Day 10
Sometimes she looked out her window and looked up at the night sky from her home in Kumogakure. It wasn’t much, but it was an apartment that her grandmother had arranged the lease for. The woman was gone for sometime now, but her belongings were still here, left where she had placed them before her stay in the Hospital. Hanako didn’t touch them even to this moment because she knew that touching them was something that her grandmother had asked her not to do. Hanako sat upon the window sill, her legs kicking free outside the apartment with the ground so far below where she was. She could see the lights on all the tower buildings that made up Kumogakure, and gave a discontented sigh. All she wanted was for Granny to come back. For her parents to walk out of the fire that had consumed their home in Hanamura. Anything but what she had now. Being a Kunoichi wasn’t bad, but she longed for the family she had once had. The hurt was there, and the loneliness felt so deep, so all encompassing. She really didn’t know what to do sometimes, and so she gazed up at the stars, her strange sleep cycle wouldn’t allow her to sleep.
Amidst the heartbreak, as Hanako watched the stars, she saw that they began to dance in the night sky. The world around her began to dissolve into leaves. It began with the tops of the towers and began to work its way down towards her. So startled was she that she leapt out the window, and caught herself with the wall walking technique on the side of the building. She began to sprint down, as she could see the dissolving buildings coming closer to her. With Gravity on her side, she struggled to keep her balance, as her steps turned into controlled descents one after another. She could feel the leaves on the back of her ankles as she tried to escape further. It was beginning to over take her - and she could feel it.
She looked at her arms and feet. She was dissolving! She was turning into leaves. When her legs disintegrated she went into a free fall, her body continuing to dissolve until it was just her left. She frantically looked for a way out of this but soon even that dissolved. There was only darkness now. She was nothing. She was void. Yet she could still think? Didn’t that mean she existed? A light flickered on. It was not light, but she could now see someone in the room. It was a girl. She walked over towards Hanako, a tray with a teapot and two cups in her hands. The girl sat down, and Hanako gazed at her as she filled each cup and offered one of the pair to Hanako. Hanako picked up the cup and the girl did the same. They were mirrored in every possible way. In fact, this girl shared Hanako’s face. She sipped the tea as her doppelganger did as well.
”Lets cut to the chase.” The Illusionary Hanako told her. ”I think you’ve had more than your share of chances at running the show. I think its time you let me be in charge. Don’t worry - you’ll forget about things and become dormant after a while.”
Hanako frowned at the thought of forgetting. Now that was simply unacceptable. She set the cup down upon the table and shook her head. ”I don’t want to forget!” She complained to the other Hanako. ”If I forget, she really will be gone forever. I know it.”
610/600
[AGF] Parallax
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HotelBravo
- Posts: 389
- Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2022 11:12 pm
[AGF] Parallax
Day 11
The other Hanako smiled smugly as a pitch black tar began to vine its way up her leg. Hanako’s every instinct told her to get away, she leapt from her seat but the vine already had her in its grasp and she was held firmly in place. She reached for her kunai and found none. She tried for Shuriken; None! She scratched with her nails and tried to bite her way free, but the tar spread - and she felt a sinkin sensation. Not just one in her gut, but one in a literal sense, as the tar began to drag her into the black pitch nothingness. She could see herself becoming nothing as she was drawn into it. The other Hanako stood from her seat and seemed to be become so much bigger, so much more… complete. Powerful. Looking down as Hanako Desperately tried to avoid being swallowed up by an inevitable black void. As she sunk deeper, she felt herself forgetting. She felt herself Becoming.
She was beginning to forget everything. She was beginning to become the same void that surrounded her. Her mind and body were dissolving into viscous black tar. Soon there would be no Hanako, only the other Hanako. The Hanako who hated herself and wanted to destroy her. The one who didn’t care about granny or about the people in her life. The selfish Hanako. No… This can’t be happening. This couldn’t be true. This was the worst thing that could ever happen! As everything faded into nothingness, Hanako gripped that one memory that she had of Granny. There were few that could understand how it felt to be just a young girl, holding the hand of the wizened woman as they traveled across the land of lightning.
The way the woman handled every obstacle on their path and the way she fought tooth and nail to get entry into the village hidden in the clouds. It had made Hanako feel safe. It was the first time she had felt safe after the fire devoured her home and her family. During those days, everything seemed so uncertain. Would there be a tomorrow? Would she die next? What happened when she died? She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to stop existing. She remembered the comforting and that sly smile of Granny’s. The woman who knew everything and had the gumption to take on the Raikage himself.
Granny had been a powerful woman - not in the sense of chakra, as so often was used as a means to measure strength among the Shinobi. She was strong in her way - and couldn’t be beaten. Hanako opened her eyes. She had eyes again after all. She was congealing. She was coming back together, while the other Hanako was slowly being drawn into her instead. She could see the importance of strength and being selfish, but she also knew the importance of remembering the wonderful woman tthatt Granny had been. To treasure the time that she had with the woman and to look forward to the future in a way that wouldn’t disappoint her.
