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medea10 · 4 years ago

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My Review of Tamako Market

How did I get into this anime? Let’s just say that there were several Kyoto Animation animes I’ve neglected to watch and after the horrific incident back in 2019, I wanted to at least see all of the major Kyoto Animation pieces. No matter if this looks like we’re in the same universe as K-ON!

Tamako Kitashirakawa is a normal, ditzy, moe-looking for a KyoAni anime, teenage girl! She comes from a family that owns a mochi shop inside this tight-knit shopping district. One day, Tamako was at the local flower shop and a bird flew into her face. While stuck to her face, she sneezes him off. And then, the bird spoke.

…

I think I’ll just cross off the theory that we’re in the same universe as K-ON! Give K-ON some credit as they didn’t have a talking bird.

So this bird is named Dera Mochimazzi. I will never pronounce anyone’s last name in this anime! Dera claims he’s royalty from some far-off land and says he is looking for a bride for his country’s prince. Although, it just falls to the waist-side (literally and figuratively) when Dera took up residence at Tamako’s home and gets addicted to eating mochi. I guess for the time being, Dera will be this anime’s adorable mascot. Aside from the misadventures of Dera the talking bird, we also follow this leading lady Tamako in her normal life. We get school stories, friend stories, stuff about her sister, stories surrounding the colorful folks in this shopping district, and mochi. Lots and lots of mochi!

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: Ah yes, another Sentai licensed anime. I actually watched the entire series dubbed and only the movie subbed. Aya Suzuki is perfection as Tamako with all of her bubbliness. As for the dub, is it just me or was Jay Hickman trying to act too much like Excalibur from Soul Eater? Was he trying to unleash his inner Troy Baker for this role? Aside from Hickman, there’s really nothing else extraordinary to say about the dub. I will give them credit for not casting Luci Christian and Monica Rial as any of these characters. Love them dearly, but give a little spotlight to some of the other voice actors they’ve got. This was fine for what it was. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE CAST: *Tamako is played by Aya Suzaki (known for Mako on Kill la Kill, Kaede on Assassination Classroom, Takitsubo on Railgun, and Shouko on Happy Sugar Life)

*Dera is played by Takumi Yamazaki (known for Bansai on Gintama, Kayneth on Fate/Zero, and Jillas on Slayers Try)

*Mochizou is played by Atsuhi Tamaru

ENGLISH CAST: *Tamako is played by Margaret McDonald (known for Rikka on Chunibyo, Haruka on Little Busters, Sakura on Maid-sama, Risa on To Love Ru, Sachi on Maria Holic, and Harumi on Citrus)

*Dera is played by Jay Hickman (known for Jouichiro on Food Wars, Kurama on Elfen Lied, and Ryuuya on Air)

*Mochizou is played by Clint Bickham (known for Renji on ef – a tale of memories, Akihito on Beyond the Boundary, Haru on Tsuritama, Isami on Food Wars, Finland on Hetalia, and Mochizuki on Another)

SHIPPING: We’ve got a girl-next-door type of romance happening. Mochizou lives next door to Tamako and is infatuated with her. There are however a few little problems with this. The big problem is that Tamako and Mochizou’s fathers are business enemies. They both sell mochi, they live across from each other, and they have kids that are friends. It’s almost Romeo and Juliet except Tamako seems oblivious when it comes to Mochizou’s advances. Or Romeo here has a brain-fart and forgets vital things he wants to do for Tamako. Like episode one, he forgets to give her a present for her birthday. I will let him off the hook for this because dude already buys her a present and has plans and everything. But because Tamako’s birthday is on New Years and both kids work on New Years to help their families, things like this can be forgotten. So again, I can’t hate on our by Mochizou. His heart was in the right place, but his brain couldn’t catch up.

Halfway into this series, I shook my head thinking these two will never hookup. Tamako’s baby sister had more of a chance with her crush and he moved away.

Then again, this was all from the series. The movie got really deep with the Mochizou x Tamako ship that so much in Tamako changes. The movie kinda drops a ball on us so I’ll talk about it down below due to spoilery things.

ENDING: So it seems like this series moves quite fast calendar wise and the episodes seem to be like a problem of the day kind of thing. Like there will be an episode about Valentine’s Day, an episode where Dera goes on a diet, an episode with a festival, and so on. But along the way we do get a few cute moments like when Shiroi opens up to Tamako and her friends or when Tamako’s father remembers his wife through song. And let’s not forget that halfway into the series, we’re introduced to Choi, someone who serves a prince (like Dera). She really doesn’t do much to move this plot along for a while and is only there to stay with Tamako’s family and keep Dera on a short leash. But then at the end of episode 10, Choi makes a rash decision.

By this point in the series you might be wondering if Mochizou’s mochi balls are going to drop and he asks Tamako out. Well that might not happen just yet as Choi has set sights on Tamako to be the bride for the prince she serves under. But Tamako has no interest in becoming the prince’s bride. In fact, Tamako was more excited about winning a medal than learning she might get engaged to a prince of a far-off land. Add to that, the entire shopping district is excited for Tamako to become a prince’s bride. Everyone except for Tamako’s father! He got mad, stinkin’ drunk. And as for Mochizou, he’s just a sad sack. So no mochi balls dropping for this lad! Tamako did get a chance to meet the prince through Dera’s communication for a second. But once the prince landed in Tokyo, he ends up in the shopping district and meeting Tamako up close. Everyone in the shopping district was happy for Tamako and excited that this is happening. There are just two big things!

One, Tamako is too attached to her home and the people around it to ever leave them to go marry a prince from a far-off land. And two, there was a misunderstanding on Dera’s part where the prince has said that Tamako is not going to be his bride.

Choi and the prince end up leaving to return home. Dera on the other hand decides to stick around at least until New Years. Dera, being the little hammy-bird he is tries to make a graceful exit without saying goodbye to Tamako. He leaves Tamako without a word, but in same Dera fashion, he falls asleep in a pile of flowers and ends up inside a box. Turns out that box of flowers is going straight back to Tamako. Mochizou actually remembered Tamako’s birthday this year and gave her a box of flowers for the occasion.

When she opened it, there’s Dera! Don’t worry, Dera eventually goes back home with the prince and Choi. We just don’t actually see it here.

TAMAKO LOVE STORY: Now that Tamako, Mochizou, and the rest are all in their third years of high school, the thought of what they’re going to do with their lives hits. Like is Midori going to take over her grandfather’s toy shop in the district? Is Kanna going to do something carpentry related? Is Tamako going to continue working in her father’s mochi shop? Well, the story focuses on two things. One is a competition that Kanna gets interested in that involves the girls of the baton club. And the second, Mochizou’s decision to go to college in Tokyo to work on films.

Obviously, that’s the big story in this movie. Mochizou is madly in love with Tamako and they’ve known each other since they were babies. It’s just that he’s never made his feelings to Tamako known to her until he reveals his decision to leave town. After that, the once mochi-loving ditz we’ve grown to love these past 12 episodes changes. This is the first time we see Tamako feeling this way and it’s unknown what she’ll do. Is this the moment where she bails on her family’s mochi shop and go to Tokyo with Mochizou? After being told she’s loved by Mochizou, she goes through a lot of emotions. She’s distant, spacier than normal, avoiding mochi, and avoiding Mochizou. It wasn’t until she gets a nudge from her friend Midori to go to Mochizou before he leaves for Japan.

And right there, along with her handmade cup phones, she tells Mochizou that she loves him.

We end the movie with kind of a video that I assume was made by Mochizou and that’s how Tamako Market ends. I guess these two are a couple. Not sure if Mochizou stays in the district with Tamako and his family or if Tamako ditches her family and moves to Tokyo to be with Mochizou. I guess it’s one of those leave it up to your imaginations.

So…The anime was just okay. The series I mean! Love Story was almost at peak KyoAni perfection. Seriously, look at the animation here. The backgrounds are freakin’ gorgeous. And after watching the series and the movie, it almost felt as though they were two separate animes. Dera, Choi, and the prince were only shown in pictures at the record shop, one second near the end, and that short before the motion picture. Take all of those out and you’ve got something solid. I mean let’s face it, Tamako Market was fluff on the same level as watching K-ON or Lucky Star. You’ve got a variety of random crap happening throughout the span of one year except this series has the great fortune to have an annoying, talking bird. I don’t want to dunk on the series that bad, it was cute. But the winner with me was definitely Tamako Love Story.

We see Tamako and Mochizou express a vast variety of emotions that we never saw in the series. Especially, Tamako! She was always this ditzy girl with a love for mochi. And Mochizou was seen as that dope that’ll never get his shit together and tell Tamako how he feels. He always forgets her birthday, what makes you think he was going to get his shit together? But then Mochizou grows a pair and tells Tamako he’s leaving town and that he loves her and you see Tamako change. She’s not sure what to think anymore. She even goes through a phase where she can’t be around mochi. But I suppose we needed the silly fluff with the television series. After all, it’s not just Tamako, but all of the people who live in that shopping district. And I suppose Dera was a fun mascot character. If you want that cuteness, watch Tamako Market. But if you want a more romantic-driven story, definitely check out the sequel movie Tamako Love Story.

If you would like to watch Tamako Market, Hidive has all 12 episodes and the movie available for streaming.

Now then, what’s next on my Sentai Filmworks list?

Redo of He…

Choose your next words wisely.

Well Medea, do you love anime that’s directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara?

Oh dear God. What fresh hell did I miss from that iconic enigma? And is it crazier than kappas eating people’s asses?

Okay Penguindrum…please do not contain penguins eating people’s asses.

#anime review #tamako market #tamako kitashirakawa #tamako love story #mochizou ooji #dera mochimazzi

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evilrubberducke · 6 years ago

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Read You Like a Book

A fluff filled IzuMina story about dorks and dates. Not too much to say besides that. I hope you enjoy.

Summary: In the midst of a lovely date, Mina discovers that Izuku might just be paying more attention to her than she ever realized.

Also on AO3!

“Midoriiiiiii, you lied to me!” Mina whined as she took in the building before her.

The Csilla Book Emporium was the largest bookstore she’d ever seen, spanning nearly a block in length and several stories in height, all filled to the brim with books of every sort. Supposedly they had every book under the sun, and if you couldn’t find it on their shelves they would have it sent there in just a few days. Under normal circumstances, Mina would have been happy to spend the afternoon there with Izuku.

It was the sign out front, proudly advertising their “First day of summer textbook/workbook sale!” that gave her pause.

“I didn’t lie!” He protested, though he seemed to be having trouble keeping eye contact with her. “I told you I wanted to take you somewhere fun. This is fun!”

“It’s schoolwork Midori.” she put on her best pout, a technique which had improved dramatically since they had started dating. He was a sucker for a good pout, and if you used puppy dog eyes as well, it was a surefire way to get what you wanted.

“I know, but if we get it done now, we won’t have to worry about it later.” He was holding surprisingly firm under her gaze, only shifting a little bit as he spoke.

She held out for a long moment, but eventually she was the one that cracked first. “Fiiiiine. But I’m holding you to your word. You’re taking me out somewhere fun after this.”

He smiled at that. “Ok. We’ll go anywhere you want.”

She shook her head. “Nuh uh. You don’t get out of it that easy. I came here to be wooed, only to be bait and switched. You’ve got to earn your way back into my good graces, and that starts with coming up with somewhere nice to take me.”

At that, Izuku began to resemble the boy she remembered from their first year at UA. The ball of perpetually frightened energy who couldn’t keep himself from muttering about Heroes every few minutes. She’d almost forgotten how cute he could be when he was off balance like this. These days he seemed like he could take anyone on without even flinching, and the smile he always wore reminded her enough of All Might that she had started to give Todoroki’s crackpot theories some real consideration.

His muttering now a soothing background noise, Mina pulled her boyfriend into the bookstore.

---

The pair had headed straight into the workbook section, competing with several other students for precious space and even more precious deals.

Izuku proved surprisingly adept at claiming space among the crowd. He didn’t really fight for space so much as slip through the gaps between people, pulling Mina along behind him. When she asked he claimed he had learned from watching his mother navigate sales at the grocery store which he would only describe as ‘cut throat’.

She could tell he was taking their task seriously, as he didn’t even notice the amount of attention they were getting from the other patrons. The crowd had quickly clocked the presence of UA students, and from there it was only a quick jump to recognizing UA’s rising power couple.

Mina was a little embarrassed by the whole situation. Some enterprising reporter (read nosey snitch) had snuck into the back halls during their second sports festival. They had caught a picture of her and Izuku cuddling between matches, and ran a story about ‘Love Blooming on the Battlefield’. With her and Izuku both placing in the top five for the festival, people had quickly started to call them a power couple, and comparing them to UA’s previous big three.

It was odd to think that she now possessed a following. Sure, it was a select following but it was still a strange experience. She’d even had someone come up and ask for her autograph the other day. It really made the fact that she was a hero feel real to her.

At least they were being left alone. There were whispers, and more than a few intrigued looks thrown their way, but no one tried to disturb them. Mina wasn’t sure if it was due to respect for their status, not wanting to miss a workbook they were looking for, or if they were intimidated by Izuku’s intense focus as he hunted for whatever it was he was searching for.

No matter the reason, Mina took the opportunity to browse with Izuku. Much as she was loath to admit it, having the extra books would be useful for their studying, something she knew Izuku would manage to corral her into at some point this summer. Resigned to her fate, she rolled up her sleeves and got to searching.

---

It still amazed her how astute Izuku could be. Every workbook he grabbed was for a subject she was struggling with, or had scored poorly on in their last exam. She hadn't even discussed the exam with him, too disappointed in her own performance. Sure, a C was better than she had been doing at the start of the year, some would even call it a great improvement. It just didn’t feel like one when compared to the rest of the class. With three perfect scores, one by Izuku himself, and several more As, it just left her feeling like she was falling behind with every step.

She’d tried he best, she really had. But in the end the concepts refused to stick in her head no matter how much she studied.

She sighed as she hefted a math workbook up and glared at the cover. It was so frustrating to be praised for her excellent combat skills, only to be lambasted week after week over something she just couldn’t seem to master.

She looked up as Izuku squeezed her hand absentmindedly, while he debated the value of two texts of his own. Even so deep in his own head, his muttering going full bore, a part of him was still making sure she was okay.

It warmed her heart in a way she couldn't even begin to describe. She returned the squeeze and cuddled closer to him. It was hard to be sad with his warmth leaking into her.

---

“I-I’m sorry it’s not much.” Izuku apologized. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.”

They were in a cafe just off Mustafu’s main shopping street. It was a cozy place, run by a small family who were more concerned with making sure their customers were satisfied than with making a profit. Entering the business felt like stepping into the home of a long lost relative. A few patrons waited in line, and more were seated at tables around the cafe, but it didn’t seem crowded in the slightest.

“It’s perfect Midori.” Mina said.

It really was too. Mina had heard about this place from Uraraka a few weeks ago. Apparently the pink cheeked girl had stumbled across it during one of her patrols with Ryuku. Since then, she had been singing the praises of the cafe, calling it a hidden gem of Mustafu.

Mina was inclined to agree. The menu was smaller than most of the popular cafes that she had been to, but it felt like it was curated rather than limited. Each of them had a cute name, and a small little blurb about how it could help your mood. Ever since she had heard Uraraka mention it, she had wanted to come here.

She just didn’t remember telling Izuku about it.

“But...how did you know I wanted to come here?” She asked, confused.

“You were talking about how you wanted to go here with Uraraka the other day, weren’t you?” It was more of a question than an answer.

She cast her mind back to the conversation in question. They’d been chatting in the common room, taking a break from homework to have a quick snack. Izuku had been there of course, he’d been helping her study since before they had even started officially dating, but she was sure he hadn’t been paying attention. He’d been in one of his muttering fits, focused on creating a new super move.

Now that she thought about it, this wasn’t the first time he’d known something about her without her having to state it. For instance, the time he’d shown up with flowers for her mother’s birthday even though she’d only told Toru about it. Or when he’d switched to buying her cherry sparkling water instead of lemon when she got tired of the flavor.

But it wasn’t for everything. When they were planning a surprise party for Todoroki, Izuku had come close to forgetting about it, despite being there for the planning meeting.

And then it hit her. The thread connecting his random fact acquisition was her. It was like some part of his mind was paying attention to what she was saying, or even just thinking about, despite the other 90% being occupied.

It was only just a theory, but now she wanted to test it.

“Midori, do you know what my favorite movie is?”

The sudden shift in topic seemed to take him by surprise, but he recovered quickly. “Umm, The Princess Bride, right?”

It was absolutely right. She considered it a guilty pleasure, and most definitely hadn’t watched it with anyone from UA. After all, she had a reputation as the dorm’s number one horror buff to maintain.

It was...odd to realize that he knew her so well without even seeming to try. She knew plenty of stuff about her boyfriend of course, but it was different with Izuku. He wore his heart on his sleeve in so many ways. It was easy to tell what he liked, from his favorite hero to his favorite foods. Even his more subtle tastes were obvious when you looked, though not everyone seemed to be able to take the hints. Just a few weeks before, Kirishima had dragged Izuku to a raunchy comedy with the rest of the guys in the class. She wasn’t sure exactly what he saw, but Izuku had looked vaguely traumatized by the experience.

He was easy to please, always happy to help or to listen to her talk, completely able to entertain himself if she left him alone, and an all around sweety. He would be the most low maintenance boyfriend in the world, if it weren’t for his insistence on self sacrifice.

She was pulled from her musings when they reached the front of the line. She had already made her choice when she had first seen the menu, but Izuku had waffled for a while. When he finally chose his drink, it was all she could do to hold back a snort. The woman who took their order seemed surprised, but after looking him over, she nodded once and punched the request in.

The “Little Hero” was clearly meant for children, a chocolaty affair with a generous helping of whipped cream on the top. When Izuku finally laid eyes on his drink, his brow scrunched up in confusion, and Mina finally lost it, cackling softly at her boyfriend’s misstep.

Izuku did his best imitation of a strawberry while he meekly accepted his drink and made a beeline for the table they had picked out and Mina followed him, still recovering from her bout of mirth.

The seats they had managed to get were hidden slightly from the rest of the cafe by a large potted plant. Mina appreciated the bit of privacy that it afforded them. She didn’t really care about being watched, but she did enjoy having a bit more alone time with her boyfriend.

“Enjoying your drink?” She teased as he took a tentative sip. The barista had really gone all out, adding chocolate shavings as well as sprinkles and a stick of cinnamon to the top of what Mina was sure was an unhealthy amount of whipped cream. Her own drink was fairly simple by comparison. An Iced coffee with some cinnamon to give it some extra flavoring, with a small heart drawn in the cream for her, which was a nice little touch.

“It...it’s pretty good.” Izuku said timidly, eyes firmly fixed on the table in front of him.

“Apparently!” She said with a chuckle. When he lifted his head up to look at her, she could see that a bit of whipped cream had lodged itself at the end of his nose. Combined with the confused and slightly embarrassed look on his face, it made for an insanely cute picture. Mina was half tempted to whip out her phone to commemorate the moment, but decided against it.

Instead she reached across the table and deftly wiped the offending spot away. Then on a whim, she took a moment to run her thumb along his cheek.

Izuku relaxed into her touch, his eyes closing as he sighed in contentment.

Mina felt her heart skip a beat. She was sure in that moment that she was the luckiest girl in the world. Izuku was beyond strong, incredibly smart, and so dedicated she was sure he would crawl through hell on bloody hands and knees if it meant saving someone in trouble. And here he was, melting like putty in her hands simply because he enjoyed being around her.

It made her feel truly special.

They didn’t get any studying done that day, much to Izuku’s chagrin. Instead, they spent the day wandering Mustafu to see if they could find any other hidden gems like the cafe. It wasn’t a productive day, but it was a pleasant one. A day spent in easy company was just what the pair had needed after the stress of UA. And at the end of the day, they were both perfectly content to fall asleep in the arms of the one person in the world who could read them like a book.

