”To the human world?" Faust gave the human Chaser a scornful laugh. ”Thankfully no, and I hope this moment shall never come." Faust’s Master in the human world was akin to a wolf inside a chicken coop.
Regardless, ‘what now?’ was indeed a legit question, after all, they were still way too close to THAT place. And just as Faust was about to suggest Ruu to leave something strange happened…
Well he supposed Ruu wouldn’t have survived such a trip. She hardly seemed aware of the dangers that surrounded her, and while Faust was the creature also couldn’t exert much influence, or so it seemed. She probably would have gone on some feeding frenzy, attracted too much attention, and be hunted down in the end. To that end he would probably have to act as some sort of food courier… if only he knew someone with the capability of a vast inventory. He knew that they apparently existed, Youkai or Chasers with the ability to reach into their own dimensions or a personal spa-
Such considerations were interrupted when the night grew even darker as if numerous lights of the city had been devoured at once. The fact that it was noticeable from the dim alley was enough for Jin to enter the street to investigate. Immediately he noticed the dome of darkness some distance away that had swallowed Dengeki and its neighboring buildings. “Damn…” he murmured with a small frown as he considered the individuals that could typically be found at the shop and what sort of capabilities someone would require to confidently assault the location. Course, his Knight still kept its gaze on Ruu and Faust in the meanwhile.
””That place is under attack?" Judging from the Chaser’s reaction, Faust seemed satisfied about this development. He couldn’t really be blamed either, after all, Human and Youkai were first and foremost enemies, and if a important hotspot like Dangeki was to disappear it would only prove advantageous to the numerous Youkai inhabiting the Crimson Sky.
"Ruuuu~"
Much like Faust and the human, Ruu realized the dark dome as well, though her loud sniffing sounds made obvious she smelled something first rather than seeing it. Slowly taking more and more steps towards that place, Faust cut in with a sharp tone, making her stop and starting yet another discussion in the language the Chaser couldn’t understand.
This time though it seemed like Faust was the victor. Instead of going there herself, a dog-like being emerged from her shadow. ‘Dog’, however, may have been a generous word to describe the shadowy monstrosity, while truly in the form of a dog, it looked still more akin to some children’s nightmare. That however didn’t stop Ruu from petting and cuddling it a bit before it made its way towards the dark dome. "Ruu!"
“I suppose it is,” Jin muttered, as he scratched the back of his head and wondered what to do. If the enemy was truly ready to fight those that frequented Dengeki then it was likely beyond his capabilities. Still… he felt a bit of obligation to aid in its defense. He spared the two Youkai a glance as their discussion grew heated once more, albeit this time it was Ruu who backed down. He paused to watch in curiosity as her shadow bubbled before a canine creature climbed forth from the darkness. Cuddly it was not, but Ruu didn’t seem to mind as she showered it with affection briefly before it departed. “Huh.”
He guessed that she either had some telepathic or mental bond with the creature if Ruu didn’t bother to approach any further. For Jin there were still several buildings in between him and the darkness dome though; an easy enough problem to remedy. With a deep breath, the asphalt shattered beneath his feet as he burst into a sprint. Glass shattered as he barreled through a window on the second floor in a building, and moments later he burst out from the other side, leaping to higher floors in the opposite building. The three streets to reach Dengeki gave Jin enough to work with so that he slammed just short of the rooftop, hands digging into the concrete before he leapt for and grabbed the edge to haul himself over.
Appearing about a block or so away from the pawn shop, Lei was surprised to see a massive, black dome where a certain street and pawn shop should normally belong. She stayed where she stood for a few seconds, looking at the street in apprehension. Clearly such a thing was abnormal, and her intuition told her that the place was under attack. Under normal circumstances, she’d jump right in in an attention-stealing blaze of glory, but she hadn’t the faintest idea of what was inside. Appearing inside that would be like the Enterprise warping into Vulcan, and everybody who watched that movie knew how well that went.
