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courage-a-word-of-justice · 3 years

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After much watching...I cut it down to 5 anime and 1 short.

Suppose a Kid… 1

I am not writing out that full title every time! Anyways, here’s the first “real” debut of winter 2021.

For some reason…this series reminds me of Pokemon. Probably how at the start, Ash tries to get along with Pikachu by doing all sorts of things like what Lloyd is doing here. (<- learnt protag’s name through synopses)

The name “Shouma” rang a bell and I was right – Shouma is voiced by Souma…Saito.

The Japanese title has “monogatari” on the end there…so it probably doesn’t fully translate into the English title.

These orange flecks in Lloyd’s eyes are kinda distracting…

Isn’t Kunlun in China, though…?

If this is just going to be Marie yelling…I don’t see why I should stay. (<- turned volume on for everything so far)

*facepalms* Lloyd is so dense…

That fight scene’s not very good…

…oh great. Selen’s fallen in love with Lloyd already…*sigh*

The missing princess is certainly going to be a plot point later.

Wow, that tiger looks impressive! If only they could’ve done that for the fight scene…

…oh great, Selen is a low-key yandere…

Didn’t Lloyd say he sucked at combat…? Anyways, I’m not keeping this. The designs are colourful and the tiger was good, but it’s meant to be a comedy and it’s not funny.

Hortensia Saga 1

Here for Ume! He’s voicing a guy called Defloitte Danois.

I-Is that CGI? So early on into the anime???

*a dude gets bitten into by the werewolf*…welp, at least this series isn’t afraid of its own gore.

I had a sinking feeling our real protag was Alfred…and I was right, according to the OP.

Huh? The song goes silent for a second near the end…what the heck?

The book appears to use English, albeit English so faintly inked in you can’t quite tell what language it is.

Alfred, governing Albert…? Isn’t that a bit redundant?

I swear all the female voices in this anime are squeaky as all get out…

All these high fantasy anime – or heck, any high fantasy series full stop – ever justify why the country is worth fighting for. It’s why I find war stories pointless and senseless.

You can tell from the voice and short stature “Marius” is Mariel…but she uses boku, which is why Alfred can’t really tell the difference. (Also, he wasn’t privy to the fact Mariel cut her hair.)

This almost smacks of a game tutorial. The CGI is still there…it’s not as bad as other examples I’ve seen, but you can tell it’s CGI when you look at it.

Roy’s kind of pretty, in a generic way.

A close-range archer! Ho, you’re kinda impressive yourself, Roy. (The feeling of a game tutorial has disappeared by this point.)

Hortense…of Hortensia…how confusing.

The scruffy guy you keep seeing with the dark hair is Defloitte. Keep an eye out for him for me, would you?

The ED seems to consist mostly of…anguished pop screams. *cringes slightly*

Anyways, this anime isn’t bad. It’s quite average though and its CGI could easily get worse.

Kumo Desu ga 1

…you know I don’t like 1st person cam, yeah?

…this is just Kumoko (as I’ve heard her being called) yelling so far…plus there’s quite a bit of CGI.

I like how the ED has an English overlay and the style they’ve used for it. The music, though…? Nah.

Wait a second? Millepensee? Shin Itagaki? That would explain the CGI!

“…a spider that just happens to have my memories.” – A butterfly dream, huh?

…well, at least this anime is well aware of the genre space it inhabits. Maybe you could say…it’s an isekai light novel, so what? *groans from the audience*

…well, you didn’t really “bring” your “brother’s” (?) corpse in case of an emergency, now, did you?

…welp, to have guts, you must eat guts. I guess that’s how it goes.

What’s a “skanda”?

This anime’s quite monologue-y (as expected of an LN). I can live with it, but I don’t know if it can carry the entire thing through the season.

…humans? Haven’t seen them almost all episode. What are they up to?

These designs sort of look like SAO’s. They’re not a dealbreaker yet, but they could be down the line…

This ED seems to take cues from Cop Craft’s OP (same studio). It also has some…“Aggretsuko rage”, I guess you could call it.

2.43 1

…Another confusing title, I see. I normally don’t do sports anime, but I’m here for Ume.

*sees the colour of the volleyball* - Basically anything volleyball has to collaborate with volleyball maker Mikasa, doesn’t it?

This anime seems to like putting characters’ thoughts on the screen for dramatic impact. The CGI is sort of visible, but not a dealbreaker.

I’d thought I’d heard of this OP artist before, but it turns out I haven’t.

This series has a nice sense of force. You see those moments where the ball squishes, or when Yuni presses against the wall without thinking? Those.

LOL, way to burn Yuni, Chika…

These transitions are a bit hard to detect. I think I like Akudama’s more overt ones more.

LOL, Dr Popper (sic).

The serves are nothing special. Haikyuu does the same thing from the episode I saw of it. (You know I don’t like Haikyuu, yeah? Dropped it after 1 episode because everything I heard the fans talking about caused me to connect the dots.)

The way Yuni blushes…it’s more than someone usually would, even if it is out of embarrassment. It may just be the entertainment I consume, but I could swear that’s going somewhere in more of a BL manner.

I get the feeling Chika has a bit of Virgo or Taurus in him somewhere. The sort of guy who nags at everyone to do stuff his way is probably like that.

Pocari Sweat (unaltered).

I gave myself dimples by puffing up my cheeks and poking them until they became permanent. I guess you can do the same thing with ambidexterity…?

For some reason, I can detect Chika’s jealousy when he discusses blocks and natural talent.

…wow, this anime is pretty serious for a volleyball anime.

The ED scene where the face is replaced with flowers is pretty creepy. Like Jigokuraku or something.

Cells at Work!! 1

What are these blob creatures you see in the OP, anyway…?

I think I remember reading something that the numbers assigned to the cells aren’t arbitrary – they’re hexadecimal colors, e.g. RBCs get shades of red as their numbers.

D’aww, Platelets warm the heart. They really do.

Platelets have a master…? I thought they were all just lil’ kids.

“What the cell’s going on?!” – Oh, I remember seeing a tweet about this. I love that pun! Kudos to whoever was responsible for that.

LOL, no. 4989 dancing in the background.

Hmm…those nets look like CGI.

…uh, I did not need that shot of the Megakaryocyte’s camel toe…that’s distubring.

Wait, Backward Cap is a she?!

Aw, lookit WBC being a dad. That’s cute.

Backward Cap = Ushiromae-chan.

Is that…a construction worker holding a giant pudding?!

Cells at Work Code Black 1

This anime is called “black” due to black companies. It’s Code Black to avoid being racist, I guess. I’m looking forward to it because it’s undoubtedly going to show a dark side to the main series…

…and there it is, the RBC complaining.

I assume OJT = on the job training.

I knew “pespin” (sic) was a typo. It’s pepsin.

Now that I’ve been working at customer service for two years (give or take COVID), I can see where the senpai RBC is smoothing over the relations.

…that also means I know where to suppress my emotions. I’m not a person who opens up to people easily without getting used to them, so people never see me as suitable for customer service anyway, but it’s the only experience I have so *shrugs*.

…oh gosh. I haven’t seen these words since…the time I was still learning biology.

…*sigh* Rookie RBC is worried about boobs.

The fact Senpai lost his iconic hat…is kinda sad, actually.

“Don’t let his resolve be for nothing.”

Hmm…does the male WBC from the main series wear black fingerless gloves?

I thought I’d heard of this artist before…but turns out I just can’t distinguish really autotuned artists from each other…(lel)

…and stuff goes ka-blam. It’s the spiritual successor to HypMic, even if I wasn’t asking for it. (LOL)

Back Arrow 1

…I heard you said “hot guys”? (Yes, I am predictable as all get out.)

What’s with that episode title…?

Stereotypes, eh? I kind of expected as much from the promo, but where’s the title character…?

…was that yuri fanservice? I can’t quite tell because it was the aftermath of an action scene, but I can see the shippers gearing up in my head.

…after a bit of waiting, there he is. Back Arrow himself. He kind looks like Takuto (Star Driver).

“I’m not trying to hide anything!” – Well, that’s…true.

…*sigh* Why do girls always have more feminine-looking mechs? (Plus this one has boobs…*sighhhhhhhhhhhh*)

So it seems mechs in this anime are the form of one’s conviction and they have skills along those lines, eh? An interesting concept.

…you do realise I abandoned an entire anime based on a joke about lucky underwear? However, this anime is so absurd and just keeps running with the joke that I just can’t say no to it. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from volunteering at a charity store, it’s that when it comes to selling stuff, you can’t say no to a lot of stuff…including selling potentially used underwear, so long as it’s not dirty or stinky.

Whoa! Those things break?!

Why does the title card mention the wall...?

Anyways, I…like it, surprisingly enough. Let’s keep going.

Back Arrow 2

…eh? Didn’t expect inflatable clothing, LOL.

I suspect Shu Bi is scheming something.

What’s the long thing…?

“…tomorrow might not come.” – A good reminder to have in these times of COVID.

Peath = Peace. (Heh. What a stupid name…*thinks about the name “Quattro Bajeena” suddenly* Okay, “Peath” pales in comparison to that.)

What is that creature that circles in the sky…?

I know this is meant to be a serious fight, but…that attacking guy’s hat seriously looks like a bamboo stalk and so I keep seeing it and trying not to laugh.

I only just now realised there’s CGI. CGI these days is getting much better than it used to be.

Tomozaki 1

LOL, Yontendo. It’s clearly Smash Bros + Nintendo Switch and the character designer was also around for Iroduku, so that’s why this style looks familiar.

…lemme guess, since this is a romance, it’s likely NONAME is Aoi. Or some other girl.

I would pay for a romance where it’s the girl building the guy up to be presentable, instead of a girl building other girls up to be presentable a la Ageha 100%.

Didn’t the anime show us Tomozaki reflecting to himself, though…?

“…rules working in combination.” - Well, there’s social norms (e.g. knock before entering a room), laws, contracts, societal standards (e.g. in Japanese society, you bow to others as a greeting or apology)…(continues to blabber on for a bit)

I think Aoi said something like “onitadaku”, but I’m not sure what the joke is there. Oni is in there, sure, but what’s the original phrase she’s playing off?

…LOL, it’s a good time to remind people to wear a mask.

LOL, Krout.

Anyways, this seems decent. I like how it’s going the way I want it to.

Tomozaki 2

“…make sure I’m nearby…” – Okay, that’s just being pushy, Aoi.

Minami and Hinami…so confusing…

*Minami chomps on Natsubayashi’s ear* - …okay, that’s not a thing girls do in real life unless they’re lesbians. This is likely trying to take the fanservice route.

They didn’t even show why the “kiss” was broken up…meaning they were doing it to make potential girl-on-girl look hot. Just great.

*Aoi touches Tomozaki’s butt* - Dude, that’s groping…

I didn’t think we’d get the story on Aoi’s “hexactly” so soon.

…well, that episode just made me feel mildly bitter. I’m dropping it here.

Praeter 1

…aw s***. Only a few seconds in and this looks like a terrible game…

It’s like someone barfed paint across Durarara…

The only time the background buildings look any good are when there’s a fight scene…

These Seals (or whatever those designs are called) seem to act like mini shields. Update: They’re called tattoos.

That transition was a bit fast for my liking…

Seems like the series is mildly peppered with Greek terms.

“To Infinity and Beyond” by…some author I can’t really read the name of.

Suddenly, they throw in more characters…?

Where does Eiji keep those bullet cases of his…? In his jacket?

Having a guy die in the 1st episode is cheap. I mean, we don’t quite care for him yet – it’s too early in the anime for that.

Now there’s Norse terms on top of the Greek ones…

Even more characters? You kidding me?

Lemme guess, Eiji gave up his tattoo because Yamato inspired him and now he’s a goner.

Welp, the weight of the world is in your hands, Yamato. Including that dead dude on your back. (<- sarcastic)

Sk8 1

I’ve been hearing good things about this anime! Let’s go! (<- about a week late to the debut)

That politician is probably relevant…probably someone’s dad, if HypMic taught me anything.

LOL, a beef. They call this stuff “beef”? Where’s the chicken? (<- joke from HypMic)

Haemanthus…apparently a flowering plant from S. Africa.

That’s rare, you don’t see Canadians in anime all that much. I was just thinking as I came home from volunteering how you know British people all have fancy names like William and Australians are Johnno, Danno etc., but Canadians? No clue. Update: Apparently you’d call one Arnold or something just as generic…?

Why are all foreigners in anime half-Japanese with the mother being the Japanese side, anyway?...Because people can make their character speak Japanese while looking foreign. Right. Moving right along.

Ahh…I understand your plight all too well, Reki.

…Hmm. It seems Reki’s surname is written kiya, but read “Kyan”. His name literally translates to “history (calendar/age) of bravery (military might)” Update: Turns out his surname is 3 characters (read “kiyan”, although I’ve never seen that final character ever being read as “n”) and his first name is one, so his first name is just “history (calendar/age)”.

Even I suck at balancing on bikes and stuff (…yeah, I still can’t ride a bike even though I’ve done so many other things in my life) and I know you have to support yourself with one foot on the ground before you do things like trick flips. I may not have observed Tony Hawk all that much, but he was on the periphery of my knowledge.

“What’s your hourly wage?” – Ouch, I feel ya, Langa.

Koko ni netete actually means “Lie down here”, but…okay.

These eyecatches are cute.

That’s a cute fox.

Yikes! 60 mph = approx. 97 km/h!!!

Random umeboshi, LOL.

Aghhhhhhhhhhh! Cherry Blossom’s so pretty~! I love him already!

Thank you, based Bones!

Something that can be enjoyed, even without sound: this is why I enjoy both action and comedy anime!

Okinawa? We’re in Okinawa?

Well, that was cool! I didn’t even ask where the location was until the end. Update: Why is this anime sometimes called Sk8 the Infinity anyway…?

Horimiya 1

Horimiya…I’ve been aware of this series for a while. There’s even a Chinese volume of it at a library close to me, although due to contact tracing I haven’t bothered to check it out.

Oh, I bet Hori is the otaku!

Ooh, Marketing Script!

Because I’ve been behind on the premieres, I’ve seen enough to know this boy with the chain is Miyamura.

…argh! Miyamura is cute! Y’all were right!!! (<- likes blushing bois)

I bet there’s going to be an emergency meeting!

“Sorry, it’s egg time!” – Oh, I’m laughing so hard! So that’s the context behind the Wonder Egg Priority meme!

“…see these?!” – Well, it’s not like you have a tattoo or some-*Miyamura shows his tattoos* Never mind…

Oh, I just realised they even animate the minute movements of the eyes Miyamura does…cool.

Notice how Miyamura is blocked from the other guy due to the window.

Miyamura goes “Ishikawa-kun” but “Hori-san”…hmm. No wonder he’s letting Ishikawa get Hori.

The problem I find with romance series is that they’re generally tied to heteronormativity. Hori is coded with red silhouettes and Miyamura with blue…*sigh* Whatever happened to gender ambiguity?

Good heavens, what is up with this ED?! It looks like Pocoyo! (…Does anyone else know that cartoon…?) Aside from that quibble, this anime is great though.

Mushoku Tensei 1

Apparently this is the grandad of all isekai. Why it took so long for an anime of this…who knows?

…and of course this guy’s a loser virgin. Go figure.

*sighhhhhhhhh* He’s just ogling this woman’s boobs…

…oh, sorry. I was so distracted by the man candy, I didn’t care about Rudy.

I-It’s actually quite refreshing to not have an OP protagonist from the get-go for once. (Or maybe I’ve developed such a disdain for isekai since SAO rolled around that everything here suddenly feels fresh.)

You can see the birthplace of isekai without having watched any of the others right here, it looks like.

“…what’s the point of incantations?” – To make it easier for you to cast spells, I gue-spoke too soon.

…wow, they shamelessly showed off Rudy’s privates. I know he’s still young at this stage, but that reminds me of how I dropped Dragon Ball around the time Goku was shown the same way (which is…very early on, by my own admission).

I believe, based on the name of the spinoff I see in the 7 Seas emails, the magic tutor is called Roxy.

You’re thinking about marriage?! At your (reincarnated) age?!

Oh no! The tree again!

LOL, Rudy’s acting like a kid who’s been in COVID lockdown for a while.

I think what most of the isekai that spun off from here missed is that the loser is job age. Losers at life at job age are relatable and high school geniuses are relatable (albeit sometimes insufferable), but losers who become NEETs for no reason whatsoever and then get banged up by Truck-kun are not.

Anyways, this was good, but a risky kind of good, since it seems like this male gaze will continue to be around as Rudy gets older.

Update: Dropped after learning Rudy was a paedophile in his past life.

Update 2: Apparently the anime toned down this paedophilic tendency of Rudy’s, so...now the verdict is that I move on while I let other people tell me if this is true of the anime or not.

Kemono Jihen 1

“Kemono Jihen” means something like “creature incidents”. I wonder why Funimation didn’t change the name…?

Kabane means “summer wing”.

Kanoko Villa, I’d assume, is named after the deer (the name means “deer’s child”).

My experience with Sho Aimoto (creator of this manga) is reading a bit of Hokenshitsu no Shinigami. (That, by the way, reminds me of Nube, but it’s nothing spectacular.) However, Hokenshitsu no Shinigami has a very detailed artstyle…That’s why I’m pretty shocked Kemono Jihen has such a scratchy one…

Ooh, edamame!

Oh, I see…this is like Furuba or a werewolf story, huh? Rather than a Natsume Yuujincho sort of thing.

…I thought Inugami and Dorotabo had seen everything of each other because of bathing together…I guess not, then.

…is Yataro going to die?

It seems the “immortal demons” are oni, so…why subtitle them as “immortal demons” and not just “demons”?

Ohhhhhhhh…this shite’s good. It seems to have a throwback feeling to it, moreso than even Yashahime or a lot of the sequels I’ve seen recently.

Cells at Work!! 2

I was going to move right along to Wonder Egg Priority because I’m really behind on the debuts right now, but I accidentally opened this up while I was cleaning up so I might as well watch another episode or two before setting it aside.

He’s dead, Jim. (<-joking)

…gosh, these walls look like Hover all over again and that’s from 1995…

LOL, these background cells don’t even have any details. They’re basically stick figures with fat bodies…

I think that phrase that appeared, “Take good care of B Cell!”, may be a pun on Give My Regards to Black Jack (written with similar Japanese, “B Cell wo Yoroshiku!” vs. “Black Jack ni Yoroshiku!”).

LOL, “you sure have the guts”…while they’re in the guts.

The certificate says something about it being presented to someone in the face of bravery, I think (<- just looked at it briefly).

“You have a good head on your shoulders,” says the T cell as WBC struggles with the disguise…stuck on his head.

Wonder Egg Priority 1

I’ve been hearing this series is surreal, but no more surreal than Flip Flappers. So…I don’t know if I’ll like it or not.

What’s this K?(?96…?

There’s a sunflower on her raincoat…so that’s why I saw a post called “You’re the sunflower”. Personally, that just reminds me of Post Malone.

Those Seeno Evils…they’re CGI, aren’t they?

As Boueibu once said (but I may be paraphrasing here), “nothing is more scary than free”.

…to be honest with you, I haven’t had a best friend for at least 2 years now. I only really feel close to people who are like me and who I have sustained contact with over many years, so I end up cutting contact with people after we part ways and never trying to fix it.

I always find it slightly absurd when anime girls get a little pudgy and go, “I’m so fat!” (See, for instance, the Dumbbell series.) Or, in this case, Ai’s going, “I’m so ugly!” when there’s nothing wrong with her. She’s only a bit different from everyone else due to her heterochromia - she doesn't have any physical or mental difficulties.

IChu 1

Here for Ume and, of course, dem bois. Bring it!

I seem to remember one of the magazines called an “Ichu” “an idol egg” (i.e. a fledgling idol)…More egg puns for me, then.

I found him! Ume! He’s Akira Mitsurugi! Update: Turns out that’s Toshiyuki Toyonaga…Oops. (Ume is actually Lucas from I*B.)

Huh? For a second, I imagined Akira with a dubbed voice. Of course, I could only be dreaming, because idol anime normally don’t get dubs, but…it was interesting to think about.

LOL, “Onsta”.

This Akio-type character is popular lately. The sort who’s timid but has an outstanding talent they themselves might not see.

