agogelogs | i think to myself

Entry tags:

i think to myself

WHO? henry & you
WHAT? dream stuff, ota
WHEN? when the hotspots spread
ANYTHING ELSE? mostly violence

[dream log 01]

You wake up in the middle of a tranquil field, muted and chilly but covered in delicate white flowers. The ground slopes gently where a small stream cuts through the grass. The sky is a greyish blue, like it might start snowing any second. Next to you, Henry is shivering, like he's sick and grumbling under his breath like he's experiencing a nightmare. A dream within a dream?

It's only when he awakes with a start that the dream seems to move forward.

"What the—?"

In the distance, there's a mechanical sound of...something. Maybe it's footsteps? Either way, it's getting closer, and she looks ready to rumble. Wait, she? Yes, she. This time, she's not alone, however. Behind her, like a nightmare train of anime and terrible boss fights (he's pretty sure he sees Pizza Batt Jr. in there somewhere), they bubble out from underground and follow her towards the both of you. It's not too bad, there's like ten of them.

"Oh bloody hell," he gets up, then looks down at you with resigned sort of sigh. "Come on, get up. They're not going to leave us alone until we kill them all."

If you want to go back to the other side, I have no choice... I've got to kill you.

[dream log 02]

You're in a house, it's about 10PM. Henry seems to be in a rush to get his things in order: gloves on, tie straight, skull pin fastened, and making sure his cross saber is fastened to his belt chain. He pats himself down, making sure he hasn't forgotten anything and then flicks his head in the direction of the door. If you make any noise above the sound of a whisper, he'll hiss at you with a finger in front of his lips.

Once the door opens though, a small, sleepy voice comes down from the top of the stairs. She's not entirely visible, as the hallway is dark and obscures her from the shoulders up. From her silhouette alone, she appears to be 6-7 years old.

"Papa?"

Henry freezes, then lets his shoulders sag a little in defeat. He gives you a brief flash of an apologetic look (or depending on how loud you were earlier, a bit of an accusatory one) and turns to her.

"Jeane, why aren't you in bed?"

She shifts a little, almost guiltily, going silent before taking a small breath to answer...

(ooc: feel free to npc her, any reply is a-ok. it's dreamverse, after all!)

[dream log 03]

A younger man, in his late teens, sits rigidly in a chair in the middle of a room. It is unmistakably Henry. His hairstyle is the same and he's dressed in a dress shirt with a tie, slacks, and dress shoes. The walls are a soft reddish pink color, easy on the eyes. You stand right across from him, a good twenty feet away.

From seemingly nowhere, a young girl wearing a white, slip-on dress possibly no older than 15 approaches Henry from the side with a small dagger in her hand. She seems very casual about it, a smile on her face, her heels clacking on the floor which is also the same color as the walls. She acknowledges your presence by glancing at you over her shoulder with a knowing look in her eyes.

She eases into his lap, straddling him while letting the blade drag up his neck. He doesn't react, his eyes only flickering down to meet her eyes and maybe catch yours if you're still watching. A thin, red line forms, and while you can't physically see it from there, dream logic dictates that you know exactly what's going on.

The longer you wait, the more lines she cuts into his skin.

[hotspot 01]

He fell asleep by the training area, sitting on a bench of sorts to take a quick break from his sets. Sweating profusely, it's a good thing he's wearing only what he needs for a work out. Unlike his sleeping dreamself, he doesn't make any noise or stir too much, though sometimes his eyebrows pinch together and he grimaces in his sleep.

Any slight noise wakes him though with a start, and his hand automatically goes down by his hip where his saber would normally be resting. Nothing. A wave of panic washes over him before immediately settling again as he realizes he's just sitting on the bench.

"Jesus..."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

As Shinobu approaches, the dream alters a little like how dreams do. One minute Henry is seventeen, and the other he's back to his normal body. Maybe it had something to do with his awareness of being in a dream state?

Sylvia puts up little to no resistance, but her unnerving stare twists something unpleasant in his gut. She's still beautiful, but dream!Sylvia is not someone or something he ever wants to experience again.

"Thanks."

He's a little curt, but once the feeling and movement comes back to his limbs, he lets out a heavy sigh before pushing up out of his seat. When Sylvia's body hit the ground, she suddenly convulses like she was in pain and he nearly jumps out of his skin.

"—shit."

