Post by Commodore Kimono on Jul 6, 2024 3:27:05 GMT -5
Unresolved Struggles
Kimono Lamellar
Mother of Mist: Komashitsu
Intergalactic Terrorist, Ex-Earth Military, Wanted Criminal
UNKNOWABLE, UNSEEABLE, UNSPEAKABLE
Base Power Level: 74,953 (Antisense NOW ACTIVE)
Current Power Level: 374,765 (Antisense NOW ACTIVE)
Word Count: 2,222
Total Word Count: 2,222
Text Hex: d40000
Mother of Mist: Komashitsu
UNKNOWABLE, UNSEEABLE, UNSPEAKABLE
Base Power Level: 74,953 (Antisense NOW ACTIVE)
Current Power Level: 374,765 (Antisense NOW ACTIVE)
Word Count: 2,222
Total Word Count: 2,222
Text Hex: d40000
It has only been a short while since the demon had successfully captured her host's body, and even shorter since she came to find herself someone quiet, easily concealed from others. Despite traveling from town to town, city to city, Kim's disturbing, damaged appearance was too much of a give-away to those looking for monstrosities like herself. She wasn't safe among the regular population by any means... That resorted to her relying on others for concealment.
The alleyways of Central City's most dense parts of the city had become rife with those who couldn't care less about the existence of Komashitsu's little fortress she had constructed from the debris. No one ventured too far into the territories of the destitute, giving Koma just the hiding place she needed. Between two large structures inside the inlet of an unused drainage pipe was numerous swathes of large, clay-constructed humanoids hard at work moving and rearranging the trash and other stolen goods into makeshift walls and covers. Tarps lay to protect the entrance from rain or sight, and all among this was the limp, discomforting look of Kimono's body laying with her back to the stone wall of the pipe. Koma had worked her magic once more to relieve the mortal flesh of some of the Black Mist coursing through it's veins. Too much, especially for some as much of a diluted soul as Kim, could cause her to begin showing signs of poisoning among those born from the Hutong. Even though she had been born with the curse, it's rawest form was a special kind of toxic. Had she not been able to reduce her amount even a little bit during her encounter with Meara, it's likely Kimono's body would not have been able to handle the sudden rise of production. She'd have perished to the Black Water Mist, incapable of such intense volatility.
Even now, while soft rain fell around her microscopic kingdom of debris, Komashitsu's gaze fell on those around as the burn of the mortal coil sizzled against her extradimensional soul. A creature out of time, out of space from it's determined destination. Her time in mortality ended millennia ago. When the Playwright's wretched claw drug across the planet and cursed her children and their children to eternal torment at the hands of his rawest, most disgusting of sins.
"M...Mistress" a bristly voice grumbled through the fog that emanated from his carapace. One of the many clay soldiers marching about the location had come upon the 'Queen's throne carrying with him a frightened, older human male. The yokai dropped the mortal at the feet of the possessed woman, her hair swept back to reveal the corrupted, demonic eye peering back down at the man's own soul. "We caught him sneaking in through the back. Reinforcements completed repairs. Do we... slay him."
"Hmm..." Koma debated in herself the implications of the matter. Killing a random human was no qualm to her. She had no intentions of causing problems, but if they actively got in her way she would dispose of anyone or anything in her path of vengeance. "No. He lives. For now. Leave him here and return to work. When construction is complete, you will all return to the portal." The clay yokai would grumble more under his breath, pulling away the blade of his mist-borne sword from the neck of the older human as he wandered off, leaving this mortified earthling at the maw of the beast herself. "You. You will listen. You will know my wrath. Then, and only then, will you be free to go and tell your story. Understood?"
With a slight nod from the old man, she would peer down herself and the platform in the tunnel she called her throne and gazed further into the abyss of her own creation. A nightmare society of the universe's most wretched, unkempt creatures all loyal to her to some degree. Beings of her own machination born from the Black Water Mist's corruptive power, and natural beings from the Demon Realm older and more archaic than even she. It was like a house of monsters with no end in sight as shadows crept up to every surface concealing more imps and devils along the sheer surfaces, even those who turned into shadows themselves. It was a parade of the yokai with their own little world stuck along the lines of humanity in the furthest reaches of society. Something that alone must be horrifying to see for the human before her.
"W-What are you? What is this place?" the frail, feeble call of the human rung across Komashitsu's ear. Kim's contorted, uncomfortable frame was earthling by design, but not by function. Every second the black mist inhabited her form, the worse and worse it got. She'd peer back to the man and smile, not in an overly creepy or disturbing manner, but more kind. Gentle. How she would have as a human so long ago.
"When you wake up from a nightmare, you are saved by your brain's ability to shut out the bad things from you. Those unspeakable evils your imagination conjures up can, and are, real in some degree or form." Komashitsu's cryptic speech would continue. "Thing is, unlike your imagination. We percolate through the fabric of reality into your plane of existence. One by one, piece by piece, we bring ourselves here for one reason or another. Misshapen, lacking our primordial fluidity we might have back home. Not to haunt you, or to wreck havoc on your world. We have our own motives. Our own reasons for persisting."
"So, what? You came from some demon world because of personal issues?" The man would state. His expression one less of fear now, but of annoyance, bordering on anger. "What right does that give you to take over a drainage tunnel as your playground?"
