Saturdays in spring are lovely as a rule, and this one is no exception. The sun glimmers against the cloudless blue sky, warming the air without a trace of harsh heat or humidity. Cars bustle along in the streets, birds chirp and splash about in puddles, and in King Penguin Park, students of all ages relax and enjoy their time off.
Except, perhaps, a girl with circles under her eyes as dark as her raven hair. She and a friend run along the park's jogging trails, both soaked with sweat despite the mild day, and from her sagging shoulders and uneven, labored gait, she's flagging rather obviously.
Even so, she only stops when her foot collides with a rock and her knees buckle to the ground, too weak to resist the pull of gravity.
"Umi-chan!"
Her partner is by her side in a second, resting her hand on the girl's back as she tries and fails to stand up again, breathing heavy and ragged.
"Umi-chan, tell me what's going on, please!" she begs, her eyes alight with concern bordering on fear. "You're scaring me...I've never seen you like this. We have to take a break --"
"*No.*" Umi's voice shudders as her body does, throwing her friend's hand violently off her shoulder. "You don't understand, Honoka. I can't stop. Not ever. Not ever again." She pushes herself off the ground for the second time, but she manages only a few steps before her legs give out under her weight, and she plummets back to earth. Not that she seems aware of any pain -- judging by her half-crazed eyes, she barely seems to register that she's fallen. "If I stop running, I'll -- it'll --"
(There's a growl at the edge of her senses. It's here. She can't escape it, even when she's awake.)
"Umi..." Honoka says, trembling as she approaches her friend. "When's the last time you slept...?"
The black-haired girl lets out a shriek, and the world of the park tears at the seams as shadows overtake the sun, flowers withering into dust and trees twisting into brittle dead things. A nightmare come to life.
Seishi was on her way back from the library. She's managed to stay out of hard-to-explain trouble for the past several months and she and her father have finally reached something of a truce... but that won't last if her grades slip, and Sei's spent the past couple of hours attacking her homework with single-minded intensity.
Now, she's cutting across the park lawn with her backpack slung over her shoulder, still running through equations in her mind and only halfway paying attention to what's going on around her - until the world twists and the air darkens, and the voice that sleeps in the back of her consciousness most of the time is suddenly on sharp alert.
"Seishi!" Without warning, O-Yasu is beside her, head lifted, eyes wide open and burning like embers in the dark.
Seishi's backpack thumps to the ground beside her feet. "I know!" she snaps back, already reaching up to yank free the red ribbon that keeps her hair tied back in its usual half-ponytail.
"Twist the cord of fate!"
Flung out from her fingertips, the ribbon floats in the air, lengthening into a long scarlet cord. The cord forms a loop, passing over her hand, her arm - where it passes, crimson fabric billows, the simple t-shirt and jeans of a modern teenager becoming the short crimson kimono of a samurai.
In moments, Seishi is gone, and Akashimaru is yanking the folded war fan from her belt.
Hinote Kagari is finding the park to be a less and less hospitable choice for reflective walks. Between mutant flowers and Witches and other oddities. STILL, he figures that, perhaps, he'll give it one last attempt.
There's a phoenix hanging out on his shoulder. The tiny Waldian phoenix has it's beak tucked under it's wing and is currently prening herself. Luckily, she just looks like a really exotic parrot to most people.
"Hino, what's that?" asks Illume, looks upwards. "No, not the warm sun!" she cries out as it dissapears into shadows. She sort of weakly throws a wing up. Hinote blinks and looks around. "Dammit." he mutters. "Whelp. That was this place's last chance, but... can't ignore it, come on Illume." he says as he moves towards a withering treeline for a moment, to transform because--- you keep out of sight.
"To Protect Justice, I am Guardian Hino!" Hinote calls out, slipping on his bracelet.
There's a transformation!, Clothes turn into regal finery. A cape with those white heart clasps.
Guardian Hino is off. Illume is choosing to hang out on his shoulder today. For the moment.
"You should be careful Hino." she says.
"I have a bad feeling." she says.
"Yeah... hey. Uh.. isn't that...." he says, eyes landing down on Akashimaru. Familar- one of Waldia's Saviors, afterall!
He heads that direction with a knightly leap!
