#There were originally supposed to be masked variants

[miguelhugger2099]

Hiii, I’m in love with your writing it’s a comfort for me atp. Could you please do grumpy reader where she doesn’t talk to others a lot. That makes Miguel look like an extrovert (even though we both know that’s not true 😭). Happy Easter 🐣 and or any holiday you celebrate.

Two Peas in a Pod

c.....comfort,,,,, sad hamster meme the highest honor i could ever get omg thank you i really liked this ask because its basically me haha my friend actually told me ive gotten better at being more welcoming and "nice" and another friend would tell me that i could never mask my uncomfortableness if someone was bothering me LMFAO but as alwayyssssss i can rewrite this request for u if ur not satisfied :) Art: nellwhre17 on instagram

Spider-People were supposed to be funny and outgoing. It was in their canon to have some resemblance to the original quippy and humorous Spider-Man. If not outgoing then at least a little endearing and sweet.

So the Spider Society is a little thrown off when you’re introduced to the team by Miguel. Both of your arms are crossed, your face blank and looking over other Spiders with neutrality. 

“Here’s our new recruit. She’ll be working more with Margo and Lyla. Think of her as one of your superiors like myself or Jess or Peter B.” Miguel tilts his head at all the other Spiders. “That’s all. Dismissed.”

He turns to face back to his console, returning to work on new files Lyla had presented to him. Some Spiders stay to chat with you. They don’t notice the slight discomfort and annoyance in your face.

“Hey! My name is Peter M! I think we might be the same age!” One says, his mask squinting to look like he’s smiling.

“Have you gone on a mission yet? What Earth are you from?”

“Has Miguel explained The Canon to you yet? It’s a little overwhelming, I know.”

The commotion irks you a bit, the Spiders coming into your personal space so you shuffle away and your brows instinctively scrunch together. “No, I’m fine.” You mutter curtly. The others finally see the change in your demeanor and they awkwardly step back.

Miguel turns over to see the few Spiders around and barks at them to stop. “She’s still new to all this so don’t go around pestering her.” 

They smile wearily up at him then at you, whose face is still contorted a bit in a way that looks like you’re obviously still being bothered. 

They get the message and wave goodbye to you but not without feeling a chill down their spine at how cold you were. Maybe you were just shy. Everything is and always will be overwhelming around here with different variants of yourself. So, they believed in time you’d come around like the others.

You, in fact, did not come around. After weeks, months even, you still came in and left without a word. Get in and get out. You rarely engaged in conversation and if you were in a group, you’d keep to yourself. If someone tried to include you, you’d just say a few blunt words that didn’t move the conversation at all so there'd be an awkward standstill before moving on.

No matter what, no one knew anything else about you besides your name, you were a Spider-Woman and the name of your Earth.

Even the esteemed group of young SpiderLings couldn’t even get you to open up. Jess and Gwen had just come back from a mission, wanting to eat at the cafeteria before heading home. They had found seats beside Hobie and Pav who were just catching up together.

Pav had mentioned trying to talk to you once but his bright personality pushed you further and further away from him, your responses to his questions becoming more and more short and quick.

“I’ve never met such a complicated individual.” He pouts, crossing his arms on the table.

“Don’ bother me none. I don’ like someone tryin’ to bug me either.” Hobie scratches the back of his neck. 

“Would’ve thought they opened up by now.” Gwen brushed her hair out her face. “It’s like pulling teeth with her.”

“She just seems kinda grumpy sometimes…” Pav sighs resting his head in his arms. “Even more than Miguel which feels wrong.” 

“Yeah, at least Miguel snaps at you but she…kinda just sits there.” Gwen leans back with a weak smile. “Not really sure how to make conversation when she’s so quiet.”

“She just doesn’t feel like talking, guys. Go easy on her.” Jess rubs her temples. 

Their conversation is cut short when Miguel walks through the cafeteria, documents in hand and with you in tow. Speak of the Devil. 

“Jess, Gwen, I misremembered about giving you the reports of your last mission together. I also have the analysis for the next one on Earth—199B.” Miguel hands the reports to Jessica and she immediately skims through it. Gwen looks over her shoulder and gives you a smile.

“Hey, how’s it going?” She asks. 

You respond with a shrug and a nod. “Good.”

Gwen’s smile wavers, laughing nervously as the awkward silence. She expected some sort of greeting back. 

Miguel answers for you. “She’s been with me the whole day since Peter’s been busy at home.” Gwen looks to Miguel.

“And how about you, boss? Doin’—uh—doin’ good?”

Miguel sighs, crossing his arms. “Better now that Margo fixed what Hobie broke in the console room.”

Hobie tsks. “Did not. You’re jus’ blamin’ me ‘cause I’m the scapegoat around ‘ere. Tha’ it?” 

Miguel pulls up camera footage from his Gizmo, of Hobie pulling apart different motherboards and CPUs from the server and tucking them away in his pocket. “Is this not you?!”

Hobie squints at the footage and shrugs. “AI has truly come a long way, mate. Bettah check tha’ out.”

Gwen, Pav and Jessica laugh at the scene, giggling at the sheer anger on Miguel’s face and Hobies indifference. You watch with a soft smile up at Miguel but nothing else.

Miguel feels your hand on his forearm and he looks down at you. You nod your head to the side, signaling it’s time to go. He looks at the time on his watch and collects himself. 

“We’re gonna head out. Don’t bother us unless there’s an emergency and be alert for any sudden messages should I need to contact any of you for anomalies.” He turns and gives a small wave before leaving, you trailing behind him.

You don’t say much other than looking behind to give them a small nod and following beside Miguel.

The group watches as Miguel talks to you, relating information and talking your ear off about missions and the to-do for the day. You listen quietly, eyes held on his and nodding along.

They glance at each other and think they would’ve never seen a person more closed off than Miguel in their lifetime. Even less where it looks like he’s more talkative compared to you. What an odd pair. “I think she has opened up. Maybe just not with us.” Jess leans back with a smile.

#nonie requests ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ #requests ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara x y/n #miguel x reader #miguel spiderverse #miguel ohara #miguel spiderman #spiderman 2099 #miguel o'hara x you #miguel o'hara #atsv miguel #miguel x you #miguel x y/n #spiderman 2099 x reader #spiderman 2099 x you

[inkopolis-connection]

Agents: original concept vs current design

(Design notes below!)

Agent 3 - Prima

The mint character was supposed to be my Agent 3 named Mint. Now Mint is Prima’s little sister and Prima was designed to be her older sis and Agent 3. Prima’s design hasn’t changed much except she seems to be much fiercer and more muscular/petite. Mint is based on choco mint, Prima is based on prima apples.

Agent 4 - Terry

Not much design change, change in chaps actually looking more accurate + style change. Eyelashes drawn in mostly inspired by 90′s animes, Cream the Rabbit, and some Splat idols. Generally more youthful aura. Inspired by mango graham floats.

Agent 8a - Vanessa

Drastic hair change. Default ink colour change. Hairstyle roughly inspired by Motoko Kusanagi from the Ghost in the Shell series. Bangs were a bit on a whim just to make her design stand out as well as conceal a certain feature of hers. Wears masks 80% of the time now. Slightly inspired by Cherry Blossom from Sk8. Inspired by grapes and wine type drinks.

Agent 8b - Nate

Drastic hair change, eye colour/style change, added a burn mark on his shoulder. Default ink colour change. Heart motif from his face shape on one of his design transitions is now reflected in his bangs and tentacle suction cup shape. Burn mark is from his attempt to escape from being fully sanitized. Hairstyle is inspired by a fusion of Noriaki Kakyoin and Trish Una’s hairstyles (JJBA series). Inspired by pastel sweets, like cotton candy.

Agent 7 - Kane

Not much design change, more like art style change (similar to Terry). Design changed accordingly to how his personality has developed from original concepts. Headband no longer drooping down by the side of his face. Inspired by bamboos, pandas, and green tea treats.

Neo Agent 3 - Ezra (and Little Buddy Masu)

Some key concepts have stayed, but from Inkling he became an Octoling with Inkling genes (to honour his original inkling concept). Face becomes far more relaxed when not in battle as opposed to original concept. He is also a Splatana user now. Masu is drawn with more personalised designs now, and is more pinkish to reflect his cherry salmon variant. Highly inspired by Megaman Zero and Cloud Strife. Inspired by hot food (maybe. for Ezra) and cherries (Masu).

#art #splatoon #splatoon 2 #splatoon 3 #splatoon oc #agent 3 #agent 4 #agent 8 #agent 8a #agent 8b #agent 7 #neo agent 3 #new agent 3 #little buddy #prima #terry #vanessa #nate #kane #ezra #masu #Agents

[claitea]

so i wanted to try my hand at making fakemon! decided i'd start simple, a regional variant (sort of) so there was an existing pokemon to base it on and i wouldn't have to go from scratch.

ghost pokemon often have dark backstories so i wondered, what if i undid that, what if i changed a pokemon so it was no longer sad or scary? ghosts usually have a reason for coming back to life too, spite or unfinished business, so what about a ghost that moved on from its tragic past and found a happier life?

detailled explanations for these two under the cut!

first off, the stats are the same as yamask and cofagrigus with the def and spdef swapped, like how galarian yamask and runerigus also have the same stats with atk and spatk swapped.

masquerade yamask can only be found behind the theatre in nimbasa city, like other regional variants you can't just form change a normal yamask into one. it evolves into theatrigus after performing in the musical with high friendship. in hoenn and sinnoh this would be a contest instead, and filming a video with it in kalos. no idea what you'd do in the other regions honestly. no theatrigus for you galarians.

the idea is that yamask that liked the theatre were able to move on from their past life by finding a new passion. it keeps its old mask, but it doesnt cry when it looks at it anymore. its just a reminder of a fond memory from a different time, but yamask is just as happy in the present now and no longer has a reason to lament its past life.

theatrigus was tough to design at first. originally i kept trying to make its face look a lot more like cofagrigus, but it looked too scary, not what you'd expect from a playful actor. cofagrigus's dex says it forgot its memories of being human, and runerigus is straight up cursed probably, but theatrigus isn't cursed or spiteful after losing its memories (i assume it doesnt lose them at all). so i figured it was good enough reasoning for theatrigus to look friendlier and cuter because there was no negative force that turned it monstrous. it still looks odd enough for a ghost/fairy type

theatrigus is just "theatre+egregious" like cofagrigus and runerigus, but after googling egregious's definition i found it used to mean "distinguished" instead of "bad". so the name scheme still fits!

bulbapedia says yamask is based on "ba", a part of the egyptian concept of the soul; what makes a person unique, similar to a personality. the ba is depicted as a bird with a human head. theatrigus is the opposite, it looks like a bird usually (yamask looked like one too so i leaned into that), but it can shapeshift to copy the lower body of a person.

it's fairy type because of its shapeshifting, since thats a common thing for fairies to do in fairy tales and myths. shapeshifting is how i decided to incorporate an actor changing roles or costume. the fluffy mist is supposed to look like fairy dust, a feather boa you might associate with old timey famous people, and the way that in cartoons or games a character might suddenly change appearance in a puff of smoke.

#pokemon #fakemon #yamask #masquerade yamask #theatrigus #clai's art #clai's fakemon #<- i dont know how many fakemon i'll make but this was so fun to do i Might make more. i have one more Original line in the works rn hehe #anyway i've been watching a lot of videos from a youtuber called truegreen7 lately. he makes a lot of fakemon and shows the process #seeing the steps and logic he takes to make a fakemon really inspired me and i wanted to try make my own #i was a little nervous about these two seeming a bit too farfetched even for fakemon #but honestly? i had fun making them and its not like they're gonna be in a game or anything. i can make them as wack as i want #i really love them honestly ahjdvjdbfjhf they're my little guys #would you call this a regional variant.... bc normal yamask are Also unovan......... what is this thing

[borderline-off-fangame]

ababa random things about the game that makes me go a. 

-Little Sam is actually a recycled character from a very old creepypasta I made back in the ye olde days of.. 2010-2012. the story was called ‘the girl with a plush toy’ (original i know), I hated that story and after I left the fandom, I ended up changing the character. So she became Sam!

-Max’s original concept was that he was the adoptive child of Enoch with the ability to transform into whatever being he so desired using a mask he would craft. I forgor about that concept until later on when I found my old stash of art. I might use that concept for someone else haha. 

-Aleyes is based on a nightmare I had when I was young. From what I recall, the nightmare was like a movie or some shit, and it had some.. really wacky visuals, with the last thing I see before waking up crying my ass off was a wall of eyes. And that is how Aleyes was born. 

-Human Seneca’s original variant had a lazy/fixed eye which faced right-side up, was also blind in that one eye. That design was a nod at the original Seneca sprite which had a very big gap between the eyes. 

Which meant that even his human form was not spared from deformity. Of course that was later changed to make him appear.. a little bit normal, but malnourished regardless. 

-Max’s birthday is April 23rd, he happens to share the same birthday as Sam.

-Gabriel’s original design was suppose to be a N. Fowleri variant, a humanoid variant of the brain eating amoeba created for.. well.. overthrowing humanity ofc. that was changed during the remake, where Gabriel is now a golem variant, and the N. Fowleri variant was given to Gabi. Both of them are quite self-aware, and they can exist in the same universe without a paradox occurring. 

-While Max’s gender is up for interpretation (even at one point there was a theory that max had klinefelter syndrome), it’s obv known that he’s very gay for his boyfriend Puff. They have been together for almost 2 years in-game.

-In the future, Max and Puff are adoptive parents to 2 kiddos named April and June. 

-Teen/Adult variant of Sam is a prodigy in music, her favorite instrument is the piano. 

-Aleyes’ human variant (the one with the flesh hair) is loosely inspired from the Greek mythology of Medusa, which makes him the first character with moving hair (second is Mariam)

-Shedder’s original design happened to share an uncanny resemblance to another character from another fangame which I won’t mention (the ye olde design is changed a little bit and appears in the game), the second design was drawn by a friend after we were brainstorming for a potential design, and then Chii came in and slapped my ass with a fresh looking design.

In order

First design, dubbed Copy Cat

Second design, now dubbed Covetous

Final design, now dubbed “The First One”

concept art

The Shedder concept now spans further than my mom’s lasagna, that an entire world exists revolving around said creatures. Won’t spoil it’s intentions doe. 

-Seneca is probably romantically involved with @ethaclone​’s Bug. in which he tries to woo the poor guy into going against his newfound friends at first. Luckily Max tells him to piss off.

-Since Aleyes is a notorious storage unit (and a parasite at that), it begs the question of whether he is able to eat or not... the answer is yes. He may look like a walking stomach, but he’s not greedy about food in the slightest. Nourishment is the least of his worries when he’s spending his time running away from Shedder and it’s Servants.

-Terrorizer was known as Rekt Rabbit (those were the wild years, don’t ask, also the excessive bass version of bones’ ok this is the last time was used as a battle track.. help). Still kept the name Erika. Ofc she was suppose to turn against Shedder, but in the remade version I made her entirely irredeemable. 

-Melon head’s name is Orodemus, that name came out randomly from a follower a few years back, and looking up the meaning of the name doesn’t.. show anything. *shrug*

-Despite Emily’s anxious appearance and personality, she can be very cunning, using her sweet talk as means to take advantage of any situation she befalls in.

-Orchid was originally to be named Hepatica (named after a flower) but changed it to Orchid last minute. In both switches and the pictures, it shows her original name which I cannot bother changing without messing something up in-game, and I am NOT in the mood for that. I also changed Roosevelt’s name, as he was originally named James Rose. He still retains his flowery tails.

#Borderline related #Borderline (off fangame) #Borderline (off spinoff) #off fangame #off spinoff #off (game) #off (mortis ghost)

[agentem]

Peter and Miles (take two)

I don't think I did a good job explaining what I learned from the racist video yesterday.

There are two leaps of faith in Spider-verse. Miles' leap of faith is to believe he can be Spider-man. Peter's leap of faith is about allowing other people to be Spider-man (whether Mayday or Miles, to allow for a successor in general).

Miles' leap is being tested by Miles G. Though our Miles doesn't realize it, Miles G. is actually proof he can be Spider-man, because Miles G was the one who was "supposed" (I use somewhat sarcastic quote marks) to be bitten. Miles will have to help Miles G. become Spider-man without the spider.

(The Truth is Miles was always destined for Greatness as that is the path is parents and his Uncle put him on. He was always going to become super, whether through the spider or through Uncle Aaron's tech. But he is currently choosing what KIND of super he is. Here "Spider-man" simply means a super hero. He could have been a super non-hero or anti-hero like Uncle Aaron. Miles G. "chooses" the Prowler path simply because it's all he knows he can be. Our Miles will have to show him otherwise in Beyond. But in 1610, both his parents and especially his father chose the path of light. I kind of hate to take it away from him, but as much as Peter encourages Miles, his true mentor is his dad. Jefferson's choices have ripple effects in Miles' timeline, whether 1610 or 42.)

Both Peter A and Peter B were going to stop being Spider-man. Peter A, because the Universe has been kind to him, accepts immediately that someone else CAN be Spider-man. That the Universe will simply send another person to pick up his slack.

Miguel thinks he is a variant of Peter. Or at least he is holding his life to Peter's set standards (the "canon"). But he, is not a variant of Peter. He's his own person. He's confusing "being Spider-man" with being a variant of "Peter Parker" (or Pavitr). Miguel, Miles, Gwen, Hobie, etc are not bound by the same rules.

Mayday's path, for example, will probably be more similar to Gwen and Jessica (Again, I think the female Spiders are important here.) as it is to her father's path. Because she is a different person. Allowing for different people to be Spider-man or Spider-Woman means allowing for more variation in what is considered "canon."

It is true that anyone can wear the mask but Miguel is representing the fans to resisted the creation of Miles Morales in the first place. That he wasn't Spider-man simply because he wasn't Peter. To assume "Spider-man" had to fit into set boxes.

That's what Miguel is the perfect "villain" in Miles' story. Because he was created BEFORE Miles was. He is actually one of the earlier non-Peter variations of Spider-man. He just thinks Peter's path is his path, and he is holding himself to it still.

Miles is about throwing everything out, except that Spider-person is a superhero. Anyone can be Spider-man. That was the point. Miguel represents a certain reaction to what Spider-man should be by fans.

The beginning and ending voice-over is supposed to be Gwen talking to Peter. Her convincing him that Miles must be saved no matter what is an important change in the Multiverse. He can't let Spider-man die. And he knows that Spider-man is not him forever.

ETA: I do wonder if Mayday will prove to have different Spider-Powers than Peter. She may be the origin of Madame Web. (Does her pointing at Gwen show precognitive abilities?) Or maybe that is from Jessica's baby. I'm not sure.

I think Miles has to show Miles G. he's a hero and fight bad guys on Earth-42, probably access the Multiverse somehow (through Spot?). But Peter B, Gwen and possibly Jessica have to defeat Miguel, or at least prove Miguel is wrong somehow.

I think Miguel and Miles are like Hobie (who can also be the Prowler) in that he accessed the Multiverse through science and technology. They don't have any "destiny" either. I do wonder what that makes Lyla. Is her algorithm simply incomplete?

#across the spider-verse #spider-verse #miles morales #miguel o'hara #atsv #beyond the spider-verse #spider-woman #spider-man 2099 #ultimate spider-man #mayday parker #spider girl #madam web

[the-letter-horror-lover]

The Shinobi Rules

Silirt

Chapter 22: Rai

Chapter Text

Crossing Shimo in disguise had not been easy, but the adventure brought with it no new information about the missing ninja they were targeting. Obito was a little resentful of the clothes he was wearing; it was a long traditional robe and a red demon mask, while Kakashi ended up with a simpler white robe and a wolf mask. Rin had a pink kimono with a layer of white makeup; with her tattoos obscured, she looked like an entirely different person.

“Doesn’t this make her stand out more?” he had asked when they first changed. “If even a blind man can see that she’s-“

“I’m fine with it,” she said. “I actually wish I had gone to the festival, dressed like this,” she said. “Do you get that?”

“No.”

“Oh, well, that’s fine,” she said. “We’re all different.”

That was the last thing they said before crossing into Rai, which had been challenging, since they had no choice but to do it in secret, but they found a time at night where the guard changed according to Ebisu, and went for it, surprised that they were never caught at the end of it. From what they understood, having a border with Shimo, a small country pretending to be neutral while really going along with Kiri whenever possible, was something of a boon for the way the Raikage ran things. Basically, they were less worried about how it made them look, and their games focused on making other countries weaker. If there was any cleverness to it, it was in how they would selectively report on certain events, both at home and abroad.

“Last year, they came out with this statement that the mist is obligated to protect the frost,” Genma had said. “The Kazekage seemed to think it was a good move, and I think it’s because now everyone knows that Fumogakure could ruin them whenever by just invading Shimogakure.”

“They might have some trouble finding it,” Obito said.

“Yeah, they might, but if they can’t find it, they’ll just invade some other town. The point is, we need to be on the lookout for clouds. They might be trying to sneak across their own border to bash some skulls in.”