Hanako fully expected to meet Granny again someday, and at that time she wanted to make the woman proud. Proud that everything they sacrificed for was worth it.
She took a deep breath, now fully control of herself and her faculties again and began to look at this darkness a lot more critically than before. It was clearly some kind of genjutsu. She placed her hands together and began to form a seal with her fingers. The chakra was channeled and manipulated. ”Kai!” She shouted out into the black pitch. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Did it work?
616/600
The other Hanako smiled smugly as a pitch black tar began to vine its way up her leg. Hanako’s every instinct told her to get away, she leapt from her seat but the vine already had her in its grasp and she was held firmly in place. She reached for her kunai and found none. She tried for Shuriken; None! She scratched with her nails and tried to bite her way free, but the tar spread - and she felt a sinkin sensation. Not just one in her gut, but one in a literal sense, as the tar began to drag her into the black pitch nothingness. She could see herself becoming nothing as she was drawn into it. The other Hanako stood from her seat and seemed to be become so much bigger, so much more… complete. Powerful. Looking down as Hanako Desperately tried to avoid being swallowed up by an inevitable black void. As she sunk deeper, she felt herself forgetting. She felt herself Becoming.
She was beginning to forget everything. She was beginning to become the same void that surrounded her. Her mind and body were dissolving into viscous black tar. Soon there would be no Hanako, only the other Hanako. The Hanako who hated herself and wanted to destroy her. The one who didn’t care about granny or about the people in her life. The selfish Hanako. No… This can’t be happening. This couldn’t be true. This was the worst thing that could ever happen! As everything faded into nothingness, Hanako gripped that one memory that she had of Granny. There were few that could understand how it felt to be just a young girl, holding the hand of the wizened woman as they traveled across the land of lightning.
The way the woman handled every obstacle on their path and the way she fought tooth and nail to get entry into the village hidden in the clouds. It had made Hanako feel safe. It was the first time she had felt safe after the fire devoured her home and her family. During those days, everything seemed so uncertain. Would there be a tomorrow? Would she die next? What happened when she died? She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to stop existing. She remembered the comforting and that sly smile of Granny’s. The woman who knew everything and had the gumption to take on the Raikage himself.
Granny had been a powerful woman - not in the sense of chakra, as so often was used as a means to measure strength among the Shinobi. She was strong in her way - and couldn’t be beaten. Hanako opened her eyes. She had eyes again after all. She was congealing. She was coming back together, while the other Hanako was slowly being drawn into her instead. She could see the importance of strength and being selfish, but she also knew the importance of remembering the wonderful woman tthatt Granny had been. To treasure the time that she had with the woman and to look forward to the future in a way that wouldn’t disappoint her.
Hanako fully expected to meet Granny again someday, and at that time she wanted to make the woman proud. Proud that everything they sacrificed for was worth it.
She took a deep breath, now fully control of herself and her faculties again and began to look at this darkness a lot more critically than before. It was clearly some kind of genjutsu. She placed her hands together and began to form a seal with her fingers. The chakra was channeled and manipulated. ”Kai!” She shouted out into the black pitch. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Did it work?
616/600
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HotelBravo
- Posts: 389
- Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2022 11:12 pm
[AGF] Parallax
Day 12
Hanako was afraid to look, Genjutsu had never been much of her strong suit. She felt a cold wind, and could feel a certain heaviness to the air. Humidity? She had been indoors before right? She took a major risk by opening her eyes. The channeling of the chakra ceased and she found herself at the Kumogakura graveyard. She was standing in front of a headstone with her own name chiseled into it. She walked to the nextt and saw Ai Hanamura’s name. ”Granny…” The girl approached and put her hand across the smooth surface… It wasn’t as smooth as she thought it looked actually. It was clear the headstone had been polished once upon a time, but itt was much rougher than she expected. Time had taken its toll and had chewed through the headstone.
As if thousands of years advanced in an instant that she couldn’t quite witness, the Headstone crumbled into pieces before her. Had Granny really been dead that long? That didn’t make anysense. How could someone be dead for so long that their headstone crumbled and faded away - she get the impression that she herself should be dead if that was the case - she glanced over at the stone that had her name on it and then at herself. She was…see through. Intangible.She wasn’t real. Was she a ghost? Hanako moved back to t he grave marker that bore her name.
How long had she been dead? It couldn’t have been that long right? Her headstone was overgrown and abandoned like it had been forgotten in another time. There were no offerings here - only vines and weeds entangling the gravedirt and clinging to the stone. The girl wept intangible tears. Why would anyone be so cruel as to forget her? Was there no one who would visit her? Not her brothers or even her sister? They would let her grave go untended like this? What about the Grave Keeper? Isn’t their job to keep this place neet and tidy? She looked up in righteous indignation searching for the Grave Keeper. How dare that man! There was none.
