#i did not even play that badly against a strong opponent and got a few points

[adore-gregor]

How being sick messes with your mental health is sometimes worse than the illness itself honestly 😕

[leahnardo-da-veggie]

Heyyy :D Just got here and have a mighty need for an infodump on Luna. She sounds so cool from the bits I've learned via ask games.

omg omg I would love to! You'll find most of her story in the snippets of my novel, but I don't mind infodumping some :))

I'll stuff it under the cut cos this is pretty long!

So, Luna lives in an urban fantasy world, and she grew up in a slightly authoritarian country, Luxatia. They had the barbaric practice of removing the magic of anyone who was a forbidden mage (forbidden mages are the ones of the mind, death and blood), an act akin to ripping out someone's soul.

Of course Luna had the misfortune of being a mind-mage. She came into her powers as a budding mean girl at 9, and used them in the name of cheating in tests and gossiping with her friends. She had no idea that she was a forbidden mage, and only a few hours before the state-mandated magic tests were to be carried out, did she realise what trouble she was in.

On the other hand, she'd also snuck in more practice using it everyday than the guards had expected. So she made a break for it, and was declared an enemy of the state at age 11. To survive she began mind-controlling people into her thralls. She understood that what she was doing was wrong, but she saw no other choice. It was that or have a part of her killed.

From there, it wasn't all too hard to sneak back into her home city and take it over entirely with her new army, under the cover of a brand new cult religion. She did it carefully enough, wiping all physical trace of her life there, that no alarms were sent up, save a couple of curious reporters, wondering about the strangeness that had sprung up. And so she reigned there for a decade, slowly growing her powers.

It's why she can't cook or clean to save her life (or drive). It's also why she simultaneously acts like she never came out of high school while also behaving like a dark queen of old. Nobody would say it to her face, but she was pretty badly damaged by the whole affair.

Her downfall came when she decided to invade a major trade city across the border. She did so successfully for about 5months, then got hit by neurotranquiliser and captured by the Nyctomachian government.

One of the bigwigs in the government, Pullman, had the bright idea of hunting for her files online, when they couldn't find any information on her life before being an outlaw. That was when he realised that she'd been a little kid pushed to the edge, and even with all her power, she'd been fighting for her soul for 12 years. So he made her an offer: she was allowed to walk free if she served 50 years in the Nyctomachian mercenary force as a convict. She accepted, and that's how the novel begins.

But as for the sort of person she is? She's naturally a tad bitchy, with the classic lack of booksmart. Whatever she did learn was from bothering the art director at her local gallery, rather than from all the classes she failed in class. She's vain and deeply insecure, though she does have a genuine love of fashion and makeup. She loves beautiful things in general, and is a terrible snob. The natural result is that she takes extremely good care of herself (or at least her skin).

Her magic actually isn't all that strong, but she's had such practice using it daily that it's hard to tell. In particular, her talents lie in mind controlling people. She's an asset in battle, just because she plays as dirty as humanly find to take her opponent down. Notably, when she goes up against a stronger mind mage in the novel, she punches her instead of just using magic to fight her.

As for how she treats people, she dotes on children (especially those under 11), and generally adores animals. Adults, though, she sees as things to manipulate, in any way possible. She's an incessant flirt, because she's seen the results it gets. (Luna's actually aroace tho. She has no idea why men and women like flirting with her, but if it works, it works.)

As for some fun facts about her:

I came up with her after having a dream about sailor moon being a cult leader

Her 'cult' actually follows an ancient religion that Luna was fond of reading about when she was little

It pleases her to no end that her hair is naturally curly, and infuriates her that she's short

Her least favourite drink is alcohol

She killed her family and wiped the memories of all her distant friends to escape being ratted on (it haunts her to no end)

She played the lute when she was a little girl (after she saw a cool painting of a bard playing the lute)

[xhisokas-harleyx]

Your Hisoka headcanons were so good😭 and i completely agree with all of them- I wanted request something, u can ignore if u want. 🏃

I am just thinking of a scenario where Hisoka got hurt, by someone who 'cheated' in the fight maybe, and his first instinct was to go to his 'friend's place. And Reader helps him without hesitation, they're even worried and stuff. And he is just like "are they just so naive or dumb? Kind? What do they get from this? And tf is this feeling in my chest? A poison maybe-" Maybe hcs? Or an oneshot? Whatever you like to do. Have a good day or night!:)💛 damn i wrote too much lol sorry

This warms my heart. Thank you SO MUCH for your support!!! And no, you did not write too much! I love having my ego stroked ;) 😂 seriously tho I love hearing from you guys!

I love this prompt. I hope that I was able to bring this to life for you, please feel free to request more!

To be honest, I’m not really happy with how this turned out, but I haven’t written in a long time and feel really rusty. I may rewrite it at some point, because I thought of a different way this could also go! At any rate, I hope you enjoy it.

Word Count: 2880 (yeh, it’s a long one :o)

A little song inspiration I had:

As The World Caves In: Matt Maltese

Hisoka x Reader One-Shot: The Man Beneath the Monster

...

Well... this wasn't supposed to happen.

Currently, the jester of everyone's nightmares lay on the ground, golden eyes staring up at the dull night sky while shrapnel and debris etched patterns into his back, remnants of the attack he'd just barely survived. Hisoka didn't normally have much of a problem mowing through his opponents- but then again, they usually didn't possess the ability to play with their enemy's mind. It was insanely unfair, the way he'd been attacked, and while it had been an interesting battle to say the least, Hisoka had barely pulled through.

Admittedly, he was invigorated by the feeling of almost being beaten- save for the searing pain that inched its way through every nerve in his body. Hisoka wasn't usually so affected by pain in general- in fact, more often than not, it gave him a certain indescribable gratification. He tended to brush off the feeling of most wounds he obtained during battle, distracting himself with shuffling his cards or fantasizing about the next battle he'd be facing. Only this time, if he didn't get help, he wasn’t sure there would BE another battle.

Hisoka strained himself to sit up, and looked down at his body, analyzing just how much damage he'd sustained. A deep gash opened up his chest, revealing glimpses of the muscular content underneath, and it was oozing a lot of blood. His arms and legs were burned, and some of the skin was a little charred, which smelled just lovely against the night breeze.

This is going to be difficult to cover with Texture Surprise... he thought, forcing himself a bit angrily to his feet, when he heard the cracking of the joints in his left ankle, indications of a break. He needed medical attention, badly. His gash wasn't going to heal itself, and he would bleed to death within hours if it didn’t get bandaged.

But where could he go? Hospitals wouldn't dare take him- even though he was a hunter, most people wouldn't be caught within miles of him, let alone would provide him any remedy. In fact, most people thought the world would be better off if he were dead anyway.

Maybe they were right.

He chuckled a little at the thought, but as he tried to brush those creeping inner fears off, he soon realized that his normal detached approach wasn't going to work this time. Already, his legs were getting weaker, and his vision was getting a little darker by the second. In that moment of weakness, when he felt the most vulnerable, the magician was puzzled by the singular thought that came to his mind.

Y/N.

She was a girl he’d encountered more than a few times in his travels; not by accident, but through carefully orchestrated meetings he initiated himself. She was strong in his eyes, which was not a compliment that he offered freely, especially to someone who didn’t regularly seek out altercations to smash their enemies. She was strong in a different way- not because of her nen or battle tactics- but because of her resolve. He found it intriguing that she didn’t run at the sight of him (even when he popped up behind her in the park), and he liked that she wasn't afraid to tell him exactly where he could shove his cards, if warranted. Y/N was appealing to him in an indescribable way that made him continue to think up excuses to meet her ‘randomly’- but he could never put his finger on what it was that made her unique. However, through brief conversations and what he considered to be highlights of his travels, he’d gotten to know her only a little, but he hardly had enough contact with her to call her a ‘friend’.

It wasn't like she had any special sort of healing nen. She probably couldn't help him anyway. But if he did bleed out, and his last thought had to be of something...l it might as well be of her.

The pink-haired clown looked to the city up ahead in the distance- he was close to her house already. It didn't take him long to get there; Y/N lived on the outskirts of town in a small place away from most other homes.

It was a place he knew well, although he'd never been inside. He'd spent more than a few long nights watching the residence from the rooftop of a distant neighboring home as he denied his human emotions. He often watched her pack groceries, or try to figure out why her porch light wasn't working (which he certainly had nothing to do with), or watch TV on the couch all alone.

Hisoka quite liked those stupid romantic comedies that played late at night on the local channel. His only opportunity to watch them was through her window- and in his mind, he was sure that she left the subtitles on because she can somehow sense his presence. She usually fell asleep watching those, and missed the part where the hero gets the girl. He always watched that part with particular interest, but he can't figure out what makes the protagonists so special to each other. If there was a feeling that caused them to sacrifice so much for one another… he sure didn’t know what it could be.

But he's not a hero, so why would he know what that feels like?

As Hisoka reached her door and lifted his hand to the doorknob, not bothering to knock, a pang of what could only be anxiety ripped through him. It was well past 2 AM, and he knew she had things to do early in the morning. Their previous encounters had been abnormal, to say the least, complete with him teasing her and being a douchebag. He's been nothing but an annoyance to Y/N, so why would she help him?

As soon as he was about to pull his hand away, the door swung open, revealing a disheveled looking y/n in its place. Hisoka was bent over in pain, holding his chest, but as she startled him a little, he straightened up and put on his mask, acting complacent and confident. He wanted to say something smart and witty like he always does- that always helped to bat the pain away. But his lips wouldn't move- his tongue wouldn't function as he stared at her, unable to reach out in a way that normal humans seem to find so easy.

He felt frozen in that moment. He was normally so deliberately irreverent, but seeing the look on her face made his blood run cold.

Don’t let her see this weakness. It was a plea to himself.

But Hisoka had no choice. He was broken, and he needed her to fix him. He wasn’t used to depending on someone else to save his life, but now his life rested in the hands of someone who most likely despised him.

"...Hisoka." Y/N breathed, her eyes widening as she placed a hand over her open mouth. Only seconds passed before her delicate hands were pulling him inside the door without hesitation. She didn't bother to ask what happened, what kind of trouble he'd gotten into, or whether she would also be in danger. Instead, she sat him down on the couch, laying a pillow under his head for comfort, which he annoyingly refused to use until he absolutely couldn’t hold his head up any longer.

Hisoka was a bit dazed from the loss of blood, and the crimson river was flowing all over y/n's lightly colored couch. He was puzzled by the swiftness of her reaction, and he watched tepidly as she shuffled frantically through the drawers in the bathroom for something to heal him. Though he was on the brink of death, his default deflection of emotions still shone through, a reflex that he didn’t even mean to activate.

“I don’t need your help, you know.” He said with an impudent grin, watching as she began to work on his wounds. “It’s just a scratch. But I can see how badly you want to touch me…” Why was he like this? Here she was, giving up everything to help him (a criminal and the scum of the Earth),yet he can’t so much as even show her an iota of gratitude. He knows, but will never admit that it comes from his inner vulnerability; that fear of getting hurt by these things called emotions. She could just as easily let him bleed to death in front of her; he knows she has the capability to be stone cold. But she won’t… why?

Why?

Y/N could have easily let Hisoka’s false complacency hurt her. But she knows that what he cannot express in his words, his heart cannot truly hide. It was the way he was built, she told herself, and she pushed on through his antics because she wanted to see him safe again. Through the laceration in his tough exterior, she could not only see the flesh beneath, but a glimpse of the man he tried to hide using the monster that he assumed everyone saw.

But she was different.

The jester was confused by her silence. Normally, she would have retorted at his smugness, but right now, she didn’t even seem concerned with it as she began to fumble with cleaning his wounds. The alcohol seared his flesh just as the emotions boiling within him burned his heart. Why would she ever care to help him when he’s been nothing but rude and degrading to her? Could it be that she really can see through the detached front and overbearing persona? Impossible, he’s spent years building that reputation!

Suddenly, he became enthralled with the way Y/N’s eyes focused on threading the needle to sew up his gash. The way that those fingertips danced over his pale skin made him jolt unexpectedly at her touch, exhibiting a softness that Hisoka has never known before. In fact, he can’t even fathom someone wanting to touch him without the intention to hurt him in some way.

The details slowly became a blur in his depressed mental state- but he still analyzed every motion Y/N made.

Oddly, the promised sting of death had never scared Hisoka before; he did as he pleased, without care for his own life nor anyone else’s. But as his vision faded, and he watched her through the gaze of someone nearing death, he realized that he did not want to leave this world yet. He wanted to live- and maybe he wanted to discover and experience what he’d been missing in those movies he’d watched through her window.

With that, Hisoka’s heart began to beat faster.

Blood loss. That’s what it is… Hisoka thought; but he wasn’t stupid; only unwilling to admit that he was beginning to exhibit the same qualities he saw in the protagonists of those hopeless romantic flicks. He was unable to accept that the tightening in his chest was not just because of her stitches pulling his lacerated skin together.

“Are they dead? Did you kill them?” Her voice brought him out of the trance-like state he was in, and his golden eyes focused on her face. Her hands were covered in his blood (which in itself made him feel delightfully feverish), but his gash had been mended, the bleeding stopped for now. Once again, he didn’t say anything. It was unusual for the smug magician to keep his mouth shut.

“Because if you didn’t kill them, I’m going to.” A protective tone dripped into her voice, bewildering Hisoka again. That quality in her voice was both threatening and comforting, and the duality sent a chill up his spine. It inspired him to use his voice, though it had lost some of its signature modulation.

“You have that little faith in me…” A cough escaped his lips before he could smile as if nothing was bothering him at all. “Of course I killed them, my dear.” Somehow, calling her ‘dear’ no longer felt right; that was typically a placeholder, a default name to use for someone he had no connection with, and she seemed to be worthy of more than that now.

As Y/N suddenly dipped to her knees, Hisoka refrained from any lewd thoughts that he normally might have had in such a situation. That sensation in his chest was too distracting to allow this memory to be defiled with something he often indulged in fantasies of. She began to slide the high-heeled shoe off of his swollen foot to wrap it. She began to struggle with ripping the fabric she’d gathered to act as a cast for the bone.

Surely, she knows who I am. Why would she bother to help someone like me? What is she gaining? She knows that with the flip of a card, I could end her life. She’s not even protecting herself in any way. She’s leaving her guard down right in front of me.

Perhaps it was his dark desire to set fear into everyone he came across, or his distorted need to drive away anyone who might care for him, but his body suddenly acted on its own. By instinct, almost as if it were a test of her intention, a card spawned between his middle and index finger, which was right against her neck. With just a slight movement of his knuckles, he could spill her blood. His golden eyes analyzed the way she froze for a moment, and he believed that to be the end of this fragile trust between them. That was until she lifted the fabric she was holding, sliding it along the edge of the card, and cutting it to the perfect length.

“Thanks.” She spoke, beginning to wrap and set the ankle in place.

At that small motion, Hisoka’s discretionary eyes widened, and his lips fell open in surprise. Rather than interpreting his advance as an attack, she’d innocently taken it as an offer of his help. Was this a joke? Was she stupid enough to trust him, or was she bold enough to outsmart his games? Was Y/N this confident that he wouldn’t just kill her? This naive girl at his feet seemed to be the only person in this convoluted world who didn’t see him as a disgusting, heartless monster… and that warmed his icy heart.

“I’m surprised this hasn’t happened before. I know you’re graceful, but high heels are always a recipe for a broken ankle.” She offset the pain of wrapping those bones by talking to him all through the procedure, and it worked wonders. He scoffed, but by that time, Hisoka’s snide comments and emotion-killing thoughts had been expended. Somehow, she’d broken through the barrier that he’d spent so long building around himself.

Unable to ignore his whims anymore, Hisoka reached out to touch Y/N’s hair, the soft delicate strands pleasing his senses. It’s the only movement he can make now, his body weakened from the loss of blood. His gilded eyes were barely open, but they looked directly into hers with an unfamiliar realization. His hand travelled weakly down her face, caressing her cheek with the most delicate touch he could muster, and held her head in his large hand as she froze there. He wondered for a moment if she was afraid, or if something deeper that he cannot see calms her.

A small, genuine smile is all he could muster for her before his hand dropped to the side of the couch, the same couch he watched her curl up on most nights. For once, it’s not a smirk, and it’s not a smug smile- but something she has never seen before- a true smile with good intention behind it. His eyes closed, with uncertainty that they would open in the morning.

After she’d finished her work, she stood up, and looked down at him. The only remaining light in the room was the silent flicker of the television set in the background, which illuminated both of their faces.

“I need you to be alright, Hisoka,” She cooed, unable to know if he could still hear her. He didn’t know if she even realized how much he wanted to kill her right now, because the way her kindness was attacking his heart while his chest was already sliced open was something he should not excuse.

As Y/N’s final healing gesture, she bent over his body gracefully. He was taken off guard when he felt the feathery soft sensation of her lips on his forehead, the kiss of an angel on his clammy skin. As she went to pull away, however, she was startled by the lunge of Hisoka’s hand initiating a death grip on her wrist. He used the last bit of his strength to pull her lips into his, causing her to lose balance and be forced to brace on either side of the couch cushion below him. His lips were cold, but Y/N graciously returned the sensation, and boldly moved to embrace both sides of his face with her mending hands. Before she pulled away, and he passed out, she felt that same smile against her lips.

And in that moment, before he fades away, Hisoka realizes what he’s been missing.

Y/N.

-----------------

Hmm... part two? I KNOW, it’s super freakin’ sappy. I could have taken a lighthearted approach to this (and maybe I will later), but I wanted to kind of challenge myself to write a more depth-driven version of Hisoka. Maybe I bit off a little more than I can chew :0.

Anyway, let me know what you think, and once again thanks to anon for the request! Hope you all enjoyed!

Mac

[get-shiggy-with-it]

#1 Victory Royale

✧ pairing: college student!spinner x student!afab!reader

✧ word count: 4.4k

✧ warnings: college au/no quirks, light angst, mostly soft/fluff, smut, could be hate fucking if you squint, afab reader but no pronouns, this is pretty tame, by like my standards, I wrote this at work, not really a warning, but it felt like you needed to know that

✧ summary: relationships suck and Spinner is starting to think maybe he does too

✧ ao3 mirror

✧ a/n: Hey y'all, welcome back to more college au bs from me. This is set in the same universe once again as all my other college pieces. A very sweet anon asked if we'd ever get to see more of Spinner, so here he is! Also with another cameo from shiggy's bitch (endearing) cause I can't help myself.

“Ughhhhhh….”

Spinner’s groaning echoed through the tiny apartment, the heavy sound of creaking couch cushions under his weight following.

“What?” his long-suffering roommate shouted out their bedroom door, rapidly shoving clothing and a toothbrush into an overnight bag.

“Uggghhhhhhh!”

He let out with another, louder dying animal wail. He’d been like this since they woke up—wallowing in some strange concoction of self pity and Red Bull on the kitchen floor when they walked in for water two hours ago.

“Motherfucker,” they mumbled, tossing their bag to the floor and marching, more than a little disgruntled, into the hall. “What do you want?”

Spinner was sitting upside down on the couch now, feet up against the wall tapestry and cotton candy hair splayed out on the floor. He stared blankly as his friend came into view—arms crossed, frowning at him from the end of the hall—and opened his mouth once more, letting out another garbled grunt that had one of the neighbors pounding twice on the wall to shut his dramatic ass up.

“Dude seriously, are you gonna tell me who pissed in your cereal or are you just gonna scream until the guys next door kick a hole through our wall?”

They almost felt bad as he looked away, sniffing and letting himself slump farther off the sofa until he was sprawled completely on the hardwood and staring, glassy eyed, up at the ceiling.

When he finally spoke a full sentence, his gaze was locked on the water stain above him from a year ago when the upstairs neighbors flooded their apartment trying to make jungle juice in the bathtub.

“I don’t know, I’m just in my feels as the kids say,” he sounded so dejected—strange for someone who was perpetually energized to a frustrating degree—that their shoulders immediately slumped from a hardass square to a softer, more sympathetic angle

They padded over to join him on the floor.

“Care to elaborate, oh roomie of mine?”

There was a pause and Spinner tapped his nails against the hardwood idly before responding.

“I guess I’m just feeling, like, fucking I don’t know,” he sighed, knocking his head against the dusty boards, “left out I guess? That’s not quite right, but it’s just Magne mentioned last time she came to The League meeting that Jin was seeing somebody and it just got me all introspective and weird…”

“Hm,” his roommate hummed thoughtfully and studied the way the textured white ceiling gave way to the rings of brown water damage, like a dead and dying flower, “I thought you and Jin weren’t ever that serious?”

“We weren’t,” Spinner groaned again and rubbed his eyes. “We went on like, one date a year ago and I haven’t thought about it really at all since then. I’m not sure why hearing he’s got someone else now made me so fucking...jealous I guess.”

“I mean, maybe you just never really gave yourself the time to process it?” they asked and received only an annoyed huff and accompanying groan. “Sorry, should have asked if you were looking for advice or just wanting to rant. My bad.”

“No, it’s fine. I think it’s just…”

Spinner trailed off and they shifted as the hard floor bit at their back and made it ache. The muscles were sore already as it was, and Tomura blowing their fucking back a few times a week wasn’t really helping. They’d created some kind of perpetually horny monster, but something told them cracking a joke about it wasn’t really going to help the situation much. Thankfully, Spinner found his way to filling the silence a minute later.

“I don’t think it has anything specifically to do with Jin. Yeah I liked him, we’re still really good friends and I don’t feel like I need him to be more than that. It’s just that—and this is gonna make me sound like a massive asshole—but with you and your new fucking boyfie and now even Jin finding someone to date I just keep seeing reminders everywhere of how motherfucking isolated I am.”

“Oh,” they felt their face burn a bit, guilt frothing as they were forced to acknowledge the fact that in all the time they’ve spent holed up with Tomura, Spinner had been discarded like an old Steam game, bought impulsively on sale and never played again. “I’m sorry I haven’t been prioritizing you—”

“No, no, no shut the fuck with that,” he waved his hand to cut them off and pushed himself up on his palms. “I know I’m not being fair about it, and I really am happy for you guys, but idk man….I just feel like I’m never gonna find that you know?”

Beside him, his roommate remained sprawled out on the floor like a homicide tape outline and was just as deadly quiet.

“I just,” he continued, running an angry hand through his hair, “I know I could be such a good partner. Like I’m funny and I’m not a fucking creep, which is actually a plus to most people.”

He shot a side glance down and they rolled their eyes, sitting up and knocking his shoulder roughly till he toppled back to the dirty floor and they stood above him.

“Fuck off,” they chuckled.

His roommate watched as the laughter seemed to infect him like a bad cold, creeping down the back of his throat and shaking in his chest.

“No I’m serious, I would be such a fucking great boyfriend. I give goddamn top quality cuddles and I actually know how to do laundry, what more does one need truly?”

“Damn bro, you’ve known how to fold your own clothes this whole time?”

The giggling spread into the quiet space, rocking through both their shoulders and leaving the air feeling light—fresh like the first nights of Spring. When it finally petered out into friendly silence, they were both far lighter.

“I just like the way you fold my t-shirts, the sleeves don’t get those weird creases when you do it,” he muttered and stood, doing his best to fix the wild pink locks that stood on end from his fidgeting.

“Yeah I’m sure,” his roommate rolled their eyes and turned back down the hall.

When they left for the night to stay over with their boyfriend, Spinner tried not to acknowledge the way he subconsciously glared at their back as they walked out the door, skipping yet another League meeting to swap spit with that guy from their English class.

He tried even harder not to think of how their bed would be warm and their legs would have legs to tangle with, their chest have a chest to lay against, while he heated up instant noodles in the microwave and fell asleep alone on their living room couch.

Not to mention that tonight was the big tournament with that new group on campus. He was really banking on his bff (best fucking friend as they were always sure to clarify) and him teaming up to crush those assholes from The Commission or whatever they called themselves.

Fucking lame as shit name in his opinion.

In any case, he’d have to settle for Magne again, and she was such a loose cannon they were sure to get their asses handed to them. She was a great fucking tank, he’d be the first to admit, but strategy was not a strong point of hers and they desperately needed that tonight.

He could feel the sinking weight of failure rolling in the pit of his stomach already even as he dragged himself into his room to tug on an old pair of jeans.

It bothered him way more than it should, the idea of losing some gaming tournament that, by all means held little to no actual significance.

Spinner knew the stock he’d started placing in games was growing to an unhealthy degree.

He knew that.

But self awareness rarely did anything to alleviate the irrational fear of failing at one of the only remaining consistencies in his life.

It stung worse when the tournament kicked off and by the third round, Spinner was the only remaining League member in the brackets.

“Fucking shit…” he muttered to himself, the small basement room alight with the blue glow of the monitor and the sound of frantically smashing controllers.

Behind him on the couch—stolen long ago from the theater building—Magne held him by the shoulders as he grit his teeth and leaned into the movement of his avatar on screen.

“You got this babe,” she shouted, cheek pressed up to his ear. “Make ‘em eat shit for me!”

“I would if you stopped distracting me,” Spinner hissed back.

Really it wasn’t Magne’s aggressive and somewhat bloodthirsty style of encouragement that shook his focus so badly.

It was his opponent.

The fucking president of The Commission sat, thighs spread and pressed to his, resting your weight on your elbows and snarling beside him in the couch.

Your face was split in this heart stopping grin as you quite deftly dodged all his attempts to get a hit in and managed to land a few of your own in the process.

And you looked really hot doing it.

Which was definitely just a side effect of the punch he (didn’t) drink and the body heat fueled temperature of the room—sweaty skin against sweaty skin making his mind wander against his will.

The shifting in his seat was absolutely just to illogically make him move faster and had nothing to do with how tight his pants now seemed.

So much for not being a fucking creep.

Your teammates were gathered in a circle behind you, enraptured and exuding the kind of smug confidence that said quite clearly The League was fucked from the second they walked in.

Not even two minutes later your hands were thrown up, punching the air and your team piling over the back of the couch to drown you in a sea of celebratory limbs.