#izumina #mha #my hero academia #mina ashido #fluff #midoriya izuku #slice of life #fanfiction #dekumina #minadeku #mha fanfiction #bnha #bnha fanfiction

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recentanimenews · 5 years ago

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Bookshelf Briefs 8/6/19

Dr. STONE, Vol. 6 | By Riichiro Inagaki and Boichi | Viz Media – So it turns out that the current non-turned-to-stone population are all descended from Senku’s dad and the rest of the crew of the space shuttle, which is honestly more about Byakuya’s faith in his son to eventually save the day even if it takes hundreds of years. Back in the present, Tsukasa and the followers that he’s amassed are planning to invade the village and destroy what Senku has accomplished, but little do they know that Senku has the power of RIDICULOUS SHONEN SCIENCE on his side. The best thing about this volume is that we’re starting to see the non-Senku cast actually come up with inventions—the water wheel revelation was great, and Senku knows it. Dumb fun, masquerading as smart fun. – Sean Gaffney

Farewell, My Dear Cramer, Vol. 1 | By Naoshi Arakawa | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – Midori Soshizaki and Sumire Suo played girls’ soccer for different teams in middle school, but Soshizaki is so taken with Suo’s play that she volunteers to go to whichever high school Suo chooses. Suo, accustomed to being the only one really trying on her team, feels kinship with another girl on a lousy team, and so she and Soshizaki both end up at Warabi Seinan, whereupon a couple of other talented players show up along with a new coach, since the current one sees no future in girls’ soccer and isn’t interested in doing his job. This was a pleasant start to a series, but the soccer action isn’t as easy to follow as in other titles I’ve read, and it quickly veers away from the two leads to focus on another teammate. I’ll definitely keep reading, though! – Michelle Smith

Love in Focus, Vol. 3 | By Yoko Nogiri | Kodansha Comics – I had forgotten that this was a series that ended in three volumes, but I would have remembered anyway given the rapidity with which Kei and Mako get together and just as quickly break up. “Let’s date first and fall in love later” rarely works in shoujo manga, especially when you’re the blond, who almost always loses out to the brunet. That happens here as well, as dating Kei does help Mako realize her feelings—for Mitsuru. That said, though the plot beats were very predictable, I thought Mako and Mitsuru’s dialogue was sweet and pure in a shoujo sort of way, and I also liked how the “stalker” plot was resolved. As with the author’s previous series, this was decent but not good enough for long-term. – Sean Gaffney

My Hero Academia, Vol. 20 | By Kohei Horikoshi | VIZ Media – I’m sorry to say that I just can’t muster up much interest for Gentle Criminal and La Brava, the villain and his acolyte who get in Midoriya’s way when he’s trying to get back to campus in time for class 1A’s performance at the school festival. Once their fight is finally over, though, it’s time for the feels. The focus on Jiro here is pretty brief, but oh so welcome, and that two-page spread of her smiling so radiantly while performing is incredible. And then, just a few pages later, there’s Mirio who is suddenly moved to tears because Eri, the girl he sacrificed so much to save, is having the time of her life. I love Mirio and Eri together, and I also love Aizawa rushing to be with Todoroki when his dad, now the number-one hero, is injured on live TV. Plus, there’s Hawks! This volume has much goodness. – Michelle Smith

My Hero Academia: Smash!!, Vol. 1 | By Kohei Horikoshi and Hirofumi Neda | VIZ Media – I’m not really a gag manga sort of person, so I didn’t expect much from My Hero Academia: Smash!!. But despite the warning from creator (and Horikoshi assistant) Hirofumi Neda that it was going to be crude, I actually thought it was quite fun! It follows along with the early events of the main story, up until the first attack by the League of Villains. Often, familiar scenes are subverted in some way, like All Might’s “you can be a hero” moment turning into a sales pitch for vitamins, but sometimes they’re expounded upon in genuinely intriguing ways, like showing how Yaoyorozu used her quirk in the fitness tests Aizawa devised. (I also liked that her classmates now prefer Yaoyorozu brand erasers.) Also, I think one panel features a tiny puking Jesus. To my surprise, I’m looking forward to volume two! – Michelle Smith

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, Vol. 5 | By Hideyuki Furuhashi and Betten Court | Viz Media – This volume definitely felt like the fifth book in a four-book series, a constant danger when something gets really popular. Knuckleduster’s plot is resolved, and so he very pointedly, with one or two exceptions, withdraws from the series. Instead we see Pop Step and the Crawler trying to be vigilantes on their own and rapidly coming to a realization, which is underscored by licensed heroes yelling at them—they’re not powerful enough to do much more than get in the way. That said, I did enjoy seeing Midnight in her “casual” clothes, and the kid singers were very cute. A series that has turned a corner but not yet hit the next long straightaway. – Sean Gaffney

My Next Life As a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, Vol. 1 | By Satoru Yamaguchi and Nami Hidaka | Seven Seas – The manga adaptation of one of my favorite recent light novels didn’t have to go very far to impress me, just adapt the novel as well as it could. There’s obviously stuff that’s cut to fit (Katarina’s parents’ relationship gets a one-panel explanation), but it handles introducing the main cast well, and cuts the “alternate POV” parts which would have made the manga repetitive. Best of all is the prose short story at the end, seeing Katarina having a nightmare about the villainess her otome game self is supposed to be, and the bad choices that she makes which our Katarina can’t stop her from despite yelling inside her head. Definitely get this if you like the novels. – Sean Gaffney

The Quintessential Quintuplets, Vol. 4 | By Negi Haruba | Kodansha Comics – This is moving at a galloping pace for a romantic comedy, especially one with quintuplet heroines. There’s the bad—Ichika pursuing her dream would mean leaving school, which would mean Futaro losing tutoring money—and there’s the worse—various people getting bad, bad colds due to the weather and circumstance, which leads to a mass search for Itsuki and a bedside vigil for Futaro, whose cold of course turns out to be the worst of all. We also get another flash forward reminding us that he does eventually marry one of them, but continuing to not tell us who. Don’t expect that to be resolved till the final page of the series. For fans of harem comedy/dramas. – Sean Gaffney

Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts, Vol. 6 | By Yu Tomofuji | Yen Press – Anubis has finally given in and allowed a trial period for Sariphi to be Queen Consort. Unfortunately, we then see the problems that this causes, which is that the majority of the populace still isn’t ready for a human girl as the Queen. Fortunately, Sariphi is made of pretty stern stuff, and even when she’s down there are folks who can cheer her up. This allows her to resolve the fractured relationship between a mother and daughter, as well as give Amit the courage to give a token to her beloved Jor, even though as a soldier he may not be able to return that love. Honestly, this does continue to remind me a lot of Fruits Basket, but that’s not especially a bad thing. – Sean Gaffney

Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san, Vol. 1 | By Honda | Yen Press – My first exposure to Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san was through its anime adaptation. I’ve not actually watched the show, but I’ve seen enough screencaps of the titular skeleton dramatically reacting to a wide range of customer service exchanges to reasonably expect that I would love the original series. And, after reading the first volume of the manga, I can definitively say that I absolutely do. To a large extent the manga is autobiographical, based on Honda’s experiences as a clerk in the manga department of a large Tokyo bookstore. It provides entertaining insights into the life of a bookseller, showing the challenges presented by customers, publishing schedules, corporate management, and just trying to keep the shelves appropriately stocked. This could be rather dry as a subject, but in Honda’s hands the portrayal of bookselling is delightfully humorous, intense, and over-the-top in a way that is both engaging and still incredibly honest. – Ash Brown

Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san, Vol. 1 | By Honda | Yen Press – I’ve seen the first few episodes of the Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san anime and this is going to be one of those rare occasions where I have to admit that I kind of like the anime more than the manga. Certainly, Honda-sensei depicts the bookstore (specifically its manga department) as a place way more hectic than I ever anticipated, but that frenetic energy (and the kookiness of his often-foreign customers) just translates better to the animated medium, I think. That said, this volume has a lot to recommend it, particularly if you want a glimpse of what Japanese booksellers think of the global readership manga has obtained. Read it, but maybe watch it, too. – Michelle Smith

Waiting for Spring, Vol. 11 | By Anashin | Kodansha Comics – I’d long been wanting more basketball in Waiting for Spring, and I finally got my wish in this volume. The latest tournament has begun, and if the Seiryo boys want to repeal the no-dating rule, they have to win. They make to the finals league, where they’re up against Aya’s team, Hojo, and though Seiryo ends up losing, there’s still hope due to the structure of the tournament. Aya realizes his kind of love expected Mitsuki to never grow or change whereas her love for Asakura inspires her to try new things and set goals for herself, so he seemingly steps aside though he does talk about returning (he’s apparently moving back to American) once she’s grown up. Anyway, this is a cute series that I like a lot and though I don’t expect many surprises from its final two volumes, I nonetheless look forward to reading them. – Michelle Smith

By: Ash Brown

#Anime #News #Manga Bookshelf

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momorabu · 6 years ago

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Ensemble Stars! Event Story - Set Sail! Pirates at Sea Festival / Pirates (Part 2)

As the CG illustrations for this story is more than the maximum photoset allowed by tumblr, I decided to split this summary translation into 2 parts. This is Part 2, please make sure you read part 1 before proceeding!

Anyway as always, the summary of the story can be found below. Translation may not be 100% accurate due to my poor Japanese skills~

Pirates / 海賊: Chapter 1 - 4

Seeing that UNDEAD had arrived, Chiaki said that he shall hand over the stage to them and retreated from the stage. Shinobu was really dizzy from the rope action he had performed just now and remarked that it seems that he’s suffering from motion sickness from travelling on a ship. Tetora offered his shoulder for Shinobu to lean on but Midori decided to just sweep Shinobu up and carry him instead, saying that it would be easier this way. Shinobu felt embarrassed being carried like a child and asked Midori to please put him down XD (Aww~ Midori is so manly like that while Shinobu is adorable >////<)

Kanata cheered Kaoru to work hard and that he would support him before heading off the stage, to which Kaoru asked whether it was right for Kanata to support him seeing that they would be rivals in the last part of the pirate fes. Kanata shook his head and said that he hates battles actually and wasn’t interested in them since he felt more satisfied seeing everyone’s smiles instead. But Kaoru told Kanata that even if Kanata hates to battle against him, Kaoru would not make it easy for him either, since he hates to lose even if he doesn’t like putting in so much efforts either =w=“

Today was a special occasion in that Kaoru might be more pumped up than usual since there were girls in swimsuits looking at their performance, and thus he doesn’t want anyone else to be more eye-catching than him. He called out to the crowd and asked them to support and clapped for them, though Kaoru confessed that he’s only happy to get the support from females actually. Koga was actually causing a din which Kaoru found it noisy, and lectured him that he’s going to cover up the girls’ cheers with his barks. Koga didn’t listen to Kaoru of course and shouted at him that he’s going to kill him since... Kaoru had locked Koga and Adonis into an iron cage which allowed Kaoru himself to be the one that shines the most on stage. Koga had wanted to perform on stage for a long time and demanded Kaoru to let him out so that he can sing and said that he cannot bear it any longer. (You know, sometimes Koga’s desire to sing sounds abit like he’s addicted to singing ^^;)

Adonis realised that Rei was nowhere to be found and asked whether Rei did not plan to join the live performance this time round. Kaoru realised that he had forgotten to explain to them, and thus added that since Rei was weak against the sunlight, there’s a possibility that he would collapse under the bright sunlight and thus would be attending as a different role. He told them to look forward to his own performance, but Koga was still pissed and tried to bite at Kaoru even though he was still locked up in the cage. Kaoru told Koga to stop and said that since Rei was not around, he was entrusted to be the leader for the pirate fes this time and thus, he was the captain of the pirates. He threatened to drop Koga and Adonis into the sea if they tried to rebel against him, but Koga was not scared at all and barked back that he would definitely not regard him as the captain. He added that UNDEAD was unlike Ryuseitai where everyone could get along peacefully, as it’s a battle where the weak will fall to the strong.

Koga did not like the idea that Kaoru had locked both him and Adonis in the cage while letting himself to be in the limelight so as to enjoy the girls in swimsuits cheering for him, and called Kaoru a jerk who’s always in estrus all year long. He looked down on Kaoru for bringing down people in the same unit and claimed that he would definitely not forgive him for doing that. He wondered whether Rei had allowed such a thing to happen, to which Kaoru explained that he had locked both Koga and Adonis is the cage because their role in the pirate fes was the “ferocious monster” and “rare monster” who was being captured by him being the pirate captain on an extraordinary island. That pissed Koga even more when he realised that they (he and Adonis) were being treated like animals.

(Koga seems like he really wants to kill Kaoru by how many times he keep telling Kaoru to die for locking him up in the cage ^^;)

Adonis looked at them and tried to understand the situation silently. He realised that they’re showing to the audience that they had a bad relationship with each other and that showed badly upon them, seeing that Ryuseitai had shown that they’re very united before passing the performance to them. Adonis knew that it seems like UNDEAD had forced their way in to perform with Ryuseitai at the pirate fes in the first place, and now that the members were even quarrelling on stage, it’s really going to show the crowd a bad image of them. He wished that Rei was here and control the situation, but since he wasn’t around, Adonis knew that he had to be the one to try to improve the situation. He looked at Koga and noticed that his eyes were shining actually, and realised that Koga had been looking forward to the pirate fes very much. Knowing that there’s no way that UNDEAD could be lovey-dovey like Ryuseitai, Adonis guessed that he shall have to do it UNDEAD kind of way, where the strong would win against the weak according to Koga words.

Just then, they heard Rei’s voice, asking them what was going on as they’re creating a din. Koga was shocked and wondered where was Rei’s voice coming from, as he could not find Rei anywhere. Turned out that the sail on the ship was acting as a screen for the stage as well, so Rei’s face was shown on there. He was actually staying at the school’s sickbay as he can’t stay out in the sunlight, having collapsed earlier on at the beach, and thus it was arranged that he would show his face on the screen as a way to attend the live performance instead. He even told the others to treat it that he’s here as an additional guest or a calefare instead for the time being, and assured the audience that he would definitely make an appearance personally when the sun had set.

(Look at Rei enjoying himself in the sickbay XD He even had a tropical drink to keep him hydrated~)

Koga was not pleased to see that Rei was enjoying himself in a cooling place while the rest of them were working hard to the point that they’re hot and sweaty under the scorching sunlight. Rei told Koga not to bark and be an obedient child instead since initially, Rei shouldn’t even attend the live performance due to him feeling unwell, but thanks to “my” arrangement, Rei could at least show his face to the audience. He said that according to the story setting of the pirate fes, he was considered the captain of the pirates, so they could perhaps imagine the storyline of Rei being captured by the marine army instead, and UNDEAD as the pirates would have to fight the marine army bravely in order to rescue Rei. Rei apologised to Koga for making him felt lonely and told him to just bear abit longer since Rei would care and pet him even more later on~ This just pissed Koga to the point that he shouted that he’s going to go crazy. Rei decided to go offline, saying that he’s sleepy and he had left everything to Kaoru to take care of the performance even though Rei had no idea what is the situation now OWO” He requested for the video of him dancing and singing (which was taken earlier on) to be played while he went for a nap ^^; Koga tried to stop him by explaining that Kaoru had locked both Adonis and him up in the cage, which Rei did not know about but he didn’t really care much for it either, telling Kaoru not to “bully” the juniors too much before signing off.

(Rei, are you pissing Koga on purpose by even telling him that there’s aircon in the sickbay and you’re enjoying yourself very much there? ^^;)

Poor Koga was disappointed and pissed with Rei who just went offline in the midst of the conversation and went to bed when they’re still stuck in this situation. Kaoru told him to just stop talking and “enjoy” the live performance now that the music and Rei’s video had started playing.

Kaoru called the girls in the audience “mermaids” which Koga felt disgusting, and it really started with Kaoru dancing and performing by himself, ignoring Poor Koga and Adonis who were still trapped in the cage =w=“ (Kaoru... You’re really very mean D:)

Koga shouted at Kaoru to let him out, yelling that he’s a proud wolf that can’t be locked up in a cage like this. Adonis, who was silent all this while, tried to calm Koga down by telling him that he’s wasting his energy like this and he won’t have enough energy when they start dancing later on. But Koga replied that looking at this situation, they may not even have the chance to appear on stage and perform. Adonis assured Koga that he would do something about it, and any cage or lock won’t be able to keep them away from their freedom, and with that, he started holding onto the metal bars of the cage and tried to bend them.

This shocked Kaoru as he questioned Adonis on his actions. Adonis was confident that he would be able to bend the metal bars, explaining that the heat had made the bars more flexible than usual, and thus much easier to bend. This sounds bizzare to Kaoru, as he felt that there’s no way a human’s strength was able to bend mental, even if Adonis was strong like a gorilla. However, Adonis did not give up and even tried the best he can in bending the metal bars, saying that he had become stronger now and was not a weak creature that could not do anything anymore. Kaoru was beyond shocked that Adonis was saying this seriously and was planning on breaking through the cage in order to get out.

Adonis remembered that he was always locked up in cages like this when he was young. His scary sisters would also tie him up and ordered him around like he was a slave. (What kind of a childhood did you have, Adonis? TAT) But now, Adonis was different now since he had grown bigger and stronger to the point that he won’t be tortured like that anymore. He wanted to protect “me” and Koga, who were considered weak creatures to him.

(That’s cute that he wanted to protect Koga too~ Guess Adonis was quite fond of Koga after all~)

Koga wasn’t pleased to hear that he’s considered as a weak creature in Adonis’ eyes. Even though he knew he’s not as strong as Adonis yet in terms of physical strength and body build, he wanted to take Adonis down on a challenge. Adonis apologised and said that he’s not someone who would “bully” weaklings and refused to fight with him XD That pissed Koga too, and he complained that everyone in UNDEAD just likes to go against him ^^;

At that moment, the bars of the metal cage indeed started to bend, which shocked Kaoru even more since he felt that this was not supposed to be possible. He wondered whether it was because the “young kids” like to force themselves too much, or perhaps the cage was actually just made of plastic even though it looks like metal ^^; Kaoru sighed and told Adonis and Koga that he would let them come out of the cage when the pirate fes reached the third part of the performance, explaining that it’s impossible for the three of them to win against Ryuseitai in the last battle with Rei absent from the performance, and Kaoru was being nice by letting them rest in order to save their energy for later.

But, Kaoru’s words fell on Adonis’ ears as he managed to bend the bars apart to create a hole for him to get out of the cage, saying that his sisters had always forced things onto him in the past too while saying that they’re doing for his sake. He’s not going to get cheated by those words anymore, claiming that he’s going to create the path that he wants to walk on in life, and went on to break apart Koga’s cage to let him out.

Koga finally smiled when he was freed from the cage, thanking Adonis and even praised that he’s a great guy~ He asked Adonis to beat Kaoru together with him and threw him in the ocean, and that made Kaoru scared and asked them not to get angry at him since he was doing all this as a joke just now. Koga was glad that he was finally out on the stage and was able to sing and give his all in the performance. For Koga, the pirate fes was just about to start now instead!

Now that both Koga and Adonis were free, Koga told Kaoru that it was time for the tables to turn against him. Since they’re still in the middle of a live performance, he decided to just beat Kaoru up one time, grabbing him up by the collar. (Does that mean if they’re performing, Koga would have beat Kaoru lots and lots of times instead? XD) Kaoru begged Koga not to punch him in the face and asked someone to come ans save him since from Koga’s eyes, he was really serious in beating Kaoru up ^^; Luckily, Ryuseitai appeared at this time, with Chiaki calling out to Koga to stop since he objects to using violence as part of the justice.

Chiaki explained to them that if UNDEAD had caused a commotion on stage, they might cause the pirate fes to be halted, and if that happens, their image as an idol unit will drop instead. Calling out to Ryuseitai to be activated, Chiaki asked his members to stop the UNDEAD members from doing anything stupid. Tetora was glad to do that, remarking that it seems like they’re really the marine army capturing the pirates who had gotten violent. Chiaki cautioned Tetora to be careful, as it might really cause the commotion to be unstoppable if Ryuseitai ended up being violent too and started fighting UNDEAD.

Even though this was earlier than what was planned, Chiaki decided that they shall start with the third part of the pirate fes, and requested “me” to start playing the special music for that part. He tried to lead the audience to believe that their actions were all part of the performance, since if not they would cause the live event painfully planned by “me” to become a failure, which was not what anyone would have hoped for at all. Chiaki vowed to make the stage back to one with love and peace for “my” sake as their producer, with Kanata calling his dolphins friends back again to sing together with them. Midori remarked that Kanata had called upon some weird creatures onto the stage again, and while he’s bad with getting along with other people, he would do it since the mascot character would be cheering for him. Poor Shinobu was already quite tired at this point of time though, seeing that they had not rest much before performing yet again.

Seeing that Ryuseitai had gotten back on stage and into their performance, Adonis called Kaoru and Koga to put their differences and conflict aside for now. While he knew that it’s impossible to ask for the UNDEAD members to get closer and become friends, he wished that they would unite since if they don’t, it would be impossible for them to win against Ryuseitai. Koga agreed with Adonis, so he had no choice but to put down his rage against his “stupid senpai” and began to sing for the performance since he would hate to lose against Ryuseitai. Kaoru also had no choice but to work together with them, grumbling that he really hates the pace of how this situation is moving though. He realised how hard it was to be a senior now, and wondered how Rei could manage it.

Koga laughed as he performed, saying that they would perform and shine to the point that Rei won’t even have a place in UNDEAD anymore when he returned (that... may be an exaggeration though ^^;) Somehow Chiaki had seen Koga’s words to be similar to a line from a certain superhero show, and thought that Koga was a fan of it, but however, when Koga said the lines, Chiaki felt that it was a “pirate version” instead. He excitedly hugged Koga, who immediately pushed him away and scolded him a superhero show otaku, yelling him at him not to hug him or even try to get close to him since they’re rivals XD

The screen turned to show Rei again, who was curious about the commotion caused while he was not looking for “a moment”. Koga was pissed with Rei who still seems to be sleepy and demanded him to come to join them at the pirate fes as the sun was about to set soon.. since, without Rei, it’s not enough for UNDEAD to show their full powers at the performance. Rei agreed and told the members to wait for him, and confessed that compared to his lonely dream, the reality now was much happier for him. (I wonder... Perhaps Rei did felt lonely for being left out of the pirate fes actually...)

Epilogue: Chapter 1 - 3

It was night time when the pirate fes had finally ended. Izumi grumbled that he can’t believe that he had stayed till the end, and was really tired to the point he thought his bones were going to break. Arashi saw the others starting a barbecue and asked Izumi to join them together since they had not had any dinner yet. Izumi replied that he didn’t want to eat meat actually since he would gain weight that way, but Arashi assured him that it’s alright since they’ve already worked alot just now to the point that they sweat alot, so it was just right to gain back the calories which they’ve just lost, and added that they should view the barbecue as a reward for their hard work.

Izumi would rather get a monetory reward from “me” instead since he felt that it wasn’t enough to be repaid by a barbecue for his hard work for the day. However, since there are two units who had participated in the pirate fes, after deducting the payout for them and costs of preparing the performance, there wasn’t much money left, not to say having an additional amount of money to give to Izumi and Arashi. If the pirate fes had ended up as a failure, it would cause a loss instead rather than a profit, and Arashi would pity “me” if that happens. Even though the pirate fes was a success with the audience getting excited, there wasn’t much of a profit from selling the goods at the event. Since Arashi and Izumi had offered to help out of the blue, Arashi told Izumi to just let it go this time round and praised Izumi that he knew that he would be a good kid. That shocked Izumi as he didn’t like Arashi touching him, and scolded him an okama =w=“

Arashi wanted to look for “me” and pat “me” on the head for working so hard for the pirate fes, to which Izumi replied him that he had just seen “me” wearing a mascot outfit and going on a walk on the beach with “the huge first year”. Obviously... that’s Midori! He was excited and told “me” to wait for him, as it seems like “I” could move about easily even while “I” was wearing the mascot outfit. (He was too happy when “I” fall though =w=“) Midori asked “me” if it’s alright to walk on the beach together while offering to hold hands together and even said that he’s going to be “lovey-dovey” with “me’ alot today.

(This CG illustration is so pretty, except that “I’m” wearing a mascot outfit while on such a beautiful date with Midori T////T It seems romantic yet not romantic at the same time Orz)

Shinobu remarked that it was quite a shocking scene to see Midori holding hands with a mascot character and walking on the beach, even though Midori looks so happy that he could not even stop smiling at all. Tetora was surprised to see Midori smiling so happy for the first time, and wondered if Midori really likes “me” that much, but then he realised that perhaps Midori likes the yuru-chara instead and started to get confused on which is it that Midori likes. Shinobu explained that though “I” agreed to go on a date with Midori with a mascot outfit on earlier on, turned out that “I” could not bring the mascot outfit back with “me”, so in exchange for the date, we ended up just taking a walk on the beach together like this. He felt that the two of us seems like we’re a baka-couple playing together, and wondered how “I” could still have the energy to entertain Midori since Shinobu himself could hardly move anymore as he was almost out of energy.

