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Chrono Heart (Future Trunks X Black!OC) Chapter 2: The Table Before the Storm

*I DO NOT OWN/CLAIM TO OWN ANYTHING IN RELATION TO DBZ. I ONLY CLAIM THE ORIGINAL STORY IDEA AND BLACK!OC IN THIS STORY!*

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Previous chapter:

Chapter 1

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Author’s Note:

Axa got a little redesign! She’s still the same powerful, complex character, but now with more style and edge that reflects her personality better. Like Bulma, she’s highly intelligent and has a strong sense of fashion (Though DBZ doesn't focus on fashion- they low-key have their characters with great fits). Going forward, you can picture her in any of these looks from the collage below (kinda how we see Bulma with different outfits from time to time), but her default look is the tan crop jacket—clean, cool, and combat-ready. Just a heads-up so you can imagine her the way she’s meant to be.

(One with the plaid pants and leather bomber jacket and the one on the far left- pink out are my favorites. How about you guys?)

*Axa's Default Look*

Word count: 4698 

Chapter 2: The Table Before the Storm

The silence in the aftermath was brittle.

Axa’s body had collapsed like a marionette whose strings had been violently severed. One moment, she stood in the center of the living room—shaking, glowing, crying—and the next, she was sprawled across the floor, limbs askew, her golden eyes flickering with the sputtering light of a dying star. The carpet beneath her still held the radiant warmth of her energy signature, but she was cold—ice-cold—to the touch.

Krillin dropped to his knees beside her, one hand instinctively hovering near her face. “She’s not breathing,” he said, then hesitated. “No—she doesn’t breathe. Not like us. But her core… it’s doing something.” His palm hovered just above her chest, not quite touching her, his fingers shaking. “It’s fast. Like… too fast. Is that normal?”

Android 18 knelt opposite him, golden hair falling forward over her shoulder. Her expression was locked in that familiar place between control and fear. Her gaze darted over Axa’s face—her expression frozen, eyelids twitching, mouth half-open, like she’d been caught mid-sentence in a dream she couldn’t escape.

“She’s crashing,” 18 murmured, her voice stripped bare. “Emotionally. Her system’s folding under it. Gero didn’t build her to feel that much, that fast.”

Krillin looked up at her, alarm spreading across his face. “You mean she’s dying?”

“No,” she said tightly. “Worse. She’s… folding inward. Like her own mind doesn’t know where to send the overflow. Gero never gave her the tools. He just expected her to take it.”

The room trembled. Not from energy—but from the weight of something unspoken, something neither mechanical nor emotional. It was the aftershock of raw, unshaped grief—a sorrow so ancient it didn’t know how to ask for help.

In the far corner, Marron’s stuffed dinosaur had rolled onto its side, staring blankly at the ceiling. The home was dim now, unnaturally still, as if even the walls were holding their breath. The little girl who once held that toy had been rushed out of the room. The tension that remained filled the silence with the echo of something irreversibly broken.

Krillin swallowed hard. “She’s just a kid.” He didn’t realize he’d said it aloud. “She looks like a weapon, but she’s just a damn kid.”

18 didn’t respond. Not with words. Her eyes stayed on Axa. Not blinking. Not moving. Like something inside her had turned to stone.

Krillin stood quickly, rubbing the back of his neck, trying to shake off the helplessness crawling up his spine. “We need Bulma.”

“She’s already on her way.” 18’s voice regained its edge as she pressed her wrist communicator. “I called her the second Axa dropped.”

Bulma arrived minutes later, as promised, striding into the broken doorway without knocking, her lab coat half-fastened, her boots slick from the rain that had just started to fall. Her eyes immediately locked onto Axa’s body on the floor.

Her entire posture changed.

She didn’t ask what happened. She didn’t waste time. She dropped her capsule tech case beside Axa and knelt, pulling out a sleek scanning wand and a portable core stabilizer with shaking hands.

Krillin opened his mouth to speak, but Bulma cut him off with a look. “Help me lift her. Carefully.”

Together, they moved Axa—her body heavier than it should have been. Not heavy like dead weight. Heavy like density. Like gravity had taken root in her bones. Every limb clicked unnaturally as it bent, as if part of her skeleton was trying to protect itself from being touched.

Her skin was cold and smooth, almost metallic where the light caught the seam behind her jaw. Her hair, now lifeless and tangled, still shimmered faintly with something otherworldly. Even broken, even dimmed—she was luminous.

“She’s in sensory override,” Bulma said under her breath, eyes flicking across the data flickering across the stabilizer’s display. “Her synapse layers are firing all at once. Emotional recall… memory flooding… oh gods, it’s not just a failsafe—she’s trying to rewrite herself to survive it.”

18 moved closer, her arms folded tight across her chest, nails biting into the fabric of her sleeves. “That’s not Gero’s design. That’s her.”

“She’s evolving,” Bulma whispered, almost to herself. “But it’s not… clean. The code’s fragmented. She’s trying to feel everything he told her never to feel, all at once.”

Krillin shifted beside them. “What does that mean?”

Bulma looked up. “It means we have to get her out of here. Now.”

The transport drone arrived in under thirty seconds. It drifted in with silent turbines and extended its containment field like a cradle. Together, they lifted Axa’s unresponsive form and settled her inside. Her hands twitched. A pulse of golden light surged beneath the skin of her collarbone, then faded.

“She’s bleeding emotion,” Bulma muttered, her hands racing over the control pad. “Like radiation.”

Krillin turned to 18. “You said she came to you on her own?”

18 nodded, barely.

Bulma’s eyes sharpened. “How do you even know her?”

The question hit harder than intended. 18 flinched. Not visibly—but Krillin saw the shift. Her eyes moved slightly to the side, toward the window. Her breath slowed.

When she answered, her voice came from another place. Deeper. Older.

“I knew her before I was me.”

Neither of them spoke. They didn’t dare.

“I don’t remember everything,” 18 continued, her voice hushed and distant. “But some things don’t leave you. Not even after everything he did.”

Bulma didn’t interrupt.

“She was small. Younger than us. Gero didn’t let her speak. He kept her locked in the deep labs. The ones with no windows.” 18’s hands gripped the back of a chair now. Her knuckles were white. “I’d see her sometimes when they moved us between testing rooms. She’d follow behind one of the white-coats. Head down. Never crying. Just watching.”

The air in the room changed. The rain outside intensified, as if nature were eavesdropping.

“She was beautiful. Too delicate. Like she didn’t belong in there. Gero... he made sure of it. She wasn’t just built to fight. She was built to feel. He tried to rip that out of her. But it wouldn’t go. That made her defective. So he kept her in shadows.”

Krillin stepped closer, voice quiet. “Did you ever talk to her?”

“She talked to me.” 18 closed her eyes, face pinched with memory. “One night. I don’t know how she escaped containment. She was shaking. Barefoot. She came into the orchard where Seventeen and I were. She just wrapped her arms around me.”

Bulma’s eyes widened. “And?”

“I froze.” Her voice cracked. “She was warm. She held me like she knew me. Like I was her sister. She didn’t ask for help. She didn’t need to. She just held on.”

“What did you do?”

“I held her back.”

The silence that followed lasted longer than it should have.

“And then?” Krillin asked softly.

“Then the alarms went off. Gero came. He ripped her away from me like she was dirty. He looked at me like I was trash. Like I’d been infected.” 18 finally looked back at Axa. “I never saw her again.”

Bulma was quiet for a long moment. Then she stepped beside 18 and placed a hand on her shoulder. Not for comfort. For solidarity.

“She trusted you,” she said.

“No.” 18’s eyes glistened. “She hoped I was worth trusting. And I wasn’t.”

The drone locked into containment mode, slowly hovering toward the transport bay.

“We bring her to Capsule Corp,” Bulma said. “Now.”

“She’s not ready,” Krillin warned. “She doesn’t even know who she is.”

“Then it’s time she started finding out.”

No one argued.

Outside, the wind stirred, lifting the trees in skeletal gestures. The city lights blinked behind heavy rainclouds. And in the sky, just for a moment, something flickered—something distant. A pulse.

She had returned.

And the world had noticed.

_____________________________________________________________

The lights above her buzzed softly, steady and unblinking.

Axa opened her eyes to sterile white ceilings that hummed faintly with invisible electricity. The world came back in fragments: a sharp clinical scent, the feel of smooth material beneath her fingers, the subtle pull of something tugging at the side of her head.

Her eyes darted to the source of that pull—cords. Thin wires ran from her temples and collarbone into a glossy panel beside the slab she’d been placed on. She didn’t move at first. She listened. There were no footsteps. No alarms. No voices shouting above her.

She was alone. But she didn’t feel safe.

Every surface around her gleamed. Clean. Cold. Familiar.

Her hand twitched.

She sat up with a suddenness that jarred the medical equipment. A quick snap of movement—not hesitation, but a precise decision based on data. The cords pulled taut. One of them tugged against her skin and something inside her—something old and buried—screamed.

Axa’s fingers clamped down on the nearest wire. She yanked it free. The noise it made was small, but to her, it roared.

The pulse in her skull spiked. More cords. More readings. A monitor beeped. Her body reacted before she could consciously process what was happening. She reached for the second wire, about to tear it away—

“Stop,” a voice said.

She didn’t. Not right away.

Her gaze flicked toward the source.

Android 18 stood in the doorway, backlit by sterile hallway light. She wasn’t moving aggressively. Her arms were relaxed, voice even. But her eyes—there was something hesitant there. Not fear. Guilt.

“You’re safe,” she said. “This isn’t Gero’s lab. Those aren’t restraints.”

Axa’s eyes narrowed. “They feel like them.”

18 took a step closer, slow and deliberate. “They’re just monitors. For stabilization. That’s all.”

“You said that before.” Her tone was sharper now. Not loud. Not aggressive. Just... focused. “When you brought me here. You said you wouldn’t let anyone touch my programming.”

“They didn’t.” 18 glanced to the monitors. “You nearly shorted out. Bulma stabilized you. That’s it.”

Axa’s brow furrowed. A strange tightness bloomed in her stomach. Unfamiliar. Hollow, but sharp. Her systems flagged a new signal: Energy deficit. Her core wasn’t damaged, but it was... hungrier than it should have been.

She looked down at her own hands.

“I’m experiencing... discomfort,” she murmured. “Localized to the abdominal cavity.”

18 hesitated. “You’re hungry.”

Axa froze. The word hung in the air like an error message.

“That’s impossible. I don’t require food.”

“You didn’t. Not before. Bulma adjusted your internal systems. Gave you a functional digestive—”

“You altered me.”

Her voice cut like a blade.

18 opened her mouth, but Axa was already standing. Too quickly. The cords detached themselves with a hiss. She took two steps toward the wall, away from the bed, away from 18.

“You let her modify me,” Axa said, quiet and lethal.

“She didn’t do anything invasive. Just—”

“You said it was just monitors.”

“I didn’t lie,” 18 snapped. “You were—”

“You let her.” Axa’s words landed like stones. “She made a change without asking. That’s what he did. That’s what Gero always did. He took. He didn’t ask.”

18 looked away, her jaw clenched.

Bulma appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on a cloth, her voice a soft intrusion. “You passed out mid-system overload. We had to anchor you or your memory would’ve shattered.”

“You rewrote me,” Axa said coldly.

“I upgraded a stabilizer.”

“Without consent.”

“You would’ve flatlined.”

“I would’ve chosen to.”

Bulma’s mouth tightened. “You weren’t in a position to choose.”

“And that justifies it?” Axa asked, voice dipping to something dangerous, something mechanical. “Just because I’m not screaming doesn’t mean I’m grateful.”

The tension thickened, coiling in the room like a growing storm.

“I’m not human to you,” she said at last. “I’m still a machine. A data set. A puzzle. A—project.”

She turned her back on both women. Her mind moved rapidly, calculations branching like fractals behind her eyes. Possible exits. Energy reserves. When to run. Where to go.

