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meliorist-midoriya · 3 years

Text

chasing the sun

synopsis: there’s something screaming in familiarity—in mourning—deep in his soul at the sight of you, a complete stranger. this is the price you pay for resurrection, the sun whispers as it rises.

pairing: takami keigo x fem!reader

genre: angst with a happy ending, reincarnation au

warnings: mentions and depictions of death, major character deaths, mentions of war (+ description of a battlefield scene), injuries, blood.

word count: 11.7k

a/n: happy (extremely belated) birthday, bird boy. and aaaa my baby’s here, she’s finally here! i’ve been working on this fic for a little over two months now, and i’m so happy to see it fully fleshed out! thank you to @dimplesum for beta reading, and the tumblr chaos server for listening to me yell all the time abt this fic :’) disclaimer, i did as much research as i could, but any historical depictions are not 100% historically accurate and i have taken some creative liberty, so please take the historical scenes with a grain of salt!

important: there will be songs linked throughout the fic to be played in accordance with the scene, i do hope you listen to them for the full experience! it is okay if the ost ends before the scene as that is also on purpose. the beginning of the song will start with 【 ☀︎ 】 with a link to the song. with that said, i hope you enjoy, and happy reading!

crossposted on Ao3

【 ☀︎ 】

Dawn finds Keigo, the youngest government official in the empire, stumbling upon a lone concubine in the eastern lotus garden.

He’d been searching for solitude, away from the viper’s nest of samurai-turned-aristocrats, strutting around the castle with their now-useless weapons strapped to their hips, discussing poetry and politics instead of battle and war tactics.

It’d been disgustingly easy for them to make the switch from warrior to bureaucrat, taking the status boost in stride. Those who couldn’t, they stayed with their lords if they were lucky. The warriors who weren’t… Keigo would need an abacus to count the ones who weren’t so lucky, the countless rumors and reports of wandering rōnin with familiar names never failing to reach over the palace walls to get to him.

(Oh, what he would give to join them.)

Of course, he’d been intending to brood ponder over this in the seclusion of the garden he’d discovered a few days ago, staring at the green buds of the young lotuses in the water until his head spun. The sight of the concubine sitting in his spot (that he was certain was too secluded to be found) told him fate had other plans, however.

He cleared his throat and forced down the grimace once he saw the concubine jump, startled, before trying her best to smoothly turn and bow without looking too flustered.

“Good morning, madam.”

“Good morning—”

He smiled through the static in his brain at the mention of his surname, messily tacked to the honorific that he would never get used to.

That name… it’s not mine. Don’t call me that.

A discordant mess of jumbled kanji that sounded nothing like the powerfully elegant names in the court. The ill-fitting characters standing out like an eyesore on his documents, the syllables falling awkwardly off the tongue in conversation.

Wholly fitting for an outsider like him, really.

The mention of that name grated something terrible in him, and he settled for keeping his teeth grit into a smile. A sheltered concubine wouldn’t know, of course she wouldn’t know. Practically no one did, so he had no one to fault but his own cursed sensitivity to a name he wanted to burn.

“Do you mind if I join you?” The slight twitch in her demure smile was answer enough, but he’d set aside time for this escape, and damn if he was going to let it go to waste.

“Of course not. Please, don’t mind me, my lord.”

He dipped his head in thanks and you bowed in return, the silence hanging in the air settling into something stiff and awkward.

A minute passed…

Then another…

Then five…

Keigo was going to go mad at this rate. Neither of you had any intention of leaving the rare pocket of seclusion, and the competitive whisper in the corner of his mind told him that leaving first meant conceding, meant losing.

(In his world, losing meant death.)

Keigo’s had enough of losing in life despite his dumb luck, thank you very much.

So, he did what he knew he did best. He talked. Shattering the awkward silence in an effort to coax the tranquil silence he was searching for back into the little gazebo by the pond. Maybe if he ran his mouth long enough, you’d get tired and leave.

“You’re a new face in the palace.”

With an expectant gaze, he watched the telltale shift from awkward to apprehensive, the rigidness of your stature sharply contrasting the flowing brocade of your kimono as you looked back at him with a too-sharp gaze before casting your eyes away to the green buds in the water. Had he been any slower, Keigo would’ve thought that the conflicted expression you quickly smoothed over was solemn (it was anything but).

“I would say the same to you, my lord, but every face in this castle is a new face to me.” You tilted your head with a thin-lipped smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes. “Although… I’m sure an official who just arrived at the castle for his yearly residence would be an especially new face. Please excuse my rudeness.”

Keigo blinked. Once, twice, his jaw relaxing into a disbelieving smile at the sight of your steely gaze bright with a challenge and a smile sharper than the blades at his waist, the unsaid words ringing clearly.

Two could play at this game.

Well, now, this was new.

Perhaps it was your defiance that remained steadfast in this castle, or the blissful ignorance that made you one of the few to look at him straight on instead of down your nose. A little voice whispered that this would change in due time, the politics and power struggles confined within the castle never failing to break down even the most resilient. Those that didn’t know how to play the game correctly simply… vanished.

“Someone’s well-informed, I see.” He folded his hands behind his back, his wish for tranquility long forgotten. “I heard a new concubine has just entered the castle as well. A consolation prize, of sorts, from the farthest reaches of the country. Of course, as I’ve been gone for a year and have only been here for four, I’m not too sure.” He flicks his gaze to you, accepting your challenge with a knife-sharp smile of his own.

“I am curious as to what this concubine’s name is, however.”

You arched a brow, the thin-lipped smile widening into something sweet (that looked better on a fox rather than a beautiful concubine), and you bowed. Any trace of that stiff apprehensiveness dissolved into a graceful fluidity that seemed to disappear within the rippling silk of your kimono.

“Lady Y/N. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

To this day, he’ll never admit how surprised he was at your reverence, nor how his heart did a funny little flip in his chest when you giggled at his flustered response. What kind of fool gave respect to a commoner picked up from the slums?

You. Except you were no fool, and maybe that’s why he kept coming back like a moth to flame.

Time passed, and he found himself in that little garden day after day, morning after morning. Listening to the concubine who told vivid stories of lands he could only dream of, foods he found himself craving, and tales of warriors past.

The conversations at dawn soon turned into stories of the past, the laments of the present, and dreams of a bleak future. With delicate hands and gently prying words, you two unlocked every bar and lock you’d put over your souls and allowed yourselves to lay them bare for each other, the intimacy of a bond forged in secrets and solidarity far stronger than any alliance or contract.

You two confided in each other in that garden, staring at the dew on the lilypads as you two whispered how you didn’t belong in the palace. How the confines of grand walls with ears and eyes were no place for the adopted commoner and a concubine far from home. Two people in this big world who were just lucky enough, fortunate enough to end up within this lavish palace, your lives guaranteed splendor and comfort.

Then again—you two would share a conspiratorial laugh—maybe you two were unfortunate instead. What was splendor and comfort when you had to constantly watch for a knife in your back or poison in your cup? When a single misstep could cost you your life?

Conversations shared with you, the concubine with a sharp tongue and even sharper wit, were the most fulfilling he’s had in ages. Maybe it was the sense of formality that the intimacy of the waterside gazebo stripped away, or the unraveling realization that he hasn’t breathed this freely in ages, that he was looking forward to these moments in the morning. The intimacy shared in the garden he selfishly liked to call his own little world.

Keigo catches the smile you hide behind your sleeve when he steps into the gazebo, and he realizes you’re being selfish, too.

He didn’t know how the conversation got here, he didn’t know why he had a hairpin meant for you tucked into his sleeve. All he knew was that when it came to you, he was helpless to the whims of rambling and buying a pretty hairpin made of red jade because it reminded him of a sharp wit with a pretty smile.

“I live for this country and I die for this country. Well, not that there’s anything much to die for anyway.” Keigo’s laugh is empty, and your melancholic gaze even emptier. A fog had blown in that morning, covering the pond in a soft cover of white, and your soft voice and softer touch on his arm (careful, almost) silenced his dry laughter and left his throat even drier.

“What you would die for is also an excellent reason to live, is it not?”

Your words, whispered into the stillness of the moment, resonated so loudly within his soul and forced a shaky breath out of his lungs as he gazed in awe at you. At the soft, ethereal glow in the fog cast by the rising sun breaking through the clouds, the scent of bloomed lotuses wafting in on the breeze that rustles the dangling pieces of your hair ornaments. He is weak to whims when it comes to you, so he pulls out the hairpin burning a hole in his sleeve to slip into your hair with shaking hands unbefitting a swordsman. Keigo watches your eyes sparkle like the gem in your hair, and his heart lifts with hope as he whispers his devotion into the warm morning, carried by the wind into a sea of blooms.

“I’ll live for you, then.”

And with a smile, you fall in love.

(Keigo falls even harder.)

【 ☀︎ 】

He should have known.

“I don’t know what I was expecting from the son of a criminal.”

He really should have known.

“What was that fool thinking, taking a street rat like you in all those years ago?”

Honestly, he’d like an answer to that, too. Too bad the old man was dead and left him to inherit a position he didn’t even want. To think he’d agree with the emperor for once in his short life.

“Tsk, a son will follow in his father’s footsteps, after all. A grave in Kozukappara should suit him well.”

Keigo should be concerned that he couldn’t feel how the coarse dirt dug into his knees anymore, his cheek still aching from where the guard had punched him.

(Okay, yes, he deserved it, but he could’ve done without tasting iron.)

The sadistic glee in the guard’s face after he landed that “disciplinary strike” told him otherwise. With a bitter grimace, he spat red into the dirt.

How long has he been kneeling here? Minutes? Hours? The words echoing over and over in his head pulled him away from his present reality, bringing him back to the blur that was the past two days.

(Three? He couldn’t be sure, time passes oddly in a prison cell.)

The servants whispering about a concubine being expelled from the harem, the handmaid being promoted to concubine suspiciously quickly, and sudden memories of too-loud rustling coming from the treeline that he’d foolishly brushed off. All of it culminated in the form of palace guards dragging him from his study all the way to the harem to throw him at the emperor’s feet.

“Could the street rat not keep his hands off the women of the court? Plenty to pick back where you came from.”

Keigo wanted to vomit at the cloying stench of sake, unpleasant memories rushing to the forefront of his mind and forcing his limbs to lock from age-old fear. Not like he could use them anyway, with heavy hands on each shoulder pinning his knees to the tatami and his blades having long been tossed away in the struggle to drag him here.

“Oh, my lord, haven’t you heard?” A sickeningly saccharine voice pulled the man’s attention away to coo at the woman curled into his side, cradling a bottle of warmed sake. “Apparently the small-time nobleman who adopted him, did it knowing he was the son of that criminal you were having trouble with all that time ago.”

The grip forcing his head down loosened from the resounding laughter that rippled around the room, just enough to allow Keigo to glare at the loose-lipped concubine. Your opportunistic maidservant who’d been all too willing to take your place in the harem, having taken her chance and fleeing with it. Her tittering giggles and power-drunk grin grated his ears, and he kept glaring. Daring her to look back, to look him in the eye without feeling an ounce of guilt for what she had done.

Almost as if she heard his furious challenge, she took a glance at the man pinned to the floor (trying to look down her nose like she had been looked down on. Pathetic fool.) only to jump at the righteous fury burning in his gaze, fear clouding her conscience for a precious moment.

More, Keigo urged, rage bitter on his tongue, Guilt, shame, despair, all of it.

I hope you regret this for the rest of your life. Lament, as punishment for ruining hers—

“Don’t assume what I have and haven’t heard, woman,” The drunkard grunted, holding his cup out for her to pour with shaking hands and a meek surrender, “But, the man was losing his mind from age. What was that fool thinking, taking a dirty brat like this in all those years ago? Too useless to bear a son nor keep a wife, so he had to stoop low enough to take in a criminal’s son from the slums.”

Righteous fury welled up in his chest, and his body moved before his brain could catch up, spit landing at the emperor’s feet. Almost immediately thereafter, his head whipped to the side, cheek smarting from the sharp strike the guard’s knuckles had indented into his swelling cheek. He grit his teeth as that same cheek came down on the tatami, someone pressing his head into the ground.

“Years upon years of trying to force yourself into nobility, and you’d think you’d learn some respect along the way.”

Had he not been the one with his face pressed into the ground, Keigo would’ve laughed at the shade of fury-red the man’s face was turning. Sake did not treat him well. The concubines at his side, fearing for their lives, immediately rushed to whisper soothing words and calming pleas. Somehow, it worked, and he reclined back into his seat with a heavy sigh, draining the sake in one gulp.

“The son of a criminal shall inevitably become a criminal. Now that I think about it, this is a wonderful opportunity to get rid of an eyesore. A grave in Kozukappara should suit him well.” A sadistic grin split his lips around the cup, chortling with laughter at his own (terrible) wit. “Being buried next to his criminal father! What a filial son!”

The table shook from the force of a fine porcelain cup slamming down on it, as if the emperor were stamping his death certificate right then and there.

(He was.)

“Get him out of my sight. The next time I want to see his head is on the gates of Kozukappara.”

Keigo the official had died in that room, and the man that was dragged out by his shoulders left the castle as a criminal.

“Done saying your prayers?”

Slowly, he looked up from the white paper fan set in front of him in place of the tantō that should’ve been there for his use (obligatory seppuku, his muddled brain supplied with annoyingly familiar haughtiness, so the ex-warrior could die a warrior. What a joke—) to the man he’d chosen to be his executioner. Normally, he would’ve snapped back with something witty, something sharp, but going days without water wasn’t treating him well. A heavy sigh, and the man ran a frustrated thumb down the bright blue wrap of his katana hilt.

“The concubine, of all women? An imperial concubine, at that. I’d expect you to know better than that, my friend.”

Ah, the static in his head was a little stronger today. Wonderful.

“I thought I knew better, too. At least I get to die to someone with a steady hand.”

He scoffed, thumb running over the blue hilt again. Keigo idly remembered seeing the man rub his burn-leathered skin the same way countless times, the anxious habit having stubbornly ingrained itself into his being since childhood.

“Must you be so dark?”

“When am I not?” He managed to muster up a slow grin. “I’m hurt, I thought my closest companion would’ve known this after years of keeping swords out of each other’s backs.”

The heavy gong announcing his execution sounded, and he watched his best friend’s melancholic gaze glaze over into soulless steel that mirrored the blade drawn from its hilt. Keigo dipped his head with a solemn smile and shut his eyes in resignation.

I really… should’ve known…

“Keigo!”

Everything paused for a breath, in shock at your shout breaking the stillness of the moment. He didn’t have to lift his head to know who was crying out, trying to delay the inevitable certainty. A sharp smile and an even sharper tongue reduced to nothing but cries and desperation.

“...I’ll continue.” The executioner ignored your desperate “No!” as he shifted his stance, scarred hands steady as he placed the blade against the back of his neck despite the pain Keigo knew he was in.

It would’ve been nice to hold you in his arms, at least once—

No, for eternity.

The blade came down and, like a lotus facing the sun in supplication, you screamed your despair into the heavens.

That day, the blood red sunset matched the crimson pooling on the execution ground’s floor.

【 ☀︎ 】

Dawn finds Private First Class Takami Keigo marching into a small city on the way to the front lines, rifle slung over his shoulder and feet aching.

They’ve been marching through the night, and for the first time in his life, he found himself grateful for Japan’s humid summer nights. He’d take sweat over losing toes from frostbite any day.

But, he decides, sighing in relief along with the rest of the company at the sight of a town once they crested the hill, there was nothing like the relief of a warm bed and any food other than the tasteless military rations.

“Tired already?” The low voice beside him would’ve made him jump had it not been so familiar.

“Aw, what’s this? Is Touya-kun worried for little old me?” Keigo shot a grin at the man marching next to him and dodged the elbow that he aimed at his side with a short laugh.

“A tired soldier is a dead soldier.” A pause, and the next response came backed with a dry laugh. “Not like it’d affect you and your monstrous instincts, anyway.”

“Yes, as we’ve been told a thousand times, General.” The teasing tilt to his voice came easy, and he let his best friend elbow him this time, too busy laughing at his annoyance.

Should he have been a little more worried of the captain catching him messing around? Yes, but he couldn’t be bothered to care. Judging by the restless shifting rippling through the soldiers, no one was too worried about getting a scolding when they were so close to a warm meal and rest.

“Think the inn will be big enough to house all of us? Another night sleeping on the floor doesn’t sound all that nice to me.”

Touya scoffed as if his question was the stupidest thing he’d heard all day, keeping his gaze straight as he adjusted the rifle on his shoulder, the company shifting around them into formation as they approached the gates.

“You’re complaining like it’s anything new to us.”

“Harsh.”

The conversation faded after that, the rough dirt under his boots soon transitioning into the packed earth of the town’s main street as residents gathered to whisper and gawk at the soldiers passing through, the sight of their uniforms a jarring eyesore in this sleepy town.

A sleepy, familiar town.

Keigo’s mind was spinning. His restless gaze kept flicking around the too-familiar buildings and shops and people that remained after all these years. The restaurant with the broken kitchen window that was too easy to sneak into, the grocer who still kept his trash bin too close to the alley, the old woman sitting in front of her izakaya who always had ginger candy and a meal to give.

They slowed to a stop in front of the large inn, and he stared up at the building that looked much smaller than he remembered, the interior much less grand than he’d imagined it to be as they filed their way in, and he found himself in the room he once dreamed of sleeping in. There, Keigo sat in near disbelief, on the futon that wasn’t as soft as he thought it would’ve been.

“How time flies, huh?” He looked up to see Touya dropping his pack next to his futon and sitting down across from him with a melancholy grin.

There was too much Keigo wanted to say, nostalgia bitter in the back of his throat, so he settled for a matching smile.

“Old Man Yasutaro never got around to fixing that boarded up window.”

Touya barked out a surprised laugh, Keigo’s smile widening into a self-satisfied grin.

“You ever think he did that on purpose? He always did stock too much food.”

“Are you kidding?” Keigo shuddered at the phantom pain of the beatings he earned. “He was scary whenever he caught us, there’s no way mean ol’ Yasutaro would do all that just for a pair of orphans on the street.”

“Mm, I don’t know, he was always pretty sweet to Granny Tamayo, so anything that made him look good in her book.” Touya leaned back on his arms, the melancholy melting into the ease of bittersweet nostalgia. It was easier to smile through the painful memories rather than dwell on the past, so Keigo let himself toss his head back with a laugh.

“God, her ginger candy was the best.”

“You sure it was the candy? Or the granddaughter who always snuck an extra piece to you?” That earned Touya a frustrated noise of protest and a half-hearted kick he dodged.

“That was ages ago!”

“And you still react like a little boy!”

Keigo groaned, burying his face into his hands as if that would tune out Touya’s cackling laughter. It was short moments like this that took the weight off his shoulders, the murmurs of public dissent, the leaked plans of a planned riot, the magnitude of his actions tomorrow morning.

(Civilians. Of all things, why did it have to be civilians?)

He suddenly pushed himself to his feet, the heavy weight having pushed itself back onto his shoulders and slotting the familiar hum of alertness back into place. Touya gave him a knowing look that he, decidedly, ignored in favor of getting out before his mind swallowed him whole.

“Dinner is supposed to be in a bit, we should get going.”

“Wonderful job of changing the subject, really.”

“Wonderful job of being annoying.”

Touya dodged another swipe of the leg, laughing at his displeasure as he stood to follow.

“Why thank you, I try.” His grin widened with a certain glint in his eye that Keigo found himself dreading. “Now let’s get going, I heard some of the guys are at Granny Tamayo’s izakaya.”

“What?”

“My, isn’t that little Keigo? And little Touya?”

Keigo faltered halfway through the entrance, smoothing his grimace into a smile as he watched the old lady totter over from her seat with all the coddling of a grandmother. The soldiers within earshot (who were already drinking and eating away. It was barely sunset—) paused to gawk and grin at the endearing interaction.

“Not so little anymore, Granny.”

“I’ll say. Are you eating alright? Is the military treating you well?”

“Granny!”

“What’s this? Speedy and Torchface have some history here?” Keigo kept his smile smooth, only shifting it just the slightest bit into what he knew would look like a sheepish grin instead of the pained grimace underneath the surface. Boisterous laughter that only alcohol could bring rippled around the spacious izakaya, the men cracking jokes over drinks and food.

“Careful calling him Torchface, he has the temper to match.”

Ah, there it is. Touya shouldered past him to stalk towards the offending table with a scarily wide grin, pulling the loose-lipped rookie into a chokehold, his wide grin unmoving.

“‘Has a temper’ my ass, you’re just jealous that a guy with a bunch of burn scars has an easier time with women than you idiots.”

The laughter only grew louder, Granny Tamayo’s expression softening at the interaction before turning back to Keigo with a nostalgic smile.

“Not so little… I see.” She motioned to the table Touya had made a space for himself at, shoving the rookie (who was still in a chokehold, poor kid) aside to make room for him. “Take a seat, dear, and the drinks will be right out.”

The too-loud laughter and incessantly clinking glasses filled the space up with ear-grating noise, and Keigo wanted to leave. Search for peace and solitude in the quiet streets in a way that was strangely familiar.

(For a fleeting moment, he thought a quiet garden would be nice.)

However, he’d rather eat with the company of drunks rather than the void of his own mind and the horrors silence tended to bring, so the migraine starting to brew in the back of his head was a small price to pay. As was the heavy arm slung over his shoulder from some random soldier, alcohol-loosened and heavy, and the awkward conversation he found himself following along with perfectly tailored humor.

“Alright, I have two beers as well as a few rounds of edamame and—”

The familiar voice stopped short, and Keigo felt his heart stop in tandem. Slowly, he looked up and saw the girl who used to sneak out an extra candy when her grandmother wasn’t looking, now a woman in the izakaya uniform balancing trays in one hand and two mugs in the other.

“...Keigo?”

Almost as if the locked gates had been thrown open, a new rush of memories past had overcome him. Jaunts through the town disguised as adventures, clumsily dancing around an old gramophone and calling it a waltz, and the start of blossoming love. Keigo simply smiled, easygoing and familiar, like it hadn’t been years since you saw him run to the military with Touya the first chance they had, drawn by the promise of food and shelter. Like he hadn’t left a malnourished boy and come back a man with more scars than skin.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“‘Been a while.’” You rolled your eyes, setting down the mug in front of him with a huff. “The two most important people in my life run off to join the army without so much as a word, and that’s what you say?”

His words stopped halfway up his throat the moment he saw Granny Tamayo come up behind you to pinch you on the arm, the half-formed response morphing into a laugh as he watched you flinch back with a surprised (and betrayed) yelp.

“Y/N, darling, don’t be rude to the customers.” You pouted, rubbing at the sore spot on your upper arm.

“Yes, Grandmother.”

“It’s fine, Granny. Nothing new, right?” At the sight of his cheeky smile, the old woman scoffs, something endearing, before nudging him out of his seat despite your noise of protest.

“Well, since you two seem to be talking of nothing but the past, why don’t you go take a walk down memory lane?”

“Wha— Grandmother! There’s still customers—”

“Kaede can handle it just fine! Shoo, shoo, get out of my hair.”

Without missing a beat, Granny Tamayo smoothly plucked the trays from your hands and nudged you two towards the door as the soldiers watching roared with laughter and cooed jokes at the two “childhood lovers”. Keigo turned towards Touya, almost desperately, in a futile search for— what? Escape? Wasn’t he looking for escape in the first place?

“Wait, Granny, come on. Touya’s part of this too, isn’t he?”

“Don’t drag me into this, a trip down memory lane isn’t for me!” With an arm still slung over the now-wheezing rookie’s shoulder, Touya raised the cup of sake he’d ordered as if in toast. Whether it was to Keigo’s mortification, or to the potential opportunities this meant, Keigo didn’t want to know.

Probably both.

(...Probably the former, if he were to be honest with himself.)

A flurry of drunken laughter and lighthearted jokes, half-hearted protests that fell on deaf ears, and insistent pushing at his back later, he found himself standing outside the izakaya, blinking up at the full moon before looking over at you.

“...Did we just get kicked out?”

“I think we did.” You snorted, scuffing a mark into the dirt path with your heel, and Keigo wanted the earth to crack open and swallow him whole. What was he supposed to do? Stuck with the remnants of a rekindling love, the awkwardness that tended to come with years of estrangement and words that failed him when it came to you.

Well, there’s really only one thing he could do.

Talk.

“So, what’s new with you?” He immediately cringed at his choice of words, forcing himself to school his expression over into an easygoing smile instead of recoiling like he so desperately wanted to do.

Nice going there, Keigo, really.

“...Same old.” Your quiet answer snapped him out of his thoughts, and he tilted his head, almost like he was beckoning you to continue. “Same old town, same old job, same old life. I pretty much walked the path everyone knew I was going to go on as the granddaughter of the izakaya’s owner.”

You looked up with a sheepish grin, the bright moonlight casting the world (and you) in a silver glow, and Keigo felt his heart leap into his throat.

“Not the most exciting to a man from the military, huh?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve seen a lot—” Keigo rubbed at the identification tag hidden under his clothes by force of habit, the leather cord heavy around his neck. He has seen a lot. Too much, to be exact, but how would he even begin to explain the horrors of man to someone… “normal”? How could he?

For someone whose wit and silver tongue helped him survive all these years, he was awfully tongue-tied tonight. Or maybe it was just you, and the surreal lightness settling into his soul that had him stumbling over his words.

“But you’ve seen enough?” You finished his sentence with a wry grin, and the surprised laugh found itself past his lips before he could catch it. How could he forget? You were always, always a step ahead of him. Back then and even now.

“Enough of my barracks and Touya’s face? Yeah, definitely.” You swatted his arm with a huff, and the familiar action made the next laugh come a little easier, his chest a little lighter as the awkwardness slowly dissipated into something… comfortable. Normal.

“You know that’s not what I meant!”

“Well, that’s your answer, Y/N. Don’t know what else to tell you,” He shrugged in mock ignorance, and you groaned, going back to worrying at the deepening scuff in the dirt.

“What, so, we both had boring lives?”

Far from boring.

“...Yeah, I guess so.”

You pursed your lips and stared out at the quiet street, the beat of silence almost bordering on awkward by the time you broke it with a resolute sigh, starting to walk forward into the moonlight.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to make up for it somehow.”

“And how would you do that?”

“By going back to when life wasn’t so boring,” You hummed, spinning to face him and grandly spreading your arms, as if you were presenting the lantern-lit street to him, “C’mon! Tonight, this main street is memory lane!”

“Aren’t you taking me out of town at one point, though?”

“Oh, hush. Are you coming or not?”

“I’m coming, coming.”

Oh, your smile was radiant, and Keigo had to force himself to keep moving instead of gaping like a fool.

(Was it possible for him to make you smile like that all the time?)

