really!"
That'd have been a big help, except Astaire wasn't sure what to think. There were a couple reasons floating around in his head, but Rise's hand had dashed the waters and left him trying to piece any one of them into a coherent thought. Fishing not being an activity oft practiced in Lordran, he didn't fare very well.
"I, uh… See, I kinda wanted to…" Rise stopped and started, trying to think of how best to articulate her reasons without using the words 'feeling' or 'up'. "...I sorta wanted to try using that whip again. The one from yesterday. But you were asleep, and I didn't really wanna wake you up, and I figured you'd have your box somewhere on you, so I -"
"That's quite enough, thank you!" Astaire hushed her, partly before she recounted what had just happened and also to let the poor girl get a much-needed breath in. He inhaled through his nose, exhaled through his mouth, rubbed his eyes and lumbered just-wokenly to his feet. Rise's reasons laid out before him, it now seemed a mite easier to regain his composure. "Right, right. Whip. Where did I leave the whip?" He trailed off into a mumble, unbuttoning the top of his pyjamas and delving into the Bottomless Box anew.
Watching him intently, Rise couldn't help but raise an eyebrow for more than a few reasons. For one, did he really sleep every night with that box strapped to his torso? What if he needed to roll over and ended up jabbing himself? That hardly seemed comfortable. Then again, him being him, it mightn't even bother him until it broke the skin altogether.
Skin. That was the other thing that made her raise an eyebrow. She recalled the feeling as it swept under her palm and between her fingers, however brief it had been.
Toned. Sturdy. Followed by intermittent spurts of rough and uneven.
"Do you… have scars, Astaire-kun?" She eventually asked, noting how his arm froze in place mid-search when she asked. "Like… a lot of them?"
Astaire bit his bottom lip. "A fair share." He said quietly, elaborating no further than that.
It had struck Rise that she couldn't recall ever seeing him without something on his torso. The most she'd seen had been a small sliver of skin shortly after he'd arrived. It seemed like after that, he'd really gone out of his way to never show her anything more. Perhaps his scars were the reason.
However many scars he needed to be that uncomfortable about them, Rise didn't want to think about.
"My Shadow confirmed it last night. The fact that I was once human." Astaire piped up, eager to change the subject. Not that his current one helped brighten his expression any. He tutted to himself and shook his head slightly, still gazing into space as he continued his search.
Honestly, Rise figured he'd have been a bit happier about not being native to a world filled with things trying to kill him. Even Earth at its worst wasn't as bad as the TV's version of Lordran seemed to be, and yet he still didn't look pleased about the whole situation.
Oh well. Time to make him look up and see the silver lining, then. "I guess it makes a lot of sense, looking back on it. I wonder what kind of life you had before all this started?" She wondered out loud, crossing her arms and twisting her torso in thought. "Something to do with the piano, anyway. Maybe you played in a band! Maybe you played in a cool little jazz bar somewhere in the city!" Rise offered, counting off the possibilities on her fingers. "Seeing how well you play, I bet you would've been way popular."
"Popular with a crowd that I can no longer remember." Astaire mused morosely. "Gwyn knows, I may even have had a previous lover once upon a time, and I mightn't even recall her face."
Woah, woah, woah, slow the hell down. This went from encouraging to 'RED ALERT' faster than Rise particularly cared for. Pining over someone else was bad enough, much less someone neither of them knew even existed. Time for some celebrity-tier backpedalling. "Pfffft! I-I mean, what are the odds of that? Not to mention, who says your Shadow's even telling the truth anyway? He could be saying all this stuff to mess with you! How do any of us know we can trust him?"
For a split second, Astaire's gaze locked on to her. His eyes narrowed sharply and the smallest flash of his teeth peeked through his lips.
Something inside him seemed to mentally slap himself into shape and revert his expression to hard concentration, but the split second had said a lot, at least to Rise. Because she'd trusted his Shadow at its word, and as much as Astaire tried to play off whatever effect it might've had on him, it'd still had one. He may have been bottling up his feelings, but the bottle was still see-through, open or otherwise.
She was halfway to a second apology -because bottling up anyone's bad mood was a bad idea- when she had to haphazardly scramble to catch the whip that'd soared through the air towards her, as tossed by a suddenly-completely dressed Astaire.
She looked down at her own pink and white pyjamas. Wish she could do that.
