The steam rose in slow white ribbons, twisting gently around the dimmed lights that framed the entrance to the women’s side of the Hot Springs. The soft hum of geothermal water, that faint mineral scent of the earth, and the distant chatter of attendants all came together into the kind of peaceful ambience people typically described with words like calming, healing, or restful.
Nozomi stood just inside the threshold with a towel wrapped around her form. Her hair was longer now, streaked with a silvery white that contrasted with the deeper colors of the decoration here. She inhaled, exhaled, and lied to herself.
'This is nice. I'm relaxed.'
In truth, her body did not relax and her heartbeat did not slow. She expected a sense of tranquility from this place, perhaps even containment of the power that threatened to burst forth at any moment, and yet she found none.
Her bones hummed beneath her skin. Not metaphorically, but quite literally. A low vibrational pulse of pressure that crept up her spine like an animal pacing behind bars and begging to be set free. Natural energy threaded through her marrow in restless, circular circuits, constantly battling the curse that still tried to pry at her edges. Chakra swirled in uneasy spirals, fluctuating with every breath as the constant pain still wracked every fiber of her being.
This was supposed to be a reward and a day of rest. A moment of reprieve after months of Rei’s brutal, efficient forging, and the difficult trials of surgery she had to face. Instead, Nozomi felt like a clay explosive left too close to a fire. She was warm, soft, unstable, and just one soft gust from detonation.
Still, she stepped inside.
The air grew thicker as the warm fog hugged the outline of her limbs as she moved past the opaque screens. The women’s side of the hot spring was beautifully renovated. There are smooth river stones lining the pool, carved wooden pillars shaped like stylized dragons holding lanterns overhead, and a thick wall of bamboo fencing offering perfect privacy. Damp and cool mountain air drifted from the edges of the open roof, creating a pleasant contrast against the hot mineral mist steaming from below.
It should have been perfect.
Nozomi lowered herself to the water’s edge as steam clung to the lines of her face. She dipped one foot in...
...and the surface hissed as chakra leaked out of the pad of her heel.
“Stop,” she whispered to herself and she felt the chakra in her core twitch.
The water rippled, and the stone under her foot vibrated faintly.
She clenched her jaw and forced everything back down into her center. It felt like trying to compress a live, thrashing animal into a metal cage. She barely managed it. She stepped deeper into the water, submerging herself to the shoulders. The heat soaked into her muscles, and for a moment, she felt peace.
The pain was still there, of course, and the internal static never ceased. The natural energy warred with the curse at a cellular level, heating her bones from the inside out. Yet she floated calmly and allowed herself to exhale a long, slow breath.
Her fingers uncurled beneath the water, her chin dipping down slightly, and then... CRKKKKKKK
A thin spike of bone, no larger than a chopstick, erupted from her left forearm beneath the water.
She froze and watched as the bone continued to grow. It was slim, pale, needle sharp, and pierced the surface with a soft hiss of steam. Nozomi did not scream or even curse. She simply stared at the protrusion with a deadpan calm that only someone accustomed to constant biological rebellion could muster.
"...You've got to be kidding me.”
She flexed her fingers once causing the bone to crack off and watched as the water churned while it sunk to the bottom. As it made contact a small geyser erupted at her side. A splash of displaced liquid jumps up and across the decorative dragon pillar.
Nozomi sank her face into her hands as she recalled that Rei warned this would happen.
“Turbulence,” she had called it, and Nozomi repeated the word to remind herself.
Too many systems awakening at once, too many systems battling each other and fighting for control. There were so many names that Rei gave these things, but the idea is that there was just too much going on inside of one body. Too much power threading into a body whose chakra coils were still learning their new boundaries.
The steam thickened, swirling around her in lazy spirals. Nozomi forced her breath steady again and slid deeper into the water until only her eyes remained above the surface. She closed them, and for a moment, she could almost pretend she was simply relaxing.
That is until the stone beneath the pool rumbled from the piece of bone that had sunk within the earth below.
Her left eye snapped open, “...No... Don’t you dare.”
The floor pulsed and a ripple moved outward from where she sat. Then another, followed by a low grinding sound which echoed beneath the waterline. Nozomi slowly rose her face and upper body from the liquid. The water rolled off her skin in steaming sheets while the vibrations intensified.
