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If he were being honest with himself - which (in all honesty) he never would be - Hong Lu could admit that he doesn’t actually like using Roseate Desire very much.
It’s not that it’s bad, per say, just that it’s… unpleasant, in a pleasant way, which is almost worse than just being outright unpleasant. There are things that he enjoys about it, certainly; there must be something to enjoy in every EGO, or at the very least something to relate to, or else it would never work. To start with, the ribbons themselves are comfortable. On first glance while fighting those strange ribbon-covered corpses all the way back in J Corp, he had assumed the material would be lackluster despite its shine of silk. And yet, whenever he wears the EGO, it feels like the softest of fabrics, wrapped gently but snugly around him in that almost reassuring way, much like he imagines a warm embrace would feel.
Speaking of wearing it, he does look rather nice in pink. That’s the other benefit, of course - the way the EGO looks has a certain… how to put it politely? It’s striking, to say the least, eye-catching in a way that most other Sinners would likely be less comfortable with. It’s almost funny to see the way some of them turn away to hide a hint of blush, to hear a derisive comment here or there about how Hong Lu seems to be enjoying himself just a little too much.
Yes, of course that’s a benefit. If the others are distracted by the way the EGO looks, it makes it far easier to hide the truth of the situation.
Hong Lu cannot think.
The clash of metal on metal strikes just next to his ear, loud and jarring and pulling him out of his dazed musing back into the heat of battle. There’s another Sinner by his side - likely Ishmael, if that flash of orange is anything to go by (and it has to be something to go by, because it’s the only thing he can latch onto now, that quick burst of color and shape and movement) - being beaten back by another blurry shape, all green and bright. Are those K Corp staff…? Or someone with a Sloshing EGO suit? Or maybe it’s-
A shattering squelch reaches his ear. Something warm drips down his face and arms.
Ah. Is this fight going poorly? Or was that the enemy dropping to the floor?
A pink haze envelops his vision further, and that familiar chain of their manager tugs at him, directing his movement towards his next target. Not that he needs to pay attention to the command, though.
Not when the gauntlets move for him.
That’s the other part he doesn’t like, if he were to admit to it. It’s already bad enough to be in such a daze, that heady scent of roses filling his lungs and tugging him ever so gently into a bleary numbness, filtering the world into sights and sounds that he can barely make heads or tails of. Under usual circumstances, he could handle that much, at least. The nearly-drugged sensation alone isn’t so terrible, and in any other situation he could almost find himself growing to like it.
But this - he thinks, as those heavy gauntlets lift themselves up into the air, ready to drop and send the ribbons flying - is something else entirely.
It’s the lack of control that gets to him.
A strike lands. He had nothing to do with it.
He doesn’t understand why it’s happening, either. He’s witnessed this before, from the outside, when Ishmael lets the Pink Shoes make an appearance, and she certainly seems to be the one to control that toss of her anchor.
A ribbon tightens, and he feels more than hears the bones of his enemy snap beneath the pressure.
Dread pools in his stomach. It’s wrong. It feels wrong. He’s being puppeted, twisted and pulled in new directions, that lack of agency he’s so used to now made manifest in those damned gauntlets and ribbons, tugging and lifting and-
Hong Lu falls.
A wave of dizziness sends his head reeling. Vertigo churns at his insides. Gravity has shifted, sending him tipping backwards in the final strike, ribbons pulling and tightening and crushing and the world spins around him as his eyes roll back with nothing but pink and pink and nauseating pink and–
Something almost like glass shatters around him, and Hong Lu finds himself standing on his own two feet. The ribbons are gone. The heavy gauntlets have vanished, and his grip tightens around his weapon as the feeling returns to his arms. That dizzying rose perfume no longer drugs his mind.
He takes a deep breath. It’s over, for the moment. This fight has gone on for far too long, he’s able to realize now, battlefield scattered with more dead Sinners from this combat team than he’d like to see.
“Oh, dear…” He hefts his guandao, letting that easy smile cross his face again despite the troublesome situation. It’s a good thing that Dante has kept the other half of the Sinners in reserve, as has become the usual for these bizarre mirror dungeons, given the way this battle is going. He spares a quick glance for the fallen Don Quixote. “Does it hurt a lot? Please tell me later…”
They’ll be revived soon after this anyway.
It’s hard to breathe.
Colors shift. Something cold and heavy twitches around his hands. His fingers move without meaning to. A red blur approaches, rhythmic and frantic, and fades away again.
Why can’t I breathe?
His arms ache. He can’t lift them. Something holds them down, weighted and tight. His chest rises, falls, struggles to rise again.
