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mostlycompetentwriter · 4 years ago

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Road Not Taken (one-shot)

Part of the Stray Wolves Series

F/M Pairing: Y/N x Bang Chan (SKZ)

Warnings: Smut, Explicit Language, Lots of dirty talk, breeding kink, mentions of knotting, heavy degradation...basically, this is pure filth (but only at the end)

Word Count: 5.5 K

Genre: Werewolf AU; Marriage AU

Summary: It’s true that Bang Chan, the legendary pack alpha of the Stray Wolves, had never felt the need to take a mate until he met Y/N, the much-younger she-wolf who stole his heart. As the pack alpha’s mate, there are certain expectations that she must meet in her position, but she’s still learning while also getting into trouble with her close friends Seungmin and Jeongin.

Honestly speaking, the concept of mates and mating had never held any influence over me until the day I officially presented as an Omega. Suddenly, the idea of growing old with someone while taking care of our pups seemed like a scenario that I desperately needed in my life. Consequently, it consumed all of my dreams involving the future, but I still didn’t expect a proposal from my pack alpha whose dimpled smile made me feel incredibly special.

For starters, Chan was much older than me, and he was friends with my older brother, Jisung, who was caught off-guard by our sudden romance. You see, Chan became pack alpha after our last leader formally retired, and he had been serving in his place for many years. It was always customary for the pack alpha to find a mate, but Chan didn’t seem to favor the traditional approach. In fact, many of my pack members thought that he would never find a mate.

At least, until Chan approached me one morning after the two of us spent the day hunting together, which wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Despite being Jisung’s friend, Chan and I were fairly close, and I liked spending time with him because he never saw me as a younger member who still needed time to mature. And maybe I was young and reckless, but Chan never treated me like I was something to coddle, even if his overprotective instincts occasionally intervened.

When I officially mated with Chan, the entire pack was shocked. It seemed somewhat scandalous considering our age-gap and the numerous women who Chan had passed on throughout his tenure as alpha. But Chan had never concerned himself with the opinions of others, and he simply brought me into his life like I had always belonged next to his side.

It was an enormous responsibility, and I was still learning how to properly navigate the complexities of my responsibilities as pack Luna, especially in consideration of my age. But I wanted to do my best for Chan since he was giving me everything that I wanted, and, for the most part, I stayed on my best behavior for him, even if it was sometimes hard to resist the occasional moment of mischief. Especially when my friends Seungmin and Jeongin were involved, and they were a big part of the reason why our little trio had been deemed the pack’s troublemakers.

Maybe that’s why Chan always hesitated whenever I brought them up in conversation, and I carefully studied my mate from the warmth of our bed as dressed himself in regular clothes. “What are your plans, love?” he asked while busying himself with the buttons on his shirt.

“I don’t know,” I answered mindlessly. “I’ll probably just spend the day with Seungmin and Jeongin.”

Chan grimaced at the mention of their names, adjusting the leather strap of his belt as he considered me with dark eyes. “Just be careful,” he said, approaching the bedside to lean down and inhale deeply against my neck.

“I’m not a kid,” I grumbled against his touch, squirming around on the mattress.

“I know you’re not,” Chan said, smirking when he pulled back. “But it’s my job to worry about you.”

“You don’t have to worry all the time,” I protested, but Chan’s smile was still warm as he left our shared bedroom, and I waited until I could hear the sound of the front door closing before jumping out of bed.

When I was barely of age to leave my mother’s side, I met Seungmin and Jeongin by accident. Apparently, the younger two pups had formed a formiddable alliance, and they always did their best to push the limits of their mother’s patience. They were brothers by blood, but they were also best friends, and I never thought that I would find a place in their dynamic.

However, when we met for the very first time, I found out that Seungmin and Jeongin shared a lot of the same mischievous nature that often resulted in my mother apologizing to the older wolves who complained when I disrupted their frequent slumber. Because of our natural inclinations for mischief, I found myself joining the brothers as we wrecked havoc and mayhem on our other pack members who were certainly not impressed by our hijinks.

I’m sure my past behavior contributed to my pack’s hesitance when Chan accepted me as his mate. After all, they would be expected to show the pack Luna respect, but that was hardly feasible considering who I liked to keep in close company. Initially, Chan had tried to discourage our meetings by forcing Jeongin and Seungmin to join as many hunting and border patrols as he could manage. But we still found ways to see one another, and I think Chan gradually decided that he couldn’t stop the inevitable, even if his most recent warning to the brothers had forced them to reconsider some of our more impressive pranks...

“Are you sure about this?”

There was a slight note of trepidation in Seungmin’s tone, and it matched the look of insecurity on his face as we stood outside of the abandoned house in the woods. It was fabled among our pack’s younger members to be haunted, and some of the elder had warned us that it was strictly off-limits which, of course, stoked my curiosity. So, I scoffed at his hesitation because both Seungmin and Jeongin had been excited to talk about visiting the house last night. Yet, confronted with the real thing, they were both suddenly the world’s biggest cowards.

“Come on, guys, we all want to know what’s inside,” I said, reaching back for Seungmin’s hand.

“Yeah, but if it’s something bad...” Jeongin trailed off, and his eyes widened with a sudden realization. “What if Chan finds out?”

“He’ll never know,” I assured him. “Let’s just go inside and look around.”

I started forward without an ounce of hesitation, walking up the front steps of the house’s porch with confidence. I could also hear Seungmin and Jeongin following me from behind, and I took that as a good sign that my friends has refused to feel intimidated by my alpha’s attempts to ruin our fun. After all, what’s the worst that could happen in an abandoned house?

With this in mind, I reached out to open the front door, and it was unsurprising when I found it unlocked, allowing it to fall back against the hinges. The inside of the house was musty and old, and there was a foul smell in the air like the house was hiding something that was slowly rotting away. Whatever it was, I nearly gagged around the smell as it assaulted by sensitive nose, looking back over at Seungmin and Jeongin who both wore matching expressions of disgust.

“Where is that coming from?” Seungmin asked, and I allowed him to take the lead as we walked into the first room.

It appeared to be some form of kitchen, and I could identify dozens of places that might generate such a foul-smelling stench. “This place is disgusting,” Jeongin said.

“What did you expect?” I snorted.

“It’s really cold too,” Jeongin remarked, and I startled when I realized that he was right, and that was a bit strange considering the weather outside.

Nevertheless, I continued my exploration of the house, leaving the kitchen and approaching some of the rooms at the back of the house. I heard Jeongin and Seungmin laughing at something in the kitchen, but I paid them no mind as I opened the door to the first room.

It wasn’t anything special, but there was a bed in the middle of the floor and a closet near the heavily boarded-up window. I exhaled slowly, walking across the creaking floorboards as I noticed something strangely familiar tickling my senses. My wolf was suddenly on high-alert, and I was trying to look for anything that might be triggering the hair-raising response to whatever I was smelling that was right on the edge of my consciousness...

“Y/N!”

I nearly jumped out of my skin, spinning around on my heel at the sound of Jeongin’s high-pitched shrill. “Hey!” I shouted, leaving the bedroom door wide open as I retraced my steps to the kitchen. “What’s going on?”

“Y/N.” Seungmin’s voice was hushed, and the two boys were standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a defensive posture. I stood on my toes to look over them, and I felt my breath hitch at the back of my throat because standing at the entrance to the kitchen was a man. But I knew immediately that he wasn’t just an ordinary human who happened upon the house...

“Vampire,” I whispered, but not like our neighbors who lived in the mountains. These were rogue vampires who had been cast aside, and they were left without the necessary vampire bonds and fresh sources of blood required to sustain them. It certainly explained the metallic smell that had been all over that bedroom, and it provided justification for the lack of sunlight penetrating the inside.

This vampire was in the late stages of decay, and his blood-red eyes revealed that he was in no mood for our playful adventure. In fact, I could detect the hunger in his gaze, and I reached for Seungmin’s arm because I knew that we were in trouble.

“We need to get outside,” Jeongin said, and I nodded in response.

Because this vampire would not last in the sun, and it was our only possible form of salvation since there was no fighting a desperate vampire.

“Start walking the other way,” Seungmin said, and the three of us started to back up carefully, keeping the vampire in our line of sight as we tried for another means of escape.

However, I had taken no more than a couple of steps backwards when I felt another cold blast hit me from behind. I immediately stopped, and it caught Seungmin’s attention. He turned around to confront me, but his eyes widened and I knew that he had found the source of that chilly presence.

There was more than one vampire in this house.

“We’ll have to fight,” I said, and Jeongin whimpered at the idea.

“Stay close,” Seungmin said, and we formed a protective circle as the Vampires started to approach, fangs bared and with sinister snarls interrupting the quiet of the kitchen.

I held my breath, waiting for the right opportunity to shift, when I heard Seungmin let out a warning growl, and I realized too late that the first vampire had launched himself at my friends. Our circle was broken, and I nearly lost my balance at the force thrown against me from behind. Yet, it also created the perfect opportunity for the second Vampire who quickly took advantage of the distraction.

I fell to the ground hard, groaning at the pain jolting through my shoulder from the impact. But I was given no time to consider my injuries as my adrenaline kicked in and affected all of my concentration. It was enough to take my mind away from the fall, but not enough to muster an offensive strike. I was left playing defense with a rabid Vampire who knew that I was much weaker on my own.

I whimpered as the Vampire stood over me, teeth glinting menacingly as he hissed in my direction. I closed my eyes at the harsh sound, ready to accept my fate at the hands of the cruel Vampire, when a familiar howl broke through the haze of fear and confusion. And I realized with a barely-restrained gasp that an enormous jet-black wolf had suddenly attacked the Vampire, saving my life. I took a moment to catch my breath before using the counter to help myself stand up again, looking around the room at my pack members fighting the Vampires who had almost successful in their campaign.

I winced when I realized that the familiar jet-black wolf was my mate, and he was savage in his assault. Yet, at the same time, I realized that Chan was not inflicting much damage to the Vampire - almost like he didn’t want to harm it. I was puzzled by the consideration, but a quick tug on my arm alerted me to Changbin, our pack Beta, who was yelling at me to join the others outside.

I immediately obeyed his order, trying to avoid the Vampires and Werewolves engaged in heavy conflict, noticing that more Vampires had somehow joined the attack. But the escalating situation was left behind for the much-needed sunlight, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I found Seungmin and Jeongin unharmed. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” I said, allowing them to wrap their arms around me in familiar embrace.

“Y/N,” Seungmin said, looking at me with concerned eyes. “The house is protected by King Felix. It’s meant to provide a place for rogue Vampires to die in peace.”

I swallowed hard at the mention of the Vampire King who Chan had tried so hard to maintain good relations. “What have we done?” I asked, turning around at the sound of an all-too familiar voice.

Of course it was Chan, walking with our pack members as they diligently followed their alpha. He was talking to an older Vampire, one who I had never noticed before, and she was positively enraged as she practically screamed in my mate’s face. Apparently, the situation had evolved into something that held far more consequences, and I had never felt so ashamed.

When Chan came closer, I shivered at the rage in his eyes, and I refused to meet his gaze when he pulled me behind him. “We’ll talk later,” he growled, reminding me of the intimidating alpha who was feared throughout the neighboring packs.

“King Felix marked these lands as neutral,” the older Vampire said. “And you agreed.”

Chan stepped forward, keeping his hands behind his back as he addressed the elderly woman who sneered at my pack mates. “I’m sorry for their intrusion,” Chan said, bowing low at the waist. “It won’t happen again.”

“I hope not,” the old woman said. “You should train your pups to behave.”

I could feel myself blushing at being categorized as a pup when, as the pack alpha’s mate, I was expected to be one of the most mature members. It had a chastening effect, and I cowered behind Chan with my wolf’s tail metaphorically caught between my legs. Surely, everyone else in the pack would find out about our misadventure, and if they thought the same thing as this older vampire...

I shivered, resisting the urge to whine and lean into Chan’s familiar weight.

“They’ll be disciplined,” Chan reassured the vampire, glancing at me from the corner of his eye with a look that screamed punishment.

“I’ll let this go since it’s your first infraction and my vampires weren’t harmed,” she said. “But if I catch any of your wolves out here again...”

She closed her eyes as if she wanted to control her latent rage. But Chan understood the inherent warning. “The agreement was made for everyone’s protection,” Chan said. “This is the last time you will see wolves here.”

The older vampire snorted before retreating inside the house, and I tried not to whine when Chan took a firm hold of my arm, pulling me along next to him as we returned to camp for the evening.

The pack alpha’s cabin was located strategically at the back of our defined camp where Chan and I could find privacy together. I usually savored the distance from my pack mates, but I was feeling increasingly wary following my embarrassing blunder with the rogue vampires. The idea of spending unsolicited time alone with Chan was suddenly an intimidating prospect.

Still, it wasn’t in my nature to avoid my mistakes, and I followed Chan inside our shared cabin. He paused at the entrance to remove his shoes before heading in the direction of our bedroom, and I quickly followed his lead. Even as my wolf cautioned us to approach carefully, I didn’t want to exhibit that kind of behavior around Chan because it would only contribute to my immature image.

“Hey,” Chan finally addressed me, standing in front of our dresser. “Sit down.”

I held my tongue, eliminating the few steps to the edge of our bed where I deposited myself on top of the mattress. My weight sunk down into the foamy material, and I supported myself back on my arms, waiting for Chan to speak again. In the meantime, I fought the desire to try and explain myself since I knew that speaking out of term would only infuriate my older mate.

“What did your mother teach you about Vampires?” Chan asked. “Or, did you not pay attention?”

I flinched at his cruel tone. “She told me they were our enemies and that I should avoid them.”

“Did she?” Chan questioned. “Because your actions suggest that you ignored that lesson.”

“I’m sorry, Chan,” I said, deciding that, instead of justifying my bad behavior, I should try and appeal to him instead.

“I don’t really think you are,” Chan scoffed, looking at me from over his shoulder. “In fact, I’m wondering if you were even serious when you agreed to be my mate.”

I shuddered at his claim. “How can you say that? I love you, Chan.”

“You can love me and still be unprepared for the responsibilities of pack Luna,” Chan said. “Otherwise, you would think twice before putting yourself in situations where you could send a bad example to the rest of our pack.”

“I’m ready,” I insisted. “I want to be a good mate for you.”

“Then you better start proving that those aren’t just empty promises,” Chan growled, and I was thoroughly unprepared for his sharp tone. “What if you had gotten hurt? Those rogues weren’t able to control themselves, and you put yourself and your friends in danger.”

“I didn’t want anyone to get hurt,” I said. “It was a mistake.”

“I’m so glad you realize that,” Chan said with heavy sarcasm. “Why didn’t that cross your mind before taunting a group of vampires?”

“We didn’t know that there were vampires in the house!”

“Have you lost the ability to smell?” Chan snapped. “Why didn’t you take precautions?”

“I-I guess we weren’t thinking about that,” I said, stumbling over my answers to his difficult questions.

Chan sighed, turning around to look at me before his eyes grew darker, and I found myself on the receiving end of an approaching alpha with malicious intent. Instinctively, I crawled backwards on the bed, colliding against the headboard while Chan closed the distance between us, looming over top of me with one hand wrapping itself around my throat. It wasn’t enough to cause harm, but to send a message: “One second,” Chan said. “That’s all they need to snap this pretty neck.”

I swallowed hard, and I could feel my throat constricting from his powerful grip. “Channie,” I whispered. “You don’t know how sorry I am.”

He closed his eyes, leaning in closer to inhale sharply against my scent gland. “What if I had lost you?”

The words sent shivers down my spine because I could feel the heavy and warm humidity of his breath coating my skin. I stiffened from my position underneath him, suddenly realizing that Chan’s concerns went beyond potential conflict with the vampires. Those rogues would likely never attack an entire pack of wolves unprovoked, but the delicate balance of life and death hung on a narrow precipice when it involved younger wolves playing foolish games. “I’m still here,” I assured him, releasing calming pheromones to alleviate the ripe smell of fear masking his usual scent.

“You can’t do these things anymore,” Chan said, lifting his head to look at me. “Do you understand?”

I nodded in response, keeping steady contact with his stormy gaze. “I’ll be better for you, Chan.”

He sighed, and there was a sudden change taking hold of his demeanor, hardening the corners of his eyes and the harsh upturn to his upper lip. The transformation was subtle, but his scent was becoming thicker, a reminder of something dominant lurking beneath Chan’s soft, curly hair and dimpled smile. I knew better than to push him in this state, so I simply bared my throat, relaxing my arms across the bed.

“Such a good bitch when she wants to be,” Chan growled, and I swallowed hard, eyelids fluttering closed when his nose pressed into my swollen scent gland. His teeth nipped the delicate flesh, and I could feel his tongue tracing the ridges of his faded mark. Chan released another warning snarl, telling me to keep still for him while he examined my body with wide, studious eyes. Under any other circumstances, I would’ve considered it intimate, but there was something that Chan wanted to prove, and he was waiting for the right opportunity.

I watched as he explored my smaller figure, hands gliding along my waist while his nose inhaled along his journey south, exciting my senses and the wolf inside of me who was impressed by her mate’s display of alpha dominance. However, I couldn’t help but think that it was embarrassing to feel his nose press into the private junction between my thighs, and I squeezed my legs around his head when his tongue attempted to lap at me through the fabric of my pants. Chan growled, lifting his head to send me a warning look, pushing open my legs to continue his exploration of the place where my scent was most prominent.

I had no idea what Chan’s motivations were, and this unfamiliar territory was making my inner wolf increasingly desperate. However, I knew better than to question him, and perhaps it was nothing more than a display of strength meant to send me a warning against disobeying him. Whatever it was, I certainly liked the attention, even if it was difficult to fight the temptation to run my hands through his hair.

Eventually, Chan sat back on his heels, watching me through narrowed eyes. “Take off your clothes,” he said.

I squirmed on top of the mattress in pure delight, eager to please Chan since I knew that our argument was, more or less, finished, and he was clearly waiting to re-stake his claim. “Okay,” I replied, complying with his order as I unbuttoned my shirt and jeans, removing them with careful movements. Then, I let the bundle of clothes fall into the floor before I adjusted my position again, keeping my arms splayed out across the sheets.

Meanwhile, his eyes swept across my naked form before Chan’s evaluation continued, but this time he was undeterred by the barrier of my clothing, and everything felt heightened without them in place to stop him from attacking smooth flesh with his teeth. Nipping at the sensitive skin and leaving marks that would remain visible for days.

His hands also made themselves comfortable on my hips, holding me in place while his mouth did most of the work, tasting my scent gland until I was light-headed from his efforts. When he pulled away to catch his breath, I recognized the oily residue from my scent gland painting his lips. It was an erotic sight, and my wolf howled in delight when she could smell our intermingling scents permeating the air around us.

And I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Chan’s mouth until he reached down for the hem of his shirt, tossing it aside to reveal his sculpted torso - nothing but defined planes of hardened muscles. It was a beautiful distraction, and I didn’t even notice when his jeans disappeared next, leaving him in nothing but the boxer shorts that did very little to hide the evidence of his arousal. My mouth immediately started to water, and I could feel myself practically salivating at the prospect of his thick cock hiding beneath a layer of fabric.

“You have a beautiful body,” Chan said, and I beamed at his compliment. My smile didn’t last, however, when he ghosted his tongue over one of my nipples, staring up at me from a curtain of long lashes. I watched his hands as they reached out to squeeze my breasts, testing their weight with a heavy groan. “They’ll be even bigger full of milk for our pups.”

I inhaled sharply at the mention of pups because every instinct desired nothing more than to breed with my mate. It was a result of centuries of survival genes embedded within our DNA, and our inner wolves wanted to pass them onto our children for the next generation. For most werewolf couples, they always wanted the same thing, and Chan had only spoken to me briefly about having pups in the future. But Chan was responding to his alpha’s natural inclination to breed his mate, and he growled at the back of his throat, tugging on my nipple with his fingers while his tongue prodded at the hardened peak.

“It hurts,” I whined, even though I was aroused by his practiced tongue attempting to soothe the harsh sting of his sharpened canines.

Chan glanced up at me before pulling away to survey his work, nodding in satisfaction before moving down my body once again. I could never predict his next movement, and I gasped when he started to nose against my pubic bone, warm breath tickling the sensitive skin. This time, he could inhale my scent straight from the source, and it didn’t take long for his tongue to lick a long stripe against my slit.

Immediately, I arched my back in response to the pleasurable sensation, closing my eyes as his hands tightened their grip on my hips and forced his tongue inside my pussy, eating me out like he couldn’t get enough of my taste. I whined at his aggression, and more of my juices collected down the inside of my thighs. Chan purred when he realized, and he slurped loudly around my clitoris, bringing the engorged bud between his teeth.

I wrapped my fingers through his hair, making a mess of whatever style he had attempted. But it only made Chan look even more appealing, and he rumbled deep in his chest as he chased after my taste, lapping at my juices as if trying to consume every last drop. “Y/N,” Chan said, and his voice was husky and guttural.

“It feels so good,” I said, and Chan hummed around me, supporting himself higher on his arms so that I could moan at the sight of the wetness surrounding his mouth.

“Get on your hands and knees for me,” Chan requested.

I nodded, turning onto my side and trying my best to support my upper body on thin arms and trembling legs. I wasn’t surprised by Chan’s request because the position was the ultimate sign of submission, and it was most often used during heats and ruts since it was best for breeding. The thought had me shivering, dropping my head against the pillows as I felt one of Chan’s hands run down the smooth expanse of my back.

I jerked forward when he landed a quick slap to my ass, and I let him mount me, legs caging my thighs between his stronger ones, moaning when the fat head of his cock brushed against my ass. His actions were incredibly rough, and I could smell his thick alpha scent as it clouded the air with a cloying mixture of fresh pine and something much darker. But I was also surprised by my body’s compliance, allowing Chan to press against my lower back and force me into an arch.

“Are you ready?” he asked, and I hummed in acknowledgment, groaning when he slid in without resistance, and my pussy swallowed his cock greedily, desperate to milk him of everything that he had to offer me. “What a tight pussy,” he commented, forcing himself inside the rest of the way with a slight hint of desperation.

I moaned when I realized that he was completely buried inside my wet heat, and I could practically feel the tip of his cock against the head of my cervix. There was nothing comparable to the feeling of fullness weighing heavily on my lower body, and I curled my fingers into the sheets to stop myself from rutting back against his cock. “Chan,” I said, shaking my head as tears started to form.

“Be patient, Y/N,” Chan said, and he pulled his hips back so that just the tip of his cock remained before slamming back inside with an unprecedented amount of force. I was completely unprepared because my legs weren’t strong enough to hold me up against his vicious thrust, and I fell forward against the bed - turning my head to the side to breath as Chan continued his rapid thrusts inside of my pussy.

“Is this what you want?” Chan growled, nipping at the back of my neck. “Do you want me to stuff you full of pups?” I whined at his words, even if I knew that it was impossible outside of my regular heats. “You’d look so good after I bred you,” Chan said, pumping his hips faster as if he was trying to make that idea a reality. “Like a good little bitch.”

