#and its technically any insect

[thewolfisawake]

So, Balmoral has that 'd/sney princess' in him that he can talk to something that really should not be able to talk to him. In this case, it is bugs. Although, following his penchant, moths are the most common. There are some that Balmoral keeps around as some semblance of 'pets' but they more serve as a different sort of communication.

These moths are technically regular moths but have been steeped with Balmoral's magic that they are certainly stronger and have a few quirks that are not normal. Their life span for one since they have been alive for centuries (though Bal has certainly lost some through his centuries and legit gets bummed when he loses one). The communicator thing probably being the biggest. This originally stemmed from them being bonded with Bal so they could correspond to him not vice versa. But he decided to try and figure out the reverse. And they can serve as conduits for him although it does risk them.

I do have a few that do have names and the like:

Coorie: First mentioned with Sivel but quickly became my favorite. She's really lazy and a cuddlebug, thus her name, and most likely to be hiding in Bal's hair or clothes. She's based off the silk moth (so she's basically all white) but is odd because she is not domesticated, thus she can actually fly.

Valiant: First mentioned in the drabbles of Mhoirbheinn's reaction to Bal's disappearance. They're, unsurprisingly, very brave. Mainly noted as one of the few moths not afraid of Mhoirbheinn. They're based on the cinnabar moth (red and black) and Bal likens them to his love. Although seemingly named for bravery, it was mainly because they survived a battle that would've eviscerated any other.

Thistle: Mentioned in Solanine's bio. The name was more arbitrary than others but it is stalwart in its endeavors. They're based on the erebid moth (brown but can have blue and purple coloring under some lighting). Generally more chill and one of the longest lived ones.

[teslacoils-and-hubris]

finally managed to finish that angsty drabble of the first time Butch said I love you! under the cut cause its long and also warning for general emotional angst and like. mild gore mention? nothing too graphic but you know, be aware and all that

oh also theres some context for the situation in the tags if you're interested in that kinda thing

The sickly green fluorescent lights had been on the verge of death for as long as Bug had been waking up sewn back together on the cold metal table. They’d gotten used to the flickering, buzzing annoyance over the years but never quite managed to tune it out. Across the room, the crrk fwoosh of the faucet signaled their saviour washing their blood off his hands. 

It wasn’t the first time they’d been brought back to life in the shady backroom of a butcher shop (they had the scars to prove it), and it certainly wouldn’t be the last with the luck they’d been having. Fuck, her head was pounding.

“We can’t keep doing this.” The voice was harsh and painful in their ears; their headphones must have been lost during whatever skirmish got them killed this time. “Reanimation don’t work forever, Ant, you know that.” 

Like it was their fault. Like it was ever their fault. Bug simply huffed and rolled over the best their sore body could manage. The metal embalming table had started to warm up slightly now that her heart was beating, but it was still cool enough to soothe her aches. Whoever jumped him really did a number. Ow fuck. Maybe rolling over was a bad idea.

"No, come on," was the buzzing always this loud? "You don't get to ignore me, Bug!"

Bugs eyes shot over to Butch. He never called them that. This was wrong. Everything was wrong. They wanted to throw up. The fucking lights never stopped flickering.

"If you're mad about me not paying the last couple of times, I can." Their voice was hoarse. It always was after revival. "Name your price."

"Name my- you think this is about money?!" Butch was shouting now. It hurt. He waved his hands as he spoke, passing in front of the already flickering lights in ways that made Bug's aching head spin. "I found you cut in half- fucking bisected! On the side of the road!"

Bug was currently trying to cover both their eyes and ears at the same time and wasn't all that interested in the state Butch found their corpse. "Don't you eat people?" It was barely louder than a very annoyed whisper. "Shouldn't you be used to gnarly corpses?" That wasn't the right thing to say. They knew it as soon as it left their lips. This was why they were always ending up in Butch's revival shop. They never fucking think before running their stupid fucking mouth.

"Are you listening to a fucking word I've said!" It wasn't a question. "I can't keep doing this! You have to be careful!"

If Bug had had a clearer head, they might have picked up on the desperation in Butch's voice. Instead, the shouting drilled into their brain like an ice pick, making their face flush and their heart race. They growled, ignoring the pain to lug themself upright to glare at the brick wall of a man and the current source of all their problems. Her tail writhed against the quickly warming table. 

"You don't get to control my life just cause we've fucked Butch," they spat, and the way Butch jolted away like the words burnt him hurt worse than every death they’d gone through combined. They just had to keep digging, did they? Why can't they ever stop digging?

Bug was always very aware of Butch's size. The man was massive and completely shameless about taking up space. It was a constant teasing point in their friendship how much shorter Bug was. But they'd never felt the full weight of his size until this moment. Even sitting on the raised table (customized for Butch's height), the man towered over Bug, and as he leaned closer, Bug started to panic. 

"I'm not trying to control your life," Their heart was racing- close, too close! "I'm trying to keep you alive!" Bug's small wings puffed up as much as they could to make him look bigger to the perceived threat. Something smelled like blood, it made Bug want to retch. They wanted to scratch and bite and protect themself, but all they could do was add more fuel to the fire.

"What do you care if I'm alive?" 

At those words, Butch closed the distance, slamming his hands on the table with a BANG! Fuck shit- they'd done it again! They finally went too far and run their stupid fucking mouth again and now the one person they- 

"BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, YOU STUPID FUCKING ASSHOLE!"

Time froze. The admission hung heavy in the air as the pair processed what just happened. Butch seemed to realize his position and instantly backed away from the table. He tried to make himself look small, hunching over himself. Bug didn't notice. 

Every muscle in their body was tensed, screaming out to bolt. They needed to run, needed to hide away, and be anywhere but here. Their limbs refused to move. When did they start hyperventilating?

When Butch next spoke, it was quiet and full of regret. "Bug I-" but the sound broke Bug out of their frozen state. Faster than their healing body should allow, they were gone, slamming the heavy metal door behind them. The fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered, then all at once burnt out into dark silence.

[the-ancient-dragons]

The last Overcomplicated Pantalan tribe; LeafWings!

You know how it goes. I'm just me and Joy and Tui are awesome and amazing.

Details and explanation below.

Otherwise, next week is something new! You'll get to meet one of my fantribes >:)

More overcomplicated dragons.

With the LeafWing, I struggled to decide what approach to take. Should I do something closer to canon or go crazy and do 100% my go-to headcanon?

Because my go-to headcanon is that LeafWings should have four wings. I found it odd that they and SilkWings both come from Pyrrhia, but SilkWings (technically BeetleWings) were the only tribe that evolved four wings? I hesitated to even mention this in my HiveWing post because idk how popular this opinion is, but even the fact that Clearsight's arrival somehow split the BeetheWings into two WILDLY different tribes is astounding, with how long dragons live.

But that's not the point of this post. We're here for LeafWings and buckle up, it's a doozy.

So first of all, the reason I justified a four-winged LeafWing is to help it camouflage as a plant better. I'll eventually provide a sheet of this, but it would have two main defence modes, the first being a single-leaf version where they lie flat on the ground or stand still with their wings drooping, creating the silhouette of a single leaf, or a version where they hang on the end of a branch and hold their wings and tail out.

It isn't just their wings that creates this look. I took the original single sail and split it in two, based on the ribs of a draco lizard, and had them run along the sides of its neck. When spread, they are a part of the single-leaf camouflage and bridge the gap between the head and shoulders. They would also have more similar frills on their front and back legs in case they need to camouflage standing up. They could use this for hunting or hiding...

Continuing with the bug-avian beak mix, I referenced african parrot species and leafcutter ants. The highly altered head is based on horned frogs and leaf geckos, and I obviously based the colouration and patterning on leaf insects (though the lighting kind of hides it on the back of the head, lol). Last but not least, I wanted to preserve and enhance the leaf cell design Joy used for the scattered body scales (at least, I'm 90% sure it's for that purpose, it seems most obvious). So, like any sane human, I found photos of plant cells under microscopes and used the rectangular-ish shapes for the main body scales.

I had so much fun making this series. It seems like a lot of people enjoyed it as much as I did. I learned a lot about external anatomy and mixing different creatures to achieve unified designs.

School is doing its best to murder me (I can't do big pieces) so from now on I'll have to stick to loose sketches I can do in-class or doodle within an hour. But once we learn more about bones and muscles I'll be able to take a crack at analyzing the full bodies of some of the tribes. I'll go in whatever order I see fit.

In the meantime, I've got some Fantribes for you, starting next week! See you then!

[whimsickool]

RATING THE ENTITIES ON HOW FUN THEY'D BE AT MONOPOLY:

1.  The Flesh - 1/10, wont stop trying to use severed body parts as its player token, houses, and hotels. This would be fine if they werent so fresh and thus staining the board. Brought meatloaf and refused to specify what meat was actually involved. We agreed to order pizza instead.

2. The Desolation - 4/10, is a sore loser and barely wants to play as intended. It mostly keeps trying to flip the damn board and when finally realizing its temper tantrum won't work, they just give all their assets to one player to tilt the game unfavorably like a dick.

3. The Lonely - 5/10, didn't show up on time, didn't play, and mostly sat on the couch for all of game night watching reruns of Golden Girls. This is due to the lonely feeling one gets when realizing you'll never have friends like The Golden Girls. They still get a point for watching though.

4. The Dark - 2/10, at first they just kept flipping off the lights which made it hard to play but when The Desolation suggested candles (the only helpful thing they did all evening) The Dark responded by leaking dark water all over which got the money and chance/community cards wet.

5. The Spiral - 6/10, just enjoyed going around and around and around on the board, sorta played? Mostly lied about how much money they had or owed or what chance/community card they pulled. This was because, "math is for losers." Thus, they did whatever they could to quickly get back to going around and around the board.

6. The Vast - 4/10, played the game, didnt perform any antics, but they kept pointing out their vast amount of wealth  after getting hotels on the first row. Points lost for being a prick.  I will say, from time to time, I would get the over whelming feeling that I was falling. This wasn't a large issue until it happened to The Spiral and suddenly no one can seem to find the bathroom in petty revenge.

7. The Slaughter - 0/10, killed the pizza man. This provided two major headaches: a deadbody to deal with and the pizza being ruined from being dropped. Luckily, The Flesh found use for the dead body. As for dinner, we resorted to just munching on the snacks. Also, its really uncomfortable being threatened whenever they happen to land on your property and owe you rent.

8. The Corruption - 3/10, always brings rotten snacks covered in mold. Uses live bugs for pieces which aside from being gross is just not effective cause they dont stay still. How can I recall that their property has three houses when the peices are crawling on my wall? I also just think it is common courtesy to shower before coming over to game night.

9. The Hunt - 8/10, overly competitive but focused on the game and largely helped wrangle the others. Did keep making references to Wolf of Wall Street though which got old quick. It is worth mentioning that they also talked alot about their various hunting trips and buddies which was fine at first until they started describing a recent hunt that I think may have been my coworker who went missing last week.

10. The Eye - 2/10, cheater. Fucking. Cheater. I didn't even know you could cheat that many ways in Monopoly. Also they brought the lead pipe from a Cluedo board as their game piece and kept giggling when I asked why. Further, it is rude to pressure a trade deal by use of blackmailing. Had a lengthy argument about how technically you dont have to draw from the top of the Chance and Community Chest pile

11. The Buried - 8/10, dirt everywhere and I can't be certain but I think they made my chairs smaller? Maybe it was the table? I felt far too close to everyone. I will say they did mostly play the game but you will feel buried beneath your debt after landing on their property which... now that i think about it.. why was their rent so high? That can't be right..

12. The Web - 7/10, much like insects spiders are NOT a suitable game piece. Didn't technically cheat but managed to get ridiculous trade deals from everyone, especially The Spiral. The Desolation gave all their assests to The Eye to screw over The Web but.. to be honest the game is still going and I.. is it possible to have a stalemate in monopoly?

13. The End - 9/10, played the game but kept saying we should up the stakes by having losers die. I explained that this was the sort of game where if it goes on long enough, death is actually the preferred alternative. They understood and got really quiet for awhile. I think they are to blame for why I'm up past my bedtime. I'm growing afraid they'll all still be playing by next week.

14. The Stranger - 6/10, tried to pretend they were my mom. I know they arent my mom. So they taunted me bu saying they were my dad. This was effective as I don't know my dad. Asshole move. Also, would not stop commenting how dry my skin looked. Other than that, yeah actually played the game!

15. The Extinction - 0/10, when it was finally time for everyone to leave we all learned why Extinction had not shown up. Bad news, the outside world has been nuked. The good news is that I don't think I have to pay rent anymore. Or go to work. Oh god. What do I do about groceries?

[heartfullofleeches]

Bugman-

Picrew used (X)

Its real name is technically Benjiman, but it doesn't reply to that name the first few tries thinking your talking to someone else.

