pepsin26

[pepsin26]

TMNT 2012 x DS fic snippet

She hated stupid Mutants. They were worse than the smart ones. That was the thought going through her head as her and her new… Friend? Was he a friend? Her new tutee. Casey Jones sped through the road. Casey pedaling as fast as humanly possible as the giant, mutagen, organ jar, man thing followed close behind. She wasn’t even talking to the turtles anymore! The Kraang had failed! How was this still happening to her!

She ducked as a huge acid hand made to grab at her. She waved her tessan at the glass jar, it doubled as the thing’s torso and face. Considering the eyes were there it caused it to flinch back, buying her and Casey some precious seconds.

“April! Friend!” the creature called 

Both april and Casey cringed 

“You… you know this thing, Red?” Casey questioned “I mean, I’m not judging or anything but…”

“Hell no!” April scoffed, seemingly to the thing’s dismay. “I know a lot of weird people! But not thing!”

“April!” the thing called out again. Why was it so set on her?  Who was this again? Pulveriser? Timothy? She never really paid attention to the weird thing in Donnie’s lab before and now it was coming back to melt her… Or crush her… whatever happened first really.

“Hey! Do you know what a restraining order is?” A voice echoed from the rooftops. It was a girl's voice. It was soft and soothing but there was an underlying aggression hidden just under it. Which was weird… In this situation she was expecting the turtles. Or if she got really unlucky then maybe Karai. Yet that girl wasn’t Karai, the pitch was a tad too high. “You both on the bike… I’d suggest you slow down. I wouldn’t want you to crash.”

“Are you crazy! If we slow down, that thing will get us!” Casey argued, for the first time sounding incredulous

“Can’t say I didn’t try,” the girl said with a shrug

There was a flash of light from a building in front of them. The light grew into the shape of a giant, glowing, iridescent purple butterfly. It fluttered towards the both of them like a fighter jet. Both April and Casey understandably yelped and whipped out trying to turn only for the bug to fly right over them. The image disappears to reveal a girl who stomps into the mutagen man. The force of her kick was enough to send the thing flying back, the shockwave creating a flurry of purple butterflies as she flipped gracefully onto her feet with a confident smile.

She was small, smaller than April. Her skin was pale, almost unhealthily so. Her hair was a raven colour that was tipped with purple but April couldn’t tell how long it was due to the bun it was styled in. The bun was held in place by a butterfly hair clip. She was wearing what appeared to be purple tinted black combat gear, with a white… Coat? That was decorated with patterns and colours that made it look akin to butterfly wings.

Her eyes were large, coloured with a deep purple gradient but they also seemed… Empty. She lacked pupils… It really fell into her bug theme.

“Weird girl! Hurt me! Take April away!” The Mutagen guy screamed 

“Actually my name, until proven otherwise, Is Kocho Shinobu and before we start” The girl replied calmly before turning to April “I assume you’re the “April O’neil” this man has been screaming about. Do you consider this… creature your friend?”

“No!” April yelled “That thing is at best an acquaintance! I want him to leave me alone!”

“An Acquaintance?” Casey questioned 

“Well sir. I believe you have got your response. She wants you to leave her alone.” Shinobu continued, turning back to face the monster and ignoring Casey entirely “For your own sake I suggest you comply. To follow a teenage girl when she’s expressly told you to leave her alone is not a very good look”

“Stupid bug lady! Keep April away!? No! April my friend” The mutagen man growled in response and readied himself to charge at her “I destroy bug lady!”

“Of course, you mutants are all the same. beasts” Shinobu just sighed before crouching down close to the ground in her own battle stance. She pulled out a pair of butterfly knives, the blades were purple and between the two handles seemed to lay a tiny tube, though it was empty at the moment “I’d rather fight a creature with a blood stream so I can poison it. But the potential to understand the chemical that creates your kind was too interesting for me to miss.” She grinned with a hint of excitement creeping into a calm tone “You can understand that, can’t you?”

“RAAAAHHHH!” The mutagen man roared as it rushed at the Shinobu

“Right you’re a brainless, “brain in a jar” esque creature” Shinobu scoffed, diving into a roll away from the giant acid fist flying towards her  “Intelligent understanding was too much to hope for” 

April and Casey watched slack-jawed as this tiny girl took on the giant mutagen man… And was winning.

