#man in the wall is also just... hanging out above the sanctum | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

basically-rainbow-aus · 4 years ago

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@youngjusticeharleyquinn replied to your post: expand on what RMEN and friends go through in accordance with the plot”

Okay *cracks knuckles* let’s do this!

VOLUME 1

Roman stops an armed robbery conducted by Ruby Rose

Ruby gets away with the assistance of a mysterious blonde man who uses amplified golden Aura as a weapon against Roman

Luckily Adrian drops in and saves him

Adrian takes Roman to an interrogation room and, after berating him for recklessness, introduces him to Professor Salem of Beacon (who gives Roman pumpkin tarts instead of cookies)

Salem comments about the oddly pigmented nature of Roman’s veins, particularly around his covered eye and neck

Roman reveals he attends Signal, is training to be a Huntsman like his older brother and parents, was taken under the wing of his Aunt Coco and aims to go to Beacon at age 17

Salem offers him a spot with the incoming Beacon freshmen, and he accepts

Mercury is overjoyed at this and says Roman is gonna be the “cat’s pajamas” (even though Roman just wants to be a normal boy with normal pajamas)

The airship carrying them to Beacon lands and Cinder runs off to immediately drop-and-roll, as her shoulders are on fire from her Semblance

Roman fanboys about how much Lien the weapons he sees are worth until Mercury reels his brother in and promptly abandons him

Dizzy and confused, Roman collapses into the luggage of one Neo Politan, who proceeds to berate him via a projected screen of text she is typing on her Scroll

Neither of them notice that Roman has dropped his shotgun cane until Neo steps back and accidentally fires off a shot, which affects the Dust being shaken in Roman’s face and triggers a chain reaction of ice, fire, lightning, etc.

Emerald approaches as Neo continues non-verbally criticising Roman and says Neo is the heiress of the Ironwood Dust Company

Neo storms off after accusation against the company are made, and with Emerald leaving too, Roman is left alone to slump on the floor

Cinder approaches from beside him and helps him up while introducing herself

As they walk, Cinder explains she has trouble controlling her Semblance due to its different nature from anything else in her “family”

They compare weapons (with Roman saying that Cinder’s bow is a classic and could cost a pretty penny to the right buyer) until they realise they have no idea where they’re going

They reach the auditorium and Roman runs off to be with Mercury, leaving Cinder alone to wander off (revealing Hazel behind him)

Roman tells Mercury about the incident with Neo until said girl pops up behind him, scaring him with an air horn effect from her Scroll

She shows him an article that moves too fast for him to read so she gives him a pamphlet to read about Dust

Salem steps up to a microphone and gives a short speech about the students’ new duties as training-Hunters

Adrian then steps up and guides the students toward the ballroom to sleep

At the group sleepover, Mercury teases Roman about writing back to the gang at Signal and Roman contemplates how he only has Cinder as a friend so far

Emerald lights a candle nearby, prompting Mercury to drag Roman over to formally introduce them to her

Mercury compliments her gloves and Roman bonds with Emerald over the book she’s reading until Neo storms over and smacks Roman with a foldable fan to communicate she wants the group to shut up for the night

The next morning, Watts is awoken by his childhood friend Tyrian

Tyrian proceeds to talk all throughout breakfast, teeth-brushing and sleeping bag-packing until they reach the locker room and Tyrian asks if Watts can imitate a sloth, to which Watts says “I don’t think sloths of all creatures make a whole lot of noise”

Mercury and Roman watch as Tyrian and Watts leave the lockers

Roman is extremely chipper because he doesn’t have to talk to anyone anymore — instead he can let his cane shoot and kill

Mercury says he needs people to grow up and when asked if he can be on his brother’s team, Mercury distracts himself away from the topic by playing with his hair

Cinder passes by trying to find her locker

Neo and Hazel are having a conversation about team formation (though it’s partially non-verbal on Neo’s part) but Neo’s scheme is interrupted by Cinder trying to flirt her way onto Neo’s team

When Hazel mentions the teams being of four, Cinder tries to flirt with him too until she is shot down by Neo bringing up Hazel’s fame (graduating from Sanctum, winning Mistral Regional Tournaments three years in a row)

Hazel quickly compliments that he would be honoured to have Cinder as a teammate

Neo proceeds to spear Cinder to a wall by her hair with Hush while Adrian instructs first years to proceed to the cliffs for initiation

At the cliffs Salem announces that not only will the students get their teammates today, they will also be partnered up with the first person they make eye contact with while on the hunt for relics in the Emerald Forest

The students are then thrown off the cliff one at a time (Cinder being launched without a landing strategy)

Each of the students land in a unique way

Roman fires off a few shots to slow himself down before catching a tree branch and using the leverage to descend at his own rate

Neo opens the canopy on her parasol and uses a Nevermore illusion as a platform to let her jump and float to the ground like Mary Poppins

Watts uses the Earth Dust inside his Dust-infused electric cables (named Voltage) to form stone blades so he can spiral around a large tree trunk to the ground

Mercury’s gunshots from his boots are propelling him further north, grinning and laughing all the while, until he crashes into the trees and bounces off two branches to tumble to the ground

Hazel (with a crystal Dust spear in one hand and two smaller fire Dust crystals stabbed into his other arm) rolls into a branch before looking at Cinder and rocketing his Dust spear towards her

This firm sticks Cinder to a tree

Roman runs through the Forest evaluating his choices for partners, seeing himself with Cinder and Emerald before he crashes right into Neo

Neo turns and walks away, but when she comes across Cinder hanging by her glove pinned to a tree with a Dust crystal spear, she turns back and hauls Roman over her shoulder to confirm him as her partner

Hazel soon approaches and asks if Cinder still has any spots open on her team

Roman and Neo have a brief conversation that eventually dissolves into Roman saying he’s not a people person, but he’s a monster person before disappearing

When he runs off into the forest, Neo tries to find him, but finds large Beowolves instead

Elsewhere, Mercury is walking around, not seeing a shadow zoom past him, and peaks into the bushes to see if his brother is there

Instead he finds two Ursai

He leaps over the second and the first gets knocked back with a fiery kick, so Mercury charges the second from the underneath and kicks it several times before punching it to send it back

The second Ursa swings are him, creating a small cut on his cheek through his Aura

The sight of his own blood infuriates Mercury and triggers his “adrenaline junkie mode” dilating his eyes to pinpricks and fuelling him with rage

He unleashes a barrage of devastating kicks onto the Ursa, effectively killing it

The other Ursa tries to attack too, but it is killer swiftly by Emerald’s sickle revolvers as she makes eye contact with Mercury

Back with Neo, she has become surrounded by a Beowolf pack as she raises her extended blade on the parasol and dashes forward

Roman suddenly appears and lands a fiery hit on the Beowolf Neo is aiming for, forcing her to reroute and accidentally cut down a tree which causes a chain reaction and takes out the whole clearing

He’s knocked back into his partner and the two stand back to back for a moment before a tree collapses near Roman, so Neo leads him out as the avalanche kills the Beowolves

Neo and Roman argue about their coordination in a fight (with Neo still using her Scroll to speak for her) until Neo storms off and Roman blasts down another tree, which serves as a landing platform for a giant black feather

Hazel and Cinder are making their way through the forest until Hazel accidentally causes a branch to smack into Cinder’s face, cutting her cheek

When it is revealed that Cinder doesn’t know what Aura is despite having her Semblance, Hazel explains

Meanwhile, Watts finds trouble in the form of a King Taijutu

It surrounds him before attacking with long fangs, Watts leaping away before being hit with the monster’s snout and being encircled again

Watts destroys the stone blades on his cables to instead release arcs of fire before kicking it and shocking it with electricity

The white head charges him but he jumps over the black head and sends arcs of fire and electricity towards the black head

He is then struck by the white head and loses his cables, leaving him to only raise his arms in defence

Cinder compares Aura to a forcefield

Watts struggles against the white head, holding it back by its fangs, until he rips them out and stabs a fang into the creature’s eye, driving the new weapon into its skull

He then attacks the black head

Hazel releases Cinder’s Aura with his own, tiring him somewhat and revealing Cinder has a lot of Aura

Watts has successfully killed the King Taijutu when he hears a strange noise from above

It’s Tyrian, who swings upside from the tree beside Watts and when told that that’s not the sound a sloth makes, taps Watts on the nose with a small “zap”

Back at the cliffs Adrian comments on the partnerships that have been formed

He also that he doesn’t think Cinder’s ready for team cooperation and asks what Salem used as relics this year

Salem is silently watching footage of Neo and Roman, the former repeating turning and walking only to retcon herself seconds later

Roman angrily asks why she won’t admit they’re lost, and when he doesn’t get a clear response he calls her a “tiny dumb jerk”

Neo uses Remnant Sign Language to try and get him to follow her again, but he loudly exclaims he doesn’t understand it

They argue again and Neo storms off

Mercury and Emerald arrives at the temple holding the relics, which turn out to be multicoloured pocketwatches

Cinder and Hazel arrive at a cave that they enter (Cinder lighting the way with her Semblance) until Cinder trips and the light goes out

Mercury picks up a silver watch with a horse carving for himself and Emerald and the two smile at each other

Cinder finds a large glowing point of gold in the dark that she mistakenly addresses as a relic when it is really the stinger of a giant Death Stalker

Hazel rushes out of the cave with the Death Stalker hot on his heels, Cinder still on the stinger

She eventually gets thrown off, screaming, and Hazel runs away from the attacking Grimm

Emerald has her eyes trained on the sky, from which Roman is falling

Cut to Roman and Neo clinging to a giant Nevermore

Neo repeatedly creates temporary Signs with her words on them to talk to Roman about how stupid this all is

Roman jumps, hurtling toward the ground towards his brother and Emerald, but is intercepted by Cinder crashing into him from the side, sending them both into a tree

An Ursa then comes roaring out of the bushes but collapses very soon, revealing Tyrian to have been riding on its back

He observes the carcass as Watts comes running up beside it and tells Tyrian never to run off again, only for Tyrian to run off

Tyrian claims a golden pocketwatch with a castle engraved into the back before Watts calls him back

Surprised keep coming when Hazel crashes in with the Death Stalker still on his tail

Roman reunites with Mercury briefly

Mercury very quickly becomes angered by everything that’s happening and only gets two second to chill out before Roman points out that Neo’s still hanging from the Nevermore

Emerald says she’ll fall, which she does, so Cinder jumps up and catches her before they both hurtle to the ground, Neo using Cinder as a landing pad

Hazel lands in a heap before everyone else

Roman dashes forward to fight the Death Stalker, but he’s knocked back by its claws and has to run back to the group, not making it far when the Nevermore sends down sharp feathers and pins Roman in place by his coat

Neo races forward and puts up a thin surface of ice to shield herself and Roman

She continually summons Signs to talk to him easier, in which she says that while he’s an idiot, she’s been more than difficult to deal with, so she’ll try harder to be better if he stops being a “dum-dum”

Roman mumbles to himself about normal pajamas

The Nevermore starts to circle back and the Death Stalker starts to break from the ice, so Roman decrees they all make a break for the cliffs with their relics

He grabs a horse-printed watch for himself and Neo, and Cinder grabs a castle-printed one for her and Hazel

The group heads into another series of ruined structures, spreading out when the Nevermore approaches above and perched on a tall column

The Death Stalker soon arrives, forcing the group to run while Tyrian distracts it by firing emblem-topped shells at the Nevermore, exploding into bursts of purple smoke and forcing it to retreat

Emerald and Watts perform a cross slash against the shell of the approaching Death Stalker and are chased while Neo grabs Tyrian and creates a weak trampoline illusion for them to jump off

Hazel stans more red crystals into his arm and sends out explosive blasts from his hands alongside Watts’ cables until the Grimm reaches them and swipes, provoking the students to sprint for the bridge

The Nevermore’s feathers shatter the path right in the middle, splitting the group into 5 and 3 (Roman, Neo, Mercury, Cinder and Tyrian near the centre) (Watts, Emerald and Hazel on the other side)

Emerald is knocked back by the scorpion, so Tyrian extends his wrist blades and slams them into the ground to slingshot Cinder over to the other side before replicating the result on himself, allowing him to slam the blades right into the centre of the Death Stalker’s skull

He fires too and blasts back to avoid the stinger, accidentally knocking over Emerald, who launches her chain so her blade sinks into the bridge and swings up onto the Nevermore so she can slash along its wings before jumping down to join Neo, Roman and Mercury

The new team of four in the centre fires a barrage at the approaching Nevermore until it crashes, forcing them up higher

Roman sets out a plan and starts firing as Neo covers him with her parasol

Back with the other half of the eight, Hazel punches the Death Stalker after deflecting its claw with his foot and Cinder blocks the other pincer with her bow, firing at it for a split-second so Hazel can attack its face

Watts manages to get onto the stinger and shocks it with his cables as Tyrian fires more shells

Watts is soon thrown from the tail when Hazel punches the Grimm in its eyes explosively, him not getting up

Cinder notices the new hanging nature of the stinger and calls for Hazel, who rips out his red crystals and hurls then like darts to cut down the stinger and stab it through the Grimm’s head

Tyrian jumps onto Hazel’s shoulders and aims his blast down as he jumps, twirling in the air and coming down heavy and hard on the stinger, killing the Death Stalker and crushing the bridge underneath

They manage to all land safely save for Watts, who collapses soon after

Mercury’s still burning all his ammo on the Nevermore, and when it charges him, he leaps into its mouth and forces it open as he serves up kicks and shots down its throat

The monster crashes into the cliffs as soon as he jumps out, and Neo appears to freeze the tip of its tail feathers with the ice canister of Dust in her parasol, leaving the Nevermore stuck no matter its flapping

Emerald throws half of Thief’s Respite to Mercury so the two can tighten the chains between two columns in order to make a slingshot before Roman jumps into the centre with his cane charged up and Neo pulling the chains back with her parasol

The ground cracks when he’s launched, gunpowder flying in his wake, and he catches the Nevermore around the neck with his cane’s handle while Neo creates rock-climbing grips up the cliff-face (which Roman reaches by firing off shots from his cane)

Roman reaches the top of the cliff, fires off one supercharged shot and kills the Nevermore via decapitation

In the assembly hall at Beacon, teams are being announced after initiation

Arslan, Bolin, Reese and Nadir form Team ARBN (Auburn)

Watts, Tyrian, Cinder and Hazel form Team WTCH (Witch)

Roman, Mercury, Emerald and Neo form RMEN (Ramen)

That night, Ruby meets with a white masked man after an angry Scroll conversation, gives him a stack of Lien and opens a case of Dust

The next morning, Neo is rudely awakened by Roman blowing a whistle in her ears

Mercury announces that they need to decorate and unpack with Emerald adding that cleaning would also help

When they’re done unpacking and organising, they find they have no room for the beds, so instead they make bunk beds (majority vote, sorry Neo)

Roman’s bunk is hung from ropes above Neo’s, and Mercury’s is balanced atop Emerald’s many stacks of books on her bedposts

Neo then realised they’re gonna be late and drags her team out to join WTCH in their frantic race to class

Professor Terra Cotta-Arc begins a lengthy speech about being Huntsmen and Huntresses

(Mercury and Emerald are paying attention, Neo takes notes, Roman distracts himself by tapping out a rhythm)

Terra starts talking about her years as a young Huntress as Roman shows Neo a crude drawing labelled “Professor Terror” that Mercury and Emerald laugh at

Neo, angered by Roman’s repeated antics, sticks her hand up when Terra asks who believes that they possess the true qualities of a Hunter, only to be surprised when Terra brings out a cage with a Boarbatusk

The rest of RMEN cheer on their teammate, but Roman is the only one who is told to shut up

Neo deflects the Boarbatusk with her canopy and rolls as the Grimm studies her, only for Roman and Terra to be unhelpfully loud

Her parasol then gets caught in the tusks of the beast, being thrown away along with Neo after she takes a split second to glare at Roman for his once more unhelpful comments

