#there is simply no way to go wrong with kidou!

[recurring-polynya]

have we ever once heard byakuya recite a kidou chant? I did not research for this post, but I feel like we have not.

[askteikoku]

"Muffled, from the other side of the door" with KdFd 💜

Here we go! KdFd with a little angst.

Muffled, from the other side of the door. [KdFd]

Kidou's heart was beating rapidly, still racing from the soccer practice that had just finished and from seeing Fudou leave without even bothering to go to the locker room to get his things, visibly upset by the comment he had made shortly before. Kidou went after him, running. But by the time he managed to reach him, the green-eyed boy had already entered his room in the residence where they were staying and closed the door abruptly.

Kidou recoiled from the impact of the door that if he hadn't been paying attention would have struck him in the nose, he gave a low, gravelly grunt, rubbing his face, and reached for the handle to open it, revealing in that way that Fudou had locked the door which was firmly shut.

He cursed that moment, and hit it with his fist.

"Fudou, open the door."

From the other side of it came a cold voice.

"Go away."

Of course, he didn't have the slightest intention of leaving until he made peace with Fudou after what happened in the training. He crossed his arms ready to wait as long as it took until he achieved his goal.

"Open the door."

"Leave me alone."

"I'm not leaving until we talk."

"Have a good night in the hall."

“Oh, come on, Fudou. Open, please!”

“No.”

Kidou snorted and rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. In truth, he could not deny that it served him well to say something so ugly about someone he loved so much in front of the others simply because he was in a bad mood and that they laughed at them for always being together had made him explode in an unfair way towards Fudou.

He didn't even have to go against Fudou who had not only done nothing wrong but was also the target of ridicule at the time. He put his hand to his chest, which hurt terribly, he felt his entire interior writhing with guilt.

"I am so sorry…"

He had no reaction from the other side, there was no sound in the room, but he knew that Fudou was listening near the door. He rested his palms on the smooth surface and took a deep breath trying to stop the bitterness that spread through his veins.

"I know you are there." But at the lack of response, Kidou had a whiplash of impatience and snorted. "Fudou!"

He let out a growl and stamped his feet on the floor in annoyance. Then he calmed down again, no, he couldn't lose his composure, much less after that situation was his fault.

He shouldn't have yelled at him in front of everyone else during training, he shouldn't even have thought to open his mouth to say that he didn't need Fudou by his side and that he was mostly just a nuisance. It was true that Fudou was always bothering him, but that didn't make him a bother, on the contrary, that game of tug of war between them drove him crazy, Fudou's flirty smile and the reflection in his green eyes when he laughed when he won the battle made his chest quiver with warmth. And even on the occasions when it was Kidou who was victorious in that game, Fudou's amused reaction with his lips in a cocky grin made him want to go further.

But that day there was none of that, there was no complicity, there was no teasing, there was nothing but cruelty.

He knew as soon as he saw the way his green eyes narrowed and his lips pursed. The way he ran off without responding with a sarcastic comment that would make Kidou look bad in the end and all his friends would laugh in amusement at that dance between the two of them while Fudou would look at him bragging about his verbal superiority.

He knew his words really hurt him in the way his eyes let out a distant waterly sparkle and his lips trembled.

"Fudou, I want to apologize to you properly and through a door is not the best way."

The teenager in his late teens heaved a heavy sigh and began to move in circles in front of his friend's locked room. Would it be okay if he forced the door?

His friend's lack of response worried him deeply. How much did he hurt him that not even at the idea of ​​seeing him uncomfortable apologizing did he open that door for him? Fudou wouldn’t pass up such an opportunity.

He called his name again with impatience and anxiety, a feverish pulse dulling his senses.

He was grateful that all his other teammates were in the showers at that moment, plus the fact that Fudou's room was the last one in the corridor helped them not to be disturbed at that critical moment.

He rubbed his forehead, still sweating from training and the stress of not being able to solve his blunder. He imagined that Fudou would be the same, inside his room.

“Fudou, I know I've been a jerk. Please open." For a change, no one answered; but this time he thought he heard a gasp on the other side of the door and he leaned his forehead against it, his pulse pounding painfully. "I didn't mean to hurt you, Fudou. You’re very important to me."

At that moment he clearly heard a noise on the other side, and that noise to his despair was a sob. He opened his eyes, completely shattered, fuck. If there was anything worse than making Fudou angry, it was making him cry. Making his dear friend cry was a point he certainly never wanted to get to; Not at least in that way, if he had to make him cry he wanted it to be with laughter, joy, happiness, love...

Love…

Kidou's hands slipped down the door and his entire body shuddered at the revelation. Of course.

Love.

It could not be otherwise. Why had he been so stupid? He loved Fudou, he loved all his gestures, all his expressions, all his crazy things, all his smiles, all his pranks, all his pedantries.

“Don't cry, don't cry because of me, Fudou. It's not true that I'm better without you, it's not true that I don't want you by my side, it's not true that I consider you a nuisance. The person I want to always be by my side is you…” Kidou's own eyes watered and he lowered his glasses to wipe those helpless tears. "You are someone very dear to me, if you disappeared I don't know what I would do..."

The silence lengthened like the shadows in the corridor and Kidou dropped down in front of the door, on his knees with a defeated face. In the distance he could see that some of his teammates were returning to their rooms before dinner time. He rose with a gleam of determination and certainty in his red eyes. “Fudou, I love you.”

Those words came muffled from the other side of the door, but they had enough impact that Kidou could hear the click of the lock being unlocked.

[bleachbleachbleach]

Damnit you just triggered my writers brain. The way I see it is that part of why the Shino Academy takes so long isn't just training the potential shinigami, but also covering things such as literacy. (Aizen had taught a Calligraphy class there before being made Shinji's lieutenant)

Part of that I think would be speach training and language. Think about how in the British army their officers were/are trained to carry themselves like a gentleman, including the king's English. Put simply, they are speeking in a generally agreed upon subset of language so that everyone can understand eachother. There are other languages used in rukon, as well as dialects, and shinigami use their natural language in like company. (It being tokyo Japanese is probably solely for the convenience of the one consuming the media)

[This is in response to musing from this post!]

If we’ve said something that triggered your writerly instincts, when we have carried out our life’s mission! <333333333

As someone who’s spent way too long in school, part of me is like "6 years isn’t that long given that they’re starting from 0" even as I also know that most military training is not that long by any means. One day I’d LOVE to put together a bunch of potential course curricula for the Academy, because 1) I am obsessed with Aizen’s calligraphy class to an unhealthy degree, and 2) I do think they take The History of Soul Society and Hollow Biology 103, etc. though I suspect all of this is sorely lacking in the way that all curricula are—especially because every shinigami we’ve met knows a lot of things while simultaneously knowing absolutely zero things.

Below the cut, some of my thoughts on the Academy's auxiliary curriculum:

Entrance Exam

My co-blogger pointed out that the Academy has an entrance exam, and one that’s difficult enough to fail—though it makes me wonder what the nature of the exam is. Is it rote memorization of concepts? Is it testing your logical and spatial reasoning? What else are they screening for besides reiatsu? Regardless apparently it’s a written exam, which I imagine puts you at a pretty distinct disadvantage with you’re from most of Rukongai, because first you have to go find someone who will teach you how to read and write well enough to sit the exam, before you even get to go to shinigami school.

Calligraphy Class

My headcanon for Aizen’s calligraphy class (besides it being one of the many way he cruises for new recruits) is that it has both practical and artistic components. The artistic part is self-explanatory. The practical part is basically just penmanship training, which comes from the fact that all the handwritten reports we see seem to basically be in the same handwriting, even though we see in Colorful Bleach that if they’re not writing those reports with their inkbrushes, everyone’s handwriting is different. The two pieces of this class are DEEPLY divorced from one another, because one is deeply personal and the other the exact opposite of that. But when Aizen sent his course proposal to the Faculty Executive Committee, he probably said something about how practicing artful calligraphy imbues young potential shinigami with a mindset better suited to successful kidou and zanjutsu training and he's probably not wrong. Everything is utilitarian/practical in the end.

