#dead tube manga

[tr4fa1g3r]

[aawmanga0009]

Kaoru Matsumura

[mettywiththenotes]

Hori killed off the villain trio because he knew they would have screamed the stadium down in the second year sports festival cheering for their heroes

[kvlt-ov-tenepher]

[blxsphxm]

How i'm lookin listenin to :

[yetiburgers]

DeAd Tube Manga

Artist; Touta Kitakawa

[sleepless-miles]

DEAD Tube, by Mikoto Yamaguchi & Touta Kitakawa

[aspiring-holistic-otaku]

Season 2 Ramble 2 - "romance" lol ver. 2

Greetings greetings greetings and welcome to another episode of MM..MANGA, the podcast about getting more people into more manga.

Not completely surprised but very thankful I held out doing the podcast long enough to do a part 2 of something. The format is a little different this time, instead of ordering my reads this month from awww to w-t-f??? I made 3 distinct categories of romance and give my top 3 reads of each

Before getting into all that though I thought I should give a light follow up on some titles I mentioned last episode:

I finished killer in love, fucked up all the way but with a surprisingly flat ending,, realistic ig but i thought they'd keep the drama going to the end idk idk

Caught up with bakemonogatari, art never off point as you would expect from the artist Oh! Great looking at their work on things like air gear and death note.  The story continues to increasingly excel despite the seemingly repetitive nature of relationships, people just go off and save themselves yk? definitely have to continue the anime since it's ahead. 

Caught up with insomniacs after school, not that much progression but still the cutest thing ever, very very aesthetic and my top cutesy romance read last year and I still highly recommend it. 

Finished Wake Up Deadman, finally, not worth it, not gonna lie that manhwa had a special little place in my heart that I can't rationalize rn but it's over, can't believe it went out that bad.. 

Caught up on boy's abyss which is still fucked up all the way round but still pretty up there if you're in for some good ol emotional drama and trauma,, can't believe it keeps getting more fucked tho tbh… 

Caught up with dandadan, still ridiculous, sort of feels like brain off stunting with the art but things are moving along so I'll continue to stay tuned… 

Anyways getting to the actual lists

Top 3

category 1 - that's fucked up dude:

#3 - I love you so I kill you by Sousou Sakakibara on story and Majuro Kaname on art (complete with 35 chapters)

The premise is that there's some disease going around that makes you want to kill the object of your desire.

Honestly I had seen a few panels of it floating around and was really excited to get to this one plus seeing the more fringe faces of love tends to be enlightening but it was kind of just a well drawn disappointment. 

The progression was pretty erratic, characters didn't really feel rooted in anything and a little bit of a spoiler here but they ended up getting supernatural powers which was like… why?? The premise was already set for a great psychological thriller which doesn't need any supernatural elements as alluring as they may be.

Anyways as you can tell by the name it's definitely fucked up, even if it ended up just being an edgelord jerk off the art was still a decent plus. Also it's pretty short so if you kinda just wanna see gore or people with powers doing the occasional neat thing and so on then forget what I said n go check it out. 

#2 Believers by Naoki Yamamoto (complete with 22 chapters)

Here the story follows three cult members, two men and one woman, who live on a small deserted island somewhere near Japan. They have devoted themselves to the "Deserted lsland Program" assigned to them by their superiors so they can throw off the corrupt influence of modern society and "purify" themselves. But as time passes two of the members begin to give into human desire..

Nothing too earth shattering, just a good ol' classic descent into madness but that's usually a nice treat anyway you slice it.

22 chapters so it's really short but it's paced really well for what they had and even expecting madness it still threw me a few times like really??? sure that's technically a course of action one could take but really??? 

#1 Dead Tube by Kitakawa Touta and Yamaguchi Mikoto (ongoing 86 chapters)

As part of the film club, the MC is asked by the main heroine to videotape her non stop for the next 48 hours. It's a simple enough task and she's pretty so he agrees. Her activities start off pretty mellow but at the end of the two days she murders someone on camera. As the days pass and the girl walks free, our mc confronts her about how this is possible and why she did it in the first place?

Enter dead tube, a video sharing site where the top views get millions in payout no matter what but those with the lowest views are punished by being made to pay for the fees and crimes of other video makers.

Grain of salt here, I'm only at chapter 28 but it's definitely fucked up, started fucked up and has only gotten increasingly fucked up the more I read but it was engaging, if not really on the survival game type beat but a little more on the mystery like why did bro get roped in, why is she making these videos? will they ever relax? etc

Fair warning again, pretty brutal from the get go and I'd suggest putting away any sensibilities you may have before reading this.

category 2 - isn't this just soft core porn?:

#3 how heavy are the dumbbells you lift? by Yabako Sandrovich on art and Maam on art (ongoing with 179 chapters)

Very simple story, the main character wants to lose weight to look cute so she checks out a local gym and it turns out they have a hot trainer so she sticks around.

This is the same guy who does the story for the kengan series which he even references a few times so I can't help but think this piece is just to blow off steam. But in any case I've only read 29 chapters so far so huge grain of salt with whatever I'm saying.

So far it's been a pretty standard episodic gag but the dash of ecchi is the reason it's on this list. These basically come every episode in the form of serious informative workout guides that end up in "steamy" pinup type illustrations. 

As I said, I've only read 29 chapters, but so far those chapters have been pretty enjoyable, Usually get a good laugh every chapter, actually helpful workout tips and all it's just that as a standard gag manga I guess I feel like I already have a pretty good idea of what to expect and there were so many other more engaging reads in sight so I didn't read that much of it this month but it's definitely something to keep up with.

#2 Tales of the Corporate Slave Succubus by Gentsuki (23 chapters)

This one was pretty funny. Our heroine is a succubus tasked with finding men every day, taking control of their dreams and stealing their vitality, and in return, fulfill any desires they have, no matter how perverted they are. As the succubi population rate decreases our heroine finds herself more and more overworked in order to reach her rising quota. One day, she meets an exhausted corporate wage slave and she's surprised at what he asks for.

I'll leave what he asks for as a surprise, it's only 23 chapters so not much I can say just it's a succubus and romance so… yh… I will say the story is a bit cute tho… 

#1 please go home akutsu san by Taichi Nagaoka (ongoing 133 chapters, read all of them)

Another simple story, though definitively cuter than the other two. It was so cute I kind of wanted to include it in the next category but i had to be fr.

