wrecking_yard (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wrecking_yard) wrote2013-04-01 01:03 pm
wrecking_yard) wrote2013-04-01 01:03 pm
Sparrows make lousy spies. (4/???)
Fandom: KHR
Summary: Part four of Mukuro's ongoing thing; Mukuro starts illusion lessons for Chrome, and sparrows make lousy spies.
Stealthing in and out getting what they could and covering what thefts ended up happening was perfectly good foundation practice, as much as he spent a good part of it doing the equivalent of a parent pretending to hold up a child's bicycle while taking their hands away - she had more than enough raw power and talent, but not the confidence in herself yet to hold it.
It was a good start, and being able to get away with as much as they did was a great deal for someone who'd never actually used their powers before.
Unfortunately, while there weren't exact details yet, he'd gleaned enough from his own investigations to know what they were up against. He and the others had tangled with lower-ranking agents of the Varia in the past, and those "lackeys" had been among the more dangerous things they'd tangled with as children; they were up against the leaders, now, and she'd need at least enough to potentially survive against the most dangerous people the Vongola had - something where learning it would take more time and more pushing of her system than they could afford with her frail condition, under normal circumstances.
Which was why he waited until she'd fallen asleep to cheat; a little tug to walk into her dreams, as he had when they first met.
The idyllic, escapist forest had taken on a few new traits - what might've been the ruins of a carousel, now almost unrecognizable under the tree roots and growth; a few other pieces here and there that he smiled quietly at - while none of it was quite familiar as parts of Kokuyo itself, she also had barely been there a few days, and the basic idea was clear enough; pieces of an abandoned and partly nature-reclaimed amusement park becoming a part of her idea of 'safety'.
The clearing she stayed in was the same as before, and she still hadn't quite left behind the plain white dress, although there was a hospital eyepatch over her missing eye.
"Mukuro-sama! Is everything alright?"
He shook his head slightly, smiling calmly; still unsure enough to assume something might be wrong.
"You did well today, Chrome - I wanted to teach you how to use your illusions, should there be a threat, without putting too much strain on you.". He gestured to the forest around them. "The power of an illusion comes from how 'real' it is to the illusionist; so making something real in a dream like this, growing used to it being solid, will help it be solid when you are awake and actually using power.".
Chrome nodded, but there was an unsure glance at the trees around them; the dream space had been a solace for years, but not something where the idea of it being real had ever been a thought.
"Is something wrong?"
She almost flinched, unsure how to react - nobody asked her questions like that, not with actually meaning them. "I-I...I'm not sure I could make anything real like that..."
Mukuro sighed softly, glancing down to the grass as he walked over closer, a hand resting gently on her shoulder. "I would not be able to work through you if you did not have the same potential; I did little more than act as a guiding hand earlier - it was your power that kept us hidden."
"But... It doesn't work, to make something like this forest real...". She was looking away, only sparing small glances to him.
He chuckled, soft and quiet. "It could; but it would take time to build the reserves of power needed to support it in the real world. Would you like to see where I learned?"
There was a tiny uncertain hum - a mumble without the movement for it to get past her throat; she shifted her weight and nodded.
"Alright. Nothing you see will harm you, I promise you - give me this place and I will show you."
It was a tiny mental nudge, his memory there; not taking it away by force, just a tug for permission, giving her the choice to give him control. For a few moments her safe place knotted it's existence harder, fear and years of broken trust tangling, before she found a pattern to pull the right thread, surrendering the dream over.
The forest dropped away, replaced with a plain of blasted-looking bare rock; the sky overhead, if it was a sky, was blocked out completely by a canopy of thick, dark smoke, shot through with lightning and sparks of flame. A river flowed nearby, wide and deep, thicker than water and deep crimson, flames licking across its surface and bubbling up from eddies within it. The area was blanketed by thin bits of the smell of smoke, heat-hazed over something sickly metallic, and hot breezes carried a distant sound of screams and sobbing.
Mukuro was still and calm; Chrome's eye widened, a hand going to her mouth as she shrank, processing everything around them. He took a step closer, both hands on her shoulders, a soft nudge closer - stability and something secure. "It's a memory; old scrolls in this world would call this place the Hell of Burning Blood. It is a frightful place, but one with a purpose - souls that fall into this place carry deep hurt, too much to heal themselves; through this, the hurt they do to themselves is burned out until they can be reborn with a clean start. The demons that dwell here are frightful and dangerous, but have a meaning to their existence."
