#idk I'm probably looking too far into the word 'prey' and what it means to ME as an animal lover and survivor but it just feels

[dootznbootz]

opinions on helen of sparta being compared to prey animals? blink blink

*blink blinks back* Then immediately sits like this because of the question.

It's a good question that I'm happy to answer! It just makes me mad.... I sincerely hate the wording of "prey" being used to describe her.

SHE IS A VICTIM! THAT DOES NOT MEAN SHE IS "PREY"!

I can...see how people in ancient times may have used that word and still meant it in how she is a victim... but modern-day English-speaking people calling her that??? (considering how in different languages the word "prey" could have different meanings.) I'll just say that as someone who has been "prey" herself at one point, I REALLY hate that word as a descriptor. Just say victim or survivor. 👍

Honestly to call ANY victim "prey" is so fucked up. "Prey" to me, feels like "it's meant to happen." "Prey" are part of the food chain and so that's what happens. And to compare that to abduction and SA? Almost as if "that's our place"? It also kind of implies something being "eaten" or killed... Helen SURVIVES. She's traumatized and definitely needs healing and support but it's not like she can't find joy or peace ever again. Prey just feels so fucking gross.

Also, if someone calls victims "prey", I hope they know that Moose, Elk, Boars, Bovine, ZEBRAS, etc. are technically "prey". And these are VERY aggressive animals while still being "prey" for some other animals. And also that doesn't mean that "Oh, they're powerful! Clearly they should've been able to stop it." That's victim blaming :P

She is a clever, determined, caring woman who was ripped from her home for YEARS because Paris was a dipshit who decided he needed the prettiest woman in the world despite already having a wife. He didn't care about the fact that Helen didn't want to be there and was already married. He is so selfish that he will not let her go back even when THOUSANDS have died in the war! EVEN HIS BROTHER HECTOR AND PRIAM DO NOT BLAME HER! Granted, we do not know if Aphrodite would have let him undo their deal of "I want the prettiest woman" if he DID end up feeling bad for Helen and he wished to let her go home (I doubt it based on his personality though).

"Oh, if she is so independent/strong, then why didn't she just kill Paris and leave?"

AGAIN! Victim blaming!!! First thing, people who ask that have media literacy that is piss on the poor. You also have no idea about the political implications that would have happened if she DID kill Paris. She literally cries about staying there and argues with Aphrodite about seeing Paris, only to get strongarmed by Aphrodite as, guess what? A GODDESS WILL ALWAYS OVERPOWER A DEMIGOD. (This isn't Percy Jackson where he "killed" Ares as a 12 year old (Percy, you were my childhood, but that's bullshit.))

Even confined in Troy, she ARGUED with APHRODITE about going to see Paris! She is not some meek woman who just does as she's told with no pushback! She argued with a GODDESSS! Very few survive doing that!!!

She's not "Prey to fate", she's a "VICTIM of Fate".

[pasteleclectic]

hii, I've been reading your fanfic the lawyer's secretary for a while now, and I was just wondering if you were planning to keep writing it or not. I don't want this to sound demanding I'm just curious because I reaaally llike the story. Sorry for bothering you :)) 💗💗

Hii! No I appreciate you checking in on it🤍

I feel bad bc I know some people have been waiting on an update. I have been working on it slowly but I sometimes get insecure with my stories and feel like I’ve taken on too much. Like I know I left y’all on a big cliff hanger and I still really wanna finish the story as a whole but sometimes I’m like “is this stupid? Too melodramatic? Are people gonna be disappointed with the ending?”

I did need a break after writing over 80k words for this story but I never intended on it being this long. It’s also hard bc gege hates us and has barely given us anymore higu in over a year now 😭 it goes back to my insecurities cuz what if we learn more about him in the manga and I completely mischaracterized him? Idk I just get in my head too often. BUT I do have about 10k words down for this chapter already (it’s probably gonna be close to 20 by the end😩) but since you’ve been so patient and kind I will add a snippet of the beginning of chapter 11 here. I hope it will help for now!