Just then, Adonis showed up and told the first years to eat some meat to replenish their energy, offering a plate of meat that was barbecued and ready to eat. Chiaki urged them to eat as well, and if they do not like meat, there were also lots of fishes that Kanata had captured just now. (When did he have the time to go fishing? OWO”) Midori’s family had also sent some vegetables to the venue as well, so it was quite a grand barbecue with lots of different food to eat. Chiaki also offered some eggplants for them to eat, since... he doesn’t like them and just looking at them was enough to send a chill down his spine ^^; Adonis told Chiaki that he should not be picky with food as he won’t become strong if he doesn’t eat properly, but Chiaki explained that though he understands that he should not be picky, eggplant was really something that he cannot bring himself to eat at all, saying that it had something to do with his past life.

Chiaki noticed that Tetora had gotten near to the fire and scolded at him not to get near to it, while Tetora remarked that he had a strange feeling just looking at the fire, and instead offered to take over Adonis in barbecue the meat. Adonis agreed, saying that he would take this break to offer some food to Kaoru, who was tied up on the mast of the ship. (I would say poor Kaoru... but then again he sort of brings this upon himself XD) Tetora was excited that he gets to barbecue the meat, but Chiaki quickly stopped him instead, saying that he’s not allowed to cook anything with fire as he might end up causing a fire accidentally instead OWO” (Chiaki really wants to stop Tetora that badly to the point that he even say that he himself was the signal of fire since he’s Ryusei-Red.) Convinced by Chiaki, Tetora decided to give up but offered to help in other ways instead. He called out to Shinobu, Midori and “me”, asking us to get back for dinner~

Adonis head to the mast in the meantime and asked Kaoru whether he’s still alive while offering some meat and fish. He noticed that Kanata was there too, and asked whether the two of them had a great relationship with each other, seeing that they’re both from the Marine Life Club. Kanata asked whether Adonis was interested in the creatures in the sea but Adonis explained that he had only known about the Marine Life Club because his friend was in it and talked about it often. That friend was none other than Souma, and knowing that they have a common friend/junior, Adonis and Kanata ended up getting along quite well together which Kaoru found it extraordinary XD

Kaoru asked whether they could let him down from the mast since he had now realised his mistakes, and complained that he’s going to get markings on his skin from the ropes that were tied around him. He worried that he’s going to cause a misunderstanding from the rope markings on his skin, that people would think that he had an interest in bondage OWO” However, Koga was still on the ship and yelled at Kaoru to keep quiet and think about his wrong doings instead. He even grabbed the food that was for Kaoru, telling Adonis that there was no need to bring food for him.

However, Koga brought the food over to Rei instead, asking him to eat the meat that Adonis had prepared so as to get enough energy in preparation for tomorrow’s live performance. (I guess the pirate fes lasts for several days?) Rei accepted the food, while Adonis told them that there’s more if they felt that the food wasn’t enough. Koga said that if Rei wasn’t well enough to perform, it would always feel that UNDEAD was lacking something since Rei was still not feeling that well even when the sun had set. He told everyone to eat well and sleep well so that all of them could work together and perform well for tomorrow’s live performance instead, since in the end UNDEAD still lost pretty badly to Ryuseitai on today’s battle. Rei shook his head and explained that this can’t be helped as UNDEAD seems all over the place compared to Ryuseitai, to which Koga rebutted at Rei that this was all his fault in the first place.

As Koga really hates to lose, he told Kaoru to work seriously tomorrow too, which unexpectedly gets Rei’s agreement too, saying that it would be good that Kaoru works hard for something else other than love and girls for a change. However, Kaoru sighed and clarified that he only has a desire to work hard for girls, and had no interest to get in contact with guys, especially his juniors. Rei told Kaoru that he doesn’t understand the joy of having a junior, and started to remember the times where the three oddballs were seniors and all coddled over their junior. Kanata joined in too and told Kaoru that the juniors were cute but Kaoru said that this was because Ryuseitai’s juniors were good kids whereas UNDEAD’s side had only little jerks instead ^^; (Kaoru and Adonis can be cute too... I think?) He told Kanata that his juniors were being mean to him to tie him up on the mast and leave him hanging there, but Kanata replied that Kaoru need to reflect on his mistakes instead, and even threatend to give him a hand chop as punishment. (Kaoru seems like he’s really afraid of Kanata’s hand chop, begging him not to do so as it’s really painful, and assured him that he would definitely reflect on his mistakes XD)

In the end, Kaoru was still punched in the face by Koga, to the point that a part of his face had swollen. He was worried that the girls would get scared of him when they see his swollen face and felt disappointed that he won’t get to pick up girls when it’s rare that he had come to the beach. Koga told him that he’s noisy and said that since they’ll be staying here as there’s still live performance tomorrow, Kaoru would just have to get his face unswollen by the time they perform next time. He called for Adonis to bring some ice to help to heal Kaoru’s face, which Adonis did while saying that they’ll win tomorrow instead, by absorbing their defeat today to make them become stronger. Rei smiled and said that he’s going to try not to collapse tomorrow and remarked that he actually felt younger today, which was a rare feeling that he had not felt for a long time. His friend had thanked them for making the pirate fes a success since thanks to it, the beach house had great sales for the day.

As the pirate fes was a success on the first day, it had become a popular topic and thus Rei guessed that there would be more people coming tomorrow to watch them. Therefore, UNDEAD can’t perform badly like today, if not their image would be going down the drain.

Kanata came to Rei and remarked that he had a great smile on his face recently, guessing that perhaps the reason for his smile was because of “me”. Rei admitted to it, saying that “I” seems like their goddess of luck that was to be put at the front of the ship, giving them blessings and leading the ship ahead smoothly. He’s really thankful of “me” for bringing these miracles to them and said that as long as he’s with “me”, he felt that the youth that was long-lost because of the battles in the past, were returned to him, and hoped that “those” two would return soon. (At the time when this event was started, no one knew who Rei referred to, but now I bet he’s referring to Natsume and Shu~) But Rei knew that it would be bad if they form as “five oddballs” again, and remarked that he’s different from the past now since he’s already satisified at the current spot he’s at now.

Koga urged Rei to eat properly, fussing over him and wondering whether he needs someone to nurse him XD Rei smiled and commented that the summer seems "warmer” this year as compared to the past. Even though he felt hot and dry, and also didn’t have much of an appetite, he felt relaxed and great too which was quite an extraordinary feeling overall. He continued on that even though the sun had already set, “I” was still shining brightly like a sun now, to the point that Rei had found “me” too bright and remarked that the season now was really bad to vampires ^^;

And that’s it for this short event story~! (Which actually may not be that short since I split into 2 parts in the end ^^;) As a fan of Ryuseitai, I really enjoyed this story especially since it focused on Shinobu and Midori quite alot, and they’re my two favourite members in the unit ^/////^ The marine army outfit looks really good on them too +/////+

UNDEAD looks really cool too being the pirates and I personally felt that it suits their unit image well, so overall the image of Ryuseitai VS UNDEAD sounds fantastic since both of their outfits symbolise their units well~ I felt abit pity that their screentime seems way lesser than Ryuseitai though, especially Rei even though he’s a 5* card =w=“

I really worked hard at the revival event of this to unlock all the stories and collect almost all of the cards except Rei’s~ Feeling so blessed to get the cute Shinobu 4* card and Midori’s 5* card especially, since I really like his bloomed illustration as it was the same as my pillow cover ^/////^

Blooming both Midori and Shinobu allows me to let them put on their marine army outfit on my homescreen of the game +W+ I really like Midori’s outfit so he’ll be on my homescreen currently for now~ ^////^

#ensemble stars #event story #ryuseitai #undead #translation #summary #otome game #es:event #es:translation

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kamen-base · 6 years ago

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Goggle V is finally finished. I’d like to thank Quick and Dirty Subs for subbing all 50 episodes of Goggle V (though I couldn’t find the movie anywhere, raw or subbed) and krdl.moe for allowing me to download the episodes to this show (seriously, if you don’t want to torrent, krdl.moe is the best place to find all sorts of tokusatsu shows).

Anyways, to finish up, I’ll be listing what I thought was good, mediocre, and bad in this show before giving my rating. This will be long and have spoilers, just warning you all.

The first thing I list is the best thing, the last thing I list is the worst thing, it’s like a spectrum. (Mediocre is like my nitpicks with the show)

THE GOOD:

The Goggle V Team: The best part of the show, yet sadly even they weren’t that great. Though static, bland, and not developed throughout the show, I still found myself enjoying the characters at times, especially any Kanpei and Miki focused episodes, as they were badass whenever it was their focus episodes.

The First Half of the Show: To be completely honest, I enjoyed the first half of the show more than the second. Though there were good episodes throughout the 50 episodes, I found the characters smarter and they seemed to have more engagement with the Comboys than in the second half. I also found the villains smarter in the early side and liked the banter between Dr. Zazoriya and Dr. Iguana, as at least there was something going on with the villains. I also liked the episodes in the early side a lot more.

THE MEDIOCRE:

Not explaining why the Goggle V members were chosen: Ok, this is more of a nitpick than anything else, but why were they the people chosen for Goggle V. I mean sure, it’s explained that the Comboys were the ones choosing the candidates for Goggle V, but why were they even in the possible candidates for Goggle V? I mean seriously, why was a dancer, zookeeper, hockey player, and shogi player in the fucking databases rather than a boxer or soldier? I mean yes, Futoshi’s father was Hongo’s partner and Saburo was an “inventor” (more on that later), but what about Kanpei and Miki? Plus, favoritism should never be a reason why someone’s chosen to fight a war.

The Computer Boys and Girls: Despite being Goggle V’s biggest supporters in battle, they don’t really do much. I mean, while they’re just mainly there to cause some kid plots, they really don’t interact with Goggle V after the first 10 episodes and do pretty much nothing other than work in the Future Science Laboratory. Not only that, why make them children? Sure the show gives some bs explanation of “they represent a future without dark science” but I bet Hongo was sure regretting that when Deathdark invaded the Laboratory in the finale and the Comboys could do nothing but watch instead of fighting back if they were adults.

Some Unexplained Things/Weapons: What’s with all the unexplained weapons Goggle V gains? I mean, we got a random mirror Miki uses, two lightsabers Kenichi and Kanpei inexplicable have, and Deathdark completely forgetting where Goggle V’s base was, despite appearing at the amusement park Goggle V’s base was under in the second episode, or not remembering a Comboy. There are others, but they usually pertain to that certain episode. For example, Saburo being an inventor, which was never mentioned before or after episode 38.

The Fight Scenes: While the fight scenes had some really, and I mean really interesting camera work in the second half of the show, the slow motion used during the first half felt really excessive. Not to mention there was a lot of stock footage used during the fights in the first half of the show.

Dropping the Amusement Park Base: It was an interesting place for a team base, which sadly was dropped after the first 5~ episodes and only came up sparingly in the last 10~ episodes. It just irked me that they didn’t use it much, but it could be because the costs for filming there was too high.

The Mecha Battles: While not bad, they all got real old fast. Nothing really interesting happened during the fights, it was just punch, special attacks, finisher, end. Adding on that Miki and Kanpei could only sit and watch in Goggle Caesar made me really irritated at times.

Sayuri, Midori, Bella, and Beth: Four words: These characters did NOTHING. They were all introduced, then did nothing. Hell, Sayuri leaves in episode 22, and nothing changes. Midori does nothing throughout the show, neither does Bella and Beth. All these characters felt like wasted potential and just take up space and screen time. I could remove every character from the show, and nothing, and I mean nothing, would change.

THE BAD:

The Neo-Metal Upgrades: This upgrade provided no changes in the show. Seriously, if you skipped it, you would miss almost nothing, other than the fact Goggle V has a new finisher and the next episode has Deathdark attempting to counter Goggle V’s new finisher, which is dropped pretty much immediately in that episode. Seriously, the fact that the Mozu’s aren’t even mentioned to have Neo-Metal inside of them and the reason Goggle V succeeded in upgrading their weapons was due to someone else literally handing them it is just bad. Adding on that Goggle V was acting pretty fucking OOC during that episode, at least to me, makes that entire plot seem really bad.

Professor Hideki Hongo: Worst. Sentai. Mentor. EVER. Does he even qualify as a Sentai Mentor? Well, the wiki says he does, so I guess I can too. His reasoning for leaving is also absolute bullshit since he should’ve helped Goggle V instead of leaving them and telling them “LEARN TO BECOME INDEPENDENT”. Adding onto the fact he comes back in the final two episodes for the sole purpose of providing a base for Goggle V and he provides no advice and doesn’t help the rangers develop at all is bad.

Lack of any Backstory/Development for Goggle V: Even though to me, the Goggle V team is the best part of the show, I can still criticize the lack of development/backstory the team has. Seriously, the person I think that has the most character is Kanpei, and his two traits are being badass and smart. Everyone else just feels stock. Kenichi is the determined one, Saburo is the chill one, Futoshi is the funny one, and Miki is the girl, but badass. Not only that, we have no backstory on any of the members of Goggle V. Why in the world did Saburo become a hockey player, or Futoshi a geologist to zookeeper? Why did Miki become a dancer? Never explained. If they gave backstories to these characters, they could’ve made them more interesting, but they didn’t. Adding to the fact that Futoshi’s father never was important to the story after his episode was just awful, but more on that in the next section.

Wasted Potential: This show had some really interesting concepts when it started out, but just dropped them immediately. All of Goggle V’s jewels were connected to ancient civilizations, but after the first episode, they did nothing with them? Why not make the show history-themed as well, learning about the past to help the future? Also, remember when Grand Marshall Desmark needed to absorb life-essence to get stronger. That was dropped right after his introductory episode. Also, Futoshi’s father could’ve played a huge role in Futoshi’s character, but it never went anywhere. My vision is to have Futoshi start off as an asshole who hates people chasing after material things, due to his father leaving him for gold and causing some emotional problems for Futoshi. However, after an arc, Futoshi finally realizes the truth to his father’s absence, as he left to protect his family from Deathdark, and gains even more resolve to protect the world from Deathdark so that no one had to go through what he had to go through. I mean, the show did show Futoshi as nice towards children, and somewhat of a father-figure towards them, which I guess can be an effect from Futoshi’s father leaving him, but since it’s never stated outright, it still pisses me off.

The Finale Arc: This arc felt really rushed. We constantly jumped from one scene to the next without ever having the time to have the scenes impact the viewers Like, here’s an example. Goggle V is defeated, then five seconds later we change scenes to Deathdark attacking. Ten seconds later, Goggle V is revealed to be alive. See what I mean? Also, the fact that Goggle V inexplicable have a tracker for the Dark Hole Device, Grand Marshall Desmark somehow knowing about the existence of the Hightron Energy and the fact he admits to not knowing the effects of the energy to knowing the effects of the energy on a human body in two episodes just makes the entire arc feel messy and contrived. Speaking of feeling contrived, Deathgiller, for no reason, enters Goggle V’s base just so he could tell Mazurka she has a bomb inside her instead of detonating the bomb within her far away from the base. Even more things that irk me is: Deathgiller helping Goggle V during the arc is immediately forgotten by everyone as if he was always a villain. The base is destroyed, Goggle V attempt to rebuild but then the rebuilt base is destroyed, only for Hongo to lead them to a new base which is targeted by Deathdark not even 3 minutes after it was introduced. Grand Marshall Desmark’s defeat is lame and stupid, what the hell happened to the power of the Mozu’s powered up by the Hightron Energy, as despite all three Mozu’s being powered up by it, only the first one was shown to be a threat. There are probably more if I think longer, but in summary, this arc felt lazy, contrived, messy, and rushed.

The Villains: By far the weakest villains I’ve seen in a Sentai yet. All of them have a really bland personality and we get little to no backstory for all of them. While at first, they seemed competent, they started to do dumber stuff by the end of the show. General Deathgiller was the most interesting of the group because he was the only one that actually did shit. Mazurka felt completely unnecessary, Grand Marshall Desmark had an interesting subplot that was dropped almost immediately and did nothing despite being Deathdark’s greatest scientist. Bella and Beth could’ve been cut out from the show and nothing would’ve been lost. Dr. Zazoriya and Dr. Iguana were useless, but I liked their rivalry, as it was the only interesting thing the villains had. And do not get me started on Führer Taboo, as he acted more like a child than anything else, always taking things with a child-like demeanor. And guess what? He also did nothing until the finale. Seriously, besides Führer Taboo, were any of them human? How did they form? How did the members of Deathdark join? If the show answered any of these questions, it would at least make the villains more interesting, but unfortunately, the show did not at all.

Overall, I’d give Goggle V a 2/10. While it didn’t anger me like Zyuranger, it was boring to watch, except for the Kanpei/Miki episodes, and the wasted potential and villains made it really hard to continue watching. Not helped with that god awful finale arc and the boring side characters. However, the first 10~ episodes, the characters, and certain episodes in the rest of the show are the only reason why this show isn’t a 1 for me.

My favorite episode would have to be any of the Kanpei ones, like episodes 29 and 42 as they just show how badass and cool he can be.

My least favorite episode has to be episode 44, as everything just felt watered down. Futoshi betraying the team is played somewhat for laughs, Kenichi’s reaction to his betrayal felt weak and Futoshi’s turn back to good felt weak as well.

Current Sentai Rankings:

Jetman

Liveman

Maskman

Battle Fever J (I need to rewatch everything from 1-4 as it’s been awhile)

Zyuranger

Goggle V

If you’d like to talk to me or want to know more about why I dislike this series, feel free to message me, but other than that, I will now begin to watch the very first Super Sentai. Himitsu Sentai Goranger.

#super sentai #dai sentai goggle v #Liveblogging Goggle V #review

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luucarii · 7 years ago

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With a Dash of Gin - Ch12

*Continues to stray from the Bartender AU that probably led a majority of my readers to read Chapter 1*

Ooopsy

Read on Ao3

Sleep didn’t come easy for the rest of the night, just as Kokichi expected. Sudden scares through the night usually kept him on edge to the point where the closest thing he’d get to sleep was a light dozing. Granted, the fact that Rantaro was still on the phone helped a bit. His calm breathing through the phone was enough to keep his thoughts positive. Kokichi pictured Rantaro beside him, the mere thought of him being there with him let Kokichi lay comfortably in bed for the rest of the night until Rantaro stirred slowly in the morning.

It was probably around eight. Kokichi didn’t bother to check the time but with the way that Shuichi was getting ready for class he figured the estimate was accurate. Shuichi had leaned over and it seemed he was ready to wake Kokichi and remind him that he had to get up but when Kokichi drowsily shifted his head and half-glared at him, Shuichi raised his hands in defense and stepped away.

Shuichi disappeared into the bathroom and Kokichi heard the quiet mumbling of Rantaro.

“So you’re awake, hm?” A quiet grumble sound through the speakers and Kokichi sighed. “Did you even fall asleep to begin with?”

“Ehh... Let’s call it a nap or something.” Kokichi tried his best at a laugh but it came out more forced than anything else. He was losing his edge, normally faking a something like that would be so simple nobody would be able to hear the awkwardness in it.

“Kokichi... You should’ve told me. I would’ve stayed up with you.”

“Noooo, Ranty. It’s fineeee. I’m fineeee. It’s just a stupid, childish nightmare! Nothing that I can’t handle!”

Rantaro sighed and Kokichi found it best to change the subject. He didn’t want to dwell on the nightmare too much. Once dwelling started, questions followed soon after and those questions were ones Kokichi wanted to avoid if at all possible. And knowing Rantaro specifically, he’d be too overly concerned and wouldn’t leave Kokichi alone about it just because he cared.

“Soo, what’s your plans for today?” Kokichi asked with a yawn as he stretched. Arms reached up to hit the bed frame and he playfully tapped at it.

“Come over.”

“W-what?” Kokichi froze and broke out into a laugh.

“If you can, I mean. Let me treat you to breakfast. And plus, I do owe you a makeover.”

Kokichi raised an eyebrow and let out a curious hum.

“Come on, you don’t remember the day we met? When you were so insistent on me doing your nails?”

“I was… I mean, sure. Sure, Ranty, whatever.” It’d been a little more than a week and Kokichi had already forgotten. He half meant it when he said it but he wouldn’t pass up another date, no way. He just hoped the sudden asking to hang out wasn’t some way to get him to open up. Not so soon.

Not yet.

As Rantaro hung up the phone, he stepped out onto the patio and looked over at Chizuru who was in the midst of silently reading a small hardcover book. There were folded clothes on the couch in the connecting living room and it seemed Chizuru had woken up earlier to do some chores before the rest of the family woke up. She took a quick glance at Rantaro and smiled to herself before her eyes darted back to the book.

“What’s it about?” He questioned as he pulled up a nearby chair.

“These teenagers have these supernatural powers and they’re trying to solve a string of murders.” A simple synopsis, as expected from her but Rantaro couldn’t deny he was at least somewhat interested. “Midori recommended it.”

“Speaking of Midori, wasn’t it her job to do the laundry this week?”

“She hasn’t been feeling too good lately. I took over for her.” Chizuru answered without looking up.

“What do you mean? She seemed okay when I saw her last night before I left for work.” Rantaro remembered her smile. Midori was nothing but her regular self with some slight signs of annoyance in her eyes, granted she was in the midst of doing one of the pages of her summer packet so she probably was a little tired.

“I shouldn’t have said anything.” Chizuru closed her book and let it rest in her lap. Guilt shone in her green eyes and she slid off her chair and ducked into the living room.

“Chizuru.” Rantaro followed after her. She set her book on the couch and picked up a few piles of clothes. She walked down the other hallway, opposite of the “Work Area” and opened up the door to Saki’s room, silently placing the pile of clothes on her dresser.

“I shouldn’t be saying anything.” She hissed as she closed the door, “I told Midori I wouldn’t.”

“Well it seems she wouldn’t tell me if I asked so you’re the only person who knows what’s wrong.”