[pepsin26]

A story told seven times over AU pt. 1 - All it takes grit, the power to rewind time and DETERMINATION

The full fic

My name is Kusuo Saiki. I am a psychic. All I want is an average life, unfortunately everyone around me can’t get the memo. Hence the wacky hijinks and shenanigans, today’s issue.

“Stop monologuing and take this seriously!” Toritsuka. The purple haired pervert had dragged me to “Investigate” Hairo. The only reason I agreed was because I was curious as to why he switched from wanting me to stalk guys rather than girls this time. That and I was getting a migraine from Nedou and Kaido.

“You’re being ridiculous” I retorted “And I don’t want the audience to get the wrong idea. I don't want them thinking we're friends”

“Stop breaking the third wall and level with me here!” He yelled “Read his mind!”

“If you keep yelling he’ll hear us. I don’t want to be dragged to the gym.” I turned back to where Hairo was walking a few streets in front of us. “And I am reading his mind. Telepathy doesn’t have an off switch, remember? It’s just sports, school and being an overall great person in there. What are you looking for anyway? If it's girls I'm slapping you to the moon”

"No actually! This time it's serious." Toritsuka’s eyes narrowed as he turned to the side, likely listening to the advice of some odd ghost. “It’s been happening more and more… I’ve been seeing a bunch of ghosts that are soldiers, that in itself isn’t that weird for me. What is weird is that they keep referring to the war they’re from as ‘The great soul war’. Does that name sound familiar to you?” 

No it didn’t. Then again I wasn’t exactly a history major so maybe I just missed it. Though that didn’t explain how Hairo was involved. I shook my head “So why are we following Hairo rather than a history teacher?”

“It isn’t just soldiers that fought on the winning side that I’m seeing. There’s a bunch of prisoners of war and traitors there as well. But no matter what, Either way, one thing remains constant” Toritsuka turned back Hairo with a grimace “They’re all terrified of Him.”

“What?"

“The names they call him vary, But they never call him Kineshi Hairo” Toritsuke continued, his voice cold as he eyed Hairo suspiciously “The nameless general, Monster slayer, The Timeless one, most common though is just ‘Determination’... freaky. Right?”

“I think you’re crazy” He was. He had to be, even if he wasn’t I wouldn’t trust information from him that contradicted my own powers that made no sense. I would have known by now. I could read minds. We literally just went over that plot point and had several episodes about it!

"Just focus" Toritsuka sighed. Before clenching his fist dramatically "A ghost told me that every day he stops here and reveals his true colours"

"Have you been hanging out with Kaido recently?" I scoffed internally, I was trying to avoid this kind of nonsense yet somehow this is even worse "Because that was beyond corny"

suddenly Hairo turned a corner into a shady looking alleyway. Was Hairo dumb enough to go into one of those? Most definitely. What I wasn't expecting was the complete tone shift. To be completely honest it wasn't that I was completely laser focused on Hairo's thoughts, when you hear roughly 30 people's thoughts at once (not to mention how horny some of these people get. Seriously it's gross) all of the time. You learn to tune things out and just listen to who's right next to you. We were about 400 metres away from school and about 600 metres from my own house. Where did Hairo live... Who were his parents? Now that I think about it, I've never seen them in his thoughts and considering Hairo is the class president and head of the tennis club. His parents should have shown up at school, if not in person then at least in his thoughts. Yet there was still nothing. Hairo sighed and for the first time sounded... tired. It was the worst kind of uncanny valley I've experienced in my life. It was almost as bad as hearing an actual girl addressed a genuine love letter to Nedou... Actually maybe not that bad. Hairo pulled out a phone. It wasn't the one I was familiar with. No this was some kind of highly expensive burner phone, the kind I've only seen Kusuke work on.  I looked between the phone and Toritsuka- who seemed to be wearing a knowing grin fused with a mortified one. Whatever he heard from those ghosts had to have been bad. Damn it, I told him I'd never use this power on him (he kept asking me to use it for 'personal reasons' than thought the most terrible horny thoughts when I refused, in a kind of perverted 'protest') but goddamn it is he going to harass me if I didn't, I put a hand on his shoulder whilst I pulled out one of my limiters. I'd use Immediate telepathy.  It seemed like Hairo was waiting for the phone to ring. Did he have a scheduled call? The phone rang for a little less than a moment before he answered 

"evening chief." he greeted whilst reaching into his collar to fiddle with... a necklace "how's the force without me?"