With that in mind, she stepped away again, appearing on a nearby rooftop for a better vantage point. She was surprised to see another figure atop the high-rise structure. While he seemed a bit suspicious, being on the roof and all while that business was happening below, he didn’t seem particularly dangerous. Instead, she waved at the man before shouting out at him.
“Hey, hey! You don’t think they’re playing card games down there, do you?”
It didn't take all too long for Ruu to follow, unlike the other two however Ruu's means of travel was simply through the shadows, as most of The Pack was still with her. What did lure her towards the rooftop however was not her newfound ally, but rather the newcomer. After all, who didn't like the smell of Chamomile tea and cream pastries?
Not wasting a second, Ruu jumped out from one of the countless shadows the dark sky, now enhanced by the dark dome, casted upon the world, her mouth wide upon, ready to bite into the delicacy going by the name of Lei. "Ruu!"
The spear’s tip swung to point at Lei with her sudden appearance, and Jin glanced at her direction for a moment before he dismissed her as a threat. Granted she seemed to be a teleporter so the distance between them didn’t mean much, but an attack would have been much easier if he wasn’t aware of her presence in the first place. He was about to reply when his Knight recognized Ruu as she rematerialized in the world to descend upon the latest arrival.
“God,” he muttered as he crouched and kicked himself back to intercept the ravenous Youkai. Unlike when Ruu had tried to grasp the spear, this time his Knight’s gauntlet was very much solid as it wrapped around the Youkai’s head, firm but not painful just yet. ”Sorry about that,” he apologized with a nod at Lei, “she hasn’t learned that humans aren’t food just yet.”
This time, Lei was unfazed by the sudden appearance of the Youkai. Unlike the contents of the mysterious dome thing, she could flee or at least put a great distance between her and Ruu at a moment’s notice. Giving Jin a coy smile as he held the man-eating youkai at bay, she made small talk, seemingly ignoring the events down below.
“Is she a pet of yours?” she asked, with a tilt of her head. A moment later, a pallet full of rice appeared with a thud on the rooftop space next to her with a superfluous snap of a finger. “If she’s hungry, I’ve got food,” she offered.
"RUUUUU!!!!!" The small frame of the Youkai was wriggling like a wild worm that was just caught by some bird preying on it.
Emitting a strong killing intent to no one in particular, the white Neverborn was clearly not amused.
“Not quite, more of an attempt at domestication?” He didn’t pay her much attention until Lei caused an absurd amount of rice to appear. Course, it seemed Ruu’s panic called another creature to her side and Jin would happily admit that this one put him on edge. The killing intent was much more palpable than what he had previously felt tonight and the Knight slowly lowered Ruu to the rooftop next to the latest entity and let go.
Ally or not, his Knight’s arms curled defensively around Jin’s body as his attention was split between Ruu and co., and the Chinese girl. “Maybe something a bit more palatable to settle her?” He suggested as he decided to focus on the creature that seemed most ready to start fighting.
“Right,” nodded Lei, making the rice disappear. In place of the uncooked grain, a box of snickers appeared over the white thing, dropping on it as they appeared and scattering some of the candy bars on the ground.
Before the male Chaser could drop Ruu even off, the hand of Terror already slashed through a part of the intangible knight, and while the attack itself had no effect, the sharp sound as her arm cut through the air made sure her own power was on par with Jin's basic abilities.
As Ruu was finally given freedom back however, a single word followed by a hug onto the Neverborn's waist made her cease her next offensive action, and the crackling of energy generating onto her fingertips soon disappeared.
With the situation now diffused, Faust was now making his appearance. ”Oh, I see you made yourself acquaintanced with the little one's bodyguard, don't mind her manners, under different circumstances Terror would try to kill even me." While that last part was partially true, the Neverborn was mocking the white armor-clad figure nonetheless.
Ruu let Terror off the hook now, and Terror gave all 3 of them a grim look before slashing another hole in the air and disappearing through it. Now, Ruu could finally pay attention to the sweets dropped around her and carefully sniffed one of them before putting like 7, including their wrapping, into her mouth and started chewing... .
