#I could be mistaken but I think i saw something about timeline fracture being what DP was written in mind with | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

docholligay · 5 years ago

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The Split

I needed to look this up for timeline questions, and I decided to release it publicly because it may be some of my favorite Michiru dialogue I’ve ever written

Squid commissioned this, asking for "Why did Usagi and Mamoru get divorced??" And so here you are! I hope you like it, 2,200 words.

There was a freedom in finally handing her the papers, however guilty he’d felt over her tears.

Usagi did not like to admit defeat, and it was only for this reason that the illusion had gone on so long, Mamoru reasoned. She only cried in the way she did when things did not go her way, when her desire for something had no bearing on its outcome. Usagi was spoiled, he thought, but warmly, and so she cried because she was being denied the ideal marriage she’d pictured. That was all. It was the same as how she had cried when the War had ended, when they had won and lost, all in one day.

He rethought the comparison. This was more like the ice cream shop running out of chocolate chip cookie dough just before she’d arrived, or not having those homemade waffle bowls, plush and warm. This wasn’t so serious as that day, sitting in the hospital, hearing a list of horrors and tragedies. It had been delivered with his smile, with his assurance that this was best, with a doughnut from a shop she loved.

He hadn’t hurt her. He’d only told her the truth.

It was a form of the truth, at least, as he lingered on the patio of the cafe, sipping at his espresso con panna. The day was cold, but the sun streamed in the windows of the patio, warming it nicely as he nibbled at the edges of a jambon beurre. He’d gone to this cafe with his parents, and it seemed the only thing that had been constant in his life since he was a child. He could almost laugh at himself, seeking the comfort of childhood as surely as Usagi would. It was easy to see why people thought they should be together, however wrong it might have been.

“My love, I am afraid I might be a bit tardy this evening. No, no, go ahead and feed her. Yourself, as well, if you like, though I won’t be too long. Yes, perhaps if you behave yourself, I might be talked into bringing you something.”

Through all the chatter in the cafe, Michiru’s voice cut through, sharp and slender as a silver dagger.

He didn’t want to see her, though he could not pinpoint why. There had always, in truth, been a bit of fear in him when it came to Michiru Kaioh, from the time they had been children. They had all been polished, but Michiru had been honed, brought to a ringing and delicate edge. He hadn’t been particularly amused when fate had wrangled them together again.

Perhaps it was the fact that Michiru knew things without being told, long after her Sight had disappeared.

He sat still. His back was to the door, and there was as much a chance that Michiru was here to simply pick something up for herself before she went to meet a potential donor as anything else. Her parents lived near here, her donors lived near here, she had every reason in the world to be here, none of which had anything to do with him.

And yet, he heard the clicking of handmade Italian leather behind him, and she appeared, in her neatly-tailored coat, her coiffed teal hair moving like the waves of the sea.

“Chiba. How lovely to see you. May I sit?” Michiru gave a smile, the smile passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter.

The one that hid fangs.

Mamoru froze, in the moment, knowing every polite grace he should be giving a woman of her particular class, that his mother would scold him for not rising to the greeting of a Kaioh. But he also knew, instinctively, that Michiru had him cornered as a cat with a mouse, and that tended to dull the social graces.

She was the type to play with her food.

“Of course!” he sputtered, remembering himself, “That’d be wonderful. Please, please.”

He jumped out of his seat and pulled out the chair behind Michiru, who unbuttoned her coat and folded it onto the chair beside her, taking her seat as Mamoru pushed it in under her securely before sitting back down across from her. A young attendant swooped in, setting a light cup of tea in front of Michiru, who nodded politely.

Mamoru looked down at his sandwich, suddenly feeling a loss of appetite. “How are you? It’s been so long since we’ve sat down together.”

“Yes,” twisted the handle of the cup to her left hand, “I believe when we took Haruka and Usagi to the ballet, was the last. We barely spoke at Rei and Mina’s wedding.”

