nysalogs | . all you have's your axe to grind . closed

Entry tags:

. all you have's your axe to grind . closed

Who: Takasugi Shinsuke (

shikomizue) & "Friends" | Closed
What: Catch All For April-May-June
When: Over April / May / June
Where: Mostly Wyver, some Thesa and Olympia
Warning(s): alcohol + graphic violence + bang + will edit as needed

[ closed starters in the comments ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Chaos is an element woven into his blood, strengthened by threads of obedience that have no loose ends. His own heartbeat thudding alongside his nerves keeps his focus flashing to each waypoint as they blow past it in succinct order, like they're already halfway through a weapon's swing, needing only execution to hit true. It steadies his body as the forward energy begins to consume rationality. Soon comes, and it will only be momentum.

Mikazuki's vigilance and adherence to the plan is the only thing that keeps him rooted to his spot outside the dead end Takasugi disappeared into. He mentally keeps pace with the sound of the fight that breaks out below. Footsteps — two sets, then many. A swing, a dodge, shuffling around another impact of flesh surging with electricity. Mikazuki waits for the telltale burst that should follow.

Bodies hit the ground just like Takasugi's approaching footsteps. He knows the sound, by now.

Out of the mechanical room and into the hallways, Mikazuki only leaves marginal distance between them when he follows. There's a sort of inhale that happens before a detonation, a thorough silence that makes the ensuing destruction all the clearer. As the room collapses behind them, so does any sense of calm.

Everyone in the Institute will know, now. A piece of itself punctured, collapsed and turned inward like teeth. Only when they've maneuvered through the rush of bodies, leaving more than a few littered behind them, can Mikazuki smell the char and iron on Takasugi. Hidden by black, but brighter than the air in his throat, like a taste. If it was stronger, that'd be fine. A machine needs working parts to function, and there is no part of this one that Mikazuki thinks will be worth sparing.

He slips past the other man and down the adjacent hall, gait quick but somehow heavy with his gun gripped in his right hand. It's quiet now save the low roar of the confusion up above. They're on a decline now, the lights low and teeming as the air chills, clinical. Mikazuki only needed to see the map of his objective once, the information taking up the same intelligent, unforgiving glimmer in his eye that facing an enemy might.

But it's different from what he imagined. ]

Smells weird.

[ Sterile, but sick.

They're raking across this vulnerable underbelly, all claws, by the time the path narrows down to just one. A door lies at its end, the lever and seams adorned with deadbolts. A sort of pause ticks in Mikazuki's shoulders in consideration of it, this atmosphere a far cry from the mustiness, the magics, potions, and crystals this place likes to wear as its face. But it's there and gone again.

A soft glow halos the doorway from inside. He could easily blow the thing off its hinges, but he doesn't waste the shots here, instead grabbing the metal casings for the deadbolts and prying, popping screws and settings as they come off.

Once they've been sheared away, he stops to listen, elbow crooked and gun at the ready. There's movement inside, which he indicates to Takasugi with a long flicker of a look, then a nod to indicate to be ready.

When he opens the door, the light inside is cold and refractive, flooding forward and into the hall as though it's a creature unto itself.

But no attack comes. ]

[When metal clicks on sloping ground, Takasugi sheathes his sword. Something that simply exists, a part of him, can't grow heavy in his hand. But drawing and sheathing it is as simple as opening and closing his mouth - and as easily foregone.

Teeth not bared aren't any less capable of tearing flesh to strips.

With the roar above them dulled, pounding footsteps and groaning infrastructure indistinguishable from one another, Takasugi doesn't bother with subtlety. His pace ambles along with Mikazuki's until they reach the door.

There, he presses his back into the cold wall while the boy yanks the door to pieces. Mikazuki carries a gun, but Takasugi's always thought there was strength enough in his hands. Strangling away the lives of countless others, they've become mangled and strong.

He plucks metal from itself like the iron is as weak as bone.

Takasugi flexes his fingers, a toughness forming in the stretched flesh between thumb and digits. The electricity had burnt him - skin cracking over what's already made numb by scars.

