Title Here: Multi-fandom Writings

minuseven · Jul 1, 2023

(A1)

When Lucy had been a small child, her mother had had the most wonderful of magics. She could call friends from the stars. Cancer and Capricorn and Horologium and Crux! Then one day, her mother became sick and the magic went away.

Mother went away too.

Later, when she was old enough to have her own lessons, she asked Mister Bero why he didn't teach her the magic her mother wielded. Mister Bero taught her about magic, but Miss Spetto spoke in a low voice that her father only kept him in the manor because Mister Bero had been mother's friend. Mister Bero became very serious, and very sad, and told her that celestial spirit Magic, the magic of her mother's silver and gold keys, was lost.

A magic that had existed, right in front of her eyes, had just disappeared one day. Keys vanishing all over Earthland, mages with contracts broken.

Nobody knew exactly why… but a celestial spirit mage always kept their promises. The contracts were integral to celestial spirit magic. Somewhere, Mister Bero said, somebody might have broken the very rules that joined celestial spirits and mages.

How was that possible? What sort of cardinal sin, of violation, could a human mage commit that would invalidate the very precepts of Celestial Spirit Magic? Keys had been wielded by both monsters and saints throughout history, and the contracts between mage and spirit rarely stipulated terms based on mortal morals. It would have to have been something that went against what was written in the very stars.

Lucy never asked Mister Bero about it again, but she wondered, in the privacy of her thoughts. Instead, finding her mother's magic impossible to grasp, she begged the wizened, little old man to teach another magic.

After many attempts, in rare lessons between all the necessary teachings of a young lady, Lucy discovered she had a very moderate talent for spacial type magic. She made a spacial pocket where she could store things, and she became adept and teleporting objects away from her. It was really useful to get out of her dresses at the end of the day. As a descendant of celestial spirit mages, there was little else she could do. Perhaps one day she would be capable of celestial divination, or sympathetic magic, but that wasn't really what she liked.

In the large, haunted halls of her father's mansion, and in the dreary, snake-pit events that she had to attend, Lucy grew with a hidden streak of rebellion. It was the little things, like how she could sneak cakes from the trays without being seen for hours at the buffet, or how that annoying viscount tripped on a banana peel that hadn't been there a second ago.

Everything came to an end sooner or later. Lucy loved her father, truly, but she was not going to get married to expand his fortune. The very idea of marrying a man like him, that would keep her cooped up like he did, before she ever even stepped a foot out of the estate and explored the world… It made her sick to her stomach.

Lucy left. Quiet like a cat, she took her least expensive clothes and walked herself to the train station after dinner. Nobody questioned the young heiress, and she realized, several hours into the trip that would deposit her in the capital, that nobody knew who she was.

Lucy of no particular last name was free.

As she stepped into the cobbled streets of the capital, filled with more people than she'd ever seen anywhere, something became clear like the sky within herself. It took Lucy a few seconds to realize that feeling wasn't just emotional.

Something had changed about her magic.

-Dear Mother,

-I received magic from the skies today. I don't know how to explain it, and I don't have the energy to try and figure it out now, for the day was very long. I managed to find a hotel by chance. Did you know, hotels have hours at which they don't accept more people? Maybe you did, since you and father weren't always wealthy.

-Regardless, I've left home. I hope I'm not worrying everybody too much, but I had to leave, like I've told you before. I'm going to explore the world, and maybe even become a guild mage now that my magic has changed!

-I'll tell you all about it tomorrow,

-Love, Lucy

Randomized stories is how I get the writer's blood flowing. Obligatory links to the Celestial Menagerie document and the original thread in SV. I'm vetoing the entire SCP category and some categories that are too machine-like for me.

Tried adding a bit of change by making it that the Eclipse Gate totally fucked over all celestial spirit mages. lmao

minuseven · Jul 1, 2023

(A2)

Not being woken up by a maid was so strange. Lucy overslept, never having been a morning person. When the sun's rays made it past the curtains and shone merrily on her skin, she opened her eyes to a brand new life. No more dressing in long and ruffled dresses, no more breakfasts in a huge hall.

Actually, Lucy only had three changes of clothes, and no idea of what to do about breakfast. Surely, she could buy some food somewhere?

Crocus was enormous, full of life in a way that was both amazing and a little intimidating. The blonde girl flitted from store to store, buying some clothes, food, and necessities for later. There were enormous magic shops, filled with magic items and books. She passed by the biggest cathedral in Fiore, climbed to a tower to be able to see the cityscape and surrounding mountains, watched the boats pass by in the river that snaked through the houses.

And when she looked at a clocktower, curious about the time, it was already late afternoon. She hurried to find a place to sleep. A day later, she found herself in the same position. Three times was too much so, with a lot less money than what she'd started with and many more worries, Lucy decided to leave Crocus. She took a train to the closest village, hoping to finally have time and space to try out her magic, and maybe figure out a plan for her trip.

Dondroffe was mainly composed of fields and more fields. It had a very peculiar smell, something that Lucy had never experienced before. There was one inn, but it did have space. After being charming and a little lost, Lucy managed to get permission to practice her magic in the far off fields that weren't being used, so long as she didn't scare the cows.

Sitting on an old fence, Lucy focussed on the contract. Her very own celestial contract. It wasn't a pact that allowed her to summon celestial spirits. Instead, she could summon creatures. Like the name suggested, mostly animals, she thought. The exchange was clear, if somewhat creepy to think about. Her soul would house the patterns of life and in return, she'd be able to summon them to her aid once a day.

"Alright. You can do this!" Even if she'd never done any big spells, and was somewhat scared that a spell without incantations or focusses wouldn't work. "Just will it. It's just a different way of doing magic."

She needed to know what her magic could do, or she wouldn't be able to become a freelance mage or anything. She'd have to go back home.

She stretched her hands forward and called forth her only summon with all her will.

A point of light, like a star, expanded into a dark shape. The Celestial Buffahorn took its first step in the world. Lucy's eyes widened at the majestic animal. Bigger than even the cows on the field, it looked like an enormous buffalo, with great horns rising far above a large head, and shaggy fur. All of it paled to how the Buffahorn was a piece of the most brilliant night skies condensed into a solid shape.

Stars shone like glitter on fur coloured by red and pink nebulas, and two brilliant suns looked down at Lucy from the dark of space. Mesmerized, she reached forward, sinking her hand into soft fur. The Buffahorn let her, bending his head down to receive her pets.

"Oh Lord, you're so pretty." Lucy whispered. Using the magic, basic knowledge about her new friend filled her. She knew a bit about him, what he was capable of and how long she could keep him summoned. She knew now that every single of her summons would look like Buffahorn unless she made an effort not to. …but why would she?

As she looked up at the Celestial Summon, she remembered her mother's spirits, her friends. They hadn't been there when she had passed away. The reason why still haunted her a little bit, like it probably haunted every Celestial Spirit mage in the world.

And now, Lucy had a contract with the Celestial Menagerie.

Right then and there, she decided. All quests needed a goal, didn't they? Sure, Lucy hadn't run away from home with any particular goal in mind. She'd dreamed of discovering the rest of Fiore, even the rest of Ishgar, and becoming a bit more powerful mage and having adventures… and just maybe write her book and publish it. Becoming an adventurer, a mage, a writer: really just her fantasies and dreams.

But discovering what had happened to Celestial Spirit Magic?

Now Lucy had something to work towards. "Hmmm…" Slowly. "How about we go on a ride first?" She told Buffahorn. "Maybe we can figure out a way to get money. I think there are bounty boards?"

Buffahorn.

Oh boy, the rolls would NOT land on anything under 300. I think Lucy is destined to have a Taurus figure, I suppose.

minuseven · Jul 1, 2023

(A3)

Almost a week after running away from home, Lucy woke up in another room that was really small and not her own. Although she was starting to suspect that rooms belonging to normal people weren't as large as her old room.

The day before, she'd made up her mind and decided that her big quest was going to be the resolution of magic's newest mystery. The Loss of Celestial Spirit Magic. She'd also spent a good afternoon playing with Buffahorn. Her summon was really strong and fast, even if turning and stopping were not his strengths. Lucy had discovered that first hand after riding him through the fields. She'd been sent flying head over heels.

"Owie." She was still sore. "Hm? Wait…" Something was different, she felt it. "Oh my god, my magic!" She had a new summon. "An Ocular Orthopod?"

The information the Menagerie instinctively provided told her that it was something small. Lucy decided to summon it. An Ocular Orthopod, it turned out, was a bug that fit in Lucy's palm, that stood up with two legs, and one single eye that stared up in fascination at everything. Its head, more eye than head, had six spines like a tiny crown. Lucy wasn't a fan of bugs, to be honest.

Thankfully, it actually looked kind of cute as a night-sky coloured little guy, with a huge blue sun shining in place of the eye.

Unwilling to unsummon it just yet, she brought it up to her shoulder. "Wanna hold on?" The Orthopod scuttled forward, tiny legs tickling her skin.

Dondroffe must have been close enough to the capital that nobody paid much attention to Lucy's little pet as she traveled back to the train station and bought a ticket back to Crocus. She still wasn't sure of what direction to take in her journey, she really needed to plan her itinerary, but the capital's library was a good place to start.

It should have something on Celestial Spirit Magic.

She should have known it wouldn't be that easy. As soon as she arrived in Crocus' main station, a couple of tall security officers approached her. Had she done something wrong? It couldn't be about her summon, right? He was a harmless little guy.

Their eyes were calm and respectful. "Miss…"

Drat. Her father! Lucy panicked. She didn't want to go back and so the only solution was to run away, really fast.

"Miss!"

Lucy didn't look back as she bolted from the station. Her smaller stature became a boon as she slipped into the crowds. She ran through the main thoroughfare, then turned into the first street she saw, continuing to run until she collapsed against a wall. She looked back, but her pursuers were nowhere to be found. Random people were giving her odd looks.

She'd also gotten very, very lost. "Oh no."

It was fine. The castle was a huge landmark, right? Lucy had already explored a lot the last time she'd been here, she could definitely find her way.

-Dear Mother,

-Crocus is a very, very big city. I got lost, but it was fine in the end. I managed to find a hotel and the library, although I didn't have time to do a lot of reading. Anyway, I'll continue looking for the mystery of Celestial Spirit Magic tomorrow.

-I wish you were here. Maybe we could figure out what happened together, and you could summon Cancer and Capricorn again.

Ocular Orthopod
Before I forget, Lucy gains 50 points per 500 words and rolls, she also rolls for powers every 10 rolls instead of choosing (bc im in charge). I'm having fun getting Lucy from sheltered heiress with a bit of magic to basically her canon persona.

minuseven · Jul 10, 2023

✧✦Congratulations, Congratulations, you've been chosen to be the newest member of the Celestial Menagerie!✦✧
-! -!!
✧✦Oh, you already know how this works? Great! Let me just finish.✦✧
-?
✧✦NOT!
-?!
✧✦Oh your metaphysical face! Hilarious!✦✧
-!?
✧✦Right, you didn't think you were one of those one in a bajillion souls that can support the Celestial Menagerie, now did you? You wish!✦✧
-...
✧✦You do wish a lot tho! So much that I've decided to throw you a bone! I'll allow you the usage of the powers section of the Menagerie. It's less soul-ripping and taxing on your metaphysicality, so you can actually use it, more or less. How about it, nice, aren't I?✦✧
-... …
✧✦Good, you know you don't have a choice. I do like it when they're not stupid! Make it fun for me, yeah?✦✧

Celestial Menagerie NOT

✧300✧Insufficient Points!
✦0✦Bonus Points (100): You gain 100 bonus points. You can gain this benefit any number of times.
✧Automatic Reroll Activated!
✦50✦Calming Aura: You gain a calming aura that affects animals or other non-sapient creatures. This aura calms agitated creatures and prevents them from panicking even in stressful situations.
✧150 Points✧

The first thing shzh— AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!" PAIN

The last thing their mind comprehended was 'Why did I ever want to be special?'.

They passed out, blood streaming from their nose, eyes and mouth, twitching like a dying bug on the sand. They would remain unconscious for another three days, completely missing the boy that found them discarded amidst the garbage on the second day, dying of exposure. They would miss the ambulance's sirens, the police tape, the buzz of medical professionals around their weak body and the opening of a brand new casefile.

Instead, they woke up in a hospital room, alone and very confused. It was a sentiment that wouldn't go away any time soon, for everybody involved.

Several days later, a Saturday, she was reading a book. Things had settled down, the police unable to get anything else from her, and the doctors still unable to help her further. Everything felt new to her, from her body to the fabric that made up her temporary bedding. It was worrying how much she felt displaced and alone, so she did what she did best, and distracted herself. Since television was a no-no, all she had were the books from the hospital's meager library and the old magazines scattered basically everywhere.

She was very surprised when one of the nurses announced that she had visitors, and asked if they could come in. Who would visit her? Usually, the cops didn't visit as much as they came to give her updates or ask her questions.

"It's the people who found you, a boy and his teacher. Would it be alright for them to come in?"

"Oh. Sure, sure." She hurried to set down her book. "I want to thank them myself too!"

The pair that came in, several minutes later, was a study in contrasts. The guy who had found her, a boy in blue sweats, was short and had unruly green hair. Or rather, he looked short next to the adult, a beanpole of a man that had to hunch over not to hit the doort top, and had even unrulier yellow hair.

"H-hello!" Said the boy.

"Hi. You have green hair." She shook her head. "Ah, shit sorry. My brain's still all messed up. Just, hello! So you're my hero?"

The boy turned incredibly red. "H-h-hero? Me? I-I."

"Yeah, if you hadn't found me I'd be seagull food." She laughed, stopping herself after a second as gruesome images crossed her mind. She rubbed the side of her neck, that still sported a bandage. "That makes you a hero in my book, even if it's not, you know, a superhero."

"It was nothing! Anybody would have done it. I mean, it's a civic duty, who wouldn't-" He was interrupted by the adult in the room.

"Just accept the girl's compliment, you deserve it. You haven't even introduced yourself!" He sighed. His blue eyes were sunk into deep shadows but they twinkled as they met hers. "Sorry about that young lady, I'm Toshinori Yagi and this is Midoriya Izuku. It's a pleasure to meet you properly. How are you feeling?"

"Nice to meet you too, Mr Toshinori, Mr Midoriya. I'm…" She shrugged. "I'm… well, about as okay as I can be." She gently knocked on the side of her shaved head. "My brain was kind of, hm, bleeding everywhere, so my memory is all messed up. But on the other hand, everything else seems to be working fine up here!"

"Oh, you have amnesia, like in the movies? What have you forgotten? How did you… Ah, I-I shouldn't have asked, sorry!" Midoriya backpedaled.

"It's fine. I don't mind. I don't have a lot of memories to be upset over anyway. It was scary when I woke up, but by now I'm used to it." She gave him a thumbs up. "Human minds are very resilient!"

"I'm glad, I mean, I'm not glad you don't have your memories or happy in any way, I just mean that it's good but not a good thing, that you're feeling okay." Midoriya shut his mouth with some difficulty as Mr Toshinori laid a hand on his shoulder, and shot her tremulous smile.

The older man picked up the conversation. "What young Midoriya means is that he's happy that you're feeling better young, hm, Nanase, is it?"

"Yep, unless I remember how my name is spelled, that one is what I'm going with." All that she had remembered about her own identity was the number seven. The police was going to entertain themselves with that and the missing people lists, while she had taken some time with a psychologist and a dictionary. She'd settled on Nanase. It sounded right. "Anyway, I was told you found me on the beach, I hope I didn't scare you too much?"

The boy's eyes went distant and he let out a hollow chuckle as his mind retreated to a morning several days past. "Ahah, a little bit. It was a surprise to find an unconscious person covered in blood in the middle of the garbage…"

"Pardon me, the garbage?"

The visiting duo recounted how they'd found her. Apparently Midoriya was voluntarily cleaning up a beach, and he'd found her as he was working. Mr Toshinori had kept him from panicking and carrying her to the hospital all by himself, since you weren't supposed to move people with possible back injuries. Or from a potential crime scene. Unfortunately, visiting hours didn't last forever, so after a warning from the nurse, they departed after concluding the story of Midoriya's first ever call to the emergency services.

Nanase waved them goodbye with a smile. She hoped they visited again. They didn't have a reason to, Nanase herself didn't know where she would be in two weeks. But despite her tiredness, this was the best social contact she'd had since she'd woken up. Not doctors or cops or more and more questions she couldn't answer when she really, really wanted to be able to. Midoriya, Izuku, was probably about her presumed age too. It made her feel a little less alone.

✧250 Points✧
✧Ready Roll…✧

This is your friendly neighborhood writer, once again procrastinating because this is kinda hopeless man.

Mm, I had to close the tabs I was working with, so I lost the thought thread that I was going on with Lucy? Err, I haven't been focusing on continuing stories at all. Right now I'm only dumping all my power into just writing to avoid getting sucked back into Elden Ring (ahah). kinda sorry but not really. i'll get back to everything when I want to.

minuseven · Jul 12, 2023

✦100✦Micro Bonus: Each time you gain a creature costing between 50 and 300 points you also gain one 0 points creature of your choice.
✧150 Points✧

Celestial Menagerie NOT 2

The morning sun should have cast a pleasing light over the ocean.

"Wow. This is some garbage. It's not even a trash heap. It's a complete and total dump." Nanase whistled. Takoba Municipal Beach stretched out in all its infamy ahead of her. "I see Mr Toshinori. Can I go?"

Her escort, a volunteer called Daishou, nodded. It was a bit hard to understand, as his head was a turnip. A very carefully groomed turnip, but still, a turnip.

"Hey! Mr Toshinori!" She waved as she jogged towards the very tall man.

The blonde coughed in surprise, alarmingly spraying blood. "Young Nanase!?" A clang came from the beach and Midoriya's green head appeared from behind an unidentifiable hunk of metal. "N-Nanase!?!? What are you doing here!?"

"Hi Midoriya!" She waved at him too and pointed at her head, covered with a woolen, orange cap. "I came to see if the place where I was found would spark some memories up here. Since it's the only place I could have known. Could you show me where it was exactly?"

The police had kept up the tape around the spot for a few days, but it was long gone. It had been almost three weeks since the morning Izuku, permission given to use his name, had found her. Fairly close to the shore, but still surrounded by piles of rusting garbage, it was clear it hadn't been the ocean to deposit her there. But absolutely nothing changed in Nanase's head, the emptiness remaining the same.

"I'm sorry it didn't help." Izuku tried, next to her.

Nanase shoved her hands into her hoodie's pockets. "It was a long shot. Thanks. Anyways," She changed the subject, the feeling in her gut not worth dwelling on. "You're cleaning up this dump eh? I was imagining something a liiittle less… huge, when you told me that."

The beach might as well be called a junkyard at this point, and Izuku knew it. He sighed, rubbing a hand over his tired forearms. "Yeah, so was I… But it's good training." He pointed at several different spots on his arms, all of which were sore in different ways. "It engages all the muscle groups and it's good community service on top of that!"

The girl blinked. "Training? For what?"

"Oh. I." He looked away, then firmed himself. "I'm training to enter UA's Hero Course!"

Nanase just stared. "Sorry, I don't…" She vaguely gestured at her head, and mimed a poof-ing motion.

"You don't know… right, of course, I'm sorry!" He hurried to explain. "UA is a school, the very best hero school in the country. It also has a General Course and Support and Management courses, for professions related to the hero industry, and those are very well rated too, but I'm aiming for the Hero Course. Most of the top heroes in the country right now graduated from UA, and I want to be a pro-hero, so… it's got to be UA."

Nanase was still getting used to the concept of pro-heroes, having just barely gotten over quirks. And that she had a quirk. She nodded. "Right. Cool, that's cool. Well, like my mother says, if you're going to learn something, you should do it with the highest quality possible, so I get…" Her eyes widened. "...if you're going to learn something, you should do it with the highest quality possible…"

Izuku found his arms getting grabbed by a girl and stuttered as Nanase got very close. "W-w…"

"I need to write that down." Her eyes glinted.

The pair scrambled back to the street, where Mr Toshinori was chatting with Daishou, and where Izuku had his bag. He passed her a notebook and watched as she frantically wrote down the sentence she'd been muttering under her breath like a prayer.

With a sigh, she completed it. "My mother always says…" Gently, her fingers rested over the characters on the paper. "Sorry. I just… get these things in which I know something about my past, and if I don't notice it and write it down, they'll just… be gone."

Izuku waved her apology off. "No, no, it's fine. I understand! It's important to you, I'd do it too!"

"I normally have my own notepad, but I didn't bring it with me today. Sorry about your notebook."

"It's fine, I have more… You can have that page. Let me…" He carefully folded and ripped the lined paper away. "Here."

"Thanks Izuku." She took and stowed the precious paper in one of her pockets. "Ok, safe. Hm, now what? It's still early to go back to the hospital…"

A blonde head loomed over her friend. "Now, and I hate to interrupt you lovebirds, young Midoriya has to get back to training." Mr Toshinori slapped Izuku's back. "Get going, you zygote!"

With an eep and a face so red you could see it in infrared, Izuku raced back to the trash and started picking up an old television. Nanase cheered for him, and he almost tripped. Graciously allowed to stay and watch, the visiting pair enjoyed the rest of the morning sitting down by the beach. The smell wasn't fantastic, but there was enough clean sand that she could pretend to be at a normal beach, and not a junk beach being cleaned by a struggling fourteen year old and an old man with health issues.

Nanase was going to have to think about school too. Not for this year. She had another week at the hospital before being fully discharged. In between then and now, she knew she was going to have some more formal placement tests. She'd already had the basics assessed by the neurologists during her first week, and it wasn't like these tests were going to actually place her in one grade or another. They were just guidelines for the teachers at Takoba's Middle School.

She'd gotten her age checked while she was unconscious. It had apparently involved taking, and regrowing, a few of her teeth to a specialist. She was somewhere between fourteen and sixteen, erring towards the younger side, so was going to join the last year of middle school. Then she'd have to make a decision on what highschool she wanted. Her shrink had been clear that that was the decision that mattered about her future.

✧250 Points✧
✧Ready Roll…✧

She blinked, and pressed a hand against her head. Her head had, almost, throbbed. Like a heartbeat inside the fragile veins of her brain. She heaved a shaky breath and turned to Daishou. "Sorry, Mr Daishou? It's my quirk. It's ready again."

The volunteer narrowed his eyeholes. "Are you in pain?"

"No but… Dr Yamayou wanted to be informed if anything happened." She knew the nice doctor in charge of her case wanted to record as much as possible to figure out if her quirk had any sort of pattern.

Mr Daishou nodded. "I'll give her a call, but it might be best to return anyway. How about you go say goodbye while I do that?"

Nanase had figured. She nodded and got up. They were a bit confused to see her go just like that, but understood when she mentioned it was about her health. Mr Toshinori especially, seemed to get her. Weird if he hadn't, considering his own state. Izuku and Nanase swapped emails, but then it was time to go.

Quirk testing time again.

The problem with celestial randomness stories is that you have to follow and keep writing the protagonist so that they keep rolling but not too much or they start accumulating too many rolls. I think I touched upon that in Monsterability, and also gave the protagonist one free roll per year.

minuseven · Jul 12, 2023

Nanase's quirk didn't make a lot of sense. It made so little sense that, in fact, they were still thinking on what name to give it before it was registered. The first hint that something might not have been right with it was what Nanase called: the subtitles.

To be fair, at the time, the doctors had blamed them on Nanase's amnesia. It was natural that she'd know what her quirk was and how it worked. The 'celestial' part had been odd, but nothing more.

Then her quirk became 'ready' and everything changed.

Celestial Menagerie NOT 3

"Okay." Dr. Shinkei, the neurologist in charge of her case, cleared his throat. He was finally satisfied with the positioning of the electrodes covering her skull. "Now, remember, carefully." The older man wasn't very onboard with the idea of Nanase 'using' her quirk again, but he was also aware that not having a good baseline could lead to even more dangerous complications in the future.

Nanase's quirk built up some sort of internal charge in her brain, which she could use to, apparently, expand her quirk. It was nearly unprecedented, the kind of quirk evolution expected to happen only in another couple of generations. It also rebounded on the fragile blood vessels of the teenager's skull, and the only reason why the scientists could believe that her quirk really did do at least something extra.

Nanase gave him a thumbs up and waited for the nurse in charge to give her the signal. Nervous butterflies were making their nest in her stomach. The last time she'd activated her quirk, she'd ended up with a very painful headache, a terrible nosebleed, and a migraine that followed her for days. Before that… well, something had clearly happened to Nanase's brain on Takoba beach.

But if what if not using her quirk made the energy build up and up until… something terrible happened inside her brain?

Nanase could tell she had about two and a half pieces of energy available. Those were already scary enough. No, it was fine. She was surrounded by an emergency medical team and quirk drawbacks could be mitigated through careful and controlled training. She would be fine.

The signal was given. Nanse closed her eyes reflexively as she activated her quirk.

✦0✦Bonus Theme: You gain a new theme of your choice. You can gain this benefit any number of times.
✦Earth✦Your creatures look like they are made of the ground beneath you. Be that looking like a pile of dirt and rock come to life in the rough shape of the creature, like a sculpture made of unfired clay, or even as though the asphalt and sidewalk of a road got up and decided to walk away. They are not made of such, simply appearing to be, nor can they manipulate the earth in any way.
✧Automatic Reroll Activated!
✦100✦Contingent Summoning: You can choose a creature so it's summoned in a specific place related to you and upon a set trigger of your choice. Should that trigger be met the creature is immediately summoned. The trigger can be anything that you can imagine. As long as a creature is set to be summoned this way you cannot summon it normally. You can only have one Contingent summoning activated at a time.
✧150 Points✧

First there was only a pinch and the familiar feeling of warm wetness on her upper lip. Then, the pinch returned and suddenly her head hurt so much. The teen girl's hands dug into the bed's mattress and a whimper escaped her. It was even worse than last time. She was vaguely aware, through the slowly fading pain, of being resettled into a recovery position.

