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#but the loneliness the worry the isolation of just calling into the void but never hearing back? it sucked so hard

ihaveatheoryonthat · 2 years

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Pneumothorax

I’ve been wanting to write something for @monsoon-of-art ‘s Mer AU for some time now, but only found my footing with it last night. It’s, fittingly, a little bit floaty, to accommodate an open placement/ending.

TW for death-related subject matter (specifically drowning and suffocation) and injury. Don’t worry, though, nobody’s actually going to die. He just thinks he will.

---

What was better: to suffocate, or to drown?

They were similar, of course-- the fatal flaw a lack of air in the lungs-- but realistically, what was the difference? Would it be simpler to drown? Faster? Would it hurt more to stay put, to cope with the building panic of being unable to draw breath?

For a dark, selfish second, Ingo wished he’d asked Palina what it had been like beneath the ice; perhaps, then, he’d know what to do.

Without meaning to, he shifted against the shoal, subconsciously preparing to push himself into the waters, and stopped cold when the drag of his coat jostled the subject of his internal debate. He had yet to remove the harpoon lodged in his side, some distant memory telling him it would only worsen the situation.

He should add that to the list of options, actually. Wait above, until his pierced lung collapsed entirely, dive down and allow it to fill with seawater, or rip the point out and exsanguinate. None of them quick, none of them anything approaching painless.

Distantly, he reminded himself that, in a sense, this was a quicker death. Merfolk needed companionship to survive and, while he was infinitely grateful to the clan for all they’d done, there was a void inside of him that had never stopped hemorrhaging that goodwill into the water.

Before Irida had deigned to take him in, he’d tried to treat the emptiness inside with fresh air and sun. Something inside of him-- the same something that insisted he not touch the harpoon-- thought sunlight was supposed to help. There was something good that came of it, that helped when one was feeling run down; the attempt hadn’t worked, of course, because it wasn’t what he’d needed. A mer couldn’t heal debilitating loneliness with nice weather.

And all the bonds in the clan couldn’t restore whatever he’d lost.

Could one form a bond so strong that its absence was enough to kill, even when surrounded by friendly faces? That’s certainly what it felt like. The net of friendships kept him from falling headlong into this yawning chasm, deeper than the isolation that had nearly claimed his life, but if he didn’t watch the currents carefully, he could always be dragged into its undertow.

The practical part of him that had taken root to survive Hisui’s waters reasoned that this was as much as he could ask for: to have spared a friend’s life and cut his own already-withering vitae short. The rest of him, idealistic to the last, rallied against the thought, unable to accept such a grim outlook.

There was a call over the water-- Dawn. Of course it was Dawn. She wouldn’t do the sensible thing and flee after being shot at. She wouldn’t continue on the track he’d sent her down, when he’d used his tail to propel her out of harm’s way. She wouldn’t simply return to the safety of the cavern when there were yet threats in the water, stirred by the activity of humans and merfolk alike.

The girl’s keening was overtaken by a more confident hail, one which demanded response.

More than anything, Ingo was surprised Irida would tolerate Dawn’s company long enough to get this far.

What to do? He was incapable of departing with them, but neither could he compromise their safety by letting them linger. What was the most humane option? To drown, to ignore their searching cries and let them believe him lost, or to slowly suffocate, to reach out and let them realize there was nothing to be done for him?

He thought of the harpoon, still wedged between two ribs, damming the flow of blood. For all his catastrophizing, he had yet to touch it; to pull it out here and now was a decision he wouldn’t come back from. He’d nearly returned to the water on autopilot, but his conscious mind had stopped him at the reminder of what that would mean.

It seemed, without realizing it, he’d made a choice: to hold on and hope, as much as it might hurt.

Inching forward to greet the sea, but not join it, Ingo took the deepest breath he could muster and called back.

#ihaveatheoryonthat pkmn #submas #fanfic

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nickywhoisi · 2 years

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I just realized...that so many of my posts are getting...noticed? By other people? And it’s all been such a massive change from the isolation I had “gotten used to” and it’s so...wonderfully positive and nice? Maybe it’s dumb that I’m noticing so late, but...I would like to mention a very important factoid about me.

I have this new account, but I’ve actually been on tumblr for many years before. There was one account I used to have that I worked so hard to make so I could do what I’m doing now. But for some reason, I was never able to get traction going on it...like, at all. Nobody came around. Not a single notification had ever popped up in the whole two years I had that. It was as if I were all alone in a ghost town. I knew there were loads of people online, yet nobody ever seemed to reblog the things I was most passionate about creating, the posts I worked the hardest on. I was doing it for me, true, but I was also doing it for others too, and I considered that important. Yet I grew pretty upset that nothing seemed to be working for me to finally be a part of things, live the experience everyone else seemed to be getting and have an audience to call my very own, so I could finally share myself with the world in a meaningful way. And for many years afterward, I would be lurking, just looking at others’ blogs that I still liked, but it was pretty bad because I was always wistfully longing without using an account to talk to anyone. I was pretty convinced there was nobody who ever wanted to talk to me, or like me. It was as if everyone who ever said “there’s always someone who’s going to be there for you” was being proven wrong...and that’s how it stayed. You can imagine the bitterness that was arising from that kind of treatment. I worry that’s still coming out sometimes, as I type now.

But finally, all it took was finding the right fandom, just trying one more time at doing the exact same thing I wanted to do for myself, and letting whatever happened happen. I legitimately thought this new blog of mine would suffer the same fate as my old one (in fact, I wonder if it’s still the same as it ever was, nobody even knowing it exists) and I was ready to feel impossibly isolated again. Then maybe I would have just...sworn off any kind of trying at social media. It was my last shot, and I would have let myself get swallowed by the void of loneliness if nothing improved. But then it did. Because I guess I forgone all my past gripes and allowed myself to obtain even a little bit of happiness in the TTTE fandom. How ironic that I thought I would have been treated badly and cast out further by identifying as part of this group and so had never posted any of this on that old blog, and there was never this much activity, excitement, and genuine moments where I’ve gotten to talk to others and even achieve friendship. Now on this one, I’ve done the opposite, and it’s all been happening. I cannot begin to say how even if I really do wish I had gotten this ages ago, before this new climate has happened...it’s so great that I am getting this now, instead of never at all.

So I am trying my hardest to hold onto all memories of the good things that have been coming to my life lately, and to not let the bad things cripple me out of being positive. I hope that what...this is, this atmosphere, just stays as is and continues on. It’s beautiful to finally, after toiling for this long, be allowed to belong somewhere. I hope you’ll all reblog and talk to me often, I’ll always be eager to chat, or lend an ear. Please don’t be afraid to dm, leave a message, whichever. It’s all so exciting and I am ready to interact always, no matter what mood. Come in!

#thank goodness I'm feeling a bit better #I'm already getting my positivity back just by remembering #feels great #^_^#ramble brambles #boy I really want to be able to post more of my art too...so much I want to do #not under read more because I finally have more positive things to say and it's so relieving

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sweetestlamb · 3 years

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Mostrami Amore.

Summary: Cha-young tries to move on from a certain mafia boss.

Author’s Note: Thank for to everyone who sent in prompts for Chayenzo, it resulted in this mess. I don’t have much to say, I considered making this into a multi- chaptered story but honestly I don’t have time for another ongoing story so if this seems rushed it was a little, I wrote it in one go today. Hope you enjoy this, I stuck in some of my favorite crack ship because I am weak and obsessed. Happy reading!

p.s takes place after final episode but han seo lives because this is my world and I get to play God.

Another postcard.

Their delivery becomes sporadic and she’s embarrassed at the giddiness that washes over her each time a new square is sent miles across a wide stretch of ocean, the view on the card most likely lackluster in comparison to the true rendering of Malta. She has spent many hours on her laptop searching for images of the small paradisiac island, yearning to see what he sees and feel just a tad bit closer to him. Most of her life has been spent in solitude with only her work acquaintances filling the void at times, so she expected herself to be more equipped to deal with his disappearance and subsequent absence. But nothing prepares her for those moments at the coffee shop, when she finds herself smiling across a table only to realize there is no miniature espresso cup in the hand of a very dangerous Italian Korean mafia member grinning back at her.

The smile melts off her face and she swallows the bitter cool sludge in her cup, the beverage tasting exactly as he had described it without him there.

Nights are the hardest, loneliness coils around her like a snake.

There was never any other fate for them, she knew that when Vincenzo murdered all their enemies this was their only real outcome. He would always be a fugitive on the run and she an accomplice if he were captured and questioned, it was in both of their best interests if he vanished from the face of the planet. But knowing that does nothing to qualm the ever present feeling of isolation that clings to her skin as she sits alone on her couch, downing makgeolli at a vicious pace. Trying to wash his taste from her mouth, that kiss on loop in her mind and the phantom grip of his hand on her neck.

It’s those treacherous nights without the plaza members that have become a second family to her and Han Seo following her like the lost puppy he is calling her “Noona” so freely and frequently until she forgets her own name, that she allows herself to feel exactly what she’s feelings.

Heartbroken.

Desperate.

Lonely.

Rage.

The last one she hides like a dirty secret in the closet of her heart, she knew what she was signing up for. She has no legitimate reason to be angry, or so she tries to reason with herself. But. This was the same man who had bypassed the security of one of the richest men in Korea and ultimately killed him without leaving a trace. She had watched him do despicable things, blackmailing, threatening, seducing, and murdering others as he saw fit and yet, he hadn’t used any of those dastardly ways to see her. That chance meeting at the art gallery had been the last she had seen of him, Then a few weeks later another postcard with the same message she had boldly uttered at the airport, it feels insufficient after having him in her arms again. She knew in that moment that they would never be enough again. She hadn’t even argued when Mr. Nam claimed he would leave this one on his table instead, she merely nodded and walked away to peruse the new sexual assault case she has taken recently.

It gets harder and harder to hear Han Seo regaling the wonders of his “hyung”, her anger boiling deep below the surface like magma waiting to explode and transform into something tangible and destructive.

“He told me that he has a room for me too. I wonder when he’ll let us visit.”

She nods absently, staring out the window at the sunlight twinkling in through the blinds but then his words register and the gears in her head churn before running the sentence back through to carefully process them.

“He---what? You spoke to Vincenzo?”

The human puppy pouts his lips before tilting his head and dealing a hard blow to her ego and her heart, “Yeah, he sends me letters. I got so scared the first time! He said the letter would self-destruct after I read it and I really thought that was true and I dived across the room to escape but I bumped my head on the table and then...”

He sent Han Seo letters.

She had received the same fucking postcard for months on end with the same message she had said to him, and he had time to write Han Seo letters. He hadn’t sent her even one in the time he had been gone.

“That fucking bastard!” She explodes interrupting Han Seo’s recount of his near death experience and he looks wide- eyed and taken back by her outburst, she almost soothes him before another wave of anger rushes through her veins. She had accepted the bare minimum because she thought this was all he could give her but it seemed she was being too naïve. He was Vincenzo Cassano after all, he could make anything happen. She had seen it with her own two eyes. If he wasn’t reaching out to her maybe that was a message and she was too blind to see it.

“Noona? Are you okay?” Han Seo looks absolutely terrified, eyes huge and quivering. She doesn’t bother answering, grabbing her cup of lukewarm coffee and stomping out of the office ignoring Mr. Nam’s calls behind her. She’s tired of being an idiot.

She throws herself into forgetting him, the same way he seems to have forgotten her despite his words to her that fateful night on the stairs.

I thought about you everyday.

Actions speak louder than words and she is done accepting his crumbs. She has never needed anyone, had even accepted when her own father wanted nothing to do with her; she has basically been prepping for this moment her entire life.

So she goes shopping with Miri, buying gadgets that she has no idea how to use but that the other girl makes sound like things that she definitely needs such as a new home security system, her break in still fresh in her mind. She grins at the pretty smile on the other girl’s round face as she explains the specification of the machines around them and she can see why Han Seo has such a huge crush on the girl, the pretty blush that blossoms on the other girl’s cheek after stating the fact out loud is adorable and she pinches said cheek much to her chagrin.

“You should worry about your own love life.” Miri teases but the words sting like acid on her skin and she turns away to hide the grimace on her face, but she’s not fast enough and the other girl catches her wrist halting her movement.

“What? What’s wrong? Did something happen to Mr. Cassano?” Miri whispers the last part, looking around to make sure that nobody overhears them.

She forces herself to stifle her emotions, trapping them in the back of her mind refusing to let him have this kind of affect on her.

“I wouldn’t know.” She tries for a emotionless tone but even she can hear the bitterness in her own voice and Miri’s eyes fill with pity and it makes her sick to her stomach, “Don’t. I am going to be fine. Let’s just go.”

They don’t utter single word in the car ride home.

After that it becomes painfully obvious that everyone in the plaza thinks something is wrong with her and are teaming up to make her feel better. It’s the packed lunches that keep showing up on her desk without fail, her clothes being steamed and pressed for free, the way that they won’t allow her to be alone and there are countless spontaneous family game nights all ending with her drunk and being carried home.

Tonight Mr. Tak is the unlucky volunteer, dragging her limp body in her father’s house and she thinks of all the times that they drank here together and a certain person was the one hauling her body to bed complaining and grumbling but that distractingly fond smile on his face that he only ever seemed to shoot her way. Her heart thumped loudly as he loomed over her and leaned in close, getting her hopes up only to brush her hair behind her ears and softly tell her, “Go to sleep now,” and she had never been obedient all her teachers could testify to that but when he looked at her like that she was powerless to do anything else but listen.

“I miss him.” The traitorous words fall from her lips and vanish into the inky darkness of the night.

A deep sigh from the left of her, “We know.”

She feels vulnerable, the worst thing about having a weakness is other’s noticing too. She hates how weak she feels.

“I am going to forget him.”

The body supporting most of her weight tenses under her arm and she waits for his response, they all love Vincenzo- he had become their unexpected hero and leader in many ways. They would always take his side, she knows that.

“If that’s what you need to do to be happy. Then, do it. Loving a man like Vincenzo isn’t easy.”

She turns to look at him in genuine shock.

“What? You thought I would tell you to keep waiting with no end in sight? You should know by now, you mean a lot to us too. Your happiness is important to us too, we’re a family.”

“But we’re the Cassano family,” she challenges unable to accept that they could love her without Vincenzo attached, but Mr. Tak shrugs at the clarification, “We can be the Hong Family too.”

She feels her eyes swimming.

“I should go inside.”

She feels sober and more awake than ever, she stays up all night twirling the long strands of her hair in between her fingers.

Thinking.

Variety is the spice of life.

She doesn’t know where she’s heard that but it’s those sage words that are the catalyst for her spontaneous decision.

“Same as always? Silky with some body?” Her stylist peers into her eyes through the wide mirror and she hears herself say, “No I want a cut and some color.” Yu-jin raises one pretty tweezed brow but nods after a moment’s pause, “Okay. How short are you thinking?”

And that’s how she starts her day with long thick hair that grazes her lower back and ends it with a short bob that tickles her neck. It feels like a weight has been lifted from her shoulder, metaphorically and literally and she loves the face that she sees in the mirror, her eyes looking brighter than they have in months. She feels more alive, like a snake shedding its skin and becoming a newer and fresher version of itself.

“Your hair?” That becomes the running theme for her day, shocked gaping mouths and hands reaching out for the hair that was once there. She merely smirks at their palpable surprise, especially Seol-jin who doesn’t recognize her from behind.

“I haven’t seen a pretty lady like you aro--Oh Ms. Hong! I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize you, I am so sorry please excuse me!” The interpretative dancer bolts away leaving her to watch him bemused, she skips to Jipuragi with a pep in her step laughing loudly when Mr. Nam drops his coffee upon seeing her and the brown liquid goes flying and douses him in a sticky hot mess.

It’s an entertaining day to say the least.

Moments later when he’s finished cleaning himself up and changing into the cheetah print track suit that he insisted to keeping in the office, he mentions that a new postcard has arrived. She nods at the information, looking at her laptop and it’s only seconds later that she finally looks up and sees that he’s waiting for her response. She doesn’t have one.

Forcing a tight smile on her face she replies, “Oh that’s great. Just put it with the others.”

He does.

But she can feel his eyes on her, his concern heavy and tangible in the air.

She pretends not to notice and keeps clicking away on her laptop, only glancing over at the card once or twice. But it’s only out of habit.

Nothing more.

She starts going on dates with random men. Men she meets in coffee shops, on the streets, in bars, hell one time even the bookstore. She never meets the same man twice and they never get what they want but it does make her feel desirable and that’s all she’s looking for.

“Where are you going?” Han Seo asks her curiously, Miri by his side as she struts out the plaza new perfume on her skin.

“On a date. I’ll see you both later.” They both gape at her and can only watch with wide eyes as she sashays away, heels clicking with every step.

Word spreads like wildfire and no one takes it harder than Mr. An, who calls her a “jezebel” and cries at the front of the law firm for hours, she has to step over him to go get lunch shaking him off when he latches on to her ankles.

The others just look at her with sad eyes, filled with both understanding and disappointment.

Much to her surprise the lunch boxes keep coming and her clothes are still pressed and starched to perfection though.

She also starts taking self defense classes, Korea is much more dangerous than she had first suspected and she has to be able to protect herself because nobody is coming to save her. Not anymore.

It becomes a great outlet for her built up anger and her instructor praises her for being a fast learner. She grins and nods before flipping him and twisting his arm around his own neck in a modified sleeper hold. When he taps on her arm she squeezes tighter instead of letting go and he goes limp for a moment before she comes back to herself and releases him hastily with a quick apology, “Sorry!”

He rubs his neck, panting for air and she feels guilty, there's a tinge of that but most of all she feels powerful, more so than she has for a long time.

It’s crazy but she finds herself asking him for drinks after class and even crazier is that he agrees even with her marks still there on his skin, the area bruised and red. He looks at her like she’s challenge that he wants to conquer, she lets him believe that’s possible. It’s only a bit of fun anyway, she has no plans for anything serious.

Drinks turn into a drunken cab ride home with his hand on her thigh, hot through the thin material of her tights and they don’t feel right- too small and not rough enough but she’s moving on and she has no time to reminisce.

There hasn’t even been a postcard lately. Message, loud and clear.

When she shoves the keys into her door, he’s glued to her body leaving wet kisses on the long column of her neck and she tries to suppress the nausea that swims in her stomach, everything feels wrong and she hates herself for feeling that way. Why shouldn’t she fuck whoever she wants? He is probably doing the same thing, everyday on his beautiful private island. Kissing women that aren’t her and whispering dirty Italian words into their ears as he rocks back and forth, nary a thought of that Korean woman he knew once upon a time.

Fuck him.

She rocks back into the purposeful grind of the hips behind her, feeling the hardness that digs into the soft flesh of her ass and finally the door opens and they both tumble in haphazardly and he thrusts a hand under her loose shirt fingering at her breasts before a dark figure moves far too quickly in her peripheral and she hears her date cry out in pain.

She almost faints at the familiar sight of the one person she never expected to see, the hard glint of his cold eyes as he twists the same hand that had just been fondling her chest. The grip looks painful, the wrist contorted in an unnatural manner.

“What the fuck? You have a boyfriend?!” Her instructor cries out, voice high pitched falling to his knees as Vincenzo kicks his feet out from under him.

She rolls her eyes, of course he would come now when she is trying (and failing) to get over him.

Vindictively she answers the question, ‘No.”

But that makes Vincenzo twist the wrist in his grip even tighter and she can see the bones breaking so she takes pity on the poor man, he didn’t sign up for a murderous mafia leader after all.

“Just let him go. You have no right to do any of this.”

He doesn’t listen right away and absently she wonders if she’ll need to test out her new moves on him, it would be satisfying to deck him square in the face. She dreams of that as often as she dreams of their reunion. Her feelings are...complicated to say the least.

Then with a grunt, he throws the other man away like he’s trash and growls out, “Get out of here before I kill you.”

She tries not be get turned on by that. But it’s a hard sell, her body already getting revved up. He’s telling the truth.

The man wastes no time, jumping to his feet and bolting out the door without one backwards glance. Asshole, he was really just leaving her with a clearly unstable and dangerous man.

“We need to talk.” Vincenzo squeezes out between clenched teeth, and her blood runs cold but she stares him dead in the eyes tired of this game they’ve been playing, if he’s here to end things she wants to know.

“Okay. Then talk.”

She looks insanely beautiful, with her hair cropped so short bringing his eyes to the tantalizing length of her neck. His eyes close in on a spot of moisture on her neck, he feels his blood boiling imagining that bastard touching any part of her. She’s glaring right back at him, her chest rising and falling and he can’t help but check her out, it’s been months since he saw her in person the photo of her doing aerial yoga above his bed couldn’t compare to the tempest that is Cha-young in real life.

The flat plane of her belly is on display under the white crop top loosely stretched across her chest which leads down to her slim hips and legs wrapped in white spandex, leaving very little to the imagination not that he hasn’t imagined her in far less many, many times. Too many times to count. Spilling across the silk adorning his king sized bed with only her name on his lips.

She looks fucking hot.

That makes it even more frustrating because he can still clearly see that bastard wrapped around her like a snake and his hands going up her shirt---he has to take a deep breath before he breaks something. Or chases that asshole to break his face.

There’s so much he wants to say to her, so much he owes her.

I missed you.

I love you.

Come with me.

“Who the hell was that?” He says this instead then watches her eyes glint over into nothing but pure murderous rage. Wrong move. But he couldn’t help it, green eyed raged taking away his decision making abilities.

“That’s all you have to say? Get out.”

He wasn’t expecting rose petals and trumpets when he returned but he definitely wasn’t expecting this, her cold glare or another man in his spot. He thought she would wait for him, just as he had done for her.

“Are you serious right now?” He counters, flabbergasted.

“Deadly. Get out.”

He clenches his fist, and then stomps out. Turning back but only to watch the door slam in his face.

What the hell.

It had only taken a letter from Han Seo to get him on boat that would take him to an open field and hours later he was soaring through the skies on a hot air balloon, on his way back to Korea. It was insane and he barely had time to explain to his family but Luca nodded at him like this was the only choice and told him that he would take care of everything, and he trusted those words more than he had ever trusted anything in his life.

“Vai a prendere la tua donna( go get your woman).”

He had nodded, gruffly patting the other man on his shoulder before hopping over into the waiting boat.

But he wasn’t so certain anymore that Cha-young was his.

She seems different. Colder almost, she leaves whenever I mention your name and she goes on dates now. I think she’s moving on hyung, what are you going to do?

Those words had been the scariest thing he had never seen. Scarier than every gun that had ever been pointed at his head. He thought what they had was something special, something that could stand the test of time and distance. He stared at the huge pile of letters on his bedside, all addressed to her. He had written one everyday since they had been separated, but each time he was too much of a coward to send it. In those letters he could say things that he could never say to her face, things like how much he ached without her by his side and how her smile was the only thing that kept him going. In those letters he could regal the ways he loved her, and how deeply she had been branded into his soul, every atom of his body belonged to her and her alone. He would kill for her, die for her, anything she needed or merely wanted he would provide it, all she needed to do was ask.

He could only share those feelings in the letters.

He walks for hours, until he ends up at his old apartment the familiar door greeting him and he sticks his hand in his pocket before he remembers that he gave the key away, with a sigh he starts to walk away before the door creaks open and he hears a voice he hasn’t heard in months.

“Hyung!”

A warmth spreads across his back as a solid weight almost knocks him off his feet. He reaches one arm around his body, awkwardly slapping the face that is pressing into his collar.

“You really chose to stay here.”

He feels the nod on his shoulder, “Of course. It made me feel closer to you hyung, I missed you.”

He grunts in response, before turning around and tugging the younger man into a real hug. He had missed the annoying little leech too, he had missed everyone.

They are still in each other’s embrace for a moment before Han Seo pulls away, sympathy etched deep on his face.

“She wasn’t happy to see you.”

“There was someone else there.” He hates the words even as they leave his mouth and Han Seo winces, looking pained for him before tugging him into the small apartment. Everything is just like he left it. He looks around in awe.

“I’m sorry hyung. What are you going to do?”

That’s the golden question, he pondered it all the way here and he’s no closer to knowing the answer to that. Usually she is the one that makes the move, she has always been the brave one between them. He back steps and says things he doesn’t mean and she sees through him and smashes down all his walls. That’s how this has always worked.

“I don’t know. Maybe I should just leave her alone. Let her be happy.”

A loud scoff reaches his ears, “Sure. Is that why you sailed across sharked infested waters and trusted a hot air balloon company run my former thugs?”

He smarts at the sarcastic reply and glares before flicking the cheeky brat on his nose, "I liked you better when you were stupid you know. Now you're a little smart ass."

The younger man looks even more youthful as he grins back at him, rubbing at his nose before shrugging. "I learned from the best."

He has no rebuttal for that so he tries to flick him again, giving chase when he darts off.

It feels good to be home.

He warns Han Seo not to tell anyone that he's here least they give away his location.

So he's not surprised the next day to find the cavalry at his doorstep hands filled to the brim with containers of food. There are tears, mostly from Mr. Nam who won't stop screaming his name and pinching his cheeks to see if he's real and Mr. An who wraps around him like a koala despite his very detailed threats. It's all chaos and so familiar that his heart aches but her absence is like a hole in his chest. Nobody mentions her but they all keep looking at the door, so it's obvious that she was invited but chose not to come.

Because she didn't want to see him.

"You're here to win her back right?" He doesn't know who even utters the words but when he glances up they are all looking at him expectantly.

He didn't know that was what he was indeed here for thought that she would happily welcome him back and they could pick up where they left off but she's made it clear that this won't be the case. This will be the most important fight of his life.

"Yes. I'm here for Cha-young."

He gets enthusiastic thumbs up and a loud giggle from the Yeon-Jin and Cheol-Wook’s adorable baby, her little hands too uncoordinated to do a thumbs up but she waves excitedly feeding off the energy around her.

He wonders how Cha-young would look with a baby in her arms, their baby it's a dangerous thought. But one that he can't get out of his mind once he thinks it.

They stay until midnight, forcing him to eat and drink too much soju until he passes out to dreams filled with a round Cha-young, belly swollen and protruding from her body.

It doesn't take much to learn her schedule(Mr. Nam hands him a laminated copy) and he has to put on a disguise but he enters the shop seconds after her, hearing her order that god awful sewer water she's so fond of.

"An espresso for me." He leans in too close, almost brushing her shoulder and she jolts at the sound of his voice, turning to stare at him as if she's a mirage.

"You're still here?" She whispers and then shakes her head and looks away as if she's hadn't meant to say the words aloud.

It hurts him that she thought he would leave without telling her but he can't blame her, he has been anything but consistent. Instead of answering, he leans forward to hand his credit card to the cashier who glances between them suspiciously before accepting the card.

Their orders are ready in seconds and he follows her as she walks to their table, butterflies in his stomach at the familiar sight.

She turns to him with a glare, "It's just the only available table."

He moves to pull out her chair and she starts at him tight lipped before sitting down. She's in a tight black suit today, two long slits on the side of her pants going all the way up to her thighs. He gulps down his drink to get rid of the drool pooling in his mouth.

"You're upset with me."

She stares at him like he's the biggest idiot on the planet, it's not a look he receives often but she's always the outlier in his otherwise organized life.

"Astute observation." She quips back, sucking loudly at her coffee.

"Why?"

He considered how to go about breeching this subject and in the end had decided on going straight to the source, he had been under the impression that this was working for them.

Her face morphs into a person he hasn't seen for a long time, the Cha-young that would berate him and make him angry enough to curse in Italian.

"Do you think this little of me?"

He's completely lost, "What do you mean? What did I do that was so wrong? Wrong enough for you to cheat on me!" He's panting now, his voice has gotten loud enough to catch people's attention he can feel them watching their table, nosy and invested.

"Cheat on you?"

Cold as ice, her voice is. It almost makes him shiver.

"How could I possibly cheat on you? We're not together. You send me the same postcard with the same message every few months. I have no idea what you're doing in Malta, who you're with. You can't even be bothered to send me a letter, do you think this is a relationship? You think it's enough to pop up like this every once in a blue moon? You've told me nothing about how you feel about me but I'm supposed to be satisfied with whatever you throw my way?"

If he wasn't sitting down his legs would have already given out he's certain about that. Her voice is deadly quiet each word landing and chipping away at his confidence.

"I'm doing the best I can! You knew it would be like this after everything was over, why are you blaming me now? How about you, I don't know how you feel either!"

"I love you! Anyone with eyes can see that, I told you that at the airport too. And again when I took a bullet for you, you didn't think that meant I loved you? I was willing to die for you."

Shit.

It's not at all how he expected them to confess their love for each other, it's hard to believe the words that are coming out of her mouth as she bares her teeth at him.

"So why are you doing this? Why are there other men?"

Why aren't I enough? He wants to say but he's scared of her answer, terrified that she'll say that she can't do this anymore. That he just isn’t enough anymore.

She stares at him long and hard.

Waiting for something. But he doesn't know what.

"You haven't changed at all. You're still a coward, I'm not interested in guessing anymore. I’m done playing this game.”

She stands up and walks away, leaving her unfinished coffee on the table.

Unwanted just like him.

She doesn't see him for days and she accepts that her words had done their damage, she had cried until she fell asleep that night. Waking up with swollen red eyes that no amount of concealer would save but thankfully no one commented on her state.

She goes through her day on autopilot and before she knows it she's back home, ready to face her night alone again. She pushes the door open, half praying he'll be waiting for her but her hopes shattered when she turns on the lights and finds no one.

"It's better this way." She lies to herself, pouring herself an obscene glass of soju. She's going to need plenty of alcohol to get through this pain.

Her head is woozy and heavy when she hears a sound, suddenly alert she stills in her chair before rushing over to get a frying pan walking on the tips of her toes she prowls closer to the clicking sound, finding herself at the window peering at a long lost friend. Placing the frying pan on her window sill she pry opens the window, screeching when the audacious bird flies inside landing on her table as if he belongs there.

"Hey Inzaghi! Get your dirty bird feet off my table!"

He looks at her nonchalantly, making himself comfortable on said table and she sighs before shutting the window and drunkenly swaying over to him.

"What are you even doing there? Do you want to be my bird now, I won't be a very good owner. I won't remember to feed you. I barely remember to feed myself."

Despite being a bird he finds a way to roll his eyes at her before standing up and only then does she notice something on his leg. She looks at him cautiously before moving closer and untying the paper on his leg, the pigeon barely reacts before flying over to her couch. She sighs in annoyance, she's going to have to clean everything after this bird leaves.

She unwinds the string holding the paper together, unrolling the paper scroll. There is a message written inside: the rooftop. 9 pm.

