Bunraku (Samurai Mecha Quest)
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Original
Undead-Spaceman
Skeleton Supreme
- Location
- Somewhere in Orbit
I think the consensus was that fire + Jade Heart started this mess to begin with.
Pandemonious Ivy
Panties, Revolution. Big Drawers. Parachute.
Might be a way to end it.
Could've had the archers fire flaming arrows from range and trap the enemies in an ever-growing circle of fire.
At this point? We have a way to start a fire, but I'm unsure if we want to go that way... Then again, a spreading flame while we're engaged in combat could make or break our assault.
Could've had the archers fire flaming arrows from range and trap the enemies in an ever-growing circle of fire.
At this point? We have a way to start a fire, but I'm unsure if we want to go that way... Then again, a spreading flame while we're engaged in combat could make or break our assault.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Bunraku are largely made up of wood and strings, and so puppeteers rarely carry flammable implements on themselves in any fashion that would be convenient enough to use mid-battle.
Of course, if Tomoe decides that her Falling Mountain being largely steel and her last wooden opponents having been extremely annoying makes fire a worthwhile weapon, that might be an option in the future.
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Pandemonious Ivy
Panties, Revolution. Big Drawers. Parachute.
[] Have Ondo harass the Heart from a distance while you leave Harvest and quickly strike several fires against the loose wood on the ground.
-[] Pour alcohol on and around the intended targets to encourage increased coverage.
So three things:
1. I know we have tools to strike a fire.
2. I know we carry alcohol on us.
3. I know that fire can be useful as a distraction, if nothing else.
So, tl;dr: Fuck it.
-[] Pour alcohol on and around the intended targets to encourage increased coverage.
So three things:
1. I know we have tools to strike a fire.
2. I know we carry alcohol on us.
3. I know that fire can be useful as a distraction, if nothing else.
So, tl;dr: Fuck it.
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- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Real talk: that won't work. You have a flask of strong alcohol, yes, but it's inside your bunraku and you would have to open your hatch, take it, pour it by hands while exposing yourself to enemy retaliation, and a splash of sake, even if you set it alight, is simply not big enough.
If fire was a real option for you here, I would have mentioned it already. Fire is, generally, an inconvenient tool in warfare; even armies that know they're going to face bunraku, which are vulnerable to it, rarely bother with fire arrows. It's a rare tactic, and it might be an option in the future, but right now it's just impractical.
(well, the above isn't entirely accurate. Fire can be highly effective on a strategic scale, like by setting cities or fields on fire. Just not in combat, usually.)
Pandemonious Ivy
Panties, Revolution. Big Drawers. Parachute.
InterstellarHobo
Cosmic Vagrant
- Location
- No Fixed Planetary System
Relevant and interesting facts: burning alcohol won't actually ignite wood!
Alcohol doesn't burn very hot at all, at ~153 degrees Celsius- it just burns fairly easily, and very fast. It's still hot enough to cause extreme pain to anyone, say, doused in burning alcohol, but wood ignites at 180 degrees C minimum (and takes a while to start at that). Simply pouring alcohol on a branch and lighting it will get you a branch covered in burning alcohol.
While I'm here,
[X]Your advantage lies in numbers and weapons. Flank Akamine with Ondo, exploiting your superior reach to overwhelm him with a dual assault before his control can take hold.
-[X] Hope for the Harvest is tougher than Ondo's and has less wood in it's make, take the brunt of Akamine's attention while Ondo takes advantage of his distraction.
Alcohol doesn't burn very hot at all, at ~153 degrees Celsius- it just burns fairly easily, and very fast. It's still hot enough to cause extreme pain to anyone, say, doused in burning alcohol, but wood ignites at 180 degrees C minimum (and takes a while to start at that). Simply pouring alcohol on a branch and lighting it will get you a branch covered in burning alcohol.
While I'm here,
[X]Your advantage lies in numbers and weapons. Flank Akamine with Ondo, exploiting your superior reach to overwhelm him with a dual assault before his control can take hold.
-[X] Hope for the Harvest is tougher than Ondo's and has less wood in it's make, take the brunt of Akamine's attention while Ondo takes advantage of his distraction.
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Pandemonious Ivy
Panties, Revolution. Big Drawers. Parachute.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
And I greatly appreciate all players attempts at active participation ^.^
Pandemonious Ivy
Panties, Revolution. Big Drawers. Parachute.
Okay, so the obvious alternative is to set up a Fastball Special.
