#haruka: wait takane what about shintaro

[yuukei-yikes]

ive realised that the reason fan content has always put haruka and takane like a pda couple is because of live shintaro reaction. his ass is always hanging out with them and complaining abt it but does that necessarily mean theyre pda. i think haruka and takane would be embarrassed to be pda. i think shintaro complains to everyone abt them being pda and everyones like ur sick in the head the most they do is sit close together

[liya4kar]

Liyada’s Pokespe AU Masterpost

I decided to do a Pokespe AU Masterpost because I have a lot of them and unfortunately never get to speak of them with anyone because nobody knows them. And doing a master post with also help me to actually keep track of all of them.

I’ll also probably do one post for the more developed AU where I can develop them fully, as I’ll try to keep this post short.

If you want to send me an ask about any of them, please do! I’d love to speak of them more~ If you want to know more about a character in an AU, or how some events happen, I will love to answer you!

Also, every work relate to those AU will be tag on my blog, you can find the tag name at the beginning of each AU, as well as the related fics if there are any!

Summary:

The Magical Dexholders AU

The Magical Pokémons AU

Humans Gods AU Number 1

Humans Gods AU Number 2

Kagepro AU Number 1

Kagepro AU Number 2

Kagepro AU Number 3 (Though the only link between this AU and Kagepro is the idea behind Ene)

Yorozuya no Lack-Chan AU

Legendary Dexholders AU

Blond Family AU

One Piece AU

Natural Spirits AU

Ducktales AU

1. The Magical Dexholders (Will have a special post)

(Fic for it: The Magical Dexholders)

Tag: #The Magical Dexholder AU

A canon-compliant AU, where all the canons adventure has already taken place, and when a new adventure arises. Except that this time it’s not an Evil Team but the Darkness Force of the Evil that is so Bad that They stole the Snack of a Four Years Old Child, and that the Dexholders are not fighting with their Pokémons but with their Magical Powers they obtained from some random strange sassy colorful creatures, and they fight with the power of Friendship, Anime, and Protagonist on their side.

Aka a total self-compliant Magical Girl AU where I put whatever strange idea I have. 

In this AU, you can find:

Sassy little creatures

Characters being dumb

Diamond and Silver bonding over their passion for Proteam Omega while fighting The Darkness of the Evil that is blabla Snack of a Child blabla.

Blue and Yellow kicking ass.

Hippie Celebi (oops this one is a spoiler)

Not all the characters are Magical Holders right now but they will all appear up to Sun and Moon at least. Maybe SWSH if I or someone finds a way to incorporate them. (Though if you ask for the destiny of any specific character of this AU in an ask, I’ll surely answer!)

Some people bonding over their friends being dumb (Or how Pearl, Green, Crystal, and Y ended up in a group chat with a Satanic God) (Ooops Spoiler again)

2. The Magical Pokémons (Will have a special post)

Tag: #Spe Magical Pokémons AU

This AU, though created before the Magical Dexholders, is actually linked to the Magical Dexholders. Technically, they happen in the same setting and meet at one point. But of course, when I wanted to write a fic for it alongside the Dexholders, I realized I actually have no time to write it! Ahah-

Basically, still a Magical Girl AU, still a parodical AU where the only goal is to have fun and laugh, but this time it’s not the Dexholders that are the Magical Boys or Girls but their Pokémons! Well, not all of them. Two per Dexholders. Do you realize how complicated it’s to manage all the DH? So all their Pokémons? No way- So only two Pokémons per DH.

Warning, this AU happen before Black was released from the Light Stone. But Sun and Moon are already out of the Ultra-Dimension. Respecting the timeline? It’s my AU I do what I want. (Mainly cause this AU was created back in 2018 actually)

In this AU, you can find:

Pokémons doing dumb sh*t when their trainers are not in sight.

Black being the only humans having powers because he was in the Light Stone when Reshiram received powers, and now he can sometimes go out of the Light Stone when the situation is desperate enough.

Also when Black activates his power he wears a white wedding dress.

Yellow also joining sometimes?

3. Human Gods AU Number 1

Tag: #Spe Human Gods AU Number 1

I always found weird there were only Pokémon Gods in the Pokémon Universe. So what did I do? I created not only one, but two Humans God AU! And here we go for the first.

So. Once Upon a Time, there were Human Gods. But they were not really nice. Actually, they wanted to destroy all the Pokémon Gods and to at best, reduce Pokémons as slaves, at worst killing them all. Of course, the Pokémons Gods did not agree, and after a (little) war, the Humans Gods were sealed by the Pokémons Gods and erased of mainstream history. But of course, things are not that easy, Humans Gods still have secret followers and are planing for their return.

Centuries later, when those followers are finally close to getting back their Gods and need to steal some old parchments for that, they are noticed by Cynthia who asked the help of the Sinnoh Trio. Of course, nothing works like expected, and when the Human Gods finally break their seal, they need bodies to reincarnate in and it’s really convenient that Diamond and Platinum are just right there. Now, the Humans Gods free and ready to put their reign of terror in place, it’s up to Pearl (who saw his best friends lovers possessed in front of him yeah!), the other DH, and the (for once) united army of the Pokémon Gods to stop them before it’s too late. Oh, and also maybe get Diamond and Platinum back.

In this AU you can find:

AnGsT

Entourageshipping

Epic fights

I mean there are powerful Gods so EPIC FIGHTS

Even more angst

Maybe Major Character Death. To see.

Development of Pokémons and Humans relationship

Did I mention Angst?

4. Human Gods AU Number 2 (Will have a special post)

Tag: #Spe Humans Gods AU Number 2

And yeah, there is a Number 2- They are not the only AU that ends to have several versions of it at the end.

So. Basically, like in the previous AUs, thousands of years ago there was a war between the Pokémons and Humans Gods, each other judging the other being invasive and dangerous to the other being. Normal Humans and Gods also participate in this war. But on both sides, some start to lose faith in this conflict and believe that cohabitation is possible. Things become more complicated when Gods from both factions start to bond. Together, they decide to end the was so everyone can live peacefully together. If the Pokémons Gods accept it pretty well, the Humans ones don’t, especially after one of the most vehement deity simulated a Pokémon attack, and they decide to end the war by using a magical machine to destroy the Pokémons Gods (the one used in the Kalos war is a less-powerful derivate of it).

 As the Humans Gods working for the peace don’t have much time left before the arms use, they take an extreme measure and seal their fellow Gods to the price of their own life. The Pokémons Gods then decided to end the war and to let the Pokémons and Humans live together without interfering with them anymore. They also used a bit of their power to grant the last wish of the Humans Gods who sacrificed themselves, who wanted to see a world where everyone can cohabitate. The said Humans Gods, no longer Gods, reincarnate as normal Humans once in while, still having a little fragment of their powers, 

Thousands of years later, the seal finally breaks, and the Humans Gods come out, some planing their revenge, some wanting to see how the world has evolved in their absence before taking a decision. Obviously, the DH gets involved. Either by meeting the gods and decide to help or fight them depending on the situation or by being one of the reincarnated Gods themselves.

What do you find in this AU:

Angst, surely

Some DH in God versions with cool designs

Human and Pokémon relationship development

Lore created from crap by me, with some inspiration from the real world but with also a lot of invented stuff, because hey it’s my AU and I do what I want

Magic. Everywhere.

5. Kagepro AU Number 1 (Aka the Fidel to the Kagepro Plot)

Tag: #Liya’s Spe Kagepro AU 1

I used to be in Kagepro a lot last, so OF COURSE, I ended doing an AU of it. Wait, not only one actually- I’ll list them by “How close to the Kagepro plot they are”.

So, in this first one, it’s basically “We replace the Kagepro characters with Pokespe characters”, though some things change, depending on the personality of the chosen characters. But they still have the same powers as the originals Kagepro cast.

Here the main cast!

Red as Ayano

Green as Shintaro

Blue as Takane/Ene

Yellow as Haruka/Konoha

Prof Oak as Kenjiirou (Ayano’s father)

Platinum as Kido Tsubomi

Diamond as Seto Kyousuke

Pearl as Kano Shuuya

White as Momo

Whi-Two as Mary

X as Hibiya

Y as Hiyori

What you can find in this AU:

Angst, I missed you!

Family relationship between several characters because ships are great, family is better.

Major Character Deaths. Like, they all die at some point but come back to life because of time loops reason!

Damn, there is so much angst possible with this one.

6. Kagepro AU Number 2 (Aka I take a lot of liberty from the original plot but you can still see the Kagepro influence) (Will have a post)

Tag: #Liya’s Kagepro AU 2

So... How to explain this one... 

It’s my most developed Kagepro AU, and so my more complex one. Too complex to even summarize it in this post (I try and stop when it became longuer than all the previous AUs combined ahah-), it’s why it’ll be the first one to have its post. Please be patient, I’ll link it as soon that I'll post it!

It also follows the canon, though some events/characters interactions change.

What can you find in this AU:

Angst, to change

Four DHs that are not all related being a found family because I can.

Major Characters Deaths. Once again.

Friendships too. Friendships are great.

7. Kagepro AU Number 3 (aka there is nearly no link to Kagepro by this point)

Tag: #Liya’s Spe Kagepro AU 3

So. In Kagepro, I always loved Ene. And all the angst include by everyone believing you are dead while you are transformed into a virus/computer program.

So basically, there is a crazy scientist organization that is doing all sorts of experiments on humans, to get immortality. Those experiments are killing nearly all the people who go through them, the rare survivors being broken beyond repair and not immortal at all. If they took random people at first, they end up taking more different people, from all backgrounds with all kinds of lives, to see if there is any difference. They tend to socially isolate their prospect guinea pigs before simulating their death in an accident.

One of this experience include separating the soul from the body: they transform the brains data into informatical data and transfer it in a computer. Like any of their experiments, there is a lot of death. But for once, it succeeds, and they end up with one person with their body in a coma while their “soul” is on a computer. Thrilled by this success, they do other attempts and end up with two other survivors. All of them are determined and stubborn people who have some people they hold dear to see again. At some point, the organization decides to try to kill the bodies to see if the informatical data stay, and the three of them decide to run away on the Internet, so the scientists can’t try this new experiment. They change of appearance, name, and end up in the computer of the BW Agency, and after some misunderstood, end up working for them.

White is glad to have three artificial intelligence helping with her work, she did not remember her software supplier having programs that powerful.

On the meanwhile, Pearl, Shauna, and Green are glad to not be experiments anymore, nor do they mind helping White with her work, though they would like to get their bodies back one day.

And far from the Agency, Platinum, Blue, and X, after a rather strange meeting, end up investigating their friends' mysterious deaths of their friends with the help of Lack-Two.

What do you find in this AU:

When was the last time I saw you; Angst?

Pearl, Shauna, and Green are doing shenanigans. And also end being close friends/found family?

White is also joining them in shenanigans

Funny and light with White and the three “Yes yes we are AI, absolutely not humans!” while the others are more on a dark, crime movie atmosphere

Also, some characters don’t cope well with their friends' deaths

Do we tag Major Character Deaths when someone believes someone else is dead even if it’s not the case and that the reader knows it?

8. Yorozuya no Lack-chan AU

Fics for it: Dogwalker Lack and The Begining of Yorozuya no Lack-Chan

Tag #Yorozuya no Lack-chan AU

Got a drabble request once and ended up doing a whole AU of it because meh why not? Like you can say with the title, it is somehow Gintama inspired.

So basically, at the end of BW2 Lack-two got fired from the International Police and start doing odd jobs for a living. He even created an agency for it, who do any work from you as long that you pay. He even has two employees, who he doesn’t really pay, aka Whi-Two and X. Yeah.

What do you find in this AU:

Furry Neko Sun

Characters being dumb

Do you wanna laugh?

Characters doing odd jobs

9. Legendary Dexholders AU (Will do a post about this one)

Fic for it: Giratina

Tag: #Legendary Dexholders AU

Being an immortal god can be boring after a few thousand years, especially when nothing had happened for a while. And one of the advantages of being a God is to left a copy of yourself while you are wandering around in a human body.

Aka several Legendaries Pokémons decide to just reincarnate in humans and, of course, they had to end up becoming Dexholders and have a complicated life. Well, at least they did not have that much fun since the last drinking contest between Kyogre and Lugia five hundred years ago.

What do you find in this AU:

An AU firstly created to be funny but the only fic I wrote about it ended up being a character study fic

But at the end, the Legendaries Pokémons are just doing shenanigans

Arceus is so done with them

Also feature mainly the main Sinnoh Legendaries Pokémons because I love them but there are also a few others

10. Blonde Family AU

Fics about it: Don't listen to others confessions or you'll end as responsible as them and To be a Cousin

Tag: #Spe Blonde Family AU

What if several blonde characters were related? Aka the AUs where Yellow, Pearl, Bianca, and Y are all cousins, and Emerald is the son of Palmer but neither Em nor Palmet know it until Ruby and Sapphire decide to investigate what happened to Emerald’s parents.

In this AU, you find:

Yellow, Pearl, Bianca, and Y are cousins, pretty close to each other, but when they see each other it usually ends up in a catastrophe

Emerald could not care less about his father because he has a found family but Ruby and Sapphire still decide to investigate (notably to kick their b*** if one of them is still alive and abandoned Emerald).

To Palmer’s defense, it was an adventure before he met Pearl’s mother, and Emerald’s mom ran away without telling him she was pregnant

Either cousins doing dumb cousins stuff together or Ruby and Sapphire going on a hunt to kick Palmer’s a** while Em and Pearl look and eat popcorns.

11. One Piece AU

Fic about it: Bonding on the Grand Line

Tag: #Liya’s Spe One Piece AU

With this AU, we arrive in the AUs that don’t take place in the canon world! The other AUs where all somehow link to the canon world and the canon adventures of the DH, except for the Kagepro number 1. But starting from this one, they all take place in other worlds!

This AU was created for the Pirate Summer Event of the Pokespe Art Community Discord and but I like it so I’ll probably write more about it if I find time to.

So basically, your One Piece AU, that happened 20 years before the death of Gold Roger (so 40 years before Luffy & Co.). To protect his best friends, Pearl ends up becoming a pirate, captain of his own crew (with the Sinnoh Gym Leaders!). And being a pirate on the Grand Line is not always easy.

What do you find in this AU:

Pearl's and Cheren's friendship. I’d die for it.

