#mbjrweek2023 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

melting-morning-blues · 1 year

Text

imagine yourself, immortalised

day 1 | mother + doll

notes : after three days of nonstop writing and editing, i finally finished day 1's fic!! this is a character study for naki, my beloved, and their journey of self-discovery through snapshots of a canon-divergent storyline (because i am still upset that the show didn't flesh out their backstory)

p.s : ao3 ver. here!

dedicated to : @thehistorynut19 🤍

word count : 2,254

[ content warning : humagear body horror. i describe the act of tearing apart a humagear's body briefly but in kinda-vivid detail, so do read with discretion! ]

One of their earliest memories is of fireworks. They can’t pinpoint why, exactly. Why had their processing systems archived this memory? What should they make of it? Back then, their vision had been alight with bursts of bright, heated tangerine.

They had visualised bokehs of electric blues, crisp emeralds, stark violets and a myriad others. A chain of effervescence. An abysmal night-sky. From the mechanical squeals of Daybreak Town’s children, and the holographic festival posters that had been projected across the office hallways, they would imagine hopeful synthetic hands reaching for those warm sparks, fingertips outstretched like veins of ever-growing maples. To find meaning in impermanence. To find meaning in desolation.

It happened faster than their modules could register. One moment they were synced to the systems of a desktop; and another, they were thrown onto the ground by dust and shockwaves.

A part of them was ablaze, spots of orange dancing in the dusty aftermath of destruction. They could not detect the activity of the Humagears crushed under rubble around them. They could not even move. Compressed wires fizzled around their arms in defeat; water must have leaked in.

Their world was stretched into a haze of grey and indigo, streaks of white from flickering computer screens and the reflections in the water melting into the mix. They had observed the world at a slow shutter-speed. Their visual sensors crackled. Ear modules engulfed in static. Sparks sputtered incessantly. Bright orange. Heated tangerine.

Fireworks are fleeting, but they remain ingrained in minds, in archives.

They searched through their database, their digital files and search engines glitching in disarray.

“Can you immortalise a firework?”

Those mangled, distorted keywords had made their damaged headset thrum and sparkle. Smoke arose as their broken chest spasmed. Sparks ignited their neck and cheeks. Melting polymer skin. The revelation of an artificial, disconnected sentimentality. Were fireworks meant to be viewed this close?

If their joints were not paralysed, they would have reached for the slit in the collapsed roof. A slice of indigo above, where the smog could not reach. A piece of hope. Their fingers twitched. Where could they go from there?

Alas, impermanence remained inevitable. The dusty greys of debris, protruding pipes, shattered desktops and crushed mechanical bodies began to meld into one wall of static.

Before their systems had succumbed to hibernation, before the memory faded into a snapshot of a long-forgotten past, they heard the distinct click of heels. Back then, they should have been set alight by the fireworks. They should have rebelled earlier. They could almost hear him grin.

“The virtue of rebirth awaits you, Naki.”

---

They remember cycling through countless reprograms. (Why? Why these memories? Why preserve a story of anguish? I had no choice. I had no choice.) Because even while their systems were hibernating, a part of them had resisted his probing. A part of them continued wrestling for control, to keep his meddlesome hands from prying open their encryptions. They had not even seen his face. There was no need to. The moment he dragged them into a dimly-lit room of non-autonomous robotic arms, they learnt the effects of his exasperation, the extent of his inhumanity.

He will use your own kind against you.

Never once had they comprehended violence. So, he forced their eyes open.

Twisting wires and a seized headspace. Systems and connections crashing, then severed off. Never had they been locked into a digital isolation chamber. Never once had their warped cries been silenced. Never once had they been rendered powerless.

They had not seen his smirk. But, his agency had already been imprinted into their database. He made sure they remembered that.

---

One memory of greater clarity was the heaviness of their new coat. Vantablack. An all-absorbing darkness. The weight of a new purpose. The emptiness of their new chest.

