One moment Devero is surrounded by the sensory crush of combat: the screaming of the trapped civilians, the hideous animal noises of the monsters, the scent of blood and sight of gore and weight of the dead creature fallen on top of him. He struggles under it, heart pounding with battle adrenaline, everything underlaid by the sound of Koumyou's bass-voiced son's chanting.
The next moment, Devero is surrounded by a sensory crush of a very different kind: the pure, primal magic of a founding sutra of heaven and earth, unleashed.
He's afraid of Koumyou's Seiten sutra. The power it oozes is comprehensible to his brain: heat, light. Atomic forces, nuclear fusion, the burning eternal lifestuff of the universe itself. He can't help but flinch from even the small, controlled glimpses of it he's seen, aware in the most primitive parts of his brain that a flicker of this power could incinerate him with the same elemental mindlessness of a wildfire or a lightning strike.
He expects the reflexive terror he feels for Koumyou's sutra to seize him the same way, as Maten's banishing power surrounds him.
The body on top of him dissolves away, but he's not afraid. Eyes open, he's able to watch the sheer release of the magic as it annihilates the shrieking monsters, but he's not afraid. As the power fades and the sutra returns to being just an artifact draped across Genjo's thin shoulders, he's not afraid.
Is it because he's seen it in action before, an illusory copy wielded by Koumyou to dispel that hideous vision that had caught them both in the deserts outside Kamakan?
(Or is it perhaps because that same little animal part of his brain that recognizes the indifferent searing brilliance of the Seiten recognizes also that he has nothing to fear from a power that banishes darkness?)
In that moment, he doesn't know why he's not afraid-- and he doesn't really have time to think on it, or be anything more than grateful. He heaves himself to his feet, his rattled bones creaking in protest, and puts fist to palm in front of his heart, and bows to the Sanzo priest.
no subject
The next moment, Devero is surrounded by a sensory crush of a very different kind: the pure, primal magic of a founding sutra of heaven and earth, unleashed.
He's afraid of Koumyou's Seiten sutra. The power it oozes is comprehensible to his brain: heat, light. Atomic forces, nuclear fusion, the burning eternal lifestuff of the universe itself. He can't help but flinch from even the small, controlled glimpses of it he's seen, aware in the most primitive parts of his brain that a flicker of this power could incinerate him with the same elemental mindlessness of a wildfire or a lightning strike.
He expects the reflexive terror he feels for Koumyou's sutra to seize him the same way, as Maten's banishing power surrounds him.
The body on top of him dissolves away, but he's not afraid. Eyes open, he's able to watch the sheer release of the magic as it annihilates the shrieking monsters, but he's not afraid. As the power fades and the sutra returns to being just an artifact draped across Genjo's thin shoulders, he's not afraid.
Is it because he's seen it in action before, an illusory copy wielded by Koumyou to dispel that hideous vision that had caught them both in the deserts outside Kamakan?
(Or is it perhaps because that same little animal part of his brain that recognizes the indifferent searing brilliance of the Seiten recognizes also that he has nothing to fear from a power that banishes darkness?)
In that moment, he doesn't know why he's not afraid-- and he doesn't really have time to think on it, or be anything more than grateful. He heaves himself to his feet, his rattled bones creaking in protest, and puts fist to palm in front of his heart, and bows to the Sanzo priest.