Pearl, Cheren, and the Sinnohan and Unovan Gym Leaders doing shenanigans

But also a bit of angst because hey, you know me now

Also other characters but I need to plan more their role in this AU

12. Natural Spirits AU (there will be definitely a post about this one)

Tag: Spe Natural Spirits AU

There are two beings on Earth: Humans and Natural Spirits, magical beings close to nature, each one of them being connected to a natural concept. The Natural Spirits stay hide in their cities, with only a few humans knowing their existence, and tend to despise the humans, destroying the planets at a ridiculous rate. But the Natural Spirits society is complicated, and as the human society, is far from perfect.

X, a prodigy Spirits, can’t take the pressure anymore and isolate himself far from his city, near the human town. Whi-Two, another Spirit, have a strange fascination for the humans but never go through the forest and the human town frontier. Until the day when they each meet one human, and befriend them, despite the warnings they had heard since they were children. Hiding that they are not humans, they end up joining their two new friends to a rather strange place call High-school. 

Pearl and Sapphire have rather normal lives. School, homework, friends... But since they met two new people in the forest, things start to become more interesting. Especially with the wave of people trying to take over the world... Wait, what?

What do you find in this AU:

A friendship between four characters who never met in the canon

But all the other DHs and several secondary characters have their roles

And some of them are also Natural Spirits

High-school life

Magic too

Both Humans and Spirits teams trying to take over the world and the four friends had to stop them every time

Also, the Natural Spirits society is like humans one, very far from perfect

Secret identity problems like hiding to your human friends that you can actually speak to mushrooms.

13. Ducktales AU (Will have a post because there is so much to say about this one)

Tag: Spe Ducktales AU

Ducktales, Woo-Ooo!

I love Ducktales. I have been hyperobsessing on it recently, so of course, I had to make an AU out of it! Special thanks to Vex who supported my random brainstorming in her DMs.

So... Basically, once upon a time, the richest Duck of the world, Prof McWak, had four grandchildren, two pairs of siblings: Green and Blue, and Red and Yellow. Like any normal family, on their weekends they used to go on ancient temples with deadly traps and fight monsters to get new treasures. When Prof McWak died, the four cousins, now young adults, continue to go on adventures, while Red, Yellow, and Green found their own families. But everything ends one day when, following some disastrous event, Yellow disappears, more likely to be dead. The three left cousins argue and end up splitting up, Blue founding her own company, Green becoming the CEO of their grandfather empire, and Red leaving with his new-hatched son and Yellow’s egg, never contacting his cousins again.

Ten years later, Diamond and Pearl, two cousins who grew up as brothers, accidentally break into the infamous McWak Enterprise CEO manor and met his oldest daughter, Platinum. After she brought them in a self-proclaimed adventure, when the trio became good friends, they have the surprise to find that first, Diamond’s Dad/Pearl’s “Uncle” Red and Platinum’s Father Green are actually cousins and that since they blew up Red’s houseboat during their adventures, they now get to live in the McWak Manor.

What happens next is history.

What do you find in this AU:

The Kanto quartet, the Sinnoh Trio, and Moon being all relatives because FAMILY TROPE YEAH

Pearl and chibi sassy Moon investigating Yellow’s disappearance

Family, Humor, Adventures, Angst AU

Red and Green need to learn how to communicate

Also, Sinnoh Trio adventures because those three are too precious

It’s all for the moment! I’ll probably add more AUs as I’ll inevitably create more. Thank you for reading this AU Masterpost!

[literarycat]

here’s my @kagepro-secret-santa gift for @sablyte !!! i’m so sorry for the lateness on this one, but I really do hope that you enjoy reading it half as much as I enjoyed writing it.  they asked for a bit of winter-themed ayataka fluff, so I gave them a winter carnival date!! 

Takane shifted restlessly from her position on the park bench.  She had her headphones up, heavily covering her ears, and an upbeat tune blasted from it, thoroughly tuning her out from the rest of the world.  The music was far less angry than she usually listened to, some near-pop tune about a first kiss.  This was because Takane wasn’t in nearly as bad a mood as her retreated posture would imply.  In fact, she felt downright peachy.

Today, she and Ayano were going on a date.  

She’d shown a little trepidation back when Ayano had suggested the idea of going to a winter festival, seeing as huge crowds and loud noises weren’t exactly her thing, but… Ayano had convinced her without even trying, showing just a hint of disappointment at Takane’s hesitation.  She could suck it up for her, she determined.  Her desire to have fun with her girlfriend overrode her desire to stay holed up inside.

Besides, there were apparently shooting games involved.

She quickly straightened her posture as she saw a familiar shock of red in the passerby.  Ayano’s face emerged a few moments later as she waved furiously at the seated girl.  “Hello!  Sorry you had to wait for me, I just got off the train.” “It’s alright.”  Takane smiled, pulling her head just a little bit out of where she’d retreated into her coat’s oversized collar and hood.  She tugged her headphones down a moment later, having already paused the music the moment she saw Ayano approach.  “You ready to go?” “Yep!”  They were already almost at the entrance, the festival rising before them like an enormous, colorful, lights-decorated village.  To Takane, it might as well have been a death sentence.

Seeing her blanch at the crowds, Ayano turned towards Takane, suddenly concerned.  “You okay?” she asked, gently squeezing her girlfriend’s hand.  “If the people are too much, we can go somewhere else.”

Takane shook her head.  “It’s fine,” she reassured, but Ayano still looked worried.  “It’s way better when I’m with you.”

Ayano grinned, a blush spreading across both her already rosy cheeks.  “You’re so sweet,” she giggled.  She squeezed her hand again, entwining both their glove-clad fingers.  “Let’s go, then!  I saw some shops over there that I wanted to take a look at!”

Takane nodded, letting herself get pulled along by the more excited young woman. She was grateful to just give in to Ayano’s enthusiasm, letting it drive them both.  She was, clearly, more than happy to provide enough cheerfulness for both of them.

The two of them rushed to the colorfully-tented stalls showcasing a variety of goods.  The first one they passed was a food stall, and the sugary scent of funnel cake and powdered sugar hit their noses first.  Takane wrinkled her nose at the overly sweet sensation, but Ayano beamed.  “Doesn’t it smell amazing?”

“That’s one word for it,” Takane muttered.  Ayano, catching her displeasure, moved on without buying anything.  There were a few more food stands around, including ones cotton candy and giant, comically large lollipops filled with rainbow spirals.  To Takane’s relief, however, the food and candy quickly fell away to reveal tangible goods and souvenirs.

“Look!” Ayano said suddenly, plucking a tiny object off the next table and waving it in front of her girlfriend’s face.  “It’s a little panda bear!”

The bear was tiny, fitting easily in the palm of her hand.  It was made of crochet, with two little black beads for eyes and a shiny sewn-in nose.  Takane tilted her head, expression blank.  “Looks scary.” “Does not!” “Like it’d eat you or something.” “It wouldn’t!” Ayano protested.  She spoke in a falsetto, waving the little bear back and forth with every word.  “Hi, Takane!  I’m a cute little bear who just wants to be your friend!”

Takane had to suppress a smile at that.  She searched the myriad of animals laid out on the crochet table, picking up a tiger between her two fingers.  She suddenly whirled around, launching it towards Ayano’s bear. “Well, I’m a big tiger, and I’m going to eat your bear!”

“Eek!” Ayano giggled, hiding the bear reflexively behind her.  “Be nice!”

Takane pushed back an even stronger smile, forcing a scowl on her face as she readied the tiger for its next attack - but she was interrupted by the merchant at the stall clearing her throat.  “Sorry to interrupt, girls, but these aren’t meant to be toys.” Ayano flushed.  “Sorry,” she said meekly, replacing the panda to its proper place.  Takane followed suit, though she glared in the general direction of the stall owner.  The two examined the remaining animals in a more subdued manner, hardly touching them.

“This one’s cute,” Ayano said, brushing her fingers gingerly across a white rabbit.  It was small, rounder than actual hares, and attached to a golden chain.  It was a backpack charm, Takane noticed belatedly.  Ayano always loved those.  Takane watched her fingers hover over the rabbit for a few more seconds, then she dropped her gaze and moved her hand away.  “Sort of silly to have one in high school though, I’d bet.” Takane couldn’t bear even the hint of a crestfallen expression on her face.  Plucking the rabbit up with an earnest finality, she shoved it in the general direction of the merchant - who could only smile, bemused.  “I want this one.” Almost immediately after the transaction was completed, Takane felt her left side crushed in a hug.  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Ayano gushed, scarf tickling against Takane’s neck.  Takane huffed, retreating further inside the tall collar of her coat.

“Okay, I get it!” she huffed, cheeks heating up with a rapid blush.  “You like the gift.” “I love it,” Ayano corrected, already undoing the clasp to attach the rabbit to her purse.  “Thank you.” Takane, face still hot, waved her gratitude away with one hand.  “Let’s just move on.” As they struck out from the shopping area into the more crowded middle lane, Takane felt her patience waning.  Ayano kept looking back at her worriedly, asking her repeatedly if she was alright, and Takane always answered in the affirmative - but it was hard for her to fully enjoy herself.

Hard, at least until she saw a familiar shape rising up ahead of them.

“Is that-!” she perked up with genuine enthusiasm, almost pulling ahead of Ayano in her attempt to catch a glimpse.

Ayano chuckled.  “It is.”  In front of them, tall and utterly imposing, lay the alley of carnival games - with a shooting game directly in the center.  

Takane actually whooped, competitive nature overriding her social anxiety, and dragged her girlfriend forward towards it.  The merchant looked at the two with an almost condescending smile, ready to give his general spiel about how to win, but Takane cut him off with a wad of bills shoved underneath his nose.

“Get ready to lose, old man,” she snapped with utter confidence.  Ayano merely giggled behind a gloved hand, staring at the giant stuffed animals hanging above them.  

Takane’s boasting did not go unfulfilled.  She hit all five targets for six games in a row, only stopping because the merchant was practically begging for her to move on.  She’d already won the main prize - three times over.  It was with an immensely self-satisfied grin that Takane accepted the three enormous plush animals: one bear, one dog, and one weirdly-shaped animal of indiscernible species that Takane figured was the mascot of the carnival brand.  It was somewhere between an elephant and a monkey, it was mottled blue and pink, and it was ugly as anything she’d ever seen. 

“Why’d you pick that last one?” Ayano questioned, other two prizes tucked neatly under her arm.  She’d asked for the bear, since she thought her younger siblings would like it, and she figured the dog was for Haruka.   “It’s so awful, isn’t it?” Takane asked, inspecting the animal with barely hidden glee.  Ayano nodded, confused, and her classmate continued, “I’m going to give it to Shintaro.” There was a beat of silence, then Ayano broke out in a frown.  “That’s so mean,” she chided, drowned out by Takane’s cackling laughter.  After a beat, she joined in, giggling neatly behind a hand.  She was more amused by Takane’s outrageous, movie-villain laughter than she was by the action itself - though the idea of Shintaro’s face upon being faced with this monstrosity was pretty funny.

“You know,” Ayano mused quietly.  “I should be the one to give it to him.  He likes me a lot more than he likes you, and if I pretended like it was a real gift…” She trailed off, leaving her intentions clear with a mischievous grin.

Takane balked at her.  “And you called me mean.” The two laughed all the way down the main street, dragging their prizes in their wake.

The two passed by several other carnival games as they went, but aside from Ayano giving the milk jug toss a try (she failed, miserably, and the two decided to cut their losses before they even began), they were satisfied in the victories they’d already attained.

It was a pleasant walk through the rest of the carnival, with the two headed towards their unspoken destination: the ferris wheel.  The largest attraction of the place, and the one Ayano was, by her increased pace, the most excited to experience.

Takane couldn’t blame her.  She was a bit of a hopeless romantic, Ayano, always striving for that movie-magic moment of true love.  Hopefully, she was able to provide it.

The two waited in line for what seemed like hours, Ayano bouncing on her heels and people watching while Takane slid her headphones over her ears.  It wasn’t a rude gesture at all, and Ayano knew it - it was just how she passed the time.  Ayano didn’t bother trying to talk to the girl while she had her music playing, but she’d occasionally tap her shoulder to point out a particularly interesting balloon animal, or a costumed performer.  Takane, for her part, didn’t let her attention stray too far from her date.

Finally, they were at the front of the line - and the attendant gave them a once-over, eyeing their enormous stuffed animals with something close to exhaustion.  “You getting on together?” “Yep!” Ayano tucked the dog further under her arm to grab Takane’s hand, and the two pulled themselves (and their plush companions) into the rather small compartment.  The door shut behind them, and Ayano scooted herself closer to Takane on the bench - then they were off.

At first, neither of them were inclined to speak.  The view was utterly gorgeous, and they watched the carnival they’d just spent a few hours wandering through turn to figurine size beneath them.  Ayano then leaned back, focusing her gaze upwards at the stars.  “Isn’t it beautiful,” she breathed, air coming out in a visible puff.  The car was closed, but still cold; the observing glass wasn’t much insulated from the outside.

Takane watched her fondly, scooting over a bit to lay her hand over Ayano’s.  She had to move the teddy bear to do so, and it flopped disgracefully down on its belly.  “The stars aren’t the only beautiful thing around,” she murmured, already feeling a wave of embarrassment from using the line.

Ayano suddenly flushed a crimson that rivaled her scarf, turning her attention back to Takane with a snap.  “Enomoto!” she snapped, using her last name as if she was chiding her - but her expression showed anything but.  She was pleased, more so than Takane expected. 

She’d have to keep it a secret that she stole the line from one of her favorite visual novels.

Takane cocked her head, giving Ayano a nearly teasing smile, and the girl relented, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.  “You are too much,” Ayano said warmly.  Takane’s smile only grew, confidence slowly taking the place of embarrassment.  She knew what those characters had done next, after all.

With familiar slowness, the two grew close, lips meeting just as the ferris wheel reached its highest point.  The car sat there a while, and the two separated; flushed, Takane dipped her head to hide her grin.  “Thanks for convincing me to come out here, Ayano.” “Anytime.”  Her eyes shone with pure, unbridled joy; Takane knew without her saying anything that she’d given her just the fairytale moment of romance she’d wanted.

Cheeks still tinted with pink, Takane settled back in her seat, entwining her chilled fingers with Ayano’s covered ones.  The two settled against each other on the bench, watching the city lights grow from specks as they slowly descended back towards the ground.

Takane wasn’t one for sappy stuff (trashy visual novels excluded), but she was starting to see why Ayano was so into all that.