Glancing at her clock the time shines at her.

7:34pm.

"This could be a trap."

It very much could be, she has enemies now. It was a small price to pay for taking down Babel but she's always looking over her shoulders now, so this note could easily be someone luring her to hurt her or get back at Vincenzo.

Inzaghi coos loudly at her as if he can hear her thoughts. This time he finds a way to look exasperated.

She stumbles off to her room.

She needs time to think.

"So she told you that she loved you and you didn't say it back?"

"I was shocked. She was growling at me and looked ready to kill me at the same time." He reasons back, trying to show his hyung his point of view. The younger man doesn't look even a little bit convinced by his logic.

"Okay and? That sounds perfectly normal for you too. You should have shot someone and wrote it back in their blood on the table."

He recoils in disgust at the suggestion, "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you actually insane, why the fuck would I do that?"

Han Seo stares deadpan in return.

He puts up a hand trying to stop whatever response he has, "Don't say it."

It doesn't work.

"Pig's blood. Don't forget I saw it all, I've never seen Ms. Hong look so excited before. You're both crazy."

Well, that had been different. It was an old tradition, she simply had an appreciation for the classics.

"And I bet you're defending her right now in your mind. Noona is just like you, that's why you're made for each other. She's the gasoline to your fire."

"You know that would just make an even larger fire right?"

"Yes. I'm smart now remember? I know what I said."

He sighs falling into the comfortable familiarity of the couch, a spring digging into his thigh.

"Why didn't you say it back?" His stills at the barely whispered question, his chest constricting as he recalls the passionate confession. He had frozen, like he'd always known she was the brave one between them. Always doing the unexpected and the time was no different, her words had knocked him off his feet.

"Because I was scared."

Han Seo huffs at his honesty. He doesn't know where the words are coming from but he's tired of keeping it all in.

"Because if anything happens to her it'll break me, I thought it would be better if I kept her at a distance. I thought this was enough. I thought this would be easier. When I think about her I want to drop everything and just be with her and that...was too dangerous. I had to keep my distance."

There's a pregnant pause, just the sound of their breathing filling the void.

"Was it?"

"What?"

"Easier. Is this better? Enough?"

He thinks about Cha-young getting married to a faceless man, exchanging vows and sealing it with a kiss, happy and in love on their honeymoon wanton moans and screams from their room, learning that they're having a baby and her round and glowing with someone else's child smiling brightly as she rubs her belly and it's too much. He wants to smash it all into little pieces.

"No. It's not enough. I need her, without her nothing is enough."

"That's what you should have said to her. Don't glare at me I'm right, but I have an idea. I saw it in an American cartoon."

And that's how he lets his younger brother convince him to send a note to Cha-young using Inzaghi, the pigeon had shown up one night and he'd been so happy he almost kissed the bird.

"How will he know where Cha Young lives?" He asks skeptical even as he ties the note to the birds leg.

"I showed him a picture of her house. According to the cartoon, birds just know.”

He stares at the younger man, wondering why he's listening to this ridiculous plan.

"This is stupid. I should just text her, Inzaghi is never going to deliver this. He's just a regular pigeon."

"This is more romantic." He answers matter of fact.

"How is a pigeon delivering a message in anyway romantic?" He challenges already knowing from the shit eating grin he won’t like the response.

"The same way pig blood was." The brat counters and he doesn't get a chance to respond before Han Seo picks Inzaghi up and throws him out the window, "In the name of love!" He only barely stops himself from bashing his head into the wall, the younger man has to wrestle him to the ground.

It's stupid. They did all of this for nothing the cool breeze makes him pull his coat tighter around his body, exposed to the weather on the open space of the rooftop.

He checks his watch, 9:48.

She's not coming and the worst part is that he doesn't know if it's because that damn bird never delivered his message or if it's because she really doesn't want anything to do with him. The burden of not knowing hurts more than anything.

Expelling the air in his lungs he walks back to the single door that leads off the roof, twisting the doorknob in his hand and pulling it open.

Meeting the shocked face of one Cha-young.

They both just stare at each other before he speaks, "You came."

He can't believe it. Inzaghi had actually delivered the note, somehow the pigeon had found her house and she was here. He almost pinches himself to see if he'd passed out on the roof and this was just a dream.

"I didn't know Inzaghi was a carrier pigeon." She futilely tries to change the subject and he takes a step back, gathering the tattered pieces of his courage. The same courage that had propelled him to kiss her all those months ago on the stairs.

"I'm so happy you're here. I waited for you."

She stares at him like he has two heads before blushing, and avoiding his eyes.

"Come with me." He extends his hands and tries not to be too hurt when she bypasses it and steps around him instead.

At least she was here.

With a quick swipe of his hand he sends the message to his accomplices.

Now.

The lights come on, fairy lights decorating the roof top in a heavenly glow. She spins around in wonder, eyes nearly as bright she's so beautiful it's almost painful to look at her.

Then the music starts.

The soft notes filling the space.

When I walk down a road I don't know well....

She looks around in wonder, staring back at him she can’t believe what’s happening.

Then the letters start falling from the sky, all the letters he had written to her alone and missing her thousands of miles away. His plaza family smiles down at him, throwing letters from a higher building.

Cha-young stares up at the sky in surprise, hundreds of letters landing all around her.

It had taken a few days for Luca to send them all over and then another day to get the guts to do this, there was no turning back now. He had never willingly made himself vulnerable to anyone else, but according to Han Seo it was the only way he was going to win her back.

“She just wants to know that you love her too. Show her.”

He watches anxiously as she picks up a letter, stroking lightly at her own name on the front looking at him with stunned wet eyes.

“You wrote me a letter.” Her voice is revere and awe that he doesn’t deserve, not after everything he has put her through in the sake of protecting himself but he’s too elated to see her looking at him like that again, like he’s someone important to her.

“182. For each day we were apart. I told you I thought about you everyday, and every time I did I wrote you a letter.”

She stares at the letter in her hand, gently ripping it open and devouring the words on the page. Nerves shoot up and down his body as he watches her read his most private thoughts about her, her expressive face for once empty of emotions as she silently reads the letter.

He waits.

Breathless and terrified.

“Why didn’t you ever send them? They were mine so why did you keep them?” He hears an edge in her voice that makes him wonder if she’s only talking about the letters.

“Cha-young, I don’t think you understand.”

She breathes out loudly, stomping over to him until they are inches apart and he has no choice but to look into the deep pool of her eyes.

“I don’t! I don’t understand anything, I thought you had found someone else in Malta and the postcards were just your way of being nice. I thought you didn’t feel the same way I did, you were sending Han Seo letters but you wouldn’t do the same for me. What was I supposed to think? Why didn’t you try to help me understand, you were gone for six months!”

There’s so much wrong with everything she said, how could he find anyone else when his heart beats for her? How could he forget her when everything he did reminded him of her, he saw her every night in his dreams. But he doesn’t make the same mistake this time, he says what’s important.

“I feel the same way. I love you Cha-young. I thought this was better for you, that this could be enough. But I was wrong, I missed you every minute of every--”

“Come home with me.”

He stops, stares, gapes and then stares some more.

“What? I wasn’t finished confessing though.” Actually offended that she interrupted his planned speech. He was about to recite one of his favorite Italian love poems for her and then ask her to dance.

She rolls her eyes dragging him towards the door, “Don’t you think we’ve wasted enough time? It’s been six months and you have been here for too long, you have to go soon.”

She’s right, he has a flight in two days for an identity he borrowed for his escape.

“Listen to her, just go back to her place and have a good night!” That sounds like Cheol-Wook and then they all erupt into applause and start cheering and hollering, chanting their names and then to his embarrassment they start chanting, “Go have sex! Go have sex!” complete with the monks banging on their drums and he doesn’t think he will ever live down this moment, especially when he sees Miri capturing it on the new video camera he had gifted her.

He flips them off as an eager Cha-young pulls him away their laughter following them all the way.

The car ride is too long on the way over and she wonders how quickly she can undress them both as soon as they reach, there is simply no time to waste.

But once they get to the doorstep he suddenly freezes, tugging her backwards into his chest.

“This looks familiar doesn’t it?” His voice is dark and smoky and she immediately knows what he’s referring to, and she refuses to give him any reaction.

“Are you seriously doing this right now?”

“You let someone else touch you. Here.” He runs a hand up her neck, briefly squeezing, “And here,” she gasps at his hands suddenly on her breast, squeezing harshly at the tender flesh.

“So what are you going to do about it?” She knows that she’s playing with fire, but that is their foundation. She has never aimed to cool him off or tone him down, she sees the dark side inside of him and loves it, encourages it and feeds on it herself allowing it to bring her darkness out too.

He kicks the door open, shoving her side and she delights at the rough treatment. She hopes that she is filled with his bruises tomorrow.

She doesn’t wait for his next move, pulling her shirt up and over her head before tugging off her skirt leaving herself in a barely there lace panties and a matching lace bra that is translucent, her nipples peeking through the sheer material. He stares at her transfixed, his hunger evident in his eyes and in the tent forming in his tight dress pants.

“Take those off.” She commands and he smirks before obeying, peeling the pants off his thighs standing in his button down shirt and tight boxer briefs that leave nothing to her imagination, every delicious inch of him visible. She steps forward bringing their bodies in contact, before thrusting her hand inside the opening of his briefs. He feels hard and smooth, liquid pooling at the tip and she twists her hand collecting it to ease her slow strokes up and down. His voice hitches as she fingers his balls and without warning she tugs his boxers off, leaving him bare to her eyes.

Mesmerized by the unencumbered sight of him, she drops to her knees using her hand to guide him to her eagerly waiting mouth.

His flavor explodes on her tongue and she swallows more, grabbing his hips to drag him deeper into her mouth until she can feel him in her throat, but even after her eyes start to burn and she feels herself choking she doesn’t stop, bobbing up and down hungrily, sloppy wet sounds filling the room in a filthy symphony. At first he lets her control the movement, pliant in her hands but as she increases her speed and suction he starts groaning and huffing loudly and then she feels his hand on the back of her hand, keeping her in place and when she looks up at him he looks wrecked. Eyes dazed and his face red and flushed, she ingrains that image in her mind, for when he’s gone and all she has are her toys.

She stares back defiantly before he draws himself out of her mouth, a single line of spit connecting them and then he thrusts back into her mouth roughly and she opens her mouth wider to accept the abuse, loving every second of it even as a her throat aches. He sets a frantic pace, his balls slamming against her chin and she doesn’t realize at first that his grunts have transformed into words, too much blood rushing to her head.

“Mine. Mine, nobody can---ah fuck! Nobody can see you like this. Only me. You’re mine.”

He fucks her mouth like it’s his to use and do what he pleases, and she’s wetter than she’s ever been listening to him claim her verbally and with the wet push of his dick in her mouth.

She starts grinding on the floor like a cat in heat and without preamble he grabs her under her armpits and lifts her like she weighs nothing, his dick sliding free from her hot mouth, “I want to make you scream.” He says this like a declaration of love and she throws herself at him, kissing the words off his lips. His tongue swirls in her mouth and she wonders if he can taste himself in her. It makes her hotter and she grinds her barely covered pussy onto his naked length, groaning at the friction even though the thin layer separating them.

He tosses her onto the bed and she doesn’t even remember them walking, his tongue and his wondering fingers had completely distracted her.

She lays sprawled across the bed as he stares at her, like she’s feast he can’t wait to devour.

“Nobody has been in here.” She doesn’t know if he’s asking a question or making a statement, but she feels that his jealousy is real. Seeing her with someone else had done something to him, guilt washes over her. If she had seen him with someone else she would have lost her mind too.

“Nobody. I never brought anyone home before, that guy was a mistake. I was just hurt and missing you. I’m sorry.”

He had abandoned her for six months and she didn’t owe him anything but his pain is her pain and they are stronger now, everything has been said.

“Good.”

Then he rips her panties away and buries his face between her legs, prying her wide open with his hands and lapping at her with his searing hot tongue. Immediately he has his wish and she screams, loud enough to fill the entire room.

“Already screaming amore? It’s going to be a long night, I want to make you hoarse.”

She doesn’t get a moment to respond before he’s back to licking and sucking at her most sacred part, fingers deep inside her as he thrusts and strokes alongside his tongue, his fingers and tongue moving in tandem and she tries to stifle the scream but a particularly deep fuck makes the sound erupt from her throat and her head feels dizzy from the overwhelming sensation.

He has boundless energy it seems, as time drags by and she feels her body tightening up as he systemically destroys her, he never takes a break or pauses, slurping up all the liquid that drips from her and the sounds of him swallowing are beyond erotic. When a hand runs up her stomach and squeezes at a bouncing breast she can’t contain her moans of pleasure, crying out as his fingers pinching the tight bud of her nipple.

“Please.”

He coos in her, “So pretty when you beg.” Then he sticks his tongue as far as it can go and she hears the rush of blood in her head as her body shakes apart and her release gushes from her body, twitching when he laps it all up her oversensitive body recoiling from the overstimulation.

She has never come like that before, most men have never put in the work necessary to make her come and she wasn’t one to fake it so her experiences with sex with someone else were few and far in between.

This feels like nirvana.

“You still with me amore?” The bastard looks so smug, looming above her naked arms on the side of her head, and she had no idea when he took his shirt off.

“I can’t feel like my legs.”

He chuckles loudly at the statement, grinning growing wider.

“Well I can assure you that they’re still there and they will look great wrapped around my waist.”

Raising to his challenge, although her body is still buzzing she wraps her legs around his waist, they feel like jelly but she finds the strength to follow through with her movement.

“I was right they do look great.”

“Well this would look great in me.” She counters, grabbing at his thick ruddy red dick jutting from his body and he rocks into her hand before knocking her hand away and taking himself in his hand.

“Do we need a condom?” He asks her, looking like he is ready to stop at nay minute if she tells him that they do.

“No.”

She has been on birth control since she was a teen and there’s been no one for her since she met him, and she trusts that it’s been the same for him.

“Thank goodness, I want to feel everything.” He barely finishes his sentence before he’s easing into her, slow and steady. She lets him continue for a moment before she tightens her legs around his waist and pulls him in roughly, as deep as she can get him in this position. “Fuck, you’re so impatient.”

“Shut up and fuck me already.”

He grumbles at her calling her bossy, but she sighs when he draws out and slams back in with a quick snap of his hips.

“Yes just like that!”

He takes direction very well, repeating the motion until the bed starts to creak from their movements, he pistons in and out of her gone all semblance of gentle or slow, they have teetered into a speed that can only be defined as “break neck” and she feels her body sliding up the mattress as he pounds into her over and over again, she latches onto his neck eager to leave a branding mark on him and he groans at the suction, grinding harder into her and gripping her ass to force her to meet his vicious thrusts.

Absently she feels him peeling her bra from her body, the only remaining item of clothing that has survived their coupling and she knows exactly when he sees the scar. The grotesque knitting of skin that had left a permanent scar on her shoulder, she almost covers it up but when she peels her eyes open he is staring at her mesmerized.

“Don’t look.”

He leans down to kiss it, the softest more precious kiss she has ever received in her life.

He peppers more kisses all over, then strokes at it with a single finger.

“I should have realized, this was your confession. I was an idiot. I will never be that stupid again, I love you so much. I would do anything for you. Anything.”

He puts her legs on her shoulder, nearly bending her in half before resuming his thrusts but they are less frenzied now, it feels like lovemaking. Her eyes prickle when he kisses her scar with every downward thrust, whispering, “Beautiful, so beautiful. Every inch of you.”

She cries out.

With every thrust he kisses her scar, making her feel lightheaded and naked.

When he moves them into a new position, her back to his front giving him better access to her scar, she loses herself as he whispers sweet nothings into her ears and litters the spot with warm kisses.

She falls off the edge with his lips on her scar and him deep inside her, warm bursts filling her up before leaking out onto the bed sheets.

“Today’s our last day.”

Waking up next to him is torture, she tries not to ingrain that in her mind but it’s too late it’s already there. He blinks away the sleep in his eyes at her words and then nods solemnly in agreement.

“Yes for this visit. But I’ll always come back for you.”

She smiles brightly, “Don’t keep me waiting for too long.”

They don’t leave the bed except to get breakfast and that ends with her laid across the kitchen table getting taken from behind after teasing him. He can’t seem to keep his hands off her new hair, twisting the short strands in his hands and yanking on them. She catches him looking at her heatedly more than once.

Then they wind up in the shower, trying to clean up and getting dirtier instead, his hands tight in her hair and around her waist as he hoists her up to pound her into the wall. Making up for lost time.

They get messages from their entire family, Vincenzo showing her a message from Han Seo asking if he’s going to be an uncle soon. She promises to embarrass him in front of Miri very, very soon.

Both pretend they don’t feel the day fading away, bringing them closer to their goodbye.

Tomorrow he will be gone again, but there’s no guessing now. She knows what she means to him now and that’s more than enough.

She wakes up to an empty bed and a ticket to Malta, the ball is in her court.

#vincenzo #chayenzo #smut #but you know with feelings #romance isn't dead #you can find it in strange places #like pig's blood #han seo has the best wingman #the mafia family

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lillaxtrigger · 3 years

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Young Hope: Chapter 38

The open cloudless sky above begins to lose its orange shade as the twilight sun starts to sink down past the horizon and welcomes the stars and lunar glow of the full moon; their heavenly light gleaming upon the golden spire that towers past the sea of clouds. Along the edges of the golden warp gate are the three search nods that the angels had faced trail after trail to retrieve were tucked firmly within all three of their proper holes; the eyes and wings that make up their outer rims glancing around and flapping as they twirl in place. In the middle of the rings was a platform of glass sat in the middle of the golden top floor; Tore wondrously gazing to the rings as his cosmic mentor works on a holographic interface that protrudes out from the glass beneath their feet. When a distinct light shines down above them, the indigo angel aim’s his gaze skyward to behold the massive halo that hovers above the tower; the ring that hangs over them beginning to spin with a growing heavenly glow. The rings angelic glow slowly, but surely growing, Mall put away the holographic panel had been tinkering with and peers up to the halo above to state: “Good, the coordinates are finally set and the warp gate is pinpointing to my kind’s dimensional prison. It only be a matter of time now.” A warm smile permeates along his cheeks as he stares upwards, break his site away from the halo above and down to his blue ward before him; Tore gazing back to his cosmic mentor as Mall commends how: “I don’t think there is any way I can express my gratitude to you for aiding me in this long awaited noble endeavor. At long last, after millions of millennia, the Kybr shall return home. At long last, they shall be reunited with their own kin; and we have you to thank for it all, Tore. ... For the longest time, I only had the stars surrounding to call upon for comfort in my times of depression and isolation; to mend my sorrows with their gaseous light. Not once did I think that I would soon feel the warming welcome of another Kybr, another he could call his own kin to glide through the universe with. For that alone, I’m more than happy to have taken this journey with you.” “No prob, Mall. Bein on this whole adventure with ya made me realize what I’d been missing from my life; somebody I could really look up to help just guide me through all the stuff about life. Like a….you get what I’m saying?” “Hmm mm mm. Tore, I simply cannot wait to introduce you to the very people that you have stemmed from and behold in their majesty; to glide throughout the universe alongside our fellow kin. There’s just so much more of this reality I wish for you to view.” the cosmic angel describes, kneeling down to the blue boy’s level. “Honestly, it don’t matter to me a bit where ya wanna go; I just still wanna have ya around. There was seriously so much you taught me about myself that I didn’t even know I could do; stuff that I probably never would’ve realized my self if I didn’t go with ya. Really, if anyone’s to thank here, it’s you.” “Oh believe me, youngling; there’s still so much of yourself I can show you, so much of yourself that will surpass your human expectations. It’s my hope to one day cultivate you into a Kybr just as powerful as those in the days of yore; perhaps to even pass them. Before the cosmic Kybr could speak another word to his blue ward, the indigo angel reaches out for a warming embrace; Mall hugging the boy back in kind as Tore’s tear drip down from his face and stain his sparkling toga. “I can’t to show you all my friends and family. You’re gonna love em.”

Upon declaring this to his spacial teacher does a related thought pop into the blue boy’s mind, one that causes him to pull away from Mall’s grasp and stress how: “My fam! Oh god, its been around two weeks since I last talked to them! They must be worried outta their minds wondering where I’ve been this whole time. I know you said that using my phone might attract attention, but is it alright if I phone them up real quick and tell em I’m alright?” “Go ahead, Tore. Tell them...tell them of the wonderful news.” “Thanks Mall.” the indigo angel yips to his cosmic mentor as he strolls over towards the wayside and pulls his phone out from the depths of his pants pocket. After powering on his device, a wave of astonishment crashes upon him when first finding over dozens of notifications concerning calls that he had missed. Whoa! Holy crap! There’s seriously like 54 missed calls on here. Most of them from Mally too. Guess outta everyone, she’d be nearly on the cusp of exploding with worry. Better not keep her waiting any longer.

Without hesitation, the blue boy taps the last phone call his sister had attempted to reach through to him with; Tore putting his phone up to his ear as it starts to dial and waits as he hears the tone ring. Shortly after does he then hear the orange skater on the other end, yelping out to him: “Tore!?” “Hey, Mal. Sorry I didn’t really phone in for a while, had to turn my phone off cause I was helping-” “Oh my god, where are you!? What’s that guy you’re with doing!? Do you know what he’s about to do!?” “Whoa, easy there, Mal. Slow down a minute, w-what’s up with you?” the blue boy questions. “Tore, I need you to listen to me and answer; do you know what the Kybr were?” “Uh, Mall said they were powerful beings that could manipulate elements of the universe who shared their powers with humans and built cities to help teach em how to use em.” “Is that all he told you?” “Kind of, why? You figure out something?”

Above the very spire both the angels stand within, the tangible picture begins to come into focus within the golden halo; the outer rim of the ring surging with an otherworldly power as it starts to further twirl more rapidly. Tears begin to well underneath Mall’s very eyes as he peers deep within the transparent picture held inside the halo. Soon. Soon we shall be reunited. No more will this soul have to wander this lonely cosmo’s for eternity. We’ll be together. We’ll be home.

Among his mentor gazing up to the portal above them both, the indigo angel ventures back towards stargazing Kybr; a deep somber frown painted along his face as the light from the halo overheads casts their shadow over the blue boy’s eyes. “Mall…” Upon hearing his wards slightly meek call, Mall breaks his teary eyes away from the forming portal above and hears the boy before him request that: “Can I ask you some stuff...before Kybr come?” “Of course, Tore What do wish to know?” “Were there really no limits to what the Kybr could control in this universe?” “Indeed, there were none. The very forces of this universe were at our beck and call.” “Is that why the gods banished all of you?” “Sadly so. They couldn’t accept the control we had on what they claimed to be their dominion. But why ask of this?” The blue boy standing before the cosmic angel takes a moment to calm his shaking breath before he questions further on the matter with: “Was that the only reason?” “Pardon?” “What did Kybr do to warrant getting imprisoned?” “Tore. Let us not worry about such mysteries, not with our reunion so close.” the spacial angel attempts to thwart with.

“Mall...were the Kybr bad?” Such a question piercing the air causes every single hair along the cosmic angel to stand on end, Mall attempting to veer away from answer by uttering: “Tore, lets just drop the-” “Did they hurt people?” The blue boy’s burning hunger for these answers drive the cosmic angel to a dreading silence; one that only fuels his ward to push further. “Mall...Mall, what did they do? How many others wanted them gone? Why were they so hated?” Despite Tore’s constant push for tangible answers, this only drives further silence from the starry angel standing before him; his mentor’s refusal to answer drawing out only frustration and tears as he continues to shout: “Mall...Please just answer me already! Why won’t you say anything!? Have you just been lying to me!?”

At last can the cosmic Kybr not keep himself silent another moment longer, Mall finally responding to his angered ward outcries with: “We chose humanity to carry on the legacy, to mold this very universe accordance to their whims and to plot its very future alongside us. Tore...All that Kybr had done was to shape reality for the better and share in what we’ve created with all; even if it meant steering those who lived in this universe in a different direction. I myself couldn’t care less for what they plot to form this reality into...I simply couldn’t bare it anymore. The countless millennia of isolation and utter hopelessness I had toiled hiding from those who wanted us gone. I felt my very consciousness dull from the ever going loneliness. The life that I had felt when gliding alongside my kin, the joy I had partaken upon seeing a child of my own flourish had been left dimmed and withered to the merciless flow of time. I had resigned to such a fate. But a single spark was what had illuminated the hopeless void that had clouded my mind. Word of humanity, sparse human’s, growing to possess power those were bestowed by us once more. And lo and behold, the life within me that had hollowed had been restored upon seeing with my own vision those claims ring true; the future of the kin we had left behind. And during my journey alongside you, my boy, that very same spirit began to grow again. Bringing forth a dream I thought once impossible to achieve now on the cusp of coming true.” Midst declaring all of this, the cosmic Kybr approaches the young angel that stands before him; Mall kneeling down to his level once more to gently grasp his shoulder and begs out of him: “Tore, please, let us share this long awaited dream together. Let us welcome our kin home.” A long pause of quiet passes between the two angel’s as Mall awaits for the boy’s answer; all with nothing but the energy of the warp gate whirling through the air to fill the ambient silence.

But at long last does Tore finally bestow upon the lonesome broken man his answer as his hand balling into a quaking fist; the blue boy driving his knuckles straight into the cosmic angel’s face hard enough to send Mall careening across the top of the spire; the golden wall he slams into fracturing from the incredible blunt force. As the spacial bound Kybr starts to recover from the unexpected blow, a low groan utters out from his maw; the angel directing his site to the very boy who had struck him down. “Agh!...Wh-what the matter with y-” “You lied to me! You knew very well what the Kybr would do if they were freed; you knew they would terrorize the universe again and kept that from me! I trusted you! I fought alongside you! I looked up to you more than just a teacher; I wanted you to be like a dad, one I could actually stand alongside with. I cried when you offered me that. If you really cared that much about me, if you looked up to me like I was one of your own; you wouldn’t have kept me in the dark about something crucial, something that would’ve affected everyone I knew, what could doom everyone in this universe. I could’ve helped you. My family could’ve helped you. I bet even my friends could’ve helped you cope with being so alone and sad in this universe. You didn’t need to unleash an entire army of super beings that would destroy so many others…You didn’t need the Kybr to feel loved. But instead you chose this. Chose to try and release them. And chose to lie to my face!” Witnessing a flow of tears streak down from the boy’s enraged glare, Mall attempts to push through to him by uttering: “Tore, I didn’t-” “Shut up!...If you actually care. If you actually wanna still look at me like someone you care for,, then you’ll shut off the portal and keep the Kybr from breaking into this world.” Let utterly silent by the indigo angel’s ultimatum, the cosmic angel finally stands and hovers off the golden floor; glaring to the boy with determination and firmly declares: “No...I shall not let my kin suffer within their prison another moment longer, not with just a few more steps from opening the gates.” Knowing the Kybr’s ultimate decision left set in unbreakable stone, Tore’s entire body trembles alongside his breath; struggling to stand from the overwhelming heartbreak. But the indigo angel soon regains his composure to wipe away the river of tears from his eyes; staring on to cosmic angel that hovers before with his own branded determination and readies to face his former mentor. “Fine...But I’m not just gonna stand and let you doom the universe...To doom countless others...to doom my friends, my family, everyone I love!”

Its upon proclaiming this that Tore finally lunges forth towards his former mentor, dead set to deliver yet another betrayed fuel strike right to his face; what tears hadn’t dried at this point streaking off his cheeks as he approaches the cosmic angel. Moments as the indigo angel throws his fist straight out to the Kybr’s face, Mall holds his palm before the nearing blue boy and stopping him dead in his tracks; Tore feeling as if he had just hit an invisible solid wall. Its in that very same time that same space thrust him away with what felt like the force of a runaway semi truck, the blue boy sliding across the spires golden floor; Tore clutching the edge of the tower before he could be sent flying straight out into the sea of clouds behind him. Pulling out over the golden edge, the angel throws himself straight into the air above with a pale light gathering in his hand; Tore casts forth a beam of pale power down towards his spacial foe. Just as the ray was about to hit, the very space surrounding Mall redirects the beam to twirl around his very figure and splits apart under his command; the cosmic angel sending back the fracture pieces of pale white back towards their very sender. The blue boy delves right underneath the returning ray cluster as he swoops down towards his former master, Mall erecting a wormhole behind him to retreat from the blue boy’s diving assault.

Once sliding to a stop across the golden floor, Tore frantically peers to his surroundings for any sign of where the space manipulating angel had vanished to; failing to find even a single sign of his starry feathers anywhere in site. Midst wondering where the angel had disappeared to, Tore suddenly feels an invisible force squeeze his entire body from head to toe; almost as if the very space surrounding him was constricting the boy like a snake holding its prey. Slowly forcing his head to turn back, Tore discovers the cosmic angel emerging out from another hole with his clutched palm reaching out to the boy. With nothing but a swift swipe of his very hand, Mall commands the very space holding his pupil to fling him straight into one of the flora decorated golden walls that make up the top of the spire; some of the angel trumpets that hang from the swirls plucking off their stems and fluttering down onto the boy. Peering down does the blue boy see one of these flowers land cleanly onto the palm of his hand, a site which causes the gears in his head to start turning.

As he continues to face the young angel, Mall lets out a collection of stars from his very palm as he waves his hand through the air; every single twinkling star that the cosmic angel had conjured all thrusting themselves out to the blue boy all at once. Upon witnessing the stars incoming does Tore push himself off the wall of withered flowers and out towards the volley of glittering constellations Tore blocking them all with a single arm as he forces himself through shower of stars Powering through the barrage of twinkling bullets does Tore face the spacial Kybr once more; his fist glowing a rainbow of lively colors as he lobs it upwards towards the angel’s chin. Though Mall erects another wall of space between him and his blue ward like before, the solid space breaks apart upon the boy’s rising assault and is harshly struck right in the jaw hard enough send him skywards. Having uppercut his former mentor straight into the air, Tore rockets up after him to follow up with a hammering spike back down towards the spire floor; the glass platform Mall crashes into shattering from the impact.

While the blue angel hover back down onto the golden floor, he watches as his cosmic foe levitates right off the broken glass he bestows an applause; remarking how: “Using the life force of these flowers to power through. Excellent resourcefulness Tore. Seems I’ve trained you to use your abilities quite well. Bravo.” Despite his proud applause upon him, Tore keeps his glare locked upon the spacial angel; Mall himself ceasing his clapping to warm how: “However, if you believe that is enough to stop me. Then you are sorely mistaken.” On this very declaration does Mall then reach out to their surroundings and offers to how his own prowess with: “Allow me to show you what sort of influence the Kybr have upon this universe.” From the palms of his hands does the cosmic angel unleash an incredible bout of spacial power from his very depths; a monumental wave that bends and twists the golden spire they stand upon and until beginning to change into another location entirely.