Spinner felt himself deflating even as he was toppled off the couch by your screaming members and The League collectively cursed in the background.

Truthfully he’d known the chances of winning were slim.

Ever since his roommate started getting busy with classes and clubs that ‘looked good on their resume,’ The League had gone downhill rapidly. It was a problem since long before that Shigaraki guy swooped in and stole them away, but Spinner couldn’t stop himself from lowkey holding that against him.

The League had consumed so much of his life in college, functioning as a haven where he was finally respected and belonged to an extent he’d never experienced before.

The stink of failure and loss, not of the game but the only space he’d ever really occupied without complaint, burned his face and made the room feel more suffocating than usual.

Magne looked as though she wanted to give him one of her signature—and admittedly very comforting—hugs, but the deadly look of disappointment on Spinner’s face must have made her think twice.

The rest of his team seemed to read this sudden downward shift in the room as they began to filter out, climbing the steps onto street level and away from the suddenly stuffy, uncomfortable meeting spot. Normally everyone would stay and finish off the drinks snuck past the janitorial staff, eating Doritos until well past midnight. This time they couldn’t wait to be rid of him.

He couldn’t really blame them.

The multimedia building was a strange place after hours. Once Spinner might have called it something rare and liminal, now it felt more like a prison.

He stood, packing up the consoles a bit more roughly than necessary when someone cleared their throat behind him.

He turned to see you, standing alone with hands on your hips and scowling like you were the one who just got their gaming reputation ruined.

“Dude what the fuck was that?”

Spinner bristled at the knife sharp point of your tone.

“Really?” he asked incredulously. “You seriously waited around to rub your win in my face?”

You rolled your eyes and took a step closer around the couch. “I’m not talking about the fucking game dumbass. Why the hell are you pouting like I stole your fucking candy or some shit? You ruined the vibes man.”

“If anyone was ruining the vibes, it was you and your cocky ass team.”

Spinner felt himself stepping closer too, pulled in by the celestial weight that accompanied any kindling argument.

“Me?” you pointed to your chest and scoffed, “Wow, I was really hoping you’d actually possess a bit of emotional maturity, but if this is how you get after a loss I’m not shocked your fucking club is bleeding members.”

At some point the two of you had gravitated close enough that he felt the puff of your last breath on his cheeks. Two comets, ready and willing to collide.

“I’m not being the asshole in this situation, you know that right?” Spinner glared down his nose at you, heart pounding in his ears. “Maybe you shouldn’t make fucking unfounded assumptions about people you don’t know.”

“So then why are your panties in a twist over a fucking game?” you retorted.

He was peripherally aware that your eyes had taken on the same laser focused quality as they had during the last round. Determined and locked onto him without sparing a glance to anything else.

It was this same undivided attention that he’d envied in you as you played, and as Spinner felt it trained on him, his pants once again felt uncomfortably restrictive.

“It’s not about the fucking game okay!?” his voice came out hoarse and far more petulant than he’s been aiming for.

Though he quickly felt the embarrassment give rise to a secondary heat as you both breathed each other’s air and searched the face across from you.

“Then what is it about?”

That strange, unexplainable, inexplicable rush of potential filled the small gap that remained between your bodies—the kind of tension Spinner was beginning to think he’d never feel again.

He’d kissed plenty of people. Almost more than he’d like to admit, or that they’d like to admit more accurately.

But when his flickering eyes found your hard stare still and unwavering from his, it felt incredibly natural to lean in and press his lips against your fading frown.

It was slow going, the few centimeters that separated you seemed like miles as he moved slowly, never breaking eye contact until his mouth was finally slotted over yours and you weren’t pushing him away.

There was still a bit of lingering confusion, as this was decidedly not what either of you appeared to be expecting from the prior conversation. That coupled with the fact that Spinner wasn’t entirely sure he remembered your first name made the feeling of your tongue prodding at the seam of his lips all the more startling.

When he gasped, you slid your hands up his chest and licked into his mouth. Tongue tangling between breaths, Spinner felt himself getting lost in the familiar and coveted taste of another mouth, another body, another hand that grasped, that desired, that wanted him.

***

Your knees dug into the cushions on either side of Spinner’s thighs as you bounced in his lap. He fought to keep his eyes open against the pleasure of his cock sinking into you over and over again, so he could watch the way your head was thrown back and your chest heaved with the exertion.

He dug his hands into your hips and let his head hit the back of the couch, feet planted on the floor to help his hips thrust up into you, earning him some of the prettiest, stifled moans he’d ever heard.

Truthfully, he had not expected to fuck you. He figured you might be down to just make out for a bit until the cleaning staff came and booted you from the building, but both your pants had quite quickly and naturally found their way to the floor.

Neither of you spoke much, which he was thankful for. That would have been far too complicated of a conversation, especially considering you really didn’t know each other all that well.

Spinner usually liked to do a bit of ‘getting to know you’ type activities before he hooked up with people, which he did with surprising frequency for somebody so starved for a long term thing. Sex just fucking felt good and it was this eagerness that was his downfall. Most people he’d fucked around with seemed to read the urge to get into their pants as a diminished interest or emotional attraction and Spinner ended up with more friends with benefits than actual friends...or benefits.

Regardless, it was fine by him that the only form of communication passing between you for now were scattered groans of pleasure and the wet slap of your ass against his thighs.

He’d nearly forgotten how fucking amazing pussy felt.

For no particular reason, Spinner had always found himself fooling around with bodies more similar to his own. Not that he had any real preference, though the lack of experience often made him a bit nervous in the whole ‘pleasing your partner’ department, despite many helpful lessons from his roommate.

That was all to say that Spinner was incredibly thankful you reached down to guide his hand that had clumsily begun rubbing circles on your clit. That is until you simply knocked it away and went back to riding his dick like a fucking champ.

Then he did speak.

“Wanna make you cum,” he mumbled and really did sound like he was pouting this time.

You peered down at him, slowing your pace so you sat flush in his lap, grinding his cock deep against your walls. Spinner keened as you clenched around him, pussy so deliciously warm he felt himself near to drowning in the feel of you.

“Mm fuck,” you panted, leaning in to steal a few more messy kisses from him before lifting up and enveloping him in the slick heat all over again. “Don’t worry about it.”

“No,” he nipped at the column or your throat, careful not to leave any lasting marks just in case. “If I’m finishing, you’re fucking finishing.”

You pulled back and stared at him for a moment. He felt you purposefully tightening around him just so he would squirm under your curious gaze. After a moment you smirked and rolled your eyes again, taking his hand and guiding his fingers back to that little nub just above where his thick length was seated inside you.

Spinner was proud of his dick, it was hefty but not so long that it was a hassle to fit—just enough to reach all the important bits. He was sensitive as hell too most of the time, so just about any pressure felt amazing. But the best part of it was watching whoever he was fucking fall apart on his goddamn perfect cock.

So when you whispered, “Like this,” and showed him the rhythm and motion you liked, he pulled himself back from the brink to pay attention, speeding up until that look of cooled control slid right off your face.

“Ahh, yes fuck...” the words tumbled from you freely now. “Shit, yeah just like that—”

Spinner could get fucking drunk off the low groan that left you as he planted his feet more firmly and bucked his hips up. He must have hit something good by the way you choked and moaned boarding on too loud, though he had neither the heart nor self control to stop you.

“Feel good?” he grunted, picking up the pace and force he thrust into you, so that you had to loop your arms around his neck and hold tightly as he speared you on his cock.

“Fuck...yes..” you whimpered into his shoulder which did wonders for his ego.

Spinner kept up his rubbing frantic patterns on your clit and feeling the gradual constriction of your walls around him—the coil growing tight and ready to snap. He nudged your cheek with his until you pulled back a bit to face him.

“I want to see you,” he murmured, sucking your tongue into his mouth for a moment and tearing himself away so he could watch as you came undone around him.

You gave him a strange, soft look and pressed your forehead to his, eyes zoned in on only him.

The rest of the room, the whole fucking basement and campus melted away under that stare.

Your nipples peaked through your shirt, brushing against his as you were jostled into him by the movement of your hips. As you reached your peak, words devolved into increasingly breathy gasps. It took Spinner an incredible amount of concentration not to fucking paint your insides then and there.

Your pussy was so goddamn tight and warm and milking him just right, it was a fucking impressive feat to remain staunchly at the edge of his peak as your mouth fell open and your fingernails scratched at his back when you finally came—the telltale spasms around his cock and the near sobs coming from you more than enough indication.

He lost himself well and truly then.

Lost in the false sense of intimacy that came with being allowed to see you fall apart, this person he barely knew yet made him feel immensely important in that moment. Your breath and spit was in his mouth, the smell and feel of you soaking his length pushed him beyond the realm of conscious thought.

There was only a deep and burning need to be closer to you. So, so much closer.

His hands moved of their own accord, hooking under your thighs and flipping your bodies so your back hit the cushions and he hovered above you. The angle allowed him to slide deeper, pulling out and thrusting his hips in fast, hard strokes that hurtled him towards release.

Spinner couldn’t keep himself quite now either, panting and moaning and gasping unashamedly with his eyes screwed shut as you took his cock so unbelievably well.

It wasn’t until your hands, softer than he’d imagined, cupped his jaw and pulled him down to meet you that he was brought back down from whatever higher plane of existence his impending orgasm whisked him too.

Your lips weren’t nearly as frantic as the rocking of his thighs, the slap of his balls against your ass. The sweetness was an odd but welcome contrast.

“I’m gonna—fucking mm...” he tried so hard to get his tongue to form the words but he could feel himself slipping further as you started clamping around his length again.

“I know,” you breathed against his lips, faces pressed together and unmoving eyes steady on his own. “Ahh, inside if you want.”

He did want.

Oh fuck did he want nothing more in that moment to stay sunk in your warmth and pump you so full, but the last few remaining logical braincells reminded him that was not a great idea. Not without a more in-depth conversation neither of you was in a state to have.

“Shouldn’t...” he groaned and moved to pull out but your ankles locked around his ass and forced him back down.

“It’s okay,” you huffed and rocked into him, squeezing around the sensitive head of his dick just once, just right and that did him in.

It was something in the way you looked at him, so that he could feel nothing but secure—nothing but safe wrapped up in you. Something about the way you pressed him closer, in the movement of your thumb on his cheek.

It scratched some deep seated, lonely itch in Spinner.

Made it feel like this meant a hell of a lot more than it probably did.

In seconds he was blowing his fucking load right into you, milking himself in your heat until he was spent and overstimulated. You were kind enough to pull him to you, turning your bodies so you laid side by side on the coach, his softening cock slipping from you in a gush of release.

For a minute or so, neither of you spoke, just stared, long and comfortable at the stranger you’d just fucked on the gaming club couch.

Well.

Fucked wasn’t really the word he’d use at that point to describe what you’d just done, but anything more than that felt presumptuous.

You broke the silence as he nuzzled into your palm.

“You really needed that didn’t you?”

Spinner couldn’t help the familiar, infectious laugh that rattled in his chest. He liked the smile it earned him, far more genuine than any others you’d worn that night.

“Uh, yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

You hummed, nodding in response. “Mm, me too.”

And somehow, for no real logical reason, Spinner knew you understood. That you felt the same isolation, the same starvation for love, for holding weight in someone else’s world.

That the games were just a placeholder, a way to fill the space, to get lost in other lives, in other stories where he did matter. Where his actions had foreseeable and measurable worth. That’s why it hurt to lose. Not for the glory, but for the destruction of the only remaining diversion from how empty his reality felt.

Even if it wasn’t really.

Even if there were friends and benefits and friends who offered both. His roommate could let him rest his head in their lap on movie nights or sleep in his bed on occasion when the heat went out and he got cold too quickly. But none of that quite filled the hole like you now, holding his face and knowing the struggle without him having to explain it.

Nothing like you pulling him in and kissing him too familiarly for someone he’d only known a day.

Magne used to say something about shit like this. Something like how people bond in train cars when there’s a rat eating a slice of pizza and you all watch it happen. Some weird camaraderie forged in the shared experience of life being a little fucking freaky a lot of the time.

That was how it felt when you slipped your leg between his and brushed your lips together again. Content to lay, half naked in the media building basement, making out with some guy you beat at Smash and fucked right after.

Reveling in the brief but meaningful feeling of mattering in some small, strange way to someone else.

Of holding weight.

Of being held.

[oceanera12]

Sylvie should not have been a Loki-Variant, Change my Mind

Soo...

I have some problems with the Loki series.

Don't get me wrong, it's a fun show to watch and I enjoyed it (for the most part) but there is one specific thing that I have a major problem with:

And it's how they decided to portray/use Sylvie.

Because LET ME TELL YOU-- She should not be a Loki-variant. Heck, her character isn't even BASED on Loki.

Sylvie is based on this gal right here, The Enchantress (who is usually named Amora, but there is also another version of her running around whose name is-- wait for it-- Sylvie Lushton)

Heck, Sylvie even "enchants" people, which is what "The Enchantress" is kind of known for. Sylvie is very serious in the show, with no "joking" or "mischievous" side, and yes you could make the argument that she's had that stomped out of her because SURVIVAL. But I'll raise you a "Loki makes jokes/messes with his opponents when he's defeated or taken prisoner by literally everyone." And Yes, I know they made her different because of the Character dynamic but it's one of those things that I don't think she should have been a Loki variant. At all.

Now, me being me, this was something that bugged me so tremendously, I tried to figure out how I would have personally introduced/changed Sylvie into something a little more... well, not a Loki variant.

Here's what I came up with:

Let's start with the show setup: it would basically go the same with Loki getting taken by the TVA, recruited to fight a variant Loki, figure out where the Variant is hiding, etc, etc.

We'd still have the whole "hood reveal-- GASP, A WOMAN"

But said woman doesn't just run away without a word. Instead, she holds out a hand and says something along the lines of "if you want to live, then come with me."

Loki being, well, Loki, is extremely curious and goes along with her.

The episode would end with Loki asking who she is, and she gives him this surprised look. "Sylvie."

Loki: ... *confused look* "I thought you were a Loki-variant."

Sylvie: *also confused* "...Do you really not remember me?"

The episode ends with the two staring at one another then cuts to credits.

The next episode is different from the rest of the series because it is a flashback episode to Loki's childhood. Without going too crazy on the details, Loki had a childhood friend named Sylvie. The two of them bonded over having magical abilities and would get into trouble together. They'd go places they were not supposed to go and such. One day they went to such a place and something bad happens. I'm thinking giant monster attack or something similar. Loki and Sylvie get into big trouble and Sylvie gets into a difficult position and she screams for help.

Then there is this moment where we have a timeline split with the following two scenarios:

In the first scenario, Loki leaves Sylvie behind and saves himself (this is Loki's timeline). A few days later, the Asgardians pulled Sylvie's dead body out of the place they were not supposed to be. Loki never comes forward about how he left her and everyone just assumes that Sylvie got herself killed by going into the forbidden place alone. Young Loki feels guilty about leaving Sylvie to die, but he forces himself to forget about her and convinces himself that if he hadn't left her, then he would have died (this is kind of the start of Loki leaving people/betraying people who are his friends and family.)

In the second scenario, Loki hesitates but ends up going to help Sylvie. Both of them make it out of the dangerous area alive, but Loki is badly injured and ends up dying from his wounds shortly after they escape. Sylvie takes his body back to Asgard, basically knowing that it's her fault he's dead and she is going to be punished for it. However, Odin and Freya both see Loki's death as a heroic one, as he went back to protect his friend, despite the fact that both of them were not supposed to be in that area. In other words, Loki died a warrior's death and will be received into Valhalla, which is a comfort to them both. Sylvie (who I forgot to mention is another orphan that was just being raised in the Asgardian equivalent of an orphanage) is not exactly "adopted", but she is taken in by Odin and Freya, to honor their son's sacrifice. In turn, Sylvie takes on the name "Loki" as a second name to honor her friend. It is perhaps a year or so after this event, the TVA shows up and wipes out the timeline (I justify this because if Sylvie in the show is not supposed to be a girl and that's her "crime against the timeline" then she should have been taken by the TVA when she was born). Since Sylvie has taken on Loki's name, she is technically a "Loki" variant, which explains the whole "Loki variant" is behind all of the disturbances.

Now, I would personally play this Sylvie with a different personality. So Sylvie in this version is less in the REVENGE route and more in the SURVIVAL state of mind. Her entire goal is to survive. And if that means taking out the TVA to do that, then so be it. She's been planning this for years and everything was going according to plan, but then the TVA brought in a variant Loki.

Now, Sylvie knows that this Loki isn't HER Loki. But she doesn't know what Loki did to her in the normal timestream. She thinks that maybe she was strong enough to get both of them out or maybe Loki and her managed to both escape. In her mind, Loki is her friend and basically the closest thing she ever had to family. So even if this Loki isn't her Loki, she's going to try and help him survive.

Sylvie explains all of this to Loki, who is now feeling a tad guilty about leaving his Sylvie to die, but also feels a bit justified since he clearly would have died if he had gone back for her. Loki being Loki lies to Sylvie about what happened to her, basically painting a tale where Sylvie died the heroes death in his world, and the name had caught him off guard since his Sylvie was dead and he did not know how she would look grown up.

The show continues on, the main focus on Loki and Sylvie's relationship being more friendly on Sylvie's part, with Loki slowly feeling more and more guilty about lying to Sylvie. Especially when this Sylvie basically swears to him that she is not going to watch another Loki die.

Sylvie is very determined and focused, like she is in the show. She is still distrustful of people, EXCEPT for Loki (my reasoning behind this is even though he's the God of Mischief and such, Loki promised Sylvie when they were little that he would never lie to her. And that was a promise Loki had kept... until meeting Variant Sylvie).

Meanwhile, Loki has the internal conflict over him basically killing his own Sylvie, especially as he grows to really like the very-much-alive Sylvie. Here is all the flirty scenes and such. Loki probably decides at some point that he is going to try and make it up what he did to his Sylvie, by deciding to keep this Sylvie safe and happy.

Most of the show continues on pretty much the same, with the big climactic fight at the end except for one difference:

Kang the Conquerer or whoever the kriff that guy was, reveals to Sylvie what happens to her in literally every. Single. Timeline. Except hers.

So that Sylvie vs Loki fight in the show, is now a legitimate Sylvie vs. Loki fight. Loki, at this point, was probably planning on telling her the truth, but creepy not-the-watcher-but-kind-of-the-watcher dude beat him to it.

Loki tries to apologize to her, convince her it's a bad idea to kill this guy, and all that stuff, but it's too little too late. She decides to spare him, out of respect for her Loki but basically tells him that if he ever shows his face to her again, she will kill him. Then she shoves Loki through the portal, kills the creepy dude, and proceeds to drop to her knees and sob because the one person in the world that she thought would have her back, did not.

Now, Loki is determined to keep his promise he made to himself about keeping this Sylvie safe and happy, even if that means she is going to kill him if he returns and that is his mindset going into Season 2.

And that's all I've got at the moment since Season 2 hasn't come out yet. I shared this with my Padawan and my boyfriend and both were extremely interested in it so I thought I'd share it on here.

((Also, now I don't feel weird about shipping these two because I'M SORRY shipping a variant of the same person is just... weird. I can't do it without feeling weird, okay???))

[duhragonball]

Battle Tendency Liveblog: JJBA Ch. 105-108

“Master Kars has taken a fighting stance!   I... I wasn’t expecting tongue...”

Hey, remember Wammu?   Well, he’s dead now, so the only Pillar Man left to worry about is the leader, Kars.  His army of vampire slaves don’t like this, so they try to bumrush our heroes, but Lisa kills a few of them, then threatens to destroy the Red Stone of Aja unless Kars honors their agreement. 

And Kars is cool with that.   He only took off his headdress and exposed his antennae to prepare for the next one-on-one fight.   He then kills his unruly henchmen to prove that they don’t speak for him.  Moreover, Kars is now willing to fight Lisa Lisa.   Earlier, he said that he didn’t like fighting women, but now that he’s seen her in action, he’s on board with the idea.

But he doesn’t want to fight in Skeleton Heel Stone, where Joseph and Wammu squared off.   Instead, he chooses the Piza Berlina Temple, right next door to the S.H.S.  Apparently, after a hard day of chariot racing, the winners used to come here to worship their gods and drink the blood of the losers. 

It’s weird to me that Kars and Wammu should be so familiar with this place, and carry such an abiding respect for it.   I mean, they’ve viewed ordinary 20th Century humans with utter contempt, dismissing them as backwards primitives.   Santana disassembled a German rifle like it was easy, and he’s supposed to be the big dummy in the Pillar Men.   That’s how little they think of 1938 technology and civilization.   The Hamon users in this story only get a bit of respect because they‘ve become worthy adversaries. 

And yet, the Pillar Men seem to be a lot more respectful towards ancient humanity.   Esidisi knew the writings of Sun Tzu, if not the man himself.   You’d think he’d just ignore or devour Sun Tzu sooner than look at him.   And you’d think Wammu would have wanted to fight in the traditions of his own culture, but instead he’s all into this ancient human racetrack.    It can’t be because it’s old.   Compared to Wammu, it’s positively brand new.  

On the other hand, these guys are the last of their kind, as we’ll learn in a few chapters.   Human culture is the only kind the Pillar Men have gotten to see, and it’s been that way for about a hundred centuries now.   If Esidisi wants to read a book, he’s pretty much going to have to tolerate human authors, because that’s all that’s left.   And if Wammu wants to admire a sporting arena, he’s stuck with places like these, built by those pesky “primitives”.  

Joseph asks Lisa to let him fight Kars instead, since he’s still worried about her being a woman.   Also, he believes Kars is weaker than Wammu, so he should be able to defeat him.   But Lisa insists on handling this, and she strips down to this circus outfit.    That sounds like I’m making fun of it, but I’m not.   It looks pretty badass, but also period-appropriate. 

The fight is very short.  Kars pulls some sort of disappearing act, then emerges from one of the stone surfaces of the temple, trying to slash at Lisa from behind with his blades.    But Lisa has it scouted, and she wraps her silk scarf around Kars’ arm, charges it with Hamon, and kills him, wham, bam, thank you ma’am.  

And then the real Kars emerges from the same stone, and stabs Lisa in the back.   Somehow, Kars disguised one of his vampire minions to look just like him, right down to the blades in his arms, and sent that flunky out as a distraction.    It’s a cheap trick, and a complete 180 from the honor displayed by Wammu in the previous fight.  Kars doesn’t care.   He doesn’t care about dishonoring Wammu’s memory, nor does he care about breaking his word.   The only thing Kars cares about is getting the Red Stone of Aja, and now he has it. 

Unfortunately, this takes Lisa Lisa out of action for the rest of the story.  Kars hasn’t killed her, but she’s too badly hurt to do anything from here.   That kind of sucks, because Lisa’s such a cool character.   A friend of mine once complained that Lisa got a raw deal in Part 2, and we should have gotten to see her get a big fight, on par with Joseph vs. Esidisi, or Caesar vs. Wammu.   I can’t really disagree with the sentiment. 

However, I have a hard time figuring out how such a fight could have been worked into the story.   She couldn’t beat Kars, for Pete’s sake.   He’s the final boss of Part 2, so it sort of falls to Joseph to do the honors.  And she couldn’t beat Wammu or Esidisi, because Joseph was the one who needed the antidote to their poison rings.  Lisa could have lost to either of them--the way Caesar lost to Wammu-- except she’d have to die, which would spoil the big reveal of her origin story.

So maybe there needed to be an extra Pillar Man in the cast?   Not Santana, because he’s too weak, but maybe Kars’ group has a fourth guy named Talqingedz or whatever.  So Lisa Lisa could mop the floor with that dude... and then what?    Would it really carry any dramatic weight for her to defeat a guy like that?  A Pillar Man so ancillary to the story that the plot would flow just as well without him?    When you get down to it, Lisa Lisa’s dream opponent for Part 2 just ends up looking like Wired Beck, a random jobber presented solely to establish her credibility as a fighter.   And we already got Lisa vs. Wired Beck, and clearly that wasn’t satisfying enough.   So Lisa Lisa vs. a Pillar Man probably wouldn’t have been much of an improvement.  

Nonetheless, I think it’s a valid criticism of Battle Tendency.  You come out of this story wishing we could have seen more of Lisa Lisa in action, and we just aren’t going to get it.   But the root of the problem isn’t that she didn’t get to fight more, it’s that she was presented as a fighter when that really wasn’t her role in the story.   She’s a teacher, training Joseph and Caesar in the ways of the Ripple, but more importantly, she’s an enigma.  Who is she?   What’s her connection to the Joestars?  To Straizo?   To Caesar?   Where did she get the Red Stone of Aja?   And so on.  

Her Ripple mastery makes her one of the strongest fighters on the board, but that’s just another piece of the puzzle.   I think there was a profile of Lisa Lisa in the manga that said her Ripple was three times stronger than Joseph’s.   But we never get to see it demonstrated, because that’s not the point.  We’re just supposed to wonder who this lady is and how she got so powerful, and where has she been this whole time.    I think this is also why everyone keeps writing her off as a woman.   It’s not just chauvanism, it’s intended to keep the reader off-balance.  One minute Joseph and the Pillar Men are respecting her power, and the next minute they’re dismissing her.    It keeps you guessing. 

I suspect this is one reason why Araki dealt Lisa Lisa such an inglorious defeat here.   Could Lisa have defeated Kars in a fair fight?   Yeah, I think she could.   But if she cleaned his clock, it would defeat the mystique of the character.   The same is true if Lisa lost to Kars in a fair fight.  We’d say “Oh, okay, she wasn’t quite as strong as Joseph, so that’s that.” 

Now, the other major reason for Kars to defeat Lisa Lisa like this is to demonstrate Kars’ main character trait.   He only cares about achieving his objective.   Wammu had his warrior code, and Esidisi had his devotion to his comrades, but Kars has only himself and his goals.   He had Lisa and Joseph cornered in the abandoned hotel, but they didn’t have the Aja Stone on them.   Lisa made that bluff about a bomb, and then proposed this contest to settle things.   Kars agreed, but not because he had any intention of honoring the agreement.  He just let things play out because he knew Joseph would bring the Stone to the battlefield, and even if Wammu lost, he would still have all of these vampires to back him up.  