"Nanase, Nanase? Do you need to be sedated?" A nurse was gently asking her.

She used her hands to wave a no and asked for a few minutes. In the background, two doctors were going over the data wired from the electrodes into a computer. "It's only a little worse than last time."

"Alright. How much energy do you think that was?" Dr Yamayou, her quirk specialist, asked.

"Hm, only about one piece but, first there was like… a dud, so it started spinning around again and that part hurt more." At the doctor's prompting, she recited what her quirk told her she had gotten. At that point, she'd recovered enough to drink some water and explain better the feeling of her quirk. "It's all about the creatures again, so nothing. But, hm, it was like it spun, landed on a thing worth no energy…"

"The theme benefit." Dr Yamayou was scribbling on her clipboard.

"Yeah, then something different was spinning and I got the earth theme. And after that the energy started spinning again and I got the contingent summoning." All four of her abilities, her aura, two summoning options? And the theme. All were clearly written in Nanase's mind. It was like she had 'subtitles'.

"Alright." The doctor wrote something sharply before putting her notes away and turning her full attention to Nanase. "It really is looking like your quirk gives you abilities related to creatures. It's possible that your main quirk is Summoning or something like that. Unfortunately, it might have gotten damaged during your incident." And whether or not Nanase would recover that was a complete unknown. "It's also clear that the more energy your quirk uses in thi mode, the more it can hurt you. Knowing what we know now, I would recommend that you do activate your quirk when you become able to, so long as there are medical professionals to monitor your safety, okay? No using your quirk willy-nilly. I'm writing this down on your profile so I need you to promise me you'll be careful with your quirk."

Nanase pouted. "I'm not an idiot. I don't want to end up brain dead…"

Dr Shinkei approached them. "But you are a teenager, so prone to not doing reasonable things like wanting to wear seatbelts or helmets."

"That's completely different!" She protested.

"We trust you to be careful, Nanase. Now, I think you should go with Dr Shinkei, the CT scan isn't going to wait for you." Which was a lie, Nanase was going to spend another hour or so waiting for it to be her turn.

With a sigh, the girl left the bed and walked over to the nurse that would be keeping her company until the imaging department's waiting room. Then she stopped, eyes growing wide.

✧250 Points✧
✧Ready Roll…✧

She turned back to the doctors. "Hm, it's happened again." She swallowed nervously as the doctors frowned in confusion and worry. "It's ready again. What… what do I do?"

The celestial menagerie is not a quirk, and barely tied to Nanase's body. (in fact, she doesn't have the genetic factor, ahah, that's going to be fun later on) I wanted to explore a bit how a drawback because of the soul incompatibility could be approached by medical professionals.

Also, I need the word count ahah......... ah.

minuseven · Jul 13, 2023

✦0✦You choose a category, and roll to gain something in that category, paying the normal cost for the rolled entry. If you do not have enough points to afford it, you keep your points. You can gain this benefit any number of times.
✦Mundane Animals✦100✦Vermilingua✦ Giant Anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla)
✧Micro Bonus Activated!
✦Portal/Half-life/Fallout✦0✦Companion Cube✦
✧150 Points✧

At last, finally, Nanase's quirk was working as it should be. It looked like she could gain creatures to summon, just like she gained new abilities. The reason why she hadn't been able to summon any, was because whatever trauma had occurred had wiped her storage.

Well, so they guessed.

She was quite happy with her summons. One of them was an anteater, which was cool. The biggest one there was too. And the other was… cute? Well, she liked the companion cube, even if it made everybody scratch their heads about how it could be considered a creature.

She'd also discovered the rules for her summoning. Once per day, five hundred meters, always friendly, yada-yada. It told them something about her power, like how many points of energy she could use at a time. Well, nine-hundred… it would make her brain burst like a balloon, best case scenario. But it wasn't like she could control how her quirk worked behind the scenes, so all she could do was pray.

Dr Shinkei called it the worst russian roulette in the world. Then he apologized for being insensitive. Now Nanase had the image of putting a gun to her head firmly lodged in her imagination, though.

Mr Giant Anteater was good for cuddling during those dark times. The hospital didn't allow her to summon it inside, but their rules wouldn't matter for long.

The police had no leads in her case. The doctors had gotten her as healthy as they could. It was time for her to return to proper society. With no relatives or anything, Nanase was going to go live in a children's home. And it wasn't even going to be in Shizuoka.

Celestial Menagerie NOT 4

"Thank you for inviting me, Ms Midoriya." She bowed primly. "You didn't have to."

"Nonsense, please come in." Izuku's mother waved her inside the apartment. "Izuku has been so worried about you, I'm glad I'm finally meeting the girl he saved. It's just a shame that it's at a goodbye party…"

Indeed, Nanase had been invited for dinner at the Midoriya household before she was sent away. "Hey Izuku. How's training going?"

The boy who'd saved her was bouncing on the balls of his feet. He looked nervous and tired. "It's good! I increased my reps just yesterday! We-welcome to my house!"

It was a clean and homely apartment. Nanase did her best not to stare at any pictures, although her eyes still got caught by an adorable picture of a young Izuku in a hero onesie. Apparently, he had been a hero fan since forever. "Thanks for inviting me. You didn't have to."

He waved his hands in front of himself. "I just talk about you with my mom, nothing bad, or personal, just that you were going to leave, and she decided we should have dinner. Really, it was all her idea."

"Still." Then, she smiled. "Hey, guess what?"

"Guess…?"

"Guess who's got a family name now."

He gasped. "Re-really? How?"

"Ah, we still don't know who I was." She probably never would. "But I got to have one, so they gave me the choice to choose a name from my caretakers or to field a new family registry. Behold, now I am Kaihen Nanase!"

"That's so good! I'm happy for you! Did you name yourself after the coast? How do you spell it?" He asked.

She had. Despite everything, Nanase felt a connection to the sea, and would have loved to spend more time at the beach. They chatted a bit before they set the table. Izuku was still very tired from his daily training and had to study on top of it. Nanase was happier listening. It wasn't like her pool of knowledge was great either.

"So you're getting sent to Yokohama?" The topic came up as they were finishing eating. "At least it's not too far away, but still…"

It was more than one hour just by train. "Yeah. They have more space for lost kids like me up there. I don't know where in the city it is, but the social worker seemed happy that I was being sent there, so I'm not very scared."

"Still." Ms Midoriya was worried. "Shouldn't you stay closer to where your family might be?"

Nanase had to avert her eyes. "Mmm, well, there's no actual proof that my family lives here. The police doesn't know how I ended up at Takoba, plus…" She decided to bite the bullet. "Plus, one of the officers told me it might be safer than staying here…"

Since nobody knew how Nanase had gotten in that state, if there was foul-play involved, nobody could be sure that Mustufatu was safe for her. Even if there were a bunch of heroes living there. Ms Midoriya seemed to pick up on that and was wringing her hands in worry.

"Please don't worry my mother." Izuku whispered to her. "She gets nervous easily."

Yeah, Nanase had wondered where Izuku had gotten that from. "Oops, sorry."

Before she had to leave, the Midoriyas surprised her one more time. They got her a parting gift. Sure, it was just an All Might brand jacket, but it was the first gift Nanase had ever received. They didn't have to. She was moved to tears, which started a cascade of sympathetic crying. She left the apartment in that brand new blue and red jacket, feeling a lot more feelings than she wanted to dwell upon. She decided to smile anyway. It was good to know that at least two people care about her.

At the rate Nanase is acumulating wordcount by being next to Izuku, it was going to start getting suspicious. We'll get a perspective on that soon. Also, I'm fudging the wordcount just a bit. If it gets between 960 and 1100 I count it as done and Nanase gets a ping. I also extend that in the temporal direction. For example, by that fit, right as she leaves the Midoriya household she's at 980 and is eligible for another pull. I decide to have her have it as she leaves the city the next day. This is because she's not in an active situation like a fight, in which she would get the immediate option.

Couldn't resist the companion cube. It was either that, or a rabbit.

minuseven · Jul 13, 2023

A phone was essential to living in the modern world. And Nanase finally had one!

BeachGirl
You should change your nick into something funny!
like me

BeachHero
How about this?
It isn't too much?

BeachGirl
It's perfect
My Hero~~
Don't worry!!

Celestial Menagerie NOT 5

✧700✧Insufficient Points!
✧250 Points✧

BeachGirl
I was a bit afraid there would be bullies at the home
But it's actually not bad
The rules are very strict, but I'm very good with rules. Adnd since i'm in the 3 year
*And
I'm only expected to obey the girls in highschool

BeachHero
Is that fine?
Are they nice people?

BeachGirl
Well…
50-50?
But most of them have part time jobs
Money is important for us!
Or they just don't spend time at the house
So i dont have problems

One of her constant fears did happen. Thank God that she'd taken her doctors' advice seriously.

She didn't tell Izuku about the seizure she'd suffered the day she'd moved into Yokohama. Her friend was a worrywart. He definitely didn't need to know how she'd spent her first night in Yokohama in the hospital.

She'd gotten a bit of a reputation as being fragile. Defective too, but she took several days before hearing that rumor. It would bother her more if the adults didn't obviously keep their eyes on her more and protected her. Adults she could deal with. The younger kids… well, sometimes. It was people her age that were the problem. She'd gotten used to Izuku, who miraculously had a personality that meshed with hers.

Living outside the hospital was a struggle. She was constantly bombarded with new information and tripping up on things she should know. She'd already had to explain at school that she had amnesia. That hadn't been very pleasant. Just reading the magazines at the hospital and watching television hadn't been enough.

At school, she'd been given a couple of weeks to find a club activity since she was up to date with her school subjects. Nanase actually had a lot of knowledge in her seemingly empty wasteland of memories. Literature and social studies were so-so, but everything else? She'd excelled in the placement tests about science and discovered that she could speak English just as well as Japanese. Further testing had her re-discover French, Spanish and Portuguese, and showed how good she was with all earth sciences. She'd already aced a few mock tests for highschools.

Not having to worry about that was a weight off her chest. Nanase already had enough worries without having to add cramming for a good highschool in there.

It was also a good thing for other reasons. She made alliances with some of the other kids in the house by providing free help studying, and the possibility of setting up paid tutoring was enticing. It did get her off chores if she helped the younger children on their homework as bonus points.

BeachGirl
I joined a club

BeachHero
?

BeachGirl
Newspaper Club
Our school's is called Principle Poetry
Weird right?

BeachHero
That's cool! I hope you have fun!
My school doesn't have one. My elementary did have a newspaper.
Every month a different class was in charge

BeachGirl
That's interesting

BeachHero
Is it called that because it's in the Rishi Ward?

BeachGirl
…
ooooh

At the suggestion of her doctors, she also joined the Track and Field Club. Not for competition, but as a member that just wanted to improve their physical condition. About a third of the members were like her. They only had to train twice a week. Ukio Middle School's important sports club was the baseball team. They were the ones who'd actually gone to nationals in the last few years. The Track and Field advisors were much less competitive and strict.

Nanse didn't really enjoy endurance activities, but the other things were cool. Still not like the newspaper club.

Being in the newspaper club was fun and helpful. It had her reading the newspapers, practicing her japanese and, more importantly, looking out for news. It meant she did research on what was happening locally and had to gather her courage to ask people questions. That was the main reason for her to join. Nanase wanted to stop feeling so alienated from everyday life. Being part of a project, and helping, seemed to be the best idea.

As a third year, she didn't have upperclassmen to guide her, but her fellow students were still very helpful. The president, Shirokoku was a bit of a stick in the mud. She wanted her on editing and computer work only for the first two months before she got talked down by the much friendlier vice-president. God bless Hanashi. She kept everything running.

Before she'd noticed, it had been almost a month since she'd moved into Yokohama. The big city life really went by fast.

Perhaps because she was settling down, she was having time to process things. To acknowledge things. Like how in the hospital it had never been an issue that she didn't have parents with her, just a sad fact of life. But at school, where she could see and hear everybody else with their families, suddenly sadness became painful more often. Nanase had been discovering so many things about herself lately.

She was Catholic. She hadn't known that until somebody recognized that weird gesture she did sometimes as the sign of the cross. It explained her habit of using Amen, but what did it mean? She knew only bits of the prayers and didn't actually agree with many things she found on the religion and its controversies.

And she'd known that, somewhen before. It was a familiar feeling.

Who was she? And how long could she keep bottling all of those parts that fit the shape of a person she wasn't sure she was? Should she be that person? Was it even possible to separate them? It was her personality wasn't it? How could she determine that?

She tried not to think about it, but sometimes, she summoned her furry friend just so she could cry into her fur. The knot in her that got too big and only crying it out helped a little.

✧350 Points✧
✧Ready Roll…✧

"Ugh." Why now? Usually she could look forwards to her quirk being activated despite the potential drawback. It was so cool that her quirk was still getting more useful! But tonight? Tonight it just made her cry more. "I hate this."

Fun fact, I did join the newspaper club at my school when I was in 5th grade. Of course, it wasn't a japanese school, so it wasn't exactly the same. Technically I am also catholic, but I haven't practiced since, well, about 9th grade. Mixing traits from my actual childhood to give Nanase a distinct personality.

Gotta get the word count pumping a bit, because the Celestial Menagerie isn't being very helpful. I was already sensing Nanase would end up in General Education but, well, you'll see. I have a good outline of the next few chapters.

minuseven · Jul 17, 2023

✦100✦Survivalist: You become an extremely skilled survivalist, you can survive in the wild while naked, you are able to light a fire, create a shelter and find water and food in the most unlikely place.
✧250 Points✧

A niche but surprisingly useful thing? Nanase's quirk really was weird, she thought as she dabbed at the blood leaking from her nose. Celestial Tamer didn't even begin to cover it. Ah, but well, what else could they have called the mess that it was?

"Hm, nurse? Is it possible that I know so much science because of my quirk? Because this time I've been given a lot of knowledge about, like, plants and geology. It's not very organized though."

The red-haired nurse frowned. "I believe that's something you should talk about with your quirk specialist. Do you want help scheduling a session?" Right. Sure, why not.

Celestial Menagerie NOT 6

The choir's songs were all so familiar. Not the lyrics, but the melodies, it was like she'd heard them a thousand times before. She was a bit lost, standing on the last benches of the church. Surprisingly, the Sunday service was nearly full. It made some sense, there weren't many churches, and there were several different groups that were united by their religion. There were historical reasons for that. The beginning of the age of quirks had been very troubled. Not only had several groups been stranded in Japan during the many times when international travel and communication had been banned, but just about every country in the world had been the target and the origin of at least two migration wages. Or refugee waves, to be more correct.

There were a lot of enclaves and mixed groups everywhere in the world. And in the countries where order had managed to be reestablished without too much bloodshed, these persisted. Nanase supposed mass was not a bad place to remember that atrocities had been committed back then, and to pray for humanity's strive for a better world.

Pray like everything depends on God and work like everything depends on you.

More words from the obscure past. But they felt good, meaningful. She repeated them in her head as the Father read one of the psalms. She'd have to look them up later. As the service continued, Nanase had to stop herself from getting up for the communion. She felt like she could receive the communion but… did it count if she wasn't even sure she'd been baptized? Why did she only discover these things in moments like these?

She needed to talk to the Father. Or somebody in charge. But… she didn't know anybody. She'd come alone, requesting permission to be absent this sunday morning from her guardians. Her courage had run out after entering the mass and noticing how some people were eyeing the obvious stranger in their midst.

"In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."

""Amen.""

She wished she had taken one of the song pamphlets. She kept tripping up the words, and she was only pretending to sing them, sounding them in her head.

The Father left through the center aisle as they sang, accompanied by the two acolytes, and Nanase felt her chance to talk to him slip by. But she wasn't sure when else she'd have a chance to meet him, so she lingered in the shadows of the church as the churchgoers filed out. The younger ones first, of course, sick and tired of being here for over an hour. The feeling was familiar. The adults and the elderly tending to flock together in groups. Perhaps because christians weren't very common in Japan, it seemed to her that everybody was taking their time.

"Excuse me?" A voice came from her right. A girl, one of the acolytes, greeted her with a respectful nod. She had traded her robe for a long, modest dress. Very noticeably, her quirk was perhaps too religious: her hair was composed of thorny vines. "I noticed you seemed a bit lost, can I help in any way?"

"Oh, hm, yeah, I am. I needed to talk with the Father, if that was possible. Or with somebody else who could answer some questions for me."

"If it's questions about our faith, I can answer them." She provided helpfully.

Nanase fought a wince. "No, I'm… I know the faith. It's a bit more personal? It relates to some health issues… I…" Her eyes darted to the adults still lingering.

"Would you like to talk outside?" The acolyte girl proposed. "The church has a nice garden."

Nanase was grateful for the out. "Yeah, that'd be nice. Lead the way?" The church did have a nice garden, a curious mix of western themes in an eastern layout.

"Forgive me for not introducing myself earlier. I'm Shiozaki Ibara." She bowed, and Nanase returned it with her own introduction. "The Father is usually busy after the service, I apologize. But if I can be of help, I will. If not, I can arrange for a meeting at another time?"

If Nanase were honest, she felt more comfortable explaining the entire amnesia situation to a girl her age than a priest. "Well, it's a bit of an odd situation. Let me explain." She gave her a very brief summary: she'd been found hurt and awoken with amnesia, her identity and past lost. Recently, she'd discovered she had been christian and probably catholic, but was uncertain on coming to the service. Especially considering she couldn't be sure if she had ever actually been baptized.

"Oh my." Shiozaki was visibly somewhat shocked. "That… that sounds awful." She chewed her lip. "Unfortunately, I don't think I can pronounce anything about your situation. It really should be the Father. I'm very sorry I couldn't be of any help."

She shook her head. "Trust me, you helped. If you hadn't come to talk to me, I might have just given up and gone home."

"The Lord works in mysterious ways." Shiozaki said seriously, but with a small smile. "I am very glad I made your acquaintance. I must confess, I… was not sure of your intentions when I first approached you. I apologize for letting my personal bias cloud my actions."

✧350 Points✧
✧Ready Roll…✧

Nanase wasn't sure of what she'd done or not for her intentions to be under question? More importantly, she was struggling with Celestial Tamer. The energy had just been primed. Since her seizure, she'd felt like there was more energy, so the sudden spike in her head made her twitch. She needed to go to the hospital now.

Did she have enough money for a taxi? "It's fine. Hm, look, can I give you my email and you tell me when I could come talk to the father? Because I really have to go now."

The other girl blinked. "Of course?"

They traded contacts even as Nanase called a taxi, leaving Ibara a bit confused on the curb. The mysterious girl that had caught her attention was leaving, to the hospital if she'd heard it correctly. It seemed there really was some truth to her claims of illness. Ibara decided she'd pray for her health tonight.

Ah yes, my not complicated relationship with faith (meh) and religion (urgh.). I'm actually interested in exploring it a little bit, although i'm gonna say that between QUIRKS and this being the future, a lot of things in MHA's churches are likely more progressive. I flirted with the idea of a female priest, but decided not to show them in this chapter.

Nanase has luck with green haired hero wannabes lmao

minuseven · Jul 20, 2023

✦✦100✦Copyright: Your creatures cannot be forcefully controlled or copied by others. They cannot be cloned, reverse-engineered or mentally dominated.
✧250 Points✧

Nanase
My quirk has drawbacks so I need to go the hospital sometimes

Ibara
But are you alright?

Nanase
Yeah!
It wasn't serious this time

Celestial Menagerie NOT 3

BeachGirl
Hey Izuku:
I've found religion!

BeachHero
Ok?
Nanase, what do you mean by that?
Nanase?
!?!

The water was cold. "If you are not yet baptized, I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." The building was silent.

Does God exist? And if they do, do they exist according to which books and traditions?

Well, Nanase wasn't sure. The internet and all its debates hadn't helped.

Perhaps that made her blasphemous to be receiving the sacraments and only half-heartedly committing herself to church and Sunday mass. Regardless, everybody here had been nice, and Father Morikari had accepted to conditionally baptize her. It was fine, according to him, if she still had doubts. The path to Christ was invisible to men, but she had taken the first step and that was what mattered.

It probably helped that just going to catechism a couple of times had made Nanase, and her semi-official sponsor Ibara, realize that she was very familiar with the faith. Another point in the column that said Nanase had been a part of the church before her accident. Privately, Nanase also thought it was because the church was a minority religion in Japan. Some flexibility in everybody's daily lives was necessary. Otherwise, how to deal with the fact that they were surrounded by non-believers?

Even Ibara, who was very excited to re-introduce Nanase to the faith, wasn't overwhelming. Sure, she spoke about the Lord a lot, but she didn't preach. She preached to Nanase, but to be fair, Nanase had asked for it. It also led to a series of fun conversations like: Is All Might barred from Heaven as a non-believer? Ibara had gone to the Father about that one question. The vine-haired girl was very straightforward and honest, and Nanase found that she enjoyed that personality as much as she enjoyed Izuku's ramblings. Neither of them were too loud, just as able of quiet contemplation. She was really lucky with green-haired people.

"Do I really have to have such celebration? I barely got baptized." Yes, it was a community moment but Nanase found herself not enjoying being the center of everybody's attention. It was aggravated by her circumstances, which had already made the rounds several times. She'd gotten a knit cap, books, a backpack… Little things provided by her fellow christians that left her both flustered and a little emotional. Charity and mutual aid were strong within Yokohama's catholic community.

Ibara nodded, very pumped up. "Yes, we do! We're welcoming you within our lives with God! You're sharing your commitment to the Lord with us, and we all celebrate and rejoice." Then, more quietly. "But do you need some space?"

"Hm, not yet? It's just, I'm a little embarrassed." Something Nanase had already known about herself. Some attention was fine, but she had a definite threshold. "Hey, what about we take a picture? I want to send it to my friend." Izuku had seemed so very confused when she'd started talking about it.

There were people more than happy to help them, and soon, Nanase had a whole new album in her phone, full of celebratory photos. Come to think of it, she mused to herself, this was her first real celebration. Even her dinner with Izuku and his mother had been a small, private affair. Now she was surrounded by people. She didn't know them very well, but she did feel more a connection than to her caretakers and fellow parentless kids at the home. A shared background.

"Huh. I suppose you could call this family? Mmm, maybe culture." It was heady. Somewhat reassuring, because now she didn't feel like she was entirely alone. There was something connecting her to people who could have been strangers. A set of understandings about the world, and a willingness to help. It was also the tiniest bit scary. She didn't want to lose it, or to disappoint them.

"Nanase! Come here, there's cake!" Ibara was calling. She stowed away her phone. These thoughts were way too heavy. She'd rather have cake.

Me, researching my own religion over fifteen years since my last catechism class: I'd forgotten how ugly the queer and abortion debates could get... or the salvation debates... or... a lot. (I do miss the feeling of singing in the church.) Guess I can do a lot with catholicism in a hypothetical future where at least one in ten people is a MUTANT! ahahahah

in future MHA, this church is gonna be a good, queer friendly place that doesn't do the whole "hate the sin love the sinner" bullshit.

minuseven · Aug 24, 2022

_.·✧·._.·´¯`·._.·´✧`·._.·´¯`·._.·✧·._

Once upon a time, a star fell from the sky.

No, really.

¯`·._.·✧·._.·´¯

_.·´¯✧¯`·._

"Alright, you've all had time to think this through. Let's see your Future Career printouts."

Arukania's middle school's third year had a single class with exactly seventeen students. For a town in the middle of the Japanese mountains, it wasn't surprising. Most people were old. There was no highschool. It wasn't even a quaint little town with hot-springs, tourism or traditional crafts. It was a mining town for a middling mine that closed another shaft every couple of years.

And if the company needed more workers, it got more workers, and they almost never brought any children.

Naturally, just about everybody wanted to leave. Since there was no highschool, just about everybody put down school in the nearest cities, a few aiming further away.

"Oh." Except for one. "Sachi, that's really ambitious. We're all rooting for you."

Chatter erupted. "You're really aiming for that fancy hero school in the big city?" A girl with a rough texture for skin turned around in her seat.

A white-haired girl with starry eyes nodded. "UA. The more well-known hero school in the country. One-hundred percent main character bait."

"Freak. You and your folks..." Was said with a certain fondness. "Man, but with your quirk..."

"And my brain."

"And your grades, yeah, yeah. I think you'll make it. Show all those capital rich kids what village folk is worth, won't you?" There was general clamor. Over the noise, the bell rang and they were summarily dismissed.

Sachi shrugged. "That's the plan, I guess."

¯`·._.·✧·._.·´¯

_.·´¯✧¯`·._

After a very long train trip, she was at the gates of UA. She gave them a glance, shook her head at the eccentric building design and walked in. She was almost late, due to the previously mentioned long voyage.

As she followed the signs to the amphitheater, she was amazed at the amount of people. This was definitely the first time she'd ever been so close to so many teenagers. It was a little disgusting, all the hormones and competitiveness. She sighed. Life in the city was going to be very different, wasn't it? She almost missed her weird parents and she definitely missed the wilderness and old, abandoned buildings. Instead, she was one of nearly two thousand teenagers applying to the most prestigious hero school in the country.