“Yeah, that could have gone worse,” Jin admitted with a small shrug as Faust reappeared next to Ruu. He tilted his head slightly as he felt the creature’s gaze slide over him, but didn’t react further even after it stepped through the crack in reality and vanished. He watched as Ruu stuffed the candy bars, wrapper and all, into her mouth with a sweat drop before he glanced at Lei. “Snickers on its head?” Course nothing had happened so Jin didn’t mind too much, but if that had set the creature off then even his lackadaisical nature would have been tested.
The Chinese girl shrugged. “It needed to calm down. If it went berserk, I wouldn’t be sticking around to see it though,” she offered helpfully. Lei was surprised however, that the youkai girl was scarfing up the candy bars without regard for the wrapper. She was pretty sure that stuff was toxic or at the very least, would be very painful to push out the other end.
Ruu chewed and chewed and continued to chew until...it became slower and slower. "Rwwwwuuuu?" She was clearly dissatisfied and actually reached with her hands inside her mouth to try and pull the sticky mixture of chocolate, plastic and peanut out!
Well… the end result in front of Jin was hardly a surprise. He wasn’t a fan of Snickers himself, for the very issue Ruu was currently demonstrating and that was with one of the candy bars. Trying to eat seven? Yeah… the resulting mess was sort of disgusting if he was to be honest. He shook his head slowly, but otherwise did nothing to help the Youkai out of the mess. Instead he turned his attention to the dome for a moment and recognizing nothing, visibly at the least, had happened, glanced at Lei again. “Got anything that she can’t possibly mess up trying to eat?”
Lei still had her leftovers, but there was no way in hell that anybody else was going to have that right now. Flipping through her memory, a bulb lit up above her head. She had a massive stock of sugarless gummy bears from who-knows-where, and there was never a better place to get rid of them than right now. They were completely useless to her, mainly because they tended to induce gastrointestinal armageddon. And like that, a 20 pound bag of sugar free candy appeared between them.
After finally freeing herself from the terrible oddity called ‘Snickers’ the small Youkai continued to do some silly attempts in cleaning her tongue. Finally, after like a minute, Ruu attained her freedom back and gave the new sweets a short sniff before her attention was demanded elsewhere. All of a sudden her body tensed up a bit as she locked her sight onto the shadowy dome, carrying a worried expressions on her face.
Having another exclusive conversation with Faust he quickly disregarded the small Youkai before talking to the male Chaser. ”The little one lost connection to her dog, meaning she doesn't even know if it died. And now she plans to go check." Faust sounded worried, while he probably did not have as much insight as the two Chasers, he knew that this place was off the limits for Ruu regardless.
How Lei imagined gummy bears would go over well after the mess Ruu had made with fudge and caramel Jin didn’t try to understand. Whatever the case was, it seemed that the Youkai had bigger concerns than her hunger at the moment. Thankfully, Faust was present to explain exactly what the problem was and he hummed for a moment in thought. “That seems rather foolish,” he deadpanned as he watched the dome’s unchanging surface. Really, that tidbit just made him less inclined to step inside the unknown phenomenon. “I don’t suppose you could scout it out?” He asked the other female present. “Drop something inside and retrieve it?”
The black-haired girl put her hand to her chin as she thought for a few moments, looking upwards and sideways as she did so. The new candy disappeared as she did so. Honestly, she had half a mind to pull out a few cast iron safes and drop it above the dome, but she did not, as amusing as it would be. Instead, she pulled out a cheap looking quadcopter and controller, probably something bought for $100 in a knockoff Chinatown store. Maybe she had better stuff, but wasting things like electronics and higher grade equipment didn’t sit well with her.
“It has a camera. Best I can do,” she offered, flicking the rotary device off the roof and into the dome.
Ruu continued to eye the black dome and took a few steps towards it, she was still inclined of going there but quickly lost interest as she put her nose up on the air once again. "Ruuuu!" Quickly changing directions another conversation between Faust and Ruu ensued.
”Very well. The little one luckily lost interest in this place and we shall take our leave now." With those words he gave another bow.