Before the blue boy’s very eyes does he witness the golden walls of the spire transform, ditching the shimmering sheen of their swirls in place of rows and rows of faintly painted metal lockers. Peering down beneath his feet, Tore sees the glistening floor he stands upon loose its sheen as it’s morphed into slightly dirt ridden marble tile. Drifting his gaze skywards does Tore also watch as the starry night sky above is blanketed by popcorn ceiling donning flickering florescent lights. Between the lockers stood door after polished wood door, some of the cracking open to let some teens within peer out to the scene that plays out. “The Hell?” “What’s happening out there?” “Who the hell are these guys?” “Hang on. Isn’t one of them that strange blue dude with the angel wings?” Upon some of the students recognizing him does Tore himself realize where his former mentor had transported them too; this very hall being the very same hallway he walks through everyday in Townsville’s public school. “So this is my...Why did-” Right when the blue boy was about to question the cosmic angel why he had sent them here, the indigo angel puts his question on hold as he sees his former master continue to wave his hands through the air. All the kids that had peeked out from their classrooms are forced back inside before the hall that both angels stands begins to extend outwards; the end of the hall retreating into the horizon until vanishing into an infinite plane. Once commanding the space of the hall to extend endlessly, the spacial Kybr leaps back to retreat down the depths of the never ending corridor; Tore immediately pursuing after the retreating angel.

Amidst gliding away from the indigo angel, Mall turns back while continuing to retreat to unleash a salvo of stars that erupt out from the depths of his wings; Tore swatting away all the stars that streak out to him in his chase after Witnessing his spread of stars doing little to slow his blue wards feverish pursuit, Mall reaches his arms out towards the never ending rows of lockers that stretching out along the sides of the hall; their very metal stretching past their hinges and clustering together just before the boy. Left caught off guard by the unexpected blockade, the indigo angel slams straight through the barrier of cheap school grade steel and fumbles along the marble tile; but soon enough regaining himself and leaping off the floor in the middle of this blunder to resume the chase. As more and more of the lockers before him stretch out in an effort to block his way, Tore flies right over, under, and side to side every set that burst out from the walls; some dust flying out from the walls as the lockers protrude out. Upon watching the blue ward weave himself through every single set of lockers he stretches out, the cosmic angel clamps his hands together to command the lockers before him to all clamp together to form a wall of steel. A single lunging tackle is all it takes from the blue boy to bust straight through he blockade of cheap school grade steel; a couple of cobwebs flying through the air as Tore charges ahead.

Yet despite having broke straight through his former mentor’s barricade, the distance between the pair of angels continues to grow; Tore pondering of a way he can burst through the numerous lockers and close the gap. Not really any plants here to sap, though. Gotta be something here to take advantage off. Its in think of a way to draw out power that he feels something tickling his arms, the indigo angel glancing along his limbs to discover a couples of spiders and bugs scuttling along the surface of his skin. Bugs? Didn’t someone say that the school needed some sort of fumigation? Wait a sec, that’s it!

With an idea running through his blue noggin, Tore stretches both of his arms out to the endless row of lockers that sit along the side; his mind focused on all the numerous insects and arachnids that dwell within the cracks and crevices of the school walls. Come on… he concentrates on the dozens of vermin and insects that do swaths of color all seep out from their bodies, their very life gathering around the blue boy and surrounding him in coating of lively aura. Got it! “Excellent work Tore.” In hearing this come from his former mentor, Tore stares back to the gradually retreating angel; Mall further praising him on how: “Drawing out your aspect from the creatures hidden around you. But can you use such gathered power effectively?”

Its in that moment that every single locker that stands between them burst out from the wall and cluster together before the young angel in hopes of halting his pursuit; all the colorful life that the blue boy had gathered all coating his fists as he nears all the thicket of metal. With his very fists alone does Tore break through the rows of stretched steel as easily as ripping through paper; shards of the lockers metal scattering through the air as the boy breaks through every single wall that stands in his way. Seeing his pupil punch straight through the numerous barricades, Mall thrusts his palms out to the hall’s very walls and starts to pull them together; the cosmic angel warping the space itself into one blockade of solid stone and metal. With little time to stop himself from smacking straight into the twisted cluster of school brick and locker metal, Tore utilizes what energy he had gathered from his surroundings straight into the palm of his hands into a colorful orb of light; firing it all out in to the blockade in a stream of pure life. Effortlessly does the massive beam pierce straight through the thick rock and steel and striking the cosmic angel harboring behind; Mall letting out a pained grunt as his entire body is engulfed in the colorful glow.

Right then and there does the infinite hallway come to an end as Mall is sent careening straight through a set of door; the polished wood floor breaking underneath as he scrapes across the gym. From this crashing halt does every basketball player and P.E teacher suddenly stop dead in their track and gaze upon the spacial angel as he levitates himself off the middle of them floor. Following this do they then witness the blue boy break down the gym doors and land before the levitating man; a site which proves a good enough queue to go scrambling out for they realize that shit was going down. Once seeing every single coach and student all race right out through the corridor, Tore returns his site back to his former mentor; remain cautious despite Mall displaying a warm smile. “I must say, Tore. You’ve shown truly promising results thus far. But this examination is far from over.”

Upon this statement does Mall thrust his arms upwards towards the gym ceiling, the blue boy peering above and watches the support beams holding the roof up darken and morph from steel to stone. His attention is then drawn out to the walls, bleachers, and equipment that make up the gym all go through a similar transformation; some of the rock bursting into flames in the process. Its in witnessing all of this that he notices a bright orange light shinning out from the floor and peers down to discover the polished wood he stands on melting into hot molten liquid. Tore leaps right off the transforming floor as it fully forms into a lake of boiling lava and comes to find what he saw were airborne demons and drifting spirits sharing the blistering hot air. Soon enough is the site that Tore once saw as his school gym fully converted into the very depth of hell; both angel’s hovering just above a stretching lake of lava with a couple of brimstone islands decorated across the surface, all with little scales hopping out from the fiery molten depths.

Just as the indigo angel was curious why his former mentor had transformed their surroundings into this hellish lake of molten liquid, he returns his gaze to the cosmic Kybr to find Mall slowly bending his arms upwards; the lava lake they hang right over curving inwards alongside his limbs until covering the hellish skies above in a blanket of blistering hot magma. The lake that Mall had summoned forth had now been bent inward in an inverted sphere that now trapped them both in its twisted cage of molten goo and scorched brimstone; the lava within remaining suspended in the air as if the gravity itself had been twisted.

Once finished with their scorching hot cage, the cosmic angel then thrusts his palms down towards the very brimstone upsetting the lava; the piece of burning rock trembling for a moment before being uprooted from the molten goo. Raising the piece of scorching earth out from the depths of the magma lake, Mall clasps his hands together to command the rock to burst into pieces; the numerous remains of this very brimstone scatter through the air and chaotically revolve all around within the angel’s molten cage. One after the other does Tore swerve and evade all the directionless chunks of burning brimstone, navigating through the ongoing chaos as naturally as the winds traveling through a craggy canyon; the blue boy twisting about the storm of rock as he heads straight for his former mentor. Tore readies to deliver a swift spinning punch right to the spacial Kybr’s side as he closes in, the space around his former master twisting his body as he is fluidly veered right out across the angel’s side like a redirected stream of water. His assault having been thwarted, the indigo angel is but seconds away from taking a molten dive right down into the spherical wall of blistering hot goo; the blue boy stopping himself just short of the lake’s surface and makes a complete U-turn back towards the cosmic angel.

Witnessing his blue ward on the return, Mall commands the space around him to halt what burning brimstone happens to pass by and launches them all out towards the approaching indigo angel. With the barrage of fiery rocks raining down upon him, the blue boy thinks little as he simply breaks one of them to bits with just one kick; left caught off guard when bits of molten lava trapped within splatter out. Tore covers his face as the fiery hot goo splatters onto him, the blue angel continuing to swerve through the brimstone storm despite feeling the burns inflicted by the red hot lava across his body. Uncovering his face does the blue boy then see his former mentor simply direct more and more passing stones his way, the indigo angel taking little chances as he simply fires out sphere of his own power out to the approaching pieces of brimstone; with not even a single drop of the magma stowed within splashing into him. But when does his former mentor simply summon more and more burning chunks out after him, the blue boy hatches a little idea on how to use the hellish meteors against their caster and veers off along the lava prisons edges; all the pieces of burning brimstone giving chase after him as Mall himself watches closely. Soon does the cosmic angel witness the blue ward veer away from the lava side and start to near once more, Mall preparing to counter whatever sort of assault his pupil was planning. Yet at the very last moment does Tore suddenly ascend right over, his former mentor keeping his sites locked to him as the swarm of burning brimstone continues to follow. Once right hovering overhead, the blue boy quickly turns back and blasts out his own volley of pale power upon the pursing storm of hellbound rock; the magma that bursts out from within all splattering down toward his spacial foe. The lava threatening to rain down upon him, Mall keeps the descending drizzle from pouring onto him with a layer of solid space above; not a single drop able to even touch the starry angel’s very skin. Left distracted by the molten downpour, Tore takes this chance to steer right behind and rocket right towards his backside at breakneck speeds ready to strike with all his might.

Alas on the last moment does his swinging fist suddenly stop dead in the middle of the air, his knuckles just centimeters away from touching the cosmic angel’s back. Left paralyzed by the very space around him, all Tore could do was watch as his former mentor peers back into his very eyes; the last of the lava downpour dripping down behind him. “A valiant effort.” With this bit of praise however does Mall lift the blue ward up over his head while then criticizing how: “But physicality alone shall do little to aid you.” Upon declaring this, the cosmic angel thrust his palm downwards and sends Tore hurdling down towards one of the brimstone islands breaking up the lava lake; the blue crashing down and slide across the rough rock before stopping just short of the blistering hot rim. Though the blue boy attempts to stand back off the heated stone, his rise is ultimately cut short when his former master lands right onto his very chest and keeps him pinned to the hellish earth with just a single foot.

Struggling to escape underneath the spacial Kybr’s heel, the indigo angel gazes up to the lava behind him in his squirm and discovers something of note that he just now finds. Small schools of fish dressed in scales of pure bedrock leap right out from the depths of the lake, lively swimming through the lava as easily as freshwater. This only way outta this mess clear to him, the boy’s face tightens as he reaches out towards the rim; a sharp hiss sliding through the boy’s teeth before he swiftly dunks his limbs into the hellish molten goo. A sharp scream escapes from the boy maw as he keeps his arms submerged in the fiery lava, the odd and unpredictable act causing the cosmic angel’s guard to waver. Midst his agony do the pupils of his eyes start to glow a rainbow of color, Tore taking the moment to thrust his legs against Mall and kicking his former mentor off of him; bringing his arms back up to the surface as lunges after. His hands coated in a radiance of shimmering color, Tore reaches out to his fumbling foe’s head and clutches Mall’s very face; the indigo angel unleashing the life force he had somehow gathered into a point blank blast of radiant colors. The force alone was strong enough to send the spacial Kybr hurdling across lake, his body skipping across the surface like a tossed pebble until crashing right along side of a brimstone column.

While the hellish stone dust settles before him, Mall is left to ponder of the circumstances with utter: “That power. Where did-” While curiously questioning such does the angel direct his attention over to the very island he was blasted from, seeing the numerous scaly fish that had once jumped across the molten lava behind his ward now left bellying up; a proud smile stretches between his cheeks as pries himself out from the brimstone. “That’s much better.”

Whilst using what power was left to heal the numerous burns he had suffered, Tore watches as the man he once called his mentor hovers out to the very center of the lava cage and clasps his hands together; the space they both occupy once again contorting before his very eyes. The blue boy beholds the blister hot lava and brimstone that made up the environment now solidify and freeze as it starts to break apart; scorching heat of hell itself dipping into a deathly cold in a matter of just seconds. Tore starts to shiver and hovers upwards as the ground beneath him gives away, all the fiery light that shined from the lava disappearing and is replaced and coldly blue hue; the blue seeing his very breath permeate the frosty air. Within a matter of seconds does the indigo angel find himself floating within a frozen cavernous valley made up of thick icy paths, frosty slides, and arctic formations that stretch across the wide open cavern. Not this again.

Its in his shivering that Tore then peer out to the side and finds his cosmic foe floating in the middle of the freezing air, the spacial angel clasping his hands together before hammering himself straight in his very stomach; the impact causing dozens of cracks to rapidly grow along his figure. After this does Mall’s entire body break apart in a burst of glass, every single bit flying across the caverns and seeping into the icy formations that surround them. Despite this display of self destruction, the blue boy keeps his guard held high as he floats through the icy valley and prepares for whatever strange attack the cosmic Kybr has planned for him. Yet among his alert awareness does he fails to notice a faint light glimmering from the ice behind him; a reflection of his galactic foe’s figure sliding across the surface and sticks his arm right out to cast a star straight out to the blue ward. The starry blast hits the young angel’s back in a glittering explosion, sending Tore careening through frosty air. When finally stopping himself just before crashing straight into a hard icy wall, Tore peeks back to try and find what had thrown the glittering blast, but ultimately failing to find a single soul among the blue hue.

Its when seeking the culprit that he hears the strange sound of crackling ice behind him, the blue angel swiftly glancing back to discover his mentor within an icy slide behind him; Mall on the verge of tossing out another starry assault. In the nick of time does the blue boy evade his former mentor’s starry blast and chucks out his own pale energy straight out to Mall’s reflection; the icy formation he had dwell within shattering into glittering shards from the explosion. Even within the ice left into pieces, the young angel cannot find even a single sign of his former mentor among the frosty dust. While midst his confusion, Mall emerges out from the twisting icy pillar aside and rockets forth towards the blue boy; Tore himself glancing out just time to witness his former mentor on the approach. In the few seconds he had does the blue angel manage to evade the cosmic Kybr’s striking assault, his galactic foe just a few inches apart as he streaks right past. Even when having cleanly dodged the cosmic man’s surprise attack, the blue boy feels the very space behind him solidify; Tore looking over towards his former master and seeing him reach out to him with but the palm of his hand. Swinging his arm outwards does Mall cast his ward out through the icy cavern valley; Tore sent through icy paths and slides alike until crashing right into the valley’s hard ice wall.

Pulling himself straight out from the cavernous wall, the blue angel shakes off the ice stuck in his hair; his eyes widening when gazing ahead and finding the cosmic Kybr’s very image plastered across the icy formations making up the valley. He frantically looks through out all the ice paths, pillars, and slides in hopes of telling which of the many images of his former mentor be the right one as the slide across the surface like a pack of serpents; yet every single one he see’s prove completely identical to the rest. This isn’t good. Even if he comes out, there’s no way to physically touch him, not without something alive to draw power from. But what in the world could even survive in a place this blistering cold? Okay Tore, just think for a sec here. Think back to science class. The teach was going on about biology, right? Something about bacteria and micro organisms. She said that they were nearly in everything around us, even in like super extreme places like hot caves, hot springs, the depths of the ocean, even in Antartic- Its in pondering of his school teachers words that he snaps his sites over to the icy path that stretches beside him. Ice! That’s it! Upon this very revelation, the indigo angel glides down along the narrow icy path and slides the palm of his hand along its chilling cold surface; his mind focused on what microorganisms and bacteria could be dwelling underneath the frost. Its in his trip across the frosty narrow that bits of color start to slither through the solid ice and gather in the palm of his hands. When beholding all the life he had gathered from the microorganisms living within the ice, he’s left a little disappointed to find the size of a marble, one not even bigger than the palm of his hand. Huh. Guess this much is about what you’d expect from bacteria.

Venturing his site back towards the rest of the cavernous valley, the blue boy comes to find dozens upon dozens of his former master very image streak across every icy surface; each reflection moving of its own independence. Ain’t got much to work with here. Better make it count. Whilst keeping his eyes on the numerous pictures of the cosmic angel does he see them all suddenly disappear all at once; not a single trace of Mall left showing anywhere among the ice. Where...where did- In his frantic search for where the spacial Kybr could strike does he take a peek back just in time to see the cosmic angel charging out; mere moments away from ramming into him. With what life force he had gathered from the bacteria within the ice, the indigo angel coats the base of his foot its its colorful glow as he kicks out to his nearing foe; Tore kicking Mall straight into the roof of the icy cave. The very moment that the galactic angel crashes through the ceiling does the blue boy witness the icy valley he floats in crumbling like broken glass; all of their shards descending down into the deep black abyss set below.

In gliding through the void does the blue angel soon unintentionally flops down into solid ground; Tore prying himself out from the solid rock and discovers veins of bright lime green running across the rugged curving surface. Veering his sites upward does he find himself standing dead in the center of a wide crater that rival the size of several football fields. Along the surface of the crater do his pupils shrink when finding what were remains of colorful brick among the ruins; their once vibrant color having faded away from the anneals of time. This very site bubbles a powerful mix of dread and despair what was once buried within his very core; a feeling of sorrow that not only makes his very soul tremble, but makes him fall to his very knee’s. This place…

Before the boy could partake in a single moment of lament, his gaze is drawn upwards as an angelic shadow slides past his body; Tore gazing skywards to the very top of a long and towering flagpole where a torn banner holding what seemed was once a platypus. The blue boy see’s Mall perch himself at the very top end of this decrepit and ruined symbol; the galactic angel gazing down upon his wards as Tore slowly starts to rise back on his feet. “Magnificent show Tore. You’ve truly demonstrated greater promise that even the humans we had cultivated in the days of old. But this demonstration is not over yet. For now we reach the finale.” Declaring such does Mall suddenly rocket up high in the night sky, his cosmic trail overtaking the earthly stars. When hovering in the middle of the starry sky, the Kybr’s cosmic wings starts to vastly expand out; Mall blanketing the once peaceful starry sky above and transform them into the deep cosmos that reflects within his angelic wings. Swirling galaxies, leviathan sized planets, bright scorching suns, burning meteors, and billions upon billions of stars. Some of these stars gather onto the galactic angel’s back and bond together to give the angel a new starry set of wings as he descends down upon the glowing green earth; opening his eyes to face the blue angel that takes his stand against him with a determined and ready glare.

In just but a single instance does the entire length of Mall’s very figures stretch right out before the blue boy, the back of his body following after and catching right up as the cosmic angel stands before his pupil. Left caught off guard by his former mentor’s strange lunge out to him, all Tore could do to react was to leap back as he tosses out a ball of pale white out to the spacial Kybr; the retreating assault proving utterly fruitless as Tore’s blast scatters into pieces before even touching his foe. Witnessing his blue ward attempting to gain some distance, the cosmic angel reaches his arms up towards the cosmos that hangs above them both; some of the galaxies above drawn out from the reaches of space and shrinking as they near the planets surface. Though their immense size had been reduced significantly, these swirling galaxies still boasted the size of apartment complexes; the angel who had summoned them having next to no trouble hurdling them both out to his blue pupil.

Beholding these massive disk shaped celestial bodies swiftly glides right out at him, Tore up and decides to lunge out to them as they twirl his way; the light from their numerous stars glistening along his body as he squeezes right between them both. Finding his cast out celestial bodies having missed, the spacial angel thrusts his fingers out to both of the hurdling galaxies and commands them both to veer back towards the blue boy; Tore himself noticing the light from these galaxies and peering out to discover them both hurdling out to both of his side. With the pair of twin galaxies pinching out towards him, the blue angel stops dead in his track moments as they near and lets them both pass in front; their starry surfaces shining their glisten along the boy’s face as they pass through. Keeping his sites locked to the twin celestial bodies does he see them both steer themselves back out for another go at him; Tore seeing his moment when finding one of them approaching faster than the other. Just seconds before the edge of one of these celestial bodies could strike the indigo angel down, Tore clasps its very rim with nothing but his bare hands; the stars scraping against his palm as the impact drags him across the irradiated crater. Glancing past the galaxy trapped in his hands, the blue boy witnesses the other follow after the first, something that he had fully expected as he starts to lift the one he holds upwards and tosses it back to its twin; both of these galaxies colliding together and exploding in a shower of glowing stardust that lights the entire crater and the land behind.

Once the bright aftermath of the collision finally dims, Tore uncovers his eyes and glances around for any sign of his galactic foe; finding next to no sign of the spacial angel anywhere among the crater rubble. Its in that moment that he see’s the very sky itself start to glisten and aims his eye site above to find his former master hovering above; the fields of stars behind him rapidly twinkling as he points a single finger down upon the earth. From the cosmic skies above do all these thousands of stars all descend down from the very heavens akin to divine beams of light; every single one streaking down towards the blue boy in rapid fashion. The indigo angel glides across the green glowing crater as these numerous galactic rays crash down upon the earth in their attempt to strike him down; each descending star crashing down onto the earth he flies behind. Gazing back does Tore begin to see all the twinkling stars descending closer and closer as they all plummet from the skies above; some of them crashing down right behind his very feet. Aiming his sights towards his former mentor above, the blue boy watches the cosmic angel above and notices all the stars that rain down from the heavens streak right by him, as if commanding every one he summons from the depths of space to steer away from him. Doesn’t seem like he’s paying that much attention to them though. Wonder if…

Noticing this detail from his former mentor, the indigo angel peeks back and lobs out a bit of his own pale power out in a dynamic curveball; the sphere of white streaking along the surface of the crater as he ascends skywards across the cosmic sky above. Soon in its short journey through the sky does it blend in alongside the stream of descending stars and start to streak down towards the cosmic angel’s backside. Moments before the blue boy’s ball can strike the spacial angel down, Mall swiftly does a complete 180 to waft his pupils attempt of a sneak attack aside; the stars that streak past casting their light upon his disappointed glare. But in that very moment does the cosmic Kybr then feel something strike his very back, a second ball of pale light having exploded against Mall’s behind while his back was turned. All the stars from the cosmos above finally cease their torrential downpour as the angel who had commanded them himself plummets down towards the lime green crater in a smoking descent; the blue boy rocket right out towards his former master as he falls towards the earth.

Mere seconds before Tore could follow up his successful assault does his spacial foe suddenly stop in the air just before crashing into the glowing earth; Mall reaching his palm out to the approaching blue angel and halting him dead in his tracks. Before the indigo angel could even fight back against the space holding him in place, the cosmic angel casts him out from the earth and sends him skywards out to the cosmos above. Shortly after being flung skywards does Tore manage to regain his aerial balance, the blue boy peering back from whence he came to discover the scorching surface of the sun having replace the very earth he had been tossed from; its sheer light nearly blinding the boy as he hovers several feet above its blistering hot surface. Gazing away from the giant star’s fiery bright surface, the blue boy discovers the very angel that had sent him up now hovering above; the cosmic Kybr starring straight down upon his very ward despite the blinding sunlight behind him.

With nothing but a wave of the angel’s very hand does Mall push the blue boy out towards the blistering star set behind him; the gravity of the sun strengthening its pull towards what hovered around it and starts to drag the indigo angel towards its blazing hot surface. And though Tore fights back against the sun’s overwhelming gravitational pull, the incredible spacial force continues to drag him tick by tick towards his fiery doom. Among resisting this near dominant spacial force does the indigo angel see numerous flares spurt out from behind, Tore peering back to discover pillars of flame erupt out from the fiery surface and streak out towards him. While evading all the solar flares that burst from behind, all the blistering spurts send out a strong solar wind that starts to push the blue boy away; enduring the overwhelming sunny heat that bellows behind and glides him away from the surface. Watching his blue pupil begin to escape from the fiery star’s gravitational force, Mall reaches out towards the depths of the cosmo’s set behind them; the angel calling forth a shower of asteroids that all rain down towards the surface of the sun. Slithering around both the comet torrent from above and the pillars of flame that spurt out from below, Tore once again starts to be pulled towards the fiery sun; the gears in the blue boy’s head turning as he attempt to think of a way outta this mess. Midst pondering of such do his eyes manages to catch the site of one of the meteors that had been cast down towards the sun caught within a pillar of fire that spurts out from the surface; the intense force of the bursting combustion strong enough to send the asteroid flying back out to the depths of space. There it is. The ticket outta this mess.

Continuing to weave around the dozens of rising flames and falling boulders all around him, Tore keeps watch of all the rocks that plummet down towards the star set behind him; most of them disintegrates from the incredible heat as they reach the top of the simmering surface of the sun. What are ya trying to be polite now? Come on, just let one loose already! Watching among all the meteors that descend down towards the face of the sun that he see one of them plummet down towards a spot of the surface on the verge of bursting; the indigo angel chasing down the very asteroid as it plummets. Hovering from above does the spacial angel watch all this play out before him, Mall left perplexed as his blue pupil simply stands atop one of the falling comets that fall towards the gigantic star; both Tore and the rock swallowed by the sun’s intense light.

Meager moments just before the rock that the blue angel stands upon could touch down onto the fiery surface, an incredibly powerful solar flare bursts out from its very surface and erupts onto the bottom of the asteroid; the insane force of the rising flames shooting the rock and the boy who stands upon it out from the sun’s pull and through the torrent of comets. When seeing his indigo opponent rocket right out towards him, Mall redirects the path of a pair of asteroids that plummet beside him straight out to the rock his pupil rides; the spacial angel watching as the three comets collide into each other in a violent explosion of rock dust that blankets the light of the sun. Out from the asteroid dust does a lone hand emerge out from its very depths clutches tightly onto the cosmic Kybr’s very neck; the rest of the cloud scattering to reveal the very hand to belong to his unscathed blue ward. Having caught the cosmic angel in his clutches, the blue boy turns back towards the leviathan star that burns underneath them both and hurls his former mentor down towards its fiery hot surface; Tore watching as Mall hurdles towards the bright sun like a descending meteor. The bright sunlight from the star grows brighter as the cosmic angel falls closer to its very surface, the sun soon enveloping the very space they occupy within its solar warmth.

This incredibly blinding light eventually dims to show the blue boy fluttering back down within the glowing green ruins; Tore left peering along the sides of the crater for any sign of where his former mentor is. During this little look through these very ruins does the indigo angel notice a deep shadow beginning to loom over the irradiated earth, peering up to see what could cast such blanketing darkness; Tore’s left in astonishing horror when discovering what hangs above. Several thousand feet above earthly surface does he find Mall peering down upon him, a lone planet of which outclasses the very Earth itself dropping down from the depths of the cosmos behind him; its sheer size rivaling that of Neptune. The very angel that had summoned the descending planet disintegrates into stardust as its face passes through him, only leaving the earth itself right in the midst of its destructive path. Tore falls to the Earth as he watches the leviathan planet plummet; his knee’s trembling as he lands in the middle of the crater. Wha-what can I even...No...I won’t let it end like this! There’s gotta be something here, something to work with. But this crater, its all lifeless. Everything’s dead. Where on Earth can there be anything alive left around...Oh my god. That’s it!

Its in figuring out an incredible realization that the indigo angel thrusts his legs deep into the tainted soil; the blue boy punching his arms straight into the rock as the planet above grows ever closer. Just please work with me. There’s not much time left. The boys pleading thoughts pierce the craters irradiated soil and echo throughout the Earth, reaching the very essence of every living thing that dwells within and upon the planet. Bits of life from every person, every plant, every creature, every living organism starts to seep through the ground they stand or hover over; none of them even realizing the minuscule pieces of their lives were escaping from their beings. Even the energy of the planet’s core itself travels out from beneath the earth to reach out to the blue boy; every bit of life that burrowing through the earth at blinding speeds. The very sky and ground that make up the planet is glown alight as all the pieces of life gather towards the very point they had been called upon; all to gather within Tore’s very body. The crater that the boy has rooted itself in starts to let out a powerful glow as more and more power gathers within minutes.

Soon enough is the entire once dead crater proves ready to burst forth with all the life that had gather throughout the entire planet; the deathly lime green that had cursed the earth merging alongside all the color that had been collected. All at once does the collection of life spurt from the Earth in a ray of colorful light, the blue boy that had called upon it all leading it straight through the sky and to the oncoming planet above. Midst passing through the Earth’s atmosphere does color coated angel begin to feel the intense friction blister his very skin, the blue boy hissing in pain as he endures spacial entry. Can’t heal...Gotta put everything into this… His burning flight straight from his home takes him speeding towards the planet that plummets above; the indigo angel soon entering the stratosphere of the leviathan. In an instant does Tore pierces straight through the giant planets surface and continue through its rock like a bullet; tearing straight through towards its very core.

Hovering over all of this, the cosmic angel watches in awe as the colossal planet he had summoned forth, breaking apart as multiple colors fracture across its surface and exploding a burst of bright color. Peering past this glowing spurt does Mall discover a lone figure erupting out from the light at astounding speeds; Tore approaching from the planets remains with little lively color left streaking along his body. What powerful life he had left to spare, Tore cocks his arm back as far as possible while coating his very fist in the lively glow he nears his former mentor; ready to put everything he had gathered from the Earth into a single attack. The indigo angel eventually reaches his former superior and thrust what life he had left straight into his foe’s very stomach; both angels enveloped in a brilliant colorful glow stemming out from the point of impact.

Eventually does every piece of the lively glow fade away as the cosmo’s erected disappears; Tore left slowly hovering downwards as the space surrounding him is restored back into the very top of the golden spire where the feud had begun. Heavy breath pass out from his lips as he touches down onto the broken glass beneath his feet, the blue angel using what strength he had left spare to keep from collapsing onto the shards. Keeping stable enough, the boy gazes skywards up to the halo above and discover the picture of another dimension held within that’s halfway transparent. Still not too late...Just...Just need to…

Among this brief moment of respite and all the needed relief that it had given to the indigo angel is sudden shattered in but an instant when he starts to hear clapping; Tore’s pupils shrinking when peering back out to the side and discovering his former mentor alive and well, wearing a smile as he gives the boy an applause. “A magnificent performance, Tore. You’ve proven the potential to wield your aspect as as effectively as those in the days of old. Even with how much I had restrained myself, you’ve surpassed every single one of my expectation; I really couldn’t be more proud of you. You’re on your way of becoming a fully fledged Kybr.” “You’re...kidding...All that….was holding back to you!?” the indigo angel questions as he trembles. “Oh ho. Unfortunately so.” Mall confirms, commanding the space around his pupil to make him fall to his knee’s.

