[It is not the first time he's lost hold of himself in this place. The experience is neither pleasant nor painless—forced to feel his sanity slip like fine ash between his fingers, left grasping at reason until his awareness of the world pinholes into the dark. Worsened, this time, by a strange and excruciating discomfort that carves red lines across his body, scars like stitched veins around his throat and down his chest, arms, abdomen. The change isn't usual; this is not the beastly transformation he's endured a small handle of times these past several months. This is something else—ravenous and cursed, rooting feral hunger in his mind that seeks only a warm source of Manna for its satiation. In the dwindling clarity of those final minutes, he recognizes that even this transformation is not complete, even as fresh fangs taper teeth to a pearly-white point. He could not say why. Then the thought is gone, quick as it comes.
Greater Sumarlok is still, preternaturally silent. Night has not yet set in, although darkness has begun to leech the sun's colors from the sky, bleeding into the cool and crisp air of late evening. Leaves have scattered streets and sidewalks as dying greenery welcomes the change of season; he hadn't noticed that change much before. It had seemed, for so long, as though so many features of daily life were occurring to someone else—only occasionally would he wake up to feel the rain, startling icy needles on his skin, in reminder of being alive.
Now he is primed to this, a creature of nature that uses otherworldly stealth to navigate rooftops of Primavera in hunt of prey. The autumn breeze is clear enough to carry scent well; he is not cognizant to orient himself by his surroundings as he would normally, using landmarks or street names. Everything is instinctive, predatory. And perhaps that part is one and the same. He did this before, back when grief was the world he lived in and there was only one person he wished to see.
Except, twisted as he is in this state, Itachi makes a mistake.
The small boy isn't Stiles. He smells like Stiles, but he is in the wrong place, too far from the areas of Sumarlok that Itachi has since memorized to routine and schedule. There is a forest close by; that too is new, although his eyes—vivid, bloody red—are continually drawn to the tempting shadow between trees.
Instead he follows Emil home, a ghost at his back, until the boy has entered his manor and disappeared. In this state, it doesn't occur to him to associate who he's found with the person Stiles described to him, and the animal part of his mind doesn't particularly care yet, even if it is irritated not to have found Stiles. Hunger is more important.
Prowling around the perimeter of the yard, he eventually seeks its balcony. He doesn't try to find the handle of the door. The obstruction, locked or not, doesn't matter in the moment; there are many other ways inside for someone of his capabilities. What he's trying to see is a glimpse of his prey on the other side of the glass. Sight, or scent, or more obscure movement that will tell him where the boy is in the building. He needs that, first, before he can act.]
A sense of unease permeates the last few days, most of it awash in a foggy, vague desperation. Emil thinks he dreamt that Stiles had paid him a visit? The day after he felt.... not right. Not himself. But some of his friends needed his help (or specifically needed access to the nearby forest and its rumored effects on Synchrony within) and he was more than happy to answer that request; the hulking Exo named Saint-14 and his wizened warlock partner Osiris wanted to stay on the grounds, and Emil accommodated their request by setting up a canvas tent for them just inside the forest.
Decorations of carved gourds and pumpkins flank the door and even part of Emil's balcony, though these ones in particular more closely resemble jack o'lanterns, but painted in stripes and swirls of purple, green, and marigold. There are also three unique candles there, though they are unlit by the time Itachi reaches the balcony. Their purpose doesn't align with the usual traditions of the season, but seem to be a memorial of sorts.
That hardly matters in the face of the hunger that has brought him here.
His butler and maid are only expected to work during daylight hours and have since returned to the nearby town; this was decided out of a mutual wariness of the rumors of late, fretful memories of the Siren's lethal call still fresh in many Primaveran minds. The days are shorter, and Emil insists on cooking dinner for himself and his guests, so he had deposited a picnic basket to the tent, spent some time in their company, and returned to the manor feeling much more like his usual self.
Their friendly Synchrony had indeed been boosted incredibly by the storied effects of the forest, and now that his hunger for Manna has been satisfied, he realizes the cause of his malaise even if Emil can't recall why he ran so low in the first place. As he's feeling better now, it hardly seems important enough to puzzle over it when there's so much else that still needs to be done.