I cried at his filthy language, burying my face further into the mattress as I let Chan do whatever he wanted to me, moving me along his cock like I was just a warm hole for him to use whenever the moment was convenient. “Oh god,” I whispered as he switched angles, hitting my g-spot perfectly on every upward thrust.

“Maybe if you’re swollen with my pups, you won’t get into any more trouble,” Chan snarled, and I whimpered when his hand smoothed across my lower body as if imagining the swell of my bloated stomach.

“Please,” I said, reaching down for his hand to move it closer to my clitoris, encouraging Chan to touch me while he continued to pound into me over and over again, pushing his cock deep inside to the point where I could imagine feeling him at the back of my throat.

It was an abrupt descent from there, and he continued to stimulate my g-spot and clitoris perfectly because he knew my body so well after all this time together. Still, my orgasm hit me like a freight train, and I nearly screamed at the intensity, noticing stars along the edges of my vision. There was no strength left in my body, and I collapsed into a pile of heavy limbs while Chan continued to chase his own orgasm, growling when his knot started to swell in place. I whimpered, closing my eyes because it was starting to overstimulate my exhausted body, but Chan held me in place and sighed as he filled me with his cum.

For a moment thereafter, I was convinced that I would pass out, but I was able to control my breathing and steady my accelerating heart rate, feeling Chan fall onto the bed next to me. “Hold still,” Chan rumbled, adjusting my leg over his hip as he pulled me tighter against his chest, fingers petting over the place where his knot was securely stuffed inside my sore cunt.

“Channie,” I whined, and it was a pathetic sound resulting from the steady feeling of his cum pulsing from his engorged length and the harsh way that he handled me, like he could fix me into any position that he desired.

“Are you gonna cause me any more trouble?” Chan growled directly into my ear, and my inner wolf howled at our predicament. There was no better way for Chan to assert his dominance - locking me onto his knot in submission, and lowering the regular pitch of his voice.

“No,” I managed, stuttering around a broken moan when Chan started to grind his hips, stimulating my throbbing clitoris to the point where it actually began to feel painful.

“Maybe I should just knot you all the time like this,” Chan said. “Then you can’t wander off without telling me.”

I gasped at the suggestion, turning my head to the side to expose my neck to him. It was a vulnerable position, but it pleased Chan who started heavily scenting the mark he had left on me - a permanent reminder that I belonged to him.

It was also a visible reminder of my place in the pack, and I was determined to stand proudly next to Chan’s side.

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pagingdoctorbedlam · 3 years ago

Text

Ready for zombies, Zoro, and some hurt/comfort? Then take a swig of this potion for @quirkyseastone ‘s “Brew a Love Potion” event! (But please read the warnings first!)

Characters: Zoro x Reader; appearance by Bartholomew Kuma

Genre: Zombie/Apocalypse, Hurt/Comfort (a bit light on the comfort though, woops)

TW/CW: Violence, guns and swords, blood, light gore, mentions of cannibalism, undead bodies

Inspiration: The concept for zombies in this fic is inspired by the novel Breathers by S.G. Browne (at least, what I remember from having read it over 10 years ago...)

Word Count: ~3.1k words

...

"Hold still, we're almost..." You apply the last bit of blush before appraising your handiwork. Not bad, if you said so yourself. At a glance, Zoro doesn't even look dead. "There. Want a mirror to see?"

"I trust you not to doll me up too bad." Roronoa Zoro yawns, even though the legendary zombie hunter no longer needs to sleep, having recently been turned into a zombie himself. Which, contrary to popular belief, is not in and of itself a death sentence. Most zombies act as they did in life, even if their bodies no longer recover the way a living human's does. The danger comes from the zombies who try to stop this decay by feasting on human brains...and sometimes more dangerous are the humans who've decided that every zombie is a ticking time bomb regardless of said zombie's intentions.

At least Zoro had never been that way, but now he's got to hide from the hunters who once considered him a legend. Sure, it wouldn't be hard for him to fight off hunters, even if you've had to stitch each limb back on at least twice (and you're still not sure where one of his eyes ended up). But you'd rather your newfound partner in protecting innocent zombies not cause a scene simply by walking through the market.

"Remember, don't rub your face. This makeup cost me a fortune. And try to fake breathing this time, okay?"

"Yeah yeah, I got it." He manages to take a breath that's believable but isn't so deep that it rattles the loose bones and organs in his slowly decaying chest.

Both of you get to your feet and finish the rest of your preparations for the outside world. Your clothing hides as much skin as possible, even with the warm temperatures outside. You spray Zoro down with cheap cologne so he smells less like roadkill and more like a teenager trying to cover up a bad case of B.O. And you slip on filtration masks in a vain attempt to avoid the ever-present smoke and dust beyond your walls.

No one's sure if the zombies came about because of the bombs, or if the bombs were secretly launched because the powers-that-be learned about the first nascent zombies and failed with their pre-emptive strike. But now much of the world is a wasteland, and bargaining for resources is bad enough without half the population lobbing accusations of cannibalism at the other half. You can't hold off this trip any longer, because you've ended up looking after a number of innocent zombies, and they need medical supplies before they fall apart any further.

You shoo Zoro away from the driver's spot on your motorbike. "Nuh uh buddy, we aren't getting lost today." You've heard a new band of hunters is coming to town, and the last thing you want is to run into them before you have a chance to secure your supplies.

"I don't get lost! They just keep changing where the market is." Zoro still reluctantly waits for you to take your place at the front before he sits behind you and firmly snakes his arms around your waist. You pretend you can feel his pulse when he holds you, even though you know the heart in his chest has long stopped beating.

Markets are supposed to be neutral ground. Everyone needs resources to survive after all, and one of the few things that bombs and zombie outbreaks couldn't kill is commerce. Stalls line the aisles of what was once a grocery store, faded advertisements promoting foods that no one's seen in years, and someone has fixed the speaker system to play the same old pop hits in a vain attempt at normalcy.

You hold tight to Zoro's hand, both to keep him from getting lost and so he stays close in case of danger. He obliges, and even holds bags for you as you pull him around. You might've called this romantic in the times before, back when your purchases would've been far more frivolous than bandages and shelf-stable rations, but you're unsure how close you and Zoro would've been without being thrown together by circumstance.

You pause by one stall, eyes wide. Zoro doesn't notice and keeps walking until he notices that you won't budge. He raises an eyebrow when he finally joins you. "What, some kinda' plastic plant?"

"Not plastic. It's real." You forgive him the mistake though, as the plant has sturdy, waxy leaves that almost look sculpted. It feels like so long since you've seen anything green (aside from Zoro's hair), much less an actual plant. But you note the name scribbled in tape on its battered plastic pot. It's nothing useful, not medicinal or edible in the slightest. Just a begonia that hasn't even bloomed yet.

The shopkeeper asks, "Gonna gawk, or you gonna' buy?"

You know you can't afford a plant, what with how rare they are. You might be able to bargain and beg if it were something more useful, but...

"We'll buy." Zoro slams something down on the table. "This'll be enough?"

You catch the glint of gold peeking from between his fingers. Jewelry isn't useful anymore, but human greed has a hard time giving up old habits. The shopkeeper smiles wide and practically shoves the begonia at you with one hand while snatching up Zoro's earring with the other. You thank him and depart the stall without another word, clutching the flower close to your chest.

"What was that about?" You hiss at Zoro.

"Looked like you wanted it," he says with a shrug. You squint up at his remaining earrings, only to realize that in his haste to remove the one he traded away, he tore the hole in his ear a little in the process. Probably didn't even notice that he'd done so, the stubborn fool...

Well, what's done is done. "Thank you. I'll make sure to take excellent care of it."

"Don't mention it." Which you know is Zoro-speak for "you're welcome". So you smile back at him without saying anything more on the subject, and continue the rest of your trek through the market.

You make the mistake of thinking this is a surprisingly nice day. But you don't realize that someone has noticed how Zoro isn't bleeding.

When Zoro pulls out one sword and tightens his grip around your midsection, you don't have to ask why. You're being followed.

You absently wonder what gave you away. Never removing your masks? A smudge in Zoro's makeup that revealed the deathly pallor underneath? It doesn't really matter, you think. Whoever is after you will chase you down until they can swing their weapons and play at being heroes, so all you can do is fight on your own terms. You avoid going home and swerve the bike toward the burned-out husk of an abandoned store that not even the most desperate zombies would hide in.

You glance at the tilted rearview mirror on your bike. The figures chasing you are hulking brutes, but nothing compared to their ringleader. He's built like a brick house with legs, and his imposing figure is thrown off by the pristine white hat topped with small bear ears. Instead of a holstered weapon, he has a bible strapped to his side. You've heard of this man. Judging by the look in Zoro's eyes, he does too. One of the most notorious zombie hunters in the country: Bartholomew Kuma.

What is he doing here, of all places?

Zoro says, "Soon as we touch down, hide. It's me they want."

"I can't just leave you. You know who that is back there?"

"Doesn't matter. I already died once. They can't do worse than that to me. But they could still hurt you plenty. 'Specially if you came back before they were done with you." In the rearview mirror, Zoro's eyes are sharp and cold as his blades.

You know how to handle a weapon in self-defense, but you're nowhere near the master that Zoro is. And he has a point. You're still human, you can bleed, you can hurt. And that might chew Zoro up worse than anything Kuma and crew could throw at him. You resign yourself to your fate and think of where in that burnt-out building you might be able to hide, preferably while still keeping an ear out for danger.

You speed on, trying to shake your pursuers, but soon the road runs out. The bones of burnt buildings jut out before you like oversized tombstones. You remember scouting here before, trying to usher out displaced zombies before the remnants of the building could collapse on them. Much of the ruins have fallen since you were last here, but there's still a concrete bunker that was once a stockroom, and it's mostly intact. You can lay low there until the fighting's over.

You relay this plan to Zoro, and you tell him, "I'll be safe there, don't worry about me. Once the fighting's done, I'll come back down and patch you up. So don't die on me again, alright?"

Zoro nods, even though he surely knows the claim is more for your comfort than anything. He's a zombie, after all, and they don't heal the way humans do unless they devour human brains. He won't bleed, but if he looses a limb, or even his head? There's nothing you can do to fix that. And to be honest, you're not sure if that'll do him in, or if he'd continue living in pieces. You don't want to find out.

You park. And you know you should hit the ground running, but your heart is hammering in your chest. You turn to Zoro as he pulls out his blades.

You quickly put your warm hands on his cold cheeks and pull him in for a kiss. You two never attached words to what's simmered under the surface for so long, but in case of the worst...you couldn't handle him not knowing how you truly felt. He blinks as you pull away, briefly stunned. You wonder if he'd blush if he could.

You run into the burnt-out husk of a building. The touch of your lips on Zoro's is replaced by a sword between his teeth.

In another lifetime, before people stopped dying right and the world went to hell over it, this building was a clothing store. You shopped here for outfits you haven't seen in years. Once, a friend who worked here snuck you into the back room, and you ate cheap takeout while surrounded by wall-to-ceiling racks of clothing and shoes. If you took time to wipe away the dust, you might still find graffiti left by the workers during their final shifts. You wonder if your friend left one.

You cannot look because you are huddled on a shelf and trying not to make a sound. The shelves are sturdy metal and easy to climb even without the rolling ladder. You're hidden high above the heads of anyone who might come in and pressed against a wall. No one should find you here.

For awhile, you heard sounds from outside. Speaking at first, though you couldn't make out what was being said. Then battle, swords colliding and guns firing. Screams. Then...nothing. You don't know if it's safe to come out. You'll find out soon. There are footsteps approaching.

A voice you do not recognize says your name.

"Roronoa Zoro is dead. Again. I am sorry that it had to happen." Heavy footfalls contrast a voice that is soft, almost even kind. "I understand why you might want to save him. You've built quite a reputation for that, you know. But I'm afraid it ends here. We cannot allow you to keep any more abominations alive. You understand that is what they are, don't you?"

You know he's trying to goad you into revealing yourself. It takes everything in your power to hold still and silent.

Metal crumples nearby with a shrill squeal, as if it could protest its false bones being broken.

"If you were to go on a trip...where would you like to go?"

The question throws you off guard, almost enough for sound to escape your lips.

"We do not have to kill you. All the government wants is to talk. If you cooperate, you'll be transported somewhere safe. Free of zombies, even." More metal crumples, and you wonder how Kuma is doing it. Does he have a weapon, or is he strong enough to break the storage shelves with his bare hands? "All you have to do is come willingly, and when we're done, you can go wherever you'd like, and you'll be kept safe."

But the only place you can think of is home. With Zoro. No matter what might come after you there.

The shelf under you shifts, and your body spasms as if you fell in a dream and awoke with your mind still lurching. You reach for anything to grab onto, but your fingers only touch air. (For the briefest instance, you spy graffiti drawn by a familiar hand upon the wall.)

You do not immediately recognize the feel of the arms, because they are warm and pulsing with life. You stare up at Zoro's face in disbelief. He's missing an eye and his face is smeared with blood, mouth drawn in a thin line.

"You survived," Kuma intones softly. "You ate them." And you wish you could refute him, but even before he spoke, you knew it to be true. Zoro's bloody fingers dig into your clothes to hold you tight. You hear his heartbeat for the first time, and it rarely skips a beat. Kuma says, "Let your friend down, Roronoa. You don't want to do this."

"Think I'm some mindless cannibal? Think again." Zoro sets you down and looks you dead in the eye. "Told you I wouldn't die. And neither will you. Now, get out of here." Half a second before returning his sword to his mouth, his tongue flickers over his blood-stained lips. "Hurry!"

You do as he asks and flee to the doorway of the building. You know you should run to the motorcycle and drive out of here, but there are two problems with that. One is how you don't want to leave Zoro again. The other is that even if you admit the truth to yourself, that he finally gave in and consumed the brains of his enemies like the zombies he used to put down...you don't want to turn around and see what he did to the corpses of Kuma's followers.

The fight is swift and brutal. You've seen Zoro fight before, but while he's normally a whirlwind with his blades, now he's a demonic torrent. Much as he tries to stick to his traditional fighting forms, they slip into more instinctual slashes when Kuma pushes back, and the only thing that keeps Zoro on top is sheer ferocity. He moves so fast, you swear he's slashing three times faster than a normal man, leaving the afterimages of a three-faced demon. (You've heard rumors of zombies growing entirely new parts when they've eaten too much mortal flesh, but surely those are only rumors, survivors not understanding what they're seeing...)

Kuma is far quicker than his size would suggest. But even he begins to buckle. He blocks one blade with a bible far sturdier than it appears, and then lunges forward in a final desperate attack. Zoro braces to parry an attack, but is taken aback as no blow comes. Something metal and blinking is clasped onto his wrist.

"We will not meet again."

And Kuma is gone. You blink in surprise. You swore you didn't see him leave through the other holes in the building, didn't feel anyone pass you, and yet...

The normally composed swordsman growls as he sheathes his swords and tries to pry the blinking metal bangle (a tracking device, what else could it be?) off his arm. You want to approach him, but are unsure if you should; all you can do is watch as he uselessly paws at the bangle. Until he stops suddenly. You catch a glimpse of fresh crimson.

Zoro freezes as the reality of what he's done, what he's become, finally settles in. He's a statue slowly dripping red, most of which isn't his own. His breath shudders, and that too takes him off-guard. He sways where he stands, almost falling to his knees but somehow staying upright.

Before you can stop yourself, your feet carry you toward him, and you reach out. Your fingers brush against his back. He growls, "Don't. I'm not..."

"It doesn't matter what you are. You're still Zoro."

Gentle pushes at his shoulders turn him around so he faces you. His face has more color than you've ever seen, blood red and flesh pink and mottled blues and violets of bruises. His closed eyelid twitches as the eye underneath regenerates. How long will it be until all the color's gone, and electrical impulses run short to leave his heart to hang heavy and empty in his chest, and how much longer than that until he gets a taste for life again regardless of the cost?

That doesn't matter right now. The future looms taller and more frightening than Kuma, but right now, you're two scared humans in a broken warehouse. You wrap your arms around Zoro and pull him close.

For the briefest moment, you feel his mouth open, hear the click in his jaw. His teeth brush against your ear. You close your eyes and refuse to think about it.

His chin rests on your shoulder. Mouth closed. Arms wrap around you right and your hearts beat together, lungs scramble for air together, blood and worry (and tears, you think, but you're not sure whose) intermingle and crawl to a slow stop until only a numb and temporary peace remains.

"You'd be forgiven for walking away." His voice is raw and tired with the weight of living again and all that took.

"Maybe. But someone has to keep you from getting lost." You give him one final squeeze before letting him go. "Come on. Let's go home and get you cleaned up."

When morning comes, you'll have to face what the future holds for a brain-eating swordsman and the one who looks out for him despite it all. But tonight, the both of you are miraculously alive and breathing, and there's a green new plant in the window ready to soak up all the sunlight tomorrow can offer.

#seas brew a love potion challenge #opfanfic #roronoa zoro #zoro x reader #zombie au #hurt/comfort #bedlam writes

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pokelec · 3 years ago

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A Dead By Daylight Novice Reviews All the Killers' Trailers (and makes suggestions for what they'd change)

Reveal trailers are paramount for an audience's first look at new characters. First impressions are everything, so your trailer for your shiny new character needs to be perfect for what's in store for the video game! I started playing DBD a month-ish ago but watched all the trailers for the killers before I started playing, and watching some of them got me to thinking about how I would have changes some of the trailers. Some require no changes, while others I think need an overhaul.

Disclaimer: This is in my personal opinion, is not objective at all, and I'm only doing this because this is something I've been thinking about for a month and need some sort of release or else my brain will implode.

Under a read more bc this gets long.

The Trapper - The first trailer! For a first trailer, I think this one is pretty spot on. It follows a lot of beats of slasher movies, in terms of following a survivor that's gonna be killed, her encountering dead bodies, and the suspense of the killer looking for her. Considering Dead by Daylight is effectively a playable horror movie, I think this is a perfect intro to the game. As for what this means for the Trapper, aka our Jason substitute, I think it showed him off alright! We saw his bear traps and got a good look at him doing this thing. Pretty good, all things considered!

The Wraith - The Wraith, Hillbilly, and Nurse all features gameplay as the means of showing off what the killers can do. The Wraith's isn't too bad, since it does show off his Wailing Bell power enough for people to understand "This is a killer that can turn invisible, and you may not know he's right next to you until it's too late". I wish it has a more cinematic style, but I'll be forgiving here because DBD was still young when this was made. I also thing it showed the new map, Autohaven, pretty well. I'm not too big of a fan of ending the trailer with his mori, but that could be because I don't find his mori exciting.

The Hillbilly - Next is our Leatherface expy! This one feels shorter, still using gameplay to introduce our new killer but at least shows off his chainsaw wielding and hints at the map associated with him. I like the shot of him revving his chainsaw underneath the tree with the animal carcasses! I don't mind the ending with his mori here because even if it's off screen, getting cut with a chainsaw is brutal enough to leave a lasting impression. Again, I wish it had the cinematic style, but it's fine.

The Nurse - I think the Nurse's trailer is the weakest of the three gameplay-focused trailers. The text intro is... fine, but I honestly think it fits the Doctor more. It does an okay job of showing us her Blinking mechanics, but it also doesn't? Like we see her teleporting to Nea, but it feels lackluster. I do like the ending shot of dead Nea as the Nurse just blinks away. I'm not quite sure how to change this trailer to be more effective in my opinion, if I'm being honest.

The Shape/Michael Myers - Our first franchise killer, and a perfect trailer. The first second in, we hear John Carpenter's legendary Halloween score. Even non-horror fans will quickly pick up which killer this is. The suspense of Laurie see Michael, Michael coming up the stairs, and especially the shot of Laurie and Michael being on opposite sides of a door is *chef's kiss*. We see enough of the Shape to be satisfied and eager for his release. It's the perfect trailer for him AND Laurie imo.

The Huntress - Ah, the Huntress. She is my favorite killer to play as, and I probably have the majority of my playtime on her. Unfortunately, I think her trailer leaves a lot to be desired. It's the start of the 'let's look at the killer from different angles, have them turn around to the camera, and then attack the viewer' trend of DBD trailers. I call for a complete rewrite! Here's what I would have done:

The map is Mother's Dwelling. Two survivors (David aaaand idk Dwight?) are running and hides behind some trees. We hear the Huntress's lullaby get louder, and we see the bottom half of her and her axe as she walks past the survivors. The lullaby gets quieter, and the survivors take a sigh of relief. Then, a hatchet is thrown and lodged into Dwight's head! David screams and runs. We then see our full look at the Huntress as she picks up the body. Her signature lullaby continues as the trailer ends.

The Hag - The Hag's trailer also follows a similar formula to the Huntress' trailer. There is an animation bump, so we get to see the Hag's emaciated appearance in full detail. I'm not too mad about that, since the Hag's appearance is unsettling enough to cause viewer distress and curiosity more than the Huntress' would. However, because this is a DBD original killer, we need to see what her deal is with her trailer. Thus, I propose this:

On the swamp, Ace is repairing a generator but hears another survivor (Dwight?) get hooked. Ace goes to rescue him, but we see as he steps on a rune in front of the poor survivor. The illusion of the Hag pops up, jumpscaring poor Ace (and the audience) but disappears. Ace then rescues Dwight for real, but Dwight quickly runs away. Why? Because the real Hag is behind Ace and lunges at him, biting his neck. Trailer ends.

The Doctor - I now realize that my taste in writing DBD trailers is 'have the survivor do a thing, they think the killer is near, they then relax, and only then are they attacked by the killer'. It's a bit stereotypical, but again, we're dealing with a game centered on the horror genre, so that's why I'm okay with it.

I mention this because that's effectively the story beats the the Doctor's trailer follows. Instead of attacking Feng, however, the Doctor just looks at her run and stares menacingly. Even though we don't see the Doctor's shock therapy powers here, I think the long look at the killer is still effective because of his design. A first reaction I (and other reactors) experienced went from the initial "OMG the killer is here, run girl!" to "Why tf are his own eyes and mouth held open like that A Clockwork Orange scene?!". We also don't linger for too long on him either, so I think this trailer works well enough.

The Cannibal/Leatherface - Another franchise killer, this time good ol Leatherface! This trailer is a little different, using text to draw up suspense. I do like the reveal of "What is his mask made of? YOU.", but I would've loved to have seen some actual Cannibal action, or at least his in-game model doing his Texas chainsaw massacring thing.

The Nightmare/Freddy Kruger - Oh, c'mon, we got one of the most well known characters in horror in this little video game, and all we get for his trailer is some scratch marks and a 'killer does nothing but stand there menacingly and attack the camera' trailer?! I do like the detail that when we see him, it's DBD's version of the dream world, but we could've at least featured a survivor falling asleep and then seeing him for themselves.

(Also kinda sad it's the reboot version of Freddy instead of the Wes Craven version and the survivor is Quentin instead of Nancy Freaking Thompson, but I guess we should be happy he's in the game at all)

The Pig - Largely, I think this trailer is pretty good. I'm not too big of a fan of Amanda just standing there menacingly near Dwight, but I do like everything else. I especially love the security camera shot of the famous Saw bathroom and the cutaway when Dwight's reverse bear trap activates (but we still see a good bit of gore!). It feels very Saw-like.

