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castellankurze · 6 years ago

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A Completely Normal Team-Up

So you know how oftentimes an anime gets an OVA or a movie that takes place...somewhere in its continuity, but nobody’s quite sure where, it probably messes with continuity but someone had an idea for a standalone story so by god they wedged in in there somehow? Well, consider this to be Completely Normal RPG getting its own OVA release.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miyumi was the first one taken by the creature.

Later on, Shouko, attempting to lighten the mood, joked that it did so because it was smart. While there might have been a kernel of truth in the statement, when everything came out in the end it also inadvertently hid the thing's true motivation.

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In truth there had been others attacked beforehand, but they had been left at the site of their assault, all of them bone-weary and exhausted, none able to describe whatever the thing was that had come after them. Whatever it was, it struck at twilight three days in a row. The school put out a warning of a flu going around, reacting to the aftereffects, but when the four of them got together the idea wasn't even dignified with a single repetition.

"A vampire of some kind?" Kanako proposed.

"Whatever it is, it's definitely draining its victims," Miyumi agreed with a stroke of her chin.

"But it's not drinking their blood or anything, just sapping their energy," Erika said from the counter where she was fixing a sandwich. "Are there any beasts that just sort of...make people tired and move on?"

A quick call to Saika was no help. "She says there's too many possibilities," Shouko said, waggling an unlit cigarette between her lips and ignoring a dirty look from Miyumi. "She says to do the usual - just buddy up and never be alone and keep your eyes open."

So they did, and Miyumi was in the company of her boyfriend Shoji when dusk came at the end of the next day, but all told, the advice didn't seem to be much help.

"I barely saw it," Shoji murmured from his bed. He was bruised and cut in a few places, but otherwise unharmed but for the same strange exhaustion that had overtaken the previous victims. "There was a flash of headlights behind us, and then I thought someone was coming off the road to try and hit us. After that I just saw stars." Kanako tried to coax more information out of him, gently asking questions, but that seemed to be the limit of what he could remember. Apart from that, Erika had to step in when he tried to rise from his bed as if to start looking for Miyumi then and there, easily keeping the boy down with a hand to his chest.

"You just focus on getting better," she said firmly. "We'll find Miyumi."

The next morning, Shouko crossed paths with Shizuka when the latter stepped off the bus before class. "You are on time for school today," the red-eyed girl noted quietly.

"You're a riot," Shouko replied, shrugging her motorcycle jacket over her shoulder and falling into step beside Shizuka. "For real though, why would this thing take Miyumi when it just leaves everyone else all tired out?"

Shizuka shot the delinquent a sidelong glower, the kind she often employed on those who ought to know better. "What distinguishes Miymui from the rest of them?" she asked curtly, and then walked on, ignoring Shouko's faltering steps behind her.

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

Erika and Kanako never made it home that night, but because it was a friday and Kana lived alone but for her cat Tsukiko, nobody realized what had happened until Shouko (in flagrant violation of Saika's warning not to travel alone) dropped by the house late the next afternoon to ask after the math homework they'd been assigned. The door was unlocked, and she found nobody but a pitifully meowing Tsukiko who pointedly went to sit by her bowl. After offering the cat a reassuring stroke and some food from the bag under the counter, Shouko sent a few queries by text, careful to sound innocuous. When the inseparable pair didn't turn up anywhere, Shouko hurried out, and in the end she was almost fast enough.

Saika's phone buzzed and she picked it up with a chirp of "hi Shouko!"

"Don't talk just listen! It's got Kana and Erika!" Shouko shouted back, sounding out of breath. There was some kind of rhythmic pounding like a series of sledgehammers behind her voice.

"Shouko?!" Saika yelped, immediately disregarding her girlfriend's instruction standing with such haste she knocked her desk chair over.

"It's some kind of a machine! It's got all kinds of random parts! It's got...it's got a core shaped like a diamond made of mirrors! It's got wings and they glow really bright! I don't-"

Where was a sound of screeching metal and a moment later the line disconnected. Saika stared at the little rectangle in disbelief for a moment before mashing redial and begging "pick up...please pick up..." but it was not to be. The normally-bubbly blonde stood wide-eyed in the center of her room, staring past her phone at the far wall, paralyzed for a long moment with indecision. Then, with trembling fingers, she dialed another number.

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"Hmmm," he mused after she relayed her description. "'A diamond-shaped mirror' has sometimes been mentioned in the description of a creature called the mirrorknight." The Baron of the Radiant Court paused, marshaling his thoughts. "It is a type of golem which repairs and rebuilds itself with whatever materials may be present, but its heart is a single piece of silver polished to a mirror shine. A long time ago there used to be quite a number of them, but they were unstable creations and would eventually go renegade."

"This one seems to be pretty renegade," Saika agreed, her voice shaky. "Why would this one be kidnapping hunters?"

"Individuals have attacked members of the Court before, thought always in isolated incidents. I'll look into the archives, and I will send someone to reinforce you as soon as possible. I want you to be very careful, is that clear?"

"Yessir," Saika replied, and the call ended. Saika looked out her window at the night sky and the lights of other houses across the street and beyond. Then she looked back to her phone and, with a trembling thumb, scrolled through her contacts to a certain name whose number she had never dialed.

She took a deep breath. She'd always tried to...be helpful. Back up her friends. Be there when they needed her - when Shouko needed her. Be the guiding light. She'd never...taken point, so to speak. And certainly not like this. This could get her into a lot of trouble. A lot. But the night was coming on, and it was getting cold, and Miyumi had been gone for over two whole days at this point, and it could be...some time before another member of the Radiant Court could be pulled from their current duty and sent to help. And every passing moment meant all four of them were out there, somewhere, in trouble...

"Hey, by the way, you should add this to your contacts."

"Shouko, she'll me really angry you gave me her number."

"Nah, she said it was okay."

"Did she really?"

"Well, you know, I sort of ran it by her and she kind of grunted the way she does. Look, just save it for a major emergency, okay?"

Her phone's screen started to grey out, and Saika swallowed hard, raised her thumb high, brought it down on the dial icon.

One ring.

Two.

"Hello," answered Shizuka's deadpan voice.

"We need to talk," Saika said.

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

They met at the sports field by the school, a wide-open place not far from the building's lights. The representative of the Eventide Vanguard came armed, of course, her katana belted at her side, and Saika tried to keep her fingers from twitching, fighting the urge to summon her bow, just to have it ready.

It was a long moment before either of them spoke - Shizuka stood with her arms crossed, her red-eyed gaze unwavering, while Saika chewed her lip, searching for the right words. Finally she gave up and just repeated everything that had happened, relaying everything Shouko had had time to tell her over the phone and the resulting information given to her by the Baron.

When she was done, Shizuka lowered her gaze and closed her eyes for a moment. "You could face severe consequences for this, Oishi," she commented dryly. "It could be seen as consorting with the enemy."

Saika spread her arms and shrugged. "I can't...just wait," she said, hearing the plaintive tone in her own voice.

Shizuka uncrossed her arms and rested one hand at her sword's sheath, idly popping the katana's hilt with her thumb and holding it for a moment before clicking it back into place, her lips pursed, her gaze directed past Saika's shoulder rather than on her face. "The Vanguard's knowledge of the mirrorknight states that it's core is designed as a mirror because it was intended to be a reactive force," she suddenly stated. "It absorbs energy for fuel, and when it drinks power from a certain element it alters its own base nature to turn that energy against its foes."

"So when Shouko described its wings as glowing-" Saika realized with growing horror.

"It has likely absorbed magic from both Kanako and Erika, which would give it a strong light aspect," Shizuka confirmed.

"We can't wait for backup," Saika blurted, and as Shizuka raised an eyebrow she balled her fists and stamped a foot. "Either of us. You know I'm right, Miyasato. Every minute they're out there that thing is draining more and more from them. What if it doesn't stop like it did with the other people it attacked. What if it drains everything?"

"You are willing to put everything on the line in the event of that possibility," Shizuka said, her red-eyed gaze once more pinned to Saika's own green pair.

"Aren't you?" Saika rejoined, and Shizuka lowered her eyes, thumb toying with the hilt of her katana again. Saika took a bracing breath and then turned on the ball of one foot, thrusting out a hand towards her opposite number. "Night's fallen," she said, her voice low and firm. "Day and twilight are both behind us. And they'll come again in the morning. But for tonight there are people who need saving. Our friends. And I'm...I'm not asking you to like me, Miyasato. But...just for one night. For our friends."

Shizuka eyed the proffered hand for a long moment. "A two-person band," she mused. Then she reached out and clasped Saika's hand. The pair squeezed.

"So...um, now we just need to find it," Saika realized lamely.

Shizuka favored her with one of her barely-there smirks. "Shouko said it was made of random parts. Where else do machines go to die and be reborn, Oishi?"

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Kanako's screaming filled the junkyard, but nobody had come running in the last day, and nobody came running now.

She thrashed in her restraints as their captor leaned close and opened its maw which, not already enough of a science-fiction nightmare made as it was of mashing metal parts, was full of discarded sawblades that whirled and struck sparks from one another when the bottom set glanced off the ones on the top. But instead of biting into the hapless girl, the machine seemed to inhale, and from Kanako's body a haze of glimmering light took form only to be drawn away as if by some manner of whirlpool, pulled inexorably into the machine-beast's mouth. It arched, like a predator swallowing a particularly juicy morsel, its wings twitching and glimmering as the hope it drained from its captive suffused its body.

The thing that had taken them was the size of a bear, and walked on a pair of legs made from pistons and car axles, its arms cobbled together from cast-offs from the construction equipment manufacturing plant and spliced into grabbing claws. Its posture was hunched and predatory, its eyes a set of headlights stolen from the hulk of a bus, which explained why Shoji had thought some nutcase was about to run him and Miyumi down.

The wings that jutted from its body were the only thing that didn't seem to have come from the scrapyard - a set of blade-like triple-pointed razor-sharp limbs that extended almost ten feet in either direction and which, for the last day, had been glowing with an ever more intense light as it sucked the energy from its captives.

Kanako struggled to catch her breath as the thing finally seemed to take its fill and stepped away, rumbling, shaking her head and coughing. "I knew this war between hunters and the twilight was going to crazy when I signed up, but I didn't think every other monster out there was going to try and eat us!" she wailed, sobbing a bit though by now her cheeks were try, with only the tracks left by the tears from earlier in the day.

"It...it's going to be okay," Miyumi murmured from her position sat against the wall. The sorceress could barely keep her head up, deep bags under both eyes after fully two days with little more than a few drops of water. The machine-creature had fashioned crude manacles from rebar and steel beams, driving them into the concrete wall against the back of the junkyard to pin the foursome's legs and hands in place. Even Erika's fearsome strength had managed little more than to earn a bit of wiggle room. "We will...figure something..out."

"Keep your eyes open, Miyumi!" Erika cried out. "Don't fall asleep on us! Um...what's forty times twenty-three?"

"Nnn...nine hundred and twenty," Miymui replied after a few moments' hesitation.

"Shouko are you sure you got through?" Erika asked for what had to be the hundredth time.

For the last hour Shouko had been trying to use the toe of her boot to grab purchase on an iron bar that rested by her feet, hoping she would be able to somehow lever open the rebar that held her pinned. "Uh huh," she replied. "I heard her answer. C'mon...c'monnnnnn..." With a soft squeak of triumph she managed to get her toe underneath the end of the bar and worked it up a couple inches, just enough to maneuver her feet to pin the bar between her insteps, drawing it from the ground towards her.

"Shouko, watch-" Kanako started to warn her, but a steel claw shot forwards to grab the bar and yanked it violently away from the would-be escapee. Shouko yelped, having been so utterly focused on her task she hadn't noticed the golem turning back around towards them. It leaned close, opening up its sawblade mouth and hissing steam in warning. Shouko screamed back.

"Get away from her you...you b-jerk!" a voice cried out, and the golem reared, turning with awkward grace to find whatever interloper had called it out.

[...]

The pair stood side-by-side. Shizuka's katana was already drawn and laid across her shoulders, its eldritch glow alight. Beside her, Saika had her bow summoned and a gleaming golden arrow put to the shimmering string.

"Machines are meant to make lives easier and take the weight from the backs of working people," Shizuka growled. "A malfunctioning beast like you has no right to turn such devices to the purpose of inflicting harm upon innocents."

"We won't let you hurt anyone else," Saika echoed. "We might be like night and day ourselves, but even at the bottom of the night people deserve to dream of tomorrow, and when a new day breaks, that's all that'll be left of you - a bad dream!" With that she drew her bow and fired her arrow, her aim dead-on between the mirrorknight's eyes. But when the magical projectile struck the golem, it merely shattered and vanished, and the creature's wings only seemed to glow even brighter than before as it gnashed its sawblade teeth.

"Saika no, it's tuned itself to light energy!" Kanako cried out. "You won't be able to hurt it like that!"

"So if it's full of light energy," Saika mused, glancing to her side even as the mirrorknight shook itself and began to pound towards the pair. "Do you...?"

"Don't mind if I do," the Eventide representative growled and leapt forward, long skirts billowing about her legs as she ran to meet the beast halfway, her katana striking sparks from its claws as they met and she parried, dodged, and struck. The energised blade cut into the morass of scrap that composed the mirrorknight's body, and it flashed in a brief, sudden coruscation of wild magic and drew back, snapping in bestial rage. It lunged and bit, swiping with its claws, and dealt Shizuka a glancing blow with one hand, making her cry out and drop back.

Saika was at her back a moment later, her hand reaching out for Shizuka's shoulder, and in the space of a heartbeat the wound closed as if it had never been. "I can still back you up like this," she assured the other girl, and squeezed, imparting a measure of energy.

Shizuka lifted a hand and, with a sudden burst of inhuman speed, threw out her arm and from the air exploded a set of chains as black as night that lashed out and tangled around the mirrorknight's limbs. Splaying her fingers, the Eventide warrior threw a hail of thorns equally black that sank into the golem's armored hide with no more resistance than pins through a sheet of paper. The renegade creation thrashed and lifted up into the air, letting loose an unearthly howling noise, and the glow of its wings intensified with a suddenness that left Saika with barely enough time to shout "watch out!" before searing beams of light erupted in every direction, carving through the air and leaving scorch marks where they passed.

Shizuka's chains failed and burst, but even so as the mirrorknight dropped back to the ground she was there, rushing forward with another reckless cut of her blade, carving deep into its flank, and again setting off the shudder of pain and the flashing, wild release of energy. Then the thing kicked out and caught her in the midsection, lifting her from her feet and sending her flying through the air. Saika rushed to her side when she came down, healing her once more, but rather than take advantage of the moment, the mirrorknight shuddered, and without warning its belly parted, affording them a glimpse of the diamond-shaped core housed within its torso, a perfect octohedron poised to a mirror shine.

Then the light that had sprayed forth from the golem's wings faded, replaced by a mounting inky blackness, dotted with distant pinpricks of light as if a void had opened into the night sky. Helping Shizuka to her feet, Saika leveled her bow and summoned another arrow, firing at the creature once more and this time achieving the desired result, forcing it back a step as it howled injury. "That's why you took Miyumi first," Saika realized. "Because if you'd tried to fight both her and Kanako at the same time they could have just alternated what energy they hit you with. She summoned another arrow, held it until it blazed with light, and fired, driving the berserk machine back another step.

Then, without warning, it charged, but in a heartbeat Shizuka was in front of her once more, the glow gone from her sword as she ceased to channel its enchantment, blocking steel with steel as the golem's claws screeched against the killing edge with no magical power to draw upon. Together the unlikely pair faced down the cruel machine, Shizuka's protective blade turning aside the whirling sawblades and killing claws as Saika flexed her fingers and summoned up a triad of arrows, firing all three at once into the thing and making it reel, falling to its knees.

"That's right! You’ve got nothing!" Saika cheered, pumping a fist. "You never expected a pair like us to team up, did you? Always striking at one or the other; you've got nothing when we work together!"

"Oishi," Shizuka warned.

The golem had managed to clamber up to one knee, its torso once mroe opening to display the pristine mirror of its core as the darkness faded from its wings, leaving perfectly-polished steel in its wake.

Then it closed a claw, and a long blade of fire erupted into the air.

"......o-oh," Saika whined, belatedly remembering not everyone had powers neatly categorized into light and dark.

The machine lashed out with what power it had managed to steal from Shouko, but with a snap-hiss of energy Shizuka had stepped in to block the blow, driven a foot back from the sheer strength behind it. The machine lashed out again and the pair separated as the blade came down between them.

"What do we do now? I don't know any ice spells!" Saika cried out, firing another pair of arrows that thunked into the golem's armored hide.

"We do things the old-fashioned way," Shizuka said grimly, with a cut of her blade that sliced into the mirrorknight's other flank.

"Get 'em Saika! I believe in you!" Shouko shouted.

"Take him down!" Erika chimed in.

"You can do it," Miyumi husked.

"We're all counting on you!" Kanako added her voice to the chorus.

Saika conjured one arrow after the other, putting them into the hulking brute's torso with determination, but seemed to accomplish little even as Shizuka chipped away at its limbs with her blade. This was going to take all night, and Saika didn't have the energy to keep them healed if they took more injuries. Then, as the golem twisted to try and hit Shizuka, Saika realized that its torso was still open, its core naked. It had to be nearly out of energy, she realized.

"Miyasato! Are you willing to trust me?" she cried out, hurrying once more to Shizuka's side.

"It's a little late for that question," Shizuka growled.

"The core," Saika said, and her opposite nubmer thinned her lips and nodded, setting herself.

The mirrorknight stamped its piston-legs, shook itself in animalistic fashion, and stepped forward, beginning to raise its flaming sword.

Saika shut her eyes as she summoned up every bit of energy she could conjure, her bow trembling in her hand as she fed everything into it, leaving herself utterly unguarded, but summoning up an arrow that seemingly glowed with the intensity of a risen sun. Then, as the mirrorknight's sword reached the highest point of its arc, ready to crash down in a devastating blow, she dropped one foot back, braced, and pulled, firing towards the exposed core.

Shizuka threw her hand out and one of her ink-black chains short forth, latching onto the arrow in mid-flight and trailing behind it as it soared, sinking deep into the polished mirror surface of the golem's core, spidering cracks flowing out in every direction.

The mirrorknight stumbled, frozen in the middle of its deathblow.

Shizuka closed her hand around the conjured chain, and Saika reached out to likewise grasp it, her own fingers closing on the blackened links just above Shizuka's own grip. Ice flooded her all the way up the shoulder as she touched the shadowed conjuring, but she held on tight, teeth bared.

"Twilight marks the end of day," Shizuka murmured.

"But dawn always comes again!" Saika replied, and together they focused, sending a spiraling wave of alternating light and dark energy twisting down the length of the chain that sank into the cracks created by the arrow's strike and exploded forth, shattering the golem's core into hundreds of mirrored shards.

The renegade machine let out a final howl and slowly toppled backwards, the flaming sword fading from its clawed grip as it struck the ground and shattered into its many constituent pieces, the spark of animation that had bound them into a hungering whole dispelled forevermore. As smoke rose from the hulking remnants, Shizuka straightened to lay her katana across her shoulders once more, eyes closed, and Saika couldn’t resist making a ‘v’ with the first two fingers of her freed hand, fingertips framing one eye. ------------------------

Erika had to carry Miyumi from the junkyard, Kanako patting her head and summoning what healing magics she could still call forth to stabilize her, promising food as soon as they could get home. For her part, Shouko reached for a cigarette, but in deference to Miymui's condition she slid it away again and settled for hugging Saika tightly.

Still, as they exited the place Saika found a spare moment to drag her feet, slowing to walk alongside Shizuka and offering an awkward, but heartfelt smile. "Thanks for trusting me," she said softly.

"Likewise, Oishi," Shizuka replied after a few moments, offering a faint smile in return.

"Maybe sometimes light and darkness don't always have to be in opposition, huh?" she asked softly.

"Perhaps," Shizuka allowed. A moment of silence passed between them, then, "you may keep my phone number in your contacts. In case another night should come in which neither the Court nor the Vanguard need know...quite everything."

Saika nodded. "You can add mine to yours, too. Just in case, like you say."

"Oishi."

"Miyasato."

"Hey, are you coming or what?" Shouko called from up ahead.

"Yes, just wait up!" Saika said, hustling after the others, and after a moment, Shizuka deigned to lengthen her stride as well so that she need not fall behind.

#kurze writes #Shouko #Saika #Shizuka #Completely Normal RPG #anime bullshit full throttle #showing up on the Toonami Midnight Run around 2003

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castellankurze · 6 years ago

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A Completely Normal Secret

More anime bullshit. Tagging @starcunning, @lordcaliginous, @tamsynspeaks, and @mystictheurge as per standard operating procedure. No combat in this one, just slice of life anime fluff.

Shouko and Saika go on their first real date, but Saika has a secret she’s been keeping from Shouko and the rest of the Completely Normal Study Group.

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The Honda’s engine thrummed as she pulled into the driveway. There was just barely enough room to park behind a car that looked like it had been washed recently. Shutting off the engine, Shouko pulled off her helmet and shook out her dark blue hair before looking up at the building in front of her. It looked like most houses in Hitachinaka, really, nothing extra or strange to mark it out as special. The girl on the motorcycle sucked in her lips for a moment and then looked down at her helmet, turning it around so that she could see eye-to-eye with the visor, as if it could offer her any answers. Then she nodded and took a breath to fortify herself with a soft "'kay" and hung the helmet from the handlebar before swinging herself off the seat.

She hadn't worn all her leathers today, just her favorite jacket, the black one lined in red to match her bike. She unzipped and doffed said garment, holding onto it with a couple of fingers to hang it off her shoulder for the traditional too-cool look. Goosebumps immediately formed on her arms thanks to the short sleeves of her shirt - November was really too late to be running around in such a thing, but it would only be for a minute. The door loomed before her and she stopped in front of it, setting her feet at shoulder-width and squaring her shoulders as if anticipating having to brace against some kind of attack. Then she took a breath and reached out to ring the bell.

Saika must have heard the bike coming, because it was only a couple of seconds before the door opened up to reveal her grinning face. "Hi, Shouko! Aren't you cold?" she asked with a blink of her eyes.

Shouko grinned, already feeling a bit more at ease now she'd seen Saika's face. "Nah. I don't get cold."

"Well, come in anyway," Saika said, stepping back from the door to let Shouko follow her in, letting her toe her sneakers off. Saika's house was a lot like Shouko's own, it turned out, but it was...different. A hard thing to put a finger on in the handful of seconds she had to look around. There was more...stuff. Pictures hung on the walls. Furniture. It was a far cry from the minimalist decorations of Shouko's own residence. Probably had something to do with a family living there full-time instead of two people, one of whom was absent more than two-thirds of any given month. Shouko noticed a framed picture of a slightly younger Saika, standing and giving the V sign with a set of five other girls. Shouko guessed that they must have been Saika's friends before her transfer.