She clenched her fists, “No... Not here. Not now... N...”
CrrkkkHrkkkCrkkk-CRASH!
A pillar of sharpened bone burst upward from the floor of the hot spring, tearing through water like a breaching whale. It shot skyward several meters, curved, jagged, gleaming white, beautiful and horrifying all at once. The water exploded outward from the impact while steam roared into the sky and nearby lanterns rattled.
Nozomi stood from the water that had mostly been displaced with a sigh, "Wonderful."
The bone pillar glowed faintly, humming with excess natural energy she hadn’t meant to release. She lifted a hand, and with a quick motion, snapped her fingers. Clay had already begun forming instinctively around the bone itself, and she exhaled a small breath of chakra toward it.
'Pop!'
The clay detonated in a controlled fashion where the top half of the bone column shattered into white dust and dissolved harmlessly into raging steam below. Still, the lower half remained. It was jagged, obtrusive, and extremely dangerous if someone walked in unaware.
“Okay,” Nozomi muttered to herself, brushing soaked hair out of her face, “that one could have killed a tourist.”
Her bone hummed again and within seconds a smaller spike erupted behind her. Then another from the left wall, and soon the ground beneath her foot buckled as a thin ridge of calcified tissue burst free like a monster hidden beneath the soil. The Hot Springs had, in under a minute, transformed from a serene relaxation retreat into a hazardous, shifting terrain of unpredictable Kaguya outgrowths.
Nozomi stared and could not help but laugh. It came off as dry, tired, and maybe a little unhinged.
“Well. At least I'm learning right. Just another lesson.” She'd remind herself of Rei's words that measured progress through struggle.
She'd step up from the water and grab her towel, which managed to survive the onslaught, before quickly wrapping it around herself. She looked on with a bit of awe as bone spikes and plates jutted from the stones like a crude obstacle course while steam curved around them in warm ghostlike shapes.
It was suppose to be a day of relaxation, not training, and yet here we are.
Now, if there was a younger student present they might find a great tool had just presented itself for training in this shifting obstacle course of bone.
[WC: 1271]
[Class Post: 1/5]
[WC Req: 1,000+/1,000]
Nozomi stood just inside the threshold with a towel wrapped around her form. Her hair was longer now, streaked with a silvery white that contrasted with the deeper colors of the decoration here. She inhaled, exhaled, and lied to herself.
'This is nice. I'm relaxed.'
In truth, her body did not relax and her heartbeat did not slow. She expected a sense of tranquility from this place, perhaps even containment of the power that threatened to burst forth at any moment, and yet she found none.
Her bones hummed beneath her skin. Not metaphorically, but quite literally. A low vibrational pulse of pressure that crept up her spine like an animal pacing behind bars and begging to be set free. Natural energy threaded through her marrow in restless, circular circuits, constantly battling the curse that still tried to pry at her edges. Chakra swirled in uneasy spirals, fluctuating with every breath as the constant pain still wracked every fiber of her being.
This was supposed to be a reward and a day of rest. A moment of reprieve after months of Rei’s brutal, efficient forging, and the difficult trials of surgery she had to face. Instead, Nozomi felt like a clay explosive left too close to a fire. She was warm, soft, unstable, and just one soft gust from detonation.
Still, she stepped inside.
The air grew thicker as the warm fog hugged the outline of her limbs as she moved past the opaque screens. The women’s side of the hot spring was beautifully renovated. There are smooth river stones lining the pool, carved wooden pillars shaped like stylized dragons holding lanterns overhead, and a thick wall of bamboo fencing offering perfect privacy. Damp and cool mountain air drifted from the edges of the open roof, creating a pleasant contrast against the hot mineral mist steaming from below.
It should have been perfect.
Nozomi lowered herself to the water’s edge as steam clung to the lines of her face. She dipped one foot in...
...and the surface hissed as chakra leaked out of the pad of her heel.
“Stop,” she whispered to herself and she felt the chakra in her core twitch.
The water rippled, and the stone under her foot vibrated faintly.