A shy, quiet....person(?) with a love for insects, but is just as much terrified of them.

Only eats things that are bug shaped, themed, or named. Favorite snacks are ants on a log and boba made to look like the eggs of an apple snail. Give it any normal to eat/drink and it will surely refuse unless you slap "bug" onto it's name.

Does not like when people look at its back.

Often makes a humming/buzzing noise with its mouth when it is not speaking.

Sleeps in a sleeping bag. Reminds it of its cocoon

Stares at its darling frequently. If eye contact is made Bugman can/will not move until they blink or look away first.

[bogleech]

i keep wanting to draw anthro maggots but they end up looking like beetle larvae instead- any ideas on how one might stylize a maggot person to make it a little more distinctly A Maggot? it's especially hard to me bc maggots are like THE MOST featureless insect larvae.... which i suppose counts as a defining feature in and of itself- but i dunno. im mostly just curious to hear your approach!!!

Yeah beetle grubs, caterpillars and a lot of other insect larvae have armored heads with complete jaws structures as well as six little legs, plus they often have a defined looking "top" and "bottom" with ridged and wrinkles almost like they got soft armored down their back

But maggots are weird! They streamlined EVERYTHING down to where they have no legs at all, not even vestigial ones, and their body segments almost evolved towards something like radial symmetry by being the same all the way around!

Then there's the fact that they sort of lost most of a "head." Not only is there no exoskeletal cranial case (bug skull) to protect it but there are no jaws and never any eyes; there's just a little hole for drinking liquefied food, a pair of tusk-like hooks for gripping surfaces, and a pair of eye-like knobs that are actually chemosensory (noses)

The weird, tiny walrus-face is totally unique! They don't have any chewing mouthparts because they only need to "drink" the particles of rotting matter they live on, and like adult flies, they help this along by secreting digestive enzymes!

Maggots also have these very distinct, furry looking bands at every segment, which help them grip surfaces like a tire tread or the sole of a shoe. If you compare this photo with the one above you'll also notice how the segments can retract in and out like a telescope!

The last special thing about common maggot anatomy is that they are technically semi-aquatic animals, because maggots evolved to be buried head-first completely in their own food as much as possible and rotten corpses are WET. In order to breathe, maggots have a pair of breathing spiracles on their rear ends, which they try to keep exposed to the air!

There are exceptions to all of this, though; there are species that can be fully aquatic, fully terrestrial, herbivorous, parasitic or predatory, and some ancient fly groups (including mosquitoes!) whose larvae still have fully armored heads and even eyes. Everything above is universal to the maggots you find in rotten stuff though, so what most people think of when they hear the term :) When I designed a hybrid human and blowfly maggot for the Mortasheen setting I deliberately made it look like a doofy cartoon Walrus, and I gave its segments large spines that can be seen in some parasitic maggots, including botflies:

And when I made a maggot character for my webcomic Awful Hospital I designed her like a little spacesuit or a parka (the resemblance to Kenny was an accident)

Actually I don't think I ever shared this most recent "main artwork" of Maggie. I don't know what idea inspiration any of this might provide but basically a maggot is a prickly living sock with fangs. Or I guess from a design and engineering perspective, a maggot is a biological drill. The tiny end starts a hole, the rest of the body is just a flaring cone perfectly equipped to keep making the hole deeper.

[cuddles-with-dragons]

Fives: We need to distract these guys. Echo: Leave it to me. Echo: Centaurs have six limbs and are therefore insects. Discuss. Anakin & Rex: *immediately begin arguing*

Rex: What's gone wrong, Fives? Fives: Hey! That’s one hell of a thing to say to a person. Just because I’m calling doesn’t mean there’s a crisis. Rex: That’s technically true, I suppose. Why are you calling? Fives: Well... There’s a crisis.

Anakin: *sees someone doing something stupid* Anakin: What an idiot. Anakin: *realizes it's Ahsoka* Anakin: Wait, that's MY idiot!

Ahsoka: I hate to disagree with you, but- Anakin: Please, you love to disagree with me. Its your favorite thing to do.

Anakin: Wanna hear some dark humor. Rex: Yeah, I love dark humor. Anakin: Alright. Anakin: *Turns off the lights* Anakin: Knock knock. Rex: Turn the damn lights back on.

Rex: I left instructions for everyone while I'm gone. Fives: Mine just says "Fives no." Rex: I want you to apply it to every possible situation.

Police: You’re under arrest for trying to carry three people on a single speeder bike. Fives, with Echo and Rex behind them: Wait, what do you mean THREE?! Police: Yes…three. Fives: Oh, my God— What the fuck!? Police: Wha- Fives: Cody FUCKING FELL OFF!

Rex: Sometimes, I don’t realize an event was traumatic until I tell it as a funny story and notice everyone is staring at me weird.

Echo: Fives! Rex got that thing on the control panel working! Fives: Wow! That looks pretty impressive. Echo: Yeah! Fives: Any idea what it does? Echo: Not a clue.

Cody, answering his comm: Hello? Rex: It’s Rex. Cody: What did he do this time? Rex: No, it’s me, Rex. It’s actually me. Cody: What did you do this time?

Obi-Wan: Everyone, calm down! We're grown-ups, let's deal with this like adults! Anakin: So, we're just going to wing it and hope for the best? Obi-Wan: Obviously. Now, Ahsoka, pass the shovel.

Police Officer: You have the right to remain silent. Fives: I choose to waive that right! Fives: *screaming*

[amenalyme]

rambling about slugcats

I’m probably not the first to notice this but I personally haven’t seen anyone else bring it up so I wanna talk about it.

I realized that as the timeline progresses, the slugcats become progressively less carnivorous.

While spearmaster has a different way of eating, they mostly feed off of the energy of other living animals, with the exception of popcorn plants.

Both artificer and hunter are technically able to eat plants as well as small insects, though they much prefer the meat of other larger creatures. Artificer, who is earlier in the timeline, also has the maul ability, which likely means that it has stronger sharper teeth. While inv isn’t canon, it also fits in its place between arti and hunter here, sharing the maul ability with artificer.

Gourmand gains less nutrition from other larger animals than hunter or artificer do, though in return they are more adapted to eating plants and smaller insects.

Survivor, monk and rivulet eat only plants and insects. While monk could be considered more passive than rivulet, this is probably just the nature of monk as a character rather than an evolutionary thing, especially as survivor and monk are around at basically the same time. Rivulet is however more equipped to simply flee any encounter with a threat rather than engage in combat.

Saint is fully vegetarian (just don’t tell them about bluefruit). Their digestive system does not tolerate meat at all. Attempting to eat a smaller creature like a batfly will cause them to collapse while trying to eat a centipede will result in instant death.

Of course some of these cats can be described as anomalies in their own right, either due to being purposefully created by iterators or whatever is going on with saint, but when it comes to food, this progression does look to be quite linear.

It’s very possible that slugcats were previously a fully carnivorous species, but then evolved to be mainly insectivorous, while also growing more adapted to plants.

I just thought this was neat and wanted to share. Anyone is free to give their own input on this as well

[metamatar]

In 1975, civilian nuclear technology was part of a worldwide strategy to bring the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC) to heel. That body’s power seemed unprecedented, given that most of its countries were historically impoverished or “backward” peoples. [...]

Many developing countries did adopt nuclear technologies, often with crucial parts of their national infrastructures relying on American and European expertise, equipment, and fuel. Rather than seeing liberation from nature, such countries faced renewed forms of dependence. Iran certainly never gained reliable access to uranium and did not become the economic miracle envisioned by Ansari back in 1975. Instead of lifting up the poorer nations of the world, the global nuclear order seemed structured in ways reminiscent of the colonial era. The most heated debates within the IAEA pitted the nuclear weapons states against the so-called LDCs—less developed countries. The agency never became a storehouse for fission products. Instead, one of its primary functions was to monitor an arms control treaty—the Treaty 4 on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. By the end of the century, the IAEA was referred to as a “watchdog,” known for its cadre of inspectors. In 2003, IAEA inspections were crucial talking points in public debates about the invasion of Iraq by the United States [...] evidence gathered over the years by the agency created for the peaceful atom was being interpreted by the United States government as justification for military intervention. [...]

Focusing only on arms control glosses over the domestic politics of nuclear programs, particularly the role of high technology as symbols of state power and legitimacy. But it also does not square with what scholars of the Cold War have been pointing out for decades—that governments, especially the United States, deployed science and technology as diplomatic tools, to achieve feats of prestige, to shape business arrangements, to conduct clandestine surveillance, or to bind countries together with technical assistance programs. Poorer countries’ dreams of modernization, of using advanced technology to escape hunger, poverty, and the constraints of nature—these were the stock-in-trade of US diplomacy. Why, then, should we imagine that the promises connected to peaceful uses of atomic energy were any less saturated with geopolitical maneuvers and manipulation? [...]

American officials in the late 1940s and early 1950s were very worried that commercial nuclear power would siphon off supplies of uranium and monazite needed for the weapons arsenal. So they explicitly played down the possibility of electricity generation from atomic energy and instead played up the importance of radioisotopes for medicine and agriculture—because such radioisotopes were byproducts of the US weapons arsenal and did not compete with it. The kinds of technologies promoted in the developing world by the United States, the USSR, and Europeans thus seemed neocolonial, keeping the former colonies as sites of resource extraction—a fact noticed, and resented, by government officials in India, Brazil, and elsewhere. Mutation plant breeding, irradiation for insect control or food sterilization, and radioisotope studies in fertilizer—these were oriented toward food and export commodities and public health, problems indistinguishable from those of the colonial era. These were not the same kinds of technologies embraced by the global North, which focused on electricity generation through nuclear reactors, often as a hedge against the rising political power of petroleum-producing states in the Middle East. By the mid-1960s and 1970s, the United States and Europe did offer nuclear reactors even to some of the most politically volatile nations, as part of an effort to ensure access to oil. Convincing petroleum suppliers of their dire future need for nuclear reactors was part of a strategy to regain geopolitical leverage. Despite the moniker “peaceful atom,” these technologies were often bundled in trade deals with fighter jets, tanks, and other military hardware [...]

By the close of the century, two competing environmental narratives were plainly in use. One was critical of atomic energy, drawing on scientific disputes about the public health effects of radiation, the experience of nuclear accidents such as Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986), or the egregious stories of public health injustice—including negligence in protecting uranium miners or the wanton destruction and contamination of indigenous peoples’ homelands. In contrast was the narrative favored by most governments, depicting nuclear technology in a messianic role, promising not only abundant food, water, and electricity, but also an end to atmospheric pollution and climate change. [...]

As other scholars have noted, the IAEA tried to maintain a reputation of being primarily a technical body, devoid of politics. But it had numerous political uses. For example, it was a forum for intelligence gathering, as routinely noted by American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents. It also outmaneuvered the World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization in the early 1960s and was able to assert an authoritative voice playing down public health dangers from atomic energy. Further, it provided a vehicle for countries to stay engaged in atomic energy affairs even if they did not sign on to the non-proliferation treaty—India, Pakistan, and Israel most notably. It provided apartheid-era South Africa with a means of participating in international affairs when other bodies ousted it because of its blatantly racist policies. By the same token, it gave the Americans and Europeans political cover for continuing to engage with South Africa, an important uranium supplier.

Introduction to The Wretched Atom, Jacob Hamlin

[mixelation]

i wrote more reborn au. it is the situation described previously when tori has a non-team 4 mission go awry

i might change the timeline a little, but for now: tori is 16, and she has an official position in R&D so she takes fewer out of village missions. i might change it later but she gives her rank as tokubetsu jounin, because my interpretation of this rank is that you have some sort of high-value jounin-level skill (like fuinjutsu) but your OVERALL skills aren't really jounin level. so she got promoted hella fast after making chunin, but she gets stuck at this rank a while whereas itachi and deidara get to full jounin like immediately lmao. also she and itachi have been fake-dating a few months, but that's not relevant to the following

uuh also this has some stuff that i feel like doesn't punch as hard as it should without context to foreshadow it, so apologizes if some details seem to come out of nowhere???

--

The mission started off uncomfortable and it didn’t get much better. 

The premise was this: a research team had tracked some rare scrolls all the way into the boonies of a tiny jungle territory between Fire Country and Water Country, which had historically been traded back and forth between both countries but was currently maintaining its status as an independent state after the fallout of the Third Shinobi War. It had no native ninja clans, but enough powers had occupied it that both Kiri and Konoha occasionally sent in probes to figure out if there were any leftover ninja-related valuables. 

The idea was that a ninja village had the rights to ninja materials, even if they’d both technically agreed not to interfere with the tiny nation. Tori understood everyone in her life just accepted this as a morally neutral fact of the world and elected not to analyze it further for her own sanity. It wasn’t like she wasn’t ready and willing to forego her own ethical framework when it was convenient. 