She tensed, but leaned closer, looking up again at the river and lowering her hand with a slight nod. " Your memory... You were?". She nodded to the river and looked up at him, any fear of the setting turned to worry.
Mukuro shook his head. "I was one of Enma-oh's demons, in another life; that part of my being was one of the things brought into this body - I had power over the reality here, such as an illusion would give.". He gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze, taking a careful half-step back. "Do not be afraid - whatever image I may carry, I am myself.".
He gave her a moment to ponder that, searching for what he meant, before his own image changed; something much taller, a humanoid figure with legs somewhere between reptilian and a bird's talons ending in hooked claws, scaled hands ending in long claws more fitting a bird of prey. Black feathers and scales covered his body under a simple cloth drape. He'd kept his eyes, mostly, to keep a familiar touch point, but they were set in an avian skull, a heavy raven's bill with a few long, sharp teeth showing. A long, scaled tail curled around her as he shifted to kneel so his eye level would be at least a little closer, the claws staying gently around her now comparatively smaller shoulders. As theatrical as it was, it was also more comfortable in that setting; the human self-image never did mesh well with the fragmented memories of the Hells.
There were a few quiet, wide-eyed moments and a faint "Mukuro...sama?" before she bowed her head with a faint smile, a hand going up to settle on one of his claws as she relaxed. It didn't really surprise him that she'd gone more at ease with him as a demon; she was another one that'd seen more than enough of what cruelty humans were capable of to make even a demon feel more trustworthy, something that existed with a purpose.
"This is what I was when I learned.". He moved one of his hands to hold it out to the river as if beckoning; the flowing blood bubbled as a pillar of flames rose out of it, moving over to stop a few feet away, close enough for a wash of heat. He gave a guiding nudge with the claw still resting on her shoulder, encouraging her a few inches closer to him and a little closer and facing it, a gesture she followed. "It exists and moves because I remember it - the heat, how it glows and flickers, the way it shifts in a breeze, and I make that memory real - it does not have to be something of this place.". The light flickered, the flames receding and shifting as if shrinking around something before going out, leaving behind a thin pillar of twined vines with lotus blossoms hanging from them, the heat going out with the flames. Chrome stepped forward, reaching out to feel one of the flower petals with a careful hand. "Could you bring something from your forest here? Just a small, simple thing, for now; a few flowers or a bird - remember it well and see it here, wish for it to be here, and you can learn to make it real.". Start small, with less scale to doubt herself.
Chrome nodded to him, and gave a last look to the lotus vines before she bowed her head, hands folded in front of her chest and eye closed in concentration.
A tiny shoot struggled out of the ground at her feet, leaves unfurling as it bloomed; she didn't see it, eye still closed as her brow creased with concentration, and more blades of grass and shoots of flowers began to sprout. Mukuro rocked back on his heels, head tilted with interest as he watched; the lotus pillar vanished, no longer needed. The green patch grew and spread under his feet and around them, her own worry about not doing well enough mingling with her expectations of what "should" be there around the flower, until a larger shoot broke ground, a stem strengthening into a sapling that grew as he watched, branches spreading out to shade over their head with leaves; it wasn't until there was a tiny, twittering chirp from the branches that she opened her eye, stepping back with a small squeak at the new, tiny garden grown around Mukuro's larger demonic frame. He righted his head, looking from it to her with a proud feather-fluff.
"I - what?" The grass started vanishing. "Did you -?"
"No, no - this was all yours; you remembered the flower with grass and trees, so it has grass and a tree.". He was proudly bemused, holding a hand up for quiet. "You did well - it will get stronger with practice."
Perhaps she would be up to standing up to something herself sooner than he thought; at this rate, she might be able to change the Hell back to her forest within a few night's practice, an exercise he could easily shift into pushing against him gradually until she learned to push her will over another's.
------------------------
It was getting harder to find someone to look through or use around the headquarters; anything interesting was under higher security, and the only potential hosts he found that were allowed near were a couple Varia subordinates - not ones with enough rank to get as close as he wanted.
They were moving something, crates and boxes, as well as other orders; the Varia followers were getting pre-emptive orders, quietly trickling out somewhere else to be ready. None of his were being moved yet, and it was a "You'll know when you get there and receive further instruction there" basis, making them useless.