The Clown - This trailer is pretty good! Even though we don't see the Clown in much action, we get a lot of visual storytelling with the bottles, the circus, and the ring of fingers, all leading up to the reveal of his face. The diagetic music from Kate is a nice touch, too.

The Spirit - This one is alright. There is a lot of focus on Adam, but it does build up tension to when the Spirit reveals herself. My biggest problem with it is the ending card that is used for her. Yes, I know that's traditional for the end of these trailers, but her pose and expression is kinda meh after the face she makes when she's about to attack Adam. Seriously, that couple of seconds haunts me (sorry) otherwise.

The Legion - My other favorite killer to play! It's so funny how I didn't like Legion when I first heard of them but now they're my favorites. I love how the trailer emphasizes that the new killer(s) looks similar to survivors and the brutality of when Frank reveals himself and stabs Jeff. However, the trailer does a disservice to the other members of the Legion. C'mon, that's their whole shtick!

My recommendation would be to end with a shot of Julie, Joey, and Suzie joining Frank (and obviously getting a good look at them) and surrounding Jeff right before they all stab him. This is a little disingenuous since you can't play as all four of them at once (unless you count that one Blighted skin...), but you also can't disguise yourself as a survivor, so... Yeah. They are The Legion! They act as one! Treat them as such in their trailer, dammit!

The Plague - The Plague's trailer is interesting. Even though we don't see her in action, I think it's fine because seeing her puke on people during her trailer might be a bit off-putting. Just a bit. We still get some storytelling with her whispered prayers, the candles and incense thingy, and, of course, her face. I think because the Plague's design is inherently unique among all the killers so far, she can get away with the 'let's just tease the audience by looking at the killer and nothing else' trend.

The Ghost Face - Not too much I can complain about with this one. I do like the wtf factor of 'wait, why is a DBD trailer at a modern day warehouse???', especially if you're watching a trailer playlist like I first did. It all makes sense when you learn it's Ghost Face, though! Also, justice for that poor cashier.

The Demogorgon - RIP Stranger Things DLC. I don't watch this series, but I really like the Hawkins Lab map and I'm going to be sad when it's gone. :(

I love this trailer! When I hear the Stranger Things music, it actually gives me chills. I'm legitimately so sad the DLC will be gone from the stores, but I do own them myself. I need to actually sit down and play Demo, Steve, and Nancy one of these days. Why am I crying? No, I'm not kidding, why is this trailer making me cry? Renew the contract, Netflix, please! I don't want this stuff to disappear forever!

(Is it weird that I've been nagged on for years to watch Stranger Things but it's Dead By Daylight that's actually convincing me to watch it?)

The Oni - This is an interesting case. The "main" theme of this trailer is the contrast of modern day Japan's Yui and her motorcycle vs the literal ancient samurai Oni. I think it works out, and again, I think the presentation makes up for us not seeing too much of the new killer.

The Deathslinger - Oh boy, do I love my cowboys! This trailer is nearly perfect. We establish the western setting quickly over the sounds of some poor bastard in pain. The reeling in of the chains and the closeup of The Redeemer is so great. My biggest complaint with this trailer is that we linger a bit too long on the Deathslinger's face at the end. Yeah, he's creepy with his eyes and his disjointed jaw, but you can only look at a horror for so long before you want to move on.

The Executioner/Pyramid Head - I like this trailer! I haven't played Silent Hills, but I'm at least somewhat familiar with the premise and Pyramid Head. I love the shot of him passing the classroom door window and the sword cutting a rift through the ground. Yeah, my lack of SH knowledge makes me unable to recommend any changes here.

The Blight - I have no changes to suggest. The Blight's transformation is super horrific, reminding me of the typical depiction of Jekyll and Hyde. Honestly, he is so much more terrifying in his trailer and in lore than in gameplay.

The Twins - No changes needed. BHVR is really starting to hit their stride with these trailers! Seeing Victor come out of Charlotte's body is amazing.

The Trickster - We depart from all of the other trailers by using an K-POP music video style. It does a good job at referencing some of his story beats (namely torturing/killing people, recording their screams, and using them in his music), but it doesn't really make me afraid of the Trickster. Sure, it fits with his theme, but I would have preferred seeing more of him, y'know, instead of just looking pretty and making faces? I still wouldn't change the art style of the trailer, though. It's fitting enough for him and a breath of fresh air from the doom and gloom.

The Nemesis - No change needed, mostly because I'm not too familiar with the Resident Evil series, but seeing Jill, the twink Leon, and Nemesis on-screen is a very cool moment. Also can we get an F in chat for Meg?

The Cenobite/Pinhead - This is a perfect trailer. We got the Lament Configuration, we got the chains pinning up Dwight, we got Pinhead himself! What more can I ask for?

If you actually made it this far, thank for reading? I don't think I really contribute anything to the fandom with this analysis, but DBD has been living rent free in my brain for the past month, so I may as well write something, eh?

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lumosinlove · 4 years ago

Text

Sweater Weather

Warmings in notes

part xiv

Gryffindor, 2015

Behind the blinding flashes of cameras, from up on the stage, behind the press table, and within the circle of microphones, Sirius could only see his mother’s face.

This was not what someone was suppose to feel like when they were drafted to the NHL.

This was not what someone was suppose to feel like when they looked at their mother.

Sirius took a small sip of water from the bottle provided.

“Sirius,” a reporter said. “How did your father, legendary player for the Slytherin Snakes, Orion Black, react to you getting drafted to his rival team?”

His mother’s mouth was pursed and cold at that. He knew what her eyes were telling him.

Renounce the draft. Refuse.

On the other side of the room, a few of the Lions players were watching. James Potter. Kasey Winter. Pascal Dumais, who he was set to be living with starting tonight. James smiled when they made eye contact. Kasey looked unfazed. Pascal was standing tall with his arms crossed. Sirius liked Pascal. He liked Celeste. He could tell they hadn’t thought much of his mother. There was another boy standing near them, too. He had an open face, and a training staff jacket on. He had his hands in his pockets and was looking at Sirius with a mixture of surprise and—Sirius thought maybe concern. Sirius didn’t like people to be concerned about him. He looked away.

“He’s my father first. A player second,” Sirius finally replied to the question.

It was such a lie. It tasted like ash in his mouth.

“Do you two talk about the end of your father’s career?”

Sirius stared down at the reporter, who looked back for a moment before shrinking away against his seat. Sirius knew what he looked like. Intense eyes, good for the ice, bad for people. Good for pissing off his parents. The twins of his brother’s.

“No,” Sirius said plainly.

There was a long, awkward pause as the room waited for Sirius to continue. He didn’t.

“Sirius, you’ve been considered a prodigy since you were very young, you must have thought about what team you would like to go to. How do the Lions fair against all those dreams?”

Sirius’ saw his mother take a step away from the wall. She had her hair pulled back loosely from her face, dark curls around her eyes that cast strange shadows in the bright press room lights.

Refuse.

How could he? Who did that?

It wasn’t like he was going home. Pascal certainly wasn’t going to hit him. At least, he didn’t think so.

“I’m honored to be considered,” Sirius said as neutrally as he could.

Someone stepped forward and waved the press away. Sirius stood up from the table, grabbing one of the tiny water bottles from it. He drained the entire thing in about two seconds flat. It had been a long day so far, and it was only ten in the morning.

“Sirius,” a woman with a Lions badge around her neck came up to him. She had introduced herself as Alice earlier. “So, we’ll get you going into the locker room, a few pictures in your stall, and then everyone’s got practice, so…” she smiled. “Pretty normal from there.”

“Okay,” Sirius nodded.

“Just try and relax into it a little,” she said hesitantly. “This can’t be the first time you’ve seen this many cameras.”

He wanted to laugh. He wished it were the cameras making him nervous.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll be better.”

“No, no,” she said hurriedly, eyebrows drawing together. “You’re doing wonderfully, absolutely wonderfully.”

Sirius blinked. “Oh.”

She smiled at him. “Yeah. Now, c’mon, let’s see you in that Lions jersey again! I was so damn happy when they called your name, you know.”

“Oh,” Sirius said again as they walked across the room. He glanced up, but the players had disappeared, along with the boy. “Thank you.”

She laughed. “Thank you. With your dedication, who knows what’s possible! Knock on wood, of course,” she winked and he smiled at her reference to one of his many superstitions.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “We have that bread brand you like for your pre-game sandwich.”

“How do you…” Sirius realized. “Minerva.”

“That agent of yours is one hell of a woman,” Alice said, and she sounded thoroughly pleased—maybe proud even.

“Minnie’s really great,” Sirius said. He really didn’t know how he would have survived everything without her. She knew his parents’ ways. She did her best to protect him. It wasn’t always enough, but he was thankful for it all the same.

They rounded the corner and Sirius felt his own steps slow.

“Alright,” Alice grinned, and stopped too. She looked from him, to the closed locker room doors, and back. “Ready?”

“Are the press already in there, or…”

“Yes, they go in through a different entrance,” Alice cocked her head. “Is that okay?”

“Yes,” Sirius said quickly. “Yes, that’s fine.”

“No more questions,” she assured him. “Just pictures. You just have to pose in front of your new stall, put your jersey on, and—”

Sirius smelled his mother coming up behind him before he saw her. He hated her perfume. He didn’t even know what it was. Something sickly sweet. Something floral. It made his throat closed.

He felt her hand on his shoulder.

“Pardon,” she said. “Hello, how are you?”

Alice smiled. “Mrs. Black—”

“May I have a word with my son before he joins his teammates?”

“Oh,” Alice looked towards the door again. “Well, I don’t see why—”

“Sirius,” came another, almost sing-song voice, and suddenly Pascal Dumais was there, hand sliding easily around Sirius’ shoulder, easing his mother’s away. His smile was broad, eyes crinkled. “C’est bon?”

“Hi, Dumo,” Sirius said breathlessly. He glanced at his mother, and then wished he hadn’t.

“We’ll go in now, non?” Pascal reached out and took Sirius’ mother hand between his own in a caress. “We are very happy to have your son, Madam. We will take good care of him.”

Mrs. Black looked on with an open mouth. “I—”

“Will we see you at the opening game of the season?”

“Well—”

“Pity,” Pascal laughed brightly, then patted Sirius’ back. “Allez, mon fils.”

My son, Dumo had called him.

Sirius was two steps from the door, Pascal’s warm palm gentle between his shoulders, when a colder hand closed around his wrist and he was yanked backwards harshly. He let her do it.

“You remember what we talked about,” his mother hissed at him, gray eyes hard and flicking to Pascal, who was standing very close, smile gone, hazel eyes firm on her. “Do not make any mistakes. Do not.”

Sirius began to take a step back, and her hand tightened. He let it.

“Oui, maman,” Sirius said softly.

“The press is waiting,” Pascal said in a clipped tone to Mrs. Black, and then, much more softly to Sirius. “Your team is waiting for you.”

Pascal turned Sirius towards the locker room, the two doors meeting to form the large Lions logo, a dark red and gold.

Sirius’ team.

The one his father had thrown his wine glass over the night they found out that the Lions had received the first pick of the first round in the draft. The team his little brother had bought a hat for, sneaking in Sirius’ room to show him late that night. They hadn’t really spoken since.

Sirius spared one last, brief thought to Regulus, but pushed it away. Regulus was too obedient to be in any danger.

“You do the honors,” Pascal said. “Allez, go on.”

Sirius pushed the doors open.

The locker room was large and round, exactly what Sirius was used to, and not at all. In this locker room, his mother couldn’t follow him in. He wasn’t going to be hated for being the best. Jealousy was less of a problem. They were already in the NHL.

“Hey, Mr. Prodigy!”

Sirius looked up and James Potter, half dressed in his hockey pants, was walking towards him with a wide smile, glasses still on and hand out. He stopped in front of Sirius and Pascal.

“James Potter,” he said when Sirius shook his hand, only to be pulled into a half hug and slapped on the back. “I’ve really been looking forward to meeting you.”

“Nice to meet you,” Sirius said, trying on a smile as a camera flashed, catching the moment.

James hesitated, smile flickering, but he swept his hand out towards where Sirius saw that their stalls were beside each other.

“Neighbors, eh?”

“Guess so,” Sirius said.

He looked at Alice, who nodded, and so Sirius took his jersey from its hanger. He held it for a moment. The maroon was deep and soft, and the golden lion stood out against the black piping. Two gold stripes flashed on the sleeves as Sirius spun it around to get a look at his name and number. They was there, in black figures, bold and real.

Sirius was a Lion. He belonged to Gryffindor now, at least for a little while, no matter how anyone felt about it.

He pulled the jersey over his head, and let the cameras flash.

It felt a little better and a little worse when the press went away. Better, because this was normal. Sirius knew the routine of practice, of listening to the coach. Worse, because Sirius didn’t know these guys. He wasn’t allowed to know these guys.

Renounce the draft. Refuse.

“Excuse me, Sirius?”

Sirius looked up from where he had just begun to lace up his left skate.

The boy in the team jacket was there again, soft smile and sandy hair, strong shoulders and chest. If not for the jacket, Sirius would have wondered which teammate he was, and how he hadn’t recognize his face. He’d poured over the Lions roster one million and one times.

“Hey,” the boy held out his hand. “I just wanted to introduce myself real quick before you get out there. I’m Remus, Remus Lupin, I’m a trainer here and on the PT staff.”

Sirius nodded slowly. Remus Lupin had pale skin, a few freckles, and tawny eyes. Sirius felt a familiar, startling tug in his chest, and pushed back on it so hard, so quickly, he thought he’d snap. It left him breathless. Remus smiled again, and Sirius heart pushed forward harder.

Remus Lupin wasn’t a trainer. For Sirius, he was dangerous.

Sirius closed off his expression further, and took the hand only for a moment. “Hi.”

It seemed to do the trick. Remus’ smile faltered and he took a step back. “Um. Yeah, okay. Just let me know, alright? If you need anything.”

“I will,” Sirius said, and looked back down.

He thought he heard some murmurs from beside him at that. Which was fine. They could hate him. They could think he was an ass. He wasn’t going to be here that long anyways.

Even if he wanted to be.

Gryffindor, 2016

“I want to stay,” Sirius said, clutching the arms of the chair in Coach’s office. “I want to stay.”

McGonagall, sitting beside him, laced her fingers over her dark tartan skirt. “My client has spoken, I believe. What protections are you prepared to put in place?”

Arthur and Alice looked at each other.

“Protections?” Arthur said. “Well, there’s already a trade restriction clause in there,” he tapped the contract on the table, “but…”

Alice bit her lip as she looked at Sirius. This boy who was barely nineteen, knuckles white. This talented boy who she had barely seen smile. She thought of the cold woman who had gripped Sirius’ wrist on his first day as a Lion. Make no mistakes, she had hissed.

“I believe…” Alice took a breath. “Minnie is referring to Sirius’ wish—”

“I mean publicity,” Minnie said. “A very hard field to control, I am aware, however—should there be sources that say things contradicting what Sirius has said in this room…”

I want to stay.

“Our players come first in Gryffindor,” Alice said firmly.

Minnie leaned forward. “I thank you for that Alice. I really do. But this is a…delicate matter. We all heard what Sirius said, that he wishes to be a Lion, however, there are people who cannot, as of right now, know that he has said this. I am asking you to protect his decision. I am asking you to support his decision while—”

“While not flashing that he made it,” Alice said slowly. She looked at Sirius again. He was looking down, entire body tense as his phone lit up from where it was on the table. It had done that four times, just in the last twenty minutes.

“I’m sorry,” Sirius murmured, and declined the call. He had a thick accent, stumbling over the English he wasn’t quite used to speaking all the time.

Maman, the contact had said, again and again.

“We can do that,” Arthur said, looking at Alice, and nodding at Minnie. “No one will blink twice at us wanting to keep the best player in the League. Even if Sirius was requesting a trade, he’s fresh out of his rookie year, players need to earn the right to make calls like that.”

“Exactly,” Alice agreed. “This is just as much about locker room and team etiquette as it is about PR and media. And that’s good for us. For all of us. Everyone can feel very secure about staying right where they want to be.”

She probably sounded like she was babying him, saying it so blatantly like that, but it didn’t matter to Alice when Sirius blinked up at her with his pale eyes and smiled, just a little.

They all looked up when there was a commotion from outside. A shrill voice was speaking, words unintelligible through the walls, but Sirius stood so fast he nearly knocked his chair over.

“Minnie,” he whispered. “Elle est là?”

McGonagall stood, too, just as the door blew open.

Sirius’ mother stood there, hair casting curled shadows on her high cheeks. Sirius watched as she took in the scene in front of her. Sirius, Minnie, Alice, and Coach. Already, Sirius’ breathing was coming faster. Old bruises, long faded, began to ache. His stomach seized up and rebelled.

“What’s going on here?” Mrs. Black demanded.

“A meeting, Walburga,” Minnie exhaustedly.

“I was not informed,” she snapped, and then turned her eyes on Sirius. “I have been calling you.”

“Mrs. Black,” Alice said cooly. “Your son is nineteen years of age now. You are not required to be present—”

“Shut up,” Mrs. Black snapped, and turned on McGonagall. “What do you think you are doing?”

“I am working with my client,” Minnie took a step forward. The two women were identical in height.

“The trade, then?” Mrs. Black said, and turned back on Alice. “Is it done?”

“No,” Coach Arthur said. “We will not be trading Sirius. Now, ma’am, I’m not sure how you got in here—”

“C’est ordure!” Mrs. Black shrieked. “Sirius. Do what I say.”

Sirius was—embarrassed. Shame coated the inside of his mouth like tar. He should comply, just to get her to leave, to get her to stop yelling.

“Your son is doing exactly what you want,” Alice said, and even matched her tone to sound regrettable, even annoyed. “Why he would want—why either of you would want him to be traded away from one of the leading teams in the League—”

“Cheaters,” Mrs. Black snarled. “Dirty play, you mean.”

“—is beyond me,” Alice pushed on. “But, unfortunately, your son doesn’t have as much power here as either of you think he does.”

Sirius stared at Alice. She was doing it. She was getting him out. She was letting him stay.

Mrs. Black was staring, too. “My son is the best player in the League.”

Arthur laughed. “And so, why would we let him go? Now,” Arthur stood. “I am going to ask you to leave one more time, otherwise I will have security escort you out. This is a private meeting that does not concern you.”

“I am his mother!”

“That means nothing here, Walburga,” Minnie said, smoothing her skirt and sitting back down.

“This is a trick,” Walburga sneered, and walked forward to Sirius. She grabbed his hair, tightly, nails digging into his scalp. “You think you can trick me, mon regret?”

Sirius closed his eyes. My regret. The shame was bile, now. He wished for anything, anything good. He wished to stay, he wished for his team to want him, he wished for anyone to want him. He wished.

“Mrs. Black, get your hands off of my player,” Arthur boomed.

Sirius didn’t know how officers got into the room, but then his mother was yelling in French, ripping her arms out of their grasps as she walked with a high, stiff neck out of the office, the door slamming behind her.

Sirius could still feel them, her fingers, digging into his neck.

“Sirius?”

It was Alice’s soft voice. Sirius opened his eyes and looked up. He hadn’t realized they were still closed.

“Are you okay?”

Minnie patted his hand carefully, knowing he wouldn’t want to be touched. “She’s gone now, my boy.”

“I’m okay,” Sirius managed. He looked around at them all. “Thank you. Thank you, I…”

“Of course,” Arthur said. He was a little wide-eyed. Sometimes Sirius forgot that, to most of the world, that wasn’t normal.

“Well,” Minnie said into the silence. “If that’s settled…”

Sirius sunk back down into the chair. He felt like he had skated three straight periods, double shifts.

“Actually,” Arthur said, clearing his throat and sitting. “There is one more matter I’d like to discuss. Well, more of a question, really.”

Sirius looked up, dread turning over in his stomach all over again. But Arthur was smiling at him gently.

“I’ve talked to some of our key team and staff members. Dumo, Pots, Sergei. Even our rookie O’Hara had something to say, but when doesn’t he? And me and the coaching team have put lots of thought into this, too. Sirius, you’re a leader on the ice. You make our boys better. You’re very kind, and a steady presence in the locker room, if not…reserved,” Arthur laughed a little. “Well I hope that will change a little now that…” his eyes went to the door that Mrs. Black had stormed out through. “Now that you are able to really feel safe and a part of our organization.”

Safe, Sirius thought. He couldn’t even fathom it.

Arthur leaned forward.

“Sirius, we want you to be our captain.”

Gryffindor, 2017

They were playing the Penguins. Sirius was still getting used to the C stitched onto his jersey.

The game was going to overtime. Crosby and Letang wasn’t letting anyone close enough to Murray to get anything done. Sirius was exhausted, but shook his head when Coach motioned to pull him in during a break for out of play. He wanted to end this. James stayed out, too, and Brady switched for Sergei.

“Let’s go, eh, Crosby?” Sirius popped his mouth guard back in and leaned over for the face off.

Crosby didn’t reply, eyes already on the puck.

Sirius won it. He knocked it back to James, and then shot forward, yelling for it back. Sergei checked Malkin hard, both of the spitting at each other in Russian, but at least it got him out of the way. There was a clear channel for James, and then the puck was back on Sirius’ tape.

Crosby loomed in front of him, stick long with his strong reach, but Sirius dodged. Murray was probably too far away still for any good chance, but the clock had seven seconds on it and damn it if Sirius was about to go to a shoot out. He took the shot.

He could almost feel it hit the back of the net. Before he was thinking about what he was doing, his arms were up, stick in the air. He heard James yell. It wasn’t until he saw that James was smiling, that Sirius realized he was smiling, too. So hard that his cheeks hurt. He watched James slow down as he neared him, all too used to the lesser celebrations that he thought Sirius preferred.

“Fuck yeah, Cap!” James shouted, smile wide. He was still a few strides away. Sirius’ heart was racing a mile a minute. The goal felt—different. It was just a goal, just one game, but Sirius…he wanted his team. He wanted James, his friend.

Sirius grinned back at James and held out his arm. It was better than the goal, watching James’ face drop in surprise, and then light up again.

To anyone else it would have seemed like a split-second of a moment.

James took the last few feet to dig his skates in, one, two, three, four, and slammed into Sirius against the boards, knocking their helmets together. Sergei came in on the other side, looking more surprised, but smiling.

“Very nice, Mr. Black,” he said.

“Thanks,” Sirius said breathlessly.

James held on a little longer as they skated over to the bench, but let go to bump gloves down the line.

The boys started piling out of the boards to celebrate the win. Sirius received a very loud kiss on the side of his helmet from Pascal.

“Bravo, mon fils,” he said softly, eyes bright.

Coach slapped him on the back, smiling as they filed off the ice. “Atta boy, kid.”

Sirius was about to disappear down the tunnel when a soft voice stopped him.

“Good game, Sirius.”

Sirius stopped, eyes falling on Remus and his own bright smile. It sent the same bubbling heat through Sirius’ heart as it always did. Logan was tapping him on the shoulder, telling him to keep moving, and so Sirius used the excuse of pushing a stick up towards one of the little kids leaning over the tunnel entrance. Just to look at Remus a little longer, in the bright lights of the ice.