Neo rolls away to avoid being crushed and reclaims Hush before Roman calls for her to piece the stomach, to which she creates a Sign telling him to stop begging for attention

She ends up killing the Grimm and Terra congratulates her as she dismisses the class

As Neo storms off after class, Roman catches up and asks what’s wrong

Neo turns the question back on him bitterly and calls him an attention seeker, Roman looking disheartened after what she said back in the Forest, before she says Salem made a mistake and she deserves better than him

As if summoned, Salem appears beside Roman

Neo finds Terra on a balcony on top of the building, the latter noticing something troubling her student to which Neo confesses she doesn’t think Roman should be RMEN’s leader

Terra says that’s ridiculous

Salem confesses to Roman that among her hundreds and thousands of mistakes, she does not believe him to be one of them

Terra continues on with Neo, saying that she trusts Salem’s decisions without hesitation

She also says that in Neo she sees a girl who got nothing in return for everything for seven or eight years, and then suddenly she could get anything she could want with the snap of a finger (Neo crosses her arms and looks to her shoes at this)

Terra recommends Neo home her techniques, perfect her skills, and be the best person she can be in her position just like when she was younger

When Neo returns to the dorm room that night, she finds Roman with papers scattered across his bunk and a pencil in his hand and a RSL website open on his Scroll

Momentarily shocked by the consideration towards her, Neo shakes Roman awake and makes him another coffee

She moves to leave, throwing an offhanded comment that it took years for her caretaker to learn RSL just for her, before she says she’s always wanted bunk beds

Another day, Cinder is going toe to toe against Arslan Atlan, with Arslan winning by a large majority

Adrian stops the match when Cinder’s Aura drops low enough, stating that it means that in a tournament, she would be eliminated

Adrian also comments to the crowd of students to learn of gauging one’s Aura without referring to a Scroll

The Vytal Festival is then announced to be coming up this year, with the majority of RMEN excitedly eager to participate in a few months

Class is dismissed and everyone heads for the cafeteria, where Tyrian tells a story about him and Watts fighting and killing Ursai (Beowolves) to make some Lien (Watts reveals this is a dream)

Cinder is oddly despondent and Hazel asks if she’s alright before the eight of them notice Team ABRN picking on Summer Bloom, a wolf Faunus with red-tipped ears jutting from her hair

Hazel states that Arslan’s been picking on Cinder since the first week of school, and proceeds to list off the many times that Cinder denies she’s been bullied

Tyrian suggests they break Arslan’s legs

The laughing of ABRN gets louder as Arslan tugs on Summer’s eats and pokes around at her sharp teeth before she pulls up her hood and scampers away back to her team

Hazel expresses his disgust about the racist act against Summer, and Emerald echoes his views

Cinder leaves without noticing Arslan watching her

Later on Professor Saphron Cotta-Arc zooms around the room while giving a hyperactive lecture about the Faunus Civil Rights history

When she asks if anyone has been discriminated against for their Faunus heritage, Summer is among those who raised their hands

Saphron carries on, and when she asks the advantage the Faunus had during one of the War’s battles, Cinder incorrectly answers “binoculars” despite Hazel’s cues for night vision

Arslan also answers incorrectly by saying animals are easier to train before Hazel gives the right answer and Emerald adds on that the general leading the humans was inexperienced and captured soon after

Saphron keeps Cinder and Arslan back after class to give them further assignments and a lecture about repeating history

When Cinder emerges from class and is pushed by her tormentor, Hazel offers to actually break her legs and then drags Cinder up to the roof

It’s here that Hazel, with the best intentions in mind, offers to help train Cinder so she can be more capable with not only her Aura but also her weapons, which Cinder takes as Hazel seeing her as weak

Cinder also admits that she faked control of her Semblance by using experimental fire Dust just so she could get into Beacon, when really she has no control at all

After Cinder yells that she needs to do this on her own, Hazel leaves glumly, and Arslan climbs up onto the roof after hearing Cinder’s truths

Arslan proceeds to blackmail Cinder into doing her bidding, including those readings Saphron gave them

Another day, Tyrian and Watts ponder over the recent disappearing acts their teammate had committed to, only for Hazel to firmly say that he’s sure Cinder knows exactly what she’s doing with Arslan

Cinder is actually outside the dorm listening in on the conversation when Roman comes out of his dorm and sits beside her to talk, a talk that quickly escalates into Cinder calling herself a failure and Roman saying she can’t afford to be a failure because now she has a team and friends to look after

Once Roman leaves, she gets a call from Arslan asking if Cinder can round up some Rapier Wasps that are really important for their next field trip

Said field trip takes RMEN, WTCH and ABRN into Forever Fall, led by Adrian, to collect sap, wherein Cinder seems to be carrying all the equipment in the back

Cinder tries to sneak back to her teammates but Arslan snatches her up and forces her into collecting six full jars of red sap from the trees, and when Arslan brings up the sixth jar to an exhausted Cinder, she reveals they are going to throw it at Hazel and then release the Rapier Wasps

To further worsen the morality of the scheme, Arslan reveals that she’s letting Cinder throw the sap

Cinder, however, refuses and shatters the jar against Arslan instead, angering the rest of ABRN who grab her and start to dish out punches and kicks

She gets pushed to the feet of a looming Arslan and then punched

Cinder is willing to put up with beating if it protects her teammates and Arslan tries to punch her again, but Cinder’s Aura triggers a bright flash of light that burns Arslan and heals Cinder

Arslan is about to get back to beating her, but an Ursa suddenly approaches from within the forest (attracted to the sap now on Arslan’s robe) as her teammates run away heroically

The other students hear the Ursa’s roar and when BRN comes running out of the trees, Mercury grabs Reese and all she says is that “it’s got Arslan!”

Hazel is much more concerned about Cinder, so Roman tells Mercury and Emerald to go find Adrian while he, Hazel and Neo go find Cinder and Arslan

Arslan tries to get away from the Grimm as Hazel, Roman and Neo arrive on the scene, but the Ursa swipes and is only blocked by Cinder’s bow

As Cinder fights the Ursa, Hazel holds Neo back from interferring, so Cinder proceeds to fire arrows into its stomach before rolling out of the way of a strike

She is unprepared for the next attack though, wherein she is almost hit while performing a leap attack, so the arrow goes askew while her back shimmer orange to signal her Aura is super low

The lost arrow is headed straight for a shocked Roman, but it’s blocked when Hazel stretches out his hand and pale energy gathers around it as the arrow stabs into his palm

Cinder lifts her bow and blocks another swipe before aiming up and firing right through the Ursa’s neck, decapitating it

Roman and Neo are shocked at the fact that Hazel took the arrow in the arm without any pain and he explains that his Semblance is numbing any sense of pain (which Roman momentarily misinterprets until Neo explains in RSL)

Hazel also tells them not to tell anyone else about his Semblance or that Cinder “hurt” him

Cinder, bruised and beaten, starts to collect up her arrows and then pulls up Arslan, pulling her in and instructing her to never mess with her team or her friends ever again

That night, atop the Beacon dorm roof, where Cinder apologises to Hazel and asks if that offer for training is still on the table

Hazel playfully pushes her and tells her her stance is off

It’s another day again, and RMEN is heading to the docks as per request of Neo to “welcome the new competition” from the other kingdoms

Roman gets distracted by the robbery that appears to have taken place at the Dust shop he defended at the beginning of the series, and the detectives have their suspicions of the White Fang being involved again

Neo huffs and puffs over the mention of the White Fang, calling them degenerates until Emerald calls her out on it, saying that it doesn’t make sense for the White Fang to rob a midtown Dust shop

Roman adds on that it could’ve been Ruby Rose

The conversation derails when a dock-worker calls for people to stop a Faunus - Neon Katt

Neon leaps off the ship she stowed away on with a turkey leg, which she eats while balanced on a lamppost before tossing the bone at the dock-worker’s head

As Neon runs away, she goes into slo-mo mode and winks at Emerald before being pursued by RMEN

Neo crashes into a boy and loses the chase, much to her dismay, before getting up from atop the boy she knocked down - Oscar

Oscar introduces himself with immeasurable enthusiasm despite his awkwardness with words (though he manages to shock Neo with his understanding of her RSL introduction)

Roman calls Oscar “friend” as he walks away with the rest of RMEN, who almost begin to argue over Neon, until Oscar appears back in front of the group and makes his way to Roman, getting super close and asking if they’re really friends

Roman awkwardly agrees

It turns out that Oscar is here to compete in the Vytal Festival Tournament which Neo doubts highly due to his cutesy-farm boy aesthetic (Mercury calls her out on her choice of fashion, but Roman backs up their “combat coat” partnership)

She soon starts questioning if Oscar knows the “filthy Faunus from the boat”

At this, Emerald snaps and starts an argument with Neo that continues on late into the night when the team returns to their dorm

When Emerald angrily asks why Neo could possibly hate the Faunus so much, she replies that she’s had a target painted on her back since she was first adopted by James Ironwood, as well as having her parents killed in a violent (yet vague) act that there’s an article on from nine years prior

Emerald tries to apologise for bringing up bad memories, but Neo snaps at her by calling Faunus liars, thieves and murderers

Emerald yells back that “we were just tired of being pushed around”, finally revealing she is a Faunus, before she runs away from her team into the night where she removes her leather gloves to reveal gecko scales along her arms and hands

Neon approaches her from behind

The next morning Emerald is still gone from the dorm so Roman, Mercury and Neo go out looking for her, with Neo coming along reluctantly due to her still-standing views on Faunus now applying to her teammate

On the roof of a cafe RMN pass, Emerald sits with Neon in silence until she starts to talk about her childhood in the White Fang and how when their old leader stepped down, she was replaced by someone who believed more in violence to achieve peace, so Emerald ran away to become a Huntress

RMN are still out trying to find Emerald when Oscar suddenly appears behind them, offering to help find her once he knows the situation before Neo and Mercury disappear to avoid Oscar

Neon fills in Emerald about a huge shipment of Ironwood Dust Company that could help them find out if the White Fang are actually involved with the robberies

Roman and Oscar talk about how Emerald ran away and Oscar says that if Emerald were his friend, he’d want her to talk about what’s troubling her

That night, Emerald and Neon (who has stolen honeycomb bars) camp out near the docks, making small talk until a Bullhead approaches

White Fang soldiers come out of the ship and Emerald admits she always knew they were involved, but when Ruby emerges from the ship as well, she makes a move and approaches from behind

She puts her blade to Ruby’s throat and asks why the White Fang are collaborating with a human criminal, to which Ruby answers that it’s a business venture before Bullheads emerge alongside the first and Ruby shoots at Emerald’s feet to escape

Emerald gets out of Ruby’s line of sight and fire while flying bullets destroy cargo, with Neon soon joining the fray with her glowstick-nunchaku

She manages to fight away the White Fang members that charge her before creating an icy shockwave to drive the last of them back and being shot at by Ruby’s sniper, a bullet she easily blocks

Emerald closes the distance between herself and Ruby, becoming nothing more than illusionary after-images as she slashes at Ruby three times

Ruby only blocks the strikes with her scythe’s blade and landing blow after blow on Emerald until one final hit causes her to go down

Neon comes from behind and with her nunchaku tied around the wrists she creates spinning wheels of flame, the wielder repeatedly cracking into different Dust types at rapid fire speed that Ruby still manages to block until she pauses and Emerald gets a hit in

A swinging container is shot down to seperate the two students so that Ruby can aim at Neon, only for Roman to attract attention to himself and Oscar

Oscar momentarily distracts Roman and accidentally allows Ruby to get a shot in at him, angering Oscar enough to enter the fray

His backpack unfolds to reveal a series of metal batons

Three batons knock down White Fang troops before he performs many graceful maneuvers to knock several others down and blocks shots from the three Bullheads

Oscar creates several lasers that emerge from the tops of his batons, cracking the ground beneath him but still cutting through each Bullhead, sending White Fang member flying

Ruby grimaces and calls for another Bullhead that takes her away from the fight

Later on, Neo and Mercury find Oscar, Roman, Emerald and Neon at the docks with the police and when Emerald tries to explain her ex-affiliation with the White Fang, Neo stops her and says she’s done a lot of thinking

Neo has decided she doesn’t care about Emerald’s past, all she requests of her now is that when something comes up, Emerald tells her team instead of running away again (she still doesn’t know how she feels about Neon)

Oscar has disappeared into a black car with a driver who says not to wander off without his sister again

Salem, back at Beacon, receives a message from Coco Adel saying “KING HAS PAWNS”

In an abandoned warehouse in Vale, Ruby is confronted by Jaune, Blake and Yang, with Jaune saying that they need her to cooperate with the White Fang if the plan is to work

Volume 2 will come along soon! I hope this helps for Volume 1 though!

- Admin Neon

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unlockthelore · 5 years ago

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To Fool One’s Eyes

As Rin prepares to depart on a journey, she seeks counsel and comfort in the sky.

From the series Affections Touching Across Time on Ao3, and part of the It Takes A Village fic. For more updates, follow the affections touching across time tag on this blog. For more of this fic, follow the it takes a village tag.

When Rin opened her eyes, the world was tinted in shades of blue and black. Shadows etched in the high wooden beams and dashing across the floors where the light filtered by the shoji couldn’t reach. A long corridor stretched before her, flecked with blue dawn light and shadow. Several soldiers stood at the walls, armed with spears tipped sharply and piercing eyes trained upon her. Sighing softly, Rin laid her hands against her lower stomach and turned on her heel.

The tatami’s texture was lost on her but not the awe instilled by landscapes painted on the shoji paper, drapery adorning the walls in reds and whites, high above the stoic faces of the soldiers. A familiar crest upon the double-wide doors behind her — three white hexagons drenched in red with a four-petaled white flower in their centers.

Rin sighed softly, recalling that crest fondly. Rippled on the long flowing sleeves and collar of a kimono, tucked beneath silver hair and spiked armor looped at the shoulder. There was none other like it and she knew it as if it were her own.

Relief rushed through her at the success of her journey and she clapped her hands together, drawing a few smiles from the soldiers surrounding her. One stepped forward and she turned to greet him with a slight bow. It was difficult to discern his expression from beneath the drape of his helmet but Rin could have sworn she saw the corners of his lips twitch as he raised his hand quietly, shaking his head.

��Our Lady has been expecting you, Lady Rin,” he said, lowering his hand shortly after the words had been delivered. His voice, oddly boyish for someone so tall, was quiet and gentle though edged with amusement.

Jamming her fist in the crook of her hip, Rin tried to peer closer and catch a glimpse of his eyes beneath his helmet. He made no move to step away from her or look aside but his lips pressed together in a firm line, trembling and twitching upward at the corners as her stare lingered.

“You are one of the brothers,” Rin muttered softly, tucking a knuckle beneath her chin thoughtfully. “And yet which one, I cannot tell.”

This earned a few scattered chuckles amidst the other sentries including a sputtered one from the soldier she assessed.

“Let’s see… the last time I visited like this, it was Ushio who greeted me first,” Rin tipped one finger toward the western wall where four soldiers exchanged small smiles. “And Umihiko was guarding the Eastern Wall, including a vulnerable array of snacks in the kitchens that Lady Inukimi wasn’t keen on parting with until after we spoke.”

The soldier Rin spoke to nodded. “He was given the utmost important job of keeping a thief from stealing the pastries meant for Our Lady’s guest.”

“Even if said guest was horribly deprived of their dessert?” Rin tossed an amused exasperated look at the snickering soldier standing by the wall leading down the corridor.

“I am afraid so, Lady Rin,” the soldier said, not sounding apologetic in the slightest, and the twitch of his lips proved unbearable as he smiled heartily. “When thief and guest are one and the same.”

Rin laughed heartily, the sound resonating off the wooden beams and the walls, returning to her as the soldiers one by one broke their stoic masks to chuckle and nudge one another. The one standing at Rin’s side reaching up to pull off his helmet though before it could slide free of his head, she closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. Listening for the slide of metal and the soft tap of his spear’s hilt against the tatami to open them.