…uh, but Kocho means “Principal”…?

An idol bear?!

Torahiko is crazy…(Note the tigers. Tora = tiger.)

Specifically, that’s black coffee with no sugar.

As much as I want to keep watching this, I’ll hit pause on it here. There’s much better offerings this season.

YuruCamp s2 1

…grandpa’s writing is so…neat.

*glares at CGI car…*

This OP just doesn’t compare to Shiny Days, y’know…?

OOPArts.

Talking pine cones! They’re back!

Curry rice! Literally had some of the Japanese-style stuff the other day. It was great.

All this talk about jobs…I personally don’t like jobs because I like to work at my own pace (hence one reason why I’m working on being a translator), but…money…I’m jealous, girls.

I’m trying not to rely on the subs for those texts that appear on the screen so that I can keep my reading skills up…I kept up with them for the most part…but then I got distracted by the croquette sign at one point…

“…buy you some local food?” – That’s omiyage, normally translated “souvenirs”. “Local food” actually does make more sense in that gap, though.

…man, I’m jealous that the girls all got jobs suitable for their personalities and everything. Lil’ ol’ antisocial me sucks at retail, even after 2 years.

Design-bu 1

LOL, that man and his bunny. Update: That’s Unabara-san.

…geez, these utaite are everywhere now. I’ve seen 96neko, USSS, Eve and more being more central to anime song creation…

Thise characters in the OP seal (<-the stamp, not the animal) are saiyou, meaning “recruited”, or in this case, “accepted”.

OEM = original equipment manufacturer.

Hrm…you can tell it’s a giraffe by description, but…that “base everything on the horse” is interesting as you could count several things as horse derivatives. Also, the angels’ names are all standard Japanese names with natural components to them (Ueda = upright rice field, Shimoda = frost rice field etc).

Is this pink-themed guy…a guy? Or a crossdresser? Update: That’s Kanamori-san.

I like how the suits have little wing-like flaps. Also the wings on Shimoda’s back.

…I never thought an anime episode would make me so concerned about giraffes.

That guy in the green I remember from the Wave x Tendebu (Heaven’s Design Team) collab, his name is Kimura.

Oh, so there is a bird like that!

The random wiggling the chibis do in these short segments…it’s a bit disorienting. (<-Just a small quibble of mine.)

Oh! Galapagos effect!

Agonistic: “polemical; combative.” I thought they meant “antagonistic”.

Oh man, that punch line was great! It took me a while to get into the spirit of it, but this anime is great!

Update: Oh, that’s where those nature names come from! They’re actually meant to be gods! (Or…named after gods…?) Also, Ueda vs. Shimoda (the “shimo” could be the kanji for “below”).

Ex-Arm 1

I’ve heard this anime looks bad…even well before its debut. How bad? Let’s find out.

*stifles laughter* From the first pan, I know this anime is doomed on my list. Even Praeter was better than this!

*stifles laughter again* This OP really does look as bad as the stuff I was seeing prior to winter 2021! Like a game I shouldn’t take out of my archives! (It’s not as bad as Hover’s graphics, but still…that’s from 1995. Cut it some slack.)

That’s the 2nd Kimura this season…

Yugg is just…ugly. Never try to render elaborate eyelashes in CGI again, people.

Dimension High School was better than this because at least that had puzzles. This is even jankier than that!

Wait, why is Akira 3D when his dad is 2D? It’s not that obvious, but I notice these things. Update: That’s not his dad…but close enough. (That’s his brother.)

…and here comes Truck-kun! (LOL)

This would be good…if it weren’t rendered in the jankiest CGI known to man…

Alma’s gun strike doesn’t have a lot of force to it.

The fire is rendered so terribly…*stifles laughter*

This part with a disembodied Akira is what I assume I got up at 6 am for…but I can’t hear it, due to background noise. Remind me to confirm this later. (Minami’s mouth is rendered so terribly…augh.)

No force to any of these recent motions, either.

LOL, this censorship.

Wave 1

Ever since this project was announced, I’ve been watching developments unfold on Anime News Network. I knew it would get an anime or something similar I could follow…and now here I am. I mentioned in the Sk8 comments I have basically zero knowledge of surfing, so…this is very unexpected, in one sense.

Was that a drone…?

“Wizard of the Waifu Board”?! Are you kidding me?! (LOL)

There seem to be shots where I can see the CGI here, but…anything’s better than Ex-Arm. Let’s say that.

Actually…yappe is a derivative of yabai, meaning “cool” or “crap” (in an ironic sense). So it would probably be better to translate it as “Surfing’s the greatest!” or “Surfing’s the coolest!” Anyways, what I was thinking before I was going to say this was that the waves are so enticingly animated, it feels like a summer anime. Basically the only other anime I’ve ever said that for is Grand Blue.

If I’m understanding where Isokichi’s name comes from right, “iso” is the character for seashore or a rocky beach (磯).

LOL, the teacher just wrote “Show must go on.”

Hayama, Kanagawa. Kanagawa’s capital is Yokohama, so it’s not quite Tokyo, but somewhat close.

“Murphy”? I have zero clue what that means.

Oh, I see. The title is translated that way due to context. Now that I can accept.

I just burst out into laughter when I realised Nalu hasn’t dropped or put down his ukulele once.

BSD Wan! 1

Here comes my past to haunt me…aside from me being a fan of BSD, I’m here because I influenced this series. How so? Once upon a time in the now-distant year of 2016, I was a scanlator for a brief period. Most of the work I’ve done hasn’t influenced the world at large, but this is the most influential manga I had a hand in working on.

Oh no! They’re starting with the dog AU?! (That comes from pretty far into the manga, IIRC. Further than my work was on it, at least.)

It’s Rashomon, but Rashoken (that last bit means “dog”). Hence Ruffshomon.

Basically, they just insert dog-related words everywhere…don’t make me explain every one!

Ouch, I can only imagine how much pain it was to translate Inu Shikkaku. Literally, it’s “No Longer a Dog”, but how would anyone make it in line with the other puns…?

I wasn’t fully aware of how the dog AU was connected to the main Wan series because I haven’t really looked at it after I quit due to aggregators, but…that was a nice fakeout. Also, I was concerned as to whether this was going to be a full-length ep or a short…seems like it’s a 10 minute short, so I have more chances of taking it.

…oh gosh, that pose! I remember it! I worked on this one! (Now that I know it’s a TV short, I won’t cover future episodes, but I want to at least finish this one because I started it.)

I think they added a bit there. I remember Kunikida’s and Yosano’s were in the manga, but not the other members or Fukuzawa going “the wind is smiling” + Kenji working on the roof at the start.

Oh yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh, I remember Rampo. I think I had to approximate how he would say stuff with Pocky in his mouth, but Slug (current scanlator) went the extra mile and stuck food in his mouth to do the same panel.

It seems to make a short ep., they strung a bunch of the chapters together. Also, I don’t think we ever found out what Yosano’s puddle was and that was…probably for the better.

Oh yeah…I think I remember this one.

Now I remember it! I remember having fun explaining what a youkan was.

Whoa, Higuchi scrapped the SFX! That wasn’t in the original…

The ED seems to be an Atsushi cover of Namae wo Yobu yo.

Oh noooooooooooo! The flower gazing episode! That’s the one I remember most, because I was trying to figure out how to translate 移動 while making it smooth-sounding English…(I remember the final result was something like, “Move! Move~!”

Dr Stone: Stone Wars 1

Final debut! Let’s go~!

The last time this series was on the air was about 1 year ago. I can remember that far back…

I like how that recap is framed as Gen talking to the kids.

Senku overcomes every problem with science.

…not much to comment on here.

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makeste · 4 years

Text

BnHA Chapter 253: That Good Angst

Previously on BnHA: The villain Ending, whose name in retrospect is hella melodramatic for a guy whose power is MAKING ROAD MARKINGS COME TO LIFE, kidnapped Natsuo and then deservedly got his ass kicked by three teenagers. Endeavor won the manga’s coveted Best Hug award, made up by me just now, and then gave one of the best monologues in the whole series, basically owning up to all his crimes and saying he doesn’t want or deserve his son’s forgiveness. And he didn’t get it either, which was excellent. Instead, he announced to his kids that he was building them a new home for them to go live in with their mother and without him. Meanwhile Katsuki was all, “btw I’ve decided on my new hero name,” and the ENTIRE FANDOM was all “!!!!” until he went on to say, “but I ain’t revealing SHIT until I’ve told it to Best Jeanist,” which caused everyone to collectively wince and awkwardly glance at each other wondering who’s going to break it to him. Uh.

Today on BnHA: hAHAHAHAHHA.

Sorry, I forgot to turn my capslock back off. Anyways, so we return to U.A. and everything is all “HAPPY NEW YEAR IIDA!” and “STILL ON ABOUT THAT UNREQUITED LOVE THING, HUH OCHAKO?” and “LOOKS LIKE THAT SCAMPISH IMP BAKUGOU IS AT IT AGAIN!” and all the usual stuff. We then have a complete switch of gears, and I seriously mean like the GEAR SWITCH TO END ALL GEAR SWITCHES, as we cut to Aizawa and Mic driving to Tartarus! Why are they driving to Tartarus you ask? Well it’s because they got a call from Naomasa and he was all “hey, so you know your deceased childhood friend from chapters 59 through 65 of Vigilantes? Well IT TURNS OUT I HAVE A FUNNY STORY ABOUT THAT.” Anyway so the rest of this chapter can basically be summed up as (1) LOL SO KUROGIRI WAS REALLY SHIRAKUMO ALL ALONG, and (2) AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

btw the whole reason I spoiled myself in the first place was because my dumbass id was all “WE SHOULD CHECK IF THEY MENTION THE HERO NAME” and I was like “YES” and just immediately lost all self-control. like it wasn’t an accidental click or anything; I was fully aware of what I was doing. lord knows what I would have done if I actually had been spoiled about the hero name lol. that would have been so much worse than the spoiler I actually got, so yeah. just stupid decisions all around. anyways how are you

no BnHA thumbnails on the Mangastream homepage today. must mean Kacchan didn’t make any good faces. ah well

lmao the chapter is literally titled “Shirakumo.” well I guess I wasn’t spoiled much after all. I did catch a half-glimpse (I was trying not to look; like, I had my fingers covering my eyes and was peeking through them. again, I’m not really sure what I was trying to accomplish in the first place honestly) of what seemed to be Aizawa with a shocked expression on his face though, so that’s why I was so convinced Kumo was somehow coming back from the dead or something. WE SHALL SEE

MY FORMULA 1 SON!!

lol I’m having one of those Berenstein moments. like. he didn’t always have those huge exhaust pipes running out from his sides and from either leg, right? those are just for this cover. or else something new and fancy he just added to his suit. right??

anyway so yes, Iida is the color page this week, just as we all expected from a chapter titled “Shirakumo”

“WINTER BREAK WAS OVER IN A FLASH” oh man. ain’t that always the way

wow I’ve really missed U.A. like, we’re cutting to these panels of USJ and the stadium, and it’s so fucking nostalgic geez. we weren’t even gone that long

Deku’s voiceover is talking about how they only have three months left in their “tumultuous” first year. ha. tumultuous. if Deku hadn’t met up with All Might, he could have easily fallen back on a career in PR; he’s got a gift for phrasing things diplomatically

Iida is wishing everyone a happy new year! happy new year Iida!!

he’s announcing that their class will be an action report meeting, which apparently means everyone’s gonna share what they learned over the winter break

but now he’s telling everyone to come down to Field Alpha, which Mangastream annoyingly spelled out with the Greek symbol α, forcing me to look it up because I’m sorry but I don’t speak math. ?? like what is this

now Aizawa’s sliding the door open all CRANKY because he’s MISSING HIS NAP

but Mina is all smooth like,

Mina could also have had a promising future in PR. well it’ll still serve them well in their hero careers too

oh my lord

WHAT is that FACE, Iida. just what. is that an eyebrow waggle. what the fuck. he looks like the next words out of his mouth were going to be “sliding into people’s dms”

jokes’s on you Horikoshi!! you think a panel like this will stop my “stupid sexy Iida” jokes? IT ONLY MAKES ME LOVE HIM MORE

oh? someone on the loudspeaker is calling Aizawa and summoning him to the faculty room. I wonder what this could be about. probably nothing!

now we’re cutting to the changing room and the girls are admiring Ochako’s new costume!

I’ll add an ETA later where I actually analyze the changes in her costume. right now let’s just pretend like I’m aware of what actually changed. I swear I pay attention to things. by the way, why would the suitcase get heavy? her quirk can be applied to anything can’t it?

(ETA: so the costume changes are (1) an upgrade to her gauntlets, and (2) an upgrade to her headset. so anyway that’s pretty cool, even if it was really only brought up in this chapter so that we could get that SWEET YA ROMANCE DRAMA. which I know annoys some people, but at this point I feel like Horikoshi only throws it in because he’s expected to, and the way he does it is so adorably reluctant that I can’t help but enjoy it at this point lol.)

OH MY GOD

OCHAKO YOU KEPT DEKU’S CHRISTMAS PRESENT TO YOU IN YOUR HERO COSTUME FOR GOOD LUCK, OH MY GOD. (1) YOU ARE THE LITERAL CUTEST, (2) IT’S TIMES LIKE THIS I’M GLAD I SHIP BASICALLY EVERYTHING BECAUSE THIS IS A DELIGHT, and (3) MINA’S REACTION TO THIS IS ABOUT TO BE MY FAVORITE THING OF ALL TIME, SO LET’S COUNT DOWN TO IT IN 3... 2...

okay but before we click to the next page, I just need to draw everyone’s attention to the background of that Jirou panel, where I’m pretty sure that is Ochako acquiring Hagakure’s quirk in a moment of transcendent desperation, much like how parents are able to summon incredible strength in times of crisis to lift cars off of their trapped children and shit. we are witnessing the next stage of human evolution over here

-- oh fuck me

hello, Horikoshi? yes, this was supposed to be a cute moment of teens being teens and giggling over high school crushes. did you not get the memo. what are you doing here with this sucker punch of feels right to my fucking kidneys. why would you do that. why does this panel of Ochako make me want to fucking cry, I did not ask for this

(ETA: but like also, you see how he just instantly drops the subject less than a panel later lol. like “THERE’S YOUR ROMANCE PLOT, OKAY?? NOW BACK TO THE REANIMATED BRAINWASHED CHILDHOOD FRIENDS ARC.”)

meanwhile in the boy’s locker room! so apparently word has spread about Deku mastering Bloopwhip!

so Ojiro is evidently fucking ripped under that karate gi. Ojiro, this one corner of a panel with you facing away from the screen is possibly the most interesting thing you’ve ever done. have you considered what a costume change might do for your image. I’m just saying

lmao Deku

I have never in my life found the idea of Villain Deku even remotely convincing until this exact moment. jesus christ. Deku are you sure there isn’t a little piece of AFO horcrux soul in you right at this moment. just wondering. if it was Kaminari doing this, the headline for this chapter would be “KAMINARI 100% CONFIRMED THE TRAITOR” and even I would find myself hard-pressed to argue at this point

anyway, the hero we deserve is stepping in to bring him back to reality sob

(ETA: I’m not even going to check the bnha tag to see if there is discourse about this, because I already know!! because clearly this is a very serious panel which should be taken 100% seriously!! anyway I’m not even going to go here lol.)

it’s okay kids I’m already dialing 911. Kacchan, honey, come here. listen, we need to put you in a time out. I love you but you can’t just go around throwing your spiky headgear at people like a fucking tomahawk, and also what the fuck is that thing even made of jesus christ

sob is Deku actually fucking dead

and so, while the girls were having cute shoujo drama about a romantic All Might plush, over in the boy’s locker room an actual murder was going down

FSDKDJL

I can’t. stop laughing. I

and the way they’re all just staring at him and clearly have no idea what to fucking do at this point. “so should we just... leave it in, then?” lmao Horikoshi what the fuck kind of substance did you ingest before you went and drew this. I need me some of that

(ETA: and now that I’ve mostly stopped laughing, I would also just like to point out that he is essentially saying “I just had to stop thinking so hard about it and just do it”, which I’ve only been saying SINCE FOREVER, DEKU, but sure go ahead and don’t listen to me then!)

ALL MIGHT IS...

WHY, YOU ASK? WHO CARES!!

lol apparently it’s a pun. someone go over there and check to make sure this All Might isn’t actually a bunch of Mirios hidden underneath a trench coat

anyway so they’re completely unimpressed, because they’re all jaded fucking teenagers with no souls, and they’re asking where Aizawa is

is this the part where we slide right back into the angst after our brief humorous interlude with the kiddos. because I am ready. bring it

OOOOH HERE WE GO, LOOK AT THIS TENSION

SO HERE WE HAVE MIC ACTUALLY TELLING AIZAWA TO SHUT THE FUCK UP, AND IT’S CONFIRMED, THE WORLD IS ENDING

and look at Aizawa’s body language. arms crossed, fingers tapping anxiously, gritting his teeth. fucking Mic has to tell him to calm down. jesus christ. anyway so Aizawa angst is apparently MY DRUG you guys, and Horikoshi you can go right ahead and INJECT THAT SHIT STRAIGHT INTO MY VEINS

AHHHHHHH

OHHHHHH THAT’S GOOD. I might need someone to come and slap me in the face in another minute just to make sure I can continue here

-- HOLD UP, WHAT

THAT SOUND YOU HEAR IS THE SOUND OF MY MENTAL BRAKES SCREECHING TO A FUCKING HALT, EVERYONE HOLD THE FUCK UP WHILE I DO A QUICK MENTAL ROLL CALL OF THE VILLAIN CAST AT USJ. FUCK ME, PLEASE TELL ME HE WASN’T THE NOUMU. BUT ASIDE FROM HIM AND TOMURA, AND THE FACELESS NO-NAME VILLAINS, THAT ONLY LEAVES... OKAY MY BRAIN JUST SERIOUSLY FROZE UP WHILE PROCESSING THIS, BECAUSE NO FUCKING WAY

fuck me fuck me FUCK ME

there is no fucking way it can really be Kurogiri, can it?? Kumo didn’t have a portal quirk. but All For One, though?? but no wait because we know he didn’t have that quirk because he had to use the other teleportation one instead. John’s or whoever’s

so then the only other option is the Noumu. could this be the start of the Noumu arc at long last?! oh my godddddd I’m about to get up out of my seat and just jump around for a second to get all my nerves out. ahhhhhhh

Horikoshi knew full well what he was doing titling the chapter “Shirakumo” and then teasing us with this incredibly tense buildup, too. I have actual fucking chills

oh my god IT REALLY IS THE NOUMU ISN’T IT

I HATE AND LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS SIMULTANEOUSLY, IT IS THE WEIRDEST FEELING. IT’S BOTH INVIGORATING AND TERRIFYING HOLY SHIT

I WANTED THIS. I KNEW IT WAS GONNA BE DARK. I WANTED IT SO BAD AND I COULDN’T WAIT FOR IT AND NOW IT’S FINALLY HAPPENING AND WHAT A FUCKING WAY TO KICK IT OFF I JUST!!!

AHHHHH

DON’T MIND ME PLEASE CONTINUE AND IGNORE ALL OF MY SILENT SCREAMING!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

AIZAWA IS ABOUT TO LOSE HIS FUCKING MIND. HIS CLOSEST FRIEND WAS DESECRATED AND VIOLATED IN AN UNIMAGINABLE WAY AND TRANSFORMED INTO SOMETHING UNRECOGNIZABLE WITH ALL TRACES OF HUMANITY LOST, AND THIS WHOLE TIME HE THOUGHT HE WAS FUCKING DEAD. THEY DON’T EVEN HAVE A THERAPY FOR THAT, PEOPLE. THAT IS THE KIND OF ANGST THERE’S NO COMING BACK FROM

ANYWAY, SO THERE’S THAT SHOCKED AIZAWA FACE I CAUGHT A GLIMPSE OF YESTERDAY, NOW WITH HORRIFIC CONTEXT, AND IF ANYONE NEEDS ME I’LL JUST BE HERE IN THE CORNER SETTING MY KEYBOARD TO PERMANENT CAPSLOCK, AND UPDATING MY SEXUAL ORIENTATION TO “THE FUCKED-UP AIZAWA ANGST IN THIS CHAPTER” BECAUSE THAT’S APPARENTLY WHAT IT IS AND ALL THIS TIME I NEVER KNEW

OH GODDDDD

BRB UPDATING MY ORIENTATION AGAIN TO “MIC’S COMFORTING HAND ON AIZAWA’S SHOULDER AS AIZAWA STRUGGLES TO HOLD ON TO THE LAST OF HIS COMPOSURE WHILE TRYING AND FAILING TO PROCESS THIS UNFATHOMABLY HEINOUS THING THAT’S ABOUT TO BE REVEALED”

(ETA: and also!! the fact that either Mic’s hand is shaking, or Aizawa is shaking so badly that it’s affecting Mic’s hand on his shoulder too! either way how the hell am I not literally dead after reading this chapter, I don’t even know.)