Anyways basically the mc is a live alone high school student who has his home taken over by a delinquent gyaru girl looking for a place to crash after school.

Over time they develop feelings but due to how their relationship started, she teasing him and he trying to get her out of his room, neither can be honest. 

Each chapter is pretty short and since the whole thing is pretty episodic so it all flies by and never overstays its welcome or take itself too seriously, especially as it's an ecchi… always weird to me when ecchi tries to be serious like be fr… 

honourable mentions: 67% inertia and gyaru stuff in general… 

category 3

awww:

#3 Tsurezure Biyori by Kei Hamuro (72 chapters)

On the first day of highschool, the main character finds herself awestruck by the beautiful transfer student, who also happens to be a returning childhood friend.

Very short. Very sweet. 

Not much time passes in story so them just focusing on the main cast, and characterizing them as much as they did was neat, but I think that has more to do with the simplicity of the characters and really the entire story than any above average writing or anything..

That said, a simple thing is no more or less difficult to execute than any other thing so I do respect that they pulled it off and mad props for their execution of what felt like a consistent warm fuzzy feeling inside.

Side note, The main cast really felt like a nod to Yotsuba's creator Kiyohiko Azuma, for their work on another manga of his called azumanga daioh,, there wasn't really any shortage of cute stuff read this month but I think that may have given it the edge to actually make it in this list idk idk

#2 Nisekoi by Naoshi Komi (240 chapters)

Nisekoi is one of those manga that have sort of always floated in the periphery. It's been a long time coming, I tried last year but the main character's hair clip reminded me of serial experiments lain and I blacked out,, I wasn't ready then,, old Twitter pal of mine had also been recommending it for a while actually,, I'm sorry it took so long but thank you.

The story goes that to prevent a gang war from bubbling over onto innocent civilians, the heirs of both gangs are persuaded by their fathers to pretend to date through highschool for the next three years…

From the jump you can tell there's a lot to work with and a lot of directions they could go. What I was really thankful for throughout was that the whole "oh no the gang's gonna find out and start fighting what do we do now???" scenario didn't get ground into dust. like I was really scared of that being some infinitei loop gag and I'm just so glad it wasn't. 

It's one of those very cutesy romances so the bits can be limited like guys come on how long can someone blush before you get a clue yk but it was kept interesting through a staggered introduction of the main cast who each brought new flavour and nuance to the story.

Now you may be thinking… wait a minute… this sounds like you're trying to sell me a harem… are you trying to sell me a harem? Let me tell you. I honestly thought it was just gonna be a simple love triangle, maybe with a few quadrangle quandaries for the laughs and was honestly surprised that it turned into some sort of harem looking thing. Again I was thankful that the usual "oh no we seem to have fallen into a provocative position" bit that usually accompanies harems was far out of sight. Hence it's on the awwww list. 

Of course there were some repetition of gags and a few things I would be a little stern in calling erotic here and there but the story direction and quality was really driven by steady build up of the characters through their interactions with each other and their world over time.

Very solid. pretty cute. pretty comical. never really appreciated the diversity a well done harem could bring to a story before now so there's that.. they really made use of the passage of time in showing how their identities and bonds developed throughout their entire highschool lives…  Consistently great art and the whole thing really just oozed ideal high school love drama vibes… to be clear I say that as an observer seeing as I don't really think there's any such thing as an ideal high school love drama 

#1 Hi Score Girl by Rensuke Oshikiri (70 chapters)

The story really begins when the mc, a bit of an outcast, encounters the heroine top student in an arcade, who then proceeds to easily kick his ass.

I'll start by saying the art isn't anything special, maybe even below average, and if I look within in myself that might even be the reason it took me so long to get around to it, but in the end I did and I'm really really glad I did.

The story is set in the early 90s and progresses along with the rise of arcade games that was happening at the time. We see the main hero and heroine duke it out through a number of games and tech advancements, their bond deepening through their mutual love for gaming.

Definitely a slow burn as the mc doesn't really see himself or others in a romantic sense. Like his sexual and romantic orientation is literally just gamer™ and the heroine is what Google says is a dandere,, meaning too shy to talk, like think early days Hinata from Naruto. The payoff is all the more sweet though as they grow closer despite themselves.

Great cast, really great dialogue, pretty dope aesthetic with the games and everything. A story that didn't take itself too seriously in a way that gave the feeling that the author was well aware of its position as a fictional piece of work and so more effectively used the tool of fiction through the medium of manga in a way that I don't think would be possible without that awarenesses. 

I really loved how well they integrated games, as in they weren't just some to the side thing the characters did from time to time, it was clear to see from early out how important games were to the main character and to the story on a whole.

I really didn't expect to love it as much as I did, like it almost feels like one of those definitive before and after reads. Maybe it was the amount of impact in the short amount of chapters but in any case it was definitely the best read this month overall hands down. 

honourable mentions:  you and I are complete opposites, the guy she was interested in wasn't a guy at all and a story about smoking at the back of a supermarket

(I have to say some of these were probably cuter than the ones I actually listed but definitely not better and all incomplete in any case so I am less inclined to list them but they were honestly just too cute not to mention)

that's it for stuff this month, not gonna get too into old stuff this episode but to note the top 1 reads for each category before this month.

that's fucked up dude: Flowers of evil been a long time champ but I have to mention drifting net cafe by the same mangaka which I read last year. Gave it a good little run for its money. You wouldn't hear it mentioned in the last episode tho because I read it after the episode was put out. but yeah.

isn't this just soft core porn?: my balls definitely.

awww: good ending

Grateful for the new reads as always this month, really hope you can find something you like and thanks for listening, there's a little bit of a ramble after this but if you're heading out now, all the best until next time. 

[ghostreviews]

Series: Dead Tube

Author: Yamaguchi Mikoto - Kitakawa Touta

Status: Ongoing

Rating: 2.5/5

—————

I’m going to say this first, Dead Tube is not for the faint of heart. This series is grotesque and disturbing, please check trigger warnings for yourself.