Stay through the evening. Observe more. Depart undetected at 02:00 hours. Return to low-traffic sectors. Avoid satellite detection. Locate silence. Locate solitude.

She would not be broken again.

Behind her, Bulma tried to speak. “We’re not—”

“I’ll attend your ‘dinner,’” Axa said, cutting her off. “Then I’m leaving.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Yes,” Axa whispered, barely audible. “I do.”

_____________________________________________________________

The dining room was warm, dimmed to a gentle amber. Someone had turned on the soft jazz that usually played during Capsule Corp dinners—Bulma’s idea of atmosphere—but it felt distant now, like the ghost of something familiar playing in a space that had been changed.

Axa sat at the far end of the table, her hands placed carefully on the polished surface, fingers interlaced in perfect symmetry. She hadn’t moved since entering. She simply sat and observed, golden eyes roaming the room as if studying an ecosystem she didn’t yet understand.

She catalogued things unconsciously—texture, spacing, voice modulation, heat signatures. Krillin’s heartbeat was faster than the others’. Gohan’s posture leaned slightly toward her, curiosity laced with restraint. Piccolo hadn’t removed his eyes from her since she entered. Goku, strange and bright and oddly weightless, smiled like she was a puzzle he couldn’t wait to solve.

The room was too full of life. Too warm. Too unpredictable.

She kept still.

The smell of food filled the space—spiced rice, garlic-braised greens, thick-cut noodles in savory broth—and she felt the strange knot in her stomach again. Hunger. A new sensation. Foreign. Disconcerting. She didn’t trust it. She didn’t trust any of this.

“And while we’re all gathered,” Bulma said, setting down her glass with a soft clink, “I’d like you all to properly meet Axa.”

She gestured toward the quiet girl seated at the far end of the table. Her voice softened, not quite maternal, not quite clinical—somewhere between apology and pride.

“She’s… complex,” Bulma said. “Technically, yes, she was created by Gero. But what she is—and who she is—goes way beyond that.”

There was a silence, not hostile, but heavy. The kind of silence where old memories pressed against the walls of the room. Gero’s name still had weight. Still left echoes.

“She’s not like 17 or 18,” Bulma went on. “Not like Cell. She was hidden—experimental. Gero kept her off-grid, deep underground. No records, no design logs. I wouldn’t have believed she even existed if 18 hadn’t seen her before.”

She looked at Axa, then back at the others. “She’s not a blueprint. She’s a question mark.”

Axa did not move. Her posture remained perfect, untouched by the soft glow of the table lights, her hands still folded like they were stitched together by code. But inside, something shifted.

Question mark.Blueprint.Not like Cell.Not like 18.

They weren’t cruel words. Not exactly. But they weren’t careful, either.

Axa stared straight ahead, her gaze hollowing just slightly.

She’s speaking as though I’m not in the room.

No—worse. She’s presenting me. Like a breakthrough. Like a schematic finally decoded.

A slow, metallic burn crept beneath her chest plate. It wasn’t quite anger. Not yet. But it was remembered anger. The kind she’d been forced to suppress before she understood what it was.

She hated this feeling.

She hated how familiar it was.

The showcase tone. The eager curiosity. The underlying thrill of being near something dangerous that you could still claim. Still fix.

Gero used to speak like that. Just before the pain.

She kept her eyes forward. Silent. But she felt the separation widen.

They’re not afraid of me yet, she thought. But they will be.

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The silence that followed Bulma’s words had weight.

No one reached for food. Even the steam curling off the bowls on the table seemed to slow in the stillness. Axa felt the attention resting on her like ambient pressure—studying her, measuring her. And she hated that she understood what was happening.

They’re evaluating risk.

Every glance. Every subtle breath. Every muscle not moving was a calculation—one she had run before in simulations Gero forced her to repeat thousands of times. In crowds. In combat. In interrogation chambers. This wasn’t dinner.

This was assessment.

She had spent her early childhood wanting to trust 18. Watching her from behind sterile glass and surveillance feeds, memorizing her voice through vents, mimicking her footsteps in the dark. She had dreamed of being seen. Really seen.

Now she was.

Not as a person.

As a tool. As a variable. As the next possible threat.

“Great,” Vegeta muttered, not even trying to hide the venom in his voice. “Another ghost from that lunatic’s playbook.”

Axa didn’t react—not outwardly. But her head tilted slightly. Not to challenge. To register. Log the hostility. Note the direction of the threat.

Gohan, always the bridge, offered her a small, careful smile. “I’m Gohan. It’s nice to meet you, Axa.”

She studied his face. She searched for falseness. And found none.

“I remember your voice,” she said softly. “You were younger then. Still searching.”

Gohan blinked, puzzled. “We’ve met?”

“Not directly. But your frequency is familiar. From somewhere.”

Piccolo grunted. “That’s… unnerving.”

Goku, already leaning forward with unabashed curiosity, grinned. “So you don’t eat, but you can?”

“I have a modified digestive channel,” Axa replied, eyes narrowing slightly. “Recently added. Without my consent.”

Bulma glanced down at her plate.

Axa’s tone didn’t shift. “I don’t understand the purpose yet.”

“Well,” Goku said, still cheerful, “you eat something, and if it tastes good, you smile.”

Axa stared at him. “That’s primitive reward-based stimulation.”

“Yup,” he said, unbothered.

She blinked once. “Fascinating.”

Krillin leaned forward, more cautious. “You doing okay now? You seemed kind of... off earlier.”

Axa met his gaze. “My systems are stable. Emotional integration remains an obstacle.”

“You’ll get there,” 18 offered quietly.

Axa turned toward her, slow. Her eyes lingered, just a fraction longer than comfort allowed.

“You keep saying that.”

“Because I believe it.”

A pause. Axa didn’t look away.

“Then why does it feel like a delay tactic?”

18’s throat moved, but no words came. She looked away.

And just like that, the silence returned, heavy and suffocating.

Then—beneath the surface—something shifted.

Axa’s hands, still folded perfectly on the table, twitched. Not visibly. Not enough to raise alarms. But she felt it. A micro-movement. A muscle group activating involuntarily. A spark that traveled up her arm like static trapped under skin.

The garlic in the air became sharp. Metallic. The temperature spiked. The light dimmed a fraction too quickly.

Her reflection in the polished table flickered—just for a second—distorted by something unseen.

She blinked.

Her HUD glitched. Sensory loop error. Logic core desync.

Recalibrating…

The table and voices grew distant.

Gohan’s voice, trying to keep things steady, slipped in again. “You said she’s experimental,” he said to Bulma. “What kind of programming are we talking about?”

Programming.

The word dropped into her chest like a stone. Louder than it should’ve been. Meaner.

Bulma hesitated. “Gero built her differently. Emotional mapping over reactive combat instincts. Neural mirroring. She can feel things, but she was never taught how to process them.”

Axa turned her head, slow. Fixed on Bulma.

The woman looked away.

Don’t speak for me.

“She’s dangerous,” Piccolo said, not unkindly. Just stating what he saw.

“Yeah,” Vegeta growled, arms crossed. “She reeks of suppressed kill-switches.”

Her fingers twitched again.

She looked up.

Vegeta was already staring at her—cold, merciless.

His lip curled.

“I’ve seen your kind before,” he said. “Gero’s little toys. Always trembling with power they don’t understand. Like rabid dogs with bombs strapped to their backs. All spark. No spine.”

Axa’s voice came low. Measured. “I am not like the others.”

Vegeta stepped closer to the center of the room, gaze narrowing. “No. You’re worse. At least the others had a purpose. You? You’re a mistake Gero buried in the dirt.”

No one breathed.

Axa blinked slowly.

When her eyes opened again, they were no longer gold.

Amber now. Deep. Liquid and flickering like molten circuitry under glass.

Her head tilted slightly to one side. The motion was fluid, but wrong. Like a simulation running out of frames.

Then a subtle flex of her fingers.

Vegeta noticed.

He didn’t flinch, but a muscle in his jaw ticked. Readiness coiled in him like a storm behind glass.

“I don’t like your voice,” Axa said softly.

Vegeta’s brows lifted, mocking. “No?”

“It’s loud,” she said. “Full of fear pretending to be pride. The same tone Gero used when he explained how to burn cities.”

The calm in her voice didn’t match the weight of her words.

“You think you’re something new?” Vegeta sneered. “You’re just old metal pretending to be flesh. A bad copy of a nightmare we already beat.”

Her amber eyes brightened—glowing now, backlit from within.

Beneath her skin, a faint flicker. Not ki. Not heat.

Something wrong.

“I used to wonder what made you angry,” she said. “I used to—”

Her voice stuttered.

“C-c-care.”

She blinked.

Reset.

She looked back at Vegeta.

“But now... I want to hear you scream.”

Goku shot up from his chair. “Axa—��

“Protocol XA–V7,” she said, voice glitching. Her mouth twisted into a smile. The kind that looked painted on. Too clean. Too wide.

“Emotion ceiling breached. Social regulation suspended. Threat index identified. Priority shift engaged.”

“Stop,” Gohan warned, circling the table.

Axa stood.

Her motion was knife-like. Surgical.

Vegeta stepped into the space, shoulders loose but energy ready. His expression had gone dark. Empty.

“Finally,” he said. “The mask slips.”

“No,” Axa replied. “The leash broke.”

“Then let’s see what’s left.”

“Blood,” she said simply.

And just like that, the room cracked in half.

_____________________________________________________________

The room shattered on soundless impact.

Axa blurred forward—no aura, no build-up, just movement. One instant she was standing, the next she was there, right in front of Vegeta, fist drawn back with surgical precision.

He blocked.

But she was already past him.

Her elbow slammed into the base of his spine—low, deliberate. A dirty strike.

Vegeta’s mouth split with a grunt as he stumbled forward, twisting just in time to block the follow-up knee aimed at his throat.

“You hit like a brute,” Axa purred, voice smooth now, calm again. “So linear. So… adorably desperate.”

She spun low, sweeping his legs from under him with inhuman fluidity. The moment his back neared the floor, she was already crouched on him—legs astride his waist, a hand cocked above his chest like a dagger.

“Tell me,” she whispered, head tilting, eyes glowing bright as cauterized gold. “Does your pride bleed as beautifully as your body?”

Vegeta snarled and exploded upward in a sudden burst of ki, sending the table—and her—flying. She cartwheeled through the air with eerie grace, skidding against the floor with a flash of sparks before rising unharmed.

She was grinning.

Not cocky.

Hungry.

Vegeta rushed her, this time faster���energy flaring like a comet behind him, his fist glowing with a sharp edge of pure blue ki. He struck with everything. Jab. Hook. Elbow. Knee. Backhand. The air rippled with pressure.

But she wasn’t blocking.

She was dodging.

Not with fear. With joy.

A twist of her shoulder let his punch glance past her cheek. She inhaled the air he displaced.

“Familiar,” she said, twisting behind him. “You still smell like shame.”

Her foot connected with his side, sending him crashing into the far wall with enough force to crater the surface and spiderweb the tile beneath it.

She didn’t wait.

She darted forward, launching through the rubble before his boots had time to scrape against the ground. Her fingers sliced toward his throat, not with brute force—but a scalpel’s intent.

Vegeta caught her wrist. Just barely.

But she grinned wider, and her other hand slammed into his side—just under his ribs, angled precisely where she remembered 18 had once broken bone.

“Still weak there,” she murmured, twisting her wrist in his grip like a snake dislocating its joints. “Your body doesn’t forget trauma.”

Vegeta roared and drove a knee into her sternum.

She barely moved. No grunt. No shock.

Instead, she leaned close—cheek against his.

“I used to dream about being free,” she whispered in his ear, her voice like glass scraping metal. “Now I dream about watching the strong beg.”

Then she grabbed him by the hair and slammed his face into the floor.

Once.

Twice.

A third time. Blood sprayed across the polished tile, spattering the broken edge of the dining room table.

Goku moved then—just a step.

But 18 was already there, a hand snapping out to stop him.