So the research team had followed some local leads to unearth an ancient and abandoned shinobi stronghold of unknown origin, but had been blocked from accessing it because the fuuinjutsu protecting it was so old no one on the team could figure out how to break it. This was how Tori was chosen for the back-up team Minato was sending in: if you wanted someone to disentangle an unknown and strange set of seals quickly and without damaging the surrounding structure, Tori was your girl. There simply wasn’t anyone else as good except Kushina herself, and Kushina had way more in-village responsibilities.  

The risk of spending a long time at this location was that Kiri would inevitably notice and send their own team in, and then even if they avoided an outright conflict, Konoha risked Kiri running off with the scrolls or whatever other treasures happened to be in the stronghold, if any. This was how the rest of the Tori’s team was picked: combat ninja for back-up. 

“Oh, this is the most fun part about being a fuinjutsu specialist, you know,” Kushina had told her, when she’d gone over to pick up fuinjutsu supplies from her office. “You get sent on all sorts of weird missions to all sorts of places, and work with all sorts of people!”

Kushina was… maybe more social and likable than Tori. Kushina could make friends with a rock. Tori, in contrast, somehow started a feud with half the people she met. 

It started with some weird comments. Tori pulled a bottle of insect repellant out of a storage seal during one of their breaks on the first day, and her teammate made a snide remark about Tori living a life of luxury. 

“...do you want some?” Tori offered. 

She was literally just using a store-bought spray in a standard-design storage scroll. Kushina had told her off more than once for over-relying on storage scrolls which could be easily stolen or destroyed or lost, but she’d seen other shinobi do this. She’d seen their captain do this, earlier. This was normal behavior. 

The weird comments continued from the same teammate, who was a rank-and-file jounin with no additional titles. Mostly they were jabs at her main designation being R&D: surprise she could clean fish, condescendingly assuring her she wouldn’t have to fight and risk chipping a nail. The comments got an occasional snicker from other ninja, but they weren’t overtly hostile and definitely not as mean as whatever the fuck Itachi might say just in friendly conversation. She gritted her teeth and beared it. 

The guy was only like nineteen or twenty. Tori wasn’t sure what his problem with her was, since he was pretty young for a jounin and couldn’t be so untalented that it would make sense for him to have a chip on his shoulder, but also he was young enough that maybe he just hadn’t matured very much yet. Or maybe it was just that she was even younger and already a tokubetsu jounin and– gasp!– a woman. People generally highly praised Deidara and Itachi for making jounin so young, but their talents were generally more obvious, and also they were men. Shinobi were less sexist than the surrounding civilian attitudes toward women, but the misogyny still crept into their culture. Sometimes some men just got upset when women were smarter or stronger or higher ranked than them. Even Kushina occasionally got pushback. 

(Not that no one ever acted jealous or insane to Itachi or Deidara– it was just that they got it less often, and people rarely acted like that twice, because both boys were nightmare people.)

So she ignored her teammate and didn’t think much of it. Sometimes people were just assholes. In Oto or in Akatsuki, this might have led to him doing something unspeakably horrible to her, but this was Konoha. Konoha ninja could be petty and mean and jaded, but they didn’t do that. 

Tori hadn’t gotten to go into the jungles of this world often, and her mood did brighten even as the weather got hotter and more humid and they had to slow down as the foliage got denser. She liked seeing the shift in trees from Hashirama trees to broad-leafed jungle trees, seeing strangler figs and hearing tree frogs and finding the prints of a large cat. She even found delight in the presence of native giant leeches they also imported to their Forest of Death.

��The anticoagulants they excrete actually have a lot of medical applications,” she said cheerfully, poking one gently with a stick. They could also kill you if you let one attach for too long. 

“Uh, okay,” said their captain. “Keep on task.”

“When you let a researcher out of the lab,” another teammate joked to the one who kept ragging on her. Tori rolled her eyes. 

It took almost an entire week to get to the stronghold. During this time, the teammate that was ragging on her got both the other ninja with them to also start on the same sort of stupid jokes. Tori pulled a branch off a squat little tree and offered it to the teammate who’d started it all. 

“Here, it’s an insect repellent,” she said, smiling as sweetly as she could. “Since you forgot to bring yours.”

For some reason, this just made the teammate meaner. By the time they researched the stronghold, she was getting accusations that she was only here due to favoritism from the fucking Hokage. 

“On task,” the captain sighed, having also laughed at a couple of the jokes. 

Whatever, Tori thought. 

The lead of the research team, at least, didn’t even blink when he saw her. He was technically part of R&D. She had a reputation there. 

The stronghold was a small, stone building overgrown with strangler figs. The research team had already removed the foliage from the entrance and revealed the seal protecting it, which probably saved at least half a day’s work. Still, the fuinjutsu on it was a mess, and it took Tori a couple hours to disentangle what was even going on. 

The research leader bounced his knee in anticipation the entire time. Apparently they’d found evidence the night before of other shinobi in the area, and they were afraid Kiri could show up at any moment. 

“Can’t you do that faster?” Tori’s captain asked as she made notes on her own scroll. 

“Not unless you want me to risk blowing it up,” Tori replied. 

“Well, try harder,” he said.

She wondered, vaguely, if he would have this attitude towards her if he hadn’t spent a whole week listening to someone make demeaning comments about her. Maybe she should have tried to nip that in the bud sooner? Usually she’d prefer an opponent underestimating her, but these were people she needed to trust her skills… she’d promised herself to stop thinking of everyone she met as an enemy until proven otherwise. 

Well, whatever. The nice thing about her boss being a fuinjutsu master was that if this captain tried to report on her being too slow, Minato would put him straight immediately. 

She got the seal off in record time. Instead of opening into the little building, the door led to a staircase that went straight down into the earth. Tori held back a comment about Oto also being arranged like this. She didn’t need to remind her asshole teammate that she was a foreigner on top of whatever he didn’t like about her. 

“Great,” the research lead sighed. 

The next several days were spent exploring the tunnels that turned out to be underneath the building. They were carved out by an underground river, which still flowed through the main passages. The remains of wooden walkways over it were still apparent, but the structure had largely rotted away and they were forced to walk on the walls or the river itself. There were more fuinjutsu-covered doors leading to narrow rooms and more fucking stairways down, in a confusing labyrinth of passages that mostly held nothing of value. 

The combat team was roped into searching the tunnels in order to cover more area quickly, since there was the ongoing anxiety that Kiri could show up any minute. They all seemed bored by the slow progress of Tori opening up new passageways only for no one to find anything but rotting wood furniture and, once, some old and useless cookware. Tori was having fun, at least. Whoever had set up the security seals must have been high when they did it. 

Then everything went to shit all at once. 

Tori was taking her lunch break, squatting in the corner of an empty room and eating a protein bar, when her asshole teammate showed up to report he’d found another fuinjutsu-covered door. Many of the rooms had puddles from the river leaking through cracks, and the jounin rushed in so quickly he didn’t even bother water-walking over them. 

The door he’d found was different from the rest, with an ornately carved stone door frame. It also wasn’t wood like the rest had been, held together against time by fuinjutsu. This door was a solid block of rock, a giant disc on the side of the door frame. 

“I bet Hokage-sama will give us a bonus if we’re the ones who find the scrolls,” he said, his excitement obvious as Tori poked at the door. “They do that for object recovery, right?”

“I think that’s only if you find something that wasn’t a part of the mission parameters,” Tori replied, taking a step back to squint at the full seal. There wasn’t a universal pattern to them, but she was getting pretty quick about identifying and then dismantling the relevant parts. 

“Pft, what do you know,” her teammate replied, kicking at a puddle. 

“No offense,” Tori started, pulling out her brush and a jar of ink, “but what is your problem with me?”

Her teammate didn’t answer, watching her paint very carefully over the seal. The stone wheel that made up the door groaned and slowly rolled aside. 

The room inside was definitely different from the rest. The back wall was nothing but running water, held in place by more fuinjutsu that formed a gently glowing web of chakra over it. There was also actual decoration on the exposed stone walls, carved and then painted in. In the center of the room was a stone pedestal with an obvious scroll box. 

Tori’s teammate was obnoxious, but he was still a jounin and not an idiot. He waited for Tori to flick chakra-infused ink into the room and then perform a jutsu to check for traps. 

The room itself was safe. The problem was that the pedestal was obviously boobytrapped. 

“Can you undo it?” her teammate asked, peering at the box. It matched the description the research team had. 

It was hard to reveal the seals on the pedestal and take a look. They were, in fact, more insane than what was on all the doors. Unlike the doors, these were meant to be somewhat permanent, not meant for anyone but the sealmaster who made them to take off. 

“It’s… going to take some time,” Tori said cautiously. “But, shit, this array itself is probably valuable.”

She pointed to how it scattered down the pedestal to the river wall and then up and across the ceiling in a nonstandard shape. If it were disrupted, the seal holding the water back would break, immediately flooding the room. At the same time, the bit on the ceiling would collapse… something. Either the ceiling itself or wall with the exit. 

There was a mechanism also holding the box in place and locked shut, so no random person would be able to move it or open it and then accidentally set off the trap. Breaking that part of the seal wouldn’t be any more difficult than the doors, but Tori would need some time to figure out how to disentangle this mechanism from the deathtrap so they didn’t set it off and could remove the scrolls safely. 

“Alright,” the jounin said at length. “But you have to make it clear I’m the one who found it.”

Tori really, really didn’t think this mattered, but before they could decide what exactly to do, two strangers walked into the room. They were both wearing Kiri headbands. 

“Are you kidding me?” the jounin said, stepping between Tori and the Kiri-nin and drawing a kunai. 

She hadn’t noticed it over the rush of the river in front of them, but now that Tori was concentrating, she could hear the shouts of a fight outside. 

“Oh nice, you found it for us,” one of the Kiri said. Both had swords drawn. Tori drew her own kunai and shifted into a fight-ready stance. 

“Surely there’s a diplomatic solution to this,” she tried. 

“Oops, too late,” the other Kiri-nin answered, flashing teeth at her. 

Tori’s jounin teammate took a step back and whispered out of the corner of his mouth: “I’ll engage them. Get the box off.”

“But–” Tori started.

Behind his back, he signed that they’d flash step out. Tori nodded slowly. It was risky, and she wasn’t sure she could flash step quickly enough to not get caught in the trap, but a really good jounin could. 

This was the best part of Konoha, she thought. Even assholes had your back. 

One of the Kiri-nin chucked a handful of kunai at them, and Tori fully turned to back to face the seal on the pedestal. She heard the clink of her teammate batting the blades out of the air with his sword. Yes, even this guy had her back, no questions asked. 

She barely watched the fight as she concentrated on her own work. Her teammate was a good fighter, and he managed to counter both ninja while also keeping any attacks from hitting her. It only took a few minutes for him to kill one of the Kiri-nin, after which the second backed off and tried more mid-range attacks. 

“Got it,” Tori finally announced. Her teammate pounced on the Kiri-nin, plunging the sword into her. 

“Do it,” he told Tori, turning to her with the wild eyes of man high on his own bloodlust. 

“As soon as I release it, the seal–” Tori started to warn.

The Kiri-nin he’d left crumpled in the corner groaned and rolled onto her feet unsteadily, still alive. 

“It’s okay, I got you,” her teammate said, wrapping an arm around her waist. “The faster we move, the faster we can back-up our teammates.”

“Right,” Tori agreed, poising her paintbrush. “On the count of three.”

What happened next was such a slimy move that it completely blindsided Tori, even if it shouldn’t have. Training herself to no longer assume that people were just going to screw her over for no reason had been a bad idea, it turned out. 

She called one as she made the last of her brush strokes. Her mouth started on the syllable, and the jounin adjusted his grip on her so his hand was around the supply pack at the small of her back. He leaned over and put his hand over the box, his grip adjusted wide enough to wrap the last joints of his fingers over the top. This would be a weird as fuck hold for a joint flash step, but Tori didn’t give it a second thought. He just moved to put his hand on the box. That was their mission. 

And then he flash stepped through the rubble suddenly raining down on them, taking the box and Tori’s pack with him, leaving Tori behind to be knocked over by the sudden wave of water. 

The first few moments of the room flooding were chaos. Part of the ceiling and the entire wall collapsed, and debris hit her shoulder and legs as the water battered her around. 

It calmed eventually, with the water only waist deep. Tori spat out water and fumbled for one of the glow sticks in her weapons pack. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” the wounded Kiri-nin asked when Tori lit up the room. “Holy shit, did he leave you on purpose?”

Tori bit her lip. Yes, he totally had. What the fuck. Konoha ninja weren’t supposed to be like this. 

When Tori didn’t respond, the Kiri-nin wrote her off and started yelling at the collapsed wall for help. There was no evidence anyone heard her at all. 

The good news was that the river wasn’t rushing in. Its source must have also partially collapsed, leaving the river at a small trickle. 