Sitting there, with Ayano at her side, she was so utterly, wholly sure that she was in love.  And the feeling was incredible.

[nolongerpartofthedan]

[[OKAY AS I WAS SITTING HERE I JUST REMEMBERED MY REALLY COOL AND WEIRD DREAM I HAD IN GENERAL ABOUT KAGEPRO AND I’M GOING TO BABBLE ABOUT IT UNDER THE READ MORE--

[[Okay so in my dream for whatever reason (I don’t know why or understand how it happened) Konoha disappeared or was destroyed. Like no trace, no Konoha, no Haruka, no Kuroha or anything. Ene was mad at the Mekakushi Dan and blamed them for it and left. But for whatever reason she went travelling and decided to look everywhere for Konoha. She looked and looked but couldn’t find him so she decided to stay in the woods near a boarding school.

[[Like this school was special and training people and I think it was an all boys school???? But anyways-- Ene made friends with some of the people (for some odd reason it was her Ene form but she also had her Takane body???). One day as she was travelling in the woods on some train tracks (why were those there??? Bad design smh) Ene noticed it was headed straight for two of her friends. She went to her Takane body and shoved one off the track into some water. (Really?? Build a school that close to a lake?)

[[So Takane was thinking ‘Do I have enough time to save the other boy? Should I even try? What if it’s too late?’ and so she turns into Ene, hacks the train and gets it to stop right in time and the conductors go ‘oh why did it stop? oh look a kid on the tracks’ and just ignored it.

[[Fast forward a few years (not sure how many years???) and suddenly Ene is using a special made device that can track down how magnetic something is and is using it to find Konoha because rumours are he’s back and people have seen him?? Ene calls in the Mekakushi Dan but they don’t believe her. So somehow she’s in Toronto and manages to trick the Mekakushi Dan into coming for a visit and suddenly she spots Konoha. She races after him but loses him in a hotel.

[[It just so happens that is the hotel where the Mekakushi Dan is going to stay in. So Ene goes into her Takane body and talks to Shintaro and Kido first, who both tell her that she is crazy and should just give up. She goes out to the water fountain and talks to Momo and Mary. Then things got weird again.

[[Momo and Mary start talking about what Takane said and suddenly Mary gets angry (because she believes Takane and Momo doesn’t) and dumps toothpaste in Momo’s hair and storms off. She takes Ene with her via cellphone and runs off. (Oh wait but before this shit in the hotel before Ene talks to Shintaro and Kido she tracks down a signal from a person in the male bathroom with a highly magnetic field and determines it’s Konoha then talks to the others)

[[Okay so half an hour later everyone realized that Mary and Takane haven’t come back and go looking for her. Oddly enough there’s a store inside the hotel and it has all these wigs, hair dye, food, drinks and costumes. Mary buys some of everything and leaves.

[[And that’s where someone’s alarm went off and woke me up. But I found it very interesting and now I want to make an AU for it.]]

[sodasexual]

Otsukimi Recital (Mediator Challenge, Final Part)

(Part 9 can be read here)

“What?! You, unplug that cellphone immediately!”

“I’ll do more than that!” The henchman pulled Shintaro’s cellphone out of his hands and threw it at a wall. That proved to be useless, however, for all of a sudden the several computer screens at the room were filled with a blue gradient on which a pixelated figure appeared.

“『Hello, hello? Testing, <one, two, three>! Whoa, this feels sooo weird!! I can see all of you from so many angles, even that ketchup splotch on Haruka’s sweater.』”

“Eh?! B-But I was sure that I had gotten rid of it!” It took Haruka a few seconds to think of a more important remark. “Wait… You’re-”

“Why did you stop carrying the boy? WE DON’T HAVE MUCH TIME LEFT!!”

“Y-Yes, boss! I-I’m sorry, I got distracted…”

“『Hey, you think that I’m just gonna let you take him like that, smartass?! C’mon, there must be something I mess with around here…』” You’d better hurry up to learn how to play with cyber stuff, Takane, because the snake is not in the mood for games anymore.

Shintaro can sure affirm that. After he inserted Takane into the system, the henchman that took his cellphone away locked him into a fearsome grip. Such is that he’s unable to escape it by struggling alone (not that he was ever that athletic, so this doesn’t say much). He prays that Takane will find the right command soon…

With a world of 0s and 1s and colors and signals overflowing her perception, it was pretty hard for Takane to guide herself around this digital plane. She’s likely causing something to happen, however, as warning pop ups sometimes appear when she punches a few codes away.

“『Out of my way!』” She shouts, just like a kick of hers turns off the room’s illumination.  “『O-Oh… I-I totally planned that!』”

“What an utter annoyance… Yoshitake, launch the antivirus code now! I want to delete that pest before she does any more damage to our systems.”

In the meantime, Kano just watched things happen, not certain of how to feel about this. “Well, well, now isn’t this something completely out of the script…”

“Ngh… Takane, good luck! You’re great, you can do this!”

“『W-What…. T-THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR YOU TO BE SAYING SUCH THINGS, DUMBASS!! YOU SHOULD BE MORE WORRIED ABOUT Y-』”

*SMASH!*

>Warning: Pressure levels on test tank raising to critical levels. Unable to revert the process.

Oh. Looks like Takane hit something important in the middle of her tsundere fit. A test tank… Wait, Shintaro recognized that! It’s the thing where Clear Eyes puts Haruka’s body into to guide the Awakening Eyes snake’s powers into turning him into Konoha, or something on those lines. If that tank is reaching critical levels of pressure, it means…

*CRACK!!*

Aaaaand, just like that, the equipment that Clear Eyes needed to accomplish using Haruka’s body to obtain a killing machine was destroyed in a single instant. And with the wall clock marking 11:50 PM, there was no way that he could recover stuff that quickly.

“No… NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” The snake roared. he had long lost his on control demeanor. “Youuuu… OUT OF HERE, YOU SPANNER!!”

“『Uh? What’re you-』” Clear Eyes’ eyes shone red intensely while staring at Takane. With his power activated, it wasn’t hard to cancel her power, which’s what was keeping her conciousness here. He should have done this from the beginning.

“『A-Ah… AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!』” And just like that, the monitors were turned off. In a house far away, a girl suddenly wakes up, cold sweat covering her body. Well, she did what she could. Now it’s up to the boys.

“Ughhh… Okay, okay, calm down. That pest can’t get on your way anymore. You don’t need to have a whole apparel to kill. I just need a gun, a gun… Damnit, I can’t see a thiiiiiing!!!”

Oh, great, now Clear Eyes is getting mentally unstable. Good thing that the turned off lights are protecting Haruka for now, because Shintaro is still being held down too tightly to have a chance of helping. He knows that once that snake grabs a gun, however, all hell will break loose, lights or not.

Both he and Haruka are immobilized at the moment, so they can’t just flee. And there’re plenty of henchmen around, so even if they were running free, it’d be too risky. Damnit, if only there was anyone capable of bringing that bastard down…

Hang on. There’s one person that can help them!

“Kano! Kano, can you hear me? Whenever you are, you gotta stop this madman, quickly!” Of course, being this dark, Shintaro can’t exactly pinpoint where the other is, but he shouldn’t have moved away during all this ruckus.

“Um?” Kano raises an eyebrow at hearing Shintaro’s voice. “And why should I? Aren’t you finding any of this entertaining, Shintaro-kun? C’mon, enjoy while you can! I mean, even if Haruka-kun here is killed at the next 10 minutes, won’t he be brought back by the Kagerou Daze anyway? So calm down and just let things go as they’re intended to.”

“Just let things go… ARE YOU STUPID?! WHY do you think that this bastard was making such a point to kill Haruka-senpai in an specific way?!”

“Because he wanted to assure that the Kagerou Daze would be open? Although Nee-san proved that you didn’t need that much sophistication, huh…?”

“Well, things won’t end here. I know why you’re playing along him, Kano, you can’t fool me.”

“……….Oh, really?”

*Click*

“Ohhh, there we go! Haruka-kuuuuuun, why won’t you just stand still for a moment, huuuuh? Ihihahahahaha!!!”

“Yes, really. Do you… really think that you guys are safe, now that Ayano is dead?”

“…What reason would he have to kill us? I just need to play along, be a good boy… and everything will be fine.”

“It won’t be fine. We’re all going to die the same way.”

“Eh?”

*SHOT!*

“Hey, careful there, boss! You might one of us rather than the boy at this rate!”

“That guy is two things. One, as you might have already noticed, he’s a sadist. Two, he cares first of all about his own survival. Do you think that he really gives a cent to Tateyama-san’s wish?”

“………”

“I see you notice where I’m getting to. It’s true that, without Ayano’s snake, he can’t bring Ayano’s mom back to life. But think, he’s a snake himself. To bring her back with Marry’s power, he’d have to be taken by her himself. So unless he were that willing to ‘nobly’ sacrifice himself, this goal was impossible to reach.”

“…Then what is he truly intending to obtain with all of this? And… how do you know about all of this?” For the first this whole day, Kano was seemingly considering Shintaro’s words seriously. Perhaps Haruka’s call had more of an effect than expected.

“To keep existing. As long as he has a wish to realize from a host, he can exist in this world. And as long as that wish is unfulfilled, he’ll keep existing to accomplish it. I’ve seen it before, experienced it all before, with these very two eyes.”

Shintaro’s eyes flashed red at that moment, and then Kano understood. His power… wasn’t one of the original 10.

“With only 7 of 10 snakes, Marry is able of becoming the Queen and rewinding time. She trusted me with a snake she herself created, so that I’d never forget this tragedy again. Two years from now, when all the other snakes are in this world and close to Marry, Clear Eyes will kill us all, just to press Marry to the point of making her use her power. And Haruka… He’s the murder weapon.”

*SHOT!*

*Gasp!*

“Ooooooh, there you are!! You sure took long to show yourself, Haruka-kuuuuuun!! Just hold him tight, okaaaaay?!”

“….What can I do?”

“Stop him. You can do it, Kano. Unfortunately, you don’t have much time to make your decision. Also… It’s true. Despite having this power, for months I’ve only been able to have nightmares and flashes regarding deaths of all sorts. I was only able to fully control this today. …I’m sorry for being unable to save Ayano. You weren’t wrong when you said that I could have done something.”

“………………………”

“But… I don’t fully agree with Haruka-senpai’s words either. It wasn’t as simple for you to save Ayano either. After all, for you deceiving has been a question of survival even since you were little. So… can I ask you to deceive once more?”

“Wait, Boss, you can’t seriously go through with it! I-If you shoot him, can’t I be hit too?!”

“WHO CARES ABOUT YOU OR YOUR LIFE?! I just need the boy dead, once I get that I won’t need anything else, I WON’T NEED ANY OF YOU!!”

“Please!!! Someone, help meeeee!!!”

Just then… something pushed the snake down. The gun was fired, but thanks to that last minute intervention, Haruka was spared by a few centimeters. The same can’t be said about his captor’s shoulder, though.

“Ugh!” Upon the sudden jolt of pain, Haruka’s captor let go of him, making him fall on the floor. When he stood up to look at his savior, he couldn’t really distinguish much about their appearance, besides those red, snake like eyes… and the hissing of snakes.

“N-No way… Master?!”

“You have messed up too much, you disgusting thing. I’m sick of these little games of yours, of using my family for your twisted goals!”

“A-Ah…” The snake was frozen If terror. He’d never expect Azami of all people to appear like this, when he had no means to face her in equal terms.

“I’ll put an end to all of this… RIGHT HERE AND NOW!!!”

"N-No… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Azami stretched her hand and… took Clear Eyes’ gun from him. The snake, who was expecting to have his own existence erased at that moment, blinked in confusion.

“Whoops, guess that I lied to you. My bad~!” Of course, it was just Kano using his power to scare the snake enough to give him an opening to take that pesky thing from him.

And just in time, as a cellphone alarm signals the arrival of midnight. August 15th is officially over and, with it, the door to the Kagerou Daze is closed for another year. Haruka kneels down in a bout of weakness and sighs deeply in relief. This is the end, isn’t it?

By now, the henchman holding Shintaro in place chooses to check on Clear Eyes, finally allowing the NEET to move freely again. He runs to the direction where he heard Haruka’s voice from, although his eyes are also looking at Kano’s red eyes.

“Shintaro-kun! We did it, we’re alive! T-Thank you so much!!!” The taller boy hugs Shintaro in a spine breaking hug, prompting a 'Gyah!’ from the latter.

“H-Haruka-senpai… You’re… s-suffocating me…”

“Oh! Sorry, sorry, Shintaro-kun!” He lets go of the embrace. “I guess I-I was too excited, huh?”

“*arf*arf* Hehehe… It’s okay, Senpai. You can’t be too excited over the prospect of living another day, can you? Although… In the end, it was Kano who saved you, not me.”

“Yeah… I’m glad to see that Shuuya-Kim had what it took to face this guy. I’m guessing he must have been terrified, no?”

“Ow, you have no faith in my bravery, Haruka-kun? And me thinking that I was going to charm your heart with my bravery~.”

Shintaro moves towards Kano’s voice. “Anyway… Is this bastard frozen or what?”

“Looks like he had the shock of his life right now. Man, if I knew how effective this prank were, I’d have done this long ago!”

“B-But… How about Tateyama-sensei? Can’t this snake thing, like, try attacking us again once he recovers from this?”

“That’s bring him no gain at all. I can’t affirm for sure, but I hope that he’ll see that his best bet on continuing to exist is just lurking on Tateyama-san’s mind for the moment. At the very least, he shouldn’t represent an immediate threat again until next year, so we can plan ourselves for then. Maybe Marry can pull the snake out of him.”

“That would kill Dad, though. Although she could suppress the snake’s mind, perhaps. I dunno, Mom and Dad’s research notes didn’t explore such a possibility.”

“In any case…” Haruka clasps his hands and smiles brightly. “We won! Why don’t we go back to Shintaro-kun’s home to celebrate? I bet that Takane and Kisaragi-chan must be pretty worried about us!”

“Oh, true. I also gotta also Kido and Seto. Shintaro-kun, why don’t you call them too? Better than keeping them waiting for out return, no?”

“That’s a good idea. Now where’s my cellphone? That henchman threw it away from me… Ah, there it is!” He spots a soft glow a few meters away from them. It’s his cellphone, indeed, and there’s a display on the screen indicating that it’s gone on waiting mode for an alarm. So this was the thing that beeped just now…

…Although it’s funny. Shintaro didn’t set this alarm up. Who could have-

“Guh!”