As he passes through the manor, he extinguishes the lights, at last arriving at his room. The hour and solitude of the house makes the silence loud and any noise louder for breaking it, so his movements are gentle, hanging a light coat in his wardrobe and shucking off his boots. When his silhouette passes the small part in the heavy drapes over the windowed balcony door, his profile is tipped down to an open book in his hands, still dressed in dark pants, a matching waistcoat with bright brass buttons, and a high-collared dress shirt with sleeves puffed at the shoulders.
He scoots his chair closer to a writing desk, his hand keeping his place in his reading open as he extracts a notebook from inside a drawer to his right. The paper is due soon--
Emil startles a little as he sees his notebook already has his essay written out entirely, his own handwriting unmistakable. Flipping back and forth between these pages, he speaks his thoughts aloud: ]
Wha-? When did I... finish this?
[ It isn't like his shaky memory is new, but it rarely results in an immediate benefit, and what he reads seems familiar. Well.... all's well that ends well? Thanks, Past Emil, for really doing him a solid. With a wondering shake of his head, he shuts his book, sliding it over the cover of his notebook. ]
[Sensing the slightest disturbances in his environment is easy, practiced—and now it comes second nature, primal sensitivity allowing him to hear the soft footfalls upstairs, across the ground, into the room near the balcony. He can hear even that sound of Emil's breath, faint as it is, accompanied by the clearer voice. It isn't a voice he recognizes, or will recognize later when sanity washes out madness. He will reason, then, that it is better his victim is a stranger to him.
For now, silent fingers work the balcony door open. Even if he was in a clear and rational state, this would be too simple; measures of security can do little prevent the skill of someone who was trained to live in the dark. Yet here and now, primed to act as a predator more than a man, there's nothing that prevents his entrance. The stealth is barely needed. He simply pushes the door open—disguised all in black, long sleeves with a loose collar and fitted slacks—no more than a shadow by the curtains. The angry, red lines scarring his veins are hidden, so the only point of color on his person are two very bright, crimson eyes. Not the kind that wear tomoe through Sharingan; these are alien, new, pupils slitted like a cat's against that bloody backdrop. A consequence of his changed form.
Heading in, his feet are bare and silent over the carpeted flooring. He follows instincts. There is a warm body in this room, at the desk, slight and pale and bent over unimportant work. He goes to stand behind it.
Him, that feral mind adjusts, even if there's still no recognition otherwise. The boy appears so small and delicate that a part of Itachi wonders if this will be enough to satisfy him. On the other hand, perhaps it will mean less of a struggle...
For better, or worse?
One pale hand comes up to snare Emil by his hair at the back of his head, sudden and with powerful strength, tangling knuckles, using this grasp to pull backward. The chair tips over, and Emil along with it. His intent is to drag the boy away from the desk and toss him down onto the plush carpet in the middle of the room. All of this with no noise, no warning.]
[ There's almost always unpleasantness around the question of when did I do this? or any variation that draws Emil's attention to a blank space in his memory. Sometimes the increased scrutiny brings the memory shrieking back like an abrupt burst of static, sometimes it creeps up on him, whispering fragments back into his thoughts. Sometimes the exercise is utterly unproductive, leaving him with questions and a headache. Wrapped up in his own questions, Emil smells the hint of autumn frost, a smudge of smoke from a far-off bonfire, in the brisk disturbance in an otherwise still room, but the warning implied doesn't reach him until a mere second before Itachi acts.
Emil drops his notebook onto his desk, his spine going straight as alarm suddenly draws him taut. That window is supposed to be shut. He might have time later to wonder why Stiles is so ready a name on his tongue, but not now, not when the fist in his hair makes him yelp, or the back of his chair raises a red welt along his back when he's dragged from the toppling furniture. When his landing on the plush carpet knocks his cry into a breathless hiccup, a thought - how lucky - is a single calm thought in the blaring alarums of his startled brain.
Residing inside this slight frame is an awful power, a force that has wiped entire towns off the face of the planet, cliffsides swept clean of all sign that anyone once lived there. The Ultimate Weapon could render this whole manor and the surrounding grounds into a fond memory, leaving behind little more than a perfectly concave hole in the earth.
