megan's fanfiction journal

[Final Fantasy Tactics] "Save the Queen," gen

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 06:26:31 GMT

This is what I wrote for Yuletide this year. Final Fantasy Tactics, gen (unless you really, really want to read it as Agrias/Ovelia). 1500-ish words. Title because I've always felt that Save the Queen not being a special sword for Agrias is ten levels of WTF. I was going for something vaguely Arthurian in this one, or at least very medieval courtly, with the lady's favor for her champion and all.

The Princess is in a right state when the knave finally returns her at Zirekile Falls, which really shouldn't be so surprising as Agrias finds it. Of course she would be soaking wet, the heavy brocade and velvet of her dress and mantle all but ruined from running through the falls and her slippers scuffed from sliding over wet rocks to try and stay out of Gafgarion's way (and damn him, what is he playing at? Does he really have so little honor, mercenary or not? Ramza Ruglia and his squire have already proven that those who fight for money need not be curs who only follow their purses) until that knave managed to run him off. How humiliating, that even the man who kidnapped the Princess in the first place has more concern for her welfare than for the pockets of the warring Princes and how they may be best brought into his possession. But there will be time enough for thoughts of Gaff Gafgarion and what he so richly deserves later, when the Princess' safety is ensured and they aren't on the outskirts of a city whose territory belongs to neither Prince; while the Bart Company seems neutral, Agrias is not fool enough to believe that they will pass over an advantage like having the Princess Ovelia in their custody.

"Are you all right, Princess?" Agrias asks, even though she has already asked it three times before. It is such a strange sight to see her in water-strained clothes, her hair loosed from its intricate braiding and mud on her face, that Agrias cannot help but think that she is injured despite all her assurances to the contrary.

"I am fine, Agrias." If her temper grows thin from Agrias' constant questioning of her health, Ovelia is far too well-bred to show it. She is, after all, a Princess; dignity and etiquette come to her as easily as she breathes, and she is elegant even when she has been jumping from stone to stone over a waterfall. "As if I could come to harm with you, your new friends, and Ser Delita all watching out for me. That man and the soldiers of the Hokuten did not stand a chance against the likes of all of you."

Inspiring such confidence in the Princess is simultaneously a wonderful thing and a terrible thing; while it is a thing worthy of pride to know that she is part of the reason the Princess can look at them all with her chin high despite the state of her person right now, it is also perhaps the greatest responsibility that Agrias has ever had (or will ever have!) in her life. She is reminded of that now, as the Princess is generous even in her assessment of her kidnapper; she speaks of him at his best, helping to defend her against her enemies as surely as Agrias ever has, and not at his worst as Agrias would. She cannot help that she will never be able to think of this Delita, as Ramza and the Princess have named him, as the man who carried her charge away from Orbonne on the back of a chocobo. This is what Agrias fights to defend, the woman so generous that she calls her own kidnapper Ser as if he is a man worthy of the title.

"The presence of the Hokuten worries me," Agrias admits, because they are seated far enough away that the rest of their company will not hear her. Though Ramza has proven this day that he does have more honor than a common sellsword, she knows that he lies about who he is. She has suspected for some time, because Ramza is not so common a name in Ivalice that she does not associate it with the youngest Beoulve son, and their mysterious malefactor-turned-benefactor's taunts at the falls had confirmed it. He would not have said such things, bringing up Lord Dycedarg and the Hokuten, if they did not fight alongside Ramza Beoulve. She has not heard so much as a whisper about his return to the knights, but that means nothing; nobles are as skilled at keeping secrets as they are at maintaining dignity. It is certainly possible, nay, more than possible, that his presence his more than it seems. He may be Ser Ramza in more than the Princess' pretty words yet. "It pains me to admit, but there may be something to what the man said. Prince Larg and the Hokuten may be behind this." Even worse than this Delita (she supposes he deserves a name, though certainly not the Ser, out of gratitude for his actions at Zirekile Falls) speaking the truth is that this being the truth means Agrias has been a dupe in this entire plot, that her own superiors have sent her into the white lion's den while allowing her to believe it to be the black she should fear.

"I did not think they would take things this far," the Princess says softly, and in that moment-- with her subdued, in the low light of evening, it is almost possible to think of her as Ovelia and not the King's daughter. "Perhaps it was naive of me, but I did not think something like this would happen. Tell me-- they did not hurt Father Simon?" Perhaps, then, she is not so blindly adoring of her kidnapper, and she deserves more credit than Agrias gives her. Surely she would not need to ask if Delita had hurt anyone at the convent if she truly thought that his motives were pure.

"Father Simon is safe." She cannot say that he is fine, of course, because he is badly shaken and worried for the safety of the Princess. He is a good man, and seeing a woman kidnapped in front of his eyes does not leave him without pain and worry. "Did this man-- this Delita-- give any hint to who sent him?"

"He said that he wished for me to be free, just as he said. He told me nothing he did not also tell you this afternoon." Princess Ovelia, because she hovers on a line between the dignified Princess and the girl Ovelia who sits in the shadows after a frightening day, smooths down her ruined skirts in what would be a nervous gesture in someone of lesser breeding. A girl groomed to be Queen of Ivalice does not have moments of nervousnesness, not even one who needs Agrias' protection. The scorn of nobles is, after all, not something that her champion can protect her from. "I believe him, Agrias. I believe..." She trails off, looking up with pale sad eyes. "I believe-- nay, I know-- that you are not privy to the plans of the Hokuten, no matter that you wear their colors. You would never do such a thing. He told me that you were hired, to a one, by Prince Larg and that you were going to have me executed. I do not believe everything that he says, Agrias, because I know that you have not betrayed me."

"I swear it, by God, that I knew nothing." Agrias speaks with conviction because it is the truth, and the Princess is not so old and jaded that she cannot see it for what it is. In that moment, she is no longer Ovelia Atkascha the girl or even Princess Ovelia, but the woman who will be Queen; she takes one of the water-spotted pink ribbons from her lopsided braid and holds it up. She has lost her gloves at some point, and her hands are bare and reddened from climbing over the wet rocks.

"He has not supplanted you as my champion, Ser Agrias," she says, and reaches up to tie the ribbon around Agrias' arm. It feels dated and childish, as if Agrias were about to represent her in a play duel with some other noble's man and not in a very real struggle to save her life. Gafgarion is not one to take lightly, and she does not know where this mysterious Delita comes from. There is even the possibility that Ramza Ruglia is a wolf hiding in their midst (or would a lion, perhaps, be more appropriate?) and will bring the Hokuten down upon them, or that the Nanten will make their allegiance in this strange plot known. There are a thousand things that can go terribly wrong on this very night, and this is no time for games. Not even the games of nobles, vicious by any other standards they are.

"I thank you, your Highness."

Perhaps someday she will look at this ribbon and remember the favor of the Queen; perhaps she will look at it and regret allowing such foolishness. For now, though, she can only accept it because it is all she can do to protect the Princess.

notes: I have not played the new PSP version of the game, and so all names follow the spelling in the original PSX version of the game. I'm likely playing fast and loose with the timeline in terms of people in the party knowing Ramza's background, but I find it rather hard to believe that Agrias wouldn't guess at Ramza's background after Delita taunted him about Dycedarg in the battle at the waterfall; the two of them were both in the Hokuten, and Ramza is from a famous family.

[Suikoden III] "The Most Likely Outcome," Hugo/Belle

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 07:05:14 GMT

First of all: apparently I have not had comment notifications on for this journal, and didn't realize it. This has been rectified, so I will be much better at responding to comments than I have been for the past few months. My apologies to everyone who's commented without my seeing it!

Written for Roads Diverged's steampunk theme. The basic premise: Lilly is bratty and new-rich, Hugo is attending university in an attempt to "civilize" his barbarian Grasslander ways, and Belle is an engineer of delightful steampunk machines (if by "delightful" one actually means "Gadget ZX," that is). In short, what Team Hugo would be in a bad steampunk AU. 1800-ish words.

Belle had another invention to show them, and that could only end badly.

It wasn't that Hugo didn't like Belle. Quite to the contrary; he liked her a great deal. And even putting that aside, she was much better company than some of the other people he knew (Miss Lilly Pendragon being the best example), and sometimes her inventions even worked. Gadget ZX had been a success, even if— to hear him tell it, and Hugo wasn't sure how reliable the testimony of a steam-powered automaton was— her mother had done most of the work in that particular case. It was just that most of her plans tended to blow up spectacularly, and that made a person wary no matter how much he liked the girl blowing things into pieces.

"Well, let's see it, then," Lilly said impatiently, tapping her foot on the floor and adjusting her cravat. She was dressed like a man, which happened so often that the gossip columns had actually stopped reporting on it. Now they were more likely to have material for the papers if she appeared at a party in Vinay del Zexay or Tinto in a proper gown. "I've a meeting with Chris— you know, Chris Lightfellow, the heir to those Zexen holdings? Delightful girl, when she's not throwing tables at people— at the theater in an hour."

According to the gossip in the papers, Lilly had been the one throwing the table at Lady Chris Lightfellow— she was nouveau riche, after all, and less inclined to have proper manners than landed nobility like the Lightfellow family— but Hugo knew better than to argue with her if they wanted to get to Belle's invention tonight. He had plans of his own, though admittedly having less to do with a night at the theater and more to do with finishing the final draft of his thesis on the dramatic works of Schtolteheim Reinbach III. Islander literature was better than most, all poems about battles and epics that had probably been set to music centuries before, but that didn't mean the paper was going to be easy to finally finish.

"YOU WILL REGRET THIS," Gadget ZX said, mournful as only someone who knows what doom is about to fall upon him could be. "I CERTAINLY DO."

"I'm already regretting it." Lilly took off her ridiculously plumed hat, as if she were afraid the feathers would be damaged in the explosion that was sure to follow. "Belle, do hurry up over there."

"You can't regret anything!" Belle tapped Gadget ZX on the top of his copper-plated head as she emerged from behind the pile of machinery she was working on. She walked through a slick of grease without a thought for her long, harlequin-patterned skirts, and Lilly made a face. For all she claimed that her trousers and tailored coats meant she cared nothing for fashion, it seemed to offend her whenever Belle really didn't care anything for fashion. "Hugo, come over here and help me with this, would you?"

