Post
by Karnewarrior » Sun Sep 08, 2013 7:00 pm
Chapter Eight: ECHO, Demon of Solitude
Hanako pushed open the heavy wooden doors to the top-most room of the Tower of Chains. They slid open with ominous creaks, the heavy, aged oak pressing downward with incredible force.
The room inside was decorated with hanging sheets of sheer pink and yellow cloth. A bed sat gathering dust in a corner, flanked on both sides by ornate mahogany nightstands and fine chinaware lamps. Like Lilly's room in Yamaku, the walls were lined with books in braille, organized in some unknown fashion. The towers leaned and tilted, which looked as though the books had been haphazardly tossed there, but Hanako knew through experience was one of Lilly's techniques for telling which book was which without having to drag a finger along each set of braille.
A great window covered one side of the arching walls, with two clear glass doors inset to look like part of the window. It led to a giant balcony, as wide as a soccer field, edged with engraved parapets and ringed by a set of upward steps that made the center look like a depression rather than the edge a raised area. Two pairs of giant arches marked each side of the balcony, covered in arcane runes. If Hanako had deigned to look down from the farthest portion of the balcony, she would have seen the final portal, arching sideways from the stone parapet.
As Hanako stepped out onto the balcony, a warm breeze softly rustled her hair, and brought with it the scent of burning flesh. It also brought with it a voice... One that made Hanako choke back sobs just hearing it.
“Hanako?! Is that you?!” from the sound of it, Lilly had lost all bearing, and that disturbed Hanako more than anything. Finding the source of that shout was simple, for her cage hung directly beside the edge of the parapet.
“Lilly!” Hanako cried, reaching for the cage, but it was too far. Besides, the great padlock holding the door would be too strong to break. “I'm going to get you out of here!”
“I'm going to get you out of here, honey, I promise,” Panted Hanako's mother, snatching the little girl up and running towards the back door. But a pile of burning debris fell, knocking Hanako out of her mothers hands, and blocking the only escape route left. They were trapped.
Hanako shook the memories from her head. Now wasn't the time to get lost in the past. She shook her head again, confused. The memory had been snatched away, and now she couldn't remember what she had been remembering...
“Hanako, run, I don't know what this thing is but-”
“THIEF!” ECHO smashed down onto the parapet. Great, leathery wings took the place of forelegs, her back legs scaled and rippling with massive muscles. Her three heads all focused in on Hanako, the enigmatic faces of the Demon of Solitude covered by white porcelain theater masks. One smiled in unnerving happiness, one weeping as if forced into servitude by the other.
But the one that caught Hanako's eye was surely the “main” head of ECHO. The mask was flat and expressionless. Sickly yellow eyes glared out from behind it, and it stared at her more intently, with more hatred, and more calm, collected fury.
Hanako timidly put Resolve into what she hoped was an acceptable guard. Maybe she should have tried to join the Kendo Club...
ECHO didn't move though, besides shaking in anger. “Why? Why do you want to take my Lilly? She's /mine/!”
“I-I can't... I can't leave her here! This isn't R-right...”
ECHO seemed to slump over. “Don't leave us alone again. Please.”
But in the next millisecond, ECHO had snapped two of her heads up, loosing a shrill scream that made Hanako almost drop Resolve to clutch at her ears. The sheer forces of it drove her back, and sent Lilly's cage swinging as if in a gale.
Lilly clutched tight to the bars, eyes shut tight in fear, hand groping for her necklace while she whispered a prayer.
Tensing, ECHO launched her massive frame into the air in gusts of buffeting wind. Lilly's cage rocked violently back and forth, the nails holding it to the stone wall creaking.
“S-Stay away f-from my friends...” Murmured Hanako. Resolve hummed lightly, barely audible over the ringing in Hanako's ears after ECHO's blast.
ECHO didn't listen, swirling around in the air like a dragon and flying straight for Lilly's cage.
“I said, STAY AWAY!” Hanako shouted, running towards the edge. Her foot planted on the wall, vaulting over the edge of the parapet, and in a explosion of ruby she launched herself through the air like a bullet towards ECHO. Resolve sliced downward, smashing against ECHO's scaly form like a warhammer, but cutting no flesh.
Regardless, ECHO fell back through the air, Hanako riding her belly. A head dipped in from the left, but Resolve caught it in a upward spin, and Hanako danced to the side, letting it slip past. Again, resolve bounced off of her iron scales.
ECHO smashed into the ground, throwing Hanako wide. Hanako scrambled to her feet, quickly assessing the situation, fear vanished in a haze of adrenaline. She barely noticed the minor Demons crawling in like a macabre circus of freaks.
She sliced the acid tongue off of one that got in her way as she ran at ECHO, rolling nimbly over another tiny goblin, sweeping Resolve under its legs and severing the hamstrings. ECHO loosed another shout, but Hanako threw up Resolve, which hummed louder, dissipating the sonic shockwave.