Panic surges in his strained lungs, and something sickly-sweet smothers the feeling before he can even do so much as widen his eyes.
Snippets of voices reach his ears, though he can’t make heads or tails of it. Don’t get near… something, or someone, and the source of the noise pulls that red blur further away again. There’s something wrong, to his left, and to his right a gruff obviously there’s something wrong, anyone with eyes could see that-
Light wind-chimes speak up from behind, and his neck won’t turn to see what shape matches the voice. Something about… a lack of targets. That’s a relief. There’s too many blurs to make sense of, and while nothing is moving too quickly - or even towards him in general - none of them are recognizable as allies, either.
Something soft tightens across his face and around his body. That scent of rose - rose, that’s what it is, the pink fog slowing his thoughts to a crawl with its unbearable sweetness - finds its way into his lungs again as he draws another gasp through the fabric. His head tilts back further, exhaustion seeping into his muscles. There’s another voice, intangible, separate from the ones around him, and he can’t deny how alluring it is. There’s no words, but wouldn’t it be so much easier to just… give in? To give up, and let something else take control, and to slip into a dream?
A shudder wracks Hong Lu’s body. That voice wraps him in just as much temptation as it does in soul-shaking fear.
It’s hard to understand the voices around him, but something has shifted in the tone. He wishes someone would just tell him what’s wrong, and doesn’t remember that the haze would wipe away his understanding even if they did.
There’s a light pressure at his shoulder. The rest of him doesn’t move.
Of course he can’t move. His arms are too heavy, aren’t they…? The weight around his hands, it has to move first - has to pull him along, drag him forward and up, and all he ever has to do is let it.
The pressure turns into a push, and his legs won’t lift, and Hong Lu finds himself falling once again.
Ice cold terror drenches him. He can’t catch himself. Can’t force his hands upwards to brace his fall. Can’t tuck his arms in to weather the impact.
The ribbons constrict and strangle his scream to nothing more than a whisper.
…
……
………Why is it taking so long to fall?
He opens his eyes, and only then realizes how tightly he’d shut them against the fear coursing through him. How long ago had that been?
Something rushes in his ears. The ground blurs, smudges, and he’s upright again, facing someone he recognizes and doesn’t, all scars and harsh wind as the unfamiliar mouth moves.
That pulsing sound drowning out the world slowly dies down as pressure closes firmly but carefully around his arms. It’s a different kind of pressure, now - not like the soft but biting tightness of the pink wrapping around him, nor the heaviness pulling at the joints in his wrists and shoulders, but a pressure that’s… warm, somehow.
The hands jostle him cautiously - that’s what they are, and Hong Lu notices the warmth for a second time, a third - and the shape in front of him huffs out a sigh, disappearing from his vision.
Gravity shifts once again.
He isn’t sure how long it takes to return to himself.
The dizziness doesn’t fade. Pink haze creeps further into his vision, lightheaded and nauseating, threatening to drag him back into it again as he tries and fails to lift his head.
His eyes won’t focus. They still won’t focus.
The warmth is wrapped around him now, under his shoulders and knees, and his body twitches with every jostling footstep as he finds himself moved towards… something.
He can’t see. He can’t lift his head. His muscles refuse to obey, limp and distressingly pliant under the silk clinging to him.
He wants to thrash, to cry out, even to hurl if it’ll get rid of the nausea and terror, but he can’t do anything.
He can’t do anything.
Something is moving him, and he can’t do anything, and Hong Lu wonders if this helpless panic will kill him before they ever reach whatever destination lies ahead.
That wuthering voice above him speaks again, sounds shaped like words turned to useless noises. It might’ve once been some kind of gruff reassurance, if not heard through rose and fear.
It doesn’t matter, regardless.
Because with that voice, with the warmth and movement around him, the world comes ever so slightly into focus. He can feel his arms and legs, now, feel the fabric digging into his clothes and his skin. For a split second, the haze grows lighter, and pieces start to click together.
He’s felt this way before, hasn’t he…? Never this long, never to the point of being pushed and spoken around and moved by something other than the metal gauntlets guiding his every action. But he’s felt the binding of the ribbons this tightly before. He’s struggled for breath, pulling pungent flowers into his lungs and mind. Tried to fight off this deathly panic.
And he’s gotten it to stop, before.
He’s gotten the gauntlets off. Gotten the ribbons off.
Get it off of me.
It’s simple, really. Just find a target. Let those heavy gauntlets lift. Relinquish control, just this once. Metal glints in his vision, flashing light against brown skin.
Get it off of me.
His vision grows pink.
GET IT OFF!
A slice. A shout. He can breathe again.
Pink, blissfully, turns to red.