———-

Tw: physical assault, guns, kidnapping

The sound of your rapid pulse was drumming in your ears, nearly drowning out all your other senses until the phone in the stranger's hand rang again. He groaned before leaning over to press the button on the door handle right beside you, the tinted window rolling down to reveal the city streets. They were completely desolate at this hour, giving the man across from you the perfect opportunity to chuck the phone out the window without any hesitation. The vehicle was moving too fast for you to hear it, but based on the sheer power he put behind his throw, you knew that the phone was as good as gone. Watching him rolling up the window right after felt like your last tie to Hiromi being severed - along with your freedom.

You could’ve tried screaming while the window was open, but there was no point when Toji was casually holding a gun behind your head. Instead of pressing the end of the barrel against you like he had in the parking lot behind the temple, he leaned back in his seat lazily with an arm outstretched over the bench seat, the gun resting somewhere close behind your head. He couldn’t be bothered putting up a defense towards you, that's how weak you were to him.

And he wasn’t necessarily wrong. Like many other women, you’ve imagined before what you would do in tense situations like this. You always thought that you’d might be braver, fighting till the bitter end in hopes of making it out alive. But it was easy to feel a sense of control when it was only ever a fantasy. Here in the real world, you knew that any fight you put up would probably come back to you tenfold. They haven't hurt you yet, but that only made you more nervous for what's to come.

“Switch seats with me.”

The man across from you was speaking to Toji, and the taller man stood as far as the vehicle's roof would let him before the other man slipped in his place. Now he was right beside you, much closer than Toji had been. And though you couldn’t see him brandishing a weapon like his now seated partner was, that didn’t mean you weren’t any less terrified of him. You pressed your back up against the car door as you looked him up and down with frightened eyes. In the absence of words that couldn’t escape your dry throat, you used your body language to signal to him to not come any closer. Yet something to that lit a fire behind his eyes, like he had spotted a long awaited prey he was hunting for sport.

All the sudden he grabbed your face roughly in one hand, pulling it forward till your hands had to grip the leather seat between you just so you wouldn’t fall over. He turned your face from side to side, inspecting you closely. Any attempt to pull away from his grasp only made his grip grow tighter. He only let go after he squeezed your cheeks together till your lips were scrunched up, chuckling deeply at how humiliated you looked. It was so dehumanizing that you didn’t even want to give him the satisfaction of another reaction, returning his sharp grin with a blank stare. That seemed to only amuse him more, a laugh falling from his lips as he said, “Oh you’re fun, aren’t you?”

From this up close, you could see the ink lines traced all over his face. They gave him an even scarier disposition, but there was also something familiar about him. It was hard to tell what shade his hair truly was under the car’s dim interior lights, but flashes of streetlamps showed shades of dusty rose over a dark undercut. Either than that, everything about this man was new to you. You tried to think back if maybe he was a client of Hiromi’s in the past, but nothing came to light. He had a smaller stature than Toji but was far from frail. You could see the outlines of his veins beneath his skin from where the sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up. But before you could look at him any further, the car pulled up to the front of a tall gate. It seemed to border some kind of private property, and your anxiety only got worse as you watched the gates close behind you once the car drove past a group of security guards operating the gate.

When it finally came to a stop, it was within seconds that the door opened up beside you and you were greeted with the sight of an unfriendly face that belonged to what had to be another one of this guy's henchmen. Without a single word, he grabbed you roughly by your forearm and yanked you out of the car so hard that you nearly fell on your knees. He pulled you up before they could hit the ground, but you winced as a shooting pain went up your arm, his blunt nails digging into your flesh. You turned your head back to shoot him a look from over your shoulder, but just when you had, you felt the man’s hand slip away as a loud thud sound could be heard against the side of the car. Your eyes widened as you turned to see the tattooed man holding up the offender by the neck, his elbow digging into his jugular. The man gave desperate apologies through thick coughs, but that was all ignored as the other said, “Remind me when I said you could touch her?”

The man was incapable of responding, gargling getting progressively worse as his face turned bright red. Though you hadn’t appreciated what he’d done, you didn’t want anyone to get hurt because of you. Finally finding your voice, you were about to speak up when a large form stood between you and the two men, nearly obstructing your entire view.

“It’s nearly daybreak. We should get her inside.”

It was Toji, and though his back was turned to you, you got the sense that he was trying to diffuse the situation. Though you couldn’t see his face from where you were standing, the angry man loosened his grip just enough for the man’s feet to touch the ground again. Without ever taking his eyes off the man - who was now taking in gulps of precious air - he addressed Toji in a hauntingly apathetic tone, “You know where to take her.”