More than one girl was on her way back from the library today. Hokuto - also a Verone student - had been there, checking out the latest in a science-fiction series she follows, and picking up a couple of books for a research paper she's working on for class.
The books tucked away in her pack, she meanders through the park, paying more attention to a couple of kids playing nearby than to her surroundings.
Until, at least, something tugs at her senses, and her head whips around to look at something else - and then the park turns into something out of a halloween horror movie.
"Suzumebachi!" In response to Hokuto's shout, the butterfly hairpin she wears bursts free from her hair, wings spreading as it grows into the black-and-gold pixie-like ninja that bears that name.
And then Hokuto draws a pair of ofuda from the pouch at her side, tossing them into the air as she runs forward. The ink on the two paper slips glows, a bright sky-blue, the paper itself dissolving as the elegantly-written characters expand into massive banners.
As Hokuto runs through them, the glowing characters fold around her, and her school uniform is replaced by the crimson hakama and red-trimmed white kimono familiar to so many.
Her speed picks up, her run turned to a sprint, as she hurtles towards the sound of screams.
Saturdays are supoer nice! Especially on a warm spring day? It's really a good day for swimming. Let it be known that the little foreign girl and her dog have no idea that most people probably don't just up and swim in the park pond.
But that's what Ariel is doing! ... Was doing. Splashing about and happily tussling with Lucky, the girl and her MASSIVE HOUND are prettymuch enjoying the day, and ignoring the odd stares from passerby.
At least, the two WERE enjoying the sunny spring weather, before something very... VERY... WRONG happens not too far off on the jog path.
Ariel's head breaks the water, silvery hair matted down and all over her face as she perks up, topaz eyes wide with confusion for a moment, Lucky similarly joining her with ears pricked up.
Before everything takes a disastrous turn. The sudden shift of the park- so vibrant and green, to a place with the life wholly sucked out of it earns a sharp bleat of terror from the girl as she and her canine companion make for the edge of the pond. They come out soaking wet, but with a flare of soft white light, soaked clothes are replaced by silvery armor, and Ariel's disguise is shed.
"Seishi!" She calls- the first person she recognizes on the scene, and one who's expertise match, if not surpass her own. "I think... It feels like..."
She wants to say 'it feels like a nightmare!' But Ariel trails off as Lucky gives himself a vigorous SHAKE and gets dog water... All over her.
... Whine.
Impossible -- this is impossible -- she'd been so careful not to sleep at all, running every waking moment from the monster that waited for her in her dreams, and *still* she can't escape --
Exhaustion beaten back by animal instinct, Umi's on her feet again and off like a shot, her screams fading into the distance as she disappears in shadow. Honoka, her best friend and jogging partner, might have followed her lead, were she not cowed in terror at the sight of this new and unfamiliar world, whimpering as she hugs her knees to her chest.
"H-help..."
The strangled whisper is the only thing she can force past the lump in her throat, before she swallows and fills her lungs with air.
"Someone...please! HELP!"
***
The monster growls, fangs bared to the chill air of the Nightmare, crimson eyes raking over the scene in front of him. Of course the troublesome little girl couldn't succumb to the chase quietly -- somewhere in her, she had to have the will to resist him one final time, to create this world between dreams and reality where others could interfere.
No matter. The hunt would be no thrill at all if it were easy. And the red-haired girl, already crumpled in fear on the ground, is suitable enough for him to blood himself on.
A black blur, halfway between wolf and man, shoots from the darkness towards poor defenseless Honoka, not prescient enough to even think of running away.
She was sweeping a look around her, eyes sharp and narrowed, but the sound of her name gets the samurai girl's attention and Akashimaru's gaze quickly swings toward Ariel. In the process she catches sight of Hino, and her eyes widen in recognition - "One of the Waldian guardians?" It's been a while, but she remembers that heart insignia.
But there's no time for pleasantries. Ariel's words may have been cut off by Lucky's inconvenient shake, but it's not hard for Akashimaru to fill in the blank. "You're right," she says, mouth tightening at the corners. "It's a Nightmare." So where's the dreamer?
