#If he had to accept Sakura was gone and has been dead this whole time

[completeoveranalysis]

[4]

AND NOW WE GET PIFFLE CALL BACKS?

Oh Clamp really do love me. This is unreasonably perfect. 

Who else begins the climactic fight of the series with, “Hey, remember this double layered question I posed 135 chapters ago? Let’s revisit that now!”

WHICH IS VERY GENEROUS OF THEM in the way that it signposts an exact conversation for us to think about and realise (without having to reread the whole series yet again) that the whole conversation between Syaoran and Fai in Piffle was REALLY HEAVILY honed in on the secret Lava Lamp crushing guilt and backstory we didn’t know about until now. 

Which is wild in the meta sense knowing that CLAMP planned for that exact sentiment to be the very core of a character we wouldn’t even understand for another 130 chapters, but also on the character level knowing (in hindsight) that Lava Lamp himself was hearing this conversation happen in real time and probably had an absolutely horrible time knowing that they were discussing ethics behind the soul-crushing decision he made that broke the universe and is still suffering AND seeing the consequences of. 

But how absolutely fascinating that after Shara our cloned Syaoran ended up developing such a similar insecurity about messing with timelines and the consequences of doing so completely independently from Lava Lamp. The parallel lives of these parallel people. The hitsuzen of it all. 

AND! Fai gives almost the same advice! 

Last time he said, “You can ponder over that all you want[…] but right now, it won’t do us a bit of good,” and, “If there’s something that you can accomplish if you try, then the thing to do is try. ‘Changing history’ is an idea on too grand a scale for a person to do anything about. It’s also important to accept that there are things you just can’t do.” And he was talking specifically between the Shura/Shara timeline changes at the time, but in relation to Clow? Lava Lamp holds himself accountable for every single thing that happened, but he didn’t do all of that. He was just trying to achieve a goal - which is framed here as a good thing (and is very good advice for dealing with anxiety besides). 

At his core Fai sees this same struggle playing out in each Syaoran and gave them both the same tips - but this time he can reference the previous time and really hammer it home. 

And, deliciously, it echoes even stronger here. The advice is to ignore all the things you can’t control. Just focus on what you want, and do what you can to achieve it.

Lava Lamp might still feel that he ruined the universe, but that won’t help him right now. Like Fai said last time, that’s on too grand a scale for him to ever take on his own. He has one thing he wants to achieve and he should focus on that. The timeline will sort itself out later. 

Which is SUCH a solid Dad moment. Kurogane gets to tell Evil Wolverine to fuck off, Fai and Kurogane get to flirt and insult Evil Wolverine to his face, and now Fai gets to give a touching character moment to Lava Lamp as they all share the final story beat together. It ties the Syaoran experience together (ironically, since the other Syaoran he WAS speaking to is RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM but may or may not have the soul to remember the moment at all), and ties both sides of the plot together into this one big family moment. 

Though I’m slightly suspicious of Fai last time mentioning that It’s also important to accept that there are things you just can’t do. 

[animeyanderelover]

How about any soft yandere you want with darling who's not real I mean all the thing they do and the darling itself just a sweet dream when the yandere's ask other people about us they seem to have no memory of us whatsoever, it'll crush yandere's heart especially the worshiper one (kaneki, Naruto etc)

That’s so sad😞.

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, possessive behavior, obsession, delusion

They’re not real

Obito Uchiha

🔥He could definitely go delusional and crazy enough to fantasize himself a s/o. Obito has gone through severe trauma, lost his first love and has been thoroughly manipulated by Madara. The man lives isolated and humans are known to be social creatures so the loneliness might just have been the final push he needed to make you up in his mind, the ideal lover he so desperately longs for. You're sweet, you're kind and you're incredibly affectionate so how couldn't he fall for this dream his messed up mind has created to cope with his trauma. Obito is very delusional so he ends up wholeheartedly believing that you're real and since he is a complete loner, there is no one to prove him wrong. There are sometimes things that hint to him that you're not really there yet he pushes all those thoughts away by deluding himself even further. The Uchiha doesn't want to doubt your existence since it only crazes him further. It's safer if he just stays happy and delusional like this, not even heaven knows what would happen if someone would tell him.

Naruto Uzumaki

🍜Naruto has gone through his fair share of trauma and loneliness during his childhood too, no one he could call his friend. He only had you, his imaginery friend who he created out of pure loneliness back then. Whilst he finds during the following years many friends, he witnesses just as much loses and violence and sometimes is too terrified to speak about his emotions with someone else hence why he runs back to you. Somewhere down the road he starts losing track of the fact that you're not real and just a creation out of his mind. He's fallen in love by now and in his imagination you two are a couple, have gone on multiple dates already. Naruto is social so it's fairly quick that his friends find out about his delusional state. It's a delicate topic though because whilst initially he brushes the truth off as a joke from their side, with time he finds himself slowly crumbling when more and more people insist on it. He clings onto his delusion though, at one point yells at others to stop saying such cruel things since you're right here. Sakura and Tsunade will be especially worried.

Shaiapouf

🎻​His whole life and his purpose was to serve Meruem and protect him, it's literally the reason why he was born. He failed though, his king is dead and he's seemingly the only survivor from the Chimera Ants left. Shaiapouf might as well want to die though, he's basically just suicidal at this point, can't see why he should continue to exist without his king. He's a failure, better off to die anyways. His mind has a complete meltdown, he has to serve someone after all. So his mind ultimately comes up with you, perfect and graceful in any way he sees it fit. He goes down on his knees for the delusion he came up with, paranoid and incredibly broken yet serving you gives him a purpose in his life again. Shaiapouf lives far away from civilization, terrified that they might take away his new highness from him again. He has no one to tell him that his s/o is just a last way resort of his mind to cope with the immense suicidal wish inside of him. Any signs that might reveal themselves over time are instantly erased from his mind, unwilling to accept the reality.

Ken Kaneki

🔲​Kaneki has been living alone ever since his mother died and only had Hide as his friend. He pretty much broke already when he was turned into a half-ghoul and didn't want to accept the truth yet his sanity shattered entirely when Jason tortured him without a single break. Whilst he embraced the fact that he is a ghoul back then, he silently longs for someone who will really accept him as a ghoul, might silently still mourn over the loss of his humanity. The result his mind comes up with is his darling, sweet and loving, who loves him for the real him. Kaneki drowns himself in this self-created dream of his, escapes all the pain he had to go through. He's in despair when the ghouls in Anteiku tell him that they've never seen you, don't have a single memory of you despite him insisting that you two have visited this coffee shop together. Touka is especially hard to tell him the truth, mainly because she is worried for him. Kaneki violently rejects the truth though, locks himself up inside his apartment to avoid anyone who can shatter his delusions and his heart.

[virgo-dream]

58 for the Spotify fic synopsis thing?

I actually had to way until I got home to reply to this one because I couldn't see the numbers correctly on mobile, and I wanted to write a synopsis for the right song. Now that I know though, here's track 58 on my Spotify Wrapped:

SAKURA by ROSALÍA

Since the lyrics are in spanish, I'll translate the bit I used for this synopsis:

I am not sorry, this is what comforts me Those who know, know That if I'm here to break through, I will And what? There are only risks when you have something to lose The flames are beautiful because they have no order The fire is beautiful because it breaks through it all.

So this feels a lot like a "Hob Rescues Dream from Fawney Rig" kinda gig, but then, the whole flame part reminds me of Dream's flame coat and the power of destruction fire has, and the rebirth that must come after being burned. And Hob's immortality is very much that, being burned over and over, finding a new beginning every time. So, here's the synopsis after all lol

🌸 SAKURA 🔥

Hob Gadling has been through many, many awful things. Losing a child and being drowned for witchcraft, losing friends and lovers and sleep, losing hope and having to find it again, over and over. But this time, he's almost lost the thing that allowed him to remain living, as long as he was unwilling to accept Death's gift: Hob Gadling got caught in a house fire. When Dream finds him further gone than any other creature could possibly come back from, he has to scour the memories of every living (and dead) person that had known Hob to find the essential parts of him needed to shape his essence back into existence, all while teaming up with Johanna Constantine to figure out if the fire was an accident after all.

[silverstarlightwrites]

An alternate AU to this one that occurred to me just now

Team Seven take the mission to the Land of Waves. On the bridge, they fight Zabuza and Haku.

On the bridge, Naruto dies.

Something in Sasuke breaks, and he goes berserk. Haku and their ice mirrors scream as they flashboil in the black flames Sasuke summons forth, and it takes only a howl and a wild gesture to send Amaterasu blazing across the bridge to consume Zabuza and Tazuna as well. The stone melts underneath them, while Kakashi snatches up Sakura and flees, and it’s not until Sasuke feels the weight of wet clothes - crushing Naruto’s body to his chest, bloody and so absurdly hot - that he realises the bridge has disintegrated, and the water is burning.

It’s instinct and desperation that let Sasuke to douse the fires he’s conjured, and even then it aches and tastes like blood and acid, and he’s sinking when Kakashi whips across the surface to catch him, the moment the flames are gone.

Sasuke cries into Naruto’s chest, and refuses to let go. Sakura is cold and silent, and she neither speaks nor eats for the grim, slow trek back to Konoha. And it is slow, even further drawn out by the constant fluctuation of chakra from Naruto’s corpse, carried awkwardly and painfully by Sasuke alone.

It’s not Naruto’s chakra, of course. Kakashi dreads the inevitable questions, resolves not to lie when they come, and somehow their absence is even worse.

The moment they walk through the southern Konoha gate, there are Anbu all over them. They pry Naruto’s body from Sasuke’s arms, despite his shouting and kunai, despite the way Sasuke’s eyes ignite into blood red to fight-- But he doesn’t summon Amaterasu again, doesn’t expend the chakra he doesn’t have to try and kill their own. Sakura touches his shoulder, just two fingers, and her face is pale and hollow when she shakes her head, but it’s still more interaction than she’s allowed for the whole trip, and Sasuke obeys her. Blinks his eyes black, slumps in place, and then sags against Sakura.

She catches him, and he’s shaking, and she stares over his shoulder, unblinking, at the Anbu wrapping Naruto’s corpse in chakra-absorbing paper scrawled endlessly with Seals.

Kakashi isn’t sure what she sees, and he isn’t sure he wants to know.

One Anbu stays behind, and they instruct the gutted remains of Team Seven that the Hokage wants to see them. Kakashi can’t bring himself to intervene when Sasuke snarls and lunges, or when Sakura lets him. Doesn’t step in when Sasuke tells them to Fuck Off or when he punches them weakly in the chest - and the Anbu clearly thinks he’s simply not going to get involved, because when they try to catch Sasuke’s wrist they aren’t expecting Kakashi to move. Too fast to be safe, too fast for the chakra use not to burn.

Sasuke leans back into Kakashi as the Anbu trips, and Kakashi feels himself close his hands on Sasuke’s shoulders. “Don’t touch my kids,” he hears himself hiss, and if he doesn’t quite know when he accepted them as his then he doesn’t quite care either.

One of them is dead, and they won’t be permitted to mourn him properly because of the beast caged inside him without his knowledge.

The thought makes Kakashi sick. It all does, all of it. Konoha’s abuse of an innocent child, Kakashi’s complicitness in allowing it to happen. Hiruzen’s cruelty in allowing it also.

In allowing all of it.

Sasuke has lost enough.

The Anbu doesn’t need telling twice, and they leave Kakashi to cajole his kids into seeing Hiruzen. It takes more effort than he’d care to admit. Just physically, the three of them are a wreck - and it’s worse emotionally. Mentally.

“You let them take him.”

It’s the first thing Sakura has said since Naruto died - in a burst of blood and scarlet chakra - and Kakashi suddenly thinks he’s never felt anything so cold as her voice. When he meets her gaze, it’s like drowning.

“I had to. The Hokage will explain.” Because Kakashi is bound not to. By an oath that maybe he shouldn’t have taken, by a promise extracted by force. Why shouldn’t he tell them?

He doesn’t, of course. He scoops Sasuke up, and despises that Sasuke simply allows it, and offers Sakura a hand as they start walking. Sakura ignores it, striding ahead with her back too stiff and her hands clenched too tight. The walk to the Hokage Tower, while significantly shorter, is the same as the trip from Waves to Konoha.

Hiruzen ushers them into his office, tearful, and Sasuke struggles stiffly out of Kakashi’s grip. Red flickers and whorls through his eyes, and it’s impossible to know if he’s fighting to ignite his Sharingan or if he’s fighting not to.

“I’m sorry.” It’s low and mournful and wet. It’s insulting.

Sakura snaps. She flies into a rage, screaming obscenities. Her teammate is dead, and she’s never experienced loss like this before, and gods but she watched it happen, and no pitiful, pathetic ‘I’m sorry’ can ever undo that. That Hiruzen even tries sends her over the edge.

Nobody stops her. By the time she burns out, the office is torn apart, papers scattered everywhere and the desk overturned. Sakura has scratched her nails bloody against the woodwork. When she collapses to the floor and howls, Sasuke finally approaches her, sinks to her level, and wraps his arms around her.

Perhaps he understands, then. Perhaps a hug - so tight as Sakura clings back that it may be the only thing holding her together - is all he wanted after the horror of his clan’s slaughter.

Kakashi catches himself wondering if Sasuke ever got that hug, but he knows the answer.

Of course he didn’t.

Hiruzen explains to them what a Jinchuriki is. He explains the basic concept of a Bijuu, and gives them a short summary of the Nine-Tails. They take it blankly, too much to process over the top of their raw grief, but they look to Kakashi as if searching for confirmation and Kakashi nods. Tells them it’s true.

And then, because it’s not enough, it’s pathetic an explanation, he hears himself continue.

Because “He deserved better. We failed him.” Hears it spin, feels more than sees the way Sasuke and Sakura twitch and shrink, and then corrects himself. His own voice is like tar in his throat.

“You failed him.”

Sasuke and Sakura follow him out of Hiruzen’s office, and Hiruzen doesn’t try to stop them.

Kakashi sets the pack to watch them when they all end up at the war memorial. It wasn’t exactly a decision to go there, of course, but it never really is. All eight ninken are there already when they arrive, and they encourage Sakura and Sasuke to collapse and curl up with them, but Kakashi resists. He has something else to do.

And it’s dark by the time he comes back, his kids and his pack all bundled up in his far-too-tiny apartment, but he wakes them all the same. Demanding Naruto’s body back hadn’t been easy or clean, and the results of the chakra-draining done to preserve as much of the stray Nine-Tails chakra bleeding out of where it had torn free upon Naruto’s death is... messy.

Naruto’s body stays wrapped up the way Kakashi walked out of the Anbu Blue Vault with it. Only his head is visible, and his hair is knotted and matted with blood and oil, but it doesn’t stop Sakura from running her hands through it, or Sasuke from laying his head against Naruto’s chest.

Not enough people come to Naruto’s funeral. The whole fucking Village should mourn him, the child who protected them from the Nine-Tails for his entire, short life. His loss should have been overwhelming - it should have brought all of Konoha to a fucking stop.

But it doesn’t. Umino Iruka attends, and he’s quiet but he weeps ceaselessly the whole day. Sakura and Sasuke seem to welcome his presence, so Kakashi doesn’t nothing to discourage it.

Hiruzen shows up, perhaps halfway through. It takes all of Kakashi’s still-wan strength to hold Sakura back from trying to maul him, and Sasuke doesn’t fight one way or another when he lights up his Sharingan at the Hokage’s approach.

“Go. Away,” Sasuke snarls at him, and for just a moment it seems like Hiruzen might scold the boy, who’s been stripped of his family in half a dozen different ways, over and over again, as if he’s expressing his grief incorrectly, and that moment is all it takes for Kakashi to speak over all of them.

It’s the voice he used as the Hound. He hasn’t heard it for years. “You should go, Hokage-sama. You don’t want to make me choose a side here.”

Because Kakashi is loathe to fight Konoha at all, let alone its leader, but he knows without a doubt that he will. For Sasuke. For Sakura. If ever the decision must be made, Kakashi knows he will turn on Hiruzen in an instant if it would protect his kids from ending up like him.

