Log: In progress?

[hannin.livejournal.com]

When; Sunday, late evening to the present
Rating; PG-13 (swearing)
Characters; hannin and anyone can join...
Summary; A mysterious vagabond appears in the city. Lost, confused, and quite soaked through, he's looking for answers from anyone/anything that will tell him what the heck is going on here.
Log;


The sounds of footsteps echoed softly in the darkness, the slow and steady rhythm of worn shoes scrapping across decaying asphalt. In the far distance, the lights of the city shone down, twinkling like fallen stars through a thin veil of fog that was rising up from the warm pavement as the cool night air settled in. Buildings with tall spires rose up into the dim horizon, stabbing towards the black above the unnatural aura that clung to the skyscrapers from the lights of the city.

It looked almost supernatural. Or it would have, had he seen it.

But his gaze was locked on the dull gravel at his feet, winding across the grassy areas of the manmade park. He watched the frayed pant cuffs move back and forth. He watched way the light barely reflected from the shabby boots, recalling for only a brief moment a time when the shoes shone black in the night as they crossed countries. And he watched the tattered edges of the long coat twist and dance as he walked the night, recalling a time before when the clothe was dyed a rich black.

Once, years ago, the clothes had been new, pressed and taken care of. But it seemed only a blink of an eye. Now they were falling apart, as ragged and worn out as their wearer. The coat even the black leather boots were now faded the same dull gray as the long disheveled hair which fell in front of the man’s face.

He was tired. So very tired.

He was sick of walking, always on the move. He could not settle, but he did not think that he could go much further.

Finally, the man’s uncovered eye lifted, catching the light of a nearby streetlight set up beside the parkway to illuminate the conveniently placed benches for the park goers. It looked comfortable, inviting him to stop … just for awhile, just for a night.

And what was one night to him?

He took another step, stumbling a bit and breaking the rhythm suddenly and violently in a crescendo of furious scraping rocks. For an instant, the loose hair tumbled from the vagabond’s face, revealing an eye much paler than its twin. Milky white, it seemed to be blind … and yet.

Quickly, the man moved towards the bench, restoring the rhythm and increasing it twofold until he reached his repose. A relieved sigh escaped his lips and he lowered himself down onto the hard wood and metal. It felt … good to sit after such a long time … a very long time.

The vagabond laid himself down on the park bench, rolling onto his side. He pulled his knees up, trying to fit as best as he could. It was too small for him to lie down properly, but it would keep him above the grass that would be undoubtedly dew-covered in the morning.

The rest felt good. He closed his eyes … and felt himself slipping, falling.

He twitched, half-asleep the instant his eyes shut, and felt himself roll backwards into … water?! He flailed and floundered momentarily managing to inhale and swallow more than a few mouthfuls of water before his head broke the surface. He choked and wretched up the water before hoisting himself out of what appeared to be … a fountain?

He shook his head slowly, dripping water from the hair matted in his face. He glanced around, confused. The city lights shone down around him like before. And yet, they were different. Different arrangements, different buildings … he frowned, knowing the most obvious answer to this most troubling question. He was in a different city.

How?

He frowned and picked himself up off of the pavement. He glanced around, shaking himself like a wet dog and spraying droplets all around him. There seemed to be no immediate danger, though it was hard to tell right now. And he had no idea how he got here.

He sighed. No more benches meant no more resting.

He rose to his feet, wearily and shoved his hands into his wet pockets before turning away from the massive fountain. It was time to move on … again.

Comments

[hannin.livejournal.com]

Here in this strange city, beside the fountain that had once been a bench, he paced. He was soaked from head to toe from the fountain water and now from rain. However, he seemed unaware, though the clothing was sticking to his skin.

Where am I? Why am I here? What is this place?

The thoughts echoed through his mind, dimly. First and foremost he needed to scout this place for oddities. His eyes darted around the area around the fountain. He moved slowly, as if he was simply regarding the curious architecture of the surrounding buildings. He walked all of the way around the fountain.

This place, he concluded very quickly, makes no sense ...

