#im a bit sceptical about how well my clips holding it will work if i get a big gust of wind from the window

[revlushaun]

finally moving my room around so the first thing i put up was my blanket from @alexsiple

it looks FANTASTIC 🥰

[thedistantstorm]

A Gentle Truth [3/3]

A Ghost finds his Guardian in the ruins of Tokyo. She asks him for a name. He agrees, but only if she grants him one in return.

Previously: One | Two

They come across a scavenger in the ruins on her sixth day. He's a burly man who makes a lot of noise and seems to enjoy shooting Fallen who happen upon him.

Something about him frightens her, frightens his Guardian. Perhaps it's the scars on his arms, or the obvious weapons at his sides, or the love of chaotic violence. "We can go around," The nameless Ghost tells her. "He won't be able to see us. He doesn't have a display like the one we share, to tell him of enemies nearby."

Even still, one scavenger usually means there are others - they come in groups, Ghost says. She keeps to the shadows, moving stealthily between the skeletal buildings that tower above her, their frames built to withstand earthquakes. Something about it bothers her, makes her expressly sad, for reasons she does not understand. 

Something in her recognizes this place, even if she's only perturbed by seeing an Awoken face rather than a human staring back at her in dingy mirrors. She is interesting, his Guardian is. He's found himself wondering about her more and more while she sleeps. Why was she returning here? Did she feel the pull in her previous life, too? It intrigued him to no end.

They're blocks away when they hear the sound of more fighting. She has no weapons, nothing in their search has been worth carrying around in the day, and fists will not defeat a gun. Not for a new Guardian, at least. She might get a punch in, but her enemy would empty a clip in her belly for it. And with her Light so new - warm and bright, but untempered - she hardly stood a chance if it came to an altercation, Ghost thought. He had yet to see her demonstrate the knowledge of fighting most Guardians seemed to intrinsically grasp.

He sticks close to her. She likes the comfort of him in sight, the way he uses himself like a beacon for her to orbit about. She does not understand that it's entirely the opposite.

They dip into the remains of an old shopping center. It's mostly open and overgrown, the glass ceiling shattered across the dirty tiles. "They're following us, aren't they?" She whispers, in accented common.

He bobs, dimming his singular eye. "They must be tracking us, to see what we find. You're stronger than them."

She gives him a comical look, sceptic.

"You'll understand eventually," He hums. "Let's try and wait them out."

It doesn't help, though. They hide beneath rubble, carefully peering over counters and cracks in the flimsy walls. One of the scavengers throws off the collapsed beam and flaking drywall she's hiding under and motions with a crook of his fingers. "Come out, come out, little Lightbearer." 

Over his shoulder, he calls something out in a strange language she doesn't understand. She rises and her Ghost phases away. Three more men come into the dilapidated store. 

The large, loud man from before steps past all of them, grabbing her by the chin. "Well she looks like a newborn, do'dn't she?" He laughs, sneering. "Where's your Ghost, love? Ain't 'e tell ya how the world works?"

"Leave him out of it," She snarls back. One of them grabs her by the hair, their other hand falling to her shoulder, wrenching it back. The leader of their group releases her chin to smack her across the face.

Ghost appears beside her then, shell spinning furiously. "Release my Guardian!" He hollers. "She's not taking anything you're after."

They group laughs. "We know tha', Li'tl Light," He jeers. "We ain't after her at all," He explains. "It's just the easiest way to do this-"

The voltage of arc energy makes Ghost scream in endless agony until his tiny eye shuts and he falls to the ground with a metallic clunk. The two men - one holding a generator or fuel cell of some sort, the other holding a bit of exposed wiring, laugh, excited.

"Got 'em, boss! Bet you-know-who will be really pleased."

"You know he will, you little shits," Comes the gleeful reply. "As for you," He tells the girl, "I can tell you ain't fixin' ta fight and that suits us just fine. Who knows, maybe you'll find a new one someday."

"Give him back," She commands as they take turns tumbling her dazed companion end over end, studying him.

