#fic: apias

[daswarschonkaputt]

Any Port in a Storm Ch 21

the new chapter is now officially out, and i'm going to bed. enjoy.

[guacamoleroll]

𝖆𝖓 𝖊𝖓𝖉-𝖔𝖋-𝖞𝖊𝖆𝖗 𝖗𝖊𝖈𝖆𝖕 ⋆⁺₊ 「𝔭𝔩𝔢𝔞𝔰𝔢 𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔡 !!」

(I'm making sure to post this before anyone reaches the New Year, so for my people nineteen hours ahead of me in Apia Standard Time, this is for you.)

My fanfiction has radically changed over the past year. I went from writing less than ten-thousand words last year, to almost one-hundred thousand in the span of less than seven months. And it is thanks you each and every one of you—the people who reblog my posts with sweet reassurances, the people who comment with jokes and witty quips, and the people who simply read and take in my work, using it to inspire their own.

It may be cheesy, but you've made my journey with writing this year a delightful experience. The overwhelming love and support that I've received, even during hard times like transitioning to college, has brought me so much comfort and inspiration.

So to each and every one of my followers and mutuals, thank you.

Thank you so much.

I can't wait to see what the next year holds. (One more fic will be released before my clock strikes twelve. Stay tuned!)

Until 2024, Muse.

[daswarschonkaputt]

so uh. the next chapter of apias might be basically done? i just need to proofread and edit it now lol

[daswarschonkaputt]

anyone here still after apias updates and want a sneak peek at the next chapter?

[daswarschonkaputt]

are you still taking requests for dvd commentary of a fic scene? could you do apias chapter 19, the opening scene with jiraiya, oro and the sandaime?

oh yeah, ofc sure!!

[quickly takes off my kinnporsche hat and puts on my naruto one]

under the cut so i don't bore people with my rambling, haha.

Orochimaru’s lip curls as he props himself up languidly on one of Sensei’s couches. “Welcome home Jiraiya,” he says, voice smooth and mocking. “Done with your penance already?”

So, like, this first line was one of the very first things I had written for this chapter. In fact, this entire first scene had been sitting in my drafts since before I wrote chapter 18. I rewrote the entire scene, like, five times before I finished the chapter, getting all my ducks in a row.

This is actually referencing something that we'll find out a bit more about later on. I have in-depth plans regarding what the sannin got up to during the war, and how everything ended up fracturing. (Basically, Jiraiya was involved in something a little fucked up during the war, that he sort of blames himself for. There were originally going to be way more references to this throughout the chapter, but they got cut for flow reasons.)

The job of this scene is to establish the byplay between Jiraiya, Orochimaru and the Sandaime, and sort of set-up the state of their relationship. (Which comes back again at the end of the chapter.)

“I’d gathered,” Orochimaru says flatly. “We’re one person short for a Team Hiruzen reunion.” [...] Sensei reacts with the same nonchalance that he’s always carried when faced with Orochimaru’s spite. “That is, in fact, the issue,” he says.

So here we have a cornerstone of the Orochimaru and Sandaime dynamic: Orochimaru snipes, and the Sandaime doesn't react at all. There was actually a line from earlier in the scene that got cut that might explain this better -- Jiraiya says, "The only way to survive Orochimaru's brutal words is to hide the fact that he's ever managed to draw blood at all." Or something to that tune. Essentially, this is a powerplay from Hiruzen -- Orochimaru can't do much more than say mean things, because Hiruzen is Hokage, and so Hiruzen is just pretending that those mean things don't effect him at all.

Sensei taps his pipe against the edge of his desk, flecks of smouldering ash falling down onto the floor. His movements are measured, slow and relaxed. A powerplay, of sorts – he knows he can afford to make you wait.

This is one of my favourite lines in the chapter, lol. It's so fun to write this scene from Jiraiya's POV as opposed to Orochimaru, because Jiraiya is very neutral about all the ways the Sandaime uses to display his power and subtly keep them in line, but you just know that internally, Orochimaru is fucking fuming.

It's an impression that matched with what he read of her sealing style – concise, elegant, and subtly brilliant. Never a wasted stroke. Compared with Jiraiya’s haphazard scrawling, the difference was stark.

So, this bit here is referring to Mito, and her sealing style. It exists to establish that Jiraiya did not learn his sealing technique from Mito -- he's mostly self-taught -- and establish this idea that your sealing technique reflects your personality. (In a following chapter, we get to have Jiraiya's perspective on Minato's sealing technique, so we've got to lay the groundwork here.)

The other bit of groundwork laid here is the idea that Mito didn't have all that much interest in Jiraiya's fuuinjutsu. This hasn't been revealed yet, because it turns out the scene I'm thinking of is at the start of ch 21 not 20, but whatever. I do what I want. On the topic of Minato, someone says, "Look, Minato I get. He’s not your average floater genin. Heck, Mito-sensei even sort of likes him." Mito-sensei likes Minato, and she likes how Minato writes seals -- there's a reason Minato was there when she had her stroke.

On the outside, it’s a simple request. From their view within, Jiraiya knows it’s anything but. “I…” he starts. “There are some contacts, I could lean on, who might have some ideas. She won’t have left Fire Country, not with the price on her head after the war. And, well, with her habits, there should be some sort of trail I can follow.” He inhales. “When do you want me to leave?” Orochimaru says nothing. They both know it has to be him.

So, obviously, this is referencing the complicated relationship between Orochimaru and Tsunade, that we get a bit more context for later on in the chapter:

Anyone else would probably believe him. But Jiraiya had been there, the day they put Nawaki to rest. He’d been there when Orochimaru had put his head on the floor, and begged Tsunade for forgiveness. He’d been the one to pick Orochimaru up off the floor when Tsunade slapped him so hard his left eye swelled shut.

Tsunade and Orochimaru have a grudge between them that Orochimaru acknowledges was his fault (lowkey a huge deal given Orochimaru's... everything), involves Nawaki (Tsunade's dead little brother), and is so awful that Tsunade slapped him when he tried to apologise. Oh, and it has something to do with why Orochimaru doesn't want to be a jounin-sensei. Hmm. Wonder what could be going on there. Truly, a mystery for the ages.

Sensei takes in another deep inhale from his pipe. “That,” he says, “is where things get a little complicated.”

So, this is the last line of the scene, and things deliberately cut off there so that I didn't have to explain all the wild political scheming going on. We obviously get one puzzle piece for this with Jiraiya and Orochimaru at the bar:

Orochimaru doesn’t do anything as plebian as flinch. He pours himself another cup of sake. “Jounin-sensei get to pick their teams. I presume Sensei is extending you the same courtesy?” “Yeah,” Jiraiya says.