While it's initially strange to watch Henry suddenly go from seventeen to... well, whatever age he was now (no, she doesn't know how old Travis actually is either), Shinobu is actually relieved for the change, as his dream world suddenly got a whole lot less awkward for her to watch. She's so motivated to get out of this dream, either way, that she doesn't even really care if Henry's thanks was a little underwhelming.

"Yeah. If you can get yourself moving, so that we can get out of here, maybe we can both be grateful." Which is to say, hurry your ass up, Henry.

Before they can leave, though, Shinobu looks with distaste as Sylvia writhes around on the floor.

"Seriously, don't even bother with her."

Get out of here? Where is 'here', anyway? Even in Henry's mind, he can't even begin to pin point where this location might be and if there's even an exit. Should he dream up a door or something? Either way, he heeds her advice and gets a move on, making his way to her side. He pointedly does not look back at the body of Sylvia, just laying there still as a mannequin.

"I try very hard not to," he says quietly, looking around distractedly. "Guess she still slips in through the cracks every now and again."

She didn't care if there wasn't an obvious exit, Shinobu just honestly wanted to find some kind of way to get out of watching Henry and Sylvia do some weird, seemingly kinky shit in a room. While she waits for him to glance away from the scene, she's desperately looking around, trying to figure out exactly how they were going to get out of here.

"If you're doing shit like that, guess it'd be pretty hard to not think about it." Shinobu comments as she resorts to knocking along the walls, in hopes of trying to find a hollow spot. "And here I thought I was into some weird shit."

Absentmindedly, he swipes at his neck like he swears he still feels the cuts in his skin. He doesn't follow Shinobu per se, nor does he seem to be helping in finding an exit, just walking down the middle of the room. He can't stay still though. Dreams dictate that he keep moving, something always be happening no matter how mundane or useless it may seem.

"Well, we never went that far."

Er, awkwardly enough, this entire dream definitely ties them both into knowing the same people and therefore knowing the same exact business. Despite that, he still finds it weird to talk about in front of her.

"I'm not really into bloodplay, though. I don't think so, anyway."

Casual. Yeap. Sorry you gotta hear this Shinobu.

If Shinobu weren't so intent on finding some sort of exit in the walls, perhaps Henry would have found the look of repulsion that spread across her face amusing, but she doesn't bother to turn around until she can display something more neutral.

"Hey, that's between you two. I couldn't give less of a shit, personally." More that she really didn't want to hear it at all, but saying so might prompt those who were into tormenting people and Shinobu didn't quite have Henry's personality pinned down just yet.

She begins to turn back to the wall, but his next statement freezes her in place, this time causing her to turn around with a more pissy expression this time, brows furrowed as she crosses her arms. "Keep your kinks to yourself, you don't need to justify yourself to me."

At this point, though, she's getting so desperate to get out of here that she decides to take a bit of a gamble. "Guess if you want something done right, you've gotta do it yourself."

And she punches the wall. This was ultimately Henry's dream, so his perception could make it that she somehow punches a hole through the wall for them to escape. Or maybe she'll look stupid as absolutely nothing happens to the wall. Either way, she's using her prosthetic arm to avoid any real damage to her organic one.

He'd cringe if he wasn't busy looking for an exit too, and it's probably just the side-effects of being in a dream. The reaction he gets from her doesn't seem to fully register at the moment, but then he does have a moment of 'Uh oh, should I have not said that' to himself as he's also knocking on the walls.

After she turns her pissed off expression away from him to conduct a little experiment, he watches her carefully. She's using her prosthetic arm, the one he knows was cut off during a fight with Travis a few years ago. That's smart, of course— especially when you're in a dream world where anything can go wrong.

Her fist strikes true and there's a dull 'thwock' sound, followed by a crack. It almost has the consistency of an egg shell cracking, the pink flaking off a little to reveal white underneath. It's not a very big crack, but it's something.

"Do you have a weapon of sorts on you?"

He has his on him already, but a little extra help is always good.

Shinobu herself is surprised when her fist actually makes a crack in the wall. Normally, she wouldn't be able to do damage to that extent with just her fist – even the prosthetic one – but being able to do it in dream land is enough to cause a victorious smirk to spread upon her face.

"What? My fists aren't enough?" The pride is obvious in her tone, though there was no way she was going to chance that twice; it was enough of a miracle she managed to even do anything the first time. Even here, though, she still had her katana still close by – nestled within the custom holder strapped behind her. "I'd be a shame to myself if I didn't have one on me."