Konoha would not make a broken blade out of Sasuke. It would not strip Sakura of her soul.

Orochimaru comes. He seeks out Sasuke, and the power he offers is too tempting for Sasuke to pass up - but he refuses to sneak away in the dead of night. Team Seven’s progress has halted in the aftermath of Naruto’s death; Hiruzen has tried several times to full the gap in their unit, but Sakura and Sasuke vehemently refuse to accept one, and Kakashi does not make them. He will not.

Naruto cannot be replaced. The gap can never be sufficiently filled.

And so comes the morning that Sasuke asks for their company in leaving. He’s been suffocating under Konoha’s weight for a long time, Kakashi realises that morning, and he’s finally reached his limit. Kakashi doesn’t try to talk him out of it; he won’t succeed. There’s no point. Revenge has been his motivation for so long that Sasuke will never quite learn how to give it up, and now he has so much more for which to seek vengeance.

It will only be Itachi first. After that, all of Konoha is culpable for Naruto’s death, and the endless suffering he endured before it. Kakashi is not fool enough to think he can change Sasuke’s mind.

Sakura agrees on the spot. She’s unrecognisable from the bubbly genin Kakashi took custody of from the Academy. She’s gaunt and messy and angry, and she’s forsaken her friends in order to follow Sasuke into the dark. She’s clinging to him, ferociously, in a different way than she’d tried to before.

She’s clinging to Sasuke the same way Kakashi had clung to Rin - how Rin had clung right back - after Obito’s death. Sasuke is her constant, her reassurance that Naruto’s absence won’t just be for nothing, that someone is going to pay for it. That she’s going to help make that happen.

You don’t want to make me choose a side, Kakashi had told Hiruzen, as if they were words of fucking prophecy. Because here are his kids, minds made up, choosing a side that Kakashi would rather flay himself than join - and yet, here he is too, and he knows already he’s going to go with them.

Choosing against Konoha tastes like ozone and fear and self-loathing, but choosing against Sasuke and Sakura is unconscionable. Even this, even this, Kakashi will do. Watching them die is a terror that keeps him up at night, a nightmare with its hands around Kakashi’s throat, a dread that’s getting ever colder. That this might lead to that outcome takes his breath away.

But the thought of not being there is even worse. Konoha forsook Sasuke when his family was wiped out, and Konoha forsook them both once again when they came home bloodied and shattered. Konoha has gone on the same as always, as if nothing even happened, and it always has when the whole world was supposed to shatter and didn’t - with Obito’s eye in Kakashi’s skull and Rin’s blood on Kakashi’s hands - and that truth does absolutely nothing to stay Sasuke’s hatred or Sakura’s wrath. They are young and angry and wounded, and there is no words Kakashi can say that will convince them to reject the power on offer, no matter how dangerous and untrustworthy the source may be.

And he refuses to let them do this alone. Everyone will want their heads, but Kakashi has fought and killed the best of them, and if - in the end - his only purpose is to protect his remaining kids, where he failed to protect the third, then perhaps the Hound yet serves a purpose still.

So Kakashi selects a kunai, and helps them score through their Konoha hitai-ite, and lets them lead him into hell.

[psalloacappella]

grace note

original post on twt, here.

Edit: Published on ao3 as grace note 

“𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑 𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑎 𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑔 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑎 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑒𝑟.” — T.S. Eliot 

What is the liminal difference between low, sad sundown and the rust skyflickers of a village succumbing to self-immolation, its deserved ritual burning?

Turns out, Sasuke reflects at her bedside, not much. 

Day and night mingle and suffuse, bleeding through, not so unlike her blue veins pressing up to crepe paper skin, urgent signs of life; as one claws at the glass he imagines trapping her body, soul,

sanity. 

Sakura’s engagement ring rests on a small table, and light catches the glittering, smoky rainbow blend of a failed state. Bending reality — warping the room.

The silver earring next to it feels gauche, and Sasuke knows his sins are writ in the deepest grooves of the karmic universe. 

Some stupid kid, too young to be managing a hospital floor on his own: When Sasuke arrived averting his eyes and stepping over the dead lined in cemetery rows, ready for earthly departure, and perhaps the only wherewithal this unlucky medic still possessed, he thinks his brusque but desperate questioning will leave the man (no, this boy) combusting, shattering in an instant, a perfect model portraitcapture of the devastation ravaging the village. 

It had been this unsettling destruction that made Sasuke for the first time refuse to report to the best friend now former, as they had nothing left to say, and head straight to the only place left that held any meaning —

to the last person that made him feel alive.

“C-Coma.” The kid’s voice quavers, flickering and going out. Because Uchiha Sasuke is a legendary destructive demigod and the splintering of the new Sannin had been so palpable, so whispered and gossiped about in dark bars and back rooms, and children were carrying their parents’ political opinions to school as talismans and gifts, learning not how to love but how to live, how to navigate a crumbling world power. 

“She stayed as long as she could, evacuating staff and patients and then . . . well . . . a blow to the head. Bad. I think she . . . can’t remember what’s happening. She’s stuck under the surface, you know?”

Something apt about the way he describes it to Sasuke, an accurate specificity; she’s drowning, indifferent to reality, and maybe it’s a fucking blessing.

Because this kid worked as an assistant under Haruno Sakura; because he knew of the infamous final severing of friendship among them, Uzumaki Naruto accepting his ascension in a time of which he’d never dreamed. Too early, too full of loss to make sound decisions, which applied to all of them. Gone, two Hokage in a row. Morale, nonexistent.

And so, bereft of all the people that had made them whole, a council of elders survived another purge as they so often had, clinging to decades of greed, and began to run the chessboard. 

Sasuke hadn’t said thanks before brushing past, too busy struggling to stay upright, lest another person lose hope in hell, so another man can’t see his chest cave in to despair.

“Are you able to stay with her?”

Sasuke’s eyes don’t leave Sakura’s grey face. He can feel the young man shifting his weight foot to foot. The world’s too bright, vibrating at the speed of collapse.

“There’s no one left alive up here. I’d stay, I would,” and now he’s pleading, pleading with the last surviving member of the Uchiha, but truly, only a stranger, “but my mother. My sister. My husb—”

“Go.”

A stunned silence, before Sasuke forces it out again. “Just go.”

Weeping; Sasuke’s reminded of his young age again in the sniffles and gasps and thank you, oh gods thank you, but then, he’s not that much older. Not really.

“When . . . if her husband makes it back, can — can you tell him what happened?”

Instinct makes Sasuke brush a strand of hair out of her face, and he knows it’s pathetic and disloyal but all the world is falling and she’s the last thing that matters and he has never, ever made the claim to be a good and principled man. 

All he can offer up to the fleeing young medic is a noise in his throat, and its taken as assent despite the originator not knowing his real answer.

And they are alone.

After several silent minutes he finally squeezes her hand, as no one can judge him now in what will probably be the final hours, by death or infrastructure collapse or both. 

After so many years, it’s simply too difficult to be alone. To spurn any love left.

“I know you wanted me to forgive him,” Sasuke says to no one, “but you have always thought too much of me, believed in a goodness I never had.”

Before they could ever quite get it right together, find a foothold in a mad, mad world, they were put in their place by a sneering, cruel universe yet again. This is the punishment of those who take, who find solace in the state. Naruto, deeply in grief after the loss of Gaara, had been no match for the machinations of the council, a desperate plan to unite with their best ally for a second time as the rest of the world beared down on the seat of power, sniffing out imminent collapse. Sakura, reeling from her own losses (Tsunade, Kakashi, two Kages down, two kings tipped off the board), did not protest the arrangements. 

He places the backs of his fingers against her frigid cheek. 

“You had always worn your heart on your sleeve, at least . . . you did for me.”

Sasuke placed conveniently on faraway assassinations and assignments when they forced his friends’ hands and signed the bloodlines. 

He should have seen it coming — rotten roots of leaves.

Did Naruto take solace in marrying the fraying, threaded lifeline to his lost lover? Did he know the true nature of Temari’s visits, officially unofficial, that her eyes were always on someone waiting on the right way to tell her his feelings? Smart in strategy, stupid in women:  Everyone dancing a step too late. 

Sasuke presses her cold fingers to his lips, breathing hard and is it the anger as if to set fire, spark her back to life and memory and all his fears exhale in whispers did you smile like you loved him and did you kiss him like you meant it and did you give him a piece of you because no one can know Sakura without knowing a bit of team seven, a bit of himself, and in asking this, did you give him a piece of me? 

And her eyelashes flutter.

Fervent, the keen cleaving in his chest, blazing but cold. Relief and mild terror. 

He comes closer, bends over her in the bed looking so small, so bruised and worn and out of place, and for a moment she shrinks back, eyes rolling and then darting from his face to the bloodsky to the bedside table and flickering in panicked cadence all over again.

“What’s happening?” She clings to his cloak, pulling him close with a searing strength that he knows well, too well, that he thought he’d never feel again. Knowing she could crush him here and he would let her if he could stay. 

His heart daring to leap, though the guilt — well, he’s used to it.

“You were evacuating staff and patients,” he murmurs quietly, placing his hand on her balled fist, the one still with his shirt fabric in an iron grip. “You were hurt — hit your head.”

“Where is everyone else?”

Something’s unsettling in her glass green gaze. A missing detail, a filmy screen. 

“What’s your name?”

Sakura relents her grip, frown lines dashing across her forehead. “S-Sakura.” A fierce glare. “I’m in charge of this place, you know.” 

“Sakura.”

Divine, the way he says her name. She shivers and he thinks she’s weakening — 

she shivers and she knows this man has her soul.

“What,” Sasuke begins, settling on the bed next to her, “do you last remember?”

Flashes:  of stealing bells and forest snakes and waking up on a bench and climbing aboveground to stare at his handsome face in the glare of the sun; of the end of the world, of the beginning of theirs, the quiet moments in her office and the way he knows her heart.

“Everything.” Comes out in a coarse whisper, and she stares at her shaking hands. “At least, everything about you, Sasuke-kun.”

Like the tap of a tuning fork caressing each nerve ending — there’s never been a better way to hear his own name.

But now she purses her lips at the shadow left behind, the clear imprint of a ring previously worn. 

“Do you know where my husband is?”

Acutely aware that there’s a clipboard with pinned paper, reality writ black and white, Nara in sloping lettered ink. Attestation of her husband’s name. It sits on the table with the rest of the proof.

When her beautiful eyes flicker, there and back again, the expression she gives him asks for forgiveness. A request to abide. Or perhaps that’s wishful thinking from desperation, a man disloyal and low. 

Does he know her as well as he thought he did? Take parts of her for granted? 

In the flickering sundown, sky saturated with apocalypse fire, her expression could be earnest or confused or detached from reality — all depends on the angle of light.

Now she takes his face in her hands and asks, pleading, each word deliberate, 

“Do you know . . . where my husband is?”

The myth of making the selfish choice is that you agonize, game all the outcomes. Consider. Reality unfolds at the synapse-speeds of seconds.

“He’s right here.” Sasuke swallows hard after the admission, throat scorched dry. Leaning into the warmth returning to her hands, fighting the pinch of emotion in the tip of his nose, the prelude to tears. Placing his hand on top of her own, rubbing the indent on her ring finger in silent deliverance. For his cowardice. 

Mouth forming a lie against her temple, one he’s not sure she’ll ever know,

��I’m right here.”

[ritsushinbro]

My Critique of Rebuild of Evangelion's Characterization: I originally wrote this post on the Evageeks forum and decided to post it here. It discusses the relationship between Misato, WILLE and the pilots and whether it is realistic and in-character. Warning this post contains spoilers and is very long. Also has references to self-harm and suicide.

With each revelation that comes out regarding the measures WILLE take against Shinji and their own pilots, it becomes more and more unrealistic for me to the point where it's almost comical. Let's go through some of them here:

They wear the explosive DSS chokers 24/7 which will kill the pilots should they risk awakening an Eva.

They are kept in a single room rigged with explosives.

In Shinji's case, he is (intended to be) put in 24/7 solitary confinement with explosives fitted as well.

Shinji is escorted around the wunder whilst restrained on a stretcher. (NOTE: The only time he isn't, is when Sakura takes him to Ritsuko).

It is confirmed in another thread that Misato gave clear permission to the crew for them to shoot Shinji on sight if they suspect he is attempting to get into an Eva. 

Now let me attempt to deconstruct these measures one-by-one:

It is understandable that Asuka and Mari wear DSS chokers because after all they are pilots and there is a risk of awakening. However in Shinji's case, he is forbidden from piloting and so there is no risk of awakening (remember Ritsuko did not think NERV would come after him, so they had no reason to think he would escape). So why place the DSS choker on him? Well we have already established it is simply because they have a resentment against him; there is no special, pragmatic reason. Is this realistic? Well I would say no for reasons I will explain later but I can certainly understand why others may say it is.

I don't think I will understand why they would keep their two main "soldiers" if you will, in an explosively rigged room. I believe others have  stated that from a tactical point, it's an extremely dumb move on WILLE's part. After all, if Asuka and Mari didn't have plot armor, what's to stop Gendo from tricking WILLE into killing their own pilots with these explosives? How would WILLE stop Gendo then? Will they use Shinji? No, for reasons I will state later. And another thing, we know that their rooms were already fitted with explosives so why on Earth would they add extra after the events of Q (when they stopped 4th impact). What do they hope to achieve with more bombs? Make the pilots more "deader" than they already are? In my opinion, this doesn't even come across as paranoid but just plain childish. Is this measure realistic from a story standpoint? No not in my eyes.

We know they intended to put Shinji in a solitary cell as this is what they do in Shin. If it was solitary confinement on it's own, then I believe it would be a realistic measure that would happen in real life. However I believe the writers did not factor in the effects of solitary confinement (especially one that is rigged to explode) on fully grown men; never mind a 14 year old who's just come out of a 14 year coma. Many people think solitary confinement is a walk in the park so I made another post a while ago highlighting why that's not the case:

"I remember when before Shin came out people here theorized that if Shinji stayed on the Wunder, they would eventually softened to him and let him help in ways that wouldn't have involved piloting. However with these revelations it looks like they intended to keep him in an isolated room far from everyone else that is (presumably) rigged with explosives as well as keeping the choker on his neck. Not even allowed to freely leave his cell without WILLE's permission (it is unlikely they would let him out judging from these measures). 

Even though Asuka and Mari were treated like this as well, at least they had each other and were able to leave as they had responsibilities in piloting. But Shinji was forbidden from piloting and was to be kept by himself except maybe being checked up on by Sakura now and again. So judging from these leaks (we will have to wait to properly see the full context) WILLE intended to lock Shinji in solitary confinement.

I have copied and pasted some of the effects of Solitary Confinement from Wikipedia below:

“Psychiatric: Research indicates that the psychological effects of solitary confinement may encompass "anxiety, depression, anger, cognitive disturbances, perceptual distortions, obsessive thoughts, paranoia, and psychosis." The lack of human contact, and the sensory deprivation that often go with solitary confinement, can have a severe negative impact on a prisoner's mental state that may lead to certain mental illnesses such as depression, permanent or semi-permanent changes to brain physiology, an existential crisis, and death.

Self-harm: According to a March 2014 article in American Journal of Public Health, "Inmates in jails and prisons attempt to harm themselves in many ways, resulting in outcomes ranging from trivial to fatal." Self harm was seven times higher among the inmates where seven percent of the jail population was confined in isolation. Fifty-three percent of all acts of self harm took place in jail. "Self-harm" included, but was not limited to, cutting, banging heads, self-amputations of fingers or testicles. These inmates were in bare cells, and were prone to jumping off their beds head first into the floor or even biting through their veins in their wrists. A main issue within the prison system and solitary confinement is the high number of inmates who turn to self-harm. Many of the inmates look to self-harm as a way to "avoid the rigors of solitary confinement."