He had suspicions what they were moving - but wanted to be sure; the crates were, thankfully, being loaded outside.
He kept his closest host as a spatial point of reference, a jumping off point as he slipped towards a different mentality, reaching out for other minds closer to that - simpler, small, nervous things, a few sparrows that lived on the grounds; he couldn't directly posess them easily, but could look through them, send some ideas and suggestions.
Suggestions like "there might be food dropped around those boxes" and "the cats on the grounds were chased away from them"; simple appeals to food and shelter from predators.
The birds fluttered down to the ground in a narrow space between the crates, hopping along for crumbs left behind by the men loading them - some of which had been sneaking food, making it not a total lie and easier to keep the birds there, catching a closer look at the crates and a few words from someone on the other side - apparently a conversation where the others had been shooed out of earshot on pretense of a break.
"-elieve he's actually going to use it... That thing gives me the creeps; anything Mussolini's people were behind is bad news.". Someone older, much older; he made a mental note of the voice. "I didn't think the Ninth would be okay with anything his mother had to put a stop to."
"Well, he signed off on it yesterday - he wants the Mosca ready and moved, As long as it works, it doesn't matter who made it; it's ours now.". So they weren't in the loop entirely.
"I still don't like it... I heard that thing gets powered by putting someone's heart in it or feeding it a live person, and the Eighth was pretty adamant that it was only here to study if someone else made one - she really hated this thing.".
The other man laughed; something about how he was brushing this off crossed Mukuro's instincts wrong. "you really believe an old wives' tale like that? That doesn't even make sense, it's a machine. She didn't let anybody study it so people made up stories. They probably just used prisoners for target practice or something unconscionable-research like that, and she didn't want to be associated with it,".
Far too light a out it; unfortunately, he leaned on the other side of one of the crates so it shifted, enough to startle the sparrows into deciding they didn't want to be there.
He dropped his influence, sinking in the tank for a small sulk; sparrows were lousy at being reliable spies. He'd need to spend some of the day resting anyway before he spent more time training Chrome, as much as he disliked the dark and silence of the tank; there were times he wasn't even sure if "rest" was meditation or actually sleeping even after the fact.
Summary: Part four of Mukuro's ongoing thing; Mukuro starts illusion lessons for Chrome, and sparrows make lousy spies.
Stealthing in and out getting what they could and covering what thefts ended up happening was perfectly good foundation practice, as much as he spent a good part of it doing the equivalent of a parent pretending to hold up a child's bicycle while taking their hands away - she had more than enough raw power and talent, but not the confidence in herself yet to hold it.
It was a good start, and being able to get away with as much as they did was a great deal for someone who'd never actually used their powers before.
Unfortunately, while there weren't exact details yet, he'd gleaned enough from his own investigations to know what they were up against. He and the others had tangled with lower-ranking agents of the Varia in the past, and those "lackeys" had been among the more dangerous things they'd tangled with as children; they were up against the leaders, now, and she'd need at least enough to potentially survive against the most dangerous people the Vongola had - something where learning it would take more time and more pushing of her system than they could afford with her frail condition, under normal circumstances.
Which was why he waited until she'd fallen asleep to cheat; a little tug to walk into her dreams, as he had when they first met.
The idyllic, escapist forest had taken on a few new traits - what might've been the ruins of a carousel, now almost unrecognizable under the tree roots and growth; a few other pieces here and there that he smiled quietly at - while none of it was quite familiar as parts of Kokuyo itself, she also had barely been there a few days, and the basic idea was clear enough; pieces of an abandoned and partly nature-reclaimed amusement park becoming a part of her idea of 'safety'.
The clearing she stayed in was the same as before, and she still hadn't quite left behind the plain white dress, although there was a hospital eyepatch over her missing eye.
"Mukuro-sama! Is everything alright?"
He shook his head slightly, smiling calmly; still unsure enough to assume something might be wrong.
"You did well today, Chrome - I wanted to teach you how to use your illusions, should there be a threat, without putting too much strain on you.". He gestured to the forest around them. "The power of an illusion comes from how 'real' it is to the illusionist; so making something real in a dream like this, growing used to it being solid, will help it be solid when you are awake and actually using power.".
