#btw I had NO IDEA that coil was black until I read it on the wiki

[cetaceanhandiwork]

my continued trip thru WormWard fanfic has made me notice another fun pattern

namely, that if a fic's author...

wants to focus on the Brockton Bay folks

and wants to give them a decisive W to close out the story

but also wants to keep things smaller scale rather than escalating to the point where they're tangoing with big stompy S-class threats like Jack or the Butcher or Endbringer nonsense

...then the most common final boss confrontation for such stories to go with seems to be "fuck Coil in particular"

which is like. yeah, that's fair. dude's the type of smug that makes it all the more satisfying to read the obligatory "from Coil's perspective as he realizes the heroes solved the puzzle box & he can't actually prevent getting punched in the neck anymore" chapter, plus he tends to make things personal in a gross way as a favored tactic so the catharsis is personal too, plus he's a one man show so it's a climactic confrontation with one specific guy rather than having to deal with cleaning up an organization

but it's still kinda funny that it happens so often

[pinkcatharsis]

I dunno if I should legit continue this because I can’t remember where I was going with it. Read a prompt at @sloaners anon or a comment in one of their posts (fantastic art btw go check it out!) about Tsunade adopting a bb Tenzou and well. I wrote this and it’s unfinished and yeah.

I actually don’t even have a title for it. Was supposed to be an eventual YamaIru, too. Oh well!

—

Names have power, they say.

Tenzou can agree to a certain point because his experience from his missions, his targets, countless reconnaissance on high profile politicians has proven that people tend to cower from the syllables of a name if they are a threat.

Names carry prestige more than an identity.Names give history, are the pillars for legacy provided it is a name the people can accept. More often than not, it is a vessel for fear, control

They’re also a convenient excuse for people to either sing with high praise or forget because the truth is always a pill too hard to swallow.

Sometimes it lies ignored despite its great sacrifice to stop a rampaging monster, when the womb still bleeds fresh and a goodbye too soon falls from crimson lips. It is ignored because it is easier to hate someone helpless than to acknowledge a name that saved everyone.

Sometimes it is indifferent, distant, as cold as the unreadable, white irises of its clansmen.

Sometimes it lies abandoned, walls cracking, dust collecting over blood stained tatami mats where the weight of shame fueled enough strength to slice through flesh. Shame because of a choice to save one’s comrades as opposed to prioritising the mission.

Sometimes it is soaking in blood, whispers of its massacre echoing loud, and towards the end of it, the word traitor.

And sometimes, they’re just old, only remembered through history that is a core subject within the Academy walls, a prerequisite in terms of knowledge for every Konoha shinobi. They’re faded, scattered, heirless, visually only present through the carvings of stone that towers over the village.

Tenzou is conditioned to not pay any heed to something as trivial as a name. Not when he’s been conditioned, trained extremely well, that the only thing that matters is servitude to the village. That the name Konoha is the only thing of true value.

Greater people have sacrificed themselves for the good of village and now, their heir wanders Konoha’s walls shunned, sneered, hated, ignored. Their names hardly mattered in the present -- it’s like the Yellow Flash only exists as a tier to be achieved in terms of talent, hard work and mission success and nothing else. As if the man behind the legacy hardly existed.

Legacy means nothing, Tenzou realizes, in the grand scheme of things.

When you die, you just die.

It’s okay to die nameless.

*

Tenzou hears about Tsunade’s arrival tucked behind the cover of an open locker door. Apparently, Tsunade-hime is in the village for a visit. And like always, she has spent her first day sitting with her former sensei, having tea until she had flung the table across the room, out the window in a fit of uncontrolled, roiling rage.

“I think it’s because sandaime is asking her to stay,” one fellow ANBU says.

“No, it’s got something to do with her gambling debt for sure,” another says.

“Monkey says it has something to do with the council pressuring her to produce an heir,” a softer voice says.

“I thought she couldn’t?”

“Or she doesn’t want to?”

