location: bedroom, he could've fallen through the dorms or materialized in a bedroom elsewhere.
state of mind: fractured - confused (aether) - predatory (rinu)
The artificial body dreamed of running, and that was the first mistake. In sleep, Rinu's consciousness drifted too close to the surface, remembering what it was like to hunt through forests with paws instead of feet, to pass through torii gates like smoke, to exist as spirit rather than this prison of synthetic flesh and bone. The bedroom wall beside him began to ripple where the artificial body pressed against it, matter losing coherence, and then Aether was falling through solid concrete and drywall as if they were nothing more than air itself. The sensation was cold and weightless and free in a way that made Rinu surge with terrible joy even as some distant part of him screamed that this shouldn't be happening, that the seals were supposed to prevent this.
Then came the impact. The artificial body materialized with a sound like a gasp, like something being born, sprawling across floor in someone else's room with limbs at angles that weren't quite human. For a split second before Rinu could force control, the golden eyes blazed with pure inhuman luminescence, pupils contracted to predatory slits, and the jaw hung open too wide, revealing teeth that were just slightly too sharp. The air turned cold, a sense of dread and panic taking hold, curling outwards like a living thing in search of shelter. Whoever's room this was, whoever had just been jolted awake by the sound and the sudden violation of Aether in their space, would feel it immediately: that primal warning that screamed danger, predator, run. And they would see those eyes tracking them in the darkness, too focused, too aware, before Aether's carefully constructed human mask slammed back into place.
Then the coughing started. Violent, wet, wrenching sounds that tore from the synthetic throat as if the body was trying to expel something it couldn't name. Aether doubled over with a gasp, one hand clutching at his chest where something beneath the ribs and skin writhed and coiled, fighting against the sudden reassertion of physical form. The coughs came in ragged bursts, and with each one, the golden eyes flickered between human and something else entirely, pupils dilating and contracting erratically. Drool, or something that looked like drool but shimmered faintly in the darkness, dripped from his lips onto the floor. His whole frame shuddered, joints popping and grinding as Rinu struggled to remember how this body was supposed to work, how lungs were supposed to function, how a throat was supposed to feel. When he finally managed to speak, the voice was raw and distorted, taking half a second too long to form words: "I don't… I don't know how I got here."
Aether's right arm went dead first, the limb dropping like a severed cable as the hydraulics gave out with a mechanical wheeze that echoed too loudly in the empty corridor. The fingers twitched once, twice, then went completely still, hanging uselessly at his side. He barely had time to process the loss before his left leg followed suit, the servos grinding to a halt mid-step and sending him lurching sideways. He had to grab the wall with his remaining functional arm to keep from toppling over entirely. The warnings had been flashing across his vision for the past hour: battery critical, immediate charging required, system shutdown imminent. But he'd waved them off with the arrogance of someone who'd pushed his limits a hundred times before and always made it back to his charging station in time. Just one more errand. Just one more repair. Just one more conversation. Now the alerts blazed red and insistent across his entire field of view, painting everything in urgent crimson as his body betrayed him piece by piece, systems failing in cascade as the last dregs of power were diverted to his core processors and the precious organic brain they protected.
He hit the floor hard when his grip on the wall failed, his remaining functional limbs scrambling for purchase against the smooth tile. The impact sent a jolt through his frame, and somewhere in the back of his mind he registered the diagnostic report of a hairline fracture in his right knee joint. For a moment he tried to stand, to maintain some shred of dignity, but the dead weight of the powerless limb made him stumble immediately. He nearly cracked his jaw against the ground, catching himself at the last second with his palm, the servos in his neck whining in protest as he held his head up. Frustration bubbled up hot and acidic in his chest, this synthetic body was a curse just like his acidic blood, all too human for something that was barely human anymore.
Necessity forced him past the anger and embarrassment. He reached inward for that other part of himself, the part that existed beyond circuitry and code, that hummed with spiritual energy rather than electricity. His inugami nature responded like an old friend stirring from sleep, that ancient canine spirit somehow still tethered to the organic brain housed in its cradle. It defied every logical explanation. Spirits weren't supposed to bind to machines, weren't supposed to follow a consciousness transferred into something so far removed from flesh and blood. But here it was anyway, warm and electric in a way that had nothing to do with batteries, coiling through his thoughts like smoke. The disconnected limbs rose slowly, shakily, levitating a few inches off the ground as he concentrated, his focus scattered by the blaring warnings still painting his vision red. They floated behind him like reluctant ghosts as he began to crawl forward on his remaining powered limbs, a grotesque procession of machinery dragging itself down the corridor.
