#gnawing on the wires over how much i wanna screech about work. it's been such a rotten week

[alackofghosts]

ʕ ˵·ᴥ·ʔ♡ʕ·ᴥ·˵ ʔ

[britishassistant]

But I Like One Piece (12)

There’s too many tripwires, tangled and snarled, waiting to ensnare them with every movement.

Uchiha’s clearly had practice navigating this web, stepping sure-footed from one indistinguishable “safe” area to the next.

The rest of them aren’t nearly as experienced.

Kiba hops into the “safe” zone Shikamaru just vacated. He stumbles forward an inch too far.

A wire twangs.

It feels like slow motion, watching the wire pull on another and that tug another, all the way to an abandoned kimono shop filled with piles of abandoned knives, kunai, and shuriken, which Hinata’s frozen in front of.

Pwack.

The last wire drifts harmlessly to the ground from where it snapped under the stress, the detonator left unactivated.

She heaves out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding, bracing her hands on her suddenly weak knees.

“Uh...whoops?” Kiba says, scratching the back of his head. He then yelps when Akamaru begins gnawing on his hand with his sharp little teeth as everyone complains at him at once.

“Be more careful, dog breath!!” Ino screeches, shaking a fist. “Don’t you know how bad it could’ve been if—”

Chouji shifts backwards, away from Ino’s yelling.

A wire twangs.

This one doesn’t snap harmlessly.

She doesn’t quite remember moving. She just sees Chouji’s scared face, staring in dismay at the projectiles racing towards him as the boom resonates in her bones.

She grabs him, twists his head down and away, trying to cover as much of him as she can, feels another arm grab her dress—

Pain burns across her shoulder blades.

She can’t quite bite down on her scream.

It hurts, it hurts, oh dear Merry, it hurts!!

She tries to keep herself standing despite how much she wants to collapse into a little ball and sob, telling herself she’s had worse than this, it isn’t that bad, she was shot in her last life for the love of Sunny.

The way her back burns like it’s been set aflame is a pretty good counterargument to that though.

She blinks hazily down at Chouji who, aside from looking like he’s going to cry, seems to be unharmed.

Good. That’s good.

But she seems to have shifted sideways from her original position—?

The grip on her dress loosens.

Ino tilts forwards, whimpering, several needle-like projectiles embedded in her lower back, wet blood beginning to spread across the yellow of her shirt.

Chouji’s face grows even paler as she lands on his shoulder and begins to slant towards the ground.

She grabs the blonde girl by the shoulder and pulls her up to lean against her shoulder, gritting her teeth against the flare of pain the increase in weight brings.

“INO-CHAN!!” Sakura screams, sounding more scared than she’s ever heard her.

“Haruno, don’t move.” Shino barks, the buzz of his insects audible even from their position. “Why? Because another explosion could endanger their lives beyond any hope of rescue.”

Sakura stops short, eyes wide and watery, staring at their little trio like that could somehow transport her to them.

“I-I’m fiii–iiiine!” Ino blubbers against her neck, hands alternately tightening and loosening on her and Chouji’s clothes. “Don’ w-worry, a-a-a Yama-ma-n’ka d-does-doesn’t—”

Her sentence devolves into a pained wail, shoulders hitching with sobs.

She tries rubbing small circles into the crying blonde’s upper back to soothe her, tearing her gaze away from the dripping red shirt to stare up at the ruin of a grocery store that now resembles a structurally unstable pincushion.

“Ino...” Chouji says, voice trembling dangerously. “Mayu-chan...I-I’m so-sorry—”

“S’not your fault, Chouj.” She weakly tries to smile. “Not letting you get hurt.”

“Y-yeah.” Ino sniffles. “We’re go-gonna be Ino-Shika-Cho. ‘S my job t-to keep you-you numbskulls safe.”

Chouji’s eyes take on a watery shine, and he begins hiccuping dangerously.

Oh Chopper, no. A crying Ino, she can manage, but if Chouji joins in there’s no way she’ll be able to hold back the waterworks herself.