Astaire's eyes dotted around the room, taking note of how cramped and not fit for combat training it was. Lots of little breakable things. Lots of big breakable things, too. "Are you intending to practice in here?" He sidestepped around Rise and slowly began inching towards the door to the bathroom. "Because if so, I think I might-"
Rise rolled her eyes. "Practice? In here? No way, I don't wanna break anything Inoue-san's gonna have to pay for!" She left the whip on the table next to the TV and made her own way for the bathroom door, unbutton the top of her pyjamas as she went. "Besides… if you're still feeling down about the other day, I think I might have something in mind to cheer you up." She said with a wink as she disappeared inside.
The latest addition to the TV's Statue Grove was a bit of a mixed bag, as far as how Astaire felt about it. On one hand, it depicted him and that odious little cretin, Airashi. On the other hand, it depicted the two of them clashing swords and -call it bias on Astaire's part- Kaoru getting his backside handed to him.
Still, any visage of him was enough to irk Rise and Astaire both, and now they had to look at it every time they went into the TV world. Bloody wonderful.
How industrious of Rise, then, to go about rectifying the matter rightly. "Take that!" She cried as a jar of pickles shattered across the stony Kaoru's face.
Dotted around the ground at varying distances was every kind of miscellaneous foodstuff Rise could get her hands on. Pickles, horseradish, varying things in cans which had since passed their sell-by date, anything which could've made a mess when presented with a hard enough impact.
The end of Rise's whip snapped around the jar of horseradish, clutching it tightly before she twirled around and launched it at Kaoru's head anew. With a spine-tingling SNAP and a timely KSSSH of glass shattering, it seemed she'd hit the mark. Again.
Gods, she was good at this. Really good. It made Astaire feel lucky that he'd stopped her the day before when he had. Any longer and he might've got tossed into the river entirely. "Remarkable aim, Ms. Kujikawa! He'll have a hard time seeing through that lot!" He cheered, happily munching away at the few bento boxes Rise had haphazardly grabbed too. It wasn't the most ideal breakfast, but it was better than nothing at all. With his back to one of the pedestals and his hide on the grass, it made for good, pleasant viewing.
Especially since that mustachioed wastrel couldn't follow them in either. It actually felt rather peaceful.
Panting and wiping her brow, Rise skipped over and plopped herself down beside him, quickly scooping up one of the bento boxes and mauling it like a well-articulated tiger with chopsticks. "Steady on, you might choke."
"I ffaff heff iff!" Rise… sort of replied happily.
"And don't talk with your mouth full either."
Swallow. Satisfied sigh. Begin again. "I can't help it! I haven't felt this pumped in so long! It's great being able to support everyone else in battle, but holy cow, I can fight, too!" She shone with a happiness that could've bested the sun entirely, almost to where Astaire wondered if he should start praising her instead. "Combat support, fighting, dancing, singing, modelling… I'm a real quintuple threat, right?!" She asked, smiling proudly and not caring who knew it.
"And cooking." Astaire added between mouthfuls of sushi. "Lest you forgot."
Scrunch scrunch scrunch. There went Rise's insides. Like her stomach was a heat pack that warmed her heart and brought a giddy little smile to her face. Thankfully, Astaire didn't inquire much further. They simply sat and ate peacefully, basking in the ambience.
No monsters. No moustaches. No Shadows poking and prodding. No freaky combo-monsters trying to skin them alive. No fires to flay their skin from their bones.
Nothing but peaceful silence, layered over a canvas of lush, soft greens and calm greys.
And whatever freaky paint spillage accident had erupted over Kaoru's face, but that was beside the point.
His sleep having been less than restful the night before, Astaire began to feel the peace coo lovingly into his ear. Sweet, sultry, and oh so tempting. It gently put a weight on both of his eyelids, and eased his body to slump against the stone pedestal behind him.
For once, his body and mind were at peace. And thus, his eyes drifted shut behind his frames of blue.
He'd check on Rise again in a while. She'd do well enough without his supervision.
It was a shame that Naoto didn't carry blanks on hand. There were times when a bloodless version of Russian Roulette could come in handy.
Specifically, at times like these.
"Don't even think of looking at me." Yosuke said right away, tapping out and backing away from the group from the get-go. "Kanji, they both like you, you do it!"
"Ain't he punched you in the noggin once already, Ted? Go on an' take one for the team." Kanji said, eagerly nudging Teddie forward with his shoulder.
