1509/Nightmares Breed Nightmares

Nightmares Breed Nightmares
Date of Scene:	25 May 2016
Location:	The Dreamlands
Synopsis:	Hokuto has a nightmare. Seishi makes nightmares worried.
Cast of Characters:	Hokuto Minase, Seishi Tamashige, Fiore

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Hokuto Minase has posed:
    Midnight. Hokuto lies safe in her bed, ensconced in silken sheets, alone, no danger in sight.

    And yet she is drenched in sweat, tossing and turning, calling out wordlessly.

    In her dream, she runs. The dark forest rises around her, shadows threatening at every turn, undergrowth plucking at her sleepwear. And she knows that something pursues her. Hunts her.

    She runs. There is no shelter to find. Nowhere to rest, no rescue to be had. Just the chase, the hunter, and the blood on her hands.

    She leans against a tree to gasp for breath. Looking down, her gaze falls on one hand, and she turns it over as she surveys it - long slender fingers tipped with sharp, raking claws, dripping with fresh blood.

    Where did that come from? She cannot bring it to mind. Perhaps it is not important. Or perhaps it is. It frightens her, terrifies her, every time she looks down and sees it afresh.

Seishi Tamashige has posed:
They discussed this, arranged it in advance as much as it's possible to do - but even so, the dream resists Seishi, or so it feels. The trees stand too thick to easily ride a horse through; branches and underbrush snag at her clothing, tangle around her mount's legs. It's bad enough that at last she dismounts and resorts to pushing her way forward on foot... and even then, the going is not much easier.

"Minase-san!" she calls out, raising her voice to ring through the dark forest, as her eyes search the spaces between the trees for any sign of movement. "Hokuto!"

Fiore has posed:
Excellent. Though it is not rightly his, the Dreamstalker finds himself at home in the thickly grown trees and foreboding shadows of Hokuto's dream. How comforting that her mind defaults to this, so very similar to his own forested Nightmare. She has been thinking of him, then. Of what he represents.

Excellent. Truly excellent.

He does not spring himself on her now as he did in his last visit -- such a forward strategy invited the intruder, and allowed her to pollute her bestial nature with foolish mortal morality. This time, he will speak not to the girl that hides the beast, but to the beast itself. He will not beg or barter -- he will drag the wolf out of her by its scruff, and the human will have no say at all.

And so he runs, keeping pace with her in the shadows, an unseen presence that is not hunting her, but following. Seeing where she will lead.

Hokuto Minase has posed:
    he hears the voice calling her name. Part of her wants to turn and answer, when she recognizes Seishi's voice. Part of her looks down at the blood, and knows that Seishi would reject her, bearing such taint.

    As she runs, her pace alters, her legs twisting as the beast rises closer to the surface. It is no longer a boot or shoe that strikes the ground with each stride, but a massive clawed paw, covered in black fur.

    The woods seem endless, as she runs. A branch blocks her way, and she rips it aside, claws tearing at the limb. Not a word passes her lips.

Seishi Tamashige has posed:
Brush cracks and snaps as Seishi pushes her way stubbornly forward, leaving behind a shred of scarlet fabric where her kimono snagged. From somewhere out of sight, she can hear the sounds of someone else moving fast through the undergrowth, but it's impossible to see through the gloom, hard to judge distance or direction.

Nevertheless, it's all she's got. She orients herself toward the sound as best she can and pushes on. "Hokuto! Where are you?"

Fiore has posed:
As Hokuto stops at a nigh impassable branch -- some block of her subconscious that she'll soon clear away, no doubt -- there is movement from behind. Movement, when they should be totally alone. The Dreamstalker's ears flatten against his head reflexively, his padded feet slowing to a halt in the underbrush.

A shout follows, and it seems the so-called dream warrior has returned, even stupider this time than the last. The shadow that had been accompanying Hokuto silently slips away, and the wolf disappears into the forest he knows so well.

The scrap of red left behind tears cleanly in two as a blur of black streaks by. "Foolish girl," comes a rumble from the darkness, quiet and untraceable, "you have made your last mistake."

And then, snarling low in his throat, the Dreamstalker tears from the shelter of the underbrush, clawed hands poised to seize Seishi by the throat. He'll deal with this distraction himself -- she will not poison the fledgling wolf tonight, not while she is alone in his element.

Hokuto Minase has posed:
    Hokuto was running... from what? From herself. Her own fear. The inner, bestial self that the dreamstalker seeks. It courses behind her, wild and savage and unafraid, her id and ego unleashed. Without conscience, without morality, without shame. Where she, in her fear, is twisted and inhuman, it is beautiful, fierce and proud.

    She denies it. Stifles it. Flees it.

