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mixelation · 2 months

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more (a)synchronicity. the meetcute <3

ummm okay so one thing to remember is that minato has met tori TWICE and simply does not remember her because he hasn't realized she's the main character. but she remembers him. not fondly.

*****

There was a platoon of Kumo-nin squatting in a small riverside village. Minato killed them, as part of his general orders to keep enemy ninja out of the smaller countries as much as possible. He also found that getting on civilians’ good sides made his life easier. If he was lucky, they’d tell him some info and offer him food and lodging.

He killed the first three Kumo-nin almost instantly when they came out of a home to confront him. The fourth and fifth took a couple minutes to hunt down, as all the villagers ran around and screamed and fled into their houses. The seventh had taken an old lady hostage in her own home, which was just pathetic. Minato caught the old lady as the Kumo-nin’s body fell.

“Hey,” he said, putting her back on her feet. She was shaking, and he had no idea if that was just an old lady thing or she was upset. He smiled his most harmless and disarming smile at her. “Are you alright?”

He didn’t hear her answer— which didn’t really matter, because no one looked into his nicest smile and didn’t think they were okay— because someone stepped into the doorway.

Like most of the homes in the village, this woman’s house was a single room. The Kumo-nin had darted in here at random and left the front door open. Minato turned, expecting to see a village leader or warrior. That’s usually who came and talked to him, before he could properly trot out his charm. Civilians were often terrified of ninja, especially in the small countries where they could be attacked or displaced by their wars at any moment.

It wasn’t a leader or a fighter in the doorway though. It was a young woman, who watched him with curious dark eyes. Her dark hair was pulled back tightly, and the only thing that seemed slightly remarkable about her was that her frayed dress was an uncommon style to this area.

“Hi,” Minato said brightly, friendly as can be. “Um— I just saved your grandmother here from those nasty ninja...”

“She’s not my grandmother,” the woman replied. She leaned against the doorframe, casual as could be. “But thanks, I guess. You’re not a nasty ninja too?”

“I’m a ninja,” Minato confirmed. He winked performatively at her. “But I’m not nasty. I’m from Konoha.”

She snorted, unimpressed. Well. He supposed his charm couldn’t work on everyone.

The old lady was still shaking terribly. Minato helped her into the big plush chair she had at the foot of her bed. As he did this, an older man he’d bet was the village leader appeared at the doorway, and the woman explained, in a surprisingly bored drawl, he was Konoha and that he’d killed all seven Kumo-nin.

The seventh one’s body was still in the middle of the room. Minato stepped over it to greet the leader.

“Is everyone alright?” he asked first. The leader boggled back at him. The woman just raised her eyebrows.

The leader had barely acknowledged her. Minato was drawing a blank for what her role might be. Not important, not impressed by ninja, even charming helpful ninja… Village weirdo?

“I’m Minato, a Jounin of Konoha,” he introduced himself, jabbing his thumb at his headband. “Those ninja that were harassing you were Kumo. As your ally, I’m happy to—”

“Konoha isn’t our ally,” the woman said, eyes meeting his. A tiny smirk crossed her face. “You’re on the Grass side of the river. The Kumo-nin were our allies.”

Minato had known this. He introduced himself as an ally to basically all civilians in the smaller countries, to help with his friendly persona and promote Konoha’s image. People rarely called him out, because during this war, ninja were almost uniformly horrible to civilians outside of their homelands. A lone handsome and friendly Konoha-nin was almost always anyone’s preference, even if their country was technically at war with Konoha.

“Also— why do ninja always talk like we have no idea what their hitai-ate mean?” the woman asked.

Well. It had never occurred to Minato that people in a backwater town might be well-versed in ninja customs.

“Reina…” the village leader said, shooting the woman a warning look. Then he turned back to Minato. “The Kumo-nin were stealing our food, disrupting our work, and harassing our women. We’re thankful you got rid of them.”

Minato smiled. Reina rolled her eyes and walked away.

The leader went on to say that he would happily host Minato for the night as thanks, but he would have to report the attack to Kumo. He apologized that the message would likely reach the nearest administrative camp quickly, only giving Minato a few days to vacate the area before they were alerted.

“It’s okay,” Minato said cheekily. “I’m fast.”

The village buzzed to life after that. The Kumo-nin bodies were moved, rolled in cloth and lined up in the shade of the town square in case Kumo wanted them. Villagers rushed about, checking on friends and family. The old lady’s actual grandson bowed deeply to Minato in thanks.

Minato sat on the edge of the bone-dry fountain in the middle of the square, watching all this. The villagers seemed a little jittery around him— eyeing him in evident fear whenever one scuttled past— so he didn’t want to do anything that might scare them. It was boring, but he obediently sat still and tried not to bounce his leg too much all day long.

The village leader’s wife came over and introduced herself, and then offered Minato with some onigiri to snack on. He asked about the old lady and was assured she was fine.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Minato said, turning up the charm as he accepted the riceballs, “chatting with you and your husband about anything interesting going on around here.”

“Around here…?” the wife said. “The most interesting thing is you.”

She smiled bashfully. Ah, well. At least his charms were working on someone.

“No other ninja?” Minato pressed.

“Oh,” the wife said. “Well, I’ll ask around. My husband will surely tell you more at dinner.”

She left.

The sun lowered in the sky, and the village calmed. Reina sauntered over to him.

“You look bored,” she said. “Do you want to do something useful?”

“Sure?” Minato replied, half-convinced she was going to tell him to go clean something.

“Don’t worry,” she said, and finally offered him a real smile. “It’s interesting.”

Minato hopped to his feet.

Reina led him through the village, seemingly completely unbothered to have a ninja at her back. Civilians were like that, he guessed. It was weird, but it wasn’t suspicious. He watched the bun at the back of her head loosen ever so slightly with every step as she marched down the main road.

(Improperly tied hair… also a very weird civilian thing.)

“There’s a ninja paper down in the river,” she explained as she walked. “I noticed it a few days ago. I guess the Kumo-nin put it there, but I don’t know why.”

“Ninja paper?” Minato asked.

She turned slightly to look at him with one eye as she walked.

“You know the… special paper.” She drew a few random circles in the air with her finger for him. “With the squiggles?”

That was, actually, potentially, extremely interesting. It could be evidence left by their mysterious fuinjutsu user. It could be the final clue Minato needed to find them.

Or, more likely, given the mystery fuinjutsu user tended to paint or carve onto natural objects, it was just one of the Kumo-nin’s fishing traps. But it could be a clue.

They passed the border of the village, and the cobblestone street turned to a packed dirt path. Minato quickened his step slightly to walk next to Reina.

“Is it doing anything?” he asked.

She gave him a look. “Doing anything…? Don’t they just explode if you step on them?”

Not doing anything then, okay. So she just thought it was a safety hazard she’d need another ninja to get rid of.

“You said it was in the river?” he prompted instead.

“Yeah, it’s in the water,” she said. “It’s like… um…” She made a few hand gestures which were meaningless to Minato, and then had the grace to look embarrassed. “Well, you’ll see.”

The path rose over a slight hill, and then they could see the river down below. It wasn’t very big or impressive here, but a lot of trade traffic would come through here in peace times. The banks were manmade stone walkways, to aid with the horses than sometimes lead boats.

“It’s up there,” Rein said, pointing. She stepped off the path to make a more direct route across the grass down to the riverside. “I marked it so I could find it again.”

They walked maybe thirty minutes. Minato didn’t mind. The breeze was nice, and this area of the country was all open fields, meaning he could see down the river for what felt like miles. It would be sunset soon, and the sun was already glinting off the water in pretty ways. He still preferred the shade of Fire Country’s forests, but it was nice to be able to see so far every once in a while.