Another burst of ruby crystal sent Hanako flying right into ECHO's left side, Resolve slashing downward. Instead of hitting the side of ECHO's mammoth neck, however, the blade smashed directly into the ceramic mask in front – and it shattered.
The face underneath was disturbingly human, but twisted into a horrible, almost cartoonish version of despair. It screeched like nails on a chalkboard as the face boiled and melted like wax. All the way back it melted, into the body, until all that remained was a dripping stump of colored wax.
Another giant gust of wind as ECHO launched herself into the air. “BURNED US! SHE BURNED US! WICKED, WICKED THIEF OF A GIRL!”
Hanako arose from a molten pile of wax, breath heavy. Tiny fires lit in her wake, but no heat touched her. “Can't say I d-didn't warn you.” She muttered, mostly to herself.
Echo cried out from in the air, and Hanako snapped back into her martial trance. She turned to meet the spiraling beast, as Echo swept low to claw at her. Hanako leapt up, higher than she had ever thought she could go, and Resolve ripped into ECHO's wing.
ECHO crashed to ground, her wing in useless tatters. She cried out again, a bestial roar. A faint crackle was Hanako's only warning as ECHO unleashed a new burst of sonic shock waves, now firing like a machine gun. Hanako was unprepared, blown back into the solid stone of a building... and through! Heavy bricks fell on her, bruising and battering her thin form.
But she was not beaten. She arose from the bricks again. ECHO snarled as she stepped out of the wreckage of what had once been a house. It seemed that Lilly's mind had stored her memories in there too, if the black photographs swirling about her feet like snow were to be believed.
Charging again, Hanako blew aside the sonic assault, closing the distance with ECHO. Resolve slashed up, but ECHO drew back her smiling head, and the blade went wide of the ceramic. The main head dipped around, wrapping the neck around Hanako.
A huge gust of wind lifted both ECHO and the struggling Hanako into the air, but ECHO's tattered wing couldn't hold, and she dropped back down. Hanako was crushed underneath ECHO's massive form, struggling for breath as ECHO tried to regain her footing. But breath wasn't as important as a brief opportunity provided to her, and Resolve dipped up to pop the mask off of the smiling head of ECHO.
A scream, and the wax dissolved right on top of Hanako. She cried out in pain as the burning hot wax seared her skin, but she had taken ECHO's last vulnerability. The main head was the only one left. And ECHO was obviously feeling the pain.
As she stood from the cooling wax once again, Hanako looked up.
Lilly's cage was glowing a bright gold. As Hanako watched, the clouds above parted, and a brilliant shaft of golden light lanced down directly on top of Hanako. Violet hair shimmering, Hanako felt herself invigorated by the light, and grinned. Her bruises healed, cuts sealed, and all the aches and pains of the last few days vanished.
“Go!” Cried Lilly. And indeed, ECHO was writhing weakly on her back. One wing in tatters, a bleached-white bone sticking from a deep gash in her leg, she shivered as if cold.
Hanako hopped up on top and walked down her body until the final head was in range. “You know, I thought I was broken because I was all alone once. But you showed me something. It wasn't me being alone that broke me. It was thinking that being alone made me some kind of monster. Some people are just loners. Solitude isn't some virus, some sickness I had. It was me. And that was beautiful.”
Driving Resolve downward, Hanako sliced through the soft underscales of ECHO's throat and up through her face, smashing the ceramic.
ECHO screamed a gurgling scream clogged by her own blood as her whole body turned to boiling wax. Hanako jumped off of the beast before she was drawn into the morass, and looked upward.
Lilly was falling from the sky, but right before she hit the ground, a burst of bright gold caught her and she landed as daintily as a princess. Her cane snapped out, now made of brilliantly cut beryl, and she found her ponderous way over to Hanako.
Smiling softly, she said, “My hero.” Hanako blushed violently.
“I-I didn't want... I-I didn't want you to get h-hurt because of me.”
“And so you fought so impressively, that a blind princess could see the action from atop her tower. You rescued a damsel in distress... Speaking of which, I think you earned a kiss...” Lilly smirked.
Hanako tried to back away, trying to explain how she loved Lilly but as a sister, before Lilly planted a soft kiss on her forehead. Then she fell forward, as though exhausted, and they silently hugged for the longest while.
“Seriously...” Whispered Lilly, her voice suddenly hoarse and tired. “Thank you Hanako. You have no idea how much this means to me.”
Hanako just hugged her harder, until the flagstones under her feet turned into soft carpeting, until the dim twilight of the land around the Tower of Chains turned into the natural orange of sunset. Until finally, Hanako and Lilly were home.
But when she stepped back, Lilly was gone.