“The water had a way out,” Tori announced, wading toward the back wall. “Maybe we can…”

She tried diving. When she found nothing, the Kiri-nin also tried. The exit the water had been taking before was completely sealed off. 

“Oooh, we’re fucked,” the Kiri-nin sighed. “What the fuck was your friend’s plan?”

“I don’t…” Tori started. He should have taken her with him. It was well within his abilities. He’d told her. 

He’d also taken her travel pack with all her fuinjutsu supplies. She still had some kunai and shuriken and a flare and a couple glow sticks in her weapons pack, but those would hardly help. She had a few scrolls still on her, but none of those were going to get her out. 

The water was getting higher. Tori found she was shaking. Konoha ninja weren’t supposed to do this. 

Old Tori had been physically weaker, but she hadn’t been this gullible, this stupid. She hadn’t been able to afford it. 

“I-I can stop the water,” Tori told the Kiri-nin, embarrassed that her voice sounded like she was on the brink of tears. 

The Kiri-nin eyed her with something that was either pity or disgust or both. 

“Is this your first life or death mission, little girl?” she asked. 

Tori let out a hysterical laugh. No, actually, she should have anticipated this happening from the first weird comment. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“I’m sixteen,” Tori said. “They’ve sent me into worse.”

She said this more to remind herself. She’d survived worse. She’d just been an idiot, thinking she’d finally been in a position to trust people. 

The Kiri-nin snorted. 

“Whatever, Konoha. Don’t stop the water yet. That might be the only way out.”

The Kiri-nin performed a series of water jutsu, meant to scope out the walls and floor and ceiling and find any gaps they could take advantage of, either to drain the water or send a message for help or get out. It would make sense if the person who set up the trap also left a way to get out, rather, let themselves back in to retrieve their scrolls. 

Tori wondered if the Kiri-nin would actually help her if she identified a way out, or if she’d also spitefully leave her for dead. How sad would it be, if she was betrayed by her own comrade and saved by a random Kiri-nin?

Tori didn’t get to find out the answer to the question, because the Kiri-nin didn’t find anything. If there was a way back in, it wasn’t accessible from the inside. The Kiri-nin leaned back against a wall, panting with exertion and holding her side where Tori’s teammate had stabbed her. 

“I’m a medic,” Tori offered. Her medical supplies were off with her treasonous teammate, but she could still do some chakra-based stuff.

“Shut up,” the Kiri-nin groaned. “Okay, I’m going to dive again and try to get out through the river’s entrance.”

“You sure you don’t want me to at least stop the bleeding–”

“Shut up.”

The Kiri-nin dived. When she didn’t come back for a very long time, Tori waded over to the river’s entrance and attempted diving herself. 

There wasn’t an opening big enough to fit her body through. Instead, she found the Kiri-nin’s body with her arm wedged into a crevice that must have collapsed further when she stuck her arm in. Tori couldn’t dislodge it to try and drag the woman back to the surface. She was dead, anyway.

Tori pulled one of her remaining scrolls from her vest and set up a barrier to block the influx of water. It was now up to her chest. 

Then she pulled herself up to sit on top of the water and very quietly freaked out. 

It wasn’t being trapped in a sealed room with two dead Kiri-nin that freaked her out, exactly. It wasn’t even that she had no idea if any of her teammates outside were alive or aware she needed help. It wasn’t even necessarily that her teammate had seemingly turned on her for stupid reasons. 

It was that she had gone out of her way to assume an asshole was just an asshole, that Konoha ninja were the exception to the rule she’d learned through both her shitty lives, like an idiot. It stung, worse than she would have thought it would. 

Her barrier eventually ran out of chakra, and as she watched it flicker and die, a horrible thought struck Tori. 

No one was going to come help her, because her teammate was not going to report her as alive but trapped. He was going to report her as definitively dead, because there was no way he’d let her be seen alive to tell her side of the story. 

Maybe, once they got back to Konoha and formally reported her KIA, Minato would send someone for her body. They usually only did that for people with stealable bloodline limits, but Kushina would probably push for it. Or maybe, if the rest of the team was all killed by Kiri or otherwise too injured to go back themselves, Minato would eventually send someone to check up on them. Neither scenario was a timeline where Tori would still be alive if she stayed in here. 

In the best case scenario, her team beat off the Kiri-nin, and then someone came looking for her. The asshole teammate would protest, would insist she was dead in a collapsed and inaccessible room, but maybe someone would insist on retrieving her body. 

It seemed unlikely. She’d already been too charitable with her assessment of this team. None of them were coming for her. 

She had two more scrolls with barriers to hold back the water slowly seeping in. Neither of them had enough chakra to last more than a couple hours, but she could recharge them a few times with her own chakra, although without food, chakra would become a finite resource. She had maybe a day before she drowned using just these tools. 

She could make a seal, of course. Her teammate had taken her supplies, and the ink and brush she’d had out before we lost in the flood, but she still had a body full of blood and plenty of surfaces to draw on. It wouldn’t be easy or neat, since blood required different calculations and wet, uneven rocks would be hard to draw on, but she could do it. 

 Her first idea was to tap into one of her storage dimensions. She had some food squirreled away in one, and some fuinjutsu supplies in another. The one she’d stuck a bunch of spare camping supplies in probably even had a better light source. 

Okay, Tori decided, standing on the water, here I go. 

xXx

Two days passed, and no one came for her. With food and fuinjutsu supplies, she’d been able to wrap a double barrier around the main source of water, but it must have been slowly seeping in from somewhere else too because the water level was still slowly rising. She could no longer stand fully on the water surface, and she’d had no good way to sleep. 

She tried a controlled explosion on the wall she knew led to an open passage, but instead she’d just collapsed more of the room. There must not have been anything above her but more earth. 

The explosion had also shaken the Kiri-nin’s body loose, and Tori didn’t really have anywhere to put it, so she was just… floating. 

Tori’s new plan was to get a message to Konoha. Maybe a regular team wouldn’t get to her in time, but Minato could. She wasn’t sure he would, but… 

She struggled to cling to this hope, even though it turned out trust was a lie and Konoha-nin were the types to just fuck you over for no reason. 

Tori didn’t really have a good way to send a message herself. Between Itachi’s crows and Deidara’s animated clay, they’d always taken care of it when she’d been on a regular team. She’d never had a need to invent her own way. She stuck some messages into storage dimensions she knew Kushina also had the key to, but she wasn’t sure why Kushina would check them unless she knew Tori was in danger. 

Which she wouldn’t know, because Tori’s teammate was an asshole. 

She did know a couple time-space jutsu, but those were notoriously difficult, and she didn’t know any that wouldn’t require another person. She wasn’t even sure any solo ones existed, besides the Hiraishin, because usually you at least needed a receiver. 

Tori ran option after option through her brain. She didn’t know shit about summoning jutsu, which would be super useful in this situation if not just for the ability to reverse summon. Could she logic her way through how they must work and then reverse engineer it…?

No, she’d have better luck reverse engineering the Hiraishin. At least she knew some of the theory behind that one. 

Sitting on the water, the top of her head brushed the ceiling. Or maybe she should focus on making a full-wall seal to keep the water out. That she was at least positive she could do. But that would take so much time… 

Tori stuck her head between her knees and willed herself not to cry. She still felt so fucking stupid, and the lack of sleep and floating corpse weren’t helping. Of course she shouldn't have trusted the guy who was making fun of her the whole time. Of course, of course, stupid, stupid, stupid.

She mentally flipped through everything she knew about time-space jutsu, feeling hysterical. She’d tried the Hiraishin before, and nothing had even happened because only two people in the world had ever managed it. Even with entire villages trying to beat it during the war, no one had even come close. It would be deeply stupid and arrogant of her to push forward assuming she could accomplish what entire teams of more experienced shinobi had failed to do. 

She was developing a crick in her neck from being bent forward as she approached the ceiling, so she laid down on her back. All her clothes were already wet regardless. 

Except, she had spent a lot of time thinking deep thoughts about the Hiraishin, because, well, it didn’t make sense no one had been able to copy it. Minato had left seals all over the place. No one had even been able to figure out how to undo them without removing the entire object the seal was on; it was why Iwa had been so terrified of them sneaking even one in. 

The markers are only a guide for the actual jutsu, Minato had said when she’d asked, and then when she’d asked again and again, Only I can use them, because only I have my chakra. 

But why couldn’t someone else use his chakra? She just couldn’t shove this explanation into her understanding of how space-time jutsu worked. Most of them worked using another user as a receiver on the other end, or else by using multiple people to throw something to a receiving array, and none of them worried about chakra incompatibilities. Tori had been considering using a fucking tree as a receiver, if she’d had the foresight to set up a tree-powered seal to be her receiver. And why the fuck hadn’t she done that, if she’d thought about it so much? How had she never anticipated being trapped with no hope of back-up? Old Tori would have never. Stupid, stupid, stupid–

Actually, Tori thought, sitting up on her elbows. Hiraishin wasn’t receiver-less, was it? Minato just did both jutsu on one end but somehow the marker anchored the receiving jutsu, somehow slingshotting him through space. Or at least that was the only way Tori could conceptualize it possibly working. You could, in theory, use an already active seal as an unmanned receiver; it was just that you needed to be really, insanely good to make a seal that complex that could stay active for long periods of time. That was why Tori’s idea had used a tree’s chakra to power the receiving end. But if you just had, like, some sort of tiny, self-sustaining guide for your receiver jutsu….? That was probably why it had to be Minato’s own chakra. 

Tori had no idea how to simultaneously do two jutsu and also do them so lightning fast it was basically instantaneous from having the thought to teleporting, the way Minato did. But why couldn’t she include both in a seal, with one of his markers as the anchor? At the end of the day, Tori had taught herself to use fuinjutsu almost entirely with other people’s chakra. Her original concept she’d been working on (but never tested, like an idiot) had been based around a goddamn tree. She’d done extensive testing on how chakra from different sources varied and how to optimize jutsu to it. She could totally hijack one of Minato’s seals. 

She was worryingly close to the ceiling now, even flat on her back. She drew a copy of a Hiraishin marker and then got to work painting a combination send-and-receive transport seal around it. 

xXx

Tori found herself on a dark forest floor, gasping for breath. She had no idea where she was, but at least she was no longer under fucking water. Pine needles poked into her back as she collapsed, staring up into the canopy. The trees had spindly arms and the full moon peeked through. 

The forest was still and quiet. Tori was working very hard on not hyperventilating. 

I’m alive, she promised herself. I’m breathing. 

Her body was shaking from adrenaline. She’d gotten a working seal painted in time, even if she’d had a hell of a time activating it. She was fine. She was alive. 

She got about three seconds of time to lay there and breathe before Minato was suddenly on top of her, a rasengan waving in her face. Tori shrieked. 

“It’s me, it’s me!” she screeched. The rasengan, being made mostly of chakra, gave off its own weak light, and Minato’s face was dead-serious as he commanded that she give various identifying codes to confirm her identity. Tori’s brain was already scattered and panicked from barely escaping drowning, and her answers came out garbled. Finally she yammered, “Who else would be hijacking your seals?”

Minato was quiet for a few moments, and then he released the rasengan. Rather than reabsorb the chakra, he let it spiral out in a gust of wind that made Tori shiver. 

Minato stood. He was in his pajamas, and one knee was damp from where he’d been kneeling on her stomach. He offered her a hand. In the moonlight, his face looked weary. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked, sounding exhausted. “Report.”

The phrasing of the command meant that even if he was in his pajamas, he was talking to her as Hokage right now. Tori did her best to straighten up and explain herself like she would for a mission or a lab experiment gone wrong, but her story quickly turned into an upset ramble. 

She didn’t know if her team was alive. She wasn’t even sure how much time had passed. Her teammate had been an asshole to her and she’d ignored it but she shouldn’t have because that was her clue she shouldn’t have trusted him with shit– 

“How did you get here?” MInato cut her off. His voice was barely restrained emotion, stress and anger. Tori felt almost taken aback. She’d thought he’d care more than she nearly died. 

She felt stupid that she was this upset over a bunch of nobodies leaving her for dead, about being this incoherent over almost dying. Wasn’t she tougher than this? Why did Minato being mad at her make her want to cry?

She walked him through the logic of her escape efforts. If Minato had any personal thoughts on her initial attempts or her aside that the Kiri-nin’s body had just been hanging out, he didn’t show them. His eyebrows did raise higher and higher as she described her eventual solution to her predicament. 

“You just came up with that?” he asked. She couldn’t tell if he was dumbfounded or furious. 

Maybe this will be when they decide I’m too dangerous and kill me, Tori thought. She’d thought she’d been safe from this inevitability, but maybe not. 

“Well,” Tori replied slowly. The fact that no one could hijack his seals had been bugging her for years. He knew this, because his and Kushina’s own dismissive attitudes were why she’d been stuck on it. He knew this about her. She shouldn’t have to lie and back off. “I’ve been mulling it over, and I thrive under stress.”

