Tag: katekyo hitman reborn

trailblazers, 10YL, tetsuki+sasagawa sibs, 32) things you said I wouldn’t understand

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Trailblazers, 32) things you said I wouldn’t understand

Ryohei doesn’t let himself get distracted for long, despite how fun it is to spar with these strangers. He returns to wait in the hallway outside Tetsuki’s door, patient, if neither silent nor still.

He chatters at the door, exercising all the while–at first shadowboxing on his own, then drills with equipment as the Vongola staff catch on and set up the space for him. While unusual and against the aesthetics of the mansions, they do so without asking. Partially because Ryohei is one of the elite Guardians, but mostly because he is one of the nicest and they are fond of him.

And so Ryohei waits, because while he may not be as stubborn as Tetsuki, he’s equally as skilled at persevering.

Kyoko is the one that seeks out answers, handing the supervision of the medics over to Shamal who complains even though it’s his job. And anyway, the stranger that Tetsuki-nee-chan has sent out–Sakura-san, the healer–is doing an excellent job at showcasing new techniques to keep them busy.

Plus, Tetsuki is both family and Family; there aren’t many who are due as high priority.

She calls Kusakabe-senpai first. Mostly because even if Hibari-senpai had a phone–which she highly doubts–he certainly would never answer a call with it. A few minutes of polite small talk and careful maneuvering around the topic of Tetsuki and she finally gets connected to Hibari-senpai.

“What happened on that mission?” Kyoko demands, steamrolling over Hibari-senpai’s less than pleased greeting, “She won’t leave her room and she’s not letting anyone else in and she keeps… making strangers to send out in her place. As if that’s what we wanted instead of her to be okay!” She finishes in a frustrated shout before immediately shutting her mouth–Hibari-senpai might not be that hard-headed violent teenager anymore, but he certainly wouldn’t appreciate such disrespect.

Her frustration isn’t at him, anyway. Not really at Tetsuki-nee-chan either. Perhaps it’s not frustration at all, just concern.

Silence reigns on the other end of the line and for a moment, Kyoko thinks that perhaps Hibari-senpai has hung up or simply walked away from the phone letting the call run through, until he belatedly answers, “Ask the pineapple.”

Another silence reigns, Kyoko waiting for more, prepared to outlast Hibari-senpai–he Sasagawas can be patient in regards to important matters–when finally, reluctantly, Hibari-senpai asks, “Should I send Tetsu?”

Kyoko can easily imagine the fierce scowl on his face, but the offer to send his second in command away for an unknown length of time only shows how worried he is for Tetsuki-nee-chan as well.

“No, not yet. Kusakabe-senpai can stay with you for now. I’ll call again if–”

The dial tone plays back to her. Kyoko huffs, irritated, but internally acknowledges that probably was the best outcome for this call.

Really the only reason why she tried Hibari-senpai first despite the unlikely odds of it working is because he’s easier to find. Getting in contact with Mukuro is going to be a greater challenge. Alas, such is the way of Mists–never mind she herself partially has that very flame type.

The chain goes as such: Kyoko asks Fuuta-kun–main handler for Vongola’s Guardians–who connects her with Chikusa and Ken, who still act as bodyguards for Chrome, who then consults with Fran and, eventually, somehow sends a message Mukuro.

It’s about a month, all told, for Mukuro to respond, appearing in Vongola Mansion and acting as if he weren’t the most infuriating person Kyoko has ever had to deal with–especially when Tetsuki has yet to come out of room, sending out more and more strangers as the weeks pass.

By the time Mukuro arrives, both of the Sasagawa siblings are chomping at the bit, held back only by the thought that Mukuro might be able to help Tetsuki. So when they ask him what happened, neither of them are in the right headspace to comprehend his answer.

“She died,” he says with an almost careless shrug, eyeing the door where his fellow Guardian hides. “But she’s always had a small flicker of Mist Flames, so I was able to ensure she would come back.”

“You saved her life?” Ryohei asks, hopeful, almost thankful to Mukuro, not understanding. Kyoko stays quiet, because surely there’s more.

“No she definitely died,” Mukuro answers, almost laughing. When he turns to face them properly, his red eye practically glows, the six all the darker for it, “And then I sent her off to die five more times.”

Oh, could you also do 32 (Wouldn’t Understand), for basically any “from another world” person? I love seeing the ways having a remembered past life from another culture makes someone feel/appear separate from the people around them.

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32) things you said I wouldn’t understand

Viridescent: Or, Tetsuki Goes Feudal

“Consider me your private tutor,” says the girl seated at the table beside Kagome’s family. The weirdest thing isn’t that the girl is a stranger and yet has settled in as if she’s always had a place, or that she’s not far from Kagome in age and yet Mama and Grandpa look so trusting of her, or even that she’s wearing a sharp black suit more suited to business men than teenage girls in their very traditional shrine house.

No, the weirdest thing is the way that, when Kagome enters the house after an exhausting and filthy two weeks in the feudal era, Inuyasha just a few steps behind her, the girl doesn’t seem surprised at all.

She can definitely see Inuyasha–the both of them had been flat-footed, hadn’t thought to be wary of strangers in the house proper–but she keeps her eyes on Kagome.

