[OPEN] The end of the storm

[watermemory]

Who ⬤ The team members and ANYONE!
What ⬤ The mission was a success! Time to face the music from friends and family.
When ⬤ Just after the tower expedition
Where ⬤ Outside Kaigo no Bou, probably moving around
Content Warnings ⬤ References to violence and horror imagery


All at once, the rains cease.

The damage remains, both to the city and to her inhabitants, but reality reasserts itself, and the ill wind that's blown through Jigoku-cho has—for now—come to an end.

Emergency services have borne away the injured, including the Daitengu and the freed Enma, leaving a gaggle of people emerging into the night.


[This is an OPEN IC MINGLE. Go forth and icly rubberneck or speculate or collect your friends back home to get some rest or yell at said friends for taking risks without telling them they were chosen for this mission out of some misguided attempt to get them to not worry. Who would do something so stupid, anyway.]

Comments

[retroductions]

[He pauses, but then his mouth twists, screwing itself up as he sputters out a very gentlemanly pfft noise.]

You look like…

[She looks like she needs to have his clothes resized for her, of course. And cleaned — they are still stained with patches of darkening blood, dredges of the old, cursed weather.]

…a great, consulting detective! All you need now is a pipe and a few woeful tales of crime to relate to rapt listeners.

[notched]

[ The bleary flutter of a smile and then it settles. She pulls the brim down a little onto her head. ]

Coffee, instead... maybe?

[ Something warm to hold. There, she has identified something more tangible to ask after. ]

[retroductions]

[Humor is a good, grounding sign, at least. And Sholmes can hand his own out in droves, even if it’s often veiled with ridiculousness.]

I could do for a cup of coffee, too. It would only be my fourth for the day.

[He points in a general direction.]

Shall we return to headquarters, then? The walk should be far less menacing now. And I’m sure there’s a fresh brew waiting to be made when we return. I can see to it myself.

[notched]

Mm.

[ She agrees softly, still hugging the coat in around herself. She turns to walk that way with him. She wonders if Yharnam will still be alive, like this, when she finally fulfills her contract here and frees it from the Great Ones. Or will it be dead like Loran; windswept and bestial? ]

The sun is nice.

[retroductions]

[His strides are long, but he falls in step beside her as they walk. The streets are still slicked crimson—he can only imagine the clean-up work that’s to follow all of this—but she’s right: the sun is nice.

Herlock hums in agreement, sticking a hand in a pocket. His fingers fiddle with whatever tidbits he’s collected and forgotten about — coins, scribbles notes, maybe a plastic figurine kept from a gacha capsule.]

Anything is better than all that blasted blood. My clothes are nigh ruined because of it.

[notched]

S'what an overcoat is for.

[ She answers with blithe good humor. ]

And a big hat.

[ Have you seen her hat. ]

[retroductions]

[Good humor with some underlying practicality.]

I am a coat and hat man myself, of course.

[But, the big hat...]

Though you have me beaten in the hat department! Yours, as I recall it, is far more mysterious and... a bit foreboding.

[notched]

Hm.

[ Yes, it probably is. They weren't meant to look like simple humans, the leathers the Hunters wear fleshes them out into something just a little more. Unyielding. ]

Keeps the blood out of my eyes.

[ Foreboding indeed. ]