His jaw lifts, acknowledging Mikazuki's tacit warning, and he falls in behind the boy, hand balanced over his blade.

There's no need to draw.

They come upon nothing but light, an ill sort of gleam that makes his eye narrow before it can adjust. Color itself is absorbed by the hue, painting everything a sickly tone neither blue nor green.

Something less than those, devoid of vibrancy.

Takasugi walks through the almost palpable space, and raises a hand to touch the first condensation covered glass pod he comes to. There's... something, inside, though far from human. He stops, focus shifting between his own reflection and watching bubbles float upwards to vanish under metal frame.

The creature doesn't stir - but surely it's alive. His eyes drift from the thing's hollowed chest to a file; he won't waste time thumbing through it, now. Better to look over his shoulder to Mikazuki, ascertaining, rather than questioning.]

What...

[ Mikazuki is a wearing an expression he can't consciously remember ever having before. That sudden illumination pours over him in a way that's much more than just physical, light catching on his harshest angles and then sloping down against his softer ones as if in implication of them. His gaze doesn't jump about the room, it slides from point to point, attempting to forge some kind of connection. Something to bridge what he's seeing to rationality — any kind.

A strange, liquid pulse comes from the pod Takasugi touches, giving the impression of movement where there is none. It doesn't smell right, the air pushing down on his lungs rather than freeing them from the smoke and debris outside.

Past the first pod, there are thick panels of glass separating... things from them. Limbs and bodies give off the impression of humanity, but they've been so twisted and addled that Mikazuki can't entirely tell what they should be. Joints knotted and poised the wrong way, violent feathers, swaths of scales jutting from agitated muscle. There's what looks like a woman in the farthest corner cage, crushed beneath a thick pelt, breathing tendrils of smoke. Immediately to his left, a creature with green skin has trouble focusing its eyes, whimpering silently against something neither of them can actually see.

Mikazuki takes a step, the sound of it like an explosion all its own. He hasn't forgotten the mission, gun tight in his grip, but the only things moving in here aren't his target. His blue eyes flick, piece by piece, to the locks on the cages, the materials hanging outside, the looming equipment.

Eventually, he reaches out in kind, the tips of his free index and middle finger drawing down the front of the glass standing between him and a creature that looks as though it's had all its bones broken and rearranged. It regards him curiously. ]

What is this? It's like the animals down in the Altar.

[ But these didn't start as animals. ]

[Paled by the sickly light of the room, Mikazuki looks more horrified than curious. A muted propensity to learn - curiosity at its purest, just as subdued as the rest of the boy, had woven itself into Takasugi's understanding of his companion without him ever noticing.

He only sees it now, in its absence, faced with an equally dampened, but no less driven, inquisitiveness.

One that wonders how to react, rather than how to adapt.

There's no acclimating to things so foreign.

All Takasugi sees, spread isolated before them, are bodies as alien as the thousands he's cut through. Scales wrapping over shoulder and chest, flecking away from the skin beneath. Faces distorted with snouts and misshapen eyes.

His penchant for the monstrous doesn't extend to things there's no knowing.

Wide eyes, surrounded by translucent skin that whitens opaque only at the seems of features, follow him as he peels away from the row he'd walked down. He rejoins Mikazuki silently, looking over his shoulder to the thing with its mangled body.

Which of them does Mikazuki think is more human - himself or the abomination?]

Who knows. [It's all at once dismissive and acknowledging - he doesn't care to grope for an answer when they have none.

Instead, he plucks the file from the glass display in front of Mikazuki, and slips it into his top.]

[ A clamor rises in him. Up through his throat, subtly hitting the inside of his teeth when he closes his mouth. His expression shadows at the points between his eyes, looking at that creature and its twitching limbs just beyond his own human ones. Mikazuki can't figure it out and simultaneously decides in the same heartbeat. There's too much vying for his attention, the metallic tug of having a target stronger than any other impulse.

Unless this whole place becomes one.

He's aware of Takasugi moving to take and pocket something beside him, but he's not looking at him. ]

I don't like it.