He did try to talk to Reina, as they walked. She didn’t seem like she had much to say about the maybe-seal she was walking him to, but a good shinobi was always fishing for information.

She seemed cagey at first, but with some light, half-joking flirtations that made her make unimpressed faces at him, he got her to open up about her life. She complained the village had nothing to do and that she had to walk to another town if she even wanted to buy a book. When he asked why she didn’t leave, she looked at him like he was stupid.

He was almost starting to take those looks personally.

“Because I have no money, and ninja are shooting fireballs at each other all over the place,” she said. Then she looked away, kicking a pebble down the embankment and into the river. “Plus someone has to raise my little brother.”

At some point, Reina’s bun loosened to the point where she had to take it down.

“Ugh,” she said, pulling the tie and then shaking out her hair. “Did you know war can make hair tie shortages?”

She held up a deformed elastic tie for him, as if making some sort of point.

“Why don’t you just… use a ribbon?” he tried. He knew Kushina liked the elastic ones because she was always complaining about snapping them, but Kotone had only ever used cloth ties.

Reina stared at him like the thought had never occurred to her. Minato smiled uncertainly back. She was a village girl. Surely she knew about traditional hair ties? Or pins? What were hair pins for? He’d picked them out of lovers’ hair before. They must have been doing something.

Minato suddenly felt like he’d only ever known two women in his entire life.

“Your hair is curly,” he observed, and then immediately felt deeply stupid.

“Oh,” Reina said, a hand resting where her hair fell over her shoulder. It was quite long too, although not as long as Kushina’s. It was also clearly tangled and unwashed. “Well, right now it’s more like a mess…”

“I think it’s pretty,” Minato said, flashing his best, most charismatic smile at her. “It suits you.”

He wasn’t even lying. It really did make her look like the village weirdo, suiting her perfectly.

She turned away, her cheeks clearly pink.

Ha! Gotcha, Minato thought. Finally.

They came to the right part of the river a few minutes later. Reina had stacked up a tower of flat river stones right at the edge of the embankment. Minato stood next to the tower and peered down into the river. It was only maybe knee-deep at the edge, and the water was clear enough that he could easily make out every stone at the bottom.

“It’s further out,” Reina said, pointing.

Minato watched her over his shoulder as he stepped out onto the water, waiting for her look of wonder as she realized what he was doing. Instead, she just sort of smiled blithely at him and squatted next to the rock tower. Minato felt bizarrely disappointed.

What are you expecting, Namikaze? Minato chided himself as he plodded out across the river. What had he become, that his ego needed him to be able to impress this random civilian woman? She’s just the village weirdo. Who cares if she doesn’t think you’re charming?

He spotted the “ninja paper” soon after. It was a standard tag tied to a kunai wedged in the rocks below, waving gently in the current. Minato squatted, squinting down at it. He couldn’t make out the actual seal on the tag, but it was the wrong shape for an exploding tag.

“Well?” Reina called. “Aren’t you going to go get it?”

He turned his face to look at her. One of her hands was absentmindedly tracing a pattern over the top rock of the tower. She was watching him eagerly, more eager than she’d been all day.

“Go on,” she said, a nearly flirtatious tease in her voice. “Dive down and get it, Konoha.”

“No,” Minato said slowly. Something was wrong. “It could be a trap. Reina, how did you see it all the way out here?”

“Hm?”

He stood fully. His hand twitched at his side, itching for a kunai. But— no— she was a civilian. He didn’t want to scare her until he was certain. He could still get info out of her village, and he’d make that job a lot harder for himself if he freaked out their weirdo.

“The ninja tag,” he said. “How did you find it?”

“Oh,” Reina said, blinking at him in what seemed like full understanding.

Then her little smirk was back, sure of herself in a way that almost looked dangerous. The setting sun glinted in her hair, caught in her curls and turning them almost red. She pushed the rock tower over, the stones plopping into the water.

Minato did not react immediately, because she was just a civilian tossing some rocks in the river. But then, suddenly, he was underwater, and the water was boiling.

The pain kept him from reacting immediately. Every inch of his skin lit up in pain. There was a force sucking him down, preventing him from moving his limbs and escaping the way his brain was demanding. He squeezed his eyes shut to protect them and grabbed mentally for any Hiraishin marker. He had no idea where the one he picked was— his brain was confused and screaming at him about the pain and he couldn’t tell which way was up or down.

Then he was on land, cold air on his blistering skin. He took a deep, calming breath. Everything hurt, but now it hurt in a way he was more accustomed to. He could focus. He was in an empty field. The civilian woman had tricked him— had— had— he had no idea what she’d done. He didn’t know anything that could make that happen, except maybe a very creative and pissed off Kiri-nin.

He teleported to the Konoha hospital next. Leaving a marker there had seemed like a convenient idea to him when he’d done it, but he’d left the marker in the room he’d been staying in when he’d made the decision. The nurse currently in there screamed.

He got immediate medical treatment, though.

Kushina came to visit him on the second day of his hospitalization, and he succeeded in not crying in front of her. She succeeded in holding back on making fun of him for being a light shade of pink.

“Stupid,” Kushina told him from her seat by his bed. “You’re lucky you didn’t boil your eyes out of your head.”

He’d gotten out quick enough he’d done no permanent damage to himself, at least not with Konoha’s medical intervention, his medic-nin had said. He hadn’t corrected her that any damage done to his person would have been inflicted by a random civilian woman. The report he was going to have to write on this would be embarrassing enough.

If he’d been in the water much longer, he'd have been at risk for boiling his organs, including his brain, which not even Tsunade-hime could undo. He was certain this would have happened if he’d listened to Reina and dived for the tag. If he’d floundered for a minute more, he’d be literally coked.

“I think it was the fuinjutsu user,” Minato explained to Kushina, after he’d filled her in on the whole story. Talking hurt, because he’d damaged almost all of his skin. “The village weirdo must have… figured out how to use the seal, or they taught her how, or something.”

“All that in one little seal, though?” Kushina asked. Her brow was furrowed, like she was trying to figure out a puzzle.

“It’s not impossible,” Minato said, but Kushina looked doubtful.

He was inclined to believe her doubt. Jiraiya liked to brag that Minato was a fuinjutsu master, but the only thing he had on Kushina was more experience in space-time fuinjutsu. If she disagreed with him on anything else, well, she was probably right.

“How have you been?” Minato asked. Kushina puffed up her cheeks and exhaled.

“I spent ten hours yesterday decoding a report,” she said. “I swear to every god there is, training genin was better than this—”

Minato relaxed back into the lumpy hospital pillow to listen to her rant. Kushina had recently switched to a purely office role for a pay bump, and because she wanted a break from training “brats” up to be battlefield ready. She’d thought she’d be spending all her time on fuinjutsu development, but she was frequently being saddled with administrative odd jobs. This was, to Minato’s understanding, just something that happened now due to the war. More and more able bodied shinobi were being sent out, and so there were fewer people to do the gruntwork at home.

“If you're bored,” Kushina said, suddenly brightening up. “You can decode reports, and I can go back to trying to figure out a water purification seal that also fits in a canteen.”

She came back later in the evening with a convenience store bento (which was vastly superior to Minato’s hospital dinner) and a stack of coded reports.

“Have fun!” she cooed.

Minato thought about just not doing the work, with the excuse that he had burns on over 90% of his body. But… he was bored.

Needless to say, when he was finally released a week later, he was itching to do something, even if he’d been warned off anything but “light” exercise. Interrogating a civilian would be light, wouldn’t it?

At least one of his markers was still in the village in Grass Country, left on one of the kunai he’d used in his initial attack. He dressed in his uniform, double checked his weapons, and went in.