“Why then.. Why did you put me through all that? Why didn’t you just get it over with and finish me?” the blue boy demands to know, the angel he questions floating towards him. “I don’t want our bond to end in nothing but bitter blood; I meant it when claiming how you brought life back into my very existence, giving me the motivation and desire to continue. I am truly regretful to have kept the truth from you during their time together, afraid that it would drive you away. I couldn’t bare to be alone anymore, not in a universe that had cast our kind away. I truly did treasure the experiences I had shared with you Tore; I don’t wish for it to end like this.” In his struggle to arise from the shards of broken glass does the indigo angel peer up from the ground to witness a hand be extended down to him; Mall offering a welcoming arm as he pleads to the boy: “Please, Tore. I beg of you. Cease this hopeless struggle so that we may welcome the Kybr, our kin back to their long lost home.”

Nothing but the ambient winds are all that are heard for a couple moment before Tore finally starts to reach his hand out to the cosmic angel; Mall’s hopes beginning to rise as the boy’s as the boy’s hand nears. When just an inch away from him, Tore smacks his former mentor’s palm aside, at last responding back. “You don’t know how much I wanted something like this so badly. To have someone I could look up to in my times of need when I felt like every bit of hope was lost; somebody my dad wasn’t. I was starting to think at long last that wish was coming true. But all that wishing just led me straight to this! I can’t go down his road, Mall. There may be people you loved then trapped in there, but there are people now who love me here. If the Kybr are freed, there’s no guarantee the world I’ve come to know and love will live...If everyone in this universe will live. The existence both of us want...they can’t both be true.”

Despite the blue boy’s word of rejection leaving cosmic angel heartbroken, despite the stream of tears that flow from his eyes: he claims to him how: “I understand…” Mall aims his palm right above his blue wards head as glittering stardust starts to gather within his hand; the collecting cosmic power glistening against the boy’s face as a star forms before him. “The time I spent with you is something I will always treasure. I thank you for our time together.” As the light in the man’s hand grows its brightest, Tore shakes away what tears were left within and locks his eyes to the end; refusing to look away as he prepares for his former mentor to finish him then and there. Unyielding, to the last bit of life.

Right before the end could come upon him, Tore witnesses a gigantic pike of pure black thrust itself straight through his former mentor; the spear piercing most of the cosmic angel’s chest. A short breath escapes from Mall’s mouth as he displays a haunting mixture of shock and dreads; the stars that had gathered within the his palm dispersing as the pike within his very chest starts to withdraw from whence it came. The gravely wound the spear of black leaves behind shows the inside of the Kybr’s body reflecting the cosmo’s itself, the starry sky leaking out from the head sized hole like thick glittering blood, blood that splatters across the golden floor as Mall falls face first before his blue ward. Tore arises from the cracked glass floor as his former mentor falls face first, confusion and remorse easy to see across the boy’s eyes as he reaches down to the downed angel. “Mall?...” “Yo.” he hears a familiar voice grab his attention with.

His site drawn out towards the very edge of the spire, the indigo angel discovers the pike that had impaled his former master to withdraw to his purple brother’s side; both Roy and Mally standing atop the golden staircase as they gaze upon their blue brother in relief. “Glad to see we made it just in time.” the orange skater states. “Guys...Wha…what are you-” Tore is left to utter the blend of astonishing disbelief still fresh on display. “That shit should be obvious, ain’t it. Came all this way to see ya.” the merc obviously states with a pinch of sass, the two of them waltzing to their brother’s side. “Gotta say, Tore. You seriously wouldn’t believe the sort of sites we saw just trying to find you. Like I got some stories here that’ll make ya question what the hell we were even doing.” Mally remarks. “Seriously, it was already a pain in the ass to try and figure out where the hell ya went, you should see what sort of rowdy maniacs we had to bring along for the ride.” Roy adds. “Oh please. Like you’re in any position to judge anyone’s character without hypocrisy.” somebody from behind brings up.

Curious of who had given this very statement, the blue boy peers behind his sibs and sees a collection of five climbing over the golden steps that they had risen from ;Alex, Hank, Melvin, Vivi, and Ryan all stepping/hovering up to the top of the spire and taking in its glorious golden site. “Sweet plastic propellers, just look at all this! The blinking rings with wings, the golden swirls along the sheen, the halo spinning above. It all seriously looks like something straight out of a sci-fi novel. Don’t it make ya wanna dig straight in and figure out what sort of tech something like this could even be running on?” Hank geeks out with. “Meh, just looks pretty tacky to me.” Melvin beside him simply states.

Standing along the very rim of the spire, both Vivi and Ryan stare out into the blending site of the starry sky above and the sea of nightly clouds flowing below; the half skeleton left utterly star struck from the view alone. “Fucking sweet Jesus, look at all we be up in here! Its like the heaven went and decides to slip us a little site of the heaven underneath the skirt. We taking in the sweet shit, bitch.” “I just can’t imagine how we’re still even breathing all the way up here.” Ryan simply ponders aloud.

“I-I can’t believe all of you are even... How’d all of you even figured out where I was?” Tore questions his siblings. “Sure as hell wasn’t easy. Mal here kept following trail after trail of breadcrumbs in, out, and all around all over the fuckin place. Like we deadass found a hidden prehistoric land full of dinosaurs just trying to find ya.” “Wha! Aw, lucky. The only highlight of my trip was going down to hell.” the blue boy retorts. “Bruh, you fuckin serious?” While her bro’s continued to discuss points of their adventure, Mally’s gaze drifts over to the winged man that lies before them; the orange skater cutting through their conversation to question her blue bro if: “Uh, Tore. This guy do anything to ya to drag you with him?” The indigo angel ceases to speak for a brief moment as he gloom’s down to the remains of what he once called his spacial master; Tore taking in a deep breath before finally admitting how: “Nope. Went with him on my own?” “You’re kidding right? The hell would wanna make ya leave everyone behind after surviving a life threatening explosion just to pal around with this starry asshat ya barely know?” the purple merc questions him with. “I...I just felt...I just wanted someone with powers like mine to look up to, okay. Maybe to gimme some pointers on how all this works and what else I could do, I don’t know...What was I even thinking?…” Such a statement from their blue brothers draws out pity within their; Roy slightly shaking his head about as he peers down to the body of the cosmic angel.

“Hate to spoil this sentimental moment here, but can anyone enlighten us to what could be forming in the ring above.” “What!?” the blue angel utters, his sadness shattering into troubling alarm as he gazes skyward to the halo spinning above them all. Held within the twirling ring does the picture of the other dimension start to lose transparency, showing more and more of a solid picture depicting numerous angelic beings held within. “No!” Rushing right beside both his siblings does Tore race right to the center of the broken glass platform dwelling in the middle; the blue boy kneeling down and repeatedly slapping the palm of his hand against one of the chunks of glass. “Come on! Come on!” Despite repeatedly beating his hand against the glass, not a single sheen of light comes protruding out from its surface; the indigo angel letting out a frustrated groan before claiming aloud how: “Agh! The panel is completely broken! There’s no way to shut it off! So how else can we stop the warpgate from-...That’s it!”

Almost immediately does the blue boy race back towards his siblings side; the friends that they had gathered coming together as Tore proclaims to them how: “Guys, listen. If the control panel is down, then we don’t have much other choice then to head down in the center of this warpgate and destroy the Orphan.” “I like where this is going.” Alex remarks. “Say again?” Hank requests. “You seriously wantin us to fuck up an orphan, mate?” Vivian questions. “No, I- Th-That’s what they just call the core.” “Fucking call it the core then for god sake! Why ya gotta name it something so ominous?” Ryan blurts out. “But we didn’t find any other hall climbing up here. How the hell you expect us to find it?” Melvin asks. “Only a Kybr can use their power to open the way down into the center. But we gotta hurry; there might not be much time left.” Upon this desperate plea does Tore start to follow the others as all of them sprint out to the stairs they came up from; every single one of them stopping straight dead in their tracks when all of them hear a voice demanding that they all: “Stop!”

This very call withdraws their attention back towards the center of the spire; all of them beholding the man that Roy had struck down slowly hobbling right off the broken glass beneath his feet, despite harboring the gaping hole in his chest that continues to bleed out the cosmo’s. In between his breaths does he aim his piercing glare to them all as he claims to them how: “I refuse to let it end like this...I refuse to spend another waking moment in this world without the warming embrace of my own kind.” With this declaration cemented, an incredible wave of spacial power begins to envelope the angel’s wounded body; his once human like skin beginning to reflect countless planets, stars, and entire galaxies. “The Kybr are coming home!”

This commitment set, a monumental torrent of cosmic energy bursts out from Mall’s very being; a powerful shock wave that nearly sends everyone flying right off the spire. The earthly night sky is rend apart to reveal the depths of the cosmos underneath the blanket of stars, all while Mall’s body starts to implode in order to start metamorphosing into an entirely different being. Midst this transformation do both Roy and Mall cast forth a beam of dark purple and the yoyo gadget respectively; their desperate assault however repelled back by the incredible spacial gravity that floods out from their foe.

The angel’s drastic transformation proving to be utterly unstoppable, the boy that Mall had once called his own ward turns back over to all to his friends and family and demands that Roy: “Roy. I need you to lead everyone down into the hall and slap your hand against the inner side. You’ll open up a tunnel that leads down to the very center of the warpgate. You’ll know you found the core when you see a glowing baby floating in the middle of a bunch of spinning golden ring.” “Is that seriously why they call it the Orphan? What the f-” “Just go now! Before the portal opens!” All but the blue angel start to races straight down the golden step dash through into the hall without so much as another word; leaving Tore to face the mass of cosmic space he had once knew as his master, watching as countless wings start to sprout from the collection of cosmos. It doesn’t matter if you can’t be beaten, it doesn’t matter if you have the entirety of space under your beck and call. Just need to buy time for them all to go down and stop the warp gate from opening. If they can do all that, then it’ll be all worth it. It’ll be all worth it. It won’t matter if this is how things end.

Among his moment of preparation for what he may presume to be his final moments facing immeasurable odds, Tore then discovers both his brother and sister coming to his sides; the indigo angel demanding to know: “What are you two doing!? If the core isn’t destroyed then-” “Relax. Our pals down there got it all covered. And beside, you need more help up here than they do down there.” his orange sister informs. “Nrr! Do you know what’s even at stake here!?” “You seriously think we don’t know? We didn’t wind up following this trail of vague clues just to be told to piss off. We fought through the worst sort of shit nature could possibly hack up from every one of its holes just to find ya, and were damn well not gonna just up and leave like that.” Roy boasts out. “We started this hole journey separated, so now were gonna finish it together. You’re stuck with us weather you like it or not, and their ain’t a damn thing you can do about it.” Mally protests. “Guys…” Despite this nigh upset tone, a river of tears begin to flood out from the ducts of his eyes; Tore letting out a small snivel before crying: “Thanks. You two are the best pair of siblings anyone could ask for.” After their blue brother wipes away the tears from his eyes, he joins his purple brother and orange sister as they steel their conviction against the outer worldly foe before them; taking their stand against such immeasurable odds together.

The mass of unfiltered cosmic space finally takes its tangible form before the trio; hundreds upon hundreds of wings stretching for miles on end all swirls out from the center, their flesh made from the twinkling stars and galaxies of the universe as countless eyes all open upon from beneath its very skin. In the very center of this celestial body where the countless wings swirl from, a massive eye opens that twinkles and glows like the depths of the cosmos itself. The angel’s celestial transformation finished, Mall lets out a heavenly holy roar from the depths of their very soul; an incredible howl that shatters the very space they all dwell in. The scene of the golden tower breaks apart into thousands of pieces, the very floor they stand on crumbles away, the sky itself shatters until none of it remains; all of it swallowed by the scene of stars, planets, galaxies all floating within the depths of space. Tore, Mally, and Roy all now hover within this very cosmos with their holy foe floating before them, every single eye along the angel’s body staring down upon them all.

The first assault that the holy abomination throws out against the trio be an entire wave of numerous planetoids that all streak out from the cosmo’s held withing Mall’s very wings; all of them boasting unique shapes as they hurdle out towards the three. Seeing the storm of approaching planets close in, Tore grasps his sisters hand as both Roy and he glide out to the approaching barrage of worlds; soaring along and over the surface of not just spherical planets, but flat discs, waning crescents, leaning parallelograms, and numerous other strangely shaped polygons that careen in their direction. While holding onto her brother as he soars through the stream of small planets, Mally feels the light gravity of each beckon her to their almost smooth, polished surfaces; their gravitational pull giving the orange skater a clever little idea. “Tore!” she alerts her blue brother with. “Yeah?” “I think I know a way to close the distance. Fling me to one of those planet.” “What!? What are you even-” “Just do it!”

Despite his initial hesitation, the indigo angel flings his orange sister out towards one of the approaching disc shaped planetoids; Mally reaches out from behind to pull out her skating gear and swiftly starts to strap on her skates. The lass manages to don her skates moments before she approaches the planets surface and glides across its very face as smoothly as a knife cutting through silky smooth butter; the orange skater taking out both her hockey stick and grapple yo as she nears the end of the planetoid. Reaching the very edge does Mally leap right off the planet and out towards the next, flipping across space as she escapes the gravitational pull of the previous world and let the triangular one ahead pull her straight in. Gliding right across one of the triangle worlds sides, the orange skater sets her sites outwards towards a nearby waning crescent and leaps right off towards the moon; feeling the gravity pull against her body as she jumps between these planets. Mally glides across the inner edge of the waning moonside as naturally as a halfpipe, weaving around large worms that burrow in and out from the moon’s very rock; her sites drawn over towards a hexagram world made from crystallized tungsten and keeps her grapple yo handy when nearing the end of the crescent she skates on. Launching herself straight off the side of the moon, the orange lass drifts out towards the tungsten hexagram and cast her trusty gadget out to one of its pointed ends; the grapple yo’s string wrapping around the rugged point and letting the girl twirl around and around, constantly using the momentum to keep building speed. Upon finally unraveling her string from the point of raw tungsten, Mally flings herself out at breakneck speed; making a complete beeline straight for their celestial foe.

Closing the distance between her and the angelic horror, the orange haired girl swings her hockey stick towards the monstrous angel’s center eye; her tip of her weapons head stopping just short of Mall’s starry sclera. The orange lass is forced to a stop right before she could strike her leviathan foe, Mally struggling to push against whatever force is stopping her short of smacking the eye of the holy monster. Midst her struggles is she ultimately catapulted away from the abominations twinkling eye by an incredibly strong wave of space, one that Mally blocks with the neck of her weapon. Though she is mostly spared from the overwhelming spacial power, her precious hockey stick is scrambled to pieces under the powerful wave; Mally threatening to drift out towards the depths of the cosmo’s.

Before the young girl could drift too far out into the depths of the infinite, a streak of black and violet sweeps her away; Mally opening her eyes to find herself resting in her purple brothers arms. “Damn, took one helluva blow there, huh. Shocked your still in once piece.” he comments. “But, but my hockey stick…” she utters, peering over her brother’s shoulder. Glancing back to where his sis stares does he see what was left of her once treasured weapons; its remains threatening to drift away into the cosmos. “Hang on a sec.” the purple angel request as he casts his newfound dark arm out towards what was left of his sisters weapon. Upon nearing the scattered pieces of wood does the arm split into dozens of strands that all reach out to every single fractured splinter that once made up the hockey stick; all of its chunks cobbling together among the mass of darkness as it retreats back to its very sender. When returning to their side, Mally finds her destroyed weapon now glued back together by the very matter that makes up her brother’s arm; Roy himself handing the rebuilt hockey back into his sisters hand as he ask her how: “You remember how I get my arm to transform?” “By thought, right?” “Think of a weapon while ya hold it.” Like her brother instructs her to do, Mally starts to concentrate on a particular new weapon different to the one in her hands; the orange lass witnessing the head of her hockey stick engulf in the black matter that holds it together, stretching out into the long black blade of a great scythe. “There ya go.” “Nice.”

Its in this very moment that the stars within the cosmic angel’s center eyes start dim, Mall’s entire pupil and sclera darkening as black as coal, the rest of the eyes decorating the holy monsters wings following suit and dimming into darkness. The trio watch as their galactic foe splits themselves straight in half, both fracture pieces parting ways to unveil a tiny black dot that begins to draw in the nearby stars; the hole quickly growing to threaten to pull all of them into its void. Amidst being dragged straight into the darkness, Roy tosses his sister away from the hole’s monumental pull; the strength of the merc’s throw letting Mally escape towards a nearby planet as both he and Tore are threatened to be pulled into the black holes depths. Among gliding across the stars, the orange skater acts fast and flings her trusty grapple yo out towards her retreating blue brother; grabbing the blue boy’s attention with: “Tore!” Peering out where his orange sister floats away, the indigo angel sees the girls yoyo wrap itself all around his leg and further hears Mally demand that he: “Grab Roy!”

Without so much as another word does Tore start to race out towards their purple brother as he threatens to plunge into the void, all while their orange sis drifts off towards a nearby planet with her weapon at the ready. Upon touching down onto the planets surface, Mally digs the head of her transformed weapon straight into the worlds very soil; strands of the blade breaking off and rooting themselves into the planet. As her blue brother clutches their violet siblings arm moments as they were nearing the abyss, Mally wraps the steel string of her gadget around her very arm and keeps a tight hold of them both; fighting against the overwhelming strength of the black hole’s pull. Amidst her steadfast struggle does the steel string around her arm harshly chaff her, the incredibly tight friction cutting through her skin and causing her arm to bleed; the orange lass refusing to let go despite the overwhelming pain. For about half a minute straight does the orange girl keep her brothers from falling into the depths of the black hole, even as space around her is rend into its lifeless void; Mally’s pupil’s glowing a distinct blood red as she keeps hold of the pair of angels.

But at long last does the strength of the void finally dissolve away and its very pull fading from the space around them; Mally jerking her brothers back out towards her as the black hole finally putters out into nothingness. Rescued from their doom, Tore lets out a sharp hiss when discovering the orange girls arm left cut and torn as the blood that leaves it hovers out into the depths of space. Aw, that ain’t good. That seriously isn’t good. While unwrapping his sister gadget from his own leg leg, the blue boy notices the yoyo’s shell glowing alight; the crystal held within reflecting a glow quite similar to the life he’s pulled from other sources. Think it needs a tiny bit more juice. Clasping the shell of the gadget into the palm of his hand, the indigo angel disperses a little more of his power into the crystal with; his sisters grapple yo glowing brighter with a multitude of colors. Once beaming bright with life, Tore flings his siblings gadget back into her side as its string retracts into the shell; some of the power kept with splashing onto the girls arm as the grapple yo returns into her hand. This very power closes Mally’s bleeding wound and mends the pain throbbing across her arm; the skater herself recovering from the agonizing suffering and peering over to see her gadget to find its shell beaming with colorful light. “We got ya back, Mal.” the blue angel claims “Go ahead and beat this mofo down.” their purple brother tells her. Knowing her brothers got her back, Mally casts her colorful glowing gadget straight out to a nearby asteroid; the skater retracting the string back to fling herself out towards their holy foe.

Among gliding out towards the cosmic angel before them, the orange skater first comes across an entire cluster of solid stars and asteroids standing in her way; Mally drifting herself out towards one of these solid stars and leaping right across its crystallized surface and bouncing from star to star. Once making out of the dense star cluster does the girl then discover a planet with a ring around it similar to Saturn’s own; a big smile stretching across her face as she nears the very edge of the ring. With nothing but her own pair of skates does Mally grind right across the rings sharp edge, the sparks that result from grinding along the ring glowing a starry light as she slides right across the planets ring and leaps back out towards the spacial angel before them.

With the angel’s foes on the approach, Mall’s center eyes closes for a moment as its wings close inward; opening its pupil wide once more and flapping their wings to send out a visible pulse of cosmic radiation, a wave which reduces all that stand in its path. The threat of this radioactive wave ready to tear them all asunder, the pair of angels streak right past their orange sister and prepare to disperses the oncoming assault; the blue boy out of them shouting how: “Still got some life left in me!” Placing the palms of his hands upon his very chest, Tore draws forth colorful batch of power from the depths of his very body and unleashes it all into an intense beam of rainbows; the colorful ray cutting straight through half of the radiation. “That’s the spirit. Lets show this cosmic bastard why you shouldn’t piss us off!” Roy cheers on as he sharpen his onyx arm into the shape of a giant blade. With but a couple of swipes does the violet angel manage to slice straight through what remains of the radioactive wave; finally clearing the way and letting their sister streak right by.

With nothing else standing in the way towards the angelic horror, the orange skater starts to tie the string of her glowing grapple yo right around the neck of her dark matter infused weapon; commanding the very material to transform the hockey stick into a twinblade, one with a deadly swords protruding out from each end. With both her gadget and weapon tied together, Mally flings both of them out as she starts to twirl through the space before the holy horror; Mall themselves attempting to prevent the girls oncoming assault by stretching the space between them. In a ball of brilliant life and scorning rage, tied together by blood do the weapons streak straight through the artificially lengthened space and strike the angel straight into the center of its middle eye; pieces of the cosmic holy being breaking apart as he reels back from the overwhelming impact.

Shortly after the blow does Mall let out a holy screech that pushes back all that near; the skater that inflicted the blow sent flying back out to the depths of the cosmo’s behind her. Before she could be cast away into the endless infinite, a streak of white and blue zooms out and swipes the girl back toward their purple brothers side; Tore stopping right beside his purple brother just in time to witness their foe arise back up from the blow; its flapping wings distorting the very space it dwells within. “Didn’t like that too much, did it? Practically throwing a shit fit, tearing up space like a little tike shredding paper here.” Roy belittles. “If Mall doesn’t like this, then he sure ain’t gonna appreciate the rest of what we got to give him.” his blue brother expresses with clear vitriol in his voice.

Among venturing through the warpgate’s inner tunnels of numerous running veins and pulsing flesh, Vivi, Ryan, Melvin, Hank and Alex all finally come to the very core and behold the Orphan in all of its shinning glory; the child hovering in the middle glimmering brightly midst the rings that surround it. “Holy shit, man. You guys even consider for a sec the whole uncomfortable subtexts of this sorta bull might be; like fucking step back and think for a sec here. It’s all the theories with the final boss of Earthbound all over again about Giygas being a-” Before the young teen could finish his implicate thoughts over what they were about to do, the rest of them all immediately charge out towards the holy core all at once; Ryan himself letting out a small sigh before he runs after and proclaiming: “Sure whatev, just-...We don’t even have a plan yet!”

Hovering into the air before the shimmering holy core, Hank taps a few buttons along his armrest to unleash an entire cluster of missiles constructed from soup cans from his wheelchair compartments; a holy light beginning to glow out from the dozens of eyes that decorate the Orphans revolving rings as the missiles approach. In but a matter of seconds do all the eyes fire out a salvo of bright rays that curve through the air, perfectly striking out every single makeshift missile hank had launched out; reducing their aluminum to smoldering slag.

Among all the resulting smoke from the failed missile strike, Alex rockets upwards towards the very core of the Orphan in an attempting a beeline assault from below, transforming his arms into deadly weapons as he nears the outer rings. With the demon approaching, the outer rim starts to violently spin about as the light from its numerous eyes starts to glisten once more; the holy glow that glimmers from its pupils soon transforms into a solid shape and smacks Alex aside. Latched upon the veins hanging overhead, Vivian then tries to her luck in bombing down towards the core from below; the ring spinning in the opposite direction to swing its objects of solid light out to the skull girl and smack her aside like the demon.

Lunging out in the middle like a tried and true arrow, Melvin swipes through the ring’s solid light and reduces their glow to glittering shards that dissipate in the air; slipping by the rest of the rings and ready to strike the very core. Alas is the young man’s attempts thwarted when the Orphan lets out a Holy outcry similar to a crying infant; a wave of brilliant light that launches Melvin away.

While Hank simply hovers back to Ryan’s side, the other three roughly crash right before the two; Ryan taking in a little breath before asking the trio: “So, you guys wanna try charging out like a buncha eager jackass’s or do you wanna actually formulate a plan here?” “Fuck off!” all three of them shout.

Back up above do Tore, Mally, and Roy continue to thwart off the spacial assault thrown to them by the cosmic holy horror hovering before them; all three watching closely as the angelic being commands every star that occupies the cosmo’s around them to gather before him. Every single glistening star is collected out from the depths of space and is gathered before Mall, their numerous gaseous light collaborating together into an intensely bright and powerfully hot sun; this freshly born star’s very surface blistering hot enough to spew out flames from its very surface that all rocket towards the trio. The three split apart as the bouts of searing flames near them all, nearly avoiding being cooked alive as the purple merc among them states that: “Think it’s my turn to take a shot at this celestial asshole.”

Declaring such does the violet angel take off after the celestial entity set behind the very sun it had conjured, all while the sun’s surface continue to spew out dozens upon dozens of solar flares across its surface; both his brother and sister watching his back as he starts to move in. As some of these searing pillars of flame start to streak out towards the purple merc, his indigo brother swoops straight in with a lively power held in his hands; Tore casting out a colorful wave from the palm of his hand to disperse the approaching flare. When this beam of rainbows streaks right along his side, Roy feels something else irradiate from beneath this very wave; the violet angel peering back towards its very caster to sense that feeling coming from his very own brother. Set upon his face as clear as day could Roy see the seething anger painted across Tore’s face, showing the new found contempt he feels nowhere near being as much as what wells within the depths of his very soul; such a righteous fury making his new arm of dark black quiver.

Amidst staring out to his blue brother do numerous more flames come spewing out from the surface of the small sun; the fiery inferno’s streaking across space and towards the approaching violet angel. Just moments before these approaching fires could envelope the purple merc in their blazing fury, Roy feels a strand of steel string envelope his very hips and peers aside to see his orange sister pulling herself out towards him with freshly repaired hockey stick in hand; Mally swinging herself out before her violet brother to confront the approaching flame. Brandishing her trusty weapon does the orange skater start to rapidly twirl it out against the flames as the dark matter keeping it together widens out into giant fans, the black fan’s massive width quelling the solar flames away and reducing them to meager embers.

While his sis swings right out from his very flight path, the purple merc finds her donning a similar glare akin to their blue brothers anger; a potent rage directed towards their spacial foe. Tore looked up to this guy and in the end just wound up stabbing him in the back. And Mally here risked life and limb just to track him down and we come up to see all this shit go down. Ain’t hard to see why they’re so mad at this bastard. Sympathizing with his siblings unkempt fury, Roy feels his newfound limb begin to violently pulse upon these feeling of justified anger, the merc looking to the quivering arm as a sinister smile stretches across his cheeks.

Upon nearing the scorching sunlight, the violet angel thrusts his dark arm straight out towards the blistering bright star; the dark matter that makes up his hand growing to exponential size while its very finger start to twist and contort themselves into a recognizable shape. The cosmic angel’s sparkling pupil shrink when beholding the mass of darkness spread before him and very sun he had conjured; the mass of dark matter set before the holy being expanding into the leviathan sized head of a pitch black wolf. Mall left with only a few seconds before both them and the star they had conjured are devoured in a single bite, the sun vanishes underneath the black canines maw as the light that came from the sun is snuffed out; darkness starts to settle within the very space they all dwell.

Just meager seconds after this black void settles do pillars of pure light start to pierce straight through the head of the dark wolf and seep out into the surrounding cosmo’s; the wolf eventually exploding in a big bang as waves of galaxies flow out from the blast. From this brilliant supernova does the purple angel’s arm retract back to his side, all while he hand his siblings peering out beyond all the cosmic colors to behold the cosmic angel hovering in the center of it all; all of them noticing the numerous wings that the holy being had boasted reduced in numbers. “Doesn’t seem like this galactic jackass can take much more.” the merc claims. “We just need to get one more clean hit in and this angel will be down for the count.” the orange skater suggests. “I’m the guy that started this whole mess, seems only fitting that I go in and end it.” the blue boy offers.

Down within the inner workings of the warp gate does Ryan continue to watch his four comrades continue to fruitlessly attempt to break through the Orphan’s defenses, watching as Vivian keeps recklessly charging out, Alex’s constantly shifting and morphing weapon limbs, Melvin’s leaps and bounds along every angel he could take; and Hank trying numerous weapons and gadgets; all of it deflected, smacked aside, and pushed back by the Orphan’s might. Thrust straight into the wall of veins and flesh, the demon gazes over to the core that they assaulted to find the results of their attack having done less than little; the rings spinning along the Orphan continuing to glow as bright as the heavens. Thought the frustration beginning to build within him over this seemingly unbreakable wall, all that anger starts to subside when he eyes the skull girl pulling her severed bone arm right out from between a set of veins; Vivi jerking her arm back to finally uproot her limb and tear through the squishy flesh. From within these torn veins does a strange liquid spurt out and spill onto the floor, Alex following where the torn veins would lead to and sees this fleshy pipe stretching to the center of the chamber; it and other pipes protruding up to the Orphan right above.

Its upon this very discovery that the orange haired demon starts piecing together a plausible strategy within his black horned head, first calling Vivi’s attention with: “Hey, you withered skeletal annoyance, I need your attention for a moment!” The demon’s call proves incredibly effective at drawing the huffed half skeleton straight to him, Vivian getting all up in Alex’s face as she growl: “The hell’s yo problem, ya fuckin whole horned cock head!?” Pushing the skull girl away, Alex then points out towards the walls of the chamber and asks her: “Please direct what little span of attention you can wield and peer out to the numerous pipes and veins that decorate these walls.” Gazing out to the very veins the demon points towards, Vivi responds back with: “Yeah, pretty damn disturbing if ya ask me. The hell’s your point?” “From what I’ve been informed, you’re at least decently competent with a scythe.” “Who the hell told ya that shit!?” she blurts out. “I need you to travel along these very walls cutting these numerous veins that pump out precious juices straight into the core. Like that, we can effectively cut off our foe’s support.” “Ya got two limbs that can turn into fucking swords! The hell’s stopping you from doing it?” “Because I am in the midst of formulating a plan. One that might just give us what we need to stop our encroaching doom, and I unfortunately need all of your cooperation.” Hearing the demon’s words, Vivian peers back over to all the fleshy pipes that the walls of the core’s chamber as a blend of worry and doubt washes over her. The girl takes a moment to take in a calming breath before she claims that she’s: “Fine. On it.”

Midst racing towards the very edge of the chamber, the skull girl stretches her boney limb out into the air while focusing on the very tool that she loathes; the very same scythe that proves as a reminder of her fate. In a flash of bright lime green does the scythe of death materialize in Vivian’s hand, the skull girl clutching its neck with both hands as she approaches the numerous precious veins that lend the core its very life. While racing across the side of the chamber, Vivi flails the blade of her scythe against the numerous veins that decorate its very walls; bouts of ooze bursting out from underneath their cut flesh. While watching his skeletal ally rend apart the dozens of fleshy pipes set across the walls, Alex finds all the color that flows through these veins fade away and drain the core connected to them of precious support; the light that shines from the Orphan slowly starting to dim.