Emil instead flinches his hands up defensively; catching a glimpse of his intruder through the spread of his slender fingers, he sees a beautiful, pale face that seems to float in the curtain of hair as deeply black as his clothes. His stare is a red and sundered sunset split in twain. The shock of those eyes makes Emil jolt at something old, something long forgotten.
Red eyes. Red eyes.
This terror is old, over a thousand years lie between the horror that left an army of stone and the torn limbs of Red Eye littering the ground. Had he landed any closer to his bed, he might have tried to kick the wooden chest seated before it at his attacker's legs. Emil turns, trying to claw himself upright as if he means to fling himself through the open windows leading to his balcony. ]
[The positioning of his victim is more deliberate than obvious at a glance. Too far from the bed to reach anything, any makeshift weapon that might be made to defend himself; too far from the escape of a window or door without scrambling movement. The rug is a cushion, and it is also the most open area of the room—this can be used to his advantage. It will mean that the boy is not physically harmed, except for what he chooses to do now, and that he cannot escape easily from the grasp of iron hands.
None of this calculates consciously in Itachi's hungry, feral mind. It is behavior ingrained somewhere very deep down, learned a long time ago, when personal assassinations were a part of his regular life. He has not been this close to someone in such violent context in years. How strange it is now, if only he could appreciate the difference.
Emil does not successfully manage to get himself upright. Itachi is there, straddling his prone form, two hands reaching down to seize the front of a brass-buttoned waistcoat. He is taller and heavier on top of Emil—even this slight, sleek shadow can use its size to intimidate, whether it is necessary or not. What matters is that scent clinging to the boy, subtle still and overlaid with others; stronger in the room, proof a presence once was here that he recognizes. Heady, familiar, fueling the appetite that has already stoked into a simmering inferno.
One pale, spindly hand lifts to seize Emil again by the back of the head, knuckles snarled into pale hair, forcing his throat exposed in a white line down to the collar of that dress shirt. His mouth widens, sharp teeth glimpsed within. He can smell the boy's blood: hot, vital, close. In this form, the fear will feel paralyzing, a byproduct of the corrupted transformation he's taken.
He bends his head down and sinks his mouth into the shallow, soft groove of Emil's throat, teeth set into skin.]
[ Emil puts up his hands when his plan is so easily averted, his palms flattening out over the lean, larger frame that towers over his supine form, trying to push him back and away. Someone stronger could have done something more than kick against the carpet and shove ineffectually at his attacker. Someone with more conviction could have willingly brought to bear the power that hums inside him.
Someone harder of heart could pull on the power of the red dragon that fell from a sundered sky. Emil yelps pitifully, putting the length of his forearm across his attacker's chest as he bends, as he feels the humidity of breath as a mouth opens wide, as he feels something sharp pinch hard until his skin breaks, until his flesh cries out against the intrusion and liquid heat wells up around it.
A rabbit on the track sprints itself in frantic circles, so too, Emil thinks in his panic:
-and the circle of lilac iris in each wide eye begins to fill with light. ]
[ It isn't chakra, it's not lifeforce exactly, but it is manna and intent given form that snarls like gathering lightning just before it barks across heaven. The air around the boy grows thick with power.
Then the balcony is blown out by a howl of violent, violet light, arcing into the night like a skylight, leaving nothing in its wake, no balcony, no glass and wood doors, no memorial candles, no clouds in a collapsing, briefly-perfect hole in the canopy of condensation above.
He sobs aloud in the awful, silent wake of it, like he's less concerned now about the teeth in his neck than the near miss of such destruction. ]
[He tastes only that first, perfect lick of blood—rich and hot as melted velvet on his tongue—before that force blooms up and punches a hole to the side. His own reaction is all instinct: an arm closes itself around captured prey, eyes flashing not red with transformation but red with Sharingan, then pinwheeling Mangekyou. In those split seconds before the strange, crackling power ignites, the jutsu is cast.
As destruction cools and a draft blows in from the obliterated balcony, Susanoo has formed around them—a large, skeletal warrior shaped out of chakra, manifesting pale red and translucent, enclosing them both within its embrace. It is a less evolved form, no more than the ribs, one arm, and glowing gold eyes inset a jagged skull. But it is enough as a defense. More than enough, considering the blast did not hit them.
