starsimpromptu

[starsimpromptu]

Must control the urge to laugh each time I check my permissions at work:

There’s a set of permissions labeled “TOPS” and I need them to do my work.

How do I explain to my manager why I snickered when I saw my designation as “TOPS Technology Sector” without explaining how TOPS is the name of a mega-monopoly coalition that is mainly antagonistic in a video game that I play called Zenless Zone Zero?

I just don’t think it’d rub off well, given that my internship is at a mega corporation/firm.

Honestly, this will just serve as a good challenge to my ethics considerations as I work through this job. How much soul am I willing to sell for a paycheck?

[starsimpromptu]

Stay with me.

Inspired by @pipedreamprayer's comment on Ch.19 of my fic (link here because haha shameless self-promo)

Could be taken as a standalone snippet though.

The larger writing piece on AO3 is Miyabi/Yanagi/Harumasa a.k.a. Section 6 polygamy but that's not really demonstrated in any way here. The emergency of the situation sort of overwhelms everything else. Could be read as purely platonic.

Basically I'm subjecting the terminally ill archer to a heart attack during an ether/Hollow-related emergency. For like 1600 words. Enjoy.

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At the sound of the alarm, Yanagi flipped over the sparring range’s fence, stepping into her shoes and clicking the naginata back into a shortened form within seconds. Nearby, Miyabi was already at the door, while Soukaku tied shoelaces into place.

It wasn’t the usual triple tones of Hollow eruptions or the long-short-long of Shiyu tower trouble. Yanagi tried to look around to no avail. HAND’s training grounds are in the basement: there’s no window here.

“What’s going on?” One of the more panicked HAND employees asked, still on the soft mats, stripped off foam sparring gear. “Hollow emergency?”

“Never heard this one before.” Someone else said, raising their phone. “Wait for orders. My squad leader just told us to stand down.”

Yanagi looked to the only woman in the room who might giver her orders. Miyabi maintained her usual poker face, but the deputy could sense a slight hesitation in her moves. Over the whines of the siren, they exchanged a look and stepped out: no matter what it is, Section 6 will be at the front of the line.

Well, if a certain reconnaissance officer was here, he’d say that Section 6 is technically off today. Only a woman like Tsukishiro would show up to HAND HQ on her day-off to catch up on missed martial arts training.

Yanagi’s phone rang while they walked past the rows of armories and lockers. Soukaku was running a little to catch up to the duo. Miyabi looked over her shoulder to see Harumasa’s number on the screen.

The first words she heard had her stop halfway in her steps.

“Tsukishiro, I might need you to save me right now.” Harumasa’s voice was barely loud enough to hear over the alarm. “City EMS is down but I need to get to an emergency room.”

“Where are you?” Yanagi asked. She reached out to Miyabi before the swordswoman was too far away. “Asaba, what’s your situation?”

Silence interspersed with sounds of clothes shifting was not a good answer. Yanagi motioned for Miyabi to take out her phone. The Void Hunter complied, frowning at the hurried mention of Harumasa’s name.

“Sorry—I’m trying to get to some…medication.” Hearing Harumasa again brought some temporary relief to Yanagi’s mind. “I’m at my apartment. The buildings near Sendagaya Gardens. You can’t drive into the narrow streets…you’ll have to park roadside and walk in. The unit number…”

“I can find your address. Stay where you are. Stay on the line.” Yanagi headed for the elevators again, this time leading their group. She turned to the fox Thiren. “Chief, can you pull up Harumasa’s address under his files?”

Soukaku already pressed the buttons for the elevator. At least the sirens have now died down — only flashing lights remained shining along the halls. A few others are setting out from the training ground, muttering what must be mission orders under their breaths.

The sound of something shattering nearly made Yanagi jump in place.

“Asaba? Asaba Harumasa?!”

“…I’m alright.” The answer was raspy, as if forced out with tantamount effort. “Broke a cup. Yeah, I’m definitely having a heart attack right now.”

The lift was not coming fast enough. Yanagi glanced at the fire escape stairs. Miyabi followed her gaze, then ran towards it. The Void Hunter kicked the door open enough to fit a horse. Yanagi and Soukaku followed shortly behind, rushing up the stairs two at a time.

“Asaba, stay with me, I need to you give me some kind of confirmation here.” Yanagi could hear her voice echo in the empty stairwell. “Are you in your room?”