I’ve been keeping up with this series for years now, I really enjoyed the first few arcs that happened for all the MC. Though for these last few chapters I have debated on putting this one down for good. Without spoiling anything the last main arc around Vol. 11 was enough for me, it hit the main points. Yes it left some holes but with how the story is currently going I would rather have those holes then this mess. I barely have an idea what’s going on anymore other then the same stuff happening over and over again, I’m not even sure the main goal for the MCs are the same anymore. Will I keep reading? Yes. Why? I’ve made it this far might as well see how it ends.

[lilimmanga]

[tr4fa1g3r]

[aawmanga0009]

Mashiro Mai

[riversimmone]

Three's A Crowd - Chapter 11

RiverOfTheSand

Summary:

SasuSaku. He didn't mean to kill that man. He had simply reacted to being attacked. And now Konoha is forced to hunt down the rogue members of Team 7, or risk open war. Eventual NaruHina.

XXX

Read from the beginning. This is a work in progress story you can find on tumblr and AO3 and completed on FF.NET.

[All tumblr posts will be tagged ‘Three’s A Crowd’ with their corresponding chapter for quick and easy access.]

Enjoy. :)

Chapter Eleven: Job Satisfaction.

Silken Heat was the name of the most erotic night club in Kumogakure. Unlike in other hidden villages, it was both an underground kind of place, as well as high reaching. It wasn't like ninja frequented this dark, rickety establishment – or if they did, it was with a very skilled henge or something of the sort – but there were rumours of Shinobi connections with not only the owner but quite a number of the employees. The clientele varied, despite this, and Silken Heat was nothing if not adaptive to the needs of their regulars.

The nightclub was also soaked in the pungent smells of smoke, alcohol and whores… Sasuke Uchiha could tell a lady from a whore, on or off the job – whores had a distinctively nauseating stench to them. He would never understand how men and women alike could spend inordinate amounts of time in the company of someone that stank, constantly. The persistent smell of sex was mixed in with sweat and the odour of whatever establishment they worked at. Sasuke only liked the smell of sex on Sakura. He didn't like other people's body odour anymore than his own, and being surrounded by it made him want to dry heave.

Sitting three feet from him on a love seat, Naruto Uzumaki was in an entirely different frame of mind – the baka was enjoying the attention from the lap dancers. When a particularly busty woman sauntered over to them, Sasuke quickly shook his head and waved her away when she eyed him off – she perked up a moment later having noticed the excited looking blonde near him. So it was as Naruto was receiving his fifth lap dance for the night that a familiar face finally strode onto the catwalk.

Sasuke had been against this. He was angry at her for suggesting it, at Naruto for going along with it and at himself for not thinking of a better alternative to shut them both up. Sakura Haruno was a beautiful woman, and incredibly intoxicating as she danced like a professional. The pole at the end of the catwalk was a whore; his girlfriend was making out with it, moving with the music, and raking her eyes over the audience. Her emerald orbs hesitated as they met angry dark eyes and then swept away for their own safety.

And despite his reservations about this, her moves and suggestive swaying was giving him a hard on. She wasn't required to go nude, and if it had been, the owner would be dead the moment Sasuke set eyes on him. But Sakura was stripping, the tight, glittering tube top slipping off first as she looped her free arm around the pole. Cat calling from the male audience seemed to spur her on and she winked at them, throwing the top into the audience.

Meanwhile, Naruto was trying desperately not to look at the stage – even the busty woman dancing about his lap couldn't completely distract from the fact that Sakura was dancing and swivelling around a pole, wearing almost nothing. He blushed profusely, turning his head to keep Sasuke from seeing, but was grateful that for once, the jealous boyfriend of the pinkette was focusing all his resentment on said girl. He had not liked the idea when Sakura proposed it a day ago and he sure as hell hadn't warmed up to it since then.

Naruto supposed that Sasuke was just worried that one of these drunken idiots would try to make a grab for her. She was only doing this because the owner of this establishment rarely came out of his office or whatever hidey hole he'd dug himself into, and the only way they knew for sure would work was if he thought to take advantage of a new female recruit. Sasuke hadn't been able to find him despite his "talents" for doing so (and refrained from going too far based on the rumours that ninja did in fact frequent this club), which was understandable considering they only knew of this guy via his cover name and reputation. Luring him out was the next best thing – Sāmu was a contact for Orochimaru and was probably using the club for recruiting subjects for the snake's "experiments". They had to know for sure, but the more immediate concern was how he contacted the Sannin.

So Sasuke had been outvoted (the voting did seem to be going awry lately) and grudgingly did nothing to physically stop Sakura. She had been very excited about this all day, her exuberance not remotely contagious, and one would think, looking up at the pinkette in that moment as she shimmied out of her short shorts, that she was on top of the world.

Sasuke made a mental note to bring this up with her later and swivelled his attention away from her as the door to the upstairs offices opened. He kept it in his peripherals, watching as a man he didn't recognise stood still, his eyes raking appreciatively over the new pink haired dancer.

Was that him?

Naruto glanced at him as well and caught Sakura's eyes. She took the hint, finished her routine without losing her underwear (much to the displeasure of the crowd) and sauntered off stage. Sasuke stood immediately, ignoring the blonde as Naruto who was now trying to untangle himself from a busty redhead, and moved methodically through the crowd. He didn't want to spook the guy, but wouldn't let him out of his sight either. The man was talking to one of the other female workers and she nodded, smiling, and then turned toward the backstage. It looked like she was collecting the new recruit for some time with the boss. Naruto caught up to Sasuke a moment later and watched with him as a now fully clothed Sakura was led into the owner's office.

"Come on," Naruto said, "there should be a back entrance."

Silently, Sasuke let him take the lead and looked around the club to make sure they weren't being watched. His desire to beat the living crap out of that man was surprisingly extinguished the moment he and Naruto barged into the small, dingy room from the back alley entrance. Sakura had the man by the hair and was belting him in already, calling him a pervert, a scoundrel… basically anything and everything that came to mind. She didn't even notice she now had an audience as she clenched her fist one last time, hitting the gangly man across the jaw and knocking him unconscious.

X X X

Naruto was making cooing noises, like one did to a baby, his face right in the man's line of sight as Sāmu slowly woke, and wearing his cheesiest grin.