Chrome nodded, but there was an unsure glance at the trees around them; the dream space had been a solace for years, but not something where the idea of it being real had ever been a thought.
"Is something wrong?"
She almost flinched, unsure how to react - nobody asked her questions like that, not with actually meaning them. "I-I...I'm not sure I could make anything real like that..."
Mukuro sighed softly, glancing down to the grass as he walked over closer, a hand resting gently on her shoulder. "I would not be able to work through you if you did not have the same potential; I did little more than act as a guiding hand earlier - it was your power that kept us hidden."
"But... It doesn't work, to make something like this forest real...". She was looking away, only sparing small glances to him.
He chuckled, soft and quiet. "It could; but it would take time to build the reserves of power needed to support it in the real world. Would you like to see where I learned?"
There was a tiny uncertain hum - a mumble without the movement for it to get past her throat; she shifted her weight and nodded.
"Alright. Nothing you see will harm you, I promise you - give me this place and I will show you."
It was a tiny mental nudge, his memory there; not taking it away by force, just a tug for permission, giving her the choice to give him control. For a few moments her safe place knotted it's existence harder, fear and years of broken trust tangling, before she found a pattern to pull the right thread, surrendering the dream over.
The forest dropped away, replaced with a plain of blasted-looking bare rock; the sky overhead, if it was a sky, was blocked out completely by a canopy of thick, dark smoke, shot through with lightning and sparks of flame. A river flowed nearby, wide and deep, thicker than water and deep crimson, flames licking across its surface and bubbling up from eddies within it. The area was blanketed by thin bits of the smell of smoke, heat-hazed over something sickly metallic, and hot breezes carried a distant sound of screams and sobbing.
Mukuro was still and calm; Chrome's eye widened, a hand going to her mouth as she shrank, processing everything around them. He took a step closer, both hands on her shoulders, a soft nudge closer - stability and something secure. "It's a memory; old scrolls in this world would call this place the Hell of Burning Blood. It is a frightful place, but one with a purpose - souls that fall into this place carry deep hurt, too much to heal themselves; through this, the hurt they do to themselves is burned out until they can be reborn with a clean start. The demons that dwell here are frightful and dangerous, but have a meaning to their existence."
She tensed, but leaned closer, looking up again at the river and lowering her hand with a slight nod. " Your memory... You were?". She nodded to the river and looked up at him, any fear of the setting turned to worry.
Mukuro shook his head. "I was one of Enma-oh's demons, in another life; that part of my being was one of the things brought into this body - I had power over the reality here, such as an illusion would give.". He gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze, taking a careful half-step back. "Do not be afraid - whatever image I may carry, I am myself.".
He gave her a moment to ponder that, searching for what he meant, before his own image changed; something much taller, a humanoid figure with legs somewhere between reptilian and a bird's talons ending in hooked claws, scaled hands ending in long claws more fitting a bird of prey. Black feathers and scales covered his body under a simple cloth drape. He'd kept his eyes, mostly, to keep a familiar touch point, but they were set in an avian skull, a heavy raven's bill with a few long, sharp teeth showing. A long, scaled tail curled around her as he shifted to kneel so his eye level would be at least a little closer, the claws staying gently around her now comparatively smaller shoulders. As theatrical as it was, it was also more comfortable in that setting; the human self-image never did mesh well with the fragmented memories of the Hells.
There were a few quiet, wide-eyed moments and a faint "Mukuro...sama?" before she bowed her head with a faint smile, a hand going up to settle on one of his claws as she relaxed. It didn't really surprise him that she'd gone more at ease with him as a demon; she was another one that'd seen more than enough of what cruelty humans were capable of to make even a demon feel more trustworthy, something that existed with a purpose.
"This is what I was when I learned.". He moved one of his hands to hold it out to the river as if beckoning; the flowing blood bubbled as a pillar of flames rose out of it, moving over to stop a few feet away, close enough for a wash of heat. He gave a guiding nudge with the claw still resting on her shoulder, encouraging her a few inches closer to him and a little closer and facing it, a gesture she followed. "It exists and moves because I remember it - the heat, how it glows and flickers, the way it shifts in a breeze, and I make that memory real - it does not have to be something of this place.". The light flickered, the flames receding and shifting as if shrinking around something before going out, leaving behind a thin pillar of twined vines with lotus blossoms hanging from them, the heat going out with the flames. Chrome stepped forward, reaching out to feel one of the flower petals with a careful hand. "Could you bring something from your forest here? Just a small, simple thing, for now; a few flowers or a bird - remember it well and see it here, wish for it to be here, and you can learn to make it real.". Start small, with less scale to doubt herself.