Unsheathing it, of course she has to make a bit of a show of it before turning back around. "Have you got a plan of some sort?"

He also reaches for his weapon, and activates the blade right away, giving it a twirl before letting it hang by his side. Nodding towards the crack with his head, he grins a little, the first actual expression he's made so far that wasn't mild confusion or blankness.

"Good, because as amusing as it would be to watch you punch your way through the wall, I think we can shave off some time with our weaponry. Think we could bust a hole through it with what we've got?"

He knows he can at least send a few energy orbs into the wall, easily.

As he activates his beam katana, Shinobu tenses a little, her expression becoming more stern as she still really had a vendetta against anyone using that type of weapon. However, she knew this wasn't the time to consider if this was the person she was looking for or not – she might have immediately initiated a fight a few years back, but she was far more disciplined now. This was Travis' brother, so probably not him... right? It was something to stew over later, in any case.

"Sure, you might wanna give me a bit of space, though." Because even if her katana does seem to appear to look like a more conventional blade, she too could send some energy blasts.

Fortunately for her, Henry doesn't notice her tense at all, more interested in getting started on hacking this wall apart. With a polite bow of his head, he steps back a little, wondering what she has up her sleeve. Her profile only noted what sort of weapon she had, not exactly what it did.

"Let's have ourselves a show, then."

Once Henry's clear of her path, Shinobu angles her blade for a few seconds, until it glows with a bright lilac hue. Normally, this was a little trickier to pull off, in an actual fight, but it wasn't too hard here, when there wasn't actually anything attacking her. Once she's satisfied with the charge, she swings her blade forward twice, each swipe of her blade unleashing a crescent shaped energy beam toward the wall.

"Gentōken!" Because yes, she might have calmed down a bit on calling out all her moves, but she still had to call that one out. She was that kind of person.

Sometimes, one just needs a proper kiai or kiap to get that power to channel through! He can't fault anyone for that, really. All fighters do it. Hell, he does it. Just...not with Japanese words that make them look like anime characters.

So he'll be forever amused by her move call-out, but won't say anything as he presses a button on his saber's handle and prepares three energy orbs. They drift up and hover around his blade slowly, ready to be shot out towards their target. Her attack created quite a slash of damage, pink and white crumbling to reveal something dark and shadowy behind it, like a tunnel.

"Watch your right."

And three orbs rush past her, slamming into the wall to further open up the wall to them.

Once her sonic blasts hit the wall, Shinobu changes her position to a more casual stance with a bit of a flourish, letting the dull side of her blade rest against a shoulder. Not knowing anything at all about Henry's fighting style, she watches carefully as she witnesses his own energy-based attack. So it seemed that they both had a similar approach to long distance attacks, good to know.

Once the wall opens up to a suitable exit, she steps forward, glancing carefully at the edges of the wreckage to make sure there wasn't any hazards before walking through.

"I don't know about you, but I'm so ready to get out of this dumb room."

Once the makeshift doorway looks clear, he falls into step alongside her, pausing just to peer through the gaping hole they created. Once she steps through, he follows her, still a cautious and throwing a wary glance over his shoulder like he thinks Sylvia will suddenly get up again. Her body isn't visible from here, but he just assumes it's still there.

The room or tunnel is nearly pitch black, but he can see Shinobu clearly, which is bizarre, but makes sense in this dreamworld.

"More than you think. I've had it up to here with being stuck in lucid dreams."

There's no end in sight, but there doesn't seem to be much choice besides walking onward.

Shinobu doesn't even bother looking back herself, figuring that her senses were sharp enough to warn her, if something did happen to chase them. Sure, maybe things would be a little different in Henry's dream world, but even here, she needed to try to be cool.

Even if the tunnel is nearly purely black, blocking out just about everything that could potentially be in sight, Shinobu still finds that she prefers this for some odd reason. It was a bit of a worry that she had no idea how they were going to get the hell out of here, but Shinobu supposed that all she could do was keep going forward herself.

"I've had enough being stuck in your lucid dream, so I guess we can agree on that much." Her brows raise as she again is forced to think about how she learned far more about Henry here than she ever wanted to.

Yeah, he's definitely not comfortable with her knowing this much about him either, even if the message seemed a little cryptic. Then again, it might not come off as such to Shinobu, as someone who knows Sylvia personally.

He makes a small, disgusted noise under his breath, but a sardonic chuckle only follows as they continue to walk the tunnel. After trekking for what feels like ten minutes, he hums a little distantly. His voice has a distinct hollow quality to it.