“Would that really make Shimo give up on Kiri?” he asked.

“I don’t know about give up, but it’d at least make them think twice about it. If the hidden mist can’t protect them, then what choice do they have but to work with someone closer? It’s complicated because they use a variant of the water release, and I’m not sure why, but that seems to unite them.”

“It’s a sect of Ninshu, basically,” Rin said. “That was what I heard, anyway.”

“They assign a religious meaning to the water release,” Kakashi continued. “The frost ninjas have a different take on it, as you might expect. It’s like the will of fire.”

It seemed no one had expected that comparison to be drawn. Perhaps at their age, it was just a given that shinobi from Konoha had to embody the will of fire. They never really thought of it as a religious thing, though it was possible that the tradition had just grown so embedded that it went without saying, and originally it very much had been part of the faith.

“Why are so many different countries obsessed with water release?” Obito asked. “There’s three on either side of us, and there used to be four- well, six if you count Cha and Yu, but they seem to be splitting their time between fire and water.“

“I don’t know or care,” his teammate said. “I can tell you that they believe it, but I have no idea why. There has never been any evidence that it matters what elemental release you use.”

It was a strange feeling, to hear him basically deny the importance of the will of fire. From the look on Rin’s face, she was feeling the same thing; she was not sure that she was offended, but she looked like she was supposed to be offended, or something. It was not as if it was unexpected, though. He had said on multiple occasions that he did not believe in superstitious things, and he had said, only once, but that was plenty, that importance was relative.

Setting up camp in Rai, they resolved to split up and look around. They would be less suspect as a group, but there was fundamentally no way of finding the rogue ninja without looking for him; they had no leads other than that he had been moving in the general direction of the country where they were. Obito found nothing on his own, but when they joined up again, it seemed that Ebisu had managed to get something out of the authorities, while disguised.

“What did you even ask him?”

“I only started a conversation about the sensor types on the border. It seems he mistook me for one of his countrymen without thinking about it.”

“Don’t tell me everyone in this country dresses like this,” Obito said. He had gone to what he thought was a bar to ask if there had been any suspicious characters passing through, and it turned out to be a setting where kids were forcibly removed, rather than just questioned about why they were there.

“It’s not unheard of, I guess,” Rin said, seeming to think about it. “ I went to a restaurant where these ladies of a few different houses were having a meeting, and it looked like something that might have happened back home, to be honest. Everyone was dressed the same, anyway.”

They were learning that the main differences in the cultures of different countries were expressed in the lower classes. No matter where they were, high society went for the same fashion, the same food, and the same careers, if they had them. There were always those with enough income that no work was required, as long as they did not increase their expenses beyond what they could manage. He would not be surprised to find even the wealthy Uchiha associating with other moneyed individuals, though marrying them was another matter.

“What did you learn from the sensor type?” Kakashi asked, getting them back on track.

“He recently made the distinguished rank of Tokubetsu Jonin, and seemed appropriately proud of that.” Obito remembered discerning that he probably went on about it for hours. “There was a disturbance in between the changing of the guards about four nights ago, and they noticed that some trees were burned.”

It seemed that the man they were chasing had been sensible enough to cross quickly, and must have had some idea when the land of lightning’s defenses would be the lowest. Ebisu had not asked whether or not the reason there were ninja patrolling the border was because they were planning an invasion in Shimo, because he was not an absolute moron. As he understood it, both then and in the present, the country was many mountain ranges, and lush, fertile valleys in between them, making it easily defended, but hard to monitor. It was hard for an army to get through the mountains without being noticed, but an individual could do it with no problem. The section of the border that was being guarded, however, was a forested valley, making crossing it quick, but dangerous.

“Now we know when he crossed,” he started. “We just don’t know where he is now. He could be hiding anywhere in the mountains.”

“I will check them!” Guy announced, running off without another word.

“Are you going to go after him?” Rin asked.

“No, we couldn’t catch him,” Genma said. “Besides, it makes sense for him to be hiding in the mountains. They’re even taller and harsher than some of the mountain ranges in the land of earth. Not that I’ve been.”

“There are mountain ranges in Konoha if he wanted to hide there.”

“Well, yeah, but there are also trees on those mountains. Think about it. He knows he’s a missing ninja, so he knows there are going to be people coming after him. He can’t leave a blazing path of destruction everywhere he goes, so he’s looking for impervious mountains. It would’ve worked out well if he went to the land of wind, I guess, but he must’ve been close to the border with Yu, or he was already there.”

“It makes sense. I can go to support Guy,” Kakashi offered. “We’ve agreed that his search is important, and he can’t kill the target by himself, even if he thinks he can.”

“That leaves the four of us to check up on the angle that he’s hiding in civilization,” Obito said. He supposed it was possible for the rogue ninja to feed himself off mountain goats and just hide for the rest of his life, but it did not seem a lot better than prison, and according to the scroll, he was wanted for a limited prison sentence. They were right to treat him like a dangerous man, but it was important to remember that he was only wanted for an accidental death.

“Does anyone know what happened in the case?” he asked as they went into town.

“Yes, actually,” Ebisu said. “I was asked to help with some of the paperwork. Do you know about the fire temple? Hi no Tera?”

“I’ve heard of it,” he said. Rin nodded along. “I’ve never been there.”

“We had to clean the place one time as part of a D-Rank mission, so we’ve been there,” Genma said. “I don’t like it, but I think your friend’s got a point; we really are practicing some sect of Ninshu with the will of fire. Most people don’t think they believe it, but it’s been sitting there in the background for so long that they wouldn’t know the difference.”

“The victim was an older bald ninja monk named Chukaku,” Ebisu continued. “The man who killed him was only a visitor, someone they’d never met before. According to the witnesses, it was a total accident; he lost control of his own ninjutsu and the flames consumed the old man before anyone could do anything.”

“So, we really shouldn’t kill this guy unless he’s going to kill us,” Obito said. “He’s just wanted for an accidental death; we don’t have any reason to think he wants to harm anyone here.” He looked around as they walked through the town, and as he suspected, no one was paying attention to the four somewhat oddly dressed kids.

“The old man did express a preference that we bring him back alive,” Genma said. “If he wants to come quietly, I don’t see why not, but I don’t think he ran out this far without any plans to give us a fight.”

“That is likely,” Rin admitted. It seemed she had the same reservations about just killing everyone who was inconvenient for the village. He liked that about her.

When they went out to the camp for the night after not finding anyone, or any hint that their target had come through the town, they surveyed the area carefully, but there were limits to their abilities and they still had no idea where Kakashi and Guy were. On the fence about waiting for them to come back or not, eventually it was decided with a shrug that they could take whatever watch they wanted.

Obito was watching with Ebisu when it happened, not for any failing of their own, not for anything they could have done. It was something, however, that he still wished he could have seen coming, even as impossible as that was. Two small forms approached them from the clouded peaks of nearby mountains and in the calm and darkness of the night, they did not look twice.

What arrived, however, was a pair of young lightning ninja, catching them off guard and forcing them to dodge a pair of kunai crackling through the air. Shouting for the others to get up, he realized that their central mistake was waiting for their teammates to get back rather than attacking immediately. They had no actual reason to think that two kids would just so happen to be two kids they knew; of course the foreign countries had kids they were training, even if they did not always handle education the same way. The boy was getting the better of Obito in the dark while it seemed like the girl was successfully fighting Ebisu until he surprised her with an advanced jutsu. Rin and Genma joined them quickly, only to be attacked from behind by another ninja their age, or near enough.

Even though they had the numbers advantage by a slight margin, it was not a good situation in the slightest; using fire release would make it obvious that they were from Konoha, and they had not been sent to kill everyone there. They were under rather explicit orders to keep as low of a profile as they could, and dropping bodies would be directly counter to that.

Using an illusion like he had in the Chunin exams, only with one on his hand and another on his foot, he tricked the boy into smugly dodging one blow right into the other. It was not something that would have worked on a more experienced ninja. After getting hit, the boy panicked by starting another jutsu, but Obito closed the gap and kicked him in the head, shocking himself somewhat. Right as he turned to help Ebisu, who was now avoiding the tanto of the kunoichi he was fighting, he was forced to dodge a thrown kunai, and Genma was decisively knocked out. It looked like Rin was on her last legs against an opponent that was moving too quickly for him to observe at the time, and they were joined by an adult, whom they presumed to be the Jonin commander of the three young ninja.

“I thought it would be better to step in before any of you grew desperate,” he said. “We’ll continue this in the morning, after you four are properly restrained.”

It was an odd way of handling the situation, but they had no choice but to go along with it. They were tied up and separated, each under the guard of a separate team member, and there was nothing to do but try to fall asleep in their bonds. Their rest was fitful and unfulfilling. Even without the ropes, he remembered that all he could do that night was go over all the mistakes he had made leading up to that point.

“Good morning!” the adult ninja said as soon as the sun rose. Even the kids under his command groaned, suggesting they were not taking things terribly seriously, which was good.

“Sir, this seems… to be a misunderstanding,” he said, trying to get a hand on the situation. “We’re not your enemies. We’re not sure why you would attack us.”

“You’re not from Yu, then?”

“Well, we’re nomads, but what does that matter? We were just camping out here when your kids just attacked us out of nowhere. We didn’t see them coming or anything.”

“There are four of them, Sensei,” one of them said. It was the girl with light skin and blonde hair. Oddly enough, the third one did not look exactly the same, but he would have described her the same way. “They also really didn’t react when we were approaching them. They had to have seen us. The whole point was so that they wouldn’t see Yugito coming.”

“Did she need your help, though, Samui?” the instructor asked. “Her targets were both sound asleep when she found them.”

“I told you it was a bad idea to just walk forward from a distance,” the boy said, rolling his eyes. “As soon as we got within their sight, they shouted for the others to get up.”

“What would you have done, Kiyoi?”

“We should have remained silent,” the boy said. He was darker than his teammates, but not nearly as dark as their leader. He was wearing the same dark gray getup as everyone else, but without the white sash. His casual demeanor spoke to experience and confidence. “They never would have heard us.”

“Something must have set them off,” Yugito said. “Perhaps they’re not as unobservant as you think.”

“What, do you think these four are shinobi? Genin?”

“It’s not customary to come in units of four,” Samui said. “Besides, they were too weak. Only one of them scored a decent hit against us, and it was against you.”

“I could take you any day of the week-“

“If killing blows weren’t allowed, perhaps-“

“Shut up, both of you,” the instructor said. “My name is Hosoi, and this is my team. Because you seem to have no form of identification, we have no choice but to hold you in custody until you can be formally deported.”

“That’s pointless,” Genma said. “We weren’t harming anyone. Why kick us out?”

Obito quietly supposed that he was being smart by acting like they had no backup plan going by the names of Kakashi and Guy, but he did not know how to help, and suddenly wished he knew some language that was not commonly spoken in Konoha. It seemed like everyone spoke the same language, for the most part, but there were some out of the way villages and islands here and there with their own dialects.

“Please, just let us go,” Rin said. Technically, that would be best, if they were let go, but at the very least they had to convince the lightning ninjas that there was nothing else they had up their sleeves. It was also spectacularly unlikely that they would just get let go, even under much less strained circumstances.

“We can’t do that,” Samui said. “We have to report that we captured you, and then it would be up to the discretion of-“

“There’s no need to go into detail about our procedures,” Kiyoi said.

“What do you care? Weren’t you the one saying there’s no way that-“

“Even if they are nomads like they claim, we should never reveal our procedures. We leave them here with nothing and get going.”

The four ninjas vanished, but Obito was sure they were still being watched.

“Hey guys, do you think it’s time to wander on out of this place?”

“Yeah, but they didn’t treat us badly as Yu,” Rin said, picking up on what he was trying to do. “It’s about as cold as Shimo, in places.”

“The mountains are much higher,” Genma said. It seemed Ebisu was confused, or perhaps just trying to catch up with the new discussion topic. “It’s greater altitude, but they also block some of the cool winds from getting into the valleys.”

If anyone listening in was hoping to decode what they were saying, then anyone would be disappointed. There was no hidden meaning. They were just talking about pointless things. Perhaps someone would think that they knew that someone was listening. That much had been obvious; even if the lightning ninjas really did have rules about how they had to report suspicious persons, it would never take all four of them. It would have made perfect sense to leave at least one person behind to monitor them in case they had some way of getting out of the ropes.

Unfortunately, that at least was not the case. The young ninja were apparently well-versed in restraining people, it was doubtful that they were going to talk their way out, and even more doubtful that anyone was coming to rescue them. Guy was not an idiot, but Kakashi was too clever for him; he would be easily misled into focusing on the mission and not the retrieval of their teammates. What made things worse, though, was that the Jonin would probably make short work of both of them, as skilled as they were for their age.

“We’re back,” Samui said as she appeared, seemingly from nowhere. “Well, I’m back. The others are off taking care of something else.”

“It doesn’t make a difference if you watch us,” Obito said. “We couldn’t get out of the country before you found us, even if we could get out of these ropes. Are you going to feed us?”

“No.”

“We’re starving,” Rin said. “Why do you think we came here in the first place?”

“I don’t know. You could be spies.”

“Spies? I’m ten.”

“You’re older than I am. I just made Genin and went on my first few missions.”

“Someone used that word earlier. That’s a rank, isn’t it?” Ebisu asked.

“There’s no use pretending; even people outside the hidden villages know about the ranks, at least to some extent. The only reason you wouldn’t know that is if you had been brought up in a hidden-“

“We’re literally nomads,” Obito reiterated. “There are lots of things we don’t know because it just doesn’t apply to us. Can’t you just let us go?”

“No. I’m under orders.” She looked a little annoyed about the fact that he had interrupted her. “Don’t you know that I can’t just do whatever I want?”

“No,” he said, acting annoyed.

“Why did you think you could fight us?”

“You didn’t look that threatening,” he said. Genma was awake, he noticed, but it seemed he was nursing a headache or something. He would have to trust that the other guy was smart enough to sit there listening to them talk long enough to figure out their plan. It was not that complicated; they were just acting like normal kids and insisting on being let go.

“Well, we are threatening, especially Yugito. Don’t tell her I said that, though.”

When he thought about it, he supposed it was kind of unusual for one kunoichi to fight successfully against Genma and Rin, knocking out one and probably severely testing the other. She might have been the prodigy of the team. Then again, it was unusual that a team had two girls on it. Maybe things were different in the land of lightning.

“Are you two friends or something?”

“We’re teammates. The teams are always in threes, unless someone dies or something.” Obito only blinked. It was no surprise that someone else had copied something Madara and Hashirama had started, not really. They were famous enough as shinobi that they had come up with some of the rules themselves.

“Was that why you thought it was off for there to be four of us?”

“We’re moderately surprised to find four, but it was still possible. I heard that Tsunade, one of the legendary Sannin, once insisted that a medic ninja be added to every three man cell.”

It was a trick to see how much they knew about the Sanin, and how much they would lie about it. He guessed they were all reasonably well-known figures, even outside of the hidden village, and being able to say one thing about them was probably good enough.

“All I really know is that one of them was Tsunade,” Ebisu said. “We’ve never seen her before, though.”

“Okay, well, this will go much faster if this really was, as you claim, a misunderstanding,” Samui said. It was clear that she was putting on an act, though this one was different from the last and he was uncertain of what to make of it.

For better or worse, nothing was said until everyone else returned.

“We found nothing of interest,” Kiyoi said as soon as he was back. Yugito ignored them when looking around, as if she only expected an attack to come from far away. There was no way, however, that they could already know of Kakashi and Guy, though.

Wasn’t there? Already the lightning ninjas were proving more capable and clever than he had ever imagined. It was one of those things that he did not exactly know, but he should have guessed, probably. There were a fair few of those lately.

The Shinobi Rules

Silirt

Chapter 23: Stemming

Chapter Text

Obito was finished feeling stupid when the sun set again.

The four of them that were captured had managed to fall asleep during the day, which was easy enough once they were untied, as they were already dead tired. The lightning ninjas provided them with water, which was probably collected from the rain, but it kept them from recovering their chakra properly, not that anyone would say anything about that. Samui was posted to watch them at night, and the others were allowed to sleep. Their Jonin, Hosoi, was on another mission already.

“I bet this isn’t how you pictured being a Genin,” he whispered to the girl at night, as soon as sun went down over the mountains. The land of lightning seemed to have artificially short days like that.

“What would you know about that?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I hear things. It seems like that Kiyoi is dragging your team down.”

“What?”

“Well, he’s the only one who got hit, right? You said it earlier.”

Obito had probably several years more combat experience than the lightning ninja and he was perfectly aware that taking a hit did not mean one fighter was worse than another. He really had no idea about the combat experience and ability of the foreign teams, but he did have an idea of their general dynamic. Perhaps he was disappointed with himself for not managing to activate the Sharingan, but he would still use his powers of observation to the best of his ability.

There was something clearly different about the other girl, Yugito. The way Hosoi treated her was not the way that Minato treated Kakashi. She was something more than a prodigy. Rather than competing with her, the other two competed with each other.

“What are you getting at?”

“This mission isn’t interesting. There’s no point to it. I would know, because I know there’s nothing my friends and I are doing that would concern the Raikage. It’s just a chore. You saw a mess, and you had to clean it up.”

“What are you proposing?”

“Let the mess clean itself up. If there were some weird kids wandering around a town, well, what happens if the weird kids aren’t there the next day? What happens if they aren’t anywhere to be found?”

“I’ll tell you what happens. It’s someone’s fault.”

He felt like he was channeling Genma, who was taking the moment to sleep.

“It doesn’t have to be yours. You cut us out, and we’ll escape when it’s Kiyoi’s watch. Either he catches us, and he’s worth keeping on your team, or, well, you get the idea.”

“I get the idea. What are you, then, travelling beggars or something?”

“We’re wanderers. We’ll do whatever we can to live. I’m sure you’ve seen our type before.”

“I’m sure it won’t be the last I see of you. It’s the first time the mess has offered to clean itself up, though.” She looked off into the darkness. “How do you intend to escape from us? I don’t want that incompetent waking everyone up.”

“Oh, so you’d rather get rid of him. Look, we have our ways of getting out of here. As soon as we’re out of the ropes, we could get out without anyone noticing.”

“You’re aware that if you’re caught, it’s over for you, right? They’ll realize you at least have some concept of chakra control.”

“We know,” he said. “We’ve discussed this.”

Her eyes narrowed when she looked back. He was confessing to having a plan for getting caught, so they were at least relatively sneaky, if not enemy shinobi. It made things more difficult, but when she was tired in the middle of her watch, most things were.

“Don’t give any indication. I’ll need to make sure he checks you before you get out of here.”

She cut through the ropes in the back where he could hold it in place, but drop it at any moment before going and doing the same for the others. He thought about strangling her, but she probably expected something like that, and he would be pushing his luck. If her teammate checked their ropes closely, then they would have a different problem on their hands at least.

When she went to bed, it seemed like she went to bed early, which was what they wanted, as long as Kiyoi was taking the last watch. Yugito looked over them and saw nothing suspicious before taking a walk around the camp. He tried to lose consciousness several times, but he reminded himself he was carrying the plan, and someone needed to stay awake to get everyone else. Even if he was not at the top of his game when they had to make a run for it, his strength would have to be enough. Whispering his idea to Rin, he was impressed with the way she took to it quickly and without hesitation.

The night was at its darkest when the second kunoichi passed it off to her teammate, leaving them a matter of hours to escape during his watch, which would almost certainly end with sunrise. When sleeping was divided up as it was, everyone had to get a little more in order to remain functional, and three kids on their own were not likely to wake up before the first light if there was no reason. Obito gave the signal and they all used the substitution jutsu with some of the camp equipment, careful to move quickly without making any noise. They only had a short time before their deception was revealed, but with a little luck, they would not need all of it.

Genma and Ebisu glanced over at the sleeping kunoichi, silently having appointed themselves to making sure the enemy was asleep while the only recently awakened Rin crept forward and grabbed Kiyoi from behind, blocking his flow of chakra with a technique she learned under the heading of medical ninjutsu. She suspected that Sarutobi Biwako had picked it up off a Hyuga at some point, but was not about to go ratting her out. The target lost consciousness quickly and they crept away.

“How long do we have?” he asked at a whisper as soon as they were far enough away.

“Not long. The jutsu I used is a field technique to keep the patient from bleeding chakra. He was already pretty drained when I got him, but he should be up before long. He won’t be stupid enough to think that he just fell asleep on his own because of how tired he was.”

“First we have to find our teammates,” he said. “They might be in even worse trouble than we are.

A kunai landed in front of him and he stopped, looking around. Kakashi joined them from the summit of a nearby mountain and they kept moving without having to discuss anything. They made it to the border and were at about the end of their strength. He wanted to just run across, wondering who was even going to care if they crossed to the south, except possibly Shimo, not that anyone there had noticed before.

“Keep running!” his teammate demanded, and they ran for it without thinking any more. He must have had more time to scout out the area, and if anything, they all assumed that he had a better idea of what was going on than they did. As tired as they ever had been, they crossed into Shimo.

