23, with the Shika Twins (Not romantic, obviously)

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We talk in the dark as we fall asleep,
and we are objects in the night sky
outside of time.
(it is the exact opposite of alone.)

—

(Remember To Sleep)

“It’s been a while,” Shikamaru says, once the table has been cleared, the two of them washing up afterwards just as they always have ever since they were old enough to be given chores.

Everyone else has relocated to the living room with little plates of dessert and cups of tea, Naruto exclaiming flattery over food he can’t really taste.

“Yes,” Shikako responds simply enough, and tries not to break the glass between her soapy hands.

Not that it would be difficult–she’s not the one with the cybernetic arm.

“You don’t have to keep punishing yourself,” he says, “It wasn’t your fault.”

Shikako bites back the denial, the frustrated honesty that wants to sting, wants to make herself miserable even at the cost of her brother’s happiness.

“Okay,” she says instead, still light and terribly brittle.

Shikamaru sighs. It’s resigned more than frustrated–he’s beyond the temper of his teenaged years. “I’m glad you joined us tonight.”

This, at least, is not a controversial statement.

“I am too.”

///

(Dreaming of Sunshine Switch by Lady Hallen and Fragile Dreams)

“We have a little brother,” the woman who both is but also isn’t his sister says, “Kinokawa Nara.”

“After mum’s family,” Shikamaru responds, the connection coming easily: the recent appearance of one family member made researching the rest relevant. How many secrets have been kept from him? How many siblings is he missing?

“Bingo,” Shikako says, smile gentle and warm. He wonders if she’s like that with the other him. Her actual brother. Or if it’s just because of the age difference. “He likes you better,” she says, “though he’s in his terrible twos now, so I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.”

The calculation is easy, but he doesn’t want to get his hopes up without confirmation.

“It’s not time yet,” Shikamaru leads, hesitant but still eager to know, “he hasn’t been born yet.”

Shikako’s expression falters, slightly, perhaps realizing the extent of the desperation in his tone, on his face. “Things are different,” she hedges, “Your parents are different people. Have experienced different things. They may not…”

They may not want to try for a third child, after losing one already.

“… Alternate universe. I certainly don’t remember meeting a time traveling version of my sibling.”

And, of course, Shikamaru is an only child in this one.

~

A/N: OH MY GOD, THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT WHAT YOU WANTED, ANON, I AM SO SORRY FOR THIS ANGST.

ANGST, EVERYWHERE. WHY DO I DO THIS? T_T

Dreaming of Sunshine Switch is by Lady Hallen & Fragile Dreams and is about DoS!Sasuke and Shikako swapping places with canon!Sasuke (and no one because there is no canon!Shikako… OR IS THERE?)

It’s full of deliciously sad Nara family feels and I just recently reread it, so it was very much so on my mind.

Number + Character/Ship + (optional) AU –> my ask box

[If anyone else wants to do a softer world prompt that isn’t on the list, you can just send the page id number for the original comic instead.]

14 – Poly!Lucky Sevens

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…
I think I’ve got fireflies
where my caution should be.
(Instead of slowing down, I just shine brighter)

—

(Insuperable)

She’s thrown through a wall–one, two, three–comes to a rolling, tumbling stop against the crumpled steel of a dumpster.

She groans, body shrieking in pain–her floating ribs are probably broken, shit, and her vision is hazy with a definite concussion–but at least she’s still alive. Her armor has held up well: TenTen is definitely getting a raise.

A roar sounds through the streets, reverberating and ominous, straight out of her childhood nightmares of monsters under her bed.

What she wouldn’t give to be asleep in her bed right now.

Shikako coughs, brick dust and rubble in the air, ribs protesting angrily. She steels herself. Flipping onto her hands and knees nearly makes her weep.

She can’t do this.

Human criminals are one thing–she’s better trained and better equipped than anyone on the street–but creatures of this size? Rogues with superhuman abilities? Magic and other things beyond the laws of physics?

She can’t do this alone.

—

An extraterrestrial object crashes into Konoha’s Central Park during an R&D presentation to the board–Shikako’s presence is mandatory no matter how many wide-eyed looks of panic she exchanges with TenTen.

And so when the alien emerges, blindfolded and shackled but rampaging madly, it’s not The Dark Knight that makes first contact, but a graffiti artist on the run from the cops.