And then another bit at the end of the chapter:

“We are not broke – yet. On the second matter, I have been very reliably informed that the daimyo will not support another war,” Sensei says calmly.

But there's a lot more going on than just that. One of the things about Sarutobi Hiruzen, and writing him in this fic, is that he has schemes within schemes. You see this very much this chapter -- he lets Jiraiya and Orochimaru in on something, and then lets Jiraiya in on another, later, secretly. The way I write Hiruzen is as a dyed-in-the-wool politician. He's clever and he's scheming. Jiraiya, at least, is convinced of his sensei's benevolence beneath that -- he still has faith. Orochimaru is somewhat more disillusioned.

Some more general things to with this scene:

We start the chapter off in Jiraiya's POV, because it's important that the readers get a feel for what he's like, how his brain works, before we see Megumi's POV on him next chapter -- and as such, can choose how much of what she sees to believe.

I wanted Jiraiya to feel like a plausible spymaster, without making him cold and manipulative. He's genial, and friendly, and he gets on with people and even builds genuine relationships with them -- but he's also got a head for secrets, and he ferrets them out with relative ease.

Orochimaru is the kind of person who would orchestrate a six-month long seduction of someone to get access to an office to steal a file. Jiraiya is the kind of person who'd just have a mate who could slip it to him. Friends in every city, essentially.

So, like, one of the things this chapter is how much are the characters saying? What aren't they saying and why? Jiraiya, Orochimaru, and Hiruzen all wear masks for different purposes. Jiraiya's interesting, because what he hides first and foremost is his intelligence. You see it a little, at the end of the chapter -- the mask comes off. Jiraiya lays his cards on the table for his teacher.

Basically, when you chose that scene for the commentary, my brain went, huh. yeah. okay. i see why.

There's a lot going on with Jiraiya this chapter. But, in the interests of not spoiling the entire arc, I'm trying to be as general as possible here. Let's just say there was a lot of set-up here.

[daswarschonkaputt]

Someone talk me out of writing amnesia fic for kinnporsche

I'm shocked there's not more of it, this fandom is made for the trope

[daswarschonkaputt]

Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

@luckydragon10​ tagged me which is just plain cruel. the inside of my wip folder should be between me and god.

okay, so these are my current kp wips:

diamond auction au

mpreg kinnporsche because i hate myself

mpreg kinnporsche au actual fic

porsche can’t die

Teenage Porsche AU

chay as kim’s morality chain a.b.o.

and then assorted other fandom fics that are just sort of simmering away and i’m not working on them actively right now:

Persona 5 au where the phantom theives are vampire hunters and Akira is secretly a half

Hogwarts Confidential - HP VMars AU

harry and lily talk about veritaserum

hogwarts confidential harry and tom sleeping scene

Harry Potter Veronica Mars AU

Hogwarts Confidential

a.b.o. wwx bullet plan

a.b.o. imperial palace drama

lwj doesn’t like jyl

the ff7 polyamory fic

pjo si

and ofc, apias:

APIAS Ch21

i’m an incredibly messy writer, sometimes i’ll work on different bits of fics in different documents, hence why the bullet points have sub-bullets. you can also see that i have no discipline or rules whatsoever about what i call documents -- between the sheets is still in my folder as “kinnporsche fake boyfriend au” even though it’s had a name for two whole goddamn months.

i’m not tagging as many people as i have wips, i’m far too shy to do that (have you SEEN how many fic are here???) but if you see this and want to do it, please consider yourself tagged by me. that’s genuine, by the way. you can be like “tagged by kaputt” and i’ll back you up 100%.

[daswarschonkaputt]

New Any Port in a Storm chapter - XX: Warm Front.

Minato meets his new genin team.

[daswarschonkaputt]

apias ch 20 sneak peek

new chapter of apias: 4.6k in. we’re nearly done.

a sneak peek is included below for my tumblr followers. i have to give you some reason to follow me here.

Mikoto has her hands in his hair. “It’s like straw,” she says, pushing it into spikes and marvelling when they hold their shape. “How much bleach did it take in the end?”

Minato bears it with the grace only a long-time friend of Uchiha Mikoto’s could. “Three lots.”

Mikoto wrinkles her nose. “I’d have just stuck with the black,” she says. “Or shaved my head. Hey, Minato—”

“I’m not shaving my head.”

“You wouldn’t have to be, like, visibly bald. There’s a wigmaker out in Yansekikōgen that does business with the Clan. You could have whatever hair you wanted.”

Across the table from them, Kushina scoffs. “I don’t get why you wanted to dye it anyway,” she says, jabbing her chopsticks at Minato. “It’s not like black hair made you look any less like a flake.”

Mikoto opens her mouth to say something to that, but Minato catches her eye before she can. He gives her a small shake of his head – and her mouth snaps shut.

“Just wanted a change,” Minato says as lightly as he can.

Kushina rolls her eyes. “I’d never dye my—ow!” She turns to glare at Mikoto. “Did you just kick me?”

“Stop picking fights,” Mikoto says primly.

“I’m picking fights? You just kicked me!”

“And I’ll do it again.”

“You wouldn’t—ow! Would you quit that?”

Minato ducks his head, focusing on the food in front of him as they begin to bicker. Mikoto tends to keep him and Kushina separated whenever possible – but on the rare occasions they all spend time together, this is inevitably what happens. Kushina says something rude to him, he lets it slide, Kushina crosses what Mikoto has designated as a line – and so Mikoto picks a fight, drawing attention away from Minato, and satisfying her Uchiha-brand eye-for-an-eye attitude to personal loyalty.

Eye for an eye, Minato thinks, prodding at his boiled fish. Given the pass-the-parcel eye transplants that happened in canon, that’s probably more accurate than anyone knows.

There’s a jingling behind him – the door to the restaurant opening. Minato flicks his eyes up from his fish, catching a reflection from the mirror that sits behind the restaurant’s bar. It hadn’t been his choice to sit with his back to the door, but he was unwilling to fight Kushina for it when she dropped into the front-facing seat when they got here an hour ago.

The three shinobi that enter the restaurant are genin – they’re dressed too casually to be chūnin, and are far too young for jōnin. From the way Kushina stiffens opposite him, Minato would guess they’re either from this year’s graduating class, or the year before.

“—that you, Tomato-chan?”

There’s a burst of sniggering behind him.

How juvenile. Minato turns around, keeping his posture loose and casual.

Mikoto quirks a delicate eyebrow. “Can we help you?” she asks.

If they had any sense, the genin would see that for the warning it was.