Strange sensations tickled the back of his “blind” eye, leaving everything fuzzy and lost in a blur of milky white after images if he moved the orb at all. It actually caused him pain. More than that, it was making him dizzy.

He stumbled back towards the fountain and, ignoring the misting water that sprayed out from the jets that arched high in the air and only adding to the continuously falling water, he collapsed against the stone side of the fountain with a slight groan. He dropped his face into his hand and covered the eye. That seemed to help a bit. The throbbing pain eased, though it did not end.

He sighed, fumbled in the pockets of the soggy coat. The eye patch he occasionally kept was missing. Perhaps it had fallen out when he fell in the fountain, or maybe someone had lifted it the other night when he had slept under the overpass. Whatever the case, it would need replacing. Maybe there was a place he could find a job or some money?

He patted down his other pockets, fishing out a variety of objects that he carried. There was a small pocket watch, dog tags, a few pins, some metals, a dog-eared brown leather wallet with some coins and several old photographs. Very little of the objects would be worth anything. There was also a small key marked with the number four. That meant that it was back in the city he had been, not here. How many nights until you show up again?

He stood up, though his knees threatened to buckle under the strain of nausea, his eyes scanned the area around the fountain. Perhaps someone here could point him in the direction of a local marketplace?

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He snorted and coughed, his eyes snapped open and a burst of pain exploded behind his left eye. He let his breath out in a hiss, groaned as he held his head in his hand. He could not recall falling asleep, which meant that he had most likely passed out. That was irritating. But not as irritating as the pain in his back and neck. He stood up with another groan. His back was stiff from leaning again the side of the fountain.

It made sense to leave this place, to seek out any information on this place, but his body was not cooperating. He eased his left eye open a crack, and received a blast of sharp pain in the back of his eyeball for his efforts. He groaned, patted himself down again.

No avail, the patch was gone. “Shimatta!”

He caught the edge of the old dog-eared coat, closed his eyes in silent apology to a coat that had been with him for nearly half a decade, and pulled. The edge came away fairly cleanly. He wrapped the cloth around his face, over the eye, and tied it tightly. The aching subsided slightly.

“Now what..?”

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The answer to that question came in the direction of the fountain itself. He felt an odd pull in the back of his mind. He turned and stared at the spraying water. The slightly tapered tips of his ears twitched as he imagined that he thought he heard laughter coming in the direction of the water. A ghost?

It would not have surprised him. Although it had been, he suspected, several years since a he had come across a specter. He shook his head, warily eying the fountain with his good eye. He considered untying the cloth from his face, if only to catch a glance at the thing. But the pain was still there in the back of his left eye, reminding him of the overwhelming sensations that the city had caused him.

There was too much. Too many things here… But he could not be certain what it was that this city contained. Ghosts? Demons? Gods?

It was all the same. They all shone brightly through the milky mists of his left eye, the “blind” eye, marked with the scar. He stepped closer to the water, feeling oddly human without his second sight. Courage grabbed him and he stared down into the waters of the fountain.

But all the man could see was his own reflection. It had been along time since he had bothered to do that. His face was long with a sharp jaw line brought out by the thinness of the face and the haggard expression it wore. His eye shone back from the water, so pale with age that it was nearly as white as its twin. It was anyone’s guess what his real age was, but it showed in the ghostly pale orb.

And there, half-hidden under the cloth wrapping was the mark. The ugly mark that had plagued him throughout his life, at least the part he could recall. The cloth slipped away, then, coming loose from the loose knot he had made.

Hannin… It stared back at him. Accusing him of crimes he could not recall. The pain was there, but it was much less than the pain of being reminded of his fate.

He saw, and felt, his cheeks flush with embarrassment. He hated the mark, though few people could actually see it. Mortal eyes seemed destined to miss the warning. But… He frowned into the water, he could only see it himself with the “blind” eye, and then only as a dim angry glow shining from his face. How was it possible that it was showing up so boldly now? How could his right eye see the hannin scar?