A nudge which was returned tenfold as Teddie darted backwards. "B-But that was my Teddie suit! If he ends up ruining my human face, think of how unpopular I'll be!" He faux-moaned, clutching at his cheeks overdramatically.
"We really should be going sooner rather than later. Will someone please do something?" Naoto asked reminding herself to bring the aforementioned blanks the next time this happened.
What was this exactly?
Astaire and Rise, shoulder to shoulder on the ground and both fast asleep, her head tilted onto his shoulder and his head tilted onto the top of hers. She'd snuggled into his arm and curled up her legs, while he stretched out so freely that it looked like he'd never slept before.
The guys hesitated from waking them because it felt like prodding a sleeping bear.
The girls hesitated because it felt like pissing off a twin-tailed, irritable snake armed with a leather whip.
And also because it was kind of adorable.
But the matter remained that they'd arranged to meet after school and go investigate further up the tower. Which was a little difficult with the team's navigator and otherworldly expert grounded like anchors on the seafloor.
Sensing that the cloud of arguments and shifting of duties wasn't going to end any time soon, the first to step forward -albeit with a sigh- was Yukiko. As she drew in closer, the boys ceased arguing amongst themselves. Everything fell quiet, save for the sound of Yukiko's shoes brushing the grass aside.
She knelt down in front of the duo, her knees tight to her chest. She cleared her throat. "Rise-chan? Ast-?"
A black shimmer parted the air as a dagger seemingly materialised in Astaire's hand and pointed itself at Yukiko, wrenching its wielders eyes open to reveal a pointed, vicious glare that was immediately at the ready.
Until it met Yukiko's glare in return.
It felt as though a bitter chill had run down from the tip of the dagger and into the very core of Astaire's bones. Like he'd just walked up, slapped Lord Gwyn and told him his heavenly daughter Gwynevere was a faithless harlot. But worse. Much, much worse. Because Lord Gwyn wasn't here. Yukiko was. And her eyes felt like he'd been perforated by an army's worth of icicles.
He tried to get up. To put some distance between himself and Death wearing a red jumper. Only he didn't seem able to. Something on his left was weighing him down. The same thing his head was resting on, actually. Whatever it was, it was lovely and soft. Smelled rather nice too. Like summer fruits.
Astaire dared to slowly avert his gaze from Yukiko and down to his side.
Oh.
The colour drained from his face, like he'd just exhaled his soul and it'd drifted up and away. He shifted his shoulder gently, feeling the solid, icy dread within him snowball up as Rise protested, nuzzling in closer and cutely screwing up her face with a sleepy murmur.
FOR GWYN'S SAKE, REALLY NOW.
Astaire roughly, loudly cleared his throat. And kept clearing it until it looked like Rise was coming to. She let out a yawn, looked up at him, then froze on the spot. For a moment, it looked like she was going red all over again.
Then she met eyes with Yukiko, upon which the red quickly scarpered in favour of a shadow of Astaire-brand 'Exhaled Soul' white as her jaw hung loose.
"Snrk…" Yukiko snorted, her flat-faced glare cracking under the pressure of what she was looking at, curling her lips up and closing her eyes over. She covered her mouth and clutched her stomach as she tried to resist quaking with the giggles. "You two… Pfft! The looks on your faces!" And thus the crack in the dam of stoicism gave way for a deluge of laugh-snort-laughing as Yukiko doubled over, nearly in tears.
The duo shared looks at one another, then quickly broke off and put some distance between themselves as they messily pulled themselves to their respective feet and brushed themselves down. "...Stop that, you look an oaf." Astaire said in the face of Teddie's fluttery-eyed, eyebrow-wiggling expression.
At least Teddie was all he had to deal with. Rise switched between people so quickly it was hard to tell who her excuses were meant for. However, at least one person could be taken out of the equation. The one who had saw fit to address the far messier issue behind their backs. "The heck is going on here?" Yosuke asked, in reference to the new statue featuring Kaoru and Astaire. "And why does that other guy look so familiar? I feel like I've seen him somewhere before…" He asked further, tapping a foot as he tried to remember where he'd seen him. "Nice swords, too." He added.
His attention being drawn to it -or perhaps moreso away from Rise and Astaire- brought everyone else's focus to the statue as well. Thank god, too, because Rise was just about going hoarse with all the excuse making. "That's the guy I told you about yesterday. The one who knew Astaire-kun's first name."