And with that, you were being escorted by your once friendly acquaintance towards a large building. You didn’t want to follow him per se, but you also didn’t want to be near this maniac any longer. It was still dark out, but even now you could tell that this place was massive. The bordering gates that surrounded the place were so long that they disappeared past your line of sight. Not knowing what was inside the house felt almost as intimidating as not knowing what lay outside. How big was this place exactly? Were all the fences spiked? Did your capture own all of it? These thoughts and more flooded your brain at lightning speed till they were interrupted by the sounds of fists meeting flesh.

It was all happening behind you, right where you and Toji had left the two men. You stopped in your tracks but a hand on your back guided you to move forward. Over and over the man’s coughs and pleas were cut short by the sound of connecting flesh. There was a crunching noise that sent a shiver up your spine, and you shut your eyes tightly as tears started to well in them. With Toji now a few steps ahead of you, you started to pick up your pace just to get away from the scene sooner. Once you were beside him, you almost ventured a look behind you, but he must’ve noticed your watery eyes and said with a straight face, “It’s better if you don’t look.”

Taking his advice, you silently plead for anything out there to stop what was happening. But the nightmare persisted till a loud, wet thud sound rang out before the sound of a weight falling to the ground could be heard. Grave silence followed, and you held back a sob as you reluctantly stepped inside the house.

[enderwoah]

on our way out

[or: tommy and eryn are lab experiments trying to escape the facility they were created in.]

warnings: major character death, electrocution

main characters: tommyinnit, eryn cyberonix

word count: 3.2k

time taken: idk like a day and some change

-

prey

/prā/

noun: prey

an animal that is hunted and killed by another for food.

a person or thing easily injured or taken advantage of.

It's the best word to describe them. It isn't the first word that you would consider when presented with sterile white walls and floors and lights that buzz overhead and hospital gowns that hardly cover much at all, but when you look just a little closer and see the two things running away from their creators (captors) you'll find that it is the only word that feels appropriate.

Tommy can't breathe. He's heard the creators say that it is one of his many defects—too-small lungs that don't hold enough air for him to run experiments for too long without getting short of breath. Not that that would stop any of them from making him do the tests anyways. They've always held little care for Tommy's complaints, or when he's breathless and wheezing too hard to complain.

His lungs are thoroughly contracted right now, but there's a warm hand pulling him forward and a certain type of desperation that rises every time his feet hit the ground that make adrenaline shoot through him and render the pain in his chest almost unnoticeable.

Almost. Eryn notices that he's wheezing, and despite their insistent, "Tom, Tom, we've gotta run—c'mon," he can't help it when he starts to slow down and let his grip slip due to pure overexertion. Eryn stops in their tracks the moment Tommy's hand fully slides out of theirs, turning around with a sharpness that makes Tommy flinch. Their expression immediately softens, looking terrified and stressed out of their mind but still offering the few sympathies they can afford in such a moment like this.

They glance back and forth, in front of and behind them, before tugging Tommy around a corner and sliding them both into an empty room, shutting the door and locking it behind them. It looks like an operating room—most of the rooms in this place are operating rooms. Tommy has probably bled across the table in the centre of the room at least a couple of times, but there's no way to be sure. He's honestly in awe that Eryn is managing to navigate it as well as they are.

Tommy takes the brief respite to lean on a wall and slide down, stretching his arms above his head to open his airways like the creators always tell him to do. Eryn keeps their back pressed against the door, whispering, "Are you okay?"

Tommy nods, the lack of movement allowing his panic and fear to catch up to him and make it even harder to breathe as his heart jackhammers in his chest. "I'm okay. I'm—shit."

The panic that flashes across Eryn's face immediately makes Tommy feel bad. "What? D'you hear something?"

"No, no, I just—" Tommy runs a hand through his hair. "Oh God. We're actually fucking doing this."

"Tom, you cannot freak out about this right now," Eryn warns, nails digging into the heavy door behind them and leaving indents. "We're leaving as soon as you can breathe, so just—clear your airways before I clear them for you."