Report Writing 101

It would make sense that everyone take Report Writing 101, but part of me feels like that might be a more on-the-fly skill, or Continuing Education, because most of these guys aren’t writing reports anyway, and the number of reports written increases with rank, and since the Captain is going to have to sign off on everything anyway, they probably ether fix anything that’s amiss or give no fucks about whether anything is amiss before sending it on. So maybe that’s beyond the purview of the Academy. I mean, if most people don’t graduate with shikai, I guess they probably don’t graduate with Report Writing either. Maybe it's one of those "if you get fancy enough, there's one more thing you'll have to learn on your own!" deals.

Language Preserves Hierarchies Class

So that’s penmanship and written language, both things that Soul Society seems very invested in. What of the spoken language? The Gotei, for all their… whole thing, really, seem perhaps more permissive about a lot of things than a company might be IRL. Crazy hair, uniform customization, pretty informal language (though there is definitely still some preservation of language register based on rank). I could definitely see the Gotei wanting their trainees to have at least like, a 1-credit practicum in keigo, just because that helps preserve the power dynamics/hierarchies the Gotei runs on. I could also see them staring imperiously at potential new shinigami until this information was magically pressed into them, LOL.

Maybe my big interest here is "what does the Academy teach" vs. "what does the Academy just expect you to just know" (regardless of how much or how little sense these expectations might make). This is in regards to life skills as well as reiatsu skills. I'm convinced that there's a lot a lo a lot of room for improvement when it comes to this curriculum, 2000+ years in the making or not!

We basically said the same thing re: language variance in Rukongai, though oh MAN now I’m curious about like, to what degree standardization within Soul Society makes it out into Rukongai. Because on some level maybe it shouldn’t at all, because the Seireitei doesn’t seem to really care what’s going on in Rukongai except sometimes when whole swatches of souls go missing, but who’s doing all this teaching? To what end, besides Academy entrance exams? Is this a linear process where the resident Literate Soul needs to train the next one, or are there souls coming in from the Living World with different versions of this knowledge all the time? GAH I LOVE IT.

Unpaid Internship Class

I also wanna know, like, how much of Academy training is in situ vs. ex situ. Like, the Advanced Class leapt up to "field trip" really fast. Are the last year or two basically just Gotei Lite, except you don’t get paid (or get paid a lot less), even though you might die? Do you get TA credits if you’re like Hisagi et al, leading first-year field trips? Honestly I feel like a lot of Academy training is probably JUST learning how to interpret, control, and manipulate your reiatsu, and JUST trying to communicate with your sword and make it a true zanpakutou. Jinzen class is probably the hardest class series. If those two things happen to come easily to you, I imagine that’s mostly what fast-tracks you through the Academy curriculum.

But I’m coming at all this from a very contemporary, more-school-than-military, pretty Westernized perspective. Part of me wants to learn about how "school" has worked across the last 2000 years and part of me just wants to make it up in accordance with my own desires and interests because IT’S MAGIC GHOST MILITARY SCHOOL. 

Truly, I just want fandom’s 370 different versions of how this school works. There are so many great options. I want them all.

Anyone wanna do a "36 Views of Shinoureijutsuin" with me where we all make different potential curriculum plans lol. WHO WANTS TO DO FAKE ADMIN PAPERWORK WITH ME.

[inazuma-eleven-translations]

IEGO Bonds Gryphon Novelize

Note: I’ve been working on this translation for a while, but due to my hiatus I decided to just start uploading it right now. YES I know barely anyone cares about GO, and I should probably focus on Ares (I WILL!) but Inazuma GO will always be the most special to me and, no matter what, I WILL translate this novel! One day I’ll finish the whole thing!

Chapter One (Part 1) - Unlimited Shining

“Hey, wake up! Tenma!”

The next thing Tenma knew, Shindou Takuto was shaking him awake.

As soon as he regained consciousness, he was suddenly hit with the strong scent of grass. He was lying on his back on a grassy terrain. As his eyes gradually came into focus, he noticed Shindou peering at him anxiously.

“Captain…”

Tenma mumbled, pulling himself upright. A sudden strong wind hit his face and he cringed in response. The gust shook and rustled through his hair’s natural waves. As he stood up, Tenma only now began to observe his surroundings with wide eyes. In front of him was a dense growth of unfamiliar trees, and behind him was a vast, seemingly endless ocean. Sunlight glistened across the surface of the rolling waves and wild grass grew haphazardly along the shore.

“The ocean…?! Where… where are we…?”

“...I don’t know. Nobody knows what’s going on.” Following Shindou’s cue, Tenma turned around to see the other members of the Raimon soccer club in disarray. Some were only just beginning to stir; some were looking around in bewilderment; some were waking up nearby teammates; and others were simply standing still in shock.

“Tenma! Are you okay?” Nishizono Shinsuke hurried over to him. The small boy ran with a bounce, his hair bobbing up and down with the movement.

“I looked around this place just a second ago but there’s nooooothing!”

“...I guess we must have fallen asleep without realizing it.”

Third year Sangoku Taichi furrowed his eyebrows and said, as Nishiki slapped his own cheeks and added: “I bet it was sleeping gas.”

Nishiki scrunched up his thick eyebrows and began shaking his head. His high-ponytail shook furiously from side to side.

First year Tsurugi Kyousuke was the only one cautiously surveying his surroundings in silence. He grit his teeth, a dark expression on his face. His narrow eyes were clouded over in confusion.

Though he had previously been a Seed and an enemy of Raimon, he was a now a firm member of the team. Only at this moment his expression was reminiscent of his natural instinct as a Seed, but his teammates hadn’t noticed his sudden change of demeanor.

“...Is this the training camp?” Puzzled, first year Kageyama Hikaru said to no one in particular, but everyone knew deep down that something was very wrong. Though he was normally easy-going and cheerful, Hikaru couldn’t hide the anxiety he felt at this minute.

“...That’s right. We were supposed to go to a training camp. Fifth Sector’s orders… They sent a bus…” As Tenma muttered to himself, Shinsuke looked up at him with unease…

They lost track of time but Tenma and the other Raimon Eleven members boarded a bus sent by Fifth Sector a couple of hours earlier. 

Though they couldn’t be sure of how much time had passed, evidently it had been several hours ago that the Raimon Eleven members boarded a bus sent by Fifth Sector. Prior to that, an order had come from Fifth Sector for the Raimon Eleven to go to a training camp.

Raimon were right in the middle of the Holy Road tournament, having just won their third match against Kidokawa Seishuu. Yet apart from knowing Fifth Sector would escort them there, everything about this training camp was a mystery, even the location. The entire team protested, including their Coach - Kidou Yuuto.

Chairperson Kinzan, who brought along the news, was a man sent in by Fifth Sector. He had predicted the Raimon Eleven’s refusal, and countered their opposition with a few words he knew would have an effect.

“You mean you don’t want to know? What your former coach Endou is up to? … He’s giving us a helping hand, you know.”

This stunned the Raimon Eleven. Still reeling from shock, Kidou carefully considered Kinzan’s words. For him to go as far as mentioning Endou’s name… That had to mean something. If Endou was any way involved with this so-called ‘training camp’...

Kidou remembered the words Endou had left him with, after entrusting the position of Raimon’s coach to him.

“Fifth Sector’s true objective is probably not just controlling soccer. I want to look into it.” This was the last thing Endou said before he left Raimon. Suddenly, Shindou’s voice pulled Kidou out of his thoughts.

“Why don’t we go and see, Coach?”

Shindou, Tenma and the others looked at Kidou.

“Isn’t it possible Coach Endou learned whatever they’re plotting and went there to try and stop them?”