"Uh, sure." He would probably regret it, because helping Belle set up one of her contraptions inevitably led to something exploding, falling over, catching on fire, or doing all three at once. "What is it, anyway?"

"OUR DOOM," Gadget ZX informed him, and Belle hit it with the wrench in earnest. "I RUE THE DAY YOUR MOTHER CREATED ME FROM THE PARTS LEFT OVER WHEN HER ORIGINAL MODEL EXPLODED."

"You can't rue anything, either! Mom hadn't perfected the emotional engine algorithm when you were made." Belle was evidently done arguing with her automaton. The only upside to such an argument was that it was marginally more productive than arguing with Lilly but less so than arguing with Hugo, which was to say that while nothing was accomplished at least no one was injured. "Get the steam valve here, please!" Belle pointed to the valve in question with her wrench, and Hugo walked over to it— getting merely a raised eyebrow instead of a nasty look from Lilly when he stepped in the same oil slick Belle had, because evidently it was uncouth but expected of a Grasslander savage come to civilized lands for education to have no care for his clothing.

"I am going to be late if I don't leave soon. This had better be good." As if Lilly cared that she was going to be late any more than she cared about being anything other than the constant topic of society pages.

"Like this?" Hugo asked, turning the steam valve. Belle nodded, beaming.

"That's it! Now, I'll get this one, and with both of them on we should have enough power for—"

"What is that?" Lilly actually sounded marginally impressed, although that was likely just the dazing effect of seeing hundreds of lights flashing on whatever device it was Belle had in the center of the room. Or perhaps it was the rather ominous whistling noise coming from the pipes connecting it to the valves; they sounded rather like they were going to burst.

"DEATH FROM ABOVE."

"It's a permutational engine!" Belle ignored Gadget ZX in favor of looking expectantly at her friends. "It can calculate all possible aspects of a problem and tell you the most likely outcome!"

"I'll be, I think you actually made something useful." Lilly put her hat down on the workbench and stepped forward, careful to avoid the grease on the floor even in her astonishment. "How does it work? I want to ask it something!"

"You don't ask it questions, you tell it your problems." Belle looked up at it, obviously proud of her work. She had reason to be; even if it didn't work, Hugo was pretty sure it was the most extraneous blinking lights she'd ever managed to get onto one machine. And Belle really, really like extraneous blinking lights. "And Hugo gets to go first, because he helped."

"I, er." What in the world did one ask a machine? It wasn't like asking his mother or Jimba for advice, or even asking the spirits for guidance (which Hugo, as a modern and educated young man, knew wasn't something that modern and educated young men should hold with no matter where they spent their childhoods); it was just a machine, albeit a very much flashing one. "I haven't finished my Reinbach thesis yet, but I came here to help Belle anyway."

"YOU WILL STAY UP ALL NIGHT AND WRITE A SUBPAR PAPER, BUT YOUR PROFESSOR IS AFRAID THAT YOUR PEOPLE WILL SCALP HIM IF HE FAILS YOU."

"Belle!" Hugo crossed his arms in front of him. "How could you program it to think like that? You know we don't scalp people." They didn't do anything of the sort in the Grasslands, and he didn't have any idea where the stories had gotten started. Probably with the Lizard Clan; they always were more worried about seeming intimidating to foreigners than giving the region a reputation for something other than shameless violence. Bad enough they were all already thought barbaric and in need of civilized education, and that Hugo had to leave and get an education for the supposed betterment of Karaya.

"It's based on Mom's algorithms, and you know how she is. Southerner." Belle's mother was from Gregminster, which meant she'd probably never met a Grasslander in her entire life. Belle was constantly apologetic about this fact, since it tended to crop up in Gadget ZX's personality. "But it's probably true your professor thinks that!"

"I'm going to be late because of you." Lilly picked up her hat again and put it on her head with a flourish. It wasn't immediately clear whether she was talking to Belle and Hugo or to the permutational engine.

"CHRIS LIGHTFELLOW WILL GO TO DINNER WITH COUNT REDRUM AND MASTER FRAULEIN. YOU WILL HAVE TO ATTEND THE SHOW WITH REED AND SAMUS."

"Couldn't you have given it a different voice from the other one?" Lilly asked, gesturing towards Gadget ZX. "It's going to get confusing, especially since they're both so rude. And I do hope you've made a bad invention this time, because I do not want to see the show with Reed and Samus. They're boring, and always reporting back to my father."
Hugo didn't say anything; he was still rather put out about the scalping comment.

"Then go before you're late," Belle said, in a tone that clearly said Lilly should have thought of that in the first place. "You said you were going to be late, not that you already are late."

"MISS PENDRAGON REQUIRES LESSONS IN REMEDIAL VERB CONJUGATION."

"Hmph! Fine, then, I'll leave you two to your permutations and your conjugations." Lilly left the workshop with all the hauteur of the scorned new money, which was to say that it was twice as overdone as the hauteur of the scorned old money. The permutational engine was silent, evidently not considering Lilly's leaving to be a problem in need of analysis.

Maybe Belle's newest invention was intelligent, then.

"I'll try to alter the main processes and make them less, um… well, less mean. To you." Belle flushed a little, obviously still embarrassed by the fact that she'd inadvertently made an extraordinarily offensive machine. "It'll take some time, though, because I'll have to write to Mom and get the base calculations she used. And— ooh, they're shutting down the steam to the lab for the night already! I hate it when they do that."

The lights on the engine were already dimming, although it did analyze Belle's statement ("YOU WILL NOT OVERTAX THE BOILERS OVERNIGHT FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE YOU CAME HERE") before shutting down with a hiss.

"Thanks. It's okay, I know you didn't make that part. Your mother probably didn't either— it was probably just telling me what the professor will actually think." Hugo shrugged, because getting irritated with Belle for something that really wasn't her fault and that she was very clearly upset about anyway wasn't going to solve anything. "And it's just as well we go, since everyone will talk if the two of us are here without Lilly. Improper, and all." That made Belle laugh again, and the two of them closed the steam valves so that the engine wouldn't start again as soon as the boiler to the workshops came on again in the morning.

"I could help you with your Reinbach thesis, if you want," Belle suggested. "I'm not great at composition, either, but the permutational engine did say you wouldn't fail no matter what you wrote."

"True," Hugo conceded as Belle herded Gadget ZX out of the workshop and locked the door behind them.

"MUST I COME ALONG FOR YOUR ROMANTIC EVENING?" Gadget ZX, ever the long-suffering, asked.

"Of course," Hugo said, which made Belle blush. "It just wouldn't do not to have a chaperone."

"I WISH I WOULD RUN OUT OF POWER."

[Suikoden III] "Five People Who Should Have Been Stars of Destiny," gen

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 01:00:29 GMT

Written for the Roads Diverged challenge community on InsaneJournal, where I'm writing ten AUs for Suikoden III (of which this is the first). To use my summary there: written because there are just some characters from previous games that should have appeared in Suikoden III, but didn't (Nash "Married Man" Clovis waltzes in without his infamous missus? Luc and Futch get extra dialogue in the final dungeon, but Sasuke doesn't even make it into the game?). A series of drabbles. 5 x 100 words.

This is gen, although it does operate under the background assumption that Nash is married to Sierra. And although it's technically a Suikoden III fic, knowledge of some of the other games will help, particularly II and/or V.

"Why would I join you?" Sasuke asked. "I have what I came for." What he came for was Ayame, saying that Kasumi of Rokkaku wanted to question her about Kage. "You can keep the one you paid. Kasumi doesn't need him."

"You should join us because it's Luc." Futch broke the silence that followed you can keep the one you paid. "Luc's the one we're fighting against."

Sasuke stared at him, not saying a word. Futch stared right back until Sasuke nodded, slowly, and turned back to Ayame.

"I hate to brag, but I've fought many vampires in my lifetime," Estella said to the woman sitting across from her.

"Have you, now?" The woman-- girl, she looked as young as any of the archers in Alma Kinan-- asked, raising one white eyebrow. "That's-- you!"
At first Chris thought the girl was shouting at her, but no; Nash had come in behind her.

"Yes, me," Nash said. "I see you aren't too old and decrepit to find me yet, you hag."

"It's a good thing you're here. I was tired of walking." She smiled, and for the first time since Chris had met him Nash Clovis looked afraid.

"You're the ones who opened up these ruins?" The woman ran a hand through her hair as she spoke. She didn't look particularly old, except for the silver threading through her dark hair. "Do you have any idea how long people have been trying to get in here?" She turned away from them and began packing up her equipment and her notes.

"Ah-- you don't have to leave," Hugo said quickly.

"Don't have to leave? Are you joking? It's been years since I've come across anyone who opened up a site like this. I'll be coming with you."

"I don't like him very much," Cecile whispered, looking over Thomas' shoulder. Thomas didn't care for the newcomer in the castle, either, but he was the master and had to be gracious-- even to people who showed up and installed themselves in the castle without a word of warning, and who had no discernible trade to offer Budehuc.

"He's our guest, Cecile." Thomas spoke just a little too loudly, and the newest occupant of Budehuc castle turned to look at them. But they'd both ducked back around the corner at the first swing of his hair, and he didn't see them.

"I should have known you'd be here. You never could find anything unless I got to it first, Zweig." Lorelai stepped carefully across the ruined floor to meet him.

"And here I was under the impression no one had unsealed this part of the ruin before," Zweig said, standing up. He leaned heavily on his staff. "Still running around ruins because no one will marry you?"

"At least I can still walk," Lorelai said, demonstrating it by coming to him. "This looks Falenan."

"I thought so, too." And they were talking about ruins and runes like they hadn't been fighting a moment earlier.

[Suikoden V] "From Three Rooms Away," Georg/Sialeeds

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:05:22 GMT

het_challenge repost 3/5. (See, I didn't wait months between them this time!)

1700-ish words. Pre-game and thus no spoilers, but not safe for work-- it's not overly explicit, but there is obvious sexual activity going on here. And while it is certainly not necessary to understand the story, knowledge of the first Suikoden game will give the opening dialogue some amusing context.

"You don't care for these kinds of meetings much, do you," Georg observed. He and Sialeeds had both begged their leave from the trade negotiations between Sol-Falena and Gregminster— Sialeeds first, since her presence wasn't more than a courtesy from the royal family, and not long after that Georg. His presence, also largely ceremonial without the Queen herself present, was distracting to the delegates from Scarlet Moon. After all, Georg had been one of them not terribly long ago. The ones who weren't glancing back at him warily kept trying to talk to him as if he was still one of their own. They hadn't gone far, though, because there was always the chance that they might need to return— particularly Sialeeds, since she would probably need to give her approval on the final agreement before it went to the Queen.