“Yes…though I’m working on it.” Harumasa coughed — at least that indicated he was still breathing. The sound of glass scraping grated on Yanagi’s ears.

“Don’t—don’t move too much. Just stay where you are.” The pink-haired woman ran out of the stairwell: Soukaku held the heavy safety doors for her while Miyabi charged ahead. “We’re coming. Stay on the line.”

There was chaos at the front hall of HAND Headquarters. People rushing left and right, news being passed in the form of reports and yelling. Thankfully, no one stopped Section 6 from storming out — Hoshimi Miyabi must have her reasons.

Yanagi tapped her pocket, and Miyabi fished out her car keys. Soukaku was already running towards the car, heading for the back door.

“Asaba. Tell me you’re still breathing.” Yanagi reached for the passenger side door. “Stay with me here.”

“I am…though you might want to hurry.” The other side of the call was more gasping than speaking, but at least there was an answer. “…I can’t get this chest protector off me.”

“Just stay where you are.” Yanagi barely had the chance to put her seatbelt in as Miyabi swung them out of the parking lot, adjusting the rearview mirror with another hand. “Asaba Harumasa. Stop moving. I can hear you. Lie down or sit or something.”

“I’m on the floor, deputy chief.” Harumasa managed a weak laugh that turned into strangled wheezing. After a few seconds he caught his breath again. “I think I hear fire trucks on the street.”

“I think something happened with the ether energy.” Yanagi said, more for Miyabi than Harumasa. She tapped the glass on her side’s window. “I see plumes from Shiyu Towers. This could be a city-wide thing.”

“Definitely a…city thing.” Harumasa responded — Yanagi wished she could reach over the line and tell him to shut up and focus on staying alive. “EMS’s control desk…went down. I’d try…to call them again, but I think you’ll be faster.”

“ETA 8 minutes.” Miyabi said, tapping her phone. “Yanagi, it’s a dense neighbourhood.”

“Pull over to the street side near the gardens.” Yanagi told her, imagining the city map in her mind. “The apartment complex is just across the street.”

Soukaku leaned forward from the back row.

“Nagi, what do I need to do?” The girl asked, her voice a frightened squeak. “Is there anything I can do?”

Yanagi frowned, unsure of how to answer.

At the same time, HSO Mission Control sent her a request for her location. Section 6 report for duty ASAP, the message read. City-wide ether fluctuation event.

Yanagi promptly dismissed the notification. Never once has she appreciated her chief's knack for ignoring Mission Control until now.

Miyabi swerve past a few cars and floored the gas. Their ETA crunched down a few minutes.

The deputy chief’s attention returned to her call. “Asaba.” She called out his name, but wasn’t sure what she could ask of him. A response? Some kind of sign?

“Still here.” His reply was a whisper.

They’re exiting the highway. Yanagi can see trees poking out behind the condos. The Sendagaya Gardens.

“Hold on.” She commanded him. “We’re coming.”

The snarl of a cat answered her. Some of kind of scuffling. Something else smacked near the receiver.

“Sorry. That was my cat.” Harumasa added after a few long seconds. “I think it’s trying…to get my neighbour’s attention.”

Yanagi was vaguely aware of him owning a cat. “That’s a direction. Is your neighbour responding?”

“Don’t think—” The answer was buried in a coughing fit. At least that proved to Yanagi that the archer was still alive.

Miyabi slipped into the first roadside spot by Sendagaya’s subway stop. They exit the car, and Yanagi looked around before pointing towards a block of packed, city-owned apartments.

The swordswoman ran across the street with no regard to traffic lights or cars. Yanagi pulled Soukaku back to narrowly avoid a biker before running across as well.

They were looking for Building C when a muted thud came across the call.

“Harumasa?!” Yanagi cried out his name, barely registering the unfamiliarity of those syllables. Now is not the time for the semblance of professionalism.

Each passing moment of silence weighed on her shoulder. Yanagi was still looking up. Which of these buildings was C? Which of these windows could be his?

Miyabi spotted the building first, and pulled Yanagi along towards it. The front door was left open for mail, and Soukaku pulled it open with enough force that it banged against the wall.

“Tsukishiro.” Harumasa spoke up again, and Yanagi held the phone closer to hear his every word. He was drifting away with every other word. “I might... not make it... this time.”