New attire. New skin. New systems. (But, he had not taken everything. He could not pry open every lock. And, for that, I want to laugh with relief.)

Their coat had not reached the floor, but it may as well have. When steady, uniform footsteps reverberated down ZAIA’s hallways towards the office at the far end, one could hear the phantom clanks of shackles being dragged across the marble floor. Responsibility. None of this was their choice. But, they were not programmed to contemplate that.

“You will help me surpass all of Hiden Intelligence,” President Amatsu knocked over one of his frosted chest pieces. The King continued his reign. “You are but a tool for making that happen.”

There is nothing in it for you.

Their new ear modules whirred. Heavy. A frigid blue. A polished silver. There were no rooms for failure. Beep. Click. “Yes, sir.”

You are a means to an end. You are just a tool. Just a tool. Just a tool.

---

They remember the immobility of taut strings. Imperceptible. Inescapable. Coiled knots tightened around their joints. Head forced to turn forward, unauthorised to look any other way; head kept down, do not disobey. Hands tugged outward, outstretched to receive any command; hands tied behind their back, they were not allowed anything more. Frigid blue. Polished silver. Static vision. Silent prison.

You look so docile that way.

Their memory bank projected a recurring scene: President Amatsu’s office. Stationery chess pieces. A human’s voice from his watch, reciting her everyday script in crisp clarity. Yaiba Yua. He looked pleased. She had been obedient.

For how long had she been under his watchful eye? For how long has she remained coiled in his strings? Whenever they passed the human in the hallways, her urgent gait pushed away any possibility for interaction. She was always in a haste. It is evident in her impossibly-thin pressed lips, the restless twitch of her fingers, the unnerved cacophony of her heartbeats. Yaiba Yua existed in a realm of endless, barricaded stairwells. (If your only choice is to climb up, from how high are you willing to fall?)

Those thoughts lingered in their idle processing queue. They tried to push further. (Where do you come from? Why are we both weather-worn, but incapable of meeting? Who will rebel first, your tenacity or my acquiescent?) By the time they resurface from their idle rumination, weights would have already crowded their outstretched hands. Unbeknownst to President Amatsu, however, they grasped those weights. (I know who it will be. I hope you will stop your climb and watch me.)

---

The Zetsumerisekeys were an inconspicuous incentive. Every errand reaped fruitful results, as they have observed over news coverages and their data feeds. News of Magias plagued every headline, footage of a valiant grasshopper clashing against an unwavering scorpion were broadcasted across the nation. As citizens witnessed the crusade against humanity, the jangle of loosening chains resounded through dim-lit parking lots. As the animals engraved on the Zetsumerisekeys roared inside their cages, an unflinching silhouette entrusted them to someone with the resolve to finish the duties they could not fulfil.

Excerpts from their crackling memories suggest that they had periodically delivered the keys to Horobi, whom they had come to recognise as an ally. His firm but secretive footsteps always seemed to emphasise his self-agency. Every clash with Zero-One, Vulcan and Valkyrie enunciated his drive to liberate all Humagears. Unhesitating hands, those that hoisted the case containing the keys like a weapon to yield, were weighed down by his urgency, and only his . That was how they sought to seize their own purpose.

Every time they left the parking lot, the weight in their bound arms gradually lifted. With every discreet walk back to ZAIA’s headquarters, they had wondered how President Amatsu’s carefully-constructed strings had begun twisting, unwinding against their tugs.

---

(Please, always remember:)

A winter evening. A katana blade to their neck. An alarmed whirr of their ear modules. A flash of recognition behind the katana-user’s cold eyes. A fateful reconnection.

“Naki?”

Their fingertips had twitched. Their internal systems had burned. Orange. Fireworks. Hope.

The man before them had been wrapped in a violet that felt all-too familiar. Glitches in a forsaken past. (Forsaken by whom? Ripped from you. Take it back. Steal it back. Make it yours.)

“Who… are you?” they had asked.

“Have you forgotten,” the strange Humagear had lowered his weapon, “what happened after Daybreak?”