"He dresses like a prick." Kanji pointed out. Never did like those low-ass V-neck shirts. Only person who wore them worse was Yosuke.
"Is he an idol too, Rise-chan?" Teddie inquired.
"He's a creepy little jerk who's getting more than he bargained for." Rise snapped back.
Perhaps it was just wishful thinking, but Astaire swore she almost sounded a little pleased at that.
"Google him when we get back, Ted, we've got more important things to do right now." Yu said brusquely, walking off for the gate into TV-Lordran before anything else could keep them back. "Time to go see what's left of that forest from last time."
He walked off through the trees with a confident stride. At least, until he realised they were short one pair of footsteps.
"Oh, right. Chie, could you... carry Yukiko until she's done laughing?" He asked sheepishly as Yukiko's howls echoed through the leaves and branches. With any luck, she might've wound up stopping some time the following week.
It only struck Yu upon teleporting to the top of Sen's Fortress that they hadn't exactly found a proper way out of the forest last time. No exit to immediately jump to meant they'd have to go walking through the entire dark, harrowing nightmare of monsters and phantoms all over again. A thought not only detested by he, but practically everyone else.
That was, until they got a good look at what their handiwork had wrought.
Because Darkroot Garden was gone.
Or at least, as gone as a forest could get. Where once the lush, overgrown plant life had thrived alongside all the horrible beings that lived inside it, only sizable piles of ash remained. A few charred, fallen tree trunks were scattered to and fro, but they were few and far between. Everything else looked as though it had disintegrated entirely.
"Well that sure simplifies things." Chie chirped, eyes wide. "Too bad it's not windy in here or this could all have been cleaned up. We could've had it even easier than we do now!"
As nice as that sounded, one problem still remained. "But we still don't know where exactly we're going." Yukiko rightfully pointed out. "We can't even retrace our steps properly without all the plant life to guide us. How are we ever going to find our way through here?"
As she spoke, a voice from within the piles of ash and darkness answered, "Thou art a shameless band, to return whence thou mindless havoc defiled."
Right on time, a pair of glowing eyes lit up the darkness beyond the Investigation Team, an icy blue that caught the light as it began to prowl closer towards the light of Sen's Fortress.
Immediately, everyone was on high alert, with the boys - sans Astaire, who realised his Claymore was somewhere in the wreckage and his Greathammer at Firelink- forcing their way to the frontline and preparing to fend off whatever archaic-tongued monstrosity had crawled out of a forest that shouldn't have had any signs of life in it. As the voice's owner drew closer, it became evident that whatever this thing was, it was big. Much bigger than the size and closeness of its eyes might have suggested.
As a single massive, furred paw stepped into the light, a gasp from behind perked up everyone's ears.
"Oh, Gods! Is that truly you, Ms. Alvina?!" Astaire asked, squirming his way to the frontlines as the beast drew itself further into the light.
The one Astaire called 'Alvina' was a massive, massive feline creature, prowling low to the ground and speaking in human tongues through a far-too-wide jaw lined with far-too-sharp teeth. Her face made up surprisingly little of her actual body, seemingly squashed forward in such a way that immediately made her look suspicious. Well, more suspicious than a giant talking cat generally was.
Almost as suspicious as the armour-plated weirdo who talked to it like it was no big deal. Especially when he got on his knees and starting kowtowing to it. "Please allow me to apologise on the behalf of my companions! They were unaware of the penalty incurred by defiling the forest, truly! They wouldn't have set it alight otherwise!"
"Dude, are you seriously talking to a giant ca- SHIT!" Kanji ducked out of the way of a pebble tossed for his head, thrown by a very manic looking Astaire. He was about to call him out on it when he'd suddenly dashed over and wrapped his arm around his neck, pulling his head in close to his own.
"That's no giant cat you ingrate!" He whispered as loudly as someone in a wild panic could. "That's Alvina of the Darkroot Wood! The leader of those phantom hunters we encountered last time!"
"She is?!" Kanji balked, looking over Astaire's shoulder and locking eyes with Alvina as she narrowed hers at him. An act which Kanji mirrored as he shouldered his way past Astaire entirely. "The hell do you get off sendin' your weirdo ghost brigade after us, ya fleabit-"
Before he could walk forward any further and square up to the oversized feline, Kanji was swept off his feet entirely as Astaire lunged for the back of his collar and wrenched him back, clamping both his shoulders firmly as he shook the hell out of him ."Are you trying to get us all killed, you simpleton?! Do you not understand the situation we're in?! We're outnumbered nine to infinity!"