"Mom, Shouko's here!" Saika called out, and Shouko snapped her attention back to the present as her heart jumped into her throat.

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"See? That wasn't so bad?" Saika chirped as the door closed behind them and they made their way back towards the bike.

"Your dad is actually kinda cool," Shouko admitted as she shrugged back into her jacket. "I was half expecting the shotgun treatment."

Saika giggled and oh-my-god'ed. "I told him not to be mean." "Well, thanks. Your mom was way tougher, anyway." Saika sighed a little. "I think the whole thing with the bike kind of worries her a little bit. And deep down...I think she's still kind of hoping one day I'll meet a nice boy and settle down." Saika shrugged. Shouko smiled a little bit. By now they had reached the bike and she was able to reach out and pluck her helmet from the handlebar she'd left it on. "Well, give her my apologies. I'm neither of those things," she said with a smirk. Saika rolled her eyes a little, but Shouko could see some color in her face. “Anyway, everything went great. I can't believe you were so nervous!"

"I still can't believe you've never been bowling," Shouko said, changing the subject as she lifted a leg to slide into her seat. She'd left the spare helmet clipped to the tail end of the motorcycle, and Saika undid the strap to dutifully pull it on before hopping on behind her.

"Well, now I'm gonna learn, right?" she asked as Shouko pulled on her own helmet and started the bike.

"You better believe it," Shouko replied as she looked around and carefully started to walk the bike back out of the driveway. Once they were in the street, she shifted into drive and accelerated slowly, just in case anyone was watching. The pillion seat had a strap to hold on to, and Shouko grinned under her helmet, remembering the first time she'd given Saika a ride home from school. 'You're really expected to hold on to this?' 'It's tougher than it looks. If you want you can just hold on to me instead.' She'd grinned then, too, and despite her flirtations earlier in the day Saika had blushed. 'Oh...okay!'

Saika's arms slipped around her waist with less hesitancy now, and Shouko no longer felt the November cold as she gunned the throttle and the Fireblade leaped beneath them.

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"This place is so 80s," was Saika's declaration ten feet into the bowling alley.

"Most of these places were built back then," Shouko confirmed. The pair of them were walking across a carpet that looking like someone had taken a thousand stencils and every type of neon paint they could find and dumped everything in together. "It kinda became a look."

"It's great," Saika said definitively, and Shouko couldn't help but grin.

"Okay," she said once they'd secured lane 20 at the end of the row. "Shoes and balls."

"Ah, yes, the debutante manifesto," Saika said, with a bland-faced innocence that made Shouko snort.

"Don't worry so much about the printed size, cause they're always weird," she said as they went to the shoe rack. "Just try to find something comfortable."

"I swear these are actually two different sizes," Saika said at one point, hopping on one foot.

"Told you."

Saika found a ball that fit her hand, one painted with swirl of green that almost matched her eyes, while Shouko grabbed one of the plain ones. "So," she said as they returned and she shucked her heavy jacket into one of the seats. Then she glanced meaningfully at the alley and looked back to Saika. "Do you think we should have gotten the lane bumpers?" she asked, trying to keep a straight face.

Saika cocked her head and stuck out her tongue. "You go first, then. Show me how it's done," she said, folding her arms and lifting her chin defiantly.

Shouko grinned and stepped out onto the polished wood, hefting the weight of the bowling ball and eyeing the lane. Truth was, she was a little rusty. She hadn't been bowling since...well she'd still been with the gymnastics team back then. She shook her head to dislodge the thought and stepped, pulling her arm back and swinging, timing her release perfectly to send the ball rolling down the ally and crashing into the pins, knocking over nine of the ten in a clatter.

Saika whooped. "That means you get to go again, right?"

"Yep," Shouko confirmed, holding her hand over the air vent as she waited for the ball to come back.

"Well, get 'em. I believe in you," Saika said, with absolute dead-serious conviction. Shouko gave her a thumbs-up as the conveyor belt rumbled and disgorged her ball, and stepping back up to the line she made good on Saika's belief, dealing the last defiant pin a glancing blow that knocked it off to one side.

She held out a fist and Saika tapped it with her own, grinning as she slid out from her seat and shook out her hands. "Okay. So...you hold it with your middle fingers right?" she asked, waiting while the pinsetter did its work.

"Yeah. Here, Let me...is it okay if I...?" she asked, hesitating.

"Oh, yeah, of course," Saika confirmed, and Shouko setpped up behind her, bracketing Saika's arms with her own to guide her hands.

"You can kind of think of it like drawing your bow, except you gotta step forward when you fire a shot," she explained as she helped Saika adjust her stance, her chest to the shorter girl's back.

"Okay, so not like archery at all," Saika replied with a little smile.

"Listen, I'm trying," she said with a stern expression, and Saika laughed.

"Alright, let me give it a try." She stepped up, her movements less confidant than Shouko's own, and the way she rolled the ball was almost dainty, but for a first-timer her aim was pretty good, knocking over the three pins on the rightmost side of the set. She cheered a little and pumped a fist as Shouko clapped. The next ball went almost right down the center, knocking over all but the last two pins on the left. Saika huffed a bit, but her smile reasserted itself pretty quickly as she came back to the seats and accepted a congratulatory high-five.

"Eight out of ten is pretty damn good for your first time out," Shouko assured her. "I was half-expecting you to throw it in the gutter."

"Is that what you did on your first time?" Saika asked.

"No!" Shouko said, in a tone that made it clear that was exactly what had happened. Saika cackled as the biker stood and went up for another frame, knocking the pins down for another spare. Saika put the ball right down the center on her next turn, only to end up with the dreaded 7-10 split. "You gotta try hitting the outside of one of the pins so it knocks over the other one," Shouko advised, and Saika stuck her tongue out the corner of her mouth for a moment in concentraction before she sent the ball angling in towards one of the pins, only for it to drop into the gutter just short of its intended mark.

"Darn it," Saika said, blowing a short raspberry at the defiant pin.

"Yeah, those splits suck," Shouko agreed, then cocked an ear as she listened to the music change, rolling her eyes. "No, nevermind, that sucks."

"What? Saika asked with a raised brow as she sat back down nearby and crossed her legs, bouncing one foot. "You don't like pop?"

"I don't know, I mean, like, I don't hate it, I guess," Shouko deliberated as the pinsetter did its work. "It's just all so...plastic, you know? I mean, you listen to rock or metal and you can hear the guitarist really dig into the strings, you can feel the edge to it. This pop idol stuff, it's just all..." she waved her hands. "It's all prepackaged, with everything just sanded down, I mean, I know the girls really bust their butts, I'm not trying to bad-mouth them, but it's like it's all just a front, it's all so...toothless."

"There's some truth in that," Saika agreed with a nod, and leaned forward to rest her cheek in one hand, looking at Shouko with a contemplative expression. "You really are the real thing, huh?" she murmured.

Shouko blinked. "What do you mean?" she asked.

Saika colored a little bit. "I mean...you ride a motorcycle. You cut class. You talk back to people who give you a hard time. You carry a knife. You smoke. You listen to hard rock. You really are the whole picture of a total rebel," she said, smiling a little sheepishly as she said the words.

Shouko felt her face heating a little bit as she grinned back, and she almost said 'that's the idea' but cut herself off just in time and instead winked and replied "you know it."

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

Saika proved to be a quick enough learner that Shouko had to brush the rust off and tighten up her game before long, muttering about 'damn archers' and their hand-eye coordination. She won the first game by twenty pins, but on the second it was down to single digits for the last three frames, with both of them finishing in the 130s.

"Loser buys dinner?" Saika asked sweetly at the beginning of the third game.

"No, but only 'cause I said I would buy," Shouko replied. "Besides, buying you dinner makes me anything but a loser," she added on impulse with a wink. Saika flushed and guttered her first ball, crossing her arms and glaring daggers at Shouko afterwards as the latter tried desperately to swallow her laughter, folding both hands over her mouth to do so. She gave her a break, though, and threw her own first frame with her eyes closed, knocking over only a pair of pins. The rest of the game was as tight as the last, and was ultimately decided when Saika lucked into a strike in her last frame, the bonus points from which put her over the top. Shouko clapped and gave a cheer as Saika bounced in celebration and pumped a fist, and their noise attracted some looks that lingered on the scoreboard.

Despite losing, Shouko was feeling pretty smug as they handed in their equipment, garnering a few murmurs behind their backs.

Weekends were busy enough that they hung out in the arcade attached to the alley while they waited for a table to come up in the restaurant next door. Shouko had played many of the games growing up, and noted with quiet pride that SKO still appeared on a few of the top ten screens. She decided to show off with one of the gun games and put money into both slots, two-handing the guns for Saika's amusement and enjoying the attention for a minute or so before handing one off to her.

"How the heck do you aim so well with these things?" she asked after a few seconds.

"Well, don't do what I'm doing," Shouko said with a laugh. She'd been standing as if poised for an old-time duel, flank towards the machine with her gun held out at arm's length, canted almost in a stereotypical gangster-style. "I'm used to messing with these games. You mind if I show you...?" she asked, setting her gun down on the console and raising an arm slightly.

"Oh. Sure," Saika said, and let Shouko slide in behind her, taking her arms and ensuring she put both hands on the gun and adjusted her stance. The blonde glanced back at one point with what looked like a smug grin, and she noted "you keep finding ways to get your arms around me, huh?"

Shouko froze and then coughed, knowing her face was going bright red. "Uh...s-sorry," she said as she dropped her arms.

"It's okay," Saika reassured her with a wink. "I do like that you asked, for the record."

"Well...that's good, then," Shouko said in lieu of anything smarter to say as she retrieved her gun and the pair kept on playing.

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

The restaurant was crowded, predictably, and noisy with the sound of someone singing. "Oh yeah, I forgot they do karaoke here," she said as they got led to one of the two-person tables in the middle of the floor.

"That's fine, the noise doesn't bother me," Saika said as she slid into a chair.

"Do you wanna sing?" Shouko asked with a grin as she did likewise.

"No. I think you should," Saika replied with a sudden smirk. "That's my prize for winning game three. You owe me a song."

"H-hey!" Shouko protested. "I'm already buying you dinner, I never agreed to go up and sing! Besides, I won two out of three!"

"Yes, but it was my first time bowling," Saika said, before reaching out and touching her fingertips to the back of Shouko's hand. "I'm just teasing, you don't have to get up at all if you don't want to."

"Uh uh, it's a pride thing now, my girl went and called me out," Shouko said, shrugging her jacket off onto the back of the chair. "I'll get a regular cheeseburger," she added as Saika clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes widening, and with a wink she made her way over to the song list, flipping through it and grinning down at it as she spied a familiar American title. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the current guy to finish his song, taking the proffered mic and punching in the info. Shouko had just enough time to cough and clear her throat, licking her lips.

A drumbeat picked up, followed quickly by a fizzling electric guitar riff and a set of clapping sounds on the beat. "Saw her standin' there by the record machine," she growled into the mic, looking in Saika's direction and grinning as she waved tentatively. Shouko knew she was blushing, but she powered through the awkward feeling as she tried her best to replicate Joan Jett's sexy purr. A few people, either feeling the beat or else out of pity, joined in on the clap and gave her a hand on the chorus, though she could tell she'd raised a couple eyebrows by switching the genders - but damned if she was gonna sing it any different than she was used to.

She got a polite round of applause when it was done and she passed the mic off to someone else who'd worked up the courage before striding back to their table, basking in one bit of applause in particular as Saika clapped for her. "That was badass," the blonde enthused.

"Yeah? You liked it?" Shouko asked, knowing she was fishing but unable to help herself.

"You did great," Saika confirmed with a nod that set her long hair to swaying. "That was very brave."

"Nah," Shouko said, drinking some of her water. "Just really dumb."

"Sometimes they're the same thing," Saika replied with a tap of her finger on Shouko's knuckle.

"Lucky for me, then," she said with a wink of one magenta eye, and Saika shot her a good-humored but nonetheless admonishing look.

After the adrenaline rush of actually getting up in front of people and singing right to Saika, Shouko was ravenous, and devoured her burger almost as soon as it showed up, forgoing good manners in favor of tearing into the thing as if it were going to get up and run away if she gave it half a second to escape. "Do you want a second one?" Saika asked, looking a little bemused.

"Uh uh," Shouko said as she self-consciously cleaned her mouth. "I just...really worked up an appetite there." Thanks to said appetite, she was left picking slowly at a few of her fries while Saika ate her own dinner. When she was almost finished Shouko slid out of her chair to visit the bathroom.

It was while she was gone that a much older man came up to the table and asked, hesitantly, "Excuse me?"

Saika blinked her eyes and reared slightly. "Yes?"

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

Shouko paused on the way back from the bathroom. There was an old guy standing by the table who sure didn't look like a waiter and Saika was scrawling something on a piece of paper. She handed it to him with a smile and the man bowed, folding it - it looked like a receipt - with great care as if it were something precious and saying what looked like a goodbye before turning and walking towards another table at the far end of the room.

Shouko bit at her lip. What should she do? Saika hadn't seen her...

No, time to do something dumb. Or brave. So she squared her shoulders and walked back to the table, dropping back into her seat. "Hey."

"Hey!" Saika replied.

"So...I was coming back and...I guess I saw something I don't know if I should have?" she asked, trying to word the question carefully and knowing she'd failed miserably.

Saika's face froze for a second. "Oh...you saw the old man," she said slowly.

Shouko nodded. "Uh huh." Saika worried at her lip for a moment and Shouko felt a piece of her resolve break. "If it's none of my business, you can say-" she started, offering an out.

"No...no...it's something that you'd find out about sooner or later," Saika said with a sigh. "I kind of hoped it would be a little longer."

"What's up, are you okay? This isn't like an Aratani thing, is it?" she asked, a sudden red alert going off in her head.

"No, no, god no, not at all," Saika hastened to reassure her. She pressed her hands together and likewise pressed her lips together for a long moment, clearly marshaling her thoughts. "I think maybe it would be easier to show you," she finally said, pushing out her chair and standing. "Stay there," she added as Shouko started to rise to join her. Confused, Shouko watched as Saika made her way over towards the karaoke machine and picked up the catalog, flipping through it for a minute or two before punching in a set of numbers and taking up the mic which had been sitting unused for the last few minutes since the last singer had finished up.

A guitar started up, considerably less hard-edged than the one that had presaged Shouko's own song, and then Saika started singing. It was some pop song Shouko had never heard before, typically saccharine, but wow, Saika sang it really well. Really, really well, almost as if it had been written for her. Shouko wasn't the only one who noticed, either, as heads turned and some of the closest folks stopped talking or slowed their meals. Then Shouko noticed someone holding up a phone. What, really? Yeah, Saika was singing it well but that was a little over-

Then Saika hit a note and held it, and Shouko saw another phone or two coming out, and suddenly the bottom dropped out of her stomach as the realization hit. Saika wasn't just singing it like it had been written for her...it had been! Shouko's mouth fell open as she watched, nonplussed, as the girl she primarily knew as a bubbly and optimistic classmate and hunter of demons stood up and belted out a song about...meeting again someday? Damn, in her shock she'd stopped listening to the lyrics.

Too soon, it ended, and Saika dropped a gracious bow to a general round of applause and cheers, and she put away the microphone and made her way back to the table, smiling a little sheepishly as she slid back into her seat and the crowd went back to their own business. "You...y-you sing?" Shouko asked dumbly.

Saika glanced down for a moment. "I used to," she said. "I...left that behind. It was nice a lot of the time, but it could be...hard."

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

"Excuse me?"

"Yes?"

"Are you Miss Saika Oishi?"

"I...I'm afraid you might-"

"Please, I'm so sorry to bother you, but my granddaughter loved Vanilla Dream. Could I beg you to sign something for me? She would treasure it."

"Well...alright, what's her name?"

"Naoko."

To Naoko - DREAM BIG!! ~Oishi Saika

"Thank you so much. I'm so sorry to have imposed. Have a wonderful evening."

"You too!"

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

"He seemed like a nice enough man, but, you know...that was pretty much the minimum of what it was like. People always making demands on your time, on your...well." Saika had leaned onto the table a bit, and Shouko saw her scratch at her elbows. She put her hand out on the table, palm down, and Saika reached out to touch her fingers with a little smile. Shouko smiled back.

"Don't spread this around, but...I used to do gymnastics. I wasn't huge into it or anything," she hastened to add as Saika raised her eyebrows. "But...I think I kinda know what you're talking about." A moment of quiet passed between them, and Saika just nodded slowly. Then Shouko blinked as a realization came. "That picture of you back home, the one of you and the other girls all giving the V sign, that was your idol group, wasn't it?"

"Uh huh!" Saika confirmed. "Vanilla Dream! I still miss them, sometimes, ever since we- Shouko are you okay?" she asked sharply, blinking as Shouko's face went nearly as red as the magenta in her eyes and she snatched back both hands to cover her mouth.

"I shit-talked idol groups right to your face," Shouko stage-whispered, suddenly wishing the chair would collapse under her and just drop her through the floor.

"It's okay! It's okay, oh god it's okay!" Saika hastened to reassure her, reaching out with both hands until Shouko lowered her own once more and placed them in Saika's waiting pair. "It's really okay, I promise, it's nothing I haven't heard before, and way, way worse."

Shouko grinned weakly and squeezed Saika's hands. She squeezed back and Shouko felt her heart skip a beat. "You ready to go?" she asked, and Saika nodded.

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

It was well after dark by the time she pulled up to Saika's house, but not so late that she'd feel bad about the engine revving as she pulled into the driveway once more and braced her feet before shutting the thing off and doffing her helmet so she could say goodnight properly. Saika slipped off the bike and clipped the spare helmet strap back around the seat handle, shaking out her blonde hair and using one hand to tuck a few stray locks behind her ear. "I had a great time tonight. Maybe sometime we can take the whole group?"

"We'll beat the pants off 'em?" Shouko prompted with a grin, and Saika bobbed her head enthusiastically.

"Absolutely," she said with a thumbs-up. "Drive safely, okay?"

"I will," Shouko promised. "I'll see you Monday?"

"Of course. Sleep well."

"You too." Saika seemed on the verge of saying more, but then she simply took a breath and leaned in. Shouko had just enough time to lift her chin before Saika's mouth found her own, and for a minute her bare cheeks didn't feel the November cold, and even after they separated warmth seemed to run all through her like she'd sat in front of a heater or summoned up her daggers. "G'night," she murmured.

Saika, whose face looked as warm as her own felt, bobbed once more. "Goodnight," she said, and made her way to the front door. Shouko waited until she'd stepped past the threshold, waved one more time, and then pulled her helmet back on.

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

It was a few nights later that Shouko stayed up late at her battlestation, Twitch running in the background, her face illuminated by her monitor, the red from her keyboard, and the reflection from some of the blacklight in her posters as she listened to music. She'd torn the plastic off the CDs and left the crumpled remains in the wastebasket. It was pretty much what she'd expected - feel-good enthusiasm for life and love and so on. Vanilla Dream's quirk was that they really worked that 'dream' part of their name; almost all their songs mentioned living in dreams, or waking up from dreams, or fighting for your dreams, or making dreams a reality, all that kind of thing.

It was...kind of endearing in its sweetness. And a couple of the songs weren't bad. If nothing else they'd had a really good sound mixer. Kind of a shame they'd only done two albums.

It was as she was meaning to swap back to her Twitch channel that Shouko misclicked on the CD file in her computer, and thereby noticed something - a file at the bottom of the playlist that hadn't run. It didn't play when she clicked on it, either, giving an error message. Shouko frowned and sat forward and poked at the mystery track. It was supposed to be a sound file, but it was like someone had intentionally botched the coding, adding a bit of nonsense that borked the last line. With a shrug, Shouko deleted the scrap and re-saved the file in a proper format before running it again.

It started with a sound like bells, and then suddenly Saika's voice filled her ears, slow and sad in sharp contrast to most of the idol group's oeuvre. "I can hold my breath..." Saika sang gently, and Shouko leaned back from her computer, listening as Saika sang, seemingly, right to her, about all the things that she could do, even though every word sounded hollow.

"But I'm only human," Saika sang, "and I bleed when I fall down; I'm only human, and I crash and I break down..."

Shouko's hand found her cigarettes and she lit one, inhaling the smoke as the song washed over her.

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

The hall was dark, filled with the strange foreboding that seemed to inhabit every inch of the place. Kanako supported Erika as she walked, the taller girl's body a mass of cuts and bruising, while Miyumi likewise helped Takuya to walk, the boy still murmuring nonsense under his breath and laughing weakly from time to him. Shizuka denied any help, but walked as gingerly as if with each step she might put her foot down on broken glass.

None of them were in good shape, but it would have been a whole lot worse if Saika hadn't shown up to bail them out. The blonde girl led the way, her radiant bow lighting the darkness of the twilight realm. Shouko took a couple of longer steps that strained her legs a bit to draw even with her, plucking her cigarette from her mouth as she spoke. "Hey, Saika," she said, her voice hoarse after all the shouting she'd been doing.

"Yes, Shouko?"

"Just wanted to say...thanks for saving us," Shouko said, kind of lamely, but Saika beamed, and Shouko had trouble not smiling back at the bubbly blonde.

"Of course! It was a good thing I made it when I did!"

"And hey," Shouko added, briefly looking away to conceal a tinge of embarrassment. She'd only known Saika for a couple days, she shouldn't be... "Just wanted to say...I know you said back there that you're not all angels but...you sure look like one to me, right now."

Saika went bright red, her green eyes widening, and she seemed at a loss for words.

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

"'Cause I'm only human," the song played on, "and I bleed when I fall down; I'm only human, and I crash and I break down..."

Shouko let the song play out and sat in silence for a minute or two, letting the smoke trail from her cigarette. Then she sat up and brought up Discord. It was late, but...

[Fireblade]: hey do you got a minute

The words sat on the screen for a minute before a typing notification showed up.

[Shining JUSTICE]: Yeah, I'm here! What's up? [Fireblade]: well [Fireblade]: I wanted to let you know [Fireblade]: I bought a couple cds this weekend [Shining JUSTICE]: ... [Shining JUSTICE]: You didn't. [Fireblade]: yep [Shining JUSTICE]: OMG [Fireblade]: let's just say I kinda like one pop group now =p [Shining JUSTICE]: I'm dying!!!! [Shining JUSTICE]: I can't BELIEVE [Shining JUSTICE]: You went out and got both? [Fireblade]: yeah. [Fireblade]: your lead tracks are the best, obviously =p [Shining JUSTICE]: OBVIOUSLY :P [Shining JUSTICE]: You're biased. [Fireblade]: a little bit [Fireblade]: but I really wanted to let you know [Fireblade]: I found the hidden track on the 2nd album [Shining JUSTICE]: ...