Minato sighed loudly. He still seemed tense, but he wasn’t exactly angry, she didn’t think. 

“We need to destroy it, even if you think the passage is inaccessible,” Minato told her. “Tori, I cannot stress how dangerous it is to leave evidence–” He cut himself off, frowning. “Shit, I can access it.”

And then he was gone. Tori shifted awkwardly, peering around her. She definitely wasn’t anywhere near Konoha. The amount of pine meant she’d probably ended up way further north, although she didn’t have enough light to be identifying exact species to narrow it down much further than that. How the hell did Minato aim this thing?

Tori was soaked, and the forest was colder than a Fire Country night. She shivered and peeled off her outer layer, wringing it out. A few minutes later, Minato returned, now also wet. 

“Good news is, I destroyed it for you,” he told her. He still sounded stressed, but there was a hint of relief in there. “So that problem, at the very least, has been resolved.”

Minato was not mad at her for breaking his jutsu, per se, but everything about his body language was deeply tense. He banned her from ever drawing it up again without his direct supervision, or even mentioning the idea of it to anyone. Now that Tori wasn’t afraid of dying alone in a cave, it occurred to her that Minato had hundreds of his seals in Konoha. Tens of them were in his house alone. One was in the Kyuubi’s seal. If an enemy could do what Tori just did, they were all fucked. 

Tori was very certain no one else on the planet could do what she did in this very specific regard, including Minato himself. But perhaps a motivated person could copy her, or an informed person could follow her line of research to figure it out themselves. 

“Okay,” Minato finished his very long list of commands on things she was never even to think about doing again. He took a deep breath. “Now we can move on to the other problem. Your teammate did what?”

She walked him through the story again, and was relieved that she seemed too tired to cry. That asshole wasn’t worth her tears, although she still felt deeply stupid and almost embarrassed as she described what happened to Minato. She felt like a whiny kid recalling the passive aggressive comments, and then like a moron when she described trusting his plan. 

When she was done, Minato said very slowly, “I want you to understand that I believe you, Tori. However, as Hokage, I will have to do an investigation before making any decisions.”

Tori frowned. “So no one sent a message?”

Minato raised an eyebrow. “Tori, you beat any message they could get to me.”

That seemed wrong, as Tori had also had this whole upsetting detour where she’d nearly drowned in an underground room. 

“Okay,” Tori replied dully. “What do you want me to do?”

If he made her go back to her mission, she was going to throw a fit. Instead, he put a comforting hand on her shoulder. 

“You successfully completed your assigned part of the mission,” he said. “And, as much as you scared me, I’m really glad you didn’t die. I think you should get some rest.”

He brought her to his home. Tori had not seen full light in days, and even the kitchen overhead light made her squint and blink rapidly when he switched it on. 

“I want to hear what they report before they know you made it back alive,” he told her in a hushed tone. “So lay low and hang out here a few days.”

Tori squinted at him. “That’s pretty mean,” she assessed. “I like it.”

She wasn’t sure how he would treat this situation if it happened to another shinobi. Certainly he wouldn’t let most people stay in his home; they didn’t exactly have a revolving door of house guests. It made her feel better, she thought as she showered off in the guest bathroom, to be reminded someone did value her as more than a tool or an obstacle. 

Even if he commented about the mission first, her brain reminded her traitorously. 

When she stepped out of the bathroom, a set of women’s pajamas had appeared neatly-folded on the guest bed. They were almost definitely Kushina’s, and given Kushina was significantly taller than her, fit comfortably loose. Tori stepped out of the guest bedroom to find Kushina angrily chopping vegetables in the kitchen. 

“It’s 2 AM,” Tori told her. “What are you doing?”

Kushina paused, sticking her bottom lip out at Tori. She was wearing a baggy shirt that came down to mid-thigh and her hair was braided back and wrapped for sleep. Tori barely had time to react before she was in a hug. 

“I’m working out my feelings in a productive way,” Kushina said, releasing her. “Besides, you need to eat.”

Tori did not want to admit she wanted a longer hug. Instead, she persuaded Kushina to let her eat cup ramen instead of the full course meal Kushina appeared to be preparing to make. Kushina did insist she felt better chopping things up and she was only saving herself time doing it later for dinner, so Tori sat at the table and listened to the rhythmic sound of Kushina taking out her anger on some carrots. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Kushina insisted more than once. Minato might have told her the basics to explain Tori’s presence, but surely Kushina didn’t know all the details of Tori’s mission. She was in no place to know if Tori had actually done anything wrong or not. Still, sometimes Kushina’s blind faith was reassuring. 

“Thanks for the PJs,” Tori told her before escaping to bed. 

She’d never stayed overnight in the Uzumaki-Namikaze house. She’d only ever seen the guest bedroom to dump her coat off before a party. But the bed was comfortable and had a thick comforter, and she found herself bone-tired. She fell asleep immediately.

[meowm30w180]

A Useless closet

__

The mysterious woman picks you up by the back of your shirt collar of your school uniform, lifting you to your feet. Your hitching breath still audibly noticeable as she dusts the slight dust off your thighs as if you're her personal property.

"...your very obedient, aren’t you?".

"..h-huh..?"

"Be a good girl and behave yourself and stay here until I come back. if you run, I'll make sure to hunt you down.. Understand?"

____

when your friends are currently being butchered like mere insects, you cower inside an old junk closet silently praying to any god out there to hide your presence from whatever is out there causing this terror.

Sadly, God ignores your begs and somebody senses you inside the closet. Your heart pounds at the antagonizing slow sly steps striding your way as you await your fate.

Though what awaits you outside that door is nothing in your wildest dreams could have ever imagined...

_____________

A useless closet

_____________

School hours go by pretty fast when everything is so bland. It's the same every day, same classes, same people, same food, same routine, and you prefer to keep it simple that way.

Though, it's hard to stay simple when everyone is jumping up and down raving about the ChainsawMan church. Personally, you don't want any part in it. you like chainsaw man but you're not gonna bow down to the guy and praise him... that's like some cult stuff.

damn its almost 3:00pm its almost time to g-

"HEY Y/N!!"

your knocked out of your thoughts by the high-pitched voice of one of your not so fond of friends.

*God all she does it talk about chainsaw man can't she get the hint that I don't care?*

"Oh... hi Kohana. what do you want?

"Well like, me Saiko and Muri were wondering your opinions on Chainsaw Man??"

yea who would have guessed what she wanted was about chainsaw man...

"I mean I guess he's not that bad..."

"What are you even talking about OF COURSE hes not bad hes literally THE chainsaw man, anyways we wanted to bring you with us to join the ChainsawMan Church!!"

"no"

"wha-?"

"I'm not joining the ChainsawMan Church, don't they force you to marry some random guy??"

"Yea but only if it's a hot guy obv"

"..."

"COME ONNNN both Saiko and Muri are waiting outside for us lets hurry up and go already"

"Who said I'm joinin-"

*As you try to protest, she grabs your hand, practically dragging you out of your seat to join her and your other chainsaw man fanatic friends outside

you could have denied them anytime, with every step they took to the ChainsawMan Church you could have walked away anytime but you continued to walk with them. Maybe it's because they're the only people that give your life a little bit more spark, so everything isn't so boring every day. Or maybe it's because you simply do NOT want to lose your only friend group. Even if they are kind of annoying, at least you technically fit into somebody's life.

you rant on about why you're still walking with them and eventually arrive at the ChainsawMan Church.

unsurprisingly, its filled with a multiple of other people from your school and some random other teens your age, and of course you're among them as well.

Chatting about chainsaw man and mingling with the other chainsaw man fanatics, you find yourself wandering about the chainsaw man church alone. surprisingly decently empty, you expected for there to be at least more people around, but you find yourself alone on the 2nd floor, how did they manage to get this ENTIRE building to themselves??

man, its hella boring here, what do they even do all da-

SOMEBODY HELP U-

"What the hell?!"

screaming, the sounds of the people you just had small talk with, their screams ringing through the halls of the hallway you're in, is it a devil? isn't it their job to kill it? what the hell is going on??

AAUGG-

screams abruptly being cut off by something.

are they... are they dying??

aren't your friends out there?? why are you even asking that of course they are. what the hell is happening down there??

the screams continue and then continue to be cut off, and the reality of the situation is starting to sink in. Theres some shit going on down there, and your definitely not stupid enough to go down there and find out.

ducking into a dusty old junk closet to escape the messed-up horrors down there might just be the better option, even if you now cramped and uncomfortable in this tiny little room with a bunch of chainsaw man cutouts.

the halls no longer become empty as people run up the stairs scrambling into the halls from downstairs pushing each other around to get anywhere BUT the stairs.

the panic in their faces sends shivers down your spine.. this is defiantly getting to you..

you see Kohana among the crowd, about to open the closet to call her over, a swift movement brushes through the crowd, everyone goes silent.

you don't know what exactly happened but you lose the confidence to open the door, you back up into the chainsaw man cutouts..

not knowing what happened you sink into the corner your mind wandering all over the walls. but the liquid seeping under the door silences all your questions..

your heart practically stops as you see the crimson red leak under the door with the dim light making the horrific color glossen under the crack of the door,

your breath hitched and it feels like your being chocked by your own fear.. and the god awful silence is killing you. you've never been this scared in your entire life and your praying your fear doesn't make your weak "hiding spot" known

*Tap Tap Tap*

"..."

a slow sly pace striding over to the closet

you try to stop breathing, but the hitch in your breath is still there making it impossible to keep quiet entirely.

you feel like a bug being squashed under the pressure of a boot, should you run? that's out of the question, your too petrified to even move like your frozen in time. the steps getting closer and closer making your heart beat faster and faster enough to give you a heart attack and practically die before you even get the chance to see your soon to be killer, the one that will slaughter you without a second thought, *why are they taking their sweet time to kill me?? are they playing with me like pray??*

all you can do is curl into the corner and await your fate as the footsteps eventually stop, casting a shadow on the glossy liquid under the door making it dull.

you can't accept this fate, but theres absolutely nothing you can do but cower and silently cry and hic like a little baby...

*creeeek...*

"..."

"..."

why are they just standing there...?

the door opens, but your too busy cowering into your knees to look up and see, not that your confident to even look up at them anyways...

the unknown person finally moves forward towards you, tracking the liquid further into the room, the person pays no mind to it. positioning themselves in front of you reaching out their hand to grasp the back of your shirt collar of your uniform. lifting you to your feet with no struggle, lightly brushing the dust from your thigh and moving the hair from your face to see your puffy eyes and rosey tear stained cheeks as you hic in their grasp, giving not only them but you the slight view of looking at their face.

"look at me, sweetheart.."

is that...? is that a woman's voice...?

slowly looking up at the voice you lock eyes with the most beautiful woman you have ever met up close in person. firm jaw structure, silver silk hair, milky skin,.. *is this really my murderer?*

the sweet name she called you made your heart flutter, and then that sweet feeling turned into guilt for getting flustered from the person that killed over 50 students including your friends, your friends.. if she killed your friends what makes you so special, why are you of all people getting the special treatment...?

"your very obedient, aren’t you.."

"...h-huh..?"

"be a good girl and stay here until I fetch you, don't run, I'll make sure to hunt you down, I will catch you..., understand?"

"..."

"answer"

*who does this woman think she is?? you think I'm just gonna listen to you after you butchered my friends and practically traumatize me?? Don't even fucking play with me you insane bitch.*

"...yes ma'am"

"good girl"

...I'm such a wimp...

*timeskip 30 mins later*

this is insane it feels like its been hours you've been cowering inside this closet, is that woman even coming back?? you don't even know her name, not like you care you just wanna go home... its not like you have any friends anymore anyways. this woman has the audacity to try to sweet talk you and order you around?? this is bullshi-

*tap tap tap*

*gulp*

*creeek*

the door opens, revealing the same woman as earlier, the same menacing aura illuminating from her lean body

"I assumed you ran, I was getting ready to go hunting. Good girl..."

she coos to you as she slowly strides to you and picks you up the same way she did earlier like a little ragdoll.

"..."

"hm.. what's your name, sweetheart?"

"...Y/N..."

"Hm"

The woman didn't say anything as she continued to inspect you, lightly brushing her slim fingers through your hair. You find yourself a little bit more comforted in this so far horrible day by the contact, but then remember who caused it.

This woman is too confusing to you, what does she even want with you..?

"What do you want with me..?"

"..."

"Do you want money?? I don't have any money just please let me go.. I swear on my life I won't tell anyone who you are just please let me go I'm begging you.."

"..."

Gripping the wrists that hold you up in the air, the woman sets you down allowing you to stand on your own. However with the dismay of getting your shoes sticky from the gruesome liquid that still invades the floor.

Her 6'1 body towering over you even more, she bends down and lowers her head to get a better view of your face.

"What I want?"