"Spare thy comrades thine ire, Sunlight Warrior." Alvina decided to step in, putting a paw forward as she drew closer and into the light of the fortress. "The Darkroot Wood long stood defiled afore thy and thine ilk did ignite it." She purred, casting a wary eye around the rest of the Investigation Team. "Indeed, thine efforts hath cleansed the foul affliction from this demesne. Mine kinsmen shall stay their hands for now."
Oh, Gods be praised. Were he not in good company, Astaire swore the relief alone would've brought him to his knees. No Sif, no hunters, no monsters? Brilliant! It was like a dream come true. Or a nightmare, given how friendly the remains of the forest looked.
"You really lived in this forest, Nice Cat Lady?" Teddie asked, peeped around Alvina and squinting into the darkness. "Does that mean you could show us how to get further up the tower? Pretty please?" He bunched his hands together and fluttered his lengthy eyelashes, giving Alvina his most potent Teddie bear eyes.
"Insolence! How dare thee attempt to siphon yet more mercy from me, after I hath spared thine lives?!" Alvina's tail rose up behind her as she rose to her full, non-prowling height. She bore her long line of thin, pointed teeth, as Naoto, Kanji and Yosuke quickly rose their weapons in defence. "Soon! Soon thou shalt witness the full might of the… the…" No sooner had Alvina's aggression flared, something seemed to step in and snuff it back out again.
Something here meaning 'Yu Narukami'. Stroking Alvina's fur with a bewitched look on his face.
"Um… Yu-kun?" Yukiko tried calling out to him, but she was fighting a losing battle. A wide, goofy grin stretched across Yu's face as he ran his fingers around Alvina's neck, stroking her all the more intently.
"Oooh… My, how…" Alvina tried to say, only to shut her eyes and purr lovingly, leaning into Yu's magic fingers and dropping her tail to the ground. Her purrs echoed around the fortress' stony walls, loudly enough that everyone could feel it rumbling their insides about.
Astaire could only watch in a muddled mix of amazement and confusion. "I've… never seen this side of you before, Ms. Alvina." He muttered as everyone relaxed and put their weapons away.
The addition of a familiar voice froze Alvina on the spot. Her eyes shot open. She looked towards Astaire, then to Yu, then back to everyone else. She pounced back faster than anyone could see, pawing at the fur surrounding her head to flatten it back down after Yu's vicious assault. She turned around to face the forest and, for a while, simply remained silent.
It took her a full minute to finally pipe up again.
"...Very well. Follow me."
How Alvina knew where she was going was anyone's guess, because their surroundings seemed to repeat indefinitely, no matter which way they turned. Piles of ash here, charred trunks there, the occasional melted weapon burning an outline for itself into the ground, everything but a solid path forward. Thus it was left to Alvina to forge one.
Without much else to distract them, the conversation turned to other topics. "Errant fools, all of you." Alvina began, peering peerlessly through the pitch black ahead of her. "To have come hither with nary a plan amongst you beyond 'ascend further up'. I should task my hunters with excavating your graves early." Her voice rumbled, low and serious.
Despite her rampant negativity, Alvina kept leading the way. But the cause of her negativity was intriguing. Telling. "You speak as though you know what we're about to come up against." Naoto pointed out, flicking open her notebook pre-emptively. "Would that be the case?"
Alvina slowed to allow her beady eyes to sharply redirect to Naoto's side. "Surely thou jest. Hast thou not felt it by now?" The blank looks she got as her gaze passed around everyone else spoke a thousand words. She purred out a sigh. "One cannot say thou'rt not fitting company for one another, united in thine soft-headedness."
"By all means, don't keep us in suspense. If you know something we don't, we'd be incredibly grateful for the help." Yu said politely, already reaching out his hand in case of a rejection.
With a swish of her tail and a low purr, Alvina hopped atop one of the larger ashen trunks, strolling gracefully along the top of it as she began. "It lingers in the air, this sensation. It pervades across thy entirety, as though one were submerging thyself in a pool of water."
Indeed, now that she mentioned it, Astaire realised that something had been bothering him during the entire walk. Only once she'd brought it to light did he realise what it was.
His Zweihander was still lodged in a tree. Not far from it, the Demon's Great Hammer his Shadow had drawn, and which he himself hadn't the strength to recover. His claymore was presumably lying in a melted mess somewhere among the ash right now.