"Don't be ridiculous. As a member of the Falenas family, I respect all of our nation's allies and welcome their presence in the court." Sialeeds paused, and then made a face. "That didn't sound very believable, did it."

"It might have worked if you hadn't been talking about the ambassador from Scarlet Moon," Georg said with a low laugh. "I don't know anyone in his right mind who would welcome General Oppenheimer. Especially not in regards to trade— the man doesn't know anything about it. I don't know what Barbarossa was thinking."

"He certainly seemed to like you," Sialeeds said slyly. She lifted a hand and let it hang loose, limp at the wrist, and affected a lilting falsetto. "Oh, Georg, it's been so long! Aren't you finished playing with all of these women? If you wanted to get away from the capital, you should have said something! I'm sure you would prefer the accommodations at Scarleticia to this."

"You see now why Ferid let me leave." Georg caught her wrist to keep her from waving her hand around in that disturbingly accurate way that did exactly what it was intended to— put him in mind of Milich Oppenheimer's bizarre mannerism. "You're much too good at that. It's rather frightening."

"Well, I have to be able to compete with the great general of the Empire." Sialeeds laughed, using her normal voice again. "We wouldn't want you deciding that the accommodations at Scarleticia really are preferable to the ones in Sol-Falena."

"Clearly you've never been to Scarleticia." Georg's shudder was mostly affected. "I went there once. It's not a place I'd care to visit for a second time. Did you know he renames all the villages around it? And then he tried to rename the peasants, but that didn't really take. No, I much prefer the scenery here to there." He was looking at Sialeeds as he said it, which made it quite clear that it wasn't just the land around Sarleticia Castle that was inferior to Sol-Falena.

"Are you implying that you find the Lady Sialeeds more attractive than me?" Sialeeds asked, her voice rising into that ridiculous range again. She even added a lisp, so that her name came out Lady Thialeedth. "You're a cruel man, Georg Prime!" They were both laughing by then, loudly enough that people could probably hear them from the hallway. "We probably should have gone further away than a few rooms down the hall, though, if we're going to laugh at the man like that."

"We'll just have to be quieter about it, then, won't we?" Georg had stopped laughing outright, but amusement still ran thick in his voice. "They're very good at listening from a few rooms away in Gregminster, you know. All those assassination plots."

"Are they, now." Sialeeds sounded much more interested in Scarlet Moon than she'd been a few moments earlier. "If they'd brought some of that with them, things wouldn't have been so boring."

"Oh, they still would have been boring. Imperial assassination plots aren't very good, really. That's why you can hear them from three rooms away. It's when you don't hear anything that you worry, because then someone who knows what he's doing is after you." Georg let go of Sialeeds' wrist, finally, and motioned for her to be quiet. As they sat in silence, Milich Oppenheimer's voice— saying something impassioned about imperial honor and how trade duties related to it— reached them through the wall. "See? I'd rather be bored than running from a competent plot against me, personally."

"You would." Sialeeds leaned forward slightly, conversationally. "I think I should be offended, though, that my company is so boring to you. Whether you like boredom or not, a woman doesn't enjoy hearing that." And just as suddenly as she'd affected the persona of General Oppenheimer, her mien turned conspiratorial. "How good, exactly, would you say their hearing is?"

"Probably not good enough. I think you could be a better usurper than they are, if you put your mind to it." This was a game Georg was more than familiar with, both from his time in Gregminster and here in Sol-Falena. Sialeeds was a more entertaining partner in it than most, and not only for the obvious reasons. "Still, it couldn't hurt to be careful."

Sialeeds was anything but careful, because careful was boring (and, as she'd said, boring was the worst insult one could give to a woman like Sialeeds Falenas). It wasn't difficult to keep her low laughter quiet as she started working on the myriad sashes that made up the uniform of a Queen's Knight— partly amusement at the conversation, because the talk that led up to these games was always amusing with Georg, and partly amusement at the sudden thought that these uniforms must be so elaborate to prevent indiscretions with the Queen. That was the wrong stray thought to have, because that was enough to make her angry; her hands clenched on the sash around Georg's waist before she pulled it loose with far more force than she had intended.

"Something wrong?" Georg asked, though he didn't pause in untying the ribbon holding her dress up at the shoulders.

"Nothing," she snapped, dropping the wide gray sash on the floor near where they stood. "Nothing at all." Be quiet before you ruin things, she wanted to say, but that wasn't a part of the rules this game followed. It wasn't his fault, anyway.

"All right." He was too busy trying to move his hands and feet at the same time, coordination that came easily on the battlefield not quite so steady when his hands were pulling apart a woman's dress and his feet were following her movements towards the wall. "If you say so."

"I do say so." She shook her hair away from her eye and pushed him back against the wall, and leaned up to kiss him. As she did, he unfastened the clasp holding her dress together over her breasts. Sialeeds countered by pulling loose the sash (another damnable sash, and was there anything on the uniforms that didn't tie on?) holding his armor on and letting it clatter to the floor. The sound was loud enough to carry, and they pulled apart far enough to speak.

"Quiet," Georg said, rather breathless. "Wouldn't want them to catch on, now would we?"

"Not in the slightest." Sialeeds' breath came quickly as she spoke, and she smiled like she had a few moments earlier. "I think we might shock the good ambassadors from the north." With her over-dress hanging loosely from her shoulders, her skirt was short enough that it was a simple affair for Georg to slide his hand up her thigh. She clenched her fingers in his under-robe, thwarted in pulling it apart now that the armor was out of the way, and gasped. "Georg—"

He took advantage of her distraction to turn around with her still clutching at him, so that she was the one with her back to the wall. They backed up one step, two steps, and then her back hit the wall and she arched forward slightly into his hand.

"And you expect me to be quiet?" She managed, and it was the last coherent thing that she said. They didn't kiss, since that would make it obvious when they inevitably had to meet with the trade delegation again; bruised necks and swollen lips were not exactly easy to hide— and while Sialeeds could paint her lips and Georg had a high collar, neither of them would be able to take care of both. Georg was doing an admirable job with nothing but his hands, though, and were Sialeeds actually plotting an assassination it would be safe to say that she would be found out very quickly. When she finally shuddered against him, though, she was quiet; her voice was as low as it was when she laughed.

Sialeeds stayed where she was for a moment, catching her breath and collecting her thoughts. She would have liked to have a bit longer for that, but footsteps in the hallway outside interrupted them.

"I wonder if they heard us?" Georg whispered, low and amused, and let go of her long enough to pick up his armor. She slumped back against the wall, knees weak, and an instant later he swept her up with her free arm.

"What are you doing?" She asked, laughing breathlessly.

"Getting out of here," he answered, making for the back of the room with surprising speed for a man in his state of undress and carrying both his discarded armor and a half-naked woman. The hallway on the other side of the room was very rarely used— a back hall that servants used to come to these rooms, and there was no reason for them to be in this wing now. They waited there without interruption for a few minutes, but no one came into the room they'd fled. After another few minutes without incident, Georg opened the door and peeked inside. "It looks like we're safe."

"Good," Sialeeds said as he carried her back into the room. "Now, where were we?" She put her hands back on the black and white fabric on his shoulders. "Yes, I think I was right about here when you so rudely interrupted me."

His laugh was loud enough that at that rate, they were going to be caught without any help from her.

[Fullmetal Alchemist] "Little Brothers and Little Sisters," Al/Mei

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 07:08:27 GMT

Er, when I said I was staggering my h_c stories, I didn't mean the delay would be this long! Anyway, here's my second repost.

2300-ish words, cute and fluffy but major spoiler warning for the latter part of the FMA manga. Minor edits from the original version in that I've changed "Olivia" to the official spelling "Olivier."

Mei Chan had never had tea alone with a boy before. Most girls her age in Xing would have had their first suitors, especially ones who happened to be Princesses, but between Mei's clan's low station and her propensity for masculine pursuits like pharmacy and fighting to succeed her father, she wasn't exactly popular with noble-born boys. Girls who had knives in their hands instead of flowers weren't good marriage prospects in Xing, not even one whose father happened to be the Emperor. That had been all right, though, because Mei had known what she wanted; she want to go to Amestris and marry the famous alchemist Edward Elric. He would be tall and beautiful and have golden hair like a lot of Amestrians had but no one in Xing did (and of course, he would say the same sorts of things about Mei, that she was thin and beautiful and had deep black hair like few people in Amestris did), and everyone back home would be sorry they ever teased Mei when they heard how well she had done for herself. It would be the most romantic story anyone in Xing would ever hear.

Of course, then Mei had actually met Edward Elric. He had golden hair, probably the most yellow she'd seen her entire time in Amestris, but that was where the resemblance to her dream ended. He was short and loud and rude, and not exactly a handsome gallant. And Xiao Mei hated him, which utterly ruined his chances; Xiao Mei was a very good judge of character. She had never been wrong once, and she had almost chewed Edward Elric's arm off. No, the Fullmetal Alchemist was definitely out as a prospective suitor. They might be friends, if he learned to calm down as he got older, but she was completely disillusioned with her old daydreams.

Xiao Mei loved Alphonse Elric. In fact, he was her second-favorite person after Mei herself. That was sort of weird, because Mei was pretty sure that her panda wasn't supposed to fall for a boy before Mei herself did. Not to mention that the boy in question was currently a soul tied to a suit of armor by way of alchemy that was absolute anathema in Xing. But Xiao Mei was a very good judge of character, and that was why Mei was about to have tea with the boy in the suit of armor. Or, well, what passed for tea here; everything was a bit lacking as far north as Fort Briggs, but the tea was definitely the hardest part to get used to. It was so… old. Old and dried-out, and that made it taste strange.

"I'm sorry I'm late!" Alphonse had a tinny voice— and wouldn't the pharmacy scholars back home like to study him and figure out where his voice was coming from, not that Mei would ever do such a thing as tell them about him— and it sounded even odder when he was out of breath. That was another thing that didn't make any sense when looked at scientifically (and it probably drove Amestrian scholars insane, since they were even more scientific than Xingese ones!), the fact that a suit of armor could sound out of breath when he didn't breathe. "Brother was fighting with the Major-General again, and I was afraid she was going to kill him this time." Mei liked Olivier Milla Armstrong, even though she was more than a little scary. For one, she was one of the few people who could put Edward Elric in his place.