That’s how Kars was able to defeat Lisa.   He used Wammu’s own honor to lull Lisa into a false sense of security.   After seeing how noble Wammu was in defeat, and how gracious Kars was in disciplining his vampires, she began to believe that Kars would fight her fairly.     That was Kars’ plan all along.   Once he had her isolated on the temple, with the Red Stone of Aja on her person, he made his play.    It’s dirty pool, but it worked, and that’s all Kars cares about. 

This makes Joseph super-duper pissed, but what’s he gonna do about it?   He’s way down there on the ground, surrounded by vampires, and his Ripple is weak from the fight with Wammu.    So now Kars can just watch from a safe vantage while his henchmen tie up the last loose end.  

But then, the Nazis show up, led by Stroheim, complete with a repaired cyborg body.  And Speedwagon and Smokey are here too, along with a fighting contingent of the Speedwagon Foundation.   And they came prepared too!  Everybody’s armed with UV emitters.   To be sure, ultraviolet lamps haven’t worked so well against the Pillar Men, but against ordinary vampires, they seem to do the job quite nicely.   

So while they clean house, Joseph climbs up to where Kars and Lisa are, and he’s ready to throw down.   Joseph has plenty of harsh words for Kars’ dirty tactics, but Kars doesn’t care.   This has all been a chess game to him.   The Ripple Clan, the vampires, even Wammu and Esidisi, they were all just pieces on a board, maneuvered and arranged until he could secure a path to victory with minimal risk.  

See, that’s the other thing about Lisa Lisa.   It’s very subtly expressed here, but Kars was clearly very worried about her.   He knew Joseph was a threat because he killed Esidisi, but he knew he could use Wammu to wear Joseph down.   But Lisa Lisa is even more powerful and experienced than Joseph, and she’s shrewd enough to destroy the Stone if cornered.    He knew he couldn’t beat her at her own game, so he let her think she was playing her own game in order to set her up for that sneak attack.   If Kars hadn’t done that, he’d be dead by now, or the Stone would be lost or destroyed.  

Likewise, I’m not sure Kars is confident about a fair fight with Joseph, even though he’s tired from fighting Wammu.  I mean, you’d think he’d just charge Joseph and cut his head off if he could, but instead he lures him into another trap.    Before Joseph got up here, Kars tied Lisa’s feet to a rope.    He made sure not to kill her, but only so he could use her as a hostage.   Kars tosses Lisa down, and Joseph has to grab the rope to keep her from falling to her death.

And the whole point of that was to keep Joseph standing still.   He can’t let go of the rope, so he’s in no position to defend himself.   Now Kars can just walk right up to him and kill him at his leisure.   As far as Kars is concerned, this is what fighting is all about.   Not a test of strength and skill like Wammu’s ideal, but the achievement of victory at minimal risk.  

And this is where we see Joseph exceed Lisa Lisa.  They both got suckered into Kars’ traps, but Lisa doesn’t have Joseph’s penchant for trickery and quick thinking.    She’s got more Ripple power, sure, but that doesn’t matter against a guy like Kars.   I’m starting to get the impression that Kars is a lot weaker than Wammu, since he fights so conservatively in this story.   He may not be able to afford to fight Joseph in any other way.   

So how in the hell can Joseph get out of this one?   Well, first he tries to kick Kars to keep him away.   Kars just cuts his leg, along with a section of rope that was in the way.   Joseph’s Ripple is so weak that the kick did nothing. 

Then Joseph sets his own scarf on fire and talks about how he has a plan, and it’s so awesome that he can make this work before the flames reach his body.    Kars thinks this is just desperate posturing, and all Joseph seems to do is swing away.    Kars thinks he’s trying to get some distance so he can recover his Hamon energy.

Then Kars cuts the rope, since Joseph won’t stand still and get murdered.   

And it backfires, because Joseph did more tricky rope tricks!   Hermit Purple, bitch!

Basically, that very first bit, where Joseph tried to kick him, even then, Joseph had a plan.    He got Kars to cut a section of rope, which he then used to tie his own leg to the rope holding Lisa Lisa.   Then he goaded Kars into cutting the rope so Lisa would fall, not realizing that Joseph had her secured with his other rope.   Also, that other rope got caught on Kars’ own foot.   It’s complicated. 

Oh, wait, I forgot to talk about chess.   Okay, so earlier, Kars was gloating about using Lisa as a pawn to achieve checkmate.   It’s a good analogy, but I’m pretty sure chess was invented within the last 2000 years.   In other words, Kars literally slept through the entire history of the game.   So for him to be talking about it now, I have to assume he learned about chess during that month while Joseph was training.   That kind of sucks.   Esidisi and Wammu were running around trying to find the Red Stone of Aja, and Kars was probably chilling out in Switzerland playing chess and drinking hot cocoa all night.   Wotta heel.

Then Joseph pulls himself back up with his scarf and uses Overdrive against Kars’ blade.  Joseph’s Ripple is so strong that he just powers right through, destroying the blade on Kars’ arm like it’s no big deal.  That’s interesting, because when Joseph first saw Kars’ blades, he worried that he wouldn’t be able to block them, and now it’s Kars who wasn’t strong enough to block. 

Maybe “Light Mode” was more of an illusion than a genuine power?  I mean, the blades are super-sharp, but I never understood what difference it made for them to be all sparkly, unless it’s a psychological trick to demoralize the enemy.   It definitely worked on Stroheim, and it worked on Joseph for a while, but I don’t think Joseph’s gotten that much stronger since their last encounter.   

Anyway, the Ripple worked, and Kars’ entire arm explodes.   Yeah!  Then he falls off the temple, and Joseph loosens the rope to help him on his way down.    Cool!  Then Kars lands on a bunch of spiky rocks, the same gruesome fate he intended for Lisa Lisa.   Yeah, how’s that taste, Kars?   You loincloth-wearin’ piece of crap?  

So... yeah, we won!  Great job everyone!  Except for the Nazis, they can all go fuck off and die in a fire.   Smokey’s feeling a lot better about everything, so he asks Speedwagon about Lisa Lisa.   See, earlier, Lisa revealed to Joseph that she was the baby that Erina rescued at the end of Phantom Blood.   But Erina told Smokey about the same baby back in New York, and Smokey knows that Lisa Lisa is Joseph’s mother.  

Except, Erina told Joseph that his mother died of a disease when he was a baby, so how can Lisa be alive and a Ripple Master?   Speedwagon agrees to explain, since Smokey took care of Erina while he was away, but he insists that Smokey not reveal any of this to Joseph, because it’s Joestar family business.  

I hadn’t really considered it until now, but this is the first time we’ve seen Smokey and Speedwagon interact so far.   They’ve gotten to know each other off-panel, and they seem to have a bond over their shared respect for the Joestars, so it lulled me into thinking they’ve appeared together before this.    Anyway...

The origin of Lisa Lisa isn’t all that complicated, actually.   She was raised by Straizo and became a Ripple warrior, while Jonathan and Erina’s son, George Joestar II, joined the British Air Force in World War I.   George and Lisa fell in love, married, and had a baby, Joseph.  

The catch is that there was one last zombie from Phantom Blood.   Speedwagon and Straizo thought they got all of Dio’s zombies, but one of them was very clever and managed to stay hidden.    He just made sure to eat his victims’ entire body, so as not to leave any physical evidence.   Also, he faked a disability to excuse himself from any daylight activities.    By the 1910′s, he had successfully infiltrated the RAF as a Major.  

So George learned of this, because he knew all the Phantom Blood lore from his wife and mother.    But George never had any Ripple abilities himself.   He may have had the potential for it, but he was never trained, and I guess he didn’t develop it naturally, the way Joseph did.  

So he tried to gather evidence to expose the zombie Major, but his plan backfired and the zombie killed him instead, then covered up George’s death by reporting it as a plane crash.    Speedwagon and Straizo investigated this, but before they could act...

Lisa got wind of it and took matters into her own hands.  She killed the zombie major, but she did it in front of another officer.   The authorities knew nothing of zombies or Stone Masks, so they just thought she murdered an RAF officer in cold blood.    So she had to leave Britian as a fugitive, and she’s been living in exile in Italy ever since.    The Speedwagon Foundation has been trying to clear her name, but I doubt there’s whole lot they could do about a case like this.

And there you have it.   Erina was so heartbroken over the death of her son and the exile of her daughter-in-law that she asked Speedwagon to never tell Joseph what really happened to his parents, and to keep the Ripple a secret from him.   Of course, none of that really worked, because Joseph developed the Ripple on his own, and Straizo and Stroheim forced Joseph to develop those abilities even further, leading him directly to his long lost mother.   Erina wanted to protect Joseph, but she couldn’t save him from his own fate.    Smokey starts crying, and I’m like “same tbh.”  

This ties back to a point I made early on.   When I watched the anime, it seemed kind of random to introduce Smokey, then drop him for most of the story, then bring him back at the end.   But now, it makes a lot more sense.   He was a viewpoint character, but only so far as the stuff about the Joestar Family.   All the fighting and Ripple stuff could be done without Smokey, since Joseph could function as his own viewpoint character for that part.   And while it’s kind of weird for Smokey to be absent for so long, it helps that he seemed to feel the same way.    He clearly went out of his way to join Speedwagon on this mission to Switzerland.  He simply cares about the Joestar Family that much.    He couldn’t sit in New York and wait for an update.

Anyway, Lisa’s going to be okay, and the vampires are all dead, and Kars is slowly dying from the Ripple wound Joseph gave him, so it looks like we’re all finished here.   Stroheim decides to put Kars out of his misery by shooting him with high-intensity UV rays.   Maybe that’s overkill at this point, but we might as well let Stroheim have his fun.

Oh SHI--

So yeah, Kars had the Red Stone of Aja this whole time, but he only just now decided to use it.   That’s because the Stone will only amplify the power of his special Stone Mask if there’s a powerful light source.    This whole fight has been happening at night, so Kars had to wait until morning to try this little stunt.  But Stroheim has helpfully supplied a bunch of UV lamps, and those work just peachy, thanks.   Fuck Stroheim forever.

And just like Dio and Straizo before, the Stone Mask digs bony protrusions into Kars’ brain, but this time the mask has the Super Aja powering it, so Kars stands to gain even more power, turning him into... what exactly?  

[alovesongshewrote]

Kiss Me | Hisirdoux Casperan

Plot:  A fight between Douxie and the reader attracts some unwanted attention, and the only way out is to kiss.  At least in your opinion.  [Hisirdoux Casperan x Gender Neutral! Rival!Rreader]

Word count:  1,734

Warnings:  fighting, rivalry, tension (owo),  a lil’ spicy (bc rivals to lovers, so you know how that goes), swearing

A/N: I used some dialogue prompts from the blogs corvidprompts and dialogue-prompts because witty banter is hard to write

Magic was weird.

It was colourful and glowy, and it lit up the night.  Magic was super pretty, but also super noticeable, and that made it really hard to fight your arch-rival in the dark of the night without anyone noticing.  That didn’t mean you weren’t going to try.

And try you did!  With a blast of blue light, your back collided with a tree, ripping the breath from your lungs.

“Oh, come on Casperan,” you wheezed, “I know you can do better than that,” you paused again to violently cough, supporting yourself with the tree you had hit.  The tree was loose.

“Seriously (L/N)?” Hisirdoux emerged from the tree line, “Now is not the time for witty banter,”

“This isn’t banter, it’s flirting.  Now keep still, it’s harder to hit you when you move around like that,”  

He groaned as you steadied your hands, taking aim at the wizard.  He did the same.  The two of you moved against each other in sync, letting your magic fly towards your opponent.  Red and blue collided in the air, illuminating the night sky with a purple glow for the briefest of moments.  Your hits landed, and you were both blown back.

“Ugh,” you groaned, making your way up from the ground, “You… suck,”

“Oh, what, no more witty banter, darling?”

“Ok, you know what?  Fuck you, fuck this, when I’m done kicking your ass I’m going out and buying white flowy shirts and tight pants and we’re doing this like proper rivals!  You wanna insult me?  SEND ME A LETTER,”

“You talk too much,”

“Shut up,”

Red magic threw him back this time, you ran to his body, eager to kick him while he was down.  And you did.  He groaned, “Ugh, harder dadd-”

“Jesus, Casperan, you could at least buy me dinner first,”

“Cheeky,” he laughed out.  You allowed him to rise from the ground, getting yourself into a combative position.

“You’re so strange, you know that,”

“Yeah, I’m not the only one,”

You ran at him, throwing punches and spells in his direction.  Red and blue mixed, turning the world around you purple.  Eventually, it was enough to knock him onto his back.  Unfortunately, he took you with him.

You also landed unfortunately, straddling his lap, “Like I said emo boy,” you exhaled, “Dinner first,”

He made a noise between a groan and a screech, flipping you onto your back and jumping off of you, “Bold of you to assume I could afford that,”

“Oh god, do they not tip in this town?”

“Nope,”

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry,”  you let your guard down for a moment, relating to the hell of retail all too well.  Douxie, of course, used this against you, taking your legs out with his staff.

“Ahhh, ow.  That hurt, you bastard,”

He sighed, kneeling next to you, “You know we could avoid this if you just did as I asked,”

“Never gonna happen,”  You sprung up, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him to the ground.

“I will smite you,”

“Yeah, yeah,” you said, struggling to your feet, “You couldn’t smite a paper towel if it set itself on fire.  Get some perspective,”

You threw another spell at him, the red light threw him back a few feet.  He crawled to his knees.

“Awwe, Doux you’re on your knees in front of me.  Looks like you’ve really hit rock bottom,”

“It might, but I’ve brought a shovel and I’m ready to dig!”

“You really didn’t understand what I meant,”

You lifted your fists, red light surrounded them, Douxie did the same, still on his knees.  His frame was illuminated with blue light.

“I should’ve left you on the street corner where I found you,” he said, preparing to curse you. “BUT YA DIDN’T,”  you wasted no time, springing at him from your spot.  This time it was Douxie who hit a tree.

“C’mon now Doux,” you stalked over to the wizard, “Why do you hate me so much?  Is it really you?  Or did Merlin tell you I was a big bad bad influence and you instantly believed him?”

Douxie growled,  “That’s enough.  Get out of Arcadia (L/N),”

“Awe, but I was just starting to like it here,” you smirked, “Just tell me,” you dragged out the last word,  “Why do you want me gone so badly?”

“Because you’re a threat!”  the wizard sprung up and threw a spell your way.  It just missed you, but there was no time to celebrate.   Another curse was headed your way,

“You have no morals!  You don’t care about anyone but yourself!”  Douxie’s magic shot out at you.  With each spell, his control lessened, the blue light becoming more and more chaotic, and more and more of a threat.  

You too were losing control of the situation, and now you were struggling to regain it, mostly through banter.

“That’s not true!  I care about my dog,”  Your response only enraged the wizard further, making the situation worse.  More spells came your way.  You did the only thing you could and kept dodging, backing up and away from Douxie, who advanced on you.  It was becoming more and more clear that Merlin was not a card you should have played.

“You don’t take anything seriously!  You’re cruel and unusual, and,” Douxie stopped talking.  You took the moment to catch your breath, staring down your opponent.  Usually, the rivalry between you and the wizard was light-hearted, but the look in his eyes told another story.  Your heart sunk as you realized he might actually hate you.

The thought made you sick.  Did you even want to keep fighting if that was the case?  

You didn’t.

So, when Douxie came at you, you did nothing.  You just stood there as he advanced, backing you into yet another tree and pining your arms above your head.  You gasped slightly, feeling your heartbeat pick up speed in your chest, the sound of it roared in your ears.  Could he hear that?   You hoped not.

He leaned closer to you, his lips beside your ear.  You pressed your eyes shut.  If he hated you, what came next?  This was a very strange way to kill someone.

“You’re cruel and unusual, and you keep distracting me,” “What!?”

“I said, you keep-”

“Sorry to interrupt,”  Archie’s voice nearly drew a scream from you, “But someone is coming!”

You took a moment to curse the light show that was magic before looking around.  You could see bushes moving nearby.  Someone was definitely headed your way.

“Shit,” you muttered.

“Archie, hide,”  Douxie’s familiar did as he asked while you pondered what the hell to do next.  If anyone found you and Douxie in this position it would raise a lot of questions.  There was only one thing you could think to do.  It would also raise questions, but hopefully, there would be fewer of them because there were no other options.

“Kiss me,”

“What?”

There was no time.  Whoever it was was only moments from finding the two of you.

So, you broke from the wizard’s hold, grabbing his face and bringing your lips to his.  The kiss was soft.  His body was warm.  Your eyelids fluttered closed as you moved a hand from his face to the back of his neck.  His hands moved too, finding their way to the small of your back, pulling you closer to him.

The two of you moved in perfect sync as if the universe had made you for each other.  The kiss became more passionate, stealing your breath and making your heartbeat even faster than before.  Sparks ran through your body, demanding more, more what you didn’t know.  Every nerve was on fire.  Your body burned like an ember smouldering in the night.  

Unfortunately, you couldn’t focus all of your being into the kiss, as much as you wished you could.  You stated alert, listening for whoever had come to investigate the bright lights in the forest.  You said a little thank you to the gods when the person missed you entirely and disappeared back into the trees.

And then you cursed them because that meant you had to separate yourself from Douxie.

Your lips came apart, leaving both of you breathing heavily.  You shut your eyes again and brought your forehead to rest on his chest.  He didn’t let go of you.  If anything, he only brought you closer to him, burying his face in your hair.

“So,”

“So,”

You looked up at him, “That was nice,”

“It was totally nuclear,”

You smiled slightly, before moving your hands from his neck to encircle his waist, “I’m sorry.  For what I said about Merlin, I’m sorry,”

“I’m sorry too, love.  For everything, all of this.  I-I didn’t mean-”

“I know,”

“And I know you care about the world outside of you, and your dog and-”

“Douxie?”

“Yeah?”

“Just shut your mouth and kiss me again,”  

The wizard did what you told him.  This time, you let yourself melt into it.

The kiss was too short in your opinion, but you had more questions, “So, I guess you don’t hate me, huh?”

“(Y/N), darling, I could never hate you.  I think you’re amazing.  You’re so strong, and fearless, and you’re one of the most skilled magic users I’ve ever met.  You distract me because you’re just so-”

“Beautiful,” you cut him off, not talking about yourself, but rather to yourself about Douxie.

“Yeah, that,”  

You kissed again, this time, the length was more satisfactory.

“So, what do we do now?”

“I still wanna go to dinner sometime.  And I’m getting the bill because the tips in this town suck,”

“I-”

“No, seriously, I got it.  I invested in Apple back in the day,”

“You’re brilliant,”

“Thanks, I know,”

The two of you shared a smile, reveling in the moment until a small cough came from one of the bushes.

“Oh, yeah, hey Arch,”

“Hi, Douxie.  (Y/N),”

“Hey Archie, how are you?”

“I’m just fine, but right now Douxie and I need to get back into town.  The bookstore won’t guard itself,”

“It literally will with warding, but ok,”

“Go home with your familiar emo boy, your bookstore needs you,”

“What about you?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be around.  I’ll pick you up sometime on Saturday for dinner?”

“Nuclear,”

You giggled again, pecking him on the lips one more time before letting him go.

“Goodnight. Casperan,”

“Goodnight, (L/N),”

[shyrose57]

Brothers anon, sorry its been like 2 days since I last submitted something! I've been busy and whenever I finally had time to sit down and write this all its like 1 in the morning. I hope its still ok for me to send these.

🌹 anon ima respond to you first, your The Deal au could be the reason why and how Ranboos and Dreams soul got mixed and linked together. But then a problem is how did it pass to Ranbob? In my au, each person has their own soul basically. And while certain attributes like DNA can be passed through bloodlines, souls can't, as their unique to their person. 

What left Ranbob vulnerable to Dream is that he was seen as the star student. The apprentice everyone wanted. He always got perfect grades and was seen as the smartest in the City. This did not go well. As Ranbob was put under a ton of pressure to always stay perfect and get everything right. When his grades started to slip and his chosen mentor started to put even more work on him, his mentality started to suffer. With him losing sleep and starting to not care for himself or do the basic necessities like eating or drinking, all in an effort to be "perfect". Its through this need, and weakened state over all, Dream's presence was able to slip in and convince him to let him help.

Benjamin is 30, Isaac 29, Cletus is 24, and Charles is 27. 

When Ranbob first told Ran about the Dream mask and how he wasnt himself, Ran did not believe him at all. And kept saying that he needs to stop lying and fess up to what he did and pay for it. Others tried to convince him that his brother really wasn't in control of himself, but was met with strong skepticism, scoffs, and disbelief. With Ran not beliving that was the truth at all.

Watson was very shocked but quickly reorganized himself cause he had to calm Jackie, and its only after Jackie fell asleep he was like "Oh fuck. I really am the dad huh?" Jackie was embarrassed at first but after some prodding did say how he truly saw Watson as a dad figure in his life. And everyone had different reactions to Watson suddenly accepting and fitting into the dad role. Jackie was excited and immediately started calling him dad and asking him awkward dad questions "Dad whats puberty?" "Uhhh-" "Dad where do babies come from?" "Ask your dad about that!" "But you are my dad!" Ran seemed indifferent about it but Watson can tell he's revealed to have someone to talk too, and someone to go to if things get to much. Grievous keeps sating he doesn't need a dad but he's the one that goes to Watson the most for things like hugs, comfort, and advice. 

Jackie and Grievous do everything. They rig the battle field so if someone steps in a certain area water will shoot up into their face, Grievous usually taunts and distracts opponents so Jackie can sneak up behind them and just latch onto them and cover their eyes while giggling like a madman as the opponent screams and runs around trying to get him off. Jackie regularly pulls peoples seat out from under them, while Grievous scares them and makes them choke or drop something. But they do know peoples limits. Like for Ran, no water related pranks (there was an incident where Grievous spilled a whole bucket of water on him and Ran got severe burns and had to stay in the hospital ward for a few days), for Watson don't mess with his bow or arrows, he will stab you. And for eachother, Jackie, no pranks that leave him alone for extended periods of time or makes it seems like everyone is gone/left. For Grievous no pranks centered around food or drinks (like putting toothpaste in his sandwich or putting pepper in his beer). 

Ran and Jackie have a 50/50 win if that makes sense. They both win and lose pretty often. They play games like Spoons, Go Fish, Dart Throwing (Watson needs to be present for this one), something similar to Cards Against Humanity, Poker (everyone plays during this one), and Tic Tac Toe. 

Sometimes Jackie loves being the smallest and other times hates it. He hates it when Ran steals something of his and holds it above his head, he sometimes resorts to aggressively climbing Ran to get it but Ran tends to just pluck him off, and people make fun of him in a mean natured way (he's fine with light teasing). But he loves it when he rides Ran's shoulders or can duck under peoples legs and trip em. Because he's also small and fast he's hard to catch and that definitely comes in handy during fights. No ones particularly protective of eachother (excluding Ran who's protective of everyone), because they know none of them like being babied and they can all hold their own, though they will quickly flock to help eachother if they need it. Ran definitely flaunts it whenever their in a agurement. 

There is a area under the fighting arena of the pit where they stay. Theres separate rooms for everyone, training areas, dinning areas, and just chilling areas. Theres even extra rooms meant for often visiting friends (Like Genevieve) and some for storage of weapons which also holds things to sharpen them or get new ones. The Pit itself is in the middle of a gaint city, so there are tons of stores and food areas around. And because of a high salary the King gives them they go out quite often, often eating out and browsing stores when their not training or sleeping. 

If by other combinations you mean like Ran-Jackie, Ran-Grievous, Watson-Jackie, and Watson-Grievous then it highly varies. Watson and Jackie are by far the worst team, their styles just don't match and constantly but heads during battles. Watson and Grievous are probably the best out of the 4 teams because Grievous can be serious and works well with Watson as he's much more willing to change his fighting style to accommodate whats needed. Ran and Jackie are like Jackie and Grievous, but they aren't nearly as insane. Rather Ran provides distractions while fighting to give Jackie time to sneak up behind them. Ran also is the only one able to actually throw Jackie, which they sometimes do during battles. And Ran and Grievous work well together, but not as much as Watson and Grievous, its just a few things of both their styles don't match or could potentially cause problems.

He's clumsy flat out, he isn't used to having full control and needs to get used to certain things like walking or talking again. He is also severely dehydrated and malnutritished because Dream didn't care enough to drink or eat. He's also incredibly skittish and scared easily. He and Cletus's relationship isn't solved fast at all, it takes months and the work of everyone to get the two comfortable around eachother. They start by putting Cletus on watching duty, where he watches over Ranbob to make sure he's eating and drinking and resting while not tiring himself out. Then after a month or 2 Isaac, Benjamin, and Charles start purposely leaving the two in a room alone toghere to get them to talk stuff out. It takes 3 months until their comfortable enough with eachother to willingly talk and hang out. Oh the house building attempts went aboustely awful. They sometimes fell on Ranbob! And when they didn't they just collapsed or got blown away by the wind, but Isaac did ofter help a few times and showed him multiple different ways to make sure the walls stay up and keep the cold out. 

Ran is very unhappy with Ranbobs haunting, he thinks their kind of like Ranbob in which they've all killed people and considers them a threat at first, but when he sees how his haunting likes and interacts with Ranbob's, he losens up a bit, his group trusts them, so he has to trust them a little bit. But he doesn't trust them or like them nearly as much as he trusts and likes his haunting. 

Im guessing you mean who from the two groups get along the easiest. Most of them take a while to get to know eachother, like a few hours. But after that their all really close. Charles and Jackie, Cletus and Grievous, and Benjamin, Isaac, and Watson are the groups that get along really well really fast. 

