#Infinity train AU | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

revryebread · 22 days ago

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INCONGRUOUS

Last night we were shooting the shit and asked: Does the infinity Train have a Reaper's Game? If so, who's the game-master? Who is there?

What if Shoka died and saw Alphonse in the Reaper's Game but he had clearly made his way to being a Reaper?

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If she was a betting woman, Shoka Sakurane would have bet that she was immortal while on the Infinity Train.

It's stupid to say, but she had already died before she came on in the first place- what was it going to do? Kill her again? She's double dead? At the very least, she wouldn't end up in the UG a second time. She'd probably just vanish into nothing, Erasure immediately.

It's what she deserved, probably.

But the fact she was having these thoughts at all, this feeling of incredulousness- it meant she wasn't erased. Something decided she should have another chance, AGAIN. As if she hadn't squandered enough already. She thought back to her friend back in Shinjuku- so long ago she can't remember her name. She never got a second chance, she barely got her first.

Regardless. Her eyes shoot open on the floor of the Platformer Car, and she can feel the phantom pain of her death- a misplaced jump, an offbrand thwomp. She sits up and tries to walk herself through the process she's seen so many kids go through- an annoying side effect of the job is playing therapist. She focused herself in on the advice she would give them: whatever got you can't hurt you anymore, but more hurt is coming if you don’t get your shit together.

Her phone vibrates with a familiar giggle, and she reflexively goes to her pocket to pull it out, and as she does, catches her hand and arm in her peripheral vision-

Her green number was gone. The mark she had gained after killing Al that wrapped up her hand, arm, all the way to her neck- it was gone. There was part of her that wishes she felt relief, but it's a hollow victory. Scott free again for Shoka Sakurane. The girl who never faces consequences, just stays ahead of them.

She pushes the new, fun way of self loathing out of her head and locks back in on her phone to be greeted with a familiar UI, and a familiar notification.

Welcome to orientation. Task: Clear two cars and check in. Time limit: Two Days. Cost for failure: Erasure

A good song never dies- she was back in the Reaper’s Game, on the train's personal UG. Part of it should make her laugh- Trish was always whining about how the train was a stand, and turns out it was Shoka’s world that was real. Hilarious.

She forced herself up to her feet, wiped off her jacket, and pulled out her pins - two cars would be child's play for her. Whoever this game-master was, they were playing with Kids gloves.

---------

Come the end of the first night, and Shoka had smashed through two cars with an Apex like fervor. There were no denizens or other passengers, so the jury was still out on how they would interact with her in her new not-alive state, but some jumping puzzles and the simon says car made for easy progress.

When she opens the door at the end of her second car, she's happy atleast to finally see someone, and a morbid sense of familiarity comes with it when she sees the wings and hoodie.

“Heya, newbie.” It's some tall dipshit that reminds her of Beat. Great. “Welcome to da toughest game of all, da Reaper’s Game! I'm sure yous got questions about where or what ya are, but your pal Joey here-”

“Awh, this is so cute- is it your first week being a Reaper?” Shoka doesn't have time for a petty Reaper to be giving her orders- she flashes her Shibuya Reaper pin. “I've got a couple of years on you sweaty, save it for some other idiot.”

The boy stammers, knocked out of his opening number- “Oh, I- but they said yous was a player?” He starts to flip through his phone, presumably reading some kind of orientation guide, his stupid face twisting as it tried to grind into motion. “And dat pin doesn't look too familiar to me, are you one of ours or da last guys?”

Hmm- so this game has recently had a leadership turnover too. Whatever political issues this UG was having was already more interesting than dicking around on the normal train.

“Think of me as a transfer, dummy. Or- don’t try to think of me at all. I’m worried it might make your little brain sputter out.” The boy frowned, but was unable to come up with a comeback as Shoka had COMPLETELY taken control of the conversation. “Some simple questions for you, did I ante anything up this time? Is this a team sport? How longs the game?”