I'm like 17% sure it'd work.
43% sure it'd even be effective.
110% sure it'd be cool as shit.
So...
Obviously we should take the odds!
I'm like 17% sure it'd work.
43% sure it'd even be effective.
110% sure it'd be cool as shit.
So...
Obviously we should take the odds!
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ondo disapproves -10
Khona Moshr
Pink Flamingo Cabal Healer(they/them)
- Location
- Alabama
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X]Your advantage lies in numbers and weapons. Flank Akamine with Ondo, exploiting your superior reach to overwhelm him with a dual assault before his control can take hold.
-[X] Hope for the Harvest is tougher than Ondo's and has less wood in it's make, take the brunt of Akamine's attention while Ondo takes advantage of his distraction.
Just found this, awesome work @Omicron
-[X] Hope for the Harvest is tougher than Ondo's and has less wood in it's make, take the brunt of Akamine's attention while Ondo takes advantage of his distraction.
Just found this, awesome work @Omicron
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Corrected for accuracy:
Ondo approves +10
Lady Gozen disapproves -50
"You are making a mockery of our noble institution!"
"Yeah but what if it works tho"
"Then I'm resigning."
- Location
- Should be a bit higher
Use of fire in combat has to be premeditated. It's a very unwieldy tool. Effective at times but hard to bring to bear.
So how is Tomoe's Jujutsu by the way? Could she in fact suplex a god with her Bunraku?
[X]Harvest includes large amount of steel, and will resist Akamine's influence much better. Tell Ondo to stand back and take Akamine head-on, pitting your terrible strength against his.
So how is Tomoe's Jujutsu by the way? Could she in fact suplex a god with her Bunraku?
[X]Harvest includes large amount of steel, and will resist Akamine's influence much better. Tell Ondo to stand back and take Akamine head-on, pitting your terrible strength against his.
Pandemonious Ivy
Panties, Revolution. Big Drawers. Parachute.
cB557
voOOP
[X]Harvest includes large amount of steel, and will resist Akamine's influence much better. Tell Ondo to stand back and take Akamine head-on, pitting your terrible strength against his.
Well really, we probably wouldn't look very cool trying to jump out of our cockpit and into Harvests hand only for the whole thing to topple over on top of us because we had to let go of its strings to do any of that.
XVI. The Heart Bleeds
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
XVI. The Heart Bleeds
The kami's servant back away from the battle, oblivious to their enemies. They throw themselves to the ground in worship, raising and lowering their hands like monks in reverence.
Lady Gozen stares at the moving fortress, refusing to believe her eyes. She has never met a kami of this size without an entire army at her back. But her training leaves no room for fear or doubt.
"What are you doing?" she yells at the samurai behind her, all staring in fearful awe. "Shoot the damned thing!"
Greatbows release a volley of arrows, but there are only eight warriors with her and their arrows are puny thing to a creature this size. They stick out of its tortoise-like face and all they do is draw its attention - the living castle moves, legs of earth and rock and roots, slow and ponderous but so big it is still too fast.
Gozen screams orders, her men pull back on their horses firing again and again to no more effect. She follows them at the rear, knowing her task is to protect them even if her bunraku alone could never defeat such a monster. If she were with the ashigaru she could spur them on, sacrifice a hundred men to pin the kami down long enough for her puppeteers to do their job, send them climbing its earthen flanks to assist them. But their orders were to enter an unprotected breach in a castle, not to assault a monster out of a legend. Wherever they are, they will not come.
She can only trust a runaway princess and a reckless fool.
***
You are so tired of this.
It's not even been a fortnight since you lost everything, then shattered a consort's memory, then slaughtered Iron Raven's bandits. And now what's this? A man turned into a kami?
Heavens, but you wish you could sleep for a month straight.
"Ondo!" You shout, struggling against your rebellious frame to put a foot forward and draw Akamine's attention. His carved visage turns to you, anger twisting his features, and he clutches his fists. "I'm going to draw his attention, you-"
The creature raises one hand, and you feel half the cogs in Harvest seize up in an all-too-human spasm. For a second you think he's about to attack you while you're at a disadvantage, but no, his target is Ondo - already partly incapacitated and much more vulnerable than you are. The wooden samurai surges towards your ally, bracing a fist.
Bad choice. Skill honed by years of experience, you shift your focus on the strings, compensating for lost maneuverability by raising other sections of the limbs, pitting your fine control over the kami's brute magic. Harvest leaps into motion - too slow to come between Akamine and his target… But then, that's why you have a spear.