"You're such a child, Naruto," Sakura said, leaning in closer to their captive. "He's not a baby."

"He just cringed like one."

"Only because I'm scarier than you."

"Pfft, I could've kicked his ass just fine!"

"You don't get to have all the fun, Naruto."

"Will you two be quiet, you're giving me a headache."

They stepped away from this Sāmu character at Sasuke's scolding.

"Sheesh teme," Naruto said sarcastically. "Calm down." He pointed to the brown haired man and grinned. "You'll scare the baby."

They were in Naruto's room in Hakumatomi Tavern, and Sāmu was tied to a chair, in the centre of the small living room. Honestly, they preferred not to conduct such affairs in places so easily broken into, but in this case, it couldn't be helped. Sasuke had put up a genjutsu so that once this guy started screaming, no-one would hear him outside this room. He still felt oddly exposed doing this here, but this was important.

"Where is Orochimaru?" He asked, leaning in toward the prisoner.

The man just grinned maniacally, as though he knew all the secrets of the universe and being captured was fun.

"Just hit him," Naruto growled. "Or use your Sharingan. Don't waste time, unless you want me to–"

Sasuke cut him off with a glare, grabbed Sāmu by the hair, and spoke venomously. "Tell me where your master is or you'll leave this world screaming for death."

The man remained quiet, his focus intent on the now blazing Sharingan and realisation dawning on his features. He screamed at the feel of a kunai digging into his ligaments, thrashed as Sasuke twisted the blade, scraping against nerve endings without severing them.

Naruto paced in the background and Sakura sat wearily on the floor. As far as she was concerned, Sasuke was enjoying this too much. And he kept at it, whispered his demands and adding pressure to the man's body. Sāmu whimpered out a few incoherent words and then fell silent. Sasuke was careful not to get the man's blood on the floor, so he didn't open any veins, but his clothes were ripped and bloodied nonetheless. He pulled away, allowing the servant of the snake Sannin a few moments to compose himself.

Eventually, Sāmu seemed to recover his wits, but instead of looking up fearfully at the Uchiha, the gangly man was laughing… Sasuke grabbed the back of his hair again, roughly. "What's so funny, freak?"

The man croaked a few times before managing the words, laced with his mirth at the situation. "You're worried about Orochimaru, seriously?"

Sāmu continued to laugh, even after Sasuke struck him across the face again, and fell to the floor, dragging the chair he was tied to down with him. His amusement was pissing the Uchiha off and if they didn't need his information, he'd have killed him already.

"Spit it out," Naruto snarled.

Sāmu looked up at them, his eyes resting on Sakura, probably still thinking about the fun he'd been robbed of when she attacked him. "If I were you, I'd be less concerned about Lord Orochimaru, and more worried about the Raikage."

Sasuke snarled. "Why?"

The man let out a high pitched giggle. "He knows who you are Kitsúne, and he wants you, real bad."

X X X

[detectivereads]

Superman Vs Meshi vol 3 By Satoshi Miyagawa & Kai Kitago

5/5

This post is for fan entertainment, I’m not being paid.

Click here to see Vol 1

Click here to see vol 2

Ok, when reading the first chapter, I remember why for such a long time I didn’t really like Superman, but maybe I just didn’t like the people around him. Because the first chapter has Clark Kent and Lois Lane talking about the last chapter of volume 2 about her article that she was told to write.  Clark comes out to Lois and tells her that he is Superman, but I guess Superman can do a mind reset and he changes his mind about letting Lois know about his identity and reset her mind. Lois now doesn’t remember the Superman is Clark Kent. But you want to know how he does it…with a kiss.

(*Cue table flipping and punching the dry wall in anger*)

I know I haven’t followed Superman in any form, and any knowledge I do know is from the Justice League Animated series or any other cartoon, but when can he do that????

Now cut to later when Superman is with Batman at a very popular restaurant, Superman is still thinking about the kiss that he doesn’t remember anything about the food he has eaten (that is the real crime right there) Batman really wants another hamburger streak but he doesn’t want to wait in the long line and he even contemplates about the restaurant but stops because he doesn’t want to be a jerk and cuts in front of people who were waiting their turn.

So, Superman popping a mint into his mouth and resets Batman’s mind, (before you ask no Super doesn’t kiss Batman. Apparently, he can reset minds with his breath see picture above thank you @deathmetalunicorn1 for helping me with photo.)

So, with no memory of standing in line, Batman and Superman get back in line to eat hamburger steak.

In some of the later chapters and huge fight happens with Doomsday and Superman dies.

However, no one told Batman, so getting a special artifact (Mother Box) and it opens up to place where certain items are needed to help Batman make the life saving cure: Okonomiyaki. Which upon completing the dish, and the smell going over to Superman he wakes up.

So, the breakdown of this, Superman dies, and Batman finds it weird that his body is not decaying so this leads Batman to suspect that Superman is not dead. So, with the help of Mother Box, it opens a boom tube to a Japanese grocery store when Batman gets the items to Okonomiyaki, and lo and behold Mother Box doubles as a microwave. So, Okonomiyaki has saved Superman life.

Later in the book we get to see Supergirl, and she is just Superman she loves Japanese food.

Now we have another Lex Luthor chapter, Superman and Lex are talking about Darkseid which Superman had hope that Lex would join forces with the League which Lex flat out refuses and says he has to leave to go to a big fancy lunch, when leaving he happens to see Superman going into one of his buildings and buying bento.

Now this bit where Lex was spying on Superman picking out his bento, I was really questioning Lex’s sanity. Then he busted in when he sees Superman taking a cold bento instead of fresh bento. (Pretty much they have lunch together.)

The last chapter of the book is of the heroes fighting Darkseid. During the fight Darkseid hurt Batman. So, both Superman and Flash do flash point and sends Superman to an alternate time where Lois Lane is Chief editor of the Daily Planet. The overall goal is to fight Darkseid.

I won’t spoil the rest of the book because I thought the ending of this volume was well done.

As I said I don’t know if there will be more (I hope there will be) but for now it looks like a 3-volume series. 

When I first started this series, I thought ‘Oh lord Superman is a dork” but as I got engrossed with the manga, I still think he is a dork but I think I could see myself having friendly banter about food with him.