Well, she'd made her choice.

Paperwork having been handled by mail, she was handed a brochure-like form and assigned a seat in the auditorium.

"GOOD MORNING LISTENERS!!!" Her ears, why. Present Mic was not very popular back home and this was not endearing her to him.

She grumbled under her breath.

"That's his appeal. And kickass music taste." The girl next to her whispered.

She had a downright cool hair-style and fashion choices, with a leather jacket that Sachi very much wanted to own a copy of. Her quirk was some sort of subtle mutant type, giving her long earlobes that ended on jacks. Not wanting to be caught staring, and since she was here to become a hero after all, Sachi re-focussed on the presentation. Then somebody way braver and far too much of nitpicker started asking questions as loud as Present Mic, without getting a sore throat.

She looked down at her brochure. "Battle Center G."

"I'm in A." Her neighbor mentioned as they both got up.

Not direct competition then, that was nice. "After A. They probably had the lines running from A to G round and round. Well, first we have the written test."

"I'm not sure which one I'm more nervous about." The girl's ear-jacks? Turned in a circle.

"Both. Both is good." Sachi smiled and offered her hand for her to shake. "Good luck."

The girl gave her a firm handshake. "You too. Let's see each other when classes start, yeah?"

"You bet."

¯`·._.·✧·._.·´¯

_.·´¯✧¯`·._

The practical test ended up stressing her. Or rather, as she thought about it would go, she realized it would be more of a race than a showcase of her abilities. She would be competing with at least a hundred other people for one spot in thirty-eight. Sachi was confident in her ability to destroy bots, it shouldn't be any harder than wrecking a car, but if it turned into a hide-and-seek game, less so.

It was compounded with anxiety from the written test. It was unfair. She'd never felt anxious about written tests. She ended up jittery in her chair and bounced her leg as she went through her options.

Sachi's quirk was incredibly versatile. So versatile in fact that it turned split-second decisions into freezing in place moments. The way around, she'd discovered, was to prepare a good combo in advance. Like that, she could bring a few abilities into the field quickly, leaving all the others a bit more 'behind'. The sort of things that would require actually concentrating instead of a mere reaction.

For this hunt, she decided, it would be best to go full offensive. Against machines, lightning and water, and rock. Fire would be wasted. Wind as well. Ice to complete the set then. It gave her a nice range of possibilities. Wolf and Frost were quick and in your face, those were easy choices. Gold as well, a powerful ranged weapon. And between Star and Artist, she'd prefer Star's less intensive elemental blasts. It also gave her a healing option if she wound up needing it for some reason.

She immersed herself in the reflection of the stars, and plucked them one by one, nestling them close to her bosom.

She dropped the bag she was carrying her bokuto with in the locker rooms and took a deep breath. And then she was at the gates to an actual fake mini-city. UA had to have the biggest budget. Just how rich were these people?

"Are you ready!?" The unmissable voice of Present Mic blasted from above them all. Sachi bent her legs and took one last deep breath. All right. "Go!"

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She ran pell-mell, breath steady, quickly getting ahead of most of the competition. The smooth, flat concrete felt very different from the mountain roads she was used too. No matter, hiking boots were all-terrain boots. The first robots appeared from side-streets. One-pointers.

She dodged them and their electronic voices. There had to be more enemies further in and she didn't want to be caught up in the middle of everybody. The next one she saw was a two-pointer, followed by several other robots of varying types. No more time to waste. Time to see how effective her attacks were!

She planted her right foot in front of her, the robot not two meters away, sword arm drawn back, and swung. A blast of ice struck the robot, hoarfrost clinging to its surface, but didn't stop it. The two pointer was already moving to swing. Sachi jumped back at the last second and drew water from the air with her left hand and sent it forward. Immediately, the robot was frozen in place, the frost spreading and locking it in place.

That robot would be immobilized for a while. She swung to the next one, jumped, two-handed grip on her sword above her head. The claws of a lightning beast followed her strike. Rents opened in the robot's armor and it fell down to the road, spasming. A hop back, a second of concentration, and stray rocks and pebbles lifted up with a golden glow, striking an approaching foe and cratering its hide.

She surveyed the battlefield, moving to the side as vines of all things sprouted to the ground and started twisting and immobilizing the robot. The other contestants had arrived. But this had been enough to give Sachi an idea of what worked and didn't.

With a grin, she twirled in place and called forth the power of water. A ring burst around her with a chime, and she suppressed a giggle. Time to short-circuit these toasters.

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The test hadn't started very well for some contestants. There had been one burly student who'd straight up dumped two or three packets of sugar into his mouth and started swinging without abandon, but others found themselves unprepared for the sheer size and speed of the opponents.

Others quickly found their rhythm. It'd taken him a full half-minute, but now the headband -wearing boy had figured out how to take the robots out of commission. He just needed to grab one of their legs and the ground, and his quirk would leave the robots unable to go anywhere. Then usually somebody would finish them off, but he was sure that this would count and get him points.

Otherwise he was in quite a pickle.

There was no time to think, he just had to keep moving. Robot after robot became his victims. So far he ran that he overextended, suddenly finding himself between three robots. All of them welded to the ground, but still within range. He managed to duck and fuse the two fists that met above his head, but the third…

With a cry, a white-haired girl jumped into view, a phantasmal werewolf of electricity echoing her movements, and cut through the arm of the attacker. Their eyes met, slate gray and star-shaped pupils, and an understanding passed through them. They nodded to each other and each lept back into the fight, striking in a new direction.

The intensity of battle, teenagers and robots spread throughout the fake, made it so only the regular announcements of how much time they had left were the only way they could keep track of it. At eight minutes, a quake shook the ground. With a plume of dust and smoke, a building-sized shape rose to tower over everything in the vicinity.

"That's the zero-pointer?" More than one person cried out in their hearts.

With a metallic roar, it reared up before smashing the buildings in its path and started moving towards the greatest concentration of contestants. Wisely, everybody ran. Straight-forward or into side-streets, dodging the other robots, other contestants and falling debris.

Unavoidably, some people were injured. A short cat-faced teen limped forward and had time only to flinch at the bits of broken concrete falling towards his head, before he was carried forward by green, thorny tentacles. A girl with hair made out of vines pulled him towards her. A hemispherical shield of the same vines was set at the entrance of an alley, protecting several students. More than one was also injured.

"Please forgive me," She winced as she saw the cuts her quirk had left on his exposed arms. "I did not have time to blunt my thorns."

"Whatever! Thanks." He collapsed on the floor. "You saved me."

The shield was attracting several others who saw in it safety. "I'm unsure for how long before this trial defeats me. Lord give me strength." The girl was sweating, hands clasped in prayer before her. The test still had a minute or more before them, but what had seemed like such little time now extended into infinity for those hidden from the rampaging robot.

"Hey!" A white-haired girl jumped into the protective circle, swirling icicles around her waist dissipating into snowflakes. "Let me help." With a swipe of her hand, a golden, elaborate pillar erupted in front of the vines and opened into a translucent shield, like a bamboo screen.

"My thanks." The green-haired girl bowed. "Nevertheless, we should move. Perhaps carry the wounded elsewhere."

The new arrival surveyed them with furrowed brows. "Hurt? Mm, leave it to me. Huddle up!" She took a deep breath, hummed a few notes, snapped her fingers. "La-ra-la~" Her eyes opened and she hopped, skipped and twirled.

Before the stupefied teens around her, the ground rippled with a blue glow and a glowing shower of stars swept over them. "What?" "Good Lord!" They looked down at themselves as pains and aches disappeared, injuries healing before their eyes. The cat-faced teen felt their whiskers tremble. "What the fuck even is your quirk?!"

Sachi looked over her shoulder, giving him a thumbs up and a laugh that answered nothing. "Let's go!"

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She'd ended up losing her bokuto. A robot had knocked it out of her hands and she hadn't had the opportunity to retrieve it. She'd asked teh examiners if she could retrieve it, but was denied. She had received a letter saying they'd retrieved the pieces of it… after finding it under rubble. She could claim that.

Said letter also included a projection disk and now she sat between her parents, ready to hear her results. She had to have passed, but it would be good to hear the news as family.

With her parent's hand steady on her shoulder, he started the projection.

"I Am Here! As a projection!" All Might!? All three of them leaned back, shocked.

The surprise was almost enough for Sachi to miss her results. She had gotten in. Not only that, she'd made it as the fourth highest ranked student. She felt the pride irradiating from her parents. A good amount of it had come from rescue points, almost as much as from the points she'd gotten by destroying robots.

The family huddled up in a group hug. This was great, but also the slightest bittersweet. UA was far away. "Time to start checking out places for you to rent out next year."

Sachi burrowed deeper into her mother's sweater. "We still have a month or so."

Her other parent laughed. "Ahah, the naiveté of somebody who has never gone house-hunting."

"It's that bad?" She looked up at her mother, meeting the place where her eyes would be.

"If you want to get a good place, a bit. Fortunately we're not hurting for money." She explained, pushing some strands of hair away from Sachi's face. "Your parent will show you."

Ugh, grown-up stuff. Couldn't she go start filling up the online forms that asked about her hero costume instead?

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Comets and meteors.

When stars leave their nests, do they become shooting stars?

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Because Genshin 3.0! Which I should not go play because thesis! ahah fff me.
I'll do a character profile later.

minuseven · Sep 7, 2022

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The star was found by an eyeless woman.

She saw more than most.

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There weren't a lot of boxes. A large suitcase worth of clothes, a book box, a useful things box and a decorations box. The apartment was unfurnished tho, so a large bag sat to the side, containing her futon, curtains and some towels.

"It's well insulated." Her mother commented as she surveyed the place again. It was the third time she made that comment today. "Your parent is finishing writing the shopping list." She took a deep breath. Are you sure you don't want us to spend the night?"

Sachi shook her head. Her parents still had to drive all the way back home. Besides, there was something about the adventure of sleeping in your own apartment. It was like camping and she likes camping.

Her mother left with a kiss to her forehead and her parent with a hug. The door closed and she was hit with a sense of loneliness.

She had two and a half days to turn that loneliness into freedom, to explore a bit.

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The school was as big as she remembered. Huge, much beyond what size-mutants needed. Unless heroics just attracted a lot of vertically gifted students.

Sachi caught sight of the vine-haired girl she met during the exam, ahead of her, before somebody tapped her on the back.

"Hey, we meet again." It was the girl that had been next to her during the orientation ceremony. Now dressed in the much less cool school uniform. "Did you make it into heroics too? I'm Jiro Kyoka by the way."

"Yeah. Class 1-A." The door was just a bit further in the corridor. "My name is Hoshino Sachi, pleasure to meet you, again."

"Cool! I'm in 1-A too." Jiro smiled.

The classroom's door was already open, and the seats were half filled. The seating chart was drawn on the board. Sachi was lucky to be in the file nearest to the window, but she was also on the front row. By chance, Jiro was right next to her. As everybody sat down, she took in her classmates.

Her eyes were inevitably drawn to the most egregious mutation quirks. In Arukania, such were usually rare, or belonging to temporary workers. There was an extremely pink girl, Ashido, a really tall boy with several arms, Shoji, and possibly a boy with a bird's head, Tokoyami. Other than them, she didn't see anybody she remembered from the exam or anybody that particularly caught her eye… except for the floating uniform that indicated an invisible person was there. That was interesting.

There was a muffled thump from the corridor's direction. Jiro winced. "I think that's 1-B. They're… rowdy? I don't even want to hear."

Sachi eyed her earlobe-jacks. "Enhanced hearing?"

"Yes, and a few other tricks. You?"

"Elemental manipulation with a weird bent."

The other girl was surprised. "Really? I thought it would be something to do with your eyes."

She wouldn't have been the first. Sachi's white pupils and nebula-coloured irises were attention grabbing. It wasn't the first time somebody had caught a comet streaking through her eyes. "My mutations are only tangentially related."

The bell rang. The only ones not seated were a green-haired boy and the chubby girl who'd ambushed him near the seating chart. The teacher ambushed them in turn, gliding silently through the door and looming over her classmates. "If you're here to chat, go do it somewhere else."

Red bloodshot eyes roved over the class. "This is the Hero Course. There is not time for chit-chat. I'm Aizawa Shota, your homeroom teacher. Pleasure to meet you." His tone varied from dead to condescending. "Put on your gym uniforms and move to the Beta Athletic Field."

Nobody knew where that was. Nobody even knew where the lockers were. And the teacher seemed intent on being less than helpful, answering questions with a long suffering look and clipped answers. When the chubby girl he had reprimanded before raised the question of orientation, he basically told her to go bother somebody else.

Sachi found herself frowning. Hm.

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"Uraraka, you placed third in the entrance exam," the teacher called out. "How far could you pitch a softball in middle school?"

Uraraka, the chubby girl, gave a good number. "Around… 40 meters?" Looking at her, Sachi was impressed that she had scored higher than her in the entrance exam. Then she was asked to use her quirk to throw the ball as far as she could and the brown-haired girl pitched it softly and it just… kept on going.

Aizawa blinked. "I'm marking that down as 'infinite'." That was amazing.

A Quirk Apprehension Test to measure their capabilities with their quirks compared to without their quirks. That made a lot of sense.

And as soon as chatter started between them, the scruffy man in charge sadistically declared that he would expel the worst performing student. Which they could do absolutely nothing about. That was, pardon the language, utter bullshit.

She wasn't afraid. The environment favored Sachi. She could employ her quirk at its maximum if she had a reasonable amount of time to set up and charge up. She was, however, irritated. A frown had settled nicely between her brows. It didn't help that she was charging Raven for the first test, and her indignation rose much more easily to the surface.

Beside her, Jiro nudged her. She returned a small smile of reassurance with a thumbs up. Plus Ultra? Alright, she'd show him her Plus Darn Ultra.

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First, the 50m dash. It was going about as Shota expected it to. Mobility enhancing quirks reigned supreme, so it was interesting to see what students with seemingly less useful quirks would do. #1 had skated using her acid, interesting. #8 had brought along sugar packets, good forward thinking. #10 had propelled himself using the kinetic energy of his footsteps, nice control.

#15 and #16, the invisibility quirk and the elemental quirk. One was likely far more athletic than apparent, and the other had already shown a degree of familiarity with the concept of this test during the exam. He gave the start. #16 transformed into a bird made out of purple lightning that raced down the track with a shrill cry.

Well, well, not just some sort of werewolf, but also a full transformation into birds. Interesting. Another one to keep an eye on. But later, considering #17 and #18 were up, and those two were going to be a headache. He could already tell.

Grip Strength, the Wolf. #16 showed a good degree of control over the wolf-form manifestation. Her hair was ruffled. Independent Quirk?

Standing Long Jump, Gold Trial. Summoned a pillar of earth to gain height and then condensed an explosion that launched her a fair distance away. Rolled without damage.

Repeated Side Steps, Fairy. Manipulated wind to generate and break momentum on a dime.

Ball Throw, Shark. Created a shield of lightning as she charged up a few seconds for an enhanced throw.

At this point, Aizawa checked his notes. #16, Quirk: Elemental Outlook. Manipulation of six classical elements (ice, water, earth, fire, electricity, wind) with parallel exotic effects. Prolonged use proportionally influencing mental state. Right, he was going to need more than that. He put down a note to request her to give him a list of her full capabilities and drawbacks.

Five minutes later, he had to deny her request to heal Midoriya. If he insisted he could 'still move' then he had to prove it.

Distance Run, Frost. Apparently used her quirk to cool herself down. Seated Toe Touch and Sit-ups, Star. Also only used her quirk to cool herself down. Regardless, good athleticism.

He regarded this year's class. A lot of polishing to do, but nobody hopeless. A fair amount of great potential too and even a few surprises. Time to reveal his 'logical ruse'.

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There was something a bit lonely about returning to an empty home. There was also something deeply satisfying about opening the fridge and getting the groceries out to make dinner. First day had come and gone.

Sachi let her call ring in speaker mode as she started cutting vegetables.

"Hey sweetie! How was your first day?" Her mother's voice rang through the kitchen and attached room.

"Hi mom. It was something. Mostly what you'd expect from a first day. Didn't have orientation, instead our homeroom teacher took us to have a quirk apprehension test first thing in the morning."

"Oh, that sounds fun. What's bothering you about that, daughter o'mine?" Trust her mother to know something just from the tone of her voice. Sachi sighed.

"Don't like him. Condescending, unwashed, unfair." She chopped the mushrooms with more force than was maybe necessary. "He was really unhelpful, singled out a couple of people and was a butt that threatened to expel us just because he could."

"Made that much of a bad first impression, did he?" Sachi winced.

That was a common refrain in her talks with her mother. She had, apparently, the bad habit of sticking to her first impressions of people for a very long time. Particularly if they weren't good first impressions. It had earned her a couple of bad relationships for no big reason back home. "I know, I know. I'll reserve judgment as best as I can." Not that she thought she was going to change her mind drastically about her homeroom teacher.

"That's all I ask. Now, tell me about your classmates? Did they make a good first impression?" She teased.

"I don't know everybody yet, but I met a girl that was next to me in the entrance exam? Her name is Jiro, we exchanged numbers."

So far, she'd only gotten Jiro's number, but it seemed like they could be good friends. Jito had an expansive music knowledge, played several instruments, had awesome fashion, and she had thumbed-up the rainbow flag sticker on Sachi's phone case. Succeeded by the comment that she also really wanted Yaoyorozu's number. Every girl had actually gotten each other's number, because Ashido, the pink girl, had been enthusiastic about creating a 1A Girls Chat. The girls were nice.

There was an exchange student from China, Hiryu Rin. He'd politely requested their patience and help with his language skills. Yaoyorozu seemed to be on the case.

Aside from that, she had also struck up a pleasant conversation with Tokoyami, whose quirk talked. He'd been interested in her manifestations. Sachi had been tempted to tell him that sometimes, her quirk-bird also talked. They'd exchanged numbers too.

Everybody in their class was probably going to end up in a chat sooner or later, between the social butterflies like Ashido and Kaminari, and the organized students like Yaoyorozu and Shoda.

"Except maybe Todoroki? Turns out we have Endeavor's son in our class." Her mother let out a murmur of amazement. "Yeah, but he's… really distant. An ice-cold ice-boy. Barely spoke a word the whole day and he looked at me funny."

"Really?"

"Hm…" She drummed her fingers on the flat of the knife. "I don't know. Maybe it's because we both have elemental powers and mine are just… I don't know, more? Not that he's weak! He created a mini glacier for the long jump!" He'd been impressive in most tests and his ice was fast and powerful, she could tell. "But, ah, how do I put this, I don't know about him. I thought he had something to say but when I met his eyes, it turns out what I thought was a mutation mark is really probably a burn scar? Like, on his face."

"Whoa. That sounds… quite bad. I don't want to…" To say the obvious thing everybody with a brain would immediately think about the son of the number one pyrokinetic.

"Yeah, hm, that. So it was awkward and I think he's extra awkward. I can see why too…" Between his distant demeanor and the fact that everybody was trying to avoid staring at Todoroki's face, nobody had really talked to him that Sachi had seen.

Plus there had been that incident…

Monoma Neito sat behind Midoriya and he had a copy quirk, which was something Sachi had never seen. Then again, she'd never seen a quirk-eraser like their teacher either. Monoma was loud and smug, but during the quirk apprehension test he'd been polite enough to ask people if he could copy their quirk, and between breaks he'd taken to go around asking if anybody's quirk had serious drawbacks he should know about.

Probably because Midoriya had broken actual bones with his quirk (although, funnily enough, Monoma wouldn't because Midoriya's was a stockpile type).

Tokoyami, for example, straight up told him Dark shadow could go out of control and he wasn't sure if it would be safe. Kaminari had warned him that he wasn't immune to his own voltages and as such could fry himself easily. And Sachi had mentioned her quirk had a big mental component that she also wasn't sure was safe. She wasn't exactly comfortable sharing her stars, so she had to think about that too.

Todoroki had almost flipped out. He'd gotten actually aggressive and ordered Monoma to never copy his quirk. The class had basically frozen in anticipation of a fight. It had taken Asui, a frog-quirk girl with a nonchalant courage to tell him to knock it off.

"I really don't know. Todoroki, I'm really reserving judgment on. It's only our first day." But he did seem to have issues. Maybe even subscriptions.

To distract herself from that, she complained about the assignment Aizawa had told her to write up. A complete description and list of everything she could do and the mental effects of her quirk. He didn't know the amount of work that was going to be. Sachi had begged for another day, since she was going to have the healing assessment anyway. She'd gotten it, reluctantly.

"I'm glad I'm not in 1-B tho. They are really, really loud. We heard explosions several times from their classroom. During lunch, actually, one of them cornered the guy sitting behind me, Midoriya." Midoriya being the one with superstrength that broke his bones. "Actually, I had to heal him today, he hurt himself during the quirk test. I'm going to have an assessment with Recovery Girl after class tomorrow. Anyway…"

Something had happened during the entrance exam and Iida from 1-B had deemed it necessary to come and apologize to Midoriya. Good for them. Iida took straight-laced and literal-minded to levels she had never seen before. He was also too loud for her.

Then, tomorrow, they were going to have their first Fundamentals of Heroics class. Taught by All Might of all people.

After some more conversation about her settling in, she bid goodbye to her parents. Perhaps she should start on that list.

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As the sun sets, stars become visible one by one.

Does Venus feel alone?

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i swear i don't hate aizawa or todoroki. but from a teenage perspective who hates commotions and tends to hold grudges, it makes sense.
also wanted to change up the rooster so three people switched with1b, plus mineta got straight up replaced because i don't have the patience

minuseven · Aug 12, 2022

All is well in the Schnee household. The stocks are up, the tariffs are down, and Jacques Schnee has a rare moment to spend with his family. A glass of wine and a nice book to unwind, leaving the office for tomorrow, and the night to spend with his wife and young daughter.

Children really do grow up very fast. Why, just last quarter she was struggling to move around, now she's apparently a little grimm with all her energy. Well, that's Willow's concern. Jacques has better things to occupy his time than drooling toddlers. Fortunately, Winter isn't that noisy. He'd hate to have to get up and do something about it if she was. He's rather comfortable right now.

"Ma-ma-ma." Oh, and that's right, she'd said her first word not too long ago. Only that and disjointed syllables so far.

Come to think of it, he muses as he sips at his glass, this really must be the first time he's spending time with Willow and Winter since she was born. He probably ought to correct that at least a bit. It wouldn't do for the girl to not know who her father was. Even now she looks curiously at him, alternating between staring at him and her mother.

On a whim, he's not feeling this book right now, Jacques gets up and walks over to Willow and Winter. "Willow," he lays a hand on her shoulder, "how are my girls doing today?"

"Mama." Winter grabs clumsily at her mother's shawl.

His wife gives him a distracted smile. "That's right liebling, I'm Mama. And that's Papa. Pa-pa."

Big blue eyes stare up at him. "Mmm-mo-mowa." Jacques can't help but roll his eyes. Babies. Winter keeps rolling syllables between fat lips, a frown on her rotund face. "Mo-wa-da. Mo-daw." It appears that rather than 'papa', Winter's new word of the day will be 'mother'.

Not that he cares about what words a baby can or cannot say.

Winter suddenly brightens, laughing, and extends a chubby hand in his direction. "Modaffoca!"

Jacques drops his glass. Willow gasps. Winter laughs and repeats the word. "Mo-da-fo-ca! Modaffoca, modaffooca!"

"What in the- Who's been teaching my daughter such filth!" He explodes.

"Jacques! Please, gods, nobody! She's just a baby, she's just playing with sounds!" Willow barely raises her voice, shushing the laughing baby in her arms by bouncing her. "I'll correct this, don't worry."

Of course. Winter's not even a year old yet, she doesn't know what her behavior means. Jacques rubs the bridge of his nose. Well, no matter, Willow will handle the situation. Dust help them if Jacques has to be the one to be involved in child-rearing, he'd set her straight one way or another.

And yet, as he shoots his daughter a glance, he can't help but think (foolishly) that Winter knows something he doesn't.

lol. i've had a couple of 'Schnee Peggy Sue' ideas in the works, but this is the only non-angsty one, involving a 3 schnee team up against their father and the world. did I manage to convey Jacques' sleezyness across, I'm not sure about that...

minuseven · Jun 30, 2022

The world rocked in time with the clip-clop of hoofbeats on stone and the creaking of wet wood. A slow, unforgiving sway that sent her neck lulling from one side to the other. A deep, dark fog covered her vision. It was foggy, like the tenth floor.

Sleep-crusted eyes struggled to open. As she wet her lips, she tasted salt. Everything felt so quick, and Ais felt so very slow. She was hurt, she realized with distant alarm. Her stomach roiled unpleasantly. Her head throbbed, her body was more than just sore. Her hands felt cold and numb as well. She closed her eyes shut, trying to gather strength to shake herself.

"Hey, you. You're finally awake." An unfamiliar voice. A blond human, rough and ragged, dried blood on the side of his face. He sat in front of her.

Snow-covered trees swayed behind him. Gravity pulled her to the side. They were moving downhill? "Where?" Her voice came out a gravel-like whisper. She coughed.

The man looked somewhere to her right. There was another human sitting next to him, even more ragged but less bloody. "You were trying to cross the border, right?" She had? "Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there."