Chizuru sighed, voice quieting as she passed the door to Midori’s room, “is the bartending job really necessary? Our situation isn’t exactly in need of it.”

“You’re right. But it’s good to have something like that on the side, even if at the moment we don’t need it.” Rantaro mumbled. It was natural to think like that. It seemed with each new addition to the already crowded Amami family, they’d each start to grow complacent, too reliant on the fact that their father was the head of his company. Rantaro couldn’t tell much about his other siblings in Tokyo, but he knew they were more stuck up and pompous than he and his sisters — a main reason why family dinners during Christmas weren’t the best despite the big family.

“Father and our older brothers are more than enough.” For a second, Rantaro figured this talk was a bit more than just a bit of an insight on Midori’s feelings.

“Life’s crazy. You never know when something can suddenly just happen.” It was a general statement, something he truly believed. But the recent phone call from their guardian overstaying her time in Tokyo with their father left his stomach feeling strange.

“…Why do you say that like you’re expecting something?” Chizuru must have caught the way Rantaro bit the inside of his cheek. She was known for her good eye with things like that. “Did something happen?”

Rantaro laughed, shaking his head and waving his hands reassuringly, “no, I’m just speaking in general. But I get where you’re coming from. Midori misses me, right? I know I haven’t been spending much time with her, or the rest of you really. And yeah, my job is to blame for most of that. I’m sorry. I’m not going anywhere, alright? I’m your big brother and you guys are stuck with me.”

Chizuru giggled when she felt a light pat at her head and wrapped her arms around her brother, sighing. Rantaro smiled and he wished the rest of his family were awake. No doubt Saki and Kazu would tackle him in unison while Eri would be trying to take a picture of it all for memories. Sasori would probably be looking over them all with a big motherly smile while Midori clung to his arm and gave that weird dorky grin she had.

He wished his father were here, or at least could see how they all grew up. Midori's birthday was the last time he had heard from him directly (though through a phone call, not a video call), everything else had just been messages passed down through their guardian. Rantaro knew the work was demanding, and even if he was stationed at home with him and his sisters, he’d have to take too many trains to get to work at a reasonable hour everyday. It was the main reason he moved to Tokyo in the first place with Rantaro’s older brothers (who were actually interested in the business) and which ever child happened to be born over there. He figured he’d just keep Rantaro and his sisters together under the watch of a guardian so they could continue to go to school and not deal with the stress of moving to a big city. It was unorthodox and surely many of Rantaro’s friends and sisters looked at it strangely, but it was what his father decided. He had the money to manage it anyway.

“Hey, I’ll make it up to you guys with breakfast. I invited Kokichi over, so we’ll all eat together.” Rantaro looked down at Chizuru with a smile and she slipped away from her brother and made an awkward hum.

“Is Sasori going to help you by any chance?”

“Um, if she wants to. Why?”

“Your food sometimes comes out a little bland.”

Rantaro pouted and Chizuru snickered to herself.

#aarisfics #danganronpa v3 #oumami #With a Dash of Gin #kokichi ouma #amami rantarou

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hotcocosharing · 7 years ago

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Double Troubles - the reunion. Part 2

Recap or familiarize with what happened click here

Picking up a little further ahead than where it was left off; the cast of Glory Days 20 years later have come back together for a college reunion; with life experiences, maturity (we hope) and are all hoping, for the least to have a good time. Let the manic unfold.

OC Eriko Sato & Midori Katayani

Voltage Canons Yukihisa Maki, Shunichiro Tachibana, Toshiakia, Shinichi Kagari & Rikiya

Part 1 / 2 /

Maki’s POV

The utmost confound smirk which without hesitation graces my lips I’m weary of, although for the woman that causes it, I feel that my uneasiness - for the very moment, I should without trouble be able to let slide. At least for the night. She, the temptress others are compared to, the unicorn that never seems to exist, the femme fatale I have wanted for the last how ever many years yearned to sink my teeth into, looks stunning.

Eyes soaking up the way the dress she wears clings to her every curve and outlines her silhouette exquisitely, the question which is posed at me causes the breath in my lungs to be knocked out of me temporarily – or perhaps that’s managed by her presence; and a warmth of familiarity I haven’t experienced in a long whole fills my chest. The address of my name would of had a more startling effect had Eriko not playfully poked her tongue out at me. None the less, I remember that times change and people become the combined efforts of all those they’ve ever known and sometimes traits we wish we could grow out of or leave behind don’t change. Case in point - the playful Eriko I once remembered flickering out for an appearance finally.

“Tachibana? He… well he was right beside me a minute ago”, I explain with a roll of the eyes, “Why? Would you like it if he got you a drink rather than I?”

A confident display of clicked fingers high up over the bar get the attention of a young woman who at one point in my life, unsurprisingly, would have been my taste in life. Thank god for eventually learning that sometimes things when it came to women and more specifically their bodies on display were better left to the imagination.

“So what are we having? Tastes changed? Champagne, whiskey sour, long island, tonic water? Name your poison”, I ask as I begin to notice that I’m fidgeting like a nervous child at my shirt buttons midway down my chest. Talk about tell signs that no woman in years has been graced to see or attempt to define. Looking over Eriko’s shoulder and noticing Shunichiro manage to near unsuccessfully escape a frenzy of women we once had classes with and make his way over. A shake of the head is all it seems I need to convey what I’m beginning to think.

“I’ll start with two brandy’s, on ice”, I tell the bartender, “…..and for the lady. Well she’s always been one to decide for her self.”

Rikiya’s POV

If it weren’t for Shinichi insisting that the college reunion being something that were near a compulsory attendancr in his own books and guide to life, I’d be still stuck in the work office, calculating grades and figuring out how to improve the overall marks for my class - students were the way of the future. The least I could do was ensure they did better and had more opportunities than myself.

Checking my watch with a flick of my wrist but not before checking the screen of my phone again and groaning to myself at the fact ‘Mr Social’s last text near an hour ago was that he’d be late, I sighed, the sound increasing to an unimpressed exhale after from the corner of my eye I noticed the woman 20 hears ago I stupidly, carelessly, once gave my heart to with a man who helped to inflict a world of pure fuck-up or at least on my behalf also on her life and scowl.

I’m aware that my bestfriend flew abroad to spend time with the girl but this ‘doctor’ still manages to rub me up the wrong way. Thoughts cut short by a whistle following a slap on the back, Shinichi’s presence is just in time to help me swing my mind away.

“….lets get inside and get this night over and done with.”

Eriko Sato’s POV

“Pina Colada, please.” Satisfied with the nod I receive from the cute bartender but not so much at the mockery smirk from Maki, “What, it’s sweet. I like it.” In spite of how often I get tease about my child like taste in alcohol, I’m never used to it. There’s enough expectation in one life time- from family (and the curse that comes with it), work and society. Being a woman maybe a lot easier in 21st century but still takes tremendous hard work just to prove to the world (and the opposite gender) that we are just as excellent and capable so my choice of drinks remain the one little exception- I don’t give a fuck what others think.

Eying up and down the doctor in a stylish, simple three piece tux and looking insanely handsome yet most women are still buzzing pathetically around Tachibana. “You look good.” I smile, as sincerely as possible but my mischievous nature is thick as blood. “No wonder people say men are like fine wine.”

Propping an elbow on the bar and resting my chin in an open palm, I take a sip of my drink and lift it in the air with a happy cheers. Grinning wildly when someone takes the bait and replies along the line of fine wine is said to only improve with age.

“Yeah, they start out as grapes, and it’s up to the women to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.“ A cheeky smile finds its way on my lips and shakes my head in amusement. It easier that way- a straight out heart to heart compliment would only lead to something else. Well, not that it has ever prevented the topic from coming up but at least keeping it light seems to be a wise move. Or is it? Was it?

If it wasn’t for the accident that interrupt our private little make out session; if I didn’t use Toshiaki to provoke him then left him hanging in a cab; taunted and ignored him time and time; if I gave in and did it- would he still see me like his goddess? Was I ever truly wise? Did I at least grow a little even in the face of these troubled middle aged fine men?

Shifting my gaze to the door every now and then before I finally see two other familiar faces, one who I got to know a lot more but eventually drifted apart while the other I could have treated better and fair if my life wasn’t such a mess yet the one man I’ve wanted to see most still hasn’t turned up. The quiet battle of waiting patiently and curious to ask Maki is beginning to show as I gulp down my drink a bit too quickly, in attempt to hide whatever this feeling is, "Can I get another one?”

Shunichiro Tachibana’s POV

The crowd has me almost forgotten my reason of attending this reunion but seeing Yuki by the bar comes in handy. “Ladies, it’s so good to see you all but allow me to grab a drink first.”

It’s a mystery how these women who have all ages 20 years on the outside still remain around the same level on the inside. “Perfect timing as always, my friend.” I snatch one glass out of his hand and rolls a nice long sip around my tongue, savouring the soft and subtle flavors.

“Eriko! Good to see you,” I take her hand and bring it to my lips, “obviously not as happy as Yuki but…..” the rest of my words hesitantly trailed off at the sight of her hand- a significant glow on her finger to be exact. Turning slightly back to my friend whom I am certain was is thrilled to see his one who got away which now I’m not too sure of.

#shunichiro tachibana #midori katayani #rikiya mononobe #shinichi kagari #asa #after school affair #irresistible mistakes #voltageocrp #hotcocosharing #co writing #voltage role play #voltage fanfiction #voltage rp #glory days #double troubles #reunion #shit always happens #yukihisa maki #eriko sato

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lisatelramor · 7 years ago

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Not Left To Stand Alone Ch21

Takumi was sitting at the kitchen table with both Kudo daughters when Saguru went looking for him. Ran was elsewhere in the house and he had passed Kudo in the study on his way. Takumi looked up from watching the girls draw at the sound of Saguru’s borrowed cane. Saguru hadn’t stopped to think much about how the last twenty four hours were affecting Takumi before, but now that he was sure Kuroba wasn’t going to die at any moment, he could see signs of strain. Takumi looked like he had slept worse than Saguru, dark circles under his eyes, and there was a listlessness to how he had been watching the girls. It shifted to focus and worry as Saguru entered the room.

“Is Kid…?” Takumi asked vaguely.

“Better,” Saguru said. “He won’t be moving for a while, but for the moment he is stable and aware enough.”

“Good.” Takumi slumped. Midori elbowed him as he covered part of her paper and Takumi shifted away without complaint. “Before we go, can I see him? Just… The only time I saw him up close, he was bleeding out…”

“Of course.” Seeing Kid alive if not well might help ease Takumi’s mind.

“Kid’s the thief Tou-san’s always chasing right?” Midori asked. “The one in white?”

“Yes, Kid is a thief in white,” Saguru said.

“Oh. I like him. He left Kaa-san flowers once,” Midori said drawing a flower then, probably meant to be one of Kuroba’s roses if the red color was anything to go by. “It’s sad he got hurt.”

“He’ll get better,” Hanae said. She smacked down the green crayon she had been using to grab a brown one. Stripey brown lines branched out from the mass of green swirls. “He always gets away. Tou-san says.” Her sister nodded like this had to be the only conclusion since Kudo’s word was truth.

“I’m sure he will,” Saguru said hoping it would be the truth. He squished the part of his brain reciting facts about recovery times and infection rates, about how his own infected bullet wound had ruined his knee worse than it would have otherwise been. He was allowed to hope against the odds. Saguru looked to Takumi. “Did you want to see Kid now? I know we can’t stay here much longer. Aoko-san is worried and I still have to turn in my report on last night.”

Takumi nodded. He followed Saguru from the kitchen. “Hakuba-sensei,” Takumi murmured as they neared Kid’s room. “What are you going to put on the reports?”

“Kid escaped. He was shot down, but the site was clear when we arrived.” Saguru glanced sidelong at Takumi’s troubled expression. “That Kid is most likely injured but got away with the gem. Neither of us saw anything.”

The frown deepened. “…even to Kaa-san?”

“No, I’ll tell her the full truth.”

“…It feels wrong,” Takumi said so quietly Saguru almost didn’t hear him. “Kaa-san always told me it was important to tell the truth to the police.”

Saguru sighed. “Sometimes it’s more complicated than truth or lies. Sometimes truths can kill and lies save, and sometimes they make things worse. It’s something you’ll have to judge on your own. In this case it’s better not to say everything for both Kid and our sakes. We did help a criminal after all.”

“To save his life,” Takumi said. “And Kudo-san helped too.”

“Exactly.”

Takumi frowned at him, but he set the topic aside as they reached Kid’s room. Kuroba was asleep again, not peacefully though. A grimace of discomfort showed on the small part of his face not hidden by the mask. Takumi took one step into the room and stared like he was trying to decode something from Kuroba’s mass of bandages.

“I…somehow I didn’t think it was possible for Kid to get hurt badly,” Takumi admitted. “He’s practically a legend at this point.”

“It’s easy to forget there’s someone mortal behind the mask,” Saguru said, because he had almost forgotten as well over the years, more intent on Kid than remembering Kuroba existed behind him.

There was scuffling behind them and Midori and Hanae poked their heads into the room. They craned their necks at Kid in the bed.

“He’s not very big,” Hanae said, sounding disappointed.

“Are you supposed to be here?” Saguru asked.

“Kaa-san didn’t say we couldn’t,” Midori said. She tugged on Takumi’s arm and lifted her hands so she could be held up. Takumi did, though he looked at Saguru like he was trying to figure out if this was okay or not. Midori made a soft unhappy sound when she was high enough to see Kid clearly. “He looks sad.”

“He’s a thief. He should be sad because he’s in a detective’s house,” Hanae said. “Once he’s healthy he’ll probably get arrested.”

“I’m gonna draw him a picture.” Midori wiggled in Takumi’s arms until he set her down again and she pointed at Kid. “What does he like?”

“Er. Gems?” Takumi said.

“Birds,” Saguru suggested. “He keeps doves.”

Midori nodded and tugged her sister away. Hanae went complaining the whole way that, “He’s a bad guy, Midori, why are we cheering him up?”

Takumi looked after them, his face scrunched somewhere between bewildered and reluctantly amused. “I’m kind of glad I don’t have siblings after all,” he said.

Kuroba shifted in the bed, discomfort growing on his face. It made Saguru want to smooth it away but it was far far better than the blankness of unconsciousness. “Have you seen enough?” Saguru asked.

Takumi looked back at Kid. It was surprising that he didn’t cross the room and try to peek under Kid’s mask. At his age, Saguru wouldn’t have hesitated to satisfy his curiosity. “Yeah,” Takumi said. “I’ve seen enough.”

***

It was a quiet trip to Aoko’s. They both had thoughts on their mind, and the closer they got to Aoko in Ekoda, the more nervous Takumi became. Saguru didn’t blame him; he was also nervous to see Aoko face to face. An angry Aoko was more than a little intimidating. He shouldn’t have to worry about dodging mops these days at least.

Aoko was on them within seconds of Takumi opening the front door. Saguru didn’t think she’d slept at all last night from the looks of it, her eyes red rimmed and hands just a bit shaky the way limbs got after too much caffeine and adrenaline mixing badly together. Her hair was a mess of wild tangles that made her look larger and Saguru found himself taking a step back at her desperate expression. She crushed Takumi into an embrace the moment she was within arm’s reach.

“You absolute idiot,” she growled. “I raised you to be smarter than that. You could have died.”

Takumi tentatively hugged her back with the arm not trapped between their bodies. “I’m sorry, Kaa-san.”

“You’d better be you brat,” Aoko choked. There were tears in her eyes. Saguru looked away. There wasn’t anywhere to go to give them privacy. “You’re grounded. Indefinitely.”

Takumi nodded into her shoulder, clinging closer.

“You’re okay? You’re not hurt?”

And this time Takumi choked on tears. “I’m fine. I’m…I was so scared…” He shifted so he could hold her with both arms just as tight as she was holding him. “The building exploded and I didn’t know where you were. People were screaming and you were still in there. And then Kid got shot and there was so much blood.” He was crying in earnest now and Aoko held him close as he let go of all the fear and worry from the last twelve hours.

Aoko rocked back and forth on her heels as Takumi cried. There were tears in her eyes but she was glaring fiercely past his shoulder at nothing even as her voice was gentle. “It’s over now. I’m okay. You’re okay. It’s all over.” Saguru wasn’t sure how long they held each other as Saguru tried to blend into the wall. Eventually, Takumi’s tears slowed and Aoko’s rocking stopped and they pulled apart. Aoko wiped tears from Takumi’s face with her handkerchief. “Go to the kitchen and get yourself a cup of tea,” she said to her son. “It will help.”

Takumi nodded and slid his shoes off before walking toward the kitchen, still wiping at his face.

Aoko looked after him like she wanted to snatch him back into a hug again. As soon as he was out of sight though, she rounded on Saguru. Worry morphed back into rage. “You should have said the moment you realized he was on site.”

Saguru winced. “Aoko-san, it was only a few minutes before the heist began. I only glimpsed him on the security cameras; I had to go see that it really was him.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it.”

It was, but what would Aoko have done? Stopped coordinating the entire heist? She was the central driving force, everyone else pivoted around her and Saguru wasn’t really needed anywhere. “I found him and I tried to get him out before the heist,” Saguru said. “It was inevitable that we got caught up in the fallout.”

Aoko shook her head. It had been inevitable though, if not caught in the heist itself, then the crowds of panicking people instead. “Then you should have called as soon as you were out of danger. Or as soon as Kid was out of danger, dammit. You’re such a fucking hypocrite. Or did someone else make me promise I’d call if I knew anything about Kid so we could keep each other up to date?” She snorted at Saguru’s flinch. “I thought so. God I’m just so…Rrgh. Fuck Kid.” She ran her hands though her hair, tangling it further.

“I should have called,” Saguru said. “I forgot. I am sorry.”

“Fat lot of good sorry does anyone,” Aoko said tiredly. “How bad?”

“Expect months of recovery.”

“Damn it. I hate him. I hate him so much.”

You do but you don’t, Saguru thought as she wrapped her arms around herself.

“You’re not going to tell me where he is, are you?”

“It is probably best for everyone involved if you don’t know where he’s at for the moment.” It wasn’t that he thought Aoko would arrest Kuroba or actually try to kill him, but having Aoko show up right now would be the last thing Kuroba needed for his health.

“Fine.” Aoko closed her eyes. “Fine. Can you leave? Please.”

“I’ll leave immediately.” He did just that, backing away toward the door only to be stopped by Aoko’s voice when he touched the doorknob.

“Hakuba. I need your report on the heist within the next twenty four hours. Write an official one and one for my eyes only please.”

“Of course. …May I ask the casualty rate from last night?”

“No one died. I have two officers that are in critical condition and half a dozen others hospitalized. Five people in the crowds ended up in the hospital from the panic. Dozens more have minor injuries.”

“Thank you.” Kuroba would hate to hear this. “Goodbye, Aoko-san.”

She didn’t say anything else, so Saguru left. He wondered if there would only be animosity between them after this. Aoko was not a friend, but he hoped he had not forever lost the possibility of her becoming one.

***

Saguru stopped at his apartment before heading back to Kudo’s. He stood in his entryway for a good five minutes feeling the emptiness of the room pressing in on him. It struck him again that he’d almost lost Kuroba last night. There would have been no more evening conversations over tea or random gifts of food left on his kitchen counter or that specific double tap on his door that when Kuroba was using his manners instead of barging in. Just four short months and Kuroba had become a center point in his life.

There was something wrong with him because the thought of losing Kuroba felt almost on par with losing Mel had been, with only a fraction of the history to account for that feeling.

Saguru stood in the shadows of the entryway where the light from the afternoon sun didn’t reach and considered it rationally; love was love regardless of the time experiencing it. And he was in love with Kuroba. There wasn’t a point in deluding himself to that reality anymore. The emotions wouldn’t go anywhere. Saguru didn’t expect them to and friendship was enough between them, but he couldn’t deny the existence of his emotions anymore either.

The soft golden light of afternoon peeking through the window didn’t really fit the weight of this revelation. But then so rarely did nature choose to align with emotional turmoil outside of popular media.

Saguru loved Kuroba and had almost lost him; if it was in his power, he would not lose someone he loved like that again.

***

Saguru broke into Kuroba’s apartment to gather changes of clothes and other things Kuroba might need. Kuroba’s things joined Saguru’s own in a large cloth grocery bag repurposed into a makeshift suitcase. He wasn’t sure all what to bring; clothing and toiletries were obvious, but anything else was anyone’s guess what Kuroba would want. Saguru added the mp3 player he found on Kuroba’s bedside table. With a concussion he wouldn’t be able to do anything mentally taxing for a while, but music could straddle the line between entertaining and relaxing.

He took the time to update both his mother and Kuroba’s on the heist fallout, and then he was off again, headed back to Kudo’s home.

Kudo raised an eyebrow at Saguru’s bag but didn’t comment on it. It was rather rude for Saguru to invite himself to stay longer, but rudeness be damned, he’d sleep better within shouting distance of Kuroba.

After settling his things into a guest room offered by Ran and getting Kuroba’s things to him, Saguru sat down with Kudo and his wife in their study, children thankfully elsewhere for the moment.

“Takumi-kun got back to his mother in one piece?” Kudo asked lightly.

“More or less. I am afraid I’m in bad graces with her at the moment as well. I imagine this will make parent teacher interactions even more awkward in the future.” Saguru sighed. “Takumi-kun is my student,” he added when Kudo raised an eyebrow.

“An interesting bit of luck ending up the teacher to Kaitou Kid’s son.”

“You have no idea.” What sort of expression would Kudo make if Saguru revealed they were neighbors? That would be giving too much away though, and they were at least pretending that they couldn’t easily pick apart Kid’s identity like freeing a boiled egg from a fault-littered shell.

“…You know Kid pretty well, right?” Kudo asked.

“Well enough.” Not well enough; Kuroba kept himself a step away even as he had opened up around Saguru. There would always be depths to him that Saguru wouldn’t be allowed to see.

“How would you say his life is?”

