warpweft | [ENTER THE PALACE]

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[ENTER THE PALACE]

[You find yourself with a sensation like floating in water.]

[Above, the sky is dark. You can occasionally see things shifting, like gusts of wind, or perhaps waves of water. Is it…even a sky above you? Or is it some kind of giant ocean? Whatever it is, you can’t make it out very well. All around you, you appear to be floating in what appears to be water. It looks like a great, wide ocean of…space in every direction around you, with stars and lights twinkling in the distance. It looks like water and feels like water, but it doesn’t make you wet. You can reach your hand into it and pull some out, the purple and violet water and the tiny points of light inside it will even rest in your hands if you cup them to carry it, but once you’re not trying to hold it anymore, it’ll flow off of you, not a single drop remaining behind. You feel something similar if you go underneath the surface. The “water” doesn’t touch your eyes, mouth or nose when give the chance, it merely drifts around you, allowing you to breathe and see unabated. And you can see for a great distance, the twinkling stars illuminating the ocean of space all around you. Though perhaps less dark and empty, it feels every bit as vast as the sky above. You feel like you could swim forever and never reach the edge.]

[It’s quiet, here, with little noise around you but the starry ocean’s waves crashing back into its surface. It’s peaceful. In another situation, it might even be comfortable.]

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[with a deep breath to steel himself, chin lifted, he absolutely touches the current]

[You get closer to the current and it pulls you down towards the palace. You have little to no trouble breathing or seeing as you get closer. The current takes your further and further until it eventually releases you outside the front of the palace. Still upside down from your perspective, you see great wooden door with a single metal handle in front of you.

[There’s a violet sphere of light, sitting on the handle, softly pulsing as it bobs up and down. You can’t touch the handle without touching the sphere.]

[WELL. MINATO TOUCHED IT, AND AKIRA WAS THERE WITH HIM AT THE TIME, SO. . . yeah he probably also, alongside Minato, reached out to push the door handle open, despite giving the strange sphere a suspicious sideways glance beforehand]

[Your hand reaches for the handle....]

---

[Your hand is on the handle of the door, pulling it closed. You were in such a hurry to leave the house that you almost forgot to close the door behind you. You take one last look at the cabin as you take a couple steps back from it, then you look at the other similar cabins nearby. Then you turn and run, as fast as your small legs will carry you, your feet kicking up dust on the dirt ground beneath you.]

…

[You’re standing in front of the door to the temple. You swallow once, look down at your hands and then you push the door open, slipping inside. You walk past the wide tables that everybody sits at for meals and up to a curtain dividing the common area from the rest of the temple.]

…

What are you doing here?

[You’re pulling back the curtain, revealing a pedestal. Sitting atop the pedestal is a small glass bubble. Violet light radiates off it. Dozens, hundreds, possible even thousands of lights twinkle inside it, forming a swirling spiral at the sphere’s center. It looks like space and stars and even galaxies all contained inside one small glass sphere, moving perfectly in concert with one another.

Your hand slowly reaches out for it. Then hesitates. Then hesitates.

Instead of grabbing it, you lightly touch two fingers to the top of it. You feel a pulse coming off of it.

A second later, you’re taking it in your hand and moving the curtain back into place.]

Oh, I get it. She brought you here.

[You’re on your hands and knees. You let out a wheezing noise. All of the air was knocked out of you by a strike to your stomach. You’re just trying to get air back into your lungs. You look up and see several figures nearby, talking to each other. You try to crawl towards one of them, but your arms and legs are like jelly and you just collapse and let out another weak, wheezy cry.]

Too bad for you….

[You’ve pulled yourself into a sitting position. You see her standing above you, her face spread into a wide, sadistic grin. She holds up the weapon in her hand and plunges it down towards you.]

You’re gonna end up just like her!

[You’re Nessa Houghton, staring up at your cousin as she stabs you in the chest.]

[You’re Akira Kurusu staring up at a white-haired young woman as she stabs you in the chest.]

[The last thing you see before you lose consciousness is the grin on her face.]