“Shintaro-kun?!”

All of a sudden, Shintaro’s vision started blacking out. The world become a mess of blurs and buzzes on his ear, the most he could perceive being the other boys running towards him.

“Whoa, did you get shot or something?!”

“Hang on there, Shintaro-kun!! We still must go home!”

(Home…)

That’s right. For a while, he had forgotten about his current reality. He can’t go home. At least, not the self he is now, and not yet. He’s still a hostage of the artificial city, the place where the fantastic is mundane and everyone loves crammed like bees.

“I-It’s okay, everyone… S-Senpai… I’m sorry, b-but you’ll have to fill the other me when he wakes up.”

“'Other you’? What’re you talking about now, Shintaro-kun?” Kano asked puzzled, but Haruka got it.

“You did it, didn’t you? Those scientists must be satisfied with your efforts, Shintaro-kun, so don’t worry about us anymore! I-I’ll take good care of the other Shintaro-kun!”

“T-Thanks… every…oooone…” And then, the world turned black. (Goodbye, Shinjuku. It was nice seeing you again. And hello again… Hive City.)

[arrietty-cadee-clock]

Snakes Over Scarves / Kagerou Project Secret Santa Present

MERRY CHRISTMAS @melly-arts!

I’m your Secret Santa for @kagepro-secret-santa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Super sorry that this is so late; I’m a pretty slow writer ;_;

Also sorry if this ends up being a lot more than the things you originally prompted. I tried to write a bit more in depth than I usually do, so really super duper sorry if this turns out to actually be terrible.

That said, while still sorry for making you wait so long, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and just in general Happy Holidays! XD

Snakes Over Scarves

8477 words

Romantic KuroAya AU

Please enjoy!

:)

From as far back as she could remember, Ayano had never really liked it when things changed.

And why would she? Change was such a pesky thing, introducing the unwanted unknown into otherwise ordinary daily lives; disrupting schedules, plans, and missions: pretty much inconveniencing everyone involved.

With the exceptions of the very few times when change had brought good things such as family in the form of three precious siblings or introduced her to new friends as the elementary, then middle, and the final high school bell rung... nope, she didn't like it all, even one bit.

Her tests, for example, never came back the exact same. Sometimes they'd come back printed with a somewhat hopeful 73%, or a barely passable 51% or, if she had been really unlucky on that test day, a bottom-of-the-barrel, drudge-like 35%.

It was disappointing to say the least. She always studied for them, that part never changed, and yet during the last few weeks before... all of this, they always went even lower than on her unlucky days.

Oh, what she would have given to be like a certain calm, stoic boy who she used to follow around everywhere. Ayano sighed and stretched in her chair, looking at the desk on her right where (had this been the real world) he would have been sitting as she reminisced about his perfect score of 100% which never ever changed.

A smile easily grew on her face just by remembering it (him) along with memories of other things and people from that long-past, happy, unchanging time.

Shintaro, Shuuya, Kousuke, Tsubomi, Takane, H-

Until suddenly-

*ccrrreeeaaakkk*

-her thoughts were completely interrupted by the sound of a door sliding open and the steps of someone coming into the otherwise empty classroom, save for her.

-aruka... great.

Just like that, the small wistful smile ghosting on her lips halted its steady growth, shrinking down, down, down with every step the person (demon, creature, THING) behind her took further into the room until it became a large lifeless frown.

Why is it becoming easier to frown than to smile with every new loop... Ayano thought in dismay even though she had already known the answer a long time ago. She stood up from her chair and quietly walked a few steps towards the window at her left, reaching it just as the other person in the room had reached her desk.

It (not he, she, they, IT) had come to visit her again.

How absolutely wonderful.

Ayano counted the number of footsteps it took for it to reach her side by the window. Refusing to look it's way, she lowered her head deeper into the red scarf wrapped thickly around her neck and steeled her gaze into the fake fire-coloured sky just outside the window instead. Sadly though, it didn't stop her from seeing the person beside her open its mouth out of the corner of her eye, ready to speak vile words that a slimy animal like itself didn't have the right to even know; ready to remind her once again that change was not only super annoying, it also brought much, much darker things.

Like instability.

"Looks like you've failed again, haven't you?"

("Mum and Dad shouldn't have driven past that mountain, they shouldn't have gone away at all.")

Danger.

"How utterly pathetic, although completely unsurprising for a foolish human, don't you think?"

("Takane, Haruka, what is he trying to do...?!")

Sometimes even death.

"Oh, come on now miss Hero, say something. I mean, was this not what you wanted? What you wished for? What your little heart desired?"

("Shuuya...")

A lot of the time it brought death.

"..."

Exhaling out, Ayano finally turned to face her 'companion' and smiled again, yet this time it was not tenderly solemn. No, this time it was brimming with as much cheer and as much unapologetic contempt as she could put into it. Because no matter how much everything else changed around her, there was one thing that never did.

"I hate you Snake of Clearing Eyes."

But of course, three measly words were never enough to make it go away. It probably only amused the snake demon if anything, enticing it to stay even longer and say more nasty things. Ayano could only imagine what would happen if she ever truly expressed just how much she despised the monster, if she were to ever scream out the thoughts of 'leave my family alone' and 'please die' or 'I'd kill you if the Heat Haze would let me' that always followed after the initial 'I hate you.'

It would probably be rolling on the floor laughing in delight. The idea alone was enough to make Ayano go sick to her stomach; she could barely tolerate the image of its disgustingly smug smirk in her brain for more than a few seconds without shuddering, so she never permitted herself to say anything else and favored ignoring it instead.

This, of course, did not mean in any way that she was afraid of the monster.

No, no, no. Not at all.

Whatever great terror that the evil creature had first instilled inside her had steadily vanished piece by piece each time it made the queen snake do a reset. As the clocks were forced to wind themselves backwards again and again, they also seemed to strip away the fear that the snake was originally shrouded in until there was nothing left to be seen but a petty, selfish, despicable beast whose only goal it seemed was to endlessly torment her.

It surely never grew tired of it at least; always changing (agh) its ways of inflicting suffering, never staying consistent when visiting her in the small little classroom.

During some loops, the snake would appear immediately.

The moment right after she had gone through with her ultimate plan and jumped off of the building and snapping her neck as a result then woke up inside the small classroom-sized pocket of the never-ending world without a scratch, it would already be leaning against the doorway, wearing the skin of her loving father who's only true fault had been that he had loved his wife and family too much for his own good.

Suffice to say, Ayano had been brought to her knees in tears without fail during the first few loops where she had killed herself and then be forced to listen to her own father scoff at her lack of intelligence and attempt of being a savior, promising to fully carry out its own diabolical plan before leaving the room in malicious laughter.

She couldn't even bring herself to say the "I hate you" until at least loop #68, but even then it was only tearfully whimpered out and she was still left trembling on the wooden floor wondering if the poor, kind man who had gently raised her was crying as well underneath the cruel, red-eyed control placed onto him without his knowledge.

Other loops the Snake would appear during the very middle of the timeline, just to remind her of how bad things were going in the real world without her.

Unlike when it would come right after her death, the Snake didn't stick to just one exclusive form during these visits. Instead, it would take on a whole myriad of different (agh) shapes and bodies.

There were times when it took the form of Shintaro, his bubbly younger sister, a small brown-haired boy she didn't know, a small black-haired girl she didn't know yet reminded her quite a bit of her mother, Takane turned blue and virtual, and even the sweet white-haired girl that housed the queen snake that she hadn't ever met, but knew that Kousuke loved very much.

Then there times when it took control one of her sibling's bodies and they were, without lie, the only times in her entire life (and death as well, she supposed) that she actually struggled to restrain herself from giving into a blind rage. It would do no one any good if she tried to grab one of the grieving flower pots that had been placed on all of the desks but her own to throw at the loathful monster who dared to harm her family.

She would probably just miss anyway, so a wrathful "I hate you" would have to be enough.

Finally, there were loops when the snake would appear just before the next one would start, always right after it had murdered the Dan.

It only ever took one form during these visits, just as it did with her father when it came straight away. "Konoha" was what Haruka had named the form when it had still been a simple video game avatar... and yet, Ayano knew without a doubt that she hated it most when the Snake took control of it, even more than when it took over her siblings.

After all, it was the one thing Haruka had wanted so badly, the only thing (besides seeing the girl he loved one more time) he had wanted even in death. It was his wish turned sickly, just like him. His desire to be strong and healthy and normal abused and treated like some weapon to kill those he and she both cared about.

It was just such a completely blatant scorn of her friend's last hope that whenever the snake came into the room with blood-splattered black hair on white skin, twirling the still smoking gun around a finger and mockingly calling itself 'Kuroha' instead of the original name that the body had been given, all Ayano could do was glare at the creature in stoic loathing.

No sadness. No anger. Just uncomplicated, tranquil, steadfast hate along the three magic words that corresponded to it.

"I hate you," she would whisper under her breath, not caring if the abhorrent creature even heard her. All it mattered was that she heard it, knew it, and believed it.

Ayano swore to herself - actually swore - that she would never stop saying them, ever, that she would never change.

She would not.

Until one time... she did.

In all honesty, Ayano herself didn't know the reason why.

Maybe it was because of boredom; there wasn't exactly too much to do when one was trapped inside an alternate dimension besides wait for the next loop while remembering your past life.

Or maybe it was because she missed the sound of own voice beyond saying the exact same three-word sentence for what would probably have been centuries already.

Or maybe it was just because she had finally (finally) grown fed up enough of listening to the bastard Snake's endlessly boastful taunts that she could no longer stand being quiet, lest she go completely insane.

Or... perhaps it was because Ayano just wanted to. Needed to.

Just one change, one little shift and that's it.

Sucking in a breath of sweltering heat, ignoring the uncountable voices in her head exploding for her to stop what she was planning right now, she forced her eyes away from the window and spoke for the second time.

"Don't you... don't you ever get tired of this?"

Upon hearing her hastily said question, The Snake of Clearing Eyes paused it's bragging, blinking at her in genuine confusion. "What?"

"You heard me," Ayano said again, trying on a harder voice. "Haven't you gotten tired of this by now?"

Again the monstrosity (who had appeared after the end of what she could only guess was loop #440, and thus chose to wear the very much despised black android form) only looked at her, seemingly still surprised that the puny human in front of it was finally responding back. If Ayano really squinted, she could admit that the Snake looked distressingly like Haruka when it wasn't sneering down its nose at her.

Enough to almost be... innocent-looking, she supposed.

"And by 'this' you mean...?"

"All of this! Resetting time, possessing my father, hurting my loved ones over and over and over." Ayano balled up fists by her sides, not wanting them to start flying out of control. "Why are you not completely exhausted by now? Why are you even doing this?"

Slowly but still quick enough to be infuriating, the Snake crossed its arms over its chest and let a smaller version of its signature condescending smirk grace its lips. "I already told you, didn't I? I simply want to make the wishes of you humans come true, and this is the only way to grant your father's wish."

"Liar, you're worse than Shuuya." Ayano narrowed her eyes, the wind blowing in from the window and scattering papers all around the classroom. "You were never planning on bringing my mother back. All you ever wanted was to keep the timeline from going on so you could keep on living, no matter how many innocents you have to kill."

The pale-skinned, coal-haired snake being chuckled darkly. "Well... I won't deny that the living forever part of having an unachievable wish is quite the perk. But still, this is just how I'm granting his wish and if it takes forever to do so, so be it. Besides, I granted your wish at least, right? You wanted to be a hero, and you were one. All the way into the ground."

The Clearing Eyes flashed a razor-sharp grin and took a step forward. Ayano refused to take a step back.

"Y-you're wrong! This was not what I wanted at all! I just wanted to protect my siblings and my friends," she gasped, her chest hurting as the wind further whipped through her hair, almost dislodging the clips she always wore because she hadn't been able to handle just how drastically her mother's death had sent everything down hill.

"Living forever isn't worth hurting others. It isn't worth killing people and bringing so much suffering. Can't you see? Why don't you understand?"

It was the Clearing Snake's turn to narrow its eyes. All the amused haughtiness in its expression was replaced by an unreadable icy chill and for the first time in a very long while, Ayano could feel some of the original fear she had felt when she had first read those old diaries and learned about a monster with snakes for hair.

"No, I don't see and I don't understand," it muttered, neon yellow eyes piercing into her solid brown ones. Ayano wondered if this was what snakes looked like when they were about to bite their prey. The fact that she couldn't actually be harmed in this world barely soothed her. "Tell me then, Ayano, why are you even asking me all of this since you seem to have my character completely figured out already?"

"Because! B-because..." Ayano began to stutter much to her horror but pushed on regardless; she would not let her nerves break right when they had just become strong. "Because I don't understand! I don't understand how you can not care when you destroy lives and take over people! How you can be a thinking, living being and still be okay with everything you do. How you can be so cruel. I just... I just don't understand you at all."

"..."

For once the Snake of Clearing Eyes was silent, bloodlust evaporating away completely. Ayano used the time to catch her breath and slow down her heartbeat even though it had already truly stopped a long time ago. She then stared at the Snake fiercely, searching for the glowing eyes that were now obscured by black bangs. She never found them.

"You... are right. You don't understand me," muttered the Clearing Eyes Snake eventually. Turning around, its dark shadow flickering on the red sunset-lit walls as it walked towards the doorway out.

"And why would you?" It called over its shoulder brusquely, as if trying to restore the normal biting sting to its words, still without so much as looking at Ayano. "You're just a human after all. What with your pitifully short lives, how would you even begin to understand the thoughts of a superior, long-lived being... you really are such a fool."

When the Snake had reached the door and seemed to be on the verge of saying one last mean-spirited remark before walking out, it brought a hand up to touch the plainly wooden doorframe and paused. After what seemed to be a moment of consideration on the monster's part, it twisted its head back just enough so that Ayano could see the glint of one of it's shiny, lime eyes.

"A fool who should consider herself lucky that she doesn't need to understand the fear of disappearing forever."

Saying nothing more, the towering black-colored android walked out of the room unperturbed, but definitely less obnoxiously casual as usual. Likewise, Ayano had nothing to say either as she somberly watched the door begin to crumble away and the walls begin to disintegrate. Time was just about to reset again, right on schedule.

Not knowing what to feel (not pain, not confusion, not even hate), all that she could do as her memories ebbed away and the entire world swirled into a single hazy red void around her was wonder whether not if her small little change really had been nothing but a mistake.