The piece of his plan falling into place, Alex peers over to the wayside and finds both Hank and Ryan in the middle of reloading their crudely made weaponry; the demon appearing to their side in a puff of smoke as Ryan questions: “The hell is Vivi doing flailing her scythe around like a mad woman? Practically gonna lose more than an arm doing that.” “Your foul tempered pal there is busy weakening the core’s support in accordance to my strategy. I’m sure whatever she loses can be firmly glued back on.” the demon answers. “Ooh, a strategy? Just what sort of plan ya got cookin up in that horned head of yours?” Hank gleefully questions. “The next step of my brilliant strategy is to halt the numerous rings from rapidly twirling about in order to gauge closer to the core. Hmm...Alas, I don’t imagine much in here that could serve to slow their rotation.” “I think I got something here that might cover that.” the wheelchair bound genius mentions while reaching down into a compartment along the side of his chair.

From the pocket of his chair does Hank pull out a couple guns crudely made from discarded plastic and splintered wood; both Alex and Ryan gazing upon these presented weapons with their own brand of “are you fucking kidding me here”, the demon among them questioning: “What manner of shoddy craftsmanship is this?” “Am I glad you asked. These babies are specifically designed in mind to fire out a special quick drying adhesive I use when constructing any aircraft’s. This stuff’s seriously strong enough to take going through a raging twister and coming out whole.” “Where did you get something that strong?” Ryan follows. “Something that me and I couple of my workshop pal’s cooked up out of old chewed up gum, tree sap, glue, rhino snot and-” “Don’t care. Just use it to keep that things rings from moving another inch.” Alex demands out of them both.

Upon this very request does Hank toss Ryan one of these specially made weapons as both of them race out towards the sides of the chamber, the chairbound genius gliding out towards the left as his parnter jumps out to the right. When along both of the glowing Orphan’s sides, the two boys pull the triggers of their crude guns for their barrels to spurt out globs of white glue straight out towards the core’s outer rings; the child hovering in the middle letting out an irritated outcry as some of the adhesive lands straight into the ring’s eyes.

Midst partaking in the truly bizarre site of both boys constantly firing out globs of glue out to the angelic monstrosity set before him, Melvin is left in a sort of strange disbelief from this site laying out before him; the young man lightly shaking his head as he mentions: “I...I don’t think anything could’ve prepared me for the sort of shit I’d see today.” “Then I sure hope you’re prepared to follow my lead in the finale.” Alex demands as he glides right by, Melvin growls over while he joins the demon’s side; both of them lunge forth towards the shinning Orphan at breakneck speeds.

Out from along the reaches of the freshly created cosmos, Tore and his siblings start racing straight out towards the cosmic angel; discussing on how they’ll deliver the final blow as Roy ask: “Both of us threw all we got at this galactic son of a bitch, how ya wanna end things bro?” “I’m just about tapped out myself here. You guys don’t mind given me a bit of a boost here, do ya?” the indigo angel asks. “Whateva ya need, man.” “Yeah, big bro. What ya need us to do.” Mally agrees. “Okay, ju-just don’t panic if it feels like your dying. I promise I’m just gonna take a little here.” “Wait, little of wha-”

Before the merc could question what exactly his blue brother was on about, Tore slaps his palms along his sibs sides; the two feeling rather woozy as the indigo angel extracts some of their life forced from the depths of their bodies. “Whoo. Holy...What the heck was that all about?” the orange skater questions, shaking off her inherent dizziness. “It’ll be the parts of you guys I need to end this.” Tore proclaims, holding both bits of life he had collected from his siblings in both hands. In a single moment does he shove essence of their very souls straight through his chest, their life force surging through his body and melding with his with his own to create a burst of raw power; a rainbow of colors surging through his entire body. “Ready to go!”

With the very life force given to him by his siblings held withing his very body, Tore zooms out towards their celestial foe with both his brother and sister by his side; Mall twisting the very space before him to hinder their assault forth and creating countless wormholes around them. Though Tore manages to evade the reach of these numerous wormholes, both of the indigo angel’s siblings unfortunately fall through a pair of portals that swallow them hole; the two of them spat out far behind their blue bro. “Ain’t gonna get us outta the game that easily!” Mally warns as both her and Roy casting forth her grapple yo and his new dark arm respectively, spearheading through the cosmo’s to reach their blue brother. When the limb and gadget both wrap themselves around the indigo angel’s legs, the two of them shoot throughout the depths of space and start to close the gap between them.

From what remained of the Kybr’s true form, Mall expels out entire galaxies from the cosmos held within his numerous fractured wings; their starry edges their very edges cutting through the very space they dwell in like a galactic saw blade. As the indigo angel weaves around the solar systems that are launches his way, his siblings latched behind him smack away their very stars as they get closer and closer to their blue bro; each galaxy breaking into nothing but stardust open being struck. With just a few moments away from collision, the cosmic angel unfurls their wings and sends forth one last leviathan galaxy out in an effort and thwart their assault once and for; Mall’s blue ward left in awe from the sheer size of the sent out solar system that hurdles his way. Just when facing the end of his final assault upon his former master, the blue boy witnesses siblings fling themselves out from behind him and towards the oncoming galaxy; both the orange skater and purple merc using the dark weapons in their hands to slice the very stars into shards and giving their brother the way forth. “All you Tore!” “Go for it!” Both his loyal brother and sister having given him a way forth towards the end, Tore speeds out towards their celestial foe as fast as he could; packing all the power he had gathered into his fist as he nears Mall’s center eye.

Within the core chamber, all of the glue that both Hank and Ryan had shot out in their pinching barrage starts to stick to the Orphans spiraling golden rings and keeps them from moving another inch; their ammunition running out before they could shoot out to the last few rings closest to the core. “I’m out.” Ryan warns. “Me too.” Hank adds. “Shit, now what?” Melvin questions. “We keep moving!” Alex orders. The demon determined to finish the final step of his strategy, both Melvin and Alex lunge forth towards the glistening child like core.

Seeing the core itself unleash a shining ray out towards them both, the young man zips out ahead and powers straight through the burning light to reach towards inner rings protecting the Orphan. Upon landing right above the core does Melvin take an iron vice grip onto the few remaining golden rings, feeling their incredible holy light burn his demonic infused hands as he keeps the halo’s from moving another inch. “Finish it!” he screams out. Requested out from his partner, the orange demon prepares to deal the ending attack to the open infant shaped core among the still halos; Alex morphing his arm into a sharp tipped pike as he nears towards the end.

Putting every single bit of power he had left to muster behind his swing, Tore thrusts his colorfully glowing fist straight through his former mentor’s center eye; Mall letting out a loud, ear piercing shriek as the life his student had gathered breaks apart his celestial body.

Once before the child shaped core of the warp gate, Alex thrusts his transformed pike limb straight through its glowing body; the core letting out a loud outcry as the darkness from the demon’s arm spreads within and fractures it to pieces.

Upon both of these finishing blows are the space around them all engulfed in a brilliant light; blinding all who behold its majestic glory as both the cosmic angel and holy child’s forms break apart. This awesome heavenly light slowly begins to fade away from view, away from this very existence only for all to dim into darkness once more.

An exhausted groan escapes him as Tore starts to open his eyes, obtaining the first lovely view of the morning sun arising out from the cloudy sea; the blue boy pushing himself right off the golden floor and stands upon his very knee’s. Peering over does he discover not just his family that had aided him in his ultimate hour of need, but all their friends as well; all of them lying along the golden spire floor unconscious; the early sunlight shinning its warming glow upon their sides. We’re back...Does that mean…? His vision peers skywards towards the golden halo hanging above them all, the picture of the other dimension held within its very rim was no more. The boy’s head droops down to the golden floor as an incredible relief washes over the indigo angel; certain this entire ordeal, the threat of the Kybr, was stopped just in time. His eyes arising from his own relieved reflection along the golden floor, a forlorn stare spread across his face as a peculiar site catches the blue boy’s attention; the blue boy finally standing on his own two feet and stumbling over towards such.

When awakening from their exhausted stupor, each one of them find themselves laying outside the spire and take in the welcoming site of the morning sky; the fresh twilight breeze all the more relaxing after the turmoil they had endured. While taking in the wonderful site along with their well earned victory, Mally suddenly feels somebody tackle her back down upon the ground; peering over her shoulder upon falling to discover her skeletal pal giving her a tight hug as she shout: “Hell yeah, bitch! That whole fucking show was insane! Still can’t believe all of us stopped shit from hitting the fan here!” “You’re telling me. I didn’t think we were gonna make it. After all the crazy stuff we all went through, It’s hard to believe we stopped all this from going off.” the orange skater admits.

During their little celebration, Hank rolls along over alongside Ryan as the wheelbound genius takes in a much more intrigued look to their surroundings and claims that: “Now that we stopped all of heavenly hell from busting loose. I wanna take a real good look at the kind of technology that makes this big old tower tick. I wonder how many gadgets and gizmo’s I could make from salvaging its parts?” “Seriously hope yer not planning on using any of the nasty shit we saw down there; cause I ain’t touching any of that stuff as long as I live. The way that all that squishy meat felt under his feet is something I might haveta blow money at just going to therapy for.”

“From the way things sound, seems like all of you did a bang ass job without us. Bravo there, kids.” Roy applauds to both Alex and Melvin, who stand before him. “Well, it was mostly thanks to my strategic prowess that the day had been won. No need to thank me.” the demon boasts aloud. “Motherfuc- So all the effort we put in to stop all that from going down wasn’t that important, that what you mouthin off over?” Melvin barks. “Please. As if that’s what I mean’t. All of the components around me were what made my vision possible...Though I doubt any of you would come up with anything half as brilliant.” Its in this last comment that the shots had been fired and horses take off, both of them going off on each other like set off C4 explosives of screaming complaints and insults; Roy shaking his head as he peers away from the two and out towards his blue brother.

Midst watching her friends talk to themselves over what all they went through, Mally see’s her purple brother venturing over to Tore’s side; the orange girl parting from her friends to join Roy in checking on him. The two witness find their blue brother kneeling down onto the golden floor, noticing a strange light emanating from the blue boy’s front. “Tore, you okay there?” his violet sibling worries. “...I’m fine.” he answers with clear melancholy, keeps his eyes to the light underneath. Peeking out from behind him do both Roy and Mally find their blue brother staring down upon a glint of light that hover’s above the palms of his hands; the sparkling glow glimmering like the very cosmo’s. “Is that who we think it is?” Mally questions. “All that’s left of him. And all that might ever be.” the indigo angel answers, rising upon his own two feet.

Continuing to gaze down to the cosmic glow left within his hands, Tore walks out towards the wayside of the golden spire; friends and family alike gazing to him as he walks towards the very edge. “Tore.” Along his very back do the boy’s wings of white protrude outwards, the indigo angel finally leaping off the very edge of the spire; all of them venturing to the edge to watch as the boy hovers down towards the sea of clouds below. “He might have to think some things through, Mal. Think we should just give him some time to himself.” his purple brother suggests.

His saddening gaze is kept upon the reminisce of his former master that now rests upon his gentle palm, Tore continues to hover down to the fluff below with the golden spire at his back; the light of Mall’s remains shinning as they passing down through the clouds. The light of the morning sun continues to arise from the cloud horizon as he slowly descends downward; its twilight glow reflecting off the edge of the shinning golden spire. Alas can its light not overshadow the bit of the cosmo’s that rests within the angel’s hand; its glow reflecting within Tore’s own eyes. Finally does he descend down through the sea of clouds, the cosmic glow in his hands shinning past the numerous clouds before he passes down through the bottom. A flock of countless tropical birds rises right past the blue boy; Tore keeping his eyes glued to the glint of his former mentor as tears start to drizzle out down towards tropical jungle down below.

Among his lamenting descent does Tore gently land down onto the jungle floor along the base of the spire, the grass beneath his feet parting as he touches down on the earth. Tore parts his palms out from beneath what remained of his once beloved mentor, letting the last bits of the cosmic angel flutter down towards the ground and disappearing into the earth. A small snivel escapes as the indigo angel wipes away the tears that flow down from his very cheeks; the blue boy gaze out to the vast jungle set before him to behold the flora and fauna alike that bask in the welcome morning sun together. It’s a new day. A fresh start. Everyone wakes up to the lives they walk. I just wished you could’ve shared in it all with me...Thanks Mall, for showing me how much its all worth. A small breath leaves his lunges before he begin to walk away from the golden Kybr spire set behind him; his wings glistening with bits of colorful glitter trailing behind as he walks forth into the unknown beyond. Along the ground he left behind does a lone plant start to sprout out from the earth; the small stalk of a flower who’s petals show the depths of the cosmos.

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Words cannot simply describe how long I've been waiting to write this whole arc out. From its strange beginning all the way up to its dynamic and bittersweet conclusion. I've seriously been planning to make something like this along the lines of 2 years, but knew I had to simply pace myself and wait for the moment to do so. That arc of one of the main characters finding a rolemodol, but having them be someone that they would have to stop in the end. To those of you that have actually stuck around this long, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to read the sort of stuff that comes out from my brain. Writing this redo these past couple years have shown me ways to improve my writing techniques for the future, and I have a bunch of amazing characters created by so many others to thank for it. Thank you for letting me mold these stories.

#lillaxtrigger #Young Hope #next generation

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chroniccombustion · 4 years

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Butterflies in the Garden

Written for the ‘Fools in Love’ Persona Fan Zine (@personafoolsinlovezine)

Genre: soulmates, soulmate indentitpre-romance, M/M Rated: K Characters: Souji Seta (Yu Narukami), Akira Karusu (Ren Amamiya), Margaret, Izanagi, mentions of the IT Warnings: none Status: zine fic, oneshot; complete

Your name is Souji Seta, and you do not have a soulmate.

Even as a child, when your classmates started sprouting colors, Lover’s Marks around their wrists, Platonic Marks across their backs, your skin has always been blank. You used to watch the other children as they gleefully showed off their growing ink and giggled over whose Marks might match their own. You envied them at first. Now you just feel numb.

Over time you’ve come to accept your Mark-less existence. You don’t like it, you don’t want it, but a lifetime of changing schools and absent parents means you’re no stranger to being alone. Eventually you just stop caring. At least, you tell yourself you’ve stopped caring; it’s easier than facing the gaping void of loneliness threatening to choke you whenever your guard is down.

Maybe this is better, you think. Maybe your lack of Soul Marks is the universe’s way of helping you deal with the isolation in your everyday life.

(You chant your “maybe’s” in your head and stop crying yourself to sleep by the time you reach age 9.)

---

Your flowers finally bloom when you turn 16.

A year is spent in a rural town called Inaba, where, for the first time in your existence, you actually feel alive. There are murders, a mystery, but in between the stress and combat there are people, and as you slowly get to know them you can feel your garden grow.

They start as tingles across your shoulder blades, the sensation of warm water spreading like ink along your skin. You wake one morning to find stems and buds. You wake the next to petals and leaves. Sunflowers for the Magician, hyacinth and amaryllis for the Chariot and Priestess. Gladiolus, then pink roses; lilac, then iris. There is freesia for your cousin, a dahlia for her dad. An entire field of Platonic Marks springs up almost overnight, and little by little they bury the emptiness beneath vibrant shades of love until you’re covered neck to waist in watercolor blooms.

But for all the tattooed beauty of the flowers on your back there is still a blank spot on your canvas, and the colors fade in sadness on the day you have to leave.

---

You stop dreaming about the Velvet Room when you move back to Tokyo. You miss it, the way you miss everything else about Inaba, but your contract has been fulfilled and the logical part of you knows you have to readjust to life as a normal person. It takes ages, but you begrudgingly fall back into your boring, lonely life. You clutch at your shoulders when it gets to be unbearable; when texts and calls to your garden of friends just aren’t enough, you find your fingers searching out the comfort of the blossoms on your back.

Months pass by the time you’ve finally accepted that you’ll never see the liminal blue dreamscape again, and it’s because of this that you’re so completely unprepared for the night when, out of absolutely nowhere, you feel that familiar sensation of falling just as you’re drifting asleep.

“Honored friend,” comes the silvery-sweet voice of Margaret in your ear. “May I ask a personal favor?”

You do not hesitate, you simply tell her, “yes.”

The world around you is cold and harsh when feeling returns to your body. You open your eyes to find yourself in a… cage? Stumbling to the bars, you look out into the blue-tinted room beyond your cramped enclosure and realize that you are not in a cage, but a prison.

The walls curve away from you in a circle of cells too dark to see inside, but from what you can tell, the center of the space is empty.

Someone lurks behind you in the dark; you do not need to turn to know who it is. “There is something wrong with the Velvet Room,” Margaret whispers over your shoulder. “I cannot seem to contact my Master and I fear this new guest may be in danger.” You hear her move, hear the creak of her Compendium as it opens.

Faintly, from all the way across the room in the cell directly opposite yours, there comes the sound of rustling chains. Instinctively you step back into the safety of the shadows as a figure, clad in white-and-black prison garb, shuffles up to the bars of that distant cell. You cannot make out features, only the monochrome of skin and charcoal hair.

“Hello?” the figure calls, and the voice is male.

“Hello?!” he calls more insistently, voice hitching in building unease. “Is anyone there?”

You don’t like this. You don’t like what the Velvet Room’s become and you don’t like that there’s a boy in chains across from you in the empty dark. “Let me help,” you whisper, eyeing the oppressive space around you with creeping dread. “This isn’t right, let me help.”

You practically feel Margaret’s smile. “I was hoping you’d offer.” The Compendium snaps shut.

Something rises from your soul: an old, familiar presence that you nearly weep to feel again, lightning-charged and sizzling through your veins like a pulse. There’s a surge of ethereal blue light and past the glow, through a pair of eyes not quite your own, you see the boy in the other cell take a step backwards in shock.

When the light dims, Izanagi stands triumphant in the center of the room.

Through your Persona’s vision you see the boy more clearly. He’s roughly your age, with curling black hair and wide dark eyes set in a beautiful, seraphim face. He stares up at you-not-you in fear and awe and somewhere in the back of your head you hear Izanagi’s voice like a rumbling, distant storm.

I am thou.

But thou are not I.

The boy’s bow furrows in frustrated confusion. “I don’t understand.”

You watch through Izanagi’s eyes as he silently appraises the boy in the cell. Eventually you feel him nod.

You’ll do.

The world glows white-hot.

There’s a sensation of something shifting – relocating – and suddenly you’re blind. In place of your sight, however, comes an acute awareness of someone else, like your awareness of Margaret behind you only stronger, deeper, like you’re somehow folded up in another person and they in you. Any hollow place that once existed within you is gone, filled to the brim with this feeling of him, the boy who now holds the most profound piece of your soul.

It’s the most intimate thing you’ve ever felt in your life and you are very nearly brought to tears.

Your vision fades back in, leaving you once more inside your own body, and from across the way you can see the boy staring at his hands in pure wonder. He flexes his fingers, brings them up to press against his chest as if he’s feeling for something past his sternum. He looks up, and those dark, wide eyes meet yours.

“Who are you?” he whispers, but you feel it in your head all the same.

You get no chance to answer. Margret’s hand is on your shoulder before you can open your mouth, and into your ear she murmurs, “It’s best if we leave now, honored friend.”

You want to protest, shake her hand off, shout your name back at the boy and ask for his, but your body feels weightless, detached from your surroundings, and you blink to find the room around you blurring at the edges.

You wake up alone in the physical world, blinking away fresh tears. The feeling of completeness is still there, though, and as you stare up at the ceiling and focus, you can just make out the faint stirrings of Izanagi from somewhere far away. “Come back,” you whisper to the boy that cannot hear you. “Please …”

When the sun rises a few hours later, flooding your bedroom with light, you notice something beneath the cuff of your shirtsleeve. There, on your left wrist, in brilliant cyan-blue, is a Lover’s Mark in the shape of a swooping butterfly.

---

Life doesn’t change too much. You weren’t sure if it would because you’ve never had a soulmate before and don’t know what it’s meant to feel like, but the garden on your back hadn’t really changed anything either, so you suppose this is normal. Something that does change is the way you can sense his emotions whenever they’re strong enough.

Determination comes through a lot, as does defiance. You wonder what kind of life your soulmate is living where he’s constantly on edge, constantly tense or stressed. Anxiety and anger are common as well, and you don’t like that the negative emotions are what you get most often because you can’t tell if they’re what he feels the strongest or what he feels most frequently. Neither one is good.

You worry for him, send him thoughts of strength where you can, whisper, “you’ll get through this, I believe in you” into the butterfly, and pray that it reaches him when he needs it. You don’t know him, not even his name or where he is, but you’ve wanted him your whole life and now that you know he exists you already want to protect him. Sometimes there’s a flicker of something in return, but you can’t make out what it is.

There are times, however, when you swear you can feel his happiness. It’s soft, more focused than the other emotions, and always at night when you’re lying in bed thinking. There’s something like longing hiding in there as well, and you know this because you’ve known forever what longing feels like. The butterfly on your wrist tingles with warmth; you dare to hope it means he’s thinking about you, too.

It’s during those witching-hour moments, when you’re alone with the memory of dark eyes and even darker curls, that you press your palm over your new Lover’s Mark and pour every ounce of yearning and curious affection from your heart into this budding bond between you. You like to imagine that the faint, giggly joy you feel afterwards is him answering you back.

But your luck always runs out.

You awake in a feverish sweat one terrible, soul-rending night in November, with after-images of torture flashing behind your eyes and fear crackling in your ribs like Izanagi’s being torn apart from the inside out. It doesn’t let up even after you blink away the nightmare, and your entire body shakes violently with adrenaline not wholly your own.

You gasp into the darkness, searching for any scrap of familiar feeling you can use as an anchor to ground the both of you on either side of the bond. All you feel is chaos, a steady stream of spectral pain. You curl in on yourself then, instinctively wrapping your hand over the butterfly and clutching until your knuckles turn white. “I’m here,” you whisper, hoping against hope that he can hear you. “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here…”

There’s a feeling like something slotting between the fingers of your left hand, like someone is desperately gripping it, and you clench your fist in response as if you could hold his hand from far away and not let go. You stay that way until everything fades into a drug-like silence, sobbing against your Lover’s Mark and rocking back and forth until well after dawn.

Later, as you’re sluggishly getting ready for school with the morning news in the background, it’s announced that the leader of the infamous Phantom Thieves killed himself last night while in police custody. Somehow, with a gut-dropping surety that you cannot explain, you know.

You don’t go to classes that day – instead, you crawl back into bed in a daze and lay there with your lips pressed against the faded butterfly, your heart freezing over inside your chest.

---

Your Mark is silent after that.

Your hope begins to dim to embers, not yet dead but slowly dying as the months roll by. Sometimes, at night, it feels like maybe there’s still something there – an echo of lonely sorrow ghosting across your soul, but it always vanishes too quickly for you to catch. No matter how fervently you plead afterwards, there is never any response.

You look for solace in denial; old “maybe’s” sit like poison in your mind and you quickly discard them when all they do is make you sick. You cling to your garden of platonic flowers, but even they bring little comfort now that you’ve had a glimpse of something deeper.

Ever observant, your Magician is the first to notice your despondence. He calls you, asks if you’re okay, doesn’t believe you when you tell him you are. He calls again later to say he’s bought a train ticket to Tokyo for spring break, and despite your hollowness the sunflowers on your back grow a little brighter at the news.

March arrives and with it comes your friend, his presence a balm to your shattered heart. You talk for hours, catching up those months spent apart and, miserably, you tell him about your once-vibrant Lover’s Mark. It’s grey now, the color all but gone in your despair, and you’re grateful when he empathizes but doesn’t ask to see.

Three days into his visit you’re… better, so he drags you off to Shibuya for a change of scenery. It’s fun, hours passing with easy laughter, and you realize you’d forgotten what it felt like not to hurt.

You’re halfway to the arcade when it happens.

Out of nowhere comes a sharp, stinging pain – it lances up your arm, tracing the lines of your butterfly like lightning, and Izanagi roars to life inside your soul.

Go.

You run.

You don’t know your destination, nor how your feet know where to go; it doesn’t matter. You follow the pull inside your heart, letting Izanagi direct you left, right, straight for a block then down into an empty, open alleyway, heedless of your Magician calling out behind you.

Then Izanagi’s presence abruptly disappears.

You stumble to a halt. Heart hammering and confused, you nearly miss the sound of pounding footsteps steadily coming closer until they’re just beyond the opposite entrance to the alley. You turn as a figure rounds the corner—

and freeze.

Wide eyes stare at you from behind crooked glasses, dark beneath darker curls in a beautiful, seraphim face. “You,” he whispers, taking a step towards you.

And then you’re both moving. You meet as one in a tangle of grasping desperation, tugging at each other’s wrists to reveal an identical pair of butterflies in shining, brilliant blue. Your fingers in his hair, his arms around your waist, and somewhere in the middle your lips connect in a kiss that feels and tastes like home.

“You’re alive,” you nearly sob when you pull apart, at the same time he murmurs in awe, “you’re real.”

Your name is Souji Seta, and you are 17 when Akira Kurusu calls you his soulmate.

#fanfic #fanfiction #soukira #banpego #pegoban #fools in love #zine fic #persona #persona 4 #persona 5 #p4 #p5 #soulmates #souji seta #yu narukami #akira kurusu #ren amiyama

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blaster-aichi · 4 years

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Cardfight!! Vanguard Extra Story IF 16 things

forgot to post this, heck

Fanguard’s dream of actual hobo Kai-kun sleeping on Bench-chan is finally realized

There’s a lot of Kamui and Shin instinctively having feelings true to the true reality and mismatched to IF’s world. There’s two possibilities for this: a) Aichi did a really shitty job nailing down everything due to his concentration being focused primarily on Kai-kun b) the rupture from the illusion around Kai-kun unravelling tore into the IF world as a whole and it’s unable to entirely maintain its story, allowing for instances like Morikawa recalling Kai-kun’s line from Reboot’s first episode or Kamui and Shin recognizing Kagero as a clan expected of him.

The Kamui/Morikawa interactions were really cute, it’s nice to see them butting heads and just being rambunctious kids

Izaki sank the Miyaji Kai-kun theory, curious what he’s like at school in this form.

The ferocity of his original memories invading and scaring him having a lasting impact and making him afraid to play again even a couple/few days later is both fascinating and gutwrenching.

Honestly very surprised that Shin would reprimand anyone for being loud, particularly when that’s Misaki’s thing and where are you hiding her?

The softer he is, the more heartbreaking his situation is in the grand scheme of things, even if he’s come to terms with it. How dare you, Bushi.

IF 15: [roasts himself]. IF 16: [literally roasts a nerd]

Love and hate how the opportunity to elaborate and delve into Kai-kun’s relationship with Dragonic Overlord is taken advantage of because why not just stab me instead? It’s a nice insight into a facet of his time away from Hitsue that was never truly touched on in either version prior.

Emi and Shingo become Fanguard.

Right eye sighted. But being it’s Shingo's recollection of Aichi, not yet willing to buy that it’s completely normal with the fact that, beyond this and his encountering Shuka, it’s remained hidden — the purpose of the shot itself was to establish Shingo isn’t remembering things correctly, so there’s no reason to believe that he’s aware of anything that might be different about it. — This could be reflected in how Aichi keeps his distance from the others, holed up in his private quarters and suffering with only Kourin seeming to be anywhere near him during such times. It’s reminiscent of Legion Mate, both in his trying to shoulder everything alone/hide the agony he’s going through and Kourin’s close proximity, standing as his right hand in a manner that no-one else fills. — Also to go with the Legion Mate topic, in this moment, IF Aichi gives off VoidAichi vibes. Despite how broken up it’s apparent he would and should be to exile himself (see V epi 21 and the flashback to him watching the others in Card Capital from Legion Mate), he shows no emotion, but rather seems completely numbed. Also probably looking waaaay too far into it, but 2/2 times when his face has been completely obscured, there’s been a stylistic choice beneath his eyes that is typical of exhaustion/strain/fatigue and it keeps worrying me.

IF 17

The preview gives the impression that this episode is about to be a turning point; that with Naoki and Shingo both having some understanding that things aren’t quite right, their loyalty to Aichi might start to wane.

Naoki’s going out in his Miyaji school uniform has alarm bells ringing, personally, for reasons elaborated below.

Never knew that needed Kai-kun working a part-time job in my life but boy is it a need now.

Here for Mamoru reigniting his fandom for Kai-kun. Very here for it.

IF vs. V 21

As a first note, Kai-kun being the one to separation between Aichi and his deck against their IF selves has a nice touch of irony to it. Calling back to it would be a powerful way of drawing on their positions in relation to the scene.

Considering just how badly Aichi freaked out over the idea of giving up his Royal Paladin deck and what it would force unto him, there’s little reason to suspect anything that’s happening in IF is really of his own free will. — It’s been brought up that, without the two meeting as kids, Aichi shouldn’t really have much knowhow about Vanguard, much less a relationship to it. Considering Kai-kun remained a Hitsue student, it’s an easy assumption to make that Aichi’s education followed the same pattern (though his reasoning for returning to Miyaji remains a mystery, with his lacking the confidence that his original reality/Outside World self had); his exposure to the game might come through his time in Middle School, but it’s a loose and distant connection at best. IF World Aichi, without knowledge of Outside World (if they are two separate versions), would have no reason to target Vanguard over anything else.

As Void and Star-Vaders aren’t a facet of the Reboot continuity, a theory that had in mind for a while is that a remnant of Brandt may have seized the moment when Aichi was Deleted and been festering away in the same manner as the Link Joker Seed. A previous post detailed the mindfuckery involved to break Aichi enough that he would turn on the game, particularly given how fearful he was of relinquishing it and the isolation it would return him to — the very circumstances he’s imposed upon himself (but far worse, in exiling himself from the real world). Though he’s a selfless boy and Kai-kun means an enormous amount to him, it simply doesn’t make sense that he would willingly go down this road.

Rather he’s mind has been twisted so much to believe in what he’s now doing or he’s being controlled by something of Brandt (as we’d never confirmation it was no longer a threat), if not some other force (though to introduce a new one at this stage in both the franchise and the reboot continuity with OverDress around the corner would be a peculiar choice).

Couple of theory things, feat. one really out there idea:

Naoki:

Naoki’s actions in the preview might be glimpses of him starting to break away from Aichi’s will; not with malicious intent, but rather the opposite.

The line of thinking goes as so: as he and Shingo come to realize their memories have been tampered with, Naoki seeks out Emi and Shuka, obtaining Blaster Blade with the intent of returning to the point in time where Aichi should have received it. Among the screencaps Bushiroad has released, one shows a young Naoki and Aichi, who’s holding a card — rather than allowing the event to play out as it should have, Naoki intends to give Aichi the card himself.