I would recommend this series to a foodie or a superhero fan.

[chuthulhu-reads]

[ID: a wide panel from Trigun Maximum. In the foreground, Vash and Knives as children are facing away from the reader, so their expressions cannot be seen. In the middle of the panel is a bank of computer screens. In the background are three large glass tubes, which the boys are looking up at. The biggest and centremost tube contains a shadowed figure that might have once been a child. The legs are the thin legs of a humanoid child, but above that is a dark mass of bulging, torn, distorted flesh. a left hand is floating in the same tank, apparently torn off from the rest of the body. The right arm, with enough of the flesh gone to expose what may be the bones, is floating in one of the side tubes. The other side tube is mostly obscured by Vash's shoulder, but not enough to hide that it contains a brain, with the eyeballs still attached. The body in the centre tube does seem to still have a head, but so shadowed that what its face may look like, or even if it still has a face, is impossible to tell. End ID.]

There she is. Everything about this is so gross and horrifying. Even in death, her body was afforded no dignity, no personhood; Rem does her best to keep the place clean and leaves flowers, but Tessla's body is still floating in a test tube, preserved and exposed in all that was done to her. God I HOPE she was already dead when her arms started falling off. I SUPER HOPE that she was already dead when her brain and eyeballs were extracted; the optic nerves being fully connected, they may have cut off the entire top half of her head to get it out relatively intact. Int he manga, at least, there's no indication that she's anything but very, very dead, but I gotta give Stampede for finding the one way this could possibly be made any worse by flashing an "ALIVE" across the screen. In the manga, I genuinely hope her body was incinerated when the ship went down. I hope her body finally got the freedom of cremation or decomposition.

[yeowangies]

Close Encounter

Chapter l | Chapter ll: Human Emotions | Chapter lll | Chapter lV | Chapter V

❧

PAIRING: Raditz/Reader RATING: T CONTENTS: Little Angst (blink and you miss it), Canon Divergence AU, Romance WORDCOUNT: 4855

Summary:

“So you’re telling that guy- the alien I had sex with, kidnapped his nephew? And tried to kill his own brother?”

“Yes!” Bulma yelled, exasperated because you asked that question several times already.

“And you want ME to help you bring him back to health?!”

Notes:

me: I'm just gonna write a sequel chapter, nothing too complicated me, over 15k words later: goddamnit

So yeah, there's three more chapter after this. I already wrote 90% of the whole story, so I'll update every two or three days.

I read Raditz' scenes in the manga like ten times, trying to somehow analyze his character, even if he is in the story for two minutes. I TRIED to not be a little ooc with him but then again, we never see him outside a battle context so... I tried my best.

I didn't go into detail about Raditz's fight with Goku and Piccolo, but what I imagined happened is inspired by JsCandyHell's Rademption comic, the first chapter. It's public if you're curious, you can look it up on his twitter account.

Raditz woke up on a bed in a room so bright it seemed surreal. 

The next thing he saw was your face, staring right at him.

“Am I dead…?”

You arched an eyebrow, smiling faintly. 

“You’re not dead. Not for lack of trying.” You replied.

He remembered you. That girl who was there when he got to Earth. That girl he fucked almost as soon as he stepped out of his pod. If he wasn’t dead (he knew he wasn’t meant for heaven or anything, but your face was a pleasant sight that left him bewildered), why were you there? 

The vague smile on your face quickly disappeared, and you walked away from him. He scanned the room quickly; it seemed like some kind of medical bay, similar to the ones at homebase, full of machines and screens that seemed connected to him. The next thing he noticed, or rather, felt, was a pain in his torso. He grunted through gritted teeth, and realized he was bandaged all over his upper body. He recoiled instinctively, only making the pain worse.

“Don’t move too much,” You told him with a surprisingly cold voice. “You’re gonna open your wounds.”

Raditz narrowed his eyes at you, still feeling like he was impaled in the stomach quite literally. Your voice sounded different than the last time he heard it. Albeit it was under very different circumstances, but he didn’t understand why you talked to him that way. He didn’t even understand what you were doing there, or where there even was. 

“I’ll have food brought in, I assume you’re hungry.” You said while pressing some numbers on some kind of panel and holding a tube to your ear. 

He looked at you warily. It’s not like he could do much in the state he was in. If you wanted to kill him or something like that, he supposed he wouldn’t be able to fight back, even if you were a mere human.

While you talked to someone through that tube, ordering things to be brought there, Raditz tried to recall what exactly happened. He obviously remembered you, it was impossible not to. He also remembered taking his brother’s son, his nephew, and subsequently fighting Kakarot and that green guy. Everything after that was blurry. 

He groaned, in pain, and because he remembered that that brat, Kakarot’ son, had destroyed his pod. He was stranded on that miserable planet for all he knew, a planet that had such ancient technology, he knew for sure earthlings had not discovered how to travel in space. 

“Woman,” Raditz called you, and you turned to look at him. “What the fuck is going on?”

“You don’t remember?” You asked him with furrowed brows.

“Where is this place?” He saw your face hardened when he ignored your question, but he went on. “And what are you doing here?”

“I happen to be close with one of your brother’s friends. Remember? The brother you tried to kill?”

There was bitterness in your voice. He understood you were offended by his actions but he didn’t really get why, and he didn’t want to bother thinking about it. 

“For some reason, he wanted you to live despite what you did. So we are helping you heal. Everyone else was too afraid of you, and I already knew you, so I was basically left in charge to look after you.” 

He raised an eyebrow. You had some guts for sure. Though he supposed it was the fact that he was too injured to even try to hurt you. He could still taunt you though.

“Do your friends know what we did then?” Raditz smirked. 

You scowled, the tips of your ears getting red. 

“I would have never done that with you if I had known you were-!” You didn’t finish your sentence, and you turned your back to him. 

“‘Were’ what? If I remember correctly, you enjoyed what we did quite a lot, if your screams were enough proof.” He sneered at you, amused by your reaction. “No point in action so righteous now.”

“Having sex and trying to kill your family is not nearly the same thing.” 

He chuckled, and you turned your face to the side to look at him.

“Do you not see anything wrong in what you did?”