A second later the phone buzzed.

"Yo?" Shouko asked.

"You found that, huh?" Saika's voice was quiet.

"Yeah. I saw it in the list and wondered what was up with this weird file...I'm sorry if I shouldn't have," she hastened to add.

"No, it's okay. I'm glad someone heard it. They said they cut it from the album list because it was a cover, but..."

"Too heavy for pop idol stuff, huh," Shouko said.

"Yeah. You know, I never heard of someone finding out about it. I guess we weren't really popular enough for people to go digging."

"Well...guess you just needed the right fan, huh?"

"I guess," Saika said, and Shouko could hear the smile in her tone. "I knew right from the start it wasn't going to make it to the album, but it really felt like something I needed, you know?"

"Yeah. Hey..."

"Hm?"

Shouko blinked her eyes, staring up at her ceiling. "You ever need anything, I'm here for you," she finally said.

"Thank you, Shouko," Saika said softly. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Promise."

#kurze writes #Completely Normal RPG #Shouko #Saika #Shouko & Saika #anime silliness #you already know the twist but I wanted to play it out #moe stuff I guess #in which things get very meta #considering their source art #=p

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bongaboi · 2 years ago

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ISML 2022: Here Come The Forgers!

ISML 2022: Here Come The Forgers!

By Jo-Ryan Salazar The Bedlam on Baltic Avenue 1 November 2022

The likes of Anya (2758), Yor (2275) and Loid (2126) Folger will have their work cut out to push around some of the more well-known veterans who make the cut on Match Day 2 of the 2022 International Saimoe League Preliminaries. But, the whole family from Spy x Family is in.

In addition to Anya and Yor making it through the Female Division, others who qualified include Rikka Takanashi (4673), incumbent Saimoe Prime Minister Elaina (4511) seeking reelection, Rem (4429), Mai Sakurajima (4381), Mikoto Misaka (4254), Miku Nakano (4236), Eru Chitanda (3365), Yui Hirasawa (3309), Marina (3114), Takina Inoue (3089), Tamako Kitashirakawa (3029), Asuna Yuuki (2932), Nino Nakano (2914), Itsuki Nakano (2605), Kuroko Shirai (2849), Sora Kasugano (2682), Azusa Nakano (2661), Tsukasa Yuzaki (2491), Kanade Tachibana (2425), Ritsu Tainaka (2349), Kaori Miyazono (2293), Nagisa Furukawa (2260), Kyouko Hori (2249), Ai Haibara (2238), Kaede Azusagawa (2192), Index Prohibitorum (2129), Magumin (2105), Shouko Makinohara (2070), Chizuru Ichinose (2043), Tooru (2039), Yotsuba Nakano (2027), Inori Yuzuriha (1958), Rei Ayanami (1956) and Takagi (1919).

Loid was the only one making it through from the Male Division this round. Also making the cut were Hachiman Hikigaya (4095), the always-reliable Houtarou Oreki (3739), Kazuto Kirigaya (3081), Satoru Gojou (2664), Yuu Otosaka (2550< Subaru Natsuki (2512), Rimuru Tempest (2487), Sora (2368), Izumi Miyamura (2329), Conan Edogawa (2237), Itachi Uchiha (2122), Ken Kaneki (2116), Tanjirou Kamado (2016), Kousei Arima (1906), Riku Dola (1869), Saika Totsuka (1837), Haruka Kasugano (1777), Ainz Ooal Gown (1758), Monkey D. Luffy (1752), Shirou Emiya (1749), Fuutarou Uesugi (1701), Yuuta Okkotsu (1663), Hiro (1658), Rudeus Greyrat (1657), Nasa Yuzaki (1641), Giyuu Tomioka (1598), Masamune Izumi (1571), Osamu Dazai (1552), L Lawliet (1489), Gilgamesh (1452), Isaac Foster (1450), Nishikata (1433), Yuuji Itadori (1427), Sorata Kanda (1412) and Kusuo Saiki (1384).

Match Day 3 of the 2022 International Saimoe League Preliminaries is scheduled for 4 November 2022. Vote for your favorite characters at InternationalSaimoe.com and join the ongoing debate.

#2022 #isml #international saimoe league

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bongaboi · 3 years ago

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ISML 2021: Rikka Takanashi On The Money, Takes Ruby Necklace

Longshot Sorata Kanda With Massive Upset, Wins Ruby Pendant

By Jo-Ryan Salazar

The Bedlam On Baltic Avenue

December 20, 2021

Match Day 6 of the 2021 International Saimoe League Ruby Period is history. An even money favorite, Rikka Takanashi defeated Kanade Tachibana 2687-2043 to win the Ruby Necklace. Mai Sakurajima was third with 1566 votes, Asuna Yuuki was fourth with 1170 votes, Emilia was fifth with 773 votes, Yui Yuigahama was sixth with 616 votes, Tsukasa Yuzaki was seventh with 482 votes and Utaha Kasumigaoka was last with 394 votes.

Our Upset of the Round (and it's one of the biggest this season) takes place in the Male Division. Sorata Kanda came into the Ruby Pendant match as a 70-1 longshot and delivered a 2158-2024 scalp over even money favorite Kazuto Kirigaya. Taki Tachibana was third with 1243 votes, Kazuma Satou was fourth with 1012 votes, Tomoya Okazaki was fifth with 815 votes, Archer was sixth with 640 votes, Kiyotaka Ayanokouji was seventh with 582 votes and Subaru Natsuki was last with 496 votes.

Another longshot, Megumin, took home the Ruby Bracelet with a 2559-2451 victory over Index Prohibitorum. Shiro was third with 1328 votes, favorite Kuroko Shirai was fourth with 1075 votes, Shouko Nishimiya was fifth with 800 votes, Misaku Shokuhou was sixth with 563 votes, Tooru was seventh with 507 votes and Schwi Dola was last with 390 votes. Vote splits between two sets of characters from different parties proved vital to this shock result.

Dark horse Shidou Itsuki won the Ruby Ring with a 1872-1596 win over another dark horse in Joutarou Kuujou. Ryuuji Takasu was third with 1169 votes, Kyoujurou Rengoku was fourth with 1012 votes, Saika Totsuka was fifth with 837 votes, Kousei Arima was sixth with 741 votes, Satoshi Fukube was seventh with 586 votes and Edward Elric was last with 506 votes.

With a score of 26068.1, Keke Tang is your Summer Seasonal champion, while Shiroha Naruse was right on the money to be namerd Visual Novel Champion with a 1951-1493 win over Atri. Ao Sorakado was third with a 1757-1438 win over Tsumugi Wenders.

The Fall Seasonal Tournament is coming up. Making the cut were Ran Mouri (2194), Unmei (1571), Touko Sakurai (1309), Shouko Komi (1751), Futaba Igarashi (1364), Miko Yotsuya (1449), Dia Viekone (1448), Tomoyo Sakagami (1602), Sonoko Suzuki (1258), Jolyne Kuujou (1220), Chisato Arashi (1333), Tarte (1061), Ruti (1040), Kukuru Misakino (1096), Yuuna Yuuki (1052), Doki-chan (1043) and Eris Boreas Greyrat (1518). Mouri is tipped by the Bedlam to win the Fall Diadem, but Koumi and Greyrat will prove to be stiff opposition.

Finally, the couples tournament kicked off. In Couples actio, Touma Kamijou and Mikoto Misaka routed Kanon Shibuya and Keke Tang 3401-1886, Emilia and Subaru Natsuki defeated Nishikata and Takagi 2618-2410, Gilbert Bougainvillea and Violet Evergarden thumped Conan Edogawa and Ai Haibara 3632-2071, Kazuto Kirigaya and Asuna Yuuki rolled past Hiro and Zero Two 3380-1660, Eru Chitanda and Houtarou Oreki dismantled Kurisu Makise and Rintarou Okabe 3820-1585, Yuu Otosaka and Nao Tomori prevailed over Nagisa Furukawa and Tomoya Okazaki 2439-2235, Elaina and Saya pummeled Mitsuha Miyamizu and Taki Tachibana 3202-2521, Hachiman Hikigaya and Yukino Yukinoshita overpowered Haruka and Sora Kasugano 3254-1990, Taiga Aisaka and Ryuuji Takasu roared past Tomoya Aki and Megumin Katou 2606-2032, Yui Hirasawa and Azusa Nakano rocked Homura Akemi and Madoka Kaname 2727-1941 and Sorata Kanda and Mashiro Shiina smashed Tamako Kitashirakawa and Mochizou Ouji 2744-2170. Finally, in one other result, Iris crushed Maria Takayama 2725-1058.

With Yukino Yukinoshita's tenure as Saimoe Prime Minister concluding at midnight on January 1, 2022, Mikoto Misaka will be sworn in as interim Saimoe Prime Minister until the general election on January 25. The Bedlam on Baltic Avenue tips Misaka to win a historic reelection to the office. Should Misaka secure the ISML Heavenly Tiara, the interim tag will simply be dropped.

Match Day 1 of the 2021 International Saimoe League Diamond Period is scheduled for December 22, 2021. Vote for your favorite characters at InternationalSaimoe.com and join the ongoing debate. And keep it right here on the Bedlam on Baltic Avenue for continuing coverage of the International Saimoe League, the world's premier anime character competition!

#2021 #isml #saimoe #international saimoe league

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bongaboi · 3 years ago

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ISML 2021: Asuna Outduels Kanade, Wins Diamond Necklace

A SAO Sweep As Kazuto Takes Diamond Pendant

By Jo-Ryan Salazar

The Bedlam on Baltic Avenue

January 12, 2022

For once, the Bedlam on Baltic Avenue was right on the money in their International Saimoe League necklace calls. The favored Asuna Yuuki dismatched of a former Saimoe Leader of the Free World in Kanade Tachibana, 1990-1787, to win the 2021 International Saimoe League Diamond Necklace, another piece to her collection of necklaces won in her years of participating in the ISML. Mai Sakurajima was third with 1256 votes, Emilia was fourth with 724 votes, Ai Hayasaka was fifth with 497 votes, Shouko Nishimiya was sixth with 467 votes, Yui Yuigahama was seventh with 356 votes and Chika Fujiwara was last with 278 votes.

Kazuto Kirigaya, as tipped by the Bedlam, won the Diamond Pendant but it was over a longshot: a 1820-1504 victory over 75-1 longshot Rintarou Okabe. Taki Tachibana was third with 970 votes, Kiyotaka Ayanokouji was fourth with 754 votes, Yuzuru Otonashi was fifth with 588 votes, Kazuma Satou was sixth with 491 votes, Shirou Emiya was seventh with 432 votes and Subaru Natsuki was last with 296 votes.

The Bedlam's Upset of the Round is in the race for the Diamond Bracelet. Second choice Index Prohibitorum delivered a 2339-1774 scalp of Tsukasa Yuzaki. Kuroko Shirai was third with 1223 votes, Shiro was fourth with 829 votes, Misaki Shokuhou was fifth with 670 votes, Kei Shirogane was sixth with 489 votes, Tooru was seventh with 356 votes and Schwi Dola was last with 327 votes.

While Tsukasa was not as fortunate, her husband Nasa Yuzaki benefitted from a Ring race with no To Aru opponents to deal with. Saika Totsuka was favored to win the ring, but it was Yuzaki that prevailed, 1632-1360. Ryuuji Takasu was third with 984 votes, Kyojurou Rengoku was fourth with 809 votes, Joutarou Kuujou was fifth with 686 votes, Edward Elric was sixth with 516 votes, Satoshi Fukube was seventh with 433 votes and Kousei Arima was last with 324 votes. As Nasa was eliminated from the Elimination rounds due to poor performances in the round robins, he ends his Saimoe campaign on a winning note.

Your Fall Seasonal champion is Ran Mouri, who scored a 232253.1 in a field of six. Mouri was tipped from the start as a first choice to win the diadem, and she was right on the money. Your Couples Tournament winner, no surprises, is Eru Chitanda and Houtarou Oreki, who defeated Hachiman Hikigaya and Yukino Yukinoshita 2404-1998. Sakuta Azusagawa and Mai Sakurajima finished third with a 2197-2173 nailbiter over Touma Kamijou and Mikoto Misaka.

In addition to winning the bracelet, Index advanced to the Elimination round from the wild card with the highest score, 25414.8. Also advancing were Ai Hayasaka (20664.7), Nao Tomori (20417.2) and Tsukasa Yuzaki (20519). Advancing from the wild card on the Male Division side were Levi (16553.9), Rintarou Okabe (17160.2), Sorata Kanda (17581.3) and Tomoya Okazaki (16432.8).

In exhibition action, Tsukasa Shishou belted Yuujirou Hanma 1317-590, Seiya Ryuuguuin flexed past Goblin Slayer 1544-1026, Kyouka Izumi defeated Kohaku 1206-1088 and Kouga prevailed over Legoshi 1210-1140. In a Naruto four-way match, Jiraiya (14467.6) and Kakashi Hatake (18277.3) came out on top. And in another four-way match, Taihei Doma (14286.8) and Li Syaoran (15546.1) delivered.

Two other four way matches took place. Kaoru Nishimi and Tsumugi Kotobuki teamed up to win the closest race of the round, a 1197-1190 snoozer over Sentarou Kawabuchi and Ritsu Tainaka. Meanwhile, Clea and Polka got past Kirara and Lamp 1037-884. Finally, a showdown of redheads took place, with the top three being Stella Vermillion (1247), Stephanie Dola (1767) and Sakura Minamoto (1235). Three big names that start with S, a final three-way to be reckoned with.

So here we are, the Elimination Rounds leading to the general election for the Saimoe Prime Minister and Deputy Saimoe Prime Minister seats. Here at the Bedlam, we thought that this Tiara race would be Mikoto Misaka's reelection to lose. Then Kaguya's upset win over the Railgun happened. And suddenly it's a whole new ballgame. Will we see a second term from those who were at the helm years ago? Or will we see a new face rise up to lead Japan's finest anime legends and heroes in 2022? The final race to glory begins later this month.

Vote for your favorite characters at InternationalSaimoe.com and join the ongoing debate. And keep it right here on the Bedlam on Baltic Avenue for continuing coverage of the best anime character competition in the world, the one and only International Saimoe League, in the service of anime fans worldwide since 2008!

#2022 #isml #international saimoe league

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bongaboi · 4 years ago

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ISML 2020: Asuna Yuuki Wins Aquamarine Necklace

ISML 2020: Asuna Yuuki Wins Aquamarine Necklace Riku Dola Wins Aquamarine Pendant, Kuroko Shirai, Conan Edogawa Also Big Winners

By Jo-Ryan Salazar The Bedlam On Baltic Avenue September 6, 2020

A dark horse to the International Saimoe League, Asuna Yuuki is a veteran of the Saimoe movement and a woman with extensive experience and leadership. Intent on following husband Kazuto Kirigaya to a seat at the Tournament of Champions table and succeed Violet Evergarden as Saimoe Prime Minister, Yuuki defeated another, more established veteran to the competition, Mikoto Misaka, 4646-3679 to win the Aquamarine Necklace and effectively be the odds-on favorite to win the Tiara. Kaguya Shinomiya, in her first season in the tournament proper, finished third with 2333 votes.

Yukino Yukinoshita was fourth in the ballot with 1383 votes, Mashiro Shiina was fifth with 947, Shouko Nishimiya was sixth with 947, Kurumi Tokisaki was seventh with 638 and Chika Fujiwara was last with 415 votes.

Another dark horse took home the Aquamarine Pendant, and that was Riku Dola, listed at 10-1 (Yuuki was 7-1). Dola defeated the favored Touma Kamijou 4236-3127. Miyuki Shirogane replicated Shinomiya's third place finish with 2402 votes. Sakuta Azusagawa was fourth with 1244 votes, Levi was fifth with 868, Kiyotaka Ayanokouji was sixth with 701, Yuu Ishigami was seventh with 613 and Taki Tachibana was last with 496 votes.

Aquamarine Match Day 9 was not a complete wash for the Toaru Party. Kuroko Shirai was listed a 3-1 second choice to win the Aquamarine Bracelet but won it after defeating 10-1 dark horse Miku Nakano 3774-3309. Yui Yuigahama was third with 2364 votes, Index Prohibitorum was a disappointing fourth with 2016, Iroha Isshiki finished fifth with 1470 votes, Utaha Kasumigaoka was sixth with 1190, Nanami Aoyama had 800 votes to finish seventh and Eriri Spencer Sawamura was last with 635 votes.

One pick that the Bedlam did get right was the winner for the Aquamarine Ring. Even money favorite Conan Edogawa prevailed over Shirou Emiya 3165-3071. Saika Totsuka was third with 2245 votes, Tanjiro Kamado was fourth with 1549, Yuu Otosaka was fifth with 1129 votes, Takashi Natsume was sixth with 973, Shidou Itsuka was seventh with 768 votes and Kaito Kuroba held up the rear with 692 votes.

Advancing to the next phase from the Female Division wild card were Kaede Azusagawa (3495), Nezuko Kamado (3324), Sora Kasugano (3246), Azusa Nakano (3330), Kumiko Oumae (3036), Saber (3500), Tooru (3085) and Yukino's sister Haruno (3056). Over on the Male Division wild card, Zen'itsu Agatsuma (2764), Dio Brando (2721), Masamune Izumi (2679), Joseph Joestar (2744), Kyon (2831), Hodaka Morishima (2730), Nishikata (2824) and Yato (2689).

In Winter Seasonal action, Kotoki Iwanaga, the favorite to win the Diadem, rolled past Asuka Tanaka 3299-2661, Kaede Honjou defeated Kyouko Sakura 3403-2493, Priestess eased past Nene Yashiro 3104-2468, Kazuha Touyama got past Iroha Tamaki 3036-2642, Yukina Himeragi whipped past Chocola 2831-2557 and Risa Shiramine dismissed Mira Kohonata 2745-2562.

Match Day 1 of the 2020 International Saimoe League Topaz Period is scheduled for September 7, 2020. Vote for your favorite characters at InternationalSaimoe.com and join the ongoing debate. And be sure to keep it here on The Bedlam on Baltic Avenue for ongoing coverage of the world's premier anime character competition, the International Saimoe League!

#2020 #isml #saimoe #international saimoe league

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castellankurze · 5 years ago

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A Completely Normal Christmas!

(from acompletelynormalwiki.com)

Plot

The Christmas Special takes place in the days leading up to Christmas 2018, following the end of Season 1. It is divided into three parts, although there are overlapping events in each story.

Part one is comedic in tone, focusing on Erika Hatada and Kanako Azaki as the pair must repeatedly hide presents from one another in an increasingly ridiculous escalation of events at Kanako's house as well as the high school gmynasium and the harborfront, all while pet cat Tsukiko manages to wring bribes of food from one or the other.

Part two is considered more angsty, as it involves the strained relationship between Miyumi Aratani and Shoji Okano. It also features the first chronological appearance of Miyumi's half-sister Reika Tsurumi and follows Miyumi's attempts to keep her her Christmas date a secret (although the final shot, showing Reika leaning against a wall around the corner from the pair, demonstrates that she knows of the pair's relationship).