[jesus fucking holy shit what is happening]

[a strangled cry escapes his lips as the dagger bites into his flesh, and one hand automatically rises to clutch the handle, his expression sheet-white and slack. his vision is going black around the edges, pain is coursing through his entire body, and yet--]

[. . . he still tries to take a swing at her before he passes out]

Ha! This one's got some fight!

[The swing whiffs as your quickly weakening arm barely even moves....but at least your assailant seems to have appreciated the effort.]

[…]

[…]

[…]

[…]

[CH-THUNK]

[You feel a jolt run through your entire body, jarring you awake and making you take in a sudden, deep breath and sit up straight. Immediately followed by falling back down. You once again feel like you’re floating in water.]

Oh, finally. I was afraid you were really going to die on my watch.

[Your vision is blurry, but gradually returning to you. If you have glasses, they’re being held out to you. One way or the other, your vision clears up and you can see a woman standing above you, arms crossed, glaring down at you…]

[With a pair of glowing yellow eyes.]

Don’t force yourself to get up too quickly. Your body is still recovering.

[inhales sharply once he sits up, hand automatically shooting to his chest while he winces. his gaze is wild as he searches the area, eyes wide, though they finally settle on Nessa as his vision returns]

[. . .]

[an then, an angry hiss]

Asshole.

[. . . not directed at her, obviously]

Delinquent.

[She didn't notice. Or, maybe from the grin on her face, she did.]

Hah. . .

[giving her a lopsided, but clearly tired, smile as he reaches for his glasses]

It's my best charm point.

[She places the glasses in his hand.]

Alright. Let's take this slowly. What's the last thing you remember?

[a deep exhale as he rubs at his chest, right where the knife went in. is there a scar there now??]

. . . some woman with white hair. She wasn't very. . . ah. "Friendly."

She usually isn't.

That was my cousin, Esmau. She found you while you were looking at a memory, so she got the drop on you. She...

[She lets out a sigh.]

[...okay, good news, bad news time. Good news: there's no scar! Bad news: Where you were attacked, there's now a small glass sphere, embedded in your chest. Looking at the stars twinkling inside it, it may be a familiar sight to you, but…the one you saw before, in the memory, was purple. This one is a faded white-gray color.]

She has a habit of doing that.

I have to admit, it was a bit of a rush job, but, well. You were bleeding all over the place, so I skipped the heated seats and the seatbelt covers.

[. . . going completely still as his fingers touch the glass, and he's silent for a moment as he considers Nessa's words]

What. . . is this?

That's the Voidheart.

Or, rather, a copy of it.

It's a piece of magic that connects the Void, a realm outside reality, to Earth. Normally, the real thing is right here, but...

[She pulls down the top of her own shirt to reveal a hole in her own chest, in the same spot where Akira's chest is now occupied by that orb.]

Esmau did to you what she did to me, so...

I fixed it for you the same way it was fixed for me.

. . . ah. . .

[an exhale, and his hand falls away form his chest, his expression unreadable]

Thank you.

[just. . . to get that out of the way first; and his words are sincere. but that begs another question--]

What do you mean she did to me what she did to you?

[Huff.]

You saw it.

She took that giant pointy stick of hers and now I need a magical orb to do all the stuff that my heart used to do.

. . .

"Pointy stick?"

[TRYING. . . NOT TO BE AMUSED]

Why'd she want to hurt you in the first place?

Because she hates me.

Also, my grandmother told her to.

The latter is why she did it, but, the former is why she enjoyed it so much.

[brushing himself off as he finally struggles to his feet, still a bit woozy and off-balance thanks to, you know. recovering from being stabbed]

. . . sounds like there's a lot of shitty family history, there.

Thank goodness I came out so well-adjusted anyway, right?

It's mostly just those two, but they did manage to wreak a bunch of havoc. Unfortunately, up to and including this moment.

[She twirls her finger around to indicate to Akira to take a look around. His vision will have mostly unblurred by now so he can see the courtyard around him and it's....not great. It is badly damaged, to say the least. Pictures and statues are torn or destroyed, the floor, walls and ceiling all have chunks missing, scorch marks, blade marks…it looks like a tornado and a bomb got into a fight in here.]

Esmau, or at least the Nightmare representing her in here, has been particularly busy the last couple of months.

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/4

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done

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/2

/whoops actually 3

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