[ People died. He'd heard rumors of the creatures, of the battle that had ripped this small community apart, from which they were still rebuilding, but Subaru hadn't needed to be told to know there had been casualties. He could feel them, death painting the walls of the hospital he'd woken up in, staining the concrete of the sidewalk he'd walked down after, casting a shadow over his new home.

But not just there. Pain radiates from points all over Wayward Pines, and Subaru navigates it like a hawk on the wind. To a house, one that used to be filled with a collection of smiling faces and isn't anymore. He stops outside the front gate and just stands, boots flat against the concrete, coat billowing in the slight breeze. Watching. Breathing. Feeling. ]

Did you know them? [ he asks the first of his neighbors to happen by. ]

[ Whether or not the human race deserves to survive, the fact is they are surviving, and Subaru has never been as good at apathy as he wishes he was. As soon as he's well enough to do it, he takes a trip out to the fence, his coat on his shoulders despite the heat, and ofuda in his pockets.

The first ward presses flat to the fence with a small rush of air, like a leaf hitting water. For a moment it hangs there, just beyond Subaru's outstretched hand, easy as a flyer nailed to a light post.

Then, it's as if an invisible knife slices the post in two. The ward floats to the ground in two neat pieces. Blood drips into the dirt. Subaru turns his palm to look, to watch the blood trickle down the fresh gash and curve over a rise of muscle, to follow the drops of red as they plummet toward the earth. The pain doesn't seem to have registered.

That's probably not a good sign, though. ]

[ It had taken time to convince the Sheriff to let him go out beyond the wall. It made sense; they were concerned about keeping people alive, about keeping humanity alive, and while Subaru isn't sure if that goal is worthwhile in the end (Is this the future Kamui wished for?), he understands their survival is a numbers game now as much as anything else. They want to be sure he won't get killed before they send him out. The fact that he doesn't have much talent with firearms hadn't improved his chances, but yesterday he had shown the Sheriff something that had convinced him all the same, and he'd been approved for a small mission.

(And none too soon. He's felt it for days, an ache that started behind his right eye and grew like a vine, wrapping around his mind and tightening. At first it'd been almost good, just to feel something, anything — but it would need to be handled. )

Today, he's dressed for travel if not for combat, in jeans and a t-shirt, armed only with a knife strapped to his belt and a small satchel he seems loathe to let swing too abruptly. To the magically attuned, for a moment it might seem like he's carrying a black hole around in his side-bag, a seeping darkness gently leeching the life out of everything around it — or maybe it's nothing. Just a bag.

At the gate in the fence, he hesitates. His eyes slide to his assigned partner. ]

There's no need for you to escort me.

[ ...says the guy who looks like a stiff wind could do him in, as he heads out into the flesh-eating mutant territory. Probably fine. ]

Onmyouji
Psychic Investigator and Spiritual Medium
Available for cleansing, wards, exorcisms,
and quelling spiritual disturbances.