“No,” she said. “She’s not in control.”

“She’s going to kill him.”

“She could’ve already.”

Back on the ground, Vegeta surged up, blood leaking from his nose, lip split wide. His aura flared again, brighter this time—electric arcs crackling through his hair as he summoned a roar of power that rattled the chandeliers above.

“You think you’re special?” he barked. “You’re a footnote. A failed experiment with a God complex.”

Axa landed silently behind him.

“Projection,” she said calmly.

She thrust both palms into his back, unleashing a compressed, spiraling beam of amber light—thin, sharp, and dense.

It didn’t knock him across the room.

It pinned him to the ground.

The beam buzzed against his spine like a drill, eating through armor and flesh with a precision-built hum. His screams were half-drowned by the whine of the energy.

She knelt beside him, watching clinically.

“You always screamed so loud, even when it was just your pride being broken. But now…” She leaned in. “This sounds honest.”

Vegeta flipped with a desperate burst of power, kicking her back with enough force to make her heels skip across the tile.

But again—she landed like it didn’t matter. Graceful. Controlled. Smiling.

The left side of her face was singed. The skin melted slightly around her cheekbone. But she didn’t touch it. Didn’t notice it.

She stepped forward again. Slow. Deliberate.

“I wonder what you'll look like when you realize you were never the predator,” she said. “Just another dying animal in the corner.”

Vegeta snapped.

He launched at her, fists burning, teeth bared.

She let him hit her.

The punch landed—hard enough to jolt her head to the side, a tooth flying from her mouth like a pearl.

She turned back. Spat blood.

Then laughed.

Not a loud, maniacal cackle. A soft, fractured laugh from deep in her throat. A chuckle—like she’d just been told a joke by death itself.

She wiped the blood off her chin with the back of her hand and whispered, “Finally.”

Then she moved.

One second she was across from him.

The next she was behind him again.

And then—

Crack.

Her hand drove into his back—this time hard enough to break something.

Vegeta’s body jerked.

A scream erupted from his throat, guttural and primal.

The others moved this time. Krillin leapt from his chair. Gohan shot forward.

But it was too late.

Axa stood over him, one boot pressing into the back of Vegeta’s neck.

“System override complete,” she whispered. “Glitch State stabilized.”

_____________________________________________________________

Her eyes were pure amber now. Glowing from deep within. Her hair fell in messy strands around her face, singed at the ends. Her body was blood-spattered—his blood.

She tilted her head, looking up slowly at the others closing in.

And then—

Time slowed.

A shift in the air. The light bent.

A pulse echoed outward like gravity snapping in place.

And a hand gripped her wrist from behind.

Firm.

Unyielding.

The second it touched her, her body froze—like a program interrupted mid-line.

Her pupils dilated. Her mouth parted, but no words came. Static fluttered at the edges of her HUD.

Then she turned her head—mechanically, like the motion wasn’t fully her own.

A boy stood behind her. No—not a boy. A warrior.

Sword on his back. Eyes the color of sky before a storm.

Blue.

But more than that—

His energy.

It was like nothing else in the room.

Familiar. Ancient. Buried.

Axa’s entire frame stuttered.

Her amber glow fractured, flickered.

Her voice cracked. Not with recognition.

With something deeper.

“F-frequen...cy match. Signature... known.”

She blinked hard.

Looked up at him.

"...Trunks?"

But she didn’t know why she said the name.

It had surfaced on its own, rising from beneath layers of code Gero never meant her to access.

It wasn’t memory.

It was something older.

Instinct.

_____________________________________________________________

Previous chapter:

Chapter 1

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[introvertllux]

Heartcore Sync: Megas XLR Fic (Coop x Black!OC)

In the chaos-soaked streets of Jersey City, Coop—slacker, gamer, mech junkie—pilots MEGAS XLR: the most overpowered, over-modded battle bot this side of the space-time continuum. His life is plasma blasts, power ballads, and burritos... until she falls from the sky.

Enter Lyra Thompson—an introverted, emotionally intuitive tech prodigy with a mysterious connection to machines, a sharp tongue, and a past she doesn’t talk about. She’s never been in sync with people, but when she touches MEGAS, it responds like it’s been waiting for her all along.

As Glorft forces close in and buried secrets resurface, Lyra and Coop are thrust into a high-stakes fusion of mech combat, emotional resonance, and unexpected connection. But piloting a machine with your heart means letting someone in—and that’s the hardest fight of all.

🔸 AU / Sci-Fi Mecha / Emotional Tech / Found Family 🔸 Featuring a Black!OC / Slow-burn, soft-core romance with sharp edges 🔸 Main pairing: Coop x Lyra 🔸 Content warnings: mech combat, emotional intensity, themes of isolation, grief, and self-worth, light romantic tension, moments of vulnerability and tech-based sensory resonance

⚠️ Heads up: This is a slow-burn romance. Lyra’s full backstory, abilities, and her emotional bond with MEGAS unfold over time, allowing for immersive character development, group dynamics, and a steady emotional sync between her and Coop that builds chapter by chapter.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2 (Coming Soon)

________

Taglist:

@moonygrim @generalzombieperson @stivensiastage @pastelbabygirl19

[introvertllux]

Heartcore Sync: Megas XLR Fic (Coop x Black!OC) Chapter 1: The Girl in the Glitch

🔸 AU / Sci-Fi Mecha / Emotional Tech / Found Family 🔸 Featuring a Black!OC / Slow-burn, soft-core romance with sharp edges 🔸 Main pairing: Coop x Lyra 🔸 Content warnings: mech combat, emotional intensity, themes of isolation, grief, and self-worth, light romantic tension, moments of vulnerability and tech-based sensory resonance

⚠️ Heads up: This is a slow-burn romance. Lyra’s full backstory, abilities, and her emotional bond with MEGAS unfold over time, allowing for immersive character development, group dynamics, and a steady emotional sync between her and Coop that builds chapter by chapter.

Word Count: 2,636

Chapter 1: The Girl in the Glitch

Setting: Jersey City, 200X. Somewhere between a car lot, a collapsed diner, and three angry Glorft drones. Welcome to Thursday.

It was another aggressively normal day in Jersey City. The sun glared through smoggy clouds, casting a sepia tone over rooftops and chain-link fences. The smell of smoke, street tacos, and burnt-out hover-engine parts hung in the air like perfume. Buildings leaned where they shouldn’t. Pigeons fought over pretzel crumbs in the crater where a bank used to be.

And barreling down the middle of an already-ruined avenue was MEGAS—forty tons of modified, chromed-out, souped-up New Jersey attitude in mech form.

Inside the cockpit, Coop—driver, chaos engine, snack enthusiast—grinned wide behind the controls, one hand on the stick, the other on a half-eaten burrito.

“YEAHHH, BABY! Who’s the king of robot-street combat and limited-time nacho deals?!”

He yanked the controls.

MEGAS boosted up a half-collapsed parking garage ramp and launched into the air—twisting in a full spin before landing in the center of a Glorft scout squad, smashing a hover tank beneath its foot.

From behind him, Kiva snapped.

“Coop! That maneuver just ruptured the pavement—and probably twelve water mains!”

“What? That’s urban renewal!” Coop grinned, slapping a glowing red “STOMP” button like it owed him money.

Onscreen, warning lights flashed. MEGAS vibrated slightly—like it had a hiccup it didn’t want to admit.

Kiva’s fingers flew across her wrist-mounted diagnostic screen.

“Something’s interfering with MEGAS’s neural circuit. It’s… not mechanical. It’s emotional.”

Jamie’s head popped up from the co-pilot chair where he’d been hiding under a pizza box.

“What, like robot feelings? Are we doing that now?”

“I always knew MEGAS was a softie,” Coop said, shrugging. “He just needed a good soundtrack and a better burrito.”

BZZZZZT. The mech twitched. Static washed over the screens. The sound system sputtered mid-guitar solo and changed—without warning—into a soft, dreamy synth pulse.

And then—

BOOM. A rooftop three stories up across the street gave way. Concrete cracked. Metal groaned. Glass exploded in all directions.

Through the rising smoke, something moved.

Not Glorft. Not a drone. Someone.

She fell. Not like someone helpless. Not flailing or screaming. Like someone who knew she’d land.

A silhouette through the dust. Coils of textured hair catching the light. Flared pants sweeping out behind her like a cloak. A long cardigan fluttered over her shoulders.

She crashed onto the hood of a ruined yellow cab, denting the frame completely—and stood up with barely a grunt.

She took a breath. Brushed glass from her shoulder. Rolled her neck. Gold bangles clinked like wind chimes.

She looked up. Right. At. MEGAS. Right. At. Coop.

Time didn’t stop. But it definitely slowed down.

Coop blinked. Open-mouthed. His burrito hit the floor in defeat.

“...Yo.”

Jamie squinted out the front glass.

“Did a girl just fall from a building and superhero-pose onto a car?”

“I think I just met my future wife,” Coop whispered, half choking on nothing.

“This is so much worse than the hoverboard incident,” Jamie groaned.

Lyra.

She didn’t move with fear—she moved like a rhythm. Measured. Steady. Like the chaos around her was just background noise.

She was beautiful—but it wasn’t that. It was presence. That quiet-but-deadly confidence. The way her eyes scanned the mech like she already understood it. Her voice? Warm. Low. Certain.

“Your mech’s screaming,” she called up. “You’re fighting with it. You should be dancing.”

“W-Wait… did she say dancing?” Coop stammered.

“If you have to ask,” Lyra replied, “you’re not listening.”

Inside, MEGAS purred. The lights flickered from red to warm violet. One monitor blinked briefly to a symbol—an animated pink heart, beating in sync with the mech’s internal engine hum.

Kiva stared.

“She’s syncing emotionally. Remotely. Coop, she just stabilized MEGAS’s entire resonance core without touching a single interface.”

“Who is she?” Coop asked, mostly to himself.

She stepped forward. Calm. Focused. Curious. And totally unafraid.

Lyra was still trying to process the feeling flooding her chest. A raw magnetic pulse pulling her toward the machine—and the idiot inside it. His mind was loud. Messy. But… real. Big-hearted, eager to impress, full of love and trash talk.

She knew people like him. She liked people like him. She hadn’t expected to feel him through the machine like this. And she definitely didn’t expect him to look at her like she hung the damn moon.

“You gonna invite me up,” she asked, voice like velvet over steel, “or do I gotta drop through another roof?”

Coop’s brain went full static.

“YES. I mean—yeah. Come on up. You wanna pilot the… chair? The thing? I mean—hi. I’m Coop. You like burritos?”

The lift descended. She stepped on—graceful and grounded all at once.

Inside MEGAS, the systems shivered the moment she stepped foot in the cockpit. The resonance graphs surged. Every pulse of the mech synced to her presence like it knew her name before she even said it.

“So,” she said, giving Coop a soft once-over and a crooked smile, “you always this sweaty after combat?”

“It’s a… combat routine. Very precise.” He gestured vaguely at a snack wrapper.

“Mmm. Adorable.”

She looked around the cockpit. Her fingers skimmed the dashboard. The lights responded—flaring brighter, more balanced.

“He’s not just metal,” she said. “He’s got a rhythm. You keep trying to steer. He just wants to move.”

Coop didn’t know what that meant. But it sounded important. And beautiful. And poetic. And smart. And also, he’d totally marry her right now if asked.

“I’m Lyra,” she said. “Lyra Thompson. And I think your robot’s been waiting for me.”

“I think I have, too,” Coop said, then froze.

“What?”

“Nothing! I said nothing! Jamie, hit the music—no, wait, not the anime playlist!”

Kiva’s voice crackled in again.

“Her energy resonance is off the charts. This shouldn’t be possible. She’s emotionally bonded to MEGAS through instinct alone.”

Jamie stared at the girl now sitting in the co-pilot seat like she belonged there.

“Coop. Bro. You’re in trouble.”

“Yeah,” Coop muttered, stealing a glance at Lyra’s smirk. “The good kind.”