A graffiti artist that also happens to be a demigod.

By the time the presentation is over–rushed through as quickly as possible, but still far too long–the rampage turned battle has expanded to downtown Konoha.

Shikako arrives on scene and curses, futilely: there are news cameras–stupid and brave–and a ring of police cars–less stupid, but braver–lights spinning a dizzying red and blue.

Most of her power comes from reputation, the growing rumors of an urban legend that haunts the nights and minds of criminals. This is so public, too public, out in the bright glaring sunshine.

The officers that spot her, rumbling motorcycle engine loud and impatient, face their weapons her way for a moment. The Dark Knight, after all, is still a wanted vigilante–one that has caused conflicting opinions within the force. But their captain is quick to brush them off, in part for her benefit, but mostly for theirs.

“I hope you have better firepower than we do,” the captain says, opening up the barrier with a wave, “Because both of them are bulletproof.”

She does, but that’s not what is going to resolve this.

She goes through, prepared to enter the fray even if it means surrounding herself by people who want to throw her in prison, because maybe there’s a way to salvage this situation.

~

A/N: … I didn’t get to the actual relationship so much as it is the set up to it? Sorry, anon… 

Also I did try to write a third section to this but it didn’t fit so well and I already felt like this was taking too long so there’s a paragraph under the cut. I may use that eventually if I write more Insuperable, but so I don’t lose it I’ll just hide it here.

Number + Character/Ship + (optional) AU –> my ask box

[If anyone else wants to do a softer world prompt that isn’t on the list, you can just send the page id number for the original comic instead.]

The walls of their headquarters are covered in paint. Vibrant swirling colors and symbols that don’t match any living language. Naruto sees these shapes in his dreams, grasping at images that evaporate during his waking hours.

He is desperate for any hint of his past.

Sasuke wishes he could forget his own.

Character Statistics: Naruto, Densetsu no Sannin

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Genin

image
image

—
Chuunin

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image

—
Jounin

—
Legend

image
image

—
Tsunade

image

Orochimaru

Jiraiya

image

~

A/N: The Sannin! I made the Sannin because I do have a fanfic revolving around a team of contemporaries and I needed to make sure they were consistently less (but not too much so) than the Legendary Three. The series is called (In)Difference, but this is independent of that.

So… please let me know if anything looks off to you or if you think there are some data points that ought to be adjusted.

I’m not entirely sure when in the timeline they became chuunin and jounin ranked respective to the shinobi world wars (because… time is weird in the Naruto world) so… I am open to alternatives and if the logic is sound then I’ll edit the data.

Please enjoy! 😀

edit: tweaked Orochimaru’s Jounin Speed

I’m kind of curious here, how do three d6 get a 23? Don’t three d6 get a sum between 3 to 18?

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Oh, whoops, it’d be plus whatever the related skill/stat is. I guess I forgot to include that (let me do that now). Like for example if you’re trying to outrun an explosion and you roll three 6s and ALSO have 5 in speed, you’d get a 23 total which is an EPIC SUCCESS. (… which means you run so fast that the explosion is trying to escape you?)

So not only do you totally succeed in outrunning the explosion, the triple 6s gives you a boost/advantage, AND the “epic” part means… I don’t know… you get to declare a story detail or something?

Character Statistics –> DoS/Naruto RPG?

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Having four sets of character statistics up for the Konoha Twelve/Thirteen kind of makes me want to develop an informal role-playing game (RPG) based on them? I’d definitely have to add another stat called “Heart” or “Spirit” or “Empathy,” something like that, but otherwise I think everything is covered?