Your naginata thrusts in the space between the two and you arc it around, hitting the wooden face square in the forehead with its blade; Akamine stumbles backwards, sap pouring from the wound. You can't stop your course, and you don't try to; pulling back your spear you hunch your shoulders and ram straight into the kami, an impact which shakes your entire hatch and makes you dizzy but also sends the kami hurtling back, smashing into one of the overgrown barracks. Fumbling to get your bearings and recover full control of Harvest, you secure your grip on the spear and thrust it at the thing's head for a killing blow - but it dodges aside, getting away from the wall. His hands stretch out, his fingers lengthen, and the spear-tips jutting out of his body emerge as claws - he swipes for your mask and you step back, deflecting the blow with your spear.
"I… SMELL… HEAVEN ON YOU… GIRL," comes a voice out of the wooden face, a voice not deep as you had expected but howling, hissing, rustling, wind in the leaves.
"And I smell a heap of kindling," you spit out, striking for the shoulder - but he deflects the blow, swipes with his claws again and is inside your range; you raise your haft before you to keep him from tearing off Harvest's head…
And the moment where he is too locked in melee with you to disengage is the moment Ondo's Chasing Star leaps over the barracks next to you, lands in a crouch and whips out a short blade, slashing at Akamine's ankle from behind. The monster growls, pulls himself from you and tries to strike him; but Ondo whips out the same crimson fan you saw him used to give a warning to his commander - only from up close you realize its folds are iron; the fan deflects the clumsy blow and the short blade cuts deep into the kami's wrist, and then Ondo is stepping back, already out of range. With Akamine exposed, you recover from his assault and put in all the strength you can to stab him in the chest - your naginata pierces its gut, spilling more pungent sap.
The wooden face twists in anger, and Akamine extends his arm, ignoring the blade. You feel the pulse, the rush of the relic's power, and barely have time to step back and cover your chestplate; in a rumbling like thunder the outer coils of the kami explode, and all the spear-tips and arrowheads come out in a cutting wave, a staccato of impacts on your armor. Ondo screams in panic.
"I WILL NOT GO BACK."
The wave passes as soon as it arrived, and you lower your arm. Ondo's bunraku is scrambling away, his fragile frame having suffered serious damage, but it is at you that Akamine is looking. You twitch your hands, testing your armor's integrity.
All strings respond.
"Steel, you overgrown shrub," you say with a grin that goes up to your ears.
You bring up the spear, a slashing cut to the neck, and the moment of surprise is passed. The kami ducks his head, netting him only a gash to the cheek, and tries to rush in your open guard. His slashed ankle betrays him; he loses his balance. You thrust at his chest with all your might-
His hand swats your spear, not hitting the blade but the wooden haft, and you feel the pulse of his power; the wood before your eyes bends, branches sprout along its length, and it leaps out of your grasp, lodging in the ground head first. You are briefly stunned, and in that moment the kami punches, a fist like a battering ram hitting your chestplate head-on. The impact shakes the whole of Harvest; the hatch shakes you in all direction, your eyes flashing with strobes and your lunch barely keeping down; your head is knocked out of your viewing lenses and you reel back against your seat, only to see how the the full strength of his fist imprinted the mark of his hand into your door, inches from your face.
You laugh, not a laugh of joy but of simple, mindless nerves, of tension building up and releasing. You put your head back into the viewing lens, you pull the strings to test their give, and you see the kami come back for a second blow, terrible supernatural might in every twisted wooden knot of his body. He might even be stronger than you.
"I said. STEEL!" you shout, moving aside, extending one empty hand to grab the arm as it rips against your chestplate, shaking you again. You kick his wounded foot and the kami loses his balance; your other hand grabs his shoulder and your strength overcomes his own, and with a terrible heft you hurl Akamine into the air. He hits one of the growing oaks in full and there is a snapping of wood; the tree falls in one stroke and Akamine slumps.
You sigh, a moment's break from the frenzy of action. Even if you wished to rush the downed kami to finish him off, you couldn't, the strain is getting too much. Instead you scan your surroundings for your spear, find it and hurl it out of the earth. Your breath is halting.
"I don't know if you're in there, Captain Akamine," you say as you approach the creature, "but if you are I want you to know that your men were good soldiers, and did their best to honor your memory."
