#also it took way to long to find a single shot of her sword design lol

[mistyjessart]

in honour of the end of season 7 (and possibly the show ;-;), amaya redraw four years after starting the show

[aonemanarmy]

Lost as he was in the throes of his own madness and the thrill of reuniting with his long lost 'mother' Sephiroth failed to notice the approach of the infantryman until it was too late. Realization only dawned upon him when Jenova's visage visibly distorted beneath a web of cracked glass. The attack was so sudden that not even the pain registered at first in Sephiroth's mind, only a strange feeling of disorientation.

It was only after the blade was twisted and wrenched free that the pain hit Sephiroth. White-hot agony shot through his body as flesh and bone were rent asunder and hot blood spurted out, covering the cracked glass and pooling on the floor beneath his feet. Except, he couldn't remain standing for long since the sword's razor-sharp blade had cleaning cut through his spinal cord, the severed nerves causing him to collapse to his knees into the spreading pool of blood.

The blow should've outright killed him were he anyone else, but somehow Sephiroth remained conscious, hands still pressed against the glass of Jenova's prison which he used to keep himself upright. Yet, despite the sheer agony that wracked his body and the way his lifeblood continued to spread beneath him, Sephiroth didn't so much as utter a single sound of pain. The only sign that the pain had registered in him at all was the way he grit his teeth and the way his fingers clenched, as if trying to find some sort of purchase against the cracked glass.

A distinct metallic taste filled Sephiroth's mouth and flowed past his lips, bright flecks of crimson painting his pale skin in a silent display of suffering. Still, it wasn't enough to get him to vocalize anything other than a low, humorless chuckle as he shifted a hand down to press against the gaping wound in his abdomen.

As horrific as the pain might've been it wasn't the worst pain he'd ever felt in his life and he'd long since steeled himself against it, and as such allowing it to have any power over him. Pain was simply the natural state of this world and if one wasn't suffering then they weren't truly living. Sephiroth had never been able to comprehend a life without pain, so this new pain was nothing different and the grievous injury he'd suffered was yet another he would bear just as he'd always done.

“M-mother...” the words parted his lips flecked with blood on shallow breath. “Let us go...together...”

Already Sephiroth could feel his wounds beginning to knit themselves back together, a unique 'gift' that had been bestowed upon him thanks to Jenova's cells. Being in close proximity to their point of origin seemed to stir them into action much swifter than it normally took for them to respond as they worked to repair the damage the infantryman had inflicted. It was thanks to that special quality he possessed that he was able to not only survive the blow that would've killed anyone else, but he also wasn't paralyzed either. It would've been considered a miracle under any other circumstance, but to Sephiroth it was part of the curse of his own existence and what made him the killing machine that Shinra had designed him to be.

Slowly Sephiroth rose back to his feet, a cascade of blood falling to the floor as he did so. He was hardly deterred though, as the man straightened and put his left hand on the hilt of the Masamune, drawing the blade with a surprising level of dexterity even after all that had happened. Then with blade in hand he slashed at Jenova's prison, shattering the glass and sending it scattering and unleashing a torrent of formaldehyde and mako onto the floor.

However, that wasn't the end of things. In a move that would seem contradictory to his earlier words and actions Sephiroth slashed with the blade again, this time removing Jenova's head from her shoulders and sending it tumbling through the air. The decapitated head never reached the floor though, for Sephiroth caught it in his right hand, his gloved fingers curling into Jenova's wet hair and holding it by his side like a morbid trophy. Only once he was reassured that his 'mother' was secured did Sephiroth turn away from the center of the room and made his way toward the door leading out of the chamber of horrors.

The young SOLDIER tumbled down the steps; though the fight was admirable, it was hardly enough to stop Sephiroth. Who could possibly stop Sephiroth? At this rate, the entire world was in danger, all by one man. Helplessness crept over the ex-Turk. Removing his hand from his wound, he saw blood once again soiling his gloved palm. All of the effort he had taken to get to this place had taken a toll on his partially healed wound, opening it anew. Cursing his weakness, Vincent watched Sephiroth ascend towards his mother once again, hearing his words of a 'Promised Land'. He had heard that phrase before... Gast, Hojo, and Lucrecia had briefly spoken of it, but he had gleaned little to nothing of what it was. Whatever it was though, it couldn't mean anything good for the innocent people who were bound to fall prey to this newly awakened monster.

Just as Vincent was about to say something, he heard another individual approach. He recognized the boy. He was the one he had seen crawling on the floor towards a flamed house. An Infantryman. What could a lowly Infantryman do in that a First Class SOLDIER could not? He feared for the boy's life, but seeing the fury in the blonde's face told Vincent this was a personal matter. The boy seethed, dragging the massive sword which had previously belonged to the other fallen SOLDIER; Betrayal evident in every movement he made. He had lost everything because of this one man. His grip on the hilt of the sword was tense, the rage flaming in his blue eyes. Even Vincent could feel it from across the way. It was a raw potent anger that even resonated with his beasts. He had never seen such fury. Suddenly, the glass cracked, creating large spider-like veins that collected at the center between Sephiroth and the glass. Blood dripped down onto the ground, creating a large pool of crimson. The boy had rammed the large sword through Sephiroth, nearly cutting him in two.

Vincent's eyes widened in horror. The boy's eyes remained hidden behind his helmet, the stab not enough to suffice his rage towards the man with silver hair. With another force, he twisted the blade within Sephiroth, fully intent on creating as much pain in Sephiroth as possible before tearing it out of his body, watching Sephiroth crumble to his knees before the alien. The pain in Vincent's chest worsened, watching Sephiroth bleed out from a wound similar to the one Sephiroth had given him. Unlike Vincent, though, the boy held nothing back.

Instinctively, Vincent wanted to come to Sephiroth's aid, but he held himself back with much effort, knowing full well the boy's actions were justified. However, Sephiroth didn't go down that easily. After having battled him in the basement, Vincent knew this wouldn't kill Sephiroth outright. He watched on with halted breath to see what Sephiroth would attempt next.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Chapter 5 of The Quiet Room (ao3 or tumblr pt 1, pt 2, pt 3, pt 4)

-

Nie Mingjue took three tries to wake up.

In all truth, he wasn’t that badly injured – if it hadn’t been for how tangled his spiritual energy already was, steeped in resentment from his wayward cultivation and burned by trying to keep a saber’s pace from within a human body, a night’s rest and some tonics would probably have been enough to put him right. But it was, and he was, and so the concern of his doctors was all the more pronounced.

The first time he woke, it was to Nie Xiaoxuan, a cantankerous old doctor who’d lost all patience with her patients years before Nie Mingjue had been conceived, looking down at him with a scowl, saying, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Go back to sleep!”

A needle had descended, leaving him not much choice about the matter – it was a good thing he was used to such rough treatment, or else he might’ve worried. Instead he found some comfort in how some things were always the same, and his Nie sect’s objectively awful bedside manner was one of them.

He slept.

He woke a second time to arguing outside his door in the middle of the night, whispers and hisses that were so loud as to be unworthy of being called lowered voices –

“– the Sect Leader deserves to know!”

“Nie-er-gongzi gave the order, and it was obeyed. There isn’t any need to disturb the Sect Leader’s recuperation over nonsense.”

“Nonsense?! Do you know what the implications will be? Nie-er-gongzi is still young, he doesn’t understand –”

“Sect Leader was once younger still. There is still sect discipline, or are you making an official challenge to his judgment? If so, you should be bothering Nie-er-gongzi, as the one who gave the order, and a council of peers that would be assembled to determine if his judgment was flawed.”

“I  - no. I won’t.”

“If there’s no challenge to the quality of Nie-er-gongzi’s judgment, then there’s no reason to talk to the Sect Leader.”

Nie Mingjue smiled, proud of his sect and of his brother – even if he didn’t know exactly what it was that Nie Huaisang had ordered that had caused such a stir – and went back to sleep.

He woke up the third time to the sounds of a guqin.

He’d always been slow to wake from an induced sleep, and this time was no different – his body was heavy, confining, and it was a long time before he managed to open his eyes. A half-shichen at least, and yet the guqin continued steadfastly onwards.

So by the time he did manage to open his eyes, the first words out of Nie Mingjue’s mouth were, “Wangji, please stop making a racket.”

The sound of the guqin paused.

Nie Mingjue turned his head to look at him. Lan Wangji looked better than he had the last time he’d seen him, in that horrible mixture of nightmare and reality that had been their flight from the Cloud Recesses and the terrible strain of flying all the way to Qinghe in a single night.  If either of them had been lesser cultivators, they wouldn’t have been able to manage it; even at their level, it was considered highly unwise, and they had known that they were spending life energy rather than spiritual qi to buy them the strength they needed.

At least it had been late enough that both children, initially excited by all the rushing around involved in their escape, had quickly lapsed back into sleep instead of descending to tears.

Still, better was a low bar. By the end of their flight, Lan Wangji had had blood soaking through his white robes, his eye locked on the horizon and unable to focus on anything nearer, his entire body wracked with occasional shudders – if he’d been anyone else, he would have been screaming.

He still look pale and bloodless, his eyes hunted and guilty and tired, stark white bandages visible beneath the pale (but not white) robes that looked like something Nie Huaisang had once owned, but he didn’t look about to expire, so Nie Mingjue would take that as a victory.

“I would have thought,” Lan Wangji said carefully, laying his hands on the guqin chords to stop the sound, “that you would prefer that it not be silent.”

“There’s silence and then there’s silence,” Nie Mingjue said, trying to shrug and abruptly realizing that that was a bad idea. His shoulders and neck and back all hurt – possibly he’d dislocated something in trying to get out of that horrible room. Probably, even. “Not wanting to be locked in a room designed to be as close to nothingness as possible doesn’t necessarily mean that I don’t want some peace and quiet once in a while…I shouldn’t have called your playing a racket. It’s very good. There was just a lot of it.”

Lan Wangji blinked, then shook his head. “I do not take offense,” he said, simply enough that Nie Mingjue believed him. “It is a surprise that you think the way you do about silence, even now. I myself have been…struggling, with the concept.”

“It’s very loud here,” Nie Mingjue said knowingly, and Lan Wangji averted his eyes. “It’s all right if you don’t like it that much, you know. Has Huaisang talked with you about the options for soundproofing?”

“He has,” Lan Wangji said. “I have not yet accepted.”

“Why not?”

“It feels –” he hesitated. “Like a step backwards. My Lan sect has always valued silence, quiet – not just valued, but imposed, even on those for whom it is not appropriate.”

Like you, he meant, or maybe he was thinking about little Lan Jingyi, the orphan he’d stolen away from his own sect – truly stolen, since unlike little Lan Sizhui Lan Wangji had no guardianship rights over him to justify taking him away.

Nie Mingjue hadn’t objected to it, figuring that it didn’t make much difference to the amount of scandal he would undoubtedly causse whether he had taken away one child or two when he convinced the Second Jade of Lan to abandon his ‘seclusion’ in favor of refuge at the Unclean Realm. Anyway, if Lan Wangji had concluded that it would be better for the child to leave, then it probably was – Nie Mingjue trusted his judgment.

Just like you trusted Lan Xichen’s?

“Each sect has a different cultivation style,” he said, deciding not to think about that right now. “With both strengths and weaknesses. My Nie sect has a martial style, aggressive and overpowering; your Lan sect, although it still follows the orthodoxy of sword cultivation, focuses on contemplation, thoughtfulness, and, yes, quiet. Who is to say which is better than the other? They’re just different.”

Lan Wangji was frowning.

“Sometimes I think Wen Mao made a mistake when he abandoned sects based on preference and style in favor of raising up his clan,” Nie Mingjue confessed. “And your ancestors and mine, too, in following his lead. Look at Huaisang – to cultivate a saber is his heritage, his birthright and his duty to our bloodline, and so he must do so despite being clearly unsuited for it.” He paused, then sighed. “Not that he’s all that suitable for anything else, either.”

Lan Wangji shot him a quelling look, disapproving, but in the sort of way that Lans had when they were amused by you.

“Still, we’re all cultivators, each of us fighting against fate,” Nie Mingjue continued. “While we must be guided by our traditions, we must also each find the path that suits us best. You’ve always enjoyed the quiet, Wangji; you welcome peace, prefer order, thrive within the confines of your sect’s rules. Finding the point at which you and your traditions part ways does not mean that you are morally obligated to give up everything about them.”

“Not even when those traditions have caused so much harm?”

“Even so,” Nie Mingjue said firmly. “We’re all on a path, and in choosing to take a new turn, you are not disregarding the past, but adding your wisdom to that of those who came before you. I made changes to my Nie sect’s cultivation style once I became sect leader, just as my father did before me; my brother will make still more when he takes the position after I go. Each of my Nie sect disciples practices the Nie sect style, but each one takes it and makes it their own. Keep what helps, discard what hurts.”

“But in this case, is it not the very same thing?” Lan Wangji asked. His brow was still furrowed, the matter clearly one of great concern to him. “I have always turned to the quiet for comfort and strength, sought seclusion to temper myself and test myself, and yet – in the absence of all noise– I found myself slowly going mad, locked away and alone. You yourself nearly died from it. What lesson can I take from this, if not that the quiet is evil?”

“You can take the lesson that too much quiet can be an evil, in the same way too much medicine can be a poison,” Nie Mingjue said. “I might hate your jingshi, since it doesn’t suit me, but I’m given to understand that it often helps, too. It brings peace to cultivators who are tormented by a mind full of thoughts they cannot quiet and helps them fight the demons in their hearts, it allows those who are too connected to the world to tear themselves away. It was built for a purpose.”

“It was,” Lan Wangji said. “A purpose it has now betrayed.”

Nie Mingjue didn’t have anything to say about that. He’d once told Lan Xichen that he thought his sect’s practice of introducing children to that place until they learned quiet whether they liked it or not was inhumane and cruel, and Lan Xichen – in a rare moment of sarcasm – had asked him if teaching them to cultivate a saber spirit that would eventually consume their minds with rage was somehow meant to be morally superior.  

To each their own faults, he supposed. Perhaps the next generation would do better.

(He found himself thinking things like that a great deal, these days. He was only in his twenties, and yet his thoughts resembled an old man’s – the feeling of death stalking his footsteps, the day nearly done, his legacy a book that seemed to be nearly completed.

That had been what had driven him to stop his sessions of Clarity with Jin Guangyao, in fact. He’d been reviewing a plan for renovating the western courtyards of the Unclean Realm as part of a long-term plan to get more air and light in there and he’d found himself thinking I probably won’t be here to see this completed, and that had been when he’d realized that it was time to start seriously planning for succession.)

“Perhaps it is the conflation of different things,” Lan Wangji mused, more to himself than anyone else. “The quiet, being alone, loneliness…and yet you can have quiet without being alone, you can be alone without being lonely, you can be lonely without quiet. A balance between disconnecting from the world and connecting with other people.”

That sounded like poetry, and Nie Mingjue could see Lan Wangji’s fingers twitch towards the guqin – he’d probably been inspired.

Nie Mingjue sighed and put his hand over his eyes. His father had told him that being an elder brother meant a life of sacrifice, and he’d been right. “All right,” he said. “Go ahead and play something. I know you want to.”

Lan Wangji was silent for a few long moments, and then his fingers began to move, the too-familiar sound of the Song of Clarity rising up to fill Nie Mingjue’s ears.

“I didn’t mean for me,” Nie Mingjue clarified, rolling his eyes while his hand was still hiding them. The Lan were always so earnest. “I’m not even meditating right now, Wangji. Don’t waste your effort.”

Lan Wangji’s fingers stilled briefly, then continued.

“Chifeng-zun –”

Nie Mingjue pulled his hand away long enough to give Lan Wangji a stern look – he’d already told him several times to refer to him more casually, and however long or short his stay at the Unclean Realm was, if they were going to endure a scandal together, he was simply going to have to adjust to their ways.

Lan Wangji looked long-suffering.

“Mingjue-xiong,” he conceded, and Nie Mingjue nodded, pleased. “Please pay close attention to my playing. Identify if there are any differences between my rendition and –”

“Wangji,” Nie Mingjue interrupted, feeling pained at the very thought. “I can’t.”

Lan Wangji frowned at him, his eyes showing distress.

Nie Mingjue felt guilty at once, and exhaled a sigh. “Wangji, you know I don’t cultivate with music,” he said. “It’s all just interminable plucking to me.”

Lan Wangji’s eyebrows shot up. “Plucking?” he echoed, and Nie Mingjue winced – he’d probably shocked poor Lan Wangji’s conscience. “Mingjue-xiong…you really don’t like music, do you?”

“Not in the slightest,” Nie Mingjue confessed. “I can more or less follow a beat or rhythm, and military calls are fine no matter what instrument is involved, but the rest is all a mess of pointless noise. I can’t tell if the notes are high or low, which ones go before the others, and apparently there are different tones in music as there are in speech? Except in music, certain of them apparently sporadically considered bad, in a variety of different and exciting ways, sometimes but not others, none of which make the slightest difference – ”

He stopped talking on account of Lan Wangji having started to make an unusual hiccupping sound.

Nie Mingjue squinted. Was Lan Wangji…laughing?

If so, he was sorely out of practice. Though now that he thought it, that seemed to make some sense.

“Forgive me,” Lan Wangji said, shoulders shaking – he’d stopped making audible noise, but he was evidently still suffering from an attack of hilarity. “You speak so well, Mingjue-xiong; I had not realized that you suffered from amusia.” He saw Nie Mingjue’s frown of confusion and clarified, “Tone-deafness.”

“I say so all the time!”

“I had incorrectly assumed, as I suspect many have, that you were using the term colloquially,” Lan Wangji said. “How do you fight alongside my brother? I have seen you do so flawlessly, without any impediment, even when he wields Liebing.”

“I can follow along with what he’s doing with his qi,” Nie Mingjue said. “We have been close for so many years, and his spiritual energy is as familiar to me as my own –”

Lan Wangji flinched.

Nie Mingjue stopped talking.

His heart was heavy in his chest, weighed down with feeling, all those things he’d been so carefully not thinking about suddenly stifling him. Lan Xichen, his childhood friend, his lover, his beloved…

He’d hurt him.

Nie Mingjue couldn’t bring himself to believe that the act had been intentional or malicious, not even when Lan Wangji’s arrival made painfully clear that Lan Xichen hadn’t even bothered to supervise him. It simply wasn’t in Lan Xichen’s nature to do such an underhanded thing –

(You once thought Meng Yao wouldn’t do that sort of thing, either. Do you make a habit of blindness?)

He had known Lan Xichen for such a long time, though. If he didn’t know him, both virtues and faults, what person existed that he could say he understood?

No, Lan Xichen must have been trying to help him, not hurt him. And yet – regardless of his intent – he had.

He had hurt him very badly.

Lan Xichen hadn’t listened to him, had ignored him, disregarded him – Nie Mingjue had been as clear as he could be about how he felt about the quiet room. Perhaps he hadn’t told Lan Xichen about his youthful attempt to see if he could handle it, at first out of simply not wanting to appear weak in front of his lover, but later out of (admittedly petty) principle: shouldn’t his ‘no’ be enough? Shouldn’t Lan Xichen have trusted him?

He hadn’t.

He’d trusted Jin Guangyao instead.

Jin Guangyao with his smiles and slippery manner, with his so-believable excuses and always-present rationalizations, always the victim in every exchange they had – Lan Xichen always went to comfort him first after they had another one of their arguments, Nie Mingjue recalled abruptly. He’d called him on it once, in his anger, but Lan Xichen had explained that he knew how strong Nie Mingjue was, how resilient, and that his “A-Yao” needed his sympathy more.

Nie Mingjue hadn’t thought much of it at the time. He was resilient, and anyway he knew how frightening his rages could be; he’d thought perhaps that Lan Xichen simply wanted the excuse to be elsewhere until he’d had a chance to calm down.

He’d rationalized a lot of things. Maybe too many. But this?

This was too much.

“Mingjue-xiong,” Lan Wangji said hesitantly. “About – about my brother…”

Nie Mingjue grimaced, and Lan Wangji felt silent once more.

Nie Mingjue’s heart cried out for his lover, the kind and gentle man who might be a little too reluctant to express himself, a little prone to going with the will of the majority to avoid confrontation, a little inclined to panic at the thought of disappointing people, but whose faults only made him the more human, the more loveable.

But Nie Mingjue had slept, and slept well, and even if his heart was still tangled, his mind was now clear.

“I have long thought,” he said carefully, painfully cognizant of the fact that Lan Wangji was Lan Xichen’s younger brother, “that fate had arranged for your brother and I to meet, and that we would live the rest of our lives intertwined, our hears and minds filled with thoughts of one another. But it seems to me now that that was perhaps – not our destiny.”

“My brother has wronged you,” Lan Wangji said solemnly.

“I still believe his intent was good,” Nie Mingjue assured him earnestly. “Your brother has – more reason than most, I think, to resent my intransigence on matters of my health, and to suspect – to suspect –”

He stopped, swallowed. He had long been (politely) termed to be a straightforward man; it was not in his character to stutter over his speech, to be unable to say the unvarnished truth no matter how painful. Even if it was his lover who was causing him such pain.

“Wangji,” he said instead, and Lan Wangji looked at him. “You know that my family – does not live long lives.”

Lan Wangji nodded.

“It is not uncommon,” he said carefully, “for those in my family to begin to show signs of decline before the end. A certain rigidity of thought –”

“You are not so far down that path that your thinking has become impaired,” Lan Wangji said abruptly, his voice unexpectedly fierce. “Moreover, your refusal was not new, but consistent with your prior thoughts, your opinion expressed repeatedly and consistently. Do not make excuses for him.”

Nie Mingjue was a little surprised, having expected Lan Wangji to defend his brother, but then he recalled the matter of those thirty-three marks marring Lan Wangji’s back. Even if Lan Wangji’s conduct had been wrong, it had been motivated by love, and at any rate the others in the Lan sect had not died – no one had died, except for Wei Wuxian, and Lan Wangji had only been able to offer his beloved the succor of his presence for a short time before he returned to submit himself to punishment.

Impulsive, hot-headed, passionate – it might not be the actions of a Lan, but, as a Nie, Nie Mingjue found his sympathies lay with Lan Wangji in this matter. Yes, he had defended a murderer from being torn apart by the hands of his victims, and Nie Mingjue would not say that he did not think it was necessary for Wei Wuxian to die, but even those that had been duly tried and sentenced to the worst capital punishment might still be allowed the mercy of a good meal and the touch of their lover’s hand before they were executed, and a bit of disobedience against one’s elders was to be expected in any love affair.  

Was fending off a few old men to buy a few shichen of love before its premature end really worth a punishment that would have crippled anyone weaker?

“Actions matter more than intent,” he agreed, wondering how he could convey his thoughts on the subject without being offensive to the Lan sect, “but that doesn’t make intent meaningless. To act from love and affection is still better than for – other reasons.”

He wasn’t sure Lan Wangji had understood his meaning: the other man only lowered his eyes.

Nie Mingjue’s mind reluctantly returned to his own troubles.

“I’ll speak with Xichen,” he decided, even though he knew it was probably a bad idea. Lan Xichen’s conduct, however it was meant, could be understood as having brought him to the very precipice of death – enough justification to start a war, given that Nie Mingjue was a sect leader. Their respective positions meant that a disagreement between them could never be simply personal, but was also political; if Nie Mingjue allowed his soft heart to convince him to forgive Lan Xichen, he would be setting a poor standard for the future. “He can explain what he was thinking. If I find his explanation unsatisfactory, I will – tell him what I told you.”

Nie Mingjue was blunt and direct, sparing no one – not even himself – but he was not so cold as to be able to cut off a relationship that already spanned the majority of his life sign unseen. He would give Lan Xichen one chance to salvage things between them, to be shocked into sobriety by the extent of how things had gotten out of hand, to genuinely apologize –

“I think,” Lan Wangji said, very slowly, eyes still locked on the floor as if there was something fascinating there, “that brother’s explanation may omit that he was distracted by his other lover.”

Nie Mingjue’s heart froze in his chest.

“Other – lover?” he said dumbly. Lan Wangji refused to look at him. “Wangji – are you saying – Xichen has..?”

Lan Xichen wouldn’t. Surely he wouldn’t.

“Lianfeng-zun has told him lies, and Brother accepted them without verification,” Lan Wangji said, and his voice was bitter. “I believe that he feared confronting you on the subject of a man he knew you disliked, and also saw an opportunity to obtain his heart’s desire – to not give up anything and yet gain something he wanted. And Lianfeng-zun is known to be skilled in anticipating people’s desires.”

Nie Mingjue stared at the ceiling in a daze, his mind whirling.

So many little things suddenly made a belated sort of sense.

The way Lan Xichen seemed so certain that all the troubles between them were only temporary, the way that he entreated Nie Mingjue to think kindly of Jin Guangyao as if there was a stronger bond between them than a lost former friendship and a new sworn brotherhood. The way Jin Guangyao acted more intimately with Nie Mingjue whenever Lan Xichen was present, only to return to a more professional remove once they were alone – he’d assumed that was because Jin Guangyao knew that Lan Xichen would protect him if Nie Mingjue got annoyed with him for such familiarities and that Nie Mingjue would not want to upset his beloved by scolding over something so minor.