[ For whatever it's worth. Which is probably little, but that's never made him shy away before. He looks down the length of the room, the end of it obscured by a partition that's shielding who-knows-what. Lucky for him, he doesn't even get the chance to wonder. There is a footstep from behind it, and Mikazuki immediately squares forward in response. A heaviness lies about him, almost protective, had it not been run through by instantaneous aggression. He hadn't heard anyone — there aren't any living noises.

A man appears, and Mikazuki fires at him without him even getting to step fully into the space. He's a sure shot, but the man twitches violently, giving him an unnatural veer that makes the bullet shear past. Clicking his tongue, he aims again, but the body's angles contort, making him pause to watch.

In that same second, the jaw pops, pistons instead of sinew, unhinging wide to allow the passage of a barrel. It fires back in the same way Mikazuki had: unforgiving and mechanical. ]

[The creature twitches, limbs bending against their own angles, but there's more motion in Mikazuki. Churning, not cogs but rampant, running blood underneath skin gives rise to a response like that.

They have no information, but there's no need for it. The boy's anger is nothing rooted in reason - there's no place to ask 'why'.

Some sights are simply unbearable.

He's no stranger to that teeming revulsion himself, how it works its way from a hollowed gut to choking, until it finally pries its way from lips like vomit. The words are always so simple.

Inadequate.

Hearing such a thing from Mikazuki, forged by his simplicity (not unlike a blade) should be disquieting. But it sets him at ease.

Regarding the monstrosity he knows, Takasugi's smile is warm, but the tenderness is blanched by the severity of the room's light.

His smile remains until a man crosses Mikazuki's path; it twists into a grin, then, one that does nothing but grow as the thing wrenches itself out of the bullet's path. And fires back-

In the same flash, Takasugi draws his sword, sheering the bullet in two before it reaches them. He's pressed forward, chest into Mikazuki's shoulder, his lunge an instinctual reaction to the 'bang' that still echoes between the chamber's walls.

His ears ring, the sound as steady as he stands - ready for a hail of more, or to support Mikazuki's recompense.]

[ The air that rushes past him, leaping off the blade, is cold. Warmth supplants it, radiant at the single point of contact. There's a spike in his demeanor, a rush that hollows his veins. In place of his heartbeat, he nearly hears the smile leveled over his shoulder, running like the length of the sword that is going to cleave him a path through. He's used to retaliating, but this attack comes at him low, an insult worth repaying.

There's space enough after the first shot to pause and Mikazuki realizes it instantly — it's rechambering. He's calculating in the same way an animal stalks. Time lurches and his vision tunnels, noting the rate first. The file in its hand comes second, making his voice grate, accusing. ]

Was it you?

[ Reason enough. A click sounds ahead of them, one mechanical eye illuminating like a scope, and Mikazuki swings his gun up as an answer and fires, recoil driving his shoulder back into Takasugi's chest. It's the only vantage he needs as his shot connects with the side of the sentry's neck.

Instead of peeling back the skin and muscle that guards an artery, it plows through cybernetics and machinery, stalling the next shot.

The sight of that alone ignites his drive more than blood would have. He ducks the protective arc of Takasugi's blade, intent on chasing that damage.

Deepening it until there's nothing left. ]

[Whether or not the robot is capable of creating the monstrosities that stand silent sentinel to the unfolding fight isn't important. Not when an accusation has already been uttered; long since conceived, it's already being followed by cresting waves of anger.

When Mikazuki rips the thing apart, it won't be to find answers.

Being complicit is enough to levy rage against, crashing again and again until nothing but flotsam is left.

Takasugi will serve as the bulwark for it; his stance is steady as Mikazuki lurches back into him. When the boy springs forward, Takasugi moves as well, following behind at arm's length - assuring his path.

Eye trained on sparking entrails, the frame of the machine lights up with each new circuit broken. But there's nothing to glean; all Takasugi sees is wreckage.]

[ His answer is already in front of him when he collides with the robot, the impact of muscle on metal indistinguishable between the two bodies. That of the sentry is more immediately durable, but it might be irony, that it lacks Mikazuki's anger.

It's there to catch his attack, sending them into the strain of a grapple. Grabbing him, it bodily lifts and chucks him backwards, managing his mass easily.

