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31_days2006-02-01 11:53 pm
code-epic.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2006-02-01 11:53 pm
[1-Feb-'06] [Alichino] day and age
Title: day and age
Day/Theme: 1-Feb-'06/long lost fables
Series: Alichino
Characters: Ryoko, Myobi, Matsurika
Rating: PG-13
Notes: My first![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
31_days offering. A "what if?" that spoils volume three. Anyone else read this lovely manga by Kouyu Shurei?
day and age
K. Leigh Clapp
)()(
2,663.
He feels the edge of her smile before he sees her – like a serrated saw sighing along the back of his neck, a subtle grind precisely between the first and second vertebrae. He turns around, letting go of Myobi’s small hand. The ancient demonchild lets him do so with a sigh, and her hand falls away as easily as if it belongs to a doll. Then his gaze slides through the crowd of New Yorkers to find her.
She is standing at the street corner in a crisp ivory-colored jacket and pencil skirt, and even has on a pair of narrow horn-rimmed glasses. Behind them her eyes, thin snake’s pupils ringed by cobalt irises, widen in mock surprise. She is wearing Amiya’s face. She is always wearing Amiya’s face.
“It’s not over yet. It’s just beginning.”
The chain of events unfolds in the same way every time, cause and effect tumbling each other down. His hand goes to the inside of his coat and closes around the steely grip of his revolver, still unfamiliar after three centuries with a sword first.
“Haven’t you heard, Ryoko?” She laughs, a harsh and loose sound that contrasts with the clicking of her stiletto heels as she strides toward him. She drops her briefcase, heedless, and opens her arms to him invitingly even as he lifts the revolver to her.
“In this day and age ... ”
He pulls the trigger. She staggers backward, one arm flailing out as if to brace herself against thin air. Her chest crumbles, unravels, jagged ends of ribs curling outward to trace impossible figures. Oily black blood spreads over her starched Oxford blouse, and he thinks of a large bottle of ink being flung at a scroll. She snarls, coughs, then uprights herself. One side of her jaw and cheek shimmers briefly.
“In this day and age,” she repeats, smiling again as bystanders scatter all about the three like beetles, “we’re nothing more than long lost fables.”
He pulls the trigger a second time, and Matsurika’s face shatters. Her legs fold under her, clumsy and ungraceful, and the back of her skull cracks against the cement sidewalk. He watches the skin peel away from her body in a smoky layer, the true form of the Alichino shining dark and luminous for a moment as the faces of Matsurika and Ayima waver above and beneath each other before disappearing finally.
“I will come back to life over and over again, Ryoko. Again ... yes, again ... and again ... and again ... for eternity.”
He tucks the revolver back in his coat as an owl descends upon his shoulder, its snowy wings beating while Myobi casts a glamour over the pair to hide them from shocked eyes. And there is the number which hangs compressed in the air between them, a mute and secret tally.
2,664.
“And then I will ... appear before you yet again.”
Her laugh had been terrible, a hacking death-rattle of a giggle. So many centuries ago, and it might as well have been yesterday. His response had come in a hard, flat voice while her corpse dissolved into emptiness still one more time, eerie streaks of bone and sinew like rotted lace fading away quietly.
“And I’ll find you every single time ... and slay you again and again.”
Then comes 2,665, he thinks as Myobi’s feathers brush his cheek in alien sympathy.
Day/Theme: 1-Feb-'06/long lost fables
Series: Alichino
Characters: Ryoko, Myobi, Matsurika
Rating: PG-13
Notes: My first
31_days offering. A "what if?" that spoils volume three. Anyone else read this lovely manga by Kouyu Shurei?day and age
K. Leigh Clapp
)()(
2,663.
He feels the edge of her smile before he sees her – like a serrated saw sighing along the back of his neck, a subtle grind precisely between the first and second vertebrae. He turns around, letting go of Myobi’s small hand. The ancient demonchild lets him do so with a sigh, and her hand falls away as easily as if it belongs to a doll. Then his gaze slides through the crowd of New Yorkers to find her.
She is standing at the street corner in a crisp ivory-colored jacket and pencil skirt, and even has on a pair of narrow horn-rimmed glasses. Behind them her eyes, thin snake’s pupils ringed by cobalt irises, widen in mock surprise. She is wearing Amiya’s face. She is always wearing Amiya’s face.
“It’s not over yet. It’s just beginning.”
The chain of events unfolds in the same way every time, cause and effect tumbling each other down. His hand goes to the inside of his coat and closes around the steely grip of his revolver, still unfamiliar after three centuries with a sword first.
“Haven’t you heard, Ryoko?” She laughs, a harsh and loose sound that contrasts with the clicking of her stiletto heels as she strides toward him. She drops her briefcase, heedless, and opens her arms to him invitingly even as he lifts the revolver to her.
“In this day and age ... ”
He pulls the trigger. She staggers backward, one arm flailing out as if to brace herself against thin air. Her chest crumbles, unravels, jagged ends of ribs curling outward to trace impossible figures. Oily black blood spreads over her starched Oxford blouse, and he thinks of a large bottle of ink being flung at a scroll. She snarls, coughs, then uprights herself. One side of her jaw and cheek shimmers briefly.
“In this day and age,” she repeats, smiling again as bystanders scatter all about the three like beetles, “we’re nothing more than long lost fables.”
He pulls the trigger a second time, and Matsurika’s face shatters. Her legs fold under her, clumsy and ungraceful, and the back of her skull cracks against the cement sidewalk. He watches the skin peel away from her body in a smoky layer, the true form of the Alichino shining dark and luminous for a moment as the faces of Matsurika and Ayima waver above and beneath each other before disappearing finally.
“I will come back to life over and over again, Ryoko. Again ... yes, again ... and again ... and again ... for eternity.”
He tucks the revolver back in his coat as an owl descends upon his shoulder, its snowy wings beating while Myobi casts a glamour over the pair to hide them from shocked eyes. And there is the number which hangs compressed in the air between them, a mute and secret tally.
2,664.
“And then I will ... appear before you yet again.”
Her laugh had been terrible, a hacking death-rattle of a giggle. So many centuries ago, and it might as well have been yesterday. His response had come in a hard, flat voice while her corpse dissolved into emptiness still one more time, eerie streaks of bone and sinew like rotted lace fading away quietly.
“And I’ll find you every single time ... and slay you again and again.”
Then comes 2,665, he thinks as Myobi’s feathers brush his cheek in alien sympathy.