Physical: Solitary confinement has been reported to cause hypertension, headaches and migraines, profuse sweating, dizziness, and heart palpitations. Many inmates also experience extreme weight loss due to digestion complications and abdominal pain. Many of these symptoms are due to the intense anxiety and sensory deprivation. Inmates can also experience neck and back pain and muscle stiffness due to long periods of little to no physical activity. These symptoms often worsen with repeated visits to solitary confinement.

Social: The effects of isolation unfortunately do not stop once the inmate has been released. After release from segregated housing, psychological effects have the ability to sabotage a prisoner's potential to successfully return to the community and adjust back to ‘normal’ life. The inmates are often startled easily, and avoid crowds and public places. They seek out confined small spaces because the public areas overwhelm their sensory stimulation.”

And this is just for solitary confinement. There are so many other things going on with and happening (or could happen) to Shinji such as the things below:

Shinji being only 14 years old.

Shinji being abandoned and neglected by his father.

Shinji being coerced/emotionally blackmailed to pilot Unit 1.

Shinji seeing girls he cared for "die".

Shinji being in a coma for 14 years.

Shinji being told he has a bomb on his neck.

Being told it is because he is being punished.

Being told he cannot pilot the eva anymore (he is effectively "useless" now).

Have his former co-pilot and friend try and punch him after he thought she was dead.

[Potentially] being told he started NTI and devastated the world.

[Potentially] being told that the girl he tried to save is "gone" and that she was a clone of his mother.

Being imprisoned in a cell (presumably) surrounded by explosives and not being able to freely leave.

Be completely isolated from everyone except when being checked up by a girl who's father he got killed. (NOTE: Mari might want to see him so Shinji at least has her, maybe). 

Have his mother figure (the woman who made him pilot the eva the most) threaten to detonate the choker around his neck and blow his head off when he tries to leave.

With the above list, is it any wonder his head is so messed up? I understand the purpose of these films is all about growing up and taking responsibility but expecting Shinji to willingly allow himself to be subjected to the treatment WILLE had in store for him is pure, unadulterated masochism. Much of what was is written here can safely be considered cruel, inhumane and arguably, torture. 

There is a massive difference between taking responsibility for one's mistakes and just letting the whole world torture you because you did something bad. My main fear and problem with Q and Thrice is that their main theme, which is accepting responsibility, is equated with accepting unreasonably cruel treatment. And I just think that is an EXTREMELY unhealthy message to send to people especially if they are depressed or live in abusive relationships."

When you take all these into account, does it place into perspective how messed up Shinji would have been had he stayed on the wunder? This is assuming that they thought they would never have a need for him, but as we find out in Shin, they needed Shinji in the end to defeat Gendo. If Shinji never left with Mark 09 and Misato successfully kept him "protective" custody, then one of three things would have happened when WILLE actually needed him to save everyone:

A: He would not have been in the mental state to pilot Unit 1 and Gendo would have completely wrecked him due to shit synch ratios. 

B: He would have told Misato and co. to fuck off and die. We've seen this nihilism before from Shinji (after the 5th angel). His incarceration alongside the humiliation and guilt from wearing the choker will have ratcheted up by a million.

C: He wouldn't have piloted because he would have killed himself. There's only so much a 14 year old can take and when subjected to a fate that causes even hardened criminals to resort to self-harm, genital mutilation and suicide, then what chance does Shinji have? 

Now back to my original point, do I think this measure is realistic? I would like to say yes if it was the solitary on it's own, however when combined with the other things, then I think the chances of Shinji commiting suicide is extremely high to the point where it's not believable for him to continue as an anime protagonist. You have to make sure the protagonist goes through difficulty in order to experience growth and change, however if you make it too harsh (to the point of committing suicide) then it seems less believable that they live to continue the story. On a separate note, many people think that Shinji was immature for leaving with Mark 09 the first chance he got and that this is proof that he is, in Asuka's words, a "brat". But let's be realistic, if this story is about Shinji's growth and maturation, then how exactly would WILLE's treatment of him be conducive to that? The truth is WILLE's sheer hostility towards him would have completely stunted any emotional growth and maturation in Shinji and it would have destroyed the point of the film. Also no-one can argue that WILLE would have eventually "come round" or "softened-up" towards Shinji because even after 14 years they still don't trust their own pilots. So yeah, Shinji most likely would have been stuck in solitary with a bomb around his neck until he either killed himself or the war ended (but even this doesn't guarantee his freedom).

Regarding the stretcher business. I don't understand why you have to restrain Shinji on a stretcher when the kid has already surrendered himself and has come voluntarily. Maybe WILLE are just full of bondage fetishists; it would certainly explain the chokers as well. 

If the DSS chokers and the explosive rooms weren't enough, Misato actually gave orders to the crew to shoot Shinji if they thought he was trying to pilot again. At this point, I just think this is just overkill. I mean the kid has a bomb on his neck that prevents him from awakening an Eva, you intended to keep him locked up even though he can't really leave the wunder except with outside help and now you intend to shoot him if you think he'll get into an Eva. The problem with this, is that piloting an Eva requires all the bridge-bunnies to sortie the damn thing. Shinji cannot enter Unit 1 by himself, especially since the thing is being used as an engine so why do they assume that Shinji is capable of being Sam Fisher and sneaking into Unit 1? We see that Sakura and Midori are actually willing to shoot Shinji in 3.0+1.0 and do so when he merely suggests that he pilot Unit 1. But seriously what harm would Shinji have done in Unit 1 considering the fact that Gendo was already going to start another impact anyway? Why actively try and kill (or injure in Sakura's case) the only guy that can save your ass? One cannot argue that they were just being "desperate or panicking" because in Midori's case, she actually takes the time to confirm her orders from Misato. This shows that at least, she was still of lucid mind. This particular altercation just beggars belief in my mind and the fact that Misato actually gave those orders on top of all the other measures is absolutely extraordinary. So as you can imagine, I do not think this was realistically executed.

However, I can already hear some detractors say: "So what? Misato hesitated to detonate the DSS choker and also took a bullet for Shinji. She redeemed herself from putting the DSS choker on him and the kill-order for if they thought he would try and get into an Eva." 

And to those people I say….not really. There is an idiom attributed to Benjamin Franklin and it goes like this: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." How does this apply to Misato and Shinji's relationship? Well Misato wouldn't have had to hesitate to pull the trigger if she didn't put it on him in the first place. Misato wouldn't have had to take a bullet for Shinji, if she didn't give permission for the crew to shoot him in the first place. Let's take this following dialogue for example:

916-929:

Kitakami: "It's a good thing we got Major Shikinami back. But why'd we have to take that disease along with her?"

Aoba: "Just leave it alone. Better than Nerv still being able to use him."

Tama: "If he tries to get into an Evangelion, all hands have permission to shoot on sight. There's nothing to worry about this time."

Kitakami: "Come on, that's all for show. The last time he broke out of here, the Captain couldn't put him down. I've got zero trust about this time either."

Nagara: "He was a kid. I can understand why she'd hesitate."

Kitakami: "That 'kid' caused Near Third Impact and murdered my entire family!"

Hyuga: "Near Third was a consequence of what he did, not his goal. The Captain's doing her best to atone for that too."

Takao: "That's right. She's who Kaji entrusted with Wille, and it's our job to trust the captain."

We learn a few things from this dialogue. Firstly, the older WILLE members are much more understanding to Shinji and Misato's situation: Aoba and Hyuga understand that it's better to keep an eye on Shinji and that he never meant to start NTI, Takao is one who always trusts Misato's judgement and Sumire understands that Misato would have found it difficult to kill a child, especially one that Misato was close with. 

Secondly, it appears that the younger WILLE members (Midori, Sakura and Tama) are the ones that are fearful/hateful towards Shinji (NOTE: Tama is a strange case, he strikes me as the sort of kid that just follows what everyone else is feeling. He might not feel anything towards Shinji beyond what you'd expect). 

Finally it appears that most of WILLE crew members are actually reasonable people and are not the extremely desperate and paranoid individuals some people on the forum believe. Remember this is AFTER Shinji started the 4th impact in Q. The fact that some of the WILLE crew members speak of Shinji in this way, show they are capable of understanding. Most actually trust Misato and respect her judgement except for Midori, who questions Misato's capabilities in following through on her threats. 

Which brings me to my next point. Misato has had no hesitation in pulling rank in the past. In 2.0, she even has an altercation with Ritsuko, her best friend, right before they fight the 8th angel. Misato is a woman that will tell even her best friend to STFU, when it comes to doing what she wants. Having said that, (timeskip shenanigans aside) there's no reason why she couldn't have done the same with the younger WILLE crew members. She could have nipped all of it in the bud by telling Sakura, Midori and the rest of them that Shinji was groomed to cause NTI and it was not his fault.

Instead, despite being the captain that everyone loves and fears, she kowtowed to the crew's paranoia and had the pilots fitted with explosive chokers, put in explosively rigged solitary confinement and gave the order to kill Shinji if they feared the worst. This is the sort of thing that drives fully grown men to suicide, never mind 14 year olds that have just come out of a coma. Imagine if Shinji did commit suicide in his cell. Who would Misato and WILLE have turned to in order to defeat Gendo in the end? What if Gendo tricked WILLE into killing their own pilots with the explosives? They would be properly screwed then. If Misato actually cared, as we are led to believe from her hesitation to kill Shinji, then she would have told the rest of the WILLE crew to fuck off, instead of alienating and putting Shinji and the pilots in that much risk. Are we really expected to believe that Misato placed such extreme countermeasures on Shinji just to appease Midori and Sakura? Not likely. This is why I believe that Misato would not have put the DSS choker on Shinji in the first place, and her doing so in Q was extremely unrealistic and out of character, even with anything that happened during the timeskip.

Some of you will say: "Who cares about realism? It's a show about aliens and growing up." While this is true, Anno has proven that he is able to pull the themes off much better when you look at the NGE series. Disregarding the self-contained narrative, it is obvious that the purpose of Q was to bring Shinji to the same point he was at after episode 24 of the series. If we look at how NGE/EOE handled Shinji's depression, we see that it is quite realistic:

The neglect and coercion by the adults in his life, almost dying to angels multiple times, the sexual tension with Asuka, almost killing Touji, finding out Rei is a clone of his mother, Misato putting the moves on him and having to kill Kaworu all culminate towards Shinji's mental state during EOE. Shinji is passively suicidal but it's due to the *situation* and his own introverted tendencies instead of people actively trying to hurt and isolate him. He finds the will to live again due to his mothers words despite knowing just how difficult living might be. If you remove all the Evas and the Angels from the story, the themes that are touched upon (isolation, neglect, misunderstanding) still apply and the audience can still resonate with them. 

The rebuilds however go about it completely differently. They bring Shinji to that same suicidal state by having all the characters/plot actively harm Shinji's mental health by:

Putting him in a coma for 14 years so he is completely clueless. Imagine how groggy you are when you wake up in the morning and then multiply that by a million. 

Have Misato psychologically castrate Shinji by telling him he won't do anything with a look of disdain on her face.

Have Ritsuko make Shinji feel dread by telling him he has a bomb on his neck and it's because he is being "punished".

Not tell him why he is being punished when he asks Misato.

Have Asuka try to punch Shinji after he thought she was dead.

Tell Shinji the girl he saved is "gone”.

Have his "mother figure" threaten to blow his head off for wanting to leave with the girl you just told him is gone.

Have Asuka and Mari attack Shinji in Lilith's chamber even though Shinji was seemingly willing to listen to them had Asuka not kept attacking. (Watch that scene again and you'll see when Asuka learns what Shinji is trying to do, she stops attacking but instead of explaining that he's being manipulated, she just calls him a brat instead).

Even Mari was willing to potentially kill or cripple Shinji with the Anti-AT rounds. (We don't know what the AA rounds are truly capable of because the only time they are used on screen, they don't work. The round cartridges state that they are armor and AT field piercing and have explicit restrictions on their use. The fact that Mari requires Asuka's explicit authorization to use them imply that they are most likely lethal and would have killed/crippled Shinji had he been in a normal Eva). 

Have Shinji's friend's head explode with the device Shinji's "mother figure" actually meant for him. Imagine seeing someone's head explode and then remember that your "mother figure" actually meant that to be for you. That would certainly mess anyone up.

Have Asuka then kick and manhandle him when he is catatonic.

Have Asuka force feed him to the point where he pukes whilst he is still grieving the death of his friend. 

Have Shinji only be escorted whilst tied to a stretcher despite him coming voluntarily.

Have Misato place Shinji in 24/7 solitary confinement in a cell rigged with explosives.

Have Misato tell the WILLE crew to shoot Shinji on sight if they think he's getting into an EVA.

Have people tell Shinji that he's being a brat the entire time for reacting badly to all this.

By having Misato, Asuka, WILLE reject and "punish" Shinji so harshly so it kicks off his isolation and desperation, it makes Shinji's "recovery" seem less believable. Anno himself didn't even know how to make Shinji recover psychologically in 3.0+1.0 and he actually had to ask the voice actors on how to make that happen. The story made the WILLE crew go full scorched-earth and in doing so made Shinji's "growth" and his reconciliation with Misato seem impossible. 

I have already stated that I believe Q represents "Condemnation" and Shin represents "Compassion" and I think both films pull that off brilliantly. But that doesn't mean I think the characters acted in a realistic manner. I do not believe that Misato would have placed such harsh sanctions on Shinji in the first place for the reasons I have stated above. And if she did, I do not believe that Shinji would have easily forgiven Misato (even IF she took a bullet for him) as we see he does in the film. I do not believe that WILLE were merely "scared and desperate" because as the dialogue above shows, they are surprisingly understanding (but still disapproving) of Shinji's situation despite him literally starting another impact. I do not believe that Misato would have bent over to Sakura and Midori's resentment and taken measures against Shinji, just to ease their minds. 

In summary, my main problem with the post-timeskip rebuilds is that I feel they gaslight the audience in thinking that Shinji was just being a "brat" the entire time by having Asuka and Mari say: "You have grown a little/You smell like an adult now." However, the truth is Shinji's been through so much mental suffering perpetrated by the people he cares about, that it's a miracle he's not killed himself. It would certainly break most of us on this forum. The movies seek to show Shinji "finally" taking responsibility when the truth is, the plot went so above and beyond putting him down in such an extreme manner in the first place.

[thefairyletters]

Showdown

Naruto and Hinata versus Sasuke and Sakura

According to stats: Naruto and Sasuke are almost equals, and Sakura is the most powerful Kunoichi, only second to Kaguya who is not a Kunoichi but a goddess. But if in Boruto, these two couples were to face each other for real (and not just spar) then it wouldn't be Naruto vs Sasuke while Sakura faces Hinata, contrary to what most of you may think.

Sasuke and Sakura have an extreme Intelligence advantage. The 3/4ths of the total brainpower in this fight would be coming from their team. Sakura is the second smartest shinobi in the Leaf village as an adult, only next to Shikamaru, and Sasuke is arguably a close third. It has been like that since their genin days. The amount of tactical planning going on from their side of the battle would be ridiculous. Naruto and Hinata are both the type to charge headfirst through sheer willpower and pressure, but this isn't going to work against any plan Sasuke and Sakura manage to think up. Brains are always one step ahead of brawns.

As an adult Sasuke shows us that he is capable of using the Rinnegan in far more versatile ways than he did in the war arc, when he was new to the power. He can jump dimensions, swap places with another body, affect the gravity around a person, throw immensely powerful genjutsus with a single glance, see any invisible barriers, predict movements, recognize patterns/codes/signals, and much more. Like holy shit y'all. You really think Naruto would preform as well as he did against war arc Sasuke now that Sasuke actually has a full understanding of his Rinnegan and frequently UTILIZES it?

Gravity and pull. Sasuke's Rinnegan gives him limited control of the gravity around a person or between him and another person. Using this, Sasuke has the ability to tap into some Deva path shit and yank Hinata towards him. It is immensely difficult to resist the pull, and someone as physically weak as Hinata would be easily ripped forward away from Naruto. Once they're separated, Naruto has no surefire way of getting Hinata back to his side and safe in enough time, because she would either be led right into a fatal punch from Sakura or a chidori or sword through the gut from Sasuke himself. Either way, if Naruto lets his watch on her slip even a little bit, she probably already dead or close to it. This could also be a support tactic. Sakura gets separated and is in danger. Using his Deva path pull Sasuke can drag Sakura out of a potentially dangerous situation and back to his side. Same works with the body swap. If Sakura is in a nasty situation, Sasuke can swap places with her in his Susanoo to easily tank a hit that may have killed her. That or he can swap her place with a rock if need be.