As fate would have it, things only kept changing and growing more different as loop upon loop passed by. But unlike before, this time Ayano didn't even have a list of possible reasons why she was changing alongside it.

She had no clue at all.

For one thing, the Snake now exclusively came just before a route ended and thus always in the 'Kuroha' body, so much that Ayano could no longer clearly remember the last time it had shown up as her father or one of the Dan. Although she still held an immense scorn for the usage of this particular form, she was pressed to admit that this new sort of consistency wasn't the worst. At least now she could easily predict the exact moment when it would show up rather than be on her toes guessing all of the time, which was spades better than before.

(Should I start referring to it as 'he'? The Snake hasn't taken over any of the girl Dan members in so long...)

Another much more bewildering thing: the two of them actually started talking to each other. Like, actually talk, wherein Ayano would respond and remark back words other than "I hate you," and while the incessant ridicule the Snake always had sitting on top of its tongue never stopped coming (she didn't think it was spiritually possible), it was definitely lessening with each passing timeline, to the point that she could honestly say that their conversations were no longer entirely antagonistic.

"How were all the members of the Dan doing before you killed them this time?" she would ask at least once per visit, their current loop #563 being no exception.

It- he would always answer honestly, even if it most of the time wasn't polite at all. "The nine brats including this one?" He gestured at his own lanky, black-clothed body. Thankfully his hands weren't blood-stained which meant he had simply shot the teenagers instead of strangling them to death this time. "They were fine I guess, nothing out of the ordinary. Although... it was actually the Focuser who jumped in front of the Captivator when I shot them. Usually it's the other way around, so does that count as different?"

"...sure."

The Snake, in between bouts of his daily mockery, would ask her questions as well sometimes during routes where he seemed to be in more relaxed, indulgent moods.

"Tell me, little clumsy Hero, what's with the red?"

Ayano tilted her head in surprise. "Ahh? Why do you ask-"

"Don't play the idiot. Or at least don't play it more than you already are. I spent years looking out of your old man's eyes and I can't remember a single one where you didn't wear that scarf," he barked out brusquely. "While there's no doubt that it's the most superior color, I don't get why a mere child would wear it so often. Why?"

"...well, my mother certainly liked the color a lot," she started, gliding her fingers over the two pieces of red plastic in her hair before folding her hands over her skirt thoughtfully.

"But I don't know, I guess... I guess I wore this scarf every day because it made my siblings happy. Made them feel better about themselves; that it was okay to have their own red. I'm sure you already know this-" she bit her tongue to keep her words from sounding too bitter, "-but for most of Tsubomi, Kousuke, and Shuuya's lives... red wasn't the best color out there."

She had expected the Clearing Eyes to laugh at her and to take pride in the misery his fellow snakes had caused three poor children, but instead of sneering the black android instead tilted his own head just as she had. "And did it work?" he asked, sounding the most sincere and curious than she had ever heard from him.

It was... kind of amazing, Ayano couldn't help but blink in astonishment.

"Yes, I think it did."

"Hn."

Once the loop (this one being #828 if she recalled correctly) had ended the pale-colored, lime-eyed Snake left the classroom silently, not a single disdain-filled final comment making it's way out of his mouth and attacking her ears.

Ayano smiled the tiniest bit as the world started to deteriorate around her but hid it behind the tell-tale red scarf, all the while still pretending to be clueless as to the reason why.

It wasn't until many, many, many resets later that Ayano fully realized that her companion was changing just as much as she was and perhaps even more astonishingly, that she could actually call him 'companion' completely unironically.

"Hey," she said during loop #1365 while folding an origami crane with the paper of her failed tests just as she had done when she was alive, "Snake Of Clearing- Kuroha, can you tell me something please?"

"Hn? Okay Hero, shoot," he mumbled without opening his eyes, lazily sprawled in the chair and desk next to her's even though it wasn't his- wasn't his at all, Ayano knew all too well but still let him sit there regardless (I hope Shintaro won't be upset.)

"What was your family like?"

Now he cracked an eye open at her. "Excuse me?"

"Well, it's just that I've already told a lot about myself and my family and friends, probably way more than I should have considering what you always end up doing to them," she explained calmly as she finished the final folds of the paper bird. "And yet you don't really ever tell me about yourself or your own family. I just thought, you know, that it'd be fair if you did."

Kuroha scoffed, "I think you've lost even more brain cells than normal during that last time reset. If you didn't know this obvious bit of information already, I'll gladly remind you: I don't have one."

"Yes, you do: Azami, her husband, Mary-chan's mother, the other nine snakes. Tell me about them; aren't they your family?"

"What? No!" Kuroha jumped up and out of his seat in utter bafflement. "They are not my 'family'! My master was nothing but a naive, desperate fool and that simpleton of a husband she had was equally weak-willed. Their stupid brat-daughter was just another whiny child. And my fellow snakes? While they're still better than you humans they are nothing but unthinking, low-level pawns to be used for my plans."

He rose up to his body's full height, "So to reiterate this again human hero, I have no family," and glared down at her menacingly.

"..."

Or at least he tried to. It only took one beat, two beats, three beats before Ayano could no longer hold it in.

"Pfffft."

"W-what is so funny that you are laughing human?!"

She had to bring a hand up to muffle her chuckles. "I-I'm sorry. It's just... you sounded so much like what people would expect from an angsty teenager going through a rebellious phase and trying to disown their relatives."

"What!" He cried out in shocked indignance. "That is not it at all!"

"It was, it was! Complete with the whole 'I have no family' line too, hehehe!" Ayano only laughed harder as the literal snake monster in front of her actually went red in the face and started sputtering out weightless death threats. She couldn't help it, she really couldn't because oh gosh he (the Snake of Clearing Eyes for goodness' sake) just looked so flustered! It was, in all honesty, kind of adorable.

"For the love of- agh!" Kuroha slammed a black boot onto the floor hard, fully snapping Ayano out of her laughter, sending the paper crane tumbling out of her hand and onto the floor. "Don't speak as if you understand! Just because you have the Snake of Favoring Eyes inside of you doesn't mean you know what it's like to be one of us, to be like me. You don't know at all."

He whipped around and stomped over to the sliding classroom door, looking to be fully intent on walking out and cutting the visit extremely short. It was reminiscent of a child angrily marching away just after having thrown a tantrum; Ayano definitely would have found it cute as well if she hadn't hastily shot up from her seat and walked after him. She must have really struck some sort of nerve; the last time he had acted like this was almost a thousand loops earlier right after that infamous first change.

"Wait! Wait please, I-I didn't mean to sound so insensitive. Sorry."

The black android stopped just as he had slid the door open, not saying anything with only his back facing her.

"Kuroha? I'm sorry okay? Believe me, I am," she repeated again, a hand slowly outreaching to touch his shoulder only to stop midway as his voice returned. Softly.

"You don't know what it's like to be disliked by your master from the moment you were created. To be the only ability she didn't use. To have to fight and act out for attention yet still be cast aside the moment she met that damn white-haired human. To only be listened to when she wanted something even though you were her only ability that could speak and think, and even then it was just because she wanted to be with her precious new family longer than naturally possible, not you or your fellow eye abilities; her old family. You..."

He took a step forward out of the room. "You don't know."

"Then, t-then tell me!" Ayano cried out, successfully grabbing onto his elbow before he could run away and go where she couldn't follow. "Tell me so I can understand; so I can talk to you about it and you can share things with me like I've been talking and sharing everything with you! Please, tell me what you feel so I can help."

"...why do you want to, though?" he whispered. Slowly, he turned around to finally look her in the eyes. Seeing his face, Ayano couldn't find a single hard line or curl of a sneer. Instead, all she found was simple pensiveness, melancholy, and dare she even think it, vulnerability.

"You hate me, do you not? That's all you used to say after all and even I wouldn't be able to blame you. I know the things I've done; I'm the one who did them." He let out a small sigh as if in bittersweet nostalgia. "There isn't a likely chance that I'll ever stop doing them too, so why? Even after all this... talking we've been doing, why would you go this far? Why does it matter to you, Tateyama Ayano?"

After taking a moment of silence to get over the shock of him calling her by her real name without merely a hint of derision, she replied back in full, utter honesty:

"...because you're all I have now. It's true that I can't stop you from doing all of these terrible things, and I'll never be able to forgive you. But if that really is and will always be the case, then what do I have to lose?"

She offered a small, but open smile unobscured by the red scarf. "I still remember that route so many loops ago when I first yelled at you. I didn't say this during then, but I will now: I want to understand you, to know you, maybe even learn from you, but only if you'll let me. So what do you say, Kuroha, Snake of Clearing Eyes? Will you?"

One beat, two beats, three beats; ten, a hundred, a thousand passed by with nothing but unsure yet steady staring between eyes of both blazing yellow and determined brown. It almost reached to a million before the pair of yellow ones finally broke, blinking and sighing.

"Okay. Okay, okay, okay you win Hero. I'll tell you what you want to know." He rubbed his temples in embarrassed agitation, then stuck out a stiff hand towards her. "But not in here; this room is way too stuffy for this kind of talk. I don't even now how you can handle it when yammering on about your precious 'Dan' so much already. No, we're going outside for this."

"Eh?" Ayano blinked dumbly, feeling perplexed just as she was beginning to beam and jump up in pleasant surprise. "But isn't the timeline about to reset again?"

"On the outside world maybe, but it doesn't restart in here until I say so. And I think I can keep it running for a while," he remarked with only a somewhat malicious wink.

"O-oh okay, but ah, that still won't work; I can't leave this room," she reminded him. "Didn't you tell me I'd turn to dust or something if I did during the first ever route?"

"I lied, obviously."

"HAH?! YOU REALLY ARE WORSE THAN SHUUYA, AREN'T YOU?"

The smug, robotic boy-wearing snake only chuckled a genuinely amused chuckle, his signature smirk finally back where it belonged. He stuck out his hand further towards her, albeit more confident and laid back. "So what do you say, Ayano, little human hero? Will you step out into the Neverending World? It's just as much your home as it is mine at this point."

She stared at his hand. Up until now, they had never actually touched skin to skin. He's a snake, Ayano knew, but the Konoha body used to be a full flesh and blood human.

In other words, would he be warm or cold?

Only one way to find out, she concluded and began to reach for his hand with a slightly bigger smile, once again ignoring the voices in her head telling her variations of ‘no don't do it’ and ‘this will make everything weird again!’ and ‘change is bad, remember?!’

It's just another little shift. Well, maybe a medium-sized shift. Still though, I doubt it will hurt anything.

...his hand was warm.

Ever since that medium-sized change at the end of that fateful route over a thousand timelines ago, there hadn't been another route afterward where the two of them didn't go out walking through the mystical haze. It was bigger than whatever Ayano could have imagined; twisting exact images of the city buildings she had grown up around as well as the trees of the very forest surrounding said city. There was no doubt in her mind that it had done the same with the rest of the real world as well.

The sweltering temperature was a constant everywhere they walked and while this lack of change probably would've pleased her say, five hundred routes prior, the only thing that would please her now would be to be wearing anything but her stuffy old middle-school uniform.

(Seriously, she couldn't fathom how Kuroha could stand it wearing his all-black outfit constantly. Bah, otherworldly snake beings were weird.)

So with the blistering never-ending sun high in the sky beating hard glints of light on her red clips and Kuroha's headphone-ear-things (she had asked about them during one of their first few walks. Even he didn't know how they worked) and the occasional god-sent breeze ruffling their clothes as they walked and talked, it became extremely clear quite early on just how empty the world really was. There was no one else on the streets, no moving cars on the road, no one else in the entire city besides the two of them.

"I thought lots of people came into this world. Thousands of people die every day and August 15th definitely isn't an exception. Why isn't there anyone else?"

"There is, idiotic Hero, you just can't see them. Everyone goes to their own version of the daze, your's being the classroom; the rest of the world is empty to them. The only other person they'd be able to interact with would be the person they died beside, but since you always insist on dying alone each and every time, well-"

"I see."

"Yeah. It's really only me and Master who can actually go and visit anyone we want, not that she ever has the will to do anything but mope for eternity. Have I told you that already?"

"Too many times... hey um?"

"What is it?"

"Do you ever go and visit anyone else besides me?"

"I used to. Usually only to check that things were going according to plan, that the ones who were leaving wished for the right things so as to get the proper snakes."

"Did you ever talk to them?"

"Sometimes, always just to laugh at them and bring out their despair, like with you before."

"..."

"...you were always the most fun to do it with, though, which is why I haven't visited anyone else in at least four-hundred-and-forty loops."

"Wow, thanks, hehe."

They talked and talked and talked about absolutely everything-

- Ayano's life before she even knew what a medusa was... Kuroha's life watching the world through Azami's eyes during the planet's earliest days... how honestly scared Ayano had been when she had first seen her sibling's powers, despite how much she had assured them she wasn't... how hard adapting to human life and modern day society had been for Kuroha in Kenjirou's body during the first thirty-eight or so loops... how much it truly hurt each time Ayano jumped and twisted her spine out of sisterly love... how much it actually did hurt whenever Kuroha took possession of someone, feeling all of their pain and sorrow and traumatic memories pass through as he forced himself to become them -

-they left nothing out at all, no piece of information kept secret, no part of themselves hidden away.

Huh. We're going to run out of things to talk about at this rate, Ayano thought and squeezed the large hand covering her much smaller one. Kuroha didn't squeeze back, but she could see the edge of his mouth quirk into a half smile underneath the spotted yellow dots up on his cheek.

For every single walk they took together at the end of a timeline, the steps they took side by side each other were always at the same pace, holding warm hands all the way.

Although... maybe walking in silence together like this wouldn't be the worst thing to do for eternity, she also thought. Soon enough her own half-smile was quirking onto her lips in return as they stepped through the heat daze's version of her old school, leisurely approaching the door of Ayano's classroom as the outside streets grew ever fuzzier from the impending reset.

It's almost nice enough to not want all of this to end...

Judging from everything that had happened and would probably continue to happen, that notorious first change was leaning on the possibility of not being a mistake more than ever before.

Their routinely outing for loop #2550 had been one of comfortable silence. Neither of them had found any reason to speak and disrupt the serenity from just being in the other's presence, despite Ayano noticing that the look in Kuroha's eyes seemed to be more hazed over and glassy than usual, as if he was looking for something in the distance but not finding it. 

As if he was thinking very hard about something.