Thief? She blinked. The fog was dissipating more and more each second. The dark-haired man, weasel-faced, had his hands tied in front of him with rope. So did the blonde. Ais looked down as the thief started ranting, words lost to the wind. Her arms too were bound, not just at the wrists. Coils of rope dug into her forearms, violent knots in several places. The lack of feeling in her purplish hands hit her like a monster rex, and adrenaline surged through her veins.

Ais Wallenstein was finally awake, and she had no clue what was happening.

Where was everybody? She tested her bonds, once. Where was her armor? Twice. Where was Desperate? Then at full strength. What sort of item was this rope? She questioned herself with a ragged huff.

"You there." The thief's voice called over, and she looked up from the length rope she had just noticed between her ankles. "You and me — we shouldn't be here. It's these Stormcloaks the Empire wants."

Stormcloaks? The Empire?

The blonde man, a warrior she noticed now, scoffed. "We're all brothers and sisters in binds now, thief."

Ais tried to remember Riveria's geography lessons, the — only to be violently interrupted. "Shut up back there!" Boomed a voice from her left. A soldier, armed and armored in unfamiliar equipment.

No, maybe Rakia? But does anybody call Rakia an Empire?

That thought flew through the active mind of a first-class adventurer as she cataloged everything in front of her. Several soldiers, some of different rank? Two carts with prisoners, Ais on the second, pulled by horses down some sort of mountain road? The trees, like she'd never seen, the violent nip of cold weather, tall, incredible mountains surrounding the sky like teeth.

Eyes on her, wary. Hands resting on the pommels of swords. Ais was a threat, and these men and women knew so.

A chuckle from the warrior called her attention back to him. "I saw you. Made these Imperials regret trying to stop you… Got outnumbered eventually, but you fought like a true Nord."

"Like a daedra worshiper. Crazy." The thief avoided her eyes.

Ais felt something heavy settle in her stomach. Her memories were fleeting and confused, her head throbbing still. But her bruises and cuts told a story of their own. Had that black flame been unleashed upon these soldiers?

"And what's wrong with him?" The thief continued talking, jittery.

Ais listened. Her attention was still divided by the unwelcome feeling of maybe-regret gnawing at her, but she still caught the rising tension as the man next to her was revealed. Kings, names, rebellions. Nothing seemed to make sense.

"Last thoughts?" She asked quietly and the warrior gave her a bitter smile. The thief was mumbling to himself, paleness visible even under his layers of grime. The maybe-king spared her no more than one look she couldn't understand.

Wait—

"General Tullius, sir! The headsman is waiting!" She heard clearly from the front.

The cart was turning round a great boulder, and beyond it there were the stone walls of a small fortified city. Not bigger than an average-sized house in Orario, in stone and thatched roof. The first cart was already close to the open gates. More soldiers.

Ais tried clenching her fists, to very limited success. She had almost no feeling in her hands. Her eyes glued to the approaching walls. The thief was muttering prayers. She recognized no names. She didn't know how she had ended up in this situation, but she knew she had to escape it.

And yet, she couldn't muster strength in her legs to rise. Her breath came out shaky and irregular. She had faced monsters, alone, wounded… but she'd never felt weak like this. What is going on? What did they do to me?

The walls cast a shadow over them as they crossed into the town.

Calm down. Breathe. Like Riveria had taught Ais. She could control that. Beat back the nausea.

"Look at him, General Tullius the Military Governor." The warrior had twisted so he was looking over his back, and he kept talking as struggled to keep the rider in his view without unseating himself. "And it looks like the Thalmor are with him. Damn elves."

Ais straightened with hope and looked over the man's shoulders. The cart's rocking made it difficult, but she saw four people on horses. A severe human with gray hair and beaten, red and gold armor. With him, three tall figures in robes and golden armor, adorned graceful curves and points. She strained her neck, trying to see the elves. The woman in front turned to look at their cart and Ais felt ice enter her heart.

They didn't look like any elves she knew. Beautiful, but different. Their skin was gold-tinted, like paint, and the shape of their eyes was all wrong, like the people that came from the Far East. Two golden eyes, the same color as her own, met hers for a second. It was like meeting Hildrsleif's for the first time. Power, arrogance, pure dismissal, and a great anger radiated from the woman.

A house blocked her view of them, and the impact of wooden wheels on uneven ground sent her crashing back down into her seat. Her breath was knocked out of her and the nausea surged. Ais struggled to keep herself from being sick, guts and head rattling like she'd been hit. Oh– concussion. She realized.

Voices from the townspeople and the soldiers, the prayers the thief was still uttering to himself, the noise rose around her like a wave, threatening to engulf her. Weak. When was the last time Ais had felt this completely and utterly powerless? A grounding touch. The warrior had leaned forward and grasped her numb hand. He spoke slowly and clearly, and Ais focussed on his words alone.

"This is Helgen. I used to be sweet on a girl from here. Wonder if Vilod is still making that mead with juniper berries mixed in." She met his eyes and gave him a thankful nod. He didn't smile, but his eyes crinkled. Around them, the soldiers became louder and the cart slowed down. The thief questioned it, fearful, and the warrior answered both of them. "Why do you think? End of the line."

No.

"We need to run." She said.

The warrior shook his head, and there was acceptance in his eyes. "The gods are already waiting for us." Something softened in his expression as he looked at Ais however, and he gave her hand one last squeeze before rising. "It will be okay."

But– The thief was complaining loudly. "No! wait! we're not rebels!" and the warrior admonished him with a shove that nearly sent him sprawling. "Face your death with some courage, thief."

"Loki is waiting for me." Ais' words went unheard amidst the commotion, the thief's platitudes and ever more panicked screeching. "Everybody is waiting, in Orario."

Cold metal rapped against her arm. A soldier scowled at Ais from the ground, sword unsheathed. "Move it. Don't make me get in there." He rapped the flat of his blade on the cart's border, dangerously close to her skin. His point was clear.

Out of ideas, out of choices, Ais gingerly got up. The bindings around her arms made moving awkward, and the cord between her ankles wouldn't let her take full steps. She scoped out the area as she moved carefully.

It wasn't hopeful. A main tower overlooked a courtyard of packed dirt, where the weapon racks had been stripped clean. Two large braisiers were being lit, illuminating the large black and red banners depicting a stylized dragon. Tall walls surrounded them but to one side, where they'd come from, the paved road curving around the stone and thatch roof houses of the town. People, all humans, gathered there, curious, held back by a line of soldiers.

Ais swallowed. I should be able to jump these walls– I should… And yet, she eyed her feet, to hop down from the cart to the ground, and when she tried, her strength failed. Her knees hit the rocks first, a spike of pain running up the rest of her just before the rest of her body crashed to the ground.

Between squinted eyes and gritted teeth, Ais saw everybody's attention turn to her. Opportunity created, the thief bolted.

"You're not going to kill me!" He laughed, running pell-mell up the road.

"Archers!" Ais heard, followed by the pull of bowstrings. Not a moment later, the thief fell, pierced by three arrows. "Anyone else feel like running?" An officer bellowed. No way out. Large hands on her shoulders forced her to stand. Ais pulled against them, to no effect.

Why? Something is missing. No, that's impossible. Right?

"Wait. You there." The soldier that had been taking names, and writing on a parchment, pointed at her. "Who are you?"

A light shove had her shuffle forward. She glared through her bangs at the soldier behind her. Unafraid, he scowled back. Tsk. Ais wasn't used to people reacting like this. It was strange. Many times she'd wished everybody wouldn't treat her as the The Sword Princess. Now, that respect and distance would be a godsend.

"Ais Wallenstein." She introduced herself. "Loki Familia."

Only confusion met her declaration. The soldier looked at this papers, then back at her. "Right. From…?"

Am I in a… really faraway place? "Orario."

Still, no recognition crossed the soldier's face. Or his superior, standing next to him with an impatient scowl. "Which province is that in?"

Ais couldn't find words. They don't know about Orario. But everybody in the world knew about Orario. The Labyrinth City, the Fortress Encircling the Dungeon. Where am I?

"How old are you?" The soldier asked, frowning, and Ais answered in a daze. The soldier only frowned harder. "Captain. What should we do? She's not on the list."

"Forget the list. She goes to the block." The Captain, dark-skinned like an Amazon, interrupted him before he could say anything else. "Stop staring at a pretty face. That's not a child."

"...By your orders, Captain." He nodded and marked something down on his parchment. "I'm sorry. I'll– Well. Maybe you'll have some luck. Follow the Captain, prisoner."

this scene should end with alduin's entrance, i got impatient
ever notice how people cross into danmachi but not from danmachi? well imma punt characters into other places and they will like it (not)
boy, ais is not easy to write, i need to reread the manga
also ahah i had to start with hey you youre finally awake

minuseven · May 3, 2022

Crocs for Life
✦✦✦✦✦ 1
Well, it goes like this: you are born again.

There's not a lot you remember from those days, thankfully. Too small, too smooth brain for a big mind two dozen years too much for it. Instinct takes over most of that time. Somewhere within, you learn by osmosis and when the time comes that you manage to stay within your skin for good, it does feel like you.

You are called quiet, slow, then delayed and autistic come into the vocabulary. You don't have yet the strength to communicate that you do exist, in here, somewhere. The doctor posits, maybe, it is a mutation-derived developmental delay.

Ah, because you are something like a lizard. It is good that you do not suffer from dysphoric disorders. Those are a thing that can happen too, mutation-derived body or mind dysmorphias.

If you had been reborn into a world just like your old one, you might have had to eat a hat. Instead, this is a world where people are all born with a special ability, a Talent, where you are from. Abilities, Alters, Metas, Gifts, or other names. And yours is being a human crocodile, just like your mother.

Or rather you thought so, until pre-school, and then you started belching fire. Everybody was quite happy, and the village doctor crowed about being right about your glands. You are old enough by then that you have seemingly matured at an incredible rate, going from a mute near-animal to a very bright but quiet child. Everything is blamed on your mutation.

Your mother looks about as much as a human crocodile as you. She is big and strong, and faster than you'd think, and gives out tours to tourists around the islands. She speaks well and is well-studied, and she handles many of the village's problems, going to and from the nearest city.

You are no child, you notice the disparity. Scary mutations live away from the big city where pens and doors and buses are small.

Chloe says: you have both your parents talents. Chloe says: sorry you do not have a father. Chloe says: you are my wonderful child. Chloe says: you'll always have me, Alexis.

She doesn't mean to lie. It is strange, being so uncertain as a child. You know the feeling, but you were an adult when you faced an uncertain future of bureaucracies and incomes and worries.

There was a bad storm while you were at school with all the other children. They found Chloe's body in the cleanup two days later. You mourn a woman who was family and best friend, very alone.

Chloe had many friends who would take care of you, but the government doesn't quite work like that. You wait in the care of trusted people as they check your papers. A peek at the birth certificate, oh dear. A call to the Japanese Embassy, oh wow. Several calls before they get a hold of your father's only contact. His wife. Oh my.

There are conversations you are not aware of. You are not sure you actually want to know their contents, but for your own survival, you feel you should. You are prepared to grow up in the system when those in charge of you explain that your stepmother will take you in.

They use other words and still seem surprised.

You are too. You hope the lady has done this because she is a nice, good person. Other possible reasons are unpleasant.

There is a plane to Japan and introductory classes to a beautiful but horribly complicated language. Your assigned government adult carries several folders of information and frowns severely. He is a good person and you do believe him when he promises you will see him again.

Two people wait for you at the arrivals hall. A fairly short woman that you can smell has caked herself in makeup to hide lingering distress, she looks fully human but for the strange tint to her hair. And a very small boy who stares at you with enormous eyes and smells of recent tears.

You do not blame them for the nervous atmosphere. You aren't just a foreign child product of infidelity. Your Talent, Kosei for them, is distinctly non-human and predatory. At six, the top of your head easily reaches her chest and you out-mass him by an order of magnitude.

Still, they are polite and she smiles as much as she can. She introduces herself as Inko and her son and possibly new brother, Izuku.

And... Oh. Now a lot of things make sense.

Noting: mother is named Chloe, you (me?) are named Alexis and thou art Australian-Japanese. Tragedy strikes in december of your sixth year of life.

minuseven · May 3, 2022

Crocs for Life
✦✦✦✦✦ 2
There's a very awkward car ride with the Midoriyas to their house. Part of it is the fact that despite your height, you are six so you did not fit the child seat prepared for you. Cars aren't made with tails in mind. The rest of it is the people.

Mostly, you avoid the eyes of Izuku who's stuck between blatantly staring and sneaking peeks at you. You can't read his emotions, but the whole car smells uncomfortable. Midoriya Inko exchanges small talk with your supervisor in accented English. That is one less worry in a sea of worries.

You look at the cityscape through the car window. The Latin alphabet is scarce. Kanas and kanji you will have to know fly by. More people than you've ever seen in two lives walk and drive. The great majority look human. You lean your snout against the glass and fall asleep.

The Midoriyas live in an apartment complex that looks like social housing. The interior of their apartment looks too modern and big for that to be true. It is cozy. The legal adults sit down and give you free reign over the television, at a low volume. They start to discuss the paperwork your case worker brought. You sit on the ground. A child sits on the couch and continues his long looks at you.

Finally gathering his courage, Izuku stutters out a small greeting and asks you a question. You guess as much from his inflection. "Sorry. I don't understand you." He is quiet. Shouldn't he be more lively? Well, you suppose even small children can understand spousal betrayal on some level.

You turn the majority of your attention to the television and try to follow the cartoon being shown. You don't understand any of it.

You are called back. Your case worker sits you down and re-explains what you have already discussed. He is not gentle as expected of a person working with children. Inko's eyes dart between him and you. He has explained that you are a great deal more mature and advanced than your age. She doesn't understand yet.

Even in a close future with an expanded meaning of a human person, Japan continues to be a conservative, reclusive hole. Until you are 21, you possess dual-nationality. Midoriya Inko has given you the choice to live with her in a foreign country, but ultimately, you can refuse her offer and grow in the Australian foster system. Neither is going to be particularly pleasant and the choice is a close one.

Provided that, now that she has met you, Inko has no objections, you would rather stay. She doesn't, miraculously.

"One last thing then," you inform them "I'll stay only if Izuku over there wants me to stay."

You are not worried about Midoriya Inko. She was the one who offered her home to you. Midoriya Izuku, on the other hand, is a kid whose entire life is going to change in ways he can't control. He should have a voice in this decision, and you want to hear it from his own mouth.

You are not certain what your case worker's expression means. Inko is open-mouthed.

She better get herself together quick. This is who you are. And you need a translator.

Mother and child whisper back and forth. Are you that intimidating? Finally, chagrined, Inko translates that he's okay with it but he would like to know your favorite hero.

That is so in-character, you smile. And it's Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Captain Marvel aka Shazam, Doctor Strange, Wolverine, Raven, Spider-Gwen, Artemis aka Tigress, Ironman and Miles Morales… if you absolutely had to make a top ten listing. Izuku was asking about modern heroes, from his face and your knowledge, but you've never had time to pay attention to them. But upon explanation, he starts nodding energetically like the hero fanboy he is. You easily recognize All-Might amongst his mutterings.

Inko makes one last question after some internal debate. It is clear on her face. "What do you think of those without a quirk, Alexis-chan?"

You should have known. Izuku is Untalented, after all.

"Quirks don't make you more or less of a person." You frown. "And that's all there should be to it." It never is tho, it never is.

And as you think of what you will undoubtedly be witnessing in the future, you feel so very tired already.

It's still December. Of note, Inko and Izuku don't live in social housing per se. Just an apartment among others. You are five months younger than Izuku. Yes, Hisashi was a bitch. He's also been conveniently absent for months.

minuseven · May 4, 2022

Crocs for Life
✦✦✦✦✦ 3
You meet Bakugou Katsuki much earlier than expected. You are taller than him by a good handful of inches as well. You feel proud for childish reasons. You are a child, mostly. You decide to revel in it for now.

There are bureaucracies to take care of now that you are living in Japan. Firstly, a comprehensive medical check-up. Starting with your quirk, which will have to be registered in the Japanese system in the Japanese way. So a Japanese evaluation is required. Back in Australia, you were only going to get that after you were six.

You don't have any good quirk names. It is also good that you can name it in English.

All of it means Izuku gets to spend the day at the Bakugou house while Inko drives you both to and forth several places.

A small, not-fluffy haired ill-tempered child glares up at you.

You remember that you stopped liking children because of arrogant middle-schoolers. You turn your back to the jerk and decide that for now, aggressive ignoring will suffice. A sudden dull pain and popping sounds and your tail lashes out in startled defense. The adults scream over your heads. A bruised blonde glares at you extra-hard while his parents make him apologize. Inko frets, Izuku is shaking.

And that sets the mood for every single interaction thereafter.

What a beautiful little psychopath. You will have to invest in anger management classes.

You correct yourself and ask Inko if it would be possible to invest in anger management classes. The poor woman is hiding her face against the steering wheel of the car. About enough time has passed that you feel comfortable interrupting the tail-end of her crying session.

"What do you mean?" She asks as she composes herself.

"I can't react violently every time Bakugou, or anybody really, pisses me off." You raise your hands like a mock kaiju. "I have sharp teeth and claws. I will always be in the wrong." Not a new concept to you. Japan complicates things, because you will not speak the language for a while yet. So you can't even open your mouth.

Fortunately, you are no longer ticklish. Unfortunately, you've put Inko on the verge of tears once again.

You awkwardly try to console her before you resume the trip to the clinic. You never were good at these things.

With a mutation-type talent and no family to compare with, the doctors need to establish an individual baseline. Inko dutifully translates everything the woman is saying to you, the blessed person that she is. So you go through a variety of tests and answer a great deal of questions. Much of it you had already noticed.

You are a crocodile of some sort and in most ways. Your shape is mostly humanoid. You are broad, your limbs thick, with a tail nearly as long as you are tall. A snout instead of a face, scales that feel touch in surprising ways, three eyelids and a predator's vision. A bit ungainly at first, but you got the hang of it.

It's always a question of posture.

You are not the first crocodile or crocodile adjacent human, not for a while in this world. The doctor looks up databases to give Inko a generic listing of what you might need. Dietary supplements, pamphlets on basic care for scales and claw etiquette. A lot should be taught at school, you surmise, but you are a bit of a complicated situation.

You leave the hospital with arms laden with pamphlets, keratin and two follow-up appointments for your fire-breathing and your demonstrated intelligence.

Then it's a treasure-hunt for animal-form clothing stores, measurements, shopping and more shopping. Special shoes for people with non-standard feet. Shirts with rip-resistant mesh openings for your back scales. More tail-appropriate shorts and underwear. It's a struggle to not get skirts, but you manage it, for now. None of it is custom.

Nor should it be, considering you are still a growing body.

You also manage to get Inko to slow down and have a cup of tea. You discuss the possibilities of bunk beds, as you slept in a spare futon. She is still a bit awkward talking to you as if you were another adult. Which you are. But she is quickly getting more and more comfortable with it.

All in all a productive day.

Mmm, biases at play. Favorite Bakugou pairing: Katsuquences. I've warmed up a tiny little bit to him in the meanwhile. The writer has. Not the crocodile, ahah.

minuseven · May 15, 2022

Crocs for Life
✦✦✦✦✦ 4
Dinner on your second night at the Midoriya household is a bit awkward. You know which blonde to blame.

Izuku picks at his food. Inko can't focus on her plate while her eyes are playing ping-pong between the children. You eat with gusto. Food is never to be unappreciated. A new childhood barely squatting over the poverty line only reinforced that belief.

Another consideration: how your existence will impact this family's finances.

Done with your food, you decide to dive into the problem right away. You give Inko a look. You are naming it the Provisory 'I need a translator' Look Nº1.

Hoping she will follow through, you just ask: "Izuku. Why are you upset?" Inko translates and you don't need to know Japanese to understand Izuku's denials. You snort. There's an expression but it doesn't translate well to English. "Please don't lie, it's obvious that you are upset at me, or about me. If you don't want to talk about it now, that's okay. But you should. It's not, hm, it's awful to feel angry. Saying something helps, even if it's to another person."

Inko translates that with pauses, shooting you uncertain looks. Izuku looks mulish and on the verge of tears.

Tears come from Inko's side of the family. Evidence A: Inko herself. Evidence B: Your direct paternal genetic ancestor. Evidence C: You, a notoriously crier, not having a single tear for the last couple of years. Counter-evidence A: Crocodiles, of which family's you are now part of.

Izuku succumbs to his genetic imperative to cry at the slightest emotional pressure. You doubt it's his high empathy in this particular case. Since you do not understand Japanese and Inko gets understandably caught up trying to talk with her son and reason her way through his minor breakdown, you end up staring at the wall.

A smartphone, that's what you need.

Inko manages to calm the situation down and explains, through her own tears, that Izuku had gotten very upset because of Bakugou. Not in those words.

Unfortunately, you get where this is all coming from. Kids get into their heads that a family is a mom and a dad. Some of them know that it can also be just a mom or a dad, or even rarer, two moms or two dads. Suddenly siblings because there's another mom that is not also their mom? It's not like there was a divorce and a single mom got together with a single dad.

In Bakugou's head, I was fake family. Izuku disagreed, rightfully. Then it turned around and became 'your dad doesn't love you or your mom and got himself a better family'! Which was painfully close to the mark, probably. You highly suspect that Izuku's quirklessness got brought to the table as well, considering it was Bakugou. Untrue, because you were conceived before Izuku was born, much less diagnosed. But emotionally? It had to ring very true to my new little… older brother.

You want to say something but Inko's red eyes are damning. Easy to forget this was the woman whose husband cheated on while she was pregnant. A husband who was not answering his phone and could very well be womanizing his way across several foreign countries at this very moment.

You exhale. No point in getting angry.

Short and sweet then.

First, you ask Inko if she is okay. She is fine, of course. Then you apologize and explain that you have opinions that might hurt a bit to hear, and that you can shut up and let her take the lead.

There's a moment where she just looks at you. You don't know what she expects to find. Even with a human face, you were an emotional wall. Opaque and unknowable. As a saurian, subtle mood indicators are all likely incomprehensible to a regular person.

To your surprise, she assents.

First, you tell her, and only her, that you're sorry and you are angry, because she got hurt. You like that you were born, but she shouldn't have had to be hurt.

To Izuku, it's a bit more complicated. Nobody can tell another person how to feel.

"I never had a dad. I never even met him. I can't miss what I don't have." In another life, maybe this would anger you, but again, your emotional reactions tend to be skewed. "A father only counts if he's there. He only loves you if he's there. So, to me, that guy was never a father in the first place. Just, ah, one of the ingredients that made me and made you. All the work was done by moms. So: that guy doesn't matter."

Inko manages to translated back Izuku's last, mumbled words. "Families are supposed to love you."

It makes you so mad. There's a lot of anger there. You were old when you learnt the truth of that matter in the world. And it shone so many ugly lights into seemingly innocuous memories.

You will never dispute that. You have never been able to just open your mouth and tell them: those people are not your family. You have never been able to push back against your own family, to lay down the lines you needed. Today, you do. You have a little older brother who needs you to.

"Your family is right here in this room. It's her and only her. If you want, me too. But nobody else." You are firm. Nobody else.

Awkward writing go! People are hard. The writer has to believe this wouldn't hurt the crocodile's relationships much ahah.

minuseven · Feb 27, 2023

Location: Free choice
Background: Adventurer -100
Race: Elf
Perks: General Fighting Skills -0, Dungeon Knowledge -100, Falna -0, Excelia -450, Level Up -150, Magic -300, The View from the Back -100
Items: Valis -0
Drawbacks: Notice Me Sempai +100

The void greeted them, along with the undeniable knowledge that it was chose your own adventure time. It took them a moment to process that before a mix of elation and fear took over. On the one hand, unlimited power. On the other hand, fates worse than death.

It wasn't like they had any choice regardless, so who cared what they felt about it. Still, the multiverse, the omniverse, the omnipotent being in charge, had either pity or was good-humoured, because the jump document that appeared in front of them was none other than Is It Wrong to Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon?

They had been obsessed with the world of danmachi recently. People could tell, with the amount of fanfiction they'd written in certain online spaces.

"Well, I don't feel like spending points for my choices, and it's not like I want to be a god." Being a god in danmachi was… well, just living a regular life. With taxation and worrying about dependents and so on. "So, roll me the dice! Please."

Free choice for location! They'd decide later, but good! Seventeen years old? Second best teenage number after nineteen. Gender… hm. They didn't have any to carry… Flip a coin? Male, alright, easy mode then. And the last roll… being an actual elf.

"This honestly feels too good to be true."

Now, now he had to think about his build, and which familia he wanted to join. A long relative time passed. How ironic, that most familias he liked were too adventurous for him. But he had an idea. An adventurer from Miach Familia, since he would deal with the money. A real fairy-like elf wielding a spear.

"Time for the build." He clapped his hands. "Adventurer at 100, magic and it's 250, two excelia purchases for a round 400…" He calculated it. They weren't horrible stats. "But add a level up for 550… another magic and more excelia and I'll be at 800." Just two hundred points left. Or more if he got any drawbacks. "Dungeon knowledge, that's a given. The strategy view will be super useful too, although I'm starting to be a bit pallum in my build… Anyway 1000 round." Now did he want more? Actually, why not? "And for the low low price of a terribly unrequited crush… more stats. There, 1000 round."

Now that he looked at his stats, they were almost overpowered. But only almost. This would make it real easy to level up soon after starting. He could taste the level three. It would make him not irrelevant to Bell, to whom there was a good enough chance he would be friends with. In fact, he decided that he would start on the fifth floor.

The void starting falling away. "Wait, I forgot to choose a name."