You hoist the spear overhead, preparing for a downward lunge that will pin the thing to the ground.
Then he slams the earth with his hand, and it shakes; your balance is offset for a moment and suddenly all the leaves of all the trees that have grown throughout the fort are blown off their branches by some terrible wind. They come rushing around the both of you, an emerald whirlwind, and you can see nothing; you thrust blindly hoping to hit Akamine before he can get up, but hit only barren ground. You step back, pulling your spear up in a guard, trying to sense him; but all you hear is the howling of the wind, and all you see are leaves madly dancing.
It comes from your left, a sudden blow to the arm. You reel from the impact and feel delayed response in Harvest's elbow; but even with you blind the kami shouldn't have been able to get this close… You turn on your heels, spear low to the ground, tracing circles to cover your angles. This time you hear him, heavy steps over the wind, and you time your counter with his reach - and then he hits you through your guard, his body never coming in view, a blunt impact to the left shoulder. A weapon. He has a weapon with high reach. How?
You don't have time to think. This time he is coming even more strongly, surrendering whatever control he has over the whirlwind. You see the leaves part before you and the terrible figure of the wooden samurai, stretching to its full height - taller than even Harvest - and raising over his head… The oak that snapped when you knocked him back. You don't have time to think. You raise your bent, sprouts-studded naginata, taking the blow against the length of the haft. It's too much; the weight of the leafless trunk bends in your elbows, you fall to one knee in the dirt, and the impact hits your shoulder. Strings snap, and you feel cogs break, steel plates cave in, and your naginata shatters in the middle of its haft. Akamine raises the club for a second blow.
Then Ondo, his bunraku riddled with iron blades, is flying. The mad bastard, too weakened to hold his own, climbed up the rooftop of one of the squat wooden buildings behind the kami, and jumped. Before the club can come down on you it is Ondo who comes down, short blade held in both hands, driving it with all the force of gravity and his armor's weight into Akamine's back.
The kami stumbles and turns to face his opponent, but the weight of his weapon is dragging him down. Ondo pulls the sword out and again slams it with both hands, this time into the thing's face. There is a scream, and all the leaves fall down, his control broken; for a moment it seems as if you have just won. Then the kami holds his hand towards Ondo, not touching him - and the light wooden bunraku snaps, its arms violently outstretched as if crucified. There is a terrible sound of cracking wood; the arms bend unnaturally, snapping out of their elbows, and Ondo's wooden hatch door explodes, opening like a jagged flower. The puppeteer screams, his handling gloves twisting his own, real arms, and the kami roars, bracing for the killing blow.
Your own roar outmatches his. Taking the broken, bladed half of your spear in your one good hand you strike at his open back, next to the glowing Heart. You push with all your strength and Akamine falls down. He rolls over onto his back, dropping the oak club to shield himself, but you do not let him. You come down on him on your knees, holding the blade up, and strike again and again.
"NO ONE ELSE! DIES! ON MY WATCH!" You scream, and there is no kami, there is no Ondo. You are killing a thousand demons as they swarm your ranks; your lord is standing next to you, broken and dying. You are fighting back against the tide as Okami's daughter, a woman you have respected all your life and who trusted you with her father's life, falls besides you. You are raging and clawing and killing as Okami's son, a warrior your own age with whom you trained in the courtyards of the Autumn Palace, throws his bunraku before his father's body. You are in the battlefield, dead men around you, slathering oni overwhelming you and grinning with their mouths full of fangs and their bulging eyes.
And then you're not. You are on a moving fortress, a puppeteer you barely met but who entrusted you with his life and him with yours writhing in pain a few yards from you as he tries to get out of his broken armor, and there is no oni, but there is a monster all the same. Your blade comes down, chipped and cracked, and you stab and stab around the heart, cutting off the roots and wooden arteries, sap like blood thick on your gauntlets. Then the blade snaps, breaking in the wound, and you are weaponless. Akamine twitches, trying to get his arms up to push you back.
"He owes me a guard round, you bastard," you hiss, and plunge your hand in the kami's chest. Your gauntlet clutches the pulsing, beating relic, and you rip it out in one motion. The burning eyes widen, staring at you in bafflement and surprise, and then go out.
The Heart is still beating in your hand, bleeding turquoise fluid, burning with light. The trees that surround you convulse and reach out, their leafless branches like grasping hands. The ground around your feet shakes rhythmically at the pace of a giant beast. The Heart's power no longer fuels the vessel that was Captain Akamine, but it is still inside the fort. It still bleeds into your surroundings, and the kami's divinity pervades everything around you.