That was very perceptive of Shindou, Kidou thought. Though the Raimon Eleven had originally objected to Kinzan’s order, at Shindou’s words they reconsidered their willingness to go investigate this ‘training camp’. However, in Shindou’s judgement, a few members of the team should stay behind at Raimon.

“At this point in time, Raimon is the center of the anti-Fifth Sector boom. We can’t leave here unattended.” It was decided that second years Hayami, Hamano, and Kurama would stay behind at Raimon. The three saw off their teammates as they departed with a feeling that something was not quite right.

Read part 2 here.

[tigertoramaru]

NYFIC: Because I promised him!

A little Ares fic to enjoy. I was going to rp it up with @isleomuses, but this seemed more fun. Enjoy!

Others who would like: @producktions @shawn-and-aiden-frost-9 @enkazee

Because I promised him!

By Tigertoramaru

=

(Kazemaru’s reaction to finding out he’s been assigned to Kageyama! Inspired by Outer Code and Reloaded. Enjoy!)

=

Kazemaru gasped as he opened the letter he was waiting for. It told him what school he was going to be assigned to as part of this reorganization of soccer. Problem was that the school wasn’t an issue, but then he read the Coach he’d be reporting to. “No way…”

He wasn’t crazy about the idea of splitting the team up and now this really clinched it. Track was suddenly seeming like a good idea to get back into, but he needed some other words to motivate him. For that there was one person he could always count on.

 And that was his friend since Elementary school, Endou Mamoru. While he wasn’t the brightest at times, Endou always managed to cheer him up with his simple way of looking at things, and for him somewhere along the way he started feeling more for his friend. Another dilemma, his friend seemed only to love soccer, though sometimes he seemed closer to Gouenji or Kidou.

 Tears threatening to fall at one or both of those dilemmas, Kazemaru grabbed his shoes and ran to the Endou residence, arriving there as the street lights were starting to flicker on outside, small fireflies starting to dance around. It was such a beautiful night for such dark thoughts! Endou’s mother opened the door for him, recognizing him as it was hardly the first time he’d been there over the years. “Sorry, I need to see him.” Kaze said not waiting for an answer as he kicked off his shoes, bowed in apology and ran up the stairs to Endou’s room.

 “Endou! I…” Kaze began running into the room. Naturally it was a mess as Endou packed and he found himself tripping and ended up sitting in Endou’s luggage alongside his socks and some badly folded shirts.

Endou blinked in surprise at the interruption and turned to look at his friend in his suitcase. “Kazemaru, hi! Is something wrong? Sorry for the mess. I’m finding it hard to pack without knowing where I am going yet.” Then again, his room was usually on the verge of disorder.

 Kazemaru shook his head as he got up and sat on the bed. “You’re such a mess.” Kaze said as he picked up the shirts and began folding them properly. “Those will wrinkle you know.” Kaze said as he handed the now-wrinkled letter to Endou, but summarized the problem for him. “They’re sending me to work for HIM. Some punishment that is, after all he did, they leave him a Coach!” Kaze said wiping his eyes before tears could fall.

 Endou read the letter, frowning a bit at the news, but he looked at things more simply. “But Teikoku is a great school! Your team will be hard to beat, especially with you helping them.”

 Kaze glared at that. “Endou! How can you say that? I…I want to go back to Track, I can’t…I won’t work for that man, I…!”

 Endou frowned again as he took Kaze’s hands in his. “Kazemaru! Do you love soccer?”

 Kaze blinked at Endou’s rough grip on him. “Mamoru, don’t…”

 Endou looked at him with those chocolate eyes of his. “Do you?”

 Kaze looked down at his socks, composing himself and his thoughts, his face hidden by his teal hair. I did it because YOU asked me to Mamoru, not for soccer. Kaze thought, but this wasn’t a night to confess his feelings, especially since they were going to be split apart.

*

The memories came so quick and happy for him…

“Kazemaru? Didn’t you say you wanted to play against first-rate players? If you want to join, come by anytime!”

“When I said first-rate players I meant in athletics...”

*

“That sure is some messy special training…You’re serious about beating them huh? I’ll join you and that spirit of yours.”

*

And then reality came back as Endou tapped him on the head. “Kazemaru? You went all funny.”

 Kaze smiled slightly as he held Endou’s hands back. “I DO love soccer, but I DON’T love that man.”

 Endou smiled back. “Well there must be a reason they gave it back to him. Kidou says he knows a lot about soccer.”

 Kazemaru shook his head. “Mamoru, I don’t know if I can do this without you. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of splitting us all up, it feels more like a punishment, and…”

 Endou turned to the side as his TV turned on. “It’s on!”

Kaze blinked in surpise at the pause in their talk. “What is?”

Endou smiled. “Another soccer friendly, Italy’s nationals against that team that beat us, uh…”

 Kazemaru looked over with more interest now. “Barcelona Orb.” He supplied helpfully.

 Endou grinned. “Arigatou. You always have my back Kazemaru.”

 On the screen, Italy’s Captain Hidetoshi was on screen shaking the hand of Orb’s Captain Clario. “We saw your match against Raimon, you could have made your point without crushing them so badly. How about you pick on someone your own size?”

 Clario shrugged as he shook Hide’s hand. “We did what we were told, it wasn’t personal.”

 Then the camera turned to another Italian boy which the caption said was a FW for Orpheus, Assistant Captain Fidio Aldena. “If there are any Raimon members watching, we know you have a long way to go, but take heart. You’ll get there and if you need help, feel free to look us up.” Fidio said giving a thumb’s up and wink at the screen.

 A rapid maybe not so friendly game developed, the moves incredible and at times it seemed it could go either way but eventually ended in an Orpheus victory 6-5.

 Kazemaru watched it all with Endou and sometime during the game he recognized he did love soccer, and he also felt a little better knowing the team that crushed them could also be beaten. It was just a matter of skill and training. “I do love soccer.” Kaze said resting his hands on Endou’s shoulders.

Endou turned in surprise and gave his friend one of those big goofy smiles of his. “Then you’ll stay?”

 Kazemaru smiled back and nodded. “I will, but I won’t like it. Endou…you’re my best friend and Captain. Tell me what I should do.”

 Endou nodded as he stood and placed his hands on Kaze’s shoulders. “Kazemaru, please follow your orders and go to Teikoku, promise me you’ll do your best to help them so that one day we can be on the world stage like those guys we just watched.”

 Kazemaru tipped his head down. “I promise. I’ll do it for you. NOT for him.” Kaze said softly. “I should get back home, I have some more packing to do, my bus arrives early tomorrow. Write me when you find out where you’re going.” Kaze said, and with that, he gave Endou a quick hug and walked out of his best friend’s life for an indefinite time.

 Three days later…

After the briefing, Sakuma gave chase and grabbed Kazemaru’s arm as he walked away. “Kazemaru! Why are you with Kageyama?!?!”

 Kazemaru turned slightly, his iron mask breaking for a moment as he gave a small smile. “Because I promised a friend.”

 END.

[fiercyy]

Till Death: Chapter 3

Co-authored by @holyfuckabear

Summary: A canon rewrite fic. Seventeen-year-old Ichigo Kurosaki has become a superhero overnight. This entails a lot more oversight than he was lead to believe there would be. Is this his life now? Being stalked by some tiny woman, hell-bent on bossing him around? (For the record: yes.) 

He was five years old when his mother moved the family to Karakura, so he has very few memories of the time before. 

His life changed swiftly. His new preschool was, in a word, monochromatic. There were at least a couple other mixed kids at the other one, but he was the only one here. His mom was happier, that was good. Yuzu wasn’t sick as often, Mom said that being out of the city smog helped. One day he suddenly had a father.

Or maybe that’s just the blur of young memories.

.

. 

It’s been a really long week. He hasn’t been sleeping much, what with his new Soul Reaper duties. Weirdly, Mizuiro’s been getting on his nerves, but he has no idea why. And he’s not really getting this section in Maths, so he’s going to have to do some extra legwork to figure it out. Plus Tatsuki’s been going through something so it’s not like he can ask her, like he usually would.