“No worries,” the girl adds, after Kagome and Inuyasha have exchanged an entire conversation of looks, “I’m very discrete and very good at my job.” Mama nods, reassured.

“Which is… my private tutor?” Kagome asks, baffled. It’s true that her grades have been slipping what with all the absences in favor of time traveling, demon-slaying adventures, but getting her a private tutor seems ineffective at best and a hindrance at worst. She’s not entirely sure what Mama is thinking.

“Yes. We’ll make quite the warrior priestess out of you yet.”

—

The private tutor, Reborn, as she prefers to be called, is only more bewildering the longer Kagome gets to know her. She prowls around the shrine–looking for what, Kagome doesn’t know–barely bats an eye at Inuyasha even when he bares his claws at her, and has set up a makeshift archery range towards the back of the property with an array of targets and an alarming pulley and rope system.

“Traditional kyuudo is, of course, lovely and useful in its own way. An internal core of peace and discipline is nothing to scoff at,” Reborn lectures even as she physically herds Kagome toward the archery range. Kagome, who has just returned home from school after a grueling day of exams, is in no state to put up much of a fight. Nor is she in a state to go through with some kind of archery gauntlet, either.

“But it’s not terribly practical, now is it?” Reborn asks as she finally places Kagome inside of a small circle denoted by a rope braided with paper. “In a world of creatures much stronger than you, the only way archery will be able to do anything is if you’re fast and accurate.” She hands Kagome a bow and steps back to where a series of ropes hang down.

“Hit one hundred targets and protect your circle,” Reborn says, a bright, expectant, and somewhat sadistic smile spreading across her face. She tosses what looks like a water balloon up in the air and catches it; Kagome doesn’t think the water balloons are filled with water.

Kagome tries to back away, out of the circle, and finds that she cannot. “You didn’t give me any arrows!”

“One hundred targets,” Reborn almost sing-songs in response, “I won’t let you out a moment sooner.”

—

After a grueling several of hours of manifesting spiritual energy into arrows, trying and frequently failing to hit the moving targets, getting covered in slime that somehow reminds Kagome of that one fight against a slug youkai but far worse, Reborn finally breaks the barrier.

Then she breaks out the gardening hose even though it’s late fall, nighttime, and the water is no doubt barely above freezing. “It would be rude to track slime into the house,” Reborn scolds, “Mama already has so much to do. And plus, a warm bath will just be a quick sprint away; surely you’ve had much worse during your travels.”

True, but Kagome’s not used to having to deal with that in the modern times!

“Now, what was your first mistake?” Reborn asks pleasantly even as she blasts Kagome with frigid water.

She screeches at the temperature, “You’re awful!”

“Maybe,” Reborn acquiesces with an easy shrug, “But that doesn’t answer my question. If you really didn’t want to go through this entire ordeal, your first mistake was not breaking the barrier.”

“But you said–”

“I said I wouldn’t let you out until you hit a hundred targets–which took far longer than I would have expected, we’ll work on that–but I didn’t say that you couldn’t let yourself out.”

“But I don’t know how to,” Kagome argues, teeth starting to chatter. Futilely, she wraps her arms around herself for warmth.

Reborn raises an eyebrow at that, an almost disappointed look gracing her face. Then she sighs, shakes her head, and tosses a towel directly at Kagome’s face. “I guess we’ll have to work on that, too.”

—

After a bath and dinner, right before Kagome tries to speak to Mama privately about the whole Reborn situation–namely, how to get rid of her–the devil herself stops her.

“In comparison to my predecessor, I’m being kind,” Reborn says, in pajamas and bare feet, hair soft and loose and slightly damp–the soft hallway lighting of Kagome’s home and no slime balloons in sight–she really does look like a normal teenage girl and not the youkai sent to torture her in modern times.

The smile Reborn gives this time is rueful, regretful, “I suppose such a standard isn’t hard to beat given he used to literally shoot us with guns–” an alarming statement that she brushes right over, “–but the thing that he messed up from the beginning was never telling his student the intent behind every awful, cruel lesson. I won’t make that same mistake, mostly because I don’t have the luxury to do so.

“He could follow his student in his adventures and if things really got tough, not only beyond the limit but beyond capabilities, then he could step in and help,” at this Reborn meets Kagome’s eyes, “I can’t do that with you. I have to make you strong enough to stand on your own. And I know you have your friends, your own guardians, but they shouldn’t have to worry about protecting you all the time. If anything, you should want to be stronger so that you can protect them, too. Lead them, even.

"If that’s not something that you want, then go ahead. Tell Mama to send me away. I wouldn’t want to teach someone like that anyway.” At that, Reborn steps back, bare feet padding towards the spare room, leaving Kagome alone to process her thoughts.

She talks to Mama.

—

The next day, Kagome–with only a little complaint–steps into the circle, bow in hand. Mama and Grandpa and Souta all watch from a safe enough distance away, the remains of a  picnic set up as they get ready for the main event.

And Reborn, smiling, bright, expectant, and somewhat sadistic, says, “Because you’ve had a nice rest a good lunch and your wonderful family to cheer you on, now you have to hit two hundred targets!”