Only now she realized that the graveyard was much larger than she remembered it ever being before. It was rows upon rows without end. She gawked at the size and realization dawned on her as she considered what it meant to have so many dead here. There were few things that could put so many in the ground in so s hort a time. War? Plague. It was clear some kind of disaster had claimed their lives. Hanako gave one final forlorn look at her own grave marker before making her way to the next, and then to the next and then the one after that. It didn’t seem to matter how many graves she checked, there was always another grave and the exit was no closer in sight than it had been before. There was something that wasn’t right about this whole thing. She looked at the gravestone that had been hers only to realization that it wasn’t her’s after all - it had another unfamiliar name that while similar wasn’t her name.
She knew that she wasn’t thinking straight. Her mind felt foggy, but everything seemed to make sense at how she was perceiving them though. Or had it? It seemed like it was normal until a moment ago. No thats right! The more she thought and the harder she pushed at the fog, the more the creeping despair was pushed back and rationality returned to her mind. This… this wasn’t real. This was an illusion. It was still an illusion. She had never escaped. She looked at her body and saw that she was more tangible than she had been before. She clearly wasn’t skilled enough to escape this place.
639 /600
Hanako was afraid to look, Genjutsu had never been much of her strong suit. She felt a cold wind, and could feel a certain heaviness to the air. Humidity? She had been indoors before right? She took a major risk by opening her eyes. The channeling of the chakra ceased and she found herself at the Kumogakura graveyard. She was standing in front of a headstone with her own name chiseled into it. She walked to the nextt and saw Ai Hanamura’s name. ”Granny…” The girl approached and put her hand across the smooth surface… It wasn’t as smooth as she thought it looked actually. It was clear the headstone had been polished once upon a time, but itt was much rougher than she expected. Time had taken its toll and had chewed through the headstone.
As if thousands of years advanced in an instant that she couldn’t quite witness, the Headstone crumbled into pieces before her. Had Granny really been dead that long? That didn’t make anysense. How could someone be dead for so long that their headstone crumbled and faded away - she get the impression that she herself should be dead if that was the case - she glanced over at the stone that had her name on it and then at herself. She was…see through. Intangible.She wasn’t real. Was she a ghost? Hanako moved back to t he grave marker that bore her name.
How long had she been dead? It couldn’t have been that long right? Her headstone was overgrown and abandoned like it had been forgotten in another time. There were no offerings here - only vines and weeds entangling the gravedirt and clinging to the stone. The girl wept intangible tears. Why would anyone be so cruel as to forget her? Was there no one who would visit her? Not her brothers or even her sister? They would let her grave go untended like this? What about the Grave Keeper? Isn’t their job to keep this place neet and tidy? She looked up in righteous indignation searching for the Grave Keeper. How dare that man! There was none.
Only now she realized that the graveyard was much larger than she remembered it ever being before. It was rows upon rows without end. She gawked at the size and realization dawned on her as she considered what it meant to have so many dead here. There were few things that could put so many in the ground in so s hort a time. War? Plague. It was clear some kind of disaster had claimed their lives. Hanako gave one final forlorn look at her own grave marker before making her way to the next, and then to the next and then the one after that. It didn’t seem to matter how many graves she checked, there was always another grave and the exit was no closer in sight than it had been before. There was something that wasn’t right about this whole thing. She looked at the gravestone that had been hers only to realization that it wasn’t her’s after all - it had another unfamiliar name that while similar wasn’t her name.
She knew that she wasn’t thinking straight. Her mind felt foggy, but everything seemed to make sense at how she was perceiving them though. Or had it? It seemed like it was normal until a moment ago. No thats right! The more she thought and the harder she pushed at the fog, the more the creeping despair was pushed back and rationality returned to her mind. This… this wasn’t real. This was an illusion. It was still an illusion. She had never escaped. She looked at her body and saw that she was more tangible than she had been before. She clearly wasn’t skilled enough to escape this place.
639 /600
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HotelBravo
- Posts: 389
- Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2022 11:12 pm
[AGF] Parallax
Day 13
Suddenly the scent of salt began to fill the air. Hanako perked up as so glanced around, she took a step, and her sandal squelched on water. She looked down at the thin sheet of liquid that had begun to cover the grave dirt. She knelt and inhaled more deeply - it was salt water that was for sure. She looked out across the endless graveyard and saw slow rolling waves. The first wave seemed to add another layer of depth to the water. Then another came and crashed gently across her ankle. She realized that this was something that was not good. She hopped onto the headstone as she watched the water level gradually rise until the stones were barely visible - she leapt to taller and taller gravestones, and soon she was on the head of the tallest grave monument that the graveyard had to offer. The water was still rising. An endless ocean of water was not good. She could use the water walking technique for a time, but ultimately that technique was not meant to be infinite. As she gazed at the horizon - searching for an end to the water she saw instead another wave coming.