..-..-..-..
█████ ██████ Lv.2
Strength E450 - Endurance F350 - Dexterity A850 - Agility D550 - Magic S950 - Mage I
█████ █████
[████ ████]
[███████████]

··-··-··-··

Arc: Introduction

Dungeon, Lower Fifth. He blinked, hearing a distant scream. "Ah, that was the bunny." He'd missed him. Well, no matter… hm, the sound was coming closer? A red-haired human barreled out of the closest intersection and into him. Well, he would have, but sudden Lv2 reflexes caught him by his shoulders and stopped his movement.

"Waahh?!" "Whoa." He let go of the adventurer that was completely soaked in strong-smelling blood.

It was enough. The rabbit bolted. He stared at the corner the kid had disappeared around, then remembered. He almost facepalmed, but refrained from the stupid amount of blood on his gloves. That had been Bell. Now it really was too late. He wasn't going to go chasing after the rabbit.

"Urgh. Disgusting." He cleaned his hand on the dungeon's wall. Then he took stock of himself and his memories. He wore good quality light armour in brown and blue, wielding in his left hand a hunting spear with a long, leaf-shape point. A couple of belts and pouches held a handful of throwing knives and potions. Immediately, he knew he had already made some purchases with the free money given by the jump.

He angled his spear so he could see his face on the blade's surface. Long blue-hair, dark eyes, fair like an elf… "Nice."

Last night, he remembered like it had happened, he had returned to Orario after a long soul-searching trip. Six years long. So long, he'd returned to find his familia gutted and thrown into a gutter of debt, Naaza missing and visibly traumatized, and even his God… subdued. His grip tightened instinctively on his spear. He'd gotten caught up, updated his status, given half his money to Naaza and gone to Babel to buy some decent equipment for the dungeon.

"It's fine, it's fine." Now that he was here, he could turn everything around. He would. "I can meet Bell tomorrow." He twirled his spear, cracked his neck and advanced deeper in the dungeon.

He had years of memories of being an adventurer, but nothing beat real life experience. It was the same as adjusting to one's body after a level up. His spear flashed, piercing through frog shooters, then killer ants and needle rabbits. Each stab and slice destroyed magic stones with precision, leaving only the occasional drop item behind. The moths and butterflies were just a bit of a challenge, because he had to actually start moving after them. As a high-end level 2, only now, at the lower eighth and lower ninth did things stop becoming a joke.

And he knew better than to underestimate the lower tenth and below. He was a level 2, but he was also going solo.

The fog of the lower tenth enveloped him. It was ominous, yet 'he' had already been here before. His steps became quieter, stalking. The orc didn't see him until it was too late. He finally moved at full speed, bolting towards the large monster. His spear weaved a pattern, first removing the monster's eyes in a staccato, then slicing through its protective skin as he danced around its flailing. The spear was holding very nicely, so he decapitated his prey with one sweep.

The large body tumbled to the floor, headless. "And that's before magic."

He collected the orc's stone, unlike the less valuable ones from the floors above him. One chamber further, the bad bats and imps attacked. The swarm shrieked and it hurt. He cleared two meters around him with furious sweeps. "Fine then." His movements slowed as he stood his ground. He wasn't confident in moving while he did this.

Magic. His second spell, and the longer one.

"Embrace my goodbye." A blue magic circle drew itself beneath him. "Embrace my affection. Dazzling despair, painful eternity." He defined his parameters, magic rising almost out of his control. "Let me bury this world whole, fly forth nimbly to your end." Conditions set, trigger loose. Fire. "Infinitatem!"

A shimmer distorted the air and all the monsters within his spell found themselves floating without control. The bats were shrieking with all their might, but they couldn't aim their cries. The spell had already been cast anyway.

He prepared his spear for fishing in the metaphorical barrel, a smile on his lips, and then she appeared.

It should have been too fast for him to process, yet everything was picture perfect, crystal clear. Bursting from the fog like a mythical creature, eyes flashing, perfect hair flying, grace and power in every movement, she had her staff at his throat. And she spoke.

He could barely blink. "Uh?"

Delicate brows furrowed, and he just managed to catch her words amidst the sight of her rosy lips. "Did you cast that spell?"

"Spell? Yeah?" And everything crashed down. His eyes bulged as his mind caught up, and he found himself at staff point from Her Highness, Nine Hells, Riveria Ljos Alf. Who'd just asked him about his spell. "W-w-wait, wait, wait! Ri-Ri Lady Riveria? What's wrong!? I didn't catch anybody with it, right?"

The high elf stepped back with a sigh. With a powerful sweep of her staff and arm, a portion of the fog was blown away, revealing that the bad bats were mostly dead. The shrieking he was hearing was a black-haired adventurer flailing as he floated near the ceiling. "Yes."

"Oh shit." Eyes wide, face paper white, he canceled the spell without a thought. "Wait, wait, oh no."

Raul Nord fell. Well, that had been the longest last day of his life. Raul hit his bum on the floor, rolled around pitifully for a few seconds and then got up, rubbing his neck. His other arm was in a sling. "Ow. Why?"

Apologies blubbered from his lips. "I'm sorry, I am so so sorry, I didn't see you there, I didn't mean to, fuck, are you okay? You're injured, I'm so sorry!"

Raul waved him off, chuckling lowly. "No real harm done." He sighed, deeply.

"Please be more careful about aiming your magic next time." A stern voice returned his attention to the elven beauty that was Riveria. "I can see there was no ill intent, but that could easily have been taken as an attack." All he could do was salute, then bow still saluting, apologizing all the while. "Remember my words. All of you, let's go. There's no time to be dawdling."

In the wake of Loki Familia's passage, he straightened from his bow. His shoulders slumped. "She's… perfect." And completely unattainable.

..-..-..-..
[Infinitatem]: Wide area control magic. Nullifies gravity of targets. "Embrace my goodbye. Embrace my affection. Dazzling despair, painful eternity. Let me bury this world whole, fly forth nimbly to your end."

··-··-··-··

It was a very despondent elf that left the dungeon. He dragged his feet, a bag nearly bursting at the seams with magic stones slung over his back and drop items wrapped in a tarp. He cashed the stones in and walked back home. A sad pout didn't leave his face, and his eyes didn't leave the cobblestones.

"I'm home…"

"Welcome back." Naaza Erisius greeted him. She wasn't sure about him, he knew. They'd been comrades, back when 'he' had been a little punk. A little punk who'd gotten scared and skipped town to go on a quote-unquote 'spirit quest' the moment he'd hit level 2. And had never written back.

To be honest, they had only known he wasn't dead because Miach could still sense his blessing.

"Money. Drop items." He put his gains on the counter and headed back into the shop.

"... Robin?" Her call made him stop.

"I'm fine." The elf put his hands on his forehead and pushed his long hair back, before untying it. "I almost made a really stupid mistake…" No almost about it. "And now I'm feeling bad about it and pitying myself."

He turned to open the door to the stairs that led to the upper floors of the Blue Pharmacy's living space annex, and remembered that part was boarded up. Because the familia was deep into debt. Which he hadn't known about. He was currently sleeping on the ratty couch that they still had only because Naaza hadn't been able to pawn it off.

Robin Awbery, new-old member of Miach Familia, pressed his hands to his face and took a deep breath. "Captain, the amount I've made today, how is it?"

"Not enough."

"Not enough to pay off our debt this year, not enough to pay it off within ten years or not enough to even put food on the table?" He wasn't stupid, he glared at her.

The chienthrope sighed. "You can make more as a level 2." Especially with his stats went unsaid. "How deep did you go?"

"Tenth floor. I didn't even have a good opportunity to test out how my magic's changed since the update." Supposedly, it'd been six years of experience that had gotten him those incredible stats. "I also don't have a supporter. And on top of that I didn't want to reveal anything by going after the best monsters for their drops."

"That's true." Naaza muttered. "Sorry. This is good, it's enough to keep us minimally comfortable while paying Dian Cecht. And… thanks for the drops."

"Oh, good, that was what I was worried about." He smiled a bit. "I'll make way more once I get back into the dungeon groove, don't worry. I'll… also spend more, but trust that I'll bring back more than enough. Even enough to get our rooms back up to snuff!"

"Mmm, right. Get clean and then come mind the counter." Naaza waved him off. "At least with you here I have more time to work on our potions."

For being in a medicinal familia, Robin was a failure of an alchemist. He had no green thumb for an elf, and wasn't skilled with healing either. That wasn't to say he was the alchemist equivalent of a person who burned water when they cooked. Between previous life experience and plain old hard work-slash-cheating, he could more or less know the quality of a potion, which one to prescribe in simple cases, and foraging was fine… just below average for the standards of actual adventurers. Of the field.

Naaza still wouldn't let him do anything in the lab. She had exacting standards and no time or patience. Frankly, Robin's time would always be better spent in the dungeon.

Now, cleaning and reviewing whatever notes Naaza had left for him, he wondered about his own preparations. Dungeon-venturing, rather than dungeon-farming, was expensive. Robin didn't have to worry about potions, which most people spent thousands on. But he did have to worry about equipment. For the use he was planning to give them, his spear and armor were passable only. He'd contact Welf Crozzo but… well, maybe he should wait for Bell to do it and then 'remember' he also needed a smith. It wasn't like he wanted magic swords, so that should be fine.

Wait, did Bell meet Welf before or after his level up?

In these ruminations, Miach arrived home, door bell ringing as he entered his own shop. The handsome god greeted him with a smile which was easily reciprocated. The god of medicine had welcomed him back happily and prefaced that he didn't mind if he wanted to convert. Which, fuck that. He was too nice and deserved some niceness too.

"How was your day, Robin? Did you have luck in the dungeon?" He asked.

Robin couldn't help but sigh. "Well…" He'd been both unlucky and blessed beyond description. "It's complicated…"

He leaned in to tell the one person of his familia who would care about his romantic woes about his dungeon encounter. "Don't tell Naaza but…" "Don't tell me what?" Ah, busted.

Needless to say, Naaza was livid that he'd almost gotten into trouble with Loki Familia of all people. And then he had the gall to fall in love with Nine Hells, apparently. He was lucky they didn't beat him up- "Lady Riveria would never allow such behavior-" or demand compensation "Oh, that's an idea…"

He got bopped on the head. "Please take this seriously!"

"I am! Think about it!" Robin spread his hands like he was selling a pitch. "We cement our good reputation as contrite, respectful, nice and honorable adventurers, and make sure they can't hold anything over our heads on top! Plus, plus, it can even serve to advertise our potions! And I get to see Riveria again!"

"Tch, you womanizing elf." "Lady Riveria is the woman of my dreams and I shan't look at anybody else!" "You elven sycophant." "Eheh! …guilty."

"I think it's nice you've found a woman to love." Miach remarked, smiling at his children. "I wish you the best of luck with her."

And suddenly the depression was back. Robin sniffed and hunched over. Ah, that was right. By the rules of the universe, he had no chances. Ever. "It's doomed. She'll never even look at me." He bonked his forehead on the table, despairing. And bonked it again.

Miach and Naaza exchanged a look at the intensity of his emotions. "Is there… something specific going on? You have a great deal of talent Robin, I have no doubt you can make even Loki's Nine Hells notice you."

"Remember when I joined and we talked about my weird status progression? That I was cursed?" The elf's ears were actually drooping.

Miach's eyes widened. "Oh. Then…?"

"This is it." He lamented. "Fate itself decrees that she'll never, ever, ever. See me as even an option."

An uncomfortable silence hung in the air.

Naaza got up, approached him and set her mechanical hand on his shoulder. Then, just like 'he' had told her to, over six years ago, she said. "That's rough, buddy."

..-..-..-..
Robin Awbery Lv.2

··-··-··-··

Robin woke up before dawn. It was weird how his adventuring memories clashed a bit with his previous modern life. He'd woken up even before Naaza, although his captain was already showing signs of waking up.

"It feels nice." He said to the city still mostly bathed in shadows. It'd been years like this from one perspective. From another, it'd been years of anything but this. "Well, now about today…"

He had a couple of things to do. Firstly, Naaza had caved last night, and a pack had been prepared for him to offer as compensation to Loki Familia. Half a dozen bottles. High potions and high magic potions of the highest quality Naaza could make. The total was over 100,000 valis if sold at their shop. It was also going to come out of his earnings. A level 2, even solo, could make that in a couple of weeks.

Actually, Robin could do way more, provided he had supporters. Which brought him to his second point: Bell. He could trust Bell, so now was the time to get in touch with him. With his help, he would be able to rack in a massive amount of cash. Robin had a plan.

Finally, he had to buy some equipment, test some things he hadn't had the chance to do yesterday, help Miach and Naaza, and plan out a routine.

So, a few hours until the things started opening up and adventurers really flocked to the dungeon, he grabbed his spear and set out. He went directly to the dungeon, jogging quickly along the unusually empty streets of Orario. Not completely, but very few people were awake and out at this hour. The distance from the Blue Pharmacy to Babel was still considerable. Orario was massive. It was his level 2 stats that made it possible to not get exhausted just from the distance. The dungeon was similarly empty. He barreled through the lower first floor and found a room that was wide enough to test his first magic.

Magic choices: awesome.

He ended up leaving the dungeon with a massive grin on his face and a better idea of what he needed. His build was just what he wanted indeed. His rushing through the floor had ended attracting a lot of monsters, since there were no other adventurers to target. It had ended up being a good warm up and spear practice. He exchanged the pitiful stones at Babel, wishing an ironic good night to the sole guild employee, at the end of his night shift. Now adventurers were starting their days.

Robin stopped near the fountain on Central Plaza. Now, first Loki Familia or Bell? He thought Bell woke up pretty early… but also, Loki Familia would be easy to track. They'd gotten back from their expedition the day before too, so they'd probably have a good, long night's sleep before they went and sold their gains. It's what he would do.

"Now, Miach told me Hestia's church is near West Main like our place," he turned to face the correct street, "and Bell passes by the Host of Fertility every day…" Had he passed by the bar too? "Mmm, I guess I can start walking… it's not terrible if I miss Bell today…"

Indeed, he calmly set in the direction of his own home, and ended up seeing the characteristic shinny white hair of Bell Cranel. He was… ooh. Robin's eyes tracked a grey-haired waitress leaving a flustered Bell behind. He'd actually caught her on the prowl.

Yeah he wasn't going to touch that situation, no way.

Instead, he raised an arm and amicably called out. "Hey, white-hair! You Bell Cranel?"

The rabbit jumped, still unconsciously spooked by his encounter… or something. "Y-yes? I'm sorry?" He didn't even know what to say.

Then again, Robin had approached him out of nowhere. "Heyo. My god mentioned you. I'm Robin Awbery, Miach Familia."

His red eyes widened. They really are a nice ruby red. "Miach Familia? Oh, are you the person who returned from a training trip? Lord Miach told my goddess."

Golly. Miach really went and told everybody about him, hadn't he? He didn't deserve the man. "Yeah. Six years. I shouldn't have left Miach and Naaza alone for so long… Anyway, can we talk? We can walk if you prefer."

"No, there's no problem. What is it?"

"Okay, well, my god said you're a good kid. Trust-worthy. I need a supporter for a couple of days, somebody who I know will not babble about my skills or magic. I thought you might be available for it?"

"I… am? I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you want from me?" Bell scratched his head with an awkward laugh.

Robin blinked, remembering how young and inexperienced Bell was at this point. He explained that he wanted to keep his skills a secret, so he couldn't hire a free supporter. They might sell the information or something. "We'll split the loot equally, and I'll protect you in case anything goes wrong, of course."

"I can protect myself, Mister Robin." The younger adventurer insisted.

The elf shook his head. "And I believe you, but we're not going to go regular dungeon diving. I'm a strong level 2 for one, I go much deeper than you."

That deflated the adventurer, who asked. "How deep?" The words of his own advisor were flashing behind his eyes, accusingly.

"No worries, I won't take you past the fifth. We're probably going to stick around the lower fourth or fifth. Because we're going to use a high-risk, high-reward strategy: pantry raiding." The new technical terms were confusing Bell. "How about this, come by our pharmacy after you leave the dungeon and I'll explain my plan. If you're okay with it, you can help me tomorrow."

The boy nodded. "Alright… I will. Will you be going to the dungeon now too?" He received a negative. "It was to meet you, Mister Robin."

Robin smiled. "Likewise." And then, because he couldn't help himself. "But we already met yesterday." "?" "An adventurer completely covered in blood bumped into me on the fifth floor and ran off… that was you, wasn't it?"

Bell paled, blushed, and left at high speed, mumbling apologies. Ah, the youth. Robin's smile wavered. Right. Now it was his turn to face his own embarrassing moment.

After picking up his apology package from Naaza, he headed to the Pantheon. There were two main places to exchange magic stones in the city, but he doubted Loki would send them to trade in stones all the way in the confusion that was Babel at most hours of the day. He was right, catching a crowd as the top-ranked familia dragged entire wagons down the streets and up to the Guild's doorstep. He listened to the pallum give out his orders and split the familia from amidst several other onlookers. Riveria and Gareth followed Finn inside.

Robin took a deep breath. He should wait. He might have to wait most of the day if they actually waited for the guild to count all of those stones… "Fuck it." He went in.

He was just in time to see a guild worker open a door to let the trio go deeper into the building. Reflexively, he took a step forward, voice rising. "He—y…" But it died in his throat as he realized what he was doing and became self-conscious.

High elven ears twitched minutely. That little call, brief as it was in the din of the Pantheon, did not escape the hearing of first class adventurers. Riveria did not do more than glance at the voice she sensed directed at them. Then she looked again, and paused. "The adventurer from yesterday."

Jade green eyes were looking at him. Robin found that his palms were sweating, hyper aware of the package in his hands. "Oh no."

"Hmm, what is it Riveria?" Finn Deimne asked his vice-captain, who murmured an answer.

A slew of curses and expletives most unfitting of an elf were galloping inside Robin's mind. Too late to back down, he inhaled and approached them. He didn't know what he needed to say. No, he needed to keep it simple. He offered the box, potions visible from the top. "Compensation. For yesterday." There? He said it? No, he should keep talking. Just a bit. "I'm really sorry again." Should he bow? Was that too much? Also, how to bow with your arms busy and in front of your body?

His eyes kept flitting from the ground to his hands to the woman of his dreams. Finn traded a look with Riveria that went unseen. The high elf rolled her eyes so subtly only a first class would have noticed it.

Her footsteps nearly made the blue-haired elf jump out of his skin. "You realize that your actions could have easily been taken as an attack and I would have been justified in treating it as such, do you not?"

"Uh-uh-yes." She was getting closer.

"Awareness is the foundation of any mage. Without it, a mage is more dangerous to their allies than any enemy."

"Right." Higher thoughts barely survived in the head of this lovestruck elf.

She took the box from him, appraising the high quality potions favorably. Her bare hands were mere centimeters from his. Robin's heart thundered and he barely heard her next words. "Still, I am glad you seem to recognize your mistake and seek to correct it. That is a good attitude to have."

A strangled hum left the throat of the young adventurer. Riveria did not sigh. Elves were always like this, much to her frustration. With a nod, she returned to Finn's side.

Finn called out to the kid. "Hey, your name and familia?"

The blue-haired elf, pale faced, startled. "Hm, Robin Awbery, Miach Familia!?"

"I see." The Braver nodded. "Good hunting, Robin Awbery."

..-..-..-..

··-··-··-··

And so, Robin was useless for the rest of the morning. He did things, but mentally, he was not there. He bought the supplies he would need for his pantry raids, a pocket watch because it was too useful, and invested a significant amount of money in a hip length cloak. It was meant to completely block out light.

Then he had time for an afternoon dungeon run, which he spent hunting down butterfly monsters for their drops. Having to hide his spell every time a party came around, and there were quite a few when he went running around, was getting frustrating.

This was the weird mental state that Bell Cranel found Robin in. The human boy nearly got persuaded to spend too much money, but the elf had terrible timing and invited him deeper into their home. There, the more experienced adventurer laid out his plan, explained strange adventuring terms like ah-oh-ee and camping and agro, and taught Bell even more about the dungeon.

In the end, Bell accepted to be his temporary supporter. Agreed upon with a handshake and everything. Naaza would have wanted a contract but Robin doubted it would last a long time, considering Bell was Bell. He was going to have to find some person sooner rather than later.

Miach invited Bell for dinner, the boy had promised to go eat at a restaurant because of some waitress or something. His explanation was awkward. Robin couldn't miss this.

"Then let's all go." He said. "To celebrate us working together, and my coming back to the city."

Naaza protested. "A restaurant is going to be expensive and for all you've talked… you still have barely made a contribution to our household finances…" Her sleepy gaze was accusing.

"Come now." Miach was of the opposite opinion. "Now that Robin is back, we can afford to celebrate every now and then. It's just one night at a restaurant."

Robin patted his captain's shoulder, feeling guilty. "Don't worry, I'm not planning on making this a habit. You've shown me our financials… and our God's… habits." That probably sounded worse than it actually was. "His philanthropic habits."

"Fine. Only for today." Thus the party of four set out.

Bell eventually managed to lead them to the bar he'd been accosted near to that morning. His description of the waitress' tactics had Robin cringing and Naaza wavering between approval towards the girl… and the strange feeling that Bell was just too easy of a target. It definitely wasn't any sort of regret.

"Oh, this does look nice." Robin commented to Miach. Naaza was already squinting at the menu hanging outside, and the prices there displayed. Her frown, minute as it was, got even more profound as they entered and noticed the all-female, quite pretty staff.

Robin had honestly forgotten about that part. And Bell… Bell was almost hiding behind him and Miach. The kid was actually quite shy.

"Bell?" A grey-haired waitress called out to him, eyes flitting between her guest and his companions.

"... I've come. And brought more people." He smiled awkwardly.

Despite that, the waitress smiles and bows. "I see that. Welcome! Are they your familia?"

Bell hurries to deny it. "No, no, Lord Miach is just a friend of my goddess!"

"Mm," The girl put a finger on her chin. "Well, I'm not sure we have a free table for four, but you can sit at the counter!"

That was okay with them. Sniggering, Robin encouraged Bell to sit a bit apart from them, on the seat at the nook of the counter. When he said he wasn't going to interfere, he meant it. The girl, and he knew, oh he knew, had invited Bell specifically. So there was no problem about some light teasing, right? He definitely wasn't scared of her or anything.

No, he just didn't feel like leaving Bell alone on a night where he might get humiliated.

"He's getting played like a fiddle." Naaza said lowly to Miach and Robin. Syr Flover was running rings around the young boy.

Robin sighed. "Bell needs to grow a bit of a spine. This might help him realize that? You know, maybe." The trio unanimously decided to let Bell handle that whole situation by himself. Robin shot him a covert and cheeky thumbs-up.

Bell's overwhelmed face pleaded for mercy. But eventually, food and drink was in front of them all. Delicious food. If the Hostess of Fertility wasn't so expensive, and they weren't in so much debt, Robin would consider eating here most days of the week. The atmosphere was also very good. Then the door opened bombastically as a red-haired goddess made her entrance. Loki Familia was here. All their stars. The first string and second string that had just come back from an expedition.

Ais Wallenstein and Bete Loga are here, Robin thinks into his cider. Then he sees forest green hair and chokes. His eyes widen and his head pivots on his neck as he follows the one person that had somehow slipped his mind making her way through the bar. How? How had he not thought about Riveria??

Truthfully, Robin's mental state had been so rattled from the encounter that morning that it completely checked out any thoughts of Loki's trio. Selective amnesia. And as such, he hadn't managed to think about what it would mean exactly to come to the Hostess of Fertility in this fateful night.

He buried his face in his mug and took deep breaths to stop himself from hyperventilating. Miach was rubbing careful circles on his back and Naaza was considering just how bad his affliction was.

"Oh no no no, fuck I forgot. They're here, oh shit. What if she sees me? What if she recognizes me? What if Finn or Gareth point me out because I'm the stupid dude who made a stupid mistake and had the stupid gall to try to bribe their forgiveness with some measly potions oh no no no." The scenarios were rolling in his mind. "My hair is bright fucking blue I can't fucking hide. Oh gods, I'm at the counter, that's in plain sight and getting up right now means more attention…"

A hand was on his shoulder. "Robin. Calm down." The voice of his god washed over him.

His muscles relaxed almost unconsciously. He glanced up at Miach. Miach who still wore his very used, poor robes and couldn't give a shit about who thought what about him. Because what mattered was what one did and what their heart felt. "Thank you."

"It's alright." He looked over his shoulder, making the elf's attention be drawn to the other familia as well. "I can see why you fell in love. She is quite the beauty, isn't she?"

"Yeah." Robin no doubt looked like a dumbstruck fool. But he couldn't help it. Riveria held her drink delicately, just a glass that she sipped quietly and regally in the middle of her familia's hubbub. "You know, I'm only barely older than the Sword Princess."

"That's right?"

"Riveria is almost a century old." He made sure to talk quietly. "She's literally old enough to be my mother… in elf years. Everything is against me and her here." He was chagrined. Why did he have to fall for her? And yet, he couldn't find it in himself to regret the feeling in his heart. He wanted her, wanted to talk to her, to hold her hand, just to be closer to her. "She's never going to look at me." He repeated.

Naaza spoke up. "It sounds impossible, doesn't it? Like they will never see you like that, no matter what." Her eyes reflected the pain of being unseen… unrequited. "But you love her, right? Are you going to give up on her before you even try to catch her eye?"

He really had the best familia. "Naaza, I got you too buddy." The demi-humans shared rueful smiles over the counter.

"But by the way, what's wrong with Bell?"