Mamoru’s stomach turned at the mention of Usagi’s name. Silly, he thought, Michiru has never really cared for Usagi. Usagi wouldn’t have told her anything, and Michiru wouldn’t bother with it if she did.

Michiru’s eyes flicked up to Mamoru’s. “I just saw Usagi over lunch, as it so happens.”

Fear and surprise are interesting emotions, and often one might be mistaken for the other. But Mamoru truly believed, in that moment, that he had experienced the both of them at once. There was the shock of Michiru having seen Usagi for lunch, and of Michiru not batting him around like a cat toy before coming to her point. This coupled nicely with the growing dread he felt over Michiru’s mention of the meeting, and her unwavering gaze as she waited for a reply.

“Oh.” Was all he managed.

“She tells me you two are parting ways,” She took a sip of her tea slowly, allowing him to marinate in the knowledge, “She seemed terribly distressed.”

“She cries so easily, you know, you’ve,” he gave a weak chuckle, “complained so often about her easy tears.”

“Hmm.” Michiru looked off to the side for a moment before returning, “You know, she didn’t seem to have the slightest idea why your marriage had fractured so. What a tragedy. She seems utterly at sea, wondering.”

Mamoru nodded. “Marriage is hard. I think you know that well yourself.”

Michiru flicked her eyebrow. “The both of you made some comparison of our marriage to your own, and in this particular case, I will ask you not to equate Haruka’s struggles to the thing we all know is coming between you. May I ask his name?”

Mamoru stiffened, nearly grabbing the edge of the tablecloth, his cheeks growing red and hot under the fire of Michiru’s pointed look. She was not angry, no, but she was firm and unwavering, and as always, in all those terrible things, she could see right through him.

“I--” Mamoru shook his head, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Tiresome,” Michiru sighed, “And I hope he never knows that you have denied him. He must be special, for you to upset the comfortable lie you’ve constructed these many years.”

It was like standing in front of a firing squad, going back and forth with Michiru. She knew. She knew, and she had always known, and of course she had. She had known even as he painted himself the perfect man, even as he’d tried to convince himself that it wasn’t true.

“I do remember your little dalliance with Aki, you know.” She drummed her fingers on the table in a rare lack of decorum, “When you were young. Please don’t insult us both by saying it was nothing, I saw your heartache when he returned to Italy for the school year.”

Aki. There was no denying him, and how he had felt, just a boy of thirteen but full of freshness and stirring. Even his name still brought up that bloom of puppy love, and he wanted to smile. He was a fool. Of course Aki had told her. They were close companions, in those circles, gay and half-japanese and clever and rather resentful of the whole operation as it stood. He could not deny it, to her.

Mamoru straightened up, squaring his shoulders. “I might be bisexual.”

“Yes, and I might be a waitress in a noodle shop, if all things are possible.” She gave a chuff of a laugh, “But in this reality, I am a debutante, and you are gay.” She shook her head. “It’s the 21st century, for heaven’s sake, let's don't be Victorianate about it.”

The word rung in Mamoru’s ears, the truth of it seeping through, and his mind turned to the rose handed to him by the man behind the counter, the smile between them, the way his heart felt as if it would burst every time he smiled. No. Yes. It was so many things at once.

He crossed his arms. “And since when do you defend Usagi?”

“I am defending good faith and fair dealing, above all else.” Her gaze was flat and unimpressed. “You owe her the truth, I think we are both aware.”

He leaned back, defeated, his voice growing weary.“Maybe I’m not ready to come out, Michiru. Just yet.”

Michiru’s eyes narrowed. “I am not requiring full disclosure, you perfect coward, I am only requesting you tell Usagi. She blames herself for your desire to seek greener pastures, and that is entirely unfair to her.” She shrugged, “Though it is terribly bold of you to assume this will be some grand surprise. The theatrics, the cape, et cetera.”