“Just wanted to check in with our old friend, Tomato-chan,” the front-most genin says, grin wide and mocking. “Oh, you have a hitai-ate now. Shame they don’t make them in red, huh? Wouldn’t want to break theme.”

Minato flicks a glance at Mikoto. It’s… honestly a little embarrassing to witness this. These are the people who bully Kushina?

“What’s the associated colour of an eternal genin?” Mikoto asks sharply. “Seeing as you care so much about theme.”

“Why? Shopping for yourself?”

The other genin snigger harder at that.

This is… this is actually painful to sit through. Minato casts his eyes around the restaurant, and meets eyes with—wait, is that Shigeru? Minato takes in his robes – muted colours, no clan insignia. He’s off-duty.

Kushina is taut with fury. “Shut up, Wakaki.”

“Or what, Tomato-chan? You gonna roll all over us?”

Kushina slams her chopsticks down.

Minato breaks eye-contact with Shigeru. He looks at Mikoto. Aren’t you going to stop her?

Mikoto shrugs.

“Oh, I’m so scared—”

And then Kushina plants her fist directly into his face. It’s a beautiful punch – barely telegraphed, with the all the power in her tiny, furious body. Wakaki is sent careening backwards, straight into the bar.

Another genin launches himself at Kushina. She responds by kicking through their table.

Shigeru shoots to his feet.

“Mikoto,” Minato says urgently.

“I know,” she says. “Hey, owner-san! We’re closing our tab!” She takes off her coin pouch and tosses it onto the bar. “Keep the change. Kushina!”

Kushina turns, pausing her assault just long enough for Mikoto to grab hold of the back of her yukata.

“Hey!”

Minato clears a path for her through the growing pandemonium in the restaurant, as diners try to move out of the chaos. Mikoto follows behind, tugging Kushina along by her dress, whilst she yells in protest. As Minato reaches the door, and holds it open for them, he catches sight of Shigeru, fighting through the crowds.

Minato looks to Mikoto. “Run.”

Once they’re out on the street, they bolt, Kushina being dragged along by Mikoto. Minato has some sympathy – if there was ever a metaphor to explain what it felt like to be Mikoto’s friend, this would be it.

More than a few streets and side-alleys away from the restaurant, Kushina finally shakes off Mikoto’s grip.

“You didn’t have to just—grab me!” she snaps. “I totally had it.”

Minato scrubs his face with his hand. “Sure you did,” he says, sighing. “You’re a genin now.”

Kushina rounds on him. “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean, bleach brain?”

Mikoto rolls her eyes. “He means that we’re not civilians, anymore,” she says. “So when we get in trouble with the police, we get disciplined like shinobi. You want to explain to the Hokage why you started a bar fight?”

“I didn’t start shit!” Kushina shouts. “You heard what he said.”

“You punched a shinobi in a crowded restaurant,” Minato says flatly.

“Just because I have some backbone—”

“You don’t have to let it slide,” Minato says. “But wherever possible, you should pick the field on which you fight your enemies so that it favours you. Just—ambush him on the way home, next time. Somewhere with no witnesses, or at least no Uchiha police enjoying their day off. It’s not like he’d report it. No shinobi’s going to want to admit to being beat up by a baby genin.”

“You’re a genin, too, genius,” Kushina says.

“Um. Yes?”

Kushina stares at him for a long time. Minato fidgets a little under her eyes, before she snorts in disgust. “Your brain really is full of bleach. How do you put up with him?”

Mikoto’s face is flat in a way that Minato knows means she isn’t precisely pleased. “Minato’s not an idiot, Kushina-chan.”

“Don’t be gross. It’s Kushina. Ku-shi-na.”

“Kushi-Kushi.”

“I’m serious!”

“Kushi-tan.”

Kushina is bright red. “Mikoto!”

Mikoto sighs exaggeratedly. “Fine, fine,” she says. “We should probably head to the Academy, Uzumaki-san.”

“That’s worse!”

As they start to move off, Kushina scurrying after Mikoto to demand a proper form of address, Minato meets her eyes. Well played, he mouths.

Mikoto smiles at him. “I try.”

“You try what? Hey—you better not be telling him to call me any of those awful names—Mikoto!”

tbc...

[daswarschonkaputt]

new chapter of apias is finished, just needs editing

[daswarschonkaputt]

i may or may not be writing any port in a storm chapter 19

no promises but we’re 3k in

[daswarschonkaputt]

It’s out! Any Port in a Storm, Chapter 19.

[daswarschonkaputt]

Further Beyond [APIAS/BNHA]

Further Beyond

Minato’s not a hero. He’s capable of acts of phenomenal cruelty and – what’s worse – justifying them to himself. He’s ruthless, and a killer, and he trained himself out of hesitation long ago.

Minato’s not a hero, but sometimes you have to try anyway.

I. Aftermath

Hayashi’s office is exactly the same as it had been two years ago. Books line almost every surface that Minato can see from his position on her leather sofa, stacked high on shelves around the room. Her desk is still shoved into a corner at the far end of the room, and there’s still a wad of paper beneath one of the legs to stop it from wobbling.

The only notable difference is the screensaver on her desktop. Guess she got a dog at some point. And a pretty wife.

Minato almost wants to meet the kind of woman that someone as sharp and sharp-edged as Hayashi chooses to marry.

“So,” Hayashi says, smoothing out the wrinkles in her corduroy skirt. She’s dressed in her usual choice of style – librarian chic, so to speak, but far too dowdy to approach anything close to provocative – and has her hair loose around her face. Every single facet of her appearance has been chosen to make her appear meek, and small, and non-threatening. “It’s been a while, Minato.”

Minato truly, deeply, from the bottom of his heart, wishes it had been longer. “I guess.”

“I hear that you’re in high school now – UA, no less.” She smiles kindly at him. “Not half bad for a kid who almost didn’t graduate from middle school, huh? I always said you were bright.”

The exact words had been something along the lines of bright, but determined to waste it. If she’d intended it to be a compliment, it had been backhanded. Minato doesn’t point out as much. He knows what she’s after.

“Utsumi-san cut a deal with me,” he says. “Graduaton from the UA Hero Track is part of it.”

“Regardless, it’s not an easy school to get into,” Hayashi says, meeting his gaze. “I’m proud of you, Minato.”

The very worst part about that is that she means it. Minato blinks first.

“Can we just get this thing over with?” he asks.

“Oh?” Hayashi tilts her head. “You’re much less recalcitrant than you used to be. I was half expecting to have to sit through six sessions of stubborn silence before you decided to work with me.”

“I am capable of basic pattern recognition,” Minato replies, “and I know you won’t let me go until you’ve got what you’ve wanted.”