The third and final part chiefly follows Shouko Kogawa and provides supporting roles for the group's mentor figures, Saika Oishi and Shizuka Miyasato. It consists of a ticking-clock scenario in which-

~~~~~~~~~~ Two weeks ago

"Hey," said the upside-down face.

Shouko blinked and looked up from her phone. Saika had put her feet up on her desk and tilted her chair back so that she could lean far enough to rest the back of her head atop her arms as she crossed them behind her head and rested her weight against the front of Shouko's desk.

Shouko grinned and set her phone aside, leaning forward on her elbows. Amidst the chatting voices that defined the lunch period, they were but two more conspirators murmuring to one another. "Hey, yourself." As always seemed to be the case when she met Saika's gaze, she felt a bit warmer inside.

"I don't think I got the chance to ask you, are you doing anything for Christmas?" the blonde asked.

Shouko frowned a little. "I don't think so. My mom's probably gonna go to a family thing cause she won't be around for New Year's but...I'm gonna give it a pass," she said with a shrug.

"That means you're free?" Saika questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"Yyyyyyeah, I guess so," Shouko said, smiling once more as she grasped the drift of the conversation.

"So, I was feeling kind of a little bad that I had to nix our date the other week," Saika said, idly playing with a few strands of pale hair with her fingertips. "Then I saw there's going to be a big light display downtown. I was wondering if you'd like to go...on Christmas Eve, maybe?" She tilted her head a little bit and smiled.

Shouko felt her face heat. Christmas Eve lights were a thing for couples, not...she'd never been to one, not like that. "I...yy-yeah, I'd, uh, I'd like that," she said, struggling to maintain her aura of chill.

Saika smirked and didn't seem to buy it one bit, but she didn't subject Shouko to more than a brief, flirty tap on the nose with one finger, pulling one arm from beneath her head to do so, a move that made her chair wobble a little. "Great. I'll meet you at the stadium lot at, say, seven, okay? Then we can go for that dinner we missed."

"I'll be there," Shouko promised.

"Saika, be careful," Kanako's gentle voice interrupted from the next row over. "You're going to fall."

"Nope! I'm good," the blonde assured the class president, lifting her legs so that her weight shifted and her chair thudded back down onto all four feet. "Better than good, even," she added.

"Oh! Are you making plans for Christmas?" Kanako asked with a bright smile, clapping her hands together.

"Might be," Saika confirmed with a wink back.

Shouko felt her face heat up again and buried her nose in her phone once more before anyone could notice.

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

One week ago

"Whatcha need?" she asked as her feet crunched in the thin layer of snow covering the grass outside the high school, well away from the crowd of departing students.

"I have an important request to make of you, Shouko," said Shizuka. The dark-haired girl was characteristically grim. "I need your help to face a rising threat."

"Just me? Not everybody?" Shouko blinked, but then shrugged and plowed ahead. "I mean, you got it, but what's up?"

"This foe should not necessitate the whole of our...cadre," Shizuka replied. She pursed her lips briefly before continuing. "There are many aspects to the...detente between the Radiant Court and the Eventide Vanguard. One of these is Barphojee."

"Bless you," Shouko replied.

Shizuka stared at her, eyes cold, mouth unsmiling.

"Just funnin'. What's a Barphojee?"

"Loosely translated it means 'ice warrior.' It is an asura spirit that came to Japan many years ago from the subcontinent one cold winter. It caused much chaos before it was bound away, but every five years the wards must be renewed to keep it that way," Shizuka explained.

"And lemme guess, this is the lucky year?" Shouko asked.

Shizuka nodded. "Correct. The Radiant Court and the Eventide Vanguard trade off conducting the renewal ceremony, and this year it falls to me."

Shouko scratched at the back of her leg with the opposite foot. "I dunno, Shizuka," she said. "I'm not exactly the spiritual type..."

"Fortunately, I don't need you to be," Shizuka interjected. "I want to have you present because your fire powers will cancel out Barphojee's natural ice aspect and weaken it, should the need for fighting arise."

"Oh! Then yeah, I'm all in," Shouko replied with a grin. "Where we heading?"

"The shrine to which the asura is bound is in Hokota," Shizuka said, naming a smaller city about a half hour to the south. "And the ceremony must take place at sunset, one week from now."

"...hhhhold up," Shouko said, feeling her stomach clench a little bit. "On Christmas Eve?"

"Yes. Will that present a problem?"

"Ummmm." Shouko chewed at her bottom lip. "How long should the ceremony take?"

"The sun will set at approximately six o'clock, after which the rites should not longer than five minutes or so," Shizuka replied.

"Oh. Then no, it shouldn't be trouble at all," Shouko said with a thumbs-up. "I'll just have to shove off as soon as we're done. I've got a date to keep," she explained.

Shizuka responded with one of her faint smiles. "I will write you out directions to the shrine," she promised.

----------

Three days ago

"How hard is it to get one lousy piece of...arrgh," Shouko whined, pressing her hands to her eyes. Delayed again. It was supposed to be here days ago. Then it was supposed to be here yesterday. At this rate Saika was going to get her Christmas gift for Valentine's.

A rapid-fire burst of cursing in English pulled Shouko's attention from her battlestation as the front door slammed. She paused her game and got up, wandering out of her room to look down to the living room on the first floor. "You okay?"

"I should have sold that fucking lemon a year ago," Kyoko Kogawa bitched, punching at her phone. "Sorry. Stupid lemon."

"It's because you don't drive the thing more than once a quarter," Shouko responded, rolling her eyes at her mother's tantrum.

"Ehhhhhh," the woman grumbled, waving a hand dismissively. "Yeah, of course they're booked," she said a minute later, hanging up and tossing the little rectangle onto the island that divided the kitchen from the living space. She limped over to the couch and sat with a huff, sticking out the leg that bore a brace. She'd somehow sprained her ankle stepping off her flight home - some days Shouko had no idea how she and Kyoko were related. Where Kyoko's daughter had been a regional gymnastics champion, the woman herself was a first-order klutz. Kyoko wrote it off as Shouko inheriting her grandmother's genes of gracefulness.

Somewhere in the photo albums there was even a picture of eight-year old Shouko wearing a set of jeans bedazzled with the character for 'grace' in katakana. Her dad's joke.

"Are you going to be free to run an errand for me in a couple days, Shouko?" her mom asked, snapping her back to reality.

"Uh...that depends what it is," Shouko replied, thinking primarily of the long-delayed gift order and the girl for whom it was intended.

"I'm making a dessert for my cousin's party, that one they're having on the twenty-fourth."

"It better not be cake," Shouko said dangerously.

"Will you stop harping about things that happened years ago. No, it's a cold one. I promised I would bring them something for their dinner, but if I can't drive, I can't drive."

"So you're feeding me to the dragons instead, huh?"

Kyoko waved a hand. "You don't have to stay. Just drop the thing off, tell them I'm so sorry I couldn't be there, and then make like a ball and bounce."

"That was so lame. I can't believe you want me to go all the way to Kashima-"

"It's only an hour-"

"-on Christmas Eve-"

"-and I'll pay for your gas."

"Okay fine, but it better be ready by the afternoon, I'm not gonna stand Saika up," she said, tossing up her hands and retreating back to her bedroom.

-----------

Yesterday

"I did not think you guys were gonna pull this out," Shouko said as she stuffed the parcel into her bag.

"Yeah, I'm so sorry about that," the guy at the counter said, looking sheepish. "We're just way backlogged this time of year."

"It's whatever. Merry Christmas," Shouko said, tossing off a wave as she stepped out.

As she was walking up to her bike her phone buzzed and she picked up. "Moshi moshi," she chirped.

"Shouko?" Shoji was whispering so softly Shouko could barely hear him.

"Yeah, it's me."

"Can you do me a life-saving favor?"

"It better not be something for Christmas Eve," Shouko warned.

"No, it's right now."

"Oh. Then what's up?"

"Can you call Miyumi's phone and be a distraction for about twenty seconds?"

"Uh. Okay," she said as she swung a leg over her motorcycle.

"I'm sorry. Her sister is in town and she's...watching me."

"Their family is so weird," Shouko agreed. "But yeah, I can do it."

"Thank you so much," he said, followed by a click as the line went dead.

"A distraction, huh?" Shouko mused, bouncing one foot and then punching Miyumi's contact info.

"Hello?" Miyumi's ever-studied voice was calm.

"MIYUMI! HOLY SHIT WHERE ARE YOU?" Shouko yowled into the phone.

"Wh-what? I'm at home, why?" Miyumi yelped.

"THE METEOR! IT'S COMING DOWN TODAY, DO YOU HAVE KANA'S GEM?"

"What?! What gem? What meteor?! What are you talking about?" Miyumi's voice climbed high into her register - which, for Miyumi, was really high.

"THE METEOR! THE ONE WE HAD TO USE KANAKO'S GEM TO STOP! DO YOU HAVE IT?!"

"I don't have any gem! Shouko what are you talking about? Did I miss something important?"

"Oh, no," Shouko said, reverting back to her normal speaking tone. "I think I just fell asleep playing video games."

"...Kogawa. If this is some kind of prank-"

"Sorry byeeeeee~" she singsonged before hanging up. "One distraction, as ordered," she murmured to herself as she pulled on her helmet and started up her bike.

Later yesterday

She'd just pulled up to the shrine's entrance and shut off the Honda when her phone buzzed again. Once she'd pulled off her helmet and hung it from the handlebar, she reached into her jacket and retrieved the little rectangle. "Yo."

"Shouko, can I beg a quick favor from you?" Kanako asked.

"Uh, depends what it is, I'm kind of overloaded," she said as she started up the steps.

"Just, please call Erika for me, I need a few seconds to get her present out of the house or she's going to find it early!" Kanako said, sounding frazzled.

"Ugh. It's fine, don't panic," Shouko said in a placating tone before she hung up and punched Erika's info. "The fuck am I, the team distraction?" she growled.

"Hello?"

"Erika, what are you up to right now?" she asked.

"Um, I was just coming home, why?"

"Can you look out towards the east for me?"

"Okay..."

"Do you see anything that looks like a UFO?"

"Um...no?"

"Are you sure?"

"...yes?" Erika said after a brief hesitation. "Why, what are you seeing?"

"Come to think of it, nothing. Sorry, have a good day," she said, hanging up without further explanation.

Shizuka was waiting at the top of the steps, by which point Shouko had fished out a cigarette and lit it. The young shrine maiden held out a folded piece of paper which Shouko plucked from her hand. "I will see you tomorrow," Shizuka said evenly.

"I'll be there. Might not be sane by then, but I'll be there," Shouko promised, unfolding the paper and looking at the instructions written there. The shrine was west of the highway, away from the coast. Hop off, go straight, make a couple turns, look for the tree, easy. She folded up the paper again and stuffed it into her backpack before shrugging the bag's strap higher onto her shoulder. "You want me to grab KFC on the way?"

"This is serious," Shizuka said, her voice exasperated.

Shouko sighed. "Yeah, I know. I'm just kinda feeling one straw short of paraplegia, you know what I mean?"

Shizuka blinked, eyes widening a touch as the colorful turn of phrase caught her off-guard. Then she smiled. "I do know what you mean," she agreed. "Perhaps once the holiday is over and the weekend comes we will have a moment to catch our collective breath. Until then, I have faith in your word, and your prowess." She bowed, ebon hair swirling about her shoulders.

Shouko felt her face heat a little bit, and she lifted her hand in a thumbs-up, cigarette still clenched between her first two fingers. "I won't let you down, sensei," she said earnestly.

"Don't call me that," Shizuka rejoined.

Shouko was halfway down the steps before she finally puzzled out that Shizuka had not in fact told her not to call her 'Shizuka' and her face went from a little warm to hot enough to melt the snow, and she sprinted the rest of the way back to her bike.

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

Chistmas Eve, four hours ago

Saika hummed to herself as she brushed her hair, unable to resist bouncing a bit from side to side in front of her mirror. Her outfit for the evening was laid out on the bed, thick warm socks and a wool vest perfect for wandering through the light displays.

On the dresser in front of her was a little boxed gift, blue wrapping paper with a magenta ribbon.

Three hours ago

Shizuka's katana rattled in its sheath as she set it down beside her and knelt.

The woods were peaceful, although she could still hear traffic in the distance. She closed her eyes and breathed slowly, savoring the taste of the fresh, cold air. In the clearing before her rested a great stone about the size of an adult man, around which were wrapped a pair of corded threads from which hung papers inscribed with wards. From the top of the stone protruded the blade and handle of a katana not unlike her own, one that had been taken from a minor lord slain by the invading asura before its imprisonment.

Lifting her chin, she briefly looked up at the sky. The clouds had thickened, turning a dull grey that threatened a storm.

She closed her eyes once more and breathed.

Two and half hours ago

"Mom, is that thing almost ready? I've really gotta go, like right now," Shouko urged, looking at her phone. She'd dressed in warm clothing, throwing her riding leathers on and donning a set of boots with buckles that locked into place to keep them snugly on her feet.

"Sorry hon, I'm almost done, I didn't realize it would take this long to chill," Kyoko Kogawa replied, working at the confection she'd carved over the past day.

Shouko made a noise of frustration. "Mom, I really need to leave," she said, trying not to do anything as blatant as hop from foot to foot. "I wanted to leave like fifteen minutes ago."

"It's only four-thirty, you'll have plenty of time to make your date," Kyoko replied, voice calm as she closed one eye and peered at her work.

"Yeah, but I've gotta be in Hokota by six, so I've gotta go all the way from here to Kashima and then turn around and meet Shizuka on the way back, and if I don't leave right now I'm gonna have to burn rubber the whole way there!"

"Shizuka? Who's this Shizuka?" Kyoko questioned sharply, pausing in her work - the exact last thing Shouko needed now. "Are you two-timing this Saika girl-"

"Oh my god, mom-"

"-who, by the way, I still haven't met-"

"Shizuka's a friend, I promised I would help her with a thing, and we can sort out who I bring home when, later," she insisted, mortified and waving a frantic hand at her mom's work until Kyoko returned to her carving.

"Well, I'm sorry, but you didn't mention any Shizuka," Kyoko said as she worked. "Maybe call her and tell her you could be a few minutes late."

Shouko felt her stomach fall into a pit, but she nodded and turned to walk away, digging out her phone with a hand she realized was quaking. Despite her trembling fingers, she managed to bring up Shizuka's info and stared at it, heart pounding.

Shizuka told her she had faith in her. Nobody ever told her that. She couldn't let her down. She couldn't. She'd put her phone away and was crossing back into the kitchen a moment later.

"Any luck?" Kyoko asked.

"N-no, she didn't pick up," Shouko answered as she withdrew one of the emergency Snickers and bit off the top third.

A few minutes passed, each one feeling like a lifetime before Kyoko set down her tools and declared, "finished."

"Kay gimme," Shouko said, advancing with hands out before her mom planted a palm on her forehead.

"Easy on the throttle there, I'm putting it in an ice bath so it doesn't melt on the way," Kyoko admonished. Shouko busied herself with the pressing task of pulling her hair out while her mother carefully put the dessert in its container and sealed it before transferring the container to a larger one and pouring ice around it. "Alright, where's your backpack?" she asked then.

Shouko had it at the ready and pulled the top open, then stopped and hurried to pull out the gold-wrapped box that contained Saika's gift. Together she and her mother stuffed the confectionery into the backpack and Shouko laid a towel over it so that she could put the little box safely atop it. With haste she shrugged into her winter riding jacket; the garment was a little weather beaten these days but still a fur-lined badass with overstuffed shoulder pads, one of which had a rectangular patch sewn into it that consisted of multiple stripes of pink, red, and white.

"Kay bye see you tonight," she said in a rush as she hurried out the front door.

"Love you! DRIVE SAFELY!" Kyoko hollered after her.

About two hours ago

The highway was jammed with people leaving work, but the Honda Fireblade's engine hummed along as Shouko wove through traffic, disobeying every rule about motorcycle safety she'd ever learned, apart from the one that said 'wear a helmet.' At one point she drove for several kilometers along the shoulder, so close to the center barrier that she could have scraped one of her daggers along the steel without even fully extending her arm. A few drivers leaned on their horns, but there was little they could do except stew in their envy.

It felt like it was getting colder. She couldn't see the sun behind the clouds, though it was still bright enough to be considered daytime. A chilly breeze was blowing in from the ocean off her left side as she headed down the coast. She silently begged the weather to hold off. If ice formed on the roads now, she wouldn't need to fight a mythical warrior-spirit to get herself killed, plain old physics would do the job nicely. Didn't need Miyumi Aratani to calculate that one.

As she left Hitachinaka behind her and headed south the traffic began to break up, Shouko tightened her grip on the throttle and upped her speed, the Fireblade's engine roaring approval as she zipped past the remaining cars. This was okay, she told herself. She could squeak this out. An hour or so south to Kashima. Drop off the dessert and get out inside a minute. A little over a half hour back north to Hokota. Fight the bad guy with Shizuka. Then a half hour back to Hitachinaka to meet Saika on time. She could do this. She could do this.

Then she zipped past a Nissan with a black and white paint job. A moment later the red lights atop the roof lit up in her rear-view mirror and a siren started up.

Shit shit shit shit shitshitshitshitshitshit. Shit.

If the cops had been parked and thus had needed time to get moving she would have chanced it, but with them already on the road and in motion they were probably close enough to scope her plate and call her in before she got too far away. With a sinking heart she clicked on her light and veered to the side of the road.

She didn't do anything as dramatic as slam her head into the bars - although she really wanted to - but she did clasp her hands tightly for a moment before reaching up to remove her helmet, and she couldn't stop her leg from bouncing frantically as the police officer exited his vehicle and slowly - too damn slowly! - made his way up to her bike.

"Good afternoon. Are you aware of how fast you were going?" he asked.

"I'm gonna guess, too fast?" she said with a wan smile. He smiled pleasantly and held out a hand, into which Shouko obediently placed her papers.

He gave them the once-over, asking as he did so, "may I ask the reason for your hurry?"

"I have to make a delivery," Shouko answered.

He looked up at her, brow raised. "I thought Santa drove a red sleigh," he replied.

Ha FUCKING ha. "It's a dessert for my mom's cousin's party," she explained, jabbing a thumb at the backpack.

"It's quite nice of you to be hurrying so much to deliver a dessert on behalf of your mother-" he started saying as they continued the steps of the standard you-did-I-didn't dance, but Shouko's patience finally snapped.

"Look, officer, I don't mean to be disrespectful, I really don't," she said with a sigh, "but if you're gonna write me the ticket, please, just write it up. I wanna get this over with."

He cocked an eyebrow and then sauntered back to his car, leaving Shouko to bounce her leg and try her best not to think about a ticking second hand.

Was he writing a novel back there? Come ON!

"Kogawa Shouko," he announced as he returned to her bike. "I see we've had some run-ins before. If you're on a timetable you should leave earlier. Try to keep it within twenty of the speed limit, hm?" he asked as he handed her info back along with a printed piece of paper.

"Yeah, yeah," she grumbled as she took it and stuffed everything into her wallet.

"Merry Christmas," he added with a tap of his cap as he started back towards his car. Shouko was back on the road before he'd reached it.

She kept her speed down all the way through the greater Hokota region, more out of necessity from the ongoing traffic than the cop's warning, opening up the throttle once things calmed down. She didn't need to look at a phone by now. The sky was starting to change colors.

She was going to be hella late.

One hour and thirteen minutes ago

Kashima, in Shouko's completely unbiased opinion, wasn't nearly as cool a place to grow up as Hitachinaka. Partly this was due to the fact her mom's cousin lived on the border of the farmlands instead of anywhere even remotely interesting.

The Honda's tires crunched as she pulled to the side of the road and cut the engine, hanging her helmet from the handlebar and swinging her leg from the bike to hasten her way past the cars already parked near the house. Get in, drop the dessert, get out.

Then the front door banged and a three-foot bolt of lightning came running out. "SHOUKOOOOOOOO!" squealed a high-pitched voice.

Shouko grinned. "Well howdy there, Babymetal!" she cried out, scooping up the eight-year-old and giving her a squeeze. "Did y'all hear me comin'?" she asked, slipping into her affected accent without conscious thought.

"I heard your engine!" Ikumi confirmed.

"Sharp ears, Babymetal. Jeez yer gettin' big," Shouko said, playing up the grunt as she set the girl down on her feet.

"I've gown another three inches," the girl bragged, falling into step with Shouko as she made her way towards the house.

"Three! Yer gonna be taller'n me, soon enough!" Shouko said, still grinning through her affectation of shock. Ikumi was the one member of her mom's cousin's family she got on with. "I gotta find you a helmet, maybe that weight'll keep you nice'n short."

Ikumi blew a raspberry at her. "Are you gonna have time to give me a ride?"

"I'm sorry, Babymetal," she said with genuine regret, "but I'm just here droppin' off dessert for yer mom. I got other places I gotta get to tonight. Maybe next time we'll do the ol' spin around the block, huh?"

"Promise?"

"I promise, darlin'," she said as she shoved the front door open.

"Promise what?" an older female voice asked. "Hello Shouko," said her mother's cousin without waiting for a reply, eyeing the biker distastefully. A few other eyes joined her as Shouko's entrance pulled the attention away from the party that had been ongoing.

"Hello y'all. Don't mind me, I'll just be in and out," she said with a wave of the hand that held her backpack's strap, already making her way towards the kitchen.

The woman followed her in, presumably under the auspices of helping her retrieve the dessert from said backpack. "I see you wore that jacket," she said sternly as Shouko set her helmet down and undid the backpack's flaps.

"Warmest one I got," Shouko replied evenly, retrieving Saika's gift and setting it aside before pulling out the towel, the bottom of which turned out to be damp. Kyoko's ice bath had melted a little bit, but the dessert inside was still intact. Studiously ignoring the disapproving gaze of the homemaker, Shouko carefully folded the towel so that the dampest part was on the inside and stuffed it back into the packpack, placing Saika's gift atop it before doing the straps back up. "Alright, there ya go," she said, turning on her heel and striding back out through the living room. "Y'all have a good one!" she said, waving.

"Well, hold on, Shouko, don't you want to stay for a drink at least?" said the lady's husband.

Shouko was about to issue a polite denial when someone else asked "before you go, I met a nice man up in Iwaki a few weeks ago; is Kyoko still looking for someone? I could give you his number to give her."

"For that matter, do you have a boyfriend yet?" asked someone else.

She could have just walked out the door. Could have. Instead she turned about and clapped her hands to catch the attention of all those present. "Okay! Hate to interrupt y'all but I promise I'll make this quick. One, I ain't stayin' for a drink, sorry but this camel's still got a couple'a haybales to offload tonight. Two, my mom's still not lookin'. She loves her job and it's probably gonna stay that way awhile. Three, in case some of y'all still don't know what this is," she said, indicating the flag patch on her jacket, "I'm still mega gay. In fact the last thing I gotta do tonight is go on a gay date with my girlfriend. Y'all can make all the biker jokes y'all want once I'm gone. Four, Ikumi, yer still my girl."

"Woo!" The girl indicated pumped a fist.

"And five, Aggretsuko's the best new show out there go fuckin' watch it." Shouko lifted the first two fingers of her right hand to her mouth and kissed her fingertips before flashing a sideways v-sign so that her fingers framed her eye. "Merry Christmas, y'all!"

With that she was gone, hurrying back to her bike. By now, the sun was well and truly gone, the world dark and cold as she started up her bike and whirled it about to head back towards the highway.

One hour ago

Shizuka breathed in deeply, held it, and let it out. Opening her eyes, she rose from her kneeling position took up her katana, hooking it to her belt once more.

Rather than draw the blade, however, she lifted up her hands, fingers curled, and began to recite the spell of renewal. Almost immediately, she felt something push against her. The air began to thicken, making her breath smoke, as a fierce resistance to her warding began to rise. It made the words difficult to speak, but Shizuka lowered her head slightly and forced herself to continue uttering one syllable after another.

The stone trembled. Seemingly of their own accord, the ropes from which hung the wards slackened and drooped, falling to the ground. The stone rocked back and forth, and abruptly an aura of cold blue light began to emanate from the surface of the rock. Shizuka felt herself be driven back a step, shoes crunching in the dirt but she stood her ground, hands thrust out as she struggled to contain the otherworldly spirit.