“It’s good to see you,” she said, opening her eyes to the sight of a dark-haired young man smiling back at her.

Long tresses of inky black tied up in a bun cinched tightly with a closely wound band of pearls, tiny and glittering in the blue dawn, twin green-scaled fin-like ears tipped with white pressing close to his head. His eyes, iridescent and alight with mischief, a sea foam blue reminding her of the sea at daybreak and matching the tint to his skin. Cracks between the rainbow-colored scales shifting, becoming darker then lighter with every breath.

“Might I also remind, Lady Rin, you were in the company of Lord Sesshomaru during your last visit,” the soldier said, tucking his helmet beneath his arm and bowing his head to her, the second translucent lens closing over his eyes before his eyelids did. His smile showing a sliver of teeth, pointed and gnashing, eliciting a giggle from Rin. “It isn’t often that you visit us alone or in the form of a spirit.”

Rin bounced on her toes and pressed her fingertips together behind her back, listening to the chuckles and mirthful exchanges amidst the soldiers. “Perhaps I should visit more often in this form,” she said, the watching soldiers hushing as she spoke, seeming to hang eagerly of her every word. “I may have better luck with raiding the kitchens.”

Grinning toothily, the soldier standing before her chortled. “I should tell the cooks their larders are safe for now.”

Cocking her hip and folding her arms, Rin’s brow raised. “Now who decided that?” she asked in a teasingly lilting tone, attempting to keep a smile from betraying her.

Before their merrymaking could continue, a deafening howl of wind cut through the corridor and rushed til it brushed shy of Rin’s nose. A gentle breeze caressing her chin and curving around the back of her neck, fluffing her hair in the process before it receded. Drapery fluttering and flowers trembling in its wake, the soldiers exchanging glances before returning to their posts. The one standing before Rin straightening his posture, his toothy grin and luminous eyes tamed into an impassive gaze.

“Our Lady waits in her sanctum,” he said solemnly, sweeping a hand toward the corridor where the shoji paper still rippled and the wooden doors trembled. “Let us not keep you any further.”

Rin shifted slightly, mindful of the change in their demeanors, and the apologetic gazes boring into her back as she padded across the tatami. Stepping out of the dimly lit foyer and into a swath of light, Rin held her hands close to her stomach then turned on her heel. Eyeing each of them and the dark imposing figures they cut with a warm smile.

“Thank you, it was nice to see all of you,” Rin said, the mood in the room shifting and a few smiles appearing beneath the helms. Regarding the soldier that she’d spoken to who returned to his post at the eastern wall, she allowed herself to smile. “Including you, Ukito.”

Despite the summoning and the call to arms, Ukito stammered forward and endured the jeering of his peers. “How were you able to tell? We were thrice as careful.”

Rin’s eyes drifted to the shoji and the twisting paintings beckoning her to walk on. A curl of warmth beneath her chin, turning her head toward the looming darkness further down the corridor. She felt something within her tighten, warm until it seared hot in her gut then release. Leaving only strangeness and cold in its wake.

“Your voice, when I tried to steal those pastries from before, it was you that called out to Lord Sesshomaru when he came looking for me.” Rin said, beginning the arduous yet short journey past the hall of sliding doors and to the castle’s inner sanctum. “I’m sorry that our first meeting is a little short, but I’ll come back to talk to you another day and thank you for helping.”

As the breeze guided her further down the hall, the soldiers’ stares and murmuring grew distant, and Rin realized after looking over her shoulder — they were no longer there at all.

Some unreadable emotion flickered through Rin’s eyes, and for a moment, she felt the darkness pooling around her beckoning her into its embrace. Just a little further, she told herself as the number of shoji doors lessened bringing her to a hall entirely submerged in darkness. Her footsteps non-existent against the tatami and hands swinging her sides when they fell, the breeze beckoning her forward receding in a whispering hiss between two large doors. A rushing of wind heard from behind them bringing Rin a step closer.

Gathering her wits and her breath, she was unable to see her hands as she lifted them. Her skin warming and tingling as silvery wisps began to trace along the outline of her fingertips, traveling further until it covered her wrists. Palms, a ghostly pale white, outstretched toward the door where they laid against the aged wood smelling of jasmine and sandalwood. Inhaling the scent deeply, Rin exhaled heavily, the silver wisps traveling on her breath and pooling in a cloud of mist.

Warmth seeped into her hands causing them to shake almost violently, forcing the mist cloud into the wood. Her arms trembling as an outline of the hexagonal sigil began to fill in with silvery light, etched into the doorway and gradually becoming full, until they shone bright enough that Rin shielded her eyes. A heavy thud followed a loud boom, the doors shuddering as they slid open.

“Enjoying your games with my soldiers, little bird?” A melodious, yet bored voice asked, stoking familiarity in Rin’s heart with cooling relief.

Lowering her hand from her eyes, she peered into the inner sanctum and sighed softly. From the blue glow of the walls to the dawn light from the circular windows depicting a wondrous view of the lightning sky, she was mesmerized. Lanterns suspended in the air, drifted over her head as she walked inside, ignoring the heavy trembling of the doors as they slid shut behind her. Moons carved into the lanterns’ paper brightening and dimming in time with the luminous stone floating in the center of the room. The light seeming to circle around it as if drawn into its orbit, and the stone itself swirled with energy that both called out to Rin’s own and repelled it.

She breathed in heavily, hearing the whistling wind rushing through the room and wrapping around her, spinning her to one side. Amidst the shelves stacked high with all manners of tomes, scrolls, and trinkets, a demoness lounged across a long sofa with her legs crossed at the ankle and a sprawling scroll draped over her lap. The wind that’d spun Rin in circles receded and rustled the demoness’ silvery hair only slightly, slender fingers tipped with claws brushing the stray locks behind pointed ears. Her golden eyes, striking and reminiscent of another’s, drifted across the scroll as if none other mattered.

Recognizing the demand, Rin stifled a laugh with a swift bite to her lower lip. A fine silver brow arched as the demoness’s gaze flicked up to her. Cold struck Rin in the center of her chest and if not for her resilience to the demoness’s weighty gaze, she might have fallen to her knees beneath her glare.

Mindful of the charged silence, Rin eased her lower lip from between her teeth and took a step closer to the demoness who lifted her chin in response to the closeness. “As enjoyable as they can be when I’ve lost the element of surprise.”

The demoness’s eyes drifted to her, lazily regarding her with a curious hum echoing throughout the room and reverberating into Rin’s own ears. “I know your presence as if it were my own, did you believe you could slip within my halls as easily as you would someone’s purse?”

“It would be a dull day if I did not try.” Rin said, stretching out her hands, brushing her fingers over one of the passing lanterns.

Where others would have paused as the silver-haired demoness, equally intimidating as she was enchanting, rose — Rin smiled unabashedly and spun on her heel to admire the sheer number of weapons and tools adorning the walls and leant against the table where a great map was spread about with several points upon it. At the corner of her eye, a quick flash drew her attention to the violet gem of the necklace around the demoness’s neck.

As if pleased by Rin’s recognition of the stone, the demoness smiled primly and rolled one end of the scroll. The other half carefully returning to join with it. Her hand winding the string to keep it closed with a quick pulse of youki to seal it, the familiar howling catching Rin off guard for a moment. Then, from the corner of her eye, the demoness regarded Rin coolly.

“That it would,” the demoness replied, with neither derision nor affection, a heavy hardened edge to an otherwise blunt tone. Carefully, she rose from the lounge. The drape of her kimono, adorned with green and yellow butterflies, brushing against the tatami with every step. Fur pelt along a dark coat rippling as she tossed her hair over her shoulder with a backward flick of the wrist, approaching with slow sure steps.

“It isn’t often you are without my son.”

Rin, unperturbed at the lessening distance between her and the approaching demoness, clasped her hands behind her back and swayed from one foot to the other.

“As they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder…” She said, her gaze drifting to the paper lanterns painted with moons and stars, recalling the solitary figure drifting among them in the dusk sky over Kaede’s village. “Besides, it isn’t so much as me following him nowadays as it is so much the other way around.”

If the demoness was perturbed by her lack of decorum, she didn’t say. Her silence retained until she stood before Rin, effortlessly towering over her in both presence and height, but lacking in arrogance in either. The demoness waited patiently as Rin took to observing the room’s effects. Golden eyes keenly observing and boring into every crevice of Rin’s being until she turned, meeting the demoness’ piercing gaze unflinchingly. As if amused, the silver-haired demoness nodded and tucked her hands within the sleeves of her robe.

“Yes, so often is he attached to your side.” The demoness said with unparalleled clarity, clipping Rin’s thoughts with a ghost of a smile on her lips. Her voice evened, the amusement gone in place of something far softer and worn. “Tell me, what is it you have come here for, little bird?”

Concern was easily dismissed by most but the demoness had ways of getting under Rin’s skin. From the closeness of her presence to the way that she stood by Rin’s side rather than before her, looming and quietly boasting strength. Lanterns drifting overhead cast shades of amber-blue light over them, outlining her sharp features and familiar golden eyes equally parts curious and worried. She offered no touch or word other than the question and the nickname’s sentiment, and Rin couldn’t help but smile.

While Kaede would deign to touch her familiarly, although with respect to her own privacy, the demoness offered no such aid. Having grown used to one another during her days of trailing after Sesshomaru, those were long past. A budding warmth building in Rin’s chest was cast aside as she turned her gaze from features, both familiar and nod, sighing softly.

“Aside from conversation with you, Lady Inukimi?” Rin scuffed her heel against the tatami, her form tangible enough that her foot didn’t slip through the floor, but her movements made no sound. Instead, she focused on the humming of the radiant stone overhead and the fires roaring in the lanterns to gather her thoughts. “Advice, counsel, and peace of mind, if possible.”

The corners of her lips tugged downward as each word drifted into the air, both allowing her to breath easier and sinking her heart. From the window at the study’s northern wall, she could see the clouds drifting by in a sky still dark. Glittering stars fading one by one without their moon and taking with them her fear of dreams. Rin tried not to keep her eyes open for long but she also did not want to close them, instead allowing her body to rest while her spirit wandered.

“Respite from… life,” she finished, voice barely above a whisper, heavy with remorse.

For a moment, nothing was said but Rin felt Inukimi’s gaze linger atop her head, once again observing her but this time her eyes were trained somewhere below her nose.

“What has been troubling you?” Inukimi asked. “You’re hardly ever this serious, and it doesn’t suit you to frown.”

Surprised, Rin covered her mouth with a hand and Inukimi chuckled with a mirthful gleam to an otherwise uneasy gaze. “Perhaps you’ve picked up one of my son’s odd traits.”

Huffing, Rin waved a hand dismissively as if batting the comment from the air between them. “Lord Sesshomaru doesn’t frown all the time,” she said, recalling strongly a ghost of a smile on his lips quickly gone before it could be called upon. Fleeting ones throughout her memories, obscured by the length of his hair or his palm.

Inukimi shook her head, the pearls on the necklace knocking together lightly and drawing Rin’s eyes to the gleaming stone embedded in its medallion. Swaying hypnotically until a hand clasped around it. “Not for you, perhaps,” Inukimi said, the words holding no trace of arrogance or malice, simply fact.

Rin glanced aside, turning her head from the nearing lantern and the demoness’s knowing gaze. “Be that as it may, what troubles me are my dreams. Some a little less sweeter than others,” Rin’s eyes shuttered and for a moment, she was there in the dirt where the wolves laid her low. Unable to think further than the last moment, salivating wolves, darkness at her heels and the blurred faces of her family, her mother’s outstretched hand beckoning her to the other side. “Then there are others that are far too bitter. As of late, it’s been easier or at the least the easiest it can be.”

Gaunt faces, hollowed eyes and gaping mouths, shouting and whispering their regrets in her ears. Unable to move on. Unable to find peace. All because she survived.

“Tell me of them,” Inukimi said, her voice cleaving through the chanting and drawing Rin back to the present graciously. Her eyes were cool and calm, voice impassive but despite the lack of a warm touch or a kind word, Rin felt relieved to have this space.

Drawing herself half into memory, the aged image of an injured daiyoukai hissing at her when she neared overlapped with his strengthening form. A stoic expression giving away very little, golden eyes lingering as he asked.

Where did you get those bruises?

Happiness blossomed in her chest then, warm and overwhelmingly bright to where she couldn’t help but smile. A glow of it resting in her breast and Rin laid her hand over it, feeling the gentle beat of her heart.

“You know how Lord Sesshomaru and I met…” Rin stepped forward and gathered one of the lanterns in her hands as it floated closer to her, the amber-blue light reflecting in her eyes, nearly blinding. “The village I lived in, its people weren’t kind to me.”

“Why is that?”

Rin clenched her jaw, remembering the laughter and jeering of bandits ransacking the village. A few of the women hiding with their children while others were armed with sickles and rakes. They were naught but farmers, earning a simple living through toiling the land. Their hands were not made to handle swords but the ones who came for them cared little for a fair fight.

Her brother, young as he was, knobby-kneed and rosy-cheeked, braced her shoulders with hands firm enough that they felt like claws pricking her skin. He held her gaze, his face swimming in a blurred vision. Words muffled and drowned by the screaming of women, children crying, men shouting, and laughter.

Her mother’s arms wound tightly around her as she yelled for her brother to come back inside. An axe that’d once been in the stump outside their home for cutting firewood held tightly in his hand, his jaw set and stern, seeming more like their mother than their father who stood with most of the men yelling for the intruders to leave. For a brief second as he stood in the doorway of their home, Rin wanted to ask him to obey their mother. So often had their mischief brought her grief and no small amount of lectures. But her brother was ever at her side.

“We’ll share the blame, alright, Rin?”

He glanced at her, holding her gaze, and the world was quiet for a moment. The faintest twitch of a smile before he was gone from their mother’s outstretched hand. Disappearing into the chaos beyond the yard of their home and its safety.

Her mother’s heartbeat, wildly racing, short puffs of breaths as she mourned her son with eyes shut tightly. Then with a ferocity, she yanked Rin away from the doorway and slammed it shut so hard that it rattled on its hinges. Her father’s back and her brother’s dark hair dancing on the breeze, fading images as her mother rushed through their home, pushing open the door sunken in on its hinges leading to the back of their home. Rin clung to her desperately, trying to drown out the screams with her face buried against her shoulder.

It was so loud. The air was thick with blood, ash, and musk, threatening to suffocate her with every breath. Her mother’s hands clutching her hair so tight that her scalp throbbed, tears springing to her eyes. Swallowing a sob as her mother hushed her and ducked beneath the shadows of other huts, hiding from the rushing silhouettes, unable to discern whether they were friend or foe.

“Father…”

It isn’t often that Rin saw her mother with tears in her eyes, calloused hands from working the fields running over her cheeks and brushing away her bangs from her eyes. Touch tender despite the roughness of her mother’s palms, embracing her cheeks, her cracked lips dusted with salty tears and dirt pressed to the middle of Rin’s forehead.

“You will see him again, father and Hitoshi…”

“Mother…”

“Ssh, ssh.. It will be alright, Rin.”

It never occurred to her before. How oft her mother’s smile warmed her heart until it was no longer there. But in that moment, ragged with grief and calming a weeping child amidst the destruction and plunder, her mother’s smile had never been more beautiful.

“Hold to me tightly, Rin, don’t let go…”

She clung to her mother desperately, mimicking the claw-like grasp her brother had upon her shoulders before he left them. Her mother, winding through the village’s roads, avoiding men with blades and catching the eyes of women shielding their own children or lying dead in the streets. The sounds Rin heard chilled her and her mother clamped a hand over her ear, whispering for her not to listen. To just hum softly in the same way they did when she combed her hair at night, and hold fast to her.