“Now we just have to worry about the frost ninjas,” he said, lying on the ground and barely conscious.

“They have bigger problems on their hands,” Kakashi said.

Several horns sounded in the distance. If he had no context, he would have assumed that the land of frost had set up an alarm for someone who suddenly crossed the border, but these were the calls of war. It was practically a routine border skirmish, but as his teammate said, it was a bigger problem than five young ninja wandering around.

“What do we do?” Rin asked.

“We can’t do anything now,” Genma said. “We have to find a place to rest, like a cave. We need to recover our chakra.”

“Where’s Guy?” Obito asked while they searched the area. What they found was not a cave; it was the hollow under the stump of what had been a large tree.

“He’s already headed back with the target.”

“Does that mean the mission was a success?”

“Of course. Someone had to prioritize it.”

They went in and slept, with Ebisu taking the first watch. Somehow, he was good enough at chakra control to put himself to sleep even when he was bound in ropes, which was a useful trick in that context, not that anyone had ever predicted it. The rest of them slept in a pile, and his last thought before finally passing out was that Kakashi must have been staying awake even longer than he was.

When they were up the next morning, it seemed for the most part the damage had been done. It was likely that the two allies of Kiri were less confident that they would be protected going forward; the Mizukage and probably the Water Daimyo had only a few days to declare war before their honor was undone. A war between the mist and the cloud was probably going to result in countless deaths, but many of them were going to be on one side rather than the other, unless Kirigakure had something else up their sleeves.

“It’s strange how we’re right here at ground zero and there still isn’t anything we can do,” Obito said as they moved through the forests.

“We’re under orders not to make a stir. We completed our mission.”

There was no arguing with that. Technically, it was only Kakashi and Guy who had completed the mission; everyone else just barely managed to escape with their lives, and one of them had to stay behind to ensure they got out. As he would later learn, Guy insisted on carrying the target back after he had been subdued. In his mind, he was better at such a task due to being stronger and faster, and Kakashi was better at finding the others because he was sneakier.

The five of them made it into Yu in time to see a diplomatic struggle between a frost Chunin and a hot water ninja, probably of the same rank. They were meeting in secret in a clearing at the border. On one side there were boreal trees, and on the other there were those with deciduous leaves.

“These monsters are going to wipe us out,” the young man said. “They were never taught to learn to live with others-“

“If you’re going to appeal to our commonly held water release-“ a young woman started back.

“What else is there? You can’t be allied with Konoha- the will of fire? Do you believe that? Don’t tell me your country just picks and chooses what parts of the doctrine-“

“It’s a sect of our own,” she said after a moment. “It’s not just a combination of-“

There was clearly something more to this conversation, but they would not listen to it. He had little doubt that they knew each other, but their personal relationship was not going to be enough to get Yu to help Shimo against Rai. Nothing would, most likely. The fact that the frost ninjas were getting attacked before the mist could respond was about as disastrous for them as the destruction of Uzushiogakure had been for Konoha.

Now that they were in an allied country, they could remove their disguises and pack them away for later use. They had been stripped of a lot of their gear, regrettably, but they had not gone in with too much, and they had not brought anything they could not afford to replace. When he thought about it, the fact that they had to go in so light on equipment was probably a large part of the reason that six of them had been sent after one fugitive. Of course, splitting up would make finding him faster, but once they found him, they would still be well-advised to converge on his position together.

“How did you find the target?” he asked Kakashi as soon as he had the chance.

“He was setting up a place to be able to hide out of town. We were right in thinking that he would want to be close, but we never would have thought that he’d be working on something while he was there. It was a scroll, probably stolen, but I can’t tell where he got it.”

“I guess we could turn it over to the Hokage,” Obito said. “He would know more about it than we would. Did it look foreign?”

“I couldn’t read it. The symbols were unrecognizable.”

If it felt like there was something going on, something that he should be working out, then he was too tired to notice. He was going to have to get a decent night’s sleep at home before that could happen. Though he missed her and always enjoyed her presence, he was somewhat surprised to find himself particularly wanting to spend an evening with his grandmother.

Something else he was definitely feeling was embarrassment. The four of them had basically been dead weight. When he looked back on it, he thought it would have been clever to argue that if the team of lightning ninjas had never caught them, they might have caught Kakashi and Guy, because as talented as the two of them were they could still be beaten by superior numbers, and there was something strange about that particular team. He really wished he knew more, but they had to get back either way.

Sooner or later, he would run into them again. He would only wish he had known how soon it would be, not that he could have said how he would prepare.

“Are you five from Konoha?” a hot water ninja asked them when they came to the border.

“Yes,” Ebisu said. “Did you see anyone else passing through?”

“As a matter of fact-“ He moved out of their path and they saw both Guy and the target, an older man with long hair and a long beard, tied up back to back. “-we did. The story seemed a bit hard to believe, but he said that five others would come to verify it for him.”

“We’re sorry,” Rin said, holding out the contract. They were all thankful that Kakashi had been holding onto it ever since he asked to read it. “We didn’t mean to cause any confusion.”

“Well, it wasn’t that we weren’t convinced by your little friend’s sincerity, but we figured that if the documentation was on its way here, it could hardly hurt to make him wait for it. This isn’t a rush job, is it?” the Yu shinobi asked, looking over the scroll.

“Not really, we just needed to get him out of Rai as quickly as possible. It technically isn’t mission critical for us to get him back to Konoha right away,” Genma explained. “Guy here just gets a little exuberant sometimes and probably took it as a personal challenge to run all the way back with the target on his back.”

“You can stop calling me that,” the target said. “I was just trying to go somewhere I wouldn’t hurt anyone. It’s taking all I have not to burn through these ropes.”

Obito blinked twice. Did no one ask him why he ran off after tying him up? Did they all just assume that his motive was entirely selfish? The Hokage described him as dangerous, but had he ever been a bad guy?

“We can’t let you decide where you won’t hurt anyone,” Kakashi said after a second or two. “We’re under orders to bring you back.”

“I’ve seen the fire country’s prisons,” he said. “The cells are made of wood. Bringing me there is a disaster waiting to happen!”

“We know what the prisons are like,” Genma said, waving his hands in front of him. “That’s why you wouldn’t be going to a regular prison; they’d have to seal your chakra just to be fair to the other inmates. That’s all only decided after your trial, though. To be honest, I don’t know what’s going to happen to you.”

“It isn’t our decision,” Kakashi said. “We’re just delivering you.”

Obito had thought about the problem for a moment, and he was not satisfied with the way it was being solved.

“What if we should really be treating him as someone who needs help?” he asked. “You could control your chakra before this, right? There must have been something that happened that caused you to lose control over it- Rin, didn’t you say that sometimes people bleed chakra and that’s bad for some reason?”

“Yes, medical ninjas are trained to keep people’s chakra within their internal coils. If there’s a breach somewhere in there, then we have to cut off the flow or your healing process will slow down. If you lose enough chakra all at once, and you’re not able to just shut down, then-“ The pause was clear enough for everyone to understand. It would not be good, to say the least.

“It’s the gates,” Guy said after a moment. As strange as it was, his voice had a contemplative sound to it. “What happens if the gates open, but never close?”

Perhaps they should have known they were revealing too much in front of this random hot water ninja, but they were trying to help someone who truly needed it, and they were all too focused on the task at hand to think about anything like that. Looking back and forth between each other, they knew they needed a Hyuga to help; with their own eyes they could not even see the internal coils system, and though one of them seemed to know something about the chakra gates, his instructions were not helping the patient.

When they were at last waved through, they returned home in a matter of hours, forcing themselves to move more quickly than ever. Kakashi asserted that whether they helped the target or not, they were still going to turn him in as ordered, but made no effort to stop them from taking him to the ninja hospital, where Tokuma’s mother was summoned to use the Byakugan to determine what the problem was with their most unusual patient.

Shortly after that, they passed out.

Obito did not know who exactly happened to have the strength to carry him back to his grandmother’s house, but he was glad to see her when he woke up, running up to her and throwing his arms around her. She congratulated him on successfully completing his mission.

“Oh, I barely did anything,” he said. He had always told her everything. It was always so easy, in those days. “It feels like I’m not living up to the… “ What was it? The legacy? The family tradition?

The kekkei genkai?

“Oh, I will never be disappointed in you,” his grandmother said. “I know you wanted me to hold you to some impossible standard, but I never thought that would be good for you. If you wanted to be just like your parents…”

She did not finish the thought, and in the present, he could not say how she would have finished it. His parents, however, had both died on a mission, and there was a stretch of time where she tried to get him to think about doing something other than the ninja academy. He knew he was young and he knew he was making a decision for life. Any other parent or guardian would have thought the same thing. At the same time, he could not help but feel betrayed, perhaps on the behalf of his parents.

His father and mother had both manifested the Sharingan; they had both been exceptional ninja who had fought in the service of both the clan and the village. They advocated for children getting along with each other, which to them just meant that the Uchiha should stop holding secret practices and spars among their own kids, and allow them instead to challenge the other kids from outside the compound.

“Who took me here?” he asked after a moment. He needed to go to the academy to collect his reward for completing the mission, and he would, though that was not on his mind at the moment. What was, more than anything else, was the worry that he was hardly any different than Kakashi, in that he refused his grandmother’s loving suggestion to do something else with his life. Drawn without explanation to the life of a ninja, he wondered if he even knew what it entailed, when his teammate would cite the Shinobi Rules to his chagrin at every turn.

“Dramada found you,” she said. “He’s such a gentleman.”

That made sense; the old man had been in his corner rather like a grandfather. It was strange, perhaps, that he was always there when needed, but perhaps someone had notified him when a young Uchiha had passed out at the hospital, or sometime after that. He could not rightly remember, he found.

“I’ll have to thank him,” he said. “Are you ever worried about me?” he asked. “Does it ever feel like I take you for granted?” She kissed the top of his head.

“What brought all this on?”

Without thinking much of it, he went ahead and told her everything that he had seen at the Hatake residence. If she wondered what that had to do with their relationship, he was about to launch into a whole comparison, but she held up a hand as they parted. It reminded him of the countless times that she had given him the incredible gift of discipline.

“What is a parent or guardian, but someone you can take for granted?” she asked quietly, smiling. “Your parents took me for granted, when they left me with you.” Her words did not match her expression, and yet it was perfectly apt. She was happy, and yet she was telling a terrible truth. “You have brought so much joy to my life, Obito. I hope you go through your whole life without experiencing the same tragedy that I have. Seeing you continue to insist on being a ninja without losing hope has been the greatest joy of my life.”

He really wished he could have stayed with her longer. The door, however, threw open and Fugaku entered, apologizing quickly for the sudden intrusion. He would know better than most other that it was a tender moment. It looked like he took a moment to think of how to phrase what had come to communicate.

“Depending on whether or not you have a managed to activate the Sharingan, I have good news or bad news.”

“Uh, I haven’t, sir,” he said. “I’ve heard it’s really uncommon… I’ve always found some other way…” Perhaps that really was it, and not an excuse that occurred to him only just then.

“The Chunin exams are slated for a week for now.”

The Shinobi Rules

Silirt

Chapter 24: Hidden Motives

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Time moved quickly when he did not want it to. Obito trained with everything he had against Kakashi in the midst of their steadily bittering rivalry, and he trained against the other teams from the village as well, though this time they were going to have to go up against more teams than ever. The Chunin exams were drawing international attention, what with Oto deciding, controversially, that it would decide whether or not to renew its alliance based on the conduct and results of the exam. For decades, at least, the sound ninjas had held that ranks should be given based on kills, and no one had expected them to join in an alliance with Konoha, but the war between Rai and Kiri had changed a lot in the realm of international politics.

“What do they have against each other?” he remembered asking Minato after an intense training session that left them all on their backs, staring up at the dark clouds overhead.

“My sensei, Jiraiya, would probably say it comes down to the differences in the sect of Ninshu, even when one attacked a protected country. That alone would be enough for anyone else.” He had heard, however, about the conversation between the ice ninja and the hot water ninja that the team had observed. “The Sage left behind five primary teachings.” He let out a long breath, greater than humanly possible, clearly drawing on his natural wind chakra.

“The will of fire is one, right?” he asked.

“That’s correct. You’ll hear a lot of people say it without really knowing what it means. There’s not much to be done about that. They simply aren’t interested in learning what some long-gone legend had to say about how they should use his secrets. Rai practices the teaching of the lightning reflex, and the water countries remember the mind of water. I won’t get into the difference in the doctrine; honestly it’s more similar than you would expect- the real difference is how they observe it.”

“Huh?”

“I know, it seems irrelevant. You’ve probably noticed, though, that the water countries will actively make reference to the religion of Ninshu, though, right? I don’t think you would have seen any, but there are still temples dedicated to the religion in Kiri, and they train people in the understanding and practice. It may seem odd, but they’re the most dogmatic out of anyone.”

“Then… Rai doesn’t really care.”

“They hardly even know they’re doing it. The lightning reflex is explained in a prayer that’s only three lines long in the traditional language, and some of the clan founders that went that way only remembered that they were supposed to do it, not why it was important or anything. There are many people who’ve misconstrued that particular teaching as just human nature. When no one else behaves the way they do, they think it’s just because we’re all so brainwashed or indoctrinated or whatever else to allow our natures to shine through or something.” He shook his head, not really the type to lose sleep over differences between countries. “What a world.”

Obito had the impression that his teacher did not know too much else about how the religion was practiced, and probably even what its tenants were, even though his teacher had, evidently. He reasoned that it must not have interested him as much. It also felt like it would be better to start from the beginning, rather than to study each of the different sects as they were in the present.

“There’s no time for that,” Kakashi insisted. He was just as exhausted as they were, but that was probably because he was discovering the limits of his chakra reserves. “We need to train if these two are going to make Chunin.”

By some bizarre ruling, the elders allowed him to participate in the exams despite already awarding him the rank. Giving him a probationary period for blatant incompetence after he agreed to take the blame for the last mission going so poorly, they promised that they would reward him by ending the probation if he managed to get his team promoted. Neither he nor Rin could nail down the reason why he wanted to face the exams again; typically what happened when one team member promoted and others did not was that they joined up with someone else.

More than once, he thought maybe that was what should have happened. If Kakashi had been allowed to join another team, he and Rin would have been sent back with someone more on their level, and he could join those on his. He thought he would like to spend more time with her.

“We’ve trained without stopping ever since you made Chunin,” he said. “We’re catching up to you, no matter what.”

“Good. When we get a B-Rank mission, I can be promoted again. I might be the youngest Jonin.”

That explained it. His promotions were directly related to his service to the village and his ability to follow orders. Getting harder missions would put all three of them against stronger enemies, and not only would they grow stronger, their greater achievements would be recognized. He just wished the whole system could be straightened out.

What seemed stupid and corrupt the second that Fugaku told him about it was the fact that Oto was participating in the Chunin exam despite the fact that they were using it as a way of finalizing their decision to join in an alliance with Konoha. It was supposed to be an honor reserved for those who had fought alongside the leaf ninjas. The way it was being phrased, the land of sound had offered a temporary alliance for the convenient duration of the highly convenient war between Rai and Kiri, and they would decide whether or not they wanted to renew that alliance later. What exactly did they want, though? Was it just the approval of some other village of their young ninjas? Was it to prove their strength?

“I don’t like it either,” Rin had said when he brought it up with her a few days earlier. “I just don’t… I think everything is ultimately because of ninjutsu. If you look at the rest of the world, things don’t work like this. Contracts… mostly have to be honored, laws mostly have to be followed, and if one Daimyo does something at the expense of another, it goes in the record. Everyone remembers it. We can get away with anything.”

“I hadn’t thought about it like that.” He remembered a few times that he talked with normal people, those who had never set foot in a hidden village, on the long mission. “I guess the only people who really keep us from doing whatever are the other ninja.”

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s why I don’t have a lot of hope of anyone fixing it,” she said. “Only a powerful shinobi could get anyone in this whole system to stop acting like they have been. It’s just… I don’t know how you could spend your whole life dedicated to making yourself stronger, and still be someone who would want to fix things.”

“I feel like Hashirama wanted to fix things,” he said. “So did the Shodai and the Nidaime.”

“He and Madara happened to be about the same strength,” Rin said after a while. “Nothing good would have come of it if one of them turned out to be a lot stronger than the other. They only got to be friends by fighting over and over, and they never succeeded in killing each other. Do you know how their last battle ended?”

“How could I forget?” he asked, shaking his head. “I know it’s kind of a long shot that it would ever happen again, but… the fact that it happened once proves it’s possible. I don’t know if you knew that I was serious when I said this, but…”

“You want to be the Hokage,” she said. “I knew.”

No words were exchanged for a moment. Only time would ever tell whether another great shinobi would bring about a positive change in the world; Rin had every right to be worried that it was just as likely one would bring about a massively negative change. If someone strong enough came and killed enough of the Kage in different countries, perhaps that would be the end of the village system, and they would be back to the clans. Perhaps the weak in heart would just accept anyone that powerful as the uncontested leader.

In the present, though, all they could do was prepare with the other teams from Konohagakure and that meant going up against Tokuma, whom he had met as a Genin on a seemingly pointless mission. Joining him was Tobitake Tonbo and a younger guy named Tatami Iwashi. There was another team there to observe, led by an orphan calling himself Mizuki, Umino Iruka, and the kunoichi he would later learn was called Tsubaki. They had recently graduated the academy, but having not been on any Genin missions yet, had not been approved for the exams. What was especially rough for them was that their Jonin instructor was already dead; he had been killed in a mission where a rogue ninja from Oto was involved.

“I’d bet you anything that’s part of what’s going on here,” he muttered to Kakashi when they arrived at the meeting place. “They’re embarrassed that one of their own killed someone-“

“If anyone should be embarrassed, it’s Konoha. The rogue ninja was considered powerful, but there’s no way he should have been able to kill a Jonin, not in a one on one encounter.” He sighed. “We can’t have people thinking that we’re diluting the upper ranks as well.”

Obito scowled, but said nothing more. Rin put away the scroll she had been looking over.

“I am honored you agreed to come out to a practice match,” Tokuma said. “I had not thought that an Uchiha would so readily agree to show off his skills.”

“I’m surprised to find us with so few witnesses,” Kakashi said. “Don’t more people need to know about the gentle fist? I could have sworn three or four people hadn’t heard of it.”

The young Hyuga’s turn to scowl came, and with it, Tonbo and Iwashi stepped forward to back him up. The rules for practice matches were standard across the three-man cells all over the hidden village, and they were always in effect. No one was going to die, but no promises could be made about injuries. They knew that their opposition was skilled in taijutsu, but they had way more experience against each other, and in the field.

The way Rin moved against Tokuma’s advances was nothing short of breathtaking, especially for their three spectators. It had been a difficult decision to pick her as the one to counter the gentle fist, but she did not explicitly need to attack him, only evade his attacks and distract him long enough for her teammates to rejoin her after dealing with his. Obito fought Tonbo, not really by choice, but because he was the fastest and seemed to single him out as the greatest threat. Initially, it was all he could do to dodge and counter, but he could tell that his opponent had spent a long time in practice and not long in combat. Faking a Katon, he baited the enemy into a kick to his hands, which he grabbed and carried through, throwing his own kick to the back of the head while the other boy could not reposition himself. Seeing in an instant that Kakashi had taken care of Iwashi, but suffered a surprise hit from Tokuma, he joined in himself, but felt himself being forced back, along with his teammates.

“I would agree not to prolong this if you would be so inclined,” the young Hyuga said, breathless and alone. “I would hardly think it would help Konoha.”

“Just say you surrender,” Rin said, a bit annoyed. It was hard to tell if he was actually unaware that his team lost, or if it was just his overly formal diction. “If it makes you feel any better, we also beat your cousin, Iroha, Mitarashi Anko, and the Tsurugi kid.”

“It does not, as it happens. Iroha is younger than I am, as are his teammates. With even less experience than we have, it truly is a wonder they were selected for the Chunin exams.”

“I can’t answer that,” Obito said. “Then again, I guess I also don’t know why anyone was selected.”

“Oh, come on. The whole reason we’re having this exam is to make up for last time, and the amount of time that’s passed since we could have an exam. It’s shameful,” Iwashi said. “They’re going to be careful about it, which is good, but they had no choice.“

Nothing was said for a moment. Their team was part of the reason that the last exam had been such a disappointment for the spectators, but it had been years since then. Would anyone really hold it against them still?

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, we lost against Morino Ibiki, Gekkou Hayate, and that weirdo named Tokara,” Rin said after a moment. “It seems like they’ve been on as many missions as we have, or close enough.”

“They surprised us. It was a decent show of force, and we had to surrender rather than getting seriously injured,” Kakashi said. Somehow not revealing that it was Obito getting injured was worse than laying the blame directly on him.

“We’ll beat them in the actual exam, since we’ve actually been before,” he said. “Probably the second round.”