Lyra’s smile faded—just slightly. Her gaze wandered around the cockpit: the scratches on the console, the duct tape holding a cup holder in place, the custom buttons labeled in marker. It wasn’t pretty, but it had soul. She felt it humming beneath her palms.

She stepped forward, gently tracing one of the support rails with her fingertips.

“He’s old,” she said. “But he still believes in something.”

Kiva blinked.

“Excuse me?”

Lyra turned to her, calm and certain.

“Machines remember. At least the ones built with purpose. I can feel what’s left behind… impressions. Emotions. This one?” — she tapped the wall — “He’s been waiting a long time to matter again.”

Kiva didn’t speak right away. But her eyes softened. After a beat, she nodded.

“You’re not just guessing. You’re reading him. Like a mech empath.”

“Something like that.” Lyra shrugged. “My dad called it resonance matching. Emotional tech interfacing. Said I had a talent for it. I thought it was just a weird hobby until I touched this mech.”

Jamie leaned forward, narrowing his eyes.

“So what, you’re like the robot whisperer? You hear them crying and tell ’em to breathe?”

Lyra glanced at him, calm but sharp.

“No. I hear them asking to be heard—and I listen.” She smiled sweetly. “You should try it sometime.”

Jamie sat back, lips tight.

“She’s good.”

“You have no idea,” Coop murmured under his breath, still watching her like she might vanish if he blinked too hard.

Lyra caught him staring and, just for a moment, forgot how to breathe. Her cheeks flushed. She looked away, pretending to inspect the console.

“You got, uh… a lot of snack wrappers in here.”

“That’s part of the system,” Coop said quickly, tossing one under his seat. “It’s... ballast. Keeps the mech balanced.”

“Uh huh.” She bit her lip, trying to hide her smile—and failing. “So, how long’ve you been driving this thing like a maniac?”

“Pretty much since I found it in a junkyard,” Coop said proudly. “Stripped it, rebuilt it, added flames... now I use it to fight aliens and look cool. Mostly.”

“And the playlist?” she asked, gesturing toward the console. “All power metal and anime intros?”

“It’s a curated vibe,” Coop said. “You don’t just pilot MEGAS—you perform with it.”

“Aww.” Lyra smiled. “So you’re the mech’s DJ and its emotional support himbo.”

Jamie snorted into his soda.

Coop blushed so hard it made his ears glow.

“I… uh, yeah. I guess I kinda am.”

Lyra’s eyes flicked down to the console screen. Her smile softened, fire giving way to thoughtfulness.

“This thing… it resonates with you. That’s rare. Most pilots push. You ride alongside.”

Coop’s voice dropped, uncharacteristically sincere.

“It’s not just a machine to me. It’s my best friend. It got me out of some real junk. Gave me a purpose.”

Lyra met his eyes again. Her voice came quiet, vulnerable—like a confession she’d never said aloud.

“I’ve never had that.”

Kiva looked up. Even Jamie stopped chewing.

“What do you mean?” Coop asked.

Lyra shrugged. She glanced down at the floor, then out through the mech’s front viewport.

“I’ve always felt... off. Even around people. My brain just runs in loops no one else hears. Too sensitive. Too curious. Too much.”

“Nah,” Coop said, without hesitation. “You’re exactly enough.”

The silence that followed could’ve powered MEGAS for hours.

Lyra blinked.

“Thanks,” she said softly. Then, with a small smirk: “Now, if you start playing sad piano ballads, I’m jumping off this mech.”

“Noted,” Coop grinned.

Kiva cleared her throat, pretending not to smile.

“Well, since introductions are apparently happening mid-battle—Lyra, I’m Kiva. You already know too much about MEGAS, which is both impressive and mildly terrifying.”

“Big fan of your work,” Lyra replied. “I’ve read your notes on Glorft tech repurposing. Genius stuff.”

Kiva actually smiled.

“We might need to compare notes.”

“Girl time,” Lyra said with a wink. “I’m in.”

“Oh great,” Jamie groaned. “Now there are two of you.”

“Relax, Jamie,” Lyra said sweetly. “We’ll teach you emotional growth. It’ll be fun. Painful. But fun.”

Coop watched all of it unfold—her easy comfort with Kiva, her gentle jabs at Jamie, her quiet grace filling every inch of the cockpit. She felt right here, like she belonged next to him the whole time.

He rubbed the back of his neck.

“So, uh… you ever... I mean, have you ever been in a fight? Like a mech battle? Not that this is a date. Unless it is. I mean, not unless you think it is—”

“You’re very cute when you malfunction,” Lyra said.

Coop turned beet red and let out a tiny, helpless laugh.

“This is new for me.”

“Yeah?” Lyra lowered her voice. “Me too.”

She met his eyes again—and this time, didn’t look away.

And in the quiet between plasma blasts and jammed console buttons, they both realized something strange was happening. Not fast. Not loud. But real.

BZZZT. A Glorft alarm suddenly blared across Kiva’s scanner.

“Uh-oh,” she said. “We’ve got inbound—southwest quadrant. Looks like they’re regrouping. Twenty seconds until visual contact.”

Lyra stood up, hands already moving with practiced ease over the interface. She wasn’t just intuitive—she knew her tech. Her fingers danced like she was playing a song no one else could hear.

“We’ve got time,” she murmured. “They’re maneuvering low to avoid detection. The leader’s panicking. Doesn’t want to lose another unit on Jersey soil.”

Jamie squinted.

“How do you know that?”

“He’s broadcasting fear into the channel. Glorft war drones have a nervous tick in their base protocol. They hiss through the left vent when retreating. Listen close.”

A faint hiss came through—like a steam kettle trapped in static.

“Told you.”

Kiva blinked at her, stunned.

“You just translated an enemy mech’s behavior from sound and emotional inference.”

“Girl’s got range,” Coop muttered.

“I pay attention,” Lyra said simply.

“To everything, apparently,” Jamie added. “We’re gonna get replaced.”

MEGAS began turning toward the incoming Glorft. But this time, it moved smoother. No lurch. No spasm. Just flow.

Lyra’s hand remained on the console, her fingertips glowing faintly.

The mech’s heartbeat synced between them. Coop felt it. Kiva saw it. Jamie probably ignored it—but it was happening.

“Coop,” Kiva said, watching the readouts. “I think… you need to let her co-pilot this one.”

“Like, share the seat?”

“No. Share the mech.”

Lyra turned toward him, unsure for the first time. Her confidence wavered—not from fear, but from something more fragile.

“I’ve never actually... driven one.”

“Wait,” Coop blinked. “You haven’t?”

“Not for real,” she said quickly. “I’ve run simulations. I’ve shadowed pilots. But my dad never let me near an interface once it activated emotionally. Said it would… accelerate things too fast. Said I’d know when the moment was right.”

She looked down, placing her palm flat on the console.

“This is the moment, isn’t it?”

Coop was already scooting over.

“Yeah,” he said. “It is.”

She slid into the co-seat beside him, her shoulder brushing his. It felt... warm. Familiar. Like they’d sat like this before in some dream they didn’t remember until now.

“Alright,” Coop said, hand on the throttle. “Lesson one: don’t press the burrito button.”

“There’s a burrito button?”

“It’s labeled ‘launch,’” Jamie muttered. “Guess what it launches.”

Lyra rested both hands on the interface. She closed her eyes. Exhaled.

MEGAS inhaled with her.

Then it moved. Fluid. Alive. As if every system had been held underwater—and finally broke the surface.

“Whoa,” Coop breathed.

“We’re not piloting anymore,” Kiva whispered. “We’re resonating.”

Outside, three Glorft drones descended fast—pincers locking, laser fire charging. But MEGAS moved before the first plasma bolt even fired. It dipped low, twisted sideways, flipped over a parked armored car like a dancer leaping off stage.

Coop’s hands twitched but didn’t move. Lyra was guiding it.

He glanced at her—eyes shut, lips parted in focus, fingertips glowing like she was born of lightning.

“I can’t believe this,” he said.

“Believe it,” Jamie mumbled. “We’re now officially passengers.”

A drone fired. Lyra’s eyes snapped open—and for a heartbeat, they glowed.

“He’s mine.”

She moved her palms outward like pulling strings—MEGAS responded instantly. A tight pirouette spun into a shoulder slam, blasting the drone into a crumpled heap of sparks.

She turned, still locked onto the next target.

“You’ll have to do better than that.”

Coop’s mouth was open again. He didn’t even notice.

Kiva was already uploading new data to her system.

“This changes everything. If we can understand how she interfaces, we could build whole new categories of emotional mech tech—”

“Can we not dissect her magic right now?” Coop said. “She’s literally glowing.”

“Not glowing,” Lyra corrected softly. “Just syncing.”

By the time the last drone fell, the city was quiet again.

MEGAS stood in the center of a cracked street, humming softly like it had just exhaled after a long-held breath.

Inside the cockpit, silence.

“So,” Coop said finally. “That was… pretty rad.”

“It was,” Lyra agreed.

Another pause.

“You wanna, uh... maybe do that again sometime?”

“The dance or the saving-the-city thing?”

“Either. Both. All of it.”

“...Yeah,” she said. “I’d like that.”

“Someone kill me now,” Jamie groaned, “before this turns into a Hallmark pilot with plasma cannons.”

“You’re just mad ‘cause she roasted you.”

“I’m mad because he just fell in love mid-fight.”

Lyra turned to Coop, that shyness creeping back in.

“I’ve never... really had someone notice me like that.”

Coop looked back at her—honest, a little dorky, completely sincere.

“You’re hard not to notice.”

“Yeah,” Jamie muttered. “She literally dropped from the sky.”

Kiva smiled faintly, arms folded.

“Well, Lyra—welcome to the team. Looks like you’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”

Lyra looked around the cockpit. At them. At the mech. Then down at her hands.

“No,” she said. “I think I found where I’m supposed to be.”

And for once, nobody made a joke. Even MEGAS hummed softly—like it agreed.

________

Chapter 2 (Coming Soon)

________

Taglist:

@moonygrim @generalzombieperson @stivensiastage @pastelbabygirl19

[introvertllux]

What's Owed: Chapter 2 (Kenpachi Zaraki x Black!OC)

🔸 AU / Underground Combat / Dark Romance / Found Family 🔸 Featuring a Black!OC / Slow-burn, sharp-edged romance 🔸 Background pairing: Rangiku x Shūhei 🔸 Content warnings: graphic violence, trauma, blood sport, emotional manipulation, complex power dynamics

⚠️ Heads up: Because this is a slow burn, Kenpachi's full appearance comes in later chapters to allow for rich worldbuilding and an intimate introduction to Ro's life, relationships, and history.

Word Count: 1,920 

Chapter 2– Smoke in Her Lungs

The world had the audacity to keep spinning.

Somewhere beyond the windows, children laughed on a playground. A bus hissed to a stop and pulled away. A neighbor swept their porch, water sputtered from a hose. The scent of coffee from the corner bakery drifted through open windows.

But inside the Ember house, time had folded in on itself.

Ro hadn’t moved in hours.

She lay on the floor where she’d collapsed, the hardwood pressing into her cheek, a blanket tangled around her like seaweed. Her head throbbed in a steady rhythm, and every breath felt like she was swallowing broken glass. Dried blood clung to her temple and collarbone in thin, flaking ribbons. Her lip was cracked. One eye had swollen nearly shut, the skin around it bruised the deep purple of rot.

The living room bore the aftermath: a chair overturned, the corner of the bookshelf splintered where she’d slammed into it, glass shards in the rug where the lamp had shattered. Yachiru’s stuffed bat lay abandoned a few feet away, one wing torn.

Ro’s gaze stayed on the ceiling, eyes dull, unfocused.

She didn’t blink.

Didn’t speak.

Only the faintest whisper of breath marked her as alive.

The only sound in the room was the low creak of the house settling—too soft, too familiar. She waited for a giggle to follow it. A small voice. The patter of feet.

But there was only silence.