Two words: Summoning strength. Sasuke and Sakura hold two of the three boss summons in the three way deadlock. Naruto holds one. Hinata holds…nothing. It doesn't stop there though. Sasuke has at least two other powerful summons that we know of, and while they aren't as powerful as Aoda, they still give him some fair advantages. For example, Sasuke's hawk, Garuda, gives him an aerial advantage should he ever need to take to the skies as a countermeasure against Naruto. Naruto and Hinata have no summons who could reach Sasuke, and this gives him many solid opportunities. Sakura, on the other hand, has Katsuyu. Katsuyu can be spread out across the battlefield in various sizes to heal her allies wherever they may end up on the field. She could also be used in her original form to spit acid or protect the two from any taijutsu and most ninjutsu attacks. Katsuyu is stated early on to be extremely resistant to taijutsu and ninjutsu, and for fucks sake she can tank Pein's attacks with ease while protecting people inside, plus she survived Naruto's corrosive 8 tails chakra just fine. I see absolutely no taijutsu attacks that Naruto and Hinata pull getting through or truly damaging her, and Naruto would have to really put some effort into his more powerful ninjutsu techniques to take her down (also note that since Katsuyu has a very jelly like body type and is resistant to taijutsu and ninjutsu, Naruto's summons wouldn't be terribly productive on offense). But this leaves him wide open for counterattacks if he focuses too much on Katsuyu. And then of course Katsuyu can heal fatal injuries or at least sustain the life of a person fatally injured until help is given. The ultimate win for Sasuke and Sakura in terms of summoning.

Being an Active Shinobi is very important. Sasuke is an active shinobi. Very active. He is constantly on B through S rank missions, and Sakura has traveled with him on some of these. His teammate for this battle, Sakura, is still an active medical shinobi who easily accepts an S rank mission in the Retsuden novels and is originally dealing with part of it on her own before she teams up with Sasuke, who is also present. We have seen her fight in Boruto too. It shows that she is 100% still at her peak performance. Well, what about Naruto and Hinata? Hinata is a housewife who hasn't gone on anything above a C rank mission in years. She takes a B rank mission with her father and sister when Boruto is a toddler, and this is all we hear of it. She's rusty AF and doesn't have the experience nor mission bulk that Sasuke and Sakura have under there belt, nowhere NEAR it. Naruto is somewhat similar. He is, for lack of a better description, out of practice. He was only recently taking on S rank opponents in Boruto, and other than that he's been doing desk work and some minor shinobi guard training over the past few years. Sasuke and Sakura are more in shape and have more recent shinobi mission experience than Naruto and Hinata's combination, both by themselves AND as a team in a fight, which is immensely important here.

Everyone is always forgetting about how important Support can be. Sakura is a first class, kage-level healer at this point in the series. Her medical ninjutsu surpassed Tsunade's back in her own canon novel and is confirmed in the novelization of Boruto's movie a second time. Her ability to constantly heal or boost Sasuke's chakra in battle is important. Whereas while Naruto can amp up Hinata with a chakra cloak, Sakura can go even further. We see with Obito that Sakura can transfer her Byakugou seal markings with all it's chakra to another person she is touching, and in the Retsuden novels this is looked into further. By applying her seal to Sasuke, he becomes an absolute terror for even Naruto to handle. Imagine this: super fast shinobi w/ the Rinnegan abilities and Susanoo suddenly not only getting a chakra boost, but being able to automatically heal potentially fatal wounds completely over and over again for as long as the chakra exists. Sakura at this point has 15+ years of chakra stored in her Byakugou seal (we know this because she notes briefly in the canon novels after The Last that she has not stopped storing chakra and plans to continue doing so just in case she ever needs it). But let's say she didn't continue after that though. She would still have around 6 or 7 years of chakra in her seal. 6–7 YEARS OF CHAKRA. I don't care how much chakra you think Naruto has, it isn't anywhere close to the amount of chakra currently inactive within Sakura's seal, considering the fact that she could completely replenish Naruto's chakra with only 3 days worth of her general chakra. Sasuke would be a BEAST. Absolutely nightmarish on every level if this fight. And Sakura, so long as the chakra exists, would also be nightmarish - especially for those people who think Sakura and Hinata would end up dualing it out at some point.

Have we gotten to the whole dimension portal thing yet? Nope and this is a crucial winning point for Sasuke and Sakura. If in danger, in need of a new plan or simply to dodge away from a particularly crazy attack from Naruto, Sasuke can pull both himself and Sakura into a completely different space in the blink of an eye. He can also use this to jump around the space Naruto is in and really screw around with them. And if you're worried about Sasuke's chakra levels diminishing quickly, don't be. Once again, Sakura's Byakugou seal is the ultimate support ability. Remember that whole “she has at least 6-7 years of chakra even if she, for some reason, wimped out on her plans” spiel? Yeah…that's an easy fix. She helped Obito actually hold open AND SEARCH (people seem to forget that he had to use chakra to search dimensions) multiple dimensions when she only had 3 years of chakra in the seal, and even the she still had enough chakra left to reform the seal on her forehead soon after. Sooo…keeping Sasuke's chakra level high wouldn't be a problem. They can also use the dimensions for Sakura to heal and repair them both. Hinata can't heal and Naruto can't truly “heal" so much as his life force is just really strong, so they're at yet another disadvantage.

Terrain manipulation and swaps. This is where it gets really technical. Sasuke has the Rinnegan, and with it he can do serious damage very early on in the game when his opponent is not expecting such a rush. Try to imagine a scenario like so: Sakura winds up for a full power punch directly behind Sasuke as soon as the fight begins, or otherwise as early on as possible. She fires off the punch at Sasuke. Sasuke, at the last possible second he can manage, swaps his place with Hinata, and BAM. That's one down for team Naruto. Hinata would either be dead or close to it immediately after she hits the ground and stops. Same applies for a switch with Naruto. At that close of a range with literally zero time to dodge at that point, even Naruto would be fairly damaged from a point blank shot, and a damaged Naruto from the start spells bad news for Hinata - the girl basically fully depends on Naruto in the fight, she can't do anything to Sasuke or Sakura without his constant support.

Overall, we can go into arguments if whether Naruto is stronger than Sasuke or Sakura stronger than Hinata, but the truth of the matter is that it doesn't really matter. What matters is that Sasuke is at least competitively close in power to Naruto, and Sakura arguably the most powerful kunoichi in the series at the moment. Their power gap is extraordinarily close, so at this point it all comes down to who is best tactically suited and best prepared for this kind of nuclear fight. And honestly, with their ability to manipulate their surroundings and work more with the terrain and constantly replenish, there's no doubt about the victory. 80% of the time it'll be Sasuke and Sakura if they play their cards like they should.

Answer credits goes to Alex Hendrix, Quora

[keikakudori]

𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍

— 𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒

    (𝐏𝐄𝐍)𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄: lucifer. i also answer to lu and "OH GOD WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!" and The King of Angst.     𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐒: he / him.     𝐙𝐎𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐂: pisces.     𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐋𝐄 / 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐍: single as can be and ready to mingle for free. ( you just have to accept that cas will be part of my life. it's like the whole 'if you love me then you have to love x too'. )

— 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐒

    𝐢. i’ve been writing since i could hold a pencil and knew how to string words together; basically ... oh, since the first grade? yeah. i've got over 30 years of writing to my name. i hope it shows, lmfao.

    𝐢𝐢. i genuinely struggled with writing aizen how i wanted for a very long time. i tried out many different headcanons and ways of depicting him and was never satisfied until only the last couple years. i very nearly gave up on writing him, actually, and if it hadn't been for cas and his helping me yell and scream about aizen on a regular basis, i don't know if i would have gotten here. but man oh man, i'm so damn happy of how far i've come with him. he's mine. kubo signed the adoption papers over to me.

    𝐢𝐢𝐢. i'm always going to write villains, i think. i take great pride in giving villains a very humanizing quality while maintaining how dangerous and terrible they are. am i an apologist? yeah, sometimes. but i also very much recognize that they're villains and i'm not going to take that from the characters that i write. i want you to empathize with my muses, to sympathize with them, to make you hug them --- and i want you to be ready to kill them if it comes down to it too.

— 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄

    oh man, when it comes to roleplay, my experience is pretty damn varied, lmfao. i've tried out everything that could be named as a roleplay venue. i do remember i started off writing ( very fucking cringe ) fic and editing fics that i had loved when i was much much much younger and then i found roleplay forums when i was, oh ... 13 or 14. but that wasn't all i tried. i did forums, i've done chatroom roleplays, i even had an actual pen and paper roleplay notebook i traded back and forth with a friend in high school. AOL, Chatzy, YIM --- i did plenty of chatrooms. and there's roleplay sites besides tumblr that i've been on. 

    i actually got pulled to tumblr by someone on a now fairly dead ( apart from a hardcore crowd of lingering patrons ) chat roleplay site and while i have no idea of where that friend's gone off to, they got me into tumblr at around, oh ... late 2010, if i remember the date correctly. i stopped using tumblr for a month or two, then i came back to it and i've been well ensconsced in tumblr since then. i've been on another roleplay site since 2009 and as such, my experience with roleplay is pretty extensive. i even tried roleplay on MySpace and Facebook and even Twitter of all places. yeah. i also roleplay through google docs and on Discord so there's plenty for me to say i'm familiar with.

    so i definitely have plenty of experience when it comes to writing. lmfao. 

— 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐅𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄

    V I L L A I N S.

    yes, my muses have always always always been villains. i actually started writing canon muses via sephiroth over ten years ago ( i've been writing sephiroth nearly 15 years, actuall ) and from there the road has led me to acquiring villains left and right. i genuinely don't tend to write protagonists very often, or if i do? they're usually very morally gray. 

    i think the most 'good' characters that i write are orihime, haruno sakura ( though my muse for her is super dusty. i miss writing sakura. she was always ready to put naruto and sasuke into headlocks to smack their skulls together to hear the sound of solid bone meeting solid bone. ), and my warrior of light. and my wol is kind of -- becoming more morally gray herself, given ALL of fucking 6.0 and what happened in there ( venat, turn on your location, I JUST WANT TO TALK. ) and what she found out. legit, xel is feral and she deserves to be feral, especially given that she really wants to bite her love interest whether or not he's dead. she'll do it. trust me, she'll do it.

    villains just make my brain vibe far more than not, truthfully. making people see my muses as people is my jam. i think the best damn compliment i can receive ( and i've gotten it more than once in my time ) is being told that i've made someone rethink their stance on a character and they like him because of me. because tbh most of my muse stable is villainous men. so yeah. i'm definitely always likely to be writing awful terrible men and i thrill in writing those awful terrible men and making people cry over them.

— 𝐒𝐔𝐁-𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐄𝐒

    𝐅𝐋𝐔𝐅𝐅: fluff isn't something i write in public too often with aizen but god yes. i can't do angst all the time but i fucking love fluff so much.

    𝐒𝐌𝐔𝐓: OF COURSE??? i'm wildly fond of smut. smut is glorious. it's about the intimacy and the trust and the horny brain.

    𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐒𝐓: i collect tears of those i hurt with the angst i write and i drink them. :) that should tell you all that you need to know.

— 𝐏𝐋𝐎𝐓𝐒 𝐯𝐬. 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐒

    i'm good with either, honestly! i don't mind sketching in some skeleton of a plot, maybe feeding it an anemic bit of substance to figure out the direction, and taking off from there. but i've alsy had very compelling storylines come out of sending in memes or being sent a meme so they're both very good options. i'm happy with a pre-brainstormed plot or a random thing which comes out of a meme. they're both very good in my opinion, i think. why bother limiting myself in any fashion, i say.

tagged  by:  i stole it because i am a goblin who loves shiny things. tagging:  steal it from me, i dare you to.

[theshinobiway]

I Fix Team Gai’s Endings:

CAN I GET SOME LITERARY PAYOFF PLEASE?

Might Gai

How it Ended:

Gai fails to defeat Madara despite having the ‘best chance’ as a Taijutsu master. 

Gai narrowly escapes death and his leg is shattered, disabling him for life.

One of his precious students is dead. 

He’s forced to retire from the career he’s spent his whole life attempting to build. 

Well, be does get to spend his time with Kakashi (who is also in retirement), so he does have some silver lining.

What SHOULD have happened:

Gai defeats Madara, cementing his reputation as the legendary Taijutsu Master and gaining respect for Taijutsu users worldwide OR

Gai narrowly fails to defeat Madara, but Rock Lee avenges Gai by surpassing him (Possibly inventing a new level of Taijutsu that surpasses the 8 Gates).

Even if Gai is disabled, he gets the fame he deserves by being the most renowned Sensei in history. He becomes the model for all future Jounin instructors, and his training methods and philosophies (and by extension, Duy’s) become ingrained in Konoha’s teachings.

Might Duy receives the honor he deserves post-mortem because of Might Gai’s heroism.

People from all over come to battle Might Guy in his dojo, who still manages to defeat all of his challengers despite the lack of mobility in his leg. He accepts students who show particular grit, and it’s considered a badge of honor to receive tutelage from Gai.

Gai still spends retirement with Kakashi, going on trips and leaving his dojo to Lee and Tenten when he’s gone.

Rock Lee

How it Ended:

Rock Lee is an Average Dad

Despite being a romantic, his wife is nowhere in sight. He was never shown with a happy marriage with someone who loves him for who he is.

He has no particular fame or renown for his part in the war, and he has no major fights in the final war arc.

Lee doesn’t get a rematch with Neji OR Naruto.

We find out in the final war arc that Lee has a…CLAN? And then it’s never mentioned again.

What SHOULD have happened:

Lee needed way more screentime during the war. This would cement him as someone important and give us a chance to finally see Taijutsu at it's most advanced‐and I don't mean just the gates. I'm talking sheer technique and will of the human body that simply decimates.

Lee would either team up with Gai in the final fight (or attack) against Madara. If Gai gets defeated, it's Lee who steps up to the plate, delivering this badass monologue: "You all thought Taijutsu had its limits. You all thought I had my limits. Well, let me say this now: I, Rock Lee, have finally pushed Taijutsu beyond what you thought impossible. And how did I do it? Simple. You decide your limits from the beginning... and I reach them."

Lee, to the witness of the entire world, defeats Madara. No one is sure what to make of it at first, but it's clear: he's unlike any other Shinobi in history. He's created something they've never seen before and it's strong. And now, they believe in him like never before.

In the post-war, Naruto is approached with an offer about about a path to becoming Hokage. At the same time, he learns that the village is banishing Sasuke for the time being until they can sort out what to do. Naruto realizes political corruption exists so our precious war hero chooses going/being with Sasuke/his team. It's unintendedly a major political statement that has the elders clutching pearls and clamoring to pardon Sasuke. In his sendoff amid the uproar about him leaving, Naruto loudly nominates Lee in front of all the other Kage and drops the mic.

When finally confirmed after much drama, Lee makes for a FAR better Hokage. His arc goes from disadvantaged, talentless youth to the most impressive Ninja in existence by sheer hard work, the guiding theme of the series. No one worked as hard or stayed as humble as Lee, and Naruto recognized that.

Naruto can be his ‘War-Hero’ right hand when he returns. The "Hand of the Hokage." He still gets the “heroic” validation he REALLY wanted without the responsibility of governing.

Shikamaru is nervous about working with Lee since he's the opposite style in terms of, ahem, "actually working," but after a few early riffs and some honest communication, the two actually learn to balance each other out: Lee teaches Shikamaru be more diligent, Shikamaru teaches Lee to pace himself.