In doing so, Aichi can begin down his path that liberates him from the crushing loneliness that he endured prior to actively playing the game, or in the case of IF, running away from home. Simultaneously, Naoki himself is freed from the guilt that’s shackled him in both continuities about not doing anything to help Aichi, as the Reboot has demonstrated how he yearned to at the time but was too late to make any move. This is his means of doing so and atoning for a reality when he failed.

When Emi, Shuka and Kai-kun would recognize him as the one who threatened the latter’s parents plus Suiko (and Ibuki) would be familiar with him as normal, there’s not a clear reason why he would forgo his Sanctuary Knight uniform for a civilian look other than to avoid attracting the attention of bystanders.;(It might be overthinking it to speculate there being anything more to it than this, but when has that ever worked?) — Granted this is under the assumption that he would be able to leap through the timeline though Jammers of earlier episodes were capable of doing so, none of the enemy’s core have made any such move yet. And the consequences of doing so; if Aichi’s suffering is the result of IF World unravelling, then Naoki venturing to alter the timeline further may, in fact, cause him more harm than any good he may intend.

2.5 hours later edit: Courtney just shared the epi synposis and FUCK

Alternatively, Naoki might regain glimpses of the Psyqualia Zombie arc and see himself beating Aichi, leading to Destiny Conductor being able to control him and his eventual Deletion by Ibuki’s hand.

On the one side, it reinforces Aichi’s feelings that Vanguard is something they shouldn’t come into contact with, but Naoki could see it otherwise. He harbours guilt over being the catalyst for those instances, piling on top of his failure to reach out when they were in elementary school, spurning him to go back and redo everything so that he can always protect Aichi, not to embody anguish that the other goes through.

It would also strengthen a hostile opposition towards Ibuki, whose past sin comes back into play. He might throw the event in his face as a means of trying to dredge up his old feelings towards Vanguard and sway him to resist setting things right, whenever/however it is he’s released from wherever Aichi sent him and depending on what he experiences there.

Kourin:

Where we are currently feels very much like the “Sera’s betrayal leading to the Quatre Knights’ dissolution” point. Sera and Rati clashed with one another personally, Gaillard joined with Kai-kun and Naoki, Neve opposed VoidAichi directly — Naoki’s actions in the preview might be glimpses of him starting to break away from Aichi’s will. Though Naoki’s intentions are ultimately to save Aichi from the position he’s stuck in, it’s ultimately defying him — a far cry from what has been shown of the Knights, thus far, who have been fiercely loyal to him, which makes this sort of movement striking.

Miwa also doesn’t appear best pleased in the preview. As someone whose best friend was nearly killed as a result of Aichi’s orders — a friend at risk now that he’s taking a stance against the group’s status quo — there’s every reason for him to defect for the sake of preventing another (and possibly actually fatal) incident. It’s very possible that It’s entirely possible that, in similar vein to Legion Mate, the collapse of the Knights will leave only Kourin by Aichi’s side, who’ll serve as the last line of defence.

Mamoru & Tokoha / Aichi & Emi:

It wasn’t touched on during Nagisa and Gouki’s episode, but the dynamic of older brother and younger sister has the potential to crop up here, as well as the chance to contrast the Sendous’ current selves with the Anjou siblings (and the former’s past).

— Not to mention how Mamoru and Aichi are polar opposites, at the moment in regards to their sisters in danger. Mamoru gambled with his life to keep Tokoha safe in the Dragon Empire attack of the original continuity, and anyone could see Aichi would do the same, but IF Aichi is the one who would inflict harm upon Emi, made clear by his soldiers’ attack on her and Shuka when they attempted to enter the past. Maybe, inadvertently, Tokoha might be put in jeopardy and Mamoru propelled to protect her in the same way, bringing about the behaviour of the two versions of her brother that Emi knows in the same situation.

Give me 11-year old Tokoha to mirror 11-year old Emi at the start of each continuity and drive this home.

And most importantly:

DRAGONIC OVERLORD ARMOUR

#Cardfight!! Vanguard #Cardfight!! Vanguard IF #cfv spoilers #give me Alfred Aichi vs DO Kai kun sword fight #better yet give me Alfred Aichi vs BB Emi AND DO Kai kun fight #also free Misaki 2k20 #long post

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arshinquarantine · 3 years

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online shopping

To be honest, I don't really care for online shopping. A million little neurons fire off in my brain when I give someone money and they give me an object instantly. Who I was with, how I looked when I first tried it on, what I felt when I first tasted it, how much of a bargain it was, the feel of seams on my fingers or the weight of deckled pages in my hands, the caution I threw to the winds or the impulse that I permitted to seize me all combine in a few seconds to inject one simple emotion into my simple brain: buying shit feels good. Until recently, online shopping was utterly devoid of any positive emotion for me. I don't like computers, and they particularly irk me when they ask me to punch my credit card number or (worse) save it. I don't like waiting for boxes to arrive or dealing with going to the post office to pick them up or the endless amounts of recycling I'm going to have to do. I also absolutely do not have the time or the will or the discipline to return roughly half of what I buy because I'm picky and women's sizing for anything is a hot mess, so piles of unwanted shit pile up in my tiny apartment taking up valuable real estate. So I generally go out of my way to avoid the whole business of it all.

For the first few months of the quarantine, I lived like a purist, buying only what I absolutely needed to online. Unfortunately for me, I was living in an unfurnished apartment (the sum total of the furniture I owned was a mattress, a shitty dollar walmart desk, and a shittier dollar walmart chair) so I actually needed to buy a lot of stuff and I dragged my feet miserably through it all. It took me weeks to pick out basic white Crate & Barrel plates for my kitchen, another few months before I committed to a bookshelf that held only about a third of the books I own, and far too long to buy a bed frame. The worst crime of all was my sofa; when I think about how many months I lived with only my mattress or my floor to sit on, I genuinely wonder how far my propensity for masochism can truly go. Ordering my groceries online was simply out of the question, I remained staunchly devoted to buying them in store even when I had to wait 40 minutes in line for my turn.

Soon, the early alarming but novel weeks of covid gave way to the later mundane, claustrophobic ones. After a few weeks of regularly working out, I realized that there was no world for me to emerge into with my newer, hotter body. The comfort I got from my group chats and zoom hangouts soon petered out, and I returned to cooking my usual 20 minute weeknight meals. Stuck in a new apartment, in a new city, without a car (I can't even drive so this is actually moot tbh) my world quietly shrunk to the 600 odd square feet of hastily, partially furnished space I could call my own (now shared with a sibling) and a few blocks in either direction. I wore the same clothes, called the same people, walked the same walk, shopped at the same Shoppers, made the same complaints and wallowed in the same worries, and then I woke up and I did it all over again.

And then I decided that it was time for something new, and I've been searching for newness ever since. A "resurfacing" night cream that promised to make my skin brighter. A houndstooth blazer from an online vintage store that fit like it was tailored for me. A monstera plant that unfurled leaf after leaf under my distracted care before I finally succeeded in killing it. A bluetooth speaker to fill my home with the sound of qawwalis my dad taught me to love. The boxes would arrive days, sometimes weeks after I make the actual purchase, feeling more like a gift from an unknown benefactor than something I furtively paid for. I used to dislike online shopping for its delayed gratification, but soon began to covet it for exactly that reason, like the steady cadence of a few minutes of excitement made me feel like I was accomplishing the impossible task of feeling an emotion. A cheap rug. An expensive sofa. Baking equipment. Painting equipment. Exercise equipment. Books about best friendship, books about love, about a dying earth and dying mothers, set in Syria and Detroit, Naples and Busan, some devoured, some discarded, all read in hot pursuit of staving off how utterly dead I felt on the inside. Each box that landed on my doorstep neatly filled a hole in my life, a void that never seemed to shrink.

It felt reckless and frivolous—childish even—to allow myself to keep getting things that would make me happy. It contradicted everything I wanted to believe about myself: that I was unaffected by anything money could buy, able to achieve complete inner peace by simply "thinking good thoughts", and minimalist to my core. How positively pathetic of me, I'd think, to need a "thing" or an "item" to be able to feel happiness. Even as I searched within myself for gratitude at my good fortune, my good health, I often came up empty, and the answers to all my questions seemed for lie, for however brief a moment, in whatever Instagram thought I should buy that week, silently delivered in recyclable packaging, with a return label and a promise of brief delight.

Most people my age, my peers haven't lived through an event as seismic as this. The idea that life being irreversibly changed even after this, that it already has changed feels alien to me, a square peg trying to jam itself into the round hold where my brain used to be. Life as it used to be feels right around the corner, just a week away, just a month away, just a season away, and soon, I tell myself, I will get back the normalcy of buying four americanos in three hours to keep my internet access at the cafe I've been working at, the fun in an afternoon spent mindlessly window shopping, the stupid joy in dancing the night away in a sweet and sticky club, the relief in resting my head against the shoulder of a friend, the discomfort of getting on the subway at rush hour, the ordeal of a 15 hour flight home to see my little sister.

I lost family members this year, and I spend my weekends flitting between my numb grief and a website that sells silk pyjama sets. Sometimes, I don't speak to my father for days, afraid that he might see right through my false cheer. Sending him pictures of the first snow, my meals and paintings seems enough to me. Lately I've been waking up from dreams that range from bad to fully qualified nightmares about my mom's health. I haven't seen her in nineteen months. I ruminate over where I want to live, if I want children, who I want them with, new questions that have cropped up and firmly planted themselves on my brain. I find myself rejecting the companionship of the friends on my phone. I want them here in Toronto, so we can laugh at the past, and marvel at the present, our warm bodies pressed against one another. And I crave the thrill of deep conversation with new people who remain interesting to me for only as long as I know nothing about them. Loneliness seems to run like a thread throughout everyone's twenties, I suppose, and I'm unable to tease out where the disorientation of being 24 ends and the isolation of living in a pandemic begins. But tangled up, they are stronger together and frighten me everyday, and I surround myself with boxes and yet more boxes to ward them off.

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chocosvt · 5 years

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⚬ pairing: mob!wonwoo x reader. ⚬ word count: 4.3K ⚬ warnings: blood, violence, guns. ⚬ genre: primarily angst BUT with a happy ending.

— ✧✎ synopsis: wonwoo isn’t at home as often as he used to be. you know he doesn’t exactly have a regular job, but you still can’t help this feeling of isolation. the less you see him, the more questions you have, which provokes one question above all - does he even have the time for you anymore?

— ✧✎ a/n: i rly cant stand not posting anything, so i wrote this today!!! it has a slight xmas theme, but only slight! i will ofc post works that have nothing to do with the holidays too since not every1 celebrates!!

It wasn’t until the months became colder that you finally coincided with Wonwoo’s numerous absences. There was something a little eerie about how the house creaked and groaned against the wind when there was no laughter to snuff the noises, something a little discomforting about how the winter draft prickled beneath the silk of your skin when there was no warm, eager body curling you closer.

Yet, above everything, there was a gaping loneliness that you hadn’t felt before, demanding to be acknowledged more than the whistling wind and the shivers that split up your spine.

You loved Wonwoo, but you certainly didn’t love his profession – if that was even the correct term for the dirty work he tended to, slithering around in the shadows as if they belonged in his blood. For the most part you stayed out of his business. When he shuffled silently into the downstairs bathroom with crimson stained up to his wrists, you had learned to bite your tongue.

A few times you attempted knocking at the door, heartbeat thrumming in your fingertips as he opened no more than a crease of space with a single eye flitting at you darkly.

Running water could be heard gushing from the sink and suckling down the drain, the basement lightbulb buzzing, softly sparking at times, when Wonwoo would deeply mutter with brass in his every word, ‘Go back upstairs. I’m fine.’ The basement was unfinished anyways, the floor was ice-cold cement and one half of the wall was just wooden planks and insulation. Wonwoo’s desk was downstairs too, always littered with papers that you itched to stack in a neat little pile.

On the one occasion where your peeving got the best of you, you had tapped together a messy pile of documents with an agonizingly tiny font size, yet when you lifted them from the desk, you found your body stiffen harder than iron. There was a gun beneath the paperwork, probably one Wonwoo had forgotten to stuff back into his safe.

Since then, you truthfully hadn’t done much dawdling around in the basement.

Now it was nearing midnight, the outside world coated in a thick blanket of snow that glimmered under single shafts of moonlight. Your loneliness seemed to echo throughout the house, wandering to all the creases and nooks that might as well be just as void as your chest. The fireplace was crackling so quietly it was almost a whisper, yet even with its warmth and the strength behind its brilliant, orange embers, you still felt cold.

When was the last time Wonwoo had lain with you on this very couch?

Your stomach twisted almost nauseously when your mind stuttered in remembrance. It’d been so long ago you had to wade through a tide of cobwebs to properly unearth the memory. It was back near the beginning of autumn. Quiet rainfall had been flickering on and off all morning, which was coincidentally when you first fell into his arms on the couch.

“You never came to bed last night.”

You remembered purring against his chest, your cool palms slipping beneath the white dress shirt he hadn’t stripped himself of from last night’s meeting. As you pressed into the slight tone of his stomach, he smiled.

“Didn’t want to wake you,” He murmured with his nose lightly nuzzled into your hair, finding that the fresh scent of your shampoo always seemed to make his heart still like calm water.

“But I want to see you, always,” You couldn’t repress how you cooed up at him, staring widely and glossy-eyed into the deep earth of his gaze. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but you’re not really home a lot these days.”

Even then, his job was constantly requiring him to be away from home.

Whenever the phone rang it was commonly assumed to be Seungcheol summoning his dearest protégé for another heist or uncharted siege or whatever else that involved copious bloodshed. It was apparent on Wonwoo’s face that he understood how strenuous it was for you, how the pain of his absence often mixed with the salt that beaded at your eyes when it had just been too damn long.

The boy gathered your soft cheeks in his hands, holding gingerly onto your face as though it were a beautiful pearl before poking his head down to kiss you. It was nothing more than an intimate peck, yet it had garnered the strength of a supernova to bloom beneath your ribcage, the fluttering sensation remaining steadfast as Wonwoo drifted from your mouth poignantly. Your palms etched further up on his stomach whilst he sighed,

“I know, sweetheart, and I’m sorry. I’m going to make it up to you one day, and we’ll have all the time in the world together,” He spoke tenderly, his fingertips brushing the dampened glisten that quickly seeped below your eyes, “I promise.”

The rainfall picked its way back between the heavy, ashen clouds in the sky. Though the air had grown crisp and slightly chilly, Wonwoo imbued a current of warmth to ignite in your blood as he tucked you close into his body. Your small breaths feathered along his collarbone. Very faintly there was a lingering aroma of copper, smoke and cigarettes. For a fleeting moment you thought of the people Wonwoo surrounded himself with, the petrifying dangers of his work.

Yet when he smoothed his hand along your spine, the other slipping under his loosened shirt to hold your wrist at his stomach; all the worries whisked away.

But then so did his promise.

What you wanted most was for Wonwoo to be home before the holidays.

You attempted contacting him through his phone a litany of times; however you were routinely met with drawled instructions from his voice machine. No matter the amount in which you left a message, there was never a response to reciprocate, so you eventually abandoned any phone calls altogether and found yourself wallowing in a secluded silence.

Wonwoo was busy, you were well aware of that, yet he couldn’t seem to whittle even a sliver of time to keep tabs with you.

In the beginning you were willing to understand, but now irritancy was welling up to a very palpable point.

It was another midnight in which the sky was consumed by wind. You could hear how the brisk howling beyond the glass blew torrents of snow down the empty street. The creaking noises began multiplying; flooding between old, dry woodwork that kept your house standing upright. You were curled beneath the sheets with an ocean of space to swing your limbs, yet you remained a tight little ball that burrowed at your half, blinking into the darkness that cloaked the room.

When had Wonwoo last circled his arms around your waist under the linens?

Honestly, you didn’t want to remember. It was most likely a bittersweet moment that would engender a hot, stinging sensation to burn the fragile flesh around your eyes, tearing it as easily as tissue paper.

Suddenly, the firm sound of a door clicking shut just managed to lap at your ears.

Footsteps scuffing against the floor drew your attention from the wind and the cracking of aged wood. Though the entrance to the bedroom was closed, you knew there was somebody in the kitchen, and simply by the weight of their steps and the prolonged pauses between their movements, you knew who it was.

The air was frigid, a finicky breeze that ghosted at your warm skin as you slipped from beneath your covers. Tugging on a plush, long housecoat over the black t-shirt and flannel you pretended were adequate pyjamas, you slowly, ever so slowly, twisted open the brass handle to the bedroom and padded toward the yellow lighting humming from the kitchen. You hovered by the corner, arms folded over your chest as you saw Wonwoo at the island.

The white dress shirt he wore so often had been tainted with dark, russet splashes that seemed to crinkle the fabric, the sleeves haphazardly cuffed up to his elbows with a few buttons split open and leading down to his pale chest. Thick fronds of satin-black hair were curling before his eyes, incredibly dishevelled, as though he’d raked his fingers through each clump one-hundred times.

You said nothing, simply watched him slap a briefcase onto the counter and unbuckle it.

Wonwoo tugged out at least four, shiny velvet bags. They were colours of royal blue and kohl black, tied around the top with golden, frazzled string. It wasn’t the first time you’d seen those bags either, as they quickly became an emblem for one of the organizations Wonwoo commonly heisted against. You knew that underneath the velvet pouches were cash bundles. After emptying the case, he buckled it shut, opened the basement door, and threw the bags downstairs.

It wasn’t until he turned back to the kitchen that he noticed you.

He remained silent. It was an increment no longer than a second, yet you felt that a whole century had shifted the world beneath your feet when you caught his gaze.

Why couldn’t you read it?

When had been the last time you looked into his eyes and recognized their love?

Wonwoo tousled the hair curled by snowfall from his face, but you weren’t able to gauge his expression any longer, not when the usually magnificent ore of his gaze had fallen flat, so impossibly dark that it swallowed any hope of reflection. The holidays were roughly two weeks away. If you wanted to ask him to stay, the window was right there. You gnawed your bottom lip, heard the deafening thumps rumble in your ears as your heart became electric.

But then—

“I have some business I need to finish,” Wonwoo’s voice reverberated throughout the house’s stillness, his eyes gleaming in a manner that made the fine hairs on your neck bristle.

The floorboards groaned as he walked toward the island to collect the suitcase. It was at that moment you looked to his hand, noted the deep, red gorges on his knuckles and the speckles that mapped like stars up his wrist and forearm.

Again, you bit your tongue, stared into his broad backside until it disappeared around the corner.

The door yet again clicked open, then shut, Wonwoo’s silhouette striding through a curtain of snow before you assumed he had reached his car. And suddenly all the noise you solely when heard when you were alone became amplified.

“I’m breaking up with you.”

It was Christmas Eve. Wonwoo was sitting at his desk when you wobbled down the wooden staircase, fingernails pressing crescent moons upon your skin that was nearly sizzling. It was ten o’clock at night and he managed to slip into the basement unannounced. The fact he even had the nerve to do so considering you’d been wilting in isolation for the past month tipped you a little too far. The last time you caught a glimpse of him had been that bleak, windy night, after he’d tossed the money downstairs before scurrying off to finish his dirty work.

He sharply glanced up from the papers strewn across his desk. “No you’re not,” Wonwoo scoffed, clicking his pen before scribbling something down on one of the sheets.

“Yes,” You enunciated, “I am.”

“[Y/N], I don’t have time for this,” He quickly recoiled. His pen seemed to push harder into the paper as you slapped your hands at your sides and barked,

“There seems to be a-fucking-lot you don’t have time for.”

“What do you want from me?” Wonwoo’s tone sunk to a deeper octave, almost in warning and foreshadowing, “I’m guessing you wanted me home before the holidays, and I’m home.”

“You’re home?” It felt as though a gust of wind had slapped the hair into your face, “At ten pm on Christmas Eve? Wow, you’ve really outdone yourself, Wonwoo.”

He dropped the pen, his eyes igniting in tendrils of black fire as he rolled back in the chair and his brow sternly crinkled. This wasn’t the first time you had embarked on an argument, but this had certainly been the first time you were both equally defensive. The manner in which Wonwoo’s voice boomed throughout the shadows of the basement drew ice into your veins, yet you couldn’t simply discard the pain that had tortured you day in and day out.

“You think I didn’t try to get home before Christmas? You think I didn’t plead with Seungcheol every chance I got just so I could get off early to spend time with you? I did everything I could, [Y/N], but I don’t exactly have a regular job.”

Folding your arms over your chest, you mimicked his scoff from earlier, “Thanks, I know! And I guess that excuses you from even calling me back too? Just a little five second message saying, ‘hey, I’ve tried my best to be excused, but no luck. I love you, see you soon.’ But no, I don’t even get that!”

Wonwoo stood from his chair at such a hasty pace it almost tipped over. He was quite a tall person, yet in that moment he could compare with a skyscraper.

“Why are you starting this, [Y/N]? It’s ridiculous.”

“You started this by acting straight up neglectful and generating more concern about bloodying your hands than being an actual boyfriend!”

Immediately the air was parched from existence. The basement felt no larger than a box for a ring and the desk that separated the two of you seemed to shrink into a crumb. An unyielding heat scorched like magma behind your eyes, turning them to thin glass on the brink of shattering with even the smallest huff.

When Wonwoo stepped from around the desk and hovered above you, his gaze was veiled by an anger that flamed. It had never been so painful to swallow back your own tears.

When had been the last time rage seeped into his skin this potently?

“It’s not like I can just leave it all behind,” Wonwoo spoke with venom swimming in his speech and his teeth gritting together, “If it weren’t for Seungcheol taking me in and giving me a job all those years ago, then I might not even be here now. You don’t know anything about my work, [Y/N], or who I deal with, or what it means to me, so just leave whatever remarks you think are clever and witty out of it. I’m sorry I can’t be with you as much as you want, but I’m doing my fucking best, and if you don’t think it’s good enough, then fine.

Break up with me, scream at me, and tell me I’m selfish, I don’t care. If it makes you feel better to use me as a punching bag for all the time I’ve been away, fucking go for it – means I won’t have to listen to your barking later. Now, will you let me enjoy the last two, measly hours I have left of Christmas Eve, or are you going to keep sounding off since you’re just so damn insecure and sensitive?”

Your lips parted, notably trembling like frail flower petals. The strength in your neck had conjured someplace else, leaving your head to fall, limp, weak, facing the cement where the first tear had rolled to the very tip of your nose before wetting the floor. It wasn’t until Wonwoo heard you suck in a breath that the snarl on his mouth was flattened out, his eyes widening as he saw that the cement had been splashed with dark droplets.

“[Y/N]…” Wonwoo murmured whilst raising his hand to graze your shoulder. He could see how your frame began shaking, how your sniffles sounded somewhat like hiccups.

“No,” Your voice cracked as you knocked his hand away and took a step backward, “Don’t touch me, please.”

He caught sight of the glister on your cheeks. Whatever anger he’d been brewing before had disintegrated, slipped between his fingers like a palm of sand.

Wonwoo took a step forward to match your step back. “Sweetheart, I-I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I don’t know what the fuck came over me, I—“

“S-Stop talking to me,” You choked, the hot tears that masked your eyesight causing his figure to coalesce into a single blur, “I-I don’t want to see you anymore.”

Not desiring to waste another breath, you spun on your heel and charged for the staircase, arms locked around your body as though you were protecting yourself from a bitter, icy wind. Wonwoo pursued after you until he reached the foot of the stairs, though stopped himself when you looked back at him, down at him, from the doorway. He could see your eyes glittering as you distraughtly mumbled,

“I-I just wanted to spend time with you, like you promised we would. I’m sorry that pisses you off so much.”

And in conclusion, you slammed the door shut.

As the walls rattled with your forceful departure, Wonwoo lost whatever grains of composure he had left, an immediate growl scratching in his throat and his fingertips vividly burning to completely act out – throw something, punch something, rip his own hair out if need be. He was always careful picking his words in an argument. Often times it was nothing more than one needing to blow off steam and the other absorbing the punches.

Yet Wonwoo had done a little more than blow off steam. He completely smoked a hole right through your heart that he knew was so delicate and precious, the distinct sound of your voice cracking replaying over and over in his head like a mantra. Tearing himself away from the staircase, Wonwoo paced back and forth with his fingers balled in his hair.

From his peripheral vision he stole of a glimpse of something that glimmered – the velvet pouches coloured in blue and kohl that were stuffed with his enemy’s money, leaned against the wall. The anger in his chest flared brighter than lightning, and suddenly Wonwoo was filling in the combination belonging to his safe to throw the money bags inside. He then slapped the door shut with a clenched jaw because yes, he had neglected you, had obsessed over the high of seeking bloodshed in his profession.

When was the last time he had spent a week with you?

The last time he cupped your face in hands and assured you he was in love with you?

Looking to his desk only fuelled more rage to froth at his fingertips. Wonwoo knocked all the paperwork from its surface, watched the individual pages flutter into the air like autumn leaves before they landed silently in the basement shadows. The world had never felt so quiet. He could hear how the single lightbulb dangling from above rhythmically buzzed, how the exposed pipes in the ceiling creaked and moaned.

Wanting to escape everything, he sped into the washroom and snapped the door shut. He fastened his hands around the taps at the sink and let them openly stream water into the musky porcelain. It was the first time Wonwoo had been in the downstairs washroom without someone else’s blood caked to his skin, in which he would spend half an hour tirelessly scrubbing at because when he was with you he no longer needed to act cold and detached, living within the shell of a killer who did as he was told.

Yet if there was one thing Wonwoo certainly wanted to scrub away at in that moment, it would be every word he thoughtlessly spat to you.

It was Christmas morning.

You didn’t bother glancing at yourself in the mirror before leaving the bedroom, instead reaching for your housecoat and bundling into its thick fabric, knowing you would only be greeted by swollen eyes, bruised lips and a hollow, defeated face.

Wonwoo hadn’t come into the bedroom at all last night.

There were a few startling noises you heard echo from the basement before weeping yourself to sleep, presumably Wonwoo releasing whatever anger still curdled in his blood. He was usually a very calm, observational person, however, that concluded his words always came with the bitterest sting when he found it necessary to rebut. Maybe you shouldn’t have cornered him like that after a gruelling journey at his work, but you had to put some worth to yourself at least occasionally.

When you walked into the kitchen, aimlessly opening cupboards despite your stomach feeling full on misery rather than empty on hunger, you knew he was staring at you from the couch.

“Can I talk to you?” He asked, his voice rougher than usual.

You estimated he had woken up maybe a few minutes before you, or he had an equally terrible sleep. Afraid that if you even attempted at using your vocal chords they would string together in a broken cacophony, you opted for silence instead.

“Even if I spend all of today apologizing to you, you won’t forgive me, will you?”

There was nothing for you to eat; therefore you were forced to stand with your back toward him, blankly staring into last night’s dishes and concentrating on not allowing a single tear to leak down your cheek.

“Ah, [Y/N], won’t you even look at me? I waited so long to see your pretty face and now you’re hiding. Please, I need you to look at me, just for a second.”

Tucking your chin into the plump collar of your housecoat, you swallowed your pride and hoarsely mumbled,

“I said I don’t want to see you anymore.”

You were concentrating on an empty box of take-out sitting next to the sink as Wonwoo huffed almost in amusement, “You’re breaking up with me? On Christmas? For real?”

“Yes,” You sniffled whilst raising a fluffy sleeve to wipe your nose, “You’re mean and stupid.”

“Well, I know that, sweetheart,” A tiny curl yearned to trace its way onto your lips at his response, but you quickly flicked it away, “I’m mean and stupid and I said a lot of horrible, ugly things that made you upset, but I’m ready to do anything to make it up to you because you mean the world to me.”

You hated that your body was keening to pivot. Wonwoo had made your eyes well to the brim with tears the night before, and yet this Christmas morning he was crooning to you from the couch with the gentlest undertone to his voice.

Without having to look at him you could picture the messy curls of his bedhead, the soft undulating in his gaze and the smile on his rose mouth that was always so endearing. It then dawned on you that it was no longer just the house that wobbled in the wind alongside your breathing. The air finally felt warmer, smelled of fresh firewood and pine. When you peered down at your feet before quietly suggesting, ‘you could call yourself stupid and mean again,’ Wonwoo’s chuckle at long last eliminated the eerie silence you despised so much.

When was the last time the house sheltered laughter behind its walls?

“Is that really what you want?” He chided.

Casting a glare over your shoulder, you huffed, “You said you were ready to do anything!”

His eyes were no longer opaque with an undecipherable darkness. They were clear again, reflecting vibrant protrusions of happiness and relief that you were willing to work through this rough patch together.

“I am!” Wonwoo called as he sat crossed-legged on the couch.

“So say it then.” You provoked.

“I’m mean and stupid.”

“Well, I agree.”

“Do you also agree to come over here so I can apologize?”

For a moment you were glued to the floor. Knowing perfectly well that the gold embers in his gaze would persuade your convictions, you looked to the side and let your teeth graze the bruised flesh of your bottom lip. To contain yourself from continuously whimpering the night before, you had no choice but to fasten your mouth shut and let each tear absorb into the pillowcase.

“Why can’t you just say it from where you are?”

Wonwoo uncrossed one of his legs and let his foot touch the floor, his knee beginning to jump as he said, “Because, I want to this to be right.”

It was painful to bite your lip, but the sting reminded you of how much his words had lacerated you to your core. Folding your arms closer against your body, you shrugged, feeling exponentially uncertain and weakened.

“Please,” Wonwoo implored, his brow knotting, “I know you hate me right now and most likely wish I would just disappear or something - and I don’t even deserve to hold you or kiss you or have you in my fucked up life, but right now I need you to come lay here with me, just for like, two minutes at least.”

At long last that little voice sought courage at the back of your head.

When was the last time he’d been so eager to hold you up?

With a tiny sniffle, your feet slid across the floor until you had reached the couch. It was only transient, yet you caught how his expression was nearly shining, how he immediately made space for you to cuddle with him. After climbing over the arm, you collapsed into Wonwoo’s embrace as though your bones were nothing but particles of dust.

He didn’t waste much time before his fingers brushed beneath your chin, delicately titling your head up with a silent plea beaming in his eyes. Almost as quickly as you read and accepted his request, he was kissing the lilac bruises of your mouth with a newfound softness.

Your face was still feeling tight and leathered from last night, therefore even the tiniest pluck of emotion at your hearts’ strings brought a silver, tearful lining to your eyes. But Wonwoo was utterly swift and observational - it’s what made him so remarkable and in high-demand at his job after all. Before the beads could even descend to your chin he’d swept them up with his thumbs and pecked them away.