Kudo didn’t look like he was prying to find clues. He looked contemplative, a crease between his brows and a quirk to his lips that spoke more of concern than a desire to tear away the last veils of Kid’s identity. How odd. But then, if Kuroba could become interested in Kudo’s wellbeing after years of interaction it wasn’t really that odd for it to go both ways. Saguru had felt that way even at the height of their rivalry. “It’s very busy,” Saguru said honestly. “He works, has a son, and is Kid. I sometimes wonder at how he functions with as little sleep as he seems to get. He’s a good father even if a bit misguided at times. He’s lonely. He seems to have many acquaintances and few close friends. I’m not sure he knows how to stop wearing masks anymore, or if he’s afraid of what he’d find if he put the roles away.” Kudo’s expression softened into something like sadness or perhaps compassion. If Saguru remembered right, Kudo was someone who caught his criminals, but didn’t let them throw their lives away. It was something that had tipped Saguru’s opinion a bit more toward favor. Even if he had once pointed a gun on Kid. “Why?”

“We’ve talked a few times. He’s come close to breaking before…I was wondering if it was still true or if life got better since we last talked.”

Ah. Between Aoko’s divorce and Jii’s death, he could see it straining Kuroba to near shattering. It was a miracle he hadn’t broken unlike Saguru’s own breakdown. “I’ve seen him smile and laugh and mean it. There are bad days, but good ones too.”

“I’m glad.” Kudo shared a smile with Ran then and Saguru again got the feeling that he was missing something vital in Kuroba’s history with the Kudo family. There were possibilities he could speculate on, but without proof he wouldn’t put weight into any of them.

But there was Kuroba now to think about. The past would keep its mysteries. “He’s going to be recovering for a long time,” Saguru said. “Can you keep him here until he can move on his own?”

A wealth of meaning shifted between Kudo and Ran before Ran shrugged slightly. “It isn’t a problem,” Kudo said. “He’s welcome here.”

“And so are you,” Ran added.

“Thank you.” It was more than generous for them to do this. “Kudo-san, about last night…the crash site; it’s been cleaned up?”

“I called in a few favors,” Kudo said. “There might still be traces of blood, but nothing usable to track back to him.”

Good. Saguru nodded. “That should buy some time then… The ones who set everything up are likely wondering if he lived or not.”

“No body means they’re going to play it toward him living,” Shinichi observed. “The gem?”

“Kid hid it.”

Kudo nodded. “I was surprised he went with the roof, but I guess he wasn’t given much choice in his escape route. The bombs pretty much ensured he could only flee up, and where the bomb damage wasn’t there were officers cutting off his route. The weather was too perfect for the glider too. It felt like an obvious setup.”

“He was flying a bit off the best direction of the wind. That might have been what saved him.” Saguru tried to recreate the trajectories of Kuroba’s entrance wounds. Gliding the direction he had been, with the angle of the wounds… “Kudo-san, do you happen to have a map? I’m curious what buildings the sniper might have been at. I know Ao—Nakamori-keibu had a watch at certain perimeter trying to keep the chance of a sniper down.” Saguru stumbled over Aoko’s name and pretended he hadn’t.

Kudo pulled out his phone, fiddling with it to bring up a map of the area. He set it on the coffee table between them. “This is the museum,” Kudo said. “And Kid left in this direction…” His finger scrolled the map forward.

“You found us about here, correct?” Saguru asked, pointing to what appeared to be the correct alley.

“Yes. Depending on Kid’s speed, he’d have to have been hit within this radius to crash there…” Kudo traced a circle above the phone.

“Meaning his shooter had to be within a certain radius to hit him.”

“Exactly.”

“Fifteen hundred meter radius?”

“Extend it a bit further to be on the safe side…” They bent forward over the phone, studying it intently. “The damage is worse on the right side.”

“Half from the crash, but I concede to your point; the bullet wounds come from that angle. It was a taller building. The entry wounds were almost even with his height.”

“Mm. Maybe a bit from below…too straight for his leg wound otherwise….” Kudo shifted the map around before they both agreed on a potential area. “I know this area. The tallest building around there is an office building.”

“It’s outside of Nakamori-keibu’s radius too.” Saguru felt the tingle of satisfaction that piecing pieces together always gave him. It was paired with the gut feeling that the sniper’s location had been important. He zoomed closer. Ambrosia Industries? It was foreign, and it also sounded vaguely familiar for some reason… He’d had a case that involved them at one point, he was pretty sure, but it had to have been a very long time ago.

“Something wrong?” Kudo asked. Saguru looked up into sharp-focused eyes. He also looked like he was on the edge of some sort of connection.

“I’ve heard of the company before.” When though? Not in Japan, in London, back, far back.

Kudo took the phone and looked the company up. “Ambrosia Industries…Not much on them.”

“They make cosmetics don’t they?” Ran asked, leaning in. Saguru had almost forgotten she was there. “Sonoko has a few things from their brand. She said they had the best anti-aging creams.”

A cosmetics company? That sparked something. Saguru took the phone from Shinichi. Yes, under the international subsidiaries was a different name. Elysium. “I had a case almost fifteen years ago looking into an employee from Elysium. My client thought that the employee had stolen her research data, but there hadn’t been any clear trail to link that they were using it in their formulas.” He frowned. “That was the case I got my knee shot out.” A bit further down on the list was another name he remembered. He gripped the phone tight. “And I was investigating a theft from Progenetics almost a year ago when…when my partner was killed.”

“That’s…” Kudo’s brow furrowed.

“It is entirely possible for that to be circumstantial and unrelated.” Saguru handed the phone back. The rest of the names didn’t spark any memories, though there was always the possibility that there were other connections. “It makes me wonder, though, as all three instances involved gunmen.”

“I have come across a few of these places,” Kudo said slowly. “Murder cases.”

Of course murders. Kudo worked almost exclusively with murders. “Thefts for me.”

“They were mostly crimes of passion though; the setting didn’t seem important to them. There was one that was one employee killing the other though. They never explained why, just turned themselves in.” Kudo tapped his chin.

“It would be a bit odd to use the roof of a place you were associated with to attempt a murder,” Saguru said.

“Or it could be the perfect cover because it would be unexpected.” Kudo shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Right. Kudo had taken out an international crime organization before he was twenty. He was probably something of an expert on shadowy dealings and large scale crime rings. “Kudo-san, how much do you know about what Kid is searching for?”

“Only that it is a large gemstone and that there is another interested party.”

“There was more than one Kid,” Ran added softly.

Kudo’s eyes flicked to her and he nodded. “The first Kid was active about seven years internationally before he vanished. The second Kid appeared eight years later and was much younger than the first. A protégé perhaps, since his methodology and skills are very similar to the first. With the sort of people that follow Kid, I can guess that the first Kid either died or was crippled.”

“He died,” Saguru said bluntly. “In what appeared to be an accident. A very public accident. His identity was found out by the organization chasing him and they ensured he wouldn’t be able to defy them again. How Kid has avoided something similar happening, I have no idea. Perhaps because he has made no effort to stand out in his civilian life.” It was too easy to picture ‘accidents’ happening to Aoko or Kuroba or Takumi, leaving nothing but blank eyed corpses behind. With Aoko it would not even be hard to arrange. Perhaps they had already tried, but with all the danger already present in Aoko’s day to day life, it had fallen into one more close call among many.

“The second Kid was a teenager when he first appeared,” Ran said. “Both Shinichi and I got close often enough to figure that much out.”

“He was sixteen when he first took Kid’s mantle.” All three of them winced at the implications. It was funny in a way; at the time it wouldn’t have felt odd. They had all been teenagers that ran into danger on a regular basis. The violent side of humanity and its dark possibilities were very real presences and dangers in their lives. And yet at sixteen they had felt adults already. At over thirty, looking back they had all been barely more than children dealing with things that they would have tried to protect their younger selves from now. “He’s spent the last decade and a half trying to take down a crime organization on his own.”

Kudo and Ran exchanged a look, Kudo’s questioning, Ran’s accepting. “I owe Kid,” Kudo said after a moment. “Not many people know this, but he helped several times in taking down the Black Organization. Not always willingly.” Kudo rubbed a hand through his hair. It stood up at the back, for a moment making him look much more like Kuroba. “I said I wouldn’t get involved in anything at that scale again if I could help it.” Kudo looked Saguru in the eyes, clearly struggling.

Oh. “He’s bad at accepting help,” Saguru said drily, “but at this point I don’t think he has much of a choice. Kudo-san, I don’t want to see Kid die. I’ve permanently lost the person I care for most in the last year, and then alienated the majority of my friends through my own actions; I don’t intend to lose anyone else. If that means coming out of retirement and going against a crime organization of an unknown size and reach, I will do it. I have far less to lose these days than I did before.” As he said the words, the resolution that had been building in him since he knew Kuroba had survived solidified. He had failed to save Mel or get him justice. His detective pursuits may very well have gotten Mel killed. But if there was any chance that his skills could help Kuroba, he would use them. Even with such a large chance of failing. “Would you be willing to help me in this?”

“I…” Kudo trailed off. He looked at the phone in his hands. “You’d be surprised how many detectives care about Kid. More than we should considering we try to catch him time after time. He causes chaos and dangerous people follow him, but Kid doesn’t use guns, does his best to not hurt anyone be it bystander or officer doing their job…” It was hard to be indifferent or remain angry at someone you interacted with for over a decade even if said interactions were anything but friendly. “I care. I’ll hide Kid here until he recovers completely if that’s what he needs. But…”

“I’m not asking for you to take an active role rooting out the shadows,” Saguru said. “I need your mind and your connections; those will be more than enough. I intend to do as much legwork as I can myself.” He was aware of the irony, a man with a cane doing the legwork, but for Kuroba he’d do it.

Ran touched Kudo’s elbow. Kudo swallowed thickly. “I can provide connections and help talk over whatever you find. I’d offer more, but I can’t be open about working on this, not with a family.”

“I understand.”

“I can make sure Kid is taken care of in the meantime,” Ran said.

Saguru nodded, grateful his mind spun plans, poked at connections as he closed his eyes. Fragmentary details stood out at him—snipers and connected companies and the multitude of wounds Kuroba has had since Saguru returned to Japan. Aoko’s angry face, Kuroba’s locked bedroom door and equally locked closet, accidents that were not accidents, Jii’s death, Kuroba Chikage’s absence from this heist, Kudo’s half smile when he talked about Kid and the years spent chasing him. Nothing clicked yet, but it was a start. “We will have to talk to Kid. Undoubtedly he has evidence we can work with.” He had almost two decades to throw himself at the problem; he had to have gotten somewhere with it. But Kuroba wasn’t a detective, and he didn’t have the connections he needed to take down a large scale organization. He was smart enough that he likely put most of the pieces together by now, but that didn’t mean he could do anything with it on his own.

“He’s probably asleep again,” Ran said. “Ai-san has him resting as much as possible so it might be a while before you can talk.”

“I understand. He has a lot of recovering to do.” And there were other things Saguru could do. Namely talk to his father; he wanted his perspective as well as Kudo’s on taking down a large scale criminal enterprise. And there was one other thing to take care of while he was at the manor. “I think,” he said slowly, “I have one more errand to do today after all.”

“Okay,” Kudo said. “Do what you need to do. I have a write up to do for the Kid task force, so I’ll be in my office if you need anything.”

“Ah.” Ran pulled out a slip of paper. “And our cell phone numbers if you need to get in touch.”

“Thank you.” He quickly entered the numbers into his phone and sent along his own contact info in a text. “Let me know if anything changes while I am gone?”

“Of course.” Ran smiled. Kudo was already lost looking up something on his phone again, the sharp thinking face firmly in place.

#detective conan #magic kaito #nltsa #fanfiction #not left to stand alone #My writing

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highwaytosickfics · 7 years ago

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Asugi/Dwyer sickfic (Sick!Dwyer)

(I haven’t written in a while, but i wanted more Asugi/Dwyer. please be gentle)

=============================================================

It was early morning when Asugi let himself drift into consciousness. He was an early bird by nature, which was only further cemented into his body by his ninja training. More recently, however, he’d been tempted to sleep in a bit by the sleepy bundle of warmth that was his boyfriend Dwyer. Dwyer also get up early for his butler duties, so it wasn’t like he was going to wake up at noon or anything.

When he woke up this morning, however, Asugi quickly realized that the bed space beside him was cold, unused. Then he remembered that he’d gone to sleep first, which was also unusual as Dwyer tended to get his work done faster. Biting his bottom lip in worry, he plucked out a sucker from the bowl next to him. It was silly, but the candy brought him some small amount of comfort. Swiftly he got dressed, grabbed his candy bag and started out towards the medical tent. There was an illness going around that had taken down a good amount of their forces. Thankfully their enemies were also taking a significant hit from the virus, but it still left the remaining healthy forces plenty busy. Especially for the healers. If Dwyer hadn’t come to bed last night, he was probably pulling an all-nighter. As his loving boyfriend, it was his pleasure - no, his duty to drag Dwyer to rest, or at least bring something to keep his energy up during these troubling times.

He knocked at the entrance flap politely before letting himself inside. All of the cots within the tent were full of feverish soldiers, some groaning and others complaining, but most were just sleeping. One in particular was vomiting loudly into a pot, and Asugi grimaced in sympathy. The majority of those currently down were foot soldiers he barely knew, but he occasionally spotted a familiar face: Laslow and Niles, despite their weariness, were still conscious enough to flirt with some of the healers that passed by. Hana, and Oboro were quietly discussing fashion through scratchy throats. Even his father had been dragged in, though he’d somehow managed to create a bubble of space between himself and everyone else. Uncle Kaze was in the bed next to him, seemingly having the opposite problem as the female healers were fawning over him. The healthy were hard at work though, so hopefully everyone was well on their way to recovering.

Finally in the distance, Asugi caught sight of a familiar poof of greyish white hair. Dwyer was shifting around from bed to bed, doling out water, medicine, and other various things to keep the patients comfortable. It was quite a difference from his usual slothlike behavior, so much so that Asugi stood mesmerized. He’d almost forgotten why he was there and spent a couple minutes just watching him in awe. Then Dwyer stumbled over his own feet, snapping the ninja back to reality. He walked into Dwyer’s section of the tent, finding him distractedly surveying his supplies. Asugi took the opportunity to wrap his arms around his boyfriend’s shoulders, nuzzling the healer’s neck with his nose. The tired butler stiffened.

“Hey Naps.”

Hearing Asugi’s voice, Dwyer let himself relax into his boyfriend’s embrace.

“Hey…” His tone was low, tired, maybe a little scratchy. He definitely hadn’t slept in a while.

“You okay? You look wiped.”

“‘s been busy, no time to relax.” Dwyer continued to absentmindedly gather supplies, allowing Asugi to cling.

“Had anything to eat lately?”

“Not really hungry to be honest…”

“Not even for a sucker?~”

“...”

Dwyer sighed. “What flavor?”

“I brought strawberry, lemon, and green apple.”

“Strawberry.” Asugi picked out a strawberry sucker from his bad, unwrapped it and stuck it into Dwyer’s mouth. Neither was embarrassed about it, they’d done it in public and private several times before, though Asugi could feel Saizo behind him glaring at the display. His father wasn’t exactly a believer in PDA, he rarely ever showed affection to his own wife when they weren’t behind closed doors. He found it tasteless, so it was no surprise that he disapproved of such behavior from his own son. Asugi responded by flipping off the general direction behind him (probably confusing his uncle) before following after his boyfriend, who’d broken free to lend to his patients.

Asugi helped Dwyer with simple tasks, all the while monitoring his behavior. His skin was paler than usual, his eye bags darker and more prominent. He wasn’t always steady on his feet, often tripping or stumbling. It was a miracle he hadn’t knocked anything over.

“Maybe you should slow down a little…”

“Can’t.” Dwyer replied. “Not until we rotate shifts. Just another half-hour.”

Asugi sighed, he rarely saw the sleepy boy so determined when he wasn’t competing with Jakob. It’d be cute if he didn’t look like he’d collapse at the drop of a hat.

So, with Dwyer’s stubbornness to leave, Asugi did his best to help his boyfriend out while also preventing him from accidentally hurting himself. While he wasn’t exactly a healer, he was pretty good at lifting heavy stuff and carrying it to where it was needed. Finally, a new group of healers began to rotate in. Asugi recognized Midori and Forrest in the crowd and waved them over.

“You guys here to take over?”

“Yeah! It was nice to have a little break.” Midori cheerfully replied, turning to Dwyer. “Thanks for taking my shift last night. I didn’t think I’d get sick that fast.”

“No problem, you’re better now aren’t you?” Dwyer mumbled as he collected his belongings. His movements were weighed and sluggish, something the other two healers quickly caught sight of.

“Are you feeling alright? We can set up a cot for you if you need one.” Forrest offered.

Dwyer shook his head, stifling a cough into his fist. “Too many people around. I’d never get any rest with all the noise.”

“It’ll be alright.” Asugi chimed in. “I’ll take good care of him.”

“You better.” The blond boy threatened, obviously defensive of his friend. “Or I’ll never design an outfit for you again.”

Asugi whined. “But you make the coolest stuff.”

Forrest chuckled, moving on to begin looking after patients. Midori followed, slipping a small sack into Asugi’s pocket. It was probably filled with medicine candies, because no one was exactly a fan of the liquid version.

Asugi wrapped an arm around Dwyer’s shoulders, leading him out of the medical tent. As they headed back to their quarters, the butler’s condition rapidly began to deteriorate. Without the judging eyes of the other healers around him, his shoulders slumped further than normal. He stopped stifling his coughs, every fit ending with a painful whimper. Asugi pulled him in tighter, keeping him grounded. Feeling the coughs wracking through the sleepy boy’s lungs made him wince. Dwyer’s eyes watered with exhaustion and strain, and his fever ridden mind was drifting in half-awareness. He was nauseous, tired, and freezing with chills. He huddled towards Asugi, the closest source of warmth.

The ninja always smelled of sugar and cinnamon, a scent that always made the healer relax. It reminded him of the past, the few visits from younger days when he and his father would spend the day just baking treats and brewing tea to enjoy outside in the afternoon sun. It reminded him of the present, when he and Asugi would make more cakes and candies than either could eat by themselves, swapping recipes and techniques. That was the scent of happier days, and combined with the fact that Asugi ran a little higher than most, it made Dwyer feel like he could fall asleep right there...in fact his eyes were just starting to droop when they made it to their tent.

Asugi made their bed while Dwyer changed into some loose pajamas. The effort made him dizzy, but soon enough he found himself pulled into their bed, both of their blankets wrapped carefully around him. A few medicine gummies found their way into his hand, and despite the nausea in his throat, he dutifully swallowed them with a flask of water. He laid down gently, a cool pillow granting him relief. The sounds of shuffling played at his ears, and before his boyfriend could sneak away, Dwyer reached a hand out and grabbed at his sleeve.

“Stay. Please, sweet cheeks?” Asugi looked surprised for a moment before giving a smile and laying down next to him.

“Anything for you, Naps.”

#sickfic #fe14 #illumivomi #sweet dream #asugi/dwyer #my post #fe dwyer #fe dwyer sick #fe asugi #fire emblem #Fire Emblem Fates #fire emblem sick #fire emblem fates sick #fire emblem fates sickfic

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imagineyourstars · 7 years ago

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Since is Midori's and Adonis's birthday, can I request a scenario where s/o bought Midori's favorite plush toy and Adonis's favorite Anpan as a gift and tries to make a birthday cake but actually got caught by both of them. I know I posted a request before this but I would really like to see more of the birthday scenarios more! Lastly I would like to thank you for your good works up until now Mod Mademoiselle!

college has been really hectic these days and ?? i forgot i’ve been done with this request for a while ?? so here you have it ! it’s hopelessly late, but Midori and Adonis deserve their own birthday fluff !! (also thank you very much for the nice words ! nothing fuels motivation more than lovely comments like these ♥) - mod mademoiselle

Birthdays are terrible.

One of them is usually enough suffering.But when you have to care for thirty idol boys single-handedly, something as mundane as a birthday can quickly become an absolute nightmare. Especially when you have two of them onthe very same day.

You’d been running left and rightsince early in the morning, but you wouldn’t let your enthusiasm die down. Notnow at least : you were still far from being done ! But, well, maybe youdeserved a little break…

You were up early that morning : youhad a mission to fulfill. You’djumped in the first train, pinpointing a famous shop on your phone’s GPS. Agood hour later, you were queuing in front of the store with as muchdetermination as you physically could without melting. You did wonder if you were going to even makeit to the inside of the shop, but you didn’t want to back down ! Especially notafter coming all the way here, train tickets are expensive as hell ! Buteventually your patience was rewarded, and you were finally handing the holygrail to the employee behind the cash register… !

It was a rare, ultra limited-editionplushie of Midori’s favorite mascot character. Needless to say, your walletsuffered a lot from it, but you came victorious ! You : 1. World : 0. Oh, butyour ordeals weren’t over yet.

Now that you’d taken the train backhome, you were touring the sweets shops all around town, trying to rememberwhich one Adonis liked. You’d figured you’d buy his favorite dessert,anpan, as a birthday gift for him, but you couldn’t just settle for randomanpan from wherever. No, you’d give himthe best anpan.

But, well, you couldn’t quiteremember which store was his favorite. This made it all much, much harder. Youabsorbed yourself in research for a while. That is, digging through obscure review websites to figure out which shop had the best anpan. Only once you had awinner did you go to the other end of town to buy it, bleeding another holethrough your wallet in the process. (Hey, is anpan even supposed to be thatexpensive ?)

It still wasn’t over yet. You’dthen gone home and armed yourself with gift wrapping and scissors. Did you knowwrapping a gift is surprisingly hard ? After three failed tries, you resignedyourself to go watch a tutorial video on Youtube. It kind of felt like adefeat, but at least your wrapping was decent after that. No one shouldcomplain with this. You even added a handmade greeting card on each. Wrappingphase : over. Now you’d just need to go back to Yumenosaki and make up anexcuse for why you weren’t there today. Easy peasy.

Except as soon as you set foot onthe school’s grounds, you realized something was horribly wrong. The cake.

You’d forgotten the cake.

Well, not that hard to fix this.You’d just go back in town, buy pretty cakes, have “Happy Birthday !” writtenon it in icing, and all should be well.

Yeah, that’s what you’d have done,if only Midori and Adonis weren’t making a beeline straight to you. What werethey even doing in the courtyard ? Why were they all alone ? Who ruined yourplans ?!

“Oh, it’s you… Do you know, maybe…why there’s no one who wants to talk to us… ?” Poor Midori looked like hepretty much wanted to die right then and there.