"Yes... tell me"

The woman lowers her gaze towards you and steps closer, you try to back away but a firm iron grip is placed on your shoulder, the other sets itself on her hip.

"I want you"

"What..?"

You don't understand, what is she getting at here,

"I want you, to be my woman"

"What are you talking about..?"

"I think you already know"

"..."

You can't help but wonder what her goal is, and why she picked you of all people, because you were cowering away in a closet and let your friends be butchered? The guilt is eating you alive and then this woman wants you to be hers? After what she's done to your friends? She's just some sick weirdo"

"What if.. I deny"

"This isn't a request, it's an order"

With saying that, she crouches down and scoops you up swinging you over her shoulder as if you weighed absolutely nothing, you slightly squirm in her grip too scared to do anything else.

The woman walks out of the closet and your greeted with a scene that you could have never been prepared for..

Bodies, upon bodies, upon bodies, of headless students that all from together to make a blood pool on the once hard wood floor of the building, the white on their uniforms are no longer visibl-

"..HRrgEh"

You feel like your about to throw up... your stomach drops to the lowest pit of your stomach as you see the gut wrenching head of Kohana, your friend.. lying decapitated in a pool of blood. You might have disliked her a little bit but you would never wish this upon her, or anybody, especially Kohana...

Your disgust is directed to the person your being held captive by and you soon start to pry yourself out of her grip, your not some obedient little wimp

The woman grips your thigh with a death grip, nails digging onto your thigh and tears threatening to break from yours eyes.

"Behave"

you start to silently cry, even though it doesn't sound too quiet, how could you be quiet in a situation like this.. the "quiet" cries progressively turn into ugly cries as you wish this was all a dream, the nails that dig into your thigh should have woken you like a pinch but your still here in this nightmare..

"weehhh.. pleasee *hic* just kill me *hic* already..."

You beg and sob uncontrollably in the grasp of the woman still walking through the bodies of the mangled corpses.. your vision blurred with tears and the last thing you see is the bloody footprints left behind on the floor as your carried away to an unknown destination.

__________

Guilty pleasure

__________

Ouch..

Groggily moaning, your eyes sore, you peak your eyes open from your slumber and stare up at the ceiling. Recalling the horrid things your brain imagined while you were sleeping, you wonder how your brain could have thought up something so bizarre...

"Fuck.. that was a messed up dream.."

You prepare to get up, to go wash up and getting ready for school...

"...?"

This isn't your room

"..what the fuck??"

You don't know how you didn't realize it before, maybe because you were half asleep but this is NOT your room, was your nightmare really not a nightmare..? Is Kohana really dead? And that woman?

That woman...

Is this her room? And did she strip you??

Standing in only bra and underwear, your mind racing with all the thoughts running through your head on the things she wants from you.. rape?, death?, god your so scared right now especially since your half naked and none of your cloths are in sight.

Feeling exposed (even if your alone) and defeated, you retreat back into the fluffy white blankets of the bed. now that your realizing it, it's really comfy.. squirming in the sheets like a cat, you feel slightly guilty feeling this much comfort in the sheets of a murderer

That murderer.. you almost forgot about her, who knows when she's gonna come back into the room. If she catches you up she might do something to you...

You shuffle out from the sheets and sit up on the bed, and notice the window over the bed frame. You eagerly crawl to it, finding your escape route. Only realizing after looking down 8 stories of floors of an apartment building down to the busy streets...

"Damn"

The hope slightly dies inside you, but you still have other options. You might be able to sneak out of here and run out the door. In order to that though... you need cloths. You would prefer your own cloths but that's out of the question, unless you somehow find them.

scavenging through the closet of the bedroom looking for something to cover up your lewd body. It doesn't help much, all of the cloths are bigger than you by far compared to your smaller frame, that woman practically towered over you in the close-

*tap* *tap* *tap*

"?!"

You hear the distant sound of footsteps approaching the door as your currently face first inside her closet wardrobe. as you scramble out shutting the door behind you,  you dive into the bed where you were before you woke up. Maybe, hopefully if you pretend to sleep, then she'll leave you alone and you have more time to prepare your escape plan

Positioning yourself the way you awoke, she might not notice you were even awake. Your not stupid.

You shut your eyes and pray she just walks out after seeing your still slumbering

*creeek*

"..."

The woman walks up to you without a sound and stands over your half naked body. lighting pushing the hair out of your face and presses her thumb on your bottom lip, ever so slightly spreading your lips apart from each other gently

What is she doing..?

The woman bends down, her lips glazing atop your lips, soon began touching. Closing the distance between you two as her soft lips lightly pressed against your own.

It felt like this moment lasted forever and before you knew it she was stepping away, leaving the room as silent as she came in, shutting the door behind her.

Your eyes shot open as soon as the door shuts, contemplating what the hell just happened.

Your stunned, you don't even have anything to say, it all happened so fast, too fast.

You sit up on the bed, your cut bangs falling back in your face as you began trying to shimmy of the be-

"Hey"

"!!?"

The woman, standing against the wall looking down at you with the door closed behind her.

Turns out, the woman shutting the door behind her, was actually shutting her self inside. standing next to the door, the woman probably figured your fake sleeping and decided to catch you in the act, and it worked... you never would have guessed a stunt being pulled like that, you never would have guessed the stunts she's been pulling all day.

You can imagine the face you made when you were caught red handed in your act, she probably knows what your up to as well, trying to leave.

You both stare at each other in patronizing silence until the white haired woman breaks the tension and walks back over to you, her eyes never breaking apart from yours

Your too scared to even breath as you stare up at the woman, and now in a lightened room, your now able to peek out all of her features.

Jesus.. And shes practically a Greek God..

Her thin silver hair glistening in the sun beams passing through the window making it shine like silk. skin pale with the sun beams hitting her skin making it a warm milky tone, suiting her well. you can just imagine how smooth it must feel. Though, the sun beams never making contact with her dark dim eyes, err- "eye"..

a black eyepatch shields her right eye from view, you wonder what happened. Though the eyepatch makes her all the more more intriguing by the minute.

The thoughts surrounding this woman makes you forget the fact that your both still staring at each other, snapping back to reality once u feel her eyes cut into you.

You blush as you feel her slim fingers slip up your neck to gently cress your chin, tilting your head even more upwards,

"...mm-ma'am.."

The woman doesn't respond as you struggle to push your words out. you don't understand these feeling you have towards this woman, you don't even know what she wants with you let alone her name..

"Be my woman"

"M-Ma'am..?"

"I want you to be my woman"

"...ngh.."

You never been good at accepting confessions.. or at least you figured it wouldn't be as easy since nobody has ever done it to you. though, can this really be considered a confession...? And she's a woman, girls can't date girls can they?? How would that even work??

You don't know what to say, or at least you don't know what to say to not piss her off, considering what she did back at the church.

This is too much confrontation... it's like when your teacher asks you to partner up with the people you don't even know.. and you desperately try to come up with a reason to slip out of the class and show up at the end of the hour and miss the entire assignment.

Coming up with the excuse your most familiar with to get out of confrontation.. you push the words out of your mouth and hopefully it ends the tension between the two of you.

"...I-I have to use the bathroom"

"..."

"..."

"Come here"

"Huh-"

The woman swoops you into her arms and Carries you out the bedroom into a hallway, there isn't much scenery though at the end of the hall you catch some glimpses of some plants decorating the room they sit in, you would have never guessed a woman like her would be into keeping plants, it's cute...

the woman opens another door revealing a tidy bathroom, it's just your average bathroom. Bar of soap on the counter top next to the faucet, a toilet, a shower, typical bathroom necessities.

She places you onto the ground allowing you to stand by yourself, and also allowing the cold air around you to brush against your lewd body, making you cover yourself out of shame and embarrassment.. you almost forgot that you were practically nude due to her body heat from her carrying you keeping you warm, it was nice...

The woman must have noticed your reflexes as she begins to shut the door before sliding a couple words in before she leaves

"I took your cloths because there was blood on them, and now there stained. I'll give you one of my sweaters."

Finally shutting the door on her way out, you blush from the fact the you'd be wearing one of her clothing items..

Your sitting in the bathroom, though usually you have your phone. And since you don't, all your mind can do is think, think about your complex feeling towards that woman..

You feel hot, heat rising up to your face as you think about the way she bridal style carried you just now, how she threw you over her shoulders back at the church, how you want her to touch you again..

A woman you haven't even known for an hour just massacred a group of teens, and here you are sitting in her bathroom wishing for her touch again. Her strong lean figure that pressed against you.

It's too hot in this bathroom...

You walk out the bathroom, and notice the front door in the living room. This is an apartment complex, there's sure enough a neighbor across from this apartment. You could run to the neighbors and beg them for help as you explain how you been kidnapped by some lunatic.

Or at least, that could have happened. as you stand in the bedroom of your capture you spot the owner of the room sitting on the bed, gaze directing its way towards you as you enter.

"..."

"...it's hot"

You stand in place as you lightly pant and fan yourself, she watches you

You stare at her and silently beg to pull out some kind of fan, you both stare at each other until her eyes move downwards

You feel something wet run down your leg...

...

You now know why it's "hot"

You shy away and cover your legs, still silently whimpering, like a shameful dog.

The woman beckons you over to her, your too ashamed to move as the sticky fluid slowly gushes from your undergarments.

The woman stands and walked over too you as she grabs your chin and forces it upwards so to look at her only.

"Strip"

____________

Under pressure

____________

"Strip"

"H-huh..?"

The woman grips your shoulders in a dominating manner and glares at you with her dark eyes

"Strip down"

Your currently backed into a corner while dripping from your legs onto the maroon carpet as this woman is demanding that you embarrass yourself even more than you already are. your so embarrassed in fact, that you couldn't even bring yourself to answer with your voice, all you can do is look down and shake your head..

The woman, displeased, moves her hands from your shoulders around to your back. Unbuckling your bra

"?!"

You gasp as you hold your bra cups to your chest in attempt to prevent her from doing anything else.

"Move your hands for me"

"..."

Your hands sink to your side in defeat... you feel so humiliated as she continues to strip you out of your bra. Sliding the straps off of your shoulders as you start to slightly tear up. Your (sadly) small boobs spring out as she removes the bra cups from your boobs.

"Good girl"

The woman praises you as she tosses the bra onto the carpet, now feeling around to your small breasts. Kneading your boobs that barely fit in her palm, She pinches your nipples, making your nipples harden and now sensitive to the touch. The contact making your back slightly arch as little grunts threatening to escaping your lips

Giving one last squeeze to your breasts, slowly, her hands move down your waist to your hips. She crouches down and her face inches away from your clothed pussy

The wetness seeping through the fabric of your panties, as you shiver from the cold hands of the woman griping your hips. Until her thumb brushes your clit from the fabric, you jolt from the contact and squeeze your legs together.

"Ngh...!"

Your breath picks up from the sudden contact, panting as you look down at her. The woman looks up at you, catching you looking at her and now making eye contact. You immediately look up, avoiding eye contact.

Your thigh gap still exposing your crotch, the woman continues to tease your soaking pussy through your underwear. Rubbing her thumb on your clit through the wet fabric of your panties.

Two fingers pull down the front of your panties, peaking at the wet lips that you tried to avoid being seen to no avail. Her thumbs sneak under your pantie lining and began to pull down on them. Pulling down the fabric just enough for them to slide down your legs and pool around your ankles onto the floor.

You are now completely naked, and at the complete mercy of the white haired woman whose tongue is inching its way to your throbbing clit

Without warning, the woman wraps her lips around your sensitive clit, making a shameful moan you tried to cover with your lips

"MmmMmfp-!"

She edges your clit with her tongue, swiping her wet tongue across your soaked lips. Licking up every trace like a hound dog. She firmly holds your ass with her hands deepening her face further into you as she holds you in place

She pulls your ass further to her making your knees bend, you feel yourself about to give out as you balance yourself against the wall as she continues to suck away.

The more she fondles her tongue on your clit, the more you feel yourself spilling over the edge. You lightly buckle your hips forward into her face, she pulls back, licking her lips as she releases her hands from you ass that gripped to your flesh, leaving little nail marks

You wasn't able to cum since she stopped tongue playing your clit. but the way she hungrily stairs you down, you think she has more plans of exploring you inside and out.

She stands up and swiftly grabs you by the waist and carries you back to the bed, still extra soak, your small boobs slightly jiggle from the sudden movement,

She then sits down on the bed, still clothed, and wraps her hands around your waist and pulls you to her

"Come here, pretty girl"

You blush and look down to where she wants you to sit. She rubs her knee, pulling your hips towards her as your slit glazes her kneecap.

You shyly sit yourself onto her thigh

Your arms squeeze her suit as support as she holds your back as her other hands moves towards your ass and rubs your cheek.

Now, straddling her thigh, Your already sensitive clit makes contact with the fabric of her suit pants,  and you jolt from the contact.