Darkness, ash, and blood were all that Rin knew aside from her mother’s gentle humming. She could pick out voices of the other villagers, howling and anguished screams. Among them, a smaller voice that she recalled calling out to her from the base of a tree, yelled in agony. Her head jerking upright and hands pushing at her mother’s shoulders. From between the gap of two houses, she saw the back of her brother’s kosode. His legs swinging uselessly in the air as he tried to force himself away from the man grasping him by the throat. The axe in hand was held by another, the men laughing and jeering as he struggled.

It wasn’t until Rin looked to her mother that she saw her staring. Having stopped where she was, eyes wide and misted over, either unseeing or disbelieving.

“Please no…” She gasped with a watery cry, hugging Rin painfully tight.

Hitoshi reared his head back and with the determination brought on by desperation and hopelessness, he threw it forward, colliding his head with the bandit’s own. The axe-wielding one jumped away as his companion stumbled backward, Hitoshi falling into the mud and turning over to hand and knee. He looked up then, and Rin could see him —

Through the fields, showing her how to weave together the stems of daisies.

Beneath the comforter they shared as a family, telling stories of his dream of being a samurai.

Carrying her on his back, her knee skinned from falling out of a tree and his words comforting in her ear.

It’s okay, Rin. Brother is here, you can cry if it hurts.

And it hurt. It hurt as one of the bandits kicked him onto his back then stamped his foot against his stomach. The pain resonating in her own as if she’d been kicked herself, and her mother’s horrified cry muffled in her hair. In the firelight, the axe gleamed.

Rin closing her eyes as it came down.

“Father!”

Her eyes shot open. Hitoshi scrambling to his feet in the slick mud, reaching for their father struggling for the axe. The two men wrestling in the dirt while the onlookers, entertained by the man’s desperation, jeered and hooted. Hitoshi grabbed by the back of his kosode and held with an arm around his throat. Their father, a man Rin had never seen without a kind word and a smile, roaring louder than thunder as he forced the bandit to his back. Driving his fist into his face until the axe was dropped and his movements stopped. A few of the bandits coming to grab him by his arms and hold him back.

“Hitoshi! Let him go, let him go!”

“You killed one of ours,” the grinning-mouthed man holding Hitoshi shouted and it was as if the world deafened. “I believe we deserve compensation.”

A chorus of cheers sounded from around them and her father struggled harder as the axe was pried from the dead man’s hand, its blade held to her brother’s stomach.

“He’s just a boy,” her father sobbed brokenly.

Hitoshi’s squirming having stopped and though Rin couldn’t see it, she felt the dread pooling in her stomach for him.

“And if he grew to be a man, he’d be a killer, just like his father.”

Their father screamed as Hitoshi was forced to the ground and the axe cleaved through the air. Her mother’s scream drawing the eyes of the others. Her breathing, short and gasping, did little to make up for the deafening sound. Rin’s ears still ringing and she could see a few of the men beginning to make their way between the huts toward them. Her mother hugging her tightly and her father’s shout echoing over them until the axe was forced into his own stomach, his eyes never leaving Rin’s own even when he was pushed to the mud.

Her mother hissed a cry and darted off toward the forest, hugging Rin as tightly to her as possible despite the limpness in her hands and legs. Her father’s emptied gaze, her brother’s head lying crookedly from body.

“Rin, Rin.”

Returning to focus, Rin stared up at the tree boughs overhead as her mother turned down a familiar road toward the river where they gathered water often and came to play or catch fish. A small cave, big enough to fit her, is where her mother set her. Pressing her hands to her cheeks, wiping away the tears that gathered at the corners of her eyes unbidden.

“Don’t make a sound until I call for you, understand?” When she didn’t speak, her mother clutched her shoulders tighter. “Rin, do you understand?”

There was no cruelty in her words, only desperation. A mother trying to save her daughter from a cruel fate.

Don’t go.

Her mother pressed another kiss, this one bruisingly harsh, to her forehead. Pushing her further into the opening before wandering backward, making quick work of her headscarf and tossing it to the river. Her dark hair flowing freely and wildly over her shoulders, hands braced at her sides and trembling as the bandits crept from the forest as quiet as wolves.

“You there,” one said, the same grinning-mouthed man. His hands stained and Hitoshi’s obi in hand, balled up after he used it to wipe his hands then threw it aside. “Why leave so soon?”

Two of the men flanking him laughed and her mother gritted her teeth, widening her stance.

“Ooh, do you mean to fight us?”

Her mother seethed. “You will pay for this. For every drop of blood my husband and son shed, I hope your pain is tenfold.”

The men shared a look of surprise, their laughter amused as her mother shuddered and brazenly held her ground.

It’s why I fell in love with her. You see, your mother is the strongest woman I’ve ever known. I hope you grow to be like her one day, Rin.

One of the bandits stepped forward to seize her mother by the arm, and her fist swung, connecting to his cheek with a sickening crack. He stumbled backward, grasping at his face and the other two advanced toward her. One grasping at her arm while the other seized her leg as she thrashed wildly, kicking her opposite leg. Her foot connecting with the grizzled jaw of the grinning-mouthed man, sending him reeling. The bandit holding her arm seizing the other.

“Settle, you she-devil!”

“Go to hell!”

She jerked her head back, catching him in the chin. The bandit she punched standing and rubbing at his jaw, unsheathing his blade as her mother broke free of the hold with a hard push to the one that’d been holding her sending him toppling to the river. Rin’s eyes widened and the sound rushed from her chest, a warning on her tongue as her mother turned around only to nearly be slashed by the blade. Her feet shifted unsurely at the river’s bank, sliding and catching on the rocks.

“You’re going to regret that, woman.”

Her mother spat on the ground at his feet, the epitome of rage upon her face.

“And when we find that girl you had —“

Her mother loosed a cry, sounding so much like her brother that for a second Rin thought she might have seen Hitoshi by their mother’s side. Her mother grasped the bandit’s wrist as he swung at her, the blade inches from her hip. The pair scuffling in the dirt as she pushed back against him, crying out as he pulled her hair, jerking her head to the side. Her elbow thrown back, connecting with his throat.

“Don’t talk about my daughter,” she hissed, gripping his ponytail and yanking his head down to meet her fist. The sword clattering to the ground between them and the back of her hand meeting his cheek. She was standing over him, holding him by the blood-stained chest plate he wore. “This is for my husband.”

Her fist connected once with a sickening crack, a gurgling yell from him as he clawed at her arms. Bloodied knuckles and tear-filled eyes as she raised it once more, struggling against him to hold him in place. Her knees on either side of him, hand around his throat as he clawed at her sleeves.

“And this is for my son.”

Her fist came down again and this time, a choked sputtering sound arose. His clawing slowing and her mother’s fist raised again, the world seeming to slow as a blade cleaved through the air and struck her mother in the back. Her mother’s eyes widened, in that one sliver of breath between life and death, their eyes met but the words her mother might have wanted to convey were lost in the crimson coating her lips as she toppled over beside the wounded bandit she’d struck. The grinning-mouthed man was no longer grinning, rubbing his jaw and staggering toward her with sword in hand.

“You fight like a demon,” he said, glaring down at her with a swift kick to her side. “But in the end, you’re only human.”

Her mother refusing to groan despite the pain contorting her face, squeezing her eyes shut as she settled on her back, glaring up at him. Blood ran down her lips, dripping off her chin in rivulets, staining the star-printed kosode Rin’s father had given her. It was her favorite, she tended to it every time it’d grown too threadbare. With the same hands, knuckles blistering an angry red, and fingers stained red.

Tipping his head to one side, the bandit asked almost innocently. “What is your name?”

Her mother’s chest rose and fell deeply and she coughed, seething a breath and humming angrily as he stamped his foot against her stomach. Leaning down with the sword inches from her mother’s breast.

“I want to remember it when I tell your daughter the one who made her life hell.”

“You will never find h—“

The words died as the blade plunged into her chest, a terrible earth-shattering cry cut off as she laid there, eyes wide and hands left open. For a moment, the bandit lingered over her until he turned his gaze away to his injured companion struggling to his feet after regaining consciousness.

“Search the woods,” he ordered, dragging his blade against the belly of her mother’s kosode then sheathing it.

The bleeding man holding his nose with a disdained glare at her mother, kicking her side. “Ito..” He said, looking toward the river.

“Good as dead.” Their leader glanced back toward her mother’s corpse, hocking and spitting on her with a grimace. “Bested by one woman…”

Staggering up the river bank, he shoved his companion as the man tried to lean against him. The two disappearing into the trees.

Time was non-existent. Rin’s eyes never leaving her mother’s own, wide and unseeing, frozen with a look of impending doom. Her hand outstretched, fingers splayed as if reaching for her but Rin couldn’t bring herself to come any closer. The sun must have fallen by the time the voices came, a man trudging down the river bank with a lantern in hand.

“Rin?” He called, cupping his hand around the side of his mouth. “Kasumi!”

Painstakingly trying to tear her gaze away from her mother, Rin neglected to answer. She couldn’t. Her mother hadn’t called for her. And she would. She had to.

“R—“ The man came closer, as did the light, and Rin recognized who he was but that mattered little. His gaze softened and he lowered the lantern, reaching for her mother’s corpse though his hands did little but hover over her. As if unsure where or if he should touch.

“Oh… Kasumi.”

Trembling, he pressed his fingers together and brought them to his forehead, bowing his head for a quick prayer. Opening his eyes and gathering the lantern, he slowly stood until he looked ahead right to where Rin was staring back at him. Making herself as small as possible as she shied from the coming light.

“Rin? It’s alright, girl. Did you hear me calling for you?”

He offered his hand but she made no move to take it even as he reached to pull her out. Her hands and legs limp, eyes never leaving her mother. Carefully, he slipped his arm around her and hiked her up on his hip, taking her further from her mother in body but her soul felt left in that small cave.

She wasn’t sure how much time passed. A week. A month. The home that she’d known for so long was now empty, a place where she could reside with the other villagers looking after her. But they soon grew weary of her silences, the vacant way in which she sat before her families’ graves. Unweeping and without a word. Stealing from the larders, taking from the nets, enduring beating after beating only to haul herself to the hut upon the embankment to stare into the waters silently.

“You have to speak if there is something you want, Rin.”

Those words were so common and when she refused to speak, they gradually gave up on her one by one. All of them had lost someone during the bandit’s appearance.

But life went on.

Don’t make a sound until I call for you.

Just hum the songs we sing together.

It’s okay to cry if it hurts, Rin.

It went on for all others but her.

“… They couldn’t understand,” Rin managed to say, dots floating in the corners of her vision from staring too deeply into the lantern’s glow, allowing it to drift away. “Some nights, I dream of them and their questions of why it is that I survived when they died.”

Unworthy. Unappreciative. Undeserving.

Her parents fought hard to ensure the others survived, and her brother lost his life with his last words being a blur in her memory. Wrong as it felt to consider the remnant’s words, Rin couldn’t help but lend to their curiosity. Why had she survived when all others died?

“If you ask yourself that question, little bird, you will never find peace.” Inukimi’s voice split the melancholy drifting through her, and beckoned Rin’s attention with no hope for disobedience. Once their eyes met, Inukimi’s calm and cool gaze matched that of her words. Crisp and clipped. “You lived because you survived.”

A disbelieving bark of laughter, no more than a puff of air, was punched through Rin’s chest at those words. “Survived?” Rin echoed, self-loathing bettering her words as she raised her hands. Her translucent body reflecting the amber-blue light as if she were a ghost herself.

Perhaps she’d already been. In some ways, she was much like that young girl whose life bled from her drop by drop as her family met their end. In others, she was something much different.

“I died twice. Lord Sesshomaru brought me back with Tenseiga, then you with the Meidō Stone. Surely knowing that someday neither of you will be able to aid me in cheating death,” Rin shuddered, clenching her jaw as she recalled her mother’s vacant eyes. Her brother’s resilience. Her father’s desperation. Jaken’s tears. Kohaku calling her name. Sesshomaru’s hand cupping her cheek. “And will bury me or scatter my ashes on the wind.”

Drawing a breath when Inukimi said nothing, Rin cursed and bit her lower lip harshly. Pacing to one wall where a shelf stacked to the ceiling with scrolls greeted her. Her hand opened and closed at her side as she glanced to the side, marveling at the wide curvature of the blade mounted to to the wall. It’s balance would have thrown her off and the curvature of it reminded her almost of Tessaiga. Her hand itching at her side, coming to rest over her lower stomach.

“Tenseiga is the Heavenly Rebirth Fang, a sword that can resurrect one hundred souls in a single stroke,” Rin recited, curling her fingers tightly in her sleep yukata. “Yet twice, twice, Lord Sesshomaru attempted to use it just for one little girl. Even I want to know why.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Inukimi’s voice was so close that Rin could have almost mistaken she’d spoken in her head. Though once she turned, she saw the demoness standing where she had before. But where there had been a coolness to her gaze now softened with an unreadable emotion. “He cares for you, little bird.”

The lanterns drifting overhead dimmed their lights, floating out of her path as she walked toward Rin with slow certain steps. “His father was similar in his ways of showing affection, and though Sesshomaru inherited less of his charm and more of mine, his actions speak louder than any word he could say.”

As she stood before Rin once more, she lifted her hand and a powdery violet aura outlined her fingertips.

“If your life wasn’t valuable to him in some form, I assure you,” She reached out, slipping her fingers into Rin’s hair and palming her cheek.The silvery wisps of Rin’s own energy beginning to tint violet and the touch warm to her skin. “Sesshomaru would not have gained the power to use Tenseiga as a weapon. Or spared your life. But I think you know this…”

Sesshomaru would not have returned ye to life, nor would Tenseiga have responded if not for your effect on his heart.

You will never find her.

Rin shuddered, her heart beating harsh enough that it might have escaped her chest if possible.

“It takes a compassionate heart, one that knows both fear and sorrow of loss, to value life,” Inukimi explained, her thumb brushing beneath Rin’s eye and tipping her head up. Golden eyes burning brighter than the sun, the unreadable emotion only growing stronger but Rin still could not place its name. “And you taught him the meaning of life… regrettably, through your death.”

Rin scowled. To die more than once was a feat in itself. But the reminders were ones she carried every day. Miracle though it was that her life was restored, fear and terror weren’t so easily dissuaded.

“First, at the hands of the Northern Lord’s wolves,” Inukimi said. “Secondly, through Sesshomaru’s own desire to seek power. He abandoned Tenseiga in the Underworld, choosing instead to cling to your corpse. But in the time between, the days you lived separately and with him, you were meant to fend for yourself.”

Rin’s eyes widened. Her gaze inquisitive and reproachful but Inukimi merely raised a brow in response, continuing on as if she hadn’t implicated anything.

“Scavenging, stealing, evading, you are far more clever than you believe.” Inukimi drew her hand back to her side, taking with it the warmth that budded in Rin’s chest, leaving only a faint reminder. “And it’s through your clever and earnest ways, the change and growth you experienced, that you endeared yourself to those around you.”

Rin’s eyes softened and she weighed the words carefully on her tongue before speaking them. “And to you?”

In the briefest glimmer of vulnerability, Rin could have sworn that she’d seen affection in Inukimi’s eyes. The trace of it gone before she could probe any further and the demoness turning her head away, beckoning one of the lanterns closer with an upraised palm. “Now that your doubts have been eased, tell me. What of the other dream?”

“How did you know…”

With as casual as the words were spoken, Rin had little time to put up her guard before her secret fled from her lips. Inukimi’s lips quirked at the corners, a mischievous look in her eye as she glanced her way. The lantern resting on her palm held between them.

“I didn’t, you just told me.”

Realizing she’d been had, Rin sucked her teeth and looked away from the lantern, inching from between the bookshelf and Inukimi to keep herself from being cornered. The violet tinge to her energy lessened the greater the distance between them became until Rin found herself standing beneath the luminous stone, gazing up the tiny particles of light drifting around it.

