RP What Shadows Lie

Kasumi’s gaze flicked to the side as the shadows huddled in the corner twitched. They did so love being acknowledged, hiding in the damp corners. The door creaked close, untouched by any human hands. The girl didn’t react, her red eyes seeming to glow slightly as the space darkened.

Another giggle burbled out of her as Seika asked her question. In response, Kasumi extended her left hand, bringing her thumb to her middle finger, almost as if to snap. Instead of skin across skin, however, she dragged her nail across her thumb, splitting the skin and sending blood pooling into her palm.

Almost instantly the blood ignited, and a small ball of flame flickered in Kasumi’s hand, causing the shadows to dance and run. All except for one interesting cluster.

“Well we’ll just have to see, won’t we?”

Kasumi stepped towards where the shadows stubbornly clung to the wall. She tilted her head, orange flame glinting off her crimson eyes.

“So, what are you? I don’t suppose you’ll tell me, will you?” Her voice had a raspy note to it, an undertone that didn’t quite seem to match the girl’s usual way of speaking. Then again, who could say what was usual for Kasumi?
 
It lingered in the corner of the room, that clot of dark which was swaddled in what shadow had yet to be chased from the room. The Noroi did not respond to Kasumi’s question but it certainly did react. It spread, thin feelers pressing themselves against the ground as it spread in Kasumi’s direction. Where the woman’s light touched the feelers slowed, their edges seeming to search for any dimness that hadn’t been chased away. Behind a pillar, in the cracks between the tatami mats, even seeming to reach for the shadow at Kasumi’s feet. Its body churned, edges flexing and squeezing as it pressed itself against the wall.

“What is it doing?” Seika asked, taking a step backwards as the feelers advanced. The veil of shadow which draped itself around the Noroi trailed just behind its furthest reaches, and the feelers sizzled when the shadow was peeled away by the light.

Between two pillars behind the girl, a hand which was more bone than skin slid out. It reached from behind for Seika’s upper arm.

—~—~—~—~—

“It’s certainly seen better days,” Rei said, taking the offered off-ramp for a conversation that was starting to feel awkward. She placed her foot in Habiki’s hand, and found a solid enough grip on the ledge above. With boost from Habiki a sharp puff of air Rei pulled herself up, catching first with her elbow and then with her free knee before she rolled over the edge.

“Anything you can repurpose will make the head priest happy I think.” Rei reached down over the lip offering her hand for Habiki to take. “Well, the outside of the shrine looks like it’s held up surprisingly well, considering.” Rei added with a quick Look back over her shoulder. The roof didn’t look like it had caved in, other than a spot along the outside edge where a bolder had cracked a pillar in half. She didn’t know much about construction, but she did know buildings fell apart pretty fast once the roof went.
 
Habiki considered telling her that he could get up on his own, but recalled that Rei was the noroi-fighter and, realistically, was probably fairly strong. He took the hand, hoping that she was prepared to render assistance to a construction person rather than just a high school girl like the one they'd spoken to this afternoon, and prepared to catch himself in case she wasn't.

The higher vantage point offered a better view, at least. Habiki frowned at the broken pillar, not liking it, trying to gauge how much support that pillar was supposed to be offering. Best case scenario, it had been decorative, but he didn't think so. It was good that the others were holding for now, but he would definitely want to get that shored up before clambering up on the roof and adding more weight to it.

"Hm. Maybe. Sometimes it can be hard to say until you get up there. Water gets in and damages the support beams sometimes, and it can look fine on the outside. The first thing I want to do is get a strut up where that pillar is and jack up the weight, then maybe go up on the roof and take a look. I can probably get at least a partial view from the ground nearby with a flashlight under the eaves, but it won't tell me everything."

He glanced over at Rei, remembering why they were here, and added a shrug. "That's assuming there's not another one of those... accidents. You know."
 
“I believe it’s exploring, dear.”

The knotted lump of dark stubbornly refused to be illuminated, sticky tendrils pulling themselves through the shadows, pressing against the light as if testing the temperature of a bath. Kasumi poured more energy into the flame, keeping it lit and flickering as she surveyed the space. Something in her twinged, urging her to test the Noroi, to see if it was truly a threat, or merely a distraction. She turned towards Seika, a half-hearted attempt at a comforting smile on her face, all sharp teeth glinting in the firelight.