You try to sit up to avoid the contact but was denied by the sudden hands on your hips shoving you even harder down onto her thigh, making you lightly moan out.

"Ngh!"

The woman moves your hips back and forth on your thighs, driving you crazy from all the pressure on your clit. Wet streaks covered the woman's thighs under you as you quiver from the contact of her cold hands forcefully rubbing you back and force against her. your little body vs. Her big strong hands are no match and all you can do is take it.

The heat starts to boil inside you and your dirty urges start to seep out from pure lust for more, roughly gripping at her shirt as your soft moans become more louder with each passing minute on her thigh, until the woman suddenly stops.

Though, you don't

Now, you yourself are rubbing your wet slit sloppily all over her thigh with eager pleasure, and the woman looks pleased. Looking down at you intensely as you bury your face into her chest.

"Good girl"

The woman moves your chin up to look up at her as you continue riding her thigh, and rubs your forehead in approval motions, praising you as your needy little pussy dirties up her thigh with your juices.

The woman brings your chin up higher as your pussy struggles to stay in touch with her thigh, she also lowers her head and your lips make contact. Her lips roughly taking yours into a deep kiss as she begins slipping her tongue into your mouth. Now tonguing each other, your tongues wrap around each other as you bounce up and down on her thigh. It's so hot, too hot..

The woman breaks the kiss and stares at you deeply

"Cum for me baby"

You begin riding faster, your riding becomes sloppy and more rough as your climax approaches. Now riding as fast as you can, you cum all over her thigh, as the liquids drowse her thigh dripping onto the carpet.

Your tired and sweaty to feel embarrassment and fall backwards, only before the woman catches you before you completely fall off her thigh.

Picking you up and laying you down onto the soft sheets. About to drowsy off, as you hear the sound of the unzipping of a pant fly and unbuttoning on cloths then hitting the ground in your half conscious state.

The woman opens her side drawer and rummages through it, pulling out something.

You hear the *click* sound and the rustling of something, before the woman crawls into the bed and hangs over you.

You too tired to react as she lifts your legs and spreads them apart, laying them to the side of her hips. You never would have expected what she pulled out of that drawer was, until she inserted the tip inside of you, your eyes shoot open to see the identity of the foreign object.

"WA?"

A big, black dildo strapped to the now naked woman is slowly inserting itself into your pussy

"W-wait! Slower! It's too big!"

"You'll fit"

The dildo continues pushing its way inside you as it stops, now gently pumping in and out of your slot.

"Ngh mmffma'am.. gentle.." you pled

You being too dry is no issue, due to you already dripping all over the place, your hole happily obliges to the strap on pumping in and out your needy pussy.

The woman continues to pump the strap on in and out of you eventually increasing the pace of the movement making you pant and breathless, it's hot, and hard to breath from how much our panting and moaning.

"Ungh, uck, *hic* nghh-ma'am!"

"Breath baby"

The woman cups your cheeks as she continues to fuck your tight pussy as you both stare into each others eyes,

"Can you take it all for me baby? Hm? Can you go deeper?"

"Y-yes mmmma'amm, ngh, I can take it ms.."

"Good girl, you can take it"

The woman plunged deeper inside you, sinking into your hole as your pussy takes it in with no problem

"Ngh! A- S-Slow down!"

The woman rams into you at a merciless pace, as the sound of wet gushing sounds and your loud guilty moans fill the room

Your brain feels like it's starting to melt as you try to drift away from reality as your head tilts back. But rough hands grasp hold of your head, forcing your to look back at her

"Look at me, pretty girl"

You comply, looking at her with pleading eyes, eyes pleading for more as she rams into you at a sloppy pace as you feel yourself spilling over the edge

"Cum for me sweetheart"

Your eyes roll to the back of your head. Not without the loudest shameful moan you had let out as you hit your climax and cum, messing the bed in your wetness

"Huugghh.. hugh.. hughh.."

"Pretty girl, you did so well"

She strokes your hair, pushing it out of your face, u feel fuzzy. But too tired to care.

She rustles around the room, cleaning up the toys, cleaning up blankets, and came back with a towel to clean up your messy legs, spreading them apart and gently rubbing it over your pampered slot. Then throwing it onto the floor while still keeping her eye set onto you. The only thing on her mind is you

Even tho she didn't get too much action on her own body, your pleasure is her pleasure. Seeing you look up at her embarrassed and lustful for only her turns her on like nothing else

"Ngh.."

The woman, still naked, climbs into bed and wraps her arm around you in a sort of head lock position, but a gentle one, while another pulls you closer as she spoons your limp body.

"Mmh, miss..?" You say, sloppily, drooling from the need to sleep

"Hm"

"Whats.. what's your name..?"

...

"Quanxi"

____

First writing😭 hope it’s good

[ms-scarletwings]

New (Cursed AF) Invader Zim Headcanon:

Barring the potential for major acute blood loss, Irkens can actually survive a full decapitation.

And I brought substance to make the case with.

Cockroaches, one of the most infamously durable of real life animals, can live for several days, sometimes even weeks without their head. And for the most part, they still even act like normal roaches- crawling about, reacting to touch, standing around, etc. it seems the only reason this eventually catches up to the critter is because no mouth = no way to keep bringing necessary food and water into the body. If that were bypassed, however, it stands to reason the little zombie could thrive just as much as a headed roach.

Almost disturbingly, the head itself can actually last a surprising amount of time solo as well. Experiments with decapitated roaches show that after body separation, roach heads can still move their antennae for hours before succumbing- much longer even if kept refrigerated and supplied with nutrients.

One of the neat things about roach bodies that makes such a feat possible is how their nervous system is set up- simplified ref against what yours looks like below

Now, anyone who has ever said a roach can survive for a while without its brain is not being entirely accurate. Functionally, they actually have two sort-of brains: the main point of nerve centralization is contained in the head, which for the most part is a primary brain responsible for movement coordination, certain technical functions, interpreting stimuli that comes in from the antennae, and more. The second main point of interest in this system is a series of nerve clusters running down the insect’s abdomen known as ganglia (singular: ganglion). These bundles of neurons are not exactly brains in their own right, but they do function as an extended CNS that handles the control over the digestive tract, reacting to stimuli, leg movement, and other more basic bodily functions. These can operate the body on a primitive level after the loss of the main brain, up until thirst/starvation begins to run the wind out of the sails.

You know what sort of creature actually DOES have two entire complete brains? One up top, and an auxiliary backup a little further down?

If you were nodding along and saying “irkens!” Then you would be correct! One peanut and five more days in the bunker for you 🥜 ~

As is obvious to anyone familiar with the show, the PAK is an essential cybernetic addition to Irken biology, holding their gear as well as an entire digital backup of their personality and memories. While it serves many functions to the user, the first and foremost priority of one is to protect the existence of the meaty entity it needs in to carry itself around.

To that end we’ve seen some autonomous acts from time to time with Zim’s close calls. If you recall “Plague of Babies”, he… kind of died for a moment there, caught up in a wave of GIR’s lethally amplified stupidity. In response, his PAK appears to resuscitate him with a quick jolt. The would-be events of “10 Minutes to Doom” emphasize the necessity of the PAK for any Irken’s survival beyond several minutes, which directly implies PAKs facilitate a major biological process their natural bodies are no longer capable of alone. Personally, I think it might be something either neurological or related to respiration, on a hunch.

Well, whatever it is, they are toast without it in swift manner, and the PAK doesn’t prefer to be without its other piece anymore than the body does. Dib’s revelation about the technology described their relationship with its body like that of driver and car, but I think he’s missing something. The PAK is actually more than capable of carrying itself around without the body… at least for a time.

When I think about those things, a little dilemma pops up in my head concerning how they.. well, how they’re powered. It is never explained or demonstrated that they are given time off of the body in order to charge; however, irkens are probably advanced enough to have some smaller and sci-fi wildly potent and small energy source up their sleeves, but actually, that wouldn’t quite make sense here. Because Irken bodies still produce their energy the same way every other lifeform in the known galaxy does, with food. Lots of food, actually. They can mow through snacks at about the same rate as Augustus Gloop. PAKs don’t need to produce their own independent energy source, they just need to efficiently make use of what this organism is already evolutionarily fine tuned to do naturally. Now that’s smart engineering.

And so, like any respectable auxiliary life support feature, they hold some of that energy in a reserve for those crisis moments like in “Plague of Babies”, and also in a deleted scene made for “Abduction”!

Fun trivia fact, but originally that episode was supposed to feature a sequence where Zim nearly game overs again. He takes a gnarly hit and a literal plunge through open flames that knocks him out in a free fall.

Despite his incapacitated state, the PAK extends its spider legs in order to catch a walkway railing, both saving his life and proceeding to keep carrying his limp body to a safer location, until of of course, he comes to about a moment later and carries on.

And neither of these are the only times it’s sprung into action the moment it detects something has gone horribly wrong. When accidentally detached from its own host, an emergency response will be triggered within the PAK in an attempt to reattach with its body. Failing that, it attaches instead to… well, whatever it can find.

In “10 minutes to Doom”, this was unfortunately Dib, an incompatible match (or maybe it just picked an improper attachment site), and in the comics… things got interesting at a point or two.

So, I already know what happens when you separate an Irken from their spinal brain, but what about the cranial one?

Because, they actually don’t seem on the same level of urgent necessity? Now that I think about it?

The time machine kerfuffle and the brain eating parasite escape were both events this guy evidently survived, albeit not comfortably or ideally until the problem was fixed (I have to assume in part with GIR’s or the Computer’s help). Now that I think about it Zim’s incredibly fortunate that most of these more serious mishaps happened inside of his base. But it’s theory time.

So, we do this, to a hypothetical green bug bastard

For fun let’s say, hypothetically again, like the hardy earth roach, he blood clots quickly.

Well, first and foremost, that higher up nervous system blackout is probably going to cue the PAK in to begin the following protocol:

1. Activate an emergency response to quickly access the situation.

2. Immediately scurry the body the hell away from whatever manner of threat just shaved a little too much off the top, engaging in all possible defensive measures if necessary.

3. Devote the entirety of its remaining backup power (of which it would have much more stored within the headless body than if it were itself detached) into making a beeline for the coordinates of the nearest Irken source of assistance. On the homeworld, or any fully colonized planet, this would be a cut and dry matter of finding the nearest theoretical space clinic or whatever those freaks have (maybe those dbz regeneration tanks? Idk that would be cool wouldn’t it?). For the lone invader… home base is the next best alternative, being a secured location with plenty of resources and advanced technology at the ready. I would bet my own head that situations like this are a huge highlight to the prime value of a personal SIR companion.

Now, best case scenario for what this help looks like depends on whether we can save and bring the head along too. Reattachment and repair at that point should be a pretty simple matter at the tech level we are working with, afterall. But that’s again, the ideal case scenario. Could they just… regrow the head eventually? We don’t really have a clear answer on what the limits and capabilities of what the Irken healing factor is, but I want to at least guess that having a personal lab and assistant on hand is going to help. Bare minimum, a solution can get worked out to supply the body with needed blood sugars again to buy more time.

The PAK itself retains a pretty much perfect digital backup of its body’s memories, experiences, and identity, so it’s not like information has been permanently been lost with primary brain damage. Replacing the primary brain entirely might be as easy as backing up your iPhone and downloading everything into some shiny new hardware. Hell, it may not even need be Irken hardware!

Do you know the real disturbing things from “Dark Harvest” NOBODY brings up are???

Why the fuck was an instantaneous organ-swapping device already just something Zim was carrying around in his toolset?

And

Zim’s morphology was horrifically receptive to those dozens of xenographs.

Those human organs were actually beating, pulsing, absolutely redundant and unnecessary in his body, but completely still functional and healthy in the name of selling his act to the school nurse. He didn’t just clumsily cram a bunch of offal into himself, he competently integrated them into his biology and somehow wasn’t suffering like… the tons of complications you’d expect from trying a stunt like that.

And in the comics, there’s this other fella I just adore for how skrangly he looks, and believe it or not, his actual fucking name is Skrang.

He’s a smart guy, though. Don’t be fooled. And I mean like, a smart guy. And it’s all thanks to a little help from a little upgrade he’s been fitted with :)

So, I hope you take all the implications I’ve been building here and make what you will of them. I genuinely think an Irken has a decent chance of making it out of a beheading alive to seek sadistic vengeance another day. Do I think ZIM could do such a thing? Tbh, I think he’d have to rely on GIR to come in clutch, and we may know that’s a complete roll of the dice in any case.

Wow, this got morbid, but, par for the course really.