This also frees Naruto and Sakura up to actually accompany Sasuke on his redemption journey, be more present in the series, have relationships develop naturally, and explore the political repercussions of the war and everything that led up to it. It's a point of humility for Naruto to admit he wanted love and confidence over the real responsibility of governing, and let's just say the most effective ruler is always the one who never asked for the job. Naruto is better suited having his own squad as a jounin.

Shikamaru gets exasperated by the shenanigans Lee sometimes pulls in the office to train while doing paperwork. Lee often overworks himself too much and Shikamaru feels bad on his behalf, eventually encouraging him to delegate work. He has a much easier time guilting Lee into going home, though, because Lee would never choose to miss time with his family when it comes down to it.

Lee Clan? Don’t know her.

Lee surpasses Might Gai to become the most renowned taijutsu user in existence, paves the way for taijutsu specialists in shinobi culture.

Lee happily lives with his wife and Metal, who were definitely introduced either in a stand-alone novel or earlier in the series. They are the quirkiest, but most loving family in Konoha.

Their love story is meant to be cute and has the theme of “loving someone for exactly who they are.” I would love it if his wife was also disabled but excelled in her own field and Lee admired her for it. 

Lee invents a new style of Taijutsu techniques that he uses to defeat Madara. These techniques are on-par with some of the most legendary jutsu in existence.

Lee finally defeats Neji in a match, completing the arc we started in season 1. It’s a legendary fight that's still talked about to this day.

Lee’s condition is finally explained as being from a sickness he had as an infant that almost took his life. Gai had the same illness, but not as bad. 

He spends his adulthood looking for information on this sickness. He doesn’t want a cure for himself, but he has research done so it can save the lives of other children.

Lee does a training routine every morning. Academy students who idolize their Hokage eventually join in and try to keep up. It’s also endearing to the village that their Hokage makes time for the kids. 

Even if they can’t finish the routine (and none of them can) Lee congratulates them every morning on doing their personal best. 

Often, Lee teaches valuable life lessons at the end of his morning training sessions–just like Gai.

Tenten

How it Ended:

Tenten sets out to become a Legendary Kunoichi, but only manages to be legendary because she wields/owns all the Sage Weapons.

Tenten is never given a thorough backstory.

Tenten ISN’T the head of Konoha weapons research.

Tenten finally accepts that she isn’t like other girls and doesn’t want to have relationships or get married, her friends support her.

Tenten embraces her goofy side, becomes more like Gai and Lee and is heavily involved in their lives.

What SHOULD have happened:

Tenten originally sets out to be like Tsunade–the woman who could heal an entire army. She isn’t great at medical jutsu, but later discovers that her abilities mirror the Fourth Hokage.

Tenten vows to be legendary like the Fifth, powerful like the Fourth.

Tenten rediscovers and revives the Uzumaki’s sealing jutsu. This, coupled with her mastery of Minato’s jutsu, make her untouchable.

Tenten acquires all Sage weapons, gains fame for using them in battle to turn the tide of the war. Minato meets her and recognizes her as his successor. He gives her his blessing to revive the Uzumaki techniques as her own.

Tenten instead becomes the “Legendary One-Woman Army” In the war arc, she can teleport entire platoons of shinobi in an instant. She rains destruction down on the Zetsu army. 

Tsunade comments that her “strength of a hundred″ seal would have been wasted on Tenten; Tenten has the strength “of a thousand.”

Tenten’s mastery of seals lets her identify and rig the reincarnation seal; All deceased Shinobi that were forced to fight have their free will restored. Tenten has your army now.

Post-War, Tenten, at Hinata’s command, finds the way to remove the Caged Bird seal from the Hyuga clan.

Instead, a new seal is given to EVERY member (starting with Hinata) that functions to protect the Byakugan after death but has no other effect. It effectively halts all attempts by outside forces to steal the Byakugan.

Tenten keeps her weapons shop only because it suits her and her down-to-earth personality. She also likes the freedom to travel as she pleases, exploring the world and discovering more about the Uzumaki.

Tenten is famous for being Konoha’s #1 desirable single, but she will never settle down. It’s not what she wants.

Tenten deflects suitors with sharp objects as a gag. Everyone, though they may not understand, supports Tenten being exactly who she is, and they protect that. It remains a quietly apparent choice her character has made, and doesn't act as a challenge for the plot to fix.

She eventually becomes the sensei of Metal (and Neji’s child too, if he has one.) She pulls pranks on her team to both train them and remind them of who's in charge.

She still is involved in the lives of Gai, Lee, and Neji.

Neji Hyuga

How it Ended:

Sigh.

He begins his arc by cursing the fact that he’s going to die for the main branch and then…dies for the main branch. (And Naruto, I guess.)

Neji does not see his clan unified.

Hiashi’s throwaway comment during the war meant nothing. Neji and other branch members still had their seals. The Hyuga clan still went into the war with “head” and “branch” families. 

Neji does not get a rematch with Lee.

Neji doesn't speak to his father during the war.

What SHOULD have happened:

Hiashi dies for Neji, proving beyond a reasonable doubt that familial love comes before the hierarchy and reversing the old narrative.

Hiashi declares Hinata the new leader of the Hyuga with his dying breath, and tells her she knows what to do. He cryptically hints that Neji will lead the Hyuga to a brighter future. Hiashi knows the elders wouldn't accept Neji as head right off the bat, but he knows his daughter will stop at nothing to fight for her family.

This is also Hiashi’s redemption, finally repaying his brother’s sacrifice.

Neji gets to speak to his father during the war. It’s one of the most heart-wrenching scenes in the whole anime.

Post-War, Hinata stands before the elders and abolishes the status of head and branch families. She also has Tenten abolish the seal, as well as create an entirely new seal that goes on every member to completely protect the Byakugan from thieves but serves no other purpose.

Neji is the first to have his seal removed, Hinata is the first to have the new seal. 

Hinata then declares Neji the new head of the Hyuga while she finally gets the quiet, peaceful life she’s always wanted. If the opportunity did present itself, however, she may have her own squad with a similarly shy kunoichi. She comes to Neji often for advice on how to best train them.

Neji leads the Hyuga through major reform, abolishing harmful training methods and teaching the younger generation about the importance of family.

Neji is rightfully respected and hailed as the greatest Hyuga as he single-handedly creates new techniques that we see used in the next generation.

The Hyuga clan now selects their future leader from the most capable in the family. Hanabi is fine with this because she ‘knows she’ll be the best anyway.’ Neji teases her by saying he ‘isn’t so sure’, which pushes Hanabi to work harder.

The Hyuga are one of the most fiercely loyal and loving clans. Any affront against a single member will bring the wrath of the others. It's like one giant, close-knit family. Make fun of a Hyuga kid and now you’re getting drop-kicked by their third cousin.

Neji loses to Lee in a rematch, but warmly acknowledges his growth from when they were children. Neji is the first to officially support Lee becoming Hokage and is the one who gives him "the talk" that convinces him to accept Naruto's nomination of him to the council. Neji becomes Lee’s confidant and closest advisor.

Neji is an amazing uncle who is sometimes out of his element when it comes to dealing with his energetic niece and nephew. It’s all fluff.

When no one is looking, Himawari will stare intently (threateningly) at her uncle, who will slowly grimace and hand her a piece of candy from inside his sleeve, glancing around to make sure no one sees him complete the exchange. No one knows where Himawari gets her spontaneous candy and stash from. It's a mystery as to what he seems to be paying her off for, but it'd probably be a delicious secret to find out..

Neji’s relationship with his niece is heartwarming. He constantly threatens Naruto to be a good husband and father to his niece and nephew OR ELSE.

Neji trains Boruto and Himawari. He’s strict, but as kind as he is firm.

Neji teaches Boruto to have a closer relationship with Himawari, mirroring the relationship he had with Hinata. If he has children, they're the "cool older cousins" to the siblings and have their dad's clout for sure.

Neji might get married or have children. If he does, it’ll be the subject of a Gaiden novel. Perhaps also a quick throwaway scene in the epilogue post-war where he meets someone that catches his eye. His child(ren) will be on the same team as Metal, where they will also be rivals.

He might have twin boys if we really want to go hard with literary parallels, but it’s not necessary. He'd name his kids after his father first.

There, I fixed it.

[thepancakeboi]

An Unexpected Growth Spurt

So it barely took five minutes before this idea by @hetyra sent me down the rabbit hole of getting ideas and hyperfocusing on it rather than my current stuff. Whoops? No regrets. These types of fun reactions, where Ren is being such a goddamn menace towards Goro, are among my favorite to write. I will disclose this right now: I know very little about the storyline of Persona 5 Strikers outside of “sequel set in the summer after Persona 5 events″. As a result, it’s only there as a timing thing and a reference, but it’s fine. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this writing that gave me dopamine and serotonin in spades!

01/01/2018, 10:39 AM > Ren: Meiji Shrine it is! I can’t wait to see you.

I keep looking at that last text over and over as I stand here by the torii, awaiting Ren’s arrival. It’s been over a year since I last saw him. I’m lucky I was even able to get in touch with him, but...was coming here a mistake?

I’m not the type to get nervous, but I never thought I would see him again. With everything that happened between us, he shouldn’t even want to meet up with me. That and he probably assumed I was dead. The last time I saw him was in the engine room of Shido’s Palace. That place should have been my grave, yet somehow I had survived. I hadn’t told anyone. Truth be told, I hadn’t wanted anyone to know I was alive.

I...simply wanted to disappear.

Even now, I have the urge to leave before I can potentially reunite with Ren. Whatever had come over me last night, in that spur of the moment decision to text Ren after a year of silence, is gone. This whole idea is a mistake. He has much better ways to spend his time than wasting it on me. He’s probably been with his precious friends doing who knows what. There’s no way he needs someone like me in his life. He’s got all the people he could ever want. That’s it. I’m leaving now, before-

“Goro? Is that you?”

I freeze. His voice is a little deeper than I remember, but I would know it anywhere. I turn around, my heart leaping in my chest at seeing Ren. Although he’s not wearing his glasses this time, he hasn’t changed a bit. Even his hair is as unkempt as ever. It’s almost like I went back in time, to days where I wasn’t his (attempted) murderer. There are so many things I want to say, but all I can manage is a simple, “Hey, Ren.”

And he grins. Yet another thing that hasn’t changed: that beautiful smile. I can tell he’s barely stopping himself from running and pulling me into a hug as he approaches. I’m thankful for his restraint. There’s no telling what my reaction would have been. “Hi, Akeppi.”

I huff, shaking my head. “I was hoping you forgot that damn nickname.” And me as well, some small part of me silently adds.

“You know you like it.” Smug as ever, the menace. “I missed you. Where have you been? You never told me.”

Straight to the point, I see. I had very purposefully avoided the dogged questions about how I was alive or where I’d been. It didn’t seem like the type of thing to discuss through instant messages. This needed to be a face-to-face conversation. “I was at a rehab center, believe it or not.”

“You were?”

Nodding, I force myself to continue. He deserves to know what happened. “It’s outside of Tokyo...and it’s where my mother would go. I went there on Christmas Eve without an appointment, but they accepted me anyway. The only time I had left between then and now was when I heard word that you were being detained.”

“Oh?”

“I couldn’t just sit by and do nothing. After all, you did change Shido’s heart for me. So, I helped your friends track down the woman in your assault case.”

“Wait, did they know you were alive and didn’t tell me?”

“No, nothing like that,” I reassure him, letting Ren know that his friends hadn’t kept my survival a secret from him. “I gave them what information I could find, anonymously, of course. They probably wouldn’t have accepted it if they knew who it came from.”

“Come on, give them a little more credit than that.”

I don’t think I can, especially when two of my victims had been Futaba Sakura’s mother and Haru Okumura’s father. “Either way, what about you? You’re a third-year now, yes?”

“Yeah. A lot’s happened since...” He stops for a moment. Something tells me the reason he stopped isn’t pleasant. Could it be he was about to say “since our last fight”, or something of that caliber? He quickly snaps out of it, though, beaming once again as he continues. “Oh, I saved Christmas by summoning satan to shoot god in the face!”

If he were any other person, I might have figured him insane. Even so, I can’t hide my surprise as I stammer, “You...what?”

“We went into the depths of Mementos to find its treasure. Never want to go there again. And then we fought the holy grail, which was really a god who was controlling everyone. I summoned this huge Persona, Satanael, and we shot god in the face!”

I chuckle at that. It all sounds so impossible, yet anything’s possible in the Metaverse. “If only I could have seen such a sight.” Upon seeing Ren’s melancholy look, I quickly add, “What else happened after that?”

“I went back home in March.” He doesn’t seem too thrilled about that detail. I know he preferred living at Leblanc over with his own parents, who never seemed to contact him while he was on probation. “And then I came back for summer vacation with the rest of the Phantom Thieves. But then the Metaverse came back, and these places called Jails were showing up, and...well, it’s a long story.”

“Perhaps for another time. Your life certainly has been interesting.”

“I wish you could’ve been there, but I’m happy you’re still alive. I...didn’t know what happened to you. Everyone else thought you were dead, but I just couldn’t believe it. I kept hoping that you weren’t. I really did miss you, Goro.” And I believe it, somehow.

“I apologize for not contacting you until yesterday. I know I should have. I cannot imagine what you must have gone through, and-”

“It’s okay!” he replies, a little too quickly. It makes me wonder how he handled my supposed death. I won’t pry. If he wants to tell me one day, it’ll be when he wants. He finally pulls me into the hug he’s likely been waiting for this whole time, gently running his fingers through my hair. “Your hair’s shorter than before.”

“Is that a problem?” I know it’s only a simple observation, but I can’t help but assume he doesn’t like it.

“No. I just noticed. That’s all. You look cute with short hair.”

“I’m not cute,” I immediately retort.

“Are too.”

“Well, you haven’t changed a-” I pause. Some small detail is pulling at my attention, but what is it? “Wait a minute. Did you...?”

“Did I what?” he asks, clearly as confused as I am.

I move out of his embrace to back up a few steps, looking at his footwear. He isn’t wearing heels, which means... “Have you...grown since we last saw each other?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, a little. Why?”

“How much?”

“I dunno, five centimeters?”

“Damnit,” I hiss. “Who said you were allowed to have a growth spurt!?”

Clarity lights up his face as he realizes the reason for my irritable reaction. “Oh, right. You hated when I was taller as Joker. Does it bother you that I’m taller than you now?”

“Shut up.”

He laughs. “I love it. It’s nice seeing you as the smaller one.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

He fake gasps. “He swore! Are you angy, my adorable little detective?” he asks, his voice sounding all cutesy. Goddamn menace.

“What do you think!?”

He is obviously smug that he’s now taller than me by two centimeters. His grin only widens as he pats my head. I try to smack his hand away, but he moves it away before I can. “You’re cute when you’re angry.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Even more so since I’m taller than you.”

“Infuriating as ever,” I snarl, my patience running thin. He’s being so cocky that I want to fucking strangle him. “I should wear heels just to be the taller one.”

“I don’t think you could.”

“Is that a challenge, Ren?”

“I dunno.” He shrugs, but I see right through the gesture. He knows exactly what he’s doing. “You tell me, detective. Is it a challenge?”

“I think it is, and I don’t intend to lose. I can and will wear heels. Watch me.”

“Even if you did, I could just wear heels as well,” he replies with a shit-eating grin to match his tone, “and run in them, too.”

I sigh in frustration, crossing my arms. I hate that I know he’s right. The Metaverse is enough indication of that. “You little shit.”

“You’re the little one, not me.”

“Shut up, Ren.”

“Make me,” he says as he gets right in my face, smirking as I instinctively lean back. “You could always kiss me into silence.”

There’s no hiding my flushed reaction to his suggestion. “You fucking wish, you idiot,” I snap, trying to ignore just how hot my face feels.

“Yeah, I do, my little tsundere pancake.”

Oh, of course, he had to mention the pancakes. Of fucking course. “I hate you so much.”

“I still don’t believe you. We both know that’s a lie.”

“Damn you and your two centimeters,” I say right before I recklessly kiss him on the lips.

