Post by Katsuro Hachi on Apr 14, 2016 22:25:41 GMT -5
EVERY SCAR WILL BUILD MY...
It was in the back of his head, now.
Before it had been a yearning, a tugging at his core, something deep within itching and scratching, pointing him in the right direction. It was a gut feeling, an instinct given shape that he acted upon, that led him to that great, desolate span of desert. But now he was here, hovering above the water, shimmering in its inch-wide ripples like grass beneath a military helicopter.
It was in the back of his head now, as he stayed suspended above the lake, pulling and chewing. It begun as it had before, but now there were whispers, little shreds of darkness in the back of his mind edging him left or right as he soared around the Digital World. At first he obeyed; his doubt made him try to resist. The parasite, the voice; it began to tear with a splitting headache that felt like it had been sent direct from mother nature. Was this the Hive, forcing his hand, when before he had been granted such freedom?
He tried again to tear away and the pain only increased; then he felt his body become heavy and weighted once more, even though he as Shadramon was so flighty and swift; his wings begun to falter and cease, and moving himself to become more aerodynamic as he fell from that height the spirit have driven him up to became nigh-on impossible, even in the face of certain death, otherwise. But, whatever the voice, the power was, it had made itself and its desires clear. Follow the path or die.
He took to the winds and tried less to think about it. After all; the last time he had exercised this will, he had found himself with a newfound power which not only saved his life, but kept him from being deleted on those highland hills. Katsuro sighed and made for the lakes, thinking that perhaps it would be... better... than he had otherwise thought.
Now, standing there, above the water, he heard it in the back of his mind, there, again.
Dive. He paused. It repeated itself, with urgency, with greater volume. DIVE! There was no need to see what further it could do. He dove.
It was there at the bottom, through the shimmering turquoise rent into shards thanks to the glistening underwater yellow-white of the sunlight. The water was crystalline and transparent, the grit surrounding it, almost burying it. It was... so deep; but he continued to descend. He felt it around him, soaking his submerged wings; it would be hours before he could fly without that irritating moisture clinging to him. He felt as an inverted disciple of Icarus would. The sun, as far as the Hive was concerned, was his domain. Under here? He stood no chance.
Katsuro's breath begun to falter. He shot upwards without a second thought, the lance of pain shooting through his head courtesy of the hive aside, emerging above water, panting for his dear life. He hadn't even gotten close; there was not enough air in his lungs. He would drown. He was almost certain of it. You will not be told again. Dive. Death by one source or the other, it seemed.
Katsuro dove. And his breath lasted for as long as it lasted, carrying him two thirds of the way. Beyond that, the water became almost crushing, his wings buckling and crumpling under the weight and pressure of it all -- some kind of obtuse physics in a small pocket of it all -- he screamed out in pain, yielding naught but bubbles. It was darker here, a richer, sapphire blue. There was a small mound beset on both side by tufts of aquatic grass, flailing peacefully with its torpid green.
Katsuro snatched it up without looking; it came free rather easily of the grit, shaking it away. The sand and silt return from whence it came in a white-grey spiral as he clutched it in one of his gauntlets for dear life. His vision was starting to blur; he had long since reached the point of no return. Water was starting to flood into him as he arose, his head light, barely... making it... to the... surface...
Oxygen. Its sweet, sweet, release. He gasped and spluttered and pulled and hacked and retched. He spat back the quarry filling his insectoid lungs, stretching his wingbones just to make sure they were still intact. They ached, by god, did they ache, but it was nothing he wouldn't heal from, near as he could tell. Good. Well done. Smarmy fuck. He paddled, his vision still blotty, his mind still a mess, the Digimental still somehow in his grasp, in all its gnarled glory, the red and grey visage of it distorted beneath the waves. It was far less even than the other, rough and scaly, as if it was coated in some kind of chitin or armour.
The sun was beating down now. Katsuro paddled in pathetic motions towards the lake's shore. He cast the Digimental out into the sand, letting it roll and accumulate dust before rolling onto his back and continuing to pant underneath the white-hot digital orb hanging above him, cursing him for making such an inevitably bizarre decision. He sighed. It turned into a cough. Fresh droplets of lake water begun to rise from his lungs. Katsuro understood where the old seaborne rock had earnt its name from now.
Resilience.
deltra of gangnam style
