Culture · 6mo
sunfish zombie au
how does the karasutengu mingle with the zombie infection? did the infection take over the entirety of hakka, karasutengu and all? what if the karasutengu is fighting the infection at times? hakka may have been too weak to fight it, but by god the tengu isnt going down without a fight. because before the whole zombie thing started, hakka and the karasutengu may have had their differences, but at the end of they day they had a sort of symbiotic relationship right? hakka is a twiggy boy in need of strength, and the tengu needs a physical body to possess. but now the karasutengu is just left with a rotting body as a host. what's it supposed to do with a faulty host? it cant utilize their powers when the host is in this condition.
the tengu can't have that. hakka and the tengu must have ~some~ shared memories as a result of sharing the same body, surely. so when hakka's consciousness is slowly being nulled by the zombie infection, and his last memory is shinri telling him that he'll keep him alive and find a cure for him no matter what, the tengu was watching. the tengu keeps an eye out for shinri.
there are times when shinri meets hakka for fun, expecting the usual hazy stare and zombie muttering, and shinri would reply as if it were a normal human-to-human interaction. however, this time hakka is unusually silent and still. no sounds of his chains chafing around and a gumble to follow. as soon as shinri locks the door, he whips his head around to look directly at hakka, expecting something to be terribly wrong. in that split second shinri's mind raced across multiple questions, "what if the zombification somehow progressed even further than what we know of", "what if someone snuck in here and killed hakka", "did bettel finally give up on us?". only to find hakka's eyes, as clear as the holo tree on the day we lost him, focused on shinri.
"... hakka?"
[it's not hakka]
hakka's mouth opens as if to say something, his wide eyes following shinri's face as shinri grapples closer to him. shinri braces hakkas shoulders, holding him tightly so they're face-to face. but before hakka could say anything, his eyelids start to cloud up again.
"ghhhmmmrrrr".
shinri is holding a zombie. shinri didn't know why he thought he had a chance. he scoffs at himself, before loosening his grip and letting hakka fall into his embrace.
GODDDDDD been rotating this in my brain all day.
This gives Shinri so much false(?) hope, feeding his delusional ideas that there will be a cure. If the demon can survive the virus, surely Hakka can too with some help. This pushes him to keep going, feeding more victims to Hakka. Maybe he believes him keeping him well fed is keeping the demon alive at the very least, and that’s a step in the right direction.
Is it truly helping? Who’s to say. But also gives him a new goal to see Hakka (or at least Hakka’s body)’s eyes look slightly clear even for just a moment. He’s just as beautiful as the day he left earth.
I also see after a while him telling Bettel about what happened few weeks after, not to soon so Bettel wouldn’t do something stupid. Mostly scared of Bettel getting bit , knowing he isn’t good with handling Hakka. Bettel probably just thinks this is a product of Shinri’s declining mental state, only believing it if he saw it with his own two eyes.
ALSO you’re fully right Shinri tries to chat with hakka. Sometimes speaking to him like he’s a pet animal, sometimes like he’s a comatose patient, sometimes like he can respond. Giving him pauses as if maybe one day he will respond. It’s to help keep him going & not to forget what he’s fighting for. Again that you anon I spin this around uuuu