“Merci, Fruit-Loop,” Sirius replied, and walked down the dim tunnel still grinning.

Gryffindor, 2018

“Snape’s been eye fucking you all game, eh?” James had said in the first period, a distant memory now. “We should keep an eye on him.”

Sirius had waved him off with sarcastic replies. Well, I’m pretty. Dirty snakes, nothing new.

“Don’t move, Sirius,” the doctor was saying now. The crowd was nearly silent. It was eerie and strange. Players milled about on the ice, the Snakes keeping their distance for once. Second period, ten minutes left on the clock.

The pain was radiating from Sirius’ leg like nothing he’d ever felt. He was dimly aware of his blood pooling on the ice, the grotesque look of his white bone against the white ice, sticking through his skin. He was breathing too hard to be normal, sweating. James was crouched by his head, gripping his hand and shoulder. James’ knuckles were bloody and bruised, a sight that must match Snape’s cheek.

“It’s a bad break, alright?” the doctor said. "We’re getting you the stretcher now. Try to breathe.”

But Sirius was only half listening. Staring straight ahead, all he could focus on were the wide, amber eyes gazing back at him. Remus. It was all he could do to keep from screaming. He kept looking at his face. He didn’t know exactly why it calmed him so much, why he suddenly wanted to keep it in sight more than he wanted morphine. Remus had his hand pressed against his throat, eyes darting between Sirius’. Maybe Sirius could tell him he wanted him right now, and pass it off as pain induced delirium.

Sirius bit out answers to the doctor on autopilot.

Yes. No. Dizzy. Numb. Ten. He was used to pain. But not this.

“Was it him?” Sirius said through his grit teeth to James. He kept his eyes on Remus, Remus who wasn’t looking away. Remus who was good, who healed, who helped.

“Yes, the fucking—” James said back. “Fuck, Sirius, fuck.”

The lift onto the stretcher felt like a whip. His father’s rings slicing his cheek. His mother’s nails. The bruises, the aches. Remus disappeared from view as he was placed on his back to be taken down through the tunnel.

Snape loomed up at the edge of the ice, black hair stringy with sweat. He gave nothing away. There was no apology. There was nothing.

Sirius had thought he was safe. But he should have known better.

The hits always came.

Gryffindor, 2020

Sirius let a lot of people do a lot of things to him. He let them make decisions for him. There was someone who decided what were the best foods for him to eat. What were the best ways to phrase his sentences. The best people for him to be seen with, and when. And those were people who were trying to help him. Who did help him. He was thankful to them, willing to give up a little control.

His mother. His mother had always been a different story. The control had been less control, and more restriction. Punishment. Less sleep, less food, more hours in the weight room. Sirius still caught himself at it sometimes. He’d have a bad game and find his entire appetite gone.

Sirius looked down at the sandwich on the counter, untouched.

The ice. The ice was different. It was only on the ice where no one had control except him. He called the shots, he wore the C. He helped his teammates, and his teammates helped him. There was no punishment for a bad game on the ice. There was support. There was next time.

This wasn’t the ice. This wasn’t anything he’d experienced at all. This wasn’t any help to anyone. This was out of a nightmare, one that he’d been having since he was thirteen, realizing he liked a teammate’s chest and smile more than any of the porn that got passed around, the girls that pressed up against him at parties.

Remus.

Sirius took a shaky breath in, pressing his palms to the cold marble counter.

Remus wasn’t a system, or a test, or a game-plan. Remus didn’t want him for what he could or couldn’t do. Remus didn’t punish him.

So, how on earth could he have been so selfish as to punish Remus? To take away so much from him.

Sirius had arrived at Hogwarts hours early, just to avoid anyone. He didn’t know how long James had knocked on his door last night. He didn’t even remember falling asleep. He didn’t know how many calls he had received, from anyone. He hadn’t checked.

He looked up at Remus, sitting across the table from him and looking down.

The hits always came.

The look on Remus’ face hit Sirius square in the chest.

This was old panic. Sirius knew that. It was the residue of things that had been ingrained into him for his entire life. But he couldn’t stop it. He had thought he was prepared now. Better now. Yet, here he was, frozen. Unable to even take a step towards the person he wanted the most. They sat in silence.

“Okay,” Alice said softly when her and Coach Weasley sat down at the table with the two of them. “Sirius, we know you have a plane to catch, and we don’t have too much time, but…let’s do our best, okay?”

She looked between the two of them. “How are you both doing? Would you like some tea or coffee? I know this is…this is…”

“Who took them?” Sirius said. “The pictures.”

“We’re not sure,” Alice replied. “A passerby maybe. Someone else in Remus’ building. Or a pap following you. It was New Year’s, after all. You get announced for All-Stars, you’re high-profile already, you leave your house just after midnight…it’s easy to assume you might be going to meet someone.”

“It didn’t come out on New Year’s,” Sirius snapped. “Why wait?”

“Money,” Alice said simply. “People bid on these things. Sometimes they take time.”

“It was my idea,” Remus said. He still wouldn’t look at Sirius, but rather calmly at Alice. “I don’t want Sirius to take any blame for that.”

Alice sighed. “The organization isn’t happy with you, Remus.”

“I figured,” Remus said faintly.

Sirius’ throat closed. If Remus was fired, he’d never forgive himself. He hadn’t even thought—they’d never talked about—

“In their eyes, you’re an employee. One that’s trusted with, well…players’ bodies.”

“Quoi?” Sirius burst out. “Like—like he’s some type of pervert? Like he manipulated me into something?”

“Someone in Remus’ position has access to private information,” Alice said, then put her hands out. “I am in no way saying that’s what went on with the two of you. And we’re here right now to figure out what we want to do and how we want to respond. I am here to fully support the both of you.”

“We both are,” Arthur said.

“What do they want us to do about it?” Remus asked.

“They’re trying to be…” Alice winced. “Party pleasers. They meaning, not just Lions organization, but mostly the NHL, the League. They’d like the Lions to let Remus go, showing they don’t condone,” she raised air quotes, “unprofessional relationships, but they’d also like Sirius to release a statement of confirmation.”

Sirius blanched. “Confirmation?”

“There have been rumors of this sort before, with other players,” Alice said. “But…those pictures don’t leave much to interpret.”

Remus scoffed. “So they’re willing to accept it just because they can’t deny it.”

Sirius silently begged Remus to look at him. He needed to see his face, just like that day on the ice with his ankle and Snape’s hit.

“Like I said,” Alice said with a dark look at the papers in front of her. “The League is trying to please their entire fanbase, which unfortunately includes lots of close-minded people.”

“That can’t be the entire fanbase. What about the other parts?” Remus said. “We’re here. And we aren’t the only ones!”

Sirius looked at Remus and his anger-flushed cheeks. “What?”

Remus looked at him, finally. He looked startled at himself that he had at all, like he had promised himself he wouldn’t. “I…I just mean we can’t be,” he looked away. “There’s no fucking way you are the only professional male hockey player who isn’t straight. I was nearly a professional hockey player and I’m definitely not.”

“Coach,” Alice said slowly. “If you’d like to talk about the organization’s position.”

Arthur nodded, and cleared his throat. “I am extremely willing to fight the board on this. I wish my leverage was that you’re both human and shouldn’t be judged in a professional setting on a personal relationship, or just at all. Jesus Christ, why are people so stupid? But…right now, my reasoning—the reasoning that will get their attention and sway their minds—is that we are two inches from a spot in the play-offs. Remus is known and loved by my team. He is a very valuable member of the Lions staff, just as Sirius is a very valuable player. That’s the simple truth on my end.”

“So, you can protect Remus,” Sirius needed him to say it.

Coach nodded. “Yes.”

“Good,” Sirius said, and rose. “Then we’re done.”

Alice put out her hand cautiously. “Sirius, as for your statement to the press—”

“Fuck the press,” Sirius said. “I don’t owe them anything.”

Alice’s eyes turned firm. “You will be asked about this at the All-Star game. You should think about what you want to say.”

“Was it not already said for me?” Sirius shouted, and the room flinched into silence.

Alice swallowed. “You’re right.” She looked between Sirius and Remus.

Arthur leaned forward. “We are so sorry that this happened to the both of you.”

“It was a horrible violation of privacy and you both have every right to be extremely angry,” Alice continued. “But, please. Think about that anger when you are in front of a camera. Now, I am so happy to give you whatever support you need, whether that be anything from responses you can use so you don’t have to worry, or support via the organization’s social media. I know you’re private, Sirius, but—”

“But, what?”

“But this could mean something to someone out there,” Alice burst out. “You, the face of the National Hockey League—”

“Who I love has nothing to do with the NHL,” Sirius snapped, and then his face dropped, realizing what he had said.

He stared at Remus, who was looking right back at him, hand pressed to his throat. His eyes were bright with unshed tears.

I love you.

The phrase had been echoing around his head for weeks now. Remus.

“I have a plane to catch,” Sirius choked out.

“Okay,” Alice rose. “ Okay. Logan would be with you, but he requested a later flight last night, and so it’ll just be you and Minnie and the camera crews—”

“That’s fine,” Sirius barely got the words out before he was disappearing through the door, weekend bag in hand.

He felt sick.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

Old panic, residue fear that was sticky like cement, keeping him in place and getting harder and harder to budge.

Only when the plane was about to take off did Sirius check his phone. Missed calls.

His mother. Two. It surprised him.

Minnie. Ten. But he had called her back.

Remus.

Thirty-six.

And one message, from this morning, just after the meeting.

Call me when you’re ready to talk. Good luck.

Sirius, heart in his stomach, slid his phone into his pocket and closed his eyes as the plane began to move.

#warnings: anxiety about family and coming out #warning family abuse #sweater weather #sweater weather lumosinlove #sirius black #remus lupin #wolfstar #wolfstar au #sirius x remus #remus x sirius #lumosinlove ocs #Logan tremplay #o'knutzy

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takara-kaneko · 4 years ago

Note

I know I request a lot now so take your time. It could you do a part 2 to the mc leaving one? Good or bad doesnt matter, just some closure about if they’re capable of changing and get mc back? Maybe building up mcs confidence again bc now they’re hesitant to start planning parties again.

Surprisingly, I’m still here! Pandemic life has been really getting to me, haha, but I am still here! I’ve been working on this fic for a while, and it has become much larger than I had first anticipated, but I hope that you enjoy it nonetheless! If you haven’t read the first story, then click Here!!

Let Me Go Part 2 (Good End)

Zen 🎭

He was in his dressing room, changing out of the costume of his most recent character. The performance was a success, and he had been receiving so many compliments by the audience and the cast alike. But he didn’t really feel happy. Hell, he hadn’t been happy for a long time now. Not since MC left.

Without thinking, he pulled out his phone and unlocked it. Staring at back him was her contact photo, with an empty text bar below. Zen had written up so many drafts, each giving a different apology, and each begging for forgiveness. But he never sent them to her. Not until everything within the RFA was fixed; not until he had fixed everything.

It has taken some hard work, but he was finally believing that things were the way they should be. The RFA was making strides coping with their loss of Rika. Many, himself included, were really starting to move on. Maybe it was time for him to message.

With bated breath, he began typing. “I don’t know if this is too late, but I’m sorry. For everything. I don’t expect your forgiveness, nor do I deserve it… I’m just… trying to repair what I’ve done. I’m trying to fix me. MC, I love you, more than I can express in a text. I hope you know that.”

His finger hovered over the ‘send’ button. It had been months, did she really want to get something from him now? Would she even care, or has she already gotten over him? Zen shook his head, trying to ignore his thoughts. With nothing to lose, he sent it. As it was delivered, he heard a chime from outside his door, followed by a soft curse.

Curious, Zen approached the door and opened it. There was no one in front of him, but as he looked out, he saw a figure walking away from him. A figure that had haunted his thoughts and riddled his dreams. Zen stepped forward a few steps and reached out to her, a painful expression painting his face.

“MC! MC, wait...”

She stopped but doesn’t turn back to him. “I watched the show…” He strained to hear her, she was almost whispering, “You were really good, Zen.”

Zen had to restrain himself from approaching her. From wrapping her in his arms and refuse to let her go ever again. But he couldn’t do that to her, she had every right to leave him and never return.

“I didn’t know you were going to watch it. I could’ve gotten you tickets.” He didn’t really know what to say. He was being awkward, Zen knew he was, but so long as she continued to talk to him, he couldn’t ask for anything more.

MC still didn’t move, almost frozen where she stood. “I didn’t know I was either. A friend of mine got tickets and she didn’t tell me where we were going until I saw you on stage. And I…” Turning her head towards him, he could see the tears falling from her eyes. “...I realized how much I’ve really missed you, Hyun.”

There wasn’t even a moment to think before Zen was in front of her, wiping away the tears on MC’s face. “Jagi, please don’t cry, I don’t deserve your tears. I’m the one who caused you to leave.”

He wrapped his arms around her, burying his head in the crook of her neck. If she was really going to be out of his life, he wanted one last memory of her. Her scent, the feeling of her on his skin. Anything he could, he wanted to remember.

“I’m so sorry, MC… I’m so sorry.” A sob escaped Zen as he stood there, gripping the love of his life.

“Did you mean it?” She whispered into his chest, “Your text, do you really mean what you wrote?”

Zen stopped a moment. Did she really not think that he would change everything if it would give him a chance to get her back? “Baby, of course, I do. I would do anything, anything, if it meant that you would still be here.”

MC sniffled a bit before taking a few steps back. More than anything, Zen wanted to hold on, wanted to have her stay and be with him. But it was her choice, and he refused to take that away from her. As he released her, Zen clenched his jaw to restrain his want to grab her hand.

She looked up at him, her lip quivering. “I can’t… I can’t just come back like nothing ever happened.”

Zen nodded. Yes, he knew that this would be the answer. After all, he didn’t deserve her, even for the time he actually had her. To get MC back was just-

“We have to start over.” She declared, pulling Zen out from his own thoughts in a flash, “From the beginning. I need to know that this is real, not something you’ll say to get me back and it goes back to the way it was before. I can’t do that again and I-”

MC’s words are cut short by the feeling of Zen’s hand caressing her face. He looked at her, with nothing but pure euphoria. “For you to be in my life, even if it’s just as friends, I’ll do whatever you need me to. If you want to restart, I’ll just...”

Taking a few steps back, he reached out his hand for a handshake, “Hi, my name is Hyun Ryu, stage name Zen. And I am hopelessly in love with you.”

Trying to fight back the tears, she reached up and shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, I’m MC. And I have missed you every second you have been out of my life.”

Yoosung ⭐️

These past few months had been a really rough time for Yoosung. Not only having to deal with the regular stresses of his life, but he also had no idea how to do it without depending on someone as capable as MC.

He had decided to focus entirely on school, even considered dropping out of the RFA, but at their refusal, he explained what happened. The weight of their actions dawned on them. The whole group pledged to work on this mistake, without much pushing from Yoosung. They all seemed to miss MC, even if it isn’t as much as Yoosung did.

But with the RFA making steady progress, Yoosung decided to get a hold on his life, passing all of his courses this year with flying colors.

Part of him wanted to call MC, tell her all the good things he accomplished in his strides to become better, but with only time he’s heard from her was the reply to the text he sent the night she left; he didn’t feel he deserved to talk to MC. He didn’t want to bother her. She likely never wanted to see him again, and he couldn’t blame her.

But with finals finally done, Yoosung felt like it was time to reward himself for his success. There was a limited time expansion for LOLOL and Yoosung had just saved enough to get it. He went into the game store, excited to finally get to play it.

Getting in line, he couldn’t help but stare at the hair of the woman in front of him. If he didn’t know better, he probably would’ve thought that it was MC-

Wait. Was that MC? She had the same beautiful locks, the same frame, but it was hard to tell from the baggy sweatshirt she had on. He stood, awkwardly staring at the girl in front of him, trying to build up the nerve to just poke, maybe brush into her so she’d turn around?

No, no that was stupid… What if it was her, what then? ‘Oh hey MC, nice to see you again? I haven’t been a happy a single moment since you left; I need you in my life.’ Yeah, Yoosung tells himself, that’s a horrible plan. If it was her, she probably wouldn’t want to see him, anyway.

He pulls out his phone to look at her last text, “And my heart to you, Star.” Sure, she said that, but did he actually deserve that? Wasn’t what he put her through enough? But even so… he wanted to see her, even just once. He glanced back down at his phone, at her ring that has become his keychain and made up his mind.

“Hey, sunshine.” He said, enough for the girl in front him, but not loud enough that it was directed toward her. He watched as she flinched, dropping her phone in the process.

Yoosung went for it, apologizing as he did. Picking up the phone, he freezes. On the lock screen was of him, happily hugging the love of his life. He remembered that photo, it was the first time MC told him that she loved him. It was one of the happiest moments in Yoosung's life.

A pair of hands met his, taking the phone. Yoosung almost tried to keep the phone to keep looking at the photo, but it’s not his phone, so he let the other hands take it. Standing back up, he was face to face with MC.

Status: Frozen

Yoosung had no idea what he was supposed to do. Should he talk? Wave? Maybe just ignore her…? What? no! Swallowing thickly, Yoosung stuck his hand out to wave at her.

‘I’m such an idiot’ Flashed through his head, but he had to push past it.

“Hey, Sunshine. You… you look really good.”

She looked down at her sweatshirt and baggy pants and laughed softly, “I haven’t taken a shower in two days, I needed to get to a high enough level to be able to play the DLC. I don’t have you to carry me through those high-level missions anymore…” MC trails off, looking away from him.

“Are you kidding?” Yoosung said, surprised, "You were much better than me when I started. You’ll be one of the top members on the server in no time! You’re already at ranking 137, that’s incredible to only have been playing for a few months!”

At his words, MC’s eyes widened. Yoosung realized how weird his statement must’ve been. Who keeps track of their ex-girlfriend’s gaming status? Him, definitely. There were times Yoosung wanted to offer her the legendary gear he had collected, but could never build up enough courage.

Clutching a strand of her hair, MC sucked in a breath, “Well… How have you been? Classes going well?”

Yoosung nodded shyly, now embarrassed and not sure what to say with her finally in front of him, “Yeah, Finally passed with some of the top grades in my class! Your study guides really helped me out, though I missed working with you on them.”

“Well, you seem to be getting along fine, so you can’t be missing much.”

With furrowed brows, Yoosung caught MC's hand as she was about to turn away, “MC… I have been doing these things for you. For how much you pushed me and supported me. For me to fail when you left, would be the ultimate proof that I never should have had you in the first place.”

MC opened her mouth to speak, but Yoosung persisted, not allowing her to say something that couldn’t be more wrong, “You think I’ve just moved on, but I still haven’t, I swear that to you. Instead, I’m trying to be someone you’d be proud of. Improving my grades, becoming more independent. Even the RFA is trying to change to make it more welcoming to you, if you’d ever think about coming back to me- us. Come back to us.”

There was so much more he wanted to say, needed to say. But just as he opened his mouth to speak-

“Miss, you’re next.” The cashier said, gesturing to MC. Hesitantly, MC released her hand from his grasp and left him alone. He watched as she conversed lightly with the attendant checking out her game. With a smile, he returned her change and a bag with the game inside. Yoosung reached out to talk to her again, but the man calling him caught him off guard. He glanced over towards the man, then back to MC, only to see she was gone.

With a heavy heart, he reached the man and bought his game, not even reciprocating the attendant’s excited comments about the DLC. Exiting the store, Yoosung was trying not to cry. (He needed to get back home before that happened) So as he went through the door, he didn’t see the figure standing beside it until they had grabbed the back of his shirt. But he was sad, he was angry, he was ready to throw down. Imagine his surprise when he turned, fists formed, only to be face-to-face with MC once again.

“Sorry to scare you!” She squeaked, putting her hands up in surrender.

The sadness in his heart immediately changed to relief as he looked into her serene eyes. Everything was right with the world once again.

MC stood there, mustering up the courage to ask the one thing has had been wanting to say since the beginning of their conversation. “I was uh, just wondering if you would like to… You don’t have to say yes, but I’d like you to.”

Even though nothing was actually explained, Yoosung still had a slight idea of what she was trying to say, “I’d love to work together to beat the next few levels with you, MC. Superman Yoosung is always here for Eternal Sunshine MC.”

She nodded at him, tears beginning to prick the corners of her eyes “I think I’d really like that.”

Jumin 🍷

“Just reporting: Has the famous CEO bachelor finally found his date to the upcoming charity ball?”

With a sigh, Jumin turned off his smartphone. Despite their engagement was never announced publicly, reporters everywhere were trying to pin down who was the 'next woman' to be Jumin’s girl now that he was seemingly single. What they never accounted for was that he had no other plans. MC was the only woman he believed could ever understand him. And in these few months, that point became even more airtight. Not even his father truly understood the pain he was going through. He found himself wanting nothing more than to just work and stay home, avoiding everyone.

But he did have to go to this charity ball. He had made a large donation, albeit in the company’s name, to the organization. After all, it was one that MC supported the most. It meant the world to her, so he’d give it as much support as he could.

Jumin exited the limo and easily ignored the flashing lights of the cameras around him. Ignored the passing questions and remarks from the reporters. All but one.

“Have you finally found a replacement for your ex-girlfriend?”

It took all he had not to turn back to the reporter. MC could never just be replaced. There was no one in the world like her. So with gritted teeth, he entered into the building.

For Jumin, entering the room immediately calmed his nerves. Looking around the scenery was like a breath of fresh air when such a feeling was so foreign to him recently. He couldn’t spot anything in particular that could make him feel that way, but the whole place just felt so comfortable.

Glancing at the people, however, there was someone that stuck out among the rest. A woman in a sleek, black dress, carrying a glass of champagne as she laughed with the man across from her. Anger flared in the back of his mind as he watched the smile that graced her slender face. As the man touched the soft skin on her hand. No one should touch his MC-

But she wasn’t his anymore, was she? And he no longer had a say on who she talked to, not that she would have completely listened to him anyways.

Even as he was thinking this, Jumin found himself nearing them. Seems his subconscious was wanting to see her once more. Wanting to get that man’s hand off of her. But would she even want to see him?

Not stepping any further, he began watching her again, trying to commit every feature to memory. But she caught his eyes for a moment before turning back to the target of her conversation. With a small handshake, she turned and headed towards him.

Unprepared for this conversation, he picked up a glass of champagne from a tray passing him by and drank at least half of the liquid in one gulp. He noted the smile on her face as he did it, which he found interesting. But there was no time to think about it as MC was already on him before he knew it. “Jumin, it’s a pleasure to see you could make it out here. I take you were the one behind C&R’s large monetary donation?”

Jumin was still frozen, unsure of what to say. She seemed happy. And she was the one to come to him, not the other way around. Surely she actually wanted to speak to him or she wouldn’t have come to him, right? He coughed lightly and looked into her eyes, “Yes, I remember you speaking so highly about this charity, so when the opportunity arose, I made sure to contribute. The RFA’s funding should be coming here too from the most recent party, as well.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” MC nodded, gesturing vaguely behind her, “I spoke to V a moment ago, he came to represent the RFA.” Puzzled, he looked at her with a curious expression. MC understood and smiled, “I’m now one of the leading positions within the organization. I’m their event coordinator, so I get the list of attendants, as well as how much they donated. Both C&R and the RFA’s were very generous, I must thank you.”