“You’ll have to,” Iwashi said. “Don’t ask me where I heard this, but the written section is going to be easy. They want tons of teams getting through to the second round.”

The young Uchiha frowned, doubting the written test would easy, per se, and it would turn out to be a series of logical puzzles that he would remember for years. It worked, if the young ninja was right about the reason for implementing it, and it certainly tested very little of his academic skills, though even in the present he was not sure what it was testing.

“We only have so much time to prepare,” Kakashi said. “We’re lucky we’re not on a mission right now.”

“Do you want to go up against that other team again?” Rin asked. “We might win if we fought them already knowing what they can do.”

“It doesn’t matter whether or not we win in practice. That’s why most of these teams are agreeing to practice against us.”

“That and we’re staying within the limits of the village,” Obito muttered. “There were some teams that thought you’d kill them.”

“There’s no evidence that I’ve ever killed anyone from this village.”

Remembering the tacit confession on the subject, he knew there was no point to trying to bring it up more. He had spoken with Minato about it and the response was basically the same. There was no explicit reason to believe that his teammate had put his other teammate in mortal peril just to see if he could get the Sharingan to activate.

“That sounds a lot like a pet theory of yours,” his teacher had said.

“Sir, with respect, even if I just made it up out of malice, nothing in-“

“Nothing in the Shinobi Rules says you can’t put your teammates in danger.”

It stopped him dead in his tracks. He had never thought that the Jonin was without a heart, but he had not expected to be shut down. No, he did not know what he had expected. There was probably no action that a teacher could take against a student if nothing actually happened, though there were reasonably severe punishments in place for a ninja who actually killed his own teammate.

What had he wanted to happen? Had he wanted Kakashi to suffer some moderate punishment, or be on the hook for more? Did he want someone to just set the record straight? Did he want his teammate to be lectured and asked to apologize?

“Let’s just get this over with, then,” he said, returning to the training. “It’s tomorrow, and we have to get a good rest before the actual exams, whether or not the first part is going to be easy.”

“Obito’s right,” Rin said. “We’ve trained ourselves as much as we can, and we’ve even helped to train the other teams from the village. We can’t do anything more.”

“We can fight Minato.”

The words seemed to wait in the air for an answer. The three of them had obviously trained against their teacher countless times, so the implication was that Kakashi was suggesting something different. A surprise attack, or an all-out assault, with nothing held back on either side- something that was considerably more serious than everything they had been doing so far. As far back as the bell test, he had avoided them rather than engaging with them. Could the three of them learn how to kill a Jonin if they worked together?

“Let’s talk about this with him,” he said after a moment. “He wouldn’t mind if we asked him to fight us more-“

“It’s wasted if we bring it up with him.”

“It is?” Rin asked. “Would we really be able to take him by surprise?”

“We’ve never tried before. How else will we find out?”

Eventually, they surprised themselves by going along with it. As ruthless as their teammate was, he had proven himself as an excellent strategist and that carried over into training. It was a benign dilemma. Either Minato defeated them soundly and no one would be hurt, or they would actually get a good hit on him. Could that happen, though? Would he not just have some way of making the damage disappear? Could he bleed?

The three of them knew where to find their teacher; it was the time of day that he spent getting ramen at his favorite bar, Ichiraku. These days, Kushina was likely to be joining him, if while loudly insisting that so much salt was going to be a disaster for her figure. He never disagreed with her, which she seemed to hate even more than argument, and she would come up with bizarre reasons why he was not disagreeing with her, and to each of them he said something like ‘sure’.

“I see why she likes him so much,” Rin had said once when they were staking him out. “She likes being angry.”

It had been a while since then, and Obito was no closer to seeing what she meant by that, or seeing how that was a good thing if it was as simple as she was putting it. He had nodded along as if he understood though, so he was going to have to stick with that story. It was not as if he had ever once figured out anyone else’s relationship, though, so it did not bother him all that much that the reason the two Jonin liked each other eluded him.

This time, Kushina was not there, and it was probably because she had taken on some administrative tasks relating to the Chunin exams. It was not considered a conflict of interest, because she was not married to Minato, and realistically there were a ton of people in the village who were in some way related to those managing the exams. The Hyuga and the Uchiha had at least a few Genin and a few Chunin every year, and barring them from ever officiating the matches when they had such helpful dojutsu was just impractical.

He would later wish he had spared a thought as to why she was doing it, though.

Using a Katon, he knew that even while his teacher was not a sensor type, he would be able to pick up a massive manipulation of chakra. The idea was not to take him completely by surprise, but to draw his attention away from Kakashi, who was going underground. Rin might have been using a genjutsu to distract from any noise that might have been coming from underground, but he honestly no longer remembered- the fight was over quickly. Minato seemed to know an attack was coming from below; even from outside Obito could feel the powerful wind jutsu countering it, and an unconscious Chunin got tossed out of the ramen bar moments later. His teammates stood there in shock for the moment that most likely represented their teacher paying for his food, and then they were knocked out shortly after that.

When he woke up, they were on the Hokage monument. The sun was setting.

“That was a decent approach,” the Jonin said. “I knew, though, that the three of you would be looking for greater challenges, and since you wanted to work as a team more, you would not be fighting each other. I was the obvious choice for a few different reasons.”

Kakashi was looking dejected. The elements were easy to mix up sometimes, but wind was a hard counter to earth release. None of them had forgotten that, but had simply hoped the difference would not be worth that much in the grand scheme of things.

“Did you recognize my chakra?” Obito asked.

“No, but a lot of people in your clan have a tendency to open with Katon variants. I couldn’t think of anyone more likely to attack me than you. I know it wasn’t supposed to look like an attack on me, but I saw an attack coming since a few days ago. Next time, don’t do it in the middle of the city, even if you think I wouldn’t expect it there. You don’t want to get us in more trouble with the village.”

There it was again, the fact that the three of them had dragged down his reputation. He let them forget about it because he was a forgiving sort, and it mostly was not their fault in the first place, but every so often, there was a reminder. The young Uchiha wanted nothing more than to go back to the compound and sleep, like he suggested before.

“Looks like I was right for once,” he grumbled, getting to his feet and apologizing before walking off. He found the compound as he had left it, but there was someone waiting for him inside the gate. She looked so different, it was almost impossible to recognize her. Hanging down, her hair resembled her arms, listless by her side. The black eyes that barely shone through looked cold.

“I’ve been training,” Sagara said. “I haven’t let myself rest once.” By the absence of dark circles under her eyes, he knew she had been getting adequate sleep, but she was not resting. He had not expected such a radical change in just the time that had passed since he last saw her, but, once again, he could not identify what he had been expecting.

“I’m sorry I-“

“You showed me how badly unprepared I was. I should be thanking you.” She sighed. “My teacher couldn’t go harder on me because it would look like he was being unfair. He knew what happened as soon as he saw me, though.”

“I don’t know what to say,” he said after a moment.

“There’s only one thing I want you to say, and that’s after I come back from a mission successfully. You could say it when I make Chunin. You could say it when I awaken the Sharingan. I just want you to tell me I did a good job.”

He put together what must have happened. Someone might have cared for her wounds, depending on how badly she was hurt, but no one showed her any sympathy. Everyone knew that she was going to run into someone who was not going to hesitate to hurt her at one point, and the inevitable had finally occurred.

“It’s… if you want to learn a lesson from this, I… Everyone gets beat up sometimes,” he finished awkwardly. “I’ll be a hundred percent honest with you. You were acting like one of my teammates, when you weren’t nearly that strong. That’s why it got to me. I could always suffer him in silence because he was better at most things, and I needed his help. I really can’t always say how my mind works, but I’m really sorry if I took my frustration out on you.”

She seemed to ignore his apology. It was like someone was standing there saying that apologies were just wasted words. There was no action involved.

“I’m a shinobi,” she said. “I’m not here to judge you.”

That was the last he heard out of her before the Chunin exams.

Notes:

So, here we are at the second Chunin exam for Team Minato; this time they're all more experienced, but as you might expect there are going to be more candidates who get through to the second and third round, so it's not going to be a walk in the park. You'll remember I mentioned the written section of the exam in a flashback, and it's not going to challenge them, so I'll gloss over it this time.

The Shinobi Rules

Silirt

Chapter 25: A Different Forest

Chapter Text

Obito was at a loss as to how so many teams made it through the first round, even if it had been true that the villages of the alliance were trying to get as many as possible through the first round. By his count, there were thirteen. He had discussed it with Kakashi on their way to the Forest of Death.

“I mean, it’s not really a bad thing to have an easy first round. The second and third rounds basically ensure that only a few teams get promoted.”

“The elders of Konoha already accomplished what they wanted with the last one. They proved that they could turn out a Chunin in six years, as many strings as they had to pull. Now it should look like they raised the standards rather than lowering them.”

Cha was a relatively small country consisting of two islands to the south of the land of waves. The island where they took the test, Nagi Island, was somewhat less developed, but had a valuable port that connected with some places Obito had never been able to point out on a map called Degarashi Port, and it was decided that it would be the easiest if they took it in the warehouses after the inventory was mostly dumped in trade. Because the island was heavily forested, the ninja had cordoned off a nature preserve as ‘the Forest of Death’, following the tradition of Konoha. The primary difference was in the elevation; Nagi was a forested mountain with a beach around it. Starting in the sand, in the north, they were tasked with finding two scrolls hidden randomly on the island and delivering them to the hidden Modoroki Shrine, which they said was in the south on the pretense of being fair to the foreign ninjas.

“Did you hear that Ibiki’s brother didn’t make it through the first round?” Rin asked.

“Huh. I guess some people got tricked over the logical puzzles.”

“They were the only team to fail, and it was basically blamed on the younger brother, because he insisted on hearing the tenth instruction, which meant that they would never qualify again.”

“Really? They actually stick to that?” Obito asked.

“Most of the time, what happens is the disgraced ninja leaves and goes somewhere that no one has ever heard of him,” Kakashi explained. “In this case, he’ll probably stay on this island. They might give up on being ninja, or they might not. Either way, we mostly never see them again.”

“Doesn’t the Morino family want to see him again?” Rin asked.

“I don’t know. If he failed that badly, they might not. There’s very little they can do about it if he decides to just not come home and take contracts as a Genin of the land of tea. Failures mostly don’t make it as rogue ninjas.”

“He’s not a failure until he gives up,” Obito said.

“True enough. If we ever come back here, we’ll see.”

Kakashi was not a terribly hopeful or optimistic kid, but he seemed to leave it open that the kid might manage to redeem himself. He had his own quest of redemption and had started it at a younger age, though only some believed he needed to be redeemed in the first place.

“Hey, why do you always wear a-“

“Chunin candidates!”

Everyone turned to look at the examiner who was speaking. As more or less everyone had expected, there were fewer of an appropriate rank than there were in Konoha, but they were perfectly capable of officiating the exams, and, apparently, capturing everyone’s attention.

“Yes?” someone asked.

“Your time starts now!”

The three of them had agreed that the moment the second round started, they would sprint for the top of the mountain, escaping the initial bloodbath. There were twenty teams that had made it past the first round, and there was no way in hell that they would all get promoted. Cha had probably drawn up a few extra scrolls to make it likely that they could have a decent bracket in the third round, but every exam there were still teams that would take more scrolls than necessary, and it was unlikely that nearly enough had been drawn up in the first place. In passing, it had been mentioned that if a team got through with more than two scrolls, the extras would be taken and left in some random place on the island, and it was forbidden to destroy them.

“Why didn’t everyone just charge forward?” Obito asked as they sprinted. “If we find two scrolls, then we don’t have to fight?”

“There are those who are stupid or bloodthirsty enough not to see the advantage in that plan,” Kakashi said. “That said, there are not nearly enough to guarantee us the scrolls we need.”

Right as they arrived at the summit, they saw Asuma’s team grabbing a scroll out of a tree. Kakashi was already getting out a shuriken, but Rin grabbed his hand before he could get it out of the pouch.

“It’s too early to be fighting,” she said. “Even if we got a scroll, we’d only draw more attention to ourselves.”

“This is an anti-cheat game,” he said after a moment. “We’re supposed to complete the challenge as quickly as possible, not try to figure out a sneaky way of beating it. We could go to the shrine and wait for people to toss out their extra scrolls, but think about it- why would they bother collecting extra scrolls except to reduce the amount of teams that make it through to the third round?”

“Kakashi’s right,” Obito said. “I don’t want to attack Asuma’s group this early on, but if we can see a scroll, we should go for it. With all the fighting that’s going on, we might be able to take out a weaker team after they survive a few fights.”

“There still isn’t a time limit,” Rin said. “Well, there is, but it’s so long that we don’t have to worry about it. If we avoid everyone else, we should be able to find the last few scrolls. The problem with aggressively taking scrolls from other teams is that we’re going to be fighting no matter what when people find us and try to kill us for our scrolls.”

“The problem with waiting around is that we still don’t know how many scrolls there are in total,” Kakashi said, annoyed. It was a subtle difference, because he was not the most expressive, even in those days, and he was always at least a little annoyed at something. “We’re getting the scrolls if we see them and neither of you are going to contradict me on that.”

The kunoichi looked a little upset by the fact that they both went against her, but she accepted their plans, and in a matter of minutes, they found a scroll after they used an earth jutsu to move a tree out of the way and dug it out from under the roots. Obito decided. That there was probably someone capable of wood release to get it under there in the first place, but it was not like that mattered.

“It’s a heaven scroll,” he said, discerning the character immediately. “I guess they don’t base the hiding place on the symbol.”

“That would make it easy to find the second once you had one,” Kakashi said. “They want us to fight, but pick our battles. You were basically right when you said that we need to fight a team that’s already fought before, and has been weakened. That means we need to put ourselves in a place where we can find them.”

“The temple’s in the south, so… close to there, then?”

“Now’s the right time to go. There are going to be a few teams that got lucky, found two scrolls, and ran for it without having to fight anyone, and we’re not going to have to fight them, not that we could. As the round wears on, the shinobi that come our way will be weaker.”

They went over to the south of the island quickly, using their elevation to their advantage, and avoided the strong-looking teams they saw on the way. It was just as likely that someone else was waiting for them, after all, but they had a good chance of being ignored, still being at full strength. Kakashi used an earth release technique to make a trench in the ground while the other two made a panel of sticks and leaves, their hands brushing against each other.

“Sorry we didn’t get to do things your way.”

“There’s no helping it. We couldn’t have arranged the plan before we started because we didn’t know all the details going in. We still don’t.”

“I know, I just-“

He was without a way of finishing the thought. Somehow, with everything else that was going on, he knew he would remember the moment that he looked at her and she looked back at him. It was doubtful she saw anything significant about it. Her face, almost certainly, looked the same as it always did, except for a twig that got tangled in her hair at some point. Reaching up to take it out of her hair, she did it herself as if he had only been pointing it out.

“Get the panel over the trench,” Kakashi said. “It won’t convince anyone not moving as quickly as possible, but that’s what we’ll be dealing with.”

“Got it.”

In moments they were all huddled together in the trench, recovering some of the chakra they had expended in getting there. There was no way to tell how many teams had been lucky and gone past them already, but since they knew there were twenty going in, if there were still a fair amount, then they still had a chance.

“Hey, can you surrender?” he asked. “Like, if you can’t find any scrolls lying around and you’re pretty convinced that there aren’t any left, do you have to wait the full two days?”

“It crossed my mind. I doubt they would feel the need to inform us, though.”

“Well, is there an announcement if all the complete sets have been collected?” he asked. “They would’ve made either sixteen or eight if they really wanted a bracket. The rule where they throw the extras back might not matter, but it seems like they have their heart set on a certain number of teams making it through.”

“That’s true,” Rin said. “They might want us to fight for the scrolls, but there really isn’t any point to making us fight once all the scrolls have been collected. Some of them might get lost and some of them might get destroyed, even if there’s a rule against it, but they should have some idea when they’re done.”

“You might be wrong about the exact number,” Kakashi said after a moment. “There are three of us on a team, and the last round is always done in individual battles, so if they had eight scrolls, that would mean twenty four of us would be qualified. Because it has to be a power of two in order to have a bracket, there’s going to be a preliminary for the last round, like there was twenty years ago; there’s no way it can be a power of two and a multiple of three.”

Obito quickly checked against all the powers of two that were possible for a competition with sixty Chunin candidates, the absolute highest being thirty two, and came to the conclusion his teammate was right without saying anything. It was annoying to know so little about the competition, and even more annoying that the supposition that it was an anti-cheat game was right from the beginning. There had not been any announcements as long as the game had been going on; not when a team made it to the end, not when a team was forced to retire after a death or injury; nothing.

The three of them waited like that until a single individual charged over them with a scroll; it was a local who probably knew her way around better than most. He and Rin both hit shadow clones, but Kakashi threw a rope around the real girl and yanked her into the trench.

“Where are your teammates?” he demanded.

“They’re right behind me. You’d better release me or-“

“We’ll take our chances. Is this a heaven scroll?” he asked, seeing her trying to conceal it from him.

“Yeah, why?”

“Kakashi, they wouldn’t be running this way unless they had the other one too,” Rin said. “They have to get their teammate and their heaven scroll. Actually, even if they had nine more scrolls, they still have to get over here to get their teammate.”

“That’s not how it works.” They all looked at the local kunoichi. “My name is Wagarashi Matcha. I’ve lived on these islands my whole life. The elders said the way they wanted to officiate it, only one team member has to make it to the end.”

“We were never told that,” Obito said.

“We were never told that you could just leave all the questions blank on the exam last time,” she rejoined, though she looked a little young to have been in it the last time. “The way we always did the written test, you always had to write something.”

“It makes sense,” Kakashi said after a moment. “You’re supposed to complete the mission no matter what. Even if the second round is supposed to be a team challenge, you could still say that her team has helped her by giving her an opening to get to the end. The Shinobi Rules-”

“She only has one scroll on her, though,” he argued back. “There’s no way they have spares; they would have just barreled straight to the end if they did. She’s just lying to us and trying to keep us from using Rin’s plan, because she knows it’s gonna work-“

“I know that; I was only expressing sympathy for the idea of allowing teams to complete the challenge even after losing a member. If this were a real mission, we would have to keep going under those circumstances. We wouldn’t be allowed to call it a defeat and go back.”

That was true and there was nothing else to say for the moment, so they knocked out Matcha and waited for her teammates. Most likely, they were both boys, but the three of them were waiting for any sign of movement. Even if it was rotten luck that the kunoichi they captured had a heaven scroll, they were in a remarkably good position, at least until they all had to duck under a trio of senbon needles.

“Well, well, well,” a girl’s voice said. It was an entirely unrelated team; it was Anko, Iroha, and some other kid whose name he had forgotten. “If it isn’t the black sheep of Konoha, Team Minato.”

“How does it feel to undermine your own teacher?” her male teammate asked. Breaking tradition, he abstained from wearing a shirt. The Hyuga behind him remained silent.

“How did it feel to lose to us earlier?” Obito asked.

“We don’t give away all our secrets in practice,” Anko said. “I wouldn’t recommend holding anything back now, though. Light up for us, Ha.”

A snake seemed to come out of her arm and it was all he could do to avoid it. The shirtless dude ignited his punches with fire chakra as he came after Kakashi, who was quick to bury him and smother his flame, but in the process took a couple blows from Iroha. Rin fired back, throwing shuriken at the other kunoichi and forcing her to dodge. Obito closed the distance and used a Katon, which he knew she would ignore if she had as much skill in earth techniques as he expected, switching targets halfway to the Hyuga, freeing up his teammate right as he took a painful shot to the abdomen.

Doubling over, he could only see Kakashi taking advantage of his opponent’s understandable inability to focus before he threw a kunai right where Anko was about to dodge Rin’s second round of three shuriken, hitting her in the neck. He ensured that Iroha was knocked out while their resident medic ninja ran over to the young Uchiha.

“It looks like you got bitten by a real snake,” she observed, using an anti-venom technique. The dangerous substance was lifted out of his wound, but at no point did he feel the pain lessening. “Can you check them?” she asked.

“They don’t have scrolls,” their teammate observed dispassionately. “I’m going to seal them up underground and leave them there. It’s not that I’m offended they were trying to kill us, but there was somewhat more… malice than I expected.”

“You’re probably right,” Obito managed after a moment. “It’s better if we just let the Cha people know where we left them by the time this is over.” It seemed Rin had gotten him out of danger. For the second time, perhaps, he looked at her and wondered if she had always looked like that. Was it the gratitude? Was it the loss of blood?

Before they were ready to do anything else, though, another team attacked them, though thankfully it was a weaker team hoping to get the jump on them, by the looks of it. There were only two of them. Kakashi took a rather fortuitous chance and pinned one to a nearby tree with a senbon, letting the other get close to get hit by both him and Rin at the same time. Whatever the Genin was expecting, a swift, effective response was not it. Running up the tree where the other one was pinned, he knocked out the other one while Obito was still lying on the ground.