Vines and roots form out of the ichor, a crawling mass that surrounds the Heart to protect it, and you feel Harvest's arm resist you. Through the metal plates you can see where the wood is sprouting, bending, changing at the Heart's will. In a moment it will seize control of Harvest, as it did of Akamine's body.
But you have that moment.
[ ]Commune with the heart. If your will is strong enough, you can succeed where the captain failed, bending it to your will. You only risk your soul.
[ ]Squeeze it until it cracks. If you can damage it enough, the flow of power will be cut off, without needing to destroy it. It is safer, and it could be repaired later.
[ ]Hurl it with all of Harvest's strength. If you can throw it far enough from the fort, the connection will break and the Heart will only have itself.
The kami's servant back away from the battle, oblivious to their enemies. They throw themselves to the ground in worship, raising and lowering their hands like monks in reverence.
Lady Gozen stares at the moving fortress, refusing to believe her eyes. She has never met a kami of this size without an entire army at her back. But her training leaves no room for fear or doubt.
"What are you doing?" she yells at the samurai behind her, all staring in fearful awe. "Shoot the damned thing!"
Greatbows release a volley of arrows, but there are only eight warriors with her and their arrows are puny thing to a creature this size. They stick out of its tortoise-like face and all they do is draw its attention - the living castle moves, legs of earth and rock and roots, slow and ponderous but so big it is still too fast.
Gozen screams orders, her men pull back on their horses firing again and again to no more effect. She follows them at the rear, knowing her task is to protect them even if her bunraku alone could never defeat such a monster. If she were with the ashigaru she could spur them on, sacrifice a hundred men to pin the kami down long enough for her puppeteers to do their job, send them climbing its earthen flanks to assist them. But their orders were to enter an unprotected breach in a castle, not to assault a monster out of a legend. Wherever they are, they will not come.
She can only trust a runaway princess and a reckless fool.
***
You are so tired of this.
It's not even been a fortnight since you lost everything, then shattered a consort's memory, then slaughtered Iron Raven's bandits. And now what's this? A man turned into a kami?
Heavens, but you wish you could sleep for a month straight.
"Ondo!" You shout, struggling against your rebellious frame to put a foot forward and draw Akamine's attention. His carved visage turns to you, anger twisting his features, and he clutches his fists. "I'm going to draw his attention, you-"
The creature raises one hand, and you feel half the cogs in Harvest seize up in an all-too-human spasm. For a second you think he's about to attack you while you're at a disadvantage, but no, his target is Ondo - already partly incapacitated and much more vulnerable than you are. The wooden samurai surges towards your ally, bracing a fist.
Bad choice. Skill honed by years of experience, you shift your focus on the strings, compensating for lost maneuverability by raising other sections of the limbs, pitting your fine control over the kami's brute magic. Harvest leaps into motion - too slow to come between Akamine and his target… But then, that's why you have a spear.
Your naginata thrusts in the space between the two and you arc it around, hitting the wooden face square in the forehead with its blade; Akamine stumbles backwards, sap pouring from the wound. You can't stop your course, and you don't try to; pulling back your spear you hunch your shoulders and ram straight into the kami, an impact which shakes your entire hatch and makes you dizzy but also sends the kami hurtling back, smashing into one of the overgrown barracks. Fumbling to get your bearings and recover full control of Harvest, you secure your grip on the spear and thrust it at the thing's head for a killing blow - but it dodges aside, getting away from the wall. His hands stretch out, his fingers lengthen, and the spear-tips jutting out of his body emerge as claws - he swipes for your mask and you step back, deflecting the blow with your spear.
"I… SMELL… HEAVEN ON YOU… GIRL," comes a voice out of the wooden face, a voice not deep as you had expected but howling, hissing, rustling, wind in the leaves.
"And I smell a heap of kindling," you spit out, striking for the shoulder - but he deflects the blow, swipes with his claws again and is inside your range; you raise your haft before you to keep him from tearing off Harvest's head…
And the moment where he is too locked in melee with you to disengage is the moment Ondo's Chasing Star leaps over the barracks next to you, lands in a crouch and whips out a short blade, slashing at Akamine's ankle from behind. The monster growls, pulls himself from you and tries to strike him; but Ondo whips out the same crimson fan you saw him used to give a warning to his commander - only from up close you realize its folds are iron; the fan deflects the clumsy blow and the short blade cuts deep into the kami's wrist, and then Ondo is stepping back, already out of range. With Akamine exposed, you recover from his assault and put in all the strength you can to stab him in the chest - your naginata pierces its gut, spilling more pungent sap.