Then she saw the hand.

Kasumi’s hand twisted and the flame flew from her hand, streaking past Seika to illuminate whatever lurked within the shadows. As soon as it splashed against something the flame would reignite in the palm of her hand.

“You may want to stay away from the shadows. It seems they’re not too fond of us.” An odd laugh, the grating cackle of a crone blended with the giggle of a schoolgirl. “The light will help me get a closer look.”
 
As the flame passed across the clot of shadow, illuminating the mass of its bulbous body which held fast to the wall like an old grease stain. Its tendrils flexed, fine points like needles poking up from between the strands of straw in the tatami mat. Like a field of grass, or the spines of a porcupine rising to warn off a threat. The stain on the wall slinked back, the shadows bending to follow it as the gloom smothered the flame. It didn’t seem to take any further moves to attack, though the needles that poked up out of the ground glittered where they were touched by the light.

The fingers curled around the girl’s upper arm, and Seika pulled back as the ball of fire arced past her. There was a scream, which Seika was pretty sure hadn’t been her as the hand pulled back into the gap between the pillars.

“Ah— right.” Seika said, taking large steps away from the shadows where the outline of a person hovered. It stared. “That thing is really cold.” Seika added, rubbing her arm.

Behind Hana a tatami mats shifted, and fingers wormed their way through the gap.

—————

“That I’ll leave to your professional opinion.” Rei said, taking a look up at the roof as she approached the shrine. It certainly needed a fresh coat of paint, though it looked about as bad as any other abandoned structure to her eye. Rei ran the tip of her index finger across the back of her left wrist at the mention of accidents. She frowned, but was that really a notable change in her disposition?

“Yeah. Yeah.” Rei said, pulling a flashlight out of her pocket. She clicked it on, which didn’t really make any noticeable difference given that the sun was out, but she pointed it in the direction of the shrine and held it there for a moment before she clicked the light off.

“Here, let’s get the door open first.” Rei said, giving the step an exploratory tap before putting her weight onto it. “Just to make sure it’s safe before we check if it’s safe.” She smiled at that, as it was probably a joke.
 
Habiki followed the line of the flashlight, but it wasn't really at the right angle to give him a good view of the structure of the building. That was fine, he'd take a closer look later. Rei moved to test the stairs, which didn't collapse under her and hopefully wouldn't collapse under him, either.

A year ago, he would have known they would. A year ago, it would have been noroi. Now, the coiling shadow was gone and all he had to worry about was rotting wood that was probably older than the two of them put together and the fact that he definitely weight at least half again what Rei did, maybe twice.

Habiki would have thought that was plenty for anyone to worry about, but compared to where he'd been before... well, it hardly seemed like anything. Rei made a comment on the situation, and he found himself responding with a smile and a raised eyebrow.

"Safety first."

He wasn't sure why that was amusing, but maybe it was just that the darkness was gone. He reached past her, slightly, and pulled the door open for her to see what was inside.
 
“Noroi usually are, dear.” Kasumi droned, red lamplike eyes scanning the outline of the figure within the shadows. It seemed as though both noroi were present, perhaps in a sort of symbiotic relationship. Curious, very curious.

“One of you stinks of regret.” Her gaze slid and locked onto the greasy mass that clung to the wall, feelers spreading. They still avoided the light, but Kasumi had little doubt that they would eventually grow bold enough to overcome the light.

“You, girl.” Kasumi barked. “Did anyone die recently? Has anything traumatic happened here? Surely something must have caused this, something stained this place.”
 
“The workplace accident paperwork is a real pain, you know.” Rei said, shifting her weight as the door slid open with a vocal protest of squeaky wood that had been happy to remain where it had been moldering. Perhaps it could get fixed up someday, but that sort of work wasn’t hers to worry about. Instead Rei swept her flashlight’s beam into the musty dark of the shrine.

“Noroi gather in places gods abandon.” She said, as this seemed like as fine a moment for some on the job training as there ever was. The room within was mostly empty of the sort of things she expected to see in a shrine, the tatami mat that covered the floor mostly rotten letting grungy floorboards poke through, a low table sat beneath what had at one time been a fine silk tapestry stained by water, and the table itself hadn’t fared much better as it sagged to one side where a leg had failed. A box sat on the table, and only it seemed to still be clean, though the lacquered wood certainly could have done with a polish.