And in that silence, the note on the fridge might as well have been shouting.

What’s owed will be paid. One way or another. —S.E.

Her throat worked as she sat up.

She moved slowly—stiffly. Her muscles screamed. Her ribs lit with pain as she shifted her weight. She clutched the edge of the couch and pulled herself upright, her fingers shaking, her breath coming too fast.

The phone was still on the end table, screen dark.

She reached for it like it was made of glass.

Dialing 911 felt… wrong.

Wrong because saying it out loud made it real.

Wrong because part of her still believed—stupidly, childishly—that Yachiru would run through the front door laughing, telling her it had all been pretend. That she was playing ninja. That the goblin took her sock again.

But Ro pressed the numbers anyway.

Her voice, when she answered the dispatcher’s questions, surprised her. It didn’t sound like hers—too steady, too composed. She gave her address. She said the words.

“There was a home invasion.”

“My daughter was taken.”

The silence that followed when the dispatcher confirmed an officer would be sent felt longer than it was.

The call disconnected.

And only then did Ro realize her hands were shaking.

She dropped the phone on the table like it had burned her.

____

The knock came forty minutes later. It echoed through the house like a bullet.

She didn’t want to answer.

She did anyway.

Ro opened the door slowly, her frame a ghost behind it. The two officers on the porch—one older, one young—visibly stiffened when they saw her face.

The younger one glanced at her bruised cheek and looked away.

They stepped inside, boots careful on the floor like they were afraid to break what was left.

She hadn't cleaned.

She didn't explain.

She couldn’t.

The words stuck somewhere behind her teeth like molasses.

One of the officers—a woman in her forties with a voice like soft gravel—guided her to the couch. The younger one took photos, careful not to touch anything. He paused over the broken frame of a drawing taped to the fridge.

Yachiru’s drawing.

The fire-haired lion. The ninja frogs.

The sparkle-mama.

Ro sat stiffly on the edge of the couch, hands clasped between her knees. She hadn’t realized she was tracing small circles on the back of her wrist with her thumb until the officer asked her a question.

“Ma’am, can you tell us what happened?”

She spoke quietly. Mechanically.

Three intruders. Masks. Gloves. All black. Possibly white markings. No names. No words—except that one thing. One grabbed her daughter. They moved with training. Too fast. Too smooth. They didn’t take anything else.

The woman scribbled notes on a legal pad.

“Any idea who might’ve wanted to hurt you?”

Ro’s breath hitched.

For a second, the voice echoed again.

She’s definitely his sister.

Her fingers clenched.

But her face didn’t flinch.

“No,” she said, eyes on the wall.

It wasn’t a lie.

It was a boundary.

The officer paused, watching her carefully, then nodded.

“We’ll flag the case for abduction and initiate an Amber Alert. It’ll go out across all precincts. We’ll put together missing child posters and circulate them.”

Ro stared at the folder as the woman placed it gently on the table.

“We’ll keep you updated.”

Updated. Like a package.

She didn’t respond.

She sat frozen as the officers let themselves out. Their murmurs faded with the closing of the door.

And then she was alone again.

____

Evening sank like lead.

The sky outside burned orange behind the rooftops. Shadows spilled across the living room in long, gold-drenched lines. She hadn’t moved from the couch since they left.

A glass of water sat untouched by the sink.

Her stomach growled, then turned.

She walked to the kitchen and dumped it out, her movements jerky, robotic. The water spiraled down the drain like something escaping.

The note still sat on the counter.

Ro reached for it.

Held it in her hand like a match she might strike.

What’s owed will be paid.

The words didn’t sound like a threat now.

They sounded like a riddle.

A curse.

She turned her head.

The cabinet door above the sink was cracked open—barely, just enough for the light to glint off the photo inside.

The one of her and Malik.

Her knuckles went white.

She’s definitely his sister.

The voice played in her memory like a recording on loop. A cruel echo.

She stepped forward and ripped the cabinet open.

The photo clattered against the wine glasses inside.

Younger. Smiling. Post-match. Their arms slung around each other like siblings who hadn’t yet learned to hate.

But the words poisoned the picture now.

She slammed the cabinet closed with a snarl.

Glass inside clinked and rattled. A cup fell over.

“You did this,” she whispered. Her voice was shaking.

Her face twisted with grief and rage and something deeper—betrayal.

“You fucking did this…”

The note slipped from her hand.

Her knees buckled.

She caught herself on the sink.

Trembled there, body hunched, hair spilling over her shoulder in thick, unwashed coils.

For a moment, the silence pressed against her lungs like smoke.

Thick.

Heavy.

Unrelenting.

She couldn’t breathe.

Then it came—deep from her gut, torn from the place where motherhood lived.

A scream.

One word. One name.

“MALIK!”

It ripped through her like lightning.

The windows shook in their frames.

A cup fell and shattered behind her.

And Ro stood there, panting, eyes wide, chest heaving.

Her hands gripped the edge of the sink like she could tear it free.

Tears welled in her eyes but did not fall.

They never did.

You took her from me.

You brought this to my door.

You knew they'd come.

The numbness was gone now.

In its place was heat.

Fire.

She was no longer broken.

She was just angry.

____

The sky outside had shifted from orange to violet when the second knock came.

This one wasn’t sharp. It was rhythmic—two knocks, a pause, then three more. A pattern Ro knew without having to think.

Rangiku.

Ro’s heart gave a single beat of recognition and then fell still again.

She didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

Behind the front door, Rangiku’s voice drifted in with forced cheer.

“Ro? Don’t tell me you’re ignoring me. I know you're a hermit, but this is pushing it.” “You’ve missed three days. That’s three therapy groups, one staff meeting, and two sessions with the angry kid who only likes you.”

No response.

Inside the house, Ro sat in the hallway, back against the wall, hands pressed to her forehead. She felt heavy. Like her soul had sunk below her bones.

“Look, I brought you food. Real food. Okay—well, takeout. But good takeout. The dumplings from that place on Fifth.”

Silence.

Then Rangiku’s voice lowered—softer now, uncertain.

“This isn’t like you…”

She lingered at the door. Ro could almost hear her shifting from one heel to the other, trying to decide if she should force the issue.

But Rangiku respected walls. Even when they hurt.

“I’m leaving it on the porch,” she finally said. “Text me, okay? Or I swear to god I’ll have Urahara hack your security system and blast boy band ballads until you give in.”

The sound of the bag rustling.

The soft click of heels moving away.

Then nothing.

Ro stared at the door long after it had closed.

She could have opened it.

Could’ve said something.

But all she did was whisper, barely audible:

“I’m sorry.”

And she meant it.

But not enough to stop.

____

The silence returned—louder now that someone had tried to break it.

She turned and went back to the kitchen, numb again. Picked up the note from where she’d dropped it earlier and stared at it, not really reading.

Her legs moved on their own.

She paced.

Back and forth. Past the broken lamp. The cracked photo. The stuffed bat with one wing missing.

Her fingers twitched with the need to act. To move. To find.

Malik.

She knew that name too well to leave it alone now.

But where would he be?

They hadn’t spoken in years. Not since she’d cut ties, let the number rot in her phone, and stopped checking on rumors about his fights. Last she heard, he’d gone deeper underground—no contracts, no league matches, no legitimacy. Just blood and bets and shadows.

She sat on the couch, heart pounding like it wanted to claw out of her chest. Her hand found the remote.

The television snapped on.

She didn’t even know why—only that she needed to see something else. Anything else.

A commercial played.

Some glossy, overproduced ad for a sanctioned fighting event. Spotlights. Big-name fighters. Flashing arenas. The kind of public-facing violence that wore the disguise of entertainment.

But Ro wasn’t looking at the fighters.

She saw something else.

In the background, behind one of the flashy logos, there was a flag. Black. Minimal. Hard to notice unless you knew what to look for.

A white circular crest, shaped like a blade twisted into a knot, was printed at the edge.

Her stomach dropped.

Her eyes narrowed.

No way.

It wasn’t a symbol you saw in legal circuits.

That mark was a code—used in her childhood, whispered in gyms and whispered by trainers to those “in the know.”

It was a marker for the underground circuit. The real one. The illegal one. The one Malik had always chased, and Ro had clawed her way out of.

Only people raised in that world would recognize it.

She leaned forward.

The address flashed briefly on screen.

Downtown. A converted warehouse. Supposedly a licensed facility.

She saw through it.

Ro’s fingers tightened on the remote until the plastic creaked.

That wasn’t a studio.

That was a front.

That was a door.

____

She stood.

Her breath came sharper now, her body still aching but her mind clearing like glass wiped clean.

She didn’t have a plan. Not yet. No strategy. No backup.

But she had a name.

And she had a lead.

And no one—no one—was going to keep her from Yachiru.

____

Chapter 1

Chapter 3 (Coming Soon)

Chapter 4 (Coming Soon)

Chapter 5 (Coming Soon)

[introvertllux]

What's Owed (Kenpachi Zaraki x Black!OC)

A gritty underground boxing AU set in the Bleach universe, featuring a Black original character.

Rohana Ember lives quietly now—trauma therapist by day, single mother by choice, fighter no longer. But when her five-year-old daughter, Yachiru, is taken in the dead of night, Ro is forced back into the shadows she bled to escape. All signs point to the underworld she clawed free from. To Sword Eight. To Kenpachi.

She doesn’t care about survival anymore. She cares about what’s owed.

In a city where violence is currency and the only law is the one you can enforce, Ro must carve her way through the underground fight circuit—match by match, bruise by bruise—toward the man whose name still haunts her family’s past. But as blood spills and power shifts, Ro finds herself caught in something twisted and magnetic: a slow, dangerous pull toward the very man she’s sworn to destroy.

Because monsters don’t just take. Sometimes, they watch. Sometimes, they want. And sometimes… they remember you.

She’ll fight through anyone to get her daughter back. Even if it means falling for the last man she should.

🔸 AU / Underground Combat / Dark Romance / Found Family 🔸 Featuring a Black!OC / Slow-burn, sharp-edged romance 🔸 Background pairing: Rangiku x Shūhei 🔸 Content warnings: graphic violence, trauma, blood sport, emotional manipulation, complex power dynamics

⚠️ Heads up: Because this is a slow burn, Kenpachi's full appearance comes in later chapters to allow for rich worldbuilding and an intimate introduction to Ro's life, relationships, and history.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3 (Coming Soon)

Chapter 4 (Coming Soon)

Chapter 5 (Coming Soon)

[introvertllux]

What's Owed: Chapter 1 (Kenpachi Zaraki x Black!OC)

🔸 AU / Underground Combat / Dark Romance / Found Family 🔸 Featuring a Black!OC / Slow-burn, sharp-edged romance 🔸 Background pairing: Rangiku x Shūhei 🔸 Content warnings: graphic violence, trauma, blood sport, emotional manipulation, complex power dynamics

⚠️ Heads up: Because this is a slow burn, Kenpachi's full appearance comes in later chapters to allow for rich worldbuilding and an intimate introduction to Ro's life, relationships, and history.

Word Count: 6,447 

Chapter 1- Quiet Like a Flame

Morning came slowly to the quiet neighborhood cradled between Ninth and Mercy—a name that always felt like an uneasy contradiction. The sun climbed reluctantly over the skyline, spilling pale gold into the lingering fog that hugged the street corners like ghosts reluctant to let go. The air held the kind of hush that only existed in early hours, when everything still felt possible—soft, undisturbed, and fleeting.

At the end of the block, tucked between a rusting bike shop and a shuttered flower stand, stood a narrow two-story home with flaking white paint and tired red trim. The porch sagged slightly under the weight of ivy and honeysuckle vines that refused to be tamed. The yard was a little wild—intentionally wild. Sunflowers leaned crooked toward the walkway, brushing against lavender bushes thick with fragrance. Tomatoes bulged from their vines in the side garden like secrets about to ripen.

It was 6:34 a.m. by the clock on the stove. Early enough that the street hadn’t fully woken. No car engines. No shouting neighbors. Just birdsong, the whisper of a passing breeze, and the slow creak of a world turning.