The wooden face twists in anger, and Akamine extends his arm, ignoring the blade. You feel the pulse, the rush of the relic's power, and barely have time to step back and cover your chestplate; in a rumbling like thunder the outer coils of the kami explode, and all the spear-tips and arrowheads come out in a cutting wave, a staccato of impacts on your armor. Ondo screams in panic.
"I WILL NOT GO BACK."
The wave passes as soon as it arrived, and you lower your arm. Ondo's bunraku is scrambling away, his fragile frame having suffered serious damage, but it is at you that Akamine is looking. You twitch your hands, testing your armor's integrity.
All strings respond.
"Steel, you overgrown shrub," you say with a grin that goes up to your ears.
You bring up the spear, a slashing cut to the neck, and the moment of surprise is passed. The kami ducks his head, netting him only a gash to the cheek, and tries to rush in your open guard. His slashed ankle betrays him; he loses his balance. You thrust at his chest with all your might-
His hand swats your spear, not hitting the blade but the wooden haft, and you feel the pulse of his power; the wood before your eyes bends, branches sprout along its length, and it leaps out of your grasp, lodging in the ground head first. You are briefly stunned, and in that moment the kami punches, a fist like a battering ram hitting your chestplate head-on. The impact shakes the whole of Harvest; the hatch shakes you in all direction, your eyes flashing with strobes and your lunch barely keeping down; your head is knocked out of your viewing lenses and you reel back against your seat, only to see how the the full strength of his fist imprinted the mark of his hand into your door, inches from your face.
You laugh, not a laugh of joy but of simple, mindless nerves, of tension building up and releasing. You put your head back into the viewing lens, you pull the strings to test their give, and you see the kami come back for a second blow, terrible supernatural might in every twisted wooden knot of his body. He might even be stronger than you.
"I said. STEEL!" you shout, moving aside, extending one empty hand to grab the arm as it rips against your chestplate, shaking you again. You kick his wounded foot and the kami loses his balance; your other hand grabs his shoulder and your strength overcomes his own, and with a terrible heft you hurl Akamine into the air. He hits one of the growing oaks in full and there is a snapping of wood; the tree falls in one stroke and Akamine slumps.
You sigh, a moment's break from the frenzy of action. Even if you wished to rush the downed kami to finish him off, you couldn't, the strain is getting too much. Instead you scan your surroundings for your spear, find it and hurl it out of the earth. Your breath is halting.
"I don't know if you're in there, Captain Akamine," you say as you approach the creature, "but if you are I want you to know that your men were good soldiers, and did their best to honor your memory."
You hoist the spear overhead, preparing for a downward lunge that will pin the thing to the ground.
Then he slams the earth with his hand, and it shakes; your balance is offset for a moment and suddenly all the leaves of all the trees that have grown throughout the fort are blown off their branches by some terrible wind. They come rushing around the both of you, an emerald whirlwind, and you can see nothing; you thrust blindly hoping to hit Akamine before he can get up, but hit only barren ground. You step back, pulling your spear up in a guard, trying to sense him; but all you hear is the howling of the wind, and all you see are leaves madly dancing.
It comes from your left, a sudden blow to the arm. You reel from the impact and feel delayed response in Harvest's elbow; but even with you blind the kami shouldn't have been able to get this close… You turn on your heels, spear low to the ground, tracing circles to cover your angles. This time you hear him, heavy steps over the wind, and you time your counter with his reach - and then he hits you through your guard, his body never coming in view, a blunt impact to the left shoulder. A weapon. He has a weapon with high reach. How?
You don't have time to think. This time he is coming even more strongly, surrendering whatever control he has over the whirlwind. You see the leaves part before you and the terrible figure of the wooden samurai, stretching to its full height - taller than even Harvest - and raising over his head… The oak that snapped when you knocked him back. You don't have time to think. You raise your bent, sprouts-studded naginata, taking the blow against the length of the haft. It's too much; the weight of the leafless trunk bends in your elbows, you fall to one knee in the dirt, and the impact hits your shoulder. Strings snap, and you feel cogs break, steel plates cave in, and your naginata shatters in the middle of its haft. Akamine raises the club for a second blow.