"That's all right. I haven't been here very long." Mei shifted in her seat slightly. Was it strange to be nervous about having tea with a boy when the boy was, well, made of metal? It would be better to switch to a safer topic. "Why have you and your brother been looking for me?"

"Your alchemy," Alphonse answered immediately. "It worked underneath Central City, when ours didn't. Is it because it's from Xing, or were you doing something else?"

All right, so maybe that had been a mistake to bring up. Now Alphonse was going to want to know all about alchemy, and she wouldn't have any chance to get to know him better. Because she did want to get to know him, all nervousness aside. He was so much nicer and more mature than his older brother— and, well, Xiao Mei was a very good judge of character. And not having the short temper and nastiness must have meant that he'd been (and would be) taller than his brother! After all, that was probably why Edward was so mean all of the time, because he was compensating for his height. And if Mei could find some way to fix him, make him human again— it would be the most romantic story anyone in Xing would ever hear! Not to mention that it would be a feat of pharmacy so great that the Chan clan would see its status raised and maybe, just maybe, Mei would gain her father's favor to ascend the throne after him. Especially now that the forerunner from the Yao clan was gone; Mei didn't know exactly what had happened to him below Central City, and didn't want to know. But it must have been dire, if his dog had been so badly injured.

But she was digressing, and Alphonse was looking at her in expectation of an answer. Or, well, she thought he was. It was sort of hard to tell when he didn't have a real face.

"It must be because I'm from Xing. Xingese pharmacy is very different from Amestrian alchemy." Mei poured herself some tea and then did the same for Alphonse. But as soon as she began she realized, feeling flustered, that of course that wasn't necessary. He couldn't drink it— she'd been inside of the armor before, and it was empty inside. "We use it as a creative force, not a destructive one."

"…but what about Scar?" Alphonse asked. "His alchemy worked, too, and some of the things he does look like our alchemy, not yours."

"Isn't he your enemy?" Mei asked. Now she was wary, because she knew that the Amestrians hated Scar. But whatever it was that he'd done, he was her friend. She wasn't going to give him up— not that she could when she didn't know where he was, but even if she had she wouldn't have told Alphonse Elric. No matter how much Xiao Mei liked him.

"My brother hates him," he said immediately. "Because Scar tried to kill him once. But I… I think Scar is a good man. He does some bad things, but good people can do bad things. If my brother is a good person, or Colonel Mustang, or Major-General Armstrong, then Scar must be one, too. He… sometimes I think I can understand him, just a little. And he helped us— him, and you, and Ling." Mei put her teacup down against the saucer with a sharp clink (funny, that they had nice dishes here— she'd always thought that the Amestrian military would eat off of metal plates and with wooden spoons, like barbarians) at the mention of her half-brother. She didn't want to hear anything about the clans with positions over hers, and she wanted to hear even less about one who'd done so much at such a young age and thus always managed to get thrown in Mei's face. Alphonse noticed, and cleared his throat nervously. Boys weren't supposed to notice things like that, were they? "…oh, is that a common name in Xing?"

"Ling Yao was my half-brother," Mei said shortly. "I hate him and his clan. Everyone in Xing thinks they're better than my clan. And I don't want to talk about him anymore."

"All right. Er… " Alphonse trailed off, as if he didn't know what to say. He was quieter than his brother, too. "I—" He was cut off when Xiao Mei climbed out of his armor and crawled onto the table. She went straight for his teacup and lapped at it as if Mei had poured it for her and not out of absentmindedness. "Is tea bad for… whatever she is? And I've been wondering, what does her name mean? Or is it just a name?"

"No, she has some of mine all the time. And she's a panda. I don't think you have anything like them here." Mei paused. "She really likes you. She normally doesn't like strangers. Well, she thought Scar was all right, but nothing like she likes you. And her name can mean either small Mei, since she is like me, or little sister if you write it differently."

"She tried to eat my brother." Alphonse sounded amused. "Poor brother, he couldn't get her to let go of his arm! He's not very good with animals. I keep trying to have cats, and he keeps scaring them away." He looked down at where Xiao Mei was lapping at the tea with all the dignity of a court lady. "Little sister, I like that. It's a good name for her."

"He should let them stay. Cats are good luck." Xiao Mei had effectively diffused the situation, which might have been what the little panda had intended to do all along. She was a very good friend, after all. "And your brother seems to need more good luck than most people."

"Are they, really? Maybe he'll let me keep one if I tell him that." Judging by his tone, Mei guessed that Alphonse would be making a face at her if he'd been… normal. "He probably won't believe me, though. Especially not when the cat bites him." He sobered after that, though, and went on in a much more serious voice. "I don't want to do anything to make him mad, though. He's working so hard to help me. I think that's why he wanted to find you so badly, to see if your alchemy could help me."

"I don't know," Mei admitted. "To do what he did to you is forbidden to us. Anyone who did it would have been put to death. I think… I think that helping you is beyond what I know right now. But I don't think it's impossible, especially for someone not limiting herself with Amestrian alchemy."

"But what's equivalent trade for a human body? Trying to make one with all of the component elements is what got us into this mess in the first place." Alphonse idly stroked a finger over Xiao Mei's head.

"What's equivalent trade for a human soul? Edward managed to attach your soul to something. Equivalent trade doesn't explain everything, because not everything has a value. Your brother used to know that, even if he seems to have forgotten about it now. We know it in Xing, and that is why we can do things you can't here in Amestris. Scar knows it, too— I bet that's why our pharmacy worked before and yours didn't. There isn't much difference in our pharmacy and your alchemy except philosophy."

"What would they say about me in Xing? Besides that my brother was wrong to do this to me?" Alphonse asked, sounding genuinely curious. Maybe it was better that they stuck to talking about alchemy; the conversation seemed to go badly when it was steered onto personal topics. "About what I am, I mean."

"Working pharmacy on a human soul is anathema. We have a saying in Xing, that for a man to sacrifice to a spirit not his own is flattery. He was wrong to sacrifice a part of himself to your spirit. Either he had too much faith in your continued existence, or too much confidence in his own ability with alchemy." Mei was careful to call it alchemy, because what Edward Elric had done was not pharmacy in any way, shape or form. She could only hope that pharmacy could undo something so fully wrought by alchemy. "Some of them would probably want to destroy you, too, but I don't agree with that. It's not your fault that it happened."

"You make it sound like my brother did something bad in saving me!" Alphonse jerked his hands away from Xiao Mei, lest he hurt her in his anger. No wonder she liked him so much; few people would have consideration for a tiny animal in the midst of being upset.

"You said that sometimes good people do bad things. Well, sometimes bad people do good things. He did do something bad, and he does many other bad things. I didn't know that when I came from Xing— all anyone ever hears about outside Amestris are the good things that he's done for people. He is a bad person who does good things. I think you are one of those good things, regardless what he did to save you." Mei balled her hands into fists under the table, her tea forgotten. "Most people in Xing wouldn't help you, but I want to."

"My brother is not a bad person," Alphonse said quietly, standing up. "I don't think you are, either, but please give him a chance before you say things like that about him."

"I…" Mei bit her lip. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to… it just makes me mad, that you get ignored like he's better than you, and then you encourage that." It reminded her of back home, except that Mei never did anything to encourage it like Alphonse Elric did.

"I should go." Alphonse surprised her by bowing. Had he asked someone how people bowed in Xing? Or maybe he'd learned from Ling Yao. "Hopefully the Major-General hasn't thrown my brother out of the fort yet. But… I'd like to do this again. We can talk more about alchemy." He paused then, and continued shyly. "Or about other things. I'd like to hear more about Xing."

When he left, both Mei and Xiao Mei were blushing.

[Gintama] "Love is Getting Your Candy for Free," Okita/Kagura

Wed, 30 May 2007 19:26:44 GMT

Time to get around to posting those het_challenge stories! I'll be staggering them so as not to flood anyone (I wrote five), and here's the first.

3400-ish words, Okita/Kagura, and no real warnings except for idiocy.

"--and so then Zura starts going on about how it's such an awful amanto holiday and how could I possibly disgrace my ancestors by accepting candy from someone," Gintoki was saying, not looking up from his copy of Jump and his box of chocolates as he spoke. He'd actually gotten two gifts of candy the day before, one from Sacchan and the other from Shimura Otae; there was also a large pile of candy near the door that they'd salvaged from Katsura's place before the garbage collectors got there. As it turned out, there were a lot of young ladies in Edo who thought the handsome, dramatic hero of the resistance deserved candy. And that many of these young ladies somehow knew where the infamous Katsura Kotarou lived while the Shinsengumi scoured the city for him. He'd thrown all but one of them out (the one he'd kept had been from that ramen shop girl he was sort of dating but not really because he kept asking her to change her shop over to a soba one and she kept refusing). "And I told him that he'd be saying something totally different if the weather girl gave him candy."

"Gin, the weather girl didn't give you any candy." Shinpachi said; he was in Gintoki's kitchen, making dinner for him and Kagura for the third time that week. If he didn't come over and cook for them, they would have both starved to death a long time ago. "My sister and Sarutobi Ayame gave you candy." And Shinpachi most definitely had room to talk for once in his sad and pathetic life, because Otsuu had walked right to the red-light district and given Shinpachi a signed copy of her new single right in front of everyone. Not even the fact that it was signed to my favorite imperial guard, Shinji could take away from Shinpachi's absolute victory in terms of Valentine's Day. The fact that his only other gift had been a punch in the face from Kagura (it was all a guy in glasses deserved on a romantic day, she'd said) didn't even ruin it.

"Why do only crazy women like me?" Gintoki said, and Shinpachi couldn't let that one slide. His sister was crazy, true enough, but he couldn't let anyone-- not even his mentor-- slander her in such a way!

"My sister isn't crazy," Shinpachi protested, turning on the rice cooker. It started sparking and smoking, and he quickly jerked the plug back out of the outlet. "What did you people do to this poor rice cooker, and what did it do to deserve it?" A cursory look at it, however, told him just what had happened. "Gin, there are tooth marks on your rice cooker."