She clenched her jaw and forced everything back down into her center. It felt like trying to compress a live, thrashing animal into a metal cage. She barely managed it. She stepped deeper into the water, submerging herself to the shoulders. The heat soaked into her muscles, and for a moment, she felt peace.
The pain was still there, of course, and the internal static never ceased. The natural energy warred with the curse at a cellular level, heating her bones from the inside out. Yet she floated calmly and allowed herself to exhale a long, slow breath.
Her fingers uncurled beneath the water, her chin dipping down slightly, and then... CRKKKKKKK
A thin spike of bone, no larger than a chopstick, erupted from her left forearm beneath the water.
She froze and watched as the bone continued to grow. It was slim, pale, needle sharp, and pierced the surface with a soft hiss of steam. Nozomi did not scream or even curse. She simply stared at the protrusion with a deadpan calm that only someone accustomed to constant biological rebellion could muster.
"...You've got to be kidding me.”
She flexed her fingers once causing the bone to crack off and watched as the water churned while it sunk to the bottom. As it made contact a small geyser erupted at her side. A splash of displaced liquid jumps up and across the decorative dragon pillar.
Nozomi sank her face into her hands as she recalled that Rei warned this would happen.
“Turbulence,” she had called it, and Nozomi repeated the word to remind herself.
Too many systems awakening at once, too many systems battling each other and fighting for control. There were so many names that Rei gave these things, but the idea is that there was just too much going on inside of one body. Too much power threading into a body whose chakra coils were still learning their new boundaries.
The steam thickened, swirling around her in lazy spirals. Nozomi forced her breath steady again and slid deeper into the water until only her eyes remained above the surface. She closed them, and for a moment, she could almost pretend she was simply relaxing.
That is until the stone beneath the pool rumbled from the piece of bone that had sunk within the earth below.
Her left eye snapped open, “...No... Don’t you dare.”
The floor pulsed and a ripple moved outward from where she sat. Then another, followed by a low grinding sound which echoed beneath the waterline. Nozomi slowly rose her face and upper body from the liquid. The water rolled off her skin in steaming sheets while the vibrations intensified.
She clenched her fists, “No... Not here. Not now... N...”
CrrkkkHrkkkCrkkk-CRASH!
A pillar of sharpened bone burst upward from the floor of the hot spring, tearing through water like a breaching whale. It shot skyward several meters, curved, jagged, gleaming white, beautiful and horrifying all at once. The water exploded outward from the impact while steam roared into the sky and nearby lanterns rattled.
Nozomi stood from the water that had mostly been displaced with a sigh, "Wonderful."
The bone pillar glowed faintly, humming with excess natural energy she hadn’t meant to release. She lifted a hand, and with a quick motion, snapped her fingers. Clay had already begun forming instinctively around the bone itself, and she exhaled a small breath of chakra toward it.
'Pop!'
The clay detonated in a controlled fashion where the top half of the bone column shattered into white dust and dissolved harmlessly into raging steam below. Still, the lower half remained. It was jagged, obtrusive, and extremely dangerous if someone walked in unaware.
“Okay,” Nozomi muttered to herself, brushing soaked hair out of her face, “that one could have killed a tourist.”
Her bone hummed again and within seconds a smaller spike erupted behind her. Then another from the left wall, and soon the ground beneath her foot buckled as a thin ridge of calcified tissue burst free like a monster hidden beneath the soil. The Hot Springs had, in under a minute, transformed from a serene relaxation retreat into a hazardous, shifting terrain of unpredictable Kaguya outgrowths.
Nozomi stared and could not help but laugh. It came off as dry, tired, and maybe a little unhinged.
“Well. At least I'm learning right. Just another lesson.” She'd remind herself of Rei's words that measured progress through struggle.
She'd step up from the water and grab her towel, which managed to survive the onslaught, before quickly wrapping it around herself. She looked on with a bit of awe as bone spikes and plates jutted from the stones like a crude obstacle course while steam curved around them in warm ghostlike shapes.
It was suppose to be a day of relaxation, not training, and yet here we are.
Now, if there was a younger student present they might find a great tool had just presented itself for training in this shifting obstacle course of bone.
[WC: 1271]
[Class Post: 1/5]
[WC Req: 1,000+/1,000]
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