"Sweetheart, I don' think you quite understand." He pulls a knife from his belt. "You're not in'na position to be makin' the calls 'round here."

"Let us go," She tries again, flailing about, trying to get free. Her voice is earnest. "Please."

He just laughs and the scavenger with his hand tangled in her hair yanks to illustrate how useless her struggling is. No matter how she claws at his gauntletted hands, he does not budge.

"If the bot wakes, crank up the juice 'n hit 'em again," The leader instructs his men, turned towards them. "They're flighty little things." He scoffs. "Now. As for you-"

There's a crack and a howl as the woman's foot all but goes through that of the man holding her. His steel-toed boot is crushed, caved in. There's a lingering warmth, the smell of wood fire in the air. The Guardian growls. "Remove hands and I release foot."

The man holding onto her is helpless but to comply, gripping his broken foot with a guttural cry when she steps forward and off of it.

"Tell your men. Release Ghost, or I not be kind," She tells him, and the cherubic visage is gone, replaced by flaring nostrils and narrowed diamond eyes.

"Without him, yer the same as me," He says, waving his knife. "Except I have a-"

It feels like she blinks fire as the two men to her right drop her Ghost to the ground and hit him with more amps of arc. She plucks the blade from the man's hands - wrapping her hand around the sharp end - and casts it aside. If the bite of the steel into her palm, the blood marring her fingers bothers her, she gives no indication.

"Get away from him," She says heatedly. "Now."

"Don't listen to her," The man before her says, drawing a gun from his belt. "She ain't gonna do no harm. She’s just a babe.” His laugh is overwhelming. “She let me draw this,” He waves it at her, yellowed teeth twisted in a smart smile. “How ‘bout you back off and I promise we won’t hurt your li’tl buddy no more.”

“You’re lying,” She tells him, accent thick. “I not believe you.”

“You’re good. Really good. I was gonna let you think it’d be that way, get out of ear shot before we plugged ‘em up with so’more juice. But yer startin’ to piss me off,” He growls. “So I’m startin’ to think I should shoot you.”

“You not shoot me.”

“No?”

She looks at the canon in his hands, eyes darting from it and back to his own.

“Oh, you think yer gonna get this one from me?”

She narrows her gaze.

“Oh, that’s a horrible idea.” He levels his gun at her tiny, knocked out companion. “I’m liable to shoot ‘im instead.”

With untraceable speed, she headbutts the scavenger, slipping around him not a second after and twisting the arm with the gun behind his back until he whines and releases his grip on it. She thumbs the safety off and points it at the other two, who jump at the insinuation. “Not want to hurt,” She tells them, voice soft. Serious. “But I will.”

“Let him go,” They nod to their bloodied leader.

Sternly, she instructs, “Away from Ghost. Take men.”

They do as they’re told, walking widely around her to get their comrades. It almost goes off without a hitch. Almost.

But then the man she’d headbutted pulls the gun from his subordinate’s holster and fires at her when she releases his twisted arm. 

Fight or flight instincts kick in. It’s as though she’s watching in slow motion as he pulls the weapon and discharges it at her. She moves in time and the bullet bursts through her shoulder, rather than her chest. Her face twists in pain and she pulls the man back by his arm, breaking it cleanly. When he moves to speak, she smacks him with his own gun. The force dislocates his jaw and sends him tumbling to the ground. She clenches her fists. They feel hot.

"Go," She tells them, dripping blood all over herself as she rushes to cradle her Ghost. "I won't tell again. No more kindness."

“You’ll pay,” They tell her, even as they tremble and shake. “People will find out about what you’ve done. Powerful people. Other Risen. You’ll pay.”

“No,” She looks up through stringy black-grey hair, eyes hard. She rises, watching them. “Do good, be good. No harm others. Ghost or Human.”

“I don’t know what kind of world you think you’ve woken up into, Risen,” The one with the injured foot tells her. “That isn’t how this is.”