An arm made not of flesh but ethereal power the same color as the aura suddenly took form, arching from the stone to grasp the handle of the katana embedded there. Shizuka grit her teeth and rallied all her focus to contain the asura within the stone.

"Shouko," she murmured between lines of the warding, "I hope you're almost here."

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

Shouko ran her bike as fast as she dared back up the coast from Kashima towards Hokota, the street lights creating a strobing effect from how quickly she was passing by them.

Hang in there, Shizuka, I'm on my way, she thought, working the throttle up a few more kph.

Fifty minutes ago

Barphojee slowly managed to pull himself from the stony prison, climbing atop the rock and drawing the katana from it with a rasp of steel on stone. The asura's skin was a shade of blue much akin to the halo that surrounded him, his open robe and silken pantaloons of like color. He was multi-armed, a quartet of limbs sprouting from his shoulders. His hair and beard were white as solid ice.

His laughter was deep as the north wind. "Ah! Freedom!" he crowed.

"Savor it, for you will not be enjoying it long," Shizuka said.

"Oh! Who will see to that, little girl? You?" Barphojee laughed, slapping one of his lower hands against his belly before he hopped from the rock to stand before the young shrine maiden, assuming an exaggerated fighting pose with his flank towards her and his stolen sword arcing over his head.

"You would be wise not to underestimate me, asura," she warned, her hand drifting over towards the hilt of her blade, not quite touching it yet. "And I have allies on their way." I hope, she added silently.

"You have allies? Wonderful! I have allies too!" Barphojee said, clapping his lower hands. The asura bent and touched the snow, pinching his fingers in the thin carpet of white, and as he rose the snow rose up with him, as if by the action of touching it he had transformed it into some manner of cloth, pulling up a thirty-yard radius of the snow around them, which he whirled about and threw into the air like a stage magician. As it fell it split into several pieces and crystallized, and by the time it hit the ground the stolen snow had formed into six diminutive figures, their bodies sharp-edged and transparent, fingers tapering into elongated claws, whorls of ice magic forming their eyes.

"Then let us take your estimate, little girl," Barphojee proclaimed, leveling his blade. "Icelings! Get her!"

Shizuka gripped the sheath of her blade with one hand and took hold of the handle with the other, her body going still as the asura's minions began to close in. She began to feed energy into the blade, and as she popped the hilt from the lip of the sheath an eldritch glow became visible.

"Let's dance," she murmured, and as the first of the icelings came into reach she exploded into motion, her sword lashing out in a horizontal cut.

Forty minutes ago

"Bye mom, bye dad, I'm going!" Saika proclaimed, her parents' well-wishes accompanying her as she skipped out the door. She wished the sky would make up its mind - either let them have some snow, or clear the clouds out so they could see the stars. One or the other was nice to have for Christmas, but not neither.

It was a little thing, though, and she was still irrepressible as she practically bounced her way to the bus stop, checking her phone once she'd reached it.

'Leaving now! See you soon! <3<3<3' she texted to Shouko, though no read message popped up. Shouko was probably riding, she reasoned. Probably taking care of everything last-second. She giggled.

Thirty-five minutes ago

The tires squealed as Shouko pulled into the parking lot of a Toyota dealership. She'd busted her ass to get back to Hokota in anything like a semblance of good time, even though by now she was so obnoxiously late it made her arrival to the school day look punctual. She'd gone by memory for the first couple of turns off the highway, but she wasn't clear on where to head from here. Balancing as the bike thrummed beneath her, she reached into her backpack and rooted past her mom's towel for Shizuka's directions.

What she pulled out was a sodden lump of paper beginning to freeze at the edges.

"Oh, no. No no no no no no no no no," she moaned as she tried to unfold it. The paper began to split at one end, and Shouko barely managed to keep it together as she opened it up. The ink had smeared, but it was still legible, sure. Go past...turn left at...uh...

Shouko balled her hands, crumpling the edge of the useless directions.

"SHIZUKA WHERE IS THIS PLAAAAAAACE!" she howled.

Twenty-nine minutes ago

Shizuka twitched her wrist to shake her blade, knocking ice crystals and water from its length. The last of the icelings was dissolving into a puddle at her feet, leaving her shoes and the hem of her long skirt sodden as she leveled her sword at Barphojee.

The asura clapped his lower hands once more, stroking his beard with the upper arm that was not holding his sword. "I must admit, I am impressed. Your measure has surprised me, little girl."

Shizuka narrowed her crimson eyes. "I am charged with the duty of seeing you bound once more, and I will not fail."

"I think that is yet unlikely," Barphojee replied. "Let us put our theories to the proof then, shall we? Your allies have not come, and mine have proven incapable. Shall it be you and I?" The asura cracked his lower knuckles and twirled his stolen sword about.

"So it shall be," Shizuka agreed, readying herself.

With no further warning, Barphojee lifted a hand to his mouth and blew out a cloud of breath. Before Shizuka had time to react the cold air hit her legs, and the water that the icelings had left behind froze solid in an instant. Shizuka yelped, eyes wide as she tried to pull up one foot and couldn't move. The asura bellowed with laughter. "Dutiful little sword maiden! Your charge pins your feet and leaves you motionless! Better to fly free upon the winds with not a care in the world!"

Shizuka hissed. "I will return you to your prison. Even if I cannot move, we are one blade to another, and I will not fail in my duty!"

Barphojee flexed his shoulders and rotated his wrists as if limbering up. As he did so, however, his aura coalesced about his empty hands and sharpened, solidifying itself into a triad of curved swords. "And that, little girl, is where you are wrong," he said, and Shizuka barely had time to energize her blade with darkness before he leapt at her.

Twenty-three minutes ago

If the clouds and the moon and all the stars had fallen from the sky, today would still be less of a disaster than she'd made of things.

Shouko spun circles around Hokota looking desperately for anything that would jump out at her, to no avail. She knew she was close - she'd followed the first few directions, and she was in a lightly forested area which was where the shrine was supposed to be. Shizuka was somewhere in this area, she knew it.

She'd finally broken down and stopped at a convenience store, begging people if they knew about a local shrine with a blade, but there was no luck. A few folks tried to give her directions to the nearby temple, while a few just hurried away from the crazy lady in the motorcycle jacket asking about weird shrines.

"Sorry miss, but I'm afraid there's nothing like that around here. I'd know, I've lived here a long time," said the latest old man.

Shouko turned away, pressing the heels of her hands to her brow. She felt her eyes welling up, and she bit her lip as she struggled not to make a sound.

"Oh, look at that, someone's setting off fireworks for Christmas," the man commented, and Shouko couldn't help but turn her head, if just to distract herself for a moment. From somewhere behind the trees, someone was indeed tossing up lights that spiraled high into the air and then arced down again.

Except those weren't fireworks, she realized. Someone without the talent would be easily misled, but she recognized what it really was. Magic. That could only mean-

"Shizuka," she whispered, and a moment later she was sprinting for her bike, bringing the engine to life with a roar as she kicked it into gear and headed off the road, following what looked like a dirt path.

"Hey! Be careful with those fireworks miss, you might get burned!" the old man called after her.

Twenty minutes ago

Shizuka's hands couldn't stop shaking, her blade trembling furiously.

At first it had seemed as if she might take the asura blade to blade. She had cut the ice around her feet to free herself, and her defensive iajutsu had served her well in the subsequent combat, her blade smashing aside Barphojee's own and slicing through the warrior's icy flesh. But then he had switched to magic, casting spells high into the air so that they crashed down upon her like vicious hailstones. The ground had refrozen beneath her, making footing difficult.

"Have you had your fill of duty, little girl?" Barphojee asked. The asura was smiling, his blades levelled at her from across the clearing.

"You're not back in your stone yet," she replied, taking a breath to set her shoulders, willing her fingers to stop trembling.

"Ah...a shame. As chill as winter's bitter bite itself, you are. I could have used a servant such as you," the asura said.

She turned her head and spat.

A sound reached Shizuka's ear, then. A distant hum, like the buzz of a honeybee, only one that deepened and grew louder, morphing into the roar of a motorcycle. And Shizuka Miyasato grinned. It was not a friendly expression. "You will find no servants here tonight. And no friends of winter."

The Fireblade tore into the clearing before skidding to a stop, and Shouko didn't even take the time to stop the engine before she pulled her helmet off and dropped it to the ground, rushing to Shizuka's side. "Shizuka!"

"Shouko. You are incredibly late," Shizuka rebuked.

"Family stuff," the biker said, bouncing on her booted feet and wiggling her fingers as she eyed the asura.

"Ah, the much-touted ally, I presume," Barphojee said. "Have all the defenders of this land become little girls since last I made war here?"

"Buddy, I've already had to deal with way too much patronizing bullshit for one day," Shouko growled, and with no more introduction than that she charged forward, leaving a surprised Shizuka in her wake.

The asura set his swords to meet Shouko's charge, but in the last instant before they came together she closed her hands on thin air and her twin daggers erupted into life with a crackle of flame. One of them met Barphojee's ice-conjured sword and the asura's weapon shattered on the spot, leaving Shouko an opening to cut him across his midsection. A moment later Shizuka conjured a set of needle-pointed thorns between her fingers and threw out her hand, striking the asura even as Shouko's charge carried her out of the line of fire.

Together, the pair of them rapidly changed the course of the battle, the hot-blooded fury of the Dauntless Heart and the resolute purpose of the Ashen Blade cutting through the malicious chill of the asura, Shouko's daggers shattering another of Barphojee's swords as they fought.

It seemed as if fate had turned against the cruel creature, until finally he leapt back from Shouko's relentless onslaught and, folding his legs mid-air, summoned forth a roiling storm cloud upon which he sat and retreated across the clearing. Thus seated, he brought forth more of his icy spells, pelting the pair with hail, frozen winds that tore at one's clothing and the blinding light of a sun's reflection from snow-covered hills. Shouko snapped her daggers into their bow form, but a single arrow was little in the fact of the developing blizzard.

Shouko threw up an arm to shield her face, and even Shizuka held up her sword in a defensive posture, likewise hiding her face behind one arm. It seemed hope, in the end, had deserted them after all.

Fifteen minutes ago

Saika hopped off the bus right on time. The parking lot for the stadium was filling up with people, and she could see the lights of the display from all the way across the street. Out front was a huge inflatable tree which had been ringed with green lights, with a golden star at the top.

'OK I'm here' she texted Shouko. 'I'll be standing by the tree.'

She frowned then. Shouko still hadn't read her earlier message.

'Be safe out there if you're riding. See you soon. <3' she added.

Fourteen minutes ago

"Shizuka! Hit me!" Shouko suddenly cried out.

"What?" the other girl responded.

"I need you to hit me!" Shouko yelled into the rushing wind. A moment later her head snapped around as Shizuka's fist smashed into her cheek. Even Barphojee paused in his spellcasting, raising a frosty eyebrow at the unexpected sight.

Shouko straightened as the magenta of her eyes began to bleed away, replaced by pools of inky black as she fed into the connection opened to Shizuka's dark energy. "Close enough," she commented, grinning. A moment later a vast set of wings erupted from her back and she left the ground in a blast of sparks, closing on the asura with the speed of a bullet. She brought her hands together and the flame of her daggers became an inferno as they joined into the form of a single blade.

The asura turned the strike aside with his stolen katana and fled upwards, his cloud carrying him into the sky. The dark angel chased him, blades clashing as they whirled about the treetops, fire and ice circling in counterpoint to one another. From the ground, Shizuka watched as they fought, Shouko destroying the last of Barphojee's ice blades. Her crimson eyes narrowed, calculating the movements, until with a snap of one arm she threw out a hand and a chain of darkness exploded forth, flying upwards to coil around the asura's chest and halting his motion in midair.

A moment later Shouko was upon him, her flaming sword battering down his blade and slicing through the asura's arms as he threw up his hands to defend himself. The fury of her blows pushed him downwards in conjuction with the restrictive chain, and as he fell Barphojee heard her roaring "YOU! ARE KEEPING ME! FROM SEEING! MY GIRLFRIEND!"

The pair of them plummeted downwards until the asura's falling body struck the rock of the shrine, and he roared as he dissolved, his aura suffusing the stone once more as Shouko snatched the katana from his hand and drove it back into the rent from which it had been plucked earlier that night.

Shizuka sheathed her own blade and held out her hands once more, struggling to contain the asura's energy, gritting her teeth as she stood against the waves of power rolling off the shrine like a physical force. She made a scooping gesture with the fingers of one hand, and of their own volition the prayer ropes sprang to life, encircling the stone once more and binding themselves tightly around its girth. As they did so a beam of light erupted, arcing high into the sky until it touched the clouds, fading moments later.

Shouko beat her wings and leapt from the rock, dropping to her feet beside Shizuka, breathing hard and dismissing her sword with a wave of one hand. The black-feathered wings dissolved a moment later, feathers vanishing in the swirling winds. "Is that it? Did we get him?"

"He...is contained," Shizuka confirmed between sentences of the warding spell. "I must...reaffirm the bonds of his prison."

"Do you need me for this part?" Shouko asked, her eyes - magenta once more - intent upon Shizuka's own.

"No. You are...free," Shizuka replied.

"Good," Shouko said, digging out her phone, "cause it's-"

Ten minutes ago

"...SIX FIFTY I GOTTA GO!" she screamed, barely seeing Saika's texts as she ran for her helmet.

"You will not get back to Hitachinaka so quickly," Shizuka warned. "It is a half hour from here."

Shouko turned her head, glowering through the visor of her helmet. "Love you, Shizuka, but don't tell me what I can't do, right now of all times," she snarled, before throwing her leg over her thrumming bike. "And Shizuka," she added as she revved the engine.

"Yes?"

"Merry Christmas." With that she peeled out, rear tire throwing a cascade of dirt into the air.

As the sound of the engine faded into the distance, footsteps crunched in the frozen earth behind Shizuka.

"I was beginning to think your friend wouldn't show up," said a voice.

"She is unreliable. But...she is...dependable," Shizuka replied. "Though I was getting concerned as well."

"Please," he said in a dismissive tone. "You were never in any real danger." A moment later he hummed in thought as the first few fat white flakes drifted down from the sky. "Look at that, it's snowing," commented the man with the purple hair.

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

Six minutes ago

The Honda CBR1000RR (affectionately known as the Fireblade) had a top speed of 185 American miles per hour - three hundred kph in its home country.

The fastest Shouko had ever dared get her bike up to was 200.

She was already going a hundred, engine roaring, as she ran the red light and turned onto the highway from Hokota to head north towards home. Traffic had lightened, but by now a steady stream of snow had begun to fall. Shouko put her head down and accelerated, ignoring the possibility of a slippery road and once more breaking every rule of motorcycle safety as she pulled to the extreme end of the road, riding the shoulder line as she passed the fast-moving traffic like it was standing still.

The speedometer read 250. Shouko turned the throttle further up.

Her entire body felt like it was wired with electricity, heart pounding in her chest, breath rattling in her ears in the confines of her helmet. Her hands gripped the bars as tightly as they could, shutting out the cold, until her knuckles ached. The bike shook beneath her as she screamed down the highway, every little bump and hole and imperfection in the blacktop passing under her at breakneck speed.

Up ahead were a pair of cargo trucks, one riding the shoulder, leaving no room to pass. With the grace of a surgeon Shouko adjusted her grip on the handlebars, drifting over to the center stripe.

One of the truck drivers swore as the red motorcycle shot between him and the guy in the other lane like they were standing still. "Are you crazy?" he shouted at the taillight even as it vanished into the distance.

Shouko clenched her teeth, turning her throttle up until the control refused to budge any further. The trees at the side of the road were a smear, the cars a brief impression of color and red taillights. At this speed the biker was navigating as much by instinct as by sight, glimpses of the road ahead offering guesses of what lay in wait, swinging her bike from lane to lane to shoulder to center in the most hellaciously illegal driving she'd ever done.

"Not for this not for this not for this not for this," she hissed under her breath.

----------

Up north in Hitachinaka, Saika blinked as something white drifted past her eyes. With a soft squeak of delight she looked up to see the snow beginning to fall. The weather had finally decided! Things were going to be just perfect now.

----------

On the road, Shouko cursed as she had to slow just slightly, swinging around a knot of traffic before she pumped the throttle back up. The bike's engine was howling now, the loudest she'd ever heard it roar. "This is what you were made for," she growled under her breath. She hunched, pressing her body to the chassis and reducing her wind resistance. "You see that light up there?" she asked the bike. "That's Saika. That's our guiding star. Long as we've got her in front of us? We've got hope."

The bike's speed devoured the kilometers between Hokota and Hitachinaka like a wildfire tearing through so much dead forest. At this speed, girl and bike were but a blur, a single crimson streak of light, and as Shouko jammed on the throttle, she exerted every once of willpower she had into urging the Fireblade on faster, faster, urging the tires to keep their grip as she shot through every turn and dodged every car. Unseen by her, flames shot from the exhaust as the fiery soul of the Dauntless Heart seemed to infuse the machine, a halo of flame bursting into life around it, vanishing, roaring back into existence.

--------

On the side of the road, a police officer catching a brief nap during a double shift jolted awake as something screamed past, a brief impression of fire like some kind of meteor had zipped by.

His radar gun was blinking 306 KPH.

"Great Caesar's ghost," he murmured, swallowing. He looked out to the road, but whatever the thing was, it had gone.

--------

Shouko's heart swelled as Hitachinaka grew brighter up ahead.

Then it sank as she saw a different set of lights ahead, flashing yellow. Before she could react she was in the thick of a traffic jam, roaring down the shoulder towards someone that had run afoul of the snowfall. What to do? What to do? Even if she ran the impromptu blockade, she would have to slow down. She clenched her teeth.

And then, a Christmas miracle. One of the vehicles near the crash sight was a tow truck, the kind with the flat back. It must have been called in to help clear away whatever car had wiped out, but they hadn't put anything on it yet.

And its ramp was down.

Shouko squeezed her horn as she closed the gap, briefly lowering her throttle and then ramping up again, hauling back on the handlebars so that the Fireblade's front wheel left the ground. "SORRY!" she screamed at peak volume even though she doubted any of the rescue crew could hear her over the horn and the howl of her engine. Still, one way or another nobody got in her path, and the bike hit the lowered ramp and popped up into the air above the cab.

She arced through the open sky, seemingly suspended in midair like no more than one of the drifting snowflakes.

Then she hit the road with a jolt, and though the bike wobbled, Shouko managed to keep it upright. Thanks to the accident and the traffic jam, now the road was empty but for her - a straight shot back to Hitachinaka. She laughed aloud, crazy on emotion.

--------

In a forest outside Hokota, Shizuka slapped her palms together and bowed her head. The freezing aura of the asura had faded away to nothing, leaving but a rock, a sword, and a set of warding charms that rattled softly in the gentle wind.

"Victory," she murmured.

--------

In a parking lot in Hitachinaka, Saika Oishi waited, worry gnawing at her as she watched her phone, waiting for something, anything that would let her know Shouko was alright. By now she was starting to chew her lip, glancing up at everyone passing by just in case she'd missed Shouko somewhere in the crowd. "I hope you're okay," she murmured softly.

As if in response, a distant roar reached her ears, and she blinked up as she saw a familiar cherry-red motorcycle swing itself onto the road that approached the parking lot. Those watching might have sworn a veritable halo sprung up around the girl as she jumped up and cheered. The bike rapidly closed the distance, smoke rising as if the vehicle's chassis had been superheated somehow, and the rider jumped the curb to come screeching to a halt right in front of Saika.

Shouko pulled her helmet off, sweat glimmering on her face as Saika rushed to her side. "I can't believe it, I was getting so worried, you're right-

Now

-on time-ah!" she yelped as the biker dropped her helmet and reached out to pull her off her feet, dipping her over the bike's chassis as she leaned down to kiss her lips. Saika wrapped her arms around Shouko's body to hold her close for a long moment, eyes closed, feeling the frantic thud of her girlfriend's heart.

"Hey you," Shouko said with a trembling smile when they parted.

"Hi yourself," Saika replied, stroking Shouko's cheek.

"I made it," Shouko said, as if she needed to assert the reality of the moment.

"You did," Saika confirmed, brushing a few stray blue hairs back from her girlfriend's face. "You really did."

"Really, Kogawa? Come on," another voice broke in, one of the security guards waving his arms at the pair. "You still gotta park like everyone else."

"Yeah, yeah," Shouko drawled, letting Saika back onto her feet. "Be right back, darlin'."

"I'm here for you," Saika confirmed.

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

The light display was huge. The pair wandered through it, hands clasped, stopping to appreciate this piece or that, like the trees with strings of lights like glowing icicles hanging from them, or the verdant green forest of pine trees, or the hall of rainbows.

It was when they paused beneath a wide replica of a shinto gate that Shouko stopped to feel for something she'd transferred to a jacket pocket. "So, I uh-"

"Oh, here," Saika said, evidently having thought of the same thing at the same time, and she held out the blue-wrapped box with the magenta ribbon. "This is for you."

"Are you sure? Those colors might make it anyone's," Shouko said as she took the box, grinning when Saika stuck out her tongue. After a quick check to make sure no one in security was watching, she retrieved her knife and cut along the edge of the box, putting the blade away and tearing through the rest of the wrapping to get at the gift inside.

"Saika..." had gotten her a set of fingerless gloves, the leather dyed magenta, the knuckles reinforced with a metal plate. As a finishing touch, each knuckle had been further plated with an extra bracing in the shape of a little heart. "These...are awesome," Shouko said, voice quiet with awe. A moment later she'd stripped off her current gloves to replace them with the new pair. They fit perfectly, and the interior of the new set had been padded so that her knuckles would be protected if she ever needed to put those metal plates to use.

Saika clapped her hands, delighted with the reaction, watching as Shouko threw a couple of experimental punches at the air. "I'm glad you like them."

"I love 'em," Shouko confirmed. Then her face colored, and she looked away shyly as she held out a box covered by gold paper, the wrapping a little messy on one side where the ends had been inexpertly taped together.

"I'm gonna guess you did this yourself," Saika said slyly as she used her thumb to open up the wrapping, withdrawing a small burgundy box. She popped the top and looked inside to see a chain of thin golden links, each one a five-pointed star, with a larger one holding an emerald inset as the centerpiece. "Oh, Shouko, it's beautiful," she breathed.

"D'you like it? I thought it would look good on ya, 'cause..." Shouko trailed off, shrugging her shoulder.

"Because?" Saika prompted, arching an eyebrow.

"Cause...yer my guiding star," Shouko said, her face bright red. Saika made a noise and Shouko looked up, blinking to see her girlfriend's eyes large and liquid, her lip trembling. "Oh no, don't cry," she started to say, only for her airflow to be cut off as Saika cried out and squeezed her until her ribs groaned.

"I love it so much, Shouko you're wonderful," she said in a rush as Shouko struggled to hug her back before her spine gave way. Saika's grip thankfully slackened after a few seconds and the pair looked into one another's eyes.

Shouko mumbled, "So...I wanted to ask...if..."

"If?" Saika questioned.

"Um...it's been a couple months since...I mean, I've never really, uh...gone steady with anyone," Shouko fumbled for words, only for a fingertip to tap against her lips.