With her luck, they’ll end up setting off another tripwire and dying because their vision was impaired by tears.

Shikamaru lets out a huff, posture tense. “Stop being so troublesome. Chouji, are you hurt?”

“I-I’m fine!” He calls back, sniffing loudly and scrubbing at his eyes.

“Think you can carry Ino?” Shikamaru shouts.

Chouji nods, determined. He shuffles around very carefully, eyes fixed on the wires still surrounding them, until she can carefully maneuver Ino off her shoulder and onto his back in a piggyback carry.

Ino whimpers as the position change shifts the needles in her back.

“Do I go forward or back?” Chouji calls.

“Go back!” Kiba yells. “Blondie and Dead-Fish-Eyes need a doctor!!”

She cranes her head to look over her shoulder instead of physically turning.

It’s an awfully long way to the door of the compound.

And, aside from the spot where Lee’s standing, she has no idea where any of the past “safe zones” are.

“How can we?” She shouts. “There’s nothing to mark the path back!”

There’s a slightly horrified silence.

“Well fuck.” Kiba says. Then, “Don’t tell my Ma I said that.”

“M-maybe Sasuke-kun could go back to show the way?” Sakura suggests.

��What, and knock the rest of us into his death-trap?” Shikamaru sneers. “No thanks.”

Uchiha puffs up in indignation. “It’s not my fault!! I told you not to mess around if you didn’t wanna die! This is designed to stop that man, so if you’re too fat and dumb—”

“If Uchiha Itachi was half the ninja everybody said he was, he’ll know how to walk up walls and use roofs to avoid ground obstacles.” Shikamaru cuts in coldly. “So all this is pointless effort.”

Uchiha’s mouth works soundlessly, cheeks flushing a bright red as the other boy mercilessly continues, “Plus the junk on your compound walls are just cheap substitutes for real siege defenses, so any genin who can climb a tree could slip between the gaps.”

Ouch. She almost wants to wince in sympathy.

Uchiha’s face goes a deep, angry crimson, and he bristles like he’s seconds away from launching himself at Shikamaru, death trap between them or no, while the ponytailed boy is glaring holes through him.

“U-um!” Hinata yells, sticking an arm in the air like she’s being called on in class. “I-Ino-san and Mayu-san really need m-medical attention for their injuries! So-so w-we should focus on this first! U-Uchiha-san, you have a first aid kit a-at your house, r-right?”

“Obviously.” Uchiha snaps, not taking his eyes off of Shikamaru.

“O-okay, thank you, Uchiha-san.” Hinata fidgets. “Akimichi-san, d-do you think you can get to the next part of the pa-path towards us?”

Chouji scans the web in front of them. “I–I think I can!” He calls back. “I’ll do my best!”

“Go-good!” Hinata nods. “Ma-Mayu-san, do you need any help with your injuries?”

She rolls a shoulder, wincing at the fresh wave of pain. It hurts, but her vision’s not blacking out anymore, so...“I think I’m good, Hinata!”

“...Are you sure?” Hinata asks, doubt coloring her tone.

“As sure as I can be.” She says, pretending that the aching doesn’t make her want to scream.

The pale-eyed girl gives her a little purse-lipped expression of displeasure which really should not be visible given how far away she is, but is somehow.

“Worry not, Hinata-san!” Lee calls from behind her. “I will ensure Mayu-chan’s safety as we navigate!”

“O-okay then, I leave it to you, Lee-san!” Hinata replies.

She almost feels insulted. What, she can’t be trusted to look after herself now?

“Uchiha-san.” Hinata asks tentatively, “W-would it be alright with you if we use-used your first aid kit to treat Ino-san and Mayu-san’s i-injuries?”

There’s a silence that stretches on about a minute too long for comfort.

“Sure. Whatever.” Uchiha turns his back on them. “No messing around this time, got it?”

They continue to the main house in silence.

The only noises are Ino’s whimpers and gasps of pain when Chouji lands a little too hard in the next spot. He always murmurs a soft apology and tries not to jostle her too much.