She tilts her head to the side, considering silently. When she speaks, something has changed. “I think that’s the world we should be,” She answers, in a smooth, unwavering bell-chime tone. She doesn’t notice the sliver of cyan light from the flickering optic of the Ghost in her arms, but she clutches the shell close to her chest when he twitches mildly. “The world we should make it.”

She goes unanswered. They limp away to the Northwest. She heads to the South.

-/

When he wakes, the sun is setting, and they are walking through buildings, toward the narrow sea that separates the island from the mainland. She moves slowly, but she does not seem to be nearly as fearful. The scavenger’s cannon is tucked into her belt.

Fingers smooth over his dented, battered shell, soft and sure. “It is nothing,” She whispers, equally as soft. “You are unharmed?”

He flexes the bits of his shell, perching on her cupped palms, wiggling in a lopsided line, unable to control his motions well just yet. She plucks him from the air, wincing as she does. “I think I’ll need some time,” He informs her. “But I can-”

She finds a place overlooking the water to sit and watch the remainder of the Sun’s journey down below the horizon. “I think I can do it,” His partner says. She crosses her legs on a slab of concrete and closes her eyes, basking in the evening glow. She gasps as she feels the tendrils of something strange unfurl within her. Her wound slowly, sluggishly weaves itself back together. She looks down at the material of her tunic and sighs. “Better,” She tells him, relieved. He seems to enjoy the strange energy she’s exuding, drifting up under her chin carefully, and so she endeavors to make it last as long as she can.

When it’s over, he moves far easier as well. “You said something,” He tells her. “Back there. To those men.”

His Guardian hums.

“You said you wanted the world to be the kind of world where people do good and are good.”

She nods. “It isn’t, is it?”

He shakes his body in a negative. “It’s more dangerous. Scary. Dark.”

“But we can make it better, yes?”

Surprised, he comments, “Your speaking is better. It wasn’t-”

“I’m not afraid,” She supposes mildly. “I think it’s better when I am comfortable.” She watches his singular eye. “If they come back, if they come for you, I will protect us.” She puts a hand over her heart, quicksilver eyes softening. “I am your Guardian, after all,” She reminds him with the softest of smiles. 

“My Miyu,” He corrects. “You’re my Miyu. My gentle truth.”

“Mi-yu.” She repeats, looking at him in awe. “Is that-”

He spins, asking nervously, “Do you like it?”

“Sutekidesu!” She gushes immediately, thrilled, her finger tapping her lips. “I-”

“It’s okay if you don’t have one for me yet,” He tells her. “I don’t need to know now.” 

She reaches for his fins, cradling him gently and bringing his top fin to her lips. He’s all but vibrating in excitement. She’d chosen his name not long after the subject had been brought up, but wasn’t sure. But now, she’s resolute. It’s the right choice. He is her spirit. A part of her, like she is a part of him. “Tamashii.”

“Me?”

“You,” She smiles. “It means-”

He interrupts, already having looked it up in that database of his. “It’s perfect. I love it. I love you,” He trills, hovering around her in an excited circle. “Miyu! My Miyu. My Guardian. We can make it better, this world. I know it. That’s what we’re here to do,” Tamashii chimes, determined.

Miyu nods, her emotions bright in those pale eyes, rising to her feet as the sun disappears and the skies are painted in the colors of twilight. “Lead the way, Tamashii.”

“Well, it’s not quite that easy,” He hums. “We’re going to need to find a ship. Or make a skiff. That’s why I wanted you looking for wood. I don’t think we’re going to get much further on the island here.”

“We’ll figure it out. I could always swim,” She says, earnestly.

He feints through the air. “Do you know how far it is to the mainland? You’d never-” He pauses at her silent laughing. “Miyu!”

She giggles helplessly. “You are gullible, Tamashii.” She dusts off her hands on her ripped robe. “We should start looking for something we can use to float across. The sky is red. We should have good weather tomorrow.”

“In a rush?”

“It’s a big world,” She tells him. “We’re going to be here a while.”

“You have no idea,” He tells her, hovering over her shoulder, right where he’s meant to be. “I searched most of it looking for you.”