"Just ask me," Saika said, eyes shining.

"...you wanna be for-real girlfriends with me, Saika?" Shouko asked.

"Yes, Shouko. Yes I do," Saika confirmed. She leaned close to kiss Shouko's lips, afterward leaning her forehead against Shouko's own. "Thank you, for the best Christmas Eve ever," she said softly.

"It sure got there," Shouko agreed.

#Completely Normal RPG #Shouko #kurze writes #anime bullshit #Christmas themed this time #includes music link

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castellankurze · 5 years ago

Conversation

Shouko: I believe everything Miyumi tells me, because of her big brain, and how she looks like one of those owls who graduated college.

Miyumi: Are you saying I have a big nose?!

Shouko: What? No! Your nose is fine! It's cute! Like the rest of your face!

Miyumi: ...

Shouko: ...

Shouko: How about you not tell Shoji I said that.

Shouko: Or Saika.

Shouko: *sliding under her desk* In fact just forget I said anything today.

#Shouko #Miyumi #Completely Normal RPG #incorrect CNRPG quotes

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castellankurze · 6 years ago

Text

A Completely Normal Wake-up Call

More of the anime stuff. I’m gonna stop the tagging cause it just gets posted in the relevant discord anyway. Had to rewrite the whole damn thing because my hard drive died when it was 80% done. Most recent story regarding Shouko Kogawa and the Completely Normal Study Group, taking place in...March...2019? . . . maybe?

You’ll see.

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

The first few moments after their arrival were pure hell.

It was so dark that one couldn't see a hand in front of one's face, genuine pitch-blackness. Shouko instinctively closed her hands around thin air and her daggers ignited with a snap-hiss of flame, throwing everything into view in a flickering red-orange light that, while it made things visible, did nothing to help with the mood of fear and panic. Fortunately, Reika was quick to pick up on the idea, and the softer, steadier glow of her spear helped to further illuminate things, as did Shizuka's katana when she drew it and brought forth the blade's simmering eldritch shimmer.

Then there was no time to think for awhile. Erika was crumpling to the ground, unable to stand on her remaining leg, and Miyumi was clutching her shoulder and Kanako struggled to help Erika with her good arm. Saika rushed to Erika first, trying to help Kanako staunch the bleeding and try to get her healing to patch her back up. Shouko stood by to support...and occasionally to give quiet thanks that her daggers emitted flame.

A couple of phones came out, but there seemed to be no reception wherever they were, and so they got pressed into service as extra lights until the group could move somewhere they could call for help. As things began to settle, Shouko forced herself to turn away from her injured friends, trying totake a look around. They were in a cave, as far as she could tell - bare, craggy stone curving up into a wall high above them, while a yawning blackness reached off into a pair of directions. A few stalactites hung from the ceiling like giant teeth, a handful of stalagmites reaching up likewise from the cave floor, but whatever dripping water had created the stone formation had long ago dried up - everything was gritty and dry.

A set of snapping fingers pulled Shouko's attention back towards the group to where Reika was kneeling with her younger sister's head cradled in her lap. As she caught Shouko's gaze she stopped snapping her fingers and waggled them in her direction. "You, knife girl. You're the least beat-up, take the swordswoman here and find out where the hell we are."

Shouko's temper briefly flared, but she brought it under control quickly. Reika wasn't going to leave Miyumi lying there, and her spear was needed for Saika to see what she was doing. And she was right - they really did need to find out where Count McFuckface had thrown them off to. So she nodded and briefly stepped close to whisper a few words into Saika's ear, prompting her to look up and smile weakly, mouthing a few words back. Then she turned to Shizuka, who as per usual refused to meet her gaze head-on and instead had already taken a few steps towards one of the openings.

The pair walked for a few seconds down the tunnel, but found their efforts soon stymied as the cave narrowed further and further, until it was little more than a crevice that even Miyumi at her best would have struggled to squirm through. It did serve one purpose, though, as Shizuka quietly noted feeling a breeze, and when Shouko held up one dagger she could see the flames drifting slightly towards the crack, meaning the wind was coming from the other way. So the other way they went, passing by the others and warning them of the dead end.

Shizuka's shoes and Shouko's boots crunched on the scrabbly stone with every step, echoing hollowly back at them, and as the darkness of the cave swallowed the light from Reika's spear and the phones, the oppressive darkness and craggy rock closed in around the pair. Shouko had to swallow a rising fear as images flashed through her head. What if they'd ended up miles below the surface and they never found a way out? What if the cave just branched, and branched, and branched and they never found the right passage back?

"Sh," she hissed at herself.

"Hm?" Shizuka asked, pausing briefly.

"Nothing," she said, and the pair moved on. Shizuka, characteristically, hadn't even turned to look back at her, her face hidden behind her veil of dark hair, inky-black, as black as the cave ahead of them-

Shouko bit her lip.

It probably wasn't more than two or three minutes, really, but buried by stone and with their friends hurting, not knowing where they'd ended up, it felt like forever. But then a breeze strong enough to stir Shouko's hair passed over them, and finally they turned a bend and spied a glimmer of light ahead of them. Shouko could have cried, and immediately broke into a jog that carried her past Shizuka, and she heard the would-be shrine maiden quicken her own step behind her.

They emerged from the cave to see a starlit sky, a glorious full moon hanging over them. The cave, it turned out, was nestled in a series of craggy foothills dotted with scrub brush that sloped gently downwards from a mountain range towards a forest. Nearby was a running river that must have carved out the rent in the stone at some point in the past, but had since been diverted to a new course.

"That isn't Fuji," Shouko pointed out as she dismissed her daggers, knowing she was stating the obvious but feeling compelled to say so anyway. Shizuka likewise sheathed her sword, leaving the pair of them bathed in the moonlight, and Shouko blinked her eyes a few times to get adjusted.

Wherever they were, it wasn't Japan. What could be seen of the forest made that clear. The tall trees didn't look like evergreens, or regular leafy trees, but more like massive palms, the fronds of which formed a solid canopy. Was it a rainforest? Were they even on Earth? No, wait, the moon's markings looked the same, yes, they were still on the same planet. Were they in Hawaii, or California, or Brasil somewhere? Had Count Chucklefuck really thrown them all the way across the Pacific?

As they stood there and pondered, there came a sound from the distance, a loud, gruff snort like a donkey had started to bray and then gave up halfway through, except the donkey in this case sounded like it weighed a couple tons. There was an answering bellow of similar tone, and then some of the trees started to shake as if something massive was shouldering through them. Shizuka's hand went back to her blade, and Shouko's fingers closed, ready to summon her daggers back. Had the damn Tatsu-varag followed them somehow?! No, no, hell no, they'd killed the damn thing, killed it dead, burned it to ashes, there was no damn possibility it had survived again.

There was a crunch of branches and some kind of animal shouldered its way out of the trees. Shouko at first thought it was some kind of rhino, a really big one, grey in the moonlight with a heavy, pebbly hide. But the rhino had a weird crest at the back of its head, a solid one like bone, and it seemed like it had extra horns-

Shouko felt her heart jump into her throat. There was no way that what she was seeing could be real, she was hallucinating, or imagining, or, or something. She tried to speak and couldn't, she had to swallow and try again a couple of times just to manage a tiny, stuttering, "Sh-Shizuka...is...i-is...-is, is that..."

"A triceratops," Shizuka whispered through her lips, sounding likewise all but dumbstruck at the sight. Ignorant of the two girls in the foothills, the creature lumbered towards the river and ducked its head to drink. As it reached the water a rock formation suddenly shifted and edged away with a distant snort of exasperation. It was another dinosaur, one of the ones with an armored back - Shouko's brain was too busy screaming itself hoarse to try remembering the name.

When Count Dickhead had pulled his stunt with the guns and the freaky magic clock out of nowhere, Shouko had expected a couple of things. She'd half-expected they'd show up in the Edo period and get thrown into a battle with Nobunaga, or maybe all the way back to the Kamakura, fighting the Mongols. Or maybe he'd pitched them into the future, somewhere they wouldn't bother him. Then, when they'd emerged in the cave she'd had to shut down thoughts that maybe he hadn't thrown them back in time at all, but maybe imprisoned them in some kind of twilight realm.

Of all the things she'd expected, dinosaurs had not been one of them.

"Holy shit," she breathed, and even as she did so she watched a serpentine creature emerge from the canopy, bending itself about to munch at the leaves, and Shouko realized it had to be one of the long-necked kind.

Beside her, she was dimly aware of Shizuka raising her hands to her mouth. "This," she heard her murmur, "this...this is my..."

Shouko snapped her head around, dinosaurs suddenly forgotten as she got her first good look at Shizuka's face since they'd popped out in the cave. Her red eyes were wide, frightened, her face paler than even usual, and the hands that hovered in front of her mouth with shaking, her lip likewise trembling. Gone was her usual steely calm, her seen-it-all-twice chill, and Shouko was taken completely aback. "What?" she asked.

Shizuka didn't look back at her. "This is my fault," she whispered. "I did this. If I hadn't defied him-"

A sudden explosion seemed to snap Shouko's chest in half and filled her with a giant, raging fire. Without thinking about what she was doing, she put out both hands and grabbed Shizuka's blouse in her fists, turning the other girl towards her. Shizuka didn't even fight - normally Shouko wouldn't have gotten away with so much as a finger laid upon her. "Don't you dare," she snarled. "Don't you dare say such a thing." She had to struggle not to shake Shizuka wholesale. "If you hadn't come along, we wouldn't be patching ourselves up in a cave, we'd be too busy being dead. We scraped by on the skin of our teeth, and that was with all seven of us there! If it had been six, there's no way we would have made it!"

Shizuka seemed not to notice Shouko's deathgrip on her shirt, staring into her eyes like she'd woken from some kind of nightmare. "You could have run away," she pointed out.

Shouko felt the rage ebb, remembering the emergency beacon Kanako had held the whole time. "Yeah, we could have run away," she agreed, before the fire suddenly welled back up inside her, and this time she actually took a step forward to put her face right in Shizuka's own. "We could've run away, and you know what would've happened? A couple nights later some set of parents somewhere would be staying up all night wondering what happened to their child. Then a few years later some little kid would be getting told nobody could find their big sister or brother. We could've run away and that bastard would have gone right on killing kids beneath everyone's notice while the Court and the Vanguard argued about who should do something. But that's not going to happen, because we killed it. We did that. All of us. Together. No more nightmares. No more kids like Kana growing up without a mom and dad. We broke that chain. A bunch of kids. Because you know what we are, Shizuka?"

Those wide red eyes blinked. She'd never seen Shizuka so nonplussed in the whole time she'd known her. "We...are hunters of the dark-"

"No we're not!" Shouko cried out, and this time she did go so far as to give Shizuka a shake, her fists trembling with emotion. "We're highschool seniors! We're a class president, a star athlete, a math whiz, and a...a damn juvenile delinquent! And you. And Saika. And Reika. A bunch of girls who oughta be looking at what university they want to go to had to go out and become dragonslayers. Dragonslayers," she emphasized.

"Dragonslayers...?" Shizuka echoed. She dropped her gaze, the fringe of her bangs obscuring her eyes.

"Yeah. All of us." Shouko breathed in, breathed out, breathed in, short and sharp, as she debated with herself, and decided since she was already in this deep, she might as well. "Shizuka, I never thought I would say a thing like this six months ago, but you're like my best friend, you know?"

Shizuka jerked back slightly, and only the hands still clenched in the material of her blouse stopped her. "I...?" she said, eyes wide as she looked back into Shouko's face.

"Yeah," Shouko said, finally relaxing her grip a little bit. "Saika's my girlfriend and I love the shit out of her, even if I still kind of suck at saying it, and Kanako and Erika and Miyumi are all great, but...it was you and me, all those weekends with the bokken and the wakizashi, and that fight with the onryo when we..." Shouko took in a breath that shook in her lungs. "When you got me to put myself out there like that." She met Shizuka's eyes, though her vision swam as moisture clouded her gaze. "I don't know what's gonna happen, but, I wouldn't give it up for anything. That day back in September, I felt like...I felt like I finally found a piece of myself that had been missing the whole time, that I hadn't really been me until I brought those daggers out. You're such a fucking edgelord, but you gave me that," she blurted, feeling liquid running down her face.

"Shouko," Shizuka said softly.

"So I don't wanna hear it," Shouko went on, her fists clenching once more. "You hear me? I don't wanna hear this noise about how this is your fault. Because it's not. It's not, you hear me? You're not responsible for the shit people pull because they're too busy playing politics to remember what the hell they're supposed to be doing to begin with. It's not your fault for what Co- what he did to punish you for standing up with your fucking friends. It's not your fault when someone decides to spite you instead of standing up for you. It's not your fault when your dad treats you like a fucking scandal and he's too goddamn stupid to stop pulling the same dumb crap over and over no matter how many times it blows up on him."

Shizuka's eyes narrowed, a shadow of her usual mien reasserting itself. "Taliesin is not my father," she said, an edge returning to her voice.

“Huh?” Shouko blinked, stopped cold by the non-sequitur. Why the hell was Shizuka pointing out-

Then she shook her head angrily, heat flooding into her face. "Never mind, you know what I mean." Shizuka started to arch an eyebrow and open her mouth to speak, and Shouko squeezed her eyes shut and ducked her head until her brow thumped into the heels of her hands. "Don't psychoanalyze me, Shizuka, you know what I mean!"

There was a long, breathless moment, until Shouko felt a hand softly pat her hair. "I do know what you mean," Shizuka said softly, and Shouko looked up into her face to see a familiar, barely-there smile on Shizuka's features. "You may let go of me now." Shouko slowly opened her hands - slowly, because her fingers were aching from being clenched for so long. "I will take everything you've said under advisement," she said, as if Shouko had offered her a pointer in the classroom - fat chance! - and laughed softly. "Your passion befits a Dauntless Heart indeed."

Shouko felt the blush that had been fading come rushing back, and she turned away, scratching self-consciously at her hair. "Thanks," she mumbled.

"We should go back and tell the others what we've seen," Shizuka said after another moment. "They will start to worry if we do not return soon. And they deserve to know."

"You start back. I'll join you in a second," Shouko said, wiping at the tracks left on her face.

Shizuka nodded. "I will walk slowly." She paused. "Thank you, Shouko." Then her shoes crunched softly on the rock, receding back into the cave once more.

Left alone under the moonlight, Shouko Kogawa the 'Dauntless Heart' breathed in and out slowly, fighting to contain the tumult of emotion that had all come bursting out. As she did so, she instinctively rifled through her jacket pockets, scowling at the tears and the now-dried saliva left from the thing that had tried to munch her during the battle - this had been her second-favorite biking jacket, dammit.

She found her pack of cigarettes intact and pulled one out, placing the butt between her lips.

Then she plucked it out again and stared at it. Then looked down at the pack and counted, in a rush, twelve more.

She was sixty-five million years or whatever out of her own time and she had barely half a pack of cigarettes.

"Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhit," she hissed, and thrust the one she'd picked back into the pack before she followed Shizuka back into the cave.

#kurze writes #Completely Normal RPG #bit of a blood/injury warning with this one probably #I tried to keep the description minimal #Shouko

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castellankurze · 6 years ago

Text

No One Sleep in Garlemald

This is the new top contender for dumbest thing I’ve ever written.

Literally pounded out at 3:30 in the morning on a wave of nyquil.

Canon is for schlubs anyway.

[obvious music cue]

...

Tires screeched on the paved asphalt of the thoroughfare as a sleek black vehicle took a hairpin turn at unreasonably high speed, its back end slewing dangerously as the rear wheels left parallel arcing lines on the surface. With split-second timing, a fireball flew out from the adjoining road and struck the spot where the car's rear bumper had been a moment ago, scattering sparks amidst a blast wave of heat that rocked the vehicle.

A moment later a second vehicle, identical to the first, roared out from the same arterial, driving recklessly through the dissipating fireball in an effort to catch up to the first, changing lanes with a jerk of its steel body and accelerating with a fierce growl to pull alongside. "SHOUKO!" snarled the steel-masked driver of the second car over the thrum of the twin engines. "WHERE ARE WE GOING?"

Shoji snarled a lot more often nowadays, Shouko reflected.

"I DON'T KNOW!" she shouted back as the sound of propellers announced their pursuit regaining lost ground. "I TOLD YOU, THEY HADN'T RELEASED THIS CONTENT BACK WHEN COUNT MCFUCKFACE THREW US BACK IN TIME!"

"YOU DON'T KNOW?!" he roared. A moment later and they were interrupted as gunfire stitched the street around both cars. Aerial machina descended from the rooftop levels, guns blazing. Not for long, though, as from the backseat of Shouko's car Saika clambered up onto the headrest, balancing there precariously as she drew her luminous bow, aimed as if she had all the time in the world, and fired off a glittering arrow that jammed itself into the lead flyer's starboard engine, which detonated and sent the machine into an uncontrollable spin. Shouko whooped as she watched the explosion in her rearview mirror. From the other car, Reika leveled her sniper rifle and fired off a shot that cored through another vehicle's fuselage and must have killed the pilot, because it immediately tumbled out of the sky in a tail-over-head spin.

Even as the stricken machina slammed into the face of the nearest building, the ground pursuit came stomping from around the corner, an entire magitek armor squadron, chasing after the twin cars like an entire flock of armored killer ostriches. The leader opened up its main cannon, and the weapon glowed in readiness for another fireball. Fortunately, that was the moment Miyumi peeked her head over her headrest and though wide-eyed she rose just enough to level her sceptre, firing off a shadowblast that tore into the weapon's housing and blew the thing to bits, taking most of the attached vehicle with it.

The rest came tromping on, though, ceruleum guns chattering continuously as they tracked the frantically fleeing roadsters. Shoji gunned his engine as Miyumi sank back into her seat beside him, damn near cutting Shouko off as he weaved to and fro across the road. Shouko bit down a curse as she shifted frantically and swung around his other side. Four wheels still felt weird but damned if she was gonna let Shoji show her up.

"I really thought this series was supposed to be about swords and sorcery?" Kanako said, sounding dazed from her spot beside Saika in the rear seat.

"Shizuka and Erika have swords and you and Miyumi are sorcerers, what more could you want?" Shouko asked, sounding almost carefree as she gunned the engine and pulled ahead of Shoji once more, grinning as she spied Shizuka seated beside Reika as calmly as if she were riding the bus one normal morning.

Kana looked at Erika, who just shrugged. "I gave up on things making sense three reality jumps ago," she said.

"Relax! We're almost there!" Shouko crowed, loud enough for everyone to hear.

"How do you know? I thought you said you didn't know this place?" Miyumi questioned.

"Yeah," she agreed, lifting a hand to point at the massive structure ahead of them, a triad of towers stabbing into the sky like the world's most immense pitchfork. "But I know that design."

Sure enough, the thoroughfare opened up into a grand square, currently occupied by a phalanx of armored Garlean soldiers. And standing amidst their ranks, safely behind the front line, was the figure she'd hoped she'd see. "Hey, Erika, come slide over here and take the wheel," she said, twisting to clamber out of the seat even as she said it, leaving the tall girl to yelp and hurry to take control of the suddenly-driverless car. Shouko perched on the cushion of the rear seat, grinning up at Saika. "Ready for this?"

"I don't know what the goal is... but I'm always ready!" Saika assured her with a confidant smile.

Shouko winked. Then she jumped from the sidewall of the moving car.

As she fell in the seemingly suicidal leap over the bare asphalt, she closed her hands in midair and a phantom form took shape beneath her, a crimson motorcycle made of gleaming light with its handlebars held firmly in her hands. Saika had jumped only a half-second behind Shouko, and dropped into place just behind her, and Shouko jerked the handlebars to steer away from the car, the vehicle leaving a trail of fire as it shot away and tore through the assembled soldiers, most of whom scattered and dove for cover rather than try to stand up to the sudden and unforeseen attack. Saika scattered arrows in their wake, making the sudden panic worse as Shouko steered a path through them, angling in on the figure she'd spied from afar.

"HEY VARIS!" she yelled out as they closed on the pale-haired man, and she hauled back on the handlebars to pull the motorcycle into a wheelie. "GET FUCKED, YOU FASCIST SHIT!"

The front wheel of the motorcycle slammed into Emperor Varis zos Galvus and ethereal as it was, the vehicle bucked as it punched into the armored man and drove him to the ground.

Flaming carnage in their wake, Shouko quickly steered the bike back towards the cars, bursting from the gathered soldiers once more and pulling alongside her own just in time for Saika to leap back to the car as the motorcycle began to fizzle and fade. Shouko grabbed hold of the car's wheel and scrabbled to get back into the driver's seat as Erika vacated it. "Was that our goal here?" she asked.

"Dunno, but man that felt good. I wanted to do that for two expansions!" Shouko said gleefully, pumping a fist.

"YOU TOOK US THROUGH ALL THIS JUST TO SETTLE A GRUDGE WITH A VIDEOGAME NPC?" Reika screeched from the other car.

"A larger problem," Shizuka interrupted, pointing a finger at the rapidly-dwindling space ahead of them. "We are running out of road."

"Just take it easy," Shouko said, reaching a hand down to the lever between the seats, grinning from ear to ear as she swelled with the power of the words she was about to say. Only Shizuka could ever set someone up like that. "Where we're going, we don't need. roads."

She hauled, thumb pressing down the button, and the front and rear fenders on the car shifted position, wheels rising up into their wells as magitek devices swung into place. Within moments, Shouko's car had lifted high off the road, with Shoji's vehicle following a step behind in her wake, leaving an enraged legion of Garleans behind them as their black hulls disappeared into the night.

#FFXIV #Completely normal RPG #spite is the spice of life #'aaooowwwaggh car can't be canon'#I'm gonna smash my grill into Varis' face and you can't stop me #the nyquil walrus made me do it #Initial D #music #Fast and the Furious: Aldenard Drift #I REGRET NOTHING

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castellankurze · 6 years ago

Text

A Completely Normal Lesson

lord help me I’m back on my anime bullshit

@starcunning @lordcaliginous @tamsynspeaks @mystictheurge

Plot: Shouko is the last member of the Completely Normal Study Group to get a team attack, and she doesn’t get why.

- It was Miyumi who figured it out first, because of course it was. Slight and frail she might be, but Miyumi Aratani was Madame Overachiever in any subject apart from gym class, and her razor-sharp mind was just what the dire situation had called for.

"It's no good!" Erika cried out between gasping breaths, her radiant greatsword held in a defensive stance. "Any time one of these jerks goes down the others revive him!"

Said 'jerks' were a clutch of stone-skinned, pointy-horned gargoyles that hovered in midair in a loose semicircle, each with a few feet of distance between itself and the next in line. The flock of them had been tormenting the group for the better part of a week, until tonight they had finally tracked them down to an abandoned warehouse.

"Then we must simply take them all down at once," Shizuka said in her typical dry tone. The unflappable shrine maiden held her katana ready to strike, its shimmering green blade casting sharp-edged shadows over her face.

"How? They're too tough to take one-on-one!" Shouko complained, whirling one dagger in warning as the one on the far left snarled at her. All of them were battered and breathing hard despite Kanako's best healing attempts. The one plus was that the loading doors were behind them, meaning if they needed to, they could break and run.

"Maybe we could herd them together so Miyumi can hit them all with one of her shadow blasts?" Erika suggested.