~

A/N: … I’ll be honest, lionheadbookends, this prompt was pretty difficult? I started and stopped a lot of different ideas and I’m not really all that satisfied with this one nor do I think it matches the prompt but I got about halfway through and decided this was probably the closest I would get so… here it is. Tetsuki in the Inuyasha world, training Kagome to be a better warrior.

I tend primarily to feel the most like writing when I’ve just seen someone else write something (or when I’ve promised someone else I’d write, lol), and I’ve loved what you’ve done with the Sakako and Fear To Tread stuff, and you were the first person I thought of when I came up with this (in the next ask):

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Peeling away from your flesh leaves a lot of detail behind. The shape of “You” isn’t the same as the shape of your body; the shape of you grows to fill whatever space it’s given. And when I step away from things, just for a bit, I feel bigger and bolder than I have ever grown inside. But I take the bags beneath my eyes with me, and the scar on my left arm (though I don’t take the arm to go with it). I take my aches and my pains with me; I only leave behind the things that aren’t me at all.

A/N: Not to curtail your prompt again, lionheadbookheads, but I’m getting very strong vibes of Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep by Mary Elizabeth Frye as well as that one other time you sent me a prompt about the songs “It’s Thunder and It’s Lightning” and “Thunder” and I guess what I’m saying here is that I want to do a Tetsuki Kaiza piece for this prompt, I hope you don’t mind.

Basically, given the whole “who I am is not my physical body” theme, there is a very definitive spiritual over physical and reincarnation message going on here and Tetsuki does do that so… please enjoy?

—

Viridescent: Or, Tetsuki Follows Her Dreams

She closes her eyes, feels the sunshine warm on her face, and takes a deep breath; the spring breeze carries hints of winter still, cool and slightly damp, but the scent of early blooming flowers layers over that.

Her mobile phone buzzes in her pocket, a staccato vibration, a summoning. The man who pays her income but will never be her Boss, the man who supports her lifestyle but doesn’t provide her survival, the man who determines her waking and sleeping hours but never her thoughts or dreams.

She opens her eyes, raises a hand, and lifts a gun to her temple. Inelegant, but efficient. It reminds her of home.

She pulls the trigger.

She wakes up.

///

She is born in the late autumn months, as both year and century draw to an end. She is born to Fuyuko and Toichi Kaiza in a hospital technically but barely within Tokyo. She is born a wailing, red-faced, and thoroughly average baby girl.

What happens to her after is far from from average.

///

For all that dream-sharing is a largely international industry, it would inaccurate to say that it is one homogenous community. They do not always match official country borders, but there are enclaves within dream-sharing with its own customs and cultures and rules.

Japan is one such enclave.

For the most part, so long as there is no immediate conflict of interest, foreign dreamers may conduct their business without any interference from local entities. This rule is but the second that broadly reigns over the Japanese dream-sharing community.

The first is simply: do not mess with Azuma.

///

The thoroughly average baby girl that will one day be known in certain circles as Azuma does not have a good or even average childhood. She tries to run away from her parents at age six and manages to elude the very expensive private detective service her parents hired for two weeks before getting caught.

Despite the broken arm, it is not the last time she does this. It will be another eight years and twenty or so attempts before she manages to definitively escape her parents’ clutches and that perhaps has equal amount to do with them getting bored as it is with her expertise.

She is searching for people and places that don’t exist anywhere but her own mind, but at least it’s better than staying where she was.

///

Saito of Proclus Global has three executive assistants, all of whom speak a minimum of four languages, are qualified as triple-A certified bodyguards and emergency medical technicians, and have extensive counterintelligence training, among other varied and useful talents.

Though the woman known as Azuma can also be described as such and is frequently seen in proximity of Saito, she is not one of said executive assistants.

Her talents are a little more varied and useful than that.

///

The knowledge she has is helpful–blades and human vulnerabilities the same no matter what, languages and critical training filtering through as needed–but she remembers having powers beyond physical possibility and that’s what ultimately betrays her.

A teenager, no matter how skilled or smart or shrewd, will never be completely safe in the criminal underbelly of a big city. A lone teenager without any ties is a tempting target for many parties.

When they grab her, she fights. Foolishly, she thinks she can win. She forgets she doesn’t have endless lightning at her fingertips, energy bolstering her muscles, superhuman and unstoppable.

When they grab her, she loses. She is just a teenager, and they are a unscrupulous, government funded company trying to pioneer an entirely new method of espionage.

///

Azuma’s patron is a matter of public knowledge. It is not a weakness.

Most professional dreamers in Japan have a primary sponsor–another company, a yakuza family, a government official–and while Azuma’s patron does not have technically have the most influence in Japan, well… Proclus Global. Money is its own kind of power. And that’s not even including what Azuma can bring to the table.

Dreamers in Japan know better than to go after Azuma’s patron. Even non-native dreamers who have heard secondhand of Azuma know better than to attempt it.

Which is why, when Cobol Engineering tries to hire extractors to go after Saito, they are forced to outsource to an unhinged suspected murderer, his loyal point man, and a mediocre architect.

///

The early stages of Somnacin were riddled with problems. Unstable, inefficient, addictive–anything that could have gone wrong, did.

Her body hated every second of it, every drop that coursed through her veins. She spent the next few years in a constantly nauseated state of misery, sick and shaking, more asleep than awake and so terribly weak.