I can see the ever so slight surprise on Ren’s face. He hides it well. His mirth at the unexpected kiss is clear as he asks, “Now, was that really so bad?”

“Yes.” No.

“Why’d you do it, then?”

“To get you to shut up.” I’ve been wanting to for a while now.

“Sure, sure,” he laughs. “Hey, would you want to get some lunch together? My treat.”

I’m glad he asked first. Truth be told, I wanted an excuse to spend more time with him. I’ve missed Ren more than I care to admit. “Sounds delightful. You can choose the location, but I’m paying.”

“Hey, no. I’m buying lunch, and you can’t stop me.”

“I’m paying, and that’s final.”

“Okay, how about we leave it up to chance? Whoever ends up with the bill pays. Deal?”

“Very well. You have a deal.” I’m still not letting him pay, though, even if it means resorting to more...underhanded methods.

He takes my hand in his, the small gesture of affection almost causing me to tear up. No one’s cared about me like Ren has. I don’t deserve it, but I doubt arguing that with him would get anywhere. It would be fruitless. All I can hope is that he’ll be happy around me.

And, for the first time in a year...I smile.

[despairofthefuture]

HIRO GUNDAM IS IN TROUBLE BUT WE KNOW WHERE HAJIME IS UNFORTUNATLY HE ALREADY ACCEPTED (as far as we know junko could have been lying) BUT YOU CANT GO YET JUST GET PEKO PEKOYAMA AND THEN GO SHES A MASTER SWORDSMAN AND CAN HELP FEND OFF MURKRO (the alive one) HES SOMEWHERE NEAR THE ADMINISTRATIVE BUILDING EITHER OUTSIDE OF IT OR INFRONT OF ONE OF THE DOORS JUST GO GET PEKO AND SAY ITS AN EMERGENCY AND GUNDAM IS IN TROUBLE HOPEFULLY SHE UNDERSTANDS

Hiro was walking behind Chiaki and Imposter, the two walking towards the administrative building where Hajime had gone, when he suddenly stops moving. His head shoots over to the spirit, as does Chihiro and Leon. "...What?!" Hiro says in disbelief.

"Hiro?" Chiaki calls back to him, the two living companions having stopped walking. "Is something wrong?"

Hiro turns his head to look at her, his face pale.

"I'll take that as a yes." Imposter grimaces, running over to the clairvoyant. "What is it? Did you have another vision?!"

"Not...exactly." He answers. "But I dont have time to explain. Gundham...Gundham's in danger! I-I think he's being attacked by Mukuro, Junko's sister? I-I dont know!"

Hiro was breathing heavily, and was on the verge of a panic attack. People were being attacked now? Like, he knew that if he didnt stop Junko lots of people would die, but someone was actually...being hurt.

Was it because of him?

"Hiro, calm down." Leon's voice cuts through the panicking man's thoughts. His best friend places a ghostly hand as close to his shoulder as he can. "Relax. You got this still, alright?"

"We can save Gundham and stop Junko, you j-just need to take a breath." Chihiro chimes in with a comforting smile.

Hiro looks between the ghostly apparitions of two of his closest friends and nods. The anxiety and guilt in his gut doesnt go away, but it lessens enough for him to take a breath and look to a now extremely worried Chiaki and Imposter.

"The spirits also said we needed to find a...Peko Pekoyama?" He says to them, scratching the back of his head. "They say she's a-"

"Swordswoman. The Ultimate Swordswoman." Imposter interrupts the fortune teller, having regained his own composure. "Its not a bad idea. She is extremely skilled in fighting."

Chiaki places a finger to her chin. "Maybe we could ask Akane and Nekomaru for help? They're extremely powerful fighters, too. If they were in a fighting game, they'd be a top tier choice!"

Everyone gives her a puzzled look for a moment before Leon's ghost speaks up. "We could also ask Sakura, and possibly Mondo! They'd be very strong in a-"

"No." Hiro cut Leon off with a shake of his head, and his allies give him a surprised look.

"No?" Chiaki repeats with a tilted head. "Why not?"

The underclassman frowns and rubs the back of his head. "'Cause, like....there's already a lot of people involved in this mess." He mutters. "The more we tell about Junko's plan, the more'll get hurt. Plus the more likely that a mass panic will break out."

"But if the authorities were to know, they could apprehend Junko and stop her easily." Imposter points out.

"If it was that easy dont you think the spirits wouldve suggested that?" Yasuhiro counters. "Clearly she has more power than even the police. Which is the whole reason I dont even see how I can do this!" He glances over at his ghostly friends and sighs. "But I have to at least try so...if the spirits think Peko is the best option, we'll go with her. But I dont want to drag anyone else into this, ok? Please?"

Everyone was quiet for a while, until Leon snorts. "I'm impressed. Usually you would have run away crying by now. Guess you're taking this seriously."

Hiro rolls his eyes. "I dont really have a choice. I'm still terrified and I feel like giving up with each development. But I dont want to lose any of my friends."

Imposter smiles softly at that and bows his head. "I respect your dedication, Hiro. Very well. We wont tell anyone else of your visions."

Chiaki nods in agreement. "We probably wont even have to tell Peko." She muses quietly. "Just mentioning one of our friends being in danger should be enough."

Hiro nods. "Alright. Since you two know her best, why dont you both go get her?"

Imposter raises a brow. "And what are you going to do?"

"You could sneak over to the administrative building and see how things are going." Chihiro suggests.

Hiro grimaces at the idea but sighs. "I'm gonna...go to the administrative building and scope things out....stealthily."

"Do you think you can manage that?" Chiaki asks.

Hiro hesitantly nods, and after a shared look between the two upperclassmen, they say their goodbyes and hurry to find Peko.

Yasuhiro bites his lip and lets out a large breath, turning towards his destination. "Alright...let's go."

~~

When Hiro arrives at the scene, he is horrified by what he ses.

Gundham is all but leaning against the wall of the building, gripping his right arm with his left as blood drips from it. His shirt is sliced open in several places, blood splattered onto it. There's a large gash on the left side of his face, just below his eye, that flows even more blood down his cheek, and his usually styled hair has come undone, falling into his eyes as his chest rises and falls heavily.

The breeder glares daggers at his opponent as he attempts to catch his breath. "Y-you...vile fiend!" He curses at her, placing a palm on the wall to steady himself as he tries to walk forward despite his shaky legs. "You will never take down GUNDHAM TANAKA!"

"I'll admit. I'm impressed." Mukuro says, ignoring Gundham's words as she stalks closer. Hiro notices there's not a scratch on her, and that terrifies him even further. "Most people would be long dead from the wounds I've given you. You're much stronger than I anticipated." The teasing smile that had been on her face quickly falls to a frown as she pulls out a throwing knife. "But this game ends now. You will no longer get in Junko's way."

Hiro's eyes widen in fear. No...no, this cant happen! He was supposed to save their lives, not end them faster! Could he intervene? But what could he do? He'd just get himself killed!

As he wracks his brain for how to save Gundham, he notices Imposter and Chiaki running his way, and behind them, a girl with a sword on her back.

Peko Pekoyama.

Hope rises in his chest for a moment, before its replaced with despair. Leon and Chihiro understand as well.

"...they wont make it in time." Chihiro whispers, the three of them slowly turning to watch the horrific scene unfold before them.

Mukuro grips the throwing knife in her hand, readying herself to throw it. Gundham meanwhile takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, seemingly accepting his death. Smirking at this, Mukuro throws the knife and-

"Squea-!"

A hamster's squeak is cut short.

Gundham slowly opens his eyes in confusion as to why he had felt no pain. They widen in horror at what he sees instead. Maga-Z, one of his beloved Dark Devas, had been impaled by the knife in his stead, apparently having stowed away in his scarf.

"No....no!" Gundham cries out in agony as he picks up the tiny corpse of his pet, tears forming in his eyes.

"Well, that was unintentional." Mukuro shrugs, pulling out another knife. "But at least you get to taste the sweet nectar of despair before you d-"

THUD!

Mukuro suddenly falls to the ground, Peko standing behind where she had stood with a wooden sword above her head.

Hiro lets out a breath so big he almost passes out. "Oh thank Father Time!" He exclaims, rushing over to join the others.

"We got here as fast as we could." Peko says, sheathing her sword and glaring at Mukuro.

"I dont think it was quick enough." Chiaki replies softly, looking over to where Gundham was knelt down, cradling his falled subordinate.

There is a solemn silence as everyone gives Gundham his time to grieve.

Eventually he stands, still holding Maga-Z in his hands. "I thank you mortals for your assistance." He says, his voice quiet and broken. "I know you did what you could. Maga-Z gave his life to protect me, and for that he shall be remembered." He looks down to the hamster, then to Hiro. "I am aware we are in a hurry, but do you mind if I bury him? You can go ahead. I will find you."

Hiro gives him a sad smile. "Of course. And if you see Sonia, bring her along."

"Though, maybe see Mikan first?" Chiaki suggests. "You're very hurt."

Gundham simply nods before heading off.

The others watch him go for a moment before Peko breaks the silence.

"I will bring this one back to my dorm where she will cause no harm. At least until we figure out what to do with her."

"Yeah, that sounds like a plan." Hiro agrees. "Just be careful, alright?"

Peko smiles at him and nods. "I will, do not worry." And with those final words she picks up Mukuri and walks off as well.

Theres another silence, no one knowing what to say, until it's broken again. This time by Hiro.

"So...where exactly would Hajime be kept?"

A/N: So uh...I'm sorry? 😅 Dont worry I hate myself for this lol. But now you know shit's getting real! So in the next post is really when my lack of DR 3 knowledge will shine lol.

Also in case it wasnt clear, I dont want too many characters to know about Junko's plan, cause then the tension is kinda gone.

But yeah! Hope you guys are enjoying it so far! ^_^

[dragonrajafanfiction]

The Red Well (Part 5) Ending the Nightmares

What happens next... Heheheheheheheheheeheheh Tagging @rurifangirl for Ruri action

You were frozen in place like a statue, covered in colorful kabuki clothing in a basement. You understood the scene. Chime Gen had told you about it in the Takamagahara. He had gone crazy and killed women after luring them. He only killed the most beautiful girls because he loved their expressions and imitated them. But he wanted to preserve them, so he took them back to a basement and preserved them like dolls.

Chisei sat on the floor in front of the cast-iron tub full of preservation chemicals. You stood at his left, frozen.

Chisei must be waiting for Ruri Kazama to come down so he can kill him. But this part of the scene is wrong. Chime very clearly said that his brother followed him into the basement. He was preparing the fourteenth girl when Chisei came and called his name. Chime awoke from the trance he was in and Chisei stabbed him through the heart.

So why is Chisei waiting first? Why are you here? This is some sort of an illusion.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened. On the way to the Red Well, you’d had a strange dream like this. You were in Black Swan Bay but you knew it was going to be destroyed. It was all so real that you just went through the motions of everything that happened that day until Z had sat up from the sled and pointed behind you. Ruri Kazama was standing behind you. When you asked him ‘what are you doing here’? You woke up and Ruri was asking you how you broke it.

This had to be an illusion caused by Ruri. It’s not that these men were not fighting. They were still fighting, just on a different plane.

You try to figure out how to move. You had to be breathing outside the dream but frozen in place. Was this like sleep paralysis? You persist in trying to move your body but the paralysis seems firm. Could he hear your mind? “Chisei! Chisei!” You call to him mentally. “What are you doing here? Chisei!”

He didn’t move or hear you. His face was tranquil and quiet, devoid of happiness and sadness. His eyes were dark and clear, his hair brushing over them. His skin was light and fresh and his body was fit. For the first time, you thought Chisei was beautiful, just as beautiful as his brother. 

As soon as that thought passed your mind, you felt a moment of release. Your hand which had held a fan up to your face, relaxed and lowered. You blink. So that’s the secret? Chime still admired Chisei no matter what he did. And somewhere deep and locked away in Ruri Kazama, Chime Gen still breathed quietly, asleep. You chuckle internally. Chime was so taken with his brother, wasn’t he? When talking to Sakura Yabuki, you once said that you were just like him. You seemed better, but you were not better. Is that why Chime felt attracted to you? The greatest person was his brother. And who better to fall in love with than a woman who was like Chisei Gen?

You feel life coming back to your limbs, like warm blood was warmly flowing through skin that had been left in the cold too long. But instead of blood, it was Chime’s love for Chisei. How did he say it? Yes, what mattered most was not Chisei’s bloodline, Emperor or Devil, but his heart. No matter what the obstacle, if he wanted to be a friend of Justice… he would be.

The last chain unwrapped around your ankles and you slid your foot forward, but a sound came from above your head.  Light footsteps sounded like someone was running briskly to the bottom of the basement. Chisei got up onto his feet holding the hilt of his sword and turned to look at the rusty door.

“No…” you said quietly.

Chisei gently pressed the hilt of his blade with his thumb and the Spider Fang sword lifted an inch out of its sheath.

Something warm dripped on your head. You look up and it splats on your face. Chisei was looking up too. The roof was red like blood, and large red drops seeped out of the cement and dripped down like rain. Your heart beats hard. You’re still dressed in ceremonial clothes and you were never good at walking in geta sandals. You take a step forward to him but your other foot is rooted to the spot! You pulled at your foot but it was not moving.

"Have you been living in such a hell for so many years?" Chisei Gen gently stroked the hilt of his sword.

You turn back to Chisei and recall his smile in the elevator before he threw himself back to sacrifice himself for everyone. Your foot finally moves and you take a small step forward.

Chisei doesn’t seem to notice. He lowered his head and listened to the sound of water gurgling. A bright red liquid slowly spread over the soles of his shoes, as if he was standing in a pool of blood.

You could see, but Chisei did not see that in the bathtub behind him, a blood-red figure slowly rose up. The corpse concocted in the plasticizing chemicals opened its eyes. It was the naked Ruri Kazama, carrying a long, sharp cherry-red sword in his hand.

It wasn’t enough to just think one happy thought about Chisei. For every movement, you had to think positively about him. For example, how he cut his wrist at great risk to himself and threw his blood stained shirt out into the fire.

Step.

He let you go in that park after the Kabuki performance even though he could have killed you.

Step.

He wanted to save you on the Tokyo Tower. He protected Chance! He was going to let Chance go! He wasn’t going to kill him! You stagger forward and that final desperate thought, in those moments of fervent forgiveness, you crossed between Ruri Kazama and Chisei Gen’s back.

You freeze again. Your eyes rolled down to the blade of the cherry red sword and the glowing blue sword that were sticking out your chest.

The moment Ruri Kazama attacked was never captured by your eyes. His speed far exceeded the limits of what a human could achieve, and his high speed swept up the water in the entire space, creating a putrid rain behind him. The blade pierced your back the moment you thought of Chance. Chisei Gen had reacted immediately and turned around to counter an attack he thought was coming from behind and ran you through with Spider Fang from the front. You trembled, transfixed on the blades like a pinned insect, mouth open but unable to speak or breathe.

Chisei froze, bewildered. “Chi...me…?” He said slowly. You had dark hair like Chime. You had dark eyes like Chime. You looked like a woman and dressed like a woman like Chime. The way you smiled lovingly at him was like Chime. But something about you said that you were not Chime. His mind was expecting Chime however. So it was hard to accept that this was you and not some weird dream distortion.

A soft whimper came from behind you. Ruri Kazama had released his sword and was embracing you. But you couldn’t embrace him back. Your vision dimmed and swirled and your hands fell limp at your side.

At that moment Chisei realizes something is wrong. There is Ruri Kazama but that crazed laughter has left him. He looks nothing like a mad hybrid. He wasn’t wearing the fearsome grin but a mask of sorrow.

He’s whispering. “MC… MC… I’m sorry…” Over and over again. But no one can answer him. The swords are still in your body as he picks you up and hurries out, fervently whispering. “I have to end it. I have to end the dream!”

He rushes towards the basement door, frantic to get out. He bursts through it! Only to be met again with Chisei staring at him in confusion in front of the bathtub. Ruri turns back to the exit door. He goes out again. But he’s back in the basement. His face fills with pain and he falls to his knees. He is laughing, but he’s crying at the same time

A few moments ago he was a vengeful demon ghost. Now he was a scared child. The sight of you dying in his arms was a new nightmare -- a self-created one.