Cripes, he was unarmed! Seeking to remedy the situation forthwith, he began searching in his coat for another weapon.
In his ear, Alvina continued. "Thou'rt walking through an amalgamation. A figurative marriage betwixt one world and another, as began far below these woods. Thusly, the further thou strayest from the source…"
Astaire's hand brushed by the leather whip he'd let Rise borrow earlier, and he began to wonder. She'd likely used it enough to have imparted some fragment of her soul upon it by now. Having felt Yosuke and Kaoru's prior, he couldn't help but wonder what hers would feel like by comparison.
...This was purely for curiosity's sake. Nothing more. He wouldn't think anything more of having her soul pulsating between his fingers. Stay calm. It was no major issue. With that in mind, Astaire retrieved the weapon wholly.
"...the more thou shalt find that the delicate-held balance shall begin to… waver. Such so that it may begin to affect thee strangely. Perhaps, even…"
The whip unfurled towards the ground, but as the gentle caress of the heat from Rise's soul bled through his fingers, something more noteworthy garnered Astaire's attention. The whip's end dragged behind him as he walked, as might be expected.
However, the longer he walked, the higher the tip began to lift from the ground. Like a mighty wind was forcing it back, only nothing around him existed to blow.
"...such anomalies may begin to deform the world around thee, as well."
Sure enough, the whip wasn't alone. Rise's twintails began to lift to a horizontal angle. Yukiko's hair began to straighten behind her. Kanji's blazer tried to fall from his back before he hastily stuffed his arms inside. Yosuke's headphones lifted from his shoulders before he caught them and slid them over his ears.
It was, Yu noticed, a very similar event to what had transpired in the Faux-Abyss not too long ago.
"So… So the further we move up the tower, the more this whole place is gonna get bent outta shape?!" Chie accurately summed up as her glasses began to dig a little deeper against her nose. "I mean… what the hell's even happening now?! We're not even into the next area and everything's already getting messed up!"
Above them, Alvina dropped from her makeshift walkway, kicking up ash as she landed. "Alas, I believe thou may guess at this stage, but little more. Not even one such as I is all-knowing in regards to such affairs."
Stuffing his necklace into his shirt to be sure it didn't fly off, Kanji grumbled under his breath. "Know a frickin' lot about everythin' else, though."
"Hush, child!" Alvina snapped, narrowing her eyes at the darkness ahead. Her vision pierced through the shade, revealing to her a border where the mountains of ash and char began to fade, and where no fallen chunks of charcoal lay. "Your destination approacheth. We must make haste."
After what seemed like endless wading through a never-ending sea of ash, a faint, glowing light began to push and scrape away the darkness that surrounded everyone. The ground slowly lost any traces of white, instead giving way to cracked, dried up dirt, bereft of grass. It reminded Rise of spending sunny days outside during summer, actually. But that didn't exactly explain why it was happening here of all places. The TV World didn't care much for the changing of seasons, and given the look of it, she couldn't imagine the original Darkroot Garden in Lordran caring much either.
The parched dirt announced the lead up to the large set of double doors before them. Much like the ones at the top of Sen's Fortress, they was intimidatingly large, and bore a pulsating orb of light in the center. Unfortunately, only one characteristic hadn't carried over.
"For shit's sake, really?!" Kanji bellowed angrily at the sky. "Who the hell expects anyone to move doors made outta solid frickin' rock?!"
"Actually..." Naoto said, giving one door an analytical rap with her knuckles as she closely eyed it up. "This appears to have been formed entirely out of obsidian. Therefore, it'd be more accurate to class it as volcanic glass than rock."
"Like that makes it any better! I'd class it as really damn heavy either way!" Yosuke added, his arms already reflexively turning to noodles before he'd even thought of pushing the door open.
From the sidelines, Alvina gave a thoughtful purr as she sat and gazed up at the orb of light. "An oppressive barrier, true. 'Tis as though someone wished to waylay thine efforts in proceeding forward, one would think." She said knowingly.
Astaire offered her a glance and narrowed his eyes. There was something she wasn't telling them. That much he knew for certain. Given he hadn't ever aligned himself with the Forest Hunters in the past, he doubted he'd be the one to pry the answers from her, either.
"Jeez, this is gonna suck." Kanji sighed, stretching his arms and loosening up his shoulders as he walked up to the door. He stopped to glance behind him at their friendly neighbourhood strongman. "Yo, we openin' this thing or what?"