But if, for instance, Jin Guangyao had told Lan Xichen that they had been lovers once, those public intimacies, and Lan Xichen’s joy in them, all suddenly took on a new flavor –

Surely Lan Xichen knew that Nie Mingjue would never have done that to him?

Skilled in anticipating people’s desires.

Nie Mingjue had noticed Lan Xichen’s fondness for Jin Guangyao from the first, back when Jin Guangyao had been only Meng Yao, and he’d known that Meng Yao had respected and even revered the beautiful, powerful, and chivalrous Zewu-jun. He’d been pleased when they’d become friends, hadn’t minded the occasional light flirtation – he’d been so certain that nothing would come of it, trusted in Lan Xichen’s morality and their love. He himself was not skilled in wordplay the way they were, nor as sensitive to the subtle changes in a conversation, preferring to stay silent rather than risk mis-stepping, a habit formed of too much responsibility and exposure to politics at too early an age. Why shouldn’t Lan Xichen get to enjoy the cut and thrust of charming, clever conversation with an expert at the art?

They had all been friends back then. Nie Mingjue had been so proud of his prized deputy, and pleased beyond measure that Lan Xichen liked him as well; Nie Mingjue had so few friends that the addition of another one was something he treasured. Even if Lan Xichen’s good sense had surely told him that such betrayal was impossible, given Nie Mingjue’s character, he might still in his reckless desires allow himself to be intoxicated by his affections and believe it for just a little while – just long enough to taste Jin Guangyao’s lips, perhaps.

That’d be enough.

Nie Mingjue knew Lan Xichen well; he knew his lover’s faults as well as he knew his virtues. If Lan Xichen had allowed himself to act foolishly for a moment, he would have panicked at the thought of coming to terms with it, and Jin Guangyao was so good at soothing his panic. Too good: where Nie Mingjue, in his harshness, had always advised revisiting mistakes and learning from them, no matter how difficult the process, Jin Guangyao would always recommend being kind to oneself, taking care of oneself, avoiding the pain that came with tackling one’s flaws and erroneous self-conceptions head-on.

Too much care for the self would eventually mean not enough care for others, Nie Mingjue had always thought, rolling his eyes whenever Jin Guangyao earnestly held forth on his views. But Lan Xichen had liked it – and why wouldn’t he? It was easier to put yourself first, to refuse to admit mistakes were mistakes, to rationalize events until you were always the victim and everyone else wrong. It meant you didn’t have to confront your own capacity for cruelty and selfishness, could conceive of yourself as always virtuous and always good and always right.

Right, rather than righteous.

Justified, rather than just.

The way Jin Guangyao always did.

Yes, Lan Xichen might allow himself to kiss Jin Guangyao, or more if Jin Guangyao pushed his advantage – which he would, Nie Mingjue had no doubt of that – and then, after the fog of lust had cleared, Lan Xichen would realize that he’d have to confess the entire thing to Nie Mingjue.

An emotional confrontation of the sort he hated most.

And then, of course, just as Lan Xichen was most upset and vulnerable, Jin Guangyao would offer him a way out – a way for Lan Xichen to continue to see himself as a good person who had done no wrong, who didn’t need confront anything – a way to get a new love alongside the old, to have Jin Guangyao’s clever speech and gentle care while not losing Nie Mingjue’s steadfast affection and support.

It was not uncommon in their times for a man to have more than one wife and entirely possible for him to love them both equally; the idea of a triad was not so strange. But Lan Xichen should have asked.

He didn’t.

He didn’t ask because some part of him knew that the answer would be no, and, just as he had with the quiet room, that was not an answer he wished to accept.

And that…that was not something that could be blamed on Jin Guangyao, as much as Nie Mingjue would prefer to do so.

That was all Lan Xichen.

Lan Xichen...how could you do this to me?

Nie Mingjue closed his eyes in pain. It felt as if all the air had been knocked out of him, like a really good punch might do - he felt hollow, weightless, disconnected, as if he had been struck by a blow that had shattered his bones and he was drifting in that blank space in the moment after the blow landed but before the pain reached his brain.

The full weight of the revelation would hit, eventually. He would feel it all, eventually.

“I see,” he said, and he did. Lan Wangji was upset over it in a way that suggested that he had only recently learned the truth. Given the speed of their travel, that meant he must have discovered it while conversing with Nie Huaisang – and that was another problem, because Nie Huaisang was their father’s son just as Nie Mingjue was, and nothing sparked their rage more than an offense against a loved one. “Thank you for telling me.”

“It is what I should do.”

Nie Mingjue nodded, his throat tight, his chest dull as if there was a knot where his heart had been - yes, he would need some time to deal with this.

“Huaisang is managing well?” he asked, not quite able to bring himself to actually ask for a little more time before he had to return to being the stern and untouchable sect leader, before he had to once again take on the mantle of power and make all the decisions – to force himself to react as a politician rather than a betrayed lover. It would be disgraceful to give into such weakness.

“He is,” Lan Wangji said. “He has given orders that you may not leave your room until the end of the week at the earliest, so as to remind the disciples of the benefit of rest following an injury.”

Nie Mingjue loved his brother.

“Very well,” he said, and decided not to ask about what Nie Huaisang might or might not have gotten into over the last day or so that had led some disciples to think they needed to disturb his rest in order to tell him. It didn’t really matter. They needed to adjust to taking Nie Huaisang’s orders as if he was sect leader in truth – especially if Nie Mingjue’s health continued to deteriorate…

He didn’t have time to think too much on that before Lan Wangji spoke again, saying, “Even if you do not understand music, you can follow the emanations of qi from an instrument, correct?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Nie Mingjue said, a little puzzled by the sudden shift in conversation but deeply relieved to have something to think about - anything, really, as long as it wasn’t the brutal feeling of his heart being torn to shreds within his chest.

“So if I were to utilize musical cultivation, you might be able to determine if I were using the same patterns as you had heard others use?”

“I suppose so,” Nie Mingjue said. It would be extremely irritating to have to pay attention to such small ebbs and flows, especially when he was also trying to meditate and draw the qi into himself for the fullest effect, but he was familiar enough with Clarity by now that he probably could if he really had to. “But why?”

“A suspicion,” Lan Wangji said. “Nie Huaisang has pointed out that Lianfeng-zun’s actions in connection to my brother are suggestive of malice against you, his actions in convincing my brother to lock you into the jingshi doubly so, and yet he comes to visit you regularly, purportedly to improve your health.”

Purportedly.

Nie Mingjue grimaced again, but this time it was with anger at himself – because the suggestion did not shock him the way the information about Lan Xichen had. Meng Yao, Meng Yao, he thought, I wish I didn’t believe this of you. I extended my trust to you twice over, and each time you have disappointed me…it’s my own fault, I suppose, for being arrogant enough to think I could change you.

“Thank you, Wangji,” he said, suddenly tired. “I understand your implication, and we will of course need to examine whether it is correct. But not today.”

“Of course,” Lan Wangji said, and stood up. “I will take my leave and go tell Nie Huaisang to move me into one of the soundproofed rooms. I require time to contemplate the subject of quiet.”

That made Nie Mingjue want to smile, though he couldn’t quite manage it, still twisted by all the revelations that had relentlessly pounded against him since he had awoken. “Good,” he said instead, turning to nod at Lan Wangji in approval. “I hope your meditation on the subject is fruitful.”

“Mm,” Lan Wangji agreed. “As you said, I must find my own path, be guided by tradition but not unduly restricted by it. But there is one point in what you said that was incorrect.”

“Oh?”

“You said that I should not, without consideration, throw out my sect’s traditions,” Lan Wangji said, and he was standing stiffly, at attention, with his face as serious as it ever got. “But at the moment, it is not my sect. You have given me permission to stay here, and I intend to do so.”

Nie Mingjue’s first thought was oh that’s going to have some serious political implications, followed immediately by I guess I did do that didn’t I and someone is going to wring my throat over this, probably Huaisang, but very shortly thereafter with if this is what he needs then so be it.

Still, he could do nothing but watch, stunned, as Lan Wangji lifted his hands to his forehead and very deliberately removed the forehead ribbon that marked him as a member of the Lan sect – the symbol of his family, the symbol of his restraint, which he would normally have never allowed another person outside his family to see him without – and, just as deliberately, wrapped it around Nie Mingjue’s wrist.

“I would ask that you keep this for me, Mingjue-xiong,” Lan Wangji said, and his tone when he said Nie Mingjue’s name was the same as when he called Lan Xichen brother. “Until such time as I decide to reclaim it as my own, or discard it forever.”

“Of course,” Nie Mingjue said, his voice a little faint from shock. “Whatever you need, Wangji.”

Lan Wangji looked at him, grateful, and saluted deeply before leaving.

Nie Mingjue lay back down on the bed and stared at his wrist for a long moment.

This is going to have some serious political implications, he thought a second time. And Lan Xichen won’t ever forgive me for stealing away his little brother.

A moment later, he shook his head at his own foolishness. Lan Xichen had made his choices.

Now he would have to pay for them.

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Aighty so “One of these days, you’re going to get seriously hurt, and I won’t be there to save you.” and “That’s a lot of blood. Please, just let me look at it…” w Ruri and anyone you'd like cus I also wanna suffer today <3

Also I'll reply rly late cus latin Is gonna be hard😭 so take yo time

The man in the black suit across the table from you grinned, his golden eyes glowing in the dark interrogation room behind his designer dark glasses. "So now you're officially one of us. Enjoy your brief stay in this life."

You breathe a sigh of relief. After days of trying, you'd finally been accepted into the Devil Clan. Maybe now you could find your way to Ruri Kazama.

A burst of gunfire sounded outside the room and the man suddenly stood up. "The hell-?"

You look in alarm and then at the Devil Clan member. "Stay in here. Stay quiet!"

The man took a large caliber pistol capable of piercing body armor and hurried out of the room.

You hear gunfire come terribly close and voices. "Check every room! Don't let a single one of them escape!"

Your heart pounds. Hydra was here! Your room was already dark and you squeeze yourself into a corner, hoping to escape notice.

The gun comes in first, its barrel pointing left and then right, straight at you. You squeeze your eyes shut, waiting for the instant oblivion, but instead you're met with intense blinding pain, like paralyzing lightning. You'd been shot, but not fatality. A scream comes from your throat. "Stop! Stop!"

A choked crying joins your desperate voice. You open your eyes and the man with the gun is struggling in mid air against a crimson blade jutting out from his chest. The man's body is flung away, hitting the opposite wall like a limp rag doll and leaving a bloody smear as it slid to the floor in a crumpled heap.

At first you think it's a woman who is walking in. Long hair hung like a curtain over an elegant female kimono. She lowered her sword and looked at you calmly. "It's you. What is a student from Cassell doing at the Devil Clan recruitment hub?"

You moan hoarsely in your own ears. Your body feels like it's on fire. Bullets carried a substantial amount of heat with them. They seared the nerves and that's what you were feeling, more than the actual holes in your body. You stuggle against the pain but it's no use.

“One of these days, you’re going to get seriously hurt, and I won’t be there to save you.”

"I am!" You manage to grunt, but even that was painful. You start to think you're going to die. Your eyes are blurring. This person turns their full body to you and you start to wonder if it's not a woman but a man dressed as one. You'd heard that Ruri Kazama was prettier than most women and often played women leads in Kabuki plays. Now you could see how much he could fool your eyes. This was Ruri Kazama, and you just now realized it after looking directly at him, after he turned to you.

His eyes suddenly reflected concern at your words and your lack of response. You're gasping now as your body fights to stay alive. You curl in on yourself, trying to keep pressure on multiple wounds.

“That’s a lot of blood. Please, just let me look at it…” He's close to you now. You don't remember him approaching. He turns you over. What a beautiful pale face, what beautiful eyes. Will they be the last thing you see? If so, it wouldn't be a bad way to go.

[kittyprincessofcats]

She-Ra S5 E05 - Save the Cat

ARE YOU READY TO HEAR MY THOUGHTS ON THE BEST SHE-RA EPISODE EVER? SO AM I!

Sorry this took so long. I was pretty nervous to talk about this episode, to be honest, because I love it so much and was scared I’d forget something or wouldn’t do it justice. Don’t know if I still need to say this at this point (since it’s been so long), but there will be spoilers for the rest of the season in this post!

- First of all, and I’ve already talked about this in my review of Stranded, but I need to say it again: Just the premise that Adora is going back to save Catra from Horde Prime really makes their story come full circle: Back in the pilot, Adora left the Horde without Catra, and Catra has been accusing her of “leaving her behind” ever since. In Catra’s mind, Adora leaving the Horde meant that Adora didn’t care about her, and it’s been a huge source of grief and bitterness for her. And now, so many seasons later, even after Catra has hurt so many people, even after she’s asked Adora not to come for her, Adora is literally walking up to Horde Prime himself (way more dangerous than Hordak’s version of the Horde) and endangering her mission and the entire world because she doesn’t want to leave Catra behind again. Because Catra means that much to her. It’s such good storytelling! If Corridors was what started Catra’s redemption, then I think Save the Cat is what redeemed Adora in Catra’s eyes (or at least, what made her understand that Adora does care about her).

- I love how determined Adora looks in that beginning shot. That’s the look of a girl about to go save her gf!

- I thought it was a bit strange that the clones didn’t notice that Adora’s talking to the others on her way to Prime, but since Prime later reveals he knows her friends are there, they probably actually did notice and just didn’t say anything.

- I wish they’d kept that scene of Glimmer having a more elaborate flashback, but I get that they just didn’t have the time for it.

- I love how Entrapta just goes *heart eyes* at the many clones. And Bow asking if they’d believe they’re the inspectors 😂 - great way to bring back that gag.

- “You would never risk the safety of your Catra.” PRIME SHIPS IT. No, seriously though - Prime says he “sees all” (and we know he’s seen Catra’s thoughts) and he said “your” Catra. This, and some other lines in this episode, made me realize it would be canon. (Also, fun fact, because I watched some bits of this show in other languages for fun: As awful as the French dub is for changing that “Kyle had a crush on Rogelio” line to “Catra had a crush on Rogelio”, in this instant they did really well: In French, Prime goes a step further and says “your precious Catra” instead of just “your Catra”.)

- The way Prime touches his clones is so creepy.

- Entrapta asking Wrong Hordak (thinking he’s Hordak) if he recognizes her made me so emotional. I wasn’t even that into Entrapdak back in s2/s3, but the way their relationship was written in season 5 really made me ship it. It’s about the PINING, the LONGING, the TRAGEDY, the way his memories of her make him overcome two mindwipes... I’m here for it!

- I always wonder if it hurts Entrapta when someone grabs her by the hair. Since her hair is magical and all that.

- “We’re not keeping him.” “But we broke him! We’re responsible for him now.” Okay, I love Wrong Hordak. I love how Bow talks about ‘keeping’ him as if he was a pet. And I also like how Entrapta immediately realizes how useful having him around could be. Also, I love that they name him “Wrong Hordak” and seriously just keep calling him that. 😂

- “I don’t fight for the first ones. I fight for my home, for myself and for my friends.” I honestly really like that the show never showed us the first ones or Adora’s birth family. Not that it would necessarily be a bad thing, but I like the message that it doesn’t really matter where she came from - Etheria is her home and what she’s fighting for and that’s enough.

- “Of course, your Catra.” He said it again!

- “She hoped you would come for her, poor thing.” Oh, the angst is real, I love it! Just thinking about Catra (who’d told Adora to stay away) eventually getting so scared that she started to wish Adora would come for her after all... I love angsty stuff like this.

- Oh, that first look of Catra with the gelled back hair and green eyes is so properly creepy.

- When Wrong Hordak complained about the ship being designed “so that it may only be navigated by one who access to the hivemind” it reminded me of Entrapta’s castle that only she can navigate. I think some people have pointed out before that Entrapta and Horde Prime are foils to each other (especially when it comes to Hordak), so that’s a really nice parallel there.

- How did Glimmer manage to open that door when she’s running from the clones? I thought only the clones could open them? Is that a mistake, or is there some canon explanation?

- “What did you do to her?” Oh, I love it when Adora’s so worried about Catra. These two and how cute they are will be the death of me.

- Oh, Prime’s so creepy when he touches Catra... I love him as a villain, but I love to hate him, you know?

- “My place is with Horde Prime, Adora. I don’t want to leave.” Can we talk about the parallel between this line, and Catra insisting back in season 1 (in Promise, I think) that she doesn’t want to leave the Horde?

- “You broke my heart.” I mean, come on! That’s gay!

- Catra and Adora’s fight is so tragic because it’s the first time they’re fighting but both genuinely don’t want to hurt each other.

- “I’m not leaving without you.” Exactly what Catra wanted to hear from Adora back in The Sword Part 2 - You know what I said in the beginning of this post about their story coming full circle?

- “I don’t wanna hurt you!” “But you have already hurt me.” This is supreme lesbian drama, and it’s so good! (I’ve been waiting so long for a show to give a lesbian romance this kind of attention!)

- Adora’s terrified expression when Catra almost lets herself fall is so painful. And the way she hugs Catra afterwards... my heart.

- Catra and Horde Prime talking together is creepy in just the right way.

- “I always hated that guy in particular.” Hell yes, Glimmer!

- “She was afraid in the end. And she suffered. Perhaps I will make her my new vessel, though she would not last me long.” Oh, the angst hurts so good, I love it! (Why do I love seeing my faves suffer?) Also, this slicked back hairstyle on Catra looks kind of amazing.

- “Why did you come back? We both know I don’t matter.” “You matter to me.” 😭😭😭😭😭😭 Yes, tell her, Adora! Tell her you care! Don’t let her talk herself down like that!

- “Come on, Catra! You’ve never listened to anyone in your life. Are you really going to start now?” I love how this is what gets through to her. I could also just quote the entire dialogue from here because everything about it is pure perfection:

Catra: “You’re such an idiot.”

Adora: [smiling and crying] “Yeah. I know.”

Catra: [laughs]

Adora: “I’m going to take you home.”

Catra: “Promise?”

Adora: “I promise.”

Catra: “Adora...”

I mean, what do I even say to that? Catra affectionately calling Adora an idiot, the callback to Promise, how Adora doesn’t hesitate to say “I promise”, how Catra breaks free of Prime’s control... it’s all so perfect. 😭

- Adora just not hesitating to jump after Catra - that’s love, holy shit!

- God, Aimee’s voice acting when Adora cradles Catra... so good. (And that’s their childhood theme playing in the background.) Didn’t Aimee (or someone else?) say on Twitter that that was intentional since your most vulnerable moments make you feel like a child again, or something like that?

- Adora’s transformation into She-Ra gives me chills every single time. Best scene in the entire show, don’t @ me (or at least second best after the kiss). The way she cradles Catra’s lifeless body, Horde Prime’s taunting words, and then she opens those glowing eyes... amazing. And what makes it even better is that this is her first proper transformation after breaking the sword. We got a tease of it in Stranded, but this is when She-Ra really comes back, and it’s her love for Catra that enables her to transform. PERFECTION.

- “You miscalculated.” Yeah, you miscalculated how gay she is.

- Entrapta whistling Darla over like a dog is amazing. 😂

- Adora carrying Catra bridal style while that epic music plays... I’m living!

- Also, side-note: Adora’s new She-Ra look is SO MUCH BETTER than the old one! She also seems a lot stronger now - look at that fancy stuff she can do with the new sword! (I like the idea that the Sword of Protection was only holding her true power back.)

- That healing scene! Adora’s healed people before, but it’s never looked this gay. And Catra waking up and saying “Hey Adora” is just so fitting.

- That hug... I’m not crying, you’re crying. They’re finally together! And Catra’s clinging to Adora so tightly! 😭 Also, she’s purring! (When I first watched this ep with my sisters, one of them literally went “Finally!” at this moment - mood.)

- Hordak finding the LUVD-Crystal and saying Entrapta’s name also gives me chills. I also just realized that he thought Entrapta was dead until this moment - holy hell!

- One more thing I love about this episode is that their plan to save Catra actually worked. Because it’s a plan that seems so stupid and risky at first, and while you’re watching you kind of expect it to go completely wrong and expect Horde Prime to catch them... and then it seems like he does, only for Adora and her friends to turn things around and succeed. I love that.

- Another thing worth pointing out is the whole symbolism of Catra’s death and rebirth and how it marks the beginning of a new chapter in her life.

So yeah, this is the best She-Ra episode ever, I rest my case. Before I watched season 5, I expected it to be gay (I even estimated the chances of Catradora becoming canon at around 70%), but I didn’t expect it to be THIS gay. This episode went beyond my wildest dreams and expectations. Horde Prime saying “your Catra” twice, that whole “You broke my heart / Prime has set me free of that pain” talk, Adora being so scared for Catra during their fight and so determined to save her, the whole “I’m going to take you home / I promise” part, Adora jumping after Catra and cradling her in her arms, her love for Catra bringing back She-Ra, the bridal carry, the healing scene, the hug, and I could go on. Noelle said on twitter that there were two versions of this episode and the gay version is what we ended up getting - AND IT SHOWS.

This is when I knew for sure that Catradora was going to be canon. Before season 5, I gave it a chance of 70%. After those little hints in the first few episodes, I said 80%. But after Save the Cat, I was 100% sure. I basically already considered it canon after this. I kept wondering how it would happen, but the "if" wasn’t a question to me anymore - so I decided to just lean back and enjoy the ride through the rest of the season :)

[Previous episode]  [Next episode]

[currentfandomkick]

Marinette did not sign up for this part 8

first part here previous part here ao3 here

update at last!

--

Marinette almost screamed when she saw the knitting needles on her balcony. It wasn’t even her birthday yet. Was he around? Taunting her?

School wasn’t helping. She kept her eyes on the windows.

It didn’t help her team was scanning the area constantly… and she was certain that Kagami somehow got out of school as she could spot Ryuuko before school even started, and her shadow had’t moved often.

Alya, Nino and Adrien weren’t leaving her side. Kim had taken to joining them (and with him, Max and Alix) with Kim determined to get Marinette to wear one of his hoodies since “you look cold.”

She knew that was code. ‘Let me help.’ She wasn’t sure this was something safe for them to help with.

“Thanks but I’m good!” was highly ineffective.

Before lunch Kim had his hoodie on her. It made it harder to find her with the change from her usual outfits once Adrien and Alix stole her hairbands.

They were doing a plain sight disguise. She knew it.

Going to Alix’s after school helped a bit with that.

She still felt eyes on her. She couldn’t tell who’s.

Alix was the one to break out the guardian translations with her dad. The Kubdels knew more than most of her team—time travel side effects after all. It was a big part of why she could trust them in the first place: Alix wanted to help and her father knew there would be a Ladybug in Paris before giving Alix the family heirloom. When Marinette saw it after studying the miraculous for a bit and asking Fu if there could be two rabbit miraculouses… it lead to Fu merging the two (from two separate timelines).

In the one Mr. Kubdel was from, a girl named Bridgette took up the role of Ladybug and was followed around by a questionable Black Cat. Mr. Kubdel’s grandfather prevented that timeline from happening—changing key events and all—but was prepared for the chances another rabbit would be needed. His son was not a good fit… (poor research, questionable retention, and overall bad at delicate work) meanwhile Alix had street art done quickly and intricately, fast reflexes, and adored learning history to the point some topics had been re-written in the curriculum for “the complete BS this hack is pushing” and “obvious refusal to stick to the facts” among other objections with heavily cited and sourced works to back up her claims. To a truly terrifying degree.

Its also why once they were out of sight, Alix and Mr. Kubdel and her escaped to one of the secret passaged kept off the current schematics for Miraculous related reasons (escape without being seen leaving) and Alix brought them into her burrow sans ���time windows’ for her peace of mind.

“What do you want us to do Ladybug?” Bunnix asked.

That was the question…

They tracked that the issue began with what let Robin identify her in the first place. The most likely culprit was the flaming akuma… if Alix went as Bunnix and helped Ladybug catch the butterfly or got it someone else, then Robin would never have identified her, and their current situation wouldn’t be happening.

She wouldn’t be hunted by the Ghosts of Gotham.

But then… her team wouldn’t exist, not as it does.

Chat wouldn’t know who she is.

She wouldn’t exist.

She… she wasn’t willing to give that up.

“We’re not undoing the past.”

Bunnix nodded, gliding around the empty space.

Mr. Kubdel opened and closed his mouth before finally offering his own suggestion. “Perhaps, we could capture them.”

Marinette ran over that option. It wasn’t bad. Not by a long shot… but the capture would deprive Gotham of its vigilantes…

“We only keep Robin, any others captured are cut loose as soon as possible and removed.”

“But Robin is the one that knows your identity,” Bunnix reminded her.

“The others probably figured it out already. But that’s not why we’re keeping him.”

Mr. Kubdel gestured for her to clue them in.

“Remember what the Aesir and Vanir did to end their dispute?”

Mr. Kubdel searched his memories until it hit him. “Ah. That.”

Marinette nodded. “Add in a game of chase, move to the home turf, and we have our plan.”

“And you’re bait?” Bunnix checked, no longer moving about as she absorbed the plan.

--

If you were a civilian in Paris, you might catch sight of what must be someone’s idea of a joke. As not only were there Big Justice Members running around with your local heroes—who up until this point had only worked with one other group (Quantics) who were Europe-based.

