damned_institute | Night 49: Room of Earth

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Night 49: Room of Earth

[From here]

"...What?"

The door slammed shut behind them and locked with a rather distinctive click. The Doctor glanced back at the door—which was very different on this side than it had been on that side—but it wasn't the slam or the door that ended up grabbing the Doctor's attention. There was a loud rumbling that did not, he was quite positive, have anything to do with the thunder that they would have heard more clearly outside. Nor was it a sound that would have come from any construction work, had he and Dean stumbled across it. No, this was different.

"What?"

Following that hall, they should have exited the building into the field. It should led have outside, should have been raining. But in here—inside here—well... that definitely wasn't rain.

Not rainwater, at least. It rather appeared to be raining boulders in the room.

"What."

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[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/881968.html?thread=69584176#t69584176)].

Kenshin was ready for cold rain to hit his face and an angry swordsman to drop the ruse and attack him, but what he got instead was deafening noise. They seemed to be in a tunnel, somehow, and the rumbling was so loud and intense that the rurouni feared he might never be able to hear normally again. As his eyes adjusted to the light he realized where the sound was coming from: boulders, rolling randomly along the tunnel and blocking the way.

“What on earth…?”

This was an impossible place. The door at the end of the hallway was supposed to lead outside, not into a room where rocks rolled up hill and smashed the unwary. “ORO!” Another dull roar, closer this time, and Kenshin darted to the side, avoiding the boulder that had seemingly come out of nowhere and almost flattened them both. He glanced at Okita and noticed with relief that the other swordsman was also unhurt.

“This isn’t as it should be,” he insisted, as if he could argue with a room. “Where is this?”

As they moved out through the door, Okita shifted slightly to the side, ready to grab his sword and bolt for wherever he thought he saw movement. Instead he felt his stomach lurch like the floor gave way under him suddenly and his ears were deafened by a rumbling unlike anything he'd heard before. At first he might have thought it was thunder that was far too close combining with the driving force of the rain, but when his senses returned to him, he realized that was wrong. It was something else entirely - something quite...impossible.

All thoughts of revenge tumbled out of his head like rice spilling from a cut bag as he stared incredulously at the scene in front of them. Rocks were raining from the sky. They were-- Oh hell! When Kenshin jumped to avoid the boulder, so did Okita, doublestepping out of the way. He stared at the thing like he couldn't believe it was real, and yet there it was. If they hadn't moved, they would have been crushed.

"...I don't know." He had no idea. None at all. Nothing could have prepared him for this. Staring at the tunnel ahead of him, Okita noticed a door at the far end and felt his stomach drop for a second time. A quick glance behind him confirmed what he feared. "But there is only one way out."

“Another one of Landel’s tricks, then,” Kenshin sighed, glancing at the door at the end of the tunnel. The way they’d come had vanished behind them, so that door really was the only way out. He sheathed his sword, trusting that, until they reached the other side, Okita would not draw his and attack them. Stopping long enough to fight would, after all, get them both crushed. They had to work together on this, at least to the end.

“We’ll have to play the game,” he said. “Stay close.”

With all that noise it was hard to tell if there was any sort of pattern to the boulders, but the increased rumbling a split second before one came charging towards them was all the rurouni needed to avoid it. All right, that was two down, but he still couldn’t seem to sense a pattern. Kenshin crouched against the wall and closed his eyes for a few seconds, trying to figure out how long it took between boulders.

A trick that might just kill them if Okita didn't set aside his distaste for the rurouni and what he'd just done in order to work together. He could potentially leave the man to die, but there was a higher risk that whatever lay beyond the door was far worse and would require even more teamwork. There was, however, one thing he could not stand and when Kenshin almost ordered him around. The swordsman couldn't help but give Himura a glance that said 'Strike one' and then took a step back, listening to the boulders crashing down and rolling through the room.

A moment later, he sensed something approaching and darted to the side, watching as another came through where they'd just been.

There didn't seem to be a pattern, but there were certainly warnings. This would require speed and working together to call out when one heard a boulder coming. Speed being the key. Okita quickly tied his sleeves back with the white string looped around his chest and cleared his throat. "Move when the sound comes, just try not to get crushed. Sound like a plan?"

“Sounds like a plan,” Kenshin agreed, and just in time. There was a roar and another boulder came hurtling at them. He dashed out of harm’s way, trusting that Okita would do the same. Timing the rocks was impossible, and listening for the rumble was leaving them only a little time to dart further up the tunnel, closer to the door. They were a little more than halfway now.