“Masaka!” That meant, for some reason, the scar showed itself here to everyone around him! “NO!”

He lashed out, embarrassed and frustrated by the lie he could not erase, slamming his fist into the stone edge of the fountain. Small cracks formed under his fist in the stone, taking skin with it and bloodying three of the four knuckles that had connected.

“That is not fair! Not after everything I have done!” He spat at the water, hating himself for what he saw.

Tee hee hee!

He winced at the sound. It was a familiar giggle, shrill and feminine. The water moved slightly, showing an image of what appeared to be a girl in a white ceramic Noh mask. A massive red swirl covered the right side of the mask, which was without an eyehole. The girl’s left eye, ruby red with a swirl of darkness instead of normal human pupil, stared deeply into the man’s pale mortal eye.

[hannin.livejournal.com]

Again he cursed, and this time, his hand hit the water instead of stone. He clutched at the image, desperately trying to catch the girl by the painted crimson smile. He would never hit a child, but it was no child that had been staring at him! She had been there, the same small girl in appearance, for as long as he could recall! Always, she mocked him, giggling in sadistic glee when those around him died, leaving him all alone in his empty farce of a life! He hated her with a passion, the unnamed being he called “Uzumaki-sama,” knowing full well that she was something greater than a simple ghost or demon...

“Get back here, damn you!”

But the image was a lie, something brought forth by this strange city no doubt, to taunt him! He swore again and closed his grasping fingers in the water before lifting them back out... And there it was.

He had not felt it before. Perhaps because after so long fighting with it beside him, it truly had become an extension of his being... The unnamed, cursed blade. It was a demon in its own right. He sighed, watching the water drip from the semi-submerged sheath. For a moment, he was tempted to throw it back into the water.

But anger quickly turned to apathy, and a bizarre feeling of respect for the weapon that had served him for so long. He shook his head slowly and lifted it free. The weapon resembled a katana, though the blade’s length was over a foot and a half longer than the longest of its brethren. He sighed.

“I was wondering how long it would take for you to show up...” The tsuka hilt felt warm, in spite of the water, with a subtle but unmistakable pulse. “Thought I left you in a bus locker.”

He slung the weapon over his shoulder by the silk ribbon that was tied tightly to the sheath, let it nestle in between his shoulder blades and against his ribs. He fumbled around in the water, beginning to feel woozy from mounting pain behind his left eye. Then, his fingers brushed against several things at once, he caught hold of one of those things and pulled his hand back quickly.

Was something in the fountain was moving, or was that just his imagination? He stared, wide-eyed and stumbled back. That was enough of that! He looked down at his fingers. There was something black and very damp hanging from an elastic strap he held… The eye patch.

He exhaled in relief and pulled the thing on, blotting out some of the more painful white after images that swam through his “blind” eye, even if it squelched a bit as he did. But there was something else in his hand. It looked like... It was a photograph of a small group of soldiers.

The photo was dog-eared and faded. But he could make out the olive-green of the soldiers’ fatigues, the military-issue tents behind them. He could even just barely make out the playing cards they held as they sat in front of the drab tents, smoking, drinking and relaxing in between trudging through the jungle, in and out of battles. The faces stared up at him, grinning and joking, one man had his tongue out as he mimed a lewd gesture at the cameraman.

And there, in between two of the soldiers sat a very familiar-looking man. He wore an embarrassed grin above a sharp jaw line on the gaunt face. His hair was much shorter above the cruel mark that trailed down his face, half-hidden by a black eye patch. He wore a strip of drab green fabric that kept it out of his eye, though only the ends could be seen as they jutted out from under the splotched helmet with the glaring remnants of the red cross that someone had tried to scrape off.

That’s like wearin’ a goddamn bullseye!

The vagabond smiled a bit at the memories... There had been a few pleasant times back then. He had not just fought. He had actually helped people... Saving lives somehow felt... Right.