“No,” He replied immediately, the smirk never leaving his lips. “I asked my brother to join us. He said he would rather stay here than help us. He is a disgrace to our race.”

Raditz wouldn’t admit it, but he didn’t want to kill his own brother. Not for any sentimental reason, but simply because he was one of the four Saiyans left. It would not have done any good to reduce the race even more. They still needed him nonetheless, but if he wasn’t going to cooperate then he had no other choice. 

Your eyes were bewildered when he answered. 

“I would have never had sex with you if I knew you were a monster.”

He glared at you. Your words stung. Apparently attraction had a moral stipulation on that planet. 

“You still did it, however.”

It was your turn to glare at him. 

Neither of you spoke until the food arrived. 

*

“So you’re telling that guy- the alien I had sex with, kidnapped his nephew? And tried to kill his own brother?”

“Yes!” Bulma yelled, exasperated because you asked that question several times already.

“And you want ME to help you bring him back to health?!”

“Uh… yes.”

“Why?!”

“I think the answer is obvious.”

You groaned, rubbing your temples. 

“We fucked, we are not married!”

“I know that, but…” Bulma sighed. You knew she understood perfectly well why you were in disbelief of the whole conversation. “The guy is ruthless. And you actually formed some kind of bond with him.”

“I would barely call that a ‘bond’. And I don’t know how much that would matter to him if he attacked his own brother…”

“Well, Goku did ask us to let him live. Before he died.”

You pursed your lips. That Goku guy must have been something else if he forgave his own brother like that, especially after what he did to his son. Bulma told you he could come back to life once they gathered the ‘Dragon Balls’, some magical wish-granting orbs. You believed her because she had told you stories about it before. 

“I think maybe this guy… would soften with you.” Bulma went on. 

“You’re putting too much faith in me.” You sighed and paused, considering it for a moment. “Fine.”

Bulma pumped her fist in the air at your positive answer. 

“I’m staying at Capsule Corp. until he heals.”

“Yeah, about that. He can’t stay here.”

“What?!”

“I mean, he is staying here! But once he is strong enough to move… I don’t want him around.”

“What the fuck are you telling me? That he is gonna have to stay with me in my house?”

“Yes! I’m so glad you understand!” Bulma smiled cheerfully. 

“Bulma, what the fuck?! You just told me this man is violent and you want me to keep him around, at my place?!”

“I’m sorry! It wouldn’t be any different if he stayed here. I mean, Goku died and Piccolo almost killed him, but without Goku, he wouldn’t be able to do much! So we are all doomed if you can’t somehow mellow this guy out.”

“So that’s your brilliant plan? You want me to influence him somehow?”

“Well yeah.”

How the fuck were you gonna do that? Bulma was insane for suggesting such a thing. It’s not like you were some kind of preacher. What would you even say to Raditz that could possibly change his mind about attacking Earth and all that stuff?

For what you knew, the two other aliens, the Saiyans, were already on their way to Earth, and they will arrive in less than a year. There was no way to put that off. What everyone was worried about is Raditz taking revenge on the damage he took while he was trying to recruit his brother, which would be fairly easy, according to what Bulma told you. That Piccolo guy (the same Piccolo Daimao that threatened to conquer the world some years ago, you remembered that event well from the news and again, from what Bulma had told you since she had been a witness of it all)  was strong but he wouldn’t stand a chance against him. 

And the only reason Raditz was alive was because Goku asked them not to kill him. Because he was strong and he wanted to fight him again.

Bulma’s other friends were strange. 

Compassion wasn’t a bad way to go about things, however. You just doubted if it would affect someone who had done what Raditz did. 

It made shivers run up your spine. Yes, you had sex with the man. It was insanely good. Out-of-this-world good. But after learning everything that had happened, you weren’t so sure about how you felt. You didn’t know if you regretted it or not, despite what you had told Raditz when he woke up. You were angry he didn’t seem to show a pinch of remorse. And if you thought about the fact that there was blood on his hands, your stomach would sink. 

You barely talked to him after that day, too angry and confused to twist your arm and show him any kind of emotion. But the ‘plan’ (if one could even call it a plan) Bulma had wasn’t going to end well if you didn’t get along with him. Since he didn’t seem to show any guilt for his actions, you would have to move around it and take a different approach. Somehow. 

“How are you feeling?” You asked Raditz one morning, as soon as you walked into the medical room he was staying in.

He had recovered pretty fast for someone who had a literal hole in his body, and you figured it was the alien genes that helped him heal. 

Raditz narrowed his eyes on you. You hadn’t really asked him anything in the last couple of weeks, he must have been disoriented, you figured. 

“What do you want?” He asked after a moment of silence.

“What?”

“You haven’t spoken to me unless you had to. Why are you asking me how I feel?”

You blinked, confused.

“I genuinely want to know how you are feeling. Your injuries were pretty bad.”

“Is that a human thing? Asking me how I feel?”

You rubbed your temples, feeling put off by his skepticism. 

“I don’t know. Nevermind.” 

You wanted to turn around and walk out, the awkward silence that followed made you feel stupid since it was your idea to start a conversation. You didn’t leave though, taking a seat across the room where you always sat, near the only window in the room. It was so tiny you could barely see Bulma’s garden from there, but it kept you distracted every time you sat there, especially those last few days, when you got tired of reading through some magazines you brought with you to make the time go faster.

“What made you change your mind?” Raditz asked you, and you turned to look at him.

“What?”

“You seemed pretty angry when I said I didn’t regret what I did.” The tone in his voice was even, and he had a blank expression on his face. “So why are you talking to me now?”

“I’m tired of being angry,” You said genuinely. “We should… try to get along.”

“Why?” He squinted at you.

“Well, you are gonna be here for a while, and I’m looking after you so…”

“I don’t understand.” He practically growled. You probably should have been afraid of him (and maybe deep down you were a little), but something told you he wasn’t going to hurt you. “Why are you even helping me?”

“Your brother told us to let you live. I wasn’t there, but from what I was told, he said something about fighting you again.”

“Is that it? Because Kakarot told you to let me go?”

You were confused for a second until you realized ‘Kakarot’ was Goku. 

“Yeah…” You carefully considered your next words so as not to make him angry. Or angrier. “He was compassionate even after what you did.”