    With the strange sight of one who dreams, she sees the beast turn to assault Seishi. She cannot let the dream-knight see her like this, deformed by her fears and her nightmares. So she hides, leaping up into the trees with a wolf's speed, perching on a branch to watch from out of sight.

    Her true savage self, however, has no such compunctions. And an attack on her Sempai is... unacceptable.

    Out of the trees bursts another form, black as night as twice as fast, a great cat that leaps at the shadow-wolf with claws outstretched.

Seishi Tamashige has posed:
Moments too late, Seishi remembers why she is here - not just for Hokuto, but the dreamstalker as well. To protect Hokuto's dreams from him.

By the time she remembers that she should be on her guard, the beast's claws are grazing her throat.

She grabs reflexively for the tessen in her belt even as the big cat's weight bears down on the hunter; it buys her enough space to scramble back and draw her weapon, panting into the dark air with the sudden rush of fight-or-flight adrenaline. The cat's an image she doesn't recognize, but it's fighting the dreamstalker, which must mean--

"You're not welcome here!" she declares to the stalker as she recovers enough to settle into a fighting stance, brandishing the Shinken in front of her. "This dream is not for you. I won't let you have it."

Fiore has posed:
For a moment, the heat of flesh and blood beats against his claws.

And then something slams into his side, hard, knocking his leap off course and sending him careening into a thicket of trees. Damnit -- *damnit* all -- the little samurai girl must have brought reinforcements somehow, but how could any clumsy human filth sneak up on him --

That was no human. When the Dreamstalker rights himself, he sees the outline of a monstrous cat, black as the night and easily as large as he is. And a growling laugh echoes off the trees, even as he stands injured in the low light of the forest.

"That's what it took, was it?" he says. "A threat to this girl, and suddenly you're not too proud to become a beast?" The Dreamstalker crouches closer to the earth, sloughing off the ache radiating from his ribs. There's no place for pain in a fight, and so long as the dreamer is fooled by the dream, his body will do whatever he demands of it.

"Let's see if you can protect her now."

He leaps forward with inhuman speed, barely visible, making with one hand to disarm the samurai while the other aims his claws squarely toward her gut. In some sense, he is grateful to her for finally bringing out the beast he'd been seeking, but she has served her purpose. Let Hokuto try to defend her -- he will rid them of this distraction all the same.

Hokuto Minase has posed:
    It isn't so much that Hokuto has embraced her beast - indeed, the part of her that fears it, her waking self, still cowers in the treeline. For the moment.

    The great cat is less interested in protecting Seishi than in ripping the guts out of the hunter that dared to attack her, as well. It claws at the wolf, jumping to get into position to bite at its haunches, trying to weaken it so that she can crush it at leisure.

    The cat-Hokuto knows, after all, that Seishi can protect herself. And knows that in a way, the wolf is right: A threat to her will motivate Hokuto. Just not in the way that it expects.

    Out of the woods, a peachwood arrow arcs. As it crosses in front of the moon, the shaft bursts into flame, and starts to fall towards the wolf.

    A second, and then a third, quickly follow.

    Hokuto is a human, not a beast. And humans use tools. Weapons, not claws. Strategy, not savagery.

    Brains, rather than brawn.

Seishi Tamashige has posed:
She can't quite track the dreamstalker's movements, but that doesn't mean that Seishi is helpless. As the beast lunges at her, she slips side with one quick half-step, and the claws that seek to disarm her are met with a sharp parrying twist of the fan.

It doesn't keep the other strike from scoring along her side with a sound of tearing fabric and a scent of fresh blood, but at least she's not disemboweled. Yes.

Her head lifts as the blazing arrows arc down, and Seishi grins, sharp and fierce. "That's right," she says, trusting that Hokuto can hear. "You don't have to play his game. Don't let him fool you--"

Fiore has posed:
The wolf is a powerful beast, the perfect instinctual fear for this demon of dreams to embody. In the hunt, he is without equal -- when chased to exhaustion, his prey cannot hope to fight him off. But when the prey he chases turns to fight rather than flight, when he mistakes a warrior for a coward...

Well. Wolves were meant to ambush, not to fight. He has only so many tricks up his sleeve, and each so far has been countered. Soon they will have seen his every tactic, and the element of surprise will be his no longer.

Not that it matters. He is the Dreamstalker, and not once has a mortal faced him and lived to tell the tale.

The cat dodges to his side, and his priority is keeping her in his sights -- Seishi's frustrating parry can wait. In a bizarre dance of beasts, he shifts his weight to all fours and circles Hokuto's dream self, staying ahead enough that she will get no easy strike at his flank. He bares his teeth and snarls all the while, his muscles rippling under his fur as he readies himself to pounce --

His growling turns into a surprised yelp as something sharp and unspeakably hot burrows itself into his shoulder, and he hoists himself up almost involuntarily, eyeing the rain of fire from above. So the girl has a bit of human resistance in her yet.

