Post by Shizuyoru on Dec 4, 2020 11:52:27 GMT -5
It was almost unrecognizable these days.... Even from afar, the sight of her home overrun was still something that pained Shizuyoru. She couldn't even make it to her old Home without probably being attacked, and that fact made her sigh softly as she slipped into the hidden burrow where she'd been forced to evacuate to. A gentle slip through some illusionary bark and she was looking through the little room carved into the tree. What little equipment she had been able to carry from her Mother's lab was scattered around the room, and she looked at the equipment and modules with a sad expression as she thought of the woman. Her hands gently running along the instruments that had served her mother so well. And then she froze. Fungers gently running over .... a surface that was not as dusty as it should have been. She hadn't been here for ages.... why was this place so clean?
Her eyes darted up as her senses were tripped, and she suddenly noiced something sleeping up on the ceiling of the little hidden room. A...sleeping mana beast? An enchanted animal? It looked like some giant bat. How did it even get in here? But that soft, calm, curious portion o Shizu's brain wasn't actually presently operating at the moment. She was..... pissed. Her hands slowly curled into hateful fists as she suddenly was filed with rage. One..... of those filthy fucking THINGS was set up in what remained of HER mother's lab! Almost immediately she wanted to hurt it . To kill it. To make it suffer for somehow managing to sneak into this personal place!
But she didn't know any spells that would be suitable for this... She barely knew any spells that could really DO any damage. But the NEED for one was .... so incredibly strong. Hatred barely contained, she slowed her breathing as she noticed that THING stirring along the ceiling of her little hideout, and her mind began racing. Her Grimoire was out before she even knew it. And then those black, sclera-less eyes suddenly opened above her. She tensed. SHIT. The sudden hissing scream that escaped from the thing was loud enough to make her spine tingle in the ensuing rush of adrenaline as she leapt back and out of the way, as the creature smashed into the floor she'd been standing in just moment's before, her eyes darting around the room as she tried to think of a way to kill this thing without causing too much damage to the equipment! Fuck, fuckfuckfuckfuck! She staggered back as that thing landed right infront of her, and with a vicious, hateful snarl she KICKED it right in the face, causing a lout shrill cry from the being as she promptly backed up, her mind racing as she backed partially out of the little hidey hole. Just as she hoped, the thing promptly began to chase her, eliciting the smallest of smiles to creep across her lips as a plan slowly formed in her head. She turned and bolted, with that thing's wings pumping into action to chase her right out into the outter forest itself. She leapt over an overturned cart that had broken down nearby as the thing swooped past overhead.
Her heart was pounding as she thrust her back up against the side of the ruined cart and narrowed her eyes as she watched the thing flying past her. She cursed her damn weakness. This wasn't enough. Every spell in her mind: Useless. She watched as that twisted beast began to circle around to get back at her, and a small, hateful little part of her suddenly made her grimace. This thing thought SHE was invading ITS home! She should never have left here, this fucking thing thought that place was it's new lair. She let her eyes dart once in the direction of the hidden tree. She needed to add security or something... And that errant thought cost her. When she glanced back in the direction of the bat, it was practically already in her face! Startled by the beast's speed she ducked to the side, falling to the ground in her surprise as claws barely missed her left shoulder, and she grunted as she lashed out, chopping the beast's shoulder with her open palm as it sank it's claws into the broken cart. Two more sharp blows to the vile creature's shoulder were enough to at least stun the damn beast as she turned and ran a few feet away before spinning, half expecting the creature to already be on her ass again. But as it would so seem, the thing was still struggling to free it's claws from the cart. Something that drew a ragged pant of relief as she took a moment to breathe. She needed a fucking weapon... but what?
And then she felt it. As her need dug it's way down all the way into her heart. As that sheer insulted, indignant hatred dug it's little roots into her chest. She felt something blooming in the back of he rmind. A possibility. Before she knew it, her Grimoire was suddenly infront of her, turned to one of it's many blanke pages. She was, momentarily surprised to see i without having called it herself. Her eyes locked onto that blank page as slowly, little designs etched themselves along the pages. Not just pretty pictures.... but ... a design. Her eyes slowly widened as a spell matrix formed it's way across the left page, a diagram of the body and the circulation of mana. A ... spell?No.... She didn't recognize it. This was not just a spell, it was an entirely new formula for her spells. It wasn't sensory OR Curse magic. And as she stared at the pages being written and drawn, she saw the title etching itself across the top of the page. Transformation Magic. She'd bheard of it of course. And her eyes shifted to the diagram of a body. The circulation of mana, and how it effected it's form. And of course, a wheel of elemental points. So much more complicated than so many other sources claimed. Larger spiraling zones interlaced with smaller, finer, more minute elements that all wove into a tapestry-like web.
And of course... a more familiar format at the very bottom of the second page. An interlaced spell matrix that was not just this transformation magic. But her far more familiar Curse magic....
Her eyes darted up just in time to see the monster of a bat ripping it's claws free from the cart and turning it's attention her way. She narrowed her eyes for just a moment and focused. Just like one of her soul tuners, she adjusted that internal frequency. The music inside of her body, the way that it hummed and trilled within her like her own personal internal clock suddenly shifted. Speeding up. Slowing Down. Deepening in pitch and depth as she slowly modified her own physical form. Her right arm suddenly BULKING up, as her fingers slowly twisted into dark-furred claws. And extra long blade-like lengths of hardened bone slithered out of the space between her knuckles in cruel points. She wathed as that beast of a bat laucnhed itself at her and she swung without even a second thought.