He landed on a table, which groaned and shifted under his weight. A man with a Kumo hitai-ate was two feet away from him, and he let out a sad muted scream of surprise. Minato slit his throat before he could properly finish his yell.

There were two other shinobi in the room, but they were both dead a second later.

Minato took a moment to assess the situation. The room matched the same style of single-room home as the village, so he probably was actually there. The rickety table held all three kunai he’d left behind: one of his Hiraishin ones, and two standard issue ones. There was also a scroll unraveled, where someone had evidently taken notes on the incident where he’d killed seven Kumo-nin.

Annoying, he thought, lips thinning. If Kumo was using their brains, they’d have sent more than these shinobi. Minato spun a kunai in his fingers a couple times, preparing for a fight. This still counted as light exercise, right?

In the next ten or so minutes, he combed the village and hunted down and killed a grand total of fourteen more Kumo-nin. His heart rate was barely elevated by the end of it. No way his medic would be mad at him.

When none of the villages came out to speak to him, he went to the house of the village leader and knocked on the door.

“I need to speak to Reina, please,” he said. As an afterthought, he smiled.

“She’s gone,” the leader said, clearly nervous.

Minato raised his eyebrows. “You really don’t want to be lying to me,” he said.

“N-no,” the leader said, putting his hands up defensively. “She really is gone. We thought she left with you.”

Minato narrowed his eyes. “A young woman just disappeared with a ninja, and you didn’t follow up?”

“I…” The leader was fidgeting now. “I apologize if she offended you. She’s not one of us. None of us know who she is or where she came from. If she did anything, it doesn’t have anything to do with us.”

Minato stared. What the fuck?

“P-please,” the leader said. “Kumo is already fining us for the other shinobi you killed. We can’t afford—”

“Tell me more about Reina,” Minato pressed.

He didn’t care about the leader’s cowering or begging that he just leave them alone. He was done trying to charm and play nice; he’d already killed too many ninja in this village. No amount of smiling and happy words would redeem him, and he was feeling too impatient for that today anyway.

Reina, apparently, had shown up only a few days before the Kumo-nin, claiming to be a distant relative of a recently deceased elderly man, sent to clear out his things. She’d presented his death certificate as proof. She’d been living in the man’s home and hadn’t spoken much to anyone. Everything she’d said about her life in the village to him had been a bald-faced lie.

“Anyone can get a death certificate,” Minato said. “That’s not proof. Why did you trust her?”

The village leader was clearly upset. His voice shook as he spoke.

“We didn’t… we didn’t think like that…”

Oh good, so the whole town had just believed her story with zero follow up questions.

The village leader seemed to realize how little MInato thought of him. He tried, “She was useful. She wasn’t afraid to speak to the ninja for us. We never questioned her.”

Minato asked some more questions, but the leader had nothing else to share. Minato made him show him the old man’s home. When he told the leader he no longer needed him, the man ran from him.

Minato searched the house. For a place she was supposedly cleaning out for several weeks, there were still a lot of things left behind, to the point that it was unclear if Reina had taken anything at all. Minato found no valuables, so either she’d taken them, or the man had none to begin with. She had… eaten all of his nonperishable food?

There were a couple of items of women’s clothing tossed into a laundry basket, and a mug decorated with cutesy cartoon crabs on the table that Minato doubted had belonged to the old man. There were still a few sips of coffee in the mug. Minato poured out the coffee and stored the mug and the clothes in a scroll.

He went down to the river next. It only took a few minutes at ninja speed, but with the stone tower now gone, it took him a while to relocate the site where she’d attempted to boil him alive. He spotted the kunai eventually, still wedged into the bed of the river and sporting a tag.

Minato was hesitant to stick his hand back in the water, even if it was now a completely normal temperature. He’d taken a fire poker from the old man’s home, and he used it to hook the kunai and pull it up. The water wasn’t deep; he probably could have stood up if he hadn’t been busy being boiled.

The seal on the kunai’s tag was nonsense. It literally did nothing but move chakra around inside of it. That was, it would do nothing but move chakra around if it had any chakra in it at all.

Minato walked back to shore and sat on the stone embankment, feeling completely flummoxed. The tag was completely nonfunctional.

So, Reina was some sort of run-of-the-mill conartist, but he didn’t understand what her goal had been, or how it connected to the mystery fuinjutsu user. Maybe the Kumo-nin occupying the town had disrupted her plan? But who had made the boiling trap, and how had she known how to activate it? The mystery fuinjutsu user had a history of helping civilians. Had they told Reina she could use it on the Kumo-nin, and instead she’d decided to use it on Minato?

He turned that last idea around in his brain for a while. Setting a death trap for ninja was pretty consistent with the mystery fuinjutsu user’s MO. But seven ninja was more than they usually went after. They did not seem to care about confronting high-ranking ninja, but they usually isolated ninja before acting; for whatever reason, they were opposed to facing multiple opponents. Besides, Minato could not see how this trap would even work on seven people.

And how had the trap worked at all?

Minato sat cross legged on the embankment and closed his eyes, focusing on replaying the moment in his mind.

He thought of Reina, in her out of place dress that was out of place because she was. He remembered her coaxing him to dive, and then her face when he’d asked her how she’d found it.

She hadn’t been afraid. He thought about her eyes, wide with understanding, her lips slightly parted. That wasn’t the face of a woman realizing she’d been caught in her own trap. That was her realizing she’d won.

She won, Minato realized. She’d won the second he hadn’t drawn a weapon, and she’d known it. She’d known exactly how the trap worked, and exactly how ninja worked. She couldn’t be as fast a ninja, but she knew how to take advantage of a moment of hesitation.

No, she won before that, Minato decided. She’d won when she’d gotten him on the water and told him to dive. If he’d not found her suspicious, he might have dived, or he’d be distracted getting the kunai, and she would have activated the trap and maybe killed him. If he’d found her suspicious, she could choose not to activate the trap, and he would have pulled up a useless kunai and left her alone. The worst that would have happened is that he’d found out she’d made up a brother for some reason, but he’d have no reason to be personally offended over that.

But instead of any of those options, he’d found her suspicious and then hesitated like a damn fool, and she’d recognized her opening.

He thought about her triumphant smirk, about how her curls had framed her face, how the sun had lit her eyes up a warm brown.

Then she’d dumped her rocks in the river.

Minato pushed down his nervousness over the water and stepped in, picking up rock after rock along the riverside.

An hour later, he had four rocks with half-faded seals painted on them.

This was a really creative but nasty trap, he had to say. This would have killed most ninja.

It was... almost exciting. He hadn't lost to anyone in forever.

He got out his storage scroll to add the rocks to the things from the house. It was dangerous to seal a seal into another seal, but the chakra on the rocks was long faded. They wouldn’t be boiling anyone alive.

He frowned at the rocks as he put them away one by one, mentally cataloging his first impressions of them.

Even if Reina was given the trap by the mystery fuinjutsu user, why had she been so confident about how it worked? It was clear now that she was comfortable around ninja and had probably worked with them before, but…

On a hunch, he unsealed the mug. He turned it over in his hands. Cartoon crabs marched around it in rings, and every few crabs was a heart.

Village weirdo, Minato thought, almost affectionately. Then he flipped the mug over.

On the bottom, drawn in a practiced hand, was a seal to keep the mug warm.

Ah, he thought.

Reina was the mystery fuinjutsu user.

#asynchronicity #my writing

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thatcatsalem · 4 months

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lily of the autumn equinox; the web of curses

Pairing: Sukuna x OFC (Yuri)

Disclaimer: This particular piece is AU, where Sukuna is a sorcerer, Yuji’s older half-brother, and gotten his cursed energy from his mother.