“Wait-“ He had never seen such fear in his teammate’s eyes. What was wrong? Looking down at his chest, he saw a shuriken stuck in it. When had that gotten there? He doubted it was Anko, because Rin would have noticed it. He must have missed it himself in the loss of feeling, or the confusion, or the pain. Everything went dark.

When Obito woke up, he was in a temple. He had never been one for temples, of any of the religions he knew to exist, but the calm was a nice change. Remembering that he had been in mortal peril with a start, he looked down to see he was fine.

“Good job, team Minato,” the examiner said. “It looks like your teammate really was alive, just as you assured me.”

“We made it!” Rin cried, throwing her arms around him. “Thanks so much, Obito-“

“Uh, what did I do?” he asked. “I know I woke up-“ He tried to take in his surroundings, but either it was dark or his eyes were not working.

“If you took any longer to wake up, they would have tossed our scrolls out,” Kakashi said. “We took you back here because we couldn’t see to your injury out there, where someone could attack us again, and we were hoping that even if you were unconscious, it would still count as you coming here.”

He tried not to be too happy about the fact that he was right that Matcha had been lying.

“So… they decided that it was fine for us to make it here in bad condition… we just had to still be alive. That makes sense… if I died, I’d be in the other world. It wouldn’t really matter if you brought the body.”

“Don’t talk like that; you’re not dying while your my patient,” Rin said. “I wasn’t supposed to move you, so some of the medical ninjas here chewed me out for putting the competition over your life-“

“You trusted me to live through it,” he said after a moment. For some reason, he found himself unable to get mad at her. “I lived through it.”

Kakashi only looked moderately annoyed, perhaps because the rules had not been as he hoped, if mitigated by the fact that they won anyway. When he got a chance to look around, he saw that several other teams were there, probably more than when they had first arrived, based on how long it felt like he had been out.

“Are you okay?” Rin asked. “I don’t know when they’re going to start the preliminary round, but-“

“It’s probably going to be soon, while they have everyone here,” he said. “I’m not at the top of my game, but I should be able to fight if they don’t prequalify us for the bracket.”

“It’s not likely,” his other teammate said. “While you were out, I asked the examiner and they said they wanted thirty two for the bracket, and there are more than that already. Even if no one else shows up, we’re already over by ten.”

“Which ten are they going to eliminate?” he asked.

“That’s the point of the preliminary. They’re not going to prequalify anyone who isn’t an absolute shoo-in, someone who wouldn’t be beaten except by someone with a highly convenient kekkei genkai that perfectly counters their abilities. Everyone else has to fight.”

“Were we that bad?” he asked. “I kinda thought we were one of the first teams here.”

“It’s true that we got here relatively early into the second round,” Rin said after a moment. “I’m almost glad you weren’t awake for this, but we had to bargain for our lives with the backup heaven scroll.”

“What happened?”

“While Kakashi was carrying you, I was carrying the scrolls; we were lucky we took all three of them. On our way here, we were avoiding all these blades coming at us from the trees, and I guess there were some other teams with the same idea, or maybe they already had their scrolls and they were just trying to kill us, but it drew their attention away from us long enough when I had a shadow clone run off with the spare scroll- I made it look like the clone dropped it and went to get it, when really I dropped it. It was all I could think to do, and it probably only occurred to me because Match had done it earlier-“

“It’s okay,” he said, realizing how precarious their position was. “There’s nothing we can do about it now.”

“We told the examiners what happened and everything. They said they can’t go and get Anko and her teammates until the second round is over.” She looked around. “There really is something off with the three of them. I used to get along with her and Kurenai just fine whenever we were in town together. She’s not normally like this.”

“Either something’s happened to her, or she has a secret,” Kakashi said. “It might be both, though. We should focus on what’s in front of us.”

In the hours that followed, the team they had just been discussing surprised everyone by showing up alive and with two scrolls. Most likely, they assaulted a team that had been overconfident, waiting by the shrine with a complete set to see if they could kill anyone else, though it was not revealed whether or not anyone had died.

Hours passed after that. Obito tried to get some sleep while he could. As long as not all the teams had shown up by forty eight hours, there was no reason to end the second round, unless all the scrolls had been found. As long as he could take advantage of it, though, he would, and that meant sleeping and trying to recover his chakra. Though he had little enough information about what would happen next, he knew it was going to be hard, and he would be right.

The Shinobi Rules

Silirt

Chapter 26: Preliminiary Round One

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Obito woke up around the time they were explaining the first round.

“Okay, Chunin candidates- there are forty eight of you, and we’re trying to get it down to thirty two. That means that we need to eliminate sixteen, and we’re going to do that as simply and as quickly as possible. The sixteen of you who did the best are going to go through no questions asked. Everyone else will each fight one match- the one who does better in the match goes on.”

“It’s great that the numbers worked out this well,” he muttered. There were shinobi who got more anxiety over that sort of thing than fights to the death. He was not one of them, but he wished them no ill fortune.

“How are the matches selected?” someone demanded. “I’m not fighting my own teammates.”

“That’s an obvious conflict of interest, and we’re trying to avoid that. Fortunately, for the sake of the preliminaries, we have an even number of teams that will be fighting. If we felt like it, we could even pit team against team. The final decisions, however, will be made by random drawing.”

“Nothing is random,” Kakashi said under his breath.

“In order, the teams that are going on to the next round are as follows: Team Sake, consisting of Oyashiro En, Miku of the lost clan, and Maeden, Team Inoichi, consisting of Yamashiro Aoba, Hyuga Hoheto, and Tenga.”

All eyes in the room turned to the recognized team, and they saw two older guys and a younger one, and instantly they knew what happened. The team would have qualified for the last Chunin exam, but one of their members died, probably against a rogue ninja, and had to be replaced before the next exam. The examiner continued.

“Team Shibi, consisting of Iburi Gotta, Uchiha Tekka, and Suzume, Team Midori, consisting of Wasabi Jin, Degarashi Hojicha, and Ryochu. We have also selected a team without a current teacher due to injury, consisting of Inuzuka Gaku, Minazuki Yuki, and Funeno Daikoku Lastly, because we needed one more to make sixteen, we chose the best-performing individual out of the teams that passed, but did not impress us enough to prequalify, we have selected Shiin of the clan named after himself.” He looked around. “If your team did not impress us, it may have been because you seemed to be rather fortunate, or employed a conservative strategy. Rest assured, the preliminary will sort you out.”

There seemed to be some disagreement about the way the decisions were made, but for the most part the candidates put up with it. Kakashi, for example, might have considered himself much stronger than some of the others, but because their team had been lucky enough to find a scroll early on, and then barely managed to make it through the second round, he was not complaining. Asuma, by contrast, was annoyed.

“So what if we found the scrolls early?” he asked no one in particular. “That means we completed the assignment better than anyone else.”

“It’s not really an assignment,” Morino Ibiki said. It went without saying that a team as strong as his did not prequalify for the same reason. “If you’re really that good, you’ll beat your opponent in the preliminary.”

“Of course,” the Hokage’s son said, turning relaxed. “We’re not worried; it’s just annoying.”

“It’s a wonder how you got assigned to a team with Raidou,” Kakashi said. “Wasn’t he the lone survivor of a Genin mission gone wrong?”

“Shut up,” Kurenai said. “What were they supposed to do with him after that? They didn’t have another team where they could have assigned him-“

“I mean, I guess they could have assigned him to Yamanaka Inoichi,” Obito said. “That Tenga guy could’ve gone to your team. Then the ages would be mostly the same.”

“There’s nothing for it now,” Asuma said. “If you really think that Raidou is carrying us, we’ll show you how wrong you are when we get to the bracket.”

“I wasn’t saying-“

Several of the ninja in front of Obito sharply turned and walked off, though Rin went after her old friend. He found them sitting on the steps of the temple, looking out over the scenery in the morning. He had to give the land of tea credit; it was beautiful, though perhaps that word was already on his mind.

“I don’t think your team is bad,” his own teammate said. “Besides, it’s like he said. You will have your chance to prove that you’re good.”

“I know,” Kurenai said. “It’s just… it’s more Asuma than me. It hits him harder, but he doesn’t show it; he does that whole carefree thing. He’s not actually that lazy. It’s an act.” She sighed. “Everyone says that he only gets by because his father is the Hokage.”

“Well, he has a chance to prove them wrong as well,” Rin said. “Do you like him?”

“I don’t know. I’m like you; right now, I just want us to be teammates and maybe, in a few years from now… I don’t know. The next few years aren’t guaranteed.”

Never had truer words been spoken. Even in the next few hours, they could die during the preliminaries. That was something that even at the time, Obito accepted, though. What stood out to him was the fact that the two friends had apparently had some private conversation in which his teammate had said she liked someone, but she just wanted to focus on being teammates for the time being. Did she like him? Was it Kakashi? Why did it matter all of a sudden?

“Get over here; we need to watch the matches,” his other teammate said. Rin looked up and acted like nothing had happened, and when he looked back on it she was probably right to think that neither of them really cared that she was having a conversation with Kurenai; they had never given an indication that they were interested in girls talking, even when it was maybe about them.

They assembled in the area surrounding the courtyard of the temple. The two combatants were Morino Ibiki’s teammate Tokara and Hyuga Iroha. It appeared they had met each other before. The broken gourd on the back of the somewhat older guy contained a gray powder.

“So, it’s you again,” he said. “Can you activate your Byakugan this time?”

“Of course,” his opponent said. “This will not be easy for you.”

They traded blows as if testing their taijutsu against each other, and the Hyuga was winning. It seemed, however, his opponent noticed that he was unsteady and took advantage of it, knocking him down with a leg sweep. He then jumped on top of the enemy, digging his heels into the young man’s side. The match was called despite the protests of the loser.

“Pat yourself on the back, Kakashi,” Obito suggested. “You softened that guy up, if I remember correctly.”

“You do. There’s more to it, though. They called the match early because we reported that he might get violent. Vindictive.”

Almost as soon as he said as much, Iroha’s skin seemed to have an irritation, but he calmed himself down as if someone told him it was not worth it. Rin frowned.

“That hardly seems fair. If they just wanted him to lose-“

“It’s not that they wanted him to lose. They just wanted the match to be over quickly. They can justify it by saying there are a lot of matches that have to be fought, so whenever someone gains a slight advantage, they go ahead and call it.”

“Maybe they wanted to see what the rest of his team did if he lost.”

In the next round, Raidou was going up against one of Shiin’s teammates, a young man named Arashi. Confirming with his teammates that they were from the land of sound, Obito resolved to watch carefully. Whether this one ended up in the bracket or not, they already knew one of them was there. Asuma’s older teammate endured what looked like painful screeching for a few seconds before seeming to disappear from the spot, reappearing behind his opponent. Kicking him hard in the back of the leg before he could turn around, Raidou had a kunai to the other ninja’s neck in less than a heartbeat and the match was called.

“Clever,” Kakashi observed.

“It was just a substitution jutsu,” he said.

“I wasn’t talking about the technique, though the application was more impressive than perhaps you realize. I was talking about the fact that he seemed to form a strategy around the fact that the last match was just called the moment one combatant had the edge.”

“That’s right. I’ll have to-“

“Uchiha Obito and Wagarashi Matcha.”

“What? She made it through?”

“She must have,” Rin said. “I guess her teammates found her and brought her in. We didn’t kill them.”

“We took their scrolls,” he muttered as he walked over to the combatants’ area. He could hope that it would be an easy fight, but he was actively learning that his opponent was nothing if not determined, and she had fooled him once already with the shadow clone.

“A bit off our game, aren’t we?” she asked.

“I could say the same thing about you,” he said, beginning to circle her. “How’d you even finish?”

“The other team from Cha helped us out,” she said. It surprised him so much he stopped circling, but she kept going. “There’s such a thing as a ninja who doesn’t turn his back on a countryman.”

“I’m glad you’ve got some good friends,” he muttered. “They can’t help you here.”

Using a Katon, he forced her to the edge of the relatively small arena and then hit her with a kunai in the belly, a lucky strike given that she had just created two shadow clones. The clones charged forward, refusing to give up after the first hit and he countered them, but an abrasive smell was distracting him. He rolled out of the way of a senbon needle, which was caught by a spectator he did not have time to identify. Right as he distracted her with a shadow clone of his own, he closed the distance and was about to kick her when a Tokubetsu Jonin dragged him out of the ring. Apparently, the match had been called, but neither of them could hear it.

“Apparently someone helped them,” he muttered as soon as he got back to his teammates. “I need to sit down; I can’t focus right now.”

“I think the same thing happened with Anko,” Rin said, squatting down next to him.

“Huh? Who would have helped them, though? Don’t tell me the older Hyuga helped them just because-“

“They wouldn’t have had anything to do with it,” Kakashi said. “According to Ibiki, they were on another part of the island almost the whole time. I’m thinking the one who helped them was someone who wasn’t supposed to be here at all.”

Quietly, he supposed that if someone managed to sneak onto the island before the competition started, or better, before they even prepared for it, then he or she could ensure that the team ended up with two scrolls. It would mean hiding from the examiners and other officials, and he had a hard time imagining who would be so committed, but he guessed it was possible.

“Who’s their teacher?” he asked as the next two fighters line up. It was another one of the Cha kids and Gekko Hayate, who was expected to win without much effort. “They weren’t called out when they read out the exemptions and I don’t remember it coming up earlier.”

“Neither do I. Most likely, it never did. If they keep people away from them, they can keep people from asking too many questions, though, so we would have to see who signed and sealed their form if we wanted to know for sure. The examiners aren’t authorized to reveal much about the competitors, so we wouldn’t get anything out of them.” Looking back on it, he wondered if Kakashi had ever considered that some of the exam officials might actually break the rules.

A loud gasp drew their attention back to the fight, wherein the leaf ninja stabbed the tea ninja with a sword, critically injuring him. Rather than doing the smart thing and surrendering against an opponent with greater skill and a weapon that was hard to wield non-lethally, the kid had basically chosen death, and people responded with concern absent of sympathy. They took him to the medical ninjas standing by and Hayate was pronounced the winner. Rin was unlucky enough to have to go up against his teammate directly after.

“You!” he shouted. “This is your fault- we had to try twice as hard after Matcha got knocked out. This was-“

“It was not inevitable,” she responded. Rin was nice to everyone she knew, but there was a firmness beneath that. “The Gekko house uses kenjutsu and their son is among the best at it. If anything was inevitable, it was that he would win.”

“We couldn’t just surrender, not when we were helped to get this far!”

“Were you really helped, though?” she asked. “Or was it just that the other Cha team had to give away their scrolls when they had an excess, and decided it was better to give them to you than someone who would give them any trouble?”

Her opponent screamed and charged right into a smoke clone, which he had not seen her do before. She hit him in the back with an axe kick and jumped back, doubting that would be enough for a finishing blow.

“You’re not going to make me live through this!” he shouted, burning chakra rapidly. Making several hand signs, he nearly hit her with a blast of tea that melted the stone pavers on the ground behind her. Her eyes flashed with anger.

“No, I’m going not. I’m going to make your teammate live through this.” Creating four shadow clones with her textbook chakra control, she charged at him, counting on his anger to make him hit each one rather than wait for the genuine article, and then hit him with a shuriken traveling through one of her own clones, slashing his throat.

The match was called and the medical ninjas were called over. As with the one who had been defeated just recently, there was still a chance of saving him, and they would have an incentive, since the medics were mostly locals like the examiners, but the prospects were looking grim. Rin returned to her teammates and sat down next to Obito, breathing heavily.

“Hey, neither of us blame you-“

“I know,” she said.

“That guy was trying to kill you,” Kakashi said.

“I know. That wasn’t what made me angry, though. He was just using a powerful technique that he can’t make any less lethal. Not everyone is a taijutsu specialist.” Her eyes narrowed. “What made me mad was that he seemed to think I would beat him without harming him, just to embarrass him more, and it seemed like he didn’t even think that Matcha also watched their teammate get stabbed, and now-“ She shook her head.

It went without saying that it was not really practical to leave people alive and try to make them learn life lessons, and that had not been his intention in his fight. He had never seen Rin attempt anything of the sort, and he knew she was capable of killing people. Deliberately giving the examiners time to stop her would have been pointless, because they were fast enough to knock both fighters out. To be sure, she might actually have the skill she needed to defeat her opponent and leave herself a moment to sermonize, but that was pointless. Like every other ninja, she was going to have moral objections with everything she encountered, and taking the risk to express them every time she was faced with an active threat was suicide. Kakashi was still arguably arrogant, but even in those days he had more or less given up on acting like a teacher to her and Obito, which worked out, because it was his turn to fight.

“Joki and Hatake Kakashi,” the examiner called out. It seemed like he was going up against a hot water ninja with a blank expression. About the same age, he wore tan robes and carried a single dagger. Without saying anything, he bowed and assumed a fighting stance. His opponent honored his wish to keep things silent and defeated him after using an earth jutsu on the part of the ground Rin’s opponent had destroyed, raising it to protect himself against a blast of steam. To the young ninja’s credit, the jutsu was hard to avoid and if he got it to be powerful enough, he could boil people alive, but the spray could still be blocked at the source, and the White Fang’s son was quick enough to think of that. He jumped forward with the dagger, only to be grabbed by both wrists and forced against the ground after an impressive attempt to counter the grab.

“That guy was pretty respectable,” Obito said when his teammate came back. “It’s a shame he couldn’t have gone up against someone weaker.”

“Then, he would only be defeated in the third segment of the exam,” Kakashi said.

“I don’t know; we get a month to try and improve before that.”

“Well, you should use the time to work on your kekkei genkai,” he said as the next two combatants were arguing about the condition of the stage, with one saying it was fine and the other disagreeing. He silently decided that they were probably trying to go through the teams to keep everything in order, only making exceptions when something would be a bad match, at least according to them.

“I don’t know how to work on that,” he said.

“I know. I only wish you’d managed to awaken the Sharingan when Rin was in danger.”

“I don’t-“

“Wait, what do you mean by that?” Rin asked. “I was unconscious-“

“Kakashi waited for me to catch on,” Obito said, not caring that he was only speculating. “He wanted me to see you and freak out-“

“I didn’t say that. I only said that I wished a positive result could have come of it.”

“You’re not denying it,” she said. “You’re just denying that you said it.”

“Do you think there’s any point telling a red eye that?” he asked. “I have denied it before, he has no evidence that I allowed you to get captured- Rin, you’re a shinobi as well, and he seems to think that I have to look out for you-“

“We all look out for each other,” she said after a moment. “I don’t think you had any plan to awaken Obito’s Sharingan, but I really wouldn’t put it past you. It’s easy to see why he thinks that you did it. Did you tell Minato?”

“He didn’t believe me either, but why does that matter? He wasn’t there.”

They reached an uneasy truce as the next match was finally taking place. Kurenai was up against the last member of that particular team. Making herself the second to take advantage of the break in the stone on the ground, she rolled out of the way of several attacks until her opponent was lined up with it, then used a bizarre plant jutsu to knock her off her feet. She impressed everyone with her pain tolerance as she took a blast of hot water to her own feet, turning it into a fist fight on the ground. The match was called and the examiners looked them over.

“Yuuhi Kurenai has suffered greater injury, but was in a superior position. She would have killed her opponent if granted the chance.” Without waiting for him to stop speaking, Asuma came and picked her up before he went in for his match against Ibiki.

“It’s like they knew those two-“ Obito started, but he concluded with only a shake of the head. It looked like there was a conflict between the examiners. One of the Cha elders was insisting that the fighting ground needed to be repaired before the competitors turned it into a garden, and others were saying that was unfair. The delay was getting on the nerves of the young men who were lined up and ready to go, but they stood there without saying anything.

A single shuriken came from the roof of the shrine, sticking itself in Asuma’s arm, and the next few hours were dedicated to trying to figure out who had thrown it, and when the local officials determined it was someone who lost the second round, they handed the matter over to the elders for their decision. The hour grew late before another match could take place, and they decided it would be the last for the evening. Ibiki insisted that he should go up against a shinobi at full strength, and they put him up against someone unrecognizable, whom he humiliated. Obito did not think he had ever seen someone go from confident and happy to eating pavement half so quickly.

“That was kind of surreal,” Rin said as they dismissed for the night. Some of the Chunin candidates were insisting that they did not need a break and could keep going through the night, but because some teams were done, it was decided that they had a right to watch the matches, so either everyone was up or no one was, and it could all be sorted out the following morning.

“It was. Did you notice that not many people were using their kekkei genkai?” Kakashi asked.

“I mean, it makes sense to conceal your true strength if you can,” he said. “It’s more like a real fight between ninja than the third round of the exam.”

“That’s what they probably think you’re doing with the Sharingan,” he said, a sigh making it evident in long retrospect that he was aware he was returning to a sensitive issue.

“Do they really expect me to be able to use it?” he asked. “Has anyone ever activated it this young before?” He thought for a moment. “Maybe my emotions just aren’t complex enough. No, then Sagara wouldn’t have had any problems; there’s no one more complicated.”

“I don’t know,” Rin said. “I really couldn’t say. Your clan keeps everything secret. Now that we’re through to the next round… maybe you should ask someone.”