That's when he saw Clarke at the far end of the hall, and his ears (those damned dog ears) materialized atop his head without permission, flattening backward in embarrassment. They were as real as anything else about him, solid and furred and treacherously expressive, contradicting the sleek metal of his inner frame. His tail followed a heartbeat later, manifesting and immediately tucking between his legs as heat flooded what remained of his organic brain. The phantom sensation of shame burned just as fierce in a synthetic body, maybe fiercer, because at least when he'd been fully organic he could have blamed the flush in his cheeks on blood flow. "Clarke?" His voice came out smaller than intended, barely above a whisper, his body struggling with reduced power and producing something thin and uncertain.
He swallowed, a purely psychological gesture, and tried again. "I… I need help." His ears pressed flatter against his skull, and his tail curled tighter, and he hated every second of it. Being an inugami meant living with the occasional slip of canine features when emotions ran high. Being a machine meant accepting dependence on outlets and charging stations. Being both meant moments like this: crawling across the floor trailing his own limbs behind him like some kind of absurdist performance art, ears pinned and tail tucked, too proud to have asked for help earlier and too mortified to maintain any dignity now. He remained frozen there, one arm supporting his weight, the other hanging dead at his side, his disconnected leg hovering in the air like evidence of his poor life choices. And he waited for Clarke to respond, hoping desperately that the pity in their shared eyes wouldn't be worse than the crawling itself had been.
The fluorescent lights above flickered, once, twice, casting the laboratory in brief, total darkness before humming back to life. Aether flinched at each interval, his fingers gripping the edge of the metal examination table hard enough that his knuckles should have gone white. Would have, if his hands weren't currently translucent, the table's surface visible through his palms like he was little more than smoke given shape. He pulled in a shaky breath and tried to focus. Solid. He needed to be solid.
The lights stuttered again. "Sorry," Aether muttered, his voice thin and strained. His form rippled, edges blurring before snapping back with visible effort. The overhead bulbs stabilized, for now. "I'm... sorry, I'll try to…" Across the room, he watched Bindwood move with his back turned, gathering supplies from a cabinet with steady hands. Aether tracked the movement compulsively, hyperaware of every step, every shift in posture. His gaze darted between Bindwood and the various pieces of equipment scattered throughout the lab: beakers, burners, microscopes, instruments whose purposes he didn't want to guess at. The chemical smell of antiseptic burned in his nostrils, mingling with something sharper, metallic.
His shoulders trembled despite the lab's controlled temperature. The shaking traveled down through his arms, making his whole body shudder like he'd been left out in a blizzard. Another flicker. Another phase. His right arm disappeared up to the elbow before he dragged it back into existence. "Sorry," he said again, quieter this time. The silence stretched, broken only by the soft clink of glass and the hum of refrigeration units. Aether's lips parted soundlessly for a moment before words tumbled out, clumsy and too quick. "So, uh… the weather's been… consistent lately?" He winced the moment it left his mouth. Consistent. What did that even mean? "I mean, not that I, um. Not that weather is particularly… relevant to…"
Pathetic. Rinu's voice slithered through his thoughts, cold and mocking. You sound like a malfunctioning recording. Just stop talking. Aether's teeth clicked shut. His left leg phased out briefly, and he grabbed the table harder, anchoring himself. The lights gave one more violent flicker before he managed to wrestle some semblance of control back. His form solidified, mostly, though the trembling didn't stop. He stared at a spot on the floor, trying not to look at the cabinets, trying not to remember other labs, other hands holding instruments, other voices promising things would be quick and painless and necessary. "I'm fine," Aether said, to no one in particular. Another lie to add to the collection. His voice dropped to barely a whisper. "I can… I can do this."
The colosseum stood empty, or rather, it should have been filled with the clash of training exercises and the shouts of instructors. Instead, an oppressive silence hung over the massive arena, broken only by the rhythmic, ground-shaking snores that reverberated through the stone structure like distant thunder. Rinu had claimed the space as his own. The massive inugami's spectral form sprawled across the inner entrance, his body a writhing mass of shadows and ectoplasm that seemed to drink in the afternoon light. Black fur rippled like smoke over corded muscle, and his multiple eyes (currently closed in blissful slumber) dotted his elongated skull in an arrangement that would have been unsettling even if he weren't the size of two semi-trucks stacked on top of each other. His hind leg twitched occasionally, chasing some phantom prey through his dreams, while his inner eyelids flickered to reveal eyes rolled back in complete, unbothered contentment. Near his massive paws lay the shattered remains of Aether's containment collar, the reinforced metal twisted and broken as though it were paper. Evidence of whatever training session had gone so spectacularly wrong that it resulted in this current situation.