He rocks with you back and forth. “It’s not my dream.. It’s not my dream…” He brushes your hair from your face, leaving a long red bloody mark. “It’s not my dream…”

Outside the door of the gym were nothing but staircases going up and down, left and right, in all directions, each one concrete-colored, each one zigzagging back and forth.

The world had suddenly become a giant maze, and he was standing in the deepest part of it. In Ruri’s dream, he dreamed of the outside world, the whole village. This wasn’t his dream however. It was Chisei’s. They were both stuck in that moment where Chisei killed Chime in the basement of the school gymnasium. But in Chisei’s dream there was never any escaping that moment. There was no path outside. This was Chisei’s dream, not Ruri Kazama’s, so Ruri didn’t know that the moment he stepped into Chisei’s dream there was no leaving that basement.

You hear Chisei’s voice softly call. “Chime!”

You let out a single breath in an attempt to speak. But that was all you could manage.

When you open your eyes again, you’re sitting on the cliff outside Black Swan Bay, on the rock that you used to watch the whales with Renata. The breeze tugs at your hair and the waves wiggle the ice floes and push them against the beach. A dark pair of boots step into your peripheral vision and Z sits down.

“I’m dead for real aren’t I?” You ask.

Z sighs. “I’m sorry, MC.”

You turn to him. “You gonna tell me what this is about?”

Z seems uncharacteristically hesitant. “You’ll be mad.”

“That never stopped you before. Spill.”

“The truth is… The truth is… all this has happened before. Only you weren’t there. You weren’t… there-there. It’s not that you died and I saved you. It’s that… you didn’t exist at all before… you weren’t alive to even die.”

You tilt your head. “So you created me? How?”

“I don’t know. I just … Herzog took something from me.” His lips pressed together and his golden eyes glowed. “I couldn’t let that go. I just couldn’t stand that he took something from me! So I thought a lot.”

He looked into your eyes. “I can’t change the past. I can only change the future. I had to find a way to change the past without… directly causing anything to happen. It took a long time, and then… you showed up. MC, nothing that changed about the past was really any of my doing. You were the one who impressed Herzog with your… toothy lock trick and that kinda set all this in motion when he decided not to operate on you. All of these changes? It’s all you. I just kept you alive. Everything else proceeded as it did before.”

You stare, absorbing all this. “So… what I am is… the results of you being a sore loser?”

He let out a breath. Then looked down and he covered his eyes with his hand. 

“Are you… crying?”

“No!” He pounded his fist on the ground. “I’m laughing because it worked! I got Erii back! Erii died before and now she’s alive but… now I’m just losing someone else!”

“Why do you care? I mean, I never was a person before right?” You shake your head. “You fell in love with your own puppet?” You chuckle. “Dragons are silly.”

He lifted his head and stared at you. “What… Did you say?”

“I didn’t tell you but, I remember a dragon coming down from the sky to pick me up. That was you… right?” You wink.

Z shuts his mouth, but he's smiling.

You give him a punch in the arm. “Hey… when I said thank you for everything. I half meant it. Thanks. It was quite a ride. You got what you wanted.”

Z’s smile fades. He doesn’t agree with you.

Those were all the words you got to say to him before a sudden silence and darkness falls over you and the world descends into an oblivion.

You weren’t there long however.  Pain like fire and like surf pounding you against a rocky shore and crushing your bones rockets through your mind.

Z’s voice calls you. He sounds panicked, but you can’t answer him.

Your eyes open, but you are not the one opening them. You see Chime, crying inconsolably. You’re back in the Red Well. Rain and Chime’s tears are falling on your face but you still can’t move to wipe them away. A voice in your head is filling you with violent and hateful thoughts. You hate everything about this world. Everything in this world wants you to die! But you will not die. No. Never!

Chisei’s voice sounds as panicked as Z’s. Your body reacts even though your mind is scrambling to keep up. Chisei Gen is back to being a dragon, covered in crystal scales with magnificent wings. You land in a crouch after soaring twenty feet into the air. The pain of moving like this despite your injuries overwhelms you and sweeps away every thought. But you’re not the one moving your body. 

You feel trapped behind your own eyes.

“No! No! Nooooo!” Chime is wailing but he’s too weak to stand.

Erii is there now. When did she get here? She’s holding a small suitcase and dressed in a white taffeta skirt with a white bow in her hair. You remember that Erii is your sister.

Sister? What is a sister? The internal invader rummages through your memories, tossing them out like toys from a toy box. Renata and you were rivals and friends, close yet somehow distant. Erii was like you in many ways and you felt drawn to her. You made a vow on a train in mutual defense. Sakura Yabuki had a kind and understanding smile. Also sister?

Who was this? What were they doing? And then you remember.

The memory of the Light King parasite pops up as an answer to your question. A feeling of smug superiority -- but not from your own mind -- wells up. You didn’t know how, but the Light King parasite had escaped its confines and had gotten ahold of you!

Chisei had gathered the frantic Chime into his arms. “I’m sorry, Erii. I didn’t want to get you involved in this.” He said.

Erii just nods and writes something on a piece of paper. 

Chisei’s draconized body pops and crackles and seems to shrink a foot in height. Half his bones are migrating from his body to his wings, stretching them and extending them to full height! A great down beat from those bat-like wings sends him soaring away from the well with Chime in his arms. 

The Light King Parasite tilts your head to watch him go. It decided it didn’t like sisters but Erii’s body and blood were very, very tasty and you were very hungry. The smell of the thousands of sleeping deadpool comes to your nose. You open your mouth and let out a great roar! Thousands of pairs of eyes peer down into the well and then they fall, scraping their claws in a stampede down this hole in the ground. Some were flying on bony wings, like demons descending to hell. They were going to swarm this place!

Your body is healing at a speed visible to the naked eye. The Light King Parasite stretches out your hand and the Gathering Clouds sword comes flying to meet you. Your body glares threateningly at the small Japanese girl who stood in the middle of the Red Well. 

Erii is holding up a sign. “Anyone who comes between me and my sister must die!”

[sarah-writes-stories]

For You

A Fluffy InuKag AU One-shot in honour of Valentine’s Day.

Written to participate in Inuyasha Valentine’s Day 2020. 2088 words.

@inuyasha-valentines​

They were mocking him.

Each and every one of those tiny fucking chocolates in that disgustingly cute square box.

They were just sitting there… taunting him… and he hated it.

Inuyasha had stopped listened to their history teacher’s lecture on the Sengoku period the second he’d realized that Kagome had every intention of giving someone in their class a box of fancy honmei choco for Valentine’s Day.* It was all he could do to stop himself from stomping over there, snatching them up, and hurling them out of the closest window.

He sighed in disgust but let his glare fade some as he looked up from the small square box to the girl whose desk the chocolates sat upon. His mind drifted back to the day they’d met… Their first day of high school.

He’d walked into class alongside Miroku, the two of them laughing and shoving and totally oblivious to the fact that his entire world was about to change forever.

It took less than a second for his eyes to lock with hers. 

Kagome.

It was her. He would recognize her anywhere.

It had stopped him dead in his tracks, youki surging, as though the blood in his veins had suddenly turned electric. For a moment he’d wondered if she could feel the same thing he felt, but she was human, it wasn’t possible. Still, he’d felt her reiki pulse in response to his youki.

She’s a Miko, he thought.

And she was beautiful. Midnight black hair that fell to her waist and wide caramel-coloured eyes that had stared back at him as though they were the only two people in the room.

That is, until Mr. Mizushima had cleared his throat rather loudly, bringing Inuyasha’s attention to the fact that he was standing alone in the middle of the classroom, everyone else having already taken their seats only to stare at him like he was even more of a freak than being a hanyou already made him.

And so, when he’d arrived home after school that day panicking to his parents that his truemate was in his class, his father had tried to convince him that finding his truemate so young was a good thing. That he was lucky.

Yeah right.

There are some youkai and hanyou who went their entire lives without ever finding the one soul meant for them, he’d said.

You can wait three more years, he’d said.

Fuck.

Because there were rules about these things, especially when your truemate was a human. To bind a human too young was forbidden. He’d heard the old wives’ tales about how it always backfired, stopping the human’s soul from growing as it should, paralyzing their sense of self.

In the old days, many was the youkai who had lost the thing most precious to them because of it… And so now there were rules.

Not that he would ever do that to Kagome.

Never.

Just in case, though, has parents had made him promise to wait.

“If you talk to her, son, you’ll want to touch her. And if you touch her you’ll want to kiss her. And if you kiss her you’ll want to bind her. And if you bind her, well… Best to wait. I waited for your mother and look how that turned out.”

At first, it had been easy. They were both young. He could try to ignore her. Stick to hanging out with Miroku and Kōga. Hell, he’d even resorted to boring himself to death some weekends listening to Sesshōmaru drone on about the progress he’d made on his doctorate thesis.

All to distract himself from her.

And he’d done it! He’d waited almost the whole three years. Graduation was less than two months away now. His promise was as good as fulfilled. He would finally be free to pursue her.

But that was before those fucking chocolates.

His eyes scanned the other males in their class, trying to figure out which one had caught the attention of his. fucking. mate.

It better not be one of the other youkai. They should fucking know better, he snarled silently in his head.

Because his youki had always screamed his claim on her even when his words and actions had been forbidden to. It was an instinctual and unstoppable reaction and had made him the butt of many running jokes amongst the youkai population of their school.

All youkai knew the laws around binding human mates too young and thought it fucking hilarious that the hanyou was shit outta luck. Granted, they couldn’t say anything about it to her either – they’d be held just as accountable under the law if they did – but it definitely hadn’t stopped them from teasing him mercilessly about how predictably he ran away every time he had to spend more than a few minutes in Kagome’s presence.

If it’s Koga who’s been flirting with her, I swear I’ll tear that fucker to shreds. She’s meant FOR ME, dammit! His vision swam with red and he felt his fangs lengthening in his mouth.

Miroku kicked his chair from behind, jerking Inuyasha back from his thoughts, then hissed a whisper that only the hanyou would hear. “Get it together, Inuyasha! Even an untrained ass like me can feel your youki swirling! You gotta rein that in, man, or someone’s gonna rat you out to sensei.”

Inuyasha was saved at that moment from having to respond to his friend by their sensei announcing that it was time to break for the day so that the girls could hand out their Valentines before the final bell rang.

Inuyasha turned to stare out the window, taking deep breaths, willing himself to calm down. He suddenly couldn’t bring himself to look at her. He didn’t want to see who she would give the box of chocolates to. Couldn’t bear to see the happy look on the bastard’s face when his Kagome gave whichever fucker it was such a meaningful gift.

The din of the other students chatting and laughing had dulled the sound of footsteps approaching his desk. But then there was something there, in his peripheral vision.

A hand. And in it, a small square box of chocolates.

His eyes shot up in shock.

⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯

He didn’t look like he had been expecting anyone to stop by his desk. Kagome couldn’t blame him. He’d been in a dark mood all afternoon. She could tell.

She could always tell.

Her throat felt suddenly dry. “These… These are for you, Inuyasha.” The words came out just above a whisper.

And still, he stared at her.

Oh god. This had been a mistake. A colossal mistake. She knew he hated her. Had always known. He’d never tried to hide that fact. He avoided her at all costs and always had.

Heck, it was practically a running joke amongst their classmates; just how long would it take Inuyasha to growl and bolt when he got too close to Kagome this time?

And still… She couldn’t help it.

She’d never believed in love at first sight before that first day of high school, but standing here in front of him she remembered how it had been his laughter that had first caught her attention, making her look up from where she’d been meticulously arranging the contents of her pencil case on the desk in front of her.

That’s when she’d locked eyes with him… and promptly stopped breathing.

Never before or since had her reiki risen like it had in that moment, not even when she was meditating and training under her grandfather’s watchful eye. The power had surged in her veins until she felt like she was on fire from the inside out.

Ande then it had been over. 

He’d been forced to go to his desk, publicly embarrassed on the very first day of school by their jerk of a homeroom teacher, and he’d never forgiven her for it. He’d never so much as looked her in the eye since that day.

Oh, but she had watched him.

She’d watched him with his friends. Watched him practicing with the track team. Watched him sitting in that one sakura tree in the rear quad whenever he had a spare period. Until she felt like if she watched him for even one more day without saying anything her heart would burst… or break… or both.

Because high school was almost over and then he’d be gone from her life and she couldn’t let that happen. Not without at least trying to talk to him, even just once.

And so here she stood, the most expensive box of honmei choco she could afford sitting on the desk between them announcing her feelings for everyone to see.

The bell rang then and the other kids began filing out of the room. It seemed to rouse Inuyasha from his daze.

“For– For me?” He croaked.

Well, at least he finally said something, she thought.

“Uh-huh.”

Her hands were fiddling with the hem of her shirt. She wanted to say something more than just a stupid “uh-huh” but couldn’t seem to force any words past her throat.

“Higurashi-san, please be sure to turn out the lights when you and Akanishi-san* are done.”

Kagome flushed with embarrassment as she realized what kind of idiot she must look like, standing there in the now-empty classroom. “H- Hai, Sensei.”

She sighed then, ready to accept that her pathetic Valentine’s Day attempt at reach out to the boy she’d secretly been in love with for the past three years was turning into a spectacular dumpster fire of a failure. She turned on her heel to leave.

“Wait! Don’t go!” His voice came out strangled and sounded vaguely panicked as his hand shot out to grab her wrist.

And that was it. There was a sizzling jolt when youki met reiki, but then he was standing and pulling her into his arms, crushing her to his chest, burying his nose in her hair and inhaling deeply as though it was the first time he could breathe easily in almost 3 years.

And it was.

Kagome couldn’t explain what she’d just felt, the power that had raced through her system. Nor could she rationalize how not shocked she was by Inuyasha’s sudden embrace.

He hated her… didn’t he?

Then why did this feel so… right?

She realized then that he was mumbling something into her hair as his clawed fingers combed through its length. She strained to hear him.

“I tried to be good, I really did. I tried to stay away.”

“Inuyasha…? What do you mean?”

Kagome tried to pull back enough to look at his face, he seemed reluctant to let her go, and only pulled back far enough to whisper in her ear.

“You’re mine, Kagome. I tried to keep my promise, that I would stay away, but... you’re mine.”

His lips ghosted over the shell of her ear, sending a shiver down her spine. She gasped.

“But… But you hate me.” She stated incredulously.

That did make Inuyasha pull back, a look of horror contorting his face. “What?! No! NO! Never! What kind of monster do you think I am? Who the hell hates their truemate?”

“Truemate?!” Kagome squeaked in shock. She knew exactly what a truemate was. Every trained Miko did.

Her hands, that had fisted in Inuyasha’s school uniform sleeves when he’d caught her up in his embrace, began clenching and unclenching convulsively, her mind running a mile a minute.

Shit! Fuck! Inuyasha’s mind was also racing. He hadn’t meant to blurt that out! She’d just surprised him, is all. And now she looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

“Ka- Kagome, look, I– I mean, this doesn’t mean– You don’t have to–”

Kagome bit her lip. She could tell he was panicking… But she, strangely enough, wasn’t.

She felt oddly… calm, was it? At peace? Whole? As though some piece of the puzzle that hadn’t quite fit since that fateful day they’d met had now been shifted and was clicking perfectly into place.

If she did this, she knew there was no turning back. That thought was strangely comforting. It gave her the courage to lift two fingers to his lips, damming the flood of his still-sputtering words.

“Shhhhh.” She whispered, raising herself up on her tiptoes, face inching closer to his.

Inuyasha’s eyes widened right before Kagome removed her fingers from his lips, replacing them with her own lips as she spoke.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, my love.”

Continue to Part 2

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* Here is a great overview of how Valentines Day is celebrated in Japan.

* Akanishi means “Red West” and I thought it was a fitting surname for a modern Inuyasha.