WAIT WHAT!!!!

THE CORE?! SO WAIT, IS IT KUROGIRI THEN??? OR WHAT?!

(ETA: I know I’m just inserting random commentary all over the place at this point, but like, can we also talk about how Naomasa looks like he hasn’t slept in eleven years?? this is taking such a toll on his soul here and it’s heartbreaking.)

OH MY GOD!!!!!

I WISH I COULD BETTER DESCRIBE THIS FEELING BECAUSE IT’S REALLY SOMETHING!! I’M SO EXCITED AND AT THE SAME TIME FULLY AWARE OF HOW I’M DELIGHTING IN THE PAIN OF THESE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS, SO IT’S LIKE THIS GUILTY SADISTIC GLEE AND AT THE SAME TIME SHOCK AND EXCITEMENT AND DAMN NEAR A KIND OF ELATION AT BEING FULLY TAKEN FOR A RIDE BY THIS EPIC FUCKING TWIST. IT’S GOOD SHIT

SDLKFJASLKDFJ;LKS

(ETA: so if they can trace quirk factors like this, they should be able to do it with the other Noumu they have in captivity, and also with any dead Noumus they’ve collected as well, yes? including the one that Stain killed a few months back? like, don’t mind me, I’m just sitting here trying to calculate the Six Degrees of Bakuangst for this plotline seeing as my brain, as ever, is focused on one thing and one thing only.

and so if they have managed to ID some of the Noumus, would that info maybe be on the Hero Network? meaning Endeavor would have access? would the interns then have access too? or if not, is his password something easily guessable, like Shouto’s birthday or something? will I ever stop running out of hypothetical scenarios along these lines? doesn’t seem likely as of now.)

“SEVERAL DIFFERENT QUIRK FACTORS” HOLY SHIT, AFO. THAT MANIAC. THIS WHOLE TIME MY RESPECTED DOCTOR OF MEDICINE WAS REALLY A HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT WHO GOT CONKED ON THE HEAD BY SOME FALLING ROCKS ONE DAY. THE GRANDDADDY OF ALL TWISTS!! THIS TWIST WAS CONCEIVED IN THE BOOK OF GENESIS!!

AND BY THE WAY, THANK YOU AGAIN TO THAT ANON, BECAUSE HOLY SHIT THE EMOTIONAL IMPACT IS FUCKING RAW. ONCE I FINALLY COME DOWN FROM THIS BIZARRE HIGH I’M GOING TO CRY FOR AIZAWA BECAUSE HE IS HURTING SO BAD RIGHT NOW AND I CAN’T EVEN, SOMEONE SAVE HIMMMM

WELL FOLKS. THERE IT IS. HORIKOSHI FINALLY HOOKING US UP WITH THAT GOOD ANGST. THE PLOT THAT WAS PROMISED. THE ANGST THAT WAS AVOWED. YOU GUYS I CAN’T BELIEVE AIZAWA SHOUTA WAS SHIGARAKI TOMURA’S FUCKING UNCLE THIS WHOLE FUCKING TIME. HOLY SHIT

AND YOOOO I JUST HAD A BUNCH OF THOUGHTS THAT I CAN BARELY EVEN PROCESS RIGHT NOW BECAUSE THIS REVELATION OPENS UP SO MANY NEW DOORS NOW ALL OF A SUDDEN THOUGH. BUT LIKE, IF AFO AND UJIKO WERE IN THE BUSINESS OF TAKING CHILDREN’S CORPSES AND REVIVING THEM AND INFUSING THEM WITH UPGRADED QUIRKS AND NO MEMORIES OF THEIR PRIOR LIVES, THEN HOLY FUCKING SHIT, WHAT IF A CERTAIN TODOROKI SIBLING REALLY DID FUCKING DIE AND HAS ACTUALLY BEEN A PUPPET OF AFO’S THIS ENTIRE TIME OH MY GOD. THIS CHAPTER IS JUST!!!

(ETA: yeah I actually have a lot of thinking to do about this one, because holy shit. I mean there must be a reason we’re getting this reveal directly on the heels of the Todoangst Arc with all of its talk about Touya and how dead he is, right? god I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all. this stupid manga!!)

AND AIZAWA’S FACE. THE WAY HE’S COVERING HIS MOUTH AS THOUGH TRYING TO KEEP HIMSELF FROM BEING SICK. THE MAN WHO PRIDES HIMSELF ON HIS RATIONALITY IS SO COMPLETELY OVERWHELMED BY EMOTION THAT HE’S STRUGGLING TO KEEP IT TOGETHER. THIS IS THE DEFINING WOUND OF HIS CHILDHOOD, RETURNING ALL OF A SUDDEN TO STAB HIM RIGHT IN THE HEART ALL OVER AGAIN WITH A FRESH NEW KIND OF HORROR. MIC, YOU’D BETTER BE THERE FOR HIM AFTER THIS, BECAUSE HE’S GOING TO FUCKING BREAK DOWN IN THE CAR ON THE RIDE HOME OR SOMETHING PROBABLY, AND HE NEEDS YOU, AND YOU PROBABLY NEED HIM TOO, AND FUCK

I DON’T HAVE SPACE FOR ALL THIS ANGST IN MY HOUSE!!! BUT LIKE HELL AM I GIVING ANY OF IT BACK, IT’S MINE NOW AND I’M KEEPING IT!! I WILL FUCKING RENT OUT A STORAGE LOCKER FOR THE EXCESS!! I WILL HOARD IT ALL LIKE A GREEDY DRAGON IN MY CAVE. THIS ANGST IS MY CHILD NOW. FUCKING SUBSCRIBED, GOOD NIGHT EVERYONE

#bnha 253 #aizawa shouta #yamada hizashi #shirakumo oboro #kurogiri #uraraka ochako #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #and here's another thought I just had #which is that we were basically one momo away from potentially playing out this exact same plot twist #but with deku and kacchan instead #because the league would not have taken no for an answer #and even if tomura had felt like being merciful #(since he clearly has more humanity left in him than I formerly gave him credit for)#I guarantee you that afo would have stepped in at some point and been all #'you know what tomura why don't you let me see if I can help convince him'#like every now and then I just randomly think about how close my child came to experiencing an unimaginably dark fate #and I'm just like #deep sigh of relief #but oh the angst #this is the fuel that sustains me friends

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queensconquest · 3 years

Text

florabled said: [Isake] 1-5, 7!

( QUESTIONS FOR MUNS OF CANON CHARACTERS )

1. What is the biggest headcanon deviation from the canon material that you have incorporated into the way you write your muse? Why did you come up with it?

I don’t think I’ve really deviated from canon that much. I’m trying to think of a headcanon but I genuinely cannot think of anything at the moment that is drastically different. I just fill in the blanks more than deviate anything. Uhh , I mean maybe I’ll do something about how Isake conjured up blue flames from nowhere some day but even that is never explained so its not divergent so much as answering an unanswered question...

2. Do you have any controversial headcanons that go against what is generally accepted by the fandom? Do you incorporate this into writing your muse or keep it to yourself?

Well considering I joined when the fandom was dead , idk what fandom felt during the time. I don’t know. But honestly probably ? The fandom seems like it wants to uwu-ify Isake and I do tend to focus more on the Fuma aspect of his character which was probably against what most would like at the time. So even my headcanons are fixed towards that but I wouldn’t say they were controversial.

3. What is something that was never addressed at all in the canon material that you have independently developed for your muse?

Uhhhh.... basically everything post the series for obvious reasons , but also some of his ideas or traditions for paying respect to his family ? Like I said , I tend to use headcanons as a way to fill in the blanks or elaborate on mindset / perspective so MOST things I write are for this very question.

4. Have you made any outright changes to the canon material in order to write your muse the way you wanted (entire scenes you chose to omit, chapters you say never existed, things you assume were never said, etc.)?

Nope , not that I can think of at least.

5. What is an aspect of your muse’s canon material or canon existence that you never had the opportunity to explore but really want to?

What happened in between the year of the massacre & joining the Kumos. Bc the doctor said the massacre happened 11 years ago and Soramaru says Isake showed up 10 years ago so what about that missing year HMM ? Or just interactions in general between Isake & the Fuma while he was still pretending to be Shirasu.

7.For movie or TV muses, what is your muse’s favorite scene? Why? Can you show a screenshot?

From any of the material ? The conversation scene with his father which you can see HERE. Out of the main anime ? HMM. Either the reveal of him with the bird OR throwing bombs in Orochi’s face. Bc idk its just funny to me. Like WHO ELSE would be brave enough to throw explosives in a god’s face ? And it worked too-

#florabled #me suddenly wondering if ive been doing hcs wrong all this time-#〉a ninja to the very core〈 — ☩ ⌜isake headcanon⌟

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inrainprose · 5 years

Note

I wish you would write a fic where... Orphan Naruto gets to meet Nagato and Karin and finds out they’re from the same clan so because they have no more family they build a familial bond with each other. Basically an AU where Yahiko was never killed and the Akatsuki remained a peaceful organization lol

Inspiration struck, thank you for that! Hope you’ll like it, and you can all send me more.

cross-posted on ao3

“That wasn’t part of the plan at all!” Yugito exclaimed, and despite her cool and collected exterior, her eyes were ablaze with fury. In these moments Yahiko didn’t feel much of a leader at all.

But he still was.

“I know, okay? Things got a bit… out of hand.”

“Out of hand? Out of hand?”

“Yugito!”

Startled, they turned to Nagato sitting in a corner of the room. Yahiko could count on one hand the number of time he had heard his friend raise her voice like this, especially against Yugito.

“You’re scaring him,” he said simply, voice soft, face betraying nothing. He had been focusing on his young charge still bundled up in his arms, but he was also paying close attention to the conversation.

Konan rested a light hand on Yugito’s shoulder, and the woman’s anger melted away as she breathed deeply, making an effort to school her feature, if only for appearance’s sake. Yahiko couldn’t begrudge her anger – she was just worried, and rightly so. The situation had gone out of hand indeed.

“It’s done now,” he said, placating. “We just have to run with it.”

Quite literally – they had run their fair share in the last few days, covering the distance from Konoha to their main headquarter in record time. Especially counting their newest – and smallest yet – addition to the group.

There was no going back anyway. Just the way Nagato was clutching at the tiny boy, it was clear that turning back was not an option. Nagato was quiet, and he seldom voiced his opinion, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have one. And on that matter Yahiko suspected that it was quite a strong one too.

“What is it?” Nagato murmured, oblivious to any others when the kid stirred in his arms. A mop of bright blonde hair peeked from the blanket he was bundled in.

“I don’t wanna cause trouble,” came the tiny, tiny voice. Yahiko’s heart broke a little.

“You’re not,” Nagato assured, and it wasn’t true, it was causing them troubles big time, but it also didn’t matter.

“I shouldn’t have yelled,” Yugito admitted. “I’m sorry. You’re not at fault, Naruto.”

Hearing his name made the boy come out of his hiding spot for good to cast curious looks at the people gathered around him with his big, shining blue eyes. What a strange bunch they had to be in a child’s eyes, with their matching coats and weird eyes and all kind of facial features and hair. Naruto had never left Konoha, and hadn’t seen even much of that, so it had to be quite the novelty.

He wasn’t scared though. He wasn’t worried, not even a little, and that was maybe the best and the worst about it. He hadn’t questioned it, when Nagato had told him they could take him away, if he wanted.

“Are you my long-lost brother? Have you come to rescue me?” he had asked.

It appeared that little Naruto dreamt of various family members or unrelated heroes appearing out of nowhere to sweep him away, give him a home and a life. In the end he had been right to hope.

“No. But I’m… I’m an Uzumaki, like you. We’re from the same clan.”

The awe with which Naruto had whispered “clanmate”, something he had to have witnessed all around him in Konoha but could never experience for himself – Yahiko would remember it for the rest of his life.

“We’re cousins,” Nagato had said, decisive like he rarely was, natural shyness and clumsiness falling away in front of the boy’s desperation and loneliness. “We belong together.”

To think, they had gone to Konoha to be liked.

Running away with their jinchuuriki had probably put quite the damper on that plan.

“So I can… Can I stay?” the boy asked, cautiously hopeful. And really, even hardass Yugito wouldn’t be able to say no to this voice and face. That boy was freaking adorable.

“You can. If you want to,” Nagato said, never one to impose anything.

“I want to!” Naruto exclaimed, springing up to his feet to perch on Nagato’s lap, grabbing a fistful of his cloud-patterned cloak to keep his balance as he stared, undisturbed, into Nagato’s swirling eyes. As if he needed to convince him somehow.

As if he was scared they would withdraw the offer.

Were Yahiko’s eyes getting a little damp or what.

They were interrupted by someone knocking on the open door. “Here she is,” Kyusuke said, ushering another kid inside, another rescue they just couldn’t bear to leave behind. She straightened her glasses, an unconscious reflex she had when she was nervous, and she always was a little around them, even if she had been living here for months.

“Come in, come in, Karin! We’d like you to meet someone,” Yahiko cheered, anxious to move this whole debacle to a happier note.

Nagato got up, setting Naruto down gently, even if the boy was reluctant to let him go. In the end Nagato had to kneel by his side and Naruto kept a hand tangled in the fabric of his cloak as the girl approached them.

“Who’s that?” she asked. She was brash in her hesitance, never one to show weakness. She was nervous too though.

“’m Uzumaki Naruto,” the boy answered, not so shy either, in the end. “And who’s you?”

Karin’s eyes widened at the name and she couldn’t keep the frown in place when she looked at Nagato for confirmation, who nodded slowly, encouraging. Karin blushed, a tiny, pleased smile softening her stern demeanor, making her look more like the kid she actually was still.

“My name is Karin. Uzumaki Karin.”

And oh, wasn’t it a sight to behold, the look of recognition on Naruto’s face, and the smile that bloomed, full force, on his young face, bending the whiskers on his cheeks, blinding in its intensity.

“Like Nagato!” he exclaimed, as if maybe the girl wasn’t aware of that. She huffed.

“Duh, of course he is. We’re a clan after all.”

“We’re a clan,” Naruto whispered back in awe. “Me too?”

“Well, yeah,” Karin said, showing disaffection like it was no big deal, even if she was fighting a smile of her own.

It was hard not to answer to Naruto’s open delight.

He reached out to touch her hair, of all things. They were a fiery red, much brighter than Nagato’s, and the boy stared at the strands in his hand, fascinated. She let him, she who was so wary of physical contact. Most Uzumaki’s shared the hair color, and even if Naruto didn’t, maybe it stirred something inside of him.

Did he have any memory, however fleeting, of his mother? It was sadly doubtful giving the circumstances of his birth and her death, but still…

“Karin, do you think you could take Naruto to have a look around the place? You can show him his room – it will be the one just next to yours”, Yugito urged, gentle but firm. Karin got the message – for a girl so young, she was smart and quick to the uptake, and she could get a dismissal when she heard one.

“Yes ma'am.”

“You don’t have to call me…”

“Come now, Naruto! I’ll show you everything.”

She took Naruto’s hand – he let go of Nagato at last, and followed her, a little bewildered, out of the room.

Yugito waited for the door to close behind them to let out a long, heavy sigh.

“That wasn’t part of the plan,” she said again, leveled this time.

“You didn’t see how it was back there. How they treated him. We couldn’t just do nothing!” Yahiko exclaimed, defensive. He didn’t want to argue this with her.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” she shot back sternly. “It wasn’t part of the plan, but now it obviously is. We have to act accordingly.”

“It’s now two jinchuuriki in our ranks,” Konan said. “One who deserted on her own volition, and whose existence was kept on the down-low, is not the same as two, the second having been abducted from his village.”

“Come on, we didn’t abduct him! He agreed!”

Konan stared Yahiko down with a steady glare, until he relented.

“Okay fine, I guess from an outside perspective we did abduct him a little.”

“So what now?” Yugito asked, and he knew it was her way of punishing him for that momentary lap of judgment. For not saying anything, not stopping Nagato when he understood who the boy was, what life he had lead up until then, when he simply elected to snatch Konoha’s jinchuuriki from right under their nose, although they were supposed to be on a diplomatic visit to the village’s commandment. Konoha wasn’t the most openly hostile toward the Akatsuki, but that didn’t make them friendly either.

All of them shared that blind spot, though when it came to family and children. Naruto was barely five, and he lived on his own, and he didn’t have a single person in his life who cared about him. Just like Karin they had found was slaving away in a Kumo outpost near the border of Ame, a child forgotten by the world.

But not by them. Never.

When Nagato had taken the child’s hand, it wasn’t as the Kyuubi’s host. It was as a lost member of his own clan.

Who happened to be the Kyuubi’s host though. Because they were lucky like that.

“Jinchuuriki are instruments of war,” Nagato piped up, joining back the group. They all tensed up – they were, and it was something they had always wanted to address at one point or another.

“Kumo could spare you, Yugito, but Konoha is without their own now. It leaves them vulnerable. Since it’s our doing, it’s up to us to fix it, and we’re not… We’re not sending Naruto back.”

He paused, just to be sure that was in agreement. They all nodded – on that matter at least, they were on the same page.

“The system works if every village has their weapon…”

“Or if none of them do,” Yahiko concluded, following Nagato’s reasoning down to its quite obvious conclusion.

Of course. Of course. That was it.

“Are you serious about this?” Yugito asked, and it wasn’t with her usual accusing or scandalized tone, the one that said “are you freaking kidding me right now?”. At the end of the day, she was here because she shared their ideals and goals, because she believed it. And she also shared the plague of her fellow jinchuuriki, she too had hoped for this before, but she had probably resigned herself to how powerless they were in this situation.

Except they weren’t.

“We no longer fear annihilation as we once did,” Yahiko said. They had grown powerful in the last few years. No matter how displeased the hidden villages were with them, they could no longer afford to move against the Akatsuki on their own, and their grievances were too antithetic for them to form an alliance over the matter. “And if we do this indeed…”

“We never will have to,” Konan said, considering. It was a risky bet, deciding to hoard all that power. Except they didn’t plan on ever using it. The rest of the world couldn’t know that, but they did. And they would hold on to this.

“What do you think, Yugito?” Konan asked. More and more she deferred to the other woman, with whom she shared a kinship that almost made Yahiko jealous. Except how could he be mad at Konan finally managing to form a bound outside of their little trio? Even Nagato wasn’t quite as bad as she was on this. But Konan cared deeply about the other woman, and Yugito did too in turn. Yahiko got a little emotional over it sometimes.

Besides, if Naruto was of Nagato and Karin’s people, in some other way he was of Yugito’s too. They shared the same fate, suffered the same injustice. Them, and the seven others. She had to be on board for them to act on it. If she refused…

“I think…” she said with a sigh, like she was regretting her words already, “that Suna’s jinchuuriki is about Naruto’s age, and treated about as well by his village too.”

She looked long-suffering, but she smiled at Konan’s pleased expression. Konan liked it best when everyone agreed.

“It’s settled then!” Yahiko said cheerfully. “Operation Jinchuuriki Snatching is officially in motion.”

Yugito smacked him around the head, but still, he laughed.

#my fics #ask #ask meme #naruto #akatsuki #uzumaki feels #Anonymous #i don't know what this is #but i like it

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isolavirtuosa · 4 years

Text

Starting Over (For Real?) 29-30

[fanfiction] NaruSasu

Read the previous parts here.

This part picks right up where 28 left off.

I wanted to not be a sarcastic asshole and actually help him. I really wanted to. My complete failings at human niceties had never bothered me before, yet here I was, floundering to be normal for once.

