maladied | [0] WEEKS WITHOUT MURDER

[ Spirited is one word for it, with all the noise. Among the din, you might even hear the sound of something getting thrown, something crashing. Inevitably, their more experienced friends were not the only ones within the Infirmary this day, as there's yet another figure that moreso darts out of the door into the morning rain rather than getting thrown, gaze wild as it darts several places in the span of a few seconds.

Fran and Y'shtola, splayed in the dirt. Anybody who might be in the distance, the signs of life of anyone else in unfortunate proximity.

And then behind him, fingers clenching so hard in the doorframe they turn white.

Shinjiro is clearly on high-alert, but it doesn't stop him throwing himself a few feet away, feet scuffing in the mud before he whirls away. Wherever people may be, he seems to be shifting in the complete opposite direction, gaze still locked on the door—

Because there's something there. Something that lurches free of the Infirmary, that brings with a sense of wrongness that permeates your bones. If you could see the young man's face through the distance and the rain, you'd see the way it pales, practically hear the thoughts that seem to run a mile a minute through his head in the seconds that seem to tick by too long.

There's too many of them injured, now, after yesterday. Not a lot of them can fight. There's him, and that glance of blue hair, and then there's the flash of blond that are all too close. That's too little, but maybe too many. ]

Dammit, [ is the muffled mutter, teeth grinding. ] Was it that hard to hold on?

[ And it's with a sharp, hurried look to anyone else who may be in the distance watching that his hand shoots off, a rough, jerky waving gesture.

Get out. Go away. If they can get him somewhere else, somewhere with no people—

Time slows to a stop.

It's strange. There was nothing, and then there's something, time snapshotting in the blink of an eye to his muddled senses. His stomach is hot, but also cold, and it's only by looking down with a bewildered pinch to his brows that he sees what's lodged inside. The blade sinks past fabric, past the flesh and muscle, jagged and sharp and so amber-bright through the gloom. It hits all at once, and Shinjiro stumbles backwards with a grunt and a wheeze, hands up to grip the handle that's becoming just as wet with blood as it is the rainwater that washes it away.

Huh? What? That's not right. But the time seems to pulse to a slowed heartbeat, and there's little he can do as things proceed at a crawl, hourglass freezing as all he feels for several moments is the pain and the dread. ]

[ Those near the infirmary might feel the wrongness of it all first, a heavy, suffocating presence that seems to muffle sound and still the air in spite of the rain still falling across [ s e t t i n g ]. It might feel like time stretches all around you, a moment held in stasis like a string about to snap, the coming of an end that is inevitable and yet never will be. What follows Shinjiro into the rain—unrelenting, unyielding—isn’t so much monster as man, though there’s no mistaking the transformation that’s taken place.

The writing that covered Kaios’ back in old and silvered scars has rippled over the rest of his body, drying out his skin until it crackles like parched earth and falls from him as sand. The runes carve down into his skin, glowing with an inner light that matches the token some of you have seen, always near, always hated. His normal hoodie and leather jacket are gone, lost, replaced by a mantle of shadows that curl and tumble over one another; his hair similarly is constantly in motion as though moved by some unfelt wind, smoke and shadow that never stills, never settles. His eyes have darkened and hollowed—Kaios has never been an easy man to read, but his eyes show no signs of anything that might be happening inside his mind. Instead, they reflect places, people, times, shattered reflections of everything he’s experienced through his many centuries of existence. As he turns, eyes passing over those that are near, perhaps you see yourself in them… and perhaps not.

A piece of old, clouded amber rests at the middle of his chest, fused into his body and glowing with its own internal light. Its facets are intricately tooled, covered in geometric fractals, and a number of you might recognize it, might have even held it. In spite of how he tried to get rid of it, his soul was always near, and now it’s returned to where it belongs as part of him.

This monstrous Kaios moves past Shinjiro, his unseeing eyes focused on the distance, on where there might be people—people who can… a sigh falls from him, soft as a whisper but somehow penetrating through the ambient noise and yelling, the sounds of the spirits carried on the winds in the night. There is only…

There is only another young man, fast and dextrous, weaving around him and throwing scalpels that flash toward his shoulder, his arm, his leg. One scalpel seems to flash almost instantaneously through the air, a perfect throw as it leaves Yugamu’s hand but suddenly at its destination far too soon, flying past the being before its movement brings it into the scalpel’s path. Others hit him, aimed at pressure points that should slow him, should stop him, but it keeps moving forward in an endless march toward eternity.

A hint of Kaios’ speed can be seen in the way its arm suddenly snaps out, hand curling around Yugamu’s elbow. Before he can stretch, before he can get away, Kaios’ other hand hits him palm-first in the glenohumeral joint, finding the tiny space where the scapula curves around to seat the rounded end of the humerus. Yugamu’s arm comes out of place, somehow even longer than before, drooping, and Kaios yanks on that arm to further unbalance him. With his attacking hand he grabs for the young man’s leg, scooping him bodily off the ground, and Kaios hurls him to the side, out of his way, out of his way. With two fingers he reaches into one of those glowing cracks in his skin, drawing out a knife that shapes itself as it’s pulled, bone forming its blade and sinew its handle, all veined in that same glowing amber that makes up his token. He throws it at Yugamu almost as an afterthought, added insurance that he won’t be getting back up. ]

You’re not enough.