Inside the house, the air was warmer. Lived-in. The kind of space that held layers of scent: cinnamon from the morning tea, cardamom from last night’s rice, and a faint trail of sandalwood incense still hanging in the corners. A soft hum buzzed from the old refrigerator, and the kettle had just begun to sing.

The kitchen was small but full of color. A tile floor cracked in places, mismatched cabinets—one still painted the green Ro picked at seventeen, the rest whitewashed in uneven strokes. A dish towel hung from the oven door, embroidered in thick navy thread with a phrase passed down through no mouths that still lived: Home is who you fight for.

Rohana Ember, barefoot and moving like someone who had already been awake too long, stirred honey into a chipped ceramic mug with a silver spoon worn thin at the handle. The mug had a crack running down one side that she always aligned with her fingers. A ritual. An anchor.

Her long auburn hair was piled into a messy bun, thick coils escaping to frame her cheekbones. Her skin glowed with morning warmth, the deep brown of it dappled with sunlight filtering through sheer curtains. She wore a worn hoodie and soft jersey shorts, her movements unhurried but alert—coiled calm, the kind of grace that only came from someone who had spent most of their life waiting for things to go wrong.

Her eyes—those strange, ember-colored eyes that always looked like they were trying to see the future—drifted toward the back garden.

She wasn’t thinking about her caseload at the clinic. Or the inbox she hadn't touched. Or the broken rain gutter she meant to fix three months ago.

She was listening.

Thump.

Pause.

A high-pitched giggle.

Thump-thump-thump—CRASH.

Ro didn’t flinch. She just closed her eyes and sighed with something between amusement and resignation.

“Yachiru…” she called, voice calm but edged with knowing. “If that was the coat rack again, it’s grounded.”

Silence.

Then—after a beat—a voice from the hallway, full of drama and very little shame.

“It wasn’t my fault! The door attacked me first!”

Ro shook her head just as a blur of motion exploded into the kitchen like a pink tornado.

Yachiru, five years old and a walking contradiction of sugar and fury, bounded barefoot across the tile floor. She wore yesterday’s pajama shorts, a dinosaur shirt with a peeling RAWR means I love you graphic, and only one sock—the glittery unicorn one that always went missing. Her hair was an untamed riot of pink curls, some trapped in a crooked red ribbon, the rest flowing like cotton candy in a storm.

There was peanut butter smeared across her cheek. Ro decided not to ask why.

“Morning, Mama!”

Ro caught her mid-leap and lifted her with practiced strength, settling the squirming child on her hip. Yachiru looped her arms around her neck like a baby koala.

“Good morning, trouble,” Ro said, kissing the top of her head. “Let me guess—you were training for your ninja trials and the hallway turned on you?”

“Exactly! It betrayed me. The floor’s working with the door now.”

“That’s a serious allegation.”

“They’re both repeat offenders.”

Ro set her down gently and brushed the peanut butter off her face with the edge of her sleeve.

“We’ll discuss treason over breakfast. Go brush your teeth first.”

“Do I have to do toothpaste?”

“If you want your teeth to stay in your head, yeah.”

Yachiru groaned, dragging her feet down the hall. “Toothpaste is spicy!”

“Spicy’s good for the soul.”

“Spicy is evil!”

As her daughter stomped off to wage war with mint, Ro chuckled softly and turned back to her tea. She took another slow sip, grounding herself in the warmth. Her fingers reached to open the top cabinet—and paused.

There, tucked into the corner behind a forgotten box of bandages, sat an old picture frame. Wooden. Unvarnished. Slightly chipped at one corner like a tooth knocked loose.

She pulled it down slowly, brushing a thin layer of dust from the glass with her thumb.

The photo inside was old, but sharp.

Two teenagers stood side by side on a worn sparring mat—Rohana, thirteen, and Malik, fifteen. Both dressed in traditional martial gear: bandaged hands, shin wraps, weighted belts. Her curls were shorter then, sweat-frizzed and wild around her face. His arm draped around her shoulder, grin wide, cocky, and just off-center. Her expression was neutral. Closed. She wasn’t smiling.

The memory opened like a wound—slow, reluctant, but impossible to ignore.

____

It was summer, the kind that clung to skin like sweat and shame. The gym was dimly lit, the windows blacked out to keep in the heat—or the violence. The floor of the ring was scuffed, worn down by years of bare feet and blood, the mats patched in places with duct tape. Dust hovered in the beams of overhead light like ash in a battlefield.

Ro stood at one corner of the mat, fists raised, breath measured. Her hair was tied back tight, curls twisted and pinned flat to her scalp. A single bead of sweat trickled down the center of her back. She rolled her shoulders. Stretched her neck.

Across from her, Malik paced with casual arrogance. Two years older, taller, broader. His wraps were loose, his stance cocky—he bounced on the balls of his feet like he had already won.

Their father leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, face shadowed.

“You want to prove something?” he called out. “Do it here. Talking is for losers.”

Ro didn’t speak.

She never spoke in this ring. Not anymore.

Her mother sat in the folding chair just outside the circle of light, dressed perfectly, spine straight, hands in her lap. Her eyes didn’t track them. She stared into the distance—expression blank, lips painted, face still as a mannequin in a display window.

“Fight,” their father growled. “Now.”

The bell rang.

Malik struck first.

A wide hook aimed for the head—flashy, arrogant. Ro ducked it, slipped under and countered with a low sweep. Her shin clipped his ankle—he stumbled, caught himself, smiled.

“Nice try, baby sister.”

She didn’t answer.

She surged forward, closing distance. Tight. Controlled. Precision over power.

A jab to the ribs. A palm strike to the sternum. A quick backstep and pivot.

Malik grunted, shook his arms loose, and came back harder.

A left hook. A right feint. Ro dodged both. But the knee? She didn’t see it.

It drove into her side, folding her half-over. She gasped. Pain bloomed sharp and immediate beneath her ribs.

He grabbed the back of her neck and tried to bring her down.

She bit his wrist. Hard.

“Fuck—!”

She shoved off, ducked away, spat blood from her split lip.

The gym echoed with each impact. Hands against skin. Feet against mats.

Ro moved like a storm—calm at the center, chaos in the limbs.

Malik adjusted.

He stopped playing.

He started hitting.

A real elbow to the cheekbone. A shoulder slam. She countered with a brutal heel kick to his knee—but he absorbed it, wrapped his arms around her, and slammed her into the mat.

The breath left her body in a choking gasp.

The world tilted.

Her ears rang.

She rolled, coughed, staggered back to her feet—but too slow.

Too slow.

His knuckles crashed into her jaw.

Her vision flashed white.

The floor rushed up to meet her.

____

She didn’t remember hitting the ground—only the cold sting of the mat and the taste of copper in her mouth. The fluorescent light overhead flickered once. Then again. The air in her lungs was tight and mean.

She forced herself up.

But Malik was already standing.

Chest heaving. Arms lowered. Sweat clinging to his face.

Their father raised a hand.

“That’s it.”

Ro sat back on her knees, blinking blood from her lashes.

Malik didn’t gloat.

Not this time.

He looked at her for a long moment, then turned and walked off the mat.

Their father didn’t clap. Didn’t smile.

He stepped into the ring and crouched beside her. His voice dropped, like venom dripping slow from the fangs.

“You let a boy beat you. You let your name take a hit.”

Ro opened her mouth to speak, but he slapped her.

Not hard enough to knock her down—but hard enough to remind her who she was.

“You think they care you’re smaller? That you’re tired? That you’re still learning?” “You think any man you face in this world will ever fight fair?”

She stared at the floor.

Tried to still the shaking in her hands.

“You want to be free? You win. Or you belong to someone else. That’s the only choice girls like you get.”

He stood. Walked away.

Behind him, her mother still sat in her chair.

Perfect. Silent. Unmoved.

She hadn’t blinked once.

—--

The memory didn’t fade gently.

It snapped back like a taut cord breaking, leaving a ghost of pressure in her ribs.

Ro blinked, and for a second, the kitchen around her didn’t feel real. The warmth of the morning sun on her skin clashed against the cold echo of her father’s voice in her head—sharp, seething, final. Her fingers had tightened around the photo without her noticing, nails pressing half-moons into her palm, the edge of the wooden frame biting into her skin.

She inhaled sharply through her nose.

Shook her head.

Set the photo down on the counter like it might catch fire if she held it any longer.

Her jaw was locked. Throat thick.

The ghosts of that gym—the sweat, the humiliation, the blood in her mouth, the way the mat had smelled like rubber and failure—they never left her. They just buried themselves under the rhythm of quieter days.

She stared down at her younger self in the photo. Thirteen and already battle-hardened. Shoulders tense. Expression flat. Like she had trained herself not to feel anything at all.

And Malik. Smiling like the world belonged to him.

He’d won.

But she remembered how he couldn’t meet her eyes after that. How his silence that night wasn’t triumph, but discomfort. Like he’d seen something in her—something he didn’t expect. Something that scared him.

She exhaled shakily.

Then flipped the photo face-down and slid it into the drawer without ceremony, like she was shoving the memory back into its cage.

I don’t miss any of you.Her voice came out hoarse. Dry. She didn’t repeat it.

She rubbed the heel of her hand along her jaw, grounding herself in the present.

Then her gaze lifted to the fridge.

And everything softened.

There, taped crooked between a school calendar and a lunch menu, was Yachiru’s latest masterpiece—a glorious mess of crayon chaos. Stick-figure flames exploded around a tiny pink figure with wild curls mid-air, doing a ninja kick. Her arms were outstretched like wings, a crooked smile drawn wide across her face. The figure beside her had a lion’s mane of fiery red curls, arms crossed like a superhero. It was labeled in pink marker:

“Me + Mama! Fighters for Justice!”

Ro's lips parted.

And then curved.

The kind of smile that came from somewhere real.

Her hand reached up and gently pressed against the paper, fingertips tracing the fire-hair, the little cape, the stars in the background.

You see it like it’s magic, she thought. Like it’s fun. A game. A cartoon power.

To Yachiru, fighting wasn’t pain or punishment. It was what her mama did when monsters came close. It was saving people. It was strength with love, not violence.

Ro swallowed the lump rising in her throat.

“You said you want hair like mine,” she whispered to the fridge, as if her daughter’s spirit had lingered in the room. “Said it looked like a lion’s mane. Said you want to fight like me, so you can protect your friends.”

Her voice cracked softly on the last word.

She pressed her hand flat to the paper.

You don’t know yet.You don’t know how much I hate it.You don’t know what it cost me to survive it.

But Yachiru didn’t see the pain in Ro’s scars. She saw fire. She saw safety. She saw the mama who fought shadows and still made pancakes in the morning.

And that was the only reason Ro didn’t crumble right then and there.

Because this—this—was a life she had clawed her way toward. Something gentle. Something healing.

She stepped back, her body still tense but her gaze clearer now.

“But this one…” she murmured. “I’ll fight for this one every damn time.”

Not because she wanted to.

But because no one else would protect Yachiru from the world Ro had already escaped.

Ro reached for her robe, pulling it tighter around her shoulders. Her spine straightened, every line of her posture slowly relaxing as she stepped away from the fridge.

The ghosts of her past still lurked in the walls—but for now, they stayed quiet.

She moved down the hall, quiet and deliberate, ready to get dressed and face the day.

And behind her, taped in crooked defiance of the past, Yachiru’s crayon lion stood watch.

—--

Ro stood in front of her bedroom mirror, hands moving in practiced precision as she smoothed thick, coiled curls into a sleek high bun—gathered tight, pinned smooth, but not tamed. Nothing about her hair could ever be truly subdued. The coils fought back with quiet defiance, little spirals rising at her temples no matter how much gel she used. She let them.

Her outfit hung ready on the door: a black high-waisted, tapered pant, crisp and tailored; a sleeveless rust-colored blouse, soft with a mock neck that brought out the fire in her eyes; and an ankle-length cream trench that cinched neatly at her waist. Effortless, sharp, comfortable. Hers.