She hoped over this wave and landed on top of the water ,her chakra in her feet giving her ground to stand - but the surface was violent and uneven and she struggled to keep her balance as another wave and then yet another came. As she was still recovering her balance after leaping over another wave, she was hit by the following one and dragged into its rolling water. She struggled to breach the surface but was rolled along with the force of the water. She was tumbled about and lost her sense of direction. She was holding her breath but she wouldn’t be able to for much longer.
Suddenly a hand reached into the water and pulled her onto the sand. Hanako fell into the wet sand with a cough as water escaped from her lungs and she struggled for breath. She looked up and saw a young man - about her age, he was wearing just a pair of shorts and had skin tanned by days in the sun. His black glossy hair had beads of water in it still as he ran a hand through it and had a happy smile.
“That was crazy!” He told her. “You really took on that huge wave? I was scared out of my mind when I saw you go under. Geez man - you are by far one of the luckiest girls I have ever seen.”
Hanako blinked. She was… suddenly her mind was incredibly foggy and she was having trouble recalling what exactly she had been doing. It was a familiar feeling, but then the words that this boy were speaking were making sense. She looked down to her thigh holster and saw… no holster. It was just bare thigh. She was wearing a swimsuit. Of course she was wearing a swimsuit, why would she be wearing something else at the beach after all? She had come here… to what? Play in the water?
”what happened to my surfboard?” She found herself asking. She looked around at the water with a confused expression. Surfboard? Something was off, it didn’t make sense - she didn’t have one of those right? The boy, who she knew as Ryu… how did she know his name was Ryu? She had never seen him before right? Now that she thought about it, she had right? She knew him her whole life! They were best friends. How did she not know?
”I think I hit my head.” She said. Ryu wore a concerned expression and helped her stand and move away from the water and sat her down on a rock. He fanned her. While she worked through her feelings of Vertigo
652/600
Suddenly the scent of salt began to fill the air. Hanako perked up as so glanced around, she took a step, and her sandal squelched on water. She looked down at the thin sheet of liquid that had begun to cover the grave dirt. She knelt and inhaled more deeply - it was salt water that was for sure. She looked out across the endless graveyard and saw slow rolling waves. The first wave seemed to add another layer of depth to the water. Then another came and crashed gently across her ankle. She realized that this was something that was not good. She hopped onto the headstone as she watched the water level gradually rise until the stones were barely visible - she leapt to taller and taller gravestones, and soon she was on the head of the tallest grave monument that the graveyard had to offer. The water was still rising. An endless ocean of water was not good. She could use the water walking technique for a time, but ultimately that technique was not meant to be infinite. As she gazed at the horizon - searching for an end to the water she saw instead another wave coming.
She hoped over this wave and landed on top of the water ,her chakra in her feet giving her ground to stand - but the surface was violent and uneven and she struggled to keep her balance as another wave and then yet another came. As she was still recovering her balance after leaping over another wave, she was hit by the following one and dragged into its rolling water. She struggled to breach the surface but was rolled along with the force of the water. She was tumbled about and lost her sense of direction. She was holding her breath but she wouldn’t be able to for much longer.
Suddenly a hand reached into the water and pulled her onto the sand. Hanako fell into the wet sand with a cough as water escaped from her lungs and she struggled for breath. She looked up and saw a young man - about her age, he was wearing just a pair of shorts and had skin tanned by days in the sun. His black glossy hair had beads of water in it still as he ran a hand through it and had a happy smile.
“That was crazy!” He told her. “You really took on that huge wave? I was scared out of my mind when I saw you go under. Geez man - you are by far one of the luckiest girls I have ever seen.”
Hanako blinked. She was… suddenly her mind was incredibly foggy and she was having trouble recalling what exactly she had been doing. It was a familiar feeling, but then the words that this boy were speaking were making sense. She looked down to her thigh holster and saw… no holster. It was just bare thigh. She was wearing a swimsuit. Of course she was wearing a swimsuit, why would she be wearing something else at the beach after all? She had come here… to what? Play in the water?
”what happened to my surfboard?” She found herself asking. She looked around at the water with a confused expression. Surfboard? Something was off, it didn’t make sense - she didn’t have one of those right? The boy, who she knew as Ryu… how did she know his name was Ryu? She had never seen him before right? Now that she thought about it, she had right? She knew him her whole life! They were best friends. How did she not know?
”I think I hit my head.” She said. Ryu wore a concerned expression and helped her stand and move away from the water and sat her down on a rock. He fanned her. While she worked through her feelings of Vertigo
652/600