One girl running. The other collapsed, that dark shape bearing down on her. "Hiraisen!" Without thinking, Akashimaru's arm swings forward, snapping her tessen open and hurling it in one swift gesture that sends the metal fan spinning through the air between the redheaded girl and that black blur.
Even as she moves, O-Yasu is sniffing the air. He looks like an overstuffed ottoman with tiger paws and a stubby tapir snout, but his eyes are flame. "It's not her!"
Akashimaru's eyes dart towards the black-haired girl, already a dozen yards away and fleeing. "Dammit!"
Suzumebachi flits forward, following in the shadow of Akashimaru's war-fan. Concealed within the shadow, like a good ninja, her sword out and ready to sting the Nightmare.
"A dream youkai?" she asks, hearing the samurai-girl name the creature. She reaches behind her, unwrapping the peachwood bow she carries, and drawing another ofuda from her pouch.
"Namah sarva tatha gatebhyah sarva!" A series of occult hand-gestures accompanies the sanskrit chant, and the ofuda in her hands bursts into flame - which stretches into an arrow as she touches it to the bowstring.
She draws the string back and settles her aim on the black hunter. "If we can weaken it, I can bind the thing!" she calls out - and then lets the flaming arrow fly.
Guardian Hino gives a little two finger wave, and a smile in the air. "Hey!" he calls out.
He's still a bit away. "Do you know what's hap----"
Then a girl bolts. Then another girl cowers. Then He frowns. "On it." he says as his cape flutters off in a swing behind him.
Illume is still shoulder perched. She's not having a hard time keeping there or still. She is being particularly quiet. "Dreamer?" she asks Hino.
"I dunno either. But we gotta catch up to that other one I guess--- Akashimaru sounded upset about it, right?" he says.
A quick run, a dart and he's doing his best to catch up. He won't try to tackle the girl- but--- he should be able to keep up with a quick moving girl when he's transformed... right?...
Right?
"H--hey you! Stop! We're here to help!" he calls out as best he can.
His sword isn't drawn yet, it's still in it's seath on his segemented belt.
Being soaked is actually of minor inconvenience for Ariel, even in armor. Water was always like a second home to her- though it always feels kind of icky to walk on land in drenched clothes. It only takes the unicorn a few beats of standing in her soaked armor to recover, Lucky staring up at her with his tongue lolled out as though he knows he goofed pretty bad. That's when the unicorn hakes HERSELF out like a dog.
Thus dried, she can now focus on the disaster at hand, already hopping onto Lucky's back and gripping the glowing star-hound's shaggy fur. That beast of a night terror looks, for lack of better word... Nightmarish. There's just a split second hesitation as Ariel watches the wolf-like spectre move in for its kill- Akashimaru and Suzumebachi moving to intercept. But then O-Yasu reveals that the dreamer is not the red-haired girl.
Ariel trusts the other girl's safety in the hands of Hokuto and the samurai girl. "Lucky-- that way-" In an instant, her mount takes off. She clings good and hard to that neck fur as she joins Hino in chasing down the exhausted girl who's nightmare has come to haunt her, Lucky thundering after them at full sprint.
"He's right! We're here to help you, but if this is your dream you need to stop running and take control of it!"
Can't stop running. Can't look back. Can't take a single moment's rest, or that nameless *thing* in the shadows will catch her. Rest is death. Stopping is death. Can't stop. Can't stop. Can't stop.
The delirium of sleep deprivation and the all-consuming fear for her life have forced Umi into a bizarre kind of trance -- something like a runner's high, if that high were terrible and permeated with the basest desire to survive. In her mind, there is only her, the monster that's chasing her, and the next five feet in front of her.
If she's noticed that the underbrush has torn up her sweatpants, and that she's trailing blood down her legs, she certainly doesn't show it.
Hinote's able to catch up with her, for although she's swift, he has magic on his side, and there's no contest of speed when a henshin is involved. Umi's eyes dart to the blur of red that gains on her, and she shrieks, blocking out any of the guardian's attempts to make peace with her. Reason doesn't often win out in dreams -- even less so in nightmares.
"Who are you?!" she demands, careening to one side as his interruption stifles her flow of adrenaline and throws off her balance. "What do you *want*? Don't you know what's out there?!"