Physically, that is.

Mentally, everything she had lost was regained. The power that eluded her in the waking world flowed easily at her command, the dreamscape the most welcoming place she had been in years.

The other subjects washout–brains fried, suicide, crumbling under the pressure–but she remains. No, more than that, she thrives.

///

Azuma is not an extractor; she is not a point person or architect or chemist either. She can do all of those jobs, of course, but she thinks dividing roles that way is arbitrary and limiting. She is a professional dreamer, with all the responsibilities and capabilities involved.

Her outside reputation is as a forger, though that isn’t quite right either.

Even in dreams, no one can do what Azuma can.

///

Tetsuki is happiest when she dreams.

Trailblazers (2018-02-02)

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Hana is the third strongest Cloud of Namimori.

Knowing that fact is about as awful a sensation as one might imagine–not that she even cares about the stupid colored fire stuff that all the monkeys keep throwing around… but still.

Being third best at anything is one of the worst feelings ever.

—

Her manifestation was subtle, a matter of details and quirks in contrast to the full blown phenomenon of Hibari.

She never ran out of pens or spare change or other little items, never tired during gym class for all that she wasn’t one for exercise.

She had one friend–Kyoko–and that was all she needed. More than that, she was confident she was all Kyoko needed, though she would yield to Kaiza-senpai’s stronger, prior claim whenever an overlap arose.

She’d much rather attribute it to her own rational and respectful nature than the bullshit “subconscious deference to a more powerful person” but given magical colored fire does exist… well.

Kaiza-senpai–Tetsuki-san now that they are coworkers and nearly family through the transitive property of convoluted bonds that is being close to the Sasagawas–is technically the second strongest Cloud of Namimori.

A side effect of being primarily Lightning natured: any development in her Cloud abilities were overlaid by Lightning, averting the issue of Cloud territorialism and dominance.

Lucky. Not even Kaiza-senpai would have stood a chance against Hibari.

—

Hana isn’t particularly keen on learning how to use a gun–she’s a lawyer for god’s sake! Sure, she followed Kyoko to Italy and has resigned herself to a lifetime of dragging the Monkey Boss out of legal problems to keep her best friend happy, but that doesn’t mean she’s ready to embrace their, frankly, ludicrous lifestyle.

But that awful not-baby insists, and both of the Sasagawas make sad, worried faces at her–at the idea of her not being prepared, not being protected–and so she gives in.

She’s not the sharpest shooter, but accuracy isn’t all that important when she can just riddle the target with an endless amount of unstoppable bullets.

—

Hana is the third strongest Cloud of Namimori.

Namimori is known for producing titans of Sky Flames.

Despite herself, Hana is one of them, too.

~

A/N: Just a little thing set in my Trailblazers universe and greatly influenced by the amazing worldbuilding of Vixen_Tail’s Russian Roulette. More specifically the analysis of Flames and how different Flame types interact with each other. Hana Kurokawa as the most reluctant Cloud Flame user! (In comparison to fucking Hibari whose abilities manifested even BEFORE his Flames were activated, it’s no wonder she slipped under the radar.)

I’ve been really loving “It’s Thunder and It’s Lightning” by We Were Promised Jetpacks and “Thunder” by Imagine Dragons lately. I feel like there’s a thematic link there (obvious in the song titles), but the songs themselves are quite different. Do you think you can do anything with them (together) as a prompt?

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I love both of these songs, lionheadbookends! I never really thought to compare them even though, as you said, their titles are similar. I suppose it’s because of when I encountered the songs (years apart, that is) and again, as you said, the feel of them is quite different; but I’ve given them both another listen with the lyrics in mind and I think I’ve got the link.

Thunder by Imagine Dragons is more easily understood as a song–not that simplicity of meaning makes it less musically entertaining–but as a piece of literature it’s fairly straightforward. An age old story of a kid from a (small) town who doesn’t quite fit, who is going to leave and make it big even though no one really believes in them. It’s almost the same idea behind a hero’s  journey–an internal call to action that differentiates the protagonist from the others in their hometown who are satisfied to stay behind.

In Thunder, it’s the vocalist vs the rest of his town/the world, but in a way it’s also the vocalist vs his own determination–can he keep going and achieve his dreams despite all the negativity trying to bring him down.

It’s Thunder and It’s Lightning by We Were Promised Jetpacks is more difficult to parse. Frankly, I’m still not sure how many people are involved in the story. There’s definitely at least two people: the vocalist and whoever the vocalist is going to guide home. That person is probably also the person whose body was black and blue. But there is probably a third person who is threatening to punch out the vocalists lights.

So as a narrative, this song might be about two teenagers dating and one of them has an abusive parent. Unless it really is just about two people in a rather disastrous relationship. But regardless it’s not really about the story so much as it is about the feeling: there’s chaos and violence and fear and at some point the vocalist decides to leave not out of an actual desire to do so but out of necessity, out of survival and desperation. And on top of that, the vocalist is not entirely sure if outside is more dangerous–it’s night and there’s a storm, no guarantee of safety, but at least it’s not where he is now about to get beaten. Bleak, yes, in comparison to Thunder which is uplifting.