He reached over, smoothing the wrinkle in my brow. “What are you thinking?”

I looked at him.

He waited.

- 29 -

He waited for a long time.

“If I try to put it into words, it just sounds jumbled and stupid,” I finally said.

“I don’t mind,” Naruto said, bumping our foreheads together and making his gaze inescapable.

“I do.”

“I know,” he said. “But it’s just me, you know? You don’t have to try and be cool in front of me; I already think you’re the coolest guy in the world.”

“That’s a ringing endorsement.”

“You make me feel so small and unimportant when you say things like that,” he said quietly.

I flinched.

“It’s just you being you, but… I wish you could talk to me instead of deflecting everything,” he said, lowering his gaze. “Why do you have to put up your walls with me of all people? Do I… do I… have I done something wrong?”

I could tell he was getting upset again. “I’m not saying you’re perfect,” I stumbled out. “But it’s… it’s not you, okay?”

Naruto swallowed.

“I know you don’t want to hear this and I don’t want to say it…” I trailed off.

He rested his hand on my knee, squeezing gently.

“The other me… the me in your world…”

He tensed up.

“He’d already dealt with all his issues,” I tried to explain. “He knew that he had issues and he dealt with them, and he was a mature adult, and then there’s me, and I haven’t… dealt with them.”

When I didn’t continue, he squeezed my knee again. “Dealt with what?” he prodded.

I shook my head.

“You’re not ready?” he asked softly.

I shook my head again, feeling pathetic.

“I get what you’re saying,” he said, rubbing my knee in what seemed like an anxious movement. “I…” he trailed off and swallowed. “Maybe I’m not completely… over him…”

I took in a shaky breath and let it out. This was really just beyond idiotic.

“I can see your walls going up,” he said.

“Well I need them,” I said, pushing his hand away.

“I know,” he said, looking stupidly devastated.

I didn’t know where this conversation was headed anymore, but I just wanted it to be over. “You’re fine now, right?” I asked, standing up. My legs were sore from sitting on the floor for so long, but they held me up.

“No,” he said.

I glared at him.

He stood up, too. “I thought we were okay.”

“Clearly we’re not,” I said, trying to push down the embarrassment from the ridiculous way I’d thrown myself at him earlier only to run away, which kept running over and over in my head on endless, mortifying loop. Then there was this whole conversation about how he was more in love with some fake version of me than he was with the actual me, which made a lot of sense and explained why someone like him could ever be with someone like me. He thought that I was going to grow and mature into a good person. It was funny and sad, and we were never going to work. “So what are we doing about all of the impending world crises?”

“…did you just change the subject…?”

“Fucking right I did.”

“Sasuke.”

“So all the kage are turning into white zetsu.”

“How… did you…?”

“I’m Uchiha Sasuke.”

“I’m not supposed to…”

“I already know, so who cares?”

“Okay, well you didn’t hear it from me.”

“No, I didn’t,” I said, looking at him pointedly.

“Don’t act like that,” he said with a frown. “I trust you. I was just sworn to secrecy by people who… don’t.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “Anyway, why was the tsuchikage acting like everything was normal?”

“I guess he was the only one who didn’t get turned into a white zetsu?” Naruto offered.

“Does that really seem likely?”

“Well, I don’t really know how God Trees work, so…”

“Don’t white zetsu have transformation abilities?” I suggested. “Can’t they mimic someone’s body and chakra signature?”

“Uh…”

“The answer is ‘yes’, in case you were wondering.”

“Just so we’re clear, you’re saying that the tsuchikage is a fake?”

“That body probably used to be the tsuchikage,” I said with a shrug.

Naruto studied my face.

“What?” I asked irritably.

“You’re really smart,” he said.

“…okay?”

He shrugged. “I mean like savvy. You know what’s going on and you can read the political climate and all that stuff.”

“As any good ninja should be able to.”

“You and your digs. Anyway, I want you to be my partner at the Summit.”

“So there’s a summit now?” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Well, I’m trying to put one together, but everyone is about as helpful as you are,” Naruto said.

“And yet you want me to be your adjutant? How flattering.”

“Like I even know what that word means, but no, I said partner you jackass.”

He was clearly getting mad, but I was in the kind of horrible mood where I just wanted to make him madder. I opened my mouth to rip into him, paused to think about earlier, and closed it. I gave my words more thought. “You don’t show up to a peace summit with the enemy next to you.”

“Well, I’ve already showed up everywhere with him in my bed,” he said. “Not that you’re the enemy,” he added quickly. “And, uh…” he stuttered, suddenly going red.

I liked when Naruto embarrassed himself. It put me in a kinder, gentler mood. “In your bed, huh?”

His lips pursed defiantly. “Yes.”

I wanted to throw myself at him again, and that was just so beyond embarrassing that I looked away. “And who are you inviting to this summit?”

“The Ninja Alliance.”

“So… basically any ninja?”

“Well, sure,” he said. “I’m not excluding anyone.”

“Do you even have a functioning brain in your head?”

The purse of his lips got deeper.

“Your enemies are everywhere!” I snapped. “Konoha is fucking poison, Iwa’s propping up a fake tsuchikage, Kiri’s being wiped out by non-ninjas and fake God Trees, and we couldn’t even set foot in fucking Kumo because they’re already under fucking Konoha’s thumb.”

“You’re the one Konoha’s after,” Naruto said with a shrug.

“Oh, well in that case, please give them your location and invite them into your home for fucking tea and crumpets.”

“You’re really mad,” he commented.

“I’m not mad!”

“You swear a lot when you’re mad.”

“I fu-… do not.”

He stared at me knowingly.

“Fuck you,” I said.

“Not yet.”

I was going to crush his windpipe and that was going to be that.

“You haven’t even left the entryway,” he added, taking my hand and tugging me inside of his apartment.

His ability to just change gears was astounding. He was almost as adept at avoidance as I was.

“Does the fucking happen after I tour your shitty apartment?” I muttered.

“Only if you want it to,” he said cheerfully.

I tensed up.

He tugged my hand harder and we moved into his living room. It looked exactly like my living room, except his was already messy. “Sit,” he said, his eyes screaming, ‘you need to rest your legs!’

I sat down and looked long-suffering.

“I’ll make you some tea,” he offered.

“You don’t have any tea.”

“Oh…” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “I could… borrow some…”

“Who is going to lend you tea?”

“Sas’, it’s been a long fucking day and we’re both stressed and exhausted,” he said.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“So I’m gonna go ask Karin or someone if they have any stupid tea, and then I’m going to boil some water and serve it to you and you’re gonna shut up and drink it,” he decided, crossing his arm over his chest.

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

“Yes, please,” I said, leaning my head back against the back of the couch and closing my eyes.

His footsteps creaked closer to me, then I felt him lean in and kiss my forehead. “I’ll be right back.”

He was not right back, but I barely noticed as I drifted in and out of sleep. I kept startling awake from uneasiness, running from the shadows in my head, before exhausting myself back into sleep.

The door flew open. Naruto kicked off his shoes with a loud thump and bounded back into the living room before setting eyes on my half-asleep form. He tiptoed by me and put the kettle on. Then he tiptoed back over.

I cracked an eye open at him.

“I’m back,” he whispered. “I got tea,” he added. “And a whole chicken,” he added again. “Because we didn’t eat dinner.”

I didn’t bother asking where he got a whole chicken from or what he was currently doing with it. “Naruto.”

“Hm?” he said, coming closer.

I needed to talk to him. I needed to express myself. I needed so many things, and all I could do was stare at him.

He looked worried.

“I don’t know how to talk to you,” I finally said.

Naruto gave me a sad smile. “I know.”

“I’m… embarrassed.”

Now his brows drew up a little. “Why would you be embarrassed?”

I shrugged.

He came over to sit next to me.

“Maybe I’m not what everyone thinks. Or maybe… I was but now I’m not.”

“And what do we all think?” he asked, genuinely curious.

I shrugged.

Naruto sighed loudly.

I glared at him.

“I can feel frustrated by your inability to express yourself,” he grumbled. “You don’t have to shut down the second that I do.”

“I’m not shutting down.”

“You are shut down and closed for business.”

The kettle started to whistle.

Naruto sighed again and got up, disappearing into the kitchen. He came back with a cup of tea and put it on the coffee table in front of me before going back for his chicken.

It was just a giant plate filled with chicken.

He picked some up with his fingers and held it up towards my mouth.

I gave him the repulsed look he deserved.

“You’re just a priss,” he said, sucking the grease off of his fingers. “Eat something.”

“I’m good,” I said, sipping my tea. It was still a little hot.

Naruto continued to eat chicken with his hand. “You know I love you, right?”

I shrugged.

“I don’t think we’re…” he trailed off.

I kept my facial expression frozen as I sipped more overly hot tea.

“See?” he said. “I just sent you into full panic mode.”

“Who is panicking?” I asked, calmly setting the cup and saucer back on the table.

“You’re locked down more than a daimyou’s mansion.”

I shrugged. “I’m perfectly calm.”

“We can’t have a relationship like this.”

Everything inside of me shattered into a million pieces. “Okay then,” I said.

Naruto put down his disgusting chicken, wiping his hand on his pants. “No, it’s not okay. You’re the air I breathe.”

“You’re very desperately codependent,” I informed him.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know. And that’s a very large part of the problem. I’m like… aggressively in love with you, and you’re… not…”

“So really the problem is me,” I said. I picked up my tea and took another sip. It was still too damn hot.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” he said frustratedly.

“Does it matter what you’re saying?” I asked, putting the cup down again. “You want to end it, let’s end it.”

Of course Naruto was crying. “I don’t want to end it, you stupid jerk.”

“Then what do you want, crybaby?” I started rubbing at my temple, feeling a headache coming on. The skin was hard under my fingers.

“I want you to grow up!” he snapped.

“Yeah,” I said, standing up. “Well, give me twenty or so years to catch up to you.” I was almost to the door when I felt him tugging at the back of my shirt.

“Don’t go,” he requested barely above a whisper.

“I thought that’s what mature people do during arguments,” I said. “You know, they run away in the middle of it.”

“Sasuke.”

I didn’t look at him.

I didn’t even know how we ended up kissing on the floor, shoes crushed under Naruto’s back.

His eyes were still wet and glistening so I closed mine.

Everything felt wrong.

I was embarrassed when we pulled apart, both sitting up and looking anywhere but at each other.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“For what?” I asked, trying not to snap.

“I don’t know how to make things right, so I just make them worse.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

“If you can’t do anything but snip at me, then…”

“Then what.”

“…I don’t know,” he said quietly, playing with the hem of his jacket. “I think I’ll lose you.”

I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to keep pushing him away. I didn’t want to, but… “I’m gonna go.”

Naruto was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, okay,” he finally said.

I got up and stepped into my shoes.

Naruto stayed on the floor.

I opened the door and didn’t look back.

- 30 -

Karin and Sakura seemed to think that having vaginas somehow uniquely qualified them to prepare the men’s breakfast.

“Why isn’t Naruto here?” Sai asked, looking around Sakura’s apartment.

“He had a meeting,” Sakura said through clenched teeth. She proceeded to fold her omelet very aggressively in the pan.

“Oh, so he still hates you,” Sai said with a knowing nod.

“Sai,” I said.

He looked at me.

I shook my head.

“Ah, girls are sensitive about that kind of thing,” he said.

I nodded.

Karin burst out laughing.

I gave her a look.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “But you of all people telling Sai how to behave appropriately… oh my god…” she trailed off before cackling madly.

“I know how to behave appropriately, I just choose not to because I’m a sociopath,” I said with a shrug.

“At least you acknowledge it,” Sakura said, smiling a little.

“I’m self-aware,” I said, which got me another round of laughter from the peanut gallery. I chose to ignore them and continued sharpening my kunai while I waited for this farce of womanly nurturing to come to an end.

Kakashi popped into the room, stealing a piece of sausage from the pan where Karin was cooking.

“Isn’t that hot?” she asked him incredulously, but he just shrugged.

The rice cooker dinged.

Sakura turned off the stove and flipped her omelet onto a plate before hurrying over to the rice cooker to start scooping the rice.

Sai watched with interest. “Is this some kind of mating ritual?”

Sakura just sighed loudly. She was probably the person the most used to Sai’s ridiculousness.

Karin looked affronted. “Who would want to mate with any of you?”

“I believe you tried to mate with my best friend Uchiha several times,” Sai explained. “And he and I look similar, so many women who are attracted to him are also attracted to me.”

“We don’t look that similar,” I muttered.

Karin looked like she was revving up to yell something, then paused and actually looked at Sai. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Hey, I thought the belly shirt meant you were gay, too, but are you…?”

“Undecided,” Sai said, his actual smile spreading across his lips.

Karin’s eyes gleamed. “And how do you plan on deciding?”

“Karin, down,” I commanded.

She turned a withering look on me. “What, are you jealous?”

“He’s figuring things out and he doesn’t need your obsessive stalking,” I said.

“I only obsessively stalk you!” she snapped, slamming a bowl of salad on the table.

It actually warmed my heart to hear that.

“Why don’t we eat?” Sakura suggested, putting down the last of the dishes on the table.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Kakashi said, already digging in.

“Sensei,” Sakura said irritably. “At least give proper thanks before stuffing your face like a pig.”

“Rubba dub dub, thanks for the grub,” Kakashi said, his mouth clearly full behind his mask.

“How does he eat without showing his face?” Karin murmured.

“I’m a ninja,” Kakashi informed her proudly.

“Was there a reason for this circus of a breakfast, or did you just want to show off your mediocre culinary skills?” I asked, carefully bringing rice to mouth with my one hand.

“Maybe if you all could stop being jackasses for five seconds, we could talk,” Sakura grumped.

“That might be asking a bit much from this group,” Sai said cheerfully. “This really is rather mediocre. Look how burnt the bottom of this omelet is.”

“Sai, so help me, you will be the first one that I throttle,” Sakura growled.

He grinned at her. “I look forward to it.”

“Throttling is bad,” I informed him. “Especially if the person doing the throttling is strong enough to destroy this entire building with a punch.”

“Yes, but Sakura-chan only throttles the people she loves,” Sai said happily.

The expression on Sakura’s face was priceless.

“Well, thanks for the food,” Kakashi said, starting to stand up.

Sakura put her hands on his shoulders, shoving him back into the chair. “Enough. You all are children. We need to talk.”

“Then talk,” I said.

“Okay, well…” she said, fidgeting back into her seat. “Kakashi brought us to Suna to get off the ANBU’s radar, but what are we doing here?”

“There’s food,” I said.

“Shelter,” Sai added.

“Naruto,” Kakashi chimed in, which I would have thought was directed at me, but everyone besides Karin seemed to look away at that one. “Tsunade,” he added.

“I brought her here, but I can’t do anything else for her in Suna,” Sakura said with a sad shake of her head. “I want to do more research on the zetsu. I was thinking maybe you two could help,” she said, nodding at Karin and me. “Orochimaru’s research…”

“Sakura, you don’t want to get involved in that,” Karin said, shaking her head. “The things he did in the name of science, you… you don’t want to touch it.”

“What choice do I have?” she asked, looking lost and desperate.

“We go to Water and we look into the God Trees,” I said.

“Water’s awfully dangerous for a ninja,” Kakashi hummed.

I rolled my eyes at him.

He winked at me.

It was not sexy and it did not make me feel uncomfortable.

“I wouldn’t mind cleaning the clocks of a few anti-ninja brigades,” Sai said, looking very cheerful about the prospect of bloodshed.

“We could ascertain what’s happened to the mizukage,” I put in.

“Sounds like a plan,” Kakashi said, pushing himself off of the table and onto his feet. “See ya.” He disappeared.

“Why is he like that?” Sakura complained, stabbing her food with more force than necessary.

“What other way would he be?” I asked.

She sighed and took the first bite of her food since we’d sat at the table. She seemed a little more at ease now that we weren’t just twiddling our thumbs.

It felt strangely comfortable now, like we were some kind of unit working towards a goal.

“What about Naruto?” Sai finally asked in the middle of our planning.

Sakura tensed up.

I avoided eye contact.

“Seems to me like the kid can’t make a decision,” Karin commented.

“He can choose to be mad at me,” Sakura muttered.

“He can choose to du-” I started to say and immediately shut my mouth. Why had I been about to tell these people my personal business? And it wasn’t like we’d officially broken up. Naruto had just said that he loved the fake me more and that he wanted me to grow up and that we couldn’t have a relationship.

All three of them were looking at me with too much interest.

“Best friend, do you require my comfort?” Sai finally asked.

“No,” I said flatly.

“I could procure some alcohol for us, and we could have a rip-roaring time,” he continued.

“‘Rip-roaring’?” Karin repeated, her nose scrunching up.

“You keep calling Sasuke your best friend, and I really don’t understand when this dynamic came about,” Sakura said, looking between us.

“It’s got nothing to do with me,” I said.

“A lot happens when men travel together,” Sai explained. “Sacred bonds are forged.”

“Have you been hanging out with Lee?” Sakura asked, squinting at him.

“Oh, no, I haven’t,” he said. “But I’ve been reading his book. He’s one of my role models for how to be a normal human being.”

“You chose… Lee…?” Sakura said slowly.

“He wrote a book…?” I asked.

“I don’t even know what’s going on anymore,” Karin said, shaking her head.

“Sasuke’s sad about being dumped,” Sai explained.

“I wasn’t dumped!” I snapped.

“But you just said-”

“I didn’t say anything!” I yelled, standing up abruptly and stomping my dishes over to the sink. I started washing them vigorously. Fuck, I was so uncool. I needed to go back to not caring about things.

They whispered about me for a while like somehow I couldn’t hear them, then went back to planning our departure to the Land of Water.

I washed all their damn dishes until there was nothing left to do but go back and sit at the table.

“Can you be in charge of getting Kakashi-sensei to transport us?” Sakura requested of me, not even bringing up what a fool I’d just made of myself.

“I don’t think I have any particular sway over his whims,” I said.

She raised an eyebrow at me.

“What?” I asked.

“I know,” she said flatly.

“Know what?” I asked, legitimately confused.

“I know,” she repeated. “You saw.”

“I saw what?” I started to ask, before it clicked into place. “His face?”

Sakura stared back at me evenly.

I shrugged.

She simmered.

“I’ll ask him,” I said casually.

Sakura shook her head. “Try and kill us all and you’re still the favorite.”

“Oh, is that why you joined the ANBU that were trying to kill us all?” I asked. “Currying favor?”

“The mission given to me was to bring you back alive, which you are perfectly aware of,” she said, reaching over the table and poking me in the chest.

Her poke was harder than a normal poke. I closed my eyes for a moment and opened them again, looking into hers directly. “I do know.”

Her angry expression faltered. “I swear, if I had known what Hyuuga was up to-”

“Sakura, I know,” I said. “I never doubted you. But no many how many times I try and tell the idiot to just shut up and listen to you, he doesn’t.”

She sighed, running a hand through her mess of a ponytail. “I don’t know how to fix it.”

Strangely, I wanted to help her fix it. The thing was, I couldn’t even fix my own relationship with Naruto.

He came pounding on my door that evening, in a tizzy about not being included in our plan to leave.

“You’re the one who ran away from the Land of Water,” I said with a shrug, stepping inside the apartment and letting him in against my better judgement.

“I said we needed time to make a plan!”

“So you have a plan now?”

Naruto followed me to the living room, huffing away.

I sat on the couch.

He sat next to me.

We stared at each other.

“You’re really planning to just go without me,” he finally said.

I shrugged. “I have my mission, you have yours.”

“Really, it’s that simple to you?”

“Yes, Naruto, because I’m not a codependent crazy person like you.”

“I feel like that’s not completely true…”

I glowered at him.

He looked down at his lap.

“Are you going to make up with Sakura?” I asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from us.

“No,” he said sullenly.

I rolled my eyes.

He sighed. “Okay, yeah, I’m being childish about it, but she…”

“But she what?”

“She didn’t trust us!”

“You didn’t trust me,” I said with a shrug.

“Why do you keep trying to compare the two situations like they’re the same?”

“Because they are the same?”

“They’re not!”

“You tried to bring me back to Konoha by force because you thought I was making a mistake by leaving.”

“Well, you were making a mistake.”