Chrome nodded to him, and gave a last look to the lotus vines before she bowed her head, hands folded in front of her chest and eye closed in concentration.
A tiny shoot struggled out of the ground at her feet, leaves unfurling as it bloomed; she didn't see it, eye still closed as her brow creased with concentration, and more blades of grass and shoots of flowers began to sprout. Mukuro rocked back on his heels, head tilted with interest as he watched; the lotus pillar vanished, no longer needed. The green patch grew and spread under his feet and around them, her own worry about not doing well enough mingling with her expectations of what "should" be there around the flower, until a larger shoot broke ground, a stem strengthening into a sapling that grew as he watched, branches spreading out to shade over their head with leaves; it wasn't until there was a tiny, twittering chirp from the branches that she opened her eye, stepping back with a small squeak at the new, tiny garden grown around Mukuro's larger demonic frame. He righted his head, looking from it to her with a proud feather-fluff.
"I - what?" The grass started vanishing. "Did you -?"
"No, no - this was all yours; you remembered the flower with grass and trees, so it has grass and a tree.". He was proudly bemused, holding a hand up for quiet. "You did well - it will get stronger with practice."
Perhaps she would be up to standing up to something herself sooner than he thought; at this rate, she might be able to change the Hell back to her forest within a few night's practice, an exercise he could easily shift into pushing against him gradually until she learned to push her will over another's.
------------------------
It was getting harder to find someone to look through or use around the headquarters; anything interesting was under higher security, and the only potential hosts he found that were allowed near were a couple Varia subordinates - not ones with enough rank to get as close as he wanted.
They were moving something, crates and boxes, as well as other orders; the Varia followers were getting pre-emptive orders, quietly trickling out somewhere else to be ready. None of his were being moved yet, and it was a "You'll know when you get there and receive further instruction there" basis, making them useless.
He had suspicions what they were moving - but wanted to be sure; the crates were, thankfully, being loaded outside.
He kept his closest host as a spatial point of reference, a jumping off point as he slipped towards a different mentality, reaching out for other minds closer to that - simpler, small, nervous things, a few sparrows that lived on the grounds; he couldn't directly posess them easily, but could look through them, send some ideas and suggestions.
Suggestions like "there might be food dropped around those boxes" and "the cats on the grounds were chased away from them"; simple appeals to food and shelter from predators.
The birds fluttered down to the ground in a narrow space between the crates, hopping along for crumbs left behind by the men loading them - some of which had been sneaking food, making it not a total lie and easier to keep the birds there, catching a closer look at the crates and a few words from someone on the other side - apparently a conversation where the others had been shooed out of earshot on pretense of a break.
"-elieve he's actually going to use it... That thing gives me the creeps; anything Mussolini's people were behind is bad news.". Someone older, much older; he made a mental note of the voice. "I didn't think the Ninth would be okay with anything his mother had to put a stop to."
"Well, he signed off on it yesterday - he wants the Mosca ready and moved, As long as it works, it doesn't matter who made it; it's ours now.". So they weren't in the loop entirely.
"I still don't like it... I heard that thing gets powered by putting someone's heart in it or feeding it a live person, and the Eighth was pretty adamant that it was only here to study if someone else made one - she really hated this thing.".
The other man laughed; something about how he was brushing this off crossed Mukuro's instincts wrong. "you really believe an old wives' tale like that? That doesn't even make sense, it's a machine. She didn't let anybody study it so people made up stories. They probably just used prisoners for target practice or something unconscionable-research like that, and she didn't want to be associated with it,".
Far too light a out it; unfortunately, he leaned on the other side of one of the crates so it shifted, enough to startle the sparrows into deciding they didn't want to be there.
He dropped his influence, sinking in the tank for a small sulk; sparrows were lousy at being reliable spies. He'd need to spend some of the day resting anyway before he spent more time training Chrome, as much as he disliked the dark and silence of the tank; there were times he wasn't even sure if "rest" was meditation or actually sleeping even after the fact.