“Do you remember Tekka, that guy who got put through no questions asked? I honestly thought that he was a Chunin already.”

“Did he activate the kekkei genkai already?”

“Yeah. Basically… he told me not to worry about it.”

“I can see why he’d say that,” Kakashi said. “Simultaneously-“

“I know. I know how important it is. It’s important to me too.”

They said nothing more as they resigned themselves to sleep, and for the first time that he could still remember, he felt like he wanted to sleep next to Rin. It was not that he wanted to do anything untoward; in those days he barely even had those kinds of thoughts. He just wanted to be near her.

When they woke up, as often happened, he lost whatever train of thought that he had been conducting before, and the new concerns of the new day won out. They still had several matches to watch, and that was going to inform them of how they would have to train for the next round of the exam, but before that, he really wanted to send a message to Minato to tell him the good news. He took out a scroll from his pack and started writing, resolving that if there were someone who got eliminated who was going back to Konoha, he could ask to have it taken back.

Apart from that, he saw nothing unusual that morning except the first kiss between Asuma and Kurenai, unless he missed one at some point.

Notes:

Obligatory acknowledgement that yes I posted yesterday; you're getting another one just to keep my document at a manageable length.

You've seen a lot of new names in this chapter, I presume, and I've said that I created a few new characters. To provide context for some of the ones I did not create, all of the characters who are stated to be from Konoha are canonical; I have a preference for using them whenever possible, and I really only needed to add in characters from other countries. If you don't know yet, Madara's decisions as Hokage made Cha and Yu stronger as countries and facilitated their development of unique ninjutsu.

In addition, Uchiha Tekka, whom I've only mentioned twice before, is an original character. The series is really good about having characters of different ages, but I genuinely couldn't find an Uchiha who was older than Obito and younger than Fugaku, so we'll assume that the canonical Tekka, who is much younger, was named after the same person.

The Shinobi Rules

#naruto fanfiction

[love-beyond-space-war]

Because I wanted to rewrite my old Gears fics, also aliens are cool:

Original fic written: July 8th, 2018

Rewritten: April 12th, 2022

Slight content warning: Contains some Mature Language, Murder, Violence, and Kidnapping.

Pyromaniac

Flame Grenadier x Citizen! Female! Reader

Summary: Your village was attacked by the Locust Horde. Deciding to fight back, you grab a weapon and try to survive. Turns out, you may have caught the eyes of a certain locust variant.

Fear. Complete fear. Everyone in your village felt that. Including you, a civilian with no armor in sight to protect you from bullet sprays. The COG soldiers were supposed to be arriving but so far there were no sign of them. It felt horrible to watch your home burn. Luckily, your family was in a different part of Sera.

You just hoped they were better off than you.

Your only form of defense you had was a sawed-off shotgun. The horde decided to attack your home in the middle of the night, catching many others by surprise. Sadly, many had died and there was only a few people in the town now. You wished the COG had come quicker.

You hid yourself behind a building at the sound of locust. Slowly you peeked around the corner to see two locust speaking to one another. Gripping your weapon tightly, you decided now was the best time to fight back.

Dashing in with as much speed as you could muster you blow a shot through one of the locust before ducking into cover. Clumsily you tried to reload your weapon, not used to the gun. A searing pain then rips through your shoulder due to a bullet.

Softly you aim the gun again to take out the last locust that had shot you.

"That's what you get you filthy-" Before you could finish your sentence, a bullet whizzed past your head. A locust sniper had been hiding on one of the rooftops.

Heart pumping fast, you duck behind some rubble. Looking over your cover to see the sniper get kicked down from his post. Strangely, by another locust.

"What the...?" You mutter to yourself. Once the sniper had been knocked down, the attacking locust had activated a Scorcher upon the now defenseless sniper. You barely had time to question what you saw before the flame-wielding locust spotted you and made his way over.

"Shit, Shit, Shit!" You panic, feeling as though you'll faint before diving into another broken down building. You wished you never saw the locust or just stayed hidden. Now you had to try and fight against fire with little to no protection.

Luckily you found a Snub pistol from one of the dead locust. It was enough to keep you ranged compared to your previous weapon. Once hidden behind the concrete walls of a house, you peeked through a window. The locust was nowhere in sight....

Until you screeched when scale like skin scratched against your softer skin. Turning, you were greeted with a locust claw digging into your shoulder.

You were soon face to face with a bronze metal mask that had a slit to see through and the Locust Horde symbol on the forehead.

"P-Please don't kill me...!" You begged. Your voice was soft and barely a whisper. Everything you did felt pitiful and futile against this creature....

There was no response...only the masked creature grabbing you tighter. Almost as if it was trying to show comfort in an embrace. Which was concerning as you thought all of the locust hated humans due to their queen's xenophobic views.

The Scorcher the beast wielded was set aside, but away from you. You were unable to get to it due to the bone crushing grip the beast had. You could only focus on the clouded yellow eyes staring at you from the mask's slit.

The moment of relief was then cut short when hand cuffs, or something that resembled them, were taken out of the beast's armor. You tried to struggle but the locust held you still. It clipped the restraints to your wrists before backing off, holding chains that were meant to guide you.

You were now officially a prisoner.

"Ground Walker... follow...."

You had no choice. The beast in front of you had the most control here. But you wanted to know the motive for keeping you, at least.

"Why...? What do you want from me!?" You cry softly, the locust looking at you before attempting to comfort you.

"Must not hurt... want to protect-" The locust's fluency in your language was butchered at best, but you understood. It didn't want you hurt? Was that why it attacked the sniper trying to kill you?

The locust didn't really explain before dragging you, picking up the Scorcher and continuing on.

Soon you were loaded on what looked like a living air boat, utilizing a creature to fly. You were sat on a seat before the large locust sat by you. You stare down hopelessly at your restraints. Fatigue soon hits and you feel yourself grow tired.

Once sleep threatens to hit you, you slump over and lay your head on your captor. The masked beast pauses before looking over. While you rest, you were vaguely aware of the beast lightly touching your soft skin as you slept.

Struggling had taken the energy out of you. At this point you found minimal comfort from the creature's touch, pushing closer.

You weren't sure what was being planned for you, but you could only trust the locust who chose you over his own kind.

What other choice did you have?

"Night... ground walker...."

#gears of war x reader #locust x reader #alien x reader #vague dark content warning #flame grenadier x reader #female reader

[doctorofmagic]

Defenders #5 review

It’s been a nice (and a bit difficult to understand) ride but here we are!

So the Defenders finally reach the third cosmos, in which Stephen explains that nothingness is fighting existence, a battle that will determine whether things will come to life or not. They find Zota and Stephen questions him about where he’s drawing power from, but before they can do something, Zota raises a force field. That’s when the Masked Raider intervenes.

The Masked Raider and Zota fight but, as Stephen points out, the Eternity Mask only grants the wielder an equal chance to fight, not win. And this is how Zota defeats the Masked Raider and reveals his identity.

Ngl, at some point, I was expecting this to happen. We’re dealing with time travel so it was not a surprise to me that the Masked Rider is Carlo Zota. Maybe I’ve watched too many shows with this prompt but well, that’s just life.

Next, Eternity is revealed and I swear to Vishanti, Javier’s art is just breathtaking! This panel is beautiful.

Eternity’s words make Carlo realize that he’s wrong, granting him a change of heart. And so he fights the dragon.

Stephen has an idea to combine Taaia’s technology and Harpy’s control over magic as seen in the third chapter. Together, they channel their powers to Lifebringer One (for those who were not here for the last review, Galactus is kind of a broken Celestial, and his potential is to become a Lifebringer instead a Destroyer of Life. This one is supposed to be the first Lifebringer). On a side note... *breathes in* there’s no way you’re telling me this is not the pan flag. I had enough. AL EWING, BREATHE IF THIS WAS INTENTIONAL BECAUSE BOI

You’re telling me that Stephen, Taaia and Harpy saved the universe with the power of pansexuality? BECAUSE MOOD.

Zota sacrifices himself in order to defeat the Anti-All and suddenly the dragon is shattered, while Eternity’s Mask floats towards the Defenders. And here’s more of Harpy bashing Stephen lmao

The next page shows that a hero called Blind Justice will deliver the mask to Zota, which honestly I don’t get that much because I skipped Marvel 1000, I confess.

And thus the heroes are called back to their own cosmos. Taaia leaves her helmet to Stephen as a gift in case he needs her aid once more, which is super sweet of her. Taaia is really precious. This whole panel is very precious, even Harpy’s grumpy mood haha.

And thus Stephen returns to the Sanctum. Wong wonders what he has been doing but the man is too tired to share the whole adventure for now. And so Al Ewing’s run ends with this beautiful panel! I need to zoom in and point every reference I found, of course!

But first, can I just say how much I love the fact that Eternity Mask resembles a sweet ghost floating around? BECAUSE I LOVED IT!! And yes, I noticed the foreshadowing about DODS :(

Now, let’s get started with Stephen’s taste in books.

Why is it all about music and dance? woehewoghwog at least one of them is a book about well, comic books haha.

NOW, to the easter eggs and references!!

To the left, some of the new Defenders after Stephen left the team due to the curse: Beast, Iceman, Angel and Moondragon. A pendant of Clea hanging (she can also be considered a Defender btw). A statue of Gargoyle, and behind him, Nina and Kushala (again!!!! Marvel, what are you cooking behind the scene??)

And here we have Loki’s helmet, probably a reference to the first Avengers/Defenders crossover, the original founders, Namor and Hulk, Valkyrie and a figurine of the Nameless One (nice reference to Defenders #1!).

And this is it. OR IS IT? Because the Defenders will return!

Overall, I liked this book. It is not as deep as it could be assuming how amazing Al Ewing’s writing is, but we also need to consider that 1) it’s a limited series and 2) the Defenders are rarely about deep stories, even though we did manage to see character development.

I’m kinda sad because I could swear Silver Surfer would return, but that’s on me for having expectations (the variant cover baited me tho). Again, this book wouldn’t be the same without Javier, and having these working together to bring this piece of art to us is just... I can’t wait to have my hands on a physical copy. This is a MUST BUY!!

AAAAND I’m excited to see more of the Defenders. Perhaps the next volume won’t feature Stephen to give room for the ones who didn’t make up (Hulk, Namor, Valkyrie, Angel, Beast, Iceman, Hellcat and so on), but that would be awesome for them. And, in case Stephen does appear, all the better hehe.

Lovely reading. Definitely recommended!

#doctor strange #stephen strange #masked raider #carlo zota #taaia #red harpy #betty ross #eternity #valkyrie #brunnhilde #personal #hulk #bruce banner #iceman #bobby drake #angel #warren worthington iii #beast #hank mccoy #clea #moondragon #heather douglas #kushala #nina #gargoyle #isaac christians #al ewing #javier rodriguez #marvel comics #review

[laundryandtaxes]

I’m a bit baffled by your stance on masks. Maybe it’s because I’m from England and the situation is different here, with the delta variant widespread and AstraZeneca being the main vaccine but from the research I’ve seen it definitely makes sense to continue wearing masks indoors even when vaccinated as with the amount of unvaccinated people combined with vaccine efficiency there is potential for a big wave (which is now happening). Can you explain any more your thought process?

Sure! I'm not even vaguely anti-mask. I was religious about my mask use before I got vaccinated because it was the best available thing I could do, if I had to be in public spaces, to wear a mask to protect other people- in other words, because it was the single best tool I had at my disposal to prevent myself from giving other people COVID or catching it myself. The calculus changed for me, and I'm only able to speak for myself here, once an even better option became available to me- once I was able to get vaccinated, I did so immediately, and frankly I didn't really do it out of concern for my own health because I'm a relatively young and relatively healthy person without any (known, though I have some reason to be a bit suspicious) autoimmune issues and therefore my odds, while I wouldn't want to play them, were very good wrt risk of serious illness. I got it because the single best way to prevent spreading the illness, like with basically any virus as far as I, extremely a layman and not an epidemiologist, was to prevent getting it so that I could not pass it on. I was extremely uncomfortable for the first few weeks of not wearing one in public, but I got over it after about a month even though I also caught a cold for the first time in over a year. Plain and simple, I did the single best thing I could personally do to help bring the pandemic to a close- I rolled up my sleeve for the same reason I wore a mask, which was not primarily primarily protect myself but primarily to protect other people. I understood that I might still contract the virus, but I also understood that the shot made it much less likely that I would, and I hoped, and science has so far strongly suggested, that in the event that I did get COVID anyway vaccination might prevent me from spreading the virus.

The reason that we are seeing a massive surge in cases is partly due to breakthrough cases, sure. They're happening, though the majority of people in hospitals due to the virus are not vaccinated. But the way that vaccinated people and unvaccinated people get the virus is largely the same- exposure to viral load. In other words, spread determines the scale of all infection, and vaccination rates correlate with the scale of breakthrough infections. Again, I could very much be wrong on some of this because I'm not a scientist, but basically my understanding is this- the way the virus spreads is simply by finding hosts, and if the Delta variant had shown up on US shores to find that every county had a 90% vaccination rate we would still be seeing a surge but we would not be seeing a tripling in case counts. The reason we are seeing a surge right now is that the virus still has a lot of unvaccinated hosts to infect, and it is this in COMBINATION with the fact that breakthrough infections happen (which, btw, was happening with the original strain as well) that is causing this massive rise we are experiencing. This is not happening because vaccinated people took our masks off in Target. It is not happening because we decided to live like vaccinated people, like people with an extremely low risk of serious infection or of making someone else seriously ill. It's happening because, while billions of people wish they could get even a single dose for the maybe 50/50 protection it could offer them, massive swaths of Americans have turned their noses up at the single best tool we have for keeping the illness from spreading. In some communities, the spread of the Delta variant is in fact pushing people to get vaccinated who otherwise might not have. But what is happening now is a repeat of what's been happening for over a year now- roughly half the country masked up and distanced and did all the things we were supposed to do to help, and roughly half did not because it simply did not align with their values to do so, and the rest of us see a surge in cases resulting from people holding unmasked and unvaccinated parties and finger wag at each other for that one time so and so walked into the mall and forgot to have a mask on, and it was silly and annoying enough before vaccines became available but NOW, when almost anyone in the country can get vaccinated with relative ease as the virus just rips its was through poorer and more densely crowded countries, it is genuinely angering to be implicated in something that I have very good reason to believe is not happening because of my actions or the actions of other vaccinated people. I've done my part this whole way, and as a vaccinated and relatively young and healthy person I'm not all that worried about my own risk of getting COVUD right now, and for that reason I'm even less worried about spreading it on. Vaccinated people putting masks back on in stores is tossing a totally ineffective solution at a problem that is largely unrelated to the behaviors of vaccinated people.

[rollychan]

Okay, turns out I have more to say about the first Loki series episode already.

But first a preface/disclaimer: 1) I welcome all opinions if they’re stated respectfully / without any insulting of or jibing at others or other groups of fans (I mean it, any “some fans *rollyeyes*” will get you a swift block and Idgaf which side you’re on, I have no time for that bullshit) 2) I am a mere unintelligent trashcan of a person and also my native language isn’t English so excuse me if my thoughts here aren’t deep or intelligent enough or thought through. They are my own, though. 3) These thoughts will NOT be very organized. I apologize in advance.

Thoughts under the cut.

The TVA and Dystopian Themes

The first point I’d like to make is that the first episode gives me major classic dystopian vibes just set in a very bureaucratic world. I will explain why:

1) The fact that Loki is arrested for time crimes he wasn’t even aware he is committing and that are decided on by some mysterious few authorities nobody ever seems to see.

Let me expand on this. It feels very much like it’s another powerful dictator-like power, like Big Brother from 1984, like the ten world leaders from Brave New World. They dictate how things should be. They decide on exactly the one timeline that they allow to exist and any variance from that is punishable by death. In 1984, you had the Thought Police and an arbitrarily chosen enemy you had to hate that changed from time to time and everyone had to follow those changes, in Brave New World, it’s a bit trickier, but basically, people were genetically modified (was it before birth? I can’t quite remember that well the details of it) and pre-determined to be in one of three (or four? it’s been years if not a decade+ since I last read the book) classes by deciding on their intelligence and other factors. Pre-determination, rigid behavioral rules, no straying from the decided upon social norms. That’s what they all have in common. Not to mention the brainwashing. “War is Peace / Freedom is Slavery / Ignorance is Strength” anyone? The TVA might as well get such a slogan for themselves. The people working for the TVA all seem very brainwashed. The guy at the desk that stowed away the Tesseract grew up behind the desk, for godssake, he doesn’t even know what a fish is. Just like people in Brave New World are brainwashed from their birth.

“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.” (Brave New World)

The TVA, like the people in the Brave New World, want there to be no conflict (forced happiness is the thing in BNW). They believe in what they do, and Mobius is actually very much a product of that. He believes he is doing the right thing. He believes that getting a Loki variant on his side will solve the problem the TVA are facing with the other Loki variant they are chasing. He will do anything for this goal, but he does have a different idea from the other characters we have met so far. They don’t think a Loki variant will help, but they are still all working towards the same goal.

And, I mean:

“You will be lifted clean out from the stream of history. We shall turn you into gas and pour you into the stratosphere. Nothing will remain of you; not a name in a register, not a memory in a living brain. You will be annihilated in the past as well as in the future. You will never have existed.” (1984)

I get major 1984 vibes here.

(I do think that Mobius might change his stance towards the TVA throughout the course of the series and I think he’s an interesting character to follow. But in the beginning, he’s still wholly entrenched. Him having a different opinion from the rest of the TVA does look like some foreshadowing though.

I have seen some people say the TVA is framed positively, which I respect as their opinion, but I don’t agree. I have seen nothing that cements in stone they’re the good guys here (there are some scenes I view as neutral and Mobius’ introduction I view as framing him as not totally evil, not the whole TVA as good). If anything, I get the feeling they are very powerful dictators and Loki caved because he realized how powerless he truly is there. But I guess that could be just me.)

2) Nothing is explained to Loki. There is no instance that acts in Loki’s defense. In fact, from what we have seen, there is usually no way anyone accused of time crimes can influence the court verdict. It is entirely one-sided and pre-determined unless someone from the TVA wants them alive.

Like, that is a major indicator of something being very very fishy here. No one who has a shred of morality will think that is just. Everyone accused of a crime has the right to a fair process, to a defense, to an appeal. Nothing about this process is fair. Everything about this process screams dystopia to me.

Loki isn’t even treated with dignity like every fucking criminal still has a right to in democratic countries. Getting the clothes lasered off without a warning? Would be a major human rights violation. Getting dragged left and right and dropped through floors? Major human rights violation.

This is, partly, played for laughs, but also not entirely. Loki does realize how little power he holds in that place and that moment is played seriously. It’s dictatorian, it’s unjust, it’s rigid.

3) People are arbitrarily erased / killed (”reset” is the term they use, I believe? When they use those glowsticks?)

For things like refusing to take a ticket and then having no ticket. When nothing is explained to them before.

The court process is a joke. It’s a farce, they go through some (not even all) standard motions of court preceedings but there is 0 chance for the accused to win. It’s all an illusion, as Loki so correctly points out. Nobody questions it but him, but it very much is all an illusion, a mask for the dictatorship underneath.

I’m, like, 80% sure the ticket bs is there so they don’t have to deal with everyone and can get rid of the annoying variants before they ever reach the “court”.

Basically, I think the TVA are supposed to be dystopian. It fits right in. (There is so much more in my brain but currently I lack the words to express it)

Loki and Continuity

The first half of the episode feels very over-the-top. There is so much over-acting going on with Tom Hiddleston that I don’t understand. He feels incredibly OOC in that first half (save for a couple moments, perhaps). The panicky fumbling for the ticket after he saw another variant being “erased”? That’s so much NOT Loki it’s not funny. I can overlook the thing about signing the papers that are supposed to be “everything he ever said” but some things are so OOC they are not even in the same universe as Loki’s original characterisation (of the T1 & Avengers 1 Loki) is anymore. That ticket fumbling moment, for example.

They did go over basically all his life in that scene with Mobius (though Mobius was absent for a bunch of it). Those emotional moments were raw and IC, in my opinion (the way he reacts to his own death - btw, anyone reading this before watching the episode: they show the IW death scene and while the moment he dies happens while the camera shows Loki’s reaction to it, you can still hear the audio of it, so beware!) I think that moment he breaks down is well-done. And it’s in that vulnerable state that Mobius finds him and gives him the final manipulative push to tell Mobius what Mobius wants to hear.

If they pick up on these themes - the dystopian dictatorship that the TVA are in reality and Loki having to come to terms with never being able to turn back and freedom vs. determinism (chaos vs. rigid order?), it can turn out to be a decent show.

I have way more thoughts but I’ve already spent way too much time on this so here you go.