The conversation explodes, only coming to a sudden stop when the sound of a door opening puts a halt on the outright gossip that Tenzou shamefully has been eavesdropping on. Someone dares throw a table out the window in front of the Hokage? And the Hokage does nothing? Tenzou thinks back to Danzou an Root -- if any of them dared show such insubordination, that would mean at least half a day’s worth of lashings under the scorching sun and then dry fasting isolation for thirty-six hours. Not many tend to survive that but that would just mean they’re too weak to remain in Root, anyway.

“Don’t you guys have better things to do?” Kakashi’s voice cuts through with a drawl. It is followed by a series of locker doors shutting, rapid shuffling and then silence. “Oi, Tenzou. The Hokage needs you.”

Tenzou straightens, tugging his clean armor on and running a comb through his damp hair. He slams his locker shut and gives his senpai a wordless nod, acknowledging the summon.

*

A summon that suddenly renders him not so nameless anymore.

Tsunade is a towering figure, heals almost five inches high, back straight, eyebrows narrowed, hands on her hip and staring down at him like he’s a two year old.

“How old are you?”

“Fourteen,” Tenzou responds, keeping perfectly still. He isn’t intimidated by Tsunade’s persona. He’s just feeling a little too awkward because if Tsunade leaned any closer to examine him, her breasts would be ten centimeters too close to his face to be called professional, let alone proper.

“You are awfully small for a fourteen year old,” Tsunade tartly says, almost disappointed.

“I am a hundred and twenty nine and a half centimeters,” Tenzou agrees, well aware of how stunted his growth is. Danzou always factored his slow growth to the radiation and chemical exposure, a side effect to the experimentation Tenzou miraculously survived. But small doesn’t mean weak, Danzou had said, one of the few times he had been encouraging.

“Do you even eat, boy?” Tsunade scoffs.

“Yes. Five meals a day when I am in the village, continuously supplemented by calorically dense ration bars that Danzou-sama advised to--”

“Hah! Which one -- the one that tastes like sweet wet newspaper or the one that tastes like mouldy bread?” Tsunade snorts.

Tenzou finds himself stammering a little, glancing a little cluelessly at the Sandaime who is taking a very, very long drag from his pipe. Tenzou’s mouth quickly clamps shut before he can voice out his confusion. He can’t honestly say he knows what mouldy bread tastes like nor can he say he’s actually tried eating wet newspaper, let alone a sweetened one. So he goes with what he thinks is the correct response to this kind of inquiry. “The N-4150?”

“Sweet, wet newspaper. At least that old fart chose the better formula.” Tsunade rolls her eyes before taking - thank heavens - a proper step back.

Tenzou blinks once, altering between Tsunade now very put-upon expression and the Sandaime who is standing there as if he were part of the book shelf. “Hokage-sama, should I not continue consuming the N-4150?”

Sandaime rumbles an amused noise, blowing out a slow stream of tobacco smoke before he stands, rounding the table. “Why don’t you demonstrate your Mokuton skills for Tsunade, Tenzou? After all, that is the reason you were summoned here.”

It gets another eyeroll, with a bit of a scoff from Tsunade, who crosses her arms under her breasts.

“Yes, Hokage-sama,” Tenzou acknowledges.

He puts his hands together, channels just enough chakra and forms a small pot in his hands, slowly filling it with roots coiling until it sprouts green leaves, topped with large, black centered white poppies.

“Oh, white poppies,” Sandaime smiles, his face wrinkling. “An interesting choice. You see, Tsunade, Tenzou here has been studying botany for a year now. He’s a bit of an artist with his gardening. Tenzou, didn’t you recently start studying architecture as well?”

“I have only started reading some reference books three months ago, Hokage-sama,” Tenzou responds, with a bit of a nod, as his fingers tightens a little bit around the pot in his hands, not quite sure what to do with his creation-demonstration.

“Hmmm,” Sandaime hums, a touch bemused before he brings his pipe back up to his lips. “Reminds you of someone, doesn’t it, Tsunade?”

Tenzou looks at Tsunade, who in a space of a heartbeat looks far too young in a show of vulnerability, as her throat bobs when he swallows. It gets washed away when he clicks her tongue and turns to look at Tenzou, giving him a once over.