Miach Familia leaned over the counter to see the white-haired boy curled on the floor. Unfortunately for him, Mia did not particularly care that he really absolutely needed to hide from Loki familia. Robin himself was praying that nobody had noticed his incredibly attention grabbing shiny blue hair. He'd gotten Naaza to lend him her scarf. Doing more than that would be even more attention grabbing. Fortunately for both of them, the first-class adventurers seemed to be entirely uninterested in anything but partying.

Bell surreptitiously glanced over his shoulder at one particular blonde. Robin had his long ears perked for one particular dignified voice. In fact, he was so carefully listening to her, that he forgot, again, why he was there.

"And then, ya know, Tomato Boy!" Bete Loga.

Then it got harder and harder to listen, even if he knew most of them weren't laughing at Bell himself, even if he knew Bete was just being a drunk fuck. Miach quietly touched his arm. Robin pointed surreptitiously at Bell, who had frozen, pale-faced. Bete Loga kept getting worse and worse, to the point where his own friends were asking him to stop. Riveria herself laid down the law, but for once, Robin's eyes were focused on the rabbit shaking in his seat.

The look on his face… Robin didn't catch the words that were the breaking point, but he caught the absolutely devastated, gut-wrenching look on Bell's face. Shame.

Bell flew off from the Hostess of Fertility, a waitress close on his heels.

"Robin…" "I'm already on it." Robin pushed his chair backwards and left at a quick but calm pace, leaving the rest to Miach.

He just barely brushed shoulders with Ais Wallenstein as she too arrived to the door. "You'll only make it worse, Ais." Is what he wanted to say. Instead, he muttered an excuse me, shouldering his way past.

He didn't need to look hurried right now. He knew exactly where Bell was going.

..-..-..-..

··-··-··-··

«I want to see it.»

There's a difference between knowing and knowing. What was it about Bell Cranel that moved people's hearts so much? He was just a kid. A protagonist, but how much of it was him and how much was just contrived fate? A pure soul? What did that mean? Why were his efforts worth more than anybody's?

So, Robin followed. His superior speed had him on Bell's heels in moments. He shadowed the steps of the boy. He thought he smelled salt faintly on the quiet night.

He saw nothing but an angry kid, slashing at monsters. Skilled, yes. But could he say that he was more skilled, more driven, than Ais Wallenstein? Than Finn Deime? Than so many others?

No.

He went down and down. Lower second, lower third, lower fourth, lower fifth. Bell paused on the lower sixth. The boy has been nothing but blindly lashing out at any target. It was reckless, but not quite suicidal. Robin knew he wouldn't turn back yet. He'd be disappointed if he did. And Bell did continue. Aimlessly.

What was the kid looking for? Validation? He had to be humiliated, but when would he come to his senses?

Robin looked on as Bell got cornered by two War Shadows. He closely followed the fighting, spear lazily turning in his palm. Only the vague knowledge that Bell would get out of it stayed his hand. It wasn't a good fight, technically speaking. It was a bit desperate. Slow, even, to his eyes. Maybe it was the tiniest bit cool how Bell remained standing despite his disadvantages. He didn't give up or run, tho he had little space for those.

But Robin looked at his clear, tearful eyes and saw nothing but a hurt kid. Over not being good enough for a girl.

The dungeon seemed to hesitate for a few seconds, but it wouldn't let an opportunity like this go. The walls cracked, monsters were born. Robin killed two shadows trying to sneak up on him without so much as turning to look at them. His eyes were fixated on Bell Cranel.

The young adventurer was fighting for his life against several shadows and grounded monsters. Never stopping, adrenaline burning, pushing forward and forward, bouncing up every time he'd fallen. He'd taken hold of a drop item to use as a weapon, showcasing quick-thinking and ingenuity. And yet…

Was this it?

He wasn't seeing it.

The spark that lit up fires in people's hearts.

«Disappointing.»

So utterly disappointing, Robin thought as Bell shattered the stone of the last monster. He was all scratched up and bleeding. He'd had to stop himself from intervening many times already, because he knew. He knew Bell would hate it. And he because he knew Bell would manage.

But all of that was informed knowledge. He was told that Bell was cool and a hero and amazing. And now, unable to see it, suddenly, Robin found himself strangely angry.

This… stupid kid.

With a loud sigh, he stepped into the chamber. Bell's eyes widened and his mouth opened. Then he was falling unconscious as the butt of Robin's spear struck him precisely between his brows.

"I shouldn't have done that." The elf said to the air a moment later. "Damn it."

Frustration and shame rose up again, and Robin went breaking the dungeon's walls to stop monsters from spawning. He needed time to think. He needed to apologize to Bell. But first, he needed to understand why his feelings were going out of control like this. Too reminiscent of his past-life. Why was he having an outburst now? He was fine. New world, new life, problems that could be actually be solved.

"No. It was stupid of me to think that just because I got a new healthy body that my head would a-ok." Mental shit did not just get cured like that. "So what was it? Which shit hangup is messing me up now?"

«Why are you angry with Bell Cranel?»

"Because I was expecting better." Vocalizing. It helped him think. "He's supposed to be the hero. But all I'm seeing is a protagonist, not a hero, and being a protagonist means less than shit in a real world. It's just authorial fiat. It's plot armor."

Well, he'd known that. Liaris Freese was a thing that existed.

"He's supposed to be like… this pure soul that catches Freya's eyes, this innocent kid that shines a light into the heart of Ais when not even her family could do that much. Finn gets inspired by him. Finn!" Hands were thrown up. "But the reality is that he just wants to, what, bang a chick?"

Robin took several deep breaths. He wasn't being fair. To Bell, to anybody. He needed to step back and think the problem through. He needed to think his anger through. To get to the root of the problem. He also needed to be careful not to fall into hypocrisy. So he breathed in, breathed out, adjusted Bell on the floor so that he wouldn't have a neck crick.

"Okay. I'm not being fair. Bell has character development. Haruhime, for example. He doesn't feel like a hero until… the black goliath?" That was right. "And he doesn't really… inspire anybody until the minotaur. He feels like just a kid to me because right now that's all he is." The kid that Zeus was shocked to hear had amounted to anything. "This is Bell's first step. I was putting too much stock on my knowledge and not seeing him for who he was." Robin sighed and passed a hand over his hair. "Mea culpa. Sorry Bell." He said to the unconscious boy.

The anger that had gripped him had slowly leaked out, like a deflating balloon.

He was left feeling bad and guilty. Maybe, he thought, he'd wanted Bell to inspire him. He'd wanted to take advantage of that. And that realization made his gut curdle. A frog shooter died ignobly as Robin came to terms with that.

"Okay, fine." He'd messed up. On top of that, he'd let his preconceptions run wild. Back to the top. "Bell wants to impress the girl loves… well, the girl he admires and will probably grow to really love once he gets to know her. Rather than know about her. I hope. So… is there anything evil about that?"

Of course not.

"It's kinda unfair that he gets an overpowered skill just because he made heart-eyes at a girl." He scoffed. "Because he got picked up by a girl in the dungeon."

But the world wasn't fair.

"So. Jealousy, hm?"

«How mundane.»

Still, it made him feel better. He had been jealous. Now he knew his own feelings. They weren't evil feelings, just another part of being human, or elf. In the end, was jealousy that far off from Bell's own feelings? His sense of inadequacy, his desire to impress a girl… how were those feelings any less human than simple jealousy? A thought popped up, and Robin closed his eyes to do a simple thought exercise.

"What if it was me? What if… Finn was the one disparaging me… when we met…" His mind rewinded back to that morning, to the nervous fluttering inside as he approached Loki Familia within the Pantheon. The most beautiful woman in front of him, barely acknowledging his existence. He could picture it, stomach turning as imaginary words filled the air. His reckless spell, the trouble his inexperience had caused, and the way everybody's eyes would be on him.

Adventurers of all levels and walks of life, watching.

It was almost like a flashback. Suddenly Robin was sick. He was years younger and a stupid, stupid, stupid naive kid that had gotten up to the stage when it hadn't been–

He heaved. "No, fuck, no. Stop it." He wasn't there, it had been years ago, everybody had forgotten. "You are literally in another world!"

He felt sick.

"Stop it!!"

A spear flashed silver, carving through half a dozen monsters that had gathered to ambush them. It was a mistake. The elf might be on the edge of tears, but he was still so much stronger than the upper floors' rabble. It should have been easy, but nothing registered. In that moment, Robin blindly lashing out just as much as Bell. The floor filled with bloody corpses and ashes.

The elf panted, but not from effort. Slowly, his spear lowered. His eyes fixed on the floor, then turned to the white-haired kid resting nearby.

"... Man. I really am a fucking hypocrite."

all songs chants and other rhymes shamelessly stolen from macross frontier

minuseven · Jul 11, 2023

1.0

The first step to the front porch is rotten. I only remember this detail when I lay my eyes upon the house. Unsteadily, I avoid putting my weight on it and let Danny pass me to open the door. He's still worried. I can't blame him. I still avoid any form of conversation and make my way directly upstairs.

My room must be the one at the other end of the corridor. I close the door behind me and take a moment to examine its layout. A window in front of me, the bed to my left and the desk to my right, along with a door to a closet. It's small but not tiny, and it has been recently cleaned. I pull at the hoodie's bottom; Danny must have gotten this from here. He probably also snooped around. I wonder if that's something I will need to worry about.

I have more pressing concerns right now. With a sigh, I throw myself onto the bed and stretch out. It takes a moment for me to pull what I'm looking for from the back pocket of the jeans I'm wearing, covered by the long hoodie.

It's a smartphone. It works like a normal one too, with a good internet connection and the usual apps. It's only strange for two reasons: Taylor Hebert did not have a phone. And this model was from seven years and several dimensions into the future.

Hi, I'm Taylor Hebert now. Make of that what you will.

All functionalities on this phone are blocked right now. When I woke up in the hospital, alone and late at night, this thing had all the answers. Unfortunately, in my haste, I made a certain decision that I was half kicking myself about. The smartphone, which was distinctly abnormal in an abnormal situation -namely my body wasn't the right body-, displayed a message. An advertisement.

I could get powers, but there would be a condition. I was freaking out, alone, so I accepted.

Now the thing is locked, not letting me access the internet. The browser is stuck on a page that tells me to insert my choices. The rules are simple: I write down the name of three devil fruits, one paramecia, one logia and one zoan, and I get their respective powersets. No triple water weakness, no exploding from eating more than one fruit, not even the ultra bad taste. I only have to write down three fruits. In japanese. The catch comes later.

"The thing is: I stopped reading One Piece after Logetown. Loguetown?" I couldn't parse the drawing style. My knowledge is fanfic borne. And that one movie in which Nami is kidnapped.

The condition imposed later, I can almost guess. Giving devil fruit powers to a person who lives in a town attacked by Leviathan? I don't need to be a writer to figure that one out. But surviving Worm without powers was also unlikely. It was a hard, rocky place to be.

I sigh and start typing out my choices. The Logia is almost easy, basically all of them are good, but I only remember two of their japanese names. Enel's and Blackbeard's. In this city, without knowing how Blackbeard does his power-steal thing, and having played Infamous, my gut told me Enel's was the way to go. Goro Goro no Mi.

The Paramecia is the hard one, because I only know Luffy's, and I hate the rubber fruit. But wracking my mind, I remembered the villain from the movie, and his fruit is so much better. It will allow me to fly. Now to see if I got it right… Fuwa Fuwa no Mi. It gets accepted, good.

The Zoan isn't hard either. I want some sort of furry or feathery animal, and I would love if it synergizes with the others. Cat is the way to go. Neko Neko no Mi. It gets rejected. "Don't tell me I also have to input the model." I try several things. Lion, Jaguar, Cat, Ocelot until the Leopard Model gets through.

As soon as I tap the done button, the phone's screen starts shining. A hologram appears, then starts gaining color and substance until I have a bonafide little bowl with a fruit salad in it, floating in front of me. I carefully reach for it and grab it. The smartphone pings.

The new message is what I feared but expected. The condition is that I cannot leave Brockton Bay's premises before May 31st of 2011. I can safely place the Leviathan attack as happening somewhere between one and several days before June starts then. Currently,it's the second week of January. It gives me five months.

Filled with trepidation, I reach for the spoon and shovel a mouthful of mysterious fruit into my mouth. "Oh, it's actually really good."

Going for something a little more amoral, also present tense writing (that's the hard part). You can't see it here, but not!Taylor doesn't give a fuck about the Worm characters, being burned out from the fandom. She'll be more moved about the theoretical plight of the civilians in BB but she's stuck in the city until effing Leviathan, so she might as well break as many nazi and triad-yakuza bones as she can.

Is the powerset super as hell? Kind of. She doesn't get Rokushi or Haki or any OP crazyness, and on top of that, she's not a shounen character, so the full potential of those fruits are not going to materialize.

minuseven · Jul 17, 2023

1.1

Eating the powersets of three of the most powerful people in the Grand Line, the leopard man perhaps excluded, doesn't feel like anything but a really good fruit salad. I don't hurry to test it out either. Best case scenario, I out myself. Worst case scenario, large-scale destruction, villainy, a kill order?

No, what I do is check my smartphone. The internet is no longer locked. I was half expecting the entire smartphone to just disappear after it was done. I'm glad it hasn't. How did I live without a smartphone back in 2011? Taylor didn't even have that. Now I can do research on my powers without having to go to the library. I need to brush up on electromagnetism, leopard facts, and telekinetic capes.

Curious, I go to the phone's settings. The operating system is a garbled mess of symbols instead of a name. So is the network provider, the navigational system used, the phone's model… The information button tells me very little else. This thing appears to be a very durable, eternally charged, nigh-untraceable smartphone from the future. I'm keeping it.

It's about time for lunch as well. I take a deep breath. I need to get this out of the way, and if nobody has figured out that I'm really not Taylor Hebert yet, then Danny won't suddenly declare me a changeling now. I really have Taylor's depression to thank. That and the locker incident. Personality changes will just be brushed off for now. That's good, because I need Danny to do a few things for me, and Taylor would never talk to him like I will.

Leaving the phone in the bedside drawer, I make my way downstairs. I take my time, taking in as many details about the environment as I can. The house is small, but fairly organized. Nothing on the floor, despite some shelves looking hoards of papers and knick knacks. Danny is in the kitchen, making what appear to be sandwiches. I can only hope he doesn't put mayonnaise in the darn things.

"Hey Taylor. Are you hungry?" He asks, and I shrug back in response. He visibly witters before putting on a smile and going back to his task. "If you want anything, just tell me."

"Dad, we need to talk." I sat down on the other side of the kitchen table and crossed my hands over it. "Before anything. Please."

Danny stares at me, half-turned from the counter. "Sure, of course Taylor. What is it?" He says more energetically.

I gave more than a passing thought to this conversation. "It's about school. I talked with the psychologist at the hospital, figured out what my options are. Can I lay out my reasoning to you?" I don't want him interrupting me, and I know he has a temper. Now more confused, he nodded. I continue. "I don't want to go back to Winslow. If possible, I would want to transfer to any other school, but actually that's out of the school's hands. Even if we claimed reparations, the school already paid for my medical bills, so…"

"It was the least they could do! I can…" Danny's voice rises. He interrupted me.

Stupid idiot. "Please." I do my best to keep a level voice. I don't need a repeat of my actual family's drama with everybody talking over each other. "Let me finish my thought process."

The forceful tone is enough to get to him and he backs down with a sorry and a thin smile. I take a deep breath. I hope he can see how mad I fucking am and stops it. I just ate three devil fruits. I can't have my temper go off.

"We would have to petition the school district, which could take weeks at best." Another underfunded institution in this decaying world. "And I absolutely don't want to involve any lawyers or any legal battles of any kind. They are stressful. And I can't handle that kind of stress. Not even Alan Barnes. Can I trust you not to go trying to find ways to get back at the school or the bullies and just let that matter lie dead?"

Danny Hebert looks at me like he's never seen me before. "I… Kiddo…"

"I have a solution. Please."

"Yeah, you can trust your dad."

I exhale, close my eyes for two seconds. "So the solution we came up with is homeschooling." I can see Danny holding himself from wincing at the thought. "It's a bit of an expensive option, but it's our best bet. I'm not going back, and the fines for my truancy would be way more expensive. On the other hand, it's only for this year before I age out of the state's mandatory schooling, and I can just start working towards a GED at my own rhythm."

After dominating the conversation for several minutes, Danny takes a moment to understand that the ball is now in his court. He leans forward on the table, mouth opening and closing before he takes a deep breath. As he exhales, I can see his shoulders unclenching and what must a great deal of tension leave him. He looks somewhat sad. "Okay, we can do that. You already know what we need to do and buy, right?"

"My psychologist and I worked on it. I have a list and a few websites that I can give you as well." I used my sessions productively. Fortunately, the doctor in charge of me wasn't a talking about feelings purist and actively helped me get more in control of my life.

"Okay." He repeats to himself. "I'll look that up too, then. I…" I let him have time to think. "I know you don't want to tell me who it was but, can you at least make me understand why?"

It is a reasonable question. I don't have a reason to not answer it. Maybe it will curb some issues in the future. Now, how to word it without implying Emma or make him go do his own research… "Because I'd lose. Bullying between girls, it's a social, game of thrones bullshit, and I suck at it. There's never any evidence, and if there is, obviously it was planted, or faked, or it's not that bad."

He interrupts. "Taylor, they…!"

"Yeah well, nobody saw it. Right?" I sigh. "Somehow, mysteriously, during an incredibly busy morning at school, there were no witnesses to a lockerful of... None, zero. Tch." I rub my jaw. I need to unclench it. "It's bullshit, but it's bullshit they are very good at. I can't win, because they got the other people on their side, or afraid enough not to speak up. On top of that, they have connections. Not just at school, maybe even with the police as well. I mean, come on."

Danny's expression is something between outraged and helpless. Or maybe he's just angry. I don't let him speak.

"And I don't trust you… Dad. I don't trust you to stay rational and keep your head down." Just like that, I break something inside this man. I was harsh, but it's true. "I know it's because you love me, but…"

An uncomfortable silence reigns in the kitchen.

Eventually, Danny speaks up again. "How can you be sure they'll leave you alone, even if stop going to school?"

Right on the mouche. Any normal bullies, and it would be a done deal. Emma… well. "I think they will. It's a lot of work, going to somebody's house just to bully them, and it's troublesome too. I mean, it's one thing to get schoolkids on your side, but somebody's neighbors?" Danny's also a community man, I infer. There's definitely some social power there. "They'll just find another target at school. I might have to deal with some harassment if I meet them outside, but nothing like school was."

"Alright, alright. I'll… start working on it then. Should I talk to the neighbors?" If he thinks that would help, sure. Then, he lays his arm around my shoulders. It's… uncomfortable coming from a man I don't know. But to him, it's just a normal if awkward father-daughter moment. "You've grown up Taylor. I'm so proud of you."

He doesn't have a clue, and I'm not going to be the one to tell him.

"Thanks Dad. Love you too." Sorry your daughter is dead.

Conversations are awkward. Not!Taylor gets this one out of the way as soon as she can. It's a personal thing for her that Taylor's so intent on 'not losing' to the bullies. Which is ironic considering the own levels of sunk cost fallacy she often falls into as well.

Tried for some humanity there too, but, hm, amoral SI's only concern if Danny died would be, how do I, a minor, sustain myself. Yikes.

minuseven · Aug 18, 2022

originally posted in my danmachi thread here (https://forum.questionablequesting....w-effort-danmachi-stories.11394/#post-3147088) 13.02.2020
major rewrite of plot and format.

Part 1 - Re-start?
+In which there is something in the nothingness

The boy's scream was cut off as his head was torn from his body. He didn't even have time to feel pain.

The boy blinked. Emptiness surrounded him. "Aa?" Bell's voice did not echo.

Was he… dead? He'd just been running from a minotaur! Shoulders hitched as he looked back in a panic. But there was nothing there. Could it have been a terrible nightmare? The monster, the tunnels stretching before him, that last brush of feeling across the left side of his face and neck.

Bell rubbed at his throat, patted his head. He felt his neck. No, everything was in place. His heart was beating.

"... I'm not dead then, right?" The nothingness, void of color, form or substance stretched before him. There was ground beneath his feet but he couldn't see it. "G-Goddess?"

Nothing answered him.

Bell waited, and waited even more, fidgeting, but nothing happened. It was just him, alone. A strange feeling like fear rose in his gut, clogging his airways and making his eyes water. "Goddess!? Anybody!? Hello!?"

It suffocated him, so Bell acted on instinct. He ran.

In no direction, because there were no landmarks, as fast as he could, Bell ran. Ran and ran until he stopped. He was exactly as he'd begun. In the dark, feeling fine. He was not even tired from a mad dash that should have left him sweating and panting.

"Oh." The boy realized. "I died."

It was the only thing that made sense. The last thing he remembered there had been a monster that was so much stronger than anything he was ready for. Obviously, that would lead to Bell's death.

"I shouldn't have gone down to the fifth floor." He told himself after sitting down. "What was a minotaur even doing there!?"

But of course nothing answered him.

Sniffling, Bell tried to remember what he knew of the afterlife. It depended on what God did or didn't pick his soul. Some divinities kept the souls of the people they liked in special afterlives, like Valhalla… or if you had offended a divine for any reason, you might end up in the Hell of their choice, suffering innumerous torments. The emptiness didn't feel like any of those options.

Maybe this was what souls felt like as they waited to be purged of the marks of mortal existence before being sent back down to the lower world for rebirth.

It was a kind of hell on its own.

The loneliness.

The isolation.

Bell wished his Goddess would pick him up from this place, but wasn't that too selfish? To want a Goddess that had just descended to return to the Heavens, forever? Just because of him? The stupid boy that had left her all alone, again?

A sick sense of helplessness rose and rose in the boy's chest, until all of a sudden, it erupted from him. "Aaaaarghhh!!" Bell punched the non-existent ground he laid upon. "Aaaaaaaahh!!"

Punch. Punch. Smash. Crack–

A fissure of light illuminated the boy's rubellite eyes. In the nothingness, it was blinding, growing more and more underneath him as the cracks spread. Uncaring of geometry, they rose and descended, cracking the desolate reality that the boy inhabited.

[Error][Error_Identified][Rebooting][Applying:Character_Status]

Bell tumbled back as space broke. The light was words, information, entire libraries of books and stories that slipped between his eyelids and battered his mind. The thunderous whirlwind paused, and he was discarded into a white nothingness.

"What?"

A different emptiness greeted him as he opened his eyes. An almost complete emptiness, if not for the words writ large on the interminable white ground he stood on, devoid of a limiting horizon.

Bell took one step back and straightened up, turned around on himself, reading what the gods had laid down for him.

It was… a summary?

[Name: Bell Cranel]
[Class & Level: Fighter Level 1][Background: Folk Hero][âåÞ¿£Þáñ½Â£舐: Âæ¢??Âðžя—]
[Race: Human][Alignment: Lawful Good][Experience Points: 0]
[[Strength 14][Dexterity 16][Constitution 13][Intelligence 12][Wisdom 12][Charisma 12]]
[Saving Throws: [+4 Strength][+3 Dexterity][+3 Constitution][+1 Intelligence][+1 Wisdom][+1 Charisma]]
[Skills: [+3 Acrobatics][+3 Animal Handling][+1 Arcana][+2 Athletics][+1 Deception][+1 History][+1 Insight][+1 Intimidation][+1 Investigation][+1 Medicine][+1 Nature][+1 Perception][+1 Performance][+1 Persuasion][+1 Religion][+3 Sleight of Hand][+3 Stealth][+3 Survival]]
[[Armor Class: 13][Initiative: +3][Speed: 30][Hit Points: 11/11][Temporary Hit Points: 0][Hit Dice: 1/1d10][Death Saves: ¿/?]
[Features & Traits: Second Wind]
[Other Proficiencies & Languages: Common, Heavy armor, Medium armor, Light armor, Shields, Simple weapons, Martial weapons, Vehicles (Land)]
[Attacks & Spellcasting: [Unarmed Strike]]
[Equipment: [10GP] shovel, iron pot, set of common clothes]

No, to call it a summary would be a disservice to the amount of senseless numbers it contained. Besides Bell's name at the top, it was a very confusing mess.

But, as he thought about it, it could be… a falna? Some of the basic abilities were there, even if the numbers were really low. And, if he tilted his head this way and that, there seemed to be overlapping or translucent words in some places.

"Oh." He suddenly realized. "Maybe this is how the Goddess sees her blessing!" Bell, as a mortal, knew very little about the falna, but he knew that the sheet of paper that Hestia gave him every day only had the really important things. Gods and Goddesses actually saw the excelia.

Momentarily forgetting his predicament, Bell knelt down to try and examine the writing from closer up. However, he reached a hand to carefully brush over the letters of his name and as he made the slightest of contact, those writings popped up. Bell fell on his ass, eyes wide and mouth agape as he was again hit with knowledge.

This was what his name was. Declaration. Question.

"I-I-I'm Bell Cranel. Yes!"

The writings subsided. If Bell had been in a state to do so, he'd be pale as a sheet and panting in slowly-mounting panic. Instead, he remained frozen as his mind attempted to wrap itself around what had happened and what it meant.

Slowly, and carefully avoiding touching any other words, he got up and stepped away from the writings. He swallowed, rubbed his forehead with one hand, then grabbed a hold his his head and shook it furiously. Time passed.

"A-Alright. I… I died." He blinked. It was easier to think about it this time. So long as he didn't think of how his Goddess was going to… feel. "And that's my status. Which I can change."