Warning: Spiders, Strong Language, Canon Violence.

Summary: Sukuna calls her Higanbana which is Japanese flower of dark symbolism, and it means “flower of the autumn equinox”; Spider lily.

On a rainy day in Tokyo, when the world was busy condemning Russia for invading seaside city of Crimea in the power grab, Sukuna Itadori was having a coffee. It was a drip coffee, served in a dark black mug, and he begrudgingly had to admit that overpaying for this was somewhat worth it.

“Coffee here is sufficient,” noted Kento Nanami, finishing his sandwich, and Sukuna attempts to not roll his eyes. Sufficient either meant mediocre or truly phenomenal in Nanami’s case. Even though Nanami was often doing exasperated him, Sukuna could not complain - on his list of shittiest sorcerers, Nanami was not scoring too high. Leadership board right now belonged exclusively to Satoru.

He fucking deserved it.

Cup of coffee clutched in hand, Sukuna takes a tentative sip before glancing out the window. It’s a cold day. Thankfully, inside the small shop is warm from all the people and steam.

Yet Sukuna stills abruptly, shoulders tensing in agitation. He knows that he’s is being watched before turning his head around. Can feel the weight of sharp eyes, and how the space between him and danger grows smaller, and he notices a woman gliding towards them.

“Morning gentlemen,” she acknowledges them politely, hands clasped behind her back, “Nanami, you looking sharp,” she beds over and leaves a kiss on sorcerer cheek. Sukuna cannot explain why he felt a flare of genuine envy but one look at his senpai makes him take that thought back. Nanami is always stoic and rarely shows any sign of fear or discomfort, but for a section of a second it was clear that he was unnerved by the presence of the woman.

She looks directly at Sukuna, unblinking and unnerving. At the moment in time, stars have aligned perfectly, creating an absolute point.

Under no circumstances was Sukuna Itadori to be considered soft. He is intimidating, mean and outright bully, unless, of course, you ask his younger brother who would die on the hill of “he just needs warning up to!”. He is incredibly powerful for someone quite young, and prides himself to be a master of combat. And for someone so terrifying, he is absolutely embarrassed to admit that for the first time since his puberty he is speechless at the sight of girl.

She is stood by the table, tight black dress hugging her pale body as a glove, sleeves almost covering dark nails, sharp like claws. She definitely was not purebred Japanese, as it was obvious by her porcelain features that she was most likely a foreigner if not a migrant.

“Kumo-san,” Nanami stands and bows in greeting, yet she doesn’t reciprocate, only sits down on the vacant chair, picking up dust from her dress. She is wearing heels and she has metal spiders hanging from her ears. Now to think about it, she had impressive amount of rigs on her fingers, most of which resembled some form of a skull, spider or something equally creepy.

Sukuna never felt remorse for killing a spider, but something told him that kind of behaviour won’t fly past her.

“This is Sukuna Itadori, semi-grade 1 sorcerer; he is accompanying me on this mission today,” introduces him Nanami, and Sukuna makes no movement towards shaking hands or bowing, only staring the woman down. She is not an easy person to intimidate, and he finds that incredibly annoying.

“Nice to meet you,” she says in perfect Japanese, but she does have a slight accent that hinted that it was not her first language. She has piercing in her nose that she was able to hide masterfully, and Sukuna could see outline of a tattoo on her collarbones and was immediately intrigued. It wasn’t such a big deal for a foreigner to have tattoos but it still was rare sight in Japan.

“I have heard of you, Sukuna Itadori,” she says with slight tilt of her head, “Rumours say that you have been on the streets killing curses since you were barely twelve.”

She does not break the eye contact.

“I expected a more menacing presence, I confess.”

“I can show you menacing.”

She irks an eyebrow, malicious mirth in her face.

“Oh yeah?”

He doesn’t respond. Jaw setting, he glares at her. She returns the frigid stare with burning dark eyes. Nanami pinches the bridge of his nose with a sigh.

“Itadori-san,” there is underlaying warning in his tone, “please show Kumo-san your outmost respect. She is a powerful sorceress, and is also semi-grade 1.”

“No need for flattery,” scolds him Kumo-san, finding her coffee more interesting than either of the men, “but it’s now grade one sorceress, if you must.”

Sukuna thinks that he would like nothing more than to see that smirk disappearing off her face.

#sukuna #ryomen sukuna #ryomen sukuna x reader #Ryomen sukuna x oc #sukuna x oc #sukuna x you #jjk fanfic #jjk #sukuna x reader

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uchiwife · 6 months

Text

　　　　『𝗦𝗔𝗦𝗨𝗦𝗔𝗞𝗨🍅🌸 』

+ Narusakusasu [platonic]

Sakura watched Naruto and Sasuke out of the corner of her eye, sitting on the grass and taking inventory of her weapons and medical kit. Sasuke stood up when he saw his brother at the entrance to the training ground.

She and the blond turned their heads in his direction and Itachi greeted them with a simple nod, which they returned.

“Tomorrow, same time?” the Uchiha asked.

“I'm always up for kicking your ass! Count me in!”

He snorted, “As if.”

“Sorry guys, I'll pass this time. Shishou gave me a mission.”

"You're leaving without us!? We're your teammates, baa-chan can't do that!"

Here we go again.

Sakura rolled her eyes.

“If you want to come with me to Kumo, you're welcome, but you'll get bored. I'm only going there to help them with their medical unit.”

Sasuke paused and turned to her, “Are you going to see that white-haired moron again?”

“Ewww sakura-chan! I thought you'd moved on. Did he say anything to you? Is that why you're really going? You want me to beat the shit out of him?!”

“Shut up, both of you! And Sasuke, stop it. You've never been able to stand Omoi and I've never understood why. As for you Naruto, I'm not a damsel in distress and I don't need you causing a diplomatic incident, thank you very much!” Her temper was already flaring. They could be so annoying sometimes. As if she needed someone to meddle in her life.

“He fights with a katana.”

“So?” She arched an eyebrow.

“You already have a man with a katana in your life, you don't need another,” he replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Sakura was torn between exasperation and tenderness. Sasuke had always been possessive of Team 7, even over trivial things.

“You, I swear...”

Naruto snickered beside her. “He told me something similar when I befriended Killer B.”

“I don't know what you see in those Kumo ninjas. The ones from Konoha are much better.”

Sakura and Naruto exchanged a knowing glance and turned as one to their teammate, “We love you too.”

Sasuke blushed in embarrassment, then frowned, glaring at them. “Damare, baka!”

They laughed at their friend's annoyance as he left them to join his brother. They followed his silhouette until he disappeared, then Naruto turned to her.

“Oi, when do you think Teme will realize he's in love with you?”

Sakura scoffed: “when did you realize Hinata was in love with you?”

Naruto choked: “HINATA IS WHAT?!”

Sakura's thunderous laugh was his only response.

That same day, Naruto and Sakura agreed on a plan of action; It was time for Sasuke Uchiha to claim what he wanted, and if the woman he loved had to trick him to do so, well.... She was tired of waiting, and after all, he was hers just as much as she was his.

#sasusaku #sasuke x sakura #haruno sakura #uchiha sasuke #naruto au #non uchiha massacre #haruno sakura x uchiha sasuke #narusakusaku platonic #naruhina #team 7 naruto #naruto uzumaki #team 7 fluff

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paganimagevault · 4 months

Text

Sogdian and Chinese men of the Tang Dynasty 618-907 CE

Despite the An Lushan revolt probably primarily consisting of populations physically similar to modern-day East Asians, as shown by the leadership overwhelmingly of Kumo Xi and Turkic ancestry, Caucasoid populations such as the Sogdians were targeted for their foreign appearance. The butchers actually seem to have been initially on the Turkic side and were defectors who switched sides to join the Tang Chinese side later. Tian Shengong was initially a supporter of the Turkic rebellion but defected to China later, he was the leader behind the Yangzhou Massacre of 760.