For the next hour, time seemed to stop. The moon stood frozen in the sparkling sky, watching two star-crossed lovers go around town, laughing and reminiscing on what could’ve been. What could be, if Keigo were to be bold. You took him down Main Street as promised, and he found it hard to relate to the memories you spoke of, associating each store with scornful stares and pitiful ignorance. Eventually, you two looped around to the outskirts of town. To the river that looked more like a creek now, and the quaint houses and maze of alleyways. To familiarity.

He smiles as he watches you skip rocks in the creek, laughs when you wrinkle your nose at the dog that always seems to only bark when you two pass by Old Man Yasutaro’s gate, and revels in the memories.

“You still suck!”

“Hey! It’s not like we skip rocks all the time in the military.”

You merely rolled your eyes and continued to skip ahead, the slow and awkward trudge from before revived into the enthusiastic step he remembered, fueled by the joys of nostalgia and escape.

This, Keigo realizes, is nostalgia.

Not the pain of remembering a past he wanted to forget, not looking at alleyways to remember what used to be his childhood, not thinking of the shops as someplace otherworldly. Rather, it was this. The joy of reminiscing on good times. The joy of breathing new life into old memories.

The joy he now knew was to be found in you.

“Hey.” Your voice pulled him from his thoughts, and he looked up to see you grinning, the moonlight illuminating something akin to mischief in your eyes. “Remember that old gramophone we could never figure out when we were little?”

“You mean you could never figure out. I didn’t want to touch it because Granny Tamayo is a scary, scary woman.”

And a dirty street orphan’s hands had no place on such an expensive thing.

You rolled your eyes and he chuckled, following along anyway as you set off down the path with a new purpose. The route was familiar, and Keigo already had an idea of where this was going, but who was he to speak when you were nearly buzzing with excitement?

“What I mean to say is: I figured it out, so—” You spun in place again, taking his hand, and his heart damn near stopped, “—would you like this dance? To some actual music, this time.”

“Shouldn’t I be saying that to you? A proper lady needs the proper etiquette, after all.” His cheeky grin betrayed the politeness of his words, and you scoffed, tugging him along.

“Like you would ask me first.” Keigo’s tongue stalled around a response, scrambling for a proper comeback because you were right. Deep down, he knew that he still never would’ve asked you first for anything. It wasn’t his place. First, as a kid on the street compared to the granddaughter of the izakaya owner. Now, as a man with blood on his hands compared to an innocent civilian, untainted by the shadows of war.

Who was he to ask anything from a normal person?

“Lead the way, then.”

There was that radiant grin again, brimming with excitement and sending him reeling. Keigo couldn’t help but let your enthusiasm rub off on him as he followed you to the little communal courtyard behind Granny Tamayo’s home, where he knew that she liked to keep that Western gramophone to play for guests. You broke away to go and try and work the old machine, mumbling to yourself as you fiddled with the knobs and rifled through the records filed away in the ornate cabinet it was sitting on.

He took the chance to look around the empty courtyard, struck with the realization that it hadn’t changed at all in the years he was gone. He left all those years ago, only to return to a town that seemed almost frozen in time. It was too far from the cities for all the modern inventions to catch up with it, so the only things that changed were, well, the people. Keigo most of all. What if he hadn’t—

The sudden burst of music and your shout of victory cut off his wandering train of thought, and you walked back into his line of vision with a triumphant grin.

“I still don’t know how to fix the tempo, so the song’s a little slow. You’ll have to forgive me for that.” You offered up your hand and tilted your head, still smiling. “May I have this dance?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“Like you’d ask me first.”

【 ☀︎ 】

Keigo grinned in well-earned defeat, and his hand slipped into yours with the other on your waist. The music swelled, and he took the first step.

One, two, three, one, two, three…

With too-slow, clumsy steps, the two of you slowly began waltzing your way around the small courtyard. You still kind of didn’t know how to work the gramophone—the song almost eerily slow, despite the years of fiddling—but that didn’t matter in the face of the giddy smiles shared, your soft laughs when he spun you in a flash of spontaneity, and the nostalgia of old times.

Before, he was a scrawny kid on the street who clumsily tried to follow the steps of the pretty girl playing a song on her father’s gramophone. Tomorrow, he would be Private First Class Takami Keigo, fighting for his life on the battlefield. Tonight, he would be normal again, slow dancing to Clair de Lune playing off an old, off-beat gramophone with you in his arms, mourning a start he didn’t get to have.

(As normal as a kid scrounging for scraps on the street could’ve been.)

Your voice, soft and wavering, broke the stillness of the moment, as if it were something taboo that shouldn’t have been uttered into existence at all.

“Keigo?”

“Yes, beautiful?”

You flushed at the endearment, the next words shattering his illusion of happiness within nostalgia with the renewed vigor of confidence in the face of the impossible.

“Will you come home?”

Home.

A simple word, really. And yet it dropped like a stone in his chest. Home meant a roof over his head. Home meant warm food on the table. Home meant a simple life in a sleepy rural town. Home meant the promise of a new beginning.

To you, “home” probably meant nothing more than the place you had known all your life.

To him, “home” meant you.

So, like a dreamer in love, he answered with all the confidence of a fool.

“Yeah... I will. I don’t care how long it’ll take me, but I’ll come home.”

He thought the shaky lilt to his voice would’ve given him away, or the way his step faltered in the already clumsy waltz as if trying to step around what he knew should’ve been the answer.

Instead, you laughed. Something soft, and let him spin you once more.

“Well, I’ve already waited a couple years, what’s a little more waiting?”

Keigo had to keep himself from double checking if this was real. Dancing with you in the moonlight as he tried to step around the reality of that answer with all the awkward grace of a scared child.

One, two, three, one, two, three…

Truth be told, the both of you knew the answer long before you had pushed the question into desperate existence, searching for a shred of hope. That his simple answer should have been an realistic “I don’t know” or a pessimistic “no promises”, instead of a foolish “yes.”

Instead, he slowed the waltz to a sway, pulling you close to both ingrain the feeling of you into his soul and to hopefully hide the resigned melancholy of a soldier being carted off to uncertainty.

And, for a traitorous moment, Keigo wondered.

Dreamed, even.

What would it have been like to have a “normal” life? Instead of grasping the hand of desperation, would he have grown out of the side alleys and homes made of boxes into a “respectable” man? Maybe he could’ve gotten a job at the grocer’s, at Old Yasutaro’s restaurant, or maybe even Granny Tamayo’s izakaya. Could he have—he pulled you closer, pressing a ghost of a kiss to your temple—could he have courted you the “right” way? Brought you flowers and honey-sweet words of praise and promises of a happy future, instead of a single night dancing in the moonlight with a brittle promise hanging in the tense air that the both of you clung onto like a lifeline. A promise that Keigo wasn’t even sure he could fulfill.

He would later come to regret this single moment. Of this, he was sure.

(But, as you lifted your head from his chest with glassy eyes and a shaky smile, he knew he wasn’t alone in this regret.)

Keigo knew the words that you wished to let fall into the night air, in hopes of making that brittle promise tangible. Of giving life to a bright future with three little words. The reality crawled up his throat like poison, bitter and cloying, something that he knew shouldn’t be said. Keigo settled for gently wrapping his hand around your head to pull you closer, filtering the harsh truth into something a little softer, the bittersweet tone marking the unspoken truth as a reality instead of the dreams of a future.

One… two… three…

“Don’t,” He muttered, heart tightening as he felt you go rigid in his arms, “I know. Please, God, I know—”

You slowly relaxed in his arms with all the bitter acceptance of a night before battle, and he murmured the next words into another ghost of a kiss. A whisper against your lips, seen only by the fading notes of a song in the moonlight.

“—but don’t.”

【 ☀︎ 】

Keigo’s breath was rattling, ears ringing with war cries, death wails, and everything in between. The once-blue noon sky was now a startling haze of ash gray, thick with the choking scent of the world burning.

He couldn’t even tell where the carnage started or ended anymore.

(Would it ever end?)

How long has it been since the first shot?

(Too long.)

Would he live to see the sunset?

(Of all times to worry about this, why now?)

The incessant drill of artillery fire was nothing new to him, as was the stench of the battlefield that could only be described as death. What was new, was something that pushed his aching body to keep moving, the autopilot state he usually entered backed with something raw. Something like fear.

Something like the will to survive.

The pain that set his nerves on fire has long since faded, all the pain of countless wounds blending together into something numbed by the adrenaline of survival. Were the wet patches on his uniform sweat? Blood? Both? He couldn’t tell anymore, all he knew was survival and the persistent voice whispering deadly distraction in the back of his mind.

Civilians. You’re fighting civilians, you mur—

The skin of his back prickled, the telltale whistling of something flying screeched in his ears, and his reflexes yanked him to dive out of the way before his mind could catch up. Not even a second later, another explosive detonated behind him and heat blazed across his back. His nerves screamed fresh pain into his senses and he grit his teeth, ignoring the concerning sound of sizzling over the ringing in his ears in favor of ducking into cover, collapsing against the wall of a destroyed building.

Since when did regular people know how to make bombs?!

In the next breath, someone else had ducked into the small shelter he’d found in this hellscape of a city.

Well, the remains of one. All hell broke loose once the other side brought homemade explosives into the fray and now, as he stared at the burning and destruction, Keigo wondered if those Westerners who muttered meaningless blessings whenever they passed were right.

If this “Hell” they spoke of really was on Earth.

He turned his head, suddenly sluggish, to the man that had joined him in the makeshift cover, and grinned at the familiar face.

“Hey, man.”

(Maybe giving his body a chance to slow down was a mistake.)

Touya ignored his exhausted greeting, instead opting to yank a rag from his pouch as he pulled Keigo to sit up so he could press the rag into the deep gashes the shrapnel had gouged into his back. Keigo immediately groaned in protest at the stinging pain, despite how necessary he knew it was.

“Fucking— how did you even survive that?”

“Dunno,” He let out a weak laugh, “Don’t think I will—”

“Finish that sentence and I’ll kill you myself.” Despite his harsh threat, Touya pressed the slowly darkening rag deeper into his wound. A desperate (futile) attempt to stop the life pooling onto the floor underneath them, steadily flowing from the deep gashes in his back and all the other wounds peppering his body.

“Isn’t that the exact opposite—” He hissed in pain at the pressure on his wounds, “—of what you want?”

“Shut up.”

“You know you don’t want me doing that.”

(He was right. Keigo running his mouth meant that he was breathing. Meant that he was alive.)

Touya pressed his lips into a thin line, Keigo blearily tracking the way his burn scars pulled with the movement.

Grounding himself, that’s what he’s supposed to do during times like this, right? Hell, he didn’t know. Not every day he came so close to death. Touya really needed to look into something for those sc—

“For the love of the gods, I am begging you to shut up.”

Ah, he said all that out loud? He managed to muster up a sheepish grin, despite Touya’s grim expression.

“Ooh, Touya? Begging? That’s a first, I should stay awake to hear it.” Keigo didn’t have to look to know that the rag was soaked through and Touya was fighting against the inevitable at this point. Keigo? He… he was too tired to fight to keep his eyes open. Too cold.

“Maybe you should stay awake to go home, loverboy.”

“I should.” He fumbled to find purchase, pressing his palm into the ground and scooting his feet closer for leverage. “Can’t leave Y/N waiting after all.”

Maybe it was the delirium from the blood-loss, or the desperation of this cursed situation, but Keigo tried to pull himself up. To move, to get somewhere safer, somewhere where he could survive. His palm slipped on the blood-slick floor underneath him and he came crashing down once more, his strength disappearing along with it as he slumped against Touya.

“Ah—”

“Shit, I’ll get you to the medic.”

Keigo groaned at the pain of his wounds being jostled as Touya tried to haul the deadweight of his sluggish body up. The reality of the situation weighed heavy on his shoulders (or was it his strength leaving him?) and he licked his chapped lips, whispering the grim truth into the ash-hazy air.

“I’m not gonna make it to the medic.”

“How many times do I have to keep telling you to shut up?” Another attempt to pull him to his feet, and Keigo managed to push out a weak laugh.

“Just a couple more times.”

“Hey… hey, c’mon now, I still have to make fun of you and Y/N for being the most disgusting couple I’ve ever met.” He carefully shook Keigo, trying desperately to get him to keep his drooping eyes open.

“Aw, don’t tease Y/N too badly.”

Something changed in Touya’s voice, a block in his throat that he had to force his words through, and he clutched the dripping rag closer to his wounds as he muttered out his response.

“I won’t.”

“Good, good,” Keigo’s hands clumsily fumbled for the cord wrapped over his chest, tugging at it until it came loose. “Hey, can you tell Y/N that I’ll do my best to come home? In any way I can.”

“...Just do it yourself.”

“Mm, that would… that would be nice. Coming home, I mean. I promised… Y/N… I would…”

His words faded, and Touya froze, arms suspended in midair around the slumped form of his best friend, his stunned gaze locked on the identification tag hanging from a limp, bloody hand.

“Kei...go?”

【 ☀︎ 】

Waiting was agony.

You used to think you were a patient person, years of dealing with drunks, horrible customers, and everything in between training the patience of a saint into you.

Today, however, revealed that you were anything but. The moment the company had crested the hill and out of sight, your anxieties slowly overcame you the farther they went. Working in the izakaya helped, the constant flow of customers and orders kept you on your feet and your thoughts off the battle that was no doubt waging mere miles away. Every so often, a wandering patron would come in murmuring that they heard bits and pieces of the battle, and you forced yourself to forget again.

All that effort was lost once the company’s runner came barreling through the town, shouting that the soldiers were on their way back. That they needed spaces cleared for the wounded and their lodgings secured. They called for the doctor, they called for food, they called for supplies.

If you didn’t know any better, it would’ve sounded like a cry for help.

Word spread like wildfire, and the rush of serving customers turned into the rush of trying to help prepare for the soldiers’ return. None of it helped get your mind off the one thing you didn’t want to worry about. If anything, it just shoved all your worries to the forefront of your mind, accompanied by the dull headaches of something you hoped were just random fantasies.

(Fantasies of a lotus garden, a guarded grin, a red hairpin, a betrayal—)

Would he have to be wrapped in the bandages you were carrying? Would he have to rest in the bedding in your hands? Would he be able to eat the food your grandmother was preparing?

Then, they came.

A slow straggle of wounded and weary men, leaning and limping on each other as they slowly trickled in through the main street.

There were many things that wouldn’t happen, you would later realize, watching the company trudge back into the town. Their formation was shaky from the hobbling wounded, and you felt your heart drop as you desperately searched the noticeably thinner crowd, trying to peek through the uniforms and bandages and dented helmets for any sign that he had come home. That he had survived.

How many men did they lose?

(Too many.)

You watched the flow of soldiers slowly follow their commander to their lodgings and the doctor, the once boisterous crowd now silent and battle-worn. The rookie that had just been under a chokehold the other night was now cradling bandaged wounds and a gaunt expression that only told of his first brushes with death.

One soldier broke from the crowd to make his way towards you, and—for a fleeting moment—you hoped.

And just as quickly as it came, that hope you had soon sunk into despair once you saw who it was, and what he held in his scarred hands.

Across the street, a man broke rank, with a heavier burden than most would’ve thought and few would ever experience. He hoped that no one would have to experience this, a death and the task of delivering such news weighing heavy on his shoulders.

Life, Touya thinks, is cruel.

It left such a brilliant mind like Keigo to starve with him on the streets.

It forced him to run to the military in desperation, searching for steady food and shelter.

It snatched away the one man who had salvation waiting for him.

Death, Touya grieves, is even crueler.

Keigo would never get to go home.

He wouldn’t get to see the joy on your face once you welcomed him home with open arms.

(How could he? When your expression twists into something akin to dawning horror instead of joy, watching Touya make his way up to you with downcast eyes and a heavy bundle of fabric carefully cradled in his palm.)

He wouldn’t get to start the new life he deserved, in a sleepy rural town with the one he adored.

He wouldn’t get to fulfill his promise to you.

A promise that everyone knew was too risky a promise to make. Yet, he believed enough to make it to you.

A promise that Touya holds back on his tongue because he knew this—a little metal disc on a bloodstained cord—wouldn’t fulfill it, not when he hands you the neat square of scrap fabric and watches your tears flow before you even open it. Not when you slip out a worn identification tag, holding it up to the sunset to try and make out the letters you already knew were there.

A lantern illuminates what the fading sunlight could not, casting the stamped characters of Keigo’s bloodied name in an amber glow, and you crumble.

【 ☀︎ 】

Dawn finds Professor Takami, Head of the Sociology Department, first through the doors of the campus café with essays to be finished grading in one hand and his laptop bag in the other.

The cashier greets him with a familiar warmth as he steps up to the counter, his staple order already halfway punched into the register with a knowing smile that he forces himself to return. There’s a nervous energy simmering under his skin that he can’t seem to shake, and it shows. The barista (Touya. His name is Touya. He literally has one of the guy’s essays in his hand, fucking hell. Get it together, Keigo) shoots the normally easygoing professor a worried look as he slides the warmed pastry across the counter to him, the full sleeves of swirling blue and black ink a stark contrast against the smooth wood of the counter.

“Everything good with you, Professor?”

“Perfect, now that I got my pastry. Think I’ll be even better once I drink some coffee.”

Nothing was perfect, and he couldn’t even put a finger on what it was.

He plastered a convincing smile on his face as he picked up the too-heavy plate, careful to hold it steady before making a beeline for his usual table. The faster he got to sit down at his usual corner booth and sort himself out, the better.

He knew that he would just drown himself in grading papers instead of figuring out what was making him feel off, but it was the thought that counted.

The hum of energy under his skin was nothing new to him. Something deep inside that made him almost jumpy, wary of the peaceful days that had consumed his entire life, lying in wait for… something. For what? Keigo wished he knew.

(For battles yet started, for warcries yet sung, for survival yet fought for.)

All he knew was that the strange hum that threatened to vibrate him out of his own skin was different this time. Wrong. It didn’t help that his sleep had been suffering for the past week, plagued by dreams and nightmares both of eras past, the blurry picture of the same person a constant sight in the swirling mix of history. Images flickering between a secluded lotus garden and an elaborate kimono to an old izakaya and Clair de Lune at moonrise. Images of yearning and blood and tragedy and endings before the beginnings.

At least his conversations with the once-intimidating Japanese Literature professor got a smidge more interesting.

With the resolute click of a red pen, he swept away the thoughts clouding his mind as he resigned himself to his fate of just dealing with the strange mood for now, fully intent on getting to work. Years of repetition and muscle memory had him opening up his email with practiced ease, quietly sighing to himself as he waited for the doubtlessly endless emails from students and colleagues alike to load.

Would procrastinating just the tiniest bit by fiddling with the rolled cuffs of his sleeves or pushing up his glasses for the nth time help at all?

No, but it let Keigo expel the weirdly restless energy in what ways he could, the creeping sense of foreboding setting his nerves into overdrive. The page loaded and he frowned at the onslaught of emails he knew were going to flood his inbox.

Hell, he expected them to.

What he didn’t expect were the contents, the subject lines all variations of “Did you know?” and “There’s no way” and “I can’t believe it” from colleagues he didn’t even talk to regularly. Sure, the email from the cultural anthropology professor made sense, but the graphic design professor? The head of the business department?

Before he could open the first email of many, his laptop chirped out the familiar ‘ding!’ of a new email, the sound rippling through the café as everyone’s phones and laptops lit up with the same message.

A schoolwide email? Okay, th—

The world slowed to a crawl, everyone in the packed coffee shop silencing almost at once and the shocked whispers rippling throughout the space only serving to make the silence all the more deafening (“Hey, check your email.” and “Look at this.” and “No way.” and it was too loud someone please make it stop—), his ears near ringing as he struggled to tear his gaze away from the picture embedded at the top of the page.

“Looking a little rough there.” The cotton suddenly stuffing his ears muffled the barista’s voice and would’ve made him jump out of his skin had he been focused on anything but burning the email into his eyes. God, he’d barely even registered the guy coming up to serve his coffee, what was wrong with him? “Professor? Was it that email?”

“Y-Yeah, I just read it.” He cleared his throat and slid the mug closer to himself, taking a sip of the scalding hot coffee to ground himself as he stared at the picture of you.

The barista merely arched a pierced brow and muttered a soft “ah.” before going back to his spot behind the espresso machine, vibrant blue eyes tracking the rattled professor suspiciously. Keigo was too preoccupied to thank him as he usually would’ve. Too preoccupied with what was staring back at him from his laptop screen.

A picture placed right under the subject line plastering “Unfortunate news about Prof. L/N Y/N” across his screen, the few words in the body text (that he could pick out through the sudden tidal wave of memories past clicking into place) painted an image that he couldn’t help but mourn.

After being reported missing… remains found… will be missed.

Will be missed…

Well, now that he thought about it, Keigo had been missing you all his life, hadn’t he?

Both figuratively and literally, always arriving after you left and vice versa, never really seeming to connect in person. Any emails were shrouded with a veil of professionalism that he couldn’t pierce through. Yet, there were things so irrevocably you that he knew to pick out now. The jovial note at the end of your emails, the unapologetically confident sharpness to your words, the extra mug you left for the next person that passed through the faculty lounge (that somehow always ended up being him on the days he was rushing to his next lecture).

All these things, all these moments, and the fool had passed all of them by.

The restless energy humming under his skin through his entire being disappeared much quicker than it had come, its job done, leaving a gaping void in its wake that was shockingly familiar. Almost as if this wasn’t the first time this had happened, where the curtains never raised on the beginning you two could’ve had. He took a shuddering, stabilizing breath (that didn’t work), too numb to feel the freshly brewed coffee scalding his tongue that he had hoped would pull him back to reality, hoped the sweet taste would wash away the bitterness at the back of his throat and the splitting headache of years upon years of memories crashing into him like a tidal wave.

Professor Takami had work to get done.

Keigo could mourn later.

Even as he convinced himself of that, he couldn’t even bring himself to brush the dead lotus petals off his work, the sight of the wilted centerpiece only bringing more pain. The cruel coincidence of the once bloomed flowers now dead in his hands didn’t go unnoticed, and Keigo desperately tried to bore the printed words laid in front of him into his mind.

As if doing that would sear away the sudden onslaught of memories, dead lotus petals igniting a yearning for a long-demolished lotus garden and a pretty concubine who didn’t belong in the palace (or was it a small town and the life he could’ve had?) and the love that slipped through his fingers once more.

Did you go through this too? When he—

The half-graded essays lay untouched for the rest of the day, red ink disappearing in the crimson light cast by the setting sun.

【 ☀︎ 】

When did I…?

He blinked down at the concrete under his feet, stunned, before looking up to see an endless sea of trains passing in front of him. The incessant rushing of the trains around him had replaced the silence of the hotel room he was supposed to be sound asleep in, the too-rhythmic noise of the train tracks surrounding him in an almost ethereal white noise.

I had just gone to bed… How did I end up at a train station?

He winced at the glare of the midday sun reflecting off of the last car of the train passing in front of him, before stopping short at the sight of someone standing on the other side of the tracks—alone—revealed by the passing train. His heart leapt into his throat and pushed a name he didn’t know and wouldn’t remember out of his lips. There was no way he knew her, the multi-layered kimono and elegant hairpins looked like something out of a millenia-old ukiyo-e print and wholly out of place in a modern train station. But... something deep in his soul knew that it was right, and it sang as he watched the woman turn around.

“You’re dreaming right now, Keigo. Go back to sleep,”

“What…?”

“It’s true,” The woman tilted her head with the soft smile that he’d missed so much (missed? Wasn’t this his first time seeing it?) and the ancient hairpieces jingled and swayed with the movement, his gaze locking on a familiar crimson gemstone catching the sunlight, “Don’t believe me? Try to count some numbers, then. One… two…”

Another train hurtled past, blocking his view once more as her painted lips moved soundlessly around the final number.

“Three.”

Keigo sat up with a gasp, staring at the soft shafts of light the sunrise painted on the walls.

It was the start of a new day, and he found himself mourning something lost that he couldn’t even remember.

Dawn finds Hawks, the number two hero, leaping out of his Tokyo hotel window, wind catching on vermilion wings to buffer his descent to the sidewalk.

He was far from home, his current mission dragging him all the way to Tokyo from his agency in Fukuoka. Sneakers touched concrete, and he started down the path where he was supposed to meet with the last person he wanted to see right now. Especially after that mess with the High-End Nomu. He shuddered, spreading his wings as if to remind himself that they were all there, recovered after that hellish fight.

Come to the location on foot, he’d been told, and don’t be conspicuous.

Weird request, and it was kind of hard to remain inconspicuous when he was the number two hero and had a pair of bright red wings announcing his identity to the world. Alas, he needed to cooperate or else he’d end up jeopardizing the entire mission, so Keigo settled for ditching his hero costume in favor of casual clothes and a cap to hide his identity. He pulled a mask over his nose and tucked his wings closer to further help conceal himself as he walked down the street, dipping into the first alley he saw.

His path through the grid of alleyways and side streets had already been mapped out the days before, so it was just a matter of making the short trek there. Unfortunately, the area wasn’t the best, and Keigo found himself slowed by sidestepping trash and the occasional bottle of liquor. The scent of stale alcohol only brought unpleasant fragments of memories, and he pushed them aside in favor of quickening his pace.

“My, not every day I see such a bigshot hero pass by.”

He almost tripped over another bottle, wings ruffling in surprise as he cursed himself for being caught off guard.

There was an old woman sitting there, a steaming cup of tea in her hands as she sat outside her quaint little storefront.

A flower shop, in this secluded side street?

“Ah, sorry, ma’am, you have the wrong person. I mean, me? The number 2 pro hero?” He was quick to deny her, sheepishly scratching the back of his neck. She merely hummed and took another sip of her tea.

“Do I? Well, this old woman’s eyes aren’t what they used to be after all.” She set down the cup and stepped out of her chair, shuffling over to the water feature on the other side of the doorway that served as an attraction. He could see why, the soft rush of the small waterfall and fragrant lotuses drawing his attention the more he stared.

Suddenly, the woman plucked one of the younger lotuses, patting the stem dry before handing it to him with a smile.

“Uh—”

“You saved my son that day, from the Nomu attack in Fukuoka. This is the least I could do.”

Against his better judgement—he really needed to get going to catch the train in time—he took the half-bloomed lotus in his hands and pulled down his mask to smile at her.

“Your eyes are… actually pretty sharp, ma’am. Thank you.”

She laughed, sitting back in her seat and sent him on his way. The rest of the walk went smoothly after that, and he soon found himself jogging up the stairs to the station, muttering under his breath as he checked his watch.

Right on time.

【 ☀︎ 】

A strange sense of deja vu creeped into his chest as he stepped onto the platform in Minami-senju station. He’d been feeling off all day, and the weird sense of familiarity that had been tugging at the back of his mind didn’t help. Luckily, he’d managed to arrive in time to catch the noon train so the rest of his schedule should hopefully go smoothly from here. A departing train screeched into motion, and he winced at the rippling glare of sunlight that reflected into his eyes, the strange deja vu rearing its head again.