Also, he lives with a raging maniac. 

Well… another raging maniac, but this one lives in his closet, not down the hall, so it’s twice as annoying and he gets zero respite.

It’s only Wednesday and he feels like he’s counting down the seconds until the weekend. All he wants is some quiet time to himself. He wants to sleep, finish his homework and maybe read something for fun instead of class for a change.

Ichigo’s already reached his threshold for social interactions and he has two days to go. 

He’s not going to survive this week.

.

.

One moment she’s sweetly feigning interest in Keigo’s prattle, the next she’s shouting for Ichigo to pull himself together after having his arm nearly ripped from its socket.

Such is the duality of Rukia. 

The former freaks him out more than the latter.

Ichigo gets used to her. Rukia’s around all the time, she is inconveniently, loudly present. She doesn’t have to say anything. Her existence is loud. He was studying on his bed instead of his desk the other day. She appropriated his desk chair, wheeled it close to the bed and used his spine as a footrest as she blew through his collection of manga. When he complained, she actually shushed him. “I’m at a really good part and you’re distracting!”

“...!”

He’s used to the real her; the pushy, stubborn drill sergeant. He acts on her say-so. It’s the sparkly, girly princess that freaks him out. He has no idea what to do with that. Every day it’s like stepping into the twilight zone and how has nobody noticed how fake it all sounds? He’s the only guy who’s made it out of Plato’s cave. He wants to physically shake his classmates and shout “Don’t you realize it’s all just bullshit shadows on the wall?!”

He doesn’t, but he really feels like it. 

This is what his life has come to.

Normalcy is running around the city in the dead of night, searching for monsters to slay. Normalcy has become acting on orders delivered by text-message and bunny-shaped shadows.

.

.

Normally Rukia wouldn’t fraternize with the humans, but Orihime makes it very hard to keep her distance. She invites her into the inner sanctum of high school girl-dom, a complex set of social systems that Rukia has zero experience with. It’s surprisingly lovely. 

She can be completely genuine with exactly none of them, but it’s still nice.

They eat lunches on the roof, tangential to the boys. They stand at each other’s desks between classes. They escort each other on routine errands, simply for the pleasure of each other’s company.

????

It’s baffling, but fascinating (she’ll never admit it, but it makes her feel warm inside). And mimicking the girls does wonders for the authenticity of her acting.

Orihime looks at her askance every once in awhile, but she seems to understand the principle. She never addresses it in private anyway.

The boys and girls occasionally drift together. This is in part due to Tatsuki and Ichigo’s friendship and in part due to the conventional social mores of the human world that dictate that genders must interact, but never fully integrate. 

She likes Chad, he’s sweet and quiet, clearly very intelligent and has a sparse way with words that she finds refreshing. Keigo is a massive idiot, but there are worse things to be. Mizuiro seems very sweet, but he’s always asking her to help him with schoolwork and tends to sit very close as she badly explains grammar structure.

Ichigo is Ichigo. 

��Rukia, I made cookies for everyone!” Orihime jolts her from her contemplations to remind her that there are worse casts of characters to be among. 

Then she takes a bite and valiantly tries not to spit out the edamame chip cookie. 

.

.

Chad’s a very large young man. He’s also Mexican. He tends to stand out in crowds, particularly in a population like Japan. He’s quiet, so people tend to forget he’s even around. They’ll say things in front of him, thinking he’s not listening. Or worse, they think he’s too stupid to understand what they’re saying. 

He speaks three languages, but whatever. 

So when Ichigo and Rukia run off together for the third time in a week and the guys immediately turn to gossiping hens, he figures no one’s expecting a response from him. He sighs. People should really learn to mind their own business… then again he’s a hypocrite, he’s just not asking his questions out loud.

Whatever.

Maybe his mind’s just under occupied these days, but he’s been contemplating the mysterious case of the delinquent and the new girl. Specifically, with respect to the ghost problem that Ichigo’s been dealing with for as long as he’s known him. It’s not that he’s seen them do anything suspicious, but the Kurosaki clinic was destroyed and the next day Rukia Kuchiki shows up at school? A prissy, perky, pretty girl appears and suddenly Ichigo’s asking her how high he should jump? Chad sees her for what she is, because they’re the same. She’s quiet because she is always listening, her attention is eerily laser focused. 

After school he goes to his part-time job at the library. Today is Wednesday so it’s Reading Circle for the daycare kids whose parents work late. Chad has been slowly making his way through Howl’s Moving Castle, chapter by chapter. It’s taking him twice as long because he reads the chapters in Japanese, then English, but he thinks it’s worth it. He likes Sophie, she’s very sensible. That is a girl for whom words have weight and meaning. 

After that he meets up with some of the guys he’s played a couple gigs with.

“Give him to Chad,” says one, of a supposedly cursed Cockatiel.

Chad sighs, “what’s your name?” he is awfully cute. 

“Yuichi Shibata, what’s your name mister?” And then a metal beam falls on his head.

He’s nothing if not polite though, so he introduces himself.

“Pleased to meet you, I’m Sado Yasutora.” 

.

. 

Rukia is always flexing. She’s always testing her limbs and joints, stretching and pulling at them, trying to find their limits. She feels too big for her skin, too strong for her fragile bird bones. This body is not real but it’s her reality.

The human boy took her powers. She’d only meant to give him a little, just enough to end the fight. Turns out, she miscalculated. And now she’s living on dwindled reserves and the foreseeable future looks like a long, winding wait for her powers to return.

But they will return. Little by little. 

At first, she could feel herself getting stronger by the day. She has recovered enough that she can do the most basic kidou: mild restraints and minimal healing. It’ll probably be months until she’s recovered! Months in the human world, with a boy left to do her work. 

So she flexes, she tests the limits of her strength and gains micrometers where she can. 

In the meantime, at least she’s learning leadership skills. 

.

. 

There’s an adjustment period. They aren’t quite working like a well oiled machine yet. That’s the thing with new partnerships, they have to learn their roles. They’re treading new ground together and some growing pains are to be expected. And then there are some details that turn into unexpected issues. 

.

. 

The can rattles as she shakes it in her hand, the sound makes her heart race. Tatsuki bites her lip, planning her first stroke. The side of the bare building is a blank canvas, her canvas. She wears gloves while she does it. Intent on keeping the evidence off her fingers. A bright splash of orange against white stucco. 

Her mother thought painting classes would be a good enough creative outlet. Don’t get her wrong, it did give her the skills to pull this off. 

A big, orange asterisk. The start of a dandelion. She shakes her can of yellow, setting the orange down. It tips onto its side and rolls deeper into the alley. 

“Shit.” Tatsuki mutters, following the can. 

It stops against the sole of a shoe. Tatsuki’s eyes trail up from the shoe to some legs, then a torso. Her mouth goes dry and she chokes when she sees the face. 

Ichigo, slumped against a dumpster. His eyes are open and glassy. She doesn’t see his chest moving. 

She stands there for who knows how long before her brain gets her body to react. She presses her thumb to his pulse, but all she can feel is her own heart hammering against her thumb. 

“Ichigo.” She quavers, grabbing him by the arms and shaking him. He’s warm, but not very.

“Ichigo!” Tatsuki slaps him across the face. His head flops, limp.

She covers her mouth with her hand, swallowing the whimper that lets loose her tears.

He’s dead. Oh god, he’s dead just like Masaki.

She was supposed to protect him. 

Her hands shake as she reaches for her cellphone. There’s a splash of orange paint on her glove and she stares at it for longer than she should.

She dials, but before it can ring, she hears approaching footsteps.

“Come on and get in there then.” The voice sounds familiar but Tatsuki’s ears are still ringing. 

“Hello, what is your emergency?” 

Tatsuki opens her mouth to speak when she hears Ichigo groan. 

“Ugh, why does my face sting?”

“Ichigo!” She scrambles to check his eyes and throat.