Those claws tore into the air as she snared the beast by it's shoulder and then, with a strength she definitely hadn't had before, slammed the bast into the ground rather than allowing it to continue it's course directed at her body. She could feel the air leaving it's body in a muffled scream as she clenched her modified hand, sinking claws into the beast's flesh as she narrowed her eyes and then held it down against the groudn, her mind racing with what she'd just done. With a sudden retraction, she pulled her hands back, retracting the claws into her fingers and then driving those knuckle-mounted lengths of bone into the creature's shoulder, digging it into the ground as that beast suddenly started flailing. The force of it's struggles made her grit her teeth, tensing just for a moment as she realized that this might not be enough. This damn thing .... was rougher than she had figured. She cursed under her breath and suddenly yanked those long blades out of it's body, kicking off of it's frame and shoving it back intot he dirt as she leapt back and made a bit of distance between her and it's shuddering body.
She panted as she skidded back and then glanced to the side at her grimoire. Right.... Still not enough. She could certainly butcher this thing to pieces, but ... no. No that wasn't her. Not right now. That was a dumb animals' death. This thing deserved.... suffering. An irrational thought, and one she would, later, perhaps even find repugnant, that she was capable of such hate-filled thoughts. No matter how personally she'd felt slighted by this thing's presence in the trove of her mother's old things. It simply wasn't logical. But those were thoughts for later, when she'd had time to think, to reason. When she wasn't this fucking angry.
Instead, she let her grimoire open back up and turned to a new blank page. And this time, she tried to direct her thoughts into it, and let her mind race. Thinking about the mechanations of her most reccent spell. No.... too simple. Too brutish. She couldn't tunr herself into some sort of monster just to do this. She needed..... to calm down. To be cold and calculated about all of this. She slowly settled and narrowed her eyes in the direction of the wounded bat as it spat up a bit of blood. A fleshy, living thing that it didn't deserve. No it could be something......else. And the idea sparked in her mind for just a moment. And she allowed her arm to return to it's normal form as she ended that spell, and watched as that idea blooming in her mind took form on the pages of her grimoire. This spell matrix was so much more familiar. One she'd known practically since she'd first gotten that pretty four leafed clover grimoire. A Curse spell. And she smiled slowly as she realized she had, somewhere in the mess of situations she'd been in since entering clover, a bit stronger than she had been. This spell was so much more...mature and effective. And she noticed one portion of the matrix in particular. A sortof.....quirk that had never really had any much use in the past to her spells. An anomoly in the spell structure that frankly her spells had been too weak to really utilize in the past, but now it seemed that if she just adjusted it a little.... it had the perfect function for just this sort of situation.
Those all-too-calm eyes shifted in the direction of the injured bat, watching as it shakily got up from the ground. A smile playing cattily across her lips as she let aspects of that warm, smiling mask she always used play out across her face. Looking gently, almost friendly in the direction of the bat as she gently walked towards it. A large wooden belll slowly forming in the air infront of her, and she could see it looking in her direction. No idea about what was about to happen to it. "I'm so very sorry sir. I'm afraid that I was a little.....enraged by your presence. But suffice to say, I'm much calmer now. I do so apologize for the rough treatment. but it's time for you to leave. For you to leave this life of yours. For you to leave my side...mr.thorn~" She murmured softly, and grntly raised a hand, forming a fist. "and to that end. I'll mark your exit. A bell just for you, to toll out your life." She spoke sweetly, before gently rapping her knuckles against that wooden instrument.
The sound flowed out and echoed clean through it's body. Thankfully nothing else living was in the path of that burst of sound. As once it's echoes died down, the Bat, the intruder, the violator of her mother's legacy, so far as Shizu was concerned, suddenly began screaming. As tiny seeds seemed to burrow into it's flesh from out of nowhere. Pitting it's skin, and making it begin tearing at itself as those seeds began to grow. Bark spreading along it's skin. Peeling the flesh off it's body as that bark grew into it's body, and made it suddenly shudder and writhe on the ground. IT was a slow.... steady process. One that Shizuyoru watched with calm, uncaring eyes as slowly, that bat creature stopped moving, frozen in place in a state of suspension. It's body finally giving out as it promptly died, it's blood drizzling out of the gaps in the bark prison that kept it's corpse raised up in that pained stance, it's wing's spread and mouth open, entombed in bark, as if still silently screaming it's agony into the open night air.
Shizu took a slow..... deep and steady breath as she watched the thing finally stop moving... and she brushed herself off. Regaining her composure as she eyed the new page of her grimoire, and the spell it entailed. even more, she could feel her mana restored through that world tree magic leeching whatever was left in the creature's dying form. Without a second thought.... she walked up to that bark statue and gently pushed it over, ignoring the sight and sound of it shattering and breaking the damaged body underneath into several pieces, only for the bark to grow over those new exposed segments. She quickly and quietly slipped back into her little hidden cove and promptly turned her attention to improving the security of the little hideout. She didn't need a repeat incident...
twc: 2312/2000 for 2 Intermediate spells