"I wish they just left the inhalers around," Tommy mutters, rolling open a drawer and sifting through it. Syringes, papers, pens, thumbtacks, stray medication—no inhaler. "I mean, it'd be easier for all of us. They have to send someone out to get it whenever we're in a different room, it'd just—"

"Tom," Eryn snaps, and again, Tommy flinches. They sigh. "If you can breathe enough to talk, you can breathe enough to run."

Tommy bites back a 'that's not how it works,' mostly because it's getting difficult to breathe again, but he instead nods and closes the drawer as quietly as he possible can. Eryn breathes a deep sigh that makes their shoulders slump only a milimetre. "Okay, you know the route, I know the route, we just need to get as far as possible before they realise we're gone."

"If they realise we're gone," Tommy corrects. "We might be out before they even know we left."

Eryn fixes him with a look that's almost sympathetic before shaking their head. "Sure. Just..."

They trail off, listening and waiting. Tommy holds his breath, and when Eryn suddenly jerks their head to the side with a hissed, "Come on," and twists the doorknob open, Tommy follows them back into the hallway with silent footsteps. Or, not really silent. Not silent to him at all, really—he was made for more reconnaissance-type situations, so his senses are a lot better than most others'. This makes overstimulation a very, very prevalent issue, but unlike with his breathing, which could kill him, he's not allowed to complain about that to anyone but Eryn. His and Eryn's bare feet across the white tile sounds like a consistently dripping faucet, like the one they broke in the room next to Tommy and Eryn's to see how well his hearing really was and how consistent bothersome noises would affect him (the result: a lot. He had a breakdown sometime a few hours after it started, and Eryn attacked a scientist because of it, so they made their room soundproof).

He knows no-one else is able to hear it, though, so it's practically silent. Even when they start sprinting down a particularly long corridor, they keep their footsteps light and reach the end undetected.

They come up to the door to the stairwell they need to enter and Tommy immediately goes on the hyper-aware as Eryn starts to untangle something from his hair. The door needs either a retinal scan or a fingerprint scan to open, the second of which being that the both of them don't even have and the first being particularly unpleasant to get a hold of. They settled for a compromise.

Tommy instinctively makes a face at the finger that Eryn pulls out of their hair, despite him being present in the room when it was...taken. If Tommy wasn't so afraid of them, he'd probably be floored at how laughably stupid they can be, assuming that their super-soldier-type experiments don't pay as much attention to their surroundings as they do. Once they got the idea of escape in their minds, it was easy to ambush an employee just before they left the building and...deal with them. Easy for Eryn, at least. They're always better at those kinds of things.

Eryn presses the dismembered thumb to the scanner, and Tommy swears time stops for just a second as it's scanned up and down, once, twice, thrice.

It beeps twice in quick succession, and he hears the lock mechanism in the door shift and click open.

Eryn lets out such a heavy sigh, Tommy almost laughs. They push the door open, beckoning Tommy forwards as they both slip into the stairwell and Tommy is hit with a blast of chill that makes him shudder.

The door clicks shut behind them, and Tommy and Eryn are suddenly hit with the sound of wailing alarms bouncing off the echoing walls of the stairwell.

Eryn covers their ears and Tommy almost immediately drops to the floor, the sound coming off as earsplitting due to his heightened senses. It sounds like nails on a chalkboard, striking the back of his eyes with every ebb and wane of the noise, and he's sure that he would pass out if Eryn didn't also reach over to press their hands over his and pull him up off his feet. It only barely helps, but he can still clearly hear Eryn say, "Shit, shit, shit, shit, we've gotta go, we've gotta go now," over the noise and the muffling over his ears.

It's an awkward position, but Eryn will be damned before they leave Tommy behind, so they do their best to run down the stairs together, Tommy still twisting his eyes shut and trying not to slip off the edge of the stairs.

They make it down about two flights of stairs before Tommy hears the lock mechanism of a door very far down click open. He stops suddenly, then starts to pull against Eryn, wrenching out of their grip before moving to just hold their hand. His eyes fly open to see Eryn staring at him, and he tugs Eryn in the other direction. "We've got to go back. They're coming up, they're coming upstairs."