I exhaled loudly and stood up. “Clearly the only perfect one among us is Saint Naruto, he who never makes mistakes.”

“That’s not what I was saying.”

“I was right to leave,” I said, looking down on him coldly. “I regret leaving the way I did, and I regret hurting you, but I made the right choice. I will never be complicit with Konoha and its-”

Naruto stood up now, too. “You’re not going to be complicit with Konoha, but you’ll be complicit with Orochimaru?” he asked incredulously.

“I took what I needed from him,” I said with a shrug. “You think that I look down on you all the time, but I can feel your disdain right now. You think you’re so morally superior to me, and yet here you are, doing exactly what I did years ago. Don’t even try to get on your high horse with me, Naruto, I see right through you.”

He took a step back from me like I’d struck at him.

“You can go,” I said, turning away from him. I clung to the edges of my steely calm, trying to stay afloat.

My couch creaked.

I turned around to see Naruto sitting again, his hand covering his mouth and his eyes wide. “That wasn’t an invitation to stay-” I started and stopped.

He was trying so hard not to cry.

“You are pathetic,” I said, sitting next to him.

“I know,” he mumbled into his hand.

I waited.

He seemed to pull himself together, dropping his hand from his mouth. “I wish I knew who I was.”

“You’re Uzumaki Naruto,” I offered. “The number one knuckle-headed ninja of Konoha.”

He breathed out a laugh, but he wasn’t smiling. “I can’t even claim that anymore. I’m in the BINGO book and everything.”

“You’ll defeat all the bad guys, and Konoha will be clamoring to have you back as the hokage in no time,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Is that the happy ending?” he asked. “I’m not so sure anymore.”

“It’s your happy ending,” I assured him.

“I think I might want something different,” he said quietly.

We looked at each other.

“Sas’…” he said pleadingly.

I sighed and bumped our foreheads together, reaching up to cup his cheek.

He closed his eyes and leaned into my hand. Then his eyes shot open. “Do you… have… horns…?”

“No,” I said with a frown. I’d checked this morning.

“Feels hard,” he said, pulling away and touching my temple with his fingers. “Uh, yeah, definitely hard.”

“Well they haven’t come in like yours,” I said. The press of his horns had been obvious against my skin.

“Oh, yeah, that reminds me,” he said, suddenly yanking his shirt off.

#narusasu #isola starting over #sasusai: bbfl

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maskedmuses-archived · 5 years

Text

Warrior of Violet--Light

The child of the mother, brought to the world not of her own

A lingering fragment of memory long distant

“Yeah, yeah, I’m comin’.” The party checked on the violet haired girl as she shifted through her inventory, readying themselves for the encounter they were about to face. It was nothing more than a few mobs within a FATE, but preparedness was always the way of their party leader. Ready checks and countdowns before pulling the main target, it was routine by this point.

Closing the flap of her bag, the motion forced a wedged item to spring forth from the spot it had been stuck in, fluttering towards the ground. A golden feather, long and splayed in its plumage, floated slowly, barely catching Koya’s attention before it landed pristinely on the ground. The motion to pick it up was swift, but for a moment, peering upon it between her fingers, the Warrior of Light felt a vague sense of sadness within the pit of her stomach.

A feather more pure than that of a Chocobo’s down. Softer than silk, and held an unknown power beyond all the Thirteen. A call to her was distant as she started into the vanes of gilt, her mind trying to reach why this had been so important. Why, in the very core as blue eyes soaked in the image that everything about it pulled her to an answer she was uncertain of how to form.

Everything she had ever done, every action since the beginning of when she had arrived upon Hydaelyn, it always led back to the feather that so unceremoniously laid dormant between her fingertips.

----

A bag was thrown at her, the green filled eyes of the boy flashing at her. “You want to get stronger?” His tenor, a soft brass that most would call as heavenly as his form was. “You’re not going to find any place around here anymore. So, use these wisely, Koyakumo.”

Tanned arms crossed over his half bared chest, the blonde man with serpentine eyes cocked his hip as he stared at the girl before him, who had caught the bag and already began to pilfer inside. His wings, large wings shuffled with the movement of the contents the violet haired girl shifted around with her fingers. “I told you to call me ‘Koya.’” She added, plucking out one of the feathers.

A golden plume, glowing with an ethereal sheen. Holding it up, it glistened in the light, nearly matching precisely the hue on the man’s back.

“Right, ‘Koya, Enterra’s strongest Hybrid.’ I’ve been hearing you say that since you were at my knees.” A grin spread across the man’s features, but the girl wasn’t paying him any attention. “Whatever will the Tatsuro household do now that their eldest daughter has achieved her goal?”

“Almost achieved it.” Koya lowered the feather, scowling. “I still haven’t beat Papa. He may be an Enterran, but if I’m gonna be the strongest, I gotta beat him too. Except everyone here is way too weak compared to him!”

“It’s what happens when you’re basically a god.”

“Exactly!” She jabbed the feather towards the man before using the end of it to tickle at his nose. “Which is why I’m also not going to take the name Tatsuro with me either. From now on, I’m Koya Shindou, Hybrid who challenges every person in different worlds!”

“Taking the name of your hometown?”

“What else? Gotta tell the world about who I am, and nothing says me more than where I’m from!”

A groan escaped the man as he shook his head. “You know my power and feathers have conditions, right? Use them wisely. Each one will serve as a line back home here, but until you achieve whatever goal you have in that world, the link can’t open again.” He spoke matter-of-factly, despite waving away the taunting feather in his face. “They only work when they’re glowing. No glow, no portal.”

“Easy then,” Koya gestured the feather away, gingerly blowing on it to make it float. She had seen the man do it many a time before. As it floated, the quill angled towards an empty part of the room. A glittering light sprung forth and seemed to crack the air, the scenery caving to a golden, flat, hover hole. “My goal is to defeat the biggest threat out in that world and get as strong as I can before coming back.” Her grin turned wide, excitement flashing in the sky blue irises. “So, I’ll be back soon, Osiris. Don’t stay up waiting for me!”

Before the man could answer, give further warnings, or anything else that might have helped her, Koya sprinted into the gilded portal, vanishing from sight. Within seconds, the hole restored, and nothing was left of Koyakumo Tatsuro on Enterra.

The one thing that should have been mentioned, was to never mix magic.

Upon landing on Hydaelyn’s soil, it was by mere coincidence that Koya would be summoned by the crystal. Receiving her blessing was a boon, allowing the girl to grow and cultivate in various ways. Learn from the Scions. Become a valiant warrior, learning trades that she had never thought possible. Growing through her adolescent eighteen summers and into her twenty-first among those who had become companions.

A Hybrid who had the guise of a Hume amongst the races. Blended well, to her advantage. Yet she never renounced her heritage.

Beyond the strength she had garnered under Louisiox, she had learned the capacity for team work. For being strong among her peers, despite the desires to return to Enterra and the family she had left behind. After each and every challenge, Koya would always check on her feather that brought her from home to see if it illuminated once more.

It never did.

Even still, the girl did not lose heart. Tucking it in a hidden pocket within her coat, Koya would strive on. Her goal was near and she could feel it. On the eve of the Seventh Umbral Calamity, Bahamut, king of all Primals, was on the verge of being born. The party she had gathered with stood on the cliff, overlooking the battle that raged on below. Rather than fear, Koya had a smile on her face.

“This is it, I know it is.” She chuckled, flicking her long ponytail over her shoulder before grinding her curled glove into her opposing palm. “This is my ticket home.”

“You say that every time, Koya.” The White Mage hissed, which was answered by a gaze shot by the monk towards her. The latter wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue in response.

“Enough.” The Bard silenced them, pulling back the string on his bow. “We have incoming, get ready. We’re going to take this down…and maybe, maybe Koya will be right.” A tugged smile came from the party leader’s rugged expression, causing the fighter to grow with excitement.

“Let’s take that big lug down!”

Yet it was never to come. The overwhelming force of Bahamut raged and destroyed the people and the lands. In an attempt to save those champions that had been praised, her teacher, Louisiox Leveilleur gave his life to transport them away from the battle. Away from the time and into the future, where they could survive. Pleas and outreached hands were lost into the white light, and the remaining glistening feathers were lost in the rift, taken along with the memories of the time of heroes.

Before Hydaelyn once more, the crystal asked for a name of her defender. “…Koya…kumo.”

But call me Koya!

Echoes of a time past, drooped blue eyes in the void before the blessed bestower, her mind far from the times that she had garnered her strength. Become so close to her goal, she could almost taste home. The crystal asked once more for her full name. “Koyakumo…Ta…”

I’m giving up the Tatsuro name! I’m—

“Koya…Shindou.” A response that seemed to please Hydaelyn. Thrusting her Warrior of Light back into the world, things had shifted since her first emergence into the land. The woman’s mind was muddled, searching through her bags to see what she had with her. A few potions. A couple bits of food. A few hundred gil. Anything a good adventurer would have with them on the start of a journey.

Yet none of it she could remember garnering herself. In fact, she could barely remember much aside from a few bits and pieces of a hometown that she felt she had not seen in a long time. Enterra. That was a place, right? But it had been so long since the place even crossed her mind. So long in fact, she couldn’t recall the town’s name. Strange, but she knew her goal: head to a city state, become an adventurer.

An ordinary Hume…No, that wasn’t right. She wasn’t a Hume, but a Hybrid. But as she tried to think more on it, the term began to lose it’s meaning.

As she boarded a carriage towards Ul’dah, a stabbing sensation radiated from above her ribs. Shifting through her jacket, Koya pulled a long feather out from her pocket, holding it up to the light. Brows furrowed together, a familiar sensation washing over her as she stared, inspecting the object closely.

“What…is this?” The question hung in the air, the feather silent and unresponsive in her fingers.

“Koya!” The leader, a Dark Knight, came and tapped his knuckles on her temple lightly. “You said you were ready.”

Koya had kept the strange feather from that day on, stashing it in a small pocket in her bag. Holding it without knowing it’s purpose. “Oh, yeah, sorry.” She waved her hand dismissively, packing the object back within the hiding spot. Seeing it once more had reminded her of the day she arrived at Ul’dah. Thinking back on why she had started her adventure, and the growing questions she had.

Why had she even started towards the large city state all that time ago? Why was she chosen by the crystal?

And why did it seem, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember her parent’s faces? Their names, or where she came from? Every day that passed seemed to eat up one she had lived in that other place. A place that no one had heard of, that seemed just like a fairytale.

Shutting her eyes tightly, Koya shook her head, lifted her chin, and smiled. “Come on, last one to strike is buying dinner!” Skirting away from the Dark Knight, she began to run in, only a fraction behind the Warrior who had charged in first.

“Koyakumo! You know you shouldn’t pull the enemies!” The man yelled at her, his stubble coated chin and unkempt hair only adding to the nature of his class. The woman laughed, spinning on her heel to turn and face him, before winding up her arm, a swirl of her long violet hair twirling around her before she crashed her fist into one of the monsters.

“Call me Koya, ‘cause I’m gonna be the strongest Hybrid ever!”

Whatever it was that meant, the phrase ingrained on her heart.

#Drabble #||✊| Koyakumo||#||Strongest Hybrid On Enterra|Koyakumo||#|V: FFXIV|#Well I finally wrote her 'origin' into the verse #This was mostly self indulgent #But I got super inspired by a friend

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kegareki · 5 years

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tbh i'm always curious about the kaguya causes the apocalypse au, but rarely have concrete questions to ask. so um, what are sakura and obito's abilites like? how powerful are they, both as a team and individually? sakura canonically had healing and super strength, which are great, but I'm also a fan of aus where she branches out and learns other things, so i gotta ask. does she learn genjutsu from obito? also they survived a WHILE in the apocalypse, right, presumably they got even better (1/3)

and learned new stuff from each other? and/or from other survivors in their group? what are their go-to weapons? how does their power level now compare to people in the past? (2/3)

(3/3) ALSO! they travel to other dimensions using kamui, right. where does the kamui spit them out when they go a new dimension? somewhere randomly? (if so, how many times have they ended up dumped in a swamp, or in the middle of nowhere?) some fixed place every time? wherever obito wants? where? and can they choose when they arrive in a new dimension, or are they also just randomly spit out whenever and good luck figuring out in what time and place they are?

these are really good questions!!! i apparently wrote 1100 words in response, so: under the cut!

sakura and obito did survive a while in the apocalypse, yeah. people survived in groups–konoha especially espouses teamwork–and people took positions well-suited for them, at first, like they have been trained to do. hyuuga, inuzuka, aburame, yamanaka, and sensors were good at keeping track of people and directing the groups to safe spaces and such, for example. but people die, and at some point you stop being able to replace them

so people learn to cover those positions in any way they can. enhancing their senses with chakra; trying to recreate barrier seals that you’ve only seen and never studied; etc. people share information about what they remember. people go off and come back with clan scrolls, because there’s no point in hoarding clan information if that information will help keep them alive.

obito and sakura learn together, and what they teach other is–incidental, at first? sakura is healing someone, and she nabs a passing obito into helping her. obito can heal himself just fine, thanks to hashirama’s DNA, but–well. he has deep chakra reserves, as well as the ability to absorb and transfer chakra, so he might as well learn how to heal other people, because at some point they’re going to run short of medics, and it’s better for everyone if most people have even rudimentary medical skills

obito… okay i’m going to be entirely honest here: obito is fucking HORRIFIED at how sakura was treated as a genin. obito’s already complicated relationship with kakashi is complicated even further because he cannot BELIEVE that kakashi didn’t teach her SHIT, didn’t CULTIVATE her OBVIOUS TALENTS, didn’t direct her to anyone who WOULD. kakashi failed sakura, and obito is pissed off on her behalf, because that shouldn’t have happened!!!! obito offers sakura his knowledge Readily and Gladly because she should never, ever feel useless again. she should never, ever be given less than what he or anyone else can offer.

it had been noted in canon that sakura would have been adept at genjutsu, and he gives her techniques. they have to be adapted some, because genjutsu with a sharingan is formed differently than genjutsu without a sharingan, but sakura figures it out. she’s quick and eager to learn! and she’s GOOD at genjutsu! she learns how to conceal people and things; she learns how to subtly redirect a person’s attention so that their eyes skip over something without truly seeing it; she learns how to muddle a person’s sense of balance, of temperature, of pain.

and obito teaches her some ninjutsu, because that’s ANOTHER area where she was failed! why the FUCK did kakashi skimp out on even THIS?!!

sakura has water and earth release, so obito basically goes: okay, cool, here’s some mist techniques. here’s a few iwa techniques that i saw when i was 12 and that i picked up from deidara. you’re going to be so badass, i’m so proud of you.

sakura especially becomes more well-rounded than she was previously, and honestly kind of terrifying because she’s ENJOYING being versatile which means making use of her new techniques, but obito’s pretty happy with his end of the deal, too. his self-healing is passive rather than active, so learning how to use medical techniques and gaining medical knowledge is Actually Helpful because, hey, now he knows what the fuck is going on and now he can actually heal other people. AND now he knows how to do stuff like making blood clots! while that may not help much against kaguya, he’s not going to NOT appreciate new and interesting ways of killing people!

in terms of power, it’s hard to tell when your opponent is a Literal God, but by the time everyone else is dead and they abandon this world, they’re kind of stupidly powerful. like 12-year-old sasuke would eye them warily and challenge them to a fight in a hotel hallway because he can Tell they’re powerful, maybe more powerful than even Bane Of His Life Itachi, and he needs to see how he matches up against them. like–they don’t really escape because they’re dying; they escape because there’s nothing left for them, and staying would just mean dying meaninglessly.

weapons like shuriken, kunai, and senbon had become, increasingly, a scarcity, because making more becomes difficult and then impossible. they picked over past battlefields for weapons that they’ve thrown. not a lot of people had Many Throwing Weapons after a point

but when obito and sakura hang out in kamui, it’s not like THEY’RE going to lose weapons now, so obito pulls out some from his Long-Discarded Weapons Stash and they sort of idly brush up on their bukijutsu. is sakura likely to ever have need of a gunbei? no, but obito’s going to show her how to use it, anyway.

the mechanics of kamui in this ‘verse are like–

the sort of “neutral ground” is the space that obito is used to, the grey landscape of blocks where everything he puts inside of kamui shows up. in order to access anywhere else, kamui needs a set of parameters, conscious or subconscious.

in the beginning, the only parameters are the conscious “not our world” and the subconscious “please be empty,” so the destinations were random and without people. an empty forest; an abandoned cabin; a peopleless island.

obito isn’t USED to making use of this aspect of kamui, so at first, aiming for particular places and times would be difficult. he’d overshoot or undershoot, or get there at the right time but not the right place. but he’d get more precise about it and learn what sorts of parameters work best with what he has in mind (ex. events can come quicker or be delayed or happen somewhere else, depending on the circumstances! some events are sort of fixed in time and place–october 10 in konoha for the kyuubi attack, for example–whereas others shift–like who kumo takes to make a jinchuuriki). if he isn’t clear on a specific variable, what comes out will be random–like if sakura was like “i miss hashirama trees. can we go check that out” and obito’s parameters were just 'hashirama trees around konoha’, they could drop ANYWHERE in that particular forest and at any time where those trees exist

obito and sakura kind of–tend toward peaceful times and places, at first. they gather themselves up and put themselves back together as much as they can. they’re tired.

but then one day sakura makes a comment, like i wish i’d known you sooner, and obito thinks: but you could.

not this sakura, of course, but another one. a different one.

they find an obito crushed under rock, still alive, and obito can use his mangekyo to take him into kamui, and sakura can heal him from there–at least enough to keep him from dying, at least enough to take him to konoha.

being able to help–that goes a long way, after such a long period of helplessness and hopelessness, and when they think about it, there are so many things that they could help prevent, so many lives they can save with the information that they have now.

so they basically become S-class dimension-hopping superheroes just because

#keg asks #kaguya causes the apocalypse au #thank u for sending me questions!!!!!#sakura feels somewhat guilty abt knowing clan techniques in these other worlds where those clans HAVEN'T been decimated #obito assures her that if they ever catch her using their techniques he can use his sharingan to compel them to forget or he can take em ou #sakura is like . that. that is not as comforting as you think it is. but thanks #theyve basically adopted each other. theyre cute.#lazy-duck

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wafflelate · 6 years

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So in the Hokage Shikaku verse Shikako knows about Kanatoko? Shikasai is heir? Is Ikoma still alive? How did things go down with that? Does Shikako get to play with her cousin? Will she realise he'd be Sai in another world? Basically please tell me anything about this I'm super nosy.

Man it’s been so long since I plotted this out uhhh let’s see if I can remember this off the top of my head / come up with some decent bullshit lmao:

Shikako was born in y43 (year dates assigned per usual by SQ’s rough timeline) and was a whoops baby for sure. Yoshino, idk, got hit by a jutsu that messed up her contraceptive jutsu. Had surgery that messed with it. Whatever.Nara drama happens and it’s even worse than in canon because Shikano is VERY sure that this clanless kunoichi is honeypotting his son and those accusations fly free and thick.

Shikaku gets disowned and marries Yoshino and loves her and fuck the clan anyway.Yoshino is kind of dazed? She cried on her mom for like three hours when the pregnancy test was positive because she thought there was no way in hell Shikaku would believe it was an accident or be serious enough about her to tie the knot and raise the kid together.But it’s y43 and he’s 20 and she’s 18 and Shikaku was just getting started on revolutionizing Nara clan jutsu and his father can’t take his bloodline away from him and now everything he creates will be a Kinokawa technique.

In September Shikaku says the Nara can’t stop them from naming their kid whatever they want and Kinokawa Shikako is a beautiful, loud little girl.The war is still happening, though, and maternity leave means Yoshino can stay home with Shikako but Shikaku is a jounin and not a clan heir anymore and needed dearly to win the war. The Sandaime is sympathetic, though — Hiruzen’s oldest is 16 that year and Asuma is 10 and Hiruzen is starting to realize he’s not been the best father — so Shikaku gets rotated back as much as possible so that he can work on his techniques and see his infant daughter.

Here’s the thing: when he was Nara clan heir, Danzou knew he’d never be Hokage. He’d be Jounin Commander at best, like his father. Sure, he’d come up with new jutsu, but he’d have clan heir responsibilities keeping him from making a name for himself, anyway.Now, though... now he’s Kinokawa Shikaku. Now he’s out in the war, on the ground, throwing around new shadow jutsu and turning battles. That’s dangerous. That needs to be stopped because Danzou can’t lead a Nara Hokage around by the nose.