In Thunder, the thunder and lightning is a good thing–a goal to be reached, to become so great that you change the sky, everyone looks up to see you, everyone listens; no one can beat you down. In It’s Thunder and Lightning, the thunder and lightning is neutral–force of nature which the vocalist decides is a better fate than the closer, human violence.

Ultimately what connects these songs, besides their titles, is the theme of leaving a toxic place–maybe to follow one’s dream towards a bright future, or maybe just to escape, braving the unknown to get away from the known danger. Moving on to bigger if not necessarily better things because to stay is to stagnate, be victimized, and die.

But you’re not here for an essay analyzing these two songs, you’re here for what I can make from the analysis as a prompt.

—

Frankly, lionheadbookends, whenever I see lightning (or thunder) my brain immediately goes to Tetsuki because she’s… well, she’s it for me. Maybe also Kiyoshi Utsugi–who has Lightning natured chakra as well–but given her specific circumstances it’s hard to apply prompts as easily to her.

Tetsuki is my go to OC–my everywoman, if you will–and this prompt could not be more suited to her. But it’s a very different side to her than I normally explore because it’s, well, less fun?

For me and for her, I think.

Because except for her “first life” that is, Trailblazers in KHR, Tetsuki doesn’t really have a toxic home life either because a) her families are kind if not loving or b) she has no home/family.

In her first life, Tetsuki’s parents were neglectful if not outrightly emotionally abusive. They might have possibly also been physically abusive earlier on–leading to Ryohei and Tetsuki taking up martial arts–but nothing that continued for long.

Were I to ever write Trailblazers properly, there would be a scene where, for the first time since the mafia madness started, Tetsuki’s parents came home (they travel a lot, mostly, hardly ever in Namimori which is why she can get away with so much but also where the neglect comes from) and suddenly the badass, cool senpai who will throw herself into this world of Flames and danger is just a teenaged girl who trembles whenever her parents raise their voices.

There would then be a point where–primarily the Sasagawas, but also the rest of the Family–remind her that she isn’t what they say she is, that she’s more than just a burden or an incompetent or whatever they say of her. And she leaves, probably to live with the Sasagawas properly (whose parents have always been quietly preparing for this day, pretty much have everything but the paperwork done to make her their third child) or, depending on the timeline, to a full-time member of Vongola.

So while it’s similar to the prompt idea, unfortunately, that’s not quite enough.

For this prompt I would probably go with a Viridescent–though I’m not yet sure what fandom would best house this particular episode–in which Tetsuki has the memories of her previous lives but none of the powers.

Which isn’t a combination I’ve yet done, I think. I’ve done powers and memories (Externality, Multiphenomenal, the Power Rangers Viridescent). I’ve done limited powers and limited memories (Iron Will). I’ve done powers but no memories (Deuteranomaly). But I haven’t done no power with memories.

I think I might have tried something like that previously in Big Hero 6 but I’ve put myself off of that fandom, unfortunately, and it wasn’t very good to begin with…

Because here’s the thing. In a new world where she has the memories but none of the powers, then that really brings the validity of the memories into question. If she could just randomly manifest lightning in her hand, that’s close enough to proof for the rest of the odd things in her life. But if she only has the memories and no way to prove it than what is inside her own mind, then there’s no way to tell if maybe it’s all just a delusion.

… which perhaps means it’s an Inception fic?

Hrm… but unless she encounters the characters, there’s not much point in her being in Inception given that it’s basically “the real world” but with mental espionage. And considering that, the memories themselves would give her powers as related to everyone else because she would have the best security ever if not also thorough forges or intricately physics-breaking architecture.

Ah, shit, that actually sounds pretty cool though.

So perhaps the fill to your prompt would be the “prologue” to this Inception Viridescent: like, Tetsuki is born in a “normal world” to awful parents who are, perhaps, so similar to her original, awful parents that it puts the rest of her memories into doubt. Maybe there never were any reincarnations or any fantastic powers, maybe it was just a desperate, over imaginative dream of a girl in a terrible situation.

Maybe she tries to run, tries to go to Namimori only to find it doesn’t exist. Maybe her grandmother was actually named Hisae Kaiza, but she passed long ago and certainly wasn’t a calligraphy/magic teacher. Gotham may very well exist, but there’s nothing on the level of the superheroes she knows (Nolan’verse Batman might very well be a real thing, given all of it is ~science~ and, possibly, Ra’s al Ghul’s “immortality” is him doing a pre-PASIV mind restructuring such that his consciousness gets passed onto a newer, younger body).

As far as she can find, none of her memories are real, and yet… she’d rather try to scrape out an existence out there, which may never be as good as the lives she remembers, than go back home which she knows for certain is worse.

And then maybe it gets worse. Maybe she is snatched–this is an awful world, but a lone teenage runaway who thinks she’s more powerful than she actually is will not survive long–and gets experimented on (there’s a new technology and different countries/companies are eager to be the first ones to crack it). She’s a fascinating subject, but hard to break, and so  they get her addicted to Somnacin thinking that will let them control her.

Maybe she escapes anyway, learns of extraction (and inception), of weaponizing dreaming and imagination, and turns her weakness into her strength.

