Groggily waking up from his slumber, Tatsu instinctively stretched and began licking his fur. It was only after he finished cleaning through his first hind leg and was moving on to the other did he finally remembered what happened before he fell asleep.
Immediately, the half-blood in cat form opened his feline eyes with a snap and took in his current predicament. Tatsu had found himself inside one of the cages that, though thankfully, is stacked high in close proximity to his neighbours. Unfortunately however is that he found himself among those that hung in the air courtesy of a chain that extended towards the ceiling.
It didn't take a genius to figure out he was captured, the question was who did it and where are they now. Tatsu listened in on his surroundings with his keen ears on the top of his head as he prowled within his cage. He made sure to act like a proper cat would as they surveyed their surroundings just in case of any more surprising that cropped up.
He distinctively noticed how relatively quiet it was. Now that he noticed it too, the air felt cleaner, more pleasant and refreshing with a hint of citrus, a far cry from the scent of medical sanitation from a while ago. Tatsu did not hear anything outside of the mechanical humming of machines and the bubbling liquids within their containers.
Figuring that the coast was clear, he prodded over to the bars of his cage to have a better look of his surroundings.
The floor was still coated with a layer of blood and the liquid from the large tubes, bits of flesh are strewn around as if someone had a disagreement with their stomach and regurgitated their undigested meal. The culprits of such a mess were also absent, having been in the same predicament as the half-blood all along, returned to their initial residence.
The abominations that seemed so imposing as they tried to catch up to him were now lying lifelessly within their confinement, if it wasn't for the occasional spurt of blood or twitch of flesh, he would have already taken them for dead where they laid. Some of them, a few that he vaguely remembered that struggled to move, were at the operating table and their flesh removed from the objects they're attached to and their flesh diced into cubes stacked into a small pyramid on the side.
Tatsu almost gagged at the gory sight as he forced himself to tear to his gaze away before he emptied his stomach.
He glanced elsewhere to see if there was anything else of note and saw a small pile of items that were tossed haphazardly together, among of which, the half-blood noticed a few broken bottles. He couldn't help but shudder as he recalled the memory of being chased.
Shaking his head, he hasn't heard of anything that would signify the presence of another intelligent being. Despite his streak of bad luck, Tatsu decided to take his chances of escaping because frankly, what other choice did he have other that waiting here for who-knows-what?
Making use of his feline physiology, he slowly squeezed himself out of his cage, stretched his body out to slow the fall and landed quietly on his paws.
Huffing to himself, bolted into action in hopes of finding the exit.
~~~
"Hm? Humu." I hummed while surveying a room filled with pillows of all things.
I took care to make sure to act like a tourist while trying to keep in mind my status as a Kami. My designated tail hasn't spoken a single word since they 'introduced' themselves with nary but a confirmation of their presence, not even bothering to show me with theirselves in the truest sense.
Even as I pulled out a few pillows to 'inspect' them, coincidentally destabilizing the others in the pile and bringing them down my tail did not react overtly outside of minute twitching.
As fun of a thought it is to poke fun of my tail, the amusement fades away swiftly if the subject of the matter didn't react much. Furthermore, the individual in question seems to have a very high tolerance to my shenanigans considering I've already done similar mishaps in the last five rooms so far and the line appears much further than anticipated. Granted, two of them were already in disrepair and the other one was hardly serviceable but details hardly aren't much right now.
Infuriation gradually replaced whatever positive regards I had of the matter as I very much need to get rid of my tail to continue my investigation in earnest.
Each opening of a room could be a gamble as I wouldn't know what's inside up until I've opened the door. What could happen if another one of those room about the Kami appear- worse still, what would happen if the room denoting Gensokyo were to appear? My cover would be blown and I'd have the entire religion going against me!
Although I portrayed a blend of excitement and boredom on my face, I was wincing internally as I slid opened another door before I mentally sighed in relief when only another room just as large and empty as most appeared before me.
Feigning a disappointed sigh, I stepped inside the ruined room to check if there was anything left unturned. "You know, this would have been less boring if you talk." I said aloud for the obvious target.
I clicked my tongue when I received no reply, the act of which made my tail twitch slightly yet again but no other reaction was made.
It was then that something caught my attention from the corner of my eye, scratches upon the rotting wood. Not that I've noticed, it was hard to subconsciously dismiss the other other marks on the floor. It was these marks that I suddenly remembered about the cat I found a few night before last night.
'Huh, wonder what happened to spook the little guy so much...' I idly thought to myself. It did not take a genius to guess that the cat was in distress to be so wanton in acts of destruction- well, either that or it was in heat.
Or catnip, for some reason.
Pacing around the marks, I happened to inch closer upon a hole in the ground. 'Oh, so that's what happened.'
An intrusive though came like a bolt through the air.
Feeling the gaze of my tail, I suppressed the slight twitching of my lips as they fought to curl upwards. Instead, I looked at where my tail is hiding within the shadows, gazing them dead in the eye. Seeing them furrow their brows once as horror dawned on their features and without a single word, I hopped down the hole.
Glancing upwards, I see that the tail scrambled towards my earlier position and is now gaping with befuddlement as they cling to thee edge of the hole and look down.
It was a brief moment of spiteful glee on my end before the image above become too small as I was swiftly cloaked in darkness. It didn't appear that my tail was bold enough to follow me directly, or at least, jump down the hole after me. Oddly enough, the wind wasn't whistling around me- or rather, it appears that despite the speed of which I was falling, I wasn't disturbing the air for some reason? I was tempted to hang around here for a bit and wait to see if my tail would actually jump down and watch in schadenfreude as they fell passed me but now I'm more curious about where this is heading.
Not even a moment later, the darkness gave away to the glow of white light.
Seizing control of my own descend, I flew down towards the floor of polished stone and landed with the grace of a swift sparrow.
Raising my gaze, I was met with a familiar standard modern design of millennial gray and I knew immediately that this is something troublesome from the faint presence of a divine.
The weight it carried was similar to the other kami but it lacked anything subtle deviation that I've come to associate with my coworkers. So either it was someone I've yet to meet or the others are too languid to even be bothered to sweep for any intruders on their own backyard.
Honestly, it could go either way for them.
~~~
Tatsu had been running around like a headless chicken for the past... He wasn't actually sure how much time had passed. Without any reference point to pull from, he couldn't estimate what time of day it is let alone how long he's been running around for. What he does know is that his growing desperation for finding an exit has been mounting exponentially and it's been running him ragged like a headless chicken.
The half-blood is put up with this place for the entire night- day- whatever it is now and he's very much rather take the time off to unwind because clearly his nerves are shot. It was the temper tantrum he threw that put him in this spot in the first place and he only investigated a tiny fraction of the entire cult. If the rest of it was anything even remotely similar to what he experienced so far then he'd very much prefer to be in the right state of mind to do so.
He took deep, calming breaths as he recalled his priorities.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Tatsu figured that mindlessly wandering and hoping for the best is cutting it out anyway in corridors that he already mentally classified as endless then he might as well fall back to old habits.
Relying on his intuition, he backtracked towards where he just came from while keeping a cautionary eye towards anything that moves.
Hopefully this time, his bad luck had finally run out and he can turn his situation around.