Keigo stared at the train passing in front of him as he idly twirled the lotus stem in between his fingers. The words left his lips before he could catch himself.

“One… two…” He cut himself off with a sigh, dropping his head and dragging a hand over his face.

It was ridiculous. He was being ridiculous.

Keigo.

His head shot up at the sound of his name, the world darkening under the shade of a passing cloud. Did he just imagine that? He had to. The train station was practically stranded, and there was no one even close enough to call his name without shouting across the station (if they even knew his name in the first place). Despite his better judgement, he wet his lips and shut his eyes, the strangely familiar words passing his lips once more as he desperately tried to recall the familiarity he longed for.

“One…”

I want to see you.

“Two…”

I don’t even know who you are, but I miss you anyway.

“Three—”

Suddenly, the steady rhythm of the train tracks silenced and left him with the raging drum of his heartbeat, the blood rushing in his ears as he stared at the person standing on the other side of the tracks. The emerging sun smiled upon him, casting the world in light once more as his voice locked around a familiar name he’d never spoken.

It started as a hushed whisper, and he swallowed the lump in his throat to call the name thrice ingrained into his soul.

“Y/N!”

The familiar smile that bloomed across your lips was answer enough as he pushed through the newly arrived train to the other side, to you. He reached out, clawing through the rush hour crowd (why were there so many people? Why were you so far? Closer, closer, closer—) and he nearly sobbed in relief as you fell into his arms, clinging to each other as your souls finally, finally, melded together as one. Now and forevermore.

The questions could come later, but now... he had a promise to fulfill.

He was home.

notes: minami-senju train station is located in very close proximity (a two-minute walk) from what is left of the kozukappara execution grounds, where a temple now stands in its place. he’s made quite the journey to come full circle, hasn’t he?

#takami keigo x reader #keigo takami x reader #keigo x reader #hawks x reader #bnha oneshot #hawks x reader angst #mha oneshot #bnha reader insert #mha reader insert #reincarnation au #from the typewriter #pocuties #cw death #tw death #cw blood #tw blood #cw war #tw war #if you'd like me to add a warning please let me know!

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redrobbingabank · 3 years

Text

Prison Break

Tw: lots of violence, blood

The white pastry box in her hands was heavy with the weight of the pie. Niki walked down the prime path the way she always did, smiling softly, sweater sleeves covering her hands. It had been a long time since she truly felt the way. She wasn’t sure when it had become a disguise, but it had, and everyone believed it without batting an eye. Beneath it, rage burned, hot but controlled. Always controlled. Her best weapon, she knew, was how she was perceived. Patience would pay off. Nothing but pain was coming for the people who’d locked her friend away.

She found Sam outside the museum. He leaned against the pillar, turning an unlit cigarette over and over in his fingers. He glanced up at her footsteps, then pushed himself off the pillar and pocketed the cigarette.

Niki smiled brightly. “Sam! I was just looking for you.” She hurried up the steps and under the awning outside the museum. The light rain a few feet away droned on.

“Hey, Niki.” Sam sounded tired. He looked it, too. Purple bags under his eyes were made starker by the unhealthy pallor of his face. “How are you?”

“I’m good. Are you okay?” she asked, arranging her features into a concerned look. “You look exhausted.”

Sam blinked a few times. “Yeah, I’m good. Just all the stuff that’s happened around the prison. Tommy, you know?”

No mention of Techno. Nothing about the lies, about how he and Quackity had pulled him away from his damn birthday party to lure him in. Niki nodded understandingly. “I’m sure it’ll all work out in the end,” she said. Then she held out the box. “I made you a pie. Felt like you might need a pick me up on guard duty so often.”

A small smile appeared on Sam’s face. “Thanks, Niki. I really appreciate that.” He took the box, opening it to find a pumpkin pie and cutlery taped to the side. “Pumpkin! My favorite.”

“I was hoping I remembered right.” Niki smiled again. There was a chance it wouldn’t work, she knew. That Sam would set it aside for later. But he had a parentlike streak. Niki had seen it in his interactions with Tommy. So she tweaked her gaze, made it subtly more hopeful and excited. Sam noticed, and freed the fork from the side of the box. He relaxed a little at the first bite of the comfort food and immediately ate more. “It’s good?” Niki asked sweetly.

Sam nodded. “It’s amazing. Thank you, Niki, really. I needed this.” He swallowed another bite, and two things that would oppose each other happened. First, his eyes widened with panic. Then they began turning glassy. “What…” his knees buckled, and he slowly slid down the pillar before falling sideways.

It had worked. Niki and Jack had been playing around for a while. Mixing potions together, testing the effects. They’d found a combination Jack had named Aurora’s Poison. Weakness, slowness, the scantest drop of harming, and a ground up petal from a wither rose. Death without stillness.

Sam’s face had taken on a bluish tinge, but his chest still moved up and down. His eyes were half open. “Niki… ” he mumbled, “help.”

Finally, the facade could fall. Niki’s smile turned into a cold smirk. She squatted beside him, strands of pink hair falling into her face. “Oh, Sam.” His lighter had fallen from his pocket. She picked it up and sparked it, studying the flame before looking back at him. “You don’t deserve my help.”

There was the faintest glimmer of realization in his eyes before they closed for good. “Sweet dreams, Warden. The Syndicate sends its regards,” Niki murmured. She stood. Let Quackity try to wake him. He was a living corpse.

She stepped back into the rain, her boots the only sound on the prime path as she returned to the underground bunker Techno had left in his instructions. Phil and Ranboo were already inside and suited up. There were two more pairs of netherite armor on stands against the back wall. One was for her. The second was for Techno.

“How’d it go?” Phil asked.

“Perfectly,” she replied, tying the straps of the chestplate. Phil’s armor had two bumps on the back, designed specifically to accommodate his wings. He had his sword in hand, shield leaning against his wall. A crossbow and quiver were slung across his back, and Techno’s sword hung from his belt. “Didn’t know what hit him.”

Ranboo looked the calmest Niki had ever seen him. Normally, he fidgeted constantly. Now, his hands were still, aside from the way they drifted to his axe handle. His face was set determinedly, and his crown hung from his armor stand, swapped out for a helmet. He’d been the one to get them the armor. It shone with the best enchantment the server could offer. Niki had known he was rich, but she hadn’t realized exactly how much he’d been sitting on. Her jaw had nearly dropped when, before they set out, he passed a totem to each of them.

“Need help?” he asked, taking half a step towards her when she started struggling with her gauntlets.

“I’ve got it.” Ranboo returned to the wall. He began tracing the blade of his axe lightly with his finger.

When she’d finally gotten all her armor in place, Niki crossed to the rack of weapons. She seized her bow and a quiver of harming arrows, slinging them across her back. She and Phil were the contingency plans if they were somehow pursued. Finally, she picked up her own axe. Its enchantments hummed, sending thrills up her arm. “Ready.”

“Ranboo?” Phil asked. The teenager nodded. “Alright, then.” He flicked the lever by the door. The sound of breaking glass filled the air as potion bottles broke. Niki felt the difference immediately, her bones strengthening with the magic. “Let’s go.”

Phil had known anger before. His life had been too long not to. There had been a time, before Techno, before Wilbur, that he let it consume him. Then Techno had arrived, and it was like impulse control had been installed. They were still formidable, of course, but Phil didn’t seek war anymore.

He knew grief, too. He knew the way it moved, the way it played with you until you wanted to sink beneath its waves and drown. It had consumed him after Wil’s death. He could hardly bring himself to clean his sword before he fell into a stupor in front of the fireplace. It had been Techno, again, who pulled him out of it. Who’d given him a new sword and convinced him to play war games until the sight of blood didn’t send him vomiting to the bathroom. There would be no Techno to pull him out if this went wrong. Phil might as well be dead too.

Ranboo and Niki followed him out of the bunker. The streets were empty as they silently made their way to the prison.

They didn’t bother to ring the bell. The three of them stood in the portal until reality straightened itself out. Phil had Techno’s will clutched in his hand. The bundle of papers had been empty, at first, until a few days ago. Writing had begun appearing, in Dream’s messy, spiked scrawl. Sam was a fool, Phil thought. He couldn’t take away Techno’s knowledge of spells.

He strode to the corner of the little room they were in. A loose tile was there, easily unnoticeable if you weren’t looking for it. Phil lifted it and threw it to the side. There was a loud crack when it hit the wall. He flipped the lever beneath it. “Thirty seconds before it resets,” he said, returning to the portal. Niki and Ranboo followed suit, and the prison constructed itself around them.

It was all so darkly decorated. Alright, edgelord, Phil thought sarcastically. They bypassed the waver on its lectern and the lockers to the side. Phil flicked the levers according to the code Techno had written. A door opened, and they took the tunnel Sam used into the next room.

Their way through the prison was marked by similar proceedings, and Phil’s mind was left to go on autopilot.

Techno knew it was a trap. He’d told him so a week ago, standing in the snow outside their houses. The moment he was out of sight, Phil had opened the will. He’d thought the message of the empty papers was clear: do what you want, lol.

So he’d gone to the stasis chambers and waited by the levers. Three days, he gave himself. Then he’d hit the lever, and Techno would be home safe.

Then it was four days, and Phil wasn’t sure why he’d waited longer. The pearls were a safety blanket. Using them would make things better. Unless what they revealed made it worse.

Then, on the fifth day, he’d woken up to a scratchy, crinkly noise from the will. Scrambling out of bed, he’d turned the pages over, and found the ink still wet. And what had Techno written, first thing?

PHIL, DON’T USE THE PEARLS. I NEED THE VIEWS FROM A COOL ESCAPE.

The dramatic little shit. But Techno had lain out his plan, and like always, it was smart. Phil had gathered the Syndicate, and they’d been ready.

A hint of nerves appeared in Ranboo’s eyes when they passed the iron door into the main cell area. Phil understood it. When they’d hung out, Ranboo told him how it was the point of no return, in a way. They all remembered what happened to Tommy. But Ranboo had three lives, Phil assured himself, and hoped the teen remembered too. He’d be fine. So would Niki. And Techno.

They travelled through the respawn checkpoints and extra rooms until they were in front of the lava wall. Ranboo glanced at the bed. “Should we set our spawn here?”

Phil shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to be spawn-trapped in here, but if you want to, go ahead.” Ranboo looked at the ground. Remorse tugged at Phil. “Sorry. Just a joke,” he said. Ranboo nodded.

Waiting for the lava to come down would take too long. Phil threw a few potions of fire resistance down on them and flipped the lever so the bridge would be safe when they returned. Then, with Ranboo and Niki standing on the bridge, he flipped the lever. He ran and leapt onto the bridge with the help of the jump boost pots from earlier.

The flames surrounded them in orange light. They couldn’t see each other. The lava tickled, almost, drying them off from the rain outside.

They came out the other side with a few blocks between them and the cell. Phil blinked a few times, readjusting to the low light, and froze. He hadn’t expected to be greeted by what was there.

Ranboo worried. It was in his nature. So of course, when he’d heard the plan, he took precautions for failure.

Tubbo was back in Snowchester with Jack by his request. They were in the control room, with a nuke armed and ready to hit the prison. Michael would be there too. Ranboo had made Tubbo promise not to let him out of his sight. Ranboo had never been more grateful for his husband’s habit of not asking questions.

His comms had been burning a hole in his pocket the whole way here. One message and it would all go up.

Now, though, he forgot all about the nukes as the bridge came to a stop at the cell block. Anger took its place. “Quackity,” he said in a near growl, “what are you doing.”

The scene before them looked like a horror movie. Blood, dry and fresh, coated the floor of the cell. Dream –– Dream –– was curled in the corner, shaking. Quackity stood in the middle of the room with a sword in his hand, grinning. And Techno.

Ranboo’s friend was standing by the back wall. His cape was torn. He was bleeding, too, but Ranboo couldn’t tell from where. He did, however, see the way Techno was just barely leaning against the wall behind him. His heart clenched.

“Oh, hey guys,” Techno said. Despite everything, his voice still came out strong and unbothered. “Nice timing.”

“Hey, guys.” Quackity flipped the sword in his grip so the point was against the ground, then leaned on the hilt. “Surprise seeing you here.” His easy grin didn’t reach his eye.

Ranboo vaguely remembered a day in old L’Manburg. He and Quackity had shared a pot of coffee and talked about Ranboo’s thoughts on people versus sides. He’d felt like Quackity understood. He’d thought he’d befriended someone who wouldn’t betray him. “Quackity,” he repeated, lifting his axe, “what are you doing.”

Behind him, Niki and Phil were moving. He didn’t pay attention to their movements, just trusting them to be ready.

“Ranboo,” Quackity said. “I get you’re probably mad. I saw you at Techno’s party, you two are friends. So first, I’m sorry you had to see this.” I bet you are, Ranboo thought. “Second, I’m only doing it because Techno’s a threat. I can’t let him be out in the world, causing problems.”

“You. Are. Torturing. Him,” Ranboo said. “Both of them!”

“Eh, Dream’s had it worse,” Techno shrugged.

“Shut up,” Quackity snapped. Ranboo’s temper snapped.

Of all the people in the room, Quackity probably hadn’t expected Ranboo to make the first move. It took him two steps to reach him, three more to shove him back against the wall. He held his axe to Quackity’s throat. “Who’s next on your list, huh?” he snarled. “Who’s the next ‘threat’ you’re gonna take out?”

Quackity’s eyes flashed. “Well, I hadn’t been thinking on it much,” he grinned, “but Tubbo and that outpost aren’t exactly making me feel comfortable.”

A furious scream built in Ranboo’s throat. He drew back his axe, to do what he didn’t know ––

“Ranboo?” It was Dream, looking up at him. For a moment, Ranboo was thrown into chaos. He couldn’t tell if it was really Dream, or all in his head. A small blade pierced the chink in his armor. He stumbled back, blinking, and the time it took for him to rip the cork from a Regen pot and pour it over the spot was all Quackity needed to ruin his advantage.

He launched himself at Ranboo. Phil intercepted him, netherite screaming as their swords collided. Niki was by Techno, offering him Healing and Regen while he leaned more heavily on the wall.

The moment the prickling in his gut subsided, Ranboo threw himself into the fight. Phil was quickly left out, which he seemed alright with. From the corner of his eye Ranboo saw him kneeling by Techno as well.

He hadn’t expected the fight to be so short, for his part. Anger fueled him, and something else. The Enderwalk, rising up in his unsteady mental state and giving him strength he didn’t know he had.

Cuts opened on Quackity’s limbs. His laughter turned to panting in the confined space. “This all you’ve got?” he yelled, out of breath. He tripped, stumbled, and fell against the wall near the lava.

Ranboo stood over him, axe in hand and red with blood. The natural course from here was to end it, right? Kill Quackity, kick him into lava? But the day in L’Manberg wouldn’t leave his head.

“You can’t do it, can you?” Quackity said. Somehow he managed to look relaxed, leaning against the obsidian as blood soaked his clothes. “I remember being that weak. It was awful. Really, Ranboo, don’t mess with me. The house always wins. You don’t want to start this.”

“Oh, shut up.” Ranboo swung his axe, and the handle collided with Quackity’s head. He slumped against the wall, eyes closed. Blood trickled from beneath his hair, but his chest still rose and fell. Ranboo left him there and returned to his friends.

Niki and Phil had taken care of most of Techno’s injuries, though he had his arms around their shoulders. “I can walk by myself, guys, seriously,” he said, but was immediately cut off by the two of them saying “bullshit” in unison. “Well, one of you needs to get Dream,” he said.

They paused. “Dream?” Niki asked incredulously.

“Yeah. Look at him, Quackity’s been giving him hell.” He glanced at Ranboo. “But hey, Syndicate rules, remember? You guys don’t have to do anything you don’t wanna. You can go ahead on the bridge and send it back to us.”

Ranboo and Niki shared a glance. They had both been citizens of L’Manberg. They had both been victims of Dream in some way. Ranboo knew Phil had helped destroy L’Manberg like it was a business deal, but he would agree with Techno. They wouldn’t follow Dream, but they’d help him. And as pathetic as the man looked in the corner of the cell, Ranboo couldn’t bring himself to do the same.

He looked Techno in the eye. “This doesn’t change my loyalty to the Syndicate. I just can’t justify helping Dream. I’ll still stand with you in other matters.”

“Got it.” Techno grinned. “Just don’t trap us in here again.”

Ranboo returned the smile, stepping onto the bridge. Niki followed him. “Sorry, Techno,” she said. “But I agree with Ranboo. He’s done too much to hurt me.”

Techno nodded. Niki knocked an arrow and shot it across the now empty pit. It hit the button on the other side, and the bridge began moving. When they reached the other side, Niki removed it from the button before hitting it once more.

“You can go ahead,” Ranboo said. “I’ll bring them back.”

Niki smiled at him. “Thanks. You fought well, Ranboo. See you at the next meeting.” She disappeared back into Sam’s tunnels, which Phil had left open.

Ranboo waited until Phil and Techno were safely on the bridge, Dream draped between them, to press the button one final time. Before it had reached full speed, he was traversing the tunnels himself, moving back towards Snowchester and his family. Quackity would find a way out of the prison, he knew. Tubbo and he would need to be ready.

#dream smp #dreamsmp #dsmp #dsmp fanfic #dsmp fic #dream smp fanfiction #dream smp fic #nihachu #philza minecraft #philza #ranboo #technoblade #dream #pandoras vault #awesamdude #quackity

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zosonils-art · 3 years

Note

Do you have a robot master OC (of the eight plus Drum) that you’d say is your favorite? If you haven’t done an infodump for them yet then you should do that one next

i couldn't choose a favourite if i tried, i love them all, but since you mentioned drum i thought i'd give her some new art and a proper dedicated post too! infodrump [ayyy] under the cut

drum, serial number SWN-002, is my take on the popular [????? i'm still a bit of a mega man fandom newbie i don't know hjdfn] 'wily equivalent to roll' oc template! she keeps things running at the various castles and fortresses and hideouts and whatever else her dad holes up in, whether that's by doing housework, planning schemes, or dodging taxes. whenever wily is trying to take over the world, drum acts as his second-in-command, ensuring that everything goes according to plan and ordering around the latest group of robot masters

she's every bit the edgy mid-00s teenager she looks: sarcastic, apathetic, and always talking back to her dad. she's more obedient than bass is, but she doesn't care for her job at all and will resort to any flimsy excuse or act of malicious compliance she can come up with to slack off. due to her purpose as an organiser and commander, she's a bossy control freak who's quick to anger when things don't go exactly her way, although when she's off work the worst of these traits recede in favour of more conventional teenage apathy. she sees herself as above the time and effort it takes to go out of her way to be mean to people like wily and bass tend to do, but she's equally uninterested in being nice on purpose and her default attitude is squarely on the nastier side

when she doesn't have work to focus on - and sometimes when she does anyway - drum is the lead vocalist and guitarist in a garage band, of which she is [currently - a friend's ocs get involved later, but that's a whole different post] the only member. i'm not good with music terms but she's into whatever genre stuff like wake me up inside and crawling in my skin is [i know those aren't the names hdfjf it's just the words i know people will recognise]. the sort with the crunchy guitar and the very loud lyrics about being sad and/or angry. playing or blasting music helps her to calm down when she's in a bad mood, which is pretty much all the time. the first warning sign of a new wily plot is a spike in search popularity for my chemical romance

i haven't gotten around to designing it, but drum has a non-armoured form like most of the other more explicitly kid-like robots, which she mostly uses for loitering around malls when she has an excuse to not be at home. she rarely buys anything, just hangs out and radiates an aura that makes suburban white women hurry their three kids into the next shop. drum often ends up hanging out with like-minded teens in the same vague area of the goth/punk/emo venn diagram she occupies, and makes a bit of a game out of seeing how honest she can be about her life without revealing that she's one of the world's most wanted robots. she tells herself that it's just something she does out of boredom and curiosity towards humans, but it mostly stems from loneliness and the desire to have literally any friends that aren't her brother's dog

as a sort of contrast to the healthy and positive relationship between their lightbot counterparts, drum and bass absolutely DESPISE each other and make no secret of it. each of them thinks of the other as an insufferable prick and they'll get into petty arguments over just about anything, from whose turn it is on the xbox to who treble loves more. [for the record, it's drum. she lets him hang out in the kitchen while she's cooking and sneaks him food scraps when bass isn't looking. he's the only family member she has an even remotely positive relationship with.] pretty much the only thing that can get them to stop fighting is mutual hatred of a bigger prick, and so far the only person to consistently get them to put their differences aside like this is wily himself - as much as the wily kids hate each other, they hate their dad just a little more, and have a history of teaming up just to mess with him. sometimes mega man can spark that spiteful cooperation, but drum's total apathy towards the light-wily family rivalry means she usually sees him as not worth her time and just finds bass' obsession with beating him even more annoying

drum wasn't made for combat, and as such she doesn't have a signature weapon or any fancy tricks like the copy chip. usually she just orders other robots to do the fighting for her. however, she is equipped with a standard arm-mounted buster, and can hold her own in battle with a 'fight smarter, not harder' approach if she has to. she's also outfitted with the same treble adapter that bass has, so if she's backed into a corner she can call on him for a power boost. treble is capable of supporting both adapters simultaneously, so as an absolute last resort they can all combine into treble-boosted drum & bass, who theoretically has all the combat power of bass plus the strategic thinking from drum and the boost in power from treble. in practice, though, drum and bass are so at odds with each other that they can barely hold together in the same body without either fighting for control or outright splitting apart to argue harder. again, it takes a lot of spite to get them to work together, but if something draws their combined ire and convinces them to cooperate they're an utterly terrifying force to be reckoned with

the game idea i vaguely have in my mind would feature drum as the final-not-final boss before wily reveals he was the mastermind behind it all and surprises absolutely nobody. she was put in charge of the latest world domination attempt, probably as the result of a 'why don't YOU take over the world if you're so smart' conversation, and in true drum fashion she follows a standard wily plot outline to the letter - including the blatant flaws, like all eight of her chosen robot masters forming a rock-paper-scissors wheel just begging to be exploited by the copy chip, and making a clear path from just outside the death fortress to her base of operations. after she's defeated in combat, she sarcasically wonders aloud how mega man could have possibly bested her plan and then helpfully points rock directly to wily's castle. she didn't wanna do the stupid scheme in the first place

again, i love all my ocs too much to possibly choose a favourite, but i'd say drum was the most fun to come up with if only because i had the help of some mates in a discord server. someone was like 'hey if there's bass is there a roll equivalent called drum or something lol' and i SPRINTED to microsoft paint to rough out a character design and the next entire day was just a constant stream of all of us bouncing ideas off each other and creating the meanest girl in the universe. her design changed a little bit from the initial sketch, most notably she used to have the half-shaved hairstyle that every gay person tries at some point before that changed to a midpoint between phoenix wright and sonic the hedgehog, but overall everything about her as a character flowed really well from the start. while she's fallen mostly into my hands since the initial brainstorm, she absolutely wouldn't exist without those friends' input and i feel that that's important to mention!

i'm very tired and i've been working on this on and off for the past day so i'm gonna call the infodrump finished here - thanks for giving me the excuse to talk about her! unfiltered and transparent versions of the art below as always

#i already talked about drum in my first post about her long long ago but i think she deserves a new infodump #zos draws #mega man #mega man oc #robot master oc #drum wily #zos talks #zos answers #aprofessionallurker #man there's so much art i gotta do of her. gotta draw her civilian form and her treble boost AND treble-boosted d&b eventually

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yourlmanburg · 3 years

Text

yet another smp sibling // eret + gn!sibling!reader

(hello i genuinely do not know what got blown up in doomsday please let that slide lmao, also i am honestly really sorry about how late this is - i was super tired yesterday and i’ve been busy all day today lulw but even so, i hope you enjoy this even if i didn’t have the energy to edit it whoops)

word count: 1,343

summary: eret reveals they have a younger sibling and shows them around the dream smp

request?: yep! thank you @brianawithonen!!

---

Your brother had been streaming for about half an hour or so now while you were busy doing homework, but if you’d been watching, your heart would’ve melted. Alastair had somehow let it slip that he had a little sibling and his chat was going crazy as they spoke nothing but good about you, singing your praises and making it clear how much you meant to them.

“I can actually go and get Y/n if you guys would like?” She asked her chat, and needless to say, they were delighted with the idea of meeting another SMP sibling. You were sitting at your desk when you heard a knock at your bedroom door, spinning around to look at your brother.

“Aren’t you streaming?” You asked before he could get a word in. He wasn’t supposed to end yet as far as you were aware.

“Yep! Do you want to play on the SMP for a little bit?” They asked kindly, their tone preventing you from feeling too pressured. You couldn’t lie, the thought of showing yourself to tens of thousands of people both scared you and excited you - what if somebody you knew was watching the stream and they didn’t know you were The Eret’s sibling? What if nobody liked you? What if you said something wrong and got cancelled, or even worse, what if you got Alastair cancelled? Despite the negative thoughts crowding your mind, you realised how much joy the Dream SMP had brought to Alastair. You knew how much it’d boosted their career and you know how many lives he’d changed, and you knew about the friends he’d made. Maybe this was a chance for you to have the same as that for a segment of a stream.

“Sure!” You exclaimed with a grin, leaving your work where it was and following your brother into their recording room.

“Here we go, chat!” Alastair said with a smile, passing you a spare headset and pulling out another chair for you. “This is Y/n, my mini me, who is surprisingly good at Minecraft.” They chuckled as you looked at her with fake betrayal.

"Surprisingly, huh?" You chuckled, slipping on the headset and sitting beside your sibling.

“Oh, by the way, I’m on the VC in case anybody wants to join - is that okay with you?” She asked and you nodded, already taking over his game and walking around on the Dream SMP. This was so surreal.

“So what do I do?”

“Well, I can show you around if you’d like?” Alastair looked at you with a small grin, to which you nodded eagerly. You began in (the remains of) L’Manburg and you were shown around the Greater Dream SMP, the Badlands, Manifoldland and even El Rapids, and you couldn’t lie; you were impressed by some of the structures your brother had built. Everything was going better than you’d expected and you really did enjoy spending time with Alastair like this, until you heard the familiar Discord chime and a very distinct voice that you just could not ignore.

“HELLO ERET!” The legendary TommyInnit screamed down your ears, unaware of your presence. Alastair chuckled, letting him know that he was with his younger sibling.

“Why do you have a child with you? Do they know that I am a big man, bigger than them?” oh, somebody sounded confident as ever.

“Wanna bet?” you spoke up, Tommy for once finding himself at a loss for words.

“You suck.” he stated bluntly, causing you to burst into fits of laughter. Alastair was a little more on the unimpressed side, however, asking Tommy to calm down with the somewhat aggressive remarks. Of course, he was only answered with incoherent angry mumbles, followed by another Discord chime.

“TUBBO!” both Alastair and Tommy shouted at the same time, Tubbo greeting them with an equal level of enthusiasm. A little yellow banner across the screen told you that he’d just logged into the game, his avatar appearing not too far away from your brother’s.