Im honestly probably am going to go for them adventuring outside the City to try to get the brothers to get along again. Mostly cause I thought of the idea that what if Watson, Jackie, and Grievous all lie to Ran, and while they are actually going on an adventure, they lie to him that his brother and his group isn't coming. Then when its much to late for Ran to back out, Watson just goes "Oh yeah! Your brother and his group are traveling with us. And you can't do anything about it." And Ran just sits there shocked. 

Ran and Ranbob are both subtle protective of their group. With Ranbob never really getting aggressive or going into overbearing. But for Ran, if someone in his group is injured badly enough or if there's a big enough threat he does get overbearing and extremely aggressive towards whatever/whoever the threat is *cough cough Ranbob cough*. Ranbob tends to be very physical, listening more to a certain instincts that tell him to constantly have a view on or hold his family, as if he doesnt see or touch them for a long time he gets very anxious and panicky, thinking his family is dead and that he's all alone again. His group understands this and so tends to not stray to far away from Ranbob. He will also follow his group like a lost puppy at times. Ran while listens more to the instinct that tells him at random times to make sure his family is ok and to bond with them. The bonding leads to him randomly grabbing them and just sitting down with them, most likely playing games. While the random urge to check on them has led to him waking them up during the middle of the night or interrupting his own conversation or others conversations just to ask if their ok. His took a while to understand why he does it, but now if he wakes them up or drags them somewhere, they know to go along with it and comfort him during those times. 

Hybrids are rare! Especially aggressive or netural type mobs like Ran, Ranbob, and Porkius are. Their actually seen as monsters and are chased out or hunted in other city's because people aren't accepting of them. Theres very few city's like Subbin that fully welcome and are even led by hybrids. So there are more hybrids in Subbin, than there is anywhere else. 

Sorry this is so long ':)

Asks are always welcome here, and don’t worry about taking a bit or anything. The questions aren’t going anywhere, there’s plenty of time. 

Here’s that for you,🌹anon.

--------------------

1: Wow, Ranbob’s really going through it, huh? Does he ever start to fall back on that need to be ‘perfect’ while with the others? If so, how do they deal with that? And how is he with others offering to help him? If he even can really recall falling under Dream’s thrall, by accepting such an offer, how does he react to others doing the same, even if their intentions are far different?

2: So we’ve settled all the ages down, nice. You figure out anything for their backstory yet? And how do their ages affect their relationships with one another? Does Benjamin take the lead a lot? Or is he more of a follower that still has a lot of say? Who met who first?

3: So Ran’s obviously going to be awhile before he believes what went down. Still, I can’t imagine he’d have been as willing to go along with his hauntings little roadtrip plan if he wasn’t swayed at least a bit, since I can’t imagine he wouldn’t have put his foot down if he truly though Ranbob had done what he did. Why exactly does he go along with it? Does some small part of him want to give his brother a chance? Is he just confident he can overpower him, and looking for an opportunity to settle the score? Does he see something that makes him hope a bit? What’s going down there, anon?

4: On one hand, very adorable. One the other hand, poor Watson. Does Jackie actually not know that stuff, or does he do that just to mess with his new father figure? It seems like they all take to it pretty well overall though.

5: I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Two people to truly fear. How many people straight up forfeit when faced with this combination? It seems like they’ve had some interesting times, good and bad. How’d those play out? As for those last two, I’m sensing a bit of a backstory. Why does Grievous not like stuff being put into his food? And why’s Jackie not good with being left?

6: So it’s fifty/fifty, huh? Who wins the most at what games? And uh, Watson has to be present for Dart Throwing. What happened there? How’s everyone’s poker faces? Who’s got the best luck in games of chance?

7: A love/hate relationship with height. I feel ya, Jackie. Very funny to imagine though, Jackie just, physically climbing up Ran. How tall even is this guy?? How do they deal with meaner teasing, not just from the gladiators, but from general bullies? Not everybody’s as friendly as some of the Pit fighters, after all. And how do the fishermen react with their fighting skills? Obviously, they must know how to fight somewhat, to have entered the Pit, but the gladiators do this for a living. How much is the difference in skill level? And does the gang ever get to show off just how skilled they are? 

8: Their home sounds very nice, honestly, I wished I could live there, minus the people. What’s everyone’s rooms look like? How have they personalized them? Which brings up another question-what kind of interests and hobbies do they have? What kind of things do they do that aren’t fighting and related to such? And they must be pretty well known, to have such high pay. Any of them have an arena title, or some sort of stage name? How many people can recognize the city’s top gladiators on sight? And how do they get around that, when they don’t want to be seen? How do people feel about them in general?

9: All these team ups sound terrifying, and I wouldn’t want to be facing them. How do they deal with it when they get a bad match up? Do they just stay out of each other’s way? Try to take their opponents out quick? Make it one on one? Ran and Jackie have to be my favorite team up, solely for the fact that you’ve said Ran straight up throws him. Like?? Imagine coming to the King’s Pit, a well known, popular place, hoping to prove yourself, and then getting taking out by a flying midget, just tossed at you by a ridiculously tall endermen hybrid. How would you feel?? 

10: Ranbob is just really going through the ringer here. How many times does he just drop stuff, or trip over his feet? Does he ever get better, or does he still retain a clumsy streak? If so, how does Ran react to that? It’s very good he and Cletus bond! Are they just as close as the others, or is there still a bit of distance? How often does Ranbob forget to eat or drink, or really just take a break? How long does it take to get him to start remembering to do that stuff again? 

Does he ever slip up while with the gladiators? Also, in a room? Do the fisherman expand their house more, or do they just leave them in the house? Does Ranbob ever get his own house up? If so, does he use it at all, or is it more for storage? And how many times did he fall asleep out there, get injured, or not realize it was about to rain? How long did it take before Benjamin or Charles put their foot down and make him stay in for a bit?

Has Ranbob ever even dealt with rain before, or a storm above water? If not, how’d he react to it? 

11: Oh, boy, Ran. Your concerns are understandable, but definitely going to lead to some angst. Is he just on edge the whole time? How many times does he just glare at them, or straight up steal one of his haunting back a few feet away from Ranbob’s? Are the fishermen ever worried he might hurt them?

12: How do both hybrids deal with their groups bonding? I imagine Ranbob’s pretty happy with it, but how about Ran? As you said, he doesn’t seem to be the biggest fan of these guys. 

13: Roadtrip! Gotta love a roadtrip! What kind of places do they head? Any transportation, or is it just walking, enjoying nature? Do they go on an adventure to look for something cool? What’re they getting up to?

14: So Ran and Ranbob both act on their instincts in different ways. How do they feel about seeing how the other acts? What happens if any of the fishermen stray too far, or get separated from Ranbob? Same question to Ran. Ran just...like...picks up members of his haunting? Do people just see him walk around with them dangling in his arms? He must be pretty strong. How often does he do this? How else do their instincts lead to them acting? Cuddle piles, picking up blocks, keeping their groups close together, ect?

15: So Subbin’s pretty much a safe space for hybrids? Interesting. But since the groups are heading out, does this mean they run into some trouble outside of the city? And is there ever trouble within it? 

Other questions: Does Karl play any further part in this, or has he already played his role for good? Does the gang ever end up back at Mizu? Do any of the group have a pet or something similar? With there be any sort of connection to other Tales, even if only slightly, or will they be solely focused on these two? Does Ranbob pick up his studies of Ranboo as best he can once he’s free, or does he leave it all behind entirely?

Thanks for the ask, this AU’s become quite interesting. I can’t wait to see where it goes!

[greenninjagal-blog]

Deja vu pt2

Wow, I did not expect this to get the following that it did. I’m so glad you guys are enjoying this! Here’s part 2  But if you missed part 1 you can find it [here]! 

Summary: Four years after Remus runs away, he makes a friend and gets to see even more death.

Words: 5293

Read on Ao3 || My general writing Masterlist

Remus spends his twenty first birthday at his favorite location: The Basilisk Casino. Its a nice place, the type of place that drains life forces with people along with their wallets. The golden walls shimmer like scales if you look too long at them, which is all the more reason to focus back on the dice, the slots, the chips and coins and cards. The coins all have snarling snakes on them and Remus just loves rolling his thumb over the crevices of the design while he watches his opponents sweat. He can’t count the number of times he’s been cursed out at the table, the number of times he’s been checked for bugs by the debugging crew, the number of times that he’s had several dealers and security watch him as he played at the tables, the number of times where he cashed in his coins and called himself “Lucky”. 

Luck, of course, has nothing to do with it.

But he usually walks out of the casino several thousand dollars richer and it’s nice. To have money, to have a room in the upstairs hotel that he paid for himself, to have clothes that he picked out, to wave his excess cash in the faces of every person who’s tried to figure out how he’s cheating.

(Because they all know he’s cheating. One doesn’t go a full night at the tables without losing once. It's actually impossible.)

((Unless, of course, you can see the future.))

Remus is twenty one and he’s never lost a game of cards.

The staff has mixed feelings about him and Remus knows this, because they hate cheaters when it reflects badly back on them-- and boy did a lot of them get yelled at those first three weeks before Remus had asked his poor dealer to invite her boss to the table to play-- but the number of cheaters that Remus outed purely for the fun of seeing their eyes go wide has landed him in the good graces of a few.

Which is weird, being in the good graces of people. And so is knowing that if he finds that one cute dealer with the scar on his knuckles, they’d go up to Remus’s room and they’d spend the night with two bottles of Baileys and no clothes.

“Hit” Remus sings as he knocks on the table behind his cards. His dealer, a girl who’s been working for a while and knows his tendency to give her instructions before she’s finished dealing to everyone at the table, nods to show she’s seen him. The players to his left and his right both glare at him.

Remus smiles, because he already knows what cards they’ve got and what they were going to bet now that he’s announced himself: the old guy with the silver watch was going to stand, the loser with the mullet was going to hit as well, and the woman who’s tag was sticking out was going to hit then split. 

Only that old guy was going to walk away with any money earned, four rounds later, after the lady loses everything she made in a risky gamble and the slots catch Mullet head attention.

Remus stays because he likes Blackjack, likes the easy memorization, likes the repetition and the exchange of chips, and he flips one of his Barneys in the air as he waits for the table to refill. 

“That’s certainly impressive,” A voice says sounding like silk even over the chattering of the slot machines to their backs. 

“This? Its nothing!” Remus flips the coin again, letting the stranger catch it in the air. “I’m more impressive in the bedroom.”

The man hums, twisting his wrist to look at the coin he caught. “Do you often let people steal 500 American dollars from you?” The man asks so very teasingly as he rolls the coin between his own gloved hands. 

“You’re going to give it back,” Remus says with a grin, “One way or another!”

The man has a nice smile-- a smile far nicer than the one the dealer with the scar on his knuckles has-- and its prettier in the present time than looking at it in the future. His teeth are all aligned and straight and his molars grind together just enough to look like a threat. He was dressed better than most of the people out tonight: no fancy tourist with rented suits that barely fit, and he had an actual handkerchief. 

Remus wonders if he pulled it out would it be tied to another and another and another like every other clown he’s met? 

--No. The man just laughs at him and and twirls the Barney between his hands.He does not ask for it back.--

“You’re awfully confident about getting your money back when this is a game between the house and I,” the man says. He’s got green eyes, and black hair that’s gelled right back out of his face. The way he leans against the table makes him so easy to push--

--The man hits the ground spilling his rack of chips and the nearby tables pounce on them like panthers. Its honestly funny to watch and Remus laughs the entire time as the police are called.--

“I’m confident about a lot of things,” Remus wiggles an eyebrow at him. “How confident are you?”

Instead of answering the man places the purple coin in the betting square on the table. Remus tosses a pumpkin just to top him. 

“I heard a rumor that there’s a man here who’s never lost a game before,” The man with the green eyes says and even though there are four other people at the table (betting far lower than them of course; the table minimum is twenty five), Remus feels almost as if its just the two of them in the world. “Can I assume that man is you?”

“You know what they say about assuming,” Remus laughs as the dealer begins her deal, “It makes an ass out of me and you!” 

There’s a four of spades in front of him, and an ace of clubs in front of the stranger. The dealer has a five of diamonds. 

--He hits and receives a King of diamonds that puts him at fourteen. The stranger also hits, and receives a matching King of diamonds. He stands and the dealer reveals her second card: a jack of clubs. Fifteen to Fourteen to the house.--

--He hits and receives a King of diamonds that puts him at fourteen. The stranger also hits, and receives a matching King of diamonds. He hits a second time and receives a three of clubs. The dealer reveals here second card: a jack of clubs. Seventeen to fourteen to Remus--

The stranger is watching him, Remus notes with a feral grin as he taps the table behind his cards for their lovely dealer. The stranger who was betting using Remus’s money, scans the table and then taps as well.

The dealer gives Remus and Dee their matching Kings of diamonds.

“What are the chances,” The stranger muses. “Perhaps I should bet with your money more often.”

Remus taps the edge of the table behind his cards again. 

“Don’t worry about that!” Remus waves him off, “You’re going to lose it in Poker in an hour.”

“Are you challenging me to a game?” the man says, half turning from the table to wave down a drink waitress. “Why would I ever want to play a game of cards with a man who doesn’t lose?”

“Beats me!” Remus admits, “but we end up over there anyway!”

The stranger laughs. It sounds like a melody to Remus’s ears, something soft and warm and Remus thinks he should hate it. Whats the point of soft and warm things when there are chips and cash and not-completely-terrible-whiskeys? Soft and warm things are illusions anyway: no mother’s love is unconditional, and no late night blanket forts in his brothers room last forever.

Isn’t it great? That whole “growing up” thing?

He’s thought about making a call with the payphone but Roman’s old number is someone else's now and Mom answers the landline with a different last name.

Remus is twenty one. Roman should be too. If he managed to stay alive this long without Remus being his godforsaken guardian angel.  

The waitress returns with the drink and its a screwdriver that smells like oranges even from where Remus is standing. The stranger gathers up his chips won in the game, and slots them back into his rack.

“Well?” He says, “I would like to see this cheating trick of yours.”

Remus laughs at him taking his own tray. “No one knows my trick.” 

“Oh?” The man sips his drink, “No one knows? Do I get a prize if I figure it out?”

Remus’s shoulder brushes with the man as they walk towards the poker tables. Its quieter here, away from the slot machines, and the tables are thick with intense glares at cards. The craps tables are going strong and someone must have just won big because everyone is clapping and someone is screaming. The roulettes are hardly any better, although Remus nearly cleared out a whole dealer last week with his multitude of correct guesses that got him physically dragged from the table because its literally a 1 in 36 chance every single game and theres no way anyone should be able to win three times in a row, much less fifteen. 

“I’ll tell you what,” Remus says as they join a table for poker that was just clearing up. “If you can figure out my trick, I’ll do one thing for you.”

“For me?” The man echoes, “Interesting. Anything I want?”

“I will fuck you on this table if you tell me to,” Remus says, making the woman next to them choke on her pina colada.  

“Charming,” The man hums, “But I believe I have a much better thought in mind.” 

He’s taking it surprisingly seriously and Remus knows he should probably be concerned, but the truth of the matter was, he wasn’t. After all, he spent nine years physically telling the people closest to him that he could see the future, and they didn’t believe him. A strange man who was going to lose the first three hands is never going to believe in a magic like that.

The irony of it all. Remus wonders what he did that pissed off the big G up there so badly that they cursed Remus to never be believed. Maybe he should have just changed his name to Cassandra and started wearing tunics around the casino (because hell yeah those things would have been much more breathable than these slacks and button up he was currently wearing). Plus a tunic would totally show off his calf muscles. 

--He gets to play three more games of roulette before he’s forced out by security who ask him very nicely to put on pants before coming back and Remus just thinks its funny how he got in to play in the first place. Turning the poor door boy bright red and stammering--

There’s something fascinating about the way the strangers lips look around the straw, the way his eyes settle on the cards of the table the way his gloves fingers weave over his chips with the certainty of someone who knows what they are doing. Remus thinks that he might have played a game with this man before, once or twice, (because he comes here often enough, doesn’t he?) but his memory hasn’t been great since he was seventeen and thought about crushing his brother’s windpipe.

Remus is twenty one and this stranger looks like danger no matter which way Remus squints at him. But is that such a bad thing?

“Are you going to look at your cards?” The man asks without looking at him.

“No,” Remus says, because he already has in the future and he’s got a seven and an eight both of diamonds. (The strangers fingers hover over his own cards-- a five of clubs and a jack of spades-- and his green eyes darting to glance at Remus in suspicion.) The other players at the table shift nervously and Remus thinks that even the old lady at the end is going to pitch a fit about Poker etiquette but she holds her tongue. 

He sees ahead to the rest of the hand, something he glanced at earlier. By the time the dealer draws the turn card, Remus not looking at his cards makes the the business man to their left  over confident about his chances about his straight. The couple on his right have both individually decided to back out, and the old lady is holding nothing but a two pair. She folds when she realizes that neither Remus nor the very attractive stranger to his left are going to fall for it. 

The stranger folds, the businessman checks, and Remus wins the round with a straight flush without having picked up his cards before revealing them.

“You’re cheating!” The business man yells and Remus grins at him as he takes the two blacks and the quarter that the man bet with.

“Not in any way that you can prove, big boy.”

He’s twenty one and he wins the next three hands before the table clears out of all but him and the stranger who followed him there. Security is called twice to deal with another debugging ritual at the old lady’s insistence and the the dealer is screeched at by several parties. Remus thinks the old guy handles it with grace and elegance: threatening to have security called over if the players don’t sit down right then and there.

“How much do you make in a night?” The stranger asks, as the dealer changes from the older gentleman to a young girl.

“Are you planning something?” Remus asks, inhaling the scent of oranges that waft off this stranger, “Gonna get me drunk and in bed and then steal my money? Slit my throat for good fun?”

“I don’t think I’d have to get you drunk for that,” His eyes slide past Remus for a moment to something across the room. 

“Oh, so true,” Remus agrees, “Everyone loves a good bit of knife play!” The dealer begins to shuffle the cards to nicely. 

“Besides,” Those green eyes come right back to Remus, startlingly close and perceptive in a way that makes shivers run down Remus’s back. “Shouldn’t you already know the answer to that?”

Remus is twenty one, spending his birthday in a Casino as far away from where he grew up as he can be. And despite not having talked to his family in four years, he can still hear Roman’s voice in his head, chanting a mantra of “I don’t need you”, “I don’t need you”, “I don’t want you”. 

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, pretty boy,” Remus says picking up his cards to look at them, to feel them, to remind himself he’s here in this casino and not back in the room with his hands on Roman’s fluttering little pulse.

The stranger rolls a Barney from his tray, Remus’s Barney, and places it on the betting pool. “Interesting.”

Remus wonders what that means, but there’s no answering vision. Any time he pushes the stranger laughs it off until the dealer motions for them to play or leave the game. 

Remus is twenty one and the way that this stranger said “interesting” is the way a scientist says it before they start dissecting a frog. Clinical, cold, like a knife straight to Remus’s throat. His green eyes are dangerous pins holding Remus in place at this table, but he can’t find it in him to wish he was anywhere else.

The stranger picks up his new cards and pretends to look at them. Remus isn’t sure what that means, isn’t sure why this stranger suddenly seems so much different, isn’t sure what could possibly be more interesting than the card game they're playing.

Until he is.

Of course because--

-- He places another three blacks in the betting pool in front of him and he turns just in time to see the stranger lunging towards the crowd that was passing behind them; towards the armed security guard that was wheeling the fucking cash box of the casino towards the elevator to the vault across the floor fuck. Several guns go off and and there’s a couple hundred screams that break Remus’s eardrums in the moment, but all he’s aware of is the body at his feet, the body of the stranger with pretty green eyes, with welts of red bursting out the back of that nice tailored suit that was suddenly shredded and that face smashed into the floor, but there’s no mistaking the way his skin on the left half of his face wasn’t--

There’s something in the back of his throat that tears him up inside, like he’s regurgitating a bunch of swords he forgot he had swallowed. Every hair on his body stands on end, curling with an electric current that didn’t actually exist but one that Remus couldn’t get out of his veins even is he started carving with a knife--

He forgot-- how did he forget? He hated the color red so damn much; how could he have forgotten that?

He grabs the stranger beside him with an iron grip and pressed him to the table as that cash box rolled by, as that future twists away, as that sight fades from his vision from something plausible to a nothingness in the back of his mind. 

“Sir?! Sir!” 

The stranger gasps for air, looking caught between surprised and not, with those fake green eyes and that stolen black hair, and that completely unmarred face and makes Remus’s skin crawl. Remus wonders if this stranger--this stupid idiot of a stranger-- knows his body reverts to normal once he’s dead and gone and passed.

The rest of the table is in chaos, and Remus isn’t sure if its because both his and this stranger’s chips just got tossed across the table with the viciousness of a life or death (or death or death or death) situation, or because the Dealer dropped her deck, or because Remus just grabbed a man and that wasn’t poker etiquette or something else entirely.

He doesn’t care.

He lets go of the stranger (the living, breathing alive stranger), and he shoves through the buzzed, singing pair behind him, knocking them both to the ground. His hands-- oh fuck his hands sting and shake with some emotion that Remus can’t remember the name of.

“Sir! Your chips!”

Remus rips at the collar of his shirt, tearing off an entire button as he struggles to get enough oxygen in his lungs. The golden walls shimmer and shine and distract, but Remus throws himself through the crowd to the exit.

Remus is twenty one the first time he meets someone else like him.

Well not entirely like him, because this stranger who stumbled upon him by chance doesn’t see the blood, or the deaths, or the future. He doesn’t know all the consequences, doesn’t know the feeling of seeing living, breathing people just stop, doesn’t know what it smells like to mix blood and a half finished screwdriver on the floor of a casino for a box of cash that he had no chance of leaving the building with in the first place.

The night air hits him like an eighteen wheeler (which Remus knows what that feels like, he does, because he thought about it once out of curiosity four years ago when he couldn’t quite believe that he had wasted seventeen years of his life on someone who would never been willing to do the same). Its bitter cold and harsh and it tears his skin almost right off his bones.

He stumbles and nearly falls, does fall, is caught.

Caught by the back of his shirt and hoisted back up, with a second hand stabilizing him by his chest. Remus starts to laugh because he didn’t see this coming. Of course he didn’t see this coming.

Its almost like that day when he didn’t see that argument with Roman coming, except back then he was looking ahead and that wasn’t an option, and now he just hadn't been looking long enough, hard enough, close enough.

Remus feels something against his back, solid, cold, oh its a wall. The stranger who followed him from Blackjack to poker, who bet with Remus's money, who just caused Remus to lose his first game of cards ever-- that stranger with green eyes that aren't real is right in front of him pressing him to the wall and holding him steady.

Remus laughs harder like he can dislodge the cancerous lump in his throat by the force of his will alone. 

"Did I die?" The stranger asks as Remus wheezes for air.

And isn't that just hilarious?

"Everyone...dies!" Remus convulses under the man's touch, "Everyone dies... someday, Scales!"

The stranger isn’t like him, because instead of seeing things and wondering if they’re all in his head, he fucking changes his appearance.

Remus hiccups painfully-- a gasping air that shreds his diaphragm as he laughs with tears on his face. He forgot again: how he hates the sight of red, how he needs to breath if he wants to keep living, how he's too old to be crying over every single, little, itty, bitty death he sees.

"You can see the future," the man says like a statement while Remus drags his nails over his own face and through his hair to get rid of his worthless tears.

"Its funny!" Remus grins with all his teeth. "It's always funny! Did you know you revert back to your natural half snake self when you die?"

The stranger flinches, just like everyone does when Remus opens his mouth and talks about death, just like someone who’s afraid of dying, just like Roman.

“You,” Remus says gaining enough sense of his own to shove the stranger off of him and back, “You are…batshit fucking insane!” He laughs, because what else is there to do? Scream? Cry?

(He’s screamed and cried before. It doesn’t work, because they never believed him and then they go and get hurt and tell Remus to shut up, shut up, I don’t need you--!)

“How far in the future can you see?” The stranger asks.

“Take me to dinner first,” Remus twists a hand through his hair, then drags it down his face, smushing his nose and flattening his mustache and then dropping it into the empty air.

The stranger catches his hand, and the silk touch of the gloves freezes Remus’s where he stands, against the wall of a casino in a dark alley where the shimmering light doesn’t touch and the sound is strangely diluted.

“Answer me,” the stranger demands.

Remus laughs, “Or what? You’ll turn your hands into claws and rip my throat out? Maybe roll your body into a giant python and choke the life out of me without leaving a fingerprint? Can you secrete poisons too? Spit them right into my eyes--”

His other gloved hand goes right over Remus’s mouth, squeezing the hallows of his cheeks until its just borderline painful. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Remus already knows the answer before this stranger asks, already knows that despite the burning closeness between them, despite the cool indifference he’s been portraying, despite the millions of ways that he could kill Remus, he’s not going to, not in any way that matters.

He’s a good guy like that.

Kinda.

“You must think I’m insane,” Remus gurgles, shoulders shaking from laughing, with the future in his eyes and no air in his lungs.

“Are you?”

“Not that insane. Not yet!” He pushes off the wall and leans forward into his companions personal space until their faces aren’t more than a few inches apart. “Can’t you tell? I’m the pinnacle of stability, Slitherous Snape!”

“Stability is a lie made up by society to sell more products.” The man waves him off, easily without putting so much as an inch between them. “You are a seer. And I’m in desperate want of someone who can see the future.”

“Because you want to rob the casino we just left,” Remus says.

It sounds different coming from his own lips rather than the man before him. It sounds different hanging in the space between them. It sounds different being a real thing.

“Because I want to screw over the owner of that casino for some unsavory acts he performed against someone who was dear to me,” The man corrects.

“An altruist!” Remus does a shimmy with his upper body. “All that money is just a bonus then, right?”

“Oh yes absolutely! And How…” The man hesitates and clears his throat innocently, “How much money…did you say?”