She had been planning to ask about it when they had reached the last stoplight that stood between them and the school building, but Kuroha beat her to the chase.

"What's it like to be real?" he suddenly blurted out as they waited for the traffic light to flash green (even though there were never any cars, Ayano always insisted on following the so-called rules of the road even though it always earned her a roll of the eyes from the snickering snake.)

She startled a little bit and looked at him quizzingly, not understanding the question. "Uh, what do you mean by 'real'?"

"Real as in real, Ayano. As in having a body from the moment of your creation and keeping it every time you're reborn," he explained, eyes cast into the hazy air in front of them. "What is it like to not have to force yourself into someone else; to just be you." He swung his eyes back down, locking into hers intently. "What is it like to be alive...?"

It took Ayano a good solid ten seconds to even begin to think of an answer. What is it like to be alive? How should I know, I'm dead after all. But, maybe I can remember if I try...

"It feels like... like you're normal I guess," she settled with, gently taking a hold of Kuroha's other hand so that she was holding both of them. "It's like you just know from the very start who you are, who you're meant to be. You go through daily life always as just one person; the same as everyone else around you going through their own lives. It feels like you're equal to them all, equal to the whole world."

"And- and that's what it's like to be human?" Kuroha asked in actual bright-eyed awe, clutching both her hands tightly.

"Yes-" she smiled tenderly up at him, "-that's exactly what it means. You're equal. You're weak. You're human."

"..."

"N-not that you would know or even want to know anything about that of course, hahaha," Ayano tried to tease a little, hoping to bring a blush or even a normal look of irritation onto his face.

She got neither.

Despite looking positively entranced by her words just a second ago Kuroha quickly resigned back into himself; eyes disappearing under bangs, his hands letting go of hers. 

It was the first time they had ever let go of each other while walking.

"Kuro-"

"The light's red. Come on, let's go. Before time runs out."

Kuroha then cut ahead by himself and crossed the street without waiting for her, ("H-hey wait! Kuroha!") leaving Ayano scrambling to catch up behind him as they entered the school and navigated their way up the floors to the familiar old classroom, although she didn't know why he seemed to be in such a hurry. The world hadn't started to fade away into the new timeline yet, even though it really should have started by now.

Odd.

"Je- *wheeze* -jerk," she complained when they reached the well-worn out door, bent over with hands on her knees gasping for breath (gym hadn't exactly been her best subject in school, although she had still been much better than Shintaro at it, much to her secret delight) behind him. "I hope your gun jams when you kill everyone after the next route."

"It won't," he said matter-of-factly, not making any moves to slide open the door and let her in.

Odder.

"Hahaha, very funny all-mighty Kuroha. If don't mind now, I'm going to go inside so you can get started running the loop. Definitely be sure to tell me afterward how your gun definitely doesn't break~" She giggled and tried to walk past him to open the door herself, only to be stopped by his hand blocking her path. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"U-um, what are you doing? What's wrong?"

"..." Silence. Extremely odd.

"I take it back, this isn't funny anymore Kuroha. Why aren't you letting me in?"

"..." More silence. Okay, now this was just getting annoying.

"Kuroha, I said-" she began, ready to calmly but willfully ask to be let in. She didn't get to finish her demand, however, as Kuroha swung around to face her at a scarily swift speed. His eyes were ablaze with nothing but seriousness, shocking her almost as much as his next few words did.

"Do you want to be real again, Tateyama Ayano?"

It was her turn to be silent this time. "...what are you saying?"

"Exactly what I just said: do you want to be real again? Alive again? A normal, equal, weak human again?"

Before she could follow up with an even louder, more unbelieving "WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?" Kuroha suddenly turned around and slid open the door in one fluid motion.

What (no, who) Ayano saw inside stopped her right in her tracks, flitted the very words off her tongue and restarted her long-passed beatless heart.

It was Shintaro. Two Shintaros; one of them wore a black hoodie while the other one wore a familiar-looking bright red jersey.

Ayano's hands were positively shaking. "S-Sh-Shin..."

The one clad in an all-black hoodie looked extremely sickly like he hadn't felt the touch of the sun in two years, and seemed as if he were on the edge of a complete mental breakdown. The one dressed in red looked a lot better; less pale with fewer lines and bags of dark stress under his eyes. He looked much more alert and cautious, but also more stable.

...the jersey still suited him perfectly, just as she remembered.

"Shintaro!" she called out to the both of them. They didn't take notice or even react to her voice, meaning that they couldn't hear her and proving it very likely that they couldn't see her either, much less interact with her. Yet it was still painful for Ayano to stop her herself from outright running forward and crushing both of them into a hug.

They're both so much taller than me... what routes are they from... I can't believe this is happening... oh Shintaro!

"H-how?" was all she could hiccup out, still staring at the two versions of the same boy she had admired throughout all her school life.

"Well, it wasn't easy, believe me," Kuroha spoke softly behind her, not a single trace of ill intent or malevolence hidden away in his voice. She doubted that she would find any traces hidden in his features if she turned around either. "Had to do a whole lot of trial and error during the last six timelines... but I managed to finally get them both here on lucky number seven. That's what Dan number he is right? 7?"

Ayano nodded back, her legs now trembling as well but she couldn't tell if it was still from her sheer level of incredulity or from the ball of happiness growing at lightning speed inside her chest. Kuroha laughed, low and benevolent and melodic-like, sounding nothing like Konoha but almost sounding exactly like Haruka.

"Thought so. Now before you ask 'why', he said right at the exact moment she was literally about to ask why, why, oh god why did you do all of this for me, I'm so happy, "Let's just say... I remember that loop so many routes ago too; the one where you first yelled back at me... when you asked me if I was tired of all of this... tired of hurting others to get what I wanted... of lashing out at Master Azami because she chose to also love Tsukihiko and Shion instead of just us..."

He brought a hand to rub his neck awkwardly-

"Back then, I was so sure that I would never grow tired of it ever..."

-yet the smile he gave her was bright, toothy and kind.

"...but I think maybe I have now."

Still smiling warmly down at her, Kuroha motioned into the musty, sun-filled classroom where the two lost boys were waiting. "Go ahead, do whatever you like. Use one of them as a sacrifice to leave and be with your uh, family again or send either one of them off with a snake of their own. You'll either die for real or come back to life - I really don't know which is better at this point - but I can guarantee you that it'll be real."

The smiling Snake closed his eyes and sighed. Satisfied. Content. Tired. "Even if you don't do anything at all, if you still hate change as much as you've told me all of these rewinding routes, I want you to have the choice at least. The choice to stay the same... to ruin everything... to change. Whatever your final wish will be, I hope it makes you happy my small Hero."

Having heard him finish up his golden words, Ayano soon found that her entire body was quivering. She brought her hands up to cover her face, muffling away her overjoyed tears. Many beats passed, so many that they wouldn't fit properly in tens or hundreds or thousands. Eventually, Kuroha peeked open an eye.

"Hello? Earth to little red heroic Ayano? I said go ahead, didn't I? Listen, if you're worried about what might happen to me after this, it's okay. I'm not going to disappear without a fight and even I'm not sure what will happen exactly. So it's fine really, you can go and- huwah!?" he exclaimed as Ayano was suddenly moving again, unwrapping her red scarf and swinging it over the tall dark android's neck at a speed fast enough to break necks.

"Wh-what in the heat haze's name-"

She didn't give him even a second's time to finish asking what she was doing. With nothing but overwhelming gratitude in her restarted heart, she had practically already done it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you was all she thought as she pulled down the scarf ends entwined in her hands, pulling Kuroha's head closer to her as a result.

There weren't any voices in her head telling her to stop this time as she brought the ethereal snake being all the way down and pressed their lips together, turning on her eye power for the first time ever just so she knew he was feeling what she felt as well, not caring at all if this was probably the most devastatingly large change she could have done.

It was finally at this exact moment that Ayano knew that the first tiny, amazing one hadn't been a mistake at all.

Despite everything that had happened surprisingly, Ayano still wasn't too fond of change.

It was still a very pesky, unpredictable thing.

It had turned Tsubomi from sweet and proper to guarded and aloof, turned Takane from awfully moody to downright gleeful, and turned Shintaro into an even lonelier person in some of the really depressing timelines.

And yet it had also changed a murderous, unredeemable devil of a snake spirit into someone so wonderful that he had been able to claim the most precious place in her heart.

Change could make people lose their jobs, move away, drop out of school and even kill them, but it could also bring people together, make souls stronger, rebuild lives and help people to forgive.

Maybe it wasn't so bad as she had always forced herself to believe.

Whatever the case truly was, she would be deciding the fate of herself, her friends, the never-ending world itself in a very short amount of time. What would she do? Which copy of the boy with the perfect memory she had always envied would she be able to help? How could she change everyone's destiny for the better?

All these unanswered questions and thoughts swirled around in her mind, silent as time, and yet all Ayano could really do now was watch as her stubborn, flustered, beloved Snake gently slipped away from her as the all-powerful world without end around them went into limbo, even though she very much wanted to cling onto him like her life depended on it.

Whatever I choose now.

Whatever I end up fixing or ruining.

It's all because of you, Snake of Clearing Eyes.

Because you didn't leave me alone.

Because you changed.

And so had she.

Smiling the most joyous, radiantly happy smile she could present, red eyes of favoring emotions still intact and aglow, Ayano whispered her last true feelings before she went to go remake the world and change yet again.

"I love you Kuroha."

[yuukei-yikes]

chatting with my kagefriend @hibihiiyo about ayaki

i keep imagining how whenever shintaro activates retaining, all the routes bleed together in his mind so post str since its his constant state it's confusing AND terrifying to live past that august once and for all. like, it goes on beyond what he has known and remembers hundreds of versions of. so picture that, but from ayaki's perspective.....

all those routes, and shintaro finally knows. constantly. because shintaro will ALWAYS remember at one point, but then he'll forget again. ayaki is used to it. in fact she resents how she looks forward to it because it's the only time she interacts with... anything!!! she has actual influence when shintaro activates her. depending on what she says shintaro will say something different. routes always differ, at least slightly, but seeing shintaro at the end before it starts again is her one chance to say ANYTHING before she waits thousands of years again until shintaro is born and grows to be 18. she has actual presence when he remembers, even if they're tiny pockets of time in her eternity. however post str this is constant. shintaro is There.

and you know who else is there. HERSELF. time for ayano math.

ayano just fucking hates herself that's like. ayano 101. but what happens when there's 2 of them. they both hate themselves for doing things but those things are vastly different from each other. so... same person, different contexts and choices. which one is most hated by both? the answer is. well. whichever is alive!!

Because THAT ayano, so basically our final route ayano, has everything. but... erm, SHE wasn't supposed to Make It. ayano is never supposed to survive. ayano staying is an anomaly. and ayaki will continue to be miserable as her family and friends are alive and she is not there to be by their side, but that's always been part of the deal, she knew that she wasn't ever getting "a happy ending" because her Happiest Ending is her family's safety. her very existence is being doomed for infinity. but this route's version of her staying around and... GETTING A HAPPY ENDING!??!?!?! THAT.... WAS NOT EVER EVEN CONSIDERED.

shintaro continues to astonish her when he pulls something like this, letting ayano survive? SAVING ayano? who the hell does he think he is. hasnt ayaki suffered enough? why is she also cursed to watch herself get a happy ending. she doesn't deserve it and ayaki knows ayano knows she doesn't deserve it.

THIS ayano roped kano into it, she basically threw haruka and takane at the wolves, she left her siblings completely unprotected. ayaki was Left because she was willing to do something extreme and awful and scared her siblings away and made it right in her mind by cursing herself to be This, just for her "succesful" version to kill herself out of the situation AND get put on a pedestal for it? bullshit!!!!

this route's ayano is glorified and praised by her siblings and welcomed back with open arms and tears. this ayano gets to apologize and make things right, she gets to eat her favorite food again, she gets to become friends with mary, she gets to go on a date with shintaro, she gets her siblings to trust her. she gets everything despite she was a coward and wronged everyone FAR MORE than ayaki did, and she only suffered 2 years of the daze compared to ayaki's eternity in there.

hope articulated so spectacularly their thoughts abt ayaki's psyche that i am straight up quoting her text rn:

"she decided she’d punish herself by dying over and over again, and watching the people she loves die over and over again for all of eternity, until she manages to find some way to get thru to shintaro and fix it and never be able to be a human being again and live normally. thus is forced to become so numb, desensitized, and uncaring to pain and suffering that her otherwise human brain, which was never meant or designed to be turned into an immortal demi deity and the patron saint of suffering, would split in half and make her go insane. which it probably did. her human brain was not meant to live forever, to suffer forever, to watch others suffer forever, to watch the same mundane endless events with no agency or control over how they occur. death, pain, and suffering became tools to win her ultimate game of 5 dimensional, temporal chess and thus she can no longer abide by morals to fulfill her ultimate purpose. deci and ryan’s self determination theory states all humans need to feel relatedness, competency, and autonomy to thrive in their environment, and by martyring herself into a snake, ayaki chooses to deprive herself of all of these things. she is not good at her job and must fail over and over again for eternity because the story playing in front of her is RNG out of her control. ayaki cannot relate to anyone because nobody knows she’s there, not even shintaro except on rare instances. and ayaki has zero autonomy over anything, except her incredibly cryptic vague dreams that rarely even work"

ayaki's big curse is her humanity remaining. It's the pain she feels because of the love she feels, over and over, it nevers gets any easier and it never hurts any less, her love grows stronger and stronger with each reset. ayaki hates herself so much which is why she hates our route ayano Even More

[yuukei-yikes]

I had a really weird dream that was actually rlly funny where the entire mekushi Dan went on a vacation or something and stayed in a hotel and they were like eh, two to a bed we ain't paying for a ton of hotel rooms and the couples (momokido and harutaka) just were like ok we can share a bed 👍. But not shinaya ayano decided to share a bed with Marry bc Hibiya didn't want to share with Kano or Shintaro bc fuck those guys but Seto is valid apparently so shintaro and kano ended up having to share the bed and both hated it that's where the dream ended but I can't help but imagine like. They try to make a pillow wall but Kano moves around so damn much in his sleep that he Still ended up on top of / cuddling shintaro by morning and when they woke up they are both just. Internally dying. Kano does much better at hiding this obviously but both are just. "God fucking damn it"

On another note I imagine since Kano's mentioned to not rlly be well versed in interacting online (like texting and stuff bc no one texts him- F) in the chat bonus thingy, bro probably doesn't realize the person asking questions on insta can see who asked them what and just sends shintaro death threats or confessions of him hating him and Shintaro's just looking at his phone like. Oh. Okay.

