In 2016 (Part 1) (Kyouka Inai, Fuyuko Yuuhi)
| In 2016 (Part 1) (Kyouka Inai, Fuyuko Yuuhi) | |
|---|---|
| Date of Cutscene: | 06 April 2016 |
| Location: | Mitakihara Ward |
| Synopsis: | It was a different time. There are few now who remember it. |
| Cast of Characters: | Kyouka Inai, Fuyuko Yuuhi |
| Tinyplot: | The Game |
Nighttime in Tokyo isn’t really dark. The endless sea of buildings twinkling with lights from myriad windows, the streetlamps on every corner, the thousands of cars, busses and trains all contribute to the odd half-light which suffuses the city even in the small hours of the morning.
This particular morning though, only an hour or so after midnight, there’s something unusual happening in a quiet, unassuming residential corner of the city. There’s darkness there. And it’s moving.
It flows across the roofs of houses and apartment buildings, down into alleys, through streets and across doorways. Wherever it passes, the light is temporarily blocked, cutting out as what seems like a temporary shroud passes in front, then moves on allowing the light to return.
One might be forgiven for assuming this darkness were the monster, some kind of hunter stalking the nighttime streets. Such an assumption would be half correct. The darkness streams from the hands of a teenage girl as she runs, jumps, and slides across the urban landscape.
She looks like a creature of the night, her dress dark and monochrome. A black dress with a ruffled skirt, white folds peeking from the hem, hugs her slender form. Beneath her legs flash in white-and-purple striped leggings as she runs, her feet clad in surprisingly study-looking calf-high black boots. Her hair is as dark as the night, tied up into a long ponytail which streams behind her as she runs. Her skin is pale, a stark contrast to her clothing and hair, but her eyes are dark. Pools of liquid night which seem part of the void she carries with her.
The sleeves of the dress are long, but her hands can’t be seen. They are shrouded within the clouds of liquid-seeming darkness that seem to both cling to and flow back from them, leaving trails behind her in the air which, while utterly impenetrable, seem to shine just slightly with an interior anti-luminescence. Like an oil slick made of cloud covering a field of stars.
She runs with a single-minded intensity, eyes fixed ahead. Over, under, above. Her movements are flowing and precise, and she leaps from the ground to the hoods of cars to the tops of power poles without apparent difficulty, a supernaturally-augmented parkour that carries her across the crowded city terrain without pause.
She is a hunter. She’s hunting a monster. It’s in front of her, often glimpsed but difficult to catch. Something with too many limbs and too many mouths. Physical and yet not. Natural and yet not. The ordinary people on the street, where there are any, don’t seem to notice it. Nor do they notice her. The chase is beyond them, above them.
But they are not unaffected by it’s outcome. If left alone this creature will kill. It will consume their energy and destroy them, without them ever knowing it exists. This is what the girl seeks to prevent by consuming it first. If she can catch it.
“Stellar, come in. Are you en route? This thing is giving me a damn chase, but I think I’m gaining on it.” The girl with night at her fingertips speaks in a low voice, but there’s nothing mysterious about her communication- a bluetooth earpiece blinks with a soft blue light in one of her ears.
The voice that comes back from the other side is loud, buoyant, and accompanied by rushing wind and the sound of engines. “I’m coming at fast as I can! I was all the way across town, dammit.”
The girl who speaks is only a mile or two away, crouched low over the back of a motorcycle as it races down the freeway, recklessly dodging between other vehicles as if they weren’t even there. It’s chassis is styled in sharp angles of gold and white, much like the long coat of it’s rider, which only sets off her short red hair even more dramatically. She’s not wearing a helmet- that’s probably the least dangerous decision she’s going to make tonight. Grey eyes narrowed in concentration, she speaks through the earpiece connection, barely audible over the wind. “Where are you, exactly?”
The running girl enters a large open yard, bordered on all sides but the one she’s standing on by tall, brick buildings. Warehouses, by the looks of them, or perhaps very old apartments. There are some doors, some windows, but they all appear closed and locked tight. She comes to a halt in the open space leading back to the street, whisps of effervescent night leaking up from her hidden hands.
The monster is in front of her. She can see it clearly for the first time. It’s bigger than she had assumed. As it turns to face her, realizing it does not have time to scale the walls before she catches up, it rears up to its full height. Easily nine feet tall, multiple jointed limbs, snapping mandibles. And, she begins to realize as she hears chittering and clacking from other nooks and crevices around the yard- it isn’t alone.
“The lot at 180 and 12th.” The girl’s voice is grim as she answers the question. “And quickly would be great.” She barely gets the words out when the first creature launches itself at her from the side, the one she was chasing still hulking in front of her. This is beginning to look more and more like a trap.
Quicker than shadow, the girl spins to the side, whipping her arm up between herself and the creature. The trailing darkness from her fingertips shapes itself into a blade, nothing so defined as a sword but a long, inky protrusion from her fist which continues to smoke night in whisps. As it intersects the leaping creature, pinpoints of light illuminate along its surface, like stars in a night sky. Where it passes, the creature is simply- gone. Whatever the blade touches simply ceases to be, as if absorbed into an endless nothing.