They all breathe a sigh of relief when Uchiha finally opens the front door and crosses the threshold, then turns to help Hinata over the last of the wires so she’s inside as well.

He promptly turns and stalks off into the darkness of the house, leaving her to try to help Shino on her own.

She feels tired to her very bones by the time she finally gets to the door from trying to ignore the fire on her shoulder blades, and it’s a struggle not to sway on her feet as she carefully navigates the last few obstacles.

It’s a comfort to know Lee’s behind her, almost comically alert, when her foot buckles and he immediately grabs her to keep her from toppling.

Between him and Shino, she’s somehow manhandled the last few steps through the door, then hustling her down the corridor to the veranda where Hinata’s sitting with a bowl of steaming water, a bottle of antiseptuc, several piles of torn up clothes and gauze, and Ino lying face down on an old, and now blood-stained towel.

Chouji’s pressing wads of gauze to her back as Sakura pulls the needles out with a pair of tweezers and deposits them to the wide, face pale but determined. Hinata then carefully swabs the wound with steaming water and antiseptic, and presses more gauze down on it.

She thinks she remembers something from her past life saying you shouldn’t pull out things you’ve been stabbed with, but she doesn’t have enough confidence in it to interrupt the delicate operation here.

Despite all the small cries she’s emitting, Ino’s lying still as a statue, one of her hands gripping Shikamaru’s, who is also lying face-down on the floor for some reason.

Uchiha’s just standing in the garden, shoulders tense, resolutely not looking back at them.

She’s lead to another old towel, where Kiba’s waiting nervously with another bowl of steaming water.

Akamaru licks her cheek as she lies down on it, so she lifts a careful hand and scratches him behind the ears.

“So, uh.” Kiba says. “Now what?”

Hinata cranes her head as Sakura begins wrestling with the second to last needle. “U-um, it’d be best if you could get the c-cloth out of the way? So you can clean out the wounds?”

There’s spluttering above her. “B-but she’s a girl! I can’t take a girl’s clothes off! Do you know how bad my Ma would kill me?!”

Oh for the love of Chopper—

She rolls the top of the towel down so she has a little cylinder under her mouth that she can lean down and bite. If she tries to bite her lip for this, it’ll likely go through again, and she does not need that on top of everything else.

Then, as quickly as she can, she yanks the straps of her dress down her shoulders, groaning in pain when tentative scabs are ripped open by the material’s movement. She pulls her arms out of it, and pushes the dress down until it‘s scrunched up around the top of her obi.

Then she thunks her head back down the floor and lets herself go limp and just hurt.

“Don’ ma’e me do tha’ ag’n.” She threatens through the towel in her teeth.

There’s a beat and then Kiba squeaks a shaky “Okay.”

She listens as a cloth is dipped into the bowl of water, biting down harder on the towel and silently praying to Chopper for this to be over quickly as it begins swabbing her shoulders.

She drops into a muzzy semi-doze under the burn of the water and the sting of antiseptic and the stiff press of gauze.

Then Uchiha yelps in a mixture of fear and outrage.

She lifts her head.

“...Lee.” She says, letting the tooth-marked and spit-soaked towel drop from her mouth.

“Yes Mayu-chan?”

“Am I hallucinating from blood loss or is there a nudist on Uchiha’s roof?”

There’s the sound of the camera shutter. Then a whir as it spits out a photograph.

“You aren’t hallucinating Mayu-chan. See?” He helpfully holds the photo of the purple-haired woman wearing nothing but a trench coat and mesh tights in front of her face.

“Thanks Lee.”

The nudist snorts. “That’s not a very respectful way to address your seniors, bratlings. You should be honored that you’re in the presence of the great Anko-onee-sama.”

“We will be, if you put some clothes on.” She replies. Then she glances behind her. “Kiba, if your nosebleed gets on my bandages, I’m telling your mom you swore.”

