Night of the Fall: An Encounter in the White-Gold Room ! (Pt. I)
After bathing, Ishtar returned to the others long enough to watch them slip through the RoSaT Portal before disappearing the way she came.
As before, when this 'trial' had begun, the Oni had no mind for slipping in and out of alternate timelines, save one. And with Zurvan confirming that the remaining two of the three trips were to be relatively unremarkable, her decision to refrain from going on all but the most important -- in her mind -- trip was further cemented. Besides, her conversation with Sarada had at least given her a flicker of an idea of how to move forward from where she was at now ... a thing Ishtar needed to follow up on.
So off she walked, away from the RoSaT, and Zurvan, and everyone else ... and found herself headed to the White-Gold Room. The only place Ishtar knew of where one could practice without running the risk of bringing true -- and in her case permanent -- harm to herself, or others.
Though that was not the sole reason, she sought it out; and so her pace quickened.
The White-Gold Room had served as 'live' training after all, once before with Evangeline -- her three scenarios being: Daemonic Horde, Coven of Grey Thorns, and Young Battersea -- and again with Parsley, when they saw the truth of the fight between Glacier and Vocado; and the beginning of the Saiyan Empire's decline. Yet it wasn't the training with Evangeline that mattered, but this second instance. As it hinted at something more, that being a change in how the White-Gold Room's manifestations operated: a burgeoning ability for the echoes of times past, to acknowledge and interact with the present. All one needed to do to manage this, it seemed; was simply return to a specific point in time.
For Parsley, that had been the legendary battle between Vocado, and Glacier: the fabled Super Saiyan that slew the Tyrannical All-Powerful Arcosian. For Ishtar however, there were few events that resonated so deeply as that. Her history was a tapestry of repetition. Civilizations rising, and those same civilizations falling ad nauseum for countless millennia. No Oni of note. No myths or legends worth clinging to with the ardor of the Saiyans. Yet despite this dearth of memorable events there were a few that stood out amid this monotony; and of these few events there was one alone Ishtar hoped ... needed, to be the one to work.
So when her feet finally carried her to the White-Gold Room, she was thankful when she found that there was no one else around; and without wasting another moment the golden-eyed Oni slipped inside and closed the door. Though as before, when she finally felt she was alone, her shoulders slumped and she found herself unsteady. After all, she knew what waited for her should this idea of hers been seen through to its conclusion.
[i]What is the point of this ... ?[/i]
She had already buried the ghosts she now considered disturbing, after all. Had been given a chance to say goodbye and make amends for what she done. Why return to that darkness ... that pain even in memories ? To hope at ... at a chance ? A chance at stopping her Alternate ... a chance at perhaps learning something from the past, that she missed when it was her present ?
[i]Chances ...[/i] The Oni exhaled, and finisher her thought aloud. "... nothing but these Gods-damned chances."
Ishtar sighed once more, before shaking her head. Chances would not help her here, the immediate future was bleak; and in light of that, it meant that utilizing the White-Gold Room for any purpose would be little more than a foolish stacking on of suffering, and stress. So Ishtar ... turned away, and intent on leaving the Room behind her, she placed her hand on the door.
Only to pause, as she realized what had led her to coming her in the first place.
Sarada.
Her attempted words of comfort -- offered with that infuriatingly charming confidence, and excitement -- knocking sense into her enough to at least begin an attempt at thinking her way out of the situation she found herself in ... And as Ishtar stood there with the door beneath her palm, thinking about what Sarada said, and how confident she was this was nothing they hadn't overcome before ... she found she couldn't bring herself to step back out of the White-Gold Room.
Another win, for her Little Love.
"... damn it."
Leaving the door behind, this time until she finished what she came to do, Ishtar sat and began the process of emptying her mind of all things unnecessary beyond the task at hand. A slow process, considering all that had happened in the past five days; yet one the Oni understood was necessary should she even hope to prove successful ... and once that was finished, the Oni -- sitting cross-legged in the center of the White-Gold Room -- closed her eyes and willed the necessary memories to the fore, the Pendulum Room stepping in to take care of the rest.
And when the Pendulum Room finished generating the mindscape Ishtar willed it to ... the first thing the golden-eyed Oni heard was screaming.