The creature falls on the other side of her, bisected, its pieces no longer connected to each other. Then they simply melt away.
Even as this is happening, another of the monsters rears up on the girl’s other side, swinging a scythelike arm. She ducks, raising both arms, and the shroud of darkness expands from her hands into a rough circle like a shield. Again, stars shine from the void as the scythe appendage strikes it- and vanishes into it, like reaching into an inky lake. Except when the creature pulls its arm back, there is no longer anything attached to it. Anything that enters the inky nothing at the tips of the girl’s fingers does not emerge again.
“Any time now, Stellar!” She screams into the earpiece as she whirls to meet the next attack.
The redhead on the speeding bike grunts, hearing the tension in the other girl’s voice. She crouches low over the humming motorcycle and mutters, “Well then, guess the time for subtlety is past.”
Suddenly, with a crack like splitting stone, the wheels of her motorcycle ignite into sparking golden light, transforming from rubber and metal into spirals of crackling lightning. The bike speeds up to unrealistic velocity, now leaving a trail of hissing light where its wheels pass over the asphalt, melting it temporarily as they pass over, spitting sparks in its wake.
Cutting to the right, skidding almost horizontally in front of a truck whose driver doesn’t even seem to notice her, she screams down an offramp and into the residential area the dark-haired girl had run through just moments before. “Hang on, Lacuna,” She mutters. “I’m almost there.”
Her arm extends to the side, and with a crackle, a weapon materializes in her grip. A long, ornate white shaft which seems to be made of some kind of metal or perhaps bone, tipped with a slightly curved, sword-like head. It’s long enough to almost clip the ground as she continues to drive at full speed, and when it brushes the ground sparks fly up to join those left by the augmented wheels of the bike.
Back at the open lot, the dark-haired girl, Lacuna, is fending off assault after assault. The creatures have begun coming at her in pairs and trios. She moves with an unnatural grace, spinning, ducking and weaving between them, trailing liquid shadow speckled with glowing stars that eats anything it touches. But it’s clear to both her and to the creatures that sheer numbers are eventually going to take their toll. It’s only a matter of time before she makes a misstep and is caught.
That time seems like it might come sooner rather than later as during a particularly complicated maneuver which sees Lacuna actually cartwheel on one hand to avoid a slashing attack, another of the monsters manages to snag one of the ruffles on her dress, just enough to send her off trajectory and to end the acrobatic feat in a stumble. Just as she’s about to turn again, a peal of thunder rips across the cloudless night sky. “Oh,” she says, with a slow smile, “You guys are fucked now.”
Stellar’s bike flashes down the street directly parallel to the lot, an after-image-producing streak of crackling light torn down the center of the street in its wake, a rolling rumble of thunder preceding her approach. She’s not slowing down, not even a little. As she draws closer, she lets go of the handlebars and rises to a crouch on the back of the speeding motorcycle, a crazed, lopsided grin on her face.
“Lacuna! Duck and cover!” She shouts into their connection before she launches herself off the back of the bike and up into the sky, sudden crackles of white-gold lightning racing across the surface of her coat, her skin, and down the length of the naginata still held outstretched in one hand.
Her leap carries her higher than any human could reasonably manage, nearly clearing the top of the nearby buildings. At its apex, she brings the polearm up above her head, spinning it into a whirling mass of spitting, crackling light. Then she launches it downwards at the lot, a throwing motion like a javelin. A crack splits the air, loud enough to rattle windows and set off car alarms. As it flies, the spear transforms into a writhing bolt of lightning, as if cast from the hand of Zeus himself.
It impacts the ground just in front of Lacuna, between her and the majority of the monsters, with a thunderous retort. Pavement splits and cracks, and a wave of hissing, writhing light pulses forward from the point of impact like a tsunami made of lightning. A dozen of the creatures are vaporized, turned to ash without even the time to flee. The naginata is left standing upright at an angle from cracked concrete, smoke rising from it slowly.
Lacuna had known what was coming, and had turned at the last moment, shielding her eyes. She now straightens again, lowering her arm, as Stellar drops to the ground just behind her, light on her feet. Her motorcycle lies on the road behind them, skidded to a stop on its side. There are several monsters left, but they seem stunned by the sudden reversal, hesitating.
Stellar steps up beside Lacuna, reaching out to grab the still-smoking spear and pull it from the ground without effort. She spins it around her arm and back into the crook of her elbow as she grins a lopsided grin, her just-slightly-too-sharp canines giving it a predatory mien. “Sorry I’m late, babe. You okay?”
Lacuna can’t hide her own more restrained smile, even as she rolls her dark eyes and heaves a soft sigh. “Showoff. I’m fine. Let’s clean these up so we can go get something to eat.”
“Now you’re talkin’ my language.” Stellar replies, and without any further acknowledgement, the two girls snap into simultaneous motion in opposite directions, one wielding a spear of crackling light, the other smokey tendrils of starry darkness. The shrieks which briefly rise up from the lot are not those of the humans. They soon fall quiet.