"Fuck, okay, c'mon," Eryn breathes, the panic in their eyes making Tommy's heart sink. "We can—we can go back. Let's just—"

They're close enough to hear the door at the very top open, too. They swear, loud, and start pulling Tommy down the stairs and says, "Okay, okay, we'll just go onto a random floor, this is fine."

Tommy isn't exactly sure if he expected the door to open when they reached it, but he definitely didn't expect it to administer a violent shock that makes even Eryn yelp, and Tommy can feel the traces of it through the contact of their skin. Tommy can still hear the footsteps pounding up and down the stairs, and the constant out-of-sync noise from all sides plus the sirens plus Eryn's constant swearing makes him dizzy. He can't even register what Eryn is saying anymore, he just feels them pulling and follows. They turn around sharply and he follows. They start running up the stairs then down the stairs and Tommy knows he's nothing but dead weight but he can't hear and he can't think, and then he registers the feeling of being shoved into a corner and comes back into focus.

The first thing he sees is white. He's always seeing white—their gowns are white, the walls are white (but not in the stairwell, funnily enough), the creators' coats are white, his own hair is white. He then sees black, then brown, and when the sirens suddenly stop and he can hear again, his eyes come into focus and he realises that Eryn is standing in front of him, one arm out to block him away from the near-dozen creators stood in front of them, circling them, as if they finally slipped up and are about to be devoured.

He feels like an ass, but Tommy's fingers curl up and dig into Eryn's gown as he starts to tremble. He can't see Eryn's face, but he can imagine their teeth are probably bared at the creators judging by their stance.

"Let us go," they say, their voice low. Tommy hears few of the creators scoff, and he wilts.

"You're very far from your room, E-4," one of them says dryly, the one in front. His voice is angry, thinly veiled with the smugness that came from catching and cornering the two of them in the act.

"My name is Eryn," Eryn snaps, moving his hand defending Tommy further back.

"Your name is no such bloody thing," the same creator seethes, taking a step forwards out of the crowd. Tommy lets out an terrified squeak as Eryn presses them both further into the corner and away from the man, who's started to yell at the top of his lungs. "You don't have a name. You killed the moron that gave you those fucking names, 'Tommy, Eryn,' you're ours and ours to name."

"Neither of us fucking belong to you," Eryn snarls. "We're leaving, and you're either going to let us go or—" They glance back at Tommy for just a split second. "Or we're going to go through you. Move."

The creator that was speaking straight up growls, rapidly approaching Eryn and grabbing them by the front of their gown. Tommy cries out their name, but there's only a split second that passes before Eryn grabs the man's arms and kicks him in the knee with a violent force. Tommy hears a crack, and the man screams and falls backwards, collapsing onto the ground. Eryn wastes no time in sending his foot down onto the same knee, rendering it useless as three more of the creators try and move Eryn away or grab them.

Tommy honestly can't take his eyes off of the spectacle before him, Eryn clawing through people, tearing fabric and skin alike and biting through flesh with their abnormally sharp teeth. They really don't stand a chance—Eryn was literally created to scrap with a bunch of people at once, and these spindly pale people in coats have nothing to stop them from wreaking all the havoc they and their tiny body can muster. Tommy notices two or three of the creators take a few steps back, shouting into their weird wristbands and making Tommy's heart drop.

"Eryn—Eryn, we need to go," Tommy says suddenly, still keeping himself away from the violent spectacle, wringing his hands to stop them grabbing out for his friend. "We need to leave now."

"I'd love to, Tom," Eryn hisses, throwing a creator to the ground so hard their skull goes concave. "Bit preoccupied, here."

"Yeah, okay, but they're getting the—"

The door to the floor they're stuck on swings open, and two more people in white coats file into the room, one of them holding something long and black that immediately makes both Eryn and Tommy scramble backwards and away from the crowd.

The one holding the thing barks out a laugh that makes Tommy's ears hurt, casting a look of disgust at the four or five unconscious or dead bodies on the ground, shaking his head and saying, "Jesus Christ. Two fucking brats start acting up and all you can do is watch them? Like a highschool fight in the lunchroom? You're all useless."