“I’m really really sorry,” Wonwoo ushered sincerely against your mouth, “I swear that being away from you for too long turns me into someone I don’t want to be. I’m the luckiest person alive to have you, and… I’ve never been so angry with myself for hurting you. I need you to know that I care about you more than anything and anyone, okay? I couldn’t come home early enough, but we still have winter break together...”

The corners of his mouth flitted upward in a bashful smile, “I’d kind of love to spend every day of it with you if that’s alright?”

The last few tears trickled into the fabric of Wonwoo’s sweatshirt. Sniffling, you roundly blinked up at him as though he held the cosmos in his gaze and hummed, “I guess I don’t mind.”

Whilst keeping contact with the entrancing, copper depths of his eyes, a frown tugged on your mouth immediately after.

“I’m.... I’m not that sensitive, am I?”

Wonwoo felt your palms shift beneath his sweatshirt to rest at his stomach as they had grown accustomed to doing. Laughter from deep within his chest escaped his lips just before he pressed them to yours once more.

“No, no,” He crooned, “I love how sensitive you are. I always want you to be like that, because it lets me know when I’m being a real big jerk.”

Your expression crinkled and brightened, “True.”

“But, I have a question for you now.” Wonwoo suddenly proposed.

Swallowing the little lump in your throat, your fingers brushed against his the tone of his stomach, anticipation and slight anxiety prickling within the system of veins flowering under your warm skin.

“Are you still as in love with me as I am with you?”

Without even having to think, an immediate heat surged to your chest and you blurted, “Yes,” a once broken but revived smile pulling up to the apples of your cheeks. It was then that Wonwoo gently curled his hand around the back of your neck and tucked you into him, your face buried in the smooth slope between his shoulder and neck, his lips at your forehead, continuing to mumble on and on about your significance to him until you had to kiss him into silence.

Even if you certainly did not love Wonwoo’s profession, or how the house enforced feelings of isolation and loneliness when he wasn’t around, you were certainly in love with him.

And that was a bond that could not be questioned.

✧✎ a/n: I KNOW THAT WHENEVER I WRITE WONWOO ANGST I ALWAYS DROPKICK THE POSSIBILITY OF A HAPPY ENDING OUT THE WINDOW, but seeing as ‘tis the mf xmas season’ i decided to be generous!!! i know wonwoo is actually a fairly gigantic ball of fluff, but ive wanted to do a mob or gang concept for so long that i jus kinda played w his cold exterior. i know its like... “generic” to have a character that is bitter/closed off to everyone else except their s/o,,,, but honestly no one gives a fuck BC THATS THE GOOD STUFF!!!

ANYWAYS, THNK YOU FOR READING, HOPE YOU ENJOYED!!! as always feel free to leave any comments or th0ts. i know that i havent been active w posting fic lately, and my sole reason for that was stress! i was just really stressed w school sjfherfhegt and felt exhausted 24/7 :-( as always, if there are any spelling errors in this let me know abt that too!! im terrible at proofreading!

oops, this was a rly fucking long author’s note :o im hoping that during winter break i can get out lots of stories!!! anywho, see yall l8er!!!

#seventeen scenarios #wonwoo scenarios #seventeen #wonwoo #seventeen angst #wonwoo angst #wonwoo fluff #seventeen fluff #jeon wonwoo #seventeen wonwoo #svt fanfic

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davidthetraveler · 5 years

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(2 sentences) A voice called to the bare room and it echoed emptily. The owner of the voice frowned deeply, they weren't expecting a response, but complete silence was completely unprecedented.

It’s Okay

Characters: Virgil, RomanPairings: Prinxiety (Platonic or Romantic, up to personal interpretation)Trigger Warnings: Mild Existential ThoughtsSquick Warnings: Loneliness, IsolationWord Count: 689

(AO3 Link)

I hope this is to your liking, Jay.

If anyone else would like to participate, send me two sentences and I’ll continue them as if they were a story. Also, let me know if you’d prefer whether or not you’re okay with me publishing the resulting ficlet to AO3.

The voice called to the bare room, and it echoed emptily. The owner of the voice frowned deeply. They weren’t expecting a response, but complete silence was completely unprecedented.

That was the problem sometimes with conjured environments in the mindscape. No matter how much effort one might put into creating them, they never quite felt the same as the real deal.

In this case, it was the lack of any evidence of other inhabitants in the theater. No sounds of scuffling or sniffling. No misplaced props or discarded papers. Not even the usual hum of the electrical and ventilation systems that would have been needed to maintain a real theater. And without those, this place felt worse than empty.

Which was probably why Roman didn’t like to use it, especially alone. Sure, he could have conjured up all manner of stage hands and directors and patrons and fellow actors. But then, they wouldn’t be real. They would just be illusions, created to fill the empty void, and gone as quickly as they could be created, without any permanence whatsoever.

Roman sighed to himself before settling down on the lip of the stage, wrapping his arms around himself as the silence around him seemed to press in.

He hated it. He’d always hated it. That’s why there was always some sort of noise in his room, something, anything, to drown out the silence. To feel like there was more than just him.

Because when you have to power to make and unmake anything you can think of around you, is there really anything else there but yourself?

Besides, if he’d conjured up a bunch of people just to make himself feel better, it wouldn’t really count. The kind of negative thoughts he was having weren’t the kind you could just wish away with fake concern from imaginary friends.

“Wow, talk about deep thinking, eh?”

Roman started, nearly falling off the edge. He whipped around to face the unheard intruder, but came up short when he saw it was just Virgil.

“You know, considering how much you like an audience, it’s a little weird finding you here all alone.”

Roman settled back down, but still didn’t respond, turning back around to resume his seat on the lip. Virgil huffed behind him.

“Okay, I’m sorry, that was probably rude. I guess you’re allowed to do whatever you want in your space, even if it doesn’t make any sense.”

Roman remained silent. Virgil was starting to get worried. He’d never seen Roman go this long without saying anything. He walked up to him, reaching out to grasp his shoulder.

“Hey, Princey, is everything alright?”

Roman just shrugged.

Virgil wasn’t sure what to do. Whenever he needed comfort, he’d always go find Patton. But Patton was busy with Logan helping Thomas plan for a friend’s birthday, and Virgil didn’t want to bother them if he could avoid it. Finally, he let out a long sigh and set himself down on the edge next to Roman.

“You know, it’s okay if you’re not in the best mood. And it’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. Or even if you’re not quite sure what it is that you’re feeling right now. It’s okay to be sad sometimes.”

Virgil reached his arm around Roman’s shoulders.

“But even if you don’t want to tell anyone how you’re feeling, or don’t even know how to explain it, it’s also okay to ask for help. It’s okay to need some comfort, Roman.”

The silence continued on. After a few moments, Virgil began to think that Roman wouldn’t respond, or that he even might be upset enough to not want Virgil here.

But just as he began to move his arm off of the other side’s shoulders, Roman sighed and leaned closer, turning his head to rest it on Virgil’s shoulder, revealing a few small tear tracts on his cheeks, but also a small, grateful smile.

“Thanks, Virge,” he whispered.

Virgil’s face softened with his own small smirk as he closed his eyes and rested his head on top of Roman’s.

“No problem, Princey. No problem at all.”

#David's Writing #Sanders Sides Fanfiction #Roman Sanders #Virgil Sanders #Prinxiety

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sasorikigai · 4 years

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My muse in a relationships || @ephemeralkryonics || accepting (Part 1)

🤗Are they physically affectionate?

Physical touch for Hanzo is immensely important; not only is it a fundamental human necessity, but the need for affection in him is unique in the sense that even he may be perceived as “a loner,” maintaining the ability to ignore relationships with others unless the necessary ones as a Grandmaster and being a parental substitute for Takeda Takahashi, there is still a sense of emptiness that exists when he is isolated from human interaction.

For him, affection is more than just an emotion, it can be considered by him as a most important requirement in healthy relationships. Affection is an ebb and flow between two people, where each individual is giving and receiving a certain amount of contact and interaction at all times. Whether it is through a hug, kiss or a cuddle, affection is the way he shows Kuai Liang how important he is in Hanzo’s world.

Physical intimacy between them not only strengthens the bond between them and fosters closeness, it serves as a major binder that helps them iron out the differences between them. Physical intimacy builds a stronger connection between two people by mitigating any existing negativity. Through exercising it, it would only enhance trust and a stronger sense of companionship between them.

🎶Do they have a type?

Hanzo seems to be gravitated towards emotionally strong people who he could lean against; resilient and insistent on their own, capable to meet his fire, but also being able to understand and extend compassion and perception. Emotions become the most visceral and primal external stimuli which he could exert without having the blueprint of him crumble and blur around the edges. As he is known to be volatile, impulsive and follows his heart more than his brain, it’s better than following the visceral manifestation of violence which he used to be subjugated under Scorpion’s fiery, demonic spirit.

As I associate Kuai as a rose; for Hanzo needs that type of significant other who can balance him out. I always headcanon that Harumi’s personality would have been very similar to that of Kuai Liang’s; quiet, altruistic, emotionally strong and stable, very chill, strong-willed and a very good moral and emotional pillar for hanzo. If Hanzo Hasashi was (and still is) the most ferocious and talented Shirai Ryu warrior in all their history, Harumi would have went down as the strong matriarch of the clan, who encompassed the clan with open arms, offering words of wisdom and advice and being a good listener. She would have served a pivotal supportive role in the clan.

😡What are their deal breakers?

His two most primordial facets include discipline and loyalty, so if someone is dubious in their morality, a perpetual liar who is distrustful and disloyal to him in any manner, there would be no forgiverance.

Because Hanzo is such a traditionalist and heavily influenced by Confucius’ teachings, its philosophy including;

Ren, the virtue of benevolence, charity, and humanity;

Yi, of honesty and uprightness;

Zhi, knowledge;

Xin, the virtue of faithfulness and integrity;

Li, correct behavior, or propriety, good manners, politeness, ceremony, worship.

Those who cannot follow the doctrines which he had been taught - he is a proper, respectfully behaviored warrior - are not worthy of pursuing any relationships with him at any cost. Kuai Liang encompasses all of this, and considers him not only a respectable warrior, but a friend, a life companion, a lover and a soulmate.

↕️Are they sub, dom or switch?

Hanzo is predominantly flexible (despite wanting to exercise control and much prefers being dominant) when it comes to lovemaking, but as his masculinity allows, he will expect to be in a dominant position even when he’s seemingly not. Intimate sex to him transcends the concept of sex, and it has to be significant in that both partners have to be emotionally connected and pushed together by the fate’s hand, one touch that fit, as old, idealized feelings would be relearned to his new body. For love to him isn’t something that is forged nor created, but has always been (taken away by deception and manipulation of Quan Chi). With Kuai Liang, he will expect himself to be in a dominant position simply because he’s more experienced one out of the two.

⏰How long do their relationships tend to last?

Until the end of his living breath. For Hanzo, love binds all romantic relationships and that bond is unbreakable. Without love, he would not exist; for love makes all hard hearts gentle. Love itself grants him a sense of reassurance, self-esteem, and love for himself. Love enhances the lives of both partners in the relationship when he is in love, his emotions are at an ultimate high. It creates a bond that is not easily broken and it lasts for his lifetime.

💍Would they ever get married?

He was married once to Harumi and he considers her as a soulmate. Although Hanzo is still mending his bleeding, septic wounds, he also has come to realization that miring in the past had been stunting his growth and development, as years and years have been spent with gnawing grief, resentment and melancholy. The desiderium, a deep longing to experience will always be there, but it’s being married (having himself absolutely devoted to responsibilities and duties that come with his marriage) that anchors his heart and settles his mind.

🏷️Do they give their partners cute nicknames?

Hanzo is mostly a traditionalist who is proper and formal, so he would often use things like ‘beloved,’ and ‘love.’ Or he would opt to use Japanese and call Kuai “運命の人 (man of destiny; soulmate),” “あなた (you, in terns of romantic/sexual love),” or “ハンサム (handsome).”

💋Are they more sensual or sexual?

He is essentially a sensualist, meaning he will utilize all the blazing, burnt, burning trails of his hands to trail along his significant other’s skin, roaming to paint his color upon his lover’s body. He’s vanilla when it comes to sex; there is a lot of eye contact, gentle caresses wanting sufficient time to explore his lover’s body. Essentially, it is a sacred act that chases away his negative emotions melt away. It anchors him, reminds him that he deserves happiness. He deserves a second chance at love, despite him always struggling with underlying guilt. He will be at his most vulnerable, with all the raw, unfiltered emotions spilling out as he reaches the climax.

In essentiality, sex is feeling the sequence of his heart beating through his lover’s lips, as they create beautiful rhythm together. It becomes this peculiar thing of dualism and dichotomy, where it’s all he wants and other times it’s what he needs the least. He wants it with all of his heart, yet his gnawing guilt and limerence towards Harumi will always be there no matter what. And he’s an absolute pessimistic optimist and believes not many will love him, because of all his underlying emotions and all the pain-riddled dourness and appears indifferent and nonchalant. Even with his hardened exterior, he’s so vulnerable and soft inside. He knows of its cruelty and indescribable beauty - and all of its otherworldly, seamless perfection of stealing each other’s breaths and letting him wrecked in cornucopia of sensations. And he wants the sharp angles or his personality and beautiful lines of his body and mind to become completely abstract as he floats in the seventh heaven, as he savors it, engrave it in his memory and write songs about it as notes imprint on his lover’s skin, with everything light and good in the world, despite him not living in it.

📖What is their favorite outside of the bedroom activity to do with their partner?

It would be either sparring or spending time in the hot springs to relax. Hanzo can harbor a lot of stress within, most of which he does not get to release beyond fighting or taking a moment in nature to relax and calm down. He also likes to delve into his artistic endeavors, preferring to paint his partner in sumi-e, writing poetry, practicing caligraphy or reading.

🛏What is their favorite bedroom activity to do with their partner?

I always imagine them being more sensual than sexual, so they would strip down naked, let their roaming hands and lips become the quenching rain that water their acrid, parched dry skin down with gossamer pitter-patters of peppered kisses and exploratory caresses that repeatedly map the coordinates of their musculature, all the imperfections and scars and all, along with the exquisite peaks and valleys of their chiseled form shining aureate under the beaming moonlight.

Their sensual, intimate, and carnal exploration could last for hours at times, The ebb and flow of time when they are entangled like this brims them with exquisite joy, exhilarating bliss and contentment, without their emotional abysmal void gnawing their unconscious, as both of them suffer from severe and lucid nightmares.

Alight brighter than the sun under Hanzo’s furnace warmth and Kuai’s misty vapor that saturate their aureate forms, through their vigorous carnal exposition of impassioned desire, gentleness and tenderness, they remind themselves that they are not alone - they are highly introverted beings who thrive in solitude and loneliness, but desire to be emotionally connected to a person, so much so that each other’s presence alone calms and numbs their pain - as the cruelty and violence of their daily lives become offset by the exploration of body, mind and soul.

💚Are they prone to jealousy?

While Hanzo has his own streaks of insecurity and paranoia, he is confident and holds himself in a high regard, and also does his significant partner. Because of his lack of jealousy, his instincts are signaling that he is in a relationship with someone who he will be fully able to trust. He can appear concerned and worried, but he will never exhibit it openly. He has high sense of self-worth, and don't feel envious of Kuai’s circumstances or relationships. For comparison is the thief of joy and Hanzo is well aware that if he is constantly stacking up his life against someone else's, chances are he will find something to nitpick. Instead, he prefers to just plainly fixate on the positives - in his life and in the lives of others that naturally involves both of them as Grandmasters and Protectors of the Earthrealm sworn to protect it until their last breath.

😘Does their demeanor change when in a relationship?

In general, people are very much affected by those around them, and not just behaviorally. A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that people’s self-concepts actually change when they’re a relationship and Hanzo is no different from the normalcy of how people act. Because their relationship is healthy; they have mutual respect towards one another and are highly intelligent, sympathetic people in their hearts. Because deep down, they are kind, responsible and emotionally resilient, so they are going to only substantially improve their chances of maintaining a stable and satisfying marriage.

#✗ obsessive cathartic (headcanon)#✗ the ineffable testimony of spawned hellfire (scorpion)#✗ again and always (scorpion x sub-zero)#ephemeralkryonics

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allthebooksandcrannies · 4 years

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i just need to vent here

NI’m going to put a read more link in here so its not just this extremely long post but i need to vent where no one i know is going to see it and get all offended but i also need to look like i’m doing gre prep. this is mostly me just yelling into the void but i’d also appreciate any advice or feedback anyone wants to give.

i don’t want to accidentally hurt someone so trigger warnings for discussion of eating disorders, depression, anxiety, emotional crisis, mention of rape, mention of homophobia, dead dove do not eat

so, my mom and i had another fight last night that kinda picked up again this morning and i feel really shitty but i’m not gonna stop obsessing over it and everything else it stirred up until i get it out so i’m just gonna stream of consciousness over here.

lately it seems all my mom ever do is fight and i made her cry again so i guess that makes me the asshole because the guilt is real right not but guilt and self-hatred is also my general default i think so maybe i’m being to hard on myself? like, its not like i also didn’t want to cry and i feel like she took my words and twisted them around into something i didn’t mean but i also don’t know what i meant. and we’re both so similar so maybe we were just both being defensive and oversensitive even though we both give Dad shit for that and great now i feel bad about that because i always take her side in fights because i feel like i need to protect her and my brother always takes his side but that’s a whole other can of worms. but also, so what if we are? like aren’t all emotions supposed to be valid? or does it matter even if they are?

we fight about everything these days and every joke i make offends her and i’m just teasing but she keeps taking it to the extreme, taking it as criticism on issues i’m not even talking about. and this time i was defensive and she was defensive because i was defensive and i tried to explain it and it just made it worse.

like, this time we were talking and i don’t remember how we got on the subject but i think it was because we were talking about this new diet my dad is going on because my paternal grandmother won’t stop blaming my mom for my dad being so overweight and i know i should have been stepping lightly because dad had just been teasing her for saying she wished the nutritionist would have found some easy to fix problem other than his diet/activity levels so his mom would get off her ass about it. and like, i get why my grandmother is concerned, he is very overweight and needs an ankle replacement he can’t get until he loses like 150 lbs and she already has an unhealthy paranoia about her own weight after an entire childhood of her own mother fatshaming her and her sisters but also it’s ridiculous to just blame my mother and her cooking considering that when he put on all the weight originally it was when he was working for his uncle and only ate one meal she cooked a day and was going to fast food places twice a day, like the dude has some responsibility here, but also he carries it just like his dad, male cousins, and three paternal uncles so there’s obviously some genetics working against him, but most importantly right around the time this first started he fell through a roof at a construction site and completely shattered all the bones in his right ankle and was completely bedridden for over a year while on serious painkillers that probably didn’t help. but anyway she was already upset and in a weird headspace because she had an eating disorder in high school, so i should have been more careful and empathetic but she started talking about one of my roommates and how health conscious she is and how thin she is and how she probably has eating disorder and i kinda snapped because i know she means well but damn if it didn’t bring up so many other issues that i was just slammed right back into

because she always has something to say about my friends. for as long as i can remember she has criticized my friends in ways that makes me question my relationship with them and i know she just is trying to protect me and be involved in my life but her good intentions are still a major cause of so many of my issues and i was end up lonelier and more self-isolating as a result. and my roommates are my best friends and the one she criticizes the most (like what feels like every time we talk about her, to the point where she’s convinced my mom hates her) has been so important in showing me how sheltered and naive i was and has brought me out of my shell and helped with my self-worth so much and is literally the first person in my life who told me i don’t have to always be looking out for other before myself. i don’t owe the world and its okay to live for me sometimes.

and this one, she’s so quiet and she doesn’t like to interact with people she doesn’t deem worth her time and maybe she can be a little cold and judgy but she’s always good to me and she’s been protective and as someone who has always been on the outside of every group the fact that she deems me worth her time and her advice really means a lot and i can acknowledge her flaws but just earlier this weak my mom was talking about how cold she thinks megan is so i was already primed to be defensive. so my mom starts talking about how megan probably has a body image issue since she’s so conscious of her weight and i’m like??? she never talks about weight. the only time she talks about food is when we’re comparing recipes and yeah she eats healthy and puts effort into that but she’s a lifelong vegetarian and she’s usually trying to balance that out with her needs as a cross country runner but because she’s not competing anymore apparently that means that the fact that she still runs every morning and eats like a cross country runner when she doesn’t have to (never mind that she still runs marathons, and she likes running) means she has body image issues and the when we go out for ice cream she’s overindulging because of it. and look at how skinny she is, even though she’s 4′ 10″ and all muscle, like i’d be worried if she wasn’t?

and maybe i’m in denial but i think i would know. i’ve lived with her three years and my mom has met her like six times and never longer than an hour at a time. and she says she was just trying to help me be a good friend and her words fit but her tone came off as criticising and maybe i jumped to conclusions but it felt like one more thing that was wrong with me and my friendship. and maybe i’m just being defensive because on some level i’m worried that what if she’s right, that means i’ve been oblivious and a bad friend and is she calling me a bad friend, like is that coming from me or just my own insecurities? because i am insecure about whether i’m capable of being a good friend because i always end up left behind and mom keeps saying that i intimidate them or make them feel judged or guilty because i always stick to the rules and do i come off judgy? i don’t try to i try so hard to be openminded but then i’m just accused of becoming a screaming liberal what do you want from me, i just don’t know how to be anything but a pleaser.

anyway i made the mistake this morning of responding when she was telling me that she doesn’t understand why i’m so defensive and i told her the truth that she has always criticized my friends be it that “piper was obviously raised without enough supervision and that’s why she drinks and likes to push boundaries and wants to be older than she is which is why i’m worried about her influence on you” never mind that we’re 21 and she hasn’t done anything i don’t know for a fact my mom did at her age. and then courtney and jai-lyn and jessica and all the girls i hung out with in the library who were my only close friendships in middle school, they were just weird and had weird interests, even though all our interests were the same and i was also the “weird” kid at school, that’s why i didn’t have friends. we were weird because we were good at school, we were passionate about the books we were reading, we were stereotypical middle school fangirls, but at least we were happy? and we were age appropriate but it was never good enough and i should hang out more with the sort of girls on student council and on sports teams never mind that i tried that and we didn’t have anything in common, and they were mean and i was happy with my friends and i get she wanted to help but when i did have a problem with that group when i was upset that hope had been secretly pregnant in high school and had her sister lie to us for months and we only found out because she posted a photo at seven months on facebook and i was just upset she hadn’t trusted us to have her back when we had been so close and just wanted to vent to my mother and have her on my side it was all “well maybe you should have been more approachable and less judgmental like you’re being now” like i know that but i just wanted someone to acknowledge that the lying was shitty. and even if i did mess up, i was fifteen and just wanted my mom to be conforting. but i can never vent because all i get are suggestions on what to do better and i appreciate the intent, i do, but occasionally i would like to be told that i’m good enough.

so anyway i said that i was wrong to be so defensive i just felt that she was trying to criticize either my friend or my ability to perceive my friend because when she complains about my friends i feel like i have to defend myself and them. and she went off on my about how she was just trying to help me be a good friend so that i would be able to be there for her because her own friends hadn’t been there for her, and her mom hadn’t supported her, and no one believed her when she was raped and since i know that i should be a little more aware, and i should know that my mother is not an evil person, and that she is not trying to be malicious, and how hurt she is by me saying that she criticizes my friends when i have heard her say the same thing about her mother, and how dare i imply she’s a bad mom like her mother when i know how much she has hurt her” and this whole time i’m trying to explain that i know she’s not trying to hurt me, i know her intentions are good, i’m just trying to say how it made me feel but she’s talking over me and i’m also annoyed that she’s kinda implying that if we hadn’t had this conversation i wouldn’t be there for my friend when she needed me and also implying that i wouldn’t believe my friends if they came to me about a sexual assault. like, give me some credit here. i’m usually the one between my mother and i who’s saying we need to address rape culture, and women’s word should be more valued, but now i’m the bad guy because it hasn’t happened to me.

and i know my mom had trauma. so many of her parenting choices so obviously link back to what i know about her past. She was the youngest of three kids and an accident later in life so her parents were kinda sick of the whole parenting thing and were almost completely hands-off, which let my mom get in a lot of bad situations, so she micromanaged everything. I was the textbook overachieving child has no idea what to do when everyone else catches up. i got good grades in school, so if my grades ever were less than perfect i apparently wasn’t trying hard enough and she knew i could do better so why was i letting myself down like this and when i got straight a’s or awards it wasn’t “i’m so proud of how hard you worked” it was “i’m proud of how smart you are” or “i wish i had been that smart” which sounded nice but ignored that i had to bust my ass for those grades, at the expense of extracurriculars and friendships and my mental health to the point that i had a breakdown in the middle of my senior english class over getting an 89 on essay because failing wan’t okay and anything that would drop my grade from an A+ was a failure. nevermind that my little brother was rewarded anytime he got a grade higher than a D because they expected them to fail.

and its like that in so many areas. nothing i ever do is good enough on its own. its just “okay, now what are you going to do next” and I feel like i’m drowning here. If its not my friends, it’s my lack of a dating life. My whole childhood, she told me not to get married or have kids young because it would ruin my life (she was twenty when she married my dad and 21 when she had me) and how disappointing it was to see all these young girls more focused on dating and romantic validation instead of school or their careers. She was happy i didn’t date in high school (I didn’t have the time to date and still get perfect grades, even if i had wanted to). but now i’m about to graduate college and have still never been in a relationship (i still don’t have time to get good grades, have a job [since i’m mostly on my own for school costs], write a thesis for the honors program she wouldn’t let me drop, hang out with friends and date, and i’m pretty sure i’m ace) and suddenly she wants to ask me about whether i’m seeing someone every time i call home and is getting progressively more frustrated that “i’m too shy and not willing to make this a priority”. and 1) why the hell would you think it was going to magically become a priority when my whole life you have told me it shouldn’t be, and 2) i’m pretty sure i’m asexual, and have no fucking clue what my romantic orientation is but i might be into girls a little because the closest things to crushes I've ever had have been toward my female friends, and that’s a whole other can of worms since when i experimentally float the concept of asexuality or not being interested in sex i get dismissed and while she says she’s okay with my cousin being gay anytime someone makes a joke about the possibility of my brother or I being on the LGBT spectrum the whole family makes really homophobic comments. and i’m torn because if she ever found out i was scared to come out to her she’d be really pissed and hurt about “how dare i think she would react badly” but i’m pretty sure she would react badly, either in anger or in dismissive “you’re being ridiculous, you just don’t know what you’re missing”. i get that one a lot. I've talked about how i have no interest in ever being pregnant and she just keeps telling me i’m wrong to not want that experience regardless of the fact that i have really bad type 3 EDS that i get from her (though her case isn’t as bad) which is a connective tissue disorder that goes hand and hand with POTS and i already have chronic dislocations, severe scoliosis, am in constant pain, and a heart arrhythmia. Plus, we know that my symptoms already get worse when my hormones get out of wack during my period, and pregnancy is known to make eds so much worse, permanently (since its a degenerative condition). And she’s always dealing with consequences of being pregnant that are worse because of the eds, like how the scar-tissue from her c-section is much worse than it should be and keeps causing adhesions that cause her a lot of pain, and pelvic floor keeps trying to collapse, and i almost died during labor because the stress fucked with my heart so bad. and i know of women with eds whose joints were permanently fucked or who know have to walk with a cane because of how much damage their pelvises went through in childbirth, so yeah i’d rather not risk it when i’ve always wanted to adopt anyway but anytime i express any of this she gets upset because either “i’m so sorry your mother is an idiot! It’s not like she speaks from experience” <- exact quote, or “you need to stop letting this illness dictate your life, i didn’t raise a victim but that's the problem with your generation, you always think you’re a victim” which argh. and i might be okay with that last argument if she didn’t constantly tell me that i need to be more proactive about taking care of my body because of my condition (which is exactly what i’m trying to do with the not wanting to be pregnant thing, but apparently this just applies to how i need to eat better and exercise more ]even though most exercises hurt and use up too many spoons for me to work out and do everything else i need to] because i can’t afford to gain anymore weight [again, this is why i have so much fucking guilt every time i eat], or to how i apparently need to tell everyone in my life that i could faint at anytime [but stop making everything about your condition, Nicole]).

Anyway, long story short, i feel like nothing i ever do is good enough and i always have to be the bigger person and let it go when i’m upset. and i do love her, and i know she loves me but it just feels conditional even if i’m pretty sure its not. and i never know if i’m being too hard on, since i know she has trauma and is trying to help, but i have trauma too even if a different kind, and i have diagnosed but unmedicated anxiety and depression and i need validation from others and i just want to be told one time that i’m enough or that she’s sorry for all of the pressure she constantly puts on me, and i feel guilty for being so selfish when she needs me but, also, she’s my mom? i’m sick of having to parent everyone around me and then getting told its none of my business and i need to be more respectful. I just can’t win and i feel like i’m going to explode and i feel so guilty and so angry at myself and at her and then more guilt and anger for feeling guilt and anger to the point that i don’t know how to feel anything anymore. today’s just a really bad day and i feel like i keep getting more and more broken and conflicted about everything from politics to sexuality to religion i don’t know what to feel or what i think anymore...

#tw: mentioned homophobia #tw: mentioned rape #tw: trauma #tw: depression #tw: anxiety #tw: chronic pain #tw: chronic illness #dead dove do not eat #original post #vent post

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saltine-kakyoin · 5 years

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🎶 and jotaro and also kakyoin AND another character..whoever u want ;)

oho… you’ve sent me another message? you know what comes next bro, u brought this upon yourself….this is us now man

anyhow, AH. thos boys…god this one is gonna be so difficult because I have So Many Songs that are tied to them. as for the other character, i think i will do my boy sergio because i really need to share my brainstorming songs for him before i explode! :0 thank you again for sending these in, bro!! have a good night, ily! c:

this will be long bc i always ramble..i will be tagging this as long post for mobile gang!