“It’s always so touching to be reminded that you only ever come to see me when you’re being forced to by the Prosecutor’s Office.”

“You’re marginally less inconvenient than juvie,” Minato says.

“But only marginally?”

“I thought you didn’t want me to lie to you.”

Hayashi’s smile has shifted from kind to something razor-edged and amused. “Your back talk is a lot less disconcerting now that you’re old enough for me to chalk it up to teenage attitude,” she says. “How’s that working out for you at your new school?”

“I’m a model student.”

“I’m sure,” she says. “That’s why you’re back in mandatory therapy twice a week.”

“That almost sounded like victim blaming,” Minato replies. “Am I supposed to believe that I wouldn’t be in this situation if only I’d studied a bit harder for my exams?”

Hayashi doesn’t even flinch. “Not at all,” she says. “But I’d wager our situation would be different if you had any degree of respect for the adults in your life and their ability to keep you safe.”

“Yeah,” Minato says flatly. “This would be grief counselling, instead.”

Hayashi watches him for a moment, preternaturally still as her eyes stare unblinkingly at his face, before she seems to come to a conclusion. She writes a note on her pad of paper and Minato does her the courtesy of not trying to read it upside down.

She looks back up. “It’s interesting that you used the word victim. You were very insistent that I not ascribe that label to you in our old sessions. Do you want to know what I think?”

“I’m sure I don’t, but I have faith in your ability to make me regret turning you down,” Minato says. “Psychoanalyse away.”

“Whenever we spoke about Hanamori-san, you were dismissive of him,” Hayashi says. “He was a retired Pro Hero, a well-respected member of the community, and your foster father. It’s very clear, to most of the people who looked in on your case, that you lived in an environment where he had a position of absolute power over you. But you never saw it like that. He was never a threat to you. Because, before he was a retired Pro, before he was your foster father, he was something else, something that marked him as beneath you: he was a civilian.

“Even the incidents that got you pulled in to see me, the – what was the phrase in the report? Borderline vigilantism? Even those scrapes never even scratched the surface of the type of combat you faced in your early childhood. It would be laughable to compare the two.” She’s looking straight at him. “But yesterday – yesterday took you off-guard. I could tell when you came in today that you hadn’t slept well last night. For the first time in over three years, your opponents weren’t civilians.”

“By the standard metric where I’m from, everyone in this world is a civilian,” Minato points out. He pauses. “Except for All Might. Maybe.”

“But I’m not wrong, am I?” Hayashi says.

“No,” Minato says. “You’re not.”

There’s a moment of silence as Hayashi makes another note on her pad of paper. “When we last spoke, you felt you had a pretty good hand on everything,” she says. “Fewer flashbacks, fewer nightmares, less anxiety over all. Has that changed much over the past year?”

“Not really.”

“I want to reassure you that whatever you’re feeling right now isn’t backwards progress,” Hayashi says. “It’s perfectly normal to experience a resurgence of symptoms when you’re exposed to situations like yesterday.”

“I know.”

“So, with that all out of the way,” Hayashi says, leaning back in her chair. “Tsukauchi-san was nice enough to supply me with a censored copy of the police report, and I read enough to know that yesterday must have been pretty tough for you.”

Minato shifts uncomfortably. “I guess,” he says. “It was kind of a shitshow, to be honest.”

Hayashi raises an eyebrow, and Minato knows exactly what is coming before she says it.

“And how did that make you feel?”

THREE YEARS AGO Musutafu, Japan

Oh, the taste of your lips, I’m on a ride—

Tsukauchi Naomasa hates his job.

You’re toxic, I’m slipping under—

Before his Quirk came in, Naomasa wanted to be a construction worker. It was only at the somewhat late age of six that Lie Detector made him the least popular kid in school, and landed him face-to-face with a Quirk Counsellor, who just had to suggest police work.

With a taste of a poison paradise—

Naomasa bets construction workers never get woken up in the middle of the night for work emergencies.

I’m addicted to you, don’t you know that I’m—

With a grunt, Naomasa rolls over in bed and tugs his phone free of its charging cable. “Detective Tsukauchi, Musutafu Police Depeartment.” His tone is only halfway polite, but he figures that’s twice as much as can be reasonably expected at – he glances at the light-up display of his alarm clock – 3:27am on a Saturday morning.

“Good morning, Detective!” is the frankly offensively chirpy answer. “I’m calling from the station in Hosu. We have a suspect in custody here, and there’s a note in his file that you should be contacted in the event of his arrest.”

And it couldn’t have waited until it was light outside? Naomasa sighs, pushing his hair up his forehead. So far as he knows, his taskforce doesn’t have any UC’s in Hosu—

Wait. Hosu.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Naomasa rolls out of bed, yanking his wrinkled suit jacket off the floor as he shuffles towards the bathroom. “How long ago was he arrested?” he asks.

“He was brought in at around eight last night.”

Yesterday’s trousers and shirt are already in the hamper, but Naomasa reckons he can salvage them with a bit of spray-on deodorant. “Charges?”

“Murder.”

Of course it’s murder. The little shit.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Naomasa says.

--

Naomasa is on his third cup of coffee by the time he gets to the station in Hosu, which is the only reason why he’s able to flash a polite smile at the officer at the front desk as he signs in. She pushes a visitor’s pass at him, and he loops it around his neck on top of his police ID.

The station is pretty much deserted at this hour. There’s a cleaner with a mild telekinesis Quirk mopping the floor, who bows and apologises when Naomasa trips over their bucket as it zooms across the floor towards them.

Dusting himself off, the first thing Naomasa hears when he enters the bullpen is, “What did he say?”

“That he was at the library all afternoon with the other kids. There’s CCTV of him entering and exiting the building at the right times, and the other kids corroborate the story. We haven’t managed to talk to the librarian yet. It feels a bit belligerent to pull her out of bed at this hour.”

Naomasa is glad that some people are allowed that privilege. He manages to spot the owners of the two voices as two heads crowded into a cubicle on the other side of the room. He raises a hand, ready to announce his presence, but stops when the first voice exhales raggedly.

“So, all we’ve got is the threat.”

“Not even that. The girl’s changed her mind. Said she must have misheard.”

“Bring Kichikawa in in the morning. See if she can make any progress – she’s good with kids. Any luck on the Quirk records?”

“No dice. It’ll take a judicial order to unseal them, but unless we know why they were sealed, it’s hard to say if we’ll get even that.”

“Damn.”

“You’re certain it was him.”