Separately, it didn't mean anything in particular. Of course, everything about this was impossible but… well. Bell was dead. What did mortals really know about what after? Sooner or later, his soul would be reincarnated, and whatever new person Bell would become wouldn't remember anything about this.

Which brought him to his next point. A stray thought. A possibility.

Was all of this related to his next life? Could the Gods– or rather, would the Gods give Bell a choice about what would happen next?

Hestia would. Oh, if Bell could find tears, he would be crying.

+In which the boy explores his options thoroughly

In a place where time did not seem to be a factor, eventually became somewhat of a meaningless term. Nevertheless, eventually Bell knelt back down with something like excitement. Still unsure of what was happening, he was going to take this opportunity as it came and explore everything the maybe-falna gave him.

First off was his name. He liked his name. It was his, and the only connection he had left of his blood family. Besides, he wasn't seeing how it would matter afterwards… There was something a bit down whose glyphs were unreadable. Maybe that would be his name afterwards. He decided not to touch it.

His level was immutable. Naturally. But his 'Class' on the same line, wasn't! It seemed to be a bunch of different kinds of roles an adventurer could be: fighter, rogue, wizard (mage?), or weirder things like bard, monk, warlock… Not all of them were very heroic options, but one of them called out to Bell in particular.

The Paladin. Like the heroes of the stories his grandfather told him, the ones he wanted to be like. With sword and magic, bright champions that defeated dragons and saved the girls.

With a bit of trepidation, but desire burning bright in his heart, Bell made his first choice.

[Class & Level: Paladin Level 1]

Below that, several changes happened without Bell's input. Now, different abilities stood out, and other things were written in the Features section. No, some of the numbers had also changed.

[Saving Throws: [+2 Strength][+3 Dexterity][+1 Constitution][+1 Intelligence][+3 Wisdom][+3 Charisma]]
[Features & Traits: Divine Sense, Lay on Hands]

"Paladins have more… wisdom and charisma?" He mused. It made a bit of sense, he supposed. Actually, the basic abilities displayed were the same. It was the 'Saving Throws' that had changed. Bell… had no clue what that meant. He tried touching that section but it didn't budge. Those were things Bell could change himself. "Well… I suppose it's fine to leave it as it is…"

He went for the next thing but was stopped by a strong sense of wrongness. Like that nagging feeling he had forgotten something after going out… It almost made him shake. He was missing something about Paladin. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that a few sections rippled like water.

His 'Skills'. He touched them and something like a weight was handed to him. No, two weights. Two weights he could put in the options presented to him. He juggled with the choices for only a little bit. Athletics was the easy choice, it was important. Then Medicine. That could be helpful.

The other section that required his attention was 'Equipment', and it gave him options. Options with even more options. The amount of things he had at his disposal was almost overwhelming. Bell went back and forth, reading lists and lists of weapons and materials, until he finally settled on something.

[Equipment: [10GP] Longsword, Shield, Dagger, Explorer's Pack, Chainmail, Holy symbol, shovel, iron pot, set of common clothes]

And that changed, perhaps obviously, the 'Armor Class' into something higher.

[Armor Class: 18]

It also made things appear in the 'Attacks & Spellcasting' part.

[Attacks & Spellcasting: [Unarmed Strike][Longsword][Dagger]]

After that, it seemed that Bell was done. It felt done. He sighed.

The 'Background'... well, he liked the one he had already. The other options were interesting to know about, but not ones he wanted. Especially the bad ones! Why would being a criminal even be an option? As he moved tho, the same sense of incompleted-ness struck.

"Argh!" The boy whirled around and set to correcting what he was missing out on. It turned out to be tool proficiency. The craftsmen that Bell admired the most were blacksmiths, and so he chose that.

[Other Proficiencies & Languages: Common, Heavy armor, Medium armor, Light armor, Shields, Simple weapons, Martial weapons, Vehicles (Land), Smith's Tools]

Bell gave the writings as a whole a long look. There were several sections with translucent words and words that only seemed to appear if he tilted his head this way or that. If he had to guess, he was going to have to make a lot more choices before he was done.

Far more importantly than that, the next thing was 'Race'. Bell stared at it for a long time. No, he was too curious. Options blossomed before him. Bell choked. "D-Dragon? O-orc? No way!"

There were options Bell was not going to even touch. Instead, almost timidly, and eyeing another option out of the corner of his eye, Bell chose 'Dwarf'.

And then Bell was a Dwarf.

The boy looked down at himself and felt his new dimensions. He rubbed his chin and felt with a great deal of surprise the start of a fuzzy beard. "This feels so strange." He scratched his chin with a goofy smile. "Eheh, I have a beard? Oh, my voice is deeper." He liked this.

His excitement returned full-force. "How about… a pallum!?"

Bell the Pallum was really short. He felt like a kid and moving was light and easy.

And then the option he really wanted. Bell the Elf. Taller with sharper eyes. And his ears were long and pointy! "I wish I had a mirror…"

However, a strange awkward feeling settled in his belly as he returned to the options. This feeling was born from Bell himself. Bell was a human. He always had been, it was part of who he was. Taking that away would be like taking away something fundamental and integral to his identity. He'd known that elves in particular were very prideful of their ancestry and race. But dwarfs and werewolves and other races; they too had their pride. Humans were in no way an exception.

None of this would matter in Bell's next life. Yet Bell felt uncomfortable with the thought of becoming something other than human entirely.

He thought about it long and hard, what it truly meant to him and what he wished for. In the end, he decided to compromise. There were, after all, people who fell in between races.

[Race: Half-Elf]

He still felt like himself. Some things were different, noticeably his ears, but all in all he still felt like Bell Cranel. However, the writings changed dramatically in some parts, and he hunted down those sections where new options had appeared. Out of all things, a new language for example!

[[Strength 14][Dexterity 16][Constitution 12][Intelligence 11][Wisdom 11][Charisma 13]]
[Skills: [+5 Acrobatics][+2 Animal Handling][+0 Arcana][+4 Athletics][+1 Deception][+0 History][+0 Insight][+1 Intimidation][+0 Investigation][+2 Medicine][+0 Nature][+2 Perception][+1 Performance][+1 Persuasion][+0 Religion][+3 Sleight of Hand][+3 Stealth][+2 Survival]]
[Features & Traits: Darkvision, Fey Ancestry, Divine Sense, Lay on Hands]
[Other Proficiencies & Languages: Common, Elvish, Dwarvish, Heavy armor, Medium armor, Light armor, Shields, Simple weapons, Martial weapons, Vehicles (Land), Smith's Tools]

Mentally tired, he checked out 'Alignment'. A moment later he was pushing that back down. No, he was fine as he was, thank you.

Then there was… well, it appeared he could change his basic abilities or his equipment. But Bell was okay with what he had. Yes, he liked what he had.

He was done.

And something obliged.

+In which the boy encounters death again

The boy was on the 5th Floor. Bell blinked. He blinked again.

"Wait." He said and when he breathed back in, and choked on Evil.

Something evil and odious assaulted his senses all at once. The stink of a decomposing corpse on a barren field, the screech of a saw on stone, boots on the ground, the hatred in a cripple's eye. All around him but especially under him, deep deep under them all. Something incredibly vast and unimaginably evil strained against . It hated them all. His knees hit the ground as he struggled to keep his breathing in check and his lunch down.

His chainmail tinkled and the weight of his shield dragged his arm down. He stared at his hands and the longsword gripped in his right fist. He knew it, was intimately familiar with how to use it… Yet he'd never– He felt different, was different. His body returned unknown sensations. He remembered unfamiliar teachings. His hand let go of his sword and flew to the side of his head. It hit the rounded point of a long elven ear sticking out of his disheveled and sweaty hair. Bell's mind went blank.

A medallion hung before his eyes, easily visible even under the shadow his body cast. The simple tin medallion with his goddess' symbol engraved, that he'd never possessed before.

"Goddess... what happened?" He asked, but nobody answered. Gods didn't answer paladins like him, who'd barely started on their path, not even having swore their sacred oaths. It made no sense how he knew that either, because everything went against what he'd known about gods from the stories, and his own personal experiences with the Goddess of the Hearth.

The writings in the nothingness. After—

He heard the thundering run of a monster, the howl of a beast hungry for carnage. His head snapped up and an uncontrollable shiver racked his body. It wasn't here yet, his ears heard further now. But Bell Cranel already knew he was going to die. Sheer panic overwhelmed him as his mind became devoid of anything but his last memories of life. His heartbeat raced like a hare away from a wolf.

He ran. Two, three steps in, he heard the beast barrel into the corridor he was in from an intersection. The minotaur that had killed him. The monster's yellow eyes locked on to Bell's fleeing form, and he felt himself become the hunted prey.

He screamed, stumbled. The monster roared, surged forward.

He couldn't outrun it. He hadn't managed it before, and that was without a heavy chainmail and shield slowing him down. There was no time to think. Training he hadn't possessed before kicked in, and he launched himself to the side. The minotaur charged past him, sharp goring horns shining in Bell's vision.

Ah, that had been what had killed him, hadn't it.

The monster's charge didn't take it more than three massive strides before it was turning on its heel and launching itself back at Bell. The first strike hit Bell's raised shield. The minotaur's first thunderous blow cracked the shield straight down the middle and sent Bell flying back. It was the only thing that saved him from being gored on one of the monster's horns. He hit the ground several yards away, coughing as he tried to draw in a single breath.

If he stopped now, he'd die. The reaper's scythe caressed his jugular lovingly. He groped around for his sword, fingers scratching at the dungeon's floor. The minotaur appeared above him, great fists raised over its head. Bell squeezed himself under his shield, bracing with both his arms against the blow that was coming.

The impact drove more than air out of him. Bell's head ricocheted against the ground and he spat foamy blood amidst a choked scream. He wouldn't remember the sound of his shield splintering or of his arms being popped out of their sockets.

The second blow was open handed, like swatting an insect against the ground and then grinding it until no life remained in the mess of carapace and ichor.

Bell was the insect. Underneath his chainmail and the slivers of wood that had been a shield, his bones cracked. His ribs squeezed his organs, then they broke and started cutting into his vitals. He was helpless, useless arms trapped under the minotaur's hand, legs weakly squirming against the floor, gasping for air he couldn't draw in, bloodshot eyes bulging. He was nothing more than a bug.

A brilliant flash cut through the dungeon's air just as his mind faded entirely into the black.

I've been wanting to revisit 5E gamer!bell for a while. I'm sticking entirely to the Core Books for this one tho, because WOTC started making stuff legacy and not and it's just a lot, yeah. Too much in fact. Course, that wrecked my plans for aasimar!bell further down the line, so halfelf bell is now a thing. it will mmmm be fuuun. you'll see.

minuseven · Oct 7, 2022

1) Bell Crannel, Visionary

Bell Cranel had had many hopes when coming to Orario. Getting a harem. Picking up girls. Picking up girls by saving them heroically in the dungeon!

He'd been a fool.

"I should have listened to Miss Einaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!" He cried as he ran desperately down a corridor in the lower fifth floor of The Dungeon.

"HOOOUUUH!!" Bellowed the Minotaur, a monster that could, would and was going to kill him.

'Minotaurs aren't supposed to be in the lower fifthhhhh!!' Bell yelled mentally. Then he tripped, skidded and crawled back at all speed… until his back hit a wall. There were no exits, it was a dead end. Bell Cranel's dead end. The Minotaur loomed, spittle flying from its lips, sharp teeth that no bull had, red eyes glaring at home with unparalleled hate– Its paw came down—

And slid off. Bell stared. The minotaur stared. There was the faintest impression of a line in silver in the air. A flash just like in his imagination. The minotaur fell to bits in a geyser of blood. "Gruoo!?" "Wah!?"

"Are you… okay?" Bell blinked beastly blood from his eyes and saw her. A beautiful girl in gold, silver and blue. Even he knew who she was. The Sword Princess, Ais Wallenstein. Bell's heart feels like it's stopped, just for her. His face was beet red (beneath the blood). His eyes were wide as plates. His mouth dropped open. Like in the songs, this must be love. The warrior tilted her head and extended a hand to help him up.

Bell was shaking. In fact, he was so nervous, he couldn't even raise his arm to take her hand. Suddenly, he felt shy, a level of shyness he couldn't believe even existed. A feeling that ignited an engine within him. In conclusion, some part of him decided, he had to run. He couldn't face her. So he r— bonked his head against a translucent barrier. "Gah!"

The high-class adventurer behind him fell into a guard position.

Bell rubbed his aching head. Oh no. Not now. But it was too late. A translucent bubble had appeared, trapping him. "N-n-not again." Trapping him with Ais Wallenstein. "Not like this!"

"Do you know what this is?" The quiet voice from the golden-haired girl behind him was more intense than its volume would indicate.

Bell stiffened with a small cry. He wanted to claw at the barrier, but he knew it was 'inviolable'. There was no escape. His head crashed harshly against the ground as he turned, eyes closed, and prostrated himself in the ultimate maneuver– "I'm very sorry!" Dogeza!

—Two weeks ago—

"Oh! Bell, you have a skill!" Hestia brightened as she beheld her first child's status. "It's… huh…" She frowned as she read it. "[Visions of Heroes from Worlds Beyond]?" Translated roughly from divine hieroglyphs. The goddess' brow furrowed deeply as she read the frankly absurdly long and seemingly impossible skill description.

"Hm… Goddess? Goddess!?" Bell's voice pulled her away from it. She had been boring holes into his back for five awkwardly silent minutes.

"What is– oh."

The air was different. At the edge of the room, beyond the window, they could see that a translucent barrier separated them from the rest of the world. A world that had stopped in its tracks. A flock of pigeons hung static in mid-air.

The goddess climbed to her feet. "Oh no… It can't be." But after several minutes trying and failing to get out, she conceded that mayhaps she had to do something a bit more drastic. Blue eyes glowed as Hestia inhaled and the red glow of coals manifested across the strands of her hair. But nothing wavered under her authority and she dared not unleash more of her arcanum. "Bell," she asked, "you wouldn't happen to be feeling something like… magic?"

"I-I-I? This w-was me?" The boy was close to panicking. This was not what he'd ever been expecting when he imagined life as an adventurer. He'd already tried to force the barrier, to no avail. Naturally, he felt trapped.

Slap.

Bell raised a hand to where Hestia had slapped him and… "It doesn't hurt?" Indeed, he hadn't felt the impact. He'd turned his face from reflex.

"It's definitely your skill." Hestia spoke, her aspect returning to a normal, short and stacked, black-haired goddess. "[Visions of Heroes from Worlds Beyond] creates a space outside of time. Because it's outside of time, damage can't be dealt. It's… supposedly impossible to break." That strained even her divine belief, to be honest.

"How do we leave? Can I make it go away?" Bell perked up.

"Hm, well. Supposedly, it goes away by itself when the conditions are fulfilled."

"The conditions?"

"Everybody inside has to witness the Visions of Heroes from Worlds Beyond." Hestia nodded. "In other words, we have to… watch? Or read… stories about people from other worlds."

"That's…" It was a lot. Visions? From other worlds? Bell hadn't known other worlds even existed! The part about hero stories sounded nice? "How??"

"Well…" That part Hestia wasn't sure about. "Concentrate Bell! There's even a chance that you get magic or more skills from the stories of those heroes!"

"Eh!? Really!?"

Many thanks to Xicree for helping plan and pre-read this.
Always liked this sort of stories, so ... yeah. It has a plot, I swear. Planned (bits of) shows to watch include, for now, My Hero Academia, Negima, RWBY, Fate/, Full Metal Alchemist. The ones I know for sure.

minuseven · Oct 7, 2022

2.1) Hestia, Giver of Hope

"It looks like a Divine Mirror…" Hestia said, somewhat uneasy. This skill… it was breaking the rules, for sure! Maybe she should talk with another god later. No, she definitely needed to. Somebody that wouldn't immediately accuse her of using her arcanum (she had not!) which reduced the list… considerably.

With just a little bit of concentration, Bell had manifested a rectangular window in space. For Bell, it felt like he had a flint in his hands. He just needed to spark the vision into reality now. Everything was ready.

Goddess and mortal had pulled two stools together and now sat, ready to watch the vision. It was a little exciting, like magic.

"Ready Bell?" "Yes Goddess!"

Before their incredulous eyes, the dark in the mirror faded to reveal white buildings and the foliage of trees. The sound of crickets filled the bubble. Hestia narrowed her eyes. It was definitely another world.

Bell was seeing new things. "That's a clock– oh."

The vision changed to show a small green-haired child, staring at them while shaking, tears in his eyes. Immediately, the heart of both of them went to him.

«Enough Kacchan!» The child cried to somebody. «You already made him cry… Stop it!»

"Ah, he's protecting his friend from bullies!" Bell exclaimed. The vision had zoomed out to show there were three other children in front of them.

"I don't think he's got a lot of chances…" Hestia noted. The child was… well, wimpy-looking.

And then "WHA!?!?" each of the three bullies: grew wings, grew their fingers into tentacles, and made explosions from their hands. Bell and Hestia stared slack jawed as the vision showed the bullies attacking the scared child.

"Wait, wait!" Bell threw his arms up and the vision stopped. "What was that!" One of the boys had grown wings like a dragon! Were they human?

Hestia rubbed her chin, trying to sound wise despite being somewhat shocked herself. "Well, it's another world. There are many worlds out there. Worlds with just humans… worlds without! We should probably watch more. This is just like the prologue of a book!"

Bell nodded, mollified. "It does feel like the beginning of a story… That bully, he mentioned being a hero and… quirkless?" They'd probably get some answers if they continued watching the vision. "But… are they human?" He wondered still.

Hestia raised an eyebrow at the sudden doubt of her mortal child. She smiled, huffing. "Well, bullies, protecting others… they were acting like humans or demi-humans, no?"

Oh. Bell nodded. He understood.

The vision continued as he calmed down. The fight wasn't shown. Instead, it moved forward to show them the child on the ground, beaten.

«People are not born equal. That was the hard truth I learned at age four.» The scene changed to show a black-dressed young man running through a colourful street while a voice narrated. «And that was my first and last setback!»

""It's his backstory."" The two watchers, long-time story readers, said at the same time.

"That city… it looks so strange." Bell noted the scenery. There were black paved streets and glass was everywhere and there were magic lights that changed colors.

"That's because that world is much more advanced than this one." Hestia explained. "It's the power of technology! See, that's a car! It's like a carriage but made of metal, powered by an engine and, well, probably not magic stones…"

"Not magic stones?" Bell couldn't help but ask. "What sort of magic does it use then?"

Hestia suddenly found herself under pressure. "Huh, well, it could be petrol or electricity… Actually Bell, these are the sort of details you shouldn't sweat. It's another world. I'm betting it doesn't even have monsters."

The human goggled at her. "... no monsters?" What sort of ideal world was that? Did a world like that need heroes?

"It's somewhere in a place like the Far East. See, sakura!" Hestia said loudly, pointing at the vision.

The boy, definitely the child from before now that they could see his green fluffy hair, was running through streets and under pink blossoms with a big smile on his face. A monster roared suddenly, startling Bell and Hestia. Then the vision was showing the boy again and–

"Ah, a namecard." Hestia noted.

"A name card?"

"It's like if in a play they stopped to announce the dramatis personae when each entered."

"So he's Izuku Midoriya…" Bell nodded to himself. It was definitely a person from the Far East (or… whatever that meant in another world) because his name was also written with the glyph-characters from those languages. "Not Deku?"

The monster towered over small buildings while a crowd watched, the boy among them. «A giant villain!»

"A villain?" Bell leaned forward.

"Ah," Hestia nodded. "That's probably why none of those people are worried about it."

"Ah, that's right, they're all too close to the monster!" "Just watch Bell, I'm getting a sense of what sort of story this is." The boy shot his goddess a look but was quick to refocus on the scene.

Only for it to completely change. A narration started, with the birth of a glowing baby. Bell's eyes widened as a world where everybody had magic, a superpower, was introduced to them. The silhouette of a huge man with a cape appeared, and he knew what it was before the vision announced them.

Heroes.

"Strong! And water magic!" He pointed out as the heroes appeared to protect the crowd.

"It's a world of heroes all right." Hestia sighed. "That's why they're all dressed in ridiculous ways like that…"

"Hu? But they look awesome?"

A goddess sweatdropped. She supposed it was natural since mortals had no concept of 'cringe'.

Izuku shimmied through the crowd to get closer.

"So, that's not a monster, but somebody's magic?" Bell noted.

"Quirks, like they call them, are different from magic. Better not confuse it." Hestia explained with the experience of somebody who'd read more genres of stories. "Still, a purse-snatcher…"

'What an over-reaction!' Both thought of the villain. The battle continued as a new hero entered the scene.

Bell almost missed the weird appearance of the man next to Izuku in the crowd. Was it that person's own mag– quirk? Then he felt a deep sense of kinship with Izuku, as his fanboying was called out. The wood-clad hero confronted the villain. Hestia fought not to cover her face as he started monologuing.

'Don't tell me he's actually going to call out his final attack!' She despaired internally. Next to her, Bell was transfixed. 'Don't get weird ideas Bell, these aren't role models!'

A giant lady interrupted with a flying kick.

"Kill stealer!?" The two were as shocked as the crowd at the audacity.

The new hero announced herself with a pun that made Bell sputter, and a crowd of people appeared out of nowhere with flashing lights.

"What are those?"

"Cameras. They take photographs… hum, make super realistic paintings with technology." Hestia quickly explained to him.

"Wait, then…" Bell tilted his head, calculating angles. "Then!"

"How shameless…"

The narrator returned to explain the origin of heroes in that society, as the villain was arrested, highlighting how Mt. Lady had stolen Kamui's credit.

"That's not very heroic of her…" Said Bell.

"Yes, she sounds more like an adventurer." Said Hestia.

Bell turned to her, questioning. Hestia patted his naive little head.

Izuku was taking notes of the whole battle, and the man from before encouraged him. Bell inwardly cheered as well. Izuku had already shown his heroic character after all!

"Oh, a title card!" "A title–? I see."

The scene changed. "A school?" "Yes, these sorts of places are common in other worlds. See, seifuku uniforms!" Hestia pointed out one of the 'inventions' the gods had introduced in their own world.

"Quirks can make people look so strange…" Bell noted of a boy with rocks for hair. Then, everybody started using their powers, and he recoiled. "Gah!" Some were very weird. The teacher was interrupted by an arrogant boy. «Don't lump us all in the same group.» Who was introduced with his own namecard.

Bell started. "Wait, that's the same bully as before! Katsuki… like Kacchan!" "He doesn't seem to have changed much…" Hestia noted with a frown.

She was proved right as Katsuki announced he was going to a certain school and started bragging about his accomplishments and what he would become in the future. Everybody seemed awestruck by him. Bell and Hestia lacked context but they could understand it by everybody's reactions. Then, the teacher mentioned Izuku's desire to the class' shock, followed by loud derision and laughter.

"Why are they being so mean!?" Bell cringed at the mockery, once again feeling sympathy for Izuku.

Hestia's eyes suddenly widened. "Wait– remember at the start–?" Katsuki attacked Izuku and revealed the reason why: he was quirkless.

"Then Isuku doesn't have… a power?" Bell's shoulders slumped as he watched the green-haired boy stutter and be driven back against the wall by the advancing bully. «It's just… been my dream since I was little» Bell too— suddenly, the empathy he felt towards the green-haired boy crystalized. Bell's dreams… and then the rejection he'd faced in Orario…

Hestia side-eyed him with a thoughtful expression. She took one of his hands, tightly clenched into a fist and gave him a smile.

'That's right. Goddess Hestia took me in! Then him too, maybe–'

In his musings, Bell almost missed as another villain was shown, a slime-like monster man running away without opposition. Until a figure in shadows stepped up, growing into a familiar silhouette. «Because I am here»

"Isn't that the hero from before?"

The scene returned to Izuku's classroom. "That's technology too…" Hestia lamented as she pointed out another amazing item that had many things on a screen. Only for Katsuki to return, stealing one of Izuku's books. "Him again!? Nasty boy…"

"Why's he doing that?" Bell growled powerlessly as Izuku got his book destroyed. Hero Analysis, that sounded cool and useful! He looked on, mulishly, as the bully hounded Izuku until something unforgivable was said.

«If you think you'll have a quirk in your next life… go take a swan dive off the roof!»

Hestia hissed and Bell gapped. "That's– that's–" He trembled with the injustice, but in the vision, Izuku was unable to confront the stronger boy. "That's… beyond mean."

"It's despicable." Hestia agreed, rubbing the back of his hand. "If that boy wants to be a hero, mmph! He's going to have to change a lot." Being a true hero required more than strength. It needed character. Like Izuku had shown before. Yet, she also knew the world looked favorably upon the strong…

Izuku recovered his book from being fish-food, and the younger version of him returned.

"A flashback?" "Yes! Small Izuku is so cute!"

Bell's anger was sucked away as a story within a story was shown. A hero. 'The hero from before!' Laughing deeply, with a wide smile as he saved everybody, chasing away their fear– Bell made a connection with that lame hero from the stories… Argonaut. This was… the hero Argonaut had tried to be, surely.

Both Bell and Izuku couldn't help but smile themselves.

«You should probably give it up.» The doctor explained to his patients that Izuku was Quirkless.

Bell deflated. Was it hopeless then? Maybe Izuku was like the Argonaut from the fairy tale, a wannabe hero that had no power and was tricked and deceived? Except Izuku wasn't… smiling. Bell didn't want to watch a sad version of that story, he fought his own tears at little Izuku's tearful question in the dark.