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He turned the photograph over in his hand, trying to recall if anyone had signed it. Taped to the back was something else that was very familiar to him... The four of hearts. He touched the center of the card where a hole had been formed by a stray bullet that caught him in the shoulder. He had carried it around, tucked into the strap of his helmet. Some of the others had called it his “Hotta’s good luck symbol.” And although that had not been his original thoughts on the card marked with a number that sounded like “death,” he had come to agree with the others.

Memories and old friends... This place keeps getting weirder and weirder...

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He turned the card over in his fingers again, pondering its appearance yet again. He could have sworn that he had left it wedged between the seats of the bird that had carried him away from strip at Phu Loi. He was being forced to leave, but his chopper would be returning. He felt a strange sense of envy that it was continuing to work, while he was being cast aside. But then, a few hours out of Saigon, the smell of the ocean hit him and those feelings faded too quickly.

Now he regretted ever feeling joy at leaving behind the men he had come to think of as friends, though so many went so quickly towards the end. He turned the card over, staring at the scrawling handwriting. “You lucky bastard! I’ll see you in Hell!”

He grinned, walking away from the fountain without noticing where his feet were carrying him. He was barely aware of his surroundings, almost completely oblivious to the passing objects all around him. Only occasionally did he stop and think to look up, to keep from running into things.

He was thinking now specifically about the Fourth of July. They had barely been able to keep their eyes open, on double duty. He was more away than some, and could barely lift his feet. Then suddenly the girls showed up. Who had thought of dropping word to have them meet them right off of duty, he could only guess. But it didn’t matter. Soon, someone had the bright idea of sending music through the camp speakers. Something old and slow, “Indian Summer” he distinctly remembered, finally giving him a reprieve from “Rock’n Roll.”

He sat aside from the rest with one of those hand-rolled, funny tasting smokes that occasionally got passed around the company. He watched the others have fun, feeling light-headed and oddly content, maybe even happy, for that single, all too brief moment.

Suddenly his skin began to crawl and he shuddered bodily. Ghost? His eyes leapt away from the card and locked on a figure that was passing by not too far away from him. It was doubtful she noticed, or even cared at all about the battered war dog dragging by.

But he saw her.

One eye hidden behind thick black cloth, and he knew from the symbol on her neck what she was... His turned his face away and stared at his feet, his pale bluish eyes growing wide. More memories came flooding into his brain from a time just shy of three decades before the dance. The black uniform, the emblem of the four corners, that self-assured, self-righteous expression... These things sucked the happy memories away, replaced them with voices of the dead, screaming, crying out in pain in the back of his mind.

He felt his chest grow tight. The air felt thick, like water in his lungs. The vagabond stumbled quickly into the nearest alleyway away from the woman. And as his back hit the rough wall, the words rushed out in a sharp painful hiss.

“Unsere Ehre heisst Treue!”

He felt sick and shook as his eye darted around the alleyway. He could not even recall the meaning behind the words, only loyalty and honor. He spent so many years forgetting, moving on with this, his endless, charmed, hell of an existence. But what if that woman heard that salute? What would she think of him? Were there others like her here? Even in this supernatural city, would anyone ever think that a simple homeless man might be more than what he seemed?

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His brain flooded with thoughts and questions. He felt dizzy again as the pain behind his left eye acquired two new friends at both of his temples... Too many memories. They swam in his head and reminded him of the sights and sounds and smells of death. They made him sick to his stomach and weak. He turned away and stumbled towards the opposite end of the alleyway. There were cardboard boxes piled next to an open door, where the scent of food was wafting.

He eyed a packet of the nearest box of food and felt his mouth begin to water. How many days since he last ate? He frowned, cursing his weakness as he moved passed the boxes. A packet of instant noodles was halfheartedly thrown on top of several other food items. It slipped easily into his palm as he passed.

Now he was on a new street, moving further from the soldier woman. His thoughts continued to mill about in his mind as he bit into the dry noodles, crunching them down slowly. How safe was it for him to be in a city with ghosts, demons and Nazi women? He frowned again, wondering if Uzamaki-sama spent a long time in figuring out this new hell, or if she just came across it by chance...