While it was unexpected, Jumin wasn't surprised. MC was very talented and capable of greatness. He smiled at her, and nodded slowly, “I’m glad to see you’re still making a name for yourself, MC. You’re a talented woman, they are very lucky to have you here.”

A blush spread across her face at his words. She looked down at the ground for a moment before gazing back at Jumin. There was so much he wanted to say, but here and now wasn’t the right time. He leaned in closer to her, his breath brushing past her ear, “May I speak with you a moment?”

She nodded slowly and followed him to the corner of the room, away from the crowd. Not that he truly noticed them in the beginning, as everything else seemed to fade away when he is with her. But in their isolation, he could feel his heart swell. Jumin wanted to hold her hand, kiss her, tell her how much he missed her, and loved her. How much he prayed she would come back. But none of that actually came out, all he could do was close the distance between them and wrap his arms around her affectionately. Tears pricked the corner of his eyes as he held her against him.

Jumin shakily sighed as her hands gripped the fabric of his suit, “Oh, how I’ve missed you…”

In a quick motion, she pulled away from him, but only enough to look at him with a scrutinizing gaze, “You actually missed me?”

“Without a doubt, I have longed for you every moment you were away. Did you think otherwise?” He looked at her, feeling a mix of curiosity and worry.

MC shook her head, her smile falling as confusion began to cover her expression, “If you missed me, why haven’t you tried to bring me back? A message, a call… anything? You’ve been silent this whole time… Even V talks to me more than you do and we both know how hard he is to get in touch with.”

Sliding his hands down to hold her hand, Jumin tried to put his thoughts into words. “Because I don’t deserve you. You were perfect and I was… flawed. All of us were. I didn’t want you to be brought down because of us. You had left for a good reason."

“Jumin,” She said softly, “I am far from perfect. I left you instead of trying to work with you on it. And when you never called... I thought you hated me-“

Without wasting a moment, Jumin leaned in to connect his lips with hers, cutting off her next words. Hate her? He never once held the smallest amount of anger towards her, the thought of it was revolting. Separating their lips just enough for him to speak, he leaned against her forehead, “I could never hate the woman I’m hopelessly in love with.”

She closed the distance between them, sealing the two in another kiss. They embraced in the corner of the room and began to dance before the music even began to play.

Saeyoung 🚧

Every day was just like the last. Get up, work, finish the job, sleep. The only variation was when Vanderwood would show up in the day. Ever since MC left, he had been coming over more often, complaining that he had to clean up after him more now that MC wasn’t there anymore.

Though it was really to make sure that he was okay and to force him to eat.

And he was right. Once she left, Seayoung fell right back into his bad habits. Not eating, barely ever sleeping. He was nothing more than a slave with survival as his only goal. To live long enough to see those he loved living a happy life without him.

But it was odd, he wasn’t able to track MC here recently. She was on the CCTV still, trying to talk to him through it ignoring the strange looks she got for shouting and gesturing at a surveillance camera. But in the world of binary numbers, it was almost like she turned into a ghost.

With a sigh, Saeyoung turned on his system to continue working on his newest assignment. Maybe it was a good thing, to never be able to see her. Then he’d never be reminded of all the reasons he should never have made her leave.

`ALERT: VIRUS DETECTED`

The words covered the page. Not knowing what had happened, he knew one thing. He had been hacked.

Saeyoung froze. How did… it wasn’t possible. With crossed brows, he began trying to get around the evident hacking that had infiltrated his servers. All the information he had on this comp-

“Oh, no... God, please... No.” He muttered, remembering all of the photos he had of his brother and of MC. If his ineptitude put either of them at risk, he could never forgive himself.

But as he broke deeper and deeper through the firewalls that were placed, he noticed that the hacker had a lock on everything but the photos of them. It didn’t make sense, but it was almost completely untouched.

As he clicked the folder, their photos appeared on screen, untouched, perfect. Except, there was one addition, a video with a black screen.

Holding his breath, Saeyoung opens the video. It shows a blank screen for the longest time until a simple 6 words appeared.

“CAN’T AVOID ME FOREVER! LOVE, 606”

As his mind began processing the words on the screen, Vanderwood entered the room. For a moment, Saeyoung was worried he’d yell at him for the state of his computer, but his partner only looked at him with a knowing grin.

“MC said that you can either spend two hours unlocking your computer or come into the living room to talk with her for ten minutes.” He stated, trying not to look as amused as he really was.

With a sigh, he looked away from Vanderwood, "There really is no way around this, is there?” His friend didn’t reply, only shook his head. Saeyoung stood up, sticking his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and walked out of his room.

There she was.

Just a few feet away.

His heart broke just seeing her beautiful face and wanted nothing more than to go to her and apologize for all that he’s done. But he didn’t. Instead, Saeyoung walked passed her and sits across the room, as far as possible. Without a word. “You’ll release my computer?” He asked coldly, staring at the ground beneath her seat.

MC nodded, before realizing he wasn’t looking at her. Chuckling lightly, she couldn’t help nodding again, “Yes, I will. You know me, I stick to my word. Other than the hour statement I told Vanderwood, it would’ve taken longer. But if you had chosen the hard route, you would’ve realized how much harder it really was after two hours went by and come out anyway.”

Withholding the want to look at her, Saeyoung ran his hand through his hair. “How did you manage to get into so much of my software without my noticing?”

“When I left, I had wondered if you really didn’t know what you were doing, or if you were just pushing me away again.” She sighed, taking a moment before continuing, “So I hacked in far enough to see your code, and then set up a virus to the video input of your computer. Then I spoke to the CCTV and waited. 15 seconds. That was all it took until you opened it to see me speaking. And as long as that was up, my virus got through. I really didn’t think it would actually work, so it was really helpful you would only focus on me when the videos were up. I suppose I should thank you for that.”

He could hear Vanderwood laughing from the kitchen, but decided to ignore it. “Why? Why interfere in my work?”

His sharp tone cut into MC, but she only smiled at his harshness. “Because I wanted to see you, Sae.”

She.. what? He had outcasted her, tore her down, and made her feel worthless. And she wanted to see him? Saeyoung was at a loss for words. It took a moment for him to speak again.

“There’s no reason for you to see me again. I don’t have closure or anything for you. You’re better off-“

“That’s not what I want.” She interrupted. Taking the moment of silence between then, she stood up and approached Saeyoung, sitting next to him.

He wouldn’t look at her. He couldn’t. One glance and he knew all of his walls would break.

“Then what do you want?”

She placed her hand on top of his, trying not to lose her composure as he moved his hand away from hers. “I want to be with you again.”

Saeyoung couldn’t help the scoff that came out of his mouth. “I thought you made it pretty clear you didn’t. Isn’t that why you left?”

While every word he spoke felt like a dagger in his heart, his face remains stoic. “I needed time. And I got that. This was never a permanent deal unless *you* make it one.

“Then consider this our official breakup. Clean my computer and leave.”

MC turned her head away from him for a moment, no doubt to wipe away her tears again. “I don’t believe it.”

“Well, it’s true!” He shouted. “I don’t care about you, now leave me alone!”

As she goes to refute his words, nothing but a small whimper came out. She placed her hand on his once again, not allowing it to get out of her grasp. With tears in her eyes and a reforged determination, she stared at the man she loves. “Then look me in the eyes and tell me that. Tell me you don’t feel an ounce of feelings for me, and I’ll leave.”

The quivering of her voice ripped through him in ways that bullets never could. But if he didn’t do it, she would be dragged down with him. Gripping his hoodie tightly, he lifted his eyes to reach hers. To tell her one last time to leave him and go live the life she was meant to live.

But as he stared at her tear-stained cheeks and puffy eyes, the words he wanted to say disappeared, and Saeyoung began to do the one thing he didn’t want to do- speak from the heart.

“I never want you to cry, MC. Don’t you see that… That you’ll be hurt by staying with me, and you’ll cry. And I can't take seeing you like that. I can’t tell you I don’t care, but I will ask you to leave, one last time.”

Unable to look anymore, he dropped his eyes, staring at their conjoined hands until something lightly touched his forehead. Feeling her lips on his skin sent shudders down his body as tears formed in his eyes.

“I have cried more time since I left this house than I would have in a lifetime by your side. My love, nothing hurts worse than being apart from you.” She could only whisper, the sounds getting stuck in her throat. “Please, Sae, please let me back in.”

Saeyoung looked back up, into MC's red-rimmed eyes. How could he ever refuse her? With a simple nod of his head, Saeyoung reached for her, clutching her tightly in a breathtaking hug. And MC’s hold was just as strong.

Maybe he was wrong. Could this time be the good route, the one where he can actually be happy? Saeyoung didn’t know, but with the feeling of MC in his arms, he doesn’t see how life could get any better.

. . .

After hearing the conversation, Vanderwood stood awkwardly in the kitchen, wondering when it’s would be okay for him to come back out.

I really hope that you guys enjoyed it! It was a pleasure to write your requests. If you have any ideas, feel free to drop a free request!

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actress4him · 4 years ago

Text

Whumptober 2020 - Day 24

I kinda got way too into writing this one. I just wanted to keep going and going, really could have added more than I did, and couldn't figure out where to end it...then I realized that tomorrow's prompt was perfect for a part 2. So that's what I did. Yay, our first ever part 2! Anyway, check the warnings if you don't mind some mild spoilers, this one does get a little rougher than some but ahh...I think it's one of my favorites. And it's a good thing so many of you said you love platonic Kidge because here it comes again!

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Day 24 - Forced Mutism/Blindfolds/Sensory Deprivation

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Warnings: restraints, torture, sensory deprivation, electric torture, dislocation, muzzle, broken bones, mild blood

Pidge was getting aggravated. Scratch that, she was way past the point of aggravation, she was ticked off. It had been four quiznaking days since the quiznaking Galra had captured her, and she had just been sitting in this quiznaking cell ever since, for no quiznaking reason. Nobody had even come to see her! No threats, no questions, no torture, nothing. What was the quiznaking point of capturing a Paladin of Voltron if you were gonna just ignore her?

Not that she was, like, dying to be tortured or anything. More than once since her arrival, screams had echoed down the hall, sending shivers down her spine and making her stomach turn somersaults.

No, the thought of being tortured definitely terrified her. But she was getting pretty sick of sitting in an empty cell with her ankle chained to the wall. The only interaction she’d had so far was with the stupid sentries that brought her food, and they couldn’t carry on a conversation to save their precious Empire. She was lonely, okay? Yeah, she was an introvert who could spend days on end locked in her room, but that was on her terms, and she had her computer and projects to keep her company.

At least being lonely meant that she didn’t have to worry about any of her teammates. They were out there, looking for her, she knew it, and that was the best place for them to be. If any of them had ended up in there with her and got hurt...she didn’t know what she’d do. They were her family. Yeah, she still believed Matt and Dad were out there, and she was bound and determined to find them. But this team was her family, too, in a weird and wonderful way, and she’d do anything to keep them safe.

Finally, on the morning of day five, the cell door creaked open, and somebody who actually wasn’t a sentry stepped inside.

“It’s about time,” Pidge snapped before the soldier even had time to speak. “You guys don’t get in a hurry around here, do ya?”

The Galra - a lieutenant by the design of his armor - was taken by surprise for an instant, but quickly recovered with a smirk. “My profuse apologies. We’ve had...other pressing matters to deal with. But rest assured, you have our full attention now.”

Pidge gulped. Well that wasn’t really what she wanted. But she wasn’t going to let him know that. She lifted her chin. “Good.”

His smile grew. “Since you’re so eager to see me, should I assume that you’re ready to cooperate?”

Crossing her arms, Pidge narrowed her eyes. “Never. I don’t even care what it is you want from me.”

“A list of planets that have joined your Coalition,” he immediately replied. “See, nothing too complicated. Not even anything to do with your beloved Voltron.”

“Yeah right. I told you, it’s not happening.”

“Very well.” The lieutenant nodded amiably. “I had a feeling that would be your answer. That’s why I came prepared.” Leaning back, he knocked twice on the wall next to the door.

Pidge sneered. “It doesn’t matter what you bring in here, I’m not gonna -”

She cut off her own tirade as two grunt soldiers appeared, dragging and then harshly shoving something very person-looking onto the floor. It wasn’t until the something had tumbled a couple of times and came to a halt facing her that she was absolutely sure that it was a person. A very human-like person. A very battered person.

He wore only a pair of tight black pants that reminded her of her own flight suit, and all his skin above that was painted with purple and blue and even black in some places. More disturbing than that, though, was what covered his entire face. A blindfold, for starters. And over his nose and mouth, a hideous metal contraption with thick straps holding it in place.

It was a muzzle.

Pidge was already feeling nauseous at seeing this guy’s state. But then she noticed the hair. And that’s when her stomach plummeted to her toes.

“Keith?”

It couldn’t be him. He wasn’t supposed to be here. She would have known if he had been here the whole time, being... being hurt, being tortured...oh quiznak, it hadn’t been him she had heard screaming...had it?

“Ah, so you do recognize him.” The lieutenant chuckled, crossing over and nudging at Keith’s metal-covered chin with the toe of his boot. “It is a bit difficult with his... accessories.”

“What did you do to him? Keith!” She didn’t even care that the tears clogging up her throat were very much audible.

“Oh, don’t strain yourself trying to get his attention, dear. He won’t be able to hear you.” Crouching down, he grabbed a handful of that unmistakable black hair and yanked until Keith’s head and shoulders were up off the ground and his face was turned to the side. A muffled moan came from under the muzzle, and Pidge’s heart squeezed.

“You see this?” The Galra pointed to Keith’s ear, where she could just barely make out something purple. “Blocks all sound.” He released the hair, and Keith’s head dropped to the concrete floor with a crack that made her flinch. “Just like this blocks all light -” he ran a finger over the blindfold -“and this, of course, keeps him from speaking.” He grabbed the muzzle and shook it. “He can still make some quite delightful sounds, though. All of it works together to make doing things like this so much more entertaining.”

One of the soldiers stepped forward, producing a long stick from somewhere on his person and jabbing it into Keith’s ribs. It crackled with purple lightning, and he screamed, writhing on the floor.

Pidge lurched forward, despite already knowing that her leash wouldn’t let her reach him. “Stop! Stop it, don’t hurt him!”

The lieutenant laughed aloud. “It’s perfect, isn’t it? He has no idea what’s coming for him and when.”

The rod made contact again, at his waist this time. The sound that came out of him was awful, literally the worst thing that Pidge had ever heard. She glared at the lieutenant through tear-filled eyes.

“You’re a monster.”

He flashed her a brilliant, sharp-toothed smile. “Thank you. I do try. Now…” Standing, he strode a few steps in her direction. “Would you like to reconsider telling me about those planets, or should we continue?”

No! she screamed inwardly. No, you can’t make me choose. This is the fate of the universe we’re talking about here, but he’s...he’s my brother! A brother that maybe she didn’t know all that well, considering how they both sucked at social interactions, but that just meant she understood him more than the others. Besides, she knew enough. She knew he was brave, and painfully shy, and had a heart of gold beneath his tough-guy exterior. She knew he didn’t deserve this.

But what could she do? As much as it killed her, she couldn’t throw away the safety of millions of people for him. There was no guarantee they’d actually stop hurting him, anyway. And if they did...he’d never forgive her. Keith always put the safety of others before his own.

“Well?”

Gritting her teeth, she kept her eyes on the terrified, trembling boy on the floor. “I can’t.”

“Very well, then.”

She expected the rod again, but instead both of the soldiers went at him with their heavy boots, pounding the toes into his already destroyed flesh over and over again. He made no noise after the first couple of strikes, only curled in on himself as best he could with his hands cuffed behind his back, instinctively trying to protect his organs. It didn’t matter, though, the sounds the boots made against his body were bad enough. She was pretty sure she heard the pop of ribs breaking. She thought she might puke.

Instead, she sank to the floor with weak legs, crawling forward until the chain was taut and she was as close to him as she could get. The tears that had flooded her eyes until then spilled over, streaming down her cheeks.

Keith. She wanted so badly to be able to reach out, to comfort him, to let him know she was there. But he wouldn’t know it was her, even if she could. He’d probably flinch away, thinking she was yet another who meant him harm.

“I wonder what he’d think,” the lieutenant began, as if reading her thoughts, “if he knew you were here. If he realized that you had the power to make this stop, that all of this pain was your fault.”

The barb struck true, but Pidge clenched her fists and refused to let it embed itself any further. “Your fault,” she growled. “This is your fault, not mine. You’re the monster here.”

Rather than answering, he reached up and grabbed a chain from the ceiling, pulling it down with a deafening rattle and hooking it onto Keith’s manacles. Taking his cue, grunt soldier number one crossed to a crank on the wall and began to turn. The chain slowly retracted, taking Keith’s wrists with it. Pidge slapped her hands over her mouth to stifle a sob as she saw him realize what was happening and scramble to get his feet under him, slipping back onto his knees more than once before he succeeded, and swaying heavily once he finally stood.

The chain kept going. They weren’t satisfied once it was pulled taut, they kept cranking until he was forced to bend over forward with his arms straight out behind him, and Pidge was worried his shoulders were going to come out of their sockets.

“Stop. Stop it! That’s enough!”

The grinding of the crank halted, and the lieutenant turned to face her. “Yes? Was there something you’d like to share?”

Pidge deflated from where she had risen up on her knees. “N-no.”

“Hm.” He waved a hand at the soldier, and the crank was turned one more time. Keith’s head fell further down.

Grunt soldier number two took the rod and thrust it straight down into the center of his back. Keith almost fell, but somehow managed to lock his knees in the midst of shaking and screaming.

Pidge’s fingernails bit into her palms and her teeth into her bottom lip. She couldn’t even imagine how that felt on his spine, not to mention the jarring on his overextended shoulders.

She hated this. The names of the planets he wanted to know were right on the tip of her tongue, a whole list that she had memorized long ago. All she’d have to do is say one, and they’d at least give him a little bit of a break, right?

But just one name meant thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of people facing this kind of violence in retribution for joining the Coalition.

It wouldn’t be the boy who she saw as a brother.

But it would be equally as horrible for so many others. She wouldn’t be able to forgive herself for that, but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to for this, either.

And she was growing more uncertain by the minute that Keith would forgive her for this.

“Are you sure you have nothing to say?”

Pidge stared straight ahead, refusing to answer.

Circling to the other side of his prisoner, the lieutenant jerked Keith’s head up by his hair again, putting untold strain on his neck. A quiet whimper came from behind the muzzle. “You know, it is a bit of a pity that we can’t see his facial expressions. I just love seeing the pain in their eyes.” Drawing his fist back, he slammed it into the only exposed skin on Keith’s face, his cheekbone, snapping his entire head to the side. When he released his hair, letting his head drop back down toward the floor, there were multiple strands of black hair still stuck between his fingers. Pidge watched them flutter to the floor with a knot in her chest.

“Will you leave him alone? I’m not going to tell you anything!”

“Sorry, dear. No can do. You have to give me something if you want something in return.”

Grunt soldier number one suddenly came back to life, kicking Keith’s knee out from under him. The kick itself probably didn’t hurt. The subsequent stumble that dislocated his shoulder with a loud, sickening crack did.

“No!” Pidge cried, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out his wail. “Keith!”

“Anything to say?”

“I hope you rot!” she shrieked, lunging forward as if she could get her hands around his throat. “When our team finds us, and they will, I will make sure that you die a slow and painful death!”

The lieutenant threw his head back and laughed. “You’re cute. Maybe once I’ve gotten what I want from you, I’ll just keep you for entertainment. My little pet.”

Keith was still trying to struggle back onto both feet. His breathing was ragged, audible even through the metal, and he trembled even harder than before.

Glancing at a screen on his wrist, the lieutenant sighed. “Unfortunately, I have other matters I must attend to. This seems like as good of a time as any to leave you two to think for a while. Rest assured, I will be back soon.”

With that, he was gone, leaving Pidge with a raw, bleeding ankle and tear-soaked face, and Keith still in a stress position with no senses, wondering when the next blow would come.

“Keith,” she whispered into the once again quiet cell. “I’m so sorry.”

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irishmacguirefucker · 4 years ago

Text

Home

Or alternatively, Charles Smith loves his new family and would follow arthur anywhere

(4 pages of writing brought 2 u by me blacking out and typing a lot. TW: Hunting, non-descriptive skinning/harvesting of animals, Wolves)

Charles may be a newer member of the gang, but he was there long enough to be just as loyal as any other.

He found a family in these people, brothers and sisters and friends. He would stick with them until the end. An end that seemed to be rapidly approaching.

Charles Smith wouldn't consider himself much of an intellectual, but it doesn't take much to see that the gang life is dying out. As he and Arthur got close, they spoke of it a lot.

Arthur's new focus on treasure hunting was really confusing. For the second time, Arthur asked Charles if they could take a detour on a hunting trip to go find some treasure stash or another that he heard about.

They weren’t exactly in a rush to get back, so Charles didn't exactly have a reason to decline. And Dutch was in a foul mood lately anyway, so maybe coming back with a little treasure might help with that.

So he agreed and followed Arthur and his weird map, all the way up assfuck nowhere Amberino, AKA Coterra Springs.

The whole way there, Arthur seemed off. Neither of them are exactly talkative men, but this wasn't their usual comfortable silence. Arthur barely stopped, not taking the time to comment on landmarks or interesting animals, they even passed a herd of paints and he barely glanced at them.

Getting there was somewhat of a blessing, Arthur seemed happy they had made such good time and immediately wanted to try and find the treasure. Charles had to be the one to pull him back and point out the obvious signs of a wolf pack living nearby.

This seemed to ring a bell in Arthur’s mind, and he pulled out his journal, flipping to the back where he had various maps tucked away. Pulling out his Legendary Animals map, he showed it to Charles. Should they encounter wolves today, they would be dealing with some dangerous ones.

They made a plan, Charles would keep an eye out for movement along the treeline (as well as pull a distracted Arthur away from the geysers), and Arthur would search for the next piece of the Jack Hall Gang's treasure.

(Charles had broken the silence on the way there to ask. “Jack Hall Treasure...as in the gang? What were they doing hiding maps and treasure?”

Arthur responded lowly, not wanting any passersby to hear what they were out for. “Apparently ‘fore they died out, they robbed some banks out in California, ran out here to escape the law. Buried the gold they stole an’ wrote out the maps to find it again, but Hall got his gang killed and arrested with a bad robbery ‘fore they could go back for the money.”

“Huh, some story. Song don’t quite hold up, specially with Sean and Uncle singing it.” Arthur chuckled at that, “Most songs don’t with ‘em.” The break in heavy silence was nice, but short lived as Arthur set back to studying the map.)

Arthur seemed to be getting more and more frustrated with the doodles on the map, trying to compare it to his regular map, and his surroundings. Charles said nothing, focusing on what looked to be shifting forms in the trees, wondering if it was elk or wolves.