So, Kinokawa Yoshino needs to die. Make the man a grieving widow, disowned by the clan that would have otherwise kept him grounded. Only spare the kid — barely old enough to be a toddler, it’s late y44 or early y45 — because being a single father is another burden to keep him down. Imply strongly that it was Iwa, or Kumo pretending to be Iwa, or Kiri pretending to be Kumo pretending to be Iwa, because obviously you don’t want Shikaku looking around the village for enemies.

Oops, though, you motivated a Nara, Danzou. Shikaku gets some time off to grieve because Hiruzen isn’t yet at second-term levels of brain dead and he uses that time to get even more dangerous.

Shikano isn’t a total asshole and he does love his son and he asks Shikaku to come back to the Nara. But Shikaku can’t. He can’t. That would mean giving up the Kinokawa name. That would mean raising his daughter around people who had called Yoshino a gold digging slut, a social-climbing honeypot. It would mean entrusting Shikako’s care to those people while he’s away at war.Shikano says some more shit, though, because sticking with the Kinokawa name and the memory of his dead wife is to Shikano’s mind pretty much equivalent to spitting on the history and tradition and clan pride that Shikaku was raised with.

Thank god for Inuzuka Tsume, because Shikaku isn’t going to let Shikako set foot on Nara clan lands while Shikano is alive.

Meanwhile Ikoma had all this clan heir stuff dumped on him way earlier than in canon but he’s making it work. Getting a handle on it. In canon he comes into things with fresh eyes and an adult’s confidence but here he’s a little younger and less experienced and when he’s pulled out of the war to do more in-village work and learn the ropes, he lets himself be guided away from all those things he found and was killed over in Shadows Inked in Black.But he still meets Kanatoko. And he still loves her. And things crashed and burned for Shikaku and Yoshino but at least they got to be together publicly and watching Shikaku’s grief drive him, Ikoma doesn’t even really consider keeping things with Kanatoko secret once they’re sure they’re serious.

He tells his brother first. He says, “I figure Dad only has so many sons, right?” and laughs.Shikaku doesn’t laugh, he doesn’t laugh much anymore, but he says, “Yoshino and I registered the Kinokawa as a new clan. You could always join us if you don’t want to be a Kurama.”(And Ikoma and Kanatoko do talk about that and absolutely Kanatoko thinks that if they can’t be Nara they should be Kinokawa. Fuck the Kurama.)

But in the end Ikoma is pretty much right. They don’t have any other siblings and no one else has been trained to be clan heir and it’s notoriously difficult to get Nara to take more responsibility, so Shikano can have a clan heir and welcome a Kurama into the clan, or he can have no clan heir and no sons.Maybe he learned something from all that shit with Yoshino because he keeps his mouth shut and pays for the wedding, at which point Kanatoko isn’t even pregnant with Sai yet because Ikoma was really on top of this.

Shikano’s outpost isn’t overrun. It isn’t overrun because near the end of the war Shikaku is on the cusp of S-class and he’s not even stationed anywhere near Shikano (War Operations practically does backflips not to put them near each other) but just having him be that strong changes the shape of the war.So Shikano comes home from the war and is still clan head and things are awkward with Inoichi and Chouza, who are both now clan heads. His granddaughter is four and they have never met. His granddaughter is four and he has never apologized.

Kanatoko spends the year before the Kyuubi attack being a new mom. She and Ikoma come over to Shikaku and Shikako’s apartment with little Shikasai sometimes, but babies just look like babies. Maybe she’ll figure it out down the line, though.

Shikaku makes Hokage after the Kyuubi attack. Shikano votes him in, however that works, and then immediately steps down as Jounin Commander and clan head so that Ikoma can take over both.

Eventually Shikaku and Shikako will get to have dinner with Kanatoko and Ikoma and Shikasai in the Nara main without Shikano dying, though, because Ikoma strongly encourages him to take lots of trips to check up on out-village Nara resources. The conversation goes something like:Shikano: “I’m not the one keeping him from bringing the girl here.”Ikoma: “Do you want Shikako-chan to grow up knowing nothing about the Nara, except possibly that you hated her mother?”

#hokage shikaku verse #hokage shikaku ask #shikaku #shikako #ikoma #shikano #kanatoko #yoshino #to someplace else #asks

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artlessictoan · 6 years

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Lovely work for Kiba/Chouji! I'm a chouji hoe so if you could do something were it's basically a ouran highschool host club cliche and everyone is trying to win his heart and the poor boy is oblivious to it all (take your pick of a few chars to add would love to see sasuke tho!)

okok I haven’t watched ouran in yonks so I don’t remembermuch about it, but I am all kinds of intocho being Everybody’s Not So Secret Crush

---

“Hey, Chouji!”

The call stopped him in his tracks, halfway through lockinghis front door. Hand still hanging in the air, he twisted round to see the ballof yellow and orange bounding towards him. “Hey Naruto,” he said with a smile,as he finished turning the key and stepped back to properly greet his friend,“you sound happy today.”

“Super happy! Sakura handed my ass to me in trainingyesterday, gave me a concussion and everything!”

He blinked, frowned and then blinked again. “And that’s… agood thing?”

The blond chuckled, awkwardly rubbing his neck. “Well notthe getting injured bit, that hurt,but after she healed me she got really panicky – even though I’m fine! – andforbade me from training and missions for at least three days, doctors’ ordersso Kakashi-sensei can’t complain.” Suddenly an arm was draped across hisshoulders, pulling him into Naruto’s side. “Sooo, I figured that since I’ve gotthe day off anyway I should spend it having some fun, so whaddya say, wannahang out? All day, just you and me?”

His warm, friendly grin was as inviting as always and helooked so genuinely excited at the prospect, even waggling his eyebrows at him,which made what Chouji had to say next all the more difficult.

“Sorry Naruto, I’ve got stuff to take care of today-” blueeyes started to look far too watery for his liking, so he rushed to comfort him“-but we should totally do something soon! Maybe get lunch tomorrow?”

The grin was instantly back on his face. “Really?”

Chouji smiled and clapped a hand on his shoulder as hedisentangled himself and started walking backwards down the street.“Definitely,” he called out as the distance between them grew wider, “we shouldinvite Ino and Shikamaru too! And your team, let’s get everyone together!”

Whatever Naruto’s reply was, it got lost to the breeze asChouji jogged into town to make up lost time. He was already looking forwardsto tomorrow, it was always nice to hang out with friends.

---

When he got there, the market crowds were at the perfectdensity; not so tightly packed that you couldn’t move without touching sevenother people, but not so empty as to feel vaguely creepy. He always lovedcoming here on days like these, just to take the time to casually browse thestores, maybe pick out things to tell his friends and family about the nexttime he saw them, but today he had a packed schedule, so he headed to the foodstalls with determined steps.

The shopkeeper called a greeting the second he steppedinside, as he always did for his regular customers, before ducking into thestore-room with the promise of returning with some produce he’d kept backespecially for him.

As he waited for the elderly man to return, Chouji glancedaround the shop, planning to pick up a few vegetables, when he noticed afamiliar head of dark hair.

“Hinata!” he said cheerfully, as he stepped up beside her,apparently catching her off guard with how high he jumped. “Sorry, didn’t meanto scare you, how are you doing?”

She quickly caught her breath, though it took her a fewmoments to stop staring at him with wide eyes. “O-oh, I’m fine, thank you,” shesaid, stumbling over her words until she dropped her head to focus on herfingers twisting along the handles of her shopping basket, “how are you?”

“I’m great thanks, you out doing a little shopping?” heasked, more to give her a gentle opening to a real conversation than out of anyactual doubt.

Her long, straight hair bobbed up and down with her slightnod, before she nervously glanced up at him from under her fringe. “A-a-a-” herlips pulled into a thin line at the word stubbornly sticking in her throat, buthe just smiled encouragingly and waited for her to collect herself; she hatedwhen people tried to guess what she wanted to say. “…You also?”

He grinned at her, turning to look through the displays,picking up onions and giving them a critical inspection “Yup, Ino and Shikamaruare coming over for dinner and I feel like making something I’ve never triedbefore, Karui sent me some Kumo recipes I’ve been itching to try out!”

She smiled softly at him, though didn’t make eye contact.“That sounds lovely.”

“If there’s any leftovers I’ll remember to bring you sometomorrow so you can try it out too,” he said, finally deciding which was themost delicious-looking vegetable. He handed it to his friend and took thesecond-best one for himself.

Neck snapping, she turned to him with wide eyes and wavinghands. “O-o-oh, n-no, that’s n-ot, n-n-n-”

“It’s no problem, I’m happy to share!” The creak of a dooropening drew his attention back to the grocer trundling back in with a cratepacked full of bright greens and reds and yellows, he gave the man a thumbs-upbefore turning back to Hinata, ready to quickly say their goodbyes when henoticed something off. Leaning down to get a better look at her face, hefrowned. “You’re looking a little red, are you feeling ok?”

“I-I-I-”

He pressed a hand to her burning forehead. “It’s pretty hottoday, maybe you should sit down for a while-”

“I will be fine thank you!” Having practically screamed inhis face, she stiffly turned around, flew to the checkout counter, dropped ahandful of coins and ran out of the store before Chouji could even think tostop her.

Walking over to the shopkeeper, he gave him a sheepish grin.“Sorry, I think the weather must be getting to her.”

The man shook his head, idly poking at the coins on thecounter. “Well, next time you see her tell her she’s got over five-hundred ryōin change waiting for her.”

---

Finished with the markets and all his shopping carefullypacked away in a sealing scroll, his next destination was the academy.

He’d only recently taken up teaching and he was still alittle overwhelmed by it at times, but he had to admit that he loved hisoccasional guest lessons, they were a good way to get in some practice dealingwith children before he got a genin team of his own one day; the most importantlesson he’d learned thus far being neverlet sticky-fingered kids chewing bubble gum play with his hair, no matter howbig and watery they could make their eyes go.

His head felt so naked with it cut short.

“Ah, Akimichi-sensei,” the receptionist said as he steppedthrough the academy doors, “your lesson starts in fifteen minutes, your TA isalready in classroom five-B waiting for you.”

He frowned, he was getting a teaching assistant? Since when?Walking the familiar halls, feet knowing the exact path to take even withouthis mind’s input. By the time he gingerly peaked through the door, he’d cookedup at least seven awful scenarios in his head, but they all flew out the windowonce he saw who it was in there.

“Neji?”

The other man started and turned to face him, giving one ofhis slight smiles when he saw him. “Hello Chouji, I was beginning to wonder ifyou were coming.”

“I try not to get here too early,” he said, walking fullyinto the room and marching over to the huge blackboard covering one wall, “lesstime to get anxious, y’know? What are you doing here anyway, when thereceptionist said there would be a TA, I kinda figured it would be someone toevaluate me or something…” He trailed off at a sudden horrible thought. “That’snot why you’re here, is it?”

Neji shook his head, observing closely as he started writingthe lesson-plan up on the board. “Nothing like that, it was just… suggested tome that I should take up teaching. To improve my people skills.”

He frowned, pausing his scribbling long enough to look overhis shoulder. “Suggested?”

“Tenten’s idea-” the man grimaced “-the busybody found outthat you were giving classes and thought it would be a good opportunity for me.”

Finishing off his sentence, Chouji nodded and grinned wideas he replied, “That’s awesome! It’s definitely a learning experience, but Ibet you’ll be great at it once you’ve spent some time with the kids, though I reallydon’t see how you’re bad at talking to people, you’re always so nice when wemeet up.”

“…I need to… find… someone, please excuse me.” Neji was outof the door before he’d even finished his sentence.

---

His class went well, even though his new assistant had spentmost of it standing in the furthest corner of the room staring at the walls.

Chouji never would’ve guessed the guy got stage-fright sobad.

The next port of call was the Hokage tower, where he wasexpected to assist with some new international treaties being worked out.Politics wasn’t exactly his area of expertise, but he’d made many friendsduring the war, from all over the five nations; at some point he’d become avaluable advisor to the Hokage, as he could offer insight into the way the commonfolk of other nations thought and how they might be affected by big policy changes.

He hadn’t been expecting to bump into the Kazekage and hissiblings on their way out.

Temari was the first to see him, waving and jogging over. “Heythere stranger, it’s been too long!” she said, grinning and giving him a tighthug.

“It has,” he agreed, returning the embrace before pullingback to smile at the two men wandering over, “what’re you guys doing here? Ihadn’t heard of any big diplomatic summits coming up.”

The younger brother nodded, giving him that same intensestare he always gave his closest friends – it was a little weird, but once he’dbeen assured that it was just him trying to be friendly in his own awkward wayhe’d found the attention mush easier to bear. “There aren’t, this is aninformal visit, to catch up with friends. Like you.”

He smiled, hiding a tiny blush beneath his hand. “Aww, that’snice of you to say, you must have a lot of people you want to see.”

Gaara’s stare didn’t waver in the slightest. “I suppose.”

A heavy hand clapped down onto his shoulder, Temari shookhim lightly. “Who’s got time for those other losers? You’re the best bit ofKonoha, everyone knows that!”

Several steps behind his siblings, Kankuro slapped a hand tohis face.

He laughed, nudging the tall blonde back. “You’re too kind.”

“No, she is correct, any time spent with you is a true pleasure,”Gaara said, face blank but voice earnest and as happy-sounding as he ever got.

Temari glared at him, her grip on Chouji’s shouldertightening slightly. “Yes, which is why I said it. First.”

In the background, Kankuro groaned.

The Kazekage sniffed, drawing himself up as high as he could– which wasn’t much, but he was trying his best. “Why don’t you go and trackdown Shikamaru, oneesan? I’m sure he’dlove to see you again.”

Nails were digging through his shirt. “Why don’t you go andfind Naruto, otouto?”

Kankuro had an expression of pure despair. “Guys, please,just stop.”

“Because Chouji is here now and I would like to spend timewith him.” Gaara’s glare was deadly enough to make him start to worry, just a little.

“And you think I don’t?”

“I swear to-”

“No,” the redhead said, cutting off his brother and steppingcloser to glare up at his big sister, “I think that you monopolise his timeevery time we come here, oneesan and would like the opportunity to spend timewith my friends too.”

He risked a nervous cough, but no one seemed to notice. Was shestarting to break skin with her tight grip?

Temari scoffed, finally retracting her arm to cross themover her chest, leaning down to stare her little brother dead in the eye. “Areyou gonna stop me?”

Chouji coughed again, holding up a hand and weakly saying, “Excuseme,” but it made little-to-no impact.

“If you two don’t stop I’m disowning the pair of you.”Kankuro’s input went unnoticed too.

“No, because I am a good brother, who wouldn’t jeopardise mysiblings’ relationships for personal gain.”

The cold fury in Temari’s grin sent a chill down his spine. “Youlittle-”

“Oookay!” Chouji shouted, quickly sidestepping the argumentand pointing intently at the tower. “I’ve got a meeting to get to, it was, uh… funseeing you guys again!”

Kankuro’s loud cackle followed him, ever after the doorsslammed shut behind him.

He snickered to himself as he rushed to the meeting he wasprobably now late for; weird as they were, he was fond of the three and their intense,but ultimately affectionate bickering. It must be nice to have siblings.

---

It had been a long day for Chouji and it would be longer stillby the time he’d gotten home and prepared dinner for his teammates.

He decided to take a detour through the nearby park anyway,he’d always liked seeing the flowers.

They looked especially beautiful the evening, turned shadesof gold and red under the setting sun, a lone bee still roaming even with nightrapidly falling. And it was pleasantly quiet, most people home with theirfamilies by now – he felt like he had the entire park to himself.

A sharp crack to his left caught his attention, he turnedcautiously, but wasn’t expecting an actual enemy attack, not in the middle ofthe village.

When he saw who it was lurking in the shadows, he completelyrelaxed and waved a greeting. “Sasuke, how are you?”

The man muttered something under his breath, but he didn’tlook distressed, so Chouji decided that he was probably fine. “You out for a walk to?” he asked, slowly restartinghis walk, as his friend matched his pace. “It’s a lovely evening for it.”

“Yeah.”

Ok then, Sasuke didn’t feel like talking today – not surprising,he rarely did – but that was fine with him, it was just as nice to have someoneto quietly wander through the park with sometimes.

They walked together slowly, Chouji humming a song that hadbeen stuck in his head recently, his friend zigzagging as they followed thewinding paths, sometimes drifting close enough that their swinging arms couldalmost touch, before rapidly veering away until they could easily be mistaken fortwo strangers who just happened to be walking in the same direction. He alwaysended up closing the distance again after a few minutes though.

As the sky was beginning to turn purple above them, Choujisuddenly frowned and slowed to a halt, Sasuke following his lead a few steps later.

He stared back at him with a question in his dark eyes.

“Wait, isn’t your place back over that way?” Chouji said,pointing at when the path had branched in two directions several feet ago.

Sasuke looked a little surprised, though whether it was atChouji’s knowledge of where he lived or himself forgetting was unclear. “…Yeah.”

He smiled and started walking again, giving his friend ashort wave as he passed, saying, “Well, guess this is where we split up then,it was nice seeing you, hope you have a good evening!” before he finally turnedaway to rush to his own home; he’d spent a lot of the day dallying, now he hadto rush home and get ready to see his best friends!

---

“Damn, that was delicious, Karui really knows her food, huh?”

Ino scoffed, flipping her long hair dramatically inShikamaru’s face. “Of course she does, any girlfriend of mine must have impeccable taste.”

He grinned at his two friends childishly swatting at eachother as he gathered up the dishes and depositing them in the sink. He leftthem to soak in some hot water – Ino had drawn washing-up duty tonight andShikamaru would be in charge of drying and putting away – before returning tothe table and flopping back down in his chair, taking a long sip of his tea.

“Long day?” Shikamaru asked, finally disentangling himselffrom Ino’s long, crushing arms.

Chouji nodded. “Yup, though it’s weird, I ran into loads offriends today, but everyone was acting kinda… strange.”

Ino cocked a fine brow, asking, “Strange how?”

“All sorts of ways, Naruto wanted to hang out even though hewas injured, Hinata looked really feverish, Neji was all nervous about observingmy class, Temari and Gaara were bickering and Sasuke was being all spacy,” hesaid, shrugging his shoulders as he thought about it harder, “maybe the hotweather we’ve been having is just getting to people.”

There was a long, heavy silence, prompting him to glance upat his friends. They were sharing an unreadable look, identical crooked smirks ontheir faces as they rolled their eyes in perfect unison.

“Wait, do you two know something? Seriously- why are youlaughing, what’s so funny, is this some prank I’m not in on? Guys-”

---

#ictoan writes #chouji akimichi #narucho #hinacho #nejicho #chogaa #temacho #sasucho #this one might've gotten a.. little out of hand #just a bit #nO REGRETS #why did my internet have to start playing silly buggers RIGHT when i'd finished writing this #ictoan answers #Anonymous

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stripesquadsideblog · 7 years

Text

Tsurushi Hachiya headcanons

Poor boy is a mess. He comes across all tough but really he is a smol squishy cinnamon roll who cries when he stands on ladybugs.

He has 0 self confidence . i think his parents have him that way unintentionally by constantly going on about how great and successful his sister is. They don’t put him down per say its just that now when he accomplishes anything he doesn’t feel like its worth mentioning in comparison to her.

Has an older sister who is a pretty high ranking Jōnin. She currently lives in Kumo as a teacher in a sort of exchange program teaching the kumo kids the ways of the hidden mist sword techniques.

Although she actually specializes in barrier and sealing techniques.

She loves Tsurushi dearly but isn’t above smacking him for his stupidity .

His parents call her over after the field trip incident because they just don’t know what to do with him anymore and she is 1000% ready to murder him ...until she sees all the cuts and scars and bruises that shizuma gave him.

He lied to his parents and told them he got carried away in training but his sister waS HAVING NONE OF IT WHO DID THIS TO YOU I WILL EAT THEM.

PROTECTIVE SISTER MODE ACTIVATED.

His parents are non ninja and have absolutely no idea how dangerous being a ninja actually is.