“Get off me, wouldja.” He pushes her off.

“You were collapsed! I thought you were dead!”

“Ma’am, are you still on the line?”

“Thanks, we’re good. Bye.” Tatsuki hangs up. Her gaze skips between Ichigo, who is sitting slumped against the alley wall, and Rukia, who is standing off to his right. “Rukia, when did you get here?”

Rukia swallows, “Oh, I was just passing by!”

If Tatsuki had less adrenaline coursing through her system she might have questioned the validity of Rukia walking around alone at night and just happening to stumble upon them.

“I heard you yelling and I came running!” 

“See, that’s a good samaritan,” Ichigo means for this to sound sincere but it comes off sarcastic. Which is actually how he means it. 

“Why don’t I help you bring him home to the clinic,” Rukia suggests, an ounce too chipper. 

Tatsuki nods numbly and each of them grab one of his arms to sling over their shoulders. They make a comical trio, lumbering along the Karakura streets. Ichigo is utterly fine and has never felt more emasculated. 

He tries to protest, but Rukia shuts him down. “Oh dear, you shouldn’t strain yourself Kurosaki! I’m not very strong, but Tatsuki is. We’ll help you get home safe!”

When he gets home and his father starts gushing over his non-existent injuries, Ichigo honestly contemplates quitting. Being a superhero isn’t worth this. 

.

. 

From there, things go from annoying to maddening.

Everyone seems to have something to say about the ‘hot new transfer student’ and the ginger thug who always seems to be hanging around her. 

Keigo is very proud. 

Mizuiro is overly solicitous with his promises that he’s not flirting with her, that he’s into older women. 

For Ichigo’s part, he’s sure that Rukia is way older than even Mizuiro’d prefer but would happily step aside in favor of their future bliss. 

.

. 

On Thursday Chad brings his new pet to school. None of his teachers bother him about it and at lunch, his friends clamor over the strange bird with the expansive vocabulary. 

Everyone, that is, except for Ichigo and Rukia. 

“Chad,” asks Ichigo, tentatively, “where’d you get the bird.” 

“A guy…” 

This seems like a perfectly reasonable response to Chad, but Keigo is unsatisfied. “Why are you always too lazy to tell the actual story?! Some guy?! What guy? Where? Does it have to do with the car that hit you yesterday? Come on!” 

And so it goes. 

Ichigo continues to stare at the bird through lunch.

“Do you need some help with that?” Mizuiro asks, startling Ichigo out of his revery. But he wasn’t addressing him.

“It’s this infernal juice box!” Rukia exclaims, sounding uncomfortably too like her demanding self. 

Ichigo sighs and takes it from her, pokes a hole with the straw and never lets his eyes stray from the bird. 

Mizuiro throws up his hands in mock defensiveness and shoots Ichigo a sly look before turning back to the one-sided conversation Keigo and Chad are still having. 

“You’re right you know,” Rukia says around the straw. “There is something odd about that bird, but it’s not evil. It’s just lonely.” 

Rukia knows how it feels. Lately she’s been feeling homesick for the 13th Division. 

“We’ll take care of it tonight.” 

“Awesome, I didn’t need to study anyway.” 

“Is that sarcasm?” 

“No ma’am,” he replies, sarcastically. 

“Your friend… is he like you?”

“What do you mean? Mixed?”

“No, you idiot. Can he see spirits?” 

“Not… that I know of.” 

“Do you know him well?” 

“Sure,” Ichigo scratches his nose and contemplates Chad, “Back in middle school I was already attracting a lot of… negative attention ‘cause of my hair. One day I ran into these guys who really meant business. They were gonna mess me up. Then Chad showed up. Ever since, we’ve watched each other’s backs.” 

Rukia turns to look at the giant too.

“He never fights back, just stands there, puts himself between bad guys and whoever they’re trying to hurt. So-” 

“So you fight for him,” Rukia finishes.

Ichigo glances at her out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah.” 

“You’re a good friend, Ichigo.”

“Yeah, I come in handy.” He wouldn’t admit it, but her esteem feeds something inside him. It feels suspiciously like pride. 

.

. 

“What can I do?” 

“Assume the fetal position and stay out of the way!”

And so it goes. Everyone in the Kurosaki household has a role to play. Ichigo gets the shit kicked out of him, Karin and Yuzu get first aid certified and help dad out in the clinic. One of these things may or may not be more useful than the other.

Chad comes into the clinic clutching Yuichi’s cage in a tight fist and slumping against Karin and Yuzu’s shorter statures.

There’s a bruise like a clawed footprint spanning Chad’s entire back, but Karin is staring at the bird.

.

.

Friday morning, Karin’s not at the breakfast table. Yuzu says she’s sick, but Karin’s never been ill a day in her life. There’s a sick feeling that makes him short on breath and nauseated. Worry and suspicion cloud his thoughts.

He knocks on her bedroom door and enters.

Karin is curled up on her side, sweating and clutching the blankets.

“Karin?”

“ICHIGO!” Isshin shouts from downstairs. “Chad is missing!”

Torn, Ichigo glances from Karin to the door and back again.

“Go,” she grits. “Go.”

He does.

He sprints out of the house and soon finds Rukia at his side.

“Any idea where he would go?”

“Not yet.”

“Ichigo.”

“Yeah?”

“Listen to your heart.”

“What?!”

“Like we practiced, feel for the bird’s soul.”

“...Right.”

He tries, he really does. He’s not so good with the sensing yet. He knows something’s wrong when he grasps at a thread, only to find himself running in circles. And then, across the way he spots Karin, slumped against the fence, struggling to remain upright. “Karin, what are you-?”

“Ichigo, I need- I need to tell you something.”

“Karin, you should go back to bed.”

He’s so afraid for her. Something is very very wrong. But one crisis at a time please.

And Rukia’s looking at his sister in that contemplative way that frightens him, like she’s a specimen for study, a code she can crack. He cannot let her dig too deep here, or else-

“Ichigo, take her back now,” Rukia commands. “I’ll go on and find Chad myself.”

“Are you kidding me? You’re in no condition to fight a hollow on your own. I can’t just leave you!”

Rukia purses her lips and says very seriously, “Worry about your sister for now, I can handle everything until you get there. Go, go on, the faster you get her home, the faster you can come help.” She’s about to take off before he stops her.

“Wait. Don’t risk yourself for my sake.”

She smiles at him, “A veteran soul reaper never takes unnecessary chances.”

This would be more reassuring if she hadn’t nearly died saving his life on the day they met.

.

.

Karin is living someone else’s nightmare. She keeps seeing things in flashes. Blood, murder, screams of terror. A red stain soaking the brightness of the morning and dripping in streaks like sunlight. There’s a little boy, a lot like her, trapped in the body of a bird. He doesn’t want to be free either.

He just wants his mom.

“You have to tell him,” she rasps, clutching her brother’s shirt. “Tell him that if he crosses over he can be with her again. His mom. Don’t let him be alone anymore.”

Loneliness so crushing, it stretches out into infinity and throws dust covers over every possibility.

.

.

Whatever senses Rukia has are dulled either by the gigai or her weakened state, so parsing out the soul ribbon belonging to Yuichi is difficult, but eventually she finds the thread.

She ends up on an empty side street when she feels a cold lick of fear slide up the back of her neck. A hollow.

“Mmm, I ordered chicken and I get a steak as well. How fortunate for me. Hello little Shinigami.”

Rukia leaps out of the way just in time to avoid the hands that strike out to trap her.

Well, now or never.

She dodges again and lands on top of it. Mustering every ounce of power she has, she fires a kidou cannon at it’s hunched back.

It works!

Giddy and triumphant she whoops. And ducks out of the way again. He misses her by a hair. She fires another cannon.

Suddenly, the surges of blue light emanating from her palms are joined by fists. And the roars and blasting noises joined by a chorus of cries.