“… It may be nothing. Symbolic, perhaps.”

“Symbols mean something, little bird. You’re stalling.”

Rin’s eyes drifted down and for a moment, she said nothing. Inukimi wouldn’t drag answers out of her by force but her stubbornness was outmatched. Loathe as Rin was to admit it, she had come to her for advice and counsel. Keeping appearances would only take away from that. If only that made it easier for her to speak.

“… In my dreams, I see a crow.”

Gazing up at the stone’s glow, her mind wandered to a dark looming figure perched on the barren bough of an aged tree. The crow’s beak glistening despite the lightless sky and its wings tucked closely to its hulking frame, baring down upon her with voids for eyes. A chill pricked the hairs at the back of her neck and she swallowed thickly, fear and uncertainty bitter on her tongue.

“Not a normal crow, and not the Shibugarasu, I asked Kagome and she killed it years ago…”

From Kagome’s account, the Shibugarasu was a crimson beady three-eyed beast with a barbed tail that swallowed the Shikon no Tama, inadvertently starting her adventures with Inuyasha when she struck it thus shattering the jewel. Worry lingered in her eyes as she recounted the story. One hand clasping over Rin’s own when the silence stretched for longer than her comfort.

You aren’t having dreams about it, are you? Inuyasha —

No. It’s not that, and don’t tell aniki, he’ll just worry needlessly.

It’s not needlessly, Rin. We care —

Rin breathed in deeply, cutting off the ghost of Kagome’s words and the warmth of her hand. Instead, gazing into her memory of those voided eyes.

“This was… something else. It appears in my dreams often, and when I look toward it, I feel like I’m sinking away from my body and being pulled…”

With rapt attention, the bleakness of the crow’s eyes drew her further even in memory. Beckoning her to take a step forward. To cross some imaginary line. The dread that filled Rin’s stomach stirred anew as she took a step forward in the sodden earth, hearing the wind rustle, and the bleak feathers trembled. A void opened as the crow’s beak parted. Cold stealing her breath and freezing her heart mid-beat.

“Into an endless abyss.”

Snapping back to focus, Rin staggered forward, throwing out her hands to keep herself from colliding into the table before her. It’s a painfully long moment that passes before she turns. Inukimi staring at her, neither moving from where she stood or seemingly unruffled.The lantern in her hand casting an unearthly glow over the marks on her cheek, her eyes seeming to shine brighter than the stone above Rin’s head.

Inukimi’s posture eased, her wandering eyes raking over Rin shamelessly as if she were a mystery to be solved. Never one to falter beneath scrutiny, Rin straightened her spine and braced her hand against the table’s edge, the frayed edges of the map beneath her fingertips.

“Curious,” Inukimi said, utterly expressionless. “Tell me, when the crow leaves you, to where does it fly?”

Rin furrowed her brows, unsure of the meaning behind the question. She was quiet for a second, glancing down at the map then to the demoness. “The sky.”

“And from where does it descend?” Inukimi continued, allowing the lantern to float aside. She didn’t wait for an answer, walking toward the sliding door and laying her hand on the wood. The insignia pulsing and filling out with a violet light, sliding open quickly for its mistress.

“… The same,” Rin answered, her voice quieter as the demoness stepped strode into the dimly lit hall with only one of the lanterns to follow her. “Lady Inukimi?”

When she was given no response, Rin followed in earnest, slipping past the door before it slid shut and rattled on the hinges. The glowing violet insignia dimming. Gazing down the hall, only Inukimi and the lantern could be seen. Even the hall itself seemed different and Rin crept warily until she was close to the demoness’ back enough to follow behind her longer strides.

“You know what it means?” Rin asked,

“An idea,” Inukimi clarified, an absentmindedness to her words as if she were speaking to Rin and not. Not once did she deign a look toward her, instead gazing ahead with a murmur in her voice. “A child who has died twice over, lingering in the world of the living with tethers to the dead, dreams of a crow.”

Coming to terms with the demonness speaking of her but not to her, Rin decided her attention was better off elsewhere. Holding her hands out with a silvery wisp of energy to call the lantern to her palms, she peered around at the walls. Wooden, not a bit of shoji in sight, or drapery. This hall was different. She couldn’t even feel the presence of the soldiers guarding the inner sanctum.

“The hall changed,” Rin mused aloud, scrutinizing the walls and the flooring, brushing her fingers against the wood and stopping to examine the grain. “Where are we, Lady Inukimi?”

As if realizing she was joined by someone for the first time, Inukimi looked back at her. Her golden eyes glowing in the darkness and Rin quickly held up the lantern to shed light on the rest of her. Far too unsettled by eyes following her in the dark, for comfort. A flicker of concern showed in Inukimi’s eyes and she reached out, curling a finger to beckon Rin closer.

Hesitantly, she approached and stood by the demoness’ side, allowing her to ease the lantern from her grasp. The brush of their fingers electric against Rin’s palm. Her hand snatched back and gaze averted when Inukimi eyed her quizzically.

“There is nothing to fear here, little bird.”

Rin rolled her eyes and gestured to the semi-somnolent darkness around them. “Aside from not knowing where I am?”

Inukimi chuckled dryly. “You may be lost but you are safe, calm yourself and the path will light its way.”

After a few seconds of pushing away choice words for the demoness, Rin took a few steadying breaths and waited by her side with the lantern floating between them. Particles of amber-blue drifting from its opening and floating in separate directions, seeming to catch on torch along the walls, lighting up a corridor leading in four different directions. Rin glanced behind her then forward, taking a few hesitant steps forward to peer down the western and eastern corridor. Leveling her hand with her eyes and attempting to peer into the darkness of the path before them. Nothing could be discerned, the only lights being the torches at the cornerstone of each path.

From behind, Inukimi stood and Rin could feel the amusement rolling off her in waves. “You know, I always found it funny how you call me ‘little bird’.”

“Why is that?” Inukimi asked with an innocent airs that set Rin’s hair on edge, her footsteps soft while she strolled forward and stood by Rin’s side.

Rin breathed in deeply , wishing that instead of the high wooden beams and identical corridors, lush green plains and bountiful forests were in her view. Alas when she blinked, all she could see were the corridors and Inukimi awaiting a response.

Eyeing her dubiously, Rin sighed when the demoness did nothing in reply.“I used to be afraid of the sky, it was so big and I was so little… It was funny, just a little. A bird afraid to fly, just wandering about on the ground…”

Just as the water in the river by her hut was so deep and she could only go so far without being swept off. Bitterly, more than once, she told herself none would care if she had been. Swallowing the thought, she kept her gaze focused on the demoness instead.

Inukimi’s eyes weren’t unkind but they were hardened with a care that Rin had seen twice before, in Kaede’s eyes and her own mother’s. “Do you know why I called you that?” Inukimi asked, and the question was so softly spoken that Rin almost forgot that an answer was prompted til the demoness lifted a brow.

Canting her head to one side, Rin muttered. “.. Well, no.”

Inukimi’s lips twitched at the corners and in the glow of the lantern, a small smile showed itself. Genuine, faint, and so warm that Rin felt the chill pricking hairs on the back of her neck dissipate.

“You reminded me of a baby bird when we first met. In need of someone to care for you, provide you shelter…” A glimmer of amusement showed, the marks on her cheeks shifting as a tenderness touched her voice. “As you grew, I watched your wings grow and you take flight. But to me, you’ll always be that chirping little bird. The same way that my son will always be my baby…”

Slowly, tentatively, Rin nodded. A wave of calm swept through her and the fear that’d been built alongside doubt and shame was washed into the reaches of her mind.

“I like you too.”

Whether it was her vision swimming or the impossible brightness of the lantern’s glow, Inukimi’s image grew hazier around the edges as the feeling in Rin’s chest grew stronger. More fragments of light dissipated into the air and Rin found it easier to breathe as the shadows caved.

Covering her eyes when the light became too bright, it was until Rin heard a soft call of, “Here we are,” that she uncovered them.

The four cornerstones around her came into view blearily but they were no longer connected to corridors but instead shelves. Shelves stacked high with scrolls piled atop one another, leaning against tomes of different sizes, and neatly arranged. The path ahead of her, the one to the west and the east, were all bookshelves. A strange look must have shown on her face because Inukimi covered her mouth with her sleeve to hide her mirth and stifle a laugh.

“Really, child, have you never been inside of a library before?” She asked, then seeming to remind herself, shook her head. “No, I suppose you haven’t.”

“It’s…”

Indescribable. The shelves themselves were far taller than Rin and when she peered down the path that they’d come, she could still see the outline of the door leading to the inner sanctum. Perhaps the path had changed but the destination was connected. From overhead, the wooden beams joined toward what Rin thought was a hole in the roof. A view of the now pale blue sky, thick with clouds drifting past, providing light accompanied by the lantern lighting torches along the sides of the shelves.

“The stories may have depicted my husband as a warmonger,” Inukimi said, her lips thinning into a grimace despite the warmth in her voice. “But he was a man who loved to tell and read stories. He believed legends were real, and that in all stories, there is some grain of truth.”

Rin was careful not to wander off in the seemingly endless maze. There wasn’t only four shelves but numerous and she wasn’t sure for how long the room stretched or how deep it went, from the winding staircase she saw in between two of the shelves they passed.

“Has Lord Sesshomaru been here before?”

“When he was a boy. He often followed at his father’s footsteps, and to bring him rest, Touga would read to him throughout the night.”

It was a little hard for Rin to think of Sesshomaru as ever being a child but his mother was proof that he’d once been small. And she had no small amount of stories to embarrass the daiyōkai.

“So, what does being here have to do with my dreams?” Rin asked, soft and skeptical.

With one slender finger raised, Inukimi silenced her from any further questions then gestured between two bookcases. Coming around the bend then holding up a hand to stop Rin in her tracks. After peering at the scrolls, scanning them with a claw tapping along their knobs, Inukimi seemed to find the one she was looking for and pulled it free. A small cloud of dust arising and calmly swept aside to where it nearly puffed in Rin’s face, a light breeze causing it to drift away.

Rin glanced up at Inukimi and the demoness held her gaze for a moment, the corner of her lips quirking with amusement and Rin rolling her eyes in response.

“You sneeze like a kitten,” Inukimi said, holding out the scroll to her.

“What’s this?” Rin asked, pointedly ignoring those words and turning the scroll over in her hands, her thumb fiddling with the tie.

“It should help with your dreams.” Inukimi said, though her voice held a certain ambivalence that roused Rin’s curiosity. “Or perhaps provide insight into what may be plaguing you.”

“… What is it about?”

Inukimi smiled thinly, though she covered it with her sleeve and a thoughtful tap to her cheek, her eyes crinkling at the corners in her amusement. “You will just have to find out, now won’t you?”

Rin made a face and sighed wearily. “I didn’t exactly bring a robe with me, or an actual body.”

“Surely the priestess who’s been teaching you has shown you a few of her tricks,” Inukimi said, plain amusement showing in her eyes.

Rin sighed, exasperatedly fond. It was an uphill battle with Inukimi remembering anyone’s names it seemed and she was certain the demoness was doing it on purpose. Though at least she didn’t call Kaede anything offensive as she often took to doing with Jaken.

“Follow me, you’ll need to concentrate for this and we’ve spent too much time inside as it is.”

Little complaint was given as Rin followed. Wanting to see the sky more than anything after too many brushes with the abyss. Tucking the scroll closer to her, she brushed her fingers against her sleeve and pushed it upward, distantly wondering how her skin could feel so cold when she wasn’t there. Inukimi provided no insight, walking ahead until the library and its light distanced, the torches snuffing out one by one until Rin could no longer discern the shadows of the shelves or the light above them.

As they walked, Rin noticed the walls seeming to change around Inukimi as her energy drifted from her with every step. The shoji and its paintings returning as well as the room of soldiers, jarring Rin immediately as she whipped her head around.

“How did you…”

Inukimi gave her a knowing smile and shook her head, walking along. “You’ll understand one day what it means to step into a yōkai’s domain. I believe that’s one of your slayer mentor’s lessons, isn’t it?”

Rin winced. She wasn’t sure that mentioning learning about the clan of demon slayers around other demons was wise but none of the soldiers they passed seemed bothered. In fact, some even seemed amused or interested with little smiles quickly dissipating as Inukimi stepped in their vicinity. The doors opened, this time without the sigil’s glow and a rush of wind swept Rin’s hair back. Her mouth opening wide and lips pulled back into a cheery smile, the scroll clutched tight in hand as she bounded down the steps and across the tiled floors toward the large staircase. The expanse of the sky opened up before her and she marveled at it.

“You’ve seen this sight every time you come here,” Inukimi said, seemingly affected by Rin’s cheer with a quiet thoughtfulness to her tone.

“And it never gets old,” Rin replied, never looking away from the sea of clouds.

They stand there in silence for some time. Both lost to their own thoughts and allowing the world to drift past. Rin’s attention, drifting to the scroll, helps her draw her energy to one point. The silver aura inching across the scroll’s knob, outlining the length of it until it shone, becoming translucent.

“So you have been learning.”

Sheepishly, Rin ducked her head with a little grin. “A bit. Everyone has their own way of helping me. Lady Kaede teaches me how to control my energy, Aniki — er — Inuyasha, has been teaching me how to fight with a sword. And Aniue — gah — Miroku, does meditations with me in the morning.”

Inukimi didn’t mention the endearments although from the look in her eye, she surely hadn’t missed Rin’s stumbling over them. After so long spent in the village, the others had become a family to her although she was a little hesitant to admit it out loud.

“And the slayer has taught you her ways, while the girl found in time taught you hers.” Inukimi stated, thoughtfully. The joy in Rin’s chest cooling with pinpricks of anticipation long wrought from a sense of danger. A threat looming, not physical but emotional, reaching her ears before she could steel herself. “But the rest, the faces of those you loved and lost, that is your own guilt.”

Rin met Inukimi’s gaze calmly, and the demoness’ eyes were gentle though her words were piercing in every way.

“You fear love.”

Swallowing the sticky ichor building in her throat, Rin grimaced.

“Affection.”

Kaede’s touch ghosted on her shoulder, the hesitance in her hands, which could have just as easily pulled Rin close as they could push her away. They both knew why she wouldn’t take the next step. They hadn’t talked about it and likely wouldn’t for some time. Half-spoken sentiments and soft words filled her mind and lingered, washed away as she breathed in deeply.

“And you fear life but you love it. You want to live but you feel guilty for it,” Inukimi stated, her voice knowing and Rin almost wondered if the demoness could see into the core of her being. Or if she had been that obvious in the years between. For a moment, neither of them said a word. Rin clutching the scroll tightly until she felt the paper begin to crinkle beneath her knuckles. And Inukimi glancing down at her hand, watching it tremble impassively, then looking away toward the lightening sky.

“You will have to come to peace with it. If you wanted to die, then you would have. It’s as simple as that.”

Pressure settled deep in Rin’s chest.

You lived because you survived.

You are lost but you are safe.

“A bird cannot remain in one place for long,” Inukimi said, a softness to her voice almost akin to that of a mother cooing to her child. Rin heard that sound many times after delivering a child, and each time it soothed her just a bit more. Whether unaware of the effects of her words or not, Inukimi continued on. “While the flow of time cannot be stopped, the time that you have can be controlled.”

Rin’s brows furrowed and her hand cupped at her chest. Though she couldn’t feel the beating of her heart, she knew that she still drew breath in the world below.

“There is no guarantee Sesshomaru will outlive you.”

Rin’s gaze snapped up to meet Inukimi’s own. The demoness staring at her resolutely, a heaviness to the slight downward twitch of her lips as they thinned tightly.

“He may die tomorrow just as easily as he could watch you die once more. Even your friends, human and yōkai, may meet the same end. Unless you make a decision, time will come for you to fly and you will fall to the forest floor when you were meant to soar.”