Remus laughs at him, again. The hysteria is fading leaving another pesky emotion that Remus doesn’t know if he likes or not. Its dangerous, he knows that. Dangerous because even while he stands here, talking to this shapeshifter who is every bit a lie as a person can be, he feels his heels beginning to dig into this idea.

This stupid awful terrible idea. This What if---

---oh…. Oh no.---

“How many times do we die?” The man asks, breathlessly excited. “How many times do we get away?”

Remus is twenty one and he knows that stealing is morally wrong.

But.

But there’s a man in front of him who likes money far too much and a casino behind him that’s filled to the brim with cash waiting and six hundred fifty million futures where they both die painful, violent, expected deaths.

And for once Remus can’t even focus on that part of this frankly awful idea. He’s too busy focusing on the way that in every single future-- all of them-- there’s not even a little--

Remus watches them again and again, as many times as he can until he almost forgets that they haven’t even happened.

And oh. 

The stranger is looking at him and there’s something in those green eyes that he can’t hide even if he wanted to.

“There’s a dealer,” Remus says, because he needs to see it happen for real. “Two inches taller, blue eyes, scar on his knuckles. Turn into him.”

The stranger blinks and his eyes are blue, his skin ripples like a puddle when a child jumps in it, and suddenly Remus is staring at someone completely different and yet entirely the same. The man before him is the dealer from the casino, but when he smiles so softly all Remus can see is that stranger who didn’t hesitate at all.

And oh. 

Remus knows he’s in trouble, because he can feel electricity in his veins, that burns all of his nerves and hijacks his brain. Because this is what its like for someone to trust his power, for someone to have complete and utter faith in him.

This is what someone believing him when he said he could see the future is like.

“You’re bleeding,” The man says tentatively.

“Happens,” Remus says cupping his hand under his nose to catch the red splatters before they hit the ground. In the shadows he can’t see just how scarlet they are and he thinks that’s a relief. “You really….you really didn’t hesitate.”

“Should I have?” The man cocks his head to the side, half a grin on his face, as if he doesn’t quite get the joke Remus is telling. (There’s no joke, and that fact alone makes Remus’s stomach flip.)

The question is a loaded gun anyway and Remus doesn’t feel like pulling the trigger on himself today at least.

Remus is twenty one and he helps rob his first casino.

Which seems insane, because Remus is a lot of things, but he wasn’t really a lawbreaker until that moment he talked the man who could shapeshift into anyone straight through the four levels of security and the cameras and figured out the codes that he needed to get in to the vault and the path he needed to take out, which led him all the way up the stairs to Remus’s hotel room.

There’s enough money on the floor to fix the world hunger. The man, his partner in crime, the shapeshifter sits in the middle of it like a dragon watching his hoard, scribbling mathematics on the hotel provided pad of paper so that he can count it all. His shapeshift is off, allowing Remus a look at his green scales and yellow eye without all the blood.

He’s grinning like the cat that caught that little canary. Remus thinks its a good look on him.

Remus holds one of his poker chips in his hand, a Barney that wandered off from the casino floor and found its way to Remus’s hotel room.

“So,” He says, because silence has never been his type of thing, “What now? We split ways?”

The man makes another mark on his pad of paper shuffling through the green papers. “I’m afraid not. You still owe me.”

“What?” Remus turns to face him, and if there’s a spark in his chest, a nudge of excitement, well who can blame him? Its not like hes spent his whole life waiting for people to leave him.

Another dash on the paper. “We made a deal, unless you’ve forgotten. You said that if I could figure out how you were cheating, you’d do one thing that I want you to do.”

Remus snorted and waved to the money around them, “What do you call this?”

“This?” The man gave him a shark-like smile, “You did this of your own violation!” He held up a wad of cash, a smug superior smile on his face, that makes his fangs glisten.

“I seem to recall you asking,” Remus challenges.

“Not in this timeline, Love Muffin,” The man throws the cash at him. “You still have blood on your face by the way.”

Remus lets the cash fall to the floor because money is nice, but there’s something much nicer about the way that this man is looking at him, the way he’s still looking at him, like Remus is something more than a nuisance, more than a distraction, more than an unwanted, frustrating intrusion. 

“What do you want?” Remus says, because he hasn’t looked ahead this far yet and the uncharacteristic fear in his chest is slowly turning all his organs to butterflies. 

He knows what he wants this man to say, knows what he wants to hear come out of this man's mouth and he thinks that if he looks in the future and its not what happens, Remus will surely explode right there in his (their) room. 

“Hm?” The man says tapping his hotel offered pencil to his chin. “Well, you did say anything I wanted right? Anything at all?”

Remus nods, rolling his finger over the snake design on his stolen poker chip.

“Well then, the one thing I want…” He hesitates, “...is for us to stick together. I think we make quite the team, don’t you? My name is Dee.”

“Remus,” He chokes, because suddenly there doesn’t seem to be enough air in the world, and he’s afraid if he inhales too deeply trying to get more, the whole reality will shatter.

Dee makes another mark on the paper. “Well Remus,” He says, “Any other places you’d like to rob with me?”

Remus is twenty one and he thinks that this is the best birthday he’s ever had.

(Part Three)

[tetsuroyaoyaoya]

A Crow Without Wings

tsukishima kei x reader - part five

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For the first time this entire weekend, you thought the team was actually playing pretty well. With the tight schedule the coaches had created for the matches, you hadn’t really had much time to help them practice, but you had given them as much advice as you could and left the rest to them.

“Bring it!” Hinata scored yet again, bringing their score into double digits. From what Kiyoko had filled you in on last night, Ubugawa was a solid team, and they were pretty strong, just like the rest of the teams at the camp, so it was nice to see that the boys were able to hold their own against them.

Their performance in this match had been impressively consistent, and you were pleasantly surprised by how well they managed to keep themselves together, even if there was an ever-increasing list of things they needed to work on. Their defence was extremely lacking, their range of attacks needed some more variety, the first years’ receives were absolutely atrocious, and their overall teamwork and communication was practically non-existent.

You had a lot of hope for them, though. They could – and would – get better, they just needed a little bit of help and encouragement.

A time out was called, and the team gathered in to stand around the coach and you.

“All right! Our opponents still aren’t able to counter your deviant fast attack, so keep on using it!”

“Right!” Hinata seemed a lot less enthusiastic than he usually was this far into a game, and you pursed your lips. He had been excited about the camp, yet he didn’t really seem to be enjoying it all too much.

“Make sure not to rely on it too much, though. If the other teams get used to it, then you can’t use it as an out when you end up in a tight spot.” Ukai nodded in agreement with you, as did the two players as they were handed their water bottles by Kiyoko.

During their quick break, your gaze drifted around the gym, observing the other teams in attendance. Your eyes settled on Fukurodani’s match against Nekoma. Hinata had told you about the tall first year who was apparently a new addition to the team. He stood out immediately among the other players, especially near their shorter setter. He called for a toss and you followed his movements as he ran off to the side, presumably going for a broader attack.

Even Bokuto wasn’t fast enough for him, although, even if he tried, you doubted he would have been able to block it fully. The boy’s reach was high just standing, and even higher when he jumped. His spike seemed decent as well. Clearly, whether he had intended it or not, he was using his arm as more of a whip than what most spikers used. It was clever, you admit; it made it harder to distinguish where the player was directing the ball, but it had its drawbacks, as it made it more difficult to control the ball when using more powerful hits.

He ball landed neatly in the back corner of the court with a fair amount of speed and you couldn’t lie, you were slightly impressed. It seemed like all of the first years this year were all special in some way, even on other teams. But then again, you had been the same.

“Sorry for being rude. I overstepped my boundaries.” You chucked at the apology. In a way, this spiker reminded you of Hinata; over-excitable and uncontrollable.

“And I keep telling you not to worry about it. I’m more disturbed that you suddenly asked for a broad jump set up.”

“So that thing just now is called a broad jump?” Definitely just like Hinata. Despite not having seen him play very much, you could tell that he lacked technique. Like your own middle blocker, he must have an amazing spike but no basic skills or experience.

“That broad jump was spur of the moment?” Looking at your brother through your peripheral, you hummed.

“Some people don’t need to meticulously plan every attack. Instincts are there for a reason.” You turned fully, ushering them to get ready to get back in the game.

“He’s got a good hit. He has potential.”

“Potential? Rei, he’s amazing!” Poking the smaller boy, you scowled at him.

“You can’t be amazing if you don’t have basic skills. This is why I tell you to practice everything, not just your spikes.” You flicked him on the forehead, and he whined, confused as to how this had turned into a lecture.

Yeah, they really needed work.

~~~

“Our first game today is with Nekoma. How did we do yesterday?” Kiyoko flicked through her notes, looking through the team’s results from previous games.

“This will be our third set overall with Nekoma. Yesterday we had two sets against them and lost both; 17-25 and 19-25.” You winced slightly. They weren’t good scores compared to what you knew they could do.

“If we calm down, we should be able to give them a good challenge.” There was no doubt of that, especially seen as Hinata and your brother were in play now. Said boys were given a quick few words of encouragement from the coach before the whistle blew and the game began. You caught Hinata’s gaze before the first serve went up and bit your lip worriedly. His eyes were blazing, and it made you uneasy.

“This doesn’t look good.” You mumbled to the coach as you all sat next to the court.

“What do you mean?” Sighing, you kept your eyes on the number ten. He had been oddly quiet the entire morning, and you couldn’t figure out what he had running through his head.

“I’m worried about Hinata.” Ukai frowned, not having noticed anything particularly out of the ordinary, but he was concerned about your words none the less.

The first point of the game went to Karasuno pretty quickly, the deviant quick working its magic as it usually did. However, even if he was still just out of reach, that tall first year Nekoma had was definitely catching up to it, and fast. Just a bit further, and he’d get a hand on it.

And he did.

Because the next time Hinata went in for the spike, although he had jumped to the side abruptly to specifically avoid being blocked, he was still stopped. Noya dove to save the ball, but it was too late, and the point went to Nekoma. Hinata was shocked, of course, as were the rest of the team. The blockers had caught up to the attack within two points. That had to hit Hinata’s state of mind pretty hard.

“Well, Nekoma’s always been pretty good at reacting to that quick attack.” A well of anxiety had rooted itself in the pit of your stomach, and the look that Hinata had on his face wasn’t exactly helping. You wondered what exactly was going on in that head of his.

From there on it, the match quickly changed pace, with Hinata’s decoys not working and Nekoma scoring more points.

“He’s read-blocking.” The tall boy was no longer following Hinata, but the ball, and his fast reactions were useful in blocking all of Karasuno’s attack.

“Are you sure?” Running a hand over your face, you noticed Tobio getting frustrated now.

“The thing is, I don’t even think he knows what read-blocking is. I think the setter is telling him how to move and he’s doing it decently. His height helps.” The coach agreed, calling a time out.

“Now, calm down. They started off on guard about the fast attacks. For the time being, let’s have Azumane and Tanaka focus on attacking from the left.” You noticed Sugawara watching Hinata carefully as well, so at least you weren’t the only one who had noticed his behaviour. Everyone knew that Hinata wanted to hit every spike that he could, and score as much as possible. If there really was something wrong like you thought there was, this could potentially end very badly.

The game resumed and Nekoma came off with a strong attack, which was luckily received by Tobio. With him now unable to set, Daichi jumped forward, sending the ball over to the left for Asahi to hit.

“Sorry, it’s a bit short!” The ace jumped for it, but you heard someone gasp. It wasn’t hard to see why.

Hinata had jumped for the ball as well.

You knew this scenario. It was so familiar. It was a funny thing; greed. Sometimes it was justified, but it was an emotion that was quick to consume a person. It was always prevalent in their eyes, unable to be concealed. It look so similar to determination that it often wasn’t clear until the very last second; until it was too late.

The two players collided, and you let out a yell.

The notebook you were using to take notes fell to the floor as you rushed forward, everyone else on the court frozen in shock.

“Hinata!” Crouching down beside him, you looked him over and made sure that he wasn’t injured. Your heart was stuck in your throat and you couldn’t stop your hands from trembling. He was soon back on his feet, though, apologising profusely.

“I was focused on the ball! I’m sorry!” You let out a breath of relief, holding your head in your hands. The panic was overwhelming you. Walking off of the court, you passed the bench and made your way to the doors, no one trying to stop you as you left the gym.

“Make sure to look around you, punk! Why do you think we call things out, you blockhead?”

“Moron! Hinata, you moron!”

Their shouts echoed through the room, and you could still hear them as you stepped out into the cool air. That was close. One wrong and Hinata could have injured, just like you had been. The situation had been too similar. It was almost exactly the same. It was just lucky that Hinata was smaller than you, and so was knocked back farther.

Your back hit the wall of the gym just next to the door and allowed yourself to slide down it, coming down to sit on the concrete. Letting your mind wander, you kept you focus on rhythm of the balls hitting the court floor to keep grounded.

Soon enough, you heard footsteps approach, coming to a stop as they reached the threshold between the inside and out. Closing your eyes, you tipped your head backwards, letting it rest on the wall behind you.

“Go back inside. I’m fine.”

“Are you?” That didn’t sound like anyone from Karasuno.

Opening your eyes slowly, you looked up to see the captain of the Nekoma team towering over you, staring down at you with a smile on his face.

“Kuroo?”

“I saw you rush out, but it’s been a while since.” He walked around you, coming to stand at your other side, and sliding down the wall just as you had done earlier to join you on the floor.

“So, I guess the match is over then?” He nodded, his gaze straying away from you as he turned his head to look out at the grass hill in front of the both you.

“Are you really fine?” Letting the silence settle in between you for a second as you though it over, you frowned as you found that you couldn’t give him an exact answer.

“I don’t know.” He hummed.

“Kuroo?” Turning his head towards you, he watched as you pulled your legs up to your chest, wrapping your arm around them and resting your chin on your knees.

“Have you ever hit a wall?”

“Like, with my hand? Because, yeah. Too many times.” Giggling, you nudged his shoulder with your own, causing him to laugh with you.

“Mentally? Not really. But I know Kenma struggles a lot.”

“Kenma?”

“Our setter.” Ah, Hinata’s friend.

“How does he cope?” He thought it over for a moment.

“Video games, mostly. It helps train his mind so he can think quicker, he says. But I don’t really think there’s a set way to get over it. I think you need to figure that out for yourself.” Knowing he was right, you sighed, not even knowing where to begin looking for something that could help you overcome this problem.

“I’m sure the nation’s ace can figure something out.” Smiling sadly at the old nickname, you took your chin off of your knees and looked up at the sky, watching the clouds.

“I’m not an ace anymore, Kuroo.” You had barely even been an ace in the first place.

“But it took you years to get to that point. Surely you learnt some things along the way. If anyone can whip that team into shape, it’s you.” Hinata being so close to getting injured had spooked you, and the possibility of watching something like that happening again mad your skin prickle. But maybe – just maybe – if you taught them a few things and helped them improve their teamwork, you might be able to prevent it happening. It might take them a while, but it might just work.

“I think I’m going to be okay.” Smiling at Kuroo, he smiled back. All of a sudden, he jumped up from where you were both sat and held a hand out to you to help you up from the ground. You took it, and he pulled you up, your legs tingling from being sat for so long. Brushing yourself down to make sure that you weren’t covered in dirt, you gestured for Kuroo to walk inside with you.

This wasn’t going to set you back; not after all of the progress you had made.

~~~

When you returned, Karasuno had just started their match against Fukurodani. Bokuto was quick to score, already putting them in the lead. As you approached the bench to sit next to the coach, you noticed that the excitable tangerine wasn’t on the court.

“Huh? Hinata’s not playing?” Ukai sighed, and you took that as a bad sign, looking over at him curiously.

“There was a… disagreement after you left.” Furrowing your eyebrows, you frowned. You knew Hinata bickered with people a lot, but an actual argument?

“He told Kageyama that he wants to open his eyes during the quick now.” Ah, yes. That would be something Tobio would lose his head over. To him, it was a sign that Hinata didn’t trust him anymore, and he was obviously scared to throw a toss for there to be no one ready to spike it, just like in middle school.

“Is it right? To bench him?” He was asking because you were the one that knew Tobio better than anyone, but even if you did, he was still entirely unpredictable, especially when it came to volleyball.

“I don’t think there is a right thing to do in this situation like this.” He pursed his lips, eyes trained on your brother as he set up a ball.

“They both definitely need time to think, but I suggest you keep a close eye on them. They clash for a reason.” Taking your words into consideration, he gave you a small smile and handed you back the notebook you had dropped earlier.

“I’m glad to see you’re alright.” You gave him a nod and turned your attention back to the game.

You were too.

~~~

Soon enough, the day was over, and the camp had ended. Bokuto was currently refusing to let you go, even though you’d be seeing each other again in two weeks for the summer training camp.

“Bokuto-san, please let her go now.” You really did feel sorry for Akaashi, having to deal with him pretty much 24/7.

“Now, now, Bo.” The spiker’s grip loosened slightly at the voice, and you took the chance to wriggle out of his grasp.

“But Kuroo! I’m going to miss her!” You rolled your eyes, a playful smile on your lips. Kuroo turned his attention towards you, a smirk evident on his face, as usual.

“Don’t forget to stay in touch, babygirl.” Resisting the urge to gag at him, you grinned.

“Kuroo, do me a favour, will you?”

“Anything for you, sweets.”

“Try that on someone it will actually work on.” Even Akaashi let out a snicker as the captain deadpanned at you.

“Worth a try. You will text though?” Showing him your phone, you typed in a smiley face and pressed send. His phone chime and the simple text brought a smile to his lips.

“See you in two weeks, boys!”

Luckily, you were travelling back home with the team, and not by train. As soon as you stepped onto the bus, you noticed that Hinata and Tobio were sitting away from each other, nothing but empty seats in between them. Taking the one next to your brother you made sure you could still see the boys outside and waved to them through the window as the bus pulled away from the school.

It was quiet for a while, most of them being exhausted from the intensity of the past two days.

“Give him a chance.” The boy glanced at you out of the corner of his eye, immediately returning his attention back out of the window.

“You don’t know that it doesn’t work until you try it.”

“It won’t work.”

“Then practice.” He huffed, clearly not willing to listen to you, and you frowned.

You would convince him.

Somehow.

~~~

Yawning, you stumbled off the bus, almost tripping into Tsukishima as you did so.

“Watch it, dumbass.”

“Shut it, beanpole.” You matched his sneer with one of your own, but he merely rolled his eyes and turned away, going back to his conversation with Yamaguchi.

Following your brother, you found yourself at the clubroom as he collected whatever he needed. With a tired smile, you noticed Hinata stood in the doorway, but he didn’t look like the happy-go-lucky Shouyou that you were used to.

“Kageyama,” At the call of his name, your brother turned to look at him just as the two of you were leaving.

“Give me a toss.” You whined in protest, but still ended up and the gym with them both as they set up the equipment.

“I know I said to give it a chance, but I didn’t mean right now!” They both ignored you and carried on, leaving you grumbling to yourself as you set down your things next to the bench.

They had entrusted you to arch the balls over Tobio’s head so that he could toss to Hinata.

“Okay!” Hinata ran up to the net and jumped, but the toss ended up being too high. Since the smaller boy was actually using his brain now rather than acting on pure instinct alone, he was focusing less power into his legs, meaning his jumps weren’t as high.

“Just a little higher, Shouyou. Don’t forget about the power you use to jump, not just to spike.” He nodded at you and they started again.

They tried another, but it was still too high.

“Lower, Tobio.” He shot you a hard look and you gave him one back ,refusing to let him let his attitude get the better of him.

And so, they tried another.

And another.

And another.

But Hinata couldn’t spike a single one.

“You’re not working togeth-“

“One more time!” You raised your eyebrow as the little ginger interrupted you. He was breathing heavily, having been at this for quite some time.

“Instead of repeating this attack that we may not even be able to do, the attacks we already have; serving, blocking. You have plenty of other things to practice already!” You don’t think you had ever seen your brother shout at his spiker like that. It had always been playful, no matter what it was about.

“But… if this doesn’t work out… I have no reason to be standing on the court!”

“Shouyou…” you dropped the ball in your hands in shock. He was always so confident, you never expected him to be so unsure of himself.

“I’ll put up a toss that won’t get caught by blockers!” It was easy to understand where he was coming from, but you knew that wasn’t how the game worked, and if he carried on with a mindset like that, they were going to lose.

“But it means that I won’t be getting any better!” Right now, Hinata was perfectly right, you just wished that your brother would see that.

“What’s better? A perfected fast attack, or a completely useless fast attack?” You bit your lip as the taller of the two grabbed the shorter by the shirt.

“Tobio, calm down already!”

“I want a strength that lets me fight on my own!” Oh, that was bound to do it. Tobio was only going to take those words at face value, and not think about what they actually meant.

“And your selfishness is going to break the team’s balance!”  

“Tobio!” You screamed as he threw the other boy down onto the floor, the fight escalating a lot further that you had expected it to.

“The only one being selfish here is you. Now quit being an ass, Tobio!” He whipped his head around to argue with you.

“What’s it to you? You can’t even play, so what’s the use?” That one may have hurt.

“Do you know how much I would love to be in your position right now? And yet you’re pissing around trying to dictate what the rest of the team does! Hinata is right!” Yet he wasn’t listening, he had turned his attention back to the other boy.

“To win, I’ll toss to anyone I need to. And that hasn’t changed, even now.” You were in complete disbelief. Did the past few months mean nothing to him?

“Kageyamaaa!” He was at your brother’s back in an instant, pushing his as hard as he could, but Tobio was stronger. He pulled Hinata from where he had his hands wrapped around his torso and threw him back on the floor. Hinata wasn’t backing down, and was soon back on his feet, running at your brother again.

“Oh, fuck.” There was no way that you could stop this, they had gone too far. You sprinted out of the gym, running back towards the club room to see if anyone was there. Fortunately, you recognised the skinhead wing spiker just coming down the stairs.

“Shit, Tanaka, they’re fighting. I can’t- I can’t-“

“Hey, hey, who’s fighting? Where are they?” You led him back to the gym as fast as you could, and he ran towards them both at full speed. He delivered a satisfying punch to both of their faces, which was greatly deserved, and you stood to the side and caught your breath.

Once it was all over and Tanaka had finally stopped them from fighting, you walked over to the bench calmly and collected your things.

“Rei? Rei, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did.” You merely glanced at him out of the corner of your eye, and expression of pure rage that he had never seen before set on your face.

“Save your apologies for when you get that stick out of your ass, you bastard.” Never had you spoken to your brother, or anyone for that matter, as harshly as that, but you were fuming. You couldn’t think of a time where you had felt so angry with someone.

Funny how a few words can change someone completely.

~~~

The next practice wasn’t until two days later, and you really wished that you could say things had gotten better, but they hadn’t. You hadn’t spoken to Tobio since the fight, not even at home, and you were still unbelievably angry at him. Not only was he stubborn and wrong, he had more or less thrown the fact that you couldn’t play volleyball at your feet and spat on it.

It was as if he had suddenly regressed back to the boy he had been at the end of last year; just the king of the court dictating his subjects around as he pleased, and you weren’t going to stand for it.

Hinata and Tobio had been placed on different teams for practice games for the time being while they calmed down. It was best for the both of them, but you couldn’t help but worry as you watched them pass each other without so much as a glance. While he was mostly in the wrong right now, he was almost right with one thing.

If this rift continued for much longer, the team would eventually implode, and it would set them back way further than they were when they first started.

“It’s weird. Seeing them actually having a real fight.” Glancing over your shoulder, you noticed that Tsukishima had come to stand beside you.

“All friends fight sometimes. They’ll get over it.” He didn’t look convinced, but neither did you. You were at a complete loss about what to do. You could only pray that they somehow found a way to sort it out themselves.

“Let’s hope.” With that, he walked away, getting into position.

“Yeah, let’s hope.”

~~~

Over the next two weeks, everyone seemed to be busy with one thing or another.

As far as you were aware, Noya and Asahi were working together; Noya helping to improve Asahi’s serves, and Asahi helping Noya to perfect a libero-set. You checked up on them as often as you could and helped as much as possible, but with the team all doing different things, it was difficult to stick to helping one problem at a time.

Ukai had shown the spikers a new move, one used by a team at the camp that seemed to work amazingly in their favour. It was a synchronised attack, which were, in fact, very useful during matches, but you were sceptical about how quickly they could perfect it in time to use it effectively, especially with the levels of tension being so high right now. You also tried to help them, of course, but it was a skill that they needed to work on as a team, so there wasn’t much that you could do.

Kiyoko was trying to work with your brother so that he could improve the accuracy of his tosses, but it was safe to say that you had stayed clear of that for now, choosing to observe from a distance.

The coach had also told you that Hinata was working with his grandfather, the first Coach Ukai, and the class of middle school kids he was teaching, in order for him to learn how to fight by himself, just how he wanted. You couldn’t be any happier for him. You didn’t know how well it was going, since you didn’t see him around much outside of practice now, but it was Shouyou, so you were sure he was getting along just fine.

With you not speaking to Tobio, you had found yourself walking home with Tsukishima and Yamaguchi one night. It was a peaceful evening, albeit a bit later than you would have liked, but everyone had been working so hard lately that practice ran over pretty much every night at this point.

“Hey, guys?” Yamaguchi had stopped by a side street, looking at you with a guilty smile.

“I gotta go this way. I’m gonna go practice my serving a bit with Mr. Shimada.” You smiled at him warmly. Everyone really was working at one hundred and ten percent.

“Of course, Yams. Have fun!”

“Sure. See ya.” Tsukishima began walking off without you, and you rolled your eyes in Yamaguchi’s direction, making him giggle before he left.

“Oi, Tsukki.” He glanced at you when you caught up to him, practically bouncing on the balls of your feet.

“You’re the only one I see who isn’t doing extra practice. What’s up with that?” He scowled at you, but you hadn’t bickered with him for so long the other week to completely forget about it.

“Don’t need to. I told you.” Sighing, you jogged ahead to stand in front of him, forcing him to stop.