I’m not saying she eventually ends up as Saito’s on-call secret keeper (extractors learn to fear the shadow of this mogul, the one whose mind can’t be broken into) but that is one way of getting her to interact with the characters. Maybe instead of him being “the tourist” it’s her.

Or maybe she’s just another professional dreamer in the world of Inception, dreaming of worlds and lives that probably don’t exist.

~

Check out the Ask Box Advent Calendar!

Trailblazers (2017-10-10)

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On the sixth evening, Naruto is the one who brings her meal.

“It’s almost a week, you know?” he says, confrontational but kind in his strange way.

“Are you bored already?” she shoots back, drawing her eyes up from the papers spread across her desk. She hastily clears a space for the tray Naruto has brought her, no doubt mixing up the order, but better that than food stains making things illegible.

She’s writing down her memoirs.

He shrugs, broth sloshing dangerously at the lip of the bowl. Ramen, unsurprising. She smiles.

“Not really,” he answers, “it’s nice being able to meet your precious people. They care about you a lot.”

For a moment, he lets the statement rest in the silence, stretch long and full across the room.

“Are you going to bring Kakashi-sensei?”

She glances at him, thrown off guard–that’s not what she had been expecting at all.

Her first, instinctual reaction is denial–defensive and sneering–why would she ever do that? If she hasn’t already, clearly she’s not planning to.

But Naruto wouldn’t have said it if it didn’t mean something, and for all his deference to her in battle he always was, in his own way, much wiser than her. She had always thought he’d be a great Sky.

Like the summoning of her friends, the papers beneath her hands are memoirs as she thinks would be best–not a journal transcribing every little thing she did, a mission report across reincarnations–but a way for her to attain closure.

They may not have been close–or, at least, in the ways that mattered, in the ways they could have been, her feelings of him conflicted and twisted and tangled up, respect and betrayal and feeble hope, blood and grudges and mistakes versus trust–but he was important to her, to the life she had and the person she had once been.

“Tomorrow,” she says, finally, staring down at the pages beneath her hand, “It’ll be finished tomorrow.”

///

The stranger that eels out of Tetsuki’s room on the seventh morning is like a plastic potted plant, really. Taking up space quietly and awkwardly in each room he visits, out of place but not so much as to require attention. A vague, monochrome blur in everyone’s peripheral vision.

Unlike the others that Tetsuki had sent out in her stead–even the surly pale-eyed man who has been making Kyoko’s army of minions all the more hyper competent and frightening–he doesn’t seem to want to interact with anyone at all. He drifts; not as if searching for something, but the way a tumbleweed drifts, aimless and useless and never belonging. Never catching on something to do or someone to talk to…

… until he meets Reborn.

Family does not mean friendship.

~

A/N: A poor offering on Naruto’s birthday, but the only thing that would come to mind :/

Trailblazers (2017-10-03)

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She doesn’t remember what the mission had been–unsurprising given how many years-deaths-hours have passed–but she does know it was dangerous. Deadly. Terribly so.

Boss had sent his three most powerful–most lethal–Guardians on this mission, even despite the hostilities between two of them. Despite the high probability that Kyoua-senpai and fucking Mukuro would rather turn on each other than fight beside each other.

She doesn’t think she was sent as a mediating force–if so, then what a poor choice!–but rather as the only one who would survive if it came down to that.

It hadn’t, oddly enough.

But she hadn’t survived the mission, anyway.

///

When Tetsuki returns to Vongola HQ–Hibari departing for Namimori immediately and Mukuro almost literally disappearing into mist–she is quiet.

It’s not so concerning–Tetsuki isn’t one for talking, not in comparison to the Sasagawa siblings–but a week passes and no one can recall speaking to her.

This is only the beginning.

///

The problem is that she would trust any of the Guardians with her life–even Yamamoto (though, perhaps, less than fucking Mukuro as odd as that seems.)

Being Family does not mean friendship, it means blood and trust despite the lack. She can fight alongside any of her fellow Guardians without a second thought because she knows, if they can, they will fight for her life nearly as much as she will fight for theirs.

She trusts them with her life.

She doesn’t trust any of them with her death.

Kyouya-senpai is possessive, Mukuro beyond normal human mores, and at the end she had been voiceless.

She didn’t have a choice.

///

Tetsuki doesn’t open the door. Not for the Boss, not for Kyoko, not even for Ryohei.

Hayato respects her far too much to disintegrate the walls (never mind that the Vongola HQ steward would murder him if he did so) but he’s just cunning enough to slip a mobile phone into her room which rings and rings and rings with everyone trying to check on her.

She zaps it after a day.

But it works, sort of.

The door opens.

///

They mean well, of course they do. They’re just as kind as she remembered them; nostalgia and decades of distance hadn’t changed too much, it seems.

She’s not the same person she was days–lifetimes–ago.

She’s mourning.

She’s scared.

She’s furious.

She’s not ready.

///

The person–people–who leave Tetsuki’s room are not anyone Vongola has ever seen.

Their fashion is strange, their weapons stranger, and they look around HQ with curious, wondrous eyes.

They also close the door behind them and do not let anyone pass.

“She’s not ready yet,” says the blonde man with bright blue eyes. One hand scratches almost nervously at his marked cheek; the other has the fried phone.