[ironychan]

Today's explorations brought us a couple of new birds. The first one was only today on a technicality, because it was a very wee hour indeed when Valdez let herself into our tent and woke me up to tell me there was a really weird animal outside and she knew I'd want to see it. Kibwana refused to get up, but Reynolds and I followed her to an old log, where we found this:

It looks something like a cross between a crane, a grey owl, and an anteater. It and its fluffier offspring were crouched by the log, tilting their heads back and forth to listen, and then they'd lick out with long tongues to catch insects. They didn't seem to need to open their beaks to do this, and I'm not actually sure they could open - I never saw them do so. If the adult needed to pull more of the log apart, it would use the four-inch blunt talon on the end of each otherwise useless wing.

Reynolds says the way the feathers fan out around each eye is actually an adaptation for hearing - it funnels sound into the ears like a radio dish. The adult bird was clearly aware of us and looked directly at us several times, but since we weren't coming any closer it didn't seem bothered as long as we didn't make any sudden movements. Eventually it got its fill of ants and wandered off.

We asked Valdez what she was doing so far from our campsite in the middle of the night. She said she wanted to get further from the fire (which we leave smoldering so the wildlife won't get too nosy) in order to look at the stars. Apparently she's been mapping them. She's even invented several constellations based on tools and animals. I guess we all have our little keep-sane projects.

She was telling me more about it around lunchtime, while the two of us were scrounging for edible plant material, when we got today's second bird. This one was a bastard.

It was very tiny, mostly black on top with an ochre-coloured underside patterned with black v's, and a white mark on the back of its neck. It was also very round with tiny feet and absolutely adorable. I couldn't believe how lucky I was when it landed on my arm and put its beak right up against my skin. I figured it was licking up sweat for salt or something. I was wrong.

After a second or two I realized a bead of blood was forming where it touched me, and when I took a closer look I saw that it actually had a very long, needle-like upper beak that had gone right into my skin without me even feeling it, and a very short lower beak that it opened to let its little tongue lap up the blood. I'm sure I took this in for just a split second, but it felt like I stared at for an hour, unable to move. The image is burned into my retinas. I keep seeing it when I close my eyes.

I hollered and shook it off me, and it flew away. Boonmee put some alcohol on the puncture and told me to watch it carefully for signs of infection. Other than that there's not a lot I can do but wait and see how many diseases the little bugger gave me.

We took several suggestions for the name of the vampire bird, but seem to have settled on Reynolds', which was White-Naped Syrinx. 'Syrinx' is a character from Greek mythology and also the root word from which we get 'syringe'. It is also apparently the word for a bird's voice box. This would be much more interesting to me if I didn't have a hole in my arm.

Somebody suggested calling the anteater bird an owlvark, but Vandebeek said 'aardvark' means 'earth pig' in Dutch, so a more accurate name would be 'aarduil'. When somebody writes a bestiary for this future, we now know what the first page will be.

[dorylinae-supremacy]

A is for.... Antnoblade!!

He's based on a leafcutter ant, hence the third eye! Technically its not an eye, its called an 'ocelli' and it functions to monitor changes in light. This helps protect the ant (though other insects do have them) from being picked off by birds!

So this funky dude is technically also a design for an AU I'm working on where he's a fairy! It's still in the works but I'm gonna ramble anyway.

The zag down his chin is where he's holding his mandibles together. Small bit of lore but I like to think they only actually use them when threatened / trying to tear off big chunks of something so usually he just keeps them closed.

It does technically mean that when he speaks his mouth doesn't actually move, its a false face like with butterfly wings :) He's magic so his voice just kinda echoes out alongside it!

Below is the other colour alt and him with his mandibles open!

I don't know what I wanna do for B next to if any of you have an idea then go ahead and comment or whatever. I'll pick whatever one sparks the most brainrot!

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

Does it make any sense to have a world that is entirely vegan because other animals are actually all extinct. You might think with no other animals, this be a world where cannibalistic practices occur more. Well, I never really thought of it because it's that's just nasty. But what would be realistic here? Sure, it may occur as an extreme survival method. But it shouldn't be a normal practice and condemned in every other way. But does make actually make sense in this world with animals going extinct? They do have excellent crops and plenty of ways of getting food. There is no issue with having adequate food supply except for impoverished places. And just like impoverished places in real life, people aren't just resorting to cannibalism as normal. Alright so... for a world with no more animals in its ecosystem... well, how is that even like?? Actually, why is this world even restricted to a planet? There would probably be a lot of people living on moons with no native life and space stations.

Addy: I'm in the middle of finals right now (is it okay to include that? Idk), so you're getting some straight-from-the-tap unpolished thoughts.

Are there insects? 'Cause if this is a post-extinction event, then you've got a whole issue of like... plants that used to be pollinated by insects (beetles, bees, moths, butterflies, ants, etc), birds, etc but now have to be pollinated by wind (which is way less efficient, so you'd probably get stuff that's like cedars or oak trees, where there's just pollen *everywhere*, and other stuff would at least have more difficulty surviving). And then there's... everything. The balance between plants, insects, etc, *everything* is very nuanced. This feels like it'd become the lawn garden equivalent of an ecosystem - alive, but not thriving. Like a garden laden with pesticides, you just... wouldn't get good growth, and that'd spur on its own set of issues.

Plus like. Grazing. Grazing is a huuuuge influence on grasslands, etc, so the removal of all herbivores would... man. That'd do a lot. I don't know if you could even *have* a grassland under this system. Like without grazing, the accumulation of plant matter + wildfire ecology (lightning strikes and all that) would mean huge blazes that would sterilize the soil. Instead of grassland growing back, you'd get like saplings driven on the wind or whatever. Probably.

(Something something Yellowstone when they brought the wolves back, every piece has a role to play)

If there *are* insects, then that'd have its own set of massive issues. Great Famine of China/Great Leap Forward kinds of issues. Like wow. Also insect predation on trees, that'd spur another wave of problems.... everything would be effected. Everything.

If you're on a space station, it's generally assumed that plants are being grown in a tightly controlled artificial environment. Humidity, "rain," light, nutrients, all of that under human (or at least sentient/sophont) control. It isn't expected to be a natural, thriving environment, and it's fairly small-scale. If you have some sort of space garden, it's generally either only plants or plants + some insects + small wildlife. A whole planet... man. Honestly a terrifying thought.

(You thought Silent Spring was bad)

(This is so much worse)

Also, what about fish? Is the whole ocean totally sterile? Are there even krill (or local equivalent)? Phytoplankton, I assume, would be around (also there's a scary thought about like the whole oxygen cycle wow), but... this is just a terrifying prospect for a world.

Oh, and coral! That's an animal, technically. Not really an edible one, but an animal nonetheless. Snails? Jellyfish? Detritivores? Anything to filter the water?

We have no reference for what this would look like. If they want to make a world like this, I'd say the best bet would be to imagine a world sanitized by fire and war and death and ecological omnicide and who-knows-what. Then, on the barren remains of the world-that-was, put a sentient/sophont species with a seed bank. Fern spores. Pollen and sprouts. Some great record of a sliver of the majesty that once was.

In the dust-filled deathworld, this remnant husk of what was once an emerald jewel, there is a structure, and in that structure, there is a person. They have a plot, they have nitrates, they have ammonium, they have potassium, they have phosphorus. They may have mycorrhize, if they're lucky. In that plot, they have a plant. Maybe a few. They save it all for replanting and propagation, and subsist off of freeze-dried rations made before the Happening. They are lucky to be alive.

The world outside is barren. There is nothing to hold together the topsoil. Anything that once was there has rotted and blown away (yay bacteria)(unless those are dead too). The Dust Bowl, on a scale of a world. The Sahara, in comparison, would be a fertile haven of life.

Recovery is slow. Plants, as they grow under the sheltered eye of humanity, decompose once again, cycling through generations as they build up organic matter, thick and lush and *whole*(it can never be whole, too much has been lost, the world will never, ever be the same). The structure expands. Nothing built before the Happening is sealed tightly enough to keep out the dust, microscopic in size as it is.

Coastal regions get some amount of moisture, from the fetid winds that blow off the heaving corpse-lungs of the ocean. Without zooplankton and other organisms to manage the growth of phytoplankton and algae, it is trapped in a cycle of explosion and eutrophication. Life survives in the deepest depths of the oceans, some think, though it, too, may be dead, suffocated by lack of oxygen. Without mollusks or corals or jellyfish or anything to filter the water, the upper layers are thick with rotting plant matter. Some of it sinks, some of it floats. It becomes nutritional matter for the next growth explosion, and that, too, will rot.

A garden is made, sheltered to the extent that it can be. Carefully-selected plants take root in the mulch of their ancestors. Rain is strange and violent, heaved against mountains by wind currents, which themselves are driven by the vast temperature differences of the unevenly-heated planet. There is no friction upon the ground to slow it down, excepting the husks of once-grand cities and their slowly-falling towers. Floods are frequent, in the places that do get rain. Drought prevails elsewhere. Even when rain falls, there is nothing to receive it but silt and clay and stone (and a few spare bacteria). Murky streams of water wind their way to the ocean. Inch by inch, plants come back. Nature will not return for a hundred million years. Until then, until some random quirk of genetics pushes organisms from microbial to sizable, who knows what will happen? If we are lucky, lichens and mosses remain in the great vault of humanity. If we are unlucky, every inch of un-desertification will take holes and effort and windbreaks and labor.

Basically the world kinda needs animals, at least through our understanding of it. Continents are big, and life as we know it has evolved in a web of give and take, push and pull, supply and demand. Without one half of that equation, it is a fundamentally different setup. Maybe algaes can be stable. Maybe they can't. I don't really know. I'd recommend looking into the hows-and-whys-and-whats of various extinction periods in Earth's history to get a better idea of how things happen. It won't capture a picture of what life without animals could look like, but hey, it's something.

Also, cannibalism (at least in humans) is generally only seen as a desperate measure for survival. Prion diseases are a genuine risk, along with whatever else may have killed the person. With how many plagues (and other afflictions) humans can carry, eating a dead person generally isn't worth the risk. Also also, human brains take a lot of protein. That can be obtained through non-animal needs, but it's less efficient (in terms of digestibility and protein density, not in terms of overall energy transformation efficiency of sunshine -> meal). If famine ever hits, a plant-only diet is far more vulnerable to starvation (in times of famine, fish have saved lives).

[xiaomainlmao]

A peck through the books... literally

Characters- Albedo, Tighnari

Genre- fluff

----------

Albedo

"You see, thermodynamics is not too different from diffusion or the process of osmosis." Albedo uses the backside of his pen to point at the diagram in the book. "We'll be using these principals to test a theory with flaming flower stamens."

"Is that what you asked me to keep them in an insulated box for? To be honest, I don't think there'll be any extraordinary discoveries here."

"It has not been tried before, so there's always a chance to find something." he shrugs, packing up a couple things for the experiment. "If this little experiment yields any interesting results, I may take some mist flowers to the desert of Sumeru and repeat the experiment."

"The desert? That's a long way from Mondstadt. It's also much hotter there, while you must be used to the cold atmosphere of Dragonspine."

"True, but I did make a friend during the Windblume festival who could serve as a guide."

"You mean the General Mahamatra from the Sumeru Akademiya?"

"Correct, besides" Albedo picks the book up, "wouldn't you like a vacation to Sumeru." He boops your nose with the book, smiling slyly.

"That does sounds nice, even if we technically do go there for performing experiments. Wait what about Klee then? We can't exactly take care her since she may not be able adjust to the environment there. Also-"

The alchemist places the book in front of your mouth to shut you up. "Let's not get too ahead of ourselves, shall we? We'll be going to Sumeru only if the current experiment yields results." You silently nodded

Albedo leaned forward, his hair obscuring a part of your vision as his lips touched the other side of the book.

He pulled away with a smug face, shoving the book in with the other items.

Oh if only that book didn't serve as a barrier...

"Don't worry, if you so desire, I might give you a kiss after we're done. Without any book serving as a barrier, of course."

----------

Tighnari

"Urgh, why do we have to know how the body of a cockroach performs its functions." you groaned

"Because those are the basics that can help you understand the functioning of the human body better. You see, insects are more primitive than humans, so are their bodily functions, thus making it easier to understand them and draw a basis of various processes." The forest ranger did not even look at you as he answered instantly. But you knew his attention was on you, since his fox ears were leaning slightly in your direction.

It was so easy to read the leader of the forest rangers once you know him better. But it wasn't so easy getting used to how blatantly he answered questions, especially rhetorical ones with logical answers.

Tighnari could feel your eyes bore into the backside of his head. He sighed as he got up from his chair and approached your lying figure on the couch. "Well, if you do complete five more pages, then I'll let you pet my ears as we cuddle." he got on top of you, his hands placed on both sides of your head as he looked down at you and the half open book resting on your face.

"Alright, I suppose," came your muffled response through the book.

Tighnari's gaze softened. He smiled before leaning in, pecking the other side of the book, before getting off and resuming his work. He chuckled, knowing you were flustered due to the indirect kiss.

"If you want more, you'd better hurry up and read through the next five pages. I will, however, quiz you to make sure that you did read through it."

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