Aether watched through borrowed eyes as yet another group of students approached the entrance, took one look at the sleeping behemoth, and quickly retreated in terror. You know, you could have chosen literally anywhere else to nap. Aether's voice echoed within the confines of their shared mind, tinged with exasperation. The courtyard. The forest. Your actual designated rest area. A rumbling growl vibrated through the inugami's body, part protest and part amusement. When Rinu's voice came, it was drowsy but sharp-edged with attitude, reverberating through both their shared consciousness and the air itself. "This place has sun... I can stretch out..." His jaws parted slightly as he spoke, and a tendril of ectoplasmic drool seeped from between his fangs, splashing to the ground where it shimmered with an oil-slick iridescence. It's also the only training facility for half the academy. Aether countered, though he knew it was pointless. When Rinu decided something, that was generally that.
"Not my problem..."
Aether would have rolled his eyes if he had independent control of them. Instead, he settled for radiating irritation through their bond, which Rinu promptly ignored, shifting his massive head to a more comfortable position with another earth-trembling snore. They might have stayed that way for hours if not for the sound of footsteps echoing through the entrance corridor. Aether's consciousness sharpened, his attention swiveling toward the sound. Through Rinu's closed eyes, he could still sense the approaching presence: someone young, their spiritual signature unrefined. A student. One of Rinu's eyes cracked open lazily, the red glow barely visible as he tracked the movement without otherwise stirring. The student walked into view, head down, completely absorbed in whatever was on his phone. He was tall and lanky, earbuds visible beneath shaggy brown hair. Completely, utterly unaware of the massive supernatural predator sleeping directly in his path.
Can I... have control... of the body... please?
"No... sleeping…"
But... there's someone coming…
The student continued forward, thumbs moving rapidly across his screen.
You're going to scare him... aren't you?
"Mmm... no..."
The student took another step forward, right into the puddle of ectoplasmic drool. His foot slid, arms windmilling as he fought for balance. The phone flew from his hands, and as he lurched forward, trying to catch it, his head snapped up. His eyes went wide. For a moment, he simply stood there, frozen, as his brain processed what he was seeing: the massive, shadow-wreathed form of the inugami, multiple red eyes beginning to open one by one, focusing on him with the intensity of a predator recognizing prey. The sheer size of the creature, the way reality seemed to warp slightly around its spectral body, the gleaming fangs each as long as his forearm. The student screamed.
It wasn't just a scream. It was a sonic burst, a shrill note of pure terror that contained enough energy to rattle the walls. The sound waves rippled visibly through the air, distorting everything they touched. Rinu's eyes snapped fully open, all of them at once, blazing crimson in the dimness. The drowsy contentment evaporated in an instant, replaced by irritation that radiated from the beast like heat from a forge. His massive body uncoiled with surprising speed, the spectral form rising up and up, seeming to expand until it filled the entrance, a living wall of shadow and fury.
"RUDE!"
The student tried to run, but his legs wouldn't obey. He stood rooted to the spot as Rinu moved, one massive paw striking out faster than something that size had any right to move. The blow caught the student, not hard enough to injure, but with enough force to send him sprawling sideways across the stone floor where he slid to a stop, phone clattering away into the shadows. Aether sighed, heavily. Surely he was going to take the brunt of this.
Before he could even think about scrambling away, Rinu was there, looming over him. The inugami's multiple eyes (manifesting from the shadows of his main form) surrounded the prone student from all angles, his open mouth sporting rows of gleaming teeth, each set of eyes boring into him with ancient, inhuman intelligence. The student whimpered, arms coming up instinctively to protect his face. From within, Aether felt Rinu's amusement mixing with lingering annoyance. The beast had no intention of hurting the kid, not really. But a lesson needed to be taught about interrupting his rest. And about screaming in his ears. To which Aether disapproved of.
"You..." Rinu's voice resonated from all directions at once, "Are very loud."
I think he gets the point…
"Not yet."
One massive paw pressed down on either side of the student, caging him in, while Rinu's head lowered until his snout was inches from the boy's face. His breath came out in puffs of cold, ectoplasmic mist.
Several long seconds passed, Rinu's red eyes unblinking, before the sound of rushed footfalls echoed sharply through the entrance corridor. The steps came fast and purposeful, growing louder with each passing second. A commanding voice cut through the air like a whip crack, sharp with authority and laced with the kind of exasperation that came from dealing with this exact scenario more times than anyone cared to count. Rinu's ears swiveled toward the ancient dialect immediately, his massive head lifting just slightly as his attention divided between the trembling student and the approaching presence. "Always ruining my fun..."