By the time he realized it was wolves, it was too late. They had herded the men and their steeds without the knowledge of either. Just as Charles was about to quietly get Arthur’s attention, the man spotted what he was looking for.

“Charles, I think I found the damned treasure!” He said loudly, and pulled out a rattling bag of coins, effectively scaring the nervous horses into rearing and setting off the wolves.

It was a close call, the wolf of legend was massive and more intelligent than the average wolf. The pack was bigger than either of them had seen. A few of them ran off after the fleeing horses and the men could only hope they would be alright as they dealt with the majority of the pack and the biggest of them all.

The wolves seemed to run at them in waves of 3 or 4, always outnumbering the men and getting mighty close to biting distance before they were shot down. It was almost sad, having to take out such a large number of mighty animals, but it was the wolves or them.

Just when the pack seemed to be thinning out enough that they might start to retreat, the massive legendary wolf made his move. He took down Arthur from behind, and it was pure luck that Charles landed a shot through its massive head with his rifle.

The moment the legendary wolf went down, the rest of the wolves seemed to realize they would not be getting their prey and retreated. Several wolves ran back from the direction of the horses and based on the lack of blood covering their muzzles, they were unsuccessful in their pursuit.

Before Charles could even be relieved by the horse's success, Arthur groaned from beneath the massive animal. Charles quickly fell to his knees and dragged the wolf's carcass off Arthur, briefly marvelling at its weight.

Arthur groaned again in relief and heavily pushed himself up into a sitting position. “Christ, I'm too old to be getting knocked down like that. Creature outta be nothin but muscle, taking me down like that.”

Charles laughed, half in relief and half at Arthurs commentary. “He was huge, I’ll give you that. He was likely nearing 150 pounds, very large for a wolf. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, just outta breath. Caught me off guard.”

Charles looked at the bag of gold coins sitting on the ground a few feet away. “Was it worth your treasure?”

Arthur seemed to remember it and quickly reached for the bag, apparently not wanting to get up yet. “Suppose we’re gonna find out.” Inside the bag was another map, that Arthur sighed at, but tucked aside to look at after.

He quickly counted the money. “15 dollars, not quite a damn treasure Hall.”

Charles was confused. They had been finding stashes of money like this for a while and as far as he knew, Dutch was just putting it away and it had barely been spent on anything. “It's not a bad haul Arthur, especially not for us. Why are you so focused on treasure lately? We could earn more if we went back to robbery.”

Not that robbery seemed such a good idea right now, after the mess that chased them out of Valentine. But it would certainly get them a larger haul than chasing ambiguous treasure from a years-old map like pirates.

Arthur was silent for a while, what he was contemplating, Charles had no idea. He seemed to be thinking mighty hard on it though. Finally, he sighed deeply and seemed to make up his mind about something.

“It’s quite the story if you wanna hear it. It's a pretty big secret too, not that I've ever been worried ‘bout you running your mouth or nothin.”

Charles smiled warmly at his friend, attempting to put him at ease. “You don't have to tell me Arthur, but you never have to worry about me sharing secrets with anyone. And we have nothing but time, we’ll be skinning these wolves for a while anyway.”

Arthur sighed before dragging himself to his feet. “Suppose you’re right. Let’s start getting these dogs together and I’ll tell you all about Hosea’s plan.”

Arthur did just that. He told the story from the beginning, every detail he remembered as they carefully skinned the wolves and salvaged what meat they could. Partway through, the horses had found their way back, a little antsy but no worse for wear.

By the time Arthur had explained the entire plan, night had fallen and they were finding a spot to camp. (Away from the spot where they left the stripped carcasses, lest they be attacked by a damn bear in their sleep.)

Charles had a lot of thoughts. The plan itself seemed rather solid and safe, definitely a result of Hosea being the one to make it. He would definitely need some time to think about it before he could make any real comments on it. For now, he could only say; “Certainly explains why Dutch is so irritable lately.”

Arthur laughed loudly, and Charles smiled. Arthur seemed so excited about this plan, happier than he had seemed in the whole of their friendship.

“Yeah, he weren't a fan of our lack of faith...Do you think you’ll go, Charles?”

Now that was quite the question. Such a life wasn’t anything Charles ever thought of as a possibility for himself, though he expects that how most everyone feels about it.

He thought about his family. Not so much his father, but his poor mother. She had always wanted a peaceful life for her family, and he can’t help but think she would have been thrilled at the idea of her son finding a ‘proper’ home after just wandering since he was 13. The lone wolf was never a title she would have wanted for him.

He also thought of the rest of his gang, his new family. He would never say it to her, but he had always hoped that one day Abigail would take her baby and find herself a safer home, he never wanted that boy to end up an orphan like him and many of the other members. Them and everyone else in the gang could be safe and fed and happy, and in a way, he felt he deserved to be a part of it. After being a lone wolf so long, he had earned a home to share with his family.

“I think I will. I’d like to see what it's like to have a real home. I haven't had that since my mother was taken.” He hadn't meant to be so open when he started speaking, but he supposed that Arthur is his closest friend now, so why not.

Arthur seemed surprised at his open words, but it shifted to happiness. “You know, I think that's somethin’ I’d like to try as well.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a while as the fire got properly warm, and Charles couldn't help but notice that this silence felt so different from Arthur’s silence on the way here.

And on their way home, Arthur stopped to study the herd of American paint horses, and Charles knew all was well once more.

#Charles smith #arthur morgan #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #Red Dead Redemption #ranch au #rdr2 ranch au #not technically charthur but like it honestly could be if you want #like i said #i avoid writing in any non canon ships that way people can ship whoever they want in the au #writing #headcanons #im sorry all my writing is in bulletpoint form idk how to not do that #rdr2 ranch #rdr2 au #my au

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polaristranslations · 4 years ago

Text

Shinobu Mustard Episode 2

011

"You aren't hiding something from me, are you?"

A little girl with golden hair and golden eyes.

The mere shadow of a vampire, or perhaps the dregs of a vampire—in the past, she'd been feared as the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire, the king of oddities, a monster among monsters that lived for nearly six hundred years, by the name of Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade. But her current, completely changed form was now that of Oshino Shinobu, and that was the question she posed in Koyomi's room in the Araragi house.

"Oi, oi, what are you saying all of a sudden, Shinobu-chan? If you're going to doubt me like that, then our relationship of mutual dependence would be over."

"As if! We're in too deep. As you can see, I'm bound to your shadow as if I've been nailed to it, tightly and firmly."

"Now, now. Look, Shinobu-chan. It's the donuts that you love so much, see? It's the Golden Chocolate, see?"

"That makes you even more suspicious, my master. Don't speak with such a wheedling voice. There's clearly something you're trying to gloss over."

She was sharp. Like a fang.

During spring break when I was seventeen years old, the legendary vampire, who had bitten down upon the nape of my neck and enslaved me, had been bitten back by me and enslaved in return—she had become the legendary slave.

However, despite saying stuff like "my master", she did not seem to want to follow my orders at all. This slave was not at all convinced by my well-reasoned and impeccable attitude, but rather seemed to have deepened her doubts.

Shit, Gaen-san sure was asking a lot from me.

Hiding something from Shinobu was harder than hiding something from my parents—she and I had an inseparable bond, with two hearts beating as one.

If anything, it might have been easier to run in headfirst into dazzling battles against vampires, just like my spring break at seventeen, but with a pacifist specialist and moderate strategist at the helm, it didn't seem like we could take the simple approach.

I had to hold Shinobu back until the sun rose again.

I didn't know why I had to do such a thing—I'd asked her during the daytime, "What should we tell Shinobu about this case?" And the answer that Gaen-san came up with while she slept was not to ask for her cooperation, but rather the strategy of keeping her at a distance.

She was totally just being excluded!

Even though we weren't on the topic of the girls' basketball club, it seemed that bullying was still a thing even among evil spirits... Haah, poor thing.

"Don't look at me with such a pitying gaze. Don't send your feelings of pity at me! What in the world happened during the day? Who did you meet?"

"Oi, oi, Shinobu. Do you really think I would do something like going around and seeing other people?"

"I do. You should at least go out and see people!"

"Now, now. Look, it's the Half & Half from Mister Donut."

"Even if you try to sidestep the matter with something like that... Eh? Half of it is a Pon de Ring, and the other half is an Old Fashioned? It's like a donut from my dreams! Panaino!"

With a sidelong glance at Shinobu who began chewing, I measured the time remaining until sunrise—right now, it was 10 pm, so there was still about 7 hours.

I wondered if I could make it.

Ultimately, since Shinobu was bound to my shadow, it was possible to keep her confined as long as I stubbornly stayed put, but it didn't feel right to force her to just stand by.

Even if it was a request from Gaen-san, who I was much obliged to, I didn't want to do anything that could create a crack in my relationship with Shinobu from here on out.

Since we were in so deep, that was something I wanted to continue.

"That's right, Shinobu. There's something about that deeply memorable spring break that I've always wanted to ask about."

"If it's something you've been wanting to ask for a year and a half, why did you not ask it sooner...?"

Shinobu knit her eyebrows in confusion, but it wasn't like I could tell her that it was a question I had just thought up for the sake of stalling for time.

"During that spring break, you sucked out my blood and turned me into an immortal vampire. You remember, right? With you on the verge of death, I said something like, 'Dying like this suits me pretty well, so this isn't so bad,' and chuckled nihilistically before offering up the nape of my neck..."

"Is something wrong with your memory? Did you use it all up studying for exams?"

The truth was that I was crying when it happened.

But, putting aside whether I was laughing or crying, at that point, I'd turned into a vampire... That was what had happened, but I'd learned from Gaen-san at the hospital that there'd been plenty of potential for that to have failed.

It was actually more likely for the creation of a vampire's thrall to fail, she'd said—and with three mummified high school girls having been verified, it was a fact that I fully understood, to the point that it sent chills down my spine.

And in that case, what I'd suddenly become curious about was...

"What would have happened if, at that time, my vampire transformation had failed? In the first place, what meaning does a failure hold to the vampire master?"

"Ka ka. So the time has finally come to speak of that, then."

Including the Half & Half, Shinobu had made short work of the donuts I'd prepared, and assumed quite the haughty attitude—I mean, it wasn't like I was trying to touch upon such a grandiose secret.

"You sure have grown, my master. Not that you'd actually grow, considering you're immortal!"

"Don't just retort to your own joke. And let me grow! I'm not immortal anymore, anyway. Besides, what kind of growth have you shown in the past year?"

Rather than growth, it was more like regression.

Well, going from a beautiful lady to a cute little girl was a genuine regression... But anyway, this question was made for a reason beyond just stalling for time.

If my vampire transformation had failed at the time.

Would I have become a mummy? And, before she was called Oshino Shinobu, would Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade have been able to survive?

For vampires, the act of sucking blood is like nutrients, but if a vampire were to fail at transforming their target into a vampire, would they simultaneously fail in gaining those nutrients?

During that spring break, the king of oddities had certainly said this.

One whose blood is sucked by a vampire is turned into a vampire, without exception—there was no discretion, it was just a matter of eating it all up or leaving some behind.

In other words, in order to prevent the unnecessarily proliferation of thralls, they couldn't leave any behind—would that just be indigestion?

In the end, were the high school girl mummies successes or failures—as the creator, were they failed products unworthy of signatures? It was hard to figure out.

Right now, the vampire that Gaen-san was chasing. With what purpose—or perhaps, with what motive—were they going after the Naoetsu High girls' basketball team members? If we could figure that out, it would help establish a point of reference.

Even if it was temporary, I wanted an additional line.

If the motive was just an appetite for the sake of gaining nutrients, then it didn't make sense for them to leave anything behind, even if it was just a skin-and-bones mummy. But if they were trying to increase the number of their thralls, then it was a series of failures that was rather disgraceful—what exactly was this vampire trying to do?

"To get straight to the point, if you had failed to become my thrall, my slave, then you would have turned into a zombie incapable of any thought. You remember, don't you? That day, when we visited a different timeline and saw a bunch of living corpses."

"Ah—yeah, we did."

I see.

For those cases, the image I had of those immortal creatures was like a humid, rotten lump of flesh that was sticky and squishy, so I hadn't connected them to these mummies in my mind, but now that she'd mentioned it, I had already known about the precedent.

It was surprising how such an intense and memorable experience could be overlooked when looking at it from a different angle—then, going off of the assumption that losing the ability to think and losing consciousness were similar, then those examples of failures... In that timeline, the "Oshino Shinobu from another route" was in a kind of despair, and had no purpose or motive.

Could this vampire also be in despair? A case of binge eating out of despair... Far from stoic forward-thinking or a smart sense of purpose, it could be a rampage of complete desperation.

Well, I didn't know that many vampires to hypothesize a pattern... Like the number of friends I had in high school, I could count them on one hand.

And, as for the span of time I spent as a vampire (though it felt like an eternity to me), it had only lasted a mere two weeks, so I couldn't be counted in that. So first, the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.

Then, there was the giant professional, Dramaturgy, who came to Japan as a vampire hunter of his own kind, in pursuit of the king of oddities... And yet another vampire hunter, the white-uniformed professional, Episode—well, strictly speaking he was just a half-vampire, but it was fine to include dhampirs in the count.

And finally, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade's first thrall—Shishirui Seishirou...

Four people. Well, they weren't exactly people, so I guess I should say four vampires? In any case, the sample size was a bit too small for me to use as a reference in analyzing the state of this vampire... Well, for a normal human, one encounter with a vampire in a lifetime would be more than enough, but with four vampires (five if you include this one) in a little over a year—Araragi Koyomi's vampire life is truly bountiful, wouldn't you say?

Although all of them were linked to Shinobu—Hm... Well, hold on.

Hold on hold on hold on hold on.

That's right, that was certainly a glaring oversight...

If we were talking about links to Shinobu, then while I had never come in direct contact, I was certainly aware of the existence of yet another vampire.

Though I'd never met them.

I knew.

Though I'd overlooked it.

Without exaggerating—I can say that, if it weren't for that vampire, I wouldn't be where I am today. Because.

"Shinobu. Speaking of which, you've never told me about the vampire that turned you into a vampire—the vampire that's essentially my origin."

"Ka ka. So the time has finally come to speak of that, then."

Shinobu repeated the same line as before, revealing the narrow range of lines that she could think of. And then,

"So the time has come to speak of the death-prepared, death-inevitable, death-certain vampire—the one who birthed me and the one who gave me my name, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster," she said.

What did she just say?

012

Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster.

Surprisingly enough, it wasn't the first time I had heard the name—or rather, it was a name that I'd just heard that day.

"D/V/S".

Somehow.

With that, I understood everything. No, not everything, but almost everything. That was why Gaen-san had ordered me to contain Shinobu for the night. It had felt like the kind of job that didn't make sense, that I wasn't really sure if it was a job or not—and if I may say so, a rather unrewarding role for how tiresome it was—but that wasn't it at all.

There was no mission that was more important than this.

In the first place, it was because Shinobu had gotten in the way when it came to the resurrection of her first thrall, Shishirui Seishirou, whom she'd once been separated from by life and death, that Gaen-san was forced to make a difficult decision on whether or not to request her cooperation for this case—and even then, this time it was no longer her thrall, but her former master.

Not in the way that she called me "my master" half as a joke and half for fun, but a true "master" in every sense of the word.

It might not stop at just getting in the way—in the worst-case scenario, Oshino Shinobu, who was supposed to be certified as harmless, might end up actively joining the other side. If this little girl, broken down to the point that she'd be in a good mood just from eating donuts, were to once again become the bloodsucking legendary vampire...

A return to the dark side.

Well, because she was such a legend herself, of course there was no way that Gaen-san, the administrator of specialists wouldn't know the name of the vampire that was the source of that legend—the onee-san that knew everything.

Therefore, as soon as the solution to the code was revealed to be "D/V/S", she immediately had a hunch that they were initials.

This completely ordinary town may have had oddity stories occur one after another, but that was when there was no god presiding over it—and now, why was it that yet another vampire would appear so soon, as if mocking the peace that we had laboriously established here? I'd thought it was weird—I'd thought that it could only be an oddity story because it was weird—but if there was a reason like that, then it would explain the drastic change.

If the vampire named Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster had come to visit her former thrall, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade—just like Shishirui Seishirou, who had approached Shinobu to recover the Demon Blade "Kokorowatari".

Well, originally, his case had the implication of him returning to his hometown...

"Hm? What's the matter? Were you frightened? Did you get too scared to ask about what kind of a nightwalker would give birth to a strong, beautiful, yet fragile vampire like me? Ka ka, quite understandable. The story about the lord of a castle of corpses is so repulsive, it can chill your blood. Even I'm trembling with fear right here."

Shinobu, deliberately making a gesture as if to give herself goosebumps, seemed to be somewhat proud of herself—this was a kind of excitement I didn't see often, despite my close relationship with her.

Was it because she was talking about someone even closer to her, with an even deeper relationship? I felt the way I did when I watched Kanbaru and Higasa-chan play around earlier.

It felt similar to when I saw a junior that I was close with speak even more candidly with a friend that she was even closer with—it would be a lie if I said that I didn't want to accuse Higasa-chan of being overly familiar with Kanbaru, despite her being such a capable junior that would actually treat me like a senior in this day and age. Though it was a little different from jealousy.

Thinking about it now, as equivalent thralls, I had definitely felt something close to jealousy when I faced off against Shishirui Seishirou—that had gotten me worked up, and it had also caused trouble for Gaen-san.

Back then, I had gotten in the way almost as much as Shinobu had—however, if it came to her vampire master, then they wouldn't be someone to be jealous of.

That would be like being jealous of your girlfriend's dad... If anything, I would even like to hear some of Shinobu's stories from when she was human, and the fact that Shinobu had something she could speak proudly of would make me happy as well—if it only weren't for the current situation.

If the main character of the oddity story that Shinobu was telling me about so happily was using their poisonous fangs—their demonic fangs—to bite into the female students of Naoetsu High one after another, it would be hard to just listen to her with a smile.

"Well, I'd even forgotten that I used to be a human until I got into this mess with you last year—I haven't seen Suicidemaster in almost 600 years. Ka ka, she was a genuine vampire who lived quite the reckless lifestyle, so I'm sure she's rotting away somewhere by now."

"...Hey. Shinobu. When you say 'reckless lifestyle', what do you mean by that specifically?"

I asked timidly.

Of course, it wasn't that I was afraid of the ghost story—what I was afraid of was facing the truth. Calm down—it was possible that everything was just me jumping to conclusions.

It was something that happened quite often, me jumping to conclusions.

"Indeed. Unlike me, who eats everything no matter if it's an oddity or not, Suicidemaster was quite the gourmet. Once she'd decided upon her menu, she would stubbornly refuse to eat any other food."

Oho.

So basically, if she decided that she would only suck the blood of female students belonging to a certain club in a certain high school, she wouldn't even give other humans the time of day?

"In fact, at the time, Suicidemaster had almost starved to death when she decided to suck my blood while I was still human. Well, I'm the one who let her suck my blood out of pity. Nihilistically saying, 'Dying like this suits me pretty well, so this isn't so bad'..."

"You're saying the same thing I did."

"You can't fight your blood."

I wonder about that. If this continued, then it wouldn't end at just fighting—it could very well turn into a bloodbath... It was in order to avoid this that Gaen-san diverted her policy and took on the formation that had me mark Shinobu...

But, in that case, I would rather not have known that fact... I should have been a college student that didn't know anything, just as the onee-san that knew everything had arranged me to be.

Sure enough, Shinobu, who had been chattering away in a lively manner up until now, suddenly came to her senses.

"...Huh? Why was I talking about Suicidemaster at this point, all of a sudden?"

She tilted her head to the side—oh, crap.

"If I recall correctly, this originated from the question that you asked..."

"Good grief. Not slipping when asked, not slipping when talking, and yet slipping when asked again—I'm always so paradoxical, aren't I?"

"No, I think you just normally let it slip when asked."

Umm.

I'd already run out of the donuts from Mister Donut that I could have used in a pinch—whether he knew everything or knew nothing, now that he had become a college student, Araragi Koyomi could no longer use the method of a kiss to tide things over, like the Italians did. Not that it was any more justifiable as a high school student.

There was still plenty of time remaining until dawn, but just as I'd been backed into a corner, salvation descended upon me.

I heard a quick knock on the door to my room.

"Yes, yes, I'm opening it no~ow. Could it be Karen? Or maybe Tsukihi? Or maybe news that my child was born?"

"What if you opened the door like that and it was your mother?"

"If the news was that my sister had become a mother, how could I not congratulate her? Welcome, I'd say. Or perhaps, happy birthday."

However, when I opened the door, the hallway was empty.

"Over here, oni onii-chan."

A young girl appeared at the window.

"Happy birthday."

013

Ononoki Yotsugi-chan. An immortal falsely similar to a vampire, a doll girl and a corpse doll (this had nothing to do with what we were talking about earlier, but her existence was close to that of a zombie—a physical oddity similar to Frankenstein's monster), and shikigami of Kagenui Yozuru-san, the specialist traveling from a great distance away to return to Japan. And right now, in Tsukihi's room in the Araragi house, she was freeloading as a stuffed doll.

She had taken up the role of a nearby overseer that was monitoring Shinobu and me closely to ascertain whether our certification as harmless was really appropriate, but at the present moment, the young shikigami girl was, to me, a goddess of salvation.

"Wow, if it isn't Ononoki-chan! You came at just the right time. Now, don't hold back. Come and sit down right on my lap. My lap will be your child seat."

"My master, before you say such creepy things, at least retort to the doll girl's sketch comedy technique of knocking on the door yet coming in through the window."

"Please make yourself at home, Lord Ononoki."

"Is she a noble?"

Shinobu looked at me with even more suspicion, but it seemed that she had to lay aside those doubts in order to deal with her natural enemy that had flanked her—so far so good.

Call me creepy or even a degenerate, but anyway, I'd planned on plunging headfirst into bantering about a child seat with a little girl and a young girl as a vivid reminder of my high school days, but...

"Fortunately for me, I'm not so free that I can spend time lounging around on your lap, oni onii-chan," said Ononoki-chan, expressionless and indifferent.

No, this girl (and though I said "girl", she was the tsukumogami of a corpse that had been used for a hundred years) was always expressionless.

Because she's a corpse.

"Thanks to you, even though my employer, the onmyouji onee-chan, is away, I get to keep working. I'm making a huge profit. I'm laughing like, 'wahaha'."

She didn't look like she was going "wahaha", though (because she was expressionless).

"It's the know-how of wahaha."

"If such a know-how exists, I'd like for you to teach it to me."

But Gaen-san had said something like that, too... Ononoki-chan was in charge of a separate case.

That it was important to not sweat the small stuff.

In that case, she really must have just come with perfect timing, as opposed to coming here on Gaen-san's orders to support me in marking Shinobu—in that case, for what reason?

"What? Should I not have come without a reason?"

"Are you a childhood friend? My childhood friend doesn't act that spoiled. If it weren't for Hanekawa's support, she might not have even made it to college."

"I just felt like seeing your chaos, oni onii-chan."