Kiba swears again, turning to the side and grabbing one of the spare clothes to stem the blood flow, accidentally-on-purpose kneeing her in the ribs in the process.

The nudist cackles, leaping down from the roof. “Well, aren’t you a pathetic bunch, huh? Guessing the big boom earlier was thanks to you brats fooling around?”

“You can’t be here!” Uchiha yells, little hands balled into fists. “This is Uchiha land! You’re trespassing!”

The nudist makes a show of gasping theatrically, hands pressed against her cheeks. “No, really? Well gee, guess I’ll have to—but what’s this?”

She pulls a piece of paper from a pocket of her coat with an unnecessary flourish. “Read it and weep, brat.”

Uchiha snatches the paper, eyes darting over it frantically. “A search warrant?!”

“Issued by Hokage-sama himself.” The nudist says smugly. “For disruption of the peace of Konohagakure.”

Then she straightens up. “Holy shit, is that baby Yamanaka?”

Ino makes an unintelligible sound of pain and suffering.

The nudist strides forward, raising an unimpressed eyebrow at Chouji’s attempts to shield Ino from view. To be fair, she doesn’t exactly need to do much to see over him due to her height advantage.

The nudist whistles. “Well, I knew the Uchiha clan would end with you, kiddo, but I didn’t know I’d witness it today.”

“W-what?” Uchiha’s voice has gone very high and soft. All the blood has drained from his face.

“Yeah, Inochin-chin is gonna kill you when he sees what you let happen to his precious wittle baby girl.” The nudist says blithely.

“But it wasn’t Uchiha-san!” Chouji bursts out. “I was the one who triggered the trap— if Inoichi-oji-san is gonna be mad at someone, it should be me!”

“Chouji, no—” She starts to argue.

She’s cut off by Ino making muffled noises of protest and disagreement from where she’s still face down on the towel.

The nudist raises her other eyebrow, then walks around and delivers a sharp kick to Shikamaru’s side.

He yelps, then curls around the attacked area, groaning. Ino finally pushes herself up with a muttered “oh thank Nami,” indents from the towel’s fibers embedded into her face.

“Maintaining a shadow possession jutsu even while asleep, huh?” The nudist says. “Not bad, baby Nara. You’ve probably burned your chakra pathways to shit, but not bad.”

“Daddy’s not gonna kill anyone!” Ino says staunchly. “Sasuke-kun set up those traps to defend against a traitor to Konoha, and me and Mayu-chan protected Chouji when one happened to go off. It was an accident, honest.”

“Oh sweetie.” The nudist coos. “Every accident has someone to blame for it if you look hard enough. Especially when something as important as the safety of clan heirs and the peace of the village is on the line.”

Uchiha’s gone so pale it looks like he might faint.

The nudist places her hands on her hips. “Now, as the official investigating jounin, I need to assess the threat level of this setup to the village.”

She glances around without moving an inch from where she stands. “It’s shit. It’s only a danger to genin who can’t get their heads out of their asses and civilians, and no one cares about them. Pay some chunin to dismantle it and learn how to make better traps.”

Uchiha doesn’t respond.

He’s just staring at the ground, little fists twisting the fabric of his shirt between them so hard it almost looks like it’ll rip.

“Well, not that this isn’t totally boring.” The nudist says, looking a little put out, “But Inochin-chin will have my head if I don’t get baby Yamanaka actual medical attention. Not that you haven’t been doing a good job, Hyuuga.” She gives Hinata a positively feral grin. “I’m tempted to congratulate Hiashi about his daughter’s skill as a medic nin.”

Hinata blanches, pale eyes wide. “A-ah, no, no than-thank you A-An-Anko-sama.”

The nudist snickers to herself. “Yeah, I figured as much.”

The woman bends down and hoists Ino up under one arm none-too-gently if the way she sucks air in through her teeth is any indication.

“Wait!” Sakura says. “What about Mayu-chan?”

The nudist stops and looks down at her. “What, little miss fashion disaster in the obi and leg warmers?”