[anthonyed]

@justsomeoneunordinary prompted: Oh, and if you'd rather do angst: you intrested in any of those "winter and bucky are separate personalities" headcanons? Maybe smth where there is no bucky anymore, but only winter? No ship, or if you feel like, then buckytony (you know me, lol) bucky just gave up on life, bc he's been too much through. He doesn't feel a need to live anymore and therefore simply "dies". So only winter is left.

(i lost the ask and im on mobile so beware of long post)

tw: suicide, major character death, alcohol

-//-

It goes like this they say; 

"This happens sometime," Tony smiles, sure where he stands. He doesn't like the look on Steve's face. Or Pepper or Sam and anyone for that matter. "You know when he spaced out after that mission in Illinois? Yeah, Cap?"

Steve nods. Dead eyes flickering to life. Yes, Tony thinks. Yes. You know what I mean. You know him well. You're his best friend. You know this happens. This is normal. 

Except it isn't 

Score 1; Denial. 

Steve looks like he's sucked a lemon. He's a dead man walking as he steps into Tony's space. 

He doesn't see the gauntlet Tony's working on. All he's focused is on telling the truth. 

"He's not coming back," he says. His voice is an unrecognizable echo to his own ears. "We've checked with Strange -," 

"Not with Shuri," Tony interrupts dryly, eyes not leaving his task. 

Steve takes a deep breath and exhales, "Tony," he sighs, "She was there too. They both said it's gone. Whatever trace of him left in there is gone."

Tony's fingers still. The air thickens and vibrates. It's not safe, something in Steve's hindbrain says. But he doesn't let go. 

"It's not your fau -," 

He stumbles back, shocked. His ears are ringing and his eyes blur a bit. 

Tony's not looking at him when he says, "Get out."

Steve doesn't fight. He leaves. The hot imprint the size of Iron Man's hand burning on his cheek. 

Score 2; Anger.

"I was thinking," Tony begins, a smile on his face as he takes Bucky's hand into his. "We could go to Tokyo this week."

Bucky cocks his head left, and regards their hand. 

"You always wanted to see the blossoms right? The flowing river of sakura? I checked the forecast, I'm pretty sure we'd be able to see that this week," he beams at Bucky. 

The steak on his plate is untouched. Tony takes it upon himself to slice it into bite sizes. "We can check out all those anime, manga things you're so fond of. And maybe fly to Paris after?" He suggests bashfully, looking at Bucky from under his lashes. "I was thinking… bread and cheese under moonlight and maybe," he coughs, flushing up to his cheeks. "You know…," he shrugs. "I think it's time for me to pop the question." He finishes in a rush. "Get married there and we can go for a honeymoon and -," he runs out of breath. 

The steak is all cut up. He pushes the plate in Bucky's direction. He looks at his own and feels bile rising up to his throat. 

"Please?" He whispers, so low it's one with the wind.

Cutleries clatter. Bucky's eating. His left hand is still in Tony's clasp. 

He's there, Tony thinks. He's right there next to him; eating. But everyone keeps telling him that he's not. 

But he's right there. 

So he chases that lump into his gut and straightens up. "We'll take a fortnight off. We'll go get married and paint the world red."

Maybe then. Maybe then, you'll come back to me.

Score 3; Bargaining

"Tony," Pepper hisses, her sharp nails are pressing into the crook of his elbow. 

"Ow," he cries. "Let me go, claw-girl."

Pepper straightens up, "My apologies," she smiles, bright and remorseful. Then she says, "Excuse us, please," and she drags Tony through a back door. 

"I can't Pep," Tony hiccups, "I'm married," he holds up his hand; bright diamond ring sparkling. Pepper looks sad, so Tony crooks a finger and calls her in. Once she's close enough, he whispers into her ear, "Shhh," he slurs, a hiccup bursting through, "Don't tell anyone but my husband is dead."

When he stumbles back, Pepper catches him. "Jesus, Tony," she sniffles. Her eyes are glazed and she keeps blinking them looking up at the ceiling. "God," she breathes. 

Tony hiccups, body slanting sideways. The whole world seems to tip on its axis. He whoops at the miracle. Then he doesn't remember what happens. 

Later, there's cold metal on the side of his head. The shiver that courses through his body is a comfort he clutches on desperately. 

He has soberred enough to know where he is and who he is with. He's repulsed but at the same time, he's got no energy in him to turn away. 

"You're not him," he tells the man. Nuzzles into his hips and he fists at the soft cotton clinging onto the body that no longer belongs to his husband, and he sobs, "You're not Bucky."

Score 4; Depression.

The first thing he notes, stepping out of the elevator; red silk shirt clinging onto his weary body as he tosses his suit jacket aside, that the TV is on. 

The TV is always on these days. Always. 

Tony gulps, chasing his ache with every roll to his sleeves. Until one elbow and then to another side. 

"How was your day?" He asks, switching on the light. Another reminder of his new reality; welcome to the darkness that has become his life. 

Silence. 

"Have you had your dinner?" Tony tries again. He can do this.  

1,2; a short shake to the head and Tony breathes. 

That tight coil in his chest unravels a little. Not enough to give; to let leave, but enough for him to breath. 

He plops on the empty seat next to the man. "I've had a shitty day if you care," he sighs, tipping his head back onto the headrest. Animal Planet is on; a lion stalking its prey. 

Uninterested, Tony rolls his head to look at his companion (for life as a matter of fact. The tacky diamond ring in his bedside drawer will tell you that). 

Cold grey eyes meet his gaze. Tony puts on a smile. "Does a shitty day warrant a hug?" He asks. 

Confusion flickers in them. A slight tip of his head and Tony chokes on a sob he swallows so quickly. He masks it with an awkward laugh and boldy spreads out his arms. "Can I get a hug?" He asks directly. No subtlety. Just easy sentences. 

There's more tilt to the head, but the longer Tony keeps his arms open, the nearer he comes. Closer and closer until -

It's not a hug. But it's something. 

It's enough. 

"Thank you," Tony sniffles, rubbing his nose and turning away. His heart aches everyday. But lesser and lesser and -

"It's not your fault, Tony."

"I don't understand. We were planning to get married. He was - ," Was he really? "- so happy."

He doesn't understand, never will understand. But there's no point to it. This is his life now; dark or dull, there's a man by side who's a shadow of someone he loves. He doesn't know this guy. But, he's willing to learn. 

Pulling out the take out menus, Tony begins flipping through. He pauses at the chinese one; the letters fading from overuse. One particular order is completely faded out but Tony knows it by heart. It's Bucky's favourite. How can he not. 

He puts it away. "How about Pizza?" He asks Winter. "You can choose the toppings." He throws a smile at him and receives a shrug for an answer. 

Moving on. 

Score 5; Acceptance. 

[tekka-dan]

Happyhoganon: If Sasuke Uchiha died during his final fight with Naruto by a freak accident rather than gotten his arm blasted off, placed in jail and was released by Kakashi (the new Hokage), how sad would Naruto be to losing Sasuke? What happens if Sakura blamed Naruto for Sasuke's death? And how guilt ridden could Kakashi be for 'failing' his student?

For starters thank you for this question, love. I enjoy writing and answering these!

I do not have a short answer for this one so please buckle in, get settled and prepare for the long answer:

How sad would Naruto be losing [to] Sasuke?

The thing is, it was Sasuke who admitted his defeat.

And it was Naruto who wouldn’t accept this [as a win or loss]

So it’s blatantly obvious how Naruto would’ve reacted to Sasukes death here. It would ultimately devastate him.

But this doesn’t matter to Sasuke. In Sasukes eyes, his defeat [admittance of loss] is making peace with his death and giving into submission. Sasuke wholeheartedly accepts his imminent death here. He was prepared to die alongside Naruto upon making the request to battle him.

This isn’t enough for Naruto though. Sasuke admitting his defeat and accepting his oncoming death wasn’t enough to [satisfy] Naruto because Naruto needs Sasuke alive and to actively exist in order to prove his Shinobi way:

Sasuke being deceased would negate his entire belief.

He needs Sasuke alive to continually beat Sasuke into submission. Sasuke admitting he was willing to die was giving into submission, in his own way.

To Naruto death is an escape, not an answer. To Sasuke death is an answer and also his way of making peace. Even with his resolve, Naruto confronts him on the one thing he still has will to pose a fight for.

Naruto can’t let Sasuke die, Naruto can’t let Sasuke admit defeat, Naruto can’t accept Sasuke’s atonement. Because none of it serves a purpose to him.

So Sasuke’s death here would not only completely shatter / devastate him, it would disprove everything he righteously believes and preaches.

What happens if Sakura blames Naruto [for Sasukes death]?

In short and truth, Sakura wouldn’t blame Naruto for Sasuke’s death.

The reason and long answer being that Sakura would ultimately blame herself.

Hear me out — Sakura is the second most self absorbed and centered character next to Naruto. Most of her achievements stem from wanting recognition and approval, only from Sasuke though.

It doesn’t help that the last exchange Sasuke has with Sakura before the VotE fight was this:

So she already felt pretty useless and weak, something she was self conscious about in the first place, her whole arc consisting of changing Sasuke [and somewhat Narutos] perspective of her:

Seeing Sasuke deceased wouldn’t make her immediately blame Naruto, rather herself for not being able to save him sooner / for needing to get Naruto involved (where she asked him to make her that promise of bringing him back to the village).

I envision Sakura apologizing to Naruto...but in a selfish way.

Sakura: “Naruto...I’m sorry I asked you to save Sasuke all on your own like that...it wasn’t fair...if I was strong enough on my own..maybe this could’ve been avoided..”

Thus making Naruto himself feel worse and placing the blame further on himself but that’s not Sakura blaming Naruto. That’s Sakura blaming herself which guilts Naruto into blaming himself.

Sakura would still be a complete wreck with Naruto over the loss of Sasuke, though. This wouldn’t change her overall reaction to still feeling utterly helpless on top of devasted.

Now as for Kakashi..

How would Kakashi react to being guilt ridden for failing Sasuke?

In short I think Kakashi would take Sasuke’s defeat the hardest mentally.

The long answer as to why is because Sasukes defeat would come after his battle and change of heart against his childhood friend and rival Obito

It’s no secret that Kakashi values teamwork and not leaving comrades behind to die thanks to Obito and his father. This became even more apparent in his battle that was more of a mental struggle and realization.

Sasuke’s death would also make Kakashi a hyprocrite himself [once again]

Aside from a student, at this point Kakashi does regard Sasuke as a comrade and [somewhat of] an equal.

Losing him would take the mental toll on him the hardest because it would mean the promise he made to Obito would’ve once again been broken and he had already made that declaration before that he failed Obito once by not keeping his promise

And Sasuke’s death would prove he still couldn’t keep his promise or his word.

In the end I see Kakashi getting over it easiest though, because he’s already a walking tragedy case..he’s been through everything a shinobi could possible endure. Losing his student doesn’t absolve his other losses.

My final remarks regarding the ending of Naruto [and the continuation of BoruTrash] is that Sasuke couldn’t die here. Sasuke’s journey couldn’t just end there. After all one final thing about Naruto’s character prevailed:

The majority rule being everyone else were also against Sasuke and his beliefs. So him surviving was yet another ploy to beat him further into submission...

Which is depressing, to say the least.

Disclaimer: I wanted Sasuke dead after the battle with Itachi, I think his character could’ve gone out with his brother in an honorable way. However, making it to the very end and battling Naruto for the final time and making the claims of his ultimate defeat and approaching death, I’m sickened by the fact that couldn’t just fucking give Sasuke his peace of mind to Rest In damn Peace.

The poor soul had his mind made up, even before engaging in that last battle. He was willing to not only die but sacrifice himself. They couldn’t give him that though, Sasuke can never have anything, not even a justification for his death.

I get it though, Naruto couldn’t end on a bleak note with one or both main characters dying...the message would’ve been lost in translation if that were the case.

However, having him survive to only be treated as an enemy of the village (that vilified his whole clan FIRST...) was..sickening.

I don’t agree with the way Naruto ended and I don’t support the trash that’s continuing now, just putting that on the table.

I hope this answered your question and was somewhat satisfying. I apologize if you sent this awhile ago, I haven’t answered one of these since 2017 so being able to again was heart warming.

I appreciate you for giving me this opportunity.

[babyybitchhh]

Side note regarding the last ask I answered. I just want to say that Kishimoto’s character priorities strike me as very ... odd. It’s strange to me that characters like Hiashi, Orochimaru and Sasuke - who have done arguably terrible things to the people around them - can not only live through all these trials but even go on to be welcomed back into polite society while characters like Asuma, Neji, Shikaku and Jiraiya were slaughtered for the sake of plot progression. From a storytelling standpoint, it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that the “good” people are punished while the “bad” guys get off without so much as a slap to the wrist. It sends mixed signals.

And I know Kishimoto has this thing about how seeking revenge/atonement for someone’s actions against you is no way to live, and while I generally agree, it doesn’t exactly add up in the narrative. Kakashi told Sasuke that killing in the name of revenge is harmful to yourself (and he was right about that) but then he turned around and helped Shikamaru exact revenge on Hidan. The situations were slightly different, yes, but it doesn’t seem like Kakashi knew about Itachi’s real motivations so the contradictory way he acted in those instances feels off. What’s more, I find it hard to believe that Naruto would allow Orochimaru to walk away AND welcome his abomination offspring into the village after he was the cause of Sasuke turning his back on both team 7 and Konoha as a whole, started him on the path of “darkness”, maximized the overall suffering of all characters involved, almost killed his other friends on multiple occasions, committed acts against humanity for the sake of “progression” and also gave Sasuke the means with which to fall directly into the Akatsuki’s hands. Like, considering how far up Sasuke’s ass he is, Orochimaru should’ve been the last person Naruto forgave when all was said and done. How am I expected to believe that the laundry list of crimes Orochimaru has under his belt is somehow justifiable? That anyone could look at what he’s done and write it off?

Even if Kishimoto was making an argument for “forgive and forget”, Orochimaru never should’ve been eligible for that sort of leniency to begin with. What he did should’ve been so far past the point of acceptability that mercy was never an option. It’s not so much that the characters I liked had to die, but that they died while actual villains were permitted to lead happy lives after they eventually got the evil out of their systems. It REALLY grinds my gears that Jiraiya was cut down the way he was while Orochimaru got to play mad scientist with no regard for human life and then be allowed to run free, have a son and pretty much do whatever the fuck he wants. It doesn’t make any sense??

Same with Sasuke. Not only should he have been so far gone with the mental trauma of losing his entire family, killing his own brother, trying to destroy his entire village and everyone in it, attempting to KILL Sakura on two separate occasions and being manipulated by a long dead relative that rehabilitation of any kind was entirely out of the question but also why forgive him for those crimes in the first place? Why let him wander about however he sees fit when you KNOW he has a history of going off the goddamn rails? How is it that he isn’t punished in some way and, perhaps most inexplicably, Sakura still wants to be with him? Is the narrative Kishimoto feeding me REALLY supposed to be that any act of violence and hatred is forgivable if you try to see it from that persons perspective hard enough? It’s inconceivable!

And imma be honest with you even though it’s not going to make me any friends. Gaara is the exact same as Sasuke. He got off scot free despite killing who knows how many unnamed people and also reveling in the death and destruction he wrought. The guy had no business taking a position of power in Suna no matter how much Naruto’s healing magic of friendship changed him. Like, to be completely honest, it would’ve made ten times more sense for Temari to take that role but we can’t go around having women in leadership positions now can we?

: p

Good people die and that’s okay. That’s life. Asuma’s death played a big role in Shikamaru’s character arc and Jiraiya died like a hero. That is not my issue with Kishimoto’s inane drama. But it feels very ... hollow to me, knowing that the people who did legitimately terrible things were not suitably punished for it in some way because it sets a really bad precedent for forgiving genuinely terrible actions. Genocide and abuse. Human experimentation. The list goes on! And if anything they all got the better end of the deal - Sasuke, Orochimaru, Gaara and Hiashi - they all came out the other side living their best lives while Neji and Shikaku get to rot. That is, quite frankly, fucked up.