"They haven't let us lure them that close together," Miyumi pointed out, but despite her deadpan tone she stepped up behind the three front-line fighters to stand just behind Shizuka. "But...I do have an idea. Shizuka, may I...?" She held out her free hand, the one not clamped around her scepter. The shrine maiden glanced back, but nodded, and Miyumi settled her hand on the taller girl's shoulder. Shizuka straightened slightly and, seemingly on a whim, whirled her katana about to sheath it at her belt, leaving her hand at the hilt. The pair went utterly still, all but for the thrumming darkness of Miyumi's scepter, which seemed to grow more and more intense as the seconds passed.

One of the gargoyles screeched.

"Erika, Shouko, step back," Miyumi warned, but Shouko had had a feeling where this was going and was already in motion, the taller Erika hastening to join her.

Shizuka's eyes snapped open and she drew her sword in a lightning-fast cut from left to right. A blade of utter darkness roared out in a diagonal cut, lashing across the empty space to slice through the entire group of foes, disappearing as quickly as it had come as Shizuka finished the motion. The clutch of gargoyles went still before, seemingly coming to the realization of what had happened, they exploded into clouds of darkness that seethed and dissolved into the empty air.

"Whoa," Erika commented.

"Kuso," Shouko echoed, wide-eyed.

Then the opposite wall of warehouse crunched as a diagonal cut appeared across its face, and a gantry at the far corner gave way as several of its support struts ceased to hold it up.

"Uh..."

Kanako grabbed the back of Erika's neck. "Let's get out of here!" she yelped, and the group ran as the far side of the building collapsed.

"That was so cool!" Shouko crowed as they began the walk back to the bus stop. She grabbed Miyumi's shoulder and squeezed. "How did you do that?"

"Um..." Miyumi winced a little bit. "It just...seemed logical?"

"Such things are not unheard-of," Shizuka commented. "When two hunters whose energies are in alignment work in combination, the resulting whole is very often greater than the sum of their parts. I was going to tell you," she added, noticing the looks she was getting, "when I felt you were ready. It seems that time has come."

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

Lumber cracked and splintered as the giant tree-creature slammed a limb down between Miyumi and Erika, missing each of them by inches and knocking limbs off the tree Miyumi had been sheltering behind. Treebeard this thing was not, Shouko decided as she tried to sprint around its side to get at its flank. Her daggers had been doing a number on the beast, burning through its bark and leaving blackened scars, but despite the flames that burned steadily all over its giant frame the thing seemed hardly slowed.

Miyumi did her part, firing one of her shadowbursts that struck it in the trunk, but the thing only roared and raised its upper limbs, ready to renew its assault. Only for a bolt of light to fly up from Kanako's staff to zap it between the eyes, making it stagger backwards a step.

"Great job, Kanako!" Saika shouted encouragement from nearby, and Shouko suddenly had an idea, turning and sprinting towards the pale-haired archer, flipping one dagger into a reverse grip and jamming them together to form a bow of her own.

"Saika! I've got an idea!" she said, skidding to a halt beside Saika, feeling her face heat a little as she turned one of her bubbly, wide-eyed smiles on her. "Let's both go for its mouth the next time it roars," she said, hefting the crackling bow.

"Okay!" Saika agreed, and set herself to draw another of her gleaming magic arrows. Shouko drew her bow as well so that the pair mirrored one another, and narrowed her eyes as she tried to concentrate.

It was like Shizuka had said - she could feel Saika's presence, like a tiny little star beside her radiating light and warmth. Shouko tried to breathe calmly, tried to sync herself to the pulse of Saika's heartbeat, tried to...tried to open up as she felt Saika's energy lap at the edges of her concentration, tried to picture them as one-

The two loosed their arrows within a half-second of one another, Saika's golden and gleaming, Shouko's fiery, and together they thunked into the tree-creature's mouth, prompting a grinding snarl of rage. "What a shot! Great idea, Shouko!" Saika praised. Shouko nodded mechanically. It had been a great shot, but it hadn't been what she'd been hoping for. Oh well, they'd staggered the big jerk. Now they could press the attack.

That was when Erika roared and hefted her greatsword, the length of which had lit up with a golden flame. As Shouko watched, wisps of energy connected the blade to Kanako's staff. Then, with a heave of raw upper-body strength, Erika brought the sword around and chopped into the tree-creature's trunk, hewing deep into the wood. The wound seemingly exploded in a blaze of light and, with a final cry of indignation, the thing toppled to the ground, smashing several smaller trees and nearly knocking Miyumi to the ground with a flailing limb.

Saika cheered, and Shouko hefted her bow in salute as she raised her voice alongside that of her girlfriend's, but she was unusually quiet as the group walked back towards the hiking trail, debating what the newsfeeds would blame the 'localized forest fire' on in the morning.

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

"Well..." Kanako temporized in her sweet voice, using a small fan to waft air over the piping hot tea. "I suppose it's simply that I trust Erika implicitly. She knows that I would always be there for her no matter what, and I know that she'll stand by me in the same way."

Shouko leaned back against the low-backed chair, looking more at her own tea than across the table. "Is it really like that?" she said quietly. "Do you really get good enough that you can just...do something and she already knows what you're going to do?"

"Well, not always!" Kana said, smiling gently. "Nobody's perfect, but sometimes we do get moments like that. When that happens it almost feels like you can fly. That's what intimacy is like...when you can feel totally vulnerable with someone, but also feel totally safe."

"Vulnerable," Shouko echoed softly, looking down into the ripples of her tea.

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

The wooden sword clacked hard against Shouko's wakizashi as Shizuka pressed her attack. The two shortblades were a fair approximation of the reach Shouko's daggers possessed, but they always felt slightly...wrong. With her daggers, everything felt right - like she'd been born to hold them. Like she had been born holding them, and only in the last two months had she figured out they were there.

Still, Shizuka had nixed the idea of training with their real weapons until Shouko had improved a bit, and she was getting better. When they'd started, Shizuka had slapped her guard around like she was bored and sent her home limping, black and blue. Now she was getting to the point that the junior shrine maiden had to work to get past her defenses, and she'd actually driven the wind out of her the other week.

Whap.

Shizuka punished the lapse in concentration with a good smack to the calf, and Shouko jumped back, hopping and narrowly avoiding a curse.

"Perhaps that is enough for today," Shizuka commented, sliding the practice blade into her belt. It was true they had been at it for awhile - the sun was getting low in the western sky, the clouds changing colors. From the elevated stones of the shrine, one could see most of Hitachinaka bathed in the soft glow.

Shouko collapsed by her gymbag and started sucking down a water bottle, licking her lips when she broke to breathe. "Hey Shizuka, can I ask you something?"

"You may," the shrine maiden responded as she knelt nearby.

"When you and Miyumi did the thing, how did you know it would work?"

Shizuka blinked. "Did the...you mean the combination attack?"

"Yeah."

"I had to know that it would work, because the alternative was to be defeated," Shizuka replied, as if the matter was as simple as that.

"So...what, faith?" Shouko asked, rubbing a bit of sweat out of one magenta eye.

"You might explain it as such, yes," Shizuka said with a nod.

"Huh. Kanako thought it was about trust," Shouko said, her voice quiet.

"There is an element of that as well."

Shouko Kogawa pun her tongue between her lips and blew a raspberry, ignoring the look of annoyance Shizuka shot her way. "Why does everything have to be so complicated? Trust and faith and this and that, can't we just want to blow something up really good?"

Shizuka turned her head to glower at her from beneath her blunt-cut bangs. "If you have no faith in your fellow hunters, if you have no trust in the people with whom you share in danger and in joy alike, your connection with them will always be a hollow one."

Shouko turned her head to glower back. "Reality check me real quick," she said, "but you do know how funny that is coming from you of all people."

Shizuka turned her head to face forward once more and closed her crimson eyes. "I am content with the choices I have made in life. My faith in myself is secure. Yours is not."

Shouko glared for another moment before rifling through her bag for her cigarettes, pulling one from the pack and fishing for her lighter - where was the damn thing? Aha! - and lighting the tip, breathing slowly. "So what's my issue?" she asked.

"You smoke because you feel it allows you a measure of control in your life. A form of self-harm that acts as a barrier against the harm caused by others. You present the public face of a devil-may-care renegade because it is a persona that convinces others you live a life of glamour and danger. It makes you seem older than you look, and presents the appearance of a person who is unencumbered by fear or doubt. You keep others at arms' reach because to do otherwise would be to risk admitting that your persona is but a mask, and you fear that your true self would never measure up to the expectations of your peers."

Shouko stared at the shrine maiden until she felt the cigarette starting to slip from her lips, and hastened to grab it between thumb and forefinger. "What the hell are you, a larval psych major?" she asked. Shizuka responded with one of her rare and faint smiles. "I mean...okay, maybe I kinda put on a face, but doesn't everyone, really?" she asked.

"To some degree, yes," Shizuka agreed. Shouko was quiet for a moment and soon enough the dark-haired girl began to rise. "I am going to the shrine to pray before dinner," she said. "If you want, you may join me for a few minutes. Perhaps a bit of time to experience tranquility will do your efforts some good."

Shouko looked up at her, and the corners of her mouth trembled slightly. Before Shizuka could retract the offer, she snubbed the cigarette on the stones and rose. "I guess it can't do any harm," she agreed.

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

Shizuka was so still Shouko almost swore she wasn't breathing. Head bowed, eyes closed, she was like a statue. For her part, Shouko tried to mimic her stillness, and did her best not to fidget as she knelt and breathed slowly. She'd decided to give it a good ten minutes, but by the time five had passed she was struggling to maintain her composure. Shouko wasn't used to sitting still, unless it was at her battlestation.

She still felt a little uncomfortable with Shizuka's casual deconstruction. It wasn't really fair, even if she'd been a little close to the mark. Not everybody was so chill that they could just be whatever with whoever. Shizuka was an edgelord, but she was a weirdly super-secure edgelord who could just sit herself down on the edge and-

With a fluid movement and hardly more sound than the rusle of her long skirts over the stones, Shizuka rose, grasping at her practice blade. "Something's here," she said.

Shouko blinked and jolted to her feet. "Twilights?"

"Something," Shizuka repeated, turning towards the entrance to the shrine. Shouko blinked and hastened after her, zipping up her motorcycle jacket and hurrying to put her sneakers on. In the court beyond, Shizuka bent to retrieve her sword, exchanging the wooden blade with the very real katana and belting it at her side.

A figure was dancing just inside the entrance of the shrine.

At a casual glance it looked like a feminine figure in long white robes, the hems a bright red. She wore a mask, equally white with garish stripes of red running vertically across its face as if it had cried tears of blood. For her part, Shizuka slowed as the pair approached and held out a warning hand to Shouko. "Who are you?" she asked sharply of the figure.

The thing slowed and stopped, facing them, and as it raised its arms Shouko realized it wasn't dressed in robes at all, but rather it was a creature of diaphanous wings and fronds, tipped with razor-sharp talons, and as a mouthful of sharp teeth flashed in the early-evening starlight, she realized that the creature wore no mask at all, but rather the deathly white and bright scarlet were in fact its face.

"Onryo!" Shizuka exclaimed, and the thing shivered and screamed, spinning as if returning to its ballet only for a series of lights to flash from its wings, flying from it like seeds from a dandelion to sprout as they touched the stone and began to grow, looking like smaller versions of their creator.

"Should we call the others?" Shouko asked, already knowing the answer as she closed her hands and her daggers snapped to life.

"No time," Shizuka confirmed, and ran at the nearest growing creature and cut it down with one of her trademark flashes of the katana. Shouko dove in the opposite direction, her daggers flashing at a pair of the growing things as she passed to strike down a third. That left...uh, about eleven? Yikes.

Shizuka faced the onryo itself and made a throwing motion, and ebon chains sprung up from the air as she cast them towards the vengeful spirit, but as they closed around its neck and limbs, the diaphanous wings suddenly narrowed, and the creature's head retracted as, with an impossibly fluid motion it escaped its would-be captor. Shizuka grit her teeth and charged, but her katana cut only air as the onryo flew up into the air with another shocking burst of speed and agility. As it rose into the air it spun, depositing another round of its spawn onto the stones below.

Shouko, meanwhile, was getting mobbed by the smaller creatures, and had to hastily duck, roll, and tumble across the courtyard, lashing out with her daggers every time she had a chance. "Shizuka, can't you call your folks?" she yelped, narrowly missing a taloned limb.

"I cannot rely upon my parents to aid me in every situation," Shizuka replied, deadpan.

Shouko felt a burst of indignation. It wasn't like they were dealing with some lost tourist! And it wasn't like Shouko ran home to mother for her problems - for one thing it wasn't like her mother was ever home, jetting to and fro to put out whatever fire had lit off at her company's hotels in some foreign city, while her father lived literally on the other side of the planet. What, did Shizuka think she had issues just because she was bored? It wasn't fair. Nothing was ever fair, she thought caustically, stabbing one of the smaller creatures down even as the others mobbed her. It really was a load of bullshit.

Shizuka waved a hand and several of minor spirits crumpled, dissolving into glowing lights that flitted across the space to be absorbed beneath her skin. High above, the onryo itself continued to cavort and twirl in the sky, readying another round of its spawn. Spinning on the balls of her feet the junior shrine maiden saw Shouko all but vanish beneath a swarm of the things, and her eyes hardened as she held out a hand, fingers splayed as if in entreaty.

Somehow, beneath the sounds of the fight and the snarls of the savage little things, Shouko heard her.

"It is not wrong to be angry. Stop it festering within you. Let it out. Trust in me to help you direct it."

Shouko snarled. She could feel Shizuka's presence grasping at her, seeking entry.

"Trust in me."

She couldn't. She couldn't.

"Let. It. Out."

Alright then.

From beneath a veritable heap of grasping talons, Shouko roared and a sudden explosion of fiery blades erupted outwards, scattering the little creatures in a heap of shredded wings and bodies. From her back spouted and arched a massive wing, black feathers seemingly crafted of pure shadow, and a moment later a second joined it as she straightened. Shouko looked upwards and her wings flexed, once.

Then she was gone.

Or at least, that was how it appeared to the naked eye, as she suddenly shot upwards with a crack of her wings, daggers leaving a trail of fire in the sky as she closed the distance between the ground and the onryo where it danced in midair, and her blades lashed out to carve into ethereal flesh, provoking a scream as the intruding spirit flailed back with the talons on its wings.

Below, Shizuka set her blade to the remnants of the creature's spawn and went to work.

The onyro flitted to and fro, and Shouko twirled in midair to match it, dagger for talon. The onryo became a engulfed in flame, like a moth that had finally dared fly too close to the torch, and the figure of the dark angel hunted it across the sky. The spirit's speed was no longer a safehold as the two spun and tumbled through the sky, and with a final dive, Shouko drove her daggers into the creature's midsection. Feeling the heat of her flames on her own face, the young hunter pressed her dive, pushing the onryo back towards the ground until its back struck the court stones. Shouko pulled up at the last moment as she slammed the evil spirit down and stood triumphant, watching as it slowly burned to little more than ash driven on the wind. The feathers fell from her wings, slowly at first and then with increasing speed as the unity of purpose between the two young women faded.

She felt a hand at her shoulder and turned to see Shizuka standing there, scratched and bleeding, but nevertheless with one of her small smiles on her face. "That was well done. You are-"

The next sound she made was a hurk as Shouko's daggers tumbled from her hands and vanished into thin air, and she threw her arms around Shizuka's torso and squeezed. Her red eyes went wide - a rare nonplussed moment in her life. Shouko stepped back after a moment, grinning, and covered a cough with one hand. She was actually shaking. "Sorry," she apologized. "That was a lot."

Shizuka blinked slowly. "Yes," she agreed after a moment. "I suppose it was a lot."

When Shouko finally left, gymbag thrown over one shoulder, she slipped the cigarette she'd only half-finished back between her lips and lit it with a snap of her thumb on her lighter. "Faith and trust, huh," she mused between drags as she made for her bike, glancing up at the stars. "Guess they really can make you fly."

#completely normal RPG #Shouko #kurze writes #music link may be loud #be warned

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castellankurze · 6 years ago

Text

A Completely Bizarre Halloween

I was gonna wait until Saturday to post this...but I can’t hold off anymore. A fun bit of writing based off the very very anime game run by @lordcaliginous with @starcunning, @tamsynspeaks and @mystictheurge

Extra thanks to my wonderful wife @starcunning for the sweet-ass art of my girl Shouko.

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

It was a dark and stormy night as clouds gathered over the ocean to the east of Hitachinaka. If the wind were any indication it would be raining soon. Perfect for a Halloween party.

The sun was already down and traffic was at a minimum, so the bright red motorcycle was all but alone on the road as it flashed between streetlights, its custom paintjob glinting as if it glowed as it passed beneath every pool of light, its engine thrumming as the rider gunned the throttle between turns. An intersection loomed ahead and the bike tilted heavily as the rider leaned into turn only to face a pare of glinting crimson lights. With lightning reflexes, she straightened the handlebars and swung wide, driving on the center stripe as she zipped past the slower-moving truck, popping a wheelie with the motion. There was a brief honk of the larger vehicle's horn and the rider lowered her head slightly, snorting inaudibly behind the faceplate of her helmet. Maybe it was a little reckless, but she was already late enough, dammit.

Hitachinaka wasn't nearly as dense as Tokyo - what was - but as the streets narrowed and parking spaces became vanishingly rare as she got closer to her destination amidst a block of freestanding houses. But then a flash of light off a glossy black paintjob caught her eye and she grinned, swinging into a parking space a few inches away from the bumper of a smoothly-sculpted foreign car and braking. As she turned off the bike she reached out and gave Shoji's car a fond pat. It was a nice vehicle, even if it was American. Miyumi's boyfriend had good taste.

With the bike's handlebars locked, Shouko reached up to pull off her helmet, shaking out hair that looked midnight-blue in the evening light and scratching her fingers through it as she shook her head, setting her accouterments to jangling softly. She dismounted with a smooth lift and spin of one leg before unlocking the cargo carrier she'd bolted to the bike's rear seat before leaving, stowing her helmet before taking out the last piece of her costume.

She hadn't worn any of her leathers - Shouko was confidant in her riding ability, and besides, the leather jacket would have crushed the shoulder pads of her long coat. It reached all the way down to her calves - Shouko wasn't nearly as tall as Erika, who could have made a decent half-giant in a LARP, but she was just tall enough to pull this off. Beneath it, she wore a grey shirt and black slacks that wouldn't have looked out of place on a normal day, but to which she'd added a pair of belts with a head-spinning sawtoothed print pattern and a set of pointed riding boots. A gold-painted chain was anchored to the long coat's popped collar, and Shouko pulled on the brimmed cap to complete the world-famous image of Jotaro Kujo.

Shouko Kogawa wasn't as money as some members of her high school class - who could probably have had a solid gold chain if they wanted - but she'd spent a few extra yen, and the investment was worth it, she thought as she briefly checked her look in her phone and flashed a quick V-sign. Then she locked everything up and only hesitated a little bit before leaving the bike behind. The Honda weighed in at 200kg, and parked just behind Shoji's car with everything made tamper-proof, nobody was going to make off with the thing without a serious investment, and this was a nice neighborhood anyway. She'd wash and wax the rain away tomorrow. With that she squared her shoulders and thrust her hands in her pockets, head low so that the brim of her cap covered the magenta of her eyes as she started off. The party was about three blocks away, just enough time to get into character, and she breathed slow and deep to get her heart rate down after her ride, practicing her scowl and trying not to shiver - the wind was getting really damn cold.

Thunder boomed in the distance and her shoulders hitched slightly. She'd never been scared of storms when she'd been a kid, but then, for most people overcoming their fear of storms was about learning that the thunder and lightning weren't nearly as scary as they seemed. For Shouko and a few others, things had come about the opposite way, a firsthand look into what lurked behind the storm. Nowadays, the nights seemed a little darker, the pools of light beneath each lamppost and the windows of houses more than ever like islands of safety. The thunder boomed again and Shouko chewed the inside of her lip. The air felt thick, almost hard to breathe. It felt like something was about to happen; between the bolts of thunder even the world seemed to be holding its breath, silence reigning in a world of seemingly no movement, no life but for a single man seated on a bench on the other side of the next intersection, reading a newspaper beneath one of the streetlights. Shouko increased her pace a little bit. Even just a short 'yo' would be a welcome relief from the sudden tension.

It started as she passed the last car parked before the intersection. Unseen as the girl's heels stepped past, something like liquid shadow seeped from beneath the car, joined from another elongated tendril of seemingly living oil from the car across the street. There came the quiet scratch of claws on asphalt, and the sound brought Shouko to a halt midway between one curb and the next as she watched movement suddenly appear beneath the first car parked on the opposite side.

They could have passed for dogs...if you were blind. One had seven eyes, another had four. One of them had two mouths. All of them had stubby, muscular legs. All of them were a dark, almost liquid grey, like shadows come to life. Shouko clenched her hands inside her pockets. Her right hand touched her keys, her left her pack of cigarettes. Her phone was in her coat's breast pocket, and she'd have to reach for it if she wanted to use it. Same with her prized butterfly knife, which was tucked through a loop in the pants at the small of her back - not that the knife would have come in handy against shadowbeasts like these.

She turned her head slightly, first one way, then the other. There were six of the beasts ringed around her, two in front, two behind, one to either side. She grit her teeth. Where was a car when you needed one? Some random suburbanite happening by in his sedan would give her the opening she needed, as the shadowbeasts slunk away from the headlights. The guy on the sidewalk was no use. He couldn't bring the streetlight's power with him, and one of the first things Shouko and her study group had learned the hard way was that most people couldn't see the otherworldly creatures.

But wait a second - he was actually folding up his newspaper and setting it on the bench. He was turning towards her! Maybe he was coming to see why the costumed weirdo had stopped in the middle of the street. But then as he left the light, the man's body altered radically. A handful of extra eyes sprouted in his brow and temples, his hair vanishing beneath a ridged crest, his limbs growing narrow as his nails sharpened, and his back acquired a sudden hunch as his flesh turned a dull grey-brown. An extra pair of arms sprouted from the back of his shoulders, claws like pincers arcing over his head.

All of this happened in a heartbeat and Shouko felt her blood run cold. A shadow-taken, like Takuya? Except instead of a hulking behemoth he looked more like a human spider. Maybe just some new kind of monster she hadn't seen yet. The thing stopped a few steps behind the shadowbeasts and grinned at her with a tiger's teeth. "A nice night for a walk, isn't it?" the creature spoke, its voice a hiss. Shouko didn't respond, and a bolt of lightning briefly flashed some kilometers away, making the beasts flinch and snap. "So good of you to come this way, Dauntless Heart," it went on when she said nothing. "We'd despaired of meeting one of you tonight."