Jotaro:

thom- i hate to start this off with a jotakak-themed song because i know some people Despise jk. i’m sorry for y’all who do, but ahh this song has been stuck in my head for days now! :’( In terms of the SDA, i always think of this song as like…jotaro’s bittersweet journey w his feelings for kak. it’s something about the like, ghostly windchimes in the beginning, the phone buzzing in the bg, and the “please don’t run away”s man, ahhh. I listen to this song a lot when brainstorming him coming to accept that friendship is as far as he and kak go. However,“ The pitter patter gave a rather rinse and lather feeling/ As opposed to shitty attitudes that made me bitter after laughter/ And I dearly regretted it” really makes me think of pt. 4 jotaro in any context. We only see the end result of his development from SDC, but like hhh… do you think he regrets being so gruff? I think of that 1 fanart where he’s looking at the group picture + hoping they knew he wasn’t annoyed by them (or something along those lines, i forget the exact line…ahh)

something’s missing- So, ofc not all parts of this song apply.. and truthfully, I listen to this song while thinking of the immediate period after the crusade in the SDA and how the crusaders are all left with this hole in them (..@kakyoin literally.. i’m sorry i had to. also, abdul is the hole). Out of all of them, though, I always think of Jotaro the most w this song- “My dad asks, ‘Were you okay out where you were stranded?’ How do I tell him that I wasn’t just okay… I was so much better?” LIKE DAMN THAT IS ONE (1) KUJO JOTARO… :( i think he comes back from the crusade and just feels.. severely misplaced. Going back to Japan and the girls following him to school every morning feels so alien to him.

tempest rhapsody- this song is just… *chef kiss* It makes me think of like. star platinum’s first manifestation, and of the emotions one would feel during a 50-day crusade to a place you’ve never been before, where you run the risk of death at least once a week…how would it feel to know if you got seriously injured in a fight, there would be a very real possibility that your *cough* dearly beloved *cough* mother could die? this song is my answer to that question

only in sleep- another choir song! i cannot help myself. This one is more for canon Jotaro. I’ve read a few fics about the universe reset where he’s reunited with the other crusaders one last time before everything becomes nil, and…..augh. “The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces, I met their eyes and found them mild — Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder, And for them am I too a child?“ is imo such a jotaro 4 am deliberation

softly- THIS. this was the Original jotakak song, no offense thom. i used to listen to this song on REPEAT while reading nessun dorma, ahhh. so much of the sda jotakak dynamic is shaped from that fic and this song, hghshg. Anyhow, now that I’ve worked on the development of their relationship in the sda, this song is most definitely a song for the jotaro who unknowingly pines in 3rd year and then comes to realize that ah…these are Emotions during uni. during their third year, jotaro and kakyoin do a ton of self-exploration, and spend more than one night floating in the pitch black void of the ocean talking about what they’re going to do after graduation with only the stars to accompany them. they lose this when jotaro goes to florida for uni + kakyoin paris, but they make up for it by calling each other all the time, so “Touch you softly I call you up late at night” made this song an instant hit in my book ghshghw. I adore this song, through and through. ;u;

post-published honorable mention bc i rediscovered him while i was workin on polnareff’s playlist!! DOLLY ZOOM is another really good song for pining jotaro. in the sda, he feels really Horrible about having a crush on kakyoin for a long time because he and his family (that is phrased weird, i am sorry) are the entire reason kakyoin got a hole punched right through his abdomen and spine. they’re the entire reason kakyoin spent months learning how to walk and use his legs again. he doesn’t do anything except bury his feelings because, to him, it’d be Really selfish to do otherwise. i listened to dolly zoom nonstop when i started writing Jotaro’s Decade-Long Yearn because it captures the guilt really well, ahh.

Kakyoin (it is 1:24 am as i’m starting this… let’s see how long i agonize over this part lmao)

ultraviolence- ahh, ze Mindworm Song. I really despise diokak and the fact that he had to spend like…3-4 months with the mindworm just chilling in his brain, but I can’t ignore the fact that he latched onto dio’s friendship and was initially elated to have that whole thing happen. It haunts Kakyoin in canon, and it Most Definitely haunts him in the SDA, and i think he and jotaro have a lot of conversations about how and why and what that whole experience was like. I always end up coming back to this song when brainstorming this year in the au. The beginning just sounds so lonely, and the background choir/ voices really give me the heebie jeebies. Then, there’s the build-up to the beat drop, which really make me think of like. what being mindwormed could feel like? And how it must feel to be so lost in that sauce that you become a passenger in your own mind, lost to the whim of one super manipulative vampire, augh. “You give me love, you know you give me love with your ultraviolet rays” ties into a few of FKA Twigs’ other songs where she sings about not being enough and really obsessively deriving love from someone whose attention is ultimately really harmful and unhealthy, and I think about that and Kakyoin a lot. :(

sound and color- so truthfully, this is my go-to song for any character that dies/almost dies and comes back, or goes through a Huge Life Change. kakyoin fits both of these bills to a T! this song makes me think of getting used to being around such a rowdy but tight-knit group of people who genuinely care about you All Day Long after spending your entire life in isolation. I always think of like, a happiness montage when the second half of this song comes around, and the montage i daydream about for kak during that section is *chef kiss* Sound + Color is like one of the best songs ever, and it’d be a crime to not have a kak setting for it.

first love/late spring- fellas, here’s the kakyoin equivalent to jotaro’s softly. this song was IT, back when the sergio-divergent au and the “All the Crusaders Live” au were two separate things. back then, kakyoin and jotaro’s realization that oh, fuck, they really meant the entire world to each other happened much earlier in the plot. Looking back on that now makes me squint, but I do think that this song is still really fitting for kakyoin exploring those feelings- friendship is one thing, but romance is something entirely different and a lot more intimate. i think it’s a tug-of-war for him, between wanting to jump in to those feelings and wanting to run far far away from them because he doesn’t want to be wrong and ruin their friendship. good times in the kak hole

last words of a shooting star- I really love the bastard fucker side of kakyoin that is explored and celebrated in our fanon, but I can never shake the fact that some of his last thoughts were of his parents (and i think he was sorry for making them worry? which… baby…) and that his polite, “outwardly anxious” presentation was this big facade for like.. the Deep and Soul-Wrenching loneliness he felt because he was a stand user? The first stanza and “They’ll never know how I’d stared at the dark in that room/ With no thoughts” make me think of kakyoin deeply- if his family had never gone to egypt and he’d never met dio or jotaro, what would have happened to him? Who would he be? i’ve always been super attached to that part of kak bc fundamentally… I Relate. but also i am just fond of it because it makes me sob- he deserved so much better than to get murdered by the same man who manipulated his entire identity right at the climax of his character arc….some crimes can never be forgiven, hirohiko….

vertigo- i don’t listen to this song for kak often, but it is a Quintessential Kakyoin song. according to khalid’s twitter, vertigo is a song about “Overcoming overthinking. After every dark days, there’s a brighter outcome. Being at a super low place in your life and realizing that, there’s other people going through that same path you’re walking down. There’s always light at the end of the tunnel. It’s also a story about fear of abandonment.” which….Big Kakyoin Energies. The “Are we alive?Or are we dreaming?” part also ties back into the Kakyoin Parties in a Coma for a Month arc- your mind has a wild wild time when you’re in a medically induced coma, theoretically because it’s trying to fill in the blanks for all of the stuff you’re sensing? And coming out of a medically induced coma is a bizarre experience, where it’s hard to tell if you’re still in the coma and just imagining things or if you’re actually awake. Kakyoin has a mad time in the month immediately after SDC, one that i’m sure he doesn’t enjoy too much after the death 13 fight.

honorable mention goes to i am not yours- this has been a kak song to me for a long time as well. the context of the song is way different from my interpretation for this setting, but AH. I just think kakyoin really struggles to differentiate and understand romantic feelings. This song really reminds me of that struggle, and I think also touches nicely on like. the identity issue of it all too.. “yet i am i, who long to be” yanno? ; J ; it’s hard for me to explain

another honorable mention, my statue sinking. in the sda, after the events in egpyt, kakyoin is thrown into a coma for like an entire month while his body gets operated back together, and then he spends months in physical therapy learning how to walk w a prosthetic spine (kudos to cyborg speedwagon being a reverse engineering madman :D). i like to imagine that there’s also some degree of therapy going on this whole time, also. you don’t just get donuted + thrown into a coma for a month without some counseling to get you back on your feet..i think the lasting effects of dio’s influence are addressed here, but only briefly because it’s not something kakyoin is eager to explore. however, I think that this song captures the like... distress? i guess? of knowing that your life has been irreparably thrown off course because of dio. like yes, you met some really wonderful people that helped you learn how deeply healing friendship could be! but also.. you lost months of your life to mind control, and then another month to a coma, and then additional months to training your body to function again....there’s some psychological stress there. While I think that Jotaro and Polnareff are affected the most by the crusade, I think they all emerge from it with some degree of ptsd. Being targeted by complete strangers at all times of day cannot be good for your mental health, you know? Anyhow, I think My Statue Sinking captures that aftermath feeling really well. Everyone survives and recovers from the crusade, but there’s a part in all of them that is lost to Egypt.

on to sergio!! (it is now 2:04 am lmaooooooo) sergio will be easy because I only ever listen to the same handful of songs when I’m writing him hdhgh

i will come to you- this is THE sergio song. i think of this song every time i write about him, whether it’s the “believe in me…” “also believe in me” lyric exchange that i imagine he has with both tomoko and holly; the “and i will pray to my father…my father…and he will abide” part being about him reaching out to joseph with his final breaths and spilling all of the beans about dio and begging him to finish things so that Tomoko and Josuke, the Kujos, and he and Suzi can be safe; the “foreeever……foreee-eever.. forever..” part being where he dies and his soul passes into the next realm.. “even the spirit of truth [golden prophet] whom the world [..yeah..] cannot receive, because it seeth him not [bc suad defects and buries sergio instead of bringing his dead body to dio]. Neither knoweth him, but you know him…for he dwelleth in you and he shall be in you [literally the entire joestar/kujo/higashikata family being so near and dear to him + his spirit being with them even after death]” and then, like.. george i, jonathan, and george ii coming to retrieve his soul during the “heeeee shallll beee in youuu” part… “i will not leave you comfortless. i Will Not leave.. You Comfortless… iiii wiiiill come…. to you.. to You” part being about his soul mingling within star platinum and crazy diamond because he has a Need, even in death, to protect them. UGH (also his essence being especially prevalent in crazy diamond, which is partially why its power is to repair things!! bc hamon! ; O ;) literally I have an Entire music video with sergio’s death set to this music. i’ve listened to it way too many times.

when david heard- so to be frank this is actually more of a joseph song, but it’s only a joseph song when sergio exists + gets murdered. :o i cried the first time i listened to this, and then months later i listened to it while thinking of sergio + like. sobbed fr fr. Joseph is asleep when Sergio calls him, so he gets sergio’s final message as a voicemail on his answering machine hours after the fact. the message itself is chilling because Joseph had no clue his son had gone on this huge mission by himself to kill Dio, and now he’s dead! however, it’s made even worse because Joseph wasn’t there to pick the call up and comfort his son in his dying breaths or do Anything. it’s just like Caesar, which is. god awful. it’s such a horrible realization because sergio, whom joseph named after what caesar wanted to name his own son, has been condemned to the same fate as his namesake. Thus this song- i’ve yet to come across a song that captures the feeling of hearing that kind of news so well. (also when i tag things as my sOOOOON or *cries my son in 8-part harmony a la whitacre*, this is the song i’m referencing :D)

zombies / terrified- ahhh, these songs capture the HORROR sergio feels upon sensing dio’s presence in Japan really well. (also “I’m going to eat you alive/please don’t find me rude, but i don’t eat fast food/ so don’t run too fast” is SUCH a dio mood…) Sergio maintains his composure about the Dio Dilemma for a good year before he flies off the handle, and his entire proto-crusade against the vampire is just. Laced with paranoia, even if he is learning a ton of useful skills. These two songs capture that feeling of something constantly watching/creeping up on you so well, and ever since i discovered them, I’ve listened to them for Sergio inspo.

the prophet- This is the only song I’ve done so far that the characters would actually listen to lmao. Sergio is a Huge fan of The Temptations, and his stand is actually named after this song! (+ the esoteric title for the hermit, which was really amazing luck on my end ; J ;) it also had a huge hand in figuring out what his stand power would be, the lyric that decided it was “God doesn’t listen to the words you pray; he hears what your heart has got to say.” However, the entire last stanza of the song ties really well into his character arc fhshgh. Also, this song just feels like it could Be the child of Bloody Stream, if that makes any sense. it’s so groovy and funky, but the lyrics are like big ominous lmao. I was super ecstatic to find this song- if sergio were to ever get an animation, this song would be the OP, yanno?

armageddon- This is another “this song would be on their personal playlist” song. Sergio’s got a lot of love for all styles of music in his heart, but jazz is his home base and always what he comes back to. I like to imagine that Lisa Lisa’s husband introduces Sergio to Wayne Shorter’s music at the age of like 8 or 9, and Sergio’s just. obsessed with the man’s music for the rest of his life. I really love Shorter’s explanation for the meaning of this song and its album as a whole: “What I’m trying to express here is a sense of judgment approaching - judgment for everything alive from the smallest ant to man. I know that the accepted meaning of ‘Armageddon’ is the last battle between good and evil - whatever it is. But my definition of the judgment to come is a period of total enlightenment in which we will discover what we are and why we’re here.” Like… wig.. I feel like that’s such big sergio energy. Armageddon itself also feels like a really nice ED- it’s lively, but in a good episode-ending kind of way. Do i dream of animating Sergio’s adventure one day? Mayhaps.

honorable mention goes to just my imagination/ my girl- We’ve covered that Sergio adores The Temptations, so it’s no secret that he would listen to these songs ceaselessly. however, i really like the broadway harmonies + instrumentals that they did for Ain’t Too Proud, so that’s what’s goin in here. these songs are THE tomoko/sergio songs…He loves Tomoko and the way she quips + teases + gets up to nonsense with him So Much. There’s a huge part of him that has No Idea what Tomoko sees in a music geek like him, but ughh he is so grateful that she likes him because she is a Goddess. he’s blessed yo..

#long post #i went into a deep meditative state typing this... i don't even remember typing some of this ghdhs #it is 3 am and i am BOPPING to the temptations tho so it's all good #this ask meme is so fun.. litch rally anything w music is bound to be a Good TIme #thank you for asking again!! <3 #fullmetal-the-last-alchemist

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kikiofthevast · 5 years

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Forgotten

CW: Sadness, self-hatred, lack of self-worth, isolation, ambiguous Deceit, food mention, unhealthy imagining, crying, Virgil is a bit of a jerk without meaning to be

Pairings: Platonic LAMP

Summary: Logan isn't surprised that he's been forgotten. But he's indeed disappointed.

(A/N: I'm aware that Logan's birthday was forever ago, but I don't care. I had the idea and wrote it.)

---

Logan spent the morning alone. He didn't go downstairs for coffee, or breakfast, or even to show the others that he was alive.

He didn't work either, simply solved puzzles, and relished in the time to focus, the time that he had to himself.

When it came time for lunch, Logan cocked his head in thought as there was no Patton coming up the stairs to pester him out of his room. There was no Virgil knocking on his door, telling him to come down. There was no Roman grandly proclaiming their missing him and demanding he come out.

None of that.

Logan conjured a meal for himself, eating a four-course meal. It was nothing like Patton's cooking, bland and tasteless and colorless.

But deep down, he knew he deserved it.

They didn't get him gifts. Logan felt a pang in his heart at the thought. Of course. They hadn't even made their presences known to him, so why would they ever spend time on something that Logan had complained about and claimed he didn't care about.

But he didn't care if they didn't get him gifts, right? He didn't need anything more to clog his room and create a hoarding problem. He didn't care, did he?

As a matter of fact, he did.

And the cake. Oh, just the thought of a cake made his mouth water. Just the perfect amount of icing mixed with the sweet cake sounded simply divine to Logan.

But he wouldn't be getting one of those anytime soon.

Or at least...not in reality.

He could pretend they remembered. He could take advantage of his ideaspace, yes.

He stepped through the door to the void of his ideaspace, and took a deep breath, imagining the scene.

Roman, Patton, and Virgil were all there, smiling each in their own way.

This is unhealthy! his mind screamed, Your creating of this world is going to make you feel worse in the end!

They gave him gifts, wished him a happy birthday, and watched movies with him, not acting at all distant, or unhappy with him. He could be happy, he could celebrate his birthday.

They even made a cake for him, though it still tasted bland, still being his own creation. But he imagined that it tasted perfect, just as he remembered from all those years ago.

Eventually though, it was getting late, and Logan stepped out of the ideaspace, holding the gifts he'd created for himself that he'd been given.

"Patton" gave him a textbook about space from Thomas's college years.

"Roman" gifted him a guide to wild plants.

"Virgil" flat out handed him a gift card to a bookstore.

And Logan smiled. Because even though they'd never do such a thing in reality, he could still imagine it.

"Oh my, Logic." Deceit appeared across the room, leaning up against an open patch of wall. "What have you been reduced to?" He clicked his tongue.

"Go away, Deceit."

"You strike me as one to beg, Logic. Don't do it more."

"Deceit, I can't..."

"I know, Logic." Deceit walked over to Logan, placing a hand on his shoulder and his expression one of mocking sympathy. "It hurts to be left out, doesn't it. Don't be careful with your relationships with the others, Logic, or you might not end up like Anxiety." He chuckled. "Happy Birthday, Logic."

Logan felt even more alone as Deceit disappeared. He laid the things down on his desk and laid himself down in his bed.

---

Virgil was curious. He had been walking up to his own bed that night when he heard crying coming from Logan's room, soon enough muffled and dwindled as the logical side's cries turned to snores.

He peeked into Logan's room, noticing that there was residual imagination dust on Logan's carpet, trailing from Logan's ideascape.

Virgil shivered. He didn't like it in there. So many things to worry about. But whatever was in there was probably the reason Logan was crying.

So he had to investigate.

He snuck into the room, carefully cracking Logan's door as he walked on the balls of his feet over to the ideascape. He picked up some of the glittery dust, sprinkling it over him.

He felt residue longing and heartbreak and shivered. Whatever he was expecting from Logan was certainly not this.

He crept through the door, and the moment he closed it, he could see the scene that Logan had set up before unfold before him.

Logan's birthday party.

Oh shit.

Had they forgotten? Had Logan escaped to this...fantasy to maybe celebrate his own birthday. He could feel his heart twist as he saw Logan geniunely happy, with that little bit of delirium in his eyes. He felt the need to convince himself that the others loved him.

That they truly wanted him.

Virgil clenched his teeth, and slipped out of the ideascape, spying the stack of what he presumed to be "gifts" on Logan's desk and his heart sank.

Logan got himself gifts.

While people might normally call that crazy, or selfish, Virgil could feel that same residual loneliness again.

And hardly noticed that Logan was carefully watching him from the bed.

---

"Virgil?" Logan asked, grabbing the anxious side in question and looking at him intently.

"Yeah Lo?" Virgil said, trying to hide the jolt of panic he experienced when Logan grabbed him.

"Whatever you saw last night." Virgil's breath caught. "Breathe a word of it to no one. Please. I beg of you."

"Why? Why wouldn't you want anyone to know about that? You have a problem, and the best way to solve it is to let us help you."

Logan's expression seemed to close off as he spoke. "I don't need help," he spat. "I'm fine."

"Sure," Virgil replied, and Logan let go of him. "Oh Logan! Was your birthday yesterday?"

Logan seemed to tense up, and he growled. "How nice of you to remember."

Virgil couldn't respond, as Logan had already gone downstairs to breakfast.

#logan sanders #virgil sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #sanders sides #deceit sanders #tw: deceit #sanders sides fic

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elitexlumiere · 5 years

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ELITE V entries: by Selina Kyle The Stages

This story is not going to break anyone’s heart.

This story is not what you think it is.

This story is just a story.

Have you ever heard about The Stages of Grief? If you haven’t, I’m going to tell you that there are some theories that use five, seven, and nine stages. Well, for me, five is too little and nine is too much. Nobody wants to move on that fast unless you’ve never loved your ex at all. And nobody wants to keep in the same old love for too long.

I know that losing is a devastating experience for someone to feel, although such feeling can be vanished with some help. Everybody agrees that moving on needs a certain period and that it might vary from one person to another. I, too, am still having a difficulty overcoming my own stages of grief.

I can still remember the time when I was so depressed. It took me about a year and half to finally understand that everything won’t come back for good.

Shock and Denial attacked me when the love melted away from his eyes. Just like what I heard from a movie, “The eyes, chico. They never lie.” Ah... if only I could meet that chico in real life, I would say, “That’s true, chico. His eyes said so.”

Pain and Guilt embraced me when he walked away. I tried to run, but the more I chased, the more he moved. Holy moly, I knew he was such a runner, but I did not expect a movement like that.

Anger and Bargaining appeared when I heard a rumor about him seeing another girl. It knocked the shit out of me as I begged him to come back. How can this happen to us? Why us? It’s not fair. We were in love. <i>Please listen to me</i>

I was helpless and I had no idea that he would move on that fast. Was he faking all those romance with me? That was quite a show honestly.

Of course, Depression, Reflection, and Loneliness came afterwards. I had a serious problem with sleeping for months. I visited the psychiatrist for a therapy, but the nightmare was still haunting me every night. I screamed, I wept, and I isolated myself. My lonely heart could not stop mourning even if my close friends and my parents were there. I questioned many things about fate. Alas, the answers were vague as always.

I, then, realized that I had turned myself into a monster. I was the one who let depression consume the half of me. I was the one who let the devil whisper a suicidal thought. I was fighting with myself. Eventually, the upward turn happened when I was a little calmer and organized. I slightly began to lift my chin and smile. People told me that I have been missed. I sincerely thanked them and cried. As I become more functional, my mind started working again. I started to reconstruct and and work through everything by looking at realistic solutions. At this point, I should have arrived at the last stage of grief. However, was I really moving on?

I met a guy out of my desperation, but I can assure you that it was not a bad call at all. His name was Meijer and I met him through an online dating site. Yes, I threw myself into an online dating site because everybody has their own way to fill the void inside. Besides, that guy listened to the same music as I did. He got a pair of doe eyes in a color of dark walnut. Strong cheekbones and a blade of nose were also perfectly engraved by the Almighty. And most importantly, he talked to me with that fruity voice.

My friends approved his presence in my life. They said that he is going to be good for me and that we looked good together. He was perfect, flawless, or so they said.

By the time we were together, he never failed me. He was still talking with the same excitement as if we met for the first time. He told me that he was on cloud nine after we had our first kiss. He showed me the love that I was wishing for. Meijer was the best guy I’ve ever met, and I am thankful for that. It was like God granted one of my wishes. Then again, was I really moving on?

I knew Meijer was in love with me. I knew he put so much effort to cheer me up. I also knew that he worried much about my depression although I’ve never told him the real reason until now. Yet, I believe that loving a broken girl is difficult. That’s why I told Meijer that we should stop seeing each other after a lot of considerations. I was indeed being rude and selfish. Well, even keeping him beside me would not make any difference because I thought… I thought I have already accepted the previous lost and the hope to start a new chapter with him. I thought I made it to the very last stage.

Frankly my dear, I did not fake my happiness when I called his name—his name, his name, and only his name. I told Meijer many times that I truly love his name. And when he asked me why, I said the name was unique. Little did he know that I was thinking of another Meijer while calling him.

I would be lying if I said that Meijer's name was not the reason why I approached him in the first place. It was all because of my stupid assumption that I would find another Meijer in him. In fact, such assumption had me trapped in an unclear stage. I was faking it until I made it. I was lying to everyone as I deceived my mind.

I should admit that I still think of another Meijer in him. I was secretly hoping of a smile like home whenever Meijer turned his face after I called him. He smiled, but that was not the smile of my Meijer. Oh, my Lord, his smile was perfect, so flawless. But I am not impressed. I want the other Meijer back.

Now that I have ended my relationship with both Meijers, I'm aware that I have not yet arrived in the final stage. But I swear that I'm still moving on. For me, moving on does not mean completely forgetting. I'm not defending myself here. Sometimes, I smile whenever the name of Meijer is mentioned. I mean, there are a lot of people who have Meijer as their name as well. I also gaze at his picture whenever it accidentally appeares out of nowhere, and I’ve always enjoyed the view.

I realized that I could never erase everything completely. But I live my life, you know. My earth is still spinning on its own axis. I still wake up in the morning, improve myself and my personality, socialize with my friends, be active in any activity, until I go back to sleep and do the same routine in the next day. See? I am literally moving, right?

Indeed, my decision to find a replacement for another Meijer was wrong. Instead of accepting the new affection, I was just spinning around in one stage. Both Meijers were playing the biggest part in my life. But I cannot control another guy to keep me living in utopia and manipulate everyone around me. I must find my own happiness without sacrificing another existing Meijer. That way, I will not only complete my stages of grief, but also love myself more. It is all in my hand.

The stages of grief seem impossible to do. Once you go for the wrong step, you can hurt anyone’s feeling or even yourself. But life is all about trials and tribulations and going back to scratch is not an embarrassing thing to admit. Last but not the least, if anyone asks whether I am still moving on or not? The answer is yes, I still am.

I just happened to accept reality.

#ON BOTH ENDS #ELITE #ELITEV #SELINA KYLE #ORIGINAL #STORIES

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ganymedesclock · 6 years

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What are your thoughts about the writers admitting in an interview that Shiro was meant to be a conduit for Keith to take on the Black Lion. Even though they said/joked about never getting rid of him do worry hat they'll find some sort of loophole (like a clone) or technicality (turning evil against his will "counts" as becoming unworthy) to get Shiro out of Black just so they can get what they want? It's almost like writing Shiro has become a chore for them.

I think that isn’t what they meant at all!

My takeaway from that interview is the thing they were discussing was very early in the development of VLD. That is to say, not “before the paint was dry on season 1″- this was when VLD as a project was still doing the project equivalent of crawling around chewing on furniture. Nowhere near the actual casting and scripting and such.

Because what they’re talking about is how the character of Shiro- or rather Sven- was treated in every prior continuity of Voltron.

Because in most prior continuities? Sven is not a hero. Sven is the Obi-Wan Kenobi to Keith’s Luke Skywalker. He’s a mentor and he’s a mentor who does as mentors do very early on. He’s the original pilot of the blue lion who leaves the team, becomes forgotten, goes out in one noble sacrifice to save Lance.

Sven is treated more as a secondary supporting character rather than one of the Core Five.

So when I saw that interview, my two cents was the writers were talking about how very, very early on, they made that decision to break Shiro away from the mold of Sven as the idealized, shallow mentor figure who doesn’t really have his own opinions and depth because he’s not really here for the long run. He’s there to prop up Keith.

And VLD broke from that hard from the very beginning of season 1. I think this was one of their early scrapped ideas like post-apocalyptic Earth (being taken from GoLion).

Because the work they’ve done now, narratively... Keith really can’t fill Shiro’s shoes meaningfully plot wise.

If they were planning that, any of the various times Shiro and Shiro alone succeeded at something, they would have had Keith there, at least part of it if not pushing beyond and succeeding where Shiro failed.

But having the strongest bond with his Lion right out of the gate, defeating Zarkon in the astral plane, awakening Black’s power and retrieving their bayard- these are things Shiro did alone. And what’s been happening since, with Kuron, is further legitimizing Shiro, not discrediting him.

We now have compelling evidence that Black’s rejection of Shiro in s3e6 was actually not a failing of Shiro’s virtues or his connection, but foul play by Haggar’s power, because as of s5e3, months later, Shiro is shown to have a suspiciously shaky connection with Black and panics, calling to Lance for help about it.

In s5, as it becomes clear something has gone wrong with Shiro, the narrative is very much advancing in a direction that Lance is working with Shiro, talking to him, connecting with him, and Shiro of his own accord is opening up to Lance and giving him important information- telling us that Shiro is lining up to be a very active player in his own rescue here.

In s3 and s4, they had many opportunities to frame Keith coming to the Black Lion as rising to his rightful destiny, as finding somewhere he belongs, connecting in a way he never expected to. After all, in every prior continuity, this is rightfully his Lion. The expectation of nostalgia would be to frame it like a glorious homecoming- the Black Paladin arrives where he’s destined to be.

Instead it’s emphasized that Keith is miserable. That this doesn’t fit. That this is wrong, uncomfortable, practically hurts. That he makes bad decisions, that this pressure is killing him, that he’s unhappy and stressed here and his moments of triumph are when he plays back to those aforementioned Red Paladin virtues of instinct, loyalty, superb flying skills.

Instead we keep that exact same opening video that we’ve seen the entire time that shows Shiro in Black, Keith in Red, Lance in Blue. Instead they keep their armor colors the same, when this show overwhelmingly uses color to signal allegiance and ownership- and it’s the red armor lying unoccupied, waiting for Keith to come back to the castle.

It’s not that Keith doesn’t have a heroic destiny. But it’s very clear his heroic destiny is not with the Black Lion. Black is not home for him, it’s not the core of who he is. VLD Keith was built from the ground up as a fire person, just like Lance was built from the ground up as water, just as Shiro was built for the sky.

They were designed and tailored to their initial starting roles that are repeatedly, repeatedly hammered home as where they really belong, what’s really home to them. Lance telling Blue that he wanted to stay by her side forever. Allura so clearly struggling to get into Blue’s mindset because it’s unlike her. Lance’s partnership with Red being a direct mirror of how at the beginning of the show he had inherited Keith’s position in the fighter class and was actively shown to be unhappy and seeking something else to fill the void.

I’ve written so many metas about the Lion Swap, and gotten so many notes and replies of “wow, I can’t believe the writers threw away all of this good setup about how Lance belongs with Blue!” and not seeming to think that... maybe that’s the point? Maybe that’s why there’s multiple big obvious flags going “ah, yes, this is Lance, who is blue, this is Lance who when he unlocks a new bayard form the red bayard glows with blue light because the essential character and essence of Lance is blue, we are definitely suggesting something about Lance and the blue lion”?

Because frankly...

If the writers’ intention is to set Keith up as black paladin and get rid of Shiro? They’ve already personally ruined their chances. If anything, they have yet to do something narratively that I think really actually feels like an expression of intent in that regard. Which, again, makes me really sure- especially if they’re talking about the concept openly in interviews- that this was something they scrapped ages ago that has no bearing on present and future canon in VLD.

Keith is a great character who has the power and will to stand on his own, which is why it makes really no sense for the writers to make Shiro do every single piece of hard work related to helping Black break away from Zarkon- when that narrative is significant to him, a former prisoner, and not to Keith whose demons are much more about loneliness and isolation- and then for Keith to passively inherit the spoils.

Because so far Keith’s done nothing to earn that crown. He’s been a little busy advancing his own character arc, that might cross paths with the Black Lion, but sure as hell doesn’t entwine with them.

#voltron legendary defender #vld #Shiro #Keith #Lance #readmore #I understand stuff like this can sound scary #but c'mon guys really?#writers wouldn't do that #beyond 'a twist you wouldn't like'#it'd just be weak writing at this point #Anonymous

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