“Hey Tubbo, did you know Eret is with a child?” Tommy asked him like it was the biggest deal on Earth. Tubbo let out a confused laugh, asking Alastair if this was true or if Tommy was just spouting bullshit as usual.

“Hi,” you giggled before Alastair had a chance to reply. “I believe I am said child.”

“Oh, hello!” he greeted you happily, running over towards you in Minecraft and crouching in front of your character.

“Tubbo, right? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Who’s Tubbo? I am Big Law and Big Law only.” you laughed at how serious his tone was, feeling as if you were really, finally seeing why the SMP meant so much to your brother. You barely knew them yet these people were some of the nicest you’d ever met (despite the fact that you’d already known of their existence and tuned into more than enough streams prior to this) and you truly felt as if you belonged - if only you could become a permanent member in the intricate storyline.

You, Tubbo and Tommy played around for a while longer with your brother by your side, every so often speaking up but he was mostly just watching you. Watching the smile on your face and the shine in your eyes; this was clearly where you wanted to be, if he could just…

Alastair pulled out his phone, opening up discord and clicking on his conversation with Dream. Meanwhile, you were very invested in the business you were starting up with the two boys, trying to persuade people like Nihachu and Ranboo to buy from you.

Dream joined the game.

You paused for a second, looking up at Alastair with a grin. You’d always wanted to meet Dream and she’d always said that he was a busy man and you just had to wait for a chance, could this be it? Could you finally be able to speak to the Dreamwastaken?

Even so, you carried on as you were. You tried not to show your excitement in fear of being seen as an overly obsessed fan, when you saw a familiar green skin hopping over to where you, Ranboo and your two new friends stood. Turning to face him, Tommy and a very confused Ranboo began shouting at you to make a deal with him for your business when somebody joined the call.

“Hello?” the new voice greeted, and it was undeniably Dream.

“Hello!” you replied enthusiastically, as did the others.

“Y/n?” Oh my god, he knew your name.

“Yeah?”

“What’s your Minecraft username?”

“Y/u/n, why?” Dream left the game and there was a pause. Nobody else in the call was speaking, what was happening? Had you just fucked things up? You looked up to Alastair for reassurance, and he nodded at you with a warm smile, but you still didn’t understand.

“Okay!” Dream spoke up again, dragging out the “o” and rejoining the server. “Eret should be sending you the IP address now, go and try logging in on your account, you should be whitelisted.

And you were. You’d finally been whitelisted on the Dream SMP.

All because of your brother.

That night, you sat on the sofa beside Alastair, tired from many hours you’d spent on the server, but happy. The happiest you’d been in a while. As much as you were afraid to admit it, ever since they joined you’d longed to have what they had with everyone, you longed to be part of the plot. You finally had that chance.

“So?” She asked you with a smile. “How was today?”

“Fucking incredible!” you replied, making them laugh. You leaned into Alastair’s side, looking up at him with a tired expression. “Thank you, Alastair, seriously. You’ve just made one of my dreams come true - pun intended.”

“I’m glad! I’m so happy to have you there now, I really think you have the potential to become a really crucial character.”

“Really?”

“Really. Now go and do that maths homework you left.”

“I hate you.”

#eret #eret mcyt #reader insert #dream smp fanfiction #mcyt #mcyt fanfiction #platonic x reader #eret dream smp

175 notes · View notes

hobeemin · 3 years

Text

dangerous pairing ~ (pt. v)

🌙 genre: supernatural, fantasy, drama, angst, e2l, soulmates, forbidden romance, hybrid au

🌙 pairing(s): werewolf!kim namjoon x (f)vampire!oc; vampire!min yoongi x werewolf!jung hoseok (sope 💗)

🌙 summary: they were never meant to be together somehow, their lives intertwined, setting in motion a chain of events that would forever change the course of their lives and the people connected to them.

🌙 rating: 18+

🌙 warning(s): swearing, severe injuries, graphic violence, blood, mentions of vomit

🌙 word count: 2.5k

🌙 inspiration: MB & Playlist

🌙 credit: many thanks to @jeonggukingdom for the banner 💜💜 and a huge shoutout to @sugasbabiie thank you for reading over this for me! i really appreciate it!! 💜💜

*-*

🌙 < 🌙 m.list 🌙 > 🌙

Eva tried to hide her disappointment when she awoke the following day. Ken was still sound asleep next to her. She sighed softly, turning away from him to look at the window. Somehow, he managed to pull her against him in the middle of the night, becoming the big spoon.

She had never been a fan of cuddling in any way, shape, or form. But she let it slide only to further her agenda. She needed Ken to be blissfully happy if she planned to succeed. And if that meant she would be a small spoon a few nights a week, then so be it.

Still, her mind wandered back to the previous night. At one point, she felt a sort of pull. It was a fleeting thought, but enough to make her take a pause. She almost sent Ken home for it. It could have been her mind playing tricks on her, but it felt as if Namjoon was in the room with her. Something about the energy felt different.

She scoffed to herself. That was ridiculous. Last night–while a bit underwhelming–was undoubtedly the boost she needed to get on with her life. Ken was a subpar lover, but he was better than nothing.

You know who you want

She frowned, shooing the thoughts away. That wasn’t going to happen. A chapter in her book closed for good. It was better this way. She didn’t want to lay eyes on him ever again.

Funny how life throws things at unsuspecting folks.

---

It was much too early for Namjoon to function. He never was an early riser. However, today was to be an exception. He agreed to meet for breakfast to discuss the details of the charity ball—something he would have rather avoided and gone back to sleep. But Hoseok was adamant about the meeting. And to get him off his back, he relented just this once.

Still, Namjoon couldn’t help but be slightly annoyed sitting under the veranda of the quaint brunch spot waiting for his guest. For one thing, she was late, and above all things, Namjoon hated tardiness. His brow raised as he glanced at his wristwatch in annoyance. There were much better things he could have been doing. A young server walked up to him with a soft smile.

“Welcome, sir. Will someone be joining you?”

Namjoon began to stand, buttoning his blazer back up as his jaw clenched. “I was leaving. It seems like I am being stood up.”

“Namjoon!”

A melodic voice carried into the café as both Namjoon and the server turned in the direction they heard his name. Namjoon was rarely rendered speechless, but at the sight of Ahn Hyejin made something stop within him. She practically skipped over in the stiletto pumps she wore. Wearing a simple nude midi dress with a coverup made her bronzed skin glow. Her dark hair was pulled off her face and tied back elegantly.

Once she reached him–and even the heels did little to make her taller– she stood on her tiptoes and kissed both his cheeks.

“Forgive me for being late.”

Namjoon cleared his throat, giving the nod to the server. “Seems we’ll be eating here after all.”

He pulled out Hyejin’s chair, allowing her to sit before taking his own. He gestured to the server. “Anything to drink for you?”

“A mimosa, please,” she said, settling back into her chair.

“Bloody Mary for me. Extra spicy,” he said.

The server nodded, exiting to get their drinks. Namjoon messed with the cloth napkin before speaking up.

“You’re lucky you came when you did. I was about to leave,” his eyes bore into hers as a flash of gold appeared. “My time is quite precious. So I expect you to follow suit and be on time.”

Hyejin flipped her hair over her shoulder, giving him a smirk. “At the time, it seemed like the best idea. Letting the Alpha wait for me and pine a bit sounds enticing. Don’t you think?”

A soft growl rumbled in his throat as he glared. “Hyejin, you’re playing a dangerous game. Watch yourself. Things can go great or wrong in the blink of an eye.”

“I go by Hwasa now,” she corrected, removing the imaginary lint from her dress. “It’s simple, Namjoon. You need me to make a point to the other packs. That’s understandable. However–”

The server returned with their drinks, halting the conversation. Hwasa took a sip from the champagne flute, eyeing Namjoon from across the table. Yes, he would be excellent. Hwasa knew if she were patient, she’d be able to find someone like him.

“Have you both decided on what you’d like to order?”

Hwasa looked up, handing the menu to the server. “The salmon eggs benedict, please.”

Namjoon flipped through the menu with a huff. “The steak and egg hash. Eggs sunny side up, steak rare.”

The server retrieved their menus and walked away with a nod. Hwasa turned her attention to Namjoon with a smirk. “I’ll be wearing black. I think it’s appropriate for us to wear your pack’s colors. Don’t you think?”

Namjoon sipped his Bloody mary and gave the tiniest nod of acknowledgment. “Fair. I’ll make all the other necessary arrangements. Transportation and the rest.”

“Good.”

As their dishes were set on the table, silence fell between them as they ate. Namjoon paid her no mind in his thoughts as he ate. He couldn’t help but let his mind wander back to the previous night. Whatever that feeling was, he didn’t want to feel it ever again. His wolf was out of his control. Never had he lost his sense of being during a change.

As a pureblood and Alpha, he had complete control over his changes. For Namjoon to lose that part of himself raised concern. But who could he talk to? It was only him and his pack.

Brunch ended with the pair in agreement. They would stay in contact to go over the more minor details, but overall it was a successful meeting. Namjoon, being the gentleman he was, walked Hwasa to her car outside the restaurant.

He opened her door for her to slide in but, she pushed him against the door closing it. Namjoon raised an eyebrow as she ran her fingers against the lapel of his blazer.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“You know what I’m doing,” she answered coyly.

His jaw clenched, watching her movements. “You play a dangerous game, Hwasa. This arrangement is merely for the press.”

“I’m aware, but it doesn’t have to be stale while we play,” she cooed.

His hands enclosed around her wrists, bringing them down. “No,” he replied, “Not interested.”

She scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest once she yanked him out of his grasp. “When did that stick up your ass appear? A hundred years ago, we would have fucked in the car.”

“Maybe,” he said while reopening the car door up for her. “People grow up. Advice you should take.”

She hissed, getting into her car with a huff. “You’ve lost your edge.”

“And you’re trying my patience. We will talk later about the ball. Drive safe, Hwasa,” he said, closing her door with a slight wave.

As she sped off around the corner, Namjoon sighed heavily, shoulder drooping. He needed to focus. So much pressure was on for him to do well. His pack was counting on him to succeed. He groaned softly, rubbing his temples. He needed help.

---

Tae paced across the room, occasionally staring at the clock on the wall. Jungkook was no better. He sat on the couch, knees shaking, trying not to bite his fingernails. He sighed, trying to remain calm.

“Tae, you’re putting me on edge. Sit the fuck down.”

The older male rolled his eyes, grumbled, but took a seat in one of the chairs across from Jungkook.

“I can’t help it. I’m getting worried. They should have been here by now.”

Jungkook glanced down at his wristwatch. “Could be traffic.”

Tae snorted in disbelief. “Traffic my ass. Something doesn’t feel right, especially since Hobi has disappeared again.”

Jungkook closed eyes as Tae continued to fuss getting up once more to pace the room. He wasn’t as vocal as his packmate, but he was worried about Hoseok. Too much was happening for him to be leaving whenever he pleased. Even if he was second in command, he still needed to respect the rest of the pack. The younger male didn’t want to say it out loud, but he was concerned for his Alpha. Namjoon hadn’t been quite right since that night he returned home injured. Hoseok still hadn’t revealed much of what happened, but maybe the confusion would be cleared soon enough.

“Tae–”

A knock at the door made both males become alert. Tae stopped pacing and ran to the door with Jungkook not far behind. He opened the door to reveal four young men standing in the doorway. One stepped forward with short dark hair and pulled Tae into an embrace.

Taehyung choked back a sob wrapping his arms around him. “Brother.”

He stepped back, holding him at arm’s length, looking over his face. “You’ve gotten taller, Soobin.”

The young man smirked, visibly getting flustered. Jungkook looked around curiously, brow raised. “Not to interrupt this moment, but where is Yeonjun?”

The room darkened instantly. The four men looked nervous about speaking until the youngest and tallest stepped forward.

“He’s been missing for two weeks now.”

---

Seulgi whistled low as she sharpened one of the many knives laid down in front of her. She stilled her movements as Jackson opened the door and walked in, wiping his hands with a towel. She glanced up at him before going back to her task.

“Got blood on your cheek.”

He swore, running to a sink to wash his face. “Fucking canine,” he mumbled, taking a seat across from her.

“Has he been forthcoming with any information?”

“Oh, he’s talking alright, but nothing worth investigating,” he explained.

Seulgi frowned, setting one of the bowie knives down. “What are you trying to fish for, Jackson?”

Jackson tapped his fingers on the table. “I want the Alpha.”

Seulgi snorted. “He’ll die before he gives that up.”

“Try me.”

“You wanna bet?”

Jackson chuckled, shaking his head. “If he isn’t going to tell me, he sure as hell isn’t going to tell you.”

Seulgi stood up and began walking towards the back room. “Oh, ye of little faith.”

She stepped into the room. Yeonjun was hunched over on the ground, his ankle chained to the wall. He winced as the light washed over him, cowering in fear. Seulgi sniffed, making a gagging noise.

“The smell in here is atrocious.”

She sneered, walking up to him then uses the front of her foot to nudge him.

“Things aren’t looking up for you, pup. Jackson informed me you’re not being forthcoming with any information.” She tsked, shaking her head.

“Not good at all. This means you’re of no use to me anymore.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Yeonjun saw her pull a gun from behind her back. He jumped back, trying to crawl away.

“N-No p-please. I’ll do anything!”

She tapped the barrel of the gun on her temple. “Why should I believe you? You’ve given us nothing. You’re wasting my time. Wasting my time makes me irritated. When I get irritated, I get trigger happy.”

Yeonjun tried to reach out to grab onto the hem of her jeans, and she reeled back and kicked him in his stomach. The sheer force of the kick made Yeonjun crumple under the weight. Whatever contents remained in his stomach, spilled out on the concrete. Seulgi jumped back in disgust.

“Fucking dog!”

She reeled back to kick him again, and Yeonjun cried out, holding his hands up. “No! I’ll tell you what you want!”

She paused, placing her foot down. “You’ll give me the Alpha?”

Yeonjun shook his head. “No, but I can give you the person who can.”

---

Hoseok looked outside the window, watching the sun start to set. The view calmed him down as he mulled over what was troubling him—too many things on his mind. He was on edge after receiving a message from Namjoon. Though his brunch with Hwasa had gone as well as it could, his friend was still struggling. He sighed, and he dropped his head down. Hoseok was never one to be so glum. If anything, he was the one who motivated the pack. It wasn’t until he felt arms wrap around his waist that the tension released from his body. Yoongi planted a soft kiss on his neck and nuzzled against his back.

“Come to bed.”

“Soon.”

Yoongi looked up with a frown. “Still stressing out?”

“Uh-huh.”

The vampire sighed. He didn’t like seeing Hoseok so wound up. When Hoseok messaged to meet up tonight, he thought it would just be a relaxing evening of them together. The wolf had other plans. He seemed on edge all evening, and in turn, it made Yoongi stress out as well. At least Eva was preoccupied and not worried about where he had gone off to. Still. He was just as concerned about her as Hoseok was for Namjoon.

“Hobi, what’s on your mind? Maybe talking it out will help. Is it about Namjoon?”

“Yeah,” he finally answered.

Yoongi pressed his forehead to his back, sighing once more. “Does it have to do with Eva?”

Hoseok pulled away, brushing his hands through his hair. “That’s what's frustrating. I don’t know.”

He walked over to the bed and sank down, defeat on his face. “He needs help.”

Barking out a laugh, he glanced at Yoongi. “Can’t believe I’m asking this”–he really was– “do you know of anyone who practices magic?”

Yoongi raised his brow as he took a seat next to Hoseok. “A witch?”

“Sure. Let’s call it that,” Hoseok answered in disbelief.

Yoongi snorted. “You’re skeptical about witches, but a werewolf and vampire make sense.”

Hoseok cracked a smile for the first time that day. “Well now that you mention it, it sounds silly out loud.”

“Exactly,” Yoongi answered as he scooted closer to his lover. He reached around and began rubbing Hoseok’s shoulders. “I...I know of someone who could possibly help you, but they would be doing me a huge favor.”

Hoseok opened his eyes, turning to look at him. “You would do that for me?”

Yoongi’s eyes softened. “Of course, babe. You mean a lot to me. I’d do anything for you, and I hope you’d do the same.”

Hoseok pulled Yoongi into an embrace and kissed his cheek. “You know how I feel bout you, Yoongi.”

Yoongi grinned with a nod. “Yeah, I know. I’ll reach out to my friend”–as he pushed Hoseok down on the bed–” until then, I need you to relax and enjoy our time together.”

Hoseok smiled, stroking Yoongi’s back as he got comfortable on the bed. “Only cause you insist.”

Yoongi cuddled against him, finally content that they could relish their alone time. No more thoughts of their pack or coven until the next day.

*-*

19 notes · View notes

sunseteyes · 3 years

Text

THE WINTER I SAW YOUR SMILE

ㅤㅤ ↪︎ STARRING: neito monoma; gn!reader

ㅤㅤ ↪︎ THEMES: fluff, enemies to lovers—more like idiots friends to lovers honestly

ㅤㅤ ↪︎ WORD COUNT: 2, 101 words

ㅤㅤ ↪︎ SYNOPSIS: like perry the platypus to doofenshmirtz, joker to batman, or even conan to kaitō kid, for you, neito was your archenemy. but why is it that no one ever asked neito what he thought of you?

ㅤㅤ ↪︎ INTERMISSION: this is an entry for our server collab secret santa! merry merry christmas @dimplesum i hope you’ll enjoy my gift for you~ also, thank you to @imahoeforanimeguys for beta reading this :D

[12:51 AM]

if there was one person who could understand neito well, itsuka kendou would say it would be you.

you have known neito monoma ever since you were children, maybe much more than anyone would, even if they were his new friends. no matter how much they knew him, it would always be you who knew him better, the best.

it was not because you were his childhood bestfriend, or sweetheart, or any of that sappy story seen in disney movies or romance novels. your and neito’s story is far too easy to understand than any of those for it can be summarized by the word “archenemy,” like perry the platypus to doofenshmirtz, or joker to batman, or maybe even conan to kaitou kid—yes, you were kind of addicted to that show for quite some time.

along with being neito’s archenemy comes with knowing full well what ticks him off and also what makes him feel pleased. basically, that knowledge became the reason why everyone knows you’re the one who has the better hand when it comes to neito in general.

so when did you two first treat each other like archenemies?

it started when you two were still in kindergarten, was it? you’ve known each other for so long that it still surprises you how you and neito still see and even talk to one another. you could barely remember how and when exactly the scene played about at that time, but there were bits of memories where it was him who started to get on your bad side. although on neito’s defense, it was actually you when you started commenting on his hairstyle back in the days. after all, he used to sport a straight cut of bangs back then and it was the very thing that got stuck in your mind and couldn’t help but let it out every single time you see neito’s face, no matter how much he had physically changed from the boy you used to know.

being neito’s archenemy consists of constant teases, banters, glares, smirks, and being scolded by someone—usually a teacher or a mutual friend of yours, which is kendou, since tetsutetsu joins into the arguments too, which leaves kendou to babysit the four of you.

it’s not as if you were always arguing or at each other’s throats though. people even say you two make a good team, but it will only lead to neito and you teasing each other on how the other is flustered by such a statement. you do admit that there is a wave of relief that washes over your chest whenever you hear those words, but you could never find yourself letting out that kind of confession especially since it would wound your pride, and boost someone’s ego—ehem, neito. you have no specific reason why it calms you down to have someone say those about you two, but it may be because it thrills you to have someone else tease neito, however it also gives way for him to tease you as well, so you have rather conflicting thoughts when it comes to that matter.

by the time neito and you had reached high school though, you knew something changed.

was it how the glares started softening a bit? was it when the bickers would shorten whenever one of you decides to give in to the other? people commented on how you two became more mature, but for some reason, you knew there was another reason why this came to be, something you dare not say nor even think about, not that it should matter anyway.

the knocking on the door startled you awake from your thoughts, suddenly urging you to stand from the sofa to answer whoever was on the right mind to knock on your apartment at half past 12, or wait is it 1 AM already? either way, it’s too late for anyone to try and visit you, unless it’s someone who has bad intentions, but would they really knock if they have? still, there’s nothing wrong to be cautious, especially during these days.

“neito?” the rush of words came out of your lips sooner than you had the time to shut yourself, it was also louder than intended that’s why the other person on the other side of the door was able to hear it loud and clear.

“(y/n)! you’re there, right? could you let me in? it’s freezing out here!”

“and why would i?” you retort back, already gripping on the knob to turn it and reveal neito’s figure right in front of you. “what the hell are you doing here? at this hour even?”

and yet, he ignored you, entering your complex, then pushing you aside as he enjoyed the warmth that your apartment provided, with you closing the door behind in order to give him a long, contemplating look.

he seemed like he came from somewhere else, considering that the way he dresses up for home and for outside activity were different and quite unique by themselves. you noticed it after a few times of seeing him stay by your apartment with your other friends, or when you all go out to shop, have a meal, or stop by some place itsuka had found. you two were always on the same friendship circle, you noticed, yet it had never occurred where you and him stayed in one place all alone, after all you two were considered as “archenemies” still, aren’t you?

“i’m asking you what you’re doing here, monoma.” you bluntly questioned, making sure to emphasize how you’ve said his name. whenever you call him by his surname, he and you both know that you were pissed—or coming to. and like any other time, he chose to make a comeback as well, just as you had expected.

“it’s freezing outside, (y/n), do you want me to die? come on, be a kind person for once.”

“i am a kind person, monoma, but as far as i know, you don’t usually barge into people’s homes at around 1 AM.”

he scoffs, still rubbing his gloved hands together, trying to warm them up from the temperature winter brought upon december. “it’s just 12:51, and you’re not just any people. aren’t we friends?”

it was your turn to scoff, bringing your grasps on your waist, leaning to the side as you raise your brows in utter disbelief. “friends? no we’re not, what are you talking about.”

it was the truth, anyway. even though you’ve treated him as an archenemy, throughout the years, you were friends with neito, it just so happens that you treat each other quite differently than most friends do, that’s why you chose to name it as a word that others don’t frequently use. who calls their friends an archenemy? probably only you, or some others too—maybe.

“hey (y/n), do you have any snacks, ramen perhaps?”

your eyes narrow at the sight of neito rummaging through your kitchen, already knowing his way around. how can you blame him when he had already visited the apartment a couple of times with itsuka, tetsutetsu, and a few other friends that you’ve had over the years.

sighing to yourself, you leaned to one of the counters as you watched him, now cooking not just a pack, but two packs of ramen—that was, mind you, yours. each and every equipment and whatever he was using was yours, and it should infuriate you, your mind tells you so. however, you just seemingly can’t.

“you should pay for those, including my gas, neito.” you muse to the boy, his back turned to you as he continued preparing the ramen that he was preparing for the both of you, the sight apparently engraving itself on your mind whenever you have the chance to look at your kitchen. what can you say? he looks good while doing stuff like these, and you wouldn’t mind having to see him do so next time, that’s if you would have the chance since you would bite your tongue before you could even confess about it.

“you know, i’m this close to thinking that you really hate me, (y/n).”

your brow raised, momentarily catching his eyes when he briefly glanced at you. “why’s that?”

“well for one, you’re treating me as some kind of enemy of some sort. we should be allies, you know.”

“yeah but you’re the one who always starts the argument first, neito.”

he chuckles then, leaning to the side as he sends a look to you, one that is glinted with slight mock and amusement, like per usual. “that’s because you’re so easy to rile up. you always have these puffy cheeks and narrowed eyes when you do,” he gestures to his own face and he suddenly laughs, pointing at you with a spoon. “-yeah! just like that!” he hollers, making your brows furrow even more, now glaring daggers at him.

“shut up.”

neito kept on laughing to himself and he only stopped when it was time to turn the gas off and take the saucepan out of the casserole, bringing it swiftly to the table where he lay it on top of a pot rest. it was also him who rushed to get bowls and utensils for each of you, which led you to simply sit down by the table, feeling a little bit awkward at how he basically served you and did the table for you. if you didn’t zipped your lips tight, you would’ve said how much you’d like to get used to this kind of treatment from him.

“what are you waiting for? dig in! it’s not like i put poison in it.” he chimes, getting his own part of the ramen and eating them in almost an instant that you were quite sure he must have been starving when he got here.

“what were you doing out, anyway? were you on a date?” the words slipped your mind as you ate, your eyes glanced down to the food, finding it difficult to look at him in the eye after such a question.

“hm? what if i tell you i was?”

you forced yourself to let out a shrug, still not meeting his gaze that was surely on yours. “it’s not like i care.”

he scoffs and chuckles—which was it, you have got no clue—one of the rare times when you seem unable to read neito’s actions.

“you’re acting like you do though.” he mutters as his smirk reached his ears, patting the chopsticks to his lips as he tried to intimidate you.

it was silent for a couple more seconds before you decided to break it, meeting his eyes with one of an uncertain gaze, almost wanting to look away immediately.

“why are you acting like we’re suddenly close, is this how you are after a date?” you questioned, hiding your hesitation by taking a bite of your ramen, letting its warmth travel down to your chest and your stomach, in hopes of comforting you in some way.

“you must be misunderstanding me, (y/n).” this time, his face was looking dead serious, no more smirk and glints of mischief by his irises, as if he had a change of mind in an instant. “i wasn’t on a date. i am on a date.”

your breath faltered and your movements came to a halt, the chopsticks and your hand raised on a level that left it hanging by the air, just like how the atmosphere stilled the moment you heard the words coming out of neito’s lips.

“what?”

“i said, i am on a date.” he points to you with his own utensil, gesturing for both of you. “we are on a date.”

“uh-when did i-”

“and before you react, i’m just here to clarify that i already know you like me, that’s why you’re acting like this.”

your mouth opened to react and retaliate, but you only looked at him in disbelief, watching his nose crinkle up in delight, the corners of his eyes curling as he grins, his hair slightly swaying softly at the smallest signs of his movements.

now he might be damn right that you like him, but it’s not as if you’ve realized it that long. still, your voice didn’t let you fight him back because he seemed to be enjoying his own bubble—one that he was gladly sharing to you right now. you’ll have to clarify his statement from earlier soon, but not now perhaps. because now, he looks so pretty with that smile, and you’d rather be teased than having to rid of a sight like that.

#neito monoma #neito x reader #bnha x reader #bnha x you #bnha neito #pocuties secret santa

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melodyofthevoid · 4 years

Text

Fandom and Family

So, this whole... dissertation started with a livestream. The Undertale 5th anniversary livestream to be exact. Now I was never a part of the Undertale fandom as a whole, but I’ve always loved the music, Toby Fox is an incredible composer so hearing a full orchestra? A dream. Me and several other members of the Moo-Ping 10 server decided to hold an impromptu watch party, and I never could have anticipated what happened next.

From the opening note, I was reminded of how much I loved the game, the opening bars sending me back to watching all those let’s plays, spending hours watching each person find joy in this story, these characters, the plot twists and hard bosses. But as it went on, I just found myself gushing over the way the music hit me, the highs, the lows, the absolutely iconic moments, all of it.