Kyoko pockets it to hand over to Haru later–she and her engineering minions will take it as a challenge, no doubt–and decides to roll with the punches. She asks, “Do you know when she’ll be ready?”

This time, a woman with pink hair answers, stepping forward. “No, I’m sorry, but she wanted you all to know that she appreciates your concern and she’d like for us to share our knowledge. For example, I understand you’re a healer? So am I. My name is Sakura Haruno.”

///

There’s a part of her that wonders if it was all in her mind, no new scars or wrinkles on her skin, the same as she was before everything. She was so young then–this is the oldest she’s ever been–she had no idea what a lifetime really meant. What death really means.

She’s not the same person she was before.

She’s far more than that.

~

A/N: After everything, Tetsuki goes back home. But there’s consequences to that, too.

The Green Knight, Part Twelve (2017-08-09)

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For a beat, nobody moves. Everyone is too shocked to move.

The medic team, at their patient being assaulted right in front of their eyes. Merlin, at the audacity of one of the candidates–one of the friendliest candidates–assaulting their Vongola ally. Vanessa, at her own actions.

Her eyes widen and her hands fly over her own face in horror and disbelief.

Tetsuki tongues at the inside of her cheek, checking for blood.

Yes, she’s a Lightning Flame user and yes, she nearly always is reinforcing her own body and yes, it’s not as if it was a Sun Flame powered punch to the face–which she has been on the receiving end far too frequently to count–but still. She wasn’t expecting it.

“Adrenaline makes people act strangely,” she says, to put everyone at ease, which only sort of works.

Merlin at least, can be assured that Vongola won’t take this as a slight, and some members of the medic team stop fluttering around her to check on the other candidates.

“That was stupid and beyond reckless and suicidal!” Vanessa shouts–she probably means to be berating, but her breaths are hitching and she looks like she’s about to start crying.

Tetsuki shifts in her seat, uncomfortable.

Jamal leans against the stretcher, casual as can be, and says, “You didn’t have to go that far to win our race. Bit dangerous, innit?”

She shrugs, rubbing her hands over her knees which ache less than all the seiza from an archery tournament. “I had a parachute,” she responds instead. Actually, now that she thinks of it… “We all had parachutes.”

Now it’s Merlin’s turn to look uncomfortable.

“That’s not the point, Azuma!” Vanessa shouts, and it takes another moment for it to click.

Kyoko’s right: her social skills really have deteriorated.

“I’m sorry for worrying you,” Tetsuki apologizes, before reaching out and gently slapping Vanessa’s face. Blood for blood is a mafia custom, but this is far more benign than that. “We’re friends now, right?”

After another stunned silence, Jamal starts laughing.

~

A/N: just a small thing… I guess the Ask Box Author’s Cut event is over?

The Green Knight, Part Eleven (2017-08-07)

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She gets a package in the mail, simultaneously surprising and not.

Of course her Family would send her stuff, even if the things are more practical than their appearance–the headband does not have cat ears, thankfully, but it does have a rather large bow tilted at a jaunty angle, and the gleaming silver dress is made of the same material as her armor. How strange.

What’s surprising is that Kingsman would let her receive mail at all. She’d chalk it up to special Vongola ally privileges, but the other candidates that remain are also eagerly opening boxes of their own. She thought the trials would mean zero communication, but she supposes not everyone can just vanish off the face of the earth for a few months without people getting worried.

Being a Vongola Guardian has really skewed her sense of normal behavior.

“How cute! I wish my sister had sent me something like that,” Vanessa says, spotting the contents of her box from one bed over. As the number of candidates decrease, the sleeping arrangements change. Those who have been swayed towards Tetsuki’s side have migrated towards the door, closer to her choice of bed, while those who still have issue with her very existence stay away.

She’s pleased to see that other side dwindle, though her own has suffered a few losses as well. She expects that number to drop even further today: they’re jumping out of an airplane.

As the door opens, wind blustering, blue sky revealed to the candidates, Tetsuki takes a moment to ponder.

With enough Lightning Flames hardening her armor and her body, could she survive a fall from this height?

Surely there must be some limit to Dying Will Flames, and yet, the fact that she can even consider it makes it almost feasible. Perhaps she herself does not have powerful enough Lightning Flames, but someone else–such as Lambo–very well might.

Actually, maybe that explains how he’s able to withstand so much abuse.

“Scared?” some white boy sneers at her, she can’t really tell them apart. Nathaniel is the only one she knows by name and that’s because he keeps hovering. How he’s gotten this far without knowing how to swim is, frankly, a mystery.

“No,” she says simply, before tuning him out. Sure there’s a possibility that she’s snubbing a future Kingsman knight, but he and his friends have been harassing a current Vongola Guardian so ignoring him is really the best outcome Kingsman could hope for. And she very well hopes Merlin and Arthur have better taste in knights than that.

Jamal, on her other side, nudges her with an elbow. “Race you?” he asks, smile curving his cheek.

“Okay,” she says with an agreeable shrug; she and Ryohei did always do better when they made a competition out of things.

Then she jumps.

Having jumped first and in a more aerodynamic stance means that, when Merlin breaks news that someone is missing a parachute, she’s far closer to the ground than everyone else.

Oh, well.

Babbling and panicking ensue. It’s all in English though, so it’s easy enough to ignore.