Gao Juren was the leader behind the ethnic cleansing of Sogdians in Fanyang and Youzhou. He initially supported the Turkic rebellion and appears to have been of Goguryeo origins (one source said he came from present day North Korea precisely) but defected to China later. Gao Juren was killed a short time after this: "The former Yan rebel general Gao Juren of Goguryeo descent ordered a mass slaughter of West Asian (Central Asian) Sogdians in Fanyang, also known as Jicheng (Beijing), in Youzhou identifying them through their big noses and lances were used to impale their children when he rebelled against the rebel Yan emperor Shi Chaoyi. High nosed Sogdians were slaughtered in Youzhou in 761. Youzhou had Linzhou, another "protected" prefecture attached to it, and Sogdians lived there in great numbers. Because Gao Juren, like Tian Shengong wanted to defect to the Tang dynasty and wanted them to publicly recognize and acknowledge him as a regional warlord and offered the slaughter of the Central Asian Hu "barbarians" as a blood sacrifice for the Tang court to acknowledge his allegiance without him giving up territory, according to the book, "History of An Lushan" (安祿山史記). (taken from Wikipedia)

From Medium:

"Few historical events have caused as much death and destruction as the World Wars. The An Lushan rebellion was one of them. The An Lushan revolt, also called the An-Shi rebellion, occurred in China from 755 to 763 AD. It was one of the bloodiest wars in human history. In 754, 52 million people lived in China, but after the war, that number dropped to 16.3 million in 764.

You may wonder if a fight in the eighth century killed as many people as the First World War.

If Chinese censuses are to be trusted, the answer is yes. Steven Pinker, a rationalist thinker, called the disaster “the biggest atrocity in history,” since it wiped away one-sixth of humanity.

Historians are divided about the death toll. Many of the deaths happened during the period because the empire was in chaos. Some experts suggest people leaving Tang China and taking refuge in neighboring regions caused the drop in population.

At Fanyangn, the Tang general Gao Jure killed all the Sogdians, even the children. He distinguished them by recognizing them by their eyes and noses. This is one of the earliest documented cases of ethnic cleansing in history, in which the rulers targeted citizens based on their ethnicity.

Tang forces slaughtered thousands of Persian and Arab merchants during the Yangzhou massacre (760) on the suspicion of assisting the rebels.

In Chinese society, the trust had completely broken down.

One of the worst tragedies happened in the city of Suiyang. After a brutal siege by the Yan forces, the Tang defenders ran out of food. The Tang soldiers, however, refused to submit. Zhang Xun, the general defending the city, murdered his concubine in front of his men and fed her to them. The troops cried, but when commanded by the general, they ate the poor woman.

Cannibalism was rampant during the siege of Suiyang. People began devouring the dead, and families began exchanging their children for food. The soldiers soon started eating the old women and then turned on young women and men of all age groups. Estimates suggest that 20,000 to 30,000 people were eaten. Yet, the Tang army refused to submit.

The number of people who died during the An Lushan rebellion could have been anywhere from 13 million to 36 million. It is easy to argue that the civil war was one of the most catastrophic disasters in human history."

-Prateek Dasgupta, The Bloody 8th Century Conflict That Wiped Out One-Sixth of the Human Population

#ancient china #tang dynasty #ancient history #history #antiquities #art #indo european #museums #statue #sculpture #chinese history #ancient art

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secret-engima · 10 months

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Hi ! So glad I find your master worldbuilding mind!

Quick question, how do you think we went from a clan-based village to actual Konoha where several clans (Senju, Sarutobi?, Uchiha, Danzo clan? , Hatake if it's a clan) have disapear? Did the village care ou try to protect them? Did other clans are treathen by the possibilities to be let down?

Because you said that Tobirama trust Uchiha with police force but Sarutobi was obsessed by clan balance and all. I know Sarutobi is old, so a lot could have happening.

Any thought?

Hi! Okay so this ask is actually based on a slightly flawed premise (not your fault it's Kishi's worldbuilding again) in that we do not actually see a lot of "wiped out" clans. What we see is Kishi not bothering to flesh out the clans he has because what is attention span. For example; the Sarutobi are not wiped out! There is exactly one shot of the Sarutobi clan in the 4th war arc that is in both the manga and the anime (in the anime the shot is actually narrower so you can't see as many as in the manga shot) where a bunch of their jounin and chuunin members (like easily double digits, I forget the exact number but I wanna say around 20ish? With more implied to be off screen) breathe fire at the juubi in sync. And it is confirmed they are all Sarutobi. There's like one guy who's essentially like: COME ON GUYS LET'S SHOW THEM THE SARUTOBI CLAN KICKS ASS.

So the Sarutobi clan is actually a decent enough/healthy enough size, we just literally never hear or see it until that one single shot. So it's reasonable to assume most clans are healthy and protected by Konoha. This is kind of implicitly supported by the narrative too, because things like the Uchiha and Hatake and Senju being nearly extinct are things that people comment on and find noteworthy, which means it's *not* the norm.

As for how the three clans we know of being wiped out *got* wiped out, I think that is less the fault of Konoha itself (tho Hiruzen is directly at fault for allowing the Uchiha massacre thanks) and more a side effect of that transition from clan based society to village based society. Namely the multiple shinobi wars. As I mentioned in my economics rant, the shinobi wars were something entirely out of the league of clan wars back in the day in terms of scale and destruction, so clans that got hammered likely were ones either already on the small size (like the Hatake probably were) or ones that would have been intentionally targeted by the enemy out of fear (Senju and Uchiha). The sheer scale of the conflict and clashing powers would have decimated targeted clans, and the villages would have been unprepared for that kind of issue until it was too late. After that, the surviving members could have easily died out without having kids post war, or if they were female members in the case of, say, the Senju, they didn't die out but the *name* died out, because it's still traditional in Naruto world cultures for the woman to join the family of the man and not the other way around (with the exception of the Uchiha and other regularly manifesting kekkei genkai clans I imagine).

We don't see anything about the Shimura clan either way beyond Danzo, which is again a flaw in the kishi worldbuilding, so we don't know if he actually has a clan still running around, or if they were just a small clan that got hammered in the multiple shinobi wars. On that note you can apply this same worldbuilding problem to almost every other village in the show. Kumo, Iwa, and Suna all have characters who are implied to be from a clan or have kekkei genkai that appear to be hereditary but no clan is mentioned. So we just do not know if there IS a clan of say- people with hand mouths like Deidara, or if they are one-off manifestations of a kekkei genkai, or if they are survivors of other villages' clans that got hammered casualty-wise by the wars like the Senju and Hatake presumably were.

Logistically speaking it would be beneficial for the villages as a whole to do everything they could to keep their clans alive, since their clans are where their powerhouses tend to come from while civilian-born shinobi fill out the ranks with more mid-level shinobi. There would probably be incentives and benefits offered by the village for clan shinobi to marry and have kids that bear the clan name, etc etc. And clans that are still a healthy size work hard to keep it that way.

I hope that answered your question?

#SE asks #maneeyansf asks #Secret Engima Rambles #naruto #naruto worldbuilding #ninja economics #for organizational purposes

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fantasyqueen502 · 10 months

Text

Spider Samurai

Author's note: Just a spider woman idea I had to get out. I do not know Japanese so please feel free to correct me.