But Mikazuki can do that too, the phantom taste of iron in his mouth, surging in his spine. He was once more machine than man, and the glow in his eyes is that of someone who's never forgotten it. Twisting, he lands on his feet and palms, the heels of both skidding as he anchors for traction. Body coiled as if he has claws, a second spine, inhuman joints — he charges forward again. Keeping his center of gravity low, he's blocked from rushing up and jamming the barrel of his gun into its throat by it crossing its arms and barring him. Head cocking, its jaw cranks open, catching Mikazuki wide-eyed as it fires. He cants aside enough to let the shot shatter against the floor, cheek stinging with the warmth of the bullet. Another surge of his strength breaks one of its arms out of the way.

His own invades that space, single-minded. His hand buries itself in the sentry's mouth, fingers clawing and digging until they circle around the entirety of the firing mechanism, barrel hot and sooty against his palm. The sentry struggles as he squeezes, pulls, and then wrenches backwards.

The entire thing comes out, torn like a tongue from a mouth. Mikazuki throws it and it clatters against the floor, pieces scattering everywhere.

With the robot disarmed, he could leave it there, more one for efficiency than for affectation. But maybe there's still something he's looking for in there, in this room that he barely understands. In this thing that he's destroying, that he's making disappear. He jams his heel into its legs and sends it collapsing to the floor. It's an easier vantage to rend jaw from skull, metal shearing, sparks and hydraulic fluid spraying thanks to the decay round from his firearm. That, too, has been abandoned, some distance away alongside the file.

Mikazuki isn't enjoying it. There's barely anything in the blue of his eyes, blown out by focus. He holds the robot down and with a heave of a breath, twists and rips neck from torso, silencing the rest of the body in a dim, gurgling whir. ]

[Takasugi surrenders proximity when Mikazuki crashes into the robot; his step circles the sentry, focused honed on the struggle between monster and machine. Were the conflict so simple, he may have darted to catch his partner, steady and reorient-

But Mikazuki wears the clash between monster and machine himself. He lands with mechanical finesse, his awareness more finely tuned than an automaton's. There's no data to process, no pre-established program in place for each contingency.

Only a need. And the means to claim what he must.

Metal screams as it grinds and shatters, the reverberation of Mikazuki's gun resonating with the pieces scattered to the ground. The sound quickly devolves into noise, and Takasugi's focus widens.

He watches Mikazuki's shoulders jerk as he tears the thing apart. His hand disappears in sharp shadow, only to reemerge covered in black, digits only visible when sparks illuminate them.

The sentry won't be an issue anymore.

But Mikazuki doesn't stop.

Rage never does, until it's completely engulfed its target, and everything surrounding.

Time may be a matter of concern to them, but Takasugi doesn't consider interrupting Mikazuki's indulgence. He's a boy who so rarely takes in excess. That anger should drive him to it is a development that makes a chuckle - giddy - rise in Takasugi's throat as he breaks from his pacing loop and retrieves his companion's gun, and tucks the file into his shirt with the other.

Only once clattering, ruined metal is simply an echo will he approach, offering the gun over Mikazuki's shoulder. He considers the 'body' at the boy's feet in detail, a small glow emitting from the revealed, cracked chest plate.

When Mikazuki moves, Takasugi ducks in, lifting the center module and kicking off whatever extraneous implements remain hanging by shreds. The data is useless to them, but Cree may have a way of parsing the information it holds.

Though, tearing something to pieces will always be more satisfying than fragmented answers.]

[ Silence is more deafening than noise in the conscious burn of his senses. His target is gone. His fingers drip and his lungs empty. Only when the gun appears over his shoulder does he shift, eyes sliding aside to its barrel. Reaching aside to accept it, he leaves Takasugi to the battered remains on the floor. No one would look at him and consider his posture loose, but it's now less violent as he moves to the next task, reined in by a different kind of judgment.

He approaches the closest glass enclosure and picks up the lock in his stained fingers. It's less fortified than the bolts on the door they entered through, but Mikazuki is out of patience. Inside, the smoky girl with the heavy pelt crouches in the corner, apprehensive and curious.