Like… I even thought of a rough idea of the rules and such when I was traveling:

  • So as not to require many specialized dice, this game would only use three d6 (aka the cube shape dice that have six faces which most board games use). 
  • Depending on what the related skill/stat is, playing would be the three d6+stat. For example, if I have a speed of 3 and roll a 2, 4, and 5, then that’d be a total of 14.
  • The breakdown of roll results would be 3-8 is a failure, 9-16 is a mixed success, 17-22 is an uncontested success, and 23 is an EPIC SUCCESS. (This would probably be a little modified depending on what the obstacle or who the enemy is? Like, a 17 will not defeat someone like Madara outright, but maybe your character does manage to score a hit).
  • There’d probably be some special rules, too. Like, if you roll triples you can get a little boost/advantage no matter what the actual result is–like, triple 2s might be a fail, but maybe you failed so badly that the enemy is distracted and your teammate gets an advantage on their attack.
  • Character creation! If we go based off everyone’s Academy graduation stats then it would be (well, I’d still have to figure out whatever the other Heart/Spirit stat is) but all graduates have a rough minimum of 12 points and a rough maximum of 18. So you start with 12 no matter what then in order to create your character, you’d roll two d6. One you can make part of your current talent/fighting stats and the other you can make your Heart/Spirit stat (so you can decide if you want to be more of a Lee character or a Neji character–or a Naruto character vs a Sasuke character–more Heart/Spirit but less talent. Or maybe you might end up rolling 1s on both and just be like one of those background faceless characters that didn’t get a jounin-sensei).
  • Depending on who the game master (GM) is and who is playing you don’t have to start in Konoha (actually, maybe you probably shouldn’t? To have a different genin team set up it might be better to go to a different village).  Most likely (unless everyone has amazingly high character creation rolls) the players wouldn’t be on a jounin led team but in the general Genin Corps so the GM wouldn’t have to be worried about playing an OP non player character (NPC) and god.

I guess mostly it’d be a cool way to create a story in the Naruto world without having to adhere to Naruto’s canon story.

Damn. I really want to play this now.

9, Platonic Kakashi/Shikako? If you’re cool with that, of course.

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CAN’T STOP
WON’T STOP
NOT SURE HOW TO STOP
(WHY STOP)

—

“You’re getting out of hand,” the Hokage says, irritated furrow in between her brows.

The both of them stand in front of her desk, backs straight and eyes forward.

Kakashi doesn’t respond.

“This isn’t what either of them would have wanted,” Tsunade tries instead, gaze settling on Shikako, “Surely you realize that.”

She doesn’t know why people assume she’s someone who can be reasoned with. She’s logical, sure, but not nearly as much as she is determined.

And plus, it doesn’t really matter what either Naruto or Sasuke would have wanted them to do.

They’re dead.

Shikako doesn’t respond either.

Tsunade sighs, resigned and heartbroken, before signing off on their requests for admission.

“Like teacher like student.”

Singular student. Which is the entire problem.

—

Naruto and Sasuke die.

Maybe it’s apart–thousands of miles away–completely unrelated incidents; Naruto with his high risk training, Sasuke on his dangerous assignments.

Maybe it’s together, battling side by side, giving their all and sacrificing themselves for the good of the world.

Maybe it’s in the middle of the night, assassination, unexpected attacks in the middle of Konoha where they thought they’d be safe.

It doesn’t really matter, does it?

Only Shikako and Kakashi are left.

—

Wolf was a legend in ANBU. An open secret. The honing of the blade that would become Sharingan no Kakashi, internationally renowned.

It was a time in his life when he needed the mask. Needed the danger. Needed to know that even if everything he touched died then at the very least he could make that talent useful.

That’s not who he is anymore.

The mask he gets this time has sharper marks; the facsimile of a thinner face with smiling teeth and three whiskers on either cheek.

Kakashi has a lot to atone for.

Fox is another open secret.

—

Shikako’s choice in mask is even more of one:

ANBU Hawk is smaller, not as strong but just as fast, and no longer in possession of a Sharingan.

Still, Hawk flies once more.

~

A/N:… um… my bad, anon…

I did honestly try to think of a light hearted version but this one was the only one that my brain would work with.

Number + Character/Ship + (optional) AU –> my ask box

[If anyone else wants to do a softer world prompt that isn’t on the list, you can just send the page id number for the original comic instead.]

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jackthevulture:

Is telling an author you literally check their blog/fic every day/i get so excited whenever this updates

a compliment

or is that pressuring?  

bc I never want to like, pressure an author. ever.  thats the last thing i wanna do. its shitty and annoying and they get enough of it already im sure. 

Maybe worded instead as “I think about this story everyday” instead of “I check for updates everyday.”

Because if you think about it like a person: “I think about you” is romantic, “I check in on you” is a little… obsessive?

And it means basically the same thing but with a nicer vibe.