Chad punches the hollow square in the mask and Yuichi screams for him to run away. Can he see it? She wonders, before he breaks out a combo aimed at thin air. That’s a no... He shouldn’t be fighting anyway.

The hollow sets it’s sights on Chad. Rukia acts fast, running at him full tilt and body-checking the young man out of the way of the oncoming attack.

“Thanks,” Chad grunts.

The hollow flails in pain. She took out huge chunks of its hide with her spells, but it soon regains its faculties.

It laughs, “Try as much as you want, you can’t save the boy. He makes pretty good bait, don’t you think?”

Rukia assesses the situation. She’s weaker than she’s ever been, her only allies are a bird in a cage and a blind human who does not want to fight. She doesn’t know his reasons but she can understand that. She just needs to get behind it again, it’ll be vulnerable from the back. She also needs to get some high ground so its mask will be in her sights.

“Chad!” she calls, “Give me a boost!” She doesn’t give him a chance to process or respond before getting a running start at him. Fortunately, he’s a smart young man. She plants her feet in his cupped hands, “2 o’clock!” and vaults into the air.

Rukia sails above the hollow’s head in an arc. She twists in mid-air and at the precise angle where she can see the base of it’s skull she fires the strongest cannon she can muster.

.

.

Ichigo’s arms curl under Karin’s knees and shoulders, he presses her nose into his collarbone so hard she thinks it’ll bend. She sweats and swears. Over his shoulder, like a pin of light in the encroaching darkness, she sees a woman in white. She presses a pale finger to her lips and fixes her in a steely gaze.

There is a ghost that Ichigo cannot see, lurking behind him.

Karin is no longer afraid.

She’s terrified.

.

.

The hollow twists at the last second but it’s a critical hit. It staggers forward and drops to its knees, giving Rukia and Chad time to regroup.

Rukia’s breath is ragged from exertion. She doesn’t have the energy reserves necessary to end this fight, but she can stall long enough for Ichigo to arrive.

They make a good team, Chad and Rukia, it takes very little verbal communication to effectively coordinate their attacks. He tosses, she twists, they deal blow after blow. She wonders if it will be enough.

The trapped spirit cries in his cage. He pleads with the hollow, even as they have him on the ropes. His fear has solidified into an unyielding thing. It grips at him, drags him down, prevents him from making a single move.

All the while the hollow takes advantage. This one likes to talk. He brags about the night they all died. He croons that Yuichi’s mother looked so beautiful with scarlet in her hair. He tells them that in her final moments she did not beg for her son, but for him to stop. He’d known many women like her, but nothing tastes as good as your last meal.

Chad’s stomach roils at the implications. He burns to shut him up.

So Chad throws all of himself into one final punch. The white mask cracks.

.

.

Karin does not know why it’s this spirit with whom she feels this strong a kinship. She doesn’t know why the last vestiges of her denial are being ripped away from her and shredded before her eyes.

What she knows is this:

Her life is wrong.

How did she get here?

.

.

Ichigo considers his begging sister.

They’re almost home.

He turns around.

.

.

The hollow shatters into pieces, flying apart and dissolving into nothing.

Chad has become fixated on his fist. He can’t look away. He is both intoxicated and frightened of his own strength. He just slayed a dragon. He just conquered an army. He summited a mountain. He has done the impossible with just this hand. Once, he swore to his Abuelo that he would never raise it.

He wonders if Abuelo would consider this his own defense.

Never raise a hand until you have extended it.

But a monster cannot reach back.

He’s made the right decision, but it does not feel like a victory.

“Are you alright?” he asks both Yuichi and Rukia. The latter stares at him in shock, then calculation.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says with her eyes. He nods.

Moments later, Ichigo arrives on the scene with Karin still in his arms. He sets her on her feet and looks around, searching for impending danger.

“It’s over,” Karin assures him breathily.

He looks to Rukia for confirmation, she nods too.

Karin approaches Yuichi and Ichigo follows close behind, at the ready in case of a fall. She kneels in front of the bird and Ichigo falls over himself trying to keep her upright.

“I’m fine,” improbably, Karin laughs and pushes his hands away. “Hi,” she greets the bird, more politely and patiently than she’s ever greeted a living human.

“Hello,” perhaps Yuichi senses their kinship too.

“My brother is going to take care of you now, okay?”

“Can I… Can I stay with Chad? He’s nice.”

Karin agrees, “if you want to stay, you can.” Rukia opens her mouth to argue, but at Ichigo’s quelling look, she silences herself. “I understand, I’d want to stay too. But if you move on, you can see your mom again. And there’s a whole other world waiting for you. You won’t have to be a bird anymore.”

“I don’t mind being a bird…”

“I know you’re scared,” Chad joins Karin on the curb. They make a strange picture: a giant and a tiny tomboy kneeling and conversing with a cockatiel on the side of the road, flanked by two schoolkids with grim expressions. “But everything will be okay.”

“And I’ll get to see her again?”

“Yeah,” Karin smiles and thinks of Masaki. “I’m sure she’s been waiting for you all this time.”

“Okay,” Yuichi agrees, “I’m ready then.”

Rukia pulls on her glove. Ichigo braces himself for a blow that doesn’t come. Instead, she places her hand above his heart and gives him a gentle push.

Ichigo falls out of his body gracefully. Chad catches him before he falls.

“Yo.”

“Hi.”

“...Hey.” Karin says breathlessly, looking not at his body, but at his soul. For the very first time.

Ichigo has five konsos under his belt, but each time is just as brilliant as the last. He gently presses the hilt of his sword to Yuuichi’s forehead (or whatever a bird has?). Aquamarine light guilds the cage and the next moment Yuuichi is gone. The bird is just a bird.

.

.

It’s Friday night and Ichigo just wants to sleep.

But he’s got homework.

He’s mentally exhausted, he’s hit his threshold, he just wants to be alone. Monday looms out in front of him like a spectre. It’s so far away but he knows he’ll blink and the reset button will be hit.

He taps his pencil against his notebook as he fixates on the next problem. Three more and then he can get back to the half-read novel lying cover-side down on the corner of his desk.

Rukia is sitting on his bed, reading Volume 2 of Super Kaiju Maids (“Maids who transform into giant monsters to fight EVIL!”), her back against the wall, feet peeking over the edge. Her head tilts sideways and eyes widen at a particularly suspenseful part. She squeaks and gasps with the twists of the plot.

Ichigo sighs, he’ll finish tomorrow.

He grabs his novel and rolls his desk chair closer to the bed. He leans back and puts his feet up, his left ankle, brushing Rukia’s thigh.

They read side by side well into the night.

[miximax-hell]

I always tell my friends that they’re capable of anything they put their mind into. But, personally, I should know my limits and act accordingly. And considering how INCREDIBLY long it took me to finish this piece for such a poor result (despite the fact that I was just trying to replicate official art, so I had all the help in the world), well, I would say this was my limit. But, hey, you’ll never know until you try, and all practice is good practice.

That aside, hello! For today’s post, I decided to revisit the concept I started this blog with and work on a bigger illustration. It’s probably my least popular kind of post, but trying to mimic KH’s artstyle is kind of a blast regardless of the result or the struggle.

With Max’s and Kageno’s out of the way, it was about time I worked on Handa’s, since, you know, he’s my favourite character and all. I can be biased here, right?

So, it might be a good time to talk about HanRoku’s reasons to be.

Well, well, well. This is coming at the beginning of April when my last post was on January, and even that was just to celebrate the fact that, somehow, over a hundred people have decided to follow this blog. I’m not even going to pretend I’m way too busy to work on stuff--it’s just been a fantastic combination of things that made me want to... stop. I hit a big wall where the ideas I had were being a tad too difficult to pull off in a satisfying way (I swear to God, Kidou, your hair is impossible to work with), and I was either not in the mood to do anything or more focused on other and, at the time, more fun endeavours. I was super passionate about my graduation thesis, for example--and that went rather well, thankfully.