Itachi draws himself to his feet. In the process, he doesn't release the boy, keeping one arm coiled tight and hard around his waist, forcing him to stand alongside him, even if it means dangling feet. A slow, languid look surveys the scene. Even through the fervor of his current state, interest and thought seeds itself in his mind for another time. Was that redirected? If so, why, and how?
There's blood on his mouth. He licks it away, then looks down at the top of the boy's head, hearing him sob.]
Shhh. [It's a soft, cooing sound. The hand in Emil's hair smooths over a warm skull, petting, then forms another tight clutch at the roots.] I'm not here to kill you. Only... it may hurt a little, what I need from you.
[He pulls gently on the boy's scalp to expose the raw ring of teeth on that white throat.]
Will someone come soon, hearing that explosion? Tell me the truth. I will know if you lie.
[ He doesn't know what it is the stranger has done, but the crushing weight of pressure he feels against the backs of his eyes tells him it's powerful. Except Emil can't begin to speculate on what it is — a weapon, an attack, some kind of magic, a shield? — with fear crumpling him into himself like he's made of so much paper. There is no debris, no dust, just the strong scent of ozone and a perfectly smooth hole where the balcony and its windowed doors had been, substance deleted by the onslaught.
Emil is light and pliant, paralyzed by fright and trembling, a matter that grows more pronounced into a shudder at the soothing. Too quickly, that contradictory gentleness becomes a tight fist around the roots of his hair, yanking a whimper out of his lungs more from terror than pain. With no barrier against the elements, the room grows cold; he feels the night lick at his injured throat and stays almost breathlessly silent. Listening.
To the silence outside, to the steady threads of formed bonds inside, stretching out in varying directions, as delicate and still as a spider's web.
If Saint or Osiris had noticed anything amiss, he has no doubt they would already be here, but there's.... nothing. There's nothing. Knowing that there was doubtlessly a good reason isn't quite the same with a heart gripped by terror; bereft, Emil's eyes well, and in the moment before he answers in a tremulous voice thick with emotion, they spill as he closes them. ]
No. Nobody's coming.
[ He's alone.
He realizes he's done this to himself — he sent away everyone, hoping to protect them from dangers lurking outside. He thought he could protect them. Maybe he still can. Maybe, like with a thief, if he simply gives him what he wants, he'll go away and leave his friends alone. It might be too trusting and naïve, but the word he used — need — keeps haunting Emil. Like he isn't doing this out of cruelty, and Emil doesn't believe he deserves to die. As a weapon, his options are limited.
Quailing, he turns his watering eyes to the side. ]
You said you needed something. If I, if I let you, will you leave without hurting anybody else?
[When the threat is clear, Susanoo disintegrates—its drain of chakra too much to maintain when the well of his manna feels empty and desecrated as hunger eats through his sanity. No one is coming; he believes it. He can even smell those tears in the air, a sting of salt at the fluctuation of emotion picked up by enhanced senses, and it only makes him more ravenous to rip the boy open. Not physically—he has said he will not kill him. It's a promise he can keep, because death isn't the pursuit. Even in this state, he knows that much.
Will it mean he won't feel compelled to target someone else? Hesitation seizes this brief window of conscious thought. He nods, slowly, hands still like claws on Emil's pliable body, unrelenting in contrast to the quiet tone of his voice.]
Yes. [There is no one else to hurt.] ... I will leave. I won't need more than this.
[He lowers to sit on the ground, right there at the center of the room. Emil is brought with him—dragged into his lap with an arm like a steel bar around his upper body to prevent movement, pinning arms, faced forward because anything else would be too intimate. And because he saw those eyes glow just before that explosion. He is not so stupid, even deranged and starving and cursed.
The other hand remains buried in feathery hair, keeping Emil's throat exposed. The wind gusting through that hole feels almost pleasant on his own hot, red-veined skin. His mouth opens, sharpened teeth flashing in anticipation of what is to come. But first, in a strangely polite utterance:] Thank you.
[Saliva pools in his mouth. He's forced to swallow past it. He can taste the quick, flickering pulse beneath the boy's skin—and he bites back down in the same sore spot, sieving Emil's manna.]