“Well, no one fucks with grandfather’s DNA, gets away with it and then keep it from me. Had it been anyone else but Danzou, Root of all places, I wouldn’t take issue! When did you discover your Mokuton skills, boy?”

“A year before I graduated from the Academy.” Tenzou swallows. “I was five years old.”

“Nine years! With that creep!” Tsuande shouts.

Sandaime’s tobacco inhale had to be the longest one Tenzou has ever seen.

Sandaime exhales, responding with a sigh, “Better late than never, hmm?”

“Fine.” Tsaunde grouches. “I’ll do it. Tenzou, you can call me okaa-san when you’re ready.”

The pot drops from Tenzou’s hands.

“Eh?”

Tenzou thinks it's a good response. Given the proverbial punch to the face he’s just received.

*

It’s not that Tenzou wants to say he cares much for the idea of family.

It’s more like he doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

(What does family even mean?)

So Tenzou, much like every other time he gets moved around like he’s no more than a potted plant, agrees.

Not like it really matters, right?

He thinks of it as just having another sort of… superior?

*

A superior that Tenzou apparently now gets to live with after all of those paperwork.

In a large, inherited estate, closed off, covered in wildly growing flora and fauna. The estate does not look like it’s been lived in for decades. There is damage from the growth of vines, some of it poking through the tatami doors, and getting to the interior of the house. There are a few soda cans littered around the gate, some old, some new. Likely the result of dares from the younger crowd of Konoha.

The once heralded Senju estate that Hashirama and Tobirama and their families once resided in is now nothing more than a shadow of its former glory. Uncared for. Outdated. Obsolete.

“Well,” Tsunade huffs. “I haven’t seen this place in, hmm, ten years maybe? Maybe twelve? Tche, what a dump.”

Tsunade toes an old, faded orange soda can by her heel, kicking it further away.

Tenzou wishes he’s no more than a spore in the ground. Should he say something? He may be a Senju by name and by experimental DNA, but that doesn’t really make him a Senju-Senju.

It’s just circumstances.

“Well? What do you think, kid? You like the house?” Tsunade holds her hand out at the once upon a time regal grounds, now overgrown with weeds and littered with random junk.

Tenzou looks at the estate again and decides to go with the most diplomatically acceptable response there is in this case.

“It’s a lot bigger than my apartment,” Tenzou politely responds, as his eyes stray towards the patch of wildly growing rosary pea and oleander growing by the gate.

Tsunade’s booming laughter echoes throughout the entire compound, bemused and real. She doubles over, slapping a hand on her knee, her laugh tapering off to a bit of a wheeze. It almost sounds nervous. A little hysterical even.

Tenzou tilts his head to the side, staring up at this woman, this new mother of his, a legendary sannin, one of the most if not the best, medic there is in the country.

Would it be rude to ask her if she is okay?

“Kid,” Tsunade snorts, shaking her head, reaching out to ruffle Tenzou’s long hair. “I like your sense of humor. You and I are going to get along just fine.”

*

Tsunade asks to see his apartment.

And then proceeds to wear what Tenzou can only assume is her analytical face. It’s peppered with a little judgment, too.

Tenzou’s current apartment is a shoebox in size, with enough space for a single bed, a small sectioned off wall by the door turned to a makeshift kitchen and a connecting bathroom that Tsunade, no doubt, will have to carefully manage her long limbs.

“You like it here?” Tsunade asks, her lips twisting at the sight of the old hotplate on the tiny kitchen counter.

“It serves its purpose.” Tenzou shrugs.

“That wasn’t my question,” Tsaunde prompts, turning that analytical gaze back to Tenzou.

Tenzou frowns, resisting the urge to reach up and rub the back of his head in partial confusion, partial irritation. It’s a comfortable space -- what is she on about? Having an opinion on something as trivial as a living space serves no purpose in the betterment of Tenzou’s skills in the field. It has no correlation to his successful mission counts. Liking something or anything for that matter doesn’t make missions easier or harder, either.