Well, if Alvina wasn't going to fill them in, all that left was to find the answers themselves. "Certainly. Shall we both accost the one door this time?"
"Call me crazy, but I don't think you two alone are gonna cut it." Rise added, giving one door a weak push. Not a bit of give in it at all. "...Hint hint." She glared pointedly at Yosuke and Teddie, who both quickly scrambled to join their two fellow doormen, right as Yu cooly walked up to bring the total to five.
The boys placed their hands against the solid obsidian, then paused at the exact same time. "Hey… anyone else feelin' a bit stuffy all of a sudden?" Kanji started, his brow suddenly slicked with sweat. Even after wiping at it with his blazer sleeve, he remained drenched.
"You're probably just not used to wearing your blazer like that, Kanji-kun!" Teddie pointed out cheerily. But as he turned his attention back to the door, his face fell as he hummed in thought, spreading his fingers out on the obsidian's smooth, glasslike surface. "Although… this door does feel kinda warm, doesn't it?"
"Well obsidian is made from cooled-down lava." Yu rightly said, beginning to feel the heat in his palm just as strongly. "Perhaps a little of the heat got left over."
Which raised another question, actually. "Alvina-san, why is there even a door made of obsidian here anyway? We didn't see much lava either time we came here. Or any, for that matter." Yukiko asked, drawing Alvina's gaze away from the light orb above.
She gave a toothy grin in response. "My, my, my. A vast stretch of ambiguity lies before thee, it seems. Thou might even be described as 'unprepared' by some." She purred. "It seems a tad unwise to abandon all sense for a dash into the unknown. Thou may find anything and everything on the other side of this door."
Ignoring Alvina's musings, the boys put their shoulders to the door and heaved. Their heels dug into -and kicked up- the dirt below them as the obsidian refused to move. The orb of light didn't react either, far from shattering into shards as before.
"No good? Fancy that." Alvina grinned wider. "It seems thy efforts were for naught. Mayhaps thou should-"
"Would you shut the hell up already?!" Kanji bellowed as he crushed his Arcana card against the door, whereupon Takeji-Zaiten roared into being above him and mirrored his pose, throwing all of its considerable strength into the door. "If you know somethin' we don't, then frickin' tell us!"
All eyes not on the door were redirected towards Alvina. She remained entranced by the orb of light above the boys' heads, in particular, the small imperfection which was beginning to blossom on its surface. It seemed to be giving way after all.
Her expression remained neutral as she swished her tail back and forth. "I am no more aware than thee, rest assured." She began, strolling over to address the girls directly. "Though I shall reiterate thine foolhardiness. Hast none of thou taken into account what perils lie ahead?"
Overhead, the orb of light's small crack began to expand.
"Don't worry! We can take whatever this weirdo world can throw at us, no sweat!" Chie assured her, pounding a fist into her hand with a confident smile.
"That answers my question not." Alvina bit back sharply. Her words shook the smile from Chie's face as she glanced between Yukiko, Rise and Naoto for reassurance. "As I thought. How children as blind as thee may see an inch afront their noses is truly perplexing."
The crack wrapped around the orb's equator. The core began to rumble.
"Thou cannot prepare for that which is not understood. And to be sure, thou understandeth little." Alvina pawed forward, drawing closer to the girls, eyes like daggers. "Hast thou not considered that thine actions are not of the wisest course? That mayhaps this world stands as it does with reason? Thine interfering with what thou fails to understand could well be your ultimate undoing."
Sick of being lectured by a cat of all things, Rise took an equal step forward, matching Alvina's glare and clashing like one would with swords. "How do you expect us to understand what we're getting into before we even get into it?! And if all this weird stuff is going on, how do you expect us to just sit back and let it all happen?!" She cried, her passion overflowing to where even Alvina raised her brow in response. "Why are you acting like what we're doing is a bad thing?!"
At last, the orb of light shattered into shards. With its destruction, the doors began to rumble open.
Alvina turned her attention to the boys, which naturally redirected Rise's focus as well. From the looks of things, she had her sights trained on Astaire's back.
"Thine is simply a path I have oft seen trodden. I expect thine destinations shall align as well."
"We got it! We got it!" Teddie cheered brightly as the doors heaved open, teasing everyone's first glance at their latest challenge. "Now all we have to do is rush on through to the end and-!"