[ None would be faulted for calling Emil a sentimental fool; for what reason should he trust a stranger who stole into his home, who attacked without warning, who for whatever reason needs to drink another living being's blood to satisfy some animal need, who possesses a power that Emil has come to identify as paracausal and could go back on his word once his appetite is sated?
On the edge of his property, an Exo and his beloved are dealing with whatever situation has driven them to request to stay here, whether they're still there or have gone somewhere else, he doesn't know. It's only the very suggestion that they might come to harm when he might have still bartered for their safety that motivates Emil, that and a reluctance to unleash hiw power even on someone who could meet him on level ground.
But that quiet yes appears to be enough. In a show of trust to the debatably deserving, Emil gracelessly staggers into sitting, less by his own power than it is by another's, clumsy for the lopsided view of the world with his head so wrenched to the side.
The stranger observes his manners in a way that makes a terrified part of his brain bark mental laughter in response, incredulously; Emil feels breath on his sore neck and squeezes shut his eyes, the flinching blink painting a wet stripe across the bridge of his nose, down sideways along his cheekbone and into the hollow of his ear, first hot and then rapidly cold. Even if he blindly hopes in the reassurance that this man isn't here to kill him, Emil whimpers at the pinch of teeth.
In the moments that follow, the color drains out of everything, washed cool by the light of the moon slanting into the hole where his balcony had been. His skin pricks up into goosebumps but not solely because of the chill wind, physically reminded of the time when his body started to cover over in hard purple crystal. None of that stiffness, that cold, painful paralysis comes, but he feels depleted, the sapphire inside his breastbone growing duller by the moment.
It's this unmoored feeling, like he's in danger of spiraling out into nothing that makes him reach up so abruptly into the dark silk of Itachi's hair, gathering his fist without attempting to push or pull. If he even has the opportunity to look back, Emil may or may not recognize the problem in surrendering without a fight, he might wonder why, if all he needed was manna, he couldn't just ask for Synchrony.
For now it doesn't seem as important as keeping himself from shaking apart. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
@inlutilis
Greater Sumarlok is still, preternaturally silent. Night has not yet set in, although darkness has begun to leech the sun's colors from the sky, bleeding into the cool and crisp air of late evening. Leaves have scattered streets and sidewalks as dying greenery welcomes the change of season; he hadn't noticed that change much before. It had seemed, for so long, as though so many features of daily life were occurring to someone else—only occasionally would he wake up to feel the rain, startling icy needles on his skin, in reminder of being alive.
Now he is primed to this, a creature of nature that uses otherworldly stealth to navigate rooftops of Primavera in hunt of prey. The autumn breeze is clear enough to carry scent well; he is not cognizant to orient himself by his surroundings as he would normally, using landmarks or street names. Everything is instinctive, predatory. And perhaps that part is one and the same. He did this before, back when grief was the world he lived in and there was only one person he wished to see.
Except, twisted as he is in this state, Itachi makes a mistake.
The small boy isn't Stiles. He smells like Stiles, but he is in the wrong place, too far from the areas of Sumarlok that Itachi has since memorized to routine and schedule. There is a forest close by; that too is new, although his eyes—vivid, bloody red—are continually drawn to the tempting shadow between trees.
Instead he follows Emil home, a ghost at his back, until the boy has entered his manor and disappeared. In this state, it doesn't occur to him to associate who he's found with the person Stiles described to him, and the animal part of his mind doesn't particularly care yet, even if it is irritated not to have found Stiles. Hunger is more important.
Prowling around the perimeter of the yard, he eventually seeks its balcony. He doesn't try to find the handle of the door. The obstruction, locked or not, doesn't matter in the moment; there are many other ways inside for someone of his capabilities. What he's trying to see is a glimpse of his prey on the other side of the glass. Sight, or scent, or more obscure movement that will tell him where the boy is in the building. He needs that, first, before he can act.]
no subject
A sense of unease permeates the last few days, most of it awash in a foggy, vague desperation. Emil thinks he dreamt that Stiles had paid him a visit? The day after he felt.... not right. Not himself. But some of his friends needed his help (or specifically needed access to the nearby forest and its rumored effects on Synchrony within) and he was more than happy to answer that request; the hulking Exo named Saint-14 and his wizened warlock partner Osiris wanted to stay on the grounds, and Emil accommodated their request by setting up a canvas tent for them just inside the forest.