But, boy, I loved Kingdom Hearts 3. No bad mood or task was going to keep me from sinking hours into that game somewhat regularly. Playing it filled me with immense joy, and seeing Roxas again after so long brought me to tears. It made me think a lot about finally finishing (or trying to finish) this big piece... and it caught me very rusty, which led to hours, hours, hours, HOURS of work for what I have already described as a disappointing result. I mean, it’s not the worst I have ever drawn, but... well. It could definitely be much better, and I’m rather tempted to rework it in the future. I hadn’t touched my tablet in ages and it shows. Nor my pencils. Just my brushes, but that was just to paint doggos and Life Is Strange-inspired landscapes.

And the best part is that the illustration ISN’T EVEN COMPLETE because the rest would actually be a spoiler for a fic of mine called Zero. If you check the official art I linked above, you’ll see that what my illustration shows as a black area is actually filled by a completely separate illustration. I know what I want there, but, as I said, it’d spoil the story, so, yeah. Talk about a work in progress. I hope I can finish it all one day...

Anyway, enough pointless ranting! Thanks for putting up with me. To reward someone who has made it this far without getting tired of me, I’m giving away a Steam copy of Batman: Arkham Origins, along with all of its DLC. If you want it, please shoot me a non-anonymous message~ There is absolutely no need to follow me nor reblog/like this post, although it’d obviously be greatly appreciated. The first to ask for it will get it. And, please, don’t follow me for future giveaways--I doubt there will be any. Now, let’s talk about HanRoku. That’s what you clicked on that "read more" button for.

The beginnings of HanRoku are ancient at this point. We’re talking 2012 or 2013, and that’s INSANE. For how long have I been struggling with this project?! Goodness gracious. Anyway, at the time, Chrono Stone was hitting all of the right notes for me. Time travel? Check. People that transform to become more powerful? Check. Fusions, because I've watched too much DBZ for me to not love that? Check. And one day, for reasons that have been lost to time, but probably have a lot to do with the aforementioned fic, I realised something. Zero was supposed to be a story about how Roxas mingles with Someoka, Handa, Aki and mostly Endou, but then it hit me: Roxas and Handa are actually... extremely similar.

To those who have never played Kingdom Hearts, PLEASE GO PLAY KINGDOM HEARTS. And to those who couldn’t care less about what I recommend them to do, KH is a story that, under a deceiving cover full of Disney characters and confusing plot points, makes a deep and rather interesting point about what the true nature of the soul is--even if they insist on calling it “heart” instead. What is a soul? What is it for? Who, or what, has a soul--and why? Is the soul linked to the mind or to the body? Is it even possible to have a body and not have a soul? Is the soul something you’re born with or something you can/must acquire over time? What makes it grow, and what is true strength of soul? You know, for a game where you hit cute Hot Topic monsters with an oversized key, that’s pretty darn cool.

I talked more about this way back when, but I’ll give you a brief summary of the main reason why Handa and Roxas are such a perfect match: they are both people looking for their place in a world that actively acts against their very existence. They have no purpose and are simply tools for other people to shine and/or achieve their goals. That is obviously not a good, fulfilling life.

But, well, after all these years of ruminating and thinking (and crying) about HanRoku, there has to be a bit more to it than just that, right?

Obviously (and even more obviously after Kingdom Hearts 3), Roxas is very strong. Very strong. What he lacks in existence, he makes up for in raw power. For someone like Handa, who is so overlooked due to being okay at everything but not great at anything, this is massive. Even if Roxas doesn’t make him stellar at everything, he doesn’t need to. He still gives Handa enough power to become an extremely invaluable asset in the field and a force to be reckoned with--especially early on, since Handa is the first original Raimon player to get a miximax and all. I’ll talk more about HanRoku’s powers in the future.

But the usefulness in the field is only the first part, and even that is debatable due to the post I linked to earlier and the fact that, well, he sure will be special and super strong when no one else can mixitrans, but he won’t be once the whole team can do so. I mean, let’s count: Endou, Gouenji, Someoka, Max, Kageno, Megane, Tamano... That’s 7 people, when there are only 11 players on the field at a time. Handa would only be at an advantage over 3 people. (And if you’re going to tell me that he’s still the only midfielder with a miximax, thus making him special on his own, that’s a perfectly valid point and you should congratulate yourself for having such a keen eye.)

What really shines about HanRoku, though, is how mutually symbiotic their relationship is. Even if their struggles are so similar at heart, the reasons why those struggles exist are not.

Handa’s problems come from not being good enough at anything to be really... indispensable. Sure, he can do pretty much any job at any given point and be adequate enough at it, but he’s never the first option. He has no place of his own in the team; not one thing only he is capable of doing. And that leads to all kinds of problems of self-worth and trying to find a purpose. He will leave Raimon and no one will remember he was even there.

Roxas is completely essential to Organization XIII, but he’s been reduced to a killing machine that they are trying to replace with a better and more obedient one, thus taking away from him the only reason to be he ever knew and making him question his very existence. Once Org XIII disposes of him, no one will miss him--and that’s made even worse by a certain plot point: Nobodies disappear from the memory of everyone who ever met them once they are defeated/killed.

Of course, Roxas would help Handa immensely, as stated earlier. That’s kind of the point of this whole ordeal. But here’s the catch: Handa would help Roxas too. By leaving a part of himself inside Handa (that sounds extremely wrong, but please bear with me), he knows he will never be truly forgotten no matter what happens to him, and his life will ultimately have a purpose: to help a friend in need find his own worth. But let’s not forget that Roxas has only been alive for less than a year, while Handa has been struggling with his demons for over a decade without ever giving up. Despite having the world against him (or, at the very least, definitely not on his side), Handa is still going at it, trying his best, fighting for what he believes in, dealing courageously with the fact that he’s just an ordinary boy in a world of amazing people in order to help them achieve their ultimate goals. At a time when Roxas felt like his existence was worthless, meeting Handa, a boy who challenges his own self to find an identity that may not even exist, is truly inspiring. His selflessness, his love towards his friends and his neverending efforts to be better give Roxas a reason to stand up to the norm and fight for what he believes is right: in this case, to save his few and treasured friends.

Handa and Roxas find in each other a mirror that, for the first time in their lives, shows them in a new light that gives them hope for the future. They learn from each other, complement each other, improve each other, inspire each other, share a deep bond of friendship and trust, feel stronger and braver when they are together, and make a fantastic team. A team of throwaways, a team of tools, a team made of convenient replacements that will one day become obsolete. But a team that, however, is much greater than the sum of its overlooked parts, and will achieve incredible things when they eventually figure out just how unique and special they both are.

Talking about HanRoku makes me very emotional and it’s difficult to convey my feelings about them when I’m choking on my own tears, but I hope you can all understand why I love these two so very much. And if you can’t... well, feel free to ask me any questions you may have! I’d love to find new ways to describe why these two are so precious to me.

[miximax-hell]

There have been people, some truly wonderful souls, who have followed my blog during my long period of absence. For that, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I don’t deserve that kindness. With that out of the way, hello! Once again, it’s been so long... And that’s exactly we won’t delve in the past now. Let’s get right to it!

Today’s miximax is one that can barely be recognised at all unless you’re specifically told who the vessel and aura are. So, just in case my handwriting is THAT awful, we’ll be talking about Sakuma’s miximax today! For him, I’ve chosen a wonderful character that is, quite literally, part of the history of videogames as a whole. After the news about a new Smash coming soon, the promise of Metroid Prime 4 for Switch, and the very successful (AND SPANISH) remake of Metroid II, it feels like a great time to bring Samus Aran into the battle! The coolest intergalactic bounty hunter there ever was makes for a very simple-looking miximax, but it was still quite tough to draw because of RUST. Ah well. No one to blame but myself.

Anyway, I think this deserves a proper explanation, so let’s see why these two make for a fantastic combo! For more on that, please check under the cut. As usual.