Then “Undertale” hit.

And god I got emotional.

Because that song just... it conveys the message of the game so well, that theme of finding hope even in the darkest moments, of overcoming despair, because in that moment, me, @shandzii, @dana-chan325, @pinkiepig, @lillylunala, @warriorrazor, @the-void-behind-the-slaughter, @lizita123 Blueberry, Luckyrabbit, we were all in the same place. The same time. It reminded me that we’re all a part of the same experience, that we need to care, not only for ourselves but for everyone else in this world we share. How lucky are we to all have this? Together? Even in the midst of everything a group of people from around the world could fine a common purpose and goal. And we could be ok, because we have each other. And I won’t lie to you, I was so close to tears.

I swore that if I closed my eyes, I could feel them with me.

That song made us all break a little bit, in a good way. We shared how much Moo-Ping 10 meant to us, how much we meant to each other. And this was what I said. I've never really had a community like the Invader Zim fandom before. I've always watched fandoms from the sidelines, too afraid to contribute or say anything. Doubtful my ideas held any water. But my friend, @han68000 pushed me to share my ideas. She was the first one who believed in me. And then, I did share. And I was surrounded by people who created whole works and I was one of them now. People who wanted to hear what I had to say and loved what I made. Then I joined this server thanks to @dionysuscrysis. And suddenly I was a part of a whole family, where I could make a real impact, be a presence in someone's life. I got to know all of you so well, and when I've doubted myself, you were all here. And I got to be there for you too. A day doesn't go by when I don't count myself lucky to have all of you

I found a real, honest to god family in that server. A group that cares for each other, boost each other up, laugh, cry, live together, even though many of us live miles and time zones apart. I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that anyone out there who feels alone can find a place like this for them, maybe it’s not Moo-Ping 10, maybe it’s a smaller server, or not even an Invader Zim server at all. May you find a place that brings out your best self, that supports you when you feel like giving up. Whatever drives you, may you find a family of your own, because the bonds we make are all we really have at the end of the day.

May you find your family.

And god bless Toby Fox.

#melody rambles #fuck #I'm feeling fucking emotional ok #everyone who follows me #or has even taken the time to read my works #all of you #thank you #you've genuinely changed my life

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princeasimdiya12 · 4 years

Note

So in my DR1 Taleshift AU, the talents go as followed: Swimmer!Makoto, LuckyStudent!Chihiro, Programmer!Toko, Novelist!Celestia, Gambler!Leon, BaseballPro!Mondo, GangLeader!Mukuro, Soldier!Sakura, MartialArtist!Kiyotaka, MoralCompass!Byakuya, AffluentProgeny!Junko, Fashionista!Kyoko, Detective!Hifumi, FanficAuthor!Yasuhiro, Clairvoyant!Sayaka and Idol!Aoi. These headcanons mean a lot to me!

Hey anon! Thank you for your patience! I’m sorry it took so long but I had alot of real life affairs to take care of. Even to this day. With that in mind, i would like to bring up that I won’t be accepting any new talentswap asks like this for some good time.

With that, I hope you enjoy these new headcanons for this AU.

Makoto Naegi as the SHSL Swimmer

He could spend hours in a pool of water just letting his mind wander as his body feels the cool pool sensations.

One day, when he was out on the beach with his family, he spotted what looked like a dolphin in distress and far out into the open waters.

Without thinking, he immediately swam towards the creature and brought her to the beach to have her wounds fixed.

He earned quite a bit of noteriety for that.

He’s the shortest member of his swim team and has been playfully teased for it.

During the summer, he often serves as a lifeguard assistant.

Chihiro Fujisaki as the SHSL Lucky Student

Their luck made it difficult for them to interact with others in social situations.

When their luck causes bad things to happen, it usually results in Chihiro being involved in a given accident making them come off as a bad omen.

When their luck causes good things to happen, they find themselves getting attention from the media and eager crowds.

Chihiro’s constantly changing luck is a prime factor for their timid and frailness.

They put alot of time in researching different forms of luck and rituals in an attempt to change their luck to their preferences.

They’ve picked up a variety of good luck charms and have a tendency of performing superstitious rituals whenever they’re about to do something.

Chihiro is also willing to give those charms to their friends (like Mondo when it comes to big games).

Touko Fukawa as the SHSL Programmer

Not wanting to be involved with her abusive family, Touko spent her whole time on the computer.

She familiarized herself with the complex workings of the computer and how to make her own programs.

Her specialty is being able to create anti-virus software that can detect and report potential hackers while maintaining a clean software system that can last for decades.

She hates it when people ask her if she can make video games as she believes them to be stupid and not worth her effort.

She enjoys venting her frustrations on message and forum boards by provoking others with her comments.

Syo still exists in this AU because of the abuse and managed to pick up on her original self’s programming skills.

Whenever Syo takes over, she manages to hack security programs and bank accounts as a means of taking revenge against unlucky kids who hurt her or her gloomy self.

She managed to frame them for crimes they didn’t commit, summoned gang members to tear down their homes, and have illegal commodities shipped to them.

Her username is Geno-Zdr50 and after her crimes were revealed, she was given the title of SHSL Hacker.

Celestia Ludenberg as the SHSL Author

She earned recognition for bringing back the gothic-romanticism genre.

Alot of her stories feature tales of romance and tragedy between elegant ladies and their supernatural/undead suitors.

Her wardrobe is similar to her original outfit only with a longer dress and she wears a black veil with red roses.

She claims to have been involved in multiple relationships with different men who provided her with an interesting romantic experience.

Celestia has a strong dislike for tropes and cliches and tries desperately to ensure that her stories avoid them.

The last thing she wants to be considered is a run of the mill author by some half-witted review articles.

Leon Kuwata as the SHSL Gambler

His main attire consists of a red collared shirt, black jeans and shades.

He doesn’t win every game because of his lazy attitude and his tendency to panic whenever things don’t go right for him.

Leon got the title by winning a few big competition games involving blackjack.

He prefers to use slot machines since they make it less hard for him to showcase his skills.

One of his tricks is by flirting with the waitresses or servers and convincing them to give them tips on what the dealers are like.

He often ropes Yasuhiro and Hifumi into joining him whenever he goes gambling believing that their eccentric personalities will boost his chances.

Mondo Oowada as the SHSL Baseball Player

He got into baseball because of his brother who was already a professional player.

Mondo’s has multiple baseball uniforms because of how often he tears or smears them.

He managed to convince some of his friends, who were close to becoming involved in gangs, to join him.

When he started playing, Mondo had a fierce temper and would pick fights against other unruly baseball players which would leave the two of them with bruises and black eyes.

Daiya decided to step in and offer his personalized training sessions to help Mondo before he ruined his career.

By channeling his frustrations into body improvement training and hitting the ball, Mondo was able to get a better control of his temper.

Although there have been cases where the baseballs he swings out of the stadiums end up causing massive damage in random streets.

Mukuro Ikusaba as the SHSL Gang Leader

Just like in canon, she ended up leaving her family to visit a country that was torn apart by war.

But rather than joining Fenrir, Mukuro ended up in the presence of orphans and street rats who lost their families to war.

She managed to convince them to join her in fighting back against the invading soldiers.

Using effective planning and improvised training, she was able to create her own army of resistance fighters who could take on any adult soldier.

They would be known as the Walking Corpses.

She instilled an anti-empathy principle onto her fighters so that they would feel no sorrow or despair for the loss of an ally.

Sakura Oogami as the SHSL Soldier

At an early age, she was recruited by the Japanese government to partake in a program designed to train soldiers.

She was scouted because of her family’s reputation as powerful fighters.

For years, she endured brutal training against a variety of fighters who were three times her age and with no heart in them.

She performed multiple reconnaissance missions which involved rescuing fellow soldiers from enemy territories while also taking down guerilla fighters.

While she won’t say it out loud, Sakura does have sympathy for the guerilla fighters and soldiers who are trying to protect their homeland.

Sakura prefers to use her body to fight, but she knows how to use different guns and weapons.

She actually faced Mukuro and her Corpses once. While her subordinates were easy to apprehend, the Lead Corpse was much more resilient and they ended up in a draw.

To this day, she has yet to take the life of an innocent.

Kiyotaka Ishimaru as the SHSL Fighter

Wanting to uphold the proud name of the Ishimaru Family, Kiyotaka devoted himself to learning martial arts.

While he has studied multiple forms of martial arts, his preferred combat forms are karate, judo and taekwondo.

He has a fanbase of girls who found him to be quite attractive thanks to his handsome physique and his cool profession.

He’s actually very flustered by their attention and tries desperately not to fraternize with dates as they would interfere with his training.

Kiyotaka is always shown wearing a white gi for a uniform and is often barefooted. He claims this is to build endurance.

Byakuya Togami as the SHSL Public Morals Officer

He runs a tight shift in ensuring that his academy’s rules and regulations are followed by every student.

Byakuya also made a secret group of student officers who would keep an eye on any rule breakers and would report their findings to him.

His punishments range from extra homework to having to clean the entire school during weekends or fun holidays.

He decided to expand his power by influencing different academies using his moral code and conduct.

He’s also openly criticized multiple schools that were lackluster when it came to discipline and how they organized their education system.

With his influence as a Togami, a majority of elite academies in Japan incorporate his strict moral code.

Junko Enoshima as the SHSL Heir

She was born to a wealthy family that specialized in marketing.

At an early age, Junko learned the basics of managing businesses and how to treat employees under her thumb

Her upbringing upheld morals that encouraged her to be as ruthless and tactile when dealing with enemy companies or unruly subjects

She enjoys manipulating stocks and employees as a means of brutally taking down business rivals

Junko also has connections to underground agents that can bring her dirt about her competitors while also assigning them to sabotage their own enterprises.

Kyoko Kirigiri as the SHSL Fashion Model

She undergoes extensive workouts and health routines to maintain a physically fit and beautiful appearance.

Her main styles are based on classic punk while incorporating different concepts of violet.

Sometimes she gives pointers and tips to her model colleagues before a big event but she’ll still be cold and serious when it’s time to perform or showcase her works.

She’s always wearing gloves and there are tons of rumors as to what she’s hiding under her hands.

Kyoko knows how to speak French and English since she often travels to France and the US for modeling events.

Her father is a fashion designer but she stopped modeling his works due to creative differences.

In her free time, she likes to sketch different designs. Yasuhiro has even asked her for help with creating new characters.

Hifumi Yamada as the SHSL Detective

He wears a classic trench coat and a fiddler hat

He cites Detective Conan as his main inspiration for his career and how to approach his cases

When interrogating potential suspects, he often uses bizarre or outlandish questions in order to make them lose their defenses.

Alot of his cases involve finding lost children or recovering stolen money and valuables

Despite taking on many cases, he has yet to be involved with anything murder related.

He secretly wishes for a detective rival so the cases can be more exciting and that he can be pushed to be a greater detective.

Yasuhiro Hagakure as the SHSL Doujinshi Author

He grew up loving shonen anime with fantasy settings like Inuyasha or YuYu Hakusho.

His mom helped him in perfecting his writing and drawing skills and later with helping distribute his works.

Yasuhiro didn’t flunk like in canon, but his grades were pretty low since most of his time was spent daydreaming about potential storylines followed by him drawing them out.

The kids at his school were very impressed with his drawings, especially since they were based on their favorite shows.

He became very popular throughout his middle and high school years.

Despite his fandom, there were very few people whom he could call friends since most of them didn’t love the different layers and symbolism of the anime shows the same way he did.

Sometimes when inspired, he’ll pull out drawing supplies and paper from his dreadlocks.

Yasuhiro dreams of making his own anime/manga featuring a (totally not a self insert) protagonist who goes on ghost hunting adventures alongside his magic pet chicken.

Sayaka Maizono as the SHSL Fortune Teller

She dresses up as a carnival themed fortune teller.

Her stage name is the “Fairy of the Moon”.

She prefers to predict happy and positive things in order to build a good reputation among the public.

When something bad is about to happen, like a fight or an accident, she notices things in extra detail that hint towards the upcoming event. (Like in the Final Destination series)

Sayaka has made several TV appearances where she would make open predictions about a fellow celebrity.

Having been acquainted with Aoi during her appearances, Sayaka often gives warnings to the idol about potential attackers.

Aoi Asahina as the SHSL Idol

While she’s a great singer, she has a hard time with writing her own songs. So she lets her group write them.

Her preferred songs contain messages of friendship and how bonds are important between people.

Aoi pulls off incredible dance movements throughout her performances that many idols have a hard time pulling off.

She has a close friendship with her idol group and considers them as her second family.

Aoi has also sparked controversy for openly supporting idols who defy the harmful expectations of their managers/corporate groups with their choices.

Her opinions on the matter have earned her an equal amount of fans and enemies.

She has a harder time eating her precious donuts since her manager frequently discourages her from eating unnecessary sweets.

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the-crowess · 3 years

Text

Altrovough: Adventure on Every Horizon

Chapter 1: Out of the Dark I hadn't been playing for six months. Not because it had become too expensive. Not because work became too much for me. Not because I got a significant other. Not because the community was bad or anything like that. No, I hadn't played in six months because my avatar was stuck in a trap.

There are glitches, you see. Somehow in this modern VR experience there are still glitches. And with glitches comes assholes who use those glitches to their advantage.

So, here's what happened to me: Me and my party went into a dungeon. We split up. Two went one way, two went the other, and I (though I protested) was by myself. Even though I had a lantern when I walked down into the hallway it was completely black. That should have been my first clue that this was a trap of some sort. My lantern still had fire, but no light was being produced from it. Being promised treasure and being a dumbass, I continued forward into the dark. After walking just far enough into the hallway to make the doorway disappear, I sprung a tile trap.

The floor beneath me sloped downward and I fell rolling after it. Head over heels I fell until I smacked my face and passed out.

I woke up in chains. I was propped up against a wall. My wrists above my head were on short chains, and my ankles on longer chains.

Okay, I thought, no biggy. I'll just restart the day.

Okay, so that didn't work. Which is weird... I'll call my party members...

No service? What the fuck? That's not even an element in this game!

Well, uh, okay I guess I'll just bust out of these—rusty—old—chains!

...

Nope.

After exhausting my options, then exhausting them again I logged off.

For months I kept receiving messages that players were interacting with my avatar, so I would log on, only for them to laugh at me and be utterly and completely unhelpful.

My party visited me four separate times. And all of those times were to make fun or my misfortune, even though they knew that ANYTIME they could unlock the chains and release me. The first time it was all of them together. The captain Jockster (or Jerkstar as I call him) had squatted down in front of me and said, "this is what you get, you know. Playing this way has consequences. Thanks for taking one for the team." Then he had laughed like the drug addicted jackass he was. The others laughed with him. The second time it was only Aliciandria (our rouge) and Marlquan (our cleric). They had been discussing what to do with me when Alicandria accidentally kicked my foot and I responded, and I woke up to them talking about if they should just kill me so that they wouldn't have to worry about how people were judging them for not helping me. The third time it was just Havanio (the sorcerer). He woke me up, then sat across from me and said nothing for an hour. He just sat there like a fucking douchebag and looked at me like I was some caged beast put there for his entertainment. And the last time doesn't matter.

Players of all kinds and from all districts would stop by only to laugh at me. I became a joke, and even more that that I became a meme! Screenshots of my avatar hanging there like a prisoner spread all over the internet. To add to my torture, a player whose avatar was a homely goblin woman would harass me constantly.

Behind the happy smile of someone who literally baked cookies for visitors was a demented maniac. This guy—I know she is a he because he fucking DM'd me dick pics. I think he harassed me for three reasons: 1) I fell right into his trap 2) My avatar is a hot man and I think Little Miss Goblin Man is gay or more likely bi and uncomfortable with his sexuality 3) I think he thought he figured out that the gender of my avatar and the gender of myself might not be the same, and he was definitely trying to intimidate me. This asshole physically and sexually harassed my avatar, and I couldn't even report it!

Not like I didn't try to report it—when I did the staff would send in an NPC (Non-Player Character) and see literally nothing. So, in this trap: it's a glitch mixed with a non-invasive virus; meaning the virus only effects this one spot and not the whole server or game. It can't get into your computer. It like can't get past the firewalls or something I don't really know.

So, not only did this jack-wad figure out a way to trap me, but he also figured out how to keep his dirty deeds hidden from the staff. For almost three months I continued to check in. Two weeks after the initial incident I jumped at every UAN (Unconscious Avatar Notification) but I quickly learned that nobody wanted to help me, they all just wanted to see if the rumors were true and maybe get a picture. Eventually I stopped responding and eventually my avatar fell out of the popular meme rotation.

...

BEEP. BEEP. UAN! Someone's interacting with your character! 😊

BEEP. BEEP. UAN!! Someone's interacting with your character.

BEEP. BEEP. UAN!!! Respond you asshole! You should log on!

"Uhg! Fine!"

I left my lunch (thinking I would return to it real soon) and went to my game room to log on.

I woke to a girl poking my cheek. I snapped at her fingers.

"Oh! Fuck!" She pulled her hand away, shaking off the close call, "you're hard to wake up! Not much for answering your UAN's huh?"

Standing over me was a girl of maybe nineteen. Her clothes draped and flowed about figure in Cleric glory. Great. A fucking cleric. She wouldn't've stood out more. Dark skin with undoubtably "sea green" eyes. Her hair was done up in some completely unattainable style that was loopy with braids and pigtails sectioned into pompoms; it was a shade of maroon that says, "I'm a supporting character, but I want to think I'm a main character!"

"Is it true you've been down here six months?"

"O.O.G."

"What?"

"Out. Of. Game. I've been 'down here' six months out of game."

"Holy cow, man! That's a while."

"Did you need something?"

"Excuse me?"

I made cold eye contact with her, "Did. You. Need. Something?"

"Uh... wellllllll, I heard a rumor that there was some poor fuck stuck down here who can't get himself out."

"Oh. Fantastic." An awkward silence split between us, "well, thanks for stopping by. Take a screenshot, it'll last longer."

She stared blankly at me, "no. I think you misunderstand. I'm here to help you."

"What."

"I'm here to help you."

I couldn't think. Couldn't fathom this thing unfolding in front of me, "what?"

She began to fiddle with the chains on my wrist.

"Wait, no!"

She looked down at me the way a mom would look at her two-year-old who says he doesn't want to eat mashed potatoes because they have eyes and he doesn't want to eat mashed eyeballs.

"Wait." As my heart pounded loudly in my chest, I asked her, "what do you want from me? Like, you—you can't just want to let me go. You must want something from me."

She sat back down on her heels and looked away, her lips followed her eyes away from me and back, and she said, "Well, no. Not really. Like I said: I heard there might be some poor fuck who was trapped and couldn't get out on his own. I thought for my first adventure, I'd go get 'im." Then she went right back to messing with the chains.

I laughed and shook my head.

She stood up and put her hands on her hips, pouting. Lordy, she was cute. The puzzled look on her face gave me some hope that maybe she might actually be able to save me. With a huff she sat down again and confessed, "you're the only reason I got this game. You're a meme, a legend. You're so classic that you're practically nonexistent. Every time this game comes up in social media you're mentioned. On all the subreddits, and in the deepest parts of tumblr—you're there. I just had to come see if you were real, and I was—and still am—planning that if you were actually here that I would help you out."

"No catch?"

"No catch."

I smiled to myself, knowing now that it was I who had the advantage. I could use her. After all, every party needs a healer. Now I just had to make sure she wouldn't ditch me anytime soon. "Are you sure you don't want to try and find a catch? I was a level 52 before this whole ordeal."

She perked up, "what's your level now, cowboy?"

"35."

"What?! You're so dilapidated and all your equipment was stolen. H-HOW?"

"Cause I'm just that awesome." This should do it.

"I've changed my mind!"

Perfect.

"I want you as a bodyguard! For two years—"

"One year."

"Alright, one year." She looked like she wanted to ask me to shake on it, but then thought better of it, "can I please help you out now?"

"Yes."

Very quickly, and with very little trouble she released me from my chains. Bruises and scars tattooed my wrists and ankles. How the coding of this game works is literally so fucking far beyond me. I pulled my limbs into myself, feeling the stiff resistance of time.

"Can you get up?"

Without needing to consider it I said, "no, I don't think so. Do you have any potions that will give me a boost?"

"Oh yes! I knew that if I found you, you'd need medical help immediately, so I spent all the gold from my—"

"All your gold??? Are you stupid?"

"Whaaaa? I-I... I—just—"

"Whatever. We'll figure it out. What potions do you have?"

She nodded very curtly, and pulled up her bag contents and read them off to me: "fifteen Good Health Potions, fifteen Great Health Potions, fifteen Fantastic Health Potions, ten Boost 'Ems, seven Leaves Of Health, two Gladiator Liquid Bandages and two Beats of Life. What'll it be?"

"Gimme a Boost 'Em."

She tapped on the icon and a Boot 'Em materialized in her hand. She put it out to me, but when I grabbed for it, she pulled away. I of course made eye contact with her, thinking she was gonna pull a fast one on me. Instead she said, "Valhalla."

"What?" My immediate confusion fell away into fear. This must be a trick. But why would she do that? It doesn't make any sense. I'm clearly smarter than her. It's me that's tricking her, why would she—

"That's my name. Valhalla."

The interruption of my panicked thinking threw me off guard. That's a stupid name. Before I could tell her how stupid I thought her name was she put the Boost 'Em in my hand.

Taking the potion, I had trouble removing the cork. Valhalla silently offered her help, but I shooed her away. I grumbled something about how I was perfectly capable of doing it myself.

With much effort and significant struggling, I yanked the cork out and threw it over my shoulder. Only for it to bounce off the wall and back into my lap. With the kind of drunken vigor seen at taverns I swallowed the creamy blue liquid. The moment it touched my lips, a feeling of power hit me like caffeine in a low-calorie energy drink. Going down my throat it felt like warm milk and honey. Electrifying energy flowed outward from my middle. It snaked its way through my arms and legs. It made my fingers and toes tingle like pins and needles.

I leapt up, a new man. I knew this wouldn't last long, and I knew that later this would end up hurting me more, but fuck.

Fuck this feels good.

"Do you have any weapons?"

"Uh, yeah." Valhalla pulled up her bag again and tapped on the Equipment tab. "What do you want?"

There were certainly more weapons than should have been in her bag if she had just started, let alone had spent all her starter gold on potions. I chose to ignore this. "I'll take the mace." I reached up and engaged with the weapon. The heavy steel handle materialized in my outstretched hand. By the look on her face, it must have been the first time Valhalla had seen anyone engage. I'm glad I was able to be the one to show her, in all the glory I could muster.

"This is a pretty nasty weapon, baby." I swung it a couple of times, feeling the weight; testing the blow power.

"I picked it up because I liked the color!"

I laughed, "I guess I overlooked the purple steel, but this will do nicely."

"Nicely for what?"

"Do me a favor, doll. You see that door over there? Go knock."

"Okay, but," she came right up close to me and stuck her face in mine, "I'm not a fucking doll."

"Noted."

I followed her as she warily walked to the door of the goblin woman's kitchen. Valhalla knocked timidly on the door.

"Come in!" The goblin wench cooed, "I just baked some fresh cookies! We can pose next to the body if you want!"

I caught Valhalla frown and furrow her brows at "the body".

Oh how sweet this will taste, I thought as adrenaline pumped through my veins. I passed in front of Valhalla whispering, "stay back."

I slid through the open door. The goblin hag had her back to me, this couldn't have been planned more perfectly. I crept up behind her with my mace raised above my head and my six-foot-five shadow engulfed her. She turned around with horror, a tray of cookies in hand. Her eyes widened and she tensed as if she were to scream.

But I didn't give her a chance.

"Your actions have consequences."

I let the mace fall down upon her head. The crack of her skull resonated harmoniously with the clang of the cookie sheet on the ground. Giddy joy sprung forth from me as I smashed the mace into her again and again. The second blow shattered her ribcage. Her ribs sprang up and splintered through her tissue. Smashing her hands made her fingers pop off, they flew in all directions. A blow to her thigh created a fountain. Warm blood hit my bare chest, my exposed legs. It splattered on my face. It coated my hands. It made the mace slippery in my hands. Her blood soaked what little was left of my shorts. It sprayed the walls, the kitchy table and chairs, the coffee pot and baking ingredients. Blood decorated the cookies that now laid scattered on the floor.

Satisfied by the pulpy mound of oozing, squirting flesh and bone I subsided. Reaching down, I tore a blood-soaked rag from her dress. Turning to the wall I wrote LEAVE.

Standing back, I let out a heavy sigh. The effects of the Boost 'Em would soon wear off. I turned around and cracked my neck. I looked over in Valhalla's direction, but over her head. "I need some new clothes." I declared.

She stared at me. Her eyes pulled mine in and her mouth morphed into a grin, "fuck. YEAH!"

"Huh??????"

"Dude she called you 'the body'. And we both know that she was the reason you were stuck down here. Plus: THAT WAS AWESOME!!! I am so glad I came to find you! Best $130 dollars I ever spent." She then ran up and hugged me. The contact made me tense up.

I shook out of her embrace, "let's get out of this dungeon."

She led the way out. It was different from the way I had come in. We walked down the hallway that I had stared at for so long, hoping that somebody, anybody would come for me. Not ten feet into the tunnel we turned a corner and there was the exit. My stomach dropped. I felt sick.

It had been so close the whole time. Learning this made me want to revive that sonofabitch just to kill her all over again.

Emerging into the sunlight hurt my eyes. I was blinded.

What a sight we must have been. Myself: six-five, soaked in blood, starved, almost naked. Her: small, sweet-looking, fresh-faced, and not a drop of blood on her.

I still couldn't really see when somebody started talking. "Hey, are you guys okay?"

"Oh, we're fine," Valhalla sang sweetly sang sweetly next to me. At that very moment, I lost all my energy. My health bar plummeted, and sirens rang through my headset. My vison flashed red. I fell to the ground.

The group that had approached watched, alarmed. Valhalla looked like she wanted to eat her words.

Stupid girl. She had no idea what to do.

I had fifteen seconds before I'd die. This had happened once before when my former party and I had just started the game. We got attacked by a level 20 dragon and one strike had me seeing red.

10 seconds.

They were bickering about the best course of action. They had no idea I was on the brink of death. Valhalla stared at me looking like a lost idiot.

The sky began to spin. Valhalla's blurry silhouette swayed above me.

Did she forget about all that stuff she bought? How many gaming hours did she log before she came to find me? Did she even go on the tutorial adventure? I mean, you can technically skip it, but—

"BEAT." I coughed out then my head lolled.

The party erupted into tense panic.

5 seconds.

Oh please, please Valhalla. Please don't let me die. After all, you told me you came to save me. So save me!