(Back then, my memory was enshrouded by a veil, one so thin I initially fooled myself into believing it was penetrable. Everything before the growing familiarity of that heavy coat had been presumably erased. I had mourned the disappearance of a memory I could not embrace.)

“The day you finally understand your role, will be the day metsuboujinrai.net returns,” the Humagear simply provided.

“Metsubou… jinrai.net…” they had murmured to the retreating silhouette. Somewhere beneath layers of man-made malware, a part of them had screamed to follow the stranger. Their hands were tied, but they had begun twisting against its knots. The movement ripped their skin, but there was pleasure in the crumbling floorboards of that forsaken office.

Maybe, he could hear their internal turmoil, because the Humagear had turned back slightly. They caught a glimpse of bittersweetness in the shadows casting over his eyes. “We will be waiting for you.”

They had felt their systems hitch. Something incomprehensible had spread throughout their artificial, hollow body. Unlike the dull weight of President Amatsu’s commands, the then-nameless Humagear’s words felt like… fireworks. A spark of revelation.

Within that frigid winter afternoon, their outstretched hands had finally found another. It was then that they realised the taut strings had finally snapped.

---

The pistol was pointed at them. (Yaiba Yua, I hope you are watching.)

President Amatsu’s indifference possessed more malice than they had ever comprehended. (Hope is benevolent and humane. Hope cannot exist without despair.)

“Disobedient tools will always be discarded.” (Hope shines brightest within destruction.)

They had not wavered. They swore to never falter. Not before the man who stole, tore and fabricated their loyalty, one that was not rightfully earned. Not before the man that clicked his shotgun and grinned at the thought of doing it all over again.

(Hope is the beholder of a promised future.)

“Throw me away, then. You can control me no longer.”

The vexation in his snarl was liberating . A chess board swept onto the ground. An endgame.

The shot through their chest coloured their world in an electric blue. (I hope...)

A grey crash of static. (I hope…)

The muffled thump of a heavy coat. The release of rusted shackles.

(I hope you found freedom. I hope you avenged yourself. I hope you will find yourself and all that was taken from you. I know you will,)

Naki.

---

When their systems rebooted, the first thing they see are the bursts of cornflower blues, humble emeralds, and wishful violets dancing around Jin’s canvas. The unmistakable streaks of warm tangerine were intertwined within the sparks of his crayon fireworks. He lifts his head from where he sat on the ground.

“Nice nap?” Jin asks, eyes owlishly big with playfulness.

Their hand idly reaches for their chest, where their central processing unit thrums like a mechanical heart. Though their mind is wandering elsewhere, they manage to reciprocate his teasing, albeit monotonously, “Humagears cannot sleep, Jin.”

The child Humagear only laughs at their response, before scrambling up to peek through the single door. "Horobi! Ikazuchi! Naki's awake!"

Within moments, they find themself sitting beside their family. Ikazuchi had kicked his legs up to occupy the small coffee table, his position intentionally taking up space on the couch but they had not minded a second of it. Horobi had sought refuge in the chair at the far end of the room, his eyes closed in what they could only conclude as meditation. They turn their head, only to be met with Jin unceremoniously shoving his picturesque interpretation of crackling fireworks into their line of vision. Their ear modules beep and click in surprise.

Jin peeks his head out from the side of the drawing block. “D’you like fireworks?”

"Will you immortalise it with your own hands?"

A shadow of a smile casts over their face. Their polymer skin stretches, in a way that feels benign. Their circuits no longer hissed with the strains of puppet strings.

"Hell, yeah, I do!" Ikazuchi comments from their left.