Well, you’ve made it this far, so let’s delve a little in the past now. ww Just yesterday, I finally finished writing my graduation thesis!! That means I’m finally free... for a little while. Just enough to enjoy half a month of debauchery AND SPEND TIME WITH MY GIRLFRIEND, WHOM I MISS VERY MUCH. Oh, and my internship ended about two and a half weeks ago, too. While I am free in that sense as well, I can’t say I’m a scriptwriter and game designer right now, which kinda sucks. But they might still hire me...! And I’m ruminating some exciting ideas of my own. I highly doubt the company I worked for will be interested in them, but, well, it’s worth a shot. And good practice, in any case. So, yeah! I hope you’ve all been well!

Anyway, let’s get right to it. A single paragraph of my life struggles was enough. ww

This is still a fairly small blog with less than 100 followers. And it will always be because of how niche it is. ww Not only that, but most of said (active) followers aren’t even friends of mine, but the aforementioned kind souls who, somehow, grace me with their presence here. That means that, for example, if I were to go on Twitter to talk about my projects for this blog (as I’ve done a couple of times in the past), only one or two of my friends would give a crap about it. And that’s assuming they see those specific tweets at all! Otherwise, the reactions I get are non-existent unless I’m specifically mentioning someone. And even that is far from being failproof. So, whenever I want to share my ideas with someone, develop them through conversation or brainstorm, there’s only one person I can rely on: my lovely girlfriend. She’s patient and super supportive of my work. Bless her soul. I’m so in love with her.

Anyway, thanks to how much I’ve ranted to her about SakuSamus, I’ve already typed down most of what needs to be said about why I think these two work so well together. I can also get away with mostly copying and pasting what I already told her over Skype and simply adjusting it a bit to make it more readable as a blog post and adding some extra details. ww So, let’s get to it!

Coming up with proper combinations for this blog can sometimes be a chore and require a lot of overthinking. However, as the wonderful @miyukiko​ would say, great ideas suddenly come to you sometimes. This had a bit of both. I'll try to skip the uninteresting bits of the creative process, but this is the important part.

Now that we've seen Sakuma in Ares and he's obviously won a lot of... prominence, if you may put it that way, it felt like a good time to take a closer look at him. Sakuma is a forward, and a pretty talented one, at that. When he becomes captain in the Ares timeline, though, his team comes to rely on him on a much deeper level too. Or so it seems, at least. To top it off, his descriptions in the original games say that he helps Kidou and acts as a strategist that coordinates the team. That’s pretty much the base we can build upon.

As a forward, he seems pretty thorough and tries to stay cool and calm, since that's the kind of soccer they play at Teikoku. And, from what we've seen in Ares, as a captain, he worries so much about his team's well-being and about being a good leader for them. You know, the usual "Am I fit to be captain?" thing that IE loves so much. ww

But there's a lot of bad stuff about Sakuma, too.

For one, despite his cool act, when he loses it, he loses it good. We all know how he reacted when he was part of Shin Teikoku and how extremely mad he would get with Kageyama, for example. Also, when he does lose it (and, arguably, even when he’s still somewhat sane), he's very self-destructive.

I think that's somehow linked to his fears: he simply doesn't want to be left alone. He panics when Kidou leaves Teikoku and, again, loses it completely. When his insanity reaches that kind of point, nothing else seems to matter, so he goes all out even if it can cost him his life. Or his legs, at least.

Related to that, and this is much more relevant in terms of sheer gameplay, he is extremely dependent of others.

He's supposed to be some super cool ace striker, but absolutely all of his shots are combo hissatsus no matter what timeline or age you’re looking at. Koutei Penguin 2gou and 3gou, Twin Boost, Death Zone, Deep Jungle... They all need 2-3 people, and, usually, Kidou's involved.

So, tough as it is to say, if Sakuma isn't by Kidou's side, he's subpar. And if he's all alone, he's basically worthless. And to add insult to injury:

He usually depends on people who aren't even forwards to score goals.

He is turned into a defender as an adult because, as I said, he's subpar as a forward if he's alone.

That makes Sakuma a very interesting case: in a universe that is all about the power you get from of your teammates, what he lacks is individuality. ...Especially when you consider that his only motivation to play soccer seems to be to play with Kidou. www

As he is, he's the absolute definition of support character. Pretty sad, if you ask me. (Oh. And many of his in-game hissatsus are very dirty and the referee complains more often than not about them. That counts too. ww)

So, here comes the difficult question: who can give Sakuma the strength, the individuality and, partially, the safety that he needs to be relevant without killing himself? After thinking about it for quite a long time, I felt like he could really use the power of Samus Aran.

(Not to go all BuzzFeed on you guys, but the answer would’ve surprised you if I hadn’t said it from the very beginning. ww)

On a technical level, Samus is strong af. Not only has she survived to and successfully finished every mission she's embarked on (as far as I’m aware), but she's pretty much exterminated full races, DESTROYED PLANETS and killed the same evil pterodactyl alien... thing that wants her dead like 11 times by now.

And what's more: she's done all of this completely alone. (Except maybe for Other M. I haven’t played that game yet, but it looked like there were more people, idk) All in all, she's a beast. But that's not all, of course. There are many heroes who go and do their thing alone. It could've easily been Lara Croft too, for example--at least in the original games.

Sakuma, as I said, seems to be driven by a will to be with Kidou and is very much dependent of other people. And when things go wrong and he loses it, he is... spiteful, to say the least. And I don’t know if you guys were aware of this, but Samus is 120% salt. I read a post about the hatred between Ridley and Samus that when Ridley was announced for Smash and all, but I sadly can’t find it right now. If any of you guys know that post, please let me know and I’ll add the link here because it was SO GOOD.

According to my limited knowledge on the Metroid Series, Samus fights three main things: metroids (you never saw that one coming, I'm sure), space pirates, and Ridley (who is the leader of the space pirates, but is not a space pirate because I, too, would listen to my Evil Pterodactyl Lord if he were to give me orders).

Long story short, the space pirates and Ridley killed Samus’s parents. She was adopted by people from a civilization called the Chozo, but the space pirates killed the Chozo too. And when Samus found a baby metroid that saw her as its mother, the space pirates and Ridley kidnapped the metroid and it eventually died because of them.

Samus doesn't fight for the greater good. Samus fights because she's fucking pissed.

But, unlike Sakuma, she uses that rage against the right people and in the right way: she is still salty as hell, but she stays cool, kicks ass, makes everyone go boom, and she's out. She does what Sakuma does, but better. Even when she's pissed. Oh, and she does things the way they should be done: with legal permission, without turning evil and stuff. And she's super respected and feared because of it, which is precisely what a captain and a forward should be like, respectively.

And the icing on the cake?

In IE3, when Sakuma has levelled up enough, he learns how to use Space Penguin. also, Samus has a visor thing that can replace Sakuma's patch and that sounded cool to me

Anyway, that would be the gist of it! As I said earlier, I’m not the biggest Metroid connoisseur in the world: I’ve only beaten Fusion and Zero Mission, and I’m currently playing Prime and Return of Samus. As such, excuse me if some other game I haven’t played debunks all I’ve said, but I haven’t found any traces of such a thing. ww

However, despite my few experiences with Metroid games, Samus is a character I love and have very fond memories of. This series represent what I love the most about the video game genre: that sense of continuous and hard-earned improvement that only comes from experiences that are constantly giving you new abilities (and even new looks) to reflect your progress. It’s similar to RPGs, a genre I love as well, but RPGs reward you more for personal progress and dedication, such as grinding for levels, and not (usually) so much for just pushing forward and defeating bosses.

Last (and least), for those who have made it this far, here’s a little something you might be interested in knowing: I’ve been inactive here, but I’m still constantly trying hard to come up with interesting ideas for miximaxes! And I think I have found some cool stuff for both Kidou and Shishido, so feel free to tell me on which of those you’d like me to work on next. They’re both very challenging to draw and fiddle with, but I’m always happy to shift my priorities in any way you guys want me to. ww