“You didn’t see him, when we got to the house. The look on his face – he wasn’t surprised. Completely unbothered by the cooling corpse in front of him. Not the kind of look you expect to see on a kid staring at his dead foster father. And it’s not like Hanamori had many enemies. He worked in disaster relief as a Pro and lived, by all accounts, a very quiet life after retiring.”

“Except for the past where he beat his foster kids.”

“Except for that.”

Naomasa pinches the bridge of his nose, and feels a little part of himself die as he opens his mouth and says, “Sticky Fingers.”

Both of the heads whip around to face him at the sound of his voice. Their faces are drawn and tired, just as Naomasa imagines his own looks.

“The name of his Quirk,” Naomasa explains, walking over to the two of them. “Sticky Fingers. It lets him stick to surfaces with his body. Ask him to walk up the walls in the interrogation room if you need him to prove it.”

There’s a pause as everyone evaluates each other. The two men – detectives, from the ID’s looped around their necks – regard Naomasa’s sorry state, eyes lingering on his own ID and visitor badge. Naomasa observes that their shirts at least have been ironed within the last twelve hours and struggles to muster up some degree of shame for his half-arsed approach to the dress code this morning.

“I’m Detective Tsukauchi, from the Quirk Crime Taskforce in Musutafu,” Naomasa says into the awkward silence.

“Sato,” returns the older of the two. “And this is Detective Nakamura.”

The other detective – Nakamura, Naomasa supposes – frowns. “Quirk Crime?”

What the hell do you want with this? remains unsaid.

Naomasa sighs. “I don’t know how he manages to get into these situations,” which is a lie, but he ignores the way his Quirk pings in the back of his mind, “but the kid you arrested earlier tonight is a witness involved in one of our ongoing investigations. His Quirk records were sealed to help protect his identity. There’s a note in his file to call me if he’s arrested because a police investigation might turn up things that would compromise his safety.”

“Must be some witness,” Nakamura observes. “This isn’t exactly normal office hours.”

Sato, however, is frowning at Naomasa. “Tsukauchi,” he repeats. “I’ve heard that name before. You headed up the Trigger Investigation, couple of years back, right?”

“That’s me,” Naomasa affirms tiredly. The case that either made of ruined his career, depending on how much coffee he’s had that day. Today he’s leaning heavily towards ruined.

“We have a coffee pot in the break room,” Sato says. “If you could give us a moment?”

Naomasa nods, and leaves.

The coffee pot in the break room is cold, but Naomasa pours himself a cup anyway. He doesn’t drink it – making probably the first wise caffeine-related decision of his life – but contents himself with swirling the dark liquid around his polystyrene cup.

Sato comes to find him thirty minutes of dead-eyed staring later. He leans against the entryway to the room, one hand stuck in his trouser pocket. “We’re releasing him without charge.”

It takes Naomasa longer than he’d like to process that sentence. “I didn’t come here to try to interfere with your investigation,” he says, once he’s parsed the words. “He’ll function just as well as a witness regardless of what he’s charged with.”

Sato shrugs. “Our case against him was flimsy,” he says. “Coroner was only 50/50 on whether or not it was a murder to begin with.”

Naomasa knows he doesn’t want to know, but he asks anyway. “Hanamori, the foster father – how’d he die?”

“Broken neck,” Sato says. “His foster kids found him at the bottom of his staircase and called us in. Angle of the break was a bit strange, so the coroner thought someone might have helped him on his journey down, so to speak.” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t really matter much anymore. Unless new evidence comes forward, we’re ruling his death an accident.”

Naomasa doesn’t argue further. This is the best outcome so far as his own interests are concerned, even if he can’t imagine himself backing down half as easily as Sato if their roles were switched.

He throws his coffee down the sink and follows Sato through the station.

It’s only when they’re halfway down the corridor to Processing that Sato adds, “There are rumours, you know. Even here in Hosu. About the case you’re working on.”

There isn’t really anything Naomasa can say in response to that. So he doesn’t.

They walk the rest of the way in silence.

--

Naomasa knew from the very moment he laid eyes on Namikaze Minato, that the kid was more trouble than he was worth. He wishes it were an exaggeration, but the first time Naomasa ever saw Minato, the little shit was climbing out of a fourth floor hospital window, loose pyjamas fluttering in the wind, one half of a handcuff still locked around his wrist.

It turned out to have been a very accurate first impression.

“So,” Naomasa says, hands gripped tight around the steering wheel as he squints into the sunrise. “I hear you’ve been getting into fights.”

The look Minato shoots him from the passenger seat very clearly says that he can’t believe Naomasa decided to lead with that.

Naomasa raises an eyebrow.

“Do you really want to talk to me about the fights?” Minato asks.

“Only if I have to,” Naomasa says. “I caught a glimpse of your record in the station. Three months in and you’ve already been cautioned by the police for violence. That’s the sort of thing that could interfere with your future if you don’t rein it in.”

“It only happened once.”

It doesn’t register as a lie, but that’s only because it’s been tailor-made not to. Naomasa has played this game with Minato one too many times to be caught out by a feint that half-hearted.

“Only one caution, I know,” Naomasa says. “But that wasn’t the only fight, was it? Are you being picked on at school?”

“It’s not like I fit in.”

Not a yes, not a no. Basically, Go fish.

“The other kids, then,” Naomasa says.

Minato shrugs. No vocal response – nothing to trigger Naomasa’s Quirk. Clearly there wasn’t anything circuitous enough for Minato to say back.

“I can talk to their caseworkers for you,” Naomasa offers. “You could write them letters at their new homes.”

“No,” Minato says. “Ask the question.”

Naomasa sighs. There’s no point trying to play dumb. “You don’t want me to do that.”

“I didn’t do it,” Minato says. “What they accused me of – I didn’t do it.”

It’s not a lie, but it never is with Minato.

--

It was three months ago now, that Namikaze Minato first became known to Naomasa.

Most of the details from the incident have now been stripped from anything that doesn’t have a clearance attached to it, but so far as Naomasa is aware, the story starts with a car accident.

Two officers based in Shibuya had been responding to a call-out when a civilian boy dressed in a hospital gown collapsed in front of their car. It was only thanks to the inertia-cancelling Quirk of the officer behind the wheel that Minato didn’t end up paste. The officers rushed out of the car, called for an ambulance, and attempted to reassure the distressed and delirious child who they, at the time, assumed was a runaway patient from a local hospital.

“He was out of his mind,” Officer Memoto said to Naomasa afterwards. “Kept talking nonsense. Terrified, too. If he hadn’t been so worn out, he’d probably have managed to scramble away from me and Fukui. God knows what they’d put him on, but he reacted to it badly.”