The voice makes every single one of Tommy's senses heighten and his body tense. He knows this one—the one that's responsible for about half the scars on Eryn's body, probably about three-quarters on Tommy's. Tommy doesn't know his name—neither of them are allowed to know the names of any of the creators—but the voice is enough. His footsteps approaching were enough. The man kicks away the person who's head got caved in by Eryn, striding up to the two of them without a care in the world and squatting down to their height. Eryn's hand finds Tommy as their entire body weight is pushed up against the wall, and Tommy can see his friend's gaze defiantly meeting the man's.

He chuckles, as if Eryn told a particularly funny joke, and then turns to Tommy, who seizes up. He tips Tommy's chin up with his freezing cold finger, meeting his blue eyes with Tommy's black ones. "T-9," he says, an air of disappointment to his tone. "You of all things would really go along with this?"

Tommy holds back a squeak unsuccessfully. There's a beat, Tommy maintaining eye contact as he starts to tremble before Eryn swats away the creator's hand with a weak, "D-Don't touch him."

He laughs again, standing up and reminding both boys, quite suddenly, of the device in his hands. He uses it to tip up Eryn's head, too, but instead of how they reacted before, Eryn freezes. "Did you two really think this would work? Did you think we don't monitor who goes in and out of here every day? Who suddenly, inexplicably doesn't check out one day only to do so the day after after not checking in?" He scoffs. "Goddamn moron. You're both evil little creatures, you know? I think that may have been the only one of us that really liked you."

Eryn and Tommy stay dead silent, Eryn slowly starting to shake due to prolonged contact with the weapon pressed against their skin. The man continues, "And, I mean, what did you expect to happen after you got out? We're you trying to model after the other one? T-2, X-1, G-3, whatever you want to call him? Wanted by the world, constantly being hunted down by us?"

In a sudden burst of confidence and fear and he needs to get that thing off of Eryn, Tommy chokes out, "'S better out there than in here."

The creator's eyebrows suddenly shoot up. The weapon moves to press against Tommy's throat, and the phantom pains of what it feels like and the sudden restricting of his breathing makes tears prick at his eyes, but he swears to whatever sick god that's allowing him to exist, he's not going to beg.

Eryn suddenly lunges at the man in front of them, claws out and scratching through the man's upper forearm and making him screech in pain with a shouted, "I said don't touch him!"

They go in for another swing, but the creator wastes no time in jutting the device into their sternum and activating it. Tommy hears the crackling, buzzing noise better than anyone, and he watches in horror as Eryn's entire body seizes up at once, overrun by violent waves of electricity conducting itself in their synthetic blood, and the noise that comes out of Tommy's mouth is inhuman because the man doesn't remove the weapon, pushing it further and further and further into Eryn's body as they sink to the floor. Tommy's eyes bounce back and forth between the man's nigh feral expression, gritted teeth, blood running down his arm and staining his coat and the way Eryn starts to choke as their eyes roll back in their head and Tommy can smell the burning of flesh, but the man still does not let up.

Only when Eryn is fully on the floor does he detach himself from the experiment, gripping his arms and swearing, "Disgusting fucking—"

He looks up to see the other scientists staring at him—most in horror, some in confusion, and he points back at the kid and almost roars, "It was a fucking faliure, do you hear me? I don't give two flying fucks if it was the most stable, a success wouldn't try to fucking escape. Now—now someone take T-9 back and—Jesus, someone get me a fucking first aid kit."

Tommy does not remember falling to his knees. He can still hear Eryn's skin and the fabric of their gown sizzling where the weapon was pushed into them, and he pulls his friend into his lap and shakes them. There are tears in his eyes (Tommy, for some reason, distantly remembers one of the creators saying that they would work on making sure the next rendition of him couldn't cry) as he gently shakes Eryn by the shoulder.

"Eryn?" he chokes. "Eryn? Eryn, fuck, no—"

Tommy wants to say that they had been close, but they hadn't. They hadn't even made it past the halfway point, and one of them was dead. The weight of how futile Eryn's death was makes Tommy's throat close with more tears, and he breaks into sobs when he's yanked up by his upper arm and Eryn slips out of his lap and their head knocks unceremoniously against the concrete floor.

He doesn't resist being taken back to his room.

-

this fic is part of a series for whumptober 2k22. the prompts used in this were [caged], [cornered], and [confronted]. hope you enjoyed!

[lexpressobean]

Thoughts on Kikaichu as actual Parasites.