Sure enough, a canine shadow approaches at a run, and Umi is nowhere near lucid enough to parse the differences between a half-wolf and a large dog, even when that dog has a unicorn astride it. Her feet move of their own accord, and she's running again, much more clumsily now than she had been.
***
What the --
The monster's open jaws clench down on metal instead of flesh, puncturing the soft skin of his mouth and blooding his teeth in a way he *certainly* hadn't anticipated. With a howl of pain, he tosses his head to one side, sending the fan and a spray of blood in an arc as wide as the clearing itself.
"Who goes there?!" he growls, briefly locking eyes with the red-clad samurai before a burst of heat and light drags his attention away. With one clawed hand (paw? Hard to tell), he snatches the flaming arrow out of the air and snaps it in half.
The redhead, still frozen in shock, watches the scene play out without a sound.
Later, there'll be time for gratitude - a chance to thank Ariel and Hino for going after the dreamer. For now, Akashimaru cannot even spare the attention to watch them go.
Now is battle, the reflexes of another life burning in her blood.
As the monster shakes his jaws and flings the iron fan away, Akashimaru reaches to close her hand on thin air and yank. The gesture catches the tessen mid-tumble, caught at the other end of the scarlet cord that is suddenly in Akashimaru's hand. Another quick tug brings it sailing back to her; she snatches it out of the air as the cord vanishes back into nothing.
Only then, as she sidesteps to place herself between the monstrous hunter and the helpless redhead, does the samurai girl manage to spare a look toward Hanabi, and something in the sight of the other girl stops her. Dark eyes widen, her thoughts stuttering, just for a split second before she shakes it off and gives Hanabi a short nod. "--Right."
Just that, and then Akashimaru turns her full focus back to the monster. She'll have to trust Ariel and Hino to care for the dreamer - her business here is clear enough.
"Creature of nightmares!" Her voice rings out as she faces the dark figure, brandishing the open tessen defensively before her. "Your hunt ends here. You face a Guardian of the Gate of Dreams, the Breaker of Nightmares - Akashimaru!"
With a short, sharp flourish she snaps the fan closed, points it directly at him in challenge. "I will be your opponent!"
Guardian Hino blinks over to Ariel. Is that a unicorn girl riding a giant dog. What?
Okay.
"Look, I don't think that things chasing you anymore and I think my friends back there are handling it." he says.
"My name's Guardian Hino! I'm a Guardian Knight!" he says. "I protect people from monsters like that." he says- well a description of one of the things he does regularly.
He's trying to keep up and running and he sort of frowns. "You really need to stop, you're hurting yourself."
Illume nods matter of factly. "You look injured!" she says.
"Whatever's chasing you... me and the other one over there can handle it." he says.
"But you won't get anywhere if you keep running except more hurt." he says.
"Can you please stop?" he tries to ask pleadingly.
As Hokuto's arrow is batted aside, she's already nocking another to her bow. She lets fly without hesitation, certain of her aim, and a third follows it just as quickly.
"And she will not stand alone!" she calls to the creature. "Know this, demon, for you tread upon dangerous ground! In the name of Abe no Seimei, you will cease!"
A fourth arrow is loosed, and then she draws another set of ofuda from her pouch, fanning out five in her hand to prepare her next spell.
Oh. Oh shoot, that's kind of a thing. Of course an exhausted girl running from a monstrous canine figure in the wild haze of fatigue would be afraid of a similar figure.
Oops.
"-Ah... Lucky, stay."
Ariel is off the now bewildered looking star-hound's back when he skids to a halt. She's pretty spry herself as it is.
Battle and conflict were never her specialty, she leaves the Nightmare itself to the other two, fully believing in their ability to handle that situation as she scrambles after Hino and the girl; Umi.
"Listen to him! You can't keep running! If you don't face a bad dream it will never go away- if it's your dream... You're the one in control. If you believe it can't hurt you, it will just get weaker- then the others can put a stop to it."
She pleads with the girl in her flighty fugue. That's how dreams work as Ariel knows them anyway, if they can just make Umi calm down...
The Gate of Dreams. A name he hasn't heard in hundreds of years -- and had expected never to hear again. Least of all today.
This hunt just became much more interesting.