She dressed quickly, adding small gold hoop earrings, a thin chain with a bar pendant, and her favorite square-faced watch—gifted to herself when she got her license in trauma therapy. She pulled on black leather Chelsea boots, clean, polished.

In the mirror, she looked like she had everything under control.

That was the point.

On her way out, she grabbed her purse from the hook and slid the folder full of assessment reports under her arm—thick with notes, marked in precise handwriting, tabbed with color-coded flags. It was heavier than usual. She didn’t know why that detail stuck with her.

“Yachiru, let’s move. You’re not going to war, you’re going to daycare.”

From inside the girl’s room, a chorus of thuds and dramatic groans echoed back.

“I can’t find my good sock!”

“The goblin took it again?”

“YES! He has no respect for ninja code!”

Ro leaned against the doorframe, arms folded loosely, watching as Yachiru spun in frantic, uneven circles. Her hair was only semi-wrangled, puffed into a round explosion of pink curls held together by a crooked red ribbon. Her shirt was halfway tucked, and her pants were—again—on backwards.

Ro sighed, amused.

“Okay. Stop. Deep breath.”

Yachiru puffed her cheeks out in exaggerated effort, then stood stiff like a statue.

Ro knelt, gently helping flip the pants the right way, retied the ribbon with a little flourish, and tapped the girl’s nose with one finger.

“Ready now?”

“Ready to destroy the goblin if I see him!”

“We’ll file a formal complaint at sock headquarters.”

—--

They stepped outside at 7:48 a.m., the air damp and heavy with last night’s rain. The sidewalk glistened like glass beneath the weak gray sky. The usual morning hum was quieter today—no barking dogs, no delivery truck clatter, only the echo of distant sirens curling faintly through the chill.

Ro shifted the weight of her bag on her shoulder, her other hand holding tight to the strap of her folder as she let Yachiru walk ahead.

The little girl skipped in erratic zigzags, pretending the sidewalk cracks were lava pits, narrating an adventure under her breath. Her words danced on the air, cheerful and high, completely untouched by the heaviness pressing in on Ro.

And yet, Ro felt it.

Like the air wasn’t sitting right on her skin.

Like the breeze was watching her.

Her boots clicked sharply against the sidewalk, too loud in her ears.

A pulse throbbed in her throat—not fear exactly. But her body remembered something she hadn’t told her mind yet.

Something’s wrong.

She adjusted her bag again. Looked left. Then right. Just a quick scan.

Nothing there.

Still, her jaw tightened.

Yachiru stopped skipping and turned back.

Her face was tilted slightly, brows scrunched in a way that always made her look far older than five.

“Mama?” she asked.

Ro blinked. Tried to smile. “Yeah?”

“You’re walking weird.”

Ro arched a brow. “Weird how?”

“All stiff. Like you saw something scary.”

Ro crouched beside her, hands on Yachiru’s shoulders.

“You ever feel like the sky’s holding its breath?”

Yachiru blinked, unsure.

“Mmm… maybe?”

Ro kissed her forehead.

“That’s all it is. The sky just forgot how to breathe today.”

Yachiru didn’t look convinced. She took Ro’s hand instead of skipping ahead again.

—--

The Sakura Bloom Early Learning Center appeared like a painting in the mist—yellow walls bright against the haze, chalk drawings scattered across the pavement like a trail of joy. Laughter floated from the open gate, kids already playing on the playground equipment shaped like a giant caterpillar.

Yachiru's grip tightened as they approached the gate.

“Miss Elena said we get to paint today! I’m gonna make a frog that’s also a detective. With a magnifying glass and a sidekick worm.”

Ro chuckled, her voice thinner than usual.

“You're raising the bar on amphibian crime dramas.”

Yachiru looked up, serious all over again.

“I fight for justice. Like you.”

Ro’s breath hitched.

Just a second.

She knelt down, her hands brushing wild pink curls off her daughter’s forehead, smoothing them behind her ears.

“I don’t want you to fight, baby.”

“I won’t! Not unless I have to.”

“Good.” Her thumb lingered on Yachiru’s cheek. “Your job is to stay soft. And kind. And weird. You don’t owe the world your fists.”

“But what if somebody needs me to help?”

Ro paused, eyes glimmering with something too heavy for daylight.

Then she smiled, quietly.

“Then help with your words first. Your fists come last.”

Yachiru hugged her tight—like she always did—but it felt different this morning. Tighter. Lasting longer. Like she could feel something wrong too, even if she didn’t have words for it yet.

“I’ll save you some paint!”

“Better save me a cookie too.”

“Deal!”

She turned and ran through the gate, already hollering greetings to her friends, her voice folding back into the chorus of children like sunlight through leaves.

Ro stayed at the gate.

Watched her until the door closed behind her.

Then stayed a little longer.

Her fingers tapped once against the metal.

Then again.

Still nothing. Still wrong.

The street behind her looked normal. Completely empty. No cars. No strange shadows. No threat.

Just her instincts screaming in silence.

She turned and walked home.

Slower this time.

More alert.

The air followed her like a second skin she couldn’t shed.

Something’s off, she thought again. But she didn’t say it out loud.

She never did.

—--

By the time Ro arrived at Sakura Hill Trauma Center, the streets had grown louder—city buses hissed at red lights, delivery trucks coughed exhaust into the morning fog, and someone down the block had already started shouting into a phone. But stepping inside the building was like entering a world with its own rhythm—slower, softer, stitched together by color and care.

The reception area smelled of lemon cleaner and peppermint playdough. Beanbags had migrated again—somehow always in the wrong corners. Construction-paper art decorated the walls, most of it lopsided and glued with chaotic pride. A ceramic mug full of bubble wands sat beside the sign-in sheet.

Ro crossed the threshold with a long breath and a subtle shift in her posture.

Her spine relaxed. Her eyes focused.

This place doesn’t take the ache away, she thought, but it gives it room to stretch.

She greeted the front desk staff with a small, sincere smile, set her bag and folder behind the counter, and walked her usual route down the south hallway, past the group therapy rooms and the mural the kids painted two years ago—a clumsy sunrise rising over stick-figured people holding hands. In the bottom right corner, a small lion with scribbled fire hair had been added in pink marker and glitter glue.

“That’s you, Mama,” Yachiru had said. “The sparkle-lion.”

Ro had smiled and said nothing, touched by the fierceness in her daughter’s voice. She never corrected her.

—--

Her office was small but sacred. The lighting was warm—no flickering fluorescents here. A wall of low shelves offered baskets of sensory toys, picture books, and hand puppets, all grouped by feeling: mad, sad, scared, brave. On one side, a small table sat beside a circular rug for games or quiet activities. On the opposite wall, a beanbag reading nook overflowed with pillows shaped like clouds.

And above her desk—a drawing of Yachiru in flaming crayon curls, holding a sword made of stars and yelling at a monster: “GO AWAY, BAD GUY!”

Ro’s hand lingered briefly at the edge of the frame.

“One of us still thinks fighting means safety,” she murmured.

She shook the thought away and opened her planner. Her day was full.

Two new intakes. One regression follow-up. Three clients under seven. All complex. All demanding.

And all depending on her.

—--

Her first appointment, 9:00 a.m., was Lucas, five years old and heartbreakingly quiet. He barely spoke above a whisper and avoided eye contact like it might burn.

When he arrived, clinging to his grandmother’s coat like a lifeline, Ro knelt to meet him at his level.

“Hey, Lucas,” she said gently. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk yet. Wanna help me build a pillow fort instead?”

He didn’t answer. Just looked at her sideways through long lashes, then glanced at the pile of cushions beside the therapy rug.

Ro stepped back and began stacking them without asking anything more.

Slowly, he joined her.

They built together in silence—one cushion, one blanket, one chair at a time. His hands shook slightly when he placed his stuffed fox inside the finished fort.

Ro sat beside him cross-legged, holding a flashlight.

“Do you think Bandit’s scared of something today?” she asked.

Lucas didn’t speak.

But he pressed his stuffed animal closer to her knee.

Later, as he left with his grandmother, he paused in the doorway and whispered:

“Thank you.”

Ro’s heart ached with pride. But she kept her smile small.

“You’re welcome, baby.”

—--

A quarter past ten, Brielle stormed in like a thunderclap. Eight years old. Big, fierce eyes. Already crying, fists clenched.

“He ruined it!” she yelled before even sitting down. “He ripped my dragon drawing!”

Ro didn’t flinch when Brielle flung the crayon box across the room. She simply stepped in front of the desk—calm, grounded.

“Do you want to rip something too?” she asked, holding out a piece of scrap paper.

Brielle blinked.

Confused. Angry. Shaking.

“...Can I?”

“As many as you want.”

The girl hesitated—then grabbed the paper with both hands and shredded it down the middle.

Ro sat beside her in silence as she destroyed six more sheets.

When the tears came again, Brielle buried her face in Ro’s lap.

Ro stroked her back with slow, even pressure.

“It’s okay to be mad. It’s okay to feel everything.”

“I hate him,” Brielle mumbled.

“That’s okay too.”

Ro didn’t correct her. She let the storm pass without judgment.

They finished the session by drawing fireproof dragons together.

Brielle’s had heart-shaped scales.

—--

But even as Ro helped others untangle their pain, she felt her own unraveling beneath the surface.

There were moments she forgot what day it was. Moments she forgot to breathe between appointments. She miswrote a medication referral—twice. Her hands kept drifting to her watch, tapping the time like it would give her an answer.

The itch between her shoulder blades had settled there like a shadow.

Her tea had long gone cold again.

—--

Seven minutes into lunchtime and Ro sat behind her desk, writing case notes in looping, careful script. A granola bar wrapper sat crumpled near her keyboard. A small bottle of essential oil—a gift from a client—rested at the edge of the desk, untouched.

She was rereading Brielle’s session notes when the door burst open with zero warning.

“Ro, baby, lunch calls! And she’s got heels on!”

Rangiku Matsumoto breezed into the room in a tight blouse, glossy lips, and her signature cloud of swinging honey-blonde hair. A silk scarf trailed behind her like a flourish, and her perfume followed her in waves—peony and vanilla, sugar and sin.

“You were going to eat today, right?” Rangiku asked, dramatically dropping a paper bag onto the desk.

Ro blinked, then smiled, warm but dry. “You always bring food like you’re storming a hostage situation.”

“Because you hostage yourself in here,” Rangiku replied, flopping into the guest chair without grace. “I mean, come on, Ro. You’re glowing from stress. We gotta get you drunk or laid or both.”

Ro rolled her eyes. “I don’t drink.”

“Then you’re halfway there already!”

Ro chuckled despite herself. “You’re not subtle.”

“Nope.” Rangiku wiggled her brows. “Just devastating.”

She crossed her legs, fished out her phone, and pointed at Ro. “I’m planning something. Night out. Food, music, probably dancing. Definitely flirting. You need this.”

“I can’t,” Ro said automatically.

“You can’t because you’re married to the clinic, or can’t because you’ve got your baby tiger to pick up?”

Ro hesitated.

Rangiku’s voice softened a beat. “Ranran misses her little chaos bean.”

Ro’s smile warmed a little. “She’s probably already covered in finger paint.”

“My hair still smells like glitter from last week. I love that kid. But I swear she gave me a tiny hickey with a sticker.”

Ro laughed—genuine this time.

Then the laughter softened into something else.

“I used to wonder,” she said quietly, “if I’d made a mistake. Taking her in so young. Trying to do it all at once. I was barely keeping my head above water in college. Two jobs. Class. Diapers. Doctor visits. Nobody tells you how lonely it gets.”

Rangiku leaned in, for once silent.

Ro’s eyes didn’t meet hers.

“Sometimes I thought… if I’d had a husband—someone to answer the hard questions, the ones she’d start asking when she was four or five… why she didn’t have a dad… why we don’t look the same… maybe it would’ve been easier.”

