un: absterge | video

[downswing]

( Dark and damp and Lan Wangji's pallor strained under moonlight. Behind him, flickers of broad, long temple columns — and the smoke smears of... ghosts, gathered. He seems short of breath, the silvered sheen of his sword half drawn from her scabbard, a spate of parchment papers littering the walls: active talismans. )

They have crowded their halls of the dead, to excess.

Here, the key withholds itself. Who hunts the other locations?

( And a pause, hesitant — whether to find his words or, absently, slap another talisman on the spirit that looms with a gaping maw behind him. ) Ke-Waihu stands safe?

( ooc: forwarded dated to the group's incursions in Ke-Waicai. Feel free to run into him in person, if you're also chasing the haunted temple key! )

Comments

[fushichou]

[...Okita Souji is here, too??? It's probably for the best that Kiyomitsu and Yasusada aren't here, even if they've...gotten kind of over their hangups.

But that's not the important bit here!]

I'm currently infiltrating the temple, sir.

[ensanguines]

Oh? [ He likes your initiative, kid. ]

Good job. Next time, report to me when you head out. Not for permission, I just want to know where you are.

Come back in one piece. That's an order.

[fushichou]

[This praise! He shouldn't get attached to it, considering he needs to act outside of the ramifications of the Shinsengumi, but it still feels really nice.]

You don't have to worry about me. I'm tougher than I look.

[ensanguines]

Good, because you look like you'd cry if I pinched you too hard.

[ This is, however, said downright fondly by Hijikata standards. ]

Regroup with me later. Souji will want to meet you.

[fushichou]

[He should be offended by this. Sure, he's pretty, but he's not a delicate kind of pretty!]

Please. I'm tougher than I look!

[If he says it enough times surely everyone will believe him.]

I'll find you. Hopefully this won't take too long.

[But does he want to meet Souji...]