“No. Nope. Stay with us.” Yanagi cursed at one of the old bikes chained to the second-floor railings, blocking their paths. “Asaba, we’re coming up the stairs right now.”

The door was locked. Miyabi kicked up the doormat but didn’t find a backup key.

“The window.” Yanagi pointed out the open stairwell. “The roof of the next building is close enough to jump. That next window has to be his.”

Soukaku also glanced at the distance. The oni girl was a little small, but Yanagi knew she herself could make the jump — if she isn’t holding up her phone with one hand.

Miyabi decided she’s hand enough of locks today. Tailless, in an instant, cut through the deadbolt, leaving an arc of frost. Then she was inside, and running towards the unconscious form by the window.

A trail of glass shards and blood painted the floor into some kind of modern artwork, tracing a path out from the bedroom. Crimson smeared over Harumasa’s white shirt, some of it from his hands, some from his mouth.

The archer flickered back into consciousness as Miyabi lifted him into the air, carefully keeping his head back to leave the airway clear.

“Sorry, Chief…” He had no strength left for a smile. “I never meant…to have you…see me like this.”

“Save your breath.” Miyabi could feel cold sweat pressing through his shirt. She held him close, as if she could somehow share her own vitality with him. The Void Hunter was already stepping towards the door. Yanagi was pulling up the navigation for the nearest emergency room.

Soukaku picked up the phone on the floor. Her hands are now covered in half-dried blood from the device. The cat scowled at her, so Soukaku picked it up too. It’s probably as scared and confused as she is.

The window was left open, with every breeze sending the light curtains waving through the air. The way Harumasa liked to keep it.

[starsimpromptu]

If I had a penny for every time I wrote a plot that was “man has psychotic episode in front of little sister equivalent” I’d have two pennies. Which is not a lot of pennies but it’s weird that I happened twice.

Ok I guess maybe I like that trope a little too much. Maybe not?

[starsimpromptu]

Finally decided to move my outline from a .txt file to something more sensible after discovering the 3rd piece of dialogue I planned for chapter 19 that I wrote 2 months ago by “accidentally scrolling too far”

So maybe keeping writing notes in the archaeological order of “whatever new hurt/comfort thoughts came through my head” isn’t a great idea.

Then I discover that my outline is 10+ pages. Dialogue, plot, and maybe scene description. Not including the ridiculous amount of in-game lore, Wikipedia, and NIH articles I’ve been reading and referencing to (topics range from “Tokaido Shinkansen” to “ventricular fibrillation”) (don’t ask). Also not including the scrapped Ch 17 that I decided to pretty much re-write.

That’s a lot of words. And a lot of time spent happily typing them out.

Anyways I might hate Notion in 2 days and go back to my trusty .txt file. Who knows.

[starsimpromptu]

Contemplations on why Harumasa thinks he's a monster.

(more extended writing at strange hours of the night)

Do you not see it? The thing that dwells within me? The thing that seeps from the fabric of my being? It changed me. It shaped me. It whittled my bones and seared my breath and distilled my blood until I am nothing.

It comes out of my marrows. It tears apart my muscles and sloughs off my skin. It will replace my bones with the echoes of something stronger. It will replace my ligaments with the vibrations of something deeper. It will replace my mind with the churning, swirling core of something hollow.

It will first break me. It is breaking me. It is rotting me from the inside out. It will take my body and shut it down, piece by piece. It will fill my lungs with shards of glass. It will cloud my eyes with fog. It will spin my insides until nothing goes in and only blood comes out. It will strip my strength until my aim shivers and my legs give out beneath me. It will make you watch as I crumble. It will make you watch as I am defeated, and it will give you the false hope that it might relent. That I might win. I'll fight. But that is like holding dry ice with my hands. That sliver of victory will take away even the last and barest heat sticking to my skin, then dissolve without a trace. An endless uphill battle that never stops. I only have to trip once.

It will come out of me and destroy everything, starting with those closest to me. That is, if I have not already torn them apart in my own dying. My lungs will stop burning when I breath: I won't be breathing. My heart will stop spasming when I run: I won't be running. I will be remade into something that isn't me. It will make me less than human. It will make me more than human.

I will harmonize with the plague upon this earth. I will hold the power to bend that bow and wear a quiver of poisons. I will have more than what it has given to the many that crawls this land. I will become the Emperor of all Maladies. I will ride the white horse. I will wear a victor's crown, then go forth conquering and to conquer.