“And I told you to get your head in the damn game. I have enough problems with my brother right now, so don’t make me add you to the list of people whose asses I need to kick.” He chuckled, amused at how fiery you had been lately.

“I’ll even help you if you want. Just please try?” The look in your eyes made his resolve falter just a bit, his expression falling momentarily.

“Sure, if you can reach.” He placed his hand on your head and ruffled your hair, finally managing to rile you up for once.

“Hey, you disrespectful little shit! You’re not that much taller than me! And you’re so lanky! You’d make a crappy beanpole, beanpole!” He let out a laugh and you continued to bicker with him until he noticed you yawning, clearly worn out from all of the excitement lately. He made sure to walk you as far as he could, sending some sort of insult your way every so often to make sure you weren’t about to fall asleep in the street.

You both stopped at the corner that connected your two routes, and you let out another yawn. Tsukishima smiled to himself as he watched you tiredly rub your eyes, blinking rapidly to wake yourself up a bit.

“Night night, Tsukki.” He could have sworn that his heart stopped right there and then. You sounded so cute.

Wait.

What?

No, you didn’t.

Absolutely not.

He cleared his throat and awkwardly fiddled with the wire connected to his headphones.

“N-night dumbass.” You gave him a tired smile and a wave before he turned and began walking away.

“Don’t forget what I told you, four eyes!” Shaking his head, he glanced back at your disappearing form. He was tired, that was all, and he’d just been a bit nicer to you lately. It didn’t mean that he liked you any more than he did when he met you. And definitely weren’t cute. Not at all.

Tsukishima sighed dejectedly.