Why can't these two be normal

OH MY GOD WAIT THAT WOULD BE SUCH A FUN FIC IDEA sorry im about to get ABSOLUTELY OFF TOPIC but i have a dream fic i wish i could write set in my au where kenjirou lives and he's on weird terms with kano + haruka and takane + basically everyone and ayano's like ratio + mekadan vacation paid by the shit ton of money saeru stole. and its kenjirou being so fail in a hawaiian shirt sipping on a mojito like I miss my wife. i have a vision.

anyways i love but there's one bed and we wake up cuddling trope. i also love the specifics of hibiya complaining abt who to share and refusing kanoshin for no apparent reason. like thats hilarious. with my designs (huge seto and teeny tiny hibiya) seto would lay in the bed and be so heavy the other side lifts cartooningly and hibiya's like😐 also rip hibiya bc seto probably snores SO much. btw with kidomomo imagine theyre not dating but theyre like oh noooo.... we have to share what a bummer😀😀😀

anyways kanoshin being stuck together against their will is so fucking funny i can imagine shintaro begging seto and hibiya like dude please kano's always so weird with me. and theyre like nooo ur gonna be fine. and then its not fine. anyways kano enjoys a little making shintaro's life a nightmare and keeps doing shit like turning off the lights while shintaro's showering. this is all so funny we need a fanfic

ALSO imagining shintaro posting Instagram stories with the questions 😭😭😭 in my heart i believe in streamer shintaro so maybe he would. kano's so silly he goes crazy abt how shintaro keeps effortlessly outsmarting him all the time ugh *chews on my desk*

[yuukei-yikes]

also sorry for sending two asks in a row but i wanted to put this one in its own separate ask but its slightly related to the prev kdmm ask i sent.

anyways kano comes over to kdmm's apartment like maybe once a week to get breakfast since kido's cooking slaps + he likes bothering kido. they live in the same apartment complex unfortunately so kdmm can't really escape this freak. he comes over, pets one of the cats, gets a plate, has some chit chat, then leaves. kido says theyre gonna kick him out next time he comes over but they never do. deep down they miss cooking for their siblings but they're not gonna just Say that to him

NO WAIT KANO LIVING IN THE SAME COMPLEXXXXX!!!! GENIUS kano also has a bunch of cats cant convince me otherwise i think he goes to kidomomo apartment and drops cat toys or catnip or steals some cat food like Omg im running out!!! kano is so cat obsessed i think he'd foster a lotta cats too

i think he'd walk in totally unsolicited he doesn't knock he has his own keys. he probably even comes over while there's no one home and goes through the fridge. he would be in there like carpet. i can imagine him texting kido like whats for dinner tonight im on my way (coming down the stairs)

also kido missing cooking for their brothers🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 awww kido would bring food to them i know so. theyre the kind to make a shit ton of food then give it to everyone and then also yell at everyone to give back their glass tupperwares

AWWW IM SO OBSESSED WITH KIDOMOMO AND KANO BEING NEIGHBORS AS ADULTS NOW i have such specific ideas of where everyone lives.... my mind is expanding..... u didn't ask but ratio kano lives with his cats + kidomomo live together (with hibiya if he's still in hs) AND ARE NOW NEIGHBORS WITH KANO + if hibiya isnt in hs he's roomies with hiyori while they're both in college and he has a part time job to afford it while hiyori is Rich (not necessarily dating i imagine them as just besties) + seto and mary are building their own house together and live in basically huge WIP + haruka and takane in some nerdy ass apartment but also i kinda like the idea of them moving into takane's old house later on and live with her grandma cuz shes old and they take care of her + shintaro has his own apartment that's literally any Male living space picture. hes rich for selling silly tunes to commercials but acts all sad about it bc God how could his heartfelt lyrics be taken off so the melody can be used in some detergent commercial.. fist clench... + ayano lives alone. at the tateyama house. AND SHE'S SO SAD ABOUT IT (until she starts adopting❤️❤️❤️)(and if she ever gets with shintaro his ass moves in too ig)

erm anyways sorry for that last part that was weird. mekadan ❤️

[yuukei-yikes]

WAIT i was the vacation dream kanoshin anon but i just remembered an actual one i thought of myself not my subconcious but i somehow forgot about it-

in my delusions a route similar to the novel route is what gives us str (not mekakucity actors shh- canon isn't real if it's from mca), meaning Kano has his weird ass traumadumping session with ene and whatnot and ends up having to spill the beans to the rest of the dan INCLUDING shintaro not just shintaro casually vanishing-

anyways so this ends up with the same vibe as novel-route kano and shintaro which is like. i mean. kano literally describes shintaro as looking at him the same way he looked at ayano and that kano "can't win against him" like. 🤨

Yada yada everything w/ clearing eyes, similar fight to mca ish ( i like the idea of marry draining her friends of their life to save their lives it's interesting to me-) and wahoo ayano. hi. she exists now (with ofc haruka and hiyori too-) and obviously everyone's like HOLY SHIT. especially the mekutrio. and ESPECIALLY kano.

Like I imagine Kano has a much harder time wrapping his head around the fact Ayano's back since while the other two just saw her death as suicide, he knew what caused it / all the clearing eyes stuff so he couldn't really accept her death and move on, while the others (obviously heartbroken over it though) were able to accept it and grow, yea?

Well we get those feelings of "holy shit my sister is alive" but also mixed with these feelings of "oh fuck. i (very unfortunately) might have a thing for my sister's crush." and IMMEDITELY backs the fuck off from both of them. He doesn't ignore ayano obviously but he doesn't seek her out, and he just actively avoids shintaro. ayano's concerned but meanwhile shintaro's just kinda like. what the fuck did i do to you???

Anyways dunno how that gets resolved i never thought past just the idea that kano can barely handle these two facts alone (ayano is alive now and he might maybe like shintaro a little bit (ew)) but together? Fuck. He is Not thinking on that he is backing Way the fuck up. Nope. Not his circus not his monkeys (he is actually just the entire circus).

Anyways long story short when Ayano comes back and everything is resolved kano's unresolved grief over her death but also the budding crush he's developing on shintaro hit him with the force of a truck (haha) and he does Not know how to handle that so he just Doesn't

DUDE. YOU AND I. SAME BRAIN. LIKE THIS IS SO SPECTACULARLY ALL MY SAME FEELINGS RIGHT FROM DELUSIONALLY IMAGINING NOVEL ROUTE WITH A GOOD END AS MY IDEAL ROUTE AND MARY TAKING THE SNAKES HERSELF AND ALMOST KILLING EVERYONE AND KANO LIKING SHINTARO AND BEING SO FREAKED OUT HE BACKS OUT LEAVING SHINTARO CONFUSED BECAUSE HE THOUGHT THEY HAD WORKED EVERYTHING OUT IN THAT CONVO WHERE KANO COMES CLEAN TO KIDO AND HIM(AND TAKANE HERE TOO) sorry for yelling. i just get excited when i get same brain with someone. like exactly. EXAAAACTLY.

but for ayano i think kano is super close with her and he's constantly trying to go back the same relationship they had where ayano relied so heavily on him, especially bc kano wants to distract himself FROM himself so he wants to focus on how she's doing but ayano isn't gonna do what she did. she realised just how messed up it was putting kano through all that and she feels so responsible. ayano and kano are on this weird YOU CAN COUNT ON ME. NO U CAN COUNT ON ME. NO NOT ME COUNTING ON YOU, YOU COUNTING ON ME!!! constantly... imagine kano sitting through ayano go on and on about shintaro bc ayano can see kano wants her to rely on him so she's like well it doesnt hurt anyone if i just talk abt my crush. like its a thing she can stand talking abt and from her perspective kano will be satisfied just hearing her talk about anything she doesnt talk to anyone else. and kano sits through it like 😁😁😁(wants to explode into a million pieces)

also god the bit u mentioned abt kano saying shintaro smiled at him like how he used to smile at ayano. sorry like allow me to attach the whole thing because

☝️☝️☝️⁉️⁉️⁉️like what the fuck is this. WHAT WAS JIN THINKING WHEN HE WROTE THIS LIKE THIS IS SOOOO. homo. kano is so insanely homosexual for shintaro in the seventh novel like there are several examples it's amazing. anyways the "he's invincible" line i am particularly obsessed with and it's why i always insist kano has this weird thing where he's constantly trying to have the upper hand with shintaro while shintaro unknowingly and effortlessly outsmarts him just by being himself.

kano's feelings for shintaro are so complicated and full of resentment and he always wanted shintaro to be entirely horrible just to justify how he feels, but shintaro keeps proving he's a good person and kano keeps being unable to deny not only that but also that he LIKES him and even admires him. and it drives him so crazy.

meanwhile shintaro's feelings for kano are complicated bc 1. wtf does he hate me or not. 2. augh he's a guy im not gay. 3. my girlfriend(?)'s brother. like shintaro hating kano's guts back is funny but it's not the move like it's not true. shintaro wants nothing more than to get along with kano!!! everyone gets on shintaro's nerves and kano gets on everyone's nerves, so bc of this i understand the common misconception of shintaro hating kano back.

anyways shintaro is so clueless bc he thought they were ok?? they talked it out so it's fine?? he can't ever figure out kano's inconsistent behaviour. he decides that it's probably bc he's protective of ayano but he knows that's not all of it.

ugh ugh ugh. KANOSHIN FIRST KISS WHERE SHINTARO'S LIKE genuinely sad and confused and finally confronts kano like seriously what's the matter?? i thought we were cool already?? and kano's super dismissive like whaaa nothing omg of course we're best friends❤️ but shintaro isn't letting it go and kano is getting rly fed up bc his patience is SO short when it comes to shintaro which also pisses him off like why is he making me feel so out of my element like the best i do is LIE why does he drive me SO CRAZY. and then shintaro's like i just wanna know what can i do to make things ok!!!!! and its so genuine and he is just so earnest and pathetic looking kano kisses him impulsively.

anyways. kanoshin.

[yuukei-yikes]

idk if you've posted about this b4 but do you have like any first kiss scenarios for your kagepro ships? like i absolutely know you def have one for hrtk but any others?

surprisingly i dont?? but i love making shit up so let's goooo. ill do shinaya setomary kidomomo harutaka kanoshin cuzzzz i like them

i mean it could go a million ways. also its embarrassing to write it down it's much easier to draw this kinda thing heh.. erm erm ill try to come up with something *massages brain*

surprisingly the most clear to me is shinaya??? they'd go so long without kissing it gets to a point it will NOT happen on its own so they HAVE to be like erm so are we gonna kiss or what <- ayano obviously. she will ask him. its very difficult for her Ok. and then a horrible disaster kiss.would take place i believe. i just think they'd have a funny first kiss where their teeth bump and its painful. or they make a stupid ass fish face with all their cheeks puffed up. yknow. and sorry if i may get gross for a second but if they attempt to makeout its a disaster. can u imagine that. both go into it with their mouths wide open and tongue OUT. sorry that's gross its just so fucking funny to me. like they'd be so BAD at it.

setomary dont ever kiss and if they do its little pecks while saying mmmmmwah out loud. i know so! for a first kiss it'd be an accident. one of them aimed for the cheek and the other turned around. then they teehee about it and kiss for reals

KIDOMOMO i feel like. they'd have the most conventional situation of all. like they'd have a first date kiss at the end of it momo pops her foot up. boom first kiss. I think it'd be something like kido sort of wants to take the lead (leader DUUUH) but momo is so straightforward, it was her who asked them out, planned the date, reached out to holds hands etc etc. so by the end of the date kido is so defeated. they take momo home but all of a sudden momo acts shy when they're saying bye bc dammit. she's just a girl in the world. kidos like itd be so easy to pretend i dont see it and just go home but i MUST BE BRAVE💥 and kisses her :3 :3 :3 sorry this is so cheesy but its so cute... can u envision what i am putting down.... auugghhh kidomomo is rly cute like theyre literally puppy love

UMMMM kanoshin...... kanoshin happens in a delusional situation for them both like they walk out of it not knowing what just happened. it's definitely kano's fault. probably trying to tease or annoy shintaro taken too far.

and for harutaka MANNN its funny u said i absolutely must have something thought but idk? i imagine something rly simple like they're talking and since they're super cringe they talk all up on each others faces and then they go for it. idk. they kiss like a day after confessing or something . or an hour later. dude idk

while confessing is kinda important to harutaka since its a whole thing for them like Haruka i love youuuuu Takane i wanna see youuuuuu like i get it guys. u wanna talk. however i do also kinda like the idea they kiss before confessing. idk i just like it. like they just go for it💥💥💥 YOU KNOW WHATS COOL FOR HARUTAKA TOO excitedly kissing and THEN realising they just kissed. wait see this is my problem with them i just like way too many scenarios They are everything 2 me

anyways. yep. let me know if u have any ultra scepecific scenarios for these ships i like hearing abt them they're cute🙏🙏🙏

[yuukei-yikes]

not exactly a family bc but I think haruka packed lunch and Takane bought. Shintaro the kind of guy to pack lunch but buy extra snacks anyway and ayano usually buys bc she gives her packed lunch to one of the mekidan who forgot theirs

ty for sending this. ur so awesome. that said let's analyze the quartet's BRINGS FOOD OR BUYS FOOD question of the night:

canonically, takane's grandma made her lunch and even asks her what she wants the day prior in yuukei yesterday's introductory chapter in the second novel. i assume that's the usual for them. and haruka mentions having a live-in helper who takes care of chores/meals (sixth novel) and at one point mentions "bringing a normal lunch, but eats a lot more at home" (when he and takane are eating in their festival break, most of the adaptations have this). in the anime they're seen having lunch together and both have lunchboxes though haruka also has a bunch of wrappers and extra food while takane's only eating from her lunchbox. CONCLUSION: both bring their lunches but haruka buys a bunch of snacks throughout the day

shintaro.... i think buys his food. in the mekakucity talkers yuukei quartet chapter (vol3 scene 26) he says he brought a lunchbox that day and forgot the box at school which is why he went back to get it. i've decided he's not used to it which is why he forgot it. in the yuukei yesterday pv in the yuukei quartet frames at the end there's a frame where he has a sandwich this is further proof....... AND how after meeting haruka he doesn't go one day without drinking coca cola so he has to go buy that too... this man buys his lunch. case solved.

ayano's the most unclear. while ayano giving her lunch to mekatrio is really cute, the mekatrio don't go to school they're dropout legends (they never managed to adapt to being in school even after being adopted by the tateyamas) and it's mentioned after ayaka passes, ayano starts trying really hard to learn how to cook. apparently she had Questionable skills at first (all mentioned by kano in the fifth novel) and by the time she's in hs she's cooking rly well, as she's known to do! i think ayano would try hard to make her lunch, but often forgets because she prioritizes keeping the house together after ayaka's gone. saeru'ed kenjirou is probably NOT helping and from my interpretation, all household responsibilities fell on ayano. but this is more hc based than the others

HOWEVER.... in the fifth novel in the "one day in the rooftop" chapter (that i hate bc kano is so mean and takane is unbearably, cringely written) ayano(kano as ayano actually) and takane are conversing in the rooftop while waiting for shintaro and haruka to "come back from buying food." takane and kano both mention waiting for their own food too, because haruka and shintaro are getting it for them. ratio + the girls sending them to buy their food is epic. my hc is takane was probably the one sending haruka to buy her food and since kano was playing ayano that day he was also like ratio+i dont wanna walk down the stairs also get my food. he's gonna take ANY chance he gets to be away from shintaro in the days he played ayano at school

anyways.... so that day all 4 were buying food right. that gets in the way of my very well thought of analysis....... haruka, shintaro and ayano all buy food anyways, so my conclusion is takane forgot her lunchbox that day which is why she's also buying💖

thank you for coming to my analysis about whether or not the quartet buys or brings lunch. i'll be here all night.