The boy began to sweat, it clearly was his first week. How did he ever win a game in the first place? She had half a thought to just erase this idiot and take his Reaper pin and find her way to the top, but she heard someone warp in behind the two of them-

“Joey, are you having-”

You're going to carry this with you

“Is that you?”

She span on her heels, hoping to see anyone else, but she recognized his fucking voice, and his stupid fucking stance. Alphonse Elric, but with a black sweater vest and black noise wings. The two of them locked eyes for a second, and she tried to open her mouth but just made the stupid sounds that Joey had been making moments earlier.

”What finally got you?”

Al was the first one to talk, and unfortunately was much better at keeping a poker face then Shoka. He spoke in a very practiced cool tone- she didn’t know if that meant he had gotten over it or was seething. Which only made her MORE mad.

Luckily, though, it gave her an off ramp that wasn’t ‘confront the guy you killed and now is in charge of you in the afterlife.’ “Still no good with girls, huh Alphie?” She put on a fake smile that she hoped wasn’t obvious and half turned to give him a very visible cold shoulder. “You can’t just ask people that, it’s rude. Read a book.” She could see Joey’s confused face, and she was certain that the only thing he’d ever read was a Sports Illustrated. “Do you twos know each other or somethin?”

She shot a glance back at Al, and she could see his cool expression had dropped to an expression barely cloaked anger. Guilt hit her in the chest, especially after the events of Poker, this might be the only person she knows here. So she should play nice and not jump on that weakness he’s showing. “I’m the reason he’s here, so yes, you could say we know each other pretty well.”

“That’s not-” Al started to argue, but Shoka turned back to Joey again to cut him off. “But it’s not important. I just wanna know what the game format is. Can you give that to me, Joey? Or is it too many syllables back to back for you to remember?”

Joey was blushing and struggling even more now, and Shoka felt a hand on her shoulder. She tensed up hard and went to jerk away, but Al’s hand gripped there for a second- the one she had shot off.

“I’ve got this one, Joey. She’ll be my charge.” Al sounded resolute and pissed. She glared up at him and pushed his hand off, spinning on her heel again. “What the fuck do you mean, Charge? Is this a fucking mentorship program?”

“Game format. Each Reaper is paired with at least one player. Welcome back Shoka, we’re partners.”

“This is a fucking nightmare.” She shattered another glass on a wall near his head, and Al lifted his head back up into the place where it was sitting, head in his hands. She had been throwing a fit, (Al’s words), for the past hour. Wrecking this Sur La table Car in a way that was, unfortunately, only reflected in the UG.

This game was apparently a partner/ward situation. Which meant that while she was supposed to be paired with dipshit, Alphonse had taken it over and was now her direct handler. Which was bullshit. A conflict of interest. A stab in the fucking back. An affront to the reapers game as a whole. But Al was, unfortunately, uninterested in hearing her complaints, and while he definitely seemed smug about his decision, it was pyrrhic at best.

“Deal with it or be erased, Shoka. I don’t-” Al started and was cut off by another plate shattering into the wall and sighed loudly. “Oh you get to throw out threats now? Big man with the big threats? Was it not enough that I killed you once? That I felt guilty? Now I have to be haunted by the actual fucking idiot. And he has my old job?” She let out a guttural yell and collapses to the ground, miserable. Al waits for a second on his seat to see if she actually has worn herself out or not. “Your not even going to give me a chance, are you? Your gonna pull me along just to see me erased.”

Al quietly gets up from the far side of the room and walks over to her, glass crunching under his feet. She can imagine this scene from the third person and feels humiliated. Al stands over her for a moment with his hands in his pockets, quiet. She waits for him to say something, and he doesn’t. After a few attempts to rearrange the glass on the floor into a shape, he finally sighs and breaks the silence.

“I don’t want you to be erased, Shoka, and I’m not doing this to try and ruin your chances at winning the game.” Shoka sneers up at him, “Oh, high and mighty now then. Better-than-me Alphonse helping the down and out killer he-”

“You didn’t kill me, Shoka.” That stops her dead in her tracks, and again, she begins to sound like Joey stumbling over her words. “You’re a fucking liar. I shot you.”