But seeing some guy in black with a bluebird on his chest go head to head with Rena, Miss Sting and a very pissed off Monkey King and Pegasus (since when does he get mad like that? Kid looks like he’s going to end Bluebird) was not a sight you were able to process at the moment. Wonder Woman joining the group was the cherry on top. and Carapace was moving civilians out of the way and sometimes caging them all in Shelter.

You also catch an enraged Chat Noir and Ryuuko tearing after some fashion disaster in a cape down the street. A cape for godsake. In broad daylight. Green Lantern was flying after them, and since when does Chat’s suit… move? Like, you’re pretty sure that’s not normal… at all.

Ryuuko and Fashion Disaster (FD for short) are sword fighting. Chat is attacking FD at any opening. Viperion is with them, sometimes shouting directions. Green Lantern seems to be keeping the fight from spilling over.

A check on the Miraculous News App shows pics of Fashion Disaster trying to get too close to the baker’s daughter. You know, the one that kind of slips the heroes snacks and is seen with Chat randomly at her balcony? The one you’re 30% sure he’s crushing on and in some war with Ryuuko for the heart of. Why else would the two be seen so often around it?—Akuma school is across the street.

You blink a few times when you realize that baker’s daughter is visibly scared of FD (and you’d be too if a random Mask with a sword showed up) and apparently had Bunnix with her at the time to help move faster.

That meant whatever happened in another time had to be bad…

Bunnix mentioned that in the world where she went Princess Justice there wasn’t much to stop her…

You can see why the team is a tad… okay, really overzealous. You’re pretty sure Chat tried to cataclysm FD after Ryuuko sent him flying with the air attack.

You manage to get a better view (For the People! and not to mock the villain later—no siree!) of the Bluebird fight. Dude gets taken down by a combination of things in short sucession—Monkey King landing a hit with his power, Wonder Woman’s lasso (through a portal—good on you Pegasus!) that he got pulled through, a flute to the head by Best Girl Rena, and paralyzed by your favorite striped heroine.

The take down shocked FD and Green Lantern caged the guy (teen? Kid? They look small.) and moved them over by Wonder Woman and her group, some of whom dispersed to recharge.

Never claim Bruce is not a dedicated parent. The best? He hopes not. The worst? He has met Stephanie’s parents, and he is far from them. And Cas’s. And he knows he’s not as bad as Rah’s. He is dedicated (and a serial adopters, but shhh). How does he know this?

He managed to reactivate his kid’s trackers and noted where they intersected and looked into properties, deeds, and children in the school across from the bakery Stephanie and Cass had taken to camping out in when not at their hotel rooms. So far, he narrowed down his daughter to three possible candidates—Mireille Caquet, Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Laura Pretre. The only three girls in the age range he suspects Ladybug is in (he paid attention to the early videos and crossed her references, videogames and knowledge of the teens’ involved (re: knowing their names before the class became an akuma gold mine).  They are also the only three from his candidate pool who were adopted or single mother of the right age to have caught his younger self’s attention—a few interviews of the heroes let slip that Ladybug’s parents and her team’s parents are unaware of what they do, and her vicious support for child support and adoptive parents in a few akuma instances gave credit to her belonging to one of those two groups.

It was between Marinette and Laura in his opinion—they both ran a fashion boutique online. Mireille was a model the two shared, but still a possibility.

Jason was helped him narrow it down—a consolation for being stuck in bed and not allowed on patrol for the night. Apparently he was also trying to call off the identity search in-person to prevent any accidental identity reveals and prevent further stressing of “Lady Bat”.

Bruce may have smiled at the nickname. He doubted his daughter would appreciate it, but nicknames had a strange habit of sticking if Jason gave it… for better or worse in Tim’s case. (He was glad that Replacement was replaced with Tiny Tim, Timbo and Timmy).

He also noted that the girls were intent on Gabriel Agreste being Hawkmoth… and had a strange obsession with his relationship to Mayura given their search histories. Tim was still deciding between designers, and he did note that Marinette ranked highly on there… which was both a relief and terrifying.

That meant everyone but his daughter’s “business conduct supervisor” (Adrien Agreste, only son of Gabriel Agreste, primary candidate as Hawkmoth) had been akumatized and someone she had to personally fight while they hurled who knew what at her. He doubted it was good for her mental health. (Not that he has much room to talk, but still.)

Damian and Dick were refusing to respond to his messages, and likely engaged in something.

Until Green Lantern lit up his screen with a pained look. “Bats, this is not what I meant by get your house in order.”

The view panned to Nightwing and Robin currently held by a very pissed off Wonder Woman. With Chat Noir glaring at Robin, something off with his suit.

Batman sighed deeply. “I told you those two weren’t responding since Robin returned with Red Hood last night.”

Green Lantern looked at someone off screen, clearly taking commands from them.

“Uh, yeah… We’re having Supergirl get the other three back Stateside. Miss Sting and Chat want to interrogate these two since Robin was caught around a civilian they keep an eye on.”

Batman could hear what wasn’t being said. Robin went to talk to Ladybug’s civilian identity and it blew up in his face.

“… are any of you allowed to be present to monitor the interrogation?”

He doubted the teens would get violent. (he hoped) but there were too many unknowns.

A hiss from Chat Noir ended his ‘not likely to get violent’ train of thought. His one of his sons was caught stalking their leader, who he has previously tried to kill, and another aimed a gun at a member of their team. Violence was on the table.

And he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

“Ladybug will choose who comes.”

Robin looked up at him from the background. “Permission to ask Father a question?”

There was a moment when everyone turned to the figure off screen, likely Miss Sting given Ladybug’s refusal to be in the Justice League’s presence.

Robin turned back to the screen, Hal moving closer to give him a better view of Robin. HE was largely unbruised on his face and his breathing was even. Positive indicators.

“Am I allowed to unmask?”

Batman froze. Jason looked up from his spot. He could feel Babs choking on something in shock.

Hal and Diana reacted somehow, but they weren’t in screen.

He meant to do this far later. When she adjusted. To her alone, and later let her team know. ease them into it—there was no knowing one of their identities without knowing the rest. Not with how Ladybug’s mind worked. And he doubted she kept many secrets from her team.

“…I am not opposed to it. Preferably keep it to those you trust with that knowledge alone.”

Robin nodded. “Understood Father.”

--

When Ladybug showed up, she could feel everyone’s eyes on her. She ignored it as best she could, especially the silent Nightwing and Robin… possible assassins. Sent by her biological father who never even met her. it was going to be a long plan execution (and gods, she still needed to double check on the Hawkmoth as Gabriel theory and work out how to remove him from the company without screwing over a decent chunk of the fashion industry workers from design, store front to manufacturers and suppliers. And emotional whiplash of Hawkmoth trying to kill his own son twice. And the times he tried to manipulate her into Princess Justice and have it Stick in the timeline).

All it took was one look at Pegasus. One look and she blocked all the other issues swimming in her mind.

“Ah, we’re going there then… It’s a good thing Cowboy is resting for the moment…” Pegasus shook his head. “Voyage!”

Ladybug looked them over.

“Chat, Miss Sting, Rena, and Pegasus, I need you with me. The rest of you, patrol or return to civilian life until I return. If you come across an akuma, jar them. Contact us if you need a fix only.”

Carapace nodded, looking over at Kim and Alix. “We won’t let you down.”

Ladybug nodded, her eyes narrowing at the two League members present. She was still debating contacting the ‘only in an emergency do you contact this rogue branch’ group… they were once lead by a Chat Noir candidate, or still were… she wasn’t clear on that detail. What she did know is they went by League of Shadows in the book, but it was noted they favored violent forms of destruction, and she wasn’t sure if they needed that method… didn’t want them to need it either.

But the book stated the Amazons were loyal to Ladybugs. “Wonder Woman, please ensure the Bats are out of my city before we return.”

“Of course Ladybug.”

She turned to the Green Lantern. A shakier alliance with the lanterns historically, but also known to tell the Ghosts of Gotham off, and so far he’s shown a high favor of her team’s stance over his technical ally’s. Perhaps a personal grudge, or maybe the Justice League operated more like Gabriel’s company—a chain of command, specific roles somewhat dependent on each other, and no one had to like one another…

Wonder Woman was better to ensure the Bats left.

Green Lantern was the one holding Robin in his ring. And his “Core” as the book said, was most responsive to Ladybug who didn’t hesitate to protect others and themselves at once. That they showed a level of comradery during times when the Order followed philosophies that could be linked the idea of “personal and individual impact upon others with one’s actions and choice” was the exact wording.

She hoped she was doing this right.

“Green Lantern, if you would be so kind as to come with us and bring Murder Robin? You are free to roam once we get there, but don’t try to locate where on earth we are then. It’s the one place Hawkmoth hasn’t been able to reach, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

Green Lantern and Robin both agreed readily.

Nightwing looked like he really wanted to argue. A lot.

Wonder Woman somehow kept him from speaking as they left.

Marinette could finally breath when they entered the Temple. She wasn’t able to bring back the Guardians. She could bring back their scrolls, the library, the training rooms. It also meant they were far from Paris, from Hawkmoth’s reach, and that now the real plan had to be put in action… how to keep the bats out of Paris and her secret identity a secret. (Hawkmoth could wait. She needed time to work that out, and once she was sure, once the nagging doubt and what ifs stopped plaguing her… then she’d look for that solution… maybe Adrien could inherit early or they could arrange for his father to be caught committing tax fraud or something after getting Nooroo and Duusuu? Anything to ensure he was punished for his actions and that Adrien isn’t caught in the crossfire. She can’t lose the literal other half of her soul. She just. Can’t.)

Ladybug paused when she looked over Chat. His suit was… moving. Shadows were moving on his suit. That. That can’t be good.

“Chat, bring Murder Robin somewhere he can’t find a weapon, Miss Sting, make sure no one attacks anyone in any way, am I clear?”

Miss Sting gave a curt Nod while Chat hissed, but relented easily enough.

Green Lantern put a hand on her shoulder while Pegasus ran off to the library, likely to check up on his own additions to the place… bringing it into the twenty-first century was not easy.

“Going to check-in with what’s going on with your Cat?”

Ladybug glanced at him. “He’s my partner.”

“Pretty sure that’s what a Black cat is for a Ladybug,” Green Lantern said.

Ladybug didn’t respond, moving away from him and Rena to message Alix to find out what shadows have to do with the Black Cat… and if she needs to worry about a second Atlantis event.

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

so things are happening because Mari is Smart Strategist, Protect Mari Squad is a force to be reckoned with (teen superheros love local baker daughter that gives them food and lets them hang out), Kubdels Know Their Timelines (Sort of) and Wonder Woman and Hal know better than pissing of a Ladybug while Bruce is off Suffering and Putting Shit Together.

and yeah, Damian is both the one who started this, and the one that Marinette wants to confront, (plus respects her secret ID rights unlike Certain Bats who made it a competition) so he gets First Meet rights in the way None Of Them Wanted.

anyone who wants to add to the madness, feel free to comment possible things and i'll see what sticks and doesn't.

fight scenes are Not My Best so i tried where I could (Sorry to batfam fans who wanted Dick to be Badass. he's up against Diana and four miraculous members directly PLUS carapace 'i am locking you into this space now' shelter? he's good but its Wonder Woman and five demi-god level heroes raised on adapt and overcome heroing. long battle but he was going to lose.) Damian's fight is left up to interpretation but Team-Work makes the Dream Work for this story.

@heldtogetherbysafetypins @laurcad123 @raisuke06 @chaosace@jeminiikrystal @toodaloo-kangaroo @kris-pines04 @bisha43rbs @izang

[tsuki-sennin]

Mina-san, bonne lecture~! (Tsuki recaps his feelings about Kamen Rider Saber, a personal essay.)

So, Saber... what a wild ride it's been, huh? Just a quick heads up, this is very long and rambling, and also contains spoilers for everything in Saber. It's fine if you don't wanna read all this, but I just wanted to get my thoughts out there.

TL:DR, Kamen Rider Saber's an undercooked hot mess I absolutely adore, warts and all.

Speaking as objectively as possible, it's a 6/10. Probably closer to a 5 than a 7... it's not great: All the different plot elements are cluttered and weirdly paced; character focus is disjointed and clearly biased toward certain characters, leaving great ones like Kento and Ogami, interesting ones like Kamijo and Hayato, and underdeveloped ones like Sophia and especially the Shindais in the dust; not to mention its balance of comedy and drama is off, and while both are very effective, there's a lot of mood whiplash that can take you out of the story. I also feel like a lot of the easily avoidable character conflict could've been easily resolved, even in universe, by simple conversations. Be careful Fukuda, I think Inoue might sue you if he finds out you've been biting his style and doing it worse.

Rider shows have a very frustrating tendency to drop cool form ideas and not do anything with them, and I don't think it's ever been more the case than with Saber. There's a similar argument to be made with the majority of Heisei Phase 2 after Gaim, but wow. The suits are expensive to make without just straight up recycling everything, I get that, but man, I really wanted to see more Wonder Rider forms. How come Touma got all the fun, eh? Of note are the Blades King of Arthur forms (which look amazing by the way), Espada's Jaaku Dragon forms (one of which I even drew last night), even the non-elemental random Wonder Ride Books all have awesome design elements that go tragically unused. Even if the other Swordsmen just kinda have the ones they do get to use slapped onto them, that's at least something. Touma also just straight up only uses Diago Speedy twice and never again. You have cool props guys, don't waste them like that!

Speaking of waste, Espada, goddamn. Since most of the Wonder Ride Books are Story Type and he needs one very specific Story Book to transform, he doesn't get much of... anything, really! No Wonder Rider forms like Blades, Lamp Do Cerberus being exclusive to Ganbarizing, only getting to use the Ride Gatriker like once, he even spends the second and third arcs as a completely different Rider, then once he comes back he doesn't get a King of Arthur-granted upgrade or even a Necrom Espada form. ...at least, not yet anyway. I'm holding out hope for Espada x Necrom and the eventual Saber V-Cinemas. Extra Rider stans, we will be well respected someday.

The Unreal Engine CGI used for fights in early Chapters was pretty good but wow it feels disconnected and they really drop it quick. I feel like if the animators had more freedom to use as many forms as they want, we'd have gotten a lot more mileage out of the books beyond... decoration basically. I actually really liked the CGI sequences, they felt creative and were fun to follow along with.

The soundtrack is pretty great on its own and conveys what it needs to, but they seriously overplay the orchestral themes. It honestly feels kind of... stock at times. I think my favorite parts of the score are when it winds down, since it feels a lot more natural and lets the cinematographers and actors speak for themselves.

As awesome as I think Falchion's design and the Mumeiken Kyomu are, The Phoenix Swordsman and the Book of Ruin comes up short as its own standalone thing. You'd think 30 or so minutes of non-stop action would be awesome, and it almost is? It's as good as a typical episode of the series with a higher action budget, but it kinda drags on a bit too long; and although I think Emotional Dragon looks cool, it feels a bit tacked on. Coming off of the incredible Zero-One REAL×TIME, it doesn't give you much room to breathe, which Rider films are typically great at handling. I also thought the resolution for the kid's subplot was kinda forced. He does an okay job at acting considering his age and doesn't overstay his welcome, but I really don't see how 20 minutes of violence and action is enough to convince him to be brave enough to go play with the other kids. 5/10, it's closer to a 4 than a 6 and I think that maybe Zero-One should've stood on its own if they really had to push back Kiramager Bee-Bop Dream because of the pandemic.

Alright, with all that said... As imperfect and undercooked Saber was, like Ghost I can consider it a personal favorite, 10/10. Call it a guilty pleasure if you want, but holy hell it's just the show I needed. Takuro Fukuda has a talent for creating fun, wonderful characters and utterly fascinating worldbuilding and concepts. It's a shame he doesn't utilize them fully, but hey!

The action and fight choreography are pretty top notch as usual. Lots of beautiful shot composition and set pieces, and plenty of great angles to help keep up with the extra busy action. I love watching the suit actors perform and they deserve all the respect in the world for their hard work in those hot, sweaty, and heavy costumes. Their visual design is also top notch, with lots of unique and fascinating forms and cool weapons I desperately want to play with despite being broke, all with spectacular finishers and hype jingles with the voice of Akio motherfucking Ohtsuka calling them out. A real feast for the eyes. Not a single bad suit among them, yeah I said it, fight me.

The crossover specials are soooo good too.

-I went over my feelings on the Zenkaiger crossover episodes in a separate post (good luck finding that btw), but to sum it up, they were great character moments for Zox and the Shindai siblings with lots of great screwball comedy and some good old fashioned meta humor.

-The Ghost crossovers are great little side stories all about how Daitenku Temple somehow had the Ghost Ijunroku Wonder Ride Book? I genuinely have no idea why it was there, or how Makoto had the Specter Gekikou Senki, and as far as I remember neither of their origins are explained. Did Luna or Tassel hand them off to them and told them to wait for a sword guy? And why do these generic French Revolution Gamma villains working for Danton get their asses handed to them so easily by Kanon, who literally just became a Rider? I thought that Makoto deciding to adopt all the Kanon clones into his family was both hilarious and adorable though; considering all the crap they went through, I think it was a good ending to this plot. Gimme Espada x Necrom already Toei/Bandai/Fukuda/whoever I need to yell at, give Kento things to do, I beg you.

-I haven't actually seen Super Hero Senki since it's not available for subbing yet, but apparently there's a Journey to the West plot starring the Taros and Ohma Zi-O and I want to see that so badly.

Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra? Yoohei Kawakami? A match made in heaven, that's what they are. All of their themes are absolute bangers. All of them. Almighty, Kamen Rider Saber, Sparks, Taju Rokou, all excellent and empowering pieces. Rewrite the Story, Will Save Us, and The Story Never Ends are all amazing inserts done by the cast, and it makes me wish we had even more of them to help break up the monotony of the score.

The characters are what easily make this show such a great watch though. For the most part, they have great personalities and chemistry, consistently fun and interesting scenes, well acted and... sometimes well-written development, and deeply investing personal stakes.

Narrating it all is the delightfully eccentric Tassel/Viktor, portrayed by Romanesque Ishitobi "TOBI" of the Paris-based Les Romanesques. I was utterly confused by his presence at first, wondering why there needed to be a narrator when the story would've been perfectly fine without it. He even got a special spot in the opening despite having no stake in the plot despite seeming to live in Wonderworld, who the hell is this guy? But then I thought "OH MY GOD, HE'S THE MAIN VILLAIN USING TOUMA AS THE HERO IN HIS OWN TWISTED STORY, THE BASTARD". I thought it'd be some subversion of expectations, true form, "That Was His Mistake!" shit. Trust me, it made a lot more sense in my head. I'm very happy that they didn't do that, as I grew to love having male Yuuka Kazami as my narrator, and when he was shown to be actually important by being friends with Yuri my mind was blown. And doubly so when I realized just how deeply necessary to the plot he really is.

Rintaro/Blades is up there as one of my all time favorite secondary Riders, since his curiosity is always consistently funny and adorable, his forms are all gorgeous and impressively designed, his relationships with Mei and Touma are absolutely sweet and compelling to see unfold, and his arcs about becoming willing to call out those he views as family and coming to terms with his feelings of inadequacy and both moving past and using them to strengthen himself are always great lessons to pass on to kids. ...even if they took like 10 goddamn episodes to be conveyed in what could've been 5, but hey, Takaya Yamaguchi does a stand-up job all throughout. Rider veteran Eitoku's refined, almost logical movements with the Suiseiken Nagare absolutely beautiful to see in action, and his final form having the same white and blue color scheme as Zooous's base form is an amazing touch I don't see appreciated enough.

Mei Sudo's also absolutely wonderful, serving as the perfect emotional core of the story, responsible for most of the funniest lines, sweetest character moments, and some of the most deceptively compelling drama. Asuka Kawazu brings the perfect energy for such a dynamic and well rounded character, and absolutely nails her scenes of quiet turmoil. As much as I would've loved her to become a Rider, I don't think she really needed to. She's already done so much to help, and as cool as it would've been to see her pick up a sword and fight alongside them as Espada, Calibur, or Falchion she's already endeared herself to me as one of my favorite supporting characters in the whole franchise.

I can't get enough of my homeboy Kento Fukamiya/Espada. Like Rintaro and everyone else for that matter, he also suffers from Saber's pacing issues; and like his predecessor Valkyrie from Zero-One, he doesn't get a proper upgrade aside from his Wonder Combo, instead becoming an anti-villain using a completely different powerset and shifting the Raimeiken Ikazuchi out of focus for the Ankokuken Kurayami, and I feel there's a serious missed opportunity to see him use Jaaku Dragon with Alangina. However, Ryo Aoki's performance is probably among the most easily praiseworthy in the whole cast, managing to convey both Kento's kind and knightly stoicism as Espada and his emotionally unstable despair as Calibur perfectly, in conjunction with Yuji Nakata's experienced and expressive stuntwork.

Ren Akamichi/Kenzan's a dark horse favorite for sure. I remember back when Saber was first picking up, people hated this breezy mad lad for being such a simple character at first. Overly concerned with strength? Black and white world view? Annoyingly energetic? Agh, real-feeling character flaws, I hate them, get him away from me! But then y'all came crawling back. Eiji Togashi's apparently a bit of a rookie actor, and it really shows with some stilted delivery and the way he sometimes bobs his head when giving his lines, but man he improves dramatically as the series goes on. His inexperience ironically ends up really selling his character development, and his unexpectedly beautiful relationship with Desast is special evidence of that. The Fuusouken Hayate's three modes and Satoshi Fujita putting them to excellent use through his stellar acrobatic movements are also really cool.

Why did Luna have to be a child for so long? Does Wonderworld not age whoever inherits its power? Well since Luna randomly becomes an adult in Super Hero Senki and some of the final episodes, I guess so? Miku Okamoto does a fine job for a kid actor, but she's basically done all the heavy lifting for the whole series and doesn't give Mayuu Yokota enough time to get a feel for her character as an adult. How did she choose Touma to inherit the power anyway? Does she just subconsciously decide to trust him with it upon seeing how kind and passionate about storytelling he is? Well if that's the case, why didn't Kento get at least some of that power too? He's just as important to the merchan- I mean Luna-chan, isn't he? Why did Tassel pick her over someone who isn't a literal child who'd be understandably terrified about basically becoming an embodiment of storytelling?

Sophia also kinda suffers from the same problems. Rina Chinen's voice is very pleasant to listen to, but she doesn't really do much beyond serving as a source of exposition and support. I think her dynamic with Mei's adorable, and given her kindness I can certainly understand the respect Northern Base has for her, but she doesn't really contribute a whole lot. If she could use the Kurayami and become Calibur all this time, then why didn't she take it from Kento and Yuri and do so earlier when Kento decided to go back to being Espada? I know she's not much of a fighter and as the closet thing the Sword of Logos has to a leader after Isaac's death I'd understand not wanting to put her at risk, but considering Storious is destroying the world, and she's very evidently kicking a lot of ass in the first part of the final battle even in the basic Jaaku Dragon form, I think it would've helped a lot, just sayin'. Tassel at least has the excuse of being unable to interact with the real world, but Sophia obviously didn't just be put in charge of Northern Base just because she's a pawn in Isaac's plans right?

Ryou Ogami/Buster is also a victim of the disjointed character focus. I have no problem believing he's an excellent father and fighter thanks to Yuki Ikushima and Jiro Okamoto, respectively, but he feels a bit flat and simple in comparison. His rivalry with Desast is randomly dropped, his wife doesn't even show up until the final episodes, he's kinda sidelined in terms of action a whole lot. I imagine that must've sucked for the Rider Dads out there. He does get to star in his own manga, and that was pretty good, so I guess I can't be too mad.

Tetsuo Daishinji/Slash fares better though. Hiroaki Oka, being a Kamen Rider fanboy himself, manages to make him among the most relatable characters in the series. Not only are his hyperfixation on swordsmithing and anxiety played surprisingly believably, Hirotsugu Mori letting him cut loose is extremely cathartic and hilarious, and you really feel for him when the Onjuuken Suzune becomes the first victim of Calibur!Kento's sword sealing.

Yuri/Saikou's another dark horse favorite, for me at least. "Oh great, Avalon guy's got even more merchandise to sell, I wonder what his Sword of Light is- it's himself. Well... that's different." I admit, I didn't like him at first. He felt like he was there to fill out character dynamics in the absence of both Rintaro and Kento, I thought his gimmick was too silly even if his design and jingles were bangers, I didn't particularly care for his power set. But then XSwordman came around I totally got it. He's an endearing, hard-working man trying his best to catch up on all the cool shit he missed, unafraid of experimentation, ready to throw down at a moment's notice, serving as a wonderful bit of consistent support for our heroes, a truly knightly individual, an absolute Chad. and goddamn does he make me worry. Tomohiro Ichikawa, I salute you good sir.