The change is the creature is immediate and obvious: he goes still for a second or two, then rises to his full monstrous height, blood red eyes narrowed as he scans the one called Akashimaru, nostrils flaring to pick up the traces of her scent on the air.
"The Breaker of Nightmares," he repeats, before he laughs, a low growling thing that reverberates more than it should in this dark and desolate excuse for a forest. "Bold. But this Nightmare is not broken yet, little one."
He lunges forward, yellowed claws swiping for her throat -- unfortunately, he failed to account for the hail of flaming arrows launched his way, and even his preternatural speed cannot fend them all off. He ducks and dodges the first two, his attack on Akashimaru falling wide, before the third buries itself in his shoulder.
The monster snarls, tottering backwards several steps in what may seem like defeat...but it's not long before the gravelling sound warps itself into a low growl, and then a peal of proud laughter.
"Fools." He reaches up to the arrow's shaft and pulls it out swiftly, black fur and flesh knitting itself together again in plain view. "To think you can hurt me in my own Nightmare." There's no time to sit here trading speeches with these righteous pest -- the source and anchor of this Nightmare is getting away, and if he loses his mark on her, the bounty of her dreams will be lost.
Letting out a howl piercing enough to topple the trees around Akashimaru and Hanabi, the monster -- the Dreamstalker -- resumes his proper hunt.
***
Meanwhile, Hinote and Ariel's words would not have reached Umi at the height of her panic, but she is exhausted now, so weary after a week of constant terror and flight that even her fierce drive to survive can't blot out distraction any longer. Gasping for air as though she were drowning rather than running, she falls to her knees yet again, her hair falling to either side of her neck, baring it to the air. If one looks at it in the right light, they might see three streaks of red, like the claws of a wolf --
But the echoes of the howl send her scrambling away on her hands and knees, whimpering, until she collides with a tree and can go no further.
"N-No," she says. "You don't -- you don't KNOW! You don't know anything!" Tears well up in her golden eyes, which flit from the unicorn to the guardian, barely taking their presence in. "That monster's going to catch me -- I can't -- I can't *run* anymore!"
Akashimaru snaps the short meal bar of the closed fan upwards as the creature's claws slash towards her neck. It's hard to say if she would've intercepted them before they ripped her throat out - fortunately, Hokuto's arrows are faster yet, taking away any need to find out.
That howl splits the air, sends trees crashing to the ground around them, dessicated leaves crumbling in the midst of the reverberations. Akashimaru swears under her breath. "O-Yasu, stay with the girl!" and with those words she's off and running, vaulting over a fallen log to chase after the Dreamstalker at a headlong run. A moment to snap the tessen open at her side again, and then without breaking stride she flings it ahead of her, sending it arcing after the monster. "We can't let him get to the dreamer!"
Left behind, O-Yasu lids his unsettling ember eyes and settles down at poor Honoka's side, making like an oversized stuffed animal of odd design.
Guardian Hino turns back to the howl and hrmmms, he looks back down to the girl. "I may not know what you've been through. Or why this thing is after you." he says.
"But I know I can sure as hell make it's day terrible." he says.
He turns back toward's the howl and grabs the hilt of his sword and draws it.
"Hey. Um. Unicorn Girl. My name's Hino. Can your big dog there cover the girl? I think we're gonna have company."
"Probably very soon!" says Illume. "I tend to listen to what the phoenix says." he mutters.
He looks toward's the tree line, gripping his longsword with two hands.
"Come onnnn...." he says. "Let's see what your big ugly mug is like." he mutters.
"Suzu!" With that order, the little pixie-like shikigami flits out, streaking past the Nightmare again to harass it with her stinger-like blade. She's quick and nimble, as only a creature made almost purely of magic can be, and equally strong - and her blade is equally sharp.
Hokuto herself is undertaking another task. Her arrows seem to be having minimal effect on the monster despite their magical enhancements, so it's time to push deeper into the well. Five ofuda fan in her hand, and then she throws them into the air.
All five zoom out, ignoring the laws of physics to flit easily through the air. They take up positions in a circle about the Nightmare, floating in mid-air, the inked characters glowing brightly.