Fukui had been more useful. “Scared shitless, he was,” she said. “Talking about a man with innumerable superpowers – didn’t seem to understand when I told him people only ever had one Quirk.”

Naomasa was called onto the case when the hospital ran a blood test on Minato – and found his blood cells practically marinating in an almost lethal dose of the Quirk-enhancement drug, Trigger.

“We really can only thank God that the poor boy’s Quirkless,” Doctor Aoki had told Naomasa. “The amount of the drug that was floating around his system would’ve caused a rampage in a grown adult. I shudder to think what it would have done to a small child.”

“Quirkless?”

“Got the toe joint and everything,” Aoki said.

In the end, it was a lot of little details. The hospital gown and cannula that the officers had found him in – and the fact that not a single hospital in Tokyo reported a missing patient matching Minato’s description. Quirkless, with a confirmed diagnosis from a doctor, and yet burned into Naomasa’s memory as he ran down the side of the hospital building during his first escape attempt.

And most importantly: his delirious rambling to the officers at the scene of the accident. The man with many Quirks.

If it was nothing, then Naomasa was jumping at nothing.

But if it wasn’t, then through sheer providence alone, Naomasa had stumbled across the first breadcrumbs of something catastrophic.

--

Dawn has come and gone by the time they arrive at Naomasa’s one-bedroom apartment in Musutafu. Shizuka, Naomasa’s spry, elderly next door neighbour, is leaving her apartment to join her powerwalking club for their daily jaunt around the block. She smiles cheerily at him and Naomasa focuses on her face, as opposed to her neon leggings, which are acutely painful to witness in his sleep-deprived state.

“Morning, Shizuka-san,” he says.

“Morning, Naomasa-kun,” she returns. “And…” she trails off, frowning at Minato.

“My nephew,” Naomasa lies, unflinching even as his Quirk chimes in his ears.

Shizuka’s eyes widen, and it’s about then that Naomasa remembers that she’s met his little sister, and knows exactly how old she is.

“Have a good walk,” Naomasa says, silently apologising to Makoto for the fact that she’s about to become the subject of that morning’s gossip, alongside a teenage pregnancy that she never had.

After Shizuka has left, Naomasa manages to get his apartment door open, even after inputting the wrong code twice. He shuffles in, kicking off his dress shoes and trading them for a pair of slippers. He drops his jacket on the back of his sofa and only stops on his direct path to bed when he realises he’s lost his blond shadow.

When he turns around, he sees Minato frozen in the doorway. He hasn’t even taken off his shoes, instead hovering awkwardly, like he’s not sure whether or not he’ll burst into flame after crossing Naomasa’s threshold.

“I don’t have any slippers in kid’s sizes,” Naomasa says. “Socks are fine.”

Minato doesn’t move.

It’s early in the morning, and Naomasa’s last cup of coffee was over two hours ago. He’s too tired for this. “Could you please come in?” he tries. It probably strays a little too close to begging, but Naomasa doesn’t put too high a value on his own pride. “I can’t go to bed with you standing there, and my boss only agreed to let me have the morning off. I quite literally do not have all day.”

Minato steps over the threshold and closes the door. He still doesn’t take off his shoes.

Naomasa weighs it all up in his mind, and comes to the conclusion that he really doesn’t care enough. He turns back around, restarting his exhausted shuffle towards bed, only—

“When am I leaving?”

Naomasa pinches the bridge of his nose. “We’ll talk about that if and when I’ve had enough sleep to remember why you’re worth so much trouble.”

“Why am I here, anyway? Isn’t it standard procedure to put me in emergency foster care, or something?”

Standard procedure goes out the window when you have to carefully vet anyone who so much as sneezes on your charge, but Naomasa doesn’t say that. Careful vetting didn’t manage to pick up the fact that last time Naomasa managed to leave him on the doorstep of an abusive shitheel, apparently.

“Sure,” Naomasa says instead. “Standard procedure. Consider me your emergency foster father, then. Does my new parental authority make you any more inclined to let me sleep?” He casts a glance over his shoulder.

Minato meets his gaze with a quirked eyebrow. It should look ridiculous on his face, as young as he is, but he somehow manages to communicate a whole wealth of impudent amusement regardless. “There’s a quip in here somewhere about you not being my real dad,” he says.

Naomasa very briefly considers strangling him.

He holds the fantasy for only a moment before he reminds himself that he’s a police officer, and he holds the law in high regard, and that Minato, for all his attitude, is still a twelve year-old boy under his care.

He turns around, stumbles the last few steps into his bedroom, and falls face first into his mattress. He knows that he really should get up and make sure Minato isn’t planning on burning his apartment to the ground, or whatever it is he gets up to unsupervised, but he’s long since lost the last remaining vestiges of his patience.

He has insurance. It’ll be fine.

With that last comforting thought, Naomasa drifts off once again, dreaming of an alternate reality where he doesn’t even have a phone, and never gets woken up at fuck-off o’clock to pick junior offenders up from the police station.

--

Utsumi Yukaho looks between the thin file open on the table in front of her and Naomasa’s face. She taps the edge of the paper with one weathered finger. “There’s something you’re not telling me about this.”

Naomasa grimaces into his cup of green tea. Utsumi had taken over guardianship of him and Makoto after their parents died and she’s one of the few people Naomasa has ever met that can match wits with them effortlessly. It takes a certain set of characteristics to raise two children preternaturally gifted to detect lies, and Utsumi never once stumbled in her role as caregiver.

“He’s a witness involved in an important case,” Naomasa hedges. “Whoever he ends up with has to be carefully vetted to make sure they won’t sell him down the river for a quick buck. It’s a lengthy process, and I can’t just keep him on my couch until then. There aren’t many people I could trust with something like this.”

There’s only one other that he can think of off the top of his head, truthfully, and asking All Might to babysit Minato seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

“And you thought of me,” Utsumi says dryly. “I’m touched.” She closes the file. “Even without mentioning the fact that I retired after I adopted you and your sister, this is a big favour to ask. What happened at his last home that’s got you scrambling like this?”

Naomasa places his cup of green tea down on the table. “The foster father was found dead on Friday night,” he says. “Fell down the stairs, apparently. He was a retired Pro, so the police got called in to check the body, and about the very first thing the responding officers noticed was the fact that not one of his foster children was free from bruises.”

“Abusive, then?” Utsumi asks him.

“Yes.”

“Sounds like your vetting wasn’t quite careful enough,” she points out.

“I wasn’t responsible for the pre-placement interviews,” Naomasa returns. “Even so, my Quirk’s not infallible. I’ve missed things before. I can’t risk something like that happening again.”