“It’s strange. They all go away andmake up excuses when we approach.” Even Adonis looked utterly lost. Just likeyou were. You had no idea why they were being ignored by everyone else, and tobe fair you had more urgent matters on hand. Seriously, why couldn’t someonedistract them at least long enough for you to fix your cake mistake ?!

“Uh, that’s…. strange…. Oh, Adonis,behind you !” Despite your best attempt at gasping in surprise, Adonis didn’tmove an inch. “A bunch of adorable puppies !” was what you added in a panic,and you definitely didn’t expect Adonis to make a literal 180 and to startsprinting immediately.

“Wait, senpai…. Don’t make me run…”Midori slowly followed him, dragging his feet on the ground. You jumped on theoccasion and ran in the opposite direction, sprinting to the cafeteria’skitchens. You needed to get some cake ready, and quick.

Fast forward thirty minutes or so,and you were gritting your teeth, whisking cream as fast as you could. It’sridiculously hard, too. Feels like muscle training, actually. A sudden cramphit, but you wouldn’t let it defeat you and kept whisking harder. You startedwondering if you should shout to channel your inner strength to whisk even harderwhen you heard sudden footsteps right out the door.

“Are you sure they’re here,Otogari-senpai… ? I didn’t even see them…” Oh shit. It was Midori’s voice.

“I saw them coming in here in ahurry. They almost crashed in the door.” Yeah, no doubt about it, it was thetwo of them. And you were nowhere near done with the cake. Why wouldn’t theyjust take the hint and let you work ?! You needed to figure something out, andquick.

The door was already slowly openingwhen you suddenly had an idea. “Uh, Midori ! D-Don’t come in !” A puzzledsilence answered your sudden warning, but at least the door stopped moving.

“… Um, why… ? Is there something Ishouldn’t see inside… ?” You were running out of time, so you just saidwhatever sprang to mind.

“Ghosts ! There are—oh my god thiskitchen is haunted !” To your surprise, the kitchen door suddenly closed andyou heard footsteps running away.

“Hey, Takamine-kun—” Adonis ended uprunning after him, which prompted a huge sigh of relief to leave your lips.Maybe you’d finally be able to focus on your cooking ! Now you had no excuse :you needed to get those cakes done as soon as humanly possible.

Forty minutes later, you werepondering about life and its cruelty. One of the two cakes you’d made turnedout just fine, but the other… Yeah, there was no way you could show that toanyone. But you couldn’t just give one of them a cake. And sharing one cake forthe two of them seemed stingy… You were only just starting to spread the icing on your onlyvalid cake when a sudden knock on the door made you jump in surprise, causing asplotch of icing to ruin the decoration.

“Hey… T-There may be ghosts but… canwe come in ? We know you’re inside, we saw you…” Midori’s voice somehow soundedeven more dejected than usual. You were trying to figure out another excuse,but when you heard even Adonis sounded disheartened, you gave up.

“I don’t understand. Everyone’savoiding us… It’s really lonely. Did we do something wrong ?” There was no wayyou’d just leave them be, so you gave up on your half-finished cake and youopened the door, a resigned smile on your lips.

“Midori, Adonis… Happy birthday.”Both boys just stood there, staring incredulously at the half done cake and thetwo gifts sitting on the table.

“So that means… they were not ignoring us…”Midori visibly didn’t know what to do with himself, and shyly looked away whenyou tried to meet his eyes.

“Yeah, we were just trying to get asurprise party going for the two of you…” Well, you guessed so, at least. There was no way Rei or Chiaki would have missed the occasion. “Sorry, we’ve been a bit mean withoutmeaning to. But, well, it’s not a surprise anymore”, you laughed. Adonis gentlyshook his head, scooping up a bit of the cream from the messed up,half-finished birthday cake. “Hey, Adonis, it’s not… !” Too late. He’d stuffedit in his mouth already, and you couldn’t help but freeze when he smiled.

“It’s delicious.” His smile was so warm you had to look away before your entire face catch on fire.Midori was looking at the cake too, eyes suddenly bright.

“I think it’s cute… It’s a bit uglyand still not done, but I can see you tried your best… I like it.” He quietlylaughed when your eyes widened the size of saucers. You definitely weren’texpecting compliments on that failure of a cake, and yet…

Before you could ponder aboutyour failures any more, Midori awkwardly moved towards you, arms shyly extended.It took you a while to register he may have been wanting a hug, and so yougently embraced him. Adonis was looking away already, but you smiled to him.

“You can join in too, Adonis. Isn’tit your birthday too ?” Adonis’ cheeks definitely got rosier, but he delicatelyembraced you too, leaning his chin against your temple. You just stayed therefor a while, basking in the moment and in the warmth of both boys, when youfelt lips pressing against your forehead.

“Thank you. I’m really happy.” Asecond pair shyly joined in, pecking your temple only lightly.

“Yes, thank you so much… I thinkthis may be the happiest day of my life…” Your smile got uncontrollably wider,and you opted to just hide in Midori’s chest, making him jump up a bit at thesudden contact.

You were the one who should thankthem for making your life so bright, not the reverse.

#ensemble stars #enstars #imagine #midori takamine #adonis otogari #scenario #ensemble stars imagine #enstars imagine #mod mademoiselle

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mahouproject-one · 6 years ago

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so give me something i can use to fill up all this doubt | Miyu | re: Reiko; ATTN: MAHOU, Michaela

[ CW: Mention of live burial ]

For the first time in a long while, Miyu was quiet. All she could manage were a few spare words: A question to Otohiko, a “I’m not asking you to die” to Ushiro, and a “you think I don’t know I wouldn’t be the same person?” to no one in particular. The rest of the time, she listened, and she wrote, because with the way the magic in the air grew staler with every passing breath, she didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to do this.

She wrote about everyone else who had suffered or caused suffering on these school grounds this past century. Morgan Lowell and Kunie Sasamoto. Quirina Lowell and Masato Yamamoto. Midori Morisawa and Ailani Fan. Michaela and all of her friends buried with her.

She wrote about the founding family, the found family that was Otohiko and Haru and Ake and Ueda and Mikage. The war between the mundane and the magical, how it was encouraged by a mother who thought she was protecting her children, and how it was ended by the children who thought they had slayed an evil. How the family tore itself apart and unwittingly set the stage for today’s tragedies.

She wrote about the Oharas and how they planned to wage their own war against the mundane. How they were willing to sacrifice dozens of people to their agenda, even their own relative, even a class full of teenagers.

On the second page, Miyu wrote shorter notes of a more personal nature. Code words that only trusted people should understand the meaning of. Names of victims that she assumed were just faceless corpses in Osaka’s waters. Lists of faculty who could be trusted and faculty that had to be avoided.

She made a rudimentary relationship chart and drew lines between various names – no labels for if they were platonic or romantic or familial or even something complicated, but a sign that they had some positive connection. She listened to Mitsuo and Joon bicker, erased their line, drew it again after a moment’s thought, and repeated the process several times until she was left with a smudged-in line that no eraser could remove.

Something about the bickering, the way that Mitsuo said everyone would be better off if they had died, the way Reiko was trying to bring up homunculi as if Miyu was an expert n the topic, the way Shizuka had apparently drawn out The Answer when Miyu herself struggled with it for weeks—

Something inside her snapped apart. Miyu raised her sketchbook over her head, and roughly and loudly dropped back down onto the rim of her pensieve.

“Listen to me. Eigawa-san’s right: Even if some or all of us try to send whatever we can into another time, this will happen again if we don’t cover all our bases, if not to us then to others.

The Oharas and their sycophants have a history of using and abusing others – no offense, Ohara-sensei, but your relatives are terrible, and you know what that means coming from me. What I’m saying is, if we deny them their chance to assassinate a class of mahounashi, who’s to say they won’t find another way to feed their agenda? They have no shortage of scapegoats: Ohara-sensei and Zoya-chan, but also other faculty members like the headmaster’s assistant or the crematorium operator. Who’s to say they won’t create a different atrocity and blame that on mahounashi allies too?

So. We send knowledge back via the Time-Turner and whoever recalls the information does all the can to expose this school’s shady history. They expose the assassination plot and oust the Oharas from power. Peace grows between the magical and mundane worlds, and all is well, right?”

“Except that you’ve just made it easier for the Otohiko of that time to get her claws into a mahounashi.

If you really do create an environment for peaceful relations, then other mahounashi will find their way to this school. Maybe not a full class of them. And maybe it really isn’t guaranteed. But the more time that passes, the more likely it becomes, and Otohiko only needs one to listen to her.

What I’m getting at is: We have to prevent both threats.”

Miyu pinched the bridge of her nose – a gesture of frustration she picked up from someone dear to her. Shizuka had asked the questions Miyu had been wondering all this time. She stared at Zhen and Mikage, taking in this information; she’d known about the latter but not the former.

“Are you saying Zhen-san’s not a wizard himself? Then how is he still here as a ghost? Many of my interactions with him did have an element of magic. Same with my interactions with Mikage. At any rate, if Shizuka and Otohiko are suggesting what I think they are… how far back can the ‘journey’ go? Only to when we were first infused with magic? But that just puts us back right where we started! You and the Oharas would still be plotting our deaths!”

She remembered Michaela’s warning that they would be empowering Otohiko again and open themselves up to the same exact problem.

…Unless there was a way to remove Otohiko’s motivations for targeting them in the first place.

“…What if… if everyone in the founding family sent their memories to their other selves? The four founders in that timeline realize that Otohiko is alive and angry. So they go to meet her themselves, before she and break out. And they assure her that they hadn’t truly forgotten her.

…Was that what the Genbu Labyrinth was trying to tell us? That she still loves them, and they still love her? You know why I have trouble believing that fully.”

What did Otohiko think, seeing how quick Miyu was to turn on Mi-ke and Shizuka for suggesting those statements were true? What did she think, seeing how quick Miyu began yelling at her own found family?

“But if there is any truth in that left, would you five at least consider if that’d work? Otohiko. What was it you really wanted all this time?”

The Oharas would be trickier to handle, given that their influence was active and widespread. They could address that later, but first…

“Eigawa-san, I don’t know as much about homunculi as you think I do. This is what I do know: Michaela-san believes she is the only homunculus from her group that still exists. The others had been destroyed as punishment for rebellion. They spared her alone to teach her a lesson.

And I don’t know how you’d create one, either. She mentioned she and her friends were buried beneath the sakura tree – alive, if I understood her correctly. I don’t know if that was part of the creation of homunculi or the destruction.

Besides, how many seeds have you found? Just the one? I don’t think binding multiple souls to a single object would be a good idea. Binding one sounds risky enough if some of the victims were… not sapient. And! What are the long-term effects of this? Because you aren’t bringing anyone back from the dead, you’re just anchoring their soul to an item.”

Wasn’t that essentially the same thing they were yelling at Outa about earlier?

“…but, really, I don’t know much. You’d have to ask Michaela-san herself.”

She gestured over to the plant girl. A long, tired sigh escaped Miyu. How much longer would it be before she became a simple wisp of light and thought, like Tama’s owner or Zhen’s loved one?

“Let’s… think this through. I’m of the mind that whatever happens right here and now will persist regardless of however much information is sent backwards. Right now… If you ask me, what we need to think about is minimizing the risks in the other time, and maximizing the chances of survival and justice in this time. Unless you think I’m wrong about something.”

#mahouichi #chrono #chapter six #mm trial #miyu #submission #live burial mention cw

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20smthngrp-blog · 7 years ago

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( LEE MIDORI, 22 )

Name: Lee Midori Date of Birth: 1995/10/15 Occupation: Unemployed

SPARKNOTES:

Daughter of two psychologists, raised in a normal and loving home, with two dogs and a goldfish. Lee Midori was raised normal, one could say, well-adjusted even. Now what went wrong? Something must have happened as she grew up. Why else would she be this… eccentric?

Her parents saw no flaw in their average and normal life. After all, normal is what most people aspire to be. But ask Midori and it’s a different story.

Normal has nothing interesting to bring to show and tell. Normal always has her parents show up to recitals. Normal has birthday cakes every year. Normal comes to school with her hair combed neatly. Normal gets the gold star all the time. Normal gets ditched after school. Normal doesn’t get invited to parties. Normal eats alone every day. Normal can’t ride the see-saw. Normal doesn’t complain. Normal cries by herself. Midori was tired of being normal. And the last thing she wanted is to be forgotten.

Year after year, she took careful, calculated steps to shy away from normalcy. Nothing drastic for her parents or peers to notice right away, but significant enough to slowly distinguish herself. And distinguish herself she did. A little lie never hurt anyone, a few more won’t either, right?

Do you think Midori would really travel the world? Do you think Midori really stole those sunglasses from the mall? Midori doesn’t really look like her parents now that I think about. Midori stole the answer keys and posted it online, what a hero! Midori skipped class to be with an older, married man. I wonder what Midori would do next. I wonder who Midori would do next. Just a few months from graduating high school, normal was the last thing Lee Midori was known for.

By the time she was in college, she was living the life she wanted. All the lives she wanted. One night she’s a struggling actress looking for a good time, on another she’s a model on a break, and sometimes, she’s a writer adopted as a baby, now looking for her real parents. Ask someone, and they’ll say she’s a law student, ask another and they’ll say she’s a struggling artist, ask Midori and she’ll say she is whatever you want her to be. None of it were true, but who cares? Everyone lies these days.

Soon enough, things were falling into place. Her nocturnal activities were becoming routinary, the faces familiar, and things were becoming… normal

One Lee Midori, in the middle of finals week, packed her bags and took the first flight out of the country. She fled like a prey being hunted. It was easy to get her parents to let her stay in a foreign country. Just there mere mention of fatigue and burn out made them agree. After all, their sweet, normal daughter had always studied diligently and obediently.

A year later, twenty two year later Lee Midori found herself standing in the busy streets of Itaewon after months of exploring the country. The faces were never the same, the places to go changes every few months, and the music turned up so loud she couldn’t hear herself worry. It was perfect. For now.

She plunged head first into the scene and every time she stepped out of her apartment, she was somebody she had never been and never have to be when day breaks or when the music stops. She didn’t care what happens after, because in reality, it wasn’t her fault.

And as she sat by the window of her apartment, every morning, Lee Midori relished in the fact that she got what she wanted. Somewhere out there, someone remembers the night before. They probably don’t remember, but they will never forget.

FREEFORM:

(I) Lee Midori was born to an American and a Zainichi Korean psychologist couple in Sapporo. They raised their one and only daughter as textbook-standard normal as they could. And to their delight, Midori did grow up normal, with her two St. Bernards and one chubby goldfish.

(II) Her parents think normalcy was the best gift they have given their daughter. In fact, you’d think it is because who doesn’t want to be normal? Most people aspire to be just that. But one young Midori saw normal as a label stuck on her pretty little forehead. One that people stirred clear from.

(III) She spent her younger years being well-liked at first. But being raised in a loving home by parents who never fight and pets who are too well taken cared of to die, Lee Midori was frustratingly normal. No, that’s not what her classmates say, the word is too complex for them to come up with. The word they oh so craftily whispered was boring. Because of that, she rarely gets invited to play dates, walks home alone, eats by herself, and never gets to ride the see-saw.

(IV) She tried to talk to her parents about it but all she got was an encouraging advise of ‘be yourself’. She believed them the first time, that normal was good. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake the second time. They were wrong. She could never be herself.

(V) Lee Midori observed people more carefully, taking notes of their expressions when they thought no one is was there, looking over their shoulders as they write small notes on the corner of their books, conversations in the ladies’ room, by the staircases, and in the shower room after soccer. And as if she discovered the secret of the universe, Midori’s eyes were opened to the ‘abnormal’ yet - obviously - effective mechanism that her parents never dared introduce to her: LIES.

(VI) It turns out everyone is a liar, and everyone gets away with it. Liars even get invited to parties. Liars laugh loudly during lunch and flirt with seniors after school. Liars ride at the back of the bus with the the popular kids. Liars meet with other kids during weekends and go to the beach. Liars has friends that they talk to until midnight. Liars pretend to have dead cats and gets invited to group dates. Liars never eat alone. Liars are happy.

(VII) It always starts small, and then it got bigger. It started with her classmates, then her teachers, then her parents. Soon enough, she had to lie to herself too. And before she knew it, Midori was the biggest liar of them all. Everyone knew who she was, but no one knew who she really is either.

(VIII) Midori made friends, but they were all too drunk on the attention or too into themselves to peel through the layers and layers of cheered-on misdemeanor and celebrated bad behavior that enveloped the girl underneath. Perhaps if any of them had asked her straight forwardly if any of the things she says are true, she might actually tell the truth.

(IX) She was living on top of the world during her university days. She became anything and everything she wanted to be. Her parents’ academically excelling daughter, her friends’ party animal, a stranger’s fantasy, another’s hidden desire, and some married man’s potential mistress. To Midori and the world, the truth is subjective. Everything and nothing is true. Who cares? Everyone lies these days.

(X) If there was one thing she hated, it was normalcy sabotaging her happiness. She began to notice that things were falling into place. Her life was becoming routinary, and suddenly she knew everyone in the streets, in the clubs, and in the apartment complex. In the middle of finals week, after a perfectly executed breakdown via phone call to her parents, one Lee Midori packed a suitcase full of clothes and took the first flight out of the country.

(XI) She arrived in South Korea in a few short hours and began a mindless exploration of the country, joining group tours and taking pictures to show her parents that she was unwinding and trying to get better for her return.

(XII) A year has passed and Midori found herself standing in Itaewon. She stood motionless, as she gazed at the bustling street fascination and excitement, every day there were different faces, the cafes and restaurants changes every few months, and the noises, it was music to her ears. Itaewon was perfect. For now

(XIII) She immediately calls her parents and tells them that she was starting to feel better, that she was looking into programs in nearby universities but nothing is certain yet. They tell her to take her time and to call them if she needed anything. It didn’t take long to find a new apartment in the area, and it didn’t take long for Midori to be, well, other people.

Her parents saw no flaw in their average and normal life. After all, normal is what most people aspire to be. But ask Midori and it’s a different story.

Soon enough, things were falling into place. Her nocturnal activities were becoming routinary, the faces familiar, and things were becoming… normal. One Lee Midori, in the middle of finals week, packed her bags and took the first flight out of the country. She fled like a prey being hunted. It was easy to get her parents to let her stay in a foreign country. Just there mere mention of fatigue and burn out made them agree. After all, their sweet, normal daughter had always studied diligently and obediently.

A year later, twenty-two year old Lee Midori found herself standing in the busy streets of Itaewon after months of exploring the country. The faces were never the same, the places to go changes every few months, and the music turned up so loud she couldn’t hear herself worry. It was perfect. For now.

#20s: accepted

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tialovestelevision · 8 years ago

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Welcome to High School

Going to take a break from Buffy for a few and watch something else. In fact, I’m going to jump to the closest thing to “the opposite of Buffy” I can get without watching something absurdly offensive or bad.

I’m going to jump from an iconic television show of the late 1990s and early 2000s to a brand new, semi-obscure anime available only in subtitled form.

It’s called “Sound! Euphonium.” I’ve watched it all the way through, and actually have been working on some fanfic based on it. I realized how much the way I’m blogging Buffy has improved my memory and understanding of events in it, and decided that if I do the same for Sound! Euphonium, I can both promote the show (which I really like) and improve my memory of it too.

It’s on Crunchyroll if you want to watch it.

Time to roll on!

1. We open with the aftermath of a band competition. The girls we’re watching won gold and they’re listing the schools that will be moving on to regional competition. While their school got gold, they won’t be advancing. The girl we’re watching congratulates the girl who’s crying next to her, but the girl who’s crying is upset, because they were trying to reach the national competition and to get there they’d have to win the regional competition, which they just failed to qualify for. The viewpoint girl says, “Did you really think we could make nationals?” Then the girl who was crying gives her a look that could absolutely kill a vampire, stake or no stake, and asks if she’s upset. Then she storms off. The viewpoint girl stares after her, shocked and sad.

2. Viewpoint girl is in front of a mirror in her new high school uniform.

TIACHECK! This hasn’t been an anime blog, and I’m not planning on making it one. So I’ll occasionally point out things that people who don’t watch a lot of anime might not know… like here! Japanese school is divided into three levels. Elementary school runs from first through sixth grades, middle school runs seventh through ninth, and high school runs tenth through twelfth. So a high school first year is as old as an American sophomore. Our viewpoint character, who I’ll just give the name of now (she’s Kumiko) was finishing middle school (ninth grade) in the introductory scene.

Furthermore, students advance in grade level in the spring. While there is a summer vacation, it does not happen between grade levels - you go home for the weekend in one grade, and come back the following week in the next. Summer vacation is also about half as long in Japan as in America.

Back to the show!

Kumiko is disappointed that she believed the rumor that her breasts would get bigger. I’d… honestly forgotten this scene exists. She’s tying her hair back in a more mature style that she wore in middle school It’s spring, so the cherry blossoms are falling. She’s attending Kitauji High School, and the entrance ceremony is today. Sports teams and cultural clubs are out recruiting for new members. She chose Kitauji because she likes the uniforms, and because she wanted a fresh start. She has found the concert band recruiting… a black-haired girl with glasses is standing in front of a brunette with a flute and a very, very tall guy holding up a sign. She begins to conduct a small group of students in playing. Their timing is a little off. Kumiko is horrified to hear them. A few other students are delighted, though. Kumiko thinks they’re hopeless. Opening credits.

3. This show isn’t set in Tokyo, like most anime set in Japan is. It’s in Kyoto, the traditional (but not current) capital. Kyoto is in the Kansai region, which is considered by people in Toyko to be… a little backwater. Old-fashioned. There’s a distinctive dialect of Japanese spoken there - the dub for “Azumanga Daioh,” which is also an excellent show you should watch, uses a gentle Texan accent for Kansai. The point here is this: Kumiko doesn’t speak with a Kansai dialect. She uses “standard” - Tokyo - Japanese. Remember the stuff I wrote about Lindsey in Angel? Keep that in mind here.

4. Kumiko’s in the bathroom, and points out that the band sucks. They aren’t aiming for the national competition, though. A girl is at her desk and hears her musing about how the band sucks. The girl is Hazuki. A teacher comes in and chews them out for talking while waiting for class, and chews a few girls out for rolling up their skirts to make them shorter. This is Matsumoto Michie. She calls the roll. Having her as a homeroom teacher is going to be a delight. There is a girl in the class named Sapphire. This is not a Japanese name, and she is very self-conscious, but Hazuki thinks it’s neat.