[ The being needs a fight, a fight, something to put an end to this endless existence, something to create a moment in time where perhaps it exists, it is and it’s more than just a whisper on the wind. It turns, looking for more people, more power… and it pauses, sizing up the next person it sees. ]

You might be.

[ Fight. Kaios sweeps toward his new target, drawing new weapons from his skin, bone and sinew and light all twisting together as it forms the braces against his arms, the handles in his grasp. Fight. ]

[ McGillis had been steadily backing away - it’s the only sane choice to make in a situation like this. The infected have more than proven how dangerous they are and McGillis needs to live through this, needs to return to his world and make his ambitions come true. It’s the one thing that’s been keeping him going when the overwhelming forces holding them here have steadily sapped away his sense of security. He needs to live, and yet when Yugamu goes flying, his feet just stop.

It’s only a second of hesitation, but in an active crisis a second can make all the difference. He barely has time to identify Kaios’ tonfa for what they are before a hit strikes him in the chest and takes the wind out of him. His escape is blocked, there is no way to run now that doesn’t leave his back wide open to a monster that has him in its sight.

But McGillis has always known that attack is the best defense, hadn’t he? Long before he’d even learned combat tactics, he’d understood that to protect himself, he needs to prove himself the more vicious one.

From a sheath hidden at the back of his belt under his jacket, McGillis produces a dagger and lunges forward. Whatever may be happening to Kaios, he’s still humanoid - he still has pulse points like anyone else, still needs eyes to see. McGillis can take care of those for him. He jumps forward, aiming to disrupt Kaios’ balance and topple him to the ground.

Fighting for his life like this, McGillis doesn’t look like the composed group leader who has sent meeting invite after meeting invite. There’s always been a restraint about his movements and now it’s falling off, leaving behind a being of pure enraged instinct. He wants it to hurt, he wants it to be nasty, he wants to draw blood and take down his prey. When his knife pierces flesh for the first time, McGillis can feel his pounding heart skip a beat.

This is what it feels like to have agency, this is power, this is what it’s like to bare your fangs—

His lips part into a manic, desperate facsimile of a smile.

Die, die, die, die-- ]

[ Live.

It takes longer than it seems it should for McGillis to bring Kaios to the ground—a fraction of a moment, stretched into an eternity—or is it that McGillis jumps at him again and again and again before the loop finally breaks, sending them both to the ground in an instant? Regardless of time, they’re both on the ground; Kaios presses his weapons up into McGillis’s chest to distance him, but then there’s a blade a dagger a knife that sinks into his flesh and the entity gasps, the rushing of air of time of sand through an hourglass

And yet there’s something he can’t deny that sends a rush of power through his form, an order he can’t defy, and Kaios opens his mouth and snarls, a distinctly more human noise than any others he’s produced so far. He shoves McGillis up, freeing his arms long enough to throw his tonfa away and he reaches into the pockets of his cloak, into the shadows—

Kaios pulls two meat hooks from his pockets, wickedly sharp, each with a block at the top that he grips them by as he forces his hands between himself and his foe. He’s acting on instinct alone as his arms extend and he angles the hooks up and carves through McGillis, dragging the hooks as deep as they’ll go. There is no warmth, no satisfaction, no horror, no fear; there’s just the emptiness, the inevitability, the sudden sound of tearing flesh and muscle and insides becoming outsides and another man dead that isn’t him—

The being shoves McGillis off him. Perhaps time stretches again as the man topples, drops of blood suspended midair as Kaios frees himself, somehow back on his feet as though he’d never fallen in the first place. ]

You look but do not see.

[ This one cannot kill him. The entity turns away, looking again for someone that might finally be able to…

Another knife, another blade, sinking deep into his thigh. Kaios turns back to face Shinjiro, face back to its blank neutrality as he stares at the young man that’s just thrown this knife. Young, detached, already isolated. This being does not know Shinjiro, but it knows the gruffness of a bitten man, the thread of tension that comes from always holding yourself apart, always ready for the knife to fall. It knows the years of exhaustion, the repetitive beating of the sea against the stone and how worn down the soul becomes. ]

…Very well.

[ Kaios reaches again into his skin, pulls knife after knife of twisted sinew grips and stained bone blades, amber glowing as he throws. His knives are an extension of him in more than metaphor now, made of him as he sights and releases and pulls the next in a single fluid motion, the repetitive motion making it clear just how many times he’s done this. To seek an end is something he cannot deny Shinjiro.