His mom knows some techniques but shes more just a stay at home cookie baker

Unless one of her kids is out of line then its more like “by kami not in my damn house may the lord have mercy for i will have none”

His dad is kind of dippy . like Tanaka from black butler. He mostly leaves the kids to his lovely wife because shes got this ,she knows what shes doin

Even when shes about to murder someone he’d probably be like “ ill just hold your flower bby, go kick some ass”

Basically his parents are cool.

That being said they do remember how bad the village was during the blood mist days and are ABSOLUTELY HORRIFIED TO FIND OUT THAT TSURUSHI WANTS THINGS TO GO BACK TO THAT , PLZ NO SON OF MINE.

They do their best to dissuade him with all the horror stories of stuff they saw but mostly they just hope hes going through a phase

However after the field trip arc when they catch wind of him being around a bad influence like Shizuma .they decide theyve had enough of his delinquency and poor grades and send him to Kumo to live with his sister.

Initially he doesn’t like Kumo but as hes pretty handy with a sword and one of only a few Water style users in the village he eventually comes to love it.

After meeting sarada he was pretty smitten. He was incredibly grateful to her for healing him and allowing him to help fix his mistake, but he was also pretty taken in by her skill. Not only was he impressed she could take on Buntan despite only being a Genin but he was amazed by her medical abilities

because of this he decided to become a medic ninja himself

As i mentioned boi is a mess. He does eventually manage to learn how to heal people but its mostly small stuff ( idk like all the knife and swords wounds his friends get after training )

If he panics he loses any ability to fine tune his chakra so hes not really dependable in a high stress situation

But speaking of chakra hes actually pretty versatile in a fight. jack of all trades master of none sort of thing. He’d be pretty good at filling in any gaps in a team but just don’t expect anything higher than Chunin levels of skill from him

Right now water style is his best but after moving to Kumo he learns wind style to upset the lightning users

Being the little ball of Panic he is he really works better in a team than by himself

This isn’t to say he COULDNT work alone. But he’d spend so much time second guessing himself it’d likely get him hurt

NGL hes a bit of a drama queen . one of the main reasons he fell in with shizuma was because he is an attention monster and shizuma knew how to prey on that.

He’s not attention starved per say but of you want to get on his good side you better make everything about him till hes hooked in

When you have hooked him in he will follow you like a lost puppy

Speaking of slightly unhealthy relationships, i know hes only a bby BUT hes defiantly a sub. Like really “YES MISS SARADA” while hes carrying her on his back? BOI IS WHIPPED

That being said hes not spineless...at least not totally. He will actually turn the air blue swearing at stuff. A habit he picked up from his older sister and mom.

His first complete sentence was “ where the shit are my keys”

His favourite food is castellan and coffee icecream. He lives off of Mochas

His least favourite food is anything pickled

@dreamer-and-rude thanks for all your help with these

#tsurushi #tsurushi hachiya #headcanon #boruto

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makeste · 5 years

Text

BnHA Chapter 219: Two Good Boys and One Unlucky Broker

Previously on BnHA: Katsuki and Shouto had their licenses for all of 30 minutes (literally) before deciding to put them to the test. But let’s backtrack a bit! It was a beautiful snowy day in December and class 1-A was chilling out and watching the news. We were introduced to a company called Detnerat, and their CEO who’s apparently a big fan of this dead terrorist guy named Destro who wrote a book about quirk supremacy and how people with superpowers need to rise up and liberate themselves and shit. It’s actually really interesting and I can see how these ideas would create a divide within hero society much like Stain’s ideology did. But anyway, so the CEO casually murdered his assistant for mocking these ideas, so that was deeply horrifying. And then he went to meet with some other villains (because yeah! he’s a villain, apparently!) who are apparently descendants of Destro (as is he, I presume), and they talked about how they’re gonna arrange a meetup with the League of Villains so that they can FUCK THEM UP. Plot twist! Anyways and then we cut to some hapless citizens who were being robbed by some banditos, and that’s when Katsuki and Shouto showed up as previously mentioned. So let’s see how this goes!

Today on BnHA: Katsuki and Shouto take on Soda Sam (who I really did think was Aizawa’s old buddy for much longer than I’m proud to admit though), who fights back with some pressurized water jets. All Might saves a stupid Instagram lady and Katsuki saves the both of them, and also recovers everyone’s stolen wallets, because he’s a fucking boy scout now that the provisional course is over. Meanwhile Shouto whips out the ol’ hot+cold power combo of sports festival fame and knocks the villain out. Afterwards the two of them are enthusiastically congratulated by a pro hero called Slidin’ Go (who’s secretly evil, as it turns out, because this is a very strange arc) and hair ruffled by All Might and it’s fucking great you guys. We then cut back to the Detnerat guys, who bring in Giran, a.k.a. the League of Villains’ black market broker who just so happens to have balls of fucking steel. Good thing too, because the DetCEO plans to use him to track down and lure out the League so he can take care of them. Lastly, we cut over to said League, whose members are currently in the process of having their asses handed to them by Gigantomachia and are really not looking too hot, oh dear.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’m caught up with the manga now at chapter 225 -- I haven’t read 226 yet -- so any ETAs will reflect that.)

so it’s come to this. the Symbol of Peace, reduced to directing traffic

listen kid, you’ll have time for autographs later all right? for now just DO AS THE MAN SAYS

meanwhile Shouto’s being a badass

Bakugou may be out of his element in the cold (and we’ll see if this poses a problem for him--he’s only got one gauntlet on top of that), but this lil lukewarm lad is fine and dandy

loooooll

you tell ‘em Shouto. that’s some nice property damage there son. I hope Katsuki tries to keep his own quirk contained, the last thing we need is you guys getting billed Mt. Lady style for destroying fucking main street here all of 25 minutes after getting those licenses laminated

(ETA: I guess he didn’t actually do any lasting damage though? hopefully nothing got flood damaged when he melted all of that afterwards.)

the title of the chapter is “go! sliding go!” which sounds like fun. sounds like more icy goodness

(ETA: why did they name this chapter after the weirdly unsettling and secretly evil THE FULLLLLL BULLPENNN hero, though?? my working theory is that it was Horikoshi’s way of ensuring we wouldn’t just immediately forget he existed so that we could be properly surprised when he returned a few chapters later.)

anyway so Aizawa’s cloudy friend is shaking off the ice, and now he’s chewing the boys out for fucking up his big purse-snatching operation

all that for a handful of wallets?? seriously??

LMAO

I don’t know if it’s that I’m becoming more like him, or if he’s just becoming more like me. but either way Katsuki you gotta get out of my head there kiddo, I’m starting to worry here

by the way is it just me or is he actually higher up than he was just a few seconds ago. are you actually climbing this thing. drunk on adrenaline or what

anyway so Kumo, who may or may not actually be him but we’re just assuming for now, is explaining that he controls carbonated water and he lives for thrills. his words. not mine

okay first of all, no you don’t. fucking no one in this series has more resolve than that lil monkey slowly inching his way up towards that traffic light there

and second, you spent a whole goddamn month planning a purse heist. where the fuck did you get these airs you’re putting on dude

wow you guys

I feel like we should be placing bets not on whether Baku and Todo will win, but on how long it’ll actually take them. I’m thinking not very fucking long

(ETA: this whole thing is wrapped up within ten pages. I could have literally have been present on the scene, said to myself “my what a lovely snowy day, I think I’ll go buy myself some hot chocolate,” ducked into the Starbucks on the corner, and it would have all been over by the time I stepped back out. “you missed it!!” shouts the excited ‘it’s All Might’ kid from page one. “there was ice and explosions and this stupid lady almost got All Might crushed with a pole!”)

MY DUDES WHAT IS THIS??

SIX IN ONE GO. THIS HIGH SCHOOLER IS THE FUTURE NUMBER ONE HERO I’LL HAVE YOU SUCKERS KNOW

AHHAHAHAHAHA

I’M LOVING IT. I’M LOVING THIS. FUCK ‘EM UPPPPP KATSUKI

WHERE’S THAT RESOLVE OF YOURS NOWWWWW

holy shit. it occurs to me that this is only the third time in the series we’ve actually seen him fight real villains. and the second time was at Kamino, and he was pretty much just on the defensive there and trying to keep them all at a distance, so it’s debatable whether or not that really counts. so basically this is the first time since USJ that he’s gotten to just let loose against a bunch of mooks. and I’ve only just realized how much I wanted this omg

apparently he wanted it too lol. also I’m surprised and extremely impressed that he can control his trajectory that well with only one arm. gives me hope that Shouto’ll be going airborne like his pop any day now

anyway so Kumo? is fighting back though

watch out Katsuki he’s got seltzer and he’s not afraid to use it

okay but damn though

is this fucking seltzer water slicing through this metal lamp post??

I just took a brief break from reading this chapter to go look up “water saw” videos on YouTube to try and get an idea of what exactly we may be dealing with there. and well, I found this. so uh. depends on what kind of firepower that thing on his arm is packing I guess. but he might be more trouble than I anticipated

meanwhile!

ALL MIGHT LET HER GO IT’S NATURAL SELECTION

FUCK

IF THIS STUPID LADY GETS ALL MIGHT KILLED IN FRONT OF THESE TWO BOYS WHO WERE SO GUNG-HO ABOUT FINALLY GETTING THEIR LICENSES, SHE BETTER PRAY THE GATES OF HELL CAN PROTECT HER BECAUSE I’M GONNA GET ME SOME FUCKING BOLT CUTTERS AND FOLLOW HER DOWN THERE MARK MY WORDS

OH THANK GOD

oh my goddddd

first of all, whew. and second of all I’m so glad Horikoshi let him have that moment, rather than Shouto. just in case there were any lingering haters out there thinking his heart still wasn’t in the right place and that the only reason he was all TEAM RESCUE, BITCHES in the previous arc was because he wanted to win

and I mean, he did, obviously. but IT CAN BE TWO THINGS, and now we have a nice little moment here with him rescuing his dad (whose body moved before he could think, AS USUAL) and this stupid lady who put her Instagram above her own fucking life

meanwhile

okay Shouto you have my permission to kick his ass

yeah go ahead and fuck him up

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT

PETITION TO PUT SHOUTO IN “GUESS I’VE GOT NO CHOICE” SITUATIONS MORE OFTEN

wow not!Kumo, he is literally the worst possible opponent you could have had huh. sucks to be you

lol Katsuki’s mad that Shouto got to be a badass

they’re getting along so well now. Shouto completely knows how to handle him, he’s like a Kirishima 2.0. he just completely ignores the fact that Katsuki is shrieking insults, and responds as though the questions were phrased normally

and Katsuki actually answers him despite everything. I know it’s crazy, but this is seriously progress

now Dad is running over to make sure they’re okay

“oh, All Might. didn’t see you there. we were just out here being heroic heroes. [stretches casually; yawns] all in a day’s work”

at least he didn’t reference his kidnapping! Kacchan’s protesting but really that’s the best he could have hoped for

so the dude’s asking if they did all of this and uh, yeah. who do think they are, amateurs? I’ll have you know they have provisional licenses, sir

did this motherfucker just pull 13 fucking wallets out of fucking hammerspace to hand over. Link?? is that you??

holy shit. is that why your pants were always so baggy?? WERE YOU JUST BEING PREPARED THIS WHOLE TIME

so not only did Katsuki not destroy so much as an inch of public property (aside from the pole which was already destroyed), he even had the forethought to rescue everyone’s wallets and hand them over to the authorities like the good law-abiding citizen he is

where the fuck is Gang Orca, I need to send that man a fucking fruit bouquet or something

oh my

new favorite panel alert

so this guy, whose name is apparently Sliding Go, says he’ll take care of the rest. okay. thanks man

meanwhile definitely!not!Kumo!mybad!sometimesI’mwrong’s little jet nozzle gauntlets are... exploding??

Detnerat? possibly??

good eye there Sherlock

so I wonder if they got them from Detnerat or from that black market guy the League’s associated with... Giran? I think is his name??

oh shit!!!

new new favorite panel alert

love how Shouto seems shocked at the unexpected gesture of fatherly affection (which hurts my heart. hey All Might you got room for a third son there), whereas Bakugou is just accepting it and probably even knew it was coming and is just trying to keep his cool and trying to calculate how long he can stand there basking in All Might’s pride before it starts to look like he’s actually enjoying it

sdflkjasldkj

SWEETHEART USE YOUR WORDS

Shoutooooooooo. ;_; that little smile is killing me, I’m melting. once the initial surprise wore off he was so happy. look at him shyly fumbling with his tie oh my baby I love you so much

oh to be a fly on the wall of that taxi cab. watching the two of them sit in the backseat as far away from each other as possible and looking out the window and being so pleased with themselves after all their hard work finally paid off. and meanwhile All Might in the front seat next to the driver, peeking at them in the rearview mirror and smiling softly

also fly!me would definitely try to sneak a peek at Katsuki’s fucking hero license because HORIKOSHI COME THE FUCK ON ALREADY WHY IS IT ALWAYS SECRET AFTER FUCKING SECRET

and I guess that’s that! a very satisfying fight that lasted all of 10 pages but had several cool moves, an opponent with a cool quirk, and several character development moments! that’s how it’s done! god this series has been fucking killing it lately I swear. I hope I’m not jinxing it but this is some good shit. the artwork and pacing are great, I’m liking the new plot so far... just, keep it up, Horikoshi, please

(ETA: for real though he is crushing it)

so now we’re cutting back to the ol’ villain corporate office in Gotham City or wherever

ah, so it was Detnerat!

well I can’t say this is a huge surprise. I imagine the villain market was too tempting to pass up

!!!

I swear to god this had better be more entertaining than the last League of Villains team-up

so now this dude with the shiniest, most luxurious hair I’ve ever seen is explaining that he worked fast because DetCEO told him “do so at once” and his words are the words of Destro

damn so there’s a pretty clear hierarchy here huh

OH SHIT

THAT’S FUCKING GIRAN. THAT’S THE DUDE. WHAT THE FUCK DID THEY DO TO HIM?? FIRST A MURDER IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER AND NOW THE LEAGUE OF VILLAINS’ FAVORITE BROKER IS GETTING FUCKING TORTURED BY CORPORATE THUGS, WHAT THE FUCK. ARE WE IN FOR ANOTHER HARDCORE ARC

(ETA: indeed we are, but this one is so much better though.)

careful, he’s sensitive and clearly not afraid to kill a bitch for less than that, Giran

“the old man”?? is he talking about DetCEO’s father? or his? surely he’s not talking about AFO?

so now President Why So Serious is asking him how much he wants

and Giran is all “I happen to be picky about who I do business with, and since you all just kidnapped and beat the shit out of me, I’m inclined to say ‘no’ here”

(ETA: Giran is a stand up guy and it cost him a fucking hand. well that’s the risk you run when you work in the criminal underworld I guess.)

holy shit Giran

RIP Giran 2015-2019

but damn though, I gotta hand it to the guy, he’s got a bigger pair than I ever expected

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

okay so I’m just gonna post the whole page and break it down

GIRAN IS FUCKED. THIS GUY IS A MANIAC AND HE’S LEGIT GONNA TORTURE THE INFO OUT OF HIM HOLY SHIT

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, AGAIN

GIGANTOMACHIA IS FUCKING INSANE

AND HOW DID HE GET SO BIG

AND IS COMPRESS FUCKING DEAD. AND WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BEST VILLAIN GIRL TOGA OMG

SPINNER IF THERE WAS EVER A TIME TO REVEAL YOUR QUIRK AND HAVE IT TURN OUT TO BE REALLY BADASS IT’S NOW BUDDY

DABI AREN’T YOU GLAD YOU WERE OUT PLANNING NOUMU SHIT WITH HAWKS AND NOT DEALING WITH THIS UTTER SHITSHOW

IS IT JUST ME OR DOES TOMURA LOOK A LITTLE BUFFER THAN BEFORE? YOU BEEN LIFTING BRO

HOW AND WHY DID THEY GET TO THESE CLIFFS IN THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING NOWHERE

LAST BUT NOT LEAST, GIGANTO YOU’D BETTER WATCH IT, BECAUSE TOMURA MORE THAN LIKELY IS TRYING TO THINK OF A WAY TO BEAT YOU WITHOUT KILLING YOU, BUT IF HE DOES DECIDE HE WANTS TO KILL YOU, YOU’LL BE PRETTY HARD-PRESSED TO STOP HIM DUDE

oh my god. this is three awesome chapters in a row now. BnHA is killing it, seriously

#bnha #boku no hero academia #bakugou katsuki #todoroki shouto #all might #redestro #giran #league of villains #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #so guess who just noticed slidin' go's got a big ol' arrow plastered on his crotch #me #you guessed it #why is this man so sinister #him and his lack of friction #I can't believe he hugged my children #tomura you had better dust this cheeky mofo

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isolavirtuosa · 4 years

Text

Starting Over (For Real?) 43-44

[fanfiction] NaruSasu

Read the previous parts here.

- 43 -

Our team was not quite what I had hoped.

“How the fuck do you keep getting noticed?” I growled at Naruto as we rushed by towering rock formations. “You’re the most powerful fucking ninja in the fucking world, and you can’t even do a basic henge!”

“It’s not my fault!” he protested.

“He kind of glows with chakra,” Ino mused.

“Well maybe you coulda pointed that out before we left on this top secret infiltration mission!” Naruto cried indignantly.

“I didn’t really notice until you kept getting noticed,” she said with a shrug.

“They’ve called in reinforcements,” Sai hummed. “Are we going to stand our ground?”

As much as I would have loved to level some Kumo ANBU, it didn’t seem like a good idea while we were sneaking through their country. I actually wanted to find Juugo, and turning the full-force of Kumo against us didn’t seem productive if our intel that he was here panned out. “No,” I said flatly.

“So we’re going to just keep running?” Ino asked, rolling her eyes.

We weren’t close enough for her to be giving me all that sass. “No, you’re going to be the distraction,” I informed her.

“How am I going to distract all of those ANBU?” she asked incredulously.

“Your feminine wiles?” I suggested.

“Harem no Jutsu!” Naruto called cheerfully as his fingers formed the seals.

An army of scantily-clad harlots appeared between us and the advancing ANBU.

I grabbed his hand, dragging him forward, then nodded at Sai.

Naruto seemed confused.

Sai was not confused, and grabbed Naruto’s hand, followed by Ino’s.

We slipped between dimensions.

“Where are we…?” Ino murmured uncertainly.

I shifted us back to Kumo, just far enough away from the ANBU that we could easily make our escape.

“Damn, Uchiha,” Sai said, still holding my hand.

“What?” I growled, shaking off Naruto’s hand.

“You couldn’t do it that easily before.”

“I’m his battery,” Naruto put in cheerfully.

While I didn’t care for his word choice, he wasn’t wrong. Naruto and I had started enhancing each other’s jutsu with our chakra, and it was taking us to a whole-new, god-tier level of power.

Naruto was very humble about it, though. “Isn’t Sasuke amazing?” he asked cheerfully as we raced along.

“I like it better when you two hate each other,” Ino said, wrinkling her nose.

Naruto looked affronted. “That’s rude.”

“Is it, though?” she asked. “All this lovey-dovey energy you put out towards him is suffocating.”

“It’s cute!” Naruto protested.

“Eh,” Sai said.

“Eh?!” he cried.

“Eh,” Sai repeated.

“Eh,” Ino agreed.

“Eh,” I also agreed.

“Et tu, Sasuke?!” he cried, skidding to a stop and grabbing me by my collar.

“Naruto, there are ANBU chasing us,” I pointed out.

“Okay, but you’re my boyfriend and you don’t support me.”

I stared at him.

“We… will resume this later,” he said, fingers sliding down to my upper arm in a tight grip.

“There’s nothing to resume,” I informed him, resting my hand over his briefly as I pushed chakra into him before pulling us back into a run.

“Yeah, see, even when you’re fighting, you’re still being all lovey-dovey,” Ino complained. “Both of you.”

That was an affront to my character. “I have never in my life loved nor doved,” I ground out.

“‘Naruto’s so perfect and wonderful and amazing and good and oh-em-gee, how can he love a monster such as I, whoa is me,’” Sai said, doing the least plausible impersonation of me ever performed.

“Go to hell, Sai,” I told him.

“Such a kidder, Best Friend.”