[yuukei-yikes]

What are your post-str Shinaya hcs?

this got so long. its my blog i am not putting a read more. deal with it. its shinaya hour

i want and need a role reversal. i want drama. post str shinaya break up without even being together first. ayano keeps waiting for shintaro to Do something because she's like. okay its been 2~ years and by now she CRINGES at remembering how she acted around him so shes like ok i CANNOT cling to him like that AGAIN. if he wants to come around he will but shintaro is yknow. like that. so obviously he fucking doesnt like honestly hes still sort of acting the same around her like less mean but still a bit dismissive, mostly out of embarrassment though cuz mekatrio wants to kill him+harutaka and momo tease him when he has Moments with ayano so he kinda wants to spare himself that embarrassment so hes like sweet in private then cold in public and ayanos like ????????????????????? does he like me or not what is going ON but also ayano and her amazing awesome self steem issues are like he fucking HATES me im the most annoying person in the world !!!!!!

so she eventually keeps her distance and obviously he notices and shintaros like oh fuck i messed UP because now theres like this sort of misunderstanding and the only way to clear it up is healthy communication but you know DAMN WELL he wont do that but somehow he finds it less mortifying to go around looking like a kicked puppy in a wet cardboard box around her desperately trying to get her attention making ayano even MORE confused.

eventually after a while of being in a circus i think hed get the balls to ask her out himself. probably bc of haruka/takane/momo telling him he's a fucking idiot bitch. anyways i think shintaro tries to kiss ayano and they hit their faces against each others and it really hurts💗🙏

btw thats only them getting together i think. but also that's how they break up and get back together over and over and over with like the exact same precedure everytime. on and off shinaya my beloved.

anc duhhh obviously im gonna talk abt the yuukei quartet Have u met me. takanes like another funny part of the whole thing like i know ive talked abt it but im obsessed with codependent shintaka *holds head* bc ayanos jealous of takane for how vulnerable shintaro is with them unlike with her and takane is individually close to both so shes kinda being dragged by both of them but especially shintaro forcing them to play as their relationship therapist and she fucking hates it but someone has to fucking do it apparently because shintaro and ayano cant talk like normal people. haruka keeps more distance than takane like its something they need to do themselves yknow and tells takane they shouldnt rly get in the way but shinaya KEEP going to her and also takanes insane and still feels responsible for shintaro bc (gestures at the whole ene thing) yeah so its tough for her to say no. like takanes obsessed with shintaro plus sees how pathetic shinaya are being and takane enomoto when they decide to obsess over others so they dont have to think about herself am i right😃<- what haruka tells her . she does not appreciate the comment. the whole thing also causing harutaka drama ougghhh shinaya is so messy that theyre contagious. but haruka is the 1 yuukei quartet member with any emotional intelligence so harutaka have actual communciation so theyre more caught up abt this being like a sorta messed up thing between the whole group and their relationships. on and off shinaya ft unwilling(?) relationship therapist takane ft an even more unwilling haruka who just wants his damn girlfriend to stop cancelling their dates to go stop shintaro from crying at ayanos feet begging her to take him back for the second time this month

ok and.........actual Break Up shinaya where its like Enough for ayano bc thats a fucking insane relationship to have so shes like lol maybe i should get therapy👍 and shintaro again is pathetic and desperately trying to gain her affections back but he just looks so pathetic and its funny. they dont rly stop hanging out bc they wouldnt do that and also its not like shintaro will just leave the dan LOL but thru it all the mekatrio are like KILLING HIM with their eyes especially kano god dont get me started on the one sided(?) kanoshin of it all. i love kano and shintaro having this weird fucking tension during the breakup augh kano little meowmeow the amount of self hatred he feels ok im getting sidetracked shinaya ends up together again basically. in my sitcom delusion shintaro finishes his first song Ever and its abt her and then she hears it everywhere and its so damn embarrassing bc theyre broken up but she still likes him so much it makes her look stupid amd the stupid song brings them back together ummmm sorry. my shinaya era (holds head) i will study them under a microscope

[yuukei-yikes]

Here’s a Harutaka ask for you! Do you think they’d get married? If yes what do you think their wedding would be like? Also I hope you feel better soon!

HIII if it isnt the little guy i watched slowly get into kagepro. whatsup. how are u holding up being into kagepro. ALSO THANK U im already a lil better i ate 1 single boiled egg and now im laying in bed

yes haruka and takane 10000% get so married. i have this silly headcanon that haruka is begging her from day 1 to get married because IDK he's just excited about being alive and takane liking him💗💗💗 and maybe he is also terrified of her changing her mind abt liking him and for some reason thinks getting married will solve that feeling of feeling not good enough for her💗💗💗 wait who said that. but takane's all like No haruka we're only like 20 and he's like AUUUUGGGHHH!!! fine

honestly its a hc born from a bit in the novels (im not sure u read them) where haruka says man i wish takane stopped swearing so much she's gonna have a hard time finding a husband💔💔💔 ITS SO FUNNY TO ME idk likeeee since he knew he'd die, he never imagined being an adult at all. this is more in the territory of the early twenties crisis he apparently has post str i guess. which is also hilarious.

i think haruka's like... he thinks of marriage of this weird alien thing bc as a teen he wont even entertain the idea of dating or anything bc HES DYING like he literally shoots down the acknowledgement of his feelings for takane BECAUSE he is dying. he's like man whats the fucking point if im just gonna die this sucks ASS

so marriage. well it's an adult thing. and he turns out to be alive!! and takane REALLY LIKES HIM FOR SOME REASON!!! and he's like WELL WERE ADULTS ARENT WE WHY THE HELL SHOULDNT WE GET MARRIED???? takane's like because we're BARELY adults like BARELY. and also IN SO MUCH NEED OF THERAPY. and haruka's like i dont see how that's related🙄🙄🙄 whatever takane ur such a bore🙄🙄🙄 its just a silly argument they laugh and tease each other about *rips hair out* theyre so CUTE AUGGHHH

yeah they do eventually get married. not IMMEDIATELY though but still probably rly young. like before their mid twenties young. LOL!!! as for a wedding i dont think they'd actually care about one??? because haruka and takane are really introverted ppl and being the center of attention mortifies both. well takane's used to attention bc streamer slay but its not. the same. like that's different BASICALLY i dont think takane would care to throw money in something like this and haruka is also like whatever man just sign the paper so i can officially be ur boywife. they still probably have like a little get together with the dan though. maybe they dont even tell them they're like OH BY THE WAY WE DID SOMETHING FUNNY TODAY wjxnoefuoendoefundkc call shintaro&ayano on the phone like can u come with us to sign as our witnesses. and shintaro and ayano are like WITNESSES OF WHAT? erm. haruka&takane engaged for exactly 14 hours when haruka asks takane to marry him for the millionth time and this time she's like uhhh. yeah alright👍

thats my harutaka wedding hc. that theyre too lazy to have a wedding🫡 ayano mourns it so much she's been like wedding planning her whole life for her siblings. seto&mary get ultra married as soon as theyre 18 im not getting into those hcs i already did but ayano goes so crazy with it. and then haruka&takane are next (tho years later) and ayano's like WH?? BUT IM?? SUPPOSED TO PLAN ANOTHER WEDDING????? WHAT DO U MEAN U WONT MAKE ONE???? and theyre like 🤷‍♂️ maybe she forces them and she organizes it alone and forces them to kiss in front of everyone and only then stops being annoying. sorry i love crazed wedding planner ayano

[yuukei-yikes]

ok ok first of all Really Really love your harutakas and your shinayas and your kidomomos and since im pretty sure you've been asked abt your hrtk and shinaya headcanons already i just wanna ask you about any kdmm headcanons you may have 🧐

i love kidomomo so fucking much ilove them

i think theyre stuck in a situationship for a long time. bc useless lesbians in silly harmless drama is always funny. thing is momo WANTS to say something but kido gets so flustered everytime she brings it up they fucking disappear. kido hearing momos confession after theyve faded wawawa and momo thinks kido maybe didnt hear and just sighs but KIDO HEARD bro... they heard u....

momo isnt sure if kido likes her back but she still wants to say it bc momo rly isnt the kind to stress abt waaaa but what if they dont like me back. shes like this is what i feel and im gonna tell everyone 💗 which also means everyone in the dan knows not only bc its fucking obvious but like momo told everyone😭 the only one surprised is shintaro. but for like a second bc hes like YOURE GAY??wait i just fucking heard myself of course youre gay

kido is like super fucking embarrassing abt the way they run from momo like kano and seto who know them rly well think they look like a clown bc of how flustered momo makes them but momo always receives it like wow kido is SOOOOO cool all cold and calculating :3 something something kidos self steem issues, cant believe someone would like them, especially someone so bubbly who could probably get anyone they want

if it goes for long enough momo would notice shes being avoided lol and shes like i just dont know what to do yknow and hibiyas like why are u telling Me this.

kano seto and mary. tease kido to hell and back. they are the most insufferable people ever. kano is annoying on purpose but seto and mary are more like omg u gotta be honest💗 omg let urself be happy 💗 kano and kido probably have a nasty fight abt kano telling kido theyre self sabotaging and kido being like looks whos fucking talking LOLLLL also momomary best friends forever bffs necklaces and matching phone backgrounds etc etc mary keeps accidentally creating tension and situations bc she keeps accidentally slipping up telling kido and momo something one said about the other.

its very much...a cute thing like a friend group where 2 friends like each other and everyone knows and is rooting for them but they keep prolonging it and its at most frustrating and at best entertaining. its cute, its rly one of those very normal teenage things they get to do after everything they go through. they end up together tho and in the future are the no kids double income aunts with the best presents etc etc u know how it goes

i think the only ones out of the loop who thought they were already together are haruka and shintaro. yuukei quartet is kinda out of it bc theyre a bit older and kinda didnt care for the little silly drama and have problems of their own LOL but ayano and takane were filled in bc as a big sister!!! ayano has to know whats going on!! (insane abt the idea of her and shintaros siblings dating. probably gives kido a lot of actually useful advice abt being honest and not run away from feelings) (sort of a takane talk 2.0) and takanes like.... gossip central this bitch knows everything about everyone not that they do anything with that info to help anyone.

once dating theyd have a lot of discussions about pda. momo is pda inc and kido wants to die whenever momo even presses their shoulders together in public. they make it work tho also once together the dan nearly throws a fucking party like FINALLY

[yuukei-yikes]

takane and haruka could accidentally bump into each other and shintaro would be like “oh? Is that how it is? You’re just gonna randomly turn me into a third wheel?”

no literally he wants to third wheel so bad. if haruka and takane even DARE to be actually pda in front of him he would make SUCH A HUGE DEAL OUT OF IT and then tell everyone super exaggerated like they were open mouth kissing IN FRONT OF ME and theyre like WE WERENT WE LITERALLY WERENT and they probably really werent but shintaros like augh my eyes my eyes . he wants attention SO BAD

shintaro is like. has been with ene all this time, konoha was his best friend AND haruka too, like... haruka and takane are literally his bestest friends. idc. best friends forever. he wants a polycule with them so bad but haruka and takane are so obsessed with each other they dont realise and shintaro also expresses his affinity for them through not knocking before going to their room and making a big deal out of them being affectionate in their own damn privacy. he's so insanely jealous of them and hes like do i want their relationship with ayano or do i wanna date haruka or do i wanna date takane or do i wanna be in their relationship. whatever i will face none of those thoughts and point and laugh at the way they hug. sorry i think shintaro has it so bad for both of them and even if they ever reciprocated they'd never like him the same/as much as they like each other and itd be a mess and either way would inevitably end up with shintaro feeling pathetic and broken. wait what was the ask about again. oh right. erm. live shintaro reaction👍 haruka and takane are not pda but he's with them all the time so it is true they are affectionate in front of him but its not pda its just him being around and refusing to go and then again its not like disgusting disregard of his presence PDA its just. they lean on each other when they sit or whatever the hell and shintaros like i cant believe youd do something this risqué in front of me why are you exposing me to this this is crazy

let me make it abt the yuukei quartet for a sec. ofc its cuz shintaro is the protag so his relationships with the characters are more developed but Hey. shintaro haruka and takane are all super close to each other individually like this is canon they are super best friends while ayano. yknow there's a lot of inference when it comes to her. ofc she's also friends with them but compared, ayanos bond with takane and haruka isnt as developed as takane and harukas bond with shintaro. i think post str ayano is also super distracted with her siblings at first so she doesnt spend as much time as she'd like as a quartet. and by the time mekatrio chills down a bit with her and she joins haruka takane and shintaro the 3 of them are already super close and she feels rly left out LOL so if they go on double dates and shit shintaro keeps going on and on and on abt how annoying haruka and takane are like why do they have to like each other so MUCH WHATS WITH THAT!!!and ayanos like this is so fucking weird can we have another topic of conversation that isnt about our friends making out