Even if they fall short compared to the rest of the cast, the Shindai siblings are at least cool enough to not wanna write out entirely. They kinda devolve into comic relief after they become allies, something that villainous Riders from Chase onwards are very prone to doing, and it's especially awkward in their case because I think that they kinda get off scot-free for obeying the obviously sinister and crazy Isaac for so long, as well as driving a wedge between a lot of people and threatening children in Reika's case. I think their sibling dynamic is nice though, even if Fukuda recycled it from Makoto and Kanon and has some... questionable possessive undertones as a result. It's cool how they're basically foils to Touma and Rintaro though. The dispassionate and methodical Reika/Sabela is beautifully played by Angela Mei and her moments of emotional depth are fascinating to watch. Her Rider form is a thing of beauty, and its use of literal the Eneiken Noroshi's smokescreens and Yuki Miyazawa's precise and deadly stinging strikes are a joy to watch. And while Ken Shonozaki's not given the best direction as the undercooked plate of 7-Eleven fried fish that is Ryoga/Durendal, he manages to sell him as an experienced and hardened warrior with an awkward side that's especially evident in the Zenkaiger specials. His goddamn RWBY weapon that is the Jikokuken Kaiji is absolutely sick, I'm a sucker for transforming weapons and its combination of time and water powers is really cool, especially with Yasuhiko Amai's deliberate and forceful acting in the suit.

Daichi Kamijo/the Second Calibur, for as brief as his story was, was a pretty cool starter villain. Hiroyuki Hirayama brings this poor bastard to life in a genuinely touching way. I love how as Calibur he goes full force on his creative use of Wonder Ride Books for attacks, and his debut as Jaou Dragon got my blood pumping. His end is also deeply tragic, and I really felt for him when he realized just how badly he fucked up. Hayato Fukamiya also does wonders for the backstory, and while he also doesn't get much to work with, Mitsuru Karahashi makes his regrets and love for Kento feel genuine.

Legeiel and Zooous are both very intimidating and entertaining villains. On top of being just the right balance of goofy and threatening, Kairu Takano and Koji Saikawa's stage presences are both very strong, and their mixture of camaraderie and in-fighting is extremely believable. Zooous's rivalry with Rintaro feels incredible to see through to the end, and although Legeiel doesn't get quite the same treatment, Elemental Dragon had such a cool debut that it more than makes up for it. Their final fights are also absolute spectacles. I don't think their sympathetic angle works even close to as well as it does with MetsubouJinrai or even the Gamma, but I get it, power corrupts, and you probably feel a lot of sadness and regret for things you've done when you die unless you're a right bastard.

Isaac/Master Logos/Solomon is kinda generic. As wonderful as Keisuke Soma is, he doesn't get much dimension to work with. The result of that is while he nails being as smug and punchable as possible, he feels almost... comically generic. Genta Umemori from Shinkenger was full of personality! He was also basically some guy, but he was fun, he felt connected to the rest of the cast! Meanwhile the only real time we get to see Isaac's depth is when we see him crying over his failures. I almost appreciate him being unapologetically evil though, since I've seen way too many shows where redeemed villains get off scot free for way worse things, and some where they outright demand you to sympathize with them despite them doing nothing to warrant it.

Bahato/Falchion surprises me by not just being a movie villain whose actions affect the main plot, but also being a movie villain who actually gets to appear in series as a recurring threat! ...and it's not a particularly great showing on his part, sadly. Masashi Taniguchi does a wonderful job with what he's given, but his character feels like a retread of Eternal without any of what made Katsumi Daido a compelling and frightening villain. I'd like to believe Yuri when he says that he used to be a good person and a hero to the people, but I can only hear so many anime villain monologues about the pointlessness of life and the beauty of destruction before I can never take them seriously again. ...I think that's his biggest problem, actually. I thought he was an overall uninteresting and generic villain in the movie, and the cartoon nihilist he's shown to be in series is only a small step up. He still feels like filler. If only there were a far better written and much cooler villain who takes on the Mumeiken Kyomu after his de--

Desast is probably one of the finest anti-villains I've ever seen in recent years. On top of an absolutely badass character design and the excellent combination of Kazuya Okada/Danki Sakae's suit work and Koki Uchiyama's stellar voice acting, his story being so thoroughly intertwined with Ren's makes their shared journey and bromance a borderline Shakespearean tragedy. His struggle for identity despite Storious treating him as nothing more than a failed experiment and the Sword of Logos treating him as a mere monster really gripped me, and the way he uses what little time he has left to encourage Ren into blossoming on his own is absolutely beautiful. I think his enmity with Ogami is criminally underexplored in series, considering he killed several of the previous Riders and how Ogami's in desperate need of screentime.

Then there's our main villain, Kamen Rider Storious. Robin Furuya brings an incredible amount of charisma to this character, expertly portrayed as both a sinister, manipulative bastard , and as a lonely, tragic figure that arguably makes him feel even more villainous. Speaking as a struggling writer myself, it's easy to feel stuck in the idea of "fuck it, who cares, maybe everything is predestined", but I can't imagine what it's like to know that as the truth and carry it with you for all that time. All of your grand ideas have roots from your experiences, and you're not the only one who even could have those experiences. It's easy to just fall into despair and give up trying, but would that make you happy? Sure, Storious is sadistic, he may be fulfilling his goals, he may be ungodly powerful... but it's not enough for him, is it? All of his friends are gone, one of them even at his own hand, he probably doesn't have any idea what to do after he destroys all the world's stories, Touma even reached his full power before he did, and his downfall is so predictable that even a blind person could see it. He even seems to welcome it, what's up with that? But then I realized... OH MY GOD, HE'S THE MAIN VILLAIN USING TOUMA AS THE HERO IN HIS OWN TWISTED STORY, THE BASTARD. He's so far gone, he's so desperate to stick it to the Almighty Book, he's willing to twist the archetype of the Hero's Journey so hard, it snaps in two. What I think is interesting is that he's ironically trying to chase the trend of "edgy superhero story" that became super popular in the 21st century. The Boys, Brightburn, Kamen Rider Amazons, The Sentry, No More Heroes, Magical Girl Site, even mainstream comics from DC and Marvel... Surely Storious must've seen the cruelty and tragedy these stories are filled with, but he chooses to go through with trying to force the world into this direction anyway. Did they, along with seeing the ever-popular tragedies of legendary playwrights and bleak satire of the twentieth century fuel his despair?

And yet... there's one who stands in determination against his ideals.

Our hero, Touma Kamiyama, the titular Kamen Rider portrayed by Syuichiro Naito and Kousuke Asai, he speaks to me on a personal level. There're plenty of jokes to be made about his procrastination in early chapters, his godless fashion sense, and him doing the funny run up the slope, that's all fine and dandy, but I rarely feel so connected to a character the way I did Touma. The struggle to create, find companionship, live your life, reach out to others... these're things a lot of people struggle with, and of course you see them depicted a lot in media about creators, but Saber gets to the root of what the greatest thing about storytelling really is. Giving people hope, while using the pain of the past as fuel for the future. Sure, Storious may be right about how every story has been done as far back as human civilization gets, he may even be right about how any spin or creativity humanity has is outright predestined. It should be pointless to even try, right? That's where Touma Kamiyama disagrees. He didn't spend all that time fighting and creating just to give up at the idea of predestination. His novel writing-fueled creativity in his early training, his devotion to his friends that let him surpass Kamijo as Dragonic Knight, his compassion for the Primitive Dragon that let him combine their powers to destroy Legeiel as Elemental Dragon, his resolve that let Xross Saber dethrone Solomon, and his passion for the craft of storytelling that let our heroes channel their wishes into Wonder Almighty... all stemming from the belief imparted onto him by his predecessor that "Hope lies beyond your resolution." And that you decide how your story ends. He may not be the greatest Rider to some, he may be as lame as others think he is, he may not even be my favorite, but I have no issue calling Touma Kamiyama... Kamen Rider Saber, one of the all time greatest carriers of the Kamen Rider name.

The final chapter's definitely not as great as some other Rider finales, but goddamn. Primitive Dragon consciously choosing to save Touma is so sweet and such a great emotional payoff, I loved jamming out to the opening theme while our boys lay the smackdown on Storious. Wonder Almighty's a fitting final bit to close the main series out with, if not exactly a great one. I think the cover is great, and the book's body is a lovely shade of candy apple red, but I really don't like how its pages are just the covers of the other books copy-pasted onto onto the pages, that feels lazy. Maybe if it were a panorama of all the books' characters, I'd like it a lot more as a symbol of how unified the Swordsmen are, but eh, what can you do? On a related note, does this mean all the "last episode extra final forms" of the Reiwa Era are gonna be named after their series's opening? That's a neat idea.

I felt a lot of feelings seeing all those video messages of Rider fans all across Japan talking about their favorite stories, and how their passion and fond memories help reshape the world. Mei's monologue at the ceremony about is also really touching and- IS THAT A HUMAGEAR!? :O

Y-yeah dude, it is! Wow, where have you guys been for the past 48 episodes?! Are you guys doing okay? How come you're like... the only one here? Is the technology of Hiden Intelligence only really that prevalent in that very specific metropolitan part of Japan and they're just not coming around much over here? Is it like Dragon Ball where anthropomorphic animals are just vibin' with humans while the heroes are off kicking ass? Apparently he's played by Hasegawa Keiichi, who wrote this episode and had the award ceremony named after him. ...is Hasegawa Keiichi a HumaGear in this universe then? Did he set up this award ceremony in Touma's honor? If so, why is it named after him? Did reading one of Touma's books lead to his Singularity? I know this is just a cameo, but... god, I have so many questions that probably will never be satisfactorily answered.

Overall, if I had to compare Saber to anything, it'd probably be Sam Reimi's Spider-Man trilogy. It's awkward, stupid, overwrought, undercooked, illogically written, scattershot, cheesy as fuck, and has a tendency to squander its otherwise fine execution; but the sheer passion for storytelling, sense of spectacle, deeply fascinating characters, and belief in the ideals set forth by the cast, crew, and fans are absolutely admirable. Improvements would certainly make it an overall better experience, to be sure, but there's something deeply captivating about how wonky this series is. Seeing everybody get their happy ending after all they've been through felt extremely gratifying though, and I may have to wait another for the epilogue to and then wait for Revice, but... man. I'm hella proud of our awkwardly-emoting, fashion disaster novelist and all of his heavily flawed friends for carrying the Kamen Rider name on to the future. Here's hoping Revice will keep it going.

Alright, that's everything I wanted to talk about. Sorry this was so long and ramble-y, I had a lot to say. I'll probably be liveblogging Revice as episodes of that come out, so... look forward to that, I guess. See ya.

[duhragonball]

Hellsing Liveblog  Ch.4-6

This arc is called “Sword Dancer”, and I have no idea why, since they never call Anderson’s weapons anything other than “blades”.   Are they swords?   Maybe, but you never see him dance.  

The story starts at an orphanage, where Alexander Anderson is a priest there, settling a fight between two boys.   He sounds gentle and patient at first, until he tells them that the only thing they should be fighting are demons and heathens.   That pretty much sums up the character.   His mercy and compassion are almost entirely confined to the membership of the Catholic Church.   

Then another priest shows up and informs him of all the vampire incidents going on in the U.K.  Anderson doesn’t much care, since it only means more dead Protestants, right?  Except this latest incident is happening in Northern Ireland.  

So this neatly sets up one of the major conflicts within Hellsing.  Kouta Hirano took the vampire lore from Dracula and expanded it into a sort of 20th Century Cold War thing.   Instead of a single vampire hunter using crosses and holy water, we have an entire government agency, a secret service steeped in religious imagery.    But that religion isn’t a homogeneous thing.   Christendom has splintered a few times over the centuries.   Most notably, there was the East-West Schism of 1054, which saw the Eastern Orthodox Church separated from the Roman Catholic, and the Protestant Reformation that began in 1517.

I’m not sure how much research Kouta Hirano did into this topic, because he seems to have distilled the whole thing down into two major vampire-hunting groups, the Catholic “Section XIII” also known as the “Iscariot Organization”, and the Protestant Hellsing Organization.   Hellsing only bothers with vampire stuff in the United Kingdom, while Catholic Ireland is under the protection of the Iscariots.

Presumably, the Iscariots are tasked with protecting other Catholic nations as well, and maybe other Protestant countries have their own vampire-hunting sqauds to mirror Hellsing, but this overlooks the bigger issue: Catholics and Protestant populations don’t just fit neatly inside of political borders.   There’s plenty of Catholics inside Great Britain, for example, so it’s kind of glib for Anderson to write off British casualties as “not my problem”.  

And I think Hirano recognizes this, which is how Northern Ireland ends up in this story.    All of Ireland was British territory until 1921, when it was partitioned.   Southern Ireland became an independent nation, while Northern Ireland wanted to remain in the U.K., so it did.   This has caused no small amount of conflict in the decades since, and Hirano uses it here rather effectively.    There’s a treaty between Iscariot and Hellsing, one that recognizes Northern Ireland as their territory, but Iscariot still sees a duty to protect the minority Catholic population.  

So Anderson is sent to deal with the vampire attack at Badrick (or “Patrick” depending on who’s translating, and if he runs into Hellsing, well that’s too bad for them.    Despite the treaty, Iscariot considers themselves to be the morally superior group, so they won’t back down if confronted.  

From all of this, I get the sense that the normal relations between these two groups sort of depends on the rarity of vampire attacks.    There’s a lot of unsettled issues between them, but as long as nothing happens in disputed zones like Northern Ireland, everyone sort of minds their own business. 

Anyway, it’s now August 15, and Hellsing is indeed intervening in Patrick.   I never understood why Alucard had Seras sitting outside while he fought the ghouls in this house, especially when he was just going to call her in later.  But now it makes more sense to me.    He went in expecting to kill the vampire inside, and she’s outside to shoot down anyone who tries to escape, just like in Chapter 3.   Except Al found more ghouls inside than he bargained for, and he finds this dull, so he’s calling an audible and bringing Seras in to handle them instead.  

And this marks the debut of Seras’s Hellsing uniform.    In the anime, she gets this look pretty much from the start, so it’s weird to see her wearing pants in Chapter 3.   I assume she’s wearing pants in Chapter 2, but we don’t see her lower body in that.   My head canon is that she was still wearing her old police gear up until Chapter 4, while this uniform was still being tailored.   

I have mixed feelings about the design.    My first time seeing Seras was a cosplay photo, and I dug the idea of a vampire soldier.   Once I found out Hellsing was all about weaponizing vampires, I got into it pretty quickly.   And I found out Seras started out as a police officer, and that seemed really cool.   Like Alucard would handle all the spooky blood licking stuff, and she would dust for fingerprints and use pencils to pick up guns.   The uniform implies a professional discipline, the sort of thing that would set it apart from the almost casual villainy I find in vampire shows like Buffy or what-have-you. 

But, the artwork tends to make this look ridiculous, because Hirano keeps drawing it like it’s skin-tight around the boobs.   I don’t understand why he keeps doing this, since you don’t normally see it on the other women characters in this story.    Unless the idea is to set Seras apart from the others, which I can sort of understand.    Seras is the sidekick, and to a certain extent, she’s supposed to look kind of silly.   Even in this heroic pose, there’s still something goofy about her, like she can’t quite achieve full dignity yet.   Maybe this is supposed to be like Robin wearing the short pants until 1991, but I never really cared for that creative choice either.   

So she starts going to town, and Alucard takes a lunch break while she’s at it, which is a cool moment that didn’t make it into the anime.   He reminds her that the ghouls have to be killed expediently using shots to the heart or head.   That one who fell down the steps was still moving, you see, so Al had to finish him off.

And this is where Seras first addresses Al as “Master”.  This was one of the first scenes I found when I started trying to find out more about the character.  At first, it seemed like Seras was all business, but then you get stuff like this, where she’s doing the creepy vampire bit as well.    I like the way Hellsing approaches this.    Seras is gradually adjusting to being a vampire, and she isn’t always aware of that adjustment as it happens.   It seems like combat helps her get into that zone.   Early on, Seras would seem to change into a berzerker state, then snap out of it.   Except she never snaps out of calling Alucard “Master”.  

This is the start of that hard-to-define relationship between the pair.  Remember, the Cheddar Priest said she would have free will as a vampire, but she defers to Alucard anyway.    Before, that just seemed to be a practical matter.  She recognized Alucard as a superior officer, and as a mentor figure.   But now it seems more fanatical. 

Watching the anime, I was suspicious of Alucard’s intentions, because... well why wouldn’t I be?    He’s fucking Dracular for pete’s sake.   I thought maybe he was angling for some chance to escape from Hellsing’s control, and maybe Seras was part of his plan.  Scenes like this didn’t exactly dissuade me from that notion.  Seras got some ghoul blood on her, and she finds herself compelled to eat it, and he’s looking on very excitedly.    But then she gets impaled through the neck, and that puts an end to that.

Back at headquarters, Integra gets word that the Iscariots have send Alexander Anderson to Barick, and she realizes that this could escalate into a major incident.   No one at Hellsing seems to know much about Anderson, except that he’s powerful, and if he runs into Alucard it could be a major battle.  

This page marks the first appearance of Walter C. Dornez, whom she calls for consultation.   I find it odd that Walter has already received the same report, and has already taken steps to deal with it.   Almost like he expected something like this to happen...? 🤔 🤔 🤔 🤔 

As it turns out, Anderson’s already there.   He’s the one who impales Seras with a bunch of blades/swords/bayonets/whatever, and he already killed the vampire that Alucard was sent to find.    As far as Anderson’s concerned, the only thing left to do is kill Alucard and Seras, but Al shoots him in the head before he can really get started.    But as he goes to remove the holy blades from Seras, Anderson gets back up for Round Two.

Alucard calls him a “Regenerator”, like this is a thing he’s encountered before.   Anderson’s not just a priest with blessed weapons, he’s got special powers that the Vatican gave him for the purpose of hunting vampires.  Then he stabs Alucard a bunch of times and prepares to cut off his head for good measure, until Polnareff jumps in and... no, wait, wrong story.   Yeah, Andy just chops his head off, then goes to finish off Seras.  

Except Seras got away.    Somehow she got up and lumbered off while he wasn’t looking, pulled out all the knives in her back, and then managed to double back and fetch Alucard’s head.   Trouble is, she still can’t get out of the house, because Anderson set up a mystical barrier using sheets of paper.   Boy, that’d suck if you touched a wall and it shocked you.  Seras probably won’t forget this moment....

Then Al’s head is like “Ight Imma head out,” and melts into a puddle of blood. 

The blood then arranges itself into words, which tell Seras to drink the blood, as this will make her into a “true” vampire, instead of a “servant” vampire, which I guess is what she is now.   And this is also the first time we learn Seras’ true name.   Everyone had been calling her “Police Girl” up until this point.   

Although, one might argue from this scene that this is not her original name, and perhaps it’s a brand new name Alucard invented for her, one that she has to earn by willfully drinking blood.   I’m pretty sure this was disproven by later flashbacks to Seras’ childhood, but it’s fun to think about.    Maybe we never knew her human name.   Maybe she doesn’t even remember it.

But before Seras can make that choice, Integra shows up with a couple of guards and tells Anderson to stand down.   He kills the guards, and promises to finish her off as well, but she tells him that Alucard can’t be killed with a simple decapitation.   

Also, Seras is back up.  She hasn’t consumed Al’s blood, but she does pick up a gun to defend Integra, which is pretty cool.   See?  She looks badass here, maybe because you can’t see her anime boobs in this shot.  

Anderson still likes his chances, until Alucard starts to reassemble his body.   Unlike other vampires, stabbing Al through the heart and cutting off his head aren’t enough to kill him.   This is because of... something the Hellsing family did to him over the past century.  I don’t think it gets spelled out in this story, but it’s heavily implied that the Van Hellsing from the Dracula novel defeated Dracula and then enslaved him, and his family line has been modifying him ever since to turn him into their anti-vampire weapon.    And a big part of that involves making him stronger than the typical vampire. 

So Anderson withdraws, but only because he now sees he’ll need a bigger boat.  Alucard tells Integra that Seras’s performance was “the usual”, which is funny considering how pleased he was with her before.    Also he scolds her for not drinking his blood, and calls her a coward when she asks to be addressed by her name.   One way or another, the theme here is that Seras has to earn a name.   The way she is now, Al doesn’t seem to think she needs one.

Volume 1 ends with some notes by Kouta Hirano, including the part about how Alucard and Anderson never seem to run out of weapons.   Cosmoguns? Fourth dimensional priests?   I’m beginning to think this manga about super-powered vampires may not be entirely realistic.

Since chapters 1-6 aren’t quite big enough to fill out a collected edition, Hirano also includes a backup feature called “Cross Fire”, which he produced for “a defunct comic master”.    He calls this a “springboard for Hellsing”, which isn’t hard to see, since it features the Iscariot Organization, including Enrico Maxwell, Heinkel Wolfe, and Yumiko Takagi, who show up later in Hellsing.

This short helps me understand these characters a lot better, because when I watched the anime, Wolfe and Yumiko just seemed to show up out of nowhere, with no explanation given.    I think it was assumed that you would have read the manga collections first, and would know who they were.   Anyway, they’re both nun assassins.   Heinkel dresses like a man and uses guns, while Yumiko weilds a sword, but only when he “berzerker” personality, named “Yumie” is activated.   In this story, she’s actually among the hostages that the duo were sent to protect, but Heinkel shows up and knocks her unconscious, which prompts her to wake up as Yumie and they killerize everyone.   

I’m not sure if the Cross Fire stories are considered canon or not.   The characters show up in Hellsing later, but not quite the same as before.  So maybe these are prototypes rather than the real things.  Maxwell, in particular, looks a lot like Integra here, to the point where I thought he might be a woman in this version.   But the Heinkel/Yumiko team bears a strong resemblance to Alucard and Seras working together in Chapters 4-6, so it’s not hard to see the connection. 

[mdzsgildedfate]

Gilded Fate - Chapter 5

Reincarnation AU [Chapter 5/?] Characters: Xue Yang, Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan, Lan Sizhui, Lan Jingyi, Jin Ling, Original Characters. Pairings: Xue Yang/Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen, Lan Sizhui/Lan Jingyi

After five thousand years of solitude, crossing paths with Wei Wuxian seemed like fate. It wasn’t that Song Lan was seeking him out, or that he’d even thought about the man in centuries, but the fact that it happened not long after Xiao Xingchen’s soul had finally healed. Five thousand years of carrying the remnants of his friend in a soul-trapping pouch, of traveling the world alone, of dwelling on regret. It had beaten him down.

So when Song Lan admitted to lying about burning Xingchen’s corpse in Yi City and Wuxian offered to try resurrecting him, he couldn’t help but say yes. It was a moment of weakness that only resulted in more hurt. After Xingchen was brought back, Wuxian seemed confident that his strange behavior was just a result of having been dead and shattered for so long, and that he’d return to normal with time.

In a way, it was true. It only took a few months for Xingchen to stop trying to pull Song Lan’s eyes out of his head at random times. He was thankful for that at least, but having his friend back wasn’t what he’d expected. Xiao Xingchen was distant, staying in his room alone for weeks at a time, frequently wandering away from the temple on his own, and, no matter what Song Lan did, never spoke a word. It was like living with a ghost.

Three hundred years passed this way. Song Lan tended to Xingchen- brought him tea, washed his clothes, gave him as much space as he could bare- and in turn, Xingchen ignored his presence. He was starting to think that was just the way their lives were, until he returned home from a night-hunt to an empty temple. At first, it didn’t seem unusual. Xingchen would sometimes disappear for a few days before coming back with no explanation as to where he was.

But days passed and he didn’t return. When weeks passed, Song Lan had to go looking for him. Thankfully, being two of the only fierce corpses left in the world, locating each other wasn’t terribly difficult. Xingchen’s yin energy lingered in the air, leaving a trail to follow. A trail that led to where Yi City used to be. By now, the buildings had been torn down, or fell down on their own, and the entire area had been reclaimed by nature.

“Xiao Xingchen…”

“...”

“Why would you come back here?”

Xingchen turned around slowly, meeting Song Lan’s gaze. His blank expression revealed no hint as to what he was thinking.

“What do you expect to find here? There’s nothing left.”

Xingchen looked away for a moment, thoughtful eyes slowly scanning the wooded area before reaching a hand into one of his sleeves and pulling something out. He looked back up at Song Lan again and held the object out for him to see. In the palm of his hand was a flat hair ornament made of gold, shaped into a sharp design. Song Lan looked at it in disbelief.

“Is that actually his?”

Xingchen nodded.

“How did you find that?”

He closed his hand around it and turned away.

Song Lan approached him, hesitantly placing a hand on Xingchen’s shoulder. “He’s dead. He’s not going to hurt you anymore.”

Xingchen frowned and shrugged Song Lan’s hand off. Shaking his head, he started to walk away. Song Lan tried to follow, but Xingchen turned back immediately, putting his hand against Song Lan’s chest and then pointed to the ground. Feeling hurt, but knowing there was no point in following Xingchen if he didn’t want him around, Song Lan nodded solemnly and went back to the temple alone. Ten years passed without a word from the other man.

When he returned at last, Xingchen walked straight past Song Lan with JiangZai strapped to his back. Resentful energy boiled over and the two clashed blades, nearly destroying half the temple in the process. Xingchen refused to concede and wouldn’t let the other man lay a finger on JiangZai. In the end, there was nothing Song Lan could do. Xingchen kept the sword and Song Lan went back to pretending he wasn’t bothered by his companion’s silence.

After that, Xingchen’s weird behavior slowly subsided. He seemed content with having found the sword and never pressed the issue further. Although it seemed like Xingchen would never regain his voice, their relationship had regained some semblance of the past. They took their meals together and shared pots of tea and lived a peaceful life in the temple. The damages done to the architecture were repaired and their dispute was forgotten.