Without explanation, he raises the butt of the gun and smashes the lock to pieces, quickly freeing the mechanism from the loop. Very pointedly, he saves what's chambered in his gun. ]

[Gentle clinking metal punctuates each step Takasugi takes. One footfall drags across a puddle of oil, halting his approach only so he can grind the black back into the flooring before continuing.

When he reaches Mikazuki, the clatter of lock breaking has already become an echo in the chamber. Purpose hasn't drained from the boy's shoulders - they're no longer hunched, curved for savagery, but his breath is still taut.

He's on alert, freeing this creature that could pounce as feral as he'd been moments before.

Yet he takes the risk, spends time they don't have, to free the monster. Not for an ally, for a comrade - not for a reason he could name, were he asked. So Takasugi doesn't, instead spares the gun hanging at Mikazuki's side a final glance before crossing the room to another chamber.

He opens it with the hilt of his blade, cracking metal with no more finesse than the other had. The creature inside shudders, lets out a wail immediately that echoes the sound of the broken metal. Then, a click, almost like footsteps, or a metal finger tapping on glass.

Again. And again. Regarding Takasugi curiously, waiting-

He gives it nothing, and it slips from the chamber, attention shifting to Mikazuki. Another click. A greeting? A plea?]

[ In light of the chaos he'd just caused, the girl inside the first chamber doesn't make any moves of her own to greet him, breathing thick and labored, eyes watery. He knows the time they have is short, but it's much more than just compulsion driving him to the choice he's making. Smearing the oils and fluids from his palms to the material of his pants, he enters the cage and reaches out to stabilize her, gauging weight, balance. She flinches but accepts, because maybe it's all she knows how to do.

He's not like Orga. All that Orga Itsuka needed to bring people to him was his words. Children like them who only knew how to accept until they heard something that would inspire them to climb to their feet and follow. It's a thought that roars up in him, uninvited but pervasive, as he hauls the girl to her feet. He can't put it into words, he doesn't know how. ]

You can't stay here.

[ With that, he's tugging her from the cage at a sluggish pace, gaze turning over to the other freed creature with a quick, discerning brightness, much sharper now that he's brought forward motion to them both. The clicking gains no recognition from him, but he does usher it along to the next chamber with a strange finesse that suggests the logistics of this aren't an issue to him.

He'll find a way. ]

You, too.

[ It's then that the creature inside the locked chamber, mostly human save for its willowy joints and raspy vocalizations, begins to tap at the glass to vie for the attention of the one Takasugi released. Whatever transpires isn't a conversation, but recognition exists.

An aspect that only makes Mikazuki want to finish this job faster, finger harshly crooked against his gun's trigger. ]

[Left alone, Takasugi takes the information from the chamber he'd opened and moves to the chamber nearest Mikazuki. Claiming that docket as well, he lingers when the creature inside catches his eye. Stares, wide and vivid in something that's undoubtedly fascination.

When Mikazuki snaps the lock, the creature inside gasps, voice audible despite the glass between them. In the dim, sickly light, she looks nothing more than a skeletal apparition, white hair more alive than she is as it writhes around her.

She doesn't climb so readily from her cage; only once Takasugi breaks eye contact and steps nearer to Mikazuki does she wander out. Cautious, her voice lilts in fragments of song.

Mimicked compulsively by the first monster he'd freed.

Some sort of exchange - the echoic creature repeats the last sound she's made until she makes another.] Are you going to free them all? [A glance cast to the amalgamation linked hand in hand with his partner.

If that's Mikazuki's whim, he won't stop him.

But they won't be able to guide each and every one of the wretches.]

You heard Cree.

[ Not a priority, but a possibility worth acting on to complete the mission.

A simple answer that Mikazuki allows to lie at the foundation of his choice. This once, it's a mutually beneficial order, one that toes the line between obedience and independence. At his side, the pelted creature buckles on its ankles, its breathing hazy. In a quick, decisive dip of movement, he turns aside, pulling her arm over his shoulder and hiking her up onto his back. She's heavy enough, but he balances well, supplying his own inexhaustible strength to hoist her into a carry that's a bit more fair then his usual choice.