Unsure of how to respond, Tenzou resorts to Danzou’s advice when it comes to undercover. If you’re caught in a tight spot, the easiest thing to slip out of attention is to either blend with your surroundings or mirror the person in front of you.

Tenzou goes for the mirror, sloping his eyebrows down the same way Tsunade is, relaxing his shoulder to what looks like a wary slump, canting his head just the tiniest bit to the side, and responds with what he hopes is a conclusion to this conversation, “It’s all right.”

Tsunade goes quiet for a while, before she sighs slowly and curses under her breath.

“Let’s try this again,” Tsunade sighs, gesticulating with her hand towards the entirety of the small apartment. “What do you think would make this space better suited for you? Take into consideration that you are also currently studying botany and architecture.”

Tenzou looks at the small stack of reference books he had borrowed from the public library, how he has to do most of his reading on the bed. If he had to sketch on drawing paper, he usually does so on the ceiling given the lack of floor space and a full flat wall that isn’t lined with bulging pipes or the sil of the window, with the paper taped on the corners. Makes it easier for him to get on his knees and practice his pencil sketches.

“Then that’s something you should consider when you fix our house, hmm?”

Oh. So he’s fixing it.

Well.

Okay, then.

—

And yeah that’s all I got. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[alvaar-aldaviir]

Wondrous Tails: Patching Up Wounds

Time Frame: Post-Stormblood. Major spoilers for 4.4

(Unnecessary) Notes: It was somewhere around in here when I was playing that something awful happened to me and Alvaar both. After absolutely adoring Alphinaud for the bulk of the game (and being you know… worried about how hard Squenix was going to misstep on fleshing out Alisaie’s character like they’d pretty much done for almost every female up to now,) Alisaie kicked the door in like, ‘YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD HAVE FEELINGS TO YOURSELF?’ It made later events and the shitty ‘not even a major decision but I stood there contemplating it for literally 5 minutes, you know, THAT questline split…’ in Shadowbringers give me a terrible gut punch. The rest as they say, is history.

    …. I picked Alisaie first btw. I’m still not over this betrayal.

  Alvaar’s fingers are light and gentle as they thread through her hair, patient and unhurried as her head rests on a throw pillow in his lap. In a way she can almost tell his thoughts on whatever he’s reading based on the pauses and movements. The stillness of a long thought or light tousle when something amused him. Only the rustle of a turned page interrupting the ticking of the chronometer on the wall before the warm weight of his hand settles back against her hair.

On some level Alisaie’s appalled with herself, being this close and indulging in something so... childish and weak, with the Warrior of Light of all people!

But as much as she wished to be out there doing something, anything, that might reveal her brother’s whereabouts or find a solution to whatever had laid their friends low...

The truth was there was little else she could do but wait. Wait and feel her stomach twist in anxious knots as she grit her teeth and tried not to think of how terribly this could go. That there might not be an answer or that her brother might never return or...

A thoughtful noise leaves Alvaar’s throat before he ruffles her hair with a bit more force, calloused fingers massaging at her scalp carefully. An unspoken reminder she’d learned to read in the last month.

‘Relax. I’m with you. As soon as we have any form of word or direction, we’ll both be out the door.’

The Bard had a patient calm that was infectious, and if he hadn’t been around so much, she was almost certain she would have done something foolish before anyone could have stopped her. More than once in the passing weeks she’d felt his hand on her shoulder quietly urging her to tolerance when she’d almost snapped at messengers or their fellow junior Scions.

Her impatience was why she had never fancied herself a leader. The art of long-winded exposition and careful political maneuvering had solely been the talents of her twin, but with their key members missing or unconscious it had fallen to her instead. Alvaar had enough on his plate managing Primals, an increasingly more ludicrous sounding venture in Doma, and an equally fantastical excursion with the Garlond Ironworks tracking down Omega. He hefted enough weight on their behalf so the least she could do was act as a Scion proper and field what she could from the Rising Stones.