Rin swallowed the bile. A number of protests on her tongue though all of them were moot. She knew Inukimi was right. Deep down, she knew her time had been limited from the moment she was revived for the second time. Life was a precious thing but it was so fleeting. And she lived her life in accordance to her own laws and desires, including basking in the presence of those she loved.

Inukimi’s hand settled on her shoulder and a wave of calm swept through her, cracking and draining the ichor from her being. Releasing the breath built up in the swell of her chest, Rin blinked away the budding tears and looked up at the demoness with a stern jaw.

Nonplussed, and even somewhat pleased, Inukimi returned her gaze. Shifting her hand to cup the underside of her jaw, her claws grazing along Rin’s cheek tenderly.

“Nevertheless, Rin. No matter the fate you choose, I only ask you to protect yourself,” she said. “And if you should find yourself in need of advice once more, you know how to find me.”

With that, she drew her hand away and took with it her warmth and the faint outline of violet. “And if I want to talk?” Rin asked quietly, steeling herself for the rejection that might come.

Inukimi’s face took on a thoughtful look and the smile she wore was the faint and gentle one, rare as it was, Rin committed it to memory with the others. “I suppose I don’t mind your company…”

Perhaps a bit too gleeful, Rin smiled, ignoring the heaviness in her heart to step toward the demoness. “May I push my luck just a bit further?”

Raising a brow with a wary look, Inukimi tucked her hands into her sleeves, the gleam of the Meidō Stone drawing Rin’s eye. “I suppose it depends on what you wish to push your luck with.”

Rin squared her shoulders as if she were preparing to fight, the scroll held out in the palm of her hand as she opened her arms. “A hug?” She asked with the same hopefulness that often won her many sighs and less lectures.

Inukimi regarded her silently, raking her gaze up and down before glancing aside a way that almost reminded Rin of Sesshomaru.

“… One.”

Rin would have squealed if she hadn’t thought it would have robbed her of this moment. Despite the demoness’ terse words, there was a relief. A breath of fresh air and perhaps a chance. Inukimi was many things, but she was never without purpose, much like her son. As Rin slid to the demoness’ side and tucked her arms around her in a tight embrace, the scroll was clutched tightly in her palm. A giddy laugh bubbling from her throat betraying the weight of her heart.

From above, she heard a small fond sigh and felt the arm wind around her shoulders to return the embrace.

After some time, Rin shuffled a bit to look up at her, smiling almost impishly. “So, out of curiosity, when will you tell me your true name, Lady Inukimi?”

“Do you not prefer that charming little alias you’ve given me?”

“Master Jaken was horrified when I spoke it for the first time.”

“Ah that he was, perhaps that’s why I’m fond of it.”

They shared a laugh and stayed together, watching as the sun began its ascent. With one last squeeze, Rin pulled away slowly and nodded to Inukimi with a tired yet appreciative smile.

“I should be returning now, if Lady Kaede finds I haven’t woken and my spirit energy missing, she’ll worry.”

Inukimi nodded in turn, gently patting down her hair, tracing the curve of her cheek to her chin with a little smile playing at her lips. “Safe travels, little bird.”

Rin nodded, taking a deep breath. “Until next time,” she promised, her body beginning to glow and unravel in threads of light. Inukimi and the view of her castle, the wide expanse of the sky, and all else fading away.

When Rin opened her eyes, the wooden beams of Kaede’s hut caught her eye along with a hole in the thatched roof. She made a dull note in mind to fix that, taking a few testing breaths to ensure her soul had returned to her body. Glancing aside at the silhouette of Kaede still tucked beneath her comforter, Rin smiled and shuffled her arm from beneath the blanket.

The scroll resting in the palm of her hand just as it’d been when she was in Inukimi’s domain. Sighing softly, Rin pushed herself upright.

She could keep this to herself for now. Although, she knew that it wouldn’t stay that way for long.

#inuyasha #rin #sesshomaru #inukimi #fanfiction #my fanfiction #affections touching across time #it takes a village

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mossander · 5 years ago

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How the MK kast reacts to Reader seeing them NSFW

I was at work from I randomly remembered an episode from Firefly where Malcolm is naked for some reason and walks into the Serenity showing off his goods. Then I came up with this prompt of Reader walking into nude people in the MK universe and had too much fun writing about it. I’m gonna try to write for the whole MK11 kast. Warning: copious nudity and sexual references

Scorpion

- Hanzo is nervous about the prospect of making love again. He has done nothing of the sort since before his wife passed away. He has spent so many years suppressing or handling his urges alone that the prospect of sharing them with someone else had become foreign. When he tried to propose the idea of lovemaking to you, he stumbled through so many words and strange analogies you took minutes to understand what he was trying to say. It relieved him you agreed and felt the same, but now he's nervous again for having to go through the next step of seduction. He can barely remember what he did with his wife; all he could remember is welcoming her naked. So while you’re busy in the bathroom, he undresses by the bed and then remains standing in place. Yup, just… standing there. In the buff. Not sure what to do with himself. You come out and you're excited to see him ready. Though you're wondering why his face is still unmoving and stoic, and he can't find a place to put his hands. You come over and help him out.

Sub Zero

- Kuai is taking a steamy shower at his private quarters when you successfully sneak in. The sound of the shower running masks your footsteps and he's totally clueless to your presence. You didn't expect him to be showering, but it only makes the surprise visit better. You sit patiently by the bed, hearing him wash and hum a melody to a traditional Chinese folk song. You wait in anticipation while grinning like a fox. You bite your lip as you hear the faucet turn off and see his shadow dry himself off with a towel. He exits without it, and boom. Yours and his eyes meet and widen. Your eyes then drift down to the sweet spot, and he quickly cups himself and retreats into the bathroom. He yells at you not to sneak into his private quarters without his permission. You respond that it's the only way you get to catch the show.

Raiden

- Raiden is in his inner sanctum trying to brainstorm ideas for his new attire. He tries different designs and color combinations; Each time an idea is scrapped his clothes disappear in a flash and he is naked for a few seconds between changes. He is hoping to decide on a new look before you arrive for a scheduled meeting. Little did he know, you cut your previous plans short and you're able to come by hours earlier than expected. You didn't feel the need to give him advance notice since he told you he’s staying in all day anyway. You walk in and catch a moment where Raiden is lost in thought, standing naked in front of a full body mirror. You gasp involuntarily and quickly avert your eyes. He sees you through the reflection and quickly beams down a simple outfit to cover himself. He approaches you and apologizes profusely. You uncover your face and say it's alright, failing to stop smiling and unable to erase the strong blush on your cheeks.

Baraka

- Baraka invited you to his village to attend a special Tartakan ceremony as a guest. You know nothing of Tarkatan cultural holidays or practices and go in with the assumption it's probably something exotic and savage. When you arrived at the camp, you got seated with the children and the non-Tarkatan captives. You're less than stoked about this until the ceremony begins. Baraka, as head of the village, is the one to start with a tribal dance. He's wearing no clothing at all and is covered in decorative markings that were painted all over his skin. You appreciate the fast and wild movements of his dance, in between the times you're distracted by his peen swinging and spinning without care. You're near the children while they laugh and go “oooh” and “ahhh”, and near the captives while they close their eyes in embarrassment to what they're witnessing. You try your best to appreciate the art while avoiding being too turned on or grossed out.

Noob Saibot

- You didn't know this before but it takes effort for him to remain clothed rather than not. In his normal state, he is nothing more than a shadow in the shape of a man. You catch him in his resting state after navigating a pitch black cave with a lantern. After some searching, you find his silhouette on the wall when you shine your light on it. He pulls out of the silhouette's shadow to reveal himself in his truest form. His body is the shape of what Bi-Han's body was before he was turned into a wraith. One important difference is his face, which has turned into a nose-less horror. You look upon him with equal parts surprise and mystique when he transforms into the visage of his former self, a handsome and human Bi-Han still unclothed. He asks you in a ghostly deep voice if this is what you're looking for. You say you've gotten much more than what you expected.

Cassie Cage

- Both of you lost a bet against Jacqui and Takeda and now the two of you have to go skinny dipping in a cold lake. You're less than thrilled but Cassie's nudging and enthusiasm make you agree to it. When you ask her how you and she are gonna do this, she says to just go with the flow. You go out outside with her and approach the lake at a slow pace. You guys stop a couple of feet by the water's edge and look at each other nervously. She nods, giving the command to strip down and make a run for it. You strip down and wait for Cassie to run in your peripheral vision before you do the same. Both of you jump and hit the water at around the same time. The water is as cold as it looks, and the shock hits you as soon as you stop descending the lake. You take no time to ascend for air and madly swim to shore. As you sit on the dirt, holding yourself to stop the shivering, you see Cassie is taking her time swimming back to where you are. It's clear she's handling a lot better than you are. You watch her lift yourself out and walk calmly towards you, admiring her dripping and toned body as she smiles slyly to you. When she reaches you, she punches you on the shoulder and asks if you enjoyed the show. You say you did and that you might have to get back in for a cold dip.

Erron Black

- You were waiting by his hideout when you received a written message from a pigeon by the window. The message instructed you to bring a set of clothes and to head to a specific location as soon as possible. It also stresses in bold letters to not ask questions. At all. You take his word for it and take his spare outfit before heading out. You get to the destination as quickly as you can only to see you got there before he did, which is a good thing. You remain diligently on standby until you spot him falling from above, onto an awning above a storefront and then land on the ground on his shoulder. You immediately run to search for any injuries. He shoos you and tells you he's okay. He stands in front of you and brushes the dirt off himself. You notice he's nude except for his hat, dual gun holsters with matching pistols, and boots. You make strict eye contact with him, very strict eye contact, making it clear to him you haven't averted your gaze to any other part of him while holding back the widest amused smile. He smirks and tilts his hat up. “Reckon ya got that message I sent ya?”, he asks you. You nod and give him a backpack containing his clothes. “Atta boy/girl,” He wraps his arm around you and together the two of you walk to the nearest private area for him to get dressed again.

Kabal

- It's Valentine's Day and he won't stop texting you. “Love you lots, qt! Can't wait for you to get over here [Scorpion Emoji], Miss ya babe!” He keeps blowing up your phone when you're busy. You were in the middle of a mission while your phone kept buzzing and dinging. You had to turn it off to keep yourself sane. You turn it back on at the end of your mission to find a ridiculous about of notifications from him under the name Kabalbae <3. You don't read or open any of it and throw the phone back in your bag. He did this every time he had a day off and you wish he had better things to do when he got bored. You shake it off and head out thinking you'll return all that affection once you get home. You grab a bottle of good wine and a movie rental in case he forgot and slept in like he normally did. You barely get a foot past the threshold when you're greeted by a nude Kabal fully erect and holding a bouquet and your favorite box of chocolate. “Happy Valentine's, babe.” He winks. You squeal and quickly set down the stuff you carried in. You hug and kiss him excitedly, then grabbed the chocolates and flowers and set them down too. You take full advantage of his body while he's still hard and didn't give a damn that the front door is still wide open.

Kano

- Kano is naked in the Black Dragon base way more often than normal. He sometimes walks around in full view of everyone, not giving a single fuck what anyone thinks of it. When he wants to be left alone, he hangs out by the command table nude, scratching his balls and ass to keep people off his back. Kabal and Erron avoids talking to him entirely when he's like this. Sometimes they taunt him by throwing his pants at him, only for him to scoff and throw them back. He puts the pants back on when it's time to conduct business and wants to talk to the gang without them looking at his dick. When he gets back home after a long day of who knows what, the pants come off again, and he lounges around like normal in his nude self. You're used to this and learned to pay him no mind when he struts around you nude for no reason at all. Today though is slightly different. You're playing on your phone on the couch when he stands in front of you with his hands on his hips. You ask him what the hell he's doing. “Why not take a quick gander, love?” You look up and are taken aback when you notice something different in his appearance. He trimmed the bushes by a lot and it looks a lot tidier now. He even trimmed his happy trail too so you can see what he's hinting at. It looks so good you could almost call it manscaping. “Has anyone at work seen this?” You quipped. “Nah, mate/sheila. Ya got the privilege of being the first.” You smile devilishly as you finally put your phone down.

#mortal kombat #mortal kombat 11 #mk11 #Scorpion #hanzo hasashi #sub zero #kuai liang #bi han #noob saibot #baraka #cassie cage #erron black #kabal #kano

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theyoutubedork · 5 years ago

Text

I’m not a wizard: part 2

tag list: @strangemaximoff

A couple of months later, and you are completely able to walk again. You learned Eldritch Magic Manipulation, constantly channeling dimensional energy to let your body function normally. It took you a while to get the hang of constantly using it, but now you grown used to the inter-dimensional hum throughout your body. You can barely feel it anymore. At this point, you were ready for almost anything, with Dr. Strange teaching you as much as possible. He wanted you to be prepared for when the dangerous threat he was talking about arrives.

The best part though, was being able to enforce your quarter staff with magic. Similar to the staff of the tribunal, you could spilt the stick apart so you could use it as a flail. It’s use was no longer that of a cane.

One day, Dr. Strange was about to do a deli run. You were going to go with him, while Wong stayed behind since he had no American money.

“I wouldn’t say no to a tuna melt,”

Wong said. You let out a laugh, before something crashed behind you. You all ducked for cover. You all summoned your weapons as you closed in on the hole in the stairs. You summoned your staff into your hand, pointing it threateningly as you draw closer. You peer inside to see a green man grumbling, eventually losing his odd color as he shrinks. He looks up at the three of you.

“Thanos is coming. He’s coming,” he said, out of breath. You all exchanged confused glances.

“Who?” Asked Dr. Strange.

After incoherent ramblings on the destruction of the universe you went over to the man who introduced himself as Dr. Bruce Banner, or the hulk. You place a hand on your shoulder. He stops rambling.

“If this Thanos is as life-threatening as you describe, is there any one you know that could help us?” You ask. Bruce Banner nods.

“Tony Stark,” He says. You look to Dr. Strange,

“Iron man, wow, ok, let’s try that,” You say. Dr. Strange nods at you to come with him as Wong stays behind. Dr. Strange quickly opens a sling ring, showing Stark and his wife kissing each other. You wince as Strange interrupts them.

“Tony Stark,” He announces, walking through the portal with you behind him,

“I’m Dr. Stephen Strange. I need you to come with me.” The couple looks at us, confused out of their minds. You nudge Strange, urging him to elaborate.

“Oh, uh, congratulations on the wedding by the way,” he says. You try not to laugh. Tony squints his eyes.

“I’m sorry, you giving out tickets to something?”

“We need your help,” Strange explains. You nod.

“It’s not overselling it to say that the fate of the universe is at stake,”

“And who’s we?” Tony challenges.

You were about to introduce yourself when Banner walks through the portal.

“Hey Tony.”

“Bruce!”

“Pepper,” Bruce greets.

“Hi,” whispers pepper.

Bruce goes up to Tony and hugs him.

You all walk back into the sanctum, you directing Tony to a couch. Wong begins to explain everything to do with the infinity stones and their existence. Dr Strange lists them out, revealing the time Stone in the eye of Agamotto. You gasp.

“You didn’t tell me you had that wrapped around your neck this whole time!” You growl, swatting Strange’s arm. His cake pushes you away. You huff. Tony continues,

“Tell me his name again,”

“Thanos,” explains Bruce, “he’s a plague Tony. He invades planets. He takes what he wants. He wipes out half the population. He sent Loki. The Attack on New York, that’s him.”

“This is it,” says Tony, “What’s our timeline?”

“No telling, He has the Power and Space Stones. That already makes him the strongest creature in the universe. If he gets his hands on all six stones, Tony...”

“He could destroy life on a scale hitherto undreamt of.” Says strange. You see Tony lean on the cauldron of cosmos, stretching.

“Did you seriously say “hitherto undreamt of”?” He sneers.

“Are you seriously leaning on the Cauldron of Cosmos?” The cloak of levitation whacks Tony away from it. It lets out a big clang. You let out a chuckle.