Rangiku said nothing. Just reached over and squeezed her hand.

Ro blinked, turned her palm upward, held her friend’s fingers.

“But I wouldn’t change it,” she added softly. “Not for a second.”

“You’re allowed to want both, Ro,” Rangiku said. “A life. A love. Even if you’ve already got your heart walking around outside your body.”

Ro laughed again, tired this time.

“I know. I just… I can’t tonight. I have to get Yachiru.”

Rangiku smiled like she expected it. “One day, I’m stealing you for real.”

“Just don’t bring vodka.”

“Ugh, rude. That’s my signature scent.”

They both laughed, and for a moment, the tension in Ro’s spine released.

But the itch didn’t leave her.

And neither did the quiet dread crawling beneath the surface of her day.

The sky was blushing soft rose and gray by the time Ro reached the daycare. A gentle breeze tugged at her coat as she stepped through the gate, the sound of children laughing spilling out like light.

Inside the courtyard, Yachiru stood on top of a plastic turtle, arms out like wings, shouting to no one in particular:

“And then the pirate frog SWUNG from the chandelier and shouted, ‘LET HER GO, YOU RASCAL!’”

A group of kids sat around her in awe, half-listening, half-giggling. One boy had a paper crown. Another had an eye patch made from masking tape.

Ro smiled, letting herself watch a moment longer.

Then:

“Time to go, pirate queen.”

Yachiru spun, gasped dramatically. “Mama!”

She launched herself across the playground at full speed—Ro caught her mid-air, spinning slightly from the momentum.

“We were saving the princess frog,” Yachiru announced breathlessly, squeezing her arms around Ro’s neck. “Her name is Glorpina. She had a laser spoon.”

“Obviously.”

“Miss Elena said I can bring my drawing home!”

Ro glanced to where the teacher waved with a knowing smile. A crayon-covered masterpiece was folded in half and shoved into Yachiru’s backpack.

—--

They walked home hand in hand, Yachiru bouncing beside her like a storybook come to life. Ro tried to let herself relax, to let the rhythm of her daughter’s voice wash over the strange tension still knotted in her chest.

“Mama, do you think pirate frogs eat spaghetti?”

“Only on Tuesdays.”

“Oh no. It’s Thursday.”

“Disaster.”

—--

The house welcomed them with warmth.

Ro unlocked the door, kicked it open with her boot, and Yachiru immediately ran to dump her backpack by the stairs.

“Can we have ramen? Like the spicy one you like but less spicy because I don’t wanna die?”

“Deal,” Ro said, already hanging up her coat.

Their kitchen came alive with the sound of water boiling, chopsticks clinking, the hum of a low jazz playlist Ro always forgot to turn off. The overhead light flickered once, then settled.

Ro stirred the noodles gently, mind wandering. The unease hadn’t left—but here, with Yachiru dancing through the kitchen in socks and singing about frog swords, it was easier to ignore.

She plated the bowls—Yachiru’s with carrots and no green onions—and they sat together on the floor at the coffee table, legs crossed, knees bumping.

“Mama, you know the pirate frog today? She looked like you. She had fire hair. Like a lion. And she kicked butt. But in a nice way.”

Ro paused, chopsticks mid-air.

“She had fire hair, huh?”

“Yep. And she saved the day and the princess frog kissed her cheek and said ‘thank you for being my mama.’”

Ro’s throat tightened.

She set the bowl down.

“Is that what you drew today?”

Yachiru nodded, grinning.

“Wanna see?”

—--

After dinner, they spread out across the living room floor with crayons and construction paper. Ro lay on her stomach, chin in one hand, drawing a frog with an eyepatch and suspiciously muscular legs.

Yachiru narrated as she worked:

“This is the pirate frog captain. She’s strong and brave and has red hair that goes like whoosh!”

She illustrated the fire with wild orange and red scribbles.

“And this is me—see, I’m in the treasure chest because I got kidnapped, but not like bad kidnapped, just pretend.”

“Glad we cleared that up.”

“And you come in and KICK the door open and say ‘HEY! Give me back my baby!’ and then you punch the bad guy in the frog face!”

Ro laughed. “In the frog face?”

“RIGHT in the frog face.”

Yachiru yawned mid-crayon stroke and blinked slowly.

Ro reached over and brushed her fingers through the messy fluff of pink curls, her smile dimming with something quieter.

You don’t know what fighting really costs, she thought. And I want to keep it that way.

To Yachiru, fighting was cartoon courage, red hair like fire, and fists used to protect—not to survive.

To Ro, fighting had been pain and choice and loss.

She had bled for freedom.

Yachiru imagined it as a game.

“I wanna be just like you,” Yachiru mumbled, eyes fluttering.

“No, you don’t,” Ro whispered back.

But she kissed the girl’s temple anyway.

“Come on. Time to tuck you in, Fireheart.”

—--

Upstairs, the ritual unfolded like clockwork. By the time she tucked Yachiru in, it was 8:03.

Teeth brushed. Pajamas wrangled on. One missing sock recovered under the couch. Two hugs, one forehead kiss, one whispered I love you more.

Yachiru curled up in bed with her stuffed bat, one crayon-stained drawing gripped in her hand.

“Mama?”

“Yes, baby.”

“Even if the goblin comes back… you’ll find me, right?”

Ro didn’t answer right away.

She sat on the edge of the bed, leaned down, and pressed her forehead to Yachiru’s.

“There is nowhere in this world I wouldn’t come find you.”

Yachiru smiled.

“’Cause you’re the sparkle-lion.”

Ro chuckled.

“Exactly.”

She dimmed the light. Closed the door.

And stood in the hallway a beat too long.

Eyes narrowed. Shoulders tight.

Something scraped at her nerves again. Faint. Wrong.

The same unease she’d carried all day pressed against her chest now like a pressure front rolling in behind her ribs.

She turned slowly. Glanced back down the stairs.

Nothing.

Just the creak of a settling house.

But Ro had learned long ago that monsters never made noise before they struck.

—--

The house was quiet again.

Too quiet.

Rain tapped at the windows in a slow, uneven rhythm, and the wind whined through the trees outside like it was looking for a way in. The dishes had been done, the floor swept, and the lights dimmed low. Yachiru’s soft breathing filtered down the hallway from her bedroom—steady, innocent, unbothered.

Ro stood at the window by the stairs, holding her tea mug in both hands. She hadn’t taken a sip in twenty minutes.

She wasn’t thinking.

She was listening.

A car passed. Distant. Forgettable.

Then silence again.

The kind that made the back of her neck prickle.

She checked the locks for the second time—door, back door, windows.

All secure.

Still, something crawled under her skin. A dissonance she couldn’t name. The air felt thick, like the walls were holding their breath.

She glanced down at her tea.

Still warm.

She set it down on the counter.

And moved toward the hallway.

—--

It started with the smallest sound.

A pop.

Almost like a bottle cap. Clean. Soft.

But she knew the sound of a lock being tripped.

Ro's eyes snapped to the back hallway.

The window.

Shit.

She was already moving before her conscious mind caught up, feet silent on the hardwood. Her body remembered old things—angles, shadows, escape routes—even if her muscles didn’t move like they used to.

She dropped into a crouch near the entry closet and ripped the baseboard loose. Behind it, her emergency stash: an old folding blade, short and dull but serviceable, and a long screwdriver.

Crude tools. Not meant for finesse. But for survival.

—--

The back window cracked open.

She held her breath.

One man slipped in. Quiet. Too quiet. Gloves on. Hood pulled low.

Another followed.

And another.

Three.

Ro’s heartbeat slowed.

Time thickened.

She waited until they crossed the threshold of the hallway, headed toward the stairs.

Then she struck.

The first man didn’t see her until the screwdriver was already in his thigh. He shouted, stumbling forward—pain blooming fast.

The second turned too slow—she brought her elbow down across his jaw, then pivoted into a knee strike that sent him crashing into the hall table.

“What the fuck?!”

“She’s armed?!”

The third man lunged—she ducked low, trying to sweep him—but he sidestepped. Too quick.

She rolled backward, barely missing a boot aimed for her ribs. Came up with the knife ready.

Hands shaking.

Breath tight.

Rusty.

Still sharp—but rusty.

She blocked another blow with her forearm and slammed the butt of the screwdriver into the attacker’s chest. He grunted, backing off.

“She’s tougher than we thought,” one of them spat, breathless.

Then another voice—a different one. Cold. Amused.

“Tch. She’s definitely his sister.”

The words landed like a fist.

Ro froze.

What?

Her heartbeat stuttered.

His sister?

That single moment of hesitation—

Was all they needed.

The third man tackled her hard into the hallway wall.

Her head snapped back with the impact.

Bright light. Flashing pain. Disorientation.

She slashed with the blade, caught one of them in the arm. Blood sprayed. A curse. A growl.

They retaliated fast.

Too fast.

Someone slammed her into the floor, yanked her arms behind her back. Another kicked the knife from her hand.

Ro screamed. Struggled. Thrashed.

Then she heard it.

“MAMA!!”

Yachiru’s voice.

She twisted, eyes wide, dizzy, blood running down the side of her face.

Two of them had her.

One man had grabbed her from the bed—she kicked, bit, screamed like an animal.

“MAMA! MAMA!! LET GO!”

Ro’s vision swam.

“Let her go—you motherfu—”

A blow to the temple silenced her.

Everything cracked white.

Sound collapsed into static.

The last thing she saw—blurred and fading—was Yachiru, her tiny fists pounding, her mouth open in a scream too full of terror to land.

Then nothing.

—--

When she came to, the house was dead silent.

Ro lay on the living room floor.

Face bruised. Head bleeding. Mouth dry. One arm twisted awkwardly beneath her.

She blinked once.

Twice.

Pain flared behind her eyes like fire.

She sat up with a grunt and a wince, every movement screaming through her bones.

“Yachiru,” she croaked.

The house didn’t answer.

Furniture overturned. A chair broken in two. Blood—hers—smearing the floor like a signature.

She staggered upright. Her legs shook.

Then her eyes caught something on the fridge.

A single piece of thick black card stock, pinned under Yachiru’s bat magnet.

No blood.

No crayon.

Just white paint, hand-lettered.

Bold. Slanted. Precise.

“What’s owed will be paid. One way or another.” —S.E.

She stared at it.

S.E.

Her mind burned with the echo:

“She’s definitely his sister.”

No name.

No signature she recognized.

But something in her gut turned to stone.

Because someone had come for her.

Not for her.

But for what her blood had done.

—--

Chapter 2

Chapter 3 (Coming Soon)

Chapter 4 (Coming Soon)

Chapter 5 (Coming Soon)

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Black!reader ideas!

I was going through video analysis of old nostalgic cartoons and ones that got canceled too soon then I thought… where are the black!reader x …. stories.

I’m talking about Megas XRL or Martian Mystery. Shoot even Venture Bros. (Not super on the nostalgic side in my opinion but y’all not going to tell me Brock Sampson ain’t it?? 😮‍💨)

Anyone else get what I’m saying??

Anyways send me some rec I want to ease back into writing.

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HDL as adults :))

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“1950s horror movies contrast radically with their 1940s predecessors. understandably – they were reflecting a whole new world. audiences wanted stories that connected directly to their lives, to the ever-expanding technology in their homes and workplaces. they also wanted horror movies that played to their fears – stoked by politicians – of the shadows that lay beyond their immediate, personal experience of the shiny american dream (applies to some of these movies).”

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Date a black girl.

Marry a black girl.

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Further Down The Spiral (1995)

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Happy 58th birthday to the amazing Phil LaMarr!!!

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SCREEN BOOPED BY MAO MAO the most reluctant, gentlest boop ever, but a boop nevertheless.

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I’m not sure why end cards were so common in the old CN shows, but here’s most of them side-by-side.

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Am I the only one that can see Nicholas Alexander Chavez playing in a reboot of American psycho or a mini series as a young Patrick Bateman?

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It's my 10 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