"Oh, yeah," Gintoki said vaguely, but his explanation was interrupted by Kagura coming inside. She was eating a crepe, and there was screaming on the street outside. "...Kagura, what did we say about letting Sadaharu attack street vendors?"

"Only the ice cream vendors, and only when you're around to steal the cart," Kagura said, her mouth full. She swallowed, and noticed Shinpachi hitting the rice cooker in an attempt to fix it. "Stupid Shinpachi, you have to chew on it to get it to work, not hit it!" She started to walk into the kitchen, but then she noticed Gintoki's chocolate. "Hey, candy!"

"You would steal candy from a sick man?" Gintoki asked, clutching his box of chocolates to him with a devotion second only to that with which he guarded his Shounen Jump. "That's cruel, Kagura."

"It doesn't count if you're diabetic!" Kagura said, kicking the couch over with one foot. "Fine, then, gimme some money so I can go down to the five for one yen discount candy sale!"

"There's a five for one yen discount candy sale?" Gintoki poked his head out from under the couch. "Where?"

"Gin, you've already had too much candy today!" Shinpachi warned him, now hitting the rice cooker with a wooden spoon in a vain attempt to get it to work. It seemed he wasn't going to take Kagura's advice and chew on it. "You're going to get sick!"

"Hey, can I have your TV when you fall into a coma and die?" Kagura asked eagerly.

"I already promised it to Zura. Smashing amanto electronics makes him feel better about himself." Gintoki crawled out from under the couch and poked Kagura in the forehead. "And I'm not giving you any money. Get a job if you want to pillage the candy store."

"She has a job, Gin!" Shinpachi plugged the rice cooker in again, and that time it turned on. It started smoking ominously, but at least it seemed to be cooking the rice. "You never pay either one of us!"

"Oh, fine," Gintoki said, and rummaged around in his pockets until he came up with two yen. "Here. But that's all I'm giving you."

"All right!" Kagura vaulted over the couch, two yen in hand, and went for the door. "But I still want your TV when you fall into a coma and die from eating too much candy!"

---

"What kind of candy do you think she would buy for the Captain?" Yamazaki asked, looking at the rows and rows of pink and red boxes at the five for one yen discount candy sale in utter bewilderment. Kondou had been depressed all day because he hadn't gotten any candy, and it had been Yamazaki's idea to buy him some at the candy sale and pretend it was a late gift from Shimura Otae.

"She wouldn't buy any for him." Hijikata grunted as if the sight of the frilly, heart-shaped boxes offended him. "That's the problem." He didn't actually hate this holiday as much as he let on, because some admiring young lady had sent him a jar of mayonnaise with a big red bow tied around it. Said young lady had not signed her name, however, and judging by the reports from the men who had seen her leave she sounded suspiciously like Okita in a dress. Still, poisoned mayonnaise and attempted murder or not, he'd actually gotten something. Which was more than could be said for just about anyone in the Shinsengumi, besides--

"Five different girls bought me that one," Okita said, sounding bored with that fact. "If you want to buy him this one, I could just give you one of mine. I was going to throw half of them away." Okita liked candy just fine, but he'd gotten so much of it that there was no way he would be able to eat it all before it went bad. No one had realized that he had so many fans in Edo before. "Oh, and this one came with a poem about how my hair looks like a sunrise. It was very moving. As in I moved very quickly to throw it away."

Okita Sougo was definitely a horrible person, but everyone knew that already.

"What kind of idiot throws away chocolate?" It was Kagura, her arms full of at least twenty boxes of candy. She wasn't flanked by her freakish friends for once, but that didn't mean anything. She was just as dangerous by herself.

"What kind of girl waits until the five for one yen discount candy sale to buy something for her boyfriend?" Okita asked-- not that he thought Kagura actually had a boyfriend, mind you, because who would date that little monster? It was more of a rhetorical question to point out how ridiculous she was.

"What are you talking about? This is for me!" Kagura picked up another two boxes of candy off the table. "Well, and this box here is for Sadaharu. But mostly this is for me. Like I would waste my money buying some man candy!"

"Like anyone would accept it from you if you did." Okita tapped a finger against his chin contemplatively. "I mean, you're short and violent and immature, and everybody knows that brunettes are more attractive."

"I don't think he realizes everyone says the same things about him," Hijikata muttered, and Yamazaki got over his fear of the imposing selection of candy to laugh at that. "Come on, pick one out and let's go. Before they kill someone."

"Oh, so that explains why you're at the discount candy sale!" Kagura was inordinately pleased at that she'd figured this out. "The bit about throwing away candy was just a cover! Nobody got you any, did they?"

"I got more candy than anyone in Edo," Okita said, affronted.

"Nuh-uh. Zura got more candy than anyone in Edo. You should see how much of it Gin got before the garbage collection came! I'm going to get his TV when he goes into a diabetic coma and dies, too." Kagura was also extremely pleased with this fact (never mind that she wasn't really supposed to get that TV-- hey, she watched those dramas, unlike Zura, so she deserved it!), but not so pleased that she didn't smash a box of chocolates right into Okita's face. "There, now at least you've got more candy than Shinpachi."

"There's no way a terrorist got more candy than I did," Okita said mildly just before slamming a box of chocolate liqueurs on the top of Kagura's head. The filling got all in her hair quite quickly, which had been the point.

"Well, he does have brown hair, Okita, sir!" Yamazaki pointed out helpfully, and at that point Hijikata dragged him off to pay for the box of candy they'd chosen at random. "But Lieutenant, shouldn't we get four more? We're paying one yen either way!"

Lieutenant Hijikata's reply was lost in Kagura's violent war screech as the caramel creams smeared down the front of Okita's dress uniform. Her dress was saved from a similar fate when she opened her umbrella just in time and held it in front of her like a shield, keeping Okita at bay until he started throwing nougat at her. That was worse, because it was sticky.

"My mother made this dress!" Kagura said, which was an absolute lie because she'd bought it here in Edo. But someone's mother had worked in a sweatshop to make this dress, and now Okita was getting nougat on it. It wasn't like his stupid uniform that got ordered in from an amanto company on the other side of the galaxy where they probably had robots that would do things for you and thus had no one's mother involved in it at all. And Kagura knew all about the strange practices on the other side of the galaxy, because that's where she was from. Never mind that she'd lived on a farm and never left her planet until she came to Edo, she still knew!

"You're a liar. You bought it, because I've seen it in the window of the secondhand store." Okita didn't explain why he, who made a nice salary from the Shinsengumi, had been lurking around a secondhand store. It was probably better that way, because his reasons for being there would probably have been incredibly shady. Like buying the dress he wore to pose as the mysterious woman who brought Lieutenant Hijikata that poisoned mayonnaise. The reason that he didn't explain was that Kagura hit him in the face with her umbrella, which both hurt and got nougat in his hair.

"It's not lying when you're a lady! It's saving face when idiots like you ask rude questions!" Kagura yanked her umbrella back, leaving little bits of nougat stuck in Okita's hair and on his uniform. "Didn't your mother teach you not to ask women how old they are or how much they spend on their clothes?"

Okita's mother had actually taught him to kill a man with one blow, but that was beside the point. If he mentioned that, Kagura would probably want to know the technique. And she was dangerous enough as it was.

"Okita, sir, we're leaving!" Yamazaki called out. He had the candy for their Captain, and Hijikata was dragging him from the checkout counter to the door. "Please don't destroy this discount store like the Lieutenant did the last one!"

---

"There's no way you got that much candy for two yen," Gintoki said when Kagura came in covered in chocolate. She was carrying a bag full of candy. "...and that's only counting what you're wearing."

"Kagura! Do you know how badly chocolate stains?" Shinpachi asked in dismay. He was the one who took care of the laundry, because if he didn't then Gintoki and Kagura would sit around in their own filth. Sort of like they would starve and go into debt, too. Why was he the only person in Kabukicho with any kind of life skills?

"The man at the store gave it to me for free to get me to leave!" Kagura ignored her own bag of candy to steal some of Gintoki's. He was still on the same box of chocolates he'd been on when Kagura left, so she probably wasn't going to inherit his television anytime soon.

"What did you do to the poor store owner?" Shinpachi assumed that she had done something to the store owner because that was what always happened.

"Nothing!" Kagura wandered into the kitchen, still chewing on her stolen candy. "Hey, you fixed the rice cooker. Told you that you had to chew on it!"

"That is unsanitary! And an electrocution hazard!" Shinpachi shooed her away. "Anyway, Gin already ate all the rice. And you obviously did something to the store owner! People don't get thrown out of discount stores for nothing!"

"I told you, you stupid idiot, I didn't do anything! Okita's the one who knocked over his candy display and managed to get nougat all over the weather girl while she bought candy--" Kagura's explanation was cut short by the sound of the sofa flipping over. Gintoki had heard them.

"Okita attacked the weather girl?" Gintoki asked, sounding outraged. Or, well, what passed for outraged with him, which was more of a very bored with a side of irritation. "...wait, the weather girl was buying candy? She must have finally realized her feelings for me."

"Gin, the weather girl is not going to date you! If it wasn't for hookers and Sacchan, you would still be a virgin!" Shinpachi put his hand over his mouth as soon as he said it. Kagura stared.

"And your sister," Gintoki said calmly.

"Wh- what?" Shinpachi demanded, dropping his hand from his mouth and then fainting.

"I think we broke Shinpachi," Kagura whispered. She sounded almost reverent.

"That beast he calls a sister broke him a long time ago." Gintoki stepped over his unconscious apprentice and went back to the overturned couch, his Jump, and his candy.

---

A month passed very quickly for the Shinsengumi-- after all, with their exciting existence of car chases, sword fights, bomb scares, anti-terrorist seminars, and team-building activities (which they hadn't had since the disastrous one two weeks ago when Yamazaki convinced Kondou that badminton was team-building), whole weeks could go by without them having any free time to be bored in. Okita only knew a month had gone by because of all the advertisements for White Day. Which, so far as he could tell, was yet another attempt for the amanto to milk out whatever last bits of money were still hiding in the piggy-banks and retirement funds of Edo.

"You have to send candy to at least one of the girls who sent you something, sir," Yamazaki insisted. "Otherwise they'll think you're leading them on."

"...that doesn't make any sense," Hijikata said. "If you get them something, you really will be leading them on."