~X~

Morning came and Chen woke beside an empty bed. Looking around the room, Xinyi was nowhere to be found. QianHua was still asleep, so Chen snuck out on his own. After checking through the areas of the temple he knew, he made his way outside to the courtyard. Xinyi was sitting at one of the low tables, hunched over with his back to Chen. For a moment, he wondered if Xinyi was actually trying to finish transcribing the Lan principles from yesterday.

Chen crossed the yard and looked over Xinyi’s shoulder. Instead of the materials from Jingyi’s punishment, Chen saw the familiar notebook Xinyi kept on him. His phone was opened to a picture of an old book Chen recognized from the Wang collection. He sighed, sitting down next to his friend and leaned his head on his shoulder.

“Couldn’t sleep again?”

“Mm.”

“Why are you always copying that book?”

Xinyi shrugged, still copying the characters into his notebook. “It gives me something to focus on.”

“I haven’t seen you work on it in a while.”

“Mm.”

“Are you okay?”

Xinyi nodded, putting his pencil down and straightening up. “I’m fine. I just couldn’t sleep.”

Chen nodded and, after a moment, Xinyi went back to writing in his notebook. The sun slowly crept up and Chen dozed off, still perched on Xinyi’s shoulder. When the first of the students started pouring into the courtyard, Xinyi closed the notebook and tucked it back into his bag. QianHua came out to sit beside them and Chen moved to his own table to wait for breakfast.

He couldn’t help but worry. Xinyi was quiet throughout breakfast, barely touched his food, and looked positively exhausted. Chen knew better than to press further if Xinyi had insisted he was fine. But he also knew his friend had hardly slept since they got to the temple. He could hear him getting up in the middle of the night and coming back at nearly dawn. He could see the circles under his eyes getting darker every day.

Glancing at MingYue, Chen wondered if her presence was the cause of Xinyi’s distress. While he’d suffered from nightmares the entire time Chen knew him, he usually just brushed them off and went back to sleep. Realizing MingYue was staring back at him now, he turned his head away quickly, still feeling her eyes on him long after looking elsewhere. Something about her unnerved him, and not just that she was Xinyi’s ex. She was too calm about everything. Her eyes were too analytical.

If they’d been lucky, their day’s activity would have been something active, something to distract them from their thoughts. Instead, Song Lan passed out blank fans for them to decorate. Chen sighed. He’d never been very artistic. He liked the fans they’d seen on their tour of the temple, but there was no way he’d be able to even come close to making a fan that nice. Beside him, Xinyi and QianHua had already set to work on theirs.

“A-Xin. What are you painting?” Chen asked, leaning over.

Xinyi shrugged. “Trees, I guess. A lot of the fans I’ve seen have trees on them.”

QianHua leaned over, a lame smile plastered across his face. “I drew you Chen.”

QianHua’s fan had a poorly drawn face, intentionally ugly looking, with the only indication that it was Chen being the glasses. Chen rolled his eyes and went back to working on his own. He tried his best to paint seriously, but his lines were too thick to be branches and his flowers bled into misshapen blotches. Having run out of space on his fan to draw, Chen gave up and looked back over to Xinyi, a new wave of concern coming over him.

Xinyi was gripping his paintbrush with a shaky hand, a hint of sweat glistening on his forehead. He was staring straight ahead at the temple, looking as though he’d seen a ghost. Chen followed his gaze, trying to see whatever it was Xinyi was looking at. Seeing nothing abnormal about the temple, Chen reached a hand out and touched Xinyi’s arm to get his attention. The man jumped and shot his gaze over at Chen, quickly relaxing his features.

“What?”

“A-Xin, you look like you saw a ghost. What’s wrong?”

Xinyi laughed. “Why are you always so superstitious? Nothing’s wrong.”

Chen frowned.

“I’m fine, Chen, really.”

Chen dropped the subject. As everyone finished their fans, Sizhui finally concluded whatever serious conversation he’d been having with Jin Ling at the top of the stares. He looked worried about whatever the two had been discussing, but resumed his usual look when he sat down in front of the class, setting his fingers across the surface of the guqin on his table. He plucked a few strings, seeming to still be a little distracted, but quickly recovered and set to strumming out an actual rhythm.

As though Sizhui’s song had summoned him, the white silhouette of Xiao Xingchen appeared at the temple door. Instinctively, Chen looked over at Xinyi again, unsurprised to find his friend already staring at the man. He’d done the same thing the night before at dinner, seeming hypnotized by the very sight of him. Turning his gaze back to the priest, he frowned, feeling a twinge of jealousy. The man’s appearance was truly top notch. There wasn’t a single hair out of place or blemish on his skin. He had prominent cheekbones, a sharp jawline, and a slender, graceful figure. Everything about him was perfect and refined.

It made perfect sense why anyone would stare at Xiao Xingchen. It was hard not to look at him. But what Chen was surprised by was the fact that Xiao Xingchen was also staring back at Xinyi.

~X~

With the sudden surge of restless spirits in the temple, it was obvious Xinyi’s awakening had progressed. It had been the same way with Wen Qing all those years ago. What seemed like a random swell of yin energy had turned out to be ghosts of the past, drawn to Qing’s growing spiritual instability. With so many bystanders, Sizhui’s safest course of action was to find inconspicuous times to play Clarity in Xinyi’s presence. It would only quell his qi temporarily, but until the students left Leng Shuang, a temporary fix was all they had.

Sitting down at his guqin, Sizhui stole a quick glance at Xinyi, assessing his current state. He looked tired, distracted, and more than a little unnerved, but he lacked the wild-eyed look Xue Yang was known for. Sizhui set to work, playing the Song of Clarity with his qi directed at XInyi, occasionally looking up at him to see what effect the tune was having on him. Although the boy seemed more relaxed, it was hard to say for sure if it was Clarity’s effects…. Or Xiao Xingchen’s sudden appearance behind him.

It was strange. Seeing someone from his past, especially someone he shared such a deep-rooted hatred with, should have disrupted Xinyi’s qi. But instead, he seemed subdued by Xingchen’s presence. Even stranger, Xingchen seemed equally at ease in Xinyi’s presence, as though greeting an old friend. By the time Sizhui was strumming out the last few chords, Xingchen had descended the stairs and was seated at a low table alongside him and Jingyi.

With the activity and Sizhui’s song finished, the students were dismissed for a few hours, warned not to stray too far from the temple and to be back by lunch time. With the courtyard mostly clear, the cultivators congregated around Sizhui.

“Seems like it worked.” Jingyi said, pouring tea for his companions. “At least for now.”

“Mm.” Sizhui nodded in agreement, taking a cup from Jingyi.

“What do you intend to do when the week ends?” Song Lan asked.

“Jingyi will take everyone back. Jin Ling and I will stay behind with Xinyi to induce his awakening. If we’re lucky, his memories will splice together with his current life cohesively, and he’ll resume a normal life.” Sizhui explained calmly, pausing only to sip his tea. “If not… we’ll have no choice but to kill him.”

Xingchen rapped his fingers across the surface of his table, a small frown on his lips.

“How can someone like him recover his memories and live a normal life?” Song Lan asked, staring into his tea. “It seems like this situation has no positive outcome.”

“Actually.” Sizhui set his cup down. “This isn’t the first time I’ve come across an unfriendly face. I think it was about 1,200 years ago, I encountered the soul of Wen Chao. I had the same worries about him that you have for Xue Yang. As he neared awakening, I was prepared to kill him. To my surprise, he recovered from the initial shock quite well and committed himself to making up for the crimes of his past life.”

Song Lan gaped at him, shocked that someone as dishonourable as Wen Chao could have such an easy awakening. Beside him, Xingchen changed the rhythm he was drumming with his fingers, a small smile having returned to his face. After a moment, he rose to his feet, bowed to the others, and strolled out the front gate. Song Lan followed him with his eyes, looking just a little annoyed.

“Daozhang. Is everything ok?” Jingyi asked once Xingchen was out of earshot.

Song Lan frowned. “Xingchen is…”

He fell silent for a moment. Sizhui grew rigid with anticipation, worried he’d created too much of a burden for the two men by bringing Xinyi here. He thought about offering to take Xinyi away from the temple and dealing with his awakening without Song Lan.

“I don’t understand it.” Song Lan continued at last. “I don’t know if something went wrong with his reanimation, or if this is just a side of him I never saw, but he’s not the same.”

“Is that why he doesn’t talk?” Jin Ling asked, having just assumed until now that the silence was a normal part of Xingchen’s personality.

“Yes. He hasn’t said a word in the past three thousand years.” Song Lan looked down at his hands. “Our relationship almost seemed normal again, but since you all arrived… He’s grown distant again. It’s like he wants Xue Yang to remember.”

Song Lan sighed, shaking his head slightly. Raising to his feet, he gave a brief bow to the other cultivators and went inside. The others exchanged concerned looks, but had no idea how to comfort Song Lan in this kind of circumstance. After a while, Jin Ling ducked out too, exchanging a few words with MingYue on his way out.

~X~

As though last night’s nightmares had acted as a trigger, all throughout the day Xinyi continued to see ghosts. For the most part, they remained in the background as movements out of the corner of his eye, or appearing at a distance for only a second, but there was one that seemed to be getting bolder throughout the day. She was probably only a few years older than Xinyi, with a pretty, oval face and innocent features. Dressed in finer robes, she may have been some kind of noblewoman, and unlike the other ghosts, she wasn’t covered in blood or crying or angry. On the contrary, she was a smiling ghost, and somehow that unnerved Xinyi even more.

The ghost girl had first appeared early in the morning, standing in the far corner of the courtyard, watching him work on his notebook. Then, again at the temple door while they were painting their fans. As soon as they were dismissed from the courtyard, Xinyi bolted out into the woods down to the river, praying she was somehow bound to the temple and unable to follow him. He didn’t even wait for Chen, unable to stomach the worrying looks anymore.

Veering off to the left, Xinyi followed the river up to where a bridge connected the two shores and crossed it halfway. He sat down on the low railing and looked around, making sure there were no lurking spirits before finally letting out a breath of relief. Watching the river rush by beneath him, Xinyi wondered if any of this would be happening if he hadn’t come on this trip. Sure, he’d had nightmares long before this, but they hadn’t been quite this bad, and he definitely hadn’t seen ghosts prior to this. It felt like he was going crazy.

“Avoiding your friends?”

Xinyi looked up at the sound of the voice, immediately smiling at the sight of Xiao Xingchen striding gracefully down the hill.

“Can’t I want to be alone without it being considered ‘avoiding’?”

Xingchen came up to stand in front of him, smiling down at him. “Am I disturbing your alone time, then?”

“Of course not.” Xinyi replied, shaking his head. “Actually, I was hoping to see you again.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“Two reasons.” Xinyi stood, holding up two fingers. “First, I had a question. At dinner last night… You didn’t talk at all, right?”

Xingchen’s head cocked to the side ever so slightly. “Were you watching me all night?”

“Well… No, not all night- I mean. It sounds bad if you say it like that.”

The older man laughed softly. “How else should I say it?”

Xinyi frowned, crossing his arms over his chest. “I just noticed when Daozhang and Jiaoshou were talking, you never seemed to reply or say anything yourself.”

Xingchen looked up at the sky, still smiling, silent for a moment before replying. “I prefer not to talk in front of Zichen.”

“Hm? Zichen?”

He looked back at Xinyi. “Song Lan.”

“Oh… Why?”

“Mm…. It wasn’t intentional at first. I was unable to speak for a long time.” Xingchen explained carefully, seeming restrained. “By the time I was able to again, I felt it would only complicate things.”

“Complicate things?”

Xingchen looked down at Xinyi silently for a few heartbeats, his expression giving no hint as to what he was thinking.

“Zichen had questions about things that were difficult to put into words, and wanted to have conversations about things I didn’t want to talk about. Anything I have to say would just be hurtful, so it’s easier to say nothing at all.”

Xinyi nodded slowly, curious as all hell but it seemed too sensitive a topic for a stranger like him to be prodding into. Seeing Xingchen and Song Lan together, they certainly seemed comfortable around each other, affectionate even, but Xingchen’s words showed there was some degree of animosity present.

“What was the other reason?”

“Hm?” Xinyi looked back at Xingchen, shaking the thoughts from his head. “Other reason?”

“The other reason you were hoping to see me.” Xingchen replied, laughing that sweet laugh again.

“Oh! Right. That is…” Xinyi reached into his robe and pulled out the fan he painted. “A gift. For you.”

Xingchen’s eyebrows raised slightly in surprise. “A gift? What for?”

“No reason. Or, I guess, kind of a thank you?” Xinyi looked away, feeling suddenly very anxious under Xingchen’s gaze. “For helping me last night.”

The older man reached out and took the fan from Xinyi, their fingers brushing together, lingering for just a second. Xinyi looked back up, watching Xingchen unfold the fan to examine the painting on it. For a moment, his expression faltered, seeming torn between thoughts. Xinyi’s heart skipped, feeling like maybe he’d made a mistake in giving Xingchen a gift.

“How did you paint this?”

“Just. With the paint and stuff Song Lan gave us.”

“No, I mean how did you paint this mountain specifically. How do you know this image?”

Xinyi paused, glancing down at the painting on the fan, and shrugged. “I didn’t think I was painting anything in particular. Is there… something wrong?”

“This is…The mountain I grew up on.”

Xinyi gave him a bemused look. “It’s just a regular mountain, how can you tell?”

Xingchen turned the fan around and pointed at a particular curve of lines where the mountain jutted out awkwardly. “This cliff. The tree clinging to the side of it. That’s where my temple was.”

They both fell silent for a moment. Xingchen turned the fan back to continue examining the ink. Xinyi stared at him, feeling a strange mix of emotions. He wasn’t sure if Xingchen was fucking with him or if it was just some weird coincidence. The other man looked pretty serious about it though, fueling the anxiety bubbling in Xinyi’s stomach. After a moment, Xingchen started laughing again, soft and forgiving, instantly easing Xinyi’s nerves.

“A ghost must have guided your hand.” Xingchen said finally, all signs of apprehension melting from his expression.

Xinyi cracked up, letting his laughter move through his whole body. “Maybe so! Maybe being haunted has its perks.”

Xingchen closed the fan finally and tucked it into his sleeve. “Thank you. It’s a lovely gift.”

The complement sent Xinyi’s heart soaring, sending electricity down to his very fingertips. Xingchen was looking at him so sweetly and his face was positively glowing and everything in this moment felt absolutely perfect. The electricity moved his hand forward to grab Xingchen’s, lacing their fingers together. When the man didn’t recoil from the touch, Xinyi took his other hand as well and took a step forward. Just as he was feeling bold enough to close the gap, movement behind Xingchen drew his eye.

Standing at the end of the bridge was the smiling ghost girl, watching them intently with fiery eyes. Her appearance was more intense than the last few times he saw her and the sudden appearance extracted an involuntary ‘Oh!’ from his throat as he jolted back. The back of his legs hit the low railing of the bridge while the top of his body continued its course of motion. He toppled backwards and dropped into the river below. The speed of the water kept him trapped beneath the surface, only spitting him out about forty yards down where the water leveled out.

Xinyi came up sputtering, stumbling towards the shore. The wet robes tangled around his legs, making his movements awkward and jerky. Quickly wiping the excess water from his eyes, he looked around wildly, expecting the ghost girl to be there waiting for him. Thankfully though, the only other person he saw was Xiao Xingchen, who had waded into the water beside him with a wide-eyed look of worry. Seeing the priest look so ungraceful made Xinyi burst out laughing, nearly slipping on a loose rock.

“Wang Xinyi!” Xingchen exclaimed incredulously.

“I’m sorry! You just looked so…” Xinyi tried to stifle his laughter. “Normal! You always look like you stepped right out of a painting, but just now- You really looked like a regular guy!”

Xingchen scoffed, unable to contain his own laughter now. “I thought you were going to drown!”

“Pshh, I’m not that easy to kill!” Xinyi replied with a wink.

In a moment of sheer childishness, Xingchen swiped his hand through the water, splashing it up into Xinyi’s face. Xinyi froze and looked at Xingchen in disbelief, shocked that the perfectly pristine and reverant Taoist priest would stoop to his level of horseplay. Recovering from the shock, he splashed back, breaking out into laughter again. Xingchen lifted his arm, blocking the attack with the flared sleeve of his robe.

In the moment Xingchen’s vision was blocked, Xinyi took the opportunity to close the space between them again, wrapping his arms around the man’s waist. Xingchen turned his head back to face Xinyi, his smile faded but not entirely gone.

“Xiao Xingchen.” Xinyi said quietly, a half smile still present. “What should I do when the week is over and I can’t see you anymore?”

Xingchen brought a hand up to Xinyi’s face, pushing strands of wet hair from his cheeks. “Are you already so attached to me?”

Yes! Of course I am! How could anyone look at someone so perfect and not get attached?

The thoughts raced through his head, but he knew better than to say it out loud. In reality, Xinyi couldn’t explain why he felt so attached to Xiao Xingchen, considering they’d only briefly interacted a handful of times. Even so, the idea of leaving in a few days and never seeing Xingchen again nearly broke his heart. He knew it made no sense, and probably sounded childish and naive, but it was the case nonetheless.

Xingchen flattened his hand to Xinyi’s face, cupping his cheek gently. “What should I do if you’ve already run out of things to say to me?”

“I haven’t!” Xinyi frowned. “But how do I explain being attached to you after knowing you for such a short time without sounding stupid…”

The man laughed, his whole face lighting up like the sun. He brought his other hand to Xinyi’s cheek, holding his face with both hands. Before he had a chance to process what was happening, Xingchen leaned forward and pressed his lips to Xinyi’s. He inhaled sharply, feeling like a fire had just been lit in his stomach. Leaning into the kiss, his hands closed around the fabric of Xingchen’s robes, holding onto him as though he was worried the man might disappear into thin air.

Xingchen pulled away too soon, cutting a perfectly good kiss too short. Xinyi opened his eyes, looking up at Xingchen with a look of awe. The man chuckled softly, seeming amused by the way Xinyi was looking at him. He released Xinyi’s face and began walking back to shore, ringing out the sleeves of his robe. The younger man pouted, knowing their latest brief encounter was about to come to an end. Xingchen was always the one to walk away first, leaving Xinyi feeling some kind of way.

Once Xingchen had disappeared from his sight, Xinyi let out a sigh, kicking the water in disappointment. As he waded out of the river and began trudging back to the bridge, his face was hurting from how wide he was smiling. It wasn’t until he had walked all the way back up the river, crossed the bridge, and got back to the road that he remembered he’d left his bag in the courtyard. He jogged the rest of the way back, feeling that familiar anxiety of having forgotten your belongings in a public space.

Chen and QianHua caught up to him just as he was passing through the gate, immediately giving him shit for ditching them. His bag was just where he left it, so his attention redirected to the tangent QianHua had launched into. Heading back into the temple so Xinyi could put on dry clothes, he grabbed his bag absentmindedly as they passed by- freezing dead in his tracks as soon as it was in his hand. It was entirely too light. Something was missing.

“A-Xin?” Chen turned to look at him questioningly.

Xinyi lifted his bag up in front of him and opened it. As the anxiety swelled around him, overlapping whispers filled his ears. He reached his hand into the bag, feeling around for the missing item. The whispers grew louder. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see shadows darting back and forth around him. He looked up, turning to look at who else was in the courtyard.

Most of the students were still playing around the river, but there was a group of five or six people on the other side of the yard. Just as Xinyi was starting to wonder if he’d put the notebook back in his room and simply forgotten, solid movement caught his eye. MingYue was descending the stairs with a golden-toned husky at her side, heading towards the group of students. The whispers in his ears were growing louder, some of them practically yelling. At the bottom of the stairs, the Smiling Ghost caught his attention, grinned wider, and pointed at MingYue.

A startling anger welled in his chest and he began moving to intercept MingYue. Chen and QianHua chased after him, questioning his sudden change in demeanor. When Chen grabbed his shoulder, Xinyi practically shoved him off his feet. Reaching the group at the same time as MingYue, he pushed his way past three people and shot his hand out. He grabbed her throat hard and shoved her back about a foot. She lifted off the ground for just a moment before the students around them jumped on Xinyi and pulled him off of her.

“A-Xin, what-”

“WHERE THE FUCK IS IT.” Xinyi shouted, struggling against the hands holding him in place. “GIVE IT BACK.”

MingYue was leaning into another girl, her hands at her throat and tears in her eyes. “Where’s what?”

“DON’T BULLSHIT ME, I KNOW YOU TOOK IT.”

Chen and QianHua were at his side now, struggling alongside everyone else to hold Xinyi in place.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Tears spilled over and streamed down her cheeks now.

Behind MingYue, Smiling Ghost was nodding at Xinyi, silently egging him on.

“IF YOU DON’T GIVE IT BACK, I SWEAR I’LL STRANGLE YOU TO DEATH AND PULL IT OFF YOUR FUCKING CORPSE-”

The loud clap of skin on skin silenced the commotion and echoed through the court. Pain blossomed across Xinyi’s cheek as he slowly turned his head to see what just happened. Summoned by the disconcerting shouting, Xingchen had descended on the group and grabbed Xinyi by the hair. Jerking him around to face him, Xingchen slapped Xinyi hard across the face, putting a screeching halt on his rampage.

Xinyi stared back at him, his mouth slightly agape in shock. Blinking a few times, he seemed to come back to himself. Smiling Ghost had vanished along with the maddening whispers, leaving Xinyi to slowly realize what he’d just said to MingYue. He gave her a horrified look, stumbling back a step, looked back at Xingchen, and spun on his heel to stagger back into the temple. Xiao Xingchen was the only one brave enough to follow.

“Wang Xinyi.” Xingchen said sternly once they were away from the watchful eyes of the crowd outside.

Xinyi stopped. Xingchen grabbed his arm and forced him to turn around.

“Look at me.”

Trembling, his gaze remained glued to the floor. “What’s wrong with me?”

Xingchen paused, his anger diminishing a little.

Xinyi looked up slightly, tears falling down his face, still avoiding the other's stare. “Xingchen. What’s happening to me? Why did I do that?”

His breathing quickened, shaking his body harder. His eyes were blown open, looking straight through Xingchen as if he weren’t there. Hands coming up to the sides of his head, Xinyi let out a short, horrified wail. His fingers tangled through his hair, gripped it as if he were about to tear it out, and broke out into heavy sobs.

“How could I say something like that?!” Through his tears, he met Xingchen’s eyes finally. “Xiao Xingchen, what’s happening to me?I”

[mrsbhandari]

Clash

A/N: HERE IT IS!! MY FIGHTING OLIVER TENSION FIC!! I hope yall enjoy and I also hope that yall know: getting asks and requests brightens my day EVERY SINGLE TIME it happens!! I never mind writing fics for yall or talking to yall or saying yall five times in every sentence. u know how it is. the pirates get ye, I get yall. thems the rules.

words: 2k

warnings: HEAVY SMUT like jfc idk how I can live with myself fklsjdfkj, language, swords

Summary: A training session with Oliver gets heated.

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

“You’re sure you can handle this, Eden?” Oliver took a sword off the wall and tossed it to his new sparring partner, who caught it easily by the hilt. “Training can get...intense.” His smoldering gaze turned to her, making his implication obvious. 

“You forget I’ve learned the basics. I held off against your men, remember?” Raising an eyebrow, she swung the blade around with obvious practiced skill, getting used to the weight and natural movement quickly. He smiled fondly, but there was just a hint of arrogance touching his lips. The sword whooshed close to his ear, making him jolt away and drop his look. “Scared, Lieutenant?” After joining his crew, she was still desperate to prove that she deserved to be there, that she wasn’t a pirate spy. Oliver always regarded her coolly and cautiously, but figured the best way to test loyalty was to give her a weapon and see to it that she didn’t kill him (on purpose, at least). 

“More nervous. You’re dangerous, you know.” He widened his stance, preparing to begin, and she modeled her foot placement after his. 

“I know.” Giving a brief wink, they began the classic dance of battle, always moving and waiting for the other to strike first. As they looked at each other, there was a palpable tension stretching across the wide circle they created, connecting them like a taut string just begging to be broken by the swing of a sharp blade. Oliver was the first to attack, showing mercy on his partner with an easily blocked slash. To her, the sound of their swords clashing together in midair was jolting, but she did well to hide it and brush his blade off hers; he had gotten used to the sound over the years and showed no hints of anxiety, making him seem like a robot designed for fighting. 

“Don’t go easy on me,” she commanded, sending a glare across the circle they’d created once again, shifting feet and hard breaths the only sounds in the small room they were using for training. She wasn’t sure about Oliver, but her hard breaths were coming more from how she would rather be exercising another way, involving a lot more sweat and a lot less clothes. The thought fleetingly took her focus, but she shook her head to wipe her mind; the split second was enough for him to catch her off guard. 

He lunged forward, but his eyes gave his next move away: a swipe from the right, easily parried as she stepped over and let him fall a little too far forward with too much momentum for him to easily regain his balance. She took advantage of his vulnerability and hit the hilt of her blade into the small of his back, sending him to the floor with a grunt. That grunt definitely didn’t help the mental images already running through her mind, so she elected to back away, letting him scramble to his feet. 

Oliver was sweating, and she found herself preoccupied by the droplets running down his skin. His hair was in a ponytail when they started, but the strands were messy now and sticking to his flesh in crazy patterns that decorated his temples and cheeks. Running a hand through it, he noticed her distracted state and yet again moved forward, lightning on his feet as he quickly disarmed her and grabbed her sword. Unable to defend herself, he walked her back with a sword at her neck until her back hit the wall. 