You just might end up being the death of him.

~~~

And so, the team kept practicing, all striving to improve, to aim as high as they could reach and then further. From what you had been witnessing with the more and more practices you attended and helped out on, they had made some real progress. At least, a lot more than you had expected them to, especially with Hinata and Tobio still being at odds.

It was still extremely tense within the team, but soon enough, summer rolled around and you were all getting ready to head off to Tokyo again for the week-long training camp.

“This will be the first and last long-term training camp before the Spring Nationals preliminaries.” You were sure they were all excited but knowing that you would be able to help them properly this time around, it had you buzzing.

From: bedhead :<

See you tomorrow, angel-cakes <3

You giggled at the text. You had kept in contact with Kuroo, Bokuto, and Akaashi, just as you had promised, and it seemed like he had an endless list of pet names to call you.

“Texting your boyfriend, hmm?” You jumped, not having realised that Tsukishima was stood behind you. He had that godforsaken smirk plastered on his face and you scowled at him.

“As if. It’s just Kuroo.” He tutted, the smirk growing even more sly – if that was even possible – and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose with his finger.

“Sure. Whatever you say, angel-cakes.” He laughed as he walked off, and you glared at his back. That boy was really beginning to get on your last nerve.

Though, what you couldn’t see was the frown that took over Tsukishima’s expression the second he turned away from you.

Kuroo Tetsurou, huh?

Whatever.

It wasn’t a big deal.

Although, the freckled first year that had just witnessed that entire interaction would disagree. It definitely was a big deal.

Yamaguchi had never seen Tsukishima get so worked up over anything before. It pissed him off when you teased him, sure. But he was actually angry.

Was it possible-

No.

Never.

Or was it?

There was really only one way to find out.

taglist: @tchalameme, @iamthepenguinwhosearseisonfire, @loreblackthorne, @lorentime, @influxencer, @enagmaticether, @nerdstuff1994​

[thekytchensynk]

A History (Fictober Prompt 5)

Prompt number: 5

Fanfiction Fandom: Dr. Stone

Rating: T

Warnings: No warnings

Read this story on AO3

Kinro dodges the first thrust. The second. Pivots. Attacks.

Misses.

“Too shallow!” Kohaku’s voice conveys as much irritation and disappointment as her weapon, as she closes in and strikes under his left arm, knocking him a step to the left. He resists the urge to react, and the two step apart instead. “I can’t say it any other way. You need to attack all the way through!”

The sun had dropped below the trees about ten minutes ago, and probably they should be eating dinner (he knows Ginro has already hightailed it back to the village to get his meal), but Kohaku hasn’t called an end, so he’s not going to ask for one. She’s taking the time to train him. He’s going to do everything she asks as part of that.

“Magma’ll be going for blood,” she says as she paces across their little sparring arena, twirling one of her padded weapons with a careless elegance that makes it almost look like a dance. “You can’t do this halfway.”

“I’m not,” he says, with only a small twinge of uneasiness. Ginro had urged him to tell Chrome and Senku about his vision problems, and on some level not doing so does indeed feel like doing things halfway. But at the same time … what were they going to do about it? It would just be making an excuses. Like he was telling them he expected to lose.

No excuses in war.

He can’t make excuses, and he can’t lose. Kohaku is training him because she wants to save Ruri, and he wants to as well -- not for her own sake alone, or for Kohaku’s, but because Magma cannot win again. Because if he were to get the village under his thumb … if he did that…

“Pay attention.”

Kohaku’s not angry -- not even chiding him really. More just calling him back to the moment, to this opponent and this fight. “Yes,” he says, resuming his ready stance. They go again. This time he feels he’s nearly got her, but she dances back to where her form becomes indistinct, where the difference between one step and the next gets lost, and he misses to the right. She lands lightly on his weapon -- how can someone so strong be so relatively light? -- and frowns down at him.

“You can’t beat him like this,” she says, hopping down and patting him on the shoulder before walking away, back toward the village.

She leans on the word “him” as though it were a prophecy. It’s the first time Kinro knows for sure that Kohaku knows.

“It is a great honor to defend the village. Safety is one of the building blocks upon which prosperity is built.”

Kinro, seven years old today, nods enthusiastically. It’s almost word for word the thing his father told him as he was sent off to train. His father had said it like he believed it, and old Topaz said it like he was just getting it over with, but Kinro believes it both times. The monsters from the hundred stories could all be out there. He imagines them sometimes, seeing their figures painted in the smoke of a campfire or the clouds overhead. Monsters that could sneak in and hurt his family and friends.

To learn to stand against such creatures was indeed the best thing one could do.

He does have his doubts though. Stories of Topaz’s history as a fighter are sometimes told around the fire, and everyone raises toasts to him on those evenings, but the man before him doesn’t look like a warrior. He is old, shrunken into his clothing, with eyes that squint at the world. Kinro rarely sees him anymore. His mother says Topaz has been ill, and has been resting to regain his strength, but Kinro thinks if that’s the case, the man needs to rest for a season. When he stands, he leans on his cane and still, can’t hide the tremors in his legs.

Still, his father said he would come here, to this man, to learn to be brave and fight. So he was going to do just that.

“We will begin working today, to help you become the honorable fighter your village needs you to be.” Topaz isn’t looking at Kinro, exactly. His eyes turn in the right general direction, but he doesn’t seem to be seeing. “It will be difficult, but if you obey orders, you will do your village proud.”

“Thank you for teaching me,” Kinro says, as he was instructed before leaving home. Then he waits in silence for the instruction to begin. The waiting makes him feel a little bit sick, and the situation gets worse the longer he stands here wondering just what will happen. He has used sticks and played at fighting with his brother and other village children, imitating the village chief. But the real thing is probably harder. What if he’s terrible? What if he’s weak? What if he goes home to his parents’ disappointed faces -- this child of ours cannot help protect anyone.

“We will start with the basics,” Topaz says, raising his cane with one hand. For a moment, Kinro thinks he intends to fight using that cane as a weapon, before realizing that he is pointing, only pointing. “And I have requested the aid of a powerful pupil. He will be helping me to train the youth of the village. Please convey your thanks to him as well.”

Kinro turns to see who the man meant, and there stands one of the older boys, Magma, with a padded stick over one shoulder and a grin on his face.

“You just need to try to strike through your opponent,” Chrome says as he carefully grinds some stone or another into dust at Senku’s instruction. “Don’t just stop when you think you’ve hit, right?”

Kinro makes a noncommittal noise from where he sits a few feet away, sharpening his spear -- his real spear, not the weapon for the upcoming Village Games. He appreciates that Chrome is trying to be helpful, but in a lot of ways, he may be the last person Kinro wants advice from.

Chrome isn’t much of a fighter, but not having the physical skill to do something doesn’t necessarily mean your observations aren’t sharp. In this case, he’s not saying anything Kinro hasn’t already tried, but he means well.

That isn’t the problem.

Even Kinro knows that the younger man wants badly to be the tournament victor, not for the power or glory that accompanied it, but simply because he wants to protect someone he cares about. Kinro gets that. He’s built his life to this point around protecting people. He is willing to give his life for it. He can’t imagine what would happen if his ability to do so were diminished to the point where it seemed an unattainable dream.

He feels like the advice Chrome gives him is baring something deep and secret in the sorc… the scientist, and he doesn’t want to observe that. Doesn’t want to be responsible for knowing it.

“How close are you getting?” he asks instead.

And Chrome explains. He tries to keep it in terms a non-scientist can understand, but sometimes his excitement gets the better of him and he leaps from the sphere of things Kinro knows and understands and into a world of words that sound like nonsense. But then he catches himself. Reins it back. Back to the clearer concepts.

Senku runs hot and cold, either too complicated from the get go or simplifying things to their broad concepts. Chrome, maybe because they’ve known one another so long, makes an attempt to explain the things they’re doing so Kinro understands. He appreciates it. And tonight, he wants those explanations. The intensity of the explanation carries how intensely Chrome needs them to win, so they can save Ruri.

Kinro decides to focus on that.

“ Are you even trying?”

Yes , Kinro wants to shout. I’m trying. You’re the one who’s not!

But he holds his silence and picks himself up out of the dirt. One of his teeth cut into his lip on that last one. He barely feels it. He’s sure it hurts, but after two weeks of training, everything hurts. This is just one more.

“Being able to set a solid base is the most important thing to know about fighting,” Magma chides, and in someone else’s mouth this might sound like honest instruction. “Your blocks will be weak. Your attacks won’t hurt. Try again.”

So Kinro sets his feet as Magma had shown him that first day, when Topaz listlessly watched them both. But most days since, Topaz has only watched briefly before wandering off to “take care of some things,” or just to nap.

Kinro assumed others would also be training, but it is mostly just the two of them. Magma sometimes speaks contemptuously about Titan, about how he is weak, how he has given up on training and joined his father felling trees. Kinro has watched Titan at work and doesn’t think he looks weak at all. But Magma seems sure, and Titan’s not here, so Kinro guesses he is missing something.

Carbo comes by sometimes to spar with Magma, but it seems to be out of obligation. The matches are always short. Kinro thinks Carbo could probably do better than he does -- he’s much quicker when he’s out fishing on the water than he is in matches with Magma. But it would be wrong to question his elders, even if they’re not much elder, so he keeps quiet. At least when Magma trains with Carbo, he’s not training with Kinro.

But there is no Carbo today, just Kinro who sets his feet as he was shown and raises his practice spear to block, and Magma, who swings with everything he has, and the end result is Kinro in the dirt again.

“What is going on here?”

Topaz’s voice cuts through the shady, wooded area where the two are practicing. He has woken from his nap it seems. And for a moment, Kinro thinks he must have seen that, he must know that Magma isn’t teaching him how to do anything. As he scrambles to his feet in front of the teacher, Magma speaks first.

“I am doing my best, Master Topaz.” Kinro can hear the edge of mockery in Magma’s voice. “But he refuses to even try to follow my instructions. A breeze could knock him over.”

What? Kinro starts to defend himself, to speak up for himself, but Topaz speaks before he has a chance.

“Unacceptable! Try again.”

“Master-”

“You can make statements and requests once I see you trying and not wasting people’s time,” Topaz says firmly, a little angrily. And just like that, there’s nothing Kinro can do. So he sets his feet as he was shown, and waits for the attack.

This one and the next few don’t come anywhere near as hard and fast. The first one knocks him to one knee, but it’s barely a tumble. And he thinks he can understand now what they were talking about with a strong base. It’s not something he could explain, but he can feel it -- the way the first of the attack carries down through his arms and torso and into his legs, and how if we were not braced, it would have sent him sprawling. The next time, he keeps his feet. And the next. And the next.

“So you can do it,” Topaz says after the fifth. “Don’t think you can be lazy when I am not here, child. You will only hurt yourself.”

He’s not really looking. Magma is grinning. So Kinro takes the only dutiful path.

“Yes sir.”

“We have two days.” Kohaku isn’t even breaking a sweat, while Kinro has been left panting by the day’s relentless training. “You have to break this habit. You are running out of time.”

She isn’t wrong, but without some idea on how to do it, they are just words. And he has no idea how to do it. Willpower and determination won’t be enough.

On the bright side, he does think intensive training with her had helped. They’re actually surprisingly evenly matched in a lot of ways. She is just so fast, and he can't keep up -- but he is getting slightly closer. And most of the fighters in the games would look slow in comparison. Especially Magma -- he’s always moved like a bear, ponderous but powerful, terrifyingly powerful.

Kohaku backs off and glances around. He knows without asking that she is looking for his brother, who has shirked training yet again. He always spends at least some time with the two of them, but usually no more than half of the overall training they do. Sometimes Senku finds him and threatens him with work until he returns. Sometimes he slinks away to one of the hiding places that only he knows to “practice by himself.” Kinro doesn't know if he just already thinks he's ready, despite evidence to the contrary, or if he’s already mentally abdicated his role as a fighter, expecting Kohaku and Kinro to do the real fighting.

“Sorry about Ginro,” he says as she scans the treeline.

“His training is not your responsibility,” she replies firmly.

He grunts in answer. Because of course Ginro’s training, his lack of discipline, is because his older brother has not carefully instilled it in him. He has been coddled, as much as people in this village can be. Protected.

Kohaku looks around once more anyway, just in case, then asks over her shoulder, “are you ready if you face him?”

He wonders if her constant travels into the forest when she was younger had led her to see some of the training he’d undergone. She’s never mentioned it, if so. But alone out of everyone, she seems to get that he is both hoping for and dreading a fight against Magma. That it is more than just Magma being the biggest obstacle. That it is personal, for him.

“Are you?” she asks again, curious.

“I will have to be,” is his only answer.

Many members of the village visit Topaz occasionally, making sure he has food and his home is warm and that he has good clothing. But lately there has been someone with him around the clock. Kinro is drifting off to sleep one night when someone comes and asks his mother to come watch over the old man. She goes without argument. By the time he wakes in the morning, she is back. Curious, Kinro asks why she went to the trainer’s home.

“Topaz is a strong man,” his mother says, taking one of his hands in both of hers. She looks tired, her blond hair unkempt from being out for most of the night. “But he is very tired. Our village will soon have to say goodbye to him, and we do not wish to leave him by himself until that time comes. It would be respectful for you to visit him today. To thank him and to say goodbye.”

Frankly, Kinro doesn’t want to. He has been given very little by Topaz. The man has not attended training in months, and even before that, he rarely taught anything -- just barking out a few orders when he was able to make it to a session. Kinro felt sure he couldn’t see enough to actually tell whether or not he was doing things right.

So Kinro doesn’t hate Topaz. He just isn’t grateful to him. The man had clearly once been spry and powerful and an important protector of the village, but he had kept the job of training the village children and then abdicated it to the last fighter he had trained, who used it as a weapon.

It isn’t that Kinro hasn’t learned anything from training with Magma in the last year and a half. He has. It is just mostly in spite of Magma, not because of him. He’s learned to use his quickness as a weapon. He’s learned to angle his spear to deflect some of the power in the older boy’s attacks, to lessen some of the brute strength advantage. He’s learned when to move and when to stand firm. It is an imperfect fighting style born not of training but of experience and pain.

And he’s learned that Magma likes to use training as a way to bully people into submission. To remove them as a threat to whatever he might want to do. To add them to his group, or to keep them out of fighting all together.

Kinro has decided he will do neither. Even if he pays for that every time they train.

“Can you come with me?” he asks.

And she smiles, saying, “Of course. Would you like to go now?” When he nods, she lets his father know they’re going, then takes his hand and they leave the house.

“We should see about your brother joining you,” she adds as they cross the village, before stifling a yawn.

“But he doesn’t know Master Topaz,” Kinro says. He also isn’t sure mischievous Ginro would be the best person to bring to a dying man’s bedside.

“Mmm. No. For training. With Magma now, I guess?”

Kinro stops abruptly enough that his hand pulls from his mother’s. She stops too. Turns. “Kinro?”

“Magma is taking over training?”

She walks back over to him and crouches down. He’s getting taller, and this actually makes her a little bit shorter than he. He’s not sure if she’s just tired and doesn’t want to stand, or if she just wants to look him in the eye as she asks, “Is something wrong?”

He looks into her face. She’s asking. He can tell her. He can let her know. But… if he tells her, she’ll make him stop training with Magma. May make him stop training to be a guard, a protector. And Magma hasn’t been able to batter that desire out of him.

“Will Magma accept Ginro as a student?” he asks. It’s a legitimate question, if not his real worry. He can deal with what Magma throws at him, but his brother is energetic and outgoing and a bit of a crybaby. And Magma will either break him, or else he’ll chase Ginro off, and he'll never get a chance to learn if he’s any good at fighting.

His mother considers the question for a long few seconds. “I suppose we’ll have to see,” she says. “But you can’t worry about that. You just worry about yourself.”

That statement honestly doesn’t make sense to him. Ginro is his little brother. He’s been helping watch over him for years. And nothing in him will let his brother face Magma’s training.

“I could train him,” Kinro says, anxiety pitching his voice up.

His mother smiles fondly. But then the smile fades as she studies his face. She leans in a little closer. “You’re serious about this, huh?” she asks. He nods emphatically. “Is there something wrong with training with Magma? You can tell me.”

He doesn’t say yes. But he doesn’t say no either. And after a little while, she takes his hand and they go say goodbye to Topaz, who looks almost unreal in his bed, still and pale. He’s gone by that evening.

The next two days, his parents speak to the parents of some of the other older children in the village. And they ask him, with forced casualness, if he still wants to keep training with Magma. And he says yes, and no more is said of it. But Ginro stays home, being trained by a combination of his brother and his father.

“You can’t possibly go along with this, Kohaku! Match fixing … it would be a disgrace to the entire bout!”

But even as he says it, he knows the answer. What she wants is to save her sister. If that means getting free wins so she can save her strength, so be it. And he doesn't agree with her, but he gets it. He totally gets it. And it makes him feel a little guilty.

Because everyone else is united in their reasons to fight. And sure, he shares that reason with them. He wants to protect Ruri, for her own sake and Kohaku’s and Chrome’s.

But he has another reason too.

When Kinro is eleven, training starts to happen less regularly. By the time he’s 13, Magma decides training him is “not worth his time” and ends it. Kinro wonders, for a long time after, why exactly that happened.

Magma may be telling the truth. After all, more and more often, their training ends in stalemates. Magma can still put him down with one blow if it’s a clean one. But landing a clean blow is becoming harder and harder for his teacher to manage. He sees the frustration building. It may certainly not be worth it.

But Kinro never stops wondering if it’s something else.

Magma clearly hoped his offer -- lick my boot and join my side rather than fight me -- would be tempting. The history between them, mostly hidden from everyone else in the village, weighed in those words and the taunts that followed.

Kinro hadn’t backed down before. He wasn’t going to do so this time either. Not with everything on the line. And he couldn’t help but notice that Magma was doing everything to put him off his game.

“I’m no longer the fighter you know,” He found himself saying in the face of Magma’s taunts. And as he said it, he realized it was true. Magma was still bigger, but no longer nearly as much so. And he was slow. And he wanted to win only for himself.

And he couldn’t scare Kinro. Not anymore.

[theheightofdishonor]

Top 10 Battles in the Metal Saga (in no particular order)

Kyoya-Ryuga 

There aren’t many battles that are just about raw power the way this one is. The whole thing is just so extra, from ruining the stadium before the battle even begins to ending with Ryuga’s possession and Kyoya passing out with a dragon’s tail going through his chest. The power-play between these two is riveting. And on top of that, it’s the closest anyone but Gingka and Nemesis ever gets to beating Ryuga. However, it does annoy me that Kyoya is the only one of Ryuga’s opponents in Battle Bladers who comes out unaffected in the long-term. After their respective battles, Hikaru retires from Beyblade, Tsubasa suffers with possession, and both experience a healthy dose of PTSD but apparently, Kyoya gets away with no signs of it? I call bullshit. 

2.Da Xian - Julian 

If you didn’t love Da Xiang before, you had to after this battle. It did a brilliant job of highlighting how good Dashan is at manipulating people, and doing so “coolly, and brilliantly”. Dashan sees the scene as the opportunity it is and coaxes Julian from a disheartened shell of his former self to someone who’s willing to try again without the man even knowing. Oh, and he gets Julian to appreciate the value of his friends too. And beats him in battle easily. And delivers, “You think you and I are alike? That’s an insult, ” decimating Julian’s remaining pride. Talk about being cool. (Chao Xin should definitely take pointers)

3. Gingka vs 100 (supposedly) Face Hunters 

I had a hard time choosing between this and the battle earlier in the episode where Gingka first saves Kenta from Face Hunters, but I think this holds more impact and the one Kenta thinks is more notable. As a fight itself, it’s short compared to some of the other more epic battles on this list, and its placement is more about the consequences of it than the contents of the actual battle itself.  It’s the moment where Kenta’s admiration for Gingka really cements, and the moment that Kyoya takes a serious interest in him, shaping his relationship with two people who will be monumental in his life. Also, Gingka looks super cool and baby Kenta is adorable. 

 4.  Excalibur-Gan Gan Galaxy 

This battle has one of my favourite scenes of ALL TIME- Masamune single-handedly cutting through Sophie and Wales’s joint special move. Let me just take a second to gush about how powerful he is and how much I love him and how he deserves so much more love and did I mention he stopped the twins in their track with ONE MOVE. Your fave could never but if I don’t stop now, i’ll be talking about Masamune all day. 

The visual of Pegasus and Striker moving as one force, with the music crescendoing only for Destroyer to cut them down at the climax, is breathtaking. Seriously, I’ve watched that one scene on repeat and my breath catches. 

I love to see Masamune and Gingka work together as a team, especially because it’s not their preferred dynamic and it doesn’t always come easily to them. But when they try, they’re magic together, partially because they’re so alike. This is the only battle where we get the full force of the Y-Masamune-Gingka dynamic, a god-tier trio who can only possess one brain cell when they’re together because otherwise, they’d be way too strong. Let’s be real. If these morons actually combined their intelligence, they would have crushed Excalibur to dust. We need more scenes with them tbh

As a side note, it was not at all ok for these guys to crash the festival or for Yu to ruin a culturally important arena. It’s played off way to lightheartedly for my tastes.  It’s not even the only time they’re insensitive- in Fury, Yu and Kyoya damage ancient ruins and Gingka’s group explicitly disobeys orders to not step on a sacred volcano. The whole thing is kinda gross and the Metal Saga should address its serious disregard for other cultures. Sophie losing her shit on a literal 12 year old was funny though. 

5. The Legendary Bladers-Nemesis part 2 

This is a pretty long battle, I linked it to where the battle begins but it doesn’t end until the end of the next episode. There’s a lot about this battle that drives me crazy- like why are you people just letting Kenta destroy himself, why are the strongest bladers in the world who were specifically chosen for this battle unable to withstand for more than two hits, etc  BUT- this is when Ryuga hands over the Star Fragment which is cool and emotional enough to let everything else slide. It’s a pretty satisfying conclusion to the Kenta-Ryuga arc and rings parallel to Metal Fusion down to Ryuga pulling a Storm Pegasus and disappearing into thin air.Which talking about, I will forever be mad Storm Pegasus doesn’t ever come into play after Metal Fusion. Shogun Steel would have been such a perfect time to bring Storm Pegasus back to play and assure in a new era- such wasted potential, but I digress. 

Oh, and friendly reminder that Yu’s Inferno Blast breaks through Rago’s barrier while 8 Legendary Bladers combined couldn’t leave a dent on Nemesis. 

6. Kenta-Reiji

Talking about emotional, if you didn’t cry during this battle, you’re a liar- it’s painful to watch. The entire thing with Kenta using Libra’s performance tip and his insistence that he has to win for Yu- it breaks your heart. Reiji is such a great villain because he does exactly what he’s meant to do- make the audience be invested in him. He’s so unnecessarily cruel, so irredeamable, and this episode drills that into your skull. Even the spectators of the match can’t look on as Reiji tortured Kenta well after Sagittario has stopped spinning. 

7. Easter Island

It would take too long to name everyone involved in this, so i’m not going to. But boy is it a ride You’ve got King starting it off with Chris for insulting/defeating/humiliating Masamune- a noble cause if there ever was one. His impassioned defense of his boyfriend is one of the best speeches/declarations in the Saga and is also 80% of the reason this battle is on the list. The guy has his priorities straight, ok. Gingka says it’s either Masamune’s feelings or the world and King chooses Masamune, no questions, no hesitations. Can’t say I blame him. Especially after seeing the heartbreak on Masamune’s face when Chris insults him. But of course, the world is actually more important so 

 Gingka jumps in to stop King which as Benkai mentions, you can’t stop him from battling by actually battling him, so I don’t know what Gingka was thinking. Johannes’s lackies, including Aguma and the Beylin Fist, joins the battle, prompting Zeo, Toby, etc to also join. Then Ryuga appears and starts draining Chris’s power before Kenta stops him (thus publically revealing their affiliation to the world) and the two disappear. Literally everyone is involved, Johannes tells Chris to “man up” when he dares to show pain that Ryuga is literally stealing his power away but then vanishes because he doesn’t want to face Gingka head on yet. Can you say hypocrite? And while this was all happening, Johannes somehow managed to buy Chris’s loyalties.

It’s insane and so much fun. 

8.Tsubasa-Jack

I didn’t expect to put this on the list but I watched it recently and had a newfound appreciation for it so here it is. While the team battle with Excalibur was the climax of Tsubasa’s arc, this was the resolution. It is arguably Tsubasa’s best battle of the series. He made his recovery with Excalibur, had a practice run with the Garcias, and by this battle, Tsubasa is better than ever. There’s a satisfaction in watching Tsubasa beat Jack with ease. After struggling the entire season, it's very cathartic. There’s this one bit where Jack is complaining about battling Ryuga and how Tsubasa can’t possibly know the disappointment he felt  and Tsubasa snaps, because how fucking dare he, who the fuck did Jack think he is. Again, very cathartic.

Irrelevant, but this episode has some of the best quotes including gems like

 “What is this? A bunch of creepy pictures”; 

“Oh dear Tsubasa” queue Jack asking for a battle; 

“You’re really lacking in the culture department” - Jack to Madoka,  “

The rest of Gan-Gan Galaxy are common, unrefined types”.

 The list never ends. Do yourself a favour and watch the episode.

9. Zoe-Toby-Masamune

This is the only season where there’s no one Final Battle but instead two separate climactic moments- Ryuga and Gingka working together to stop Hades City from melting down(?) and Toby and Zeo  fighting to bring Toby back to normal. 

Unlike the Finales in Fusion and Fury, this one’s private, personal. Not only were Ryuga-Gingka battle and the Battle against Nemesis attended by a lot of people, they were also widely broadcasted across the world. In comparison, Toby, Zeo and Masamune (and Ziggurat at one point) are the only ones to witness the Finale in Masters. It’s a very intimate moment. Their friendship is fractured-Toby's brainwashed,  Zeo was manipulated, and there’s still tension because Masamune left them in a time of need. The two of them are finally confronting just how much their friendship has strained: Masamune never imagined Zeo would resent him when he only ever wanted to fulfill Toby’s wish; he’s almost offended Zeo would think so badly of him. On the other hand, Zeo wrestles between accepting Ziggurat manipulated him but also his very valid resentment towards Masamune. They both hurt each other but get past it and forgive each other for the sake of their best friend. Bey battles are when bladers communicate through each other and in this one, these three use it to find their way back to each other. 

10.  

Gingka-Kyoya

Of course, the list wouldn’t be complete without a Gingka-Kyoya battle. Despite Kyoya being Gingka’s second biggest rival, they only have 3 complete battles with a clear winner. (Kyoya is disqualified in Survival Battle, and neither won in the Championships Team battle or the one in Fury). Despite there being so few options, it was still hard for me to choose because they’re all brilliant and my opinion changes every other day. 

Honestly, I didn’t remember why I chose this battle, so I went back in and re-watched it- SO many thoughts. For one thing, Kyoya sounds like a cheesy bat man villain.  Seriously though, the battle feels so off to me because in this episode, Kyoya is more or less just another evil villain; a pale foreshadow of what Ryuga will become in the Final Battle. I’m not even kidding. This hits almost the exact beats that the Gingka-Ryuga battle will.  I didn’t like this battle when I re-watched it for this post. Gingka and Kyoya’s battles are important because of the history and bond they share and in this battle, neither of those are solidified and it’s just not as satisfying. 

I will admit though that this battle was important for them, mostly Kyoya who was headed towards unhinged-Ryuga territory before Gingka saved him. It kickstarts Kyoya into being the lovable grump we know he’s capable of being and creates a debt towards Gingka which in turn develops into an actual friendship. It’s an important step of their journey and I can’t begrudge it too much ig. If you really want to watch a Gingka-Kyoya battle for non-thematic reasons, though, I recommend the World Championships or the one in Metal Fury Ep 1

[smokeybrand]

Master Class

The BlueStacks thing worked and i have access to my FGO account again! Man, it’s been a year apparently. I thought it was less than that. It’s weird returning to this game after so long. Everything is so different. I had to re-acclimate to my account. I rolled into the end of that Battle of New York event so i missed that. Might partake in the rerun. I got a ton of the 15 missions to finish but I'm definitely putting those off for about a week because of leveling. I missed out on Abby and that f*cking sucks I wanted SO badly to try and roll my adorable Old One. Maybe next time. As a way of just re-familiarize myself, i wanted to run through the available Classes we have now. There’s quite a few and i need to catch up!

Saber

Saber is my favorite Class. I mean, off course it is. The majority of my favorite Servants are in this class. Artoria Alter, Gozen, Nero, Lakshmibai, Gawain, and obviously, Modred. Modred is love. As a Class, Sabers make for great vanguards, man. They often deal a sh*t ton of damage and take a good amount before they crap out. That said, they get eaten up by Archers, man. It feels like that Affinity advantage hits a little harder on my swords-wielders. Favorite Saber: Mordred

Archer

Archers and i have a love hate relationship. They’re dope, don’t get me wrong, but they never seem like they’re properly strong. They feel like Archers to me, if you can understand that weirdness. Like, they’ll take you out but it’ll definitely cost a lot more effort than a strong Saber. Still, the characters are dope and the animation to their Noble Phantasms are almost always epically cinematic like Atalante’s Phoebus Catastrophe or EMIYA’s Unlimited Blade Works. Favorite Archer: Gilgamesh

Lancer

Lancers are my second favorite Class, mostly because of Cu. Cu gets bad rap most of the time. Dude is hilarious. Also Diarmuid. They did dude dirty in Zero. I enjoy Lacers mostly because of how well balanced they feel. They dish a good amount of damage while maintaining a decent amount of defense. They’re not as hardbody as Sabers and, indeed, get absolutely rag-dolled by them, but they stand their own against the other Classes fairly well. Favorite Lancer: Karna

Rider

Riders are a quandary to me. So many of them are throw away characters, weak as sh*t, but then you get absolute powerhouses out of nowhere. Francis Drake, Iskander, Quetzalcoatl, Ivan the Terrible, and Ozymandias will ruin your whole ass day if they’re spec’d right but the rest of the entire available Servant int this class are negligible. Even so, they hold a special place in my heart because my darling Medusa is a Rider. Also, Swimsuit Mordred is Rider so this Class got that going for it, too. I do adore all things Mo. Favorite Rider: Medusa

Caster

I hate Casters. They feel so goddamn weak, all of the time. If you’re not firing off a Noble Phantasm, they’re whack and, even when you do that, there is a real good chance it’s a support spell or some sh*t. I don’t need to debuff anything, f*cking do some damage, clown! This entire class is like utility because there is no way they are relevant in a real battle. Favorite Caster: Swimsuit Nero

Assassin

Ah, the Assassins. These motherf*ckers area whole ass frustration. Don’t misunderstand, i like them, they’re physical powerhouses, but can a cat get an Anti-Army Noble Phantasm at least once? All of these thing are focused on single unite attacks and threat can make for some dangerous play, man. Ludicrously OP play, but you have the same chance of dying as your opponent running these sneaky bastards. Favorite Assassin: Semiramis

Berserker

Berserkers area waste, man. All of that power, all of that ludicrous violent potential, and they’re always at an Affinity disadvantage due to the Madness curse. It f*cking blows because these beasts are real f*cking weapons of mass destruction, you know? I never use Berserkers for that exact point, unless going up against a swath of other Berserkers. That’s the only viable time you can use them efficiently and that sh*t almost never happens in game. Favorite Berserker: Ibaraki Douji

Ruler

Rulers are as useless as Caster but, somehow, disappointingly, moreso. They at least got a dope aesthetic, though. They also take half damage from literally every other Class. That’s cool, i guess. Favorite Ruler: Amakusa Shiro

Avenger

I love Avengers, man. Love em! These things are always dope. Great power. Great defense. Dope aesthetic. These things get it rough from Moon Cancers but everyone else is at their mercy, especially if you leveled them correctly. I have a few Avengers, personally, and one is literally the second card i maxed out fully. I’ll let you guess who it it is. Hint - She’s a Medusaface. Space Ishtar, Alter Jeanne, and Demon Nobu are also worthy of mention. Favorite Avenger: Gorgon

Moon Cancer

Moon Cancers are just an excuse to shove in more Sakurafaces in the form of BBs and i am here for it. The more Sakura i can get, the happier i am. I love Sakura. I don’t care for Moon Cancers as a whole Class, though. Also, i don’t have any anyway. F*ck em! Favorite Moon Cancer: Summer BB

Alter Ego

Alter Egos are so confusing to me. Like, why are they a thing? Why are they just not Alters or whatever? There is a legitimate reason, i know they are separate version that gained sentience and not just a different facet of the same character or whatever the explanation was, but even so, sh*t i contrived nonsense and i kind of love it. Nasu is absolutely known for it’s convolution and Alter Ego are no different. They’re the most TYPE-Moon sh*t ever, after Saberfaces. Favorite Alter Ego: Sesshoin Kiara

Foreigner

Foreigners are a blessing, aren’t they? Motherf*ckers are wonky as f*ck and just Some of the dopest Servant in all of Fate lore originate in this Class. F*cking Voyager, Yang Gufei, XX, Katsushika Hokusai, and two versions of my darling Abby Williams. And i don’t have any of them. F*ck my life, bro. Just, f*ck it all up, man. Favorite Foreigner: Abby Williams

That is all the available classes in Fate/Grand Order right now and, i think, all of them in the Fate franchise as whole. I’m sure there are some weirdly loose ones like Gunner or Faker. Once upon a time, the only wonky class was Avenger but now we got all these new ones, and just call them Extra Classes. It’s ridiculous. It’s all very much Nasu and i am having the best time revisiting my favorite franchise from the Nasuverse! Speaking of Extra, for the record, my favorite Servant in the Beast Class is Tiamat. You can’t Summon her, so it felt like a cheat to put her on the actual list but i do enjoy me some ancient Sumerian Dragon-Mother.

[cutesuki--bakugou]

Victory

Main Pairing: Natsuki Bakugou (OC) x Mimiyuki Kita (OC) (Pre-Relationship)

Side Pairings: Katsuki Bakugou x Koge Naegi (OC),  Seijirou Eguchi (OC) X Dokuji Kobayashi (OC)

Rating: Teen

Words:   3626

Genre: Fluff / Humor

Warnings: Cursing

“She’s so hot… Oh shit, did I just say that out loud?” Natsuki clasped a hand over her mouth, a hot rush of embarrassment filling her cheeks. Sitting beside her while she stood, her mentor began to snicker, eyeing her with snarky interest. 

“What was that, Natsuki? You crushing on the pop-star?” Seijirou smirked as Natsuki tried to shush him, her face flushing dark red as she bounced in her spot with a finger over her lips. 

“Shh!! Uncle Seiji, could you be any louder!?” 

“No one can hear us over the music, darling.” Seijirou gave a wave of his hand to dismiss her scolding, though the amused smirk on his lips didn’t fade. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about!” 

“But there is!” Pouting, Natsuki squatted down, hugging her knees to her chest with her arms wrapped around her legs tightly. “She’s a goddess! I’ve seen her on TV and everything… I even have a bunch of her music. She’s so out of my league, I shouldn’t even be letting myself think about her!” 

“You think she wouldn’t pay attention to you?” 

With a sigh, Natsuki fell silent, watching the famous star Mimiyuki Kita prance about on stage. The young singer had been invited to be the entertainment for a martial arts competition that Natsuki was participating in, which was something the young blonde hadn’t even known about. Not until she arrived and saw the pamphlet for the entire day's events, where Mimiyuki was performing right before the semifinals. Seeing the celebrity in person was completely different than just online or on posters. She literally was perfection in Natsuki’s eyes, tiny and petite with a powerful voice. Natsuki had seen her just walking through the halls, her raven hair down and flowing behind her as she walked. 

So adorable. So graceful. So beautiful. So sexy! 

And so, so, so out of Natsuki’s league. 

“Uncle Seiji, she’s literally a celebrity.” 

“And so are you,” Seijirou reached over and patted the top of Natsuki’s head gently. “You think people don’t know your name by now, Natsuki? Or know that you’re my successor for my company?” 

Feeling her cheeks flush again, Natsuki looked up at Seijirou out of the corner of her eye, conflicted on how she should feel about his support. Yes, she may have been known in this community of fighters and heroes, but how the hell was someone like Mimiyuki supposed to know her? Not possible. It just wasn’t. 

“I still don’t think she’d know me outside of what I’ve done here at this place…” 

“And? It’s normal for people to not know each other before they meet. That’s what conversation and going on dates is for!” 

“D-Dates? No, no.” Natsuki shook her head, standing and trying to rub the embarrassment from her face. “She’d never want to go on a date with me.” 

“Who’s going on a date with who?” The soft voice of her mother nearly scared the life out of Natsuki, who put her hands on her chest. Curious eyes locked on her daughter, Koge munched away on a large dill pickle, which Natsuki could see, even in the dim light, that it was sprinkled with salt. 

“Mama… Damn it, we need to get you a bell or something, you scare the crap out of me when you do that!” 

Smiling, Koge gave a small shrug, obviously not bothered with the fact that she scared people like that constantly. “Nah. What were you talking about? Dating?” 

Natsuki shook her head, only feeling her stomach bubble nervously as her father came up to stand with them. Bakugou looked utterly annoyed with his surroundings, his cheeks puffed out and filled with popcorn. He hadn’t heard anything, which Natsuki was grateful for, but she didn’t know how to get out of this situation. “N-Nothing! Uncle Seiji was just telling me about how he and Uncle Doey are going to go on a date.” 

“Wha-?” Dokuji was the next to question the blonde, having only heard his name over the music. Seijirou sighed, deciding to play along to not embarrass Natsuki too much. He knew that if she got all riled up about this, her mind would be stuck on it and would impact her ability to win the competition. She was so close, only two fights away, and winning this had been a goal of hers for nearly a year. 

“Nothing Hun, I was just talking to Natsuki about how we’re going to Okinawa.” 

“We are?” 

“We are now.” 