Teddie fell short as the first thin sliver of light burst through the cracks in the doors. But at least he wasn't the only one. Yu, Yosuke, Kanji and Astaire all joined him in immediately bolting backwards, suddenly engorged in a storm of coughing, spluttering and near-vomitous retching.
From within the obsidian double doors billowed out a stench which exceeded all description. It poured out like a deluge of filth which had no end, flooding both the immediate area and the lungs of everyone present. Everyone couldn't help but fall to their knees helplessly. Their eyes watered, their throats burned and writhed. Every nerve in every part of everyone's body screamed in unified horror at the unbridled assault on their senses.
The smell was utterly foul. Every noxious odour everyone had ever experienced before this moment couldn't ever hope compare.
Everyone excluding Astaire, that is.
The stench was familiar. It wasn't exactly the same as the lingering memory which haunted his nostrils, but the similarity was undeniable. It was a smell he'd experienced in a part of the world which had made his stomach turn for more than one reason.
Blighttown.
The main difference, however, was that the stench was accompanied by an unfathomable heat. Like someone had filled a pot with every kind of human waste and then set it to boil for a week. It certainly smelt like Blighttown, that much was certain, but something else was there too.
As everyone else lay grounded, unfamiliar with the unforgiving plague that seeped into their every orifice, Astaire stood up and gradually made his way to the door. The heat slicked him with sweat under his armour. The odour seemed worse with every breath. But he had to see. He had to know what they were up against. He strained his eyes against the bright light from within the doors and took his first good look at their next gauntlet.
…
…
Well, at least it wasn't Blighttown.
It was just far, far worse.
"My, my. It appears my obligation to thee is fulfilled." Alvina said calmly, as though ignorant of the miasma which surrounded everyone else. With a flick of her tail, she turned on the spot and began prowling back into the ashen forest.
"Best of luck, Chosen Undead. To thou and thine both." She said with a sarcastic smile as she disappeared into the darkness.
Astaire couldn't wrap his head around it.
It was Blighttown. The stench and the precarious, worryingly rickety wooden structures forging their path forward confirmed as much.
But it also wasn't Blighttown. The unending tides of lava, soaring through the air overhead as owed to the gravitational anomaly affecting everyone, confirmed as much as well. In fact, looking at the strone bases for the wooden platforms, hewn and stitched together from what looked like the remains of stone buildings, pillars and staircases, reminded him more of Lost Izalith than anywhere else.
Neither were especially welcome on their own. Mash the two of them together into a bastard abomination and Astaire almost wished they'd left the bloody door closed for good.
Lost Blightzilith. That's what lay before them. As close to Hell as any Undead or human might find.
It was a horrific enough sight that it froze both Astaire and the Investigation Team in their respective tracks. They simply stood at the door, blasted with the stream of immense heat and choking stench, gazing blankly at the trials to follow.
"Um… this is normal, right? You've been through this before, haven't you Astaire-kun?" Rise asked, giving Astaire's armoured shoulder a light tap. She felt her heart surge to her heels as he shook his head, eyes locked on the flow of lava overhead. "Oh… You haven't. Right." She mumbled quietly.
"I've been through Blighttown and Lost Izalith before. Never an amalgamation of the two." Astaire murmured back.
She didn't sound hopeful. Not that anyone else felt hopeful either. "Are we seriously going to try and cross over some matchstick-and-glue-ass bridge in the middle of all this frickin' lava?" Kanji said, his eyes wide. He hadn't asked anyone in particular, but it was clearly Yu's call to decide.
Yu didn't answer. Not immediately, anyway. His silence didn't help to dull everyone's concerns, either. But internally, his mind worked at a mile a minute. They needed to go further up the tower. There was no other way to go if they didn't. But god, if this wasn't a thousand times worse than a burning forest.
"...Give me a minute." Yu finally said, his eyes flitting to the Save Point off to the side of the door. He put his fingers to his chin and strolled over to the light in thought. He needed an idea. Even the slightest hint of everyone going in and getting out alright would do it. Lava-based death was a quick one. It didn't leave much hope for licking one's wounds afterwards, at any rate. It was death or life, and nothing in between.
...Wait a minute.
The light swirling around Yu's feet got his thoughts swirling in turn.
He turned on a heel, catching Astaire's gaze as he looked up from Rise's concerned expression at his side. "Have you a plan, Mr. Narukami?"
"Sorta. But I don't think you're going to like it."