"Don't come to see my chaos [kaosu]. At least come to see my face [kao]."

Although as a matter of fact, her timing was pretty chaotic—though the problem was, that chaos didn't show any signs of ending anytime soon.

"Hup."

Ononoki-chan stepped over the window frame and entered into the room—she wasn't a vampire, so she didn't need permission to enter.

How in the world did she knock like that? Was it a magic trick?

"It's true, I really don't have a reason. I was out for work and I just barely arrived home when it turned out that dumbass Tsukihi was in her room. She's studying or something."

She was such an oppressive and insolent middle school third-year that it was unavoidable for her to be called a dumbass, but I guess she's surprisingly diligent when no one's looking, that sister of mine—since Tsukihi thought that Ononoki-chan was a life-sized stuffed doll, she couldn't possibly enter through Tsukihi's window, so the hard worker had no choice but to return home through the alternate route of using my window.

Then, really and truly, how in the world did you knock like that. Did you borrow the power of the yanari phenomenon? Was it a phantom knock?

"However, it looks like I'm intruding upon you guys. Well, busy as I am, I can leave for the attic or whatever, so feel free to continue your discussion—oh, that reminds me."

While I'd been racking my brain trying to figure out a way to detain Ononoki-chan as she was about to make her hasty exit, she stopped just then to feel around her chest, as if she'd just thought of something.

What did that young girl plan on pulling out from her chest?

"Don't tell me you're going to use 'Unlimited Rulebook' to make your breasts huge!? Stop it, stop it! There are some lines you just shouldn't cross, Ononoki-chan!"

"I don't want to be warned about crossing humanity's K-point by someone like you, oni onii-chan. Here. A souvenir."

"A souvenir?"

Had she really gone that far away for work? Even if Ononoki Yotsugi-chan busied herself with urban legends, with Kagenui-san's absence, I figured her current range of activities would not deviate from this neighborhood.

However, when I took what she offered to me, it was not any kind of senbei or cookies indicating "Just visited ______", and instead, a piece of paper that had been folded ultra-thin.

In other words, it was a fortune slip.

Don't tell me she was trying to make the fortune slip she got at some shrine into a souvenir? Because fortune slips and charms and stuff are hard to throw away? Even as I thought, "I'm not going to accept this if it's nothing less than 'great luck'", I opened it up.

"Well. If it isn't a fortune slip from Kitashirahebi Shrine, where that lost girl works as a god," said Shinobu, taking a look at my hands and saying it out loud to make it easy to understand.

Incidentally, the fortune was "average luck".

Average luck.

It wasn't really clear to me if that was good or bad.

"So when you said you were working, you just went to play around with that lost girl, hm? You should've called me, too."

"I didn't go there to play. New as she is, Mayoi-nee-san is a lost child that rules over this town, after all. If I want to be able to do my work properly, I have to go through the proper channels, or else—"

While Shinobu and Ononoki-chan were partaking in a conspiratorial exchange that may have been friendly or unfriendly, I inspected the fortune slip.

Love—Treat your girlfriend preciously!

Studies—Don't let your guard down! Keep going without resting!

Health—Your mind is really in poor health!

Someone Waiting—You should go and see them yourself!

Business—Being a yes-man is dangerous!

What a high-energy oracle...

With her manner of speech, it did feel a lot like Hachikuji... As for the "Business" fortune, if it was referring to my current role as requested by Gaen-san, then "being a yes-man is dangerous" may have been just the advice I wanted to hear.

It was a good feeling.

This must be average luck for the sake of Araragi, averarage luck—but no.

That wasn't what I should be paying attention to. Well, that was important, too, but what I should focus on was—

"Ononoki-chan. You don't need to go to the attic. Until Tsukihi-chan leaves her room, you're free to just hang out here."

I stood up.

"The child seat and its child are going to go out for a late-night drive."

It was time to go and see the person waiting for me.

014

Hachikuji Mayoi had just been a lost grade schooler when I met her last year on Mother's Day, but now she'd become a splendid god. Even if it weren't for this case with the vampire, I knew it wasn't a good idea to visit her so casually due to her position, and I'd been careful not to rely on her (literally, pray to a god). But it was a different story if she was the one to call me.

Gaen-san had ordered me to keep watch over Shinobu, but she hadn't told me that I necessarily had to keep watch over her at home. Despite her previous offense, it wasn't as if Shinobu had been sentenced to house arrest.

But to deliver a message through Ononoki-chan through not a living message nor a dying message nor anything encrypted but a fortune slip of all things... It was surely something only a god could do.

The Kitashirahebi Shrine.

Built on top of a mountain, it was a shrine with deep connections and karma for me, and for everyone in this town.

If I was Lupin III, I could have simply ridden up the mountain in my New Beetle, but alas, I couldn't go against the Road Traffic Act or my own common sense. So I parked my beloved car at the shoulder of the road, placed Shinobu on my shoulders (my shoulders were also a child seat), and began to laboriously climb up the mountain path.

Due to the aftereffects of my vampirism, while I wasn't exactly nocturnal, I was still pretty strong at night—in times like these, I had no need for night-vision goggles.

"However, what business could that lost girl have with you? Does everyone really just want to see my master's chaos?"

Yes, I was curious about that, too. No, not my chaos, but her business with me—Hachikuji should have learned her lesson (or rather, Gaen-san mercilessly beat the lesson into her), so she shouldn't be behaving as freely as she used to.

She wouldn't just invite an ordinary citizen to the top of the mountain without any business—so maybe she had a few words to say about the serial mummy vampire incident secretly going on in this town, after all?

It was easy to get mad at me for this, but if the origin of this vampire's visit was Shinobu, then I had no choice but to take the blame for it, as her supervisor.

It was a violation of a virtuous supervisor's duty of care. Putting aside whether or not I had any virtues as a supervisor.

To be honest, responding to Hachikuji's summons did make me glad that I could gracefully escape from Shinobu's interrogation, but if what Hachikuji had to say had anything to do with this matter once we finished climbing the mountain, it would be a dead end for me.

A girl at the front gate, and a little girl at the back gate.

I had no choice but to hope that it was about something completely different. For example, maybe Hachikuji had decided to appoint me to sit upon not a child seat, but the seat of a god (in which case, I would humbly accept).

Really, I had no idea where my utterly random life was headed anymore. My life wasn't simply going forward, but hurling itself forward. Without coming up with any ingenious plans, the climb was completed.

Hachikuji was sitting under a waterfall in white clothing.

"Oh, how embarrassing. You ended up seeing me secretly trying to train."

"What part of this is secret? I've never seen anything so blatant. It almost felt like you weren't under a waterfall, but under a spotlight."

When did this shrine even have a waterfall?

Don't misuse your godly powers just for laughs.

She hadn't fixed her free-spiritedness at all.

"Oh dear. So this is not what they mean by a beautiful girl, glistening like the morning dew."

Of course not.

With a splash, Hachikuji made her way out of the waterfall basin... She was soaked completely through, and it was not in the least bit romantic. Her trademark twintails had been flattened against her head by the water pressure, and her white clothing clung to her body, making it difficult for her to move.

That open-mindedness. Truly a god.

"Anyway, it has been a while, Amefurashi-san."

"It's certainly been a while, eternal fifth-grader Hachikuji, but just because you're soaking wet, that doesn't mean you can call your friend by the name of a gastropod mollusk. And you're not sopping wet because I made it rain [ame wo furashita] or anything. I'm sorry if you went and got hit by a waterfall just so you could call me that, but my name is Araragi."

"Sorry. I flubbed it."

"No, it was on purpose."

"I fwubbed it."

"It wasn't on purpose!?"

"Ti debbuwf I."

"Even backwards, it wasn't on purpose!?"

No, that had to be on purpose.

And in any case, it really had been a while since I'd been here, but with the usual exchange that made it feel as if it hadn't been any time at all, Hachikuji and I celebrated our reunion.

"I wanted to see you too, Nobushi-san."

"Who are you calling Nobushi. By anagramming it, you've turned a ninja into a samurai. My name is Shinobu... Wait, am I doing this too?"

"Sorry. I flubbed it."

"Nay, 'twas on purpose."

"I fwubbed it."

"'Twas not on purpose!?"

"I fubwebd it."

"Even anagrammed, 'twas not on purpose!?"

With the girl and the little girl chattering away, it seemed pretty fun. Unlike the world of the animation's commentary tracks, they were heartwarmingly close.

Why was it only in the commentary tracks that they didn't get along? It's usually the other way around.

Well, Shinobu, as Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, had also been exquisitely enshrined as a god in the past, so in that sense, it wasn't just a relationship between a girl and a little girl, but perhaps a senior-junior relationship as well.

A junior, huh? Hmm.

"Anyway, Anagra-san."

"You're prolonging this, aren't you? If you take what you flubbed and link it to a new way of flubbing, this passage will last forever!"

"Anyway anyway, Araragi-san. The reason I went to the trouble of asking the very busy Ononoki-chan to summon you to this mountain at this late hour is none other than this."

Although I was hoping there was another reason.

"The truth is, there was a little girl I wanted to introduce to you, Araragi-san."

"Oho? It sounds like there are some circumstances."

"If you wanted to be introduced to a little girl without any circumstances, you'd have to be totally crazy!"

From the little girl who showed no intention of descending from her seat atop my shoulders even after we'd finished our mountain climb, I received an elbow to the head.

"To be precise, it's not to Araragi-san, but to Shinobu-san."

"Huhu. It seems you're the one that's totally crazy, Shinobu-chan."

"Don't act so proud of yourself with a little girl on your shoulders. And don't shrug your shoulders, either, it clings. There's a right way and a wrong way to shrug your shoulders, you know."

"D-do you really need to go that far? All I did was shrug my shoulders, though?"

"Now, lost girl. What of the little girl you wished to introduce to me?"

"Yes. Right this way."

Hachikuji went up the shrine road on the grounds and towards the main shrine—and we followed in the footsteps of the young god as they were marked down on the ground with wet, bare feet.

"Yes. Just the other day, there was a lost child that came under my custody... Incidentally, she was naked."

"Oh, a naked little girl [youjo], you say? Who knows if that can be adapted for the anime. It's a fine line to walk."

"It's way out of bounds! Clean it up [youjou]!"

She retorted with a pun.

"Clean up the little girls [youjo youjo]!"

You meant, clean up every important point [yousho yousho], right?

Even if you punned on every important point.

"Anyway, it's out of bounds even in a novel, is it not?"

"And yet, it can't be avoided. After all, we're for social awareness, getting straight to the heart of taboos."

"Not for social inappropriateness?"

But, to be serious, I was a little relieved.

I had no idea who this naked little girl was, but apparently it was a completely different case from the matter that I was cooperating with Gaen-san on—the matter with Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster.

And considering Hachikuji's origins, you could say that taking custody of lost children was practically a livelihood for her.

As long as we didn't run into the novel and stupid development that the progenitor who birthed and named the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire was actually a little girl, and a naked little girl at that, then it seemed likely to be unrelated to this case—and the clock had reached its peak around the same time we had reached the peak of the mountain, so there was about 5 hours left until dawn.

If Hachikuji's child [youji], or rather, her business [youji], was business for Shinobu, then it would be ideal if Gaen-san (and the others) could draw the curtain on the gourmet vampire while she was distracted.

And with Kagenui-san still not having returned to the country yet, it was unlikely that Miss Suicidemaster would be suppressed in a violent manner... In that respect, I was thankful for Gaen-san's pacifist nature.

"By the way, Araragi-san. Don't you have anything you want to say to me?"

"Hm?"

"You have that look on your face."

Wow, even though her career was just starting, she was still a god in the end... For her to read my face, my chaos.

However, I'd decided that I wouldn't consult her about this case. It was different from when she didn't have her position—now that she'd become a god, I didn't want to stick Hachikuji in a dilemma between oddities and humans.

"Ha ha. You don't know me as well as you think you do, Araragi-san. You'll never put me in a dilemma, because I'm always on your side, Araragi-san. As long as I'm with Araragi-san, even hell isn't such a bad place."

As she said those deep words of friendship, Hachikuji opened the sliding door to the main shrine, but as soon as she did so, I felt like I'd been struck by a sense of cruel betrayal by that good friend of mine.

On the floor within the main shrine, as if it was a divine object of worship that had been carefully laid to rest, the naked little girl was indeed a naked little girl, but.

The naked little girl was a mummy.

015

Some might argue that a naked little girl was a naked little girl, regardless of whether she was a mummy or not, and others might argue that naked was naked, regardless of whether she was a little girl or not—of course, some would argue that a mummy was a mummy, regardless of whether it was wearing clothes or not.

Just as a mummy was a mummy, regardless of whether it was wearing a high school uniform or a patient's gown—however, the situation had changed. We were now in the grounds of a shrine at night, within the traditional main shrine that was completely unconnected to electric lights, and that diminutive mummy seemed to fit perfectly there, as if it had been made-to-order.

The stage effects were astounding.

Rather than an oddity phenomenon, it was like I was being shown an important cultural treasure—and though I'd temporarily fallen into a panic, I was brought back to my senses by...

"S—Suicidemaster?"

A small voice that came from above me.

A whisper.

At that moment, with Oshino Shinobu calling Ononoki-chan "doll girl", and her calling Hachikuji "lost girl" even after she'd become a god that ruled over the town, I belatedly realized that it was extremely rare for her to refer to someone by name.

Suicidemaster.

Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster—was it?

"Wh—what a mess you've become!"

"O-oi, Shinobu. What, what did you just say?"

"Hee-yah!"

Could she tell that the mummy was her former master, even when it was all dried up?

Even though Shinobu had stubbornly refused to come down from my shoulders even after we reached the summit, she now placed both hands on my head as if it were a vaulting box, spread her legs out magnificently to the left and right, and jumped wide.

And, in the air, she spun twice around before landing, and then rushed up to the mummy of the naked little girl. The little girl was rushing up to the little girl.

"Whoa! Shinobu, be careful—"

Remembering the bitter experience I had faced in a shack on the side of the road to school during the daytime, I panicked and called out to her—however, what I'd feared did not come to pass.

The mummy didn't stir an inch. If I said it like that, then it sounded completely natural, but... Hm? Instead of the difference between wearing and not wearing clothes, and instead of the difference between a high school girl and a young girl, but as a mummy itself—did this individual follow a different providence?

Perhaps I should've also drawn close to check for this mummy's pulse or breathing, but I couldn't seem to move my body very well... It felt like my body wasn't mine. It felt like I'd actually become a child seat, or even a vaulting box.

"Hachikuji..."

"I'll say this now, but it isn't like I stripped this little girl naked for the sake of Araragi-san. The mummified little girl was naked from the beginning."

Um, that wasn't what I planned on asking or anything...

"Also, she hadn't been a mummy in the beginning."

"What do you mean by that? What happened?"

After reflexively rushing up to the mummy, it seemed she hadn't decided on what she'd do next, as Shinobu had been circling the mummy aimlessly before she asked that question to Hachikuji.

"God. What exactly is happening in this town?"

The question wasn't aimed towards me, but because of Shinobu's unprecedented tone of voice, even I couldn't help but feel nervous.

Even now, the administrator of the specialists, Gaen-san, should have been looking around town in pursuit of the unidentified vampire—so why was that unidentified vampire, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster, assumed to be the culprit behind the mass creation of these mummies, sheltering away in a shrine as a mummy herself?

She's—sheltering away, right?

"......"

At any rate, there was no longer any doubt that Shinobu and I had long since diverged from Gaen-san's plans.

The prime suspect behind the mummifications had turned up as a mummy—it sounded like that old proverb, "the mummy hunter becomes a mummy", but wait. If it followed the proverb, then the next one to become a mummy would be me.

"Shinobu. What state is that mummy in? That naked little girl? I'm already kind of astonished that your progenitor who birthed and named you was actually a little girl, but that's definitely not what a vampire should look like—is she in a zombie-like condition?"

The prime suspect had become the next victim.

It was kind of like a mystery novel, maybe?

"No. If I had to say it, then this is cryptobiosis."

Shinobu responded with a careful, and marveling, voice.

Though a marvelous god was right there.

Cryptobiosis.

In other words, anabiosis.

The ultimate state of suspended animation used as an emergency measure to preserve one's life, that tardigrades, real, non-monstrous creatures said to be as immortal as vampires, used—or so I'd read in a book.

"It's not like a living corpse, but more like in critical condition... Is that why you called us here, lost girl?"

"That's right. I couldn't exactly have a clean conscience if a foreign visitor lost their life in my area of influence—as for what exactly is going on in this town, I would like to ask the same question."

That's why, for the sake of learning the truth.

Araragi-san, I would like you to procure the medicine that will revive this person—said Hachikuji.

"The medicine—what? Procure it—where?"

Is there a pharmacy in this world that would prescribe special medicine with components that would revive vampires, which are immortal by nature?

"It is not in this world. But, it is in the next world. As you are well aware."

"Th-the next world? Even if you say that I'm aware, I don't think I know what you're talking about?"

"You should be well aware, Araragi-san. After all, you visited it quite recently—it's hell."

It's the Blood Pond Hell.

That was what Hachikuji said—the Blood Pond Hell.

Indeed, it was the perfect medicinal ingredient for the vampire's condition, which neither doctors nor the hot springs of Kusatsu would cure.

016

Hachikuji had said something like "If I were to fall to hell with Araragi-san, then it wouldn't be such a bad place," but it seemed that wasn't just figurative—it seemed that I would have to visit hell once again.

To revive the vampire in a mummified, cryptobiotic state—even though I'd thought of this vampire as the fiend going after the members of Naoetsu High's girls' basketball club, I couldn't help but feel some cognitive dissonance at having to move for the sake of this vampire's health. But it was for the sake of investigating the truth.

Even though I'd regretted that spring break so much, to think that I would mobilize to save yet another vampire on the verge of death... It's bloody ironic, is what it is.

In the first place, just because she was discovered in the same (though not exactly the same) state as the high school girls, it didn't mean that the doubts surrounding her—and whether or not this little girl was "D/V/S"—had been cleared up, but there was no doubt that things were getting into the height of confusion.

It had surpassed not only my hypothesis, but Gaen-san's hypothesis as well—the question Shinobu had asked earlier was probably the same question everyone had in mind.

What exactly was happening in this town?

What sort of oddity phenomenon was this?

...Even an unprepared college freshman like me could tell that the fastest way was to ask "the person herself".

Otherwise, even if Shinobu's progenitor was the one responsible for the mummification of those high school girls, I certainly didn't think I could leave this naked little girl as she was... If I didn't clear things up, I wouldn't be able to even apologize to Higasa-chan, who'd provided me with the list of the Naoetsu High girls' basketball team members.

It was like the type of mystery where a necromancer-like detective called upon the spirit of the victim, but of course, this wasn't as convenient as that.

After all, once again, I was going to hell for the sake of a little girl... And this time, for the sake of a naked little girl, I was going to the Blood Pond Hell.

"But how exactly am I supposed to descend to hell? Seeing as I'm a perfect saint, I can't think of a way to do this."

"If you just play around with little girls or your little sisters as usual, wouldn't you just normally go to hell?" said Shinobu.

Even though she was sealed, because of her nature as an oddity, she couldn't accompany me to hell.

Don't joke about something just because it's not your problem.

Well, it was her problem, too.

The vampire who's like a parent to her was on the brink of death—it seemed she wasn't able to keep up with the situation, and although she didn't give off a heavy vibe, it didn't seem like she was able to keep up her antics.

But what about Hachikuji?

Though she was originally a lost child, she was now a god. I didn't think she'd be able to accompany me like she did last time.

In other words, even though she'd said all that so happily, in the end, she wouldn't be able to act as my guide or navigation, and I'd have to fall to hell on my own—what's with it turning out like this as if there was nothing strange about it, as if it was completely ordinary?

"But anyway, good grief. I guess I have no choice but to go. To my home away from home, hell."

"I was about to fall for you a second time. Don't say something so cool. The last time you were in hell, it was only for an hour," said Shinobu.

"It's an unseasonal homecoming."

"What are you saying, for a college student still living in his parents' home?" said Hachikuji.

Harsh criticism from these girls. Especially to a guy that was about to go to hell.

"Well, putting aside how long you spent there. It's your second time, Araragi-san, so you must be used to it by now."

"I wouldn't say that... But at the time, there was a specialist that would allow me to come and go as I pleased."

Right now, what method of transportation could I use exactly? I didn't know if it would take an hour, but I at least wanted to get back before dawn.

"If you went to hell with such a carefree attitude, even the judge of the afterlife would lose face," said Hachikuji.

Despite being the originator of the idea, she sure was bashing me pretty hard.

"Well, it may be a bit artless, but what about using the same method as last time?"

"The same as last time..."

I searched my memories. Yes, it was the previous academic year, the morning of my entrance exams.

Strangely enough, it was right here, at the grounds of the Kitashirahebi Shrine—at the time, Gaen-san had, with no explanation at all, sent me off to hell with something like a surprise attack.

With Demon Blade "Kokorowatari" in hand, she'd chopped my body up into pieces—that was the means of transportation.

I see, in that case, the original owner of that demon blade that was also known as the "Oddity Slayer" was right here—

"Eh? Huh? Then, am I going to be chopped up by Shinobu? A surprising kind of development that had never been done even during that spring break when I was seventeen?"

"Rather than a development, it's more of an expansion plan. Of your body. Shinobu-san, if you would."

"All right."

Arrangements to slice me up were quickly coming into place—Shinobu opened her mouth wide and thrust her hand deep into her throat.

Though Hachikuji had mentioned it was artless, it'd been a while since I'd seen that circus trick—like a magic trick, the oodachi was pulled out of the little girl's body without a sound, glowing with a mysterious light.

Demon Blade "Kokorowatari". The Oddity Slayer.

"Huhuhu. I've been waiting for the opportunity to rudely beat you up like this. How dare you humiliate me by putting me in a child seat!"

"I-I thought you were happy about it! Why are you getting mad at me now!? What's with that weird 'huhuhu'? What happened to your usual way of laughing?"

"Revenge is a soup best served cold."

"I thought we were at a distance where the soup wouldn't get cold! ...By the way, I've never actually seen you wield that sword properly... It's a bit late to ask Gaen-san for help on this now, but are you sure you can actually chop my organs up successfully like she did?"

"Ka ka. Don't look down on me. It's true that not even in the movie version had I gotten the chance to, but allow me to show off my secret techniques now. Everything was for this moment. To send you off to hell!"

"Aren't you a little too passionate about this?"

"Have a taste of the swordsmanship I honed for four hundred years! I'm warning you, this won't just end with your organs being chopped up. My Seishiryuu has seven secret techniques—"

First Technique: "Kyouka Suigetsu".

Second Technique: "Kachou Fuugetsu".

Third Technique: "Hyakka Ryouran".

Fourth Technique: "Ryuuryoku Kakou".

Fifth Technique: "Hika Rakuyou".

Sixth Technique: "Kinjou Tenka".

Seventh Technique: "Rakka Rouzeki".

"—And, unleashing the seven techniques simultaneously, Seishiryuu's final secret technique, 'Shichika Hachiretsu'!"