5. Hazuki comes up behind Kumiko and addresses her by her name, without any honorifics, which is… really, really personal. Kumiko recovers fairly quickly. She wants to make new friends and do new things, and is counting on Kumiko to help.

6. Hazuki and Kumiko run into Sapphire, who Hazuki immediately calls Opal. Sapphire is delighted to see “Tuba-kun” hanging from Kumiko’s bag - a small anthropomorphic toy tuba from a capsule machine. Sapphire wants to touch Tuba-kun, but Hazuki distracts her. Hazuki doesn’t know what a tuba is. Or a brass instrument. Sapphire plays contrabass. She’s also not fond of the name Sapphire, and prefers Midori. The contrabass, Midori says, is like a huge violin. Kumiko has seen one, since she was in concert band in middle school. Hazuki is introducing Kumiko. Midori asks Kumiko what she plays; Kumiko says she played euphonium. Midori says that Kumiko seems like a euphonium. A euphonium, she says, is like a smaller tuba; Hazuki thinks she’s referring to it being smaller than Tuba-kun. Hazuki is thinking about joining the concert band. Midori wants to go watch it. She’s going to be disappointed. They’re looking in the window. Hazuki likes trumpets, she decides; the black-haired girl who was directing the band at the entrance ceremony plays a silver euphonium. The girl shows up at the window, and kisses it as though she’s kissing Hazuki. Hazuki freaks out and falls over; the girl pokes her head out and asks them to come in. In English. Hazuki is immediately starstruck by how pretty the girl is.

7. We’re now in the band room. The girl with the silver euphonium is giving them candy because they’re the first visitors. But her hand came off. We keep getting Lindsey references here… anyway, after pranking them, the girl waves, and another girl comes over. Calls the girl with the silver euphonium Asuka. She’s drawing Asuka away so she doesn’t scare off the first years.

8. Midori is at the wall, finding a photograph of last year’s band, which won bronze in the prefectural competition. That’s… not good. Hazuki notices Asuka’s tuner; Asuka is now aware she’s a beginner. The band is tuning up. Hazuki is having a moment of wonder, while Midori and Kumiko gaze on in something near, but not quite at, terror. Another girl is coming to the door… it’s the girl from Kumiko’s middle school who thought they’d make nationals. She has purple eyes and very long black hair. Kumiko freaks out when she sees her. She wants to join the band. Asuka insists she be immediately registered so she can’t escape. Kumiko, on the other hand, does flee. As she, Midori, and Hazuki walk away, Midori points out that the purple-eyed girl (Reina) was pretty and asks Kumiko if she knows her. Kumiko tells Midori that she was in middle school band with her. Kumiko says she doesn’t know her well. Hazuki tries to blow a cherry blossom away unsuccessfully; Kumiko does so easily. Midori is disappointed by the quality of the band. She thinks they’re aiming for prefectural silver. We are now having the difference between “dud” gold and “proper” gold explained - basically, a lot of schools get gold, but only the best among those advance from prefectural to regional competition, or regional to national. Hazuki wants to save this band; Midori says she’s going to do so because music is powerful. They can’t cross the road because Midori never pressed the button.

9. We’re at the train station, with Midori and Hazuki asking Kumiko if she’ll join the band. She’s not sure. Midori rides a different train from Hazuki and Kumiko. Hazuki just figured out that Kumiko meant the band sucks.

10. Kumiko’s on a bench, worrying about Reina’s presence at the band. Since Reina is really good, she thought she’d be at some school with a good band. A boy - Shuichi - interrupts her thoughts. She’s not really emoting at all while he’s talking. Apparently, he told her in junior high to “quit talking to me, ugly,” so she’s not talking to him. She doesn’t have time for Shuichi. She hasn't decided about clubs, but she says she’s not joining the band. Making Reina angry really bothered her.

11. She’s at home, talking to her mother. Her sister is home, too. At home, her affect is… flat. At school, she emotes, sometimes very strongly, but at home she barely puts any inflection at all into her voice. She mostly ignores her mother and goes to her room, falling onto the bed and thinking about band and Reina again. The way Reina looked when she dismissed going to Nationals. She’s talking to her cactus with some emotion, and when her sister pokes her head in she gets upset with her. Her sister apologizes and leaves, then opens the door again and asks if she’s quitting band. Her sister is asking because she’s at Kitauji. She has a lot of books about the euphonium.

12. We see a man in glasses at a shrine, with a couple arguing over luck near him. He’s giving the scale of luck for their reference, and he buys a fortune. He also drops his phone, which starts playing a high school competition track. Orpheus in the Underworld. He walks away and starts playing it again. Kumiko is looking at the same piece in sheet music. It’s what her middle school played at the prefectural competition. They were a lot better than Kitauji is.

13. Kumiko getting ready for school again. She gets a glass of water before going in. She hasn’t tied her hair back today. She’s sad at school, and Midori and Hazuki are behind her. Hazuki bought a mouthpiece for a brass instrument. She seems not to know that different instruments have different mouthpieces. Neither Hazuki nor Midori knows how to play a brass mouthpiece, and they ask Kumiko to show them. She’s explaining it to Hazuki, the way her sister explained it to her when she was very, very small. Her sister played trombone. Hazuki got it working, which delights her and Midori both. Midori asks if Kumiko will join the band with them, and she agrees to do so. Midori gives her a hug.

14. We see Kumiko inching her way to Reina to try to work up the confidence to talk to her, then the episode ends.

TIACHECK! The closing sequence has Reina and Kumiko bound together by a red string. Yes, this is important. I’ll talk about it in future episodes.

Overall: I love this show.

What, I should say more? This is anime, which is generally more serialized than American television - Japan has been releasing shows in the format Netflix uses for decades now. That makes talking about any one episode in isolation more difficult when talking about most anime than when talking about late 90s network TV. But there are a few things I can bring up here.

First off… this episode does a very good job establishing the show’s premise and leads. Kumiko’s expressiveness at school compared with her flat affect at home, Midori’s dislike of her given name and desire to help people, Hazuki’s gung-ho energy (“Genki,” another idea I’ll get into with future episodes), Asuka’s carefree persona… these things come out very strongly here. So does the fact that Kumiko, Midori, and Reina are talented, devoted musicians while the school band does not consist of such people.

Second, the art and music for this show. The art is gorgeous, with vibrant backgrounds and character designs distinct enough that even my somewhat face-blind self has little trouble distinguishing between characters in a cast that grows quite large. The music is also wonderful - and exactly as good as the story needs it to be. The problems with the Kitauji band’s playing are, for the most part, subtle, though in the entrance ceremony there is a moment when someone gets a squeak out of a brass instrument that’s more grating. Mostly, though, they come off as a pretty good band, but when you put them side by side with the middle school band Kumiko and Reina played in, or the performance the man at the shrine was listening to on his phone, how bad they are becomes apparent even to an untrained ear.

Finally, small touches. Kumiko putting her hair up the first day, then leaving it down after her sister teases her the next. The fact that Kumiko can blow the cherry blossoms while Hazuki can’t. The cactus that seems to be Kumiko’s only confidant at home… and the warmth of the flashback scene where her sister was teaching her to use a mouthpiece in contrast to that.

This show very much happens in Kumiko’s mind and life. Those things, even more than Kyoto or Kitauji, are its setting. Her mind is a fascinating, often painful place to visit.

Folks who are just here for my Joss Whedon writeups, don’t fear. I’m still working my way through Buffy and Angel, and Firefly’s on tap as well for later, plus more American productions (I’ve got plans for approaching the genre mash-up that is Firefly to both work other shows in around it and lead into fun things). But this isn’t a Joss Whedon blog at its heart; it’s a television blog. I love television, and anime is a huge part of that.

#welcome to high school #sound! euphonium #hibeki! euphonium #sound euphonium season 1 #season 1

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lisatelramor · 7 years ago

Text

Not Left To Stand Alone Ch 20

He woke to a burning ache of pain in his knee and with the cold sweat of fear trickling down his back. Saguru jolted, reaching for his leg automatically as if massaging it would help when it was hurting this badly. Faint memories of a nightmare, like poor reflections from a rippling pool, lingered. A warm presence at his side made an unhappy sound, turning over to bury deeper against the couch cushions. Takumi. And it was the couch in Kudo’s study. Saguru let out a tense breath. No wonder his knee was agony. Between chasing Kid at a crime scene, crouching on concrete, and then collapsing on it again with his panic attack, it was more careless use than he ordinarily put it through. Add on his mental state and, well, Saguru was fairly certain the worst of the burning sensation was purely mental. There was faint light filtering through the windows, so it was past sunrise, but still very early. He squinted at his watch. Six thirteen in the morning. He’d managed to get almost three hours of rest.

The house creaked, soft footsteps as someone moved upstairs. At some point someone had left a blanket draped over him, though it had fallen to his lap. There was one covering Takumi as well. He was curled tight against Saguru’s side, his face pressed against the couch cushions, twisted in a way that looked uncomfortable. He grumbled again as Saguru shifted away, trying not to wake him.

Saguru levered himself upright, hissing at the pins and needles added to the achy knee. It felt like his whole leg had suddenly remembered it existed and was making its presence known with a vengeance. He was almost to the door when he tripped on a footstool, sending it screeching across the wooden floor.

Takumi sat upright. The blanket slid off his shoulders to the ground. So much for trying to let him sleep more, Saguru thought irritably. “Hakuba-sensei?” Takumi asked, voice thick with sleep.

“It’s just me being clumsy,” Saguru sighed.

“Kid?”

“I am on my way to find out.”

Takumi wiped at his face. “Just a second… I’ll come with you.” He wobbled to his feet, yawning. “What time is it?”

“A quarter after six.”

“Mm. Too early.”

“Agreed,” Saguru sighed. He would have a headache eventually, like he usually did when he missed large gaps of sleep.

“What happened to your cane anyway?” Takumi asked as he helped Saguru out of the room, leaning into Saguru almost as much as Saguru needed to lean on him. It seemed the social boundaries had broken down in wake of yesterday, be it that Takumi now felt that Saguru was safe to be casual with because he hadn’t reacted badly or because Takumi still needed the comfort, Saguru wasn’t sure. He didn’t mind either way. He’d long since resigned himself to the fact that he wasn’t going to be impartial to Takumi. He was Kuroba’s son first, Saguru’s student second.

The question gave Saguru pause, his mind blearily casting back to the mess of the heist and its aftermath. “I believe I left it with the glider remains,” Saguru said. “Or perhaps at the bins.” He hadn’t thought about what he could or couldn’t (or should or shouldn’t) do after seeing Kid on the pavement. He’d forgotten about his knee entirely until he’d gone to use it to stand again. The cane was probably gone now. If Kudo had followed through on getting someone to clean the site up, then there would be little chance that something tied to him would be left there.

“I wonder if they have something you could borrow,” Takumi said. They wandered out into the hallway. In the dim morning light, the manor felt much larger than it had at night. Now Saguru could see the high ceiling in the front room and the length of the halls. The Kudo manor wasn’t as large as Saguru’s childhood homes, but it was certainly large enough to lose someone in. Saguru thought the room they’d left Kid in was down the left hallway, but to be honest, he couldn’t remember where he had gone when he had the panic attack only that it had been away.

There were quiet sounds of someone moving about to the left, and the smell of something cooking. The kitchen, then.

It seemed Takumi had the same thought as Saguru because he turned left without anything needing be said.

The kitchen was painted a warm shade of light gold that was made warmer in the early light. At the stove was the same woman who had held open the door the night before. He was sure now that this was Mouri Kogoro’s daughter, now Kudo Ran. He didn’t remember her well, but he knew he had seen her the few times his path had crossed the sleeping detective and the eerily sharp boy, Edogawa Conan. She looked up as they entered, exhaustion on her face mirroring their own. She offered them a smile all the same.

“Breakfast is almost done,” Ran said. When she turned fully, Saguru noticed the bandage at the crook of her arm. She’d given her blood, then.

“Is Kid…?” Saguru trailed off, unsure if he wanted to end that sentence with ‘alive’ or ‘stable.’

“He’s recovering.” She went back to slicing tomatoes and thin yellow pepper strips. On the stove was a large pan with eggs frying in it, and a small, covered earthenware pot on the back burner. “He hasn’t woken up, but Ai-san managed to patch him up and his vitals are stable. He did have a bit of a concussion though, so she’s keeping an eye on that.”

Saguru relaxed a beat before Takumi did, sagging forward with the weight of relief. Thank goodness. If Kuroba died… His mind shied away from that train of thought.

“Sit down,” Ran said over her shoulder. “You look like you’re going to fall over. Is your leg okay, Hakuba-san?”

“Old injury,” Saguru said, gratefully taking one of the offered seats. “Normally I use a cane but I seem to have lost it.”

“Hmm, I think Shinichi has some walking sticks somewhere,” Ran said. “I’ll see if I can find them later.”

“Thank you.” Both of the Kudos were being so bafflingly welcoming. They were acquaintances at best from half a lifetime ago and considering the circumstances… “You seem awfully calm considering you have Kaitou Kid recovering under your roof.”

Ran laughed, pulling plates from the cupboards and dishing out eggs onto them “There are a lot worse people out there than Kid,” Ran said. She pulled a pan from the oven full of toast, adding those to the plates, and a bit of salad on the side. “Besides, it’s not like he hasn’t been here before. He used to pretend to be Shinichi sometimes when he needed to get somewhere that a detective could access. So he’s been here before and the only thing that was hurt then was pride.”

Whose pride, Kudo’s or Kid’s? Saguru wondered. Or perhaps it was Ran’s pride that had been hurt? She didn’t explain any further, setting two plates in front of them with a smile. Takumi’s stomach growled loudly and he ducked his head.

Ran laughed. “Go ahead and eat. The others will be down in a minute.”

Seven plates. Who else was there besides Kudo and Haibara? As if on cue, heavy footfalls stampeded down the stairs, thudding down the hallway. Two girls skidded into the kitchen only to freeze when they set eyes on Saguru and Takumi. Saguru was again struck by how much Kudo resembled Kuroba; the girls could have been Takumi’s siblings down to the slightly rounder eye shape in the younger of the two that in Kuroba Saguru attributed to some bit of European ancestry on his mother’s side.

“This is Hanae and Midori,” Ran said indicating the older and younger girl respectively. “Girls, meet Hakuba-san and Takumi-kun. They’re guests at the moment.”

Hanae frowned at them, but Midori simply turned to Takumi and said, “You’re sitting in my chair.”

Takumi gripped his plate. “Um. Do you want me to move?”

“No.” Midori moved around him and pulled out another chair. “You can be me today.”

“Then who are you?” Takumi asked.

“Hanae.”

“Then who am I?” Hanae demanded, stomping over to pull out the last chair.

“Tou-san,” Midori said. “Because you’re in his place.”

Her sister thought it over, shrugged. “Okay.”

Ran smiled and a tired looking Kudo wandered in. He looked enough like Kuroba, his hair mussed up in the back and relaxed stance, that Saguru almost did a double-take. Takumi paused with a bite of egg halfway to his mouth and blinked.

“What’s wrong?” Kudo asked.

“Nothing,” Saguru said. “You merely resemble someone we know.”

Kudo’s eyes flicked toward where Kid must be. “I’ve heard that I had a look-alike running around.”

“Sure you don‘t have a long lost twin?” Takumi muttered. His shoulders hunched. “It’s a little creepy.”

“It’s your hair,” Saguru explained when Kudo raised an eyebrow. He was probably wondering why his appearance was only getting a response now.

“Ah.” Kudo ran a hand through his hair to try and put it to order, but it was still messier than it had been when he arrived to help them.

“Tou-san, I’m you today!” Hanae said as her mother set breakfast before her and her sister. She knelt in her chair and leaned toward Takumi and Midori. “Today we’re going to do puzzles,” she said attempting to pitch her voice deeper.

“Um. Sure?” Takumi said. “Er, what kind of puzzles are you thinking about?”

“Eat your breakfast before games,” Ran said, looking amused as her daughters started to dig into their breakfast. She pulled up a stool to the counter and Kudo leaned next to her. He grinned when Ran handed him a plate and a pot of coffee. He had the same bandage on the crook of his arm that she did from giving blood.

Fresh concern all but deadened Saguru’s appetite. How much blood had Kid needed? How much had he lost that he’d needed blood from two donors? Saguru pushed a slice of tomato around his plate. He was dimly aware of the girls drawing Takumi into conversation, but most of his attention was focused on how pale Kid had been and the extent of his wounds… Had he done enough last night? How severe of a concussion had it been? Kid had blacked out, but from head trauma or from pain and blood loss? He should finish eating and go see for himself, except that seeing Kid still and quiet and bandaged, unconscious and unresponsive again… That would probably set him off again.

The clatter of a fork against porcelain jolted him from his thoughts as Hanae threw down her utensil. “Done!” she said as her sister stuffed the last wedge of toast in her mouth, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk’s. “To the library!” Hanae said, pointing imperiously. Midori swallowed her last bite with a swallow of juice.

“Plates in the sink,” Ran said as both girls leapt from their seats. They hastily grabbed their dishes to abandon them at the sink before returning to grab Takumi.

“C’mon, since you’re Midori, you have to help pick the puzzle,” Hanae grunted, tugging at Takumi’s arm. “It’s tradition!”

“Uh.” Takumi let himself be pulled from his seat, Midori’s small hands joining Hanae’s as they tugged him toward the door. He gave Saguru an alarmed, pleading look. Clearly he didn’t interact with children very often.

“No fighting, and no puzzles from the top shelf,” Kudo said, making no move to rescue Takumi. Kudo glanced at Saguru.

Takumi’s alarm turned resigned as he was pulled out the doorway. Saguru hoped that playing with the girls would be a good distraction; Takumi looked like he still had Kid bleeding out behind his eyes. Sometimes doing something, anything, was enough to keep traumatic thoughts from gaining footholds.

“I’ll take this to Ai-san,” Ran said, plucking the last plate from the counter and exiting the room.

It felt planned except that Saguru didn’t think that Kudo had intended his children to accost Takumi. Saguru met Kudo’s sharp gaze, much more alert now that he had caffeine entering his system.

“So,” Kudo said over his coffee.

“So,” Saguru echoed. “Kid’s injuries?”

“The gunshot wounds you know,” Kudo said, eyes never leaving Saguru. “Road burn along his right side along with severe bruising. Bruised ribs, none broken. His shoulder was dislocated, but not his leg—the leg’s a bad sprain. Moderate concussion at least. Still waiting to see how bad the effects of that are. He’s woken a few times, but hasn’t stayed awake long between what Haibara’s dosing him with and the pain. He seemed lucid when he phased in, but it’s kind of hard to tell since I don’t know him much outside of heists.”

“He can be a lot less calm or in control outside of heists,” Saguru said. He didn’t miss the way Kudo’s gaze sharpened the slightest bit at his words.

“You know him pretty well, then,” Kudo said, “inside and outside of heists.”

“I do.” No matter how much Kudo dissected him with his eyes, Saguru wasn’t going to feel ashamed for becoming friends with Kuroba. “I was his classmate once, back in high school. We weren’t friends then, but we weren’t enemies either. We had each other’s respect even if we could not see each other’s point of view. I have only become friends with him in truth over the last few months.”

“Even though he’s a thief?” Kudo asked.

“Arguable,” Saguru said, “Kid’s greatest crimes are the property damage and mental health of the officers chasing him than his thefts. The stolen items are almost always returned. But I understand what you mean. Ten, even five years ago, the gray morality of it all wouldn’t have mattered. Stealing was stealing, a crime was a crime.” But Saguru had more insight now on what it felt like to be desperate and tempted to take illegal routes to get results. He’d had a very black and white viewpoint of right and wrong even as he had sought answers to motivations and even sympathized with the criminals on occasion. In the end, a crime had been a crime. “But with Kid, there’s always been an exception,” Saguru admitted. “With Kid there was always the code of honor after a certain point to catch him in the act and leave who he was outside of Kid alone. It wasn’t like that at first, but it was different the more I grew to know him. I would keep track of his slip ups and secure that I was in the know. I never stopped being curious about him all these years, about what motivated him. I was relieved to meet him again and decide not to chase. We both needed someone then. Someone who would listen but not press what we couldn’t talk about yet.”

Kudo was quiet, weighing Saguru’s words. If it was judgment lurking behind the thoughtful silence, then Saguru could only counter with questions of his own.

“And you, Kudo-san?” Saguru challenged. “You have been chasing Kid for more almost two decades, attended far more heists than I have. Your records show you’ve been closer than any other independent detective to catching Kid. Why help him?”

Kudo took a long swallow of coffee. “It’s a lot like your code of honor,” he said eventually. “I chase him, he runs, but we have truces and we’ve helped each other when there were larger threats before. We would be friends if we could ever let our guards down, but I can’t stop wanting to fit clues about him together, and he is always watching to makes sure that he doesn’t slip up, so we can never bridge that bit of a gap to reach that point.”

“And now you’ve seen his face,” Saguru said. He pushed his plate aside, not hungry for the remaining triangle of toast and bits of salad.

“I already guessed he looked like me,” Kudo said. He shrugged. “He wore my face too many times over the years, including to cases where Nakamori-keibu pinched the crap out of it. He couldn’t have been wearing a mask.”

“And you’ve seen him up close before,” Saguru theorized. He narrowed his eyes and Kudo shrugged again, neither confirming nor denying. Interesting.

“I work murders,” Kudo said. “Almost every case I come across is a murder and ones I’ve been hired for besides. Compared to that, Kid heists are fairly low risk with a lot fewer corpses. Kid’s a criminal but there are a lot worse people out there.”

“Thus why you keep your arrest attempts contained to when you’re on the job.”

“More or less. Of course,” Kudo smiled over the rim of his mug in a very Kuroba-esque look, “anything is fair game to use against him when we’re next on the job.”

“Including his family?” Saguru asked. Mild distaste turned his lips into a frown.

“No.” Kudo set aside his coffee and plate. He had barely touched his food. “There are things that would be crossing the line too far.”

Saguru studied him. Kudo was a detective, but that they were having this discussion showed he was willing to cross moral lines in a way most would not. “Would you if your family was at stake?”