Some candidates, forgetting the objective of the test, pull open their parachutes far above the mark. Sadly, that includes two of her own–Nathaniel and Abjit–but she’s not terribly surprised. If being a knight is anything like being a Guardian, they weren’t suited for it. But Vongola has other roles, surely Kingsman is the same.

It’s at this point where the chatter on the line has gone repetitive, Azuma, Azuma, which is kind of annoying until Tetsuki remembers that’s her.

“What?” she responds, just to make them stop.

“You have to slow down!” Vanessa says, which is less galling, at least if anyone else had said it. The only men she takes orders from are all men she remembers as embarrassing, gangly teenagers. And even then it’s more like agreeing with their suggestions than following orders. “We’ve all paired up so if one of us is missing our chute the other has one, but you’re going too fast for Jamal and I to reach you!”

She can see the target, now, a small circle in the grass with the letter K. She kind of likes it, it could stand for either Kaiza or Kusakabe; maybe when the trials are over she’ll ask for a pair of cufflinks to give as a present to Tetsuya.

“I’m fine,” she says, instead, and waits until she’s a little bit closer to pull open her parachute. She’s never gone skydiving before, she’s not sure how accurate she’ll be in landing within the target–better to wait until the last second, surely?

She judders to a halt in the circle, knees aching somewhat even though she’s reinforcing herself with Lightning Flames. Which answers part of her question, at least.

Merlin and what looks like a team of medics come running out of the mansion.

Tetsuki glances upward, she doesn’t think anyone got hurt up there, but she wasn’t really paying attention. She walks out of the circle, dragging her parachute with her, leaving the target empty. No sense in ruining the actual candidates’ chances.

By the time Vanessa and Jamal land–both of them with parachutes–Tetsuki is indulging the medic team by sitting on stretcher and letting them look at her; they’re not Kyoko, but she knows better than to mess with medics.

Vanessa, a wind blown, tear streaked mess, marches shakily towards them and punches her in the face.

The Green Knight + after Tetsuki is exposed? Or, if that’s too spoiler-y, what do the Kingsman think of Tetsuki (and in turn, the Vongola)? Thanks for writing!

jacksgreysonLeave a comment

So, um, it’s been a while since I wrote The Green Knight and I had to reread it in order to remember what I was doing there. Maybe I’ll resume it after I watch the sequel (or maybe it’ll joss me terribly) so this was an interesting writing exercise. So thanks, anon!

Merlin is old enough to remember the last time Kingsman interacted with Vongola. He hadn’t been Merlin then, just one of many technicians with the unfortunate luck to be Harry’s–Galahad’s–friend.

Which means he was as much on the field as Harry, as much witness to the bloody wreckage  that Vongola had wrought.

Arthur–Chester–hadn’t wanted to do anything. Hadn’t wanted to talk, much less fight, with Italy’s most powerful famiglia–had let that terrible crime go uncontested, unavenged.

Merlin had never met Vongola’s Nono, but he had heard of his reputation: a kind smile hiding a merciless, cutthroat mind.

He thinks–hopes, more like–that Vongola’s Decimo is not the same.

///

He walks away from the meeting bewildered, but tentatively optimistic.

“They’re children,” says Harry–Arthur, now, and how strange that is to think–and he’s not wrong, Kingsman is much reduced from Chester’s and Valentine’s actions. Merlin and Harry are the only ones left from the old guard, and they’re scrabbling to fill in the rest of the ranks as quickly as they can, but even still…

Vongola’s tenth generation are younger even than Galahad and Lancelot.

“Young does not mean easily led,” Merlin cautions, “or inexperienced.”

From what he’s heard Vongola has only become more powerful since the Decimo’s inheritance.

///

Galahad–Eggsy, that is–is the one who brings up the idea.

The knights that remain are being run ragged, Kingsman is long overdue to begin trials for more knights, but there aren’t enough knights to propose enough candidates. Without more candidates, trials can’t be held to get more knights.

A vicious cycle.

Even worse, if the current knights propose single candidates, the pool of competitors is less which means the quality goes down. If they propose multiple candidates, then in future trials their proposals won’t be their top picks… meaning their quality goes down.

They need knight quality competitors who don’t actually want to be knights.

“Vongola didn’t seem too bad,” Galahad says, when Merlin brings up the issue. Arthur favors the boy, but Merlin isn’t exempt of that either, “Isn’t that what alliances are for?”

He’s not wrong.

///

The Fulmine that Merlin first met was, in one word, sharp.

The Vongola cohort had been undeniably powerful despite their age and lack of professionalism, their uniform suits which they wore almost reluctantly. But while the gentlemen had been earnest and engaged, Fulmine looked every bit as lethal as her confirmed hit count and ready to attack if needed.

The Fulmine–the Azuma-san–that Merlin meets for the Gawain trials is both the same and nothing at all like that.

If there is a message being sent, he is not sure what it is.

///

After he’s sent the candidates away, Merlin takes a closer look at the punching bag Azuma-san punctured.

It wasn’t worn out, bulletproof fabric still new, and yet she hadn’t had a weapon with her. Just her bare hands.

He thinks he is on the edge of understanding something terribly dangerous.

Check out the Ask Box Author’s Cut event!