That was a butt-clencher. This wasn't just some bad coincidence. They'd laid a trap. From the sound of things everyone else was safe, but that was the hitch, wasn't it? They'd only been out to catch one of them, and they had. Shouko clenched her fists and tried to think fast as the thing kept going. "You and your friends are a formidable team together, but apart... you are all but helpless," It licked its narrow lips. "There is no one to guard your flank, no one to heal your wounds here. That is how you will fall before us - one by one."

Shouko grit her teeth. Her heart was in her throat, and her eyes threatened to well up. She was just a block and a half from safety. If she screamed, would someone come out? Would they get to her in time? Could she maybe vault onto one of the cars and hop from roof to roof and get away that way? It wasn't supposed to be like this. She was supposed to go to a party at Kanako's and see her study group. Her friends. She was supposed to see Saika tonight.

You damn fool, she suddenly thought with a burst of heat. What are you gonna do, let them down? Let Saika down? You're wearing a Jotaro Kujo getup. You look like the badass everyone thinks you are. Now act like it. And like a dry woodpile catching from the flick of a lighter, the fear suddenly evaporated, replaced with sheer rage. The spider-thing was still talking and she suddenly realized it wasn't even all that good a villain speech. No way was this going to be the last thing she heard.

"...so foolish of you," it was saying, "to come alone and so late, when-"

“SHUT UP! YOU'RE SO ANNOYING!" Shouko snarled, taking a half-step forward, and had the pleasure of seeing the thing cough mid-word, eyes widening.

"H-how dare-" it tried to restart.

"You bastard," Shouko growled, reaching up to turn her cap slightly to one side. "I have a party to get to and you're out here wasting my time!" She drew her hands from her pockets and flicked her fingers, and with a sudden snap-hiss and a crackle of flame a pair of long daggers had appeared in her hands, fire dancing from the glowing blades. "So I don't have a tank? So I don't have a healer? So what! I'm the Dauntless Heart! Did you really think you and your dogs were going to take me on alone? You won't last six seconds against me!" she challenged, raising one dagger and pointing it at the spider-thing.

"You...you're a fool!" the thing snapped in reply, the shadowbeasts growling in anticipation.

"Don't believe me?" the girl said as she sucked in air and tensed her muscles. "Just watch!"

There was a blur of motion as she suddenly exploded into a lunge to her left. One of the daggers flashed in a broad arc and the shadowbeast that had stood there let out a cry of pain as a cloud of writhing smoke burst from the wound. Before a heart could beat once, the girl had reversed direction and, with a leap of impossible quickness, dispatched the beast that had stood behind her and to the right with a similar slash of one dagger.

Shouko Kagawa had the tightly-muscled build of a gymnast, a sport at which she had been the regional champion as little as a couple years back, and that had been before the awakening of her powers. With them, she moved like lightning, little more visible than the fiery flashes of her blades as she criscrossed back and forth between the hounds, striking with first one hand and then the other.

Her boots skidded on the asphalt as she came to a stop in front of the last of the creatures and drove her knife upwards in a powerful arc that sliced deeply between the thing's paired mouths. Six beasts, six strikes. The air was full of shadow and smoke as the remnants of her attackers hit the pavement, sizzling and sputtering as their shadow-given flesh began to dissolve. Shouko tilted her head first one way and then the other, feeling her neck pop a little bit. She hadn't had any time to limber up.

"Your next line will be 'but our plan was perfect!' Now you," she said as she turned to face the spider-thing once more.

It was clutching at its head with its human set of arms. "But our plan was perfect!" it lamented, then jerked as its multitude of eyes widened. "N-NANI?!"

"What happened to 'you are all but helpless'?" Shouko baited, stepping forward. "Who's the lone, foolish one now?"

It snarled and readied its claws, pincer-arms snapping forward. "No matter the beasts, then. I will cut you down myself! You dare approach me?"

"I can't stab you to death from here," she deadpanned. This clown really was making it too easy.

It hissed and leaped, moving almost as fast as she had moments ago. Shouko dodged back and to one side, striking out with one of her daggers, but the thing was too quick, and the fiery blade cut nothing but air. The pincer-arms struck at her, snapping closed with audible snick sounds, Shouko tried not to think about what one of those things would do if it closed on a wrist. It swiped with its clawed fingertips and she bolted back a few steps, trying to keep her daggers between her and the thing. With four arms, it was hard to defend against the shadow-spider's attacks.

Something tapped against the brim of her cap. A moment later there was soft patter against the metal hoods of the nearby cars. Another boom of thunder shook the air. The storm had finally arrived. Her attacker smiled once more, showing teeth. "We shall see how well those blades of fire handle themselves in the rain, shall we?"

Shouko grit her teeth. She was actually offended. "What does this look like, a Colonel Mustang getup?" she roared, and now it was her turn to bolt forward, stabbing for the thing's midsection. It jumped back, but there was a sizzle as the edge of her blade grazed its flesh. It hissed and flailed at her with its pincers, and Shouko was so busy dodging those she forgot the claws, and one hand swept up to put a neat pair of slices into her left-side brow, the force of the blow knocking her cap from her head. Shouko stumbled back as blood trickled from the wounds, sliding lazily down the curve of her eye socket and spilling over her cheek from there.

The rain was beginning to intensify, and the droplets sputtered and sizzled, turning to steam where they touched the ethereal blades. The shadow-spider lifted its hand and, predictably, licked the blood from its claws. "The first of many. Like droplets of rain, the blood shall flow from you until there is none left to give."

Shouko felt her eye instinctively closing to block out blood. This was no good. She couldn't fight with one eye closed. This had to end fast. With a twitch of her wrists she spun one of her daggers into a reverse grip and slammed the pommels together so that with a burst of flame they coalesced into a single, elongated crescent, a glimmering string appearing to link the ends of the newly-formed bow. With a quick motion, Shouko made to pinch the string between her thumb and first two fingers, drawing the bow with hardly an effort. As she did so, another glimmer took shape, that of an arrow pinched between her fingers, and a moment later she let fly. There was hardly any time to react - but the damned spider-thing did anyway, twisting its upper torso so that the flaming arrow only grazed its shoulder and flew down the street, sputtering out on the wet asphalt.

"Is that your best?" it taunted.

"Shut up! This fight is going to ruin my cosplay, you freak!" Shouko hefted the bow and, with a breath, dug deep into her reserves and began to rapidly pluck the string, an effort that wouldn't have shot an arrow ten feet with a real bow. With the ethereal weapon, however, each twang launched two or three shafts into the air, each of them leaving blazing trails in their wake as they scattered to and fro, sending the spider-thing scuttling to dodge them, under finally the girl ceased to pluck the string and it came up to its full height with a laugh of triumph, only to see that Shouko had taken one hand from the bow and was pointing towards the sky. It looked up.

A dozen glimmering shafts hung in the air above its head, ferocious orange against the black of the clouds above.

"So you can dodge an arrow," Shouko said, forcing herself to keep her voice even. "How many arrows can you dodge, I wonder?" Then she pressed her thumb to her forefinger and snapped. All of the arrows descended at once, moving with blistering speed as they struck the nonplussed shadow creature. It howled in pain, not just from the shafts that pierced its flesh but at the flames that suddenly spread across its body, accompanied by a blast of energy that rocked several of the nearby cars and threw a gout of steam into the air as the raindrops nearby evaporated.

Shouko burst through the pressure wave, her weapon once more split into its paired daggers as she lunged and struck over and over again, letting out a bark of sound to punctuate each blow that, thanks to the speed of her attacks, moulded together into a single rolling cry. As if to put the final exclamation point on the matter, the last blow struck through the shadow-spider's jaw and into the roof of its mouth, lifting it from its feet as the eldritch fires slowly dissipated to leave it a smoking husk.

"Why...?" it gurgled between its forcibly-clenched teeth. "Everything... was... perfect..."

Shouko pushed lightly and the creature slipped from her dagger to sprawl on the roadway, and with a flick of her wrist dismissed her weapons with a hiss and snap of air. "You lost for one reason," she growled as she turned and went back for her cap, bending to pick it up and gently brushing it before gingerly setting it back into place on her head, careful to avoid her injury. "Just one."

She turned and looked back at her fallen opponent, ringed by the slowly-dissolving corpses of its hounds, and raised a hand palm-up. A series of soft blue lights, like lanterns bobbing on the sea, took shape around the fallen shadow creatures and swirled around Shouko with a sound like a soft sigh, collecting in her hand. As the energy left them, the creatures' collapse accelerated until little was left of them but sooty stains on the blacktop that the rain quickly began to wash away.

"You really pissed me off," she said as the spider-thing vanished into a puff of smoke and the collected energy sank into her palm.

Despite herself, she let out a little sigh of relief as the thing disappeared. That settled the question of its true nature. If it had been human beneath that nightmare facade it would have reverted to its true face, the way Takuya had. Between that knowledge and the energy she'd absorbed, Shouko felt almost refreshed. Except for a throbbing headache where she'd been cut.

She left the intersection behind, resuming the walk to Kanako's in what was by now a steady drizzle, and as she went she fished in her pocket for one of her cigarettes, drawing it from the pack and putting the butt of it to her lips as she hunted for her lighter. Where was the damn thing? Had she left it at home? Annoyed, she twitched her fingers and one of her daggers snapped back to life, the fires crackling from the blade igniting the end of the cigarette.

"Yare yare daze," she grumbled as she dismissed the weapon once more and drew on the smoke.

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

"Kogawa! Good to see y-are you okay?" was her greeting from the vampire that opened the door as he spied the remnants of clotted blood that hadn't washed off in the rain.

"M'fine," she said with a wink and a grin. "Just gotta talk to Kana." With that she stepped inside, pinching the smoldering end of her cigarette and dunking it in what looked like an abandoned drink before tossing it out. As she walked into the main room she saw Miyumi, draped in a long white coat and a set of goggles, turning and wrinkling her nose. "Relax, it's already out," Shouko said before the Dr. Frankenstein could say anything. She wondered if Shoji was somewhere nearby done up with stitching and patchy clothes.

It was after she'd had Kanako see to her head injury and cleaned up and grabbed a drink that a sugar-sweet voice declared "Shouko, there you are!" as a head full of golden curls came bouncing up. Saika had pulled her sidelocks into a set of red ties, and an angelic wing made of cardboard covered her right shoulder to accentuate the white-knight getup she wore. The blonde wasted no time in slinking into Shouko's side, slipping her arms around Shouko's waist so that the taller girl could settle one of her own around her shoulders. "Kanako said you ran into trouble on the way here," she said, bright green eyes full of worry.

"Yeah," Shouko said with a bit of a shrug. "I got the chance to do a whole routine but I screwed up and botched one of the references. I don't think the guy noticed, though. Finished strong," she concluded with a grin.

#kurze writes #completely normal rpg #Shouko #magical girls #aw shit #is that a mother fucking JOJO reference?#yare yare daze #how many layers of weeb are you on right now #Shouko has two settings #massive badass #and massive nerd #starcunning's art

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castellankurze · 6 years ago

Note

FSF: Someone (or multiple someones?) takes a bubble bath.

fanfic for Completely Normal RPG, run by @lordcaliginous. Also tagging @mystictheurge and @tamsynspeaks as per what is now standard procedure.

Takes place sometime in the month of December.

A Completely Normal Week

Monday

The motorcycle’s engine throbbed as its rider took the final turn into the driveway and slowed to a stop. Shouko dismounted and unlocked the carport before walking the bike inside, pulling her helmet and hanging it off one of the handlebars. The interior of the carport was a disaster, with her mom’s car tucked snugly up against the left side where it had accumulated a fine layer of dust while the rest of the available area was full of tools and spare parts. Some had been left behind by her father, and Shouko had added to the motley collection over the years until the back wall of the carport was hardly accessible, but it wasn’t like they ever used the decorations stored back there.

“Hi mom, I’m home,” she announced as she stepped through the front door, tossing her keys into the nearby basket with a jingle. The Kogawa household was a snug, two-story place with a pair of bedrooms and a bathroom on the upper level with everything else downstairs, and the only response to the girl’s voice was the slow churning of the ceiling fan she’d left on last night.

Once she’d stripped off her riding leathers, Shouko settled down at the table in the family room to do her homework. This consisted of a block of time lasting no more than one solid hour, subjects broken up by use of an egg timer. Over the years she’d gotten pretty good at judging how to mostly finish any given piece of homework in the time allotted, and if she was off, well, partial credit was better than none. She answered questions as fast as she drove her bike, though with considerably more guesswork. 'You could be an A-rank student if you wanted it,’ more than one of her teachers had groused at her. Shouko had come up with any number of excuses over time, but by and large as long as she maintained a D most had learned to live and let live.

At the conclusion of her hour, Shouko packed away her school stuff and left it by the door, there to be grabbed tomorrow morning. That done, she ran upstairs to change her clothes into a set of gym shorts and a plain white shirt, stuffing her earbuds in her ears before heading off to the treadmill.

Most of Shouko’s teachers had guessed at her athletic ability, but those who dismissed the girl as a slacker would have been shocked to see the utter concentration on her face as she sprinted at top speed on her mother’s treadmill, a dumbbell clutched in each hand, stopping only for the occasional drink of water. There once was a time when she would have been soaked with sweat at the end of the workout, but an hour’s run nowadays was little more than maintenance.

When all was said and done Shouko retired to her bedroom, a cavern of rebellious rock music and video game posters from both Japan and America and a battlestation that looked like something that might have been ripped from a NASA installation. Shouko spent her stipends on two things: her bike, and her computer. Lately Saika had been a third, but both longstanding habits were things that that she’d dove into headfirst until she could take apart either and put them both back together blindfolded.

“Oh great, a Genji,” someone complained almost as soon as she’d locked her Overwatch character in. "Nice match everyone, better luck next time.“ Thirty-nine kills and two deaths later Shouko wished everyone a nice day. Quickplay was so damn stupid, and on the next match she chose Roadhog just to mix it up. Someone else whined about multiple tanks and Shouko rolled her eyes. 60% of team damage taken. It wasn’t her fault nobody else could find the point.

"I’m going back to TF2,” she growled aloud, grabbing for her pack of cigs. Of late she’d taped a warning to the front in black capital letters: TWO A DAY. Miyumi always got squirrely when she lit up and Saika always winced. Since she couldn’t avoid the former and felt bad about the latter she’d been cutting down. Given her life lately, it wasn’t like she was gonna live long enough to die of cancer.

She showered and collapsed in bed, lit by the soft red glow of her electronics.

Tuesday

The motorcycle thrummed and growled as she cut the engine and stowed it.

“Hi mom, I’m home.” The keys jingled as they landed in the basket.

An hour for homework. She finished all of it this time.

Today was arm day, and Shouko spent her workout hour doing curls and lifts while Netflix ran some anime she barely payed attention to.

“Hey Eowyn,” someone said as soon as she logged into FFXIV. "Can you craft me a thing?“

"Sure.”

Ten mintues later. "hey are you up for a Castrum Abania run"

“Patch is in like three weeks,” she said with a bit of a sigh in meatspace.

“ya but I really want that sword for glamour plate its ok if you dont wanna go”

“It’s fine I can blow it up with you.”

“thx youre the best blm”

“Hey, Eowyn.” She blinked. That last one had been a whisper instead of guild chat.

“What’s up?”

“I just wanted to say, you don’t seem yourself lately,” her guildmaster said. "Just wanted to check and make sure you’re alright.“

"Yeah I’m good. Just been super busy with all the schoolwork lately.”

“I know the feeling. Are you gonna be full-time again in January?”

Shouko frowned. "I’ll try.“

"Just take care of yourself. Game comes after real life.”

“:) I will.”

She showered and slept a little fitfully that night.

Wednesday

A series of whispers alerted her to the attention of several classmates glancing her way. "Hey, Shouko, can you…“ one of them asked with a blush, curling one arm.

With a grin, she pulled up her sleeve and flexed, to a flutter of giggles. Shouko was never gonna be as strong as Erika, but her daily regimen was having noticeable effects, like leaving her look cut as hell. She was probably down to 15% body fat by now, looking lean and mean.

"Hey, Shouko?” Saika asked at the end of the day. "Would you like to do something Saturday?“

"Sure,” she said, hefting her bike helmet and making sure Saika clipped the spare’s chinstrap in place. "What did you have in mind?“

"Nothing much, just…dinner somewhere?”

Shouko turned the ignition and revved the throttle. "Sounds great.“

After she dropped Saika off she made for the gym, where she could get the type of workout that wasn’t so easy at home. Balance beam, rings, parallel bars - it all came back as easily as breathing. Shouko could spin rings around any of the other girls there. When she wanted to, she could sprint down the balance beam and leap to the vault and from there catch herself on the rings in a split-second one-two-three move that sometimes provoked gasps from newbies.

As little as three years ago, Shouko had been doing this kind of thing pretty much daily. She wondered, sometimes, what her old teammates were up to these days. She didn’t wonder enough to come in on any day but Wednesday, thought sometimes it was extremely tempting to show up jsut to show the lot of them what she could pull off nowadays. She’d never been a Simone Biles, and probably never would be - in fact now that it crossed her mind she wondered if Simone had had an awakening of her own? - but she could have thrashed the regionals nowadays. Funny how things worked out.

She swam a few laps in the pool to cool down and showered before heading home.

"Hi mom.” Jingle.

An hour for homework.

She played a little Mortal Kombat and crushed some jackass who made fun of her tag.

Thursday

The Honda thrummed as she pulled into the drive.

“Hi mom.” Jingle.

Her phone buzzed while she was doing her homework and she didn’t bother looking up until she was done.

“Hi Shouko, they asked me to visit our office in Melbourne while I’m down here, so I’ll be hopping a plane tomorrow. I’ll be a few more days. Have my phone if you need me. Love you!” read her mom’s text.

Shouko stared at it for a minute and texted back “k lu2

Her feet slapped hard against the treadmill. She needed to replace the damn thing when nobody was looking. She was getting to the point where she really needed a higher top speed.

Her Star Wars RPG group canceled again, so instead of playing her Jedi she just spent some more time in CoD blowing holes in people while Fullmetal Alchemist played in the background.

“How are you even watching that,” someone complained in voice chat at one point.

“Listen,” she growled around a cigarette, “don’t hate because Olivier Mira Armstrong has my back.”

He responded with an insinuation that technically wasn’t wrong, but still got him blown to smithereens several times before he finally ragequit.

Shouko stayed up until almost three in the morning before she slumped into bed.

Friday

“A 99. Excellent as always, Ms. Aratani,” the teacher said as she handed out papers. Shouko could see the way Miyumi’s lip trembled as she took the proffered test like it was about to bite her hand off.

“87. Good step up, Shouko,” the teacher said when she reached her.

“Thanks,” she said as she took the paper.

“I mean it,” the woman said, leaning closer. "When you put your mind to a subject you really show your potential.“

Shouko was silent as the teacher moved on. "Thanks,” she grumbled under her breath. The paper crinkled as her hand crushed it.

“Um…excuse me, Kogawa?” the voice caught her as she was walking to her bike.

“Yo?” she said, turning with a blink of her eyes to see a semi-familiar face. One of the girls who’d been looking at her the other day.

“Do you mind if I ask you for a piece of advice?”

Shouko blinked again. "Uh?“

"It’s just…you and Saika…” The girl was blushing hard. "How did you. Um?“

Shouko couldn’t help a chuckle, and she pulled out her customary after-school cig and lit it with a snap of flame from her dagger. The girl didn’t even double-take. Normal people saw what they expected to see. Shouko didn’t even bother carrying her lighter anymore. "Look. You want my advice? Just go talk to her,” she said as she straddled her bike and pulled out her favorite wraparound shades. "Life’s too fucking short and we gotta make time with the people we got before we get left in the dust, you know what I mean?“

"Um…I guess?” the other girl said, rubbing her cheek.

“Trust me. Jump on it,” she said before she revved the throttle.

“Hi mom.” Jingle.

She did her homework so fast her handwriting looked like the fevered sprinting of a deranged chicken.

Her fingertips ached with so many push-ups.

She ended up mostly just browsing the net that night and went to bed.

Saturday

She came out of the bathroom that morning to the sound of her phone buzzing insistently.

“Saika?!” she asked sharply, heart racing.

In the little mirror on the opposite wall, she could see the way her own face dropped.

“Oh. Hi dad.”

She did the math. It was eight in Hitachinaka, which meant it was ten in Ontario. PM.

“It’s super late. You should get some sleep. The plant won’t want their engineer showing up super tired. No, not her, I haven’t seen her in months. Saika’s nice. Yeah, bike’s running great. School’s fine. Mom’s in Australia now, they called her down from Jakarta. I’m fine. Dad, I dropped gymnastics like two years ago. Yeah, tell Karen I said hi. Maybe in a year. Yeah. Bye. …love you too.”She threw the phone against the pillow and did her daily run outdoors. It was cold as hell and overcast besides, but sweatpants and a sweatshirt were all she needed with the way her heart was pumping.

She was gone two hours. When she got back she had a missed call and another text. Saika.

“Hi Shouko, I’m sorry but I don’t think I can go out tonight. I think I must have eaten something bad. x.X I feel like crap. Call me when you can.”

“Want me to bring over some soup?” she asked when the phone picked up.

“No,” said a mewling voice. "I just want to curl up under ten blankets.“

"I’m sorry,” Shouko said.

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t want to leave you hanging. Promise we’ll make it up, k?”

“You know it. Get some rest. L- …later.”

She looked at herself in the mirror.

The flame daggers hissed as they glanced off Shizuka’s katana. Shouko was fast, but the Eventide rep was more experienced and fast as hell for her own part. The open field was about the only place where the pair of them - any of the girls - could really throw down and get a workout in the most important manner. Dojo masters tended to take it bad if you blew up a wall.

“Your concentration is bad today,” Shizuka observed when they finally broke in the late afternoon.

“Yeah. Hey, Shizuka, got a question for you,” she said around the butt of a cigarette. Typical for her, Shizuka didn’t reply verbally, but only raised an eyebrow. “You ever heard of anyone who stayed friends if one went Eventide and one went Radiant?”

Shizuka glowered.

“Didn’t think so."

The Honda chugged as she parked it in one of the narrow bike-only, and she didn’t bother taking off her leathers since it wasn’t like she was going mallratting. She stopped off at the pharmacy and bought some soda, some beer, some chocolate, and some soap.

"Rough day?” the attendant asked in a sympathetic tone. She barely even glanced at Shouko’s ID.

“Uh huh,” she confirmed. In the parking lot, she slid the candy bar she’d palmed out of her jacket sleeve and munched it.

Once home, she dumped the soap in the tub and ran hot water until the foam threatened to spill over. Then she lit a cigarette and slipped in, groaning slightly as it almost scalded her. She let her phone play American synthwave until the battery ran low and the water was cold and she was prune-fingered.

She looked at the battlestation and threw herself into bed, wrapped around her spare pillow. The wind blew hard that night.

Sunday

Two hours for homework instead of one. Weekends.

There was no meeting of the study group this week and so the day was uneventful, except for one instant when she was flipping channels and there was a news report on the ongoing decommissioning of Fukushima which caused her to mash the power button. Natural disasters were not something she wanted to think about right now.

She ordered pizza and spent the evening playing Brutal Doom and listening to Rage Against the Machine.

Tomorrow was a brand new week.

#kurze writes #asked and answered #fanservice friday #Shouko #completely normal RPG #:)#starcunning

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