“That’s not what got me. I got out of there, got patched up in the colosseum car, and got in a fight with someone else. You hurt me really bad, and I don’t forgive you for that, but you didn’t kill me.”

Shoka had been sitting and stewing in the guilt of what she had done to Al for months. Every single thought she had since the Caboose was tinged with guilt and anger and righteousness from killing Alphonse Elric- and she fucking didn’t. It was all for nothing. What had she been mad for? What had she been tearing herself up and twisting herself into knots about?

She stood up suddenly enough that Al stepped back, but she closed the distance and pointed in a finger in his chest.. “Say you’re lying.” She didn’t even know what she was saying, she was all id at the moment. “Admit that you’re fucking lying.”

“Shoka- it’s not a lie, it’s true. You didn’t kill me.” He regained some sort of stubborn confidence and stopped backing up- “Would it be easier for you if you did?”

She wants to hit him again. She wants him to swing at her even- any sort of fight or violence to avoid talking this out with her words. She doesn’t have them, they’ve left with all her misplaced aggressions she’s carried around for weeks. She opens her mouth to hurl another insult, or demand another confession. Nothing comes out, and her hands curl into fists.

She screams, and collapses on the ground again-

“Are you- Shoka-” It’s Al’s turn to struggle for words now, because she’s fallen and has just begun to sob. There comes a tipping point with emotion, and she’s hit it.

---

He leaves her alone to regain her composure, because neither of them are emotionally solid enough to manuever through the “so you thought you killed me, and wanted to, and you carried the guilt with you for months before finding out that actually you didn't” and so they both decide to pretend it didn’t happen and push past it. A problem solving method that has never failed anyone ever.

Days in the UG are weird- they close and end suddenly, and don’t have the connective tissue of Waking Up and Falling Asleep. The days games end and you appear in the next one. It’s an odd feeling, but the familiarity of it makes Shoka Nostalgic, and she is able to kick back in to the next day with full vigor.

Her first thought of the day is the recognition that she’s walking up to him on a street corner, which again, feels right for a Reaper’s Game. There were skyscrapers, but it wasn’t Shibuya, or any city she recognized for that matter.

“Morning Alphie.” It lacks the blood that her usual sneers have, because she can’t find the bitterness in her right now. Al seems to be understanding, and nods at her, holding out a little aluminum wrap.

“I got you one.” He mutters, biting into a breakfast burrito of his own and looking around the car. She stares at it for a second and takes it, leaving a silence that she hopes is as good as a Thanks. He looks at her for long enough to confirm that it isn’t, and sighs. “So-”

The giggle from her texts stops him from prying, and she snaps it open instead of allowing him to finish whatever nightmare he was about to lead them down-

Welcome to Orientation. Day two. Task: Clear two cars and check in. Time limit: Two Days. Cost for failure: Erasure If you’ve already finished- congratulations. Take the day off.

She frowns. What she needed was a distraction, not a day off. She looks up to Al, who has a look on his face that says he already knows the assignment. He shrugs. “Do you want me to leave you alone today?”

She starts to formulate a new insult her head to drive him away, and it jumps out at her- he’s got both of his hands. She hadn’t seen him with one arm for long, but the image had been burnt into her mind for so long that it still throws her off guard. They just have a clean slate with each other. In a way. A vague way.

“You’d leave a girl alone in an unfamiliar city?” Fuck, wait- That’s asking him to stay, isn’t it? She tries to backtrack but is flustered enough that she fumbles it. “Yeah. Get out of here, I’ll walk around or whatever.” Al sighs again, pinching his nose. “Shoka…”

“Ugh! Fine! Stick Around! I don’t care, I’m walking away, follow if you want!” She shouts like any of what she said in the last minute is congruous with each other, turns on her heel, and walks the fuck away. Al takes a beat and follows.

#Interstitial Infinity #Shoka Sakurane #Alphonse Elric #Joey Wheeler #full metal alchemist #neo twewy #infinity train au

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