Decorations of carved gourds and pumpkins flank the door and even part of Emil's balcony, though these ones in particular more closely resemble jack o'lanterns, but painted in stripes and swirls of purple, green, and marigold. There are also three unique candles there, though they are unlit by the time Itachi reaches the balcony. Their purpose doesn't align with the usual traditions of the season, but seem to be a memorial of sorts.
That hardly matters in the face of the hunger that has brought him here.
His butler and maid are only expected to work during daylight hours and have since returned to the nearby town; this was decided out of a mutual wariness of the rumors of late, fretful memories of the Siren's lethal call still fresh in many Primaveran minds. The days are shorter, and Emil insists on cooking dinner for himself and his guests, so he had deposited a picnic basket to the tent, spent some time in their company, and returned to the manor feeling much more like his usual self.
Their friendly Synchrony had indeed been boosted incredibly by the storied effects of the forest, and now that his hunger for Manna has been satisfied, he realizes the cause of his malaise even if Emil can't recall why he ran so low in the first place. As he's feeling better now, it hardly seems important enough to puzzle over it when there's so much else that still needs to be done.
As he passes through the manor, he extinguishes the lights, at last arriving at his room. The hour and solitude of the house makes the silence loud and any noise louder for breaking it, so his movements are gentle, hanging a light coat in his wardrobe and shucking off his boots. When his silhouette passes the small part in the heavy drapes over the windowed balcony door, his profile is tipped down to an open book in his hands, still dressed in dark pants, a matching waistcoat with bright brass buttons, and a high-collared dress shirt with sleeves puffed at the shoulders.
He scoots his chair closer to a writing desk, his hand keeping his place in his reading open as he extracts a notebook from inside a drawer to his right. The paper is due soon--
Emil startles a little as he sees his notebook already has his essay written out entirely, his own handwriting unmistakable. Flipping back and forth between these pages, he speaks his thoughts aloud: ]
Wha-? When did I... finish this?
[ It isn't like his shaky memory is new, but it rarely results in an immediate benefit, and what he reads seems familiar. Well.... all's well that ends well? Thanks, Past Emil, for really doing him a solid. With a wondering shake of his head, he shuts his book, sliding it over the cover of his notebook. ]
no subject
For now, silent fingers work the balcony door open. Even if he was in a clear and rational state, this would be too simple; measures of security can do little prevent the skill of someone who was trained to live in the dark. Yet here and now, primed to act as a predator more than a man, there's nothing that prevents his entrance. The stealth is barely needed. He simply pushes the door open—disguised all in black, long sleeves with a loose collar and fitted slacks—no more than a shadow by the curtains. The angry, red lines scarring his veins are hidden, so the only point of color on his person are two very bright, crimson eyes. Not the kind that wear tomoe through Sharingan; these are alien, new, pupils slitted like a cat's against that bloody backdrop. A consequence of his changed form.
Heading in, his feet are bare and silent over the carpeted flooring. He follows instincts. There is a warm body in this room, at the desk, slight and pale and bent over unimportant work. He goes to stand behind it.
Him, that feral mind adjusts, even if there's still no recognition otherwise. The boy appears so small and delicate that a part of Itachi wonders if this will be enough to satisfy him. On the other hand, perhaps it will mean less of a struggle...
For better, or worse?
One pale hand comes up to snare Emil by his hair at the back of his head, sudden and with powerful strength, tangling knuckles, using this grasp to pull backward. The chair tips over, and Emil along with it. His intent is to drag the boy away from the desk and toss him down onto the plush carpet in the middle of the room. All of this with no noise, no warning.]
no subject
Emil drops his notebook onto his desk, his spine going straight as alarm suddenly draws him taut. That window is supposed to be shut. He might have time later to wonder why Stiles is so ready a name on his tongue, but not now, not when the fist in his hair makes him yelp, or the back of his chair raises a red welt along his back when he's dragged from the toppling furniture. When his landing on the plush carpet knocks his cry into a breathless hiccup, a thought - how lucky - is a single calm thought in the blaring alarums of his startled brain.