The blade was cold, but he pressed the flat of it to her skin so as to give the illusion of threat. Eden didn’t really care. Her eyes drifted from part to part of his face, studying the way his breath came out, the way his fingers twitched as if holding back, the way he pressed his body far closer to hers than he needed to. He was tall and could barely resist the way her face looked as she had to tilt her head back to see him; her lips were parted slightly and she bit the bottom one, already plump and red and tempting. He could feel his pants growing tighter, a physical representation of the siren’s effect on his body, making his thoughts run every which way, following a constantly changing current. He realized he had been leaning down this entire time, target locked on those kissable lips that made him lose his mind, before he thought more of the consequences. He changed his path at the last second, head landing next to hers with his forehead against the wall. 

“You’re dead.” Before he could think, she ripped the swords out of his hands and tossed them to the floor. “Wha--?” She landed a steel foot on his boot, drawing out a yelp that quickly morphed into a gasp as she jolted her knee into his stomach, knocking any air out. She pushed him off, sticking a foot out behind his when he stepped back to send him to the ground once again. Falling to her knees, she straddled his hips and pinned his wrists, leaning low to whisper in his ear. 

“You’re dead.” 

Unable to take it anymore, Oliver turned his head and kissed her, pouring every second of torturous want that he’d lived through into it. His hands curled into fists, but she continued to hold them to the ground, unwilling to relinquish her control. For a minute, he thought they were just going to stay like this: her on top of him and kissing him like she needed his lips and tongue to live. Then, her hips were grinding down into his and her teeth were sinking into his bottom lip and her lips were moving down his jaw and he was losing his breath at the overwhelming sensations of and and and. 

“Eden...” he gasped, letting out a shuddering groan when her teeth grazed his earlobe. 

“Lieutenant.” He was fully hard now and he knew she could feel through his trousers, but she continued teasing him with little nips and random grinding that kept him on his toes. The worst pain he was feeling was in his wrists as her nails dug in, tattooing crescents that he was sure to run his fingers over when this was all over. “Tell me what you want, Oliver.” He whimpered, drowning in the feeling of Eden everywhere on him. A swift bite to his collarbone pulled him out of his daze just enough to answer. 

“More,” he groaned. She hummed, loosening her grip on his wrists. They shot up to her breasts, lightly squeezing them over her thin linen shirt, sighing at the pretty sounds falling from her pretty lips. His fingertips meandered down to her hips where he gripped the skin revealed between her shirt and pants, tugging her body down to gain the barest hint of friction, moaning loudly once he acquired it and felt his vision go fuzzy. Then she was kissing him again and the world was tilting around him and he felt like he was falling, lost in Eden. He was adrift, unanchored, loose. 

It was the most exhilarating thing he had felt in a long time. 

The cold air of the room bit into his skin when he looked down to find his chest exposed. She had unbuttoned and threw his shirt open, sitting back to admire the broad plans and sharp lines of muscles, honed by years of training and exercise to ensure he was in the best shape for the Navy. Eden’s eyes were hungry, predatory while they bounced from his abs to his collarbone to his face, flushed and wanting. It was then that Oliver recognized just how powerful she was in this position, and he flipped her to even the score.

“Getting bold now, are we?” she taunted, tapping at his resolve to see how thick the boundary was. 

“You shouldn’t get to have all the fun. Plus,” He ran a fingertip from the valley of her breasts to the waistband of her pants, “you look so beautiful like this.” It was her turn to blush as she tried covering her face, but he imitated her by pulling and pinning her wrists to the floor above her. “You’re not getting away from me that easily.” He attached his lips to her neck, listening for the breathy moans she released while straining her arms, aching to get her hands on him. 

“Oliver, please,” she whispered, flexing her hands underneath his grip. 

“Tell me what you want, Eden,” he said, recalling her own words from minutes before. 

“I want to touch you, Oliver. I want you to make me scream your name so loud that the Poseidon’s Revenge can hear. Please.” Her unwavering confidence took him by surprise and he loosened his grip, groaning when she used her newfound freedom to tug sharply on his hair, now fully out of the ponytail. His hips bucked at the rough treatment. “You like that? You’re a naughty lieutenant, sir.” 

His eyes darkened and he climbed back off her to sit up on his knees. His hands returned to her hips, pinching lightly before moving to her thighs and forcefully tugging her hips to meet his. Wrapping her legs around his waist, they were closer than ever, and he almost couldn’t stand it. 

“Undress,” he commanded, throwing his shirt off, pushing his own pants down, and fishing his cock out. She returned to her position completely naked, trembling with excitement. His hands drifted to her breasts once again, pinching and rolling her nipples between his fingers. “Good girl.” His deep voice only made her wetter for him, feeling her juices run down her thighs. “So ready for me, yeah?” 

She could do nothing but nod, and he decided to let it go because he was just so desperate to feel her heat wrapped around him, to feel her shake beneath his touch at her peak, to feel her writhe under his touch as he sank himself into her and made her climax. His hands remained on her thighs when he thrusted into her entrance, letting a groan escape his throat. He was drowned out by her animalistic scream, her nails digging into the floor beneath them and leaving small scratches in the grain. 

“So perfect for me,” he murmured, swallowing her moan and thrusting roughly into her. He set a cutthroat pace that left him close with just a few movements, but he wanted to hold out for her. For all his dominance and arrogance, his only desire was to pleasure her. 

Well, he also wanted her to claw at his back until he bled. 

His hands found themselves under her flexed shoulder blades and her arched back, pulling her up until they were pressed chest-to-chest once again. Eden’s fingernails raked his skin, most likely leaving deep scratches to heal in a week or so. It wasn’t a matter to him; Oliver knew that he was going to have new ones to replace these before that. 

“Lieutenant…” she gasped, pressing her face into his neck, but he took one hand and pushed her out so he could see her, leaving one arm wrapped around her so he could hold her up. 

“I want to watch you, Eden.” His tender tone and sexy words sent her over the edge, shaking in his arms as he continued to fuck into her, following her into orgasm. Their moans mixed into a sensual harmony, pure bliss washing over the couple on the floor of the training room. They both barely caught their breaths, making it harder for themselves by kissing lazily, Oliver still buried inside her. 

“How’s that for training?” 

Oliver let out a laugh, holding her closer and ignoring the sticky sweat covering them and the cum dribbling out of her. His response was another kiss to take the place of a promise for more.

[bellemorte180]

If I Die Before I Wake: Chapter Four

Vengeance is defined as punishment or retribution for a wrong committed against another. A single curse could derail and weaken the most powerful being in the world. A single massacre could take the entire world in one go; but it could centuries to execute the perfect vengeance.

Chapter Four:

Mystic Falls April 2010

A new day dawned and the town went on how it normally did; with the exception of the few inhabitants. Bonnie was practically glued to Freya's side, training as though her life depended on it. She had a realization that the only way out of this mess was to listen to Freya and wake Klaus's wife. So she played along, staying at the Boarding House and meeting with Freya until the sun set.

Damon vanished the moment Freya's spell let him drop to the ground. Everyone assumed that he was trying to find some scheme to save Elena, who Freya assured Bonnie was perfectly fine. Stefan remained in his room, sorting through his emotions. He replayed every memory from the twenties in his mind. The love he felt for Rebekah returned with a force but that didn't stop his heart from loving Elena. Part of him wanted to rescue Elena while the other wanted to run to Rebekah and see her for the first time in ninety years. Incapable of deciding what was right, he decided to wait it out. Holding out that Elena was safe and well.

It was the Original family that seemed to have the most productive of times. Finn fled the moment he realized nearly nine hundred years had passed since he had a dagger in his chest. He spent an evening with Freya, whom he was close to before their aunt stole her away, and then vanished. Everyone assumed he went to search for Sage. It was actually Klaus who was the least angry at him for the abandonment, simply stating that he understood. That and the fact that Finn was dull played a part as well. Rebekah spent time alone mostly, avoiding the doppelganger and Marcel; pondering what she needed to do about Stefan. Kol poured over the spell to ensure that Freya's way be better than the plan that got him daggered in 1914. Besides Freya, it was Kol that knew the most about witchcraft seeing that he inherited his mother's abilities before he was turned. Elijah just kept Klaus from losing his patience and massacring the town because he couldn't wait till the full moon. Which is how he found himself trailing his brother through the woods of Mystic Falls.

“Where exactly are we going Niklaus?” Elijah asked, annoyed that dirt was getting on his expensive loafers. Klaus didn't answer him but kept moving. He would stop, listen and then head towards another direction. Soon, Elijah realized where he was going. “Really? Is this necessary?” When Klaus didn't answer, the older brother sighed. “Alright. If this is how you're going to release some tension for the next few days, at least allow me to enter first.”

“Want to say your goodbyes brother?” Klaus asked with a devilish smirk. “You do realize that she isn't Tatia. They may look identical but they are not the same person.” They rarely spoke of Tatia; not even when they were human; except for once. Klaus knew his brother had loved her even though she was in bed with both of them. Klaus took a step back, told Elijah to never speak of her again to him and moved on. “You never saw Katerina when you looked at her.”

“I know, but I still need closer.”

“Very well but do hurry. I'm getting impatient.” Klaus waved Elijah onwards and the older to the two jumped into the cavity that was the tomb. When Elijah landed, he realized that Katherine was not alone. There was someone else standing outside the tomb.

“May I inquire who you are?”

“Whose asking?”

“Damon, meet Elijah. Klaus's brother.” A hoarse voice sounded from inside the tomb and Elijah could see Katerina's weakened state. She was in a tight black dress and her feet were bare. He could see the dark circles under her eyes and she slow process of desecration began. “Hello lover.”

“Wait. Lover? Don't tell me that you're in bed with the big bad wolf's brother.” Damon asked, eyeing Elijah from head to toe, wondering if he would be able to beat him in a fight. Yet, Damon could feel Elijah's age rolling off of him and knew better than to pick one that he would clearly loose. Damon was reckless but not completely stupid.

“Katerina and I were involved once, many centuries ago. When she was still human.” Elijah looked directly at Katherine and held her gaze. “However, any affection I may have felt for her died the day I realized it was her that had Emily Bennett cast the spell that took away Caroline.” Elijah picked a speck of dust off of his designer suit and looked directly at Damon. “Mr. Salvator, if you're planning on breaking Katerina out of this tomb-”

“Break her out?” Damon questioned as he cut the Original off and snorted. “I want the backstabbing bitch to rot there for the next hundred and forty-five years just as I thought she had when I was turned.” Damon raged. He had no intentions of ever letting her out. “What I want to know is where your maniac of a brother is holding Elena and since that freaky ancient witch sister of yours won't say, Katherine is the best shot I have.”

“Trust me when I tell you that Elena will be returned to you unharmed once Ms. Bennett wakes Caroline. As for my, how did you eloquently put it, maniac of a brother is standing directly outside of this tomb.” Katerina stood with pure terror in her eyes. She backed away slightly.

“Elijah. Please. Don't do this.”

“You know the beauty of Klaus and Caroline is simple. You see, Klaus is a mad man. He will burn cities to the ground simply because he is bored but he is also diabolical. He plots and plays the long game. He will take risks that no one would dare take.” Elijah stepped forward and looked directly at Katherine. “Yet, it was always Caroline who ensured that Klaus's schemes came to fruition. She always was detailed oriented; a perfectionist. Tell me Katerina, how long did you search for Nadia?”

Katherine froze with pure fury on her face. It wasn't until years after she became a vampire that she ever learned her daughter's name; a name she did not give her. Never once did she set eyes upon her daughter after the day she gave birth to her. She went back and searched every village but she was no where to be found. She was gone.

“You know nothing of my daughter.”

“I know more than you would think.” Elijah moved around the tomb his eyes never leaving his former lover's. Damon watched the scene in amazed silence. “After you killed yourself in order to become a vampire, Klaus and Caroline murdered your family. Yet, Caroline did something else. Before Klaus ran this sword through your father's chest, Caroline asked him where he placed your daughter. She then went to her home and took her away to ensure that you never found her.”

“Harsh.” Damon whispered as he saw the pain on Katherine's face. It was pure agony. In truth, Damon never knew Katherine had a daughter. He never knew anything about Original vampires and werewolves; and he didn't care either. All he wanted was Elena and would do anything to get her back. If it meant waking the Queen of the Damned, then so be it.

“Doesn't matter. It has been five hundred years. Nadia would be dead by now.” Katherine replied.

“Would she?” Elijah asked. “You see, Caroline took a special interest in Nadia. Always made sure she was provided for. Ensured that she fell in love and had children. It was important to Caroline and Klaus that the Petrova lined continued because that meant that one day, another doppelganger would surface. Nadia had three children in her twenties. Then on her thirtieth birthday, Caroline turned her.” Katherine froze, digesting this information. “Nadia is a vampire, Katerina.”

“Where is she!?”

“I don't know. Only Caroline kept track of her movements just to ensure the two of you never met. It is a pity that the knowledge of her whereabouts was lost when Caroline fell.” Elijah said. Nadia's location became unimportant once the search for a spell to wake Caroline became necessary. For all Elijah knew, Nadia could have either met the sun or found herself at the wrong end of a stake. “It is poetic, is it not? The one thing you wanted most is lost to you because of your own actions.”

“Why? What was the point of turning her?”

“Leverage.” Three heads turned and saw that Klaus had entered the tomb. Damon sighed in annoyance while Elijah did nothing at all. Katherine's eyes went wide and she backed away with pure unadulterated terror echoing behind her brown eyes. “I just wanted to kill your entire family and move on but it was Caroline who knew of Nadia's existence, she ensured that your family line lived on. She also knew that having Nadia in our back pocket might be useful one day.” Klaus cocked his head.

“You can't do anything to me while I'm in here. Step through that barrier, and you'll never get out.” That was the only strand of hope Katherine had. She hated being in that tomb but it made her the safest vampire in town, or so she thought. Klaus smirked at her and stepped through the barrier as though it was nothing.

“You're right. Neither one of us can leave now. My my, how will we pass the time?” Katherine tried to flee to back of the tomb but Klaus caught her easily. He pinned her against the wall and barred his fangs. His eyes turned yellow and he bit down on Katherine's neck. She screamed loudly while both Elijah and Damon watched. Damon's lips curled in disgust while Elijah just looked bored.

“What the fuck is he?”

“My mother had an affair with a werewolf, which produced Niklaus.” Damon just looked at him. “A little of vampire, a little of werewolf.” Damon looked at Katherine again and saw that the wound on her neck was not healing. “Venom from a werewolf bite if fatal for a vampire. Luckily, Niklaus's blood is also the cure. Katerina is in for a long haul of pain.”

“Elijah, your constant chatter is ruining a perfectly good torture session. Take Salvator the elder and leave me with my shiny new toy.” Klaus narrowed his eyes and Elijah just rolled his. He cocked his finger towards Damon and indicated for him to leave the tomb. Damon hesitated, unsure if he wanted to stay and watch Katherine be tortured or find a way to get to Elena. “and be a good brother and have Freya come release me at sundown.” He turned back towards Katherine and pulled out what looked like a pocket knife. He jammed it into Katherine's gut before slicing it completely open. He inserted two of his fingers inside of her and blood flowed down her front. “You're for at least a century and a half of torture before I show mercy and end you once and for all.”

“Time to go Mr. Salvator.” Damon turned and left with Elijah. The two of the strolled through the woods at a slow pace. “You have my word that Elena will remain unharmed. If Ms. Bennett's spell works and Caroline wakes, I will personally hand her over to you myself.” Elijah stopped. “I wouldn't try looking for her. Freya spelled our location, you'll never find her.” Damon didn't believe him and wanted nothing more than to search the entirety of Mystic Falls until he found her.

“And here I thought I was bad but your brother is far more psychotic than I could ever hope to be. Is he going to leave Katherine down there and then come to visit when he feels an inch that needs scratched?” Damon smirked.

“I'm not sure what Niklaus plans for her and frankly, I don't care. She made her bed and now she must lie in it.” Damon looked at him and didn't believe him. He knew perfectly the allure Katherine had.

“You loved her.”

“I loved the idea of her.”

“You and me both.” Damon replied as Katherine's screams echoed through the trees.

*

The first two days Elena remained in the room Klaus had placed her in. Elijah told her she could roam the house as long as she didn't try and leave. If she attempted to leave, she would be stopped. Of course, she had to try. She couldn't just walk through the front door and she knew that her room was on the second floor. She opened the window and attempted to climb down but was physically unable to. It was as though there was an invisible barrier preventing her from stepping outside at all.

So, she did the only thing she could do; she watched tv and when that got boring, she decided to take Elijah's advice and explore the house. It could be useful later. She only hoped that she didn't run into Rebekah or any of the others. She was still baffled at Rebekah's reaction to her and how it pertained to Stefan. She could only believe that it had to do with whatever Klaus had done to Stefan back at the Boarding House.

Elena strolled along the hallways. There were parts of the house that were not completed. Construction workers milled about but none of them paid her mind. It was as though they couldn't see her. She screamed and asked for help but none of them moved.

“They can't hear you.” Elena turned and saw Rebekah glaring at her with her arms crossed. “They've been compelled to completely ignore your existence. Lucky for them. If I only had that bliss. Unfortunately I am your jailer while Elijah and Nik are off doing who knows what.” Rebekah scowled at her and turned away from her. “Stay out of my hair and don't get yourself killed. If you do, just remember you have Elijah's blood in your system and that I can rip your heart from you chest.” With that Rebekah turned and left Elena standing in the middle of a half finished room.

Elena decided it would be best not to go in the same direction because she wouldn't put it past Rebekah to kill her despite what her brothers wanted. Instead, she continued to open doors and see what parts of the house she could. Eventually found a kitchen that was fully finished. She opened the fridge and only found blood bags. She scowled. She looked around and saw a door to left of a table. Elena reached for the knob and turned to reveal a set of stairs. She reached for a light switch and turned it on.

It was a basement and Elena felt the hair on the back of her head stand up. Something was down there and every part of Elena told her to turn and run. Yet, she stepped forward and slowly made her way down the stairs. The basement floor was dirt and the walls were nothing but stone. An illuminated lightbulb hung from the ceiling and swayed ever so slightly. Elena could see three coffins on the ground there were open.

“Cliche much?” Elena muttered and her eyes turned to the two coffins that were still on wheels. They were closed. She reached for the first one and attempted to open it but it wouldn't budge. It was as though it was sealed shut and nothing would be able pull it open.

“Trust me love, you don't want to open that. My mother is in there and unless you wanted to see nothing but pure evil, I suggest you leave that one shut” Elena turned and saw that Klaus was standing at the bottom of the stairs. She didn't hear him come down or knew that he had arrived back at the manor. He was covered from head to toe in blood and had a look of pure joy upon his features. “Don't worry, it may be doppelganger blood but be pleased that it isn't your's.”

“Katherine? Is she-”

“Dead? No. She has many more years of torture in her future before I show her mercy and let her die from a werewolf bite.” Klaus seemed almost merry at the thought. He chuckled and Elena could tell that he was enjoying watching her suffer. Elena almost felt sorry for her. Almost. “Open that one.” Klaus pointed towards the other coffin. Elena hesitated. “Go on.”

Elena walked around the coffin and towards the other one. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest and she could feel Klaus's eyes on her. She reached for the coffin and unlike the other one, it opened easily. Inside laid a beautiful woman with long pale blonde hair. Her skin was milky and pale. Her eyes were closed and she wore a white pantaloons with a matching corset.

“This is your wife.” Elena whispered. “She is beautiful.” In truth, she hadn't given much thought to what Caroline would look like or anything about her. She was so focused on her safety and what Klaus could possibly want from her; the reason why he was coming to Mystic Falls didn't really phase her. Yet, here was Caroline; lifeless and still.

Suddenly, Klaus was beside her, looking down at the sleeping woman. He reached out and with a bloody hand, moved a strand of her hair from her face. The look he gave her was nothing Elena had ever seen. Beneath the tormented eyes and blood stained skin, she could see real emotion there. There was depth that lingered and Elena could honestly say that Stefan never looked at her in such a manner. Caroline wasn't just a mysterious fairytale, she was real and she was everything to Klaus. Elena realized in that moment that Klaus would burn the world to the ground if Bonnie didn't succeed.

“Have you felt something deep inside of you that it clung to you and refused to let go? Like fire in your veins? A simple touch was like electric. A touch that stopped the entire world and nothing else mattered?” Elena froze and Damon's blue eyes flashed in her mind. She shut down those emotions but said nothing. Klaus chuckled. “I see you have. Tell me, is it the Rippah that sets you on fire?”

“Why do you call him that?”

“Because that is what Stefan is. Deep down. He rips and destroys everything he touches. It was a beauty to watch.” He seemed wistful. “He is young. Very young. I killed as a young vampire as we all do. You feel your victims pain and the guilt will eat you alive. Eventually, it stops eating at you and they just become another name on a long list. Some you will remember, others you won't.”

“Is that what you did to him back at the boarding house? Made him remember his victims?” That caused Klaus to chuckle deeply.

“No. Something far more painful.”

“You're a monster.” Elena hissed.

“Yes, love. I am.” Klaus replied relishing in it. “And Stefan will be as well once he gets over the conscience that caused that guilt to eat away at him. Frankly, I cannot wait to see him reach his full potential.” The smirk that was perched on his lips was sinister. Elena backed away slowly.

“He'll never turn it off.”

“Neither have I. Not once in a thousand years.” Klaus hissed at her. His eyes ranked over her and he remembered who she was. The annoyance he felt whenever Katherine was in his line of sight bubbled at the surface. That face and everything it represented tore at his soul, even though it was someone different staring out of the same pair of eyes. Elena saw it; the change and flash from one mood to the next. Gone was the joyful expression he had after bathing in Katherine's blood and back was the monster she met at the Boarding House. “Get out.” Elena didn't move but instead remained frozen in her spot. “Get out now before I coat myself in more doppelganger blood!” Klaus screamed at her and Elena turned and fled up the stairs, tripping as she went.

*

Cleveland, Ohio August 1964

Klaus stood the small studio apartment he compelled for himself and looked at the blank canvas. There was an itch under his skin and he needed to get it out. Never had he had a block before. Yet it felt that he was unable to paint anything. Art was always an outlet for him but nothing came to him anymore. He had no muse and no inspiration. He needed to get something out but nothing was coming to him. Nothing held any meaning.

It was like his entire being suffocated and died. He hadn't left his studio in at least a year, maybe two; not even to feed. He could feel the thirst eating away at him and he saw the grey tint to his skin beginning to appear as his body dried out. The old Klaus never would have allowed him to go this long without feeding; now he just didn't care. His humanity was still there but he just felt nothing in exchange. The pain was so deep and engrained in him now that he became numb.

Klaus picked up his paintbrush, dipped into jet black paint and began. Stroke after stroke he painted in no particular order. Hours past and the sun set but he just kept putting that black color onto the canvas. Eventually he put down the brush and looked down at his hands, they were covered in black. His eyes traveled to the canvas and he saw nothing but darkness.

“I get it. It's a mirror to your soul.” A voice sounded from behind Klaus, causing a flicker of a smile to reach his lips. He turned and saw his son standing before him. His skin was ever the same darkness and he wore typical clothing of the time; dark pants with a white button down and a black tie. He was handsome and he looked well. “It's good to see you Klaus.”

“Why are you here Marcel?” His voice croaked. He hadn't used it in however long; he didn't know. He knew the year and what day it was; that was unavoidable but that didn't mean that he spoke to a living soul. “Shouldn't you be running my city and keep it from burning to the ground?”

“New Orleans is in good hands.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Maybe because someone hasn't answered the phone in a decade. I brought you something.” Marcel stated. He pushed off the door frame, reached behind him and tossed a young woman to the ground. She had red hair, pale skin and brown eyes; nothing like Caroline. Klaus found that he could be in the deepest of starvation and yet he still could not kill a blonde woman or anyone who looked remotely like her. The woman didn't move and it was clear that Marcel had compelled her. “You need to feed. You're looking a bit grey.”

At first he didn't move but the blood hit him and the monster took over. He was an original but even he can't hold off the smell of blood after years of starvation. He dived and sank his teeth into the neck of the woman. She didn't scream or flinch but Klaus didn't care. All that mattered was the sweet blood that was coursing through his body. When the woman was completely drained, he tossed her to the floor and stood; looking at Marcel.

“Your color is coming back.” Marcel commented. “It's been ten years Klaus. You stopped answer my calls, Freya's calls. You haven't spoken to Elijah in how long? Since the twenties? Klaus, I know its a new invention but the telephone was invented with a purpose. When you hear it ring, you answer it.”

“Perhaps the insistent ringing caused me to smash it to bits before I attempted to hang myself with its cord.” Klaus snapped. “But alas, I'm immortal and all the cord would do is make my neck itchy.” He began to turn around to clean up his paints, stepping over the dead body. “If you're here, where is Caroline?”

“Still in New Orleans behind the massive amount spells and enchantments that have been in place for years.”

“Kol and Rebekah?”

“Still daggered.” Marcel watched him. “So this is your plan? Hold yourself up in this studio until you desiccate? What happened the man who stopped my master whipping me? What happened to the man that leveled cities because someone simply looked at my mother wrong?”

