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[shadowed-god.livejournal.com]

Who: Sei, Mu
What:  Another talk
Where: Grounds

Once again, Sei finds herself surrounded by books. Time has allowed her to expand her collection, and she’s surrounded by small mountains of them now. At first glance, any resident of Shin Gensokyo would scoff at the covers. After the extermination of all deities, it would be impossible for there to exist so many books covering the topic of the Four Gods.

Precisely the reason Seiryu wrote all of them herself. She could not bear the thought of simply letting all those lives, as well as the world they used to live in, in the past. She wanted people to know. Not because of the desire to be known, but because she wanted her world to go back, even if, deep down, she knew that was impossible.

She did not have all her memories back. She knew that much from the fact that many of her feelings were completely unfounded. She felt an intense need to dispose of so many things, but she didn’t know why.

Comments

[hungering-god.livejournal.com]

    "Genbu"... Only one other person knew that name in this compound and Mu was confident he wasn't the type to tell others considering his own agenda. She knew this name without ever being told by anybody else and this is what scared her the most. At this point, everything that was happening in front of her eyes started to become far more transparent and painfully obvious.
    
    "... At this point in my life, even I can't answer that question. It'd be much easier if I was 'nothing', huh, old man?"

[shadowed-god.livejournal.com]

Any entrance or exit to this valley of books is quickly covered by white branches sprouting from each of the tomes. Though Seiryu was not more proficient with it than with any other, this was the element of wood. Nature. In short, the basis for all of Seiryu's powers. Her new creations are certainly not perfect, considering how paper is still quite separated in composition from normal wood. However, it's close enough to fulfill its purpose.

Her powers were not as strong as before. So many lost lessons and experiences dull her senses, diminish her range. However, Genbu's not in her element, either. Without a word, the white branches start infecting the insides of the dome, ink surging through them like the sap of a normal tree.

"Is that really what you believe?" she asks, a faint expression of almost infantile disappointment on her face.

[hungering-god.livejournal.com]

Mu gave her "old man" a bitter smile. "I didn't like being Genbu, the god who befriended then killed her only friends. I don't like being Mu, the brutal, but lonely operative living in the crap world she helped create," Mu admitted, "Who am I...? I'd like to be nothing. If I was nothing, you guys'd still be alive... or at least, that's what I thought. What the hell are you doing up and kicking, old man?" Even when meeting a very old friend, Mu isn't the type to kneel and suddenly start bawling. Although, in her mind, she knew she would've loved to cry right about now... in happiness? Perhaps, but also partly out of fear. The past had returned to her at full force. It seems depending on how this conversation goes, everything Mu did to repent to the god standing in front of her may or may not be validated.

[shadowed-god.livejournal.com]

Seiryu lowers her head, black hair momentarily covering her eyes.

"I don't know." she said. Words that had never sat right with her, especially in front of her pupil, but true nonetheless. "I remember countless different lives, but no transition into this one." By now, the surrounding area had steadily started to shift into a forest of white wood, with different symbols steadily bleeding and disappearing in the form of ink. A knife, wielded by the residents that had grown to hate her... smoke, quickly degrading the land she had fought so hard to preserve... and sometimes, simple utter blackness, the last thing she saw before it started all over again.

And yet, her smile had returned. It all came back to times she knew were happier. In the end, she was still with Genbu. It was like old times, if only for a few seconds.

The branches don't stop approaching, now covering most of the space surrounding them. Despite their serenely slow speed, it becomes obvious that they carry lethal force once they start clashing with each other. They are not only approaching Genbu, but Seiryu as well. She knew her desire to end Genbu's life was only the beginning. To hate things without knowing the reason for doing so... Seiryu would rather restart things all over again rather than suffer through such a fate.

[hungering-god.livejournal.com]

In the end, Mu wouldn't mind dying if it's by the hands of Seiryu. She killed him and so, it's only right for him to kill her back. An eye for an eye is clearly one of the woman's philosophies... and yet, she couldn't accept it. As the branches came at her, Mu summoned from all around her a spiralling pattern of bullets to act as a shield. The bullets were special ones that were in some ways "reverse-engineered- from her old ones. Rather than carrying the water-attribute, these bullets acted to sap away the liquid of those it hit. Throwing a strong kick at the direction behind Mu an escape route. She couldn't find him again. It wasn't in her.
    
    Mu ran as quickly as her legs could manage.

[shadowed-god.livejournal.com]

Seiryu expected that. She had been thankful for Genbu's ability to know the best course of action countless times before. If she wanted to kill her, it would have to be through an attack that allowed for no chance of survival.

She tries to make the branches keep going. Even if Genbu left, she could still finish herself off. She tries to increase the speed at which her own attack approaches her, having held back on trying to kill Mu a few moments ago.

And fails. A part of her mind, the one still plagued by memories of feelings without reason, still demands that she accomplishes her duty. She wouldn't allow herself to die until she destroyed all traces of the corrupted world that killed her. Not for revenge, but for mercy.

Revenge... Revenge for what? Seiryu keeps asking herself just what is so important that it would demand of her to kill.

Having been soaked in water, the ink starts dripping through the walls of the lily-white trees. As the skirmish comes to an end, they quickly begin to revert into the all-too-familiar pile of papers.