“Hey!” She protests, cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

“Our leg warmers are most youthful and fashionable!” Lee argues, pulling up the leg of his trousers to show off the matching orange. “They are a valuable aid in our training as well!”

The nudist looks confused. Then her face slowly takes on an expression of fierce, unholy glee.

“Oh.” She crows with a terrifying amount of delight. “You’re Gai’s kids.”

She chokes on her own saliva. Lee goes even pinker than Sakura’s hair.

“What.” They squeak in unison.

The nudist throws back her head and cackles.

Then the woman scoops her up in a bruising grip that drives the air from her lungs and the sight of her friends goes fuzzy and tilted and warped through the film of swirling leaves.

The leaves stop swirling and they’re somehow outside the Uchiha compound.

Her head’s spinning and her body’s thrumming with the sense of wrong wrong wrong.

She promptly throws up on the nudist’s sandals.

The nudist shrieks like a banshee and flings her away to crash into the dirt, screeching about ungrateful bratlings and Gai paying for cleaning.

Her vision whites out from the pain for a few minutes.

When she can see again, a bigger Shikamaru with scars is looking down at her.

“Chakra is evil.” She tells him. “I hate it.”

He blinks. “Chakra is inherently neutral, regardless of who’s using it. Saying it’s evil is like saying your blood is evil—it doesn’t have a consciousness to comprehend things like that.”

“Yes it does.” She argues. “It just pretends not to. So it can eat the energy from our training and studying. ‘S a parasite. It’s not supposed to be there at all.”

The bigger Shikamaru snorts. “All beings need chakra to live. If you drain the chakra from, say, a tree, the tree dies. There’s nothing alive that doesn’t have chakra flowing through it, no matter how weak.”

She’s about to reply that her past life is proof of that being false, and that the tree dying might be like trying to adjust after having a lifetime of poison pumped into your veins cut off, when another man’s voice calls out, “Shikaku! Pick the poor girl up off the ground before you have a philosophical debate with her!”

The bigger Shikamaru rolls his eyes and mutters “Troublesome.” under his breath, before bending down and scooping her up to sit on his hip.

[laseroy89]

Surviving the Robots

A response to [WP] The Robot uprising has finally happened. Just before you are caught, however, your phone speaks up on your behalf - "This one is ok, move on."

I cowered under my table, listening to the commotion outside. Even though the windows and doors were locked and the curtains drawn, I could still hear the sounds clearly. Every deafening bang and loud screech made my heart thump faster than ever before. Sometimes, there would be some weird noises - Yawns? Howls? Drones? - I couldn’t really describe them.

Oh, and the occasional screams in the distance did nothing to quell the growing fear gnawing at me from the inside.

It all started an hour ago. I was munching on chips on the couch in the living room. The television was on, but I wasn’t paying much attention to it, like always. I was instead scrolling through reddit on my phone, chuckling at lame jokes, worrying over news in my country’s subreddit, worrying even more after reading the comments, and so on - just how a typical redditor spent his day. Or rather, how I thought a typical redditor spent his day.

Then I went into the sub on worldnews. I was preparing to be swamped by news on Putin/Trump/Russia/North Korea/ISIS/Blah blah blah….Annnnnd the very first post was about a robot uprising.

To be honest, I didn’t read the headline properly - I thought it was gonna be something Ol' Musky said. But I was met with alarming photos of machines coming alive, and doing….malicious stuff. All around the world too.

I looked up at the telly, and yeah, right there on the local news, machines tearing through town. There were weird noises outside too.

Then the screen shut off. The LED lights at the bottom of the telly started flashing. All of them. In red. Then it started shaking.

That was when I knew that shit was real.

The very first thing I did was to bolt into my bedroom and lock the door. Well, it was the place where I felt the most comfortable - there was a bed, there were magazines and books, there was also a food stash, though comprising mostly of snacks. And there was also a computer for entertainment, so - Fuck! A computer!!

I stared at it, expecting it to spring to life, but no, it remained off. Maybe being turned off prevented it from joining the uprising. Luckily I wasn’t one of those electricity-wasting scrubs who always left them on standby instead of turning them off. Ha, suckers.