“He died in 1864.” Klaus replied, focusing now on the completely black canvas. “It's been a century. A century without her. I can't-” He could feel himself breaking. His back was rigid and it was close to initialing the whole of Ohio. His fist balled and he punched the wall, over and over. His knuckles began to bleed but due to the fresh blood in his system, they healed quickly. Marcel placed a hand on his shoulder.

“That first night that you and Caroline took me in, she cleaned the wounds on my back. She sang to me and told me that no one was going to hurt me again. No one has. She became more of a mother to me than the woman who refused to name me. You became more of a father than the slave owner who whipped me. I will protect her until the end of time, this I promise you. I will hold your city until you're ready to take it back but I need to you continue to live. Caroline needs you to continue to live.”

Klaus said nothing but Marcel could see that he was getting through to him. The older vampire turned and pulled Marcel into a deep hug. Klaus clung to him and Marcel let him hold him for as long as he needed.

“Give me time.”

“Okay.” Marcel pulled away. He looked deeply at his sire. “I talk to her you know. Almost everyday. I will sit beside her and tell her about New Orleans. About how the times have changed. Anything that comes to mind really. She was always one to listen and always knew the right thing to say. It makes me feel as though she is still here. Perhaps, when you are able to come back, you'll talk to her too.”

“I speak to her everyday. I see her too.” Klaus whispered and Marcel was taken aback. He looked at the man and wondered how far his depression really went. He had never seen Klaus this low before. He lost it when Caroline first fell. He tore New Orleans apart and nearly burned it to the ground. He hunted and found every witch he could to break the spell; but this was different. This was not the Klaus he knew.

“Is that why you're allowing yourself to dry out? Why you've stopped drinking blood of any kind completely? Because you are hallucinating Caroline?” He didn't reply but Marcel knew that answer. “Look, I came by here a few hours ago. I called out your name and you didn't even flinch or respond. You didn't hear me. I saw the grey on your skin and I knew what you are doing. You needed blood.”

“I just wanted to see her. To hear her voice. To see if I remembered what it sounded like.”

“I know. I know.” Marcel looked towards the canvas. It might have just been black with no variations other than the stroke of the brush but to him, it summed up the Klaus that stood directly in front of him. “Take all the time you need but know that Freya is still searching. Last we spoke she was in San Diego speaking with some witch contact of hers.” Klaus nodded. “We haven't given up on her. I hope you don't either.”

“I'll never give up on her. I just need some time.”

Forty-eight hours later, Klaus was on a plane to New Orleans.

[justaghostingon]

Misunderstandings, Trauma, and How to Accidentally Fall in Love

Note: Giving this valentines Ros fic a shot

All things considered, Gyrus thought he was doing pretty well hiding his plans. He’d returned to the Room of Swords and played up the tramatised survivor, which wasn’t to hard considering it was mostly true. He told Don about the shadow kidnapping him and how he escaped, although he left out to arm and anything to do with his friends and what he has learned. Don had bought it hook line and sinker, noding his head in fake sympathy and reminding him how this was all the more reason to stay strong against the shadows. Gyrus had pretended to be greatful, nodding along like he didn’t know the man was just as bad.

He began to take more time for building inventions alone in his quarters. Using the excuse of needing solitude to work to justify locking his door and not reponding for hours. He hinted to Don his inventions were mostly defense related, in preparation for another abduction. But the truth was the moment he was alone he’d activate the arm and go check on Maria and Alistar in the base the three of them had built. There they spent their time searching for more allies and plotting how to deal with Don, the shadows, and the contract.

The others assumed his new found love of solitude was just an after effect of the captivity and didn’t push. Even Don seemed to think it was for the best to let him rest and recover. With Don’s encouragement the rest seemed to silently agree to let him work it out on his own. Everyone except for Kodya.

At first he didn’t think to much of it. Kodya was his friend and apprentice, and he’d been the last person to speak with him before he disappeared. It made sense that he harbored a bit more guilt and concern than the rest. Gyrus had tolerated his constant concerned looks and flimsy excuses to follow him around. He’d acted normal, turning down all offers of help with a grin on his lips and a lie on his tongue, confident Kodya would accept it like he always had.

Kodya didn’t push, but he also didn’t stop. If anything, he got worse. He would come up with every excuse he could think of to simply be around Gyrus, offering to train together, ‘accidentally’ running in to him in the halls, and perhaps the worst of all, always trying to convince Gyrus to let him help with Gyrus’s supposed inventions.

“I’m your apprentice,” he insisted. “I can help you.”

“Kodya I appreciate the offer, but you don’t know a thing about robotics,” Gyrus quirked an eyebrow, but kept his voice light.

“I’m a quick learner.” Kodya insisted, standing straight backed with his hands balled into fists. “You’ve said so yourself. Wouldn’t two make it easier?”

“Kodya, it’s fine,” Gyrus lightly elbowed him on the arm. “I’ve got it under control.”

“You’ve been holed up in your chambers for weeks and haven’t got anything done!” Kodya snapped, “You never take that long! You need help!”

Gyrus froze at Kodya’s sudden anger. He realized distantly that they had never fought before. One look at his face and Kodya had instantly whilted, apologizing over and over. Gyrus waved the apologies off, but worry curled in his stomach.

He waited a full hour before he next teleported out.

————————————

“I think Kodya’s on to me,” he said by way of greeting as he teleported into Maria and Ailstair’s base. Maria was the only one in the room, patching up the metal sides from a recent attack.

“Someone’s on to you?” Maria dropped the hammer she’d been using and hurried over. “How do you know?”

Ailstair popped his head around the corner. “What’s was that noise?” his eyes slid from Maria’s fallen hammer to Gyrus and lit up. “Oh Gyrus you’re back!”

“Someone’s on to Gyrus,” Maria turned her head to shout back at him. His expression grew grave as he too hurried over.

“I think you’d better start from the beginning,” he said, glancing up at Gyrus’s contract to ensure it hadn’t be altered.

So Gyrus told them everything: about how Kodya would following him around and keep an eye on him, and about the arguement where he’d realized Kodya knew he wasn’t really making technology in his room.

“Oh thats not so bad,” Maria sighed in relief as she lightly punched Gyrus, “you had me really worried!”

Gyrus winced and rubbed the spot she’d hit. “He knows I’m lying guys. If he mentions it to Don, even if its just out of concern, we are in serious trouble.”

Ailstair rubbed his chin thoughtfully, “you’re right, we really should have thought about what it would look like if you didn’t actually produce something. You should spend some time actually working on projects instead of always coming to us.”

“I do work on projects!” Gyrus objected, “just not very often.” He looked down at his hands, clasped in his lap. “I haven’t really been able to finish any.”

“Well, take a bit more time then,” said Maria. “We’ve got pretty used to this realm, we can handle it ourselves. Go and build something useless to show Don and Kodya and end this whole mess,” Maria rolled her eyes and picked up her hammer. Gyrus didn’t move and she waved it at him, “Go on! You’ve got a mess to fix.”

——————————-

At first it seemed to work. Gyrus spent nearly a week barely leaving his rooms to build the single most useless device he could think of: an automatic galaxy map - a tool his ship had used calculate distances between stars and spaceships - and presented it to Kodya.

He was predictably fascinated. Gyrus felt a sudden warmth rush through him at the unadulterated joy on Kodya’s face as he turned the object around and around in his hands, pushing buttons and testing it out.

“Try the middle one,” Gyrus grinned, and Kodya nodded, pressing the large red button with his finger. The whole room lit up as Gyrus’s creation began to levitate out of Kodya’s grasp, light poring out of every inch. Holographic stars flew from the device and took their places around the room, hanging suspended in mid air. Kodya gasped as the device hovering above his hands was now a little model spaceship, designed down to the smallest detail to match Iro’s. His eyes met Gyrus’s across the little galaxy, shining so brightly that for a second Gyrus mistook them for stars.

He’d had a whole speech lined up, about how he’d uploaded Scout’s memories of the stars from Iro’s missions. How with this they could compare realms to see if they could find out where they were and get off world for help. It was an idea he’d had a few years ago but dismissed when he realized just how alien the realms were. But somehow all his planned excuses didn’t seem to matter as he watched Kodya hesitantly reach up to touch the closest star.

This is amazing,” Kodya’s voice was barely a whisper, but Gyrus heard every word. ‘And,’ he thought as he took Kodya’s hand and gently showed him how to use the holographic controls to move the ship along its journey, ‘somehow that’s all that needs to be said.’

Needless to say, everyone else had been thrilled with the invention. Even if it was, as Gyrus already knew, quite useless for actually finding out where they were. Don even congratulated him on coming up with such a clever idea to escape and seemed genuinely sympathetic towards Gyrus for what he perceived as disappointment at its failure.

Gyrus was able to go about his secret meetings freely, safe from the assumption that he was losing his touch and needed help. He simply had to present an equally useless but clever seeming device every few weeks and everyone would simply except it.

Or rather that’s how it should have been. But it seemed Kodya was not so easily deterred. Sure, he was fascinated by the objects Gyrus produced. Gyrus even made sure to show them off to Kodya first as a way to reasure him that Gyrus really was doing fine on his own. But now Kodya took another angle with his doubts.

“When was the last time you ate?” Kodya interupted Gyrus’s rant over his latest invention: suction cups useful for sticking to the side of a spaceship in flight. Gyrus frowned, because he’d really thought his explanation of why these might be important for the Room of Swords was pretty good and he’d though Kodya would actually like it. “I don’t know?” He shrugged, “when was lunch?”

“You didn’t come to lunch,” Kodya’s eyes narrowed. “And you didn’t come to breakfast or yesterday’s dinner.”

“I have snacks in my room,” Gyrus waved it away.

“No,” Kodya’s voice rose a bit in barely contained frustration. “You had snacks in your room. You brought them in a week ago and since then you’ve missed so many meals Oli’s started to think he’s done something wrong. There’s no way you have any left.”

Now Gyrus had in fact eaten last night. Ailstar had managed to con an NPC out of a resturant and had invited him to try it out. But its not like he could tell Kodya that. And even as the flimsy excuse of, “I just got carried away and lost track of time!” rolled off his tongue he could tell by the unimpressed quirk of Kodya’s eyebrow that it did him more harm than good.

——————————

“And now he told me he’s gonna bang on my door every meal so I don’t forget again.” Gyrus complained as he took a bite of the fried corn Ailstair put in front of him. “Hey, this is actually pretty good!” He gulped down a few more bites before continuing, “so I have to make sure I’m in my room every six hours. I’m not going to be able to help fight shadows or conquer other realms unless its by night.”

“Considering how long it takes to conquer a realm, time was always going to be a problem,” Maria said as she absently tore off half of her potato on a stick. “We’ve improved a lot though. You don’t need to be there for the entire campaign.”

“But it will be three entire hours where I can’t do anything! If you guys are in serious trouble, or the shadow hour starts, I’m going to be trapped in the Room of Swords unable to do anything!” Gyrus stabbed his stick viciously into another fried corn.

“Any idea what got him so worried?” Maria absently used her stick to pick at her teeth.

Gyrus sighed, “I don’t know. I thought he was fine with it after the galaxy map.” He took another bite of the fried corn, but found it had lost all its flavor.

“When you held his hand surrounded by stars?” Ailstair called over as he bustled over to their spot at the bar, signalling one of his staff to take his place waiting on customers. Gyrus rolled his eyes which made Maria quirked an eyebrow, but he didn’t bother to argue, to used to Ailstair’s antics to correct him. “What’s the trouble in paradise?”

Gyrus explained again, absently twirling the fried corn as he did to avoid having to look at Ailstair when he told him he couldn’t help. But to his surprise Ailstair laughed. “Oh that’s nothing!” He said with a grin, “you just need to prove to your Kodya that he can trust you not to die of starvation in your room.”

“And how do I do that?” Gyrus glanced up at Ailstair, eyes wide.

“By building trust of course! Spend time with him one on one outside of introducing an invention. Enough time together and he’ll be able to trust you to miss a meal once or twice for a project without having to worry about you dying if he takes his eyes off you,” he ended this explination with a wink.

“I don’t think it’ll be that easy,” Gyrus frowned down at his half eaten fried corn.

“I hate to agree with Ailstair,” Maria pulled the stick out of her mouth and tossed it in the trash, “but he’s right. You’ve got more influence than you think. Just show him your fine and he’ll ease up on all the worrying.”

Gyrus looked between Maria and Ailstair. They rarely agreed on anything. If they both thought this was the best plan then it was probably worth a shot. “Ok, I’ll give it a try. Any idea where to start?”

Ailstair’s eyes lit up. He opened his mouth but Maria lunged sideways and tackled him, shoving her hand over his mouth. “I’m sure it will come to you, you know him best after all,” she smiled in a way that was likely meant to be reassuring, but fell kind of flat from her position on the floor pinning Ailstair down.

“Mumufff,” Ailstair added from underneath her. Maria suddenly yelped and let go of his mouth as he shouted, “don’t forget to hold him in your big strong arms!”

“You licked me!” Maria shrieked. And Gyrus figured it was time to head out.

———————

The next time Kodya came to remind him of a meal, Gyrus made sure he got there first. Kodya stood with one fist raised in surprise as Gyrus opened the door. He smiled up at Kodya, who hastily dropped his fist, “Shall we go?”

Kodya nodded and the headed down the hallway together. Gyrus kept the conversation light, asking how he’d slept and what his plans for the day were. Kodya happily replied, talking about training and chores and how he was hoping to go on the next mission.

“Speaking of training,” Gyrus cut in casually as they approached the kitchen. “Would you like to do some sparing with me?”

Kodya stopped dead. “You want to train?”

Gyrus raised an eyebrow as he turned to face him, “Well yes. I know its been a while, but you are still my apprentice.” Kodya continued to stare, mouth slightly open. Gyrus began to feel he’d said something wrong. Glancing away he added, “if you’ve got other plans...”

“No!” Kodya shouted, surprised Gyrus glanced up to meet Kodya’s eyes. Kodya held his gaze firmly. “I absolutely want to train with you,” he said.

Gyrus smiled, “We’ll spar in the rock realm. does after lunch work for you?”

————————

The rock realm, as it was affectionately called, was home to a lot of rocks and little else. But it was a rock that Gyrus was looking for, so it did the trick. He found a good one eventually. It towered over the others, top smooth and flat like something large had come through and cut it in two. But most important of all, it was wide enough for two people to use it to spar.

He and Kodya climbed up and stood on opposite sides. “Ready?” Gyrus asked.

“Ready,” Kodya grinned. And the game was on.

Kodya, Gyrus noticed as he ducked under a blow, was doing really well. He’d obviously put a lot of time into training during Gyrus’s capture. ‘He’s good,’ Gyrus thought as Kodya managed to land a punch, ‘but not good enough.’ Gyrus rolled with the punch and kicked his leg out, knocking Kodya off balance and onto the ground.

“Sorry to sweep you off your feet,” Gyrus smirked down at Kodya. Kodya started, face going red. Then he scowled at the twinkle in Gyrus’s eye.

“Your not as funny as you think you are,” he said. Gyrus chuckled in disagreement and extended a hand. Kodya took it, than yanked hard, sending Gyrus tumbling down beside him.

Kodya rolled to his feet and summoned his sword. He smirked as he pointed the tip at Gyrus’s throat. “Now whose the one swept of their feet?”

Gyrus blinked, brain taking half a second to catch up with to what had just happened. The black sun was behind Kodya, causing him to appear radiant. The sword glistened and reflected the light between them, making it hard to focus. He squinted, and noticed Kodya’s face was framed in a halo of light. One eyebrow quirked up as his lips slid into a smirk. He looked so incredibly proud of his dirty trick.

Gyrus tipped back his head and laughed. He didn’t know why. It wasn’t funny, not at all. But for some reason he couldn’t help himself. Kodya lowered his sword to stare at him in confusion, before throwing back his head and laughing along.

———————

The end of their sparring session had them both lying on the rock, panting with exhaustion. A faint breeze ran over Gyrus, causing him to sigh with relief. He gazed up at the sky, absently watching the clouds above.

To his left he heard Kodya give a dry huff of laughter. “What is it?” he turned his head to look at him.

“Its nothing, just something Neph and I would do.” Kodya glanced away.

“Ohh?” Gyrus rolled on his side, expectant.

Kodya blushed and gestured to the sky. “That cloud...it looks like Don.”

Gyrus lay back down and followed his line of sight, “I’d say it looks more like a wheelchair.”

“No, no!” Kodya shook his head and pointed to the left, “not that one. That one! See his guitar?”

Gyrus frowned up at the cloud above. It did look a bit like it was holding a guitar. “His beard is coming back in.”

“Don had a beard?” Kodya glanced over at Gyrus.

“Oh yeah. Back when I first came to the Room of Swords, he had a huge one. It made him look like a wild man.”

Kodya chuckled softly and Gyrus smiled. Don had looked ridiculous when they’d first met, but Gyrus had been so relieved he hadn’t though to point it out. The smile slipped off of Gyrus’s face. He wondered how much of that friendly relief had been an act. Probably all of it.

“You ok?” Kodya’s voice cut through his thoughts. He rolled toward Gyrus, face creased with concern.

“Yeah! Yeah. I’m fine,” Gyrus glanced up at the black sun. “It’s getting late. We should head back before people start asking where we are.” He pulled himself up to his feet, and offered a hand to Kodya.

Kodya took the hand, but kept glancing at Gyrus with worry in his eyes the whole way back.

———————

Gyrus wandered down the hallways absently. Ainju and Oli had ambushed him after dinner with a whole list of broken objects that needed fixing. Oli had been to scared to bother Gyrus with it for the last month due to his slow recovery, and he’s missed too many meals and events for Ainju to ambush him. Most of them had been fairly easy to fix, but a few needed a lot more time and attention and would take more than one evening to fix. He’d left the kitchen with an apology and a promise to return tomorrow and do better at maintence from then on.

He half regreted leaving it for tomorrow, figuring a late night trapped in the kitchen would be better than wandering aimlessly through the halls. He’d promised Maria and Ailstair to spend more time in the Room of Swords to avoid suspicion, but now he was here he didn’t know what to do. He tried to remember what he’d done before, but it seemed like a lifetime ago. Probably stayed in his rooms, fighting his inner demons.

He wondered what Kodya was up to. Maybe he wasn’t busy and wouldn’t mind company. Or maybe he was hanging out with Nephthys and didn’t want to be bothered.

“...Gyrus,” his name caused him to draw up short. He glanced to the side and saw he was at the med bay. The door was open a crack, and he could hear voices coming through. He hesitated, then slipped soundlessly closer, keeping out of the line of sight of anyone inside.

“...I don’t know Neph, I really don’t.” Gyrus’s ears pricked up, that was Kodya’s voice. “It started good, really. We spared, and he kicked me to the ground a few times, and I knocked him down once too! Well, I tricked him and dragged him to the ground. But he laughed! He actually laughed! I haven’t heard him laugh once since he got back.”

A high pitched squeal came from the direction of the room, and a voice Gyrus recognized as Nephthys said, “You got him to laugh! That’s adorable! Good job Kody!”

“Yeah it kinda was,” Kodya’s voice sounded fond. Gyrus blinked. He hadn’t thought adorable would be the go to word for recovering trauma. Kodya went on, “but that’s not the point! It was great ok? But then I messed up.” He sounded almost angry.

“What happened?” Nephthys’s voice was sympathetic.

“I don’t know.” Kodya sounded frustrated. “We’d finished sparing and we were both just lying on the ground...and you know that cloud game?...The one you taught me?...I made some stupid comment about the cloud looking like Don.”

“That doesn’t seem so bad,” Nephthys said. On the otherside of the door Gyrus nodded. It really hadn’t been.

“It wasn’t a first,” Kodya replied. “He went along with it, even told me about how Don used to have a beard. But then he got really quiet. I asked what was wrong but he wouldn’t say and insisted we leave.”

“Oh Kody,” Nephthys sounded sad. Gyrus’s gut twisted. He hadn’t intended to upset Kodya.

Nephthys spoke up again, voice tentative, “I know its been hard, and he’s been really withdrawn since the kidnapping...But Kodya,” Her voice became more firm. “He’s been reaching out to you. That means something. He asked you to spar right?”

Kodya grunted in agreement.

“So he wanted to spend time with you. Not me, not Don, you.”

“But...”Kodya protested.

“No buts! Who did he show the galaxy map to first?”

“Me but...”

“And who has he shown every other invention to first? Who is it he lets drag him to meals?”

“Me...”

“That’s right! You,” Nephthys’s voice turned soft. “I know its hard when someone whose been hurt starts to withdraw, especially on loved ones. I’ve seen it before with the wounded soldiers who passed through my temple. But all you can do is be there for them Kody. It’s not gonna be overnight, he’s still gonna have relapses. But he’s trying.”

“Is that one of your feelings?” Kodya asked.

“Its a fact,” Nephthys’s voice was firm. Then in a lighter tone she added, “My feelings tell me you should just confess already!”

“Nephthys!” Kodya snapped.

“What? I’ve a feeling it will work out!” Nephthys giggled.

“We just had an entire conversation about him being traumatized! I don’t wanna give him something else to worry about!”

“Oh come on!...” Nephthys kept talking but Gyrus wasn’t listening. The conversation playing over and over in his head instead as he began to process the meaning behind the words. Guilt curdled in his gut as he slipped quietly away.

———————

“I think I messed up,” Gyrus admitted to Maria and Ailstair as he pushed his food around his plate. Ailstair and Maria exchanged a look.

“Something happen with Kodya?” Maria asked, taking out the stick she’d been chewing on.

“Yes! No? I overheard something, and it put into perspective how awful I’m being,” he ran his hands through his hair in frustration.

“It can’t be that bad...” Ailstair started to say.

“Kodya’s in love with me,” Gyrus said, his voice flat. He waited for Maria and Ailstair to react, to realize what a big deal this was. But they only looked confused.

“Well yeah,” Maria raised an eyebrow. “It’s kinda obvious.”

“You knew?! All this time and...” Gyrus cut himself off, to full of emotion. He took a deep breath and continued, “He loves me, and he’s been so worried about how I’m isolating myself...and how my trauma’s affecting my health...and I’ve been leading him on! I’m letting him think I was getting better, when I’ve really just been lying to direct his attention away from what I’ve really been doing.”

Maria and Ailstair exchanged a look. Ailstair raised his hand with a sigh, “You’re oversimplifying. You did just find out someone you trusted had lied to you and everyone you knew.”

“That has nothing to do...”

“You’ve been traumatized,” Ailstair plowed on. “And you’re stuggling with opening back up to people. That isn’t a lie. Spending time with us doesn’t mean you aren’t isolating yourself from the people in the Room of Swords. He’s not worrying over nothing.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I’m not honest with him about why I’m spending time with him!” Gyrus snapped.

“Do you love him?” Maria asked as she leaned forward to look Gyrus directly in the eye.

Gyrus sputtered, looking anywhere but at Maria and Ailstair. “I...I” he struggled to come up with an answer, whole face burning. His first instinct was to deny it. Love wasn’t his thing, never really had been. But he though of training with Kodya, of how well they got along, of Kodya’s face when he saw the holographic stars, and of his laughter loud and joyous under the sun.

Gyrus slumped forward, forehead pressing against the cool of the bar counter. “Yes,” he whispered.

“There you go then,” Maria leaned back.

“That doesn’t change anything!” Gyrus’s head snapped up. Maria only raised an eyebrow.

“Sure it does,” Ailstair jumped in. “You spent time with him because you wanted to spend time with him.”

“And to mislead him!”

“So?” Ailstair shrugged. “Most people do things for multiple reasons. Doesn’t make any of those reasons less valid.”

“Look, Gyrus,” Maria sighed. “We aren’t saying you have to do anything with this knowledge. We’re just saying you being a couple with Kodya doesn’t get in the way of the plan. Ailstair can run a resturant, you can have a boyfriend. We’ll still defeat Don and the shadows.”

“I...” Gyrus looked between Maria and Ailstair, “I have to think about this.”

“Of course,” Maria said. Ailstair nodded in agreement.

Feeling like he was half in a dream, Gyrus teleported himself back to his room and collapsed on his bed.

He didn’t get any sleep that night.

———————

The knock on his door startled Gyrus, even though he was wide awake. His heart felt like it had tsken up gymnastics. He dragged himself to the door, each footstep echoing in his ear drums. He’d been up all night going back and forth over what to do, and he still couldn’t deside. A part of him wanted to go to Kodya and confess anything, the other wanted to push him away for fear of what Don or the shadows might do.

With no decision reached, he opened the door.

Kodya stood on the other end, and wow he looked good, had he always looked good? He probably had, Gyrus begrudgingly admitted to himself.

“You look terrible,” Kodya’s voice broke Gyrus out of his thoughts. “Did you get any sleep?”

“Ahhaha,” Gyrus ran his hand through his hair, “Not really? I just...had a lot on my mind.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Kodya offered.

Gyrus twisted his hands, “I don’t no...Suppose... suppose you had to a revelation but you didn’t know if you should act on it or not?” He stared at his boots.

Kodya was quiet for a bit. Eventually he said, “Would it make you happy?”

Gyrus hadn’t thought of that. How hadn’t he thought of that? “I think so, yeah,” he peaked up at Kodya through his bangs.

“Then do what makes you happy,” Kodya nodded, “You can sort the rest out later.”