“You humans are disgusting.” Raditz snorted.

Staring at his face, you could tell he wasn’t as infuriated as he seemed. He definitely was surprised though.

“Yeah, well, you are still stuck here with me.” 

He looked at you up and down. As confused as you were about your feelings towards him, you still had to fight your own body so as not to blush under his gaze. 

“I guess I could do worse.” He said.

“Gee, thanks.”

“And I would hate it if our thing got ruined because of a tiny mistake.” He smirked at you.

“A tiny mistake? Our thing?!” You really couldn’t help flushing by then.

“I did say I was going to come to you. Seems like I didn’t even have to do that since you are here on your own accord.”

“I- It’s not- No!” You balked. 

He laughed mockingly and you glared at him. 

*

“You’re gonna be staying at my place from now on, so be careful! I don’t want you breaking anything.” You told Raditz once you arrived at your house. 

It wasn’t big, but it was enough for you. With Raditz staying there now, you were worried it was a little cramped. 

“Yeah, you already told me that.” He rolled his eyes, looking around curiously.

The living room and kitchen were spacious, and so was the bathroom. Your bedroom and the extra room weren’t as wide, but you managed to have a queen size bed for yourself. The extra room had a single bed, and you were considering sleeping there and offering him your own bed since he was so big. 

Raditz still had to change the bandages on his torso, but he could move around by then. You still had to learn how to properly bind him up on your own. Any human would get an infection easily if you didn’t know how to do it right, but witnessing how fast Raditz had healed, you doubt he would even be affected by the things humans were weak to. 

“I’ll start dinner. You can hang around here or you can even go outside if you want, just don’t go too far.” You paused, eyes widening. “Wait, no, don’t go outside.”

“What, think I’ll run away?” He chuckled, and you gulped, facepalming yourself in your head. “There’s nothing you can do to stop me, is there?”

“Well you haven’t tried my cooking yet! I wouldn’t leave without a proper meal.” 

It was a stupid way to convince him if he truly wanted to leave, but there was really nothing you could do, or anyone else for that matter, except persuade him with words. 

But the way he was looking at you reminded you of how he stared at you the moment you met. 

“You’re right, I could eat something.” 

He sat down by the kitchen table the entire time you were cooking. You could feel his eyes on you the whole time; it made you feel incredibly self-conscious, especially since you had your back to him most of the time. It was silly you felt that way after everything that had happened between you two, but you still weren’t sure about how you felt about him. Or more like you weren’t sure you accepted how you felt.

At least physically, you were still attracted to him. You saw him shirtless a bunch of times ever since you met him, and you still let your eyes roam over his body. His muscles were impressive to say the least. And he was just so big. You were too weak for his looks, which was literally why you were in that situation in the first place. If only you had a little self-control. 

His stares never went beyond that the first few days. Raditz never tried anything, and only roamed around the house or in the yard, where you watched him work out, doing things that he shouldn’t be doing in his condition. Yet when you went to change his bandages, he was healing just fine. You were amazed, he would probably be completely healed in four or five months at most. And considering how he was close to dying, you simply couldn’t believe it.

It was then, when you were almost done binding him up, that his eyes lingered on you long enough for you to be bothered by them. You could feel him staring intensely at you at random moments during the day, but when you were so close to him, it affected you, even your hands started shaking.

“Stop staring at me!” You told him a week after you had both moved back to your place. 

You were getting tired of his lingering gaze, especially when you were holding scissors in your hands, ready to get rid of his old bandages. He was sitting on the couch next to you, your knees touching one of his thighs, as he remained as still as possible while you tried to do the simple work of helping him recover. Which was hard to do when he would not stop staring at you. 

“You keep looking at me ever since we got here, why?”

“Are you still upset?” Raditz asked you with an emotionless voice.

“Huh?”

“With me, are you still upset?”

You were taken aback as you stared right back at him. You couldn’t read him at all. But you knew he was referring to your first conversation when you practically told him you regretted ever meeting him. 

“‘Upset’ is not the right word.” You finally said after some time.

“What is it then?”

You fidgeted and remained silent. You were confused and reluctant to accept that you still found him attractive. Especially after spending so much time with him. 

Raditz was actually nice to have around, which was confusing. Though most of your conversations were superficial, he teased you and you could give back as much as you got (most of the time, if he didn’t say anything that would make you blush). But you never asked him about anything regarding his life prior to what happened once he got here. And he never questioned you about your own either. 

When you felt one of his hands on your thigh, you flinched. When he slid his fingers upwards, you grabbed his wrist instantly to stop him. 

You knew he could keep going if he wanted to. While you weren’t afraid of him anymore, you were still aware of the fact that Raditz could overpower you if he so wished. So you were surprised when he didn’t yank off your hand, but he pulled away from you altogether instead. 

“Sorry…” You murmured after a while, resuming your work on his bandages once more.

Raditz ran one of his hands through his hair, visibly a little nervous. 

“You don’t have to apologize.”

The silence that followed afterwards was awkward, and he avoided your eyes for the rest of the day.

*

Raditz didn’t understand you. He didn’t understand humans. 

He knew you were upset (you said that wasn’t the right word, but you didn’t offer any other variant) about what he had done, but he still didn’t understand why. His actions did not affect you directly. 

The more time he spent in your house, he began to see that family was important to Earthlings, or at least to you it was. You had a picture of your mother and father in the living room, he didn’t ask you about them but he knew because they simply looked so much like you. He overheard you on the phone one day too, talking to your mother and even telling her you loved her.

There was this big device called TV that you would watch sometimes that also gave him an insight of how humans lived and worked. Apparently other people’s actions affected them when they were close to one another. 

Raditz remembered his parents very well. His mother and father were not exactly normal compared to other Saiyan. For once, they seemed to hold a lot of affection for each other. They also cared for him and Kakarot. Other Saiyan parents didn’t exactly mistreat their children, but once in the incubators, they would simply leave them to go on a mission, not seeing them for years even. 

After planet Vegeta was destroyed, he only had Nappa and Vegeta. Nappa told him that most Saiyans didn’t stay together after mating, and sex was a common thing among allies, not necessarily intended for reproduction. Vegeta, being royalty and proud as heck about it, was more reserved, so he almost never commented on that matter. 