“I’m going to allow that. If Thanos needs all six, why don’t we just stick this one down the garbage disposal?”

“No can do,”

“That’s a stupid idea,” you groan at the same time as the Doctor. Tony looks at you.

“Aren’t you a bit young to be here?” Tony says, finally looking at you.

“My name is Y/N L/N, thanks for asking!” you say, letting on a frown,

“Anyway continue” you lean your staff towards the group.

“We swore an oath to protect the time stone with our lives.”

“I swore off dairy, but then Ben and Jerry’s names a flavor after me, so...”

“Stark Raving Hazelnuts.”

“It’s not bad,”

“More like not good,” you laugh.

“A bit chalky.”

“A hunk of hulk of burning fudge is our favorite,” Wong says.

“I liked Captain Americone, but then they discontinued it since he was you know, a criminal now,” you add. Wong hums in agreement, with a solemn look on his face.

“Point is, things change.” Tony said.

“Our oath to protect the Time stone cannot change. And this stone may be the best chance against Thanos.”

“Yeah, So conversely it may also be his best chance against us.”

“Well if we don’t do our jobs.”

“What is your job exactly? Besides making balloon animals.”

“Protecting your reality,” Strange says and you instinctively join him in saying, “douchebag,” Strange smiles at you, and you give a toothy grin.

“Ok guys, could we table this discussion right now? The fact is we have this stone. We know where it is. Vision is out there somewhere with the Mind Stone and we have to find him now,”

“Who’s Vision?” You say.

Tony explains that “Vision” is offline.

“Who could find vision then?” Strange says.

“Shit. Probably Steve Rogers.”

“Oh great,” you all mumble.

“Maybe.”

Bruce asks why he can’t just call him, and Tony reveals to him that the avengers broke up.

“Broke up? Like a band? Like..like the Beatles?”

“Exactly like the Beatles,” You say, chuckling at his use of terminology.

“Cap and I fell out hard. We’re not on speaking terms.”

Bruce explains that Thanos is coming no matter what whoever you’re talking to or not.

“He’s right Tony,” you add. Tony sighs and walks away and pulls out his flip phone. Things start to rumble.

“Say doc you wouldn’t be happen to be moving your hair would ya?” Tony asks.

“Not at the moment no,”

The rumbling becomes louder as you see people running outside. You guys exit the sanctum, seeing people running for their lives. You quickly follow Dr. Strange and Tony, summoning your shields.

“You might want to put that stone in your pocket Doc,”

“Might wanna use it,” Doc answers, summoning his own rings. You turn a corner to see a ring ship hovering over the city.

“Friday, evac anyone south of 43rd street notify first responders”

Dr. Strange instructs you to clear the dust with him, and you both cast the Winds of Watoomb to clear the area. A beam from the ship makes two aliens figures land on the ground. You gulp, taking a deep breath.

“Hear me, and rejoice. You are about to die at the hands of the Children of Thanos. Be thankful that your meaningless lives are now contributing—“ the skinny one says before Tony interrupts him.

“I’m sorry, Earth is closed today.” He yells. You smile at his words,

“You better pack it up and get outta here.”

“Stonekeeper” the alien addresses Strange.

“Does this chattering animal speak for you?”

“Certainly not I speak for myself.” He defends, summoning his rings, “you’re trespassing in this city and on this planet.”

Both you and Wong summon your rings as well, and you feel magical energy course through you.

“He means get lost, Squidward.” Tony yells. You have to bite your tongue to keep yourself from laughing. He was totally right!

“He exhausts me. Bring me the stone,” Squidward says to his partner who chitters in an alien language.

Banner is unable to summon hulk, saying they had a thing, frustrating Tony.

“Dude you’re embarsssing me in front of the wizards.” Tony growls.

Tony orders wings to look after Bruce. You see Tony summon his iron man suit battling briefly before being shot up from the ground. Dr. Strange turns to Bruce as Wong summons a shield.

“Since the rest of your green friend won’t be joining us...” sending him through a sling ring.

You send a few projectiles at Squidward when Tony comes back.

“You need to get that stone out of here now!”

“It stays with me,”

“Exactly, bye,” He says, hurtling towards the beasts before being sent through a wall. Dr. Strange turns to you,

“Go help him,” he says, nodding his head towards Tony. You nod. You quickly summon ruby rings, jumping up towards a building, using your quarterstaff to pole vault you towards the park. You see Tony push Bruce out of the way as you will yourself to float down next to them. Your legs wobble slightly from your first time with actually floating, but you quickly recover. Tony begins to be beat up by the monster and before you throw a shield to protect him, something red and blue beats you too it.

“Hey man. What’s up Mr. Stark?” The young hero says. You recognize him as Spider-Man, since you’ve heard briefly of him.

“Kid, where’d you come from?” Tony asks.

“A field trip to MOMA!” He yells as he’s thrown to the side. You quickly throw some golden whips onto the beast, trying to restrain him as Tony blasts the alien.

“What’s this guy’s problem Mr. stark?” You hear the boy yell.

“Uh he’s from space. He came here to steal a necklace from a wizard.” He says. You sigh, slashing at the alien with your flail-staff.

“For the last time due we’re not wizards! We’re Masters of the Mystic Arts!” You yell back at Tony. The beast grabs Spider-Man throwing him. You summon a sling ring, sending him through as you drop him above you, as you manage to catch him. Your knees slightly buckle from the weight but you set him down on the grass. Spider-Man looks up at you.

“Thanks!” He yellsas you flail at the beast.

You throw more space shards at the alien. Spider-Man quickly grabs a car that’s thrown, throwing it at the alien. Suddenly you see Dr. strange whip by, the cape dragging him.

“Kid that’s the wizard. Get on it!” Tony says.

“On it!” Spider-Man says. You start running towards Strange, using your staff as a pole vault once more. You use more powers as you try to fly through the air, but you keep trailing across the ground every few feet or so. Spider-Man soars above you as you start to trail behind. You feel your legs screaming from the amount of energy you are using, yelling in pain. You look at Spider-Man swinging through the air and you start to do the same. You take golden whips and start swinging off of trees and streetlights, only having to float yourself a few times. The wizard sends billboards you way, and you quickly deflect it with a shield. Spider-Man gets hit, and you keep going, flying ahead of the wizard and grabbing Strange with your whip as he’s sent flying, you see a strand of webbing attach to him, and Spider-Man comes to your aid. Suddenly a beam from the ship starts pulling you up, but you refuse to let go. Spider-Man trails after you. And you hear his yell.

“Uh Mr. Stark, I’m being beamed up.”

The ship escalates super quickly and you look at Spider-Man.

“What do we do?” You say, unable to think of a spell to save you. Spider-Man quickly grabs you by the waist, swinging you both to a side of the ship. You cling onto the panels. You both start climbing. Spider-Man says suddenly,

“But you said to save the wizard! I can’t breathe!” He says as he takes off his mask. Your already gasping for air as you see an attractive young man emerge from the mask. He gasps for air. Tony seems to say something to him before he says,

“Yeah, that makes sense.” He breathes before he collapses. You scream, failing to catch him with your whip.

“Spider-Man!” You yell. Suddenly something flies onto him, emerging his in a new suit. He lands not so gracefully on the trip. gracefully on the ship. You see that before he’s sent off with a parachute, and you start to lose consciousness, you try to summon the winds into your lungs, but your arms give out. You start to feel yourself fall, but then you feel strong metal arms surround you.

“I got you kid,” you hear Tony say. You’re able to breathe in a few moments, and Tony sets you on your feet. You and him quickly go to a safe place, observing Dr. Strange from above. Tony nearly blasts the cloak of levitation.

“Wow, you’re a seriously loyal piece of outerwear aren’t you?”

He says. You nod at him.

“Yes, it’s his personal relic, it has a spiritual bond with him.

“Yeah uh speaking of loyalty.” Spider-Man flips down onto the floor.

“What the..”

“I know what you’re gonna say.”

“You should not be here”

“I was gonna go home”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“But it was such a long way down and I thought about you the way...”

“And now I gotta hear it.”

“Kinda stuck to the side of the ship and this suit is ridiculously intuitive by the way. So if anything it’s kinda you’re fault I’m here.” Peter rambles. You gasp at his words. Did he seriously just say that?

“What did you just say?”

“I- I take that back?” Peter stammers, “And now I’m here in space”

“Yeah right where I didn’t want you to be.” Tony says. He walks up to Peter in a hushed tone. You turn to the cloak, looking for any help. It just shrugs at you before wrapping you into a cloaky hug.

You hear hushed arguing before Tony walks back towards you.

“You’re not to supposed to be here either!” He says to you.

“Excuse me?” You retort.

“You’re too young just like him, I can tell you’re not ready for this!” He assumes. You cross your arms before sneering up at him.

“For your information, Strange told me to go SAVE you when you got hit in the face with a hammer,”

“I didn’t need to be saved!”

“Maybe not but obviously you are your little buddy here couldn’t hand it on your own, so now I’m here! I’m trying to save my fucking mentor so if you two could shut the fuck up, then maybe we can get out of here!” You say, blood boiling. You got so distracted that you stopped channeling your energy, and you nearly fall before Spider-Man catches you in your arms.

“What’s the matter?” Spider-Man says. You look up into his chocolate brown eyes before shoving him away, regaining the strength in your legs quickly. You feel the familiar hum in your bones.

“Nothing! I just got so angry I forgot to hold myself up,” you mumbled. The boy and Iron Man look at you quizzically. You sigh, leaning on your staff,

“I have to use dimensional energy constantly so I can walk,” You say. They still look at you oddly.

“I was paralyzed from the waist down a few years ago, that’s why I became what you call a “wizard”. Dr. Strange taught me how to walk again.” You explain, returning to your full height.

“You use magic to walk?” Iron Man says. You sigh, rubbing your temple.

“Basically, I’ll explain it later, right now we gotta save my boss.” You say. Iron man points to Strange, looking at Peter.

“See him down there? He’s in trouble. What’s your plan? Go.”

“Umm. Ok ok um have you seen this really old movie aliens?” Peter says, looking at the both of you. You raise your eyebrow in question.

Tony starts to face off against Squidward. He blasts a hole in the ship sending out the alien, and Spider-Man goes to grab him. He hangs on by metal tendrils. You hear him scream in triumph through an earpiece Tony gave you. You quickly wrap your whips around his torso, dragging him back up through the ship. Tony quickly seals the hole when they are launched back up. You drag Spider-Man back up, and discard your whip. He looks at you with his wide mechanical eyes. You smile before rushing over the Dr. Strange.

Tony And Stephen start arguing. You walk next to him as Tony yells at him.

“Who just saved your magical ass? Me!”

They continue arguing as you turn back around, conjuring a string of light between your hands, fiddling it in thought.

“Now we’re in a flying doughnut billions of miles from Earth with no back up.”

“I’m backup,” both you are Peter say, raising your arms. You both look at each other.

“No, you’re both stowaways! The adults are talking. ” Tony sneered.

You groan in protest.

“She’s not a stowaway, she’s with me. And,I’m sorry, I’m confused as to the relationship here. What is he your ward?”

“No, I’m Peter, by the way.”

“Dr. Strange.”

“Oh you’re using made up names, um, I’m Spider-Man then.” He says. You sigh and walk over to him while the “adults” started talking.

“That’s his actually name. He’s my mentor. I’m Y/N L/N.” You say, flipping your hair out of your face while sticking out your hand for him to shake. You see Peter get flustered he takes your hand warily.

“I’m Peter. Peter Parker.” He says. You smile.

“You said that already,” you laugh. His eyes widen.

“Oh,uh sorry.” He says. You shake you’re head.

“It’s fine, Peter,”

You both glance back at the two men, who are standing face to face. You both gulp in fear of what they’re talking about.

“All right Stark, we go to him,” Strange says, “But you have to understand, if it comes to saving you, or the kid, or the Time Stone, to let either of you die. I can’t because the universe depends on it.”

“What about your magical assistant then? You didn’t say you would let her die,” Tony asked with genuine interest. Your heart drops. Before Dr. Strange answered you stepped in.

“Like Wong said, we swear an oath to protect the Time Stone. I will lay down my life for it if I have to.” You say to Tony. You look to Stephen, who avoids your gaze. What would he have said?

“All right kid,” Tony says, laying his hands on both of Peter’s shoulders, “you’re an avenger now.” Peter smiles, adjusting his stance to look more heroic.

You smile, looking at his new self-assured state. He looked cute. Wait what?

#marvel #mcu #spiderman #tom holland #marvel x reader #mcu fanfiction #peter parker #peter parker x reader #tom holland spiderman

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isakitwrites · 6 years ago

Text

Placement Chapter 9

Stephen woke with a gasp, forcing his eyes open to stop himself from falling through dimensions.

The recessed lighting fixtures above him were far too modern. Avengers Compound. Not the Sanctum. Not the Dark Dimension. He lay flat on his back in the bed and pressed a hand over his bare chest, tapping his fingers in a slow rhythm to ease his heart back to a normal speed. His eyes focused in absentia on the light fixtures, forcing himself to notice how the sunrise from the floor-to-ceiling windows began to overtake his room.

When he could breathe again, he rolled over and dangled half his lanky body over the edge of the bed. The bed Stark had offered him here was much bigger and more luxurious than any he’d had even in his old life. And yet he apparently occupied as little of it as he could, often sleeping in a tight ball or a stiff supine close to the edge. Groaning and still squinting at the sunrise in his window, he planted a bare foot on the cool floor and and forced himself upright, stiff muscles grinding as he stretched, his tired fingers poking at bruises from the latest battle - only three days ago? - and scars from ones long past.

Not falling through dimensions. Fighting Dormammu. His breath hitched when he realized what he’d actually been dreaming about. Stumbling blindly, he pulled on the first shirt he found hanging out of a drawer, something Tony had thrust at him when the man realized how little Stephen actually had now that his medical career was over. It was short on him, barely skimming the tops of loose pajama pants, but the soft Black Sabbath t-shirt was becoming his favorite.

Suddenly itching to move in order to contain himself, his bare feet padded to the door of his room and he found himself in the elevator, headed down to the lower level that housed labs and a full gym, including open workout spaces. Steve, Rhodey and Sam sometimes were up this early, but they preferred to run all over the Compound’s expansive grounds. Stephen knew there was a cross country course somewhere in the woods, but he had little interest in the idea of running.

The elevator doors parted, and Stephen rolled his shoulders as he exited, intending to head to the room Stark had made for him as a small yoga studio. Really, not much more than a partition of the larger workout space, but the man had soundproofed it so that it was an appropriate setting for the practice. It was a nice gesture. Was he like this for all of the Avengers? He did hear rumors of a dance studio for Natasha, but the rumor also held that no one but Tony and Natasha could find it. Maybe Tony did have a soft spot. Maybe Natasha was being duplicitous again.

An explosion from the lab turned his head just as he had started to open his studio door, and he found himself sprinting back down the short hallway. Pushing through the glass doors, he worried, as always, about what he’d find there. It was a small explosion this time. Maybe it was Bruce, Stephen found himself hoping. And, right, Tony is, of course, sleeping at such an early hour. No one believes that fairytale anymore. He rolled his eyes at himself, picking his way across the lab, cursing his lack of footwear.

“Stark, what did I tell you about that shoulder?” Stephen crouched beside Tony, who was slumped against the wall on his side of the lab, surrounded by pieces of metal. Stephen’s hands were numb, but they went to work, pulling away the bandages and peering under them, making sure Stark hadn’t completely undone all the work that had been put in on the wound. Tony’s eyes were startlingly dull and listless as he watched Stephen work.

The doctor’s hand moved down the left arm and felt for a pulse (dodgy, but still strong), his other hand lifting Tony’s chin and staring at his eyes (bloodshot, circled in purples and blues) critically. “When did you last sleep?” Probably before the battle, if then. Stephen answered his own question and Tony’s eyes rolled and spun a little before they focused on the sorcerer.