Knowing how skin and the body generally works on a medical level, the "hive" aspect of the Aburame clan really drives me crazy. 'Cause parasites are real, obviously, but the size of Kikaichu beetles makes absolutely no sense in comparison to irl skin parasites. At least not in a bee hive sort of way lol

rambling because my mind craves logic and I'm specializing as a wound care nurse but it's literally anime so what do I expect lol

No, wounds don't freak me out, I'm more terrified of generally handling vomit and babies than I am a dehiscence of a 15cm long surgical site lol. The human body can literally take so much abuse before it really starts to give and try to alert you that you need help! And once you give it help, it really can come full circle to the wound 100% looking like it was never there. The body is an amazing thing <3

However the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the word "parasite" is always going to be "tapeworm". That's not gonna change. However, kikaichu are not worms and CERTAINLY don't grow that fucking huge or live that long. (A tape worm can live long enough to graduate with a fucking PhD. Can you believe?) I haven't been exposed to any urgent situations involving parasites yet, however, the one I would compare a Kikaichu to that is (unfortunately) also common is the scabies mite.

Very briefly, scabies mites (Sarcoptes scabiei) are technically a type of arachnid that grow no bigger than a bout 0.5mm in size, but CAN be seen with the naked eye if you're looking for them. They crawl around the skin and burrow specifically in the top layer of skin, called the epidermis. The epidermis is that protective layer of skin and can be between 0.5mm to 1.5mm thick depending on which part of the body you're looking at. After the epidermis, you have the dermal layer, which is where sweat glands, nerves, and capillaries are found. Scabie mites will not burrow that deep because they only burrow to lay their eggs and such. As they do this they can cause visible tunnels and other marks that can be mistaken for acne or other skin conditions if not properly identified. You'll most likely know because the itch is VERY BAD.

They're very easily spread by close contact and a scabies infestation needs to be treated with a prescribed pharmacological means.

However, kikaichu are definitely a lot bigger than 0.5mm. In the case of size, I would compare them at minimum to fruitflies/medflies, which grow up to 3-5mm and maximum to ladybugs 4-7mm.

3-7mm > 0.5-1.5mm... obviously. And the holes which Kikaichu swarm out of that the audience has seen before are about a size comparable Shino's nostrils, IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!!

You're telling me those things were in his mouth?????????? S H I N O N O

That would mean, in realistic terms, the Kikaichu are fucking around in Shino's body to the bone and muscles and THAT'S A REALLY SCARY THOUGHT. Even just passing the epidermis to the dermis is alarming! Compared to the dry, protective epidermis that can and does take damage, the dermis can be 1-4mm thick depending on where you're looking and is where skin does it's business. All together that becomes 0.5-5.5mm of space BARELY big enough for a fruit fly do mess around in. It makes just enough sense in terms of THAT size, but last time I checked, having the skin penetrated to the dermal layer is just asking for infection to happen. You're first natural line of defense has been breeched, there's a pretty good chance you're gonna be bleeding (blood vessels) and general body fluids are going to be draining, which is bad for a multitude of reasons, and there's damage that gonna affect the nerves, and realistically this shit is going to be ABSOLUTELY painful if they're constantly manipulating those areas near nerves. These kinda of things CAN make new connections and things like that, sometimes damage is forever. (Case by case basis).

So my first thought to more or less "magically" solve the problem with anime logic, is that first of all, it's an anime and logic doesn't have to apply haha.

On a more sci-fi level, in which kikaichu are smaller than we've seen them shown, maybe they have been purposefully been allowed to burrow into the dermal layer of the skin at least because the blood vessels seem to be in direct contact with the chakra system. Kikaichu's prefered food is chakra, but they WILL mutiny and eat their respective Aburame from the inside out if they don't balance their chakra smartly. So it's safe to say Kikaichu are at least carnivorous as well, and so I only imagine these absolute nightmares would swarm their prey in the wild, and actively bite through and burrow into the body of the prey until they found the chakra system and went to town on that poor unfortunate soul. Eaten alive, how the hell did they "tame" them in the first friggin' place??