What am I doing now? I'm saying: "thank you, but no thank you".

I'm saying: Kiss your grand plans goodbye.

[starsimpromptu]

Thanks universe. Just because I keep writing my favs ill as fuck doesn’t mean you need to give me a sore throat. I can sympathize just fine without feeling like swallowing needles.

Last time it would rain crazy before I updated and I figured it’s Dan Feng being an impatient lizard. What’s with you, then, Harumasa? Going to curse me with a migraine every time I wrote you into a hospitalization arc?

[starsimpromptu]

Cracks knuckles. Open Word. Set up keyboard and screen. Pour cup of tea.

Alright brain it’s time to write. You gotta write about fictional men before you get that project assignment tomorrow.

Two sentences in.

Looks up “cardigan”

14 tabs and 2 hours later

Closes wiki page on “Tokaido Shinkansen”

Alright brain it’s time to write.

[starsimpromptu]

Famine

Warning: cannibalism, and also no beta just pure thoughts on a page

A bit of extended writing on Soukaku and trying out a bit of horror (?).

She was never quite human to begin with.

======

“I think I ate my sister.” Soukaku said.

They used her mind and drank her blood. Then walked over her body towards New Eridu.

War took from her. War took from everyone and drained them dry. War played an unending game of chess with her and left her broken, then sent her a gift to end it all.

Famine took from her. Famine stripped her and devoured whatever’s left of her.

“I think I ate my sister.” Soukaku said.

Was Yanagi, Nagi, her new sister, her savior, also the War? Was she the Enemy, the Big Evil that caused her sister to stay awake at night but close her eyes in the days?

Yanagi smelled like her sister. Yanagi took her sister’s blood and conquered it as her own.

Was it her own hands that washed her sister clean, like an animal after the slaughter? Was it her lips that kissed her goodbye, feeling the remaining tenderness on her skin, and suddenly salivating at the thought of meat? Was it her teeth that bit into her body? Was it her eyes, bloodshot not from grief, but from the gnawing gluttony that overtook her?

No no no. That was not Soukaku. That was Famine. That was hunger. Hunger for food. Hunger for love. An ancient song of consumption that sang from every strand of her DNA.

No, Soukaku! That is—that was your sister. You should be saying goodbye.

But I don’t want to say goodbye. I want her. I want my sister back. If I can’t have all of her, let me take some of her. Let me take her in my hands, take her in my teeth. Take her as the filling of my belly and as meat on my bones.

Yanagi smells like my sister. I smell like my sister. This way she is still with us. Forever and ever.

“What do you mean, you ate her?”

“Nothing.” Soukaku smiled and licked her finger. “I’m hungry. Let’s eat something.”

[starsimpromptu]

Sleepy morning. I see them as a family like brother and sister you know

[starsimpromptu]

I’ve revived my Tumblr login and reblogging this is one of the first thing I gotta do.

Holy smokes someone did art of my work? Oh my god not only did people read my rambling but like, made art from it? They made something new from the thing I made? My hands are still shaking. I love this. I would eat it. This would bring me joy in the darkest of hours. Bless you and your soul and the earth you stand on. A thousand kudos for your hand and your pen.

[ “Deputy chief. […] Can you… can you not cite me for disciplinary… if I don’t try to file it as overtime?” ]

scene and excerpt from like an arrow in the dark by starsimproptu ! a lovely read :]

[starsimpromptu]

Introductions...?

Hi.

This is StarsImpromptu. Uhhh what else do I say in times like this?

My pronouns are she/her. I'm legal to drink in places where alcohol consumption is legal (if I put in a number here I'll forget to update it). I'm asexual. I am a native speaker of English and Mandarin Chinese (though unfortunately not quite a writer in the latter language).

I was once upon a time lurking on this hellsite when SuperWhoLock was a thing. I played Genshin Impact. I am currently playing Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero (though I must say action games are not my expertise).

Stuff I've written can be found on my AO3 profile. Notable characters I’ve obsessed over include Alhaitham, Dan Feng, and more recently Asaba Harumasa.

Feel free to interact. I promise I don't bite but I might yap. And disappear or reappear online at strange times.

P.S. How is it that I've switched websites and still don't know how to tag?