"Ban, Un, Taraku, Kiriku, Aku! Gogyou Fuuin!" With a series of quick hand-signs, the young onmyouji activates the circle, bars of light connecting each talisman to the others and forming a pentacle. The binding thus created should - if done well enough - cut off the monster's ability to drain energy from its prey. And since the beast seems to be entirely made of magic, rather than flesh, it's entirely possible that it could be bound in place itself, as well.
... if she's right about that part, at least. If not, sealing its ability to feed will certainly make the battle easier!
That howl... That howl does not being good tidings. Ariel stops dead in her tracks when she hears it, loppy ears pricking up. Lucky's ears perk all the same as he lifts his head. This is a problem. This is a huge problem. Like a hunting dog scenting blood on the wind, the Nightmare is headed towards them.
Ariel can't fight that. Introductions though. They'll have to be quick, unfortunately. She can be more polite later. "-Ah... I'm Ariel. That's Lucky." She pipes to Hino.
When Umi falls to her knees, Ariel skids to the girl's side, clasping her shoulders and trying to get the girl to look her in the eye.
"You're right I don't know. What it's like to be hunted like that. But I do know you're not alone. Hino is here. And so am I, and Lucky, too." She says bracingly, once the Guardian Knight gives her his name. "Just believe, okay?"
Now though she looks up. "I-" She's about to reply to Hino, when Lucky already takes the Knight's hint.
Lucky shows his true nature, the gleaming starlight hound lifting his head and scenting the air, trying to determin from which direction the nightmare will come... And he turns to face it, hackles raised, teeth bared and snarling like a defensive guard dog who's charge has been threatened.
Pests. It's true that, within the confines of Umi's dream, none but her can harm him -- but that doesn't make their interference any less infuriating.
Or any less effective, for although the Dreamstalker cannot be hurt, he can be slowed. And slowed he is: first by the crimson arc of Akashimaru's tessen, which he avoids only by fractions of an inch, then by the incessant biting sting of the tiny shikigami's blade. Stopped in his tracks, he swats at the air, hoping to crush the annoyance between his claws. The dreamer is too *close* for him to be waylaid by these distractions. He is the Dreamstalker, servant of the Eater of Dreams, the menace of man's sleep since he first began to dream. The efforts of these petty mortals will not disrupt his hunt -- his mark is on that girl, her dreams belong to *him* --
The Dreamstalker cannot be hurt, but he can be bound by the holy magic of a Curse Hunter. Before his grasping fist can find the shikigami, it collides with the beam of bright light, singeing his fur to the flesh beneath it and tearing a feral howl from his throat. Such magic shouldn't last for long, not when the terror of the girl feeds him strength -- he will force his way through in minutes, if that. But he has been stalled. His prey, only a dozen or so yards away now, is yet out of reach.
If Guardian Hino and the Dream Guardian's hound wish to strike, now is the time to do it.
Umi herself has collapsed into a burbling mess, the last of her words failing her as her eyes saw the approaching shadow, inexorable and inescapable. The blood-red claw marks on her neck shine brighter, in the presence of the monster that marked her as prey -- anyone close by will be able to see them now, and those learned in the ways of dreams (or those simply astute enough to make the connection) might recognize it for what it is.
And how the Dreamstalker's mark may come to be his downfall.
With the Dreamstalker stalled in his chase by Hokuto's magic and her shikigami's sting, Akashimaru gains ground, closing the distance between herself and her quarry with long bounding strides. As she nears the hunter, she gathers herself and springs, a powerful leap that carries her sailing all the way over his head in a long arc.
The Shinken's arc meets her at the crest of her leap; she grabs the tessen out of the air and comes down skidding against the layer of damp, blackened leaves that litter the ground.
"Look!" her voice rings out loud and clear through the nightmare as she glances back towards Umi. "You're not alone! You can't run any more, but you can stand and take charge of your fate!"
The metal fan gleams with red light as Akashimaru raises it over her head, as though reflecting the radiance of a sunrise. "Come, the wind that blows away deception! San-kyo-sen!"
On the last phrase she brings the Shinken sweeping down. A rush of magical wind kicks up with the motion, swirling around all of them; the leaves that tumble in it aren't the dead dark things of the dream, but the bright green of the springtime trees of King Penguin Park, a dozen tiny rips in the fabric of the Nightmare.