“So you come to me,” she finishes. She sighs. “Tell me something honestly, Nao-kun. No bullshit. Did he kill the foster father?”

“That’s…” Naomasa stumbles for the right words, “quite a leap.”

“No bullshit,” Utsumi reminds him. “How long was your witness in the foster father’s care before he was found dead?”

“Just under three months,” Naomasa answers.

“The abuse had most likely been happening much longer than those three months, and the piece of shit never saw fit to trip down the stairs in all that time,” Utsumi says. “It could have been an accident, but you’ve been talking yourself around a lie you don’t want to tell me this entire conversation. Did he kill him?”

Naomasa’s face stares back up at him, reflected in the surface of his tea. He looks back up, exhaling. “He told me he didn’t.”

“But?”

“But he hasn’t triggered my Quirk once since he figured it out,” he finishes. “I know him well enough to know that it’s not because he hasn’t told me any lies. I honestly couldn’t say one way or another.”

Utsumi regards him closely, then reaches out and pours herself another cup of tea. “This is a lot to ask, you realise,” she says. “I could be putting myself in danger by taking him in. What guarantee do I have that you’re not going to find me dead at the bottom of my stairs in three months’ time?”

“Well, call me optimistic, but I was kind of banking on the fact that you wouldn’t physically abuse him,” Naomasa says flatly.

Utsumi levels a challenging look at Naomasa. He blinks first.

“If,” Naomasa says, “and I do mean if, he really did kill his former foster father, then I am absolutely certain he didn’t do it because of any concern for his own safety.”

Both of Utsumi’s eyebrows go up.

“I’ve interviewed him extensively, including three sessions before he figured out my Quirk,” Naomasa replies. “Someone like Hanamori – the foster father – would be seen as nothing more than an inconvenience to him. I can’t go into too many details, but he wasn’t raised in the same way as a normal child. If he intervened, it was to protect the other children. It would have been a calculated choice, not a personally motivated one.”

“That sounds…” she taps her fingers on the edge of her cup. “Well. Deeply messed up.”

Naomasa can’t really disagree with that.

Utsumi looks down at the closed file on the table. “I’ll do it.”

Naomasa looks up in surprise. “You’ll—really?”

“On two conditions,” Utsumi adds. “First: this isn’t emergency foster care. If I’m looking after him, I’m doing it long term. I’m not going to get attached to some rascal with a tragic backstory and a bag full of psychological issues only for you to turf him out of my home and send him on his merry way. Clear?”

“That’s reasonable,” Naomasa says.

“Second: this,” she picks up the file Naomasa handed her at the start of the conversation, “isn’t enough. I want his full file.”

Naomasa opens his mouth to protest, but she cuts across him. “No blackouts, no censoring, nothing. I want to know exactly what this kid is and has been involved in. I’m taking a lot on faith here, Nao-kun.”

“That’s going to be hard to sell to my boss.”

Utsumi raises her eyebows, and brings her cup of tea up to her lips. “Then, I suppose you’re going to have to practice your sales pitch, aren’t you?”

--

When Naomasa arrives back home after visiting Utsumi, he doesn’t panic when he finds his apartment empty. The emotion that courses through him is closer to resignation than anything else, a dose of what else did I expect mixed in with I should have known better. He doubles back through his bedroom, bathroom, and living space one last time, just in case Minato has decided to play an impromptu round of hide and seek, before he sighs and pulls out his phone.

He’s running through the conversation in his head – “Remember that witness I’m supposed to be looking after? Well, funny story…” – when the door to the apartment opposite Naomasa’s opens and a familiar voice emerges.

“Now, you be good for Naomasa-kun, young man. It isn’t easy being a police officer in this day and age.”

“Thank you, Shizuka-san,” comes a second, also familiar voice. Minato. Naomasa’s fingers slacken around his phone.

“And give my best to Makoto-chan. Tell her that old lady Shizuka hopes she gets well soon.”

He can’t hear Minato’s reply – if he gives one – but he does hear his footsteps pause when he reaches Naomasa’s front door and finds it ajar.

There’s another pause, and then a tentative, “I’m back.”

Minato comes into view moments later. He looks much the same as when Naomasa left him that morning – flicking through a romance novel he’d pulled off one of the bookshelves – but his hair’s much tidier, and he’s carrying a pot of something – curry?

“Shizuka-san insisted,” he says when Naomasa raises an eyebrow. “She said you usually order take-out, and that’s not what – and I quote – growing boys need.”

Naomasa considers all the possible responses he could give, before he decides it’s not worth an argument. He takes the pot from Minato, and places it down on top of his stove.

“She stopped by about half an hour after you left,” Minato adds. “She said she knew what happened when you left boys alone for too long, and didn’t want me messing up your place with… I think the exact phrase was adolescent shenanigans.”

“Shizuka-san had six kids,” Naomasa says, turning on the hob to heat the curry. “I don’t doubt she’s seen her fair share of shenanigans.”

“I told her that I’m not actually your nephew, by the way,” Minato says. He neatly moves past Naomasa and pulls two plates down from one of his kitchen cupboards. Naomasa hopes it was a lucky guess, a little perturbed by the image of Minato somehow having already memorised his kitchen layout.

“So far as she knows, I’m the son of your sister’s boyfriend. I implied that you don’t really approve of him, because he’s older, and already divorced, but your sister’s happy, so you let it lie. The story goes that they got into a small car accident on Friday night, so you’re taking care of me until they’re cleared by the doctors and released from hospital.”

Naomasa’s hand freezes on the stove’s controls. It’s not a bad cover story, all things considered, and neatly absolves Makoto of any scandalous children out of wedlock, but there’s something about it that makes him uneasy. It takes him longer than he’d like to figure out why.

“If I were you,” Naomasa says, “I wouldn’t be so quick to remind me of your gift for talking around my Quirk.”

Minato is unfazed. “You’re the one who told your neighbour that I was your nephew,” he points out. “It was probably the least creepy explanation you could have chosen, though, so well done on that front, I guess.”

Naomasa exhales. “Just lay the table,” he says.

--

Naomasa has been lucky with a lot of things in his life, from his Quirk, to his position as All Might’s confidante, right up to the cases that he’s stumbled across. But above all that, the thing he’s been most lucky with is his boss.

Tsuragamae Kenji is equal parts steadfast and honest. He appreciates these same characteristics in his officers, and Naomasa has been raised to be those two things above all else.

“This is an awful lot of fuss for just one kid,” Tsuragamae says, looking up from the briefing Naomasa’s prepared for him. “You’re certain it’s worth it?”