“So, I enjoy the finer things.” Mamoru scowled, “Haruka wears men’s clothes, enjoys men’s things, and she’s just fine as a woman.”

“My wife is a butch lesbian, Mamoru, I am not entirely certain what sort of defense you are attempting to mount.”

“You couldn’t have--”

“Oh, if you must be that way about it,” Michiru threw her hands up, “Why Chiba! I had no earthly idea! I certainly had not suspected since I was a child!” She folded her hands in her lap. “Are you quite finished, now?” She stared at him for a few beats, and then picked up her tea, sipping at it as she looked away from him.

“You don’t unders--”

“Let me make it plain.” Michiru set down her cup of tea with an assured clink. “It matters not a whit to me if ever you reveal who you really are to the world, however much I feel you owe yourself that. I certainly will not out you. However, you will tell that girl, and you will make it clear that you think only that she deserves to find someone who truly desires her, and you will do so before I lose my patience.”

In a bold moment of stupidity, Mamoru had nearly growled, ‘or you’ll do what?’ But Mamoru, whatever else he might be, was not a stupid man, and his mind quickly called up the many things that Michiru might do if she were displeased, from small to large. It was confusing enough that the woman who had once disavowed any allegiance to Usagi was now her champion, and Mamoru did not particularly want to try her good humor.

“Usagi can’t keep a secret.” He managed to stumble out.

“Perhaps you should have considered that before marrying her. I, in fact, believe we rather had a discussion over the wisdom of your marriage.”

“The day before the wedding!” He hissed.

“Oh, pardon me, Chiba,” She shook her head her hands curled casually around the tea cup, “I apologize for being ever so absorbed in my wife’s ongoing rehabilitation that I neglected to properly supervise your breakneck rush to the altar.” she placed her hand on her chest, giving a small bow, “The fault is all mine.”

“Why are you doing this?” It came out strangled and afraid and angry.

Michiru paused for a moment, and considered him, glancing over his face and down to his balled fist. She glanced down at her tea as she continued, softly.

“Whatever Usagi’s faults are, and they are myriad, she does not deserve this treatment. This lie. She has only ever been kind to you. She is a loving person, Mamoru, and she will forgive you.” She sighed. “I have lived hating her, and did so for many years. But she may have been as much a victim of fate as all of us, and this may be the proof of it. I could not bring up any desire to protect her as Princess Serenity, but, now that she is Usagi I seem to have found it.” She looked back up, her voice growing steely. “And so, you will tell her why you are leaving.”

Michiru picked her coat up from the chair next to her and unfolded it carefully as she stood, straightening her skirt and tossing it over her shoulders. There was nothing more to say, and so Michiru would not say it. There was only the facts that she had outlaid, and whatever Mamoru chose to do with them. She turned to go, home to her marriage of love, her family, her sense of self that Mamoru had always privately envied.

“Michiru,” he said, “I don’t know how.”

She gave him the one kind look of the entire afternoon. “None of us have known how to navigate the waters of these past few years. Yet we have. You will.”

Michiru walked away, and Mamoru looked back down at his cold coffee and crumbling sandwich. Usagi had believed that love could fix anything. She had made him believe that, for a time. And maybe it was true.

Maybe he could love her enough, one more time, to tell her who he was.

#AU of Mystery and Shadow

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ouroboros-panacea · 6 years ago

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Stone [石头]-Discoveries-[2/?]

Summary: [JJBA x HNK] "Phosphophyllite, my name is Phosphophyllite." Such is your useless life, no matter how many changes you make, how strong you become. Your life will still simply be a tragedy, and you, forever useless. The tale of a gem who suffered because of change, and an ancient being who wanted to change. An odd friendship it'd be. Rebirth seems more like a curse than anything. It would be nice if this didn't end with tragedy. {Disclaimer- I don't own hnk or jjba}

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Kars.

His name was Kars.

Short and simple, yet unique..