He didn’t say anything else about what Okita should or should not do. He hadn’t missed the look the other swordsman had given him, and while he seriously doubted Okita was anywhere near suicidal enough to want to continue their fight here, he didn’t want to risk testing that theory.

"Sounds like a plan."

A rumbling came from overhead and Okita dashed forward, feeling the wind from the boulder brush his hair as it went on past. He hesitated only for a moment, watching from the corner of his eye as it continued on its way up the other side of the round tunnel and then turned his attention back to following and keeping pace with Himura. The things were smashing in from all sides, coming at them at all angles and the only indication they had was a rumbling noise that sounded a bit louder than the rest of the cacophony. It took time and several near misses as they ran across the room, but eventually - carefully - they reached the midway point.

And that was when things started getting tricky. From here they had to beware of things coming at them from all over and there was no chance to rest or even call out when Okita heard something coming. The rate was too fast and it took all his concentration just to dodge and move forward rather than back. Bit by bit the two of them threaded through the rolling boulders with Okita thinking this entire setup was absolutely impossible the entire time. It wasn't until they were three-fourths of the way through and he felt a boulder clip his katana, sending the hilt hard into his gut that he realized it was entirely possible they really could die here.

Putting one hand on the hilt of his sword to keep it closer to his body, Okita kept moving, envying Kenshin's speed for once. He seemed to be having an easier time at this. Seemed, at least. Dodging to the side, Okita grunted slightly when another rock brushed his shoulder. They were close though. So close. Taking one step back, the swordsman launched forward again and starting weaving through what seemed like the last leg of the journey. "Whoever reaches the door first, just open it and go!"

If anything, the rumbling seemed to get louder the further through the tunnel they got. Kenshin’s senses, heightened through a lifetime of training and battles, were assaulted from all sides by noise until everything had joined together into an endless roar. The only indication that another boulder was coming was that the roar grew louder for a few moments before it rolled towards them. At one point he thought that he might try leaping off the walls for momentum, but they were too curved and smooth to give him any traction and the stunt resulted in an even closer shave than the others. A boulder rolled over the part of the wall where his leg had been a fraction of a second before, trapping the hem of his hakama and ripping it as he tried to get free. It was a small price to pay for his poor judgment.

Still, it had put him in a position closer to the door than Okita was. He nodded at the other swordsman—not that he was even sure that Okita could see it—and put on a last burst of speed, dodging two more boulders as he did. He was sweating now, breathing hard with the effort. They had run from one boulder to the next without stopping, and maybe that had not been the right way to approach this room.

He was almost to the door now. Just a few more feet…

Okita was almost disappointed when Kenshin's move didn't work. It was a conflict though - whether he wanted the rock to kill the bothersome rurouni or whether he was upset that the move didn't take the man any closer to the door and survival. This was why he didn't like working with Kenshin very much. It put his conscience in conflict. On one hand, he wanted his partner to survive. On the other, he had a kneejerk reaction to want to kill him. As it was, Kenshin's new hakama were only ripped as he sped off toward the door.

Unlike Kenshin who had almost unbelievable speed and agility on his side to help him with such moves, Okita had to take it a little more cautiously. His lungs were already burning at having run this far without stopping and he could feel his body rebelling against the effort. He was sweating, his breath was short and shallow, and he could feel it creeping up on him.

But like hell if he was going to start coughing in front of Kenshin again.

Somersaulting out of the path of another boulder as it rolled right over where he'd just been, Okita popped up and glanced to the side to confirm where Himura was. Just a few paces ahead of him and in position to get the door first if nothing got in his way. However, with the way the boulders were going, who knew would happen in those last few feet? Dodging to the side, Okita let his hand hit the floor, pushing off as he launched himself full tilt at the door. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see another boulder coming leaving not but a hair's width between it and the door itself. Not good. Not good at all.

Jumping ahead of the other samurai, Okita kicked the door open and held a hand out for Kenshin. "Come on!"

Kenshin never even hesitated. Okita was holding out his hand for him and risking his life to do so; there was another boulder coming and if he stopped to think about it now they would both be killed. He grasped Okita’s hand and pushed off with his right foot, adding his momentum to the other samurai’s. If it bowled both of them over, at least they would be out of the path of the last of the boulders and ready for what other obstacles Landel saw fit to throw in their direction.

That last bit of energy was all they needed, it seemed. Together the two swordsmen toppled through the door and into the darkness that lay beyond, just as a familiar voice began to filter through the tunnel…

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Night 49: Room of Earth

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