"Let's keep watching." Hestia told him, pulling him from his depressive thoughts. "It's not over yet, right?"

"Right. Right!" If there was hope for Bell, there was hope for the green-haired kid from another world. And the grown Izuku was back, striding forward despite everything. He entered a tunnel while laughing badly, like a fool. 'There's still hope–!' The slime villain appeared from the ground. "What sort of luck!?"

"Run away!" Hestia echoed his feelings, but Izuku wasn't fast enough, getting engulfed by the slime.

They watched, horrified, as the slime villain tried to force his way into the boy's lungs. If he didn't speak, it would be impossible to distinguish him from a monster. Bell had gotten up and frozen, unable to help the boy he saw being slowly suffocated. "Somebody!!" He echoed Izuku.

A flash. Hestia and Bell held their breaths. The hero rose from the sewers. Every move was raw power. His back was fit to carry an entire world. He dodged the villain like it was nothing and in one powerful punch, blew him away without even touching him.

"Amazing…" Bell's eyes were sparkling. "He saved him."

"Yeah!" Hestia punched the air. "Go hero!"

Izuku woke up and was so shocked at seeing his childhood idol that he was beyond words, almost running away. Bell thought he wouldn't act so panicked if, say… Epimetheus had saved him… probably, maybe. No, for sure! Izuku was on the verge of passing out from sheer happiness-shock, from what the vision showed.

"Wah!" Hestia sputtered. "He captured him in a soda bottle?" The background had changed and everything.

"All Might? All Might is so cool and strong!" Bell was entering a fanboying phase like Izuku. A shining smile, a towering figure, bursting with charisma. He'd somehow even signed an autograph in the blink of an eye.

"Please don't act like Izuku if you ever meet Ottar the Warlord…" Hestia bemoaned. "And forget about worshiping any of Loki's– Wait did he just break the fourth wall?"

All Might prepared to leave. "Come on, ask him now Izu–oh too late…" The hero had leapt far into the air, but– ""He grabbed on!?"" Izuku had grabbed onto his leg.

There was confusion before Izuku was settled against the hero's leg. The hero flying through the air coughed, a trickle of blood appearing. «Shit.»

"He's hurt?" Bell was shocked. "But he wasn't hit in that fight?"

Hestia frowned, her intuition sharpening her eyes.

They landed on a building and All Might prepared to leave again. The voices of Izuku's past returned, and the boy blurted out the burning question he had to know the answer for. All Might stopped. «Can even someone without a Quirk be like you?» The hero looked back at the boy, both framed by the wide blue sky.

Bell leaned forward. He had to know. Could somebody like Izuku– like Bell—

We're watching the first chapter of the manga, which unfortunately are two whole episodes...
Ahah, hope my characterization is ok. Re-watching MHA and thinking, 'uh, All Might has some great Argonaut vibes... if Argo was actually strong'.

minuseven · May 6, 2024

~~getting back into writing~~ ~~just throw s**t ideas at the wall~~ ~~just hit the keyboard with feeling this time~~

<< >> <<< >>> << >>

Life is unfair. The ragged little orphan stares down at the pit of darkness. Her stomach hurts and her limbs feel weak. The fever ravaged her body for hours, something that should have been impossible. She was left helpless, her money stolen, her possessions riffled through as she laid in an alley. She hates this world.

She asked for this. She doesn't want to beg. To be left that vulnerable. Her only option is to commit and enter the breach.

The stairs to the dungeon are full of adventurers leaving for the day. Some give her a look, the little halfling in poor clothes moving downwards. The only thing she cares about is if there is recognition in any of their eyes. She needs to go down. No money, no food, no roof.

And maybe, maybe! If she wasn't just hallucinating (if this entire life isn't a hallucination) this time she won't leave the pit with her soul ground down by this damned world and its damned people.

She just needs to find a monster. A single goblin. A measly beast that can kill her, unlike the others leaving the dungeon with loot on their back. Her backup knife finds its way to her hand. Her crossbow stolen. But it is enough. It has to be. She wanders leftwards. She knows these tunnels like the back of her hand. At this hour, most people are leaving. She is alone as she marches through the dungeon-lit tunnels.

-crack-crack-

There. Her knees bend, her body lowers, her head turns. Muscle memory takes over as she makes herself small. From the way she came, the sound heralds the birth of a monster. The green-skinned limbs of a malformed humanoid come into view. The thing is actually bigger than her. Disgusting. Impossible. Her heart trembles. She hates this.

She hates this weakness. She's so tired of it. She needs to get rid of it.

-stab-

Her lunge catches the goblin unaware. The blade, used as it is, still sinks bellow the ribs of the first floor monster without major resistance. The halfling doesn't stop as the thing screeches. From her lower position, she wrenches the blade loose and uses it again and again and again. Four times it penetrates the goblin's belly but that's not enough to kill it. Not yet. Its flailing claws tug at her cloak. Her breathing is ragged.

With a last yell, she grabs its shoulder and goes directly for its throat. The gurgle of blood and panting breaths fill the stale air of the dungeon.

Finally, it's dead. The child-like girl sits atop the corpse. The rush in her veins is fading and her limbs tremble. Still, she cannot stop. She opens the chest of the monster with familiarity, pulling aside muscle to reach the crystalline stone embedded in a sternum-like bone.

It's a small thing, not even the size of a marble. It's not worth enough for a full meal. But it might be what she needs. What fever-born instincts tell her she can do.

She brings the crystal to her chest and prays it works.

A rush of energy fills her suddenly, the crystal gone like it never existed. Knowledge fills her head with the pounding beat of her heart. It works. It's real. Gods, oh blessed, oh damned. It is real. Amidst fading ashes, she finally believes, just a little bit, that there is hope.

"Potential, is that right?" It feels unreal. The possibility of freedom always has.

Liliruca Arde
[Wind]
Strength 0 :: Stamina 0 :: Agility 0 :: Magic 0
[-](1)

<< >> <<< >>> << >>

I just... have this? Yeah, this started as an insert (as always) so now it's just Lili with some psychic confusion I guess.

minuseven · May 6, 2024

<< >> <<< >>> << >>

There are a few places that are relatively safe to sleep in the streets. Closer to the center of the city and far away from certain spots. Residential areas are the best. She just has to leave before people wake up. That's what no money gets her.

There is only one way for her to get vallis as she is. Monster stones, or working for somebody getting monster stones. Never again. Now that she isn't hopeless, she's never working for any adventurer ever again. She's been part of a familia, as bad as hers is, for as long as she remembers. But she still knows how hard the first months are. What little money the weak make is quickly spent on healing and equipment.

And she doesn't even have a roof over her head. Food, shelter, hygiene. Everything is a drain.

It's going to be hard. She's back to zero, her soul scourged clean. The crystals are necessary to become stronger, but if she spends all of them, she won't survive. Her circumstances haven't changed yet. The day before, she killed half a dozen isolated monsters so that she would have enough for dinner. Nothing was, neither money or power.

Not that she didn't get anything from the goblins. Excelia is excelia, no matter how differently it works now. So long as she has her new 'skills' activated, she can grow.

Liliruca Arde
[Wind]
Strength 3 :: Stamina 6 :: Agility 48 :: Magic 0
[Thief 3](0)

Maybe for the first time in her life, she feels motivated to enter the dungeon. The way she immediately gets excelia and knows it, without having to go to her god, is amazing. She doesn't need her familia. She can already imagine a future without them. It's too early, she chastises herself.

No sense in getting her hopes up. Her equipment is in tatters, she only has a single weapon, and her bag was stolen. She reeks. No longer bound by her familia? That's still very far away. She should just start working. She will not fall into the trap of confidence. More than monsters, the girl has many human foes, and little way to hide herself.

Her circumstances favor her for once. The ones who could be looking for her are expecting her to be a supporter, to be seen with her supporter's pack cowering in the wake of a higher leveled party, waiting for her prey in front of the tower. Her routine, her schedule, her mode of life. But no more. Now she disappears into the dungeon early in the morning.

Half a day to get enough money for the day, hunting ever further away from the entrance.

The other half, strengthening herself, taking in the crystals of ever-easier to kill goblins.

She learns the ins and outs of her abilities. The way her knife can make her fingers numb or her robes constricting depending on which facet of her skills she's wearing. The senses of how much more she has to kill and absorb to grow.

Somehow, it takes Canoe a full two weeks before he corners her.

<< >> <<< >>> << >>

Well, let's see if we can finish at least one plotline.

minuseven · May 8, 2024

<< >> <<< >>> << >>

The raccoon man and three of his thugs corner her after she leaves the dungeon. They surround her, walking next to her, boxing her in. They close in, their bellies to her shoulders. She seethes. She hates them. She hates herself for not seeing them.

She's still wearing her blue mage facet. She's been using it, because she can use both her robes and her weapon more effectively. Surreptitiously, from beneath her hood, she checks her assailants. The results make her grit her teeth. Estimating their strength from how tough they are, it's clear she has no chances.

She's stronger than before, but she's not that strong yet.

Liliruca Arde
[Wind]
Strength 316 :: Stamina 321 :: Agility 154 :: Magic 555
[Thief 8](0): Find Passages
[Knight 10](0)
[Black Mage 8](0): Fire, Blizzard, Thunder
[White Mage 4](0): Cure
[Monk 3](0): Kick
[Blue Mage 9](0): Check

One of them, she could take. Maybe. All four, no, never. Scum like them like to gather in packs. That's how they feel confident when just one higher leveled adventurer could break their teeth in.

Canoe puts a hand on her shoulder and guides her, shoves really, into an alley. "Lili. It's been a while. We haven't seen you around." He pats her head with too much force. "We were getting' so worried."

"Where's your pack?" One of the others asks.

That's what they want. Her money and things. She opens her mouth, closes it. Why is it so hard suddenly? "I- Li- … Lili got robbed."

"Ahahah, really?" They laugh. "You got robbed?" The thief got made by another of her kind.

"I don't believe it. Are you lying to me Lili? To your own familia?" Canoe isn't nearly as amused. His hands go for her belt, riffle around her neck and under her robes. She tenses, but all he wants is her money.

They have no luck. She is telling the truth. She did lose all of her important possessions. Her crossbow, her special pack, her potions, and especially the key to her hidden deposit box. She was left with only the things that didn't have any true value. They get her pouch, with enough money for the next couple of days, and a potion she didn't spend yet.

"Looks like she really only has this."

She's been so focused on growing stronger and exploring her skills that she hasn't been making more than the money she needs for the immediate future. And because she knows she's a less tempting target like that.

"Tch." One of them scoffs. "Just this? A real good for nothing supporter."

"Now, now." Canoe says, sickly-sweet, and that's scarier than anything he's done until now. "It's hard to be a supporter without even a pack. How about I help you out and get you one?"

It's a trap. A favor, a loan. But Lili can't refuse it. She can't refuse Canoe. If she did- "N-no." What is she doing?

"No?"

The feverish fire that took a hold of her heart is raging, trembling. She can't stop now. "No, Mister Canoe. Lili can buy a pack, she just needs a little more time to gather money and-" -slap-

A slap throws her head back. "Huh? Are you refusing my generosity?" His hand is raised.

She can't say yes. "Lili really can do this-" -crunch-

The next punch is harder, throwing her head painfully against the wall behind her. Canoe is spitting, shoving her, talking about how she can't make it without the familia. It's the usual. But the hit… didn't hurt nearly as much as usual. The girl watches them behind shadowed bangs, thinking that, if she used her new magic, maybe she could kill them.

Her incantations are so fast. After they turn around, she only needs a second or two. And then they'd burn to death.

But she wouldn't get away with it.

"And you never know what could happen in the dungeon." Canoe throws as a parting quip.

No, you never know.

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Lili, after using Check on 'em punks: ...but what if murder?
Whoooo, the new forum view is weird. I need to mess with the settings.

minuseven · May 12, 2024

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More power, that's what she needs. Is this what other adventurers feel, the ones who have talent? Well, now she's also among them and discovering that even talent plateaus. The difficulty of growing is exponential.

After getting her skills to a certain point, it becomes harder and harder to grow them. On top of that, goblins and kobolds on the second floor are worth only as much as the first's. She believes that further down monsters will grant her more excelia, but she has been hesitant to delve deeper. She's been to lower floors many times before, but always with the protection of a party and the guarantee of decent equipment.

Two of her skills are lagging behind the others. Aside from that, she's been taking most crystals instead of spending them on getting stronger. She's been conservative until now. But nobody gets strong by being careful and conservative. Her situation won't change if she keeps being careful and conservative. Every fiber of her rebels against taking risks, but in the end, it isn't much different than stepping into the dungeon alone for the first time, or hiding monster stones from her employers for the first time.

She descends to the third floor, the fourth. With trepidation, the fifth.

Here, things change, the dungeon shifting, and her profits as well. She sinks her blade into the back of a kobold, striking precisely at its crystal and taking the power immediately for herself. The results are different, greater. Twice as much as she would get in the upper floors.

She adjusts her plans accordingly. Now knowing how to keep growing, she returns above. She needs money for the day, before she invests tomorrow. The rest will go towards making herself strong enough to kill that bastard.

Barehanded, she tears into monsters, growing. It's so much easier as a monk, but it's the white magic she needs. It's much later than usual when she returns to the surface, and she hides in the shadow of the tower until she is sure that Canoe isn't waiting for her.

They could be waiting for her here, or at the guild, or wherever they think she is sleeping. There are a limited number of places she used to frequent. But not today. Even they have to work for a living. At least, they have others to bully and extort. Cynically, she knows they won't appear for a while, waiting for her to gather some money. But it still keeps her on her toes, scared of every shadow.

How bad is it that she's more afraid of them than the monsters? She really hates this world.

Liliruca Arde
[Wind]
Strength 420 :: Stamina 425 :: Agility 159 :: Magic 580
[Thief 8](0): Find Passages
[Knight 10](0)
[Black Mage 8](0): Fire, Blizzard, Thunder
[White Mage 5](0): Cure, Libra
[Monk 7](0): Kick, Focus
[Blue Mage 9](5): Check

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uhm. that's my buffer gone. i've really been struggling to write recently.

minuseven · May 11, 2023

Jumping off the stage at Kiyomizu

She hated Maki. Hated, hated her.

If she hadn't left, Mai wouldn't be in this position.

She tripped on a root and was sent sprawling. She let go of her borrowed weapon, catching herself on her arms before her chin could hit the dirt. A whimper cut through the night. She scrambled for the fallen naginata and did her best to ignore the aches and bruises that grew with each passing second.

A stray, delirious thought: This would be so much worse if Maki hadn't left her uniform behind.

No, Mai clenched her jaw until it hurt, panicked breaths hitting the back of her teeth like animals trying to break free. She wasn't going to give her sister anything. This was all her fault. Maki left to be a sorcerer, so Mai had to become a sorcerer too.

The crunching of wood, like bone, approached from behind. She dug the butt of the polearm into the ground, heaved herself up on doe legs. The multi-track voice that was chasing her grew louder, the only clue she had of the curse's position in the darkness. She turned the edge of her weapon towards the sound, trying her best to copy a stance she'd seen her sister use.

Her entire body was trembling. The point of the blade shook so much it was surprising it hadn't already fallen from her death grip. She didn't know what she was doing.

Mai had barely been given enough time to get dressed in Maki's abandoned clothes and to pick a weapon from storage, before being bundled into a car for her first mission. She wasn't strong or fast. She'd never picked up a weapon before, much less trained with one. She still avoided the weak curses skittering in the corners of the estate, so weak nobody would ever assign them a grade. She cowered and clung and she'd been thrown into the deep end.

The Zen'in didn't care. Maki had exorcized a Grade Three curse. Mai had to do better. And if she died, they'd just dangle her rotten corpse in front of her sister so they could laugh at her. She was an accessory to Maki, a by-product, something she had to drag around. She'd been discarded like offal but their blood wouldn't allow that. So now she hung on her leash, strangling with each step Maki took forward.

Gods. It pissed her off so much. The anger was acidic in her stomach, burning her from the inside.

The cursed spirit breached the edge of her vision, lopping on three legs. Saw-teeth gargled begging words (help help me i'm lost mama help it's dark dark) and spit bubbling drool. It had no eyes to see Mai but numerous orifices on its bulbous head opened and closed, taking in her fear and disgust like delicacies. A curse from lost hikers and abandoned children, Mai remembered with a touch of irony amidst the apprehension.

She had to stop running. She couldn't physically run anymore. Mai was lost, lost like all the children who'd died in these woods. There was a weapon in her hands. It wasn't what she wanted, but it was all she had. So she'd use it. She didn't want to die.

She braced herself, pushed forward with the polearm. Her half-hearted charge caught her hunter by surprise, somehow managing to sink the blade on its body. It moaned and pulled back, wounded. A giggle escaped Mai. She'd done it? No. The edges of the tear closed like it'd never existed and Mai realized with a sinking feeling she'd forgotten to imbue her cursed energy into the blade.

A step back, another almost fall as she felt around for the oily thing inside herself. It was never easy to grasp it, the energy wanting to exist away from her, in another place.

The curse pounced from the corner of her eye. She shrieked, flailed with the naginata, the weight of it escaping from her weaker hand and pulling her down. This time, she hit the ground shoulder first, the pole of her weapon wedged somewhere between her ribs, her arm and stones. Hooks pulled at her clothes. Something cold lanced through her bones before the pain hit, burning needles that exploded from her thigh and rolled across her body, freezing her breath with its intensity. It was worse than anything she'd felt before, worse than broken bones or burns or the cursed scratches from the basement ones.

The curse released its jaws to bite down again higher up on the fatter meat of her leg. Mai screamed. She bucked, dislodging its jaw, atavistic terror in every convolution. There was something solid in her hand and she grabbed that lifeline with all she had. Her vision was flashing with yellow-edge black spots, but the naginata moved as lightly as a bamboo broom in the surge of adrenaline. The curse flew back, but it righted itself on its three legs, teeth red. It wasn't even wounded, so unbothered she might as well have hit it with an actual broom. She clambered onto her knees, heartbeat so fast it drowned out all sounds and signs that her body was sending.

An explosion rent the air.

Lightless, a burst of air crashed and rebounded, the soundwave slamming into Mai like a slap. Her ears rang and tittered as she blinked, refocusing on the forest. Mind blank with dread, she looked forward. Her blue eyes, pinprick small in their orbits, saw the curse first, charred and flopping around. Half-caught in the blast, it was missing half its limbs, gaps opened between the holes in its head, yipping in its approximation of pain. (hurts dark hurts hurts mama)

Like she'd been.

Everything spilled from her, fear and anger and hatred, the oil bubbling, roiling and rising to the surface. Mai wasn't in a state to care about the numbness that wrapped around her hands, the sizzle of her energy as it dripped from the space inside her bones. The tool in her hands popped and frothed with all the pain of tonight. Wood and metal struck the spirit and again and again and again and again and again and fell from her trembling arms.

A mess of black and purple and red spread across rock, congealed like old, disgusting natto. It smoked into ephemeral black particles.

She felt nothing anymore.

The inside of her head was stilling, storm gone, waves lulling. When it became mirror smooth and clear, she noticed her body was beyond feeling as well. No legs, no arms, no heartbeat and no pain. The circles floating around her overtook her vision before her body hit the ground.

Why, you might ask. Ahah, I can't not iterate on my ideas again and again... and I read a cool F/SNxEragon xover while Zen'in Mai was (and still is) living rent-free in my head. An ooold variation of Arya sends Saphira's egg through dimensions (a classic magical mistake) that I first envisioned like a decade ago for a Familiar of Zero xover. I am enjoying writing Mai (suffering) way too much and the thought of mental bond dragon basically imprints on girl with huuuuge abandonment issues is ripe for co-dependency !! I love it.
Title from a recently discovered factoid about a buddhist temple dedicated partially to the azure dragon in kyoto. Means the same as "taking a leap of faith/a plunge" and it will be relevant both to Mai's actions after a thoroughly traumatizing experience and 'Saphira''s choice regarding her rider.

minuseven · May 13, 2023

Jumping off the stage at Kiyomizu

She remembered who she was in increments. Grains of sand were washed away, taken by the waves. She remembered who she wasn't and the bitter shock of it all, a week or so old, roused her with a sob. She was alone.

The physical world returned in skips, low resolution. Her lousy uncle's voice resonated in her head, low fps, blurred background art, and her headache increased. Then the aches sharpened into excruciating clarity. The ground spun and she managed to vomit what little she had left to the side. Her leg throbbed with such intensity she wasn't sure it was really there. Painstakingly, she got up on her elbows and assessed the damage.

Ugly, vertigo-inducing rents were marked on her trousers and the skin beneath. Red spread over, staining the white fabric close to her waist. It wasn't entirely dry, she comforted herself, so she mustn't have been unconscious for long, right? The February cold and humidity that soaked her through told another story. How much blood had left her body?

She let her head fall, panting. The pain refused to leave, like always. She almost wished she could die. Dying in the jaws of a curse was scary, but it wouldn't be so bad to just fall asleep, would it? Her leg pulsed every time her heart kept on beating. "Stupid. Trying to take the easy way out after everything you did to not die." She admonished herself, crying.

Truly, she didn't want to die. She just dreaded the next steps of surviving.

Full-body quakes staggered her as she fought to rise to her knees. There was nobody to hide from here, so she voiced out every renewed hurt and anger. Curses spilled from her lips, certain to birth a spirit or two to haunt these woods once again. She found the handle of her weapon in the faint moonlight. The blade was clear of any remains, dissolved back into the world.

One good thing going for her, at least she'd been unconscious when she'd hit what was left of the curse. She didn't think she could stomach that thought.

Looking for a tree to hold on to, her fingers found burnt bushes, crackling and breaking at the softest of touches. The light was scarce, but even in her dim and blurring vision, the circle of burnt nature was visible. At its very center, something glimmered. A blue and white surface revealed itself, polished like the inside of the glazed ceramic cups back home. A smooth, oval object, something like a stone. It must have been what produced the blast that had crippled the cursed spirit and saved Mai's life.

Was it some sort of technique? It wasn't a curse. Mai was not a good sorcerer, bordering on mediocre only by virtue of having a cursed technique rather than nothing at all. She had no power, very little control, and abysmal reserves. But her senses had always been good, her nerves alight with terror at the things she felt on every pore. Like prey, she'd learned how to recognize the feel of cursed energy, from spirits and from humans, and what it transmitted to her. An invaluable survival skill that had kept her safe from the darker moods her family could take. She'd even chased down the oil within Maki and realized what it meant.

The stone didn't have cursed energy. Her palm hovered over it. It did not even feel like the forest, steeped in the negativity of the neighboring villages. Perhaps it had discharged all its energy in the explosion, but Mai felt like she should at least be seeing residuals. The clearing burned into existence was free of those. Or maybe everything was too out of focus, eyelids heavy with dangerous lethargy.

Her fingers grazed its surface then pushed lightly. The stone was moved without resistance, rolling happily at her touch. Curiously, she picked it up. It was light. The length of her forearm and as wide as a temari ball at its thickest, it was light like bamboo rather than stone. Turning it this way and that, it was a rich azure color, with delicate pearl white veins running across its surface. It looked like a good omen, even if she did her best not to believe in such things. It had undoubtedly saved her life, appearing as it had.

Mai had always liked shiny things. It often got her into trouble, but the only lesson she'd taken from it was the need to not get caught.

She tucked the stone inside the folds of her jacket. It was pretty, and it wouldn't slow her down any more than the holes in her leg or the bruises she had lost count of. She had a long way to go, so she would take this little thing. Mai was good at taking the little things life offered. She didn't need to reach for more, not like Maki.

She shook herself and forced her body upright, a half-scream coming from too weak lungs.

In running away from the cursed spirit, she'd embroiled herself into the woods. Not too far, she hoped, but more than enough that the brute that had driven the car wouldn't look for her. Some sorcerers were looked for, even if just to find their bodies and exorcize their predators. The one Kukuru that had dragged her to the mountains surrounding Kyoto would check where she should be, if she was lucky, and assume she was dead.

And if she wasn't yet, the mountain would soon take her.

In the best case scenario, they'd send another man to hunt down the curse spirit in a day or two. Regardless, he was long gone by now. Mai would have to find her way to the closest road on her own. She was lucky, she'd hit a wire fence as she ran, an almost invisible cage in the dark. Backtracking until she found it would certainly lead her to other people, or at least a road. It wasn't worth thinking about the other possibilities. She wasn't far from the city, she thought. Humans or roads, she'd find one or the other. She would.

She did not think about bears or foxes or other curses, tracking her down like an injured deer. She didn't think about how thirsty she was or how her entrails ached. She didn't even think about the heat of the bite, sawing at her bone with each step. She thought about all the times Maki had helped her up, or when she'd carried her on her back after she'd twisted her ankle. She longed, she cried, and that was all she could do.

There was no more energy to spare on feelings.

Guess who's nooot coping with deadlines. Also, continuing this scene was real easy. I've got a good progression in my head of where I want Mai to be at, physically and emotionally, until Saphira hatches. Then it's anooother story, because //politics//. But the next part is an outsider pov (poor man working at the gas station/konbini meets either a ninja, a youkai or a yakuza, takes pictures and unknowingly acts better than 100% of the people in her life) which will be fun.
Hm, also undecided on a new name for Saphira, because the japanese words is... safaia and, hm, no.
Should end with, "bc i am not coping, it got posted on ao3" D:

Title Here: Multi-fandom Writings

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