Phosphophyllite wasn’t sure if that was the case for him, but she at least knew that he was dangerous. He'd easily be able to smash her up into small, jagged pieces of, well, her. She didn't know why she'd break like glass instead of turning into a floppy, wide-eyed corpse, like the faces of the ground she stood upon just moments back. But it felt right to know she'd disappear like that.

To disappear from the world.

Strangely the thought of it didn’t scare her as much as it should've.

In fact, relief was all she felt in her non-existent heart.

So she kept staring.

At him.

Kars stared at her.

She stared back.

Seeing as the other child wouldn’t speak to him, he decided to initiate the much needed conversation himself.

“Your name then?”

He was met with silence.

Dull eyes peered into his own.

She could've been easily mistaken for a standing corpse, with the pale white pallor of her skin and lifeless mint green eyes.

She hadn’t answered him yet though.

How rude, seeing as he already gave his own name to her. Still, he waited for her. The silence wasn’t that bad anyways, he was patient enough.

The question hung in the air for a few more seconds, until Phosphophyllite realized Kars had asked her a question. Eyes widening by a fraction, she straightened up from her previous hunched over posture. Her mouth opened-her eyes gaining a hint of light in them-prepared to speak, and a small whisper came out.

“My name? It’s Phosphophyllite.”

They were both anomalies to each other, a mystery in one way or another.

Yet they had both taken up the role of the "villain" in their respective tales, their own timeline.

But was this not a time for rejoicing? (Not that they would know). To be given a second chance in life was a beautiful thing.

Yet now there were new balls to juggle.

One small mistake would lead to the same bad end again.

Phosphophyllite?

What a strange name.

It was excessively long, almost uselessly so. It seemed more like a title than a name.

But he couldn't judge, some of his own had stranger names than that. So he accepted it. Wasn't that hard to do so anyways.

But now he really needed to know how on Earth did this possibly human child end up here in the first place? Why did she look so.. different from the other humans he's seen?

Normal humans didn't wear such strange clothing, covering their skin in a skin tight way. Most of them merely just threw a piece of cloth over their body and that was deemed as clothing. Nothing more, nothing less. Though there had been some particularly different people...experimenting? Yes, yes, experimenting with their newly found ore and time.

It didn't even remotely look like this Phosphophyllite's "Clothes".

Another curiosity was her hair. Whenever any moonlight hit parts of it, the mint green strands seemed to solidify and crystallize into chunks of imitation hair, except with minerals. It would almost sparkle, which was weird because hair should not sparkle and catch the light like that. Yet in the dark it looked very much like normal human hair-with it's wispy strands sticking out at out angles and the original vibrant mint dulling down in the shadows.

Then he looked down to her arms, and spotted what looked like...hairline fractures? On a human arm, which was made of flesh and flesh did not crack like fragile gemstones. Then he blinked and they were gone, a golden sheen covering any part of Phos' body that had fractured.

Curiouser and curiouser.

He needed the answers to the flurry of questions inside his head, right now, and what better way to do so than simply asking?

“Let us get straight to the point, shall we? So how did you get here?”

“I..I'm not sure my myself. I only remember waking up to a horrible smell…” She answered. Phosphophyllite did remember fragments of other supposed memories, but she didn’t quite think they were rather relevant to the question he asked. Would simply babbling about shattering gems, Lunarians (What were those actually? All she remembered was burning hate and a cold, cold acceptance), and...something about hardness, toughness-The components of her daily life?

These "memories" felt personal, in no way did she want to tell this stranger. An image of a pale white being in wispy robes (or was it a formal suit?) was brought to her mind as she slowly got to "know" Kars. Somehow, this made her trust him even less with this image in her mind. But

'Well, that was helpful.' Kars thought. 'Possibly complete and total memory loss, judging from her state.'

He decided to ask her another question, though the most likely outcome would be a negative as well. Even then, it was worth a try. You'd never know what happened from actually trying something, sometimes they would yield results, others not so much.