Relief flooded through Gyrus at his words. Of course. He didn’t need to have all the answers. These things took time. It didn’t need to get figured out today.

“Hey,” he rubbed the back of his neck, “you wanna do something today? Just the two of us?”

“Like training?” Gyrus felt dissected under Kodya’s gaze.

“If you want too, or we could do anything else. Its completely up to you,” Gyrus finally met Kodya’s eyes.

Kodya smiled.

—————

Epilogue

Building inventions not what Gyrus expected Kodya to ask for. But he had promised him anything.

“Am I doing this right?” Kodya held up a half mangled circuit board.

“Not exactly, Gyrus eyed the half broken remains, but he gave Kodya a smile. “Here, let me see what we can do.” It probably wasn’t salvagable, but Kodya didn’t need to know that.

“I’m sorry,” Kodya gave him a sheepish smile, “I’m not very good at this.”

“Don’t worry about it! Its pretty complicated stuff,” Gyrus laughed as he took the circuit board from him. “Let me walk you through it one more time.”

Another explication was not going to suddenly make Kodya understand basic engineering. But Gyrus couldn’t bring himself to care. He loved talking about circuitry. And from the way Kodya looked at him, head propped on his hand and a fond smile on his lips, he like listening to it just as much as Gyrus liked talking about it.

As he launched into another lecture, Gyrus realized he finally felt happy.

[robininthelabyrinth]

(Uh. You're bio says prompts are open but your ask button says prompts are closed? I'll send a prompt anyways, feel free to ignore me.) The Burial Mounds are not made for people. It's not willing to change this. So as people eat it's food, drink it's water, breathe it's air... /they/ change. They're still human, technically, probably, but they're... different

It affected the strongest first, Wen Qing found.

Strong was, of course, a relative definition – no one at the Burial Mounds was ‘stronger’ than Wei Wuxian, of course, but all his power was borrowed, not his own, not after what he’d done to his golden core. So rather than being considered the strongest, he was considered among the weakest, right up there with A-Yuan: the rest of them, despite being civilians, had at minimum been civilians in a cultivation sect, meaning that they either had golden cores or had made some progress in developing their qi.

Of them all, Wen Qing and Wen Ning had always been the best; it had been that which had made them Wen Ruohan’s favorites.

So, to no surprise, it affected them first.

It wasn’t that they didn’t know that the Burial Mounds was full of resentment: a battlefield so bitter that it had poisoned the earth and water and air, left without purification for years upon years, and eventually the resentment had solidified, turned into a rotten lump of it.

It was that they hadn’t realized that it had started resenting anyone who tried to change it, and that it instead sought to change them.

It was a little like Stygian Tiger Seal, Wen Qing reflected in those years where she had too much time to reflect. That had been a regular sword, once – some cultivator’s treasure, no doubt, right up until they stabbed it into the corrupted Xuanwu’s side as they did, leaving their mark on the beast even as it ended their life – but years and years of being near resentment had made it resentful itself.

Had given it power, but also – malice.

The Burial Mounds had malice to spare, and it did not like them when they were just – human.

When they were still cultivators, trying their best to purify what little evil they could before they planted their crops.

So it changed them.

Wen Qing was the strongest cultivator left alive from their Wen sect, but Wen Ning – Wen Ning was something else, of course. Literally, thanks to Wei Wuxian’s demonic cultivation.

Perhaps the Burial Mounds saw what he was – a fierce corpse, living and conscious and shot through with resentful energy, not needing to eat or drink or sleep, no ability to purify anything – and thought that it would be much happier if the rest of them were like that too.

Wen Qing was the strongest, and so it went for her first.

At first she thought it was her own strength showing through. She’d always refrained from meals when possible to allow her family to eat more, especially A-Yuan, because the amount they were able to buy or grow was simply not enough for all of them. But she’d closely monitored her inedia to ensure that she was not growing weak – that was equally unacceptable, someone had to protect them – and eventually she noticed that her ability to refrain from regular food had grown rather impressive, to the point that she barely ate a bowl of rice once every fortnight.

Meditating in a small cave seemed almost like it was enough.

It wasn’t until she was there, drawing in what she thought was natural qi, and something living came in – a bird of some sort, she though – that she began to realize that something was wrong.

Did realize.

It was hard not to, not with the way she had torn at the bird with her teeth and swallowed the heat of its blood down her throat, leaving it rich in meat but without any blood.

After that Wen Qing had quietly panicked – though of course she’d brought the bird back for the rest of her family to cook and eat the normal way – and she’d vowed that she would eat only rice and radishes, just the way the rest of them did, and not resort to her cultivation any longer.

It was too late, though. The rice tasted spoiled in her mouth, even though everyone else ate it easily; the radish made her gag even though it was fresh. She could not eat them.

Only blood was sufficient.

Wen Qing wasn’t sure what to do about it – she couldn’t just go and hunt all the time, there weren’t enough living things on the Burial Mounds to make that practical, there was a reason they’d tried growing food instead – but around that time Wei Wuxian got the idea of making a blood pool for his experiments.

She didn’t know where he got the blood or how he kept it fresh.

She didn’t ask.

In the beginning it was only a spoonful here and there, enough to keep her energized and healthy while she tried to force herself to live on human food again, but after a while she found that a single cup of blood each week was enough to sustain her entirely, meaning that her aunts and uncles and poor little A-Yuan could eat a little more.

(Wei Wuxian ate too much, just as much as he might if he were a normal human who had never practiced inedia or couldn’t because his core was gone, but he was their benefactor. Of course they had to feed him before all others, except maybe the growing A-Yuan.)

After a while, Wen Qing noticed some of the others – Fourth Uncle was first, but others weren’t far behind – also leaving food on their plates, unable to eat, only they were wasting away for lack of it. She should have let it happen, maybe, but they’d worked so hard to survive, gotten through so much together, and so she decided to slip them a little blood in their tea, just to see if it would help.

It did. It was like night and day, the way their faces filled with life again – animated and cheerful, the way she remembered them best.

So she kept doing it.

(She’d once had medical ethics that forbade experimenting on those who did not know or consent, she recalled vaguely. She’d thrown those ethics into Wen Ruohan’s face, refusing to do his bidding even if he killed her, and he’d rolled his eyes and given in, assigning her only to hospital work for his soldiers and a management position in a supervisory office – he’d been nasty and cruel, but also practical, at least when it came to members of his family; he preferred to boast of having an excellent doctor as part of his clan over yet another corpse in his Fire Palace, and she’d made it clear that was the choice.

Wei Wuxian hadn’t accepted her refusal, though, and once you decided there was something worth breaching your ethics one time, it made it so much easier to make the same decision again – and again – and again…)

And then, before she knew it, the end came.

Wen Ning struck down Jin Zixuan on Wei Wuxian’s sloppy, badly-designed orders – however unintentional it had been on either of their parts – and the Jin sect demanded blood, whether Wei Wuxian’s or theirs. And Wei Wuxian was their benefactor, and that meant it had to be them.

Wen Qing told the Fourth Uncle about what she’d been doing with the blood before she left, not wanting them to starve because she wasn’t there any longer, and then she went to Jinlin Tower to die, seething with resentment about the whole thing. And they took her brother away, and they killed her and scattered her ashes in the Burial Mounds, probably as a final fuck you to her.

They also killed the rest of her family.

She knows they did, because whatever they did to kill her, it didn’t quite – stick.

It was about a year before she fully reformed herself out of the ashes, piecing each ash together back into a physical body like they were all just puzzle-pieces, and crawled out of the ground. Her family was waiting for her: their bodies had been thrown into the blood pool, and the blood of the pool had interacted with the blood already in their bodies – the blood she’d fed them – and they hadn’t stayed dead, either.

“We’re going to need to be careful,” she warned them, settling into the role of leader as easily as always. “We’re living off resentment, now – I’m not quite sure if we’re mo or gui, depends on when we count it as having happened, but either way, we’re now the things that cultivators night-hunt. We can’t allow ourselves to become known, or we’ll be targets.”

Nods all around.

She looked around, reviewing the crowd. “…where’s A-Yuan?”

“I think he’s still alive,” Granny said. “I hid him away before the battle, and the place was empty when I checked it again. No corpse.”

“Good,” Wen Qing said. She hoped he stayed that way, alive, the way they weren’t. “I don’t know what happened with Wen Ning – they didn’t kill him along with me. Maybe we can try to find him, later.”

Maybe they could find A-Yuan, too.

Maybe they could finally make themselves the home they’d been trying to build for so long.

[kiminicricket]

Swords and Opals part 8

A Ruthari (and also Tialain I suppose) Fic based pre-show

Need to catch up?

From the Start

Previous Chapter

Runaan was a lot quieter on the return journey, and Ethari wasn’t sure if it was because of what happened with Lain, or because they now knew that someone was watching their every move, or something else entirely. He supposed it was very likely a mixture of everything, and tried to be as quietly supportive as possible. Their travel went swiftly with just the two of them, and they made up a lot of ground on the first day, finally setting up camp a few hours after sunset. Ethari immediately began scouring the area for an earthstone, but found it next to impossible in the dark. He returned to camp where Runaan was laying back on his mat, staring up at the stars.

Ethari settled in to take first watch.

It was a quiet night with just the usual night sounds - nocturnal bird calls echoed through the forest occasionally and Ethari tried his best to place them. Not that he had anyone to check his guesses, but he was pretty confident in most of them.

Runaan kept shifting every so often, but aside from glancing over every now and then, Ethari made a pointed effort not to stare at him.

Eventually he heard Runaan roll over one more time and sigh. Ethari glanced over and the other boy was laying flat on his back, eyes wide open staring at the sky.

“Hey Ethari?”

“Yeah?”

“You ever wonder if…” Runaan trailed off, as though to find the right words, “the path you’re on is the path you should be on?”

Ethari blinked in surprise. This was not the kind of late night conversation he had expected. He let out a single, surprised laugh, “Only all the time. Sometimes I wonder if I’m on a path at all.”

Runaan rolled over and looked at him. “What do you mean?”

Ethari sighed, leaning his head back and looking up at the stars, twinkling in all their knowing brilliance in the night sky.

“I guess because I don’t really feel like I’ve chosen one, you know?”

Runaan just cocked his head curiously, waiting for Ethari to elaborate.

“All my life I’d assumed I’d be an assassin, take up the mandate that my parents had, honour them by using my life to reflect their values. But, well, I’m not very good at it.” He shot a wry smile at Runaan who was trying very hard to keep the agreement from his face. Ethari laughed and Runaan grinned.

“I could help you,” he offered, “If you wanted me to,” he rushed to add.

“Thanks,” Ethari said, warmed by the offer. “I’ve been talking with Tiadrin about it too though, I’ve always been more interested in smithing, and enchanting. Like with Tiadrin’s sword. After this adventure I’m almost sure that’s what I’d rather do.”

Runaan’s face lit up, and he sat up, crossing his legs and leaning forward. “That is one impressive sword! You definitely have the talent to do that, and imagine what we could do with more of those kinds of weapons!”

Ethari smiled bashfully, shrugging. “I guess. I just wonder what my parents would think. What they’d want for me.”

Runaan nodded, looking thoughtful, and a bit wistful.

“I think, I mean I don’t know them, but I think they’d want you to be true to yourself. Assassins have a dangerous job, and if you’re not one hundred percent convinced of your purpose there…”

Ethari watched as Runaan’s eyes went distant.

“Are you convinced?” He asked gently.

Runaan shrugged. “I have wondered from time to time… if I should be doing something else. But then I’m not sure I could do anything else.”

“You could do anything you wanted.” Ethari said softly. With Runaan’s skills and how quickly he picked up new ones it was true. Runaan just shrugged.

“Maybe. But this feels… right. It fits. When I hold the blades in my hand they sing to me. When I shoot it’s as though the arrow knows my very thoughts.”

Ethari was quiet, taking it in. Runaan also sat in thought for a moment, drawing absently in the dirt with his finger.

“The life of an assassin is a heavy one.” Ethari eventually said.

“I know,” Runaan sighed. “I’ve thought about it a lot, especially recently, about whether I could… kill.”

“And could you?”

Runaan didn’t answer for a moment, seemingly weighing up something in his mind. His eyes eventually returned to Ethari’s.

“When the goal is the protection of those I care for, then yes. One hundred percent.”

Ethari couldn’t look away from him for a moment, caught in the intensity of his stare. He shifted imperceptibly closer, and thought he saw Runaan doing the same.

Those eyes, those bright eyes that shone in the moonlight held him captivated and all he could do was stare like an idiot.

A phoenix called loudly in the distance, breaking the moment. The two looked away from each other quickly. Ethari grasping around for something to say. Runaan recovered first.

“About this weapons designing business, I think that’s a great fit for you. Tiadrin said you had more plans for her sword?”

“Oh,” Ethari latched onto the lifeline, “Yeah do you want to see them?”

Runaan lit up, so Ethari pulled out his sketchbook and opened to the plans he had for Tiadrin’s sword. Runaan slowly took the book out of his hands and poured over the designs, taking in the notes, the sketches, the runes.

“So it would be like two weapons in one!”

“Yeah I guess.”

Runaan studied the drawing a moment, then grabbed Ethari’s pencil and added a few quick lines.

“What if you did that?” He asked, holding it out for Ethari to see. Ethari stared at the sketch wondering why he hadn’t thought of that addition. A few tweaks and the whole design came together so much smoother.

“Yes! That’s amazing!” He grabbed the notebook so he could study it closer before looking back up at Runaan. “What would you do with a bow?”

The two brainstormed and argued and sketched and spoke for hours, eventually drifting off to sleep a few hours before sunrise. Ethari avoided staring for long periods of time at those captivating eyes, but felt warmed and content by the time he fell asleep.

***

Tiadrin had ridden the shadowpaw hard, clutching Lain with one hand and the reins in the other. They had barely stopped and had reached the grove at sundown. She danced her way through the illusion, casting her dance around Lain, then rushed towards the healers huts. The healers came out tutting, and pulled Lain down from the mount. Tiadrin watched in horror as she saw what the ride had done to his wound - blood soaked his tunic, through the bandages, through his clothes, there was even some on her that she had not noticed until now. He had not uttered a single complaint the whole ride. The healers delivered him inside, but when she went to follow, they stopped her.

“Please,” she said, it was all she could say. The healer only shook her head. Tiadrin dropped to her knees. “Please.” She whispered, “Please be ok.”

By dawn there was still no word. She was kicking herself. She stalked outside the healers tent. She should have taken it much easier, she should have rested, checked the wound more often, rewrapped it a few times. She reached the pond and turned to face the other way, stalking back. Then again, wasn’t getting him to the healers as fast as possible the best option? Wasn’t that why Dirue had lent her the shadowpaw in the first place? Surely he would be ok! She was at the entrance of the hut again. Turning back, she stalked towards the pond once more. If he wasn’t ok, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do. She had joked with Ethari before the trip about ending up with a couple of boyfriends, she never imagined actually… she stopped and stared at the hut. She cared more deeply than she had anticipated. It was kind of scary, like standing on the edge of a precipice and not being able to see the bottom.

Healer Solana came out of the tent and Tiadrin nearly pounced on her.

“How is he?”

Solana started, taken aback, but taking in Tiadrin’s haggard state, and wild, shadowed eyes her gaze soon softened.

“He lost a lot of blood, but I think you got him to us in time. You should get some rest.” Solana tried to take Tiadrin’s arm, but she stepped out of reach.

“Can I see him?”

Solana shook her head. “Not right now. They are still working on him. You need to rest.” She said the last part more sternly and this time Tiadrin allowed herself to be led away into another tent. Solana helped her out of her travel clothes and whisked her into bed, tucking her in and pressing a soothing hand to her brow.

“Sleep. There will be news when you wake.”

Tiadrin’s eyes closed almost of their own accord and she was asleep moments later.

Part 9 Now Up!

[neriad13]

The Dororo manga is something that has been very dear to me for a long time. The entire time I was watching the anime, I was mentally weighing it against the manga, trying to decide on which one I thought was better. For the most part, it was a pretty even competition...but then an inciting event happened which significantly tipped me in favor of one over the other. But first, a comparison!

Plot Arcs

 - Bandai: There’s a bit more intrigue in the manga, but on the whole, I think it’s about even here. Bandai’s monster form is freaking beautiful in both of them.

 - The Cursed Sword: The anime wins, by a nose. The mood, the tension, the symbolism, the much more obvious love of Tanosuke for his sister - I think this is one of the best put together episodes in the series. 

However, what it was missing from the manga was Dororo’s anger at the world in general and the reason that he wanted a sword so bad. Anime Dororo picks it up by accident, isn’t following Hyakki around to steal one of his swords to begin with and isn’t a person who gets terribly angry. It’s more of a matter of differently written characters.

Would I have liked to see Anime Dororo get angry though? ...maybe. But that wasn’t what the episode was about.

 - Mio: Point goes to the anime. I love how Mio’s story is expanded and how much more personality she’s given. Hyakki’s rampage is my favorite bit of animation in the entire show. 

It’s also interesting how the placement of Mio’s arc affects what Hyakki’s character is like too. In the manga, by the time he’s telling the story as a flashback, he’s world-weary and his heart has turned to ice. In the anime, his heartbreak is fresh.

 - Dororo’s Backstory: Point to the manga by a wide margin. Dororo’s parents are much less complex and interesting in the anime and the whole episode felt a bit rushed. Of course, that’s a lot of backstory to fit in one episode though.

 - Banmon: Hmmmmm. This arc serves a much different thematic purpose in the anime, though it (somewhat) follows the events of the manga. 

On one hand, the sequence in which Tahoumaru dies is one of my favorite in comics, period. It feels so dreamlike and disconnected from reality and in a manga which doesn’t shy away from showing fountains of blood, it’s shocking in that it doesn’t show a drop. 

On the other hand, OH MY GOD Nui’s near-suicide was heartbreaking, the fact that they gave a backstory for Tahoumaru’s eye was phenomenal and I was utterly shocked and elated that Sukeroku actually found his family.

It’s a draw.

 - Fair Fudo - The anime. The fact that I’m having a hard time remembering how it went down in the manga says it all. Also having Dororo be the one to rescue Hyakkimaru this time was an excellent decision.

 - Sabame: Oh my god, the manga. Bad. Bad anime.

 - Shiranui: Gonna go with the manga here. I am forever salty that the anime left out the “I’m a boy” line.

However, the anime also gets half a point for ACTUALLY PUTTING TREASURE IN THE TREASURE HOARD and not rendering that entire storyline pointless. -.-

 - Nue: There’s not really a point of comparison here. It’s the same monster transplanted in a totally different storyline. But, with that said...

Do I give a single shit about Manga Nue?

Nope.

Do I give a shit about Anime Nue?

Yes.

 - Midoro: Hmm. Another toss-up.

I found Midoro’s death in the manga much more affecting. The image of a dying horse, riddled with arrows, spending her last moments wandering among the fallen - that says something more about the grimness of war and the innocents caught in the middle of it than turning her into a horse bomb ever could.

However...I was so freaking THRILLED that Hyakkimaru got to ride her in the anime. My desktop’s background still contains a screenshot from the episode 22 preview of him doing that. Their stories are not so different and in this adaptation, it felt so eerily natural for them to end up together. Their partnership was utterly horrifying and glorious to watch.

Characters

 - Hyakkimaru: There’s a lot to unpack here. The differences between characterizations are like night and day. So, I’ll start by taking you on a journey.

I loved Manga Hyakki’s snark. I loved his aloofness, his sarcasm, his arsenal of ridiculous weapons, his terror at the thought of having a mother who abandoned him, his rage at the thought of other children being abandoned, the way he hated the fox for telling him who Tahoumaru was more than he hated himself for killing him. 

Watching the first few episodes of the anime was kind of difficult for me. It felt like the snark had been surgically removed and thus, was not there to lighten up the intense drama of the rest of the story. 

But, as time went on and I got to see more of who Anime Hyakki was, he grew on me like nothing else. The stark contrast between his gentleness and his seething hatred of all beings who would take advantage of another, human or demonic. His insistent desire to be heard, to be listened to, even if he has to scream to get the point across. His unshakable resolve in the face of an entire world against him. The fact that his disability is something that actually limits him - that he can’t read minds or use telepathy and that learning to speak is something that takes the entire runtime of the show to accomplish - that is compelling. And so amazingly refreshing.

This one’s a draw.

 - Dororo: The World’s Greatest Thief really doesn’t do a whole lot of thieving in this anime (once. literally once. offscreen. unless you count the attempted theft of Hyakki’s reforged swords). But then again, Dororo is also a way different character in this adaptation.

In the manga, he’s much more of a little snot. He’s furious with the world and constantly looking for ways to get back at it. He travels with Hyakki because he wants to steal from him. He’s not welcome in some villages because he’s such an awful kleptomaniac of a child. I do not have trouble believing that this Dororo has a demon in him that Hyakki has to kill if he wants his arm back.

Anime Dororo...is the complete opposite of that. He’s the kindest, most loving character in the entire show. He looks at a horrible world and doesn’t shake his fist at the sky - he tries his damnedest to make it better. 

Both characterizations have their high points and their low ones. Manga Dororo is an entertaining little monster. Anime Dororo is an angel and the prevailing voice of reason. I think it would have been pretty interesting to end up with a character somewhere in between those two extremes, but, alas.

Manga Dororo’s arc is about taking responsibility and figuring out how to be someone better.

Anime Dororo’s arc is about raising someone else up to be better.

Also calling this one a draw.

 - Tahoumaru: THE ANIME, by a mile. Or more. Way more! It’s not even a question. His depth and complexity, his compassion and anger, his deep love for his land, his people and his friends - HOT DAMN IS THIS A WELL WRITTEN CHARACTER. Manga Tahoumaru looks like a missed opportunity compared to him.

 - Jukai: I wasn’t terribly fond of Anime Jukai at first. My first thought upon seeing the Jukai-centered episode was “Jukai’s an asshole =(”

Like, Jesus Christ, please give him a leg. He limped so far looking for you.

But, over time, I came to understand him better. He is a character in stasis, one who has “given up all power”, responsibility and desire. If he does nothing, if he devotes his life to pointless pursuits for those who can no longer benefit from them, then he can hurt no one. 

Anime Jukai is one of my favorite characters now. The kind, fatherly figure of the manga who was delighted to know that Hyakki loves him has his place, but the point goes to the anime here.

 - Nui no Kata: ANIME. Another character whose role was fantastically expanded, to great affect. Her story feels like the chapter that was left out of the manga.

 - Saburota: Anime Saburota is Saburota in name only. Can’t really compare here.

 - Daigo: To be honest, I don’t find either version of Daigo to be particularly compelling. He’s more important as a plot device than as a person. It’s a draw...unless Daigo’s ending from the stage play makes it to the anime, at which point Anime Daigo would win. 

Stage Play Daigo gave me chills, man.

 - Biwamaru: Our resident cryptic shit and spirit guide might be the only character who made the transition unchanged. He’s exactly like his manga self personality-wise and is the only character whose design was not significantly changed.

 - Shiranui: I really like that anime Shiranui actually fed his arm to the sharks! It’s like he took Manga Shiranui’s desire to be eaten by them and actually acted on it. Anime wins.

 - Itachi: Manga all the way. His sole redeeming features were that he felt badly for stripping Dororo and how he subsequently chose to respect his gender identity. Lacking those features...he’s a much less sympathetic and interesting character. He also went down screaming battle cries at the samurai who were attacking him and defending Dororo. 

Overarching Themes

 - Manga: I believe that the overarching theme of the manga is that of otherness and how the world reacts to it. The hardest hitting scenes for me are the ones in which Hyakki and Dororo are thrown out of a village they saved by villagers unable to understand that they’re just as human as them. Hyakkimaru doesn’t struggle to regain his body because it’d be better than a prosthetic one (acid gun leg! c’mon! the heck would you need a flesh one for?? if it gets shot you can just build another) - he does it because he wants to be seen as human, however long he has to fight to do it. 

 - Anime: Individual vs. collective responsibility. Anime Hyakki actually suffered long term harm because of the demon deal. His prostheses and abilities have considerably more limits. He wants to regain his body because he wants to live and experience all the things he’s been missing. But...in this case there’s a cost. The fact that his actions directly cause calamities in Daigo - that’s a fantastic choice that makes the story bigger than just one person fighting to be human. As much as I love the manga and its themes, I think the anime’s central conflict is slightly more compelling.

The Tipping Point

It was this scene specifically.

The desperation, the futility, the love so strong it destroys - these aren’t things that happen in the manga. 

Manga Hyakki is constantly trying to get rid of Dororo, belittling him, forcibly reading his mind and fighting over something stupid more often than not. He cares about him, in his way, but would his heart crack in two if Dororo died and there was no way he could have prevented it? Probably. For a bit, anyway. Then it would harden again and he’d go back to doing what he was doing without Dororo. 

Their bond in the anime is something else. It is the beating heart of the entire story. It’s the reason why Hyakki is so desperate to get his final pieces back. He wants to be able to save Dororo with hands that can lift a rock. He wants to see the fall colors with him. 

Episode 20 was the one that pushed me over the edge into finding the anime superior to the manga...which is an amazing accomplishment, considering how dear the manga has been to me for so long. 

I cannot believe how excited I am for the final episode.

[castellankurze]

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.

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

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.

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

"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?"

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

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.