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discoknack · 2 months

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Ghost Kafka Attacks!

Mainly @sonicasura's idea, but I think maybe we have different philosophies? For one thing, I'm evil...

This got away from me again. Anyway, my thinking goes like this:

I modified certain details from Sonicasura's post. The main concept is the same: at 26 years old, Kafka throws his life away to protect his co-workers. Almost at the end of the day, they had been cleaning up a large plant-type Kaiju, whose pheromones attract a medium-sized insect-type Kaiju looking for food. The way the situation is described in the post makes me think: both of these are in the manga that I've only read bits and pieces of. So if that is the case, this is the same, but if not, I will explain. The invading Kaiju is like a wasp that eats nectar as well as insects and meat, and can fly. It can also spray its victims with sticky silk, like a spitter spider, but unlike a spitter spider, its sight might be much more acute.

The Kaiju is on top of them in no time at all, with the poor Sweepers shouting at one another to get down and hide. High probability of an imminent blood bath! Kafka, opportunistic as ever, covers himself in nectar from the plant Kaiju to turn himself into bait. He sprints out and away as fast as he can through the empty streets, aiming to lead it away from his crew and distract it long enough for the rest of the Monster Sweepers to hide or flee. In this regard, he is successful.

But the attacking Kaiju ensnares him in its silk.

He has plenty of time in that cocoon to contemplate his last moments while under the influence of the Kaiju venom. We can agree on some themes. It might be anger at himself for breaking his promise and getting himself killed, hoping everyone else got away in the end, fighting to go on or at least praying to be remembered, and desperately desperately begging Mina to forgive him for his failure. What frustrates me is I want something more. Something evil. But y'know, Kafka's flavor of wrath wouldn't be triggered in this situation for Reasons. Without having read the full manga, I guess I'm going with the so-simple-it's-stupid option: fight or flight. And I changed the mechanism for Kafka becoming the type of ghost he is, sorta. Anyway,

Kafka, having been killed through suffocation within a maddeningly painful venomous silk cocoon, is in a high state of stress that does not immediately abate, even after he killed his killer and sucked up its soul.

I don't know how he does that yet, so I'll skip it.

As he has no immediate purpose and has not yet regained the ability of abstract thought or other forms of higher thinking, Kafka wanders around, confused and in emotional pain, hugging himself. His previous agony was so intense, that I'm not sure what's going on in his mind in the immediate aftermath. Does he even know he's dead? On some level he likely does, but perhaps he is also having a temporary lapse in sanity, or suffering from delirium. In any case, he is instinctually looking for help of some kind, but doesn't know how to get it.

I like to think that once his spirit had emerged from the still-closed cocoon, he mostly resembled himself, right down to the white Monster Sweeper uniform on his apparition. Only also with piercing green irises, a dark aura over his form, and an odd, often fleeting, sickly sweet scent. There's a certain pained expression he made that seemed off-putting, but I can't describe it. Still dunno how he ate that thing.

But after consuming the Kaiju soul, his form became like a shadow puppet, still human in shape but the details are harder to make out. Now his eyes and mouth are a starkly-glowing green. His teeth are still currently flat, except occasionally fangy when he's really pissed off and about to eat someone. He transforms further the more kaiju he consumes, so he'll eventually get a full set of permanent sharpness, among other changes, such as: the shape of his body becoming serpentine except for his arms and face; his hair becoming more like fur in texture and running all down his spine so that the end of his tail blends fluff with smoke; the rest of his body developing hair that's very fine, dense and no more than one or two millimeters long, something like an agreeable velvet or one of my favorite sweaters; clawed fingers like talons, although I'd prefer his hands retain a more human shape, but human fingernails are quite fragile. But that's all later. For now, he looks like a human shadow.

The lingering sun, as it descends to dusk, has him feeling some kind of way when he's caught in its light. It doesn't hurt per se, but it's overwhelming for an already-overwhelmed man, and highlights the sensation of feeling physically insubstantial. Lower levels of ambient light help him feel a little more real. So he sticks to darker areas like alleys.

The Defense Force arrived at some point, only to find the wasp Kaiju already dealt with, and a cocoon that was the perfect size to house a human victim. Though, as is the case in the original post, they couldn't breach the cocoon's walls. And it, as well as the body inside, remained fresh even months later. I should explain that the freshness is a common idea in the stories I've read about Onryō, and not necessarily something the wasp Kaiju did.

At some point he has wandered across districts, slowly calming down. The occasional screams of other spirits who flee from him or turn away tend to startle him again. His reactions slowly change from wild fright in his delirium that has him running and crying from no threat at all, to seeking out a shrieking soul to check if they're alright, to quickly realizing that they want nothing to do with him but he's not really sure why.

He's cooled down enough now that he can think a little. When he finally encounters a living person, the notion of his death finally sinks in. It's not so dramatic. He doesn't cry out, though his despair returns a little more. He just asks the stranger, "can you help me?" And while they turn, curious, they don't notice him, and become slightly perturbed when his hand phases through their shoulder. And so after contemplating his hand, Kafka wanders some more, wearing his glowing frown and not sure what to do at this point.

Cliché, I know, that he soon encounters a living shit-stain of a human being in an alley somewhere. Maybe some entitled wad that grins and keeps pressing if a vulnerable woman tries to tell him 'no'. The point is that Kafka would be hard-pressed to not kill and eat this guy. And Kafka is already in a bad mood.