Summary: Y/N aka Spider Samurai coming across a villain from another dimension and a certain leader of a spider society. Story idea that most likely has grammatical errors. Let me know. Feel free to comment, like, and enjoy.

Rated: PG-13

Angst, talks of suicide (Seppuku), murder, fighting, and serious injury.

Quick drawing of Spider Samurai done by myself in procreate.

ニューヨーク

Nyūyōku

(New York)

"This world is mine to rule, and mine alone!"

The Avenger clan fights valiantly to adjust their greatest nemesis, Doctor Doom, whose silver Yoroi is dull from battle. America Sensei (Captain America), Tetsujin (Ironman), Kuro-Kumo (Black Widow), and Kumo onna-musha (Spider Samurai).

"We need to drain him." Kuro-Kumo breathes red streaks on her black armor coming from her shoulder.

"What do you think we’re doing?" Tetsujin scoffs at his armored suit, sparking the thrusters in his feet to turn off.

"Tony, can your suit siphon his energy?"

"Yes, but the bastard took out my thrusters. I’m grounded."

"We can draw his attacks and lure his lightning bolts." Kumo onna-musha plans aloud.

"They're lightning bolts," the redhead says, pointing out the group bracing for a current strike right beside them.

"We need a constant current." America Sensei says, changing out her web canisters and staring at her wrists.

"Like the time Electro fried my web shooters. I web Doom and Gloom and shoot a web to Tony. Constant current." She brainstorms.

"With a squishy human as a buffer."

"Out of the question!"

"I don’t hear any other ideas."

"This isn’t like electro! He was a newbie, Doom..." his breath hitched. "...he will kill you."

"It’s the only option we have," she swallows. A moment of silence. All is quiet. "Love you guys," she says, zipping into the trees and making her way to Doctor Doom, leapfrogging over his shoulder. He grumbles angrily, shooting lightning bolts from his metal fingers.

"Damn you!" he bellows. "Just die." extending his arm to her, she stands still. The tingle in the air fighting against her spider sense to move out of the way.

"I thought we had something Doomy." She cocks her head. Waiting for the right moment. Blue light blinds the clearing. Shooting her web onto his hand, the electricity crawled up her web. Shooting a web at Tony’s chest plate. Her body went stiff, and her teeth clenched as her body shook from thousands upon thousands of volts. Traveling from Doom through her body to the Tetsujin suit. The flickering light suddenly shines brighter. Doom lets out a pained exclamation, his body crumbling from his powers leaving him. A scream leaves her throat, the heat of her suit, her yoroi burning.

"Unfortunately, we are not able to have visitors today." America Sensei bows with a sad smile to the small group of citizens. The entire steps of the Avenger castle were covered in flowers, well wishes, thanks, and prayers for Kumo onna-musha.

"We just wanted to assure Kumo onna-musha good health." The woman meekly looked at the old man beside her.

"My daughter and I lived in Nyūyōku for eight generations, and thanks to you, we have plenty more," he smiles. Holding up a sack. "It fell from the sky, and where it landed, the food has been bountiful; mixed with tea, it heals any sickness; applied, it heals all wounds, even wounds that are reversible."

"My father was blind until we added the miracle to his tea."

"We had the best doctors, but I thank you for the thought."

"Please take it at least." He takes his hands and places the sack in his hands. "You’ve protected us this long; let us protect you."

"It's nothing of this world." Tony says, inspecting a piece of meteorite with black goo leaking from it.

"Is it safe?"

"It's not of this world, so I don't know."

"So it could help her or kill her."

"She's already suffering, Steve."

"I want more tests."

"On what? We don't have months to test this on rats and guinea pigs."

"So we're gonna treat Y/N, our sister, as a guinea pig."

"Shut up, you two!" Natasha growls. With an arm full of bloody gauze.

"How is she?"

"She's been complaining of not being able to breathe." She blinks the tears away. "The physician had to split the burned skin and muscle in her neck and chest, constricting her."

"Let's ask her." Tony says. "Lay out everything and let her decide." He shrugs.

"Hey kid." Steve smiles, training his face not to wince at the sight of the pink tendons and muscles on display around her throat.

"I'm (Your age)… old man." She grumbles, making the group chuckle.

"We got something to tell you."

"I'm so tired." Her eyelids droop.

"I know, and I'll make it quick."

"There's this alien goo from a meteorite that can help you."

"But it could make things worse; we don't know."

"If I don't take it," She whimpered as she swallowed painfully. "Will I get better?" She asks. Steven looks more toward Tony than Natasha, who steadies her expression.

"The physician says you'll have an extremely long road to recovery."

"And if I take the alien goo," She starts. "Could I die?"

"Yes." Steve nods, biting his lips to stop the sobs.

"It's your decision."

"I'll take the goo." She lets the tears fall.

They all support the decision. Boiling the meteorite in water, drawing out the black goo, and pouring it for tea. Helping her sip a fullcup,p they wait. The first night since the battle with Doom, she slept without pain.

She awakes covered in blood. She looked at a clawed arm around America Sensei's throat, his eyes cloudy as his body hung limply. She gasps, letting him go, looking at her hand clawed and sharp. Looking at all the bodies of her friends. Her family.

Leaving. She walks until she can't go any more. Taking off her armor and placing her helmet on the ground, she took out her sword and looked at the reflection. A long, faint scar divided her face.

"No!"

"I must." She swallows the reflection flickering to a monster with many teeth. "I have to." She steadyed her breath, gripping her sword, extending her arms above her head, and aiming her blade at her gut. A portal opens, then everything goes black.

Waking up on a cot, she hissed, her lips pulling in distaste.

"Easy." A male voice cooed as she sat up, her head drooping. She looks around, eyes scawled, wondering if this was a dream.

"The voice." She whispers, her eyes landing on a man standing in the doorway of the room.

"The symbiote, venom its name is, wasn't from your dimension."

She looks at him, having no idea what he is talking about.

"Sym---" she tries to repeat.

"The voice." He simplifies. "The goo that healed your wounds."

She nods in understanding now. "Why--"

"Sounds weaken it to be able to capture and contain."

"--did you stop me?" She growls, her eyes filled with fury.

"I am a disgrace. I murdered my friends, my family I----" the flashes of their bodies, her monstrous reflection in the pools of blood. Crawling for the edge of the cot, she fell onto the floor. The pain that shot through her shoulder from her injured arm never had the time to heal on its own. The walls closed in on her hands, holding the sides of her head as she wailed. "I killed them, I killed them, why would I kill my family? I should be dead; why did you stop me?" she slurs one line are broken by heaving breaths and sobs. Lunging for a fork on a tray of old food. Going for her throat, the prongs go no further. A large fist gripping her arm the other pinning her body to a hard body.

"No." The man grunts, tightening his clawed thumb and pinching a nerve in her wrist, and drops the utensil. "Lyla!" He barks.

"Way ahead of ya'."

A patch on her arm blinks blue, and her body goes limp the form cluttering to the floor. With a sigh, lifting her legs, her head hanging over his arm.

She stares at a diploma framed on the wall. Dr. Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, PHD, having read the name a couple of times.

Eyes darting at the reflection in the glass of Dr. Friendly lowering from the ceiling upside down, slowly flipping his body into his seat.

"I'm Dr. Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman." He nods.

"Y/N, Kumo onna-musha, Spider Samurai." She introduces it with a slight bow.

"Make yourself comfortable."

"You must be, Y/N?" A pregnant woman eyes her.

"Seems like everyone knows me." She chuckles humorlessly.

"Heard about the Seppuku." The man next to her with a funny accent.

"Hobie!" She scolds.

"Samurai live and die by their individual moral code. That's sick, bruv. Mad respect." He holds out a fist, which she flinches at.