“The gods harbor human emotions, seep them into the land and that draws all manner of hungry things.” Rei shrugged at her own words. It was a simple version of a much longer lecture she had gotten as a girl when she had gone to a place that she ought not to have gone. Her flashlight clicked as the beam of light first turned thin, then bright, then again to a ghostly sort of blue, and each in turn she flashed into the room. Her lips pulled into a momentarily puzzled expression and she looked up at Hibiki.

“It should be safe, just stick close.” Rei said, pausing a moment longer at the threshold before she took a step through. The old mark on her wrist didn’t like that, it sent a needle prick warning down her arm as goosebumps raised the hairs on the back of her neck. The air was cooler inside, but not as damp as she had expected. The floorboards also felt solid underfoot, save for the sort of gritty feeling from the half-rotted mats. She dipped the light down as they could both see where they were stepping.

“Let’s fix the table, I think that’ll clear a few things up.” Which Rei was certain sounded mad, but he had also seen her hit a living ball of hair with a practice sword and hadn’t run screaming so she supposed she shouldn’t be that worried.

—~—~—~—

“Died here? I — no I don’t think so, I mean this room is sometimes used for memorial ceremonies but I don’t think anyone has died in here before.” Seika said, the girl taking a step closer to Kasumi with the wild thought that she should have attached a ‘yet’ to the end of her answer. Unless it was their future regret after they all got murdered by a stain on the wall? Is that how ghosts worked? The sludge-y one of the two specters seemed to come detached from its clot of shadows as the bulk of its body(?) dropped to the ground. The mats on the ground creaked as it attempted to worm the bulk of its body beneath them where the light touched the ground.

“So, does that change how we need to deal with them?” Seika asked, her voice sounding more steady than she felt.

Behind her one of the mats came free from the floorboards with a pop and a hand grasped for her ankle.
 
The place certainly looked like an accident waiting to happen. Habiki had been in plenty of run down buildings before, but it was always still worrisome - even without the incumbent threat of noroi, an idea which he was still getting used to - something as simple as rotting timbers could do quite a lot of damage.

He took out his own flashlight, shining it around the room as well. His didn't change beam types like Rei's did, and he wasn't entirely sure what she was looking for or what she was seeing, but he could at least get an idea of what the room was like from a construction standpoint. Not good, was his professional opinion.

He wasn't exactly sure why it was that she wanted to start with the table, but if she thought that was important, Habiki wasn't going to argue with her. He moved in as well, carefully, staying a pace back so that if anything happened to the flooring, they wouldn't both go through. He was heavier than Rei, so if something broke, he didn't want her falling with him.

"I'd like to roll up these mats and get an idea about the floor situation," he commented. There wasn't much left to the mats; they were mostly just an obstruction at this point. If Rei said table first, though, then he'd settle for table first. She was looking at the box atop it, so Habiki took a moment to get out a measuring tape, checking the lengths of the legs against one another and shining his light underneath.

"This isn't too bad. I can shore it up pretty quickly, but if you want a proper leg on it you'd need a lathe. I could screw on a basic square leg just to even out the weight for now, and then remove it once we have a better replacement. Or, you know, you could just do a new table, but I don't know if anyone's attached to this one." He was thinking about the old priest when he said it, but once the words were spoken, he realized maybe he could have been talking about something else, instead.

Maybe it was better to preserve as much of the original table as possible, in that case.
 
Grief? Could grief be the answer? It was deeply unsatisfying, but Noroi usually were. Such simple things as strong emotions tied them down to a place. But still, grief was all she had to go on. That, and they seemed to love hiding in the dark, festering places where the light couldn’t get. Grief and guilt, two of the most common emotions, in a place where memorial ceremonies where held. Curious.

“What was the last memorial?” Kasumi demanded, tearing the flame in her hands in order to multi-task. One flame was launched at the sludgy Noroi, aimed for the spot where it was trying to squeeze in between the mats that lined the floor. The other went for the grasping hand, and for good measure Kasumi tried to bring her foot down on it with a swift stomp.

“Stay by me, dear girl. They’re going to have to try much harder to take me.” Kasumi’s voice was gruffer, and her nails almost appeared to grow a little more ragged, if one could pay attention to such things in these circumstances.
 
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