Midnight Run [Catherine, Isamu]

Yeah, that was a good question, why did she tell him that? She felt the flutter of adrenaline slowly drain out of her system, thinking of an answer that wouldn't be further shameful to admit to, flinching when the ointment was rubbed into her wound. Always stung, but it made healing quick and clean... Wasn't anything compared to the accounts she managed to decipher from those journals, but that was simply because she was missing a key technique. With all of that, she settled on an answer,

"Because I lost. Our bargain? You win," Her voice had changed from it's normal tone to something more airy, melodic - closer to her true accent than the one she intentionally imposed on her voice day after day, "I'll even buy dinner if you feel such is warranted... But don't use that name on the clock."

For a moment, she lied in silence, staring at the stars with silent wonder, "..I'm scared of sleeping, Isamu. Bad things happen when I sleep. So I made it so I didn't need it... I always knew I did, but going, going, going all the time nearly got my ass killed this time... Hah..."

"..Yah'.." Her tone fluttered with weak shame, covering her face with her other arm as he worked on fixing up the other, the undoubted movement of fabric revealing flashes of burn scars or massive teeth marks dotting and misshaping her skin. That smile, he never smiled that way before, has he? What did that mean..? Though, rather than that question leading into a string of worries and concerns, anxieties overlapping and folding and compressing into a cacophony of terror in her skull... But she simply accepted the expression for what it literally was, for once. Not like she was feeling awake enough to scrutinize it.

Instead, she'd point at her bag, "..That thing is still alive... I could sense it.. It just retreated... The details..." Her breath was sounding short, forcing her to regulate it for a moment, "...Gas masks. Put one on if the fog's rolling in. It invades through... Through airways. Don't move... From here.."

Looking up at him, her waning consciousness only evoking some concern of if she should trust his word... Well, it wasn't like she had much of a choice here, huh? There she went, her vision going black.

The night would go on with a surprising amount of peace, the entity's presence hardly felt - as if it truly ran away to lick it's wounds for now. The stars would dim, the moon sinking in the distance, until the colors of sunrise crept across the rural landscape with a gentle dance of light, a new day welcoming the land.

Throughout her hours sleeping, it wasn't remotely as peaceful as a typical slumber. Frequently tossing and turning on the bedding, scrunching her eyes and speaking in her sleep, the occasional scream raking her lungs and tensing her body, until she simply lapsed into more silence. A longer period of peace, several hours of silence from her, would be interrupted with her rising from her place of rest, and walking the clearing. Attempts of gently guiding her back to lying down were successful, but she'd certainly speak of some grisly things under her breath in this state, of family and hatred of someone...

..Eventually, when the sun began sinking low, her eyes would open. Groggy, she rubbed her eyes and tried to pull herself upright. She felt at her bandage - minimal pain, her wound must've been done healing... The sound of bandages unravelling would surely alert her company of her waking, a listless gaze running down her horribly scarred arm, exposed.

She wadded the soiled bandages together in a neat roll, only pausing momentarily to acknowledge Isamu's presence with a squinting glare - yeah, guy could yuck it up all he wants. He won, she had to admit that this habit of her's wasn't going to work out in the long run - the venom samples she'd been taking weren't sufficient to keeping her awake, if only she could read that damned recipe... But even if she could, was it really worth it? Staying awake long enough just made the terrors worse, even when she started she acknowledged that, but she just wanted to be stubborn.

"Awful. Like I shat my pants and sat in it," Her croaking tone was followed shortly by a brief coughing and a hacking spit off into the nearest bush, grunting and digging through her bag for a bottle of water, "..Urfh. It'd probably take several nights for that to start actually feeling better."

That bottle's contents were gone in a near instant, clearing her throat, "...Yeah, I gotta go piss. After that we're getting my machete back and skinning that peeping jackass while his heart's still thumping in his chest."

Her eyes burned with a slight headache, now she was regretting not packing those chewing herb bundles... She grumbled and fussed as she vanished into the brush for a few minutes, reemerging when she was done with her business and rubbing her eye. Really should get more water before the sun set, she definitely heard something trickling not too far from them...

"Oh, right." As she arrived back, she stood by the treeline, gaze to the side as she momentarily froze with that nickname. Ugh, she did not have the energy to correct that, at least it wasn't the nickname that pissed her off... Grabbing a stick, she'd come up to him and drop into a squat, beginning to trace images in the dirt, the first one appearing as a four-legged entity in a cloud surrounded by trees,

"Well from the little information gathering our guys got, I assumed it was a hollow that hid itself in the mist like an ambush predator. Was off the mark, but bringing the masks didn't turn out to be a bad idea. It lures people, particularly weary travelers it seems, into the mist with... Ugh, something they'd want to hear," There was no point lying, it could mean the difference between life and death - a small wounding of her pride was hardly measurable, "And when they're where it wants them, it hijacks their body through their airways, and uses it to pull the rest of the group in. Nasty shitheel eats you inside-out, total freak."

She made rather graphic looking drawings to illustrate this point. He didn't need to know what she was seeing during that, "So if we want to catch it off guard, one of us is gonna have to bait it out. It's a total coward and takes off if the situation isn't in it's control... So one of us is gonna have to take the bait, while the other lies in wait."

Looking up at him, she'd give a look that lacked any amusement, "You're going to want to be bait instead of me for my sake, huh? No need to play noble prince, Hagane."