"shut up, I know you've been gone for longer than the months on the calendar" The older man on the line replied, his voice was gruff aged and a bit to digging though the line told me that this was a proper military leader. "How many times"

"I'm at one thousand. But I've already sent you a file with all the info I've gained so far" Hairo admitted with a sheepish sigh "Took me a good two hundred tries to figure out he even had telepathy, and then another hundred to find a way past it, sir. But I've got a blocker now" he pulled out the locket... It was made of germanium and some wiring, it must somehow filter Hairo's thoughts so they sounded normal to me... Well more normal than this, it had to be Kusuke's work.

""The rest after those three hundred are mostly small mistakes. If one person that's too close to him finds out. He finds out by proxy," Hairo frowned as he clenched his fist, seemingly in frustration "I can only get away with so much weird before he or others get suspicious and you know me, I couldn't be average even if I wanted to and if I could, going too far in that direction would only pull him too close, which is not what we want. I've already told you all this in the files, why do you call me every time I go back."

"I want to know from you, kid" the man stated bluntly, interrupting what was about to be Hairo rambling on about how he could be better. "Your mission. What have you learned?"

"Firstly that using this much hair gel makes me look stupid, I should ask to revise my disguise if I have to reset again" Hairo said simply, knocking on the spike locks and cringing when a wood like sound was made in response. Before his face hardened "And that ma'am's suspicions were correct. Saiki Kusuo, is a psychic."

[pepsin26]

The winged... wait, that isn't a demon!

Tanjiro was falling from the sky. Its happened it's fair share of times after the battle against upper six. Apparently the corps wasn't in a position to promote Tanjiro, Inosuke and Zenitsu to hashira officially. But they had basically all the resources and half the respect without the official title. Things had been hectic to say the least. Higher respect from the master meant harder missions. Harder missions meant sticky situations. Such as fighting a demon that could condense clouds to avoid burning in sunlight and fly in the air among other things.

"HINOKAMI KAGURA!"

Oh right he was falling to his death. See instead of just dying this demon decided to try and take Tanjiro down with them. Via using a cloud to blast him as high as possible. Which of course was a very bad thing for our protagonist. His only hope was to spam breathing technique after breathing technique to attempt to break his fall. Which was having varying results of effectiveness.

*THUD*

Everything hurt. But hurt was good. That meant he hadn't died on impact or suffered enough damage for his body to go into shock. His eyes fluttered slightly. No, he had to stay awake. He was probably concussed, so sleeping would be a bad idea, but his muscles felt like led... One s.all nap couldn't hurt, no the... the others were waiting for him, Nezuko was counting on him. He... had to... stay... awake...

Tanjiro didn't stay awake. That was obvious the moment he woke up. He wasn't in the butterfly mansion, or even a wisteria house. He was in a cave. The walls were painted with bio-luminescent alge and flowers that made the walls shimmer with purples, golds, tears and greens. There were rocks settled around the cave almost like furniture. Sitting on of top them were, goblets, shoes, necklaces bedazzeled with jewels some of which were pi ked out of place, shovels, hoes, broaches. Magnified glasses, interesting looking rocks and sticks.

Essentailly any nick knacks, trinkets and other things people may consider "rubbish" were organised around the place. This was definitely not a corps location.

Suddenly Tanjiro hears a small shuffle... he hadn't smelled a demon, or anything of that manner. No this was unique. Not human definitely not. But this was no demon either

He turned and found an alcove that seemed to lead towards the open sky of the mountain. The demon slayer caught sight of a silluette. It was vaguely human but... the hands looked much to sharp and taloned rather than the soft flesh of human skin. Sharp fangs sat in it's maw, bared only for a moment.

Though most notably were grand raven black wings the tips rowed with gold and purple rows of feathers on it's back. It was tall, it stood at twice Tanjiro's hight. It's eyes glowed a bright against the darkness, purple irises assessing Tanjiro curiously... Cautiously.

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