“I can’t afford to take the risk that it’s not,” Naomasa says. “If I’m wrong, it’s a lot of wasted resources, but if I’m right, then…”

“It’s a lot of conjecture, with not much substance,” Tsuragamae counters. “All based on the word of a child who was – by all accounts – high as a kite when he was brought in.”

“I spoke with his doctor,” Naomasa says. “Trigger doesn’t work the same way on Quirkless people as the rest of us. The delirium when they loaded him into the ambulance was caused by dehydration most likely. His feet were covered in blisters. The doctor thinks he’d been running a long time.

“Even disregarding what he told those officers, the more I’ve dug, the more convinced I’ve become. It’s a lot of missing persons cases for nothing – even if it’s not the work of who I think it is, that means there’s still someone out there running around kidnapping children and experimenting on them. I can’t say I’d rather it be the devil we know, but…” Naomasa lets the implication hang in the air between them.

Tsuragamae turns a page in the briefing folder. “He still doesn’t remember anything?”

“Not of use, no,” Naomasa says. “He’s not faking it, either. It’s one of the few things he’s been candid with me on. It unnerves him a little, I think.”

“When we last spoke, you were going to look into the Quirk angle,” Tsuragamae says. “Did you get far with that?”

“The only person I managed to find with the right kind of Quirk was confirmed dead four months ago,” Naomasa says. “Remember the body those elementary schoolers found on the beach? That was him.”

Tsuragamae frowns. “It fits the timeline,” he says. There’s a pause, as he thinks it all over. “You trust this Utsumi woman?” he asks.

“Completely,” Naomasa says without hesitation.

Tsuragamae exhales. “That’s good enough for me,” he says. “I’ll approve it.”

“Thank you, sir,” Naomasa says. He bows low, and stands to leave, only for Tsuragamae to call out back to him.

“Tsukauchi,” he says, “you of all people know just how dangerous this could become, not just for your witness, but for you as well.”

“I know,” Naomasa says.

“So, tread carefully,” Tsuragamae finishes.

“I will, sir.”

[daswarschonkaputt]

APIAS Arc Two (Uchiha Azusa) Extra: Who You Should Fight

Uchiha Mikoto | Who would win: Mikoto No. Just… why would you even think of this? She’s nine and she could still kick your ass to hell and back. No mercy if you’re a civilian, either. This girl is vicious.

Namikaze Minato | Who would win: Not you Uh, remember what happened to Inoichi? Minato is fucking ruthless in a fight. To stand a chance, you’d have to pre-emptively poison him, or something, but bear in mind that to fight Minato is to fight Mikoto. Her revenge would come when you least expected it and leave you broken and in tears.

Uzumaki Kushina | Who would win: Kushina DO NOT FIGHT UZUMAKI KUSHINA. This girl is a planet-sized mass of not-fucking-around distilled into one tiny, prepubescent body. She regularly delivers smackdowns to anyone and everyone who mocks her hair, shiny forehead protector or no. DO NOT FIGHT KUSHINA.

Uchiha Azusa | Who would win: Debatable I’m not entirely sure what you’d get out of fighting a dead chick, unless Edo Tensei was involved. Is Edo Tensei involved? Either way, don’t do it. Sure, if she’s dead it’s probably an easy win, but that’s not fulfilling at all. In case of ninja zombies… probably best to run.

Inagaki Hisao | Who would win: You You know what? Go for it. Fight Hisao. Kid could use knocking down a few pegs and all the better if that’s literally. Fair warning, though: this kid is unexpectedly steely. Make sure he’s properly down, or he could surprise you.

Ishida Sōmei | Who would win: You Ishida’s a scholar and he got out of breath chasing a pickpocket: he is not a model of personal fitness. You could take him out with ease. In fact, you could probably punch him in the face and he’d probably apologise to you. An easy target, but not a truly satisfying one.

Namikaze Masako | Who would win: No one Dude, why? Sure, fight the nice librarian lady. Don’t blame me when Minato hunts you down.

Uchiha Kiyomi | Who would win: Not you Oh, Mikoto’s mother? Uh, better not. The Uchiha Clan shares some startling similarities to the mob and… let’s leave it at that.

Uchiha Kodama | Who would win: No Just, no. No. The guy has PTSD. Don’t be that asshole.

Hatake Sakumo | Who would win: Sakumo To be honest, it all depends. Sakumo is pretty chill, so he’d probably not hurt you to bad when he put you down. And to be clear: he would be putting you down. The guy’s a living nightmare in Suna; you’re not winning this. That said, he’s a nice guy and he’d probably be willing to give you a lot of pointers. Fight him for the experience, not the win.

Orochimaru | Who would win: Orochimaru I’m not sure why this is even up for debate? Steer clear of Orochimaru. If Minato can figure that much out, so can you.

[daswarschonkaputt]

List of Weird Misc Projects From My Absence

If any of you want to read what I got up to during my unannounced and unofficial hiatus, here’s a list you can peruse. I’ll post whatever people want to see:

burn it down, burn it down | persona 5 fem!protag fic

The deadliest prisons are those that we build for ourselves. There is nothing more dangerous than believing the lie of your own powerlessness.Amamiya Rei’s nobody’s prisoner, and she’s going to get out alive, even if she has to chip through the chains of fate herself.

untitled yamada hanako project | bnha reader-insert trope exploration

This wasn’t exactly what you meant when you talked about immersive storytelling. And who the hell is Yamada Hanako, anyway?

though the heavens fall | apias crossover with dragon age: inquisition

Most people’s idea of a bad day involves missing the bus, or breaking something precious. Minato’s isn’t that different, if by ‘missing the bus’ you mean ‘tripping and falling through a hole in space-time into another world’ and by ‘breaking something precious’ you mean ‘maybe, possibly murdering their pope’.

It’s fine, though. Minato’s excellent at crisis management.

Hahaha. No.

further beyond | apias crossover with bnha

Minato’s not a hero. He’s capable of acts of phenomenal cruelty and – what’s worse – justifying them to himself. He’s ruthless, and a killer, and he trained himself out of hesitation long ago.

Minato’s not a hero, but sometimes you have to try anyway.

untitled miraculous ladybug fic | miraculous ladybug crossover with bnha

After four years in the Hero business, Marinette wishes she could say she has it all figured out. But, with a Quirk that’s on the fritz, a secret identity that’s slowly eating away at her life, and one hell of an escalation from everyone’s least favourite villain, she’s almost faced with more than she can handle.

And that’s not even mentioning her ever more complicated relationship with her partner-in-crime-fighting.

[daswarschonkaputt]

New chapter of Any Port in a Storm is out!

Minato grieves, receives an unwelcome visitor, and unknowingly gains an unlikely (and unwanted) advocate.