I think I hated this team.

We finally got far enough away from civilization to establish our base for the night. Ino took the first watch while I set up a plan for us to venture into the next town with Naruto hanging back.

“We probably need to stop sharing chakra,” Naruto hummed into my shoulder as we settled into bed for the night.

“No shit, glow boy,” I growled.

“That’s a cute nickname,” Naruto said delightedly.

“This is serious,” I muttered, even as I was shifting and exposing my neck to the sudden onslaught of very nice kisses I was receiving. “You’re turning into a liability.”

“Really? You’re gonna call your battery a liability?”

“You’re going to call yourself my battery?”

“Sas’, you were so amazing today.”

I sighed, letting him distract me. “Thanks to my trusty battery?”

“No,” he said. “Well, yes, but no, like the way you just shift through dimensions like breathing now, it’s incredible to watch.”

“And you enjoy watching me?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a creep,” I sighed. “Go to sleep.”

“Sasukeeee,” he whined.

I sighed again, turning over to pull him into my arms.

He snuggled into me happily.

“I’m serious,” I told him. “We have to do something about you exuding power everywhere you go.”

“You’ll figure it out,” he mumbled sleepily. “You’re brilliant.”

“Or you could figure something out,” I suggested.

“Nah, you’re the brains…” he trailed off.

I knew he was already gone, so I set my mind to thinking of ways to hide all of Naruto’s ridiculous amounts of chakra.

Of course the most obvious solution was that I stopping giving chakra to him and he pour all his excess chakra into me, but I wasn’t sure it was a good idea. Naruto could handle his chakra. I, on the other hand…

I remembered the night before we’d left on this mission. We’d just kicked the shit out of each other on the training ground, which was of course foreplay to us. We stumbled into the apartment, already enrapt in one another. Naruto was thrumming with energy as he kicked the door closed behind us.

“Bedroom,” he said, walking me backwards.

“We’re disgusting,” I protested, not wanting to roll around in dirty sheets.

“Bedroom,” he repeated, pressing me against the door and waiting.

“You’re doing the laundry,” I muttered, reaching behind me to turn the knob.

“I am doing the laundry,” he agreed, pushing us back into the room until the back of my legs hit the bed.

I looked at him.

His eyes met mine evenly.

I sat back on the bed and pulled him on top of me.

He was like a puppy, pouncing and nuzzling my neck happily. “You’re super sexy when you’re trying to kick my ass,” he informed me.

“Trying?” I scoffed.

“Trying,” he said with a smirk that looked ridiculously out of place on his goofy face. Fuck he was good-looking when he was confident.

“Is that what you call this?” I asked, pushing his shirt up and examining the bruise I’d left there.

“No, I call them washboard abs,” he said, grinning.

“You’re ridiculous today,” I informed him. I tugged his shirt and mesh over his head, tossing them to the floor.

“Am I?” he hummed, giving me a kiss.

Our eyes met, and I could feel his smile against my mouth. I wanted to give him the world. “You’re perfect,” I mumbled, too embarrassed to let the words come out clearly.

His breath caught.

I attempted to refocus him on our mouths becoming one.

“Sasuke,” he said quietly.

I ignored him, carefully mapping my way through his mouth.

He tried to speak again, then realized the futility and made out with me instead.

I felt relaxed, running my fingers along the bare skin of his back.

“Love you,” Naruto informed me between kisses. He said it so much that one would think that the words had lost all meaning.

I hugged him closer. I needed to hear it constantly, or I’d stop believing.

Naruto knew that. His fingers trailed along my cheek before cupping it gently, his chakra tingling along my skin. “I love you,” he repeated, and then the chakra was pushing inside of me.

It flowed through my chakra paths, easy and familiar.

I cried out.

The chakra stopped.

Naruto pressed his horned forehead to mine, questioning and waiting.

I scratched down his back.

“Hey!” he yelped, goosebumps rising up along his flesh.

I glared up at him.

“Tell me?” he requested. I can’t read your mind, he was always telling me.

“Don’t stop,” I ground out.

His expression softened into a smile. The warmth of his chakra crushed into me again.

I gasped.

The flow became slower, gently washing over me.

“Why is power the only thing that turns you on?” he complained.

I tried to glower at him, but it was probably barely more than a grimace. “I’m not turned on,” I growled, but I kind of was. It was hard to describe exactly how I was feeling. I felt powerful. It felt right.

Our kisses were slower now, almost lazy. Naruto was hard against my leg, pressing in close but restraining himself from moving.

“Move,” I mumbled.

He hesitated.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said softly. He really didn’t.

I knew. I looked at him with my sharingan, and I knew how to do it. I curled my fingers around his neck and pushed.

Naruto’s mouth opened in a silent cry.

The chakra had initially burst out uncontrolled, but now I focused on making it into a steady drip.

He relaxed, rolling onto his side and keeping me close. “It feels weird,” he whispered. “But it… but it…”

Everything had been dark when I woke up inside the God Tree. All I had was the warmth of the chakra that Naruto was feeding into me, keeping us both alive.

It was a good feeling.

And without the God Tree to sap anything away, it was a powerful feeling.

I’d seen Naruto do it a hundred times. The natural energy gathered inside of me, and then I was glowing.

“Whoa,” he breathed, eyes wide.

“Can you use mine?” I asked.

“I dunno,” he said, closing his eyes. He was feeling out my chakra, trying to understand it. Electricity tingled up my spine from his hand like a static shock, but he quickly let it die out. “Maybe our bed isn’t the best place to experiment.”

“I thought you liked experimenting in bed,” I hummed, reveling in how fucking amazing I felt.

“Depends on the experiment,” he said, eyes studying me now.

I could probably destroy him with his own chakra. It wasn’t that I ever would, it was just that I liked to know that I could. “So did you just want to make innuendos, or…?”

“You’re looking a little too megalomaniacal to be anywhere near my private parts right now,” he said, hand tracing chakra up my back and around neck, grazing over my chin and continuing until he reached to thumb over my bottom lip.

I smiled at him lazily. I felt like I could destroy the world and rebuild it single-handedly. “Too scared to get off, honey?”

“Too smart,” he replied with an easy smile, giving me a very soft kiss.

“Naruto.”

“Mm?” he said, still tracing my lips methodically.

“I want to make you feel good,” I told him solemnly.

“I feel very good right now,” he assured me.

“I could make you feel even better.”

“Sasuke, love, you have the same look in your eyes right now as when you were coming at me with your chidori…”

“I do not,” I growled at him, breaking contact to pinch his arm.

Naruto shrieked. He hated when I pinched him there, and he always had to completely overreact to it. He rubbed his arm with his stump, glaring at me. “First of all, that did not in any way, shape, or form make me feel better, and second of all, oh my god, Sasuke, was the Valley of the End foreplay for you?”

“No…” I said, trying to sound like I didn’t agree with what he was saying at all. And I really didn’t. Fighting Naruto was something that filled me with regret, made me doubt all of the choices I had made up until that point, and made me question who I even was.

But nothing felt better than going against Naruto at full strength and having him hit back just as hard.

“I am in love with this psychopath,” he muttered.

I pinched him again.

“OW!”

“Has your dick gotten any less hard during this entire conversation?” I pointed out, because Naruto the masochist could complain about how much his arm hurt all he wanted, there was still a giant tent in his pants.

“I want us to have a healthy relationship…” he complained.

“That ship has sailed, Uzumaki.”

“I know,” he sighed. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing,” I said quietly, kissing his nose. My megalomania had started to taper off now that I was no longer getting a steady injection of chakra.

He smiled at me, smoothing my bangs out of my eyes.

We melted back together, another infusion of chakra trickling through my pathways. Somehow we both ended up losing our pants, and then our bodies were just skin-to-skin contact, our chakra mingling together through every pore.

“You’re getting that look again,” Naruto murmured.

“Fuck off,” I grumbled against his lips. I could enjoy my all-powerful feelings and the high it gave me all I wanted.

“I’d like to,” he said quietly.

Somehow I’d forgotten about Naruto’s plebeian need to ejaculate. “Between my legs,” I said.

“Huh?” he replied, elegant as always.

“Put your dick between my legs,” I instructed irritably.

“It won’t… chafe?”

“Get some lube then,” I said, rolling my eyes. “And get a condom while you’re at it,” I added, shuddering at the thought of the mess he would make without one.

Naruto broke the chain between us slowly, then bounced over to his nightstand and located all of his supplies.

“Hurry up,” I complained, despite the fact that my body was overflowing with his chakra, and really, what could I possibly do with more?

Naruto shook his head, but he was smiling as he rolled the condom on. “I almost feel wanted.”

I kicked my leg out at him, knocking him back on the mattress. “You’re wanted.”

“Apparently,” he said, happily shimmying in close again.

We re-positioned, shifting until Naruto slid easily between my thighs.

His eyelids lowered, and he got that stupid sexed-up expression on his face.

I buried my fingers in his hair, sending out little tingles of chakra.

“How did you think of this?” he marveled between grunts.

“Ancient pederastic tradition,” I hummed.

“Huh?” he said, but his movements didn’t slow.

“Don’t worry about it, honey,” I said, pushing more chakra into him. I was almost full to bursting.

“It feels so good.”

I pet his head like a dog, watching him rut into my legs until he couldn’t take it anymore.

I was glad he was wearing a condom.

“You’re okay?” he asked after a long silence.

“I am amazing,” I replied. He’d emptied his chakra into me as he came, and I was glowing with his power.

“Good,” he said. “I am also amazing.”

It felt like we were finally figuring things out.

The thing was, Naruto could be trusted with all of his power.

I wasn’t so sure that I could be.

- 44 -

Weeks had passed and we were still no closer to finding Juugo.

“Sasuke’s like a black hole swallowing the sun,” Sai chortled as he joined us around the fire for breakfast.

“Um, no, Sasuke is the moon. He takes the light from the sun and uh, howsit go again…” Naruto started off strong and petered out. His grasp on astronomy was tenuous at best, no matter how many times I explained to him that no, the moon did not emit its own light, and yes, the reason it shone was because of the sun.

“Maybe if the moon swallowed the sun whole and spit out its used-up, black core,” Sai hummed, serving himself some rice.

“Are you two really best friends?” Naruto asked suspiciously.

“Talking ill about someone is a sign of deep friendship,” Sai said cheerfully. “Besides, the one I’m really speaking ill of is you!”

“Thanks…?”

I ignored them and continued to eat my breakfast while Naruto fed his chakra into me from behind. It was our morning ritual.

It didn’t matter how much chakra he gave me, though. The fact that Naruto was no longer completely human was getting more and more difficult to ignore. His arm had fully regrown down to his fingertips, his horns protruded from his hair, and I was pretty fucking sure that what Naruto was claiming to be a premature wrinkle in the middle of his forehead was actually a third eye.

“’Sup?” Ino greeted us blandly, sitting next to me.

I handed her a coffee.

She took it, eyes barely open as she sipped it.

Ino was ready to go home.

Not that any of us had a home, but we were all pretty tired of Lightning and the wild goose chase we were on. If we weren’t being hounded by Kumo and Konoha ANBU, we were avoiding anti-ninja villages and their fake God Trees which had also started springing up in Lightning.

“Can you take a little more?” Naruto asked me, his chakra tapering off into a drip.

“That’s what he said,” Ino mumbled into her coffee.

“Obviously,” I said.

“More tuna?” Sai offered, holding up a can, and we all cringed.

“Real food…” Ino whispered dreamily.

“It doesn’t exist anymore,” Naruto groaned.

I knew he was fantasizing about ramen, because I could see it in his mind. Naruto was completely open to me when we were sharing chakra. As long as his hand stayed on my back, I had access to anything I wanted to probe into.

Sai shrugged and finished off the tuna by himself. He loved eating the same thing every day. “So, are we ready to go?” he asked cheerfully.

Naruto was still eating breakfast with one hand, his other resting on my bare back as he fed me his chakra. Ino hadn’t quite finished her cup of coffee and was still looking like hell warmed over. I was sitting here with my top open and hanging onto the ground, contemplating taking up smoking to somehow fill the gaping holes inside of my soul.

“Oh, yeah, we’re all so ready to go,” I told him tiredly.

“Great,” Sai said, going over to pack up his tent.

Ino, Naruto, and I thrived in a fight. Sai thrived in the sneaking and subterfuge. He was enjoying himself in the mindless doldrums of our everyday life.

“You okay, honey?” Naruto hummed, kissing the back of my neck.

“Peachy fucking keen, Naruto,” I grumbled, then shook my head. “Sorry. I don’t know, I’m in a terrible mood.”

“Do you kinda… sense something?” he asked. “Like, you know, a foreboding?”

Ino and I both turned to him.

“What?” he asked.

We didn’t really talk about the transformation that he had gone through, but the unknown of it all kept it on our minds.

“Please tell me you’re not a psychic now,” Ino groaned.

“Huh? What? Why?” he asked.

“I just don’t like the idea of a psychic Naruto,” she said.

I nodded my agreement.

“Whaaaaaaat?” Naruto complained.

“There’s just something not right about it,” Ino explained vaguely.

“I would be an awesome psychic!”

“Baby, let’s switch,” I said, stifling a yawn.

“Hm?” he said, immediately going back to being a normal person. He took his hand from my back and shifted so he was next to me.

I pulled my top back up over my arms and took his hand, funneling some of my chakra into him.

Ino watched for a moment before quickly turning away.

“Are we all set for today’s adventure?” Sai asked cheerfully.

“Sai, you need to learn how to read a room,” I said.

“We’re not in a room,” he said, his smile widening.

The three of us glared at him.

“I’ll put out the fire, then,” he said, happily going about the task.

“I think the team is fracturing,” Ino commented.

“We never were a team,” I replied.

“Hey, come on,” Naruto tried to protest, but it was true. He and Sai always had weird tension, he and I went back and forth between being the grossest couple ever to disagreeing on any and everything, and Ino had just never quite clicked in with us.

“I’ve got a good feeling about today!” Sai declared as we finally moved out.

We traveled through an open valley between two villages, nothing in sight for miles. I was focused now. We would make it to the next village before nightfall, where there’d been a rumored siting of Team Taka after the collapse of the Infinite Tsukuyomi. I wasn’t putting much stock in it, since the person had claimed to see Juugo, Suigetsu, and Karin, who hadn’t been anywhere near Lightning at the time and hadn’t seen Juugo and Suigetsu since she’d woken up.

It made me think it was a trap.

“Uchiha, there’s something not right,” Sai commented as we raced along.

I was feeling it, too.

Ino looked between us nervously.

There was nothing in front of us and nothing behind us.

“It’s under us,” Naruto said quietly.

“Sai,” I said, nodding my chin at him.

He pulled out a scroll and sketched a platoon of birds. “Get on,” he said, hopping onto the back of one of them.

We all took to the sky, but that feeling that something powerful was lurking below us persisted.

“You look like you want to investigate,” Naruto commented.

“You look like you want to investigate,” I countered.

“I don’t want to investigate,” Ino stated flatly.

“You and Sai can go ahead,” I said.

“No,” she said quickly. “You two are not just going to rush into something blind. This thing, it’s… I mean, doesn’t it feel familiar?”

And then the sky exploded with arrows.

“Naruto!” I snapped, nodding my head towards where the attack was coming from.

“Already on it,” he said, exploding in golden light. He tore the trap door they were hiding under from the ground, revealing the fighters huddled together on a staircase leading into the earth.

One of the arrows that I easily dodged exploded as it passed, causing my ink bird to falter. “Fucking normals,” I muttered. Why did non-ninjas have to carry on with their farce of attacks when they were nothing more than ants in front of us? “Ino, Sai, watch the sky,” I said, following into the fray behind Naruto.

He had things pretty well wrapped up already, to be honest, and punching people without chakra was kind of a joke, but it made me feel better doing it.

“Sasuke,” Naruto said, tying up those he had knocked unconscious.

I sighed, letting the unconscious man slip from my hold to the floor.

“They’re people.”

“Are they though?” I asked.

“Sasuke.”

I ignored him and moved down the stairs. There were more of them, clearly guarding something, and I flicked them away.

It was pulsing through the air, and I knew what was hidden before I saw it.

The God Tree spread itself like a weeping willow, filling the underground room with its drooping bodies.

“Get everyone down here!” I called to Naruto.

“Huh?” he said, coming down the last steps having just finished tidying up the prisoners. His eyes widened at the sight of the tree. “Okay…”

I pulled out my sword and started cutting bodies down. After a while, the other three joined me.

“Where do these trees get their power from?” Ino murmured, pulling out another sleeping person from a pod.

Proximity to my rinnegan was doing nothing to stop the effects of the tree.

“Uchiha!” Sai called from the other side of the room.

I was beside him in a moment, staring at the body he was pulling out of a pod. “Suigetsu…”

He was paler than ever, and he looked almost skeletal, but there he was.

I rested a hand on his shoulder for a moment. He was breathing, and that was all there was for now. I started hacking down the other nearby pods.

“I’ve got Juugo,” Sai said, but it was too late.

“This can’t…” I stuttered over the words, staring at the red-haired girl asleep in the pod I’d just cut open.

“What is it?” Sai asked, sauntering over. “I thought you’d be more excited to see your former best…” The words died from his lips.

Something passed through the room like a shock wave.

“She knows,” I whispered.

“Why are you two being so weird?” Naruto asked, then joined us in freezing and staring at Karin’s body.

“She knows!” I said more urgently.

“Sakura…” Naruto said slowly, panic starting to well in his eyes. “She’s always with Sakura…”

“Go!” I snapped.

Naruto gave me a blank look.

“She knows that we know. Go!” I repeated.

Understanding flooded his face, and then he was disappearing in a flash.

“Shit,” I whispered. “Shit, shit, shit…”

“Maybe she’s not really…” Ino tried to say, but just stopped. She touched her hand to Karin’s cheek. “This isn’t possible. She had Karin’s chakra. She was with you for months. There’s no way that you wouldn’t have noticed…”

‘Come,’ Naruto’s voice whispered in my head.

I didn’t have technique formulas spread out from here to Suna. I couldn’t just transport myself half way around the world.

‘Come!’ came his voice again, more urgently.

The Flying Thunder God transport technique wasn’t really as hard as it looked. Sure, if I made a mistake, I would be dead, but when did I ever make a mistake?

“Take care of them!” I snapped at Ino and Sai, nodding to my team before disappearing in a flash. I slipped through dimensional voids, following Naruto’s technique formulas like a map until I was back in Suna, bursting out of Naruto’s forehead protector.

There was a giant hole in the wall surrounding the village.

“She’s getting away!” Naruto called, trying to hold his opponent back.

I slipped through the hole in the wall, ignoring the fact that Naruto was fighting the woman he considered his grandmother.

Sakura was ahead, chasing down the impostor Karin along with Temari.

She wasn’t Karin anymore, though. The facade had melted away, leaving only a white zetsu racing ahead of us joyfully.

I slipped through dimensions, catching up to the girls easily.

Sakura was hurt, her arm hanging at a strange angle as she ran. “It’s not Karin,” she said, tears pricking her eyelids while her face stayed in an immovable grim line.

“Where is Gaara?” I asked, because if Tsunade had risen from her white zetsu sleep, then it only stood to reason that so had he.

“Kankurou’s leading a group to detain him,” Temari said clinically.

“All right then,” I said, slipping through dimensions again and coming out in front of the white zetsu.

She grinned at me, her face becoming Karin’s again.

Good thing I was really good at compartmentalizing. I sent her flying across the desert with a punch.

She just laughed as she landed, light and happy. “Are you upset with me, Sasuke-kun?”

I wasn’t rising to her bait. I approached her cautiously, on the lookout for any tricks or traps.

Sakura and Temari were here now, too, and the three of us slowly moved closer in a triangle formation, coming at her from all sides.

She threw her head back and laughed loudly. Her face shifted, becoming the mizukage. “Be seeing you, girls,” she said, waving her fingers as she sank into the sand.

We all dove for her, but she was gone.

“Fuck!” I snarled into the air, hitting my fist uselessly into the sand.

“There’s nothing we can do now,” Temari said flatly. She helped Sakura to her feet. “Let’s go.”

I was on the edge, about to snap, so I took a deep breath, buried it all, and followed Temari and Sakura back to Suna.

#narusasu #isola starting over

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