Suzumebachi slips in and out of the binding pentacle with ease, her blade stabbing out at the Nightmare. She might not be able to seriously harm it, but she can certainly keep it off-balance and distracted, make it more difficult for it to try to break out of the binding.
Hokuto wags a finger at the hound-like monster. "Stay," she orders, mocking and scornful.
Then she turns, meaning to turn her back on it and walk away, as if unconcerned, a further mockery... but then she spots the mark on Umi's neck. Her eyes go wide with shock for a moment, then narrow as she hurries over. "That..." The next word out of her mouth is, unfortunately, an obscure Sanskrit curse, and difficult to translate.
"No, no, no. That is not allowed." She draws a pair of ofuda from her pouch and focuses until the ink glows bright once more. "Ban, Un, Taraku, Kiriku, Aku! Gogyou kai!" One talisman is applied directly to the marks, the other to the girl's forehead, aiming to purify the marks.
"Stand and breathe free!" she calls to the girl. "You are no creature's prey!"
Guardian Hino can hear it, now he can see it. He rears his sword back and get's ready to strike forward when--- the Curse Hunter's magic works it's way to bind the beast. Okay.. that's good. That's good. He doesn't know what the claw mark is on the girl's neck. Nor can he can do anything about it.
He /does/ think he can do something about the beast though as he raises his sword, now gripping it one handed.
"Alright...."
"FIRE BRAND!" he calls out, as he moves to blaze forward and try to swing his now flaming bright hot sword into the beast with a slice.
Illume is merely holding on for dear life now and covering her eyes with two wings. Feathers peek open across one of her ruddish orange eyes though.
Lucky wishes to strike. Lucky lunges, fangs snapping, growl building to a murderous snarl in his throat as the hound leaps at the Dreamstalker. But for all the hound's defensive nature and strength, Lucky is batted aside, as long as the beast draws strength from Umi.
A bleat rises from Ariel when she realizes, she's kind of... Right there WITH Umi. Though she sees that claw mark, her actions are a little more in the moment, than thinking ahead.
It's a pure display of trust. Ariel places her own body in front of Umi, putting her faith in Akashimaru, Hino, and Suzumebachi.
Anyone who's had a nightmare will know it. That blissful moment after waking, after the panic has passed, when you realize that none of those terrible things actually happened, that this is reality, that you're wrapped up in your covers and safe.
That is the moment Umi experiences as the spring leaves blow in from the park, green and fresh and *real*, carrying the scent of invigorating runs and afternoons spent with her best friends. When the pure light of the talisman intermingles with and dispels the energy of the Nightmare, erasing the mark that had her living in fear of her own mind for the past week, a bit of light returns to her tired eyes, and the haze of abject and reasonless terror lifts from her sight.
She looks at the Dreamstalker, trapped in the cage of the ofuda's pentagram, as one might look at an odd kind of insect.
"This isn't real," she says. "This is a dream."
And the tears in the Nightmare widen, torn like fabric at the seams, letting in more and more of the sun's light, the sounds of birds and traffic and people drifting in once again. For the first time in centuries, the Dreamstalker's quarry has truly escaped him.
But he's never been one to go quietly.
With a roar like that of no earthly beast, he shreds the ofuda binding him in place, fixing the knight that leaps toward him with a look of feral rage to make even the most fearless warrior quake in his boots.
"You've just made a terrible mistake."
A blur of yellow and black, and the Dreamstalker has lunged out of the way, raking his claws along Hino's exposed skin. Another flurry of movement, and he's standing above Ariel, her neck already dripping blood from three ragged wounds. He can't attack again -- the Nightmare has collapsed too greatly, and he cannot yet exist in the world of humans -- but he can lock eyes with Akashimaru, snarling and baring his fangs.
He doesn't need to tell her this isn't over. The blood of her comrades dripping from his claws will speak for him.
A heartbeat later, the dread forest has vanished completely. The four of them stand in King Penguin Park once again, over the sleeping bodies of Honoka (who passed out from shock, poor thing) and Umi (who, for the first time in three days, has finally allowed herself to sleep.)