So, you know...

Kafka has the villain wrapped in his silk, which was spewed from his fingers and mouth. The woman is long gone by now, having ran off as soon as the villain was distracted. Kafka is so full of white-hot rage that he slams the man into the wall a few times. And when he yells at him nothing legible comes out, only a roar of garbled language that cracks the concrete and has the bastard's ears bleed.

On some level Kafka knows something isn't right, and that he's doing something wrong. But at the forefront of his mind is wrath, retribution in favor of the woman this man harassed. Kafka gets ready to suck out this man's soul so that no one, alive or dead, has to suffer him again.

But Kafka is kicked in the head from the side and stumbles, dropping the sack. As an angry spirit, his inner chaos flares and he is like an animal, mostly in the way that humans are animals. He gets bigger in his posture, ready for a fight, and as a ghost, he gets some inches taller with this motion also.

Hikari Shinomiya has her hands on her hips and a bright face. "Hey there! You still in there, buddy?"

Kafka is confused by the juxtaposition of the surprise kick and the woman's friendly tone, and he backs away to look at her, lowering his hands. He unconsciously drips evil silk from his fingers, but it tapers off as he assesses the situation - even as impaired as he is. The nice woman in front of him must also be a spirit: her aura is of light. She doesn't seem to harbor any ill will toward him. The kick hurt, but also, it didn't? Kafka takes some moments to understand that she is solely addressing him. "Uh...?"

Meanwhile, Hikari carefully approaches him, somewhat like she intends to capture a scared animal. Slow, but poised to act if he makes any sudden moves. "I heard... a newbie was in town... so... Am I not too late?"

At the change of the script, Kafka's rage had dissipated. Essentially, he is still hurt and confused, and Hikari distracted him from his task. He doesn't want to hurt her, but also can't think of a way to disengage from her, and running away also isn't an option because he still wants to kill-a-little-bit this guy, so he freezes.

Hikari is able to take one of his hands in hers, the silk having dissipated. "There. See? Bet you other people were scared or ignored you, huh?" And she winked. "I'm Shinomiya Hikari." Then she blinks, registering something.

Kafka is able to speak again. As Hikari gets into his personal space and reaches for his face to scrutinize him, he leans away, physically and idiomatically shrinking, and says, "H-Hibino Kafka! That's- don't wear it out! There's been a big misunderstanding. I am very sorry!" He scratches his head with a free hand, chuckling nervously, " I just wanted to teach this guy a lesson and, got carried away... I dunno what's going on at all."

Hikari is distracted by whatever she noticed, not responding to his words. "Oh no..." and Kafka sweats. She holds his chin, squishing his cheeks, and wonders aloud, "just who did you eat already?"

Ok so I figured Hikari's been a ghost for a few years, and she knows or has at least heard that if you eat a soul, it can taint you in a way that locks you into a vampire-like existence, requiring you to sate a horror hunger with more souls. Hikari doesn't care about the piece of trash he wrapped up, but it would be best to prevent Kafka from eating him anyway so as to keep everyone safe in the long run and allow Kafka a friendlier coexistence with other spirits. Unbeknownst to her at first, Kafka has eaten a soul already, thus sort of dooming that neighborly relationship. But since it's not a person, it doesn't carry the same moral weight that would erode his sanity if it was.

I imagine that among vengeful ghosts who take up vigilantism and suck up human villains, there's a bit of a he-who-fights-monsters situation and they end up becoming corrupted one by one, devouring each other before being put down somehow. (I would totally watch/read something with that concept. Any recs?)

Also, I added more powers and quirks to Kafka than the original post. I already mentioned a couple of them here already and in Kikoru's Spirit Guy (in part 2, but here is also part 1 for those who want to read it). He has a sweet smell, which can be either pleasant like spring or candy, OR very oppressive, floral, and saccharine. Getting bigger and smaller is a subset of elasticity. Hikari can probably do it too. Kafka can also spray webs: clean ones like Spider-Man or a real spider's structural webs; or sticky ones laced with a psychoactive compound, the concentration of which depends on Kafka's choice and wrath. Unlike the killer cocoon, these sticky webs have a milder physical effect on their victims in the sense that they don't leave any marks. But they can still cause pain and additionally induce paranoia, hallucinations, agitation and/or catatonia. So, that guy he wrapped up is absolutely fucked already.

I have a suspicion that rather than including arson proper in his arsenal, pyrokinesis is more for lighting and putting out candles and lamps to control the light level. Thus to that end, he can also burn out light bulbs with a flash (though might not be able to turn them back on). I don't know when or if he'll use it.

Umm, that's about all I got for this point in the story. I have one more drabble thing.

#posting on purpose this time! Yippee!#Kaiju no. 8 #Kn8 #what to tag this...#Sonicasura #Ghost Kafka AU #Death by 30: silly soul sucker #Ghost Kafka Hibino #Hikari Shinomiya #I just realized I never specified that she's a ghost. Is it annoying for these to show up in her tag page?#i also don't put these in normal kafka's tag (that I can recall). Should I?#yesss.... be evil Kafka!#Muahahaha!#but not too evil #or else y'know. eternal damnation or whatever.#hmmm see I need to somehow capture Kafka's evil. Brain don't characters good.

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