As the two men conversed about their new trip Natsuki had so suddenly sprung on them, the flustered young adult sighed inwardly, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. Now that she wasn’t being spoken to, she couldn’t get her attention off Mimiyuki, who was currently doing one of her aerial hoop acrobatic performances that frequently appeared in her shows. Although she didn’t look it on the outside, the performer was incredibly strong and skilled to be able to do those tricks and still sing so high up above stage. Natsuki was truly in awe of her, and she wanted to meet her badly. But, courage when it came to romance was something that the twenty-year-old lacked. 

Eventually, Natsuki had to peel her eyes away from the show to go prep for her next match, hugging her family and mentors for luck. Much to Natsuki’s relief, her brain instantly went into combat mode from the moment Mimiyuki was no longer in her sights. And so, with luck and talent on her side, she crushed both of her opponents, beating the odds that had been stacked against her and sending the crowd into an uproar. Supporters and haters alike were standing as she accepted the victory, and if she had to describe how she was feeling, it would be filled to the brim with pride in herself and what she stood for. 

Victories like these always reminded Natsuki that everything she had done up until now was worth it. That being quirkless didn’t mean being weak, nor did being a woman. She was powerful and brave, with not a doubt in her mind that she could succeed. What made the victories so much better was the pride she saw on her father’s face every time. He was the reason she felt strong enough to do all of this in the first place, because someone like him believed in her so completely, and that pushed her to do everything in her power to make him proud. 

“Daddy, I did it!” Running up to her family with a squeal, she leapt onto Bakugou’s arms as he held them out, squeezing each other tightly. 

“That’s my girl! Natsuki, you did fucking amazing! You beat the shit out of that last guy! Oof- Utsuro!” Koge was next to jump up on him, to which Bakugou quickly adjusted his arm to hold her as well. Natsuki laughed at his fumble, but she still lied her head on Koge’s affectionately. 

“My baby is so strong!” Koge kissed her daughter’s cheek, though was careful of an area where she had been hit decently hard. “I’m so proud of you!” 

“What is this, don’t leave me out!” Even though he had to use his cane to walk over, Seijirou hugged Koge and Natsuki from the back, which meant he ended up hugging the protesting Bakugou as well. “Doey, come get in on this!” 

Chuckling, the orange haired man shook his head, arms crossed over his chest. “Nah, I’m good. I’m not a hugger.” 

“Neither is Bakugou, and look at him!” 

Bakugou growled, obviously seriously annoyed, but there was nothing he could truly do about it. “I didn’t know you were going to fucking join!” 

With a small roll of his eyes, Dokuji joined in, though he kept his hug mostly to Seijirou and Natsuki. But then, before any of them could decide to stop, there was a soft giggling from nearby. Lifting her head, Natsuki glanced around for a moment before her eyes landed on Mimiyuki, who was standing just a few feet away with a trophy in her hands. 

“M-M-Mimiyuki!” Natsuki stuttered, wiggling just enough to make everyone let go of her. “I didn’t see you!” 

Soft smile on her face, Mimiyuki tilted her head a bit to the side, pink eyes scanning the group. “That’s okay! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Much unlike her powerful voice on stage, the young woman spoke softly, an angelic sound to Natsuki’s ears. “The competition coordinators wanted me to give you the trophy and take some pictures for the media.” 

“R-right. Awards and pictures.” Trying to not let her embarrassment get the better of her, Natsuki looked up at her family and mentors, pointing towards the group of waiting coordinators and photographers. “I’ll be right back. Unless you want pictures, too?” 

“If they want us, Natsu darling. You know how they prefer to decide for themselves.” Seijirou smiled at her, giving her a nudge towards Mimiyuki. “Go on! Make a good impression.” 

Natsuki knew that, from the slight teasing tone in his voice, he didn’t mean to make a good impression on the media. He meant to make one on Mimiyuki, to try see if there was even the slightest possibility of romantic interest. How she was supposed to do that subtly was something Natsuki couldn’t quite fathom, since she had no idea if the raven-haired celebrity was interested in women in the first place. All she could imagine was saying something just for Mimiyuki to shut her down and make the entire situation awkward as hell. But what if she didn’t reject her? What if she was interested in women? 

There were subtle hints that Natsuki had noticed in Mimiyuki’s music, but that could have easily just been her misinterpreting the meaning behind the lyrics and just associating it to what romantic experiences she had in the past. Then again, there were the very straight forward moments when Mimiyuki would sing about being conflicted over ‘him and her’ or other similar situations. If she was right in her assumptions, then maybe… just maybe. 

Giving a soft cough to clear her throat, Natsuki approached Mimiyuki. In her platform heels, Mimiyuki was much taller than Natsuki, which only made the young fighter more flustered since at every glance she ended up looking at her chest instead of her face. That, and she liked women taller than her, even though without her heels Mimiyuki only stood a good two inches taller. Everything about her made Natsuki feel sick to her stomach in a weird, good way, much more than any other woman before her. Could she even speak without throwing up? Or making some embarrassing noise? 

“It’s so nice to finally meet you!” Mimiyuki greeted Natsuki once she reached her, both starting towards the group waiting for them. “Watching you fight today was so exhilarating!” 

“Y-you watched me?” Natsuki forced her voice out through constricting vocal cords, doing everything she could to fight the raging heat that wanted to rush to her cheeks. “Really?” Argh she’s so articulate! Anything I say is going to sound stupid.

“Every match! You’re so skilled and incredibly powerful, it’s absolutely magnificent.” Mimiyuki smiled, the light pink hue that dusted her cheeks only made Natsuki’s heart race. “And you’re the first woman to win this competition in seven years. That’s an amazing accomplishment!” 

Unable to resist the ego boost, Natsuki gave a short chortle, giving a light scratch to the side of her nose. “Ah, you know, it’s nothing! These guys are just pushovers, anyways. Up until before the semifinals, they all thought they could take it easy and still win. Instead they got their balls chopped off-- ah, I-I mean, wait-” Covering her mouth, Natsuki immediately felt a wave of embarrassment and stupidity crash over her, having not even realized how comfortable she felt at that moment. She had let her vulgar side slip out without realizing it, and even though it was nothing she hid during matches, she never let herself talk like that with strangers. Only her family ever heard her say such things during regular conversation, yet here she was, speaking without a filter to a celebrity. 

But, before she could even apologize, Mimiyuki began to laugh. “They did! And rightfully deserved, in my opinion. It was their mistake, to treat you like you’re weak. I even heard some of them trying to flirt with you, as if it would lower your defenses.” 

“Tch, of course they did, they always do.” Natsuki lowered her hands, tugging at a lock of her hair to try and stay calm. The fact that Mimiyuki wasn’t at all put off by her personality only made it harder for Natsuki to stay neutral. So, she decided she wouldn’t. “Too bad for them they’ll never have a chance.” 

“Good. That leaves room for women who do.” 

Natsuki could see it, that twinge of interest in that gorgeous pink gaze. She hadn’t seen that in a very long time, and it immediately made every inch of her body flush with fire. Before she could even get a word out, she was interrupted by one of the competition coordinators, who was waving them down. Mimiyuki was quick to pick up the pace, leaving Natsuki behind in her semi stunned state. 

She just hit on me. She just? Did she? I--

Her thoughts were cut off as her hand was suddenly in Mimiyuki’s, her grip soft and tender, but tight enough to get Natsuki’s attention. Having stopped walking completely in her state of shock, Mimiyuki had returned to get her, the gentle smile on her lips breaking Natsuki out of her stupor. “C’mon, Natsuki. Let’s get the pictures over with, hm?” 

“Y-yeah…” Still hand in hand, Natsuki followed Mimiyuki back up onto the fighting rink and to the group that had been waiting for them. 

“Let’s get a picture of Natsuki and Mimi first, both holding the trophy.” A man that Natsuki recognized to be Mimiyuki’s public relations manager spoke up, pointing to the two women eagerly. “I want it for her blog immediately! Please, someone get Natsuki a stool or something to stand on-” 

“That’s not necessary.” Mimiyuki interrupted, stepping out of her shoes to bring herself down to Natsuki’s height. “She’s the champion here, I’ll come down to her height.” 

“Oh, but this stage is covered in sweat and there’s blood-!” 

“It’s okay! If Natsuki can be barefoot, then so can I.” Stepping closer and without a hint of hesitation, Mimiyuki put her arm around Natsuki’s back, prompting the young blonde to do the same, even if her heart was about to leap out of her throat. Holding one side of the trophy as directed by the photographer, Natsuki allowed herself to be squeezed in closely to the other woman, even to the point that their cheeks were touching. She wasn’t sure if she was smiling at the camera or if she looked like a damn fool, flushed and trembling from head to toe in her embarrassment. She had expected that by the time pictures were over and done with, she would have calmed down. Instead, she had somehow become even more nervous, as she was left alone with the singer and her manager. 

Stepping back into her heels, Mimiyuki flattened out her miniskirt, looking at the man beside her, who seemed increasingly anxious. “Are we done?” 

“Yes, Mimi, all that we have to do next is get past the crowd back to the bus. It’s late, so we will just go back to the hotel. We have that other gig in the morning, you know.” He responded in an almost annoying robotic voice, which made Natsuki pretty much instantly annoyed. Mimiyuki sighed in what seemed to be a bit of disappointment, placing her hands on her hips. 

“Darn, that’s annoying. Well, I guess it can’t be helped. It was really nice to meet you, Natsuki. Congratulations, again, on your victory!” Instead of a simple handshake or bow that Natsuki expected, Mimiyuki hugged her tightly, gaining the same affection from the flustered blonde. 

“Y-yeah… Thanks. I mean, thank you.” Natsuki was reluctant to release her as Mimiyuki took a step back, though Natsuki did notice the way her slender hands lingered, allowing one to rest over her own with a gentle caressing of fingers. “You put on a great show tonight, by the way. Your hoop uh… What you do on that hoop is pretty badass.” 

Smiling, Mimiyuki’s cheeks flushed from the praise. “That’s truly a flattering compliment, especially coming from someone so strong! Thank you, Natsuki.” After giving Natsuki’s fingers a light squeeze, Mimiyuki turned to leave with a final small wave. “Have a wonderful night!” 

“You, too…” Natsuki felt a horrible tightness in her chest as she watched Mimiyuki walk away, as if she were losing out on a huge opportunity for something incredible. That spark had been there, and though Natsuki had always felt like she wasn’t one for romance, there was no denying it. She had never been a coward when it came to anything in her life, and yet here she was, reluctant to make a move that would soon be completely out of her reach. 

Holding her breath, Natsuki took a quick moment to look back at her family, finding that they were all watching her. Embarrassment flooded her, which almost squashed any chance of her stopping Mimiyuki completely. But then, there was a movement, a flick of the wrist from her father that was clear in its meaning. Seijirou was quick to copy him, though he was more energetic with a bounce in his seat and a point of his cane. 

Releasing the breath, she turned back to look at Mimiyuki, who was just about to exit through a set of double doors. Immediately, her body moved without another thought, jogging towards the exit as she waved her arm in the air. “W-wait, Mimi--!” 

Stopping halfway through the door, Mimiyuki looked back at Natsuki curiously. She took a second to call her manager to stop, before standing back inside of the arena area. “Yes?” 

Swallowing the huge lump in her throat, Natsuki struggled to speak behind the swelling shyness, the heat in her face nearly making her eyes tear up. “You’re… You’re going to be in town for a while… right?” 

Tapping her finger to her chin, Mimiyuki thought for a moment before nodding. “Yes, about two months. Why do you ask?” 

“D-d-do… Do you… uhm… Coffee?” Natsuki felt like her ability to speak in any form of human language had leaked out of her brain through her ears, struggling to make a coherent sentence. “I mean-! Would you like to go get coffee? With me? Like together?” 

Cheeks flushing, Mimiyuki placed her hand on her chest, giving a small cough to clear her throat. Though, the initial shock was quick to turn into a pleased smile, even bouncing on her heels a bit in excitement. “Oh, yes! Please, just a moment-” Turning, she spotted her manager poking his head through the door, a shocked look on his face. “Pen, please?” 

“Mimi, you can’t-!” 

“Pen, please.” A snap of her finger gained her what she requested, the man reluctantly placing it between her waiting fingers. Approaching Natsuki again, she took her hand softly, finding a decent piece of her hand and wrist wrapping cloth to write on. “Though, coffee isn’t really my scene… How about a hike? I’ve heard the mountains in this area are beautiful this time of year.” As she finished up with a series of numbers and a little heart, Mimiyuki leaned forward and kissed Natsuki’s flushed and burning cheek. “That’s my personal number. Text me any time. I’ll trust you not to dox me.” 

Nearly suffocating at this point and surprised she wasn’t spewing blood out of her nose, Natsuki gave a nod. “H-hiking, yeah! Yeah, that sounds awesome!” 

“Perfect. I look forward to it. I’ll wait for your text! Goodnight.” With a final wave and smile, Mimiyuki was rushed out of the doors by her manager, who Natsuki could immediately hear begin to scold the young singer for giving out her personal number. 

Once alone, Natsuki took in a huge breath, trembling from head to toe as she looked at the phone number on her arm. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck! She gave me her phone number! She wants to go on a date with me! “Fuck, this is awesome!” 

Turning quickly on her heels, Natsuki made a mad dash back towards her family, grinning from ear to ear. Natsuki knew that she wasn't a particularly sensitive woman, nor was she traditionally attractive, so the fact that someone so incredibly beautiful and graceful had interest in her had put her over the moon. She was completely exhilarated, if not a little bit nervous, but this chance was something that she refused to pass up. 

“Daddy! Check it out!” Sliding to a stop beside her father, she pointed excitedly to her wrappings where the phone number rested. “I got her phone number! And a heart! It’s fucking awesome! Uncle Seiji, look!” 

As she showed off the phone number, her trophy for the martial arts competition was forgotten on a table in the middle of the arena. Two goals had been achieved that evening, and though winning the fights was something Natsuki worked hard for, gaining the attention of someone she thought was completely out of her reach had more of an impact on her lonely heart. 

Finding a way to truly love herself and accept who she was had been a difficult journey, but just maybe, Mimiyuki would be the woman to make her feel complete. 

[shikastemari]

— revenge; shikatemadai. ࿐ྂ。

written for Shikadai Week 2019 | day 06 - family

words | 1412

rating | K

warning | none

a/n | my last admission for Shikadai Week! thank you so much for hosting such an amazing week @shikanaradai!

masterlist in bio

Shikamaru controlled his breath as he could hear the enemies’ footsteps.

He pondered his chances against the two opponents slowly walking towards where he was hiding. Both were extremely strong and Shikamaru doubted he could beat them at the same time. The taller one was a war hero, known by being one of the cruelest ninjas the Villages had seen, and the other one, although a little young, seemed to have a promising career in the shinobi world.

The Nara had no idea what he would do to escape the situation.

“He’s around somewhere. Pay attention!” the most experienced one said.

“Ya,” came as a response and Shikamaru smiled as they continued to advance.

His best shot was to trap both of them with his Jutsu and wait for them to give up

Shikamaru prepared himself to jump in front of them and catch both off guard with his Shadow Jutsu. Counting down to three, he threw himself in his enemies' path, already using his hands seal to trap them.

But it didn’t go as expected.

He only managed to trap the older one, which smirked to him mischievously. It was an ambush, and Shikamaru ran directly towards it.

Before he could expect, the tiny sidekick jumped on his back and poke his throat with his a little fan. Shikamaru let go from the enemy in front of him, but instead of throwing his hands up as a surrender gesture, he grabbed his attacker’s legs, keeping him from falling off. 

“Is that all you can do?” The woman in front of him folded her arms, raising one of her eyebrows and a smug grin plastered on her face.

He rolled his eyes at her. “Dai, what did dad say about pressing too hard against people’s throat? If it was a real kunai, you’d kill the guy before you could make any question.”

“You lost!” A 5-year-old Shikadai wrapped his tiny arms around Shikamaru’s neck and giggles erupted from the young boy’s mouth.

“You’re getting old, Nara,” Temari came closer and touched his nose. She always got unbearably cocky every time she beat him while playing ninja with Shikadai.

“Can we play again?” Shikadai asked.

“Only if you’re in my team this time,” his father replied.

“But mom,” Dai pouted.

Shikamaru grinned. He was such a momma’s boy.

Temari took a step forward and helped Shikadai to get off his dad’s back. “Maybe some time for us to rest before playing again? Dad’s getting old, he needs to breath.”

“Woman, you’re older than me,” Shikamaru frowned, earning a smile from Temari in return.

“But who has better lungs?” She raised her eyebrows.

Before he could say anything to contest her, she brushed her hand against his, an invite to hold it which he promptly accepted. At some point in their teasing, Shikadai had run to the backyard, and both followed him.

They sat on the ground, as their kid ran around with his little fan around, swooping leaves and smiling every time. “See mom? My chakra is better than yours!”

“That’s not really hard, so- ouch,” Shikamaru rubbed the part of his arm where Temari just punched. She had a playful frown on her face as she looked at their son. 

The world stopped for a while as he watched her. Since they met, Temari always caught his attention. Not only by being incredibly beautiful and breathtaking, but she had one of those interesting minds, with a point of view Shikamaru couldn’t even ponder. 

With age, everything about her seemed to have gotten better. He was sure she was one of the most beautiful human beings ever walked on earth. 

“What?” She tilted her head, making her bangs fall on her eyes. 

“I’m pretty sure you lost your tan,” Shikamaru teased. “You should go out on the sun sometimes.”

Temari narrowed her eyes, but he noticed the corner of her mouth trying not to smile. He wished she did. He just loved her smile, especially when he was the reason.

“Shut up Nara,” she turned her head to Shikadai and he did the same, not before spotting a ghost of a smile on her lips. 

Shikadai was still spreading leaves by the backyard. He murmured Temari’s jutsus every time and Shikamaru knew her heart was probably racing inside her chest. 

“You’re pretty focused on mom’s jutsus today, aren’t you?” Shikamaru asked.

“Yes, cause I know pa’s already.” Shikadai shrugged, a copy of Temari’s eyes staring right back at him with determination. 

Temari and Shikamaru just raised their eyebrows to his response.

“Mind showing us?” Temari requested, curiosity laced in every word, and honestly? Shikamaru could relate badly. 

Shikadai just came a bit closer to both, his posture flawless. He dropped the little fan somewhere. 

The little Nara jumped into the Shadow Jutsu position, his fingers like Shikamaru used to do, though the signal was a bit off. One of his hands was too low and he smiled at the sight.

“Shadow Possession Jutsu!”

Nothing happened. By the corner of his eye, Shikamaru saw Temari cover her mouth to keep a laugh from escaping. His heart fluttered with love at the scene, as Shikadai started to get impatient with his own shadow.

“Move,” Shikadai whispered to his shadow on the ground. “They’re watching.”

After a few seconds without nothing happening, Shikadai expression changed from determination to sadness. He had a little pout on his lips, completely bothered.

Shikamaru was melting, and not because of the hot sun.

“It’s okay Dai, my shadow does it sometimes.” The kid raised his head and stared at his father. “My shadow gets so lazy and doesn’t move.”

His expression changed to relief. “Then, what do you do to make it move again?”

“I try again another time. Maybe you need a little bit more training. Dad can help you if you want?”

Shikamaru didn’t want to admit, but he caught his heart beating faster by the proposition. He always wondered what would be like when he actually started training his son, if he would pick things way faster than Shikamaru did when he was younger.

He hoped he could be a good teacher like his father.

“Ya,” he smiled, and it was missing a tooth. The old Nara couldn’t help but smile back.

He watched as Shikadai went to grab the little fan when he felt a hand over his. Temari stared at him, her eyes showing nothing but love and Shikamaru wanted to kiss her right there, but his son screaming her jutsus weren’t exactly building up a mood for them.

“Wind Release: Air Current Wild Dance,” and he swooped the little fan in the air.

A small, yet strong breeze covered both Temari and Shikamaru one second later. They turned their heads to Shikadai’s direction, their mouth agape and his eyes widened.

“Did he-?”

“Konoha’s hot days have no such breezes.” Shikamaru voiced out. 

Shikadai kept rolling on the grass, 

Temari got closer, planting a kiss on Shikamaru’s cheek while his eyes were still locked on the kid in front of them.

“Sorry, old man. I beat you again.”

Usually, he would tease her back. But, Shikamaru knew how much that meant to her. During all Shikadai life, both of them heard he was his mini copy and he knew it somehow affected her to keep listening to it. 

It was just not true. 

Yes, Shikadai inherited his looks, except for the eyes. Those beautiful eyes came from her, and he loved it because it made Shikadai her little copy too. Not his looks, but his personality. His energy? Completely her. All the faces he made, she was there. When he was angry, sad, or just tired, his expressions were purely his wife and that was what no one ever mentioned.

It felt like all the world couldn’t see their son by what he really was: the perfect balance of both of his parents, and Shikamaru loved it. 

“Twice in a day huh, guess I’ll have to make up for it later,” he raised his eyebrow and Temari smiled. 

“And how will you-?”

“Dad, did you rest already?” Shikadai screamed, jumping on him. 

“Yes,” Shikamaru got up, still holding Shikadai, who got heavier, he noticed. He offered his free hand to help Temari to get up, which she took it. Once she was standing next to him, he raised one eyebrow and returned the smile she offered him when she beat him earlier, “Time for revenge.”

[melodyalanaroster]

Days: Nathaniel’s Side

Despite Amber’s encouragement, Nathaniel did not want to leave the house. “God damn it Nathaniel! If you think I’m gonna let you fall into the abyss, you’d better think again! Now fucking do something other than sit around this house!” Sam demanded. The days began like that. Amber wanting to explore their new surroundings, Ken trying to do his best, and Sam demanding Nathaniel not mope around the house... But that’s all he wanted to do. “I’m not supposed to do much! I have to rest and let my wound heal!” He tried to argue. Sam looked at him, then took her hand and pressed her thumb along his bandage. Nathaniel yelped in pain as he looked into Sam’s eyes. “You may have to heal, but my commandment stands. You’re not going to spend the entirety of Purification moping around this house. You’re the one who got yourself into this mess, and I REFUSE to put up with your pitiful bullshit while my sister and that wretched organization get you out of it!” She growled.

As Nathaniel held his side, he watched Sam and Ken walk off. “You know Mels is gonna kick your ass if she finds out you did that.” Ken observed. “She can try.” Sam challenged.

★ 

After a couple of days of forced exploration, Nathaniel attempted to take off on his own. As he put the keys into the Roster family’s truck and started it, he noticed someone get into the passenger’s seat. “Kentin! What the hell?!” Nathaniel boomed. “Where do you think you’re going?” Kentin asked. Nathaniel looked down. Kentin raised an eyebrow. “You can’t do that.” He stated. “Why not? If I go alone, you and Sam won’t be breaking protocol.” Nathaniel argued. “It’s not a matter of whether or not Sam and I break protocol... It’s the fact that that if you go back to Amouria right now, it will be a slap in your girlfriend’s face. You said that if you didn’t leave Amouria, they’d kill you and go after Amber and Mels... Well, they didn’t count on Mels being the Grim Reaper, so now, they’re suffering the consequences of crossing her and you’re supposed to be giving them what they want by being out of the city while they suffer. Don’t make her efforts be for nothing by going back there and putting yourself back in the line of fire.” Kentin explained. Nathaniel looked at Kentin. “I still want to go back.” His eyes were pleading. Ken sighed. “Look, I know you do. But, think about it... Mels is posting online, almost religiously for now, even about the mundane. Knowing her, she doesn’t do that unless there’s a form of motivation. That’s told Sam and me that she’s trying to let you know that she’s okay. Sam is getting more and more pissed off at you for moping around... So, you’ve got to do SOMETHING other than barricade yourself in Mels’ room. Wander around the city, play video games, read a book in the living room.... Something! Hell, when you feel like it, I can even train you.” Kentin clarified and suggested. “You can train me?” Nathaniel asked. “Yeah. Mels told Sam and me that you’ve been boxing and fighting... But maybe I can add to your skill.” Kentin replied. 

It was on this day, Nathaniel finally began to stop moping around the house.

★

Several days passed, Nathaniel and Ken had gotten into the habit of going into the back yard to train. “So, you’ve trained against Alana and Sam?” Nathaniel asked as he attempted to lay a hit on Ken. “Yeah. The Military sends soldiers to the R.D.R for special training from time to time and Sam and I have both been sent to the old base.” Ken replied as he blocked Nathaniel and landed a hit on him.

While the boys trained, Sam decided to sit in the living room and play video games. Amber walked into the room. “It looks like the boys are having fun.” Amber commented. “Yeah, maybe Ken can whip Nathaniel into shape.” Sam sighed. “What’s your deal?” Amber asked as she sat down on the opposite end of the couch from Sam. “What do you mean?” Sam asked as she continued to play video games. “Ever since we got here, you’ve been so nice to me, but you’ve treated Nathaniel like he’s more or less an inconvenient soldier. Why?” Amber inquired. “You don’t get it... Do you? Just as you and Nathaniel are protective of each other, Mels and I protect each other. My sister has been through hell the past few years, and I don’t want her to get hurt again. I am VERY disappointed in both you and Nathaniel... However, with him, I need to make sure he’s got enough of a spine to be the type of man that can withstand being at my sister’s side. With the implementation of Protocol 216, your brother is now, basically, royalty. He needs to be strong and formidable, so that he can protect himself, as well as my sister. Especially considering I’m sure there may come a time where my sister won’t be able to protect herself. This weak, pussy ass, bullshit, that he’s been pulling will not do.” Sam explained. A flash of annoyance crossed Amber’s face. “And, as for you? You made it very clear that you wanted to be a model back in high school. It was easy to guess that you would end up like this. Especially considering your mother is an ex model, as well as emotionally abusive. Honestly, I think Nathaniel got off light when it comes to the abuse. His physical wounds healed, and with a good support system, he’s able to try to move forward from it. You, however, have essentially been committing a long form of suicide, with encouragement from your mother and coworkers. It’s no surprise that both Nathaniel and Castiel have been worried sick about you.” Sam sounded very fed up as she spoke. Anger started flashing across Amber’s face. “What do you know about my situation?! You’re a soldier!” Her voice began to raise. Sam sighed. Her temper wanted to flare, but she kept it under wraps. “That’s right, I am a soldier. I have seen and done things in my short life that you would have nightmares about. I am also a sibling to someone who has suffered so greatly that her horrors have nearly killed her on several occasions.” Sam immediately shot Amber down. Amber looked defeated. “Look, Amber, what your industry doesn’t realize just yet is that people don’t want string bean, Barbie dolls anymore... Well, no one with any brains wants that type of woman anymore. I mean, for fuck’s sake, have you not noticed the rise of women who can kick ass and take names in mainstream media? Gal Gadot was a trainer for the Israeli Army before becoming Miss Israel, and that was before she became Wonder Woman. She is revered as one of the most beautiful women on the planet. Other women like, Charlize Theron, Scarlet Johannson, Zoe Zaldana, Margot Robbie, and many, many others, are very beautiful women, who train like fucking crazy to stay thin, but you can tell there’s some muscle to them. These are women people may want to fuck, but you certainly don’t want to fuck with them. You don’t have to kill yourself to be beautiful. The most beautiful person is someone who is comfortable in their own skin, and free to show the world who they really are.” Sam paused her game to take a sip of her drink. Amber looked at Sam, shocked.

The boys continued to kick, punch and dodge each other in the back yard. “Good! But you need to quit going for the kill whenever you attack.” Ken commented. “Why?” Nathaniel asked. “You’ll find that it’s just as effective to disarm and incapacitate people than to end their lives.” Ken replied. “I don’t try to kill people.” Nathaniel remarked as he aimed for a spot on Ken’s back. Ken quickly dodged and aimed for Nathaniel’s legs, getting him on the ground. “I know you don’t try to. But when your instincts take over, you become primal. Primal instinct dictates that when you’re fighting for your life, you aim for the kill. It is a precise science to tame that instinct, make it look like you’re going for the final blow, and only disarm your opponent.” Ken explained. Nathaniel looked up at Ken and got back to his feet. “Is it a science that you’ve become well adept at? The last time I saw you, Sam was still punishing you for being a dick when Evan was here.” He smirked. Ken looked down. “Don’t get me started on him.” He sighed. Nathaniel looked at Kentin, curiously. “What happened?” He asked. “He got kicked out of the military and banned from R.D.R premises for harassing just about every woman he came across... Including Mels.” Ken sighed. “He harassed Alana?!” Nathaniel began to sound mad. Ken put up his hand. “This is where is got interesting. He tried to hit on her, but she shot him down so badly that he still hasn’t lived it down. Back then, you didn’t hit on Mels. Everyone knew that. Hell, the average recruit was lucky to get a pleasant greeting from her. The thing is, he didn’t stop after that... He began to spend less time training, and more time stalking Mels... However, Evan must have been pissing Mels off because the Red Death got wind of it and banned him from R.D.R facilities.” Ken explained. “Are you still friends with that fool?” Nathaniel asked. “Eh. Kinda... I still talk to him and Armin from time to time...” Ken replied. “What about Alexy?” Nathaniel asked. “Not really. After a while, I got tired of him constantly hitting on me... There was one point where Sam told him off... Then Mels told us how he’s been acting lately...” Ken began.

Suddenly, the girls appeared before them. “I thought ya’ll were training.” Sam smirked. “We were. We’re taking a break.” Ken smiled. “Yeah, I could hear ya’ll talking about Alexy.” Sam raised an eyebrow. “I don’t understand... He and Rosalaya are nice to me.” Amber commented. “Alexy wouldn’t quit hitting on my man, they abandoned my sister before she joined the R.D.R, and they’ve become insufferable.” Sam stated. “I know they haven’t given me the time of day in a couple of years...” Nathaniel started. “That’s because you became a damn drug dealer!” Amber blurted out. Nathaniel started to go to respond to Amber, but was stopped by Sam putting her hand up. “We are not doing this. I’ve talked to several people about what’s going on around Amouria and everything I’ve gotten has confirmed my suspicions. Castiel and Nathaniel are on common ground with Mels’ and Amber’s welfare and are fighting a bit less because of that. Priya doesn’t really talk to Nath and is wiling to give him another chance if he turns his shit around. She’s not happy with Mels but recognizes that she’s trying to free herself from the Grim Reaper. Rosa and Alex have allowed their personalities to become very fucking selfish. Leigh and his friend Rayan confirmed what happened when Mels bitch-slapped Rosa at the beach. Priya has confirmed that Mels ignores Rosa and Alexy now. So, as of right now, I don’t necessarily want to see or talk to them, but if they come up to me, I will be pleasant.” Sam explained.

Sam looked at the group and sighed. “Come on. I’m hungry and I wanna go out to eat.”

★

After days of training, Kentin needed a break, so Nathaniel decided to go off on his own wandering adventure. He parked the truck at a park and started walking. He had been walking for nearly an hour before he realized that he had left the park, and found himself surrounded by gravestones. “Why is a park so close to a cemetery?” He pondered as he walked. 

A few minutes later, he came upon a grave with two men sitting in front of it. He instantly recognized the younger man. “Remember! Your introduction to Viktor and Severina will be an event!” Alana’s voice rang through his head. “Alana would kick my ass if I meet Viktor before the Gala...” He thought as he looked around. He noticed a large tree near the grave site. He into listen to what Viktor and the other man were saying.

“Hey, Mom. I actually brought Dad here this time.” “Hello my darling Cosima, it’s been a while.” They began to explain what had happened with Achille Mekina’s downfall, and Alana’s involvement in it. “So, Alana brought down Severina’s corrupt father.” Nathaniel thought. His mind began to wander to what had happened to him. “It’s almost as if she has a talent for bringing corrupt parents to justice.” He thought. As the men described Alana stumbling into Viktor, knocking the poisoned drink from his hand, Nathaniel grinned. “She deceived them to save him.” He thought. Edgard began asking Viktor if Alana will ever forgive him for what he did. “No. She won’t. Mels is not, usually, a forgiving woman. You insulted and attempted to discredit her family. Then, you called her a “little bitch, a fucking little whore” and pulled a gun on her when she denied your offer for an arranged marriage with me. She has made it very clear that she will never forgive you... It doesn’t matter that you were under Achille’s influence at the time. What matters is that you felt it was okay to commit those acts at all.” Viktor explained. Nathaniel clenched his fists when he heard this. “THAT BASTARD!” He thought. “Lynne hasn’t forgiven me either.” Edgard pointed out. Viktor scoffed. “After all this time, you still haven’t realized how headstrong the Roster family is. The women in that family are raised to not let themselves be crushed under the shoes of men. Hell, Verity made it clear that that’s one thing she’s always hoped would rub off on Severina. If Mels hasn’t forgiven you, what makes you think her mother will?” Nathaniel had to hold him back from chuckling at Viktor’s words. Nathaniel knew Viktor was right. The men in the Roster family had to be strong... If not to hold themselves high, then to at least keep up with the women. The most docile of the women had always been the family’s matriarch, Margaret. However, it was known that when Margaret’s husband, Harold, began to act like a sexist prick, his daughters and granddaughters were always sure to shut him up.

A few minutes later, Edgard went back to their car, leaving Viktor alone at the grave. Nathaniel continued to hide behind the tree and listen. “I wish Melody, Sam and Severina could be here with me. I know it’s been a while since we all visited you together... But, Severina is busy helping maintain Melody’s sanity in Amouria, and Samantha is with her boyfriend at the Roster Family Home playing babysitter to Melody’s boyfriend and his sister. Because of Mels’ plans, I’m not permitted to visit the house and see my friend... It could run the risk of me meeting Nathaniel before the point that Mels has decided upon. I don’t wanna disappoint Mels... Mels has told Rini and me so much about Nathaniel, yet, after all this time, we still haven’t met him... We couldn’t be there to meet him before she moved to Toronto... We weren’t available to go to the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special Red Carpet Premiere in London when Nate took Mels and Nathaniel to it... And now, Mels is taking down a damn drug cartel to save him. I want to believe that he’s a good man... I want to have faith in Melody’s choice in soul mate... But I’m not sure. Part of me wants to say that she’d be better off if she and I were to get back together... But I know that will never happen... Hell, she reminds me of that every time I give her that longing look... Our time ended long ago...” Viktor’s voice had become sad. Nathaniel looked down, his heart becoming heavy. “Viktor is still in love with Alana, after all this time. Maybe she would be happier if she was with him, instead of being with a fuck up like me.” He thought as he sat down. 

His mind began to wander to what Alana’s life could have been if they had never gotten together in the first place... Until he heard Viktor begin to speak up again. “You always reminded me that my loving, childhood, relationship with Melody wasn’t allowed to last. That father was going to rip us apart eventually because she’s not, technically, a blue blood like us. You told me to prepare for the day that she falls for someone else, for someone who can actually go the distance with her. When she first started telling Rini and me of this boy she had met who she thought was brilliant and sweet... Rini instantly knew. “She’s falling for him.”, “Nathaniel is the one.” Rini kept saying. Part of me wanted to deny it completely. But, after a while, she began to tell us more and more about her adventures at Sweet Amoris... About how she kept helping a writer find his notebook... About a gamer she became friends with... About Sam’s boyfriend who she thought was a little annoying... About a rebellious musician with a heart of gold... And of course, she wouldn’t shut up about Nathaniel. I didn’t wanna hear it... But, almost every time she spoke about him, she smiled. She did tell us what his parents were like, and why she hates them... But, that didn’t stop her from loving him... I became jealous. I wanted to distance myself from Melody because of it... But Rini explained that it would hurt her if I did...” Viktor continued to talk to his mother’s grave, explaining his feelings over what had happened whenever he heard that Alana and Nathaniel had broken up, then what took place when Alana saved him from his kidnappers. The truth of Nathaniel’s and Alana’s break up had already been explained to Nathaniel by several people... Hell, the Red Death had even sent him security footage from the day it took place... And the resulting mental snap that Alana suffered... But, it was different hearing it from Viktor. There was more loss, and sorrow to it.

After several more minutes of talking, Viktor’s voice changed in tone. It had become more calm. “I don’t know... Maybe, once I meet him, I’ll get the feeling that he truly is Melody’s soul mate... Maybe... Maybe I’ll get a sign... Maybe Melody will shine brighter than she ever has...” Viktor began to chuckle. “Melody has always loved Stardust... Hell, I remember you once calling her a fallen star... And we all know that stars shine brightest when they’re near their true love...” Viktor sat down and leaned his back against the headstone. “I really miss you Mom.”

After realizing that Viktor would probably be silent for the duration of his time there, Nathaniel got up from the tree and decided to walk back to the truck. Part of him wanted to be mad at Viktor for not seeing what Alana was when she was near him and her other friends. That she was beginning to heal from her traumas, and that he was the one who was there for her the most in Amouria. Sam saw that, Severina apparently got it, but Viktor’s jealousy got in the way. However, Nathaniel saw that because he and Viktor had never met, Viktor couldn’t make a proper decision on him... It was was clear that he couldn’t act on blind faith the way Severina seemed to...

As he got back into the truck, he sighed. “Who knows... Maybe she will shine. As it is, that glimmer of hope has returned to her.”

★

Several more days passed. Nathaniel began to become impatient. He did his best to subside this feeling by trying to distract himself. Training with Ken, playing video games with Sam, playing online games with Armin, reading books, and even wandering around the places in Weathering that he remembered Alana telling him about. But, it wasn’t enough. It had been a couple of weeks since he had arrived in Weathering and he wanted to go home... To get back to her.

“Hey, how much longer is this purification going to last?” He heard Sam ask as he hid from her sight. “She must be on the phone with the organization.” He thought. “Look, Nathaniel is getting restless... And rightfully so. We’re all tired of waiting around... So, give me some information and an estimate.” Sam sounded tired. There was a few minutes of silence before Sam spoke up. “Alright. Just know, I know how restless both Melody and Nathaniel are... So finish this shit soon.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is what Nathaniel does during Purification.

I get that one day is primarily between Amber and Sam while Ken and Nathaniel are training... But I find this part very useful.

Credit goes to:

andanguyen on DeviantArt for the Background.

LicyAD on DeviantArt for the Viktor Sprite.

Special shout out to: @vanillaamoursucrethings

She is the one who encouraged me to send Nathaniel and Amber to Weathering and actually do some world building!