"No, no, Lieutenant!" Yamazaki said, with a bizarre arm gesture that looked like he'd practiced it on the badminton court. "If you get one woman candy, the others will know that you're taken! If you don't get anyone anything, they'll think you can't decide between them!"

"But then the woman he buys candy for will think he's interested." Hijikata concentrated on putting mayonnaise on his pork fried rice instead of actually paying attention to the situation at hand, because actually sitting down and thinking about Okita Sougo's love life was likely to break his brain.

"I know exactly who to buy some for." There was one woman who wouldn't feel the need to harass him or date him or stalk him or do any of those other woman things, because she wasn't a woman. She was a hideous beast from another planet.

"...oh, shit." Hijikata actually thought about what Okita was saying. He should have concentrated on the rice. "Well, when you figure out where those ingrates live, let us know so we can arrest them."

---

"I can't believe I had to bail you out of jail," Shinpachi said, practically crying in frustration.

"I paid you that money in the first place," Gintoki pointed out boredly, wandering over to the couch and sitting down.

"Do you know how much back salary you still owe me?" Shinpachi continued. "That bail money was your television fee money, too! No more dramas for you and Kagura!"

"I'll take the television fee out of Kagura's salary." Gintoki shrugged.

"You don't pay Kagura!" Shinpachi fumed, stomping into the kitchen. "And what possessed you to follow the weather girl around and keep trying to give her chocolate? Stalking is a crime!"

"I took you on as an apprentice in the way of the samurai, not as a housewife." Gintoki put his magazine over his face and closed his eyes, planning to fall asleep and ignore Shinpachi like he always did.

"Shinpachi's not pretty enough to be anyone's wife." Kagura had obtained some riceballs somewhere (she probably killed some poor man on his way to work and pillaged his lunch) and was eating them, sitting on the kitchen counter and swinging her feet back and forth. "No one wants a wife who wears glasses. Hey, maybe Otsuu will write a song about that!"

"Don't you talk about Otsuu," Shinpachi said loudly, and Kagura threw a riceball at him. He was still wiping the vinegar off his glasses (and Kagura chewing on his hand in an attempt to get all the rice off) when someone knocked on the door very nicely and politely. That meant it was either a client or Zura. "Oh look, Kagura, that must be Mr. Katsura at the door. I think I'll go and get it." She refused to let go, and he wound up dragging her to the door with him.

"Is Kagura here?" Okita Sougo asked politely. Shinpachi slammed the door in his face.

"Gin! Otose called the Shinsengumi because you haven't been paying the rent!" Shinpachi said, and Gintoki dragged himself off the couch and to the door.

"Look," Gintoki said, opening the door, "tell that old hag that-- what the hell is that." It wasn't even a question.

"It's candy," Okita said, smiling disarmingly. There was a white box in his arms. "Could I speak to Kagura, please?"

"...oh, hell," Gintoki muttered. "Kagura, your little boyfriend is here! Look, she's not allowed to date. If I catch you making out with her, I'll have to beat you up."

"You're not my father," Kagura said loudly. "And anyway, I don't have a boyfriend."

"Kagura, you're not allowed to date!" Shinpachi's feelings on the subject were similar to Gintoki's. Kagura didn't bother arguing with him, just punched him in the nose and went to the door.

"You're damn right I'm not your father. I would have to commit seppuku from all the shame you brought to the family. And you're not allowed to date." Gintoki wandered back inside, mostly because threatening Okita was sort of useless. He was a freak of nature, sadistic and fearless and impervious to pain. In short, probably the second strongest being in Edo. Kagura would be all right. Even if she wasn't allowed to date.

That was because the likely holder of the "strongest being in Edo" title was getting a box of amanto chocolates smashed into her face at that very moment. Kagura just blinked at him, and ran a finger down her chocolate-covered face before popping it into her mouth.

"The discount store candy was better," she said calmly, and kicked him off the landing.

[Shadow Hearts] "The Flooding Dark"

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 23:57:32 GMT

So, while I take breaks from challenge fics I've been working on this piece. I felt like indulging myself with some rampant symbolism, and I've been wanting to play around with the concept of other harmonixers' graveyard equivalents for a little while now. So! 1900-ish words, Kurando's first meeting with Tsukiyomi. Spoilers up to visiting Inugami village (beyond the point in the game this takes place at) because this is from Kurando's POV and he has some knowledge at that point that the player doesn't.

And for a note: the mythological Tsukiyomi (kami of the moon) is in fact male. Kurando's speculation there is actually rooted in what he would have already known.

Kurando knows that he's not really awake because he can't see his reflection in the water. It's matte black, and though the surface ripples when he shifts and it's cool through the knees of is hakama its resemblance to real water ends there. This is some sort of dream, the terrifying lucid kind that tends to presage something happening. Or at least, his mother's always do; Kurando never seems to see anything of note in his. Whether that's his age or his sex or his being only half his mother's blood remains to be seen. Once he realizes that this is all inside of his own mind, it's easier to relax and look around, to ignore the fact that he's kneeling on the surface of the water and it most definitely isn't any kind of water that exists in real life.

There are rocks around the edges, and solid ground beyond them. This isn't some endless stretch of blackness; it's a contained pool. It looks like it could be any of the pools of water around the old hidden places behind Inugami village. The Inugami had used them to look into the distance and the future once, a long time ago, but now very few of them did that. That was why they'd let an outsider and a woman take control of the village by marriage; Saki Inugami comes from a bloodline that hasn't been thinned over the years and Kurando was born with half of that bloodline, even if he hasn't shown any sign of power so far apart from a few dreams that might not have been anything more than the imaginings of a boy.

A flash of color and movement under the water catches his attention, draws it away from studying the rocks and ferns that are suddenly much more visible. It's like everything is coming into focus gradually, small details jumping out into his perception as he gets used to this place. The water isn't quite so opaque as it was before, and the bright moving spot under the water coalesces into a recognizable shape as the water clears under him. It's a hand, dark-skinned and palm-up and pounding on the water as if against a solid surface, as if Kurando was perched on a smooth pane of glass instead of water lapping around his seiza-folded knees. A second hand, identical save for being the left to the first's right, joins it a moment later and Kurando leans forward to see if he can catch a glimpse of whatever is under there.

When his palm touches the surface, it matches up exactly to the hand under the water, and though it can't come up Kurando can go down to meet it. The fingers are strong but smooth and free of calluses as if their owner has been locked up under the rippling water forever. Which isn't possible, of course, because this is a dream and not something that has existed forever (or exists at all), but that doesn't mean it's meaningless. Then the fingers lace through his own and jerk his arm downward, pulling him down into the water to his elbow. His other hand is fisted in his hakama, far away from the other grasping hand that matches it, and he never loses his balance or sinks other than his arm.

"Stop that. He will pull you under if you let him." The voice is soft and thin and utterly alien, nothing that ever came out of a human throat. "You are not strong enough to resist him yet."

"Who?" Kurando asks, his words cutting off into a cry of surprise as he's pulled further down.

"What is waking up inside of you." And that's when he knows what this is, and that this isn't some kind of prophetic dream. He may be dreaming, true enough, but this is the present and not the future. All of his mother's words of caution and promises of I'll teach you when you're of age are at the forefront of his thoughts, because he knows what's happening here if not why or how or who this is warning him. Kurando is being pulled down and all he can think about are the fleeting glances he's seen of the goddess who shares his mother's body and the stories she's told him of his grandparents and uncles and the strange, strange fusion ability in Yuri Hyuga that he uses so brazenly. "I will help you get to where you are strong enough."

Kurando manages, with great effort, to pull his arm back and untangle his fingers from the smooth grasping ones under the water. They look darker than his, too, but that might be a trick of the water since besides the lack of roughness from work and training they're exactly identical. His sleeve is soaked almost to his shoulder, and that will leave a stain on the silk when it dries. His mother will sigh and say that she expected him to take better care of his things, like she always does when something like this (well, not exactly like this, since Kurando is not in the habit of fighting what may or may not be a demon sitting inside his own mind, but like this in that something has accidentally been damaged) happens.

"Perhaps you do not need my help, after all." She speaks again, and now that he's free Kurando looks around for the source of the voice. He doesn't see anything until he turns around again, satisfied that whatever it is won't show itself to him, and he sees her standing before him.

"Who are you?" He'd meant to ask what are you, but he can't bring himself to be so rude even to someone so obviously not human. Maybe especially to someone so obviously not human, now that he's seen what havoc these demons can cause inside of a person. One look at Yuri Hyuga would tell anyone that it's not something to take lightly, not with the obvious burden he carries because of it.

"I have been watching you since you came here." Her feet don't quite touch the water, floating gently above instead of settling and rippling like Kurando's hands and knees have. Her long tails-- nine, like the fox-- do brush over the surface of the water, though, fanning out more like feathers than fur. "It has been a long time since one of your clan was here. And now there are two of you, right here in front of me." Her serene face darkens slightly, white-gold brows drawing down over her eyes with no white or black to them. "I would never make a deal with the other one. He has a darkness in him that I could never work with. But you are different."

"You're a demon." The accusation sounds weak even to his own ears, no force behind it.

"And you are a Hyuga." She kneels down so that they are closer to level, although her knees don't touch the water's surface, either.

"Inugami," Kurando corrects. "I am an Inugami."

"Perhaps that is your name, or what your father is, but it is not what I see. If you were only an Inugami, I would not be here right now." She reaches out and brushes a hand over the ruined end of his sleeve, water beading on her feather-furred fingertips. "You may be able to stop the beast within you without my help, but there are things outside even now that you would not be able to save yourself from alone. And you cannot count on the ogre's help, not even with his seal as thin as it is." There is another flash of skin under the water, an arm sliding up through the blackness and then back down again. "He will break free, but not soon enough to help you. And he sees no difference between good and evil as you and I do."

Good is a relative term with demons. His mother's goddess is always whispered of in superlatives, a good and generous and protective goddess, but the glimpses Kurando has seen are fire and fury. Even if this fox-woman doesn't see herself as evil, Kurando might.

"Who are you?" Kurando asks again, because he's tired of not knowing.

"Tsukiyomi." He'd always been told that the moon god was a man, but maybe that's another mistake the stories make along with thinking that his mother's goddess is benevolent. And maybe demons can change forms as easily as they want to, and Tsukiyomi could look like whatever she wanted-- man, woman, fox with nine peacock-feathered tails spilling out onto the surface of the water. "I do not like what this man you are fighting against does, and I do not like what this other Hyuga does. They both stink of the same evil."

