Aislyn Wevere
Aoyama ~ Brick Lane
??/??/2026
Sometime After Midnight, Storm
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---It was at times like these that she wished for a little more abuse of magical power.
The sudden storm that had washed over Tokyo had been one that everyone had seen coming for days now, and yet one that had been allowed to move about as it liked, coming to drench a town that could have easily banished it if not for the sake of keeping things natural... Of course, it's not like she doesn't understand that sentiment, one driven by emotion rather than practicality, but...
Well...
When one is forced to go out walking in that rain, in that storm, without any form of protection of her own, well...
It was a tad annoying, especially when this walk was happening so early in the morning; it's the final misfortune in a line of misfortunes, having been scheduled to close down the restaurant for the night, it was the appearance of a large party at the end (group of about twenty or so people) that had put an end to the idea that she might just be able to go home on time for once... Their stay had delayed the closing process quite a bit, pushed things back two hours or so, and now...
Now she was wandering in the town, in the early morning, when anyone reasonable should have been long asleep in bed...
"They were kinda rude too... But I guess this is part of the job..."
Sighing to herself, the girl complains aloud but there is no one around to hear her other than the rain; she's not like most of the people in this city, she simply has no need for a COMP and thus never really bothered to get one, of course...
She was paying for that now.
Footsteps splash along the cobbled paths of Brick Lane; while the entirety of the ward was essentially a mixture of tradition and modernity, with old shrines and historical buildings existing alongside newer government agencies and railway companies, Brick Lane was the part of Aoyama that most gave off the atmosphere of a more Western style city. Brick structures line a straight path down the area, with establishments like the Mokujima Bakery (at the northern end of the district) giving way to places like "Devil May Cry" (a store she had never entered before herself) or "Le Coultre," (an antique shop owned by a particularly troublesome woman) and even "Boutique Nomad," a clothing store known for popularizing the latest fashions, all ending with the Starlight Aquarium at the very end of the path, yes...
Brick Lane was a place she knew well, right now she worked at a pasta restaurant in the area, and well...
She came down through here to get to home every day.
Of course, it wasn't usually this empty; with Aoyama being the "Magic City," it certainly has a bustling nightlife, people wandering too and fro all throughout the late night hours without a care in the world, but it seemed like...
Three A.M was a bit much even for the Night Owls, or perhaps...
Everyone was simply avoiding the storm?
She wasn't quite sure yet. She had only moved into this town recently, and while the residents were friendly, there was still a certain sense that they belonged to an inner circle that outsiders simply couldn't understand right away... It is perhaps to be expected, the older residents of this town (and even some of the younger adults) had been through quite a harrowing series of ordeals together, struck with wave after wave of supernatural phenomena that had led to it's current state as the most magical area on the planet, yes...
Both Kyuubi Incidents alone were enough to leave a permanent scar on this place, but...
There was probably something more than that too, the power that shielded and healed the humans that lived here...
This area was connected to something quite special, and the residents (at least on some level) were probably well aware of this fact.
So...
It's probably natural that she feels like a bit of an outsider, in time, she'd probably be pulled into that extended Aoyama family that seemed to exist here amongst everyone...
Or at least, she wanted to think so, but...
Tonight she was alone.
Alone with little more than the rain, or at least, she was...
---Soon enough, as she moves through the area, the young woman can hear the sound of something like television static in the rain; static that joins with the feeling of bugs skittering across her body, as a figure comes into view in the distance.
In the rain, it's hard to see exactly what it looks like, but...
It's not hard to tell what it is...
Shadow.
Sometimes called youkai, monsters made out of hostile human spirits, or rather, humans that have decided to take on the shape and role of monsters. Such things are incredibly rare, but not
impossible to see in Aoyama... While the ward is normally bright and cheerful, there are remnants of darkness and oddity that stick their heads out from time to time... For a monster like the Kyuubi to have fallen in this area, a monster that itself represented the "darkness of all human hearts," there was bound to be one or two lingering regrets still hiding away from the brilliant lights that roam this land now, the Tamers... No, even the civilians are too bright for them nowadays...
Normally, they would be too scared of those lights to emerge like this, however...
---For some reason, these sorts of things
really didn't like her, or at least, evidence suggests that they don't; she's not quite sure of the reason why, it might simply be because her Reiki is particularly attractive to twisted human spirits for some reason, but...
This was the night she found out they didn't like her enough to actively get in her way if the opportunity presented itself, if no one else was around, if they thought they could get away with it, and it was the time of night where their powers were highest, yes...
The thing had the head of a television set, mud streaming from it's head like wires, and...
"...!"
...She had frozen up.
Combat had never been her forte... She wasn't good at the punching and the kicking, the magical explosions and violent clashes of ideals and reality...
She was pretty good at magic, but she wasn't a good fighter.
Once, she had had a bit more confidence, confidence enough to not freeze up at the sight of a monster that wouldn't have a single other member of this ward flinch, but...
She does.
She freezes in place, as it slowly limbers towards her.
...Of course, it might not be entirely the fault of her cowardice. Entities like this do tend to have ways to make their prey stand still, and without a COMP, without her lucky book that served as a sort of charm, well...
It was easy enough to fall prey to such a thing...
---It's a bit pathetic really.
Even the average civilian of this place would have at least managed to dodge an attack, probably multiple, enough that a Tamer could appear and handle the problem, or a group of civilians could all come beat it down on their own, but...
She doesn't have that strength either, she's not a good fighter, and thus...
She freezes up.
The mud-like whips close in on her in a flash, and...
"..."
A hand catches them all, easily.
It's the hand of a girl with long black hair, with clothes stained like the night, and an expression that Aislyn can only describe as emotionless...
Yes.
The emotionless look of someone that had practiced being so, who had become stoic, rather than being so right from the start.
"..."
The girl says nothing, the waitress says nothing, but the monster...
It screeches.
Like it had found some other prey it had been looking for, the thing disregards the strange mud whips and swipes at her with impossible claws, but...
"...Leave me alone already."
The new girl has no mercy.
Or perhaps, it's simply a lack of restraint?
Power enough to yank the being's head down into the cobble street by the wires, a primal, brute force strike that nevertheless has a certain flow to it, yes...
The flow of someone who does this sort of thing often, a grab, smash, and stomp that executes the monster with all the casual brutality that one might reserve for a bug or an insect...
It's... Practiced....
Something this person has done many times, so many times that the body can simply take over and do it on it's own, and yet...
When she's done, when she's struck the monster down easily, as a Tamer might do, that girl...
Simply starts walking away.
...Perhaps that's the oddest thing of it all?
Perhaps that's why she calls out to that retreating back? To the soaked clothes that don't seem to care that they're soaked, the trembling muscles that don't seem to realize they're shaking with cold, or to the eyes that hadn't seemed to register her existence at all?
Yes.
That's certainly why she calls out...
"Uh... Um... Thank you...?"
Those words had come harder to her at the time.
The bane of pride, as one might say, but to that...
"...Nothing to be thanked for... It was after me originally... So I needed to take care of it anyway."
In other words, her savior really had barely acknowledged her existence, but...
The rumble of a stomach shatters that cool, stoic image, and...
"Are you... Are you hungry...?"
Reveals the awkward way the girl fidgets, as she clearly keeps attempting to escape social obligation and...
"I can feed you... As a thank you...?"
"..."
...Demands of the physical form.
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Originally Posted by Logan