#random #loki series #loki series spoilers #loki series review #sort of? #not tagging this one with the negativity tag since it's not really negative

[agoldengalaxy]

Paradox

read on Ao3

Croki sniffed the faded horns, whimpering softly. And Kid Loki exhaled shakily, sitting down fully in the dirt, holding the horns in his lap. One hand stayed atop them, the other coming to rest on Croki’s head. “He isn’t coming back,” he murmured bitterly, staring up at the remains of Alioth, swallowing the lump in his throat. “He’s gone.”

or, Kid Loki deals with the aftermath of episode 5.

--

The old Loki never returned. Despite the old man’s blatant fear of Alioth, refusing to get anywhere near it for the few years they lived in the Void, the monster was what had got him in the end. He had found his ‘glorious purpose’...and he’d left Kid Loki alone.

Footsteps crunched the dead, dried grass below as Kid Loki stared ahead. Croki bumbled along beside him, sniffing the air. Some rubble was still left behind from the fight, but the giant structures that the old man had created were in ruin, just like the real Asgard. It hurt to look at. To know the older Loki would never return, and neither would many of the other Lokis.

He turned his gaze toward where the beast had once resided, its purple now reduced to a dazzling green and parted to the side, billowing quietly, almost as if it were asleep. Or dead, he thought bitterly, wishing it had been so. The older version of himself and Sylvie both had ventured beyond Alioth. Perhaps they would be returning soon with answers…or perhaps not. Whoever was in charge of the TVA would no doubt be a tough adversary. Despite himself, he hoped that they would get through this okay.

His foot kicked something, and he stopped to look down at it. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, it was a pair of old horns. Some of the gold was chipping, and it was covered in a thin layer of dirt, but he recognized them. Each Loki’s horns looked different, and he’d seen these almost every day for a long time. Slowly, he crouched beside them, trying to ignore the burning in his eyes and the lump in his throat. He took them gently in both hands, swiping his thumb across the middle to wipe some dirt away.

“That old fool,” he whispered, staring at his own reflection in the gold. The breeze whipped at his hair, and he hated how broken he looked. He almost looked just like a regular child, but he wasn’t a regular child, not by a long shot. Regular children didn’t accidentally kill their brothers. Regular children didn’t have to depend solely on themselves for survival.

Although, he supposed he hadn’t really been on his own since he came to the Void. Not really. The old man had respected him from the beginning. They had come to some sort of understanding: Lokis didn’t trust, but they could get some mutual benefit by working together to survive, so they did. But somewhere along the way, the boy had begun to think of the old man as a friend. He figured he was the one sane Loki left (that wasn’t a crocodile). He was his only friend, and now he was gone.

Croki sniffed the horns, whimpering softly. And Loki exhaled shakily, sitting down fully in the dirt, holding the horns in his lap. One hand stayed atop them, the other coming to rest on Croki’s head. “He isn’t coming back,” he murmured bitterly, staring up at the remains of Alioth, swallowing the lump in his throat. “He’s gone.”

Lokis were always meant to end up alone. He knew this. So why did it hurt so bad?

A tear slipped down his cheek before he could stop it, plopping on one of the gold horns. It slid downward, leaving a clear trail in the residue. He almost scoffed. Perhaps his ‘glorious purpose’ was just to be left behind by everyone else.

Suddenly, a door opened up behind him. Shocked and confused, the boy held the horns closer and picked up the crocodile, scrambling to his feet. If the TVA had come here to pick a fight, he was ready to fight back. Maybe a good old fashioned fight was what he needed to feel better. But when he turned around, he was surprised to find a familiar face.

Agent Mobius stood there, wind whipping at his suit jacket and hair, an exhausted look on his always-kind face, masked with a smile. “Hey there, Loki. You wanna get out of here?”

Originally, he had agreed to stay behind with the older Loki. The Void had become their home, despite it being unsafe, and the old man especially was ready to do what it took to defeat Alioth and make sure the TVA was brought down to its knees. And he’d never admit it, but Kid Loki didn’t quite like the idea of staying here without him. He didn’t want to be on his own again. He was sick of doubting everyone. He didn’t want to have to worry for his life every time he tried to rest. Alioth was down for now, but it wouldn’t be forever. So he tightened his grip on the crocodile and on the horns, and approached Mobius, perhaps a bit warily. He knew the agent had good intentions. He just had to keep his guard up for now.

Mobius gave him another smile and ushered him through the door. He almost expected to emerge in the halls of the TVA again, but instead he found himself on a windy cliffside overlooking an ocean. Behind him was a small but earnest house. Furrowing his brows, he turned to look at the man, who tapped the TemPad to close the portal behind them. “…Where are we?”

“Colorado, 2023. Found this old abandoned house, figured I could spruce it up a bit. Sorry it’s a little cold right now, it’s the middle of fall.”

Loki breathed in some of the fresh air, staring out at the waves that crashed along the rocks. “The cold doesn’t bother me.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then turned around, eyeing the other, who was watching him with slight curiosity. “And what of the TVA?”

Mobius smiled a little. “Loki and Sylvie found the one behind it all. So, naturally, it’s being burned to the ground.” He clasped his hands together, blowing on them to warm them. “I might need an actual fire out here, though. You wanna come inside?”

The boy considered him for a moment. A mere mortal who cared about Loki variants, and who had no qualms with doing the right thing and admitting when he was wrong. Mobius was a strange man. Perhaps that was why Loki, and all the other variants, liked him so much. He glanced down at the horns in his hand, at the streak his tear had left before. “No. I think I’m going to stay here for a while. I want to see the ocean.”

“Okay, suit yourself. Come on in when you wanna warm up.” He watched Mobius ascend the stairs, the door slamming shut behind him, and he was alone again. Carefully, he turned back to look out at the ocean. The wind here felt different. It was cleaner. It smelled like salt, and there was a distant cry of seagulls. Loki had never been to Midgard, but he figured he could get used to a place like this.

Carefully, he sat down in the long grass, surprised to see it was green and alive. Setting Croki down beside him, the crocodile happily settled in that grass, and Loki stroked his back. “Maybe one day you’ll get out to that ocean,” he said softly, glancing down at the horns in his lap again.

He wasn’t sure what the old man would say now. Would he be happy that he escaped the Void? Would he feel betrayed to have been left behind again? His grip on the horns tightened a little as the tightness in his chest grew. First he’d lost Thor, and now he’d lost the old man. And it just wasn’t fair.

Lifting the horns up to his eye level, he looked at them for a moment, then rested his forehead against them. He’d never been the sentimental type, but it had been a while since he’d allowed himself to love again. And this was why he was better off on his own. When a Loki loved, they also hurt and betrayed. It was the paradox of their being.

Behind him, he heard the door open and slam shut again. He didn’t bother looking and just set the horns back in his lap again. A moment later came the footsteps, and a large knit blanket was draped over his shoulders. With a small grunt, Mobius sat beside him in the grass nursing a mug, though he didn’t sit too close.

Despite himself, the boy pulled the blanket more snugly around his shoulders. He didn’t dare look the other in the eye. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” He took a sip from whatever liquid he had, squinting out at the water. “I would have gotten you some, too, but I know my Loki doesn’t really prefer tea. Figured you’d be the same.”

It was then he finally allowed himself to look at the other man and take him in. He had deep shadows under his eyes, and his neat hair rustled a little with the wind. He looked tired. Loki couldn’t help but wonder what ‘burning it to the ground’ really meant, but he decided against asking for the time being. “Yeah.” He let a moment of silence pass, then asked, “Why did you come back for me?”

Mobius met his gaze over the mug, and Loki wondered if he was imagining slight amusement. “The TVA took your life, Loki. I think you deserve another chance at it.”

“What could I possibly do?” he scoffed, holding the horns in his lap closer.

Quietly, Mobius regarded him, his gaze shifting toward the horns. “He decided it was never too late to change. He was a good man -“

“He was a fool!” he shouted, emotion bubbling up in his chest, and to his surprise he couldn’t stop it. “A right idiot for thinking he could…he could take on Alioth…” his voice broke, his vision blurring with tears that welled up in his eyes. “He forced me to stay behind, Mobius. I couldn’t do anything but watch.”

“He did what he thought was right,” came the soft reply. Mobius genuinely looked sorry. “Maybe it was stupid. But he had a need, a drive, to help. Without him, we never would have found out who was behind the TVA.” He scooted a little closer, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “He cared about you. That’s why he told you to stay where it was safe.”

Tears began rolling down his cheeks, but for some reason he didn’t mind crying in front of Mobius. His lip quivered. “I miss him, Mobius.” He was disgusted by how quiet and broken his own voice sounded, but there was nothing that could be done about it.

“I know.” The hand on his shoulder moved to his opposite shoulder, pulling him closer. Loki leaned against Mobius, a strong arm around his shoulders, the faint smell of cologne entering his nose, oddly comforting. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to suppress the sobs with little success.

They sat like this for a long time. Mobius didn’t tease him once; he just held him and let him cry. And for the first time in a while, Kid Loki thought that maybe, just maybe, he didn’t have to be alone in this world.

#marvel #mcu #loki #loki series #loki laufeyson #kid loki #mobius m mobius #I love kid loki #I hope he comes back #rip classic loki I miss you every day <3 #my writing #agoldengalaxy #my post

[rothjuje]

No real MA update. Background check still isn’t completed so still no start date. He was supposed to start early July but now they’re throwing around late July/early August. He can’t give his notice until he has a start date, and no counter until he gives his notice. Justin will 100% accept a counter on his terms. So. I’m *really* hoping he doesn’t get a counter, or they don’t meet his terms.

Honestly? I was relieved when his company was going under. Now that they’re stable again I can’t imagine Justin leaving. Which is fine, I just am done with the (constant) relocation drama. He needs to commit to leaving or commit to staying.

Sigh. For my sanity, I’m pretending we’re staying. Debating on putting a pool in the backyard. The agreement is if we stay, I get 20k to put into the house/yard. I don’t know why I think pools cost 30k, I have no idea.

Originally, we were going to travel to FL and/or CA this summer. My mother (a nurse) thinks it’s unsafe to fly with the twins since they can’t wear masks. Ideally, I’d like to wait until they are vaccinated. But also, they fly free until they’re 24 months and scheduling will be difficult once Alyssa starts school in August. And I have no idea when they will be vaccinated.

I might just leave it up to fate. He takes MA, we go when the flight time is less than half. We stay, I wait until the delta variant calms down. Sigh. I miss home. Everything about it. The fog, the salty air, the too-cool breeze. The smell of redwood forests and burritos made right. Caramel apples with walnuts. Vegan vanilla milkshakes with peanut butter. Olallieberry pie. The best bagels. Coconut popsicles melting on beach walks. Hot clam chowder scalding the roof of your mouth. I miss it all so much I could cry. I miss the people too, but I can’t go there because it makes me too sad.

On a happier note, we took the kids to Palo Duro Canyon and it was a slice of Heaven. Two perfect days. I think we’re going to do weekend getaways once a month. We used to road trip constantly before we became parents. It was once our goal to spend the night in each state, we made it to 25. I miss adventures. I get chills when I see those giant windmills on the open road.

[reversemoon255]

(This is the final of a three-part series chronicling the development and ideas behind “Dungeons ‘n’ Dragonites,” a Pokémon DnD campaign. This last entry will be about the final string of encounters, some of the later ideas for story elements, and a deep dive into the overarching themes of the campaign’s Starters. Speaking of, the fantastic art of them, along with many of the other original Pokémon seen here, was done by @extyrannomon on Twitter, and I highly suggest you check them out.)

Dungeons ‘n’ Dragonites - Phase 3: Fauxchemine

Like the Queen Durant, the Steelix/Glacix fight would have been a transitory battle between phases of the campaign, taking place right before the Starters were about to evolve for the final time. Glacix was an idea I came up with early in development. As Rock, Steel, and Ice have a relationship throughout Pokémon, having Onix evolve into a specially tanky Ice-Type rather than the physically tanky Steelix made sense. This was also a design I put a lot of work into the actual proportions, like stretching its face vertically as Onix is circular, and Steelix is horizontally stretched. Also, as Steelix has two long spikes on every other segment, Glacix has four smaller spikes in the same pattern.

Glacix was also the first of the four penultimate boss encounters before the close of the campaign, each representing one of the four sacred beasts of Chinese mythology. I thought it would be a pattern that players could recognize and possibly plan ahead for. Glacix was always planned as the Phase 2-to-3 transitory boss, but I actually had roughly prototyped the other three before I realized Glacix fit into role of the Azure Dragon (which I was missing).

The second of the bosses, representing both the Black Tortoise and Rare Variants, was a Dire Torterra. The idea was this Torterra was symbiotic, housing a Sudowoodo instead of a tree, and hiding its identity was a shiny Altaria capable of Mega Evolving thanks to the Key Stone that had replaced one of Torterra’s stone spikes. This was a rough concept, and I’m sure it would have changed drastically by the time the players would actually encounter it.

Third, representing both the White Tiger and Ultra Beasts, was Shora (from Shodo and Tora, the Japanese words for calligraphy and tiger). A pure white tiger that paints floating, metal stripes above its body with its brush-like tail. This was an idea I was very happy with, though I lacked the artistic abilities to render it effectively. If I remember correctly, the markings above its shoulder were based on the Kanji for Tiger. I also hadn’t settled on an ability for it, which was key for depicting Ultra Beasts in this campaign.

And the last of the penultimate bosses was Phanic, being a second Ultra Beast and representing the Vermilion Phoenix. Sadly, I had little planned for this guy apart from some concept designs, like the rest of them. I was working on these as the campaign was starting, and didn’t pursue finishing them after its premature conclusion.

Phanic (from Phoenix and Panic) is actually an Ostrich. If you picture a phoenix, you typically imagine great plumes of feathers around the head, wings, and tail, which are all things Ostriches specifically lack, and I wanted to subvert that typical depiction. I liked the idea that when it was startled, it would scatter its feathers resulting in an exclamation point forming using the spot on its face. It was supposed to seem unassuming compared to the many larger and more imposing bosses, though just as dangerous. Also, it was Electric-Type because it is frequently “shocked” *Ba-dum-tish.*

=====

Let’s talk about our players. One of the backstory elements our Grass Trainer, Ethan, had was that his parents’ restaurant was struck by lightning and destroyed some time before he went to school, and saw a Pokémon at that time. This left him with a fear of lightning (ironically picking an Electric-Type Starter). With this knowledge, and as I was using Ultra Beasts, I altered his backstory slightly so that it was caused by a Xurkitree, and would eventually encounter one during the campaign with his victory over it (probably with a lot of Wisdom Saves) curing his phobia.

Johnny, our Fire Trainer, had a goal of becoming an entertainer, but was vague about what kind. I had an idea for a “Streamer” Trainer Class he could run into. Someone who uses their Rotom Phone to live stream battles and get reactions and advice from their chat. (Let’s face it, if Pokémon were real, this would totally be a thing.) There was also DJ Tomomitsu, who runs Stelopy City’s Trainer Radio, and was a Gym Leader. The idea was to present a bunch of different Pokémon-based entertainment ideas and professions and have him decide which ideas he liked and wanted to pursue.

While our other players were aiming for careers, Orion, our Water Trainer, was more interested in exploring his relationship with his family. His father in particular; both he and his wife being high-ranking executives for Silph Co., and raising their children to also be successful. However, Orion had always wanted to be a Trainer, and it was his parents that prevented him from adventuring. I had it that his father was so against the idea was because he, too, was a Trainer in his youth. But not a successful one, failing many more times than he succeeded, and didn’t want his son to suffer the same disappointments as he did. His partner was Rhyperior, btw.

Lastly was our Fairy Trainer, Arthur. He wanted to be a Gym Leader, and cited specific interest in the Galar League. He also mentioned in his back story that his father was belligerent and against the idea. While the Leaders of the Galar League are entertainers by profession, if you look at the list of Gym Leaders and Kahunas in US equivalent regions, almost all of them have a profession and run Gyms on the side:

(Restaurant Owner, Museum Curator, Artist, Model, Business Tycoon, Pilot, Actor, Teacher, Rock Star, Mayor, Shop Owner, Police Officer; 12/15)

It felt like a hobby, rather than a career, and I ran with this idea as it seemed like Arthur and his obsession with the Galar League hadn’t noticed this fact (nor had his player), but his father had and was pushing him into a sports-based career (one that is usually lucrative and has off-seasons) so he could have a well-paying job and time on the side for his interests, similar to Orion’s father.

Though, no DM can control their players, and even by the end of our fist session I could tell I would have to change some things. It’s just good to have some idea of where to lead everyone, and adjust as you go.

=====

There’s one more Pokémon I want to talk about before we get to the Starters.

This is Necrotiti (Combining Necro with the Egyptian God Nefertiti), an evolution of Cofagrigus, evolving if it’s holding an item called the “Ceremonial Jar” (literally a jar filled with Yamask’s human intestines). It was meant to evolve from the Yamask they could catch during their museum field trip. The reason it exists is... silly. It’s another instances where I wanted to surprise my players, and giving the “Gardevoir Treatment” to what I consider the creepiest Pokémon was funny (which I feel is a reason I cite a lot). And I was really happy with this design, which is why it got commissioned.

A lot of the original ideas I had for this campaign were meant to either surprise or creep out my players. Everyone I was playing with knew Pokémon very well, so I had this fear that if I presented them with a standard adventure they would either become bored or be able to easily predict where things were going. Having a Pokémon adventure within a single city, having it be more a mystery than a collect-a-thon, and using new Pokémon were all ways I came up with to keep interest high and have them guessing as to what would happen next.

Back to Necrotiti, despite having a sarcophagus Pokémon, we didn’t get a mummy. I wanted to make the body effeminate without being overly so, which is why her body is very geometrical in specific areas. For the mask, I went with a typical Egyptian Nubian motif mixed with some of the overall design elements and basic lines from Yamask, and the colors and patterns from Cofagrigus. But despite how much I like it, I don’t know if I would have used it. It didn’t match the Mutant Evolution concept, with its only similarity being that it’s a rare occurrence.

Onto the Starters: Epipesis has evolved into Drachenura (from Dragon, Lichen, and Meganeura). Grass Starters are typically based on extinct animals, and Flymph’s line is based on a Meganeura (an ancient species of giant dragonfly). Apart from some bulking out and additional colors, the lichen sacks in its tail are now yellow, as the plant matter has evolved with it. It supplies it with so much energy that it has to constantly move while the sun’s up to burn it off. Its tail tip is also based on the X-15, the fastest aircraft to date, as it was designed to be the fastest Grass-Type.

Steared has evolved into Auradiat (from Aura, Auroch, and Radiate). Now a Fire/Ice-Type, it’s based on an extinct species of cattle found around the time of the Ice Age. Its ability to absorb energy with its horns has become so powerful that they have frozen over. When I was originally designing it, I was actually trying to base it on the phrase “Irish Bull” (meaning a paradoxical statement), but as I kept working on it, it became more and more Minotaur-like, so I kept the Fire/Ice-Typing and dropped the more abstract elements. As I did, I actually made it more bull and less Minotaur since all Fire Starters are bipedal, and I wanted to try and avoid that.

Knaval has evolved into Chivalazuli (from Chivalier, the French word for knight, and Lapis Lazuli). This was probably my favorite example of features naturally changing as it evolves, with the antenna growing longer and the shield and lance growing harder (going from carapace, to stone, to crystal). Some of the things you might not have noticed at first glace were his forelegs becoming sub-arms on his chest, him gaining the lobster nose and it becoming a face guard, and how his eyes recess into his head. Also, almost every Starter is symmetrical (apart from patterns), with the only exception being Torterra, so I designed it to be asymmetrical throughout.

And Uteteo has evolved into Makutah (from the Aztec naming scheme used for their Gods of wealth and abundance and Utahraptor). He’s Fairy/Flying, with the gold adornments that first appeared on Uteteo now on his head and arms, giving him a more bird-like appearance. The idea was to have him naturally evolve from a Dinosaur into a bird, with the leg bands making them look more like talons, and the face mask giving him a beak. Also, he starts out with the singular sickle toe raptors are known for, and gets a new one every evolution, ending with a full set.

The thing that sets these Starters apart from ones you’d find in the games is that these are designed to be a team. As such, there are a few themes they all share to help reinforce that. (This ignores Utaw, but) All the Starters, throughout their evolutions, have a distinct yellow detail on their heads (eyes, nose ring, and antenna). Furthermore, once they reach their final stages, they share colors between them, with Drachenura having red on its extremities, Auradiat having blue neck fur, and Chivalazuli having flecks of green in its gemstone. And on top of that, they also all have two overarching themes. First is they all represent different time periods, with Drachenura being pre-humans (Precambrian), Auradiat being prehistoric humans (Ice Age), and Chivalazuli being more modern (Medieval Period). Secondly they all represent DnD, with a Dragon(fly), Auradiat filling the role of a minotaur and its connection to a labyrinth/dungeon, and the adventurous knight who traverses them.

There’s also reasoning behind their types, as all three’s secondary Types are also strong against their usual counterpart (Grass and Electric are both strong against Water, Fire and Ice against Grass, and Water and Rock against Fire). Furthermore, Electric, Ice, and Rock are all strong against Flying, which is the reason behind Makutah’s Type (a joke against the player who joined late).