"Yuri isn't evil." There is a darkness in him, yes, but not much more than that in some of the other clan members. After what he's seen here, in this dream or whatever it might really be, Kurando isn't entirely sure that he doesn't have that same dark place inside of himself.

"They are the same to me." Tsukiyomi holds her hand out to him, fingers still damp from where she touched his wet clothing. "Come. I will help you fight this evil. It is rare to find one of you with enough nobility of spirit to fight such a battle."

Kurando hesitates for just an instant, because he doesn't like the sound of they are the same to me. It's only an instant, though, because then he remembers men with machine guns firing at a little girl and her father and the crushing weight of the magic that had sent him into this dizzying dream in the first place. He has already proven he cannot not stand up to this alone. He takes the hand of the goddess-- his goddess, now, something that is strange and frightening to comprehend-- and she stands, bringing him to his feet with her.

Then, as suddenly as he awoke to find himself in a dream, he is looking at the forest again. Not through his eyes, though; he's been pushed aside and watches only as an observer as he lurches forward and drops his sword to the ground because his fingers won't grip it properly. And the magic is still there, buzzing in his head and making the goddess angry. She's the one guiding his steps and leaving his sword forgotten on the ground, her anger mounting until suddenly it's not even his body anymore-- he can feel her fur crawling over his skin and his feet lifting. Tsukiyomi has his body now.

"We will stop the evil here, and then we will save your friends," she promises, and whatever spell is on the cemetary is so strong in his ears that he doesn't argue. It's all blending together, and he thinks dizzily that perhaps she was right all along.

[Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne] "Pure and Cruel"

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 05:29:33 GMT

I wrote a "five things that never happened to [character]" story and it's not even pornographic. I feel ashamed. (It was, originally! But that part's going to be its own fic because it was getting long.) Some very strong hints of demi-fiend/Isamu (hence the tag), especially in #4. Spoilers all over the place-- the big ones are at the Amala Temple, everything about Yuko and Aradia, and the neutral ending of the game. I'd peg it somewhere around a PG-ish rating, because there are mentions of unpleasant things but nothing overtly stated. Counting the notes at the end, it's around 3500 words.

Shin (full name Shinya Hirai, which is referenced once or twice) is my demi-fiend's name. I've chosen to use it over "Naoki," because my characterization of the demi-fiend is not the drama CD's characterization of the demi-fiend.

Pure and Cruel
or, five things that never happened to Isamu Nitta.
title courtesy of this song, which is a song I always associate with Isamu.

I.

Isamu is the only one who goes to the medical center to visit their teacher, because Shin has to help his mother with something and Chiaki has cram school to attend (because even with all of the money her parents have, she'll have to pass the exam to get into the fancy university she'll undoubtedly attend). Ms. Takao doesn't seem very ill to him, but who is he to judge? He's too busy trying to telepathically convince her to start acting out his worst pornographic teacher fantasies (which she doesn't) to worry about things like that, anyway. All in all, it's a very unsatisfying visit in more ways than one, even for someone as deluded in regards to his teacher's affections as Isamu is.

Isamu is the only one who goes to the medical center and thus the only one to come out again after the Conception. At first he thinks he's going to die in the middle of the broken concrete, until he manages to duck inside a building and finds a man standing inside.

"I remember you," Jyoji Hijiri says, hands running up and down a stone cylinder. "Now get out of here. You won't do anything but get in my way."

"Like hell I'm leaving," Isamu says, and if it was a little bit rude, well... a guy who told someone to go back outside in the middle of whatever it was going on outside really deserved it. "I'm not going to bother you, whatever it is you're doing. I don't care about it."

And he really doesn't, not at first. But as time goes on he gets interested in this thing that Jyoji Hijiri the reporter is studying so obsessively, and he starts paying attention. As he does, Isamu slowly comes to realize that he understands much more about it than Hijiri seems to-- he can almost read what's carved into the sides, and Hijiri's muttered questions about the mysteries of it sound stupid to his ears in a way that he can't really articulate or explain.

"Let me," Isamu finally says in frustration, pushing past Hijiri and putting his hands on the terminal (because that's what it is, one of the words Hijiri was grasping for but couldn't quite come up with). Whatever's inside the Amala Network, it has to be better than sitting in an old building with insane Jyoji Hijiri and waiting for something to come along and kill them.

II.

It's not hard for Isamu to slip past the big, ugly... well, whatever it is that's lazing in the way of him leaving the medical center. It doesn't even seem to notice him, and he counts that as a very good thing until he gets outside and sees that maybe, just maybe, he should have stayed in the medical center.

"Isamu, wait!"

Isamu's relieved beyond belief to hear his friend until he turns around and sees that Shinya Hirai's voice is coming out of something that looks like it came from the same bad movie set they're standing on.

"You-- what--" Isamu manages before the distance between them has been bridged and Shin (that is totally not Shin) is standing right in front of him. Close up, he can see that the guy's skin is glowing and that just makes things even stranger. People don't glow, especially not people who talk in his friends' voices and know his name already. "Shin?"

"It's me." Shin sounds so relieved to have found one of his friends that Isamu can't help but think maybe it is him under that alien skin. "Someone said they saw you get out of the building, and I was afraid I wouldn't find you or Chiaki again. Have you seen her?"

"She wasn't with me when I left." Isamu shakes his head. You never tell the monsters details like that in movies unless you want to die; you always want them to think that you have backup (and Chiaki would make much better backup than most sidekicks in horror films, that was for sure) so they think twice about cutting your head off and eating you. And he still isn't quite sure that this is Shin and not something that's going to kill him now that he knows Chiaki isn't lurking around the corner with an arsenal straight out of an American movie.

"Damn." Shin doesn't swear much, and it's strange to hear it from him now. He clenches his hands into fists in frustration, and doesn't make any move to kill Isamu or whatever it is the bizarre things wandering out here do to hapless high school boys who are unlucky enough to wander into them. "We'll have to look for her."

"We?" Isamu echoes dumbly, because his thoughts just aren't keeping up with what's happening. He's still stuck on the fact that Shin is a glowing freak and the street outside the medical center is a shattered wreck, and he can't process complicated new ideas like his accompanying Shin through this hell to find Chiaki.

"Of course. You don't think I'm going to leave you out here, do you?" Shin reaches out and puts one blue-branded hand on Isamu's shoulder almost hesitantly. Isamu flinches out of pure reflex, as if he's sure it's going to burn him right through his jacket and vest and shirt, but nothing happens except that Shin's hand is resting on his shoulder and he's got sort of a stupid expression on his face.

"...I guess not," he says finally, because he doesn't want to think about that possibility. Better to stay with the monster he might know than the ones out there that he most definitely doesn't. And who knows, they just might find Chiaki out there, or Ms. Takao. "No, I guess you wouldn't."

Shin takes him by the arm (and his fingers don't burn or chill or even feel very strange) and leads him down the broken remains of the road, and Isamu doesn't think he knows where they're headed, either.

III.

"No, Isamu," Shin says, and his voice is full of regret. "I can't help you. If your Reason is for you to stand alone, then you need to make it alone. If people really are meant to wander alone through the world, it can't be in a world that was built by two people working together."

"It won't be built by two people working together." Isamu's voice turns dark and angry. "You're not a person; you're a demon who can only follow a human's Reason. I should have known you wouldn't do it. You're just proving me right, though. You wouldn't help me when I was crawling half-dead out of Ikebukuro and you wouldn't help me when I was trapped in Kabukicho. Why should I have thought you would help me now, when something even bigger than my life is on the line? I was stupid to think that you might feel sorry about everything I had to go through because you and Chiaki and everyone else let me down, and even stupider to think that even if you did you might actually do something about it. Never mind, Shinya. Never fucking mind."

"Shut up." Shin knows that he can't really understand what happened, for any number of reasons-- he's not entirely human anymore, he doesn't understand what it's like to find a Reason and need to make it happen, he didn't go through what Isamu went through or anything really like it (and even if what had happened to him was worse in some ways, he can only look at it through his skewed new perception of half-a-demon)-- but that doesn't mean he's going to stand there and let Isamu say things like that about him. "That's not true at all and you know it. I went after you in Kabukicho as soon as I found out you were there, and you're the one who told me you didn't need me anymore! You're just saying all of these things because I won't make your stupid, hypocritical little world for you."

"I didn't need you then, and you know what? I don't need you now. I'll summon my god without your help, since it's so much trouble for you to give it to me." Isamu takes a step forward and Shin matches it, looming over him with his line of demons close behind.

"All right, then." Shin speaks slowly and loudly. "Summon your god for us, Isamu. But I don't think your new friends will follow you when your Reason fails you, and I don't think you'll be able to get away from them alone. No matter how well you know the Amala Network."

"Then I'll die alone, like you would have let me do a long time ago." Isamu smirks at him, hat drawn low over his eyes. "Isn't that what you want? For me to go away and take my hypocritical little Reason with me so you can find someone whose ideas you like better? So you can go and help Chiaki or Ms. Takao or someone like the fool I just got rid of instead of me? Fine, fine. You know what, you're right. I made myself what I am now alone, and I'll see it end alone."

He takes his hat off and his mouth flattens out of the smirk. He looks serious and vulnerable the last time Shin sees him, as if he wants to ask Shin to come back and help him but knows that he can't do that now, it would never work.

Shin leaves the Amala Temple. He doesn't see Isamu again, and when he's next in Ginza the spirits in Nyx's bar are whispering something about the end of the Reason of Musubi.

IV.

Shin can feel Isamu's pulse under his hands, fast and faint in comparison to the pounding noise of blood in a demon's veins. His skin is warm and dry and dusty, as if the magatsuhi the Mantra took from him had taken away part of what made him a human and left him a little more like the only other remains of the human world already decaying into nothing around them. Isamu is looking out at the demons that follow Shin but at least trying to be surreptitious about it-- they must know that he's looking, of course, but a wrung-out little human who isn't overtly threatening them isn't worth a fight with their leader. Still, he can feel the flutter under Isamu's skin pick up every time one of them shifts or speaks.