Even with his cargo, he makes his way over to the last of the creatures in containment. One with wicked teeth and metallic feathers that edge down its body like knives, the other the first watery cell they encountered when entering. ]

Two more...

[A personal preference - one that aligns with the rare spark of undiluted sense of purpose Mikazuki harbors. Not for Takasugi, not for Cree, not for the man sleeping under a blanket of stars.

Because he needs to.

And that, not Cree's request, stays Takasugi's urgency.

A quick entrance and a prompt retreat are at the core of guerrilla warfare, even on such a small scale as this. In the very least, should they be accosted on their way out, they'll have some reinforcements.

The beast resting its weight against Mikazuki's could tear a man to shreds in a single swipe, should it possess the energy to do so. And the creature glowering at them, its entire being a sharp threat, looks as if it wouldn't hesitate to paint a room red.

Takasugi follows Mikazuki's trajectory, the two creatures and their entwining voices lingering towards the center of the room. A glance spared to them is all of the encouragement he offers, they'll be urged to leave when the time comes. For now, better that they're distracting one another instead of exploring the newcomers.

With the hilt of his sword, Takasugi breaks the lock of the watery cell. The other is left to Mikazuki - not a shirking of the potential danger, but leaving palpable concern to play its part.

The creature would sense Takasugi has no regard for it, surely. They're monsters, their instincts as sharp as their teeth.

A hiss precedes the opening of the pod in front of Takasugi, water somehow shuddering against the disruption. Rather than spill from its prison, the surface remains, agitated, until a wave rolls down and crests at the bottom. Spilling over with an unearthly moan.

Then the rest falls, a puddle at their feet. Whispers, rather than ripples, left in its wake.] Ah.

[There's one less burden to bear.

Takasugi takes a step back, allowing the unfortunate thing the respect of a peaceful rest, at least, as he waits for Mikazuki's last rescue.]

[ While Takasugi releases the first creature, an action Mikazuki only pauses to watch as it burgeons and becomes diluted by its own freedom, a possibility he had been prepared for since they entered, he approaches the last cell. The creature inside shimmers in agitation and Mikazuki knows what might become of this encounter too, but it's all or nothing. He won't be the one to leave a single creature behind because it sees an enemy in him.

The butt of his gun collides with the lock, components sliding and clattering — and what follows is a mad rush, a cascading shriek of metal as it collides with the open space he'd granted it, weaponized limbs slashing and clawing. Mikazuki only has so much room to react with the weight of the creature across his back, feeling the paper-thin feathers glance off his cheek and leave behind three smooth cuts, only a whisper through flesh. For once, his instinct to fight back curbs, purpose rooted. It's the pelted monster that squirms uncomfortably at the blood and commotion, releasing a defensive curtain a smoke like her creature counterpart. It's ashy and putrid, just like the swamp of embers a part of her lived in once. Even for him, it takes effort not to choke on it. The scaly specimen recoils with a hiss, realizes that it no longer has to obey four walls, and retreats from the vicinity and back into the halls in a whip of silver.

Mikazuki, face bleeding, quiets again, casting a glance to Takasugi. He won't chase. There's still three, and who knows. Maybe it would find its own vengeance.

With that, he motions for the other creatures, beginning to press towards their escape. ]

There's only one more thing. [ He turns his face aside to the girl he carries. ] Cover your ears.

[ With the rest behind him, he raises his gun with its saved rounds. He unloads, arm taught and precise. The entire clip goes, into the walls, the equipment, the cells. Everything shatters under the weight of its bullets, each one spreading decay and ruin. It's not rage, finger stilling on the trigger as soon as the last shot rings out and not needing to pull again.

With any luck, it'll spread to the foundations of this place, and it'll all go up in smoke. ]

[The final drip of the unfortunate creature's life echoing like a staggered breath fades into a soft ringing in Takasugi's ears. In continued silence, he might have heard a plea from the monster's ghost. For vengeance, for peace, simply to be heard...

Instead, the crack of metal reverberates, shaking the somber stillness that had come over the deserted laboratory.