Residing inside this slight frame is an awful power, a force that has wiped entire towns off the face of the planet, cliffsides swept clean of all sign that anyone once lived there. The Ultimate Weapon could render this whole manor and the surrounding grounds into a fond memory, leaving behind little more than a perfectly concave hole in the earth.
Emil instead flinches his hands up defensively; catching a glimpse of his intruder through the spread of his slender fingers, he sees a beautiful, pale face that seems to float in the curtain of hair as deeply black as his clothes. His stare is a red and sundered sunset split in twain. The shock of those eyes makes Emil jolt at something old, something long forgotten.
Red eyes.
Red eyes.
This terror is old, over a thousand years lie between the horror that left an army of stone and the torn limbs of Red Eye littering the ground. Had he landed any closer to his bed, he might have tried to kick the wooden chest seated before it at his attacker's legs. Emil turns, trying to claw himself upright as if he means to fling himself through the open windows leading to his balcony. ]
no subject
None of this calculates consciously in Itachi's hungry, feral mind. It is behavior ingrained somewhere very deep down, learned a long time ago, when personal assassinations were a part of his regular life. He has not been this close to someone in such violent context in years. How strange it is now, if only he could appreciate the difference.
Emil does not successfully manage to get himself upright. Itachi is there, straddling his prone form, two hands reaching down to seize the front of a brass-buttoned waistcoat. He is taller and heavier on top of Emil—even this slight, sleek shadow can use its size to intimidate, whether it is necessary or not. What matters is that scent clinging to the boy, subtle still and overlaid with others; stronger in the room, proof a presence once was here that he recognizes. Heady, familiar, fueling the appetite that has already stoked into a simmering inferno.
One pale, spindly hand lifts to seize Emil again by the back of the head, knuckles snarled into pale hair, forcing his throat exposed in a white line down to the collar of that dress shirt. His mouth widens, sharp teeth glimpsed within. He can smell the boy's blood: hot, vital, close. In this form, the fear will feel paralyzing, a byproduct of the corrupted transformation he's taken.
He bends his head down and sinks his mouth into the shallow, soft groove of Emil's throat, teeth set into skin.]
1/2
Someone harder of heart could pull on the power of the red dragon that fell from a sundered sky. Emil yelps pitifully, putting the length of his forearm across his attacker's chest as he bends, as he feels the humidity of breath as a mouth opens wide, as he feels something sharp pinch hard until his skin breaks, until his flesh cries out against the intrusion and liquid heat wells up around it.
A rabbit on the track sprints itself in frantic circles, so too, Emil thinks in his panic:
-and the circle of lilac iris in each wide eye begins to fill with light. ]
no subject
Then the balcony is blown out by a howl of violent, violet light, arcing into the night like a skylight, leaving nothing in its wake, no balcony, no glass and wood doors, no memorial candles, no clouds in a collapsing, briefly-perfect hole in the canopy of condensation above.
He sobs aloud in the awful, silent wake of it, like he's less concerned now about the teeth in his neck than the near miss of such destruction. ]
no subject
As destruction cools and a draft blows in from the obliterated balcony, Susanoo has formed around them—a large, skeletal warrior shaped out of chakra, manifesting pale red and translucent, enclosing them both within its embrace. It is a less evolved form, no more than the ribs, one arm, and glowing gold eyes inset a jagged skull. But it is enough as a defense. More than enough, considering the blast did not hit them.
Itachi draws himself to his feet. In the process, he doesn't release the boy, keeping one arm coiled tight and hard around his waist, forcing him to stand alongside him, even if it means dangling feet. A slow, languid look surveys the scene. Even through the fervor of his current state, interest and thought seeds itself in his mind for another time. Was that redirected? If so, why, and how?
There's blood on his mouth. He licks it away, then looks down at the top of the boy's head, hearing him sob.]
Shhh. [It's a soft, cooing sound. The hand in Emil's hair smooths over a warm skull, petting, then forms another tight clutch at the roots.] I'm not here to kill you. Only... it may hurt a little, what I need from you.
[He pulls gently on the boy's scalp to expose the raw ring of teeth on that white throat.]