But at the moment where I wanted to retort that she'd gotten through the whole song and dance, I may have been torn to smithereens.

017

In my third year of high school, when I'd been fighting with the aftereffects of my vampirism (or perhaps fighting against it), I'd gotten rather used to the idea of dying.

In hindsight, I had relied too much on that vampiric immortality, which had remained pronounced even after I'd returned to human form. In other words, I'd been dependent on it.

I'd become addicted to death.

In the end, even though I'd managed to hit upon that one-in-a-million chance of returning to human form, I had found myself spontaneously turning into a full-fledged vampire, even without my blood being sucked—it was kind of like a rebound, or perhaps I was just an idiot who didn't learn his lesson.

The reason Gaen-san chopped my body up into pieces and dropped me into hell was to separate my soul from that immortal nature, that oddity nature, but thinking about it now, maybe I was about to make the same mistake again.

Just as I had grown accustomed to death.

If I ended up growing accustomed to going to hell—then saying that it was fine because it was my second time, or that I'm used to it... Those wouldn't just be jokes.

Ougi-chan would laugh at me, saying, "How foolish you are", while Oikura would get mad at me, saying, "You should just die".

Anyway, so this fool that didn't learn his lesson would once again reach out his hand and step foot into a tour of hell that could shatter mankind's view of life and death—

"...Huh?"

When I awoke, or perhaps when I entered into eternal sleep, I found myself in heaven.

Heaven.

Or maybe it was paradise, or the pure land, or perhaps Eden.

There were many ways to describe it, but anyway, the fantastical landscape that sprawled out before my eyes was completely different from the one I had seen when I'd last been sliced up, and it was one that I had never seen before... What in the world?

Normally, I would describe it as a beauty that could not be painted, but the scene—this landscape filled with light—looked as if I'd entered into a painting. Or, to put it another way, I had only seen such a scene before in paintings.

If I had to make use of my poor vocabulary, well, I guess I could say it was a beautiful example of Mother Nature... But the impression I got was more, "Is it okay for someone like me to be here?" I felt really out of place.

Out of place, and just wrong.

As if I'd accidentally wandered into the jewelry area of a department store.

With rolling green plains, a mountain range with distinctive ridges far off in the distance, and not a single cloud in the beautiful blue sky—the trees were lush and ripe with fruit, and the flowers were in full, multicolored bloom.

Even the air was delicious.

I wasn't a hermit that could live off of breathing mist, but it felt like just by inhaling, I could add a hundred years to my lifespan... Although, far from extending my lifespan, wasn't I supposed to have lost my life after being cut into pieces?

Wasn't I supposed to have fallen to hell?

"Urk... So basically, instead of falling to hell, I messed up and went to heaven? Ah, jeez, this is a problem. I guess whoever's watching is watching what I do on a regular basis."

"That's exactly right. You aren't as bad of a person as you think you are."

In order to break out of my confusion and break down the current situation, I tried to calm myself down by muttering something stupid (my self-control technique—surprisingly effective), but to my surprise, even though I'd thought no one was nearby, a voice spoke from behind.

Someone caught me talking to myself!

Normally, I would've ended up writhing in shame, but the gentle voice, as clear as (or even clearer than) the air around me, calmed me down as opposed to agitating me—I turned around.

The fact that there was a naked beautiful woman there did not make me lose my cool, either.

After a naked little girl, a naked beautiful woman.

What a series of events.

However, just like how the naked little girl was a mummy, the naked beautiful woman also had a third condition—or rather, more strictly speaking, I couldn't determine if the naked beautiful woman was a true beauty or not.

Because the beauty was wearing a demon mask.

A demon mask... To expand it into more words, a mask with a demon's face.

An adult woman that was liberally nude, but whose face was completely hidden by a mask... After finishing high school and entering college, I'd had a hint of hope that my life would become more adult in the future, but it had proceeded to become more adult in a strange way.

Not just lewd in the way I had hoped, but erotic and grotesque in an Edogawa Ranpo sort of way.

"......"

However, was it just my imagination?

That adult woman... That masked, fully nude beauty... I felt like I'd met her before. Even though I couldn't see her face, I could see her long, long blonde hair coming out from behind her mask, and her beautiful body lines that made her seem as if she was closed in a thin robe, even if she wasn't wearing anything. I felt like I had seen her before...

"I apologize for the way I look, Araragi-sama."

Oh my.

Though I didn't say it out loud.

I wasn't sent into a panic, but I was honestly not sure how to react to the gentle voice coming from behind the mask... Was this person someone I knew?

Was that even possible, considering where we were?

Since she had a demon mask, maybe this was hell after all? Was she one of hell's tormentors? If you hit the books, you'll find that hell really is full of diversity, encompassing every possible variation... Among those, there might even be a hell where a tall, sexy, naked, blonde, buxom beauty wears a demon mask and tortures the dead.

"I'm embarrassed to have appeared before you wearing a mask."

She seemed more ashamed of hiding her face than of exposing her nakedness—well, I'd suspected her of being a tormentor of hell, but this beautiful woman, like the landscape that stretched out behind her, looked like a woman that had been depicted in an artistic painting, and there was not a sliver of guilt or indecency anywhere on her body.

Or rather, I even felt that this landscape had actually been made for the sake of this beautiful woman—that was how much her naked body shined.

Perhaps, in actuality, if she hadn't been wearing a demon mask, the eyes of someone like me would have been blinded by the brilliance... Ah, is that why she's hiding her face like this?

So that her beauty wouldn't hurt me—her beauty?

"P—Princess Beauty?"

"Yes. There are those that call me by that name. But while you are here, I would like it if you called me Princess Acerola."

That was what she said.

That was what she—before she was Oshino Shinobu, before she was even Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade—Princess Acerola, a literal beauty who had destroyed her country with her unparalleled physical and mental beauty—said.

That was what the beautiful woman in heaven said.

018

"We are in heaven, so being without clothes is more natural. It is the natural order of things—if I may be so bold as to suggest this, it would be more unnatural for me to be clothed, as you are right now, Araragi-sama. Why not undress as well?"

"Should I? All right."

"Please do not decide to undress so readily."

So which is it?

But it was true that, if I were to be so brazenly nude, it would make me feel wrong—but "Princess Beauty", Princess Acerola.

I remembered.

Strictly speaking, I had never actually met this goddess before... At least not in this world, in this actual world.

I won't exactly go into the details because it wasn't something that actually happened, but in the period of time after I graduated from Naoetsu High and before I entered Manase University, I crossed through the looking-glass and was honored with an audience with "Princess Beauty".

Her beauty was such that it made me want to die just by facing her—even then, we'd only spoken with a curtain between us, but I'd nearly ended up killing myself, just as the people of the kingdom she destroyed had done.

"Well... I guess you could say I am convinced. 'Princess Beauty'... Princess Acerola, I could not possibly complain against you being a resident of heaven."

Uh-oh. My tone of voice was already getting weird.

That made sense.

I wouldn't be surprised if she wasn't just a resident of heaven, but the queen of heaven.

Despite the great expanse of these plains, there was no one else in sight, so it was possible that Her Majesty had already destroyed heaven as well... Well, I was only joking, though.

Anyway, there was nothing unusual about Princess Acerola being in heaven... What was unusual was that Araragi Koyomi was here.

Just as Hachikuji and Shinobu had explicitly and implicitly asserted, I myself had decided that I would go to hell if I died—but then, what was I doing, ascending to heaven?

"That is because I invited you here, Araragi-sama."

"Ah, I see. So it was something like that. That makes perfect sense."

"Teehee. Oh, Araragi-sama, that wasn't something that should've convinced you so quickly."

It was a highly sophisticated retort accompanied by a pleasant laugh.

Considering she was going along with my antics, she wasn't just beautiful and kind, but a good person as well—but, "teehee".

It was worlds apart from that little girl who would laugh, "ka ka".

Was this person truly the predecessor to that insolent, inhuman girl?

"...Just like how I was separated from my vampiric nature and fell to hell. Princess Acerola, six hundred years ago, when you transformed into Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, did that beautiful soul of yours that 'died' end up separating and ascending to heaven?"

To force an analogy, it would be something like that.

I couldn't tell what her expression was behind the demon mask, but the naked human body was a surprisingly eloquent thing—by moving her body, Princess Acerola affirmed my guesswork without even needing to open her mouth.

Or rather, this goddess seemed to inadvertently be posing while talking—I'd heard she didn't like it herself, but it seemed that the unintentional beauty of her gestures had seeped into the marrow of her soul as well as the marrow of her bones.

I couldn't lose to her.

Time for a slightly peculiar conversation.

"However, what may have been the reason for you to so graciously invite a humble person such as myself to this place..."

"...It seems the demon mask isn't enough. Araragi-sama, please lend me your shoes."

"Okay. As you wish."

Princess Acerola took the sneakers that I respectfully offered her and put them on her feet... The naked beauty was wearing men's sneakers with a demon mask equipped.

That slight hint of discomfort brought me back to my senses.

Suddenly [俄] brought me back to myself [我].

Considering the addition of that 'person' radical [⺅], it was a scene that made me wonder about my status as a person.

At the very least, I didn't think heaven would grant me a visa.

"Why did you call me to heaven, Princess Acerola? I needed to visit the Blood Pond Hell to get its water, that is, its blood..."

"Instead of discussing such things, please forget everything and come with me, Araragi-sama. This is a recreation of my birthplace."

She was a good person, but she truly was a princess, going on at her own pace... She entered into a review of the landscape.

A beautiful princess's review of a beautiful landscape.

"My birthplace happens to be the first of many countries that I brought to ruin."

"......"

Countries.

The first of many—it was a weighty statement.

And, as a siren-like beauty, she was the first, and most likely, the last.

"I am not sure how to respond to that qualification. I may have to resign myself to it—not to mention, it's possible that someone among your friends could become something similar in the future."

Hm? Who could she be talking about?

If it's one of my friends with influence on the level of countries, then I can only think of Hanekawa...

"...I'm not sure if the idea of a country being destroyed by beauty really makes sense to me... Princess Acerola, are you sure those countries weren't destined for ruin anyway, even without you there?"

It may have sounded like I wasn't really thinking about it, but I couldn't keep quiet about it... There was no need to take on everything as her own responsibility—as unlimited liability.

This didn't have to do with the girls' basketball team's collective responsibility, but the princess's back was far too dainty to bear the burden of all that—however, dainty as it was, it was by no means so frail that it would break if you touched it.

I knew that very well, because she was naked.

You could tell, that back was very robust.

"Even the prosperous inevitably decay. No, every beautiful thing will die someday—is that what you wish to tell me? Araragi-sama. If that's the case, I must say that I have been too greedy in obtaining eternity by having my blood sucked by Suicidemaster."

Princess Acerola's shoulders drooped. Her beautiful shoulders.

That's right—the legend of Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster that Shinobu had told me had been quite biased, and although she had told me this and that, on and off, about the vampire's character, she had barely touched upon the specifics of how "Princess Beauty" had become "Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade"—how "Princess Beauty" had become the "iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire".

Did she perhaps do that on purpose?

Or maybe she forgot about it because it was six hundred years ago—normally, an event so important would never be forgotten, so it would usually be interpreted as her just being reluctant to speak of it... But this was Shinobu, after all, so forgetting about it was totally possible.

She was so lax that she may have forgotten that she was once human, over the course of that long life of hers—after seeing me wishing to become human again, she'd said it had reminded her of something she hadn't thought about in a long time.

...I wonder what she was like back then?

I'd heard of the story when Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade had been enshrined as a god, just as Hachikuji was now and Sengoku had once been in the past—and when she gave that up and continued to be a demon. But what state of mind had she been in when she turned from a human into a vampire?

Had she ever thought that she wanted to be human again?

Or perhaps—had she quickly forgotten about when she was human?

As I'd mentioned earlier, I had to finish my business quickly and come back to life, so I didn't have time for a picnic with a naked beauty. But seeing as I'd suddenly gotten the chance to have a question-and-answer session, I couldn't help but want to ask a whole bunch of things.

For now, I'll try asking one thing. The most important of them all.

"Excuse me. If you do not mind, would you please deign to inform me of the size of that ample bosom of yours? Ah, this isn't for anything indecent. I simply wanted to bequeath to you a gift of lingerie."

"Araragi-sama. Asking that of a woman you've just met is not exactly praiseworthy. I do have the awareness that it was just a joke to lighten the mood, but I think you should refrain from saying things you will regret ten or even twenty years later."

She reprimanded me normally. Reprimanded by a princess. A naked princess.

When in front of a princess at the level that could make me kill myself due to being made aware of my own diminutiveness, it was less a joke to lighten the mood and more a technique for my own survival—however, I'm probably the only person that would take care to not kill themselves while in heaven.

"I—regretted it. The fact that I lived."

"......"

"I should have died. Before I even met Suicidemaster."

At first, I thought that she meant that she didn't want to be a vampire, that she wished to be human again, just like me. But when she continued, I realized that she meant the exact opposite.

"For that reason, I ended up placing a heavy, heavy burden on Suicidemaster."

This princess. She didn't regret having her blood be sucked.

She regretted making her suck her blood.

To this day, not a day has gone by that I haven't regretted my spring break when I was seventeen, when I helped and fought against vampires. But I don't think I had ever regretted it in the same way she did.

"And so—even while I knew it was an outrageous act, I couldn't help but pull you up as you were about to go to hell for her."

It seemed the conversation had circled back around.

Well, for a princess who is not only beautiful in appearance but beautiful in mentality, she surely would not display any self-centered conversation skills, even if she did go at her own pace.

"If the me that has become your partner, the me that you know, has forgotten all about the me that is right here, then that is not because the six hundred long years of her life has worn those memories away, but because she hated me, hated me to the point that it couldn't be helped."

"...Is that also regret?"

No.

She'd avoided even regret itself.

That's why—she made it as if it never happened.

She'd convinced herself that she'd been a born vampire.

If she was a vampire with the astonishing technique of physically tinkering with her brain to recover lost memories, then perhaps even the opposite was possible.

"Indeed. What I regretted, filling myself with regret to the point that I might burst, was not that I had become a vampire, but that I had been a human before that. That I had been a princess—that I had been myself."

"To the point that that chest of yours might burst—"

"Araragi-sama."

She stopped me just by calling my name—it seemed that even these rude jokes might end with me killing myself.

Now that I was in my first year of college, I wouldn't do anything like get flustered by the naked bodies of women, but at the same time, it felt like it would be even ruder to be all composed and unwavering in front of a nude woman behaving in a dignified manner.

It seemed to me like my etiquette as a gentleman was being tested.

"And so, that must be why I was separated from my soul, and this half-baked soul of mine was sent to heaven—a fitting punishment for me."

A soul where even heaven was punishment.

It was difficult for the average person to understand that feeling, but it seemed that, just as Oshino Shinobu and I held an inseparable bond, so did Princess Acerola and Suicidemaster—so much so that they had to be separated.

When Shinobu had been reminiscing, she'd spoken of her master with such ease that it was hard to believe that they held such a fierce relationship, as if she was like a college student talking about a senior from her hometown (a common occurrence—how envious)—so, essentially, she'd forgotten why she forgot, and she'd forgotten why she wanted to forget, forgetting everything altogether.

It sounded stupid when I put it like that, but when I saw the separated Princess Acerola in front of me like this, it wasn't a laughing matter.

"I'm sure you are here because you've accepted it, and I don't have the intention, nor the qualification, to console you, but isn't that something you shouldn't be worrying about...? Because, after all, vampires are destined to suck blood—"

"I can say this only because I have been a vampire myself, but a vampire sucking blood does have a different nuance than, say, Mr. Lion or Mr. Bear attacking humans."

Mr. Lion or Mr. Bear?

Why was she acting like a fairytale princess for children for just that?

"I think it is unreasonable to talk about vampires who prey on humans in the same vein as carnivorous animals. Though I am glad to hear you say such words."

"No... I'm sorry that words are all I have."

No, maybe I'd said too much.

It was possible that I really didn't have the intention of consoling Princess Acerola, and while I was acting like I was talking to her, I was really talking to myself.

It wasn't something to worry about.

But I should still worry about it. For the rest of my life. Or perhaps, for eternity.

"However."

Said Princess Acerola.

"If those points are to be considered similar—then it would mean that I had ended up changing the ecosystem of endangered animals. And that is, perhaps, an even greater sin."

"......?"

What did she mean by that? Ecosystem?

Before I could question the meaning of that monologue (which I couldn't just let pass, seeing as I was more or less majoring in the sciences), she continued. "It may be too late now, but I want to help Suicidemaster, even if it means protecting an endangered species," she declared.

She declared, beautifully.

"That will not lessen the weight of my sin, and it is possible it will only lead to my regrets worsening even further. But even so, I intend to do what I have to do."

What she has to do.

What she has to regret.

"I can no longer turn a blind eye to the present situation, and leave Suicidemaster in the state she's in."

The naked little girl.

Well, the nakedness wasn't relevant—the mummified little girl.

The mummy that had dried up so much—it was hard to even look at.

"—Basically, Princess, it wasn't that you were trying to prevent me from visiting hell in search of a cure, but that you saw me about to descend into hell, and thought, 'He isn't that bad of a person.' And then you pulled me up for the sake of saving Miss Suicidemaster, right?"

"Yes. I truly do not believe you are that bad of a person, Araragi-sama."

Even her honesty had a virtuous beauty to it.

It was to the point that I wanted to introduce her to the members of the Pretty Boy Detective Club, who I had befriended the other day.

"If I were your friend, I think I would recommend that you take a leisurely trip to hell at another opportunity."

If the princess who destroyed countries was going to recommend a vacation like that, then it seemed I would have to reevaluate the way I lived. But in that case, I would gratefully accept her support.

If I could, I would borrow even the help of a cat (though the Araragi style of doing things was "I would borrow specifically the help of a cat"), but if it was the princess herself offering her hand, then I couldn't not kneel down and kiss her.

"You said this was a recreation of your birthplace, Princess Acerola—um, can I find a Blood Pond Hell in heaven, too? Somewhere that's fairly close by, and easy to procure from—"

"There is no Blood Pond Hell in heaven. There is none in this world, in the same way there is no place here where either me or Araragi-sama can belong."

I was told something pretty terrible.

But, well, of course... In that case, it would be the Blood Pond Heaven. I couldn't help but imagine a Blood Pond Heaven as something sumptuous and immoral.

It didn't seem heaven-like.

So, if she didn't invite me to a haven where I didn't belong to recommend a cheaper generic drug with the same effectiveness but at a lower price...

"Could it possibly be that we were off the mark this whole time? Are you warning me that ladling out a cup of medicine from the Blood Pond Hell won't be the wonder drug to revive Miss Suicidemaster like we were thinking?"

Well, it wasn't the kind of treatment you'd find in a "Family Medicine" book... It had been a suggestion from none other than Hachikuji Mayoi, not only a god, but also someone who had had experience in hell.

To put it one way, it was like folklore that had been thought up by folklore; to put it another way, I may as well have been trying to go to hell to pray for rain.

Like a meaningless sacrifice, or a sacrifice chosen by lottery...

"No, no, it is not like that at all. As a treatment for Suicidemaster in that state... Yes, it would be Ultra-C."

She'd worded things in a way a youngster like me would get... Unfortunately, there was a significant margin of error, but I was glad for her concern.

"The Blood Pond Hell, a soup simmered with the karma of people, can act as a health drink not just for Suicidemaster, but for any vampire in the world... However."

That person surely will not drink it.

She surely will not accept it.

That was what Princess Acerola asserted.

"Because she's a gourmet. An epicure, and a high-class one, at that—she will never consume anything that doesn't go along with what she wants."

When she said that, I remembered what Shinobu had told me about Suicidemaster's personality.

She would only eat the lives of whoever she killed herself.

In that way, she was quite the stoic vampire.

"The Blood Pond Hell, if you will, is a buffet of sorts, filled with the blood of people in every possible variation. Do you like buffets, Araragi-sama?"

"Huh? Well, I guess."

The buffets that I was familiar with were mainly the sweets buffets that I was taken to by my girlfriend, but the glamorous party-like atmosphere was very exciting.

In that case, perhaps I could expect a similar sort of placebo effect from the Blood Pond Hell—however.

"Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster prefers service a la carte."

Said Princess Acerola, continuing the analogy.

"The idea of that new god was rather flexible, and I would value it as rather original. However, in this world, there are some patients that refuse to accept rational treatment—there are some that refuse to even see a doctor."

People that wanted to die naturally, huh.

They didn't want to live long to the point of defying their fate—well, that also concerned the matter of euthanasia or death with dignity, so it wasn't something that a youngster like me could talk about lightly. But there were certainly people that thought that way.

"A youngster, you say? Please don't abandon that thought, and keep thinking about it. You already have the right to vote, after all."

And why are you so knowledgeable about the state of Japanese politics?

Is everything we do, including right now, completely transparent to heaven? In that case, does that mean that the princess knows the truth behind this incident?—I nonchalantly tried to fish for information.

"If Miss Suicidemaster is such a gourmet, or rather, such a picky eater—then she's likely to be biased towards the targets she attacks as a vampire, right?"

For example, high school girls. More specifically, the members of a high school girls' basketball team.

"I would like to ask you not to probe for information. The fact that I could arrange this point of contact with you is not exactly commendable in itself."

Oof. It was a little hard to press for information if she told me that directly.

Or rather, I was pretty embarrassed that she'd figured out I was trying to probe for information.

"No matter what, I will always be on the side of Suicidemaster. It is like testimony from a family member—please consider my words to be unreliable."

"......"

"However, it is not that I know everything about this, either... The only advice that I can give you, Araragi-sama, is that if you wish to obtain the wonder drug that will become the nectar for Suicidemaster, then instead of getting it from a drink bar with variations of blood, you should extract that blood from someone that has been carefully selected."

For example.

For example, the blood of someone like me.

With that, "Princess Beauty", the completely nude princess, raised a hand to the demon mask upon her face.

Huh? Was she going to take it off?

Why now?

"Please close your eyes."

Being asked to do so, I finally (even though it should have been the first thing I did when I saw an adult woman in the nude) closed my eyes.

Because of her brilliance, an ordinary person would be blinded if they looked directly upon her countenance—that was how dangerous it was to look upon the beauty of "Princess Beauty".

She knew that from the very beginning.

That's why, even in heaven where exposing your body was the basis and nudity was the dress code, she appeared before me wearing a demon mask—so then, why was she suddenly trying to take off the mask now, without any context?

"That is, of course," the princess said.

I couldn't tell for because I'd already shut my eyes, but she must have already taken off her mask, for the sound of her voice had become even more beautiful—that muffled sound that came from behind the mask was gone.

And that voice was extremely close.

I had no idea when she had gotten that close, to the point that I could feel her breath.

That beautiful voice was coming from a distance where our lips were almost touching each other.

"If I am still wearing a mask, then I cannot place my lips on top of yours."

"Wha?"

"That was the reason why I asked you to close your eyes—"

I didn't understand what Princess Acerola meant when she spoke to me in an admonishing way, and though I opened my mouth to ask what she actually meant.

She shut me up with a kiss.

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