Screeching metal is like a memory - blade on blade, or a body against itself. The creature lurches to carve itself into its savior, the chaos within that's been tearing it to shreds exploding outwards.

Takasugi doesn't come between Mikazuki and the freed beast. The boy knows these creatures well, what makes them up more fundamentally than a creature and a human spliced together. If he didn't, he wouldn't be hellbent on their liberation.

In return, the one relying on the boy's strength to stand retaliates. Takasugi visibly grimaces when the scent of the smog reaches his nostrils, a brief flare of disgust quickly dissipating as he recognizes the scent. Burning fur, rotten flesh, all of which are sinking into a quagmire of impassible earth.

He steps back, towards the door, watching the glint of feathers in refracted blue light as it fades into the darkness. Whether that thing will be pacified by mere freedom, or raise its talons at the world, Takasugi doesn't know. But it will provide a distraction for their escape.

Something that's been delayed too long; Takasugi doesn't mind lingering still. With the pair hunched behind him, he faces Mikazuki's wrath. No such emotion contorts his face, and there's nothing visibly urgent or feverish about the way he destroys the remnants of the lab.

Except the boy isn't one to waste bullets. Each shot is a necessity to him, and when he's finished, Takasugi wonders if he's truly calm.

Staring at him won't ever reveal the answer. Turning to urge the shuddering echoic creature, muttering gunblasts under its breath, and the now silent vocalist onwards, there's nothing left but to take their leave.

Cut through tunnels with smoke darker, more metallic and saturated with oil. Shadows and smog hide their way, disorder still emanating from the bomb's epicenter, and whatever else the other groups had gotten up to.]

[ Mikazuki can't make the call — whether or not the creatures they take with them come because they feel safe or because the yawning imposition of freedom is better than a predictable life in a cage. But it helps that they're obedient as the group navigates the sunken corridors of the Institute as it buckles beneath the weight of its own exposed secrets. Distantly, he still hears clashes in the dark.

If he never has to step foot inside these labyrinthine walls again, he'd be fine with that.

Their escape into open air comes in sober paces rather than elation. Towards the unremarkable carriage chartered to get them safely back to Wyver. Being covert isn't exactly Mikazuki's normal fair, but he's even more subdued while they travel, eating and sleeping pushed off in favor of watching, making sure their charges are well covered and not drawing any attention. Only the soft mimics of whispers, creaky wheels, and birdsong come for long periods of time.

Once back in familiar territory, the sight of them is a little less suspicious than it would be in Olympia. What better place for them than a gilded cage — where they take the creatures to hand over to Cree, as he requested. Not all, but some, and that seems to line their pockets with a little more than usual.

Still, Mikazuki doesn't want to stick around, already smelling a little too much like smoke and money. The separation was far from tearful, though Mikazuki would probably be offended to hear it called a transaction, all the same. ]

I'm going home.

[ Mentioned to Takasugi once he has his unopened parcel of rewards in his hands, strangely demure. ]

[Starlight has faded in the sky, a black pit hanging above them as the pair and their company of monstrosities emerges from their battleground. From the outside, the stalwart building appears undisturbed, the foundations they'd laid into hadn't been quite so practical.

Damaging, all the same; smoke follows the group in plumes as they slip from a secluded door, immediately overtaking the scent of crisp night air.

As they ride towards Wyver, everything grows heavier. Humidity, a blanket of fog in the sky catching early sunlight on the horizon with an eerily pale glow. No vibrant pinks or golds accompany them through dusk, only clouded cracks of silver.

Takasugi's quick to remove most of his outfit. Mask discarded, top entirely peeled from his body to hang from the sash around his waist. With his back curved against the wall of their caravan, he smokes in silence as their wheels slop through a muddy trail.

Though, even after a sleepless night, he isn't so eager to leave the Gilded Cage. They possess their own quarters to offer the more active members of their legion, but Takasugi foregoes those, as well. His pockets lined with silver, a parcel tucked away, his thoughts drift to an early morning drink, and a few cast bets.] Aa.

See you.

[They've gambled together enough for one night.]

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. all you have's your axe to grind . closed

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//end!