"Do you ever get the feeling that you're just...fading away?"

At the very least, Shinobu was pretty used to making long treks in silence, so it doesn't bother her so much that all they do for that period of time is walk forward. However, when Henry speaks again, Shinobu glance back over at him with an odd expression.

"What kind of existential crisis are you going through now?" Shinobu immediately goes on guard, expecting more, stupid dream bullshit to occur. "I'm not fading away anytime too soon."

Maybe not you, but he feels like he's literally fading from this plane of existence. Fortunately, that's what he wants, and hopefully that'll mean the end to this painfully awkward dream.

"Right this moment, I mean... you don't feel it?"

He begins to look a little translucent, looking down at his own hands and looking a touch concerned. Even despite knowing that he does want to exit this dream, he has a slight underlying fear that he'll eventually fade in real life. He always says he won't, just like how Shinobu exclaims it now, but there's always that little voice in the back of your head feeding you doubts.

Deep, down inside, Shinobu figures that she'll probably eventually die in a rankings battle or in some feat of irony, someone will get revenge on her for one of the many people she's killed. However, whatever the case was, Shinobu was still convinced that she was going to go out in a blaze of glory and certainly not fade from existence.

As Henry begins to become less visible to the the eye, though, Shinobu looks over him. Could this finally be the end to the dream? If so, she was going to do everything she could to end this, once and for all.

"Sure, what's the point of living in the first place, right?" Shinobu says this casually, not actually meaning it. She's merely just trying to amplify the feeling.

He can't tell if Shinobu is disappearing with him, but he definitely feels himself fading. Her words are helping, even if he's not sure if he agrees with her sentiment or not. Amplifying that underlying notion of helplessness is Not Welcome in most cases, but in a dream like this were he's already in the process of fading? Not much he can do there.

What'll happen to Shinobu once he's gone? She'll probably wake up, too, he imagines.

"I know what you're trying to do."

It's not that he's ungrateful, but he doesn't like rolling over without a fight. It's just something coded into his DNA, and even letting a dream version of himself succumb to it is too unlikely.

"Fade or not...not knowing the point isn't the problem. It's knowing the point and feeling powerless to fight it."

And she'll soon feel his presence one moment and then absolutely nothing the next.

Shinobu remains impassive as Henry easily reads into what she's doing. She wasn't certain if undermining him was actually going to work, but she's not all that bothered that she was apparently pretty easy to read during this. However, during his last statement, she frowns and furrows her brow, actually disagreeing pretty heavily with what he was saying. She knew better than to try to argue it, in this dream space, though. Because for one, it was probably pointless anyway, and two, it might prolong this trip into his space and she really didn't want it.

It proved to be the right decision as he soon fades from this world, effectively tearing it apart. As everything eventually crumples into darkness, Shinobu wakes up with a jot and an audible gasp. Not knowing exactly how this worked, exactly, she looks to her side to see if Henry is also nearby.

Henry is a propped up against a wall, right around the corner from where Shinobu is laying. Not too far away, but he probably wouldn't have seen her right before sleep overtook him.

She'll wake up before he does, or at least he takes a little longer in stirring awake. The dream apparently took a bit of a toll on him, despite his usual ability to bounce back after a traumatic stumble into his subconscious. He seems to be struggling, similar to how she probably remembered seeing him for the first time.

Taking a minute or two to allow her thoughts to gather, Shinobu soon picks herself up to her feet, cautiously going through the corridor looking for the person she can straight up sense is nearby. Of course, she doesn't know exactly where, but it was just a feeling kind of developed through her years as an assassin.

Eventually, though, she comes across Henry's sleeping body. She can tell that he's struggling and while she considers just walking away, she also figures that there's a chance that other people might just sucked into the weird display of Henry's kinks. For once, she'll take the position of a hero here.

However, that doesn't mean she'll do it gently. With a sigh, she nudges him a little with her COST issued boot.

"Hey. Time to wake up, sleeping beauty."

Jostled awake by the nudge, he gasps and startles himself awake. There's a sheen of sweat on his brow, but it's entirely possible that's due to the hot spot rather than the dream itself. He stares at her for a moment before quickly picking himself up and saying nothing. This is...incredibly awkward.

"Let's...say we never speak of this again, shall we?"

i think to myself

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LEAVING THE RESULT UP TO YOU 8)

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