“‘M fine,” the engineer mumbled. “Jus’ shouldn’t weld … when I’m tired.”

“Y...eah…” Stephen muttered, drawing the word out. “I feel like that’s something you learn at least once a month, Stark. One of these days, it’s gonna stick, right?”

Tony’s laugh was mirthless at first, but he quickly dissolved into uncontrollable giggles. Stephen still had his hand at the man’s wrist and he wrapped his long fingers loosely around the joint and tried to squeeze. “Alright, man. We’re not doing this here. Can you get up?” Tony was still giggling helplessly, his body slumping against Stephen’s. The doctor sat him upright again and stood, his face solemn as he considered his options. The Cloak appeared at the door of the lab, and Stephen smiled gratefully at the relic, waving it forward.

Tony was just starting to cross the line from hysterics into sobbing panic when Stephen bundled the Cloak around him, letting it do the heavy lifting that the doctor couldn’t. Pressing his fingers to Tony’s forehead, the sorcerer put him in a careful trance, giving both of them a few moments of peace. Gesturing with his shaking hand, he called the Cloak to follow him into the elevator.

While he’d been to the penthouse where Tony’s suite was, Stephen surely didn’t have free access to it. He pressed the PH button but it did not light. “Friday, come on,” he muttered under his breath. He hadn’t been expecting a reply, but the chipper Irish lilt of the AI informed him that no one was to disturb Mr Stark’s suite. Stephen didn’t fight it. He pressed the number eight for his floor. No one else had a room on that level, all of them having claimed their rooms closer to the common kitchen long ago. Stephen was late to join the party, he guessed. He never was much for team building, anyway. He’d just have to dump Tony in his own bed and let the genius billionaire figure it out.

#isakitwrites: Placement #ironstrange fic #ironstrange

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layce2015 · 7 years ago

Text

Doctor Strange (Strange x Reader) Chp. 6

“Wong? Mordo?” Stephen and I shouted as the doorway dissolved into a wall. “Damn it.” I muttered when we began to look around. We start to walk ahead and see a large staircase to the side. We look to the other side and saw a door. We run towards it and open the door. We run out of the building to see that we were in New York.

Stephen and I looked out at the street full of people walking by and cars flying down the road. We look over and see a sign on the building that said: 177A Bleecker Street.

I look up at Stephen as he looks up at the building. I follow his gaze to see an odd symbol at the top.

We run back inside and shut the door and we began to look around the Sanctum. “Hello?” Stephen called out but there was no response. “Hello?” I shouted but nothing as we go over to a large circular room, a rotunda.

Inside were three enormous panoramic paintings; or windows. One window looked over a misty forest, trees as far as mine and Stephen’s eyes could see, another opened onto a spectacular view of a tempest-tossed ocean, these as roiling in anger. The last window bore witness to isolated, snowcapped mountains.

Stephen walks over to the middle window, the one with the ocean view, and opens it. I stand next to him and felt a spray of cool salt water. I could also hear the sound of the crashing waves and the wind.

I look over and see a panel, with a dial on it, next to the window. I place my hand on it and turned the dial and the view of the ocean disappeared and was replaced by the view of a vast, arid desert.

I begin to smile as the two of us began to walk away from the rotunda. We walk into ended up in a room with all the artifacts and relics. Swords, daggers, helmets, amulets of all shapes, chalices and cauldrons of varying sizes were displayed all around us.

Then Stephen walks up to a tall case that held a red cloak with a high collar. As he walks up to it, the cloak floats up on its own as if in interest of the newcomer. “Wow.” I whispered then I looked over and see an amulet, with a strange symbol on it, residing on a stone pedestal. I walk over to it, pick it up and stare at it with interest when we heard a noise. Stephen and I look at each other then looked toward the doorway. I put the amulet in my pocket and the two of us began to run towards the front door.

****

The front door of the Sanctum appeared to shudder, then move, slightly inside, toward the foyer and in comes Kaecilius and two of his people, a man was standing in front of them. Stephen and I stood to the side as Kaecilius enters the Sanctum and said. “Daniel. I see they made you Master of the Sanctum.”

The man, Daniel, holds up his staff and said. “Do you know what that means?”

“That you’ll die protecting it.” Kaecilius replied and his two followers glided their hands together to make a shard of crackling energy, like a long blade.

Daniel stands his ground as he begins to fight the two and for a moment he is able to hold his own until they over power him and the two followers have Daniel on his knees and Kaecilius starts to move his hand to form the energy blade.

Stephen and I run towards Kaecilius as he stabs Daniel. “Wait! Stop!” Stephen shouted as we stood at the top of the staircase. Kaecilius looks up at us then he pulled the blade out of Daniel, who falls face forward.

“How long have you two been at Karmar-Taj, Mister and Miss…?” He starts to ask.

“Doctor.” Stephen replied.

Kaecilius stops then looks at him confused. “Mister Doctor?” He asked.

Stephen shakes his head and said. “It’s Strange.”

“Maybe. But who am I to judge?” Kaecilius said, shrugging.

Kaecilius’s comrades run across the foyer and come to attack us.

I wave my hands around and summoned some shields as Stephen makes some hand gestures and made a luminous whip appear as the two followers begin to run up the walls.

One of them, a male, runs up the walls towards me and throws the blade-like energy towards me but I wave my shielded hands, knocking the energy blade out of the way.

The other one, a woman, runs towards Stephen, who cracks the whip at her and it wraps around her legs. He flicks the whip, sending her flying. Stephen and I then run down the hallway as he flicked his whip once more, snaring a large vase, and then hurled it at the male Zealot.

The female Zealot comes at Stephen and throws another energy blade at him and he flicks his whip and knocks it away as I throw my energy shields at the Zealots, knocking them back. Kaecilius starts to chase after us.

As we run down the hallway towards the rotunda, I look back at Kaecilius then I realized that we are not getting closer to the rotunda. I look down at the floor, seeing it is twisting under our feet.

Stephen and I stop and the both of us turn around to face Kaecilius and begin to cleave the air around us with our hands, forming shields of energy.

Both of us get into a stance, ready for battle, when one of Stephen’s shield flicker then disappears.

He looks down at his hand and snapped his arm to get the shield back up but nothing happens. “You need to work on that.” I remarked as the Zealots run up the walls and attacks the both of us. Stephen and I were able to block some of the blows until Kaecilius moved his hands again and made the hallway spin. We lose our balance and fling around like ragdolls, hitting the walls or ceilings.

I hit my head against something and become daze when the hallway finally straightens up.

After the hallway straightens up, the female Zealot runs at me and I stand up and was about to punch her when the hallway begins to incline and everyone begins to lose their balance.

Stephen grabs onto a curtain on the wall and reaches out towards me, as I fall, and grabs my hand. I look up at Stephen and give him a concerned look as I see the cut on his face, blood dripping down from it. He nods at me, stating that he is fine, and I look down towards the bottom and see the rotunda.

I look back up at Stephen and mouthed ’the gateways’ to him. He looks down as well and sees the rotunda. He takes a deep breath and looks into my eyes, pleading for permission on his next move. I nod at him and he lets go of the curtains and the two of us begin to fall toward the rotunda, towards the female Zealot.

I slammed into her, feet first, and the impact knocked her off-balance and she fell into the rotunda, making both of us fall through the gateway to the desert. I get up and run across the desert towards the gateway, the female zealot a few feet behind me.

Finally I make it to the window, climb inside and go over to the dial and switch it over, changing the view from a desert to to a lush green forest before she could run inside.

The male zealot hurdled himself at Stephen, who used his opponents momentum against him and flipped him the man into the rain forest gateway and I hurry over, place my hand on the panel and changed it to a vast, rocky canyon view.

I let out a sigh as Kaecilius charges after us. Stephen sees a nearby vase and kicks his leg out, sending the vase toward Kaecilius, which knocks him off-balance.

I grab Stephen’s hand and the two of us run down the hallway and back towards the relic room. Kaecilius recovers and chases after us.

We run up the stairs and start to summon the whips and use it to attack Kaecilius but he was able to block them. Stephen looks around as I fight off Kaecilius, and grabs an object and faces Kaecilius as he grabbed my by the collar. He looks at the vase in surprise then back towards Stephen.

Kaecilius smirks and said to Stephen. “You don’t know how to use that, do you?” Stephen looks down at the object, thinking for a moment, then throws the object at Kaecilius, who throws me to the side as he attacks Stephen.

Kaecilius kicks Stephen across the room, knocking him into the glass cases. Before Stephen could recover, I run at Kaecilius and jump on his back and wrap my arms around his neck. He grabs my arms with one hand then he reaches over with his other and grabbed the back of my collar and throws me over his shoulder and down on the ground.

As I lay there with the wind knocked out of me, he throws Stephen against another glass case, the one that was holding the Cloak, and he begins to punch Strange in the face a couple of times then he summons the blade and was about to strike Stephen’s chest with it until the cloak blocks it.

Confused, Kaecilius goes to stab Stephen again and again but the cloak keeps blocking it. I slowly get up as Kaecilius throws Stephen away from the cloak and Stephen gets up on his feet and summons the whip again.

He goes to stand next me as I also summon a whip and both of us start to attack Kaecilius with it, but Kaecilius was able to dodge our attacks.

Kaecilius kicks Stephen across the chest, causing him to stumble back against the stair rails and fall backwards. “Stephen!” I shouted as the cloak follows after him.

Kaecilius grabs my collar again and begins to punch me then throws me towards the staircase. I roll and hit the stairwell and look up at Kaecilius as he approaches me.

That is until a luminous whip wraps around his wrist. Kaecilius looks at it then up towards the owner of the whip. I turn and look up to see Stephen, with the cloak on, floating above the stairs.

The two began to play tug of war until Kaecilius pulled harder, making Stephen pull towards him. Kaecilius throws a punch but Stephen ducks as he conjures the whip again and knocks Kaecilius back a few feet.

Stephen walks over to me and helps me up just as the cloak pulls us backwards towards the wall.

As we look around, I see on the other side of the room was an axe, hanging on the wall. “Stephen.” I said as I point towards the axe.

He runs towards it but the cloak pulls him back. Stephen stops in his tracks then looks over at the cloak then starts to run towards the axe again, but once again the cloak pulls him again.

“What the hell?!” I exclaimed as Stephen lets out a frustrated growl.

He tries to get to the axe but the cloak pulls and spins him around and points at an artifact hanging next to me. Kaecilius gets up and starts to attack us but we dodge him and I run over to the artifact and throw it at Kaecilius.

Quickly, the artifact wrapped itself around Kaecilius, shackling his arms, his waist, his body, and his mouth–binding him to the floor. Stephen sighs then looks over at me. “You okay?” He asked me. I nod when we hear Kaecilius saying something, but it is muffled.

“What?” Stephen asked as he walks over to the madman. He takes the shackle off of his mouth and Kaecilius continues to chant. “Oh, stop it.” Stephen commanded but Kaecilius continues.

“He said stop it!” I commanded.

“You cannot stop this, Mister and Missus Doctor.” Kaecilius sneered.

“Why….look, I don’t even know what ’this’ is.” said Stephen.

“It’s the end and the beginning. The many becoming the few, becoming the One.” Kaecilius said.

“Look, if you’re not going to start making sense, I’m just going to have to put this thing back on.” Stephen said, gesturing to the mouth shackle.

“Tell me, Mister and Missus Doctor.” Kaecilius started to say but Stephen stops him.

“Alright, look. My name is Doctor Stephen Strange.” He said, clearly.

“And my name is (y/n) (l/n). And I’m also a doctor.” I replied.

“You two are doctors?” Kaecilius asked.

“Yes.”

“Scientists. Both of you understand the laws of nature. All things age. All things die. In the end, our sun burns out, our universe grows cold and perishes. But the Dark Dimension….” Kaecilius said and he starts to look off in wonder as he continues. “It’s a place beyond time.”

“That’s it. I’m putting this thing back on.” Stephen said as he starts to walk closer to Kaecilius.

“This world doesn’t have to die, Doctors. This world can take its rightful place among so many others, as part of the One. The great and beautiful One. And we can all live forever.” said Kaecilius.

“Really? What do you have to gain out of this New Age dimensional utopia?” I asked him.

“The same as you. The same as everyone. Life. Eternal life. People think in terms of good and evil, but really, time is the true enemy of us all. Time kills everything.” replied Kaecilius.

“What about the people you killed?” Stephen asked.

“Tiny, momentary specks within an indifferent universe.” Kaecilius replies and Stephen bites his lips at this while I raise an eyebrow at this.

“Yes. You see, you know what we’re doing? The world is not what it ought to be. Humanity longs for the eternal, for a world beyond time, because time is what enslaves us. Time is an insult. Death is an insult.” Kaecilius said as tears fall down on his face.

“Doctors….we don’t seek to rule this world. We seek to save it, to hand it over to Dormammu, who is the intent of all evolution, the Why of all existence. The Sorcerer Supreme defends existence. What was it that brought you two to Karmar-Taj, Doctors? Was it enlightenment? Power?” Kaecilius asked.

Stephen stands there and stares at the man as I look down and noticed that his right hand begins to tremble.

I take his trembling hand in my hand as Kaecilius continues. “You came to be healed, as did we all. Karmar-Taj is a place that collects broken things. We all come with the promise of being healed, but instead, the Ancient One gives us parlor tricks. The real magic she keeps for herself. Have you two ever wondered how she managed to live this long?”

“We….we saw the rituals in The Book of Cagliostro.” Stephen replied as he looks down at the floor while I nod in agreement.

“So, both of you know. The ritual gives me the power to overthrow the Ancient One and tear her Sanctums down, to let the Dark Dimension in. Because what the Ancient One hoards, Dormammu gives freely. Life, everlasting. He is not the destroyer of worlds, Doctors, he is the savior of worlds.” said Kaecilius. Stephen looks up at him in disbelief and scoffs.

“No. I mean, come on. Look at your face. Dormammu made you a murderer. Just how good can his kingdom be?” Stephen asked and Kaecilius begins to chuckle.

“You think that’s funny?” I asked him, angrily.

“No. No, Doctor. What’s funny is that you’ve lost your sling ring.” Kaecilius replied.

I put my hand on my belt to feel around and find no sling ring. Then I felt a sharp sting through my lower chest and the wind was knocked out of me. I looked down and saw an energy blade sticking out of me in the middle. I let out a small gasp as Stephen looks at me in shock then he turns around and an energy blade hits him in the shoulder. He gasped in pain as the male Zealot comes up the stairs and grabs our shoulders and throws us down the stairs.

We rolled down the stairs and stopped at the bottom of the stairs as the blades disappear. I let out a yelp as Stephen stands up and tries to help me. I see worry and panic etched all over his face.

The only sound I could hear was my own breathing as Stephen pulls me up to my feet as best as he could with his injured shoulder. I could see that his lips were moving but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. He places his arm around my waist and my right arm around his shoulder while I use my left arm to to hold in the injury in my lower chest, to at least stop the bleeding.

Both of us stumble forward a bit, leaving a bloody trail, but we got back up as I look over my shoulder and see the Zealot coming towards us, making another blade in his hands.

“S..St…Stephen.” I groaned, slowly.

Before Stephen could look, the Cloak flies off of his shoulder and wraps around the Zealot’s head and begins to bash him around the hall.

Stephen and I stare at this in shock as the cloak slams the guy agaisnt the wall then down to the floor and slammed his head against the floor.

Stephen starts to walk me down the hall and he pulls out his sling ring, puts it on and had me lean against the wall as he begins to summon a portal.

A spark of crackling orange energy comes up and swirls around to make a portal. On the other side of the portal it looked like a broom closet. I look over at Stephen in confusion as he walks over to me, places my arm around his shoulder and his arm around my waist and the both of us walk through the portal and into the closet.

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#doctor strange x reader #stephen strange x reader #doctor strange #benedict cumberbatch #x reader #reader insert #fan fiction #marvel cinematic universe #stephen strange

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