Makutah does fit into these themes, but more loosely as it was created later. Utaw and Uteteo lack the yellow facial details (though they do have yellow eyes), only really achieving this during their final evolution. He also doesn’t share any colors, as Fairy is outside the usual threesome. It does somewhat fit into the themes of the others, but not as cleanly. Utaw, being a Dinosaur, is still pre-humans, but closer to them than Flymph is, and having Aztec themes puts him past Medieval and closer to the Renaissance in terms of human history, but is very close compared to the other time gaps. Also, the gold was partly to fit him into the DnD theme, representing treasure.

=====

One of the first things the players were told at the beginning of the campaign, and was reinforced throughout, was that Pokémon from outside the Wellou Region were mysteriously popping up all over the place, with the Ultra Beasts being the most extreme example. As to the cause, there were a number of red herrings. Silph Co. employees could occasionally be seen in areas where UBs were with strange equipment, Tomomitsu could occasionally be found before something would show up, and there were a few other strange characters like the Regional Champion or Silph Co.’s president. The only definite thing they would know was that there was a strange, creepy, grey Charizard that would occasionally appear when they took something down.

However, it would eventually be revealed that the above were only trying to understand what was going on, and prevent the appearances of such dangerous Pokémon, like our heroes. And as a massive Ultra Wormhole appears above the city, they come face-to-face with the true mastermind. Not an evil team, or a lone conqueror. Merely a single, twisted Pokémon. And our heroes have interfered with its fun long enough.

“You stare up at the now familiar form of the grey Charizard, which stares back with unblinking, dead eyes... Its mouth stretches wide, wide enough to swallow you whole, and a hand appears. And another. And another. Four skeletal hands pry its maw open from the inside, stretching it until its skin falls down to settle on its hips. What looks down on you now, with a single, glowing eye, is a monstrous form made of bone and rotting flesh. And witnessing the four of you before it, it lets out a high-pitched, chilling laugh...

“‘Fofofofofo...’“

Fauxchemine. A sadistic Ultra Beast capable of warping time and space to its will. All the disturbances throughout the town, all the strange creatures that have appeared, all the monsters sent to terrorize our heroes; all the result of its twisted sense of fun, and the consequences of getting in the way of it.

So there’s a running joke among my friends that we all “hate” Charizard. Not actually, but it’s always pushed in marketing with new forms and such, even though its popularity has been dropping steadily over the years. As such, I thought it would be somewhat cathartic to have the big bad they have to beat up at the end be related to Charizard. ‘Chemine’s skeletal nature comes from trying to cinematicly picture the encounter in my mind, with the eerie image of the mouth stretching open from the dialogue earlier. With bone white and rotten greens, the skin wasn’t meant to reflect Charizard as a shiny, but rather with all its color drained from it, as it’s more a puppeted skin than an actual part of the Pokémon. And as many Pokémon draw inspiration from Kaiju, ‘Chemine does, too, specifically calling back to an Ultra-Kaiju named Greeza with space warping abilities.

It’s Steel/Dragon with Thick Fat. When planning encounters, especially this late into the game, Auradiat made things tough since its offensive Typing is insane, and that combination made it resistant to all of the Starter Types except Fairy. This was supposed to be the toughest fight in the campaign, so I wanted to build a Pokémon that would be difficult to deal damage to. A swift Pokémon able to warp around the field, summoning Ultra Beasts or other versions of Charizard as adds or for specific attacks, I wanted this to be memorably difficult.

Oh, and the name? It’s meant to rhythmically sound like “Pokémon,” with the ‘faux’ symbolizing its disguise, and the ‘mine’ representing its personality. Everything in this world is its to play with.

But that giant Ultra Wormhole wasn’t just for show. Part-way through Phase 2 our players were sucked through a Wormhole themselves, both they and Fauxchemine bearing witness to a titanic creature as they did, and upon its defeat, it is let loose upon the city:

Standing over 100ft tall is Wreknarogg (from wreck, to destroy, Níðhöggr, a massive world-ending creature from Norse mythology, and Ragnarok, the end of the world). A massive symbiotic group of four Pokémon from a dead world, the whale-squid Bayleige, the parasitic Serrasite, and the barnacle Rhizocano. This was actually the first symbiotic Pokémon I designed, and its creation sparked the others like Shiinotic and Torterra so this wouldn’t be the first time our players encountered one.

Whales are the largest creatures on Earth, so using one as the base for a kaiju-sized Pokémon fit. It also helped that the prototype designs for the Cloverfield monster were based on a whale, so I had something to go on. Secondly, I really like a lot of the eldritch design philosophy, and a lot of those are based on sea creatures, which is where the combined squid elements came from. Also, when I was prototyping the design and trying to make it creepier, a friend suggested having a parasite coming out of its blowhole, which is what sparked the creation of Serrasite and Rhizocano (as whale’s are known to have such parasites in real life).

This was a design very inspired by the world it was supposed to inhabit. Coming from a desert world where they are the only living things remaining, they symbiotically support each other to stave off their own inevitable death, with Bayleige able to create rain with its ability and Rhizocano able to make artificial sunlight to feed Serrasite. Serrasite then gives energy to Bayleige to allow it to keep moving, and Rhizocano takes energy from Bayleige. It’s an incomplete system where energy is slowly lost over time.

Stage 2 of the final boss wasn’t supposed to be as intense as the last one. A gimmick for this fight was, at the start of every round, I was going to roll a D100, and an event would happen. They would be things like their friends showing up with healing items, trainers they knew joining the battle, wild Pokémon they’d befriended getting in pot shots, etc. It was meant to be a fun, celebratory, “you’re at the end of the campaign” fight rather than an intense one off the back of another. I was even considering having everyone use their full parties.

But after it’s defeated, a thick, dark haze enshrouds everyone. With their allies gone, and left with just their Starters, our players are alone in a dark void. I did say there were four Pokémon earlier...

And the final encounter is Wreknarogg (Core). The Pokémon who brought the three titans together, and controls them while siphoning off some of their energy to survive. Similar to Phanic, this was another unassuming Pokémon. Designed to resemble a virus while calling back to aspects from mythical Pokémon like Jirachi or Manaphy. I understand it might not feel as climactic as there wasn’t any set-up compared to ‘Chemine, who was shown throughout, or the previous Wreknarogg, who was foreshadowed, but I wanted a 3-stage boss fight, and this felt like a good way of concluding it.

While stage 1 was supposed to be difficult, and stage 2 was meant to be fun and call back to the long journey, stage 3 was an un-losable, cinematic fight with a somewhat somber tone to it. It was the final fight, the end of it all, and there’s a certain level of sadness that comes with that in accordance with the jubilation of completion. It was also meant to see how much everyone had grown; how would they handle this encounter? Fight it? Catch it? Persuade it? Maybe I haven’t listened to enough DnD finalés, but in how many can you beat the final boss by being nice to it and calming it down?

=====

And that’s the end. There would be some sort of epilogue, picking up with our characters some months or years later, but that’s not something I could write without witnessing the actions of the players. I was debating having everything that came from an Ultra Wormhole be sucked back in after Fauxchemine’s defeat, including the Starters (pull a Digimon Tamers), but as Wreknarogg came from a dead world I thought that a little cruel.

And to end things how I usually do; Overall, despite not getting off the ground, I was very happy with this project. I’m the type to pick up and drop projects frequently, and the fact that I stuck with and continued to work on it for months was something I was really proud of. It was also a great learning experience on many levels. And who knows; maybe I might do something like this again in the future...?

#Pokemon #Dungeons and Dragons #DnD #dnd homebrew #Onix #Steelix #Torterra #Sudowoodo #Altaria #Yamask #Cofagrigus #Charizard #Whale #Ultra Beast

[cosplayinamerica]

Spiderman from Marvel 1602 // Cosplayer: kammospark

Tell us about Spiderman1602, I’ve seen many versions of Spiderman but  thiis is a new one to me! What led you to this concept of this version of Spiderman?

Well I've always had an appreciation for lesser know outfits of popular heroes. Looking through many wardrobes and outfits, the obscure ones always stood out to me, "Wow, I've never seen this one before!" I'd think to myself, and I figured others who know the characters well would love to see them brought to life too, or even people curious about the stories of them would enjoy seeing it. I feel everyone has a love for Spider-Man; he's such an iconic superhero and has so many suits, and even though they can be quite diverse, they still feel recognizable as one of the Web-slinger's costumes.

While I was looking at different Spiderverse characters for inspiration on a new Spider-Man cosplay, I saw Marvel 1602 and it immediately caught my attention; I thought it was such a fun looking design. Definitely away from a modern or futuristic look, it's charm won me over, and I had to put it together. And as a fan of the fantasy genre in general, thanks to many years as a GM from D&D as well as other media, I also enjoy Ren-faires and wanted something to wear to show my love for Superheroes and Renaissance.

When you wore it out to conventions, what was the response? Obviously they knew you were Spiderman because of the mask but were they confused about the rest of your outfit? What were some of their guesses?

Oh people certainly get a kick out of seeing the outfit. Some people have called Me 'Lord Spider-Man', 'Ren-Spidey', 'William Spider-Speare', a lot of creative names for it that never fail to make me smile as much as it does for them. Whenever I wear a Spider-Man cosplay, I always want to try and take pics with as many Spider-Men as I can find, and most of the time it's the other Spiderman cosplayers that recognize who the character really is. I love having people laugh and get excited over the character, it's part of that Con Magic where people just can't help but feel like a kid when they see something that fills them with joy; its my favorite part of this fun hobby, just making someone's day memorable, even for a moment.

Besides conventions , I see you wore the costume to a Renaissance Fair. What was responses there? Was it different from conventions?

Ren-faires in general are a great time! And when I started this costume, I was excited just thinking of the reactions from people and how happy they may be. I've taken 1602 to quite a few Ren-faires: Central Coast Ren Faire, NorCal Ren Faire, and Kingsburg Renaissance of Kings.

The first place I ever debuted it was as CCRF, and I was stopped by about 20 people before I could make it past the first 3 booths. It really does feel like a different environment going to faires. D

uring them, I'd be a bit more 'theatrical' and introduce myself as Peter Parquagh, and try my best to make people smile or laugh. I've gotten the opportunity to meet many wonderful people and people with stunning and gorgeous Renaissance outfits. Kids come walk by amazed that they actually got to see a Spider-Man at a Ren Faire.

One instance, a bard played the spider-man theme song on a lute as he traveled around me. At two different faires my presence was requested by the Queen, and I was escorted to her, one even knighted me! Everyone just has a blast role playing and getting caught up in the fun, the energy is so infectious and delightful! 

Take us through how the outfit was put together?

Well, I cannot take full credit on the cosplay. My mother was actually a large part of it. Growing up, my mom was always really involved and loved making costumes for Halloween for me and my sister. And one of her favorite aesthetics is period piece era fashion and she loves Jane Austen.

As I was looking for ideas for a new cosplay and showing her, she was drawn towards 1602 and offered to do as much as she could to help create it, and she loved helping putting it together. The suit is a handmade outfit following a 14th century cavalier pattern. The design called for detachable sleeves and very baggy slops, but we decided to have the sleeves attached and slim down the slops slightly, to give it a mix of authentic and Spider-man's sleekness.

We went looking online and found this wonderful blue velvet fabric with Fleur De Lis imprinted onto it and thought it'd really help the outfit pop! We had to make sure we kept the fabric in the same direction: it has a difference in shimmer if facing a certain way, and we wanted the Fleurs facing the same way as well, so we tried to be mindful of that. We pleated the red fabric in the front and it was quite stubborn, but we tried our best to make it look similar on both sides of the torso. The back has a spider and has legs that lead unto the front; we cut out red fabric and hand-stitch embroidered on, and was quite meticulous.

Me and my mom kept an eye out online for just the right buttons we wanted for the costume. Something antique and era appropriate but also thematic, and after a while, we stumbled across a web-designed antique gold button set. We also looked for a thick ruff rather than the costumes original thin look. The original costume look also called for the mask to have open eye holes, but I opted out of that, and felt that a traditional mask look better complemented the costume. After that I acquired socks and shoes and then it was finished! 

How did you discover cosplay?

As mentioned earlier, my mom loved making mine and my sister's costumes growing up. She's a seamstress as a hobby, and is so creative and artsy. Halloween was probably my favorite holiday growing up, and I was so happy I got to wear something made with much love from my family. Some of my favorite notable costumes growing up was a knight, an astronaut, and Pikachu.

As I got older, around high school, I still liked the idea of costumes, even bought a cheap Captain America outfit for The Avengers premiere night, but I mostly dropped off on dressing up. I grew up in a very small town, but eventually, after I moved out to the city, I heard about 'conventions' and I was interested and wanted to try and wear something to one. I decided to make a classic Punisher costume, and wore it for the con. It was a small venue, but even then it finally hit me, 'This is a thing people do. People love to dress up, go make friends, bring smiles and show their love for their Fandoms and interests. THIS is what Cosplay IS'. I finally understood what this little hobby of mine was, and I embraced it.

Have you discovered something about yourself through cosplay?

I've always thought of myself as a people pleaser. I'm someone who really only want others to be happy. I'm also someone who loves to share their interests and engage with others about things that we can share and discuss and geek out over.

When I was young, I often felt left out from social circles, due to my often eccentric personality. I found it really hard to make friends, and I am forever grateful for the friends that I have made and been with me for years.

Cosplay has opened up another avenue as far as friends and socializing. My first couple of cons I was initially intimidated, but I have to say that I'm so glad I got into this hobby, for I've met many people with interesting stories and wonderful personalities, and people I still talk to often. It's really helped me feel like I can make good friends and memories, and I'm sure that others have felt similarly and that's something I treasure.

What are your future cosplay goals?

As with most cosplayers I'm sure, I have way too many projects in my head with very little work on a lot of them. I suppose my current goal is to rework the headpiece of a cosplay I finished last year, my Bioshock Big Daddy Doll. The head was massive and too cumbersome so it needs to be redone.

As far as new projects, I would very much like to do a Prince Link cosplay, inspired by the creation of theLostSindar. Another idea would be to do more superhero variants and make a Blue Lantern Flash that 8ve been eyeing for a couple of years.

One thing I definitely want to get good at is working with foam. I am massively inexperienced with foamsmithing, and I strive to learn how to be good at it and learn how to make wonderful things with it. It's just like when I first went to cons; starting off can be a bit scary or even overwhelming before we really get it going, but that exposure to things we really desire is all we need to get hooked and make it our passion.

https://www.instagram.com/kammospark/

#Marvel 1602 #marvel 1602 cosplay #spiderman 1602 #spiderman 1602 cosplay #spiderman #spiderman cosplay #cosplay #cosplay interview

[burlveneer-music]

VA - FPEXL - FPE Records comp of experimental electronica

2020 was supposed to be the plague year, one and done. Then wave after wave came crashing; political and social upheavals, pandemic variants, climate catastrophe 2.0 and all that jazz ground on into the twenty-one and beyond. The re-opening bloom withers on the stem and we're still stuck in our rooms, but now there's no sympathy, we have to go back out and drink through masks. Human connection is corroding; we've learned to live with our new a-hole roommate, which is pretty much us, but worse, and more. The old ways are corrupted. Gathering feels weird. The internet is fraught. The new normal sucks and that's a fact and here's another: FPE's turning ten! Ten years since December 1, 2011, when the text document whose only contents were "For Practically Everyone" got stored on a hard drive in a suburb of Chicago. The little bit of data was a seed planted by a person who kinda knew how to make a record label, at least enough to make lots of records and lots of mistakes. Fortunately he had a big basement to store the unsold backstock. FPE's marking the decade milestone with its fortieth release (give or take). This one's the second of two adventurous compilations bookending 2021. Like its predecessor, A Compilation For Practically Everyone, FPEXL presents mostly electronic sounds, from almost every continent, eschewing the familiar and embracing the next. It's a nighttime journey coalescing around what's become a central theme for many in this tough year: community. This community is using the internet to mediate the world; reaching out to people who have begun to broadcast their particular version of the same message: chasing music will always be unremorsefully first.* From India, Akrti and Disco Puppet; from Europe, Ziúr (Germany) and Anushka Chkheidze (Georgia). From Africa, Pö (Uganda), 3xOJ (Morocco), and Eat My Butterfly (Réunion); from South America, Qetsy (Paraguay). A bunch from the US. Fifteen exclusive, original tracks, all except one by a solo creator. Head bobbing, chest swaying, ears filled with right on. Sounds for moving and feeling; physical and mental sounds. Everyone's on their little trip, all of us going about our little lives, maybe fearful of what's next, but living and creating, not completely alone, now. *Gratitude to Colin Langenus for the motto Album compiled and produced by Matt Pakulski Mastered by Matthew Styles, Horizontal Studios:  horizontalstudios.com Cover art: "Moonshine" by Stephanie Pierce:  stephanie-pierce.com Layout and design by Leticia Arioli Thanks to the artists, to the FPE fans, to the artists' fans, to Ravish Momin for suggesting doing digital comps, and to Kharma and Elio for being the best family. This is FPE Records #40, 2021

#fpe records #various artists #compilation #electronic #experimental #2021

[of-another-broken-heart]

This was a weird Thanksgiving.

Mostly miserable.

A little bizarre.

I’m not hungry but I’m also not very happy. In fact, I am decidedly unhappy. I am sad. I haven’t cried, but I’m going to.

I’ve been up since 5:30. Anxiety. Dreams. Nightmares. 

Mom had to work this morning. Sister had to work during the afternoon. 

We didn’t get any pantry help. I was too sick. Mom’s work schedule was too cruel, she was too busy. 

After my mom was home, we got surprise visitors. My uncle (the mechanic) brought his brother over, as well as my other uncle (from my dad’s side of the family! who I haven’t seen in literal decades) and his son (whom I’d never met before - the kid’s 21 or 22 though). This was the bizarre part of the day.

We couldn’t invite them inside. Because that would have required someplace for them to be, sit, exist. And we don’t have that. We don’t have a couch. We have 4 kitchen chairs and half of them can’t be used. And that’s it. So we just sat outside. In the cold. Or, I sat. Everyone else stood. I wore a mask, too. Habit. Paranoia. I did take it off before they had to leave, but I didn’t know any of their vaccine status. And there are new variants out, and “the pandemic is over!” when it’s not, and so forth. 

It was an okay time. A nice time. My cousin - the one I’d never met before - opened up decently by the end. My uncle answered me about a question I’d had, regarding some family ancestry research my grandfather had done when I was very young. Which was something I was thinking about this morning, because when I was very young, I remember being told we had Native blood, back in our family. Blackfoot, I was originally told. But it’s not true. I thought it had been a different tribe - but it’s none. We’re primarily “black Irish,” and English, and German. 

It felt weird to finally learn. I’d hoped it was a lesser-known tribe. I wanted that little memory of my childhood to pan out. I wanted there to be a culture on the other side of the answer. 

Instead it was just. “Our ancestors were all indentured servants and slaves.”

Which is its own form of validation, I suppose. Generational trauma. Damaged DNA. All that.

I didn’t pay attention to the time. I feel like they visited for an hour or so. But the sun fell below the tree line and it got colder and they had to go. It’s dark by 4 PM now, so it was still early afternoon. My sister was still at work. So it must’ve been before 3. 

I baked nothing. No pumpkin pie this year. Or anything pumpkin. Muffins, bread, cake. Nothing. Maybe if I hadn’t rage-raked leaves and I wasn’t still recovering from that. Maybe. Impossible to know. Probably not, though.

I got a $1 turkey pot pie. I requested it specifically. Because I wanted turkey. For Thanksgiving. My mom did indulge me. I had that for dinner. It wasn’t enough. I tried to make it be enough. 

I had some cold mashed potatoes and stuffing and a biscuit later. And some milk.

And I took 8 “Hemp Extract” capsules. 

I’m tired. I want to sleep. I’m not even outstandingly anxious. But I’ve been talking to him again, and as much as I feel alive again for it, as much as I’m internally battling my expectations to stick to what I know - my want is immense, my need is small but ravenous. And after shuffling all my desk around the other day, these stupid supplements were brought into my sight again, and I just want to talk to him and be with him and I can’t right now, I can’t, so I’ve taken 8 of these capsules. They’re 500mg each, so 4g total. Of “Hemp Extract.” That’s it, that’s all that’s on the label. 

Taking 1-2 capsules never had any effect at all. So I guess I’ll find out if these are just completely useless to me or not. Tonight, or tomorrow. 

God I just wish I could be with you, though. Just simply there. Comfortable silence. Quiet but not alone. 

Ah here it is. Here’s the crying.

I get to talk to him again, and still I miss him in ways I don’t deserve.

Today is a holiday and it was just another day, mostly. 

Another year without my grandparents. 

Another year not invited to a family gathering. Or any gathering. Not that I could go. Because that would require a car that starts. And gas. 

It’s 8 PM now. Maybe I can sleep. I hope so.

#personal #food mention #love is a curse