Staring at it, he waits. "You hit it?'

"Hit what?"

"My fist. It's a code for awesomely cool blokes and misses like us. Now hit it." He explains. She slaps the top of it with furrowed brows.

"Against the norm, I like you." He nods, leaning back with respect.

"Ignore him. Hopefully he'll get bored and go away." She scolds. "That's Hobie, aka Spider Punk."

"Wassup." He up nods.

"Jessica Drew, Spider Woman."

"You're pregnant."

"What?" She asks with furrowed brows.

Y/N freezes, eyes wide. "I'm so, so sorry. I just thought—I mean, I mean, I assumed—I, I." She stops at the woman's cackling.

"I'm just messing with you." She wipes a tear from her eye.

"Brutal." Hobie comments. "Good one, Jess."

"You think I'm bad; get used to it when you meet the others. Quip and joke central. C'mon, we're here to give you the grand tour."

"Your…what?"

"To be apart of something greater. To not be alone. Everything you've been through, we all have in some capacity."

"We?"

"This is gonna be fun." Hobie chuckles now, casually walking on the ceiling. Slamming his fist onto a button on the wall. Giant door opening, shielding her eyes from the blinding light. Adjusting to the sight of people walking in all directions, she looked left, right, above, and below at everyone with a spider symbol that matched her own.

It's been quiet in the dorms, cafeteria, and training room. Those who have introduced themselves to her were warm and kind.

Jessica and Hobie.

Everyone else keeps their distance once word gets around. Whispers and mutters as if she's a rabid animal that could get agitated at any moment. Waiting in line, picking up the metal tray, trying to ignore the side eyes and the not-so-subtle moving away from her.

"You must be new. Haven't seen you here before." The lunch spider lady smiles.

"Yeah, been here for almost—" she trails off, seeing another spider lunch person leaning over. It didn't take long for the friendly smile to fade into fear.

"What do you want?" She says rather coldly.

"What would you recommend?"

"Just pick something."

She blinks a couple of times at the hushed muttering. Looking to see a pair of spider people whispering and pointing at Y/N.

"Yes, hi. Just to get everyone on the same page, I, Y/N, killed the Avengers in my dimension. The people called me Jorōgumo. So tell the kiddies to check their closets and under their beds." She cackles.

"Is this funny to you?"

"She eyes him up and down."

"No, of course not." She shakes her head. "It's historical." She laughs. "And they didn't even put up a fight as I snapped the—" she finds herself on the floor. A throbbing in her cheek and the room spinning. "That's all you got?" She wheezes. Struggling to her knees than to her feet. She got slapped by one and punched in the gut, sending her to the ground.

"That's enough!" A voice barks as the crowd of spiders disperses. A shadow looms over her, watching a pair of blue feet than hands take her arms. "Get your hands off me!" She screams out of his grip, unfortunately falling back onto the ground. Groaning, she stifles her cries, getting to her feet with the squeak of sneakers as she leaves the cafeteria.

"She was instigating confrontation. What the hell was she thinking?"

"It's a punishment." Jess sighs. "Y/N was in the middle of her seppuku after the death of her family."

"It wasn't her; how many times do we have to tell her?"

"Put yourself in her shoes. You wouldn't forgive yourself for having any hand in killing your family." She refers to suddenly realizing, "Sorry." She quickly apologizes.

"No, no." He shakes his head. "Where is she?"

Y/N opens the door with bandages on her brow and a split cheek. Miguel stands there as Y/N looks around, not knowing what to do or say.

"Hi," she says.

"Hi,"

"You wanna come in and arrest me?" she scoffs.

"What makes you say that?" He steps inside, closing the door behind him.

"You're not very good at this."

"No." He agrees. "Being a leader that people depend on, I try my best."

"What are you doing now?"

"My best." He answers by placing a block on her table: an orange hologram display of a little league girls soccer game.

Blue vs. Yellow

The shouts from the crowd. The feed zooms in on a girl on the blue team as a goalie. Six or seven years old with a look of determination. Upon catching the ball, the crowd erupts in cheers. She looks more at the video then at 2099, who shows no emotions. The video cuts to the girl happily holding up a trophy, panning out to her sitting on the shoulders of Miguel. Smile as bright and wide as it looked odd, never seeing it in person.

"In my original dimension, I had a wife and a daughter, Gabriela." He starts with a distant look in his eyes. "I lost them. In a moment of weakness, I searched for another dimension where their Miguel died, and I took his place."

Videos of dinner, soccer games, first days of school, and birthdays. She couldn't help, but smile along with the past Miguel.

"You look..." she trails off, not knowing if she should say it or not.

"Happy." He answers for her.

She nods.

"I was," he adds. "Then the incursion happened. The complete and utter collapse of that world, erasing everyone and everything."

She watches in horror at the screaming citizens and 2099 running away from the dissolving world with Gabriela in his arms. "Daddy." She calls weakly. "I don't feel so good." She whimpers, dissolving into his arms. "Because of me." He ends the video.

"I know the guilt and anguish of being responsible for the deaths of loved ones."

"I know it must have been…difficult telling that to a stranger. My family didn't know. I was hurt pretty bad, they found this goo. It helped. Than the voices started. I used to think it was another being or someone else speaking to me, but…it was myself. The more bold I became, the more violent I became. It took me until recently to release the voice that was me. Venom just became something to blame. My family they saw and they knew and tried to save me, but I didn't want venom to go." taking a breath. "Because I knew without it, I would be left with myself, and I couldn’t accept how ratchet, evil, and disgusting I really am." She cries, steadying her breath and standing tall. "Not once did my clan call me any ill names. They believed I could still be saved."

"Don’t let their memory of you die in vain." his words whispered kindly. "There’s a place for you if you want it." He holds out a wrist watch, a more reliable and permanent dimension jumper than the flimsy wrist band she had been given.

Training with a bunch of spider people using her sword and new yoroi. Webbing between enemies legs sliding and taking down the band of training spider people. A for effort, she praises giving everyone a pat on the shoulder.

"Gold star for everyone!" Peter B. Parker announced, with a sticker book. "Courtesy of Mayday." He adds. "Even Y/N." He smiles, placing a star on her chest. Mayday squeals, her chubby hands and face covered in gold stickies. "Loud and clear, Ms. Y/N gets all the stars." Peter nods in agreement. "Thank you, Mayday." She nuzzles her nose with the babe as she sticks a star on her forehead and cheeks.

"You headed to the cafeteria?" he asks.

"Yeah, I'm starving."

"You're gonna love the new menu item." He chuckles to himself.

At the cafeteria, she browsed the board of items. She giggles at the "NEW LIMITED TIME!!!" Burger. She orders two of the new menu items: two fries and two chocolate shakes, and she thwips off.

The west side of the headquarters is the housing complex where spiders rest or even live, not having a dimension of their own to go to. Finding the right door using a key, she zips inside. Turning around, wrinkling her nose at the musky smell and filthy apartment. Dropping the food on the table, cleaning up the apartment, opening up the windows, and letting in some light and fresh air.

Shaking a can of Febreze, spraying almost the entire can. Flipping from the ceiling to the floor. Resting the bag and drinks on the table, mumbling to herself when the drinks had split in the bag. After saving the shakes and food, she goes to wash their hands.

The sound of shuffling from the bedroom sounds, looking up to see the boss man himself.

"Morning." Migaul yawns, showing off his fangs and stretching his arms over his head. Y/N made sure to sneak a glance at his V-line from his low-hanging sweatpants. "I swear I'm gonna take those rags and burn them."

"I'll burn them when you stop stealing my new ones." He answers coyly, giving her butt a pinch. She slapped his hand.