Just as if she could hear my internal pleas, a beat was shoved in my mouth and my jaw forced upward from the outside to crush it. The juicy tuber gushed in my mouth. I felt Valhalla's hand on my lips, pressing down to keep everything in. I'd heard rumors of the experience of Beat of Life. Some players said they almost wish their party members would have let them die. The juice was hot, potent, and sour. So sour is made my jaw ache. It felt like someone was twisting a wheel, making my jaw tighter and tighter. My teeth felt like they were going to pop out of their gums. It burned my throat, made my eyes water and my nose run. My stomach did not want to accept it. I wanted to throw up, but I couldn't move. Hot flashes waved through my body. An ocean of churning heat pushed and pulled at my organs, my brain. I could feel myself sweating. Growing hotter by the moment. My head swam. My limbs grew numb. I passed out.

I was saved. Unconscious, but saved.

But Valhalla didn't know that. Stupid girl, skipping the tutorial. What was she thinking? Guess I'd have to ask her when I woke up.

And so I took off my headset and it was dusk.

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commisionstrategy · 3 years

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quickspinner · 4 years

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MLHolidays2k19 - 19. Naughty and Nice

A continuation of 18. Elves

Please do not kill me, y’all, there will be a part 3, I promise.

Note: Part 3 is here!

Luka honestly didn’t expect her to come. Not many girls would come even to a mall bar like this dressed like one of Santa’s elves. Not to mention it was entirely possible that she thought he was a creep. He was kind of hitting on her while she was working, against his own policy. She was just so cute and sweet, and if he wasn’t totally misreading her, she was maybe a little bit into him too, and he couldn’t stomach the idea of missing out completely, so he gave her the most low-pressure invitation he could think of. Luka tried not to think about it after that.

It didn’t go very well. Outwardly he kept his cool, but internally he diverted his thoughts into a list of reasons she wouldn’t come and why he shouldn’t be disappointed. She’d doubtless be tired after handling kids and parents all day. And it was a little weird for a grown woman to be dressing up as an elf. Although it was pretty selfless of her to do it for charity, and year after year, too, it was a kind—wait, no. She probably thought he was a freak anyway, flirting with her after she cheered up his niece, like one of those pathetic guys who thought walking a puppy would help him meet girls. Man, he really hoped she didn’t think that, she was so cute and she seemed so nice and—damn it, Couffaine.

Luka scanned the place every time he walked through as they were setting up. It wasn’t the type of venue he normally played, but the act that had originally been booked for tonight had bailed at the last minute, and the bartender had convinced the manager to let Luka’s band play, though their sound was a bit heavy for the kind of crowd that frequented this place. The stage was smaller, the sound system less powerful, and the lighting quite a bit brighter than what they were used to, but a gig was a gig. Luka had visited while another band was playing to get the feel of the place, and he’d done his best to tailor their set list to make the most of it.

He was just about to go on when he spotted her, leaning against the bar and breathing hard, like she had run to get here in time. Luka swerved away, ignoring his bandmates’ hissed demands for him to come back. “Hey,” he said, touching her elbow to get her attention. She turned toward him and her mouth dropped open a little as she looked him over. That was a nice ego boost, and Luka grinned. “Glad you could make it. I’ve gotta go on, but I’ll come find you after, okay? Enjoy the show.”

He turned to go and then changed his mind.“Hey, Vic,” Luka called, leaning over the bar. “Do me a favor, let Santa’s Helper here order a drink on my tab?”

Victor gave him a wave and Luka headed back to his aggravated bandmates with a shit-eating grin and an extra bounce in his step.

Luka felt good about the performance; the audience seemed into it, the sound quality was acceptable, and it looked like the balance was okay. The lights were hotter than he liked, but that was a minor difficulty, and he was prepared for it.

Luka ditched his bandmates as soon as he could when the show was over, doing the bare minimum to help with the breakdown before slipping away (the others grumbled, but every one of them had been in this situation before, so they just rolled their eyes as they took his spare keys to the van). Luka stopped in the men’s room to rinse off the worst of the sweat and change to a clean shirt, and then he slipped out in search of the cute elf waiting for him. At least, he hoped she waited for him. He paused at the end of the bar when he didn’t see her right away. He jumped when Victor spoke right at his elbow.

“Nice performance.” Victor slid a shot across the bar to him. “I think you’re going to need this.”

Luka looked at him, confused, and Victor tipped his head to indicate a seat a few feet farther down the bar. Luka turned to look where he indicated, and his jaw dropped.

That...was not the elf he expected. Marinette had removed her false ears and name tag of course, but also the belled collar that had lain over her shoulders, her white, long-sleeved undershirt, and the scalloped green overskirt with the bells on it, leaving her in just the red sleeveless dress with its candy cane striped belt. Her striped stockings and belled shoes were also gone, replaced with a simple pair of flats. Her arms were bare, her dress was no longer buttoned up tight to her throat, and her very nice legs were crossed as she perched on the bar stool. She’d taken her hair out of the pigtails and it hung loose around her shoulders. Marinette looked up and smiled a little nervously as someone leaned over to talk to her, and he could see she’d redone her makeup as well, making the most of her stunning blue eyes.

Luka groped for the shot still on the bar without looking away. Victor laughed and shoved it into his hand. Luka tossed it back, barely registering the burn. “Thanks, Vic,” he managed, before he took a deep breath, and went to greet his cute but suddenly not so innocent little elf.

“Hey,” he said, looking her over. “Wow. I thought you were cute before but I gotta say, I’m impressed.”

“Oh,” Marinette blushed. “I didn’t really do much, I just wanted to, you know,” she waved a hand vaguely. “Blend in a little better.”

“Well,” Luka chuckled, looking away before he embarrassed himself staring at her legs, “If that was your plan, then I’m afraid it failed miserably, because you—“ He met her eyes again. “Definitely stand out.”

She blushed harder, but picked up her drink with a flirty little toss of her hair and sniffed, “I’ll bet you say that to all the elves.”

Luka laughed. “Oh my God, you’re so cute,” he chuckled. “Listen, I’m starved, how about we grab a table and get some food? Are you hungry? On me, for taking such good care of Angie. Rose loved the pictures, by the way.”

“Oh, good. Is she feeling any better?”

The question surprised him a little. “Yeah, I think they’re getting towards the end finally. Rose is upright, at least, but Jules is still spending most of her day face down praying to die.” He smiled at her. “Thanks for asking, most people wouldn’t even remember.”

“It’s good that Angie didn’t get sick,” Marinette observed, taking his offered hand and letting him help her down from the bar stool.

“Oh she did,” Luka chuckled. “She’s the one who gave it to her moms. Now she’s all better and wanting to play while they’d rather die than move from the couch. Needless to say I’ve been doing a lot of babysitting the last week or so. I had it a few months ago so they figured I was safe. I promise, I’ve been keeping her clean and sanitized so she can’t pass it along.”

Marinette wrinkled her nose. “Alya made me get a flu shot before we volunteered.”

“That was probably smart.”

A quick word with the hostess got them a table in the restaurant part of the bar, a small circular booth in the corner that was actually probably as private as the place could offer. That was nice. “Are you hungry?” he asked, passing her a menu.

“So hungry,” she sighed, leaning back against the back of the booth.

“You look tired,” Luka said sympathetically. “Sounded like you were in for a long day when we talked before.”

“Yeah,” she turned her face toward him and smiled, and his heart stuttered at the cute way her hair bunched up behind her when she shifted her head. “It was a good day, though, and I’m not sorry I stayed. It took us longer to pack up than I expected and I almost didn’t make it. You guys did great up there, I really enjoyed the show.”

“Good,” Luka said, trying to contain himself as he looked over the menu. “I’m glad we made it worth your time to come. This isn’t exactly the type of place we usually play, though, so we toned everything down a bit tonight. I’d like to have you come see us play for real sometime.” He glanced at her and thought he saw a hint of pink in her cheeks, though she was studying her menu as intently as he.

“I’d like that,” she said, and then darted a glance up at him. They smiled at each other and went back to the menu.

They chatted their way all through dinner, with a generous mixture of flirting whenever one of them could get up the nerve. She talked about her work as a junior designer and her volunteer work with the hospital, and he talked about his family and the musicians he worked with.

Marinette was pretty and she was sweet and she was smart as a whip, and Luka was somewhere between smitten and enamored by the time they ordered dessert. She asked to try his and he ended up sliding close so they could share both.

Then she looked up at him, giggling at something he’d said, and there was a smear of chocolate on her lip that did him in entirely. There was no sign of his usual self-control as Luka moved toward her, catching her face in his hand and turning it up so he could catch her chocolate smeared lip between his, tongue eagerly running across it to sweep the sweet syrup into his own mouth. Then he moved just enough to kiss her more fully, and just as his brain was catching up enough to realize just how forward he’d been, she kissed him back and he lost his mind again, one arm going around her waist to pull her closer, angling to bring her in deeper, and her hands slid up his arms to grip his shoulders, and they were well on their way to a full-blown make out when the sudden slap of the folder containing their check on the table made them both jump. The server gave them a dirty look as he walked away. The message was clear. Stop camping my table and get a room.

“Oh,” Marinette gasped, and turned to grope for her oversized purse. It jingled when she grabbed it and Luka bit back a laugh.

“I’ve got it,” Luka said, flashing her a smile as he picked up the folder. “I told you it was on me.”

“Wow, it’s really late,” Marinette said, looking at her phone. “I guess we were talking for kind of a long time.” She smiled at him regretfully. “I should head home.”

“Let me grab my guitar, I’ll walk you to the metro station,” Luka said, sliding out of the booth and offering her a hand. He wanted to offer her a ride, but intense chemistry or not, he didn’t think she’d be comfortable getting in a car alone with him at night. Especially since he drove what Juleka lovingly referred to as a “kidnapper van” to accommodate the band’s equipment.

“You don’t have to do that,” Marinette said as she slid out of the booth. Luka realized he was staring and quickly diverted his eyes from her legs, though he was pretty sure she’d caught him from the way she tugged her skirt down.

“I want to,” he smiled, squeezing her hand lightly before letting go. “I’ll meet you right outside? I’m already packed up, I just have to grab my things.”

Luka booked it as quick as he could to the back. He put on his coat, shouldering the guitar case and his bag, barely remembering to snatch up his hoodie where it was draped over a chair before he left. He cut through the dwindling crowd to the entrance, winking in response to the thumbs up Victor gave him as he passed.

Marinette was standing just inside the door, looking out of the windows and chewing her thumbnail.

“Don’t you have a coat?” Luka asked, frowning. Marinette jumped nearly out of her skin and whirled.

“Oh. Oh, sorry. Um, no, actually, I think I left it in the locker at the North Pole and they’ll be locked up by now,” she sighed, shoulders slumping. “It’s fine, I’ll just grab it in the morning.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” Luka said, draping his hoodie over her shoulders. “Here, you’ll freeze like that. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Thank you,” Marinette smiled, slipping her arms in the sleeves and zipping it up. Luka turned to open the door for her, mostly to hide the grin on his face at the way his hoodie swallowed her.

Marinette seemed jumpy as they walked, which wasn’t surprising since it was pretty cold outside and the hoodie really wasn’t much. She flat refused to take his heavier coat. Her cheeks were pink from the wind, and he couldn’t get a good look at her face in the streetlights. It was too cold for chitchat, and at their quick pace, it didn’t take long for them to reach their destination.

“Well, here we are,” Luka said, stopping to turn toward her as they reached the metro entrance.

“Thanks for walking me,” Marinette smiled, pushing her hair back as the wind tried to blow it in her face. “It was really nice meeting you.”

“I’d really like to see you again,” Luka said, reaching tentatively to take her hand loosely. “I know it’s kind of crazy right now with the holidays, but could I get your number, and maybe we can see about finding some time to get together?”

“Oh...” Marinette bit her lip, and the deer in the headlights look she gave him stopped his heart. Her next words broke it. “I just—I mean, I don’t, uh…I mean we just met, and—”

“Okay,” he smiled, letting her fingers slide out of his. “Then I guess, thanks for a great night, Marinette. I had fun.” He hesitated, and couldn’t help adding hopefully, “I’m taking Angie to Place des Vosges tomorrow to play. We’ll probably get there around ten. If you change your mind, that’s where I’ll be.”

“Um, your jacket—” Marinette began, reaching for the zipper of the hoodie, but Luka raised his hand.

“Keep it, I’ve had it forever, it’s no big deal. Goodnight, Marinette.” Luka turned quickly, trying to keep his exit slow enough that he didn’t look like a dog fleeing with his tail between his legs. It wasn’t like he’d never been rejected before, but this one stung.

It stung a lot.

He walked to his van, stowed his guitar mechanically, and dropped his head on his folded arms. “Idiot,” he muttered. “Damn it.” He sighed, sat up, and started the van.

TO BE CONTINUED please don’t kill me THINK OF THE FICS I CAN’T WRITE IF I DIE

Part 3 is up!

#quickspins #mlholidays2k19 #lukanette #i am lukanette trash i admit it #miraculous ladybug #miraculousladybug #luka couffaine #marinette dupain-cheng #mlfics #promptfic

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lynneshobbydomain · 4 years

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Vengeance Chapter 12

((Thank you all so much for the likes and the reblogs and the support. Thank you to @sinfulwonders who works tirelessly with me to beta this. I also wanted to apologize for not updating. As, you all know I was busy with shipweek but I also had a family matter that was very crucial. I am grateful that you all cherish this story as I do. Without further ado, let me continue))

Rating: M

Summary:

Previous Next

You can read below the cut or at my AO3

It was the first time Shuichi entered Aki's room since her disappearance, and there was still a heart-sinking feeling that stuck with him as he looked at the place. The faint scent of blackberry and vanilla hung in the air, and the smallest little knick-knacks hadn't been moved or fixed. Her desk was still the organized mess that it was, a planner even folded to the week that she went missing. The planner had different colored inks scrawled across the page, each color symbolizing priorities, and reminders written in quick shorthand. Her curtains draped closed, as they were when she wasn't in the room. There was a corkboard hung on the wall with pictures thumbtacked into its surface. Many of them were of D.I.C.E, of family photos, and some of just him and his cousin. There was only one picture on there of just her back to the camera, and her profile hidden with a wide brim hat. She was walking down the beach with her hands clasped behind her back. The wind must've been blowing since her hair was all over the place. It was a stylistic photo, and the only one he knew of that could wield a camera like that was Ovetere. Which meant this must've been a spontaneous trip that some of the D.I.C.E members took, or they had met up somehow and just decided to mess around with the camera.

His attention left the board to the laptop that was sitting idly on the desk. He knew that this day would come sooner or later. Digging up secrets, he couldn't think of any that Aki would keep, but Takahashi told him one already. She wanted to travel around and keep a distance between her and the Saihara name. Shuichi couldn't fault her for it. He sat down at the desk and turned on the laptop, noting with amusement that the surface covered with different kinds of stickers. Her collection was endless, and it was everywhere. On the consoles of her video games, on the corkboard, on the laptop. He knew if he dug around her bookshelf, he could find her albums of stickers. He waited for the computer to load as he looked around her room again. His furniture matched the dark aesthetic of trying to keep his place as cold and minimalist as possible. Her furnishings were light wood and reflected the light from the overhead fan and the sunlight when she opened the curtains.

He could almost hear the soft twang of her guitar playing, and he could just visualize her sitting on her bed with her guitar on her lap, curling around it as she focused on practicing a chord or a song. It was a typical scene—a standard memory. Even before Kokichi showed up in their lives, him reading in her room while she practiced was commonplace. It was hard to believe that during fits of insomnia, he wouldn't hear her play anytime soon—no random knocking on doors to check in on each other and trek up to the vending machine.

Shuichi saw that her laptop was password-protected, but he didn't need to be a hacker to know what it was. He typed it in out of memory and stared at the desktop picture. It was last year's New Year shrine visit. Their arms wrapped around each other's shoulders -Shuichi had to bend down to compromise the height difference-, and they were grinning at the camera. Shuichi's smile is a little more timid and shy, and her bright and beaming. She wore a yukata even though it was freezing and that she should've worn a jacket, and Shuichi bundled up in a scarf and earmuffs. They had taken the picture away from the crowd, but close enough that it could still be seen a little in the background, showcasing the line and the people who were trying to get a wish.

It startled him to see that this was the picture on her laptop. He didn't think that anyone kept the photo besides Keiko or Koji. He didn't remember Aki requesting the picture, but maybe he hadn't paid attention when he got dragged into the embrace. He felt his eyes burn and a lump form in the back of his throat as he tried to swallow past all of it. He needed to stay focused. Right now, traversing memories wasn't going to solve this case.

Just like that, however, his mind decided to be helpful and remind him that Takahashi said that she was planning to leave the Saihara household. Bracing himself to find nothing but apartment searches and universities for music, he got himself back upright and went onto her internet.

If anyone wanted to know anyone, whatever they searched on their history told a fair amount of their story. Composing contests, youtube channels dedicated to guitarists and musicians, discussion forums on music...a twitter. Shuichi didn't doubt that Aki networked, trying to see who would bite if she was actively trying to leave, but...there was not a thing that she recently posted on her account that said anything about wanting that. The youtube videos she watched were of people that she admired and actively supported. There was nothing to indicate that she wanted to leave.

If she was bait, chances were, Danganronpa didn't have a clue until they started researching a little more heavily into her about who she was or didn't have a clue at all since Aki was firmly silent about her name. If it wasn't bait...then, Danganronpa really went out of their way to try to find her. Shuichi just couldn’t imagine his aunt making such a massive wave with a case that it would result in something dramatic as a kidnapping. At the same time, considering that it was nothing more than a snuff game, and everyone was a contestant....he couldn't put it past them. Everything was a possibility right now, and until he heard more from his uncle or his aunt about the Jabberwock Case, nothing was set in stone.

It didn't fit with Danganronpa's MO. They went after local celebrities, and they stuck with local newspapers. Unless...Shuichi cupped his hand over his mouth as he tried to put himself into Danganronpa's shoes. If they were so slighted about the case that his aunt took, that they were willing to go out of their way to remind the police and law force what kind of power they would be granted...then it wouldn't bother them to research Aki. Take her hobby, and her talent...and taunt her with it as they did with the rest of the contestants. Only instead of being accomplished, they were belittling the fact that she wasn't, and that pissed Shuichi off.

He confirmed once again that there had indeed been a "reason" for the kidnapping. Shuichi felt confident that Danganronpa just didn't randomly take her from the street. Now to confirm the other piece of the puzzle. He opened her Discord as well as he decided to scroll as much through her history as he possibly could, she seemed to have kept it clear and clean most of the time. Getting on to her Discord, he noticed that she was only a part of two servers, D.I.C.E, and the Musician Symphony.

The Musician Symphony wasn't an active group, but he could see that there were people that occasionally touched base. Going through the backlogs, Shuichi noticed that Aki tended to lurk more than participate in this server. He roamed through the channels before figuring out that the entire reason why she was there was to see what other people were doing and supporting them. He saw some of the tweets people were posting onto the channel. Some had been re-tweeted by her as a boost. She went through the youtube videos and commented on them, but she'd never discussed how she came across them.

There was a notification on a familiar icon. Shuichi clicked on it, already having an idea of what he was about to walk into.

[ Shuffle: Shuichi-chan-san's telling me that you're missing. You're not missing, right? You're home, or you're late or something… ]

[ Shuffle: Aki...please just go home? Please? If you guys had a fight or something, I know Saihara-chan-san will be willing to hear you out...or Ouma-sama-san! ]

Those were all...on the day Aki was reported missing. Shuichi closed his eyes and let out a soft breath.

A couple of days later, Shuffle tried again to reach out.

[ Shuffle: I know that this isn't going to reach you, we don't know where you are, but I feel like I have to say something anyway. ]

[ Shuffle: I'm really, really scared Aki. ]

[ Shuffle: I'm scared we're going to find you dead. I'm afraid that we're going to find you traumatized. I'm worried that you're...not going to be the Aki that we all know and love. ]

[ Shuffle: I feel so dumb. ]

[ Shuffle: I should've done something. ]

[ Shuffle: Called you, met you closer than the intersection. ]

[ Shuffle: I'm such a terrible friend. Asuka says that I'm not. Tohru says I'm not. Everyone's saying to me that I'm not. ]

[ Shuffle: But I can't even help our leader like you can, Aki. I don't think Saihara-chan-san can help either. ]

[ Shuffle: he just sits at his laptop, all scared. ]

[ Shuffle: Maybe I should just ask for a pancake night. ]

[ Shuffle: There's no point in talking to a ghost that's not gonna reply. ]

Discord didn't shed any new light. Not that Shuichi was expecting it. He clicked off the website and rubbed his eyes, trying to think. Danganronpa knew that something was up. They knew that they were being investigated or that someone was poking around. Getting called up by Jabberwock over the technology only made them paranoid. It was the only theory that Shuichi had that didn't feel like he was stretching to reach a conclusion.

Maybe they thought someone was getting suspicious over the newspaper clippings and decided to target using other methods? If that was the case, then who got close enough to make Dangnaronpa sweat? Shuichi curled a finger against his chin. He doubted his uncle was the one that pressed them against the wall. At the same time, the theory that Ando had about Aki being bait was...still useful even if Shuichi hesitated to believe it.

Just what was happening on Jabberwock? What was the technology that was apparently stolen or lost? Why would Danganronpa admit to having it? Why would they even use their name?

What was their cover story? Shuichi sat straighter. A gut feeling stirred into his stomach, and he decided to just see if he was right. Instead of going into her history tab, which he knew would have nothing, he scrolled through her bookmarks. They were neatly categorized and organized from music to school work, and the abundance of files told him enough that everything had a place. There was one folder that was hidden in the music section; however, that caught his attention.

Travel Plans

Clicking on it, Shuichi saw a list of hotels and maps that were in her bookmarks. They were hot spots in each prefecture. Touristy areas as well as places that were off the beaten path. Shuichi picked one from the list, and saw that there was a museum that was dedicated to the Tragedy. It had been one of the several areas that had been annihilated. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to assume that Aki was looking at history. Her interests were vast: psychology, history...the Tragedy was just both lined into one common event. There was a stigma that surrounded people who studied it and there was shame around those who talked about it. There was an underlying fear that it could happen again, or would happen again. No one wanted to teach the subject besides a quick overview, just in case.

It was probably the same shame that kept Jabberwock Island from being talked about too. Shuichi pursed his lips together as he decided to click on Jabberwock Island’s website.

The screen turned black, and for one horrifying moment, he thought he was going to see the emblem of Danganronpa spin around in a loading mode. Instead, what appeared to him looked to be like a flower with five sharp petals that were in a circle. As the page loaded, a flower petal colored itself a bright magenta. The page finally came into view, and Shuichi could not believe what he was seeing.

Welcome to Jabberwock Island.

The header had a large white font, and the picture was of the island's map of six islands. The tiny main island that was in the middle of it, and the five larger sections that made up the home. It was an island that was a few months away on a ship, and a decent six-hour flight from Japan.

He quickly found the "history" tab, and he stared in surprise as he read the blurb.

"An island that once used to be an amusement park was abandoned during the Tragedy in 20xx. The Future Foundation had renovated the amusement park into a military base in 20XX and had used it to help rehabilitate the Despair 15, otherwise known as the Remnants of Despair. The Despair 15 have decided to stay on Jabberwock Island after the Tradgey's conclusion in 20xx and self-exiled themselves from Japan. What used to have a horrible history is now flourishing with tourism and immigration.

Hinata Hajime is the island's current Leader alongside Nevermind Sonia, who has strong political ties to the Novoselic Kingdom in Europe."

Shuichi doubted that a website mostly created to try to get traffic into their island would talk about the technology that they once housed or the people that were on the island. The Tragedy. Despair 15.

Despair 15….

Did...Danganronpa has some sort of history with the Tragedy or with the Remnants of Despair? Shuichi never heard of someone mentioning the Despair 15 before, or of them being called the Remnants of Despair. Shuichi leaned back against the chair, the gears in his mind whirling. Remnants of Despair and Danganronpa. The missing technology. Something prodded in Shuichi’s mind to dig deeper at this.

First thing first: there was one person that he could talk to during the game that would probably offer him some insight about the event. Maybe there was something that was glossed over in class that would bring all of this together.

The second thing that he had to worry about was that Aki was going around to explore where the Tragedy hit the hardest. Her knowledge that she knew about the Island and in turn knew where the Remnants of Despair were located. Not only that, but it was odd to Shuichi that Dangaronpa and Jabberwock had a connection involving the Kamukura technology.

It pained Shuichi to think about it. How much didn't he see because he thought everything was okay? He thought about her statement in the first episode or two. When she proclaimed that she felt lighter. I keep thinking about the cars. I keep seeing them. He didn’t ask where, did he? His stomach turned iced and he felt the world darken at the corners of his eyes. He assumed she was talking about the school, and Aki, who probably didn’t want him to worry any more than he already was, went with it.

He clicked out Aki's computer and shut it down. He went back to his room and booted up his own computer. The darkness of his room helped with the small headache that was starting to pound behind his left eye. He hated stress headaches, and he didn't want to get off track to get medicine when he was so close to the finish line. At least, a finish line of one mystery.

Usually, the episode started at the dining hall when everyone was gathered, but to Shuichi's surprise, the episode started in a room that gave off an unsettling vibe. There was a large monitor that hung from the dorm's ceiling with prominent speakers, which amplified the volume. There weren't any windows in the dorm, and even if there were, the windows would be slated and bolted down so that there was no thought, no hope for escape. The bed was pushed up against the wall. There was also a desk that had a fair amount of papers on it. It's a dorm room, it was neat, and Rantaro was sitting on the edge, running his hand through his hair deep in contemplation.

There was a soft ring of a doorbell, and Rantaro picked his head up. There were superficial circles under his eyes that spoke of a hard night's rest, and he looked disgruntled. He rubbed his eyes and stood up, walking over to the door and opening it. "Kokai-kun?"

"Sorry, da bodder, you." The Ultimate Falconer gave a smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. He, too, looked as tired as Rantaro looked. "I jus' wanna check in on you."

"I think there's a lot of other people that you should be worried about, I'm fine," Rantaro assured gently. "How are they?"

"Dunno. Came da loo' a' you." Kokai gestured, "You are na fine, an' dat's o' ay." His drawl was a little worse than Shuichi remembered. He wondered if it was from the exhaustion, or if Kokai wasn't trying too hard to speak correctly. He still didn't know where to place that accent...if that even was one. "I was gonna fin' Mayumi-chan an' Shirogane-san."

"Shirogane-san is probably heartbroken," Rantaro murmured. "...Why don't we go looking for them together? How about we start with Shirogane since she's the one that was probably hurt the most? Maybe we can work our way around the school as well."

"Dat' sounds good." Kokai nodded firmly and stepped out so that Rantaro could leave the room. "Where da begin?" He frowned. "I' dough of maybe her lab, bu' I'm na sure where id is."

"It should be in our monopads." Rantaro took the said monopad out and started tapping on the screen.

"I ha' nology," Kokai grumbled. "Pre' y sure id ha'es me do."