The "not so much" was applicable to this one.

“Then, where did you living before you found yourself here? Was it somewhere near here?"

“I’m sorry, but I can’t remember...maybe I could stay with you for now? I don’t think I have anywhere else to go…I'll try not to be a bother and help with anything you need. So can I stay with you for a while?" Again, Phosphophyllite could not tell him anything (About a world where she wasn't there, gone because of her).

'She's kind of gullible' That single thought echoed through Kars' mind. But he had focus on the decision on hand right now-to allow this human to tag along with him and back to the rest of kind, where there was a possibility that his current object of curiosity would get killed or eaten. Or to just dump her here and forget about this "encounter". Option 2 seemed safer for her...so...

...Nah. Since when did he, Kars, care about a measly mortal? All he needed was just a couple of weeks to observe this specimen, it shouldn't be too hard to guard her from the rest. Besides, he could always ask (read: blackmail) Esidisi into helping him. The decision was settled, the human would come with him, and stay with with him. Until she outlived his interest.

While within Phosphophyllite's mind, was a mental debate between three.

'He's way too pushy, what's up with him?' One voice chimed, whiny and childish.

'Wait a bit, he may be useful.' Said another, soothing and calm like glacial ice. Yet there were undertones of confined madness.

'.....' The presence of the third was felt, yet not heard. They did not see any reason for them to input their opinion for now-It didn't matter to them anyways, nothing ever did. All they did was "observe".

'Well...he looks kinda weird too. What's with the skirt? Amirite you sad sack!'

No answer.

'Oi, pay attention to cute little me~' Again voice number 1 punched through the silence.

'Quiet down! You're going to give us both a headache with all the racket you're making!' Number 2 quickly interjected before 1 could say anymore.

Nothing useful came from the third. So Phos decided to go with the much more helpful advice of the second. Not like it was a particularly hard choice anyways. Wasn't like she could just go up to someone and comment on their interesting fashion choices.

"Ok"

Wait what. What happened? Why did he say ok? Did she get lost in her own thoughts or something? Her confusion must've been as clear as day on her near bone white face-Droopy mint green eyes widening to an almost comical degree, her lips parted in question.

To Kars, it told him that she may not be the sharpest in the head. But wasn't that better? She'd be easier to manipulate and use.

"Didn't you listen? I agreed to your little request, you can stay with me until you regain your memories or something. Now let's go, we're wasting time by staying here." Swiftly, he grabbed her thin arms and started to tug her in the direction of his home. Well, community to be more exact but it wasn't like Phosphophyllite needed to know.

Oh. That made more sense now. But man was this guy fast, and he tugging way too hard.

Phos made no sound of discontentment in front of him, but silently protested against his rough treatment.

Like would it kill the guy to slow down and let her walk?

Distinct sounds of cracking started to blast in her mind as Kars basically dragged her out of the rest of the bodies, the distance from her body and her arm fraying the invisible threads that held her limbs in place. Struggling to keep up the pace, she half ran half walked, her feet tripping along the grass like a newborn foal. Then her left foot caught on her right, and she crashed to the ground with the grace of a thundering oaf. The part of her arm in Kars' hand broke clean off, gravity pushing her down so she fell flat on her face. Phos could hear her face shatter, and felt her limbs become fragmented pieces of gem. All in all shocking the young pillar boy in front of her, his violet eyes screaming out the surprise he felt. Kars saw what looked like a clear indicator of the fact that Phosphophyllite was in fact not human, and his interest spiked almost tenfold.

While on Phosphophyllite's side...

Ah.

She screwed up.

Majorly.

Oh well.

Time to face the "consequences" and see what happens.

-Chapter two end-

#houseki no kuni #kars #jjba #part 2 #battle tendency #esidisi #wammu #santana #phos #phosphophyllite #hnk #hnk phos #writing #crossover #jojo no kimyou na bouken #fanfic #fanfiction

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