“Would you?” Kudo returned.

If Kuroba was someone he’d never met? If he didn’t know Aoko and Takumi and his father or mother’s life was at stake? (If Mel’s life had been at stake?) Saguru weighed his emotions and potential guilt and regrets versus what he knew of his family and himself. Even knowing what it felt to lose his most important person…how it hurt like a gaping wound, a gunshot never healed… “No,” he said. Because it would be inflicting that pain inevitably on someone else, and he wasn’t sure he or his loved ones would be able to forgive that. But for Kuroba in particular? “No, I couldn’t do that, and it would hurt if by choosing to protect someone else’s family mine was harmed. But I’d do everything I could to keep both safe if possible.”

Kudo sighed. “And I’m not sure I would make that choice,” he admitted. “Which is one more reason Kid and I can’t cross lines like you’re doing.”

And yet, Saguru thought, so many lines had clearly been crossed already. There was history between Kuroba and Kudo that Saguru likely would never know of or understand. Things had happened between them that led to Kuroba leaving birthday wishes and trusting that Kudo would never aim a gun at him again. They meant that Kudo helped Kid live first and asked questions second and had no surprise whatsoever that Kid would end up injured to such an extent. Yet they weren’t friends by their own words and Saguru was. Whatever their history, Saguru supposed he should just be grateful that Kudo had agreed to help and that Kid was safely recovering now.

“By the way,” Kudo said, “how did you get my phone number?”

“Kid’s cell phone,” Saguru said. “I knew he must have your number since he kept track of you, and we were in Beika so even with you attending the heist, you were the closest possible source of aid. He sent you birthday wishes and believes you wouldn’t do him harm outside of a heist,” he explained, thinking back to his discussion with Kuroba in May. Kudo’s eyes widened as if he either hadn’t expected Kid to talk about him or he hadn’t expected that much trust. He hid the reaction away again under a sigh and roll of his eyes.

“Of course he has my cell phone number. Despite having changed it again.”

“He is quite thorough,” Saguru agreed. “You’re listed under ‘biggest critic’ in case you were curious.”

Kudo smiled, both fond and annoyed. “He’s never going to give that up is he?”

“As I was listed under a Holmes reference, no, he does hold on to first associations.” Granted, Saguru had Holmsian jokes and references coming considering his choice of attire in his younger years. And he didn’t really mind it. There were far worse parallels Kuroba could have drawn. In a way it was flattering to have Holmes attached to Saguru in Kuroba’s subconscious. It would be more so if Saguru wasn’t sure there was an edge of mockery in that association.

“Lucky,” Kudo sighed.

Saguru shrugged. “So. We both agree that we can trust that our desire to keep Kid alive and whole is greater than the temptation to see him face justice for his chaos, correct?”

“Yeah.” Kudo straightened, setting his empty mug aside. “And we’re both in agreement that it would be wrong to catch him outside of a heist.”

“Then I think we can get along fine,” Saguru said, letting himself smile.

Sudden rapid footsteps made them both tense, turning to face the doorway as Takumi speed walked into the room, phone pressed to his ear. He looked almost as pale as he had been last night and for a moment Saguru thought the worst.

Aoko. Aoko dead chasing after Kid and running afoul of the sniper. Aoko injured and in the hospital. Kuroba being tied to Kid with the evidence left from their hasty retreat. Then Takumi looked at him, and it wasn’t the sort of fear of someone you know being hurt; it was the sort of terrified guilty expressions Saguru had seen hundreds of times over the years on students who had made bad choices and were facing parental repercussions. Shit. They had both forgotten about Aoko.

It was nearing seven in the morning and with Kid’s escape, the evidence that Kid was injured, and the missing gem, Aoko had probably only just gotten home after a night searching frantically for Kid. She knew Saguru’s part in the heist, but she still didn’t know that Takumi had been there. So she would have come home to no Takumi, no answer from Kuroba’s cell phone or home phone, and probably assumed the worst. “She’s going to kill us.”

“Who?” Kudo asked as Takumi thrust the phone in Saguru’s face.

“Here,” he said.

Saguru took the phone from him like he would take a vial of particularly volatile chemicals. “Hello?”

“Where the fuck are you?” Aoko growled.

Saguru winced. Kudo looked on like a particularly interesting play was unfolding before him. “Safe,” Saguru said, because that was the immediate concern to alleviate. He hurried on before she had the chance to start ranting at him like she had no doubt been doing to Takumi. “Last night Kid was shot down while escaping, as you no doubt have pieced together. Takumi and I happened to witness it and followed the trajectory. Neither Takumi nor I was harmed, but Kid required medical attention. Currently, Kid is stable and in recovery.”

“Dammit, Hakuba,” Aoko thundered down the other end, “give me a location!”

Saguru winced, glancing at Kudo who was listening in intently. He felt doubly like he was navigating verbal pitfalls. “I cannot. At the moment your presence would be inadvisable as well as a conflict of interests.”

“Fuck advisability! You shouldn’t have even been there. Takumi damn well shouldn’t have! You told me that you would stay out of Kid related affairs—”

“I promised that I would no longer attempt to catch Kid. I promised a friend that I had no intention of even attending a heist.” They both knew he meant Kuroba. “I did not want to be there. But never did I promise that I wouldn’t step in to keep Kid alive.”

“I don’t want him dead either,” Aoko said, audibly trying to reign herself in. “I want him alive and I want to cuff him with him aware that I’m doing it. Are you at a hospital?”

“Would a hospital stay silent about bullet wounds?” Saguru countered drily.

She swore at him, a few colorful phrases Saguru was sure she had picked up from her father and his Kid chasing days. He held the phone a bit away from his ear and let her vent. Heavy breathing came from the other end after a few moments of silence. “Fine. Fine, of course you’re not at a hospital. You’re protecting Kid. Fine. Honestly, I should have seen this coming. But for fuck’s sake, Hakuba, don’t you think that if I didn’t want him to live through this whole bullshit, I’d have turned him in ages ago?” Saguru felt guilt sit heavy in his stomach alongside what was already there for forgetting to call. Aoko might get angry, but no, he didn’t think she ever wanted Kuroba dead. She took another deep breath and let it out a bit too quickly for it to be effective as a meditative technique. “How much does Takumi know?”

“No more than Kid has been injured and that I believe it is safer for Kid’s health not to go to a hospital.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.” Saguru closed his eyes, feeling Kudo and Takumi’s gazes on him. Too many people not in the know. “You need to talk,” he said, letting his serious tone reinforce the implied topic.

“He doesn’t need to know,” Aoko said sharply, “and you’re not going to tell him anything.”

“I won’t,” Saguru said. He turned away from Kudo and Takumi, not that it would do much with them standing less than a meter away. “But you should consider that next time might not be so lucky.” Because there would be a next time. And another and another because Kuroba wasn’t giving up and neither were the mysterious snipers. Next time could be Kuroba bleeding out without friendly intervention. Next time could be a shot to the head. Saguru shuddered.

And Aoko knew that as did Kuroba, but they seemed to keep pushing that aside. “Fuck you,” Aoko growled, much like Kuroba had responded when Saguru suggested that telling Takumi would be for the better in the long run. “It would only be more dangerous if he did know.”

“Then history has a high chance of repeating,” Saguru snapped back. He regretted it instantly. With emotions strung tight, now wasn’t the time to press. None of them were being rational at the moment. “I apologize,” he said stiffly to the ragged silence on the other end. “That was overstepping.” He hoped he had not made her cry again.

“You’re overstepping a lot, Hakuba-san,” Aoko sighed after a moment. There was no presence of tears in her voice, just bone weary exhaustion that Saguru could empathize with. “You’ve put yourself right in the middle of everything with Kaito and Takumi and…Never mind.” She sighed again. “Get Takumi back home soon. Keep Bakaito’s secrets. It’s probably safer the fewer people who know where he is anyway. You will tell me how he’s doing. He’s going to need some sort of excuse to cover this sort of injury…”

“Of course.” He had fully intended to keep her informed about Kuroba’s health. “I promise to return Takumi-kun within the day.” He met Takumi’s eyes and felt a flash of sympathetic amusement as Takumi winced.

“If he’s not back by lunch, I’m using police resources to track his cell phone.”

“I promise,” Saguru repeated.

Aoko hung up without a goodbye, and Saguru disconnected the call. Takumi took his phone back and fidgeted with the case.

“So, his mother?” Kudo asked lightly.

“Yes,” Saguru said before Takumi could say any names. “You have to be home by noon,” Saguru added to Takumi.

Takumi’s shoulders hunched and he stared down at his phone. “I’m grounded. And I’m not going to be allowed over at Tou-san’s for a while because he’s apparently a bad influence.”

Well, that would let Kuroba recover a bit before he next interacted with Takumi. Probably. Although… “He didn’t encourage you to go to a heist.” Kuroba wouldn’t. He knew how dangerous they had become. Kuroba probably wished Aoko would retire and stop attending.

“No, he told me to listen to Kaa-san.” Takumi shrugged. “It’s not really about if Tou-san did or didn’t though. She just wants me where she can keep an eye on me. She’s probably going to have another fight with Tou-san about it too.” He sighed. “Tou-san hasn’t even mentioned Kid in ages.”

Saguru winced. Any fight right now would turn ugly fast. It was probably a good thing Kuroba wasn’t going anywhere soon. Either way, Saguru would likely end up witnessing at least part of it whenever that confrontation came.

“Your mother doesn’t like Kid?” Kudo asked. He had a hand on his chin, thoughts churning behind sharp eyes.

Takumi snorted. “That’s an understatement. I don’t think anyone hates Kaitou Kid more than Kaa-san.”

“Hmm.”

If Kuroba made it out of the Kudo household with his identity a secret, it would be a miracle. It was miracle enough that they’d avoided last names.

“If you’re done blocking the doorway…” Haibara’s monotonous voice said from behind Takumi. Her hands were full of dirty dishes. “Kudo, your guest has woken up.”

***

At some point in the night, Kid had been moved to one of the guest bedrooms on the first floor. He had an IV taped to one hand, a brace on his right ankle and knee, and right arm in a sling. The T-shirt he’d been dressed in did nothing to hide the bandages on his arms or shoulder. He’d been given the courtesy of a half-mask to cover his face for what little good it would do when everyone but Takumi and the children had seen it, but it likely helped psychologically at least. Saguru was grateful that he had a moment with Kid to himself.

Saguru sat in a chair that had been helpfully left by the bedside, Kid’s eyes remarkably lucid as they focused on him.

“Rough night, huh?” Kid asked, or more Kuroba asked with none of Kid’s airs or masks at all. His voice was slurred a bit, likely from the pain medication.

“I’m not the one that looks like I’ve been through a meat grinder,” Saguru said. He focused on Kuroba’s hand on top of the sheets. There were scratches on it too, little nicks and scrapes and divots from the concrete.

“Maa, so serious,” Kuroba said lightly. He was too still. Normally Kuroba would be playing with something in his hands, but they remained limp at his sides. “It’s such a nice morning too.” He tilted his head toward the sunlight streaming in through the bedroom window. Saguru didn’t turn to look. Kuroba’s strained smile slid off his face. He sighed. “So on a scale of one to ten, how screwed am I?”

“Within what parameters? With the police? Your health? With Kudo-san? With Aoko-san?”

Kuroba winced. “Start small, work bigger.”

“I’m sure you’ve been informed of your health.” Kuroba still wasn’t moving any more than he had to. What pain medications was he on? At least, Saguru thought, still watching the IV drain into Kuroba’s veins, there wasn’t the incessant beep of a heart monitor to add to the unpleasantness. “I am curious how you will explain these wounds away this time. Another fall? Car accident? Hit by a bike messenger and knocked down a flight of stairs?”

Surprisingly, Kuroba didn’t fill Saguru’s pause with a flippant answer. Saguru couldn’t bring himself to look at what sort of expression he had right now, so he continued as if he hadn’t paused at all.

“For now, Kudo-san is holding a truce. He will provide medical care for as long as you require it, and not use anything he sees or hears during this time against you. You can get a promise of that out of him later. Kudo and his wife seem to be more comfortable about having you in their home than I ever would have expected.” Kuroba’s hand twitched and Saguru shifted, now examining the slight rise and fall of Kuroba’s chest as he breathed. “Aoko-san is angry and worried. You were aware that Takumi-kun was at yesterday’s heist?” He watched the rise and fall of Kuroba’s chest pause as his breath stuttered for a second. “Or perhaps you weren’t aware,” Saguru said. “He saw you shot down.” Blunt because there was no way to say it kindly. “He is still unaware that you are Kid.”

“Shit…” Kuroba’s fingers clenched in the sheets.

“Aoko-san is forbidding Takumi-kun to visit you for a while.”

“Of course she is.” A glance showed that Kuroba’s eyes were closed and his mouth twisted in a grimace. “Is she also on her way to arrest me?”

“She doesn’t know where you are,” Saguru said. “And I’ve done my best to keep your family name from being mentioned.”

“It probably doesn’t matter. Kudo’s had hours to think and draw connections by now,” Kuroba muttered. “Thanks for trying.”

Saguru made a noncommittal sound in his throat, brushing the thanks aside. “The police are aware that you have been shot, but no more than that so far as I am aware. Kudo claimed to have sent a friend to clean up your crash site. As such, hopefully there will be no evidence to be found from there. And as for your mysterious sniper,” Saguru said, examining the way Kuroba’s clenched fist turned his hand almost bloodless and made the IV stark against it, “no one seems to have a clue. They’ve vanished, but at least they didn’t find you before I did.”

“Of course,” Kuroba repeated. “Were there any other casualties?”

“Not that I heard.” Kudo or Aoko would have mentioned if someone had died last night. “There were likely injuries, but no one died.”

Kuroba’s hand clenched a fraction tighter before relaxing slowly. “Good.”

Tentatively, Saguru reached out. His fingers brushed the back of Kuroba’s hand and something tight within him relaxed when Kuroba’s hand turned under his so that their palms could touch. “How are you feeling?” Saguru asked, finally focusing on Kuroba’s face. Tired eyes blinked behind the white mask.

“About as shitty as I look,” Kuroba said. “Opioids are great at making your head float, but even they don’t stop you from feeling a bullet wound. I don’t want to stay on them either.”

Saguru winced in sympathy. Having one bullet wound was bad enough, let alone multiple…

“I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere fast for a while,” Kuroba sighed.

“I would say not.”

Kuroba squinted at him. “You don’t look too good either.”

Saguru grimaced. “Yes, well…” He shrugged.

“How many crime scenes have you been around since…?”

“A few.” During the investigation of Mel’s murder at least.

“…Guess we’ll both have shit sleep for a while.”

Saguru smiled wryly at that. Trust Kuroba to lighten the mood rather than digging to make it deeper. “I’m glad you’re alright,” he said. It came out too raw, all the emotion he was trying hard not to look to closely at lurking in the roughness of his voice and the way he couldn’t help but grip Kuroba’s hand the slightest bit tighter. Saguru closed his eyes feeling vulnerable. “I can’t watch you die.”

“Hakuba…”

It was unnerving how much things overlapped with the memories of Mel’s death. Sniper fire, theft case, suspicious gaps in security, sniper location unclear… A broken body and trying to keep it from bleeding out… He was gripping Kuroba’s hand too tightly considering his wounds and the IV in it. He made to pull away, to retreat and regroup his emotions, but Kuroba followed his hand even as it forced him to use abused muscles.

“Hakuba,” Kuroba said again, serious. Saguru couldn’t look at him.

He wasn’t ashamed. There wasn’t shame in feeling fear for being hurt by loss. There wasn’t shame in caring for Kuroba either. If anything, Saguru felt more like a child that had been caught doing something unadvisable; embarrassed and guilty, and a bit scared of potential consequences. “Yes?” he mumbled, looking firmly at a point half a meter to the left of Kuroba’s face.

“I can’t make you any promises,” Kuroba said. That was fine, Saguru didn’t expect promises.

“Well,” Saguru said, trying to diffuse the growing tension in the air, “I am sure you do not want to die any more than I want to see you dying.” Kuroba shouldn’t be comforting him. Not when Kuroba was the one who had brushed against death yet again.

Kuroba took a breath and then let it out as there was a soft knock on the door. Ran peeked inside, the heavy earthenware pot from earlier supported in a potholder in her hands. Saguru sat straight as Kid’s masks made a valiant effort to return to his face. Surreptitiously, he slid his hand back into his lap.

“Kid-san,” Ran said with a small smile, “Haibara-san says you can have something to eat. I made okayu. It should be easy on your stomach in case the anesthetics bothered it.”

“Thank you, Ran-chan,” Kuroba said with a shadow of Kid’s usual grin. “That sounds wonderful.”

“Would it help if I fed you or…?” She held out the bowl. Kuroba’s left hand flexed and he tried moving his arm. None of the pain showed on his face, but Saguru plucked the bowl from Ran’s hands before he could do more than lift it a few centimeters.

“I’ll make sure he eats,” Saguru said.

“Thank you, Hakuba-san.” She left them without even the thoughtful look Kudo would have given him. Saguru wasn’t sure if he was relieved about that or not.

“I could probably manage,” Kuroba said.

“You were shot, you shouldn’t be moving either of your arms.”

��Grazed,” Kuroba corrected. “The only direct hit was my leg.”

“You lost a chunk of your shoulder,” Saguru said. “It was a bit more than a graze.” Kuroba didn’t protest further as Saguru held out a spoonful of the rice porridge to him. He swallowed without complaint, moving as little as possible. He must be in a horrible amount of pain if he was letting Saguru win that easily.

Kuroba ate about half the bowl before he grimaced and tilted his head away from another spoonful. Saguru set the bowl aside. He half expected Kuroba to fall asleep, but he stayed awake and aware, thoughts turned inward.

“How much do you remember about last night?” Saguru asked after a while in silence. With a concussion there was no way of knowing how Kuroba’s head would be affected. Memory loss was only the surface of what a head injury could affect.

“Most of it?” Kuroba said. “There was hours of setup, infiltrating the scene… The power glitch went off fine. All the traps on the case were disarmed pretty easily. Too many people so they had some trouble coordinating with each other…” Saguru nodded. That had been a predictable weakness. “I got the stone and the fireworks went off. I had a rig to make it look like I vanished but that failed…” Kuroba paused. “A bomb went off?”

“That’s what it seems to have been,” Saguru agreed. “I was not in the building so I couldn’t say exactly what happened.”

“There was more than one,” Kuroba continued. “The explosions cut off my planned escapes so I headed up.” His eyes went distant, glazed over as he tried to remember. “The winds were good… Did anyone get hurt?”

“I don’t know.” The repeat in question probably meant Kuroba wasn’t quite as lucid as he looked, or maybe he was just thinking out loud as he remembered. Saguru should have asked Aoko when she called. Or Kudo, though Kudo had skipped out on the heist aftermath and might not know all the details either. “Aoko sounded healthy enough over the phone at the least.”

Kuroba nodded, accepting that. If someone was injured, it hadn’t been at his hand and he’d long since come to terms that there would be collateral damage no matter how much he didn’t want there to be. When everything was all over he could examine the guilt and deal with it properly. “Kudo might have been on the roof. It’s a little fuzzy. I checked the stone…” Kuroba jerked upright, winced, and fell back into the pillows looking almost gray from pain. “Shit.”

“What?” Saguru had one hand out, to help Kuroba up or keep him from trying to sit up again, he wasn’t sure.

“The stone. Hakuba. Hakuba, it was the stone.”

“…the one you’ve been looking for?”

“Yes!” Kuroba started shaking and for a second Saguru thought he was having the start of a seizure before breathy, hysterical laughter made it past Kuroba’s clenched jaw. “I’ve been looking. All this time. And it’s been buried for more than a thousand years.” Kuroba grimaced. Laughing clearly was more painful than not. “What the hell.”

“Kuroba…”

“Where’s the stone?” Kuroba asked, hysteria shoved aside as fast as it came.

“…You don’t have it?”

“It wasn’t in my suit pocket? Wait. No. I hid it? I think? Because I knew I could get shot and I couldn’t give it back and I don’t have anything to destroy it yet.” Kuroba squinted at nothing as he strained his brain to remember. It made Saguru reach out, like that would make it easier, but he waited for more. It took a moment to realize nothing more was coming.

“Is it safe where you put it?” He asked.

“Yes,” Kuroba said slowly. “They aren’t likely to find it without me leading them to it. They probably think I still have it. But on the off chance I don’t, they’ll probably have the museum watched for a while. It wouldn’t be safe to retrieve it anyway.”

Saguru nodded, not pressing any further. Kuroba looked strained around the edges now, eyes glassy and one hand gripping the blankets with white knuckles. “You found what you were looking for though. And you lived through it. That’s the important part.”

Kuroba huffed a laugh that sounded about as painful as it looked. “It’s far from over though. God. Almost eighteen years, Hakuba. I’ve been Kid a decade longer than Oyaji played the role.” He lapsed into silence and Saguru let him. It was a private emotional pain on Kuroba’s face mixed with the physical. It felt like speaking would be the same as walking over a grave. Kuroba’s eyes opened. “But living through it is the important part.”

“Quite.” Saguru cleared his throat and reached for the okayu again. “Speaking of living, eat a bit more?”

“Sure, I’d love to feel even worse.” Kuroba shook his head. “No, I’d probably throw up. I don’t think either of us wants that to happen.”

“Rather defeats the purpose of eating.” Kuroba’s blinks were becoming heavier, energy already spent from the brief conversation. Saguru didn’t want to leave, but it was in Kuroba’s best interests to let him rest. “I’ll take the rest of this back to Kudo-san. Kudo Ran-san.”

“Thanks, ‘Kuba,” Kuroba said. His eyes slid shut, blinked open, slid shut. “…Takumi’s ok though?”

“He was uninjured. Mentally…I assume he hasn’t run into anything like last night before?”

“No. Tried to keep him safe. Have a normal life.”

“…I’ll look after him as best I can.” How he’d manage this with school out could be determined at a later date.

“Thanks.” Kuroba’s eyes stayed shut this time.

“Rest up, Kuroba. I’ll be back later.” He got a hum in response as Kuroba drifted closer to sleep again. Hopefully it would help with the pain.

#magic kaito #detective conan #nltsa #fanfiction #not left to stand alone #my writing

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