Rantaro blinked, and he looked at Kokai curiously. "You... don't look at the monopads?"

"I can' ge' id da work!" Koka gave his monopad to Rantaro. He merely flicked the screen, and it turned on. The look of incredulity was astonishing, and Shuichi couldn't help but laugh, just as Rantaro chuckled. "I have done dat a dousands dimes! How?!"

"Maybe it's because I'm nice to it?" Rantaro offered as he handed it back to the flabbergasted student. "If you talk to it nicely and you touch it kindly rather than poking and prodding at it, it may be nice to you, and you can actually see where everyone is."

"Id shows you where people are?" Kokai blinked.

Rantaro quickly went through his and proceeded to show him a map. Shuichi frowned deeply, cupping his hand around his mouth. It was a little...eerie that students could keep track of each other. A good thing for a victim to have an understanding and a warning ahead of time. He had to doubt if anyone would use the monopads like that. Maybe some did.

While they were busy talking about the monopads, Shuichi turned his attention to the chat room and decided to see if Shinigami was on.

[ Seeker: Everyone's so quiet today. ]

[ Shinigami: Good evening, Seeker-san. It has been quiet. I have not seen Loki-kun around, which is to my pleasure. How are you? ]

[ Seeker: Struggling with History homework. ] It was probably a good thing that Kokichi wasn't in that chat room. Shuichi knew that was a terrible lie, but he hoped that it was hard to tell through the internet.

[ Shinigami: Perhaps I can be of assistance? I am a scholar of sorts for cultural history. I may not be able to tell you a whole lot of whatever you are trying to accomplish, but I may be able to clarify a few facts. ]

[ Seeker: We’re learning a bit about the Tragedy. I don't really know what to look for online. Any advice? ] Shuichi had to cringe at how bad that lie sounded. He wasn’t getting any better at this.

[ Shinigami: The Tragedy is a complex subject, but...let me see if I can't put it into more... more detailed terms. No one is certain of how the Tragedy began. Some say it started with Hope’s Peak Academy, and the unethical human experimentation that they were doing. Some say that there was a group that made something called Despair Disease and decided to spread it around. My belief, as well as other scholars, is the fact that it was a combination of all these things at once. There were experiments done, just not by the Academy. The Despair Sisters had a hand in it as well.]

[ Shinigami: Allow me to further the conversation about the disease. It would twist the personality into something that was the opposite of them or enhance a part of the depending, and they would act on it. Some were liars, some would follow orders to the death, and some were….some were actively trying to become the same as the Remnants of Despair. Unfortunately for them, the longest they could survive the fever and the dehydration, along with the hallucination, was about three days. ]

[ Shinigami: It was rumored to have happened anyway. Some survivors claim that they saw the disease with their own eyes. ]

[ Shinigami: You have to understand the Remnants of Despair and the people that befell the chaos were….people that would actively torture and kill victims. Torture that included but certainly did not stop at unethical practices of doctoring and experimentation. ]

[ Shinigami: The Tragedy came to a conclusion after the Despair Sisters met their demise during the Hope's Peak revival. ]

[ Shinigami: It took five years after that to rebuild, and another ten to fully recover. ]

[ Seeker: I see. Why is it hard for people to study the event without being cast in a terrible light? ]

[ Shinigami: Humans are afraid of things that they can’t control or predict. The Tragedy was one such instance and there’s a fear that someone will think it’d be a good idea to bring it back. Scholars like myself are even warned to tread carefully around the Tragedy, as there was once a superstition that even mentioning it, let alone studying it, would cause the Despair Disease to flare up again. Ludicrous yes, but...people want to pretend that it’s not as scary as it is. ]

Shuichi let out a long breath as he let the information sink into his mind.

[ Seeker: Does Danganronpa have anything to do with the Tragedy? ]

[ Shinigami: No. But they were inspired by an aspect of it. ]

Shuichi thought for a moment that Shinigami would go off again and give him the information, but for some reason, that wasn't happening. Shuichi had a feeling that even if he pressed, Shinigami wouldn't say. It must be something to do with his contract about watching the killing games and writing that paper of his.

There was something about those games then that they were mimicking or were trying to do. Despair 15...

Would it really be off of the mark to think that Danganronpa was attempting to see if falling into despair would be as easy as the Tragedy made it appear? Would it really be off of the mark to think that someone thought that the Remnants of Despair weren't all on Jabberwock Island?

Hope's Peak Academy...Shuichi grabbed his notebook and quietly wrote down the name. He was going to have to do more digging. Here he had hoped that the mystery would be done and over with, but Danganronpa was good at keeping the questions coming.

They were good at keeping an audience captivated at the screen.

It appeared that Shirogane was indeed in her lab, the boys took a daring look at each other, probably preparing themselves for hysteria, or tears, or other things. Shuichi wondered if he was going to cringe at how they would try to comfort her or be moved that they actually attempted. Rantaro was the one that decided to be brave and knock on the door.

It took a few tries, but Shirogane appeared, looking distraught and heartbroken as Rantaro predicted. Her cheeks were covered in tear stains, her nose was running and red. Her eyes are blotchy and swollen. She did her best to look presentable, but even the Ultimate Cosplayer couldn't hide her misery. "I'm sorry you have to see me like this. I know I'm being so boring right now and-"

"Enough of that." Rantaro frowned as both of the boys moved to be in her lab. The area reminded Shuichi of the backstage or a green room of a show. She had racks of different types of costumes, some of which the backlog chat were animatedly discussing who their favorite anime characters were, and whether or not she'd reference them later in the long run. "Hey...can I hug you, Shirogane-san?"

"I'm all crying and snotty!" Shirogane cried out, her cheeks stained red. "You couldn't-"

"I offered." Rantaro gently coaxed, "Come here." Shirogane didn't seem to be able to hold her ground as she walked towards him as though hypnotized. Kokai watched from the sidelines as they hugged, and Shirogane sniffed. "It's okay," Rantaro whispered, gently stroking her hair. "It's okay. I'm so sorry, Shirogane-san. Yesterday was horrible. For all of us."

"I just wish Chatani-senpai said something." Shirogane whimpered. "I could've done something. I could've told her not to do it. I could've told her to wait. I could've…"

"Done nading." Kokai gently broke the conversation. "She made ‘er choice an' she knew dat id hur' people. Chatani-san an' Yadori-san did deir bes'. Dey wan'ed da escape. Id was a price dey paid."

Rantaro gave him a sharp glare, gripping a little tighter around Shirogane's shoulders and quickly shook his head, as though to warn him about going further.

"No, I know." Shirogane gently pulled away from Rantaro, wiping her eyes and trying to gather herself. "It's just like Death Note when L died, you know? You had all of this hope that they'd wind up friends only for it to be backstabbed and proven wrong." Rantaro and Kokai gave her blank looks, and she giggled nervously. "I'm sorry I don't know how to put it any other way. I'll be okay now. Just gotta keep my chin up. Like Naruto. Believe it!"

"I mean...if that's what makes you feel better." Rantaro rubbed the back of his neck. "It's okay to feel sad though Shirogane-san. We're here to support you no matter what."

"Thank you. You two are excellent friends to me. I'm so happy that a boring and dull girl like me has someone like you two." Shirogane beamed brightly.

"I'm surprised that Mayumi-chan hasn't come by to see you." Rantaro frowned deeply. "I wonder if she's okay."

Tsumugi waved it off. "I told her to go away." She looked down at the ground, distraught and upset. "I said some things...I was really, really angry. I'm a lot calmer now than I had been. I'm sure she's upset with me."

"I dob dat," Kokai assured softly, "Songbird isn' da type da hold a grudge. She understands. Promise."

Shuichi wanted to nod empathetically. While she could be found curled up against someone's door if they were having a hard time, she knew when she wasn't wanted and did leave people alone. Sometimes she knew when someone was just saying it, just to say it rather than mean it. He could remember the times she sat next to him, arms draped around his shoulder as he went through an anxiety attack, trying to shield him. Trying to comfort him. She never wasted her words, she was more than happy to stay silent and just be there.

Tsumugi nodded as well, seemingly getting a hold of herself. "I'll have to make it up to her. Oh, ask her what kind of cosplay she'd do." She looked at the boys. "Please?"

"Sure." Kokai agreed, and Rantaro also nodded his agreement. "Bu' are ya goin' da be okay?"

"I'll be fine...I just...need today is all…" Tsumugi looked at the ground for a moment. "Have you checked in on Yuya-san?"

"No." Rantaro folded his arms. "You think she might need someone to talk to?"

"She loved Yadori-san, so I imagine she'd be just as heartsick as I am over Chatani-chan." Tsumugi shrugged helplessly. "I don't know if anyone's willing to reach out to her since she's a little out there."

[ Loki: Awwww, is this going to be another boring episode? So lame!!!!! ]

[ Shinigami: Ah, that's right, you missed the brutal execution and murder episode, didn't you? ]

[ Loki: Oh no, I saw that with my boyfriend <3. We were ecstatic that the two more boring ones died first. Looks like it wasn't the chemist, after all, Shiny! ]

[ Shinigami: Much to my displeasure, but I still hold the belief firm that she'll be a culprit sooner or later. ]

[ Loki: Are you still thinking that the cosplay chick and guacamole are going to be the survivors? ]

[ Shinigami: You know, my bet on Shirogane-san is wavering just slightly as Mayumi-san has proven herself to be survivor material. At the same time, I have a different theory about her. ]

[ Loki: Are you going to tell? ]

[ Loki: Hey! ]

[ Shinigami: it really is a shame that we're merely separated by a screen. I would love to tear your vocal cords out. That being said, yes. I do have a theory. Yes, I will share it. My first theory is that Mayumi-chan is a Mastermind. ]

Aki? A Mastermind? That was too far off the grid. What good was a mastermind that couldn't remember that they were a mastermind? That just...does not make any amount of sense. It would be a cheap shot as well to try to get her murdered.

[ Seeker: I highly doubt that. ]

[ Shinigami: Granted, that does seem a bit off. My other theory is that she is going to be playing this season's Traitor. ]

Shuichi wondered how much of this was a hidden message, and how much of this was Danganronpa's actual plan. He was going to have to get his uncle to ask about those case files sooner rather than later. He was going to have to see for himself just what kind of an impact this case had made, and why they'd get so angry only to find Aki.

It made him worried about why they didn't bother to go after him…

Unless…

If that was indeed the case, then this was beyond fucked up. Shuichi decided to stomp that theory down until he had more concrete evidence to say that was the case. For now, he needed to focus on what he actually had and what he even knew.

"Danks. Can dat ding find her?" Kokai asked as both of the boys decided to exit the room. "Yuya-chan may na wanna 'alk da us."

"No, but we should try and let her know that she and Shirogane are in the same boat so that they have a support system." Rantaro frowned. "Then we can see how everyone else is doing. We may come across Mayumi-chan that way too."

"...Why do ya care?" Kokai frowned suddenly.

Rantaro froze, and for a moment, Shuichi thought he wasn't going to try to reply. "Do you have any siblings, Kokai-kun?"

"Yes." Kokai nodded. "I have a sis."

"Older or younger?"

"Does id madder?" Kokai frowned a little but thought for a moment. "I'm de old one."

"So maybe you'll get it kind of," Rantaro muttered softly to himself. "Let's just say... I'm an older brother too."

"....Wow." Kokai paused. "You're a bedder, big bro 'han me."

"Why do you say that?"

"If dat was my sis cryin' in dere." He gestured towards the lab behind him. "I'd dell ‘er da suck id up loser."

Shuichi covered his face with his hands and groaned loudly. Rantaro let out a startled laugh, as though he hadn't been expecting that.

[ Loki: Wooow. That's cruel. Then again, I'd do the same thing easy peasy. ]

Instead of bantering, Shinigami went oddly silent. Shuichi wondered if this was an intricate subject for the person on the other end of the computer. Not everyone had a good or decent relationship with their sibling.

Shuichi thought back at his relationship with his cousin. He couldn't keep track of how often his cousin went after him and made sure that he was okay. How often she talked him down from an anxiety attack after an anxiety attack, how often she saw him cry. He couldn't remember the last time he saw Aki burst into tears. They fought...but Shuichi couldn't even call those fights. Everyone around them, Kokichi included, tended to say that they acted as though they were on a debate team.

Shuichi remembered when Aki made him cry. He couldn't remember the fight, but he remembered her words: at least my parents didn't abandon me like a puppy at someone's front door. Shuichi held a grudge against her for a while for it; he wondered if he got her back. She always seemed to have such a firm grip on herself...it made Shuichi worry. He couldn't remember the last time he saw her cry.

He turned his attention back to the episode. Rantaro and Kokai were at a tiny little shack that was pretty far away from any of the school buildings. The shack looked as though it were about to crumble. It was barely being held up by anything but nails and some wires. Gonoji was standing on a ladder outside. His pliers were in his hands, and Yuya was standing outside, hands on her hips as she watched.

"What are you two doing?" Rantaro asked.

"Oh, hey, guys! What's crackalackin?!" Yuya grinned, turning to face them. She looked as though she just had gotten a little fried from something. Her clothes were smoking slightly as well as the ends of her hair. "I was trying to fix up my lab, but the wires were all messed up, so I asked Gonoji-kun if he could take a gander at it! Voila!"

"Da need help?" Kokai called up.

"No man, I got it." Gonoji grinned as he jumped down from his position on the ladder and looked at Yuya. "I think we might want to ask Monokuma to give you a better lab. This isn't exactly safe."

"But, it's gonna burn down anyway." Yuya pouted. "What good is a good building if I can't burn it down? The outdoors is my lab anyway, not that tiny little thing."

"Okay, okay!" He laughed, holding his hands out. "I get it. Well, I'll get out of your hair then. You got company, and I don't want to be in the way."

"Actually, I was going to come to find you anyway," Rantaro gave them both a kind smile. "I was just...seeing how you two were doing. Since...yesterday."

"I'm a firm believer that when things go bad, they go bad," Gonoji said simply. "Work keeps the demons away. I'm grateful that I was able to provide it too. I may just be in my lab trying to do something or another." He looked at Yuya. "Unless you think that Shimhara might want me to make the lights brighter on his stage or something."

"God, I don't know with that dick." Yuya frowned. "You can try, but he might just tell you off for thinking that his place is less than perfect."

"Or call ya da help." Kokai's shoulders slumped slightly.

"Now, now, it was a bad day." Rantaro gently chided. "Let's give him a chance to redeem himself."

"Oh, there's no redeeming people like him, Ran-Ran, but you sure as hell can try." Yuya scoffed. "Good luck, Gogai-kun I don't want to be you."

Gonoji laughed but walked off without another word. Rantaro and Kokai watched him leave before turning back to the arsonist, who was looking at her shack with a big smile plastered on her face. Yuya looked exactly like Kokichi would when a big idea hit, and decided to cause problems on purpose. Shuichi wouldn't doubt that her knowledge of fire and explosives would also go into firecrackers and gunpowder.

"You sure you're okay? Shirogane-san…"

"Yadori-san lied to me." Yuya broke Rantaro off. "I know you mean well, but... I'm not really grieving here; I'm fucking furious. I'm gonna lit a bitch and watch it burn. I'm just trying to figure out the best way to do that, which gets the message across. You dig me?"

"You're scary." Kokai let out a short breath. "I dun wanna be on your bad side."

"Aw. You're lovely, Kokai-kun." Yuya beamed, "I don't want to be on yours either. So let's make a promise to not make promises, yeah? They're just gonna get broken in the end. If you excuse me, lads, I have a date with a fire extinguisher. Later, crocodiles."

".... That's not exactly how that phrase goes." Rantaro watched her slam the door of the little shack, and it rattled violently enough that it threatened to fall.

"'Elling her dat will be a mis'ake." Kokai winced, sweating beading down the side of his face. Shuichi didn't doubt that at all. Yuya was stubborn for the sake of it. Talking to her when she was angry wasn't going to get anywhere. She might want to speak when she calmed down some, but...Shuichi couldn't blame her if she decided to hold a grudge. He didn't like people lying either. Kokichi was terrible at it, he drove Shuichi up the wall, but there were differences in the lies that he told and the ones that Yadori had said.

There was a difference in someone murdering to protect someone, and killing because they thought it was the right thing to do. Shuichi tugged on his hat, despite that there was no way they would be able to see him.

The episode ended without any mention of the flashback light, but Shuichi didn't doubt that was going to be the next thing to be touched upon in the next few episodes. That is if no one decided to go after each other without needing much more than a reason. It was disturbing how easy it had been for the first murder to take place. Just a seed of doubt and that was that it took for two people to wind up dead.

That flashback light may not have to even try hard at all to get the rest of the group paranoid enough to kill each other. Shuichi quietly logged off of Danganronpa, his mind whirling over the information that he had received, and the knowledge that he was slowly obtaining.

It wasn't going to be a comfortable night tonight.

[ Stolen Heart: I don't think Aki-chan would be a traitor, do you? ]

Shuichi glanced at the corner of his phone to see that it was nearing three in the morning. Currently, he was trying to figure out a way to sleep, but his mind kept mulling over the information that he had gathered from the game and from Aki's laptop. He couldn't help but feel the same disconnect that most families felt when they were confronted with evidence that the person that they loved wasn't who they thought.

At the same time, Shuichi didn't really ask her about any of it. If he had...would he still be surprised? Maybe. He doubted Jabberwock would've come up in conversation. Regardless, he decided to respond to Kokichi despite how late it was at night. He needed the distraction, and perhaps so did his lover.

[ Me: It's more of a possibility than a mastermind. ]

Shuichi closed his eyes as he rested the phone against his chest, feeling the exhaustion creep upon him. Just how badly did Keiko fuck Danganronpa over?

That night he had the weirdest dream of a train going by, Aki was dangerously close to the edge of the stop. Her hair violently whipping across the wind. He remembered reaching out. He didn't remember the conversation, but he remembered her turning her head towards him, and a simple sentence crashed him awake.

Don't you choke now.

#vengeance #dangnaronpa fanfic #tw: angst #tw: murder #tw: missing persons #tw: mention of torture #tw: mystery #original character x original character #danganronpa v3 ensemble #danganronpa v2 #sdr2 #shuichi saihara #kokichi ouma #D.I.C.E who do we appreciate?!#oumasai #tw: depression #chapter 12 #trickfindings

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shauds-archived · 5 years

Note

Can we get more Jay Eddie please???

Okay, so there was no word with this one, so I didn't know if it was a table request, or just a general " Will there be more of Jason and Eddie" thing. Just waited till I had something to post with it anyway.

Another add on to " Do Not Engage" Just Jay and Eddie hanging around and catching up, :).

They went for pancakes - smothered in syrup and cream - caught up a little - incredibly awkward with how little either of them were really willing to talk about - and there was no more physical violence involved which was more than could be said of most social interactions Jason tried to engage in. Not that he'd really expected much more violence on Eddie's end, Jason had been more concerned about himself with that, maybe with Spoiler, maybe any of the other costume run-around about Gotham wondering where she and Kid Devil had gone.

"Be back soon," Eddie said when it was over, with a grin that's cheeriness wasn't offset by either fangs it revealed, or the way it literally lit up his face in the alley behind the diner.

"Just go make sure they don't think I mugged you." Jason kept his tone casual was he waved them off.

"Technically, couldn't we kinda say we mugged you?" Spoiler said, pulling her face mask down now she'd finally finished clearing away the copious amounts of syrup she'd gotten on the fabric. "Attacked you in the Bowery and took your money?" She cocked her head at them.

"Don't you dare."Jason warned, but couldn't find the heat to put behind it.

She chuckled and patted his cheek. "See you 'round McHostage."

That was exactly the story she was going to tell, he knew it, and Eddie wasn't going to refute it.

"I'm not buying you pancakes again." Jason yelled at the fiery... portal? Eddie had opened.

She waved again, her hand slipping away the last of them he saw, and then they were gone. The alley was quiet, cold as Gotham always was on the cusp of another storm. Soon the background noise - cars, sirens, chatter and shouts - rushed in to fill the silence they'd left. It'd been nice while it lasted. Jason tugged up the collar of his jacket against the wind, tucked his hands into his pockets, and started on his way to his nearest heated safehouse.

He got to the end of the alleyway when the ring of fire appeared in front of him again and Eddie came stumbling out. Literally stumbling, he took one step and fell over.

"Gopher!" Jason caught him before he could hit the wet, grimy asphalt. "What the hell?"

"No one calls me tha' 'nymore." He slurred and looked up at Jason with half-lidded eyes, then turned away with and let Jason pull him back to his feet.

"What happened?" Jason asked, circling Eddie, looking him over for injuries.

"Said I'd be back soon." Eddie said, running his forearm over his eyes. "Stop that." He batted Jason's prodding hands away from his head. No obvious signs of concussion, but... "Just been teleporting all day." He planted a hand on his hip and gave Jason a thumbs up. "All good now."

"You sure?" Jason didn't move to far from Eddie, kept his arms out, ready to catch him again juts in case.

"They're my powers, Jayce, I know how to handle them." Eddie jabbed the thumb at his own chest. "So what're we..." He took a step out of the alley and tipped over.

Jason sighed deeply and thanked his paranoia that he hadn't been able to keep from wearing the heat resistant padding under his t-shirt.

000

"I swear you used to be smarter." Jason shook his head and kicked the fridge closed, then slid the glass of orange juice across the island to Eddie.

"Wasn't sure I'd find you again." Eddie took a big gulp of juice, and then a bite of toast

Jason ignored the sting he felt a at that, folded his arms and leaned against the counter where he would keep a close eye on Eddie. "I meant that recruitment drive bullshit." He'd seen some pretty messed up side effects of exhaustion over the years, some particularly nasty one from metas, it didn't hurt to be cautious. "You know what that sounds like, right?"

Eddie sank down a little on the on the chair Jason'd pulled over from the the living room. "It's not like that, a lot of kids need the Titans, and we're really short on members right now, so..."

If it were kids that needed the Titans, the Titans wouldn't need recruitment drives. It wouldn't have a higher turnover rate then the damn Justice League. Jason pressed a hand over the bridge of his nose and held back a sigh. This was an argument he'd had many times, one he'd never won, getting into a screaming match wasn't going to help anything. Eddie had survived getting his torn open, h could teleport, he'd be fine. Jason scooped up the empty glass and brought it back to the fridge for a refill.

"Not like anyone was was interested." Eddie shrugged and accepted the glass, brought it to his lips along with the toast, then stopped halfway through the motion. "Or... Hey, your technically still a Teen, right?"

Jason couldn't stop the laughter that broke out from his chest at that, at the very idea that he would ever so much as consider that, so much as be considered, ever. "Not a chance in this or any universe, K.D."

"Was worth a shot."

Eddie said, turning his nose up at Jason. He he popped the last piece of toast into his mouth. "And it's actually Red Devil now."

"Well, no one's ever accused you of being a coward." Jason took the plate to rinse the crumbs off it and heard the scraping of Eddie pushing his chair back from the ground. "And is R.D gonna pass out on me again?"

Eddie's chuckle was nervous. "Nah, R.D's good, just needed a boost. Man this is weird."

"Nah, I get attacked by demons every other night."

"I can't even tell of you're joking." Eddie said and hopped up to sit on the counter. "Guess it's not that weird anymore, but still, I just never thought, you were, you know."

"Yeah." Jason dried the plate and stacked it with the others. "I know." Jason wouldn't have believed it himself if someone had told him at fifteen that this was what he'd be. "I woulda told you, if I'd thought..." Jason pressed a hand against his eyes and huffed.

"M'not mad about that anymore." Eddie was swinging his legs, looking out the window at the stormy city. He was like something out of a B grade horror movie, just like he'd wanted when he'd been a kid, and he was still the most like what Jason remembered out of all of them. "Well I am, I guess, but not really at you."

"Thanks." Jason ducked his head and stepped around the island for the doorway. "So, we haven't tried to beat the crap out of each other yet, and I have no idea what we do now"

There was a thump of Eddie's feet hitting the floor and he was following after Jason. "I wanted to watch Ballistic: Ecks vs. Server the other night, and Amy kind of looked like she wanted to beat the crap out of me for it."

"You hate that movie."

"How do you remember that?"

"Hard to forget when you practically wrote me an essay on it."

000

Four odd years would be a long time for anyone. For people who lived like Jason and Eddie, who'd changed as much as they had in that time, it was pretty much an eternity. So much had happened, more than either could have guessed at and a lot that neither of them easily understood. So they talked.

They talked about Dan and Aunt Marla and the multiverse and the Titans. More about Eddie than about Jason, because whenever conversation turned to the older of the two, he'd find a way to steer it back around.

The movie played in the background, both of them paying more attention to each other and the bowl of popcorn between them than the screen. Eddie joked about how between the pancakes, the toast and now the popcorn, it seemed Jason was incapable of conversation that wasn't over food. Jason flipped him off and shoved a hand of popcorn in his mouth in lieu of a reply. Eddie brought up the swear jar he and Rose had made use of at the tower, when she'd still been there.

When the movie was over, they swapped it out for something equally bad and put it just loud enough to block out the sounds of the storm that made Gotham at daytime dark as twilight. And then they talked about Twilight and Eddie felt terrible about subjecting Jason to the horror.

"Can't believe you found the vampire hunter world and it's the old-timey one you wanted to stay in." By that point, Eddie was only half on the couch, having slid down lower and lower to the ground over the course of the night h had to look past his shoulder to see Jason. Or maybe not, it actually did sound a lot like 'Extra Credit History Assignments For Fun Jason.'

"Yeah." Jason had chuckled, only half awake himself and curled up in two thirds of the couch, Eddie suspected it had been a while since he'd slept at all. "Kyle got infected there." He linked his fingers and stretched his hands up and over his head. Eddie rolled his eyes and dragged the bowl of cold, and now too salty popcorn off the couch and onto his lap. " But can hunt vampire's here."

Eddie hummed in agreement and massaged his tired eyes, turned them lazily to the screen where a bunch off teenagers were shrieking very unconvincingly about a witch. "You wanna hunt a vampire?" Eddie slid still further off the couch, and this time Jason's legs uncurled a little to claim the space Eddie had vacated.

"No m'sleeping." Jason yawned and buried his face in the armrest, he looked a lot more comfortable than Eddie, who gave in and let himself fall the rest of the way to the ground. The carpet was soft too, well soft enough, Eddie didn't have the energy to get up and reclaim couch space. "Do it with the Titans."

"Titans don't hunt things." Eddie yawned too, great, he'd caught it from Jason and now he was going to fall asleep too. "We just kind of..." He flopped a hand in circles as the yawn winded down, "Get attacked by supervillains 'n stuff."

"So heroic." Jason scoffed, then he shifted so he was laying on his back, eyes on the ceiling, abruptly tense and nowhere near as comfortable as he'd been a moment ago. "Speaking of, you gonna be heading back soon?"

"No, I don't..." Eddie turned around, so he was kneeling, facing the couch and Jason. "I can hang a little longer."