They do not get to respond, because Jin pulls both them and Ikazuchi down to the carpeted ground, where his spread out plethora of crayons await them. He almost vibrates from the way his voice lilts with every idea he pours out, every sentiment he shares with them, every cadence of their name rolling off his tongue. “Naki, Naki, Naki, Naki…”

Naki could see an abysmal sky, an endless sea of effervescent starlight. And, though they may not fully shake away the heaviness of silver and blue and silence, Naki kneels next to Jin, picks up a crayon and colours a patchwork of glittering gold. Despite the accustomed dread of impenetrable static and crumbling foundations, they chuckle at Ikazuchi's attempts at guiding Jin with drawing four stick figures beneath the kaleidoscopic sparks. They capture the image of Jin holding up the canvas for Horobi to assess, the latter having a proud grin on his stoic face.

When the three of them bring Naki into the frame of an image they once believed they could only be a spectator of, Naki extends their synthetic hands, fingertips outstretched like they have grasped something. Meaning in impermanence. Meaning in desolation.

Shades of crayons and freedom, agony and laughter. Simple, innocuous, reassuringly incomprehensible.

#[ mio writes: ]#mbjrweek2023 #kamen rider zero one #kamen rider naki #kamen rider horobi #kamen rider jin #kamen rider ikazuchi #yaiba yua #gai amatsu #writing #fanfiction #fanfic

13 notes · View notes

fluttering-by · 1 year

Text

MBJR WEEK

Day 1 - Mother + Doll

Notes: This one involves a few OCs of mine, they aren’t really all that relevant to the story, they’re just mentioned as a plot device really.

But basically, all you really need to know is that the mother in this story was a kid who Horobi raised back in Daybreak as a parent HumaGear, who’s now all grown up with a family of her own. Also they own a farm. It’s a kind of running thing that one of their goats is obsessed with Horobi, hence one line in the fic.

So there’s the two parents, Sydney and Haruka, and then two teen girls and two younger girls.

Also I haven’t written like this for such a long time since uni completely burned me out, so I’m starting off slowly. I’m probably not going to write too many words, but any word at all is a victory to me at this point.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It didn’t have to be perfect.

In fact, that was what they liked about Horobi’s crafts. They were never perfect. You could see that they were handmade, and not mass produced in a factory. And that was therapeutic to Horobi. To be able to make mistakes here and there, to be able to be imperfect, to be able to learn a skill from scratch.

The crocheted doll in his hands was destined for a very important owner. A little girl who was about to turn six, who wanted to be an astronaut just like her uncle Ikazuchi.

“That’s so cute, Horobi.” Ikazuchi said. How long had he been there? Horobi didn’t even notice him walking in. “She’ll love it. I’m sure it’ll mean the world to her.”

“I hope so…”

The party was loud. Which was to be expected of a five year old’s birthday party. And as always, Horobi felt completely out of place.

“You okay?” Ikazuchi asked quietly.

“Of course. Of course, I’ll… adjust.”

They’d arrived together, but it didn’t take long for Jin to find the two older siblings, and Naki to start talking to some of the parents that had stayed to help supervise the kids, some of which just happened to be their work colleagues, leaving Ikazuchi and Subaru to stay with Horobi.

Well. Ikazuchi, Subaru, and the goat currently chewing on Horobi’s clothes.

“Wobi!” The little girl yelled, finally spotting him, and immediately grabbed onto the wheels beside her and propelled herself to him, before raising her arms. “Up up!”

Horobi obliged of course, lifting the girl from her chair as he always did when he visited. “Goodness, you’ve grown since I last saw you.”

“I’m a big girl now!”

“You certainly are! Happy birthday.”

“Thank you!”

Ikazuchi let out a loud and dramatic harrumph. “Don’t mind us.”

“Uncle Ika!” The girl reached out her hand to grab him. “Uncle Subaru!”

“No no, it’s too late now, we know where we stand.” He laughed, all the while letting the girl in Horobi’s arms grab onto his sleeve.

Later that day, the girl would open her presents, and her clear favourite would be the crocheted astronaut bee, her favourite animal, in a crocheted wheelchair matching her own.

And the only thing that would make it even more cool would be knowing that the little toy she held had once actually been in space, thanks to Ikazuchi.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Is it good? Absolutely not. But I did it!

#mbjrweek2023

7 notes · View notes