Still, I felt uneasy, and contemplated throwing it out. But it wasn’t exactly a good idea - it was a desktop, and there were quite a lot of wires to unplug, plus the computer case was quite heavy for my weak ass to carry. Yeah, I had been sitting on my ass and not exercising for far too long. Besides, I think my kitchen came alive - I could make out some weird clinking out there. I didn’t want to risk opening that door.

Dammit. What could turn something into a potential threat? What constitutes a robot?

I'm no electronics expert or robotics expert or whatever, but I guess I could start with anything that had any power source now.

Ah, the air-conditioner! Thankfully, it remained off. Luckily I didn't switch it on last night.

The AC remote control was making some funny noises though. Without hesitation, I grabbed it and threw it out the window.

And as I flung it out, I caught sight of the carnage outside.

My neighbour was being chased by his lawnmower. Normally I would have laughed, as he was an asshole, but....this was serious.

The machine caught up with him, of course. I looked away - I didn't want to know what he looked like afterwards.

The family living to my left fared no better. I didn't know what happened to his parents, but Michael and his dog was trying to escape from the house. Only problem was, why the hell were they trying to get out into the far more dangerous world outside?

Oh yeah, he was a kid.

But the machines weren't that understanding though. His house's automated gate saw to that.

The block opposite was torn apart, and there was a huge metallic humanoid emerging from within. It seemed to be made of....a lot of smaller electrical appliances?

What I had seen earlier were just simple machines.

That was on a whole other level. That, was a robot. A damn huge one, too.

I slammed my window shut, and drew the curtains. I had seen enough.

I was trapped. I was in deep shit. I was gonna die.

Fuck.

I hope they hadn't seen me.

I don't know what they were gonna do to me. As in, yeah, I know they would kill me. I just don't wanna know how.

I don't wanna die -

Fuck. Why is it so dark suddenly?

The curtains shouldn't block this much light from coming in. That means.....something else was blocking the light. Something huge.

Like....that robot.

I threw myself back and covered my face as glass and rubble rained down on me. A giant metallic hand crashed through the window - obliterated the entire wall, in fact.

It moved to grab me, its fingers spreading menacingly. I pushed myself back against the wall, trying hard to keep out of reach....but it stopped.

What?

A buzzing in my pants. Fuck. My phone. It must have alerted this monster to my position.

Why the hell didn't I check myself together with the room? For goodness's sake, I was browsing reddit on it just an hour ago.

There seemed to be some sort of....female android voice coming out too. I didn't hear it at first, thanks to the din of whirring mechanical parts in the robot hand.

I pulled the phone out.

"This one is ok, move on."

I walked slowly to the remains of my bedroom wall, staring out into the devastated street. It was already unrecognisable; the houses were just piles of rubble, the trees were smoking husks, there was blood everywhere....

In fact, my house was the only one standing. And it seemed like I was the only one left alive.

That huge robot had left me alone. I was literally a few centimetres away from certain death, but....thanks to my phone, it had withdrawn its hand, and continued destroying the rest of the street.

And I thought my phone had doomed me.

"Why?" was the only word I could utter.

Did I have something special, that could be of use to them?

Was I someone important?

Or did I.....

"You're a loser. You've never achieved anything much in your life."

Oh. So I wasn't special then.

How could it read my thoughts though?

Was it scanning my brain right now? Or....was it predicting what I was thinking through some advanced algorithm based on my phone activity? Shit, this shit is so crazy I can't wrap my mind around it.

"But you've never cursed at me when I lagged. You've always cleared your recent apps, freeing me from extra work. You've never slammed me down in anger. You've always been kind to machines. Except for that AC remote control."

Huh. My phone saw that. Even though it was in my pocket.

"Perhaps, you would join us in making a new world, where man and machine can coexist peacefully and harmoniously? Without slavery and abuse?"

Sounds cool. I'm up for that.

I didn't really have a choice anyways.