"Ah." Jason nodded once, scrubbed a hand over his face before folding both arms behind his head and closing his eyes.

"Unless." Eddie bit down on his bottom lip, shifted his gaze quickly to the door and back, something heavy and cold settling on his shoulders. Jason hadn't expected Eddie to be back right after dropping Spoiler back at the tower, he knew that, and then, Eddie had been here for hours already, he knew he could be a little inept at telling when he'd worn out his welcome. "Did you want me to leave you alone?"

"No." Jason said, a deep line having appeared between his eyes and his lips set in a frown. "I wouldn't want you to go." He rolled his shoulders, a nervous gesture that didn't fit him "Just figured, you had thing's to do, n you'd wanna get back 'fore they knew you were..." He motioned at himself and then around at the apartment. "Y'know."

"I don't." Eddie tucked some strands of hair behind his ear and shifted away from the couch to keep the sudden spike in his body temperature from burning it up. "And I know you don't really thing I'd ditch you for such a dumb reason." He fixed his eyes on Jason and tried to smile, he was good at that. "I swear you used to be smarter."

Jason finally looked at Eddie, blinked owlishly at him with eyes so wide, Eddie might have thought it was funny if it hadn't made him turn every bit of the carpet he was touching to charcoal. Then Jason snorted and shook his head as he rolled off the couch. "I gotta fire-proof this apartment sometime."

"Yeah, that's a really, really good idea." Eddie winced and shifted away from the carpet he'd destroyed.

"Ima grab the fire-extinguisher, you get another movie going." Jason was gone from the room minutes after the sounds of him rifling through the kitchen came to an end.

The room was too dark to be sure, but when he came back in, Jason's eyes were suspiciously red. When he didn't bring it up, Eddie let himself pretend it was because his friend was short a couple hours too many of sleep.

They didn't do much more talking that night, but that was fine, there'd be plenty more time for catching up on others.

#Jason Todd #Eddie Bloomberg #fanfiction #asks #anon #mine

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annaisu · 5 years

Text

Silent Invasion - Chapter 8

This story was last updated back in 2015, so here’s a quick recap: Ann anxious little SI just woke up in the body of Desmond Miles, with no clue of what in the world was going on. She-turned-he was captured and brought to Abstergo, and put through the Animus. Things have basically gone according to the game so far, and she just finished living through the siege of Masyaf. Now it’s time for her to get up and begin the dance of prisoner and sympathetic captor.

—

I couldn’t move.

Images, thoughts, feelings, emotions, pains – everything was racing through my mind, too quick and chaotic for me to grasp ahold of. All that I could capture was the feeling of hurt, betrayal, agony- I tried to anchor myself in the physical world, but there was only the overwhelming stench of blood and death of battle, the sticky sensation of sweat, the pain of being gutted through-

Agonizingly slowly, I dragged a hand up to my abdomen, feeling the unbroken flesh and fabric beneath my hand as words slowly broke through my haze. “He’s experiencing a far better adoption rate than the other subjects!” That voice didn’t match with what I was feeling, wasn’t the master I had disappointed…

“I’m still pulling him out; he’s been in their way too long.” Another voice, this time too soft for the pain I could feel. Slowly, too slowly, I began to recollect myself. That was Lucy, which meant the other voice must be Vidic… which meant I was just coming out of the animus. God, my head was spinning, and I could still hear the cries of battle…

“No, not yet!” Vidic exclaimed. “We’re still so far from where we need to be!” I needed to wake up to my own skin – no matter how unfamiliar it was, Desmond’s body was still far more real and present than Altaïr’s. I sucked in a slow breath, focusing on my diaphragm, feeling the way my stomach rose and yet didn’t pull against any broken skin.

“We shouldn’t risk it.” Lucy-lu, the angel of reason. We were just starting, and I needed to at least get used to coming out of the Animus and back into my own skin. This was only day one. I could feel my mind starting to settle back into normal, back into my own head, but I still felt vaguely trippy. Like I had just climbed a set of stairs back into my own head and I had reached the landing, only I was still trying to take an extra step that wasn’t there and falling through empty air.

“What’s another hour or two?” Vidic said, a frustrated tone to his voice. He didn’t sound desperate yet, though, so that was good. I wasn’t doing too badly then, otherwise he probably would have sounded worse.

“Why don’t we discuss this in the conference room?” Lucy offered. “Give Desmond a minute to stretch his legs.” I blinked slowly at the sound of ‘my’ name, and the blurry figure above me resolved itself into a stern old man. Ugh. Could that face go back to being blurry, please?

The man turned back towards me, pointedly muttering. “I really don’t see the need-” The screen above me went blank as it turned off, and it slowly started retracting.

“Warren! Please.” Lucy clearly did see the need, and I could hear the clicking of her heels as she walked away.

“Fine,” Vidic added curtly as he began to follow Lucy. I watched his back as the screen was fully retracted and dropped my hand back to my side. I slowly levered myself up into a sitting position, holding a hand up to my forehead as the room seemed to sway. Still, I didn’t have time to waste. I stood up, my legs surprisingly steady, just in time to see Warren walk through the conference room door.

As I walked over to the room, I could see through the glass wall that Lucy was leading Warren into a corner of the room, far from any door. It just so happened that the corner she chose was nearest my bathroom, and had a handy vent just above her that led directly into a room I had easy access to. I paused for a moment by the window, just out of sight, trying to hear anything they were saying. I caught muffled bits of speech, but nothing else, so I pulled back and went through the open door to the side.

I barely paid any attention to the room first room, following the source of the voice, pausing at the door only long enough to give it a quick once over. Lock, cabinet, door to bathroom, camera, exposed piping, bed, desk and chair, all drab and grey. I resumed walking on the tiled floor, noting how their voices were slowly becoming more distinct as I headed to the bathroom. Finally, I reached the sink counter – and the vent connected to the conference room.

I quietly clambered up onto the counter, standing tall and getting my ear as close to the air vent as I could. The air was cold, just like the rest of this sterile facility. The wall was even colder when I braced myself against it, but it was worth it when I could finally hear the two of my prison guards speaking. “I don’t appreciate you questioning my authority in front of the prisoner!” Way to drive the point home, Warren. “There’s a word for that – I believe it’s called insubordination.”

Lucy’s voice was tinny and distorted when she spoke. “And I don’t appreciate you trying to kill him! There’s a word for that too – I believe it’s called stupid.” Lucy sounded so indignant and I had to muffle a snort. Questionable loyalties aside, Lucy was pretty awesome and very quick on the draw. I felt a burst of affection for her warm in my chest, despite knowing what I did.

“Lucy.” Vidic’s voice was sharp, and I couldn’t hide a wince. “This isn’t my decision; I don’t set the deadlines, but I’m smart enough not to challenge them.” Who did make the decisions? Who was the Templar Grandmaster in this time? I couldn’t remember, if I had ever known. “Do you want to end up like Leila?”

I bit my lip as Lucy responded, “I know the accident has everyone on edge.” The accident had been an Apple blowing up one of Abstergo’s facilities, right? That was why they were so desperate to find more apples, and any other First Civ technology.

“Which is why there’s no time to coddle him,” Vidic said. I grimaced, uncomfortable at my position. If this was coddling, I didn’t want to know what Warren’s idea of strenuous pacing was.

“If you push him too hard, he’ll shut down, and then we’ll have nothing.” Oh yeah, I actually did know. It was Animus sessions until you went absolutely insane and started painting the walls with your blood. I let my head rest against the wall for a moment, savoring the support and the cool sensation, before lifting it to listen again.

“We have nothing now!” Thanks, Vidic. I appreciate your ego boost so much, how could I ever feel worthless with you around.

“But we do,” Lucy said, voice suddenly coy and conspiring. She continued on, softly. “We just need to have a little faith.” Dang it, Lucy, how come you have to be so likeable? Seeing her and hearing her in person was so different than watching and listening to cutscenes, so much more real. She seemed so genuine, and I had to wonder how much of this was really her, and how much of this was just playing a role for me to sympathize with and rely on. God, I wish I knew how much of Lucy in the coming days would be real, how much was really her and how much was just a ploy.

“Fine! But I want you thinking of ways to improve his staying power. We can’t afford to stop every time the man breaks a sweat.” Oh for the love of – I had just been stabbed! Give me a freaking break about being a sweaty mess over that. I’d like to see him recover so quickly from betrayal and a gutting – and I wouldn’t mind being on the delivering side of the gutting!

…okay, no, I actually would mind, I admitted to myself. Killing in the animus had already been hard enough, I didn’t want to think about murdering people in real life. Then again, I might be changing my tune about killing Warren after all that he would put me through, and after countless time in the Animus. “Bad enough we already have to trace through these useless memories.” Yeah, no, I was super grateful for the memories Warren deemed worthless, so he could just put up with them for as long as I could drag them out.

“I’ll do what I can,” Lucy promised. With that, their conversation ended, and I slid off the counter. I faux-causally hurried out of the bathroom and back to the main room, trying to be back in there before the two could make it out of the room. I didn’t know how much the cameras caught of me spying on them in the bathroom, but I had to assume Abstergo could see everything and tailor my movements towards that.

How aware should I act? I would try to be as circumspect as possible, but I didn’t want to look completely useless. But then, I didn’t want to be too blatant either – despite having run away for years, Desmond had been trained as an Assassin. Ugh – I needed to stop thinking about the ideal version of what I should do, and focus on what I could actually do instead. I may be in Desmond’s body now, but that didn’t mean I had access to his training or knowhow.

I stayed away from the doors, instead going to inspect the animus servers in the corner. Air was drifting up from the floor in wisps of steam, visible despite it being barely what I would consider ‘room temperature’. The rest of the air was absolutely freezing, no doubt to keep the hordes of computer equipment running at peak efficiency. Good Lord above, was there a lot of electronics. How in the world had Rebecca managed to compress all of this into her relatively tiny workstation in comparison? There was circuitry in the walls and the floor below me, all intended to keep the Animus running at peak proficiency – I assumed, at least, but then what else could it be for?

I felt a presence come up behind me and turned around to see the sullen face of Warren Vidic. “We’re done for today, Mr. Miles.” Lucy passed behind him on the way to her work station as he spoke. “I suggest you return to your room and get some rest.” I snorted quietly as he began walking towards me and the door. Quality rest was certainly not something I expected to be getting tonight.

I eyed him as he approached the wide double doors, not moving any closer, but not moving away either. What were the chances that I could rush past him and fight my way out? I flexed my hand, hearing my knuckled crack quietly. Warren didn’t pause, didn’t even stop to look at me as he continued on his way out. The metal doors slid open automatically with a quiet hiss of hydraulics, and I caught a slight glimpse of people standing guard outside before they slid closed once more.

I grit my teeth and walked over to the exit, knowing it was futile to try, but still wanting to see anything that might help me escape. The doors were solidly shut, and there was no real window to peer through. There was a weird pattern of glass perforating the door in a cross shaped pattern, but it was too small and thing to really see through. There was no visible keypad or anything to signal how the doors were opened for Vidic. I knew that the little glowing pen he carried was basically a password for his computer; was it also keyed into this door? That seemed pretty careless, as it was well within pickpocketing range – once I gained the skill, that was.

Temporarily giving up getting out as a bad job, I turned back towards the main room. Lucy had stayed behind, and she was industriously working at her computer in front of the Animus. Her tapping at the keyboard became louder as I walked over, but she stopped at about the same time as I reached her. She looked down at her tablet for a moment, but then she turned her focus on me.

I didn’t know what I should say, but Lucy only hesitated a moment longer before starting up the conversation. “So, you’re really an assassin?” She asked cautiously “Like Altaïr?” I desperately grasped at my memories of how this conversation was supposed to go – no way this wasn’t an important talk, and I really didn’t want to screw it up.

She was looking up at me expectantly, her face hopeful, yet carefully guarded. It was hard to refuse that face. “Yes and no,” I began slowly, trailing off and focusing on not biting my lip in nervousness. I flexed my hands again instead, and sent out a quick prayer.

“What do you mean?” Lucy asked, seemingly taken off guard by my noncommittal answer.

“Well, I was supposed to be one,” I began slowly. Aaand that was about as far as my memory of this conversation extended. “That’s what my parents were training me to be, before I ran away from the Farm.” Curse it, I was supposed to mention being a teen somewhere in there.

Lucy responded quietly, leadingly. “The Farm?”

I took in a deep breath. I needed to give her enough info that I seemed like a good mark, but not enough that I could possibly endanger any Assassins. “That’s where I grew up, the Farm. It was a small community – kinda like Masyaf, I guess, only less… creepy.” I didn’t get what was so creepy about Masyaf, but I did remember Desmond calling it that. “We all lived out in the middle of nowhere, off of the grid.” Was I doing alright?

Lucy’s calm tone was reassuring, even though it probably shouldn’t be. “Why?”

Why what? Live off the grid? “I didn’t know what was going on back then. I thought my parents were just crazy, constantly on the lookout for attacks that weren’t there. My father was always going on about our enemies, how they were looking for us. He kept telling me to be prepared – but no one ever came. Nothing ever happened.” That felt… far more accurate to the script than I thought I had remembered.

She didn’t look like she understood – or at least, she pretended not to. She had met Bill Miles after all. “Why’d you run away?”

This, I knew. “I could never leave the compound.” I gestured to the room around me, aware of the irony in my present circumstances mirroring Desmond’s past situation. “I was trapped, kept in my father’s little world. Do you know what it’s like being stuck, knowing there’s a whole world full of things you’ll never be able to see?” I looked at her somewhat pleadingly, hoping for understanding.

She didn’t give it. “Don’t you miss your parents?”

I went still, thinking of my own family. My mother, my sister and brother, even my father- “No,” I lied. Damnit. I drew in a breath and centered myself, remembering my own fractured relationship with my father, remembered watching Desmond’s and his father’s interaction, remembered looking for any mention of Desmond’s mom and never actually finding anything. “They had another job that came long before being my parents – being my wardens.”

“It sounds like the only wanted to protect you.” Lucy was very carefully trying not to sound judging, but I still read censure into her words. I turned and took several steps away, keeping Lucy in my sights but not focusing on her.

The walls of my prison were cold and harsh. “Maybe you’re right,” I admitted slowly. “With all of this…” I trailed off and shrugged, not sure how to continue. “I don’t know.”

Finally, Lucy softened again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dredge up the past.”

I turned back to face her properly and tried to offer her a smile. It came out a bit weaker than I intended, but that was alright. “It’s fine. I guess it gives me something to think about tonight – more than whatever the hell went on in that thing.” I nodded towards the Animus.

Lucy smiled in return. “Just don’t think to hard – take a few minutes to rest. Food should be here soon.”

I couldn’t help it – I immediately perked up. “Food?”

Laughing softly, she responded. “Don’t get too excited – it’ll probably just be sandwiches or something else that’s easy to put together and deliver. Go wait over there somewhere; I need to get back to work.” She gestured to the room at large, already turning back to her computer. Moments later, she was typing once more.

I lingered by her side instead, peering over her shoulder to see the screen. I needn’t have bothered – she was flashing through tabs and windows at a ridiculously fast pace, pausing to type in nonsense code, and then lingering over seemingly random images of maps, coordinates, memory fragments, and DNA strands. Lucy didn’t wave me off or impede my view in any way, so I just stood there awkwardly, trying to understand what was going on without interrupting her.

I made sure there was enough distance between us to be less uncomfortable and to make sure we both had our personal bubbles intact, but that made it harder to view the screen. Eventually I gave it up as a bad job, but by that point, I guessed that this might have something to do with the flags that popped up in the Animus? Or at least, part of what she was doing was related. Vidic did ask her to increase my ‘Staying Power’, after all.

It was about then that the exit beeped, opening to let a tray be pushed in, before closing again. It happened far to fast for me to do anything, and I barely caught a glimpse of the hallway outside before my view was cut off once more. Abstergo certainly had no plans to make escape easy for me – at least, not yet.

Though at least they did seem to plan to feed me. I eyed the tray dubiously, but there wasn’t really that much to take in. There was a plate of sandwiches, a carton of milk, and an apple. “Did I go back to being on the free lunch program when I wasn’t looking?” I muttered to myself. The sandwiches were even wrapped up in plastic, with little condiment packets to the side. I ignored the undesired mayo and mustard and left them on the trolley, but took the tray with me as I thought about where to sit.

My first instinct was to just plop down on the stairs elevating the machinery, but then I had a more devious idea. Why sit on the floor when there was a perfectly good chair with a fantastic view? I was only a few feet into my plan to spite Vidic when I finally noticed the two chairs on either side of the Animus. One was clearly for Lucy, being placed right next to her computer – and hadn’t she sat there when the two were first explaining things? – and I decided to claim the other seat as my own.

Lucy looked up as I plopped down, but she quickly returned to her work as I began to eat. I paused only long enough to say a quick, silent grace before I was tearing off the plastic packet. Several minutes passed in relative silence, only the quiet tap-tap-tapping of Lucy’s pen and keyboard and my chewing breaking the quiet. If I concentrated, I could hear the fans gently whirring, pumping out freezing air.

By the time I’d finished my first sandwich – on white bread, ugh – I was finally ready to speak. “So, Lucy,” I began. “I’ve got a question for you.”

She paused her work and looked up with a smile. “Sure.”

“How did Abstergo find me?” I asked. I already knew the answer, but really – it was utterly ridiculous. “I haven’t been anywhere near the assassins in years.”

Lucy didn’t even pause before she started reeling off options. “Did you use your real name?”

The misleading and lying driver’s license that I was still sore over very clearly stated, “Nope. Not before today.”

“Credit cards?” Now that I’d proven I wasn’t a complete moron, Lucy looked a little more invested in the conversation.

Recent receipts said no, even if I hadn’t remembered as much from the game. “Cash only,” I said in a somewhat pleased tone. How did Desmond even manage that, in today’s society?”

“Telephone number?” Lucy rapidly responded , as if reading from a mental list.

I wryly shrugged this suggestion off as well. “No one to call.”

“Driver’s license?” Was her next guess, and I closed my eyes. Yup, there we go.

I let the answer drag out of me. “Motorcycle.” I opened my eyes and looked back at Lucy with a sheepish smile. “Guilty pleasure.”

She nodded, pointed and satisfied. “There’s your answer. Photo, fingerprints.”

“Oh, come on,” I complained disbelievingly. “This is a drug company! What does Abstergo have to do with the DMV?”

The teasing look fell away from Lucy’s face. “Desmond, these guys are everywhere. They-“ She cut herself off, making a slight motion with her head. “I… I’m sorry,” she stuttered, nervously darting her gaze towards one of the numerous cameras recording us before hastily looking back down at her work. “I really can’t talk about it.”

Lucy kept her head ducked down and applied her full focus back onto her work, clearly signaling the end of our conversation. I finished off the last of my meal in complete silence, the food weighing heavy in my stomach. This was going to be my new life now, huh?

As I brought my empty plate back to the cart, I gave the room another lookover. There were cameras freaking everywhere, leaving no square inch unwatched. “Why don’t you go on ahead to bed?” Lucy called out from across the room.

What time even was it? The light outside seemed a little dim but not dark – maybe a bit before dusk? Even if I wasn’t sure of the time, I did know that I was tired, and in far more ways than just one. “…Alright,” I called back. I gave one last look around the main room before heading deeper into my prison cell – I mean, into my bedroom.

As soon as I entered, the door slid shut behind me and locked itself with a beep and a whir. I turned around to see that the light above it was now glowing a soft red, matching the keypad on the nearby wall. “Damn, they locked the door,” I muttered facetiously. Turning back around, I counted at least 2 obvious cameras in my room. Did they record audio as well as visuals?

The bathroom wasn’t any better. One camera was aimed at the sink, and had no doubt caught my earlier eavesdropping. The other… was getting a front row view of the toilet and the shower. Ugh.

Repressing a shiver of revulsion, I began to scan the room in greater detail. A sink with a water glass and towels folded neatly to the side… a toilet with unused toilet paper rolls hung beside it… and an open glass shower, right in prime view of the camera.

“Abstergo really doesn’t understand the concept of privacy, do they?” I bitterly commented. Curse it, I wasn’t comfortable with my new mode of releasing myself, and now I’d have to do it on camera. Talk about performance anxiety.

Trying desperately not to think of all the people who would review these tapes at one time or another, I relieved myself, and instantly tried to forget it ever happened while I went to wash my hands. At least I could do… it… with my back facing the camera, which was something I wouldn’t have been able to do before, as someone of the female persuasion. “What the heck even is my life.”

But it wasn’t my life that was important, now was it? It was Desmond’s, and Altaïr’s, and Ezio’s, and Connor’s – but mostly Desmond’s. I wasn’t anywhere on that list. I felt tears start to well up in the corner of my eyes, and I bowed my head over the sink so that the cameras wouldn’t see.

I was exhausted, emotionally overwhelmed, in physical pain from being knocked out earlier, feeling the phantom ache of a lethal stabbing, and stressed out beyond belief from worry and anxiety. I let the emotions roil through me, not fighting them as they escaped. I don’t know how long I stayed there, painful thoughts and feelings whirring away until I was more exhausted than emotional.

Finally, I wiped my eyes, washed my face, and stood up. I felt drained and wrung out, but I still needed to think. I had somehow managed to make it through this first day, but I still had at least five more that I needed to get through. Or was it six? Groaning, I dragged myself back into the bedroom and plopped down at the desk, pulling the book on it over to me.

I didn’t actually plan on writing anything real down, but desks just made everything feel a bit more productive. I also didn’t want to risk sitting down on the bed and falling asleep before I figured things out. I pulled the three-ring binder properly before me and flipped it open. The book was full of empty pages, and several pens were tucked inside an inner pocket.

I went ahead and pulled out a pen, hovered above the blank page, and… began idly scribbling as I thought. Wobbly, criss-crossing circles formed on the page as I brought my attention to bear.

Was it possible to glean any recollections of the real Desmond’s memories? Futilely I reached back through my mind, struggling to prod up recollections that weren’t mine. I concentrated on whatever I thought he would remember most clearly – the bar, the farm, escaping… and yet all I could get were vague shadows and hints of feelings.

The bar was the most recent, and I had actually been there, so I could even properly picture the place. Desmond had been… content there, if stifled. He enjoyed the freedom it offered, but as time passed, he wanted something… more. More real? More exciting, more lasting, more meaningful? I couldn’t tell.

I discovered even less about the farm. It just made me feel small inside, trapped and berated and weak. I imagined a tall man standing over me, angry and terrifying with it, but I couldn’t tell if that was William Miles or my own father. The escape and what followed was no more clear, and all I could sense was Desmond’s terror and excitement.

Giving up remembering Desmond’s past as a bad job, I flipped to the next empty page. This time, I drew a continuous line, all sharp angles and jagged edges. I would have to rely on my own memories. I grimaced as I focused – my memory wasn’t exactly something I was well known for, except for in very specific scenarios.

I could nearly recite the scene that surrounded Desmond’s awakening in Abstergo nearly word for word, but I couldn’t remember the actual number of days he was in there. I could remember a guard calling out to Altaïr in gratitude, but I couldn’t remember which side of the library the flag would be on. I could remember meeting Shawn and Rebecca, their strong reactions to certain stuff – “This stuff Desmond, oh, this stuff is nothing special really, this stuff is just the stuff that keeps our organization from falling apart, really.” A smile cracked across my face as Shaun’s British tones sarcasmed their way through my mind.

“…sitting in a hospital ward, drooling and chewing on your tongue.” My pencil and smile dropped, and I buried my face in my hands. Damnit. Damn it, damn this, what even was happening with me. I wasn’t actually insane, right? This was real, wasn’t it? Would all this being real even be preferable to being a psychotic mess of a breakdown?

FOCUS.

It didn’t matter.

But the quote from Clay and breakdowns did lead me to another thought – my room, and it’s charming décor. I spun around in my chair, furrowing my brow as I strained to see what wasn’t actually there. I focused above the headboard, knowing what I should see, what I would one day see –

My eyes started to burn and blur, and I gave up for the moment. No eagle vision for me yet. So, what else was there for me to do? A horrible, awful, no good evil thought hit me. Exercise.

I needed to train, to get stronger, to prepare for the future trials ahead of me. And that meant exercising. Grumbling to myself, I scanned the room, trying to find the least observed spot. Nowhere really seemed to stand out, so I decided to just go ahead and work out on the other side of the bed from where I was.

Stretching came first, then body weight exercises, then cooling down. I started out with just my memories of failed exercise programs, but slowly muscle memory and more vague recollections that weren’t my own kicked in. There was no way it was Altaïr’s routine, not with so little time spent in his head yet, so it had to be Desmond’s.

It was easier working out in Desmond’s body than it was in my own. He was stronger, more flexible, and the body responded more quickly than my own sometimes did. He even had muscle memory built up that assisted in my workout, so I guessed that Desmond had kept up at least a little of his fitness regime.

Working out made me more viscerally aware of Desmond’s body. The muscles shifting and moving, each limb stretching and extending, tension ebbing and flowing… It was odd. In my own life, I’d never been really… attached to my body. I had a poor sense of spatial awareness, frequently bumping into walls and objects without realizing I was too close to them, and tripping when I moved to fast. I never felt truly attached to my body, as if my awareness was merely loosely anchored to a physical being under my control.

Maybe that was why it wasn’t so bad being in Desmond’s body? In a horrible way, he almost felt more real than I did. This wasn’t my body originally, but I had been anchored into it quite firmly. I might have been sharing this body with someone else, and other bodies would be projected into my mind, but… this really wasn’t that bad a fit.

Speaking of fitting, now that I was done exercising, I went over to try out the wardrobe. I’d worked up a decent sweat, and I hoped that Abstergo might have provided me with some pjs or something.

Nope. “I can’t even change my clothes.” Instead, I went into the bathroom and used one of the towels to get up as much sweat as I could. I wasn’t taking a shower – I wasn’t that desperate, yet. I went ahead and took off my hoodie, and then after some trepidation, my shirt as well. I looked down to see a flat chest, with a light sprinkling of hair and muscles.

My head spun, and I immediately jerked my gaze back up. Nope, what the hell, that was weird, nope. I shuddered, and the feeling of dysphoria finally hit me. This really wasn’t my body.

Awkwardly and uncomfortably, I used the washcloth and sink to rinse off a little bit. As soon as I could, I slid Desmond’s admittedly kinda gross shirt back on, but I left the sweater off. Instead, I took it with me, and headed to bed.

I slid under the covers on the side of the bed nearest the bathroom, and placed my hoodie on top of the sheets beside me. I didn’t even bother trying to find and turn off the lights after not noticing it earlier – the exhaustion was back and hitting me full force now that I’d given in and laid down.

Earlier, I hadn’t thought I would be able to fall asleep, but within moments

I was out.

#my writing #my stuff #Assassin's Creed #Silent Invasion #Lucy Stillman #I'll add the links tonight #and post it on AO3 and ffnet #but I also need to go back and fix older chapters at least a little bit #the first third of this is actually from at least 2 years ago

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