And so the daggers fall. ]

[ Searing pain. His vision goes white and his senses scream at him, drowning out all other input for a moment - for an eternity. He’s in pain, he’s always been in pain. Clubs, shoes, fists, canes… Pain over pain, layering through a lifetime, yet nothing has ever burned this brightly and consumed him so completely.

He falls gracelessly onto his side, a nasty squelching sound scoring the scene. Wetness spreads over the floor quickly in a vivid red, but it is not the only thing spilling forth from McGillis’ broken body. His intestines follow the pull of gravity and spill over, giving the impression of oversized maggots crawling over the body of one already long gone.

But McGillis is not dead. McGillis cannot die so easily, not so powerlessly. He forces his eyes open and he sees nothing but a blurry mess in the direction of his target, that obstacle to his survival. ]

… not… like this…

[ There is a world he needs to see, there is a smile he needs to ensure, there is a power he needs to obtain, there is—

His mind is racing now, feverish, without rhyme or reason. If he can just kill the monster, if he can just— But his knife has been dropped, is god-knows where, and he needs a weapon, needs—

With a shaking hand McGillis reaches into his pocket, his mind’s addled state his only protection from processing that he’s brushing his own insides as he does. The plastic knife. Small and flimsy in his hand, and yet— He just needs—

McGillis shifts, falling onto his stomach, crushing his own innards against the floor, and weakly reaches forward to point the toy knife at Kaios’ disappearing back. ]

… the world… I was reaching f–...

[ He can’t feel his hands around the knife. He can’t feel his head hit the floor. He can’t feel the warmth of his blood, the cold of the rain, he can’t feel anything at all. His eyes that always refused to see what was right in front of him, that always saw only his ambitions in an abstract future, now stare blankly ahead. His mind, so well-hidden behind smiles and pleasant words, is no longer racing for answers.

It’s hard to believe he is at rest and yet McGillis Fareed is dead. ]

Edited 2025-12-05 07:34 (UTC)

[ Maybe it's the shock that jolts everything back. Maybe it's the taste of copper on his tongue, sharp with metallic tang. Or perhaps it's the cracking of bones and flashes of red pooling in his head right beside the sharp rip of pain. He blinks once again, and the record yanks itself present, the first thing that he gets to see in real time the sight of McGillis collapsing. The grass is a red that flushes away in time with the beat of the rainfall, but what stains it remains in horrific clarity. His fingers clasp tighter around the blade in his gut, and something nauseas wells in the back of his throat tinged with iron as a hand reaches in desperation.

( He's seen people die. Gunshots, accidents on TV, a hand peeking out of crushed rubble that haunts his dreams and curls around his throat. To see the aftermath of viscera pool on the morgue floor is one thing, to see someone's insides spill on the outside is another. )

Is he going to die, again? It's a weird thought, and perhaps it would bring more comfort if it weren't at the expense of others. If it was just him, it wouldn't be so bad. If it was just him, he wouldn't have to feel so sick. If it was just him—

But it's not just him. There's people here besides him, there's a blue lump a ways away where Omokage landed. It's not fair, when McGillis wanted so badly to live and all Shinjiro wanted to do was die. It hurts to wrap his hand around the knife he's hesitatingly slung to his side, one still pressing to the wound at his stomach, but one more glance at those blurred figures through the rain has his grip tightening.

If there's one thing he can brag about, it's focus. Even off-kilter, pain dripping red through his fingers, his aim isn't bad. It sinks into Kaios' thigh rather than higher, but it's enough to drag his attention away from anyone else. There is something chilling in the way those eyes lock onto him, the bloodloss making his vision fuzzy, but even he can feel the way they seem to peel back everything that he is just to take in the miserable thing that lies beneath. And then the knives come out, and whatever life he's got left settles in his legs.

Shinjiro turns to run. Maybe he can get far, or maybe he won't get far at all. As long as nobody else gets hurt, it doesn't matter. The blade jostles and makes him stumble, nerves on fire at war with how cold everything feels. Something lands in the dirt at his feet. Something scrapes his head, tears a gash in his ear. Something sinks into his back, and that's—

It.

It's the first that makes him stop, stumbling. It's the second that knocks him down, knees buckling from the impact. It's the third that makes him hack something wet and sticky in the dirt, pain after throb of pain after throb of pain from the mass of bone jutting from his back. The grass is cold and wet. Shinjiro is also cold and wet. It's not concrete, and it's not bulletholes, but something about this feels so painfully familiar in the fading streams of his consciousness that he would laugh if he could. But he's just— too tired. Achingly, painfully, dreadfully tired.

He's sorry. He'd do it again. If he's the last, he'll be satisfied.

Some form of weight dissipates off his shoulders, and it's only then that Shinjiro Aragaki closes his eyes for the last time. ]

fin.

maladied - 2025-12-05 17:58 (UTC) - Expand

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5/???? cw for heavy gore and implied abuse

6/???? cw gore / suicidal ideation