"Coward!" he cries out, wheeling wildly about for some shadow in the treeline. "Have you no pride? Are you a beast or a vulture?" Turning disdainfully to the cat he'd thought was truly Hokuto, he lashes out with a single swipe of his claws. "If you want to kill me, come out here and do it!"

Hokuto Minase has posed:
    Hokuto watches with a grim smile as her arrows strike home in their target, carrying her anger and her determination with them. This is her realm, and she will fight for what is hers.

    Her realm. Her sempai. Her anger, her fear, her love.

    As the arrows strike, the great cat that embodies her anger and rage twists to strike, taking full advantage of the prey's distraction. The wolf's claw-swipe finds only air, for the cat is already on the move, going after the wolf's rear leg to hamstring it. Its teeth are as sharp as her anger, its jaws as strong as her will - and she feels no remorse at all.

    "My pride begins with your defeat, wolfling."

    The creak of a bow being drawn sounds almost too loud to be real.

    "I am neither: I am more than both."

The soft 'thwip' of the bowstring's release, and the arrow taking flight, are almost missed. But it is not a single arrow that flies from the treeline - it is five. Each one slams into the ground in a wide circle around the beast, slips of inked paper unrolling from each as they strike.

Seishi Tamashige has posed:
She may claim inexperience, and not without reason, but Seishi's ridden enough dreams by now to know just how difficult what Hokuto is doing really is. To take charge of a nightmare, to master one's own fears and doubts this much... it's no easy thing, even when the nightmare isn't the work of a malevolent supernatural invader.

It's impossible not to be impressed, impossible not to grin sharp and fierce as the arrows thunk a staccato rhythm into the ground. They're turning the tables. They can end this right here.

"What's the matter, dog?" she taunts, voice slipping into Akashimaru's more masculine cadence as she snaps the Shinken closed with a sharp flick of her wrist and raises the tessen before her. "Can't deal with anything that doesn't just run away?"

Red light gleams off the metal of the tessen as she shifts her stance, preparatory. "We'll end this now. Come, the strength that shatters iron--"

Fiore has posed:
As his claws found nothing but air, so too does her strike at his leg. The cat, at least, is easy for him to deal with; both lithe predatory things, they speak the same language of battle. It's the humans that confound him, those who by rights should run from him, but instead stand their ground. He cannot fathom the feelings that drive them, for to him, there is only hunger and bloodlust.

And, perhaps, fear. Enough to preserve himself, no more than that. Certainly.

It's that fear that awakens when he sees the five arrows fall around him, a chill in his blood as he recognizes where he saw those slips of paper last. Even in dreams, where the laws of the material world hold no weight, he is still a demon. If those blazing arrows extend their light, he will be trapped, and at the mercy of a dreamer who's seized control of their dream. And if that happens --

No. He will not fail his master, not even to preserve his pride. This girl is nothing but a lost cause now -- may she rot with the rest of the world when the Eater of Dreams is freed at long last. She will not have the favor of his mercy any longer.

The Dreamstalker glances between Seishi and her companion, gauging the distance between them, and without a sound, he leaps up and over the threatened prison of the arrows. His feet pound against the ground not a second later, and his silhouette begins to recede into darkness. The trees thin in number behind him, the ghastly stale air of the forest retreating with him. His influence is fading.

But so is their opportunity to stop him.

Hokuto Minase has posed:
    And the beast makes its escape from Hokuto's circle not a second too soon. Simple ink and paper explodes into light, flowing out from each to each, forming a five-pointed star - and at its center, the place where the dreamstalker stood but a moment before.

    "That is the way of the world, Beast. Savagery flees, for intelligence and hope will triumph over it. Always. You have tempted me, and I have answered you."

    The great cat abandons its pursuit, and bounds towards, then past her. Acknowledging her victory over what it represents - for now. But even more so than the wolf, it will always be there, waiting as patiently as the greatest hunters do. Its day will come.

Seishi Tamashige has posed:
It is, without a doubt, Hokuto's victory - but any sense of triumph Seishi can feel for it is short-lived indeed, giving way to a curse as the Dreamstalker withdraws beyond the Shinken's reach. Hokuto's dream is safe, but in exchange they lose the advantage they've gained - if he escapes now, he'll hunt some other dreamer, and she'll have no more idea of when or where he'll strike next than she did before--

--unless--

'You don't have to play his game,' she'd told Hokuto moments before.

Play his game.

There's no time to think through the pros and cons; without another thought, she lets the Shinken drop from her hand and reaches instead for her torn side, drawing in a breath as she drags her fingertips through her own blood.

"DOG!" she bellows at the top of her lungs, already bringing her bloodied fingers to her throat.