"I can't help it if they look better on me." She reasons. "It's afternoon, actually." She corrected drying her hands.

Checking his watch with furrowed brows. "How did I sleep in?"

"Maybe you set your alarms for the pm instead of the am," she shrugs, setting the plates nonchalantly. "Common mistake." She gives a smile. He glares at her, taking a seat and scooting up the chair. "You've been running on fumes and need a recharge and refuel," she lists, innocently batting their lashes. "C'mon." She kicks the leg of the chair across from them.

"I hate fast food," he grumbles.

"Tough, I don't know what to cook with protein powder," she quips, sipping their milkshake.

He raises his eyebrows in surprise. "Been sitting on that comeback for how long?" he chuckles.

"Like..." Y/N trails off "...a week." The crackling perks his ears as she unwraps a burger. "You wanna know something, boss man?"

"No, but my spidey sense tells me you're going to tell me anyway."

"You're very tasty."

He furrows his brow, believing he has heard you wrong. He fully turns his head and unconsciously exhales a breathy chuckle. Seeing them hold up a burger with a blue bun and red peppers from his mask markings "Look at the fins!" Plucking one of the four red peppers sticking out of the burger. "They got your arm fins," she said, inspecting the pepper before popping it into her mouth.

"I’m glad you find this amusing. I have dozens of spider people to send out for the anomalies that could be causing havoc as we speak."

"All taken care of," she says through her mouthful. "You leave notes and dates for everything. Jess and I took care of it." Finishing the burger, licking the trails of ketchup and mayonnaise from her hands. Now it was his turn to steal a glance. Her little kitten licks of white condiment. He had to shake his head to free his mind of the erotic images.

He steals a fry from her wrapper plate. She makes a sound of annoyance. "You have your own!"

"But yours tastes so much better."

He swipes another, scampering onto the table to his surprise, reaching for the fry he held over his head and out of her reach, causing the chair to fall and the two of them to fall flat.

"You’re so annoying!"

"Thank you. For taking care of stuff."

"We only have one of you, ninedy-nine," she smirked. He leans up to capture her lips, but they quickly push off of him. Forcing the air from his chest. "You stink; go shower, brush your teeth, and eat your lunch before it gets cold," she commands

#miguel o'hara #across the spiderverse #spiderman 2099 #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara x y/n #miguel o'hara x spiderwoman!reader #Spider Samurai

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kumothe-artichoke · 4 months

Text

CHAPTER 1 : I met her.

There may be mistakes. English is not my native language.

I really thank some of my friends and my gf for supporting me in this project, and especially for reading all this in advance to be sure it wasn't too bad, aha

ANYWAY !

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In this chapter, you’ll have :

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A young teenager, long and blue hair, an outfit suitable for combat, a long and thick scarf. This girl was standing at the edge of a cliff, her eyes plunged into darkness. Could she only see the beautiful landscape that surrounded her ? A presence. Behind her. An enemy? In a second, she took out her gun and pointed it at a bush. Something or someone was hiding in it, the girl knew it. Her dark look no longer let go of the bush. Then, finally, after a few seconds, someone comes out.

“- HI !”

It was a young woman, short orange and brown hair, a purple coat, and piercing green eyes. The woman smiled at the teenager, as if she did not threaten her with a weapon. From the woman came out no desire for murder, nor any danger whatsoever. The teenager relaxed. She stopped pointing her weapon at the young woman, but she kept her gun in her hand.

“- Who… are you ?” The young teenager speaks in an empty tone, like a robot. She is on her guard and does not want to let the slightest emotion appear.

“- I’m Eucalyptus ! Said the young woman, in a cheerful tone, still with a big smile on her lips.

- Why are you here ? What do you want from me ? The teenager's voice was threatening.

- I want to recruit new people so that I can finally create my own organisation !

- Your… organization ? Why ?

- To fight the organisation of the Cross ! I hope you know it. Huh…. Well… I'm stupid. EVERYONE knows it.”

A silence. The teenager looks surprised. Always with her weapon in her hand, she asks:

“- Why do you want me to join your organization ?

- Well... it shows that you're strong. And, you're really pretty !”

The teenager puts away her weapon. It seems that these few words touched her enormously. Tears are seen in the hollow of her eyes, yet none flowed. She looks at Eucalyptus in the eyes.

“- Fine. I join you… huh… I’m Kumo, by the way.

- Kumo ? What an amazing name ! Eucalyptus says it honestly, always with a big smile on her face.

- So… How do you plan to bring down the Cross ?

- Aha, not so fast! I'm waiting to have hum... at least one more member to reveal my machiavellian plan… Eucalyptus says it in a tone that she hoped was threatening but that turned out to be just... funny.

- Oh. And how many members are there ?

- …

- … ?

- …

- Eucalyptus ?…

- Just you. She says, in a monotone voice.

- Wh-what ?”

Eucalyptus laughs, and looks at Kumo.

“- Why what ? You always have to start somewhere.”

Kumo breathed with exasperation, and began to walk in the forest behind Eucalyptus. The young woman followed her, always smiling.

“- First of all, do you know at least ONE thing about the Cross ? Kumo says that without even looking at eucalyptus. She looked right in front of her, walking straight ahead.

- Sure ! Well... like any organisation, we recognise the Cross by a symbol uh... of cross. Yeah, not very original. Eucalyptus laughs. But also, this organisation is constituted differently from the others !”

Eucalyptus looked at Kumo, to congratulate her for knowing that. But Kumo... was looking right in front of her, in silence. Eucalyptus begins to speak again.

“- Well… There are two bosses. Their identities are unknown but rumours say that they both have a cross-shaped eye. Do you believe it ?”

Eucalyptus laughed, but Kumo remained in silence, always looking in front of her. Her expression was indeciferable. Eucalyptus, still walking alongside Kumo, continues her explanations.

“- After these two bosses, there are the three sub-bosses. They are called demonic angels, because according to rumours, they look innocent, but are... monsters.”

Eucalyptus lowers her gaze. Kumo, for the first time that the two girls have started walking, looks at her with a questioning air. Why does Eucalytpus look so sad and disgusted when she said these words ? Eucalyptus shook her head and smiled again, as if she were putting memories aside.

“- These demonic angels are recognisable by a cross-shaped scar located somewhere on their bodies. Finally, there are hundreds of other people in this organisation, but they are recognisable by a simple piece of fabric with a cross on it.

- You know more than I expected. Kumo spoke for the first time that Eucalyptus had begun her explanations.

- Yeah ! I know a lot of things, aha ! But, I will only tell you everything when we find our third member.

- And... do you have any idea where we can find our third member?… Kumo says it, in a questioning tone.

-…”

Eucalyptus suddenly stopped, and Kumo too, surprised that the young woman stopped so suddenly. Kumo looks at Eucalyptus, and saw that she had big eyes (surely she hoped to look cute... but she was just scary.)

“- Oh, my best friend of all time that I love so much! Started Eucalyptus... Maybe you can help me in this difficult task ?”

Despite the rather comical situation, Kumo retains only one word: friends. Her look softened, she seemed really touched by this word, no matter how it was used.

“- Ah- huh. Yes, I’ll help you, aha !”

Kumo says it before starting to walk alongside her... friend… again.

Someone just passed by walking fast in the opposite direction of the two women.

Kumo stops waking. Eucalyptus looks at her, to find out what has make her stop. The young woman stepped back one step when she saw the expression of the blue-haired girl. Kumo is looking behind her, towards a boy with dark-blue hair. Kumo's look... is a mixture of terror, anxiety and something else indescribable.

Who is this boy?

#writing #write #ocs #history #oc backstory

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