"I'm their leader. They aren't going to touch what's mine." Not so long as they know Shin is the strongest of their group, and he has no intention of letting them lose that knowledge-- and not just because he has Isamu beside him now, all human frailty but the inspiration they'll need for a Reason, but because Shin's own life depends on it as well.

"But I'm not--" Shin shoves a hand over his mouth before he can finish, because that is the one thing Isamu does not want to say right now (or ever, really, but it's worse now before they have a Reason to follow and really need to have a human around for the sake of having a human around, not just because he was friends with Shin before the Conception).

"As far as they're concerned, you are. Trust me, that's what you want right now." Shin keeps his palm where it is, pressed against cracked lips almost as dry as the rest of his skin feels. "Once we've got our Reason, it will be different, I promise, but for now they aren't going to listen to anything else." He moves his hand and Isamu licks his lips in a futile effort that's only going to make them chap worse in the long run. Up close he doesn't look completely the same as before, like Shin had thought at first. He looks exhausted, his eyes dull and dark and his face paler than usual without the shadow of his hat to hide in.

"...all right," Isamu concedes, too tired or too defeated to argue. That should be worrying, because the Isamu Nitta who dressed like a punk and chased after his teacher would never have given in so easily. But whether it's a natural reaction to everything he's been through or a perception colored by Shin's very different outlook from before it doesn't strike Shin as anything to be concerned about. The important thing is that he's given in and they won't get any trouble as long as Shin is strong enough to uphold his end of things. Then Isamu sags forward, practically onto Shin, as if he doesn't have the strength to hold himself up anymore-- no, no as if, there's no way he could after making it out of Ikebukuro. It's a wonder he's still conscious and lucid, with as little magatsuhi as he must have left. "Do you have any water?"

He already knows that he doesn't, but he fumbles through his cache of collected items until he finds the closest thing. Shin has no idea what a chakra drop is going to do to a human, but he uses it anyway. He unscrews the lid and is careful to measure out a much smaller dose with the dropper than a demon would get, and as soon as the tiny drop of liquid hits Isamu's upturned face (splashing onto his forehead and evaporating almost immediately) he straightens up and seems better.

"What is that?" Isamu asks, hoarse but audibly better than before.

"Chakra drop. It takes some getting used to, but it's hard to find water out here. I'm surprised you managed as long as you did, wandering around like that." Shin was never this talkative as a human, and it probably surprises Isamu to hear him now. "Did you find your Reason out there?"

"I thought I had," Isamu admits. "But I was wrong. I'll have to keep looking. I... well, don't worry about it. I was wrong about the world that I wanted."

"We'll help you." Shin gestures out towards the assembled demons that still made Isamu's adam's apple jump as he swallowed hard at the sight of them. "Only a human can make the Reason that will shape the new world and summon a god. Or at least, that's what they tell me. We'll help you stay alive, and you'll make our new world for us. That sounds fair, right?"

V.

"You really thought I didn't remember?" Isamu asks suddenly as they're doing their homework in Shin's living room. His parents are out of town and Chiaki had declined to come along. She has some fancy cram school that she goes to, since her parents are sending her to a much more prestigious university than either the Nitta or the Hirai families could afford. Ms. Takao had offered to tutor them in preparation for their own exams, but they had both declined her help. Up until this moment, Shin had thought they'd turned her down for very different reasons.

"You weren't supposed to." Shin knows exactly what he's talking about, of course, and he doesn't insult Isamu by pretending not to. "I didn't, for a long time."

"Neither did I, for awhile." Isamu puts down his pencil slowly and deliberately. "I don't remember all of it, I don't think, but I know a lot of things."

"Do you think I made the wrong decision?" Shin wonders sometimes if he did the right thing, by restoring their world when it's really only a lie. Even if he thinks this is much better than the Vortex World, well, there's still the nagging fact that he knows what Aradia really is and in the end he used her power to build this new world (old world?). "Sometimes I do."

"I don't know." Isamu shrugs. "I don't think I was right, anyway. I mean, I asked for help to make a world based on not needing help?"

"Yeah, that was pretty stupid." It really feels like they shouldn't be sitting here and talking about this like it was any everyday thing. "...I can't believe we're having this conversation."

"Me, either." Isamu pauses. "I don't think Chiaki remembers anything." Or maybe she does, since Chiaki keeps things to herself much more skillfully than Isamu ever did. Maybe she's remembered longer than either one of them and they just haven't noticed, because there's nothing different about her cool, amused expression. She wouldn't be dwelling on something that they were supposed to lie to themselves about and pretend had never happened. And maybe Isamu is right and Chiaki is lucky enough to be living Aradia's lies with everyone else. That doesn't seem likely, though, since how could anyone who saw the truth do that?

"I think you're right," Shin says, and that's that. Except for the part where it isn't, because there's no way that will ever be that. This is always going to be hanging over them.

He's glad that Isamu remembers, though. It's selfish because if anyone deserves to forget and immerse himself into a happy lie it's Isamu, but Shin couldn't go through with fulfilling his friend's Reason because he doesn't like being alone and that's still true now.

And, if you want to read the notes:

Notes.

I felt the need to include this because there are so many things I want to explain about these vignettes-- I'm used to writing the demi-fiend (AKA Shinya "Shin" Hirai in my writing) because he's the one I can ascribe anything I want to, and the center of the action and therefore the more compelling story subject. Since Isamu actually has a character I need to keep, this presented a challenge. And ironically enough, more of these are from the demi-fiend's POV than Isamu's (I and II are Isamu, obviously, but III-V are the demi-fiend).

I. Is probably the most screwed-up potential world possible, because there is no demi-fiend, period. I must admit that I have a fascination with the fact that Isamu gravitated to the Amala Network and managed to make his power base-- as a lone human-- in such a place and make a damn good job of it. I've dealt with it before (see: this in-progress weirdness on my draft filter), and I definitely wanted to deal with it again here.

II. Needs the least amount of explanation. The demi-fiend runs into Isamu before he gets caught by the Mantra and goes batshit. It would probably serve as a lead-in to something not unlike scenario IV, with the demi-fiend's group being to Isamu what Nihilo is to Hikawa or Mantra (eventually) is to Chiaki: namely, they keep him around for his Reason. Which, incidentally, I have no ideas about. It obviously wouldn't be Musubi, since the events that shaped that Reason haven't happened.

III. Is the most in line with game canon. The demi-fiend says no because Isamu is a dirty hypocrite who wants help with ~~GTFO~~ Musubi. Although all the demi-fiend has done here is prove that poor Isamu was right about him (and maybe the nature of the world) all along.

IV. Sounds like a bad porn setup. But anyway, basically it's a form of the scenario from the notes about II; namely that the demi-fiend and posse follow Isamu's Reason. Because hey, that's about the only thing that would keep a human alive in a group of demons here. I'm not sure whether it would be Musubi or not, since while he's been with the Mantra he hasn't been to Kabukicho yet. It probably wouldn't be, exactly, but obviously what he's been through would have some influence. ...I still think it sounds like a bad porn setup, though.

V. Was actually supposed to be the bad porn setup! But it turned all character-driven instead, because the post-game porn was getting too long. The porn will be its own fic. I don't actually think that they would be nearly so calm or rational about things, which is why this is part of five things that never happened instead of a normal post-game story.

[Bleach] Spren Appreciation Fic, Tatsuki/Orihime

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 06:01:43 GMT

This was written for the animadri Appreciation Week, because she organizes so many wonderful fic exchanges for fandom.

I've been wanting to take on post-Hueco Mundo Tatsuki/Orihime for awhile, but to do it from Orihime's POV (the one I'm far more comfortable in) would take far more than the maximum of 1000 words and more than the time left to get this out because of all the issues raised by chapter 231. So it's Tatsuki-centric instead, which was an intresting challenge for me. Very minor and vague spoilers for the Hueco Mundo arc. You're honestly probably not going to be spoiled here, but better safe than sorry, I guess.

G-rated, because these two always turn adorable and fluffy when I write them. It's a thing.

All of that training in the creepy sandal-hat guy's shop hadn't meant a damn thing in the end, because they still hadn't been strong enough to do anything to help Orihime. It had all been Ichigo and Sado and Ishida, running off to god only knew where to bring back their missing friend. And Tatsuki, who should have been at the front of the group-- had always been at the front of the group before now, with the bullies she couldn't intimidate away with her championships and her fists-- was stuck in Karakura with Asano and Kojima who didn't even know Orihime very well. It was enough to make her punch the walls in frustration, which was exactly what she did just then. She hit the doorframe instead of the wall, though, because she still had enough presence of mind to know that her parents would kill her if she put another hole in the wall.

The wall in front of the door pounded back at her.

"If that idiot from the other class is back, I'm going to put him in the hospital again," Tatsuki muttered, because some people just couldn't deal with the fact that they'd been beaten up by a girl and that idiot from the other class happened to be one of them. She opened the door, fully, expecting to break the boy's glasses (again) and maybe his (other) arm this time, too.

"Tatsuki," Orihime said, closing the door behind her, "I'm back."

"...yeah," Tatsuki said finally, her voice husky. "You are." Then Orihime closed the gap between them and hugged her best friend like Tatsuki was the one who had just saved her life; Tatsuki was too still too stunned to do anything but embrace her back weakly. "You really are."

"I'm sorry." Orihime was crying, and it could have been happy or sad or both or neither. "I didn't want to go where you couldn't come with me."

"I've been getting stronger. I'll follow you next time, no matter where you go," Tatsuki promised. "I'm not going to let Ichigo do it for me anymore." Waiting had been the worst part, waiting and listening to that smirking man in the hat go on about how dangerous Ichigo's mission was and about how they'd never get to help him if they didn't work harder (and you could hear the heart at the end of the sentence). And now it turned out that he'd been right, and Orihime was back without any help from Tatsuki.

"You and Kurosaki are the same," Orihime said, smiling just a little against Tatsuki's shoulder. "You shouldn't worry about me so much."

"You should be used to that by now. I doubt either of us is gonna stop anytime soon." Tatsuki kissed the top of her head briefly, a fleeting friendly gesture. "I mean it. Next time, I'm gonna be the one to make sure you're all right."

"You always do." Orihime pulled away from her and took her by the hand. She was smiling still, even through the tears on her cheeks. "You're the first person I came to see. I haven't even told my brother I'm back yet."

"Well, then," Tatsuki said, pulling her gently towards the door, "let's go and tell your brother you're back."