In a way it had almost made her bitter and angry to see him around all the time. Alvaar had seldom been away from the Rising Stones since Urianger and Y’shtola had collapsed, something she had a hunch lay with Tataru’s hushed words to him in the following days as they waited for news. And though the thought of him staying around out of some sense of obliged pity infuriated her, deep down she knew better. The Bard was there because he wanted to be, and as the days had passed by with them in increasingly close space, she had discovered something else.

She wasn’t the only one worried and needing a distraction. Under the stoic calm there was an equal amount of worry and fear.

And an overwhelming amount of anger.

    She’d heard a little about it from Alphinaud, the murderous and single-minded rage Alvaar had shown against Ilberd when they had journeyed to rescue Raubahn in Halatali. When he’d brushed with death and dragged himself after their retreating adversaries half bleeding out and choking on poison gas until he’d finally collapsed.

The Burn was the first place she had seen any semblance of it for herself, following the trail of slaughtered monsters and blood once the sandstorm had cleared to find Alvaar huffing in air like a winded beast, the blade point of the Halonic bow embedded in a dragon’s skull, and eyes half wild when she’d healed him. They’d never spoke of it though the silent shame on his expression after had said enough.

But that moment of seeing the cracks in the armor had said she wasn’t alone in her grief and feelings of helplessness. That the hand that gripped hers in those tense moments of silence was offering comfort but also seeking it at the same time, whether the Bard knew it or not.

So... she indulged in his time because he let her. Took a moment of respite with her head resting on a pillow in the Bards lap.

It had been an accident at first of course. She’d only meant to perhaps use him as a bit of a shoulder rest as he’d been reading in the study of the Rising Stones. It was something she had done often with her twin growing up, studying side by side until one or both of them fell asleep. And while a part of her was worried it would be like trying to replace Alphinaud, like admitting in some way he wouldn’t come back, the other and louder part of her had wanted the familiar reassurance now more than ever. But waking up with her cheek pressed against his thigh and his Twin Adder jacket draped over her shoulders had not been anywhere in that plan.

She probably would have startled herself upright if not for how slowly and comfortably she’d woken up, safe and warm and thoughts oddly clear of her recent worries. A glance at the black Choral Chapeau that rested on the coffee table where dark booted feet were propped up had confirmed Alvaar’s presence even if she’d doubted her instincts. Nowhere else in Sharlayan or Eorzea had she encountered another person with that same palpable aura, a quiet and calm feeling of certainty and strength. The brush of fingers over her hair intimate and distantly familiar...

Her family had never been one prone to frequent contact. There had always been a weight of dignified properness and personal distance, something expected from a highly esteemed house of scholars. The sole exception had been her Grandfather, who had often ruffled their hair or scooped them up in his arms as they’d listen to his stories or he indulged in answering a million excited questions.

But touch came with an easy deliberateness to Alvaar, sensitive and observant as he was if still cautious of boundaries. Ruffling her hair and telling her she’d done well after distracting the Red Kojin or pulling her against his side comfortingly when she’d lamented being unable to protect others from Lakshmi as he could. Or how he’d carried her off before she broke down in grief after watching Y’shtola and Urianger lay still and unresponsive in the medical beds for an hour after they’d fallen in the Rising Stones. Spirited her off into his loaned room where she could break down and no one else would see, face buried into his jacket and the Bard holding her patiently and stroking her hair and back comfortingly even long after she’d fallen silent.

    She hates feeling weak around him. Hates the idea he feels obliged to stay at her side when all the world begs his attention. That he pesters her to learn to cook properly or fumbles his way through red magic at her instruction to keep her distracted from grief. How much she’s grown to rely on his presence as the days pass.

But for as observant as he is, so is she. There’s a tightness in his expression that eases in those moments they share; the way he laughs as she grumbles over learning baking or honest surprise when he finally manages to land a spell. The tension like a coiled spring that finally releases in moments like now, stroking her hair patiently and relaxing until he almost falls asleep himself.

They’re patching each other’s wounds in these moments, mending cuts and bruises and breaks that are deeper than any white magic or tonic could hope to touch. Readying themselves for the next battle that lingers on the horizon. And she prays more than anything that she can hold fast at his side until they are victorious and things return to normal.