He grew up like that, and since there weren’t any females to hang around with for a long time, he just fucked for fun. Which, he learnt, was also what most males did in the Frieza army. Women were scarce there, so fucking random females in far away planets was actually a common occurrence. He never formed any kind of bond with anyone. And if he thought about it, neither Nappa nor Vegeta were exactly close to him. 

He heard them say they wouldn’t wish him back to life when he was dying after the fight with Kakarot and that other guy. And he was infuriated, but he didn’t know exactly what to do about it. There was actually nothing he could do about it in his condition to begin with either.

Humans were the opposite of how he was raised. But not the opposite of how his parents used to be. He remembered his father hugging his mother when he arrived home from a mission, even kissing her like he missed her. For what the TV had shown him, humans did that too. And while casual sex was also a thing on Earth, most of those movies, or whatever they were called, made it seem more important than what it appeared to be.

You had told him not to take anything he saw on TV ‘too seriously’. So he was confused. But he wanted to understand. Mostly so he could understand you. 

Even though it had been a while since you two had sex, Raditz still wanted you. He wanted to taste you again, to have you again. It was making it difficult to see you every single day; he had to watch you in the morning, when you tried to look somehow put together but he could see that your hair was out of place and your eyes were a little puffy, and he had to see you after you took a shower, walking to your room in just a towel, and it was killing him because he could simply smell you all the time, and everywhere on that house. But he could not touch you because your demeanor showed that you didn’t feel the same way. And he wanted to know and understand why. 

“That woman said she only wanted casual sex, but now she is crying. Why?”

It was a rare occasion that Raditz sat down with you when you chose to watch a movie. You didn’t exactly invite him to join, but he did anyway. 

A man and a woman met and agreed to just fuck. And now she was going back to her hometown and she was upset about not seeing that man again. But they had an arrangement that it was only sex. He didn’t get it, what changed?

“She is in love with him, she doesn’t want to leave.”

“In love?” 

“Yeah,” You eyed him curiously. “You know, like feelings? She cares about him and she grew to like him.”

“Wasn’t it just a fuck?”

You laughed, which startled him.

“That sometimes works, but sometimes it doesn’t. People who sleep together regularly usually grow to like each other. Even if they end up just liking each other as friends.”

“Weird…” Raditz squinted his eyes, thinking.

“What do you mean?” You giggled, obviously amused at the fact that he didn’t get human emotions. 

He debated internally whether or not to tell you what his first impression of that planet had been. He didn’t see anything wrong with sharing, so he spoke.

“When you offered yourself to me when we met, I assumed this planet was all about easy sex.”

“W- What?” 

Raditz noticed your surprise, but he went on.

“I’m not used to women being so loose. So I figured humans must fuck on a daily basis with just anyone. Didn’t consider anything like what you just said.”

He noticed your face getting slightly red, though not out of embarrassment. 

“Are you calling me a slut?” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“You used the words ‘easy’ and ‘loose’ in two sentences. Are you saying I have sex with just anyone I meet?”

He wasn’t sure exactly what had offended you, but he knew you were angry for whatever reason. He frowned, considering his words carefully.

“...No? Not exactly?”

“Then what do you mean?!”

“What I said! Humans seem highly hedonistic and simple, I suppose that’s why you never evolve past the power level of a fly.” He noticed your glare, but he snorted, amused. “It’s not everyday that I arrive on a planet and a female throws herself at me. I’m pretty sure Nappa and even Vegeta were surprised.”

“Who?”

“The Saiyans that are coming here.”

“Wait, ‘were surprised’? How would they even know about what we did?”

“The scouter.” He said, signaling to the side of his face where his scouter used to be when he arrived. “I’m sure you remember I was talking to someone through it.”

“Yeah, but what does that-”

“They were on the other side of the line, they probably heard everything.”

Your eyes opened wide, and you stared at him for a minute before talking again.

“W-what? You mean to tell me they listened to us… having sex?”

“Obviously.” He replied, unaware of the things going through your head, though he did notice your cheeks slowly flushing. “I don’t know about Vegeta, he seems like more of a prude, but I’m sure Nappa heard everything.”

Your entire face turned red up to the tip of your ears in an instant, and Raditz looked at you with one eyebrow raised. You were embarrassed now, but about what?

“I- They heard… everything?”

“Yes?”

“And you’re not bothered by that?!”

“Why would I be?” He shrugged, aloof. “I spent most of my life with them, we all have seen everything by now.”

You didn’t reply for a while, but the color on your face didn’t go away. Raditz looked at you for a minute, studying your expression, but when you didn’t talk anymore, he assumed the conversation was over. Until you spoke again. 

“You… you let them hear me say all those things I said and you didn’t tell me!”

He looked at you as you stood up and grabbed him by his shirt. 

“Get the hell out!”

“Woman, what the fuck are you doing?!”

Your grip on his shirt could probably rip the fabric, but it was nothing compared to his strength. Raditz still let you drag him towards the entrance, out of morbid curiosity. 

Opening the front door, you dragged him almost all the way out the threshold, finally pushing him in the chest.

“Get out! Now!” He opened his mouth to yell right back at you, but you didn’t give him time. “I said GET OUT!”

Raditz couldn’t believe you had actually pushed him hard enough to make him fall back onto the ground. He wasn’t exactly prepared for any kind of confrontation, so his guard was down. But he was still startled, and he stared at you with eyes wide open as you slammed the door shut in his face.

You had actually successfully thrown him out. With just your hands.

That was the wrong time to have an erection, but he couldn’t control it. 

That look in your eyes, the way you grabbed him and pushed him, like you weren’t even afraid of him (which you probably weren’t anymore after all the time you two spent together). It was arousing.  

However, he was still annoyed that you pushed him out like that. He was still trying to understand some things regarding human emotions, and when he asked, you got angry, and not only did you manage to turn him on, but also irritate him in less than a minute after that. He was confused, horny and annoyed all in one minute, and because of you.

For once, he wished his brother wasn’t dead. Kakarot was married to a human woman, the mother of his child. Maybe he would know what to do. He would have to figure this out on his own. 

Raditz cursed under his breath, standing up and rearranging his pants to best accommodate his hard-on before walking away.