I like to think two things:

1) Kikaichu are passed down from parent to child, and the parent has control over the Kikaichu until they have been RIGOROUSLY trained for generations to comprehend that this baby/child isn't food, it's a new hive. If bees can comprehend time, Kikaichu can comprehend what an Aburame is. If they insist on trying to drain the babe or the babe just can't tolerate them, the parent takes the Kikaichu back and the babe is assigned another insect or position in general. Like hell they're gonna try to force a relationship like that.

2) As part of the successful symbiotic relationship, Kikaichu regularly debride the tunnels and borrows that they carve into their respective Aburame, and are naturally intuitive in avoiding as many nerves and blood vessels as possible. The chance of infection is never 0%, however, kikaichu are pretty good about taking care of their tunnels, and so it gives the Aburame more time to focus on their things, like increasing the amount if chakra in their system. To ensure that they stay healthy, Aburame are encouraged to eat as much protein and Vit C possible every day, whether it be meat, beans, lentils, eggs, oranges, tomatoes, or even supplements as times modernize. The dermis is living tissue and as long as debridement/tunneling is going on, it needs to be nourished as much as possible.

I don't know how the hell Aburame deal with the obvious drainage that would be coming from their bodies, assuming the dermal layer really is free game for the Kikaichu. But the magical solution is that... they don't? Because... drainage is minimal. The Kikaichu just do such a good job lol. Maybe they purposefully... carve entrances to be flappy, or they purposefully create pocket spaces underneath seemingly healed areas of skin to easily burst open when necessary. That's the biggest thing for me, leaking body fluids. There's no way around that shit besides straight up denial lol Maybe they wear a special kind of dressing underneath their clothes, or that's directly applied with their clothes. Maybe that's what that cute little backpack is filled with, who knows!!

Idk man. I'm sure the Aburame authority forces encourages many of their non-hive members to pursue medical nin training in order to give the clan more privacy in general too. All medics that claim the Aburame name are exclusively used by the Aburame Clan. A non-Aburame medic may end up healing tunnels and burrows that were meant to stay open because "oops" and now you have an X amount of insects possibly suffocating within a completely sealed pocket of the skin, and also now there's a very good chance that after those insects die, that whole area is gonna frickin' abscess and cause infection induced tunnels the longer it's left alone and GROSS THAT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! THERE IS A DELICATE, ORGANIZED, SELF-SUFFICENT PROCESS TO ALL THIS!! A PROCESS!!!

Like... the other ninja in the NartVerse can make as many jokes, jabs, and comments about the Aburame as they please (INO? BITCH??? but to be honest I still love her lol). But these MFers are constantly playing Russian Roulette with these high maintenance demon spawn from hell, and there are VERY little defences against Kikaichu, virtually none. Like the only thing I've ever seen actively thwart Kikaichu across all media is killing them with mass fire, countering them with large amounts of poison gas (both very exterminator like) or literally just feeding them chakra until they're so stupid full, they can't move, the little gluttons. As far as genjutsu, it's been stated that it's both effective and ineffective, so idk about that. But the Aburame are just SO set up to be the living breathing embodiment of Shinobi as defined by the NartVerse. They're whole clan culture relies on the threat of enemies. If they have no enemies, the whole relationship is an exhausting endeavor for literally no reason. It's not worth it if there's no one to fight or protect! But when there is a threat, you want them on YOUR side.

I suppose the best bet is to incapacitate the Aburame individual asap and the Kikaichu will tend the individual, making escape easier. But, if you DID manage to kill that Aburame right away, that particular Aburame's swarm is now suddenly without its food source and without restraint.

What do you THINK is gonna happen, bro?? The second an Aburame loses their grip on their consciousness due to external influences, the bugs go bonkers because I'm pretty sure Kikaichu are simply persuaded to be in this relationship and have NO tolerance for bullshit like alcohol and overheating temps. If their Aburame dies, they probably cause just as much chaos as they would as a wild, unattended swarm. Then YOU BETTER HAVE fire or poison gas or SOMETHING handy. The only way to calm them down is to offer them chakra and a new host with equal or even more chakra reserves. Otherwise the mutineers must be eradicated.

And for serious... Like, any deeper and the kikaichu would be in the hypodermal/subcutaneous layer of the skin and that's where a lot of connective tissue is located. Let's NOT mess with that shit, shall we? NOT a good idea. It's called connective tissue for a reason first and foremost...