"You misunderstand. I'm here for something far greater than 'personal issues' as you put it." She would hiss, turning her back to the human and looking deeper into the darkness of the ever-expansive tunnel system of the sewers, mostly incomplete from failed planning of the city during it's construction. "I was human. Born an Earthling like you once. I got to experience true horror when one of the demon realm came to me in my dreams. He said things, did things, started things I couldn't have hoped to comprehend at the time. Every second of every waking minute now is just a never ending incubus of trepidation." As she spoke, she would channel the mist around herself once more.
From her fingertips danced around thin, veil-like forms of the haze that crept low to the ground, forming up from it's foundation a construction of great detail. A monolith, not unlike that of the Mother's Nail in the homeland of the Sealgai clans themselves. Forked spire rising high above her figure and standing at roughly seven to eight feet in height, it's gap between the affixed blades of the creation sparking with blue electrical current. The 'gate' of the spire would warp itself through the electrical bolts across the surface of the machination, it's metallic appearance of hardened Black Water Mist coursing with newfound energy. All along the tunnel she had formed many of these exact same beacons, each one powering a network of Yokai fueled by the miasma emitting from the Lamellar clan's poor victims. Each beast of demonic burden ate, drank, and bled the mist, and with this they required sustenance.
"What I became was nothing short of the same being he was. My humanity was stripped in favor of something more arcane. My body, my visual representation in life, is nothing but a cloud of poisonous brume which restores itself from the consumption of others. I cannot exist without hurting other people, which I never wanted from life..." The words left the figure's mouth with a depressed tone, her eyes looking down at Kimono's hands and gripping the boney, skin-laced fingers of her descendant's body. The crimson color of blood beginning to drip from swelling pools in her palms, her fingernails digging through the tissue and deep into the muscle layer, every drop landing on black metallic flashes of metal across concrete and stone. "I did not want this. I do not want this. That bastard... The Playwright, I will have my revenge on his name and wipe his very existence from this plane of life and make sure he can do no harm to anyone else for the remainder of eternity." She vowed through the pain, glaring deep into the gashed wounds in her palms with righteous fury. "I am here, I am in your community, as an envoy of destruction to those forces that wish to do us- you Earthlings wrong. I am no less human than you, even though I lost my humanity so long ago. I will be the thing that keeps back such horrid monstrosities from making any more issues of your world."
The man was a mixture of baffled and afraid, watching the self-infliction of injury atop the growing bellow of toxic fumes in the enclosed space making his head dizzy and exhausted from the exposure, unsure of why he wasn't falling unconscious or dying. He reached out with a single hand, one finger attempting to touch at the feet of the woman before him, until his finger met the edge of a magical barrier. Clear, invisible to the naked eye, it protected him from the worst of her Black Water Mist. She was insuring he wouldn't die. "If... If that's true, why are you here?"
"Isn't it obvious?" She would state back coldly, turning toward the blocked entrance to the tunnel. Through the open holes of the reinforcements, the visages of the destitute Earthlings was visible. Humans, Animal-beings, anthropomorphics, even some aliens living at the fringe of society were curious and disgusted at what they saw beyond the gate. The immortal masses of demonic outcasts making themselves home in the tomb of the abandoned tunnel. "We are not loved or welcome. We exist as reminders of the bad things in life. I cannot expose myself to the regular world without fear of a super-powered being smiting me where I stand. My host... My granddaughter here, she was a known terrorist. Horrible, corrupted by the Playwright's curse and inducted into evil acts she could hardly control. Her emotional state destroyed by it's twisting nature. Every part of me is the antithesis of Earthling life. With that, I must live in hiding. Plotting from the bottom of society. I know you will have a distaste for me, your compatriots may continue to live in fear... But fear you should not. We are no less than you. Outcasts of society. Unwanted, forgotten. Leave us be, and we shall leave you be. Nothing more, nothing less. Acceptable?" She would finish her explanation, reaching her hand out to the man as the miasma around them blew away into the furthest reaches of the tunnel. The man drew nearer, cautious still, but reached out and took her hand. Rising to his feet, he would shake her hand and nod.
"I can't guarantee everyone will listen to me." He would remark, looking around. Still frightful of the abominations he saw. Even now as he tried to come to terms with the odd, awkward symbiosis being offered to them by the woman shrouded in demonic mist. Woven cosmic fractals visible through the opaque eldritch fog intimidating to the mortal. "P-People are afraid of your types. You're not normal. It's not easy to see you as anything but a threat." Following this comment, the man would recoil in fear. Afraid of the repercussions of his honesty, arms in front of his head covering his face. If he was to die, he wished to be recognizable to his family. Instead, all he felt was the hand of the woman push his arms down and away from his face, looking into his eyes. The defiled eye peering into his soul with a mixture of depraved insanity and content restraint.
"I wouldn't ask that they do. Just that they stay away, and those who are willing will learn to accept us too." She spoke, pointing back out to the crowds watching through the cracks of her underground fortress. The humans observing her forgiveness, and refusal to kill the innocent human being. "I will stay in touch with the people. Your people. But I make myself clear with this next statement, and you WILL adhere to my demand. Do not interfere with me, or my Yokai. Do not allow my existence to leave the lips of those present. If anyone should expose me, expect retribution to be just and swift."
With that, the man was escorted from the premises. His shook form and figure detailing the demands and orders from the Mother of the Mists. Whether they knew it or not, they were in the presence of the growing new-age Cult of the Black Water Mist, and her word would be law to those followers.