As the Dreamstalker looks back - surely he will look back - Seishi swipes three fingertips across the skin of her neck, drawing three diagonal lines in blood against the pulse point, over the jugular vein.

She says nothing else. The message is clear enough without words: there is only one way she will stop interfering in his hunts.

Come and get me.

Fiore has posed:
He ignores Hokuto's shouts of triumph -- she is rapidly fading into the distance, and it matters little what she has to say to him. Both their encounters mattered little, now that they have both been rendered fruitless. Forced into a retreat, he will not do them the honor of looking over his shoulder as he runs. He will run out of this dream and into a new one, there is not a thing that can force him back.

Or so he thought.

The forest stops its disappearing as Seishi's single word echoes across the dreamscape, a crack of thunder that stops even the Dreamstalker in his tracks. For a moment, he is still, facing away from the dream warrior, the tension like a cord pulled taut between them.

He turns only in time to see her paint his mark on her neck in blood. A challenge. How very like a samurai.

He will not leave it unanswered.

Suddenly, the wolf is close once more, somehow only a few bounds away, and he wastes no time. A towering specter of blackest night, he stands at his full inhuman height before bringing his snout to her neck, making a show of sniffing out the scent of her blood. Only when he feels the flush of disgust does he bare his claws to the light and swipe them along the painted trails on her jugular, leaving behind searing crimson scars instead of blood.

Perhaps he could have killed her then. But this will be so much more fun.

"I am no dog," the Dreamstalker rumbles, his forest and his body distorting like a drop of ink reversed and pulled out of clear water. "And you are no hero." He need not run to escape now. The dream will let him go -- what would the challenge mean if they did not see it through?

"Let's see how fast you can run, Breaker of Nightmares."

The whisper disappears with the rest of him, and all trace of the Dreamstalker is gone, save for his mark on Akashimaru's neck.

Hokuto Minase has posed:
    There's a slight rustle of leaves, and a soft thump, as Hokuto emerges from the treeline, peachwood bow in hand. She walks hurriedly over to Akashimaru, her eyes wide, staring.

"You.. you incredible fool... you know what that thing does to the ones it marks! We need to kill it, not play with it!"

    She continues glaring at her fellow dreamer, as if the look alone could kill. Of course, here in her own dream, it might well. It is, perhaps, for the best that she does not hold grudges.

Seishi Tamashige has posed:
As Hokuto appears from amidst the trees and hurries toward her, Seishi stands with her head bowed, her hand pressed to her throat where the Dreamstalker's claws scored her skin. A faint tremor moves through her shoulders, making the voluminous kimono sleeves quiver.

It's not until Hokuto gets closer that it becomes clear that Seishi is laughing.

She's still laughing when she looks up, grinning wide and sharp and fierce, dark eyes blazing. "Yes," she agrees, not disputing a single thing the other girl has said. "But now we know where he'll be, to be ready for him."

She looks away from Hokuto, to the empty air where the Dreamstalker disappeared. "Got you, you son of a bitch."

Hokuto Minase has posed:
    It's fairly clear that Hokuto has worked this out almost as quickly as Seishi has explained it. After all, if the girl's dream-travels are guided purely by fate and fortune, then knowing where the enemy will attack is a critical advantage.

    That doesn't mean she has to be happy about it.

    "Then we'll kill it. And then I will kill you!" She reaches out to grab Seishi by the scruff of the robe's collar and yank her close.

    "Do you have the slightest idea how much you scared me, pulling that crap?"

Seishi Tamashige has posed:
Surprise chases most of the fierce edge from Seishi's expression; her eyes widen as Hokuto grabs her by the collar, and her smile turns lopsided and rather sheepish. "...sorry about that," she says with honest contrition. "I just couldn't let him escape to go and hunt someone else again."

The hand that's not smeared with her own blood reaches to pat the younger girl gently and a bit awkwardly on the shoulder. "You were great, though. It's thanks to you that we've got a chance now to kill that guy for good."

Hokuto Minase has posed:
    Hokuto reddens fiercely at the compliment, averting her eyes. "That... that's not..." She was going to say 'not important', but it most certainly is important that they find a way to finish off the dreamstalker.

    "I still worry, okay? Maybe I'm not the perfect samurai, ready to accept death and all that bushido bullcrap.... but damnit, if you die doing this I swear I will find a way to make sure your ghost is bound to, to, to Hyoudou-kun's favorite porn DVD!"

    Ouch. That can't be good. Guess she really does care.

Seishi Tamashige has posed:
The absurd threat draws a sputtering laugh from Seishi. "All right, all right! I believe you! I promise I'll be careful!"

Still laughing a little, she shakes her head, and despite her apologies it's clear that she doesn't regret what she just did - only that it upset Hokuto. "Don't worry," she says with all confidence. "I have no intentions of dying for this battle when there's a whole war still to fight."