Will someone come soon, hearing that explosion? Tell me the truth. I will know if you lie.
no subject
Emil is light and pliant, paralyzed by fright and trembling, a matter that grows more pronounced into a shudder at the soothing. Too quickly, that contradictory gentleness becomes a tight fist around the roots of his hair, yanking a whimper out of his lungs more from terror than pain. With no barrier against the elements, the room grows cold; he feels the night lick at his injured throat and stays almost breathlessly silent. Listening.
To the silence outside, to the steady threads of formed bonds inside, stretching out in varying directions, as delicate and still as a spider's web.
If Saint or Osiris had noticed anything amiss, he has no doubt they would already be here, but there's.... nothing. There's nothing. Knowing that there was doubtlessly a good reason isn't quite the same with a heart gripped by terror; bereft, Emil's eyes well, and in the moment before he answers in a tremulous voice thick with emotion, they spill as he closes them. ]
No. Nobody's coming.
[ He's alone.
He realizes he's done this to himself — he sent away everyone, hoping to protect them from dangers lurking outside. He thought he could protect them. Maybe he still can. Maybe, like with a thief, if he simply gives him what he wants, he'll go away and leave his friends alone. It might be too trusting and naïve, but the word he used — need — keeps haunting Emil. Like he isn't doing this out of cruelty, and Emil doesn't believe he deserves to die. As a weapon, his options are limited.
Quailing, he turns his watering eyes to the side. ]
You said you needed something. If I, if I let you, will you leave without hurting anybody else?
no subject
Will it mean he won't feel compelled to target someone else? Hesitation seizes this brief window of conscious thought. He nods, slowly, hands still like claws on Emil's pliable body, unrelenting in contrast to the quiet tone of his voice.]
Yes. [There is no one else to hurt.] ... I will leave. I won't need more than this.
[He lowers to sit on the ground, right there at the center of the room. Emil is brought with him—dragged into his lap with an arm like a steel bar around his upper body to prevent movement, pinning arms, faced forward because anything else would be too intimate. And because he saw those eyes glow just before that explosion. He is not so stupid, even deranged and starving and cursed.
The other hand remains buried in feathery hair, keeping Emil's throat exposed. The wind gusting through that hole feels almost pleasant on his own hot, red-veined skin. His mouth opens, sharpened teeth flashing in anticipation of what is to come. But first, in a strangely polite utterance:] Thank you.
[Saliva pools in his mouth. He's forced to swallow past it. He can taste the quick, flickering pulse beneath the boy's skin—and he bites back down in the same sore spot, sieving Emil's manna.]
no subject
On the edge of his property, an Exo and his beloved are dealing with whatever situation has driven them to request to stay here, whether they're still there or have gone somewhere else, he doesn't know. It's only the very suggestion that they might come to harm when he might have still bartered for their safety that motivates Emil, that and a reluctance to unleash hiw power even on someone who could meet him on level ground.
But that quiet yes appears to be enough. In a show of trust to the debatably deserving, Emil gracelessly staggers into sitting, less by his own power than it is by another's, clumsy for the lopsided view of the world with his head so wrenched to the side.
The stranger observes his manners in a way that makes a terrified part of his brain bark mental laughter in response, incredulously; Emil feels breath on his sore neck and squeezes shut his eyes, the flinching blink painting a wet stripe across the bridge of his nose, down sideways along his cheekbone and into the hollow of his ear, first hot and then rapidly cold. Even if he blindly hopes in the reassurance that this man isn't here to kill him, Emil whimpers at the pinch of teeth.
In the moments that follow, the color drains out of everything, washed cool by the light of the moon slanting into the hole where his balcony had been. His skin pricks up into goosebumps but not solely because of the chill wind, physically reminded of the time when his body started to cover over in hard purple crystal. None of that stiffness, that cold, painful paralysis comes, but he feels depleted, the sapphire inside his breastbone growing duller by the moment.
It's this unmoored feeling, like he's in danger of spiraling out into nothing that makes him reach up so abruptly into the dark silk of Itachi's hair, gathering his fist without attempting to push or pull. If he even has the opportunity to look back, Emil may or may not recognize the problem in surrendering without a fight, he might wonder why, if all he needed was manna, he couldn't just ask for Synchrony.
For now it doesn't seem as important as keeping himself from shaking apart. ]