Then Ondo, his bunraku riddled with iron blades, is flying. The mad bastard, too weakened to hold his own, climbed up the rooftop of one of the squat wooden buildings behind the kami, and jumped. Before the club can come down on you it is Ondo who comes down, short blade held in both hands, driving it with all the force of gravity and his armor's weight into Akamine's back.
The kami stumbles and turns to face his opponent, but the weight of his weapon is dragging him down. Ondo pulls the sword out and again slams it with both hands, this time into the thing's face. There is a scream, and all the leaves fall down, his control broken; for a moment it seems as if you have just won. Then the kami holds his hand towards Ondo, not touching him - and the light wooden bunraku snaps, its arms violently outstretched as if crucified. There is a terrible sound of cracking wood; the arms bend unnaturally, snapping out of their elbows, and Ondo's wooden hatch door explodes, opening like a jagged flower. The puppeteer screams, his handling gloves twisting his own, real arms, and the kami roars, bracing for the killing blow.
Your own roar outmatches his. Taking the broken, bladed half of your spear in your one good hand you strike at his open back, next to the glowing Heart. You push with all your strength and Akamine falls down. He rolls over onto his back, dropping the oak club to shield himself, but you do not let him. You come down on him on your knees, holding the blade up, and strike again and again.
"NO ONE ELSE! DIES! ON MY WATCH!" You scream, and there is no kami, there is no Ondo. You are killing a thousand demons as they swarm your ranks; your lord is standing next to you, broken and dying. You are fighting back against the tide as Okami's daughter, a woman you have respected all your life and who trusted you with her father's life, falls besides you. You are raging and clawing and killing as Okami's son, a warrior your own age with whom you trained in the courtyards of the Autumn Palace, throws his bunraku before his father's body. You are in the battlefield, dead men around you, slathering oni overwhelming you and grinning with their mouths full of fangs and their bulging eyes.
And then you're not. You are on a moving fortress, a puppeteer you barely met but who entrusted you with his life and him with yours writhing in pain a few yards from you as he tries to get out of his broken armor, and there is no oni, but there is a monster all the same. Your blade comes down, chipped and cracked, and you stab and stab around the heart, cutting off the roots and wooden arteries, sap like blood thick on your gauntlets. Then the blade snaps, breaking in the wound, and you are weaponless. Akamine twitches, trying to get his arms up to push you back.
"He owes me a guard round, you bastard," you hiss, and plunge your hand in the kami's chest. Your gauntlet clutches the pulsing, beating relic, and you rip it out in one motion. The burning eyes widen, staring at you in bafflement and surprise, and then go out.
The Heart is still beating in your hand, bleeding turquoise fluid, burning with light. The trees that surround you convulse and reach out, their leafless branches like grasping hands. The ground around your feet shakes rhythmically at the pace of a giant beast. The Heart's power no longer fuels the vessel that was Captain Akamine, but it is still inside the fort. It still bleeds into your surroundings, and the kami's divinity pervades everything around you.
Vines and roots form out of the ichor, a crawling mass that surrounds the Heart to protect it, and you feel Harvest's arm resist you. Through the metal plates you can see where the wood is sprouting, bending, changing at the Heart's will. In a moment it will seize control of Harvest, as it did of Akamine's body.
But you have that moment.
[ ]Commune with the heart. If your will is strong enough, you can succeed where the captain failed, bending it to your will. You only risk your soul.
[ ]Squeeze it until it cracks. If you can damage it enough, the flow of power will be cut off, without needing to destroy it. It is safer, and it could be repaired later.
[ ]Hurl it with all of Harvest's strength. If you can throw it far enough from the fort, the connection will break and the Heart will only have itself.
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SirLagginton
Shadow Cabal Caerbannog Bun-Bun
- Location
- Arrrghhh
[X]Commune with the heart. If your will is strong enough, you can succeed where the captain failed, bending it to your will. You only risk your soul.
KnightDisciple
Love God. Do Right. Fear No Man.
- Location
- Midwest, USA
[X]Squeeze it until it cracks. If you can damage it enough, the flow of power will be cut off, without needing to destroy it. It is safer, and it could be repaired later.
Khona Moshr
Pink Flamingo Cabal Healer(they/them)
- Location
- Alabama
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X]Squeeze it until it cracks. If you can damage it enough, the flow of power will be cut off, without needing to destroy it. It is safer, and it could be repaired later.
